All Guardsmen Party / Characters

The character sheet for All Guardsmen Party, a dramatised After-Action Report of a series of Dark Heresy sessions.

Unmarked Spoilers Below.

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The All-Guardsmen Party

In General

Our intrepid heroes (for a certain value of "hero"), the All-Guardsmen Party are the survivors of an Imperial Guard regiment who now work for the Ordo Xenos. With luck, they might even survive the experience.

Action Survivor: They've lived through grueling Imperial Guard campaigns and harrowing Inquisition missions.
Badass Crew: A squad of Imperial Guardsman-turned-Inquisition footsoldiers.
Band of Brothers: Which later gets extended to other Inquisition members they like, such as Jim and Hannah.
Boring, but Practical/Combat Pragmatist: The squad's favorite tactics are "Shoot it until it dies" and "Blow it up".
Brilliant, but Lazy: "Brilliant" is probably not the right word for a group of Imperial Guardsmen-cum-Inquisition goons, but they can be pretty capable when they want to. But why do something when you can get someone else to do it instead?
Dumb Muscle: Their general role in the Inquisition, which they're fine with.. It's when they're not treated like simple grunts that they get concerned.
Had to Be Sharp: Given what the average Guardsman goes through, and given what they've gone through as Inquisition grunts, it's no surprise that they're as competent as they are.
Hypercompetent Sidekick: Worryingly often, they're the only reason their interrogator bosses even survive, let alone complete their assignments.
Mauve Shirt: They're essentially this in-universe. They've stepped up in life, but the mortality rate isn't any better than the Guard. Sarge goes a step further by becoming an Interrogator.
Shell-Shocked Veteran: It shows on some more than others, but all of them have been affected by life as Guardsmen.
Surrounded by Idiots: Barring a few exceptions, they feel this way about their fellow Inquisition agents and bosses.
Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: They really don't like Psykers. Or Orks. Or Tyranids... Tau are fine, though.

Sarge

The leader of the All-Guardsmen Party.

A Father to His Men/Team Dad: Deapite a willingness to employ a Dope Slap when necessary, it's clear he cares deeply for the men under his command, to the point of having a shouting match with an Inquisitor to protect their wellbeing.
Badass Long Coat: Well... almost. Alfred gives him one as part of his "inquisitorial goon" outfit. Unfortunately all the skulls and buckles, as well as the funny hat, make it too ridiculous for the rest of the squad to take seriously.
Brutal Honesty: Has a bad habit of admitting it when his team's idiocy is responsible for the latest minor disaster.
The Cynic: Described as one in his introduction. To him, unless proven otherwise, anyone over the rank of sergeant is incompetent and trying to get his squad killed. This comes back to bite him when he's promoted to Interrogator because the resident paranoid took his advice to heart so much that he started doubting him for a while.
Declining Promotion: The rest of the party would rather have Sarge as their squad leader than an Interrogator, judging from the way they vigorously declined his promotion on his behalf. He grudgingly accepts the promotion to Interrogator later on, but only to spare the squad from getting yet another incompetent one.
Drill Sergeant Nasty/Training from Hell: Masterminded this role in "Good Soldiers, Bad Educators," once one embarrassment too many drove him to stop playing nice with the trainees.
Dope Slap: Sarge's typical response to stupidity.
Genius Bruiser: Downplayed. Sarge's "noncom beefiness" and strength are often emphasized, while also being the most sensible of the team, and the one who usually makes plans to keep them alive.
Heroic Willpower: The daemon that Oak has been fighting for 300 years and that possesses Bane attempts to corrupt Sarge by offering great power for a small price while he's in the process of being slowly beaten and bled out by Bane. Sarge's response is to pull his knife and try to stab the thing. Given that no less than 3 Inquisitors have fallen to this thing's temptations, this is no small feat.
His Name Really Is "Barkeep": Interrogator Greg Sargent, at your service.
The Leader: The one in overall command of the guardsmen: he's designated spokesman, keeps the rest of the members in line and in shape, and directs their field tactics.
Manly Tears: Has been moved to these twice, once by a tech-priest's passionate speech about saving a piece of heretical technology^note, and again at melee specialist Cutter's funeral.
My Significance Sense Is Tingling: He senses that something is wrong after Nubby sells a space marine power sword for some black market xenotech, during "Tyranid Delivery Experts".
Nearly a kilometer away Sarge's NCO senses tingled, and he was seized by the feeling that something had just happened that he was going to be very, very angry about.
No Holds Barred Beat Down: He beats the hell out of Bane Johns for nearly getting the squad killed several times once his psychic abilities are temporarily nullified.
Straight Man: Usually forced to keep the more homicidal and larcenous members of his team in check.
Sergeant Rock: Obviously. At one point, he uses this impression to inspire a group of mercenaries to go make a distraction for him.
He was born for it, destined for it, it was if the Emperor reached down and said "This guy, right here, he's going to be biggest, baddest, most sergeanty guy ever, and nothing can ever change that."
Tranquil Fury: When he gets really angry, he gets quiet and calculating. It was intense enough to scare another team's psyker.

Doc

The team's young medic.

Amazon Chaser: Downplayed. He is in a relationship with a Sister Hospitaller (Valerie), one of the Adepta Sororitas' non-combat orders (she's still imposing enough that the rest of the squad are wary of disobeying her medical commands).
Beware the Nice Ones: Despite his mild manner, it was his decision to trade a Necron ship to a Rogue Trader which led to some horrifying adventures (to say nothing of roiding/stimming up his patients for an impromptu berserk charge in that same mission). And it was his suggestion to cold-bloodedly sabotage a completely different Rogue Trader's ship to later strand him in the warp after hearing the crew boast about their atrocities. He goes on to casually melt a dozen people with appropriated Tyranid biotoxin during Tyranid Delivery Experts in a context that is only semi-self defense.
Closest Thing We Got: He's not actually a full doctor, despite his nickname - he's a medical student and a medic, and so he "wasn't in the business of curing people, just making them more comfortable while they die". Word of Shoggy says that he's getting a lot of on-the-job training, though, and that his current skillset makes him an excellent trauma surgeon (albeit much better equipped for symptom treatment than diagnosis).
Combat Medic: He may be the team medic, but he pulls his weight in their firefights as well.
Geeky Turn-On: Gets into a relationship with a Hospitaller after becoming enthralled by her "dexterous hands and perfect stitching".
Surgeons Can Do Autopsies If They Want: Well, kind of. His ongoing struggle to keep Sergeant Gravis alive has been constantly complicated by his extreme physiology, but so far the Astartes has survived, if in a coma and bisected at the chest.
Failed a Spot Check: Occasionally gets so absorbed in his medical work (especially when alongside the Hospitaller) that he misses salient pieces of information about the situation around him. The most egregious of these incidents was failing to notice a plague ward was rapidly becoming a hotspot for Nurglite cultists.
Luminescent Blush: Anything related to attractive women or sexuality will get him blushing like a schoolgirl.
Morality Pet: To the Hospitaller, and to the squad, to a lesser degree. He doesn't like it when his team members go too far (i.e. Nubby addicting Fumbles to illegal uppers), and helps reign in Valerie's zeal (i.e. getting her to properly treat Fumbles after a psychic accident mutated him).
Nice Guy / The Heart: On a squad full of gruff veterans, sociopaths, paranoiacs, crooks, and misanthropes, Doc is nearly always the one with unambiguously good intentions and a desire to help, and is almost never rude about it.
Sickeningly Sweethearts: Of the pair, Valerie is the subtler and least open about their relationship. Doc, in the words of the narrator, is a "fucking sap," getting dreamy-eyed and pining when the Hospitaller is merely on the other side of the (admittedly large) ship, writing soppy "if I should die" letters before each mission, and makes inappropriate use of facility comms to hold long vox conversations with her.
Straight Man: Shares the duty with Sarge, being one of the more level-headed ones in the team.
Unreliable Narrator: His depiction of Sister Valerie massacring hordes of attackers with Sgt. Gravis's bolter while glowing with the divine light of the Emperor and singing a beautiful Sororitas battle hymn should be taken with a grain of salt, as he is not only in love with Sister Valerie and heavily concussed, but also because Valerie had been banned from singing during mass.

Heavy

The team's heavy-weapons guy.

Big Guy Fatality Syndrome: He dies during the events of "Dude, Where's My Psyker?"
Expy: He's basically the Heavy Weapons guy from Team Fortress 2.
Heavy Sleeper: learned the art of sleeping with his eyes open. While manning a machine gun and still firing at the enemy while asleep.
Unfriendly Fire: Shot in the head by an enemy psyker who swapped minds with the friendly one on his team.

Nubby Nubbs

The team's... well, Nubby.

Abhorrent Admirer: To the team's third Interrogator. He stalks her everywhere and insists, against all evidence to the contrary, that she's not a heretical mass-murdering traitor.
- When said Interrogator is finally captured, she's put in the medical bay right next to Nubby. She ends up asking for death after a time.
- Even Nubby, who never willingly bathed or changed his underwear in his life, thinks that Hrud smell awful.
Expy: of Nobby Nobbs from the Discworld series.
The Friend Nobody Likes: The squad doesn't like him, considering the number of situations he's gotten them into, but they can't imagine deploying without him either.
Groin Attack: One of his favorite tactics after acquiring some augmetic legs.
Half the Man He Used to Be: Loses both legs to a swipe from a forcesword. Has them replaced with augmetics.
Horrible Judge of Character: Insists that Interrogator Angelica Dominica, who has tried to kill them and was in the process of turning the planet they were on into a Chaos ritual, is a nice girl.
Kleptomaniac Hero: Described as a "shameless thief" in his introduction.
Mistaken for Spies: He's been mistaken for a gretchin on at least three separate occasions.
Mutants: Very definitely not a pure human, (despite having an official certificate from the GENER 99th's Commissar identifying him as such), though what exactly contributes to his genes is a mystery. Gets on suspiciously well with Ratlings, though...
Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Most of the Inquisition grunts are aware that someone in Supply was responsible for purchasing the Occurence Border, but only the Squad knows it was Nubby's fault. This leads to more than one occasion where someone slags off the Border and the person who bought it and failing to notice Nubby suddenly looking quite sheepish.
Once Done, Never Forgotten: Following the fiasco with the Occurrence Border Nubby has been banned from ever being in command of anything ever again, unless the Emperor himself tells Sarge otherwise.
The Pig-Pen: His personal hygiene leaves a lot to be desired. His coat has been described as so grimy and ingrained with muck that it could stand up on its own.
The Scrounger: Procurer of supplies - of questionable provenance and quality - for the team. Was temporarily reassigned to Supply, which directly led to the events of Discount Spaceship.

Twitch

The team's paranoid demolitions expert.

Bunny-Ears Lawyer: The best demolitions expert the party's ever known, despite - and occasionally because of - his rampant paranoia.
The Cloud Cuckoo Lander Was Right: Yes, the box really was full of Orks.
- Yes, the Interrogator was out to kill them. And harvest their bodily fluids.
- Yes, the "Daemonoservotitan"^note fused with the possessed knarloc to become a "Daemonoservoknarlotitan."
- Yes, the Tyranids and Daemons had teamed up. Specifically, the Occurence Border's resident daemon managed to possess a Zoanthrope.
- Yes, the probability altering aura that surrounds Bane Johns (aka "Stealing our numbers") does take a lot of energy to use and can be overwhelmed by stacking the odds in the the squad's favor until he burns out.
Given Name Reveal: According to Word of God, his real name is Specialist Shultz.
I Call It "Vera": Slept with an overly-large melta bomb under his bed, which he called Big Bertha.
Improvised Weapon: If he (somehow) runs out of conventional explosives, he's been known to modify the squad's lasgun power packs into surprisingly-effective IEDs.
The Paranoiac: Described as one in his introduction. He literally cannot function without a Guardsman-grade secure perimiter, and always tricks out the party's home base with a ridiculous amount of booby traps and explosives, much to their hosts' frequent dismay.
Properly Paranoid: Zigzagged back and forth. "Remember how I said it was Orks and you all called me crazy?" Has correctly predicted the source of the party's latest Xeno-related troubles more than once, and "There's nothing quite as annoying as a paranoid who's been proved right."
- The "proper" part goes out the window during Tyranid Acquisition Experts, in which he rabidly accuses an entire shuttle of Space Marines of being Orks in disguise and makes an at least semi-earnest attempt to explode everyone present.
  - And then promptly returns when after several horrible Warp Jumps, his conclusion that the Daemons and the Tyranids had teamed up and become 'Daemonids' turns out to be true, and the Zoanthrope they had captured actually was possessed by a Daemon.
- According to Shoggy, the DM now lets Twitch roll for paranoia at the start of each mission, then leaks him spoilers based on how well he does. The others are only privy to this (already possibly incomplete or inaccurate) information through Twitch's IC interpretation.
Stuff Blowing Up: His specialty, at which he excels. He never shows up to fight with fewer explosives than he can physically carry if he can.
Through the Eyes of Madness: "The Greater Good" shows a glimpse of how he sees things, as he hallucinates a non-existent ork attack.
...he could hear the Orks moving through the pipes around him, but didn't have anything heavy enough to blast through to them. If Doc and Tink hadn't stolen his supplies when he'd told them about the Kommando raid Twitch could've easily wiped out the greenskins, instead he'd been reduced to trying to snipe them through the walls with his laspistol.
Wire Dilemma: Subverted according to his player: Twitch color-codes the wires on his bombs at complete random, to confuse would-be defusers.

Cutter

The team's melee specialist. Replaces Heavy. Introduced in "What's In The Box?" as Heavy's replacement.

Badass Bookworm: A humble scribe who discovered his true calling the first time he picked up a chainsword.
Blood Knight: A "borderline psychotic" fighter who took to the chainsword a little too readily for the comfort of the other party members.
Close-Range Combatant: As per his description, he was the regiment's only melee specialist.
Hell Is War: Runs the fighting pit in the Occurence Borders Dead Party Member Club as a chainsword-wielding skeleton.
I Call It "Vera": Chainsword-chan. In some of the more warpy parts of the Occurence Border, it starts talking to him.
Self-Destructive Charge: Charges a pair of Chaos Space Marines and a Heretek while pumped up with an overdose of stimulants.

Crisp

The team's second heavy-weapons guy. Nubby's temporary replacement. Introduced in Heretic Purging to fill in for Nubby after the latter is crippled on a mission.

The Corruptible: Throughout Heretic Purging it is hinted that Crisp might be somewhat corrupted by Chaos, based on his blase reactions to Slanneshi iconography and how easily he gets along with a Khornate cultist, but nothing ultimately comes of it.
Death Seeker: The posthumous explanation for his improvement in mood.
Die Laughing: He laughs dementedly as he suicide-bombs the Alpha Legionnaire at the end of Heretic Purging.
Dying Moment of Awesome: After his death, the Party and the rest of the Generan regiment agree that, as tragic as it was, successfully bluffing and suicide-bombing a Chaos Space Marine was pretty cool.
Fire-Breathing Weapon: As his nickname suggests, his weapon of choice is a flamer.
Heroic Sacrifice: Has Twitch wire him with a whole mess of detpacks so he can Action Bomb the Alpha Legionnaire pinning the squad.
Laughing Mad: Giggles at even the slightest provocation, and his sense of humor is so macabre and twisted only a worshipper of Khorne is shown to share it. As it turns out, he joined a death cult, and his glee is based on the belief that all suffering is nothing more than a cosmic joke of some kind.
Meaningful Name: Crisp the flamer specialist (and cook).
Shell-Shocked Veteran: Took the death of the regiment poorly, losing his sense of humour and suffering from bad weight loss. By the start of Heretic Purging he's regained them, but only because he signed up with a death cult.
Taking You with Me: Blows himself up to take out a Chaos Space Marine.
We Hardly Knew Ye: He does not survive his introductory episode.

Tink

The team's technical expert. Replaces Cutter. Introduced in The Interplanetary Man of Mystery.

Abhorrent Admirer: Tink has an obsession with female Tech Priests that leads to what the fic straight-up calls sexual harassment.
Gender Bender: Downplayed: His character in the Tau anime series has recently been turned into a woman by the Dark Eldar. Sarge refuses to hear the details.
I Call It "Vera": His drone, which he called "Hannah Two-point-Oh", and then "Fio'whatsit" (He actually named it after the Earth-caste Tau girl he befriended last mission, but the rest of the team couldn't pronounce it), before Sarge and the rest of the team forced him to call it "Spot".
Interspecies Friendship: He got quite friendly with the Earth-caste Tau they hired to fix his plasma gun, to the point that she was genuinely concerned for him when he didn't show up to pick up his gun as scheduled. Sarge suspects that he might have been getting a bit... too friendly with her, but fortunately (for Tink) their mission wraps up and they leave the system cluster before anyone else in The Inquisition notices.
Never My Fault: Seems completely incapable of ever accepting responsibility when something goes wrong. Stasis unit failed due to him using certain components a Tech-priest warned against? It's the machine spirits fault, even though he denied their existence not two minutes earlier. Failed to notice the Angelica he was tailing was a double? It was Nubbys fault for hiring homeless drunks to be their spotters, and he was exempt from blame because he'd never seen her before recently. Broke concealment to scream at an Eldar Bonesinger, causing her to send a bolt of Warp lightning at him and summon mist to hide herself, wasting precious time they didn't have? It was Doc's fault for not stopping him.
Plasma Cannon: His weapon of choice.
Ramming Always Works: When an Eldar Warlock shrugs off Spot's plasma shots, Tink gets the undoubtedly bright idea to smash the drone right into the Warlock's helmet. Impact of the collision sends the Eldar headfirst through a (thin) wall. Leading to the embarrassing incident described below.
Robosexual: Likes his drone "waifu" a little too much. (He named it after Hannah the techpriest, and then the Tau girl he befriended during The Greater Good, before the team forced him to name it 'Spot') So when he takes it behind his hospital bed screen and loud clanging sounds ensue, everyone assumes the obvious. To make matters worse, when his hospital-mates decide the noises aren't funny anymore, they pull back the curtain to find Tink with the drone wedged between his legs. Turns out, however, he's actually trying to hammer out a dent from its chassis.

Fumbles

The team's psyker. Introduced in The Interplanetary Man of Mystery.

Body Horror: After a psychic battle with a captured Tyranid Zoanthrope, his eyes swell to the size of fists. Sister Valerie has to conduct surgery to reduce the discomfort this caused, but couldn't do anything about the extra sensitivity to light, forcing Fumbles to wear a set of welder's goggles to keep from blinding himself.
The Eeyore: Suffers from chronic depression, and tends to broadcast his emotions to anyone around him. He seemed to get better for a while, but it turned out Nubby was slipping him illegal uppers.
Freak Out: Fumbles has a panic attack when fighting Wraithguard and justifiably so. It almost gets him killed. The Wraithguard fire weapons that suck anything they hit into the warp. Fumbles can sense the daemons on the other side baying for his soul. He let's out a psychic scream in response... breaking his helmet's face plate... while in a vacuum. If it wasn't for Twitch using his bag as a temporary measure to hold in the air in Fumbles's suit, he would have died right then and there.
Going Cold Turkey: Goes through a very nasty withdrawal when Nubby runs out of happy pills to slip him. For extra fun, his brand of Power Incontinence means that everyone else has to experience withdrawal symptoms also.
Inept Mage: It turns out, not so much. The Guardsmen assumed he was this when they first meet him, since he had a tendency to cock up his powers at the worst possible times (Which gave him the name 'Fumbles' in the first place) But once he's separated from Interrogator Bane Johns and his bullshit-enabling, probability warping psychic powers, he turns out to be reasonably competent and proves invaluble in several firefights.
Mundane Utility: Fumbles often uses his powers of mind reading or empathy reading to read people's surface thoughts and provide them with tools and supplies that they need to work on a task, sometimes without them even realizing that he's helping them.
Parental Abandonment: Like most psykers in service to the Emperor, Fumbles didn't live a normal childhood and was separated from his parents probably pretty early in his life. He never had a parental figure growing up. What actually happened to his parents, whether they were killed, abandoned him, or he was simply taken from them when the Black Ships discovered him isn't stated, but it definitely adds to his depression.
Power Incontinence: Whenever he's scared or sad his powers have a tendency to misfire, though so far this has only been of the "cover everything in frost or shoot static electricity" variety rather than the "become a living vessel for warpspawned horrors or accidentally blow all the airlocks at once" accidents that everyone is afraid of. He also projects whatever he happens to be feeling onto everyone in the vicinity, which made for a very rough time when he went through withdrawal.
Psychoactive Powers: Suffered from low self-esteem in his first mission, which in turn caused his Psyker powers to act up unpredictably and worsen his depression. Bane's luck sapping field also caused several mishaps that made sure that no one trusted him to use his powers. This is not helped by his powerset being Telepathy, which project his emotions to everyone around him, including himself, which depresses and/or annoys everyone around him, which in turn leads to what the guardsmen call a "depressive feedback loop", bringing down the whole group dynamic.
Reality Warper: Like all psykers, this is the true nature of his powers. Fumbles is moderately weak for a psyker, but that's a very good thing.
Support Party Member: Fumbles rarely does any actual shooting, but his otherwise meager psychic powers make the Guardsmen vastly more effective.
The psyker was doing wonderfully, a little praise and whatever Nubby had given him while Sarge and Doc weren't looking had really improved his morale. It's amazing how much it helps to have someone who can pinpoint hostiles on the other side of the wall for you and doubly amazing how much damage a simple invisible grenade can do. Fumbles didn't screw up a single time during the whole push and even managed to shoot someone with his laspistol, the little guy felt like a superhero and everyone within twenty or so meters felt like one too.
Telepathy: His particular psychic powerset, ranging from communication, detecting people through walls, and manipulating the perceptions of others. His Power Incontinence has him broadcast his emotions and senses to everyone around him.
Took a Level in Badass: As mentioned above, once he got away from Bane Johns and started getting regular positive reinforcement (and illegal drugs) from the Guardsmen, he got much more confident which, due to the nature of his abilities, made him much more effective in the field. He still fumbles every now and then, but much less often and rarely with as catastrophic consequnces as before. Heck, he even manages to hold his own in a psychic duel against a Zoanthrope. (Granted, said Zoanthrope was half-unconcious and cut off from the Tyranid Hive Mind at the time, and he got himself mutated for his trouble. Still, he bought the Squad enough time to get the Zoanthrope to the stasis unit.)
You Are a Credit to Your Race: The Party considers him the least offensive Psyker they've met.

Aimy

A guardswoman whom the team encountered as an unnamed NPC in Nubby's Girlfriend, she returned as Doc's temporary replacement in The Xenotech Heresy and remained on the squad even after Doc's return.

Ascended Extra: Originally an unnamed extra in Nubby's Girlfriend, he is promoted to a proper member of the Party in The Xenotech Heresy and given much more personality.
Berserk Button: Don't make any comments about or even mention her hair, unless you want to get a flurry of insults, and punches, thrown at you.
Blue Blood: Her mother is a Lord General.
Curse Cut Short: She tries to tell off a Death Watch marine for Tempting Fate after the Daemonhost they were fighting disappeared. Only to get cut off by its abrupt reappearance.
Didn't Think This Through: She gets so mad at the scout marine instructing the squad in Tyranid Acquisition Experts that she actually tries to punch him. This results in Aimy damaging her own hand against his superhuman jawline and the scout losing whatever respect or confidence he had left in the squad.
Early-Bird Cameo: Was the surviving guardswoman from the second Inquisitorial team in Nubby's Girlfriend.
Friendly Sniper: The team sharpshooter, and emotional under stress.
Locked into Strangeness: She develops a skunk stripe after undergoing treatment for her facial burns, and will violently manhandle anyone who mentions it.
Military Brat: Her mother is a Lord General in the Astra Militarum. She came from a "nobby regiment" (narrator's words) and has a name ripped straight from 'Discworld' (Though shortened by several pages). Despite this, she fits right in among the remnants of the Generian 99th Medium Infantry.
O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Before the "Xenotech Heresy" arc, the team would have described her with terms such as "Disciplined", "Serious", and "Solid". ("It was a commonly held belief that she saluted her mother every night before bed.") So when she engulfs Sarge in a crying hug upon seeing him, they know that things have gone ploin-shaped.
Overly Long Name: Amelia Delorisista Amanita Trigestrata Zeldana Malifee von Humpeding.
Talk to the Fist: Subverted. She tries to punch the Emperor's Scythe scout marine in the jaw, but ends up severely injuring her own hand in the process.

Recurring Cast

Inquisitor Quercus aka "Professor Oak"

The Inquisitor who gives the team their missions, he is basically running a graduate school for interrogators.

Broken Bird: Persumed. Many of his friends and colleagues have died or been possessed over the years to the point that one has to wonder if erasing his own memories is also a way to cope.
The Chessmaster: Oak is not simply training Interrogators, he is also engaged in a long-term campaign against a body-hopping daemon. His school, the Guardsmen in particular, has been used to secretly prepare the ritual needed to eliminate it.
Fortune Teller: As time goes on, it becomes clear that Oak either is one or has one on his side. Otherwise he would not have been able to predict that a Necron ship would collide with the planet his Guardsmen were on or that they would collect the Necron artifact that he would need for his future plans.
Memory Gambit: An unusual example for an Inquisitor as he doesn't use this on other people. He uses it on himself, periodically wiping his own memories and storing them elsewhere to hide his plans from his enemies. Alfred figures this out when he realizes that Oak actually believes all the obvious lies he's telling when using his psychic powers on Oak. Fumbles, when he's around him, can constantly hear his thoughts being broadcasted from several rooms away as if he is constantly narrating his own actions in his head. In fact, sometimes what he's narrating in his head sometimes doesn't even match what Oak is currently doing as Oak is completely convinced he is carrying out a different task than the one he is actually performing.
Punny Name: His real name is the genus that oak trees come from.
- Meaningful Name: Turns out his name is a little deeper than it initially appears. The entire campaign has been about crafting a capture device to finally trapped his hated daemonic foe. In other words, the Guardsman helped gather the ingredients to help him create a Master Ball.
- His second in command is named Interrogator Ulmus. Ulmus is the scientific name of Elm trees literally making him Professor Elm.
Reasonable Authority Figure: Choice of Interrogators aside, Oak is quite willing to listen to his subordinates' input and act accordingly. Granted, the good Inquisitor is trying to sort out the Interrogators whose masters have neglected and who are too lazy to finish their training. Oak's own personal Interrogators tend to be extremely solid.
Rogue Agent: The reveal at the end of Tyranid Acquisition Experts. However this is a lie created by his demonic adversary who has infiltrated the Inquisition and is trying to neutralize Oak as a threat.
Shout-Out: Oak has been fight "The Conspiracy" which is a splinter of the Cognitae from the series Ravenor (who also gets off handedly mentioned by Doc who reads his memoirs). Like the Cognitae, the Conspiracy is a group of corrupted Inquisitorial agents trying to take over the Inquisition from within, but they are led by a daemon that Oak has been fighting for 300 years.
Xanatos Speed Chess: By Interlude: Debrief it becomes clear that he's a master of this, with the entire campaign so far having been him manipulating pieces into place in order to banish the daemon once and for all specifically by capturing it in a device from which it can never escape.

Sister Valerie

A Sister Hospitaller of the Adepta Sororitas who the squad meets (and Doc immediately crushes on) in their first mission. She is later reassigned to the Occurrence Border crew as their chief medical officer.

A-Team Firing: When fighting off a misguided attack by the local police force with Sergeant Gravis's bolter, she manages to hit the floor, walls, ceiling, and the door behind her. Of course, she wasn't wearing her power armor at the time, and the weapon in question is basically a fully automatic rocket launcher sized for an eight-foot-tall Super-Soldier in Power Armor (the Space Marine version, not the Adepta Sororitas version), so it's understandable.
Fantastic Racism: As befits a Sororitas, she despises xenos, mutants, and heretics beyond even the normal standards of the Imperium. This goes so far as to initially refusing to help Fumbles cope with having developed giant eyes in a warp incident.
You Need to Get Laid: It's mentioned that her medbay staff like having Doc around because he puts her in a better mood.

The Rupert and Alfred

The friendliest interrogator the team has served under, if not the smartest. Alfred makes up for that. Later on, The Rupert graduates to full inquisitor, with Alfred serving as his interrogator.

Appropriated Appellation: He actually encourages his men to call him Rupert, which is supposed to be a derogatory term for incompetent and/or suicidally overconfident officers. The squad notes that this takes the fun out of it, but it's still the only name we get for him.
An Arm and a Leg: Both of his appearances end with him losing an arm and having to replace it with an augment. The first time is when he challenges a techpriest magos to a duel and has his arm charred to a crisp by a Lightning Gun, and the second time he's goaded out of cover by a Chaos space marine and gets his remaining arm blown off by a bolter round.
Benevolent Boss: Tries to be this to the Party, but their cynicism about dealing with superiors and his own nature as a Sheltered Aristocrat mean his attempts don't go over well. That said, he's the least awful Interrogator the Party's been assigned to, and he eventually grows on them.
Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Alfred, and often the entire Party by extension, do their best to keep the Rupert grounded whenever his Honor Before Reason tendencies threaten to kick in.
Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: The Rupert's behavior makes it easy to forget that prior to becoming an Interrogator he was a seasoned Guard officer. He's apparently so good that the military commanders of a planet-wide war think it's best to let him take charge. To explain how crazy this is, a Lord Inquisitor attempted to do the same thing on Vraks and was almost declared a renegade by the High Lords of Terra themselves. Mind you, this was a Lord Inquisitor that was given the incredibly rare honor of getting to see the Emperor in person. The fact that he is allowed to do this by the Munitorum speaks to his clear and obvious loyalty and that he WILL give up his command once the war is won. Granted, the Lord Inquisitor (of Ordo Malleus) was currently vying for power with the Ordo Hereticus (who also wanted control of the army), but still.
Declining Promotion: The Rupert decides he could have done a better job his first time out, and asks Oak for another chance to prove himself. After his second mission with the Party, he accepts it.
Due to the Dead: To the surprise and heartfelt appreciation of the Guardsmen, The Rupert does this for Cutter, having managed to get ahold of another chainsword made by the Ork Box (described by the narrator as a near-perfect duplicate of Cutter's) as a death offering at the fallen trooper's funeral.
Ensign Newbie: The Rupert is actually fairly senior and experienced, but hasn't lost his sense of naivete and wide-eyed wonder.
Everyone Is Related: Extremely downplayed, but the narration near the end of the "Penal Legion" arc notes he's a distant cousin of Aimy's mother.
Great White Hunter: Plays this during the Heretic Purging arc. "Umbubu!" The accompanying artwork invokes the trope further.
Honor Before Reason/Wide-Eyed Idealist: His biggest weakness as both an aspiring inquisitor and as an inhabitant of the Warhammer 40,000 universe. He thinks that he lives in a world that is significantly Lighter and Softer than it really is, and refuses to buck on his morals or expectations unless presented with overwhelming evidence to the contrary. This mindset goes badly for him at the climax of What's In The Box?, when he makes several heartfelt pleas to the heretek magos before challenging him to a one-on-one duel. He is promptly fried by a Lightning Gun and loses an arm for his trouble.
- Fortunately, the incident serves as enough of a reality check that he ends up Declining Promotion from Oak. By the time of Purging Heretics the Rupert has mellowed out considerably and is more willing to follow the tactical advice of his fellows, though he remains a stubborn romantic about it and has a tendency to sulk whenever the Party causes collateral damage.
Horrible Judge of Character: The Rupert likes to think the best of other humans and will actively ignore warning signs. In example there was his assertion that several local leaders were good men and right on the verge of becoming loyal Imperium citizens if the Guardsmen hadn't interfered. As he's saying this, Alfred is making it clear the leaders were on the verge of killing, mutilating, and potentially eating the Rupert and everyone else.
The Jeeves: Alfred is hypercompetent, slightly psychic, and watches the Rupert's back like a hawk.
Nerves of Steel: One time a psyker fired a lightning bolt at Rupert. Alfred raised a psychic shield to block it, knocking him unconscious. Rupert had so much faith in his subordinate and his shield, that he took the time to carefully line up a shot and blow the psyker's head off.
Officer and a Gentleman: Has the quintessential look of a nobby officer, including mustache, and will allow a Khornate mutant to pick up his dropped sword during a duel because anything else wouldn't be sporting.
Reasonable Authority Figure: How the Party comes to view him, despite his shortcomings. Compared to other interrogators (who variously use the Party as scapegoats or were outright Chaos worshippers), the Rupert's childish idealism isn't so bad.
Sheltered Aristocrat: Displays a shocking naivete and lack of self-preservation instincts - in a universe where everyone is trying to kill him, his favoured tactics are logical debate, fair duels, and heroic charges. He remains alive due to a combination of combat skills, Alfred and the Party's common sense, and political connections.
Tangled Family Tree: The Rupert always seems to be related to somebody important, no matter where he goes. In their first mission together, he uses this to swing better accommodations for the Squad.

Jim and Hannah

A pair of junior techpriests befriended by the party out of a need for contacts within the Adaptus Mechanicus who don't completely disregard the guardsmen or scream binary at everything.

Conflicting Loyalty: Between helping the party and serving the Mechanicus. The party's insistence upon not only using xenotech but coercing Jim and Hannah to help disguise it as Imperial technology is a sticking point. At the very least, they've been convinced that the senior techpriests aren't all that trustworthy.
Cyborg: Not much, but they've got the basic Mechanicus augmentations.
Only Sane Employee: Officially even. After the events of The Xenotech Heresy an internal Mechanicus investigation recalled everyone else for retraining due to extremely poor judgement, while the pair were commended.
Robo Speak: Averted, that they're some of the only techpriests on the Occurrence Border who don't refuse to speak in anything but binary is what makes them useful to the party.
You Are in Command Now: Due to an internal Mechanicus investigation of the ship's Tech Priests concluding that everyone who outranked them were idiots, the pair are now the ranking Tech Priests on the ship.
You Have Failed Me: Their bosses try to eliminate them after they save the party in The Xenotech Heresy, instead of letting them be killed by the Senior tech priest's machinations. Luckily Tink is able to disable the kill switches in their necks before either of them die.

Ol' Bill

Leads the civilian crew of the Occurrence Border, and knows more about it than the actual techpriests.

Almighty Janitor: Ol' Bill and his villagers are the real engineers of the Occurrence Border, even though they're not ordained Machine Cultists. The tech-priests do not take kindly to this, particularly given that the Occurrence Border is a cobbled-together piece of junk, and many of the ship's systems have random (and often disastrous) effects on other systems, leaving Ol' Bill as one of the few people who actually understands how the ship works.
Mysterious Note: It turns out that Ol' Bill and his boys are the ones responsible for leaving all the post-it notes all over the Occurrence Border, much to the irritation of the Tech-Priests. After the ship is refurbished by the Inquisition, the post-its are replaced with shiny little plaques that have the same messages.

Fio

A Tau Earth Caste half-rescued half-abducted by the party during the events of The Xenotech Heresy. It would just be too awkward to purge him after that, so he sticks around in the party's section of the Occurrence Border.

Arbitrary Skepticism: Gradually comes to accept the existence of the warp and psychic powers due to being on possibly the most warp-infested Imperial vessel in the galaxy and working directly with Fumbles to contain the captured Zoanthrope, but still scoffs at most other human "superstitions", including things like machine spirits which he has personally witnessed.
Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Tau names are multipart, and are structured like so: [Caste]'[Rank] [Birth Sept] [Several personal nicknames]. 'Fio' is the Tau word for the Earth caste, and is part of his title, not what he'd consider to be his personal name.
Fantastic Science: Tries to use a chunk of wraithbone on a stick as a psyker sensor.
Otaku: Alongside Tau culture as a whole. Gets other members of the party into not-anime, much to Sarge's exasperation.
Scully Syndrome: Doesn't believe in the "machine-spirits" of the Cult Mechanicus. And if there's any ship where those exist, the Occurrence Border would be it.
Token Non-Human: And a strange one, considering the setting.

The Diplomacy Adept

One of the several adepts that was attached to the squad once Sarge became an Interrogator. He is the squad's most important asset when it comes to diplomatic affairs, and is one of Oak's closest confidants and old friends.

The Face: When the group is undercover and needs to negotiate, he takes the lead and does the talking.
The Gadfly: When the squad has trouble comprehending situations, he responds by slowly acting it out via sock puppets.
Guile Hero: If the squad needs someone to talk for them, he's their guy. He tries to teach Sarge how to be one of these, but it doesn't take despite concerted effort by both parties for a month.
Older Than He Looks: Granted, he already looks old, but his countless juvenat treatments means he's much older than that. Specifically, he mentions that Oak is even older but his tech-priest buddy did something to make him look and act more youthful than the old Adept.
Pragmatic Hero: He teaches Sarge to never admit his mistakes to people and at least put up a facade of competence. He is also willing to plant bugs on supposed allies in case things go south and he packs a pistol at all times which surprises the hell out of Sarge who decides to never underestimate the guy.
The Social Expert: As the team's Diplomacy Adept, he has to be and he has developed a lot of "Tools of the Trade" as he calls it over the years.

Magos Smith

A definitely insane Magos Biologis Tech-Priest, and a firm ally of Oak's. Concerningly good with hybridizing technology in probably-heretical ways, and hard to work with due to monopolizing any space he can get his non-existent hands on.

Brain in a Jar: What he is, in a sense. He transplanted his own brain into a servo-skull for unspecified reasons.
Collector of the Strange: His collection of Xenos species includes an Eldar Bonesinger, an entire Genestealer Cult, several Hrud, an Ork Weirdboy with Grot retinue, and quite a few more unidentified ones. The Party briefly worries about his reaction to discovering Fio on board the Occurrence Border, only for him to decide that the Tau is "genetically uninteresting" and conscript the poor bastard as a lab assistant.
Faking the Dead: Implied that he either faked his death or at the very least never bothered informing the Adeptus Mechanicus he was still alive.
Red Baron: Jim and Hannah panic on realizing they're now on the same ship as "The Fleshsmith".

Characters / All Guardsmen Party

The All-Guardsmen Party

Recurring Cast

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