Vastarian: Houston 2024 Day 3

With immense mental fortitude, Saint Voskhodh - the Voice of the Outer Dark, clawed their way back from the brink of doom, escaping the damning clutches of the Empyrean, intent on activating the lighthouse at Ravachol.

It is hard to fathom, but it has been over a year since we, with the help of Bill Ford, hosted our first Inq28 narrative event: Vastarian - Dreams of the Pious! While we covered the first two days of the event (see here and here), life intervened, and we did not share what happened on the final day. We wanted to rectify this and start sharing how the event concluded! On the final day, all the participants played multiple simultaneous games, culminating in the final confrontation at the hyperradiant lighthouse in Ravachol, Vastarian. We plan to post numerous updates documenting the chaos of these games, aiming to give readers a glimpse into the multiple narratives unfolding. Hopefully, this time it will not take an entire year to finish!

Vastarian: Using the Trench Crusade ruleset

Inheritance.

It is hard to fathom, but it has been almost a year since we hosted, with the help of Bill Ford, our first Inq28 narrative event: Vastarian - Dreams of the Pious! We have written about the first two days of the event so far (one, two), sharing the participants and the rules we used. While we used a modified version of Necromuda for the event, we have encouraged people to use any ruleset they enjoy to play games in the setting. Ultimately, it is more important to use a ruleset you are familiar with, as the games will flow more smoothly and allow you to focus on narrative elements. It is our hope that people will not be chained to rules-as-written and will be willing to modify things to better suit the narrative as cool moments unfold. With this in mind, I had been meaning to use the Trench Crusade rules for some Vastarian games, primarily because they streamline many mechanics and because the religious setting of the game parallels Vastarian's. To my good fortune, work brought Bill to Baltimore recently, and when he suggested we play a game with some of our Vastarian warbands, I suggested we give the Trench Crusade rules a try.

Vastarian: Church Raid

The Cult of the Lantern (created by rojasnoirlac) has made its way to Ravachol, Vastarian.

Recently, when Bill Ford was in Maryland for a work trip, we had the good fortune of meeting up with him and Dave Taylor! Not wanting to miss the opportunity to roll some dice, we were able to set up Bill’s Chapel board and play a game within our Vastarian setting! Below are some photos from the game with a loose narrative conveyed in the captions.

Vastarian: A suffocating darkness

Eli standing next to his horrifying creation, the Child Inverted.

Last November we held an Inq28 event with Bill Ford: Vastarian - Dreams of the Pious. The setting revolves around the cathedral world of Vastarian, which is home to hundreds of disparate Imperial religious sects, each venerating the God-Emperor of Mankind in their own unique way. The opening of the Cicatrix Maledictum, a great tear in the fabric of the Milky Way Galaxy, has resulted in a psychic awakening across the populace of Vastarian. Each religious sect on the planet now believes that they alone were blessed with a psychic emissary touched by the Emperor himself. The tenuous peace on Vastarian has now devolved to bloodshed and persecution. During this psychic turmoil, the Astronomican, the purifying radiance of the Emperor, plummeted as if it were a tallow candle guttering in a tumultuous wind. It was in dreams that panic spread, a euphoric terror spawned from an encroaching darkness–a presence that seeping in from the margins, dripping from the stars as if they were untethering from reality. This darkness was later attributed to the manifestation of a daemonic presence on Vastarian, the Child Inverted. These daemons were made in secret by Eli (redwetskeleton) and only revealed on the final day of the event, when the lighthouse was activated!

Vastarian: Houston 2024 Day 2

Death Was The Colour.

Here at Between the Bolter and Me, we have spent the entirety of 2024 working on Vastarian - Dreams of the Pious, our Warhammer 40,000 setting. During that time, we have been encouraging others to get involved with it as a collaborative worldbuilding effort. The setting revolves around the cathedral world of Vastarian, which is home to hundreds of disparate Imperial religious sects, each venerating the God-Emperor of Mankind in their own unique way. The opening of the Cicatrix Maledictum, a great tear in the fabric of the Milky Way Galaxy, has resulted in a psychic awakening across the populace of Vastarian. Each religious sect on the planet now believes that they alone were blessed with a psychic emissary touched by the Emperor himself. The tenuous peace on Vastarian has now devolved to bloodshed and persecution. During this psychic turmoil, the purifying radiance of the Emperor, the Astronomican, plummeted as if it were a tallow candle guttering in a tumultuous wind. In desperation, many of the Spyrehead conclaves on the planet pooled their resources and delved deeply into crumbling treatises on the nature of astropathic beacons and put into motion a fantastical gambit: fortifying the principle lighthouse in Ravachol as a psychic conduit to amplify the waning Astronomican.

In an effort to continue developing the setting, with the help of Bill Ford we hosted our first Inq28 narrative event at Asgard Games from November 15-17. You can read about the first day of the event here. The second day was the core of the entire event, where participants played three games that would lead up to a final game the following day (Day 3). There would be no way for us to capture every game played during the event, but we want to share pictures and write some evocative captions to help convey what happened in the games we were involved in. We hope you enjoy them!

Vastarian 2024: Rules and Scenarios

Wizard Fight!

Now that the first official Vastarian event has concluded we wanted to provide the rule system and scenarios we used, for anyone that is interested. We encourage everyone to make use of the material and get together with friends to play and create new stories on Vastarian! Feel free to modify the rules as you see fit, we certainly did when playing games!

Vastarian 2024: Participant Cults, Terrain, and other contributions.

The lighthouse at Ravachol, Vastarian.

We recently got back from holding our first Inq28 narrative event alongside Bill Ford, based in our Vastarian - Dreams of the Pious setting. It wouldn’t have been possible without all of the amazing participants and people who created models and terrain for the event. We wanted to use this post to showcase all of the amazing Cults that were present at the event, along with any other donated model, terrain, or game board!

Vastarian: Houston 2024 Day 1

We have all seen the signs in our dreams and know deep in our marrow that our apocalypse is nigh. But all is not lost, for we put our Faith in Him (Model created by Isaac @weirdingsway, Presbyter Alcubierre the Blind - Bastard Scion of Navredo House Oberth).

Here at Between the Bolter and Me, we have spent the entirety of 2024 working on Vastarian - Dreams of the Pious, our Warhammer 40,000 setting. During that time, we have been encouraging others to get involved with it as a collaborative worldbuilding effort. The setting revolves around the cathedral world of Vastarian, which is home to hundreds of disparate Imperial religious sects, each venerating the God-Emperor of Mankind in their own unique way. The opening of the Cicatrix Maledictum, a great tear in the fabric of the Milky Way Galaxy, has resulted in a psychic awakening across the populace of Vastarian. Each religious sect on the planet now believes that they alone were blessed with a psychic emissary touched by the Emperor himself. The tenuous peace on Vastarian has now devolved to bloodshed and persecution. During this psychic turmoil, the purifying radiance of the Emperor, the Astronomican, plummeted as if it were a tallow candle guttering in a tumultuous wind. In desperation, many of the Spyrehead conclaves on the planet pooled their resources and delved deeply into crumbling treatises on the nature of astropathic beacons and put into motion a fantastical gambit: fortifying the principle lighthouse in Ravachol as a psychic conduit to amplify the waning Astronomican.

Vastarian: Updated Rules for the Church of the Red Athenæum

The Church of the Red Athenæum.

Shortly after announcing the Vastarian Open Invitational, we created a post showcasing potential rules for our Church of the Red Athenæum cult using different rule systems, including Necromunda, Forbidden Psalm, and MiniGangs. The intent was to get people thinking about getting into the setting, adapting any ruleset they are comfortable with. Now that we are very close to holding our first Vastarian event alongside Bill Ford, we thought it would be instructive to showcase our finalized Church of the Red Athenæum warband for the event. The ruleset we are using for the event is a simplified version of Necromunda (2023) with elements from Mordheim.

Vastarian: The Knights of Reclamation

And I feel so proud when the reckoning arrives.

Since its creation, we have been thrilled with how many people have gotten involved in our Open Invitational Vastarian - Dreams of the Pious, including through our contest, creating Cult Shrines, and creating civilian cultists. Some people have even created entire warbands that they sent to be used in the event, including an amazing Adeptus Mechanicus Cult by Nicky Grillet. Excitingly, this week, our friend Jake (@master_splinters_pizza_kits) provided us with a warband he created for use in the Vastarian event in Houston this month!

Vastarian: Ligeia Orr, Prophet of the Crimson Veil, Dreamer of the Apocalypse

Lo! 'tis a gala night

Within the lonesome latter years!

An angel throng, bewinged, bedight

In veils, and drowned in tears,

Sit in a theatre, to see

A play of hopes and fears,

While the orchestra breathes fitfully

The music of the spheres.

Mimes, in the form of God on high,

Mutter and mumble low,

And hither and thither fly—

Mere puppets they, who come and go

At bidding of vast formless things

That shift the scenery to and fro,

Flapping from out their Condor wings

Invisible Wo!

That motley drama—oh, be sure

It shall not be forgot!

With its Phantom chased for evermore,

By a crowd that seize it not,

Through a circle that ever returneth in

To the self-same spot,

And much of Madness, and more of Sin,

And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see, amid the mimic rout

A crawling shape intrude!

A blood-red thing that writhes from out

The scenic solitude!

It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs

The mimes become its food,

And the angels sob at vermin fangs

In human gore imbued.

Out—out are the lights—out all!

And, over each quivering form,

The curtain, a funeral pall,

Comes down with the rush of a storm,

And the angels, all pallid and wan,

Uprising, unveiling, affirm

That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"

And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

- Attributed to Terran Poet Poe (circa M2)

Vastarian: The Eater of Saints

God gave me no name.

The figure hunches at the end of the table, smiling as it cracks bones and tears flesh. Its very presence is discomfiting, stained with the agony of countless psykers.

“A plague of Saints?”

The figure chuckles, and meat and bone shards spray from its maw.

“You do know how to keep me satiated, Inquisitor…"

The Beast smiles once more and it is that ancient and terrible grin that has haunted her nightmares for the last decade.

She nods, and begins her briefing.

Vastarian: "Civilian" Cultists

Bathe in the glow of sunlight's beating rays.

 

Before it descended into chaos after the “Emergence of Saints,” Vastarian was on a well-traveled route to holy Terra. As such, it was a holy world beyond compare, filled with massive houses of worship, an expanse of stained glass and minarets, labyrinthian catacombs revering the hallowed dead, and cavernous libraries and repositories of holy texts and religious scholarship. It also welcomed thousands of disparate orthodoxies and splinters of the Imperial Creed, where they all lived in relative harmony together. With the opening of the Cicatrix Maledictum, a psychic awakening swept over Vastarian and caused the planet to collapse into bedlam, and with it millions of lives were upended.

Vastarian: Synod of Reclamation

The New World.

The Synod of Reclamation is a splinter faction of the infamous Cult of Redemption. They believe that humanity can only be redeemed by a reborn Emperor. The Synod believes his rebirth is prevented by the myriad of monuments, shrines and relics spread across the Imperium. These blasphemous idols trap the Emperor's spirit in the past. Thus, the Synod of Reclamation takes an iconoclastic approach to worshiping the Emperor. They often run afoul of law enforcement while finding opportunities to deface, destroy or in some instances even melt down monuments, relics and any other symbols of the Emperor.

Vastarian: the Church of the Gyro Choir

The Disintegration Loops.

Arrogant clankers. Do they really think I’d keep working with them and not get noospheric and binaric implants at some point? The clergy of Mars sure pays well, but that doesn’t mean I trust them. Would they use so many layers of firewalls and data encryptions if they didn’t have anything to hide?

I’ve been their pilot for a while, but paying well isn’t always enough. The information I've scraped for now goes a long way to settle my debt. I’m sure others will like what I've heard on this journey to Vastarian. A decade doing this job, and I've never seen any of them so.. Nervous? I mean maybe at least something can wake up their dormant human emotions?

I’ve known for a while that the Adeptus Mechanicus was not a unified dogma. They have internal sects, with specific systems of beliefs, with the Omnissiah and all always at the center. These ones though, they call themselves the Church of the Gyro Choir. I think they came from a lost underhive city. Something must have happened there, some kind of fringe event. And they keep mentioning a Servo Prophet. They make all kinds of horrible noises when they are not exchanging data. I wonder if it’s some kind of prayer? I can recognise patterns, but my implants don’t seem to have the correct plugins. I’ll have to get on that.

I wonder why an obscure sect of the Mechanicum is so anxious to get to Vastarian? They talk about an awakening that happened there, but it’s the first time I’ve heard about it.

I need to be careful because I think they know I'm listening, even if I doubt they know I understand. Or maybe I don't, it doesn’t make any sense to me.

The frequency of a psychic scream matching the words of the prophet? The holoprints for a lighthouse? The raw wisdom of the Omnissiah? And all this noise. This horrible noise.

We’ll soon arrive at Vastarian. I can’t wait for them to leave my ship.

- Last entry of the logbook of Captain Hainbach of the Erebus’ Pendulum, found dead in a local tavern after his audio implant overheated.

Vastarian: the Aeris Sanctus saint

After long breathless hours, the spiritual leaders of the Aeris Sanctus reached a conclusion for the Ravachol conundrum: while it is a noble goal to strip Vastarian of the psykic pall engulfing it, such a task is not for fallible mortals; it is a task for the omniscient Emperor. Taking matters into their own hands will only cause more ruin. What is needed is faith, faith that He will intervene as breath draws short.

"O Emperor, whose breath fills the void,

In the thin air of Vastarian, we stand before thee,

Each breath a testament to our faith, each gasp a hymn of devotion.

Grant us strength amidst the winds,

As we face the trials of this smothering world.

May every breath be a communion with thy divine essence,

A reminder of thy eternal presence in the air we breathe.

Guide us, O Emperor, through the turbulent currents of fate,

As we journey to the high-altitude shrines, seeking thy favor.

In the relentless winds, we find thy whispers,

In the scarce air, we find thy challenge.

Bless us with thy grace, O Emperor, as we endure,

For in the struggle for each breath, we find our purpose,

And in our unwavering faith, we find salvation.

In nomine Imperator, amen."

Vastarian: Cult Shrines for November

The Scared Linament of Judgment.

In the later part of 2023, Between the Bolter and Me created its own setting in the 40k universe and encouraged others to get involved in developing it by making it an Open Invitational. The setting is called Vastarian - Dreams of the Pious, with Vastarian being a major cathedral world that has been thrown into turmoil due to the opening of the Cicatrix Maledictum. This has caused a massive psychic awakening amongst the general population and has fomented conflicts between the different religious sects on the planet. The Invitational asks you to create your own Imperial Cult (the more eccentric and deranged the better) and using your favorite ruleset, play some skirmish games to help develop the lore! In addition to the overall Invitational, we also held a contest for people to create their own cults and were amazed by all of the awesome creations by hobbyists from around the world! Although the contest is over, we are still encouraging people to get involved in the setting and keep the Invitational going. We are currently building up to a small Inq28 event with friends in November (hosted with Bill Ford of the Mordheim 2022 and Rot of Hondious fame!). We wish we could get more people involved in the event, but due to space and general logistic reasons, it has to remain quite small. Despite this, we have been looking for ways to let others get involved in the event in some small way. Bill has been working on a final board for the event, one where he would like to have it filled with all manner of small shrines dedicated to the numerous Imperial cults on the planet. We realized this might be a fun way to let people contribute to the event: create a small shrine/piece of terrain dedicated to a Vastarian Cult!

Vastarian: Elocutors

I have fought with the shadows on the edge of your vision. I have seen the faces that laugh at you in your nightmares.

 

Discontent and resentment lie within the crowded streets and chapel-slums of Vastarian. Innumerable sects disagree over sacrament and rite almost as a matter of pride. While these creed-based disagreements were once tolerated, they have now boiled into violence since the psychic turmoil  of “The Emergence of Saints”. The Ecclesiarchy on Vastarian established a devout sect of templars for crises of faith that the Adeptus Arbites were not enough to quell: the Elocutors. Clad in silvered platemail, their faces hidden behind helmets of glossy black, they enforce the Pax Terra, eradicating all they deem as heretics to the Emperor’s word.

Vastarian: Glass for the Beacon

The Diocese of the Adamant Spires comes to a chapel in Saint-Fauré to request the aid of the Church of the Red Athenæum for creating an astropathic beacon.

Retrofitting the Ravachol lighthouse as an astropathic beacon was a risk. If fortunate, concentrating and focusing a massive amount of psychic energy might serve as a conduit to amplify the waning Astronomican and pierce the darkness enveloping Vastarian. But it might also serve as a lightning rod for the horrors of the Immaterium, like a scintilla of blood in the water drawing in cartilaginous horrors from the stygian depths, Helicoprion and Edestus.

Vastarian: the Road to Ravachol

“I can only sit and wait, knowing that one day he will turn full around, step down from his stage, and claim me for the abyss I have always feared. Perhaps then I will discover what it was I did - what any of us did - to deserve this fate.” - Thomas Ligotti

The “Emergence of Saints” was a psychic awakening that swept over Vastarian and caused the planet to collapse into bedlam. In dreams panic spread, a euphoric terror spawned from an encroaching darkness—a presence that seeped in from the margins, dripping from the stars as if they were untethering from reality. The rise of “Saints” provided a temporary respite from the suffocating darkness that occupied the minds of everyone on Vastarian. These nascent psykers acted as luminous beacons in a fulminous storm that assaulted the inhabitants of the planet. However, as the violence escalated, the intangible blackness enveloped Vastarian with renewed vigor, haunting its people through dreams. As though it was metastasizing, that blackness began to leak from the confines of sleep, trapping inhabitants in a liminal space between wakefulness and sleep. During this psychic turmoil, the purifying radiance of the Emperor, the Astronomican, plummeted as if it were a tallow candle guttering in a tumultuous wind. In desperation, many of the Spyrehead conclaves on the planet pooled their resources and delved deeply into crumbling treatises on the nature of astropathic beacons and put into motion a fantastical gambit: fortifying the principle lighthouse in Ravachol as a psychic conduit to amplify the waning Astronomican.