Vorterra's Armsmen

Vorterra's Armsmen are a regiment of Astra Militarum, recruited from a world named Baryer. Baryer is a Civilized World, though low enough in its technological advancement that it is sometimes mistaken for a Feudal World, a mistake made easier by its highly feudal governmental structure. The world is very mountainous, with the parts not high peaks and sharp ridges full of steep ravines and jagged fjords. The planet is almost, but not quite, able to feed itself without outside shipments, and has a similar level of self-sufficiency in most other regards. It is a livable but inhospitable planet, and the pre-Imperial society was hard and unforgiving to reflect that; it has tried to maintain these traits in order to keep up its high standards for PDF and Guard recruits, and to maintain a 'warrior virtue' they believe it encourages. The noble class are the Vor, who consider themselves a warrior class first and nobility second; accordingly, most Vor serve in the PDF for at least one term (twenty years), and they make up most of the officer corps in both PDF and Guard regiments. For commoners, serving a full term in the PDF is the most reliable route to societal advancement; a "twenty-years man" (or, less commonly, woman) will near-universally get chosen for positions of authority in a Vor household or guild business over a man who has not served. The highest promotion this allows, however, has no authority at all; it is the position of armsman to a high house, the personal bodyguard of the house, who are sworn to serve for life (unless released), have dangerous lives, and, in principle, are obliged to commit suicide if their sworn liege commands it; an armsmen given such a command who did not obey it would customarily be executed for treason. This may sound like a dubious 'promotion', but they are recompensed greatly with social status and wealth; the salary and death-pension for an armsman elevates their family to the economic class of successful merchants even if they die in the line of duty, and the children of armsmen are considered social peers to low nobility and frequently marry into it. Becoming an armsman is always voluntary, but when offered is rarely refused.

The PDF is similarly entirely voluntary in recruitment, as are the regiments assembled from PDF veterans to be sent offworld as Guardsmen. The Vor make up a smaller proportion of the officers in the Guard than the PDF, as many are reluctant to leave their responsibilities (and social status) on their homeworld. However, they still make up a thin majority of it. The Armsmen are known as fierce and stubborn fighters, disciplined but adept in unorthodox ways to use the standard equipment, like jury-rigging a lasgun into an improvised grenade when they are backed into close quarters. They are not as fierce in melee as feral world regiments, but are well-supplied with sturdy swords and well-trained in their use even before entering the PDF. Officers and other Vor are usually trained in a two-bladed dueling style of historical significance, and when their squads are drawn into melee they reliably lead from the front.

The regiment's faith in the God-Emperor is firm, but unorthodox; they refer to him as Lord Vorterra, this being the standard name a local lord would have, Vor- followed by the name of his ancestral castle. Local armsmen are the sworn swords of the local lord, bound to his service and his to command suicide from if he so desires; Bayern Guard regiments consider themselves sworn to the Emperor, as His personal armsmen, from the moment they are tithed. This shapes their perception of their duty in ways other regiments find a bit unsettling; they see themselves as having a very personal loyalty to the Emperor, and while their duty to Him is unwavering they have distressingly little regard for the commands of intermediaries. Thankfully, they see Commissar's as embodying another local tradition, the "Lord's Voice", someone invested with the lord's authority and authorized to issue commands with equal weight to those given by their liege personally. They consider commissars to be "Vorterra's Voices", which the commissariat has adapted to.

This personal sense of duty to the Emperor has made them quite useful to the Inquisition on several occasions. The Inquisitor's role as plenipotentiary agents of the Emperor, able to investigate, sanction, and destroy as they judge necessary, has a local equivalent, in the "Royal Auditors" who enforce the king's justice and legal code on the world, especially crucial in their authority to rein in the Vor. So on occasions when the Inquisition have need of a few hundred trustworthy men, Vorterra's Armsmen willingly go into service. On the first such occasion, the Inquisitor decided that they had seen too much to live, and gave the order to execute them. After the first wave died, the rest looked to the attackers, observed that the Inquisitor was commanding them, and nearly all stopped fighting back, instead saluting and falling on their own swords. This made an impression on her, and she passed a strong recommendation to her peers that Vorterra's Armsmen were loyal enough to obey an overt suicide order, and therefore loyal enough that such an order was unlikely to be necessary. They have maintained this reputation through the following centuries. As a consequence of this service, they have developed a particular hatred for Traitor Astartes, and a number of warbands have taken sufficient notice of them to make the feeling mutual. The Armsmen have clashed with The Scourged on several occasions, some of which they kept some intra-regimental history of, and a bloody yet subtle cult with astartes supporting elements fought one particularly lengthy and painful campaign against them in early M40. They have borne these conflicts with admirable resolve and faith, marred by some failures of will but less than would normally be expected from Guardsmen.

(Based on a certain novel series which suits the Guard very well, with random rolls on the creation tables to fill in gaps. The Inquisition ties were randomly generated but fit shockingly well.)