The Ruinous Powers (40K CYOA)

[ERYFKRAD]

Heheh, alright.
A, only because I got a good hunch the centaur is the one who'll get pregnant.

And B.

 

[Storyfag]

A
B>C

 

[Nevill]

AA.

 

[Azira]

A
C>B

 

[hello friend]

BC

 

[Grimgravy]

A
B>C

 

[Major_Blackhart]

AB

Haven't earned the right to be arrogant or prideful yet.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

AB

Let's get out game together

 

[Baltika9]

AC

 

[Endemic]

B
D (prepare and then worship)

 

[Cheesecake]

Counting votes!

 

[Cheesecake]

Tally

A: lightbane, ERYFKRAD, Storyfag, Nevill, Azira, Grimgravy, Major_Blackhart, The Brazilian Slaughter, Baltika9, 9
B: hello friend, Endemic, 2

A. Accept the centaur. Only the best is worthy of you.

A: Nevill, 1
B: lightbane, ERYFKRAD, Storyfag, (Azira), Grimgravy, Major_Blackhart, The Brazilian Slaughter, 6(7)
C: (lightbane), (Storyfag), Azira, hello friend,(Grimgravy), Baltika9, 3(6)
Endemic's D: Endemic, 1

B. Prepare - your destination is nigh. You will need to speak with your officers and advisors, and govern your iron kingdom of the Sodom.

You lie flat on the stone altar, the cold stone chilling your bare flesh. The air is heavy with narcotic-laced incense, alive with yelling and moaning and howling. Torchlight flickers on walls blackened by ash and reddened with dry blood. Mutants, malformed and misshapen, writhe on the ground in throes of painful passion.

The dead abound in your pleasure pit, faces stricken in pain, yet with eyes belying their ecstasy. Beastmen crawl towards you, kneeling before you in submission, cradling mangled corpses as their offerings to you. Sirens sing your praise as they kill and make love, many doing both at once. Hooker's men stand guard, four of them standing before each corner of the altar you lay upon, fending off maddened mutants who would dare to defile you.

No, this night is different. As victors, you and Raith are the only ones allowed each other. Wretched though he may be, as all beings are compared to you, he is favored by Slaanesh.

You see this favor clearly as the centaur slowly walks towards you. His four powerful legs, each strong enough to cave-in a man's body with little effort, fast enough to rival the bikes of the famed Astartes. His torso is tattooed with etches of vile scenes, scrawled with passages of forbidden words, and around his neck is carved 'Lena Cythriel', that all may know his mistress.

He arrives at the altar, looming over you like a mountain, heavy with the stench of blood, drugs, and fouler scents. His eyes are strained with madness and lust, his snorting and growling raucous and primal. He kills your guards with ease, crushing their heads, staining his hands red. You thank him for his offering with a passionless kiss.

You wrap yourself around him, your bodies becoming one. The night is long and loveless, the act inhuman and unholy, and ends in his death.

----

The glowing, green womb hums gently. Power cords trail from every available surface, like black organs reeking of oil. Servitors left and right fret with the restless maintenance of the artificial womb, servo-skulls relay data to-and-fro, and you stand center in the bedlam, face to face with your child.

The little thing floats calmly in the green, life-giving fluid. You lay a hand on the warm glass. You thought you could never feel anything but contempt and revulsion for anyone save you, but he is different.

You would burn worlds for him.

"How is he, Entek?"

"STATEMENT: Life-signs within optimal range. Growth steady. A new batch of slaves are ready to be decomposed into life-fluid, completion in three hours, forty-three minutes, twenty-"

"I mean, how is he? Isn't he beautiful?"

"STATEMENT: I cannot perceive 'beauty'. Nor would I wish to. It is irrelevant."

You sigh. Entek had requested the child grow from without your womb, so that Entek could grow him in a controlled environment. He had only been conceived the night previous, and just this morning he had been invisible to the naked eye, yet now he was large enough to be held within two hands.

"He definitely is beautiful, mistress," says the Sorcerer, cooing into the glass in a dark, whispered language. "Simply beautiful."

"Aye, my lady," says Hooker, who has assigned her elite squad to guard the artificial womb, despite Entek's wishes that only his murder-servitors be so near the womb.

"Truly, Lena." Detox had volunteered to aid Entek with his experience as apothecary, providing medical knowledge to the tech-priest's technical.

It has been a while since all of you had gathered in one area. You smile. It is convenient as well, since you'd planned to meet with all of them to discuss the government of the ship.

You decide to first:

A. Talk to Entek, in regards to the Sodom's machinery, the servitors and servo-skulls, and the armory.
B. Talk to Hooker, in regards to the soldiers, training, and the policing of the Sodom.
C. Talk to Detox, in regards to the population, breeding, and health of the human and mutant population.
D. Talk to the Sorcerer, in regards to the future and the will of the gods.
E. Talk with someone or do something else.

----

Character Sheet

Name: Lena Cythriel, Exalted Champion

Gifts:
Daemoniac Tongue
Exalted
Perfection
Terrible Visage

Favor:
Khorne - Hated
Nurgle - Betrayed
Tzeentch - Intrigued
Slaanesh - Exalted

Malal - Amused

Known Characters:
Detox, apothecary - Uncaring
Hooker, sergeant - Devoted
Entek, tech-priest - Indifferent
Sorcerer - Devoted
The Boy - Unknown

Tempestus, chaplain - Dead?
The Captain - Dead

Forces:
Cruiser Crew - 62,000? - Devoted

Items:
Artificer Bodyglove (Unequipped)
Laspistol (Unequipped)
Synthesiser:
*Stimms (All-purpose combat drugs, designed to suppress fear and lessen stress and trauma.) [ACTIVE]
*Frenzon (Rage-inducing chemicals that throw the user into a violent fit. It bolsters strength, increases violent urges, and reduces self control.)
*Kalma (Euphoria-inducing painkillers used by medicae to subdue restless patients. This automatically releases when the user is nearing dangerous levels of pain.)
*Onslaught (Heightens awareness and improves reaction time, and allows the body to move abnormally fast. Prolonged use has a high risk of brain damage.)
*Spook (Spook temporarily awakens the user's psychic abilities, and in higher doses opens a channel between the body, the soul, and the Warp. Requires consuming a psyker to manufacture.) [UNAVAILABLE]

Location:
The Sodom, Dauntless-class Light Cruiser

 

[Kipeci]

... huh. I think I'll go with Entek and see how the mech-bros are doing with the ship and all. Or the Sorcerer, whichever one.

A > D

 

[Grimgravy]

D

 

[ERYFKRAD]

B>C

 

[Azira]

C>B

 

[lightbane]

Well, that ended poorly (for the centaur). I vote C. Time to give our walking cancer a bone.

 

[hello friend]

C>A

 

[Nevill]

Might as well.

D. Talk to the Sorcerer, in regards to the future and the will of the gods.

 

[Endemic]

C>D

 

[Storyfag]

C

 

[Major_Blackhart]

C

 

[Cheesecake]

Counting votes!

 

[Cheesecake]

Tally

A: Kipeci, (hello friend), 1(2)
B: ERYFKRAD, (Azira), 1(2)
C: (ERYFKRAD), Azira, lightbane, hello friend, Endemic, Storyfag, Major_Blackhart, 6(7)
D: (Kipeci), Grimgravy, Nevill, Endemic, (Storyfag), 3(5)
E:

C. Talk to Detox, in regards to the population, breeding, and health of the human and mutant population.

You take the pus-ridden apothecary aside, after he double-checks the vitals and assigns monotask servitors to monitor the womb in his absence, to speak with him in your solar. You both lie on chaise longues, waited on by gilded slaves. Detox's chaise longue sinks at his weight.

"Yes, Lena?" he asks, in clear discomfort. The lights in your solar are blinding, the ambient music deafening, and the air is eternally perfumed with drug-laced incense.

"How does the Sodom fare, brother-"

"Do not call me that."

Your outward face is impassive, but within you bristle. "As you wish, apothecary." You sip mindlessly from a crystal chalice. "How fares the Sodom and my people?"

He scratches one of his calloused chins. "Poorly, in truth. Your blood sports are wreaking havoc on the population; the mutants cannot breed fast enough to replace the losses. And as much as it pleases me and the Plaguefather, your sports are vile and fetid, and those who survive don't survive for long. The gifts of Nurgle are rampant in the lower sections of the ship. I do not mind, though I think you would."

And you do. What a cruel fate, to be so callous to pain. To be blind to garishness, and deaf to cacophony. Those plagued are already lost, yet they may still spread their diseases to the rest of the ship.

You:

A. Have them rounded up and quarantined, penned in the gutters of the space-faring leviathan.
B. Have them rounded up and killed, to prevent the virulent plague from spreading.
C. Leave them be. It would not do, to harass your siblings, if you still call yourself a child of Nurgle.
D. Something else:

As for the blood sports:

A. You leave them as they are. As Entek prophesies, the children of the victors are greater than those before them, and those after will be greater than they. They will grow resistant.
B. Sanitize them. Many will be displeased with the reduction of brutality and gore, yet it is a necessary sacrifice.
C. Abolish them altogether.
D. Something else:

"As for the 'pure' humans under Hooker's command, they grow vainer by the second. She complains they skimp training, slithering away to smoke obscura or have their way with deformed beasts. Their decadence will be their demise."

You shake your head. "Their decadence is their worship." You turn away to eat a morsel of human flesh. "But, I will speak with Hooker on the matter."

----

"And how fares my son?"

He gives a familial smile, for the briefest of moments, before scowling again. "Well, Lena. Your child is strong, very strong. At this rate, he'll be fully matured within a standard Terran month." He produces a stained dataslate from his labcoat pocket. "He's pure of any mutation, any deformity. It's impossible, considering his father had four legs, and that he was conceived in Warp-transit."

You smile. "I have no doubt of his flawlessness," you boast.

The apothecary checks his timepiece. "I have little faith in those servitors. If it's alright with you, I'll return to the womb now."

"Very well, but bring up:"

A. Talk to Entek, in regards to the Sodom's machinery, the servitors and servo-skulls, and the armory.
B. Talk to Hooker, in regards to the soldiers, training, and the policing of the Sodom.
C. Talk to the Sorcerer, in regards to the future and the will of the gods.
D. Talk with someone or do something else.

----

Character Sheet

Name: Lena Cythriel, Exalted Champion

Gifts:
Daemoniac Tongue
Exalted
Perfection
Terrible Visage

Favor:
Khorne - Hated
Nurgle - Betrayed
Tzeentch - Intrigued
Slaanesh - Exalted

Malal - Amused

Known Characters:
Detox, apothecary - Uncaring
Hooker, sergeant - Devoted
Entek, tech-priest - Indifferent
Sorcerer - Devoted
The Boy - Unknown

Tempestus, chaplain - Dead?
The Captain - Dead

Forces:
Cruiser Crew - 62,000? - Devoted

Items:
Artificer Bodyglove
Laspistol
Synthesiser:
*Stimms (All-purpose combat drugs, designed to suppress fear and lessen stress and trauma.) [ACTIVE]
*Frenzon (Rage-inducing chemicals that throw the user into a violent fit. It bolsters strength, increases violent urges, and reduces self control.)
*Kalma (Euphoria-inducing painkillers used by medicae to subdue restless patients. This automatically releases when the user is nearing dangerous levels of pain.)
*Onslaught (Heightens awareness and improves reaction time, and allows the body to move abnormally fast. Prolonged use has a high risk of brain damage.)
*Spook (Spook temporarily awakens the user's psychic abilities, and in higher doses opens a channel between the body, the soul, and the Warp. Requires consuming a psyker to manufacture.) [UNAVAILABLE]

Location:
The Sodom, Dauntless-class Light Cruiser

 

[ERYFKRAD]

D: Quarantine them in escape pods or similar things from where we can launch them at our enemies if need be. I'm sure they'll be happy to spread the gifts of Papa Nurgle.
D: Alter them. Make them either an honor for the worthiest crew members, or a punishment for the unworthy, where they can be assured of a clean death if they prevail against, with extreme handicaps.
B.