#cogs and bolts and ancient lore

[of-hopes-and-daemons]

Ooh here’s a wider question regarding current events, what are your thoughts on the LoV aka Leagues of Votann? And character thoughts on them? Since the info is kind of scattered in multiple lore articles don’t worry too much about big answer.

Ooooh, thank you for an ask!

I must admit, I know only a few somewhat vague details and Leagues, so it would be a pretty short answer, nonetheless...

So, personally I am excited to learn more about them and see how they would influence the general picture of the story and setting. They seem to have some interesting bits to them, as I recall.

Character-wise I think the strongest opinions would be found coming from Billy the Techpriest, undeniably eager to lay his grabby hands on STCs that, iirc, LoV seem to have. Charlotte, I can imagine, would also be curious to see if they can share anything useful for her continued Knight upgrades.

[admiral-hast]

“Cogs and bolts and Ancient lore, fashioned fearsome engines of war!”

Titanicus, Stringstorm

Magos

by Phil Moss

[of-hopes-and-daemons]

Three men in a boat (to say nothing of the toaster) - meet Charlotte, Alpharius, Billy and C’toaster. And Adder!

Charlotte is Scion of a fallen Knight House, who was adopted by an Alpha Legionnaire with a midlife crisis (and a tortoise!), and both are later joined by an permanently angry techpriest and his very talkative toaster. Now onto details...

Let’s talk about Al first. Al is, not surprisingly, a short for Alpharius. No, he is not the Alpharius, but his whole group of Alpha Legionnaires just called everyone Alpharius. They were quite the bunch. Maybe still are.

Al was the part of their group for some centuries, and was, in all fairness, all-around mediocre at his job, by no means bad, but also sincerely nothing especially noteworthy. Was cycled around through different tasks and job and was honestly feeling like there is something missing in his life. He might not know what fear is, but he did discover midlife crisis.

In terms of hobbies and various neat details of personality, he likes drawing (by no means good at it), reading (comes in handy) and, after he got an opportunity to explore it, is surprisingly good with animals. Some years prior to meeting Charlotte, he got a space analogue of a tortoise on one of his missions and went through a lot to hide it from others. Al named it Praetorian, because it is very well fortified and (if you squint) yellow. Praetorian is known to decimate cabbages and sleep a lot.

The last task he was doing for his group was to go and retrieve some useful Knight tech from the world under attack by some actual, 100%, not good-for-your health heretics. I am not sure exactly about his means of transportation and all this, and frankly I don’t know enough about how it works with WH to really put it together.

***

This is where he met Charlotte.

She, as her world was under attack, was alongside her mother, as Valerie and Adder (Valerie's Knight) were making their last stand. Generally speaking, the situation was along the lines of a significant portion of Knight House being on a mission of some kind, and their communication sabotaged, so no help was coming.

Valerie was badly wounded, and her last command was more or less “as soon as we can’t fight anymore, blow everything up, they won’t get our Knight or us” and Charlotte, also in not exactly perfect shape, as this is where her arm got mangled, had every intention on following with this.

Not sure about the exact details of how this bit would go, but the end result is that Al and Charlotte met and both got out of there, along with around two-thirds of Adder. This might have involved being desperate and determined beyond being scared of anything, Charlotte trying to shoot him at first and Al doing some badass space marine stuff while dispatching enemies immediately concerned with bringing down Adder.

Following this they left together on their own, not really sure what to do with their lives at the moment. But Charlotte is looking for a way to bring Adder back up. Al is looking out to make sure Charlotte stay safe. Praetorian eating cabbages and all of them being generally odd, but oddly functional family as far as it goes in Warhammer.

Sure, Charlotte only really knew being a Scion and her actual dad wasn’t bad, but rather absent in her life and also her House just got destroyed and Al only really knew growing up as an aspirant and then questionably chaotic space marine, but now they also had the opportunity to figure out all the fun family things.

Some little facts about Charlotte too:

Charlotte’s “surname” is, and her Knightly House was called Illvia. Charlotte also has a ridiculously long noble name she refuses to use.

She, in the years directly following the decimation of her House and later too, used to sleep on the Throne Mechanicum of her, back, then, non-functioning Knight, because it made her feel like someone from her family was still around.

Her Knight previously belonged to her mother, Valerie, and was badly damaged during her last stand to protect their world and rendered non-functional for a long time. Charlotte and Al managed to bring her to Al’s ship, at least most of it, and so she became Charlotte’s knight.

Knight was called Adder originally because their house had snake-themed names for their Knights for the reason of me finding snakes cool. After the long and complicated rebuilding process involving a lot of questionable deals was fully operational, again, outfitted with all sorts of odd tech, and given a new, second name - Nidhogg.

This convoluted story is also because this looks nowhere close to a normal Imperial Knight, but I will run with the design. So yeah. Probably, idk, an unholy collaboration of c'toaster, Necrons, and maybe some hereteks or whatever. Auntie Shanakay may surely know a guy, but that guy will prove to be eccentric at the very best

***

Then they eventually met “Billy”.

So, once, maybe a few years later, they found their way to a world in some less-explored bit of the galaxy. It looked promising, perhaps some rare supplies, some old tech or art things, perhaps to trade with a hunched metal skeleton and his super pompous and extra assistant… They found something better. A new family member. Who is a perpetually angry tech-priest with a sentient toaster.

So “Billy” is a bit fuzzy on his actual biography. He knows for sure that he was a part of an expedition of some sort a long time ago. And that they came to this world in search of something. But now he is the only survivor in a decrepit bunker and ancient buildings; his cogitators slowly rust away, and how he is still alive is surely a miracle from Omnissiah. And a lot of spite.

In fact, he is only called “Billy” because his gun had “B.I.L.” engraved on it, and Charlotte assigned him a name based on it. Prior to this, he was pretty content not really having any particular way of addressing him.

What he does not remember is that the expedition he was the part of actually found something interesting in the ruins - a weak and degrading c'tan shard, but a shard nonetheless. That in the present time is known as a c'toaster and ended up in this diminutive form after being almost destroyed by the expedition, that whoever walked away from it with barely a handful of surviving tech-priests, ship brought down on the planet and no way home. And now there was a sole survivor plagued with the erratic visions of something slumbering in the depth of Mars so, so far away and slowly bonding with ancient and tired and spiteful in the same way c'toaster.

Not that they became buddies overnight, obviously. But they were stuck there for a long time, after all. Until some… certainly not exactly smart people decided to use the remnants of the ship on top of ruins as a temporary camp, and somehow salvation came in the form of Al and Charlotte. They could have used tech-priest skills and paid no mind to an odd toaster thing (this was a lie, Charlotte was enamored from day one), and “Billy” with the c'toaster could have used a boost to get away from accursed space rock.

To bring to light some more details about “Billy” - he was the one to make a proper augmented hand for Charlotte. He is not much in terms of hobbies, but likes doing preventive maintenance and generally watching Al and Charlotte do their fleshling things. Will never admit to actually enjoying their company out loud, though. Helpful and caring toward the tiny human nonetheless. Given his situation, pretty lax on so-called tech-heresy and dreams of seeing Mars again, both as some form of a long-lost home and due to an odd ache for something there, he has because of basically hugging a c'tan shard of the Void Dragon for years and years.

***

Now, how they met with Sanya and crew is very exciting. They escaped an Exterminatus together. And here I would need to elaborate. So, as I mentioned before, Sanya and Lacedrace got daemon-hunters on their tails eventually. And the day came when they caught up with Sanya, Lacedrace and, by this point, two ork kommados, an eldar lady and a carnifex.

Accidentally, or maybe planned in advance by the Lord of Change, it happened to be on the same planet that Al, “Billy”, Charlotte, and c'toaster were visiting. So they worked together to escape the planet bombardment and this is how they ended up traveling together. Since, well, they had one ship, but only one person able to safely pilot it away from everything that was happening and through a rather stormy Warp.

[of-hopes-and-daemons]

Fuzzverse, but Charlotte related

Al was reading bedtime stories to little Charlotte. Although he haven't really got any children bedtime stories, so instead he was doing dramatic readings of the intel on loyalist chapters. Charlotte absolutely loved it. And loves still.

She sometimes aimed to bamboozle Al with making up odd Scion generally and House Illvia specifically customs. He enjoyed the challenge of figuring out real from made up ones. And sometimes frantically researching some odd facet of Knight life.

In general, Al and Charlotte both found great joy in learning about each others sides of life, Astartes and Knights.

What Charlotte also loves is doing technical work with techpriest "Billy", her third dad (second being Al and first her biological father). This was also how they forged this bond between them - quiet, shared work on something inside the ship.

More or less Charlotte was hanging around him working and he eventually started inviting her to help with minor tasks and teaching her AdMech stuff. They also made Charlotte's bionic hand together as her "graduation project", so to say, when she got well-versed enough with tech.

Charlotte's hobby is in fact trying out various hobbies or activities, as this is sort of the way she gets to know people better. Over the years she tried her hand at virtually every craft and pastime she could. And she had a chance to try a lot. I mean, Shanakay alone is a trove of artistic pastimes if you can deal with her perfectionism.

Another her hobby is being penpals with people. Her manner of writing letters is certainly unique and comes as a heavy mix of notes, drawings, schemes and collages. And she loves making and sending them. Recipients include a certain Knight, and a certain SoS in training, and acertain metal skeleton running a museum, and, and, and. Unexplainably they often find nice letters left for them. Alpha-mail always delivers.

[of-hopes-and-daemons]

Bookkeeping: Tags and Related, v 1.0

List is to be updated and subject to changes. Does not include generic tags, such as fandom ones, faction ones, or ones of canon characters. Yes, I do know those are pretentious and cringe, and barely useful.

GENERAL TAGS

of hopes and daemons - general tag used by this blog. Also used in my main blog to denote content related to Fuzzverse

solemnace latest exhibitions - general tag used to denote reblogs

pamphlets and alpha priority mail - informational and bookkeeping posts. Like this one!

CONTENT TAGS

art galleries and crysdrawsthings - tags used for art and art-related posts. Sketches, WIPs, finished works, prompt requests, etc

as it was foretold - tag used for "lore" of the Fuzzverse and related. Character stories, random bits and facts, overall plot, etc

the choir speaks - tag used for in-character ask answers or commentary. In case this will happen at all

CHARACTER TAGS, MAIN CAST

the spark of hope - used for Lacedrace aka Tzeentchian Fuzz, the Lord of Change

the hunt comes for you - used for An'Hangra aka Khornate Fuzz, the Bloodthirster

to the bog we return - used for Balthrag aka Nurglite Fuzz, the Great Unclean One

chasing perfection - used for Shanakay aka Slaaneshi Fuzz, the Keeper of Secrets

the horizon's in my sight - used for Sanya, the precious ex-Guardsman

CHARACTER TAGS, SUPPORTING CAST

the last in line - used for Charlotte, who is a small, but very brave Scion

heads of the hydra - used for Al, who is dad first and space marine second

cogs and bolts and ancient lore - used for "Billy", old and grumpy tech-priest

by his edict forgotten - used for Oona, 10-ft tall lady with a gun, who is super irrelevant to the plot

the dragon awakens - used for C'toaster/Blinky, who is, well, Dragon