Alfred Von Valancius’ Backstory, basic points
This is the backstory I’ve thought up for my player character in the CRPG Rouge Trader set in the Warhammer 40k universe. I hope others more familiar with the setting can help me figure out if anything flat out contradicts established lore, and help me flesh this out.
1. Alfred was born in an industrial underhive district, just far enough up to have legitimate industries and some pretence of order.
2. His mother was an unsanctioned Psyker and the secret leader of a cult of Slaanesh.
3. His father was a servitor, who had once been upper-hive noble, a distant sprig of the Avon Valancius family tree. He’d been servitorized because of the intrigues of a rival, and his lobotomy was deliberately incomplete.
4. Yes, huge consent issues, what do you expect from Slaanesh.
5. When Alfred was around nine, the authorities found out about the cult and the plant where Alfred’s family lived and worked was raided by arbites and Inquisitorial acolytes.
6. His mother was killed, burned summarily as a witch.
7. His father was sent back to the Mechanicus for a tech-exorcism and factory renewal. “Why waste good equipment.” Alfred overheard this.
8. Alfred himself had demonstrated psychic abilities trying to run away so he was sent to the Black Ships.
9. He survived the ships, the sanctioning process, and the Schola Psychana.
10. When he graduated he was assigned to the Imperial Guard as an auxiliary to the 40th Maignh, a Line Infantry Regiment formed from the PDF of an ordinary world.
11. The regiment was holding the top of a hill named Parva Culmen Rotundum on the planet Geddysbùrgh, surrounded by ravening Orks, who repeatedly charged them. The orks were killed in droves but kept coming. The regiment lost all of their normal officers and their commissar. Then their lasguns ran out of ammo. Alfred told the remaining solders to fix bayonets, drew on his mystic powers to strengthen them, and then ordered a charge down the hill into the teeth of the Orkish horde.
12. The orks were overwhelmed and defeated, and the 40th Maignh were able to like up with their relief force, the 110th Catachan, who were amazed that this feat was accomplished by softworlders. After this Alfred became known as the “Hero of Geddysbùrgh”
13. After the Battle of Geddysbùrgh the 100th and 40th were amalgamated into the 1st Geddysbùrgh Assault Infantry Regiment. Following Catachan tradition, Alfred was elected as their colonel.
14. After other engagements, the 1st wound up as a rear guard on a planet in the Calaxis sector being overrun by traitors serving Nurgle and Khorne (most Imperials wouldn’t know the Chaos Gods by name, but well, witch mother, sanctioned Psyker). It was a suicide mission and everyone knew it. Alfred spent nearly a day “closeted in prayer”, and emerged with glowing blue eyes and a perfect strategy and from beyond the Veil.
15. Two months later, Lord General Butler arrived with the Imperial Navy to do an exterminatus. To their amazement, they received a triumphant vox call announcing that the planet was back under imperial control. The regiment had taken under 100 casualties since the rest of the Guard evacuated, no civilians had been harmed while the 1st was present to guard them, the traitors had been annihilated, and the colonel was indisposed because of a severe headache.
16. General Butler’s commissar (Clayton) was suspicious, and after the rumors about glowing eyes and things with too many tentacles fighting alongside the guard reached Commissar Clayton he formally accused Alfred of heresy.
17. The circumstantial evidence was certainly damning, but to a man Alfred’s Guardsmen denied all of the rumors, and asserted that his behavior and opinions were perfectly orthodox under official questioning.
18. When questioned unofficially the men of the 1st made very creative threats in the best Catachan tradition of dealing with meddling commissars.
19. Eventually the whole thing was swept under the rug. The 1st Geddysbùrgh were amalgamated with another regiment with a new colonel, and Alfred was packed off to serve as the sole Psyker for a PDF on a boring out-of-the-way world.
20. Fortunately, Auntie Theodora’s letter arrived before Alfred became too utterly bored.
