These arcoflagellants were stuck together on a child free break two years ago. When Neverness announced this years Inquisitorial Conclave, I thought that this would be a great unit to paint up in case I didn't finish the team of baddies. So I was able to submit these as well.
You might recall that there are already a team of monster hunters on Devos IV with five arcoflagellants already. Those poor individuals have been arcoflagellants for some time and show signs of having been rebuilt more than once. They are a patchwork of the people they used to be and whatever the medicae or mechanicus had to hand.
These ten are different, whilst each is different to the other, they are clearly the product of the same place and time.
But where did they come from ? What heinous crime deserved such a fate ? And how and why did these come to Devos IV ?
When the Inquisition takes control of a place, some people are rounded up for questioning. Some are rounded up and sentanced to death more or less immediately, as soon as can be practically managed. Those with a lesser amount of guilt (but still some share of the guilt, even if that's only failing to turn ones self in, or condemn what ever it was that was going on which attracted the Inquisition's attention in the first place.) but these people would usually have some sort of leadership role, perhaps first line management, factory charge hands and so on.
Those lower down the social and organisational pecking order are likely to become servitors. These should-have-known-betters are surgically altered into killing machines and then kept docile through drugs and then their bodies and nervous systems flooded with rage inducing pain negating drugs and let loose. All the while, despite some very careful and highly specialised lobotomy, great care is taken so that some part of the guilty persons conscience remains aware of their condition and what is happening to them - this is the punishment.
After the liberation of Randstadd, the air beachead which saw the first Imperial forces on continental Benq, the civilian population who remained in the city were rounded up and processed. All were shipped off world and taken to Dinnterra Minor for screening. Some were blessed with the chance to redeem their crimes against the God Emperor of all Mankind when they were mercifully sentenced to become arcoflagellants.
Between four and half and five thousand souls were consigned to Dinterra Minor. There is a chance that amongst the thousands of arcoflagellants who leave the House of Questions to further the aims of the church, some of those who were apprehended on Devos IV may have found their way back there as arcoflagellants.
Bishop Popper is man nervous of all the other factions of the Imperium around him and their burgeoning military power. He invited the Adeptus Sororitas to give his war fighting credentials a boost only to find that the Canoness has no intention of listening to him whatsoever. So he has indented for as many of these arcoflagellants as he can get.
And arcoflagellants can by law only be activated by a priest. What could possibly go wrong ?
