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Play by Post Arena => Play by Post => : Tadanori Oyama June 02, 2009, 02:35:04 PM
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I'm taking another shot at a play by post now that I've been introduced to RolePlay Online and I have a ready adventure to try out.
I'd like to run a game with RPPR members on the outside forum using this forum as the review and commincations area so we can share the joy with each other and everybody else.
It's a mid-powered adventure, tier five in the game's mechanics, and throws everybody right into the deep end, making it perfect to continue into other stories, assuming we don't have a TPK.
So, it can be played with between three and six players. Once I get three confirmed I'll start the creation process on RPOL and the count down to game time begins.
People can make their own characters if they have access to the books (I can provide a disk with an electronic copy to players who would like one) or I can create a character for the player. The options are equally acceptable to me, though I would like everyone have access to the game rules so that they can be fully aware of their very wide range of options at all times.
Post interest or spew bitter hate here.
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How much knowledge of Dark Heresy as a setting and as a game mechanic to players need to have?
I have next to zero knowledge of Dark Heresy, so I don't know if I'd be a good player or not.
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Knowledge of the setting is not strickly nessicary. All you really need to know is that the game world if roughly 40,000 years in the future and that mankind has been stagnant technologically for 38,000 years. Way back when humans had a man who was basically an incarnate god as their ruler. In present day that man, the Emperor, is on life support inside a giant throne which uses psycic humans as fuel.
The galaxy has millions of colonized planets that are controlled, in the Emperors name, by a massive burocratic mess known as the Administratum and the various subdivision agencies, the Adeptas.
Among these is the Inquistion, tasked with stopping heretics, aliens, and demons. The players are junior members of this Inquisiton, Acolites.
It's a "everything sucks" kind of setting, you can pick up the basics quickly and deep understanding of the universe isn't really needed.
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If you can stand hand-holding me through the rules, I'd like to play. I think I can handle a new game, so I'm in if you'll take a green-horn like me.
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Won't be a problem and the system is likely to be comfortable for you. Though I am very familiar with the system I have little practical experience running it so we'll be taking things fairly easy.
While not as general as BRP or Call of Cthulhu, the system employs a percent base. Skills are rolled under a target number which is altered by the difficulty of the circumstances.
Players have eight attributes from which skills are determined (attribute forms base number, skill training raises target number).
Game play is heavy mix of investigation and combat. Combat is very deadly with Hit Points close to 10 and weapon damage rolled on d10s with bonuses. Dodging and armor are vital. Gruesome death is likely.
Game play has both Sanity and Corruption values offering two seperate ways to go mad and shot your friends.
And you can get chainsaw swords.
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And you can get chainsaw swords.
You had me at "chainsaw swords." Sign me up.
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Lovely.
Okay, to summarize for everybody, the class system is fairly open. Classes are given a big table of available training options. There are two divison: Talents and Skills.
Skills offer bonuses to different dice rolls (Tests in Dark Heresy terms) while Talents offer new options or abilities such as weapon attacks or more hit points.
Different classes learn different Skills and Talents at different costs and at different levels of ability. Abilities are bought from a character's pool of XP and for high level characters (measured in tiers from one to nine, this game begins in tier five) the list can be very complex so I definitally suggest access to a copy of the book if you want to do your own character and as I said I can provide that access.
It is also possible for a given class to learn abilities normally outside their range.
For example, a Guardsman can learn "Hidden Lore (Administratum)", a skill normally outside his class' table of abilities, but he must pay more XP for it (in this case 300XP rather than 200XP, so the extra cost is fairly small).
My e-mail address can be found in my profile. Anyone who would like to get access to a book copy, please drop me a line with "Dark Heresy PbP" in the title.
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I'm usually up for games where I can play some sort of religious fanatic. Ask Ross for more details...
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I'm usually up for games where I can play some sort of religious fanatic. Ask Ross for more details...
Than is this ever the right game for you. Religous fanatics are high class citizens in the Imperium.
If your interested than I can get started with pregame prep work.
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Okay, so to provide some additional background on the adventure for everyone:
You group of Acolites, upon returning from a dead end lead, has been forced to stopover on the world of Solomon. As you touched down you where presented with a summons and a writ from your Inquistor, the high ranking member of the Inquisition whom you all report to.
It explain that you have been, for the time, tranfered to the service of another Inquisitor, one here on Solomon. This is highly unusual but you have little choice other than to follow the summons and meet with this stranger.
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The class struture allows nearly any combination of characters to be effective since every class has access to abilities that enhance their skills and their combative ability. Book worm adepts can weild chain axes or handle a long las, a Guardsman can have learned a thing or two about Forbidden Lore or the workings of the great Adeptas.
This is because the two prime focuses of the game are investigation things and killing things. These tasks can be done in either order and are often considered interchangable by the Inquisition.
I'd like only one of each class but players are free to select as they wish.
Quick class summaries are:
Adept- Lots and lots of lore abilities.
Arbitrator- Good weapon and social abilities.
Assassin- Lots of ways to kill things.
Cleric- Good social and combat abilities.
Guardsman- Good access to weaponry abilities and alot of Hit Point boosts.
Imperial Psyker- Psykers have access to power psykic powers and good weaponry options. Slight warning: psykic powers can have side effects such as headaches, blasting your friends, or demonic beings errupting out of your orifices.
Scum- Good social skills and a wide range of abilities.
Tech Priest- Access to information and abilities beyond other classes, very low fellowship ability.
I would also like to recommend this website (http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/dhroller.html) for it's character generator.
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Ok, the last time we tried to get a DH game going, I wanted to be a Psyker, and I think I still want to be a Psyker. So, if there are no objections, I would like to be the Imperial Psyker! ;D
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I'd like to read up, surely, but at first glance the name "Arbitrator" sounds totally awesome. Do Arbitrators get chainsaw swords?
Can I decapitate Jon with it if he starts spewing demons from his orifices?
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I'd like to read up, surely, but at first glance the name "Arbitrator" sounds totally awesome. Do Arbitrators get chainsaw swords?
Can I decapitate Jon with it if he starts spewing demons from his orifices?
I can't tell you how many times I've tried to solve my problems with a chainsaw sword. My experience is that that only makes things worse. ;D
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I'd like to read up, surely, but at first glance the name "Arbitrator" sounds totally awesome. Do Arbitrators get chainsaw swords?
Can I decapitate Jon with it if he starts spewing demons from his orifices?
The short answer is yes. Most classes gain their proficency with high grade weapons at Tier Five and Six, which is the tier we're playing in.
To answer the second part, you can only cut off John's head if you get hit location "head". Hit location is determined by reversing the number you rolled to hit the target. "Head" is 01-10, which means you can only hit the head if you roll a number devisible by ten that's under your Weapon Skill. For a combative character it's likely to be between 40 an 45. That means you have to roll a 10, 20, 30, or 40, a chance of 4 in 100, slightly less than the 5% critical chance on a d20. Also, if John makes his parry roll, he blocks the attack.
On the plus side, when using a chain weapon you get to roll damage twice and pick which one you want which doubles your chance of gaining Righteous Fury (scored whenever you roll a 10 for damage).
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Okay, got three players who seem to have a vague idea what they want to do and that's good enough for me.
We'll aim to get rolling in a week or so, give everybody time to get familiar with their class and the basic rules.
Feel free to post question, comments, concerns, or anything else about the game here. Please do, I love having any excuse to talk about Dark Heresy, I love this game.
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Fantastic. Also, this choppy-choppy-guy persona I've developed in this thread will (probably) not extend into the game, to set your mind at ease.
Anyhow, to continue my earlier line of questioning:
In general terms (regarding the setting), if Jon inadvertently turns on the demon spigot, am I better off running like hell away from the newly-forged Font of the Warp, rather than staying around trying for a cranium-ectomy?
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Good question. Unless you get the first action, which is unlikely, then your almost certainly more likely to survive by running away.
Dark Heresy uses a hit point system called "Wounds". A character planet type and Toughness bonus determin basic wounds with a high HP character having around 10 Wounds.
Wounds represents your ability to take normal damage. When you reach 0 Wounds, you begin taking critical damage. Critical damage effects different body parts at different rates but always scales from 1 to 10 in increasing severity.
At each stage of critical wounding you suffer long term or permanent damage to the character's stats. Critical wounds to the head or body become lethal after seven or eight points.
Critical damage's effects are based around each hit location and the damage type. For example, if you deal 10 critical damage to the head with a plasma weapon, then the head explodes, throwing burning fluid in all directions while the victim stumbles around lighting things on fire, with their head flames, before collapsing. Or you could deal 9 critical damage to the body with a rending weapon (like a chainsaw sword), which no only causes the victim's insides to fall out but lets them flow freely, creating a slick of awful that acts as difficult terrain.
Dark Heresy is a game where survival doesn't mean you get better. After all, your soft flesh was never intended to endure the horrors of the universe head on. But, lucky you! The Emperor provides for all, including a better, stronger you through cybernetics. Your friendly local techpriests will be more than happy to graft cold iron and wire onto that arm stub and give you the chance to burn heretics again.
In all seriousness, it's very possible somebody's gonna lose some body parts in this game. I mean, you PCs will be hacking them off left and right, certainly. But you might leave some of your own on the floor too.
But the blood boot washing from that critical bolter wound to the head of a horned daemon who mocks your existance by simply being feels oh so good.
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(This is the best Q&A ever.)
OK, so the Inquisition has armed my buddies and I with chainsaw weapons, power gloves, and something called a "bolter." (In my head it shoots 5/16"x2" bolts, but that's probably a product of my profession.) They charge us to Go Forth and Root Out Heresy.
What counts as heresy here? Do I get to wander into a crowd, randomly point at someone, shout "Heretic!" and light 'em up?
Also note that I'm going to get the core book tomorrow, which might curtail the ridiculous questions I've been asking. But it's too much fun!
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SO much fun. God, I love this game.
The Inquisition doesn't hardly give you shit accept for jobs that'll, more than likely, get you killed. In fact, some of the last people you should trust are your handlers (your not likely to know your real master, your Inquistor, until you've survived a few suicide missions and been deemed "useful"). Acolites are half secret police and half cannon fadder.
Tier five or six Acolites, like you guys, have passed that point and you know of and may have even met the dude who's constantly getting you into trouble. While he hasn't given you anything directly, he makes it possible for you to get things for yourself, like chainsaw swords and bolters, both of which are very rare and valuable items, normally reserved for the Emperor's best. Humanity forgot how to make them ten thousand years ago, what exists today has endured since then.
Bolters come in three shapes: psitol, rifle, and heavy. All of them fire, surprise, bolts! Bolts are .75 calibur solid rounds. Each one has a casing with enough packed explosive(gun powder or like material, depending on when/where it was made) to get it out of the barrel of the rifle and ignite the self-propellant. Once free of the barrell the bolt's internalized fuel lights and the bolter accelerates away from the gun, gaining speed as it does so. Designed to adjust to soft (flesh) or hard (armor) targets, the bolt penitrates to effective depth and then detonates.
As for rooting out heresy, first you have to identify it.
Depending on your Inquistor, you'll find different things to be different levels of heretical, and that these levels may or may not be acceptable. The Adeptus Mechanicus are, in many ways, heretics. But they are the prayer keepers, the only ones who know how to keep the machine spirits appeased and functioning. So, it can be tough. Luckily, you have a clear guide to heresy: those outside the Emperor's light.
This includes:
those who deny the Emperor,
those who worship others aside from the Emperor,
those who worship others inaddition to the Emperor,
those who do not worship the Emperor,
humans who complain about being human,
humans who don't want to be human,
humans who mutate into other things,
humans who mutate into slightly different things,
humans who talk to aliens,
alien in general,
anything that belongs to aliens,
anything that belongs to daemons,
people who worship daemons,
people who work for daemons,
people who talk to daemons,
people who look at pictures of daemons,
people who know anything about daemons,
people who think about daemons,
humans who use sorcery,
humans who think about sorcery,
humans who learn new things,
humans who teach new things,
and planets who don't pay the tith.
There's more, but that's the primer. Within the Inquisition there are three massive orders: Hereticus, Malleus, and Xenos each specialized in the destruction and removal of one of the three major problems of the Imperium: heretics, daemons, and aliens. Honestly, all of them are heretics but the lines have to be drawn someplace.
As an acolite, you are a secret agent. You don't say your part of the Inquistion, you just move about and watch. When you find heresy, consider: is this it? Heresy is like a weed with deep roots and it spreads quickly. Kill one heretic and you will simply have to kill another soon. Follow one heretic to it's nest and you may kill many heretics, then you can move to a new place for more.
Or the roots may go too deep. You can not know who has fallen. So the planet will be burned. Each citizen put to their own pyre. Burn them all and the Emperor shall know his own. Your job is to find out when this must be done. More often, of course, the heresy is not so deep and limited to a select few. Once you know the truth: burn the witch.
Unless, of course, you can't. The rich and powerful are often as weak as the gutter slime. When a planetary governor falls to dark worship, what are you to do? Find the proof, reveal all, and then to the stake he goes.
And remember, the battle is never won and you will never be remember for anything you do. You name and your life will be meaningless to the entire Imperium and a hundred thousand billion human lives will take no notice of your existance. And you are all the protects the Imperium from destruction by alien and demon. You will do your job. You will die or go mad (and then die). And you will be forgotten.
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Awesome! I love the atmosphere, and I can't wait for the game to begin.
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Oh, Jon, when we kick down the door, you shout, "NOBODY EXPECTS THE IMPERIAL INQUISITION!"
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your first mission is to destroy the heretics who refuse to spell acolyte correctly
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man i'm a dick for trolling my forums aren't I?
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man i'm a dick for trolling my forums aren't I?
I just figured there was no one on Omegle.
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man i'm a dick for trolling my forums aren't I?
Yeah, kinda. You that bored?
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man i'm a dick for trolling my forums aren't I?
Flame him! FLAME HIM!!!!!!!
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Started the game on RPOL.
http://www.rpol.net/game.cgi?gi=37239&date=1244312910
Feel free to throw in a character name if you like. We'll continue creation and discussion on this thread for the present.
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I picked up the book this morning...time for some light reading!
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man i'm a dick for trolling my forums aren't I?
Yeah, kinda. You that bored?
English degree and the constant presence of a misspelled word.
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I am Imperial Psyker Festor Sorebol.
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Awesome. I should be able to get the supplies moving on monday so it'll be ready to go by friday or so.
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Judge Raltus Argyrum, of the Adeptus Arbites.
(Not real sure on the structure here...you get the idea.)
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Judge Raltus Argyrum, of the Adeptus Arbites.
(Not real sure on the structure here...you get the idea.)
Titles at this Tier are, funny enough, very simple. Most classes gain their own name as a title at Tier Five, the point when they leave their apprenticeship or whatever other training they where on.
So, a Tier Five Arbitrator is official known as an Arbitrator. Same with Assassins, Clerics, and some others. Guardsman become Veterans.
Anyway, you get to be a free wheeling law man. Just like a bounty hunter, only your legal and fully official.
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How much work would you like me to do on character creation?
I have some separate backstory ideas bouncing around in my head...apparently, Dark Heresy is what I think about now, when I'm doing something mindless at work.
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I on the other hand, do not have a book, so I am at my master's mercy on character creation. ;D
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You'll have it in a few days, Jon. The relivent bits sooner if I can finish properly extracting the character creation pages from the PDF. In the mean time, please do each out that site I linked before, the character generator goes through the steps very well.
As for your creation, feel free to start if you can. Your playing 4000xp characters. Remember, you can only access a new Tier after spending the minimum XP to reach it. You can do stats with one of tweo methods: roll 2d10 for each stat and at your Planet Base for base attributes or use a point buy system and spread 100 points across your Planet Base scores as you see fit (no more than 20 out of the 100 points per attribute).
If you want to roll for stats than roll in the thread.
Jon, if you want to stat creation sooner I can start walking you through it now.
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I am at your disposal. We can create my character however and whenever you'd like.
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Cool. So first choice is home world. Because one of then big deals within the Imperium is the purity of the Holy Human Form there are no real divisions of race among humans. There are only humans and mutants. Localized adaption to envrionment is generally not considered mutation so backwater Ferals with fangs and something approaching claws are still considered human (and much sought for positions in the Imperial Guard).
The game has five world types, which in turn have divisions of their own.
Feral World- Your world is harsh and unforgiving. You may have had some tech but not much. It mades you tough and strong but you have troubl getting along with others.
Hive World- Your world was a hyper poluted super city world. You where born and raised in a city that housed billions of humans and rose into the sky like a strange twisted tower. You understand the need to work with others as a matter of course but overcrowding and lack of nutrition have weakened your constitution.
Imperial World- Your world was average (as far as an average exists in 40k). It might have been a high technology world, a holy shrine world, or even a throw back feudal world. The end result was a balanced upbringing.
Void Born-You aren't from a planet, you where born in space, aborde one of the fleet vessels. This made you selfrelian and focused but false gravity doesn't form muscles correctly and you are somewhat weaker than others.
Origin World effet base attritubes as well as Class choices. Psykers exist on all worlds so you have no restrictions. I'll list the specific stat bonuses/penalizes shortly.
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Void Born-You aren't from a planet, you where born in space, aborde one of the fleet vessels. This made you selfrelian and focused but false gravity doesn't form muscles correctly and you are somewhat weaker than others.
Dude! Festor is totally Void Born! I love it.
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Excellent choice. Void Born come in many types, just as other people.
The type of ship they where born on determines much of their personality.
Some Void Born are the children of Imperial Guardsmen, born onboard an active military vessel and grow up with rigid discipline and Imperial devotion. Others are born on pilgramage ships, moving from one world to another and could spend most of their lifetime in space.
Base attributes are equal to 20+2d10. Void Born apply 15+2d10 to their Strength but 25+2d10 to their Willpower, which gives them a slightly better bite at the Psyker Class. They also have some advantages in that they are well adjusted to space. They don't suffer gravity sickness and seldom become disoriented.
However, they do pay for it in some places. Void Born have the lowest base Wounds of any Planet, starting with 6. Imperial and Hive start at 8, Ferals at 9.
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I believe Festor to be born on a military vessel, his father drilled the Imperial party line into his brain, but Festor's weak body prevented him from becoming a guardsman like his father, and was the utter disapointment to his father and family.
Once Festor developed his psyker abilities, he knew the Imperium was his destiny not only to satisfy his Imperial beliefs, but to also show-up his bastard of a father. Festor hates his family, especially his father, with a passion, and strives to advance through the Imperium as fast as he can to show his father that brains are far better than brawn.
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Your gonna make a good Psyker. Bitterness is a big thing for them.
See, there's this little problem the Imperium has: the God Emperor is dead. Or maybe not, they aren't really sure. What they are sure of is that if they don't fuel the Golden Throne, the place where the Emperor resides, then it won't work and they'll lose their nagivational becon. If that happens then the Astropaths can't navigate the whole of the Imperium. The Imperial Guard will be paralized and the Emperor's armies will be unable to move to defend the Imperium, turning one Empire into a million small ones, defenseless against xenos and daemons and heresy.
So, the Golden Throne must be fueled: with the souls of Psykers.
Anyone who displays mental talent is tested to endure the temptation and dangers of the Warp, what Psykers draw power from, the same place daemons come from and the Chaos Gods live. Those who pass come into the serve of the Imperium. Those who fail travel on the Black Ships to Holy Terra to do their greatest duty.
Most fail.
On a military ship the local Psyker Militant would've tested you. And the test ain't nice. Psykers have a special table of side effects, things that happened to them during their testing. You can use that or come up with something of your own. Some Psykers loose all their teeth, some can not longer speak, some have sections of their skull replaced, occationally they go blind in one eye. Somethimes they never nearly fail the test and begin play with a few Madness or Corruption points. Or you can elect to have had an exceptational testing.
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On a military ship the local Psyker Militant would've tested you. And the test ain't nice. Psykers have a special table of side effects, things that happened to them during their testing. You can use that or come up with something of your own. Some Psykers loose all their teeth, some can not longer speak, some have sections of their skull replaced, occationally they go blind in one eye. Somethimes they never nearly fail the test and begin play with a few Madness or Corruption points. Or you can elect to have had an exceptational testing.
Ok, tell me if this will be ok, and how it can be or should be reflected in the game mechanics.
Unbeknownst to Festor's parents, while in the womb, Festor was originally one half of a pair of twins. But, during cellular development, Festor's twin was absorbed into Festor's body, thus he became what is known as a Chimera. A single person born with two sets of DNA, his own and his absorbed twin's. To the outside world, Festor was born as a fairly normal, if not scrawny, baby.
During "The Test", Festor's body was warped, and even though Festor succeeded in the test, the end result was that his left arm was withered into an almost useless limb, and his left should opened and Festor's twin brother emerged!!! Festor now has a vestigial twin on his left shoulder. His twin has a tiny head and tiny arms, but his face looks mummified with lips that open and close at the same time as Festor's as he talks or eats.
I don't think the vestigial twin will have any major impact on the game, but it is damn creepy to look at.
Vestigial Twin Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestigial_twins
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That is horrorly disturbing and completely perfect for a 40k game. Well done sir. Your going to fit in really good during this adventure.
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Also... Festor has named his own twin. He as named him Tad. ;D
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Also... have you gotten my "Request To Join" pm on the RPOL site for the game? Are you going to admit me into the game? I still cannot post in the game thread there.
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I hadn't check since sunday. I'll get over there and check you in. Is there some special game master link I follow to find character submissions or should it just pop up right infront of me?
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I hadn't check since sunday. I'll get over there and check you in. Is there some special game master link I follow to find character submissions or should it just pop up right infront of me?
If memory serves, it should come to you as a PM. You open the PM, and at the bottom right corner of the screen is a "Admit Player" (or something to that effect) link. Clicking on that link is all you have to do.
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Sounds easy enough. I'll get there as soon as I can and start some new threads to continue creation/discussion on site.
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Okay, next big step is considering how your character came to be an Acolite. Most don't seek it out, they get brought in by an agent of an Inquistor or by the Inquistor themselves.
Sometimes they have one's life, others the individual has done something impressive or out of character for their role in life that is in keeping with the needs of the Inquisition, or the Inquistor just wanted some cannon fodder than you where lucky enough to survive.
At Tier Five your characters have become important and well trained enough that they can be trusted with information and responsibility and are likely considered Trusted Acolites. Your likely either a career Acolite or on the fast track to your own Inquistor's position by this point in life. Either one is a good path so long as your good at survivig which, by this time, you really have to be.
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There's a certain "something" about Festor that impressed the Inquistor. He couldn't put his finger on it exactly, maybe it was the twin on his shoulder with the milky-white eyes like that of a dead fish, but it was something that told him that Festor has potential.
And, if he's wrong, then Festor will just be another body ground by the Imperial machine and another potential Acolite will step forward.
So far, so good for Festor.
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Sounds good to me. I'd certainly be interested what the guy with a small mummy head on his shoulder could do.
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Festor now has a vestigial twin on his left shoulder. His twin has a tiny head and tiny arms, but his face looks mummified with lips that open and close at the same time as Festor's as he talks or eats.
Aw, man! This game is giving me nightmares already, and it is still in CHARACTER GENERATION. And it's not even the GM...it's ANOTHER PLAYER.
maybe it was the twin on his shoulder with the milky-white eyes like that of a dead fish
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH
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Festor now has a vestigial twin on his left shoulder. His twin has a tiny head and tiny arms, but his face looks mummified with lips that open and close at the same time as Festor's as he talks or eats.
Aw, man! This game is giving me nightmares already, and it is still in CHARACTER GENERATION. And it's not even the GM...it's ANOTHER PLAYER.
maybe it was the twin on his shoulder with the milky-white eyes like that of a dead fish
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH
Score. ;D
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Yeah, I'd say you got this concept pretty much down.
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So, next element of character story is what your character has done to achive their current rank. As Tier Five character you've made your bones and entered into the established levels of your original positions and in your work as Acolites.
Like police officers in our world, Acolites in 40k make progress forward by making big busts or killing major heretics and uncovering big plans or plots. This is only within the Inquisition because their deeds generally aren't publically annouced. However, some Acolites do publicly declare who and what they are. This is generally considered to be a bad idea because while it paints a target on the Acolite it does little to reveal their enemies.
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Festor, for all of his deformaties, excels at blending into the background of a room. Usually quiet and introspective as he agrues with a voice in his head that he assumes is Tad talking to him. This "crazy" demeanor can eventually lower people's guard, and they tend to say things around him that they assume is going nowhere in Festor's head.
But little did Festor's old bunkmate know that Festor was absorbing every critical detail that he spewed as he plotted to assassinate the Inquisator. So, as his bunkmate moved to execute his plot, it was Festor who evistorated him, spilling his intestines onto the marble floor.
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Festor, for all of his deformaties, excels at blending into the background of a room. Usually quiet and introspective as he agrues with a voice in his head that he assumes is Tad talking to him. This "crazy" demeanor can eventually lower people's guard, and they tend to say things around him that they assume is going nowhere in Festor's head.
But little did Festor's old bunkmate know that Festor was absorbing every critical detail that he spewed as he plotted to assassinate the Inquisator. So, as his bunkmate moved to execute his plot, it was Festor who evistorated him, spilling his intestines onto the marble floor.
Your all over this. Well done. There are many talents in the book to fit the social steath you speak of as well as weapon tricks to gut people.
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Okay, onwards to setting.
This adventure takes place in one of many many Sectors of the Imperium of Man: The Carlix Sector.
Carlix is a dangerous and distance Sector of the Empire on the far side of the Eye of Terror and at the every end of the spiral that formes what we call the Milky Way.
This places Carlix with it's back to the Eye of Terror and it's face to the empty void of nothingness until you hit the next galaxy.
The Eye of Terror is, for lack of a better description, hell. It's a section of space where the Wrap, the Immaterium, the world of daemons, has broken through in mass and formed a homebase for the worshippers of chaos and the Chaos Gods themselves. It's also the home of most of the tratior legions, the Space Marines who fell to chaos and fought against the Emperor. In short: bad place.
Other side: void of eternity. Only Rogue Traders explode the void and it's generally agreed those guys are batshit crazy. Occationally the come back having found phantom worlds and wandering comets with new stuff on them. New stuff is, of course, feared and decried as heresy in the Imperium so this trade is largerly secret.
Carlix also has a lovely little legend regarding a wandering dark star called the Tyrant Star. It appears in the sky of a world, following ill omens, and drives every citizen to madness. None have yet discovered the star itself but worlds of madmen where once Imperial citizens where speak to the truth of the stories.
This is the place you call home.
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Okay, took me like twenty minutes of messing around but I figured it out and got both the characters I had names for added.
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Well there's going to be a slight delay in our start time: I found the disk that I thought I'd mailed out between some coach cushions today. I'll head down to the post office after work and get that going.
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I could have finished statting Raltus. Instead, I wrote this.
I relive my father’s death about once a week.
The food on the heighliners of the Imperial Merchant Fleet is nothing memorable, even without the concussion that followed. I dimly remember leaving the midship wardroom, headed aft to my quarters. The hatch outside my bunk wouldn’t open, and as I fiddled with the control, a heavy blow from behind drove me to my knees and a second one turned out the lights.
I woke, slowly, to the sounds of struggle. Corwin – my father – was grappling with three crewmembers I didn’t recognize. One man lay on the deck nearby. Blood ran freely from his mouth and nose, and his throat seemed oddly flattened. For all his skill, the remaining assailants were slowly forcing Corwin back toward a maintenance airlock, just large enough for one human in a void suit.
Its door yawned open, like a hungry maw.
The conspiracy unfolded before me in a flash – most, if not all, of the crew was neck-deep in a plot to “reconsign” the heighliner’s cargo. Given the nature of her cargo, the forces of Chaos were clearly the intended recipient. I didn’t stop to consider the deeper implications as I turned my thoughts to survival.
I carefully looked around, moving as little as possible to avoid attracting attention. I was laid chest-down on the deck of the aft maintenance bay, between the master control console and the forward hatch. And now, to my growing dismay, I could make out the irregular form First Officer Oughusk, crouched over the console.
My only hope was that Captain Denec wasn’t a Heretic, too. I took two deep breaths to focus my mind, tensed my arms and legs like coiled springs, and leaped to my feet. I covered the distance to the forward hatch in four long strides, but the clank-clank-clank of my boots on the corrugated steel deck was unconcealable. Oughusk glanced over his shoulder, and with widening eyes, spun back to his console and tapped rapidly with his manipulator arm. I dove for the hatch, sliding through just as it snapped shut. I bounced to my feet once more, and the deck tilted crazily beneath me as my head swam. I caught myself against a bulkhead and did some more deep breathing.
My pulse pounded in my ears, but not loudly enough to muffle the unmistakable CHA-WHOOSH of a couple of cubic meters of atmosphere venting through the hull and into the void.
I pounded along the corridor, avoiding high-traffic areas, and always moving forward. If I paused, I would hear the steady clank of pursuing footsteps, reverberating along the steel tunnels.
My pursuers got me in their sights less than a hundred meters from the bridge. There was a blinding flash to my right as a lasgun blast carved a half-meter-long trench in the bulkhead. Barely two seconds later, my world exploded into noise as alarm klaxons screamed their warnings. Denec’s voice, tinny through the ship’s comm., called out, “Shots fired on board! Officers and arbitrators to the bridge at once!”
“Heresy! Mutiny!” I shouted, but mere human lungs could not overpower the klaxons. I poured everything I had left into my sprint, running literally for my life. I felt the heat from another lasgun blast behind me, and at that point my vocalizations degenerated into a wordless howl.
I burst onto the bridge, still screaming, and I was cut off abruptly when I ran full-speed into a crewmember’s chair. The bridge was empty, save for Captain Denec, who started to ask me what was happening.
“Mutiny!” I shouted, cutting him off. “Seal the bridge, sir! They’re right behind me!” Denec was an experienced captain, and you don’t live long in the depths of space by ignoring potential threats, no matter how ridiculous. The bridge access door closed, and the locking bolts shot into place.
“All right, son,” Denec said, sternly. “That door’s a hardened alloy. Take a week and a half with a lascutter to break through. Time to explain yourself, and it better be damn good.”
I laid it out for him. “Your cargo was too ripe a target. Heavy bolter parts and ammunition? Who thought freighting that stuff together was a good idea?”
Denec wasn’t looking at me, instead moving from display to display along the consoles of the bridge. “Warp-cursed Tech-priests. Oughusk has the security monitors jiggered, nothing shows out of the ordinary. He told me Rispol was going out in a Void suit to check a hull fissure, when I saw the portside maintenance lock cycle I figured that was him.”
“Well, kid,” he continued. “Let me lay it out for you. Oughusk will kill our drivetrain from the engine room. We’ll drift in the void until we’re missed at Landunder. The Imperial Navy will be looking for us right quick tomorrow. Now, the Astropath was pulled off the ship just before we left dock above Scintilla, so we can’t holler for help. I got six days’ water and rations stored up here, and like I said, no one’s getting through that door. Heat and atmosphere are supplied independently to the bridge, so we’re pretty much self-sufficient for a week or so.”
“Pretty much?” I asked.
“Yeah, kid,” he replied. “About all they can do is…” As Denec spoke, the background noise of the bridge changed subtly. A continuous background thrumming stopped, leaving the chamber much quieter. And right on cue, we floated off the deck. “…kill our gravity,” Denec finished.
“I’ll tell you what I think, Captain,” I said as we drifted. “High-value cargo like this, only two Arbitrators on board, Astropath pulled out at the last minute. Add ‘em up, and I think you were set up, sir.”
“Tell you what I think, kid,” he replied, sounding grim. “We hold the bridge from the crew, we live through this…we’re going to meet an Inquisitor.”
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I like the look of this. Grim, gritty, good stuff.
In a related note, I'm happy to say we have another applicant from RPOL who's interested in joinning up. I just got his join request this morning. He's a 40k fan and he's played some Dark Heresy so it'll be nice to have someone with alittle more system familiarity.
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Okay, so I've gotten a disk into the mail, may have another on the way soon. One player has their own book and I think the new guy does too.
So, looks like we're getting close to being able to consider getting started! So, this is the point where we need to consider the Acolite group as a unit. The adventure doesn't specifically require everyone to have worked together before but an existing cliche of Acolites is generally advised.
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Awesome. I can't wait to begin. ;D
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Me too. I've been practicing my grim and gritty writing.
Oh, some background information.
See, there's alot to 40k that isn't fully covered in the RP manuals.
Servitors-
Servitors are criminals who have had their brains more or less removed. They look mostly human but have no intellegence and simply follow orders within their understanding. They generally have had their arms replaced with equipment to facilitate their tasks.
Some servitors are combative in design and have weapons, others construction equipment, and some are connected to vehicles. In clerical work they are treated like servo skulls, but with less respect, and are used to carry things from one place to another or to simple repeated tasks.
Cherub-
A highly advanced variation of the servitor, Cherubs are created beings sized similarly to human babies and grown with feathered wings. They are typically servants of adepts and are a status symbol of high regard. Unlike other servitors, Cherubs are aware and can take action on their own will, though they are kept controlled by their masters.
Less useful over all, Cherubs often serve as minor assistants, carrying items or fetching things. They are normally not see outside of major Imperium areas such as conclaves or adeptus facilities.
Servo Skulls-
A servo skull is the skull of a human, typically a pious member of the Imperium, that has been fitted with anti-gravity equipment, allowing it to float about freely. Servo skulls possess limited intellence, able to follow simple instruction, and serve as messager carriers or menial task keepers. Some servo skulls simply serve as mobile candle stands for clerks.
Servo skulls can not speak or think in any significant manner but they are loyal servants who follow orders to the best of their ability. They are a common sight in the high levels of Imperial society, especially Administrotum facilities. They the Cult of the Emperor, often used to take confessions from the millions of humans who need to give it. In the Mechanicus they carry tools, fluids, scrolls, prayer books, and other items of importance.
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Damn. How bizzare and cool.
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Damn. How bizzare and cool.
The 42st millenium is screwed up dude. And this is just the humans! Should see what the other major species get up to.
Speaking of which: http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Main_Page
This is a wiki with lots of good 40k info. If you mention something you don't get during play, you can look here in addition to asking for clarifications.
Addition-
Also, here is the page on the Calixis Sector, the location we'll be playing in. Anything listed on this page is assumed knowledge for your characters.
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Calixis_Sector
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Damn. How bizzare and cool.
The 42st millenium is screwed up dude. And this is just the humans! Should see what the other major species get up to.
Speaking of which: http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Main_Page
This is a wiki with lots of good 40k info. If you mention something you don't get during play, you can look here in addition to asking for clarifications.
Addition-
Also, here is the page on the Calixis Sector, the location we'll be playing in. Anything listed on this page is assumed knowledge for your characters.
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Calixis_Sector
Awesome. Are you going to post these links in a game thread on RPoL too?
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I will be, yes. I can't access RPOL from work so it'll have to wait til tonight.
Addition-
Added a page for the links on RPOL this morning.
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We had another new application through RPOL. He's interested in play, though I'm probably going to make him submit a writing sample, his messages are concerning... teenage, would be the word I'd use.
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Hey Tad,
What did you think of Festor's first real interaction with an NPC?
I may be a little too much in love with my own cleverness, cause I've now made Festor's statement into my signature below. ;D
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It was just about perfect. Made me think you'd been lying about not knowing the setting. Inquistiors, and Acolites, often develope the idea that heresy is everywhere.
Some of them are really, really nuts too. If two people are alone in a room and one of them is a heretic best to kill both to be sure you get him. And burn the building down too.
Actually, Inquisitors are alot like PCs...