Suffer Not ≡][≡ 40k Inquisition Quest

open_sketch · Nov 19, 2019

≡][≡ Inquisitor Joanyn Praxis ≡][≡
Imperial Inquisitor, Ordo Hereticus

Attributes
Physical Attributes
Strength - 1
Agility - 2
Melee - 1
Endurance: 4

Mental Attributes
Intelligence - 3
Tactics - 2
Nerve - 1
Fortitude: 6

Social Attributes
Charm - 4
Presence - 3
Contacts - 3
Resolve: 10

Faith Attributes
Belief - 2
Scripture - 0
Fire - 1
Conviction: 3

(3) - The Imperium should be an alliance of solidarity for the weak, not an alliance of strength for the strong.
(2) - People are more than problems, weaknesses, corruption vectors to eradicate. Their feelings and dreams matter.
(1) - A Shot Fired is a Shot Wasted

<1> - Victory makes me feel alive.

Strength is raw physical conditioning. Lifting stuff, swimming, running a long time, punching hard. It's added to many melee attack damage as well.

Agility is swiftness, reaction speed, and immediate awareness. It's used for dodging things, jumping, ducking, outrunning folks, and other twitchy reactions.

Melee is the general skill of up close combat with knives, swords, fists (power or otherwise), chainsaws, whatever else.

Intelligence is raw intellectual power, knowledge, and drive to learn and study stuff. It is also used for military logistics.

Tactics is your knowledge of battle tactics, from the strategy of leading armies to simply knowing when it is safe to rush across a hallway in a gunfight.

Nerve is the stat both for shooting firearms and for keeping your cool. Nerve checks are common in combat to prevent from panicking or fight through pain.

Charm is the social stat used for flattery, smoothtalking, lying, seduction, verbal sparring, deflection, and navigating high culture.

Presence is the social stat used for reasoning, explaining, teaching, intimidating, impressing, or public address.

Contacts is rolled to know people you need to know, and to have a good reputation with them.

Belief is your actual faith in... whatever you have faith in. The Emperor, hopefully. It is used to resist temptation and corruption.

Scripture is your knowledge of the intellectual side of your religious faith. If you can quote from the holy books and theologians. It's intelligence for matters of faith.

Fire is your ability to project your faith out and convince others of it. Want to convert somebody or whip a crowd into a fanatical fury? This stat.

Weapon: Laspistol
Weapon: Hellpistol
Trade: Manager
Trade: Spy
Trade: Political Operator
Talent: Verbal Sparring
Talent: Seduction
Talent: Dishonesty
Talent: Intimidation
Talent: Exfiltration
Talent: Logistics
Talent: Propaganda
Talent: Indirect Persuasion
People: Dahlia
People: The Corrupted
People: High Imperial Politicians
Knowledge: Imperial Political Theory

Social Loadout
1 Compact Laspistol, 1 Laspistol Reload, Flash-Safe Glasses, 6 Concealed monoknives, 1 Show Knife, 1 Belt Buckle Gun, 1 Plastex Bodyglove/Flakweave Suit, Displacer Field

Combat Options
+1 Hellpistol, +1 Transonic Machete

Compact Laspistol
Small Handgun
Attack Dice: 1/d10 -or- 2/d10-1
Aim Bonus: +1
Damage Bonus: +2
Armour Reduction: 0
Magazine Size: 4
Special
Laser: Does not cause bleeding.
Blinding: If operated without flash protection, witnessing the impact of a las-weapon will blind for 3 rounds.

Concealed Monoknife
Small Knife
Attack Dice : 1/d10
Damage Bonus : Agility + 1
Armour Penetration : 2
Parry Bonus : -1
Disarm Bonus : +0

Show Knife
Medium Knife
Attack Dice : 1/d10+1
Damage Bonus : Agility + 1
Armour Penetration : 0
Parry Bonus : +0
Disarm Bonus : +0

Buckle Gun
Tiny Handgun
Attack Dice: 2/d10-2
Aim Bonus: +0
Damage Bonus: -2
Armour Reduction: 0
Magazine Size: 1
Special
Hidden: Will always escape searches.

Plastex Bodyglove/Flakweave Suit
Clothing
Armour Value : 3
Coverage : All but Head and Eyes
Resistances : Impact, Blunt

Displacer Field
Energy Screen
When hit with an attack, roll 1d10.
1: Displaced into worse danger.
2: Displacer field fails. Take the hit.
3-6: Displaced hard. Take 1 Sore from bumping into something.
7-9: Displaced. Attack avoided.
10: Nothing personal, kid.

Hellpistol (Voss Pattern)
Medium Handgun/Carbine
Attack Dice: 1/d10 -or- 2/d10-1 (One-Handed)
Aim Bonus: +1
Damage Bonus: +3
Armour Reduction: 2
Magazine Size: 12
Special
Laser: Does not cause bleeding.
Blinding: If operated without flash protection, witnessing the impact of a las-weapon will blind for 3 rounds.
Convertible: When converted to Carbine mode, gain +1 to Attack and Aim Bonus.

Transonic Machete
Medium Knife
Attack Dice : 1/d10+2
Damage Bonus : Strength + 3
Armour Penetration : 1 + Half of enemy Armour (Round Down)
Parry Bonus : +0
Disarm Bonus : +3
Special
Sickening Vibrations: Enemies with 3 meters of an active blade count as being at -1 to all stats.

Sister Charitina
A member of the Order Famulous who found her faith again thanks to the Inquisitor. Praxis' closest confidant, dearest friend, and irritating ex-girlfriend.
Attributes of Note: Nerve 3, Contacts 4, Charm 3, Scripture 2, Fire 2
Skills of Note: Career - Order Famulous, Weapon - Bolt Carbine, People - Inquisitor Praxis
Equipment: Half-Plate Power Armour, Bolt Carbine, Burning Blade
Known Values: (3) The nobility is a blight on the Imperium, (2) I trust the Inquisitor's vision for the future, (1) Galaxy grim and dark, tiddy soft and warm.

Dahlia Hussian
A 17 year old unsanctioned psyker, rescued by Praxis from the witch's pyre she volunteered for at age 12. Loves the Emperor, and hates herself for being unworthy and twisted.
Attributes of Note: Power 1, Control 2, Sight 2, Faith 5, Strength -1, Nerve 0
Skills of Note: Talent - Self Discipline, Talent - Self-Hatred
Equipment: Web Derringer
Known Values: [3] I am here because I was given a chance. I should extend the same chance to others, [2] The Emperor is all things, [1] I can atone for my existence by aiding the Inquisitor

Marvel Ann Alemanga-Zero
A Magos of the biology wing of the Adeptus Mechanicus, Marvel Ann is an exuberant, odd, and enthusiastic cyborg lady who is an expert in medicine and bionics. She's Joanyn's current sweetheart, and she autotunes her voice.
Attributes of Note: Intelligence 4, Charm 3, Strength 4
Skills of Note: Career - Cyberdoc, Talent - Surgery, Talent - Singing
Known Values: [2] Adventure is to be seized with both hands (and as many mechandrites as possible)

Fraser Bookter
A positively ancient scribe who served Praxis' teacher, Bookter has seen all manner of things. Despite that, he keeps good humour.
Attributes of Note: Intelligence 4, Scripture 2, Contacts 2, Strength -2
Skills of Note: Career - Archivist, Knowledge - Imperial History
Known Values: ???

Korey Kilimnik
Once a Lightning fighter pilot for the Navy, until he was caught fucking an admiral's son. Kilimnik professionally doesn't care unless it has jet engines.
Attributes of Note: Nerve 5, Agility 3
Skills of Note: Career - Fighter Pilot, Talent - Piloting, Talent - Causing Trouble
Known Values: [2] By death or rejuvenation, age will never slow my reflexes

Penalties

≡][≡	Sore	Strain	Stress	Stain	≡][≡
◹☠◸	0/4	0/6	0/10	0/3	◹☠◸
◹⛉◸	3 XP	XP3	33 XP	9 XP	◹⛉◸

CURRENT RP
6

RULES SUMMARY
ROLZ ROOM

The Laurent · Feb 12, 2020

Bones said:
Allow me to elaborate on "pointing fingers." I meant more in regards to ranting about "bandwagon brigades" and "people copy pasting without knowing what they're doing."

I know what I did. I know what I voted for. Risk versus reward. They're something greater at play here, and we need to know what we're up against. You can disagree with it, that's well your right, but to claim the other side is full of band wagoners that had no idea what they're doing feels a little dishonest.

Well, I admit that I have the bias of knowing the QM well enough to know it was blatantly a trap?

But it was also pretty obvious. The risk was very clearly and blatantly much higher than any potential reward, especially since all of his information would be weeks out of date, and changed by the fact that we've, in the meantime, begun to remake the entire planet.

My cynical, "I'll cry if I hear it" guess is that we get information that might have given a +1 dice bonus or three to reform efforts that are now long since passed. And also long since passed on our own.

Hakazin · Feb 12, 2020

Vebyast said:
Whoever rated my post "funny": Fuck you.

Not to backseat mod, but I feel the need to mention that "Malicious abuse of the ratings system" is a reportable offense.

The Laurent · Feb 12, 2020

But yeah, another annoying things: the odds of us having enough RP to clear all of our Stress, and also have RP left over to actually get better has... gone down drastically. We had to spend it to try to blunt the impact of this (and it being an Impossible challenge should be evidence enough of how big of a mistake we made, when Faith is our lowest stat-group), so I can't regret it even though all three dice failed... but it will make things difficult in the future on the mechanical side, besides whatever the next event does.

E: But nothing to do but batten down and endure. But I really think we'd have benefitted from Knowledge: Economics, or even on spending to give us a speciality in our new girlfriend.

Simon_Jester · Feb 12, 2020

Vebyast said:
Fucking dammit, I'm not paying enough attention for one fucking vote and this is what happens. This is why I stopped participating in quests. I thought that maybe a small quest without many bandwagons and an experienced QM and a bunch of socially-relevant themes and a collection of good contributors would be safe, but apparently not. I don't know why I keep giving people second chances. This happens in every single quest every single time.

I think in this case the extent to which the SV readerbase finds the core canonical assumptions of 40k to be toxic ("Chaos can't be that bad, as proven by how blatantly fascist the Imperium is and how much of Chaos is minority-coded and queer-coded") may be biting us in the butt here.

Because as I said earlier, while a story in which the Imperium really is doing all this for no reason, and Chaos isn't that bad but simply represents "every way to not be insufferably square like the Imperium wants you to be" is interesting...

This is not that story, I'm pretty sure.

I'm pretty sure this is one of the stories where Chaos really is horrible and full of cognitohazards. And where just knowing the names of the Chaos gods is enough to significantly increase the risk of people becoming their cultists, even though OOC outside the setting we can't think of any L O G I C A L reason why that should be the case. And where the Imperium is admittedly shitty and could be SO much better... but where the root problem with the Imperium is "it's fascist and therefore ineffective at fighting a really bad enemy," not "it's fascist and there is no really bad enemy."

I think I tuned out of that vote too, but I wanted to air this thought one way or the other.

Swedish15 said:
To be quite honest, I did not expect it to be *that* bad - I may be influenced too much by both Gaunt's Ghosts and Ciaphas Cain. Sorry for voting the wrong way.

In Gaunt's Ghosts the hazards of Chaos are so bad that having shrapnel from an exploding Chaotic idol lodge in your body can turn you into some kind of monster. The Ghosts manage to resist it largely because they don't actually interact with Chaosi, they just kill them. They do not, importantly, stop to read the Chaos cult leader's diary.

The Laurent said:
I'm not sure what about Ciaphas Cain would have convinced you otherwise? Cain routinely faced situations where, if Jurgen wasn't there, Chaos' very presence/powers would have driven him mad.

E: If anything this might be less extreme, because I'm suspecting less a Psyker attack, and more a bunch of lies and half-truths that will fill her head with doubts and fears that will linger for years and decades.

Also all of this.

The Laurent · Feb 12, 2020

Simon_Jester said:
I think in this case the extent to which the SV readerbase finds the core canonical assumptions of 40k to be toxic ("Chaos can't be that bad, as proven by how blatantly fascist the Imperium is and how much of Chaos is minority-coded and queer-coded") may be biting us in the butt here.

Because as I said earlier, while a story in which the Imperium really is doing all this for no reason, and Chaos isn't that bad but simply represents "every way to not be insufferably square like the Imperium wants you to be" is interesting...

This is not that story, I'm pretty sure.

I'm pretty sure this is one of the stories where Chaos really is horrible and full of cognitohazards. And where just knowing the names of the Chaos gods is enough to significantly increase the risk of people becoming their cultists, even though OOC outside the setting we can't think of any L O G I C A L reason why that should be the case. And where the Imperium is admittedly shitty and could be SO much better... but where the root problem with the Imperium is "it's fascist and therefore ineffective at fighting a really bad enemy," not "it's fascist and there is no really bad enemy."

I think I tuned out of that vote too, but I wanted to air this thought one way or the other.

There's kinda a problem with this?

The QM specifically laid this out, at length.

open_sketch said:
Yeah, it'd be fun to do a quest where a cultist of the dark gods turns out to be a fairly normal and decently upstanding person who is just misunderstood by wider society, but I wrote that quest already, and it's called Whispers from the Deep.

The way I see it, the option of just making chaos the secret good guys is the less effective critique of the Imperium. Acknowledging its excuses for its fascist nightmare as real and then saying "but you are still wrong" actually addresses the fundamental fascist logic underlying it.

addressing fascist with the argument "there is no enemy" concedes to them that if there was, they might be reasonable, which does half their work for them. saying "even if there was an enemy, you are a monster" is a more complete rejection.

in any case, Praxis is working small time right now because she has a limit to her power, and if she can give a world a few centuries or even a few decades of stability and safety, just a little while as a kinder place, she considers it a win. she'd wander the galaxy for eternity trying to make it better one world at a time, if she could. she knows she doesn't have an eternity, and she suspects the Imperium doesn't either, but she doesn't yet know what else to do. she can't see the future or read minds, she doesn't know what she can do to really change things.

yet.

Alobomb · Feb 12, 2020

The Laurent said:
There's kinda a problem with this?

The QM specifically laid this out, at length.

Ouh did not see this, very cool, thanks.

EternalStruggle · Feb 12, 2020

Vindictus said:
Well, this is ostensibly a setting mostly like canon 40k, which means that it's easiest to understand chaos as a force somewhat like gravity, if gravity was exerted on your mind and soul rather than your body.

It is a cognitohazard. Becoming corrupted by chaos means thinking thoughts that you can't unthink, realizing things that you can't unrealize, and being pulled, slowly but surely, into the gravity of those thoughts and realizations- finding yourself thinking about them more and more as they worm their way into who you are.

Once you have entered Chaos' gravity well, you can't escape. Chaos isn't a philosophical perspective that you can simply disagree with, or a being you can debate with and argue against successfully- it is a metaphysical force that pulls you deeper and deeper over time. At best, you can maintain a distant orbit- but once you're in orbit, every move you can make just pushes you slowly closer to the inevitable moment when you are finally drawn in.

You cannot unswallow the black pill of chaos. It scalds and scars and poisons as it makes it's way through your system, changing you forever- and making it easier for you to get exposed to more of it, and more of it, until nothing of your original self remains in your twisted form.

Of course, this probably isn't a game over. Most likely, this is just an initial hook pulling us a little closer in. But we will not be able to unread this book, and it seems likely that it will have it's influence over us for the rest of this quest.

Mmm. I'd disagree slightly with this: You're fundamentally correct in your assessment, but I think the point where you enter the gravity well is different. Unless you're dealing with the Very Definitely Bad Juju, generally Chaos is initially a choice. You have to make that leap into siding with them first, if you don't cross that line then you're broadly in the clear.

That said, yes, after that point you will be twisted into the Four's tool, with your original motivations more or less laid by the wayside. For example, Bile claims he's the only one who remembers the spirit of the Great Crusade, which was in actual fact (like it or not) to put humanity as top dog of the galaxy without heavy concessions to things like transhumanism, with the Space Marines and Primarchs being reigned in by the Council of Terra. To represent this spirit, Bile is... trying to perfect a race of transhumans, his New Men and specifically the Gland-Hounds, to launch the Great Crusade 2 Electric Boogaloo and replace humanity entirely as a superior species. Great going there, Fabius, really keeping that pure human spirit alive. And of course he's not the only one.

Simon_Jester said:
In Gaunt's Ghosts the hazards of Chaos are so bad that having shrapnel from an exploding Chaotic idol lodge in your body can turn you into some kind of monster. The Ghosts manage to resist it largely because they don't actually interact with Chaosi, they just kill them. They do not, importantly, stop to read the Chaos cult leader's diary.

I was going to go with how even brief glances at Chaos symbols give Guardsmen headaches, let alone reading in full a letter made by a possible seer, but yeah the shrapnel-possession is probably a better example.

open_sketch · Feb 12, 2020

First thing's first, you had to pay off your debts. You retrieved your communicator, locked yourself alone in the safehouse, and activated it.

"Hello, Joanyn." they said, a voice like honey. Urgh.

"Okay, Araleth. What's my end of the deal." you asked impatiently. They smiled, clearly taking the time to savor your frustration.

"I have been tasked with a rather difficult job, one that you can make a lot easier. To greatly oversimplify things, there's a disaster coming, and my friends with the Sight have seen a rather fascinating possibility to... not prevent it, but greatly mitigate it. It will involve delivering a message, which doesn't sound terribly complicated, save for whom the message is to be delivered to. Some human who is apparently important in some way. I need you to come and aid me."

"... is this message a bullet?" you asked.

"Oh, not this time. I know, I was surprised too. No, this is a warning, a chance to react, and... an offer." they said, a sly smile hovering on their face, "I could get them the message fairly easily, but the problem is I need them to listen to it as well. I need them to believe it. And... I was never much good at that. Not exactly the social type."

"Why'd they pick you, then?" you asked, only increasingly confused.

"You know I have... other talents. Besides, I can only imagine our past entanglements were a factor. There are eyes on you, you know?"

"Really."

"Joanyn, you have spent the past forty years going world to world, tearing out misery by its roots and planting something far more dangerous. There are powers that are beginning to notice." they explained, "Now, come to me, and I'll explain the rest. Please do not tarry."

"Where are you?"

The view in the screen shifted as Araleth pointed it, not at their face, but out a window. An endless skyline of concrete, stone, and steel rolled out before you, the skies choked yellow with smog, and in the distance the tower of a vast cathedral soared dozens of kilometers in the air.

"Got it?"

Yes, you did. Valdor, capital of the Pandora Sector, heavily developed and heavily defended. It was many things, such as the base for most noble families, and one of them was a rallying point for Imperial forces moving between Segmentum Ultima and Segmentum Obscurus. It was also the homeworld of one of the High Lords of Terra, Lord High Admiral Constans Gobrecht the Second. The reserve fleets of the Imperial Navy would come through here in the event of a Black Crusade.

---

This was going to be big, whatever it was. You were lingering now, to take care of some final business, and you found yourself thinking about the bundle of notes in your ship, the sickening curiosity you felt. Ever since you put them in there, ever since you opted to keep them instead of burn them, it was inevitable you would read them. You knew, you knew one hundred percent that it was a trap, and yet you were so very tempted to spring it upon yourself just to see it work.

You confessed that to Charitina, and she nodded in understanding.

"Why do you want to do this?" she asked, her voice calm, guiding.

"Because I've fought the forces of the Enemy my entire life, sixty years now. I know how they think, I know what they want, I know how to defeat them, but I can't understand why. Why do people want to do this to themselves? Why submit to something so awful, consuming, destructive? Why do they think the things they do?"

"You think these notes will help you figure that out." Tina said, and you nodded.

"Yes. Maybe if I know... maybe if I know, it'll be easier to save people from it."

"Okay. Right, I... I can't disagree with you. I'm curious too. Why do people throw their souls to the wolves like that? The answers we're given ring false compared to what we've seen, so... let's take a look. But carefully. You read a little at a time, stop and discuss it, and if it starts to get too much, we'll burn the whole fucking thing. Okay?"

"Okay. Yeah, let's do it."

---

The full procedures were extremely elabourate. You read the notes one page at a time, stopping every page, every ten minutes, or whenever you felt you didn't have an answer or counter to anything it said. Tina would discuss it with you, but not actually read it. Each page would be destroyed after you read it. Dahlia was with Bookter on the other side of the planet.

It was going to take, you estimated, two days. You didn't last nearly that long.

The first page was the standard anti-imperial fare, most of it fairly secular, none of it surprising to you, but it was in line with something you long believed, that the Enemy was most attractive when the Imperium made life so unbearable that anything would be better. Agis Klein had been a schoolteacher, then the money ran out for education and he fell into debt, and he laboured eight long years to feed wars in the stars against enemies he knew nothing about while lining the pockets of men who were squeezing his planet dry. His resentment was human. Charitina didn't disagree.

The next page was where things got philosophical. The Imperium was not merely a place of terrible material conditions, it was a place where the human soul itself was strangled. Love was weakness, family a distraction, friends conspirators-to-be. Where emotions were tolerated, they were to happen on a schedule, slave to the laws. Curiosity, joy, creativity, and community were all bled out until human beings were nothing but machinery, arms swinging hammers, pressing buttons, holding guns. The Imperium of Man hated humanity. It hated everything about human beings except their bodies, and it tolerated them only as fuel for itself. It was sterile. It was dead.

It venerated the skull as an ideal. The human being, without a mind, without a face.

You explained it to Charitina and found yourself crying, and you couldn't articulate the reason because you knew this, it's what you'd been fighting against your whole life.

She let you read one more page.

Why did people choose the Enemy? Because they wanted to feel something, anything, and these were feelings you could keep feeling even after everything else was ground out of you. Chaos was life, in all its glorious horrors. It was the thrill of blood on your hands, the intoxication of lust, the joy of revelation, the sorrow of loss. It was flesh against flesh, growing old, triumph and despair, screaming madness without meaning that you needed if the world was to have meaning at all. It was the animal Man, the primal thing that screamed in our soul.

Kill. Fuck. Beg. Die.

Fight. Love. Hope. Live.

Chaos was the spark of humanity the Imperium could never extinguish.

Charitina made you stop, burnt the remaining notes. You spent the evening curled next to her on a cushion, feeling drained. When you closed your eyes you could see it. You could see a factory, manned by the dead, building the dead, arming the dead, and then crushing them into powder. A great and terrible and useless and worthless and evil machine, and you in a small corner of it, greasing the wheels so they turned a little easier, to spare the worker's hands. Death would be a mercy, a concession to life.

But... it didn't last. It really didn't. You started to realize, over the course of the next day talking with Charitina, discussing it, how ultimately nihilistic the Enemy's view of humanity was, how it had no room either for real people, just... caricatures. Interchangeable archetypes of human beings, a reduction of the spark of life into self-destructive addictions that would destroy you just as surely and completely. Life was not just animal instinct, and even animals were not mindless things. People didn't want to just fight and fuck and argue and die in filth, they wanted stability, safety, contentment, they wished to satisfy curiosities and share those moments with others, and they wanted their community and their children to have those things too.

Chaos spurned life as well, dashed real human emotion against the rocks of a sea of formless indulgence. If the Imperium was cold bone, it was hot blood. Neither were the measure of a man.

You could see how it was addicting. You could see how it could get hooks in people, now, how it could feel authentic. Once you started to give into it, it was probably easier and easier to do, to just let yourself be swept away until all that was left was that drive. You'd seen it happen, seen men become beasts.

It was, you told yourself, a trick. By the day after that, you'd felt confident you'd bested it, and come away with important insight. You didn't just know what they wanted now, you knew why.

You knew, perhaps, a little too well.

---

New Skill

People - The Corrupted

Praxis is still herself. She is no different as a person. Her faculties are intact, her mind is clear, she is as sharp and brave and selfless and caring as she has been her entire life. But now, she is curious.

A temptation is like a Value, but where a Value is something you do to feel like you are making a difference, a Temptation is something you indulge, for its own sake, because it feels like an escape. It is not a compulsion, and it is not even involuntary. It cannot be activated by accident, and will not be invoked just because you do something similar. A temptation towards violence will not be invoked merely because you get in a fight, a temptation for pleasure not invoked merely because you seek it. It is, always, a choice, not just to do those things but to embrace that it is who you are.

It is not doing violence, but reveling in it. Not pursuing sensation, but reducing yourself to it. Not despairing, but giving in to it. Not winning, but gloating about it.

When you choose to indulge a temptation, you remove an amount of Penalty equal to the value of the Temptation. Simple as that. They don't become XP, they just get removed. Then, you add one to your Temptation's stat.

Oh... and it's also a difficulty. If somebody attempts to offer you your temptation, with the intent of corrupting you with it, it is the difficulty you must roll against if you choose to resist. You can always resist, but if you do you must roll against that difficulty, and either take Penalties if you succeed, or increased Temptation if you fail.

Temptation can be reduced, but very, very slowly. A temptation reduced to 0 value has no draw, obviously, but you can never erase it. It will never be gone completely.

I will now be adding up Values and Temptations at the end of each arc, in a post which will explain where each point came from.

[ ] Violence makes me feel alive. <3>

[ ] Sensation makes me feel alive. <3>

[ ] Despair makes me feel alive. <3>

[ ] Victory makes me feel alive. <3>

The Laurent · Feb 12, 2020

So, guess what everyone?

By the way, @open_sketch , we should be at 2/3 Stain, unless we gain one just for interacting with chaos materials.

Artificial Girl · Feb 12, 2020

[X] Sensation makes me feel alive. <3>

Swedish15 · Feb 12, 2020

[X] Sensation makes me feel alive. <3>

Personally, with our great focus on interpersonal relationship, I think Slaneesh would be the greatest adversary, and at the same time, the one who is the most interested in our Inquisitor.

Vindictus · Feb 12, 2020

Well, we've opened the door. The initial corruption has occurred. Now, we need to decide which of the dark gods has taken advantage.

QTesseract · Feb 12, 2020

[X] Victory makes me feel alive. <3>

RubberBandMan · Feb 12, 2020

[X] Victory makes me feel alive. <3>

The most interesting. We've fought the system of corruption and needless suffering and if we haven't won, neither have we lost. The most abstract seeming one, by my reckoning

EternalStruggle · Feb 12, 2020

open_sketch said:
Yes, you did. Valdor, capital of the Pandora Sector, heavily developed and heavily defended. It was many things, such as the base for most noble families, and one of them was a rallying point for Imperial forces moving between Segmentum Ultima and Segmentum Obscurus. It was also the homeworld of one of the High Lords of Terra, Lord High Admiral Constans Gobrecht the Second. The reserve fleets of the Imperial Navy would come through here in the event of a Black Crusade.

Well that's not concerning at all. And by that I mean Oh Boy It's Time For The Abadabadoo Power Hour.

(Also more AU elements, the canon LHA at this point was a gorl.)

open_sketch said:
The Imperium was that way it was because

The line cuts off prematurely here.

open_sketch said:
The next page was where things got philosophical. The Imperium was not merely a place of terrible material conditions, it was a place where the human soul itself was strangled. Love was weakness, family a distraction, friends conspirators-to-be. Where emotions were tolerated, they were to happen on a schedule, slave to the laws. Curiosity, joy, creativity, and community were all bled out until human beings were nothing but machinery, arms swinging hammers, pressing buttons, holding guns. The Imperium of Man hated humanity. It hated everything about human beings except their bodies, and it tolerated them only as fuel for itself. It was sterile. It was dead.

It venerated the skull as an ideal. The human being, without a mind, without a face.

Makes sense to me.

open_sketch said:
Why did people choose the Enemy? Because they wanted to feel something, anything, and these were feelings you could keep feeling even after everything else was ground out of you. Chaos was life, in all its glorious horrors. It was the thrill of blood on your hands, the intoxication of lust, the joy of revelation, the sorrow of loss. It was flesh against flesh, growing old, triumph and despair, screaming madness without meaning that you needed if the world was to have meaning at all. It was the animal Man, the primal thing that screamed in our soul.

This is also true, but-

open_sketch said:
But... it didn't last. It really didn't. You started to realize, over the course of the next day talking with Charitina, discussing it, how ultimately nihilistic the Enemy's view of humanity was, how it had no room either for real people, just... caricatures. Interchangeable archetypes of human beings, a reduction of the spark of life into self-destructive addictions that would destroy you just as surely and completely. Life was not just animal instinct, and even animals were not mindless things. People didn't want to just fight and fuck and argue and die in filth, they wanted stability, safety, contentment, they wished to satisfy curiosities and share those moments with others, and they wanted their community and their children to have those things too.

Unchecked Social Darwinism Bad, Civilization Good.

open_sketch said:
A temptation is like a Value, but where a Value is something you do to feel like you are making a difference, a Temptation is something you indulge, for its own sake, because it feels like an escape. It is not a compulsion, and it is not even involuntary. It cannot be activated by accident, and will not be invoked just because you do something similar. A temptation towards violence will not be invoked merely because you get in a fight, a temptation for pleasure not invoked merely because you seek it. It is, always, a choice, not just to do those things but to embrace that it is who you are.

Well it's not quite making a pact with the Dark Gods, so that's...

Good.

So long as we keep it at mere emotions and don't go "man you know what's great? Human sacrifice for power" we should be not horribly corrupted into a Chaos Boi, but that doesn't mean we don't still have potential issues now.

ExNihilo · Feb 12, 2020

Hmmm. I'll argue for Violence, despite finding Khorne abhorrent even for a Chaos God. It's because it's the most straightforward to avoid. We want Victory, will doubtless face dispair, and sensation will come, what with Praxis being a romantic. While Violence is always an option and avoiding it is hard, it seems to always be an option and is most opposed to our traits, especially #3. Thusly,

[X] Violence makes me feel alive. <3>

Parzival95 · Feb 12, 2020

[X] Despair makes me feel alive. <3>

Mr Apollo · Feb 12, 2020

[X] Victory makes me feel alive. <3>

The Laurent · Feb 12, 2020

More seriously, we can manage this. I'd still rather have not done it, even for a free skill. But now it's done.

ExNihilo said:
Hmmm. I'll argue for Violence, despite finding Khorne abhorrent even for a Chaos God. It's because it's the most straightforward to avoid. We want Victory, will doubtless face dispair, and sensation will come, what with Praxis being a romantic. While Violence is always an option and avoiding it is hard, it seems to always be an option and is most opposed to our traits, especially #3. Thusly,

[X] Violence makes me feel alive. <3>

The problem is, we'd still have it at 3. So I'm pretty sure Sketch will throw Temptations towards us, where our own belief that violence is a waste is mechanically costly, since even resisting a temptation leads to us taking a penalty.

ExNihilo · Feb 12, 2020

The Laurent said:
The problem is, we'd still have it at 3. So I'm pretty sure Sketch will throw Temptations towards us, where our own belief that violence is a waste is mechanically costly, since even resisting a temptation leads to us taking a penalty

Resisting also leads to slowly decreasing the Temptation, which will be likely easier for Violence. If we don't have to engage in violence, or do it less frequently, we'll have less opportunity to revel in it. It's the one I think we have the most control over, beyond possibly dispair.

Legionman · Feb 12, 2020

[X] Sensation makes me feel alive. <3>

The Laurent · Feb 12, 2020

Also, I'd like everyone to imagine having read that earlier, the first chance we got. Having had to spend Stain to hope not to give into despair and faithlessness, and then to have Temptation weighing us down while we're dealing with everything else.

It would have been an absolute disaster.

This is... pretty bad, honestly? But we can get through it.

DocMatoi · Feb 12, 2020

EternalStruggle said:
(Also more AU elements, the canon LHA at this point was a gorl.)

constans is a feminine name, isnt it?

open_sketch · Feb 12, 2020

The Lord High Admiral here is a man. There are and have never been any women. They are the High Lords of Terra.

Remember, a setting influenced by the presentation of 40k, not the details of canon.

Vindictus · Feb 12, 2020

So.

Since we're voting, rather than debating, I'm going to put forward my vote and explain my reasoning- and if people disagree, we can argue, but at least my vote will be out there.

[X] Violence makes me feel alive. <3>

Some of you might wonder why I chose 'Violence', rather than 'Pleasure' or 'Victory' or even 'Despair'. Well, that's fairly simple- I view this as a trap.

As I explained earlier, Chaos is a lot like gravity. If we were to choose 'Victory', then that means every time our plans come to successful fruition... we've drifted a little closer to Chaos. Similarly, if we choose 'Pleasure' or 'Despair,' we will get drawn closer by both our highs and our lows.

However, with violence, we come to the fact that Praxis is not often involved in violence- at least, not as long as her plans go well. Her values do not lend themselves to becoming violent and engaging in violent pastimes, so it seems reasonable to presume that this is the least likely for us to make a lot of use of.

Additionally, it will be harder to tempt Praxis with violence, because- as I just pointed out- violence for the sake of violence is something that goes against Praxis' other values. Additionally, it seems unlikely that the typical person would even know that violence could tempt Praxis, because of how she behaves and acts.

As such, since I believe a vice of violence is likely to lead to the least use of Chaos taint, and thus the slowest possible fall into the dark side possible, it's the only option I can really support, personally.

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