Research and Development Quest [Warhammer Fantasy]

So.

It's been five days and I haven't put up the next character creation vote. Most people, rightfully so, should probably be thinking 'kaboom, you better have a damn good reason for leaving us hanging like this'.

Luckily, I do.

Not personal struggle or anything, no, I've just spent these last five days working on perfecting the mechanics post (and also the mechanics) of this quest before chargen ended, and now I'm finally done.

It should be in the first informational post, so yeah, you might want to check it out.

The actual update's gonna be out tomorrow, because right now I need a bit of a break to get my brain back into narrative stuff instead of mechanical stuff.

Spoiler: Winning Vote

[] Plan Plants and Animals
-[] Skagg Burninator: It's common knowledge in ogre society (or, whatever ogres have that passes for a society) that Firebellies are all fucking insane. Skagg Burninator is perhaps the best example of this, being a Firebelly who, when gifted power over magma and heat, decided that the best use of his new ability was hammering metal into shapes. But, weirdly enough, his crazy paid off. See, Skagg managed to figure out basic metalworking, and nowadays he makes weapons and armor (and also a few rough cannons) for anyone who gives him enough food. Of course, after discovering blasting powder, Skagg went on a week-long rampage through the Mountains that ended after your Tyrant punched him in the gut and decided that he could be useful. Now Skagg works for you, far out of the way of anything important to your Tyrant.
--[] Student
-[] Grok Speakeasy: Most ogres aren't known as what you could call "great conversationalists. Grok Speakeasy wasn't most ogres though. Rather than the normal manner of Beastpunching favored by tribes, Grok could simply sit and talk at a beast of his choice. And they'd listen. This method of capturing the attention of animals also has some effect on other creatures; as Grok was able to talk a wayward Alchemist that had wandered far from the protections of the Empire into teaching him what he could learn. The alchemist had been enthralled with the fact that Grok could easily get hold of reagents and parts of creatures that would otherwise take whole teams of hunters to bring down, and was capable of harvesting them from living creatures to boot! Unfortunately, after a bit of an incident, Grok ate his teacher. He's been moving from territory to territory, often being forced to leave less because of his own action than because the small menagerie that he's gathered strips the area of food almost as fast as he does. Now your Boss has him working under you.
-[] Grak Gardenback: The one thing every Butcher needs is a supply of ingredients. Some Butchers hunt for their own, others have ogres get ingredients for them, but every Butcher has to have some way to get them. Grok Gardenback decided to go another way. See, he knew that plants grow from the ground, so Grok wondered why he couldn't just take the ground along with the plants, eat only a bit of the plant, and have an infinite supply of magic ingredients. Since nobody could give him a good answer, that's exactly what Grok did, taking an old cart, strapping it to his back, and using it to grow plants, for an infinite supply of of plant based spells. Of course, Mourne plants are as dangerous as the animals, and after one of his plants bit a Bruiser, Grok now works for you.

This is what you have to work with.

A butcher who decided to grow plants on his back, a beastpuncher who doesn't punch beasts, and a firebelly with an unhealthy fascination with making shit go boom.

...It could be worse. It could be a lot worse.

And if you're being actually fair, it's not like any of em are bad at what they do.

Grak Gardenback's insane plan of growing reagents and meal ingredients is pretty out there, sure, but you'd talked to him while your boss sent the both of you out to your 'research lab', and he's got a damn good grasp on Butchery, though it's obviously damn focused on plant ingredients, mainly because it's not like you can grow a meat plant. Probably. There's a lot of crazy shit in the Mountains after all.

But, viability of a tree that grows meat aside, Grak's figured out some pretty damn cool shit with plants. You're not entirely sure you understand any of it, but that's just different specializations. When you tried to talk about the basic principles of Katas and stances and body conditioning Grak's eyes glazed over and you thought he'd died for a second. If he hadn't woken up from his trance a few seconds later, you'd've probably declared him dead and then just eaten him along with his plants.

You're pretty glad he woke up before you could actually bite down. Even if Grak would've been delicious, eating a research assistant would probably mean that your funding would've been cut, and from there it was just a short jump to getting eaten yourself. And that's not even talking about the fact that you finally had some intelligent conversation for once!

Yeah, it'd've been a shame to eat him.

After that little episode, you talked a bit more with Grak before the second assistant you were assigned met up with you, followed by an entire mawdamned pack of sabertusks.

Grok Speakeasy was also weird as fuck, both for the fact that his beastpunching wasn't based on punching animals in just the right way to get them to listen to you and also because he was apparently an alchemist, but after a bit of talking, you managed to get used to his particular brand of crazy.

You still don't really get the appeal of talking to something instead of just hitting it, but you suppose that's partly because of your martial arts training. There's a weird amount of similarities between beastpunching and regular punching, but there's also enough differences that Grok's method of taming Mourne monsters is closer to beastpunching than regular punching is.

...Yeah that didn't even make sense to you, but you knew what you meant, and that's what matters.

Anyways, you talked with Grok a bit, and he has some pretty unique preconceptions about beastpunching. Apparently, he was taught by an armless Hunter, who had to use a different method to make himself combat effective, talking to sabertusks and mournfangs and other shit and convincing them to help him out. It's interesting, comparing and contrasting your different styles, but it's a bit too late for you to switch over to Grok's method. You're already too set in your ways, and besides, it's not like beastpunching doesn't work.

What you were more interested in though was Grok's 'alchemy'. It's really damn similar to Gut Magic, except instead of eating the ingredients to make magic happen, Grok puts those ingredients in a pot, cooks em up using a special technique, and then he has a bunch of liquid magic that he calls 'potions'. From what you can tell, they're basically spells in a bottle, though they're normally weaker than the same Gut Magic effect.

There was more to this 'alchemy' business than what Grok told you, of course, but before you could try and get it out of him, you got to the valley that'd be your 'research lab' for the foreseeable future.

To put it politely, it needed some work. To talk normally and not use the 'manners' bullshit your Laoshi tried to drill into your skull, it was a fucking mess.

...Alright you may have been exaggerating a bit. The Valley itself wasn't that bad, lots of nice trees, some rocks, a river, all that good shit. Food too. Not much, a few herds of yaks and mountain cows, but enough for a nice snack.

No, the real problem was the multiple explosive craters littering the place. Craters that, according to your guides, hadn't been there earlier.

Of course, even while you and your lads and research assistants were readying to drop a face smashing on whatever fucked up your new home, you saw what (well, who really) had just made a right fucking mess of your valley.

Then you sighed, told your minions and assistants to stand down, and walked into your 'lab; alone and unarmed. Because you'd recognize that ugly ass burning mug anywhere.

After all, it belonged to your student.

Skagg Burninator was always fucking insane, but it wasn't like that impacted his skills at all. A few decades back, he was just another runt, albeit one who had the balls to ask you to teach him. Seeing the parallels, you laughed, accepted, and made damn sure to not repeat any of your teachers' mistakes in terms of teaching a student that would kill them.

He picked shit up fast, but especially blasting powder and incendiaries. Skagg loved fire, to a pretty unhealthy degree if you were being honest. It didn't stop him from learning the rest of what you were willing to teach him, cannon, chariots, all that shit, but he was never as interested in it as he was with stuff that blew up or ignited.

In retrospect, it's not that big of a surprise that after he went on a 'pilgrimage' or whatever the fuck he called it, Skagg became a Firebelly.

The last you'd heard from him was a few years back, when he turned up at your camp to show you that he'd completed his trials and was a full fledged Volcano Priest. You patted him on the back, made sure that he wasn't gonna try and eat you, and sent him on his way with a new incendiary recipe.

And now he'd turned up at your new 'research lab', and made himself at home.

You had a feeling you knew why he was here, but you wanted to hear it from Skagg. So you asked him. And his response was exactly what you expected.

Skagg was here to be one of your research assistants. He'd somehow figured out where you were going to set up shop, beat you to it, and after about an hour of waiting, started blowing stuff up out of boredom. Then, a few hours after that, you got to the valley.

After hearing all of that, you just kind of shrugged and moved on, a common occurrence when dealing with Skagg.

After waving the rest of your minions and assistants down into the valley, making sure that they knew that, yes, Skagg was now working for you, and confirming that, no, they couldn't kill him, you ordered your lads to get to work fixing this place up into a proper lab.

It took most of a month to do properly, but through a mix of yelling, punching, and judicious use of gnoblar labor, you finally got your little valley into an adequate shape.

It wasn't anything too fancy, really. Most of your new 'lab' was just a regular ogre tribe setup, a bunch of huts around some fires, you and your assistants getting the biggest and best huts. The gnoblars set up basically wherever they could, and you didn't really care enough about them to look into their homes more.

You also still had to hunt shit, seeing as the yaks and mountain cows lasted your lads and you about 2 days, and that was only because a bunch of them kept running and hiding when you tried to eat them. Luckily though, there was a bunch of animals in the nearby valleys, and the nature of the Mountains meant that the food would keep on coming back, no matter how much you ate.

Beyond the basic stuff needed to live, you'd managed to make a bunch of cool-ass research stations. Forges, monster pens, altars to the maw, even a small kwoon, all of it isolated away from your houses.

Your assistants put up their own research locations too, Grak cordoning off a bit of the valley to transform into a huge garden, Grok setting up a cauldron and some shelves to make an alchemical workshop, and Skragg making a shrine to the Firebelly for his shit.

After that, all that was really left was waiting for your boss to send over his orders. So you waited. And you waited. And you waited some more, for three fucking months, before your boss finally remembered you existed, and sent an ogre down with a message with orders.

After you read your boss's orders, you swore a bit. Well, you swore a lot. And after your lab assistants read your boss's orders, they also swore a lot. And then your minions, the regular ogres, started swearing too. They didn't read the letter, because they can't read, they just wanted to be included.

The gnoblars also probably started swearing, but frankly you just didn't (and still don't) give enough of a shit about them to care about what they were doing.

After that little bit of foul language that'd have had your Laoshi kick you in the head if he heard it, you got to work.

After all, no matter how much you bitch and moan about it, orders from a Tyrant are orders you have to follow.

It's that or getting eaten, anyways.


What orders did you get? (This determines your starting Project)

[] Lad-Smacker: Some of my lads've gotten pretty fuckin' uppity recently. They ain't tried anything yet, and they ain't close to trying anything, but eventually maybe one of my Bruisers is gonna take some of my lads and try and start a bit of an uprising, if you catch my drift. Now, I can smack em down all day every day, but it gets a bit annoying if I have to do it a lot. So I want you to make me something that I can use to keep my lads in line. Don't care what, as long as it gets the job done. Gain Project: Weapon of Mass Beatdowns (AOE 1-v-many nonlethal weapon) [3 turns]

[] Lad-Booster: My lads are pretty strong, but they could always be stronger. And seeing as it's about time for a good scrap to extend my territory, I'm starting to find myself in need of a big ole boost to their fighting ability. I don't care what you do or how you do it, just make my lads better in a fight, by any means necessary. As long as we can use it over and over again, if it's a one-use thing it ain't really valuable. Don't care how, just get the job done. Gain Project: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger (Mass producible combat strength upgrade) [3 turns]

[] Lunch-Grabber: As you know, I'm hungry. I'm always hungry. Every ogre is. And while I get a fuckton of grub whenever I want it, I could be getting more. Don't care about the lads getting this type of treatment, I'd actually prefer if they didn't, keeps em on their toes. But yeah, get me something that can get me more food, I don't care how as long as it works and it keeps on working. Doesn't even need to be too much food, as long as it's food and not some other random shit. Gain Project: Hungry Hungry Tyrants (Multi use food grabber/maker) [3 turns]

[] Foe-Beater: Got another Tyrant moving in on my turf, and while I could fuck him up something fierce with nothing but my bare hands and a gut plate, I didn't become a Tyrant by being a fucking moron. So, I want something that'll stack the proverbial deck in my favor, if you catch my drift. If you don't, what the fuck am I not eating you for, but also I need something, don't care what, that'll get me an advantage over that other Tyrant that's gonna try and kill me in two or three years. Don't care how, just get the job done. Gain Project: Fuck-em-up-inator (Single Ogre 1v1 combat enhancement) [3 turns]

[] Lad-Runner: My lads are pretty damn slow. In the Mountains, this means they're at a disadvantage against literally everything. Speed's king out here, it's why we got so many lads on chariots or animals. So, whenever I decide I need to go to war next, I want my lads rolling deep with some of the best speed enhancers you can get. I don't care what they are, they just need to be mass producible and work more than once. No point if this shit breaks down after its first battle, eh? Gain Project: Fast and Furious (Mass producible combat speed enhancer) [3 turns]

A/N: This update fought me every step of the way, but it's finally out, and it's the last Chargen update too. Once again, huge thanks to @Xantalos and @Swordomatic for their help with the update.

As always, if you have any questions, please ask.