Okay, so this is my first attempt to create a balanced and fun character....any input is welcome.
Inquisitor Tarnos, Ordo Xenos-a stranger in stranger´s land
(note: I presume Eldar technology not mentioned anywhere-partly because "they are so advanced they can surely do this" and partly because it is really fun playing this character as it is.)
Tall and slender figures stood in circle in a small chamber close to the heart of Ulthwe craftworld. Their black robes blended with black walls and the silence was so heavy that it could nearly be touched. These eldar were farseers, guiding their people for millenia, avoiding one disaster after another. They all saw a glimpse of possible future. They were the wisest and most potent farseers eldar race had-but such groups would soon form on every single craftworld, with different members, but the same result: Our doom has caught us, although it is not already here. There is nothing we can do.
"Maybe Ynnead?" One of them raised his voice in question-but without any real hope.
"What with him? There will not be any infinity circuit...." second one answered hopelessly.
"If we wait for things to happen, you are right. If we all join the circuits right now...." the first one suggested.
They spent a while considering this option.
"No. Ynnead would also need our children and children of our children. There is not enough of us...." said another one after all. The others turned their eyes to her. So far, she did not say a word. But they all secretly hoped that she could show them a way. After all, her mentor had been the greatest farseer in the whole eldar history-and still was, according to his youngest apprentice who now spoke.
"But...there is the empire of man..." she added.
"They are tratcherous and not to be trusted. They will stab us as soon as we turn our backs at them!" another one smirked.
"Indeed....but we can not stand alone and nor can they. They already know it. Their inquisitor...Czevak...knows it. They do not wish to see their end too...and we have already made a few fragile alliances with them to battle a common foe-like the coven of Isha."
The silence came again, but this time it was different. Before, they were hopeless and did not have anything to say. This silence was active, full of thoughts in every head, full of judging plans and possibilities. One of the figures began casting his runes and soon all of them were doing the same....
After some time, they eyes met again.
"We will do it." said one. The other nodded.
"But...they will be hard to persuade. Nearly impossible...although it is still our best chance."
"They have those...warriors that change their shapes...that is too crude. But...what if we implant mind of an eldar to a human body?"
"Would not work. Maybe-and it is a big maybe-we could fit an eldar mind into a human brain. But...change of habits, different behavior...we would need to do this prenatally...and we would need to force that one eldar to forget about himself until certain age because of their mind scans...when that person will be mature, he or she will be able to fool them. Than they could work to important positions, and help making the pact...otherwise we are all doomed."
It was not easy to create the necessary technology. They sent thousands of eldar souls to a strange and dangerous path and many did not reach their destination-but they had nothing to lose. Of this failed, their race would die as a whole.
One of the many "posessed" children was Claudia, a daughter of a noble on a feudal world near the western border of the empire. They called their planet Nerth (when first colonists came, they named it "New Earth", but that was millenia ago and the language had changed), and official imperial records call it XW 85961649. Trouble came soon...the eldar knew that they need to send gifted individuals. Only those would reach influential positions in the Empire. The trouble was that nearly every eldar would be considered psyker by human standards. So they sent so powerful ones that they would not get "Golden-throned".
In the age of 17, Claudia was taken away on a black ship, but there was something no one really expected, not even the eldar: she was pregnant. It was unusual, but not unheard of and she gave birth to the child without any trouble-trouble started later. It is utterly impossible to interact with warp on the Black ship. But eldar soul in human body had been considered impossible too... The only thing known is that she created some sort of vortex than sucked in seventeen guards before others finally took Claudia down. That all happened when they wanted to take Tarnos away from her....
(She remembered very well the way she used to become a human, and the guards were not dead at first-they landed safely in front of Ulthwe military parade. Moments later, their remnants (there was not so much left to call it "corpse") were safely sent to space.)
Tarnos than grew up aboard the Black ship, being restrained from warp. That place was cold and hostile. The child needed love, but there was no-one to give it and finally he began to think that this is the only way things are: showing emotions is bad, being weak is bad, trusting someone is very, very bad. It took fourteen years for the ship to reach it´s destination, so Tarnos was fourteen when the big, old people were deciding what to do with him. First time in his life, he could feel the warp and it´s power. There were two Inquisitors in that time and one of them, a radical from Ordo malleus, asked him to touch his mind. There must have been something on the boy that interested him and soon the Inquisitor was to realise what it is.
When the child looked into his eyes, the old, powerful inquisitor felt like being inside of a washing machine. And than only one sentence came:
"You shouldn´t really create those deamonhosts, you know...it is very dangerous."
The second inquisitor, Marcos, was Ordo Xenos puritan. The two were soon shouting at each other and than shooting at each other...luckily for Tarnos, it was inquisitor Marcos to win the fight.
He was sent to be sanctioned, and he had shown a really big potential. After that and some Inquisition training, he soon became Marco´s acolyte and the bane of Radical inqusitors and others with something to hide-he was physically full human, but mentaly half eldar-maybe more than half, as the ancient and powerful eldar part of his mind took over. But the more he has been working as "special interrogator", the more he was wondering about people: most of those who paid for their heresy with their lives thought they were doing it for the Imperium-and many times Tarnos would even consider the "heretical action" a crime!
He became more benevolent, often hiding things from Marcos so that his master would not find out. Until one moment...
We must realize that he was not aware of his half eldar nature. His mother was the only one to know and she was dead. But still, something inside of his twisted mind was still saying-this is not right! How can they shoot each other instead of the deamons, this is so stupid!
During the conclave of Claeve IV, Marcos was already highly unpopular. His purges had left the local Inqusition forces at half the original strength! With quiet approval of Inquisition lords who needed to end this mess, Marcos himself was accused of tratchery and he asked his loyal follower, Tarnos, to look upon his mind and deny this. Originally, Tarnos should have died a dew days later, but that was changed: he looked to his master´s eyes and he saw no tratchery, but lots of personal ambitions and little faith. It was terrible and delusional to find out that he had been helping someone not to purge the Imperium, but to achieve his personal ambitions. All that dead were now smiling at him, pointing at him....
Tarnos could not stand it anymore. He broke free from Marcos´s mind, fell to his knees and held his head in both hands, as if he was afraid that it could explode.
"Yes! Yes, you did it, you bastard!" He screamed with his soul in great pain.
Inquisitor Marcos had been executed the same day and his rosette was given to Tarnos, as a reward for helping with Marco´s liquidation-after a long and personal discussion with an Inquisition lord, who said he´d do the same thing: you can believe in many things, but do not get too radical-not even in puritanism.
That was about fourty years ago, but that fourty years of hard work for Inquisition had hardly changed Tarno´s viewpoint. He joined Ordo Xenos and bacame strangely fascinated by Eldar-that was something he had been hiding very cautiously from his fellow Inquisitors. Still, he is surely not the only one to use Xeno weapons...
Appearance: Tarnos is tall and slim, with tan skin and shoulder-long black hair. His eyes are black too and something in their look is...strange, fearsome. He usually wears black inquisition robes, occasionally other clothes-but he always sticks to black color.
Character: Seeing many people´s minds taught him many things. One of them is that people can be angels and devils in the same time, and another one is that no one is really totally pure in his thoughts, everyone has something to hide. (He had not encountered any Grey Knight so far). He does not belong to any cathegory, not radical nor puritan, not Istvaanian nor...anything. He has his own way.
He does not know about his eldar origin, but he is still quite powerful psyker and knows a lot about daemons and how they became existent. According to him, hatred, fear, greed and lust are humanity´s most dangerous enemies and Chaos can not be defeated until this cahnges: What good is it to kill daemons, when we keep creating another ones? Therefore he believes that humanity should educate itself and raise to higher moral grounds-and working towards this is what he believes the purpose of his life is.
He is a loner, his childhood on the Black ship has taught him not to trust anyone and when he DID trust Marcos, it ended up badly. He is always totally honest with himself, and he is not unkind to others. He is capable of deeds of mercy, but he would be away before the saved one could say "thanks". He tries to help people, but he thinks that he is tainted by his mistakes when helping Marcos in his purges: his past still haunts him. He never laughs, he never speaks when there is nothing to say but after all, there is passion and love somewhere deep in him. He shows it by his actions and offering a helping hand many times. But never in his face or flat, low voice.
What he enjoys most about being an Inquisitor is the option to help lowly people who have no rights on their own: several times he marched through gates of some Arbites fortress, presented a seal and demanded some prisoner be set free at once.
Skills: he prefers cunning over brute strength and when things come to fighting, he prefers to with from afar and cover than to charge the enemy. He is a determined, exceptional, very fast and accurate shooter and he can defend himself in close combat-but he is relatively weak and not so tough.
NOTE: For several reasons (the lack of miniatures, the closest GW store being FAR away and the miniatures not being cheap), this character is designed to be a "one man warband". In other words, yes, he would be an overkill were he to work in a group.
WS BS S T I Wp Sg Nv Ld Sp
68 87 49 41 91 94 88 79 41 6
Skills: Dodge, Lightening reflexes, Feint, Deadeye shot, Grenadier (throwing grenades is not a risky action)
Psychic powers: Wyrd Mind scan, Psi-track, Puppet master, Telepathy
Gear: Custom scout armor (5 armor on all locations including head, 2 points of ablative armor on hands, chest, abdomen and groin. Includes a motion tracker and rebreather. ) He got this as a gift from Dark templars chapter: his sniping saved Captain´s life and they did not know about Tarnos being a psyker).
Bolt sniper rifle (See Marco´s armory) with range finder, 1 reload and 5 crack penetrator rounds but not shot selector
Shuriken pistol with 1 reload
short sword
10 grenades (see below)
Chameleoline cloak (-20% to spot him and -15% to hit him with a ranged weapon if he doesn´t move at all that turn)
Emperor´s Tarot
Special rules:
OW, my head: He does not need any tools to interrogate. Both him and the target take a Wp test. If Tarnos passed and his foe did not, Tarnos knows what he needs to know. If both pass, he might try again. If Tarnos fails (no matter whether the other one passed or not!) he cannot attempt to interrogate this character anymore.
Tarnos is good at throwing grenades. He has a big pouch where he keeps 10 of them. Unfortunately, he never remembers what types he has put in there! Each time he throws a grenade, roll on the table bellow to determine which one it is:
1. Frag
2. Krak
3. tanglefoot
4 photon flash
5 plasma
6 Haywire
When throwing a grenade was already declared, Tarnos can NOT stop to change the grenade if he fails to grab the correct one-he has to throw the wrong one instead!
EDIT 1: Scout armor changed to to standard SM scout armor, EMP grenade corrected to Inquisitor term "haywire grenade".
Most scouts don't have the black carapace, I think.
I have to admit I don´t know much about SMs...so I guess I´ll just remove the note about black carapace and give him the ablative armor-he is not very durable anyway, so he´s going to nned it anyway. Thanks for your input!
To be honest, I skimmed the whole thing and that was all that caught my eye.
Quote from: Tyrael on May 05, 2011, 11:16:34 AM
They were the wisest and most potent farseers eldar race had-but such groups would soon form on every single craftworld, with different members, but the same result: Our doom has caught us, although it is not already here. There is nothing we can do.
I'm not hugely keen on the eldar-mind/human-body concept, but at least your idea is a bit more interesting than most half-eldar that people have come up with in the past. I'm really not keen on the paragraph above though - it's a big change to the canon. I'd rather have seen it as a small faction of farseers on some small craftworld who have come up with this plan without the knowledge of the rest of their race because they know they'd be cast out if the truth were ever known - nevertheless they believe it's the only way to save their people.
QuoteHe was sent to be sanctioned, and he had shown a really big potential. After that and some Inquisition training, he soon became Marco´s acolyte and the bane of Radical inqusitors and others with something to hide-he was physically full human, but mentaly half eldar-maybe more than half, as the ancient and powerful eldar part of his mind took over.
The Blackships and Inquisition are pretty thorough when they test people - why did no one notice that his mind was not normal? Even if they didn't know what he was, it seems unlikely they wouldn't detect something strange as even Tarnos doesn't know what he is.
QuoteDuring the conclave of Claeve IV, Marcos was already highly unpopular. His purges had left the local Inqusition forces at half the original strength!
If an Inquisitor believes another to be a traitor or tainted or whatever the correct procedure is for a Lord Inquisitor to convene a Conclave and for the case to be heard in front of a panel of at least three Inquisitors (the accused may or may not be present). In extreme cases the trial may be held after the accused has been captured/killed. And it seems hugely unlikely Marcos would have been able to purge half the Inquisitors in a sector without his peers taking notice and moving against him.
Quotehe looked to his master´s eyes and he saw no tratchery, but lots of personal ambitions and little faith. It was terrible and delusional to find out that he had been helping someone not to purge the Imperium, but to achieve his personal ambitions.
Why had Tarnos not realised this about his master beforehand? If not from reading his mind, then from his actions? And why didn't Macros know that his 'loyal' acolyte was hiding things from him. Also, asking his loyal servant to vouch for him doesn't seem like the best defence when you're up before a panel of Inquisitors and at least on Lord.
QuoteInquisitor Marcos had been executed the same day and his rosette was given to Tarnos, as a reward for helping with Marco´s liquidation
The fact that he sold out his master is really not a good reason to make him an Inquisitor. I suggest he's taken under the wing of one of Marcos associates who sees some potential in him and eventually he rises to the rank of Inquisitor.
QuoteHe does not belong to any cathegory, not radical nor puritan, not Istvaanian nor...anything. He has his own way.
How do other people see him? Do his peers consider him to be radical?
QuoteHe is a loner, his childhood on the Black ship has taught him not to trust anyone and when he DID trust Marcos, it ended up badly.
He's going to have to trust some people to some extent - he's an Inquisitor and although he may naturally be a loner, he's not going to be a very effective Inquisitor if he doesn't build himself a network of agents, operatives, contacts and acolytes.
Your character shows promise, but in my opinion he needs a fair bit of tweaking - at the minute it's all a bit too big. Making the events smaller would add some believability to things.
QuoteFor several reasons (the lack of miniatures, the closest GW store being FAR away and the miniatures not being cheap), this character is designed to be a "one man warband". In other words, yes, he would be an overkill were he to work in a group.
One man warbands often seem like a good idea, but they're generally not - all it'll take is for the enemy to get in one lucky hit and he'll be out of the game, and if he gets stunned the game is going to get boring very quickly. If you can't afford more GW models, then use non-GW models and convert them using 28mm parts - there are loads of options out there. For example the models I used for these conversions cost me £6 (+P&P) for the four - about a third of the cost of just one GW model. Better to get a couple more models and tone this guy's profile down somewhat. BTW, what model are you using for Tarnos?
QuoteOW, my head: He does not need any tools to interrogate. Both him and the target take a Wp test. If Tarnos passed and his foe did not, Tarnos knows what he needs to know. If both pass, he might try again. If Tarnos fails (no matter whether the other one passed or not!) he cannot attempt to interrogate this character anymore.
Surely this should be a psychic power? Or at the very least, a wyrd power. And he's already got Wyrd: Mind Scan which is basically the same thing...
QuoteTarnos is good at throwing grenades. He has a big pouch where he keeps 10 of them. Unfortunately, he never remembers what types he has put in there!
He might not remember, but why can't he look in the bag? And if he's so skilled with grenades can't he tell the difference by touch?
Hope that helps,
Dave
EDIT: Oh and
Welcome to the Conclave!
Khaled:
In re small faction of farseers: I´ll do it that way, thanks.
In re detecting psychic powers: They did detect them of course, but they manifest in the way usual psychic powers do. They did not find about the eldar origin, because he is genetically 100% human and psychic powers manifest themselves in many ways.
In re Marcos purging local Inquisition: Of course there were trials. Tarnos was there just to give evidence. Nearly everyone in the Inqusition, save maybe the biggest Puritans, has something to hide, skeletons in their wardrobes. Tarnos dragged those to daylight and used them against the wardrobe owner. And the three Inquisitors could not really claim the accused to be innocent with all that provided information.
In re not realizing Marco´s attitude sooner: Well, Tarnos grew up in surroundings that could hardly ever be called normal and thirsted for many things. At first, Marcos provided him with what he needed most: he was the first and only man to say "you´ve done it well" and he treated Tarnos kindly-which earned him loyalty from his servant who never experienced anything like that.
In re Marcos not realizing Tarnos´s course of action: Marcos himself was not a psyker and Tarnos only thought that his masters sometimes goes too far. Therefore Marcos couldn´t really check whether all he is being told is true-and Tyrael, who was used no never show emotions simply couldn´t have been read.
In re defense before the court: You are right here. Perhaps he lost his nerves, perhaps he wanted to make it theatrical, to show he can withstand what he had been doing to others...even Inquisitor can sometimes act illogically.
In re sold out: I guess you are right...I will use your version. Thanks.
In re other people: most Inquisitors remember him being an extreme Puritan´s acolyte, so this sort of sticks to him.
In re one-man warband: I tried to make him sniper+psyker to avoid direct and too dangerous confrontations when possible. I guess you are right with conversions...I even saw a game when the players used chess pieces instead of the miniatures and I can´t say they weren´t having fun.
In re Oh my head: It is that wyrd: mind scan, just aditional rule to use during campaign
In re grenades: Logically, you are right. In terms of gameplay however, I wanted something random, unpredictable-at least it would suit his unpredictable half-eldar nature. So I gave him many grenades and Grenadier skill, but balanced it out by randomizing grenade type. In the one game I played using him, it worked quite well.
Yes, it helps! A lot. Thank you very much.
Quote from: Tyrael on May 05, 2011, 08:31:52 PM
In re detecting psychic powers: They did detect them of course, but they manifest in the way usual psychic powers do. They did not find about the eldar origin, because he is genetically 100% human and psychic powers manifest themselves in many ways.
And the Blackship crews probably know better than anyone the different ways in which psychic powers can manifest and are skilled in probing the depths of people's souls to search out taint. If he's physically human, and his soul is sufficiently human that no one can detect a difference, then in what way is he Eldar?
QuoteIn re Marcos purging local Inquisition: Of course there were trials. Tarnos was there just to give evidence. Nearly everyone in the Inqusition, save maybe the biggest Puritans, has something to hide, skeletons in their wardrobes. Tarnos dragged those to daylight and used them against the wardrobe owner. And the three Inquisitors could not really claim the accused to be innocent with all that provided information.
Exactly, most Inquisitors have done things that others would consider 'wrong', but they all know that it is their job to do what others will not. Marcos may condemn his peers for their radicalism, but a panel of Inquisitors would likely be a voice of reason and only condemn an Inquisitor for something that really does go too far.
QuoteMacros himself was not a psyker and Tarnos only thought that his masters sometimes goes too far. Therefore Marcos couldn´t really check whether all he is being told is true-and Tyrael, who was used no never show emotions simply couldn´t have been read.
Marcos may not be a psyker, but he is an Inquisitor. If he doesn't know what his acolyte is doing then he doesn't sound like a very good Inquisitor...
QuoteIn re Oh my head: It is that wyrd: mind scan, just aditional rule to use during campaign
Maybe I'm missing something - how is it a campaign rule? Mind Scan already let's him take information from a target's mind and this is just a more powerful version as it doesn't come with the risks of psychic powers.
QuoteIn re grenades:
In that case it doesn't need a rule saying he can't put a grenade back and choose another one - it's just something you should roleplay. Use the table to pick a random grenade and then you decide what he does with it.