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Suffer Not the Witch (Warhammer 40k Psyker Quest)

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10ebbor10 said:
Like, I can not follow the logic behind this chain of actions.
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Space Marine = Big And Strong
Big And Strong = Capable
Capable = Good

And also the 'oh, he's being honest about his motivations' type thing, even though the motivations he's espousing aren't necessarily beneficial for the continued existence of ... us.

[X] Refuse the Pact. Angel though he may be, beautiful and strong, Ciro remains unworthy of your sword.
- [X] You figure you might as well explain why.
"You offer me a deal, and in that dealing break another. I shed no tears for the betrayal and slaying of a daemon, yet it is still so. Besides, even if you killed it, it doesn't change a thing. That you make a deal with me does not change the fact that you made a deal with it. Further, your deal with it was a betrayal of these savage folk who have helped us in our time of need. Your capacity for betrayal is impressive, for an angel of Him."
 
[X] Refuse the Pact. Angel though he may be, beautiful and strong, Ciro remains unworthy of your sword.
- [X] You figure you might as well explain why.
"You offer me a deal, and in that dealing break another. I shed no tears for the betrayal and slaying of a daemon, yet it is still so. Besides, even if you killed it, it doesn't change a thing. That you make a deal with me does not change the fact that you made a deal with it. Further, your deal with it was a betrayal of these savage folk who have helped us in our time of need. Your capacity for betrayal is impressive, for an angel of Him."
 
10ebbor10 said:
Honestly, the popularity of Swearing Fealty baffles me?

A bit ago there was a plan to figure out an option to ditch Ciro, and now he reveals that not only did he deal with demons, he planned to betray our allies to them, and that he happily utilizes our distaste for such action to coerce us, and somehow that makes people like him?

Like, I can not follow the logic behind this chain of actions.
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I won't be upset if it loses, but I feel like Ciro did everything right to convince Vince.

Vince is lost. He's far from home, his trust in much of his old authorities and truths is shattered, but has still internalized it all. He has no goals. His attempts to find allies have seen him repeatedly brushed aside.

Now he's under constant psychic attack, both mentally and emotionally. To manage, he loses himself in sword work and more specifically begins identifying with his blade.

Ciro shows up. He continues to live up to most of the indoctrination of the Angels being superior in every possible way.
He sword fights with Vince. He furthers that connection by referring to himself as a weapon (just as Vince had been thinking of himself), then claims he became his own person and can implicitly help Vince do the same.

He stays calm and controlled and even funny in the face of Vince's outburts and accusations. And offers answers and explanations.

Then, he offers to give Vince what he wants (the death of the demon) in exchange for a chance to relive what were arguably the best days of Vince's life (serving as a sword for hire) in the manner that Vince is accustomed.

I don't disagree with the Refusal vote's arguments. In fact I completely agree. I just wonder whether Vince wants to give in and trust Ciro at this point.
 
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Maugan Ra said:
Have you considered the fact that Ciro spent this update shirtless and exerting himself while professing how much he cares about you?

(In all seriousness I have a few ideas, the most obvious of which is that Ciro got a chance to actually make a pitch on-screen rather than having it simply be inferred, but half the reason I run quests is so I can be surprised by vote results)
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I was actually gonna suggest that him being a fucking Greek statue in sheer muscly perfection was a contributing factor in an earlier post. Something something sexual tension. Well if there's any sexual tension it's one-sided but whatever.

The only reason I didn't was because I didn't want to be the first to suggest that.

Also holy shit Xantalos voted for my write-in I'm so damned hyped right now.
 
[X] Refuse the Pact. Angel though he may be, beautiful and strong, Ciro remains unworthy of your sword.
- [X] You figure you might as well explain why.
"You offer me a deal, and in that dealing break another. I shed no tears for the betrayal and slaying of a daemon, yet it is still so. Besides, even if you killed it, it doesn't change a thing. That you make a deal with me does not change the fact that you made a deal with it. Further, your deal with it was a betrayal of these savage folk who have helped us in our time of need. Your capacity for betrayal is impressive, for an angel of Him."
 
[X] Refuse the Pact. Angel though he may be, beautiful and strong, Ciro remains unworthy of your sword.
- [X] You figure you might as well explain why.
"You offer me a deal, and in that dealing break another. I shed no tears for the betrayal and slaying of a daemon, yet it is still so. Besides, even if you killed it, it doesn't change a thing. That you make a deal with me does not change the fact that you made a deal with it. Further, your deal with it was a betrayal of these savage folk who have helped us in our time of need. Your capacity for betrayal is impressive, for an angel of Him."

I like the eldar and the rogue trader more than this guy, which makes me sad as a space marine fan.
 
Okay, begrudging acceptance people, now is the time. The Space Marine is naked, unarmed, and in close proximity to a bio-psyker wielding a power sword. There may be never a better opportunity.

[X] Refuse the Pact. Angel though he may be, beautiful and strong, Ciro remains unworthy of your sword.
- [X] Draw on the powers of the warp and do your best to kill him.
- [X] Aim for the head.
 
[X] Refuse the Pact. Angel though he may be, beautiful and strong, Ciro remains unworthy of your sword.
- [X] You figure you might as well explain why.
"You offer me a deal, and in that dealing break another. I shed no tears for the betrayal and slaying of a daemon, yet it is still so. Besides, even if you killed it, it doesn't change a thing. That you make a deal with me does not change the fact that you made a deal with it. Further, your deal with it was a betrayal of these savage folk who have helped us in our time of need. Your capacity for betrayal is impressive, for an angel of Him."
 
[X] Refuse the Pact. Angel though he may be, beautiful and strong, Ciro remains unworthy of your sword.
- [X] You figure you might as well explain why.
"You offer me a deal, and in that dealing break another. I shed no tears for the betrayal and slaying of a daemon, yet it is still so. Besides, even if you killed it, it doesn't change a thing. That you make a deal with me does not change the fact that you made a deal with it. Further, your deal with it was a betrayal of these savage folk who have helped us in our time of need. Your capacity for betrayal is impressive, for an angel of Him."

Not only no but fuck no, we follow him and but the end we'll be in so deep with Chaos that we'll have no idea where it's hand ends and our ass begins. He will break us down one degree at a time, force into situations where we'll cross one line, and then another and another. Remember he was working with other Space Marines so that line about being free is bullshit. Lastly the only way not be played by a multi century, if not millennium old super human is to refuse the game.

So here is the first line were to cross they worked with us, died fighting beside us, and he does even hesitate to fuck them over completely. Unless you work for Chaos feeding someone that isn't even an enemy to a Daemon so it can wear you like a suit and use your soul like a chew toy as it does is so far over the line that from here on in we should be focused on killing him or just getting the fuck away from him.
 
[X] Refuse the Pact. Angel though he may be, beautiful and strong, Ciro remains unworthy of your sword.
- [X] You figure you might as well explain why.
"You offer me a deal, and in that dealing break another. I shed no tears for the betrayal and slaying of a daemon, yet it is still so. Besides, even if you killed it, it doesn't change a thing. That you make a deal with me does not change the fact that you made a deal with it. Further, your deal with it was a betrayal of these savage folk who have helped us in our time of need. Your capacity for betrayal is impressive, for an angel of Him."

This doesn't mean we can't work with him, and given that we have literally nobody else in terms of contacts we are probably better off working with him, and we should work on our powers such that we work with him more for both our betterment, but as an unsanctioned psyker willingly working with deamons is kind of a dealbreaker for someone to swear fealty too.
 
[X] Refuse the Pact. Angel though he may be, beautiful and strong, Ciro remains unworthy of your sword.
- [X] You figure you might as well explain why.
"You offer me a deal, and in that dealing break another. I shed no tears for the betrayal and slaying of a daemon, yet it is still so. Besides, even if you killed it, it doesn't change a thing. That you make a deal with me does not change the fact that you made a deal with it. Further, your deal with it was a betrayal of these savage folk who have helped us in our time of need. Your capacity for betrayal is impressive, for an angel of Him."
 
[X] Refuse the Pact. Angel though he may be, beautiful and strong, Ciro remains unworthy of your sword.

Not all that much has really changed, and I'm not really fond of suddenly reversing course and choosing to trust Ciro. The reason I voted for begrudgingly obeying Ciro is because open defiance is tantamount to making an enemy of him (though we're apparently in a position now where it's a binary choice between that or obedience anyway). We still know nothing about him and I'm not fond of being co-opted for his own goals that we might or might not share. He never consults us, and if we go along with him now we're in no better position than we were last vote on this subject because we're literally swearing vassalage to him; we're not an equal either way.

His offer to destroy the daemon today might be good, because it wins him something (us). He's shown us however that pacts with daemons are an option he's interested in taking when they should arise, and that erodes any trust I might have in him.

I'm going to abstain from elaborating on a write-in option though. I don't like the current write-in option, but I can't really think up a good one I'm happy with.
 
10ebbor10 said:
Honestly, the popularity of Swearing Fealty baffles me?
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Well, the popularity of Refuse baffles *me* instead.

I get it, Ciro isn´t really trustworthy at all, but are you guys really willing to let a DAEMON stay in the game? Sure, our Astartes "friend" might not keep his word to us to kill the Demon, but he might just as well do keep his word - if we refuse, he *Definitely* won´t kill the Demon and we are fucked in the long run.

So yeah, allowing that guy to become our Master stinks, but that Demon remaining active is *Far worse* in the long run.

As for the Carrion Queen, if Ciro keeps his word, the Demon dies and she remains safe-ish for now - if Ciro doesn´t keep his word, we just cook up a way to warn her that doesn´t violate our servitude to Ciro...simple as that



[X] Swear Fealty
 
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TheGleeman said:
Well, the popularity of Refuse baffles *me* instead.

I get it, Ciro isn´t really trustworthy at all, but are you guys really willing to let a DAEMON stay in the game? Sure, our Astartes "friend" might not keep his word to us to kill the Demon, but he might just as well do keep his word - if we refuse, he *Definitely* won´t kill the Demon and we are fucked in the long run.

So yeah, allowing that guy to become our Master stinks, but that Demon remaining active is *Far worse* in the long run.

As for the Carrion Queen, if Ciro keeps his word, the Demon dies and she remains safe-ish for now - if Ciro doesn´t keep his word, we just cook up a way to warn her that doesn´t violate our servitude to Ciro...simple as that
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[X] Refuse the Pact. Angel though he may be, beautiful and strong, Ciro remains unworthy of your sword.
- [X] You figure you might as well explain why.
"You offer me a deal, and in that dealing break another. I shed no tears for the betrayal and slaying of a daemon, yet it is still so. Besides, even if you killed it, it doesn't change a thing. That you make a deal with me does not change the fact that you made a deal with it. Further, your deal with it was a betrayal of these savage folk who have helped us in our time of need. Your capacity for betrayal is impressive, for an angel of Him."

Sure we get to kill the Daemon we're currently dealing with, but the fact remains, dealing with the demonic is always bad and he is very explicitly not saying that he will refuse to deal with the demonic in the future. If it comes down to it, losing him as an ally and possibly not killing the Daemon immediately is a far better choice to make than signing up to join him
 
TheGleeman said:
I get it, Ciro isn´t really trustworthy at all, but are you guys really willing to let a DAEMON stay in the game?
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The daemon is bad, but it's a known bad quantity. If we swear fealty we'll get rid of it, but Ciro has just shown willingness to go back his deals, and nothing in his proposal prevents him from making a deal with another, especially since we have a daemon summoner in our group.

Nothing says we can't work with him, and I think we are better off if we do so. I just don't think that Ciro is someone we can swear fealty to like that, unless we're also prepared to break our word almost immediately afterward as well.
 
On one hand, potentially get railed by a space marine, on the other hand potential independence, decisions decisions...

[X] Swear Fealty. For a year and a day you will serve Ciro as his sworn sword, trading loyalty for a daemon's life and taking comfort in the familiarity of an old role and the shelter of an angel's wing.
-[X] "Tell me the story of how an angel fell and in doing so flew freer than before, I will tell you of myself as well for a blade must know the hand that wields it as the hand knows the blade."

Ciro won the coin toss.
 
If you really want to vote Swear Fealty, you could at least add a subvote saying "no dealing with daemons for the duration of my service" as part of our conditions. I'm surprised the only subvote has been asking for his backstory - we ought to be robbing him blind if we're going to be serving him for a year.

Edit: Literally, the vote is worded to encourage you to add loopholes.
Note that Vincenzo is from a culture that prizes honour and the art of vendetta enough that it has formalised the rules of treachery - he won't willingly break any agreement he enters into, but is highly adept at exploiting technicalities and ambiguity.
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Maugan Ra said:
It is, yes! Broken Chains is the intro/quickstart module for Black Crusade, which I have gleefully plundered - the ship, the Carrion, Interrogator Crane, Hephastus Bore and Nadia Black are all from the module. Technically so is Ciro, but the Ciro in the module is... significantly different to the Ciro in the quest.

Obviously I've changed and expanded on a bunch of stuff as well. The Carrion in the book are... significantly less respectable, and I added in all the stuff with Crane's characterisation and the offer he made etc etc.

I did something similar with Wolves and Witches, but alas in this case I can't steal Black Crusade adventures for future arcs because there are very few Black Crusade adventures and the ones that exist are all kinda shit.
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I found that they were good for mining NPCs and pieces from though, lots of fun has been had at my table with characters originally from the adventure where you kidnap a planet.
 
We trust too easily. Weren't we following around an Eldar just a few chapters prior? We're willing to go after anyone who, in that moment, is kind to us. Not saying that swearing fealty is wrong per se... just that we should be careful.
 
This is a tough one, on the one hand I like chaos, on the other hand I don't trust this guy, one the one hand, it feels in character to say yes, one the other hand, we were suspicious of him earlier


Hmmm
 
Tally so far, looks like reject will win unless votes are being tallied from other sites.

Adhoc vote count started by Ultrackius on Nov 3, 2021 at 10:03 PM, finished with 62 posts and 36 votes.
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TheGleeman said:
Well, the popularity of Refuse baffles *me* instead.

I get it, Ciro isn´t really trustworthy at all, but are you guys really willing to let a DAEMON stay in the game? Sure, our Astartes "friend" might not keep his word to us to kill the Demon, but he might just as well do keep his word - if we refuse, he *Definitely* won´t kill the Demon and we are fucked in the long run.

So yeah, allowing that guy to become our Master stinks, but that Demon remaining active is *Far worse* in the long run.

As for the Carrion Queen, if Ciro keeps his word, the Demon dies and she remains safe-ish for now - if Ciro doesn´t keep his word, we just cook up a way to warn her that doesn´t violate our servitude to Ciro...simple as that
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Something that occurred to me, Daemons prefer psykers as hosts because the existing channel to the Warp means they can leverage a greater proportion of their power. Karnak Zul is much more likely to have initially asked for Vincenzo as a host.

Ciro might have argued him down (whether out of distrust for the daemon or genuine gratitude for Vincenzo freeing him), or he might have agreed, and he's only telling Vincenzo that the Carrion Queen is the true target because he thinks letting Vincenzo know he sold him out to a daemon would run against the narrative that Ciro cares for him even if he's offering to go back on the deal.

IMHO we're deciding whether to toady up to Ciro or have our association end in violence when he offers us up to a daemon. Despite this I'm still torn between them, not least because I'm not sure what our chances in a possession attempt are.
 
[X] Refuse the Pact. Angel though he may be, beautiful and strong, Ciro remains unworthy of your sword.
- [X] Don't say anything about why.
 
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