Sea of Stars - OOC III

[Leon]

Hey everyone, just a heads up, I won't be around for a few days. Going on a small family vacation, expect to be back on Friday.

Ive been offline for a week and a few days with technical trouble

[rax]

Ive been offline for a week and a few days with technical trouble

Obviously Ravia is more of heretek than we thought.

[Blarghy]

I'm having internet issues at home too (although I still do most of my posting from work anyway, when I can, like now). And car trouble. And some personal things weighing on my mind. Fortunately Kennoch is off on his own at the moment, so that shouldn't slow the rest of you down, but I'll keep up as best I can until things smooth out.

[PotatoGolem]

The girlfriend and I have both had the 'rona over the past couple weeks, so that's slowing me a bit. Turns out, it's not super fun. Luckily, I think we're past the worst of it now.

[Destro_Yersul]

The girlfriend and I have both had the 'rona over the past couple weeks, so that's slowing me a bit. Turns out, it's not super fun. Luckily, I think we're past the worst of it now.

Everyone I've talked to who's had that has said it doth sucketh, so I'm glad to hear you're doing ok now. I've managed to dodge it entirely myself, somehow, and I hope to keep it that way.

It probably helps that I never go anywhere or do anything.

[Haval]

It probably helps that I never go anywhere or do anything.

Same for the most part. I'm probably due getting it.

Glad to hear you're improving Potato.

[PotatoGolem]

Everyone I've talked to who's had that has said it doth sucketh, so I'm glad to hear you're doing ok now. I've managed to dodge it entirely myself, somehow, and I hope to keep it that way.

It probably helps that I never go anywhere or do anything.

Same for the most part. I'm probably due getting it.

Glad to hear you're improving Potato.

Thanks guys! I think we're mostly out of it now, although I still get bursts of intense fatigue for no real reason and we're sleeping more than usual (or more tired than usual).

Sadly, we're both back to in-office four days a week, which is probably where I picked it up. Lots of people at work have been getting it recently.

[Destro_Yersul]

Ok, so Echo is looking for some stuff that's weird, and in some places outright proscribed, and the stretch on the Dynasty's funding right now means he can't just throw money around to dredge it up. Echo also, crucially, lacks skill at negotiations and finding things. You don't have Inquiry, Evaluate, Barter, Commerce, or anything similar. Worse, you're a Voidborn Navigator. Thanks to Ill-Omened mixed with Scorn of Dirt Dwellers, you've got -15 on Fellowship tests with the locals. Anything not Fellowship based, fortunately, is only -5. You can roll Inquiry as a basic skill, but you only have a 2% chance of success. Honestly, if you passed that check, I'd say you've been so astoundingly fortunate as to stumble upon exactly what you need, but it'll still take time to do, pass or fail.

Honestly, I'm not sure how to handle this, which is why this update took me so long, and I still don't have great ideas. You could ask the crew to roll against their rating on your behalf, but then they'd all know what you're doing. You could ask Anika for help, but she's busy with the investigations. I'm open to suggestions, but Echo's skillset is really not suited to this task. The only interaction skill he's great at is Intimidate. You don't really have appropriate trade or lore skills for it, either.

Moreover, the main thing that I can think of as a downside to the search is time. You could just say you're going to every weird curio shop in the hive, but that'd take forever. Only, 'forever' is malleable because this is a game and I haven't set any sort of time limit on how long you guys can kick about Scintilla before you need to move on. You've been here I think about a week in-game, maybe two, but even that isn't super long in terms of the timescales Rogue Trader operates on. So... how do you want to go about this?

And for everyone else, how do you want to go about the rest of the investigation? What do you want out of it, how deep are you willing to dig? I really do feel bad that Ravia and Hannabel don't have all that much to do just now. I'd like to move on, but I don't want to do that before I've given you a fair chance to solve the puzzle.

[rax]

I'm still enjoying reading along, but I do wish I could come up with a way to crack the leads we have in the investigation. Then at least Hannabel could be useful on that front. At the moment though, I haven't got any better ideas than to do what Anika and Macharius are already doing.

Also, I find it hilarious that there's a good chance Kennoch is being lured into using sorcery...

I'll give the whole situation some thought and see if I can come up with some way to contribute more actively.

[Leon]

Im fine, Ive been considering some things but haven't settled on anythung

[Haval]

Echo obviously needs to employ someone with Charm. And it's ok if it's just a little sorcery

I'm happy enough working through the heretek list if only because it doubles as Anika making contacts. On the other hand I do feel like I'm fishing here. Anika is more interested in finding out about the Stalker's motivations then morally outraged so she could easily just leave them to it.

[Destro_Yersul]

Also, I find it hilarious that there's a good chance Kennoch is being lured into using sorcery...

Echo can have a little bit of sorcery, as a treat.

Though it depends how you classify 'sorcery.' There are mechanics for it, and this does not use them. This is totally daemonology, though, and if you got an Inquisitor with a big enough stick inserted into their posterior, they wouldn't be happy about it.

[Blarghy]

What a wonderful turn of events that I'm sure will work out perfectly fine for everyone.

I wasn't expecting to get anything truly tangible from meeting with Sargon, so if Echo can't make this work, then I won't be upset. It's interesting, though, and fits well into the character arc that I want, so I'm willing to try. I'm on the fence about whether or not he'd ask for help when he inevitably fails on his own. If Echo thinks that what he's attempting is morally questionable (more so than taking advice from Sargon is in the first place, just on its own grounds), then he wouldn't rush to inform the rest of the crew. Then again, if he's worried about it, he probably wouldn't try at all. But I was under the impression that these wards were as tame as such a thing can be. Baby Heretic's first training wheels, that sort of thing. Sargon would surely know that he needs to ease Kennoch in slowly and carefully, and you didn't mention his advice being horrifying to Kennoch, so, I'm going to operate under the assumption that he's learning things that're restricted rather than utterly forbidden. It's for a good cause, after all, and he will certainly never dream of going any further, no matter how convenient that might be later down the line.

I'll keep thinking about this and try to get a post up tomorrow night. That'll give you time to clarify for me just how bad of a thing Echo is being talked into attempting, and if I'm right in thinking that he could reasonably squint hard enough and pretend that he isn't doing something terrible, not really. If nothing else, the Ministorum blessed charms seem like a wholesome idea, so that's a nice backup.

Inquiry (2): (1d100)[57]
Reroll (might as well try it, but if I'm lucky enough to get within a degree of success, I'll spend the Fate Point that way instead): (1d100)[62]

[Destro_Yersul]

What a wonderful turn of events that I'm sure will work out perfectly fine for everyone.

I wasn't expecting to get anything truly tangible from meeting with Sargon, so if Echo can't make this work, then I won't be upset. It's interesting, though, and fits well into the character arc that I want, so I'm willing to try. I'm on the fence about whether or not he'd ask for help when he inevitably fails on his own. If Echo thinks that what he's attempting is morally questionable (more so than taking advice from Sargon is in the first place, just on its own grounds), then he wouldn't rush to inform the rest of the crew. Then again, if he's worried about it, he probably wouldn't try at all. But I was under the impression that these wards were as tame as such a thing can be. Baby Heretic's first training wheels, that sort of thing. Sargon would surely know that he needs to ease Kennoch in slowly and carefully, and you didn't mention his advice being horrifying to Kennoch, so, I'm going to operate under the assumption that he's learning things that're restricted rather than utterly forbidden. It's for a good cause, after all, and he will certainly never dream of going any further, no matter how convenient that might be later down the line.

I'll keep thinking about this and try to get a post up tomorrow night. That'll give you time to clarify for me just how bad of a thing Echo is being talked into attempting, and if I'm right in thinking that he could reasonably squint hard enough and pretend that he isn't doing something terrible, not really. If nothing else, the Ministorum blessed charms seem like a wholesome idea, so that's a nice backup.

Inquiry (2): [roll0]
Reroll (might as well try it, but if I'm lucky enough to get within a degree of success, I'll spend the Fate Point that way instead): [roll1]

They're 'forbidden' in that they fall under Forbidden Lore skills, but your assessment is correct. This is Intro to Daemonology 101, and involves ways to keep warp things out of places where you don't want warp things, in a similar sort of manner to what the Warpsbane Hull does. It's also being presented in as non-horrifying a way as Sargon can manage. You can of course draw your own conclusions as to his motivations for doing so, but he's on the ship too, he has a vested interest in keeping the gribblies out.

[Leon]

Its the top of the slippery slope that doesn't seem too bad but before it gets steep

[Blarghy]

Slippery slopes are the best kind of slopes. You don't even have to walk; just lie down and take a nap until you wake up at the bottom!

Thanks for bringing up the Warpsbane Hull, there. That's a good example of something perfectly fine that would comfort Kennoch in these efforts, and perhaps keep the Captain from worrying too.

Anyway, Echo clearly won't be able to pull this off without some help, so, hopefully Anika will ride to the rescue like she usually does.

[Haval]

There's probably a thin line between using daemonology to make warp enties go away and using it to actively control them. I think Ravia might be the only one with the appropriate Lore but I'd say Anika has no reason to know that.

[Destro_Yersul]

There's probably a thin line between using daemonology to make warp enties go away and using it to actively control them. I think Ravia might be the only one with the appropriate Lore but I'd say Anika has no reason to know that.

It's a very thin line. Eisenhorn says hi.

[Haval]

It's a very thin line. Eisenhorn says hi.

Everything's allowed until Kennoch gets a pet Daemonhost.

If Anika gets to be the puritan somehow I'm going to be amused.

[Blarghy]

If he does get a Daemonhost, I'm curious how anybody would convince or force him to give it up. But yes, Eisenhorn has been an influence on my ideas, even if I knew the basic character arc I wanted long before I read those books. 40k is a great setting for exploring tragic heroes, hubris and hypocrisy, and cruel choices with no easy options. Navigators also have the theme of degrading over time, as they collect mutations and the Warp grinds them down; I picked this career partly for that symbolism. So I'm excited about where all this could lead.

In the mean time, I'm not sure about Ravia either, but my impression is that Sargon is going to provide the Forbidden Lore here, and we just have to collect the stuff for it.

You don't have Inquiry, Evaluate, Barter, Commerce, or anything similar.

Those skills are all Anika's specialty, so that was my thinking. I guess I could hire an NPC to do this sort of thing for Kennoch, but I'd kinda rather not; I like having minions in a game like this, but I don't want to start taking the jobs of other characters. This is the work that Seneschals do. However, if Anika's too busy to see to this herself, maybe she could loan Echo her assistant? Whose name I can't remember and who doesn't seem to be marked on Anika's sheet, that I can see. In return he could loan her some of his Rings to monitor the hereteks she's visiting. He's got a whole bunch of them just hanging around the ship now, they're a bit better than the regular marines, and they specialize in stealth. She just might want to be vague about the nature of these targets, or else Echo might order his guards to arrange some unfortunate accidents for them, in an attempt to ease his guilt over Galimina.

[Leon]

Depends which FL you need

[Haval]

Depends which FL you need

Daemonology probably. Maybe Warp.

Theresa is Anika's assistant and I'll get around to adding her to the sheet.

Happy to have Anika roll whatever to get materials. Mostly looking for an opportunity to assess how unusual the materials are.

[Leon]

need to up Warp to trained at some point so not good on that but the rest i know, My Interrogator would be useful here, she is well versed on Daemonology

[Destro_Yersul]

Daemonology probably. Maybe Warp.

Theresa is Anika's assistant and I'll get around to adding her to the sheet.

Happy to have Anika roll whatever to get materials. Mostly looking for an opportunity to assess how unusual the materials are.

Daemonology is correct. The materials on Echo's list are fairly unusual, often highly specific, but not actually illegal. With the right contacts, and Anika's skillset, you have a much better chance of finding them than Echo does. Go ahead and roll.

[Haval]

Long as its not fresh blood or something similar

Inquiry if needed
Vs. Fel 47 (+10 Peer Underworld) [+10 if Etiquette)
(1d100)[49]

Commerce vs. Fel 47 (Commerce +20) (Peer Academics or Underworld +10) (if Etiquette +10)
(1d100)[96]

Barter vs. Fel 47 (+10 if Peer) (+10 if Etiquette)
(1d100)[38]

[Destro_Yersul]

As if you'd need to buy that when the ship has so much of it readily available.

I'll get an update up for you guys Soon(tm). I've picked up a bunch of overtime shifts over the next few weeks, and there's a lot of family birthdays in this part of the year, so the demands on my time are currently experiencing higher call volume than usual.

[Leon]

As if you'd need to buy that when the ship has so much of it readily available.

unless it needs to be noble blood, which is getting around a lot on planet

[Blarghy]

Thule might be a red herring, or maybe not. I'm leaning toward that being the name we'll need the most. 'Course, I'll also have fun seeing how the other hereteks are depicted, even if they aren't important to the mystery at hand. But maybe we're narrowing the search, which is exciting!

[Destro_Yersul]

An eight-pointed star like from an old-world compass, with four long arms running up/down and left/right, and four shorter diagonal arms, was tattooed on his chin.

Seems pretty sus. Does Echo know about this?

[Blarghy]

Oh, did I accidentally stumble over a heretical symbol? I just made up a detail to give the NPC some personality. I was thinking about sailing themes and a compass came to mind.

This guy can be shady, if that helps the story. He's just one of the newcomers Echo hired at the Lathes outpost, then chosen at random to help Anika. Echo very likely never saw the tattoo. If Haval wants a new friend who's, ah, morally flexible, then we could lean into that and keep him around (assuming she doesn't send him on any suicide missions). Or I can edit the tattoo to something else if it's too weird.

If it's not just suspicious, but outright heretical, then I should change it at least a little bit, because only an idiot would reveal something like that to Anika without a reason to think she'd be ok with it. I doubt he'd have survived at the Lathes with a genuine mark of Chaos stamped on his face. How bad is it, do you think?

...Aha. Could've saved myself some trouble if I'd spent a minute on Google, hm? Yeah, that's rather embarrassing. If it helps, I'm picturing something like THIS without the letters, so it's...not identical to the usual Chaos Star that I'm seeing. Would that matter? Would the average Imperium citizen see a distinction?

In any case, now I feel rather silly. Does anybody mind if I change it to something else?