JOHN DOE

JOHN DOE

LISTEN CLOSELY CHILDREN FOR THIS TRAGIC TALE OF STAR CROSSED LOVERS OPPRESSED IN A TALE OF A THOUSAND WORLDS.

Amongst the ashes of heretical documentation lies a less traveled tale of bittersweet love amongst the shattered fate of a once proud family. The mighty Serpenta family was said to have a bloodline so pure it could be tracked back Holy Terra, with each marriage and union carefully arranged. This was said to be due to the unprecedented level of psychic prowess found amongst the scheming noble family, with even the least proud member flaunting mysterious abilities. Particularly they enjoyed mental abilities, secrets were said to have been lost the second one met the infamous Head of the Serpent, and nothing and no one were ever documented to have successfully withstood their machinations. Rumours abound back in the glorious old days, of deals or pacts with the chaos god of dragons Tzeentch or some other equally nefarious chaos power for their continued attunement to the warp, for no natural line as fruitful as theirs had ever been found. Never the less, Serpenta with its old Terran ties having long since been dissolved, eagerly ruled a fair portion of the Koronus Expanse, a well known name amongst a system where their powers could hold full sway, holding dominion from behind the scenes for many centuries. Their unquenchable thirst for power finally reached its peak one fateful day that shall be forever remembered in the minds of psykers but purged from any official records.

Holding a planet sized ritual, the Serpenta petitioned an incredibly powerful daemon for an incredibly simple demand "limitless power" believing their centuries long service of chaos allowed such a transgression. Tzeentch took notice of this hilarious demand, and according to his inscrutable ways decided to grant them their ultimate wish. Instructing the daemon that obviously already worked for him, Tzeentch told it to release all of its daemonic power in a single moment, granting every member of the Serpenta family limitless access to its powers. The subsequent release and implosion of such a incredible mind released a shockwave throughout the warp, targeting every member of the Serpenta family in the least attuned to the warp. This fried the mind of the Serpent, effectively eradicating the line as well as permanently damning the home world of the Serpenta "Brimoris" casting it halfway into the warp.

This is the world John woke to. A barren hellhole with purple flashing skies and tormented villagers, wondering vaguely why the night seemed to swallow all who stared into it. The records chronicle the last words of the village elders, who recount a baby found at the epicenter completely unharmed by the poison miasma of energy surrounding him. The baby was completely naked in a pit of ashes, found only with a beat up stick lying beside as if everything but that had been dissolved. Even as his founders, poor farmers working under the Serpenta family estate, mutated and tore each other to pieces before the Mayor the baby simply gurgled happily; no taint could be found in any of his actions. They declared him a miracle according to pagan gods, and set about raising him according to honest values even as the world crumbled down around them. Every day the world grew worse, more confusing, more irregular, more horrifying. When the boy was finally a man there wasn't much different between the villagers and the daemons, and John took it as the natural way of things. He was the unnatural one, with the older villagers weakening from his presence but inviting him all the same to the new ones who seemed to completely fade away. There was one exception though, the village healer and her daughter, far off his farmland and close to the epicenter. They claimed protection from the world John knew, worshipping an "allied Lord" and being spared the mutating influence John knew simply as "aging". The daughter was innocent though, and John knew real friendship for the first time in his life, his childhood spent happily running off with the only girl who still looked what we consider human. He felt wrong to her, she said, but not as wrong as the people who cared for John even as their flesh withered away, and so almost every happy childhood hour was spent in his company. Childhood friends turned childhood love, as they looked up upon the wildly twisting skies, protected in their separate ways from the madness it projected; they saw only beauty.

But duty took them apart, John to his failing family, starving as his presence cut off their life source, he had to farm from barren soil to keep them alive. This proved a problem, as everything he used seemed to melt or twist when not in his grip except his trusty old staff. They said they found it beside him as an infant, and that it simply seemed to grow more solid as the world around them shifted into chaos. Affixing different steel blades to the end to fashion crude farming implements such as scythes and hoes, John had finally found a reliable tool in an unreliable world. Janis went to her studies, wherein she lost her innocence, and learned off the cruel universe outside and its masters. Janis went off world several times, each time in her "studies" of chaos, and each time it became harder for her to tolerate Johns presence. Finally she disappeared for many years, and John was sad, believing her too ambitious to face the terrible stars and their challenges. Finally he received a message, strange creatures dropping down some technomancy at his feet before struggling to fly off again as its warp energies failed it. The message barely spewed out some staggered regrets, clearly in her voice, before being drowned out in static. Janis had found service in her lords presence, a daemon princess of the Lord Slanesh, it was an incredibly honor no mortal could refuse; it was everything she had worked for. However mortal concerns are meant for mortals, he could never touch her now, she spouted that she could not miss him, would not, but it is okay for your presence shall eliminate any trace of her betrayal of feelings... even to a god. Then she spurned him, cursing his name ordering him never to seek her out, for he would jeopardize everything, the only reason (S)He had not found out already due to John's unique nature. John ignored these warnings, he knew that love could surpass any boundaries, surely his presence couldn't be that harmful to her, or surely he could simply change himself as the daemons around him did constantly. He vowed he would take to the stars to find her, with one last harvest to see his parents through the winsummfaller (tzeentch world season).

As if his prayers were answered by Mighty Odin (the pagan chief god) himself, suddenly the sky split apart with great thunder. Drop pods rained down from above and all the townsfolk were swept into a mighty panic, screaming of steel rain and the steel legions. Fire, real fire, swept across the horizon as the very land itself was purged, and only the eldest of villagers remained silent and waited for his demise. The Imperium is here Johnny Boy, the empire of worlds here to enact justice upon us for the actions of our old lords, to counteract the poison of the Serpent. John later learned this was not true, his world too far removed to warrant such a waste of resources, and in fact it was the very actions of Janis that had warranted the mobilization of forces; the Imperium was quenching the forces of a new daemon princess before she could build any traction. Invincible soldiers encased in powered suits strode across the land, mowing down anything that so much as moved, and terrified men were forced into clearing the scarred remains. John calmly farmed, pulling in one last harvest, and completed his last parents final meal of real, clean, solid food. After pushing the last spoonful into a grinning, long suffering face as it died, he cleaned up, took up his weapon and strode out before a blinding light to meet the glorious challengers to his homelands order. Due to emerging from an area previously thought to be scoured clean by psyker inferno, John was not immediately cut down by lasfire, and successfully approached the clearly confused inquisitor. He requested service into these spacefaring, mythical peoples empire and was promptly shouted down by suspicious guards. However the Inquisitor merely took one look at the rugged farmer man and sighed, no taint could be found here, and the mans first request was to join the emperors crusade. For John was an untouchable, chaos had no hold over him, and the inquisitor had use for a man such as his talents.

Of course the deceptively clever John had his ulterior motives, his thirst for the stars not limited to merely the Imperiums interests, but since no being, even a god, can read his motives he remains safe to pursue his impossible dream without question.

"Ah jest need ma trusty scythe and Il rid ya of those nasty demun buggers, always usda git im stuck in the outhouse" - John