Hi every one! I'm new to the conclave, my GM recommended that I post my backstory and character info here for revision/editing. I hope you enjoy!
Inquisitor Elva was from the hive city of Stygia, on the desert artifact world Econtral VI. She grew up in a mid ranking noble family, which was taken over by her sister Merith Bullen, when her parents were assassinated. She developed a love for history from going on archeological digs with her twin brother Edward and their uncle Magnus. During one of these excavations on the Island ruins of Alon, of the coast of Stygia, they uncovered a foundation where they found large clay tablets neatly stacked in rows. When they where cleared out, an out of place artifact was found wrapped in linen. It appeared to be an advanced weapon, and looked as though it was put in there only hours before. Her uncle took it in for study.
Years later, Lady Merith staged a successful coup d'état against the ruling head of the Stygian council, with assistance from the Stygian Royal Guard and the local nomads. The Imperial authorities did not intervene, as the outcome was more favorable to them due to Merith's militaristic take on government. Elva saw action as a cavalry officer and distinguished herself at the battle of the gates of Vash and lost her left arm in a later skirmish, which was replaced with bionics. During this time, Edward became an archeologist under Magnus. Shortly after Lady Merith took office, Edward and Magnus disappeared from their camp in the northern mountain region. Nothing in the camp was out of place, the soup was even still cooking, however everyone had vanished. It was assumed to be a well executed assassination. Furious, Elva vowed to find and kill the parties responsible.
When the Inquisition deemed that they needed eyes on Econtral, they sent inquisitor Freja to find an acolyte to train. Out of hundreds of perspective students, she chose Elva due to her strong spirit and many resources. Elva spent twenty six years assisting Freja on her investigations, until she was deemed fit to carry out her own. It was then when she found the ancient weapon while going through her uncle's things. She took it, hoping it would prove useful in her search. She is currently in residence on the Econtral capitol, investigating her brother's disappearance, as more evidence piles up that hive politics were not involved.
Personality-Quite, cunning tactician who constantly asses her situation. She sometimes gets caught up in the thrill of combat, eager to relive her glory days. In social situations she is a proper officer and acts with pride and grace. She lives a very militaristic lifestyle.
Looks- Short, spikey blonde hair, steel blue eyes, tall skinny figure.
Inquisitor Elva Bullen
WS BS S T I Wp Sg Nv Ld
75 71 62 65 70 84 89 78 78
Equipment-Shuriken catapult(20 rounds in clip), revolver(1 reload), sabre(sword), average bionic left arm, flak armour 3 on right arm, 4 on left arm and and abdomen, 2 on both legs and 6 on chest.
Skills-Leader, first strike, nerves of steel
Firstly Welcome to the Conclave! :)
Secondly I do like a lot of aspects of the story, though possibly cliched in terms of films and stories etc, family vengeance isn't personally one I have seen much in the Inquisitor universe (well at least not on the conclave much anyway!). Though as I will go into some of it definitely needs bulking out.
It is quite hard to comment on the stats of your character without knowing the power level of your gaming group. Certainly she is much more powerful than almost all character on the conclave and to get some perspective on what conclavers usually use as a benchmark, have a look at this thread:
http://www.the-conclave.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=162.0
Having said that, if you and your mates play at that level then everything is relative so don't worry too much, though it does, I would wager make games less dull when you pass almost all your tests, rather than nerve biting rolls in a life or death situation.
The main problem here is the lack of justification of stats in the story, that is to say she has high Ws and Bs and though you mention her distinguished action does that make her extremely good with both sword and guns? Surely this would require a huge amount of practise? And if she fits this practise in she still has very high Wp and Sg suggesting a tempered mind and intelligence beyond even most accomplished persons. Added to this you have given her skills that may or may not, be applicable as we don't know from the story.
So in my ramble basically what I am saying is that, by conclave standards she is to powerful both in stats and number of skills and the level of her weaponry BUT if that is your groups level thats ok BUT you need to justify where these come from stat and skill wise (less equipment wise) in the backstory far more.
Hope this helps and I look forward to seeing more of you on the 'Clave :)
Rob
Firstly, you seem to imply that your GM is already a member... care to name them?
Secondly, as far as the statline, skills and equipment - well, certainly above "Conclave Standard". Shannow has linked the "baseline" thread already, so I'll include my thoughts.
By my own interpretation of "Conclave Standard", I'd probably lose about 10 points off most of the stats. I'd probably lose a bit more than that off the S & T, as I prefer to stat female characters lower in those areas (unless they're expressly stated as being particularly strong).
I'd also reassess the skills. Heroic, Lightning Reflexes and True Grit are all formidable skills, and while I have nothing against them individually, I wouldn't really use them all in combination.
As far as background...
Not so sure about the inclusion of the Shuriken catapult. In the Imperium, it's not such a great idea to be seen carrying around Eldar weaponry (and it does make me question Inquisitor Freya's viewpoint if she encountered someone with an Eldar weapon, but didn't confiscate it and/or shoot them on sight.) It feels almost like a justification presented to have the weapon for game reasons than because it's interesting background.
Also, six years is a pretty short time scale to pass from regular civilian to full Inquisitor. Not utterly impossible, but most of my backgrounds start with 10 year acolytehoods and up.
Ah yes, good shout Marco! I forgot to mention that I would recommend having a longer training period. Personally I have always envisaged an Inquisitor being inducted in their late forties/early fifties at the earliest, which given the powers of rejuvenant processes would still make them fairly spritely youngsters in the grand scheme of things.
Rob
Thanks for the welcome XD I'm happy to be here!
Thanks for the feedback! I was actually worried about her being over powered, I wasn't 100% sure on what the right number of skills for a leader should be. I talked it over with my GM(O_o) and I've revised my skills to leader, first strike and nerves of steel. And the stat line i rerolled, I was using the regular inquisitor line, but I used the acolyte this time. And I've dropped the caraprace for flak, and the power sword is now a regular sword.
Backstory wise, there was a lot to include(I answered the 20 questions), and I should have mentioned a couple details, such as the campaign against the ruling council of Stygia dragged on for awhile, there was a lot of ground to cover and the terrain was hard to travel on for most veichles, plus the majority of Lady Merith's forces where infantry comprising of the Stygian Royal Guard and the nomads. She lost her arm during another skirmish a few weeks before Merith's men paraded through the streets of Stygia.
And I realize now that I didn't really explain her personality(not to mention looks), which is to me the most important part of the character. She's a cunning tactician and is constantly assessing her situation and possible solutions. She also enjoys the thrill of combat and sometimes gets a bit caught up in it. Though socially she's a proper officer, and acts with dignity and grace. She's very militaristic, she served in the military for a few more years before she was recruited. Appearance wise, she has short, spikey blonde hair, steel blue eyes and is tall and a bit skinny.
For her equipment, it would make more sense if she found the Shuriken after she gained her full rank. Though for how it ended up on the planet, the world used to be a Utopian world in the pre-Imperium years, so its likely it was forgotten there during the fall. How it became a desert is a long story but the human's who came there thrived and eventually cults started to form and things went down from there, likely along the lines nuclear war.
I'll also change the length of her training period.
I think that's alllet me know if I missed something.thanks for your input, i look forward to more! :)
Quote from: Elva on July 06, 2010, 11:21:35 PM
And the stat line i rerolled, I was using the regular inquisitor line, but I used the acolyte this time.
Why roll on either profile? What if what you roll doesn't properly represent the character you have in your head? I'd say, and I think most people would agree, that it's better to just pick the stats that represent your character rather than leave it up to the dice.
Quote from: Kaled on July 07, 2010, 07:24:49 AM
Quote from: Elva on July 06, 2010, 11:21:35 PM
And the stat line i rerolled, I was using the regular inquisitor line, but I used the acolyte this time.
Why roll on either profile? What if what you roll doesn't properly represent the character you have in your head? I'd say, and I think most people would agree, that it's better to just pick the stats that represent your character rather than leave it up to the dice.
That's something I've wanted to try ever since I heard of it. And it makes sense if you think of it, it's a lot more fun and rewarding to create the stats based off of the character, rather than vice versa. I'll check it over with my GM, but I'm sure he'll be okay with it.
Also after reading over some of the other backstories that have been posted, I'm considering rewriting mine, to focus on one or two events, rather than the character's entire life story.
I'd agree that I now can't concieve of rolling stats (and not just in Inquisitor), I like to ponder all the minutae a point or two can give or take away.
Nothing wrong with having a complete life story for your character, but at the start it might be easier to pick out a couple of major events that help define who you think they are - the gaps then leave you space to add those elements that come from playing the character for a game or three or that strike you as a good idea later on.
My own personal bugbear is the Archaeologist background. Beyond the Ad Mech treasure hunters, I cant see the Imperium being at all keen on letting anyone discover that the past may not have been exactly like the current incarnation of the (local/sector/segmentum) propoganda/history. Any archaeologist worth thier salt would be viewed as a arch heretic within 10 minutes of finishing thier first project.
START RANT -
I speak from 10 years experience, the pay is shockingly bad, the work is mostly hard labour, you dont stop when it rains, I never saw a whip/lots of gold and definately never travelled to exotic/mystical locations. Most major archaeological finds are very mundane objects (I personally do find flint interesting). Most field archaeologists are arthritic alcoholics and the academics are asthmatic alcoholics; the spread of social skills can be highly variable. The benefits are plenty of fresh air, and the obvious ones of mixing a lot of young people and booze in the middle of nowhere with very little to do in the evenings (unfortunately you do need to be young for that part). - END RANT
Im willing to admit in an infinite universe, somewhere there are archaeologists who are intelligent, balanced, vaugely fit individuals, conducting cutting edge research and producing interesting finds who are appreciated by society. Less than 0.01% of the buggers though....
Quote from: Flinty on July 08, 2010, 09:49:33 AMBeyond the Ad Mech treasure hunters, I cant see the Imperium being at all keen on letting anyone discover that the past may not have been exactly like the current incarnation of the (local/sector/segmentum) propoganda/history.
Au contraire, the Imperium is very interested in the past, and has many millions of historians and such trying to piece together exactly what some events might have been.
Of course, the story may well get a rewrite, and some of these people might just disappear in the night if they find out the wrong things, but there are enough areas that the Imperium is interested enough in to assign a research teams to them. (Or equally, areas that they're just not concerned about people knowing.)
But anyway, I figure I'll drop this link in here: http://www.cracked.com/funny-138-archaeology/
Sometimes things are glamourised for fiction. We can't pretend that most things are as they're shown in film.
Character wise, I had envisioned Edward and Magnus to be more of the professor type. I did have a rough idea of how they disappeared, though it was more of being in the wrong place at the wrong time rather than finding out something they shouldn't have, even though they sort of did.
I'll just restate the history of the world. It used to be a Utopian world int he pre-Imperium years, however, like the Eldar before them, the people fell to excess and depravity, causing cults to form. They carried out their practices for many years until those who chose not to lower themselves(mainly the leaders, grunt workers and army), decided it was time to end the barbaric practices. The cultists didn't take well to the new regulations and a civil war broke out, leading to a nuclear holocaust rendering the planet uninhabitable for some time until it was resettled hundreds (if not, thousands) of years later.
Edward and Magnus, with their team, discovered an ancient cultist circle(or something along those lines) and accidentiy triggered it, sending them into the warp.
I was thinking maybe in the later stages of the campaign, they'd come back corrupted as antagonists.
Regarding the presence of the shuriken pistol: She has no reason to think it's xenos weaponry- as far as she knows it's just old and wierd, right?
I'd say it makes more sense for her to be an inquisitoral agent or accolyte than a full-ranking inquisitor.
And, I'll back everybody else up here and say that rolling for stats is fairly daft. Just give them what seems right...
I am going to use the conclave standard to redo her stats. Though, going over it now, I'm thinking of redoing her backstory, this time having nothing to do with Eldar. I gave it too much thought where I should have left it blank.I found an interesting article on the Lexicanum about an alien race called the Q'orl http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Q%27orl . I was thinking that she survived an encounter with one of the mind controlling variants, though parts of the alien's conscience were fused to hers when she forced it out of her system. Its a bit rough, but that leaves plenty of room for change as I work on it. I was working on this idea awhile ago, though I can't remember why I let it go. Does it seem plausible?
Hmmmm, an interesting idea. Read Xenology if you can get it, it will give you more info on the Q'Orl (second time in a minute I've recommended that book). As I recall, the Q'Orl control humans by physically inserting control grubs into their head, Khan Singh style...
That would coincide with what I have read, and I'll see what I can do about getting my hands on a copy.