Conclave Governance

[Alyster Wick]

So while this may initially seem more a background piece than a rules piece I am largely getting input on the theory behind how the Daemnos conclave works and see what folks think (is it feasible?) before putting time into creating a more intense set of rules for how players will interact with the Daemnos Conclave Council. Anyway, I'd love some input as I create this since governmental bodies typically work better when multiple points of view are discussed, so let me know what you all think.


Daemnos Conclave Governance
The Daemnos Conclave is run by a council of 10 Inquisitors/Inquisitor Lords and a Grand Councilor who moderates (the Grand Councilor must be an Inquisitor Lord), so 11 in total.

The ten regular seats are broken down into:
4 Ordo Hereticus
3 Ordo Malleus
2 Ordo Xenos
1 At-Large

The terms for general members of the counsel are 20 years (or when they die) and the Grand Councilor's term is for life.

General members of the counsel are voted in by members of the given ordo they represent. The at Large seat is voted on by all Inquisitors in the sector that wish to participate. The breakdown of the seats are reflective of the concerns of the Daemnos sector/the raw percentages of Inquisitors active in each ordo. It also has the side effect of creating some politically interesting situations.

Another Council Member may carry votes for one of their peers (with the proper documentation). A Council Member may also have an Inquisitor Lord or one of their protégés act as proxy (however on Inquisitor Lords may speak during sessions, a protégé may carry votes on a specific subject but may not actively take part in sessions).

The purpose of creating this system is to have a set place where in-game actions can have in-between game effects and to have a narrative that can carry on across campaigns (while a particular campaign may end the Conclave goes on). It also allows for neutral territory for Inquisitors to interact in and an impetus for Inquisitors not to kill each other in the field (they can only kill a fellow Inquisitor if they have been excommunicated by the Conclave, thus they have to be civil to each other in the context of the Conclave no matter what else is happening).

I picture this starting up slowly (mostly as background info on the campaign at first) but as the campaign mounts up the player will begin to interact with the conclave more (based on a dice rolling system and out-of-game stats that I'm still in the process of writing). I'm thinking that there will be a Politics stat, Purity, Street Credit and maybe a few others.

To add to this I am also looking to create cards that players may "purchase" based on victory points they accrue in-game. The cards could help them discover more about the Conclave politics (for instance they can't lobby the Thorian faction if they don't know it exists/who the movers and shakers are in it). There would also be cards that have info on particular characters, allowing them to track leads for future games (info on a cult leader), potential allies that can join them in-game, or even blackmail info (which can be used to convince a Council Member to vote a certain way or brought to the Conclave in order to have them excommunicated if the player is looking to open up a slot and join the council themselves. Of course if they opt for blackmail they'd have to roll and see how the Councilor reacts...).

[InquisitorHeidfeld]

Personally I would avoid formalising the Ordos requirements, the balance can easily be as suggested through the general machinations of the Ordos behind the scenes.

Whether you treat the Ordos as formal divisions within the Inquisition, as secret societies the majority of the Inquisition never finds out about or as semi-secret societies which most believe have no real purpose (akin to the Masons, Buffalo lodges or Stonecutters) but who offer a certain cachet is of course significant...


As to how they work...
The first question is how your players will interact with them, the implication of the name is that they will always meet in closed session so their only contact with the PCs would be socially or through Burreaucrats and intermediaries...

[Alyster Wick]

Personally I would avoid formalising the Ordos requirements, the balance can easily be as suggested through the general machinations of the Ordos behind the scenes.

Whether you treat the Ordos as formal divisions within the Inquisition, as secret societies the majority of the Inquisition never finds out about or as semi-secret societies which most believe have no real purpose (akin to the Masons, Buffalo lodges or Stonecutters) but who offer a certain cachet is of course significant...

I'm open to change the current structure to a certain degree but I was interested in seeing how others view the ordos. In my mind I see the ordos as a way to impose a "more official" system of balance (meaning one that is officially recognized by any Inquisitor, regardless of how "in the know" they are).

I wanted to add an institutional power structure as a sort of "first level" of politics. I did kind of anticipate that others (who see the ordos as looser rather than more formalized groups) may see this as problematic. I'm not married to the concept of the ordos serving this purpose but if anyone has another suggestion on how to replicate this initial level of organization to serve as a starting place for politicking that would be great.

The way I've been talking about this has been a little abstract so let me go into how I see this playing out a bit more:

The initial breakdown of who has what number of delegates is made to create a major power player (the Hereticus) who can dominate the council if they keep their members in a row. (this also has the effect of creating an additional source of intrigue/power outside of the council as there may be a "man behind the scenes" in the Hereticus that avoids the publicity of being on the council [well, publicity within Inquisitorial circles] but holds sway over the largest share of votes and thus is the effective leader in the region).

To throw out a hypothetical (since I haven't decided exactly how the breakdown of council members will be), the makeup of the council could be:

5 Hereticus (4 standard + 1 at-large)
4 Malleus (3 standard + Grand Councilor)
2 Xenos

So a unified Hereticus would present an almost unstoppable force unless the Malleus and Xenos band together (of course the Grand Councilor can throw things off potentially with procedural chicanery) when it comes to "more political" votes. This could set a backdrop where there is an internal conspiracy to kill the long-serving Xenos Grand Councilor by a more radical faction within the Hereticus so that they can consolidate power and forge a super-majority (as an example).

Again, this would just serve as the initial level. My eventual plan is to create "Information Cards" which each player will collect as the campaign progresses. These will enable to players to effect other groups within the council that don't abide by the specific ordo classifications (for example, factions such as the Thorians or any of various fraternal orders). More on that below...

As to how they work...
The first question is how your players will interact with them, the implication of the name is that they will always meet in closed session so their only contact with the PCs would be socially or through Bureaucrats and intermediaries...

Great question. I hadn't thought too far through on the specifics of whether or not there were "closed meetings." Based on some of the preliminary stuff I wrote I had left the door open for non-member to attend (by mentioning how proxies worked, more specifically a Lord Inquisitor's ability to speak while serving as proxy).

I don't think meetings need to be closed, only closed to non-Inquisitors (barring special circumstances) unless there is a call for a closed session (perhaps regarding the excommunication of a member or another situation involving more discretion). I like the idea of only Inquisitor Lords having standing to speak (which essentially means non-member non-lords need a "sponsor" [someone with standing willing to carry their water since they can't be directly recognized] in order to have any input once proceedings actually begin).

As far as how they'd interact in game terms, I'm planning to have models for most Council Members so they could make an appearance in-game. They can also appear as individuals with the aforementioned "Information Cards" in various forms. One information card may give a relevant contact that is close to a certain council member and thus give the player more sway over that vote. Another may have a bit of information suitable for blackmail giving the player the opportunity to try and blackmail the member for their vote or possibly get them excommunicated and install their own puppet (or themselves) on the council.

The Council Members could also appear as allies that are never on the board. Perhaps an investigation by a player unveils a thread connected to a conspiracy which a Council Member is particularly interested in. If the player successfully completes a mission and gets a piece of information for a Council Member then they gain a powerful ally (and perhaps the "favor" they were asked to do was to recover evidence linking the Member to an Istvanian plot which puts the player in a very interesting situation, do you give it back and gain an ally or keep it for a rainy day?).

So that is a little on the abstract/hypothetical side. I am interested to get some input on the mechanics of taking a vote. I have been going back and forth on a couple different ways but I think I'm settling on the following:

A roll is made for the vote of each member. Players may take a roll before the vote roll is taken to try and add a modifier to the Council Member's vote. The player will have a base "Persuasion Characteristic" of 50 (this will be different for different players). So unmodified they would roll a d100 and let's say they roll a 23 (passing by 27 points). They would then be able to apply that to the roll made by the GM for the Council Member's vote (this gets interesting when two players are pushing for a different result).

Of course there are additional modifiers that help the players. If they are in the same Ordo as the member they are seeking to influence they would gain a +10% to their roll. If they got an information card letting them know that the member is a secret member of an Istvanian sect and they took actions to endear themselves to the sect they may gain a +5%. Additionally perhaps both came out of the Knights of the Inquisition before being taken as an acolyte, giving them an additional +15% for a total of +30% to their roll.

However another player has an espionage information card on the same Council Member giving him +25% sway over the member along with information cards (and successful missions) giving him sway over an Inquisitor Lord with standing to speak during the meeting in question (and potentially bring up excommunication charges) which adds +15% (knowing that you could be immediately exposed for not voting a certain way makes it all the more nerve wracking) thus having a +40% to their roll.

Those stats were just thrown together off the top of my head but I do envision blackmail being more effective in the short term while giving you an enemy in the long term (who sent that Vindicare out that showed up in the last scenario and who let the free-booting ork into our transport?).

Anyway, that's a brief overview of how I see it working both in-scenario and during votes (which I supposed could be a scenario in and of themselves). So, what do you all think?

[Dolnikan]

The general idea is very interesting but to be honest I think it is perhaps a bit limiting, with putting all the political options in this conclave. Of course it is possible to do politics on other levels as well but I fear that that will lead to the intricate rules becoming superflous.

I also wonder about how the conclave members stand in relation to their position. Do they spend a lot of their time on the conclave or is it more of a smaller thing. How often do they meet?

[InquisitorHeidfeld]

To throw out a hypothetical (since I haven't decided exactly how the breakdown of council members will be), the makeup of the council could be:

5 Hereticus (4 standard + 1 at-large)
4 Malleus (3 standard + Grand Councilor)
2 Xenos

This could easily be the case without it being a formal arrangement - given the inertia of tradition it could easily have been so for hundreds (if not thousands) of years without a formalisation.
The Hereticus always get half the council because of their influence. They have enough people with enough power to cover that bredth. The Malleus are politically weaker but centuries ago a Malleus, having landed the position of Grand Councilor, was able to establish very strong ties with the Ordo Malleus Terra and through them to the High Inquisitor himself - through the centuries the Grand Councilor has always had a prodigy who he's introduced to all of his contacts and that prodigy has always been Malleus. The power that individual lends the council is such that he can easily manoeuvre himself into the Grand Councilor's seat, the Hereticus tend not to object because of their overall strength and the Xenos are too weak to prevent it...

One of the big factors with leaving it informal is that your players perhaps have the chance to change it. One of the Hereticus councilors is killed in action, if it's formalised then he will be replaced with an Hereticus whereas if it's informal the players could perhaps change the balance of the council, maybe they could get a Xenos in there with the right information applied in the right way...

[Mordenkenain]

5 Hereticus (4 standard + 1 at-large)
4 Malleus (3 standard + Grand Councilor)
2 Xenos

this is all well and good but it doesn't take into account the fact that many powerful Inquisitor Lords are not affiliated with any one of the Ordos, and could quite conceivably wield much more considerable political clout

[InquisitorHeidfeld]

Except that he's already stated that the Ordo's are formal divisions of the Inquisition in his games.

My own feeling is that most are unaffiliated (heck, I've deleted the Hereticus entirely as that's the job all inquisitors should be doing, no need for a secret society there...) but if we have formal divisions which everyone is a part of...

Regardless of the fluff we've got a system which is aiming to get players roleplaying more and tournamenting less - which can't be a bad thing IMHO.

[MarcoSkoll]

Heck, I've deleted the Hereticus entirely as that's the job all inquisitors should be doing, no need for a secret society there...

But the Ordos aren't a secret society (The Malleus are something of a secretive society, but hardly secret to those within the Inquisition). It's an informal alliance, structure and provides a resource pool to share amongst those within the Ordo. An unaligned Inquisitor is inevitably less powerful than one with the support an Ordo can offer.

And as far as "That's the job all Inquisitors should be doing", the Hereticus are the largest and "primary" wing of the Inquisition.

Also, as an honest criticism, while I appreciate we all have our own particular views of the 40k universe and I'll be the first to admit I don't think all of the canon is sensible (and frequently ignore Mat Ward's "I've never read the old fluff" retcons), your contribution to many (if not most) background threads boils down to "The canon is silly, this is how you should do it" - not exactly the most helpful stance for discussion.

The Imperium is a backwards and bureaucratic system. It's MEANT to be silly.

[Alyster Wick]

Okay guys, thanks for the feedback!

Listening to the arguments come out I've decided to keep what I had originally but it really helped me to flesh out some of the reasoning behind it. Marco's post helped me put my finger on exactly what I was going for by formalizing the Ordo structure within the Council: the feeling of bureaucracy.

Background:

In the Daemnos Sector (because I believe it can and should change place to place as dictated by the GM/gaming group) the Ordos shored up long ago to consolidate power. While a heavily populated region, Daemnos is rather remote from the Imperium as the warp tides leading out to it flow with a mercurial fickleness that few Navigator's dare to travel.

Far from the support of the Imperium at large the Inquisition entered a time of paranoia as brother turned on brother in an attempt to weed out an imagined evil precipitated by the dark forces of Chaos. Culminating in the first Haestian insurrection the Daemnos Sector was almost sent into the throws of anarchy and ruin while the forgeworld of Haestia turned their guns inward and a shattered Inquisition struggled to react to the daemonic incursion.

After that time the Ordos tightened their ranks around central figures to lead them as the Lords Ordained: The Watcher as Lord Malleus, the White Lady as Lord Hereticus and Heorodus Sentinel as Lord Xenos. These three Inquisitors formed a new Conclave around a Council that could both keep watch over the Sector but also balance its tempers. Electing **FILE REDACTED** as their first Grand Councilor they ushered in a new time of peace and expansion in the sector.

As the sector grew the center seemed to purify and offer a solid base. Stable and prosperous throughout the centuries the Council kept a steady hand through 3 more great times of tumult (named after the Haestian Insurrection) at the empires' edge, each time keeping back the forces of Chaos.

While war has come upon the sector it has been thousands of years since it touch Daemnos's center. In this time of relative piece the Ordos have fell into pettiness and vanity. Political schemes began to hatch as each Lord Ordained vied for supremacy and shadowy organizations worked in darkness to place their own champions on the Council.

Temporarily shored up by the ferocity of the 5th Haestian Insurrection there is but a veil of security that has settled over the Daemnos Conclave.

Reasoning:

So this allows me an explanation for structure I want along with some decent background for the players. There are elements of a slow moving bureaucracy that (at least once upon a time) served a noble purpose with enough depth for them to jump in and take sides. More importantly I've set to work creating more detailed factions that will exist within the Inquisition and offer multiple levels of intrigue. Some are diametrically opposed while others are not mutually exclusive.

Anyway, I know this is the rules section but I wanted to get this background out there for some context before working really hard on a system. I know I went over it loosely earlier but the factions listed below will be the basis of some of the Information Cards mentioned in my earlier post. While characters may belong to one or more of these factions inherently there are certainly some they won't know or others they won't be as familiar with (it's a big sector). Some of these cards will offer instant benefits while others will give players a starting point from which to launch an investigation (I'm thinking that rather than take an Information card in exchange for victory points at the end of a scenario they can opt to get further info on an existing card if it makes sense).

Something else I'm toying with while I have all these other pokers in the fire is to make a random event table that can be rolled on between scenarios. It can have fun things on it like, "a body is found with it's face carved off and the words 'the faceless are witness' carved on it," "an Imperial Deecreist is parked outside the White Ship with orders to search it" or "Council Member X got assassinated!"

That would give fun excuses for the Council to hold votes or opportunities for the players to move up themselves. I could also add fun things in like "**roll for council member** has learned **roll for player**'s recent actions may foil their complex plot. A temple assassin has been dispatched to 'take care' of them during their next game." At this point that'd just be there to add a little fun for me.

Anyway, more details on the factions below (if pieces above didn't make sense it's probably because the first thing I wrote up were these factions).

Factions –

The Legion of Brick and Mortar: Not technically an Inquisitorial organization, the Legion of Brick and Mortar are a cult highly influenced by the Ecclisiasary which preaches vigilance to defend against the mutant, the witch and the alien. With righteous fervor the faithful go forth to dutifully record signs of heresy in the manufactorums, streets and domiciles of the Imperium. In the massive Veride Cathedrals they flood the Confession Cells to speak the sins they've witnessed to sanctioned scriveners. Amongst the highest echelons of the Legion sit agents of the holy Ordos keeping watch for their masters.

Holocucians: A small but devoted group, the Holocucians work in the shadows of the Imperium seeking to trigger the return of the Emperor. They believe that he will return when the Imperium reaches the pinnacle of tumult to purge the impurities from man. Those practicing sorcery, offering aid to xenos scum or mutants unwilling to offer their life as penance will be whipped clean from the universe. The Holocucians can be found seeking arcane methods to return the Emperor's spirit to this plane while testing humanity so that through adversity the righteous may thrive while the impure show their true colors.

Knights of the Inquisition: Only those of pure lineage that show great promise through service to the Imperium may be taken to the great shrine of the Watcher upon Estellos Prime. There they are trained to reach the peak of their martial excellence while studying the ways in which the daemonic make war. They are dispatched as warrior-commanders to offer support and protection to those Inquisitors recognized as holy by the Council of the Knights Supreme. It is a fortunate Inquisitor who finds a Knight willing to give up his life of service to become their acolyte. Those Knights that do eventually reach the rank of Inquisitor are generals without equal wielding blades as keen as their minds.

The Faceless: When the trail of a saboteur runs cold or the arbites find their fellows strung up in the bowels of a hive there is a faint whisper left in the air and nothing more: we are the Faceless. Impossible attacks as brutal as they are precise, psychers abducted without leaving a spectral trail, these are the deeds of the Faceless. Despite the charges of heresy for their mere utterance rumors persist that the Inquisition may have a hand in these deeds.

Sentinel's Pyre: Named for the Blessed Saint Heorodus Sentinel, the psychers of Sentinel's Pyre are Inquisitors who act as beacon shining the Emperor's light. They believe that psychers are humanity's future and the blessed offspring of our Father on Terra. Those not connected to the warp are untouched by the Emperor and inherently inferior. While an Inquisitor may allow one of the masses to act as their familiar they will never view a non-psycher as equal to themselves and they view sorcerers or traitorous witches with the utmost distain.

Battle Bound: Inquisitors who have fought on the field of battle together during the 5th Haestian Insurrection form a close bond that few can understand. Braving storms of blood to battle the dark forces of the Iron Lords would leave most survivors with their sanity in ruins. Those who lived through it and thrived know the mettle of the others and would easily trust them with their lives. 

The Blessed Daemnatica: Made up of high ranking Ecclesiastarchs, Inquisitors and Terran Missionaries the Blessed Daemnatica maintains the White Ship orbital station circling Estellos Prime. From this vast complex they go out in search of the blessed that rise from the ashes of war. Dedicated to the location and preservation of Imperial Saints there are countless shrines to the blessed as they wait for their remains and their stories to be examined by the Angelus. Entrance to the White Ship is highly controlled and more than once standoffs have occurred involving Black Ships looking for their cargo or Mechanicus fleets demanding the right to examine the ancient structure. Only the intervention of the Knights of the Inquisition has prevented war upon its ebony surface.

Guild Mechanica: After the first Haestian Insurrection the Guild Mechanica was formed out of the treaty between the Daemnos Conclave, the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Officio Assosinorum. A full half continent was swept under a tide of blood and molten steel after a pocket of Dark Mechanicus called war upon Haestia's surface. Too important to destroy but too tainted to completely purge the Haestian Fabricator General was shunned by the Lords of Mars and forced to cede some of his control. Over the millennia this Guild has kept the peace upon Haestia with an uneasy alliance governing and watching for signs of heresy. While internally fragile, those outside the Guild chuckle at the incestuous aesthetic taken on by members forces to augment their bodies to survive the harsh smog and searing heat required to live on Haestia.