"Mercy is for the weak, honour is for the fool. We can afford neither."
- —Explicator Orgustine Zola on the struggle to cleanse Hive Tertium of its Chaos taint.
"The city of Tertium is under attack...my city. A dark tide of Chaos is rising. Our best fighters are falling. It's time to try new tactics. Something different. Something desperate. We take you, the outcast and the criminal, the lost and the damned. Because you have nothing left to lose. So you're the scum we're counting on now...and if it's come to this...then God-Emperor help us all."
- —Explicator Zola "welcoming" a new group of "Rejects" as Acolytes of Inquisitor Grendyl's warband aboard the Mournignstar.
Explicator Orgustine Zola of the Ordo Hereticus, a member of Inquisitor Grendyl's retinue and warband of Acolytes seeking to cleanse Atoma Prime of the corruption of Chaos.
Orgustine Zola is an explicator of the Ordo Hereticus of the Inquisition and a senior member of the retinue of Inquisitor Grendyl. Zola works closely with her superior Acolyte in Grendyl's warband, Interrogator Iven Rannick, to help cleanse the Chaos infestation from the lower levels of Hive Tertium on Atoma Prime, the capital world of the Moebian Domain.
Zola is a relatively new Acolyte of the Inquisition despite her high rank, raised up by Grendyl from the population of Hive Tertium itself, who helps to train the new recruits known colloquially as "Rejects," chosen to join Grendyl's warband aboard the recquisitioned Rogue Trader frigate Mourningstar as fresh Acolytes. Interrogator Rannick supervises the overall strategy for retaking Tertium from the forces of the Nurglite Cult of Admonition and the Traitoris Militarum Moebian 6th Regiment, while Zola serves essentially as his executive officer, a vital source of intelligence on the geography, people and culture of Tertium and sometimes leads particularly important missions into the hive city herself.
While aboard the detained aboard the Imperial prison transport Tancred Bastion attempting to identify new recruits for the Inquisitor's warband, it was attacked and overwhelmed by followers of Nurgle, the Chaos God of disease and decay, who were members of the Admonition Chaos Cult and the corrupted Traitoris Militarum Moebian 6th Regiment. One of the prisoners rescued Zola, and the two successfully evacuated the stricken ship.
In return for their assistance in escaping the Tancred Bastion, Zola agreed to spare the former prisoner from the death penalty by conscripting them into the Inquisition as a new Acolyte in the service of her master, Inquisitor Grendyl. From their base aboard the Firestorm-class Frigate Mourningstar which had been requisitioned for use by the Ordo Hereticus by Grendyl, the Inquisition deployed the new operative to different sectors within Hive Tertium to research and suppress the Nurglish infestation. This Acolyte is the player character of the video game Warhammer 40,000: Darktide.
History[]
Origins[]
"There are worse hive cities in the Imperium. At least so I'm told."
- —Orgustine Zola, during a raid into the lower levels of Hive Tertium.
Concept art of Explicator Orgustine Zola created for Warhammer 40,000: Darktide.
Inquisitor Grendyl personally chose Orgustine Zola, an inhabitant of Hive Tertium on Atoma Prime, to join their retinue of Acolytes and aid in cleansing the heretical taint that has infected her homeworld. Her personal knowledge of the great hive city's geography, people and culture made her invaluable to Grendyl's operations within Tertium.
Zola is a native of the lower level of Tertium known as the Torrent, where, like many of the inhabitants, she engaged in various criminal activities simply to survive. She castigates herself for the actions of her past even as she is deeply grateful for the "second chance" offered to her by Grendyl. She has since proven her worth and risen to the senior rank of explicator in the Inquisitor's service, which carries with it the promise of perhaps one day being worthy to be granted the Inquisitorial Rosette herself.
Orthus Offensive[]
"I grew up in the Torrent -- fought like Hel to escape. But there's no escaping your past, is there?"
- —Orgustine Zola during a return to the Torrent sector of Hive Tertium.
As a native of the Torrent district of Hive Tertium, Orgustine Zola's insider knowledge of the geography, people and culture of the underhive is invaluable to Inquisitor Grendyl's operations on Atoma Prime.
As the Cult of Admonition and the Moebian 6th Regiment ramped up their attempts to seize control of Hive Tertium, Zola revealed a deep personal animus for Captain Wolfer, the Chaos Champion who led the Moebian 6th's forces in the underhive, and his lieutenants the Karnak Twins, due to their betrayal of their shared home. Zola was particularly incensed that the leadership of the elite Moebian 6th, largely comprised of members of Tertium's upper classes and even nobility, would become Traitors despite all the privileges they had known. For a former inhabitant of the underhive's poverty-stricken Torrent district, this was a particularly galling transgression.
The goal of what the Inquisition termed the "Orthus Offensive" into Tertium's lower levels was to capture one of the Karnak Twins and carry out a full interrogation to gain a better handle on the Traitoris Militarum regiment's strategy and goals. The primary goal was to discover Wolfer's location so that the Inquisition could cut off the head of the Traitor forces, but Zola also wanted to better understand why the elite of Moebian society would turn on their own people.
Unfortunately, during the mission to capture the Karnak Twins, both Rinda and Rodin Karnak were unintentionally slain as a result of Zola's own ill-advised and brash actions when she led the capture mission into the underhive personally. In the wake of the failure, she was temporarily relieved of her duties until Inquisitor Grendyl review her actions. Ultimately, she was reinstated, though she was heavily chastised by Interrogator Iven Rannick and forced to sign a report on the mission that fully detailed her mistakes and misjudgments that was then entered into her permanent record with the Inquisition.
Zola believes that she was only reinstated due to the value she still brings to Grendyl's operation because of her insider knowledge of Tertium, and if her fate had been in Rannick's hands alone the outcome might have been different. She still struggles to control her rage at the traitorous actions of the Moebian elite, but hopes that the eventual eradication of the Chaos taint in Tertium will bring her closure.
Wargear[]
- Various melee weapons
Sources[]
- Warhammer 40,000: Darktide (Video Game), Character conversations, Item descriptions