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Background "Life is made up of two aspects, pain and duty. One does not exist without the other, and would not be of any worth if it did." Raised in a Schola Progenium on the planet of Prax by Sisters of the Order of the Ebon Chalice, Gregor Arbalast was said to have been found bloody and near dead as a newborn, bundled up in a heap of trash and stuffed into a broken wall. His bio-signs were picked up by a passing squad of Arbitrators doing routine Xeno-Sweeps, and normally he would have been left where he was found like so much refuse. But something in the newborn's pitiful struggles impressed the squad's Proctor, whose name goes unrecorded, and so the child found its way into the Schola Progenium. The Mother Superior of the convent named the baby Gregor. Though sickly through childhood, the boy was found to be of singular determination. He would grimly apply himself to every exercise, scholastic or martial; often overcoming much larger students though sheer tenacity. This was to earn him his surname 'Arbalast', which directly translated means "Willful" in Praxian. At seventeen, a Genestealer cult attempted an armed Coupe of the Praxian Government, and Gregor took up weapons and stood beside the Battle Sisters in defense of the Imperial Palace. When the preacher leading the faithful was killed by heavy weapons fire during the final assault on the Imperial Palace, Gregor took up the man's blade and led the remnants of the servants and children into the teeth of the enemy's guns. It was as Gregor and the survivors of the Schola made their final stand on the palace's landing fields that the sky was lit by the burning lines of drop pods. Seeing the reinforcements arriving to extract the local aristocracy, the cultists threw themselves at the pocket of resistance in a frenzy, desperate to consolidate their grip on the landing field. Outnumbered and surrounded, the loyal defenders were cut down by the stampede. Gregor wept openly as he killed and watched the children around them butchered by mutants and aliens. A blow struck him in the temple and he stumbled, a great roaring filling his ears. His swimming vision began to clear, but the roaring did not abate. Like bolts of black lightning the Raven Guard made their landing on Prax. Where moments before the hordes of the Cult had teetered on the edge of victory, now they fled from the fury of the Adeptus Astartes. Emerging from their drop pods with heavy bolters and flamers howling, the black-armoured Myrmidons left heaps of blazing and slaughtered deviants in the wake of their rage. Within minutes of their initial landing, Thunderhawk gunships had landed, and the Imperial Governor and his senior staff were evacuated from the palace. Terminators of the First Company had teleported into the massive complex's heart, and fought through the invaders with the dignitaries in tow. Fifteen minutes after the first drop pod hit the landing pad, the Thunderhawks burned through the atmosphere, racing back into the safety of the darkness, the air ablaze with retaliatory fire that had finally been brought to bare by the traitor planetary defense forces. Three minutes after that, the Exterminatus silenced the guns of the planet for good, wiping all life from it's surface. But this was not the end of Gregor Arbalast. A marine Apothecary named Azila had carried those children he had found to still live onto a Thunderhawk just before the chapter evacuated the planet. Not a single marine casualty had been taken, and he later reported to his Chaplain that a strange compunction had seemed to befall him. Two children over each shoulder and two more under each arm, the Raven Guard medic had saved a tiny bit of Prax. His Chaplain assigned penance of non-combatancy for a term of one week for his troubles. An Astropath named Viz Partathis is the next great player in the story of Gregor Arbalast's early life, insomuch as it was he who was heard to murmur 'And a child shall lead them.' It was perhaps only coincidence that he was personal astropath to the renowned Inquisitor Bethar Get, and that this statement was murmured on the man's deathbed as his mind ruptured from the pressure he and his brothers had been put to suppressing the psychic beacon of the Cult Mind. Inquisitor Get took it for a sign, and upon discovery of the actions of Azila and the survival of the six Praxian children he immediately took the them into his custody. Not much is known of the years subsequent to this, only that all six children eventually found themselves in Bather Get's retinue and that it was Gregor Arbalast who was eventually to succeed the aged Xenos when he fell fighting the Eldar of the Ulthwe craftworld. Of the other five, little record exists...and their actual roles or fates in Get's retinue are unclear. It is known that one of them, a girl of only thirteen at the time of the Praxis Exterminatus, was named Bish...and that an Assassin of the Callidus Temple of the same name has been associated with the now Inquisitor Arbalast in the past. Regarding the fate of the other four children, absolutely nothing has been uncovered. Why Inquisitor Arbalast's attention has been turned towards the Agrippa Sector is open to debate, and has been the topic of much argument since his arrival bearing the missive for Lord Inquisitor Hraxis. He has been called a lapdog for the deceased by some, and the orchastrator of his assassination by others. Only one thing is certain, the Amalathian's arrival was incredibly quiet. No passenger record was ever filed for him, and inquiries have yet to uncover the name of the ship that dropped him planetside. It was as though he literally slipped onto the planet in the middle of the night. The only hint as to how he came to the sector was the simultaneous arrival of the Missio Agrippa - also inbound from Terra. Arbalast is currently assisting a cell of Inquisitors on orders from Lord Inquisitor Hraxis, though with the venerable man's death the future of this alliance of Imperial Servants may be short. Disposition As a relative newcomer to the Agrippa Sector, Arbalast's remains somewhat of a mystery. His contempt for the provincial ways of the Agrippa Sector is held back by a thick veil of pious resolve. He is a dedicated servant to the Imperial cult marking him as a moderate. Given the frustrations of being far from Terra, one must pay tribute to his patience. Vital Stats
Sanity Starting - 92 Current - 88:
Special Abilities
Ranged Weapons
Close Combat Weapons
Other Equipment
Warband
Other Resources and Contacts
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