Lady of the Voids

[MolotovKraken]

In space farers’ tales, the Lady of the Voids is the safe, oblique name given to a type of foul thing that lurks between the stars. They are the voices in the void, the witch–queens of daemons who desire only to sunder vessels and tear the living breath from crewmen’s bodies with a kiss. Their call is a siren’s song that can send men mad, struggling to open their compartments to space or killing one another with nails and teeth. The daemons that give rise to these fearsome tales are a nameless Slaaneshi breed that is often part of the vile host that trails any voidship of the Imperium as it travels established warp–routes. Unlike her lesser brethren who can merely follow the ship ineffectually, a Lady can prey upon a moment of weakness by navigator or astropath, using it to pass through the Geller field and enter the vessel. To view the bursting of an astropath’s body and nightmare manifestation of a Lady of the Voids, draped in torn flesh and entrails like a cloak of rags, is enough to break the weak of will. The daemon appears as a merging of several female bodies about a vertical axis—faces, arms, and mouths facing in different directions. Her torso is a hideous mix of woman, crab, and bloated toad, whilst half of her arms end in spiny pincers. From the first, the Lady’s many voices scream and moan in the patterns of the warp. This dreadful warp–song enraptures all who hear it, piercing the ears and numbing weak minds. To the enraptured, the Lady is a beauty to burn the soul—sanity flees as the warp–song melts the mind, and a foaming madness soon results. Some crewmen mutilate themselves; others turn to destroy tech–devices, murder one other, or struggle to open the seal–gates and let in the void. The daemon gleefully sweeps through the vessel at the head of a growing horde of the insane, set upon multiplying the suffering of her puppets in an orgy of destruction and death.Many vessels have been lost to the Calixian warp in this way. The Inquisition knows of this daemon breed from the few faithful souls to survive: tech–adepts who sealed themselves in insulated enginarium spaces, hardened Battlefleet veterans who banished the daemon by detonating a munitorium vault, and of course, Jagamar Elste.

Adventure Seeds
The Acolytes are a month into the warp when the vessel’s Gellar field flickers, and the Navigator is possessed by the Lady of the Voids. The daemon drives the crew mad with screams and moans of the warp; they throw themselves into vents and machinery, tear at the vessel’s structure, and slaughter one other with bare hands and teeth. The Acolytes must act decisively to survive this horror. Can they rally the few remaining faithful to recapture the enginarium amidst the insanity, exit from the warp, and then destroy the daemon itself? Or will they sabotage the ship vox to try to regain control and save as many crewmen as possible from the threat of the warp–song?The Miracle of Cavarri was lost to the warp decades ago, but its hulk has been discovered orbiting a moonlet of the dark outer voids. The prospectors who found it vanished there, and wild tales have come to the ears of the Ordos. The Acolytes must investigate, and when they do, they find a Lady of the Void trapped within a damaged Geller field centred upon a part of the hulk, the last effort of doomed tech–adepts. The prospectors are captured by the warp–song and are now insane and savage within a hell–vessel of ravaged corpses and warp–taint. This hulk must all be purged—but first, the acolytes must survive and escape.

††Enrapturing Warp–song:
The Lady moans constantly, enrapturing all. All who hear her warp–song directly must succeed in an Opposed Willpower Test or become Stunned for one Round. In each Round spent Stunned whilst hearing the warp–song, a further Opposed Willpower Test must be made: failure leads to rapture and the gain of 1d5 Insanity Points. Anyone who takes appropriate precautions (such as stuffing wax in one’s ears) gains a +10 bonus to both Willpower Tests. Once a victim has been Stunned for three consecutive Rounds, he falls under the Ladyof the Void’s control and is now enslaved to her will until pulled from the brink or the Lady is destroyed (see the Warp-Enraptured)

Warp-Enraptured
For those who fall under the sway of the Lady of the Void’s enrapturing song, modify the standard NPC templates by adding the following where applicable:
Characteristics: Increase Strength and Toughness by +5.Skills: Awareness (Per). Talents: Fearless, Melee Weapon Training (Unarmed, Primitive).
Traits: †Pulled From the Brink.
†Pulled From the Brink: An enraptured victim can be recovered by covering his ears or otherwise removing the sound of the warp–song. He will return to sanity in 1d5 Rounds.

Vox-record // Skull-drone Tricorn-Chamber 54-Omega—563/a17
Subject // Jagamar Elste
Transcriptor // Scribe Onomin // 3.237.795.M41

Long afore I was brought back to the low decks for my sins, I commanded security details upon the Bequest of Holy Terra: we bore shotguns and were black–clad and black of heart, every last one of us. There was an end to that assignment, mind, and this is that tale. Five weeks in the warp toward the Almiarch Candles, and the first I knew of what was to come was whilst hunting deserter scum deep in the vaults ‘neath fore–cannon Secondus. The voxset began a fearsome, seductive moaning, honeyed claws plucking at our hearts. Rellis, who carried the vox, bled from his ears before we smashed the thing, and then turned our shotguns on the voxmouth grills of the Secondus cannonvault above. Cannonmen threw fits as though possessed, but we beat it from them with club and shouted prayer to the Emperor.

We rallied to the armoury as a mob of the insane surged from the crossways, carrying the vox–moans with them. Our shotguns and stubbers slew a dozen at a time, yet still the mob ran on. I saw the crew tear flesh with teeth and the faithful turn to warp–maddened killers. Emperor rot me, but I gave the Emperor’s mercy to three of my own. We killed hundreds—the dead piled on the deck, but more raged through the forward vaultways—and the warp–sounds never ceased. Those left faithful had plugged their ears or gone deaf from the blessed roar of the guns, but we were too few, damn it all! We pulled back behind the battle core seals whilst still able, joined by tatters of loyal crew from amidships.

How we prayed that the enginarium had prevailed and even then laboured to wrench the Bequest from this horror! But the moaning of the warp seeped through the seals ever louder—the beast that broke aboard was coming for us. My eyes turned upward in the moment…and there, like a gift from the Emperor Himself, hung a boarding squad’s plasma–torch, taken from the hulk of the Sanctity. it would serve the Battlefleet one last time! We set a righteous firing line before the main seal, with the legacy of the Sanctity at the centre. Tech–adepts nurtured it as though a swaddled babe, trailing power conduits from all about the core. We led the crew in shouted hymns, the better to drown out sounds that took men’s minds. And then we threw the bulkheads open to give the warp–beast the Emperor’s welcome!