The Sacred War
A Convergence story based on Warhammer 40,000
It is the end of the 41st Millennium.
For more than a hundred centuries, The Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the Master of Mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium of Man, for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.
Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the Warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor's will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst his soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defence forces, the ever vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, the combined might of mankind’s armies has only brought stagnation. Mankind is frozen in an eternal war with an unending infestation of heretics, aliens, mutants - and worse.
But those times are ending. A storm of change is consuming the galaxy.
The disparate forces of the Imperium converge on the fortress world of Cadia as the armies of the Chaos Gods, led by Abaddon the Despoiler, hurtle towards it on a mission to tear reality asunder and carve a path all the way to Holy Terra itself. Ancient secrets are uncovered within the depths of Emperor’s domain, and the lines between purity and corruption become blurred.
An icon will fall. A god will awaken. A primarch will rise. The galaxy is burning.
You are strangers to this war, conscripted against your will to fight in His name. You are one amongst untold billions. You will witness the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding.
For in the grim dark future of the 41st millennium…
there is only war.
There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.
Mechanics
This will be a standard Convergence event, based on the popular tabletop wargame Warhammer 40,000, specifically the Gathering Storm events that marked the end of the 41st millenium. Rather than being victims of the unknown phenomenon that results in convergence events, the characters have been forcibly torn from their homeworlds by the Imperium of Man, conscripted against their will as agents in the war against Abbadon the Despoiler and his Black Crusade.
Entering the dark galaxy of the 41st Millenium has resulted in a number of bizarre effects upon the characters.
Perils of the Warp: The Immaterium, also referred to as the Empyrean, the Aether, the Sea of Souls, the Realm of Chaos, Warpspace or most commonly, the Warp, is an alternate dimension of purely psychic energy that echoes and underlies the familiar four dimensions of the material universe in Warhammer 40,000. The Warp is the source of all psychic powers and known instances of so-called "sorcery" or "magic" as well as the home dimension of the powerful entities known as the Chaos Gods and their myriad legions of daemonic servants. The extrasensory, seemingly magical abilities of the psychically-gifted individuals known in the Imperium of Man as “psykers” are powered by the energies of the Warp, and when such power is used, the daemons and creatures of the Immaterium are drawn to the psyker's mind like moths to a blazing flame.
All characters in this event who, in their source material, possess abilities that could be described as magic, psychic/psionic, sorcery, supernatural, wizardry, alchemy, occult, spiritual, or otherwise involve tapping into supernatural sources of energy, will become “psykers”, causing the source of their powers to become the Warp as opposed to whatever they had before.
As a subversion of usual Convergence style,
psyker characters will have their powers buffed by a significant degree. The nature of this empowerment will be mandated so as to not ruin the narrative and/or solve every problem the characters come across, but is otherwise open for player interpretation. Feel free to get creative with how your character’s abilities are strengthened or even changed as a result of drawing power from the Warp. How would a ‘dark’ or ‘evolved’ version of their powers look like?
For example, Dante (from the Devil May Cry series!) would be considered a psyker due to his demonic nature and ability to do things like turn into a demonic form. In this event, Dante’s demonic powers would become far more potent. While his weapons remain the same as they always were, his Devil Trigger could have him transform into an even more demonic entity - somewhat more twisted in appearance, but larger and stronger than he ever was in his source material.
As with all things in Chaos, power comes at a cost.
Anytime a psyker character makes a significant usage of their powers, it will cause randomly-chosen psychic phenomena or “perils of the Warp” to occur. These side-effects could be anything, ranging from unnatural sights/sounds to daemonic possession.
Gifts of the Omnissiah: The Adeptus Mechanicus is the official Imperial name within the Adeptus Terra for the Cult Mechanicus, or Cult of the Machine, based on Mars which provides the Imperium with its scientists, engineers and technicians. The Adepts of the Mechanicus are the primary keepers of what is viewed as sacred wisdom, a privileged caste of Tech-priests who jealously guard the knowledge required to maintain and construct much of the Imperium's advanced technology.
Similar to Perils of the Warp,
any character in this event who would NOT be considered a psyker based on the parameters set above will be considered eligible for forge world upgrades to the weapons, armor, and gear they bring from their source material; in other words,
they receive similar “buffs” to their capabilities as psyker characters do, focused on their equipment as opposed to innate powers.
Once again, the specifics of how the character’s gear is upgraded is entirely up to the players - you are encouraged to be creative in imagining what an upgraded, evolved or otherwise “master-crafted” version of your character’s weapons and armor would look like. This could include new functionality or merely increased performance that would bring them to the same general power-level as the psykers.
For example, Spider-Man would lack the powers required to become a psyker, but he could receive an enhanced version of his suit that becomes more akin to light power armor that would increase his physical capabilities even further. He could also receive ballistic versions of his web-spinners, allowing him to fire lethal, explosive-laced versions of his webs that could wipe out whole squadrons of men.
It should be noted that characters who are considered psykers would NOT receive the upgrades that non-psykers get with Gifts of the Omnissiah. Their home equipment would be exactly the same as it is in their source-material. For this purpose, characters in this event will be categorized as “psyker” and “not-psyker”
Character Restrictions
In the world of Warhammer 40,000, the relationship between humanity and xenos - aliens - is tenebrous at best and outright hostile at worst. The majority of the setting is xenophobic to a belligerent degree, the very presence of a xenos being grounds for summary execution of it and any witnesses of the alien fiend. In the same vein, mutants - foul mockeries of the holy human form - are treated with similar hatred and lethal intolerance.
Due to the circumstances of the event and the course of the story,
it is strongly preferred that you do not play a character that is blatantly non-human, mutated or alien in appearance. Certain characters that are not human but are generally humanoid in appearance - such as elves - can be justifiably played provided they hide any indication of their inhuman nature.