Elcano Avis

**Elcano Avis** is a highborn Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos known for fanaticism and secrecy, he has remained neutral in Imperial politics.

## History

### Early Life

Elcano was the fifth child of a Baron of the Avis noble family, at the time a highly influential family of the Hive World Getariaz. Displaying psychic ability at a young age, Elcano would be turned over to a black ship and would be delivered to Terra on 860.M41 where he would be deemed controlled and potent enough to receive further training before finally (through bribery by the Avis family) being transferred back to his homeworld specializing in telepathy and telekinesis. Upon his return he would informed that Getariaz has been besieged by orks for nearly a decade resulting in the loss of over half the family (including both of his parents and 4 of his siblings). The family, he would learn, had only bought him back in an attempt to improve the family's business and thus return it to it's former glory.

### Introduction to the Inquisition

After working in the family business for a year, spending most of his free time in the local temples to the Emperor, Inquisitor Thadd of the Ordo Xenos would arrive to the world, hunting orks who were believed to still be remaining on the planet secretly. Determined to improve the family's political standing, Elcano would offer himself to Thadd due to his knowledge of the new layout of the hive sections of interest (his family responsible for most of the repairs in the area) and his psychic capability. While Elcano would successfully lead Thadd to the proposed location of the orks and be able to slay one with his dueling pistol, an ork rokkit would destroy his left arm and leg, burn serveral internal organs, blind him, and burn his face. His life would be saved by Arriaga Avis (a work boss and minor noble who had become trapped fleeing orks) who would protect his body and get the attention of the medical officer Thadd had brought with them. After recovering (with his heart, lungs, several bones, both eyes, much of his face, and his left arm and leg being replaced with machines and a couple of organs replaced with cloned ones) he would be hired by Thadd for his resilience and psychic capabilities which had improved after the accident; as thanks for his rescue, Arriaga Avis would be brought along to serve as Elcano's assistant and bodyguard.

### Promotion to Inquisitor

After serving Thadd as an acolyte and then a throne agent he would be gifted ignatus power armour and a grav-pistol alongside his rosette before deciding to join the Ordo Xenos. While being transported to an inquisitorial stronghold to start his career, their ship would come under attack from a flotilla of Imperial Navy deserters who, having fled their newly formed fleet, feared that the vessel had been sent to capture them. In the following battle, the inquisitorial black ship Thadd was using begun to break apart causing Thadd to order an evacuation. During the evacuation, Elcano, Arriaga, ships navigator Giscard and several Inquisitorial storm troopers would escape to boarding torpedoes, attacking the traitor flagship (a scouting destroyer known as the 'Pulse of Faith') and, despite heavy casualties, Elcano would successfully claim the ship and escape into the warp, watching the black ship Thadd had been on be destroyed. After the ship arrived in the nearest system, elcano would begin his month long purge of the remaining deserters still alive onboard and in the end have only 13 crew members who would have to drift into port before they could bring in a new, loyal crew.

### The First Operation

Elcano's first action as an inquisitor was his hunt of a genestealer cult that had taken root in the system he had drifted into. Taking information from the arbites task force hunting the cult led by investigator Ritto, he would determine the location of the patriarch of the genestealer cult (after capturing an assassin sent to eliminate Ritto). After infiltrating the cult, he, Arriaga, and several arbites attacked the throne room where he would enter a psychic battle with the patriarch, distracting it for long enough to allow a still disguised Ritto to throw melta charges at it. After the explosives were in place Elcano would collapse unconscious, having to be dragged to safety by Arriaga once again before the melta charges were detonated. In the aftermath, the investigator Ritto had impressed Elcano enough to be his first recruit since the death of Thadd.

### Hunt for the Corsair

Elcano spent three years hunting an eldar corsair who had begun orchestrating several massacres and purges of Imperial planets. During the investigation he would discover the illegal bounty hunter and mutant Grachk who stopped him from finally capturing the eldar after 2 years of searching. After subduing Grachk with his psychic abilities (after losing his left leg to a chainsword) he interrogated him and would learn they had both been hunting the same person and both had valuable information that, once put together, made it easier to track them. With a temporary alliance Elcano and Grachk, backed up by 20 Inquisitorial storm troopers, finally boarded the corsairs ship though found it to be a trap where 7 storm troopers died when the ship begun to explode. Elcano and Grachk escaped the dying vessel by descending to the surface, unwilling to call off the hunt at this point while the storm troopers returned to the ***Pulse of Faith***. On the surface Elcano first found the eldar and entered into a duel with it, their minds clashing and eventually bringing Elcano to his knees; as he stared at the Aeldari blade about to behead him the wounded eldar flailed aside with its screams subdued by chainswords. Within moments the brute force of Grachk slammed down upon the corsair, rather brutally killing it in the mud of the forgotten death world. Grachk was offered a job almost immediately after Elcano recovered from his wounds.

## Equipment

* **Ignatus Power Armour**
* **Rosarius**
* **Force Sword**
* **Duelling Laspistol**
* **Grav-Pistol**
* **Combat Shotgun**

## Vehicles

* ***Pulse of Faith*** - Personal vessel, Claymore-class Corvette

## Retinue

(In order of recruitment)

* **Sir Arriaga Avis**: A minor member of the Avis family, he has served Elcano Avis as a loyal advisor, protecting him from various threats while remaining ever loyal. Arriaga wears carapace armour in battle alongside wearing a refractor field inside of a ring and a single shot laspistol in another ring. He wields 2 stub revolvers.
* **Giscard Van Hus**: Former navigator of Inquisitor Thadd, he escaped with Elcano when their ship was lost. Aged over 350, he served Thadd for much of his career and has been Elcanos only navigator. Standing at around 1.5 times the height of the average human and being far thinner than one should be, he generally remains out of the sight of most people as he does not seek judgement. He wears fine quality blue robes with gold linings and carries a master-crafted power sabre. Raised on Terra in opulence, he rarely leaves his personal domain within the ship. Whenever he is found among others he keeps his third eye hidden behind his hood and has a mixture of fear and contempt for the outside world due to most Imperial citizens views upon mutants, even registered ones.

* **Ritto**: Originally a temporary ally, after his task force was no longer needed he would join the inquisitor as an acolyte specialising in demolitions and investigations. Having worked with him for most of Elcanos' career, he recently requested to begin the process of becoming an inquisitor himself. He still wears his arbites carapace armour carrying a hand cannon, shotgun and ultima pattern power maul in battle.
* **Ada Morelia Carinata Bredli**: Arriving to late too support a system under attack from tyranids, Elcano would scan for any other ships in the area discovering an old Mechanicus vessel ruined by centuries of travelling the void alone. Opening vox communications provided nothing but eerie silence, not even the crackling of machines. Elcano would board the ship to discover a stasis field had trapped most of the crew, the chronometer being carried by a trapped tech adept showing the field had activated over 350 years ago. Elcano would order the use of explosives to destabilise the field and release those onboard (though the ship was more vulnerable than expected so several sections broke apart killing most of the crew). Discovering genestealers had boarded after they had been abandoned by the rest of the fleet, Elcano would only be able to evacuate one techpriest with his team before the ship was destroyed. Ada, with nowhere else to go, would join Elcano as the ships techpriest maintaining both the ship and its crew. Ada has 3 mechendrites (1 auspex system, 2 clawed hands) alongside heavy augmentation, a flowing red mechanicus cloak, and a finely crafted plasma pistol for self-defence.
* **Grachk**: An unlicensed bounty hunter and a beastman, when he and Elcano met while hunting an eldar who was hiding on a death world they both nearly killed each other. Despite their first encounter, the two would begin to work well together hunting the eldar ranger through the forgotten, twisted jungles on the uninhabited death world out beyond the Imperiums reach. Elcano would find the eldar first and would almost be killed in the ensuing duel by trying to capture it alive before Grachk slammed into the eldars back, breaking its spine before slamming his dual chainswords into it's broken back. After that, he offered Grachk a job as an acolyte for his tracking skills and combat ability. Grachk uses two chainswords and a las-lock sniper rifle in battle, wearing partial carapace armour Elcano had commissioned for him.
* **Storm Trooper Captain Zhanyinbao**: Hired from a backwater feral world overrun with ork and chaos worshipping human clans, Elcano conscripted the 31st Khatan Tempestus Scion regiment to help eliminate an ork warboss leading a large snakebites klan. While over half the regiment would be killed, Elcano had successfully toppled the largest group of orks on the planet and helped set a chain of events into process that resulted in the world being returned to the Imperium in only 3 more months. After the conflict was over, Elcano would order the survivors of the 31st Khatan delivered to an abandoned space station where the 21 survivors would be turned over to Elcano to serve as a personal fighting force. Shortly after Elcano left the planet originally, the regiment was ambushed by a large force of orks at 4th ridge with Captain Zhanyinbao taking command of the last survivors who would provide only minimal roles in future conflict. When offered to work with Elcano instead of being merged, all 21 survivors unanimously accepted the offer to join him. Zhanyinbao still wears the carapace armour from when he was only a scion, wielding a hot-shot lasgun, boltpistol, and a large power sword with a refractor field having been built into the left shoulder pad of his armour.
* **Tempestor Luis Mendoza**: Having been a scion when he first fought for Elcano, he would be promoted after the massacre at 4th ridge, having been the only member of his squad to survive an attack by a weirdboy as he was a light psychic pariah so was unharmed. Luis carries a hot-shot lasgun, bolt pistol (taken from a dead commissar) and a chainsword.
* **Tempestor Duarte Barbosa**: The youngest tempestor in the regiment, Duarte survived unscathed through the regiments fighting as an exemplar of efficiency and professionalism. Duarte wields a hot-shot lasgun, autopistol, and chainsword.
* **Ship Captain Ferdinand Drake**: From a wealthy family of rogue traders, he was offered as captain by his family in return for information about the system Elcano had met Grachk in. The low-ranking scion of the family readily accepted the opportunity to work for the inquisition and has proven himself to be more than capable against most threats the ships has faced such as pirates and genestealer cultists, or the occasional ork craft. Ferdinand Drake wears a uniform most of the time, a dueling laspistol at his hip. When in combat he wears finely decorated carapace armour and a small, curved power blade at his side taken as a trophy from an extinct imperial colony he discovered shortly before being recruited.

* **Crusader Leon**: He was recruited recently when Elcano returned to his homeworld to become a baron of his family after two Death Cult assassins of the Sons of Dispater attacked. While Elcano would disarm and capture the first, the second would incapacitate and hold Arriaga hostage before being rammed by Leon (nearly killing Arriaga from the impact) with both Leon and the cultist fighting for several minutes until he collapsed a pillar in the street onto both himself and the cultist, using the cultist as a shield since he had lost the arm he carried his shield with. Leon wields a master-crafted power broadsword and suppression shield (alongside being outfitted with many augmentations)
* **Laminia**: A Son of Dispater sent to kill Elcano, he would be captured and offered a chance to work for his continued life. To ensure loyalty, an explosive collar remains around Laminias neck at all times and he remains in a cell, training continuously until called upon for his skills as an assassin. He wears no armour, instead depending upon his reflexes and a displacer field anklet. He uses duel power sabres in battle.
* **Afonso Avis**: Sent to Elcano to gain experience, Afonso serves as an archivist and accountant for Elcano due to his intelligence and mechanically enhanced brain. Incompetent when it comes to fighting, he wears a digi-laser in case of attack and rarely leaves the ship. Young, fearful, and inexperienced, Elcano has recently begun to give Afonso unnecessary yet challenging and time-consuming tasks to distract him and have him watch Giscard work when outside of the Warp.
* **Cyber-mastiff Galen**: Arriving with Afonso, Elcano has discovered the dog is able to sniff out several chemicals involved in some explosives while also being able to track scents so is kept as a pet and (when needed) a tracker of Elcanos targets.
* **Astropath Nikola Marconi**: The most recent addition to Elcanos crew after the death of his last astropath in an accident. Nikola had returned to his homeworld after training as an astropath, having taken his childhood pet psyber-raven called Tesla as a psychic familiar. When Elcano arrived at Nikolas homeworld he approached him as he was still young and stronger than most while still giving clearer information than average due to his familiar clearing his mind. Nikola accepted the role mainly out of fear and respect as he had not wanted to leave his home again though wouldn't refuse an inquisitor. Despite his strength, Nikola still requires a cane to walk. He is not capable in battle though still keeps a hot-shot laspistol he trains with. His pet psyber-raven remains with him at all times.

## Abilities and Traits

Elcano is a potent psyker (Gamma grade) specialising in telepathy and telekinesis. He is also, due to his noble upbringing, a skilled duelist and well-educated individual though is physically rather weak due to his augmentations and age (his endurance especially damaged by the use of cheap rejuvenats that have damaged his blood flow). Elcano generally avoids direct conflict trying to ambush or out think his opponents as he knows many xenos are more than capable of killing him if they get the chance. Despite his psychic power it strains him to use it continuously use them with him losing consciousness should he be actively using the abilities for something strenuous while minor uses result in headaches and tiredness. He is mainly known for his psychic abilities and his intelligence, his physical body a wreck after decades of overuse and continuous injury in service.

## Physical Appearance

Despite being slightly taller than the average human he rarely looks it due to his mechanical augmentations causing his back to remain slightly crooked. His face, much like most of his body, is a mix of machine, scar tissue, and pale flesh corrupted by cheap rejuvenat treatments used to sustain his remaining biological components. While he is over 100 years of age, he still has a somewhat disturbingly young looking face, beyond the rather obvious machines still replicating senses lost to him long ago.

## Personality

When he is interacted with he displays a suspicion of all around him that he has not spent long enough around. While outwardly he holds a superiority of himself over the standard Imperial citizen, having mostly survived through luck and the support of his retinue he feels like an imposter, not truly suited for such a valuable role (this idea further supported by the belief of many that psykers are lesser than those who are not mutated). Despite the distrust he generally receives and shows, he is still a pious individual who believes he is doing as the Emperor requires.