[Recruit][Black Crusade] Human Resources - Being a Tale of the Righteous Dismantling of Solroth III

Thief of Words

Thief of Words

Trans lesbian librarian
Location
Best book girl
Pronouns
She/Her
Welcome to Human Resources' recruitment and discussion thread. This game is intended to be an examination of Warhammer 40,000's original context by way of Fantasy Flight's Black Crusade RPG. The game will primarily be run by text over Discord with scenes and sessions being uploaded to the forum once they've been completed. This is partly to not require content moderation waits before the game can progress, setting it so that waits on moderation simply happen before the sessions can be shared with the larger SV community.

Some things need to be clarified up front.
First, look at my forum title. If any of those things offends you, then you shouldn't bother trying to join my game. I do not want you there, and the odds are you'd wash out for missing the point sooner rather than later.
Second, forget the fascist-ward drift that the Warhammer community has made in the last 30-odd years. Warhammer and Rogue Trader grew out of punk discontent with Thatcher...or grew out of the 2000AD ethos which itself grew out of punk discontent with right wing fuckery. That's the context we're dealing with here. The Imperium are not good, are not noble, are not even well-intentioned, and they are not the lesser of many evils. Rebellion is not damned to failure, but it is exceedingly difficult to do right and do successfully. None of this is up for debate OOC. It is the baseline premise of this game. If you want a pro-fascist 40k game? Make it yourself--with blackjack and exploited sex workers--if you want. If any of what I just said bothers you, again, the door out of my thread is right over there, and you're welcome to use it.

On to the point: I will be looking for from 2-5 additional players for the game. You will be using base Black Crusade character creation, though things not available through that normally will be potential options by way of either custom advances or as part of a set of character background bonuses which every player will get after the fact as part of character creation. Players are encouraged to think, actually think, about what it's like to live in such a ruthlessly dehumanizing society, as well as to work in considerations of how that would impact your character psychologically and physically. More information about the specific setting (which will not be in the Howling Vortex but instead on an Imperial Hive World within the Calixis Sector) will be forthcoming in the next few hours.

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ALRIGHT. Time to pledge my soul to the revolution! Down with the corpse-emperor and up with the eight-pointed star!

More seriously, what are the approximate limits for character creation? Given what you've mentioned in the OP, I assume that Chaos Space Marines are right out?
 
Thief of Words said:
Welcome to Human Resources' recruitment and discussion thread. This game is intended to be an examination of Warhammer 40,000's original context by way of Fantasy Flight's Black Crusade RPG. The game will primarily be run by text over Discord with scenes and sessions being uploaded to the forum once they've been completed. This is partly to not require content moderation waits before the game can progress, setting it so that waits on moderation simply happen before the sessions can be shared with the larger SV community.

Some things need to be clarified up front.
First, look at my forum title. If any of those things offends you, then you shouldn't bother trying to join my game. I do not want you there, and the odds are you'd wash out for missing the point sooner rather than later.
Second, forget the fascist-ward drift that the Warhammer community has made in the last 30-odd years. Warhammer and Rogue Trader grew out of punk discontent with Thatcher...or grew out of the 2000AD ethos which itself grew out of punk discontent with right wing fuckery. That's the context we're dealing with here. The Imperium are not good, are not noble, are not even well-intentioned, and they are not the lesser of many evils. Rebellion is not damned to failure, but it is exceedingly difficult to do right and do successfully. None of this is up for debate OOC. It is the baseline premise of this game. If you want a pro-fascist 40k game? Make it yourself--with blackjack and exploited sex workers--if you want. If any of what I just said bothers you, again, the door out of my thread is right over there, and you're welcome to use it.

On to the point: I will be looking for from 2-5 additional players for the game. You will be using base Black Crusade character creation, though things not available through that normally will be potential options by way of either custom advances or as part of a set of character background bonuses which every player will get after the fact as part of character creation. Players are encouraged to think, actually think, about what it's like to live in such a ruthlessly dehumanizing society, as well as to work in considerations of how that would impact your character psychologically and physically. More information about the specific setting (which will not be in the Howling Vortex but instead on an Imperial Hive World within the Calixis Sector) will be forthcoming in the next few hours.

​
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I'm in! If Space Marines are in it'd be cool to play a trans Emperor's Children, if not a transgender Slaaneshi cultist is cool enough.
 
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You know what, sure. Down with the Corpse Emperor!

Edit: Just to be clear, I am an aspie, which means epically missing the point is always a possibility, sorry.
 
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Hakazin said:
ALRIGHT. Time to pledge my soul to the revolution! Down with the corpse-emperor and up with the eight-pointed star!

More seriously, what are the approximate limits for character creation? Given what you've mentioned in the OP, I assume that Chaos Space Marines are right out?
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That'll be outlined in a subsequent informational post. Around the same time I finish the planet and scenario summary. Please wait to formulate a character til then.


Ritterin Sophia said:
I'm in! If Space Marines are in it'd be cool to play a trans Emperor's Children, if not a transgender Slaaneshi cultist is cool enough.
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The enthusiasm is commendable, but wait for the scenario first, please. It's a bit limited, but only in the sense of being intentional. I'll be taking as many character proposals as people want to post, but I'll only be picking 2-5 players beyond the one player already in the game. Should someone not get chosen, it's probably not a personal judgment, since my main motivator for selection is 'what combination of characters seem most interesting to run a game for'.


Ithillid said:
You know what, sure. Down with the Corpse Emperor!

Edit: Just to be clear, I am an aspie, which means epically missing the point is always a possibility, sorry.
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No worries. This is meant to be a game about the marginalized, the disincluded, and those society built itself not to accommodate. You're more than welcome to put forth a character sheet, and that's part of the point.
 
I am highly inclined at this point to put together a Heretek, probably in the vein of building tech in a cave with a box of scraps as a baseline, kind of like Tony Stark, if Stark was a hobo with a hate on for those incompetent dunderheads in the Adeptus Mechanicus who can't keep a simple door working right. So not much at all like Tony Stark.
 
Being a Meditation on the Pertinent Details of the Solroth System
  • Informational


    • Being a recitation of the pertinent details of the Solroth system:​

    The Solroth planetary system is a five-planet system found within the Calixis Sector. Going in order, the relevant characteristics of the planets are thus:

    Solroth Primus or Solroth I is best known for its status as a mineral rich world which is chiefly administrated by the Adeptus Mechanicus and otherwise mostly noteable for the rare elements and mineral combinations which occur on Solroth I, which bears the mark of having been previously burned by Solroth, the system's red giant sun. It is believed in such circles that Solroth Primus may not have been a native sphere to the system but instead the result of some sort of inter-systemic collision, only returning to planetary status after Solroth's expansion into red giant status reduced its mass and gravity enough to allow the planet to escape the sun's vicinity into a much more distant orbit.

    Solroth Secundus is a hazard-heavy world of toxic atmosphere and furious weather patterns. A majority of the planet's forty major settlements exist in a subterranean fashion, with five such cities existing as orbital stations or plates circling the planet.

    Arguably most notable planet in the system, Solroth Tertius or Solroth III, is a somewhat lacklustre hive world by all accounts. As with most of the Solroth system, Tertius was a partial failure of Terraforming procedures. It succeeded enough that the planet is more or less human-habitable, for certain values of habitation. It is mostly known for the fact that it serves as the primary in-sector supplier of CS Rations for the Departmento Munitorum, who serve to administrate most of the planet's peoples. The planet is largely unremarkable beyond that, save for a moderate mechanicus presence administrating its Tertius hive, a surprising concentration of the Adepta Sororitas' Orders Famulous--a number of whom maintain priories on the planet's Primus hive--Solroth Tertius is largely known for its illogical defiance of human reproductive rates, as the birth rate is roughly quintuple that of the galactic average, albeit only within the planet's Secundus hive. It is unknown why this does not result in overpopulation problems, but it may be presumed that the planet simply faces an exceedingly high tithe to the Munitorum in the form of Guard Tithes. Though, oddly, the planet itself lacks any regiment or PDF of its own, only seeing a rotating circulation of extra-system forces. That's...actually an odd detai-...

    --Incomplete Treatise on the Solroth System, banned text under authority of the Calixian Sector Ordos of the Inquisition.
     
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    • I don't have enough time to play, but I'd be super curious to see what sources you'd reccomend for this? I'm guessing original editions of 40k, or the like?
     
    Angle said:
    I don't have enough time to play, but I'd be super curious to see what sources you'd reccomend for this? I'm guessing original editions of 40k, or the like?
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    The standard gamut of 40k rpg materials, Rogue Trader (the first version of 40k), Soylent Green, The Handmaid's Tale, and dammit I had a third for my triple-distillation of dystopias. Hm. I'll have to add it to the list if I remember.
     
    So I would love to be a part of this, Philosophy and ethics are my great loves in life(My dating life is in fact that bad).

    The imperium is always written as the lesser of many evils (Rather that simply running an empire that large primarily focused on war on dozens of fronts crushes people and rights not with malice but necessity.)
    However every dictator has said it was necessary, every great evil has been "justified" .

    A revolutionary on the basis of building a better world is such a welcome breath of fresh air compared to "For the luls chaos!"
     
    Complete Tabletop newbie, so I don't think I'll be a good player, but I stan every word in that intro. I might throw my hat into the ring if I can figure out the rules, but either way I wish you the best of luck, GM. <3
     
    Character Creation Rules and Guidelines
  • Informational
    • Guidelines​

    In a very real sense, this is babby's first heresy. All of you are intended to be early along your journey along the knife's edge of rebellion between Imperial atrocity and the thirst of laughing gods.

    Solroth III Natives:

    You have never been off-planet. No one from Solroth III has ever been off planet.

    Hive Primus: You and everyone you have ever met is part of the planetary nobility. You are among the most well-bred individuals in the galaxy. You'd know, your family advisor from the Orders Famulous assured you of it. Once in a very long while, if things have gone terribly wrong, you might meet some sort of hideous low-born brute in the form of Soldiers brought in on the planetary guard rota. You once heard a rumor that the munitorum overseers weren't all nobleborn, but you dismissed it for the base slander it clearly is. Society is strictly Patriarchal, as the God-Emperor intended. Most marriages are arranged at birth. Infidelity and attempts to shirk "One's Duty to the Emperor" are punished harshly, and are even considered a matter of heresy in local theology. Every so often, a distant acquaintance or family member may be selected for some great service and taken off-planet. None of these "sown seeds" ever return.


    Hive Secundus: You are poor. Everyone you've ever met is poor. You exist to provide bodies and service to the God-Emperor's holy servants in the Departmento Munitorum. You are under the age of 40 or 45 terran standard years, and you have never met anyone above the age of Elysion. Those who ascend above that age, viable reproductive age as deemed by the Emperor's servants, they are allowed to go to their reward in Hive Secundus, which no one calls that. You have known many people who have gone on to the Elysion Plain--that hive's better known name--in fact, your parents, assuming they survived to that point, may well have retired to the Emperor's Reward. The average family size is roughly ten to twelve individuals. According to the Ecclesiarchs, any family smaller than six is a moral failing. Those women who go more than a year without a new birth in their family who have a substandard family size are frequently sent to join the ranks of the Chastised, the local name for servitors. Families are matrilineal, as the source of a woman's child matters not, so long as she has children. For men, the expectation is that they will help to spread children, and that in a marriage they will work to support their wife's many children. Average age of marriage is between thirteen and fifteen years of age and is frequently arranged well ahead of time.


    Offworlders:

    This world is strange, with a capital S. It is guaranteed that you did not come here by choice. No one comes here by choice. No one who would be allowed to do so would bother to come here by choice. There's not that much of a point. Either you're here with the Munitorum, the Adepta Sororitas, the Mechanicus, as part of the Ecclesiarchy, or some other official branch of the Imperium. You are kept to very particular codes of conduct. Contact with the locals is kept to the minimum necessary, it is said, due to moral peril involved in cross-contamination. At most, you've been on-world for a half-year, Terran Standard. Individuals are rotated out every two years.



    Rules
    ​
    Make a character using the basic character creation rules in the Black Crusade rulebook. It is advisable you work a backstory congruent with the above guidelines before working up the sheet. Once your background and sheet are completed, post them in this thread, and we will work out a moderate set of custom advances to represent your character's personal history.
     
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  • Informational
    • Do you have any intention of doing a virtual tabletop setup or similar? Second, is there a preferred character sheet that you want us to use, or is anything good?

    Edit: Also, are there any Xenos races, or the remnants of any xenos races found on this hive world?
     
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    Thief of Words said:
    Those who ascend above that age, viable reproductive age as deemed by the Emperor's servants, they are allowed to go to their reward in Hive Secundus, which no one calls that.
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    hooo boy. That is... ominous.

    Already coming up with some idea for characters, though. That idea I had for Revolutionary Bushido Night Lord is right out, but... hm. Neurotic teenaged Psyker, trans(gender/human) Heretek, or something else. What to choose, what to choose...
     
    Ithillid said:
    I am already building a Heretek. If we want to be a Heretek heavy party, it probably won't be the worst thing in the world. Techpriests and their heretical equivelents tend to be combat monsters with all the fun tech skills.
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    Do you have a backstory? Because if not, you're doing it in the wrong order. Also, remember that ideologically, you're coming from a tremendously different place as a member of the admech than basically anyone outside of it is. That matters for this game.

    Ithillid said:
    Do you have any intention of doing a virtual tabletop setup or similar? Second, is there a preferred character sheet that you want us to use, or is anything good?

    Edit: Also, are there any Xenos races, or the remnants of any xenos races found on this hive world?
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    1) No.
    2) No.
    3) No.
    4) No.

    Sheet: This is the format I usually use, if you want an example. I prefer not fillable pdfs, my computer is slow enough that they're almost always a pain in the butt to deal with.

    Hakazin said:
    gh. That idea I had for Revolutionary Bushido Night Lord is right out
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    If you run into any sort of Astartes, you have failed.
     
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    Jumping straight to ad-mec seems quite outside the theme of this.

    Given that the ad mec is a cult, from off world and that the ideas of the cult are very count to the ideas of ethics and humanity that this seems to want to explore. (They literally worship machines as being better than humanity)
    The standard Ad-mec reason for treason is because of wanting forbidden knowledge/research which is normally forbidden to protect people. I suppose it is possible you could believe that you could do those techs without causing the issues of the past but that just seems like a god complex rather than a discussion of ethics.

    Not trying to poke anyone in particular, just saw multiple people talk about it and wanted to ask them to think carefully of how an Ad mec fits into ethics and humanities when they are inherently several degrees removed from the premises.
     
    On second thought, I am not going to try and submit a character because the way that this is intended to be played requires far too many compromises away from the style of roleplaying (which often puts mechanics as a main tool of storytelling) that I prefer to play.
     
    Thief of Words said:
    Sheet: This is the format I usually use, if you want an example. I prefer not fillable pdfs, my computer is slow enough that they're almost always a pain in the butt to deal with.
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    Oooohhh, this is very helpful. Thanks!
    Thief of Words said:
    If you run into any sort of Astartes, you have failed.
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    I approve. 'Oh fuck it's a Space Marine we're all gonna die.' makes for a much more interesting game than 'It's a Space Marine? Another skull for the throne, then!'
     
    Is there somewhere where we can talk through ideas, before writing the backstory out at length?

    Like, it's no trouble if not, but it might be easier.
     
    Oh, this is super interesting. Got room for a sister of an Order Famulous?
     
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