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Sunday, February 14, 2010

Rouge Trader Wednesdays

I forgot to post this earlier, but I usually play Rouge Trader (the pen & paper RPG) on Wednesday nights with a couple of friends. We used to play Dark Heresy together, but once the new RT book came out, we switched, since we the notion of ship combat was very tempting. I took some pictures of the session with my phone while no one was looking.





Twiggy (left, our Rogue Trader) and Jeff (right, our Astropath).



We used to use Lego Star Wars models for our ship combat, but they're a bit too big for the battlegrid, so we started using makeshift minis and dice. Here we're being attacked by a Chaos frigate class ship, totally kicking its butt.


John, our awesome GM.

So far it's been fun times all around. We've claimed a whole solar system (only having to eliminate a few God Emperor-less heretics and space tigers in the process) and accidentally discovered a list of planets where the Imperial Fists' geneseed is kept (oops), we're not sure what we're going to do with the latter. We also just hit rank 2, and my Explorator finally got her shoulder mounting for an extra Boltgun to go with her amazing OP Storm Bolter, next on the list is medical Mechadendrites.

So the GM says we'll get 200 extra exp if we turn in a backstory to go with our characters, but I'm kind of at a loss of inspiration. Her rough background that I picked in character origin gen says that she came from a forge world, is a stubjack, a renegade, was press-ganged, and is motivated by fortune. I can't really think of anything because I'm not that knowledgeable with Tech Priest fluff to come up with a page worth of history, so any ideas? All I have so far is she's borderline insane, obsessed with big guns and war ships, and her Servo Skull is the only remains she has of a past lover that scorned her. Not much of a start, but I hate to half-ass things, even when it comes to a little extra exp.

10 comments:

  1. I've never played Rogue trader before but its sounds interesting.

    To answer your question though, I think you might need to give us a name to start with, if you want some help, unless you want us to make one up for you! Also if your dont know much about them I would suggest reading Mechanicum out of the Horus Heresy series to get a book-load of background material on what the Mechanicus are like. Im going away for a week today so I can't really help you as much as I would like to.

    But I hope points you in the right direction anyway.

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  2. @Andy: Her name's Macintosh. Because she's slightly insane, I thought I'd give her the name of a computer with an OS not very compatible with a lot of things. I'll add that book to the list to look for next time I'm out in town. Thanks! :)

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  3. Once a low level tech-adept on a forge world producing bolters to supply the holy Astartes, there was a problem with a tech-upgrade which rejected implantation in her. This caused her lover at the time to scorn her, thinking it a sign of the Omnissiah's displeasure. Unfortunately the double rejection unbalanced Macintosh's mental state, and with a ready supply of heavy firearms nearby, a large amount of destruction ensued. Regaining control of herself after the near utter destruction of her former lover, she was sentenced to serve in the press-gangs aboard a ship leaving the system. Her services have been purchased by a rogue trader as an explorator, and now she seeks a fortune enough to continue her upgrades in order to prove the Omnissiah still has a place for her. She is accompanied by a servo-skull she made from the remains of her little rampage years ago.

    Or something along those lines. Sorry, I enjoy character backgrounds, almost more than I enjoy playing the characters themselves ^^;

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  4. Perhaps she's been messing around with forbidden technology, rail guns and prism cannons and such.

    An ammunition accident claimed the life of Mr Skull and exposed what they were up to.

    Then she was sent into exile aboard an explorator fleet where her knowledge of xeno-tech or high-explosives could be put to use.

    The tech-priests always seem to end up sidelined in 40k, other than Mechanicum (which is set during the Heresy) and, I think, Dark Adeptus (which is about the Dark Mechanicus) I can't think of any other books about them.

    Inquisitor (the skirmish thing) had a bit of background for Explorators:
    http://secteur-calixis.fr/docs/Mechanicus_Explorator_Warbands.pdf

    I miss Inquisitor, even if the miniatures couldn't hold the weight of their own arms.

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  5. Well I would start with the reason for her "near" insanity. Is it extreme fanatiscism bordering on schizophrenia for the creed of the Machine God. Psychotic episodes where she starts losing grasp on reality and believes fortune controls all destiny. Did she live in the shadow of a starship weapon manufufactorum. Did she work with her ex who was a higher order of tech priest who lost a grip on his humanity and so she helped him become one with the machine. I say start small flesh out one thing at a time.

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  6. @almaeron: It's a great place for me to start! I could never figure out in my head where the press-ganged part fit in.

    @Xaeromancer: Our ship does have quite a bit of xeno-tech on it, and our Rogue Trader is a bit obsessed with them, so it would make sense. I do like the recurring exile theme. :)

    @Steve Morrow: She's a kind of quiet insane, where she wanders around talking to machines and mumbling to herself, but tends to lose it when she gets into combat and is overcome by bloodlust. I can't really think of anything off the top of my head that would cause her to have such a hatred of organic life other than her own body possibly failing to save her at one point so she seeks to replace all the "bad" parts with machines.

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  7. She's maybe dabbled in Necrontyr technology? She needs a gauss blaster imho,maybe she was implanted with living metal or something necronish(new word) as an experiment from a nemesis and the bloodlust is result of her wanting desperately to find the dude who did this to her. As a result of this change in her,her lover tried to kill her(mercifully) and she snapped(due to the necron device) and all but eviscerated him. She tries to fight the urge to kill and only by routine and her connection to her lover's skull does she maintain a semblance of rationality.

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  8. Oh I almost forgot,why dont you guys pick up some Battlefleet Gothic models...either from GW or FW? It would add just a little bit more immersion and character to your games. I used to play the Call of Cthulhu rpg and Werewolf...gawd I miss those days. Those games sound pretty cool,I'd play with you guys :)

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  9. i'll think on it, mostly building on ideas stated herein.

    -Dave

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  10. @Sean of the Dead: Haha, Necrons, of course I love it! :) Maybe I can rewrite my Autosanguine ability to be self-healing living metal instead of blood nanobots. I was looking at some SOB minis the other day for one I could convert into a female tech priest, but just looking at the metal models felt like it would be a lot of work. I'll check out the Battlefleet Gothic ones, then at least our we wouldn't have to pretend our ship wasn't a tiny cleric.

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