New world plotting

[your_gods_nightmare]

This is Eric with a potential third and I had some thoughts about stuff to go in the New World that I wanted to share.

In my idea the new world (Or at least part of it) is ruled by a loose confederation of various sentient species known as the Benevolent Satrapy. Humans are one of them, but they are VERY much a minor voice and are are generally very oppressed and second class citizens. The humans here are descendants of Belkan Colonies from before the empire collapsed, and they carried on for a good long time before being "pacified" by the Satrapy. The Satrapy is ruled from behind the scenes by the Satraps themselves, massive creatures looking more or less like landbound trilobites that are masters of mind control magic and live to control and limit the development of sentient life. I think they might make good shadow villains for the Dagarians.

Which brings me to this guy here: Pepper. One of the descendents of the Belkan colonies, he received similar biological and magical upgrades to Garviel and the other space marines, but was a privateer who went around supporting human interests in the Satrapy for personal profit. When the colonies were finally fully absorbed into the Satrapy, Pepper sacrificed his ship to sink some Satrap ships and give more refugees time to escape, but in doing so stranded himself on a tiny island somewhere. His upgrades make him essentially immortal, so he's spent the last two hundred years or so tooling around on this tiny spit of land waiting for rescue.

EDIT: It would also be totally IC for the Satraps to have done everything they could to make it hard to cross the ocean to the New World after they found out that there are millions more humans across the sea, as they find humans FAR too dangerous to be left running around unchecked. Perhaps they taught the merfolk how to do their reef of blades shit. Is that still a thing?

Comments

[enpatsushakugannouchite]

I like it! Maybe he will find his way to mainland dagaria by the recent roman expansion into the underwater city. I have to have hedge and I throw some darts at the map for where.

[your_gods_nightmare]

He would be amused at Rome's claim to being the heir of Belka, and absolutely baffled about why an Astartes is ruling them.

[greyerrant]

That'll be awesome.

[your_gods_nightmare]

I imagine Garviel will be kind of alarmed by Pepper.

"Where'd you get Astartes upgrades?"

"Bought 'em"

"You WHAT?"

"They were very expensive, but totally worth it."

[greyerrant]

oh wow yes that will freak him out.

[wanderingbard]

I'm going to voice some concern about turning this game into Space Marines: The RP. I definitely have no problems with a few plots here and there being connected, but making everything revolve around the Space Marine backstory makes me a little uncomfortable. I would ask that this be restricted to being a part of the New World as mentioned, so the rest of the new provinces have room for others who want to implement other ideas.

[your_gods_nightmare]

This is a fair concern. I only made the connection because in canon Pepper has similar upgrades to the space marines. I could throw out the whole Belka connection and just have him be from a human country across the sea.

[wanderingbard]

Oh, I see; I mistook this as being part of the Warhammer canon as well, my mistake. I'd personally still prefer it unconnected, but I'm not playing the character. =P Feel free to do whatever!

[your_gods_nightmare]

It's another sprawling Sci-Fi space opera, but it is not Warhammer, no. Whether I make him connected to the Warhams plot or not, it shall be a carefully made decision, that much I can promise you.

[greyerrant]

You needn't worry about that, my friend. :3 Especially with me bringing in skaven and dwarves and other things that are definitely not in 40k. (fantasy battle is a different universe with more scurvy and disease)

[ravenraven]

Ooh, what's the canon he's from?

Whatever it is, if he's got Astartes modifications then Corax will be paying close attention to him.

[your_gods_nightmare]

A sci-fi trilogy by Tobias Buckell that has no unified name so it is difficult to refer to. The three books are Crystal Rain, Ragamuffin, and Sly Mongoose, and Pepper is never the MAIN character, but he's the only character that appears in all three books, always as supporting cast.

As for his upgrades, it's looking like they may not actually be Astartes, but they will definitely be similar.

[formerly_known_as_prince]

While I think this would be a workable idea for one country or island in the new world, I think it's not a good idea for the entirety of the new world to be ruled by one faction, especially not a scary, non-human one.

We've already had at least three plots involving scary invaders from beyond Dagaria. Much more and we'll lose focus on the kind of cloak and dagger intrigue that makes this game unique. Also it would cast the PCs as (relatively) good, against an evil, mostly or all NPC faction. IS has always struck me as a relatively morally complex and grey game and that's one thing I like about it and want to keep.

[your_gods_nightmare]

The Satraps would definitely be an enemy that are taken down by cloak and dagger style conflict, but I take your point.

If we wanted to stick them on some islands, maybe the Phoan and/or Nejono islands would be good. Nice and isolated from either continent but big enough to not be ignorable. Plus, Pepper's home canon has strong ties to the Caribbean, so an island chain works on several levels.

My biggest concern is having a faction led by entities that are almost required to be NPCs, I'm not sure how I want to handle that.

[greyerrant]

I'd be willing to NPC some very alien crustacean types. Let me check my old rifts books for the Murex pictures.

[greyerrant]

I wouldn't worry too hard about that old boy, :3 Did you see the latest plotting post for the mountain kingdom that the new player is intending to bring in? There is a lot of moral grayness, particularly in Amestris, Sawa, and to a degree in Rome, with Britain being kinda painfully pure (Which is coolish in a way), and with Zeon having a very interesting anarchist ruler.

I was thinking it would be just part of the new world, as a mod.

[xiao_lan_long]

Everyone voiced any concerns I might have had already and it looks like they've been acknowledged, so how about that plot itself.

Would the Satraps (as villains/an NPC kingdom) be people you could brief the mods on or would one of us probably need to pick up the books? They sound like fairly basic examples of the apparently-benevolent-but-not-really psychic monster villain archetype, so the questions I have would mainly be spoilery details and/or am I completely wrong about that description.

Also would Pepper here want to be independent/his own faction or work with whatever Dagarians picked him up off of his island? Also, why not strap sea turtles to his feet and just escape that way?

[your_gods_nightmare]

I could probably brief a mod on how to NPC the Satraps. I hope I could because the Satraps don't even show up until half way through book two, so it'd be a fair amount of reading for NPCing purposes. I figure you got enough of burning through stuff you don't care about to NPC guys at UG.

Pepper would probably join up with whoever found him for a while, then switch sides whenever it suited his purposes. He's at least honorable enough that he wouldn't switch unexpectedly in the middle of fights or at other awkward times.

So Independent.

[soulsborderline]

I saw some shit at UGA let me tell you

All sounds workable. Do the Satraps have individual personalities such that they would be hypothetically appable, or are they more force of naturey? Also would they be replaceable with something similar from another canon like, I don't know, that one guy from the Foundation novels or Reapers or something?

[your_gods_nightmare]

They are ostensibly appable. We only meet two of them, and only one face-to-face (Ish. They don't really have faces.), but they're a species that is specifically designed to take power and freedom from people and they are anti-progress, so actually apping one would be awkward. In canon, they have tendrils they can stick in your skull allowing them to literally control you like a puppet if you're close enough and have advanced this skill to be able to achieve the same effect by way of the cybernetic implants just about everyone has to access the future-internet.

They could be replaced by some other kind of threat that controls people, yes. Did you have someone in mind?

[thirdtimesthechar]

I like keeping my psychic crossover options open.