Black Crusade Interest Check

[Jaded]

Before you read further please be aware that all the games I have previously tried to run online have died a horrible death (often due to me), and that people have at times expressed discontent with the length of my posts when I am GMing. 

I will be aiming to post at least twice a week, and ask that players can match that rate.  If you haven’t posted for a week or two, I may remove you from the game to keep things moving.

The game will be placed in the Extreme section, though smut isn't intended to be the main focus. 

                         

The world of Ashral was once an agricultural and shine world, dominated by the Cathedral of Saint Martinius.  Located in the same system as the hive world of Ashtil, Ashral was a pilgrimage destination for those of means.  It was roughly a century ago that the space hulk known as the Twisted Shadow came out of the warp on the edge of the system.  The local defence forces scrambled to attempt to stop it, even as calls for help were sent out.

The Twisted Shadow, as if guided by an unseen hand, streaked towards Ashral at a pace that the local ships struggled to match.  As it passed through the orbit of Ashtil, hundreds of pods detached.  Then, a little over a month after it first appeared, and long before any aid was able to arrive, the Twisted Shadow slammed into Ashral.  Once a bread basket and garden world, it was reduced to a sand and heat blasted death world, where the rain was acid as much as water, and monstrous creatures roamed the blackened and scorched landscapes.

The location of impact became known as the Great Crater, or the Sea of Shattered Bones.  A few hundred miles across and surrounded by high crater walls, it is filled with what debris from the space hulk that had not been vaporized on impact.  Although now full of acidic water, it is a treasure trove for those daring or stupid enough to attempt to scavenge from it.  On the edge of the Great Crater, burnt and blasted but not fully destroyed, is the site of the old Cathedral.  Reduced to little more than rubble, it has been abandoned, its guardians and stewards slain in the impact.

Those who weren’t able to flee the world, and who weren’t killed by the initial impact, quickly fell to the monstrous and brutish creatures that had somehow managed to survive the space hulk’s crash.  The human population, in current times, is comprised of scavengers living on the edge of the Great Crater, and a small Imperial outpost with only a token population.

Little aid has come from Ashtil, the pods ejected by the Twisted Shadow were teeming with orks who fell on the hive world like a plague.  Its population has halved in the last century, and what Imperial resources are available in the system have been dedicated to trying to keep it from falling to the orks completely.

                         

The characters will be servants of Chaos who have arrived on Ashral for their own purpose, probably related to the space hulk or shrine.  Through misfortune, poor planning, or Imperial intervention, they have found themselves stranded there without a ship.  I may start things in two (or more) groups depending on players, and will want the players to come up with shared backgrounds for characters, or at least how they may have come into contact. 

Characteristics should be allocated.
All core archetypes are available, however advanced from other books are not due to the increased exp requirement.
Standard starting exp (no bonus), so just the 1000 for disciples or 500 for marines.

[Terian]

Yeah, sure, I'll give this a try--you're not going to blow up and start frothing at the mouth if I go maximum heresy and pull a female space marine (Justified of course) out, are you?

If you're fine with that, here's a very early, undeveloped concept.

Name: Echidna
Archetype: Forsaken
Backstory Brief: Hive rat taken in as a cats paw of an Alpha Legion relatively early, showed promise and skill enough to be inducted into the inner circle of the cell--enough to actually be made familiar with the Legionnaire.  Unfortuantely, as is typical, he basically just used them all to poke around at things, and set things up for a mass ritual, with his inner circle being the final sacrifices to cast the planet into the Warp.  Since she'd rather not die, at the last moment, she whipped out her boot knife and tackled the Legionnaire with it, being caught up in the ritual as it backfired catastrophically.  Ended up stealing the power and implants of the Space Marine as a side effect while her former master was set back to the level of a young, relatively immature human--and proceeded to promptly turn into Chaos Spawn because such a body wasn't really capable of handling the Corruption of the soul of a veteran Servant of Chaos.

Has been acting as an independent agent ever since, offering her skills to the highest bidder--mostly because nobody'll trust the girl who backstabbed her rightful master after all--even if she's never broken a fair contract.

Pride: Foresight
Disgrace: Wrath
Motivation: Legacy

[Muse]

  Jaded! *Tackle hugs!* 

  You're back! 

  Me me!  Pick me! 

[Ironwolf85]

 
I shall watch dis

[Hexed]

Hello Jaded! Welcome back.

I'm possibly being dim but what system is this in?  And it's... Warhammer 40k or something like that based right?

[Terian]

Anyway, once I get the thumbs up if my concept is doable, I'll generate a sheet.

[Primarch]

Also keeping an eye on this.

[ChaoticSky]

Hello Jaded! Welcome back.

I'm possibly being dim but what system is this in?  And it's... Warhammer 40k or something like that based right?

That would be the 40k RPG by Fantasy Flight Games, to be specific, 'Black Crusade' gameline. Its a pretty straightforward D% system, Basics are; Stats are out of 100, skills add +10/20/etc, you roll under the value to pass. Most weapons deal damage in D10+static values, armour reduces damage directly, penetration values on weapons counter armour values. Exp is awareded for Stuff, and is used to buy skills, talents(feats), etc, the price of which is determined by a teir system (higher teirs cost more exp) and modified by which god you worship (talents associated with khorne cost less when you follow khorne). There is a system for Infamy (basically how esteemed you are in the eyes of the gods and followers of chaos) and corruption (how infused you are with corrupting warp essence). Both rise as the game goes on, infamy is used to acquire gear, pull off fate/heropoint/stunts, control mutation and cheat death. Corruption causes mutation which afflicts your character with 'gifts' that range from crippling to very powerful boons. Once your corruption maxes out, you either achieve Apotheosis into a Daemon Prince or mutate out of control into a mindless Spawn.


On another note, if we use a core archetype, do we get the difference in Exp?

[HairyHeretic]

I'm always interested in Black Crusade. One of these days I'll get to play my Night Lord :)

[Primarch]

Think I'm inclined towards Psyker.

[Muse]

  And I towars a lecherous chaos marine. 

  But if that would be too redundant, maybe a here-tech wiht some rather pervereted mechadenrites. 

[ChaoticSky]

Ive got a character already written up, depending on the answer to some rule questions, shes a physical/melee psyker. But i might beable to swing her without it.

[Jaded]

For those interested, could you please post the Archetype/Race you'd like to play, as well as a short blurb about the character.  Thanks!

Yeah, sure, I'll give this a try--you're not going to blow up and start frothing at the mouth if I go maximum heresy and pull a female space marine (Justified of course) out, are you?

I lean towards no on the female space marine unfortunately.

Hello Jaded! Welcome back.

I'm possibly being dim but what system is this in?  And it's... Warhammer 40k or something like that based right?

Black Crusade ruleset, part of the 40k series (not sure if there is a name for the specific system)

On another note, if we use a core archetype, do we get the difference in Exp?

Only the core would be available, the advanced from the splat books would not.

[HairyHeretic]

Only the core would be available, the advanced from the splat books would not.

Would you have any issues with modification of a core archtype? Specifically changing some of their special abilities for those of a Night Lord, Spectral Haunter and Terror Tactics?

This is the character background

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Thought for the day: Blessed is the mind too small for doubt.

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Cogitator savants indicate 85.357% probability the following incidents are linked to, or directly caused by the same individual. Mode of operation, Secondary and Tertiary evidence indicates behavioral patterns match that of Traitor Astarte's designation Night Lords, probability 78.213%.

914M41: The poisoning of 87 Soroitas novices in the Abbey of the Dawn training facility.

918M41: The destruction of the main heat exchanger in Hive Tembro on Solomon. Casualties estimated at 8000 approximate.

921M41: The assassination of Cardinal Ardell, found flayed alive and left on the pulpit of his Cathedral on Salvar II

927M41: The loss of the entire crew of the vessel 'Pride of the Throne', belonging to the Rogue Trader Hmari Udd. It was found in orbit of Ntharis. Investigation teams recovered approximately 71% of the crew, or the remains thereof. Several salvation pods and small craft were missing, location unknown.

938M41 - 939M41: The 'Red Jack' serial killings on Port Maw. Estimates range from 57 to 148 direct deaths. Copycat killings and opportunistic murders made to look like the Red Jack killings account for another 412. Tertiary responses, including the intercene gang warfare are estimated at another 134. Administratum savants reported overall station efficiency down 0.013% as a result of these. Without the increased Arbites activity, degradation was forecast at 0.024%. Confirmation of the explosion that severely damaged the Sword class escort Lord Ventaris being linked to the same individual is at 25.644%

954M41: The raid of the Unlidded Eye Kabal on the Ministorum pilgrim fleet in the Redemption system, with the loss of 141,359 souls. The handfull of survivors on each ship confirm the presence of a Traitor Astartes. He deliberately culled them from the captives and left them behind as a living message.

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  "Show your enemy mercy and he shall one day seek vengeance upon you for every petty, imaginable slight. Mercy is therefore a weakness; a crime waiting to be born. Mercy I have long since expunged, both from myself and my Legion."

        — Attributed to Konrad Curze, The Night Haunter, Primarch of the Night Lords Legion

The Night Lord known as Draugr is a former member of the 3rd Claw Terror Squad within the 20th Chapter. He wears heavily modified Mark 6 plate, complete with the distinctive skull faced helm of a Terror Squad member, and bears a weapon which he uses almost to the exclusion of all others, a Stalker pattern legion bolter named 'Last Breath'. Rumour has it the name comes because once his sights are upon you, you have time for but one last breath before the end.

We were the monsters you wanted, the weapons you shaped us to be. We sacrificed all to be what you needed, and you dare .. you DARE .. censure us for doing that, for doing just what it was you wanted? We brought scores of worlds to compliance, and for every one we visited, for every one where they learned to fear the night, five, ten, twenty would surrender for fear they would be next.

We are the ones betrayed. That bitch assassin was allowed .. allowed, not able .. to take our father. To prove the truth of his words. Well, listen to the truth of my words. I will burn one world in the name of each of my brothers, and when the ashes of those worlds burn cold, my fathers words will be all that remains.

He has sworn an oath of vengeance, an eternal oath of moment, to make the Imperium pay for all it has done. He doesn't particularly care how he does it. He's as happy to cause a world to revolt in civil war as he is to assassinate the PDF high command just prior to an invasion by Orks or Dark Eldar, or drop an asteroid onto the worlds capital. He knows he won't be able to wreak his vengeance alone, but there are plenty of tools he can use along the way.

Night Lord Terror Squads

Terror Squads were specialist squads of Space Marines utilised exclusively by the Night Lords Legion during the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy in the late 30th and early 31st Millennia. No Legion of the Legiones Astartes ever elevated the use of fear itself as a weapon to the extent that the Night Lords did. Through their fearful and bloody acts entire star systems were cowed into submission, often occasioning far less ultimate loss of life than a conventional war might have brought. The midnight and storm-clad VIII Legion served also as dark judges and executioners; they enacted the Emperor's retribution on Planetary Governors, recidivist cults and rebels alike, where their crimes proved severe enough to have called down the Imperium's wrath so utterly upon them.

When such punishments were intended to be at their most visceral and personal, the Terror Squads of the VIII Legion were unleashed. Head hunters and torturers, flayers and mutilators; within the ranks of the Terror Squads were found both the most coldly dispassionate and darkly imaginative of the Night Lords brethren, and where once the terrifying arts of murder and mayhem they perpetrated were a coldly calculated means to an end, as the decades of the Great Crusade progressed, the Terror Squads became a sink-hole for the most unstable and unsubtle elements within their Legion, many within them standing under their own sentences of death -- commuted so long as they proved useful to their macabre master, the Night Haunter himself.

Last Breath

Stalker pattern bolter 'Last Breath'
Merciless (Vicious) Stalker pattern Legion Bolter - Legacy of Slaughter
Class: Basic
Range: 200
RoF: S
Dmg: 2d10+5 X
Pen: 5
Clip: 24
Rld: Full
Special: Accurate, Tearing
Wt: 17

[ChaoticSky]

Only the core would be available, the advanced from the splat books would not.

Works for me, i was planning on a core archtype anyway.

Uuh, but, in cases like Hairy, and if you fancy abit more freedom in chargen, this is a houserule i put together for my game, long time ago:

Houserule suggestion

-Players will have +200 starting exp to spend.
-You may spend 200 exp to align to a God of your choice, for the purposes of spending exp, they will count as aligned at the point which they buy the alignment. (if its the first thing you buy, all your costs will be set as if you were aligned to that god, if it is the last thing you buy, all your purchases will be considered unaligned for costs. etc)
-Furthermore, you may spend 300 exp in exchange for the special ability(s) of a Advanced archetype at chargen in rather than their natural one. For example, a Renegade may trade their Adroit for Insanely Malleable&Baleful Sculptor at a cost of 300 xp.
-These purchases are not required to align to each other. a Fleshcrafter may be a servant of the Dark Prince, but you may be something else entirely; a 'frost father' aligned to slaanesh could be a sense-obsessed ravager with the mad whispers in of the Prince offering encouragement. Altered alignemtns will have the ability reskinned (but mechanically the same) to suit the new patron; for example, if you take the abilities of a Writhing World Sorc-king and align to tzeentch, obviously you are not getting +1 PR to nurgle powers, instead you will get +1 to tzeentch powers, and your mass of worms will be reskinned. Sensible player suggestions are encouraged.

-All of the above only applies at chargen. You may not buy Archtype abilities once the game starts, nor will you be allowed to buy alignment. Also, your purchased alignment does not override natural alignment checks, if your experience expenditures are not properly aligned towards your god by the time you hit 10 corruption, you will suffer the consequences.

I designed it to encourage creativity and allow people to take advantage of the Adv archtyep content while starting off at the lower Core-level.

*Edit
Got my shit sorted Finally. Ill be playing a Human, And either a psyker or renegade depending on if you are okay with using OW/DH2 version of Pyromancy over the BC version.

The character was a member of a imperial monastic order whos world is ravaged by chaos, which leads to the death of everything she knows and loves. In her anger she turns her back on her faith and embraces the power of the warp, discovering her own power, and setting off on a mission to destroy the Ecclesiarchy and Imperium in order to free humanity from the empty promises of a false faith.

[Jaded]

Would you have any issues with modification of a core archtype? Specifically changing some of their special abilities for those of a Night Lord, Spectral Haunter and Terror Tactics?

What did you want to swap out?

I designed it to encourage creativity and allow people to take advantage of the Adv archtyep content while starting off at the lower Core-level.

*Edit
Got my shit sorted Finally. Ill be playing a Human, And either a psyker or renegade depending on if you are okay with using OW/DH2 version of Pyromancy over the BC version.

The character was a member of a imperial monastic order whos world is ravaged by chaos, which leads to the death of everything she knows and loves. In her anger she turns her back on her faith and embraces the power of the warp, discovering her own power, and setting off on a mission to destroy the Ecclesiarchy and Imperium in order to free humanity from the empty promises of a false faith.

The house rules are interesting, but I'd prefer to stick with the basic rules for now.  I may approve some changes on a case by case basis though.

I will be using the BC pyromancy, just to keep things simple, sorry. 

The character sounds interesting.

[HairyHeretic]

What did you want to swap out?

I was thinking of using the Chosen archtype as the base. Given they only have the 1 special ability, Cold Killer, I'd want to swap that for either Spectral Haunter or Terror Tactics, and perhaps trade one of the starting talents for the other?

[ChaoticSky]

I will be using the BC pyromancy, just to keep things simple, sorry.

Aw, *crushed*

[Muse]

  So, am I the only one interested in a Heri-tek?  :) 

[Annaamarth]

I have a Here-tek I could run, who may be able to double as the group chirurgeon. This would delight me.

[ChaoticSky]

i usually play hereteks of some description, well, half th time anyway, but not this time oddly enough. My brain went other ways.

[Jaded]

For those interested (I don't think there is enough interest that I will need to limit player count, at least for now, especially as I will likely have the groups start by race), please continue character creation discussion in this thread:

https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=235198.0

I will post the character thread in a few days.  Please try and come up with a reason why your character might be on the planet (I can suggest a few if needed) and potentially how they came to be in contact with the other player characters (once again, I can suggest a few if needed). 

I'd prefer people are different Archetypes whenever possible, but if the concepts are different enough and both players strongly prefer one, I may let multiple of one in . 

I was thinking of using the Chosen archtype as the base. Given they only have the 1 special ability, Cold Killer, I'd want to swap that for either Spectral Haunter or Terror Tactics, and perhaps trade one of the starting talents for the other?

You can swap out Cold Killer for one of those two if you'd like.  I'd prefer not to mess with the talents for now.

[HairyHeretic]

You can swap out Cold Killer for one of those two if you'd like.  I'd prefer not to mess with the talents for now.

How would you feel about purchasing the other with XP. They are the defining characteristics of a Night Lord character, so I would like to get both.

[Jaded]

Maybe at some point down the line, not to start though.