The Greater Good is a lie, or at least, this is what Ke'lshan Vash'ya Kais Mont'ka, former Tau fire warrior, believes with all his heart. Ke'lshan Vash'ya, as he is most simply known, grew up on the sept world of Ke'lshan, a world which has endured much hardship within the Tau empire, beset by several alien races. Those born of this world are often mistrustful, taciturn, and brooding. Such is the case of this particular Tau. Vash'ya, born of the fire caste, grew up hearing tales of O'Shova-Commander Farsight- and his great deeds of heroism and chivalry, as well as his fall from grace and abandonment of the Tau Empire. He came to idolize the fabled O'shova nevertheless, determined to become like his hero one day, and when he came of age, he was inducted into the Tau military ranks as all fire caste members are. By the time he had reached the rank of Shas'ui, still quite young but respected by his superiors for his skill and courage, but Vash'ya himself was deeply troubled. Ready to begin the 3rd Sphere Expansion, he was horrified to see Commander Farsight's statue demolished at her hands as she addressed the fire caste on Vior'la, denouncing the renegade Tau commander as a villain and heretic. The Greater Good was not all it had seemed in his youth, and he had witnessed many of his brethren die horribly at the hands of Ork or Dark Eldar raiders, all at the behest of the Aun and their commands. Ke'lshan Vash'ya became deeply disillusioned, as the Third Sphere expansion dragged on, he began to suspect the Ethereal Caste and their preaching of the Greater Good. At long last, following the disastrous campaign against the Tyranid Hive Fleet Gorgon, Ke'lshan Vash'ya had had enough. He spent much time brooding in solitude in his quarters on the return journey, and decided to gather a small cadre of loyal supporters to both his and the erstwhile O'Shova's cause, willing to separate from the Tau cause, and strike out on their own. His idealism found root in the Tau auxiliary races, and he found a large number of Kroot willing to join him, as well as a decent number of Nicassar and Vespid. With a small number of fire caste members with him as well, his renegades hijacked a Merchant-class cruiser, striking out towards Imperial space in hopes of establishing a colony of their own, and now find themselves embroiled in several affairs on Frontier worlds.
K'elShan Vash'ya Kais Mont'ka
The leader of his upstart enclave, Vash'ya has forgone the typical caste or rank designation, believing them to be labels which bind Tau to the Greater Good, and thus has no 'Ui in front of his name. He has practiced in the skills of swordsmanship, inspired by his idol, Farsight's own philosophy.
WS 31
BS 56
S 44
T 53
I 47
WP 71
SG 82
NV 79
LD 87
Vash'ya is right handed
Special Abilities: hipshooting, leader
Equipment: Sword, Bonding Knife, Pulse Carbine with 2 reloads, 2 plasma grenades, Carapace Armor (AV 6) on all locations except for head, advanced bionic eye with bio-scanner and motion tracker.
Bonding Knife
Reach 1
Damage D6
Parry penalty -25%
Vash'ya's bonding knife is a symbol, not a weapon. It represents, in his case, his utter devotion to the cause and to his fellow renegade Tau, and therefore Vash'ya may only use it as a last resort, if he is out of ammunition and his sword has broken or is dropped. If he is forced to use it however, Vash'ya will attack with the utmost ferocity, and thus counts as having the furious assault special ability when wielding the bonding knife.
Pulse Carbine/Underslung Grenade Launcher (as grenade launcher with plasma grenade in rulebook)
Type- Basic
Range- F
Mode- Semi (2/4)
Acc- +5
Dam- 2D6+3
Shots- 40
Rld- 2
Wt- 30
Shaper Rek of the Ebon Talon Kindred
Shaper Rek is Vash'ya's Kroot Aid-de-camp, dedicated to his cause, believing his fellow Kroot to be oppressed by the Ethereals and their "Greater Good." He actively supports the mercenary activities of other Kroot on Pech, and contributes his warsphere and other assets to Vash'ya's renegade sect.
WS 78
BS 52
S 67
T 63
I 74
WP 56
SG 66
NV 71
LD 69
Rek is left handed
Special Abilities: Stealth, Cannibal Hunger, Acrobatic, Catfall
Equipment: Kroot Rifle, Kroot Pistol (counts as a blackpowder pistol), 2 Krak grenades.
Dhow Al'Cephal Nautileera
Nautileera is a Nicassar Dhow Captain, a mystery even to her peers. The Nicassar are a cephalopoid race from the Eastern Fringe, and are driven by an instinctive curiosity and need to explore, using their small but quick Dhow ships as scouts in the Tau fleet. The first race to join the Tau Empire, they are ill-suited to ground combat, as they are much more accustomed to zero-g locomotion aboard their vessels. They lock themselves in stasis for extensive amounts of time as they travel the stars, powering their vessels by their own psychic power alone. A powerful psyker and therefore the Renegades' navigator and chief provider of intelligence, she threw in her lot with Vash'ya, believing that the Ethereal's have a hidden agenda. The Aun command that the Nicassar are to be hidden away from the Imperium of Man, allegedly because of the Imperium's Xenophobia and beliefs about psychic abilities. A'Cephal Nautileera believes, however, that the Aun merely want to keep the Nicassar in thrall to the Tau Empire so that they can research and eventually harvest their psychic potential for their own ends.
WS 23
BS 53
S 31
T 49
I 41
WP 89
SG 96
NV 64
LD 60
Al'Cephal is ambidextrous
Special Abilities: Feint, Tentacles
Psychic Powers: Telekinesis, Psychic Impel, Psychic Shriek
Equipment: Implanted Psi-booster, Injector Implant with 5 doses of Spook, Psychic Hood, Psi-tracker
Have their been any good descriptions of the physical appearance of the Nicassar in the canon or is everyone free to invent their own look for them?
Quote from: Kaled on April 26, 2011, 07:53:53 PM
Have their been any good descriptions of the physical appearance of the Nicassar in the canon or is everyone free to invent their own look for them?
GW has literally published no information whatsoever on them aside from the Battlefleet Gothic stats, which state that 1) they're highly psychic and propel their ships by psychic might alone, 2) that they were the first race to join the Tau Empire, and 3) that they do the stasis thing on their journeys and that they're largely unsuited for physical combat.
Common consensus among Tau players in 40K (which includes me :P) is that they are cephalopods. The theory kinda came out of nowhere and was purely fan-invented, but there's some damn good concept art (my avatar/icon on here, for instance), other pics include:
(http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h29/cthulhu08/nicassar-1.jpg?t=1303845421)
(http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h29/cthulhu08/nicassar-1-1.jpg?t=1303845446)
(http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h29/cthulhu08/NicassarSmall.jpg?t=1303845470)
(http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h29/cthulhu08/38273_sm-.jpg?t=1303845491)
Didn't someone at GW suggest they were kind of like polar bears in some way?
Quote from: Kaled on April 26, 2011, 08:30:23 PM
Didn't someone at GW suggest they were kind of like polar bears in some way?
*Shrug* I've never heard that rumor. And I've never heard it discussed on Advanced Tau Tactica or any other forum. Where'd you hear that?
Sort of like polar bears (but far more alien) is what I had heard as well. Unfortunately, while I can search Google and find a few hits for "Nicassar Polar bear", it's almost all on forums (including ATT) and none actually give a source more specific than "Some non-specific designer/developer at GW".
Personally though, Polar bears or Squid, I still find it odd that people are so strongly stuck in the mental rut that alien species must so strongly resemble terrestrial creatures.
Either way, that is one damn cool model and some very nice artwork to accompany, look forward to seeing it painted!
It's a reference for someone else who has done them as a squid creature, not his own work (I think).
Aww metaphorical piss on the bonfire Marco :P though thanks for pointing it out matey
Very cute model though. Looking forward to seeing what he does with the concept. Nice concept for a warband, lots of charcter.
While the squid in a dress conversion is nicely done, I think it's a bit humanoid for a race whose absence from 40k was put down, in part, to them not being able to properly cope with planetary gravity. Of those concepts I much prefer the one that looks a bit like a turtle with a squid's head.
What sort of look were you going to use for yours?
I actually like the humanoid squid in a dress look x3, and I personally love the look of the first pic that I use for my icon. No, none of those drawings are my own work. I do think that the Nicassar should look a bit less humanoid, I'll work on some concepts. I generally want to make it humanoid-sized at least though, maybe midway between the Tau and the Kroot in terms of height or length. I'll let you guys know.
Quote from: MarcoSkoll on April 26, 2011, 08:47:24 PM
Personally though, Polar bears or Squid, I still find it odd that people are so strongly stuck in the mental rut that alien species must so strongly resemble terrestrial creatures.
A: it's easy and requires less creativity? I sure as hell would struggle to create something without being excessively influenced by something else... Granted I have never exactly been known for my creativity however.
B: Considering the diversity of terrestrial life, it's got to be challenging to create something that Doesn't look like something else...
C: It's perhaps easier to succinctly/lazily convey a sense of what something might look like, especially something that perhaps doesn't have a concrete visual design in terms of something vaguely similar that resembles it?
I'm gonna go ahead and throw by support behind the idea of the space-cuttlefish thingies that are seen in that pencil drawing. Since the Nicassar use telekinesis to move their ships around, it's quite reasonable to assume that they use telekinesis to move their own bodies in a form of telekinetic flight. However, evolution would dictate that as their legs are now purposeless, they will vestigialise and disappear. Since they no longer need their arms to manipulate things, they, too, will vestigialise and vanish.
Since their preferred environment is zero-G, perhaps this indicates that the Nicassar have been on their gravity-less ships for a very long time indeed, as zero-G specific evolution would take thousands of generations to develop. (Which is also plenty of time for the loss of their limbs, I might add.) Perhaps, in order to be able to move around in a gravitic environment, it takes too much of their telekinetic ability, so that's why they wear the collar/armoured bulb seen in the above images....
It's just that given what little we know about the Nicassar, I don't really see them as being humanoid.
Quote from: MarcoSkoll on April 26, 2011, 08:47:24 PM
I still find it odd that people are so strongly stuck in the mental rut that alien species must so strongly resemble terrestrial creatures.
You evidently haven't seen the aliens that I've created for various things... In fact, when creating any alien species, from microscopic parasites right through to titanic monstrosities, I always try to deliberately avoid designing anything terrestrial.
And I've been known to go overboard... Instead of DNA, one of my species had a silicone-based bio structure. Their 'genetic code' was encoded on a series of monomolecular, flat planes which split along it's edge when multiplying, and had particular enzymatic activities in certain regions that led to the translation of protein-like silicon compounds. They had hexane-based bodily fluids, rather than water-based, and took the form of a large, balloon-like organism with thick, leathery skin which rolled around on the ground through membrane projection in a manner of motility inspired by micro-organism's pseudopoedia.
In short, I always made efforts to ensure that any alien race I created was as alien and different from humanity as possible. At the moment, I'm working on some fluff about the K'nib.
I remember reading about the Polar Bear thing. It wasn't an actual description, more in the style of "they could be space polar bears for all you know", and I think it came from whoever wrote the Tau rules for BFG...
That sounds familiar. It was discussed at length on a number of forums with suggestions and concepts sketches such as them being like emaciated white wookies with bear-like features. I'm not sure that description is any better than the squid idea though. I agree with Marco, why should they look like any earth creature?
Quote from: Kaled on April 27, 2011, 10:56:21 AM
I agree with Marco, why should they look like any earth creature?
As easy as it is to criticise the use of terrestrial based inspiration for aliens, I think a key point, at least for me personally, is that it is more enjoyable to play a character, particular roleplay a character, with which you can easily identify.
Take for example the Hrud, as creepy and weird as they are, they still retain a shape and style with which you can place your self as the player in, skulking through shadow with an evil glare.
I'm definitely not disagreeing with you, I think they are better the more far removed they are, I just think it is does not necessarily make playing that character more fun or is necessarily easy to do.
Just my 2 cents anyway :)
R
Quote from: ShannowAs easy as it is to criticise the use of terrestrial based inspiration for aliens, I think a key point, at least for me personally, is that it is more enjoyable to play a character, particular roleplay a character, with which you can easily identify.
If you think you can easily identify with an alien because they look like something terrestrial, you're probably going to end up identifying with them wrong. It's the same mistake that leads people to think that Eldar are just somewhat snooty humanoids.
You need to be able to identify, I agree, but I think that you should have to think harder about an alien mindset than making them a stereotype of some animal or other.
~~~~~
I think that if you do feel you have to base them off any extant terrestrial creature, I think agree with Ynek that the space cuttlefish should win out over the Cthulu wannabes.
Cuttlefish are pretty unusual to our normal world, exist in the closest Terran equivalent to zero-G (floating underwater is roughly the same as floating in microgravity, except that it's higher viscosity) and have one of the highest brain/body size ratios of invertebrates.
Which does sound like a fair start for a psychic microgravity dweller.
With microgravity in mind, I guess it would have to be fitted with gravity nullifiers to allow it to drift around in a higher gravity environment, because increase of gravity would have its own detrimental effects in the same way as going into space isn't very good for humans.
Quote from: MarcoSkoll on April 27, 2011, 12:33:28 PM
Quote from: ShannowAs easy as it is to criticise the use of terrestrial based inspiration for aliens, I think a key point, at least for me personally, is that it is more enjoyable to play a character, particular roleplay a character, with which you can easily identify.
If you think you can easily identify with an alien because they look like something terrestrial, you're probably going to end up identifying with them wrong. It's the same mistake that leads people to think that Eldar are just somewhat snooty humanoids.
You need to be able to identify, I agree, but I think that you should have to think harder about an alien mindset than making them a stereotype of some animal or other.
~~~~~
Ah this is entirely my bad Marco, by identify I am purely meaning
physically, in the sense that its easier to place yourself in that context through your minds eye, holding that gun, hiding in those shadows.
I completely agree that an alien mind set requires far more work. Hell its hard enough to get into a human characters mind set often enough!
But in that case, surely once you have the model in your hands, you have a physical identification of it, no matter how alien it might be in form, colouration, or appearance?
It's not like if your character is Mr. Squidface, you're doing any more than guessing what it's like to have tentacles in place of your lower jaw, so I can't say I'd find it any easier to physically identify with a terrestrial based creature than with something completely alien in form.
As far as I'm concerned, if I have to place myself in someone else's shoes anyway, it's a waste to hold back on the basis of the more familiar.
Quote from: MarcoSkoll on April 27, 2011, 01:28:03 PM
But in that case, surely once you have the model in your hands, you have a physical identification of it, no matter how alien it might be in form, colouration, or appearance?
It's not like if your character is Mr. Squidface, you're doing any more than guessing what it's like to have tentacles in place of your lower jaw, so I can't say I'd find it any easier to physically identify with a terrestrial based creature than with something completely alien in form.
As far as I'm concerned, if I have to place myself in someone else's shoes anyway, it's a waste to hold back on the basis of the more familiar.
Perfectly valid point, I would just struggle to truly identify with it myself when in my head I am leaping from gantries and barrel rolling through doors is all :P
I don't hold back on character design on the basis of confining it to terrestrial means, I think I am just inherently biased in my imagination to produce those formations from the depths of my mind, being based on terrestrial means does not mean a character cannot be abominable and terrifying (Alien for example).
I think this serves only to highlight the richness inside your own mind! And that of Yneks as well,,,crazy blob alien....
But interesting discussion nonetheless :)
Quote from: Lucidum on April 26, 2011, 07:41:54 PM
Pulse Carbine/Underslung Grenade Launcher (as grenade launcher with plasma grenade in rulebook)
I don't know if you had seem them, but there's rules for Pulse Carbines in
Death of an Angel;
Type Range Mode Acc Dam Shots Rld Wt
Pulse Carbine Basic F Semi (3/4) - 3D6+5 30 2 15
Full(8 )
I would suggest increasing the weight somewhat. Also, I wrote some rules for a couple of different variants of Tau weapons that were published in
Firebase 6.
I'd also be tempted to make the Plasma grenades it fires much less powerful than the ones in the rulebook. You'll find you're not very popular with your opponents if you keep chucking those things around - maybe make them D10 damage instead? They'd still be extremely potent and you could say that they cause less damage because they're smaller than the ones in the rulebook or something.
Ooh where is this firebase 6 found? I'm looking for rules for semi/auto style pistols for my gue'vasa character just so you know :)
Now that I think about it I'm sure if it's available at the moment as Warseer is down. There were only a couple of types of weapons as it was mostly just equipment and rules for my Fire Caste operative - I don't think I gave the pistol he has a semi/full auto mode.
Never underestimate me. My laptop may be malfunctioning, my main backup drive may be smashed, but I'll be damned if I don't keep spare backups.
One copy of Firebase Issue 6, Part 2 (http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?9g92mf94sbt2uoa).
I feel I should say, it's not the best article I've ever put together - it was thrown together pretty quickly as I felt I shouldn't pass up the opportunity to raise the profile of Inquisitor with a wider audience.
On the phone at the moment so can't download but thanks guys! Marco the undefyable!
Quote from: Kaled on April 27, 2011, 06:14:25 PM
Quote from: Lucidum on April 26, 2011, 07:41:54 PM
Pulse Carbine/Underslung Grenade Launcher (as grenade launcher with plasma grenade in rulebook)
I don't know if you had seem them, but there's rules for Pulse Carbines in Death of an Angel;
Type Range Mode Acc Dam Shots Rld Wt
Pulse Carbine Basic F Semi (3/4) - 3D6+5 30 2 15
Full(8 )
I would suggest increasing the weight somewhat. Also, I wrote some rules for a couple of different variants of Tau weapons that were published in Firebase 6.
I'd also be tempted to make the Plasma grenades it fires much less powerful than the ones in the rulebook. You'll find you're not very popular with your opponents if you keep chucking those things around - maybe make them D10 damage instead? They'd still be extremely potent and you could say that they cause less damage because they're smaller than the ones in the rulebook or something.
Thank you for trying to bring the topic relatively back on track. I couldn't seem to find the death of an angel file, is it downloadable somewhere? And I'll check out your Firebase article on tau weapons for sure, I was pretty much just winging it with those rules.
BTW, do the rules I came up with for the bonding knife seem alright?
Quote from: Lucidum on April 27, 2011, 09:14:50 PMI couldn't seem to find the death of an angel file, is it downloadable somewhere?
Not from me, unfortunately. It was a campaign book, and I neither own it, nor has anyone "volunteered" a mysteriously digital copy to me to put on the Archive.
I might one day buy myself those books on eBay, but I'm pretty sloppy as far as remembering to actually check up on the "Ebay has found matches for your saved searches" emails.
If there's anyone who sees any of those books or the 2004 annual going cheap and wishes to remind me they're there, the books may suddenly end up on the Archive under freak circumstances.