The Sons of Sorrow

[Brother Aramos]

So I've got this new chapter I'm working on for when my copy of Dark Vengeance comes on Thursday. The basic fluff is that Abaddon created clones of the Mournival to act as a kind of "kitchen cabinet" of advisers, but with the loyalist ones corrupted by chaos. Then for some reason the baby clones get scattered to the four corners of the galaxy (me thinks someone wanted to keep Abaddon's ear) and wind up being raised by various chaos cults. The clone of Tarik Torgaddon keeps his humorous streak just much darker. He's recruited into the space marine chapter the Sons of the Emperor, and eventually becomes chapter master. It's all an elaborate "practical joke" to turn the chapter to chaos. He creates a cult of personality around himself, before piloting a frigate into the warp. A century later he returns under the guise of the Lord of Sorrow and leads the chapter to chaos and a new base in the Gates of Fire. They raid imperial shipping and act as mercenaries, mostly to keep aware of what's going on in the imperium (they've got dark mechanicus to make their stuff). Recently they've captured one of the aids of the high lords of terra, and know about the deterioration of the Golden Throne, now it's a waiting game.

 

here's the kicker: the lords of sorrow (yes plural) have a form of immortality by which they create a clone of themselves and secret them away until they die, at which point the clone who has just been mindlessly leading his life gains the memories of all the previous lords and rapidly mutates into a copy of the lord of sorrow. then the cycle repeats itself.

 

So is this to far out there? Is the lord being a clone of Tarik too much? (mostly I needed a reason for him to be an evil trickster)

[space wolf]

You are going to need to read THIS. I don't mean to be harsh, but I read the first two sentences and stopped because it immediately conjured up images of the creation of the primarchs. Where would Abbadon get the skill to clone something? Moreover, why the elaborate story to have Torgaddon lead your warband? Why not just use some of the qualities you like in the character to make a completely new one? Its far more likely and acceptable to readers and fluff nazi's alike. You have something with the Lord of Sorrow's immortality. But to me it seems it would be far more interesting, if the original had such a strong personality, that somehow in the warp he was changed. When he died a new leader took over, but slowly over time, the original lord of sorrow possesses the new one completely taking over the hosts body. He doesn't need to be Tarik to be an evil trickster. This just confuses the story and doesn't make much sense according to cannon. Good rule of thumb when writing fluff: The characters that you create, try not to have them interact too much with the characters of official fluff. (I know technically BL isn't "official," but...)

[Brother Aramos]

Yea I figured it was too much, just needed confirmation. Anyways no more clone of Tarik thing, his original name is Hironemous Ventus, and he was raised by a chaos cult before being inducted

into the chapter. I'm keeping the method of immortality the same because I want the lord of sorrow to be more relatable to me. More "human" if you will. Plus it keeps the look of the lord of sorrow the same, that's important because the lord's immortality is driving his "best friend" an inquisitor who hounds him at every turn towards insanity, radicalism or both.

EDIT: purely to metagame my opponents I'm including a catgirl in a disposable cultist squad. Can't decide yet if she's a felinid and the reason they can't leave their homeworld is because they like to tinker, or if she's just a kleptomaniacal mutant with a knack for engineering. Anyone have any opinions on this?

 

EDIT AGAIN: If she is a mutant I just came up with a backstory for her: she's from a world based on ancient Egypt. Where the eclesiarchy doesn't have much influence. They worship the Big-E as their supreme god, but the local religion has remained with the old gods becoming aspects and helpers to the Emperor. The catgirl was a priestess of Bast and a childhood friend of the current Lord of Sorrow. Then the black ships came by and it was found that she was a psycher. She likely would have been om-nom-nomed by the Golden Throne, but just by luck the Sons of Sorrow attacked the black ship she was on and rescued the psychers. The lord of sorrow recognized her from his youth and she received training from the chapter's sorcerers. Soon she mutated until she resembled her goddess, then went back to her planet under a god guise and led them in rebellion. Before the Imperium declared exterminatus on the world the Sons of Sorrow evacuated the population to their homeworld, causing a glut of new potential recruits.

[Lord_Caerolion]

I hate to say it, but being raised by a Chaos cult is the sort of thing that turns up in the psychic screening done on all applicants. Secondly, I wouldn't have it as a "best friend" for the Inquisitor, as Inquisitors and Chapter Masters don't really have the luxury of friends. Tone it down a bit, have it that they've worked together before, the Chapter Master responding to several of the Inquisitors calls for back-up, and they now share a bond of brotherhood, but that's about as close as they could get.

[Brother Aramos]

They're not literally friends, that's why it's in quotes. The inquisitor hates the chapter master with a burning passion of a thousand blazing suns. The chapter master calls him his "best friend" because he's been chasing him for so long and executed him multiple times, that and it really gets under the inquisitor's skin. It's a Hanibal Lecter type relationship between a enforcer of the law and the criminal that keeps slipping away. And what if he's a kind of chaos "Manchurian Candidate" with him being a clone of the original Lord of Sorrow a member of the Black Legion. When the original dies the clone becomes the next lord of sorrow, with all the memories of the original already in position as chapter master at this point. Would that work?