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Inquisitor Gideon Syme, and his Staff

Started by Gideon, January 15, 2013, 03:41:59 PM

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Gideon

My favourite Inquisitor character, indeed the one I identify with on a personal level, is the man known as Gideon Syme. He is old, quiet, and learned. He is not a spectacular fighter or shot, although he is not someone to try and mug! He believes passionately in the divine right of the Imperium of Humanity to conquer and rule the galaxy, creating a society of peace and plenty for all. He is, politically, a Recongregator. The sloth, corruption, and conservatism of the Imperium upsets him, and he works constantly not only to destroy threats to the Imperium, but to strengthen it. Officially he is a member of the Ordo Hereticus, but his loyalties lie elsewhere.

To aid him, he has gathered around him a group of disparate individuals with whom he has created a strong emotional bond of trust and loyalty. His Interrogator Primus, Susanna Moritz, is a fearsome warrior who foregoes the subtlety and shadow-work so favoured by her master - instead she is rarely seen outside her golden carapace armour! Moritz is often presented to a Lord Governor as an Inquisitor, and used by Syme as a distraction while he carries on his real mission behind the scenes.

A series of adventures and scrapes on the shrine-world of Lycaeon presented Syme with the opportunity to induct Hanna Laschalle, a Sister Hospitaller, into his band. As a trained medicae she has proved her worth time and time again, and is no shrinking violet in combat either. Laschalle is an extremely pious young woman whose abilities she sees as a gift from the God-Emperor Himself, and her work for Syme - as an agent of that selfsame divinity - is no less than a series of trials and rewards from the Golden Throne.

Others include the damaged Guard veteran Nehanda Omo, whose bionic arms replace ones lost to a mine-clearing accident; the hardened killer Jeraint Koza, who spent years as a bounty hunter before joining Syme; Tech-Magos Ulricht Three-Twenty-Six Gamma, from the forge world of LaBalle, and the elegant but unstable psyker Perse Trois.

Together, the band have fought aliens, heretics, witches, traitors and loyalists alike over fifty star systems across the Eastern Fringe. Always Syme seeks to leave behind him a stronger, newer, fitter Imperium. But he has made enemies as well as allies - some more deadly than others.

(Profiles and suchlike will follow shortly, together with extended biographies and pict-captures!)
In nomine Imperator Dei!

Radu Lykan

looking forward to more on these, i like that syme uses moritz as a distraction, also waiting on pictures, especially syme and koza for some reason, think its the hardened killer bit

Gideon

Why thanks! :) I only have Syme, Moritz and Laschalle at the moment figure wise (indeed I only finished making Laschalle this afternoon - some years after I bought her!) but pictures of all three will follow in a dedicated thread in the modelling and painting section. To whet your appetite for more, however, have some profiles:

NAME: Syme, Gideon
ORGANISATION: Inquisition
RANK: Inquisitor
AFFILIATION: Ordo Hereticus
TENDENCY: Recongregator
AGE: 143 Terran Standard
HEIGHT: 5' 10"
DISTINGUISHING FEATURES: Nerve damage incurred during combat has left him reliant on an sophisticated bracing frame on his right arm. It is bonded to his skeletal, muscular, and nervous systems, and is externally visible. It is toughened for combat. Hook nose, piercing eyes. Extensive scarring to his upper chest and left shoulder as a result of an inferno grenade detonation.

Gideon Syme is Right-Handed.

Equipment: Artisan-constructed silenced autopistol with red-dot sight and underslung needle-pistol. Two magazines of 20 dum-dum rounds and one magazine of 20 manstopper rounds for the autopistol, one ammunition chamber capable of supplying 12 shots of toxic darts*. Monomolecular combat knife, filtration plugs, de-tox injector, and Inquisitorial Seal. Wears pilgrim's robes over a flak-bonded bodysuit, giving him 2 points of armour on all locations except his head. Also utilises a displacer field generator.

* Choke-fire toxin: combines the effects of Choke and Bloodfire.

Special Abilities: Leader, Rock Steady Aim (right arm only).


WS BS S T I Wp Sg Nv Ld
53 65 46 42 63 72 75 64 80

NAME: Moritz, Susanna
ORGANISATION: Inquisition
RANK: Interrogator
AFFILIATION: Ordo Hereticus
TENDENCY: Undetermined
AGE: 37 Terran Standard
HEIGHT: 6' 5"
DISTINGUISHING FEATURES: Jet black eyes, due to permanent dye injected during the Parvassian Hive Tertius' 'Deatheyes' gang initiation ceremony undertaken aged 14. Extensive tattooing across entire body from neck to ankles and wrists.

Susanna Moritz is Right-Handed.

Equipment: Power halberd 'Lux Mortis', DeMarren mk II Parvassian-pattern laspistol. Two powerpacks of 30 shots each. Reflective carapace armour suit with pentagrammic and hexagrammic wards, sealed helmet with rebreather, infrascope, and rangefinder; giving her 6 points of armour on all locations.

Special Abilities: Force of Will


WS BS S T I Wp Sg Nv Ld
62 45 50 52 55 61 59 72 68

NAME: Laschalle, Hanna
ORGANISATION: Adepta Sororitas Hospitallers
RANK: Sister
AFFILIATION: Inquisition
TENDENCY: Puritan
AGE: 25 Terran Standard
HEIGHT: 5' 7"
DISTINGUISHING FEATURES: Adepta Sororitas fleur-de-lys tattoo on her right shoulder, initiate number (29812971/HL) tattooed onto her left armpit. Scarring on her rear torso from scourging and purification rites. Flagellation scarring on upper rear thighs and buttocks.

Hanna Laschalle is Ambidextrous.

Equipment: LaBalle mk 9 bolt pistol with two magazines of 12 shells each, Chinthe PDF officer's sword. Two small knives. Trauma-grade combat medi-kit including six de-tox injectors and three sets of filtration plugs. Light flak armour giving her 2 points of armour on her torso.

Special Abilities: Medic


WS BS S T I Wp Sg Nv Ld
43 42 40 42 52 63 61 60 59
In nomine Imperator Dei!

Koval

#3
Going out to work soon, so my reply may appear quite terse. It's not intentional, I'd reply more fully if I had more time, but I don't, so I can't.  :-\

Quote from: Gideon on January 15, 2013, 11:07:45 PM
NAME: Syme, Gideon
[...]
Equipment: Artisan-constructed silenced autopistol with red-dot sight and underslung needle-pistol. Two magazines of 20 dum-dum rounds and one magazine of 20 manstopper rounds for the autopistol, one ammunition chamber capable of supplying 12 shots of toxic darts*.
I'd suggest taking a look at Marco's Revised Inquisitor Armoury for interesting things, because autopistols as the Inquisitor rulebook would portray them are laughably bad.

QuoteMonomolecular combat knife
Any particular rules for this thing, or is it just a knife?

Quotefiltration plugs, de-tox injector, and Inquisitorial Seal. Wears pilgrim's robes over a flak-bonded bodysuit, giving him 2 points of armour on all locations except his head.
Seems fair.
QuoteAlso utilises a displacer field generator.
This is pretty hardcore tech, I'd be interested to know how he's come across this thing.

QuoteSpecial Abilities: Leader, Rock Steady Aim (right arm only).
Seems fair.

QuoteWS BS S T I Wp Sg Nv Ld
53 65 46 42 63 72 75 64 80
His stats seem alarmingly low for an Inquisitor. WS, BS, S, T and Nv all need a big boost. T 42 in particular will lead to him being knocked down by a stiff breeze.

QuoteNAME: Moritz, Susanna
[...]
Equipment: Power halberd 'Lux Mortis', DeMarren mk II Parvassian-pattern laspistol. Two powerpacks of 30 shots each. Reflective carapace armour suit with pentagrammic and hexagrammic wards, sealed helmet with rebreather, infrascope, and rangefinder; giving her 6 points of armour on all locations.
A very powerful equipment list. I'm surprised that the armour needs to be reflective with both those sets of wards -- surely regular carapace would be enough. And, of course, power halberds are as deadly as all hell...

QuoteSpecial Abilities: Force of Will
Why? Is she a servitor? Is she mindless? Incapable of thinking for herself? An idiot? Would she stare down a pissed-off Bloodthirster? Force of Will needs a lot of explaining.

QuoteWS BS S T I Wp Sg Nv Ld
62 45 50 52 55 61 59 72 68
You'd expect an Interrogator to have more than Wp 61 and Sg 59. I might also bump the BS up a tad.

QuoteNAME: Laschalle, Hanna
[...]
Equipment: LaBalle mk 9 bolt pistol with two magazines of 12 shells each, Chinthe PDF officer's sword. Two small knives. Trauma-grade combat medi-kit including six de-tox injectors and three sets of filtration plugs. Light flak armour giving her 2 points of armour on her torso.
Bolt pistols are pretty powerful things that I don't think the Inquisitor rulebook has handled all that well. Again, see Marco's Revised Inquisitor Armoury for something more interesting (and perhaps more measured).

QuoteSpecial Abilities: Medic
well, yes

QuoteWS BS S T I Wp Sg Nv Ld
43 42 40 42 52 63 61 60 59
Again, the stats are alarmingly low, even considering she's a Sister Hospitaller -- they all receive combat training as they're (mostly) Schola Progenium-educated and are still part of the Adepta Sororitas. Drive those stats up, otherwise she's going to look (and perform) like a civilian.

Again, apologies for brevity, but I've got work this morning.  :-\

Gideon

I tried to follow the stat guidelines in the paperback rulebook and the guidelines on here, but I am quite happy to improve them!  ;D

As for the tech... well, the background pieces will explain more. The reflective carapace armour and power halberd reflect the model (see images to be posted shortly), while the bolt pistol is a sidearm which would typically be issued to the Adepta Sororitas. The displacer field was a gift from the Adeptus Mechanicus of the LaBalle Forge World after Syme uncovered and destroyed a cult dedicated to sabotaging LaBalle's output - dud bolt shells, particularly unstable plasma flasks, weakened tank armour, all led him from a warzone back through the supply chain to what some think may have been an Alpha Legion plot.

Oh, and, yes, the monomolecular combat knife is just a knife!  :P

'Force of Will' seems to be what I was aiming for with Moritz - a woman whose faith and burning desire to overcome the enemies of the Imperium, coupled with an unhealthy overconfidence in her own abilities and a disdain for her foes, allows her to keep going where less cocksure individuals would falter. "Fools rush on where angels fear to tread", that sort of thing. Perhaps 'Heroic' instead?
In nomine Imperator Dei!

Cortez

The Inquisitors physical stats are definitely a bit low. Speaking from experience he'll struggle to do anything during the game and will die far to easily.

His equipment seems ok but on the whole nothing special. The only exotic item is the displacer field which shouldn't be too hard for an inquisitor to get hold of (after all practically everyone wore one back in 2nd edition so there must be a lot lying around somewhere!).

The interrogator looks good, although could possibly do with a few more points of BS or make her a purely melee based character. The force of will ability would definitely need something in her background to justify it though.

I like the decision to include a medic, but she definitely need to up her physical stats. Even though shes a medic the Adepta Soritas has standards that I would expect her to meet. Even if youwant to keep her a purely non-combat character her toughness will need to be upped or she needs better protection (the combination of low toughness and weak armour means she won't be much use). In many respects I think she'd be a better candidate to wear the displacer field.

Gideon

OK. I'll up the stats then - this seems to be the principle area of concern.

I didn't want Syme to have anything particularly exotic, his modus operandi is very much the quiet infiltrator: I imagine him preferring to hang out in dingy dives and keep his ear very much to the gutter while his much more flamboyant Interrogator Moritz puts the frighteners on the higher ups. And, hopefully, stirs up the lower orders for Syme to work with. So anything more than his pilgrim robes would be too much really; the displacer field is great because it can be easily hidden, isn't immediately visible, and provides a good level of protection.
In nomine Imperator Dei!

Koval

Quote from: Gideon on January 16, 2013, 09:26:39 AM
As for the tech... well, the background pieces will explain more. The reflective carapace armour and power halberd reflect the model (see images to be posted shortly)
My point was more that she's an extremely powerful character about whom we know too little to appreciate such a high power level. At present, Moritz is about as tooled up as a militant Ordo Malleus Inquisitor that can't afford power armour.
Quotewhile the bolt pistol is a sidearm which would typically be issued to the Adepta Sororitas.
Again, be that as it may, bolt pistols are alarmingly powerful, but here there's a small fluff concern -- I appreciate that the Adepta Sororitas really like their bolters, but giving a full-sized, proper bolt pistol to a Sister Hospitaller sounds a bit strange when it really belongs in a Sister Militant's possession. Diving into the RIA, I've found a Light Bolt Pistol which would probably suit her a lot more, as it's still a bolt pistol, just not a full-sized death machine.

QuoteThe displacer field was a gift from the Adeptus Mechanicus of the LaBalle Forge World after Syme uncovered and destroyed a cult dedicated to sabotaging LaBalle's output - dud bolt shells, particularly unstable plasma flasks, weakened tank armour, all led him from a warzone back through the supply chain to what some think may have been an Alpha Legion plot.
This deserves a proper bit of backstory, in that case.

Quote'Force of Will' seems to be what I was aiming for with Moritz - a woman whose faith and burning desire to overcome the enemies of the Imperium, coupled with an unhealthy overconfidence in her own abilities and a disdain for her foes, allows her to keep going where less cocksure individuals would falter. "Fools rush on where angels fear to tread", that sort of thing. Perhaps 'Heroic' instead?
Heroic tends to require the Indiana Jones test in order for Heroic to actually fit the character. See this trope.

Have a look on the Carthax Wiki -- I wrote an ability called Jaded, which basically does what you want Moritz to accomplish, without going down the "I automatically pass my Terror test" route. Basically, against "mundane" terrors, you get to re-roll the Fear/Terror test, but when the daemons pop up, all bets are off. Feel free to use and/or adapt that.

MarcoSkoll

Quote from: Gideon on January 16, 2013, 09:26:39 AMI tried to follow the stat guidelines in the paperback rulebook and the guidelines on here, but I am quite happy to improve them!
I have a rant somewhere about how toughness is probably the second most important stat after Initiative, but I can't find the post at the moment.

The short version is because it affects base injury value, system shock value, chance of passing system shock, Consciousness, recovery chance, Toughness bonus (and thus amount recovered), it multiplies up somewhat exponentially.
Relatively few of my characters have toughnesses below 50, and only usually by a small margin. Less than 40 is a no for me, and if I need to make the character weaker than about T45, I'll usually prefer to do that with a low strength (which has an effect in things like knockback and dropping weapons).

As a general rule, I consider the statement about "fit human (such as a soldier) would be Strength 50" (S & T are quite strongly linked) in the notes as a little bit flawed. Soldiers are a little more than just fit! My soldier types tend to average around 60-ish on both stats.

As for Koval's comment on Syme's other stats - well, that depends on what kind of Inquisitor he is.
That kind of spread of WS, BS and Nv wouldn't be too odd if he's a less confrontational type. There are many combat characters with stat spreads in the 50s and 60s who still do their jobs very well in game.

Maybe a few points here and there, but don't feel he has to be loaded out on the stats. I'm glad to see when an Inquisitor isn't the combat monster.

QuoteAs for the tech... well, the background pieces will explain more. The reflective carapace armour and power halberd reflect the model (see images to be posted shortly)
I'm assuming said carapace and halberd model is the Daemonhuntress. While the armour does count as reflective and the halberd as power on her sample profile, there's no reason they have to be so on all models descended from it.

Quotethe bolt pistol is a sidearm which would typically be issued to the Adepta Sororitas
Typical for militant orders, yes. But a hospitalier is more likely to be issued something a little easier to use and less cumbersome.
A character's equipment represents sort of an average "operational" state, the kind of thing they keep around as a matter of course when in the field. A bolt pistol is not exactly a practical weapon to carry all the time.

In one of the forum's old roleplay topics, there's actually a part that one of my Inquisitors is handed a bolt pistol to replace the revolver she'd lost shortly beforehand. This is directly in the middle of a combat situation... and her response is still to mentally complain about its weight/recoil and wish she had a lasgun instead.

However, his point on this was more that the default rules don't represent bolt weapons all that well. My Revised Inquisitor Armoury (RIA) project attempts to better represent various weapons.

Quote'Force of Will' seems to be what I was aiming for with Moritz - a woman whose faith and burning desire to overcome the enemies of the Imperium, coupled with an unhealthy overconfidence in her own abilities and a disdain for her foes, allows her to keep going where less cocksure individuals would falter. "Fools rush on where angels fear to tread", that sort of thing. Perhaps 'Heroic' instead?
Maybe.

Personally, I see the Nerves of Steel and Force of Will skills not as a character who overcomes fear, but one who doesn't feel it. People do often use a lesser version of the latter,  ignoring Fearsome and downgrading Terrifying (the name used varies - I use Strong Willed, but I think I've seen "Inured"); this is better at showing a character's disdain for the threat posed, rather than complete indifference. Still, sparse use.

Heroic... as Koval says, the default test for this is "the Indiana Jones test". Does your character regularly engage in acts of "I don't know - I'm making this up as I go along" or "Never tell me the odds"* for which John Williams' Raiders March** would be an appropriate soundtrack?

*Yes, I know this is a different Harrison Ford character.
** Other soundtracks are acceptable, but it has to be something awesomely heroic. Superman, Pirates of the Carribean, Lord of the Rings, James Bond... that kind of thing.
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

Gideon

Pictures, to give you all an idea of where I'm heading with these first three.

Heroic is definitely not suited for Moritz, then; she's no coward but not an Indiana Jones type either.

I'm going to revisit their profiles and write some background tonight - hopefully I can get it posted for your perusal and feedback too.

Would a laspistol be more fitting for Laschalle then? I think Codex: Witchhunters had the Sister Hospitaller count as having a Laspistol and Close Combat Weapon, so on that basis alone a laspistol would be more reasonable. Just need to find one big enough for her! Unless she starts toting a laspistol version of a PPK or similarly small pistol. Thoughts?
In nomine Imperator Dei!

Koval

If laspistol, then RIA -- you get to build your own, and it can actually be what you want it to be. There are even pre-made examples, and then I've made enough of my own using the RIA that you should feel free to plunder as desired.

Gideon

I think, until I get a few games under my belt, I will stick to the paperback rulebook stuff for the time being.

I have upped the profiles:

SYME:

WS BS S T I Wp Sg Nv Ld
63 75 56 52 73 82 85 74 80

MORITZ:

WS BS S T I Wp Sg Nv Ld
72 45 50 52 55 71 69 72 68

LASCHALLE:

WS BS S T I Wp Sg Nv Ld
53 52 49 51 52 63 61 60 59

Thoughts?
In nomine Imperator Dei!

Koval

Those stats are now more reasonable, although Sg 85 on Syme is like genius-level intellect. I might've actually left that one in the 70s.

Gideon

SG 75 for Syme it is, although he was top of his class at the Rigel Kreigschule zum Generalmajor Ottokar Schola Progenium in 725.M41... ;)

This sort of response and ability to fine-tune things is exactly what I'm after - many thanks! Expect background at least for Syme later tonight (in the In-Character section probably).
In nomine Imperator Dei!

Cortez

The stats look good now.

I got to disagree with Koval on the sg score however, as from the description it sounds like he's the sort of inquisitor who lives by his wits so a good sagacity would seem to fit his character.

Not sure about downgrading the sister to a laspistol though. Bolt weapons seem appropriate for a sororitas so I'd probably use Koval's earlier suggestion of a light bolt pistol (if you don't like Marco's version then you can easily come up with your own eg. my psychers light bolt pistol has a reduced damage of 3d6 and only a six round magazine)