- "You pride yourself on your hate of the Corpse Imperium, yet I tell you now: your hate is a child's thing, shallow and passing, in comparison to mine. Even in the disgusting service of the False Emperor, you had found a family, brothers you were part of. The Imperium did not even give me that; it simply took from me until I had nothing, and then it took again so that I would remain nothing. Though you realized the truth of Chaos, it was the Emperor that made you what you are. All that I am the Dark Gods made."
- —Ludovica
Drusilla Ludovica, known as Ludovica Murderqueen, is a human mutant that serves as leader of the Murderwing brotherhood of the Shadow Reavers warband of Chaos Space Marines. Her unique hulking size and stature, as well as the Warp-bound power armour she possesses, makes her rival the Astartes of the warband in terms of brute strength and killing prowess.
History[]
Born to unknown parents on the planet of Skaar, the mutant that would come to be known as Ludovica was abandoned as soon as she breathed the hive's fetid air, thrown away and left to die on the streets like all other mutants before her. As soon as whoever it was that gave her life saw her bestial form, they felt mercy only insofar as not ending her life immediately. She lived, however, taken in by a couple of wretched and abandoned living in the hive's lowest depths. Her foster parents died several years later, succumbing to acute radiation sickness. Barely old enough to fend for herself, the mutant roamed the irradiated underhive, subsisting on the gruel that trickled down from the water purification machines far above her level, and feeding herself through trapping rats and insects. The tiny shack she had called home was destroyed in a ganger war, and she went deeper into the hive.
By her early teens, she had come to inhabit a shanty town on the outskirts of the hive's lowest level, living among other mutants and castaways. She grew quickly, and soon towered above the rest of her community. The rest of the mutants gave her the name Claw, for where her right forearm was supposed to be there grew a terrifyingly sharp and large pincer. As Claw grew so too did her skills, and she began selling her muscle to the local gangs. No matter how good she became though, she could not advance, for even the ganger scum of Skaar's underhive would not allow a mutant to have a position of leadership. Frustrated, Claw was becoming increasingly aggressive. One night after drinking and being insulted by one of their number, she murdered the entirety of her gang in cold blood. Alone again, she roamed the hive's lowest deeps, hunted now by religious zealots who had taken notice of her rampage.
Rebellion[]
As she fought back against her pursuers, other mutants began to flock to her for protection, mutants and the damned, followers of forbidden faiths. They spoke that mutants were the children of Chaos, accepted and loved by the Dark Gods. As her throng grew it became a hidden force within the underhive, and slowly it accepted Chaos in its entirety, including Claw herself. It was not only her cult that grew - suddenly, the scions of Chaos were everywhere. Stories spoke of gods from beyond the stars, clad in red and silver, towering and resplendent, who issued proclamations of the glory of Chaos. With every sermon, with every passionate rousing, the masses grew, until they could grow no longer. In 897.M40, they poured out from the underhive, killing the Arbites in the streets. Soon the PDF came, but already the uprising was armed and fought back. The hives descended into chaos. Claw led the charge wherever there was fighting to be done, reveling in the slaughter of her oppressors. Yet final victory was not to be. As the masses swarmed the highest levels, dark portals tore open throughout the hive, pouring out raiders from Commoragh. They broke the ranks of the uprising, killing many and taking the rest as slaves. Claw herself was shot down by splinter rifle fire, chained and brought thus to a flying Raider.
In a fit of burning rage, the shackled mutant pushed one of her Dark Eldar captors off the Raider and to his death below. As their convoy drifted across the Hive spires firing at what few remaining stragglers could muster retaliation and scouring the ruins for fresh slaves, Claw fought for her freedom, a full dozen of her subjugators pulling on the chains and razor hooks embedded in her skin. Her sect was dead now or worse, a fate shared with rival gangs, Arbites and zealots of the imperial cult alike, enemies that had sought to destroy her so many times. The Dark Eldar cared not for such trifles. To them she was simply spoils. And in that moment, she cared not for such trifles either, as there was only one thing that mattered now: survival. As she pulled and pushed the Dark Eldar attempting unsuccessfully to restrain her, the Cabal’s leader descended from his position behind the helm, tired of the nuisance. From a holster of human skin he pulled out a pistol, and aimed it squarely at the mutant’s head.
He burst suddenly in writhing flames, thrashing and screaming in agony. As the Raider burned in helfire, the shrieking sounds of jet engines reverberated overhead. Miraculously, the mutant was barely scathed. She looked upward, and saw the Heldrake swivel for a second pass. She dropped to the deck floor and out of sight. When the Dark Eldar finally regrouped, it was already too late. Murderous frequencies echoed through the darkness, revealing the presence of Chaos Marines, clad in red and silver: the gods of the underhive. Cut down by sonic salvos, the Raider lost altitude swiftly and descended towards the ancient edifices of the hive city. Claw survived the crash. In the levels above her, the Dark Eldar were unloading salvos of splinter weaponry and darting from place to place with cruel intent, driving against the wall of sonic death. As she pushed herself to her feet she saw several dark figures, black-clad Astartes surrounded in strands of shadow that obscured their forms, scouring through the wreckage. They looked to her with uncertainty, ascertaining if she were a threat. The tense sizing and measuring was interrupted as a group of Kaballites descended upon their position, screaming in murderous glee. The mutant stood then proudly to face them, defensive of what she knew were fellow worshipers of the Dark Gods, hulking monstrous claws readied for blood.
Claw fought relentlessly, striking down two of the Dark Eldar as the Shadow Reavers behind her opened silenced fire. Many of the alien's number coalesced and the battle escalated, with many more squads of Commorites joining the fray. The Raptors of the warband descended into the fight. Several of them were cut down by envenomed Drukhari blades. The commotion had attracted the attention of the allied Word Bearers, and soon the place was swarming with Cultists, during which the Reavers and Claw managed to make their escape.
Among the Reavers[]
The mutant became a part of the Reavers' Auxilia, towering over its cultists, acolytes and initiates. The Heretic Astartes disliked her name, so she was given the opportunity to choose a new one; following the style of the Reavers' own names, she settled for Drusilla Ludovica. As Ludovica progressed, fighting for the warband in many battles, it became increasingly clear her skills surpassed those of the auxilia and even rivaled the killing prowess of the Heretic Astartes. During a raid against a Rogue Trader's fleet, she led a killing charge into a boarded vessel's bridge, slaughtering all that came in her path and claiming the ship for Chaos. As reward for her skill, she was presented a suit of Warp-tainted power armour by Shadow Captain Antoninus. It was the armour of brother Telemachus, one of the Raptors that had died in the battle against the Drukhari on Skaar. Immediately, the baroque suit shifted and stuck to her form, slowly digging its cables into her skin, becoming one. Armoured so, she was sent on a pilgrimage to the Black Planet so as to beseech the Daemon Prince living there to be bestowed his gift. After sixty six years of searching through the Eye of Terror, she finally landed on the black orb and completed her journey, leaving with the black strands of darkness dancing around her body, the same as the Shadow Reavers she would now call brothers.
Upon her return, the hereteks of Krypteia fashioned a pair of implants for her, implants that amplified her hearing a thousandfold, where even the lowest hum was a deafening roar, painful and joyous at the same time, thus imitating the Shadow Reavers' geneseed flaw that left them with the same ability. Joining the Chaos Space Marines as an equal in prowess, she strove to excel, praising her new patron Slaanesh through perfecting her killing might. Soon she reached such high levels of esteem that the Murderwing, the Reavers' brotherhood of Raptors, upon losing their old Shadow Lord Caius unanimously declared her his successor, chanting: "Murderqueen! Murderqueen! Murderqueen!" as Drusilla took up the mantle.
Appearance and Personality[]
Towering over mere mortals and even some Astartes, Ludovica is a hulking beast, bulging biceps and pure muscle. Her legs, shaped like that of an animal, terminate into a pair of hooves which she uses to trample her enemies as she descends on her jump pack. Her left arm sports a huge daemonic claw and her right ends in a razor-sharp pincer. Spiked outgrowths jut her body at places. Her left eye had been blinded by a Wych blade, with two enormous gashes crossing across her face. Ludovica herself sliced out out a third gash, and carved out pointed ends to the wounds so that her scar formed a Chaos star. A protrusion in her right cheek, sliced open by an Imperial blade, reveals the insides of her mouth and the rows of her carnivore-like teeth. Like the Chaos Space Marines of the Shadow Reavers, she bears the mark of the Black Planet: her form is hidden behind a miasma of sensory deprivation, obscuring her form in dancing wisps of black, silencing her steps and turning her voice infrasound.
She will be the first one to admit she is not particularly strategy-minded. While she possesses an instinctive cunning forced upon her by survival, her tactical acumen pales in comparison to those of the Astartes of the warband, who had trained at war for centuries. She often relegates the business of planning to the other Shadow Lords, finding such work tiresome, and would like nothing more than to be pointed at the enemy and unleashed. At her core, Ludovica is a savage: brutal and bloothirsty in the extreme. Reveling in hewing her enemies with sharp, warp-tainted claws, Ludovica is the joyous violence of battle personified. Her hatred of the Imperium of Man burns in her very core, and her zeal in the killing of the False Emperor's servants has several times gotten her into fights with terrible odds. So far though, she has crossed all obstacles through sheer and terrible brutality.
Above all else however, Drusilla is doggedly loyal - loyal to the warband that let her earn such high honours, something she never could as a mutant hiding in the Imperium’s most wretched gutters, and loyal to the cause of Chaos that has accepted her with open arms. No doubt can exist in her mind: the gods of Chaos that had made her into the killing machine she is must be the true masters of the Galaxy, and the Corpse Imperium must be toppled. She dreams of standing atop Terra, her claws inundated with the blood of mankind, singing praises to the Chaos Gods, to the Dark Prince, and to the warband that had shown her the only honour she had known in her life.
Skills and Equipment[]
Ludovica's primary attribute is strength, and she has been known to crush skulls with her left hand. The pincer on the end of her right arm has an ethereal, daemonic quality to it, and it can easily cut through armour. Although towering, she is fast, and her charging hooves can mitigate distance quickly, so much so that her advance can sometimes surprise an enemy. In any case, she prefers using her jump pack and has become highly proficient in targeting her jumps. Bearing the daemonic gift of the Black Planet, the black struts of flame that obscure her, she has some proficiency in stealth, although she is far from the master the Shadow Reavers are. Lacking the patience of the others of the warband, she seeks to avoid the days-long infiltration operations the Reavers are known for, and instead vanishes from view insofar as she can pounce like lightning at an unwitting enemy, then return to the shadows to pounce again somewhere else, predator-like, using her implanted super-sensory hearing to locate new targets. Always in motion, she has a penchant for descending from Thunderhawks, crushing the opposition beneath her, then moving on to the next target before the enemy can come to their senses.
Armed in the Armour of Telemachus, the daemonic suit has fused with her skin where it could. It possesses most of the functions of a regular power suit, and, as part of her body, Ludovica can access them at will. Upon her back is usually strapped a sable, warp-tainted jump pack that exudes black flames and has an in-built smoke grenade launcher to mask her presence. Also fused to her right arm, just above her pincer, is a bolt pistol. Becoming a part of her, she can fire the weapon with but a mental command.