Aato Vayrynen

Remembrancer Sketch of Aato Vayrynen

The Prince of the Skies, **Aato Väyrynen** flies above the battlefield until descending on his prey. A caring Primarch, Aato highly values his legion and his home system, and will go to great lengths to protect them. He is scientifically minded, constantly thinking of solutions to problems and his experiments, spending most of his spare time in his laboratory or on a test field. His main desire is to find a way to travel without using the Warp, a desire bordering on an obsession in protecting his home system from Warp Storms. This obsession would lead him to go to any length to protect his homeworld, an objective that the Ruins threatened to destroy forever.

## **Background**

### **Origins**

Aato Väyrynen’s stasis pod did not crash-land as many of his brothers’ did, his stasis pod slowly drifted into Maaparatiisi’s atmosphere, the low gravity of the world barely pulling on the pod. It is impossible to know how long Aato moved through the atmosphere, though later conversations with Aato would reveal that he awoke at some point and was conscious when he was found. He was collected by a group of airships, thinking the pod to be debris to be salvaged. On the journey back to the cloud city of Raipio, Aato studied the voidsmen and aircraft, Aato had aged enough in his pod to be able to learn to speak from listening to the voidsmen, and when he arrived at the harbour of Raipio he slipped off the ship and escaped into the city. There he lived amongst the homeless and orphaned children, many children of voidsmen who died in battle. He earned food by sneaking into the harbour and stripping ships for parts to sell or create unique devices to sell on the black market. During this time Aato also encountered Maraparatiisi’s dark secret: the pernicious drug trade made from the deadly flora. Many of the homeless that Aato lived aside were former pilots and voidsmen who had lost out in the highly competitive aeronautical systems, having resorted to performance-enhancing drugs to keep pace with younger pilots to the point that their lives were ruined.

Aato lived on the streets for a few years, until one day he found the opportunity to stow away on one of Raipio’s grandest warships. Taking to the skies, his ship was attacked by a rival city, and the warship suffered severe damage and began to fall. As the crew began to evacuate, Aato refused to abandon ship, and worked to repair the damage by himself. He managed to get the warship heading back towards Raipio, but even with his innate aptitude he was unable to save the ship. Aato retreated to the peak of the ship, and jury-rigged a thruster to launch Aato himself at Raipio’s harbour. He barely managed to reach the harbour, throwing himself forward and landing hard on the city floor. The survivors of the warship saw him and his efforts, and the voidsmen picked him up and took him back to the Raipian Air Base.

It was here that Aato found his true calling, as his skill in engineering and piloting were discovered and honed alongside Raipio’s many voidspeople. He began improving on the designs of the aircraft and worked to improve safety and save the lives of the pilots. These new aircraft propelled Raipio to a position of prominence on Maaparatiisi, winning several air battles and gaining control of cities that had opposed Raipio for generations. Aato led the fleet on many occasions, working on modifying his own personal airship to surpass any other vessel on the world. As leader of Marapaatiisi, Aato began expeditions to planets within the system, which the scientists of Marapaatiisi had named after the mythological hero of Vesa. While many different kinds of resources were found, the worlds were not capable of maintaining self-sufficient colonies. He coupled this with attempts to fix the social problems of his world, seeking to end the dependencies on the planet’s drugs and elevate the next generation of citizens.

The Imperium would eventually discover the Vesa System, with a Rogue Trader vessel being detected by a scout vessel from Marapaatiisi, which returned to Marapaatiisi and alerted Aato. Aato responded by mobilising his fleet and making the Rogue Trader at the outermost world of Jaakkola. As soon as the Rogue Trader met Aato, he knew he was in the presence of a Primarch, and word was sent back to Terra to inform the Emperor that another of his sons had been found.

### **Reunion**

The reunion of Aato and the Void Seekers would be the most important event in the legion’s history. Upon meeting their gene-father and being taken to his homeworld, many of the marines suffering from the Void feeling at home for the first time in their long lives and felt an extremely strong bond to Maaparatiisi and Aato. For Aato, the reunion was both a joyous and deeply saddening moment, seeing the low morale of his sons and the lengths they had gone to to try and fill the Void. His reforms mainly focused on the culture of the legion, turning the formerly dour and morose XIIIth into the optimistic and forward-looking Sky Reavers. Recreational activities were promoted and the Hevoskurssi were founded, with Aato taking part in the first race weighted down to make the contest fair. Fairness would become a hallmark of Aato’s impact on the legion, as the legion’s command hierarchy would become more open to input from all marines and even Aato himself was not above criticism. Though some of his stricter brothers viewed this as insubordination, the choice spared the legion any festering feelings of alienation amongst the Terrans, whose experience helped shape the new Sky Reavers.

## **Wargear**

* **The Armour of the Storm** -
* **Sky Razor** -
* **Thunder** - A weapon from the Dark Age of Technology that is a mystery as to how it works. All is known is that it operates with sounds and lost knowledge. Its bullets explode with wave of sound when they penetrate the armour or even hit their target.
* **Melta Bombs**
* **Frag Grenade**
* **Taivaan Siivet** - Custom made jump pack that belongs to Aato. Long forgotten technology probably from the Age of Strife, gifted to him by the Emperor.

## **Gallery**

Remembrancer Sketch of Aato Vayrynen helmed