First up an Eisenhorn short story about a chaos cult they deal with in the Ravenor trilogy (sort of a prequel) and is featured in the second story. Then a random one about Tribal PDF vs Necrons, and a third called Elucidium, involving a 'hive' world, genestealersm lots of chaos, and Inquisitors. That one will be cut off in the middle of, continued in the second update.
Page 11-12
Patience Kys telekinetic skills manage to clear away the cover a guy is using enabling Nayl to shoot him, whilst pulling another guy out with her mind. And she isn't, as far as I know, technically considered a psyker. Probably more of a Wyrd (too weak and/or specialised to have much risk of daemonic incursion.)Kys was telekinetic She focused her trained mind and exerted a little pressure The quartz rocks scattered apart across the slime, revealing a rather surprised man holding an autorifle.
His surprise lasted about two seconds until a single shot from Nayl hit him in the brow and tumbled him leadenly onto his back.
With a spiteful grin, Kys reached out again and dragged another of the hostiles out into the open with her mind. The man yelled aloud, scared and uncomprehending. His heels churned in the ooze and he flailed his arms, fighting the invisible force that yanked him by the scruff of the neck.
Then again we never really see much of her explained. She could be a highly specialized sanctioned psyker as well.
Page 12
Mathuin's rotator cannon. Smaller than the Terminator assault cannon (and less powerful, understandably.)
There was a blurt of noise like an industrial hammer--drill, and the man ceased to be, shredded into pieces by heavy fire.
Mathuin had shot him. His left hand was a bumished-chrome augmetic, and he had locked it into the governing socket of the lethal rotator cannon that he was wearing strapped around his torso. The multi-barrels whirred and cycled, venting vapour.
Page 13
Chaos prophets/precognitives. It does show that foresight can be pretty prevalanet.The Divine Fratery practises a barbaric initiation process of voluntary blinding. Sight, as one might expect, is considered their fundamental skill, but not sight as we might understand it. Novices sacrifice one of their eyes as proof of their intent, and have that missing eye replaced by a simple augmetic to maintain everyday function. The one remaining organic eye is then trained and developed, using ritual, alchemic and sorcerous processes.
Page 15
Gatling gun weapon is similar enough to the Assault cannon in that ti messily tears stuff apart."If you'd left him a little more intact we might have made a more decent examination," Thonius complained.
"This is a rotator cannon" Mathuin said bluntly. "It doesn't do intact."
Thonius prodded the grisly remains with a stick. "Well, I think we've got an augmetic eye here too. And what's either an eyepatch or a very unsatisfactory posing thong."
Page 17
Side effect of psyker activity.High in the ruined summit of the tower, something had screamed. Loud, hideous, inhuman, drawn out. More screams, from other non-human voices, answered it. Each resounded both acoustically and psychically. The air temperature dropped sharply. Sheens of ice crackled into view, caking the upper sweep of the walls.
Page 18
- there are "hundreds" of worlds in the Antimar, Helican, angelus and Ophidian subsectors. This is about half to nearly 1/3 the Scarus Sector, I believe. Again, note the capabilities of some fo thse Chaos groups compared to your usual rabble of crazed psychotics.The Divine Fratery, may the ordos condemn their sick souls, seek to chart out the future. All possible futures, in fact. With their mirrors and their abominably practiced eyes, they identify events to come, and take special interest in those events that are ill-favoured. Disasters, plagues, invasions, collapses of governments, heresies, famines, defeats in battle. Doom, in any guise.
The masters of the Fratery then disseminate the details of their oracles to the lower orders of their cult. By my estimation, the Fratery numbers several thousand, many of them apparently upstanding Imperial citizens, spread through hundreds of worlds in the subsectors Antimar, Helican, Angelus and Ophidian. Once a 'prospect' as they call them has been identified, certain portions of the 'cult membership' are charged with doing everything they can to ensure that it comes to pass, preferably in the worst and most damaging way possible. If a plague is foreseen, then cult members will deliberately break quarantine orders to ensure that the outbreak spreads. If the prospect is a famine, they will plant incendiary bombs or bio-toxins in the Munitorum grain stores of the threatened world. A heretic emerges? They will protect him and publish his foul lies abroad. An invasion approaches? They are the fifth column who will destroy the defenders from within.
They seek doom. They seek to undermine the fabric of our Imperium, the culture of man, and cause it to founder and fall. They seek galactic apocalypse, an age of darkness and fire, wherein their unholy masters, the Ruinous Powers, can rise up and take governance of all.
Page 19
Effect (once again) of the rotator cannon.Mathuin's rotator cannon squealed and flames danced around the spinning barrels. Stone debris and shorn ivy fluttered off the wounded walls. Kys saw a man, almost severed at the waist drop from an archway into the lighdess gulf below the bridge.
Page 19
Kys (the telekine) is using her twelve centimetre blades, and using them and her basic psychic skills to intercept gunfire (which says something about her reaction time, the amount of force she can apply an the precision with which she can place that force in order to deflect gunfire, and the fact that the kineblades dont take damage from deflecting the hsots.Kys ran in beside him. She had a laspistol harnessed at her waist, but she hadn't drawn it yet. She extended the heels of her palms, and four kineblades slipped out of the sheaths built into the forearms of her shirt. Each was thin, razor-sharp, twelve centimetres long, and lacked handles. She controlled them with her mind, orbiting them about her body in wide, buzzing circuits, in a figure of eight, like some lethal human orrery.
A hostile opened fire directly at her with an autopistol, cracking off four shots. Without flinching, she faced them, circling a pair of blades so they intercepted and deflected the first two shots. The second two she bent wide with her mind, so that they sailed off harmlessly like swatted flies.
Page 20
Kys in combat. Note again using her TK (while using kineblades too) to yank a guy from cover. She's got quite a bit of multitasking skill.With a jerk of her mind, she tugged the kineblade out of the pinned corpse and flew it back to join the others. They whistled as they spun, deflecting more gunfire away from her. Five more hostiles lay ahead, concealed behind mouldering pillars. With a nasal grunt, she sped the kineblades away from her. They shot like guided missiles down the terraceway, arcing around obstacles, whipping around the pillars. Four of the hostiles fell, slashed open by the hurtling blades.
The fifth she yanked out of cover with her telekinesis and shot. Now, at last the gun was in her hands.
Page 21
Performance wise, it was extremely draining, so the above probably represents a fair approximation of the limits of her capabilities at this time (pre Ravenor series.)Kys had just retrieved her kineblades. She held out her arms to let them slide back into her cuff-sheaths. The concentrated activity had drained her telekinetic strength, and the terrible screamlight from above had sapped her badly.
Page 22
No explosive damage, either highly thermal in nature or a sort of cutting/piercing attack.A las-shot had just scored across the flesh of his upper arm, but he didn't even wince.
Page 25
the cult own a dreadnought. Where did they get a dreadnought? Part of me thinks its just a Sentinel or something similar mocked up to be a Dreadnought.Nayl craned his neck to look. Something blocky and heavy was striding towards them over the bridge span. It was metal and solid, machined striding limbs hissing steam from piston bearings. Its arms were folded against the sides of its torso like the wings of a flightless bird. Those arms, each one a heavy lascannon, began to cough and spit. Massive hydraulic absorbers soaked up the recoil.
The archway collapsed in a shower of exploding masonry. Nayl, Thonius and Mathuin fled back into the cover of the gallery behind.
"Emperor save me" Nayl exclaimed. "They've got a bloody dreadnought!"
Page 26
The firepower of our "Dreadnought." and it is durable enough to resist the rotator cannon.Its pitted steel hull glossy with rain, the dreadnought machine strode in through the shattered archway.
..
Its massive cannon pods pumped pneumatically as they retched out streams of las-bolts. The weapons made sharp, barking squeals as they discharged, a repeating note louder than the storm.
..
Stone split and fractured under the bombardment. Pillars that had stood for eons teetered and collapsed like felled trees, spraying stone shards out across the terrace flooring.
Nayl, Mathuin and Thonius retreated back into the empty inner chambers of the ruined tower. Even Mathuin's rotator couldn't so much as dent the dreadnought's armour casing.
Page 27
- "close focus" frag grenades. If Ravenor's group intend to use them on a Dreadnought, they must be considerably more powerful than mere antipersonnel weapons. Then again that assumes this is a genuine dreadnought and some cheap knock off.Mathuin reached into his coat pocket and pulled out three close-focus frag grenades. He held them like a market-seller would hold apples or ploins. It was just like Mathuin to bring a pocket full of explosives. He never felt properly dressed unless he was armed to the back teeth.
"Don't suppose you've got a mini-nuke in the other pocket?" asked Thonius.
"My other suit's at the cleaners." Mathuin replied.
"They'll have to do" said Nayl. "We'll go with what we've got."
One wonders what the difference between these and krak grenades are. MAybe the close focus frag grenades are a sort of directional frag weapon like a claymore mine.
Thonius' comment may either be literal or figurative, so we can't rely much on that, sadly (even if we did, how much yield could a pocket sized mini nuke have? Its highly variable as well. Of course melta and plasma weapons could be considered those too..)
Page 30 - the Frag grenades have a timer of at least 4 seconds.
Page 32
Thonius is the group's hacker, and this is his gear.Thonius's pockets were not full of munitions and ordnance like Mathuin's, but he reached into them anyway. In one, a mini-cogitator, in another, two data-slates. In a third, a clasped leather case in which he had wrapped his tools: files, data-pins, fine brushes, tubes of lubricant, a vial of adhesive, pliers and tweezers. All the bric-a-brac that aided him in conquering and tinkering with cogitators and codifiers.
Page 37 - Nomadic troopers who were conscripted into the local PDF for non-payment of tithes.
Page 38
Necron Gauss weapons.. Beam persists for at least a noticable fraction of a second. This particular model/mode/setting incompletely "gaussifies" the target though, which is curious. Perhaps the Necrons operate their weapons on lower, power conservting settings, or these are lower performance models, or they may just be running down.Layer by layer, in the space of a single heartbeat, the trooper's face disappeared before Drel's horrified eyes, revealing first the wet red musculature beneath the skin, then the glistening white bone of the skull itself. For a moment the skull-face stared at him with empty sockets, an idiot smile seemingly still fixed upon its lipless mouth. The exposed spine rose from the undamaged flesh of the trooper's torso as though it were no more than some unwanted suit of clothing his skeleton was ready to discard. Then, abruptly, as though realising their mistake, flesh and bone alike collapsed into a steaming pile of offal.
Page 38
My guess is reduced settings or a different model of gauss weapon, since this is more akin to what we associate with them.One of their weapons fired and a trooper died an ugly death, reduced to a flailing skeleton in the blink fo an eye.
PAge 39
Bolt pistol damage against Necron Warrior. Isnt even an Astartes model bolt weapon either.the creature suddenly spat out a spray of broken metal as a fist-sized hole appeared in the front of its face. It stood frozen for a moment, arms still raised, the symmetry of its death mask features abruptly ruined, as eyes like burning coals became flickering embers.
Page 40
- fifteen PDF troopers to take down 6 Necrons. Original odds were 30 troopers to 12 Necrons. Even though they take massive casualties this is (In my mind) a bit of a bad kill ratio for your average 'Cron. Then again as I noted who can say at the state or condition of these things.
Page 40 - Necron corpses disappear, but can leave fragments behind.
Page 47 - Acquisition of the PDF platoon and a orbital shuttle from the military. REquisitioning from a local Planetary lord is common for PDF and Guard.
Page 52
Speculation on the nature of these Necron warriors. Given the behaviour of some it does make sense (although the guard analogy was hilarious.)And it occured to him. What if the machien-creatures were just automata? More complex and sophisticatd than the marching guardsmen perhaps, but still machines, with all a machine's limitations. What if they were only acting according to pre-defined instructions and incapable of responding to any situation unforseen by their makers? If that were the case, it might be just the edge he needed.
Page 53
Gauss weapon reducing organic material to ash this time, and skeletonizes another trooper. Oddly they don't seem to concentrate fire on the wagon at all to oblieratee that.But then, he saw one of the gate-guards fire its weapon, a crackling beam of energy reducing the hoarding on top of the handcart to ash. Another of the cratures fired twice more, the first beam passing harmlessly over the heads of the handcart's crew. But with the second beam the crature found its range, flaying the flesh from a screaming crewman in an instant.
Page 54
- half platoon of feral guardsmen (15 trooper sroughly) take out 4 necron warriors using a cart loaded up with every frag grenade and explosive the troops had. The cart was light enough ot be easily pushed by 3 guardsmen. Say maybe several tens of kg of TNT probably, maybe a couple hundred if they carried extra stuff or heavy gear like demo charges (unlikely as that may be.)It had taken everry grenade and scrap of explosive the volgars had, but Drel oculd not elp but feel satisfied as the handcart's cargo detonated, enveloping the manchine-cratures and the gate in a blinding flash of fire. He found himself even more satisfied when the smoek cleared and revealed splintered gates yawning open on broken hinges and no sign of any surviving guards.
Again, however, I must note that as far as Necrons go, these seem to be fairly low-quality specimens.
Page 56
A grazing shot perhaps or a different mode. Whatever the reason the gauss beam fails to reduce him to a skeleton despite the beams tendency to "spread out" on impact.It was Jarl, now his only living companion, a glimpse of white bone peering out through the ruptured flesh of his forearm where the beam of one of the Machine-creature's weapons had caught him.
Page 57
- Sergeant's laspistol takes down two Necron Warrios with multiple shots. No idea precisely how many (or the setting) but the power pack we know is drained empty shortly afterwards. Previous comments about quality apply, but even then this just means its taken down. It may not be damaged enough to prevent its return.Turning towards the relentless phalanx of approaching metal-warriors, he fired his laspistol with a scream of defiance. The las-bolts found their mark: two machine-creatures fell, then abruptly vanished. But there were so many now, marching remorselessly towards them with steps as sure and certain and inevitable as death.
..
He heard Jarl's voice and, turning, saw the sergeant throw his now emtpy pistol at the enemy and start to run towards him.
Page 58-61: This is a bit of a lengthy bit to explain even in parts, so I'm just going to summarize. Basically, an unknown "star god" comes to this planet and, in return for demanding they remain "strong in all things", bestows the "gift" of high technology and sleeping necron warriors on them in this temple/city. Said god also promises to return sometime in the future to judge their efforts.
To make a long story short, its said that the "greatest gift" left was a beacon that, when used, would summon the guard's servants (the necrons) in "their darkest hour." The kicker being that when summoned they don't aid those that summon them - they obliterate them because they were weak. "Strength in all things" and such, so its a punishment. And its noted that inevitably, someone would use the beacon, making the "gift" something of a cruel and ironic joke.
The star god is probably the Deceiver. This sounds like his M.O. - and the description of his statue includes a "elongated head and heavy, downward arching horns, with an elliptical groove set into the long expanse of its forehead." sounds exactly like his picture in Codex: Necrons.
Page 67
no real way to indicate power generation from this, or the size of the 'hive', but the different approach to power generation is interesting Also multi-use.In its wisdom the Plureaucracy of the Hive Primus (Shoehorned, no doubt, by the Imperial Governor) had comissioned from the ADeptus Mechanicus a geostationary orbit-platform, its battered solar cells drawing energy from the distant sun, feeding it by means of the guide-cables into the power-hungry hivedome below. In one fell swoop the tech-priests had provided Garial-Fall with energy, a strategic weapons platform and a stardock. Only the latchcraft, with their uncomfortable descents through the cloud layer, marred the smooth running of an otherwise efficient system.
Page 68
The viability of many worlds in the Ipmerium (at least colonies in the Ultima segmentum) are attributed to lost-tech. Presumably only on worlds that aren't normally human habitable and don't chooes to go belowground (like Krieg, Tallarn, or Valhalla) when disaster occurs.Garial-Fall, like so many Ultima Segmentum colony worlds, owed much of its existence to the forbidden enterprise of ancient technologies. Some forgotten society - in some forgotten millenium - had erected the heatdome to protect the city within, stretching its languid camber like some glutinous bubble, ossified and pitted by time. Beneath its intricate surface, striated by chattering logic engines and grinding gears, the city clustered in a haphazard confusion of tiers and stacks, substantially warmer (although still uncomfortably cold, by human standards) than the ice wastes beyond.
Page 69
The hive has a heatsink as well. The orbital facility may be a supplementary power source. Note the steam driven technology as well...stepping aboard steam-driven elevators and dodging rattling tramways.
...
G'hait's companions regarded their environs in silence - skirting the Heatsink with its decorative gang totems, bisecting the Foildom and its well guarded excavations, passing the foundations of the towering Apex Block where the Plureaucracy met each day.
Page 71
Effect of a power maul can fragment skulls (at least on a lethal setting.) Seems semi-explosive.The power maul flared phosphor-blue, stitching a lightning-strike glare across the aley and throwing its shambling architecture, its detirtus-strewn base and its pair of occupants into sharp relief. Shadows crawled across walls, flickering in time iwth the mace's irregular current.
It arced vertically, dragging the shadows with it, and when it connected with the crumpled figure's skull it sizzled sharply, spitting a bright fountain of sparks and detonating the shrieking head like a ripe fruit. Fragments of splintered bone and gobbets of brain matter sheared outwards, pooling and mixing with a thick soup of cranial fluids.
Page 71
"auspex" which seems to be able to function like a watch. I should note the guy mentioned is the local head of the Enforcers (PDF equivalent of Arbites.)The man glanced at an auspex display mounted on his wrist and swore.
..
"I'm running late. Got an appointment with the Plureaucracy."
Page 77
Psychic observation range of a magus/inquisitor, supposedly (Yes I'm spoiling the story, but he's a freaking inquisitor as we learn.)"Oh, archmagus, I assure you.. had I the inclination I could eavesdrop on your conversation from orbit"
Page 78
The air surged around her, a shivering blast of psionic disruption that lurched outwards from the guant woman's eyes, filling the chamber. G'hait staggered against the doorframe, momentarily stunned, blinking lights from his eyes. Even Kreista rocked in his spot, moaning quietly in his throat.
The Cardinal who had absorbed the brunt of the petulant assault without betraying so much as a flinch, chuckled lighlty.
"Good," he said in the mannre of a doting parent congratulating their child. G'hait expected him to pat the astonished archmagus on her head. "I'm gratified that the primaciis of this world still practice the Vocis Susurra... All too many of the Mother's magi allow the Arts to go unlearned."
Psychic battle of some kind. Apparently Genestealers have their own psychic training of some kind (or are implied to have it.) Also implied that they have some sort of culture that extends beyond individual worlds (then again the Inquisitor Angle also makes this.. debatable.)
Page 83
"When I was ordained as a magus, here in the Hive Primus, I was granted access to the library, the gathered knowledge of centuries. I sifted through records expecting to find no more than the writings of long-dead magi, the... nostalgic clutter of the years."
"Instead I found letters. Astropathic transcriptions, encoded and sealed, dispatched from other worlds. Hundreds of them, stacked one upon another, covered in dust. They went back a decade, by my estimate. Maybe more."
"Not one had been opened."
The genestealer cult has access to its own astropath, and manage to send signals via it undetected (supposedly.) This suggests that it is possible for Genestealer cults to coordinate on a larger scale even without the 'Nid hivemind in effect.
Page 88
Worse, the garish riot of blinking tones and oscillating spectrums that fronted the beatklubs contrived to add their tinted leoprosy to the night:
In the grim darkness of the future, there are only discos.
Page 101-102
"I'm Marshall Delacroix of the Vigilators, Commander of the Precinct."
..
"I was summoned to answer charges of brutality as it happens. Some of your 'fat men' aren't too keen on my methods, if you catch my drift. Not that they've got the authority to stop me."
..
"Tell me- how far does your jurisdiction extend?"
The Marshall cracked his knuckled pointedly, cruel mouth spreading into a sneer. "TEchnically? As far as you want it to. Local customs don't give me much say over the PDF, but in theory I could comandeer the lot."
Often stories seem to confuse the Arbites and Efnorcer types.. but whatever the out of universe reason in this case the Enforcer dude is beyond the control of his 'government'. Perhaps it is some unusual arrangement or delegation from the Arbites (a cost and manpower saving measure, perhaps. )
Alternately he IS arbites and the name "Vigilators" is just a local affectation (differences due to translations or custom or something.
Page 104
"Sit." ThE word resonated beyond the material plane, thick with psionic pussiance, rippling and alive in the air. On every side of the auditorium those plureaucrats who were half standing to discuss matters quietly with their neighbours, or who sprawled too far from the vertical, or who knelt in teh footwells of their benches in prayer, collapsed into their seats with a starteld yelp. Like an expanding ring of movement the gathered politicians found themselves compelled to sit bolt upright, unable to disobey the mental command that ripped at their very brains. Even the guards, standing upright at the periphery of the chamber, collapsed to the ground like boneless meat, sitting cross legged for a moment before clambering to their feet, confused.
Scores of individuals at least, possibly hundreds. A very Eisenhonr-like demonstration of psychic "voice" power.
Page 105
The ten strom troopers racked their hellguns with a succession of mechanical clatters, platnign themselves firmly in sturdy firing positions.
Projectile hellguns.
Page 106
Percussive and ugly, the rhythmic pounding of hellgun shells reverberated across the air, as tangible to the creature's hypersensitive skin as repeated blows of a hammer.
Again projectile hellguns.
Page 106-107
Like vultures lurking at the periphery of some exquisite execution, the storm troopers perched at the rim of the auditorium bowl gunned down any bustling plureaucrat that dared approach. Despite the roaring weapons the politicians fled ever upwards, porcine eyes wide and limbs scrabbling across the steep tiers of seating. Bright fabrics ripped and singed, fluids splatttered with explosive momentum, sheared and punctured bodies flopped and toppled backwards, crushing their neighbours, shards of bone and jewellry tumbling in their wake.
Effects of our projectile hellguns.
Page 108
The stink of blood and gunsmoke invaded G'hait's senses, firing instinctive reactions buried in his genes...
- mention of "gunsmoke". The only firing done had been by storm troopers wielding hellguns. YEt again a short story where a "hellgun" is described as a projectile weapon rather than a laser gun.
Page 118-119
"The mother's seed, G'hait, is sown amongst every race."
..
"Eldar, ork, tau, hrud... the contagii are an adaptable breed, child.
..
"Sadly," he said, "Eldar biology is rather less... crusde.. than that of humanity. The taint requires many more gneerations to acheive the primacii mutation. By which time, typically, the hybrid community has been discovered and purged. The eldar are nothing if not vigilant."
"I found Trikara by chance in the coruse of my travels. She's of the fifteenth or sixteenth generation, as far as I can tell. Heh - utterly insane of course, but quite devastating, I think you'll agree. And she does what she's told. The Eldar mind is a strange thing, G'hait... Brilliant, sharp, multifaceted.. but easily broken. Like a fake diamond."
I believe Trikara, the Eldar Genestealer hybrid, is of second or third generation. An interesting bit of dialogue nonetheless.
Page 119
"they'll see find bodies with bullet-wounds and assume the troopers were panicking, firing wild. Trying to kill an enemy that - heh- dodged their bullets and cut them to shreds."
Again, this refers to the storm troopers, wh o cut down planetary officials earlier, and that their hellguns were firing projectile ammo.
It's worth noting at this poitn that while its not explicitly mentioned and not even calcable, these "hellguns" appeared to do massive internal trauma, something you might expect from a shotgun or bolter. It is worth noting that many of the official swere torn apart by a Eldar Genestealer variant, but the deaths were described as being equally.. messy. They didn't specify either, so we ma conclude the hellgun "bullets" blew people apart quite messily.
Page 120
Charged with preparing his city for a potential war he'd stoked the population's fears with an almost arrogant disdain: proclaiming his remit via media tubes and broadcast pavilions, booming from public announcement speakers, glaring down with grizzled menace from viewscreens and news-auspexes alike.
Communciations with the populace available to the head Vigilator (the dolt). Clearly the sort of man you want in charge.
Note again that auspex is treated less like a scanner and more like a monitor display thingy here.
Page 121
Even as sleek Arbites tanks clawed their way from underground depots, pintle turrets swivelling with slow malevolence, the first riots sparked in the HEatsink.
This would tend to suggest they ARE arbites.
Page 121
Faced with a mass of angry rioters, backed into a walled culvert by the press of shouting, terrified bodies,a vigilator enforcement squad surrendered their power mauls and instead brought their shotguns to bear. The first volley - aimed deliberately low at their conscientous sergeant's command - shredded the knees and shins of the foremost riolters, dropping them in a tnagle of broken bone
ARbites shotgun effects.
Page 123
Even as the unmistakable scent of ozone wrapped itself around G'hait's senses,tinged with the tang of blood, Jezahael was crumpling to the ground, face set in an astonished rictus of confusion, eyes crossed in a dying attempt to focus upon the neat hole at the centre of her forehead - where a solitary wisp of smoke preceded a thick spout of cranial gore. She collapsed in disarray, sludgelike fluids pattering heavily across flagstones. She jerked twice, grunting spastically, and was still.
Laspistol damage. Rather curious - the skull is intact, but there is sign of burning (smoke) and signs that the brain took some pulverizing damage (the gore). Some sort of special Inquistiroail weapon, maybe?
Page 127
Assembled commanders of no less than five PDF regiments jostled nervously with tacticians, savant servitors, all manner of support staff abd comms-operatives vigilator luminaries and his own grim-faced aides.
At least 5 pdf "regiments" on the planet. A rather small PDF all told.
), but that quote doesn't prove that the Kasrkin lack night vision gear (e.g. light amplifiers), it just means they don't have thermal imaging; AFAIK conventional NVGs can't see through dust clouds, whereas thermal imaging kit can.