[MarcoSkoll]

If you've been paying attention of late, I took over the financial responsibility of the 'Clave and Dark Magenta sites from Saussure about five months back. Part of the reason behind this was that Derek felt that someone with a more active role in the community would be in a better position to revitalise things.

I've been somewhat dawdling over actually getting around to this, but I think that the resurrection of Dark Magenta is something we would should be looking at, with the hope that fresh content can help drive fresh enthusiasm within the community. If you think you could help, then I'd certainly appreciate your involvement.

Of immediate concern are people who can help renovate the Dark Magenta site (and turn it from more than just a list of links to articles). Editors, Designers and Writers are also obviously a concern, but for the immediate future I have a few ideas for articles of my own* and can theoretically produce a reasonable amount of content myself.

* The first thing I have in mind is an article about writing together plots, scenarios and mechanics for event days.
To my count, I've now run ten events - The Saint, Twin Arches, Ancient Rites (taking over from Koval), IGT 2015, Lachesis (although based on prompts from Gav), New Dawn, The Wastes, Legacy (two days), Guardian, and Abyss - and been to even more, so I'd think I've got at least reasonable amount of experience about what works and what doesn't.

[mcjomar]

Arguably I could pootle my way through an article or two.
I've got photos of my construction of Cypher (and my two smurfs) which might make a good showcase on Marine conversion techniques (and the core basics thereof).
And, I guess, this one now...

Otherwise... No idea?

Umm...

I always enjoyed Derek's articles about ethos and such for Inquisitor as a setting. "Finding the Muse" and such.
More of those would be great.

[MarcoSkoll]

I always enjoyed Derek's articles about ethos and such for Inquisitor as a setting. "Finding the Muse" and such.

Interesting thought. I have some opinions of my own on such matters, but it might be interesting to see if we could lure in someone from the INQ28 crowd (even if said person isn't necessarily playing Inquisitor, a lot of them will still have interesting thoughts on the general aesthetic of the Battle for the Emperor's Soul).

[Charax]

Depending on what you want from it, I could make a new DM site

[TheNephew]

I think bringing in some of the Inq28 folks would be essential for getting decent circulation and 'buzz' - that's the community with 99% of the player (or at least modeler) base at the moment.

[mcjomar]

Yeah. I think this sounds about right.
One of the most prolific members of the community is Euan, so if we can acquire his writing services for articles, that would be a good shout. My experience is that he's a good commenter over on BolS and I like his thread(s) and attitude on the ammobunker too (what I've seen of it so far). He'd get a thumbs up from me.

[MarcoSkoll]

Depending on what you want from it, I could make a new DM site

Well, initial thoughts would be "basically like the old site". The Internet Archive actually still has the old DM site (before the original .co.uk domain was lost and domain trolls sat on it) archived, and if I were doing things on my own, I'd probably just do what I could to reconstruct it from their backups.

https://web.archive.org/web/20120719015057/http://www.darkmagenta.co.uk:80/

However, I wouldn't be averse to the idea of changing it up if people think that's some kind of ancient monstrosity no longer fit for the modern internet. (I like it, but obviously modern websites have got far more dynamic stuff and scripting going on).

I think bringing in some of the Inq28 folks would be essential for getting decent circulation and 'buzz' - that's the community with 99% of the player (or at least modeler) base at the moment.

I think that buy-in from some of the 28mm crowd will be really pretty key. My point is more that articles on ethos, aesthetic or modelling don't necessarily have to be from specifically Inquisitor players.

Otherwise... No idea?

Oh yeah - kind of an obvious one... battle reports!

As it is, I think at least one battle report could be stretched out to two articles; While narrative battle reports are obviously the main deal, I know there's people out there who'd find it interesting to read an actual transcript of the game.

I'm thinking that it should be possible to get a table of people together at Dark Sphere at some point and run a couple of (not necessarily linked) games on a more relaxed schedule than a normal event.

[MarcoSkoll]

Over the last few days, I've been putting together a list of possible article ideas. This is obviously only a partial list - aside from things I just haven't thought of yet, there's room for going back over older articles (be they GW or DM) and updating them to better fit the current interpretation of the game.

Some of these I expect I'll write myself (or already have notes I could turn into articles), others might be better handled by other people, and some (e.g. Battle reports and Tale of Four Inquisitors) implicitly require multiple people involved.


Article ideas
> Writing narratives
>> Writing for Inquisitor events (already WIP)
>> Collective narratives?
>> General sources of inspiration for stories.

> Tale of Four Inquisitors
>> Ideally find four players with different character creation techniques, who live close enough together to meet up for a dramatic final battle report. Good inspiration for a variety of ways to create characters.

> Event/Battle reports
>>  For at least one battle report, also a behind the scenes transcript. Could be useful as a demonstration of how the game plays.

> Integrating updated background into Inquisitor
>> New Admech equipment/weapons?
>> Fall of Cadia/Fracture of Biel-Tan/ Indomitus Crusade
>> Cicatrix Maledictum
>> Primaris Marines
>> Return of the Sisters of Silence

> Imperial institutions
>> Imperial Knight houses
>> Expanded look at Rogue Traders (PROOFREADING VERY IMPORTANT)
>> Possible article around Battle Sisters when released next year? Could expand into the wider Adepta Sororitas.
>> Ecclesiarchy (preferably with ideas to expand away from the normal stereotypes)
>> Incorporating the Adeptus Administratum
>> Officio Sabatorum?
>> Unaddressed temples of the Officio Assassinorium.
>> Mail order Space Marines? (How an Inquisitor acquires Astartes support)

> Fighting Cliche
>> Your assassin is yet another gymnast in a leotard.
>> Recruiting your Imperial Guard Veteran (How to make a guardsman unique).

> Character archetypes
>> The criminal element

> Hobby articles
>> The INQ28 aesthetic (Multiple authors?)
>> Collecting in both scales
>> Terrain collections for Inquisitor
>> General advice columns. (Sculpting tips?)

> Gaming
>> NPCs in your games
>> Scenario writing advice

> Rules
>> Vehicle rules that make them less explodey.

> Character/Warband spotlights (a la GW's original sample characters)

> More Summoning the Muse type articles? (Sources of inspiration).

> Character death?

> Inquisitor, a retrospective.
>> Looking at Inquisitor over the years - its successes and troubles as a GW game. (Multiple authors?)


If you're potentially interested in getting involved with any of these concepts, or have more ideas to add to the list, drop us a line.

[Molotov]

It may well be prudent to investigate the forthcoming '28 Mag' - its Facebook page is here: https://www.facebook.com/28mag/

[mcjomar]

Not wrong, but that mag appears to be a generalist 28mm SG mag, in the vein of old Fanatic?

DM is going to be Inquisitor specific, across all scales (but not Inquisimunda I assume).
Two angles on similar niches, with vaguely similar approaches. However, 28 Mag looks like it'll have multiple systems and settings to worry about, vs our singular focus?


So my questions on the above list:

To4I (ToFI?) might run into issues, as part of the reasoning is that these players regularly face each other, and thus have reasons for their collection and modelling choices relative to that.
For Inquisitor, that'll end up being more about roleplaying choices, I think, in addition to warband generation, and there will need to be the thread of "we fight each other a lot" running through it. Otherwise it's just a series of warband generation articles, with maybe a battle report eventually, which is a little different to my understanding of the ToFG structure?


Also - Mail order Space Marines? Eh What? Are we discussing the background of the deployment of Primaris Marines there? Or how an Inquisitor acquires the services of Marines in general? (or the Ordo specific chapters).

The rest all looks good.

[MarcoSkoll]

It may well be prudent to investigate the forthcoming '28 Mag' - its Facebook page is here: https://www.facebook.com/28mag/

I've been keeping track of 28 Mag (and I'm also aware that INQ28 has often ended up in the pages of White Dwarf), which is part of why I've not added much to the ideas list as far as "hobby" articles.

Still, I do think there's room for some. Some of it more with 54mm in mind, but I would like to get in at least some 28mm content. Not to compete with 28 Mag, but because I think Dark Magenta should properly reflect the full spectrum of Inquisitor.

... and to be honest, also to try and dispel some of the elitist attitudes that had been known to waft through older Inquisitor articles.

To4I (ToFI?) might run into issues, as part of the reasoning is that these players regularly face each other, and thus have reasons for their collection and modelling choices relative to that.

The format will obviously need to be adapted somewhat from the normal take, but the broad idea will be having several players put together a new warband, demonstrating different creative approaches (someone starting with a pile of bitz and making ideas as they go, someone starting with specific character concepts and trying to make models that fit them, someone who just goes "frak it, I'll sculpt it all", someone seeing a model and thinking "that's cool, I want to make a character with that", that kind of thing).

Once they've got the warbands, some battle reports with them.

Yes, it's not quite the normal Tale of Four Gamers, but it's a good way of showcasing a variety of approaches.

It's not to say that there couldn't potentially be more than one "round" of this though, with the Inquisitors going away and recruiting more characters before they next meet, making it more like the traditional format.

Or how an Inquisitor acquires the services of Marines in general? (or the Ordo specific chapters).

Precisely. But perhaps I should have explained that better.

[mcjomar]

Ahh, okay.

Mail order Marines does make for a good main title, as long as the subtitle provides the explanation for it.

Regarding warband approaches, I think I've done 3/4 of those. The only one I've not done is pure sculpting.

[SwordlordRoy]

Forgive me if none of these ideas really fit here, I'm just throwing these at the wall to see what sticks.

Suggestions for faceless mooks: this is born more out of problems that I may have to face with a player who is more swarm inclined. Perhaps they should be handled in a manner similar to how the Savage Worlds system handles "Extras"? One-hit kill?

Converting between systems: The introduction to the conclave site mentions carrying characters over from Dark Heresy (and by extension most if not all 40k RP lines from Fantasy Flight (no idea on Wrath and Glory)) to inquisitor and back again. WS and BS are self explanatory, but what is the equivalent of Sagacity? What becomes Initiative?

[MarcoSkoll]

Suggestions for faceless mooks: this is born more out of problems that I may have to face with a player who is more swarm inclined.

While the suggested NPC article will likely cover faceless mooks (I've contrived a more streamlined and balanced version of some older Fanatic NPC rules), I don't think I would recommend using them in that way.

Inquisitor is largely a tabletop form of improv theatre, so mooks devoid of personality are generally better kept for the GM - it's not a great idea to have a large number of player controlled characters as faceless nobodies, as it immediately risks turning the game into more of a conventional skirmish, which isn't its forte.

If you've got a player who wants the concept of an Inquisitor who likes to use expendable nobodies for their work, there are perhaps ways to do that, but if it's a matter that you've got a player trying to bring in their favourite playstyle from other games, that's probably a bad idea. They're likely to be thinking about Inquisitor the wrong way if that's what they have in mind.

Converting between systems: The introduction to the conclave site mentions carrying characters over from Dark Heresy

Potentially an interesting article, although the Dark Heresy system is of course itself now OOP.

I think the main thrust of such an article though would perhaps be more need to be from the perspective of how to adapt equipment and talents to Inquisitor, as the basic stat-lines aren't too difficult.
All there really is to that is to condense DH's Agility and Perception to get Inquisitor's Initiative, and split DH's Willpower to get Inq's Willpower and Nerve stats (as the others all match up pretty neatly), but after that, I usually reckon that adding 15 points to DH stats is usually about right to make them roughly equivalent to Inquisitor.

[mcjomar]

concept of an Inquisitor who likes to use expendable nobodies

I had a plan for this before gas interrupted me.
In the one-day campaign rules used at LGT and other events, should a main warband member be sufficiently injured that they would be in danger in a successive mission, then the Inquisitor will protect his assets (reasonable, given the amount of time invested in training them, and making sure of their loyalty), and replace their "spot" on a deployment, with a suitable mook (guardsman or similar). The mook still has character, but we're talking bulletpoints and maybe a limit of 250 words, rather than the full 20 questions treatment.