Kron's Inq28 Log

[KrautScientist]

@ Marco: I'll keep this brief, so we don't derail the thread:

1. I love realism where it adds more texture to things and offers additional narrative hooks and ideas. I tend to dislike realism where it shackles me to conventions that prevent me from doing what I like, especially with a universe rife with unrealistic stuff (the examples I gave are hardly the only ones) and all during my hobby time, no less: Realism is enough of a problem during our everyday lives. I refuse to let it hurt my hobby life as well    At the end of the day, that's a highly personal choice though, and everyone's welcome to take it their way. All I was trying to say was that, if you want to have an eyepatch on a model because you like the look, go for it!

2. Again, there could be all kinds of reasons for him foregoing a replacement: Maybe it's a personal choice, due to a long held grudge. Maybe his body rejected the replacement. Maybe the wound was given to him by a daemon, and the residue of the creature's powers prevents it from being healed (or even gives the character additional powers). Maybe there actually IS some kind of eye under that patch, only he needs to hide it for some reason. Maybe it's a bold fashion statement. All of these could be used to spin the conspicuous absence of an eye into an actual narrative element, with a bit of work. 

[Koval]

Maybe there actually IS some kind of eye under that patch, only he needs to hide it for some reason.

Of the options presented, this is the only one I really find palatable, although I'm going to re-suggest "hidden bionic" and "it's not actually an eyepatch".

I will, however, point out that the argument should be less about "realism" and more about "common sense", in which this Inquisitor would -- I'm sorry -- be sorely lacking if he explicitly wanted to stick to having only one working eye.

[Adlan]

2. Again, there could be all kinds of reasons for him foregoing a replacement: Maybe it's a personal choice, due to a long held grudge. Maybe his body rejected the replacement. Maybe the wound was given to him by a daemon, and the residue of the creature's powers prevents it from being healed (or even gives the character additional powers). Maybe there actually IS some kind of eye under that patch, only he needs to hide it for some reason. Maybe it's a bold fashion statement. All of these could be used to spin the conspicuous absence of an eye into an actual narrative element, with a bit of work.

I'm reminded of an old battle fleet gothic story, (I think it was battle fleet gothic), at a naval academy, the most feared lecturer has a 'malfunctioning prosthetic' hand that apparently twitches at a rate indicative of his temper.

The threat of what an Inquisitor wants to keep hidden is a powerful thing, and builds up to a reveal about what actually is under there. That said, I vote for a bionic or digi weapon (or mutation) or something under the eyepatch. It's too cool a concept not too.

And the model looks cool with the eye patch, enough reason for me to find some fluff justification for it.

[KrautScientist]

And the model looks cool with the eye patch, enough reason for me to find some fluff justification for it.

Amen to that!

And I still remember that BFG story you were referring to -- I always thought that was a pretty nifty narrative idea

[DapperAnarchist]

He's an Ordo Xenos inquisitor - could he have lost it in such a way that replacement is impractical/impossible? Captured by the Dark Eldar, tortured till his optic nerve burnt out, then freed by another Inquisitor perhaps? Or some poison attack? It could even be hiding some transgenic heresy, if you wanted to go radical with him - a Kroot or crystal eye, perhaps?

[Koval]

The inability to have another eye at all is something that makes sense, and is certainly a lot more reasonable than "he doesn't have another eye because he doesn't want one".

[MarcoSkoll]

It seems I'm not on a popular side in this debate, but I do want to respond to this point:

I tend to dislike realism where it shackles me to conventions that prevent me from doing what I like

I still refuse to support "do whatever you like" as an argument, as that would stretch to support Space Marine/Ork hybrids that turn into invisible pink unicorns at the full moon.

Points for me have to be consistent with the circumstances they are being posed under. An individual inherently possessed of common sense decides to handicap themselves in a highly vital and lethal situation, when the method to cure that handicap is unrestricted by cost, availability or taboo? That's not consistent.

I've had to put many potentially cool points into storage because they simply do not work for the universe or individuals I'm working with. That is, after all, the concession we make when we decide to game/model in a given universe - that we play by its rules.

I wonder, perhaps, if this comes down to a different creation approach. For me, it's almost always the character influencing the model* - even in cases where I've copied artwork almost direct (or the time I decided to sculpt a model for a weekly art challenge!), I had to like who I felt that individual could be to have even started - whereas it seems like you're more willing to let the model influence the character*.

*Even in cases like when Silva Birgen got a chainsword (an upgrade inspired by having used one as a placeholder to check a pose), that was still character driven. It wasn't the original plan, but it was entirely her, no tweaking of personality needed.

~~~~~

In any case, I am happier with "can't" rather than "won't" as the justification. Although it might need to be a bit more serious than "burnt out optic nerve" - the Imperium does have artificial nerves... and the ability to attach entire sections that weren't there in the first place (as the ability to wire in the senses and motor functions of a Titan proves).

[DapperAnarchist]

Neural parasite that can't be removed without killing him? By the way, I'm stealing back my "Crystal Eye" idea... Back to working on my old-style Rogue Trader.

[Alyster Wick]

Ordos Hereticus, he wants to appear handicapped while retaining full function so he has his remaining eye fitted with a high end bionic that appears organic and grants him depth perception and maybe even other bells and whistles.

Builds character (likes to fool his foes) and lets you keep his eye patch.

For what it's worth the eye patch is cool and the rule of cool is something to live by. That said, Marco's point is well taken (invisible pink unicorns and all) but there is a galaxy between universe-breaking absurdities and giving a guy an eye patch because it's cool. You have plenty of options here to make this work and depending on your gaming group you could just give him the eye patch, let him be one eyed and call it a day. You don't have to explain that part of his background specifically in order to effectively role play him on the table.

Some folks wouldn't be satisfied playing their characters that way but if you are it doesn't negatively impact your playing experience or your opponents playing experience and that's the important thing in my mind. If you're playing against someone who gets in a tizzy because your character has an eye patch and you can't give them a reason why that satisfies them then I would just find a new group to play with*.

*I don't mean to accuse anyone here of this level of OCD, I think all the critiques are meant well and intended to be a constructive way to help a fellow gamer.

[DapperAnarchist]

I think that the division here is between two ways of limiting what is a 'good' character, and they aren't producing identical results. One, which Marco is promoting, is the "it must make sense" school - rational analysis, a coherent fictional universe, etc. The other is an aesthetic method, assessing things according to an aesthetic value. They both rule out pink uniork astartes with bubble guns, but one is a lot more forgiving of eyepatches as a valid option than the other. Eisenhorn's missing hand doesn't work in Abnett's relatively logical style, but rewrite in a Lovecraftian or Alan Moore style, and that becomes... not less of an anomaly, but valuable for being an anomaly, because the aesthetic is one that values the anomalous, the abnormal, the absurd, the bitterly surreal, the gothic and baroque. Would a Peake or Poe character go around with a missing hand? Yeah, definitely. So, there should be a place for it here, I think. After all, Ian Miller did many illustrations of Peake's Gormenghast series, and I would pay in blood to see Blanche illustrate (or perhaps illuminate?) some Poe.

I ended up taking far more of a side than I intended to. The rational analysis school is important - it provides a great restraint on the excesses of the aesthetic, especially when one is starting out exploring that aesthetic. But 40K and Inquisitor are very much about excess.

[Koval]

The two schools of thought can coexist, but when we get to the point where the excesses prevent someone from carrying out their duty to the best of their ability, we do have to ask "Why?" -- and for me, "because he wants/doesn't want to" just doesn't work, because (again) he's hindering himself for no good reason.

As such, the "I'm not getting my eye replaced because" line of thought is literally the only thing to which I take exception with regard to this character. Actually having the eyepatch isn't a huge problem provided there's a more suitable reason than "I have one eye and I like it that way" -- that eyepatch could be many more things that make more sense and are cooler within the scope of the setting. You have options aplenty. It could be concealed tech, or a bionic that he wants to keep covered to get across the impression that he's got a weakness, or something unspeakable he wants to keep hidden for fear of being branded a heretic, or an irrelevance because he has Warp sight, or a weapon, or an auspex array hardwired into his optic nerve... I'm probably not even scratching the surface.

[KrautScientist]

There's really not much more to add, since Alyster Wick and DapperAnarchist pretty much perfectly summed up my opinion. I would just like to point out that nobody suggested the Inqusitor definitely chose not to have his eye replaced -- it was only ever one of several quickly outlined options, and other explanations could indeed be more logical.

So I think it does indeed come down to different creative approaches, as Marco suggested. And I just wanted to point out that both - or indeed any mix of them - are equally viable. Especially in a universe where the background details tend to vary wildly across sources and have been evolving and continue to evolve over the years.

[Ynek]

On the subject of eyepatches:

In real life, during the Golden Age of piracy, a large number of pirates wore eyepatches. So many, in fact, that eyepatches have since become a common "unspoken cue" that an individual in a movie is a pirate, along with peg-legs, parrots, and the word: "ARR!"

However, outside of fictional stories told by those who had only a cursory knowledge of pirate customs, the reason for wearing the eyepatch had nothing to do with losing an eye, or having eye problems. The reason for the eyepatch was entirely utilitarian and was to facilitate quick and easy transit of materials from the deck to the hold and vice-versa.

During the Golden Age of piracy, the Carribean was the real hotspot for piracy. There was a colonial war going on between the French, the English, the Dutch and the Spanish. Amidst this power struggle, pirates were free to operate with impunity because no singular government had enough resources to truly keep them in check. It was actually quite common practice for pirates of particular renown to be offered letters of marque by various governments to offer them certain legal dispensation for their piracy in exchange for them exclusively raiding the ports and ships of rival nations. These individuals became known by the title of 'corsair.'

Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked.

In the Carribean, it is no secret that the sun shines especially brightly, and the sailing vessels of that era had no windows since they introduced weakpoints into the hull that were more of a liability than they were worth. As such, the cargo hold under the decks was usually a very dark place which was only lit by a couple of sparsely distributed oil-burning lanterns. As such, pirates who had to regularly move from the deck to the hold would have to wait for a couple of minutes at each transition to let their eyes adjust to the new light levels before they could safely continue in their duties, lest they be operating blind.

The reason for a pirate's eyepatch was so that they could walk around on deck with the eyepatch on, keeping one eye in constant darkness. When they then walked under the deck and into the hold, they would flip open their eyepatch so that one of their eyes was already adjusted to the low light levels, and they could perform their duties under the deck without problems, and then go back up on deck, flipping their eyepatch back down over their eye so as to put it back into darkness.

This is also the reason that pirate's eyepatches were often dyed black, and also why heavier materials such as leather were favoured. - it was so that less light could seep through the material.

The reason that I bring this up is that a character who wears an eyepatch might not have anything wrong with his eyes whatsoever. He may simply have a reason for keeping one eye in darkness, so that if the lights suddenly go out, he doesn't need to spend time adjusting his eyes to the new light levels, or perhaps the fact that on his homeworld, eyepatches just so happen to be an exceptionally popular fashion statement, because they just make a fellow look so damned dashing and adventurous. (Much like 'fashion scars' and so on.)

[Kaled]

Another option to can't and won't have a bionic is that he hasn't got one yet. I'm sure there are plenty of situations where an Inquisitor can't interrupt an investigation to go get it replaced, or where he's undercover and doesn't want to reveal he has access to that level of medical care, or some similar reason.

[Necris]

Or he's awaiting a suitably skilled magos to arrive from plant x