Character Clichés?

[the_gobbo_king]

Doesn't that come as a side affect of being an administrative tool?

[inq.serge]

A common cliché is an orphan trained by random bandits, who takes on a daemon at the age of 12, while observed by some inquisitor not doing his job, and then getting a death-bed promotion.


An interesting concept I'm giving away (to anyone of you who wants it) is an Istaavanite Malleus (Or Hereticus) Inquisitor who seeks up deathbed-promoted inquisitors, and test their skills, killing those he finds unworthy, but, he also finds those with other ideologies unworthy too.

[biggreengribbly]

A common cliché is an orphan trained by random bandits, who takes on a daemon at the age of 12, while observed by some inquisitor not doing his job, and then getting a death-bed promotion.


An interesting concept I'm giving away (to anyone of you who wants it) is an Istaavanite Malleus (Or Hereticus) Inquisitor who seeks up deathbed-promoted inquisitors, and test their skills, killing those he finds unworthy, but, he also finds those with other ideologies unworthy too.

I seem to recall Marco or one of the other hoary vets mentioning that the FFG RPGs instituted the 'law' that Death-bed-promotions can be revoked by, if memory serves, the consensus of three 'regular' Inquisitors. Which might make a more interesting character, a charismatic politicker rather than an antagonistic 'you are inferior *blam*'.

Though I guess in a game about the moment when Inquisitors start blamming each other, maybe my preference is the lesser one

[DapperAnarchist]

Its the other way round - the Thorian Sourcebook introduced the rule that, to be given the rosette, you must appear before a Conclave, and be approved by three Inquisitors. Deathbed promotions aren't any such thing, any more than the child of an elected official can take over when they're dead (the official dead, not the child). Though, they may, by virtue of being left in charge of the Inquisitor's personal retinue, be an Inquisitor Probationary (a title I extrapolated from the existence of Inquisitors Practical and Historical, which are a bit like Professors and Professors Emeritus).

Heh, Marco is hoary... Doesn't that mean covered in frost?... I'm now imagining him covered in little models he made of very dangerous women...

[MarcoSkoll]

Yup. As DapperAnarchist says, the Thorian Sourcebook says a proper promotion requires the backing of three Inquisitors or one Inquisitor Lord (which, given that true Inquisitor Lords have the political backing of dozens of Inquisitors, is actually overkill) before a Conclave.
But any single Inquisitor can revoke a deathbed "promotion" on no authority other than their own.

"Deathbed promotions" are only really there in the first place so the pupil can finish whatever investigation his master was working on - when a proper Inquisitor turns up, then there's no further need for a probationary Inquisitor, beyond perhaps as a source of intelligence on the current situation.

Shooting them is therefore quite unnecessary (although "unnecessary" of course doesn't mean that an Inquisitor won't do it).
That said, I sort of suspect that any probationary Inquisitor who doesn't report to the local Conclave as soon as possible (to either be reassigned as an Interrogator or properly promoted, depending on their skill) would probably be seen as trying to avoid giving back the title and would likely fairly quickly find someone hunting them down.

[Raellos]

Such a character, with that anti-cliché background could now make for some quite interesting roleplay.

[DapperAnarchist]

An Interrogator who's master is murdered by a sinister Cabal of Inquisitors, and is now faced with the fact that his local Conclave is controlled by a malicious force, must flee to another Conclave and pretend to be an Inquisitor to round up assistance. Can he maintain the facade? Will the sinister Cabal find him? Will he give in to the potential for corruption available to an Inquisitor, or is he truly strong enough to be an Inquisitor?

[Commissar Molotov]

Or an Istvaanian Inquisitor who fakes his death to see how his disciples act when faced with turmoil and strife... either they rise to the occasion, or they're not worth the effort and are quietly disposed of...

[ashc]

Not to want to be a hated necromancer here, but i have a related question with regards to characters and their recruitment to a warband. If you are thinoing of including someone like a guardsman or a ganger, what is their 'hook'? Just why has an inquisitor recruited this person, and what deems them as exceptional enough to be worth recruiting? Do people just want tough badasses, or do you think they should have a truly exveptional gift to be worth recruiting (psykers, pariahs, etc?)

[MarcoSkoll]

There's always room for a rock-solid soldier in an Inquisitor's employ - who doesn't need some muscle to help out when the bullets (inevitably) start flying?

A lot of the time, however, as with other recruitment, I would suggest one of the following:

- Following Dark Heresy's lead. Many individuals will start on the fringes of an Inquisitor's organisation and some of those might prove themselves skilled, tough or just plain lucky enough to survive making their way up into the Inquisitor's central circle.

- The character was a temporary secondment to the Inquisitor's team. A local who knew the current case/sewer layout/hive dialect or perhaps had a skill that (unforeseen) had suddenly turned out to be necessary to an operation. During the course of that investigation, they proved their worth enough for the Inquisitor to decide it was worth keeping them around permanently. Although, that's not to say they made it straight into the central circle - the point above may have come into play.

- The character was perhaps someone the Inquisitor recruited while they were still an Interrogator proving themselves to their mentor. With lesser resources, they couldn't be as picky, but the person is good enough to have survived and has been kept around since the Inquisitor's promotion.

As, after all, it's going to be a very rare individual who was exceptional enough to be noticed and recruited to an Inquisitor's inner circle on the spot, and I'm largely trying to phase this kind of "You there, who I never met before you turned up and saved me from a daemon! You're hired!" out of my own collection. (Particularly when the person is promoted straight to Explicator or Interrogator. It would take some real time to decide whether someone had the right blend of intelligence, force of personality and trustworthiness to be a potential Inquisitor.)

If you have it more like that (particularly if the reason they were seconded or recruited to the fringes was because they had a good prior record), it's not too hard to see how someone could make the grade without being immediately noteworthy.

[ashc]

Thanks for the wise words Marco, plenty of food for thought there and i think its helped me out of my tight spot.

[TheDungen]

People like you and I are not the product of happy lives of contentment


That's why you don't have inquisitor characters that grew up happily with a nice family. and lets not forget "in the grim darkness of the 41st millennium there is only war."

[MyNameDidntFit]

I think the better version of the 'deathbed promotion' in Inquisitorial terms would be the 'deathbed letter of recommendation'. That is to say the dying Inquisitor signs off on a letter with his seal/rosette/etc and passes it on to their Interrogator/pupil to put to the proper bodies, recommending that he or she is put before the conclave.

[The Pirate Captain]

Eyeolas - dude, you hit the nail on the head there! My inquisitor was indeed raised by a loving family until the (40K equivalent) of about 18, then the her parents were indeed killed (They were Big Game hunters afterall). I did that because I wanted her to have a respectable reason to not open up straight away (small fear of abandonment) but to be an otherwise well rounded character.

My friend also has Mary-Sue character despite the obvious hints of "real people have virtues and vices" - wink wink, nudge nudge.

I think another Cliché is the ex-army with a drinking problem - finds meaning by being scooped up by a loving inquisitor. It's very "Lonely hearts" and a bit overdone.

Then again - I think some stereotypes are worth popping in now and again to make the mould-breakers stand out.


Ar - the atomic symbol of the Pirate