Also, since we have cannons and airships and junk, do we have guns? Like matchlocks or Dishonored style matchlocks that are really easy to reload or what?
"Guns don't exist, or at least any that I would recommend using. After the introduction of cannons, some attempts were made to design smaller, handheld cannons that could be carried by infantrymen into battle. But Maandike dust's lack of stability made it more likely that you'd just kill yourself by firing the gun. Armies have continued to use swords, pikes, and other more conventional weapons of war instead."
Hence my character idea being "the shitty younger son who discovered black powder."
Also, a side note, the Dishonored weapons are not matchlocks. From what I can tell they shoot centerfire metal cartridges which would be ignited via firing pin.
EDIT: Upon further research [read: playing a level of dishonored again], the pistol certainly looks like a wheellock, but that is clearly cosmetic:the gun operates like a semi-automatic modern pistol, complete with modern rounds.
OK: character concept. Shitty younger son, no-one likes him. Loves to fuck around with chemistry and science it up, but knows that if shit hits the fan and he's just a scientist he is going to get murdered for his place in the line of succession. So he joins the army, gets promoted to Major or something, still fucking around with chemistry. A few months before the game starts, he discovers he can make shitty black powder [he dreams of one day making a smokeless propellant, but that is not going to happen any time soon], and has been working on a breech-loading, chassepot-esque rifle for his Battalion-equivalent [they used to be pikemen or something]. Cue the death of the crown prince, and now he has to navigate politics long enough to get someone to make his guns and ammo for him, while not tipping off his brothers and sisters who would like nothing more than to murder him and take his revolutionary, if somewhat half-baked, weapons away from him and use them to conquer things and take the throne.
Thanks to the evident quality of metalwork and gunsmithing, it won't be that hard for a talented individual to whip a breech-loading rifle up, though obviously since they've nevuh been done befo', things are going to be a little jury-rigged.
Oh man, I've always wanted to play a game full of Tercios: 1500s soldiering is a hell of a drug. I'm not sure I've ever seen a steampunk game wherein the military technology is ~350 years behind the rest of it, but I can dig it.
Though, a fun character would be a younger prince who discovered the joys of mixing charcoal, sulphur and saltpeter...
As an aside, what are the cannon like? Are we talking muzzleloading pieces of shit or screw-breech armstrong goodness?
Eriadu was an ugly planet. Dull and grey and boring, pockmarked with messy urban sprawl and polluted seas. It shouldn't be a difficult target: security was not what is should have been, and the PDF wouldn't be expecting him. Eriadu had been staunchly Imperial, and Leopard's information claimed that those sentiments were far from dead. Every government claims the people are on their side, obviously, but the data seemed credible. Then again, he wouldn't come along if there weren't Jedi present. It should be interesting: a distraction, an appetizer, before the main course.
He was in the rear of the freighter the Commodore had commandeered. His armor was on, the mottled plates silent and gleaming while he did what all good soldiers do before a fight: cleaned his weapons. He brushed the barrel of his wrist-flamethrower for a third time. He triple-checked his blasters, cleaned the bores and checked the batteries. Grenades were counted and double-counted, and his other more esoteric gadgets were run through with an eye for minute detail. He ran through diagnostics on his augmentations, and thanked providence for the all-green report. He saved his revolvers for last, polishing the already mirror-bright metal and loading the brass and steel rounds one at a time, not without a touch of relish.
Ahead of him in the ship, two hundred Stormtroopers and another two hundred recruits, all with their assigned duties. Come planetfall, they'd all have their own duties. He'd be operating on his own: not his preference of course, especially in close quarters, but the brass figured he was more than enough to handle the Knight and Padawan that were meant to be on planet.
Leopard felt the rumble of compressing atmosphere, and stood up. It was time: he was descending above the capital spaceport, and could hear past the thick door the sounds of clanking boots and muffled, tinny voices. He pushed through the door, and entered the makeshift hanger, the main cargo hold expanded and retrofitted to hold a dozen transports, and his sleek personal vessel. He climbed into the sleek flying-V shape, folding the wings down as he powered the extraordinary engine, watching the bay doors open in front of him.
"Leopard-1, this is Alfa-1. Captain has cleared you for exit. Strike for the Emperor." A voice cracked through his helmet speakers. He keyed the response.
"Understood Alfa. Exiting". His voice surprised him slightly, the deep and rough timbre echoing familiarly within the metal casing.
He thumbed the thrust forward slightly, narrowly slipping past a troop carrier and out, past the flames of entry and far above the Capital Building.
The Hunt begins again.
Of course, he had suggested a bomb. He always did, and it was always worth considering. There wasn’t much a Jedi could do to stop a ball of antimatter annihilating above them, and most couldn’t see the future and get out of there. It helped that they rarely were discrete in their presence, thanks in no small part to their tendencies towards burlap. Of course, the Commodore had refused, and for good reason. Eriadu was too easily swayed to risk losing that advantage with large-scale destruction, and the Capital Building was of too much strategic importance to destroy for the sake of a pair of Jedi. And so, here he was.
The small ship was on autopilot as it descended towards the massive Capital tower and there landing pads it held. All but one were empty, the last holding a squat geometric corvette, likely the Jedi vessel. Leopard keyed the console, sending the landing documents, claiming he was a representative from Seswenna here for some talks over trade minutiae, and directed the ship to land. A familiar clunk-hiss, and the cockpit opened, out from which he dropped to the pad, his heavy armor making a significant crash after falling only three or four meters. He had purposefully left the screaming engine running. On the other side of the pad, a trio of human bureaucrats eyed him nervously. One of them reached for a communicator, but Leopard didn’t give him the chance to speak into it. Leopard reached to his lower back, and removed something the size of a blaster carbine, angular and jutting, grey with a black cylinder at its front. He squeezed the trigger, and the suppressed slugthrower spewed a cascade of tiny metal projectiles, slicing through the two men and one woman accompanied by the familiar rapid clicks of suppressed small explosions, the comparatively large rounds travelling at subsonic, but sufficiently deadly, speeds.
The three officials dead, Leopard tossed the suppressed weapon back into the cockpit, and listened to the engine turn itself off, leaving the pad in familiar silence. A silence which did not last for long, interrupted a handful of seconds later by the blaring of klaxons. Leopard thought he had failed to stop the man, but a distant explosion and the faint sound of firefights to the south corrected him. The Stormtroopers must have begun their operations, seizing government buildings and military installations all over the city. Leopard had wished they had waited: he needed to engage the jedi before they left the building, and having seen the size of their craft he knew they wouldn’t fly to conflict zones. They would just run there with the help of the force. Grimacing slightly at having to change his plan, he thumbed his communicator, and directed his ship to open fire on the corvette. The dorsal laser cannon wasn’t much against combat ships, but a civilian transport with its shields down would be turned to mince, and after a dozen ear-splitting shots, the corvette detonated.
I'm not sure I'm qualified to make a post when I don't have any idea where I would be, what I'd be doing, who I'm working for and who I'n working with. GM, pls, halp me.
So what would someone working for the Remnant know about the leadership of it? Who would Leopard being working for directly, and what would I know about coming plans?
Character you wish to play: Ardam 'Leopard' Pardalis
Race: Human
Faction: The Imperial Remnant, Nominally
Background: Ardam's history is a common one. He was born in a small village, on the Agri World of Sagma, to a mother and father who were not ready to accept the constantly rising taxes of a government lightyears away. He watched his parents rebel, along with uncountable thousands of others, and watched them have the honor of being cut down by the brilliant blue blades of the 'defenders of peace and justice'. Orphaned, he fled from consoling family members and struck out on his own, beset by grief and rage made only more burning by his utter impotence. He fled into the city, taking shelter in the poor and destitute parts of the sprawl, begging and eventually stealing to feed himself. Like countless homeless children, he was inducted into a gang, and cut his teeth learning to fight for territory and trust his fellow members, and to always follow orders.
He grew quickly, forced to mature through a life of danger without the protection of family or the law. He learned to shoot and stab and hide. He came to love the thrill, the changeable and chaotic world of those who live on the edges of society. He came to love technology, weapons of all kinds. He pestered the illegal gunsmiths to teach him, and learned quickly. He stole books from libraries and magazines from stands to fuel his fascination, and by his fifteenth birthday became not only a valuable soldier for his boss but an indispensable weapon-smith.
His seventeenth birthday marked the start of another common story. It couldn't have been predicted: one theft too far, from one person too powerful, and the next day soldiers of the Republic, with a saber-wielding human at their front, come to take back what was stolen and enforce their peace. No-one will ever know who fired the first shot, but Ardam fired the last. The corpses of his friends around him, the less loyal fled, an old slugthrower in his hand. He got lucky, he knows that now: how the Jedi didn't see it coming is beyond him, but for all it's power the force didn't stop that one bullet.
Ardam fled, of course. Took what gear he could and left. Years of scraping by on the edge of the galaxy, taking whatever jobs came his way, selling his deadly services for money, the taken saber always on him, never used. Five years later, he found himself on a Star Destroyer. Showing the lightsaber, proof of his kill, earned him a command and a steady wage, and after all these years a purpose beyond survival. He was going to Coruscant.
Character Class: Soldier
Items: A pair of old slugthrowers, with revolving cylinders and large calibers. Flamethrowers, stun nets, carbonite throwers, landmines and poison gas. Sniper rifles, blaster shotguns, and vibroblades. He has most of his earnings within him, bone lacings, muscle supplementation, nerve replacements and a number of other intrusive and highly expensive augmentations.
Character Personality: Ruthless. Efficient, abstemious and frugal. Ardam loves danger and hates idleness. He dislikes authority and hates taking orders, but does anyways. He tries to stay one step ahead of everyone he meets, and craves knowledge like an alcoholic craves whiskey. He enjoys authority, values intelligence and determination, and hates conceit. He is not prideful, and strives to know himself. He craves freedom, and sees his work as a means to that particular end. He appreciates innovation and dislikes dogma, but thinks poorly of those who ignore proven successes to appear clever and creative. He is quick to become the friend of people, but truly cares for few anymore. To Ardam, all things are fungible, and ends justify means, depending on the benefit of the end and the sacrifice of the means.
Character Alignment (Choose one): Light Side
Do you know how to post pictures on the RPG Boards: Yes, but I prefer not to. Ardam is tall, with a medium build. His angular face is topped with a mop of messy blonde hair, and has upon it a pair of accusatory eyes and a constant smirk. He is rarely outside his bulky powered armor, bought from a trader who didn't recognize its mandalorian origins but still charged him an exorbitant price. His skin is pale and marked with evidence of his life in squalor and violence. His hands are dexterous, his gait light, and his bearing straight and attentive. He is not prone to unnecessary movements, and does not fidget. His armor is marked tan and black, his form spattered with usually full holsters, each bearing a different and unusual weapon, each always in pristine condition, matching the attire.
It was a dream he'd had more than once. He was in the familiar workshop, with the familiar smell of the blood of dead friends. A familiar Jedi stood across from his adult, fully ready form, brilliant beam of light held at the ready. The exchange went the same way each time.
"Who are you?" The jedi intoned, the young head topping his muscular form furrowed in anger and confusion.
Ardam inched one hand to the weapon slung at his chest. "The one who got away, Jedi.". He spat the last word, his anger briefly piercing through the air of lazy contempt he maintained.
From there, the dream played differently each time. This version of the Jedi threw a hand forward, and a sledgehammer caught Ardam in the chest, flinging him back inexorably. Microrockets in his greaves responded to his thoughts, letting him keep his stability as he flew back with the current of Force, bringing the weapon to his shoulder, a reticule appearing on his visor. He squeezed the trigger, and a cone of plasma flew out, like the breath of an Arkanian, scorching everything in its path. The Jedi, no doubt readying himself to block a single bolt, rolled away from the danger, propelling himself with the force. Ardam cursed, and realizing he wouldn't get another chance, dropped the deck-clearer, unsheathing the vibroblade and catching the lunge of the lightsaber in one smooth movement.
The Jedi had the advantage of speed, but his armor gave him the upper hand in strength. He wrestled with the jedi with his free hand, parrying the saber with the vibroblade. The scream of energy on energy filled the room, hurting Ardam's ears even through the helmet. He saw the Jedi wince with each hit. Ardam began to get the upper hand in the grapple, but the jedi flicked the saber off, the line of hellfire retreating back into the hilt. Ardam's blade swung towards the robed figure, but before he could connect he was forced to jet away, the blade extending again, pointed directly at his heart. He could feel the heat of the smoldering metal and ceramic: if it wasn't for his armor, he'd most likely be dead. He reached the other edge of the room, and let the jedi catch his breath. Ardam removed two pistols from their holsters: one thick and black, the other thin and silver, one in each hand. He knew a pistol in both hands was awful, but it was necessary for now.
He fired the black blaster pistol several times, and the Jedi parried each red bolt with ease, sending three of the five blasts directly back at him, only two of which he dodged. The Jedi smirked, and called out defiantly
"Your friends thought that would work, criminal scum! It didn't!"
Ardam fired the other weapon. A cacophonous bang filled the room as a tiny metal cone, 11 milimeters wide, sprinted across the room, well over ten times faster than a blaster bolt, and invisible to the naked eye. If the Jedi was a master, he might have stopped it quick enough. If the jedi hadn't gotten into the rhythm of deflecting Ardam's blaster bolts, he might have done something. He didn't. In a tiny fraction of a second, the cone of metal powdered the Jedi's skull, and mushrooming out within his brain cavity, rendered him dead almost instantly.
"That did."
He holstered his revolver, and awoke in his familiar bed aboard the Gravitas, a smile wide on his freshly-awoken face.