Penny

Wealth and Warpstorms

The suit that the sartorial staff outfitted Alcander in would have paid the salary of a senior Castellion for a year. Impeccably fitted with last minute micro tailoring, it fit the probator like nothing else he had ever owned. It was woven of cerise wormsilk in a shade of green so dark it bordered on black, herring boned with shade the differed so little from the first that it was almost impossible to distinguish with the naked eye. The effect was to give the fabric a slightly rougher look than it's silky smooth texture, the faintest hint of armor and martial prowess. It hung open with an abbreviated cut designed to showcase the shirt of Ilmarvian cotton, bleached until the white bordered on the eye searing before being treated with a very faint golden stain that made it seem to shimmer metallically to the eye. A cummerbund of cloth of gold was provided woven through with green silk thread in an intricate pattern of interconnected knots that curved and looped in an attractive asymmetry. The boots were similarly grand, tigh high black leather with golden buckles worked with the crossed shield heraldry of Navare.

He was ushered by liveried servants into the grandest dining room he had ever seen. The starlight dining room was well named for the ceiling was entirely open to the void save for a shield of armorcrys that was only visible when starlight impinged at just the right angle to make it glitter. This dazzling effect fell to waist height where the walls were replaced with crenelations of sculpted ceramite wrought to resemble the battlements of some ancient tower, complete with torches thrust through sconces. The smoke from the torches left blackish imperfections on the armorcrys as though the flames were somehow casting a shadow. A vast table, thirty feet long on a side, sat on a raised diaz, flanked by great high backed chair with red and cream party colored upholstery. Each placed had been meticulously set with an elaborate service of silver utensils and place cards had been set out. Jonas Horvath - Master of Ordinance, Lyza Keppler - Helmsman, Borgan O'Rouque, Master of Soldiers, at first Alcander thought that he had been summoned early but as his eyes fell on Camilla. She was resplendent in a black and gold tunic with a scarlet cloak and sandals with laces so elaborate they reached her knees. She sat not at the head of the table, but beside it. The card read Orthelleo Balthazar Belchite - Master and Commander.

The sparsely attended dinner represented all that survived of the bridge crew of the Navarre. Camilla stood with her glass and turned to look out into the starfield. Beyond the armorcys were distant flashes of fire. Every few seconds another blossomed bright against the infinite darkness of space.

“What aer thoose?” Alcander asked, straining to make out the objects before they burst into flame.

“Mutineers,” Camilla said, a slight queasiness in her voice despite her best efforts.
“Yer bernin' them?” Alcander asked. He didn’t sound judgemental, only curious, no one could work as long as he had in the Imperial legal system and be squeamish about such things. Camilla sighed as another flash lit the darkness.

“They are going out the airlocks, asphyxia will have killed them long before fire. As they clear the ship's mass shadow the sunlight lights them up,” she explained.

“How meny?” Alcander asked.

“Almost a thousand,” Camilla admitted, “Mostly senior officers in the combat arms.”

“How'd ye noo they aer gelty? Ye couldae asked me to setup trebunals,” Alcander asked, this time a little steel in his voice. Camilla smiled tightly. He believed in justice as much as any man in the Imperial Arbites. Camilla made a sour face and tilted her head towards the astropath.

“We used readers, I had to be sure,” Camilla explained. Two of the junior astropaths had died of their exertions in the gruelling purge. The guilty had been put to hard labor, cleaning the bridge of the tacky sheen of blood and vicera left by the attempted coup. When that labor was complete, they were one by one put out airlocks.

“Assumin' ye can trust the astropaths, o'course,” Alcander pointed out.

“If you cant trust a psyker who can cast their mind out across the warp who can you trust?” Camilla replied, swirling her wine around in her goblet before swallowing it down with an obvious effort. In truth the services of the guild astropathicus were so apolitical that they were as close to reliable as anybody could be. Had Yvraine’s coup succeeded there was no doubt the astropaths would have served her just as loyally. There was a burst of color, a flare rather than another combusting body. There was a sudden mechanical clanking sound as far above them a shield began to clank into place, slowly occluding the starfield beyond.

“Ah notice yer navigator isnae in attendance,” Alcander posited suddenly guarded.

“Xavros, is attending his duties,” Camilla replied, unable to keep a slight guilty undertone from her voice that the probator did not fail to pick up on.

“Ye sed ye would teke me back!” Alcander objected, turning angrily and then realising he was on a void ship, the control of which could not effect. Camilla grinned slightly, seeming like her old self.

“Actually you said that,” Camilla corrected, “I just didn’t correct you.”
“So, yer abducting me? Is tha' the whoole of et?” he demanded. The void shield had cranked almost halfway closed now, closing down as the Navarre boosted out of orbit towards the ecliptic. The bright spots of the planets vanishing towards the empty void.

“I am conscripting you,” she announced, standing up straighter. She turned back to the table where a liveried crew member was laying a place card for Alcander. It read ‘Seneshal’ in bright golden letters.

“Congratulations, please do not resist.”

Scum and Villainy - Plentiful Bounty

Good luck on your midterms, @meri!

Once @Penny rolls that extra die from Quintus, I'll write up a post, I just need to see if she'll get that second 6 first.

@ctrlsaltdel

A second 6! Quintus to the rescue!

roleplayerguild.com/rolls/28570

Scum and Villainy - Plentiful Bounty

@merisorry I should have let you post first

Scum and Villainy - Plentiful Bounty

Target may be in possession of an infant.
Molly: would it help if I crashed a burning truck into it?

Scum and Villainy - Plentiful Bounty

“We appear to be on fire,” Quintus dead panned, his eyes flickering briefly to the spreading grease fire in the rear of the truck.

“I’m always on fire baby!” Molly whopped, as she careened through traffic at suicidal speed, the food truck began to lose manueverabilty as it converted the power of its big engines to momentum but if t his bothered the pilot she showed no sign of it. Molly’s eyes were wide and bright as she flicked switches and pulled ancient breakers to dump power from the powerful refrigerators into the engine. A civilian air bike swerved desperate and struck them a glancing blow, sending it careening through the glass window of a store that sold small xenos pets with a crash of shattering ceramic and the deafening caws of a hundred species of upset aliens. The truck fishtailed slightly toppling a huge stack of folded food cartons into the greasefire. Moments later the all but runaway truck was trailing a fluttering stream of burning papers, each with a holographic dragon fluttering spastically.

“I advise…” Quintus began as Molly whipped through an intersection, barely avoiding a dozen lethal collisions and smashing a neon sign for exotic dancers into glowing shards of light.

“All full ahead and damn the torpedos!” Molly screamed, cackling with insane glee the truck, engine screaming on override, struck the side of Cho-Tyrek’s bike with a crash of rending metal and plastec.

OOC

Molly ignores the grease fire and rams the hover bike.

6,2 for a critical success. I have potency on a speed related roll and I can mitigate negative effects from piloting.

Id also like to trigger my exp condition of meeting a challenge with speed or flair.

roleplayerguild.com/rolls/28566

Scum and Villainy - Plentiful Bounty

"Fuck that baby." Everyon with guns apparently.

Scum and Villainy - Plentiful Bounty

The air crisped carbs crunched pleasantly in Molly’s mouth as she dexterously maneuvered the suey sticks to collect more from the colorful paper cartoon. The design was a golden dragon laid on in cheap holo-print that seemed to swim around the square cardboard like a particularly demented eel. It was a stock design used by almost every fast food vendor in the sector. She turned away from the battered hover truck, with its neon sign blazing ‘Authentic Oriental Cuisine’ in eye searing glory.

“See,” she said to Quintus, her voice smug even if a trifle distorted around a mouthful of the tangy, spicy, carbs. “Told you we had plenty of time to…” The comm beeped the alert and a moment later the sound of blaster fire whined across it with spiteful attenuation. Quintus arched his ‘I told you so’ eyebrow, Molly’s least favorite of his eyebrows. She dropped the carton but her Ur Bot, jokingly christened RU-0K, who was perched on her shoulder, snatched it and the sticks from the air and continued to feed Molly as she looked around in panic. She made a half hearted swipe but the bot continued to shovel noodles into her mouth. The quest for munchies had carried them six blocks from where they were notionally on watch, and now it looked like it had all dropped into the pot.

“ Ee nee wheals,” Molly sputtered, then spun back to the holofood truck, finally managing to get the offending Ur Bot to pause it’s force feeding if not drop it’s prize. Molly pulled open the cab and climbed in, cast her eyes back to the startled proprietor in his grease stained apron.

“Citizen… we need your truck,” she announced as Quintus piled into the cab and added his much more intimidating glare.

My Hider

4, 4. One for Molly's command, one for Quintius assisting.

Scum and Villainy - Plentiful Bounty

Can somoeone explain how to build a dice pool? I understand the effects and such but how do you determine what dice you roll?

Scum and Villainy - Plentiful Bounty

[hider=Molly Neptune]

Molly Neptune, The Pilot

---

Name: Molly Neptune
Alias: Spoons
Look: Leather jacket over a flight suit and combat boots.

Rebel without a pause

A heart stopping young woman who has clearly benifited from aristo-gene therapy. Of medium height and with shocking purple hair she seems to bounce on the balls of her feet, perpetually in motion.

Heritage: Imperial
Background: Military
Vice: Pleasure

Class XP Trigger: Address challenges with speed or flair.

Starting Ability: Ace Pilot - You have potency on all speed-related rolls. When you roll to resist the consequences of piloting, gain +1d.

Special Abilities:
[list][*][b] Hedonist - When you indulge your vice, you may adjust the dice outcome by +/-2. An ally who joins you may do the same.[/*][/list]

Insight [2]

Doctor
Hack>
Rig >
Study

Prowess [3]

Helm>>
Scramble >
Scrap
Skulk>

Resolve [2]

Attune
Command >
Consort
Sway >

Trauma: 0/4
- N/A

Contacts:
Sorley Oxenbec - [Friend] - Deep Space Salvager - He has what you need, but best not ask too many questions.
Commodore Babbington Carlisle IX - [Rival] - Hagemony Commander - left at the altar.
Carlos - Gangster - Former Hagemony Marine turned crimelord
Delia Murdock - The Hanging Judge- Law woman without a heart
Persephone Pulsar - Fading Starlet- Washed up holoactress
Brother Bashar - Doomsayer- REPENT THE END IS NIGH

Bio: A daughter of the core world aristocracy Molly (or Marguerite as she was formally named) was meant to lead a life of staid privilege. Naturally rebellious and adventurous, not to mention spoiled and conceited, she fled an arranged marriage and went on a bender of truly legendary proportions. When the smoke cleared Molly found herself on an enlistment barge, apparently having signed up for the Hegemony Navy in a drunken, drug fueled, haze. Far from the first person to EWI (enlist while intoxicated) Molly was saved from grunt work in some god forsaken warzone by her IAT (initial aptitude tests). With her genetics and reflexes she was accepted for APT (advanced pilot training) at which she excelled.

Molly spent three years flying interceptors for the Hegemony, running down enemy fighters and shooting down incoming missiles. Seat of the pants flying that was hell on the nerves and burned out pilots by the droves. Hard drinking and drugs were just one of the coping mechanisms used by the men and women who plied the deadly craft. Bad attitudes were another and the combination of things meant Molly spent almost as many nights in the brig as tearing up the pubs and clubs of whatever planet or space station was handy.

It also meant that when a billionaire’s yacht was stolen and deliberately set on a high speed collision with another yacht, suspicion naturally fell to Molly. With the popularity of yacht billiards far from proven, Molly decided it might be a good time to take leg bail from the Hegemony and strike out on her own.

[/hider]

Status Block

Stress: [000------]
Harm:

Level 3:

Level 2:

Level 1:

Cred: 0/4
Stash: 0/40
Armor:
- Normal [X]
Load: Normal (3/5)

• Fine customized Space Suit (2)
• Fine mechanics kit(1)

Heroes of The Guard: A Warhammer 40K RP

There was no skill more essential to an Imperial Guardsman than the ability to stare fixedly at a point six inches above the head of whomever was dressing her down and betray absolutely no expression. Sel was a past master of this most essential of field crafts and demonstrated her skills as she stood in Major Sour's office, her fine dress uniform burned and torn, a great white splash of confectioners sugar across the front of her blue tunic and her feet lacquered to the polished stone floor but what both smell and texture suggested might be toffee. Kayden in marked contrast had come off rather better, with only a parted seam and a slight disheveling of his hair. The office had once belonged to some minor priest or functionary but devotional tapestries had been replaced with acetate maps marked up to show the city and its environs. Fuzzy pict plates showed aerial reconnaissance views of unfamiliar terrain and there were even a few stills from the gunpicters sentinels used. A faint smell of incense and old body powder over lay the more recent scent of lho sticks and recaf, a pot of which burbled on a hexamite stove in the corner. Sour pointedly did not offer his guests a cup.

"Why is it, that when there is trouble I may depend on finding you two caught up in it," Major Sour asked acidly. Sour was a beefy man, not fat exactly but too fond of food and drink to stay lean in a rear echelon posting like regiment XO. He had been a famous duelist in his youth and still bore a dueling scar on the left side of his face but that fame and that youth had been long ago. Sour was also a man who bore a grudge, his service record and seniority might have seen him elevated to colonel but his lack of political saavy had seen him passed over in favor of a politically connected officer. It was a bitter blow, a colonel might hope to one day elevate himself to the general staff but an aging major could look forward only to thankless work, the faults in which would fall to him and the success laid at the feet of his chief. It was too his credit that Sour did not avenge that disappointment on his juniors. Usually he didn't. Sel couldn't imagine that having to deal with an even younger, even better connected officer was doing the jowly old troll's ulcers any good.

"Sir," Kayden said in a reasonable and respectful tone, "I do not believe Corporal Seldon and I can be blamed for defeating an insurgent attack." The word defeated hung in the air and Sour glowered, unable to deny that it had been a win, albeit one so narrow that it made her palms itch. She didn’t know why being jumped in a supposedly friendly city made her so much more edgy than being bushwhacked out the back of beyond but there it was.

“Yes… Corporal Seldon,” Sour acknowledge in a tone so dry that Sel could almost feel the pages of her personnel file being judged and found to be considerably short of the mark. Sour tried to catch her eye but Sel expertly kept her own gaze fixed on her imaginary aiming point, her face so blank an neutral that she might have been a tailors dummy for all the emotion it conveyed. Sour, having played this game with soldiers his entire life, gave it up as a bad bargain and returned his attention to Kayden.

“Yes, well,” Sour continued dismissively, “you weren’t the only one that got shot at you know.” That was true, a handful of snipers had opened fire on the barracks at precisely the moment the ambush in the street was sprung. Snipers might be stretching the point though because not a single trooper had so much as been wounded. That was an odd contrast with the cold professionalism of the hit squad that Sel and Kayden had dispatched, more by luck than skill, and it made Sel even more nervous. Perhaps the enemy only had so many trained people and had used them all to try to eliminate Kayden. Sel supposed that after the spectacle at the palace it would be a public relations victory if nothing else.

“Yes Sir!” Kayden replied with a crisp enthusiasm that, while no doubt genuine, made Sour give him an irritated look. There was no way he could come down on a junior for such an appropriate response. He made a show of leafing through some papers on his desk, though it was a fair bet the sheets of flimsy held no new information.

“Ever consider a career in the holos Caradwalden?” Sour asked, which nonsequitor was so sudden that even Kayden was momentarily at a loss for words.

“Sir?” he asked in genuine perplexity. Sour produced a pict slate and turned it to face the pair. On it Sel could see footage of Kayden catching the prometheum bomb in one hand, then lobbing it back into the window. The view, which appeared to be from the other side of the street, showed a much better view of the resulting fireball, even highlighting three bodies behind the inferno in the moment their bodies were engulfed. If there was audio it was turned off, but a banner along the bottom of the screen read: “Lord Lieutenant Caradwalden single handedly defeats assassins.”

Nobody spoke for a long moment. A Lord Lieutenant was a rank at sector level, something someone in line to become governor might hold. A screw up like this, if it caught on, might well lead Kayden personally and the regiment generally into extremely dangerous waters. Clearly the vid had come from local newscasters, probably paparazzi who had followed Kayden from his dinner party.

“Hey!” Sel interjected without thinking about it, “he wasn’t single handed!”

“Seldon,” Sour said in the tone of a man wearier than words could describe. “Kindly keep your mouth shut for the remainder of this interview.” Sel opened her mouth to say Sir, then hastily closed it and nodded.

“This is already all over the city and by nightfall you will be a Throne damned local celebrity, which I’m sure to a glory hunter like you, does not seem like a problem,” Sour continued.

“Sir..” Kayden protested, but the Major was in no mood and he continued talking over the top of his subordinate.

“Which means, every damn insurgent in the city is going to want to blow whatever you have out of your head, and worse people standing beside you are likely to get it in the neck as well,” Sour grumbled. He softened slightly, as though embarrassed by his own vehemence.

“What we need is to get you out of here for a few days while things get settled down… fortunately a local noblewoman, one Baroness..." he paused to actually consult his papers before continuing. "Baroness Arsenault has asked for an Imperial Guard assessment of her estate and her household troops…”