Warhammer and WH40K RPGs II: Burning Witches, Heretics, and Fate

[Grim Portent]

Now I have a confession to make. I have always looked down upon the humble pyromancer, for always they have seemed such a one trick pony, they can burn things, but that's all they can do. Well now my eyes have been opened, now I can see (or would if I hadn't been hit by Blinding Flash). The tactical potential involved in controlling the shape of fire walls and rapid fire fire bolts is a valuable combat mechanic in battles where the odds are stacked against you. Pyromancy has taken a place in my heart and filled it with warmth (rather more warmth than is comfortable to be honest).

[MonochromeTiger]

Now I have a confession to make. I have always looked down upon the humble pyromancer, for always they have seemed such a one trick pony, they can burn things, but that's all they can do. Well now my eyes have been opened, now I can see (or would if I hadn't been hit by Blinding Flash). The tactical potential involved in controlling the shape of fire walls and rapid fire fire bolts is a valuable combat mechanic in battles where the odds are stacked against you. Pyromancy has taken a place in my heart and filled it with warmth (rather more warmth than is comfortable to be honest).

welcome to fire's warm slightly burning embrace. with a little creativity (also heresy) control of fire can lead to success in almost any endeavor. and when it doesn't lead to success it leads to successfully killing everything that saw you fail and burning the evidence so you can tell people you were successful without any of that pesky "truth" getting in the way.

Yeah, but as always, the solution to chaos is Just Say No

...you want to be able to change things...but you don't want to use chaos...but..I..new thought is against the will of the god emperor, how can you stay chaos free while trying to promote such evils as rational thought and advancement of society?

[shadow_archmagi]

how can you stay chaos free while trying to promote such evils as rational thought and advancement of society?

By Saying No! :D

I'm not sure yet what my character's big, ultra optimistic setting-changing goal should be. I'm thinking about being a not-evil version of Andrew Ryan (I want to go to feral worlds and improve quality of life through industrialization! I want to build manufactorums with reasonable working conditions that'll produce higher quality products because my workers aren't within an inch of death all the time, and also we'll have more experienced workers because they won't die constantly!)

[bluntpencil]

By Saying No! :D

I'm not sure yet what my character's big, ultra optimistic setting-changing goal should be. I'm thinking about being a not-evil version of Andrew Ryan (I want to go to feral worlds and improve quality of life through industrialization! I want to build manufactorums with reasonable working conditions that'll produce higher quality products because my workers aren't within an inch of death all the time, and also we'll have more experienced workers because they won't die constantly!)

Adam Smith.... in SPAAAAAAACE!!!!!

[LeSwordfish]

If you want to go a bit grimdark, throw in the Barnado's child migration policies, but on a planetary scale. Scoop street kids up from hive worlds and ship them to sunny, healthy places. Just avoid the situations where children would ask, as the ship left the Thames and headed to Australia, if they'd be back in time for tea.

[Ceiling_Squid]

By Saying No! :D

I'm not sure yet what my character's big, ultra optimistic setting-changing goal should be. I'm thinking about being a not-evil version of Andrew Ryan (I want to go to feral worlds and improve quality of life through industrialization! I want to build manufactorums with reasonable working conditions that'll produce higher quality products because my workers aren't within an inch of death all the time, and also we'll have more experienced workers because they won't die constantly!)

In contrast with general setting grimdarkness, this isn't unheard of. Given the wide variety of developed planets in the Imperium, such conditions aren't exactly impossible on some worlds. Some are more "enlightened" then others, though the average Hive World is pretty terrible.

Trying to introduce such sweeping reform on a world that needs it (i.e. a major overcrowded hive world.) will be seen as upsetting the local balance. As long as you keep the Imperial tithe flowing, however, you should be good.

Just expect the local legitimate authority to be gunning for you. And the Arbitrators (who safeguard the Imperial tithe and don't want people disrupting it) breathing down your neck. And the Inquisition (who often see social reformists as one step away from recidivism and rebellion) will probably have agents eyeing your affairs from time to time. Chaos cults will also want to make you their pawn (especially those who are into long-term social-engineering plots). "Just say no" doesn't always work on these people -- sometimes they aim to influence your actions in non-obvious ways, or bypass you entirely. Just be prepared to keep paranoid tabs on who works for you in your future enterprises. They may be enemy agents.

Great idea, btw. If I was GMing, that would give me tons of ready-made plot hooks to throw your way. Optimism in the 41st millennium is a route fraught with peril.

[TimeWizard]

Last time on TimeWizard's Dark Heresy (mis)adventures, the party was in a desert wasteland trying to find a chaos thing that made the auspex go beep. Last post in spoiler.

Spoiler

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Last time we left off with the Techpriest welding mutant metal skin onto himself. This makes him partially immune to fire damage, and he decided that since he didn't have a helmet and some of his gear was broke that he would take the metal skull of the mutant and wear it like a helmet, by bolting it onto his head. This works. The team reconvenes in the local Arbiter Station, which is attacked by cultists and falls into a canyon (and through a fell layers of the warp). By the time it lands and the big bad leader guy is killed, it turns out 2 weeks had passed. Tech Priest calls his boss, Puritan Inquisitor, and says that the mission is wrapped up and maybe-sorta one of the team has horrible mutations from an altar to a chaos god and how mad (scale of 1 to 10) would the Inquisitor feel about that. The Techpriest starts beeping, and a laser targeter comes out of his machine eye. 1 minute later a killteam drops in with a space pod, kills everyone who isn't an acolyte, and arrests us. The Mutated Guardsman (extra set of knees, no arm flesh) is put into a "purification room" where the Inquisitor breaks his knees with a powerfist, and then has chiurgeons metal-plate his legs so that he walks normal again (at the cost of 6 Agility loss). The purification clerics aren't sure what counts as "mutations" on a horrifying mishmash of machine and man so they let the techpriest go after a few days of chanting and scrubbing with lye. They gain a little insanity from touching him.

The group is allowed to pick their next mission from a few of Puritan Inquisitor's case files, because they are his only acolyte squad to never need saving or his direct intervention, even if they solve all their cases by ineptitude, murder, and explosions. The team picks a mission to a frontier planet which keeps getting invaded by different enemy factions who seem to be informed of the IG's every move- so there is probably a traitor somewhere and we have to go snuff him out. The several month travel time has the techpriest studying the psyker boosting archeotech he found from a fallen seer. It seems like the kind of thing you shouldn't keep in a concealed cavity where your jaw used to be, but that kind of talk is anti-machine propaganda. We get to the planet's orbit, and we head into a drop pod. Two of us realize this is a space marine drop pod and would likely shatter our bodies on landing. We take an emergency evacuation space pod and aim it at the ground instead. We don't die from this.

The planet is all scrublands and has a partially terraformed atmosphere. in the city, O2 generators make it safe to breathe, but the O2 is heavier than the natural atmosphere so the slums of town are the high parts. This also has the added effect of causing ballistic munitions to explode from a combination of high static, corrosive air, and reactive vapors. The team lasers up. The leading general doesn't trust us, so we have to wear tracking collars on planet, which are also explosive leashes in case we become a problem. At night the Techpriest tries to disarm the Guardsman's collar, and rolls a 100. This causes it to explode, wounding half of us. The guard gets a new collar. We meet Lieutenant "Obviously a Traitor" Lucius and headout with him to investigate a strange reading on the auspex.

In the field, we are told that we need a special device to breathe the atmosphere, even the techpriest and Assassin who have Toxfilters. This device turns out to be an autoinjector that we have to stab into our throats every 8 hours. Along the way we are ambushed by 2 Orks. They used a cunning strategy of running right toward us and shouting about the Waaaaagh. Our Psyker blasts one back several meters, into Lt. Lucius, who then gets cut in half. Some of the Guardsmen in our retinue die. The assassin accidentally brains one of the Guard while aiming at an orc. The Cleric uses his Totally-not-a-demonic-Hammer to smash one orc, but because the Not-Demon hammer is always red-hot it causes a minor explosion with each hit on this planet... killing a guardsman or two in the melee. One Ork dies, and Techpriest grabs his mighty chain axe and throws it at the other one... on to miss and bisect the spine of another guardsman. the Radio Operator Guard panics and runs from us because he thinks that we must be some kind of traitor squad. We kill the other Ork, and the psyker makes the radio man go insane. We kill radio man (so he couldn't tell HQ about the murders we might have done) with an ork chain axe, but we also cut his radio in half. Techpriest cobbles together some wires and sends a distress warning about Orks and our location, and then accidentally drops the radio, breaking it. We find a meteorite the Orks used to planet jump, but it crashed and killed all of the War Party except the 2 we saw. We have the Auspex now, and we are pressing onward.

We track the beeping down to a cave, murder the cultist guards (but not before some hilarious grappling hook fails) and press in. Kill more cultists, head down, down, down the rabbit hole. More cultists. More death. More hate. Techpreist's living metal mutant skin has started weeping ichor like puss at the rivets where its bolted into his meat frame (bones). we find a twin linked multi-melta with a totally sick shark teeth jaw mouth thing around the barrel along with intricate carvings of fire and the vague sense of numerous painful deaths. Idiot!guardsman picks it up (there isn't another one to distinguish from, but he's an idiot), and suddenly he's all glass eyes from holding the thing. we try to take it from him, he shoots it, Boom, 10 foot cone of solid stone wall behind techpriest evaporates. in the fight, the gun is dropped. Tech priests readies an action to mag-grapple it if guardsman goes for it. Guardsman does, and pfft, techpriest has a shiny new demon murder box. Techpriest doesn't seem to be mind controlled, and he has an almost fetishistic love of flame weapons, so he keeps it. The gun tells him together they can destroy all enemies of chaos. Chaos? thinks the techpriest. Emperor, the gun clarifies. I totally meant I'm a holy relic and we need to crusade against the enemies of the Emperor, who did you know is a lesser being of the Omnissiah? Techpriest has a new bro now. The gun's name is inscribed in a language he can't read.

Auspex starts pinging again, weird stuff going down. Techpriest's radio receiver gets static: 2 signals overlapping. One of them is the City Guards, who have mutinied because they think we're going to purge them, the other is an Eldar webway opening half a klick from us. we hightail it out of there. Eldar boss (FILTHY XENO the gun chimes in, in Techpreists brain) just wants to talk. wants to destroy the gun. no one needs to die. Party weighs their options, and by party, I mean the Techpriest and the Cleric, who can speak high gothick. Techpriest decides, eh, xeno scum. Taunts the Eldar boss. Later, two Eldar teleporty ninja spider things run to us across the flatland. naturally, we start sniping them. Techpriest gets shived by a mono blade, falls off of boulder. Psyker hits ENinja with psyker things, causes Eninja to teleport half into a rock, his legs stop kicking after a few minutes. People do violence. Tech priest gets up, evaporates Eninja with multimelta. Welds mono blade to forearm as trophy. Radio Eldar boss, tell him how his soldiers died like stupid useless fools. Techpriest went to the "I have a bigger gun so suck it" school of foreign diplomacy. Eldar boss and his elite ninja mooks fight us. He turns off gravity, Arbites is sent up 75 meters (he stopped playing because of a new job, wanted to die like a hero) assassin is shot out 80 meters, manages to use dead body as sling shot, grabs shrubbery, blows open Bossedar's xeno skull. Gravity turns back on. Arbites falls lands on shield which had a det charge wired to it (used to be a chaos shocktroopers tower shield, never got to use his "last resort"), Arbites blows up taking Eninjalite to whatever hell xenos have. Bossedar "claimed" that multimulta was actually a greater daemon fused into a gun, named "voidhowl" which ate souls. Turns out he's right, Voidhowl ate his soul and now he can't crystal thing that eldar do.

Back in town, everyone mutinied and is planning on killing us. we sneak in, get caught. Psyker mind controls Commissar, they fight out of interrogation room. Techpriest pretends to be servitor, only speaks in binary chatter to people, gets put in a closet, takes out voidhowl, starts murderin' the heathen mutiniers for skull golden throne. party finds command post, kill radio operators, and associated air traffic personal, request drop ship. kill everyone else in command center, because reasons. Work out a deal with mutiny commander, live and let live. we leave planet, kill team "cleanses" entire town. Yay Inquisiton!

Next planet is posh. influential people have been going missing, totally a body snatcher scenario. 8 months of warp travel and we get there, which means 8 months of sitting in a dark room communing with Voidhowl. we poke our noses into stuff, find jeanstealers. One of them attaches to techpreist's face. and is pryed off and killed. things happen, Techie gets more obviously crazy and evil -it was kind of hard for the party to decide where "regular psychotically devoted to flame, unreasonable fanatic, and generally unnerving" techpriest ended and "actually might be crazy" techpriest started, so they waited to be sure. Investigating a research lab, party gets trapped, Tech gets brain tazed repeatedly, and snaps. Techpriest looks for Voidhowl, finds a bit of plasteel he thinks is voidhowl, and goes rogue, coldly determined to go to back to orbital ship and do various evil things in a generally laissez-faire approach to chaos. Idiotguard shoots him with grenade. Party, which has formed up in hallway outside lab are deciding what to do about the "tech-priest situation" hears a great crash and then the TP and IG fall through ceiling, with the mechadentrites of the Techpriest trying to force feed the guard one of his grenades. Party more or less kills Techpriest, who thankfully didn't have his super death ray machine, and the final hit sends him over the edge of a railing about 70 stories above a concrete foyer. Gunslinger checks the body, because Rule # 1 is no body=not dead. GS finds mechadendrites, and blood, but no actual body. Uh oh. it should be noted at this point the the Techpriest was able to use maglev. but anyway, machiney bits with no body is really weird. Party forgets that he might have been infected with genestealer. Assassin gets Techpriests much beloved 2 meter Pipe Wrench, makes a little memorial. they go on to investigate jeanstealer cults.

Thus endeth final verse, Ballad of Mitran the Many Suns. Even I don't know what will happen to his body, or what horrible combo will arise out of his genestealer infection, metal flesh, and possession by greater demon gun.

Good night, you beautiful macabre menace.

p.s. Voidhowl was handed to Puritan Inquisitor Boss, and it hasn't tried to possess anyone yet. maybe that means it's host is still alive.

[Rikandur Azebol]

Holy Promethium ! Badass campaign, even the Eldar race got improved by elimination of Darwin Award's baiters.

What stupid Eldar tries to talk to Daemon Possessed humans ?

[TimeWizard]

you know, the ST actually expected us to hear them out and give them the clearly evil weapon.

[Rikandur Azebol]

Knowing your Player's modus operandi ?

[Grim Portent]

Does anyone know why it's so hard to get the ability to fight even half decently while unarmed? Getting the talents to do even mediocre damage with your hands requires such a high rank that by the time you get it you should have enough concealed power blades, implanted weapons, baleful eyes and mutations that you don't have a use for the talents anymore.

[Rikandur Azebol]

Cause in the Grim Darkness of the Future there is no martial arts ?

[Blightedmarsh]

In the grim darkness of the future martial arts involve powerfists!

I can just imagine a group of sisters of battle practicing Gunfu Katas with a pair of heavy bolt pistols...possibly whilst airborn with jump packs.

[LCP]

Does anyone know why it's so hard to get the ability to fight even half decently while unarmed? Getting the talents to do even mediocre damage with your hands requires such a high rank that by the time you get it you should have enough concealed power blades, implanted weapons, baleful eyes and mutations that you don't have a use for the talents anymore.

Because weapons genuinely should be better?

[Grim Portent]

Because weapons genuinely should be better?

Well of course they should, but fists should be able to do appreciable damage before rank 5 against unarmoured opponents.

[LeSwordfish]

Plus, surely rule of cool has to come in somewhere.

[bluntpencil]

Don't unarmed attacks cause Fatigue?

[Grim Portent]

Don't unarmed attacks cause Fatigue?

I think that's only if they manage to hurt the victim, which isn't particularly easy with bare hands.

[Cheesegear]

I think that's only if they manage to hurt the victim, which isn't particularly easy with bare hands.

Clearly what you need to do is graft on some bear hands, then.

[Boci]

Clearly what you need to do is graft on some bear hands, then.

Pretty sure bears are extinct in the grim darkness of the distant future...

[Destro_Yersul]

There's probably a deathworld somewhere with grimdark mega bears on it.

[MonochromeTiger]

There's probably a deathworld somewhere with grimdark mega bears on it.

in the grim darkness of the far future bears steal more than just your pic-a-nic baskets.

[The Glyphstone]

Catachan probably has bears. They're also probably twenty feet tall, armor-plated, and fire-breathing. Wrestling one to death to feast on its tasty, surprisingly non-poisonous innards is called Tuesday on Catachan.

[MonochromeTiger]

Catachan probably has bears. They're also probably twenty feet tall, armor-plated, and fire-breathing. Wrestling one to death to feast on its tasty, surprisingly non-poisonous innards is called Tuesday on Catachan.

tuesday relies entirely on surviving the 100 foot man eating acid spitting butterflies that release paralysis poison from their wings. also you missed where catachan bears have lazer eyes, hunt in packs, and are ridden by chaos-space marines at all times. catachan has no time for potentially survivable situations, it's too busy being a death world.

[Leon]

Clearly what you need to do is graft on some bear hands, then.

Then get shot as a Mutant or a Bio-Heretek depending who sees you first

[The Glyphstone]

tuesday relies entirely on surviving the 100 foot man eating acid spitting butterflies that release paralysis poison from their wings. also you missed where catachan bears have lazer eyes, hunt in packs, and are ridden by chaos-space marines at all times. catachan has no time for potentially survivable situations, it's too busy being a death world.

Chaos Space Marines can't survive on Catachan. That's a feat only the natives can boast of. And of course Catachan bears hunt in packs, that was so obvious I didn't need to mention it.

It's a stroke of pure luck no Catachan-born human has ever been recruited as a Space Marine. They would singlehandedly destroy the galaxy.

[Blightedmarsh]

There are two missing legions; I wonder....

[The Glyphstone]

There are two missing legions; I wonder....

And the Tyranids are running away from something...

[shadow_archmagi]

Then get shot as a Mutant or a Bio-Heretek depending who sees you first

Bio-Heretek? There's no rule against mixing and matching. There's numerous examples of people getting animal implants (the Space Wolves at one point rip out a guy's mechanical eye because they don't want him to record any secret Space Wolf stuff, and replace it with a wolf eye)

[Grim Portent]

Clearly what you need to do is graft on some bear hands, then.

True, it's easier to fight bear handed than it is bare handed.