The Wretched

[Gulag]

Sit now and listen, I will tell you a story of failure and shame, or bitterness and slow, sinister corruption. The story of the Wretched.

 

The birth of Wretched begins properly with a ruined fleet, destroyed in a cataclysmic confrontation in a system far from the light of the Astronomicon, far from the eyes of the Imperium, forgotten and unknown, the heraldry of each vessel obscured by black mag-plates. The might of an entire chapter of the Adeptus Astartes, mustered at once and in full strength for battle, their honors and history concealed by the colors of shame and penitence. Battle barges, strike cruisers, and escorts all rendered into shattered hulks, locked in an eternal silent embrace with the remains of the enemies they slew. 

 

Degradation of the chapter's gene-seed brought about their end. A flaw in their blood had become such that it could not be tolerated by the Imperium, and so the chapter was forced to choose a death - the slow death by organ failure and implant rejection, the shameful death of the Inquisition's fires, or the swift death of self-destruction against a foe they could not hope to defeat. The name of the Chapter that died there is as irrelevant as the enemy that killed them. I will not repeat it for you. 

 

What is relevant, are those survivors of the doomed chapter, those warriors too stubborn or unlucky to die with their brothers, when redemption in death was their last hope. These survivors, lingered in the grave of all that they had known, left to suffer the indignity of living, and in their bitter existence, gathered together slowly from the wrecks and hulks of their vessels. Lead by a last surviving chaplain, Tiberius. They might have stayed there forever in the dark were it not for the eventual arrival of a scavenger vessel. Unable or unwilling to accept a slow demise in the empty void, the survivors seized the vessel and Tiberius set them on course for the Eye of Terror, that they might again seek battle with the Emperor's enemies and die with some measure of dignity. 

 

It was in this long voyage that the cause of the Chapter's destruction festered and ripened into corruption as the surviving brothers falling into madness, despair and illness. One by one, these once-proud warriors felt the fatal flaw in their genetic grow worse, and a soul-deep bitterness grow stronger. Discontent grew, and Tiberius was murdered by his brothers who wanted to live more than they wanted to keep their honor.

 

It is at this point in our story that along came a Spider. I don't know if he sought them out or the reverse is true. Perhaps they found one another by coincidence...but you don't really believe in such things, do you? I cannot say what bargain was struck between the survivors and the Manflayer, but a bargain was struck, and the survivors felt the touch of the Clonelord's knives as so many of us have over the millennia. Dark work was done upon those desperate few, and from their ranks were born the Wretched. Failing organs were given transplants, new and twisted glands bound into their flesh, and alchemical infusions pumped into blood vessels. Blessed with continued survival, and cursed to steal the flesh, blood and tissues from their enemies to carry on. The survivors truly became the Wretched.

 

You might think that this success, bought at however high a price, would be some succor to the Wretched, but you would be wrong. The Wretched savor none of it, there is no relish or satisfaction in their actions, just desperate survival, a refusal to die and a bitter resentment that they lacked the strength to die when they might have still had some honor. Battle though...that is the balm on their pain, the soothing rhythms of combat drive away the self-loathing, the bitterness and regrets. The perfect way for them to channel their hatred and resentment and they find themselves getting progressively more lost in it.

 

Do not pity the Wretched though, for they chose their path. They dealt with Fabius Bile knowing full well the damnation they embraced. Save your pity for the enemies and captives that the Wretched fall upon. Those who die against the Wretched will be carved apart and salvaged like broken machines, stripped for useful parts, and become part of the Wretched. Captives face an even worse fate - stripped naked, suspended in cages only big enough to contain their restrained forms. Tubes and catheters run from these captives, slowly draining them of blood, plasma, bone marrow, cell cultures and useful hormones. Xenos, Imperial loyalists, and heretics alike find themselves neighbors in the cages facing a slow, painful death to sustain the lives of their captors.

 

 

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Another random idea I've hammered into a bit of shape. C&C welcome.

 

[Lysimachus]

I really like the format of this. Great alternative to an IA, more similar to an Inquisitorial Report but because its couched in an unofficial/informal way it means you can have a lot of fun!

 

Its also a really useful device because it means it doesn't have to be too precise or even logical. Its not an objective historical account, its a myth.

 

If you were going to expand it, I'd really lean into the 'campsite fireside ghost story' feel you've got going, so add lots of lurid details to really terrify the youngsters!

[Gulag]

Hey, thanks for the feedback! I looked around and decided to go for something different in the write up. I also wanted the horror of what happened to them to come out and the usual IA doesn't usually do that.

[Gulag]

 

Oho, back again? After so long, we can enjoy each other's company again, how wonderful! More of the Wretched again? Yes...

 

Mmmm, for such a small band they do occupy many of my stories. The Wretched are never more than an under-strength company, 85 at the most. Their old bonds and order of their chapter dissolving in the harsh realities of their new existence. Old ranks have lost their meaning and authority except where the strength, cunning or charisma of its owner have kept the claws of the ambitious at bay. Squads have clustered around individual champions, drawing like minded individuals together from across the warband. Each of these champions is but a petty warlord in the service of the warband's overlord, Barsad, who keeps would be rivals in check through his control of the cadre of mad chirurgeons, butchers and deranged medicae who render down the living and the dead for the transplants, infusions and alchemy that keep the whole of the warband alive.

 

Barsad isn't the name he was born with mind you, nor the name gifted to him by his fallen chapter. So it is for all of his brethren among the Wretched, and who could blame them? Why be reminded of just how far you have fallen each and every time someone speaks to you? Better to forget. To become something else, anything else, than to be tormented by the memory of lost glories, forgotten honor and the soul deep wounds of shame. A broken tool might be repaired or discarded but what of broken astartes? What becomes of warriors shorn of their history and purpose?