In the nightmare future of the 41st millennium, Mankind teeters upon the brink of extinction. The galaxy-spanning Imperium of Man is beset on all sides by ravening aliens, and threatened from within by malevolent creatures and heretic rebels. Only the strength of the Immortal Emperor of Terra stands between Humanity and its annihilation. Dedicated to His service are the countless warriors, agents and myriad servants of the Imperium.
Dark Heresy is a roleplaying game based upon the universe of Games Workshop's Warhammer 40,000. The setting of Warhammer 40,000 is a dark, gothic future where the Imperium of Man is beset by dangers within and without. In Dark Heresy players take on the roles of Acolytes of the Inquisition, aiming to uncover and combat the enemies of mankind, be they aliens, heretics or mutants!
Jericus feels himself falling prey to the daemon's foul control. But a lifetime of self-reliance has given him a strong will. For a moment all of his muscles go rigid, then he fights back against the chaotic influence.
Free once more, the scribe raises the rifle to his shoulder. He begins by aiming at Aristarchus, but stops when he sees Rego's shotgun blast shielded by the tarot cards. Instead he moves the rifle and takes careful aim at the daemon-creature. "Does this look like Saint Drusus to you, Aristarchus?" He shouts. "It's really the daemon they call the Crow Father or the Dancer at the Threshold. It knows so much about Saint Drusus because it was Saint Drusus that banished him all those centuries ago."
Then, his aim as good as it's likely to get, Jericus snaps off a shot. And since the Crow Father sent its shale crows to peck out the eyes of its enemies, the scribe aims to do the same thing to the Daemon, except with a bullet instead of a beak. Uncharacteristically, he mutters a prayer to Saint Drusus as he pulls the trigger.
Half Action: Aim. (How I wish this gun wasn't broken, I could use that extra +10) Half Action: Fire rifle at Skae-daemon. Aim for the right eye.
BS 32, +10 aim, +10 laser sight, +10 short range, -20 called shot = 42
Effectivs Active
Haxtes: Fear grips the character and he begins to shake and tremble. He is at -10 penalty to all Tests for the rest of the encounter unless he can recover his wits (snap out of it roll each round).
Damien: Reeling with shock, the character backs away from the thing that cronfronts them. The character cannot willingly approach the object of his fear, but may otherwise act normally, with a -10 penalty on all Test until the end of the encounter.
Haxtes, Solaria - Pull of the Crow Father (drop weapons, stumble toward him)
Gotcha MMV, fixed. East not North. I thought so but wasn't sure.
Jericus breaks the hold the Daemon has on his mind and he lifts his rifle to his shoulder and takes aim on Aristarchus the Seer for a moment. That is until he sees the buckshot from Rego simply vanish when it comes in contact with the field around him. So he turns his laserdot to the former Abbot. Calling out Jericus shouts over the hum and howl of the warp, over the cries and chanting of the collected people of Stern Hope. Jericus calls to the Seer's reasoning, to the good man that is someplace inside the heretic summoning the warp now.
"Does this look like Saint Drusus to you, Aristarchus?" He shouts. "It's really the daemon they call the Crow Father or the Dancer at the Threshold. It knows so much about Saint Drusus because it was Saint Drusus that banished him all those centuries ago."
Aristarchus looks up, his chanting stops. He looks right into the eyes of Jericus and blinks. Its the first time he's blinked since you entered the cathedral. "...but..." His head turns to regard Abbot Skae and his twisted mutated body. "What...what have I..." Aritsarchus starts to come to his senses, the bright white light of the Tarot cards start to flicker and falter.
The Dancer at the Threshold howls at the change, realizing something is wrong! Just then Jericus pulls the trigger and fires the rifle. The bullet screams past the Daemon's head and strikes one of the people in the crowd killing the man it hits instantly, mercy perhaps.
Charm: 24 (Difficult -10)/+10 Certain Details Mentioned - Success!!
Aim,
Shoot Skae's Right Eye (-30, not just -20) Aim +10, Lasrer +10, Short +10: 64 vs 32 Fail
Xanthia, about to drop her Spitfire holds on....
Bren sent me email. Spending Fate for re-rolls.
99 Fail
18 Success! Xanthia can act normal.
No one has any Fate left in the whole group now!
Last edited by Vardaen on Wed Oct 13, 2010 10:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom." - Gandalf
J.R.R. Tolkien, Council of Elrond, The Fellowship of the Ring
Xanthia just barely manages to hold onto her newly acquired weapon as she fights against the pull of the Crow Father. She almost just lost herself to his pull now, but the feel of the Spitfire's grip in her hand lets her maintain her hold on it.
Forcing herself to maintain her grip on the Spitfire, she brings it up, sighting along it. She realizes that the range is too much, way too much for this particular weapon, so she bolts forward, rushing to get within range.
Move summary: Run 24. End up 1 SE of first of the pews to east of Jericus.
Run 24. Using them all to go east would get me to the square NE of the first pew, but would also put me in line of fire. However, can angle on a 1-for-1, so can make it to the SE front corner of the other set of pews to the north.
Solaria shambles foward, aware of her surroundings and the dire threat her companions face. Tears stream down the woman's face as she once again cannot do anything to help them. She tries again and again to break the control this bastard daemon has over her, but Solaria's reserves are just drained.
I am the voice of Never Never Land, the innocence of every man, I am the empty crib of Peter Pan. A silent kite against the blue, blue sky, every chimney every moonlit sight. I am the story that will read you real, every memory that you hold dear...
Xanthia holds on to her will, the assassin has often been crippled by fear, but now in the end she holds on to herself. Moving forward she darts to close the range with the Skae-Thing that is the Crow Father incarnate. She leaps a pew to get into position. Behind her shambles Haxtes, his gimp leg causing him to stumble even more than expected. He looks over his implanted breather but can't help his actions even as he resists. At his side comes Solaria, her eyes streaming tears as he inabilty to control her action or aid her friends. The Frenzon in her system keep her fully aware of the dangers she in but blanks her mind but leaves her unable to break the hold of the deaemon's grip.
"You've done a terrible thing, Aristarchus, a terrible thing indeed." Jericus calls forth, even as he aims for the Skae-Daemon again. "But its not too late to pull back from the brink. If you truly want to honor the Emperor and follow the path of Saint Drusus, you'll help us keep the Watcher from crossing the Threshold. Don't finish the ritual. Let the daemon be pulled back to the prison Saint Drusus laid for it so many centuries ago!"
Then, his aim as good as he can get it, the scribe fires off another shot.
Half Action: Aim Half Action: Aimed shot at the right eye again.
If I don't have a clear shot now, make that first half action a move forward.
That should be a 32% chance to hit if I can aim, and a 22% chance if I can't.
Damien's heart falters in his chest even standing at the threshold of the Cathedral, his eyes filling with tears at beholding one of his greatest fears. The Seer has unwittingly become a servant of Chaos, his Psyker abilities turned to the furtherance of evil. He does the only thing he can do - try to reason with Aristarchus until he comes to his senses. "Aristarchus! What do the texts say Saint Drusus was like? Would he slay an innocent woman like this monster just did? Did he travel surrounded by a sickly green aura? This is a Daemon, not a Saint!"
Rule Number 12: "A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head."
Damien remains rooted where he is, he can't enter, he can't flee, he can only reason with the Seer. Shouting to back up Jericus's words the Pysker calls out to Aristarchus, pleading with him even as Jericus has been. The two of them send a volley of pleas to the Seer, and they do not land on deaf ears.
Jericus picks up where Damien leaves off but he adds one additional thing. He takes aim on Abbot Skae, and the red laser dot his rifle lands on the face of the deamon beast, and then narrows in on its right eye.
*Kapow!*
The crack of the rifle fires, and the bullet from the Adept flies through the air spiraling on a perfect path right into the skull of The Dancer at the Threshold! The bullet impacts with the daemon-Skae's eyes and blows the ocular organ into a white pulpy mess. The impact send the Skae-thing to the ground with a howling scream of pain, ager, and disbelief!
Aim +10, Laser Dot +10, Short +10, Called Shot to Eye -30: 14 vs 34 HIT!!!
Damage: 8+3=11 No Resistances vs This! Right Eye Blow Out!
At that moment, the Seer acts, taking heed from Jericus and Damien, the pykser has fully become aware of what is going on. Looking up into the warp portal forming above his head he cries out, "By Saint Drusus what have I done? No... no I will not fall to heresy like this!" Then Aristarchus the Seer throws himself into the back side of the spinning tarot cards. his contact with them short-circuits the ritual, and a massive immolating pillar of white light engulfs The Seer and the altar screaming upwards in a cyilinder of pyskic feedback. The blast sends shockwaves out through the cathedral knocking everyone off their feet, Xanthia is sent flying ten meters back into the crowded pews of Stern Hopians who break her fall. Rego's blade is thrown from his hand to lodge itself in a nearby column as he slides backwards bowling into Jericus and Haxtes taking them down. Solaria is send flying into your own Pysker Damien, but his body hardly notices the impact as his mind is screaming in more pain than he's ever felt in his entire life. It is as if a conduit to the soulless void of the warp is opened up and its entirty pours into his brain eating away it at -- the pyskic backlash is more than anyone can bare, but at the moment of breaking something shields Damien. That something is Aristarchus himself, he takes in the power of open portal unto himself, and is consumed body and soul by it!
The shock of the event reverberates through the warp for millions of lightyears and astropaths even at the fringes of the sector are knocked unconscious by the psykic blast! The tarot cards themselves shatter, flinging liquid crystal shrapnel and tendrils of psyhic flame about the cathedral as the roof portal shatters upwards into nothingness. As the roof of the cathedral is blown into powder, the warp portal imlodes into nothingness sucking the Skae-thing up into its confines consuming it as it howls on its return to the warp!
Then there is silent. A dead silence of nothing. The Skae-thing is gone, the warp portal and the roof vanished, The Seer is nothing but ash on the altar. A single tarot card remains on the floor half way between the ashes of the Seer and the Acolytes, the faceless Magus of the Executeria suit, damage to the card reveal the internal crystalline circuity that crackles with energy and then fades.
In a breath after the dead silence the cathedral becomes home to hundres screaming and traumatised people, they have just survived a full blown daemonic infestation, and it shows on their screaming faces!
You guys win! Wow.
I'm going to open an OOC chatter thread so we can talk about this fight.
"He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom." - Gandalf
J.R.R. Tolkien, Council of Elrond, The Fellowship of the Ring
Jericus pulls himself up from the ground, memories of the air raids and artillery assaults of his youth coming back to him. He rubs his left shoulder, aching from where Rego smashed into him, and mutters, "good riddance," to the spot where the Skae-daemon disappeared not moments ago. Then, rotating his left arm around the shoulder to loosen it up, he stands, moving over to pick up the hunting rifle from where it's landed a few feet away.
"Is everyone okay?" he asks, his comments clearly directed only to the acolytes. For it's all too evident that the residents of Stern Hope are far from okay. He looks around the broken cathedral and adds, almost to himself, "this is going to be a hell of a clean up. I don't know what we can do with these people."
A moment later he spies the remains of the tarot card on the floor. "Damien," he calls over the sound of the people's screams. "Is that normal?" The scribe points at the card. "I thought the cards were just supposed to be a psychic focus. Do they have micro-circuitry as well?"
