Ordo Sepulturum Inquistors and their skills/powers/tools/weapons?

[Dwi]

I have been working on my Sepulturum Inquistoe Corvan Thomers and was wonder what skills/Psy-powers/tools/weapons a Sepy Inquistor wound have.

I kinda wanna go with the Medic skill and the Biomancy powers Bind Corruption and Regenerate as I thought these would be great for a Sepy
However I am a little stumped on what weapons to give him.


What do you guys think?

[MarcoSkoll]

Well, I'm not necessarily sure the Inquisitor would have psychic powers. Psykers are a mistrusted breed, so the idea that so many Inquisitors (a position that inherently requires the individual is trustworthy) are psychic is not one I agree with. Some might be - and while they're probably far more common than in the general population, they would still be heavily outnumbered by their "mundane" kin.

More likely, he'll have psykers on his staff. But yes, if he does, then they will probably be Biomancers.

Weapons... depends on how radical he is. He might use virus grenades if he's sufficiently so, if not, flamers and other "purging" weapons which could effectively cleanse taint. Also, shotguns are a good fall back if you're thinking about Plague Zombies.
Equipment wise, rebreathers are probably a good bet.

But of course, not all of his equipment will necessarily be themed to his Ordo. Particularly for those from the Ordo Minoris, they must be prepared to deal with threats outside their speciality, so must keep flexibility in their loadouts.

[DapperAnarchist]

Depends on what sort of Sepulturum work he deals in. If its straight up Zombie Hunting, a shotgun is traditional... If disease more generally, flamer, radsprayer (no, there aren't rules for it - yet), perhaps less-than-lethal weapons for when Patient Zero needs to be captured. Sterilisation grenades of various kinds, specialist armour, sample taking equipment and auspexes, anti-toxin drugs... hope thats helpful

[Charax]

I tend to think of Sepulturum to be an ordo so small and thinly-spread that they really haven't had the time or dedicated resources to develop specialist gear, they use what's available and what's effective - so a Shotgun with Exterminator cartridge would be my idea of a "signature" Sepulturum weapon, flamers, etc.

Psychic powers? not really something I'd associate with them, there's an awfully high risk of corruption, and several warp-plagues can jump to psykers relatively easily.

Rebreather's a good idea

[Dwi]

Thanks guys! I don't, for the life of me, understand how I did not think of shotguns and flamers!
As for Psy-Powers I am kinda stuck with the idea of giveing Corvan some so that won't change

As for the idea of tox bombs, Corvan is a staunch Thorian with, if I dare say it, a good heart (for an Inquistor anyway), so I can just not see him useing tox bombs.

If you have any more advice please post here

P.S: Would it be strange to have an Acolyte that was training to be a docter to be in a Sepy warband? I think that would be of slight benafit to the Ordo's role right?

[Zakkeg]

It could be brilliant - just remember not to give him combat stats. It's far too easy to give in to the temptation to make a character like this harder than he should be, but doing so pretty much defeats the purpose.

The basic point to keep in mind here is that, while Inquisitor scenarios are generally built around action sequences, that doesn't necessarily apply to the characters themselves.

[Ynek]

Also, shotguns are a good fall back if you're thinking about Plague Zombies.

Although certainly an iconic zombie-hunter's weapon in Hollywood movies, I don't really think that they're a particularly practical choice, particularly in M41.

Shotguns require shells, which might be tricky to find in a classic "zombie infested" landscape. When the zombie plague hit, virtually every human who was spared from immediate infection would have flocked to gun stores and munitions depots in an attempt to grab something that they could defend themselves with. Naturally, such places would have been picked clean in the early stages of a zombie infestation.

Additionally, when you fire a shotgun at someone, particularly at short range, gore goes everywhere. Some of it might even end up on the firer's body. When you're talking about a spray of zombie-virus infected ichor and coagulated blood, getting it in your eye, or in an open cut is pretty much a death sentence. The less blood that's flying around, the better.

Against zombies, flamethrowers are certainly cool in principle, but bear in mind that you're dealing with something that's undead. It's already dead. It doesn't need to breathe, so setting it on fire won't kill them by suffocation or burning of the lungs after their first breath. They'll survive for several minutes, or even hours, as a burning, walking corpse. So where you originally had an angry corpse charging at you, now you're dealing with an angry corpse that's on fire. Certainly not ideal to let it get too close, lest you end up on fire as well.

In my opinion, the "first choice" weapon for the smart Ordo Sepulturum operatives would be las weapons. Ammo for them is virtually infinite. (In a pinch, you can leave a powerpack out in the sun for a few hours, or stick it in the campfire to charge it up. Certainly easier than searching for shells or bullets...) In addition, in various Black Library books, las weapons are said to cauterise whatever they hit. This helps to keep the "flying gore" problems mentioned earlier for shotguns in check.

I'd imagine that plasma and melta weapons would be a fairly popular choice for those who don't imagine that they'll be trapped in a siege situation for very long, if ever. The plasma/melta has the advantage of burning not only the target zombie, but also burns away the infective particles in their bodies with minimal 'flying gore'.

When it comes to armour, you'd be faced with two choices - either very light, so that you can outrun the zombies easily without being too weighed down, or wear heavy armour that a creature of flesh and bone could never hope to penetrate. (Zombie biting through power armour? Unlikely, unless infested teeth count as power weapons....)

That's just my two hundredths of an imperial credit on the issue. I'll admit that my mind kinda gravitated towards 'zombie infested cities' etc with regard to the above suggestions. An Ordo Sepulturum Inquisitor whose actual interest is in finding a cure for Nurgle's Rot would probably be quite different indeed.

[Charax]

I think you're somewhat missing the point of why Shotguns and Flamethrowers are the traditional zombie-killing weapons.

In most incarnations, you need to destroy the head/brain to put down a zombie. unless you're using something like a shotgun, a headshot is rather hard to accomplish. Yes, there's a risk of getting caught up in the resultant gorenado, but this is why they invented sealed suits, to prevent zombie infection.

Ammo is something of a problem, but that's always been the central appeal of Zombies - there are more of them than there are bullets to put them down. Besides, Inquisitors expecting to face zombies would likely have an Aquila filled with crates of shells just in case.

With a lasgun, in the case of the Headshot-vulnerable Zombie, you need to be very accurate to get a headshot - in fact it needs to be a Brainshot, and all that time you spend aiming is time the Zombies are getting closer, whereas with a shotgun you can happily fire away with only a minimum of aiming because of the Shotgun Death Cone. You can even bring down multiple Zombies with a single shot with a shotgun, practically impossible to do with a Lasgun.

Even when the Zombies aren't of the type vulnerable to headshots, the Shotgun comes out better. If the creatures can keep functioning effectively forever, the role of a Zombie Killer's weapon becomes inflicting the most debilitating injury possible - you can't kill them, but if you blow their legs off you buy time - again, accuracy takes a back seat to area effect. Aim a shotgun roughly below waist height and you'll turn the legs of something facing you into mush. with a Lasgun you need to take time to aim, which you don't have.

Physics also plays a part here, in that the physical mass of the shell is important, because it physically knocks back the zombie, which is something you very much want to happen.

Flamers play an important part in both these situations, they cause massive tissue damage over a wide area, melting flesh and destroying muscle. A zombie may stay alive for minutes after being set on fire, but they won't be able to move if their leg muscles have been destroyed with sticky, burning promethium. They can even help in scenarios where headshots are important, because if the flamer is aimed low, it will consume the zombie quickly and the flames will rise to the head, quickly boiling the brain even before the fuel has penetrated the skull.

This is not to say Las-weapons don't play their part. If you have the good fortune to engage a Zombie at range, a Las-weapon wielded by a marksman is ideal, but in traditional zombie outbreak scenarios where numbers and proximity make the Zombies a threat, you'll want to drop the las-weapon and pickup a shotgun (or, if you're Abnett, set the lasgun to overload and use it like a grenade)

[MarcoSkoll]

whereas with a shotgun you can happily fire away with only a minimum of aiming because of the Shotgun Death Cone. You can even bring down multiple Zombies with a single shot with a shotgun

Common misconception. Even with an open bore, most shotguns have a spread of maybe 1-3 cm for each metre of range. That "Death Cone" is about a degree across, not the wide angle blast you get in video games. (In real life, particularly with a tighter choke, a shotgun is still very effective at 30 metres or more. I've seldom seen that in games.)

What that means is that if you hit your target, you're hitting more of them, doing more damage and are therefore more likely to hit something vital, but aiming is still important. Hitting, let alone killing multiple targets with a shotgun is very unlikely.

This is mostly represented in my Revised Armoury rules, where the standard "shot" equivalent, Scatter Shot, causes up to three hits to the same location, depending on range and how well the user hit.
(I did write Spray shot, which hits multiple locations and represents using things like non-spherical shot, spreader wads and other methods to increase spread - but this is a fairly unusual ammo type.).

Shotguns however, do have several advantages:
- Universality: 12 gauge is one of the most standardised and common calibres out there. If you're going to need to find ammo in the field, it's one of the most likely things available.

- Versatility: Shotguns can accept a huge range of different projectiles. Buckshot, slugs, micro grenades... few other weapon systems can hope to have the range of roles of the shotgun.

- Reliability: There is little that can go wrong with a pump shotgun.

- Lethality: At short range, there is almost nothing which can cause the same damage as buckshot. Take a typical 00 buck shell to the chest, and you've suddenly got a dozen .33" calibre holes going most of the way, if not the whole way, through you. Typical result: Dead. Very quickly.
Loaded with slugs, they can be plenty accurate for inside a hundred metres or so - and again, lethal.

As far as a weapon for a zombie apocalypse, not to be sniffed at in the slightest.

~~~~~

But I certainly wouldn't disregard the lasweapon as a poor choice - it's not, and were there a real life zombie apocalypse, I certainly wouldn't turn one down if it were an option. However, Inquisitor does pander a lot to the clichés and tropes of film and fiction - and as people are far more likely to think of the shotgun as a zombie hunting weapon than the lasgun, that's what I'd be inclined to go with.

After all: If you say "This is my zombie hunter, he's got a shotgun", people will mentally agree with that. But "This is my zombie hunter, he's got a lasgun" isn't preprogrammed as a combination in people's heads.

[Torerador]

Were I an inquisitor in the ordo sepulturum i would go out of my way, waaaaaay out of my way to get this


Purge: Legendary
An incredibly potent antitoxin, antiviral and antibiotic, this drug temporarily augments the character's immune system and sends it into overdrive, hunting down and destroying ANY foreign bodies with incredible efficiency (and thus is extremely dangerous to a character with bionic implants/donated organs/etc.). It immediately and permanently counteracts the effects of any toxin or bacterial, fungal or viral agent in the recipient's body, as well as causing any beneficial foreign bodies varying degrees of harm (bionics may cease to function, foreign organs may shut down, etc.). Obviously the human body isn't designed to work like this, and so the character must take an immediate Toughness test (against their basic toughness even if it would normally be somehow enhanced). If the test is passed the character takes D6 damage to the chest, bypassing armour etc.; if failed this is increased to 5D6. Any agent Purged cannot affect the character again until their immune system is completely back to normal (which takes several days).

*The anti-Etum Omega, though not without its drawbacks. Can be used offensively too, in a pinch - pity the poor techpriest.

(recently posted in the rules forum, topic is called armory)

If your dealing with all those nasty diseases, it's nice to have something that might help cure them. I'd certainly make sure you were well stocked with detox. As an inquisitor you have the resources to resupply, so ammo certainly isn't a problem. I'm inclined to go with a shotgun simply for cool factor. Failing  that, I'd certainly say that a longlas would be useful. Easier to kill them when they aren't close.

[Shannow]

I've always been a fan of the concept of surgical weapons and needle rifles. The idea being anti viral toxins and surgical dissection to discover more. The shotgun wielding type doesn't fit into inq that well too me.