I mean, our current getaway plan is to use a teleporter beacon we're carrying right now to get back onboard the Revenge in a flash. The scrambler's only a threat for trying to jump in. The beacon negates it.
Who am I? Who am I? I am a sorcerer of the Third Circle, Master of the Cat's Cradle, and servant of the Lord of Change. I am a Space Marine, immortal warrior against the rotting throne and the corpse worshipers who flock to it. I am Abraxis Mentas Ur and you explain why your BEAST dared to set CLAW to my BLADE!
I mean, our current getaway plan is to use a teleporter beacon we're carrying right now to get back onboard the Revenge in a flash. The scrambler's only a threat for trying to jump in. The beacon negates it.
"Then a small party in the main settlement," Em says, tapping the pict of the map. "We can paint the armor to bein Vall colors and claim anything we damn well want. I don't think many people down there would argue with three people in power armor, not if they wanted to keep their heads. We secure intelligence, then see if we can't secure the Vault from the Inside. If we plant a teleportarium beacon, then you can pull us out through the scrambler?"
"YES. THE VAULT MAY ALSO BE MOVABLE AS WELL, DEPENDING UPON ITS SIZE, CONTENTS, AND IF YOU DISABLE THE SCRAMBLER." Phi says.
"Then escort us to the Citadel. If Vall is not here, we shall wait in comfort..." you growl, and without hesitation, the men jerk to their feed and nod.
They lead you and your loved ones through Skaarsdelve - and the deeper you get in, the more disquieted you are. It is...somehow not the sights of profane statues, nor the huddled slaves with their patchwork augmetics, cringing before anyone with a gun or a whip or a glare. As horrible as it was, there were places where people cringed away from the powerful in the Imperium. Never where you could help it...but the Imperium was far from a perfect, glittering edifice. If it was, then this age of siege would never be required. It was not the bawdy dens of pleasure, where half naked men and women leaned from the upper balconies - not calling out their services, but rather goggling at the trio of blue and gold painted space marines walking down the promenade.
No.
It was how...save for the profane statues, save for the open display of mutation, save for the Chaos symbols that hung over doors and were emblazoned along faces, this den of sin was less alien to you than you would wish.
As you had thought earlier, too many places in the Imperium had the same brutal, blood stained hierarchy of might making right, rather than might for right.
"Uh, to your right, there's the pits," your guard says, getting more confident as you come to a thick intersection. The sky overhead is partially obscured by a thick tarpaulin that is stretched from a central pole in the middle of the intersection, and glowglobes cast everything into a haze of green and red and gold that makes your eyes ache. The pits that the man refers to are literally dug into the grayish ground and are ringed by grinning onlookers, downing drinks, shouting bets, jeering as, down there, a man grapples with some kind of lizard-hided beast, with many claws and slavering teeth. The man throws the lizard down and lifts his arms, which are clad in wrought iron gauntlets that come to intersecting, sparking chain-fingers. He laughs as he brings his hands down, raking them into the beast, which shrieks in an almost human voice.
"They're still running fights?" you ask, your lip curling.
"There's not much we can do about the orbits," the man leading you says, nervously. "If they come down, we fight. BUt until then, we play and we pray."
Emerging from the pits, you can see you're in a more well built section of town...but there remains the press of people, the desperately poor, the wealthy, and...you see, scattered among them, people of clear prominence. A woman with...
Is her skin purple from dye?
Or is it the color? And is her left hand clawlike to you, or is it some glove affectation? You can barely tell before she sees your party and ducks away, drawing with her several cringing servants dressed in complex arrays of straps and harnesses. You see another woman, this one still recognizably human, guiding along a hulking felid creature with nothing but her hand, the creature glaring about itself - putting its ears back at the noise around itself, its mouth bloody and matted with gore.
Then-
Crack!
"And here's the Stocks," the man says as you emerge into an area that is more open, more naturally lit. The ochre light of the gas giant overhead bathes the crowd that ranges from lowly pirate crew to more wealthy members of the upper crust of this place. There is a large expanse of metal that has been splattered with blood and tears for so long that the original color has been lost to a murky, muddle of browns and grays. To either side of the stage are a pair of guttering green bonfires, which flicker and roar and dance and add their hue to the show. A tall, gangly fellow with a chartuce jacket and a mismatched pair of leggings stood upon the stage, holding a laud-haler in his spindly fingers, his hair a wild mop that had been dyed a shimmering, irridescent green. "Ladies and gentlemen! Tonight may be our last in the universe, depending on what Miss Amaranthine Tine of House Scourge has to say about it..." he says, wiggling his eyebrows as he stalks along the stage.
Boos and jeers filled the air.
"They must have heard some of the vox chatter," Em murmurs over the private interlink between you and him and Ryia.
"You're famous, sis!" Ryia says, cheerfully.
The garish man continues as he holds up his left hand, quieting the crowd. "And what else do we have in orbit? Why, it's that troublesome frigate, the Tachyon's Demise! We've heard of HER, haven't we?"
"Frigate!?" Ryia sounds as if she's beginning to froth with anger.
More boos and jeers and the man throws his head back, laughing. "Iluuuuuuuuuuryia Rackamore, Twice Scorned! We've heard of that faker! Imposter! Coward! Lilly livered coward!" He leaped up, slapping his knees with his hands like a clown on display as the crowd started to jeer and boo even more. "HAH! Can't even join the right SIDE properly, CAN SHE!?"
"Booo! BOOOO!"
"QUIT STALLING, JAKE!" This voice boomed out from a man who looked as if he was made of nothing but muscle and flat, slabbed atop one another, to create a mountainous man. "We're all gonna die soon, lets at least do some business!"
Jack shakes his head, then gestures back. "Oh, fine." He twitches his hand. "Assuming the navy brat doesn't lance us, we still have business to do! We have crew! We have bedwarmers! We have menials, we have serviles, we even have fresh sweetmeats...that's right! You want a slave, you need a slave, you will GET a slave! Bring out the first lot!"
"Do you want to buy any, sir?" the guide says as a cold trembling rage begins to fill you. The back of the stage opens, curtains sliding apart as hundreds of men and women were marched forward in chains - their chains clattering and clinking. Of them, a few are detatched from the rest by some heavy, armored men tugging pitons from the chains. They shuffled forward - and you see that they're all in tattered Imperial Guard armor. You try and identify the regiment, but you can see that their armor, even tattered and beaten up, looks heavy duty: Bluegray greatcoats, thick shoulder pauldrons that look like carapace weave rather than flak. They all look like they're trying to be stoic as possible, even as they're pushed forward.
"We have here some lucky luckies that have come to us through the Vortex," Jack says, cheerfully. "We have eleven Imperial Guardsmen, forget which regiment, but they're all the same...anyway, these ten have been through the mill but aren't broken yet!" His smile is sharp. "Slaught can fix that. Fodder for any attack!"
"You forget yourself, Ophidian!" a voice calls from a robed figure among the higher ranked mucky mucks while the front row throw muck at the Guardsmen, who stand perfectly still. "We cannot skip the rites."
Jack overdramatically puts his palm to his face, groaning. "The rites, the rites, of course, eenie meenie miney...mo!" He points to the third Guardsman down - a kid that looks like he can't be older than eighteen. He's blond and pale and tries to not shake as he is detatched from his comrades. As he is dragged forward, the whole crowd begins to get silent. Your hands clench in your gauntlets, your guide has completely forgotten leading you at this moment. You glance at your loved ones, and then forward, as Jack holds the Guardsman by the back, beaming at him.
"Good evening! Welcome to Inequity lad. So, what's your name?" he thrusts the laudhailer to the boy's lips. They're cracked and dry, and his voice creaks as he says.
"N...Nine...Nine Two...Two Four Four...Four One..."
"That a name or a price tag?" Jack asks as a soft chuckle goes through the crowd, taking the laud-hailer back. You can see the boy whispering, as if he's still trying to speak into the hailer, and his soft croak is lost as Jack says. "Well, Ninety Nine, you get to go free!"
The boy looks stunned. His eyes widen and he says something - and Jack moves the laud-hailer close, enough that the speakers projected out: "-iar!"
"Oh no, Ninety Nine, I don't lie! You get to go scott free. As part of the rites, we must grant...your most ardent desire..." Jack murmurs, walking slowly around him - his voice has become faintly...musical. Almost seductive. "You can see it, can't you? You get to walk out, past these sinners and degenerates...take a shuttle up into orbit. There are...Rogue Traders there. Loyal, brave, heroic Rogue Traders..." The young lad's eyes are looking faintly glazed over, as if he can actually see himself, walking off the seal-lock, to safety. "You can tell them all about how you got free...you don't need to...tell them..." Jack breathes, and everyone is leaning in close, their eyes gleaming. No one in the audience has taken breath. No one has moved.
Jack is enfolding the boy in his grip now, his right arm braced over his chest, holding the laud-hailer to his lips, capturing the whisper.
"It's everything you...ever wanted...isn't it?"
"J-Ja..." the boy whimpers, his voice choked.
Jack begins to draw a knife.
"You can see it?"
The knife glitters as Jack lifts it towards the unwitting 99's throat.
--- This has gone on long enough. But there's a throng of a hundred people between you, your ranged weapon isn't precise enough, and your precision TK doesn't have the range, even pushing. There's no hope for this lad...or is there?
[ ] Burn a fate point to miraculously save 9922441
[ ] Write In if there was something I missed!
57 to ID the guardsmen, but no dice. ...you guys can tell, they're Kriegers, though, they're OBVIOUSLY kriegers
[] Burn a fate point to miraculously save 9922441
-[] We will be taking them. All of them
[X] Fayhem
Unless someone else has a cleverer idea.
Edit: We probably could use a fate point going in, but we have six of em and should be full up. I'm thinking of buying/getting them that way, bonus points if we can just go 'yeah, we'll pay you tomorrow' and totally stiff Jack while also implying the whole 'you could be dead from orbital bombardment tomorrow.'
Edit 2: Also, getting the squad off world and back to the ship may prove challenging. Really banking on us taking out the jammer or being nearby them when we use the beacon.
Ok, I hate being THAT GUY, but we should consider not saving the kid. They called it a rite.
Interrupting it now instead of snapping up the lot from the get go will not only draw attention, but look suspicious. We either need to make it look like an unrelated event spares the boy, or come up with a good story for why we'd interrupt now.
Ok, I hate being THAT GUY, but we should consider not saving the kid. They called it a rite.
Interrupting it now instead of snapping up the lot from the get go will not only draw attention, but look suspicious. We either need to make it look like an unrelated event spares the boy, or come up with a good story for why we'd interrupt now.
[X] Order them to stop (enforced by a burst of gunfire if needed). They dare show this mockery of the sorcerous art, this amateurish excuse of a sacrifice, in front of a sorceror of the third circle? A ritual must be more than just base butchery, for the Four demand more than the same effort one would make to feed their cat.
-[X] Get some stakes. The boy shall be tied down on the ground, outside the city, exposed to the elements. None shall touch him, and he'll get to wait and starve while the Traders he puts his hope in look down upon him. After 4 days, one day of suffering for each of the Four, ask him if he still has hope. Only at the death of all hope, is there the sweet relief of the Four available in death.
As you had thought earlier, too many places in the Imperium had the same brutal, blood stained hierarchy of might making right, rather than might for right.
Jack shakes his head, then gestures back. "Oh, fine." He twitches his hand. "Assuming the navy brat doesn't lance us, we still have business to do! We have crew! We have bedwarmers! We have menials, we have serviles, we even have fresh sweetmeats...that's right! You want a slave, you need a slave, you will GET a slave! Bring out the first lot!"
To be clear, burning a fate point is not the same as spending one. When you burn a fate point, it doesn't come back. This is a very non-trivial expenditure.
This has gone on long enough. But there's a throng of a hundred people between you, your ranged weapon isn't precise enough, and your precision TK doesn't have the range, even pushing. There's no hope for this lad...or is there?
DC, you've noted that we don't have the range... but we aren't alone here, are we? As of the end of last quest Ryia had a Psy Rating of 6, and can Push for up to +4 to that. Would a Psy Rating of 10 (or ideally less, if she doesn't HAVE to push that hard) give her the range? It would result in a risky Psychic Phenomena roll, but Ryia does have the Warp Affinity talent:
She has an extremely strong connection to the warp - she may discard a Psychic Phenomenon roll that displeases her, take 1d5 corruption points, then re-roll WITHOUT modifiers (even if she pushed.)
Emphasis added. If she has the range, then I want to go with this:
[X] Write In: You can't do anything to save this boy... but you are Lady Amaranthine Scourge, of House Scourge, and you are never helpless when you are with your family. Over the narrowband, say: "Ryia. Stop this. I'll take it from there."
-[X] Assuming a success (please be a success), say: "You would dare proceed with your own petty rites, before even consulting the wishes of your honored guests? We require additional ritual fodder for our workings, and we will be taking every slave for sale here today. They will remain untainted by your own fumbling rituals. We will take possession of them now, and you will accept our payment as good and sufficient. Was any part of that confusing to you, or do you grasp the situation, fool?"
-[X] Assuming success with the above, or otherwise acquiring the slaves without blowing our cover, have them held in a warehouse (or whatever) for you. When you're ready to leave, put on a psychic show similar to the one you used to intimidate the goons after killing the flesh hound earlier before teleporting up. The teleportarium is technically just dragging people through the Warp; maybe you can pass it off as a work of sorcery, though ideally you'll also be as unobserved as possible.
That'll probably be an Intimidate rather than a Deception test, but between Tine's Fellowship and her new Peer (Underworld) talent that will be testing against a 78, so I do feel relatively good about it.
[X] Order them to stop (enforced by a burst of gunfire if needed). They dare show this mockery of the sorcerous art, this amateurish excuse of a sacrifice, in front of a sorceror of the third circle? A ritual must be more than just base butchery, for the Four demand more than the same effort one would make to feed their cat.
-[X] Get some stakes. The boy shall be tied down on the ground, outside the city, exposed to the elements. None shall touch him, and he'll get to wait and starve while the Traders he puts his hope in look down upon him. After 4 days, one day of suffering for each of the Four, ask him if he still has hope. Only at the death of all hope, is there the sweet relief of the Four available in death.
[X] Order them to stop (enforced by a burst of gunfire if needed). They dare show this mockery of the sorcerous art, this amateurish excuse of a sacrifice, in front of a sorceror of the third circle? A ritual must be more than just base butchery, for the Four demand more than the same effort one would make to feed their cat.
-[X] Get some stakes. The boy shall be tied down on the ground, outside the city, exposed to the elements. None shall touch him, and he'll get to wait and starve while the Traders he puts his hope in look down upon him. After 4 days, one day of suffering for each of the Four, ask him if he still has hope. Only at the death of all hope, is there the sweet relief of the Four available in death.
[X] Order them to stop (enforced by a burst of gunfire if needed). They dare show this mockery of the sorcerous art, this amateurish excuse of a sacrifice, in front of a sorceror of the third circle? A ritual must be more than just base butchery, for the Four demand more than the same effort one would make to feed their cat.
-[X] Get some stakes. The boy shall be tied down on the ground, outside the city, exposed to the elements. None shall touch him, and he'll get to wait and starve while the Traders he puts his hope in look down upon him. After 4 days, one day of suffering for each of the Four, ask him if he still has hope. Only at the death of all hope, is there the sweet relief of the Four available in death.
Adhoc vote count started by DragonCobolt on Sep 19, 2021 at 11:28 AM, finished with 9 posts and 6 votes.
[X] Order them to stop (enforced by a burst of gunfire if needed). They dare show this mockery of the sorcerous art, this amateurish excuse of a sacrifice, in front of a sorceror of the third circle? A ritual must be more than just base butchery, for the Four demand more than the same effort one would make to feed their cat.
-[X] Get some stakes. The boy shall be tied down on the ground, outside the city, exposed to the elements. None shall touch him, and he'll get to wait and starve while the Traders he puts his hope in look down upon him. After 4 days, one day of suffering for each of the Four, ask him if he still has hope. Only at the death of all hope, is there the sweet relief of the Four available in death.
[X] Write In: You can't do anything to save this boy... but you are Lady Amaranthine Scourge, of House Scourge, and you are never helpless when you are with your family. Over the narrowband, say: "Ryia. Stop this. I'll take it from there."
-[X] Assuming a success (please be a success), say: "You would dare proceed with your own petty rites, before even consulting the wishes of your honored guests? We require additional ritual fodder for our workings, and we will be taking every slave for sale here today. They will remain untainted by your own fumbling rituals. We will take possession of them now, and you will accept our payment as good and sufficient. Was any part of that confusing to you, or do you grasp the situation, fool?"
-[X] Assuming success with the above, or otherwise acquiring the slaves without blowing our cover, have them held in a warehouse (or whatever) for you. When you're ready to leave, put on a psychic show similar to the one you used to intimidate the goons after killing the flesh hound earlier before teleporting up. The teleportarium is technically just dragging people through the Warp; maybe you can pass it off as a work of sorcery, though ideally you'll also be as unobserved as possible.
1) This rite is actually from the Black Crusade line of RPGs - give a captive their most ardent desire , then kill them at the moment of their most ultimate ecstasy. Jack is cheating by creating a new ardent desire in this poor Krieger thanks to all the horrible torture and desperation, but it still works.
2) The reason he's refers to 10 unbroken Krieger's is because 99 is broken (by his standards) and Jack's just a prick, he was always going to choose him.
3) Burning a FP to do any miraclous feat is always going to be...like...obviously an Imperial miracle, something that I should make clear now before anyone votes on it for reals!
You lift your arm and fire a burst into the air, causing Jack, the entire crowd, each slave, and your guide to all jerk away from you at once. The only people who don't move is Em and Ryia - they just feel as if they're full of a gathering, growing tension.
Jack, clinging to 99 as if he's a body shield, glares around, then sees you. He opens his mouth to speak, but you begin to stride forward, trying to stand as tall as possible. The crowd backs away - and you can see, out of your peripheral cams, quite a few of them making small gestures that mimic the eight pointed star of Chaos undivided against their chests. A few kneel. Some simply game. A few throw themselves down, and reach out to touch the ground you've walked along. You ignore them as you speak.
"You...call this a right!?" you used your chin to toggle up the volume subtly with each word, so that the final word booms out. "I am a sorcerer of the Third Circle - and I refuse to let this haphazard, slapdash, inane excuse for a sacrifice to go forward." You shake your head, trying to think of the next line moments before saying it. You can't have the sacrifice be being pampered and cared for, no one would buy that, but...
"A...a sorcerer of the what?" Jack asks. "I've never...heard of-"
"That is clear enough," you say, bulling over the slave seller's objections with the force of your implied status as a Space Marine, and getting just a bit nervous. You really hoped you didn't meet any actual sorcerers here. "Now, you are to take the sacrifice and tie him down to stakes - the flesh must not be pierced or cut until the time is right, lest his humors be imbalanced or an infection carry him off before the ritual is complete There, he will be positioned, face up..." You point out to the hillock you had teleported in on. "Directly under the sky, looking up at the ships that will never save him. Give him...four days, one for each of our gods. And at the fifth day, when he is most hopeless, he will be sacrificed properly."
Jack looks like a rat caught between a rock and a compressor. He clearly doesn't want to interrupt his pet ritual, nor to show weakness to the crowd, but a few people are jeering at him already, and the rest are looking at you as if you were the second coming of Karak Vall or something.
Jack sighs, then sheathes his knife. He snaps his fingers twice and his guards take hold of 99, who is blinking and looking horrified - as if his hope had been dashed, unaware how close he had come to a violent end - and they began to drag the young lad off. You could see the other ten Guardsmen are standing as stoically as they can, but their eyes blaze with rage, and you were sure if they could, they would have killed you, then Jack, then everyone else.
"Is that to your liking, oh Drear Lord Sorcerer?" Jack asks, his voice riding the line between true servilitude and mocking.
--- Okay, 99 is all right, and you can rescue him later, but...
[ ] "I want the squad. I have none of my usual retainers, but they will due once I have them broken to my whims." (-30 deception check, opposed)
[ ] "I want the entire lot. You can close early." (-60 deception check, opposed)
[ ] "Carry on with your activities. Guide, lead me on." (you can rescue the slaves later. ...hopefully.)
this isn't an acquisition check because you're basically trying to bluff into being owed this by being...ya know...a dread sorcerer lord who can immolate anyone who doesn't give them what they want.
Jack rolls a 78! Lol, get fucked jack
Tine rolls awareness to spot the odd one out: 94. Nah.
Chaos is the ones who are big into numerology, but five is a big contender for Big E's sacred number. (Necoho has zero, Slaanesh has six, Nurgle has seven, Khorne is eight, Tzeentch is nine, and Malal is 11)
[X] "I want the squad. I have none of my usual retainers, but they will due once I have them broken to my whims." (-30 deception check, opposed)
I usually don't comment because it's clear enough what you meant, but in this case I'm not quite sure. Should this be "some simply *gawk"? Or are some of them like. Literally immediately gambling on what the Space Marine Sorcerer is gonna do next.
Ruh roh. Ryia's also got the Paranoia talent, any chance she's also got a shot at spotting this... whatever it is?
[X] "I want the squad. I have none of my usual retainers, but they will do once I have them broken to my whims." (-30 deception check, opposed)
-[X] Situations like this are exactly what your Foreshadow technique was made for. Trigger it before attempting this deception.
-[X] Assuming you successfully get them, there's two things you should address: one, the squad hates you and wants you dead, and two, these other Chaos fuckers aren't afraid enough of your power. Require a private space for a "ritual" of whichever of these fuckers look intimidatable. Jack, maybe. Then, after confirming you're unobserved to the best of your ability, put on a deliberately noisy psychic show (or just have Ryia do it) to cover - in fact, use TK or something to draw some random circles and shapes in the ground - drop the vocoder distortion of your voice, and quietly tell them who you are and that you have a plan to get all of them out, including the boy, and poke Karrad Vall in the eye while you do it. But, you need them to play along for it to work properly. Use the Foreshadow power here too, you really need this to work. Just act totally subservient and speak as little as possible and that should be enough. Then lead them back out, having "instantly broken them to your will." But before you leave, erase those random circles and such on the ground as if you're erasing your ritual markings so the locals can't use them (because "they aren't deserving," of course).
DC, are you using the errata'd version of the technique or the OG version? OG version obviously being better for us here given Tine's Psy Rating, but I'll take either tbh.
I usually don't comment because it's clear enough what you meant, but in this case I'm not quite sure. Should this be "some simply *gawk"? Or are some of them like. Literally immediately gambling on what the Space Marine Sorcerer is gonna do next.
DC, are you using the errata'd version of the technique or the OG version? OG version obviously being better for us here given Tine's Psy Rating, but I'll take either tbh.
[X] "I want the squad. I have none of my usual retainers, but they will do once I have them broken to my whims." (-30 deception check, opposed)
-[X] Situations like this are exactly what your Foreshadow technique was made for. Trigger it before attempting this deception.
-[X] Assuming you successfully get them, there's two things you should address: one, the squad hates you and wants you dead, and two, these other Chaos fuckers aren't afraid enough of your power. Require a private space for a "ritual" of whichever of these fuckers look intimidatable. Jack, maybe. Then, after confirming you're unobserved to the best of your ability, put on a deliberately noisy psychic show (or just have Ryia do it) to cover - in fact, use TK or something to draw some random circles and shapes in the ground - drop the vocoder distortion of your voice, and quietly tell them who you are and that you have a plan to get all of them out, including the boy, and poke Karrad Vall in the eye while you do it. But, you need them to play along for it to work properly. Use the Foreshadow power here too, you really need this to work. Just act totally subservient and speak as little as possible and that should be enough. Then lead them back out, having "instantly broken them to your will." But before you leave, erase those random circles and such on the ground as if you're erasing your ritual markings so the locals can't use them (because "they aren't deserving," of course).
[X] "I want the squad. I have none of my usual retainers, but they will do once I have them broken to my whims." (-30 deception check, opposed)
-[X] Situations like this are exactly what your Foreshadow technique was made for. Trigger it before attempting this deception.
-[X] Assuming you successfully get them, there's two things you should address: one, the squad hates you and wants you dead, and two, these other Chaos fuckers aren't afraid enough of your power. Require a private space for a "ritual" of whichever of these fuckers look intimidatable. Jack, maybe. Then, after confirming you're unobserved to the best of your ability, put on a deliberately noisy psychic show (or just have Ryia do it) to cover - in fact, use TK or something to draw some random circles and shapes in the ground - drop the vocoder distortion of your voice, and quietly tell them who you are and that you have a plan to get all of them out, including the boy, and poke Karrad Vall in the eye while you do it. But, you need them to play along for it to work properly. Use the Foreshadow power here too, you really need this to work. Just act totally subservient and speak as little as possible and that should be enough. Then lead them back out, having "instantly broken them to your will." But before you leave, erase those random circles and such on the ground as if you're erasing your ritual markings so the locals can't use them (because "they aren't deserving," of course).
