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Welcome to the Truth (or the Conclave Archive) OOC

Started by Macabre, June 16, 2013, 11:56:17 PM

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Dosdamt

Quote from: MarcoSkoll on February 29, 2020, 06:10:13 AM


Quote from: Dosdamt on February 29, 2020, 05:40:51 AMI'm in contact with InquisitorMaltheus
I know you sent through a message about this, but I've not heard anything more since I sent a reply, so I'm not sure you received it.
(I initially thought about sending this via PM, but I figure that Maltheus might possibly see it here).

If Maltheus needs an e-mail updated, can the request please be sent through from the specific e-mail address you want me to use? (Send the request to theconclaveforum at gmail.com).

As the 'Clave is registered as a .co.uk site, I have to at least try to comply with UK data protection law, which doesn't allow me to use someone's personal data without their consent. (Although I have no reason to believe that it's not an honest request, that's not concrete enough legally).

All good. I did forward it on. I am sure he's just working through a few things, like we all are. Damned IRL, eh?
It is never too late! - Mentirius

http://thementalmarine.proboards.com/index.cgi <- The Mind, for all your irreverent nonsense needs

Koval

#121
I'll be honest, the only names I recognise reading that list are Inquisitor Sargoth and Inquisitor Maltheus, and *only* because those were the players' forum handles as well.

Everyone else, well, all I can say is I wish I knew more!

Do we need to consider as well how the recent changes in lore (and the Cicatrix Maledictum) impact on what people wanted to do?

Mentirius

#122
Hello again,

This is just popping my head in to confirm I am on board with coming back and giving this story another go.  I've been in lengthy discussion with Dosdamt about where we want to go with it and ideas are coming fast...I'll be the first to admit I wasn't as ready as I thought I was last time, but we agreed that we'll always feel the itch of unfinished business if we don't try and do this vast mythos justice and finish what we started.  Not to mention it would be a damn shame, because when we do get this out I'm certain it will make great reading. 

For anyone who doesn't remember me, my primary characters from the old days were Inquisitor Mentirius (deceased), the daemon Amon Dull (effectively deceased), Inquisitor Amaurn (MIA, though perhaps not for much longer) and the oft-mentioned, rarely seen spectre of ex-Inquisitor Balkoth (retired/deceased/behind you).  Mentirius was "born" on the Conclave, while the other three originated with my home campaigns of the table-top Inquisitor game.  What there was of my solo writing centred on the complicated rivalries between these characters and their networks, but in practice most of my threads on here were collaborative to the core - I can't imagine writing Amon Dull without poor heroic Inquisitor Maltheus to torment or Charax the Eternal to go a few rounds with, and Mentirius would never have existed as the character he was without the involvement of Lord Inquisitor Taren, the Eldar Alundirel, the two Inquisitors Nexus and more.

Anyway, my new characters will be connected to the old and will be seeking either to uncover or protect their remaining secrets, and those of Balkoth in particular.  Whatever now remains of "The Mentirians", which included most of my old selection of supporting characters and extras (or at least the non-daemonic ones), I'll be leaving largely in the capable hands of Dosdamt this time around. 

Nevertheless, I've forgotten so much and there is a lot of recapping for me to do before I'll feel sufficiently familiar with a) The story so far, especially the new extended cast; b) Some crucial details of the old Conclave continuity; c) Obscure areas of long-established GW lore relevant to the story; or d) All the recent GW developments with Guilliman, Yvraine, the Great Rift etc.  I'm particularly interested in how that last one might affect things, as I only found out about it very recently and it must affect some key elements of the setting like navigation, astropaths and so forth.  Anyway, I've already done a lot of reading and will keep going, so if all goes well I might be ready to attempt IC writing within the next few days.  In the meantime I'll try to visit this forum regularly and am happy to exchange ideas with anyone who'd like my OOC input.  I will do my very best not to peter out again. 

One thing I noticed reading through this thread (I started with the OOC, reflections on the IC thread still pending) is that the Adeptus Mechanicus are coming up a lot - which is great for me, because most of my intended new faces are from a secretive group of rogue tech-priests up to their necks in heresy!  Expect forbidden tech McGuffins aplenty once I get all my ducks in a row, starting with something buried in the ruins of Secret's Hold.  Yes, it does seem to have been nearly seven (!) years since we last tried this.  But the tale still wants to be told.

It is never too late.

Koval

Quote from: Mentirius on February 29, 2020, 07:07:12 PMd) All the recent GW developments with Guilliman, Yvraine, the Great Rift etc.  I'm particularly interested in how that last one might affect things, as I only found out about it very recently and it must affect some key elements of the setting like navigation, astropaths and so forth.
The short version, as I understand it, is that Warp travel is simply "a bit more dangerous" on the Sanctus side of the Rift, but on the Nihilus side (half of Ultima and most of Obscurus, if I'm reading the map right), the Astronomican is obscured and it's like sailing at night without a lighthouse to guide you. Still possible (because otherwise, nobody would've been able to come to defend Baal), but much more difficult. Also, they had to forcibly sever a load of Astropathic relays to stop Astropaths in Nihilus from going crazy.

For what it's worth, I understand the Carthax Sector (Pacificus) to be in Sanctus, and the Abraxis Sector (Ultima) to be just over the border in Nihilus. I'm not sure whether this information affects the Secret's Hold stuff, but I understand most of the tabletop stuff these days happens around those two sectors.

Charax

Aaah Maltheus, old friend, it does an old Daemon Prince's bones good to see you again.

It has recently been imparted upon me that there are some members who do not know of the great rivalries of old, the epic battles that were fought...some who do not know of The Eternal at all...

An Education May Be Required
(No longer} The guy with his name at the bottom of the page

Mentirius

From what I remember, Secret's Hold is in the Segmentum Obscurus somewhere on the "northern" fringes of the galactic map, but Imperial geography was never my strong suit - so I'm guessing we're probably in Nihilus then?  Perhaps we should try to knock up an annotated map at some point with key story locations marked or something. 

In theory, Secret's Hold being in Nihilus probably has more narrative potential anyway, if we're going for an "out in the sticks" feel for that branch of the story.  However, given that astropaths are necessary for IC Conclave communication, any difficulties there will be significant for our Hold-bound characters.  Not to mention, those who want the Conclave Archive suppressed might have a much easier time making headway if the information originated on the "dark" side of the Rift.  I still need to do more reading but cautiously, I think I like these new GW developments.  We can always use more giant tears in reality, right?

EDIT: Charax returns! An excellent development. I was just re-reading your post in Welcome to the Truth with the virtual minions trying to call home, and it is wonderfully ominous.  "Wake Him"...

Dosdamt

#126
I've got well over 4.5k words ready to go and an intent to write further Terran machinations once I get back through the thread in detail. I'll be aiming to post no more than 1500 words at a time, giving three more posts to come (though logical chapters will need to be kept together).

RE impact of new lore - I'll be referencing Ultramanian Recongregators in one of my next posts. The Inquisition itself would probably be riven with new factions and warring with the return of old Roboute. I wouldn't expect a bunch of wildly independent Inquisitors to suddenly hold hands and hug one another. I imagined the Recongregators would be the first faction to get excited about his return and formed a faction centred around it. Thorians probably see as vindication and a reason to go hunting down more Primarchs / Saints / whatnot to mess around with. Horusians the same. There's definitely fertile soil to explore.

@Koval - I'll try and synthesise something easy to consume from the Conclave Archive (see the literal link in the first post of this thread.). It's all the old AmonDull threads including the conclusion of the first Saga.

Excellent to see Charax back.

EDIT - 6200 words unposted, and more to come.
It is never too late! - Mentirius

http://thementalmarine.proboards.com/index.cgi <- The Mind, for all your irreverent nonsense needs

Mentirius

I've finished re-reading Welcome to the Truth and...well, damn, that's a lot of words.  My memory really did fail to do it justice.  So much foreshadowing, so much amazing writing, and most of two afternoons in the reading (although I admit to going slowly and taking some notes).  I still have to finish my reading of the wider canon changes, or at least the important parts, so most of what I have planned will have to wait a bit longer, but I did make a short IC post that should speak for itself. 

What reallly struck me about the thread was that it feels like an introduction -  a very long and awesome introduction, but even the later parts of it have a feel of "something about to begin".  I know for a fact we don't quite have everyone introduced yet either, although admittedly we can't be sure all these writers and characters will still participate after our seven-year hiatus.  What I think we do have is distinct plotlines emerging, and it will probably be easier to read in the long run if we don't try to keep everything in a single place.  So, I move we treat this thread as Part 1 or whatever, and branch off into new ones when we reach an appropriate stage - no idea how to tell when that is, but if it gets to page 10 IC then we might have left it too late.  I tentatively suggest the following at least deserve their own threads once we've finished setting the scene:

- Plots and politics on Terra: This could conceivably run throughout and alongside everything else, and should probably include Mars and anything else Terran-adjacent.

- Secret's Hold: I'm pretty much seeing this as a giant pseudo-game of Inquisitor, lasting from when more characters start to arrive to whenever they leave and the dust settles.  How exactly it ends up going down is anybody's guess but if it ends up interspersed with events from around the galaxy it is going to get very confusing.

One other thing I notice is that each protagonist, by necessity, has their own cast of supporting characters and it all adds up to dozens of named, speaking roles.  This being the case, we might also benefit from a well organised Dramatis Personae, at least when we know who is definitely in this time...not that I'm volunteering to write such a beast, or at least not today!

Excited by the reference to Scarab by the way Ben, that angle could be interesting.

Dosdamt

Yeah I wanted to throw in a curve ball - Scarab... alive? Could he be? How did he die? Who even knows!

Agree with the expansion into other threads. Terra; Secret's Hold; Ghost Worlds (DuBois and AdMech); Ghosts of the Past (continuing the various threads / flashbacks, and digital archeology, where relevant); and a Returner's thread (once we have our returners confirmed).

I will help put together a Dramatis Personae list - happy to start the thread and get contributions.

We remain open for other contributors (Koval, Marco, we have a LONG email chain if you want adding, otherwise happy for us to bounce ideas in this thread).

I'm up to well over 8k of drafted material now, so please be warned - there's plenty to come!

-Ben
It is never too late! - Mentirius

http://thementalmarine.proboards.com/index.cgi <- The Mind, for all your irreverent nonsense needs

Koval

Quote from: Dosdamt on March 02, 2020, 09:42:25 AM
We remain open for other contributors (Koval, Marco, we have a LONG email chain if you want adding, otherwise happy for us to bounce ideas in this thread).
The offer is greatly appreciated -- maybe if I join, that'll clear up some of the confusion I'm experiencing?

Mentirius

Right, I've finally caught up with the Era Indomitus and these are my initial thoughts on how it could affect our story:


Time

Apparently the Great Rift opened in 999.M41, the same year the 13th Black Crusade and Guilliman's resurrection happened, and pretty much at the same time as the Amon Dull Saga was in its last stages.  For us, this should make it very easy to believe that no one really knows what the hell happened on Delan's Point, Aithol, Secret's Hold etc, and that entire fleets going AWOL for months (looking at you, Vhogart) might easily be ignored...for my money, it is actually extremely convenient when it comes to sorting out our contuinity.  I think the most recently canon event is the end of Guilliman's subsequent Indomitus Crusade, when he went home to Ultramar to defend it from Nurgle - these events seem tentatively placed in 111.M42.  On the other hand, the official canon on dating now is up the spout - the wiki I read claims time actually passes at different speeds in different regions now, which I suppose is both a blessing and a curse from a writer's point of view. 

I propose that as many of our events are linked directly to Terra and to the years immediately preceding the Great Rift's emergence, our characters mostly adhere to the old school of chronology.  I'd been under the impression "present day" for GW was around 200.M42, but having read all this I feel like adding another eighty years after the Indomitus Crusade before we kick off is probably a bit much.  Perhaps we could go with 120.M42 or thereabouts?  (I'll have to amend Amaurn's announcement from two hundred years to "over a century" or the like, but that's no big deal...)


Space

So the galaxy is now split in half by a giant warpstorm, with various others scattered around.  You can see it in the sky from pretty much everywhere, psykers have nightmares etc, astropaths and navigators have a harder time than they used to.  Nothing immediately story-breaking here, or at least I don't think so.

Having done my reading now and looked closely at the Indomitus Era galaxy map, I'd place Secret's Hold, Aithol and most of the historical Amon Dull locations in the far galactic North-West towards the rim, which puts the Eye of Terror pretty much right between us and Terra.  This being the case, the region would probably never have had a perfect view of the Astronomican, and since the Eye of Terror comprises one end of the Great Rift we're also excellently placed for a minimum of effective change to have taken place, relatively speaking.  It also places us in Imperium Nihilus, of which Dante of the Blood Angels has apparently been appointed Regent, so despite actually being closer to Terra than Baal (I assume that is the Nihilus capital) the area is debatably outside of direct Terran jurisdiction.  Travel from there to Terra would ideally skirt the western edge of the galaxy, around the Eye of Terror and then aim inwards, approaching Terra from the galactic east.  I find all of this pretty interesting, especially given our "Fake Sanguinius on Terra" plotline, with half of the Imperium now under Blood Angels rule.  Perhaps someone wants to stoke a civil conflict between elements of Imperiums Sanctus and Nihilus, or at least create the fear of one?

Terra has also been repeatedly attacked by hordes of Chaos, and the general implication is that pretty much any and every world in the Imperium is now a recent, current, or imminent warzone.  Also, there is now a region in Obscurus called "The Stygian Sector", comprising eighty-one star systems and ruled by forces of Tzeentch!  Compared with Mortarion's three system "empire" at the other end of the galaxy, this blows my mind (and makes me glad I have a Lord of Change held in narrative reserve!  Maybe that was its plan all along?)

Oh, and it turns out the Tau empire, Ultramar and all the known Necron dynasties are about as far from this region as they can get, so probably no need to worry about any of them meddling with our heretekal (?) skullduggery. 


Politics

First off, as we all know, Roboute Guilliman has been ruling as Lord Commander of the Imperium since not long after his resurrection.  Given that over a hundred years have gone by since then, this will no longer be news to anyone not lost in the warp, in stasis or similar during this period.  However, it probably is still a source of enormous factional conflict within the higher echelons of the Imperium, E.G. Inquisitorial Recongregators/Thorians vs Amalathians/Monodominants.  Xanthites are still out in the cold though, as well they probably should be, and Istvaanians stir the pot while Horusians cackle in the corner.  I think it appropriate for our narrative (and frankly something of a relief) that Guilliman's Indomitus Crusade to retake parts of the Imperium has "recently concluded" in canon.  Since then he has been defending Ultramar before setting off to other wars...I think the implication is that he is very distracted right now and won't have heard/cared about what we're doing if there are some potentially large ramifications.  He isn't sat on Terra, ruling the Imperium, he's off fighting wars for now and corruption may fester freely in his absence.  Which brings me neatly to the central issue for the Inquisition:

Guilliman is a Radical.  He fired five of the twelve High Lords when he arrived on Terra, and had millions purged in an attempt to rid Terra of corruption.  Corpses burned in the streets, open war raged in the underhive, and several Chaos fleets attacked Terra during his few years on the homeworld.  He hates the traditional Imperium and wants it reformed in major ways.  The guy uses heretek on his flagship to this day, for the Emperor's sake.  He actively hates Puritanism and has consistantly tried to suppress it.  He effectively legalised (a degree of) technological innovation through Belisarius Cawl, the AdMech ArchMagos who resurrected him and seems little more traditional in his outlook than the outright heretek cell I've been planning.  He even formed his own official body of historians to try and undo the sort of revisionism our own Puritan Council is so fond of.  Where I'm going with this is that effectively, a hundred years on, the Puritans ARE the Radicals on Terra now!  This doesn't upset anything we're doing, just shifts the balance of power a little, but Guilliman hasn't been on Terra for a long time and old habits die hard...

Which brings me on to another emerging theme - it seems to me that under Guilliman, the Adeptus Mechanicus has grown ever more powerful while the Inquisition is falling out of favour (see his desire for new technology, together with his dislike of "redactionism", religious fanaticism and general grimdarkery).  Within the Mechanicus itself, the rise of Cawl's radical faction (pro-innovation, not necessarily anti-xeno/archaeo-tech) to some degree of prominence has riled up a lot of old traditionalists, but he has too much support for them to bring him down, although there are hints he might be starting to "go too far".  He made a new generation of "better" Space Marines, which ended up being adopted pretty much Chapter-wide by initially suspicious Astartes.  He even asked Guilliman to make him Fabricator-General of Mars, although the Lord Commander decided to keep the Treaty of Mars and refused him. 

Add to all this our ex-Lord Terran Ishigiru having allegedly ordered an Exterminatus on Mars itself, and I humbly suggest the wider conspiracy surrounding our story constitutes not just conflict between New Radical and Old Puritan factions within the Inquisition, but also within the Adeptus Mechanicus and between the two institutions as they look to the future.  The Indomitus Crusade having recently concluded, what is next for Terra and the two Imperiums?  Should the administration continue to move in Guilliman's new direction, or resist?  The Adeptus Mechanicus leadership will no doubt have strong opinions about who should be the new Lord Terran of the Inquisition, and the Inquisition will no doubt be concerned by the growing dominance of the Mechanicus, not to mention the rise of Radical thinking among tech-priests. 

The search for more Blackstone, a psych-reactive material from which the Cadian Pylons were made by the Ancient Necrontyr, in order to alleviate or even close the Great Rift, seems to be a central theme of their expanded activities.  Belisarius Cawl believes the material can be polarised in two ways; either charged negatively into "Pariah Stone" that negates the warp and can be used to stabilise areas, E.G. the Pylons, or positively into a highly psycho-reactive material capable of storing vast quantities of warp energy - including the raw stuff of Chaos - and unleashing it as a weapon, E.G. the Blackstone Fortresses.  Necrons know how to work the stuff, although they've apparently forgotten some of the details, but despite having far greater logistical resources at their disposal, the Adeptus Mechanicus mostly seem to just dig up old Monoliths etc and move them to strategic locations.

And so, without further ado, I present my first McGuffin: the xeno-tech isn't In Secret's Hold, it IS Secret's Hold.  The whole thing is made of blackstone (as I now remember I always intended, I just didn't realise it had evolved into a major 40K plot point!)  There are literally chunks of what one wiki called "the most valuable material in the galaxy" lying strewn around the area, to say nothing of the surviving structure, and thanks to Macabre's instigators, now the whole Inquisition and at least a few of the Adeptus Mechanicus know where it is.  Not only that, but the implication, however small, is that Secret's Hold's former owners and their networks might conceivably have new information about blackstone and/or how to use it.  It's a good thing we're a long way from any tomb worlds, but all the same, there's a hell of a plot driver for you. 


That's it from me for now.  Let me know what you think and if I've missed anything relevant here. 

Charax

well, the last seven years have certainly shaken things up, story-wise

For my part, a condensed writeup of Charax is long overdue, Over the years I've nuanced and iterated his background in recognition of the fact he'd gotten a bit Mary Sueish, so it will serve both to codify these changes and get people up to speed.

Charax hates Mortarion - always has - and sees him as yet another overlord. This is, of course, the great irony of Mortarion's existence, he overthrew the warlords of Barbarus only to enslave his people to the Emperor and then to Nurgle. Charax has been with the Death Guard from the beginning and recognises this hypocrisy. He also wasn't a big fan of the purge of the Dusk Raiders from the legion. None of this was much of a factor while Mortarion was on the Plague Planet, but now he's up and fighting - Charax's forces have not taken part in the attack on Ultramar, let's put it that way. He's in torpor upon his flagship, and has been pretty much since he was last seen. He works through agents and spends time in contemplation and planning. Until the signal was received.

Dawn has fallen quite thoroughly. She is revelling in her newfound power and status, acting as Charax's vassal in most ways. She's not a puppet, though - she definitely has her own ambitions and she is reckless with her authority, as seen when she committed Charax's forces without consulting him. She technically has no authority over the Death Guard at all, but they give her a degree of respect owing to her connection to their master. She's acting as administrator of Charon's Point, although in name only as she delegates all of the hard work to subordinates. Charax has kept to the deal he made on Delan's Point: She has not been asked to act against the Imperium, but her old allegiances are giving over to her ambition

Charon's Reach is a front for Charax's presence. and is based in the Maelstrom, so on the other side of the galaxy from Secret's Hold, but summoning knows no distance and the rift makes travel very fast for those skilled in manipulation of the Warp...

Noctilith is certainly of value to Charax, and he has a history of experimentation with psychoactive substances like Wraithbone. Knowing what the Hold is made of, and the vast quantity of material there, he may well come looking - or be persuaded to take it as payment for aid.

Oh, and people know of him now, however vaguely. Given the effort he took in creating the data-wraiths to purge this knowledge, this will likely irk him greatly
(No longer} The guy with his name at the bottom of the page

Mentirius

#132
Noctilith is a way better name for blackstone, I forgot about that!

Incidentally, while Charax's name is obviously all over the Conclave archives, Amaurn might strategically leave him out of the cock-and-bull story he's trying to present the Inquisiton with as the "true" story of events. 

I loved Dawn's meeting with Landen, and what you've done with the character generally over the years.  I look forward to seeing more of her as the plot thickens.

Presumably Charax had more on his mind in 999.M41 after consuming Escellon/fighting Greeneye etc than going back to Secret's Hold for the noctilith...maybe this incident with the signal reminds him he'd been meaning to get around to that?  Although being seen in person by a bunch of contemporary Inquisitors might make it harder to recover his secrecy...time for a cunning plan, perhaps.

Charax

I was thinking he'd play more of the chessmaster this time. His last appearance was quite bombastic. He's consumed a lot of power, moreso even than from Leon San V, and while it would have been tempting to convert that power into raw killing potential, there are a lot of ways that can be used (I can't for the life of me actually find Charax's final battle with Greeneye anywhere, to be honest)

As such I think this will be more Dawn's game than his. He will have his part to play, and will appear if circumstances warrant, but he is far more of a threat as a subtle influencer than a rampaging monster.

Besides, there's no way Landen's going to manage to steal an Imperial Fists Ironclad, surely?  ;D
(No longer} The guy with his name at the bottom of the page

Dosdamt

Which thread was it where Landen / Dawn met - I can't for the life in me remember. I'd like to re-read. I am very much inclined to have Landen be absent from this whole thing - there's an outside chance of having Vincent / Othello involved. I've got enough between DuBois (Fanham, Grixos) and any other Mentirian I bring back....

Junious is the most likely candidate, heading to Secret's Hold.
It is never too late! - Mentirius

http://thementalmarine.proboards.com/index.cgi <- The Mind, for all your irreverent nonsense needs