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Helena Carradin is mostly Barbaretta.

Barbaretta's shotgun looks a bit weedy so a new one was constructed from two plastic Necromunda Goliath ones (love those Goliaths); the barrel of the second one was inserted into the middle of the first, as a sort of extension.

Her automag stubber (complete with hand) is actually Major Jaxon's laspistol with a couple of bits hacked off. The power knife is part of a Blood Dragon vampire's sword cut to size, lightly brushed with blue ink, and delicately glazed with about three pots of varnish. The stubber's holster (which you can't see...) is made from the bolter-holster off a Space Marine scout bike, with the gun cut off and a green stuff flap over the top to make it look empty.

Born on the planet Cataphract, Helena Carradin was brought into the Adeptus Arbites after a random screening program identified her as a suitable candidate. She took to her appointed role well - already a devout person, she absorbed the Arbites' zealous teachings eagerly and became a full-fledged Arbitrator by the age of 20, before being shipped off-world to Graia as part of a program to rebuild the planet's facilities following the retreat of Hive Fleet Kraken.

Like all other Arbitrators, she was able to detach herself totally whilst on patrol and in combat, presenting only the sinister, unshakable, unrelenting face of Imperial justice. Scores of mutants, heretics and rabble-rousers fell before her shotgun or were beaten senseless by her power maul. Several times she harboured private doubts over whether the Arbites' actions were entirely justified, however; although she had no qualms about the execution of heretics, at times the killings seemed rather hasty, the judgments a little harsh.

This came to a head in 000.M41, when Inquisitor Toshiro was on Graia following up a personal suspicion that the Tyranid threat had not been entirely eradicated from the planet. His hunch proved correct when the squad of Arbites he was leading searched a cavern that housed a long-abandoned settlement, and discovered a recently-incubated hormagaunt nest. The Arbitrators dispatched the aliens with their usual consummate professionalism, but as they turned to leave upon completing the last checks, the group caught sight of two boys of about 12, who had followed them all the way from ground level and watched the battle, wide-eyed with morbid curiosity.

Fearing the spread of the alien taint, the Proctor of the squad ordered Carradin to execute the children with haste; Carradin wavered, horrified, and questioned the order. When told again, she refused it outright, claiming that the children were no more alien than the Proctor himself. He was outraged but Toshiro stepped in, issuing a quick reprimand before overriding the order to kill the children and telling the squad to continue back to the precinct.

Once the squad had returned, Toshiro took Carradin aside and admonished her for questioning an order from a divinely-appointed superior, and stating that it would be within his power and rights to execute her. Clearly terrified, she nevertheless retained enough of her wits to ask Toshiro that if that was the case, why had he not done so already? At this Toshiro laughed, and told Carradin that she was a terrible Arbitrator before offering her a place in his personal entourage. She was shocked and confused, but when he explained that the Emperor has need of strong-willed free thinkers as well as indomitable automatons, she gratefully accepted the offer - both to serve the Emperor as best she could, and from fear of retribution from her colleagues whose conditioned minds would doubtless see cowardice where Toshiro had seen resolve...

Notes

IX: By the time I got round to doing something with my Barbaretta I already had all five of my other characters done, and a theme for Toshiro's warband was beginning to take shape; it seemed, through no particular design, to be a collection of misfits, all weird and detached from the norm in their own way. Barracus and Ximines have grown open-minded and detached from their organisation; Setzer has a tragic history is not quite what he seems; and Corban is heavily traumatised and has powers and experience beyond the scope of other Astropaths.

For this reason I thought that it would be interesting to include an Arbitrator who has somehow been cast out; who had committed the unthinkable crime of having some common sense and the guts to use it! Obviously if all Arbitrators thought like that the organisation would crumble, but an Inquisitor would certainly have uses for a person who was both faithful and capable of using their initiative!

I gave Carradin typical Arbites gear, that she would have taken with her when she left with Toshiro (although admittedly I only invented the automag stubber because I really like the Magsec from Perfect Dark). She originally had a neural whip just because it looked good on the model before I'd really thought about the character; in the end though, I decided that it just didn't fit her personality so I changed it into a power knife, a kind of nondescript techy gadget of a weapon.