Hello!
Welcome to an absolutely insane Grimdark Month! As usual, I'll be keeping most of the Grimdark WIPs off patreon due for Angry Company reasons. Patreon as a platform also has stricter policies now so that's another reason. I've sent all members emails for the complete set of WIPs and high resolution turntables. Please PM me if you did not receive this information.
To kick things off, let's look at the Repentia who are easily one of the craziest units in the Sister of Battle. In traditional lore, they are warriors who have somehow failed in their duty to the Emperor and have been stripped away of their power armor as punishment. This can be something extreme like retreating in battle or trivial like littering depending how strict the Canoness is.
These Sisters become Repentia and must redeem themselves in the eyes of their Order. How this criteria is met is largely up to the judgement of the Mistress of Repentance, tasked with overseeing their penance. Repentia are armed with Eviscerators, charging into glorious melee to wash away their sins in the blood of their enemies.
So a couple of months ago, I took a quick look around cyberspace to see what's available nowadays. I quickly became convinced that the Angry Company is trying to give their customers narcolepsy so they can just cut out the middle man and nick their wallets directly. Repentia are many things but boring should not enter anyone's vocabulary when describing them.
Anyways, I decided I can safely ignore all of the newer stuff and just go old school when the setting was at its Grimdark-iest and the most interesting. Actually no, I need to go full on insaneo style for my Repentia otherwise I shouldn't bother doing them at all. To that end, I've come up with a homebrew Order that I'm going to call the Bloody Martyrs and the idea behind them is they're Sisters of Battle but (more) insane. Or to put it in another way, they are to the Sisters of Battle what the Death Korps of Krieg are to the Imperial Guard if you catch my drift.
I'm talking about a real lunatics run the asylum kind of situation. Their words are 'My Armour Is Contempt' and they actually mean it. No, I'm not pulling that out of my ass. There is an in universe concept that absolute faith in the Emperor can protect their soul from the Ruinous Powers. Depending how loosely you want to treat the lore, it can also invoke other miracles as well.
Lore? Hmm, admittedly that's pretty thin but I imagined them having the martial culture of the Black Templars and whipping proclivities of the Excoriators. The Black Templar comparison is easy, they love melee. So by their insane logic, becoming a Repentia is less of a punishment and more of an opportunity to wield a big f*** off chainsword in combat.
The Excoriators comparison is harder to explain but basically there's an official Chapter out there who thinks getting whipped daily by their Chapter Serfs purifies the soul. 😅 No, I'm not joking about that, go read Legion of the Damned if you don't believe me. The point is, the Bloody Martyrs treat the whip as a reward not a punishment.
So all this is pretty crazy but there's a (very thin) reason behind this madness. Due to their literally insane acts of devotion, the Bloody Martyrs can cheese the in universe faith mechanic, pulling off a ridiculous amount of miracles compared to the other Orders in the Adepta Sororitas.
Like, we're talking some real BS levels of cheesy miracles. Shot at point blank range by a melta gun? Not a scratch. Chaos Terminator Armour? One scream of "For the Emperor!" and the Eviscerator cuts through it easier than a Genestealer. I plan on expanding this absurd power later this month if I get the chance.
Is this really stupid lore? Absolutely, pure junk food trash. But I'm creating a unit that's already ridiculous the more you think about it so I'm going to have some fun with the idea. 😄
So I've tried to give a bunch of costume and head options for the Repentia and introducing some unique elements. If you're old school, you might recognize where I got some of the costume ideas. And unlike the less pious Orders who write their litanies on purity seals, the Blood Martyrs carve their oaths into their skin. No, Khorne doesn't have a monopoly on that and they'll burn anyone who says otherwise. 😅 And yes, I actually did etch their litanies into the skin for the detail.
But the idea is to make the options modular and the player can decide what style they want. I'll also provide some power sword, whip options for variety.
Next up is Typhus the Traveller originally known as Calas Tyhpon. He is a champion of Nurgle and the former First Captain of the Death Guard Legion. He is also one of the most feared of all Chaos Lords, commanding the legendary Terminus Est, an ancient, filth-encrusted battleship that was ancient even before the Horus Heresy.
Typhus is an interesting character and I might do a more in-depth summary of him later. But for now, just know that he directly caused the Death Guard's damnation and almost certainly holds the record of highest actual deaths in the Grimdark universe. Yes, way way higher than Khârn or the Armless Failure.
Because just like in real life, disease often carries a way higher kill count than actual battlefield deaths and Tyhpus has been spreading the Destroyer Plague for 10,000 years pretty much non stop. Oh, and he was dissing his own Primarch long before it was fashionable to do so. Interestingly, Typhus sees Mortarion less as his Primarch and more as an inconvenience he has to work around to carry out Nurgle's will which is pretty ballsy of him. To that end, he pretty much hijacked an entire Death Company for his own purposes and ignores Mortarion's commands unless it somehow actually aligns with Nurgle's objectives. We gotta respect the hustle. 👍
Typhus is also host to the Destroyer Hive. This is basically an incubator for Warp-spawned Daemonic flies which spread the Destroyer Plague. The venom from the flies' bites causes the victim's skin to turn into suppurating jelly and sprout hard, unnatural growths. Victims experience severe, agonizing swelling of the belly (or abdomen) until the body eventually bursts, releasing a new wave of plague flies Various parts of the victim's body will simultaneously liquify and harden, causing the flesh and even power armor to melt and twist. Despite horrific disfigurements and fatal physical trauma, the plague prevents the victim from dying, trapping them in excruciating and constant torment.
This is actually the same disease that infected the Death Guard during the Horus Heresy, an event that Typhus himself engineered to happen. Their agony was so horrific, it caused Mortarion to pledge himself and the Death Guard to Nurgle in order to escape the torment.
Anyways, my proxy for Typhus will follow the style for all of Nurgle's chosen with all the grotesque mutations and disgusting blessings that a champion should have. I wanted to capture how corrupt and encrusted his armor is with Nurgle's creatures, so I added a ton of disgusting looking growths, eggs and maggots crawling out of every crevice.
As far as I know, he's never shown his face in 40K but after 10,000 years, I'm sure he's looking suitably...ripe under the helmet. 😅So I made my own version of what I imagined what he would look like but I will also include a helmet option that fans should enjoy. I'm also working on some other helmet, weapon variations for Death Guard Terminator proxies. More to come later.
Okay, the Ork Gargant and relic style Terminator Armour is up next. Stay tuned!