The Conclave

The Ordos Majoris - Hobby, Painting and Modelling => Inquisitor Game Discussion => Topic started by: Ynek on July 09, 2010, 04:49:43 AM

Title: Inquisitor Thaddeus's associates and retinue.
Post by: Ynek on July 09, 2010, 04:49:43 AM
I've been meaning to get back into Inquisitor, having taken a brief hiatus to work on university stuff, and my (slowly) growing movie-making-for-hire business. However, I plan to get back into the hobby very soon with the creation of a character who I wrote up some time ago, but didn't (at that time) feel confident enough in my sculpting to tackle.

Some of you might remember that way back on the old Conclave, I posted up a profile for an inquisitor named Thaddeus Marcus Morgathikhai. Although he often claims to have no allegiance to any specific ordo, he is in fact an Inquisitor working for the ordo Astartes, a mysterious sub-ordo within the Inquisition which deals with the monitoring and if necessary, censoring of the Space Marine chapters. The Ordo is something that is fiercely denied by it's members, often dismissed as little more than an unpleasant rumour.

Before starting on modelling Inquisitor Thaddeus, I thought that I should decide who else would appear in a warband alongside him, and I started thinking: Okay, Thaddeus is basically an Inquisitor leading a double life. Kinda like Batman in that respect... He even has his own 'wayne manor' in the form of his ship....

So, naturally, any Bruce Wayne figure needs an Alfred. A loyal butler who tends to him and, perhaps most importantly, keeps him sane.
Thus, the character of Michael Parker was born. (Michael from Michael Caine, who played Alfred in the latest Batman movies, and Parker, which was Lady Penelope's butler's name.)

Michael Parker

Michael Parker was educated at the Gellar's World Finishing School almost half a century ago. His first job was as a butler in the Zukovsky houshold, and also served as a member of the Zukovsky household guard. He was trained in the use of various weapons, but became quite the marksman with a laspistol. When his mistress disappeared twenty years ago without a trace, Parker found himself without a job. His mistresses family didn't want to employ him, as he would be a constant reminder of what they had lost.

After various short-term tide-over jobs, he came into the employ of a rogue trader, who lived on board his old cobra class destroyer. The rogue trader held a hereditary charter, but he had no desire to go adventuring, as he was a very old man. Parker attended to him until his dying day. When he passed away, leaving no heir to pick up his charter and his fortune, the future of the ship, and indeed, Parker's contract, hung in the balance.

The ship and it's contents were soon claimed and auctioned off by the Imperial authorities, and the ship, along with Parker, came into the employ of Inquisitor Thaddeus Marcus Morgathikhai. Ever since then, Michael Parker has stood stoically by Inquisitor Morgathikhai's side, tending to him on board his ship, which is really more like a flying manor house in space. He maintains a good relationship with the Inquisitor, and is one of the few individuals who the Inquisitor has ever confided about his past in.

WS   BS   S   T   I   Wp   Sg   Nv   Ld
30   60   30   30   50   80   60   40   19

Equipment: [weapon] Av3 flak armour on all locations.(As a member of the Zukovsky household guard, he got used to wearing flak armour under his finery. Now he feels almost naked without it, and wears it everywhere he goes.)

Special skills: quickload and dogged loyalty

Dogged Loyalty: Parker doubles his nerve characteristic if his master, Thaddeus, is in what Parker considers to be danger. (GM's discretion)

Discussion:
Michael's stats are less than stellar, but when one considers that he's just a butler following the Inquisitor around, that's not entirely surprising. He's had some combat training and experience as part of the Zukovsky household guard, which explains his elevated WS and BS above the average citizen. His high willpower is representative of the fact that he is extremely loyal, and won't do anything to betray his master, such as give away the inquisitor's secrets (which he has often confided) or, for instance, run off like a maniac whilst his master needs him with a cool head.

As for a weapon, I'm thinking something along the lines of a small, concealable, folded las-carbine akin to the PP90 submachine gun (link: http://world.guns.ru/smg/smg10-e.htm ), Using Marco's revised armoury rules, I've cooked up the following idea for a statline:

Type:   Range   Firing Mode   Acc   Damage   Shots   Reload   Weight
Basic   B   Single/semi(4)   +5   2D6+2   24   2   15

Essentially, I've counted it as a laspistol fitted with a military magazine, standard muzzle, extended barrel, 19 megathule lasing chamber, necromunda pattern discharge generator, standard trigger/grip, standard frame, and folding stock from the lasgun section.

As for the aesthetics of a model, I'm thinking of someone in a simple, but smart-looking suit, wearing a bow tie, and holding his weapon low whilst looking around, with a slightly confused: "I'm paid to serve at the dinner table, not on the battlefield!" facial expression. Or perhaps simply standing there, looking civilised, whilst having the weapon folded and stowed away on his belt. When folded, the weapon will probably look perfectly inconspicuous and harmless, similar to how the PP90 just looks like a plain black box until it is unfolded.












Tech Priestess Victoria Murae

The Levitus subsector is an oddity in many respects. Aside from it's geographical and geological uniqueness, the Levitus subsector is also the home and headquarters of the Order of the Holy Divide, one of the largest 'sacred barrier' cults within the Adeptus Mechanicus. The Order of the Holy Divide stretches back through millenia to the original colonisation of Ferrum, the unimaginitively named forgeworld at the heart of the Levitus subsector.

The Order, like all sacred barrier cults, believes that machines are pure, perfect, precise, infallible and faultless. Their machine spirits are also equally perfect, and this is because the machine god is present in every machine. Humans, by contrast, are imperfect, illogical and impure creatures, and if a human were to combine themselves with mechanical components, they would corrupt that machine with the imperfection of humanity, thus contaminating the machine spirit, and contaminating a little piece of the machine god. The Order is strongly opposed to the use of bionics and augmetics, believing that for every machine that becomes part of a person, a little bit of the machine god is lost.

The Order is also strongly opposed to genetic manipulation and biological engineering for the purposes of augmentation, since a designed and engineered biological component is really just a living machine, so the machine god is still present inside, and is still open to being corrupted by the taint of the human soul.

Instead of augmetic surgery or implants, The Order prefers to utilise selective breeding techniques. This is because when one undergoes selective breeding, one is not designing or constructing something, as a machine would be. Instead, the desirable traits present are actually PART of the people that are being selectively bred, instead of being part of some machine or biological construct that is simply being grafted onto them. Whilst this approach is painfully slow, it is also undeniably effective.

Since the order has existed for hundreds of generations, many of these selective breeding programs have produced remarkable results through the miracle of artificial selection and induced evolution - miracles that even the orthodox Adeptus Mechanicus cults would find incredibly difficult to emulate. For this reason, The Order is very respected by the main body of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and therefore tend to leave The Order to their business, and in return, The Order tends to keep their noses out of the affairs of the orthodox Mechanicus.

Tech-priestess Victoria Murae was a product of an Order selective breeding program. Almost nine thousand years of meticulous selective breeding has created generations of tech-adepts capable of multi-tasking to incredible levels. Victoria Murae holds the record on Gellar's World for piloting the largest number of micro-dendrites (a particular speciality of The Order - think Mechandrites that hover on tiny anti-grav engines rather than snake-like tubes. Instead of attaching to the body, they are controlled from a non-implanted MIU worn at the base of the neck on a small collar.) at an amazing four hundred and ninety six microdendrites performing separate tasks at the same time.

Victoria came into the service of Inquisitor Eisenstein through mysterious circumstances surrounding an investigation into the Raven Guard. However, around fifteen years ago, Victoria requested to be transferred to the staff of Eisenstein's recently-promoted deductor, Thaddeus Morgathikhai. She didn't say it at the time, but she had always found it difficult to be around Inquisitor Eisenstein due to his extensive reconstructive bionics. She saw transfer to Inquisitor Thaddeus Morgathikhai's retinue as a means to escape, but without leaving the service of the Ordo Astartes, which she had considered to be her true calling ever since she had been inducted into it's number.

Victoria helps to maintain Thaddeus's ship, but since Thaddeus employs a crew of almost three hundred to keep things running smoothly, Victoria's job is largely an easy one. She also assists him in researching various topics, such as anti-space marine weapons and the particular functions and mechanisms of space marine implants.

Victoria gets on well with most of Thaddeus's entourage, with the exception of Serf Verenor. She knows that although his body rejected the Black Carapace, he still contains engineered and designed Space Marine implants, and the thought of those implant's bio-machine-spirits being tainted by his humanity makes her feel ill at ease around him.


VICTORIA MURAE
WS   BS   S   T   I   Wp   Sg   Nv   Ld
60   55   60   40   75   70   95   80   50

Equipment:
Goggles (as advanced bionic eyes) with bio-scanner, infrascope and nightsight. Autolaspistol with two reloads, plasma blade (counts as power sword), rebreather with "focus" inhaler (three turn's worth of drug). Three haywire grenades.

Armour values:
Av4 on chest, abdomen and groin. Av2 on limbs and head (for the goggles, rebreather and thick, thermaterial hood)

Victoria also has four Micro-dendrites (count as servo-skulls) controlled by a collar-MIU.
      Micro-dendrite 1 - lascutter (counts as combat skull)
      Micro-dendrite 2 - Plasma-cutter (counts as combat skull)
      Micro-dendrite 3 +4 - Adhesive spray (counts as gun skull with web pistol)

Skills:
Multi-tasker, hatred, machine sympathy.



Special Rules:
Multi-tasker: Due to the selective breeding programs initiated by her forefathers, Victoria can perform dozens of tasks simultaneously without any decrease in the quality of her work. As such, she can perform combined actions consisting of no more than two separate actions without penalty. Actions performed with her microdendrites are not counted in this manner.
(So, for example, fighting in close combat with one hand whilst hacking a door code with the other hand has no penalty. Neither does firing her pistol and drawing her plasma blade. However, firing a weapon and fighting a close combat whilst simultaneously leaping over a crevasse and dropping grenades onto the person below would incur penalties, since this consists of more than two separate actions.)

Hatred: Victoria has a deep hatred for anyone with extensive bionics, especially individuals who choose to undergo bionic surgery for the purposes of augmentation rather than replacement. To represent this, any turn in which Victoria is aware of an individual with three or more bionic implants or biological augmentations, Victoria must pass a willpower test each turn, and if that test is failed, she must attack them with all her actions this turn. (Either charge in, all guns blazing, or stand at a distance and fire... GM's discretion. Perhaps failing the test by a large margin results in the less favourable outcome.)

Machine sympathy: If Victoria ever takes out an enemy in close combat who possesses bionic or biological implants, Victoria must spend two actions per implant blessing and euthanising each implant. Treat these as standing stationary actions combined with talking quietly. She may not use her 'multi-tasker' skill to combine this with further actions, as doing so would be an insult to the machine spirits of the implants.

"Focus" - combat drug - Focus is a combat drug which has always been popular with the Levitus subsector military. It essentially allows the character to focus their mind entirely on a single task, without being distracted by their surroundings. It has no long-lasting side-effects, although the short-term side effects can be a serious detriment in battle. However, the top brass of the Levitus Subsector military seem to think that the benefits outweigh the costs.
A character on 'focus' may re-roll a single test per turn. However, they double the value of any awareness test roll that they are required to take, since their minds will be too heavily focussed on the task at hand. They may not use 'focus' to re-roll an awareness test.


Autolaspistol, again, courtesy of the advanced Inq. Armoury:
Type:   Range   Firing Mode   Acc   Damage   Shots   Reload   Weight
Basic   B   Single/semi(4)   -   3D6   12   2   15

Ideas for a model - A woman dressed in a robe with a design that hints at period clothing. For instance, a generous bosom pushed up by a tight corset, and a wasp-waist skirt shaped lower half. Her posture should look dignified, but ready for action, almost as if she is standing and daring someone to come over and face her. Her face is, however, completely concealed under her goggles, rebreather and other paraphernalia.











And finally, it wouldn't be an Astartes-themed warband without some sort of Space Marine in it. I don't intend to use Verenor in many games. He's mainly the 'big muscle' to call in when it's more important to blow everything up than to sneak around. Some warbands might use an ogryn. Others might use an ork. This warband uses a Space Marine Serf.


Serf Verenor - "The chamber militant of the Ordo Astartes".

Verenor was once the most promising neophyte in the Emperor's Hawks space marine chapter. He bested every combat challenge, and trained rigorously. All signs pointed to him becoming a great hero.

However, unforunately for Verenor, his body rejected the Black Carapace implants, and he was unable to graduate to becoming a fully-fledged battle brother. Instead, he became a serf, doomed to a life of servitude and menial labour at the hands of his would-be-brothers. He watched them coming and going to and from all sorts of warzones, and all the while, he wished he could go with them. He would give anything to be able to wear the powered suit that his bodily rejection of the Black Carapace denied him.

However, unknown to Verenor, the chapter he served may have seemed pure and dutiful, but at it's unseen core, it was rotten with heresy. Proscribed warp-artefacts filled the librarium, and many of the librarians were in league with daemonic entities, tainting their brothers and slowly turning them against the Emperor that they should have been serving.

Over almost a full century, Verenor saw things in the chapter that made him sick to his stomach, but he kept his mouth shut, assuming that whatever his would-be brothers were doing was all legal and above-board. (And what reason did he have to suspect his superiors?)

However, when Inquisitor Thaddeus Marcus Morgathikhai arrived, requesting an audience with the chapter master as per an earlier appointment, the chapter master refused to serve him. Noticing Verenor shying away in a nearby corner, Thaddeus began speaking to the serf instead.

During their conversation, Thaddeus utilised every diplomatic and interrogative technique he knew. The serf was loyal to his chapter, and was unwilling to say anything that might put his brothers in trouble. At first, he refused to talk. Thaddeus explained to the serf that both the Inquisition and the Astartes served the Emperor, and therefore, they were on the same side, and it was safe to share secrets with one-another. However, Thaddeus was ultimately unsuccessful in extracting information from Verenor, and he eventually changed the subject, apparently at random, to what Verenor thought of his brothers.

Verenor told Thaddeus that he admired his brothers, and he longed to have been one of them. From there, Thaddeus was able to discover that Verenor's body had rejected the black carapace, and this was the reason that he had become a serf, rather than a fully fledged marine. From the way that Verenor spoke, Thaddeus knew that Verenor would have sold his soul to become a full marine, and a plan began to form in the back of his mind.

After making a further attempt to speak to the chapter master, Thaddeus left the Fortress Monastery, and returned to his ship in orbit.

Two days later, Thaddeus returned to the Monastery, and to the Space Marine's surprise, he requested an audience with Serf Verenor. The Space Marines of the Emperor's Hawks had no idea just how much the young Serf truly knew, and so were quite willing to give the Inquisitor what he wanted, since it would mean he would get out of their hair.

After activating a potent privacy field, Thaddeus spoke to Verenor, and revealed that his tech-priestess, Victoria Murae, had created a means by which the marine would be able to wear power armour without the need for the Black Carapace. The technology was very similar to the collar-MIUs that Victoria used to pilot her microdendrites. The serf couldn't believe his ears, and he was skeptical at first, but Thaddeus's silver tongue and calming manner soon had Verenor under his spell.

Claiming that Verenor showed signs of taint, Thaddeus requested permission to take the serf back to his ship for orderly disposal and dissection. The marines were suspicious at first, but Thaddeus managed to convince them that he was confident that the taint was isolated to Verenor, and the rest of the chapter appeared to be pure. He assured them that he intended to leave shortly after performing the disposal 'service' for them. He thanked them for their co-operation and returned to his ship with Verenor. The tainted marines, of course, were thrilled to see the Inquisitor go, believing that they had dodged the inquisitorial bullet.
Back on board his ship, Thaddeus carefully listened to everything that Verenor had to say. Everything was recorded, and a psyker from Thaddeus's entourage acted as a lie-detector. The stories that Verenor told hinted at a truly disturbing state of affairs.

Apparently, the particular relics and tainted artefacts that Verenor had seen were consistant with warp-storm conjuring, and summoning of entire planet-wide daemonic incursions.

Combining Verenor's testimony with other evidence that he had been able to gather (mainly battle reports talking about how the Emperor's Hawks appeared to have been assisted by 'red, bloody angels' in battle) Thaddeus soon realised that the chapter was beyond saving. He passed his concerns on to his mentor, Inquisitor Eisenstein, who then alerted his former pupil, Inquisitor Lord Nethis. Together, the three Inquisitors requested an audience with Marneus Calgar, Lord Maccrage.

Marneus Calgar, as you can imagine, is an incredibly busy man, but Inquisitor Eisenstein had some history with the chapter master, having saved his life once in a battle on Talassar against the ressurrected chaos champion M'kar the reborn. When they brought their evidence to the Chapter Master's attention, he was furious. He thanked the three Inquisitors for bringing this troubling matter to his attention, but requested that they do not attempt to interfere in what was now - as Calgar put it - "an internal matter."

Eisenstein promised Calgar that the Inquisition would respect his decision, and no more would be said of the matter.

Within a month of that meeting, the planet Dante, home of the Emperor's Hawks, was subjected to Exterminatus by ships drawn from the Ultramarines, Novamarines, Black Templars and White Consuls fleets.

Serf Verenor was originally destined to be handed over to the Ultramarines for orderly disposal (ensuring that he would not tell anyone else about what he had seen), but seeing that he would be of some use to the Ordo Astartes, Thaddeus ordered his tech-priestess Victoria Murae to clone a copy of him. This copy was simply a dead body, but that was enough to convince the Ultramarines of his demise, and Verenor was kept safe and sound on board Thaddeus's ship.

Verenor eventually got the suit of armour he had so longed for, and now serves as "the Chamber Militant of the Ordo Astartes."

Verenor is something of a solitary figure amongst Thaddeus's entourage. He seems to believe that he is the last chance that the Emperor's Hawks have of regaining their honour. Through his deeds and services, seeking and purging heresy amongst other chapters, he can perhaps save a little shred of the honour of his former chapter. SERF VERENOR

WS   BS   S   T   I   Wp   Sg   Nv   Ld
70   80   180   120   65   60   60   90   40

Equipment:
Sickle-mag bolter loaded with vengeance rounds and two reloads of vengeance rounds.
Power hammer with reach 4.

Armour values:
Power armour with AV9 on all locations. Av7 helmet with full autosenses, including a range finder, motion tracker rebreather and bio-scanner

Skills:
Deadeye shot, spit acid, ambidextrous.


Special rules:
X3 toxin: A particularly nasty toxin created by the Ordo Astartes. The toxin is based on the non-cellular pathogen responsible for "Giant's disease" on Haemos Ceti XVII. Giant's disease has caused the human population to become progressively weaker, as the pathogen only seems to attack humans who are strong and healthy. Only the strongest of humans will be killed by Giant's disease, but it can cause severe illness in most.

The pathogen is a non-cellular lifeform consisting of a single spiral-shaped molecule composed of a self-repeating carbon-polymer structure made from partially helical carbon based subunits. When the pathogen is broken down by the immune system of an organism, each of the fragments will combine with free elements in the organism's cellular matrix, allowing each fragment to synthesise a new whole, resulting overall in a multiplication of the pathogen. The stronger the target's immune system is, the more violent the reaction to Giant's disease will become, and the more likely that the target will die as a result.

X3 is essentially a far more potent strain of the pathogen, engineered by a secret cell of the Ordo Astartes in an undisclosed location. Small quantities of the agent are given to trusted Ordo Astartes Inquisitors to help in their work.

When a character takes a resistance test against X3, half of whatever amount they PASS their resistance test by is added to their damage total. They must continue to test to resist the pathogen at the beginning of every turn until they fail the test. Rebreathers, sythskin, gas masks etc are deducted from the target's toughness value for the purposes of the test (thus making them more likely to fail, and thus, survive.) However, the combat drug 'detox' is still ADDED to their toughness value, since detox only helps to break down the X3 pathogen further, thus making it multiply even faster.


Ideas for a model - A massive armoured suit absolutely covered in Inquisitorial insignias and paraphernalia. It should look as though custom-made specifically for Verenor. It should have some design parallells with Space Marine armour, but should still look completely different. I saw a picture for "mark nine armour" somewhere on the internet which, with a bit of modification, might work nicely. Sadly, I forget exactly where I saw it, but it was basically something like a cross between power armour and terminator armour. (in the fact that the collar came up behind the head to make a sort of 'hood' shape, similar to Terminator armour.)

So, if you got this far through reading all my semi-nonsensical ramblings, you probably deserve a medal! But any comments or criticisms on what could be improved on the above characters would be greatly appreciated all the same. :)

Thanking you in advance,
Ynek.
Title: Re: Inquisitor Thaddeus's associates and retinue.
Post by: Shannow on July 09, 2010, 11:44:19 AM
A think this is a very well crafted warband with huge amounts of depth and balance to it. My particular favourite is Michael Parker though and would love to see how you are going to turn your considerable talents to his creation.

Honestly not one criticism as you have a good justified reason for a space marine and as you say he is just heavy muscle and the other two characters are far from overpowered.

Can't wait to see Thaddeus!

Rob
Title: Re: Inquisitor Thaddeus's associates and retinue.
Post by: Vladimir on July 09, 2010, 02:52:23 PM
I aprove. That's all, really. Brilliant warband, great ideas, I love it to bits.
Title: Re: Inquisitor Thaddeus's associates and retinue.
Post by: Ynek on July 09, 2010, 03:11:46 PM
Heh. I'm glad that the warband has, thus far, met with approval.

When I was writing some of the fluff, I got the impression that I was probably going a little bit overboard in certain places, but it seems that things have worked out just fine.

Anyway, this moring before work, I managed to draw the following concept drawing for a sculpt of Victoria Murae...
(http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/695/victoriamurae.jpg)
Title: Re: Inquisitor Thaddeus's associates and retinue.
Post by: Ynek on April 07, 2011, 01:23:51 AM
Rather than starting a new thread, I thought I'd share this with you all here...

I revised Victoria's rules to be a bit more in keeping with the feeling of her new model, and also had a bit of tinker-time with rules for her energy blade. (Admittedly, I plagiarised some of Kaled's rules for his sollex-aegis energy blade, but I tried to add some other things to make sure that Victoria's blade played a little differently*.)

Anyway, I humbly submit for your approval.....





THE REVISED TECH PRIESTESS VICTORIA MURAE:

WS   BS   S   T   I   Wp   Sg   Nv   Ld
76   55   50   45   75   70   98   88   60

Equipment: Goggles (as advanced bionic eyes) with bio-scanner, infrascope and night-sight. Levitus Ferrum pattern plasma blade with corresponding portable plasma generator backpack, "focus" drug inhaler containing one dose which lasts for three turns. One haywire grenade.

Armour values: AV3 on abdomen (metal lined corset) and legs (protective shinpads) AV10 on chest against attacks from the rear only. (Plasma generator backpack.) AV2 on all other locations. (Flame retardant heavy work robes)

Skills: Multi tasker, Machine sympathy, Hatred, [[Aggressive stance, Deceptive stance, swift footwork. - all these combat-centric rules can be found here: http://www.the-conclave.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=818.0 ]]

Special Rules:
Multi-tasker: Due to the selective breeding programs initiated by her forefathers, Victoria can perform dozens of tasks simultaneously without any decrease in the quality of her work. As such, she can perform combined actions consisting of no more than two separate actions without penalty. Actions performed with her microdendrites are not counted in this manner.
(So, for example, fighting in close combat with one hand whilst hacking a door code with the other hand has no penalty. Neither does firing her pistol and drawing her plasma blade. However, firing a weapon and fighting a close combat whilst simultaneously leaping over a crevasse and dropping grenades onto the person below would incur penalties, since this consists of more than two separate actions.)

Hatred: Victoria has a deep hatred for anyone with extensive bionics, especially individuals who choose to undergo bionic surgery for the purposes of augmentation rather than replacement. To represent this, any turn in which Victoria is aware of an individual with three or more bionic implants or biological augmentations, Victoria must pass a willpower test each turn, and if that test is failed, she must attack them with all her actions this turn. (Either charge in, all guns blazing, or stand at a distance and fire... GM's discretion. Perhaps failing the test by a large margin results in the less favourable outcome.)

Machine sympathy: If Victoria ever takes out an enemy in close combat who possesses bionic or biological implants, Victoria must spend two actions per implant blessing and euthanising each implant. Treat these as standing stationary actions combined with talking quietly. She may not use her 'multi-tasker' skill to combine this with further actions, as doing so would be an insult to the machine spirits of the implants.

"Focus" - combat drug - Focus is a combat drug which has always been popular with the Levitus subsector military. It essentially allows the character to focus their mind entirely on a single task, without being distracted by their surroundings. It has no long-lasting side-effects, although the short-term side effects can be a serious detriment in battle. However, the top brass of the Levitus Subsector military seem to think that the benefits outweigh the costs.
A character on 'focus' may re-roll a single test per turn. However, they double the value of any awareness test roll that they are required to take, since their minds will be too heavily focussed on the task at hand. They may not use 'focus' to re-roll an awareness test.

Flame Retardant Heavy Work Robes: The fibres of Victoria's clothes contain tiny microcrystals of subliming flame-retardant substances. Upon contact with a significant source of heat, (such as a flame,) these crystals vapourise and, due to their highly potent flame-retardant nature, suffocate the flames. Victoria still takes damage from flamers and other flame-based weapons, but cannot be set on fire.


Levitus Ferrum pattern plasma blade and backpack:

   Reach:3   Damage: 3D10+4   Parry Pen.: -10%

Basic bulletpoints:
1) Activating or deactivating the blade takes a single action.
2) If the plasma blade is parried, or successfully makes a parry, there is a 75% chance that the opponent's weapon is destroyed - even power, shock and force weapons are vulnerable to this effect. The blade itself cannot be destroyed by power weapons.
3) The plasma blade does not benefit from a character's strength bonus.
4) When the blade is active, there is a +40 modifier to any attempts to detect the user by sound or sight.

Stress points:
Stress points represent a mixture of things - how much plasma the weapon has left, how close the plasma backpack generator is to overloading, how long it's been since the weapon was properly maintained etc. At the start of each game, a user starts with 0 stress points, assuming that the weapon is in good working order.
When the energy blade is used to attack (or even when it's used to parry), always roll for damage, (even if the enemy parries the attack, but not if he successfully dodges). The number shown on the highest scoring D10 is added to the user's stress points.

Stress points represent the percentage chance of failure every time the weapon is used. Any time the weapon is used, roll a D100 and compare the result to the number of stress points which have thus far been accumulated. If the result is lower than the number of stress points in play, then something goes wrong with the weapon. Consult the table below to find out what goes wrong.
If Victoria's chest is attacked from the rear, the backpack offers her an armour value of 10. However, any damage which penetrates this armour is also added to the weapon's stress points score. Stress points which are caused in this way can never be alleviated by the backpack, as detailled below.

Failed by 1-20% - the weapon's plasma feed falters. The blade sputters a little, and goes out for a few moments. The weapon automatically fails whatever action it was attempting to make.
Failed by 21-40% - The weapon suffers a minor overheat and engages safety countermeasures to cut off the plasma flow. This has the same affect as above, but the user also takes D10 damage to both hands and must pass a willpower test or drop the weapon.
Failed by 41-60% - The backpack and weapon suffer a major overheat, and engages safety countermasures to cut off the plasma flow. This has the same effect as above, but also counts as a plasma gun shot to Victoria's chest.
Failed by 60-100% - The backpack suffers a catastrophic meltdown and explodes. It counts as a plasma grenade.

For every turn that the plasma blade is inactive (switched off), the plasma backpack alleviates D6 stress points. (By engaging particular safety reroutes, feeding more energy to the blade, or simply being given a chance to cool down a bit.)

When inactive, the plasma blade's damage is reduced to D6, and when inactive, it can be destroyed by power weapons.
When subjected to a haywire grenade, the plasma blade automatically deactivates. It may be switched on again upon leaving the haywire grenade's area of effect.









* For instance, wheras Kaled's rules use plasma flasks, these rules indicate theoretically limitless 'ammo' for the blade, which I feel is more in keeping with Inquisitor's plasma weapons. (Notice how they 'recharge' rather than reload?) Since Victoria is essentially carrying a huge plasma generator on her back, I reckoned that she probably had enough power to keep the blade running for some time, but the likelihood of it screwing up would grow the more that she used the blade.
Title: Re: Inquisitor Thaddeus's associates and retinue.
Post by: MarcoSkoll on April 07, 2011, 02:41:08 AM
Quote from: Ynek on April 07, 2011, 01:23:51 AMHatred: Victoria has a deep hatred for anyone with extensive bionics, especially individuals who choose to undergo bionic surgery for the purposes of augmentation rather than replacement.
While this is certainly very characterful, I am a big advocate of not forcing personality traits with rules. I have no problem with encouraging them, but dictating "a character must do X" can result in things that are just plain daft.

For an example, one character in my "regular" group is completely fixated with his sword and will never leave it behind.

Encouraging him to retrieve it would be to, when he has lost his sword, penalise him with a -20% to all his stats (except Toughness) if the actions don't relate to getting his sword back - he's distracted by the loss of his heirloom sword, and can no longer focus properly on anything else. And if the GM feels it's necessary, then that penalty can become -40% or more.

Forcing it would be to write something like: Whenever Kaimt loses his sword, he must immediately move straight towards it and retrieve it. Which doesn't allow for if doing so is just plain stupid, for which there are many reasons - perhaps that he was in the open, got shot, dropped his sword and dived for cover. Does he deal with the gunman first, or just walk back into the open to retrieve his sword?

Similarly, Machine Sympathy has the same problem - do you really stop to euthanise all of a techpriest's 478 different implants when a chronogladiator is charging you down, or when your actual quarry is ten seconds from escaping off planet?

Personally, I'd hit her with a few penalties for if she "needs" to euthanise some implants, but hasn't got around to it yet. And if she hasn't punctured the fool with the hardware store bolted to his body, she takes some other penalties.
It makes a bit more sense than her having to take a WP test every turn to avoid shooting your vital contact who happens to have had a few bad scraps in their life.

They're characterful personality traits, but I don't like rules that dictate actions a character MUST take unless they're utterly compelled to do so.

Quotewhich I feel is more in keeping with Inquisitor's plasma weapons. (Notice how they 'recharge' rather than reload?)
Not in my version, mate!