'To Plunder the Stars Themselves' OOC Thread

[Xin Ceithan]

Since I neither have a full character / concept rolled up, feel free to second line me if want to get this going

 

I am totally fine with pitching in something like a supporting cast role or joining up with the group at a later stage

[Lysimachus]

Sorry dudes, hell of a day today, my wife's nan's funeral, so I've been in support mode, plus about 4 hrs driving there and back.

 

I've seen the new PMs and like them all, will reply in more detail tonight/tomorrow!

[Mazer Rackham]

Sorry dudes, hell of a day today, my wife's nan's funeral, so I've been in support mode, plus about 4 hrs driving there and back.

 

I've seen the new PMs and like them all, will reply in more detail tonight/tomorrow!

 

Our sympathies to you and the good lady, Lysimachus.

 

MR.

[Xin Ceithan]

Sorry to hear that, Lysimachus. My best wishes to you and your family.

[Ancient_Sobek]

Sorry to hear that. Our condolences to your family. 

[Necronaut]

Terribly sorry to hear that, Lysimachus. Best wishes.

[Black Cohort]

that sucks to hear.

 

If you are still looking for people I am interested.

[Lysimachus]

Thanks all, she'd lived a good long life well into her 90s and died peacefully in her sleep, so kinda a good way to go, if that makes sense, but still sad for the family.

 

Anyway, now got more PMs, so the squad is shaping up as:

 

Mazer: Tac

Sobek: Tac

Beren: Assault

TechCaptain: Dev

AT: Librarian

Necronaut: Apothecary (I've not seen a PM, but if you shoot one over we can build on the Variel thing?)

 

Thanks to everyone else for the interest, if we get to a second episode with a bigger KT I'd be very happy to have you aboard!

 

 

So, now I'll start working in the background on a few more bits for a plot/scenario, and then once that's ready we can start introducing everyone to each other and see what happens! :D

 

 

 

Edit:

If anyone wants to work on anything in the meantime, I'm suggesting to people to write up a brief bio for your guys to put in a character thread (just like we did for Blackthorn) but remember NOT to include stuff like your Chapter name or full history!

 

Keep it shallow; your name (or even pseudonym? After all, not everyone might want to give their real name!) physical characteristics, mannerisms, things that the others might pick up on as their first impressions. Cool pics of what they look like are always very welcome!

[Lysimachus]

Hey all, at some point in the next few days I'm going to follow the pattern of Blackthorn and start another thread for the various Iron Gods Character info. There's no rush as we still won't start any time soon, but whenever you have your bio (as mentioned in previous post) ready feel free to add it in?

 

 

I'm also going to take this opportunity to lay out the mechanical side of creating your recruits to the Iron Gods, as follows:

 

Characters should be created in the usual way; roll stats, select Chapter* and Speciality, determine movement, roll wounds and fate points.

 

*as mentioned previously, characters may be selected from any of the official Chapters laid out in DW, RoB, FF or HtC. (Note that this doesn't necessarily mean they actually come from said Chapter, just that the rules/advances are a fitting way to represent their individual abilities)

 

Characters begin at Rank 1 and Infamy (the Iron Gods version of Renown!) Rating: Initiated

 

Power Armour: Roll as normal, although if you prefer you can choose to have 'standard' MkVII.

NB: In the unlikely event we end up with more than one each of MkIV or MkIX, I might put on my GM hat :P and ask you to reroll, as these Marks would obviously be even rarer among the Iron Gods than other Astartes forces?

 

When we get to starting XP and equipment Requisition, we begin to diverge more from the standard rules. The Iron Gods are made up of highly experienced and grizzled veterans, but their line of supply is limited when compared to a 'typical' Chapter (and even more so to the Deathwatch, the Ordo Xenos' military arm).

 

As such, Iron Gods characters gain an additional 750XP to spend at the character creation stage. However, there are certain items to which they (and especially new recruits!) do not have ready access:

 

Standard Issue Items:

All characters Bolter's do not have a Fire Selectors as standard.

Tactical Marines do not receive a free clip of Special Issue Ammo, but instead may select one item of up to 25 Req value from the Basic, Pistol or Melee lists with an Infamy Rating of Initiated or Respected.

 

Requisition:

The following items count their Infamy requirement as one level higher than would normally be the case:

Fire Selector

Special Issue Ammo

 

(I'll get to how much Requisition I'm allowing for the first mission a bit later - once we've done intros, begun the IC thread, etc)

 

 

I think that covers everything for now (until I think of something else!). If you want to add an email address you don't mind me having to the PM threads, then I'll send you a link to a Character Sheet you can begin to fill out?

 

Feel free to ask any questions, although if they're rules based, I'll reserve the option to just punt them over to Mazer or AT… :D

[Lysimachus]

Further to the above, I forgot to say I'm following Mazer and Mol's example and including the following:

 

 

Hypnogogic Induction (Free, 0XP): All Battle-Brothers gain the Forging the Bond Talent as described in Rites of Battle. This allows you to share your Chapter-specific tactics for an additional 3 Cohesion points. This must be accompanied by narrative where you lead your brothers in your Chapter's ways of warfare.

 

Our Hands Bring Death (Free, 0XP): All Battle-Brothers count as having the Twin Weapon Wielder (Ballistic) and Twin Weapon Wielder (Melee) Talents. This means they suffer no penalty for using a pistol in one hand and a melee weapon in the other at the same time, as long as they are also Ambidextrous.

 

 

And one more change:

 

Replace 'Deathwatch Training' with 'Hatred of Authority'. The rule works that same, but instead of working against Xenos, it affects rolls against members of Imperial 'Adeptus' institutions.

[Mazer Rackham]

Sounds good to me!

 

Taking a break from GM'ing for a while to work on character concept. 

 

MR.

[Lysimachus]

Created the Character thread, feel free to post your bios whenever!

[BadgersinHills]

Hey, I'm interested in this but I'm pretty new to Deathwatch (Have some experience playing in Head Hunted) and time to post will be scarce until the 20th of May. May I join this? :) 

[Lysimachus]

Hey BadgersinHills, I'm afraid because I'm new to this GMing malarkey, I've limited the squad for the first episode down to the 6 man team already selected.

 

But if all goes well and we make it to more episodes, I will be looking to add a few more team members, so please feel free to follow the story and volunteer again later? Unfortunately, the way PBP seems to go that might be months away though, sorry...

[Lysimachus]

One more creation bit I thought of:

 

Equipment Loadout:

To make life easy for myself I'm posting some maximum carrying limits, so we don't end up Req-ing everything and the kitchen sink.

 

Options for max are:

 

A) Heavy weapon + (1 Basic weapon) OR (2 Pistol/Melee)

B ) Basic weapon + (2nd Basic + 1 Pistol/Melee) OR (3 Pistol/Melee)

C) 4 Pistol/Melee

 

1st Combat Knife, any (non-weapon) Chapter Trappings, Grenades and Ammo, plus any smaller pieces of equipment (within reason!) do not count towards the above carrying limits.

 

Particularly large Melee weapons (Powerfists, Thunderhammers, etc) and heavy equipment (Breaching Shears, etc) count as Basic for carrying limits.

 

 

 

Think that should cover most situations. There are probably some other bits I'm forgetting that don't quite fit into the above, feel free to let me know and we can talk it through if you're not sure.

[Lysimachus]

Hello all! Just a heads up that we seem to be moving forward at a good pace, in fact slightly ahead of what I was expecting! The majority of our Team members are ready to go, and I'm scribbling furiously getting the plot of our first episode together!

 

 

With that in mind, I'd like to suggest Friday 7th May (approx 2 weeks away) to kick off the IC thread and get the story rolling.

 

 

Hope that works for everyone, but if anyone has any problems - not enough time to get ready, busy, etc - please give me a heads up and I can push back a bit further (although I'd prefer not to delay tooo much more than that as I don't want to kill the momentum/people's interest?)

 

 

If anyone needs help in the interim with finishing off their characters or anything, please give me a shout?

[Necronaut]

Sounds great!

[Lysimachus]

Hello all, just an update as we're just over a week away from the planned start. I've got the first intro bits ready to go and started on pics and stuff for the first fight, so that's going well. We've also got names for all our crew... assuming they're real, of course! :D

 

To those who haven't got sheets/XP spends done yet, I hope its not unreasonable of me to ask but could we please try to get them finished by the end of Monday 3rd so I've got a few days to sort out any last minute details? Again, if you need help, just use the PMs?

[Mazer Rackham]

My body is ready.

 

MR.

[TechCaptain]

I am going to drop out of finishing my guy for this due to getting too busy again and having trouble keeping what I already have going straight.

[Lysimachus]

That's fair enough TC, if we get to a later episode with more characters I'll look out for you?

 

 

OK, so if anyone else would like to be involved, we now need a Devastator?

 

 

 

Edit: Obvious side point to the other players, I may have to push the start date back a bit while I find our heavy weapon trooper...

[Commissar Molotov]

You might find it profitable to have a GM-controlled NPC for a few reasons:

 

- It allows you to set the tone of what an "average" member of your warband is like.

 

- It provides you with a way to comment on situations in-character, providing characters with a "devil's advocate" view and offering tips if they get stuck with something. (Depends how cerebral your game is, or whether bolter-fire can bypass any problem.)

 

- It can foster intra-party conflict in a "safe" way without risking players.

 

- As a safety net, players who are killed can take the NPC over.

[Lysimachus]

That's a very good suggestion, thanks Mol!

 

There were a couple of people interested who didn't get slots before who I've PM'd, but if no one bites in the next day or two I'll roll something up myself!

[Necronaut]

We can turn Vesalius into a devastator-apothecary ;)

[Lysimachus]

:lol:

 

 

 

Funnily enough, it was sort of the plan to make TC's character a Dev/low-level Techmarine by using IH as his Chapter, just so we'd have someone on the squad with some ability at Tech Use...

 

If I have to roll it up myself, I'll probably stick to that sort of archetype, unless we can get someone else to do it (in which case, of course I'll let the player decide what they'd rather play!)