Wiilliam 'Wicked Willie' Hoffman

[Brother_Brimstone]

And now for the first of zophar's entoruage - the demolitions specialist. All comments/criticisms appreciated. If you don't care to read the background, just commenting on the stats etc.. would really help.

William 'Wicked Willie Hoffman'

‘Wicked Willie’, as he is called by those who know him, had a fairly inconspicuous start in life. Born in the Underhive of a hive city on Charnea II, a hive world, Willie was always ahead of his peers in terms of intellect. As his friends committed acts of petty vandalism, Willie planned which parts of his surrounding buildings would cause the whole thing to fall down. As his friends picked up their first stub pistols, Willie was already customising his trusty ‘Short, Sharp, Shock’ shotgun. When his friends began to join the gangs of the underhive, Willie was thinking politically, keeping out of everyone’s way while trying to find methods of playing the gangs off against each other for his own amusement.

It could be said that Willie was a product of his environment – a sensitive intellectual born in a wretched pit of scum and villainy, forced, in despair, to turn his skills towards underhanded methods of survival rather than becoming an engineer or architect, as was clearly his destiny were he only to be born in better circumstances. As a result of this, Willie has a large amount of repressed rage. Rage at himself, for not being able to achieve his potential, rage at his friends, for failing to understand the true value of a fine mind and rage at the Imperium, for allowing there to be people born who had no chance of becoming anything in life beyond another faceless drone. Willie’s rage manifested itself as a calm, calculating hatred. Willie could blow up a bar filled with civilians and not flinch. Not that he would, of course, not without reason. There would be no sense in risking being caught – not before Willie could find how he could best ensure that he brought his entire wretched hive to its knees.

Willie was more than ‘good’ with mechanical objects, in fact, he was more than a genius. Machinery ‘spoke’ to Willie, in a way which he felt no other human could understand. When Willie held a gun in his hands, he just knew how it worked – he didn’t even have to strip it. When Willie was making something, he just knew what to put where – he didn’t have to double check. In fact, Willie was sure that sometimes, he could fix or break equipment without even having to touch it. Willie made his living as a freelance gunsmith and arms dealer; selling, modifying and repairing guns for local gangs. He knew he could afford to be unaligned – no gang wanted to kill Willie, because no gang wanted to lose his services.

Willie’s life changed the day that the little guy in the gasmask came to his part of the underhive. He happened across a bar in which there seemed to be some sort of political speech occurring. There was a loud, enchanting, beguiling voice washing out across the crowd, and when it reached Willie’s ears, it enticed him. Willie joined the back of the crowd and he heard the man’s words – something reassuring, yet emboldening about them. The man was right, he had toiled for the Imperium’s gain for too long! He was sick of being stuck in a position from which he could never escape! It was time for change! Change in the name of the people! The ivory tower intellectuals and aristocrats no longer deserved to rule him and his fellow workers! The Imperium must fall! The men in the bar – mostly gangers or labourers were on the verge of riot, and this strange, masked man was ready to push them over the precipice. As soon as the man was there, he was not, and the bar began to erupt in shouting, pushing and fighting. Being near the door, Willie was about to leave, when he saw the masked man approaching, clearly intending to leave the bar. He was about to ask the masked man why he wasn’t going to stick around and see his handiwork when he saw the size of the sword the man was carrying and thought otherwise. Instead, he decided to ask the man what his plans were to free him and his fellow underhivers from this ‘Imperial oppression’. The man said that they needed to collapse the spire on the ‘privileged’ and ensure that the enforcers could no longer ‘suppress the people’s decision’.

Willie saw his chance to live his wildest dream. Willie could finally have his revenge. Willie told the man of his ambition, and his talents, and all the while the man stood there, unmoving in his gas mask and great coat, not an inch of skin showing. The man beckoned for Willie to follow, and Willie felt compelled to do so. He followed the man down some side streets and back alleys, until they came to what looked like a deserted building. The man entered and Willie followed. Inside the room they entered there were some utilities for living – a hammock to sleep in, an old industrial oil drum in which burned a fire – standard squatter fare. The man went over to a dark, shadowy corner of the room and retrieved a gun almost as big as he. Wilie knew from the first glance that it was a military issue autogun, fitted with a telescopic scope, laser sight, silencer and stock. It was a fine piece of equipment, and one which any ganger in the underhive would literally kill for. The man said that Willie had bragged about his ability with guns, and now it was time to put his arrogance to the test. Willie had, rather unashamedly boasted ‘I can make any gun do anything I want’, and the man said that he now needed to know whether that was true or whether Willie was just another faker – a wannabe with a mouth but no brain. Willie expected the man to hand him the gun, so that he could field strip it, or some such task, so it was more than a little of a shock when the man levelled the autogun at Willie’s head. ‘Now’ the man said ‘ask my gun, very nicely, to jam. Well, I say ask it nicely, ask it however you want, but you better ask it in a way it likes.’ Willie panicked, knowing that soon his brains would be painting one of the room’s bare ferrocrete walls. He focused on the gun, and focused harder than he had ever focused on anything in his life. He wqilled the gun to jam, begged it to jam. The man pulled the trigger. There was a click, but Willie felt surprisingly alive. ‘Congratulations,’ said the man. ’You’re an asset to the cause’. From thereon in the man, who told Willie to call him Sarthuul explained that there were certain people who could just ‘do things’ with their minds, and that he had hope that Willie was one of those who could ‘talk to machinery’. He said that, with Willie’s help, the two of them could bring the hive to its knees. Everything after that, as they say, was history.

Wicked Willie has earned his place by Sarthuul’s side by proving repeated usefulness and loyalty to the cause of the destruction of the Imperium. Wicked Willie acts as Sarthuul’s weapon smith and demolitions expert, scout, technician and any other role which he is able to fulfil. Wicked Willie often uses homemade explosives to destroy structures, demolitions being not only his area of expertise, but also his favourite past time. However, Wicked Willie also carries with him a variety of pistols as well as his ‘Short Sharp Shock’ sawnoff shotgun. Under Sarthuul’s guidance, Wicked Willie has learned a greater mastery of his power to manipulate machinery, and often uses his abilities to great effect, such as opening mechanical locks when a stealthy approach is being used. Sarthuul sees Willie as useful, and extremely convenient, finding it worth his while to bring Willie on his travels with him, and Willie sees Sarthuul as his mentor and master, allowing Willie to help him achieve both of their ends. When travelling with the Alpha Legion, Willie spends most of his time keeping out of the marine’s way, although he has proved himself useful to them, helping them fix weaponry and power armour time and again. The members of the Alpha Legion who provide Sarthuul’s transport ultimately see Willie as a pet or mascot – of mild value, but nothing they can’t afford to lose if need be.

William ‘Wicked Willie’ Hoffman

WS: 50
BS: 52
S: 54
T: 47
I: 51 - EDITED
Wp: 71
Sg: 74
Nv: 42
Ld: 53


Equipment

Short, Sharp, Shock (double barrelled, sawnoff shotgun), two stubbers (one loaded with dumdum rounds, one loaded with manstopper rounds), home made explosives (3 x Molotov cocktails (firebombs from the Fabian article), 3 x pipebombs (as frag grenades), 3 x smoke grenades, 3 x choke grenades, 3 x demolitions charges, 3 x photon flash grenades), flak armour on all locations except head and arms.

Abilities

Booby traps – being both underhanded, and a dab hand with the use/construction/modification of any offensive devise, Willie loves leaving ‘hidden presents’ for his enemies to find.

Psychic – machine empathy – Wicked Willie is defined by his ability to ‘talk’ to machinery, and it is certainly the only reason he is alive today. Willie started thinking he was merely ‘very good’ with machinery, but under Sarthuul’s guidance, he has managed to develop his abilities.

Demolitions Specialist – Wicked Willie makes his own explosives from scratch, and has had much experience with them. If Wicked Willie fails to throw a grenade, he may have one retry – he must accept the second result.

[Flinty]

I like it  - nicely written, and witty, backstory, if a....little generic perhaps; isnt every revolutionary a frustrated genius who would'a done good if not ground down by social injustice? Apart from that, like the short guy stuff and the recruitment storyline.

Stats - I like low stats, but I would say his initiative is a tad low - isnt he going to spend a fair bit of time 'pondering things' ? But then maybe that fits.
Sg I assume reflects his inherant, natural smarts and mechanical abilities...humm, not sure.
Willpower sounds fine for a subversive bomber, strength of his convictions and all that, and I suppose his nerve shows he has a healthy self-preservation streak? Nice.
WS - practice more if he's chucking those risky action bombs about.
BS - fine, its not as though he spends time on a public range is it?

Looks good to me.

[Brother_Brimstone]

Thank you for your comments. While I agree that the character is generic in basic concept, at the risk of sounding pretenious, he is meant to be. The point of Wicked Willie is that he isn't really a 'charcter', by the standards of Inquisitor. He isn't big or important, he can't single-handedly make decisions which will effect entire planets - he is one face amongst trillions (if not more). I should probably explain.

Zophar/Sarthuul is not the most Inquisitor friendly character - truth be told, and i'm creating and playing him as a sort of 'labour of love' for the concept. He does not and cannot have acolytes, or commandeered troops, and he has no real reason to keep anyone with him unless they are unusual or exceptional. Zophar travels from planet to planet, inciting riots and destruction - with each new planet he finds new minions, natives to the planet who can help him acheive his ends. Once a rebellion or uprising gains speed, he can leave a planet for the alpha legion to mop up, and has no real reason for bringing anyone off planet with him. The only reason I could think of for Zophar having any long-time companions was if they were in some way special, and that is Willie's defining concept. He is a 'bog standard' genius held back by social conditions, there would be a handful on every planet Zophar visits - it's a generic concept because I believe that in the 40k 'verse its not an unusual occurence.

The one saving grace that Willie has, the one thing that draws him beyond his 'generic' peers is his psychic ability. I draw attention to Willie's very 'ordinariness' in the story when I say that Zophar/Sarthuul 'needed to know whether that was true or whether Willie was just another faker'  - another - there are thousands like Willie but who simply lack his psychic power. That one psychic power is why Willie wasn't just another body on the pile, and it's also the only justification I could find for why Sarthuul would want to drag Willie around with him. As a result, expect the next character to be an untapped psyker too - because thats the only reason Sarthuul could possibly have for keeping a human with him fro an extended period (and thus the only reason I can have for making a character with a model, stats etc...).

Hope that makes sense, and I hope I didn't present myself as trying to 'shrug off' the 'generic' comment, which I find an absolutely fair comment, I was just trying to explain perhaps WHY I did it how I did (and frankly any excuse to set me off about the way I try to portray my characters is more than enough! I love designing characters and discussing characterisation).

Thank you once again for your input, and I shall also look to the Initiative as you suggested.

[Flinty]

No, now you explained it, it makes sense - and I like him even more!

Its nice to see an 'ordinary' individual as a retinue member; Willie has just enough to mark him out as interesting and not just cannon-fodder, but is not some, dare I sat it, run of the mill highly trained Inquisitorial kill team protegee (ok, an exageration, but...) After all, who could an Inquisitor meet on any planet in any location but a memeber of the vast, teeming masses.

[Inquisitor Cade]

Although how 'ordinary' can a psyker be?

a wretched pit of scum and villainy

No no no, Obi Wan's quote is a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

helping them fix weaponry and power armour time and again.

A mechanical genius he might be, but power armour is so old and advanced a technology that it would be alien to him. Bolters maybe, but I don't believe he could help with power armour, or if the owner would let him try.

Given his customising of his guns, I'd take a look at Marco Skoll's revised Inquisitor armoury to find some more tailored weapons. I'd suggest he could modify up his very own dense shot shells, perpetrator slugs and perhaps even a few explosive rounds.
For his pistol I'd suggest a heavy duty stubber or perhaps a burst fire sub machine pistol with manstoppers or cutters, and perhaps a PDW pistol with armour piercing bullets.
On the subject of his guns, a few reloads would be wanted, especially for the shotgun.

He has a lot of grenades, and though most could fit into a bag, demo charges are big, military issue, things. I'd scale the pipe bombs up to somewhere between frags and demo charges and take a couple more instead. I think photon flash grenades would need materials beyond home made resources to make.

[Brother_Brimstone]

Ah, you got me, and hive would have worked better to, because it actually is called a hive. I'm rather ashamed now... Well, you spotted one reference, although there are a couple more (not to star wars, just general references I like to make).

As for the power armour, I didn't mean he'd tinker with it, but he has machine empathy - i was working under the assumption he could 'appease the armour's machine spirits' when it malfunctions etc... If this is still inaccurate then fair enough, I just sort of assumed that because in-game you can use machine empathy to shut down power armour, in fluff you could use it to repair it.

As to the point of how 'ordinary' a psyker can be, that's my very point. His psychic powers are what stop hm from being ordinary,. which he would otherwise be. That's the significance of his psychic powers saving his life in the fluff - it was meant to infer that if he weren't psychic, he'd be dead. Being a genius is 'ordinary' to a greater degree in 40k because there are SO many of them - if you think how many people there are on our planet alone, and then you scale that up to the number of planets in 40k, and the dense population of hive worlds, being a genius alone is not enough. You need something more. For Willie, this is his psychic power. That's the only non-ordinary thing about him!

Finally as far as the guns go, I haven't really looked into the advanced armoury, but shall do so to investigate upgrades. As for the demo charges, I think you are probably right - they are rather bigger than nades, so I shall do as you say. I had assumed photon flash grenades were a 40k equivalent of flashband grenades, which are created using aluminium or magnesium and ammonium pechlorate or potassium pechlorate. None of these chemicals are particularly rare, potassium pechlorate being used as propellent or in sparklers, magnesium being cheap and common, aluminium being common etc... However, I don't know how the grenades are made once you have these chemicals, not personally being a demolitions expert, but consideriong the chemicals are available, I would have though a demolitions expert and genius would be able to work it out - perhaps I am wrong.

Thank you for your comments.