Jumpers Vs. Wh40k ITP OOC 1

[Lord Raziere]

Yeah, I was afraid of that.

....I screwed myself over with stating the power level of the Chaos gods I was going with and now they're going to steamrolled by Anti-Life Equation, aren't they? Maybe I should've gone with empowering the setting more to make the setting itself more interesting to face rather than accuracy.

....I have to think hard about what to do now.

[Rater202]

Maybe?

I can just not use the Equation on major characters.

Thanoseid isn't really meant to be an immediate, in your face threat. I intend to play him as somoene who is learning about the setting and scheming in the background while periodically popping into be a Troll until he's ready to go loud.

ike, this whole encounter was a bit for him and Frode only got anti-lifed because he went mind to mind with an Apokoliptian computer.

[Lord Raziere]

Sorry.

I'm just....not familiar with how the Equation works and the idea of it both angers and terrifies me in equal measure.

I'll go edit the post now, sorry I had a strong reaction to this.

Edit: Okay, its been edited after making sure the destruction of the Webway wouldn't cause more destruction than I thought.

[TeChameleon]

Frode did make a point of cutting the Black Library's former bit of the Webway off from the larger Webway before making it go 'boom', but aye.

And if you're wondering what he means about Thanoseid being a cheat... eh, Frode gets a bit sniffy when someone who isn't him starts mucking about with time and space and violating the laws of physics

He's got a pretty high opinion of his tech, too, although can you really blame him?

[Earl of Purple]

My laptop broke, so I was without PC for a bit. Fortunately it's been repaired and I lost nothing, but... now I find myself returning later than I'd have liked and with little idea as to what is going on.

So what is going on? I also don't read many comics, and I'm miles behind on the Avengers films (which aren't going to be accurate anyway, since they make changes to fit the story they want to tell) so I've got no idea who Darkseid is and very limited idea of Thanos.

[TeChameleon]

Glad you didn't lose anything, EarloP- hopefully I can say the same once I eventually hear back from the place that's supposedly repairing my laptop.

Thanos is... largely irrelevant for the purposes of this conversation. Big purple dude with, shall we say, issues.

Darkseid, on the other hand... well, Thanos is an acknowledged knockoff of Darkseid, which is why the two got mooshed together during the Amalgam event that combined a whole bunch of Marvel and DC characters got merged.

Anyways, Darkseid is a 'New god'- apparently, in the DCU, the old gods got into a giant punchup and killed each other off, and the resulting energy broke their planet in two and formed a whole whack of 'New gods', with the nice(-ish) ones ending up on the paradisical garden planet of New Genesis, and the evil ones ending up on its sister planet of Apokolips, which is composed mostly of slums and firepits the size of the South Atlantic. Both planets have what is widely acknowledged as the most advanced and powerful technology in the DCU.

Darkseid is the ruler of Apokolips, the god of Tyranny. He's strong and durable enough to get into slapfights with an enraged Superman and come out on top, but his party trick is the Omega Effect, beams he shoots from his eyes that track their targets and have a wide variety of effects, the main one being erasing people from reality, or, if they're somehow plot-important, hideously burning/injuring them. However, the effect can also raise the dead (not sure if it's just people who were killed by it earlier, or just other New gods, but it does seem to be at least somewhat limited), trap people in a neverending cycle of death and rebirth with each death crueller than the last, chuck people back in time to reincarnate repeatedly, or blow up planets.

His main goal is usually to find the 'Anti-Life Equation', which allows for near-perfect mind control (god of tyranny and all that), and is typically found on Earth, which explains his weird obsession with our tiny blue space marble.

Hopefully this quick Cliffsnotes of the Darkseid and Thanos helps a little- Death Battle did a fight between the two that has a passable summary of each as well, and some surprisingly decent animation of the fight, if you want to take a look at that.

[Rater202]

For the record, in the Fanfic that the Jump that I took the Drawback that resulted in Alex having encounters with Thanoseid from is based on, New Gods are gods with physical bodies while Old Gods are Gods that are just a soul.

An Old God can project an Avatar, but the "real" one is a spirit.

Like, by the logic of the story, the Chaos Gods and the Eldar Gods would be Old Gods while the Emporer and the Primarchs would be New Gods.

Basically what you need to know is that there's a hostile god of Tyranny with magic math that proves that life has no purpose in the game somewhere and he's gonna be a threat sooner or later.

[TeChameleon]

Wait, does that mean we're not going to have to put up with Grant Morrison's stupid True Darkseid crap with Thanoseid?

[Rater202]

Wait, does that mean we're not going to have to put up with Grant Morrison's stupid True Darkseid crap with Thanoseid?

No.

Like, the Fanfic was started before eNew 52 and was not updated to include anything after that reboot.

[TeChameleon]

Thank goodness. I have no real issue with Darkseid being stupid overpowered... it's kind of his schtick... but the 'true Darkseid' thing just didn't make a lot of sense. He's supposed to be Highfather's equal and opposite, and yet he can suddenly curbstomp Izaya, Ganthet, Hera, the Specter, the Phantom Stranger, and Shazam (the wizard, that is) simultaneously? And all his previous defeats were because it wasn't really his full power because it was just an avatar? That's just a lazy riff on Doombots. Blech.

[Rater202]

A bit more context on Darkseid and thus Thanoseid...

Batman once tried to kill Darkseid.

With a gun. The kind that shoots bullets.

[TeChameleon]

Hey Raziere- two quick questions; what physical size does Tzeentch normally maintain, roughly? And Frode has been planning a strike against Tzeentch with his Watchmaker perk running and most of the planning and preparation happening inside his warehouse (his TARDIS form) anyways; is there any way that Tzeentch could see what he's planning prior to it being implemented?

EDIT- And yes, I know that the Chaos whatsits don't have a set physical size; but they do present as being roughly a given size relative to humans etc. who visit them in the Warp, so how big does Tzeentch usually keep himself relative to his various subordinates who do have a set physical size?

[Lord Raziere]

Tzeentch is the Chaos god of Change, said to be constantly changing, taking any number of appearances. He is changing for changes sake. Black Crusade RPG even calls unknowable with a thousand faces. I find it very reasonable that he does not have a set form or size and would have one preference or another, your talking about a evershifting planner here. as for future seeing, he is the architect of fate one source claims that he is aware of all dreams and plans of mortals but doesn't say how, furthermore he schemes simply to scheme, and has countless schemes in the running, just because I'm showing one doesn't mean he doesn't have a lot more.

that and Tzeentch because of his Change theme is intended by me to be the one Chaos God who sees the new situation and is striving to both take advantage of it and to survive it as much as possible and thus the one to last the longest-at least in my mind. He has been planning for an attack on him since the first Jumpers arrived. He is the smart one, and thus the trickiest.

Nurgle was set in his ways, god of stasis and decay and all that so I felt it made sense that he wouldn't adapt well to Jumpers showing up and I didn't care much for him. I just didn't expect for people to go RIGHT for the kill. Tzeentch is a completely different Chaos God, a villain I like in a sense, is canonically the 2nd most powerful Chaos God after Khorne, so I'm more inclined to keep him around.

[TeChameleon]

Well, Frode isn't planning on killing Tzeentch, just taking him/it off the board for a while. Frode's supposed to be a lot smarter than I actually am, so I figured I'd ask here if the plan had a chance of working without some deus ex machina countering it, since I'm not sure how Tzeentch could plan for something he literally has no way to foresee.

[Lord Raziere]

Your talking about an entity described in the vaguest and most general of terms, that was never meant to be fought in any actual game ever and more like a setting pillar so that Tzeentch cultists can exist so that they can be fought on a tabletop or now I guess as villains for a Fantasy Flight roleplaying game or Wrath and Glory. there is no hard capabilities for him in canon only soft themes and purviews, and the people that do assign hard capabilities to him are fans who as Rater demonstrates with his whole "I thought they were on the level of the Endless" fans upscale them for the sake of versus fights like in this article

the best answer I can give is that he sometimes doesn't foresee something because 1: future sight isn't perfect for anyone in WH40k, thats just the nature of future seeing in this universe. 2: Tzeentch is the god Not As Planned as well. which while meaning his plans can possibly backfire, so to can he manipulate probability to make OTHERS plans backfire as well.

and to be honest: I'm not a fan for the constant overfocus on the cosmic beings side of this? Wh40k doesn't have much point if your just focusing on the big godlike beings. like, Chaos Gods really are supposed to be background and the people within the galaxy are supposed to be the important thing here, and I guess this blocking off is an attempt at like getting the focus away from Tzeentch on a player side, but that isn't really necessary we can just talk about what we want to do next and do it without taking up the IC.

[TeChameleon]

Ah. I think I see the disconnect now; like I had Frode say in-character, he's an engineer (with the caveat that I'm most emphatically not. I just... game with a lot of them >.>), and when dealing with a complex problem, one of the first things you want to do is to reduce the potential variables. And the Chaos whosits are the biggest variables in play right now; doing any long-term repair to the galaxy with them running around is like trying to re-glaze a greenhouse while the neighbourhood brats play 'who can kick windows in the fastest' at the opposite end from where you're working.

So, speaking just for myself, it's less that I want to make the game all about godfights, and more that I consider taking them out of play (however temporarily) to be step one to long-term reform.

... all that being said, if you want to pull the focus away from them, I'm good with that, I'm just wary of the sandcastle getting kicked over because some cosmic dingbat decided he had a bug up his bum that morning.

[Lord Raziere]

Thats understandable. I guess I'm just not sure what blocking them actually does or how its useful?

the Chaos Gods can't actually ENTER the Materium for real in the first place. I've been giving Tzeentch the little remote avatars I guess but those are more for talking than fighting, and kinda half-visions/illusions. which is kind of how the Chaos Gods interact with the Materium anyways?

thing is, most/all of the Chaos God's manipulations are like through their armies and cultists anyways. even Horus Heresy is just them corrupting half the Primarchs to do most of the fighting FOR them. Slaanesh's birth like....certainly shows they capable of some incredible powerful destruction but specific instances of them fighting directly, even Khorne are like.....none. their usual tactics are honestly closer to insidiously corrupting people from within a society for most of the time. like in theory they're this super-unpredictable force that can do anything....in practice Chaos pretty much works like this counter-Imperium but with daemons. Like a normal imperium world defense? Its always a classic demonic ritual with sacrifices and such and its always for....uh...really obvious reasons. oh no, the unpredictable Chaos Cultists are going to.....do their usual guerilla tactics while some of them hiding in a basement somewhere to summon a big demon or demon army to kill us all. like they do every time.

like theoretically the Chaos Gods could do anything you imagine. In Theory. But the fiction is bound by a war game to create war game scenarios, so really in canon they wouldn't do anything that like, invalidates Khorne Berserkers charging at loyalist space marines with chainswords and dueling them. a Chaos God will never like, blow up a planet or whatever to insta-kick down a sand castle because thats a superhero/anime fighter conceit that simply does not hold true in 40k. they are eldritch horrors formed from people thoughts wishing to corrupt people into feeding them with worship, emotional cthulhus whose horror is in the fact that the embody all human thought in shape or form so you can never really escape them, the darkest imaginings of a space fantasy existing farthest away from the tone of things like Stars Wars and Star Trek, not beings who can just snap their fingers to destroy a society like a comic book. Closer to Sauron than Frieza.

so its like, hard to figure out what "kicking down your sandcastle" means because if you mean the Chaos Gods doing that personally, normally that would pretty much never happen, but Chaos Marine attacking people and cultists doing magical hell terrorism is pretty much a normal part of the setting, and there is little difference between them, Orkz, genestealers, tyranids, dark eldar as far as societal stability is concerned.

like your going to have to be a bit more detailed in what you expect to accomplish with that, and I was already going to pull focus away from them, I was kinda hoping that the Black Library segment would end quickly so I can get around to that, but then Thanoseid happened.

[TeChameleon]

I'll post it, since I've been foreshadowing it for a while, but the actual plan is to seal away Tzeentch's main consciousness (since, presumably, all the little avatars and whatnot running around contain a portion of his consciousness) in a way that... at least as far as I (and Frode) understands, Tzeentch could not have seen coming, and drastically reduce his impact on galactic affairs. One way or another, I'm not planning on spending more than one post on it, maybe a brief reaction to however it shakes out in the next post, but getting on with things after that.

[Lord Raziere]

Ideas in the vein of Rater's Thanoseid thing:
-Four Exalts seeking Ensara in an uneasy alliance, each for their own reasons
-instead of importing villains directly, import devices and artifacts into Wh40k to showcase what people in this universe would do with this or that, empowering them instead of taking focus away from the universe. like imagine what would happen if this or that got a power ring from the lantern corps
-or even, more abstract import THE IDEA and adapt it to be the Wh40k version of whatever it is. like what the Adeptus Mechanicus discovered the Wh40k equivalent of a Death Star? or what if the WH40k did some grimdark equivalent of some other science fiction idea that it hasn't done yet? for example, what would the grimdark version of the Timelords/Q/stuff like that look like? grimdark lanterns? other things?

also I think the biggest problem I'm finding is that due to the divided nature of the galaxy even at the best of times and the nature of communication in the 41st millennium, that its hard to find ways to give you plot hooks especially when you've chosen to randomly be in some isolated portion of the galaxy (though maybe have a rogue trader show up poking around if just giving time to rest is too boring?), and you have seemingly forgotten or don't care about the prophecies at all in the wake of Thanoseid showing up.

also am compiling a list of weird obscure thing in Wh40k lore, mostly alien species because minor alien secies get shafted hard.

also, a sheet for Kalli, the Dark Jumper before I forget again:
[Taken down for editing]

[TeChameleon]

I haven't forgotten the prophecies... I'm not sure it's even been a full hour in game-time since the characters heard them, there just hasn't been much opportunity to address them.

I'm not sure I've been clear about what I wanted to do; with Frode, he's been working towards some stability on the cosmic side ('stability' in this case being 'less interference from the cosmic forces') so that he can start addressing all this grimdark nonsense and maybe make being an innocent in the 40k 'verse suck a bit less.

I don't feel like I need some giant horrible evil thing to punch in the face. I mean, I'm not strictly opposed to it or anything, it's just not what I geared Frode towards.

Looking at Kalli, I'm not sure what we're supposed to do with or about her. She's more powerful than all the other jumpers put together, it's impossible to persuade her of anything, she outright negates a lot of the PCs powers, could just remake the universe to her liking if she starts to lose...

Oh... and to answer an earlier question of yours that I forgot to, when I commented on worrying about the Chaos whatsits 'kicking over the sandcastle' it was less 'planet go boom' and more 'Chaos thingies use their cultists, magic, and deeply entrenched societal mores to fight against or completely undo any positive change we try to make'.

[Lord Raziere]

okay then I've overdone her and will have to edit her then.

Oh... and to answer an earlier question of yours that I forgot to, when I commented on worrying about the Chaos whatsits 'kicking over the sandcastle' it was less 'planet go boom' and more 'Chaos thingies use their cultists, magic, and deeply entrenched societal mores to fight against or completely undo any positive change we try to make'.

okay I'm just not sure how I'm supposed to create problems for there to be things to happen then. Like what obstacles are acceptable? you are clearly wanting to push out the big god stuff IC and your expressing OOC that you don't want subterfuge things like that to happen so.....what, are the people in the setting just supposed to attack you directly like idiots/khorne cultists or something? like what is the opposition that you actually want to exist rather than just be prevented before it happens here? I'm not here to make things not-happen.

That and I was never really planning on doing this society-reversing changes thing your worried about? Tzeentch's plan in this roleplay has always been to escape this universe. He sees how bad this galaxy is, knows better things out there, he is if anything to abandon it as soon as he can. Khorne doesn't care about society wrecking stuff, specifically, he's all about the blood spilling and battle so.....technically it could be societal destruction if you consider instigating wars so people kill each other more to be reversing changes but hows that different from like....a random ork Waaaagh coming along and doing it? like at that point its so broad as to be meaningless. I guess Slaanesh would be the one most likely to do it the subterfuge stuff, Tzeentch has always been more of a wizard kind of god.

while subterfuge and sabotage can technically happen from the Alpha Legion and they don't follow ANY Chaos God. they follow Chaos just in general, as general opposition to the Imperium so if your worried about sabotage from the Chaos Gods what am I supposed to do with THEM?

like I get what you mean, you don't want what you build to be torn down arbitrarily by GM fiat. but at the same time your expressing this a lot in what you don't want to happen which is only marginally useful to making things happen. like....what do you consider fair opposition?

[TeChameleon]

Oh. Uhm, man... I seem to be having my usual difficulty communicating, *sigh*

Speaking only for myself, my preference would be to go check out the Jagganoga (Jaggagona? Sorry, don't remember) and whatever you have planned there. And both subterfuge and combat are fine with me, I'm just approaching the 40k 'verse with the Chaos thingies as an infection; you treat the cause before the symptoms. Also, I'm just not as familiar with 40k, so I may be making strange assumptions and decisions.

Finally, I wouldn't mind some downtime at all; Frode offered refuge in his warehouse for it, since everybody's in there already (and there's stuff to do in there that might be surprising, heh). But I guess that didn't come through.

[Lord Raziere]

That is okay, I am awkward at communicating as well, seemingly no matter how I try to improve it otherwise.

Very well. I shall edit my latest post to be down time if your not super-interested in Craftworld Alurmen.

[TeChameleon]

Eh, the craftworld's cool and honestly kind of interesting... and if word of how they made their Necroguards got out, they'd have every Necron in existence paying an unfriendly visit... but I got the impression you wanted us to move on from there.

Frode's made the official invitation for some downtime inside his TARDIS-self, and a quick list of some of the amenities.

[Lord Raziere]

If you want to spend time with Alurmen, you can simply say so. I simply wanted some time for Ensara to learn and make use of her Sidereal Martial Arts. and to give the rest of the galaxy some sense of time to recover from Nurgle's death so we can have more interesting factions than just endless worlds under the Imperium's bootheel, which while admittedly still pretty varied- despite the Imperium best efforts it can't really change the fact different planets just have different environments and cultures-I think its just straight up more interesting to see how things change when the Imperium's efforts to preserve the status quo aren't always being held up because thats all their shouting heresy and destroying anything that looks at them funny really amounts to. like its very ironic, because the setting becomes way more interesting whenever it ditches the status quo it set up for itself, like there is a bunch of things that got killed off in 30k that provide interesting looks into this or that and that we sadly just don't see more of?

you are already in downtime (this is more of an OOC thing than IC). but if you want to roleplay out stuff with Alurmen you can do that, you just have to say so.

and if you want to do both Jagganogga and Alurmen, it is possible to come back to Alurmen later with whatever plot we want to do with them. if your thinking of things like an engineer, I prefer to think of doing this like a garden: I plant seeds and hope they grow into something later or hope one part of the garden catches your interest and thus water what your interested in. harsh experience has taught me that clinging to tightly to one plot or another is just a recipe for disaster in roleplaying so I just kind of scatter potential here and there and see what gets focused on.

[Rater202]

I believe that Frode wanted to talk with Molly?

[TeChameleon]

Yup, just curious to see how their interactions spin out given he sort-of-knew half of her.

Oh, and Raziere, coming back to the Craftworld later does sound interesting, but I don't feel like it's a 'now' thing.

[Lord Raziere]

so updates on a few things

reading one of Ensara's perks from her Exalted jump, apparently she gets a mentor in every Jump:

In future jumps another sifu taking a similar role will appear to you in order to guide and protect
you, they are also Fated to die at some point. Nothing can be done to avoid this. These
individuals do not count as companions. You do not get to choose who these sifu’s (including
the original Exalted sifu) will be. They can be considered ‘generic’ mentor-type characters as far
as the settings they appear in are concerned, but always exceptional ones. You will never see
these deaths coming, but rather than filling you with grief they will fill you with the resolve to
carry on their teachings. You are limited to only one Exalted Sifu purchase

which is weird given the Wh40k setting doesn't really do mentors usually. I'm thinking of a Slaan (frog person) being Ensara's perk-required mentor being a wh40k yoda-like being for this jump and the other two well....ah....well they're dead according to this perk so I guess they're not important.

also I should probably make quicksheets for various new people. probably the AI at least. I'm not sure how long this Jagganogga mission's going to last, but apparently going to be slower than I thought given how its going. I expected you to have more of a reaction to a nominal good faction people you can help, but apparently not.

oh well, guess I'll have to adapt and improvise as always

[TeChameleon]

Well, I'm definitely interested, but we haven't really seen enough of the Jagganoggans to make any kind of judgement yet. That's part of what I'm doing with Frode right now- he's testing them a bit, and also offering some proof of his bona fides- them immediately saying they're going to use the forces they're theoretically going to save by not fighting the Imperial Guard to go "Liberate" other systems was a bit of an eyebrow-raiser, to be honest- even if they were being entirely sincere about wanting the other systems to be free, military conquest isn't really how Frode does things, at least not when he has any choice in the matter.

Also, you commented a while back on Frode moving a planet-sized object with no apparent effort... the TARDIS is broken powerful, even by Jumper standards. I knew it was a powerful option when I picked it, but even the far more grounded version of TV-only canon is beyond what I expected (there's some classic Who that bumps the power levels up a notch or two, and apparently I either don't fully remember some episodes or missed some... I honestly did not remember the TARDIS being able to randomly reassign someone's species on a whim).

If you start getting into the... Extended Whoniverse?.. (there's probably a fanon name for it, but I don't know it... also, I don't plan on going into the extended universe stuff because bloody hell...) with the Audio plays and the books, things just get silly, with the TARDIS housing a dwarf galaxy that the Doctor saved from some threat or other and he keeps in there because he likes to look at the stars sometimes, the TARDIS (along with the Master's Mk 70 Battle Tardis) fighting a near-creator-deity-level enemy (the Quantum Archangel) and winning, the energy equivalent to the Big Bang being needed to penetrate its hull... yeah, like I said, I'm not planning on drawing from those feats, it would reduce the whole excercise to nonsense and frustration fairly quickly.

EDIT: When you introduce the sifu character, I'm quite happy to have Frode interact with them... also, Games Workshop really named their frog-people "Slaan"? Cheeky buggers

[Rater202]

Sorry for lack of response, it can just be... Hard to grasp what's going on sometimes.