New Idea for a Xeno

[Elva]

I was wasting my time online when I came across a picture for a sculpture of Christopher Johnson and his son while looking up information on when District 9's sequel(or prequel) will come out(not for another year at least sadly). Anywho, I remembered my love for that movie and the prawn(lets see the Na'vi take them on and win with their nature hacks). My non-40k sciencefiction opinions aside, I got the idea to take up sketching the aliens again, which lead me to pull the idea from the back of my mind to sculpt one and use him in Inquisitor(Elva could get away with that slightly better than with a Dark Eldar). I've got a tonne of unexpected free time on my hands now, and this could keep me from going too stir-crazy.

I'm posting this here because I want to see if there are any problems I haven't foreseen or things I should keep in mind(specifically for the backstory, but modeling tips would be nice too even if they are out place).

I think this just might be the Muse I've been looking for.

[DapperAnarchist]

Read the Kashrak the Stalker article, somewhere in the Skoll Archive. That should give you some good information. Also the article on Alien Generation, and there's some stuff in the entry for Desperado characters in the LRB.

[Molotov]

I've got Inquisitor Hoth making use of this guy. I went to the extent of giving him an Inquisitorial sigil on his scabbard (and I was going to give him a purity seal, too) to show that he's been "sanctioned" by the Inquisitor in question. Obviously it's impossible to be sanctioned by the Inquisition as a whole, as the Inquisition is too fractured an organisation.

Obviously, an Inquisitor could only use such a servant in certain situations - I would think that they would be very aware what the consequences could be if they were caught consorting with aliens!

[Myriad]

Xenos.  They're scum, untrustworthy, inferior, etc. (If my neighbours were orks I might be a bit insular I guess).  The imperium does deal with them on occasion, however.  Rogue traders in particular can trade with them, and the employment of mercenaries is an option toleratedwhen expedient (or desperate).  Inquisitors are also able to get away with stuff your average citizen could not, such as demonhosts and the destruction of entire worlds.

It is often implied that there are quite a few 'minor' races hanging on in the vastness of the imperium, so if you want to make your own xenos, and it's a cool model, this is good.  You do need a bit of backstory justifying why this xenos is working with the inquisitor, but there's plenty of scope for that.

[Alyster Wick]

Totally acceptable, go nuts!  I'll just say that it can be a bit trickier than expected to make a fresh xenos.  The balance between novelty and absurdity can be hard to straddle (see my ancient article on the Hdvari as an example of a concept gone amok.  Shortly after I wrote it and started building the model the entire concept got old and I moved on to the next thing).

Anyway, the prawns are great and characterful creates.  Especially if you're sculpting one from scratch I'd say go nut, just keep a few fun and characterful rules in your back pocket as you're putting the thing together to keep it distinct.  It's a crying shame to field a unique looking xenos that functions like any old henchmen.  Likewise it's annoying as all get out to put your creature on the board and realize it's game-breakingly complicated.

Either way, looking forward to seeing it!

[Elva]

So far he's coming at a snail's pace. I've managed to do one leg half-ways done on account of the skeleton base(insert exoskeleton joke here) constantly falling apart. I'll take a look at him later today and see how what I can do. Right now it looks like he's going to be armed with a multi-laser, as I couldn't find a bolter and the rest of my weapon bitz consist of 90% las guns, which I don't want to go overboard with in my warband(though with Elva I can see it being mandatory ).

And on a side note I've decided to not have Enforcer Church in the warband, mostly due to the fact that I've had to deal too many people like him recently. This bears relevance to this thread because Church was mentioned in Kaede's backstory a couple of times, so I am going to mention how he died in the Prawn's backstory(planning on hinting that Elva got a bit too annoyed with his "lawful stupidity" and the rest is kind of obvious)

[MarcoSkoll]

Hmm. Not sure about the whole "killed off" approach. It's all too common that when a character isn't wanted any more they cop it somehow.

In Inquisitor, there are a wide range of options:
- Their secondment was only temporary. Give them a mindscrub so they don't remember any important secrets, then get them sent home.
- They get reassigned. Perhaps another Inquisitor had a use for them, or there was some other role they could serve (leading a team of "acolytes" a la Dark Heresy).

These are good for if you wish to bring the character back later on (although you don't have to, of course - it just leaves the option more open). But if you have to get rid of them more permanently:
- Insanity! They saw something that shouldn't be, and their mind broke. It's the padded cell from now on.
- They took some injury that even bionics and surgery could do almost nothing for. Brain damage, a cursed injury that reduces any replacement to dust, etc.

And if you are going to kill them, there's more than just "I got fed up with them".
- A heroic end is always possible, saving someone (or someones) else at the cost of their own life.
- Or a hopelessly pointless one, if you prefer your stories depressing. He lost his life in the process of trying to save a small child. Unfortunately, he threw that small child in front of a high speed train.
- Possessed by a powerful telepath/daemon, and in attempts to restrain them, they were killed.

Personally, for the more moral Inquisitors who decide that someone isn't to their liking or has served their time, I like to think of "mindscrub and send them back" as the preferred option.
Sure, they'll have nightmares of fanged maws that leer out of the shadows, or wake up screaming about something they can't see but which is always there, but that's better than rotting six feet underground in an unmarked grave on a planet half a sector from where they were born. Probably.

[DapperAnarchist]

Insanity can be a good one for having a character prompt new background stuff - perhaps their insanity is that of a prophet, and if you can interpret their ramblings, you can predict the future... if they are telling the truth.

Like Dalek Caan, basically.

[Elva]

The thing is, its not out of Elva's character. If he was proving more trouble than he was worth(meaning annoying her more than he was taking bullets) then he was not worth the time and effort, even to brainwash. It wouldn't have been a Commissar style disciplinary execution, more of a stray shot that came from her direction and happened to drop him. There could also be a more practical purpose such as the fact that his optimistic yet naive sense of justice would have led him to conflict with Elva who is used to the ends justifying the means(there isn't much of a practical chance for justice or law to be effective on the battlefield).

Such a situation would have been her having to kill a helpless child for the sake of her investigation(this is purely hypothetical and an extreme scenario), in that case Church would openly defy her orders and/or be belligerent. Seeing him as compromising her task, she wouldn't have much choice but to do away with him, however she would do it her version of honorably(meaning shooting him in the back while he did his job). Not to say that specific scenario would happen, but something following similar patterns would eventually occur.

Though in the end this is merely me trying to justify not wanting to have to deal with that kind of personality more than I have to(too many real life encounters in a short period of time) and a slight ventilation for that frustration.

[MarcoSkoll]

The thing is, its not out of Elva's character.

Hmm. You described her as "cocky and easy going" which doesn't make me think of the kind of sociopath who would shoot a comrade in the back because they're being a nuisance.

The other question is whether it is in Church's character to get in the way of an Inquisitor. Having read the background you've offered, I wasn't struck by him as "Lawful stupid". To quote your IC thread and Kaede's background:

"That," Church said. "Is Elva Bullen. Pray to the Emperor that he will forgive you for your sins. For you just got in the way of his Valkyrie."

Kaede has become one of Elva's most reliable charges, next to Enforcer Church.

Someone who describes their Inquisitor like that and who is described as one of Elva's most reliable underlings - well, that doesn't sound like a person who's going to spend their time pissing off their boss to me.

If that's genuinely the way you envision these characters, then you've not really managed to put it down in writing.

[Elva]

Looking back now I do see your point, however my image of him must have changed more than I thought(same goes for Elva a bit).

Elva is easy going and cocky, however I guess I wasn't explicit enough with my image of her(which I'm getting better at with practice), but she does takes her job seriously and if its unnecessarily compromised, then she'd do what was necessary for the greater good so to speak. The Stygians weren't the kind to take matters to a commissar, if there was a problem they dealt with it. The only reason why Elva didn't end up with a las blast in her back was because when she did do well, she did well enough on a regular enough basis to warrant putting up with her poor decision making at times.

Plus she'd seen enough of battlefield justice to be a bit displeased to see someone with such lofty ideals.

On reflection I'd guess my ideas of the characters warped a bit more than I'd expected, so I'll see what I can do with some revising/editing when I feel up to it.