The Lowly lasgun

Demon swords and books that scream their hideous contents at the savant are not the only eldritch artifacts of the grim dark future. When enough blood is spilled, even mundane tools may take on a life of their own. The Lowly lasgun is such an artifact.

The legend has it that guardsman Stanislaus Lowly was a member of the XIII. Casbian, a ragged outfit just a step above a penal battalion, a non-descript soldier in an average unit in a standard Guard regiment. The Imperial Guard is said to achieve victory by drowning the enemy in the blood of guardsmen, and the treatment of the XIII. Casbian epitomizes this saying. During a nameless pacification on some nameless backwater world, Lowly's unit was thrown into the meat grinder. He and a hundred other guardsmen were to storm some pillboxes held by renegade elements - over an open field in open sight of the heavy stubbers. Regrettably, foreseeably, the decoys were cut to shreds. Lowly was the only guardsman to survive the ordeal, and was reassigned to a different element of the XIII. Casbian, the dreaded Gruldark Trench Rats, a group of habitual survivors and misfits.
Lowly was with the Trench Rats for a week, before this legendary outfit was caught in an ambush. The Trench Rats, known for their tenacity and their ability to get out of the tightest spots, were wiped out to a man, that man being Lowly. Again, he was sent to a different unit, just in time for the XIII. Casbian's departure for the Mordecai system. 

The fate of the XIII. Casbian during the Mordecai massacres is well-documented as the nigh-perfect mixture of incompetence, hubris and sheer bad luck. While the Imperial Guard  held the strategic high ground after an interminable and very bloody campaign, the tatters of the XIII. Casbian were damaged beyond any hope of restitution. The few surviving veterans were scattered over various colonies. Lowly's name, together with the number of his lasgun, appears on the lists of the survivors - a few dozen out of a couple of hundred thousands - and his trail ends there. He probably died in his bed in some small hamlet.

The war gear of the XIII. Casbian was split up by the Departmento Munitorium. Lowly's gun was appropriated by another regiment and has wandered from hand to hand ever since, from the Imperial Guard to Local Defense Forces to Skitarii to enforcers and mercenaries. It even graced an Inquisitor's cadre for a time. Over the course of a few centuries a disquieting pattern became clear: While the holder of the Lowly lasgun seems to survive any situation, however hairy, all his comrades seem to be ill-fated. They die in droves, they die like flies, while one man drags himself out from under the corpses, holding the Lowly lasgun. But the gun seems only to work for the grey multitudes of humanity - the meek guardsman, the hollow-faced scribe, the technomat who is but a cipher to his superiors. Soon after some radiant champion of humanity picks up the Lowly lasgun, he is struck down by fate and the fickle tides of battle. The gun only has its "benign" influence in the hands of a man belonging to the teeming masses.

The Ordo Calixis has followed the trail of the Lowly lasgun for some decades now and acquired the artifact on the battlefields of Tranch. The gun is said to rest in the depths of the Tricorn palace, but everyone who knows the Ordos well enough would seek the Lowly lasgun somewhere else. It is of great interest to the Istvanian faction, as the gun seems to find those individuals which are fated to survive everything the universe can throw at them. Others see the gun as a means to achieve the hollowest kind of victory: One single man planting the standard on bodies of his comrades.

The Lowly lasgun is said to be a standard pattern lasgun. Its only markings consists of a "13" in low gothic script on the left side of the barrel and a heavy brass key on a short chain hanging from the muzzle. It is beat up and  full of dents and scratches, but is still a reliable weapon.

In game terms, the holder of the Lowly lasgun has an extra fate point, which may only be used for burning and thus surviving certain death. It works only for mediocre characters - anyone with any characteristics score of 35 or more does not profit from the gun. And everyone in the holder's company suffers from strokes of hideous bad luck - how this affects gameplay is decided by the gamemaster.