The Divinity

o/

Okay, so my Christmas break (blogging wise) was a bit longer than anticipated. I wanted to have SOMETHING to post other than 'look! I got even more toys for Christmas!' Anyways, while perusing Hoard o' bits for some bases last week, i stumbled across a Dwarven dirigible from Dreadfleet. It was kinda funky looking, so on a whim I got one along with my bases. Yesterday it arrived, and after adding a few bits, trimming the smoke stacks, a quick paint job (gotta love BFG for that fact alone), behold! I give you: The Divinity!

Its kinda cute for a BFG ship...

Now, in one of our Dark Heresy campaigns, I play an Adept-turned-madman, the 'living Imperial Saint' Boris Sevastopol. Currently his team is traveling thru the warp enroute to...somewhere (I don't recall where as its been quite sometime since I played him). However our GM has mentioned that a possible future outcome for him would be to place Boris at the helm of his own Imperial Crusade! Were this to come to pass, then odds are our Sister Secunda (among others) would go out of character & physically assault our GM! However the 'Divinity' is the ship I see as the vehicle for Saint Sevastopol's 'crusade'.

The Divinity was a tramp freighter known as the Sprite, and operated on a contract to contract basis, always teetering on the edge of financial oblivion. With neither a navigator nor astropath, it was limited to calculated warp jumps of no more than four light years, which further constrained her captain's (and owner's) dire situation. Desperate, a contract to smuggle Ghostfire pollen from Icanthos was accepted, and proved to be the Sprite's undoing.

Boarded & impounded, with her crew imprisoned and owner executed, the Sprite & her crew seemed destined to be crushed within the Imperial legal machine. Now just why the Inquisitor (known only to me as 'Omega') took interest in the Sprite is a mystery. Perhaps it was nothing more than a personal amusement, or rather he saw it as a creative way to eliminate a few loose ends (or is it loose screws?), perhaps it was an abuse of his power, or he was merely enjoying the perks of his position, regardless, Omega took ownership of the Sprite, her crew and rewrote their destiny.

With a few well placed donations, Omega was able to secure the official (and uncirculated) pronouncement of Sevastopol's elavation to 'Living Saint'. The Sprite's crew would be returned to their ship with Sevastopol as the highest moral (Hey! Stop laughing!) and religious authority aboard, indeed he was given absolute power (within the confines of the ship anyways) and a battalion's worth of penal troops (the Munitorum always has a surplus of these) which was to be led by Sevastopol's long time Inquisitorial teammate, the incredibly corrupt Arbitrator (or is that traitor?) Colonel Gentleman. Declared to be the 'tip of the spear' on a new crusade to liberate the space beyond the Koronus expanse! Saint Sevastopol's new ship the renamed Divinity would be this spear tip, to be followed on by the rest of the crusade fleet.

That was Omega's story anyways... Saint Sevastopol gathered his new minions, and made a glorious speech (he thought so anyway) telling them of the glories that awaited them. However no one aside from Sevastopol himself believed that a crusade was forthcoming, instead seeing the speech as the rambling diatribe of a lunatic, and their forthcoming journey as a death sentence (it is believed that the esteemed colonel Gentleman was too inebriated at the time to care). Asking if any of those present wished to not join him, Saint Sevestopol was pleased to note that not one man moved from his place! Truly his righteousness was proven! He then dismissed all present to prepare for immediate embarkation. Unbeknownst to Boris, the Inquisition did offer an alternative to joining this futile effort. That being a trip out of the nearest airlock. The human psyche being what it is, the chance to live a bit longer, and perhaps to save themselves via a savior pod later on (all of which were secretly welded into the hull & rendered unusable by Omega's order) is better than a miserable death now.

Leaving without any fanfare (Boris as per his usual, was too caught up in his own grandeur to even notice) the Divinity left for the Koronus expanse and was never heard from again...

Not a bad story for a ship that's not much bigger than the peg it sits on eh?