Hey, are you ready for the engagement of this quest to drop by 90% for one update, because I am! This is entirely out of character and mechanics!
Your cult has a GOAL, QUALITIES and ASSETS. You have 14
BUILD POINTS (BP) to spend!
The Goal is what you want to do, so...it's the first choice.
[ ] Build a democratic, free society where all can live in peace and plenty
[ ] Build a psionic utopia where all are one
[ ] Escape this fucking planet
[ ] Write In
Now, your Qualities are what you can do and your current resources. They're both the abilities of your cult and its health - losing some of them indicate that your cult is in serious trouble. There are five Qualities, and all save one starts at 0. You can increase them for
ONE BUILD POINT. These qualities are added together to do actions - for example, training up your army and gaining weapons is a Territory + Sovereignty roll, as it depends on both your population and how loyal they are to you.
Each time you take an action, both Qualities used are reduced by 1 for that month, meaning that a company can be exhausted and need to regather its strength.
Qualities can rise and fall in play. That is, in fact, the entire point of the quest!
So!
MIGHT: the number of soldiers you have, their training, the weapons they have available, and their morale.
[ ] 0 MIGHT: Completely unarmed, your cultists rely entirely on other factors to keep themselves safe.
[ ] 1 MIGHT: Well meaning but poorly trained gangers, with a few auto-pistols and knives.
[ ] 2 MIGHT: Either a small number of reasonably well trained men with flak armor and las weapons, or a large number of gangers.
[ ] 3 MIGHT: A typical platoon of men with guardsman level training and gear, but no mechanical support.
[ ] 4 MIGHT: Excellent troops with las weaponry and good leadership - or good troops with excellent leadership.
[ ] 5 MIGHT: Excellent troops backed by a few squirreled away Chimeras, Lemun Russ tanks. Light on artillery.
[ ] 6 MIGHT: Tough, experienced veterans with an armored corps and either high tech weapons (bolters, plasma guns, meltas) or a cadre of trained war psykers.
TREASURE: your raw resources - not merely Thrones, but influence, blackmail, deals and connections, hidden stashes and even manufacturing capabilities.
[ ] 0 TREASURE: Your cult is starving in the gutter, largely speaking.
[ ] 1 TREASURE: Every level of the cult is visibly pathetic - ragged clothing, corpse starch, smeary candles.
[ ] 2 TREASURE: Your cult is struggling to make ends meet, but no one is actively starving to death, not even the lowliest members.
[ ] 3 TREASURE: Either a small, tightly run cult or a large cult with some haves and have nots - but the haves are approaching upper-middle class.
[ ] 4 TREASURE: A cult with the ability to throw around the economic weight of a minor noble family.
[ ] 5 TREASURE: A cult with their fingers in the resources of a major noble family, and access to some tech-priests.
[ ] 6 TREASURE: A cult that sits atop a planetary resources - controlling them openly and easily.
INFLUENCE: How many secrets does your cult know - and how many can they learn, and how many they can keep. Spies, loremasters, and public relations are all under the sway of influence.
[ ] 0 INFLUENCE: While your cult may be known by others, how it is seen is entirely out of its control. It operates in the dark, relying on force alone.
[ ] 1 INFLUENCE: Self absorbed and insular, your cult has minimal pull.
[ ] 2 INFLUENCE: Your cult may stumble upon a fact, or change a mind through intention if they're lucky.
[ ] 3 INFLUENCE: Your cult now likely has at least one harried and overworked spymaster.
[ ] 4 INFLUENCE: Your cult has multiple spies that work directly for it, and a loremaster who can acquire new information.
[ ] 5 INFLUENCE: Your cult has threaded its influence into many other organizations secretly, and can burn agents if needed, while its secrets are well kept and guarded. The loremaster's librarium holds many interesting facts.
[ ] 6 INFLUENCE: A shadowy, persuasive force, your cult is seductive, terrifying and secretive as it needs to be, presenting whatever face it wishes to the world beyond.
TERRITORY: Not merely how much of the planet you control, but also how many people are within your cult. The higher the value, the more of both. Note: This can represent lots of people spread over a large area (I.E, a widely spread conspiracy.)
[ ] 0 TERRITORY: The cult is a scant handful of powerful people with a few servitors and followers, and holds almost no ground, no safehouses, no permanent settlement. Entirely nomadic.
[ ] 1 TERRITORY: Small in number, your cult controls a small village's worth of people, or perhaps a single church, or the crew of a large airship.
[ ] 2 TERRITORY: A town, a modest settlement - ten thousand or more people.
[ ] 3 TERRITORY: You hold and control the equivalent of a single hive-level, easily one to five hundred thousand people, either centralized or spread out.
[ ] 4 TERRITORY: You hold the control over the equivalent of half of a hive-spire. Which half depends on your Treasure and Influence, to be quite honest.
[ ] 5 TERRITORY: You control an entire hive-spire's worth of citizens, easily millions of cultists.
[ ] 6 TERRITORY: You control...hmm...not the entire planet, but a significant portion of it.
SOVERIGNTY: This is an indication of how well your cult is cohered around their ideals. Their loyalties. Their beliefs and their feelings. Until literally seconds before the quest began in earnest, this was at an impossible value of 10 - superhumanly coherent, because the cult was a part of the approaching hive mind. It has now dropped to 1.
1 is the lowest value that Sovereignty can reach before you lose the game. If your Sovereignty drops to 0, that's it! The cult has dissolved into factions, the dream of a better world (or escape, or a massive genestealer orgy, or whatever) has been lost and the quest is OVER!!!! Because of that, you start with 1 Sov
FOR FREE! Repeat! It does not cost
anything to have 1 Sov!
[ ] 1 SOVERIGNTY: The cult, frayed by the sudden death of the hive mind, is nearly as querulous and fractious as...as most...revolutionary organizations, actually.
[ ] 2 SOVERIGNTY: The cult has grudging and sullen cooperation, but constant infighting remains.
[ ] 3 SOVERIGNTY: Typical loyalty for most people - low level cultists gripe about their overlords, but if someone else were to insult the cult, they'd punch them.
[ ] 4 SOVERIGNTY: Unusual dedication, either due to exceptional leadership, communal spirit, or the overweening charisma of a tyrant.
[ ] 5 SOVERIGNTY: Every cultist is eager to live and die for the cult and the values it believes in, due to genuine belief in the cause, loyalty and love.
[ ] 6 SOVERIGNTY: Is it a new hive mind? Or is it merely the power of...communism?
These are the qualities - but what are Assets? Assets are modifications to a quality, giving it bonus dice (sometimes leavened out with penalties) that further specialize your cult. They each cost
1 BUILD POINT to buy, which is why you're not immediately putting 12 points into Might and Sov and conquering the planet. Well, okay, you can do that. That'd be a fun quest too.
Here are the ASSET LIST!
MIGHT ASSETS
[ ] PDF Turncoats (+2d when rolling to escape from Unconventional Warfare, but not for performing it)
[ ] Areospace Access (+2d might when using aircraft or orbital spaceships - you do NOT have warp capability)
[ ] Defensive Psykers (+2d to might rolls when combatting enemy psykers or psyker enhanced forces)
[ ] Swarm Tactics (+2d when your might is used against an enemy with a lower permanent might rating)
[ ] Hatred (If attacked by the Imperium, you get a one time +3d to your defense rolls for that engagement - after victory it is lost.)
[ ] True Love (a PDF officer/naval captain/war-psyker/inquisitorial acolyte has, unknown to you, fallen deeply in love with one of your most beautiful magi, and will at a dramatic moment turn against the rotting edifice of the Imperium, securing victory for you at the tragic cost of their life, dying romantically in the arms of their weeping beloved. +3d to any single might roll, once.)
TREASURE ASSETS
[ ] Seasonal Income (half of the planetary cycle, you get +2 to Treasure. During the other half of the cycle, you get -1 Treasure.)
[ ] Permanent Underclass (Your cult has some people it can just...push the shit work onto. Once per planetary cycle, you can permanently drop your Sovereignty by 1 to add 1 to your treasure.)
[ ] Excellent Military Logistics (Your cult ensures everyone has a charge pack, two frag, one krak grenade and a smoker. The first attack roll per month automatically turns 1 regular dice into an Expert Dice.)
[ ] Predictable Bounty (pick one month per planetary cycle - during this time, things get easier for your cult's internal activities, giving +1 Territory, +1 Treasure but -1 Might for the month.)
[ ] Day of Ascension Stockpile (the cult's long preparations have paid off - but they were expecting to be eaten soon so it will not last long. +2 to Treasure this month, which becomes a +2 bonus to territory next month. Then? It's gone.)
INFLUENCE ASSETS
[ ] Kelermorphs (+2d when rolling to perform Unconventional Warfare, but not for the escape)
[ ] Active Propagandists (+2d when rolling to increase your Influence)
[ ] Pleasure Dens (-1 Difficulty to roll to improve Influence)
[ ] Uncomfortable Allies (Pick another Company, you have +2d Influence with them, they have +2 Influence with you)
[ ] Prisoners | [ ] Khornites | [ ] Nurglests | [ ] Tzneetchians | [ ] Slaaneshite | [ ] Nobility | [ ] Prison Guards | [ ] Tech Priests
[ ] Beautiful Hybrids (+2d when rolling to alter the opinions of another Company)
[ ] Well Positioned Neophyte Mole (Choose another company. You have a ONE TIME +3d bonus to influence, after which the Neophyte either is slain or has returned to the cult and cannot be used again.)
[ ] Prisoners | [ ] Khornites | [ ] Nurglests | [ ] Tzneetchians | [ ] Slaaneshite | [ ] Nobility | [ ] Prison Guards | [ ] Tech Priests
TERRITORY ASSETS
[ ] Techwights, Armorers and Manufactories (+2d to rolls to permanently increase your Might)
[ ] Tunnels and Bunkers (+2d to defend your territory if attackers are fighting through your defenses - no bonus if they've slipped past somehow.)
[ ] Pleasurable Kiss (People like the Cult for...obvious reasons - +2d to rolls to permanently raise your Sovereignty.)
SOVERIGNTY ASSETS
[ ] Revolutionary Rhetoric (-1 difficulty to raise Sovereignty or Might)
[ ] Bureau of Anti-Inquisitorial Action (+2d to rolls to resist Unconventional Warfare attacks.)
[ ] We Will Die Free (+2d to all Sovereignty rolls if your company is under attack from an outside force)
[ ] Limited Hive Mind (+2d when rolling to police your population.)
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DRAGON COBOLT QUICKTIME CULT CREATION!
If that all seems like a lot, here's two premade cults. The Society of Sensation is a moderately small but deeply well connected among the joydens and recreation spots on Thedas, both above and below the cloud layer, with a connective hive mind but minimal military assets. Meanwhile, the Fellowship of Singing Stars are pulled together by their fervor for communism, hatred of the imperium, and the fact they've suborned not only prisoners but two platoons of PDF areospace fighters.
[ ] The Society of Sensation
-[ ] 1 Might
-[ ] 3 Treasure
-[ ] 3 Influence
-[ ] 1 Territory
-[ ] 3 Sovereignty
-[ ] Assets: Pleasure Dens, Beautiful Hybrids, Limited Hive Mind
[ ] The Fellowship of Singing Stars
-[ ] 3 Might
-[ ] 3 Treasure
-[ ] 1 Influence
-[ ] 2 Territory
-[ ] 3 Sovereignty
-[ ] Assets: Areospace Assets, Revolutionary Rhetoric
