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Night10194 posted:What's always weird to me is how often the doomed character is an innocent young woman. reading this realizing that I absolutely remember looking through the book and kinda hating it precisely because of this kinda thing.
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Apr 25, 2020 04:22
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PurpleXVI posted:I mean seriously, how badly do you have to screw up to have your players not take quest hooks? I've got my players taking hooks I haven't even tried to offer them and needing to improvise even more adventure than planned as a result. Players want adventure and to get involved in weird, violent and profitable things, that's their natural adjustment in 99% of all cases.  Don't prewritten adventures for WHFRP have a fairly common streak of not being that last bit?
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Apr 25, 2020 04:29
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I could only imagine hag stuff is too close to witchcraft for the Empire to stomach given the general distrust of even the professional colleges they have.
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Apr 25, 2020 04:31
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The thing that stands out to me is that most of the adventures in THIS book do pay you (or never promised pay because you're trying to survive, but also have helpful lists of how much everything you can loot sells for, anticipating that PCs will loot everything that looks saleable) and how commonly they're actually sensibly balanced for a low level party. Some of them can even be done without any combat, like the next mission. Just, you know. Tendency for brutalized women, etc. It's weird. Bretonnia and Kislev are great on gender stuff. A lot of the adventures...not so much. And yet Bretonnia's explanation of how being a second class citizen works, how people internalize it, how people rebel against it, resist it, or don't fit into it, or Kislev just plain making it not an issue in their country works so well. It's the stuff in the Empire that struggles with it, because they want to make the Empire in a position where 'women doing any kind of job' happens and is officially allowed, but is considered the exception. In trying to make someone like Ulrike unusual, they lean the wrong way on allowing a lot more leeway for sexist material and tend to lean a lot on damsels in distress (like a lot of not-as-well-written fantasy) with the added unfortunate element of many of the authors trying to make it brutal/have the PCs fail their rescue, which adds further uncomfortable dimensions.
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Apr 25, 2020 04:37
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Adding female equality is a break from the "commonly accepted" depiction of early modern Germany that the WHFB Empire likes to imitate (please note I said commonly accepted there before anyone jumps on me with examples from history). Since this is a game that justifies a lot of it's systems with "it's more realistic this way", there's now a break from reality that the writers have to grudgingly accommodate for. The rest is bitter grog GMs who got turned down for dates, using gritty realism and dark tones as an excuse to indulge themselves. I'LL GET YOU SADIE HAWKINS! I'LL GET YOU EVEN IF I HAVE TO WRITE YOU INTO MY ADVENTURE MODULE AS A NURGLE CULTIST! Mix this with the way that the Empire sourcebooks are always going to be the first released for any given line, before the really good freelancers show up, and you get the position with 2e. "Yes yes you can be a girl and do whatever you want. But we'll be sure to make it weird." Or to put it more simply, these authors would really rather the female characters get back in the kitchen and focus on being hideous cultists who our heroes have to burn at the stake, but the game has this editorial mandate to allow gender equality. So they rebel against it.
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Apr 25, 2020 11:05
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It's also something that comes up less and less often the later you look in the books for 2e (stuff like Tome of Salvation doesn't really have this problem, Thousand Thrones is something of an exception to this rule), including the Empire books, and by the time you get to 4th Ed has been dropped completely. 4th Ed's fluff is completely free of the 'ambiguous position of men and women leaves room for sexist or misogynist elements to creep into Empire writing' problem. Mostly because they just decided 'gently caress it' and went with not only 'men and women are significantly more equal and equally represented in government' but decided to add in 'also Rhyan religion means the Empire has religious cause to accept same sex couples' rather than the uncomfortable 'Slaanesh gets associated with queer sexuality way too often' thing. Much more of an acknowledgement of 'We're writing FANTASY Early Modern Germany, we can change some poo poo so that more people can enjoy this game.' which is a very good thing. There might be parts of 4e I'm a bit iffy on (I'm not so fond of the 'elves have literally no emotional middle and can't suffer physical mutation' thing) but the fluff is generally something I'll happily say is excellent, and I'm quite glad of it. As is the art. It's basically a problem that gets fixed eventually. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 12:01 on Apr 25, 2020 |
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Apr 25, 2020 11:48
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Now if only 40k could catch up to treating women equally.
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Apr 25, 2020 14:26
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Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e: Plundered Vaults Flaming Screaming Skull The second scenario for our heroes is another investigative scenario, but it is a tremendously treasureful sidequest. They're a little underleveled for it (they're meant to be at the start of second careers) but it's perfectly doable where they are now if you avoid some of the bafflingly pointless combat that can come up. There's an assumed fight with another adventuring party that not only has no reason to occur, it's quite dangerous (they have a Slayer and a Light Mage, and ya'll saw what a Light Mage can do from Syphan. Our team is not well suited to flashbangs and laser eyes). It's a sort of mistaken identity thing that could probably be sorted out by talking. Otherwise, this quest is mostly solved by solving a delightful version of a Warhammer scooby doo mystery. I actually quite like Grapes of Wrath. Our heroes did not think they were getting into flaming screaming skull territory. That's not usually something you prepare for. We pick up on them traveling by coach in style to Carroburg, on the Altdorf-Middenheim road. They could afford it and they like to do something nice for themselves sometimes after an adventure like Sing for your Supper. They've also buffed up a bit; they got the full 300 EXP for Sausage Adventure and the money went to making sure everyone has at least full light armor. This amusingly means Gilbert has 5 head armor. His head is very hard. Gilbert bought up WS and Str, Ulrike Tough and WS, so they're like mirrors of each other. Elena got Strike to Stun (her whole thing is disabling people) and 2 BS advances. Karl got smarter and more personable (helping his Heal check). Vendrick bought up Agi and Int as he can't really get better with his bow without promoting. They're all notably better than they started, but have a long way to go. They're traveling with a pair of young sisters and their bodyguard, since they caught the same coach. Everyone's making smalltalk. Then the flaming, screaming skulls arrive, assaulting the coach, driving the horses crazy, and causing it to tip over. Which kills the girls' bodyguard (neck broken in the crash) and wounds almost everyone (Damage 3 hit ignoring armor for anyone failing Agi-10, which they all managed to do. Even the elf). Karl dusts himself off and gets to healing everyone he can, tending cracked ribs and twisted ankles while Elena and Ulrike bury the poor bodyguard. They're still stuck in the woods at night, with two frightened teens (17 and 19, so actually older than Gilbert and Karl) and a shaken coachman. The coach horses have run off, but thankfully Ulrike and Gilbert's warhorses (who were following along) haven't. Lots of adventures don't really make allowance for the PCs having mounts. The girls have family at a nearby village, and it's much closer than the nearest coaching inn; the delay would have them reach it after dark, when the gates are closed against Beastmen. Shockingly, there's no random ambush in this section. It's just intended to show you flaming screaming skulls are a local problem and derail your initial travel plans. They help Elise and Bertha onto the horses and trot off for the nearby village. The book notes any dashing male PC helping and calming down the sisters might get a bit of flirting or interest, and a dashing (if very young) knight of Bretonnia chivalrously offering a frightened young lady a ride probably qualifies. This actually does partly lead into the adventure; their family in the next town is eager to pay for any PC the girls are interested to go investigate the flaming screaming skull problem to get them away before the daughter of a highly prosperous Altdorf wool merchant decides she'd like a politically unhelpful match with a dashing adventurer. Attempts to stop Gilbert from getting into inappropriate affairs aside, the girls' aunt and uncle own an inn in the nearby village of Grubentreich. While the heroes don't get paid cash for seeing them safely there, they do get a safe, clean place to sleep, a full supper, plenty to drink, and enough food to fill their packs for the road, so it's hardly unrewarded. The story of phantom skulls matches with stories from a wine merchant just come from the town of Pritzstock, mentioning they were having trouble with screaming, flaming skulls trying to disrupt the grape harvest. Gilbert is now extremely interested, as these beasts have not only menaced fair maidens (and are probably beasts of Chaos) but now they're threatening wine. Vendrick agrees, this is most unnatural (and an excuse to have wine instead of beer sounds good to him). Trying to get Gilbert out of the inn sooner rather than later as the sisters have been making eyes at him, their uncle offers to pay for someone to take the protagonists by cart on their normal run to Pritzstock to trade. They happily agree, having now defrayed their travel expenses, gotten free food and drink, and had a decent rest. Pritzstock is an interesting situation. They're walking into a situation with multiple possible solutions. The mayor of Pritzstock is a suspicious and emotionally unstable Bretonnian immigrant, Henri-Phillipe Rocheteau. He is also the cause of its troubles. You see, Mssr. Rocheteau is something of a hypocrite, and a little bit of a psycho when things strike him. He has had many mistresses, as he feels befits a man of his station. His wife, seeing this, decided they had an open relationship and took to seeing a wine merchant she was in love with on the side. Mssr. Rocheteau operates on the principle that it's only fun when he does it, and became furious about this. When he discovered the merchant Stefan was sleeping with his wife, she wasn't around to have a proper argument with, which would have defused things (he likes arguing with his wife) he was extra furious. So he stewed and thought about his 'lost honor', and being a weirdo, decided he would murder Stefan. He lured him in with a false letter from his wife Elisabet while she was in Altdorf on business, got him drunk, and then bricked him up in the wine cellar like he was loving Fortunado. You never go full Montressor, Henri-Phillipe! He got away with it, too. Elisabet was heartbroken when she didn't see Stefan again, assuming he had left her and moved on. No-one noticed the man going missing. People go missing on the road all the time. Except Stefan had a brother. A brother who loved him very much and who intended to investigate. A brother who is a Master Bright Wizard. When you murder someone, be certain they don't have loving kin who can throw fireballs and are known for being driven to impulsive action by the influence of a powerful wind of sorcery. Henri-Phillipe has no idea Stefan had a twin, and Dieter hasn't directly shown up in town. Showing Dieter to Henri-Phillipe will cause him to have a Telltale Heart moment and potentially go crazy and/or think Stefan somehow escaped the brickwork. It's a fun time. Dieter, meanwhile, while coming to investigate the last known location of his brother, stumbled on an old cave full of wizard cocaine while sheltering for the night. There's an old battlefield near Pritzstock, and some of the awful stuff was left nearby. Dieter being a Bright Wizard, and the Warpstone calling to wizards anyway, he couldn't quite resist it. He stayed to study things, and discovered the Warpstone is powering projectable FLAMING SCREAMING SKULL drones. Which he decided was the perfect way to get convoluted vengeance. He's also talking to the angry ghost of his brother through the power of the evil cocaine cave, which is telling him to get the most metal possible revenge on Henri-Phillipe by forcing the town to hand him over to be rent apart by FLAMING SCREAMING SKULLS. Dieter is not making good life decisions right now. This is like that bear that ODed on cocaine after it fell out of a plane, but with an angry wizard. At the same time, a Light Mage and his companions are also investigating the situation, unknown to the town. A local boy sent a letter to his adventuring Journeyman Mage uncle about 'evil ghosts', and the Light Mage grabbed his Slayer buddy and three companions and came to check it out. Being a Mage of the Order known for introspection and caution, Otto Baldurich has sensed the cocaine problem and is pondering what the heck to do about the cave while his Slayer buddy gets increasingly impatient. The heroes may be mistaken for cultists aiding the crazy cave wizard and if they aren't careful, might end up in a pointless fight with Otto and his team. So this is the mess they're riding into. To be honest, they know something's going to be crazy. FLAMING SCREAMING SKULLS don't mean sane things are going to happen. But it's going to be a long couple days in Pritzstock. Especially once Gilbert realizes the place is merely famous for its reisling. Next Time: How To Catch A Skull
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Apr 25, 2020 14:55
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Libertad! posted:
The Shadow dragon Template is actually in the Fifth edition "Monster Manual" Page 84-85. It basicly boil down to switching the elemental type of the breath weapon, resistance, etc to necrotic, adding sunlight sensitivity and additional protection when in shadow. I don't blame you for forgetting these, they are not often used and are stuck at the beginning of the dragon entries instead of in their own sections.
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Apr 25, 2020 17:21
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Night10194 posted:Sausages This just occurred to me. The writer of this adventure goes out of his way to have a "German" food central to the plot and hint about people being ground up into sausage har har but doesn't acknowledge the hilarious period-accurate food laws in early modern Germany? The culture this is drawn from had some serious hangups and phobias around tainted meat and dishonest butchers. There should, at the very least be the option to call up an angry mob for the finale there. What I am saying is that a far better introduction to a "dark and gritty with black humour" setting would be the players getting a wannabe sorcerer burned at the stake because of his terrible food hygiene rather than the actual consorting with dark gods.
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Apr 25, 2020 17:30
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Loxbourne posted:What I am saying is that a far better introduction to a "dark and gritty with black humour" setting would be the players getting a wannabe sorcerer burned at the stake because of his terrible food hygiene rather than the actual consorting with dark gods. I've also been struck by the idea of doing an Al Capone in Talabheim: the downfall of the villain isn't that he's consorting with the dark gods (though he is), it's the fact that he's been evading taxes.
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Apr 25, 2020 18:24
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Loxbourne posted:This just occurred to me. The writer of this adventure goes out of his way to have a "German" food central to the plot and hint about people being ground up into sausage har har but doesn't acknowledge the hilarious period-accurate food laws in early modern Germany? The culture this is drawn from had some serious hangups and phobias around tainted meat and dishonest butchers. There should, at the very least be the option to call up an angry mob for the finale there. The PCs reveal to the guy's insane cultist followers that he's been watering down their beer, and the cult immediately tears itself apart.
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Apr 25, 2020 18:56
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 Who wants to learn about Horse Guns??? Equipment So melee weapons are uninteresting: it's just stolen from every fantasy RPG you've ever seen. Firearms are hilarious though because, as you'd imagine for a libertarian brony, they really like guns. Firstly, Guns come in two models: Canidian and Roan built. Canidian guns use gunpowder as you'd expect, but Roan built guns use *magical force crystals*. Deckers Guns that attach to a pony's hooves and are paired. They are literally Punch Guns that shoot when you punch people with them. So cartoon horses strap pistols to their hooves and then gun-punch you to death. Other weapons are your typical Pistols, Revolvers, SMG's, Rifles, and Shotguns. It's just notable that there are also weird melee punchguns built for horses to combat-box you to death. Now while he rules are very minimalistic and generic Gun Rules they add tons of description of how these guns work and who makes them. Literally multiple arms-manufacturers are highlighted with their contributions to Pony Gun Technology. Let's go over it! Pony Designed Firearms As you'd imagine, it makes no sense for horses to use guns, because they don't got any fingers. Unicorns I guess can use them, as they have telekinesis but no one else can. That is if you assume coherent gun design that isn't loving Stupid! So types of Pony Guns: Pistols, as shown here:  Are strapped to one hoof. The other hoof pulls the trigger. The art doesn't show the Pony's standing on two legs with one hoof on their gun, but that's how it be.   This art shows how pony guns actually work: Goofy gently caress off huge triggers sized for goddamn horse hooves. Like that's literally it: they have really big triggers for pulling with hooves. Now, you may be wondering, how do you do anything else with a gun like reload, switch the safety, clean it, etc. with horse hooves? So, who wants to learn about Cartoon Animal World's military industrial complex!?  Canidian Firearms While Pony's have horse hooves, Dogs have actual hands with fingers, and therefore make Normal Human Guns. Pony's can still use them though! How?  ROBOT HANDS!!!!  ROBOT HANDS FOR STRANGLING NAKED DOGS!!!!  HANDS LIKE PEOPLE HAVE! BUT FOR HOOOOORSES!!!!
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Apr 25, 2020 19:58
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On a certain level 'we have tons of gun manufacturers and stuff but none of them do anything differently mechanically' is fine. More games should do that in principle. On a certain level, no-one cares that much at the level RPGs are simulating if you have a Thompson or a Grease Gun, they're both just SMGs. Why is there such an obsession with the horses firing guns exactly like a human, though. They are horses. Their body is not set up for upright movement or standing that way. They are not going to do 'cool sniper action pose'. Their legs do not work this way. I did not need the naked dog strangling.
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Apr 25, 2020 20:08
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so how does this fit into rainbow dash needing to learn she doesnt need to be so competitive
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Apr 25, 2020 21:01
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If you want horses with guns just play Ironclaw goddamnit. Except the bit where the horses there don't actually like guns. E: What are you meant to even do in this game, help the united fruit company colonize Equestria and enforce an apple monopoly? Night10194 fucked around with this message at 21:12 on Apr 25, 2020 |
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Apr 25, 2020 21:07
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Dawgstar posted:so how does this fit into rainbow dash needing to learn she doesnt need to be so competitive if she had a gun, she wouldn't need to be so competitive, clearly, because she could shoot people
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Apr 25, 2020 21:49
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Cythereal posted:Now if only 40k could catch up to treating women equally. It's getting better. The new edition of Wrath and Glory largely gives equal representation. With the only exceptions being called out. Namely Space Marines are all male, cause in universe the implants have so far only worked on some male biologies. and GW has not retconned that yet. And the Sisters of Battle are all Female, cause only women are allowed to join.
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Apr 25, 2020 21:53
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Night10194 posted:He's also talking to the angry ghost of his brother through the power of the evil cocaine cave, which is telling him to get the most metal possible revenge on Henri-Phillipe Are angry ghosts, like, a known thing in the setting? You'd think that would put a bit of a brake on the secret murders.
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Apr 25, 2020 22:42
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Glazius posted:Are angry ghosts, like, a known thing in the setting? You'd think that would put a bit of a brake on the secret murders. They are but they're usually pretty incoherent (or outright can't talk and just keep gesturing frantically or something) and this one is probably him hallucinating because of cocaine skulls made of hell energy. Don't do cocaine skulls. Even Revacholian royalty can't handle them! Still spooky ghosts are usually more of 'a clue to the murder' rather than 'yeah that guy is the rear end in a top hat who bricked me up in the wall'. E: Checked and in this case it's his brother's spirit, which is insanely pissed off beyond all belief, but ALSO the cocaine skulls making it worse, which is why Dieter starts off trying to Scooby Doo things but if the PCs take too long starts hurting people, then killing them. Because he's being hosed with by all these supernatural forces and he's magically sensitive. The faster you solve things, the more you can save Dieter from himself and the vengeful ghost, too. Also it might not be Stefan because Cocaine Skulls and may just be a demon loving with his head. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Apr 25, 2020 |
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Apr 25, 2020 22:46
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Wapole Languray posted:While Pony's have horse hooves, Dogs have actual hands with fingers, and therefore make Normal Human Guns. Pony's can still use them though! How? ahahahahahaha holy poo poo, robot horse power armor with hands, amazing
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Apr 25, 2020 22:55
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Night10194 posted:If you want horses with guns just play Ironclaw goddamnit. Since the rest of equipment is just copy-paste stuff from every other WWII Pulp style game you can imagine, the next update will be 21 sample characters/NPCs/My Little McCarthyist Pony OC's that each have full page art and stats and fan-written bios that are completely unedited in any way. So... you'll see what sorta characters the game assumes you're making.
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Apr 25, 2020 23:59
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Wapole Languray posted:Since the rest of equipment is just copy-paste stuff from every other WWII Pulp style game you can imagine, the next update will be 21 sample characters/NPCs/My Little McCarthyist Pony OC's that each have full page art and stats and fan-written bios that are completely unedited in any way. So... you'll see what sorta characters the game assumes you're making. Have they/will they even mention any characters from the show?
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Apr 26, 2020 01:07
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The really funny thing is that they insist on having all these weird devices to show how ponies can use guns instead of how it'd work in the show, which is ponies just use guns/sewing machines/doorknobs/typewriters whatever and it just works, shut up, we're telling a story that's not all about stupid robot hands.
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Apr 26, 2020 01:29
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Ratoslov posted:The really funny thing is that they insist on having all these weird devices to show how ponies can use guns instead of how it'd work in the show, which is ponies just use guns/sewing machines/doorknobs/typewriters whatever and it just works, shut up, we're telling a story that's not all about stupid robot hands. And there's the crux of the issue, they don't really have a story to tell that's not all about stupid robot hands and special hoof guns.
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Apr 26, 2020 01:35
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Ratoslov posted:The really funny thing is that they insist on having all these weird devices to show how ponies can use guns instead of how it'd work in the show, which is ponies just use guns/sewing machines/doorknobs/typewriters whatever and it just works, shut up, we're telling a story that's not all about stupid robot hands. This is part of the defensiveness - it's surely not creepy to cover a children's cartoon setting with guns'n'libertarianism if you do it in intense and loving detail. The rest is just the usual nerd phase of "put something I like into something else I like". I don't expect we'll see any characters from the TV show but we'll probably get the Sun/Moon duology turned into organised religion, probably with lots of fluff that boils down to "here are the swear words your magical horses should use". The silly thing is that if this game actually has the makings of an entertaining 40s/50s-era feds-and-Thompsons game, sorta like Lackadiasy with ponies. If it were less self-conscious and just embraced the sheer silliness of the premise, there could be some genuine fun here.
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Apr 26, 2020 01:53
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wdarkk posted:Have they/will they even mention any characters from the show? No, because they sell this for money.
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Apr 26, 2020 01:54
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I like that Lackadaisy uses cats entirely because the artist likes drawing their crazy expressions.
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Apr 26, 2020 02:01
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MonsterEnvy posted:It's getting better. The new edition of Wrath and Glory largely gives equal representation. With the only exceptions being called out. Namely Space Marines are all male, cause in universe the implants have so far only worked on some male biologies. and GW has not retconned that yet. And the Sisters of Battle are all Female, cause only women are allowed to join. The Sisters of Battle are an embarrassment, in my book. Amazon factions tend to be, for me, unless there's actual women driving their development and portrayal.
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Apr 26, 2020 02:04
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Wapole Languray posted:HANDS LIKE PEOPLE HAVE! BUT FOR HOOOOORSES!!!!
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Apr 26, 2020 02:08
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Cythereal posted:The Sisters of Battle are an embarrassment, in my book. Amazon factions tend to be, for me, unless there's actual women driving their development and portrayal. On the plus side at least, the model revamp in the last year updated the old very cheesecakey repentia models, so no more purity seal bikini stuff.
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Apr 26, 2020 02:28
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Cythereal posted:The Sisters of Battle are an embarrassment, in my book. Amazon factions tend to be, for me, unless there's actual women driving their development and portrayal. Out of curiosity what is embarrassing about them to you. ( I actually know very little about the faction, other than the basics. Militant Nuns created as the Ecclesiarchy's standing army, is women only to exploit a loophole.)
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Apr 26, 2020 02:55
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MonsterEnvy posted:Out of curiosity what is embarrassing about them to you. ( I actually know very little about the faction, other than the basics. Militant Nuns created as the Ecclesiarchy's standing army, is women only to exploit a loophole.) It's a little hard to put into words, but beyond the bikini-clad fanservice Desiden mentioned that's apparently being phased out, but... I think maybe the best way to put it is that they feel like a guy's idea of what women would find badass. I find there's an undercurrent of pandering to them, that they're too designed by committee, and there's a sense of "You can't be the REAL badasses of 40k, but these ladies are almost as good!" Also, the fact of the matter is that for most of 40k's history, the Sisters have been a punchline. When they're not being completely psychotic to just plain stupid (which even otherwise good about women book series like Ciaphas Cain have indulged in), 40k writers seem to relish Sisters getting brutalized and massacred, even by Imperial forces - see also that whole thing where the Grey Knights massacred a convent of Sisters to use their blood as anti-daemon wards. They're mostly absent from fluff not specifically about them, and most of the time they do appear it's either to make them the victim or they're just mentioned in passing as People Who Are Also Here. The "You can't be the REAL badasses, but here's this all-women faction!" bit really annoys me. Yes, there are women Guardsmen. They're almost entirely absent from the model range and artwork. And they're just plain not present in the two flagship armies of the setting, Space Marines and their Chaos counterparts. I'm not here to argue for or against women Space Marines, but the total absence of women from the armies that enjoy the vast majority of the game's advertising and fluff is telling. Sisters are extremely niche and low profile by contrast. They wear power armor, but not as good as the real Space Marines. Almost their entire arsenal is borrowed from the Marines, but not as good. They have Acts of Faith, but it's generally not as good as Marine powers of various kinds. Saint Celestine, the Sisters' super-special flagship character? First she got chumped by Abbadon, then by Kharn. Because hey, she resurrects every time she's killed, everyone can kill her to show how badass they are and she'll just come back! Again, her special ability is that she dies. Women are wholly absent from the Orks, too, and don't give me that garbage about Orks being monogender, they're universally referred to as masculine. There's exactly one Necron woman in fluff to date, and she's from a no longer supported Forge World thing. And for gently caress's sake lay off the drat boobplate. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 03:19 on Apr 26, 2020 |
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Apr 26, 2020 03:11
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Cythereal posted:Also, the fact of the matter is that for most of 40k's history, the Sisters have been a punchline. When they're not being completely psychotic to just plain stupid (which even otherwise good about women book series like Ciaphas Cain have indulged in), Yeah it's kind of shame they were punchline for a long time. I have heard their new book and recent fluff have at least been treating them kinder, but this is just hearsay from me as I have not read it or much recent stuff featuring them. But on the psychotic to plain stupid part. I can't fault them too much for that as that is the Ecclesiarchy in a nutshell. The really devout members of the imperial faith tend to be crazy. I have heard of the Grey Knights killing a convent of them thing. It seems to be pretty universally hated. Anyway thanks for explaining.
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Apr 26, 2020 03:33
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MonsterEnvy posted:But on the psychotic to plain stupid part. I can't fault them too much for that as that is the Ecclesiarchy in a nutshell. The really devout members of the imperial faith tend to be crazy. Having an in-setting reason why the women-dominated army is psychotic and stupid doesn't help. Because oh isn't it a shame that we've established that it's fluffy and in-character for all those women to act dumb am i rite fellas.
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Apr 26, 2020 03:36
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Don't ponies in the show (except for unicorns) explicitly use their lips for most things, like writing? (Horse lips are fantastically dextrous. They can untie a knotted rope with them.)
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Apr 26, 2020 03:52
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Cythereal posted:Having an in-setting reason why the women-dominated army is psychotic and stupid doesn't help. Because oh isn't it a shame that we've established that it's fluffy and in-character for all those women to act dumb am i rite fellas. Good point.
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Apr 26, 2020 04:12
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If anything you'd figure that someone like Fabius Bile would figure out how to male female CSM's even if just to make the Imperium shriek in perfectly masculine terror at the thought of getting owned by some strong, scary women.
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Apr 26, 2020 07:41
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Cythereal posted:Having an in-setting reason why the women-dominated army is psychotic and stupid doesn't help. Because oh isn't it a shame that we've established that it's fluffy and in-character for all those women to act dumb am i rite fellas. I think the larger issue is that at some point 40k become a setting that people started taking seriously instead of the satire that's about fascist space catholics. Trying to treat 40k like it's anything other than total dumb nonsense was the real problem, not the dumb space nuns.
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Apr 26, 2020 07:59
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| # ? Jun 6, 2024 17:28 |
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 Heart: The City Beneath 10 - The World of Heart  So as previously-established, the Heart is a twisting, ever-changing warren of tunnels and caverns, where reality starts to fray and break down the closer you get to the center. But people still live here; it wasn't always quite this bad. So what made it worse? The usual - Aelfir and humans Digging Too Deep in the name of efficient public transport. You see, countless civilisations have laid claim to the Spire over the millenia (it's prime real estate after all), and all of them have, to some degree or another, dug down beneath the city. Every time, this has slightly weakened whatever mechanism it is that maintains the division between material reality outside the Heart, and the places within which are much more fluid, much more affected by thought and belief. And then some bright spark decided to use it as a source of power to run a train network. The resulting backlash led to the tracks and tunnels twisting around each other, warping through space and time, puncturing holes into other dimensions. Hasty wards and large amounts of concrete have served to stop too much of the Heart breaking through into the City Above, and the entire network was boarded up (and the Aelfir pretend the whole affair never happened). So now there's scattered settlements, some of opportunists, trying to exploit the energies and properties of the Heart as it is now, and some that pre-date the Vermissian experiment, and can remember a time when things were decidedly safer down there. The problem is, the Heart itself hears the thoughts, stories and prayers of those that live within it, and it tries, in a blind, incompetant way, to fulfill these wishes. There's never been a bear in the City Below, but if someone thinks of one, the Heart might try to make one. Pity it has no real idea of what a bear is. The Inhabitants The pressure of thought and belief can 'scar' areas of the Heart, rendering it stable and relatively save, and these Landmarks provide home to many of the settlements and factions in the City Below. The further you are from a Landmark, and the deeper you go, the more the landscape reacts to the very act of observing it, or telling stories about it. But within the settlements, you could almost believe things were normal, for a given value of the term, and this is one of the few things that helps keep the people down here fairly sane. Of course, anyone who was entirely right in the head would have left a long time ago, but everyone down here has something that keeps them here; poverty, obsession or religious obligation being common reasons. Amongst it all, there's still a sense of humanity (in the broadest sense of the term). Wherever there are people, there is art; settlements are carved and painted in a myriad of styles, books are horded, edited, re-mixed and songs are sung, with cartography held as the highest art of all; relying on drug-induced fugues and ecstatic states to try to map the City Below. Religion is another thing the inhabitants cling to; and many outlawed or exiled faiths have a nexus of worshippers in the Heart, from the Church of the Moon Below, the cult of Charnel, the gnollish carrion-god, Ishkrah; the spider-goddess, ally of the drow and protector of their children, to worship of the Many, a patchwork of half-forgotten deities from the drow homelands of Ys. Or there are those who just lose themselves to the Heart itself. There are even a few significant factions that have a presence across a large are of the Heart. AThe Hounds enforce a perilous form of order in the City Below, the remnents of a long-lost regiment of soldiers from the Spire. The Church of the Moon Below has shrines and missionaries in many settlements, often mixing with more orthodox worship of the Damou - the drow triple-goddess. The Vermissian Collective has roots anywhere the rails travel; outlawed historian-magi who use the stations and tunnels as a repository of the lost history of the drow, as well as a way to extract what might have been from alternate realities. The Gryndel Hunting Club on the other hand are just down here for the challenge; chasing down horrific hearts-blood beasts before retiring to their secret lodges for brandy and cigars. Even the Ministry, a paramilitary revolutionary cult who wage a clandestine war against the Aelfir have a presence here, digging up riches or secrets to help them in their secret conflict. Any of these factions can find a use for a team of delvers; desperate or insane enough to travel deep into the Heart. Time and Geography Time is fluid in the City Below, more so the deeper you travel. This, and the absence of the sun (or at least, the absence of the same sun that shines above-ground), mean that many settlements will maintain bells, rung on the hour, to keep track of days and nights. The Heart even has distinct seasons, called pulses, from Rot where the dirt is hungry, to Breath when strange winds sing through the tunnels, and half a dozen more beside, but even these are of varying and unpredictable length. The geography of the Heart can be divided into tiers. In general, the deeper you go, the weirder things get, and the more organic the landscape becomes. No-one knows, or can agree on, what the Heart itself exactly is, but its manifestations definately feel alive; red, wet and twitching. Tier 0 is the City Above, down as far as the upper reaches of Derelictus, where things are, broadly-speaking, normal. Tier 1 is the City Between; Derelictus, and the shallower parts of the under-city. Things are a little strange here, but nothing that couldn't be explained away by dodgy magic and esoteric occultism. Settlements here are fairly common, the people aren't too touched by the Heart. Tier 2 is where things start to get strange; landmarks wander and havens are few, and those that exist are unsettling to people from above. Monsters and things creep in when you're not looking and the song of the Heart gets stronger. Tier 3 is where things like time and gravity start to break down, and holes open to other worlds and parasitic realities. There is no rhyme or reason to space here; you might emerge under the light of an alien sun, or a forest in a pitch-black cavern. Nobody lives this deep, at least not anything you'd usually think of as a person. Tier 4. The Heart, the wet red heaven that beats at the center of the City Beneath. You can't come back from here - anything that does isn't you anymore. Fractures are other-spaces, shortcuts through the Heart, as well as stable doorways to other realities, or even to the afterlives of the cultures of the City Above. They're weird, but it's a logical, understandable weird. Next: Notable Landmarks
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Apr 26, 2020 10:39
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