"...'ave a name," you mumble, your lips tingling and your jaw left half-numb by the same drugs that dull the pain in your shoulders. The guards haul you upright, uncaring of how it hurts, and hold you in place until your feet consent to bear your weight. You can't see them, their features hidden beneath insectoid carapace and mirrored visors, but it's not like they can speak anyway. You caught a glimpse inside their mouths once, and the sight of the ragged nubs of gristle where their tongues once were has stayed with you ever since.
And so we establish that above all else, our protagonist is defiant. Probably a good thing, since I doubt that most would have the gumption to run away from the inquisition.
"You know," you say weakly, talking to hide the fear as you are dragged ever onwards, "You could brighten up the place. Put some portraits up, the odd statue. Wouldn't take much..."
[ ] Duelist. Malfi is a world obsessed with appearance and the art of vendetta, and often such performances turn violent. You were a champion-for-hire, a blade and gun available for coin or favour, at once a respectable professional and a thuggish pawn in another's games. (++Combat, +Social)
[ ] Tutor. Those of ambition seek both advancement and reminders of victories already won, and among the greatest accolades of the latter is a noble's education. You taught your charges of politics and lore and the shape of the cosmos, and tried not to despair at the uses to which they inevitably put it. (++Mental, +Social)
[ ] Veritor. Despite its sinister reputation, Malfi remains a civilised world, and with civilisation comes law and those who enforce it. Yours was a softer and more restrained hand than some, your victories won through guile and reason and only ever as prizes granted by the culprit's peers. (++Social, +Mental)
Man I really hate that quote. There's a bunch of other stuff in that scene with Inquisitor Tar-or-whatever-his-name-was to show that he was a bad person; but this really highlights the inhumanity of the Inquisition as a whole.
[ ] Biomancy. Channelling the energy of the warp through the physical form allows you to manipulate flesh and bone with a thought, bolstering your capabilities and draining those of your foe.
I really want to pick this, but I don't really know how biomancy compares to the other disciplines.
What? Surely you jest. Characters with a propensity for mouthing off or angrily defying authority even when it would be far more sensible and pragmatic to be silent? I don't know what you mean.
*quietly kicks Angron under the bed. And Erika. And Kotone. And...*
[X] Veritor. Despite its sinister reputation, Malfi remains a civilised world, and with civilisation comes law and those who enforce it. Yours was a softer and more restrained hand than some, your victories won through guile and reason and only ever as prizes granted by the culprit's peers.
[x] Telepathy. The subtle realm of the mind is yours to command, the mere possibility of your perception and manipulation of both thought and emotion enough to make you feared, regardless of your deeds.
[X] Tutor. Those of ambition seek both advancement and reminders of victories already won, and among the greatest accolades of the latter is a noble's education. You taught your charges of politics and lore and the shape of the cosmos, and tried not to despair at the uses to which they inevitably put it. (++Mental, +Social)
[X] Telepathy. The subtle realm of the mind is yours to command, the mere possibility of your perception and manipulation of both thought and emotion enough to make you feared, regardless of your deeds.
[X] Tutor. Those of ambition seek both advancement and reminders of victories already won, and among the greatest accolades of the latter is a noble's education. You taught your charges of politics and lore and the shape of the cosmos, and tried not to despair at the uses to which they inevitably put it. (++Mental, +Social)
[X] Telepathy. The subtle realm of the mind is yours to command, the mere possibility of your perception and manipulation of both thought and emotion enough to make you feared, regardless of your deeds.
No thanks, I happen to like my body, mind and soul to be left untampered with. I know that the Imperium in any interaction is actively malicious against someone, but it's telling that the Horus Heresy was fought by the brainwashed, insane and deceived and not by anyone who actually had a choice. Chaos is a never ending suck-fest.
[X] Juliannus Praetius De Marius
[X] Duelist. Malfi is a world obsessed with appearance and the art of vendetta, and often such performances turn violent. You were a champion-for-hire, a blade and gun available for coin or favour, at once a respectable professional and a thuggish pawn in another's games. (++Combat, +Social)
[X] Biomancy. Channelling the energy of the warp through the physical form allows you to manipulate flesh and bone with a thought, bolstering your capabilities and draining those of your foe.
[X] Verity
[X] Veritor. Despite its sinister reputation, Malfi remains a civilised world, and with civilisation comes law and those who enforce it. Yours was a softer and more restrained hand than some, your victories won through guile and reason and only ever as prizes granted by the culprit's peers. (++Social, +Mental)
[X] Telepathy. The subtle realm of the mind is yours to command, the mere possibility of your perception and manipulation of both thought and emotion enough to make you feared, regardless of your deeds.
Let's start a Rebellion. Let the Inquisition burn.
So to do a bit of a run down for people who don't know W&G as opposed to the previous Fantasy Flight Warhammer systems, Psychic powers are still really strong but not as "I am the Omni-Psyker who can crack a planet in half with a wave of their hand" as something like Black Crusade's system was. Biomancy:
The main effect of biomancy is either direct damage, boosting your ability to deal damage, or inhibiting your enemies ability to deal damage while having some supplementary abilities.
The core powers of Biomancy are:
: This is the damange dealing power of Biomancy, where you literally rip the health out of a foe and give it to yourself at a small loss of efficiency.
: Exactly what is sounds like, but while it can be used to regrow fingers, eyes, and even whole limbs that process takes hours to days. The biggest effect is that it is the best healing power in the game as it provides constant healing per round in the tabletop and while the difficulty number is daunting the more icons you get the better the power becomes.
An extra action per round, better defense, and you effectively can always act first in a given round but at the cost of taking damage every round as your body is pushed to its limit but Action Economy matters for a reason.
Shape Flesh is also here and is very much the utility aspect is should be. From gills to wings from skin like power armor or just a brand new face Shape Flesh has it for you!
Divination:
I mentioned divination in my own post, but to cover it all here Divination is about directly gaining information and manipulating the difficulty of tasks for both yourself and your foes.
The core powers of Divination are:
This is the big boy, takes a long-ass time to cast but per the text "You may petition the timeless being that dwell in the Warp to answer a single question about what may come to pass." And if you're really good at it you can both shorten up the casting time and get an extra question.
: This is the first Combat oriented power. It lets you do a momentary shuffle of the initiative order for a turn to try and pre-empt an enemy's actions, as well as giving you more and more defense against enemies attempting to strike you, and again if you're really good at it you can do a lot of icons you can get that defense boost even higher and Defense is the name of the combat game for surviving.
: This is when you start screwing with other people by just grabbing their threads of fate and just giving them a good yank. Penalties to defense, penalties to doing things Misfortune is both good in and out of combat.
Telekinesis:
Not a bad power at all, it is the most straight forward behind literally just throwing fire at people Telekinesis focuses on manipulating movement and Telekinetic Barrier. Surprisingly the least damage discipline, but Telekinesis can and absolutely does in practice make being alive on the same battlefield as a Telekinetic a nightmare.
The core powers of Telekinesis are:
: This is the Boy, gives you the ability to soak otherwise unsoakable wounds, gives you additional armor, and can be widened to benefit all your allies within a couple meters of you. All the power of a Rosarius Power Field and none of the morally compromised authority!
Plain and simple, you get to fly at the cost of some pain and focus, but the better you do this, the faster you can fly and that speed can certainly exceed your sprinting speed if you do well enough. It also allows you to potentially fly around with more equipment than you can carry yourself acting as a decent way to haul bodies, evidence, or loot.
: Straight forward, hit someone with either an object or telekinetic force for the same damage as shooting them with a shotgun.
Telepathy:
This power, of all the psychic powers, is the most ripe for abuse as one would expect. Only one power in Telepathy is gentle, the rest are the brutal tactics of either trying to rip someone's psyche out through their soul through their ears or treating someone's mind like it's a fixer-upper and you're a house flipper flush with cash.
: The starter, the name of the game. Can hit anyone within your range, regardless of line of sight as long as you know who you're trying to reach. Use this connection to eavesdrop on their thoughts or hold a polite conversation, but they won't know you're in their head until you speak to them. However this is 1-1 exclusively, no group chats, no magical comm beads, but this is 40k. Cellphones might exist, and tactical ear-pieces absolutely do.
The bread and butter of telepathically liquifying someone via pouring your raw psychic might directly into someone's brain. Almost one of the best damage dealing actions in the game if you have the support backing you up to avoid being immediately pulped for doing this.
[
If reading thoughts wasn't what you wanted, how about breaking in and robbing the place? Delving directly into the mind of your victim, you can ask a question and their mind will provide you with cryptic reply or images and feelings as you mind attempts to parse the differences between your own psyche and imported memories. At the minor cost of slowly grinding the victim's brain into a fine dust and their awareness of what is happening. But if you are very very good, you might be able to do this without the person knowing it or dying.
: Making them forget has never been easier, so long as it was in the last 24 hours and lasted no more than a few hours, but this power lets you undo a mistake or a discovery. Or if you're like me, you can repeat the same interrogation every hour on the hour before two days pass and you dump your patsy in an alley way none the wiser of what you learned.
This isn't comprehensive, but having run a game in W&G from Tiers 1-4+ these are the highlights of each discipline used in practice.
[X] Duelist. Malfi is a world obsessed with appearance and the art of vendetta, and often such performances turn violent. You were a champion-for-hire, a blade and gun available for coin or favour, at once a respectable professional and a thuggish pawn in another's games. (++Combat, +Social)
[X] Biomancy. Channelling the energy of the warp through the physical form allows you to manipulate flesh and bone with a thought, bolstering your capabilities and draining those of your foe.
[x] Duelist. Malfi is a world obsessed with appearance and the art of vendetta, and often such performances turn violent. You were a champion-for-hire, a blade and gun available for coin or favour, at once a respectable professional and a thuggish pawn in another's games. (++Combat, +Social)
[x] Biomancy. Channelling the energy of the warp through the physical form allows you to manipulate flesh and bone with a thought, bolstering your capabilities and draining those of your foe.
[X] Tutor. Those of ambition seek both advancement and reminders of victories already won, and among the greatest accolades of the latter is a noble's education. You taught your charges of politics and lore and the shape of the cosmos, and tried not to despair at the uses to which they inevitably put it. (++Mental, +Social)
[X] Veritor. Despite its sinister reputation, Malfi remains a civilised world, and with civilisation comes law and those who enforce it. Yours was a softer and more restrained hand than some, your victories won through guile and reason and only ever as prizes granted by the culprit's peers.
[X] Divination. Peering beyond the veil of reality, you may glean fragments of the truth about the future, the fate of you and others, or some distant point in space. With care and practice, you might even begin to manipulate them.
[X] Telepathy. The subtle realm of the mind is yours to command, the mere possibility of your perception and manipulation of both thought and emotion enough to make you feared, regardless of your deeds.
[X] Tutor. Those of ambition seek both advancement and reminders of victories already won, and among the greatest accolades of the latter is a noble's education. You taught your charges of politics and lore and the shape of the cosmos, and tried not to despair at the uses to which they inevitably put it. (++Mental, +Social)
[X] Divination. Peering beyond the veil of reality, you may glean fragments of the truth about the future, the fate of you and others, or some distant point in space. With care and practice, you might even begin to manipulate them.
[X] Verity
So to do a bit of a run down for people who don't know W&G as opposed to the previous Fantasy Flight Warhammer systems, Psychic powers are still really strong but not as "I am the Omni-Psyker who can crack a planet in half with a wave of their hand" as something like Black Crusade's system was.
Man, Black Crusade is such a wild game. I'll probably mine bits and pieces of it for use in this quest but I remember grabbing my old copies of the books during the planning stages and I still can't actually work out who the game is even for.
It's a game about playing Heretics seeking to walk the path to immortality and glory at the head of a world-ending crusade... and the setting as presented is entirely localised within the Screaming Vortex with precisely zero support or guidance for operating in and around the Imperium. You can't form cults, subvert imperial officials, organise a campaign of piracy to bring loot and prisoners from a hundred worlds back to your hidden lair... no, the game wants you to stay exclusively within your weird little dimensional sandbox entirely separated from and inaccessible to the various other gamelines and... do whatever, I guess?
God I felt sick while reading about the whole situation, for those acquainted with psychology and justice the scene just turns ten times worse to the point it may as well be a horror story because of how fucked up the whole thing is, and how utterly detestable those involved are. Though I wouldn't want this to throw us into the path of Chaos, if we are going to win or loose or live or die it must be as free people, not as twisted pawns of uncaring entities who just view us as simple characters to make suffer in stories for their amusement.
I cannot make plans for the future without any type of information of the way of our release and the future situation, but taking control of imperial planets and using that position to make good and yo be able to negotiate from a position of some meager power would be nice.
For this Tutor and Telepathy help very much, even though tutor doesn't have the total bonus to social that veritor has, the level of diplomatic advantage and possibilities to the acquiring of knowledge and abilities from other peoples minds would be incredibly effective for a influence based campaign.
I select the name because it's cool, and its roman, so it fits.
[X] Tutor. Those of ambition seek both advancement and reminders of victories already won, and among the greatest accolades of the latter is a noble's education. You taught your charges of politics and lore and the shape of the cosmos, and tried not to despair at the uses to which they inevitably put it. (++Mental, +Social)
[X] Telepathy. The subtle realm of the mind is yours to command, the mere possibility of your perception and manipulation of both thought and emotion enough to make you feared, regardless of your deeds.
[X] Tutor. Those of ambition seek both advancement and reminders of victories already won, and among the greatest accolades of the latter is a noble's education. You taught your charges of politics and lore and the shape of the cosmos, and tried not to despair at the uses to which they inevitably put it. (++Mental, +Social)
[X] Divination. Peering beyond the veil of reality, you may glean fragments of the truth about the future, the fate of you and others, or some distant point in space. With care and practice, you might even begin to manipulate them.
[X] Verity
Man, Black Crusade is such a wild game. I'll probably mine bits and pieces of it for use in this quest but I remember grabbing my old copies of the books during the planning stages and I still can't actually work out who the game is even for.
It's a game about playing Heretics seeking to walk the path to immortality and glory at the head of a world-ending crusade... and the setting as presented is entirely localised within the Screaming Vortex with precisely zero support or guidance for operating in and around the Imperium. You can't form cults, subvert imperial officials, organise a campaign of piracy to bring loot and prisoners from a hundred worlds back to your hidden lair... no, the game wants you to stay exclusively within your weird little dimensional sandbox entirely separated from and inaccessible to the various other gamelines and... do whatever, I guess?
The splat books pick up the slack but in standard Fantasy Flight fashion it's also still hilariously badly organized across the four splat books. Starting your cults, running long con corruption campaign, world breaking rituals, and eventually ascension to Daemonhood or actually running a full on Black Crusade.
The game also definitely expects you to have some Roguetrader books to doing ship combat, expiration, and planet generation and the like.
W&G does a decent job of keeping the default Sandbox small but fleshes it out beautifully in both the Core book and a great in-depth look in the Forsaken System Players Guide so you really don't notice the limitation.
[X] Tutor. Those of ambition seek both advancement and reminders of victories already won, and among the greatest accolades of the latter is a noble's education. You taught your charges of politics and lore and the shape of the cosmos, and tried not to despair at the uses to which they inevitably put it. (++Mental, +Social)
[X] Divination. Peering beyond the veil of reality, you may glean fragments of the truth about the future, the fate of you and others, or some distant point in space. With care and practice, you might even begin to manipulate them.
[X] Verity
Man, Black Crusade is such a wild game. I'll probably mine bits and pieces of it for use in this quest but I remember grabbing my old copies of the books during the planning stages and I still can't actually work out who the game is even for.
It's a game about playing Heretics seeking to walk the path to immortality and glory at the head of a world-ending crusade... and the setting as presented is entirely localised within the Screaming Vortex with precisely zero support or guidance for operating in and around the Imperium. You can't form cults, subvert imperial officials, organise a campaign of piracy to bring loot and prisoners from a hundred worlds back to your hidden lair... no, the game wants you to stay exclusively within your weird little dimensional sandbox entirely separated from and inaccessible to the various other gamelines and... do whatever, I guess?
It's like the warhammer version of early Dnd. Technically, you don't have to solve all your problems with violence while following a quest giver, but you pretty much do have to do that.
[x] Duelist. Malfi is a world obsessed with appearance and the art of vendetta, and often such performances turn violent. You were a champion-for-hire, a blade and gun available for coin or favour, at once a respectable professional and a thuggish pawn in another's games. (++Combat, +Social)
[x] Biomancy. Channelling the energy of the warp through the physical form allows you to manipulate flesh and bone with a thought, bolstering your capabilities and draining those of your foe.
[x] Duelist. Malfi is a world obsessed with appearance and the art of vendetta, and often such performances turn violent. You were a champion-for-hire, a blade and gun available for coin or favour, at once a respectable professional and a thuggish pawn in another's games. (++Combat, +Social)
[x] Biomancy. Channelling the energy of the warp through the physical form allows you to manipulate flesh and bone with a thought, bolstering your capabilities and draining those of your foe.
[X] Tutor. Those of ambition seek both advancement and reminders of victories already won, and among the greatest accolades of the latter is a noble's education. You taught your charges of politics and lore and the shape of the cosmos, and tried not to despair at the uses to which they inevitably put it. (++Mental, +Social)
[X] Biomancy. Channelling the energy of the warp through the physical form allows you to manipulate flesh and bone with a thought, bolstering your capabilities and draining those of your foe.
[X] Tutor. Those of ambition seek both advancement and reminders of victories already won, and among the greatest accolades of the latter is a noble's education. You taught your charges of politics and lore and the shape of the cosmos, and tried not to despair at the uses to which they inevitably put it. (++Mental, +Social)
[X] Biomancy. Channelling the energy of the warp through the physical form allows you to manipulate flesh and bone with a thought, bolstering your capabilities and draining those of your foe.
[X] Duelist. Malfi is a world obsessed with appearance and the art of vendetta, and often such performances turn violent. You were a champion-for-hire, a blade and gun available for coin or favour, at once a respectable professional and a thuggish pawn in another's games. (++Combat, +Social)
I like Chaos. Even if this won't end with MC joining the Ruinous Powers (which is fairly close to impossible here), there is still going to be a lot of Chaos-adjacent themes and plotlines.
I also really liked the brief description of our homeworld.
