She is also the editor of Cain's memoirs, cutting and cobbling them together from a stream-of-consciousness into something readable, providing footnotes and general overview of the current situation^note and very likely editing personal commentaries about herself and other women Cain have known over the course of the series. Amberley is both Cain's critic and his ardent defender, as exhibited by her copious footnotes.

• The Ace: Some of this comes with the office: a successful Inquisitor must think fast and well, be a master of plots and deceptions, and fight at least decently. Massive resources and theoretically unlimited social/political power add to the impression as well. Still, Amberley's sheer unflappability and ability to be a step ahead of everyone make her an Ace among Aces.
• Action Girl: She's an Imperial Inquisitor. Kicking inordinate amounts of ass comes with the territory.
• Battle Couple: With Ciaphas, at least once while she's wearing Golden Power Armor.
• Bling of War: Amberley's powered armor is bright gold and covered in lots and lots of devotional icons.
• Bond One-Liner
  Amberly: Consider yourself relieved of your position.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Invoked. Also, possibly a straight example — Cain points out she's using all of her elaborate disguises and personas because she's just having fun.
• The Chains of Commanding: Amberley usually hides it behind her flippant, cheerful mask, but on several occasions, she admits to Cain that it's hard for her to remain detached from the suffering caused by the intrigues it's her job to prevent.
• The Chanteuse: This is her cover in the first book. Cain specifically notes her sultry contralto singing voice when the two are first introduced.
• The Chessmaster: Though Amberley is not afraid to get her hands dirty, she tends to prefer solving problems by employing her Inquisitorial authority to arrange to have the right people in the right place at the right time to make a difference. This is a big part of why she and Cain keep running into each other: she specifically requests his regiment to intervene in conflicts she has a professional stake in because she knows she can make use of him directly or count on him to do what is needed.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Amberley shows signs of this in the footnotes whenever the young Cain has a new relationship with another woman. Also, in The Last Ditch, when Cain expressly denies having any liaisons other than Amberley, her comment is as pointed as it is laconic: "So I would hope."
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: An inquisitor's retinue is often a collection of some of the Imperium's most dysfunctional individuals, and Amberley's is no exception. Her sanctioned psyker Rakel in particular often needs Amberley to keep her on her leash and translate her incoherent babbling into something meaningful.
• Deadpan Snarker: Presumably, this is one reason she and Cain get along so famously.
• Enemy Mine: As Inquisitorial ideologies go, Amberley is clearly on the moderate end of the Radical school, possibly Xenos Hybris: she speaks the Aeldari language with some degree of fluency and can see the shades of grey between tyranids and orks and more reasonable xenos races like the eldar and tau. It doesn't make her any less motivated to protect the Imperium from their predations, but it does help her keep some perspective: she resolves the plot of Choose Your Enemies by persuading the eldar raiding the Planet of the Week to help her and Cain deal with a Slaaneshi cult before it can summon a daemonhost.
• Foil: Again, to Cain. Amberley shares his talents at manipulation, charisma, and snark, but is dedicated, courageous, and a pragmatic idealist of sorts where Cain's a deeply skeptical cynic. She's also ready to defend him when he's always ready to condemn himself.
• Genki Girl: Surprisingly cheerful and energetic for a fully-fledged Inquisitor.
• Hero of Another Story: There are just enough hints and passed-over Noodle Incidents in the footnotes to imply that Amberley has been involved in some interesting adventures herself when she's not working with Cain. Then again, she's an Inquisitor, so that's to be expected. In fact, she's even been given a story of her own ("Hidden Depths").
• Interservice Rivalry: She's noted in more than one footnote that she considers the Ordo Malleus to be a bunch of deranged maniacs.
• I "Uh" You, Too: Though nothing of the sort is ever said "on camera", Vail does at least admit in the footnotes that she and Cain were more comfortable around each other than around most others. Which would be cute enough, if it wasn't an Inquisitor talking.
• Manipulative Bastard: Not evil by any means, but like Cain, Amberley's very good at manipulating others' feelings.
• Missed Him by That Much: Amberley nearly ran into Cain early on in his career, when she was sent to help clean up the Genestealer outbreak on Keffia. However, she was delayed by a space hulk clearing operation, and only arrived on the planet after Cain was redeployed to Perlia.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: More like Obfuscating Eccentricity. She acts like a cheerfully whimsical woman, which belies how dangerous she really is.
• Older Than They Look: Inquisitors have their secrets. She's apparently remained young for around fifty years at least.
• Only Sane Woman: Amberley certainly believes herself to be among the less-crazy Inquisitors, with similar respect for Inquisitors of the Ordo Xenos in general. She has particularly obvious disdain for many of the Ordo Malleus, and unflattering descriptions of the more stereotypical Inquisitors of the 40k universe. Case in point: when Cain describes the Inquisition as "the Emperor's pet psychopaths," Amberley refers to it as "Not the most flattering description." In nine books and counting, she has never once denied that it was accurate.
• Powered Armor: She owns a suit of it that is so heavily inlaid and decorated that Cain thinks it would make a Tech-Marine jealous. She tends to prefer more subtle equipment as a rule but breaks it out when she expects high-intensity combat, such as when purging known Genestealer nests.
• Single-Issue Wonk: Amberley appears to have an issue with the Acronym and Abbreviation Overload that the Imperial Guard, and by extension, Cain tends to pepper their speech with, making explanations (and complaints) about them in her footnotes just about every time they pop up.
• Spy Catsuit: Amberley is frequently described as wearing a "bodyglove," which is exactly what it sounds like. Sometimes it's because it's the suit she wears to interface with her powered armor, but she's also got a red one which she wears in social situations.
• Team Mom: To her retinue. Although she's rather blunt and doesn't waste time grieving when one of her aides dies, she's clearly fond of them and seems to treat them as friends.
• Unequal Pairing: As an Imperial Inquisitor, it's not only most likely illegal for her and Ciaphas to be a relationship, but it's literally part of her job description to execute him if he messes up. It doesn't get much more unequal than that — although she's also much less fanatical than most Inquisitors.
• Unreliable Narrator: More subtly than Cain, but you'd be just as wise taking anything she claims in her editorial notes with a pinch of salt.
• When She Smiles: She's charming enough in any case, but her laugh really turns it up.
• You Have Failed Me: At the end of Cain's Last Stand, Cain fears he will be on the receiving end of this after 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 artefact 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 the Shadowlight's power, and thus likely have no plans to use it against the Imperium.

• Artificial Limbs: Bionic legs in this case.
• Awesome by Analysis: Mott's nature as a Savant means that while he rambles excessively, he can be a massive help in certain situations. Of course, Cain fondly remembers the times that he and Mott decimate any card games with that same ability to count cards.
• Cyborg: Mott is largely mechanical from the neck down. This gives him the speed and resilience implied above, as well as built-in skates.
• Deadpan Snarker
  Mott: Which reminds me, thank you for coming to our assistance. It was most timely.
  Cain: My pleasure.
  Mott: Then you have an extremely perverse idea of what constitutes fun. You should get out more.
• Expy: Of Gregor Eisenhorn's savant Uber Aemos. Mott is a bit more fortunate, though; he seems more just terribly fond of information rather than literally addicted, and his augmetics are of better quality.
• Motor Mouth: Once Mott gets started rambling, it's very hard to stop him politely, since he has a compulsive need to keep working out his thoughts.
• No Social Skills: Unless he happens get sidetracked gushing about something he has an interest in and knows a great deal about (which is most things), Mott has a tendency to be blunt, abrasive, and to the point in conversation. Subtlety and tact are not his strengths.
• Old Master: Caractacus is an elderly sage in a robe. He's also regularly running through firefights with apparently little to no body armor, without hesitation. However, he is a mostly artificial cyborg.
• Paralysis by Analysis: As a corollary to his Awesomeness by Analysis, Vail points out in one story that Mott can get so caught up in calculating the optimum trajectory that he's unable to actually fire the frakking gun.

• Big Eater: Apparently, being a powerful psyker takes a lot of calories.
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: Rakel's ignorance of social norms (or distaste of such) includes wearing a dress that's rather too small for her. Although she's not a bad-looking woman, everyone else finds her madness too disturbing for it to be sexy.
• Jerkass: Not really her fault; she's just crazy and hard to be around.
• Mind Probe: Rakel's mostly used by Amberley as a living scrying device to find psychic phenomena. She's never demonstrated any active destructive powers on-screen.
• The Ophelia: She's a young, attractive woman who spends most of her time half-dressed and spouting what appears at first to be word salad — though there's often a meaning to her madness.
• Talkative Loon: Prone to babbling on about seemingly random or inconsequential things, though as she's a psyker they often actually make sense once others are aware of the context. Her reaction to Jurgen, for instance, is how Amberley discovered he is a blank.
• Telepathy: As a psyker, she's able to read people's minds. Cain finds this unsettling, for obvious reasons, though he admits that a disciplined dissembler won't find the passive mind reading to be as formidable as people fear. Rakel even once mentioned that Cain's mind "is like a mirror."

A former Commissar who went off the deep end, Amberley picked him up from a Penal Legion where he had been fitted with a combat drug injector.

• A-Team Firing: Noted at one point to be so hopped-up on combat drugs that he can't usually shoot with any kind of accuracy.
• The Berserker: When his lasgun ran out of power he started using it as a bludgeon. Against Tyranids.
• Driven to Madness: He was introduced as "just" a drugged up Penal Legion soldier Amberly picked up, and he flinched every time he looked at Cain, implying that the Commissar uniform was more or less a PTSD trigger. It was later revealed that he was a Commissar, and he succumbed to battle stress and started executing soldiers for failing to salute a superior officer during an artillery barrage. He has an aversion to the uniform, because it reminds him of how far he's fallen.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: Cain's reaction to learning Simeon was a former Commissar.
• Not Enough to Bury: Ultimately overwhelmed and near-completely shredded by tyranid gargoyles during the escape from the convent.
• Odd Friendship: He got along well with Rakel. Having gone insane and then forced to take combat drugs, he connected with her while she understood him better than anyone due to her mind reading powers.
• Psycho Serum: His injector rig can dose him up with a cocktail of combat drugs potent enough that Amberley has a hard time keeping up with him even when she's wearing her Power Armour.
• Trauma Button: Simeon can't bring himself to look at Cain or meet the Commissar's gaze, as it reminds him of what he used to be before he broke down.

• Cowboy Cop: Was ejected from the Arbites for disobeying orders and sparking a mob war that brought down a powerful cartel. While Cain was impressed by the results, Amberly has to point out to him that the Arbites are very much not a "results justify the means" type of organization; while he was an undercover cop, well and truly stepping out of the bounds of the law by murdering cartel officers was something the Arbites couldn't abide. He was looking at a tribunal and execution, but Amberly got him off by recruiting him into her retinue since the Inquisition is that type of organization, within (admittedly ruthless) reason.
• In-Series Nickname: "Flicker". Cain initially assumes it's because he's very good at blending into shadows, but it turns out to be because of his habit of flicking his hair out of his eyes.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Instead of allowing himself to be brought in and let his work go to waste, he murdered a syndicate member and pinned the blame on another member. The resulting Mob Civil War brought down the entire syndicate. Cain didn't see the problem with that.
• Ship Tease: He and Zemelda seem to get some chemistry going in Duty Calls after the latter's recruitment.

A techpriest, Yanbel serves both the Omnissiah and the Inquisition.

• Crazy-Prepared: Carries explosive charges and detonators around with him just in case they come in handy.
• Cyborg: He's a techpriest, it's a given.
• The Engineer: Can be quite effective in a fight, but usually his role is to maintain Amberley's power armor and other equipment.

A former Mobile Kiosk worker on Periremunda who was caught in a genestealer assassination attempt on the local Arbitrator. Hired by Amberley, she soon showed that she was competent enough in a firefight, and also served to run errands for Amberley in her disguise.

• Action Survivor: Literally picked up off the street on Periremunda, she not only survives the events of Duty Calls, she's still serving Amberley what's implied to be years later in Choose Your Enemies.
• Bad "Bad Acting": She leans a little too much into her disguises at times, to the point that she has to be told not to over act.
• Dare to Be Badass: She's a Mobile Kiosk worker who becomes an integral part of a veteran Inquisitor's personal retinue.
• More Dakka: The first major weapon she gets her hands on is an honest-to-the-Emperor machine gun. Cain reasons that, as she's a civilian, she's not going to be a very good shot anyway, so she might as well use something loud that'll draw attention away from him and/or suppress the enemy.
• Ship Tease: She and Pelton seem to get some chemistry going in Duty Calls after her recruitment into Amberley's retinue.
• Unusual Euphemism: She likes to use Periremundean slang terms in conversation, all of which are incomprehensible to people not from Periremunda. Even Amberley never figured out half of what she was saying. Though it's not actually that hard for readers to figure out from context.

A Rogue Trader who, like Cain and Jurgen, occasionally helps out Amberley.

• Meaningful Name: Orelius sounds like Aurelius, which is derived from the Latin word for gold, aurum. Fitting for a scion of a wealthy merchant dynasty.
• Mistaken for Special Guest: Cain mistakes him for an Inquisitor at first, due to the in-universe cliche that Inquisitors like to disguise themselves as Rogue Traders.

• Cool Plane: Well, a Cool Ornithopter anyway. His vehicle is both good at getting where it needs to be and it's reasonably well-armed.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Especially for the Adeptus Mechanicus. He wants to find the relic first, but as soon as they are able to confirm that there's an assassin after Cain or Vail, he puts aside his rivalry with Vail to help catch the killer.

An Adept on Simia Orichalcae, who was noted as being more reasonable in solving disputes, but also got quite distracted by the Necron tomb on the planet.

• Admiring the Abomination: Is thoroughly in awe of the Necron tomb. He is also quite fascinated by the ambulls (extremely violent apex predators not native to his planet).
• And This Is for...: When Cain lets him set off the bomb that detonates the planet's store of promethium, obliterating the Necron tomb, he declares revenge for his slain mentor.
  "E nominae Ernulph!"
• Didn't Think This Through: Went with a group of Mechanicus adepts to explore the Necron tomb, but they were all killed except for him.
• Driven to Madness: Between awe at the Necrons' superior technology and PTSD from his comrades' slaughter at their hands, he cracks noticeably, alternating between referring to them worshipfully and bloody-minded vengefulness.
• Machine Worship: He's a Mechanicus priest. It comes with the territory.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: Cain later regrets he didn't shoot Logash when they found him in the tomb before he could disseminate the tomb's location amongst his superiors in the Mechancius.
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: He is good at running mining equipment and is also an avid biologist.
• Reassignment Backfire: Implied. After the events on Simia Orichalcae, Amberley explains that Logash goes onto an unspectacular career as a Magos assigned to the Noctis Labyrinth on Mars. That's the resting place of the Void Dragon, one of the C'Tan who the Necrons worshipped (and is all but stated to be the Machine God the Adeptus Mechanicus worship).

An adept on Perlia, who worked with Cain during his trek across the planet after being separated from his regiment in Death or Glory. She reappears in Cain's Last Stand as the Magos in charge of the Mechanicus research effort into the Shadowlight.

• Action Survivor: Though not a trained fighter, she's still a tech-priestess and has a great rapport with machines. She's able to modify a power loader based on a Sentinel chassis to turn it into what is effectively a flamer Sentinel and used it to deadly effect, and pilots it with the same level of skill as a veteran pilot.
• Artificial Limbs: Has a mechandrite that looks exactly like a tail. According to Ciaphas, it is actually attached directly to her tailbone (and Amberly wonders precisely how he learned this).
• Big Eater: Compared to most techpriests who tend to regard food as simple fuel to be taken on when necessary and ignored the rest of the time. In Cain's Last Stand he notes that she still has a habit of frequently snacking on ration bars that she picked up during Death or Glory.
• Did They or Didn't They?: There are a number of hints in Death or Glory that Cain and Felicia's relationship was a bit more intimate than Cain lets on. Aside from him complimenting her looks, he mentions several surprisingly intimate details (such as the location of her mechadendrite's attachment, or that she doesn't need to sleep) and later on she refers to him by his first name and the two are shown eating breakfast together. Amberly remarks that if they were "socializing" then Cain never recorded it and she has no idea when they found the time to get so friendly.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Cain's convoy wouldn't have gotten far if it wasn't for her constant repairs. The fact that she was able to keep their captured Ork vehicles functional says something about her skills as an engineer^note Ork technology in general functions largely due to their Clap Your Hands If You Believe powers, to the point that Techmarines have taken apart Ork guns only to find they're nothing but boxes containing a few loose bullets and screws. A human keeping a piece of Ork tech in working order is akin to taking ten pounds of scrap metal and somehow using it as a functional engine, and she did it several times over.
• Genki Girl: Highly unusual for the Mechanicus, who disdain emotions and try to rise above them. One of her teachers thought this would limit her prospects.
• I Was Quite a Looker: Unusually for this trope, we see Felicia both as a rather attractive young woman, and as a typically disturbing-looking tech-priestess as an older woman.
• Machine Worship: Downplayed, as she is noted to be more secular in her outlook than other tech-priests. She does however mourn the "death" of a servitor, and Cain suspects she never really forgave him for blowing up the Mechanicus Shrine Dam.
• Nice to the Waiter: ESPECIALLY for a Techpriestess.
• Pet the Dog: Surprisingly serves as this for Jurgen. She thanks him and compliments his cooking, calls him a cog (Mechanicus compliment for an unnoticed part that helps the whole function), recognizes him the better part of a century later... It's about the nicest anyone ever is to the poor guy, short of Cain himself.
• Prehensile Tail: Has a mechandrite attached to her tailbone. Amberley wonders how Cain managed to discover the part of her body it attached to. Although given her habit of leaning on it like a personal kickstand it may have been fairly obvious.
• Rank Up: Made Magos between Death or Glory and Cain's Last Stand.
• The Sleepless: She apparently doesn't require sleep due to having part of her brain replaced with cybernetics. Which once again raises the question of just how Cain discovered this.

A renegade member of the Adeptus Mechanicus who stole the Shadowlight from Perlia with the help of Ernst Killian. He and Killian hoped to use the Shadowlight to awaken the psychic powers of humanity to battle Chaos.

• For Science!: His whole reason for stealing the Shadowlight.
• Mad Scientist: Collaborates with a rogue Inquisitor to experiment on a Chaos artifact.
• Off with His Head!: He tries to make a run for it only to get scooped up by a tyranid gargoyle and his head (not so) neatly torn off his neck.
• The Paranoiac: He's been running from the Ordo Xenos for a while now after the joint venture fell apart and Killian took over the Shadowlight project, so a high degree of paranoia is to be expected. Cain thus exploits Metheius' paranoia; he makes Metheius think that the military dataslate case he's carrying contains a device that suppresses the Shadowlight's powers, and that the case is boobytrapped and/or genelocked. Inquisitor Killian also buys into this, and it all conveniently deflects their attention away from Jurgen's status as a Blank - which is what actually suppresses the Shadowlight.

A Magos supervising the archaeotech dig that turned into Cain's first encounter with Necrons, in "Echoes of the Tomb." Dies jumping in front of a gauss flayer to save Cain's life. The ironic coincidence of his name with that of the villain from Duty Calls is never examined. Somewhat uncharacteristically for a mid-to-high-level member of the Mechanicus he actually still enjoys eating regular food (most have long since replaced all that messy organic stuff with nice efficient nutrient paste), which is perhaps yet another reason he gets disintegrated.

• Nice Guy: Once you get past his obsession with archaeotech, he's not really an unpleasant person, just a bit naive and pushy.
• One-Steve Limit: There are two characters named Killian. Neither survive for very long after their introductions.
• Taking the Bullet: The gauss flayer blast kills him instead of Cain due to his sacrifice.
• Too Dumb to Live: As with every Adeptus Mechanicus adept, his fascination with archaeotech (specifically Necron archaeotech) gets him and his entire expedition wiped out to a man; only Cain escapes, thanks to diving through a Necron teleporter and being rescued by the Reclaimers.

• Admiring the Abomination: He openly praises the technical magnificence of an ominous space hulk.
• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: He has replaced his lower body with a tire, his vocal cords with a vox caster, and has an off-putting appearance and attitude.
• Jerkass: He has a very superior attitude and sneeringly views creatures born in the warp as vermin that should be killed but aren’t worth worrying about in a fight.

Senior Magos Biologis on Fecundia, engaged in research on the Tyranid hivemind.

• Bait the Dog: She initially seems like the Only Sane Woman amidst the other bigoted, officious, For Science! leaders of her shrine, but turns out to be more of a Mad Scientist than any of them.
• Dying as Yourself: Cain and the Reclaimers realize that Kildhar was infected by genestealers aboard the Spawn of Damnation, explaining her counterproductive if not suspicious actions through most of the book, such as the fact the 'stealers escape right when Cain and another high-level Mechanicus official have just arrived at the secret shrine; the tyranid hivemind is clearly angling to kill or even more likely subvert the both of them and strengthen its position. Cain and Sholer present her with the evidence and after hitting her with the Armor-Piercing Question of when the last time she herself had fitted with new tech was, the genestealer takes over and Cain is forced to fatally shoot her. Her last words are that she was last upgraded 65 years ago, before the Spawn of Damnation, and to use her remains for research.
• For Science!: Entirely willing to toss caution (and what passes for ethics among the Mechanicus) to the wind and run a genestealer breeding program, something that visibly shocks even the deeply pragmatic (and pokerfaced) Tau emissary at first. In addition to that, her last words are a request to use her remains as research material rather than destroy them.
• Manchurian Agent: Was implanted by genestealers over 60 years ago. The broodmind never took direct control of her actions but has been subconsciously "nudging" her towards a disastrous course ever since.

• Bearer of Bad News: Izembard informs Cain and his allies about the dwindling amount of time they have before the Tyrannids will be able to reach out to other fleets and dormant hives, necessitating a desperate mission to stop the Tyrannids.
• Mission Control: During the climactic battle, Izembard remains at headquarters while radioing Cain and his men information about the power plant they're trying to blow up to stop the tyrannids.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: He's upset at the idea of technology being destroyed as a side effect of Cain's operations but accepts that there are more pressing concerns and gives his approval. Better a few (ultimately replaceable) geothermal powerplants get blown up and take some tyranids with them than said tyranids eat everyone, after all.
• The Smurfette Principle: An inverted male example. He's one of the few men in a high-ranking position of power on Nusquan Fundumentibus because the Adeptus Mechanicus stands apart from the planet's traditionally matriarchal culture.

• Demolitions Expert: Helps rig explosives charges around the Shadowlight.
• Nice Guy: He salutes Cain and Rorkins even though he isn’t required to, and while apparently unhappy with Sister Julien's presence, he is polite and professional enough not to say so out loud or treat her rudely. Given Sisters of Battle were responsible for the last joint operation being wiped out (at the command of Inquisitor Killian) it's hardly a surprise he's not too happy to see her.

• Death by Materialism: His obsession with possessing the knowledge he believes the Necron tomb on Simia Orichalcae holds ends up getting him killed when he takes an expedition there and the tomb's guards massacre them all.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Ernulph is an arrogant and difficult person, but he does make many good technical points about the campaign, some of which greatly influence Cain's strategy in the final act.
• No Indoor Voice: He has a booming Vox box installed in his throat.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: He constantly feuds with the Administratum office over the smallest thing, to the point where his complimenting Quintus for his Awesome by Analysis skills and protesting a decision at the same time Pryke does both earn shocked stares.
• Spanner in the Works: Cain had nearly convinced Kasteen and Broklaw that their only hope against the Necrons reawakening on Simia Orichlacae is to get off world and call in an Imperial Navy flotilla to obliterate the Necron tomb complex from orbit when Ernulph points out in the time it takes a flotilla to arrive, the Necrons could have fully awoke and evacuated using the portal Cain saw in the tomb. Cain realizes that they're going to have to destroy the portal before the Imperials evacuate, and he's the obvious choice to lead such a suicide mission.
• Too Dumb to Live: He ignores Cain's warnings and marches straight into the Necron tomb, believing them to be servants of the Machine-God that will not hurt him. Hell, his reaction to seeing the Necrons coming for him was to sit down and start praying to them.
• We Have Reserves: He responds to Morel's concern about missing miners with comments about statistically acceptable losses.

• Daddy's Girl: She insists on serving aboard her father's ship rather than going on to better things, although her father says that she takes more after her mother in many ways (such as religious inclinations).
• Deadpan Snarker: She's a relatively easygoing and snarky Tech-Priest, especially when trading quips with her father.
• Dissonant Serenity: She's described as sounding chipper while admitting that she doesn't entirely understand an important situation on the eve of a potential Necron invasion.

• Ensign Newbie: Tarkus has far less combat experience than anyone else accompanying him.
• The Neidermeyer: Tarkus defensively ignores anyone who suggests they know better than him. This gets his unit wiped out.

• Big Sister Instinct: She kills one commissar and tries to kill another to keep her guardsman brother from being unjustly executed.
• Off on a Technicality: Even after she is exposed as a killer, she only gets transferred rather than arrested due to commissars not having authority over her branch of the Imperium.

• Big Brother Is Watching: In one of his first meetings with Cain, he quotes Cain's favorite book as an icebreaker and casually mentions that he knew to make that quote because he downloaded all of Cain's personal files as soon as he arrived on the planet.
• The Fundamentalist: He is very devout in his worship of the machine god and belongs to a sect that wants to destroy dangerous Necron technology rather than study it (to Cain's relief). Part of the reason he is willing to believe there is a conspiracy in the first place is that it would be more understandable and acceptable to him than constant mechanical failures.
• Hidden Depths: He initially seems like a cold fish who had been letting dark things go on beneath his nose, but he turns out to have his suspicions, which he confides in Cain, named his Cyber Altered Task unit, and occasionally shows hints of a sense of humor.

• Be Careful What You Wish For: They betray humanity out of hopes of getting a new body (through biotransfercence) and end up as a combat servitor as punishment for his crimes.
• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: They are never referred to by any other pronoun and have replaced every visible part of their body with metal that while being obsessed with uploading their mind into a robot body.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: They are fond of making sly puns that amuse no one and show no signs of having a conscience.
• Meaningful Name: Even for someone belonging to a technology-obsessed faction, "Heterodyne Tesla" is a bit on-the-nose.
• Smug Snake: They are far too fond of Evil Gloating and risking everything as part of a Deal with the Devil where their counterpart never had any intention of fulfilling his end of the deal.

• Closer to Earth: She behaves more human-like than most tech priests, lacking a stilted voice and taking the time to shake hands with Cain.
• Fangirl: She admits to being intrigued by Cain's past adventures and wanting to hear his perspective of the pursuit of the Spawn of Damnation.
• Frontline General: She leads her forces into battle with an enormous axe in one hand and a pistol in the other, using both weapons quite well.

A scrivener who served on Simia Orichale, who was rather reasonable for an Adept of the Administratum. Essentially the Administratum counterpart to Logash, but less crazy.

• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: He's insightful and intelligent when he needs to be, but when recording the notes of a meeting spends a lot of time writing insults about those he dislikes and talking about Kasteen's beauty.
• Distracted by the Sexy: The notes he took during meetings show that he was more interested in the highly attractive Colonel Kasteen than what was in what was actually going on.
• Hyperc Competent Sidekick: His boss is quite the Obstructive Bureaucrat, but he is insightful and able to work well with other branches of the Imperium.

A scrivener of the Administratum on Perlia, he helped managed the logistics of Cain's ragtag army cut off from the Imperial Guard.

• Easy Logistics: He and Cain manage to turn their convoy of desert refugees and survivors into an ad hoc army and fight their way across a continent, specifically by Averting this trope. He knows they have to hold on to every scrap of water and fuel they find and spends the whole story working out where to find more.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Administratum drones have a reputation for being obstructive and using the arcane rules of their offices to stonewall people. Norbert is an exception, thankfully.

The Administratum adept assigned as bursar to the Schola Cain teaches at in Cain's Last Stand.

• Gossipy Hens: Brasker is noted by Cain as being something of a chatty, gossipy individual, prone to talking about all sorts of unusual things, and seemingly terrible at keeping secrets. This later comes in handy when Cain needs someone to ask around about unusual folk tales dating back to Perlia's initial colonization; anyone else asking around would raise too many eyebrows (or think Cain had gone crazy for asking them to do the digging), but Brasker's innocuous and eccentric enough to not draw any undue attention.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: He's not nearly as hidebound and shortsighted as he may seem at first. He stocks ink just to fake the telltale-ink stains on his hands and clothes that more "old-fashioned" administratum drones expect of someone in his position; he does all his work on a computer. He also turns out to be perfectly capable of keeping secrets when needed.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: Subverted. He initially looks like one but proves effective at working the bureaucracy to gather information and coordinate logistics.
• Opposites Attract: Has a secret romantic relationship with Sister Julien of all people.

• Hyper-Competent Sidekick: He's quick to help the Guardsmen and is open to hearing their warnings and requests, while even making a decent military suggestion or two.
• Nerdy Nasalness: He's described as having both a nasal voice and a cold.
• Oh, Crap!: He takes bad news about the Eldar webway with professionalism, but not without clear unease.
• Sarcastic Devotee: He isn't afraid to comment on the unreasonableness of his boss.
• Secret-Keeper: Amberly allows him to know some secrets about warpcraft and the Webway after he promises not to inform his boss and points out that he has to know what to avoid bringing up around her.

• Interservice Rivalry: She's constantly bickering with her Tech Priest opposite number.
• Know When to Fold Them: When Kasteen declares Simia Orichalcae under martial law so she can co-ordinate the defence against the Orks without bureaucratic interference, Pryke angrily protests, to which Kastenn retorts Pryke can either put up with it or face the alternative. When Pryke angrily demands the alternative, Cain casually chimes in that the alternative is summary execution for interfering in defeating the Emperor's enemies. Pryke quickly shuts up.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: Quintus calls her "The Emperor's Gift to the Administratum, at least in her own mind," and she doesn't do much besides insult people and make unreasonable demands based on monetary calculations.
• Shout-Out: Gets one to Film/Aliens when she protests the Simia Orichalcae refinery's financial value to the Imperium when Cain advocates destroying it to obliterate the Necrojn tomb complex buried beneath it.
• We Have Reserves: She responds to Morel's concern about missing miners with comments about statistically acceptable losses.

• Cheated Death, Died Anyway: He is the Sole Survivor when his station accidentally unearths Necrons and is a rare person to see them in action and escape with his life, hides in the vents, and manages to avoid starvation long enough for rescuers to come, only to be immediately killed by tyrannids who arrived right after the Necrons left, before he even has time to finish his story about what happened when the Necrons attacked.

A Radical Inquisitor who stole the Shadowlight from Perlia, using a group of Battle-Sisters. His mad plans for using it ultimately backfire quite spectacularly, however.

• Crazy-Prepared: Emphasis on "crazy". His escape plan should his enemies locate him was using a captive Tyranid Lictor to lure in a nearby Tyranid swarm to destroy the Adepta Sororitas convent he was using as his base of operations, trusting the aliens to erase all trace of his presence, and seemingly uncaring about the fact he would be providing the 'nids an all-you-can-eat buffet in the process.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Exposed to the full fury of the Shadowlight's power outside of the psychic-dampening aura of Jurgen. According to Cain, Killian's corpse looks like "flesh and bone had melted together".
• Didn't Think This Through: In regard to his plans for the Shadowlight; Killian intended to use it to create an army of psykers to take the fight to the forces of Chaos on their own turf. A psyker who examined the Shadowlight later said that, had Killian carried out his imbecilic scheme, the Shadowlight could well have destroyed the entire galaxy. Quite apart from the damage wreaked by these individual psykers, their very existence would have invited possession by daemons, and acted as a gateway allowing the forces of the Warp to flow freely into the Materium. This psyker soberly predicted that, in two generations, the Eye of Terror would expand and swallow the rest of the Galaxy. Cain is sick to his stomach at the very thought of it.
• Evil Gloating: Is partial to this, which Cain exploits to play for time.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Thought Cain had some sort of device which cancelled the Shadowlight's abilities. In fact, it was Jurgen's presence that messed with the thing, and the minute he got out of Jurgen's Anti-Magic field the Shadowlight came back on, killing him.
• Meaningful Name: His first and middle names are clearly a reference to James Bond's early nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld, and he has several traits of Bond villains.
• Promoted to Scapegoat: Invoked in "Cain's Last Stand": when the Inquisition and Mechanicus detachments protecting the Shadowlight started arguing over whose fault it is Abaddon has found out about the artefact, Cain defuses the dispute by reminding them that Killian was using a Chaos cult as his pawns to test out the Shadowlight, and if any of the cultists survived the Imperial efforts to exterminate them, word could have gotten to Abaddon from them.
• State Sec: He's an Inquisitor. Secretive and draconian measures to preserve the peace and root out Chaos and sedition come with the territory. Killian seems to have gone to particularly heinous extremes for even a Radical Inquisitor, however.
• We ARE Struggling Together: Explains, when asked why an Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor sabotaged a project operated by the Ordo Xenos, that the internal workings of the Inquisition are far more fractious than the image they like to project to the rest of the Imperium.
• We Can Rule Together: To a degree; he shows the Shadowlight and explains his plans to Cain, hoping Cain's influence and support of his efforts will convince Killian's rivals in the Ordo Xenos to back off.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: How Radical Xanthians are usually portrayed. Killian doesn't come off so well.
• Would Hurt a Child: Inferred: when his first facility on Pereimunda at the Hell's Edge mining colony came under attack from the Tyranids, the miners there tried to storm Killian's ship, hoping to get their children to safety. Killian ordered his Sororitas bodyguards to open fire on the crowd.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: To the Sisters of Battle. He used them to raid the Perlia Mechanicus facility to recover the Shadowlight and protect his operation but was quite happy to leave them to the mercy of the Tyranids to cover his own ass.

• Carry a Big Stick: He wields a null rod, a staff designed to nullify Warp powers and weaken daemons.
• Consummate Professional; Vekkman is pretty crisp and matter-of-fact for the most part. He's highly focused on his job of rooting out heretics, and while he considers them insane, he's experienced enough to know that they aren't working without a plan.
• I Work Alone: While he is willing to temporarily work with others, unlike other field inquisitors such as Amberly and Killian, he seems to lack a full/time entourage of his own.
• Nerves of Steel: Tackles Emeli, a daemoness of Slaanesh, during a battle.
• Small Name, Big Ego: While quite competent, he seems to think he's superior to Cain and Amberly. He isn't.
• There's No Kill like Overkill: He seriously considered bombing most of the planet to purge the Chaos taint.
• Working the Same Case: With Amberly. He's focused on heretics, her on Eldar at the time they appear together. They play off each other at times, as the locals know an Inquisitor is investigating, but not who that Inquisitor is, allowing Amberley to go in and draw focus to the Eldar, drawing attention away from Vekkman whilst he keeps working the cult angle.

• Crazy-Prepared: He has analyzed every likely threat against the Shadowlight, whether it involves outside attacks or infiltration from the inside.
• Inter-Service Rivalry: He doesn’t seem to like his techpriest counterpart Yaitz (although he does get along ok with Felicia) and lets some scorn for the local militia into his voice while saying that depending on them is a last resort.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: When Cain sees an unfamiliar kind of daemon and asks what it is, Makan replies “a dead one” before emptying his gun at it. Unfortunately, it doesn't help much, given the daemon is being sustained by the Shadowlight.
• Speak Ill of the Dead: He doesn’t hesitate to call Killian an imbecile.

• Mr. Exposition: His role is to reveal the existence of Ork psykers and what the Imperium knows about them.

• The Cavalry Arrives Late: Amberly sends him to Perlia to investigate reports on heretical actions but he only arrives after the end of the Second Siege of Peril.
• The Ghost: He is mentioned in the footnotes of two books but has yet to meet Cain.
• Hero of Another Story: He apparently spends decades, if not longer, investigating a conspiracy involving senior tech priests deliberately building sites over Necron tombs and risking countless lives for the chance to loot Archaetoech.

The Canoness of the Adepta Sororitas on Periremunda, she was used by Inquisitor Ernest Killian to retrieve the Shadowlight.

• The Atoner: She's determined to take the brunt of the fighting and danger to make up for being led astray by Killian.
• Death Equals Redemption: After being led astray by Killian, she concludes that she and her order can only receive absolution through dying against the tyranids.
• The Fundamentalist: As a Sister of Battle, extreme, unflinching devotion to the Emperor comes with the territory.

The Sister Superior of a squad of Celestians who Cain encountered during the Battle of Periremunda.

• Action Girl: She's a highly skilled street combat expert and a talented swordswoman, and despite her unit being the smallest in the battle for the plateau, she racks up the most kills by a visible degree.
• Death Equals Redemption: Saw fighting to the death against the Tyranids as atonement for being led astray by Inquisitor Killian.
• Knight Templar: Was so carried away by bloodlust that Cain had to remind her that there were civilians in the Emperor's Temple who needed protection, pulling her back to reality. At least she has the good grace to thank him later.

Head of the Sororitas at Schola Progenium on Perlia Cain teaches at.

• Chainsaw Good: Naturally, she has a chainsword, and appears to wield it to good effect.
• Deadpan Snarker: When she wins one of the tarot pots whilst playing with Cain, Rorkins, and Visiter, she declares she intends to squander it on "riotous living" before breaking down into laughter at their stunned faces.
• It's Personal: With the Necrons, over Sanctuary 101. Whilst details are slim, the incident was one of the first truly confirmed contacts with the Necron, and the facility was a Sororitas base of some description.
• The Lad-ette: And gets along with the "Emperor-botherer"-disliking Cain quite well because of it. This is a Sister of Battle who drinks, gambles proficiently, and is romantically involved with the schola's bursar. (According to one of Amberley's footnotes, it's a myth that Sisters of Battle have to take a Vow of Celibacy, though most don't have much opportunity to take advantage.)
• Mama Bear: She doesn't just train the girls of the Schola to fight, she leads them in person, and goes ballistic fighting heretics who tried to capture their school in Cain's Last Stand.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: She's essentially Cain's Distaff Counterpart, appearing to be teaching her Sororitas initiates to value people, not just litanies.

• Battle Couple: With Cain’s comimissar cadet Malin, who she flirts with a bit on the eve of the fighting.
• Cute Bruiser: Cain describes her as a smiling, freckled girl whose reaction to being given a dangerous assignment (one she does well at) implies she sees it as a chance to show off to a boy.

• The Captain: To avoid confusion, aboard the Strike Cruiser Revenant Gries is addressed as "captain" and the actual captain of the ship has the title "shipmaster." He actually doesn't suit the trope closely, but he does lead his men efficiently and professionally.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Heavily downplayed if not subverted. He is respectful to Cain and his contributions and can think outside of the box, but even though the best way to deal with the space hulk would be to destroy it, he shoots down any idea of doing so due to the massive stash of archeotech it represents.

• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Inverted Trope. Despite being the most teched-out person on the ship, he's the friendliest person there (and Vail notes Techmarines are often kept apart from regular Marines due to their different training and priorities). Cain later says that his days sparring with Drumon on the ship were among the best of his life.
• The Engineer: Comes with being a Tech-Marine. He was in fact the one who manufactured Cain's augmetics to replace the fingers he lost to a Necron Gauss blast.
• Nice Guy: The other Reclaimers, while courteous to Cain, are still somewhat aloof. Drumon is much friendlier, Cain considered their sparring sessions one of the highlights of his time aboard the Revenant, and it is likely because of him that the constantly-overlooked Jurgen remains well-known throughout the Reclaimer grapevine during the events of Vainglorious, fifty years later.
• Proud Warrior Race: As with most Space Marines. Cain manages to score a solid hit on Drumon's chestplate with his chainsword during one of their sparring sessions, and whilst this causes little more than some minor damage to the paintwork, Drumon remarks that he'll keep the mark as a reminder to never underestimate any foe.
• Put on a Bus: Or rather Put On A Space Hulk. Volunteered to remain behind on the Spawn of Damnation as it returned to the Warp at some point after the events of "The Emperor's Finest" and hasn't rejoined the Chapter as of The Greater Good, set 65 years after The Emperor's Finest. Given what tends to happen to those who spend too long in the warp, it might count as a Bus Crash.
• Sword and Gun: Plasma pistol and power sword. Outright compared to Cain's own (less powerful but similar in function) favoured weapons.

• Everyone Has Standards: While a bit too excited at the prospect of studying live Tyranids, he absolutely refuses to go with Kildhar's plan of allowing recently captured gaunts to join the ones they already had. When Kildhar does this without informing him or Cain, he hits the button to close the gate so hard he breaks it.
• Nice Guy: Like Drumon, he comes across as a lot more personable than most Astartes.
• For Science!: Like his Mechanicus counterpart, he is a bit too excited about the potential revelations to fully consider the risk inherent in experimenting on live Tyranids.
• Unluckily Lucky: Serendipity bordering on Jinxie Penlan-grade in The Greater Good. Bad news: In attempting to re-close a gate keeping two groups of Tyranids from joining up, he mashes the button so hard he accidentally breaks the control panel and freezes the gate half-open. Good news: the two groups of Tyranids start killing each other, leading to the ultimately plot-solving discovery that different Tyranid broods hate each other.

• Nice Guy: He chats pleasantly with Cain and seems unbothered by the presence of Jurgen.
• Only Sane Man: He is probably the only named regular member of the project staff not blinded by For Science! and/or Fantastic Racism sentiments.
• Sergeant Rock: He stands his ground throughout heavy fighting.

• The Cavalry Arrives Late: When he goes to rescue Cain and Jurgen from an ambush (or at least avenge them, since he doesn't expect them to survive that long), he only arrives after they've triumphed.
• Combat Pragmatist: He is willing to use subterfuge and feigned submission to enemies rather than head-on attacks in a fight.
  Morie: And deceiving the enemies of the Emperor is holy work in itself, is it not?
• Nice Guy: He compliments Jurgen during their first meeting, works well with Cain, and is willing to accept being reminded of Traitor Space Marines without getting defensive.

• Find the Cure!: He spends much of his page-time trying to make a feasible and effective vaccine for a plague of unbelief.

• The Millstone: The number of times they do something helpful in The Greater Good can probably be counted on one hand, while the number of times they endanger or annoy Cain, Zyvan, or the Tau envoy out of bigotry, a sense that they are above the Imperial Guard, or bureaucratic short-sightedness when it comes to security measures being too tight (they forget to reprogram a combat servitor which attacks Cain's party for having a Tau with them) or too light (they have failed to counter a genestealer infiltration and take a lot of convincing to even recognize the signs that an obviously infected pilot is standing in front of them) are too many to count with every digit on both hands and feet.

• Action Girl: She's a decent las pistol shot and not afraid to go into combat.
• Bling of War: Cain describes her as wearing a uniform that is better suited for a courtier.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Cain initially dismisses her as a stubborn, egotistical, improbably dressed brat who will certainly get killed due to her insisting on charging head-first into combat, but she holds her own pretty well. Despite having little practical experience, she turns out to be a fairly competent shot and manages to use some old hunting tricks to fry a pack of Orks that board the Revenant.
• Lots of Luggage: Brings a lot of luggage, enough that two serfs are overwhelmed trying to cater it.
• Ms. Fanservice: Most of her outfits (including some of her combat ones) show a lot of her breasts, and Cain comments on her doing a lot of bouncing.
• Nice to the Waiter: She's fairly mocking towards Jurgen, although she tries to at least be polite to his face at Cain's request.
• Pink Means Feminine: Her boots are painted pink.
• Put on a Bus: She and Cain break up after she finally proposes explicitly (baffling him, much to Amberley's amusement), and she decides to settle down with a son of the Serendipita System's governor.
• Stripperific: Her outfits generally show off a lot of skin, and Cain refers to one evening dress as "the gown she was almost wearing."
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Cain probably wouldn't have been too adverse to marriage, despite finding her somewhat annoying. Simply it's because it would be a cushy life helped by the fact that she's good in the sack. The problem is that he's a Commissar and it would be almost another century before he would be allowed to retire. Had he tried to settle down with her, he would have been executed for desertion. Hilariously, the prospect of marriage to her was almost as terrifying as the execution to Cain.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Cain notes that she's constantly acting like a flighty Rich Bitch but she sometimes shows a warmer side around him.
• Youngest Child Wins: She hopes for this, having two older sisters who will inherit ahead of her, and some ambitions of her own.

• The Chains of Commanding: She eventually admits that she actually would like to evacuate herself but feels bound by both duty and the example of her mother and grandmother to stay put.
• Iron Lady: She's a firm-minded woman of middle-age appearance.
• Modest Royalty: Cain notes that she got surgical treatments to stop aging in her forties rather than while younger and she's fairly austere at first.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: She becomes more stubborn and hostile towards Kasteen, and to some extent Cain, while refusing to follow their orders to issue a full evacuation.

• Heroic Self-Deprecation: To Cain's surprise, he is capable of this, as when bringing up the possibility his life may be in danger.
  Trevellyan: If I'd died, my niece would simply have taken over precisely where I left off. In fact, she'd probably do a damn sight better job. But by the Emperor's grace, it seems, I'm going to keep the throne warm for her a while longer.
• Hold the Line: After being badly wounded, he calmly remains behind to cover Cain's escape. Unfortunately, instead of dying he gets brainwashed and used as a daemonic Puppet King to sow confusion.
• Older Than They Look: Cain initially thinks he's young for a governor but then realizes that he's "a great deal older than he seemed" not just because of a juvenat treatment, but because of an obvious relish for life.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: He's a considerate man with a good head for understanding the military terminology and factors of the crisis.

• Apocalyptic Log: He writes about what's happening him, with his story getting progressively grimmer and less coherent after his infection sets in.
• Intrepid Reporter: He used to "glean news" for a "well-regarded" magazine.
• Modest Royalty: He tries to remain humble and average despite his ascension.
  Jona: Jonas Worden, planetary governor. Call me Jona. I've had a life time's worth of "your excellency" gash in the last few weeks.
• Unexpected Successor: He wasn't the closest relative of the previous governor, and never rallied to be his successor, instead simply writing about the antics of those who did. He was surprised and horrified to be promoted to governor by the officials deciding the matter largely due to their distaste for his relatives.
• Young and in Charge: A very youthful governor.
• Zombie Infectee: He's infected with a Plague of Unbelief during an assassination attempt, fighting it hard and then being kept alive as long as possible in order to avoid a morale blow or another succession crisis.

• Beleaguered Bureaucrat: He seems fairly frustrated by the scores of claimants he has to deal with.
• The Good Chancellor: He's serving as a regent during a Succession Crisis but has no interest in scheming to become governor himself and works well with Cain and the others defending the planet.
• Lovable Coward: He is constantly rattled by bad news and initially cowers during a firefight, but as an administrator without any experience in battle, it is to be expected, and he is a polite and competent guy who also helps bandage the injured General Hekwyn.

The governor of Viridia, and Mira's father.

• Embarrassing Nickname: His enemies spread false claims that he intends to levy an unreasonable tax against the churches, causing DuPanya to be nicknamed "Alaric the Heretic". The nickname sticks (albeit in jest) for decades, if not centuries after the allegations are disproven.
• Good Parents: Even though Mira isn't his heiress, he shows her a lot of respect and attention without being a Doting Parent.
• Hidden Depths: Cain initially dismisses him as an overweight, over-dressed aristocrat, but Alaric soon sheds his opulent robe to reveal a military uniform beneath it and comments that he hates having to wear the robe in public.
• Kneel Before Frodo: He's quick to kneel respectfully in the presence of Space Marines and listens to their orders and ideas rather than try to boss them around.

• Authority in Name Only: At least in times of warfare. He has no idea about what's going on with his planet and sounds like an idiot whenever he makes a public address. He doesn't even know about a crisis threatening the entire planet until his daughters see it on the news and tell him about it.
• Is This Thing On?: He asks if his speech sounded reassuring before being told the mic is still live.
• It's Probably Nothing: Pismire insists on bringing up all of the alarming rumors about the dangerous goings-on during Cain's visit to his planet, but he also refers to a lot of them as "rumors" that he claims to be sure are unfounded. It's unclear whether he's trying to calm his people or really is too dense to know how many of those rumors are true, although the latter is implied.
• Noblesse Oblige: The man is a complete fool, but Cain offhandedly mentions that he's a rare governor who "actually appeared to care about the welfare of his citizens" (even allowing them limited access to his palace gardens) and rules a prosperous planet with no major unrest.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Let's just say that it's quite likely that Sandy Mitchell doesn't have a very high opinion of George W. Bush...
• Upper-Class Twit: He is of the most ignorant and least-informed aristocrats to appear in the series, although he genuinely does care about his people.

• Fourth-Date Marriage: He becomes besotted with Mira and proposes to her after a few weeks of acquaintance at most.
• Nice Guy: He practically hero worships Cain for saving his planet and extends that gratitude to Jurgen, being a rare authority figure to sincerely greet him by name and shake his hand (although he does then wipe it off due to how dirty Jurgen is).
• Realpolitik: He may be a genuine Nice Guy but has a sharper political mind than is evident upon meeting him, loaning the Reclaimers his personal shuttle to emphasize his public support for them but also avoiding meeting them in person in order to avoid being personally implicated in any controversial decisions their war council may make.

• Cool Old Guy: To quote Cain's description, he's a "vigorous man of about my own age, whose greying temples imparted an air of wisdom and gravitas to his bearing, and who ruled his fiefdom in the Emperor's name with what seemed to me to be a reasonable degree of competence and integrity." He also has some understanding of military strategy.
• Sacred Hospitality: He's quite welcoming to Cain and Zyvan when they visit him.
• Taking You with Me: Though he's ultimately killed, he manages to take down his assassin using a concealed weapon.
• Wealthy Yacht Owner: He has a nice yacht that Cain spends some time on.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: He's killed by infiltrators after barely ten pages.

• Hidden Depths: He seems dim and bothersome but is both smart enough to realize that he and the other claimants are distracting the actual authorities during a crisis and selfless enough to suggest that Vinzand declare emergency powers to operate without their input.
• Only Sane Man: He is the first of the governor claimants to contribute anything useful and recognize the bigger issues involved (of the others only two men vote in favor of his suggestion before Zyvan threatens to declare martial law if he thinks the council of claimants is hindering him).
• Pretty in Mink: A male version, as Cain takes note of his fur jacket.
• Rise of Zitboy: Cain describes him as having bad acne.
• Shrinking Violet: He seems uncomfortable speaking before a crowd even though he has a good idea to present to them.

• The Fall Guy: His personal vehicle is stolen and used to frame him as a Slaanesh cultist briefly.
• Freudian Slip: When de Truille suggests temporarily having the council dismissed, Ventrious protests how "I.... I mean the eventual appointee" is supposed to have respect and authority as governor after being sidelined in the crisis.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: He demands to be given a say in matters he has no clue about to try and stake his political claim.
• Mind Rape: After he's framed as a cultist, he's subjected to an intense psyker interrogation to ascertain his guilt or innocence, with said interrogator commenting that he should eventually recover. Mostly.
• Overly Long Name: He has three last names.
• Upper-Class Twit: Cain calls him an overdressed fop, and he does a poor job of hiding his blatant ambition.

• Little Miss Badass: Her exact age isn't stated, but she's considered to be a good leader by her uncle and joins her stormtrooper escort in fighting off attackers with her hunting rifle.
• The Ghost: She's often mentioned throughout Cain's Last Stand but never meets Cain and therefore never appears in person.
• You Are in Command Now: She becomes governor after her uncle is possessed by Chaos.

• Clashing Cousins: Shortly before the short story featuring her begins, her greedy cousin makes a bungled attempt to overthrow her, and she has no qualms about having him executed.
• Godzilla Threshold: She is prepared to wipe out herself and thousands of citizens with plasma torpedoes if it will also take out a Tyranid that is threatening the whole planet. Fortunately, Cain makes this unnecessary.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Her office comes across as more of a genuine workplace than a room to relax or impress people with. She also immediately and personally responds to the scene of an apparent natural disaster.
• Try to Fit That on a Business Card: According to Cain, she has over two dozen names and honorifics, few of which she prefers to be addressed by in private.

• Big Brother Instinct: He convinces Cain to liberate a bunch of military and civilian prisoners largely because his sister is one of them.
• A Father to His Men: A caring and skilled squad leader.
• Guile Hero: He falls back on the exact wording of Cain's orders to justify saving his imprisoned sister during a raid.
• The Remnant: At the beginning of the story his planets military has collapsed and he's leading an isolated band of soldiers resisting.
• Sergeant Rock: A tough sergeant who braves a lot of danger.

• Blood Knight: Cain notes how much he relishes shooting the invaders of his home world.
• Mercy Kill: He views blowing up an important Ork base as a good plan despite the presence of prisoners, arguing that killing them would be merciful due to the abuse they suffer and how unlikely they are to ever escape. However, once rescuing them becomes a viable option, he is fine with that.
• Those Two Guys: He's often seen with Jodril (a Flat Character member of the group who carries the ammo for Luskins' rocket launcher).
• Tunnel King: He used to work in underground hydro station tunnels and uses this expertise against the invaders.

• Communications Officer: A soldier who mans the local PDF's communications.
• New Meat: Cain describes him as barely out of his teens.
• Rank Up: Cain gives him command of his own sub unit as they take in more people.
• Uncertain Doom: A unit he's commanding is swarmed and butchered (presumably but not explicitly to the last man) by the orks but Grenbow himself isn't specifically shown being killed, unlike other named characters who were with him.

• Due to the Dead: He's mentioned as organizing a burial detail in one scene.
• Ensign Newbie: Repeatedly described as a "young lieutenant."
• Leeroy Jenkins: While he does have some sense of tactical caution, Cain notes "the notion of taking on the bulk of the green-skin army almost single-handed seemed to appeal to him."
• Rank Up: He receives a field promotion to Captain during the retreat.

• Action Girl: She puts up a decent fight against genestealers.
• Critical Staffing Shortage: She's supposed to police a whole town with just two subordinates, and they only got assigned to her fairly recently.
• Friends with Benefits: Cain describes her as a friend, but notes he's seen her naked before.
• Man of the City: She has spent years policing a decent-sized community single-handedly (before a genestealer war on the planet made her bosses send her two deputies) and has refused several promotions that would take her away from the town.
• Nice Girl: In addition to her Man of the City attitude, she is nice to Jurgen after he extends her the courtesy of saluting during their first meeting.

• Took a Level in Badass: Goes from an ordinary traffic cop to helping Cain in shootouts with Slaanesh (and later Khorne) cultists.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: He and his father argued over which branch of the service he joined prior to the novel but the success he experiences during it helps mend things between them.

• The Brigadier: A practical and competent military leader who is rarely if ever seen out of the command bunker.
• The Nondescript: He doesn't have any Bling of War and when he first speaks Cain has a hard time guessing who he is.
• The Quiet One: During their first meeting he stays quiet until he has a specific, important question to ask rather than throw his weight around.
• So Proud of You: Cain notes him swell with pride when being congratulated over his son's heroism.
• Spit Take: He nearly chokes on his decaf when Cain says they may be looking at a daemonhost conspiracy.

• Determined Defeatist: He says most of his recruits might as well be walking around with “targets on their shirts” but will go down fighting.
• Expy: Of Captain Mainwaring from Dad's Army.
• Surprisingly Elite Cannon Fodder: He and his unit (some of it at least) survive the battle despite both Cain and Manrin's predictions they wouldn't.
• Surrounded by Idiots: A lot of his people don't have much grasp of military manner and he's aware of it.

• Expy: Of Corporal Jones from Dad's Army, particularly with his comment of how heretics "don't like the straight silver up 'em!"
• Fearless Fool: Cain considers him overconfident about the thought of fighting Chaos.
• In the Back: He confidently says most heretics run in a fight and are therefore easy to shoot in the back.
• Old Soldier: He spent twenty years in the Imperial Guards, retired to Perlia and is proud at the chance to rejoin the militia. Cain repeatedly makes note of his impressive military posture.

• Dropped a Bridge on Him: He narrowly survives some pretty intense fighting against tyrannids, only for one of Amberley's footnotes to mention that he died later in battle against the Chaos cultists who came to Perlia a few months later without Cain's knowledge.
• Indy Ploy: He is aware that detailed plans fall apart in combat and prefers flexible strategies that can be altered on the fly.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Cain describes Vorlens and his men as unusually well-disciplined for militia soldiers and appreciates how Vorlens respects him without being an awestruck fanboy, and is capable of making tough command decisions after careful consideration.
• Tempting Fate: Cain feels this way about a statement he makes that it's time for them to go hunting the Tyranids.

• The Brigadier: He's a decent enough military strategist positioned behind the front lines of any fighting.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: He's disrespectful enough towards Amberly to earn a thinly veiled threat or two.
• Sleep Deprivation: Portens spends an unhealthy amount of time awake while supervising the planet's defense and brushes off Cain's suggestions to get some rest.

• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He doesn't impress Cain at all until the actual fighting breaks out.
• Perpetual Frowner: Cain describers him as so unenthusiastic that in the Guards he would have been court-martialed for insubordination.

• Nice Guy: He has a dutiful, informative attitude while dealing with Cain and Fulcher.
• Red Herring: He's wrongly suspected of being a Chaos agent by Cain and Amberley for a while.

• Eating the Eye Candy: Cain describes her as being reluctant to take her eyes off of the handsome Cadet Sprie, with her excuse for this being “My mum says it’s not polite to ignore visitors.”
• Expy: A gender-flipped one of Private Pike from Dad's Army.
• Mildly Military: She is repeatedly described as not having absorbed proper military training yet.
• Victory Gloating: She excitedly comments on having shot a heretic, causing her to nearly get killed herself when another Heretic fires at the sound of her voice (fortunately for Franka, he misses).

• Corrupt Quartermaster: He's selling supplies on the black market.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: He's somewhat rude to Jurgen at first but then seems helpful to the investigation and encourages that Jurgen be allowed to contribute and apply any experience he might have learned under Cain. Then it turns out that he only said that to keep Jurgen from returning to headquarters so it would be easier to make another attempt on his life. even before the reveal that he's corrupt.
• Revealing Cover Up: He tries to kill Jurgen because He Knows Too Much even though Jurgen had no interest in blowing the whistle, and when that assassination attempt draws attention, he does a fake inventory claiming all of his supplies are accounted for, causing Jurgen to realize that (given how every base has some pilfering of supplies) he's lying.

• Deadpan Snarker: When Jurgen insists his attackers were in uniform when there are no missing soldiers she makes a wry joke.
  Liana: I went to a party dressed as an Ork once, that didn't make me a greenskin.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: When Liana and her squad confront an armed Jurgen after a shootout, she doesn't panic and lets him put down his gun and explain his bizarre story, which she doesn't dismiss out of hand.

• Sergeant Rock: Cain describes him as a man who doesn't ask his men to do anything he wouldn't himself.
• Uncertain Doom: Doubly so. Freel's seen alive but panicked over a vox in the middle of a fight with Tyranids and while his death isn't confirmed, Cain doubts that anyone could have survived long enough to make it back to where reinforcements were waiting. And if Freel somehow did make it back to his own lines alive its mentioned that most (although not all) of his unit was killed anyway in another engagement a couple days later.

• A Father to His Men: Keesh enquires about the fates of two low-ranking subordinates after an ambush.
• Mr. Exposition: His primary role is briefing Cain and Amberly on the local unrest.

• Bulletproof Vest: Nyte is shot by Genestealer cultists but survives due to his torso armor.
• The Driver: Nyte takes pride in being one of the few subordinates Keesh lets drive his car and picks up Cain and Jurgen when they arrive on Periemunda.
• Nerves of Steel: Nyte remains fairly cool-headed during an ambush.
• Sit Com Archnemesis: Nyte and Jurgen take a quick, relatively humorous, dislike to each other.

• One-Way Visor: They have blank reflective visors on their helmets, which keep Cain from making out their facial expressions.
• Sound-Only Death: Both of them get into a firefight not far ahead of Cain, Jurgen, and Nyte. They call in a few progress reports before Rolin is Killed Mid-Sentence, with Dawze soon suffering the same fate.

• Bling of War: Cain thinks that even Mira DuPanya, who has a quite gaudy uniform, would call Kregeen's uniform over-ornamented.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: She is an aristocrat who takes her job protecting the system seriously and seems to appreciate instilling her troops with proper discipline and training.

• An Arm and a Leg: Hekwyn loses a hand during a Heretic attack and is later described as adjusting to his cybernetic implant.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Hekwyn is flexible enough to consider that Heretics may have infiltrated his command structure with little prompting and goes out of his way to help Cain's investigation.
• Soul-Crushing Desk Job: Cain describes him as being eager to help out in the field in a way suggesting that Hekwyn dislikes office work.

• Ensign Newbie: Cain describes him as an excitable young officer who is barely old enough to shave and wears his cap in a juvenile manner.

• Communications Officer: Marquony does most of the convoy's communications work. He helps Cain broadcast messages giving rendezvous coordinates to other military stragglers and comments on their good discipline in not responding before verifying Cain's identity.

• The Voice: Cain never meets him in person, but twice hears Piers ordering Tullock to open fire over the radio, with Tullock replying, "You got it, LT."

• Army Scout: Calen is a native scout who helps Cain search an island chain for dangerous raiders and is impressively brave, stealthy, knowledgeable of the area, and good at tracking.
• Category Traitor: Calen works for the Imperium even though many of his people continue to resist their presence.

• Hero of Another Story: He spends lots of time rallying his disorganized soldiers and coordinating with Space Marines to fight genestealers, but this all happens offscreen and is only briefly referenced.
• It's All My Fault: He blames himself for incognito genestealers operating on Viridia for so long and tries to insist on having himself court-martialled and executed for his failure. Cain and the governor talk him out of it.

• An Arm and a Leg: She loses one of her arms while fighting Chaos cultists.
• Drives Like Crazy: She compliments Jurgen on his driving skills and keeps pace with his erratic driving and fast stops in a way that she clearly enjoys and her passengers hate.
• Nice Girl: She is one of the only people in the series to compliment Jurgen and she thanks Cain for saving her life.
• Spiteful Spit: After the end of the battle where her superior officer reveals himself to be a Chaos cultist and then gets killed, Gonzaliz spits at his corpse. Cain is impressed by her accuracy, given how she just lost an arm and is being injected with painkillers.

• Consummate Professional: Cain repeatedly references Donali's "calm deliberation."
• Going Native: Cain (and perhaps others) fear that Erasmus' regular exposure to the T'au as a diplomat has led to him going a little bit native.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: During his second appearance Cain watches him smooth "a non-existent crease from the front of his immaculate robe."
• The Stoic: Donali is often guarded and reserved with his comments and facial expressions.

• Card Games: Often gambles with his fellow instructors, paticuallry Cain and Rorkins.
• Crazy-Prepared: He has his cadets do theoretical training exercises which can be used to defend Perlia and assigns Cain a very good pilot.
• Father Neptune: He's a visibly aged naval tactician who imparts his lessons to the next generation and plays a major role in the defense of Perlia.
• Humble Hero: He is a Living Legend who never writes his own memoirs and, when someone else writes a biography of his career, is willing to acknowledge when a triumph depended more on luck than skill.
• Nice Guy: He's fairly warm and open towards both Cain and the cadets.
• Workaholic: He goes a while without sleep working for Perlia's defense.

• It's Personal: He is insistent on demanding action against Kelp, Trebek, Sorel, Velade and Holebi for a bar fight which gets three people killed (including two provosts from his ship). Cain correctly suspects this was because Paraji was sleeping with one of the dead provosts.

• Forced to Watch: She had to watch and listen to via vox as another ship get swarmed and wiped out by Hormagaunts.
• Ignored Expert: She advised her commodore to keep the ships closer together in order to provide support but was ignored.
• Military Brat: She refers to a superior, the head of the inquiry she's reporting to as "Uncle Jym" at one point.

• Ace Pilot: He comes out well of several near scrapes and Cain is repeatedly thankful toward Visiter for assigning Sprie to him.
• Chick Magnet: The teenaged female militia members are pretty aroused by him.
• Dissonant Serenity: A battle raging on around them isn't enough to keep him from giving Cain a cheerful greeting.

• Military Brat: She's third generation Navy (at least) with the last two generations of her family having also served on the ship she's commissar for.
• Navel-Deep Neckline: Cain notes that her jacket has several buttons undone, showing off much of her chest.
• Oh, Crap!: She's described as looking horrified as Cain is accidentally sealed out of the escape pods.

• Expy: His name, intelligence, and rise through the ranks are reminiscent of Horatio Hornblower.
• Hold the Line: Despite having permission to retreat and Bring Help Back, he and his two ships remain at their post to fight an approaching Chaos flotilla, decimating much of it with their superior maneuvering skills and Bugler's clever tactics.
• Humble Hero: He has a celebrated rise from a Soldiers at the Rear Ensign Newbie to a Living Legend Frontline General fleet admiral, but never writes memoirs.

• David vs. Goliath: Defeats a Chaos battleship with his cruiser and a ragtag merchant fleet.
• Obfuscating Disability: He pretends his ship is badly hurt to lure in a Chaos Battleship.

• Bearer of Bad News: Describes the movements of Chaos to the local authorities.
• Big Beautiful Woman: Cain calls her "pleasantly plump".
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Her extreme haughtiness is tempered by discussions about Chaos ritual sacrifices being used to summon a daemon.

• Death of a Thousand Cuts: His proposal for destroying a genestealer space hulk approaching Serendipita is to have his much smaller ships spend the month it will take it to approach concentrating their fire on a bit of the hulk at a time to steadily reduce it to nothing.
• Nepotism: One of his aides has a strong familial resemblance to him.
• Space Nomads: Cain pegs him as a void-born man who is uncomfortable on the surface of any kind of planet and prefers to traverse the system in his ships.

• The Cavalry: The arrival of his task force turns the tide of the Battle of Periemunda.
• The Voice: Transcripts of his communiques and meetings he hosts have appeared in interludes, but he has yet to meet Cain.

• Dean Bitterman: Cain and Amberly agree that he is "plodding and unimaginative," although Amberly feels that Cain is too hard on him, and he does give his students an alright education.
• The Ghost: He is mentioned, but Cain never interacts with him on page.

• Badass Preacher: He marches toward an undead crowd to try and exorcise them and smashes one's head with his staff when that fails, although this is done in a somewhat bumbling nature that nearly gets him killed.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Initially just a comic relief character in "Old Soldiers Never Die", he blesses Holy water that is needed for a vaccine and also helps care for the infected and dying Governor Worden.
• Too Dumb to Live: He (fortunately briefly) thinks dead soldiers coming back to life is a miracle rather than Warpcraft reviving the dead as Mooks and needs a reminder otherwise.

• Native Guide: A local road worker and desert expert who guides the group to sources of water.
• Sacrificial Lion: He's Killed Offscreen near the end of the book after having made enough of an impression that Cain finds himself missing the man and even thinks of him a time or two in later books.

• Closest Thing We Got: Due to the lack of an actual medical he ends up caring for the injured.
• Kindly Vet: He is a humble, and sympathetic veterinarian.

• Jerkass: He is a disrespectful, insinuation-prone cost-cutter who dislikes criticism.
• Redemption Equals Death: His incompetence and general cost-cutting gets the ship infested by a demon, damaged and put in mortal danger along with its passengers. He then works hard with his crew to find a way to get them down to the planet safely, but breaks his neck in the landing.

• Ignored Expert: As things go badly, Kolyn is quick to point out about how he's been warning Mires about the need for equipment repairs and the reconsecration of wards for some time.
• Resign in Protest: Fed up with Mires ignoring his recommendations for so long, Kolyn declares his intention to quit as soon as the mission is over. Some Retirony is teased when the ship ends up being destroyed instead, but Kolyn survives (albeit with a broken arm).
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Kolyn and the other surviving crewmen are last seen separating from Cain and his men while they flee their ship before it can sink into the lake where they've crashed. Cain speculates that their knowledge of the ship will allow them to escape faster than his party, but they are never seen or mentioned again.

• Fire-Forged Friends: They go from trying to kill each other over some spilled water to goofing off together when not on duty and being an effective fire team and Back-to-Back Badasses going up against an Ork Zerg Rush.
• Tattooed Crook: Demara is a former gang enforcer with a tattooed cheek.

• Benevolent Boss: When some of Morel's men disappear, he refuses to ignore it and wants an investigation to protect his remaining workers. Morel also shows anger when it is (falsely) suggested that the culprits might be among his staff.

• Cyborg Helmsman: Durant has so many cyborg parts that Cain almost mistakes him for a servitor, and his mechanical parts are entwined with the ship itself.
• Good Parents: He's quite warm toward his daughter (his ship's Tech-Priest) and feels that she has the potential to do a lot more than stick around his ship.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: When Cain fills his ship with refugees, Durant demands an explanation, but once he gets one, he's mollified and accommodating.

• Not Enough to Bury: When their great-grandmother is attacked by a Tyranid, all her family can save of her is her spectacles.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: It's slightly Played for Laughs, but the surviving family members describe their ravaged settlement as not being "a fit place to bring up kids in now" and announce their intention to move elsewhere.

• Brutal Honesty: She gives bad news calmly and without evasion.
• Consummate Professional: She remains composed and focused on getting the ship within range of defensive guns faster throughout a tense starship Chase Scene where they are unsure if much faster Elder ships are charging toward them or said defenses.

• Cool Old Guy: It's not clear exactly how old he is, but his appearances are 61 years apart in-universe and Tau consider 40 retirement age.
• Limited Advancement Opportunities: Under Tau Fantastic Naming Conventions the "El'" part of his name denotes his rank in the Water Caste. He hasn't gotten a promotion in 61 years. That said, it is the second-highest rank a Tau can achieve, and few ever get as far as he has.
• Odd Friendship: Cain saved his life back in For the Emperor. Sixty-one years and eight books later in The Greater Good, he seeks out Cain as his opposite number in the face of Hive Fleet Kraken's invasion, and the two strike up something of a friendship.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: He's mostly known as El'hassai (a shortened form of his formal name containing his rank and a defining trait that is left untranslated). The "Por" for his affiliation with the Water Caste is only added once and his home sept is never identified.
• Put on a Bus: After the events on Gravalax the Tau withdraw from the planet, El'hassai included. He doesn't return until The Greater Good, sixty-one years and eight books later. He was also somehow spared the fate of his genestealer-implanted comrades.

• Friendly Enemy: He seems to have no personal animus toward the Imperium despite his government's on-and-off hostility with them, saves Cain's life a few times, and amiably chats with him.

• Category Traitor: She is a human whose job is to rebuild the infrastructure of Tau-annexed worlds and get the local authorities to embrace "The Greater Good." Many in the Imperium hate her on sight for what she represents, although she is only doing what she was raised to and she implies that she is curious about humanity outside of her government's control.
• Smarter Than They Look: Her casual attitude belies a job that requires a lot of intelligence, and she seems to recognize Jurgen as a blank.

• Decapitation Strike: She and her men kill their sector's governor and almost get General Zyvan while trying to make way for an invasion.
• Evil Counterpart: Her sense of cynical self-preservation and ability to see through facades remind Cain eerily of himself. However, they have firmly opposed views about killing loyal subjects and soldiers of the Imperium.
• Expy: She serves as the Hans Gruber figure in a "Die Hard" on an X story, radioing orders to various henchmen, using the cover of terrorism to commit a robbery (although she does seem to be a genuine believer to some extent), and bragging that she is an "exceptional thief."
• Made of Iron: After getting her arm cut off and slashed through the upper chest, she gets back up and still keeps lunging for an escape pod.

• It Can Think: Cain's past experience with Necrons prior to meeting Anzibal makes him view the entire species as mindless robots. Cain is quite creeped out to meet one who introduces himself by name and discusses his culture, history, and plans.
• Pragmatic Villainy: He is willing to negotiate with renegade members of the Imperium (and eventually Cain) for them to mine materials to make a world engine for him rather than just kill everyone in sight like many Necrons would, but because the few years' worth of effort it would spare his own forces is "marginally preferable" to his plans.
• Smug Snake: He sees himself as a potential Phaeron, but badly underestimates his enemies and is defeated without much difficulty.
• Worthy Opponent: He comes to respect Cain's intelligence and occasional frankness and is honest with him in turn while offering him a deal where he can survive if he doesn't oppose Anzibal. Cain, for is part, doesn't return the sentiment due to how ruthless and arrogant Anzibal is.

• Bad Boss: He has his psykers use direct contact with the warp to disable Imperium navigators and force their ships to abort their planned route, a useful strategy, but one that will get said psykers killed by the warp entities they attract.
• Genius Bruiser: He got to be warboss the usual way, by being the biggest and strongest Ork around, but he is also able to form alliances between tribes and has a good sense of strategy for ambushes.
• Generic Doomsday Villain: He is on a mission of simple murder and conquest that happens to endanger the heroes and is more of a plot device than a character. He is only mentioned by name twice before the lone scene where he appears in person and has little characterization beyond embodying Rank Scales With Ass Kicking and some offscreen Genius Bruiser moments.

• Dark Action Girl: She is an enormously talented fighter who oozes sadism.
• Enemy Mine: She and Cain form a truce to fight Tyrannids, but there is no warmth to their alliance, and she is eager for the chance to spend years torturing Cain to death as soon as she doesn't need him anymore.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Her efforts to take Cain back to the webway to torture end up letting Tyrannids swarm through the portal to her home city.
• We Have Reserves: When her bodyguards die defending her, her only reaction is mild annoyance.

• Bling of War: He goes into battle wearing a bejeweled raiment and shows little sign of needing his bodyguards to stay alive.
• Enemy Mine: He is willing to deal with Cain and Amberly in good faith to fight Slaaneshi cultists and recover stolen Eldar spirit stones.
• Hidden Depths: He has the same arrogance as many other Eldar but bothers to learn human languages and will decide to talk to them to save time during important negotiations.
• Summon Bigger Fish: His forces summon an Avatar of Khaine to attack a Chaos daemon who is trying to devour the spirit stones.

• Cruel and Unusual Death: Amberly shoots him in the neck with a poison dart concealed in a signet ring that causes his neck to swell up and suffocate him.
• Dirty Old Man: He makes unwelcome advances on the much younger Kasteen and has the look and air of a decadent aristocrat whose position brings him a supply of women despite his unattractive appearence.
• Hand Cannon: He uses a bolt pistol concealed in his robes.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: It occurred to absolutely no one how dangerous he actually was, most dismissing him as an inbred imbecile of a noble man.
• Shout-Out: "Governor Grice" is a much more pleasant character in Doris Lessing 's "The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire."
• Slimeball: Before the reveal of his true loyalties, he comes across as a cowardly, bribe-taking, Armchair Military Upper-Class Twit. Afterwards he's an Ax-Crazy Smug Snake.

• Half the Woman She Used to Be: Gets sliced in two by Cain's chainsword.
• Honey Trap: She seduces various troopers to infect them with the Genestealer taint. Multiple characters describe her as having vivid tattoos which accentuate her curves.
• Saying Too Much: She blows her cover by calling Cain by name before he can introduce himself to her. This causes Cain to recall that he did just give his name to her pimp downstairs and that Genestealers are telepathic.
• Tattooed Crook: She's covered in sensuous tattoos which Cain realises as there to help disguise the physical mutations that would mark her out as a Genestealer hybrid.

• Archenemy: Most of Cain's enemies don't survive their first encounter with him. Emeli's attacked him twice and is still out there, plotting a third go. Given the nightmares that Cain still has about her, it's safe to say the loathing is mutual.
• Axe-Crazy: Par for the course for Slaaneshi cultists and daemons alike.
• Beware the Silly Ones: She talks like a giggly schoolgirl. Probably the most flat-out powerful adversary Cain ever encounters.
• Big Bad: Of The Traitor's Hand. She also returns as the Big Bad of Choose Your Enemies.
• Came Back Strong: She returned from the dead as a daemon with far more power than she'd possessed previously.
• Dark Action Girl: As a daemon, she casually tears apart several Khornate Berzerkers from the World Eaters Legion. Only Jurgen's presence prevents her from doing the same to Cain.
• David Versus Goliath: Very much the Goliath to Cain's David. As a very powerful daemon, Emeli is leagues beyond not only Cain, but everyone else he's ever fought.
• Demon Lords and Archdevils: While her exact status and relative power level are never specified, the fact that she's able to paralyze a room full of people, shred a pair of Berzerkers, and threaten to pull an entire planet into the Warp suggests that if she's not already around the level of a Greater Daemon, she's well on her way to becoming one.
• Faux Affably Evil: Emeli's cheerful attitude does nothing to hide just how deadly dangerous she is.
• Evil Plan: She's usually revealed to have one:
  • In The Traitor's Hand, her plan was to use the powerful Warp tides surrounding Adumbria to transform the planet into a Slaaneshi daemon world under her control.
  • Her plan in Choose Your Enemies, is pretty much the same; she intends to turn the hive world of Ironfound into her personal daemon world, though with the added benefits of gaining access to the Webway through a portal left over when Ironfound was an Eldar Maiden World, and getting to devour plenty of Eldar soulstones collected by her cultist dupes to both increase her power exponentially and protect her from Jurgen's abilities, since she inevitably expected another confrontation with Ciaphas.
• Evil Teacher: When human, Emeli masqueraded as the headmistress of a girls' school.
• First-Name Basis: Always refers to Cain as "Ciaphas". For his part, he never uses her last name; she's just "Emeli."
• Full-Frontal Assault: Emeli's always nude in her daemonic form.
• Maniac Tongue: As a daemon, Emeli's Overly-Long Tongue permanently protrudes from her jaws.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Cain right before shooting her the first time around (and note that the short story is set before he meets Amberley Vail):
  "Sorry, I prefer blondes."
• Psychic Powers: A very powerful witch and psychic when alive, she has gained even more power over the Warp since her "death".
• Revenge: Ropes Cain into her resurrection plot so she can avenge her first defeat.
• Revenge Before Reason: If Emeli had left Cain alone she probably could have successfully pulled the planet into the Warp. Instead, she deliberately incorporated him into her plans, ensuring her own defeat. In Choose Your Enemies it initially looks like she's made the same mistake, but she was actually trying to take out Jurgen for purely pragmatic reasons.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: After her body is destroyed, her essence is absorbed into the sword of an Eldar Avatar.
• Smug Snake: She's incredibly sure of herself and prone to toying with her victims.
• Villainous Breakdown: She tends to throw a hissy fit whenever Jurgen gets close to her or when Cain foils her plans.
• Villainous Crush: She tries to seduce Cain twice over, once when mortal, and once as a daemon.
• Was Once a Man: She was once a mortal psyker.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Emeli betrays the Slaaneshi cultists who brought her into the material world at the climax of Choose Your Enemies, devouring their souls and using their flesh to create a host body for herself.
• You're Not My Type: Cain tells her he prefers blondes (Emeli has "raven hair") as a Pre-Mortem One-Liner on their first meeting.

• And This Is for...: He gets to be on the receiving end of one of these.
  Commissar Donal sends his regards.
• Big Bad: Of Cain's Last Stand, though in the Black Crusade as a whole he's a nobody. That would NOT have remained the case if he managed to capture his target in the book, but he blew it.
• Compelling Voice: His psyker power allows him to turn anyone within ranger of his voice into a mindless puppet follower. It doesn't have any range limitation — he packs a stadium full of prisoners at one point to control them all en masse — but it only works live, not through broadcast. This creates an amusing off-screen moment where some of his captured followers fully expect their captors to instantly switch sides on viewing a recording of his speech, only to be confused when they laugh at his Large Ham speechifying and dismiss the content as generic Chaos propaganda.
• Disney Villain Death: Falls to his death over the edge of the dam at the end of his duel with Cain (helped along by a kick up the arse from Cain).
• Keystone Army: Discussed and subverted. Cain hopes that with Varan dead his slaves would come to their senses, but he admits that it's a fool's hope. He's right — if anything, the death of their master sends Varan's forces into frenzy, and they rush in for an all-out assault.
• Large Ham: As is natural for someone who uses his voice for Mind Control. His actual speeches are apparently fairly uninspiring.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: He's initially presented as a Squishy Wizard who uses his voice-activated powers to make up for his lack of combat prowess. During his parley-turned-duel with Cain, he reveals that he also has daemonic talons. And natural scales that render him immune to lasfire.
• The Magnificent: Varan the Undefeatable.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Of Adolf Hitler — a small, unimposing man with a weedy little moustache who makes trite speeches that nevertheless inspire mobs of fanatic followers. Of course, the real Hitler never had Psychic Powers (that we know of).
• Shout-Out: Could be coincidence, but Varan the Undefeatable's name and title is eerily close to Varan the Unbelievable, a small but violent kaiju from Toho known to be a contemporary of Godzilla.
• Tempting Fate: Calling himself "the Undefeatable" like that is simply asking for someone to take him down a peg, a fate that Cain gladly delivers with a boot to the ass.
• Villainous Breakdown: Completely loses it when Cain goes off-script from what Varan had in mind, proving resistant to his mind control thanks to Jurgen, and then insulting the Warmaster on live television (Varan having insisted on the cameras for his forces) by remarking he's ready to accept Varan's surrender.

• Defiant to the End: When he is captured and facing execution he says Cain hasn't won, and that Slaanesh will return.
• The Mole: A chaos cultist with status in the system leadership.
• Stranger Behind the Mask: It's noted early on Slaanesh probably has cultists in high places on Adumbria but Umbart was never named, described or given any dialogue before being captured and recognized as one of the many anonymous background characters on the council of governor claimants. Cain doesn't even know the man's name (although one of Amberly's footnotes supplies it).

• Be Careful What You Wish For: He summons an entity of Slaanesh and quickly comes to regret it once it turns on him.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: He and his followers get their souls devoured and their bodies torn apart and reshaped to form a new host body for the returned Emeli.
• Jerk With A Heart Of Jerker: He is a partier who initially overlooks Amberly and dislikes being told what he can't do, but up he seems impressively level-headed and helpful, even showing more concern with the danger to his servants than his property when his countryside estates were attacked by the Eldar, only to be exposed as a murderous Chaos cultist with no real loyalty to his people.
• King Incognito: He sneaks onto his estate disguised as a soldier in one scene.
• The Power of Legacy: He was a respected governor, so rather than reveal that he was part of a Slaanesh cult, his involvement is covered up after his death.
• Villain with Good Publicity: In life he was a seemingly effective and competent governor, even while acting as the head of a cult of Slaanesh. After his death, his treachery is covered up and he's posthumously made out as a hero of the battle.

• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He comes across as a polite official (albeit one convinced he doesn't need any help) who leads his troops into combat. He turns out to be an Ax-Crazy Khorne worshipper who rants about wanting to kill "lackeys of the corpse god."
• Stout Strength: He is a tough combatant, whose physique mixes fat and muscle.
• Up Through the Ranks: There is little soft about his appearance, and Cain pegs him as a man who started out in a low-ranking position and rose to a higher one.

• Inelegant Blubbering: He spends most of his brief appearance crying and frantically protesting throughout an interrogation for potentially capital charges.
• Suspicious Spending: His corruption is detected after he spends three times his salary on Hookers and Blow.