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So, my players and custom Talents.

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#1 Fgdsfg



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Posted 01 September 2014 - 06:07 AM

If your name is Scorch (Ewan), Omega (Brunner), Fenix (Zharzz) or Jonathan S. (Felicia), stay the hell out of this thread or your characters will be stabbed with pointy objects into their eyes for all eternity!

Alright, so, I have taken to the habit of giving my players custom Talents when it's warranted. This might be when they reach a specific point or if their characters have experienced something particularly harrowing or devastating.
I could use some advice with a recent one, but first, I need to explain some things and describe the previous talents.
Right now, my players are:
Ewan, a Cadian Flight-Lieutenant of the Imperium, who was discovered to be a psyker. He fled, became a pirate, was eventually captured, and just like the rest, he was taken to the Chains of Judgement. They escaped, and now they are in the process of messing up Port Wander while fleeing. Venerates the patron saint of fortress worlds and remains largely unaligned. I have the personal aim of pushing him against Nurgle, he just doesn't know it - ultimately the choice is up to him.
Zharzz, a rogue psyker and explorer from Q'Sal. His ship was partaking in a mission outside of the Screaming Vortex when they were attacked by the Imperial Navy, and all hands are presumed lost. Recently aligned to Tzeentch
Brunner, an imperial guardsman that lost his **** while on special detail and guard duty. Originally from Malfi, but appears to have been somehow taken out of time and place, as his records state that he was taken prisoner thousands of years ago, even before the Chains of Judgement would've been in use. Recently aligned to Khorne during events described below.
And finally, Felicia, a sororitas hospitaller well on her way to full-blown heretic, after losing her cool and violently rebelling and subsequently attempting escape, for reasons largely unknown. She is currently in the process of flirting with the mechanicus, being largely disillusioned with the Imperial Faith after her experiences. She also has a Cursed Heirloom that is a mechanicus jump-pack that really likes her and keeps wrapping it's tendrils around her.
Now, these are the current custom talents I have made and why:

Legate of Uahprahet;
As a servant of Uahprahet and disciple of the Crimson Lord, the Heretic has been superficially marked with the symbol of the Krimson Sight. When spending an Infamy Point during Combat or whilst performing any feat of martial strength or battle, roll a 1d10. On a 1 the Infamy Point is not spent.

This Talent is Aligned to Khorne and counts towards alignment, and counts as an advancement, but it does not cost any experience.

This was awarded Brunner after he decided to start serving under the tutelage of Uahprahet, a (unknown to the players) Herald of Khorne that inhabited the "Body Orchard" (Crew and Prisoner Reclamation Facility) of the Chains of Judgement. Uahprahet teaches discipline and tactics over rage and pure bloodshed, and maintains that no blood should be wasted. Either way, as part of this, Brunner was presented with a set of strictures to follow. Seeing as how the group has now fled the Chains of Judgement and two of them have violated an agreement with Uahprahet, this Talent will likely be taken away from Brunner soon. One of them (Zharzz) was also foolish enough to take a daemon-killing knife that was entrusted to him for the purpose of killing a tzeentchite daemon.

He may still do it, but unless it's soon, Uahprahet will probably start screwing with them. We'll see.

Brutal Fame (Port Wander):
While on Port Wander, due to your brutal display of martial murder, you count as at all times having 10 Infamy higher for all purposes except for Infamy Points. However, around the less upstanding citizens of the station, you are more easily recognized.

This was awarded Brunner after he partook in a fight aboard Port Wander, in the fighting pits of The Last Chance, the moving illegal gambling hall. It was a visceral scene after I as the GM actually screwed up pretty bad and made him face something he couldn't possibly have reasonably won (apparently 3-4 kroot warriors is way too much for one poor Heretic to handle). Brunner lost an arm during this encounter, which was later replaced with a bronze-coloured good-craftsmanship bionic arm.

Either way, after sacrificing Infamy to stay alive, the scene presented ended up searing 1 Corruption into everyone at the location (Remember, 1 Corruption for players is equal to 10 Corruption for NPC's). Brunner then proceeded to have completely demolish the kroots in a scene of utter carnage, and being carted off by a group of secretive khornite cultists, patched up and left on an altar where the rest of the group found him.

The Endless Nine
Coming unhinged from your experience in the bowels of Port Wander and the harrowing experience in facing the forces of the Inquisition, you are rightly obsessed and blessed by the number nine. You cause Zealous Hatred on all Damage Tests of 9 instead of 10.
     Additionally, on a Focus Power Test, if either of the dice shows a 9, you may increase or reduce the final result of any Psychic Phenomena cause by the Focus Power Test by 9 (and only 9!).
     Finally, should you ever roll a 99 on your Focus Power Test, you cause Psychic Phenomena as normal, but you may freely pick from any Psychic Phenomena or Peril of the Warp, you do not need to roll.

This talent does not cost any experience, but it is aligned to Tzeentch, and counts towards your Alignment, even though it was not taken as an advancement.

This was awarded to Zharzz after singlehandedly demolishing a warehouse full of Ordo Chronos Troops and making a complete mess with his psychic powers. At the top of the encounter, he ended up shredding everything he got, and during the course of the encounter, he must have scored at least three or four perils of the warp. The last two shredded all his clothes, damaged all his weapons (he had some weapons that we had specifically called "Q'Sal-pattern"; these were "simply" downgraded to Poor-Craftsmanship, but the Plasma Pistol needs repair).

He was at -1 Wounds (well, 0 wounds, 1 critical damage), and woosh, covered the entire area (~20 metres) in a reality-bending experience that shredded everything and then blasted him for 19 damage ignoring armour. Oh, the joy.

Crawling out of the rubble, he was now more or less naked, he was now aligned to Tzeentch, and the Gift he got through a failing ended up being the "Rule of Nine" disorder. Nines (the holy number of Tzeentch) now carried an addling importance to him. So I thought the above Talent was appropriate.

However, just last session, something happened. Ewan, the aforementioned disenfranchised flight lieutenant, managed to get a double (actually, I think it's the first legit psychic phenomena we've had that wasn't the result of Pushing). What happened?

Mass Possession. In a mass combat scene. There were so many tokens on the table (Roll20) that it took forever to sort out. Brunner resisted and became immune for 24 hours. Ewan easily passed. Zharzz, who entered the scene at that very moment, is still in the process of trying to resist.

Felicia.. was not so lucky.

I'm not sure if everyone knows what unwilling possession does to a character. If you survive the possession (and the rules of Mass Possession states that it "only" lasts for a certain amount of rounds, in our case, the total was 18 rounds).

It's devastating. Felicia have suffered 18 permanent damage to her Willpower. And 20 permanent damage to her Toughness. Yes, she rolled 2x 2d10. Yes, the results were 10+8 and 10+10.


She also took 3 Corruption as through a Failing. I offered to give her an additional 1d5 Corruption not through a failing, letting her finally Align (in this case to Slaanesh) but if she did, she would have to take an additional Mutation as through a failing (there are no rules for this, but the text does say that there can be additional affects, including rampant mutations, for being possessed).


She ended up getting Eye of Chaos (getting Psyniscience and Interrogate) and.. Psuedo-Daemonhood (...sheesh; Fear 4, Warp Instability, Unnatural Agility +2). The other players don't know half of this yet, but it will be revealed to them tomorrow, and things will happen, we'll see if she lives or dies.

My idea is that as everyone was being possessed by bloodletters, as it started inhabiting her, suddenly there's a daemonette out of nowhere, strikes down the bloodletter inside of her, and now the daemonette will go bananas on her body and start ripping the other possessed humans (possessed by bloodletters) apart - and then when the possession is over or the daemon is exorcised, her ribcage will blow apart and she'll lose an arm, and the rest of the group will have to try and patch her up and get her some bionics.

This will play into the idea of Felicia thinking about the weakness of flesh and the frailty of humanity. Either way.

As this first happened, one of my players pointed out that once possessed, by the fluff, it is harder to get possessed again. As one of my players was once possessed by Karnak Zul (the daemon in the Broken Chains adventure), I awarded him with Resistance (Possession).

But I'd like to work out a special Talent, awarded to Felicia, for this event. But I don't want to make it a simple "Resistance (Possession)". Others have gotten custom Talents (although they have not talked to each other about it), and I feel that this experience warrants it.

I have decided that at the very least, Felicia should have a +30 to resist Possessions in the future. She suffered a full-out unwilling daemonic possession that ravaged her hard.

But anything else? I'd love some ideas. I was thinking maybe a +10 or +20 to Forbidden Lore (Daemonology) Tests dealing with identifying Slaaneshi daemons or objects of slaaneshi lore.

Ideas? It should be somewhat in line with previous custom talents I've given, and it's going to be free, but count as aligned to Slaanesh.

Edited by Fgdsfg, 01 September 2014 - 06:07 AM.

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#2 Crystal Geyser

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Posted 01 September 2014 - 09:21 AM

Really interesting stuff! Do you have a blog? You should really consider starting an Actual Play - your players' characters sound really developed and intriguing. 


I did a similar thing with my Rogue Trader campaign, which prompted my friend to do the same thing in his Black Crusade campaign. And boy, if you want to talk about some bad rolling...


It all started with my Rogue Trader group. For interest and convenience, I shall blatantly copy your format below:


Our characters are,


Sylvester Toussant: Inquisitor of the Ordo Malleus, but originally started as a Dark Heresy arbitrator and underwent an insanity-enducing tunnel of body swapping, cybernetic resurrection, mental disorders, xenophile, and many more. Is now utterly insane, but a great character and the most moral of the party - he's the guy who thinks of the smartest solution to the problem. Sylvester has always hated the feudalism and idiocy of the Imperium, which is grounding for one of his later talents.


Bubsy Malone: Radical Missionary of the Ecclesiarchy, now the High Caridnal of our home-brew sector. Believes that the key to destroying Chaos is to use as many resources available to him - which includes daemon weapons, psychic powers, and other heretical phenomena, believing his faith in the Emperor will defend his soul. Suffers from major kleptomania and hoarding issues.


Viktir Blayze: Rogue Trader of the Blayze Dynasty. This character was born out of a hilarious encounter with a Rogue Trader of an NPC House I had created named Anastasia Blayze. After meeting her, Viktir's player gave up his Ork character, who he hand't breally been feeling, and ended up fleshing out the entire Dynasty's fluff as part of his new flashy character. I'm flattered.


And some notable NPCS (believe me, they are worth mentioning:)


Sheh'Lya'Thuul, Exarch of the Dark Prince: Herald Lord of Slaanesh currently squatting inside of Bubsy's looted mirror sword. Due to Bubsy having a Charm Rating of approximately 130 and some very good roleplaying (I prefer my daemons to be sentient an negotiable, and as such ignore some aspects of From Beyond), Chad has agreed to aid Bubsy, thinking he will be rewarded with a cult dedicated to his own worship. As such, the daemon weapon he inhabits, Pryde, is unbound, and Chad is free to come and go as either a suave, attractive young man or a black cat.


Jeff and Enoch: Two tech-priests working alongside Sylvester as his acolytes. Sylvester spent time ripping out the supplemental components on his ship, the Solitaire, to make room for a sprawling lab of xenophiliac maleteks - which, when you do the math of available Space Points vs kilometer length, comes out to be...huge. 


Let me tell you their story.


It all began at the Den of Iniquity - officially designated Port Hraal, where the crew had travelled so as to acquire a set of star charts leading to an Eldar Maiden World. To some of you this may sound familiar to the Lure of the Expanse adventure. That's because it is - however, the only reason the crew were planning on this was because last adventure an Eldar they had met mentioned Grynixes, and suddenly everyone wanted their own adorable ball of psychic kitty fuzz. Go figure.


While at the Den of Inquity, Sylvester was looking for someone who could reliably reverse-engineer and mass-produce xenon technology (this is the story of how he got the maletek lab in the first place). To do so, he met with a local gang lord named Voltrix, of the Skinwalkers void-clan. The Skinwalkers specialize in body horror and surgery, and themes of flaying, flesh, bone and blood feature heavily in their motifs. Luckily for Sylvetser, the Skinwalkers have off-world contact with another faction, First Party, who could reliably do what Sylvester had in mind. After some criminal middle-manning, a deal was arranged and Sylvester was ready to go.




The previous adventure, Sylvester had stabbed a blood daemon with a power sword, resulting in the demonically possessed blodd burning and biting his arms and dealing him corruption. However, Sylvester managed to kill him. Ingeniously, Sylvester invented exploding cigarettes, which I deemed dealt 1d10 critical energy damage to the head upon ingestion. Bang. Andy, Sylvesters player, wanted the Skindwalkers to graft him on some new fleshy arms, to rid himself of the corruption. One of the SKinwalkers' maleteks sat him down in a make-shift back-alley hospital and...


Rolled a 98.


Sylvester woke up to see that his arms had been completely ripped off, replaced with makeshift limbs cobbled together with bits of human, kroot, elder, and other races in a Hellraiser Frankesntien-style stitch-up. He failed his Fear Test abysmally, passed out, and when he awoke found that the maletek had fled, fearing the wrath of his masters. A rolled hallcuonegnic joint was found on a table - my explanation for the maeletek's disastrous failure.


After this, Sylvester irritably had his arms chopped off and replaced with bionics, reminding Voltrix that the Skinwalkers owed him. A few adventures later, Sylvster decides he wants subskin armor - ointeresitng fact, guys, you can make power armor by stacking cranial and subskin armor, arbutus ballistic cloth, and guard flak, which Sylster had as a hooded commissar coat. At this point, Sylvester has bionic arms. Now, he goes to the Skinwalkers wanting subskin armor implants. I roll...


A 97. 


Sylvester, now furiously pissed, demands that Voltrix perform the surgery personally. He does, and passes, but Sylvester takes toughness damage from it.


Later, Sylvester starts to realize that he could be assassinated in the near future (political intrigue and inter-factional disputes is the main theme of the campaign). To ward against this possibility, he requests from the Skinwalkers a bionic digestive system to defend against ingested poisons.


Can you see where this is going?


I represented the 100 as the maletek accidentally implanting a live squig into his stomach.


So, flash forward. Sylvester now has bionic arms, bionic digestion, and subskin armor. The party has gone to a forest world to aid the Imperial Guard against an invasion by the Tau. The crew are smart and engage the Tau ship directly, boarding it and sung their superior muder-servitors to invade the enemy ship. Speaking of which, the players' ship is a ******* nightmare house - Murder-Servitors, Tenebro-maze, Hauntings, and Cherubim Aeires. Even the Dark Eldar have trouble there. Anyhow, Sylvester, with his new detachment of maleteks, grabs a guy to see if he can decipher the ship's controls. Later on, while the players are on the planet's surface, Sylvester voxes the Maletek and asks how it's going.


"Boss, I think I've got it!"


Rolled a 100.




Nuclear explosion.


Fate points were burned.


A few adventures later, Sylvester has acceindtally mind-melded with a daemonette and gained enough corruption points to give him a malignancy - strange addiction. Strange addiction to...

His exploding cigarrettes.


Sylvester decided to aid his chances of survival by getting cranial armor implants. To do so, he grabbed a Maletek aboard his ship and rolled.




At this point I told Andy, Sylvester's player, that if he wanted to burn a fate point for an automatic cyber-ressurection, then I wouldn't roll for medicae. He would just be a robot. Sylvester opted to do so, and now he is a robot.




I decied that this one jackass who keeps rolling terribly is actually the same maletek all along - Jeff. Jeff has a special rule now called Unlucky Charactertis and Disproven. If you recall, the Proven rule provides a minim possible damage result. Well, in jeff's case, I deemed that the Disproven rule means that everything his does that isn't relevant to his Unlucky Charactersitc has to be rolled twice, using the worse result. Unlucky Characteristic is essentially similar to Proven - it provides a minim result that can be rolled for Skill Tests. In this case, Jeff has Unlucky Intelligence (96). Since then, Jeff has been kicked out and replied with a mic young man named Enoch. Enoch rolls 07. On everything. Ever. Its terrifying. The only time he has rolled something else is when, one time, Enoch gave Sylvester some advice on hooking up with members of a different species, even going so far as to give him a grimoire (I rolled a 07 on how much information he had, which was great for Sylvester). Unfortunately, I rolled a d100 to see how debauched and bizarre it was, and rolled a 100. Now, anyone who reads the book gains Insanity Points, and Enoch himself is...well.


As for Sylvester...


Sylvester has the Done Talent. Being Done is more than just a Talent. It's a lifestyle. Being Done is to have denounced all that it optimistic and open in the universe. Being Done is to look down in spite on the galaxy that has destroyed itself. Being Done is to  have been wronged by the galaxy and know that it isn't fair, and that the capricious gods care not. Being Done is to know that the Emperor is dead, the universe is doomed, and that humanity is flickering on its last edges.


Sylvester is Done.


Basically, the Done Talent is available to characters who role-play as having utterly no faith in the universe. Extremely pessimistic, basically. The Done Talent grants Cold Hearted, Resistance (Fear, Psychic Powers), and Hatred (All).

  • Fgdsfg likes this

#3 Fgdsfg



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Posted 01 September 2014 - 09:53 AM

Hah, I really love the idea of the Done Talent. I have a player that keeps rolling exceptionally poor in some circumstances, so I might end up in a similar situation at some point.


Either way, I ended up settling for this:



Explosive Depossession
   Surviving the sudden mass possession caused by Ewan's errant bolt of energy have left you scarred, deformed and possibly demented. The experience was harrowing in the extremes, and have marked your very soul in more ways than can be counted by mere mortals.
   You gain a +30 to resist any and all further attempts at daemonic possession, no matter the source or circumstance, however, you are also unable to willingly serve as a daemonhost, remembering the experience as something disturbing beyond belief.
   Additionally, you gain a +20 to all Tests involving the identification of slaaneshi daemons or the divination or interpretation of slaaneshi writings, marks or symbols.

This Talent is Aligned to Slaanesh and counts towards alignment, and counts as an advancement, but it does not cost any experience.

Edited by Fgdsfg, 01 September 2014 - 09:55 AM.

Gamergate Primer

Unified WH40kRP Ruleset Homebrew - Personal Notes
