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Green Intern posted:I think my favorite take on Tzeentch is that as the Lord of Change and Magic, it's pretty much constantly tripping over itself to make its plans more and more complicated, which can mean that there's always some flaw or twist that can be exploited by the heroes. That and I like to believe that Tzeentch doesn't really care as much for outcomes so much as the act of scheming and plotting itself. A Tzeentch cult better be careful that the big boss doesn't decide to throw them to the wolves because Tzeentch thought it was part of some greater plan down the line.
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# ? Aug 10, 2017 19:23 |
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# ? Dec 6, 2024 17:11 |
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Green Intern posted:I think my favorite take on Tzeentch is that as the Lord of Change and Magic, it's pretty much constantly tripping over itself to make its plans more and more complicated, which can mean that there's always some flaw or twist that can be exploited by the heroes. That and I like to believe that Tzeentch doesn't really care as much for outcomes so much as the act of scheming and plotting itself. A Tzeentch cult better be careful that the big boss doesn't decide to throw them to the wolves because Tzeentch thought it was part of some greater plan down the line. I like the opposite read, that Tzeentch is an Azothothian "blind idiot god" who doesn't have plots or aims, just a directionless desire for change. He'll back anyone who wants to change things and leave them to die when they don't seem interesting. In many ways, he's much, much dumber than Khorne, the idiot jock god. But the sort of person who is most inclined to worship Tzeentch is the sort of person who thinks of themselves as a brilliant planner and has convinced themselves they'd never get conned, so Tzeentch must be the god of similarly labyrinthine plans. That way, when he empowers an amateur pyromaniac who immediately gets caught or two cults that have diametrically opposed plans, his too-clever followers can tell themselves that that has to have been Step 23.B(c) of the Grand Strategy, and keep up the belief that they're part of a secret elite. They're playing connect-the-dots with a jackson pollack painting and telling themselves they're the only ones who really get it. He always seemed out-of-place among the chaos gods because "elaborate schemes" is an extremely orderly process. This way, he remains a massively disorganized, chaotic force while also having a sort of moral about self-importance and delusion.
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# ? Aug 10, 2017 19:31 |
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Warhammer Fantasy: Tome of Corruption Spooky places The urban and the rural life in the Empire are very different. Urban communities are cosmopolitan, with people from other countries and other species being common sights for the residents. They may be crowded and plague-ridden sometimes, but they're hopeful places where someone can make their fortune. The rural areas tend to be tight knit, smaller communities located along the major roads or river routes, with the occasional village further afield in the massive forests for gathering wood and burning charcoal. While the cities have to deal with the cultists, the isolated rural communities have to deal with the very real threat of hordes of angry goatmen. This is one of the reasons every single village in the Empire has a wall and a militia. Most of the forest is still untamed and unexplored. The Warherds and other terrible things live in the deeper, darker parts of the great forests, constantly claiming they're going to take over the world from humankind any day now, as they've been doing for millennia. People traveling the Empire's roads usually mark their journey by the networks of coaching inns. These exist to provide small, fortified settlements that are safe for patrolling roadwardens (road cops), coaches, merchants, and travelers to stay at overnight. While they tend to be spaced out by a day's journey by coach, people traveling on foot stay overnight in coaching inns whenever they can because it's much safer than not doing so. They also mark routes that are patrolled by regiments of state troops, which makes these routes much safer. Your PCs are reasonably likely to start their adventure together in a coaching inn, possibly as it comes under attack. Patrons who know how to fight are expected to help the mercenaries, wandering roadwardens, and any passing state troops if an inn comes under attack. Similarly, the Empire builds forts and castles to lock down areas of wilderness or important frontiers, and many of the cities are in highly defensible locations. Some lords also build their own fortifications in preparation for trouble with their neighbors. Many of the northern forts and fortifications have been pressed sorely or drained of troops for the battle at Middenheim and the pursuit of the broken Chaos forces northward. Those regions are also experiencing a lot of refugee traffic as people try to return to resettle their homes. With the defenders stretched thin, they'll have need of adventurers to help out with reclaiming fortifications, towns, and defending the people. The emphasis on fortifications along every major road route are a testament to the Empire's need to be ready for raiding Beastmen from the wood. Ruined settlements are a real problem post-Storm. People want to return to their homes and rebuild, but the enemy has boobytrapped many of the places it took. Not just by razing the buildings or salting the earth, but by poisoning water sources with warpstone or erecting shrines to curse the land. This means mutant wildlife, bloodthirsty remnants of the warbands, and dark magic threaten people who are trying to return to normalcy. Once again, this is a job for PCs. PCs are much more likely to know wizards and priests than most Imperials, and are likely to be good with a sword or gun; the perfect sort of people to come and reclaim these places ahead of resettlement by refugees. PCs will need to help people re-establish order and rebuild their lives, and the local lords, mayors, and merchants will probably pay them for the service. The great Drakwald Forest in Middenland is one of the biggest sources of an odd phenomena called Lost Villages. There are places established deep in the wood that lost contact with the outside world, but didn't die. These small communities manage to survive, cut-off from all advanced society, and often develop in strange and deviant ways in order to avoid their destruction at the hands of the monsters of the woods. These are spooky places not on any map for PCs to stumble upon, little bundles of wrongness and self-contained mysteries as the heroes poke around to find out what the hell happened to this village. They'll only work on particularly curious PCs, but they're a classic horror trope and I can't fault them. There are also all sorts of old standing stones, built by elves or by ancient men who understood a little more about the leylines and the flow of magic. Chaos covets these, as they're well built monuments of order that greatly empower and strengthen sane magic, but can be twisted and turned into places of dark power instead. Elven Waystones seem to have once been part of some kind of great transportation system, but now they direct some of the general flow of magic into the surrounding area and help reinforce the Vortex at Ulthuan. Any character using any kind of magic near one gets a massive +d5 per casting die they use. There are also great stone circles called Ogham Stones, placed by ancient humans in times long forgotten, that provide an even greater bonus of +5 Casting Result per d10, straight up, with no drawbacks; no-one knows why these places are so powerful or why the ancient humans knew to put them there. Herdstones are unholy relics of the Beastmen, gathering places for their kind that order them to kill and despoil in the name of darkness. No-one knows what draws the beastmen to these sites. Finally, there are all manner of ancient tombs, constructed at the high point of past unholy crusades to honor the greatest champions of Chaos. These dark and foreboding sites contain monuments to the dead champions inside, and often call out to cultists and monsters to guard them. They also tend to be full of both tainted and untainted plunder, being trophies of a raiding champion's life. This makes them attractive to adventurers; you can destroy the evil poo poo and steal the gold and jewels, and who's going to complain that you defiled a tomb to a murdering bastard? Next Time: Goatmen Prime.
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# ? Aug 10, 2017 19:33 |
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Night10194 posted:There are also great stone circles called Ogham Stones, placed by ancient humans in times long forgotten, that provide an even greater bonus of +5 Casting Result per d10, straight up, with no drawbacks; no-one knows why these places are so powerful or why the ancient humans knew to put them there. Lizardmen would be my answer. Fun idea for an outside context problem for some adventuring Imperials: stumbling across a contingent of skinks and their saurus escorts as they perform maintenance. It's a safe bet no Imperial would ever have heard of the lizardmen, and even those that did would be completely unprepared to find some nonchalantly in the middle of the Empire.
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# ? Aug 10, 2017 19:49 |
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I am genuinally unclear what point you're trying to make with this?
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# ? Aug 10, 2017 20:25 |
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Yes, just as planned...
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# ? Aug 10, 2017 20:31 |
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Young Freud posted:You bring that up and suddenly I want a Warhammer Modern. A Warhammer 2K20, if you will. Funny you should mention that. Put this together a few weeks ago on a similar vague idea. Needs setting. Getting lots of ideas from this thread. I've got a few improvements in mind, and it needs a lot of polish, but it might float someone's boat.
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# ? Aug 10, 2017 22:13 |
Deptfordx posted:I am genuinally unclear what point you're trying to make with this?
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# ? Aug 10, 2017 22:29 |
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If I wanted to do a warhams campaign I'd start with some Tzeentch worshipping beastmen. The duality' interesting and they'd be a fresh take on the god.
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# ? Aug 10, 2017 23:05 |
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rumble in the bunghole posted:If I wanted to do a warhams campaign I'd start with some Tzeentch worshipping beastmen. The duality' interesting and they'd be a fresh take on the god. They're already a thing. They're called Tzaangors and have recently shown up in 40k as well.
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# ? Aug 10, 2017 23:08 |
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Granted, perhaps I didn't read that deeply into Lahmians, but I took the interpretation that "vampires are punishment for not having feminism and arbitrarily keeping ladies out of the centers of learning" rather than "feminism is a vampire strategy to rule the world" which is certainly less charitable.
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# ? Aug 10, 2017 23:08 |
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the real takeaway here is that Tzeentch worshippers are by far the stupidest of all Chaos followers
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# ? Aug 10, 2017 23:22 |
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I feel the need to expand slightly on Night's Tome of Corruption review. I am a sucker for big randomized tables and I think it'd be helpful to see ToC's giant mutation table in action. Seriously, this is a very large fraction of the book and while there aren't 1000 different mutations, I think there are a couple hundred. A fair number of them also include sub-tables to roll on to determine details of the mutation. Lets roll a few mutations and see what they'd do to a hypothetical character. It'll be fun! Roll: 256 Mutation: Crown of Flesh You gain a ring of fleshy protrusions around your head. Roll on a sub-table to determine the type of protrusions. Roll: 1 End Result: The character has a crown of ears ringing the top of his head. Mechanical effect: Just looks freaky. Roll: 607 Mutation: Midnight Skin End Result: The character's skin turns completely black, as if absorbing light. They eyes turn completely white, losing pupils and irises. Mechanical Effect: +20 to all Concealment tests. Roll: 838 Mutation: Temporal Instability End Result: The character is only loosely connected to time. Roll a d10. 1-7, he is uncontrollably unstable. 8-10, it is somewhat controllable. The character disappears and reappears somewhat randomly as they slip in and out of time, leading to an average of 2.5 hours of every day not being existing. The character gains 1d10/2 Insanity Points when this first happens to him. Our example rolls Uncontrollable and gains 1 IP. In every combat round, on the character's turn, they roll a d10. If it rolls a 10, they vanish from reality for 1d10 rounds. Controllable instability means they can choose to adjust this number by 1. In addition, this vanishing can attract demons. Roll each month. They have a 1% chance of attracting a demon's attention while outside normal time and will never reappear after his next vanishing. Summation, our mutant is as black as the darkest void and good at hiding, has a crown of ears around the top of his head, and has a 10% chance of vanishing in every combat round for 1d10 rounds. This could be the entire combat if he's in a party. Oh, and might die instantly with no save every month. It's a tough life, being a mutant. You need a GM fudging rolls, the Talents made to make mutating less of a crapshoot, or devote yourself to a Dark God. Each has their own mutation table and they're more focused and a bit less likely to do something horrific to you.
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# ? Aug 10, 2017 23:23 |
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I actually just recently finished running a WFRP game set during the English Civil War (with more magic) and that table is how one of my players, playing a violent Welsh alcoholic mercenary, ended up becoming the exact physical double of King Charles II and the hijinks and confusion that followed.
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# ? Aug 11, 2017 00:11 |
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I would like a light hearted chaos mutation table that was more "magic is very silly" that could turn you into an orangutan or something funny.
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# ? Aug 11, 2017 00:19 |
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marshmallow creep posted:I would like a light hearted chaos mutation table that was more "magic is very silly" that could turn you into an orangutan or something funny. You could probably find a Wand of Wonder chart that would work for that.
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# ? Aug 11, 2017 00:21 |
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We all know an orangutan is a straight upgrade for wizards. E: what kind of 'standard' mutations/marks do warhams wizards get anyways? Is this like 'my fire wizard has red hair' or 'my fire wizard has literally flames on his head'?
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# ? Aug 11, 2017 04:42 |
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Joe Slowboat posted:We all know an orangutan is a straight upgrade for wizards. Comes with a lot of ranks in Knowledge (arcane/literature)
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# ? Aug 11, 2017 04:44 |
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DigitalRaven posted:Funny you should mention that. Put this together a few weeks ago on a similar vague idea. Needs setting. Getting lots of ideas from this thread. I've got a few improvements in mind, and it needs a lot of polish, but it might float someone's boat. This is really interesting so far. I have no feedback mechanicswise because I'm not geared like that, but I like the idea of having to balance out abilities and not wanting to be a monster/ get an old one's attention (I think that's what I gathered? I may have misread, it's late.) Isn't there a thread for making games on here?
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# ? Aug 11, 2017 04:54 |
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Joe Slowboat posted:We all know an orangutan is a straight upgrade for wizards. More the former level. More atmospheric than Dragonball. So for the Fire Wizard marks are stuff like. Hyperactive - fidget constantly Aura of Brimstone - You have a constant smell of Brimstone drifting around you. Hot Skin - You have a constant feverish and flushed appearance. Some give minor bonus and penalties. For example. Jade Wizards can get Great Constitution - Gain resistance to disease. Shadow Wizards can get Shrouded - Shadows are drawn to you. Get +10% to concealment. or Aura of Death for Amethyst Wizards - Plant life and materials made from it wither and rot within 4 yards of you. Celestial Wizards can get Disturbing Visions - You start to perceive distracting portents wherever you look gives you -5% on Perception tests. Edit: And yes, till you get used to it remembering Amethyst Wizards are the Death magic guys and Amber Wizards are the Beast magic guys etc etc is a little confusing. It's another thematic hold-over from the wargame Warhammer Wizards. Deptfordx fucked around with this message at 11:53 on Aug 11, 2017 |
# ? Aug 11, 2017 08:46 |
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marshmallow creep posted:I would like a light hearted chaos mutation table that was more "magic is very silly" that could turn you into an orangutan or something funny. That sounds like the Grog of Substantial Whimsy.
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# ? Aug 11, 2017 13:03 |
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Warhammer Fantasy: Tome of Corruption Sweet fancy moses! It's Goatman Prime! Beastmen are strange creatures, usually the melding of a human and a goat, that run about the forests of the Empire and murder people at random for the Gods. No-one in setting really knows where this plague came from, but the truth is the Beastmen were the humans living too close to the Gate of Heaven when it exploded in the north. They are, in essence, a vision of what Chaos wants for human society. A wandering, nomadic society of cannibalistic monsters with superior physical strength and a hatred of anything established and ordered. No-one knows exactly how many of them are out there; small raiding parties are only out for killing and sacrifices, not battle, and will usually be turned aside by a walled settlement or a reasonably alert militia (or a party of PCs). Larger warherds form seemingly at random, though, and these will loot and burn smaller villages and isolated settlements or attack Imperial armies. Whenever the Champions of Chaos stir in the north, the Beastmen quickly bow to them and take their marching orders as natural minions, which is very interesting when you consider Beastmen are the original result of humans coming into contact with unstable Chaos energy. Beastmen are everywhere, but they're worst in the Drakwald. The forests around Middenland are badly infested, and despite Boris Toddbringer's best efforts, the most he has to show for it are a Beastman Warlord whose favorite hobby is fuckin' with Boris Toddbringer and a missing eye (these are related). Man isn't having much luck bringing todd to those guys. Further north, near Ostland and Nordland lies the Forest of Shadows, which is about as bad. It's more of a dangerous, wild place in general, with the infestation being less specifically Chaos related and more 'There aren't that many people or major cities nearby to even make a concerted effort at scouring this place'. Thus, Beastmen thrive among the brigands and greenskins in the Forest of Shadows. Up in Troll Country, north of the borders of Kislev and verging on the dread Chaos Wastes, you find roving hordes of the things; it's here they meet with their masters, the Champions of Chaos, to pass on words to when the Herds should start to get active to harass and harry the Empire and Kislev in preparation for larger invasions by conventional Chaos armies. Beastmen are usually mooks, but their racial profile for creating Beastmen characters gives them some nasty advantages: A big racial buff to stealth in the woods, Keen Senses (Remember this from vampires? +20% to all Perception based tests is really good), and they all know how to sneak. Any Beastman PC (Yes, you can play as Goatman Prime) starts with 2 Mutations, and Beastmen can take more mutations before warping into Chaos Spawn than humans. Horned Gors are the mightiest of the Beastmen, and the assumed sort you'll be if you're playing as them or specifically rolling up a full, hand-made champion for your PCs to fight. Gors get some pretty insane stats: +10 WS, +5 Str, +20 Tough, +5 Agi, -5 WP, and +10 Fel (I don't know, I guess this is in relations with other Beastmen and Chaos folks, the only place they'd talk to people). They also get slightly higher Wounds than a human (about 1 point higher on average), but no Fate at all, much like a Vampire. There are also multiple kinds of Gors, but the only one with gameplay effect is the 'Truegor', which has no actual mutations besides exceptionally handsome horns. They get Very Strong and Savvy as bonus talents, being especially favored, and all Gors also get Intimidate. Gors can go into a couple simple careers, but get the unique (and not too spectacular) Bestigor (intended to buff the base Gor statline for 'elite' enemies more than for being a PC career) class and Beastman Champion (A pretty basic, meh 3rd tier-ish career) for the same purpose. The high Toughness might seem really intimidating, but Beastmen never wear plate; they top out at Mail, generally, as it's the best thing they can loot and still wear. A Gor Champion is a match in a duel for a well equipped T3 PC. You're also given rollable stats for Brays and Ungors, Beastmen who don't have horns and thus suck. Aside from being fairly tough and having inexplicably high Fellowship (seriously, why do all the goatmen have 30 base Fel) they aren't that impressive and if you're playing Beastmen for some reason, you're probably all playing Gors. Except if someone is playing as the most busted PC option I've seen since vampires, the Bray Shaman. Bray Shamans start with a point of Mag, +10 WS, +15 Tough, +5 Agi, +10 Int, +10 Fel, they actually have 1-3 Fate, they have even better wounds than a Gor, and they get access to two unique magic careers. Their starting *caster* Career gives them a full lore, +2 more Mag (for Mag 3, same as a Master Wizard), an extra Attack per round, tons of skills, and exits into a Career that gives +4 Mag (For 5 Mag! They break the normal Mag cap!), good fighting skills, +2 Attacks, good physicals, great mentals, and jesus christ it really is Goatman Prime come to end everything. Greater Bray Shamans are Final Boss Wizard types. You've also got rollable options for drunken crazy centaur monsters that love drinking, fighting, and hate everyone else for not being a half-horse, half-man freak. They're strong, not especially agile, very fast, and have a base Attacks of 2, so careers can take them crazy places if you decided one was able to join a PC party. They can never armor their fragile, fragile horse legs, though, and hits to their body have 50-50 odds of hitting the unarmored horse parts. The chances of a Centigor going down to broken leg and needing a bullet in the head are high. You've also got rollable minotaurs, because if you're going to be a crazy beastman monster party why not go all the way? Minotaurs automatically have a bunch of fighting talents like fighting with two-handed weapons and Strike Mighty Blow, Attacks of 2, +20 Str and Toughness over a human, and are dumb as all hell. You've also got some minions: Giant mutant boars from Artois for your Gors to ride on their way to power metal glory, and Warhounds of Chaos, whose statistics have been misprinted and replaced with the statline for Bestigor advances in my copy (so they have no stats). Warherds aren't unified or cohesive groups. They splinter every time a leader dies, and someone is always trying to kill (then eat) the leader. The beastmen think, like most of Chaos, that this makes them much stronger but it mostly means that (and this is canon in the Old World Bestiary) the Empire's most successful tactic is goading warherds into fighting themselves or sniping their champion so they'll fall to fighting over succession. Beastmen only really come together when someone above the line in the Chaos Ladder tells them to, otherwise they're basically roving murder-gangs. If you're playing as Beastmen, and you're Gors or better, if you do something metal you can pay 100XP to get a ballad or title written about it that permanently gives a stacking +5% fellowship with other Beastmen. If you're generating a random gang of murderous goatmen, there's a bunch of motives you can roll for why they've come together to do their thing, from being hungry to 'The Gods said kill' to 'Eh, killing is fun and we're bored'. These effect the randomized size of the host. The host's size then effects how powerful and how many the main troops of the herd are. These are the guys your PCs need to kill to make these monsters scatter back to the woods. In the average herd, it's a Bestigor or Champion, a single Shaman, and some other Bestigor bodyguards. There's also a roll for how many random mooks you'll need to slip past (fighting through 60-100 mooks is not going to happen unless your party are vampires or grail knights or something) to get at the bastards at the head. I'm all for occasional tables, but if I'm writing an adventure and balancing it around 'My players are gonna go in and waste the Champion so the warherd breaks up before it can threaten a town' I'd prefer to just make and place the enemies myself so I know I'm giving them a balanced challenge rather than randomly roll a bunch of numbers of patrols and goatmen. There's also an interesting bit on Dark Tongue, including a phonetic alphabet for the markings if you want to try to write up props for yourself for your PCs. Dark Tongue is a genuine lingua-franca for the servants of Chaos; they all learn this language and they can all speak to one another, even if Demons have their own tongue with more magical force and Beastmen have one that implements more gestures and beasty-noises. Cultists learn this, too. This is the language Chaos uses to give all its disparate servants marching orders about how to best die for whatever generic armored rear end in a top hat it's picked to lead it this time. The whole 'You can play as the Beastmen!' thing feels a little tacked on, more an acknowledgement that anything they give you rules for for making custom enemies with could easily be used as PCs due to the commonalities of the system. But Beastmen make a good starting threat or overt foe to deal with when your PCs get tired of cultists and investigations. They're the mooks of Chaos, the jobbers that don't quite know they're jobbers. They're a threat, but they're a threat your PCs can handle and come out heroes for dealing with. Also, they're common enough that there are usually bounties on them (the aforementioned guy who likes screwing with Toddbringer has a 10,000 GC bounty on his head. If your PCs got at that, they could retire in style!) so the general lack of rewards when fighting Chaos probably won't matter. Beastmen are generally inoffensive and can make for some fun, creepy random monsters without getting too weird. Plus, you know, classic satanic imagery is always good for dark fantasy, I suppose. Next: The weird and creative critters of one of the better parts of the book.
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# ? Aug 11, 2017 15:04 |
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Clearly the greatest danger of Goat is that Goat is inexplicably extremely eloquent and can sway entire crowds if given the chance to speak.
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# ? Aug 11, 2017 15:38 |
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I legit don't get all Goatmen getting +10 Fel.
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# ? Aug 11, 2017 15:40 |
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Goats are extremely charismatic.
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# ? Aug 11, 2017 15:40 |
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Is it a "We want these guys to be intimidating, but Intimidation is based on Fellowship" thing?
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# ? Aug 11, 2017 15:53 |
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Herding instinct?
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# ? Aug 11, 2017 16:02 |
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Warhammer Fantasy: Tome of Corruption The strangest thing I ever saw? A swarm of butterflies drinking the tears of a dying man. Chaos doesn't just mutate things, sometimes it creates whole new viable species of monsters. Sometimes it makes really weird stuff. The next section is all the odd miscellaneous monsters and strange beasts that don't fit into the normal Chaos mold, and it's got some neat stuff in it. Amphisbena are two-headed serpents that actually come from Lustria, and might not have anything to do with Chaos but rather the normal strange energies and magics down there. Still, Old Worlders see an incredibly venomous snake with 2 heads and their first thought is 'yep, Chaos'. Amphisbena aren't actually that dangerous to a trained fighter, but they're stealthy, their poison bite does d10+4 with an extra 4 Wounds on top if you fail a Toughness save, and they can constrict a human pretty easily. They're often used by Chaos cults as a means of subtle assassination, because nothing says 'subtle' like 'slipped a two-headed snake into his bedroom.' Amalgamation Beasts are bad news. They're a weird, congealed puddle of human emotions that failed to form a coherent demon, and so now they're twisting balls of ruined, possessed flesh seeking out human hosts to maintain their grip on the physical world. They have 6 attacks, a 46 WS, 5 SB, 5 TB (And an extra 2 points if hit by nonmagical weapons) but don't quite have the Wounds of 'big' boss horrors at only 26; a party can probably focus one of these down if they don't go crazy from its Terrifying trait. If they kill anyone, they absorb them for +d10 Strength and Toughness and heal themselves by d5, so don't bring mooks to a fight with one of these things. Because they incorporate possessed, dead flesh, they don't suffer from demonic Instability, either. On the plus side, they're totally mindless and act entirely on instinct, so baiting or tricking one should be simple. Basilisks originally come down from the Chaos Wastes, looking like a very poisonous 15 foot long alligator. They turn people to stone by looking at you from within 10 yards, which will kill you instantly unless you make a Toughness-10 without a burned Fate point. You can make a WP save to avert your eyes in time (or, if you know it's a basilisk, not look at it in the first place) giving you -20% to WS and BS and it +20% to hit you. It also has 3 attacks, bites with a +6 Wounds on Failing Toughness Test poison, hits at Damage 5, and has about 7 DR and 15 Wounds itself. These jerks can be a handful, and are one of the few times where absolutely knowing what you're up against is really going to help you (since staying out of range and shooting it or averting your eyes are your best options). The Cavity Worm is a Chaos Bot Fly. I could probably stop there, but these things get into human mouths, feed on gum disease, plaque, and breath (they make the victim characteristically short of breath and weak), then burrow through the gums into your brain and lay eggs. You need a good doctor to spot the little bastards in time. Otherwise, they eat your brain and larva come out. Horrifying, but better used as a mystery for PCs to solve (as in, 'why are people going crazy, getting sick, and dying') rather than inflicted directly on PCs. Chaos Dragons are what happens when a Dragon gives up and joins up with the Ruinous Powers. They gain a second head, for one, probably to keep an eye on the first head. Chaos Dragons are some of the most dangerous monsters that have stats, and the book's suggestion on using them is 'If you'd like a really exciting reason to roll new PCs'. At the same time, a prepared third tier party could take one; the real problem isn't the 61 Wounds, the 5 natural armor, the 6 SB and TB, or the 'All melee attacks count as Armor Piercing (-1 AV) and Impact'. No, it's the breath weapon. It hits you with two AoEs with no save that do Damage 8, then Damage 4 Ignores Armor. It can, theoretically, do this every round. Action economy can let a high tier badass party bring one down, but these things are almost beyond what PCs are going to be able to take on in open combat and will probably require a larger plan or cannons. Chaos Slime is reasonably dangerous congealed warp energy. It was commonly found as a sort of weird, organic leaving after the sack of Praag, and still boils up from the sewers there in Old Town every now and then. Chaos Slime can engulf someone and hold them while it strangles them (it only has 33 Str, though, so an average character can probably break its grapple before they die), but the real problem is that any contact with it and your flesh causes mutations (Toughness-10). Cults herd this stuff into places where people will accidentally touch pieces of it, much as they love trying to hide warpstone powder everywhere, because mutation is one of their best recruiting methods. In straight combat it's reasonably dangerous since it has 3 attack, but its meh Weapon Skill means it only has a 36% chance of landing any individual shot, it has no defensive skills, and it only has 18 Wounds and DR 3. A starting party with a little luck can chop one of these up. Chimeras are what happens when the acceptable procedures that produce Catbirds and Horsebirds GO TOO FAR. You know a Chimera: Goat, serpent, lion, very poisonous, very angry. They don't have a great WS, but they have 6 attacks, so if your GM is a dick and focuses all of those on one player during a melee it's going to do bad things to that one person. Its real danger is that all bites from a Chimera will automatically inflict at least 1 damage from the acidic, venomous spittle no matter what armor you're wearing, so deflection by armor won't work, and they force a Toughness-20 or *die* in d10 Rounds. So theoretically this thing can TPK a group of heavily armored, tough characters through their armor in one round. Chaos has a lot of save or die stuff and I wish it didn't have quite so much; Fate Points will only get you so far. Dragon Ogres are where it gets good. Dragon Ogres get more coverage in the Bestiary, but they're really interesting. They may very well be the original inhabitants of the planet, before the Old Ones terraformed anything. They're called Dragon Ogres, but they're really like an immense centaur whose lower half is a lizard. They were the first people to ever make a deal with Chaos, and what they got was immortality; Dragon Ogres grow larger and stronger with age, and they never die of the roll of years, only violence. However, they don't seem to be able to reproduce, which is implied to have been the price from their masters. There's also hints they aren't exactly excited about how the deal ended up, but they don't have a choice. They spend most of their ancient lives dreaming, being summoned by great lightning storms (getting hit by lightning gets them high and peps them up a bunch) whenever Chaos is going to make another go at the world and wishes to demand they wake up and get on with it. Even a basic Dragon Ogre is a serious boss fight for most parties, with 34 Wounds, DR 6, decent Weapon Skill (48), 3 Attacks, and a ton of hitting power. Hitting one with lightning gives it an extra attack per round and +10 Str for a time, and does absolutely no damage. Do not use the Lore of the Heavens against Dragon Ogres. The Shaggoths are Dragon Ogre ancients, immense beings the size of a tower who were old even when they made the original bargain with Chaos. These things are almost on par with a full Chaos Dragon, though they lack the breath weapon. Having a 69 WS, 5 attacks, 66 Wounds, and DR 9 means a Shaggoth can be a boss for even high tier parties, and these ancient creatures are very intelligent and very eager to not die. You could do a lot with ancient creatures who regret but are trapped by the insane bargain they struck, who wake up every couple centuries to go see how much the world has changed while they dreamed and try to end it again. Fen Worms are just big mutated Chaos snakes that live in swamps and make them miserable. Reasonably tough, extra Wound poison, etc. They're not very exciting. Ah, the Jabberwock. Proof that Chaos can be dangerous even at its silliest. These idiotic creatures are big, mutated, winged dragon-like things that are actually too stupid to learn to fly, despite having viable wings. They're madness-inducing, as the eye tries to follow their form and fails, and their wings produce an insane wuffling noise when they're excited by finding food or something interesting. They have an inexplicably massive 79 WS, they regenerate injuries not given to them by fire, but if they're too badly hurt they get so confused by pain that they assume they're dead and lie there waiting to regenerate. Another good blow will take their head off and stop the regeneration. They're also incredibly poisonous, having the good old 'save or die in a couple rounds without treatment' style of poison, though at least they don't have the guaranteed chip damage to make it 100% certain to force a save like Chimeras. They are also stupid to a degree that is hard to describe; any sufficient distraction will force them to make an Int save (12% normally, 32% if being attacked) or stop whatever they were doing to immediately investigate, even if they're in the middle of a fight. Thus, if you have to kill one of these things, have one person engage it and then another person bang some cymbols off in the woods so it gets too distracted, starts screaming 'WARK!' and wanders off to investigate while you chop it in the back. They also have terrible DR for how big they are (6) and 'only' 47 wounds. They won't last long under a high tier characters' attacks if you can survive the poison and WS by tricking them. Jabberwocks are good times. Lashworms are basically stinging cave anemones, who sit around waiting to annoy dwarfs and miners. They sense people by hairs on their sensing tendrils, then lash out and sting, hoping to get delicious flesh. They're used as living landmines by cults and beastmen. They also have a misprint where they get some of the Cavity Worm's abilities mixed in with their own. Ech, this book can be a little bit more of a mess than the others sometimes. Lifekiss bugs secrete a little goo that, when spread on the face, appears to instill life and vigor and remove age. Given this is Chaos, this is obviously a trap. The subject will get addicted to the goo, and eventually the goo will start sapping their life, instead, making them appear older as the bug feeds on their vitality and young. They won't believe it, and will keep trying to use the bug-drug until it kills them. Of course, the description focuses on how it's mostly noblewomen who use them, because we've got to put in a little 'haha, women are way more vain about appearance than men' in there. Otherwise they're a fine little weird mystery for PCs to solve and stop. Also, the bug is smart and is going to be trying to stop you from breaking its hold on the person it's parasitizing. Silkens are murderous spider things the size of small dogs who spread invisible strands about, then either bite the target to poison them to death for feeding, or more commonly, let the target's struggles tear them apart. I don't like Silkens because they aren't especially dangerous except that they lay 'Make a Per test at -30%(!)' traps that leave no other signs of them being there, so you're stuck just hoping you roll well to know you're dealing with the stupid things. Otherwise the strands ruin your armor or cause damage in the course of struggling free. They're a DM Dick Move monster. Sorrow Swarms are swarms of butterfly-like monsters that feed on human tears. They do this by landing on victims and cutting them slightly to induce serious pain and make them cry. They love to attack children, especially. These things are there specifically to remind you that Chaos is awful and you should stab it whenever you get the chance. Fighting a swarm of them won't be too hard on PCs, and they usually don't kill their victims, but they're a nice touch of how petty and weird Chaos can get. Sunworms are just weird electric maggots that don't actually attack you, but if you try to hit them with a sword you get electrocuted. Shoot them if you need to kill them, but with a 0 WS and no attacks, they're not enough of a threat to bother usually. You also get some cursory templates to apply to Trolls, Giants, and Ogres who've thrown in with Chaos, which mostly amount to 'A normal Troll, Giant, or Ogre, but with some mutations.' This chapter wasn't quite as interesting as I remembered. Chaos really stands out as having a ton of 'save or die' mechanics, and while having Fortune points for rerolls and Fate for extra lives makes those a little less lethal, I don't know many players who actually like having to deal with one-shot abilities. Next Time: The People Who Deal With All This Bullshit. Also Actual Hat Enthusiasts, This Time. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Aug 11, 2017 |
# ? Aug 11, 2017 16:27 |
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Jabberwocks are amazing. They're like big lovecraftian puppies but somehow even dumber.
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# ? Aug 11, 2017 16:38 |
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Also, Intimidate is based on Strength, generally, though the GM can let you use Fellowship if it's more subtle, so that can't be the reason for Oddly Charismatic Goatmen.
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# ? Aug 11, 2017 16:40 |
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Gors have bonus fellowship because they're being compared to Ungors, the lovely kind of beastman who are just a dude with tiny, un-beast-like horns and more body hair.
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# ? Aug 11, 2017 17:12 |
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Wrap some Sun worms around the end of stick or mace and insulate the handle for an instant cattle prod. Edit: I was wondering what kind of films or quick reads would set the tone for a fun Warhammer adventure. Only thing I can think of in the "period fantasy black comedy" genre is Terry Gilliam films like Jabberwocky and Brothers Grimm. marshmallow creep fucked around with this message at 17:35 on Aug 11, 2017 |
# ? Aug 11, 2017 17:32 |
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Mors Rattus posted:Goats are extremely charismatic. Case in point.
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# ? Aug 11, 2017 18:11 |
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After the unfortunate human-animal merge the survivors realised in horror that they cannot twist their necks this way. Deciding to destroy human civilization came soon after.
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# ? Aug 11, 2017 18:15 |
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Who doesn't want to live deliciously?
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# ? Aug 11, 2017 18:16 |
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CHAPTER ONE: STORM ON THE HORIZON Or Beating Women Because That’s How You Impress Them Yeah that little subtitle is not a joke. Content warning: if torturing a woman makes you squeamish, you should pass this one over. So welcome back to Abandon All Hope. Where we last left off, G-Unit has grown even bigger than before thanks to rescuing people from the Lords of the Dream Cages and turning Elysium into their own stronghold. The rec complex holds a lot of bad memories and weird baggage but regrettably it’s the biggest place they’ve found and it’s still got power and space. It has now been, canonically, a while since The Right to Live and the ship has been quiet, and there hasn’t been much in the way of danger from the Demons or gangs. But you still have to find food and supplies and that’s what puts seven of G-Unit in generally unfamiliar territory. The game has the assumption that your players are in a general state of constantly looking for a safe place to stay. That’s kinda bullshit so I’m putting my own little spin on it. The seven members of G-Unit who take the stage this time are our core members (Beth, Doc, Soapbox, Tama and Pincushion) along with Ice Queen and Jackpot (and a special new friend). For starts, everyone who has been around long enough to get Extra Health have upgraded their health further to a respectable 30 health. SOAPBOX has upgraded her Reflexes and Willpower. DOC has learned Shuffle and picked up Commando Fighting so she can do better in melee. TAMA has really just upped her Reflexes a bit more because she's spent all her downtime inventing. BETH'S big upgrade has also been upping her Reflexes. PINCUSHION has blown his BP on learning more psychic powers, this time picking up Empathy so he can risk going crazy to read people's thoughts. ICE QUEEN has increased her health and her experience in the Dream Cages has increased her Willpower to boot. Finally, JACKPOT has only picked up Backstabber because I'm saving her remaining BP for Fun Stuff. And we can also introduce the newest member of G-Unit, Tama's Junk Robot that she has named "SHINING FINGER" and has spent a painstaking amount of time and effort to build decorative armor out of scrap metal to make it look historically accurate to her favorite classical Japanese entertainment. Shining Finger is equipped with a weapon she managed to build in the last bit of calm: an Energy Projector, which one may recall is the equivalent of a jury-rigged military-grade pulse rifle. Because there's no rule that says that Junk Robots don't have an internal power supply that powers their weapons like a proper Custodian, Shining Finger absolutely can power the gun off of its internal battery that has no rules that limit its ability to hold charges or whatever. And because Tama is piloting the Shining Finger with a remote control, she has gotten substantially more useful in a fight. Current occupants of Elysium (sans the members of G-Unit above):
The two summoned Demons are Nexper Sects. Staying down and staying quiet (like the squad is going to do) lets them witness the two Demons tearing up the corpses and the room like they’re looking for living people. If uninterrupted, they disappear and a woman sneaks out of hiding and approaches the computers in the room. If you attack the Demons, then she joins in the fight. Regardless of outcome, the woman is wearing a gas mask and recognizes the PCs even if they don't recognize her. That's because this woman is our good friend Shel, the one who was running a gang of thieves out by Sanctuary who were robbing and killing travelers. She has since joined the DOS out of a fear for her own safety and if you did in fact kill Shel, well this is just...someone similar. The DOS has sent her to this computer room and has done a Flesh Sacrifice to have the Nexper Sects scout the area so she can do it solo. Her job is to use a code book in her possession to find out the location of a specific prisoner for the DOS. Considering that her Demon friends have left and she's now up against seven women and a battlebot, it's not hard to deal 5 points of damage to Shel. Because at 5 points of damage, she immediately throws down her weapons and surrenders. I won't lie, I do appreciate the detail that she's got the Gorgon tattoo. So now G-Unit has a captive who was here on a mission. Despite having silver-tongued Soapbox here, Shel refuses to talk. Her time amongst the DOS has hardened her to the point where "the only thing that impresses her is sheer ruthlessness", meaning that if they want to get her to talk they have to literally torture the answer out of her. SUPER TORTURE SIMULATOR 2657 ALPHA "A reasonable discussion is out of the question" or so says the book. To quote: "Unfortunately, Shel is not going to talk without some persuasion. And the only thing that impresses her kind is sheer ruthlessness." If they want the info out of Shel, they have to torture her. After all, isn't it totally effective at getting people the information they want. The possible interrogation methods are listed below. These aren't threats, FYI. These are "you do these and then make an Intimidation check with a bonus applied for doing that to her". Then after you carry out the torture, you make a Guilt check with a modifier regardless of whether or not it worked. The idea is that actually hurting her makes it harder for you to deal with the Guilt. Making things worse is that each method only works once. If you break one leg, you can't break the other for some reason. This entire system is horrifying and morally objectionable to use to begin with. Making things worse is the fact that once this whole scenario is done, the book is like "good job, you can now immediately purchase the Torturer Trait if you want to instead of waiting until the next time you can level up". Go gently caress yourself, AAH. Because torture is immoral and ineffective and a weapon of misguided cowards, I will of course stay the course of the third option/cheating like a bandit. They didn't exactly write this scenario to have a literal psychic onboard but guess what, our good buddy Pincushion is here and he's recently learned to read thoughts. He lays a hand on the captive Shel's forehead and in no time his eyes are rolled back in his head and he's babbling out the thoughts on her mind: Soapbox makes the check to figure out that Patton is involved. Shel also begs for her release, but she can't really be trusted: if let go she runs back to the DOS to spill the beans about what happened. Ultimately Shel remains tied up and Soapbox pockets the code book and they continue trekking along looking for supplies with Shel in tow. However, it's not like people weren't keeping tabs on Shel, and that's when some Furies decide to make their presence known. It's not hard to get the Furies to chill out. A Social check or holstering your weapons will do the job. What will also work is explaining how you were at the battle of Sanctuary and, well, last these women checked, Soapbox was leader of Sanctuary. The Furies get their chill on and spill the beans. Telling the truth is a good move and that's exactly what comes out: we were scavenging, we found her, we grilled her and now we're bringing her with us. Lace, the leader of these Furies, knows about the codebook and is giving them the chance to come clean. Knowing that the Furies are trustworthy (if only because they're not actively worshipping the Demons), Soapbox turns over the codebook and Lace insists that G-Unit come with her to see the new leader of the Furies, Patch. After the fall of Sanctuary, the Furies have converted a "Center for Education and Betterment" school (the book helpfully calls it a reform school) into their headquarters. These centers were intended to be prison schools with the ability to gain Trustee status for good behavior. Now they're largely abandoned and this one is home to Furies recovering from their wounds and handling psychological trauma from Perdition. Patch has managed to put together a force of 50 or so Furies and they've got a good stockpile of improvised weapons, hand-made firearms and explosives. Their current goal is to get all of their troops back together from the rest of the ship, tracking the DOS and using intelligence on them to try and figure out where lone/injured Furies might be. The thing is, G-Unit knows Patch and the meeting begins with hugs instead of cold introductions. After rescuing Katherine and her two friends from the crazed Monitor, she returned to Sanctuary and helped defend during the battle at the cost of her eye. When Sanctuary fell, she escaped alongside the Furies and ended up joining them for her own safety. Her past history as a union worker has served her well and she's since quickly rose to the rank of leader because of her ideas and tenacity. The following points are supposed to be worked into an organic conversation with her: G-Unit show her the codebook and the captive Shel and Patch explains her current theory about what the DOS are up to. Her solution is to start negotiations with the other gangs of the ship, to see who will be able or willing to stand against the alliance of the DOS, Skinheads, Embracers and Psychos. If enough are willing to ally and meet the size of the armies of damnation, they might have a shot at stopping things from getting worse or foiling the plans of the Demons. The best place to start would be with getting in touch with the Giants. The Giants managed to survive Sanctuary (albeit without Johnson) and relocated their gang somewhere to the east. Patch's reason that because they fought together once, chances are good they could do it again. The only question is, Patch muses, where can she find diplomats to visit the Giants and arrange an alliance? Everyone shares a pretty good laugh over that (except for Shel). CHAPTER TWO: HOW THE MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN After running a quick hike back to Elysium to drop off their goods and inform the others of the plan and to hold tight, they leave Shel in the hands of the Furies and get one pick each off the following list. And like some kind of reverse Sun Wukong, they begin their journey to the east. All areas marked 1 are pitfalls. The first character in line falls into the pit and has to make a Reflex check to avoid drowning. Because they're in a group, there's no risk of drowning. The point of these traps is, explicitly, to make the players abandon stuff and put a sense of dread into them. That's it. The sludge is normally broken down by automated machines applying chemicals, but damage to the ship has caused that to fail in this area. The sludge is solid and is damming up the entire corridor and is absolutely toxic and dangerous. The only way through the area is to wade and because literally nobody has chemical gear it's 1 damage for every 10 feet traveled. The corridor is 40 feet long. There is literally no purpose to going through it. The point of this room is that it's a flood chamber for the purposes of cycling waste water. As soon as the last party member enters, the door closes and the room starts cycling, filling with water. You have ten turns to figure out how to get out of the room. For the first three, there's a panel on the wall that can be hacked to disengage the door locks but on the fourth turn it gets covered with a waterproof panel. Outside of that, 30 points of damage dealt to either door will break the door down. At the end of 10 turns, there's 5 turns where the room is full of water. You can hold your breath for 1 turn per point of Willpower, which means everyone would survive this until the doors open and expel the water and trash. You can choose to dive down into the trash below while the room is full of water. Big problem with this: this is a party of 7 people. They are not all going in that room. Tama goes in, pokes around, finds what she can find and leaves and they move on. This guy here is a Giant who is so desperate for a fix of Cardiolax he just can't help himself. He fights with a toothbrush that has been adjusted to hold a razor blade and is desperate enough to charge 7 people and a robot. After thoroughly macing him, they disarm him and the addict has a mental breakdown that Doc carefully walks him through as best as she can considering they're in a sewer. Because they didn't kill him and treated him with respect, he's willing to lead them to the Giants. The Demon up in 6 was gnawing on corpses and was basically just letting the limbs and bones pile up, creating a dam that's slowly been gaining water pressure that broke. A tidal wave of sewage and gore hits anyone in the tunnel, dealing 1d2 damage and knocking them underwater on a failed Reflex save. Seeing the contents of the gore wave causes a Despair check with a penalty if you were knocked underwater. The addict openly warns G-Unit about the Demon down this way because he knows about it and prevents them from going further. If they did, they'd come across an Engorged Horror which will immediately bum-rush the party, try to eat someone then try to eat another then try to eat another etc. You also can't really get out of this scenario too easily by running away because he'll just loving chase you no matter where you go. If the Horror dies, its Death Slithers in its guts will land in the water and lurk with invisibility to pop out and bite at the party. One of them will accidentally get sucked down a drain and disappear. Of course, even if G-Unit was foolish enough to ignore the warnings of the addict, the fight would go smoothly enough in their favor what with the Engorged Horror immediately keeling over and dying. Who would have imagined that the safest route to the hospital would just be "follow the main path and don't really deviate"? What amazing and immersive game design. Well at any rate they made it to the hospital and NEXT TIME they'll meet the new leader of the Jailhouse Giants, a familiar face who is definitely not be as honest as he could be with the other Giants.
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# ? Aug 11, 2017 18:47 |
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marshmallow creep posted:
For books may I recommend A Spell of Empire https://www.amazon.co.uk/Spell-Empi...spell+of+empire Which is the best non-warhammer Warhammer novel I've ever read. Nb. It's only technically a non-warhammer novel. It was supposed to be a Warhammer Fantasy novel. But the contract fell throught, after they'd already written the book. So they did the barest cut and replace job of the Empire with a legally defensible Germanic Mittleuropa expy and published it anyway. It's great. Some fantastic action scenes, great characters and with a solid tinge of black humour. I'd give it 4 and a half out of a possible 5 Zweihanders. Deptfordx fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Aug 11, 2017 |
# ? Aug 11, 2017 18:48 |
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I'm glad G-Unit has a death robot.
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# ? Aug 11, 2017 18:57 |
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Jesus loving tap-dancing Christ...
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# ? Aug 11, 2017 19:16 |
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# ? Dec 6, 2024 17:11 |
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Warhammer Fantasy: Tome of Corruption Hats Now: Defenders of the Empire The intro paragraph admits, for once, that every major overt push by Chaos has been defeated because the Empire and others tend to rally together and do the sensible thing once there's actually waves of monsters from hell coming down from the north. But what about times of supposed peace, like right now, where the problems are smaller, harder to see, and more local? These are handled by the Witch Hunters. There's also a brief 'Please also read Realm of Sorcery' since the book on the Colleges and magic obviously touches on the Hunters, too. They police the Colleges and issue and check the licenses, after all. People are divided on Hunters. On one hand, plenty of villages and people can point to having been rescued by a grim man or woman in a dramatic coat and a wide-brimmed hat. They fight ferociously against evil and they're tireless investigators, most of the time. On the other hand, policies like the matter on mutation and their constant, suspicious snooping mean that when Hunters make mistakes, innocent people die. Relatives and families never forget the dark figure that took their neighbor or family member to the pyre or the chopping block. And corrupt Hunters exist, as do mad zealots. These people use their power to terrorize and bully, and make the work even harder for honest Hunters. Further, the Hunters became professionalized and partially secularized only recently, with the reformation of the Empire under Magnus the Pious. Before then, the popular image of the mad zealot burning innocent and guilty really was the reality more often than not. Hunters began in the 1900s, four centuries into the Time of Three Emperors. With the Empire's political foundation disintegrating, people began to turn to the Cult of Sigmar as a unifying source of law enforcement and protection from monsters. The Grand Theoganist created his own Order, the Order of the Silver Hammer, and bade them to kill witches and destroy corruption (and vampires, and skaven, and anything else that was a threat) in the name of Sigmar. And only in the name of Sigmar; they had no loyalty and were not beholden to any other cult, and remember that this was during the partially-religiously-themed strife of the Three Emperors. This meant an awful lot of early Hunters went around murdering Ulricans who had refused to acknowledge the primacy of Sigmar. This is not a smart or good thing to do in a polytheistic society and the Order risked being a symbol of Sigmarite monodominsism, trying to enforce the role of Sigmar as Emperor of the Gods at the point of the sword and torch. They also turned on orders of Sigmarites who were not similarly zealous. Other cults began to form their own orders of 'hunters of corruption' to defend their flocks from the Templars of Sigmar. You will note in all of this that they did not accomplish very much fighting of Skaven, Undead, or Chaos. In 2301, as part of putting the Empire back together, Magnus called the Order of the Silver Hammer to heel. He appointed a secular Lord Protector to bind them to the Imperial Throne, and he also forced them to become accountable to all of the Cults. No more of this idiocy of forcing priests of another cult to say Sigmar was the greatest of the Gods and risking the wrath of the other legitimate gods while letting real enemies slip them by. The Order was re-organized, professionalized, and reformed into a much more effective investigative body. For the fifty years of Magnus' reign, the Hunters did their job with increasing efficiency and far more effectiveness. It was much more likely a Hunter was going to be burning someone who had a mark of Chaos rather than someone who hadn't tithed sufficiently to the cult of Sigmar. Unfortunately, between Magnus and Karl Franz, a fair number of the Emperors were not able to control the Order very well. It wasn't until the election of a good Grand Theoganist, Volkmar the Grim, and Karl Franz's renewed leadership that the Order was again reformed from its more corrupt and insane elements and put back to working efficiently. An important thing about a modern Hunter in 2522 is that they need evidence. They have broad investigative power but they rely on local lords and local soldiers and local politicians for enforcement. A Hunter has very broad powers, personally, but unless they can convince the people with the soldiers of the need to lend them those soldiers for enforcement, they'll have to make due with their own retinue and their own mercenaries. Unfortunately, the Empire still operates under the idea that the confession is the Queen of Proofs, and Hunters have very broad powers for forcing confessions that, unbeknownst to them, are likely to be false because of the duress they were obtained under. Modern Hunters try to avoid putting innocents to the sword; not only is it their duty to defend the Empire, but every innocent person killed by mistake makes the job harder for all Hunters. This is also why they step in often to try to prevent meddling, unlicensed folk from performing their own unauthorized vigilante investigations (one of many ways your PCs might end up in conflict the the Hunters); you can't trust people who haven't been properly vetted not to bumble around setting barns on fire and falling to Chaos when they try to grab some shiny medallion to pawn off. Next: A Hunter's campaign, additional Hunting careers.
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# ? Aug 11, 2017 19:38 |