BACKGROUND: Inquisitor Johan Gottfried von Aschausen

My girlfriend made it safely back from the apocalypse. Well, the flooding of Gloucestershire anyway. She was tired and bedraggled, but safe. She has some horrific photographs of the river Severn encroaching onto the M5 and the driving rain they travelled through. It just goes to show how fragile our existence really is, and that for all our supposed technological superiority we can be brought to our knees by a bit of water.

So, onto gaming stuff. I had a bit of a tidy of my gaming room yesterday and found an old notebook tucked away in a dusty bag. It contained all my scribblings on the Inquisition in the Skolarii Sector. Most of it had already made it's way onto the lone pilgrim website but there were four descriptions of high ranking Inquisitors which hadn't. Together, they form the Suprema, the supreme council of the Inquisition Skolarii. I always enjoy reading my own writing when it is old and forgotten because it's like someone else wrote it. I keep thinking, did I really write this? Where did I get all these ideas from?

Anyway, I tidied up my notes and I'm going to post each profile up over the next few days. First is the most senior Inquisitor in the entire sector.

The current High Protector Skolarii is dying. He is almost 650 years old. He is the only member of the Inquisition Skolarii who can actually remember the first Chaos invasion of 333.M41. He was an Interrogator back then, and after the war he went on to become a field Inquisitor in his own right. Over the next 300 years he conducted a solid but unspectacular career. He belongs to the Amalathian faction; his old master, Cornwaller, having attended the conclave in person.

Von Aschausen became the de facto head of the Amalathian faction upon the death of it's previous leader, Belacevac. He did not want the position but his fellow Inquisitors insisted that that was the reason why he should take it. Reluctantly, von Aschausen swapped the field for the desk and began his political career within the Inquisition. He rose slowly but steadily up the organisation, from Inquisitor General of Meridium in 642.M41, to Protector Strophious in 811.M41, eventually becoming High Protector in 897.M41.

The High Protector always joked that his success was down to his longevity; he simply outlived the competition. Of course his Ordo Malleus origins stood him in good stead. Ever since the first Chaos invasion the High Protector has always been a Daemonhunter. He was also a stabilising influence upon the Inquisition Skolarii which had been left reeling following numerous shifts in power since the Variance Discords of the 7th century M.41.

In recent years Johan's public appearances have begun to dwindle and rumour has it that his health is failing. The Monodominants are already jockeying for position. Von Aschausen has always opposed change in the Inquisition Skolarii but the hardliners are fighting hard to bring in a raft of changes.

Just as the Inquisition seems to be entering a new period of instability the forces of the enemy are rising. Ork attacks have increased right across the sector, while the court of the Kjalter sector has evacuated to the Skolarii sector in the face of ferocious Chaos cult uprisings. Can Johan rally the Inquisition once more to meet this new threat?

I'll be back tomorrow with a look at the second member of the Suprema, Franz Buirman.