The world of Mallus is weak, feeble, and lacking any sort of true scientific vision. You're just the researcher to change that. Get funding, complete the projects assigned to you by your employer, and remember that ethics are for weak-minded fools.
Research and Development Quest [Warhammer Fantasy]
- Thread starter Kaboomatic
- Start date
Warhammer Fantasy Research and Development Quest
- Created
- Status
- Ongoing
- Watchers
- 191
- Recent readers
- 0
- Threadmarks
- 12
-
Statistics (8 threadmarks, 14k words)
User Total Kaboomatic 8 -
Loading…
-
Loading…
Character Creation: Faction Choice
Kaboomatic
Where the Wild Things Are
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Innovation.
You're honestly quite shocked at how many idiots and fools continually and consistently misinterpret that one simple word.
Innovation, by its very definition, cannot be constrained, cannot be caged by the pathetic ideals of weak-minded cowards. 'Rules' and 'guidelines' and 'ethics' should never be a factor in what to research, what experiments to conduct.
But that's what it is, isn't it?
At the end of the day, ethics are what separates the mewling rabble from those with the potential for true greatness, those who see the end of the road paved with corpses and pain and consider it well worth the cost.
The mayfly kingdoms of men, the gasping ruins of what used to be a dwarven empire, the elves cowering in their forests and their floating island, all of them are so quick to forget what made them, what they owe their power to.
Do they think the Vortex on High Ulthuan was made ethically?! Was Necromancy ever humane?! Did the Karaz Ankor's vaunted Runesmithing come about without sacrifice?!
No.
True progress only comes with freedom, the freedom from 'morals' and 'right and wrong'. The ends don't need to justify the means, because the means never needed to be justified in the first place.
It's why the forces of Order will never, ever shake up the status quo. It's why the Karaz Ankor will never reclaim its past glories, why the kingdoms of men will all eventually go the way of Dead Nekehara, why the Asur and Asrai can't take or hold land beyond their islands and forests.
They stop.
They don't know why or how or when to keep on continuing. To them, science is based around lines in the sand, lines they refuse to cross solely to keep some sort of moral superiority, to show that even as their world crumbles around their ears, they're still better than the 'barbarians' who will do anything to survive.
The funniest thing is, they actually think they have a point!
The 'righteous' think that doing anything to survive is a bad thing, that ethics and morals are anything more than a lie they tell themselves to be able to sleep at night!
They're lost in a delusion of their own making, closing their eyes to the reality of the world in an attempt to be 'good', to be 'moral', as if that has any value at all! They stick their heads into the sand while a wild beast rushes to devour them, shutting their eyes in a vain hope that their 'righteousness' will protect them!
But you. You know differently.
Your eyes are wide open.
You see the truth, you see the path forward, and unlike the milk-sodden lackwits of 'Order', you won't flinch away from true progress!
No! The abyss of never ending innovation has stared deep into your soul, and you have stared back!
You are a prophet, a messiah, the one who will bring the glory of advancement at all costs to the blinded fools of the world! You will crush the light of ignorance and bring about a dark age of revelation, where the world is covered in the artificial clouds of knowledge and amorality!
And behind you - Nay, beside you - will be the other members of your race, one of the few, the very, very, few, to understand your goal, your drive, your life's purpose!
Not all of them, of course, there will always be those who prefer personal gain over scientific advancement, and frankly, you may also fall into that category, but their motives for true research don't matter. What matters is their means!
And like you, they see no reason to limit themselves with petty concerns of morality, no reason to claim superiority through righteousness! After all, you're already superior to the cringing, feeble vermin that infest the world that should be yours by right! What need have you of other justifications?!
And nowhere is this clearer than in your science! Resources are made to be exploited, and just because a few bleeding hearts don't see beings as resources doesn't mean that classification changes!
So what if a few dozen slaves die in unimaginable agony as a side effect of an experiment?! The pain they undergo gives valuable research data!
So what if you've consigned a few insignificant souls to eternal damnation for resources? It's not like they had any other value, and they wouldn't be missed by anyone important!
So what if you've committed some 'atrocities' and 'violations of every form of human decency' on your slaves? After all, it's not like you're human!
Their deaths, torture, and general misery contributed to the advancement of your goals, and really, isn't that the most important thing?!
If need be, you'll ride a wave of broken bodies to your vision of the future, consign a million million souls to eternal damnation for but an iota of progress, shatter the world itself if its dying gasps are needed to see your dreams made manifest!
Aided by your kinsmen, you will drag the world kicking and screaming into your ideal future, and no matter what you gave to do, what risks others have to take, it'll all be worth it!
...Of course, you won't rush into anything with no care for your personal safety.
You're not a Skaven, after all.
No, you're much better than one of those sniveling ratmen. You are one of the
[] Chosen of Hashut: Glory to the Father of Darkness! You are Dawi Zharr, one of the destined rulers of the world, a right given to you implicitly by three simple things. The first is of course your inbuilt nature. Your people are resistant to chaos, supernaturally durable, and able to live in environments that would kill the likes of men or elves, proving your superiority over the weakling races.
The second is your accomplishments. Has any other race figured out how to dissect daemons and use them as tools? Has any other group unlocked the secrets of the internal combustion engine or the locomotive? Has any other nation created new species of life without using warpstone as a crutch? No, they haven't.
The third and most important reason is Hashut. The Father of Darkness saved your people after the Ancestor Gods of the Dawi sent them on a suicide mission into the Dark Lands, leaving them to die in a wasteland. And they nearly did, until the Bull God found them, took them in, taught them the truth of the world and their rightful position in it; standing on top, with everyone except Hashut Himself crushed under their boots.
It's what your society is built on; slaves at the bottom, 'allies' and mercenaries slightly above them, Dawi Zharr far, far above them, and above even your kinsmen, the Sorcerer Priests, the toughest, smartest, most powerful of your people, an ancient order that rules all, an order that you're a part of.
But even amongst your peers, you've always been talented, enough that you achieved your vaunted rank at the meager age of two hundred. Through intense study and a fanatical thirst for knowledge, you learned the secrets of your station.
You learned how to distill daemons into their basest components, and use those building blocks to create great and terrible hell-forged machinery. You know how to make flesh bow to your will and twist itself into whatever form you desire. You understand the Lore of Azgorh and its intricacies, the rites of your god and the meanings of his domains.
And your talent has been recognized by one of the highest authorities of the Dawi Zharr. They've seen fit to reward your genius with a position as a researcher, giving you kinsdwarves to command, a wealth of slaves, and a considerable amount of funding.
Succeed in the tasks your patron gives you, and status and power will be yours for the taking. Fail, and you'll be forced into a one-dwarf assault on Karaz-a-Karak.
Bah! As if you'd ever engage in anything as plebian as failure.
[] True Heirs of Chaos: The life of a Fimir is seething bitterness and a shattered destiny. Your people were to be the rulers of an unbroken empire, controlling the deeps and the land alike, an empire made by and made for the truest chosen of the Dark Gods. Not the Beastmen, who are nothing more than pawns and wild animals unfit to be anything more than slaves. Not the weak smooth-skinned humans, who beg and plead for every scrap of meager favor, leeching off of the Ruinous Powers like bloodsucking parasites. Not the Naga Queens of Khuresh, or the heretical Dawi Zharr, or any of the elves, especially their Cult of Pleasure.
No. The only race strong and clever and ruthless enough to grip the world itself in their iron-clawed hand, to enslave and subjugate all lesser beings, to bleed millions in Chaos' name and revel in the gods' favor, the only race deserving of such feats is the Fimir!
And yet. The beastmen mindlessly cavort and raid, their numbers only ever expanding. The pinkskin humans are given the favor of the Powers as a matter of course. And even more galling than that, Order rules the world, grasping onto the barest threads of survival even as the unworthy pretenders to Chaos continually fail to bring them low.
All while your people are relegated to the edges of swamps and ruined castles, to strike fear into the hearts of an irrelevant primitive island and nowhere else. Albion is both the seat of your power and your people's prison, and worst of all, no matter how much you despise the current state of affairs, for now you can't change it.
But hatred brings power. Power enough to learn how to bind daemons, force the servants of the four to assume their rightful place as the slaves, items, and armaments of the Chosen of the Gods. Power enough to unlock and enhance your own inherent abilities, the natural gifts that make the Fimir superior to the other mortal races. And power enough to steal the secrets of the only parts of Albion worth anything, the Oghams and what they protect.
And finally, your power has been recognized. You've been given slaves, Shearls, other Dirachs and more, all to act as your patron's experimenter and researcher.
Succeed, and the greatest legacies of the Old Empire will be opened to you. Fail, and you will die unknown and unremembered, like every Fimir before you.
You will not fail.
[] Strongest Fuckers Around: Yeah, that's right. You're an Ogre, big, strong, and hungry. And that's what every damn person, daemon, and thinking being that doesn't fall under the first two categories on the planet thinks when they hear the word 'ogre'. According to them, you eat, you fight, and you don't do much else.
Which, fair cop, is kind of true. But it shouldn't be true. Ogres shouldn't be thought of as strong and easily manipulated mercenaries. The first thing anyone with any power thinks of when they meet one of your kinsmen is how best to lure them into doing what they want the ogre to do.
You're feared, yeah, but you're never respected. And that makes all the difference. People don't see the ogres as a group as a threat, even if they see individual ogres as fucking terrifying, that doesn't change their preconceptions of your race. Honestly, you can't really fault em.
Ogres are a bunch of primitive warriors who don't really think about more than the food in their belly. It's not even about how you ain't exactly what the rest of the world would call civilized.
It's about the fact that, for the most part, Ogres are just plain dumb. You know it, you accept it, and you ain't gonna be mad at someone, even yourself, for just coming out and saying the truth. Your people aren't exactly the brightest torches in the cave, more like charcoal embers than actual fire, if you get your meaning.
But that ain't you, not by a long shot. Even though your words don't sound like it, you're as smart as the smarter fuckers of the other races.
Smart enough to learn some magic, to give a bit more of your food to the Maw so that it gives you some power in return. Smart enough to take the guns and swords your tribe's looted from manling caravans and figure out the basics of how they work. Smart enough to figure out how to pummel the beasties of the Mountains in just the right way that they start doing what you say.
Smart enough to 'apprentice' yourself to a few lads, a slaughtermaster, a few leadbelchers, and a hunter or three. Smart enough to take what you could from their expertise and then abandon them, disposing of the evidence of your 'treachery' in the best way possible. Or, in other words, eating them after they tried to eat you.
And above all else, smart enough that your Tyrant's Tyrant, one of the big bosses themselves, has decided to put you up with a few lads, a few slaves, and a bunch of dosh, and see what exactly you can make for them.
If you succeed, you'll get money, power, magic, and food beyond your wildest dreams. If you mess up? You'll be the food.
No pressure, eh?
A/N: I'm back on my bullshit. But this time, I have people to keep me on said bullshit. Specifically @Xantalos and @Swordomatic, who're kindly acting as the betas for this quest.
As always, this first vote is going to have perhaps the greatest impact on the quest itself, so if you have any questions at all, please ask.
You're honestly quite shocked at how many idiots and fools continually and consistently misinterpret that one simple word.
Innovation, by its very definition, cannot be constrained, cannot be caged by the pathetic ideals of weak-minded cowards. 'Rules' and 'guidelines' and 'ethics' should never be a factor in what to research, what experiments to conduct.
But that's what it is, isn't it?
At the end of the day, ethics are what separates the mewling rabble from those with the potential for true greatness, those who see the end of the road paved with corpses and pain and consider it well worth the cost.
The mayfly kingdoms of men, the gasping ruins of what used to be a dwarven empire, the elves cowering in their forests and their floating island, all of them are so quick to forget what made them, what they owe their power to.
Do they think the Vortex on High Ulthuan was made ethically?! Was Necromancy ever humane?! Did the Karaz Ankor's vaunted Runesmithing come about without sacrifice?!
No.
True progress only comes with freedom, the freedom from 'morals' and 'right and wrong'. The ends don't need to justify the means, because the means never needed to be justified in the first place.
It's why the forces of Order will never, ever shake up the status quo. It's why the Karaz Ankor will never reclaim its past glories, why the kingdoms of men will all eventually go the way of Dead Nekehara, why the Asur and Asrai can't take or hold land beyond their islands and forests.
They stop.
They don't know why or how or when to keep on continuing. To them, science is based around lines in the sand, lines they refuse to cross solely to keep some sort of moral superiority, to show that even as their world crumbles around their ears, they're still better than the 'barbarians' who will do anything to survive.
The funniest thing is, they actually think they have a point!
The 'righteous' think that doing anything to survive is a bad thing, that ethics and morals are anything more than a lie they tell themselves to be able to sleep at night!
They're lost in a delusion of their own making, closing their eyes to the reality of the world in an attempt to be 'good', to be 'moral', as if that has any value at all! They stick their heads into the sand while a wild beast rushes to devour them, shutting their eyes in a vain hope that their 'righteousness' will protect them!
But you. You know differently.
Your eyes are wide open.
You see the truth, you see the path forward, and unlike the milk-sodden lackwits of 'Order', you won't flinch away from true progress!
No! The abyss of never ending innovation has stared deep into your soul, and you have stared back!
You are a prophet, a messiah, the one who will bring the glory of advancement at all costs to the blinded fools of the world! You will crush the light of ignorance and bring about a dark age of revelation, where the world is covered in the artificial clouds of knowledge and amorality!
And behind you - Nay, beside you - will be the other members of your race, one of the few, the very, very, few, to understand your goal, your drive, your life's purpose!
Not all of them, of course, there will always be those who prefer personal gain over scientific advancement, and frankly, you may also fall into that category, but their motives for true research don't matter. What matters is their means!
And like you, they see no reason to limit themselves with petty concerns of morality, no reason to claim superiority through righteousness! After all, you're already superior to the cringing, feeble vermin that infest the world that should be yours by right! What need have you of other justifications?!
And nowhere is this clearer than in your science! Resources are made to be exploited, and just because a few bleeding hearts don't see beings as resources doesn't mean that classification changes!
So what if a few dozen slaves die in unimaginable agony as a side effect of an experiment?! The pain they undergo gives valuable research data!
So what if you've consigned a few insignificant souls to eternal damnation for resources? It's not like they had any other value, and they wouldn't be missed by anyone important!
So what if you've committed some 'atrocities' and 'violations of every form of human decency' on your slaves? After all, it's not like you're human!
Their deaths, torture, and general misery contributed to the advancement of your goals, and really, isn't that the most important thing?!
If need be, you'll ride a wave of broken bodies to your vision of the future, consign a million million souls to eternal damnation for but an iota of progress, shatter the world itself if its dying gasps are needed to see your dreams made manifest!
Aided by your kinsmen, you will drag the world kicking and screaming into your ideal future, and no matter what you gave to do, what risks others have to take, it'll all be worth it!
...Of course, you won't rush into anything with no care for your personal safety.
You're not a Skaven, after all.
No, you're much better than one of those sniveling ratmen. You are one of the
[] Chosen of Hashut: Glory to the Father of Darkness! You are Dawi Zharr, one of the destined rulers of the world, a right given to you implicitly by three simple things. The first is of course your inbuilt nature. Your people are resistant to chaos, supernaturally durable, and able to live in environments that would kill the likes of men or elves, proving your superiority over the weakling races.
The second is your accomplishments. Has any other race figured out how to dissect daemons and use them as tools? Has any other group unlocked the secrets of the internal combustion engine or the locomotive? Has any other nation created new species of life without using warpstone as a crutch? No, they haven't.
The third and most important reason is Hashut. The Father of Darkness saved your people after the Ancestor Gods of the Dawi sent them on a suicide mission into the Dark Lands, leaving them to die in a wasteland. And they nearly did, until the Bull God found them, took them in, taught them the truth of the world and their rightful position in it; standing on top, with everyone except Hashut Himself crushed under their boots.
It's what your society is built on; slaves at the bottom, 'allies' and mercenaries slightly above them, Dawi Zharr far, far above them, and above even your kinsmen, the Sorcerer Priests, the toughest, smartest, most powerful of your people, an ancient order that rules all, an order that you're a part of.
But even amongst your peers, you've always been talented, enough that you achieved your vaunted rank at the meager age of two hundred. Through intense study and a fanatical thirst for knowledge, you learned the secrets of your station.
You learned how to distill daemons into their basest components, and use those building blocks to create great and terrible hell-forged machinery. You know how to make flesh bow to your will and twist itself into whatever form you desire. You understand the Lore of Azgorh and its intricacies, the rites of your god and the meanings of his domains.
And your talent has been recognized by one of the highest authorities of the Dawi Zharr. They've seen fit to reward your genius with a position as a researcher, giving you kinsdwarves to command, a wealth of slaves, and a considerable amount of funding.
Succeed in the tasks your patron gives you, and status and power will be yours for the taking. Fail, and you'll be forced into a one-dwarf assault on Karaz-a-Karak.
Bah! As if you'd ever engage in anything as plebian as failure.
Daemon Engineering: The science of refining Daemons down to their core components, isolating the stories and concepts that give them meaning and power. It's also the art of using these refined Daemon parts in great works of machinery, both as power sources and as methods to give the Dawi Zharr's foul artifice its unique properties.
Fleshcrafting: The art of bending flesh to one's will, using alchemical processes, sorcery, and unique magical and biological sciences to mutate and warp living beings into whatever form the Fleshcrafter desires. Most of these mutated beings are unstable and die quickly, and as such, the art of keeping one's creations stable is as integral to Fleshcrafting as the mutation aspect.
Sorcery: The Lore of Hashut Himself, also known as the Lore of Azgorh, the Dawi Zharr's method of Sorcery focuses on the themes of Fire, Bulls, Tyranny, and the Dark Lands. It is a lore of ferocious offensive abilities with gouts of magma, fire, and choking ash, though it also gives the wielder potent binding and controlling abilities through the central theme of Tyranny.
Ancestor Gods: The Dawi Zharr gave up their heritage long ago in favor of service to Hashut, but that doesn't mean that their heritage disappeared. The Ancestor Gods have long since deemed the Dawi Zharr a lost cause, but that doesn't mean an enterprising Sorcerer-Priest couldn't delve into the secrets of their ancestry. All knowledge is worth having, after all.
Fleshcrafting: The art of bending flesh to one's will, using alchemical processes, sorcery, and unique magical and biological sciences to mutate and warp living beings into whatever form the Fleshcrafter desires. Most of these mutated beings are unstable and die quickly, and as such, the art of keeping one's creations stable is as integral to Fleshcrafting as the mutation aspect.
Sorcery: The Lore of Hashut Himself, also known as the Lore of Azgorh, the Dawi Zharr's method of Sorcery focuses on the themes of Fire, Bulls, Tyranny, and the Dark Lands. It is a lore of ferocious offensive abilities with gouts of magma, fire, and choking ash, though it also gives the wielder potent binding and controlling abilities through the central theme of Tyranny.
[] True Heirs of Chaos: The life of a Fimir is seething bitterness and a shattered destiny. Your people were to be the rulers of an unbroken empire, controlling the deeps and the land alike, an empire made by and made for the truest chosen of the Dark Gods. Not the Beastmen, who are nothing more than pawns and wild animals unfit to be anything more than slaves. Not the weak smooth-skinned humans, who beg and plead for every scrap of meager favor, leeching off of the Ruinous Powers like bloodsucking parasites. Not the Naga Queens of Khuresh, or the heretical Dawi Zharr, or any of the elves, especially their Cult of Pleasure.
No. The only race strong and clever and ruthless enough to grip the world itself in their iron-clawed hand, to enslave and subjugate all lesser beings, to bleed millions in Chaos' name and revel in the gods' favor, the only race deserving of such feats is the Fimir!
And yet. The beastmen mindlessly cavort and raid, their numbers only ever expanding. The pinkskin humans are given the favor of the Powers as a matter of course. And even more galling than that, Order rules the world, grasping onto the barest threads of survival even as the unworthy pretenders to Chaos continually fail to bring them low.
All while your people are relegated to the edges of swamps and ruined castles, to strike fear into the hearts of an irrelevant primitive island and nowhere else. Albion is both the seat of your power and your people's prison, and worst of all, no matter how much you despise the current state of affairs, for now you can't change it.
But hatred brings power. Power enough to learn how to bind daemons, force the servants of the four to assume their rightful place as the slaves, items, and armaments of the Chosen of the Gods. Power enough to unlock and enhance your own inherent abilities, the natural gifts that make the Fimir superior to the other mortal races. And power enough to steal the secrets of the only parts of Albion worth anything, the Oghams and what they protect.
And finally, your power has been recognized. You've been given slaves, Shearls, other Dirachs and more, all to act as your patron's experimenter and researcher.
Succeed, and the greatest legacies of the Old Empire will be opened to you. Fail, and you will die unknown and unremembered, like every Fimir before you.
You will not fail.
Daemon Binding: The art of binding Daemons into specially prepared receptacles to harness their power. While on the surface a simple art, Daemon binding is very complex, seeing as there are dozens of types of Daemons, each with different rituals and objects they're most suited to empower. The results are potent; powerful magical items and unique artifacts on par with other races.
Inherent Abilities: Fimir are enormous armored beings with esoteric ocular abilities such as witchsight. Even more than that, Fimir are born into separate castes, each with their own unique features. Some even whisper that quite a few of these abilities and castes lay dormant, hidden for unknown reasons. If the Fimir were to rediscover these sealed powers, they would grow dramatically in power.
Oghams: Albion is littered with the Ogham Stones, powerful artifacts that anchor the Mists of Albion and gather the Winds of Magic. These aren't the only sites of power on the Isle either, with barrows, temples, and other more esoteric creations, all of which are both powerful and protected by unknown forces. The Fimir have managed to pierce some of these protections, and the knowledge and power able to be gained by studying these sites is great indeed.
Baloric Fimir: The Fimir were not always the Chaos worshipping race that we know today. Once, they were a people just like any other, semi-aquatic and worshipping a god not linked to the Four, a god only known by their name: Balor. That part of Fimir history is long gone, but a Dirach with drive and time could discover many things. All knowledge is worth having, after all.
Inherent Abilities: Fimir are enormous armored beings with esoteric ocular abilities such as witchsight. Even more than that, Fimir are born into separate castes, each with their own unique features. Some even whisper that quite a few of these abilities and castes lay dormant, hidden for unknown reasons. If the Fimir were to rediscover these sealed powers, they would grow dramatically in power.
Oghams: Albion is littered with the Ogham Stones, powerful artifacts that anchor the Mists of Albion and gather the Winds of Magic. These aren't the only sites of power on the Isle either, with barrows, temples, and other more esoteric creations, all of which are both powerful and protected by unknown forces. The Fimir have managed to pierce some of these protections, and the knowledge and power able to be gained by studying these sites is great indeed.
[] Strongest Fuckers Around: Yeah, that's right. You're an Ogre, big, strong, and hungry. And that's what every damn person, daemon, and thinking being that doesn't fall under the first two categories on the planet thinks when they hear the word 'ogre'. According to them, you eat, you fight, and you don't do much else.
Which, fair cop, is kind of true. But it shouldn't be true. Ogres shouldn't be thought of as strong and easily manipulated mercenaries. The first thing anyone with any power thinks of when they meet one of your kinsmen is how best to lure them into doing what they want the ogre to do.
You're feared, yeah, but you're never respected. And that makes all the difference. People don't see the ogres as a group as a threat, even if they see individual ogres as fucking terrifying, that doesn't change their preconceptions of your race. Honestly, you can't really fault em.
Ogres are a bunch of primitive warriors who don't really think about more than the food in their belly. It's not even about how you ain't exactly what the rest of the world would call civilized.
It's about the fact that, for the most part, Ogres are just plain dumb. You know it, you accept it, and you ain't gonna be mad at someone, even yourself, for just coming out and saying the truth. Your people aren't exactly the brightest torches in the cave, more like charcoal embers than actual fire, if you get your meaning.
But that ain't you, not by a long shot. Even though your words don't sound like it, you're as smart as the smarter fuckers of the other races.
Smart enough to learn some magic, to give a bit more of your food to the Maw so that it gives you some power in return. Smart enough to take the guns and swords your tribe's looted from manling caravans and figure out the basics of how they work. Smart enough to figure out how to pummel the beasties of the Mountains in just the right way that they start doing what you say.
Smart enough to 'apprentice' yourself to a few lads, a slaughtermaster, a few leadbelchers, and a hunter or three. Smart enough to take what you could from their expertise and then abandon them, disposing of the evidence of your 'treachery' in the best way possible. Or, in other words, eating them after they tried to eat you.
And above all else, smart enough that your Tyrant's Tyrant, one of the big bosses themselves, has decided to put you up with a few lads, a few slaves, and a bunch of dosh, and see what exactly you can make for them.
If you succeed, you'll get money, power, magic, and food beyond your wildest dreams. If you mess up? You'll be the food.
No pressure, eh?
Maw Magic: One part a Lore of Magic and one part alchemy, the Lore of the Great Maw is a lore centered around eating objects, metaphysically sacrificing them to the Great Maw, and gaining powers in recompense. The exact fluctuations and effects of this magic change based on numerous factors, the age of the food, the nature of its harvesting, and even the deeds done while harvesting it.
Weaponry: Ogre weaponry is quite primitive, with the apex of their craft being catapults, cannons made by Firebellies beating metal into shape, and crude plate armor. However, even outside their Maneaters, Ogre tribes are sometimes in possession of enormous and masterfully crafted gunpowder weapons, said to be relics of the Sky Titans. No Ogre has yet to unlock the secrets of these relics, but it's only a matter of time.
Mourne Beasts: The Mountains of Mourne are a place full of strange and powerful beasts, and nobody knows this more than the Ogres, who regularly fight, eat, and tame these monstrosities. Ogre tribes are made considerably stronger by even a few Mournfang Riders, let alone the stronger animals of the Mountains, and any tribe of note has at least a few beastmasters among their ranks.
Pre-Maw Ogres: The Ogres weren't always the way they were now. Legends from Old Cathay speak of a different people, seen as merely larger and stronger humans. They would eventually become the Ogres of today, venerating the Great Maw and possessing immense strength and hunger. But that history still happened, and an Ogre with enough patience could unearth it. All knowledge is worth having, after all.
Weaponry: Ogre weaponry is quite primitive, with the apex of their craft being catapults, cannons made by Firebellies beating metal into shape, and crude plate armor. However, even outside their Maneaters, Ogre tribes are sometimes in possession of enormous and masterfully crafted gunpowder weapons, said to be relics of the Sky Titans. No Ogre has yet to unlock the secrets of these relics, but it's only a matter of time.
Mourne Beasts: The Mountains of Mourne are a place full of strange and powerful beasts, and nobody knows this more than the Ogres, who regularly fight, eat, and tame these monstrosities. Ogre tribes are made considerably stronger by even a few Mournfang Riders, let alone the stronger animals of the Mountains, and any tribe of note has at least a few beastmasters among their ranks.
A/N: I'm back on my bullshit. But this time, I have people to keep me on said bullshit. Specifically @Xantalos and @Swordomatic, who're kindly acting as the betas for this quest.
As always, this first vote is going to have perhaps the greatest impact on the quest itself, so if you have any questions at all, please ask.
Character Sheet
Kaboomatic
Where the Wild Things Are
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Character Sheet
Grabthar The Teacher: It's you. Not really much else to say here.
Current Specialties:
[Mourne Beasts TL 2] [Gut Magic TL 2] [Martial Arts TL 2] [Weaponry TL 3][Pre-Maw Ogres TL 0]
Unique Resources: N/A
Current Quests: N/A
Grabthar The Teacher: It's you. Not really much else to say here.
Current Specialties:
[Mourne Beasts TL 2] [Gut Magic TL 2] [Martial Arts TL 2] [Weaponry TL 3]
Unique Resources: N/A
Current Quests: N/A
Last edited:
Dramatis Personae
Kaboomatic
Where the Wild Things Are
- Pronouns
- He/Him
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.
Current Specialties:
[Weaponry TL 2] [Firebelly Magic TL 2]
Unique Resources: N/A
Current Quests: N/A
Loyalty: 8
------------------------
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. Grak Gardenback decided to go another way. See, he knew that plants grow from the ground, so Grak 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 Grak 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, Grak now works for you.
Current Specialties:
[Gut Magic TL 2] [Mourne Plants TL 2]
Unique Resources: N/A
Current Quests: N/A
Loyalty: 4
---------------------------
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.
Current Specialties:
[Mourne Beasts TL 2] [Alchemy TL 2]
Unique Resources: N/A
Current Quests: N/A
Loyalty: 4
Current Specialties:
[Weaponry TL 2] [Firebelly Magic TL 2]
Unique Resources: N/A
Current Quests: N/A
Loyalty: 8
------------------------
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. Grak Gardenback decided to go another way. See, he knew that plants grow from the ground, so Grak 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 Grak 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, Grak now works for you.
Current Specialties:
[Gut Magic TL 2] [Mourne Plants TL 2]
Unique Resources: N/A
Current Quests: N/A
Loyalty: 4
---------------------------
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.
Current Specialties:
[Mourne Beasts TL 2] [Alchemy TL 2]
Unique Resources: N/A
Current Quests: N/A
Loyalty: 4
Last edited:
Kaboomatic
Where the Wild Things Are
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Reserved for Projects
System Mechanics
Kaboomatic
Where the Wild Things Are
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Mechanics:
As the title says, this is where the mechanics of the quest are gonna be detailed. Hopefully it helps yall understand stuff. If not, I'm always open for questions.
Funding:
This is the most important mechanic for you, the players, in the entire quest, so it's going up here.
Funding is the abstracted form of the materials, manpower, slaves, and other stuff needed for experiments and testing.
In other words it's the resource you use to do stuff.
You get a certain amount of funding each turn, with the exact number calculated in the background through a formula I have no intention of sharing with the thread. The general rule of thumb though is that the more results you show, the more funding you get.
Funding is saveable, so if you have excess funding when a turn ends, you'll still have that funding when the next turn comes around. Of course, this does run the risk of your Tyrant seeing that you're accomplishing your goals under budget and deciding that you can live without getting as much funding.
On the other hand, funding doesn't replenish between phases, so funding you spend in the Research Phase isn't available to spend in the Testing or Personal phases.
The main use for funding is bonuses to rolls and extra AP, though I'm currently prototyping a requisition system where you can spend funding to get rare materials, items, or people that might give a bonus to certain actions and unlock new actions. It probably won't be relevant for a while though,
Turns:
Turns are each six months, centered around an objective given to the PC by their Tyrant, and split into three phases, Research, Testing, and Personal.
Projects:
Projects are the things your Tyrant expects you to do in exchange for not eating you.
Of course, it's not as bad as it sounds, mainly because 'ogre' and 'micromanager' might as well be antonyms.
See, the Projects your boss is going to give you don't care about specific methods to accomplish stuff. They're going to be things like 'make my lads harder to kill'. If you want to do so by getting better Gutplates for them, or by creating a Gut Magic spell to toughen their hides, or by beastpunching up some companion beasts that take hits for the lads, then that's up to you. As long as the lads are harder to kill, the Tyrant doesn't care.
In addition, Projects have a time limit. Something like the above, very general and not super difficult, is going to have maybe a 2-3 turn limit at most. On the other hand, something like 'Make us a mountain destroying something' or 'I want to be able to fight a dragon ogre, make that happen' is going to have a wayyyyyyy bigger time limit, something like 10-15 turns.
You may be asking 'what happens if we don't finish a Project by the time limit?' Well, the answer is that you get a funding cut, a hasher project with a shorter time limit, and you get a tick on the DOOM CLOCK. Three ticks on the DOOM CLOCK and the quest ends.
Research:
The Research phase is where you guys learn lore about the setting IC.
Fluffwise, it's the PC and Hero Units looking into subjects that they think might help their research efforts. Of course, this being academia, if Grabthar and his assistants (and thus the questers) think they can get away with looking into the stuff they find interesting instead of stuff directly related to their work, they're free to do so.
As long as results are provided of course. Otherwise it's a short way into the Tyrant's gullet.
This fluff structure also means that you get Research AP equal to the number of Hero Units you have (Including Grabthar), and that assigning different hero units to the same action might have different results. You probably shouldn't assign a Weaponry and Firebelly-focused Hero unit to figuring out why Dragon Ogre flesh crackles with lightning, for example.
Mechanically, the purpose of the Research phase is mainly to provide insight into which options in the Testing phase are worth pursuing, and also to give info that could lead to better write-ins, which would of course give better bonii. (If that last bit didn't make sense, the tldr is that learning more stuff about the tech trees and the world might lead to more detailed and specific write-ins in the testing phase, and those are obviously going to give better results than the defaults).
There's no 'this makes the numbers go up' in the Research phase, its just a way for me to share lore.
You can do write-ins in the Research phase too. They won't necessarily be better, just more specific, but 'Grabthar researches gunpowder' (what I'd give as a base option) is a lot less helpful than 'Grabthar researches what exactly makes his gunpowder blend volatile instead of just dust', which itself is gonna be less useful than 'Grabthar compares the make up of Cathayan, Imperial, and Ogre blasting powder, figuring out the pros and cons of each along with their composition'.
A good rule of thumb for Research write ins is that if your write in is about 'how to do x' instead of 'why does this thing behave like this' or 'what happens if I do this', then it's a Testing write in, not a Research write in.
Finally, funding. Same rules that apply to the Testing Phase apply here. Five funding gets you an extra AP, you can spend up to 10 funding to boost an action, though unlike in the Testing Phase, this boost isn't a boost to a roll (since there aren't rolls in the Research Phase). Instead, it's a narrative gauge of how much I get to tell you. If you ever put 10 funding on an action, I get to tell you a whole lot about it, maybe reveal a secret or two.
Testing Phase:
The Testing Phase is where you get to actually do stuff.
Mechanically, you get AP equal to your current Hero Unit amount (Including Grabthar), and you can spend it on Goals, single turn research endeavors in which you test out possible ways to fulfill a project.
Taking the previous example of 'Make my lads harder to kill' as a project, a goal might be 'make stronger gutplates' or 'beastpunch some beasts into acting as willing chaff' or 'create a spell to make them tougher'.
Of course, the trick here is that projects aren't going to be completed with a single goal. Maybe the goal isn't as effective as you hoped, maybe it requires more advanced research, maybe it's just a dead end.
Either way, goals are more like the jigsaw pieces that create the finished puzzle. There's multiple goals that can solve a project, and most of the time you're either going to need to complete a huge goal, or synthesize a few goals together.
Here's how synthesis works. When you think you have enough pieces of the puzzle, you can try to put them all together, using the goals that you've completed and the hero units that've completed them and fusing them into a coherent whole.
Mechanically goals have certain 'Experiment Point' (EP) requirements. When you choose goals for the turn and assign hero units to them, I roll a d100 plus or minus modifiers. These modifiers can come about due to hero units, well thought out write ins, environmental factors, or other things.
The final value is then added to the EP of a goal. If the total EP of that goal equals or exceeds its requirement, then the goal is completed.
Goals are split into various tiers of difficulty:
Some goals, generally the more difficult ones, will complete a project the moment they're completed, but other goals, generally the easier ones, require synthesis.
Mechanically, Synthesis is a special type of goal. When synthesis is chosen, choose any number of completed goals to synthesize, and then based on a formula I won't share to the thread yet, I'll give you an EP requirement to complete synthesis.
Once that requirement has been met, unless the goals chosen are completely incompatible, the project will most likely be completed. Of course, based on the compatibility of the goals, the end result might be better or worse.
Finally, funding again. The same rules for Research apply here. Five funding to buy an AP, you can spend 1 funding for a +10 to a roll, and you can spend up to 10 funding on a single action.
Personal Phase:
The personal phase is where Grabthar and the hero units do things other than research.
This is going to be more similar to a traditional Ck2 quest mechanically, in that Grabthar and his hero units are going to choose from a list of options on how to spend their free time, and those options are going to have percentage based chances of success, which will be determined by rolls of a d100 plus modifiers.
What actions you can take are going to change from a turn to turn basis but generally, you can expect to see stuff like the following:
Each hero unit has three personal actions, though you the players don't have full control over all of them. The number of actions you control for a hero unit, as well as some other things, is based on their Loyalty.
Loyalty:
Loyalty is a measure of how much your hero units are willing to do for Grabthar. It's measured on a scale from -10 to 10, and split up into multiple tiers, as shown below.
Base Hero Units start at Loyalty 4, and your Student starts at Loyalty 8.
Hero Units gain Loyalty when you let them work on goals they like and give them more freedom, and they lose Loyalty when they work on goals that don't suit them and don't have much freedom.
Finally, going back to the Personal Phase for a second, Funding.
Funding works the exact same as the Testing Phase. Five funding to buy an AP, you can spend 1 funding for a +10 to a roll, and you can spend up to 10 funding on a single action.
And, that's turns and how they work.
Now, let's move to the final bit of mechanics. Luckily, it's a short one, since most stuff is behind the curtain for now.
Tech Levels (TLs)
Tech Levels, also known as TLs, are a measure of how much a Hero Unit knows about a certain broad topic, known as a Tech Tree. Generally, tech trees can be basically anything that I, the QM, want, but there are a few basic rules to them. I won't be telling you these rules right now, mainly because it's really mostly intuition based, and the rules are honestly more guidelines than anything else.
Tech Trees are split into two groups, Core Tech Trees and Personal Tech Trees. The only real difference between the two is that a faction's Core Tech Trees are available to any member of the faction willing to learn, barring outside factors of course, and Personal Tech Trees are generally unique to a Hero Unit and are harder to initially learn.
Now, with that out of the way, let's talk about Tech Levels a bit more.
Fluff wise, I've already said what they are, so I won't cover that again.
Mechanically, TLs are split up into twelve tiers, the lowest being N/A, and then going on a basic 0 to 10 scale.
N/A is where nearly every Tech Tree, even the ones I haven't come up with yet, will start. This is because N/A means you have zero knowledge of this tech tree. At most, you might know it exists.
0 is basic understanding of what a Tech Tree is and the barest of bare knowledge on how to utilize it. Having a Tech Tree at TL 0 is needed to unlock the TL creation action. This is where a faction's Core Trees start if you're a member of that faction and have nothing blocking you from learning it.
Tech Levels 1 through 10 are similar, increasing comprehension and knowledge of the Tech Tree, with 1 being entry level knowledge and going up tol TL 10, full and perfect mastery.
For reference, Nagash is a TL 10 Necromancer. Belakor is a TL 10 Sorcerer. Grungni and Thungni are TL 10 Runecrafters.
TL 10 is bullshit, and reaching it in anything is effectively an unlocked win con.
And I think that's about it.
The rest is either hidden behind the curtain, or not important to yall.
So this has been the-
Well, technically there's one more thing left.
Heretical Tech Tree (Pre-Maw Ogres)
So. This is how the Heretical Tech Tree you have access to works.
It's a Tech Tree, same as any other, but you can't research it or openly do stuff with it, and you very much can't spend funding anywhere near your research into Pre-Maw Ogres because, well, funding comes from the Tyrant and he knows what you do with it, so using the stuff your boss gives you to look into literal heresy is probably a bad idea.
It's also more of a 'Research' Tech Tree, in that it doesn't actually unlock goals, it's more for stuff you can use in write ins (though that's definitely not its main purpose), as well as lore.
It's why I even included heretical trees in the first place, because without an incentive, they'd just sit unused and un-looked into.
That incentive is that the Pre-Maw Ogres Tech Tree is the main way you get to look into lore, and when you reach certain milestones in the Tree, you'll unlock special personal actions that do stuff.
Yeah, I know I'm being vague but I literally can't be any clearer without spoiling the entire quest.
But yeah, the Heretical Tech Tree is in my opinion, worth looking into. Just make sure to do it carefully, eh?
And now, with Turns, Loyalty, Tech Trees, and Heretical Trees covered, we're done, for realsies.
Thanks for bearing with me yall. I hope this mechanics post helps, and if you have any questions, please ask.
As the title says, this is where the mechanics of the quest are gonna be detailed. Hopefully it helps yall understand stuff. If not, I'm always open for questions.
Funding:
This is the most important mechanic for you, the players, in the entire quest, so it's going up here.
Funding is the abstracted form of the materials, manpower, slaves, and other stuff needed for experiments and testing.
In other words it's the resource you use to do stuff.
You get a certain amount of funding each turn, with the exact number calculated in the background through a formula I have no intention of sharing with the thread. The general rule of thumb though is that the more results you show, the more funding you get.
Funding is saveable, so if you have excess funding when a turn ends, you'll still have that funding when the next turn comes around. Of course, this does run the risk of your Tyrant seeing that you're accomplishing your goals under budget and deciding that you can live without getting as much funding.
On the other hand, funding doesn't replenish between phases, so funding you spend in the Research Phase isn't available to spend in the Testing or Personal phases.
The main use for funding is bonuses to rolls and extra AP, though I'm currently prototyping a requisition system where you can spend funding to get rare materials, items, or people that might give a bonus to certain actions and unlock new actions. It probably won't be relevant for a while though,
Turns:
Turns are each six months, centered around an objective given to the PC by their Tyrant, and split into three phases, Research, Testing, and Personal.
Projects:
Projects are the things your Tyrant expects you to do in exchange for not eating you.
Of course, it's not as bad as it sounds, mainly because 'ogre' and 'micromanager' might as well be antonyms.
See, the Projects your boss is going to give you don't care about specific methods to accomplish stuff. They're going to be things like 'make my lads harder to kill'. If you want to do so by getting better Gutplates for them, or by creating a Gut Magic spell to toughen their hides, or by beastpunching up some companion beasts that take hits for the lads, then that's up to you. As long as the lads are harder to kill, the Tyrant doesn't care.
In addition, Projects have a time limit. Something like the above, very general and not super difficult, is going to have maybe a 2-3 turn limit at most. On the other hand, something like 'Make us a mountain destroying something' or 'I want to be able to fight a dragon ogre, make that happen' is going to have a wayyyyyyy bigger time limit, something like 10-15 turns.
You may be asking 'what happens if we don't finish a Project by the time limit?' Well, the answer is that you get a funding cut, a hasher project with a shorter time limit, and you get a tick on the DOOM CLOCK. Three ticks on the DOOM CLOCK and the quest ends.
Research:
The Research phase is where you guys learn lore about the setting IC.
Fluffwise, it's the PC and Hero Units looking into subjects that they think might help their research efforts. Of course, this being academia, if Grabthar and his assistants (and thus the questers) think they can get away with looking into the stuff they find interesting instead of stuff directly related to their work, they're free to do so.
As long as results are provided of course. Otherwise it's a short way into the Tyrant's gullet.
This fluff structure also means that you get Research AP equal to the number of Hero Units you have (Including Grabthar), and that assigning different hero units to the same action might have different results. You probably shouldn't assign a Weaponry and Firebelly-focused Hero unit to figuring out why Dragon Ogre flesh crackles with lightning, for example.
Mechanically, the purpose of the Research phase is mainly to provide insight into which options in the Testing phase are worth pursuing, and also to give info that could lead to better write-ins, which would of course give better bonii. (If that last bit didn't make sense, the tldr is that learning more stuff about the tech trees and the world might lead to more detailed and specific write-ins in the testing phase, and those are obviously going to give better results than the defaults).
There's no 'this makes the numbers go up' in the Research phase, its just a way for me to share lore.
You can do write-ins in the Research phase too. They won't necessarily be better, just more specific, but 'Grabthar researches gunpowder' (what I'd give as a base option) is a lot less helpful than 'Grabthar researches what exactly makes his gunpowder blend volatile instead of just dust', which itself is gonna be less useful than 'Grabthar compares the make up of Cathayan, Imperial, and Ogre blasting powder, figuring out the pros and cons of each along with their composition'.
A good rule of thumb for Research write ins is that if your write in is about 'how to do x' instead of 'why does this thing behave like this' or 'what happens if I do this', then it's a Testing write in, not a Research write in.
Finally, funding. Same rules that apply to the Testing Phase apply here. Five funding gets you an extra AP, you can spend up to 10 funding to boost an action, though unlike in the Testing Phase, this boost isn't a boost to a roll (since there aren't rolls in the Research Phase). Instead, it's a narrative gauge of how much I get to tell you. If you ever put 10 funding on an action, I get to tell you a whole lot about it, maybe reveal a secret or two.
Testing Phase:
The Testing Phase is where you get to actually do stuff.
Mechanically, you get AP equal to your current Hero Unit amount (Including Grabthar), and you can spend it on Goals, single turn research endeavors in which you test out possible ways to fulfill a project.
Taking the previous example of 'Make my lads harder to kill' as a project, a goal might be 'make stronger gutplates' or 'beastpunch some beasts into acting as willing chaff' or 'create a spell to make them tougher'.
Of course, the trick here is that projects aren't going to be completed with a single goal. Maybe the goal isn't as effective as you hoped, maybe it requires more advanced research, maybe it's just a dead end.
Either way, goals are more like the jigsaw pieces that create the finished puzzle. There's multiple goals that can solve a project, and most of the time you're either going to need to complete a huge goal, or synthesize a few goals together.
Here's how synthesis works. When you think you have enough pieces of the puzzle, you can try to put them all together, using the goals that you've completed and the hero units that've completed them and fusing them into a coherent whole.
Mechanically goals have certain 'Experiment Point' (EP) requirements. When you choose goals for the turn and assign hero units to them, I roll a d100 plus or minus modifiers. These modifiers can come about due to hero units, well thought out write ins, environmental factors, or other things.
The final value is then added to the EP of a goal. If the total EP of that goal equals or exceeds its requirement, then the goal is completed.
Goals are split into various tiers of difficulty:
50 EP Needed: Trivial
100 EP Needed: Easy
200 EP Needed: Average
350 EP Needed: Moderate
500 EP Needed: Difficult
750 EP Needed: Hard
1000 EP Needed: Absurd
1500 EP Needed: Insane
2000 EP Needed: Impossible
100 EP Needed: Easy
200 EP Needed: Average
350 EP Needed: Moderate
500 EP Needed: Difficult
750 EP Needed: Hard
1000 EP Needed: Absurd
1500 EP Needed: Insane
2000 EP Needed: Impossible
Some goals, generally the more difficult ones, will complete a project the moment they're completed, but other goals, generally the easier ones, require synthesis.
Mechanically, Synthesis is a special type of goal. When synthesis is chosen, choose any number of completed goals to synthesize, and then based on a formula I won't share to the thread yet, I'll give you an EP requirement to complete synthesis.
Once that requirement has been met, unless the goals chosen are completely incompatible, the project will most likely be completed. Of course, based on the compatibility of the goals, the end result might be better or worse.
Finally, funding again. The same rules for Research apply here. Five funding to buy an AP, you can spend 1 funding for a +10 to a roll, and you can spend up to 10 funding on a single action.
Personal Phase:
The personal phase is where Grabthar and the hero units do things other than research.
This is going to be more similar to a traditional Ck2 quest mechanically, in that Grabthar and his hero units are going to choose from a list of options on how to spend their free time, and those options are going to have percentage based chances of success, which will be determined by rolls of a d100 plus modifiers.
What actions you can take are going to change from a turn to turn basis but generally, you can expect to see stuff like the following:
- Personal Projects: These are smaller scale projects that a hero unit wants to do on their own free time, stuff like 'expand the garden on my back', 'figure out how to work better with my own personal beast', 'meditate on the secrets of the firebelly', etc. Mechanically these work the exact same as goals work in the Testing Phase. A Personal Project's rewards are always unique but will always have some sort of effect in the Testing or Research phases.
- TL Increase: A hero unit may attempt to increase their TL after completing a certain amount of Goals related to that TL. The amount of EP required for this varies, but for TL 2 to TL 3 it's 300 EP.
- Expeditions: A hero unit can use an action to go on an expedition, searching for a rare material, technique, or being that can be used to give a bonus to certain actions relating to the thing. These expeditions are, unlike the above two action categories, actually decided based on percentage DCs. It sounds vague but trust me it's going to be useful.
- TL Creation: A hero unit can attempt to learn an entirely new tech tree, assuming they meet the prerequisites (relatively arbitrary and decided by me on a case-by-case basis). This requires the Hero unit to first pass a DC based on their familiarity with the tech tree and its difficulty to pick up. If they fail, the action ends there. If they succeed, they roll a d100 plus modifiers to get enough EP to get TL 1 of that tech tree. If they fail at this stage, they can continue the action in their next personal phase, this time skipping the DC entirely and rolling for straight EP. The amount of EP needed varies but is generally between 100 and 200 EP.
- Other Things: This is very much not an exhaustive list of stuff you can do in the Personal Phase, and from time to time things that don't fit in the first four categories will come up. Most of the time, they're going to stick around for 1-2 turns at most, after which the window to take them has closed. Does this mean you should take them over other things? Maybe. Maybe not. It varies, and not all of them are going to be as useful as the more permanent things. Ultimately, it's always going to be subjective.
Each hero unit has three personal actions, though you the players don't have full control over all of them. The number of actions you control for a hero unit, as well as some other things, is based on their Loyalty.
Loyalty:
Loyalty is a measure of how much your hero units are willing to do for Grabthar. It's measured on a scale from -10 to 10, and split up into multiple tiers, as shown below.
-10: This Hero Unit actively tries to kill you.
-9 -> -5: This Hero Unit has a chance to disobey orders in every phase, this chance grows higher the lower the loyalty is.
-4 -> -1: This Hero Unit gains a malus to all rolls, scaling based on how low their loyalty is.
0: You control none of this Hero Unit's Personal Actions.
1 -> 4: You control 1 of this Hero Unit's Personal Actions.
5 -> 9: You control 2 of this Hero Unit's Personal Actions.
10: You control all 3 of this Hero Unit's Personal Actions, and the Hero Unit gives the quest a passive bonus unique to this Hero Unit.
-9 -> -5: This Hero Unit has a chance to disobey orders in every phase, this chance grows higher the lower the loyalty is.
-4 -> -1: This Hero Unit gains a malus to all rolls, scaling based on how low their loyalty is.
0: You control none of this Hero Unit's Personal Actions.
1 -> 4: You control 1 of this Hero Unit's Personal Actions.
5 -> 9: You control 2 of this Hero Unit's Personal Actions.
10: You control all 3 of this Hero Unit's Personal Actions, and the Hero Unit gives the quest a passive bonus unique to this Hero Unit.
Base Hero Units start at Loyalty 4, and your Student starts at Loyalty 8.
Hero Units gain Loyalty when you let them work on goals they like and give them more freedom, and they lose Loyalty when they work on goals that don't suit them and don't have much freedom.
Finally, going back to the Personal Phase for a second, Funding.
Funding works the exact same as the Testing Phase. Five funding to buy an AP, you can spend 1 funding for a +10 to a roll, and you can spend up to 10 funding on a single action.
And, that's turns and how they work.
Now, let's move to the final bit of mechanics. Luckily, it's a short one, since most stuff is behind the curtain for now.
Tech Levels (TLs)
Tech Levels, also known as TLs, are a measure of how much a Hero Unit knows about a certain broad topic, known as a Tech Tree. Generally, tech trees can be basically anything that I, the QM, want, but there are a few basic rules to them. I won't be telling you these rules right now, mainly because it's really mostly intuition based, and the rules are honestly more guidelines than anything else.
Tech Trees are split into two groups, Core Tech Trees and Personal Tech Trees. The only real difference between the two is that a faction's Core Tech Trees are available to any member of the faction willing to learn, barring outside factors of course, and Personal Tech Trees are generally unique to a Hero Unit and are harder to initially learn.
Now, with that out of the way, let's talk about Tech Levels a bit more.
Fluff wise, I've already said what they are, so I won't cover that again.
Mechanically, TLs are split up into twelve tiers, the lowest being N/A, and then going on a basic 0 to 10 scale.
N/A is where nearly every Tech Tree, even the ones I haven't come up with yet, will start. This is because N/A means you have zero knowledge of this tech tree. At most, you might know it exists.
0 is basic understanding of what a Tech Tree is and the barest of bare knowledge on how to utilize it. Having a Tech Tree at TL 0 is needed to unlock the TL creation action. This is where a faction's Core Trees start if you're a member of that faction and have nothing blocking you from learning it.
Tech Levels 1 through 10 are similar, increasing comprehension and knowledge of the Tech Tree, with 1 being entry level knowledge and going up tol TL 10, full and perfect mastery.
For reference, Nagash is a TL 10 Necromancer. Belakor is a TL 10 Sorcerer. Grungni and Thungni are TL 10 Runecrafters.
TL 10 is bullshit, and reaching it in anything is effectively an unlocked win con.
And I think that's about it.
The rest is either hidden behind the curtain, or not important to yall.
So this has been the-
Well, technically there's one more thing left.
Heretical Tech Tree (Pre-Maw Ogres)
So. This is how the Heretical Tech Tree you have access to works.
It's a Tech Tree, same as any other, but you can't research it or openly do stuff with it, and you very much can't spend funding anywhere near your research into Pre-Maw Ogres because, well, funding comes from the Tyrant and he knows what you do with it, so using the stuff your boss gives you to look into literal heresy is probably a bad idea.
It's also more of a 'Research' Tech Tree, in that it doesn't actually unlock goals, it's more for stuff you can use in write ins (though that's definitely not its main purpose), as well as lore.
It's why I even included heretical trees in the first place, because without an incentive, they'd just sit unused and un-looked into.
That incentive is that the Pre-Maw Ogres Tech Tree is the main way you get to look into lore, and when you reach certain milestones in the Tree, you'll unlock special personal actions that do stuff.
Yeah, I know I'm being vague but I literally can't be any clearer without spoiling the entire quest.
But yeah, the Heretical Tech Tree is in my opinion, worth looking into. Just make sure to do it carefully, eh?
And now, with Turns, Loyalty, Tech Trees, and Heretical Trees covered, we're done, for realsies.
Thanks for bearing with me yall. I hope this mechanics post helps, and if you have any questions, please ask.
Last edited:
Kaboomatic
Where the Wild Things Are
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Reserved just in case
Kaboomatic
Where the Wild Things Are
- Pronouns
- He/Him
You may post now
[x] Strongest Fuckers Around: Yeah, that's right. You're an Ogre, big, strong, and hungry. And that's what every damn person, daemon, and thinking being that doesn't fall under the first two categories on the planet thinks when they hear the word 'ogre'. According to them, you eat, you fight, and you don't do much else.
Ogre quest yeah.
Ogre quest yeah.
Dezron
In the Omnissiah we trust !
- Location
- Poland
[X] Strongest Fuckers Around: Yeah, that's right. You're an Ogre, big, strong, and hungry. And that's what every damn person, daemon, and thinking being that doesn't fall under the first two categories on the planet thinks when they hear the word 'ogre'. According to them, you eat, you fight, and you don't do much else.
Random Member
Gardener of Human Happiness
- Location
- Behind You
[X] Chosen of Hashut
[X] Strongest Fuckers Around: Yeah, that's right. You're an Ogre, big, strong, and hungry. And that's what every damn person, daemon, and thinking being that doesn't fall under the first two categories on the planet thinks when they hear the word 'ogre'. According to them, you eat, you fight, and you don't do much else.
[X] Strongest Fuckers Around: Yeah, that's right. You're an Ogre, big, strong, and hungry. And that's what every damn person, daemon, and thinking being that doesn't fall under the first two categories on the planet thinks when they hear the word 'ogre'. According to them, you eat, you fight, and you don't do much else.
- Pronouns
- He
[X] Chosen of Hashut: Glory to the Father of Darkness! You are Dawi Zharr, one of the destined rulers of the world, a right given to you implicitly by three simple things. The first is of course your inbuilt nature. Your people are resistant to chaos, supernaturally durable, and able to live in environments that would kill the likes of men or elves, proving your superiority over the weakling races.
Do you know what's even better than a Dwarfquest? An Evil DwarfQuest. We are going to get so many entries in the Book of Grudges.
Do you know what's even better than a Dwarfquest? An Evil DwarfQuest. We are going to get so many entries in the Book of Grudges.
[x] Strongest Fuckers Around
Ogres are fun!
Ogres are fun!
- Location
- New York
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[x] Strongest Fuckers Around: Yeah, that's right. You're an Ogre, big, strong, and hungry. And that's what every damn person, daemon, and thinking being that doesn't fall under the first two categories on the planet thinks when they hear the word 'ogre'. According to them, you eat, you fight, and you don't do much else.
[x] Strongest Fuckers Around
- Location
- Where I an right now
[X] Strongest Fuckers Around: Yeah, that's right. You're an Ogre, big, strong, and hungry. And that's what every damn person, daemon, and thinking being that doesn't fall under the first two categories on the planet thinks when they hear the word 'ogre'. According to them, you eat, you fight, and you don't do much else.
I've seen dwarf quest, but never ogre quest, must try
I've seen dwarf quest, but never ogre quest, must try
- Location
- Swansea
[x] Strongest Fuckers Around
Damn boy, he thick!
Damn boy, he thick!
- Location
- Earth
[x] Strongest Fuckers Around
- Location
- France
There's enough dwarf quest that I don't want another one even one where we play the dawi-zhar, the ancestors gods research and the potential to rejoin the Karaz Ankor and become key to the trader between the Old World and Cathay and Ind. But the other choices are just so much more interesting to me.
Question is multivote possible for this vote ?
[] True Heirs of Chaos
Now the Fimir freeing them from 'Choas' and becoming a seafaring nation is very interesting to me. Seems to be a little to much magic oriented than tech but that's ok.
[X] Strongest Fuckers Around
Yes just yes, to create a nation in the Mountains of Mourn possibly the harshest starting point in Mallus aside from the Chaos Wastes, is going to be tricky, difficult, near impossible, love it. I Wonder what direction we will go through.
Question is multivote possible for this vote ?
[] True Heirs of Chaos
Now the Fimir freeing them from 'Choas' and becoming a seafaring nation is very interesting to me. Seems to be a little to much magic oriented than tech but that's ok.
[X] Strongest Fuckers Around
Yes just yes, to create a nation in the Mountains of Mourn possibly the harshest starting point in Mallus aside from the Chaos Wastes, is going to be tricky, difficult, near impossible, love it. I Wonder what direction we will go through.
[X] Chosen of Hashut: Glory to the Father of Darkness! You are Dawi Zharr, one of the destined rulers of the world, a right given to you implicitly by three simple things. The first is of course your inbuilt nature. Your people are resistant to chaos, supernaturally durable, and able to live in environments that would kill the likes of men or elves, proving your superiority over the weakling races.
- Location
- Actually pretty lost
[X] Chosen of Hashut