Grey Knight, Warhammer 40,000 meets the Elder scrolls Options

[Colonel Mustard]

This is an idea I had a while ago, and had been entertaining for a while. As you may have guessed by the subtitle, this is an Elder Scrolls/40K crossover. For those you don’t know the rich lore of 40K, here’s a rough image of it.

It is the 41st millennium, and war has raged for eternity. The mighty empire of humanity, the Imperium of Man, rules the galaxy, home to a million worlds and untold trillions of people. Guided by its divine Emperor, interred on the golden throne after being wounded by his most favour son, the Imperium is a force that seems unstoppable. Yet mankind’s great empire is beset on all side by aliens, traitors and, most fearful of all, the daemons of the warp. These creatures, existing in a realm not dissimilar to Oblivion, are the most deadly threat to all living things. Existing in the warp are the four Gods of Chaos, Khorne, blood of skulls, death and battle, Slaanesh, God of Debauchery, Nurgle, god of decay and disease and Tzeentch, the god of plots and cunning, the weaver of fates and destinies, playing the great game of existence with the skill of a grand master. Whether they are united or they are divided, the four gods of chaos plot, scheme and plan to destroy the material world and make it one with the warp, damning all living things to a nightmarish existence of eternal torment.

And to fight these foes are the mightiest of warriors. The Space Marines, the Adeptus Astartes, the greatest warriors ever to stride upon a battlefield. Made by the divine Emperor of Mankind, each Space Marine is genetically engineered to be stronger, faster and far longer lived by any ordinary man, and psycho-indoctrinated to know no fear. Wielding the most powerful weapons and armours humanity has available; the Space Marines form an impenetrable bulwark against the foes of man. And greatest among them are the Grey Knights, Humanity’s last line of defence against the denizens of the Warp. The military branch of the Emperor’s Holy Inquisition; the Grey Knights are clad in blessed adamantium and wield the fabled Nemesis force weapons. Each one of these holy warriors is able to fight and defeat an army single handed. And now, a company of these blessed warriors has been sent to combat the dread army of Askillarrat the Insane, a greater daemon of Tzeentch, and amongst them is the fabled Brother Captain Alicarius.

Grey Knight-Book One of the Liber Oblivionicus

Part 1-Daemons

Purple flames clawed the sky like the talons of some bizarre, reality defying monster. Buildings were consumed by its twisting blaze, it intense heat melting the rockcrete and steel that made them up, slumping them down into a thick syrupy liquid.

And in the flames, creatures charged forward. Twisting and dancing impossibly, Daemonettes, the alluring yet repellent servants of Slaanesh, made their way through the flames, giggling and singing sweetly. Next to them shambled the Plaguebearers. Corrupted hulks, with a single eye and a horn sprouting form their foreheads, they dripped with disease, buboes spilling pus and gashes in their stomach spilling thick, rubbery intestines. They carried huge, rusted blades, thick with rotten blood and the entrails of their foes, whilst flies buzzed about them, occasionally stopping on their host to feast on a small part of rotten flesh.

Next to them sprinted Bloodletters, murderous servants of Khorne. Their skin, coloured blood red, split and bled constantly, an unending tribute to their monstrous patron. They hefted great broadswords, roaring and screaming in their hatred.

And most bizarre of all were the daemons of Tzeentch.

To behold a creature of such madness and lack of logic was enough to drive most men insane. The cavorting and twisting monstrosities giggled with insane laughter as they advanced, flames crackling around them. Faces formed on their bodies, in any place they could, sometime even being held between their outstretched hands.

And against this horde of unholy death stood fifty of the Imperium’s finest warriors. Nemesis force weapons were activated, electricity crackling around the blessed halberds and claymores. Storm bolters, mounted on the wrists of suits of adamantium armour, were cocked and loaded. The Grey Knights were the only force that stood between the Daemons and the utter annihilation of the planet.

Brother-Captain Alicarius muttered the prayer of vengeance as he slammed the specially made magazine of bullets into his weapon. Around him, warriors murmured prayers to the God-Emperor as they prepared for battle, checking weaponry systems and getting into battle formation. Behind, he heard Brother Deacus attach a tank of prometheus into his incinerator, the highly volatile fuel having been blessed and mixed with holy oils to cause the most damage possible to their daemonic foes.

The warriors took up their battle positions, and allowed the auto-senses in their helms to pick their targets and display their range.

The Daemons thundered onwards, approaching faster than ever.

“Pick Targets!” shouteded Alicarius. “On my order…fire!”

Bolter shells ripped from the Grey Knight lines, the bullets detonating inside their targets, causing the daemons to be blasted apart.

Yet they continued.

The Daemons came within Incinerator range, and burning blue fuel was jettisoned onto the creatures, burning many of them to cinders. Their screams echoed across the battlefield.

Then the creatures were upon the Grey Knight lines.

Alicarius swung his halberd in an arc, slicing through a bloodletter, before spinning and planting it in the bloated, rotten belly of plaguebearer. He yanked his weapon upwards, sending an arc of rotten gore flying into the air, before it splattered onto his armour. It hissed as it contacted the blessed adamantium, the ichors reacting violently with the holy oils and unguents upon the armour.

Alicarius span and slashed with his brothers, slicing through the daemons, bellowing litanies and prayers and sending off bursts of bolter fire at point blank range into any Daemon foolish enough to get close enough.

Suddenly, he was slammed to the ground by something that looked like a mechanical rhinoceros made of reddened brass, ridden by a Bloodletter. A Bloodcrusher of Khorne-a dread knight of the Blood God. The rider’s massive obsidian sword made a swing for Alicarius’ head, but he jerked his neck back to avoid being decapitated. He raised his own weapon and slashed through his enemy and its mount. Gore and mechanical parts scattered around him, and Alicarius rolled to his feet, slamming his blade into a daemonette too slow to avoid him. Then he was wreathed in blue fire.

He stood his ground, his body battling against the flames’ physical assault and his mind fighting the sorcerous one attempting to consume his soul. He took a step forwards, then another, constantly pushing against the power of the flames, to be confronted with the most bizarre creature possible.

Its body was shifting mass of purple-blue flames, while screaming maws that belched fire twisted and writhed around its body. Alicarius’ halberd slice through it, and it disappeared in a cloud of glittering blue smoke.

He turned as his hyper-enhanced senses picked up the sound of someone moving behind him. He span, storm bolter raised, to see a monstrous creature born of man’s worst nightmares. Similar to some massive, bipedal vulture, the creature’s multicoloured feathers flickered and twitched madly. In one of its clawed hands it held a staff, crackling with sorcerous power.

It was a Lord of Change, a greater daemon of Tzeentch and most powerful of his servants.

Alicarius let of a burst of fire with his storm bolter, the weapon’s immense recoil dampened by the servos contained within his armour, but it was to no avail. Even with the innumerable blessing laid upon them, the explosive bullets could not penetrate the shield of magical power that guarded the daemon. Hefting his halberd, he charged.

His first blow was blocked by the daemon’s staff, but Alicarius could see that its daemonic creature within it was struggling to repulse the holy power of his weapon. He span, allowing his momentum to carry him away from the daemon, before his weapon sliced through the monster’s ankle.

At least, it would have done.

With a boom of air being suddenly misplaced, the daemon disappeared, and reappeared to his left instantaneously.

“Very good, captain!” it roared over din, its beak clacking with every word. “But you won’t kill me that easily.

It leapt forward, attempting to crush him with its taloned feet, but Alicarius had expected this and simply dodged out of the way. He turned, just in time to block the daemon’s descending staff. It withdrew, only to strike again, but Alicarius parried it before charging forward, allowing his weight and momentum to plough him into the monstrous bird-creature. It reacted too slowly, and roared with pain as the sigils and wards upon Alicarius’s shoulder guard touched its skin, burning and blackening it. In return, it sent a blast of warp fuelled lightning towards him, but the same psychic shields that had just hurt it so stopped the attack.

“You cannot beat me,” it shouted. “No-one can beat me!”

“I wouldn’t be so sure!” he shouted.

The daemon raised a multicoloured eyebrow.

“Behind you,” Alicarius murmured.

The daemon turned, cautiously keeping an eye on him to ensure against a surprise attack. Then it saw two grey knights carrying incinerators behind it. It didn’t have time to dodge before burning promethium, mixed with blessed oils and unguents, was pumped directly onto it.

It jerked and spasmed as the hyper-volatile fuel gushed over it, and fell to the floor, writhing in agony. The burning hot assault abated suddenly, and Alicarius nodded his thanks to his two battle-brothers.

“I said you shouldn’t be so sure,” he said, as he walked over to the daemon, his blade raised and readied to deliver the killing blow.

“Neither should you,” the deamon riposted, its beak splitting in a perverse mirror of a grin. A barrier of warp fuelled lightning formed around them, crackling and twisting madly. Alicarius tried to back away, but the lightning would not let him pass, at least, not let him pass without burning him to a crisp.

The light shone brightly over them, dazzling Alicarius even through his helmet’s filters, and the only noise louder than the crackling was the daemon’s laughter.

“You’re coming with me now!” he roared. “I’ll torture your soul for eternity!”

“Never!” Alicarius roared back.

As the warp and reality began to merge around him in the tiny, self contained space, Alicarius did the only thing he could. He turned, sprinted, and plunged his blade into the daemon’s feathered breast, killing both its physical form and the essence of it soul.

And around him, reality shattered in a flash of light, sucking him into the warp.

This post has been edited by The Bean: Feb 22 2009, 04:37 PM

[Colonel Mustard]

Hey, who needs a power fist when you can have six feet of adamantium force halberd?

Next part for you lovely people (I'll try and get them up more often now, so you should have something to comment on, Tellie). Enjoy!

Or else...

Part 36-Refugees

It had changed.

The land around the gate was almost no different from that inside Oblivion, cracked and scorched. The sky was deep crimson and wracked with black storm clouds. Here and there, jagged spires of rock speared upwards, leaning drunkenly towards the ground. But that wasn't the worst.

From Alicarius' position, he could see the Imperial City far ahead in the distance. But instead of the great lake stretching around it, a pool of burning magma encircled it, smoke pouring from its cracked and tortured surface. The white stone rings that once encircled the city were now replaced with great spiked barriers of black obsidian, corpses impaled upon the stone stakes or hooked onto spiked chains. The noble spire of White Gold Tower had been replaced by a great black tower, its form coated in barbs and chains.

“Blessed Emperor, no,” Alicarius breathed. “No, no, no.”

Everything he had worked for, his efforts in recovering the amulet, the battles he had fought, was gone. All of it had been destroyed. Despite everything, he had failed. And now, a world had been lost to Chaos, and it was his fault.

Yet he knew the tenets of war-whilst one soldier survived, the fight was not yet over. He was but a single man, but he was a Grey Knight, one of the greatest warriors to fight for the Emperor of Man. If he had to fight an army of daedra, so be it.

But at the moment he was weak-if he attacked the Imperial City now he would simply be killed. Much as it rankled him, he would have to withdraw and lick his wounds.

“You’ll pay for this, Dagon,” he muttered, turning away from the city and limping into the scorched grassy plains. “By the Emperor, you’ll rue the day you angered Alicarius Justinian.”

#

He found the cave within a scorch forest grove, a hollowed out pile of earth and rock that led down into the subterranean corridors below. The scorched remains of a door covered it, and a skeleton lay by the entrance, bones blackened and ashy.

He ducked low as he walked into the cave, switching his helmet to night vision, stepping carefully, storm bolter raised and ready. He was tired after his walk, and his limbs felt like iron, but there could still be daedra here and he was in no condition to fight them hand to hand.

He limped down the cave, and into a larger central chamber. There was a hissing to his left, and Alicarius turned in time to see a scamp leap at him, slashing and grabbing with its talons.

Alicarius swung at it clumsily, his fist slamming it out of the air and into the wall of the cave. The creature’s ribcage crumpled, and blood bubbled from its jaws as it tried to scramble away. Alicarius stamped down on its skull, crushing it, sending its blood and brains splattering across the stone floor.

He picked the decapitated corpse up and looked at it carefully. There was meat on there, stringy and rangy stuff, but it would be the only thing he could eat.

He glanced around the small cavern, and noticed a neatly stacked pile of wood in the corner. He dragged the wood into a pile, found some kindling and a flint, and struck the flame.

Once it was hot enough, he skinned the corpse of the scamp and propped it up over the flame. Once it was cooked, he ate. The meat was as poor as he expected, ashy and only half cooked, but compared to the drug laced stuff Erna had forced down his throat it was a feast.

He wolfed down his crude meal in moments, and temporarily sated, Alicarius lay back against the cave wall, still staying in his armour, putting his helmet on. He wanted to remove-it was beginning to stink of his blood, but he knew that if he was caught in his sleep then it would probably be his only protection.

His eyelids drifted closed, and he slumped gratefully into oblivion.

#

He walked the streets like he was an old friend of the city, each turn around the corner bringing a glimmer of recognition at some familiar sight. But despite this feeling, Alicarius knew that he had never been here before.

Each house leaned crazily into the street, the building shoving against each other as they jostled for space. A gut of lanes and alleys wound through them, bumping up and down seemingly at random. Streams ran through some streets, forming swamps within squares and all sorts of outlandish, glowing flowers poked through gaps in the paving, some topped with petals but others were topped with glowing pink crystals, or flowers shaped to look like screaming faces. It was almost as if some child had shoved the city together during a temper tantrum.

“Well,” an all too familiar voice said from behind the Astarte. “You got yourself free, I see. Well done.”

Alicarius turned, and there was Legion, reclining casually on a stone bench that the Grey Knight could have sworn wasn’t there a moment ago.

“Legion,” he said. “Come to take me while I’m vulnerable?”

The man shook his head, smiling slowly.

“Quite the opposite,” he said. “I’ve come to help you, despite what you constantly suspect of me.”

“Then get out of my head and speak to me in person,” Alicarius said. In the dreamscape, he willed his weaponry and armour into being, his halberd crackling into life, storm bolter loaded and ready to fire.

“And deprive you of sleep when you need it so desperately?” Legion said. “Do not worry. Only I can get in and out of your head, and I only did that because your mental defenses were so weakened. I have invested a great deal of time and energy in keeping you safe, and you are far too valuable to possess.”

“You have my gratitude,” Alicarius replied sarcastically. “What do you want, Legion?”

“Well, I thought you might want a bit of an update as to what happened,” Legion said. “Just in case you hadn’t guessed.”

“I guess that Mehrunes Dagon has broken through,” Alicarius said. “Am I right?”

“I’m afraid you are correct, yes,” Legion said, sighing in what seemed like genuine sympathy, leaning back on his bench. “He laid waste to the Imperial city and has sent his armies west, towards Chorrol and Anvil.”

“You mean they’re still not taken?” Alicarius asked. “So Serrio, Martin, are they-”

“Patience,” Legion said. “Patience. Yes, Serrio lives. He has led a valiant defence against the daedra so far, and he continues to do so, but it cannot last. Mehrunes Dagon has an endless amount of reinforcements, and even as my masters move against him they shall act too late to save the town, or much of Cyrodiil.”

“And what of Martin,” Alicarius asked. “What of the amulet? If the temple is not too badly damaged, we can retrieve it, relight the dragonfires and force Mehrunes Dagon back.”

Plans raced through his mind on ways to orchestrate a raid on the daedra held Imperial city, to sneak through or to storm through, distract Mehrunes with a larger army drawn from the provinces and slip in.

His brainstorming was cut short when Legion said; “I’m afraid not, Alicarius. Martin is dead, and the amulet destroyed.”

“But, how?” he asked. “You said that Dagon’s forces moved west, towards Chorrol. Cloud Ruler temple is-”

“To the North, I know,” Legion said. “He struck Cloud Ruler Temple at the same time as the Imperial City. He razed it before they even had a chance to muster a defence.”

Alicarius sighed slowly, sitting down on a short wall.

“Then I’ll go to Chorrol,” he said. “I’ll force Mehrunes Dagon away and we can muster a counterattack.”

“By the time you reach Chorrol, it will be far too late,” Legion said, shaking his head. “I could take you there, but it would attract a dangerous amount of attention; we would be torn apart as we travelled.”

“Then what do suggest I do?” Alicarius asked. “Sit idly in this cave while the daedra hunt me down.”

“Oh, quite the opposite,” Legion said. “I suggest you hunt the daedra down. And not just a specific one, either.”

“Mehrunes Dagon,” Alicarius said. “I like your plan.”

Legion smiled, replying with; “I thought you would.”

“Where is he, then?” Alicarius asked.

“In the Imperial city,” Legion said. “Commanding his forces. He carries with him a Greater Sigil stone, and that is what is allowing so many of the daedra on the earth. If you find that and destroy it, it should force the daedra back to Oblivion.”

“And where is it?” Alicarius asked.

“I believe he swallowed it,” Legion replied. “If you want it, you’re going to have to kill him.”

“Damn.”