#owlcat game

[jean-dieu]

sweetheart cleric and his grumpy ass inquisitor

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(pose ref by @adorkastock)

[feyspeaker]

Kibellah Rogue Trader themed print club this month!

[pierkyn]

Pasqal: the only companion who understood the assignment

AND he sings in the bath 🥺

[nika-vincent]

My most frequently chosen team in Rogue Trader

[swampshi]

training session w RT? homoerotic fight with RT? I don't know! enjoy kibellah anyway

[buffmrtumnus]

"Rogue Trader has so many difficult choices, everything is so morally grey" Wrong, the correct answer is always whatever my buddy Pasqual wants to do because he is my best friend and I love him.

[ladymirdan]

Owlcat, are you ok?

[thatzombiecat]

OMG guysguys this is not a drill we now have ACHILLEAS SCALANDER IN-GAME PORTRAIT!! 😭💔

GOD EMPEROR BLESS OWLCAT STUDIO they serve us so well omg

I wonder what else do they have for us in store for the dlcs this is absolutely phenomenal

[deekindraws]

[maggotknight]

commission for @lordcaptains <3

[ceruleanhawk]

The tall, dark-haired man sizes you up with a quick glance; a supernatural chill is making the air around him crackle softly. "Interrogator van Calox, I presume?"

"Yes", - The man turns away slightly to clear his throat. The room starts to get noticeably warmer.

[barpsy-abaub]

"What a wonderful protectorate, Iconoclast Von Valancius! I can only imagine how you managed to keep it safe all this time; great job!" - Roboute, probably.

Or, "When your kid visits you at work".

[feyspeaker]

tempest prints | join patreon for this month's Rogue Trader themed print club!

[pierkyn]

> gets invited to a bath with the RT > plays a "game" that's just him trauma dumping > refuses to elaborate further > leaves

???

[fysus17]

The Rogue Trader's retinue and other characters as funny news headlines:

[fourraccoonsinacoat]

Heinrix van Calox Lore & Headcannons

Don't mind me, I'm just over here chewing on some random thoughts about our favorite agent of the Inquisition. Playing around with some of it for a fic and writing it out because it helps me organize my thoughts.

Knight World Culture & Heinrix's Internalized Hatred of Psykers

Having grown up on a Knight World, Heinrix would possess an internalized hatred for psykers (generally called "witches" on Knight Worlds) that we see him continually struggle with.

In Warhammer lore, many Knight Worlds survived the Age of Strife due to the fact that these worlds tended to shun psykers and not take advantage of the benefits of advanced machinery. So, when the warp imploded and AI told humanity to get fucked, many Knight Worlds were spared from the horrors of the Age of Strife and went on existing as they always had, led by a doctrine of tradition.

The noble families that lord over Knight Worlds hold to a rigorous belief in honor, fealty, social status, obligation, discipline and self-mastery. This creed is only reinforced by the Throne Mechanicum when, at 18, a prospective Knight pilot bonds with their Imperial Knight suit. The Throne Mechanicum is the cybernetic control hub of an Imperial Knight, and it connects to the pilot via neural interface implants in the pilot's brain. Through this neural connection, the Throne Mechanicum implants positive associations with the concepts of honor, fealty, etc., when the pilot bonds with their Knight. And it continues to do so over the course of the Knight's life. This is why these beliefs are so ingrained in Knight World nobles - because it is constantly reinforced by their bonds with their Imperial Knight suits.

On Knight Worlds, being a psyker is to be something impure, rotten and dangerous. They are the antithesis of everything the nobles hold dear and their shunning of psykers was what kept many of those worlds safe during the Age of Strife. Psykers are seen as unpredictable, violent and corrupted by the warp, and thus have no place in Knight World society. If not outright killed, they are always exiled and sent away on the Imperial Black Ships, just as Heinrix's family did with him.

Though Heinrix never went through the Ritual of Becoming - the rite to bond with an Imperial Knight suit - he was certainly being prepared to and would have grown up with the belief that psykers are corrupted and dangerous. Thus, when his psyker abilities manifested during his adolescent years, everything he believed about psykers was turned inward and became truths about himself.

Time and experiences have altered and evolved his beliefs, and we see him show empathy and understanding for other psykers like Idira and the RT, if they are a psyker. However, at his core remains the belief that psykers are inherently lesser.

We see this time and again, especially on his romance route, with how he talks about himself and psykers, in general. During his romance scene in Commorragh, if the RT questions why he remains loyal to the Imperium, Heinrix will say that the Imperium "deemed me stable enough to keep me as a sanctioned psyker" - refering to the Imperium's sanctioning process for psykers the Imperium wants to enlist. In Heinrix's mind, it's only through the grace of the Imperium that a corrupted individual like him is allowed to live. Which brings me to...

Heinrix believes it's his duty to die for the Imperium.

Heinrix literally believes he owes his life to the Imperium of Man. He grew up believing psykers were evil and corrupt individuals, likely deserving of death. And then his own powers manifested and suddenly he was one of those evil and corrupt individuals.

Something to understand about the Imperium is that sanctioned psykers are rare in Warhammer lore. While there are not any concrete numbers, conjecture from Warhammer books, etc., puts the ratio of those identified as psykers by the Inquisition as one in one billion. Then, in order to sustain the Astronomican, roughly 1,000 psykers perrish daily after being locked inside coffin-like devices bound to the Golden Throne. Inside, their essence is extracted and used to power the Astronomican. Psykers are constantly being shipped to Terra in order to fuel the Golden Throne, and the Imperium is, of course, holding onto backlogs of psykers in case ships don't come in or Terra gets cut off. This is what the majority of psykers in the Imperium are used for, and not many psykers are deemed worthwhile enough to go through sanctioning, which is also limited by the number of sanctioning implants available. Remember, no one is making these devices anymore.

The existence of a psyker in the 40k universe is not a happy one. If you manage to not get sacrificed to the Golden Throne, or used as a test subject or whatever else the Imperium is doing with psykers these days, the most common way to serve as a sanctioned psyker is to become an Astropath. Which sounds like it sucks. Very few are chosen for other service.

Considering all of this, it's hardly surprising that Heinrix feels he owes his loyalty to the Imperium. The Imperium allowed him to live. And then the Inquisition came along and saw something in him worth making him an acolyte for.

After being disowned by his family and having his implants ripped from his body, Heinrix likely thought all that awaited him after the Black Ship was death as a sacrifice to the Golden Throne. And yet he was pardoned and given another chance at life, as long as he uses that life to serve the Imperium.

If the RT passes a Persuasion check to get Heinrix to talk about what happened when he used the cogitator on Kiava Gamma, he even concludes his explanation by saying his "path leads to one place, and one place only."

This man fully expects to, and is ready to, die for the Imperium. The Imperium is the only thing giving him purpose. The Imperium accepted him after his family disowned him. The Imperium is all he has, and he will use the life they allowed him to keep and serve them faithfully until that life is used up. In his mind, he deserves nothing more and ought to be happy to be given the opportunity to exist and serve.

Heinrix is extremely self-concious about his appearance.

We get a hint about this in Act 5 when talking to Tanakia, a member of Calcazar's retinue. She mocks him by talking about the attention he paid to his hair and eyes, a sore point for Heinrix considering that, by the time he joined the Inquisition, he's lost an eye and had a chunk carved out of his head in order to remove various implants.

During his romance scene in Commorragh, he refers to himself as a "maimed freak" and talks about how he used his biomancy to repair his damaged cranium and eye in order to "look more like a human again."

If you're romancing Heinrix, he even leaves after you release him in the Anatomical Opera. When you find him in the Pit, he talks about how he didn't want the others, or the RT, to see him in the condition he was in.

Considering his childhood as a noble on a Knight World, care for appearance would be something strongly instilled within him. Knight Worlds are feudal worlds with highly aristocratic societies, so the concept of presenting a buttoned-up and well-kempt appearance would be important for children of noble families.

Heinrix talks about spending years working to reconstruct his eye, which I think also hints at him having a fastitidious and perfectionist personality. I have a personal headcannon that he dislikes the fact he wasn't able to perfectly match his original eye color, and it's a sore spot for him.

Okay, this is a lot longer than I originally intended for it to be. I've got more, but need to stop turning this man over and over in my head and get some actual work done.