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Rogue Trader is a comedy, deep down. No, I'm not just saying that to cope, look at this skill check if you don't believe me:

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Only one person knows the context of this picture...

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"The Emperor graced me with a gift -- I can see inner life in addition to the mundane. You cannot know that a fruit has rotten from the inside until a blade slices it in two. I can see the rot from far away -- it roils like swamp mud, oozing through the bright peel. Anger and boredom, sadness and joy, everything that people shut away inside themselves is revealed to me like colours on the canvas of my world."

Navigator Cassia Orsellio from Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader

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custom dragon design comm! 🐉

twitter | patreon | carrd | ko-fi

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more like the bisexual trader lol

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My Radiant Angel ✨

a gift piece made for the amazing @captastra, featuring her beautiful RT Lethyan von Valancius and Heinrix van Calox sharing a festive dance

Merry Sanguinala and Happy Holidays everyone!

Done as a part of the Sanguinala Gift Exchange ♥ @rt-gift-exchange, go see other arworks and written pieces made by the talented fans! both versions under the cut

version with the dress radiant wings dedicated to the Sanguinius, and a version featuring her fiery psykana powers♥

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Aurora / pastel rainbow critter collection!

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Heinrix - Duty vs Desire Struggle (Before Commorragh)

you're welcome, more to come

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I see some spalsh of colour on your cheeks

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Final thoughts on The Vorkosigan Saga, since I've reached the end of the road - for now, as the author appears to still be at large.

One of the pleasures of a longrunning series is having so much space for character development and callbacks. The Vorkosigan Saga does this very well. We see the characters and their world change a lot, and plot points have a habit of coming back around. A few of my favorites were Miles' recurring interest in drains and how, several books after he fails to catch a falling woman's hand in "The Borders of Infinity", he does catch Ekaterin, gets pulled after her, and realizes what would've happened to him. It's the kind of emotional payoff you can't get without buildup.

The series was in some ways a study of conflicting impulses. I got the sense that Bujold knew she probably shouldn't be as enamored with her militaristic space empire as she was but couldn't help it. Similarly, there was tension between the feminist themes and her clear conviction that the happy ending for - in fairness, all genders - is to pair up and have an alarming number of children. Honestly surprised she only has two in real life. However I was overall impressed by the handling of disability. I can't think of another genre series that deals with the topic so extensively while not being either a cure narrative or a 'bravely overcoming disabilities' story but instead is cleareyed about the interactions between class, gender, and ability with a character who just has to get on with it but also thinks the whole thing sucks. That was fascinating, even when sometimes Miles was not particularly likeable.

My favorite book was probably Mirror Dance despite how dark it was because I love identity drama and clone angst. The clone rights community (me) has forgiven Mark for being a capitalist.

I don't know if Bujold is planning more books in the series. It ended on a relatively positive note, but there was a moment in Gentleman Jole where both Cordelia and Ekaterin silently acknowledge they are likely to outlive Miles, possibly by decades. The cast seems to have middle managed their way into a quasi-benevolent imperial peacetime, so maybe it's best to leave them there before everyone's clocks tick down.

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As someone who's been a lover of traditional folk music from the British Isles for several decades, one thing I've learned is that "True Love" didn't always mean what you think it means. In the older songs, "true love" is not some mystical quality, some type of connection that is magically better than other Loves. No. A love that is "true" merely means that your Love is "true TO YOU." "True" as in faithful and loyal and trustworthy. A lover who will stand by you and with you no matter what comes. True the way a good sword is True. True the way a good knight is loyal. The contrast is "False Love," which is a lover who betrays you, who cannot be trusted.

"True Love" isn't something you find, it's a vow and a choice that you make, every day, to BE TRUE.

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i genuinely love love love the iconoclast path in rogue trader SO MUCH. its one of the things that ultimately enamors me to the warhammer franchise as a whole despite empathy being so antithetical to its world and genre. its not just because iconoclast is the Nice Person route or because it subverts the foundational principle that In The Grim Dark Universe There Is Only War............ but mostly i love it because its the best way to actually engage w the morality system presented in 40k and explore it the way it deserves to be explored. its so unique parsing through the choices of the game and navigating how one might actually ACHIEVE goodness through - or more accurately without - the lens of liberal modern morality. because adhering to what we presently would call morality is arguably crueler than some of the dogmatic choices - or at least the game wants you to reflect on that and decide if that kind of morality still has value or not. and i like that they give you the opportunity to do that. youre rarely rewarded for kindness in this game and in fact your oftentimes actively punished for it (void shadows was a TRIAL for my iconoclast rt) which presents another question: are you being good because of a reward you believe you'lll be entitled to, or are you being good for the sake of goodness itself??? in saying that i do LOVE how there IS payoff in the iconoclast route eventually - when youve bleed and suffered for it enough. but theres a quality to it thats so..... so BITTERSWEET, because yippee you Empathed your way to the top - but also what IS the top?? congratulations, you are the kindest autocrat in the most bloodthirsty fascist regime in human history, sitting on your throne on a voidship run by all your slaves and serfs who die by the hundreds every time you make a warpjump for some dumbass sidequest. what the fuck. can you actually call that goodness ????? is whatever goodness-adjacent thing youve achieved worth it even if you cant change the system in the ways that matter ??? lastly - the iconoclast ending is both so wildly universe-altering to the point of feeling like a heretical ending - but also kind of. not mattering really lol. because even though its hopeful, the "good" ending still feels soooo tentative with the likelihood that its very likely not going to last. but that in itself is my favorite take away from playing this game as The Last Good Guy in the Galaxy: because the love DIDNT change anything. and it DOESNT save anyone. but ohhhhhhhhh my fucking god does it absolutely matter that it was there.

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The portable lumens flickered and hummed as Heinrix van Calox stood over the fallen body of Emelina Lichtenhart.

Even with the ritual broken, shadows still gathered thickly beyond the weak glow of the lumens, which did little enough to dispel them - but little was little enough, and the mandrakes did not return. The survivors kept close to the light, casting nervous glances out into the darkness and, occasionally - and just as fearfully - up at the platform where the Rogue Trader's retinue stood.

Heinrix's eyes were still fixed on Emelina's face. She had shown him the only kindness he had known during his service to the Inquisition, and he had repaid that kindness with death, however merciful.

There had been little enough kindness in his life. His sisters had been kind, growing up on Guisorn III, but he had left them behind when was taken aboard the black ship to Terra. Then, in the Inquisition, Emelina had been kind to him, but she was dead now. Now there was -

Orica stood by his side, a strange reversal of their usual roles. She said nothing, but he could feel her watching him, waiting passively (patiently) - giving him time he should not need.

She was too close to him. (She wasn't close enough.)

Enough of that. He still had his duty to the Inquisition.

(Didn't he?)

"The fate of its fallen members is a matter for the Ordo," he grit out, his fists still clenched at his sides. "However, it is for the Rogue Trader to decide what becomes of Phton IV and its people."

Orica nodded. She did not touch him, and he was grateful for that mercy. He did not know if he could have borne her gentleness in that moment.

"What would you have me do, Heinrix?" she asked him instead.

He looked at her.

They both knew what she would do. She would take the survivors with them, as she always did. She would offer a place aboard her ship to those who wished it and safe passage through the void to those who didn't. He knew this, and so did she - there was no need to ask him what he thought.

Why did she want to know his thoughts? His mind was a dark and hateful place right now. It would do her no good to hear them.

But as she held his gaze, soft and steady but unyielding, waiting for his response, he understood.

She wasn't asking him what he thought she should do. She wanted to know how he was doing.

Heinrix didn't know how to answer that.

Instead, he answered the question she'd spoken aloud. "This world has been compromised. Any attempt to assess the degree of corruption will necessarily be based on weak judgement vulnerable to doubt and sentiment. I would get rid of the planet and its population."

He had called her weak. He had called her weak after Commorragh, too, and questioned her judgement then as well, and she had stood there and taken it, believing she deserved it as much as she had the Drukhari's lash. But it was a weakness to show such sentiment and mercy. It has been weakness for him to show such mercy to Emelina.

(It was weakness for her to show such compassion to someone like him.)

She nodded and turned to the survivors, and Heinrix remembered the first time he'd heard her address a crowd like this.

They had just arrived on Footfall, and having taken his leave from the Rogue Trader at the shuttle bay, Heinrix had sent a message to inform the Lord Inquisitor of his arrival on the station. He'd been awaiting Calcazar's response - the warp storms had rendered communications in the Expanse even more unreliable than usual - when he'd heard her voice.

She had stumbled over her words then, her voice shaking, and there were frequent, lengthy pauses in her speech - unfamiliar with the formalities of her new position, she had no doubt been repeating after her seneschal.

Now her voice was steady, her words delivered with quiet confidence and entirely her own.

"Survivors of Phton IV, my name is Orica von Valancius, Rogue Trader of the Koronus Expanse, and I offer you safe passage from this world."

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Data Archivist Lilith Thannek assists Ser Heinrix de Gauvain with repairs to his Imperial Knight. She receives an invitation to the Summersbreath ball in return.

Written for @maggotknight <3

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✨ Luminous ✨

Illustration for Feather Stride and Lumiona! 💙 It's probably the most whimsical piece I ever made.

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Honestly one of the reasons the books in the Vorkosigan saga always hit is that Bujold just seems to get that even in a space opera setting with complicated interplanetary imperial wedding politics and fleets of mercenaries and brain chips that give you perfect recall of every detail and clones who become kind of your annoying little brother…… sometimes the biggest sources of agonizing narrative tension can be extremely mundane and real situations.

Like, your dad has a heart attack.

Or a loved one starts to show signs of dementia out of nowhere.

Or you want to visit someone in the hospital and keep getting denied access because of red tape and no one will tell you how they’re doing or what treatments they’re getting.

And it’s just FUCKING BRUTAL but in such a satisfying way to read.

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oldish rogue trader doodles i’m never warp jumping a dangerous route again