History Literature / CiaphasCain

Ten novels, fifteen short stories and two audio dramas have so far been published. Many of the stories have been recompiled in omnibus editions.

* ''Ciaphas Cain: The Omnibus'': Contains all the short stories from "Fight or Flight" to "The Three Questions".

* PowerOfTrust: In general, Cain seems to be pretty cunning about this: he tries to build up trust with his subordinates because he knows that the more they appreciate him, the less likely they are to leave him hanging in a firefight. Ironically, as Amberley points out, it nvere occurs to Cain that this trust is genuine rather than fearing him more than the enemy.

* PillowPistol: Amberley says he does this ''everywhere''.

* PornStash: Jurgen is almost never without at least one "porno slate".
* PossessingADeadBody: The first step in creating a daemonhost appears to be providing a dead body for the daemon to move in to. In "The Beguiling", a Slaaneshi cult goes the HumanSacrifice route; in ''The Last Ditch'' a daemon possesses a servitor instead of one of the living crew members on the bridge. ''The Traitor's Hand'' strongly implies that Emeli sucked the souls out of her cultists before she could refashion their bodies into a suitable form for her.

* PowerOfTrust: In general, Cain seems to be pretty cunning about this: he tries to build up trust with his subordinates because he knows that the more they appreciate him, the less likely they are to leave him hanging in a firefight.

* PsychoLesbian: Magot is generally able to channel her destructive tendencies in a productive way, being a regimental hand to hand champion and highly regarded as a soldier by Cain. She is also one of the worst troublemakers in the 597th Valhallan, a VERY robust driver (highlights include running over a Tyranid Lictor that was menacing Cain) and perfectly willing to hunt down and beat a man senseless for sexist vocal offense. Also, she will point her gun at anyone threatening Grifen, repercussions be damned.

* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: The penal squad in the first book. Not to mention the rest of the 597th Valhallan, at least at first. As well as Cain's Liberators from ''Death or Glory'', who start out as just a squad of PDF and a few dozen civilians and end up with a few hundred troops and everything a mobile army needs but air support. Perhaps the most impressive is Vail's retinue in ''Duty Calls''. Faced with a food vendor who had stumbled into some knowledge of the Inquisition--and picked up a gun when cornered by a Genestealer cult--Vail hires her. Others include a former commissar/member of a penal regiment, and a former arbite who had, while undercover, imploded a criminal organization with a judicious murder and frame.

** Played straight in the original short story ''Fight or Flight'', which ends with Colonel Mostrue assigning the odorous Gunner Jurgen to Cain as his personal aide, obviously intended as a practical joke at Cain's expense. Jurgen goes on to not only be a more than able aide to Cain, but also turns out to be a blank whose powers save Cain's life countless times. Cain himself mentions that even heroes of the Imperium like himself are a dime a dozen compared to a blank like Jurgen.
* {{Reconstruction}}: Of the ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' setting as a whole. The good Imperial leaders are portrayed as pragmatists [[AFatherToHisMen who care about their troops]] and work to rein in the excesses of their more zealous compatriots, and there isn't a single Exterminatus called in. It also avoids issues with TooBleakStoppedCaring by humanizing the tragedy of never-ending war, and even finds time to convincingly portray ''every'' side as badass, especially the Necrons, of whom Cain is flat-out ''terrified''. It also seems that on "normal" Imperial planets (i.e. ones other than crazy-overpopulated Hive Worlds, super-polluted Forge Worlds, and borderline uninhabitable {{Death World}}s), citizens enjoy a pretty decent standard of living when there isn't a war going on in the vicinity.

* RedHerring: Several throughout the series. [[spoiler:Maxim Sorel in ''For the Emperor'' for one. Cain thinks the punished soldiers will betray him and he actively fears [[{{Sociopath}} Sorel.]] Turns out Sorel is the most loyal of the bunch. He just likes killing people or at least doesn't see any reason not to kill people.]]

** In ''Duty Calls''.

* SacredHospitality: The Adeptus Mechanicus is bad at it.

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Cain has tried to pull this on numerous occasions to try and save his own ass. Most of the time it hasn't worked.

** In ''Caves of Ice'', upon discovering [[spoiler:a dormant Necron tomb on Simia Orichalcae, Cain wastes no time in ordering a complete Imperial evacuation from the planet. While he admits (privately of course) his primary motivation is to save his own skin, Cain does correctly point out that the Necrons in the tomb likely outnumber the Imperials hundreds to one, and if they do wake up, the Imperials will find themselves caught between the Necrons and the Orks already invading the planet, so the best thing to do in the circumstances is get off planet, alert the Inquisition to what they've found and then [[ItsTheOnlyWayToBeSure call in an Imperial Navy flotilla to obliterate the tomb from orbit]]. It should be noted that this is one of the few times that Cain advises running away without going through the usual rigamarole of "Oh, I just want to get relocated back into the action," but openly states that "No, we don't stand a chance, we're leaving as soon as we can."]]

* SeaOfSand: In ''The Greater Good'', Fecundia is an Imperial Forge World of which virtually the entire surface outside the cities is a wasteland of sand-like mining and industrial particulates. Cain and Jurgen crash-land amid the dunes after their shuttle is damaged by tyranid ships and end up going in circles trying to walk out of it; they're eventually rescued by a Krieg Death Korps cavalry company on scouting duty.

* SoldiersAtTheRear: Cain wants to be this; he's overtaken by events.

** The female members of the 597th, including their Colonel, get this from a Tallarn regiment in ''The Traitor's Hand''. The fact that one of the female 597s looked for, and utterly dominated, their prizefighter didn't change this view.

** Malden the psyker, from the third book.

** Cain accidentally sets off another one in ''Death or Glory''. When he kills Korbul, the rest of the Ork bosses become too busy fighting over who gets to take over the Waaagh to bother with minor details like stopping Cain and his refugees from escaping. It's clear that Cain wasn't expecting that result, it's also clear he's not objecting.

** ''The Last Ditch'' makes fun of the Tyranid Pyrovore aka ''the'' worst unit in the game. To wit,Cain takes out a huge Tyranid swarm by killing the pyrovores instead.

* TemptingFate: Repeatedly, for example In ''Caves of Ice'':

* TrappedBehindEnemyLines: The plot of ''Death Or Glory''.

* TruceTrickery: {{Downplayed}} in ''The Greater Good''. The Tau Empire signs a truce with the Imperium of Man amidst a border conflict over a minor planet because they detected [[HordeOfAlienLocusts Hive Fleet Kraken]] entering the region. On the surface the t'au and humans try to collaborate on a joint defense against the tyranids; however, in reality, both sides covertly try to make the other bear the brunt of the 'nid invasion in hopes of taking advantage once the hive fleet is defeated.

** Sulla, in ''For the Emperor'', goes from showing opposition and dislikement of Cain's decisions on the regiment in front of other officials to eventually ask privately him in a rather nervous and shy way for a chance to show her value as a soldier. Cain of course takes the opportunity to act magnanimously, [[ManipulativeBastard and get one more person disposed to cover his back]], which makes Sulla all the happier.

* TheVamp: Emeli.
* VerbalJudo: In ''For the Emperor'', Cain defuses a riot in progress, when everyone's attention happens to focus on him so that he can't just sneak out, by confusing the participants by suddenly starting to give orders to clean up the mess.

* VowOfCelibacy: Averted. According to one of Amberley's footnotes in ''Cain's Last Stand'', the Adeptas Sororitas are ''not'' actually required to be celibate, but most Sisters don't have many opportunities to take advantage so this trope is a common myth about the service. The footnote in question comments on Cain discovering that Sister Julien, one of his fellow instructors at the schola progenium, is in a relationship with the bursar.

** Discovered to be the case in ''The Greater Good'' with [[spoiler:Tyranids; when the Adeptus Mechanicus in charge of research allow two groups of hormagaunts from different swarms into one area, the two swarms start killing each other instead of working together as the tech-priests expected. Amberley theorises that if the Tyranids ever succeeded in conquering the galaxy, then the swarms would turn on each other until the strongest was left standing]].

* WhatTheHellHero: Cain gets one of these moments at the end of ''For The Emperor'', when he executes two Guard troopers--[[spoiler:the only survivors of a "special mission" other than himself and Inquisitor Vail]]--without forewarning or explanation. [[spoiler:As the rest soon discover--and confirming Cain's unvoiced hunch--the two executed troopers turn out to be [[FaceFullOfAlienWingWong carrying Genestealer implants]].]] Cain, despite claiming he's only acting concerned so that the guardsmen don't shoot him dead, is not pleased at this.

*

* WhoWritesThisCrap: Ciaphas wonders who comes up with space hulk names on learning he'll help clear out the ''Spawn of Damnation''. Veil clarifies that usually it's the first Inquisitor to find it, and that yes, they do have a touch of the melodramatic when doing so.

* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: Necrons are to Cain what snakes are to Franchise/IndianaJones, and with good reason, detailed in the omnibus-exclusive short ''Echoes of the Tomb''. [[spoiler:They're the reason for his augmetic fingers.]]

-->They are both purple!

* WorkingForABodyUpgrade: A large chunk of ''The Greater Good'' is set on a heavily-polluted forgeworld. "The Tithe Worker's Survival Guide" discusses the need for body augmentation to survive work on the surface (which pays better) and suggests workers talk to their supervisors about the procedure to repay the cost of those augmetics.

* YouKilledMyFather: Cain, to the kroot. Only an allusion, not leading to {{Revenge}}. This also may have simply been a lie as well, strengthened by the following footnote mentioning that Amberley still couldn't find any confirmation of Cain's actual past and that he is exceptionally skilled at manipulating people. The Kroot shrugs it off and says he's sure they died well. Mind you, Cain doesn't care much for his parents.

* ISurrenderSuckers: A variation in ''Cain's Last Stand''.

* ''Vainglorious'' (2022): As Cain nears retirement, he is drawn into political maneuvering with a Forge World and the Adeptus Mechanicus.

* AnachronicOrder: The first three books are in chronological order, the fourth is a prequel, the fifth takes place between books two and three, the sixth takes place in the [=WH40K=] universe's "present day" long after the events of the rest (although the last three all focus on his part in a single larger story), the seventh takes place between book four and book one, and the eighth (which notably involves his second campaign on a specific world when the story of his first trip there has yet to be published) takes place after the third, but still half a century before the sixth, the ninth taking place less than a decade before the sixth and the tenth taking place several years after the eighth. The short stories are in equally random order, with two taking place before book four (Including Cain's first act of alleged heroism), one taking place somewhere between books four and seven, one taking place immediately before book seven, and one taking place roughly a decade before book six, and several that have so few reference points that one cannot reliably tell what decade they took place in. In-story, the Cain Archive Amberley is editing the stories from is described by her as "consisting merely of a single dataslate, stuffed full of files arranged with a cavalier disregard for chronology, and to no scheme of indexing that I've been able to determine despite prolonged examination of the contents." (For example, in ''The Emperor's Finest'', Amberly notes that Cain had not yet written about the immediately preceding events, chronicled in the short story ''Echoes of the Tomb'', which Mitchell wrote seven years earlier.) Also, the editing and release of Cain's memoirs is done at Vail's sole discretion, such as expanding upon {{Plot Hole}}s in previous books (''Duty Calls'' was used to resolve a dangling plotline in ''Death or Glory''). If the novels are divided into groups of three (which the Omnibus editions do) each trilogy is in chronological order, with each of the latter two following Cain's (often peripheral) involvement in a single larger plot.

** In ''The Emperor's Finest'' one of the Tech Priests frequently quotes trite platitudes that Cain doesn't recognize. Amberly's research reveals that they're from ''Soylens Viridians for the Machine Spirit," a book the priest wrote himself and was kind of bitter never got popular.

* BlatantLies: In ''Greater Good'' Cain claims that he "isn't easily startled". Amberly's footnote on that section consists of nothing but laughing.

*** It does finally answer the question of why Cain always carries a bolt pistol on the covers rather than the las pistol he normally uses. Jurgen acquires a very nice bolt pistol from a dead tech-priest and a footnote from Amberly mentions that Cain often used that pistol when posing for propaganda posters.

* DwindlingParty: In ''For The Emperor'', Cain sentences five [[MauveShirt troublemakers]] in the nascent 597th to certain death in a [[TradingBarsForStripes penal legion]]. He ends up having to lead them alongside Amberly Vail into the city's AbsurdlySpaciousSewer to get to the bottom of the local conspiracy. [[spoiler:One deserts, later trying to off Cain only to get [[LudicrousGibs gibbed]] by Jurgen's meltagun. One takes a bolter round to the ribcage during the ensuing retreat from the 'stealer hordes. One gets [[YourHeadASplode His Head A Sploded]] by the traitorous governor. The final two have to be {{Mercy Kill}}ed by Cain himself after he realizes they've been infected by the Genestealers.]]

* AGirlInEveryPort: Cain mentions playing around a lot in his early career. He eventually stopped, partly because it kept putting him in danger (e.g. by dating a girl who turned out to be a Chaos cultist, or a stroppy spoilt heiress) and partly because he met the love of his life, Amberly (and since she's [[StateSec an Inquisitor]], cheating would ''definitely'' put him in danger).

** In ''Cain's Last Stand'' Cain and friends are laughing at a recorded speech by their enemy Varan composed entirely of trite cliches strung together... and then Amberly thinks that's a good place to add the speech Cain gave the same day where he does exactly the same thing.

** Early in the first book, Cain struggles with the aftermath of a riot on a ship in which some provosts were killed. The captain of the ship is hellbent on having the murderers executed, even though it would be terrible for the morale of the regiment. Cain suspects his vehemence comes from having a relationship with one of the dead provosts that is beyond what would be appropriate for a commander, and Amberlyn confirms this to be the case in a footnote.

** Amberly calls in an orbital strike to wipe out the last Tyranids in ''Duty Calls''.

* LadyLand: According to Vail, women are considered superior on Nusquam Fundamentibus. Indeed, the command echelon of its first Imperial Guard regiment, the planetary governor, and the past few generations of planetary governor are all female. The senior Magos from the Adeptus Mechanicus is one of the few males to hold a position of authority on the planet, as it's a part of the Imperial government. The Imperium trains female Commisars specifically to deal with this sort of regiment, since they "can't be expected to take orders from a mere man" as Amberly puts it.

* LaserGuidedKarma: Strangely combined with KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler:Governer Fulcher in ''Choose Your Enemies'' is revealed to the be the head of Slaanesh cult attempting to summon a daemon with gathered Eldar soulstones. While his death by Emeli who used his body and other cultists to form her own daemonic body is LaserGuidedKarma, his posthumous reputation is KarmaHoudini, because the Inquisition's policy of covering up Chaos incursion means that they tell everyone that Fulcher is responsible for killing the Eldar leader with nukes in his orbital estate, thus driving the Eldar off. This is despite 1: it's Amberly's doing in order to cleanse Chaos taint, 2: The Eldar agreed to leave peacefully after Emeli's banished, and 3: Fulcher is responsible for nearly turning the planet into Daemon World.]]

* MortonsFork: Amberly and Zyvan explain to Cain that this is the situation on Gravalax in ''For The Emperor''. On the one hand, Gravalax isn't strategically valuable enough to justify getting into a protracted war with the T'au, so they want to avoid tensions escalating. On the other hand, the Imperium can't allow the T'au to simply annex Gravalax, since that will only embolden them to try conquering worlds that are even more valuable to the Imperium if they believe the humans won't put up a fight.

'''Amberly (footnote):''' Traditionally space hulks are given their names by the Inquisition conclave responsible for the sector in which they first appear, and, as Cain points out, they do tend towards the melodramatic.
* NamingYourColonyWorld: While serious and usually MeaningfulName examples of Symbolica exist, e.g. Serendipita (where the Space Marines locate the ''Spawn of Damnation''), Sandy Mitchell has a good time parodying this, such as with Nusquam Fundimentibus[[note]]"arse end of nowhere"[[/note]], Simia Orichalcae[[note]]"brass monkey", as in "cold enough to freeze the balls off of"[[/note]], and Sodallagain.[[note]]as Amberly put it, "apparently charted by a very bored explorator"[[/note]]

** In terms of affairs for the Imperium, the end of ''The Last Ditch'' provides one: based on Cain's findings on Nusquan, [[spoiler:Amberly deduces that the Tyranids he encountered on that world had been in hibernation for over a thousand years, making them far older than either the Imperium's official first contact with the Tyranids or early encounters recorded by the Inquisition, suggesting that not only could the Tyranids have penetrated further into the galaxy than previously feared, other worlds in the Imperium could also have similar Tyranid presences in hibernation unbeknowst to them, the aliens simply waiting for others of their kind to awaken them.]]

** And her rise through the rise through the ranks began when he made an offhand comment that unlike all the platoon leaders of fifth company, ''she'' hadn't dropped the ball when forced to take over for her wounded company commander. Colonel Kasteen interpreted this as a recommendation and breveted her to captain.

** The series purports to be Cain's private memoirs, written about a century after they happened and distributed by Amberly to her fellow Inquisitors for perusal and evaluation. Ciaphas himself is very much an egomaniac and focuses almost exclusively on his own actions, but is also either an abject coward or a hero with extremely low self-esteem and a self-deprecating sense of humor, meaning that his accounts are rarely entirely reliable and often full of holes. Amberly herself notes that Cain would say what he thought would suit him best and seems to either have unusually detailed memories about the events he's recounting[[note]]many of which would have been at least decades prior[[/note]] or he supplemented them with a lot of artistic license.

** Discovered to be the case in ''The Greater Good'' with [[spoiler:Tyranids; when the Adeptus Mechanicus in charge of research allow two groups of hormagaunts from different swarms into one area, the two swarms start killing each other instead of working together as the tech-priests expected. Amberly theorises that if the Tyranids ever succeeded in conquering the galaxy, then the swarms would turn on each other until the strongest was left standing]].

* YouHaveFailedMe: Cain fears he is going to be on the receiving end of this at the end of ''Cain's Last Stand'' [[spoiler:after the dangerous artifact called the ''shadowlight'' falls into the hands of the Necrons, noting that whatever their relationship, Amberly is still an Inquisitor first and foremost, and he has technically failed in his assignment to keep the artifact out of enemy hands. Fortunately for him, Amberly concedes that while not ideal, the ''shadowlight'' is safer in the hands of the Necrons than the forces of Chaos, and agrees with Cain's hypothesis that given how much effort they expended to recover it, the Necrons were clearly afraid of its power, and thus likely have no plans to use it against the Imperium.]]

* TreacheryCoverUp: One of these is set up at the end of ''Choose Your Enemies''. Cain isn't happy about it, but knows better than to contradict two Inquisitors.

* PainfulPesona: {{Zigzagged}}. Cain (who has a reputation as a fearless Hero of the Imperium) ''claims'' to be a DirtyCoward who would book it on the first shuttle out of a warzone if it wasn't for all the witnesses around and the loss of status and reputation it would entail, but multiple times throughout the series he does the right thing even when there's no one to see it. It doesn't help that every single time he tries to worm his way out of a fight (such as inspecting an out-of-the-way post, staying at the headquarters instead of joining the front, exploring abandoned tunnels, etc.) he ends up thwarting an enemy ambush, foiling an assassination attempt, or stumbling upon awakening Necron forces. He also mentions not being averse to being in the spotlight or being a LargeHam, and even Inquisitor Vail doesn't know whether he's a genuine hero with SelfDeprecation issues or a lucky coward.

* PaintingTheMedium: The ''shadowlight'' from ''Duty Calls'' is so ominous, it's never referred to with a capital letter and always in italics. This changes in ''Cain's Last Stand'', where they actually use Caps as Shadowlight (might be [=ShadowLight=]).

* CasualDangerDialog: Kolbe, the Arbites praetor of Adumbria in ''The Traitor's Hand'', calls Cain's commbead in the middle of a Khornate cultist invasion to tell Cain something, then before he can say it, tells Cain to hold on a second.

** Toren Divas, whose [[WhatAnIdiot well-meaning enthusiasm]] gets Cain nearly killed at least three times that we ''know'' of.

%%* BearerOfBadNews

* BelligerentSexualTension: Cain and Mira.

%%* BlackComedy

%%* BringNewsBack

%%* TheEmpire

%%* EnsignNewbie

%%* EvilCannotComprehendGood

%%* FalseFlagOperation
%%* FamedInStory

** In ''Duty Calls'', Simeon is addicted to every single combat drug in his injector rig, and would die immediately if it were ever removed.

%%* FirstNameBasis

%%* FriendOrFoe

%%* GeoEffects

* InvisibilityFlicker: Saves Cain's life in ''Duty Calls''.

%%* InItsHourOfNeed

%%* InTheBack

** In ''Death or Glory,'' [[spoiler:he takes out a large Ork army by destroying a dam.]]

** Played with in the same book. Certain Battle Sisters refuse to retreat to the line of their defenses because they must serve the Emperor; Cain finally points out that if the Tyranids outflank them, they will be responsible for the massacre of civilians in the Emperor's Temple. This not only persuades them to retreat, it causes one of them to thank him later, for reminding them of their duty, and admit that their zeal had led them astray. Later, this takes on a grimmer note. The sisters realize they have sheltered a renegade inquisitor. Even his deception does not ease their guilt; they realized their zeal had blinded them from seeing the facts. In [[TheAtoner atonement]], they sacrifice their lives to ensure the escape of the Inquisitor who had told them the truth and her party.

* LegendaryInTheSequel: "Fight or Flight," the original short story, features Cain's very first adventure as a newly-minted commissar. The work which followed it, ''For the Emperor'', features Cain as an established '''HERO OF THE IMPERIUM'''. Due to the series's AnachronicOrder, subsequent works play up and down the scale.

* TheLoad: Zig-zagged in ''Caves of Ice'' with the tech-priest Logash, whose sole contribution is to tell them a little bit about ambulls before just hanging around. Some 70% of Cain's narration about him amounts to "What an annoying man he was" and/or "The mission would have gone smoother if I had thrown him to the Orks/ambulls/[[spoiler:Necrons]]". However, he survived alone far better then any of the soldiers. In fact without him they wouldn't have escaped near the end, or [[spoiler:been able to blow up the facility, stopping the Necrons and saving millions of lives]].

* PopTheTires: Happens by freak accident in one novel: a frag grenade goes off near one of his tank's treads, jamming it completely.

* ShrugOfGod: Sandy Mitchell says he doesn't know whether Cain is the DirtyCoward he claims to be, or is selling himself short.

** Adumbria is a three-biome planet, as it doesn't rotate on itself: one side is eternally dark SlippySlideyIceworld, the other a permanently-lit ShiftingSandLand, and a thin band of habitable terrain all around. Fortunately, the forces being sent there are Space Russians and Space Arabs.

* SlidingScaleOfContinuity: The novels are a fusion of level 4 (Arc-Based Episodic) and AnachronicOrder, numbered thematically rather than chronologically. The first trilogy tells the story of how Cain became attached to the Valhallan 597th Regiment and their early campaigns. The second covers much more ground time-wise but is tangentially related to the ''shadowlight'', a mysterious pre-humanity artifact discovered on Perlia. The third involves an over-arcing plot revealing a devastating weakness of the Tyranids, though it takes until the third book to bring the plot threads together.

* SnowballFight: With an Ork WAAAGH! due in a day or so, the Valhallans decide to spend their down-time having one. You can't really blame them, since its been a long while since the ice-world soldiers have found themselves in natural snow.

%%* SoProudOfYou

* SpiderSense: Cain's palms itch when his subconscious is realizing something's amiss but it hasn't hit the rest of his brain yet.

* SurprisinglyEliteCannonFodder: The superiors in this case may be completely innocent, but Colonel Mostrue often seems a bit too quick to call in artillery strikes close to where Cain is stationed during Cain's time with the artillery unit, and also frequently gets Cain sent off into dangerous situations. Cain suspects that Mostrue is aware of the fact that his first great triumph was really just a desperate attempt to get to safety and abandon the battery to its fate, but whatever Mostrue's intentions, his repeated survival of adverse circumstances only adds to the double-edged sword which is his reputation. Of course everyone else in high command does this too, they're just not aware of the fact Cain really would rather they didn't.

* TallDarkAndSnarky: Although Cain prefers to passes himself off as the TallDarkAndHandsome in public, at heart he is this, as his memoirs amply demonstrate.

** The series purports to be Cain's private memoirs, written about a century after they happened and distributed by Amberly to her fellow Inquisitors for perusal and evaluation. Ciaphas himself is very much an egomaniac and focuses almost exclusively on his own actions, but is also either an [[abject coward or a hero with extremely low self-esteem and a self-deprecating sense of humor]], meaning that his accounts are rarely entirely reliable and often full of holes. Amberly herself notes that Cain would say what he thought would suit him best and seems to either have unusually detailed memories about the events he's recounting[[note]]many of which would have been at least decades prior[[/note]] or he supplemented them with a lot of artistic license.

%%** Jurgen's meltagun.

** The series purports to be Cain's private memoirs, written about a century after they happened and distributed by Amberly to her fellow Inquisitors for perusal and evaluation. Ciaphas himself is very much an egomaniac and focuses almost exclusively on his own actions, but is also either an [[ShrugOfGod abject coward or a hero with extremely low self-esteem and a self-deprecating sense of humor]], meaning that his accounts are rarely entirely reliable and often full of holes.

* BigBeautifulWoman: Mira is described as having inherited a slight tendency toward plumpness from her father. She apparently carries that [[BuxomIsBetter weight]] [[CurvesInAllTheRightPlaces quite well]].

* BuxomIsBetter: Evidently, the ''Warhammer 40000'' universe as told by Sandy Mitchell. Considering the main game has few women that aren't {{evil|IsSexy}}, [[{{Squick}} monstrous]] {{succubi|AndIncubi}}, or generally ([[FormFittingWardrobe facially]]) unattractive [[KnightTemplar nuns]], some might gain a new appreciation for the setting after reading his novels.

** When Mira introduces herself, she is wearing a [[ErmineCapeEffect stylized outfit]] resembling a [[BlingOfWar garish military uniform]] that is cut a little too tight around the chest for her [[BuxomIsBetter endowment]][[note]] And being the daughter of a planetary governor, it was almost certainly deliberately tailored that way[[/note]] which she resolves by leaving the top several buttons undone. According to Cain, other items of her wardrobe tend toward being [[ImpossiblyLowNeckline low-cut]], so this is something of a stylistic theme with her.

** Jonas Worden of Lentonia, from the novella ''Old Soldiers Never Die'', is an UnexpectedSuccessor with a dim view of the governing dynasty of his home world, uncomfortable with the trappings of his office and just trying to do the best job he can. [[spoiler:Ends up fatally infected during a ZombieApocalypse on his world.]]

* AnachronicOrder: The first three books are in chronological order, the fourth is a prequel, the fifth takes place between books two and three, the sixth takes place in the [=WH40K=] universe's "present day" long after the events of the rest (although the last three all focus on his part in a single larger story), the seventh takes place between book four and book one, and the eighth (which notably involves his second campaign on a specific world when the story of his first trip there has yet to be published) takes place after the third, but still half a century before the sixth, the ninth taking place less than a decade before the sixth and the tenth taking place several years after the eighth. The short stories are in equally random order, with two taking place before book four (Including Cain's first act of alleged heroism), one taking place somewhere between books four and seven, one taking place immediately before book seven, and one taking place roughly a decade before book six, and several that have so few reference points that one cannot reliably tell what decade they took place in. In-story, the Cain Archive Amberley is editing the stories from is described by her as "consisting merely of a single dataslate, stuffed full of files arranged with a cavalier disregard for chronology, and to no scheme of indexing that I've been able to determine despite prolonged examination of the contents." Also, the editing and release of Cain's memoirs is done at Vail's sole discretion, such as expanding upon {{Plot Hole}}s in previous books (''Duty Calls'' was used to resolve a dangling plotline in ''Death or Glory''). If the novels are divided into groups of three (which the Omnibus editions do) each trilogy is in chronological order, with each of the latter two following Cain's (often peripheral) involvement in a single larger plot.

Ten novels, fourteen short stories and two audio dramas have so far been published. Many of the stories have been recompiled in omnibus editions.

* "Three Questions" (2023): While traveling between systems with the Valhallan 597th, Cain is informed by another regiment on the ship, the Kastrian 73rd, that their Commissar died in his sleep. While hoping to look like he was far more diligent in his inquiry into the matter than he intended to actually be, Cain asks a few questions too many, and ends up realizing that the late Commissar Fossick may have been murdered -- with pretty much his entire regiment on the suspect list.

Ten novels, thirteen short stories and two audio dramas have so far been published. Many of the stories have been recompiled in omnibus editions.

* "Three Questions" (2023): While traveling between systems with the Valhallan 597th, Cain is informed by another regiment on the ship, the Kastrian 73rd that their Commissar died in his sleep. While hoping to look like he was far more diligent in his inquiry into the matter than he intended to actually be, Cain asks a few questions too many, and ends up realizing that the late Commissar Fossick may have been murdered -- with pretty much his entire regiment on the suspect list.

* KillEmAll: While Cain has an outstanding track record of coming back from missions almost unscathed, very rarely do many of his squad survive.
** [[spoiler: Actually, TotalPartyKill happened like four times in all the books. Usually a unit with Cain attached will take no or minor casualties. Hell, even the squad that passed through ambull tunnels, a necron tomb, and got into ork ambushes twice lost only half of its members. Such a mortality rate is ''very'' low by 40K standards.]]

** [[spoiler:Inquisitor]] Malden is quoted on page 47 of the Omnibus: "You'll get more with a kind word and an excruciator than with just a kind word." A psyker [[NamesTheSame named Malden]] shows up in ''Traitor's Hand'' to...extract information from a member of the council of claimants.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: In ''For the Emperor'', the first book in the series, Jurgen offers to go with Cain on his quasi-SuicideMission, surprising Cain with his loyalty and thoughtfulness. Unfortunately, as the series went on and more stories came out covering events before this book, we learn that Cain and Jurgen have been practicially joined at the hip almost from day one, and it's an extremely rare event where Jurgen ''doesn't'' follow Cain into battle to watch his back. Making Cain surprised by something Jurgen has done dozens of times before.
** Also the very first short story ''Fight or Flight'' was not meant to be continued and it shows. Cain is a downright DirtyCoward with no wiggle room for interpertation, Jurgen is remarked as being long dead [[spoiler: despite outliving Cain who died of old age after two centuries]], and there's no mention of Cain's other adventures or accomplishments