Warhammer 40k fluff thread VI: They see me Ward'en, they haten

[shadow_archmagi]

Originally Posted by Brother Oni

Speaking of RT, has shadow_archmagi seen Zorg's excellent newspapers?

I have now. They're neat little things, but I'm finding the rest of the blog to be the more interesting read. Zorg seems to have pretty good things to say about the nature of DMing, and campaign journals for RT are always a terrific way to get a feel for the game without having to slog through an actual PbP archive.

[Tome]

Originally Posted by Zorg

Here's a primer I made for my game. It explains the 40k universe and the character classes for people with next to no knowledge of the universe.

Hey Zorg, in the little blurb for the Explorator class you have there, you mentioned Explorator Errants. I haven't seen any mention of those guys anywhere else (nor does a quick google search turn up anything). I don't suppose you could direct me to where they're mentioned? Only they sound like they might be relevant for the RT game I'm in at the moment.

[shadow_archmagi]

Into The Storm has a couple Advanced Rank thingummies for Explorators, including Heretek, which might be what he's thinking of?

EDIT: Nevermind, yeah, I don't have any idea what a secret undercover explorator might be.


EDIT EDIT:

So, it's Roleplaying/Fluff Research Time for me. What books, videogames, and films should I watch for inspiration on being a Rogue Trader? I feel like I'm pretty familiar with the 40kverse in general: I've played Dawn of War 1 and expansions, as well as Space Marine, and read the Eisenhorn books. And I've spent a lot of time on the wiki.

So I guess largely what I need is sources of inspiration regarding the actual Rogue Trader portion of the experience- Are there any particularly good films about early british/spainish explorers? That seems like the best analog.

[Zorg]

Originally Posted by Tome

Hey Zorg, in the little blurb for the Explorator class you have there, you mentioned Explorator Errants. I haven't seen any mention of those guys anywhere else (nor does a quick google search turn up anything). I don't suppose you could direct me to where they're mentioned? Only they sound like they might be relevant for the RT game I'm in at the moment.

I don't recall - they might just be something I made up to give players more options. Might also be from a Black Library book, or at least inspired by some of the 'diplomat' Mechanicus form some of the stories.


@ shadow_archmagi - period things like Hornblower, Master & Commander, Sharpe and so on are quite good for shipbound stuff and the chain of command. Lots of "Fire a broadside Mr Wells" and so on.
Treasure Island isn't bad either.

Indiana Jones and similar (Jewel of the Nile, Tomb Raider, quite a few martial arts movies etc) are good sources for missions or how to structure them.

Depending on how crooked they want to be old gangster movies and heist moives can be a veriatble goldmine.

As part of the whole 'trading' thing I bent the background a bit. I upgraded the concept of Free Captains to be people who had warp capable ships but were unable to travel outside of Imperial aligned space. This meant that as starting Traders, the PCs had people to negotiate with favourably, but they still needed.
For example they were setting up a colony world, and had just opened trade with a primitive world (Dross). They hired on a Free Captain and her ship to run supplies to and from Dross, but used their own newly aquired ship to run supplies to their colony and other private interests.
Of course the Free Captain has her own agenda...

I also made the Kasballica mission more grey, like the Yakuza in that they're a legitimate organisation who also do dodgy things, rather than like the Mafia as they are in canon. This way they have a group who they can deal with who will offer them "joint wealth creation ventures" that are less than legal, but won't automatically brand them criminals.
To avoid this I further bent the background by making the Imperium not care (too much) about smuggling Xenos stuff so long as it's just statues and objects, not 'artifacts'. Of course that's where the money is, just to tempt them.

And I make sure they owe people. They need to set up a colony - the AdMech will give them the prefabs to set it up in return for an undisclosed favour in the future etc.

Lastly I try to set up some memorable other NPCs. They hate - hate - Fell, loathe the Feckwards, have a playful rivalry with Blitz (he repeatedly tries to hit on the female PC, they try to get him to go on their dating vid show they're creating), one PC is romancing another Trader and so on.

Being incredibly anal about these things I also created duty rosters for their bridge crew and named all of them, some 36 NPCs, a handout of slang, wrote out info sheets for all the planets with different notes depending on class, would type up astropathic scripts they get or personal mail and so on.

Making returning to civilisation a big thing is also important - they only get the Gazetter or mail in some places for instance. Part of my long term plan is to use this as a subtle reminder of the Imperium's expansion in the expanse (Damaris now gets the Gazetter! etc).

[GolemsVoice]

You could also watch some space horror flicks, if you plan to run that kind of missions. After all, there's all manner of strangeness outside the Imperium's borders, and every abandoned ship harbors as much potential horror as it harbors wealth and plunder.

[Cheesegear]

Originally Posted by GolemsVoice

You could also watch some space horror flicks, if you plan to run that kind of missions.

TYRANIDS ON SHIP! Although, one of the few 'unspoken rules' of GMing for Rogue Trader is don't mess with the players' ship, because if your players aren't prepared to handle significant damage or even loss of the ship, you game turns to poop pretty quickly.

[shadow_archmagi]

Originally Posted by GolemsVoice

You could also watch some space horror flicks, if you plan to run that kind of missions. After all, there's all manner of strangeness outside the Imperium's borders, and every abandoned ship harbors as much potential horror as it harbors wealth and plunder.

Having played Dead Space 2, I think I'm ready for that.

Originally Posted by Cheesegear

TYRANIDS ON SHIP! Although, one of the few 'unspoken rules' of GMing for Rogue Trader is don't mess with the players' ship, because if your players aren't prepared to handle significant damage or even loss of the ship, you game turns to poop pretty quickly.

My Trials and Travails was actually a Dark Voyage wherein my character's ship was boarded (Captured, even) by Orks and he had to spend a year leading a resistance movement in the lower decks, slowly making his way to the command bridge where he depressurized the rest of the ship.

So I think he's at least somewhat ready for it to happen again.

EDIT: Can the Disruption Macrobattery cause a ship's engines/drive to become Unpowered, leaving the whole thing dead in the water?

[GolemsVoice]

TYRANIDS ON SHIP! Although, one of the few 'unspoken rules' of GMing for Rogue Trader is don't mess with the players' ship, because if your players aren't prepared to handle significant damage or even loss of the ship, you game turns to poop pretty quickly.

Doesn't have to be the player's ships. I'm thinking of boarding another erelict vessel. Just think about it! The hatches slowly opening, space-steam rising and obscuring the vision (it's mandatory), no life signs on the scanner, strange, turning ventilators....


Also, from what I read, there's ALWAYS some unwanted creatures on a ship, only in most cases the crew takes care of them/they aren't a thread.

[shadow_archmagi]

Actually, does 40k have something analogous to the Necromorphs? I know the Tyranids fulfil the same basic ROLE (Convert all biomass into deadly monsters) but does anything actually keep the essential shapes of the things it kills?

I think Chaos can create undead, right? Dead guardsmen still manning their posts sounds like a chaos thing.

[The Glyphstone]

Chaos Zombies do exist, but they're just...zombies.

[Maugan Ra]

Rivalries and interactions with other Traders are always fun. My last game had them growing remarkably fond of Winterscale, especially the Ork character - Winterscale opened negotiations by challenging the arrogant xenos to a pit fight, and promptly tore his arm off, which seemed to be a suitable expression of proper Orkyness.

They also got into a war with Aspyce Chorda. Well, they imagined it was a war. Chorda just found them mildly irritating. The Trader did initially form a plan to insult her in epic fashion by using flesh crafted slaves to make an explicit adult film apparently involving her, which he would then release onto an open market. Fortunately, the rest of the group took one look at my slowly developing evil smile and talked him out of it before the entirely deserved retribution could land.

(Because really, he was even going to have her doppelgänger 'perform' in her old Navy uniform. The Imperial Navy are deeply unlikely to take that sort of thing well, and they have a long tradition of expressing their disapproval through macro cannon broadsides.)

[GolemsVoice]

Well, in the end, Tzeentch or Nurgle could always create something like that, or just "the Warp", if you really want. It's Chaos, that's what it does. Often enough just for the lulz.
But you could also just make it an indigenious lifeform on another planet, potentially with infection if you prefer.

[shadow_archmagi]

What are the things on which the Imperium can generally be considered to have a stance?

That is to say, NO HERESY, ALMOST NEVER ANY XENOS, MUTANTS OKAY BUT DON'T GET FRIENDLY WITH THEM THEY'RE NOT REAL PEOPLE are the basic rules, but are there other far-stretching tendencies?

I mean, I realize that the official answer is "Every planet in the Imperium has its own legal code and culture" but they're unified by the Ecclesiarchy, which presumably has at least some stance on some of these things.

How would a missionary view drugs? Pornography? Resolving disputes with duels to the death? Gambling? Does alcohol *still* maintain a higher level of cultural acceptance after forty thousand years, or is it just another addictive substance? Is homosexuality accepted, or viewed as a form of heresy/mutation?

[Squark]

-Drugs: Well, the imperium does uses drug cocktails in controlling some penal legions. I imagine the Eclisiarchy would prefer that ordinary citizens didn't use drugs, but as I understand it recreational drug use still happens in 40k, primarilly in the slums.
-Pornography: Ciaphas Cain makes reference to Jurgen reading Porno slates. Beyond that, I have no idea, but I imagine its discouraged, particularly as the higher ups believe it represents a way for Slaanesh to corrupt people.
Duels to the Death: Seem to happen fairly frequently among the Astartes, and probably occur on at least some Noble Worlds. The Eclisiarchy probably doesn't have an official ruling here.
Gambling: Seems to be tolerated but discouraged, much like in modern times.
Alcohol: Alcoholic beverages seem to be treated much as they are today.
Homosexuality: Ciaphas Cain again makes reference to a few homosexual troopers. Beyond that, I don't know if it's been addressed (Also, the Ciaphas Cain books tend to have a heavy modern military influence, so keep that in mind).

[The_Jackal]

The Imperium is really the middle ages in the future, so you're looking at a highly conformist, intolerant, fundamentalist, xenophobic culture.

[GolemsVoice]

Know your place:

There's a place for everyone, be it soldier or worker. Some are called upon to rule and live in luxury, some are called upon to die at the age of 50 from industrial waste, working in a munitions plant. This may seem unfair, but it's all the Emperor's design, so shut up about it.
This is, however, mostly a tool to keep those on the lower rungs of the Imperium's social ladder in line and consoling them.

Homosexuality and alcohole I'd say are generally more accepted, although some planets might view a homosexual relationship as "unproductive" since it spawns no children, speak future workers/soldiers, but in general, I'd guess they don't care, or only individual planets/preachers might care.

Technology:

It's dangerous and not for you, citizen. If you find something you don't know, give it to the techpriests or leave it alone. If you MUST use it, know the rituals, for the Omnissiah's sake.

Gambling and drugs:

It's a vice, and it's keeping you from being alert and productive, citizen, so stay away from it. Also, you might never know just WHAT you're taking there, it might be tainted by the Archenemy (there seem to be some instances of Chaos-tainted drugs used to weaken the populace)


In general, at least in hive cities, I'd believe the Imperium wants it's citizens to be clean, productive and unquestioning workers, who stay away from all harmful things by themselves, but most likely know that this will never be the case, and you can't really control the criminal underbelly of a hive world, it's better to have the populace happy than angry.

[shadow_archmagi]

Does the Warp have positive spirits in the same way that the Fade does? (Dragon Age's version of the same concept)

[Squark]

Sort of- You could probably classify the Eldar gods and the Emperor as such.

[Cheesegear]

Originally Posted by shadow_archmagi

Does the Warp have positive spirits in the same way that the Fade does?

Not really. Every Daemon is a fragment of their God's power, so to have a Daemon go against their God's will is impossible. You can have Daemons that appear to be good (usually Daemons of Tzeentch), but will usually end up playing their marks for fools in the end (see; Soul Drinkers) which is the way that I would do it.

Daemons of Nurgle would also give you things and help you out - hey, they love you! But it usually means actually coming into contact with a Daemon of Nurgle. And, unintentionally give you a bunch of diseases that turn you into a servant of Nurgle as a matter of course - or just the plain ol' Zombie Plague.

Theoretically, you could have an Unaligned Daemon which is just a pure manifestation of Chaos-in-the-Warp (like a Fury). Since they have no God in their brain, they could be 'good', but since they're a pure manifestation of the Warp - and thus, Chaos - that's also basically impossible. Unaligned Daemons are also much, much weaker than their marked counterparts.

If you subscribe to the theory that the Imperial Saints are 'Daemons' of the Emperor, then there's those too.

...However, keep in mind that if your players don't know anything about the Fluff, then you can effectively do what you want...

[Platinius]

Don't forget about Malal, the 5th chaos god who hates chaos, definitely worth checking on the Lexicanum

[The Glyphstone]

Originally Posted by Platinius

Don't forget about Malal, the 5th chaos god who hates chaos, definitely worth checking on the Lexicanum

He doesn't exist anymore, hasn't since 3rd edition when GW lost the copyright to him.

[Maugan Ra]

And don't assume that even if the Living Saints are the Emperor's version of Daemons that it makes them in any way positive. He's the corpse-god of mankind, the end result of ten millennia of fanaticism, superstition, dictatorial rule and xenocide as the state religion. All magnified by the psychic backwash of thousands of psykers slowly burning to death in the Astronomicon.

It's a running theme in the warp that any emotion, when taken too far, leads to Chaos. Khorne is the god of Honour and Glory, Slannesh is Love incarnate, Nurgle has a decent claim at being the personification of happiness. All of these things, taken too far, end up in a bad place.

Tzeentch? He's the God of Hope, the wish that things were different.

[Cheesegear]

Well, here's how I would do it;

Tzeentch; The Daemon glamours itself as a contractor or an Inquisitor or just one of those old hermit types that knows a lot about everything. He tasks the party to go hunt some witches (xenos or otherwise), or tells you about an artefact of pyschic significance and tells you to go kill some psykers - or blanks - and smash some artefacts. With no defenses after everyone and everything is dead and smashed, the party wonders how they came to set off a daemonic incursion.

Nurgle; Similar to Gollum. The party finds that it requires the Daemon (it's obviously a Daemon) to get somewhere. Maybe it knows a password that it refuses to share unless it can come too, or you need a Nurgle Daemon to bypass an arcane gate of some kind. And the Daemon is only far too happy to help! This'll be a wacky adventure where everyone learns to love each other! The Daemon should try to make physical contact with the party as often as possible - it just wants a hug!

Khorne; A lesser Daemon tells the party about an upcoming Daemonic Insurrection in one of the outer worlds being led by one of it's rivals. Seeing is how the party is rad, the Daemon enlists their help instead of doing it himself because his enemy - also a Khorne Daemon - is bigger and stronger. It doesn't really matter if the party does it or not, the Daemon will find someone else. If they win. Great! The Daemon has sent Champions to kill his rival, or, some poor saps got led into a trap and died messily. Blood for Khorne. Of course, should the party accept, the Daemon materialises from the Warp right at the end, kill steals like a mofo, and eats his rival's heart. Congrats party. The Daemon is now four times as powerful and has wings and stuff - you just created the classic recurring villain who goes around offing Daemons of Khorne, except he has to do it before the party gets around to it so he can get more Hearts. Zelda style!
...Actually, I might start this campaign for my next run. Sounds pretty good, even if I do say so myself.

Slaanesh; Pretty tricky if your group isn't mature to handle it. You could probably have a GMPC follow the party around spiking their food and drinks and stuff. And convincing the party that "Greed is good." - it's Rogue Trader, that shouldn't be too hard - and helping them achieve their goals.

Originally Posted by Maugan Ra

Khorne is the god of Honour and Glory
Slannesh is Love incarnate
Nurgle has a decent claim at being the personification of happiness.
Tzeentch? He's the God of Hope.

That is no longer a thing. There haven't been 'good sides' to the Chaos Gods since there was a Mal'al.

[Platinius]

Too bad actually, personally I feel that diminishes the grimdarkness of the 40k universe

[Maugan Ra]

I'm fairly sure that's still canon. Certainly was as of the Liber Chaotica, which came out a fair way after Malal vanished in a puff of copyright.

The Chaos Gods are all about emotion and concepts, the more extreme the better. Slannesh is still certainly the patron of artists and aesthetes in addition to the more mundane perverted death cult. By their natures, they just emphasize the more destructive and extreme ends of the emotional spectrum more.

[Cheesegear]

Originally Posted by Maugan Ra

The Chaos Gods are all about emotion and concepts, the more extreme the better.

The wrong emotions.

Khorne is the God of Wrath.
Tzeentch is the God of Greed.
Slaanesh is the God of Lust, Envy and Pride.
Nurgle is the God of Sloth and Gluttony.

The original creative process was not creative.

[Darius Macab]

Originally Posted by Cheesegear

Khorne is the God of Wrath.

I now have this image of Wrath from Fullmetal Alchemist screaming "Blood for the Blood God!"

DM

[hamishspence]

Originally Posted by Cheesegear

That is no longer a thing. There haven't been 'good sides' to the Chaos Gods since there was a Mal'al.

Black Crusade seems to be hinting that the good sides are still there- it's just that people are a lot more interested in the bad sides.

[Platinius]

Wouldn't that make the "bad" ones the actual "good" ones?

[Voidhawk]

From what I understand, beings of the warp (aka, gods, daemons) are born when large enough piles of emotion "stuff" and/or soul energy (the two being the same thing) coalesces in one place, and then explodes. If the emotion is one of anger and souls who died in bloodshed and pain you get a war god, but other emotions can create other types of god. Slaanesh is the obvious example; a god who was orgied into existence, and is mostly made up of Eldar souls who died seeking perfection and excess.

Once you've got a young Daemon, it then goes around stealing all the warp stuff/souls it can get it's greedy mitts on, eating it up and growing it's own conglomeration even larger. However, the daemon's nature is always influenced by what it has consumed. The act of eating is itself what determines how dominant the traits of each original will be in the new evolved daemon. It's less like eating really, and more like storm systems colliding and merging power. Psykers are particularly tasty treats for most daemons, because they have energy without any of the intrinsic warp stability of their own kind, so can be subsumed for a massive pool of power without changing any of the daemon's dominant traits.

In this constant battle for supremacy among daemon kind, you can see that fluffy "angels" of peace and love won't last very long (even if enough souls of that type coalesce without being consumed), while daemons spawned of war, trickery, or madness might have the upper edge in inter-daemon conflicts. It's survival of the nastiest. However, a daemon can be as nasty as it likes, there is one major barrier to its survival: the Big Four Chaos Gods.

A long while ago there were a huge number of war gods. Then, millions of years later, Khorne emerged victorious, having consumed all the others to stand as the undisputed Lord of War in all it's forms. The last one to go was Khaine, the Eldar war god, and the battle was ridiculous to say the least. It ended with the birth of Slaanesh, and Khaine exploding into bits. If a daemon ever gets big enough it might conceivably be a nuisance to one of the Four, it'll find a legion of lesser-daemons on it's metaphorical doorstep.

So if an "Angel" were to occur, there would be several challenges.
- First, getting enough happy emotions and "nice" souls together in one place to form the balsted thing. This is the 41st millennium we're talking about, nice is rare.
- Second, growing to a substantial size. It would have to fight other daemons without dying, even though it's not as skilled at it as they are, is worse at absorbing their soul-stuff while not turning evil, and can't even feed off of mortals because it's weighed down by "morals".
- And thirdly, it would have to survive the attention of the Chaos Gods themselves, to whom upstarts in their realm are merely appetisers.

That's not to say it couldn't happen, or that the Big Four inhabit the Warp all on their lonesome. The Warp is functionally infinite, and beings strange even by Chaos standards exist in the depths.

There are the Enslavers of course, one of the only known creatures to have a life cycle spent part of the time in the warp, part in the materium. In the old fluff they were the reason the C'Tan (and Necrons) went to sleep, because they were killing everything everywhere and couldn't be stopped.

Then there's the God's that have found a way to survive the attention of the Big Four. A prime example is Malal, God of Hating Chaos (Including Malal) whose paradoxical and frankly insane belief set represents Chaos's own self destructive nature. He can't be destroyed, because the harder you fight and destroy him, the stronger he becomes. There's also (allegedly) a Chaos god of Atheism, whose power grows the less anyone believes in anything, and who will be practically omnipotent the very instant before the warp is destroyed forever. Then there's the God of the Sluaught, who has been shattered into a huge number of pieces, but is still active and doing things. The others don't seem to have noticed, mostly because he's the god of hiding in dark corners.