Main Menu

News:

If you are having problems registering, please e-mail theconclaveforum at gmail.com

Ian Watson's Jaq Draco Trilogy in Inquisitor?

Started by Inquisitor Thaken, October 24, 2016, 01:05:38 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Inquisitor Thaken

Quote from: mcjomar on October 27, 2016, 03:47:13 PM
Perhaps Empy and Ynnead team up to flatten Chaos forever?

Works for me, as long as they don't force us to participate in a Slaaneshi orgy held in a galactic fast-food chain while doing so.

Inquisitor Thaken

Quote from: mcjomar on October 27, 2016, 03:47:13 PM
-A campaign where the Emperor is actually a warp entity.

-A campaign where the Squats were wiped out by the Imperium, but a few survived in secret, built ultra-powerful weapons, and are now back for revenge.

There are so many ways to run things like this, with or without squats - I think a variation on this theme is buried in the back of the official Inquisitor rulebook

I guess I didn't read this closely enough.  Twenty whacks on the forehead with the Codex Ex Purgatoribus for me.

Anyway, do you know where this is located?  I'd love to find it.

mcjomar

Scenario concepts page 170 covers a few ideas.

The Angel of Karis Cephalon (which was played out differently by GW) could easily have been read in entirely a different way.
The "Angel" could very easily have been some pre-Horus Heresy weapon (rather than what GW decided it was), and factions descended on the world to discover more - who's to say if someone wasn't already there waiting for them, wink wink nudge nudge.

But those two pages are fantastic for ideas for scenarios anyway, and you can take what's given for each suggestion and run off in multiple directions with each idea.
Weaving them into combined campaigns, or as the basic for a single campaign each, etc.
I always did enjoy reading all the GM suggestions in that part of the old rulebook.
"Heretics are like cockroaches - annoying to find, and even more annoying to kill." - unattrib.

Inquisitor Thaken

Thanks, mcjomar!  I'm off to read that, and then to report you to the Ordo Hereticus for your possession of forbidden knowledge!

mcjomar

Frankly that entire bit in the back end of the book is great for GM ideas in the Inquisitor rulebook.
Some of the stuff and discussions makes a very enjoyable read.

In the meantime I'm slowly reading (again) the Inquisition War Omnibus to see if anything in there at all could suggest illuminati stuff for me, because realms of chaos (either book) isn't very forthcoming.
"Heretics are like cockroaches - annoying to find, and even more annoying to kill." - unattrib.

Inquisitor Thaken

It is certainly in the background of the Jaq Draco novels.  Zephro Carnelian, the Harlequin Man, is an important character, and an Illuminatus.

TallulahBelle

My only hard limits are characters that dont fit the universe in concept and ar just shoehorned in so your Jedi inquisitor psyker or the athirst SoBbetc.

And generally I avoid things that will be total change so limit stuff to individual hivefleets being destroyed or single craftworlss wiped out and dont touch at all actual named canon characters.

Inquisitor Thaken

#22
Quote from: jediknight129 on October 29, 2016, 10:40:02 AM
My only hard limits are characters that dont fit the universe in concept and ar just shoehorned in so your Jedi inquisitor psyker or the athirst SoBbetc.

And generally I avoid things that will be total change so limit stuff to individual hivefleets being destroyed or single craftworlss wiped out and dont touch at all actual named canon characters.

I really think that one becomes a question of the maturity of the player/gm.  IMHO, plot elements that are added in -even if very divergent from canon- that are genuinely done for the purpose of adding to the story are very different from those added in for the sake of "coolness" (read: adding in stuff from my favorite unrelated genre for the purpose of making my character ever-more badass).

Always remember that a massive divergence from canon in this campaign doesn't effect the game overall, and exploring somebody else' ideas can be great fun.

Even little twists of this kind can be very effective.

I ran a campaign once where a player character was arrested by the Inquisition, and another player wanted to free him.  As there was nothing to be gained by pleading with the Inquisitors or trying to bust the guy out of jail, he consulted a book of sorcery he had found, and tried to summon a daemon for this purpose.  After drawing the magic circles, laying out the elaborate libations, performing the rituals, etc.... nothing happened.

The next morning, however, the character went to a local restaurant for breakfast, and found a conservatively dressed, rather handsome young fellow beckoning him to his table.  On sitting down, the young man said, "I understand you have a proposition for our organization?"

This worked out quite well, though it was very different from the typical 40K daemon summoning.  They concluded their devil's bargain at the pleasant, though now also vaguely shadowy and sinister, breakfast table, with the daemon saying, "Very well, we will arrange for the release of your colleague.  All we ask is that, at some point in the future, when we ask of you a favor -which will, by the way, in no manner violate your moral code- you will grant it without hesitation."

The player got what he wanted, though, of course, he had just given me the right to **** over the whole party, through his own actions.  Great fun.

mcjomar

Had you been watching the tv show Reaper at the time?  ;D
I'm watching it currently via... sources... and it's a really great show - I watched the first season back in the day on the Dave sky channel, but missed the subsequent stuff, sadly. Now I get to catch up.
"Heretics are like cockroaches - annoying to find, and even more annoying to kill." - unattrib.

Inquisitor Thaken

Never even heard of it.  Looking it up now.

MarcoSkoll

Quote from: Inquisitor Thaken on October 27, 2016, 03:30:53 AMGo to any CoC website, and, just for laughs, suggest running a campaign that is geared toward hunting down and killing Cthulhu.  I guarantee that the response will be... spirited.
Well... yeah. Even as someone who doesn't play the game and has little interest in the mythos, I know that Cthulhu is a nigh-invulnerable god and a constant theme of the setting is the irrelevance of mankind in the face of far greater forces - and the rule mechanics represent that general hopelessness (with death or insanity being far more likely than success). So it does seem rather at odds with what the game is intended to do.

I'm vaguely reminded of the analogy I use when people insist that Inquisitor is a clunky skirmish game - "Yes, in the same way that a boat doesn't drive well on the road - it's not meant to".

QuoteOther systems, such as post-Gygax D&D seem to take a much more "do your own thing" approach.
Well, D&D is more a ruleset than it is a setting - fairly DIY fantasy based around generically mediaeval themes. While it does have official settings like Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms (depending on which edition you're playing), things actually tend to get fairly strict within organised play campaigns (broadly analogous to what GW did with global stories like Storm of Chaos or Eye of Terror). Run only these adventures, characters are limited to these classes, etc... that's exactly the kind of thing I don't enjoy running as a GM.

~~~~~

Actually, I personally find Inquisitor players to be generally open-minded. I mean that in the sense that they're prepared to consider a good argument (not the sense that they just accept anything) - the right background explanation can justify a lot either as far as fluff or rules.

As an extreme example, one of my WIP characters is a Mars pattern Warhound, Leander. But I've actually put a lot of thought into how and why a Titan and her crew might be involved in an Inquisitor story*, as well as developing an in-depth background for her (and her model should be pretty awesome**) so the response to the project has mostly been pretty positive. Okay, people still think I'm completely insane, but they don't want to kill me, and I will be able to find players when I GM games with her.
*Oddly, I've found that I can better justify something as powerful as a Warhound in Inquisitor than I can something like a Leman Russ. A tank isn't powerful enough to be a major plot element in a campaign - but a Titan is that important.
** She is actually more of a display project than a game project - I've long loved the Mars Pattern Warhound, and thought a 54mm scale build would be suitably impressive.


And that sort of makes sense to me. Inquisitor is a fairly unfettered game, doing without army lists, points values or XP, so players have long had to work on a principle of mutual agreement and cooperation - something that naturally requires discussion.

Quote from: Inquisitor Thaken on October 30, 2016, 02:04:27 PMThis worked out quite well, though it was very different from the typical 40K daemon summoning.
Well, I'm not sure how typical any daemon summoning can be seen to be. The warp is involved, after all. :P

It's an interesting idea, although with daemons and their plans I like to sow a little doubt about reality. Did things really happen like that... or is that just how the daemon wanted you to think it went? An entire meeting with a daemon could easily happen within the depths of the mind, or as a cheat of the senses - particularly if dealing with a novice warp dabbler likely to make mistakes.

Not that I'm suggesting "it was all a dream" as an approach - a meeting with a daemon can be real even if it never happened.

Anyway, I'm probably rambling, as I'm tired, so I'll shut up.
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

Inquisitor Thaken

Quote from: MarcoSkoll on October 31, 2016, 01:23:42 AM
It's an interesting idea, although with daemons and their plans I like to sow a little doubt about reality. Did things really happen like that... or is that just how the daemon wanted you to think it went? An entire meeting with a daemon could easily happen within the depths of the mind, or as a cheat of the senses - particularly if dealing with a novice warp dabbler likely to make mistakes.

Not that I'm suggesting "it was all a dream" as an approach - a meeting with a daemon can be real even if it never happened.

Anyway, I'm probably rambling, as I'm tired, so I'll shut up.

Far worse than that... I think we're in agreement!  :o

In a sense that's been my whole point, probably not just here, but in another few chats we've been having. 

Is a daemonic summoning all lightning flashes, brimstone and bellowing horned monstrosities, or is it a pleasant chat with a grinning Mr. Morden asking, "What do you want?" on the Zocalo?  It could be both, either or neither.  Is there an Illuminati and, if so, is it a group of beings who have mastered the Chaos within themselves, a sort of rogue Ordo of the Inquisition, or a front for a chaos cult?  It depends on who you talk to, and who knows where the truth lies?

For me, that's an enormous part of the fun of this setting.