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Vendare Taloun

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Vendare Taloun was the head of the Taloun industrial cartel on the world of Pavonis.[1]

History

Spoiler!
This page contains spoilers for: Nightbringer (Novel)

Taloun's cartel manufactured artillery shells for the Imperial Guard. Approximately ten years before the Battle at Tembra Ridge, his family held the governorship of the planet, before they were ousted by the Shonai cartel.[1a]

Vendare ascended to the head of the cartel after his elder brother died (according to rumors, Vendare murdered him). Scheming to take back the governorship, he allied himself with Kasimir De Valtos, Shonai's other leading opponent. He also secured the allegiance of Taryn Honan, and betrothed his son to Solana Vergen, the daughter of another cartel's head, who was traditionally Shonai's ally. With these allies, Vendare was confident that he had enough support to secure a vote of no confidence in the governor.[1a]

He was flabbergasted when Inquisitor Ario Barzano, exercising his ostensible authority as an Administratum Adept, overruled the vote and confirmed Shonai in office, at least for the duration of Barzano's stay.[1b]

With the failure of his political putsch, Taloun bowed to De Valtos's suggestion that they seize power by military force.[1c]

Each of the Pavonis cartels controlled sizable and well-equipped security forces, and Taloun's propagandists secretly recruited several members of the planet's PDF units. His propaganda managed to sell the image of Governor Shonai as a heartless profiteer who was tyrannizing Pavonis and squeezing its hard-working people dry, and Taloun and De Valtos as "men of the people" willing to fight back.[1d]

By the time the coup was unleashed, Taloun realized that he had lost control of events: his ally, De Valtos, was a psychopathic murderer who had allied himself with the Dark Eldar. While Taloun was fixated on obtaining the governorship, and the power and wealth that came with it, De Valtos's only interest was in inflicting suffering on the whole planet, and the entire Imperium. To that end, he unearthed the Nightbringer, an ancient C'tan deity that ancient scrolls had said was located on Pavonis.[1e]

Privately, De Valtos felt amused contempt for his ally, whom De Valtos regarded as a narrow-minded weakling, too concerned with petty things like wealth, and afraid of the violent methods that were necessary to acquire real power. De Valtos considered it almost hysterically funny that Taloun had thought he could seize control of a planet through political maneuvering.[1e]

Taloun accompanied De Valtos and his Dark Eldar allies to Tembra Ridge, where the Nightbringer was awakened. Instantly, the mortal members of the party were assailed by horrific visions, causing most of them to go insane or commit suicide. Taloun fainted before the Nightbringer was fully awake, which was the only thing that saved him from a similar fate. He did not witness the battle between Barzano, the Ultramarines, the Dark Eldar and the Nightbringer's Necron guards, nor did he see Uriel Ventris banish the entity from the planet.[1f]

Aside from the Ultramarines, Taloun was the only survivor of the battle at Tembra Ridge. The experience left his mind virtually shattered.[1f]

During his trial for treason, Taloun confessed to the murder of his brother, his alliance with De Valtos, his role in the attempted coup, and several other atrocities committed as head of his cartel. Three months to the day after the battle, he was led to the statue of the Emperor in the capital city, weeping and soiled, and hanged from its outstretched arm.[1g]

Character

In person, Taloun was handsome, charming, and urbane. He was, nevertheless, a typical industrialist, thinking of himself and his profit margins first and only. When discussing Pavonis' troubles with Barzano, Taloun complained that Shonai's harsh taxes had "forced" him to dismiss a thousand workers from his employ, just to keep his costs down and his profits up.[1a]

Taloun was also a narcissist who found it hard to distinguish between his own interests and everyone else's. At times, he was close to believing his own propaganda, in saying that his attempted coup was being done for the greater good of Pavonis.[1c]

De Valtos found Taloun a useful misdirection, since the latter's ambition and obvious desire to replace Shonai helped to disguise the true leader of the conspiracy and its objective. While investigating the various cartel heads, Barzano was drawn to Taloun as the man with the most obvious motive, while discounting De Valtos as a likely ally of the Dark Eldar.[1b]

Sources