| Name: Cain Cromwell the VIII | 
Cain Cromwell the VIII | Home World Type: Imperial | 
| | Aliases: Nihilus, Jacobus Mylar | Name: Scintilla | | Career Path: Assassin | Rank: Secluse | Population: 25 Billion | | Divination: "The pain of the bullet is ecstacy compared to damnation.." | Climate: Temperate with extensive equatorial deserts | | Age: 27 | Build: Svelte | Tithe Grade: Exactus Extremis | | Height: 1.85m (6' 1") | Weight: 70 kg (154.3 lbs) | Government Type: Adeptus Terra | 
| | Eye Colour: Blue | Hair Colour: Black | Planetary Governor: Sector Governor Marius Hax | | Skin Tone: Fair | Home City / Hive: Hive Sibellus | | Appearance: At 1.85m in height, Cain is an average sized man of a slightly thin build. He has dark brown / black hair cut in a simple, short cut that keeps it out of his eyes. His pale skin could be taken to imply hive or spacer background. He almost always dresses in dark clothing, shades of charcoal grey and black. | Religion: The Cult of the Redemption is active on several planets, but its spiritual home is Scintilla | | Defences: Army of the Scintillan Protectorate (Hive Tarsus) | | Principle Imports: Scintilla cannot support itself and requires massive imports of food from the Calixis Sector's agri-worlds. | | Demeanor: Cain's past has left him a withdrawn, secretive individual who seldom lets others inside his defenses. The knowledge that use of his true name could bring assassins or bounty hunters from his family makes him almost never use his true name, instead adopting various aliases for use. Once he becomes comfortable with a person or group, he is more open and will share opinions and thoughts, but even then he is unlikely to give away details of his own past or identity. | Principle Exports: Scintilla is a major exporter of manufactured goods including ship-drive components and weaponry. It is also an important source of manpower, with a large planetary defence force and huge underhive population, both of which make for excellent Imperial Guard recruit sources. | | Likes: The time Cain spent in Gunmetal City impressed a reverance and fascination for guns upon Cain, and so he is constantly researching weapons and seeking out the best of various classes. He is fascinated by technology, and belives that there are technological solutions for most problems, especially in his line of work. | Scintilla is the Capital World of the Calixis Sector, a thriving Imperial hub that supports the largest planetary population in the territory. It is dominated (some observers say "shared") by two vast hive cities, Hive Sibellus and Hive Tarsus, into which the vast majority of the planet's groaning population is crammed. Despite the dominance of the two great hives, the "offspring" communities of Ambulon and Gunmetal City contribute significantly to the planet's economic function. Scintilla is a world of splendours where the wealthy and powerful compete with ruthless appetite. Astonishing magnificence abounds, from the wondrous fashions of the hive nobility to the towering spectacle of the hives themselves. Landmarks like the Lucid Palace and the Cathedral of Illumination are famous throughout the sector. | | Dislikes: Cain has a profound lack of respect for the 'Nobility', especially of his home Hive, and while he hides it well it often colors his actions. He dislikes the concept of melee fighting, considering it brutish and unelegant, but is fascinated by the intricate dance of saber duelists. His experiences have left him with little true faith in religion or the religious, though he parrots the appropriate platitudes perfectly due to his upbringing. While he does not necessarily have faith in religion himself, his experiences with Praetus have given him reason to believe that some religious persons might in fact be worthwhile in their own rights, and so he is supportive of the Priests beliefs. | | 
Nihilus the Assassin | Appearance: At 1.85m in height, Nihilus is an average sized man of a slightly thin build. Other than that, there is little that can be distinguished about him beneath the skintight black bodyglove he wears. The bodyglove looks to be reinforced in key places, adding protection to vital areas. His face is hidden by the bodyglove's hood, and a visor covers his eyes, the glass of it sometimes glowing a faint hue. He often wears a long black trench-style coat of supple grot-hide as an overcoat, concealing the bodyglove and armament he carries. | Scintilla is also a world of corruption. Moral decay eats away at the noble houses, members of which are often deluded by their own wealth and status. In the rarefied culture of the high-born, the corruption of power and privilege runs deep. Noble houses consider themselves (sometimes correctly) as above or outside of Imperial law and can wield immense influence. Their attitude towards those lower-born is callous: it is not unknown for thrill seeking degenerates from noble houses to prey upon lesser humans as sport. At the other end of the social spectrum, the underhives are rife with mutants, outlaws and ultra violent gangs, as well as the psychotic zealots of the Redemption. The middle hivers trapped between the aristo spires and the rancid underhives live out thankless lives of unending toil, where ignorance is a virtue, and death is a reward for a lifetime of loyal, drone servitude, fulfilling the exorbitant tithes levied on Scintilla by the Administratum. It has been this way since the days of Angevin, and Scintilla's various corruptions are so deeply ingrained that they have become invisible even to those who perpetrate them. Scintilla's most important features are its two hives: immense, multi-levelled cities that house billions of citizens. Both hives on Scintilla are largely independent, ruled by councils drawn from the nobles of the spire. The majority of the inhabitants are middle hivers, the labouring classes, without whom the planet's manufactories and trade houses would cease to function. Almost all middle hivers are owned or indentured to nobles from the great sector-wide families or from Scintilla's own lesser houses. The poorest and most neglected areas are the underhives: polluted, crime-ridden places where life is cheap and brutal gangs struggle for supremacy before violent death inevitably claims them. As long as the violence does not spill into the middle hives, the authorities are happy to let the gangs murder each other in the cesspits of the underhive. Scintilla's two great hives have always compared with one another for prestige and influence, but no rational observer could fail to acknowledge Hive Sibellus's dominance. Geographically the larger of the two hives, it is often referred to as "the Capital" or the "ruling hive", and is both the seat of political and administrative power, and the centre of the planet's manufacturing might. Hive Tarsus functions as a dark, shadowy twin, popularly referred to, by Sibellians, as the “Other Place". Hive Tarsus is a mercantile hive and controls all off world trade and commerce. Neither hive could function without the other, a fact celebrated in Scintillan proverbs and myths. However, neither great hive would openly admit to the importance of the "offspring" communities, Ambulon and Gunmetal City, both of which wield considerable influences of their own. | | Armament: Nihilus carries a startling array of weaponry on his person. Slung over his back is a modified 'Angelfire' pattern Long Las Rifle, equipped with a telescopic sight as well as three charge packs, two of which are hot-shot charges. In addition to his rifle, he carries a Sollex Pattern VII "Steel Burner" Heavy Las Pistol, one of the most powerful las pistols available in the Calixis sector, that has been fitted out with a laser sight slung in front of the trigger guard. The third obvious weapon he has on his person is a Stub Automatic, a silencer attached to the barrel and a red dot laser sight underneath the barrel. | | Other Identities: In addition to Nihilus, Cain has aquired the bounty hutners license of a bounty hunter he killed named Jacobus Mylar, and assumed this mans identity. He carefully keeps this identity seperate, and when he needs to appear to be 'Jacobus Mylar' he wears ratty clothing, usually with a dingy brown trench coat over it as well as a large rimmed hat to help hide the features of his face. | To understand the story of Cain Cromwell, the eighth in his family line to have been named thus, one must first understand the nature of the Cromwell family. The Cromwell family is one of the noble houses of Hive Sibellus, making their home in the spires and with a great deal of influence in Hive politics. For centuries it has been customary for the first born sons of the Cromwell family to serve in the Imperial Guard, with other sons and even daughters usually serving in either the Guard or Navy. As time passed, the custom became tradition, and eventually tradition became familial law until eventually, every first born son was required to enlist with the guard the day they came of age. Cain however, was never inclined to walk the path of the guardsman, or more accurately was never willing to bend to the will of his father and let him decide the path his life would take.. Tutored and trained in Imperial doctrine, military histories and the duties and skills important to a guardsman, especially marksmanship which he seemed to have a knack for from an early age, he soon found himself longing for a freedom that would never be his with his family or with the Guard. So, a week before he was to come of age and enlist with the guard, he took the scints he had saved and escaped from the Spires into the teeming billions of the anonymous middle-hivers. Knowing that his father's resources would allow him to be tracked down anywhere within Hive Sibellus eventually, he managed to get onto Ambulon when the immense mobile hive city docked with Sibellus a few weeks later. Making his way to the Underbelly, he was able to keep himself safe in the moving cities Underhive long enough to reach the next docking celebration, this time when Ambulon moored to Gunmetal City to offload resources for the Hive's manufactorums. Gunmetal City had been his goal all along, and with the last of his money he acquired a laspistol of his own and began working as a 'hired guard' for various visitors to Gunmetal City, quickly making a name for himself as a crack marksman. While he was building a reputation for his new identity, 'Nihilus', he was also watching carefully the gunslinger society of the Hive, learning what he could from some of the most skilled gunsmen in the sector. It was there, working as a hired gun in Gunmetal City that Nihilus joined the secret society of assassins known as the 'Sons of Dispater'. Accepting and completing his first 'contract kill' earned him an approach by one of the recruiters, and he was inducted into the group shortly afterwards. He was credited with two more assassinations by the Sons of Dispater while in Gunmetal City, turning down six possible assignments, earning him a reputation within the Sons as only accepting assignments where he believed the target needed to die. Since the order had no restrictions on what assignments were accepted, this posed no significant problems, so long as he completed any assignment or contract he did accept. And so Nihilus earned a living in Gunmetal City for a time, and Cain ceased to exist. Officially, Cain Cromwell the Eighth is listed as 'missing' still, though Nihilus still retains enough proof of his true identity to establish who he truly is if need be. Even so, he has never stepped forward to reclaim that identity. During the events of the Thirteenth Black Crusade, Cain's father forced almost every able bodied member of the family to enlist in the services, sending the majority of the family to their deaths when numerous regiments out of Calixis sector were deployed to the Cadian Gate in support of the Cadian troops and Usarkar Creed's forces. Now, only the families retainers and a few elders of advanced age remain, none of whom are still of childbearing age, leaving the family and it's fortunes to sit and moulder away as the other Noble houses circle about like carrion birds. Of course, all of this is unknown to Nihilus, who carefully avoids any attempts to inquire into the status of his family, not wanting to draw attention to himself by asking questions that might raise eyebrows. A short time ago, Nihilus had been working as a guard for Zharkov, an initiate of the secrets of the Machine Cult, who had been dispatched to Gunmetal City to assist with the placation of the great machine spirits of the weapons forges, returning the munitions fabrication to quota. Once the assignment had been complete, Zharkov requested an extension of the services, as his next destination was a backwaters feudal world where the mines had failed to fulfill their proper tithes to the manufactorums. Expecting trouble on the planet, the priest wanted experienced fighter support, and seeing his chance to get off of the planet and further away from the past he had done so much to distance himself from, Nihilus agreed as anyone could have expected he would. It was a decision that would change his life forever, and lead him to a much larger, more dangerous life in the service of the Imperium. No sooner had the pair arrived on planet Arias than they were escorted to a brief meeting with an Inquisitor who identified himself as Arterius Volshen, conscripting the two into his service by the authority of the Inquisition and dispatching them to assist in investigation of the mines. Joining the group already attempting to gain entry into the mines, the pair assisted in attempts to rescue a trapped mine supervisor. Unfortunately, interference by a being who appeared to be a rogue Tech Priest stopped the group from being able to complete their mission, but they were able to disable the alien technology device that was being used to control the miners and civilians of the region, freeing them to return to their lives in service of the Emperor. While Zharkov left to return to his other duties, Nihilus enlisted himself in service to Inquisitor Volshen, becoming an Acolyte and departing planet Arias with the others and soon arriving on a planet known as Acreage. On Acreage, the group began investigation into the matter of numerous bodies and persons having gone missing at random. The investigation led them into the region of the Duchess, where they discovered two undertakers consorting with aliens and what appeared to be the rogue Tech Priest once again. Their encounter with the horrible alien entity that seems to have been 'behind' it all in that particular case left them scarred, both in body, mind and spirit. While the rest of the group worked to recover, Nihilus and Praetus worked other side cases, assisting to obtain a new starship pilot for the Inquisitor as well as hunting down a fugitive to bring him to justice. As the others were finishing their recuperations and beginning to return to duties, Nihilus and Praetus continued their misadventures, as they were approached by two Sisters of the Redemptionist Cult. attempting to hire Nihilus to assassinate the Duke. While trying to gather more information about this offer, a sanctioned contract was presented by anonymous contacts to Nihilus as well. Deciding that neither of the parties in question were fit to rule, Nihilus enlisted the aid of Praetus and a complex plan was hatched, culminating in the unsuspected assassination of both the Duke and Duchess, in an apparent industrial accident that was deemed by most to be the Emperor's divine judgement rained down upon the two. While the Sisters reneged upon their obligation and attacked the pair, having to be put down like frothing dogs, the official contract paid out nicely and allowed for the aquisition of some significant gear upgrades. It would turn out the timing for upgrading their arms and armor was fortuitous, as the arrival of a new psyker on planet in the service of the Inquisitor would lead to the Nihilus, Praetus, the Psyker and the Techpriest who had been sent to escort the psyker all becoming embroiled in a fight for their lives, covering the escape of the Inquisitor from an attempted double cross by an Eldar Farseer and it's bodyguard. Once the Eldar threat had been dismissed, Inquisitor Volshen drew the group further into his confidence, rewarding their service with more information about himself and the work they would be doing, including his statement that he was of the Ordos Xenos, or Alien Hunters. |
