Inspirational Friday - 21/11/2014

[Tenebris]

Hello and welcome to a new Inspirational Friday. The past week was great since many frater wrote about their most bitter foe, about their nemesis. I must say that the quality of the posts skyrocketed and it was really hard to call a victor since all posts were so damn good.

 

This week's best post award goes to Kierdale. His wrote about the conflict between his warband and the craftworld eldar, he presented a veritable escalation in the relationship between the two factions and the "narrative" was really a nice touch. I hope that you will play this dramatic conflict on tabletop too, it strikes me just as a perfect example of "play your own narrative" mindset so recurrent in the recent GW publications, well done Kierdale.

 

Step forth Kierdale and claim your reward!

 

http://shrani.si/f/e/r4/KG83M5z/9/friday-award.png

 

As I have said this week was a tough call since we had some really outstanding fluff here on Inspirational Friday. In particular I must compliment Max and Carrack since their posts were really something awesome. I liked the politics played between the Black Legion and the Iron Warriors as well as reading of a Cardinal, an all too unlikely hero or villain, to be consumed by vengeance and threaten the existence of a chaos warband. Epic I say! Well done frater!

 

 

With this week we start a series of Inspirational Fridays which will see us corrupt many an agency and faction of the Imperium of Man. As the weeks progress we will explore the manifold of factions, ranging from Navigator Houses, Knight Houses and so on, factions which are the pillars of the Imperium of Man an have been turned to Chaos across the thousands of years in the setting. I hope you will enjoy this, as for me, I cannot wait to begin writing this Fridays posts.

 

 

Inspirational Friday - 21/11/2014 - CHAOS NAVIGATOR HOUSE

 

And here we go, the first faction which we will explore together and write our own interpretation of their fall and corruption. The Navis Nobilite is an ancient and very powerful organization in the Imperium of Man, the Navigators are cardinal in the existence of the Imperium since they and they alone are able to steer the ships across the Warp. I agree we of Chaos have other, often esoteric or daemonic means to travel across the Sea of Souls but even those fall short when compared to a mutant created for this explicit purpose in the ages past of humanity. 

 

Across the thousands of years many Navigator Houses rose and fell, entire dynasties commanded the allegiance of the ancient legions as well as pacts and contracts were signed between the primarchs and the exponents of the Navis Nobilite for the service in the legions. Not only that many Navigators followed their astartes lords into damnation but renegade and nomad houses were lured into the Eye or in the fringe regions of the known universe, often acting as navigators in service to their renegade patrons. 

 

A Navigator is a powerful psychic mutant, a very intricate form of mankind or posthuman who was genetically engineered to gaze into the Warp and guide a space ship across the Sea of Souls. Such service always commanded a high price and rare is the Navigator House which does not enjoy a great wealth and a series of important alliances. 

 

Yet such power and prestige often was the reason for overbearing arrogance or even for treason and thus many Houses fell to Chaos across the history of the Imperium of Man. Some Houses were even exiled from their lofty palaces on Terra or their luxurious holds on imperial worlds, exiled maybe due to their genetic deviance even more staggering than those commonly accepted by the Navis Nobilite, exiled perhaps due to their defeat in an interhouse conflict or a trade war, or some were simply lured by the Dark Gods. 

 

The day a navigator house falls is a dire day for the Imperium of Man, dozens of ships risk to be steered into the Eye by their renegade Navigators, the wealth of entire worlds can be vacated, vicious wars erupt and ancient secrets and warp routes are forever lost to posterity. A grim day is the one when a Navigator turns renegade because with his slightest deed and wish he can consign thousands upon thousands of ship crewmen lives into oblivion. 

 

For this Inspirational Friday I want you to write about a renegade, a heretic Navigator House. It is a big task, I agree, but here we are venturing into the meat and bones of the Inspirational Fridays, the recreation and interpretation of the 40k universe. The Navis Nobilite is a cardinal faction of the Imperium of Man, its corruption one of the direst events that can happen in the Imperium, the implications of a house turned renegade almost apocalyptic. Write about such a fall, write about the Chaos navigators, write about the reasons of their fall, the motives behind it and the rewards that await them in damnation. 

 

 

Let us be inspired!

 

 

Tenebris

[Warsmith Aznable]

Good on Kierdale! When I read his story I knew he had clinched it. I particularly liked the scene where the two warlords met at the end.

 

Navigator House, eh? That is an interesting challenge.

[Carrack]

I'm glad to be just to be mentioned after reading Kierdale's story it was really good. I typically find most writing from a Xenos point of view lacking in some way and hard to identify with, but Kierdale's story did the sneaky Eldar justice, and managed to keep the CSM playing the role they are best at, the villains. I got some ideas rolling already for this week, hope I get the time to put it down.

[Kierdale]

Thank you!

I’m not sure if the battle between Qarasion’s and Sophusar’s forces will ever get played out on the tabletop, but that final scene could become a diorama sometime in the future

I wonder if anyone caught the musical Easter Egg in the finale. A couple of lines were written a little tongue-in-cheek, though I’m very happy how it all came out.

Here’s my next entry...

The Rise and Fall of House Du’Phra

Tales tell that it was during the Age of Strife that the Du’Phras made their name. Far from being one of the richest navigator houses (a beggar house in the eyes of their betters), some say that it was formed by near-burnouts from the greater, magisterial houses, others say those who failed to gain entry, while the DuPhras of course claim modest pedigree.

After the Unification Wars the navigator houses were called upon by the Emperor to provide guides for his fleets taking the light of the empirical Imperial Truth to the lost colonies of Mankind. House Du’Phra duly answered the call. While greater houses has the power, the connections, to attain good positions for their mutant steersmen: places aboard the vessels of the Legiones Astartes, the Du’Phras distinguished themselves by volunteering their people for the most unwanted and dangerous assignments. The house had survived centuries of hardships, they would not be denied a chance at glory forging the future of their race.

They would pioneer where others feared to tread.

Thus Du’Phra navigators found themselves leading everything from small scouting vessels to larger exploratory taskforces through such areas as the Thuban nebula, betwixt the Tusegabi binaries and making the hazardous Joralene Run in less than 11 parsecs. Though such feats did not fail to leave their mark upon the navigators of House Du’Phra: from hallucinogenic psychoses through addictions to terminal cerebral infarctions. Many turned to medication to ease their bodies and minds, with several - quickly hushed-up - cases resulting in the loss of entire vessels due to intoxication within the Empyrean.

As rumours of the house’s deeds drew attention (and the displeasure of their more powerful rivals) even the great Legiones Astartes began putting in requests for their helmsmen. Du’Phra navigators eventually piloted starships of the IX and XX legions though the void.

When Horus Lupercal’s treachery rived the armed forces of the Imperium, Du’Phra navigators found themselves on both sides of the conflict. As per the standing orders of the gerent of the period (Onaedara Du’Phra), the house’s loyalty was first to its customers: those whose vessels they piloted. Onaedara had of course not foreseen what would befall the Imperium and thus his people served both sides. Though overtly the gerent recalled all to serve the throne world, he wished all to serve their masters as best they could, for whoever won that great conflict would become the new masters of all. As with Donemar DuPhra in later millennia, Onaedara was a businessman first and foremost.

It was not heresy, nor war but a flower which eventually, in the latter years of the 41^st millennium saw the fall of the house of Du’Phra.

Dark Lady of Nepenthe, Mysteria Hypno Morta, the moonskin, the last breath of a favoured concubine. Mysteria - dark maid of the hidden caves, it had myriad names though the most common was:

Lacrymata.

A rare flower, grown in underground catacombs by the Palamas nobility on the planet Assyrion. The flower’s perfume was exceedingly narcotic, its essential oil a deadly toxin when ingested. Rumour had it that, besides a droplet of its nectar being diluted millionfold to produce the most exotic scents to tantalise highborn nostrils across the Imperium, the ordo of the Inquisition took a tithe for their own nefarious purposes - torture primarily, it was whispered - and likewise the officio assassinorum for their more easily guessed uses.

The flower’s export had been the sole purview of the Fiddeus rogue trading fleet though an incident upon the Dea Brava had seen the contract reopened to negotiation and, with gentle persuasion by Du’Phra representative Besax Propona, the house had made a deal which the Palamas had been unable to refuse.

For decades vessels steered by Du’Phra navigators successfully sailed the immaterium hauling hermetically sealed crates of the sacred blossom to Holy Terra and other sector capitals. These were the halcyon days of house Du’Phra, under gerent Donemor.

Navigator primus Gareliana Calist was the first to be presented with a single flower by the Palamas in reward for saving a shipment of their cargo from Eldar pirates (Inquisition agents would later discover evidence that Eralia Palamas may in fact have sold that particular shipment’s route to the xenos reavers. He was subsequently removed by those agents). This was the seed of their downfall.

Enchanted by its musky bloom, Gareliana kept the flower, learning all she could of horticulture from the chiefs of her vessel’s hydroponic gardens and - with their illicit aid – they managed to illegally grow more from that one flower crossed with other, mundane, species. Their product was weak, a bastard hybrid compared to the true Dark Lady of Nepenthe, but even then it was intoxicating.

Crossing paths with fellow Du’Phra navigators on her travels, they discussed the stresses and traumas of their work as peers are wont to do, and Gareliana Calist came to gifting her companions with petals of her illegitimate chimera.

The addiction spread.

Ships crewed by DuPhra personnel yet unassigned to trade with Assyrion came to dock there having heard of Lacrymata and sampled its bastard offspring. Crews, even officers willingly began to divert there, to spend time even near its source, to sample its dilutions, frivolously spending their wages.

House Du’Phra came to call upon the Palamas to produce more and more of the bloom, telling them there was such demand on Terra, yet the Palamas refused to hurry their work lest it damage the moonskin. They had heard rumours of a chimera product, spat upon those who spoke of it and haughtily would not tamper with the original.

The Du’Phra navigators who served the Assyrion route, now under the sway of their chimera and guilty of stealing the true product on several occasions (incidents blamed on dockhands and other crew, pushing the security of the Du’Phra contract to breaking point) then hatched their plot. When the Palamas gave their greatest yield the navigators and those crew under the bloom’s sway - ship captains in many cases – committed barratry and took off with their cargoes.

But where could such thieves go with so precious a cargo, a cargo so expensive the money from its sale could purchase entire worlds?

The ships decanted from the warp to find their goal ahead, the swirling maelstrom known as the Eye of Terror.

Notable Personae

Gerent Donemor Du’Phra

Head of house Du’Phra in the years before their Fall, Du’Phra was void-born and was proud to admit having only twice set foot upon the earth of a planet, finding them dirty, germ-strewn places. Preferring the controlled climate, gravity and atmosphere of a starship he ran the house with similar efficiency. Navigating vessels himself until his mid-thirties he then took up leadership of the house though, as is the navigator’s curse, he appeared far older. In fact in Donemor’s case the trait was particularly cruel and he had the visage of a man twice his age despite undergoing rejuvenation treatments - perhaps all too late - upon retiring from steering voidships. As gerent of the Du’Phras, Donemor’s girth swelled and by his fiftieth year the corpulent arch navigator weighed greater than half a ton, being born upon an ornate grav-sled, his plump, hairless flesh kneaded and oiled by servo-cherubs, his third eye hidden behind a crown of diamond. Rumour had it the diamond had been mined from the center of the Heolc asteroid field, the boring vessels not only navigated but also piloted by his own people. He resided upon the Vaalbara orbital plate above Holy Terra, indeed Donemor Du’Phra was a symbol of the success of house Du’Phra, until news of the house’s fall reached the throne world and, his servants and scions ejected from the plate’s airlocks, Du’Phra was clasped in irons and brought before the judgement of the Inquisition.

Besax Propona

Formerly a navigator of house Du’Phra himself, the handsome and jovial Besax Propona was stationed aboard the Dawn Herald at Calega III and hurriedly lead that vessel into the warp alongside countless other Imperial vessels when Necrons of the Jocha Dynast sent the star Calega nova. Though the Herald escaped thanks to Propona’s work, he was forever mentally scarred and it was believed he had lost his second sight. He became a shadow of his former self. Years later the house realized that his traumatization prevented him from ever opening his third eye again within the warp he could, with considerable counselling and hypnoconditioning, be trained to use it once more within realspace. But to what purpose?

The revelation about his Sight was kept hidden, the treatments announced as unsuccessful and he was given a new life, a new purpose within house Du’Phra. Outwardly he became a representative and spokesperson for the house.

In truth he served as an assassin, uncovering his third eye and gazing upon those who had earned the displeasure of the house. Rivals, those who swindled the house, abused its personnel, they any many more failed to survive meetings with Besax Propona.

Genusar Bonopia

A navigator aboard the IX Legion battle cruiser Cardinal Guardian during the Great Crusade, Genusar Bonopia was in truth a scion of house Di Cavagni, Genusar had been kidnapped by Du’Phra agents as a baby and knew nothing of her birthright. Her nobility showed in her pose, her elegant stride and the fine cast of her features. She also spent a good deal of her earnings on rejuve treatments to combat the accelerated aging which plagues mutants such as her, and went as far as donning luxurious wigs when not within the warp.

Genusar Bonopia is noted for, aside from her excellent astronavigation, her skill with the brush: spending hours of her down time within her navigator’s bubble, sketching and painting images of the void, the fleet and worlds visited. It is said that more than twice the remembrance order asked her to join their ranks, and several times her works were entered into compilations sent by back to the throne world by 132^nd fleet remembrance parties.

Gareliana Calist

Navigator aboard the Eventide rogue trader cargo cruiser, it was she who first concocted the Lacrymata chimera, having fallen under the spell of the true flower. Once a handsome if not beautiful young lady, she encountered the flower upon Assyrion. As her addiction grew and twisted her thoughts, her body grew gaunt through starvation and the stress of navigating: time during which she could not ensconce herself within her chambers with the bloom. She became as a ghoul, avoided by all the Eventide’s crew but for those with whom she shared the chimera. It was her who disseminated the bastard flower to her fellows and her too who proposed the mutiny of the five Du’Phra piloted vessels which ended the house.

It is rumoured that she now navigates vessels of the renegades who reside within the Eye of Terror when she can draw herself away from the damned gardenworld the traitor crews colonized.

[Son of Carnelian]

Star-Scryer Rona leaned forward in her command throne. The rush of Warp travel always thrilled her, no matter how long the duration. Another contact with the immaterial made material, another brush with the divine forms that blessed her with the navigator's sight. She felt its call constantly, like an itch that she could never fully satisfy. Today though, she would scratch at it again.

 

The crew, and many others besides, called her "The Wandering Shepard." It came from most tongues not as an insult, but a poetic name for her very nature. She had so devoted herself to Warp travel that she freely offered the services of her ship and her fellow navigators to any warband in the Eye, so long as they followed three conditions. No fighting with crew or passengers, defend your host as you would yourself, and no one picks the destination but Star-Scryer Rona. 

 

Most of the fallen Astartes balked at the third condition. Why should they leave their destination up to a mortal, who cared nothing for their ambitions, chosen gods, or rivalries? The few who did not reject the promise of an unknown destination usually proved either especially desperate or especially powerful. Rona's ship, the Blinded Arrow, had played host to both tiny broken tribes of Khornate bezerkers and massive throngs of Word Bearers. She provided a means of escape or a path to power as the passengers required. The Star-Scryer chose her destinations in secret, without council of any kind. She assessed whatever passengers had come aboard and decided where they belonged in the great cosmic conflict of the Long War. Some she deemed useless and jettisoned them with no warning into the void. Others she regarded as powerful, potential allies who deserved their lives and a safe harbor. Other times, she would have no answer and would simply take them to Warmaster Abaddon so that he might regard them for inclusion into his legion and continue viewing her wandering tendencies as beneficial to his grand designs. 

 

Many had asked why only she could choose their destination . But only once had Rona answered. "Because the Imperium always commanded me. Because I never choose, merely steered at the command of uncaring captains. Now, I will never fly for another again. But my journeys should have purpose, so I take along whoever will sail with me."

 

The man who had asked her said nothing in return, but his expression held all the answer she desired. He understood Rona's need for freedom, her craving to no longer guide others but seize her own command for the virtue of it being hers. He too had merely followed the orders of others, never tasting true freedom until Chaos had come and cut his leash. 

 

And now Chaos stretched the universe before her, like a map opened for a navigator, and she leapt towards it both arms outstretched and a face streaked with tears from eyes would never see. 

[Carrack]

New Chronicle for my New House

 

I have become accustomed to keeping a journal. For the last twenty odd years I have kept one, and even now, with the life I had lived a year ago in total and complete upheaval, I yearn to put ink to parchment before I lay my head onto my pillow. Even if that pillow is no longer Micorsian satin.

 

Now where to begin, I suppose a

digest of my previous journal is in order, particularly with my confessor, perhaps the Arbites or Inquisition, maybe even the Paternova in possession of my old journal. The thought of brief summary of my entire life up util my recent kidnapping and nonconsensual adoption by House Kaft is surprisingly much easier to contemplate now, than I would have ever suspected a year ago. In all honesty, up until that point I had experienced so very little in life.

 

I was born the third daughter of Botto Rossi, younger brother of Carmen Rossi, patriarch of House Rossi. The Navis gene was dominant and deemed strong upon my birth. I was dedicated to the Emperor as Tarabella Rossi and was pledged to Battlefleet Ultima upon my matriculation from my house's academy. My days were filled with study of charts and endless lectures on the myriad techniques of guiding vessels through the Sea of Souls. Along with intricate genealogy, the heroics of prominent Rossi Navigators, and the House ties of allegiance and rivalry. These studies were punctuated with regular purity examinations conducted by House genesayers and my assigned Confessor. It was rumored by my sisters and cousins that our examinations were more frequent and intensive than those of other houses. They claimed to have heard that this scrutiny was ordered by the Paternova over six centuries ago. It was all very boring.

 

My nights were filled with the complex social dance of an unbetrothed nobilitite. There were, of course, the balls. Tedious affairs that required six to eight hours just to prepare and dress for while having to listen to the fawning prattle of the servants, only to arrive at a ballroom filled with sometimes thousands of potential suitors, that I could only stand the company of two to thee. Slightly less onerous were the exclusive social clubs. These clubs, or the ones I attended, were frequented mostly by Navigators of the lesser houses and a few young Navigators slumming from the greater houses. I preferred the social clubs over the stuffy balls mainly because of the more intimate setting allowing for the possibility that someone would say something truly interesting, but also because I despised my dance instructor, that hag, and embarrassingly, it showed on the ballroom floor.

 

Sometimes there was a sense of adventure at the social clubs that was lacking in the rest of my regimented life of high expectations. One time a young navigator, Stevas, who refused to divulge the name of his house to my friends, had gone down to the pilgrims lines before the Monument of St Lion El'Johnson and removed his head covering. He kept his third eye closed of course, but the panic scattered the pilgrims that had been waiting their turn for days. Tourists.

 

It was the same Stevas who turned out to be the envoy of House Kaft. He slowly maneuvered me into an exposed position the way a predator would separate its prey from the herd. Late night forays to attend exclusive private blood sports and escapes to the lofty heights of 11th upspire narco bliss had me discretely escaping most of my personal staff. The promise of a romantic rendezvous had me slip the watch of my life guard. That is when he caught me. A heavy tranq laden amesac and I awoke in a locked cabin sailing the sea of souls.

I was kept in seclusion throughout the voyage, but a anxious, indeterminate time later a knock proceeded my door being opened. A well oiled, but blinded and scarred man entered my cabin flanked by two horribly ugly, and also blinded cyber mastiffs. He sat himself in the small parlor of my cabin and explained that I had been adopted into a navigator house I had never heard of, House Kaft. In spite of my ignorance of even the house name, he explained the pedigree of the house as to have pre existed the Imperium of Man. House Kaft had long standing ties with several elements of the Black Legion and Legio Vulcanum II, nightmares of Terra's past. House Kaft, he told me, had a strong Navis gene, but was isolated from other houses and was forced to "adopt" navigators from Imperial houses to prevent genetic stagnation. I was not alone in my abduction.

 

I was somewhat surprised by the first question to slip from my mouth, "When will I get to go home to Terra?" I honestly did not expect homesickness to be a pressing concern considering my shocking new circumstances. I was equally surprised by his answer, he said frankly, "You are a navigator, you will pilot a ship there." He then checked his data audio implant and added, "A warship."

 

Now enough preamble and let me finally get to starting my new chronicle. I am Tarabella Kaft of House Kaft. I am pledged to Lord Carrack of the Black Legion, and by extension to The Despoiler of Worlds. I guide the Murder Class Cruiser, False Hope, through hell itself. Let the galaxy burn!

[Tenebris]

House Faretto, Nomad Navigator House, The Corpulent Eye, The Avoirdupois Steersmen

 

http://shrani.si/f/r/f1/x10n636/2/dagoberth-oriensis-faret.jpg

 

Novator Dagoberto Oriensis Faretto IV, Patriarch of House Faretto, The Corpulent One

 

 

The history of House Faretto is an ancient and revered one. As one of the Magisterial Houses of the ancient past the Farettos have been always present at the top of the Navis Nobilite, their pedigree an exalted one, their history a history of loyal service to the Throne and their bloodline one of the most ancient one among the Navigators mutants. 

 

It was this esteemed pedigree which was the reason of the contract signed between the Primarch Horus and Novator Dagoberto III, the lord of House Faretto during the golden age of the Great Crusade. While several Navigator bloodlines served the XVIth Legion, the Faretto's held sway over the ships of no less than fifty companies of the Luna Wolves and it was said that the first ships sailing to Cthonia were steered by the progeny of this Magisterial House. 

 

This exclusive contract allowed the Faretto's an unprecedented voice in the ranks of the Navis Nobilite and as the fortunes of the XVIth Legion improved the glory was also shared with those who followed the primarch Horus as his willing subjects. It was almost a hundred years before the Massacre of Istvaan that the Faretto's begun to mutate, an event not uncommon among the Navigators but usually it came only with advanced age or due to prolonged years of service. The Faretto's observed their Navigator talents increase proportionately with the ruin of their bodies. Some speculated that House Faretto was cursed with impure genes, others opposed this claim citing their ancient and flawless pedigree but the sad truth was that the Faretto's have long harbored the seeds of their own misfortune due to their incestuous tendencies and a perverse sense of purity, for they considered all other Navigator Houses impure. 

 

This concept is not unheard among the most ancient Navigator Houses, clans who only breed with their own familiar kin, families who only trusted in their genome and theirs alone. The Faretto's were known for their incestuous practices and while this resulted into a surprisingly pure bloodline it also came with numerous side effects like a rampant mutation of their kin, kin which was safely hidden from the eyes of their detractors, the other Houses envious of the wealth and influence of House Faretto.

 

All this did not impede the long and commendable service of House Faretto. The archives of their House are filled with citations and honors bestowed upon the family by individuals like Horus Lupercal, Seneschal Aruvanai, numerous Captains of the XVIth legion and even august members of the other Legiones Astartes and imperial agencies like Chapter Master Vario of the Blood Angels and Mistress Katalina Ineven Urtaz, the General in Chief of Expeditionary Fleet 1012. 

 

The fall of House Faretto came with the first cyclonic torpedoes striking the surface of Istvaan III. Novator Dagoberto ordered his family to vacate the Lighthouse of Marlena, their spire fortress on Holy Terra years before the opening phase of the Horus Heresy, not because the Warmaster ordered him, nor because he would betray his Emperor years after, but because House Faretto lost a duel with the preeminent House Villabona and suffered the expenses of reparation and a constriction of trade rights with the throne world. The whole incident was provoked by a slight between the two houses when Novator Sebalanus Villabona accused the representatives of House Faretto as "incestuous bastards and a mongrel breed" when Dagoberto II refused to give his eldest daughter Faustina in marriage to the third son of Sebalanus Villabona, a certain Hernalion Villabona, a renown figure in the shady circles of vice on Terra. 

 

This slight resulted in a shadowy war between the two houses, accentuated by the august patronage that the houses enjoyed among the Legiones Astartes, namely the Faretto's and their allies in the XVIth Legion and the Villabona and their lords of the VIIth Legion. The conflict spanned across various ventures of trade, it ranged from assassinations to false accusations, to staged incidents and vocal critiques in the circles of the Navis Nobilite. It is unknown who the victor was in the inter-House war but eventually the Faretto's took their leave from Terra and assembled a mighty nomadic fleet which made sail to the Segmentum Obscurus. 

 

The treachery which followed in the wake of the Horus Heresy helped the Faretto's to rectify their sight at the hands of the Villabona. Knowing full well that many Imperial Fists ships are steered by the Villabona the Novator of House Faretto fully pledged his loyalty to the Warmaster and his family even contributed many ship to the cause of Horus. For years the Faretto's waged a personal war with their rival house with the Heresy in the backdrop and it is said that many Sons of Horus captains were astonished by the sheer ferocity of maneuver and the single mindedness of the Faretto's when it came to the destruction of their hated enemies. 

 

Perhaps due to the warping influence of the teachings which came to permeate the traitor legions or due to the almost constant service on the forefront of the Warmaster's effort the entirety of the Faretto's exhibited an increased magnitude of mutations but as their bodies bloated, their skin ruptured and their forms begun to change so this family of navigators experienced a vast increase in the powers associated with their eye. 

 

In the wake of the defeat of Terra, House Faretto was instrumental during the Scouring, where their ancient knowledge of secret warp routes and their prodigal powers allowed for many traitor marines to escape the deadly retribution at the hands of their loyalist brethren. Only when the Warmaster was forever lost to their Sons did House Faretto terminate its contract with the remnants of the XVIth Legion, electing to see to their own family needs first. 

 

The esteemed patriarch of House Faretto, Dagoberto II died on Terra so the dire task of rebuilding his family fell upon the shoulders of his children Dagoberto III and Faustina. The twins shared much insight with their father and they were quick to establish order among the manifold ranks of House Faretto. The entirety of the fleet was recalled into the dire Realm of the Eye and a program of breeding was enforced to see the bloodline preserved for eternity. With the might of their nomadic fleet the twins secured numerous contracts with the chaos warbands and turned a profit with the conflicts that were becoming endemic among the traitor space marines. 

 

It was with great relish that House Faretto signed a contract with Abaddon, the heir to Horus's title and legion for it represented for them the patronage of the Black Legion and thus a return to their ancient glory as a Navigator House. Once more House Faretto served the scions of the XVIth legion and benefited from this sinister alliance.

 

Ten thousand years have passed since the events of the Horus Heresy, patriarch Dagoberto III died to an assassins blade, probably ordered and payed for by his ambitious and sole heir, Dagoberto IV as for Faustina it is said that the craven creature which was devoured by a daemon had little resemblance to her but her allseeing eye. In the thousands of years since the betrayal which has seen House Faretto side with the Warmaster the House has returned to its glory. Dagoberto IV, always the tyrant is said to have sired no less than seventeen heirs and he spread his progeny across the mighty fleet of the Black Legion. House Faretto always enjoyed a great number of scions and thus it still manages to keep its bloodline relatively pure, though incestuous. Life in the Eye only increased their already prodigal powers but the price for this was high. Obese, mutated beyond recognition and incredibly powerful, the Navigators of House Faretto are an obscenity to look upon yet even so what is truly frightening are not their obese forms of baleful eyes but their insane appetites and the myriads of schemes that the House inflicts upon themselves and other rival Navigator clans. 

 

In his wisdom Abaddon knows that House Faretto is one of the most deranged strains of the Navigator genus and their schemes often put his warriors in jeopardy but even so, to count on the service of this magisterial Navigators is an exclusivity he and his Black Legion enjoy and he is unwilling to share it with other traitors in the Eye. On their part House Faretto has seen that the Warmaster pays homage to their family, the vast nomadic ships of House Faretto are filled with plunder, slaves and exotic goods from all across the galaxy. It is the Navigators of House Faretto who name the price for their services and it has always been so, all the way since the days of Horus and the XVIth legion, and the price for the services of House Faretto is exorbitant to say the least. 

 

Dagoberto IV has seen to it that his House enjoys the results of their trade and he can call upon several Black Legion warbands who owe him favors. His House rarely favors other warbands with their services and mostly it is given by renegade elements of his household, kin who lost their esteemed status as a scion of Faretto or are a threat to their patriarch. In time the nomadic fleet of House Faretto was integrated into the Black Fleet of the Warmaster, the children of the House as often given into slavery aboard the Black Legion ships or contracted for a high price but even after all those thousands of years, or a hundred, irrelevant, House Faretto always considers itself as the most pure of the Navigator houses, their blood sacred their bloated forms as sacrosanct. It is this overriding belief into their own might and purity which estranged them from all other Navigator Houses, which has seen them abandon their ancestral holds on Terra, belief which has seen them cursed for eternity but also in a perverse way eternal themselves, eternally pure, eternally a Faretto. 

 

As for their conflict with House Villabona, Dagoberto III has seen to it himself that the broken bodies and ravaged souls of the last Villabona's languish in the dark cells aboard the Corpulent Eye, kept artificially in life only to be used as playthings for the degenerated heirs of House Faretto. Such is the fate of those who oppose on the the Magisterial Houses and House Faretto is more then willing to teach this lesson to all those who do not pay homage to a House which was one of the first among their mutant kind. 

[Kierdale]

Tenebris, that was fantastic! I particularly like the incest aspect. Very fitting.