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LowellDND posted:A) Warn your lord sire We're pretty solid into G, so Ill start writing with that assumption. Ill keep voting open till tomorrow, but I don't expect anything else to get the 8+ votes they need to catch up.
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Aug 23, 2014 19:54
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Obscil posted:I don't think you need to keep votes open this long. Unless this is how often you want to update. Hm, the other CYOA threads gave me the impression they were open 3-7 days. Too long?
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Aug 23, 2014 21:35
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Okay. Tentatively, I want to try for 2/week, with each update being 2-3 pages, which lets us explore the world a little bit. I'm not sure of the post length of the other 40k threads just yet, but they seemed a decent length.
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Aug 23, 2014 21:43
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Outside in Below you, the countless miles of machinery of the Haephestus-class Forge World, your home these many years. You spent the majority of your life there, learning the sacred arts of the Machine-God, becoming proficient in the foundations of Tech-Priest. Next to you, your cyber-mastiff snuffles uneasily, distressed by the change in gravity, the rapidly changing smells of a continent of ancient technology. To your south, a horizon of refineries, processing gigatons of promethium. Your Lord-Sire had summoned you, now finished with your training as a Tech-Priest. Now, you had two masters - the eternal Omnissiah, and your patron and lord, the Rogue Trader. Unofficially, three Masters - the Imperial Inquisition. Any one of them had the power to end your life, and the conflicting demands of all three would likely result in that, eventually. Leaving the atmosphere, if it could be called that - millennia of chemicals and waste filled the skies, all the way to low orbit - you observe the slowly approaching Beast of The Beast of Nearly 8 kilometers long, it has the look of a hammerhead shark; massive head set on a long body. Your Family lives in the bow, as they should, and the most vital and private things are kept there. The bridge, the private armoury, the purification plants. Your Family long ago came to the conclusion that such things should be kept out of the hands of the rabble, and the neck of the ship is one of the most heavily guarded. On the spine, a cathedral dedicated to the God Emperor, increasing the look of a predator at sea. Even the powerful engines, in the aft of the ship, had been decorated to be spiked fins, and various cannon had been adjusted to appear as maws, or grasping talons. At a distance, the Beast of Upon closer approach, it lost a certain gravitas. A massive two kilometer Aquilia spanned the head of the beast, but it was off center, angled at an awkward angle relative to any point of view that had been examined. Similarly, the name of the ship, scored in gold letters a hundred meters high, suffered from spelling mistakes. Hence the name Beast of Your shuttle slowly banks its way to the stern of the ship, passing three cargo bays and deploying to the fourth. Your Family’s ship primarily transmits cold cargo, megatons of this or that, but the fourth cargo bay contains atmosphere, and is meant for passengers such as yourself. The Aquila Lander lands gently, before being worked over by Tech-Priests and their apprentices. From there, it will be brought back to the shuttle bays, to appease the Machine-Spirit. You yourself are gestured deeper into the bay, where your welcoming party awaits you. Your Family, after nearly two decades away. Your Family… near enough. Three musicians, playing with enthusiasm if not skill, on Suonas. Your man-servant, the man who raised you before you were selected for training at a Forge-World.  Thinking back on it, he spent most time on A) Adept B) Arbiter C) Cleric D) Scum teaching you the nuances of life aboard the Beast of “Welcome home, my lady.” - This is a two parter while I finish getting you to your quarters and the inevitable betrayal of your Family, but I wanted to give you something while you wait.
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Aug 23, 2014 23:17
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The Grateful Burden Aboard this ship, you are god - your Family own every aspect of this ship and everything on it, and in many cases, every one. However, your Family is divided into it’s own tiers of power and prestige, and on those rarified heights, you are on the outer rim. The highest ranking person is the Rogue Trader, the patriarch of your clan, and his entourage - those he favors with his patronage. He is King on this ship, and his Courts are no less deadly or important then one on some Terrestrial world. The second tier of prestige are the close members of the Family. Children, grandchildren, first cousins, people on a first name basis and who can recognize each other’s faces. They grew up on this ship and stayed there, spending decades learning the trades of Voidmastery. Every one of them becomes an officer of some sort on this ship - it is impossible to become an officer without being Family, although in rare cases some person of extraordinary talent is selected for marriage, and is “gifted” a lifetime of close watch and suspicion. This forms the third tier, which you fall under - likely added to the Family sometime in the last five generations, given at-best casual education, shipped off to some vital task or another for decades at a time. Outsiders tend to meet this buffer-group of the Family - voidborn who have been off-ship, trained off world, familiar with land-bound customs. Many of the most vital experts are kept to this tier, required for any trade with the outside world, but not of the ship, not dedicated to maintaining the ship, and in many ways, not fully Family. All of this can be signified at a glance when you are welcomed aboard. Three Sounas means distant cousin or relative, and is a cold and sullen niceity. Closer family members would get nine, while Lord-Sire and his entourage would be welcomed by all 21, in addition to other musical components of high price and skill. You are greeted by your man-servant alone, who gifts you the Blue Cloak that signifies your rank on ship. It fits you perfectly, of course, although whether you prefer to wear it or maintain the red robes of your Order is up to you. Both will give significant although different reactions from the rabble you are about to pass through. There is a private train which transfers personnel from this cargo bay to the Alpha Quarters, where your Family resides. It is the height of security and comfort, welcoming Family in without interacting with the inhabitants of the Beast of Instead, you shall be riding the Grateful Burden, a series of moving platforms that imagines itself a train. It is without rails or breaks, and can travel the entire length of the ship in about twenty minutes. It’s estimated that nearly ten thousand people can use it at a time, although people keep falling off or jumping on the tracks for some dumb reason. Servitors follow the train, hosing down the tracks. They get used nearly every day. You are given some additional space on the platform as merits your rank, but even so it is a cramped, stifling, and tedious journey. Floor space extends from the tracks nearly a hundred meters, and the ceiling extends nearly the same in height. The Grateful Burden cuts through the bulk of the masses who live on the ship - an ad hoc city of nearly two hundred thousand souls make their homes and livelihood around it, existing in tenements that stand ten or more stories high. Travelling between them is a nightmare of makeshift paths, doorways, walls, and passageways, and Lord-Sire doesn’t even maintain Arbites for them. They manage their own pecking order, and sometimes blood runs in the streets. The last stop, that of Alpha Deck, is a relief. Nearly no one stayed on that long, and the few who do are either thrill-seekers or people of wealth and taste. Wardens, the house-hold troops of your Family, send off the thrill seekers with a glance. They are fanatics, trained at birth for combat and loyalty, and favor extreme violence and cleaning fire. The Wardens only speak High Gothic, to increase their separateness from the rabble, and their grey cloaks are a symbol of terror in the main bays. They examine you carefully, checking both your eyes and blood with technology of forgotten make. The other passengers are checked in a similar way, and all are allowed passaged through the pressure locked blast doors. Alpha Deck maintains its own atmosphere and recyclers, which is kept to a pleasing temperature and scent, far different from the processed air and constant smell of oil that fills the bulk of the ship. In the extensive chamber that greets you, servitors wait. One dominates the space around it, a dozen extending arms tabling through notes and schedules. It looks up at you, and makes a note. “Madam, the Family is having a convergence at this time in regards to upcoming events. Do you wish to go?” 1) “Yes, please tell me where it is.” 2) “I need to check my room for my things, first.” 3) “Not at this time.” Instead, go to the family armoury. 4) “Not at this time.” Instead, go to the seneschal's quarters. 5) “Not at this time.” Instead, go to astrogation. 6) Something else Loel fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Aug 24, 2014 |
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Aug 24, 2014 00:13
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Don't forget there is a choice from the last of the previous page, also. You get to select the skill set of your first minion!
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Aug 24, 2014 02:08
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Outrail posted:Not sure what the option mean but the minion beds to know everything about the family. Ah, they are classes/career paths. Arbiter are investigator/policemen, Adepts are bureaucrats/librarians, Clerics are church people (think Catholic church at its height), and Scum are criminal thugs and hooligans.
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Aug 24, 2014 02:24
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Diogines posted:Loweldnd, Thank you  I can only hope it does half as well as your CYOA  It looks like the thread has firmly decided for A1, so I'm starting some coffee and seeing what I can chomp out.
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Aug 24, 2014 17:34
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Happy Families are all alike The secretarial-servitor nods at your instruction, edits some of the papers, rewrites some of the others, before directing you to a grand room behind and above it. Its voice has an unpleasant grating quality to it that reminds you of life on the Forge World, and you idly wonder whose decision it was to give such a hoarse and crackling voice to someone whose task was people interaction. From what you are told, most places don’t have this many servitors. Your personal experience says otherwise, given your life on the Forge-World, and then here on the Beast of As it happened, he was believed to be a somewhat weak person, compliant and manipulable, and a branch of the Family, composed of disloyal and ambitious officers, decided to take advantage of that fact. It wasn’t enough to simply influence his decisions; they wanted him completely out of the way. Their coup was violent and brutal, lasting weeks. Blood ran in the corridors, half the rabble were lit on fire or shot, and priceless antiquities were destroyed on Alpha Deck. As it turned out, he wasn’t compliant and manipulable - he simply preferred a consensus based approach to leadership - some softness of ideology he had picked up somewhere in his youth. That didn’t mean he couldn’t bring the Emperor’s Justice down on the mutineers though. That entire branch of the Family was captured and turned into Servitors, kept inside Alpha Deck where the Family would always remember what happened to traitors. And from then on, that Rogue Traitor was a dictator of such strength and cunning, it was said he was blessed by the Emperor Himself. Which brings you to this Family meeting. You have been in such things before, usually little tasks that needed an official role, but they were also signallers of intimidation and power. It was hard to plot rebellion when looking at a dozen servitors with faces of cousins, knowing that the last attempt against the Family meant partial brain removal and being caged in a machine of iron and flesh. Not that that wasn’t far different from your eventual goal of devotion to the Omnissiah, of course. But the details were somewhat different, top dog on a Forge World, vs serving scraps to the lesser cousins. Your cyber mastiff nuzzles your hip agreeably. She always knew what you were thinking, and how to respond, even if she lacked the capability to voice it. Woodhouse quietly connected a datapad to your electro graft, sending text, images, clips of video, updating you on the relevant players in the room. Your Lord Sire:  Walking about the room with a mix of strength and sarcasm, he used his Lord Captain’s Baton to emphasize his points. It was the physical aspect of leadership, and was required for the Machine-Spirit of the Beast of His entourage were missing today, but that wasn’t unusual. The events at this meeting were, to them, tedious but necessary, and lacked anything requiring their talents. The Ship’s Magos, for example, would usually be in the engines of the ship, while the Seneschal was already planning some complex plot of deception and betrayal. Next down the line, Scholar Viosus Limosa.  A Sanctioned Psyker and your distant cousin, he made your childhood hell. Apparently he’s done well for himself since then; the rumor on the ship is that he’s being groomed for next Rogue Trader, and might be ready in a mere few decades. You remember him as being oily and obsequious, always near trouble but never caught, and his rise in standing does nothing but support that. Next, Amacitia the Scribe. An occasional acquaintance and friend of your childhood.  Still focused on her old texts, disinterested in the games of power, largely useless. Next. Ah, this one was an interesting one. You didn’t meet him before your Forge-World training. Investigator Cruentus.  Fancied himself a Commissar, liked to go on drops with the mercenary companies. Would often stand behind them and shoot them for “desertion”, laughing all the while. He was almost as much of a danger to them as the enemy was, although Lord-Sire didn’t care much. It didn’t increase the bottom line particularly, and he did have a reputation for success. Woodhouse sends you quick clips of battle you hadn’t encountered before - the Investigator was nearly as good as he thought he was. The mercenaries called him Widowmaker. The data transfer ends just as Lord-Sire starts looking at you. Good. Woodhouse is talented at this, probably why you have a sense for political games in the paperwork. Lord-Sire speaks. A “The dregs down below are complaining about some sort of mysterious killer. I don’t usually care about their squabbles for pecking order, but all three factions are denying their involvement, and all three are asking for an outside investigator. Apparently the killings were particularly gruesome. B “Our visit to the Forge-World has been quite profitable, but the new gun batteries are having trouble integrating with the crew. We need someone to go down there and get them used to their new clan and tribe, make them respect the commands of the Bridge. The other gun batteries don’t like them, think of them as outsiders. C “The workers in Cargo-Bay 3 are reporting sightings of something “odd”. Usually I’d think its a time waster, workers getting into the drink, but several officers I trust report the same. I don’t have any more details than that. D “Finally, the Magos wants the Guild of Maintenance investigated. They do most of the work the Acolytes of the Machine Cult don’t, so its mostly simple benedictions and the like, but they are somehow screwing it up. Someone needs to go down there and find out why. Now then, who wants what? “Tech priest! You. Whats your name? Doesn’t matter. You get first pick today.” Loel fucked around with this message at 17:42 on Feb 14, 2015 |
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Aug 24, 2014 18:12
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my dad posted:psst. You might want to rehost the images. Moved them to imgur, that work? -unfamiliar with some things- Loel fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Aug 24, 2014 |
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Aug 24, 2014 18:33
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Diogines posted:The Lord-Sire does not even know who we are. We have spent years training to learn the secrets of the Ommnisiah. B plays right into our specialty and gives us a chance to shine! Technically, the thread hasn't given me a name yet 
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Aug 24, 2014 18:34
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A B x x x x x x x C D x Im astonished how one sided these last few votes have been. And you aren't even picking the ones I anticipate being popular  edit: this vote isn't closed yet for I am lazy, but Im startled at the trend.
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Aug 25, 2014 00:24
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While I do totally support the "steal the Warrant of Trade" plan and have a few sketches for what happens then, understand that the current Lord-Sire, and a couple of other players, are quite intent on it  It's not going to be one vote now we're playing Rogue Trader.There are about a thousand people in the Family aboard this ship, and many of them want the same thing you do.
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Aug 25, 2014 05:00
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Diogines posted:What about two votes? Sure. Hijack a ship cannon, aim it inwards, take the ship hostage, nothing will go wrong. 
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Aug 25, 2014 05:04
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Diogines posted:I WAS going to wait at least for one more update until I suggested that... My prepared notes for anticipating the thread had you framing the rogue trader like 6 months from now. Let's not quibble about time tables
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Aug 25, 2014 05:12
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a x b x x x x x x x x x x x x x x c x d x x Well, thats pretty decisive.
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Aug 25, 2014 16:04
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The natives are restless Oddly enough, the ship batteries are probably the least holy site on the ship. Compared to the magnificent Machine Spirits that occupy the bridge, the engines, or the treatment plants, these machine spirits are shallow things, focused on simple tasks of mechanism and chemistry. Kept isolated from the center of the ship, they are distant and secured by dozens of blast walls. An angry Machine Spirit is a terror, but when its in control of cyclone torpedoes, it can destroy an unprepared ship. In the same way, to minimize possible danger, the crew who maintain the holy batteries are kept well away from the Grateful burden, and Woodhouse quietly murmurs to you that in these recent years, only the elders of the crew leave their sacred duties when they need to resupply. Other than that, the people of the battery never see the people of the rail, and that is how the Machine Spirits like it. Your approach to the old batteries goes well. Dressed in the blue cloak of your rank and standing, the tribe watches you with curiosity and awe. It is not common for the officers to visit this deck, and their accoutrements of rank are a sad imitation of your own. You can identify their elders by their advanced age and blue cloaks, but certainly not the same length as your own - they wouldn’t want to suggest they have the same prestige as one such as yourself. You never visited these batteries as a child, but they have a certain familiarity to someone who has spent their life on a forge world. Vast stores of torpedoes lay nearby, waiting on tracks that would be greased, pulled with hooks and long lengths of rope and cable. The center of the village, the battery itself, a sacred object of holy veneration. The tribe seems eager to tell you their rituals, and how they have held to them, as is their duty and obligation. The feast goes on for hours - strange meat-beasts a meter long are herded and grilled, while similar beasts are used for a most howling dirge. Apparently if held a certain way, this breed can make a hideous music, which the elder details with you with glee. The pipe beasts are used at all ritualistic events, including war, and their shrieking fills the other battery tribes with fear. He goes on to detail recent battles and wars between decks, travelling the old and forgotten paths, a jungle of machinery and oil and steam. Wild meat-beasts are collected from there, and glory taken from rival tribes. Which brings him to the meat of the issue. The new tribe does not know the rituals, they do not know the sacred routes, the safe places, the ebb and flow of truce and combat. But they cannot be taught to strangers. The elder looks to you, and says, “We cannot teach the rituals to outsiders. They must accept their subordination to us, and become a client tribe, or they must offer their children in union to ours. We will follow your direction, but that is how it has always been.” You demur to answer at this time, and the elder nods, awaiting your judgement. After more hours of ritual feasting and hideous music, you make your goodbyes, and go to the next gun battery, which is a place of easy familiarity. Your red robe gains entrance and subservience, and they seem eager to have a Tech-Priest them into this new place of strange duties and sacred observance. They are serfs from the Eastern continent, and while you’ve never met them, you’ve trained in the hive cities they are from. They greet you as family, ecstatic that someone so close has made the transition to the ship with them. The high-technician there, a woman perhaps half trained as you, but cunning and with extensive machine replacements, greets you eagerly. “Normally, we would just challenge them to a race and call it done. You’ve been to the hives, you know how it works. We both build a racing machine, determine the route, and go to it, and winner gets bragging rights and seniority. We sent a few messengers with the idea, but they just got attacked for “‘trespassing in a holy site.’ We were really hoping you could come up with a compromise with them.” Quietly, Woodhouse texts to your datapad. “The Magos is always in need of new servitors. We could simply walk this group to him, and let the problem resolve itself. Then the old crew can spin out a colony on the new gun, and no one will be the wiser. It will certainly be faster.” You nod at this, and reply: A) Trial combat and subordination. One group wins, ending this nonsense, and its minimal blood spilled. B) Grab a few kids and have them perform a marriage ceremony. Then they can be in the mess of family alliances like everyone else is. C) Racing machines! We can have the track go through the bowels of the ship, there should be some sweet crashes. D) Walk them to the servitor machines. E) Something Else Loel fucked around with this message at 16:31 on Aug 25, 2014 |
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Aug 25, 2014 16:28
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Sogol posted:I think I may need to read some stuff to play. I am familiar with the games, books and movies from the OP, but have no experience with the warhammer genre itself other than a couple of passes at games with Warhammer in the name. What would be a good read? More for the absurdist world that are complex, static, and/or decaying. War 40k is the place where immense bureaucracies accidentally lose planets . . . or the food shipments to them. So, this is a big star ship with a quarter million people trapped in decaying ritual and religion, and many can imagine nothing else. Sound familiar? Your job in this game is the find the mutant/xeno/heretic, and light them on fire. Im trying to balance a start that introduces the world nicely (my walls of text about the officer tiers, for example), without getting bogged down or boring. I *do* have several mutant/xeno plots going on in the background right now, and should be bringing them forward as we go. As always, if its getting boring, please let me know
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Aug 25, 2014 23:27
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Sogol posted:Thanks. Been looking at the wiki references. I was thinking more along the lines of a novel in the genre. They must exist and it seems likely there would be some not completely remote from our setting or character. Are any of them readable? I would go for COMMISSAR CAIPHAS CAIN HERO OF THE IMPERIUM for the absurd, and Eisenhorn for the job of Inquistor. A classic that goes with it is Gaunt's Ghosts, although this game isn't as combat heavy. (The previous CYOA threads were, so Im trying something a bit different) I also enjoy tvtropes http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TabletopGame/Warhammer40000?from=Main.Warhammer40000 Loel fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Aug 25, 2014 |
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Aug 25, 2014 23:28
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Puistokemisti posted:Eisenhorn trilogy wouldn't be bad place to start, actual rulebook and army codexes aren't really worth buying since all the fluff in them has been moved into the wiki. Word of warning tho, all GW stuff has 'special' pricing. Yup, and so I'm trying to give a feel for that stagnation in a ship that's 4,000 years old, with generations of people who have never left. Your personal career may rise over the course of this CYOA (and should, if you live), but in general, everyone stays where they are for centuries. My goal/hope is that you do seize the Warrant of Trade, maybe become Governor of a couple planets or something, but the galaxy is a dangerous place edit: if you aren't opposed to fanfics, this is one of my very favorite stories. An Inquisitor goes to Hogwarts, hilarity ensues. Loel fucked around with this message at 00:10 on Aug 26, 2014 |
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Aug 26, 2014 00:06
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AmyL posted:B+C for Thunderdome 40K. Will we be able to place some bets? My original sketch had it wrapping up in one post so you could go back to witch hunting, but you if want I can draw it out for a half dozen or so. edit: I was also planning to hand out one day's XP after this, but if you want a full tournament we might get a level out of it. edit edit: Means Ill need some names and games. Don't vote for this bit, but feel free to toss out names or tournament ideas, Ill grab some for the story. Elder Bluecloak name: High Technician Redrobe name: The couple(s) getting married: Game ideas: edit x3: and yeah, Im leaning towards some sort of wedding/party/combat, since people seem enthusiastic about the combination. Loel fucked around with this message at 04:02 on Aug 26, 2014 |
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Aug 26, 2014 03:43
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Sogol posted:My current non-understanding of the vote would be something like: The Inquisiton is a galactic organization devoted to orthodoxy and maintaining the Imperium, but there are different schools about it. The big division is Puritan and Radical. Radicals think you can make deals with/use the forces of evil (chaos, mutants, heretics, aliens) to fight the forces of evil. Puritans think thats crazy talk. Occasionally Puritans kill Radicals when they get too far into working with the enemy. At the moment, we don't know what our Inquistior is, although the majority of inquisitors are Puritan. The Family won't care particularly much about methods as long as you get the job done. You could kill a few thousand people and they wouldn't really notice, as long as the guns still worked at the end of your genocidal mayhem. Succeeding will get you positive attention, failing will get you negative attention, but its determined by end results, not body count of friendlies. The head tech-priest, the Magos, would love some new servitors (cyborg slave things), but is otherwise neutral to you. The thread may develop a relationship with him, or they may bypass that for now. Other factions on the ship that you might cultivate might be groups within the Family, the criminal syndicates, any mutants or xenos that exist, the gun batteries (new or old tribes), or other things that haven't been mapped out yet. As this happens, Ill have recurring characters you can call on to do things for you/give you information. IE, turning this battery into servitors means they couldn't support you again, but several other groups might like the results.
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Aug 26, 2014 04:08
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Thank you everyone for the kind words.  Im rather pleased with this one.  The Great Space Race . . . Place. Heres the thing about Space Hulks that most people don’t understand. Oh, sure, any school child knows the definition of Space Hulk, “a bunch of ships smashed together,” but most people don’t have an appreciation of what that means. Even in a ship built by itself, you have your hidden alcoves, your forgotten passageways, your niches where the walls didn’t quite connect. A few centuries of renovations, repairs, add-ons, add-offs, doctrinal changes, and soon even the original designer can’t find the bridge. With Space Hulks, its even worse. A Space Hulk might have a dozen or two dozen or even three dozen ships smashed together without rhyme, reason, or purpose. Many of them might not even be Imperial - you might be walking down a corridor and find yourself in an Elder library, for example. If humans have been on a Space Hulk for a while, people adapt to the new terrain, and suddenly you have a market in a former luxury cruiser with no one the wiser. What that misses, though, is the places between. All those ships? They aren’t smashed together neatly, they have gaps hundreds of meters apart where the void used to be. They might be filled with debris, old weapons, have exploded ordinance, toxic gases, the jelly of a crushed regiment of troops, forgotten ecospheres, or spasmodic machines toiling to forgotten purposes. 98% of of the people who live on the Beast of Even they hold to certain designated paths, official routes, tribal secrets, holy grounds, and the like. Exploring too far can result in random explosions, radiation, exposure to space, or a sudden encounter of the fourth kind. The known places are expanded slowly, year after year, at a cautious pace, and the wars are kept to those places, wrapped around the central spine of The Grateful Burden with no one the wiser. The raiding really only stops when the Lord-Sire directs the batteries to attack the outside, and even then the Clans aren’t really clear on the purpose of what they do. All of this brings us to the race track. You see, given enough time, basic routes can and have been laid all through the in-between places, bypassing rubble and debris. It is the “main road” as much as anything can be, nearly three kilometers of twisting, rolling terrain that curls all through and around the central corridors of the Beast of The road isn’t one solid surface, you see. It leaps from one hull to another, relying on flickering artificial gravities, dodging threats that can kill instantly, and all the while suffering through rapid terrain changes as the Beast of Thousands of people are filling the in-between places now, settling into amiable disagreements on where the best places might be, or discussing previous crashes or mistakes when the terrain shifted dramatically and without explanation. One time, hilariously, an old void shield flickered on right as someone was heading through it at more than 200 kilometers an hour. Their remains ended up spread along nearly the entire length of the track, even if it was Mobius shaped. On one side of the track, the Blue team. They know this road like the know their own lives - it is their world outside the village and their individual gun battery. Their device is an ad-hoc mix of Machine-Spirit and enthusiasm. On the other side, the Red team. They are from a Forge world dedicated to racing, and their machine is cutting edge, built like a razor in flames. However, they have only walked this track once. Who are you betting on? A. Blue Team. They know this place, and any advantage Red has will be negated by unfamiliar terrain. B. Red Team. Tech overcomes all. Knowing the route is nice, but won’t help you when the Machine-Spirit needs consoling. C. Always bet on yourself. You’ve strapped some leather to a servitor and are ready to go. D. No one makes it to the finish line. However, the wedding will be quite nice. E. Something else.
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Aug 26, 2014 18:48
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Sogol posted:I am going to have to look around for copies of Eisenhorn locally. No ebook and listed on Amazon for $150 of something new and $50 used. Servitors are zombie cyborgs. You are going to be riding a half terminator half vegetable and hoping it goes faster.
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Aug 26, 2014 19:37
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Wentley posted:Try a library. If you're in the US you can usually ILL the book from somewhere. I haven't decided on tracks, jets, wings, 2 legs, 4 legs, 8 legs, or wheels. Probably some hideous combination of all of them.
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Aug 26, 2014 19:43
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Azhais posted:So if we win the race do we have to marry into the gun tribes? There's marriage and then there's marriage. Marriage could be recognized by the clans if not by your Lord-Sire, and you might add up several marriages over the years. I follow medieval rules >_> Marriages are political, not romantic. Alexander the Great married a princess in every tribe he conquered, if I remember correctly.
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Aug 26, 2014 20:44
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Sogol posted:If we can get something resembling something undead as a servitor we could name it "Carrion Luggage". Relax, I haven't read Ravenor either
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Aug 26, 2014 20:44
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Rockopolis posted:It might be bad for our dignity to take part (and lose), but I was thinking something more along the lines of http://goo.gl/38uQbX A cyber mastiff seems small for a tech-priest, at least from the earlier pictures
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Aug 26, 2014 21:10
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my dad posted:Here's something Orky to provide inspiration: Inspiration, you say? Let’s see what we can do. Where we’re going we won’t need roads. Between can be a strange place. You can be completely isolated, lost in a labyrinth of megatons of steel and cargo and forgotten debris. You can be a hundred meters from a hundred thousand souls, and only hear the slightest murmur of the heartbeat of a city. Sometimes metal trembles inexplicably. Sometimes you can hear the distant splash of running water, or chemical leaks. And sometimes you can hear this Blasting at 130 decibels, the overwhelming, all consuming pressure of the volume equivalent to shipboard cannon. The metal shakes and rattles under it, megafauna flee in terror, the air itself seems to vibrate with the intensity of it. It is a hymn known to all Tech-Priests, one of the oldest and most sacred rituals that begin all rites of any complexity and skill. It is the lullaby of the Forge Worlds, it is the pulse of the Omnissiah. And it is currently screaming out of the throat of an ill-used servitor, barrelling down the Between Road. Moving at 150 kilometers an hour, shifting on three independently sets of paired solid tires, it dances along the debris and machinery with surprising skill and grace. The face of it, some tormented sinner, now screams the chants of the Machine-Priests, forever and ever, Amen. Riding, or perhaps steering, the once human servitor is a Tech-Priest, her mechanical voice laughing and whooping with each turn and fall. The engines of such a servitor aren’t a vehicle - they are meant to travel sedately along the Hives of a Forge World. But Ohone isn’t just a Tech-Priest; she’s the Four Time Winner of Hive 12 Juvenile Servitor Races. And she has her racing goggles on. She is easily leaning into the change of directions holding onto the spine of her servitor; gyroscopic sensors and fluidic based leveling mechanisms manage the transitions of a three dimensional fall, which is how she has accomplished such intense speeds. Calculating nearly instantly, she measures arcs of situational gravity, using the sudden whips of a gravity wave to perpetually fall towards the finish line. Her servitor was human, once. Now he serves the Machine. The official rules of the Servitor Races require the Servitor to still exist within the racing vehicle, and it must still be able to steer it’s own directions. This would require some level of bestiary ability, like riding a herd animal from some more agricultural world. Ohone barely kept to the spirit of the rules in this. She kept only the face of her servitor, replacing much of it with metal plating, wiring, or the massive speaker system in the throat. The arms themselves extend from the machine, extending in a hundred rotating chains, clearing any mines that lay ahead. The Hive 12 Juvenile Servitor Races were not kind to the unprepared. In the passenger pod to her left, her Cyber-Mastiff. Passengers didn’t break the rules of the Races, although conventional thought frowned on the additional weight, and occasionally atmsopheric requirements. Ohone, however, had used her Cyber-Mastiff to great success, as the Between Race would show. It watched everything with fascination, and seemed to bark a laugh on particularly rough turns. She seemed to be having a good time. All of this didn’t mean they were winning the race, however. The gravity tricks had taken several minutes to set up, and both Red and Blue were far ahead. She had met the pilots prior - Blue was an enthusiast named Jeb, who seemed to believe that adding more rockets was the single indicator of success. The Red vehicle was piloted by someone who only identified themselves as Five, and their vehicle was artistry made life. Now, to see if all her tricks had accomplished what they needed to. Ahead, a radiation stream. Both Red and Blue were taking to the air, avoiding it and lengthening their time slightly. Ohone laughed, her voice meshing with the sacred hymn of the Machine, and made her decision… Do you A. Run through the radiation patch. You are mostly a machine, you can handle any symptoms of radiation sickness such as nausea, vomiting, loss of consciousness, seizures, and death. B. Launch your passenger pod. Your cyber mastiff has done this many times, and will distract/ravage one of the pilots enough for you to advance up the ranks. C. Activate your one-use repulsors. They will airburst right as Red and Blue reach the height of their arc, scattering them down the length of the tracks. D. Ramming speed! Your servitor chain arms will attempt to grapple one of the other vehicles, slowing it down as it allows you to pick up speed. Why use your engines when they brought you theirs? E. Something else Loel fucked around with this message at 04:30 on Aug 28, 2014 |
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Aug 28, 2014 04:00
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Night10194 posted:Oh, hi, Well spotted! 25 XP
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Aug 28, 2014 13:57
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it's good to see you're keeping it up in the 41st millennium. Must've been a long trip from Kerban.
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Outrail posted:How resilient is our metal dog? Can it survive being run over? Yes, but you will need to spend a week or two doing repairs. She won't be hunting during that time.
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Aug 28, 2014 13:58
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Rockopolis posted:C And thats our other one! 25 XP We've gotten 100 XP in references, and I plan to divvy up skill and encounter XP after the wedding. Im trying to string it out enough we get a level out of it
Loel fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Aug 28, 2014 |
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Aug 28, 2014 16:38
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The votes are pleasingly close thus far: a x x x x x x b x x x x x c x x d x x e x x x x x
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Aug 28, 2014 20:07
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a x x x x x x x b x x x x x x x c x x d x x e x x x x x x x x You are killing me here. A three way tie? 
Loel fucked around with this message at 23:46 on Aug 28, 2014 |
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Aug 28, 2014 23:29
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Hey all! Thanks everyone for the encouraging replies, Ive been stalling trying to make sure I give you guys a worthy post, but my brain has been uncooperative. Labor day weekend, you know how it goes. I've got my War40k music (HMKids) jamming on my new headset, so Im sure Ill be struck by something soon. edit: As an aside, Im surprised no one clicked the Hymn of the Machine God in the previous post. It amused me to no end. Loel fucked around with this message at 08:26 on Sep 4, 2014 |
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Sep 4, 2014 07:43
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Everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine. We're all fine here now, thank you. How are you? This worked totally fine the last time you did this, you swear. Emperor save you, the Lord-Sire is going to be pissed.... Right. Okay. You can explain. You were on the second lap of the race Between. You weren’t held back by the frailties of flesh, needing to worry about pressure and high-G blackouts, or speeds that tear the flesh from your face, or events that happen at the microsecond. Your servitor has been well trained for environmental conditions like that, and your internal machine-spirit was guiding your every action. So you decided to cut the corner on the radiation pivot. Perfectly reasonable, every Tech-Priest does it at one time or another. Sometimes it can be rough on the humans who haven’t made the transition to machine yet, but there’s billions more where they came from. Machines are much harder to reproduce, but fortunately they are much harder to damage too. So the radiation pivot. Right. To increase the acceleration on your turn, you fired off the passenger pod where your cyber-mastiff could move in to attack. Well, not officially attack, thats against most race rules, but helpfully maul their machinery and distract them, maybe crash them into something. You targeted Jeb on the Blue Team, expecting his vehicle to be less structurally sound. That might have been a bad idea, in retrospect. But you did get a sweet spin from it, spiralling between the two target vehicles in the middle of their jump. You could swear the Omnissiah himself blessed the action with a lensflare. Which totally means what happened next was justifiable and not reason for your spacing. You’re pretty sure the Magos will hold to that part of your case, anyway. Jeb from Blue Team spiralled off the track in a massive set of exploding jets, engines, and fuel. It probably killed a few dozen or few hundred people in the audience, but that was well within the parameters for industrial accidents on a ship this size anyway. No one would notice that part, and neither would you, really. No, the problem more so was when he crashed into one of the promethium bays, igniting them. And some of the Cyclone Torpedo storage units. Which were now detonating and/or rolling towards you, with the anticipation of detonating as well. Their warheads looked pretty well dented and on fire, anyway. Your machine-spirit is yammering in terror, shrieking at a binary pace, detailing the blast wave that is approaching. Cubic hectometers of machinery, debris, ignited promethium, and explosions are heading in your general direction. It’s hard to tell, exactly. The dizziness from the radiation isn’t really helping right now. Do you A) Follow Red-5. He seems to know where hes going (the other side of the ship, which conveniently has the finish line and is far away from this wall of death it is approaching you). You can worry about getting ahead of him later, the important thing is getting away from here now B) You recognize this part of the ship, actually. It’s near some of the core districts. You could breach the interior hull, drive through the dregs, and exit the other side. It would involve crushing several dozen people and their houses, as well as opening the interior to this blast wave, but you would be well ahead in the race. C) The answer is always death from above. You have two repulsor pods left; you could use them to go above and around the racetrack and the core of the ship, landing on Red-5 with great prejudice. The impact alone should knock him out if not turn him to jelly, giving you the victory. D) Add to the debris field. With some effort, you might be able to grab and redirect one of the torpedoes, detonating it somewhere near the end of the track. With some timing and some luck, you could have it explode right as Red-5 gets close, allowing you to cross the finish line at your leisure. E) Something else
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Sep 4, 2014 08:19
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paragon1 posted:Hasn't anyone here ever played Battletech? C I grew up on Battletech, yes and I think "I feel like we may have lost sight of our original goal somewhere in all of this" is the mantra of every Dark Heresy game ever. . edit: Early voting still, but the "stop explosion/bomb the finish line/blame Jeb/declare self winner" faction is going strong. a x b c x d x x x x x e x x x x x x x Loel fucked around with this message at 13:54 on Sep 4, 2014 |
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Sep 4, 2014 13:51
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A) Follow red 5 x C) Death from above x D) Bomb the finish line, blame jeb x x x x x x E1) Prevent explosion, blame jeb x x x x E2) Prevent explosion, declare self winner x x x x x, x x My plan is to chomp out the next thing tomorrow between classes. It'll be easy to combine Jeb/declare self winner, but the current poll has more explosions: 6 less explosions: 11 Loel fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Sep 4, 2014 |
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Sep 4, 2014 21:06
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Nuclear combat toe to toe with the Rooskies What separates the holy image of Man from the animals is our ability to Think. Animals live moment to moment, stimulus-response, a twitching morass of confusion and activity. Heretics aren’t much better, pursuing their baser urges, and xenos are indifferentiable from the animals. They simply react to their environment with no thought about their goals or the methods to reach them. Quietly, it is said by worshippers of the Omnissiah that the basic form of Humanity barely rises any farther. It is the cold embrace of the Machine which allows true analysis, the sterile stochastic models and predictive heuristics that have allowed the Tech-Priests of Mars to dictate a galaxy. And it’s what allows you to survive this moment now. After you overcome your (brief, unseemly) moment of animal impulses (scream in terror, evacuate your fluid bays), your implants buffer your will, allowing to you to focus on rational decision making, overriding your natural panic. Firstly, the race is irrelevant. The potential initiations of world devastators are the only important thing, nay, the only thing in your world. Secondly, the launcher tubes that suffered Jeb’s breach (curses upon his name) can otherwise hold or redirect detonations of most models, venting them into space with minimal damage to the ship. Your only focus, then, is to get the Cyclonic Torpedo nested into a new torpedo bay. It, and you, are currently falling in the wrong direction, and the tube you can observe from here is across two kilometers of debris, rubble, bodies, and secondary detonations of various scales. In a moment that lasts forever, you map out a possible route of gravity eddies, slingshot effects, pressure waves, and broken machinery that could be used to redirect a path. Complex three dimensional equations flicker across your mind, and your fingers respond instantly. Your servitor rattles forward, the independent tracks balancing easily along the shifting terrain, as you bounce ever downwards, your eyes narrow targeted at that slowly falling ten meter avatar of armageddon. It is dented in places, blistering hot in others. The various exigencies of this impromptu battlefield have made their mark on it, but the Tech-Priests of Mars know their trade. The frame is holding, for now. The servitor lands on it with a great thump, the treads immediately melting into the metal as he shrieks in simulated pain. He will be a mobility kill after this, needing repairs for replaced tracks, but that is irrelevant if this fails. The torpedo increases its spin at the impact, making a normal human dizzy. Ignoring his pleas, you order the launch of the gravity pods, increasing the rotation, pushing the torpedo into a nearby vent of plasma fire. The heat of it makes the machinery of the servitor scream even more, but accomplishes the task, but now you must deal with this new task. Your gravity, and perspective, have now shifted, and now you are falling the length of Between, the entire race track laying before you. Its changed radically even in the few moments you’ve been away, with energy flaring in strange colors, kilotons of debris floating and falling in assorted directions, and everywhere the smells of superheated Prometheium. At that moment your eyes detect another flare of intense radiation, more than even you can survive, and you know that it is time to act. Shifting your weight, and that of your servitor, you are able to direct your fall very slightly. More so, you are able to maneuver the spin of the fall, with the mass of the torpedo being pushed or pulled this way or that, slamming through or bouncing against floating piles of metal, being dragged along flashes of gravity waves, pressure of heat and blast moving you as you need. Your skin is burnt, the metal implants blistering to the touch, and your servitor is barely recognizable. But still you persevere. As you approach the last few hundred meters, it feels as if you are descending into the depths of your Forge World. Promethium is coming down in napalm falls, highlighting changes in gravity as it dances through the air. You push through curtains of sparks literally acres in size, and all the around you is the music of the forge - a hissing, shrieking, pounding cacophony. If it weren’t so terrifying, with the price of failure so high, you would think it beautiful. The Machine-Spirits at the loading tube appear eager to serve. Gripper arms extend and grip the torpedo, bringing into the launching bay and clicking into place. The feeder at the tribes themselves require brute human strength, but this section, where hundreds of torpedoes are reloaded from bays in orbit, is fully supported by Machine-Spirits. Your servitor shrieks once again as its treads are ripped from it, going into the tube with the torpedo, but you scarcely notice from your sigh of relief. It can kind of hobble, slowly, on gears not made to touch the floor, but that’s enough for you. There are maintenance corridors all through the loading tubes, to check for jams and do maintenance on the Machine-Spirits, and you use these to great effect. It probably isn’t even an hour from Jeb’s initial failure to your arrival at the nominal finish line. Where, you notice with baleful gaze, Red-5 is receiving the adulation of the crowds. His remarks are indecipherable at this distance, given the occasional small explosion behind him, and clatter of machinery that fall out of their gravity eddies. Time to put an end to that. You grab your servitor, extend mechadendrites into it’s throat where the vox caster is placed, and reach out your voice. The machine lacks the full 130 decibel capacity it had during the races, but it will serve your purposes. Your voice smashes through whatever Red-5 was trying to say, and the crowd quails before the intensity of your augmented voice. “Loyal servants of the God-Emperor! You have passed the Test of the Rogue Trader. Even coming from separate worlds, you have shown your devotion to the Omnissiah and the God Emperor, and their servant and representative in this world, the Rogue Trader. Let this event be remembered by further races and celebration, the day that a new tribe joined this clan in service to the Machine Spirit!” The crowd cheers at this, and cheers more as you feel a pressure at your hip. Looking down, you see your Cyber-Mastiff, having survived her trip with Jeb (cursed be his name), and in fact dragged him out of fire and flame! She is battered, scored with plasma damage, but seems in good spirits. Jeb, meanwhile, is deservedly covered in burns and is barely recognizable, but his thumbs up brings further cheers from the crowd. You continue, your voice dominating the vast chambers of Between, strange echoes returning to you. “As you know, it is my Holy Mission to determine readiness of the ship’s crew in events of catastrophes such as these. As you know, some trial have included prizes from Family! This trial was to show readiness in case of torpedo loading breach, and as I myself have shown you the best methods, I award myself 500 thrones!” The crowd starts to cheer at the mention of prizes, but settles into a sullen silence as you determine the winner. Well, to the void with them. If they wanted a prize they could have replaced the torpedo. “And with the race now over and winner determined, let us have our wedding!” - I spent all your fate points to survive that but I figure we were near the end of the session, so it was as good a time as any. I kind of hand-waved the bullet time - intense situations can sometimes have that effect, and you are augmented anyway. I used a bunch of your other resources too - your servitor is going to need some heavy repairs, and your cyber-mastiff could use a check up at the least. And you are suffering from radiation posioning. The detonations of all the explosions thus far will actually not be too bad - I was reading through some nuclear warfare notes, and the author (Stuart Slade) was saying a 1 megaton burst on London would leave 80% alive with 95% of their property. Bit of trivia that I decided to make use of. I don’t have the exact total for XP just yet, but I know you leveled. So let’s have a vote on that. A) Mechwright. This is the standard level 2 Tech-Priest. B) Acuitor Mech-Assassin. Do you like to kill things? This is for you. C) Factor of the Lathes. This makes you look mostly like a base line human. Diplomat type. D) Something Else Also, lets do another thing. 1) Stay for wedding, develop more stuff in the tribes of the gun batteries 2) Leave wedding, see other parts of the ship
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Sep 6, 2014 08:51
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Also, I did some math. Easter egg XP = 100 4 fellowship tests (very easy) = 80 This was to find out how to unite the tribes and set that up 2 int tech use skills (routine) = 80 To drive your servitor 1 ballistic skill (average) = 50 This was launching the cyber-mastiff at Jeb 3 int tech use skills (challenging) 240 Servitor driving through explosions 1 fellowship test (easy) 30 The speech at the end = 580 available to spend 100 XP Awareness Search Shadowing Tracking Trade (Technomat) +10 Armourer +10 Wrangling Wrangling +10 Basic Weapon Training (Pistol) Basic Weapon Training (SP) Basic Weapon Training (Primitive) Pack Hunter (requires Tracking) Pistol Training (Las) Pistol Training (Primitive) Pistol Training (SP) Sound Constitution Wolf Pack Tactics (requires Wrangling) T Simple Advance Int Simple Advance WP Simple Advance 250 XP: WS Simple Advance BS Simple Advance Per Simple Advance 300 XP Peer (Adeptus Arbites) 500 XP ST Simple Advance AG Simple Advance So you can argue over that too
Loel fucked around with this message at 09:16 on Sep 6, 2014 |
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Sep 6, 2014 09:08
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