https://questden.org/w/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=Squeegy&feedformat=atomquestden - User contributions [en]2024-03-28T18:44:17ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.31.1https://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Age_of_Shadows&diff=33185Age of Shadows2019-08-17T06:37:03Z<p>Squeegy: stop</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Infobox <br />
|author=Aizuchi<br />
|imageext=927154<br />
|thread1=530834<br />
|thread2=927154<br />
|disthread1=74609<br />
}}<br />
<br />
After waiting years for her chance, a being of great evil returns to wreak havoc.<br />
==Characters==<br />
{{-}}<br />
<div style="float: right">{{questart|831208||board=questarch|caption=Dionaea Felaedri}}</div><br />
===Dionaea Felaedri===<br />
A creature born out of the collective fears of mankind. Dionaea is effectively immortal, unable to die though it is possible for her to be banished, removed from the realm of the living in any meaningful manner until a proper time shows itself. She is capable of and intends to grow more powerful by devouring the souls of humans, using them to develop more abilities and presence in the world.<br />
<br />
Being a magical creature, Dionaea is not actually capable of being harmed by mundane means. Fists would sink through her, as do weapons of any normal build, no matter how heavy or sharp. However, magical equipment--weapons forged from cold iron, spells, or enchanted weaponry--are all very much capable of harming and even banishing her, should she take too great a blow.<br />
<br />
{{-}} <!-- Lines up text and image --><br />
<div style="float: right">{{questart|926404||board=questarch|caption=Niklaus Irontail}}</div><br />
===Niklaus Irontail===<br />
Ratfolk noble, last of his lineage and heir to a fortune he's wasted, to the point of facing insurmountable debt at the hands of Duke Furthing and his subordinates. After encountering Dionaea, he's agreed to let her stay at his manor in the town of Kelorus, while she tries to find a way to make his troubles disappear, and gain a reputation with the town's criminal underbelly. <br />
<br />
{{-}}<br />
<div style="float: right">{{questart|926664||board=questarch|caption=Matthew Furthing}}</div><br />
===Duke Matthew Furthing===<br />
Lord of nearby Gulradein, uses his position and skills as the Emperor's financial advisor and taxman to wring money out of others, notably Niklaus.<br />
<br />
{{-}}<br />
<div style="float: right">{{questart|926665||board=questarch|caption=Hans Minami}}</div><br />
===Sir Hans Minami===<br />
Ruthless knight, henchman of Duke Furthing. Lost his left eye early in life, and its magic-imbued replacement is rumored to let him see others' "true nature".<br />
<br />
{{-}}<br />
<div style="float: right">{{questart|929798||board=quest|caption=Jakob Softpaw}}</div><br />
===Jakob Softpaw===<br />
Merchant by day and criminal by night, a fat brown-furred Ratfolk in charge of Kelorus' illicit trade. <br />
<br />
{{-}}<br />
<div style="float: right">{{questart|928458||board=quest|caption=Reinhold}}</div><br />
===Reinhold===<br />
A red-furred gnoll serving as Jakob's right-hand man, in command of Kelorus' criminal scene and known as the 'muscle' between the two, given his larger size and inclination for cruelty.<br />
<br />
{{-}}<br />
<div style="float: right">{{questart|930578||board=quest|caption=Sosatoush}}</div><br />
===Sosatoush===<br />
A reserved, shy goblin who also goes by "Sosa". Works for Niklaus as a servant. <span style="color:#000" style="background:#000">Appears to be controlled by or connected to an unknown force.</span><br />
<br />
{{-}}<br />
<br />
==Setting==<br />
Age of Shadows takes place in a medieval-level fantasy world with demonic creatures and magic both available in the land. The sentient creatures are anthropomorphic animals, humans, and elves, and there exist both mages and templars in the setting. Various religions and cults exist throughout the land, some worshiping gods and others worshiping demons not unlike Dionaea.<br />
<br />
==Abilities==<br />
Dionaea has so far gained the following abilities:<br />
*'''Feed''': Dionaea can consume the soul of a victim and use it to grow in power. Dionaea must have physical contact with the victim when they die.<br />
*'''Shadowblend:''' Dionaea can turn invisible so long as the observer is not looking for anything out of the ordinary.<br />
*'''Permeable:''' Dionaea is a being of shadow, rather than flesh. Normal weaponry and attacks will sink into her harmlessly.<br />
*'''Impersonate:''' Dionaea can take the form of anyone whose soul she has consumed. Note that this will only assume their naked form, and physical contact will break the illusion. <br />
*'''Feral Claws:''' Dionaea gains sharpened claws capable of injuring and maiming.<br />
*'''Spectral Senses:''' Dionaea can observe the traces of things beyond mortal senses.<br />
*'''Speed:''' Dionaea can move very quickly.<br />
*'''Animate Skeleton:''' Dionaea can animate the fragile skeleton of someone she has slain, causing it to climb out of its meaty shell and serve her.<br />
*'''Leap:''' Dionaea can jump high and far.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Gallery==<br />
=== Official ===<br />
{{questart|74628||board=questdis|caption=Dionaea Concept Art}}<br />
{{questart|110698||board=questdis|caption=A better look at a mysterious person spotted in the quest.}}<br />
{{questart|128577||board=questdis}}<br />
{{questart|129108||board=questdis}}<br />
{{questart|129187||board=questdis|caption=Jakob's dying wish}}<br />
<br />
==ITQ==<br />
Dionaea has made appearances [[Inside the Quest]]. {{post|110711}} {{post|129079}} {{post|129087}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Image Quests]]<br />
[[Category:Running Quests]]</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=A_Feast_of_Souls&diff=33184A Feast of Souls2019-08-17T06:34:14Z<p>Squeegy: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Infobox <br />
|author=Kaktus<br />
|imageext=859412<br />
|thread1=858190|thread1name=Thread 1: First Day of Harvest<br />
|thread2=859412<br />
|thread3=876091<br />
|thread4=903569<br />
|thread5=937618<br />
|disthread1=120031<br />
|suppressnum=1<br />
}}<br />
<blockquote><br />
''They are just a bunch of stupid beasts, nothing more. You don’t exact vengeance on a stupid mutt, you exact vengeance on its master that trained it. Find whoever<br/>led those things to our village and bring them to Justice! That’s the only way we’ll have our retribution.''<br />
:-Corvus Inkfeather<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
Oh, Ema.<br />
<br />
Poor, poor Ema.<br />
<br />
Murdered and mutilated on your very special day. Bound to the spirit of justice, at the exact moment it was destined to fail.<br />
<br />
... Will justice prevail? Or is justice a lie?<br />
<br />
Nobody can be sure when judgement demands oblivion.<br />
<br />
{{Stub}}<br />
{{NSFW|quest}}<br />
{{Kaktus}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Image Quests]]<br />
[[Category:Running Quests]]</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=A_Feast_of_Souls&diff=33183A Feast of Souls2019-08-17T06:28:24Z<p>Squeegy: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Infobox <br />
|author=Kaktus<br />
|imageext=859412<br />
|thread1=858190|thread1name=Thread 1: First Day of Harvest<br />
|thread2=859412<br />
|thread3=876091<br />
|thread4=903569<br />
|thread5=937618<br />
|disthread1=120031<br />
|suppressnum=1<br />
}}<br />
<br />
Oh, Ema.<br />
<br />
Poor, poor Ema.<br />
<br />
Murdered and mutilated on your very special day. Bound to the spirit of justice, at the exact moment it was destined to fail.<br />
<br />
... Will justice prevail? Or is justice a lie?<br />
<br />
Nobody can be sure when judgement demands oblivion.<br />
<br />
{{Stub}}<br />
{{NSFW|quest}}<br />
{{Kaktus}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Image Quests]]<br />
[[Category:Running Quests]]</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Samuel&diff=33182Template:Samuel2019-08-17T06:23:55Z<p>Squeegy: stop</p>
<hr />
<div>{{authorbox|author=Samuel|authoralias={{{authoralias|}}}}}<br />
<br />
'''Active:''' <br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
'''Completed:'''<br />
[[Prototype]] |<br />
[[Moulder's Journey]]<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
'''Dormant:'''<br />
[[Venturing Underground]] |<br />
[[Decisions]] |<br />
[[StealthQuest]] |<br />
[[Cast Quest]] |<br />
[[Does This Thing Work]] |<br />
[[Phantom Star]] |<br />
[[Red Tape]] |<br />
[[Zalgo Quest]] |<br />
[[Kzeytch]] |<br />
[[Rat Quest (Squeegy)| Rat Quest]] |<br />
[[Sunken Stars]] |<br />
[[Psychogenic]] |<br />
[[Edge of the Void]] |<br />
[[Domicile]] |<br />
[[Puzzle Dungeon]] |<br />
[[Black Company]] |<br />
[[The Unkindness of Ravens]]<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
''Other notable creations:''<br />
[[TGMUD]] |<br />
{{thread|board=questdis|67641|Python Strip Poker Adventures}}<br />
<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<noinclude>[[Category:Author Boxes]]</noinclude></div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Featured_Article&diff=29976Template:Featured Article2018-08-09T15:32:08Z<p>Squeegy: Featuring Acid (Dog) Soup by FRACTAL since the old feature is completed and it's been a month.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Feature<br />
|title=Acid Soup<br />
|author=FRACTAL<br />
|authorext=<br />
|image=<br />
|imageext=718797<br />
|text= : In a strange world where even one's past and self are malleable, Lowry sets off in search of what she's lost.<br />
<br />
: As one might perhaps expect, she ends up finding more than she bargained for. <br />
<br />
}}<noinclude>[[Category:Templates]]</noinclude></div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Age_of_Shadows&diff=29974Age of Shadows2018-08-09T09:06:47Z<p>Squeegy: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Infobox <br />
|author=AoS<br />
|thread1=530834<br />
|disthread1=74609<br />
}}<br />
<br />
After waiting years for her chance, a being of great evil returns to wreak havoc.<br />
<br />
==Characters==<br />
<br />
===Dionaea Felaedri===<br />
[[Image:dionaea.png|thumb|left|Dionaea Felaedri, our protagonist]]<br />
A creature born out of the collective fears of mankind. Dionaea is effectively immortal, unable to die though it is possible for her to be banished, removed from the realm of the living in any meaningful manner until a proper time shows itself. She is capable of and intends to grow more powerful by devouring the souls of humans, using them to develop more abilities and presence in the world.<br />
<br />
<br />
Being a magical creature, Dionaea is not actually capable of being harmed by mundane means. Fists would sink through her, as do weapons of any normal build, no matter how heavy or sharp. However, magical equipment--weapons forged from cold iron, spells, or enchanted weaponry--are all very much capable of harming and even banishing her, should she take too great a blow.<br />
<br />
{{-}} <!-- Lines up text and image --><br />
<br />
==Setting==<br />
Age of Shadows takes place in a medieval-level fantasy world with demonic creatures and magic both available in the land. The sentient creatures are anthropomorphic animals (all of them, to current knowledge), and there exist both mages and templars in the setting. Various religions and cults exist throughout the land, some worshiping gods and others worshiping demons not unlike Dionaea.<br />
<br />
==Abilities==<br />
Dionaea has so far gained the following abilities:<br />
*'''Feed''': Dionaea can consume the soul of a victim and use it to grow in power. Dionaea must have physical contact with the victim when they die.<br />
*'''Shadowblend:''' Dionaea can turn invisible so long as the observer is not looking for anything out of the ordinary.<br />
*'''Permeable:''' Dionaea is a being of shadow, rather than flesh. Normal weaponry and attacks will sink into her harmlessly.<br />
*'''Impersonate:''' Dionaea can take the form of anyone whose soul she has consumed.<br />
*'''Feral Claws:''' Dionaea gains sharpened claws capable of injuring and maiming.<br />
*'''Spectral Senses:''' Dionaea can observe the traces of things beyond mortal senses.<br />
*'''Speed:''' Dionaea can move very quickly.<br />
*'''Animate Skeleton:''' Dionaea can animate the fragile skeleton of someone she has slain, causing it to climb out of its meaty shell and serve her.<br />
*'''Leap:''' Dionaea can jump high and far.<br />
<br />
==ITQ==<br />
Dionaea has made one appearance [[Inside the Quest]]. {{post|110711}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Image Quests]]<br />
[[Category:Running Quests]]</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Samuel&diff=29973Template:Samuel2018-08-09T09:04:51Z<p>Squeegy: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{authorbox|author=Samuel|authoralias={{{authoralias|}}}}}<br />
<br />
'''Active:''' <br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
'''Completed:'''<br />
[[Prototype]] |<br />
[[Moulder's Journey]]<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
'''Dormant:'''<br />
[[Venturing Underground]] |<br />
[[Decisions]] |<br />
[[StealthQuest]] |<br />
[[Cast Quest]] |<br />
[[Does This Thing Work]] |<br />
[[Phantom Star]] |<br />
[[Red Tape]] |<br />
[[Zalgo Quest]] |<br />
[[Kzeytch]] |<br />
[[Rat Quest (Squeegy)| Rat Quest]] |<br />
[[Sunken Stars]] |<br />
[[Psychogenic]] |<br />
[[Edge of the Void]] |<br />
[[Domicile]] |<br />
[[Puzzle Dungeon]] |<br />
[[Black Company]]<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
''Other notable creations:''<br />
[[TGMUD]] |<br />
{{thread|board=questdis|67641|Python Strip Poker Adventures}}<br />
<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<noinclude>[[Category:Author Boxes]]</noinclude></div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Featured_Article&diff=21005Template:Featured Article2014-07-21T19:52:01Z<p>Squeegy: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Feature<br />
|title=Sunset Hill Quest<br />
|author=Sombermann<br />
|image=<br />
|imageext=570373<br />
|text=A quest in a [[Ruby Quest]]-esque style, though interspersed with much better drawn parts. A man wakes up in a stuffy hotel room with no memory of how he got there.<br />
<br />
">Ok, so no more twisting causality to attain snacks.<br><br />
Seconded..."<br />
}}</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Featured_Article&diff=21004Template:Featured Article2014-07-21T19:51:46Z<p>Squeegy: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Feature<br />
|title=Sunset Hill Quest<br />
|author=Sombermann<br />
|image=<br />
|imageext=570373<br />
|text=A quest in a [[Ruby Quest]]-esque style, though interspersed with much better drawn parts. A man wakes up in a stuffy hotel room with no memory of how he got there.<br />
<br />
">Ok, so no more twisting causality to attain snacks.<br><br />
Seconded."<br />
}}</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Featured_Article&diff=21003Template:Featured Article2014-07-21T19:35:44Z<p>Squeegy: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Feature<br />
|title=Sunset Hill Quest<br />
|author=Sombermann<br />
|image=<br />
|imageext=570373<br />
|text=A quest in a Ruby Quest-esque style, though interspersed with much better drawn parts. A man wakes up in a stuffy hotel room with no memory of how he got there.<br />
}}</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=LionsPhil&diff=18785LionsPhil2013-09-24T14:39:31Z<p>Squeegy: source: Jena</p>
<hr />
<div>Used to hang out in drawthreads on /tg/ in the earlier half of 2010, fielding the daft, cartoonish requests. Ended up drawing quest fanart and getting dragged into running some.<br />
<br />
May occasionally [http://tgchan.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3APrefixIndex&prefix=LionsPhil&namespace=2 prototype things] on the wiki.<br />
<br />
Wrote [[JSPoker]].<br />
<br />
Probably the furriest of us all. <br />
<br />
== Quests ==<br />
* [[Drawfag Quest]] (finished)<br />
* [[Drawfag Quest 2]] (canceled for being a terrible idea)<br />
* [[Bureaucracy Quest]] (hijacked and finished)<br />
* [[Science Quest]] (stillborn April Fools' one-shot)<br />
<br />
<br />
{{LionsPhil}}</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:LilyQuest_(Enthraller)&diff=18742Talk:LilyQuest (Enthraller)2013-09-16T18:30:53Z<p>Squeegy: Documenting my tribulations</p>
<hr />
<div>So, I set about adding this quest to the wiki. First, to determine whether it had been added, I searched for first the URL, then the thread's number. Failing that, I did a search for Lily, which brought me to the [[Lily|author page]]. I searched for real this time, and found the [[LilyQuest (Advisor)|Advisor quest]]. Assuming this to be the correct one, I decided to add a disambig note to the top of [[Lily]], whereupon I discovered there was a [[LilyQuest|disambiguation page]]. I checked out the [[LilyQuest (Tech)|one by Tech]] and saw that it was definitely not the quest I was adding, but began in an oddly similar way, so I set about adding a little note about that when I glanced at the Advisor quest and realized ''it wasn't the quest I was adding.'' So I had to make a new page for it, and add it to the disambiguation page.<br />
<br />
All in all, it was a fairly amusing trip through wiki bureaucracy. Hopefully all three quests are now easier to find. May they rest in peace. --[[User:Squeegy|Squeegy]] 20:30, 16 September 2013 (CEST)</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=LilyQuest_(Enthraller)&diff=18741LilyQuest (Enthraller)2013-09-16T18:22:36Z<p>Squeegy: Wow, that was an adventure.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Infobox <br />
|title=LilyQuest<br />
|author=Enthraller<br />
|thread1=507982<br />
|dead=1<br />
}}<br />
:''There are multiple quests by this name. For other uses, see [[LilyQuest]].''<br />
<br />
Striking similarities to [[Ruby Quest]], but seemingly mirrored. Has no official title or author.<br />
{{Stub}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Image Quests]]</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=LilyQuest_(Tech)&diff=18740LilyQuest (Tech)2013-09-16T18:20:56Z<p>Squeegy: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Infobox <br />
|title=LilyQuest<br />
|author=Tech<br />
|thread1=505386<br />
|dead=1<br />
}}<br />
:''There are multiple quests by this name. For other uses, see [[LilyQuest]].''<br />
<br />
Something something girl in the dark. Lasted literally one post.<br />
{{Stub}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Image Quests]]</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Lily&diff=18739Lily2013-09-16T18:16:47Z<p>Squeegy: </p>
<hr />
<div>:''You may also be looking for [[LilyQuest]].''<br />
<br />
[[File:Important copy.png|thumb|right|Artist's Rendition]]<br />
The author of [[Cyril Quest]].<br />
<br />
[[Category:Quest Authors]]</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Dungeon_Quest&diff=18738Talk:Dungeon Quest2013-09-16T18:02:20Z<p>Squeegy: Created page with "There sure are a lot of dungeons on tgchan, aren't there? --~~~~"</p>
<hr />
<div>There sure are a lot of dungeons on tgchan, aren't there? --[[User:Squeegy|Squeegy]] 20:02, 16 September 2013 (CEST)</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Rat_Quest_(Squeegy)&diff=18120Rat Quest (Squeegy)2013-08-04T17:19:16Z<p>Squeegy: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Infobox<br />
|author=Squeegy<br />
|title=Rat Quest<br />
|thread1=218779<br />
|thread2=281739<br />
|disthread1=21937<br />
|dead=1<br />
}}<br />
<br />
Something something rat.<br />
<br />
Not to be confused with the other [[Rat Quest (Vytalibus)| Rat Quest]].<br />
<br />
Died because people stopped suggesting in it. Probably not coming back for that reason.<br />
<br />
{{Stub}}<br />
{{Samuel}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Image Quests]]</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Derpsert_Buttventure&diff=18107Derpsert Buttventure2013-08-02T01:11:59Z<p>Squeegy: Description.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Infobox<br />
|author=SDF<br />
|thread1=435471<br />
}}<br />
An accomplished pilot crashlands in a desert and must find her way back home.<br />
<br />
{{Stub}}<br />
{{Sir Double-Faggot}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Sir Double-Faggot]]<br />
[[Category:Image Quests]]<br />
[[Category:One-Shot Quests]]<br />
[[Category:Completed Quests]]</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=TransMachina&diff=18106TransMachina2013-08-02T00:55:08Z<p>Squeegy: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Infobox <br />
|author=Kaktus<br />
|thread1=525237<br />
|thread2=529078<br />
|disthread1=56976<br />
}}<br />
<br />
In the transhuman/lizard/mantis future, a cyborg human woman undergoes a journey of innuendo, complete lack of subtlety, and free porn to investigate the TransMachina, a possible nanomachine apocalypse scenario.<br />
<br />
{{Stub}}<br />
{{Kaktus}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Image Quests]]<br />
[[Category:Running Quests]]</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=TransMachina&diff=18105TransMachina2013-08-02T00:38:09Z<p>Squeegy: Better description</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Infobox <br />
|author=Kaktus<br />
|thread1=525237<br />
|thread2=529078<br />
|disthread1=56976<br />
}}<br />
<br />
In the transhuman/lizard/mantis future, a cyborg human woman undergoes a journey of innuendo, complete lack of subtlety, and free porn to investigate the TransMachina, a possible nanomachine apocalypse scenario.<br />
<br />
{{Stub}}su<br />
{{Kaktus}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Image Quests]]<br />
[[Category:Running Quests]]</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=User:Squeegy/TemplateHide&diff=18095User:Squeegy/TemplateHide2013-07-30T13:32:40Z<p>Squeegy: </p>
<hr />
<div>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NavFrame<br />
<br />
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Collapsible_elements</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=User:Squeegy/TemplateHide&diff=18094User:Squeegy/TemplateHide2013-07-30T13:26:39Z<p>Squeegy: Nope</p>
<hr />
<div>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NavFrame</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=User:Squeegy/TemplateHide&diff=18093User:Squeegy/TemplateHide2013-07-30T13:19:56Z<p>Squeegy: This may work better.</p>
<hr />
<div><div class="NavFrame {{#if:{{{expanded|}}}||collapsed}} {{{class|}}}" style="border:none; {{{style|{{{css|}}}}}}"><div class="NavHead" <br />
style="font-weight:{{{fw1|bold}}}; background:{{{bg1|transparent}}}; <br />
text-align:{{{ta1|center}}}; {{{headercss|{{{headerstyle|}}}}}}">{{{header|{{{1}}}}}} </div><br />
<div class="NavContent" style="font-weight:{{{fw2|normal}}}; <br />
background-color:{{{bg2|transparent}}}; text-align:{{{ta2|left}}}; <br />
{{{contentcss|{{{contentstyle|}}}}}}"><br />
{{{content|{{{contents|{{{2}}}}}}}}}<br />
</div></div>{{#if:{{{bg1|}}}{{{bg2|}}}{{{ta1|}}}{{{ta2|}}}{{{fw1|}}}{{{fw2|}}}}}<noinclude><br />
</noinclude></div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Nameless&diff=18092Nameless2013-07-30T13:15:03Z<p>Squeegy: Created page with "{{Infobox |author=shhh |thread1=529486 }} A woman searches for a name for herself. As the title suggests. {{Stub}} Category:Running Quests Category:Image Quests"</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Infobox |author=shhh |thread1=529486 }} A woman searches for a name for herself. As the title suggests. {{Stub}} [[Category:Running Quests]] [[Category:Image Quests]]</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=The_Book_of_Worms&diff=18091The Book of Worms2013-07-30T13:09:51Z<p>Squeegy: Lengthier description and fanart.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Infobox <br />
|author=Toxoglossa<br />
|thread1=521087<br />
|thread2=523576<br />
|thread3=525963<br />
|disthread1=73168<br />
}}<br />
<br />
The story of Dale, a tired young man who has not slept possibly for weeks because he is being chased by an ancient evil that also tortures his fragile mind. It is also the story of Beth, an experienced EMT, and Todd, her partner, with supporting characters Jeff (a youthful warehouse worker who has planned far too much for the zombie apocalypse), Dr. Slate (a doctor who treated Dale), and Sheriff Lynwood (who probably shouldn't be allowed near guns).<br />
<br />
{{Stub}}<br />
<br />
==Gallery==<br />
<br />
===Fanart===<br />
{{fanart|73307|by=ClockworkSeal}}<br />
{{fanart|73688|by=LawyerDog}}<br />
{{fanart|74230}}<br />
{{fanart|74320|by=Toxoglossa}}<br />
<br />
{{NSFW}}<br />
{{fanart|73810|by=BiteQuest}}<br />
{{fanart|73894|by=LawyerDog}}<br />
{{fanart|74218|by=rottel}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Image Quests]]<br />
[[Category:Running Quests]]</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Bromeliad&diff=18090Bromeliad2013-07-30T12:58:23Z<p>Squeegy: THE VECTOR ART IS NO MORE</p>
<hr />
<div>Runs [[The Protagonist Dies]], [[Oren]], [[Eivr]], [[Vault Quest]] and [[Rebirth Quest]]. More recently, [[Revenant Quest]] and [[Beat Apes]]. More more recently, [[Static on the Wire]]. Characterized by high quality writing (especially dialogue), good characterization, close (somewhat idyllic) romances between characters, sexy blood, a good updating speed, and curvaceous butterfaces (he clearly has a knack for drawing hips if not faces).<br />
<br />
Is a suspected shapechanger who has been known to change shapes.<br />
[http://www.tgchan.org/kusaba/draw/res/17869.html Drawthread]<br />
<br />
{{Bromeliad}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Quest Authors]]</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Nort&diff=18089Nort2013-07-30T12:55:49Z<p>Squeegy: Added lengthier description and author</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Infobox<br />
|author=Idiom Alpha<br />
|thread1=529356<br />
}}<br />
<br />
The story of a run-of-the-mill hobgoblin disliked by his family and society who was forced to visit the human town of Rickstill (which he liked for his windmill and button shop) to buy supplies for the Hobden. It was on this day he became more than just run-of-the-mill. <br />
<br />
{{Stub}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Image Quests]]<br />
[[Category:Running Quests]]</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Chirps&diff=18083Template:Chirps2013-07-30T02:39:19Z<p>Squeegy: </p>
<hr />
<div>{| id="toc" width="70%" style="text-align:left; clear:both;" align=center<br />
|- style="background:#ccccff" align="center" width="95%"<br />
| '''Quests by [[Bamump]]'''<br />
|-<br />
| style="font-size:11px" |<br />
<br />
''Series:''<br />
[[Shortquest Quest]] |<br />
[[Speed Zoom Quest]] |<br />
[[Justicequest]] |<br />
[[Moria]] |<br />
[[2chirp]] |<br />
[[Hunter]] |<br />
[[TCSG:Kingsmen]]<br />
<br />
''One Shots:''<br />
[[Cookie Mafia]] |<br />
[[Epic Survival]] |<br />
[[Bad Parody Quest]] |<br />
[[Seducing the Possessed]] |<br />
[[Dirge of Lamentations]] |<br />
[[Just so Wonderful]] |<br />
[[Grey Mage Quest]] |<br />
[[Cueball Quest]] |<br />
[[Personafied]] |<br />
[[Crusade Time]] |<br />
[[Wiggle Quest]] |<br />
[[The Jobquest]] |<br />
[[Space Time Quest]] |<br />
[[DOOBIE|<nowiki>[[</nowiki>DOOBIE<nowiki>]]</nowiki>]] |<br />
[[Yeti Quest]] |<br />
[[Ratblade]] |<br />
[[Space Peeps]] |<br />
[[Another Potential]] |<br />
[[Saturday Morning Indigo]] |<br />
[[Crocodile Pit]] |<br />
[[Date Quest]] |<br />
[[Bonkoro]] |<br />
[[NME]] |<br />
[[Ayam]] |<br />
[[Coldmas]] |<br />
[[I like the color RED]] |<br />
[[Plus|<nowiki>[+]</nowiki>]] |<br />
[[2 days]] |<br />
[[Dernk]] |<br />
[[Peep Commander]] |<br />
[[A Series of Tiny Quests]]<br />
<br />
''Collaborations:''<br />
[[Porn Quest]] |<br />
[[LimitedQuest]]<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
''Other notable creations:''<br />
[[Krobin]]<br />
<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<noinclude>[[Category:Templates]]</noinclude></div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=A_Series_of_Tiny_Quests&diff=18082A Series of Tiny Quests2013-07-30T02:38:47Z<p>Squeegy: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Infobox<br />
|title=COULD IT BE, OH YEAH<nowiki>!</nowiki> A SERIES OF TINY QUESTS<br />
|author=chirps<br />
|thread1=357723<br />
|dead=1<br />
}}<br />
<br />
YEAH, something something, tiny quests.<br />
:-Literally how the quest introduces itself.<br />
<br />
See also: [[A Series of Extremely Short Quests]]<br />
<br />
{{Bamump}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Image Quests]]</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=A_Series_of_Tiny_Quests&diff=18081A Series of Tiny Quests2013-07-30T02:37:55Z<p>Squeegy: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Infobox<br />
|title=COULD IT BE, OH YEAH<nowiki>!</nowiki> A SERIES OF TINY QUESTS<br />
|author=chirps<br />
|thread1=357723<br />
|dead=1<br />
}}<br />
<br />
YEAH, something something, tiny quests.<br />
:-Literally how the quest introduces itself.<br />
<br />
See also: [[A Series of Extremely Short Quests]]<br />
<br />
[[Category:Image Quests]]</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Succeed_or_Die_Quest&diff=18080Succeed or Die Quest2013-07-30T02:37:00Z<p>Squeegy: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Infobox<br />
|author=Truegreen<br />
|thread1=529039<br />
}}<br />
<br />
A quest in which all suggestions must be accompanied with a 1d6 roll. If the roll is a 2 or higher, the action succeeds, no matter how silly or improbable. Otherwise, the protagonist dies spectacularly. Now, the highest roll is chosen for the action (unless a 1 is rolled). Similar to [[A Series of Extremely Short Quests]], but with a twist.<br />
<br />
{{todo|Summarize all of the brief lives so far.}}<br />
<br />
{{Stub}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Image Quests]]<br />
[[Category:Running Quests]]</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Puzzle_Dungeon&diff=18079Puzzle Dungeon2013-07-30T01:57:54Z<p>Squeegy: Category got deleted somehow</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Infobox <br />
|author=Squeegy<br />
|authoralias=Samuel<br />
|thread1=526810<br />
|disthread1=73955<br />
|imageext=526810<br />
}}<br />
<br />
A series of user-generated characters navigate a series of sadistic dungeon levels. By [[Squeegy]]. <s>Very likely a dead quest by now.</s><br />
<br />
Then it got rebooted!<br />
<br />
{{Stub}}<br />
{{Samuel}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Image Quests]]<br />
[[Category:Running Quests]]<br />
[[Category:Quests with Individual Players]]</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Puzzle_Dungeon&diff=18078Puzzle Dungeon2013-07-30T01:57:05Z<p>Squeegy: And? I'd prefer it remained out of both.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Infobox <br />
|author=Squeegy<br />
|authoralias=Samuel<br />
|thread1=526810 |thread1name=Thread<br />
|disthread1=73955<br />
|imageext=526810<br />
|suppressnum=1<br />
}}<br />
<br />
A series of user-generated characters navigate a series of sadistic dungeon levels. By [[Squeegy]]. <s>Very likely a dead quest by now.</s><br />
<br />
Then it got rebooted!<br />
<br />
{{Stub}}<br />
{{Samuel}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Image Quests]]<br />
[[Category:Running Quests]]</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Black_Company&diff=18077Black Company2013-07-30T01:20:33Z<p>Squeegy: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Infobox<br />
|author=Squeegy<br />
|authoralias=Samuel<br />
|image=Black Company Title.jpg<br />
|suppressnum=1<br />
|thread1=274466 |thread1name=Thread #1 (Training, Mission 1)<br />
|thread2=375890 |thread2name=Thread #2 (Mission 2)<br />
|thread3=452871 |thread3name=Thread #3 (Mission 3, Mission 4)<br />
|thread4=471304 |thread4name=Thread #3b (Mission 4b)<br />
|thread5=518737 |thread5name=Thread #4<br />
|disthread1=29364<br />
}}<br />
Black Company is a personalized, turn-based wargame where individual players join up as various classes of soldiers, and are led by their fellow suggestors in battle against GM-controlled forces in small-scale skirmishes. The enemy is commanded either by [[Squeegy]], the author, or [[MrQ]], also known as General Q. Waterbuffalo.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Plot==<br />
The suggestors play as members of Black Company, a division in the American military. The very first mission involved a surprise attack on a Black Company convoy by troops of the Mexican army, disguised as friendly soldiers at a checkpoint. They were slaughtered, and war sprang out between the two countries. Black Company took the fight to Zangano, the paramilitary organization that comprises the Mexican army much as Black Company comprises the United States's.<br />
<br />
==Game Progression==<br />
Much of the early fighting took place on the 4chan /tg/ board, including the initial failed mission and several missions in the first Mexican sector. /tg/ lost several battles due to poor organization, incompetent leadership and insufficient numbers. Since then, the game has been ported exclusively to tgchan, and the latest sector has been handled entirely by their forces.<br />
<br />
==Playing the Game==<br />
Each thread begins with a roll call, where all the players post their intent to play with a callsign according to their class and a name of their choice. New players may choose from the six main classes given in Codex 3, which are Infantry, Rocketeer, Telekinetic, Medic, Sniper, and Engineer. Once everyone has joined, those who have signed up as Officers (organizational and tactical support players who have no individual role in battle) are given a map with notable locations in the sector, and asked to choose which to launch an assault on. They are occasionally given support units, which players who have joined already must then be assigned to if no one steps forward to claim them. The map is then provided to the Officers, who must choose where to deploy the troops under their command, and the game begins.<br />
<br />
===Reading Stat Cards===<br />
[[File:Stat Card.png|300px|thumb|right]]<br />
1. This is your callsign and symbol. Your callsign is what should go next to your name when you post. For example, this soldier could be '[I] Pvt. Cann N. Fodder'. This will include a number when you're on the map (e.g. [I1]). The symbol is how you appear on the map. <br />
<br />
2. These are your unit statistics. The [I]nfantry has 4 HP and an armor rating of 2.<br />
<br />
3. These are your map statistics. The [I]nfantry has 1 ACT point and 1 MOVE point. This means he can move 4 spaces, and then perform an action.<br />
<br />
4. These are your weapon statistics. The [I]nfantry rifle does 2 damage per hit, up to a range of 6, and fires 9 shots before a reload is necessary, of which it has 2. You can fire beyond your range for a penalty of -1 to-hit for each square exceeded. <br />
<br />
5. These are your rolls. You can roll an aimed shot, which requires you to roll 5 or higher to hit, or 3 burst shots, which each require 8 or higher to hit. Each shot is rolled on a d10. Anything marked with a roll requires 1 ACT to do.<br />
<br />
6. This is an area of effect map. It shows that the grenade damages those in a 3x3 area around where it detonates, which is marked by an X. <br />
<br />
7. This statistic shows that multiple damage values can result from this weapon. The exclamation point next to the 3 denotes that it is the maximum, and only those hit point-blank by the blast will take that much. All those in the surrounding squares will take only 1. Most splash damage weapons will have damage maps on the card.<br />
<br />
8. This range has a note on it that signifies special conditions.<br />
<br />
9. Sometimes weapons or abilities will have notes that clarify their functions.<br />
<br />
===Turns===<br />
Turns in Black Company are split into '''Action Phase''', the phase in which all troops must submit their actions, and '''Enemy Phase''', the phase in which allied actions resolve and the enemy then makes its movements and actions. Once you have submitted an action, you are '''not allowed''' to delete or change it, though if you failed to include a roll you may do so in another post.<br />
<br />
Each phase represents a nebulous amount of time from how long it takes to aim and fire an assault rifle, to the time it takes to sprint down a city block. In general, battles are over in minutes.<br />
<br />
====Optimal Post Syntax====<br />
Optimal Post Syntax is the best way to format your actions when submitting them, so that they can be executed without error. If you are using OPS, then you may change your action at any time by '''linking to the previous action''' and posting another action in Optimal Post Syntax. If you do not use OPS, or you use it incorrectly, then you may not change your action after you first submit it.<br />
<br />
Move [directions] to [square]. (-# move for [pose])<br><br />
([Pose change])<br><br />
[Action] ([[dice goal]]) (at [callsign] on [square]).<br><br />
(Modifiers: +# -# x#)<br><br />
Ammo: #Rx#<br><br />
(Promotion bonuses: [bonuses])<br><br />
REPOST FOR EACH SUBUNIT. <br />
<br />
===Movement on the Map===<br />
Every class has a statistic called 'MOVE', which represents the amount of squares of movement that class can travel in one phase. For instance, the Infantry class has 4 MOVE, which means that they can move 4 squares every turn before committing an action. Notable movement rules:<br />
* You cannot move after acting.<br />
* One ACT can be spent to regain full MOVE, with a penalty of 1 MOVE for each ACT spent after the first. If a class has 2 ACT and 4 MOVE, they can sprint for a maximum of 11 MOVE.<br />
* Even classes which normally must choose between moving and acting (i.e. the Sniper) can spend their act to sprint.<br />
* Sprinting is considered a general term for moving faster, so the MOVE gained can be used while prone or crouched, for pose changes, and for any other normal expenditure of MOVE. This also means that vehicles can 'sprint'.<br />
* Changing poses costs MOVE, but can have benefits as well as disadvantages. Each pose change costs 1 MOVE, and changing from standing to prone or vice versa requires 2, because you must crouch first.<br />
** Crouching: +1 to-hit, -1 move, ''-1 to be hit (if on a hill)''<br />
** Prone +1 to-hit, -2 move, -1 to be hit ''(unless on lower ground, then +1 to be hit)''<br />
<br />
===ACT and Actions===<br />
Any number enclosed in brackets on a class card (for instance, 'Shoot [5]'), signifies that it is an action, that unless otherwise stated, requires the expenditure of an ACT. You must also roll to successfully complete the action, on a 1d10, with the goal of getting the number stated or higher. If you fail an action, the author decides what happens. You will never shoot an ally with a bullet unless disoriented, but explosives are unpredictable.<br />
<br />
====ACT vs Actions====<br />
The difference between an action, and something that merely uses ACT, is illustrated in sprinting. Sprinting is considered movement, and something that while ACT is spent on it, does not count as an action. It's for this reason that snipers can sprint. The difference, fundamentally, is that actions (which also technically use ACT) end your turn. Things that use ACT are almost exclusively actions, so this nuance shouldn't come up much.<br />
<br />
===Damage and Armor Rating===<br />
The damage of each attack is labeled on its card. In general, sidearms are Dam 1 and rifles are Dam 2. Explosives are often Dam 6 with splash radiuses with lower damages. Shotguns are Dam 3 and sniper rifles are Dam 4. These can be improved with promotions, for instance you could turn your sniper rifle into a Dam 6 anti-tank monstrosity. If your AR is zero, damage is deducted directly from your HP. Otherwise, the damage is reduced according to the AR chart (available below). If you have an AR of 3 and take 6 damage, you can look at the chart across from '6 DAM' and under '3 AR', and see that the resulting number is 4, so you will only lose 4 HP.<br />
<br />
===Promotions===<br />
Every phase in which you submit an action and come out alive puts you further towards your next promotion. All new players start out at the Private rank, but after their first battle or two they will be promoted to Specialist and be permitted to improve one thing on their stat card. This can be nearly anything except for ACT, but is generally a single number (for instance, your MOVE, or your gun's damage or range, your HP, or lowering the goal on a dice roll).<br />
* The only case where an upgrade comes at a penalty is AR, which will reduce your MOVE by 1 for each point it is raised by.<br />
* The other exception is range upgrades, which are +2 instead of +1 for non-psychic abilities.<br />
* Melee abilities (such as knives, stabilizing, and healing) cannot have their range improved.<br />
* You cannot lower a die roll more than twice.<br />
<br />
====Temporary Classes====<br />
Occasionally officers will bring support along on the mission that will require a player, such as animal handlers or tanks. While playing these temporary classes, you progress towards your next promotion as normal and will continue to upgrade your normal class. However, a character can choose to attach themselves to a support class permanently, which will allow them to upgrade that class, but they will only be able to play when that support is fielded, and will lose all promotion progress.<br />
<br />
====Spec Classes====<br />
At the ranks of Sergeant First Class, and Command Sergeant Major, players have the opportunity to make a '''spec class'''. This is an entirely new class, that is related to the base class that the player specced out of in some way. The first spec is more moderate, but by the second spec the class is often only tangentially related to the original class.<br />
<br />
'''Examples:'''<br/><br />
Infantry First Spec:<br />
*Shotgunner<br />
*Heavy Machinegunner<br />
*Field Tactician<br />
*Squad Leader<br />
<br />
Rocketeer First Spec:<br />
*Flamethrower<br />
*Grenade Launcher<br />
*Semtex Expert (Semtexpert?)<br />
*MANPAD<br />
<br />
Telekinetic First Spec:<br />
*Hypnotist<br />
*Clairsentient<br />
*Psychic Blademaster<br />
*Psychoporter<br />
<br />
Medic First Spec:<br />
*Knight<br />
*Combat Medic<br />
*Scientist<br />
*Scout<br />
<br />
Sniper First Spec:<br />
*Forward Observer<br />
*Autosniper<br />
*Long-Range Sniper<br />
*Archer<br />
<br />
Engineer First Spec:<br />
*Sentry Specialist<br />
*Entrenchment Specialist<br />
*Drone Engineer (Dronengineer?)<br />
*Roboticist<br />
<br />
Spec class limits are intentionally vague, so that players have freedom in class creation.<br />
<br />
===Death===<br />
Death is permanent in Black Company. Your character's promotion progress will be lost and their death will be mourned ICly. A soldier dies when he reaches -3 HP, and is incapacitated when he reaches 0 HP. While incapacitated, he will lose 1 HP per turn. A Medic can revive a soldier who is incapacitated if they are stabilized.<br />
<br />
===Lexicon===<br />
* '''Phase:''' The turn in which every unit on a side posts their action.<br />
* '''Turn:''' The collection of all the game phases. These include Action Phase, Enemy Phase, and Ally Phase if applicable. Civilians move on whichever phase is representative of their nationality. At the end of a turn, all players involved gain a promotion point if they posted an action.<br />
* '''Prebriefing:''' The pre-mission deployment of defending units.<br />
* '''Deployment Phase:''' The initial phase of the game, where troops are deployed into the deployment zones. Proceeds immediately to Action Phase, unless the defender has the advantage, in which case it proceeds immediately to Enemy Phase, with Enemy Phase beginning each phase.<br />
* '''Sprinting:''' The conversion of ACT into MOVE. This is considered movement.<br />
* '''Stat Card:''' The image that contains all of the relevant stats, die rolls, and other numbers necessary to play as a class. Also known as a '''class card'''.<br />
* '''Codex:''' The overarching ruleset and guidelines for playing. Can also refer to the image that contains the stat cards for the 6 core classes.<br />
* '''Callsign:''' The identifying letter placed next to your name in your posts. The number is also considered part of the callsign. Having both, when necessary, is called a '''complete callsign'''. Ex. [R1]<br />
* '''Symbol:''' The icon that represents you on the map.<br />
* '''Forward:''' Also called the '''forward element''', this is the Black Company-specific term for the group attempting to capture a location.<br />
* '''Operator:''' All Black Company troops on the map are operators.<br />
* '''Optimal Post Syntax:''' The best way to format your posts for the author's convenience. Also allows you to change your action. See [[Black Company#Optimal Post Syntax|Optimal Post Syntax]].<br />
<br />
==Playing as an Officer==<br />
The Officer Corps is the organizational branch of Black Company, and has no physical presence on the battlefield. They handle deployment, tactics and strategy, tactical support, answer the questions of the enlisted men, and are responsible for submitting actions for anyone who fails to get them in by the deadline. As a result of all this, being an officer can be a lot of work, as they are the most important class in the game. Missions have been won and lost based on the competency of their officers alone.<br />
<br />
===Delegating Responsibilites===<br />
As an officer, you will be easily overwhelmed if you try and take every duty on by yourself. Tracking who has moved and who hasn't, the results of their actions, planning tactics for the phase, and worrying about enemies or hazards you can't see all by yourself is an intimidating prospect. For this reason, even though you get all the benefits of having officers with only one, it's much more convenient to have multiple officers. Then you can delegate responsibilities on the battlefield amongst yourself, and only have to worry about one section of the battlefield or one aspect of the fight while still being able to communicate for an overall picture.<br />
<br />
As a lone officer, it's still a good idea to delegate some of those responsibilities among the enlisted men. If you divide them into squads, you might consider assigning squad leaders, whose job it is to keep track of movements among their own squad and report back to you. Any delegation of responsibility can make things much easier on you.<br />
<br />
===Mission Support===<br />
Before a mission begins, it may be given the opportunity to bring along one or more support options, chosen from the support page. Most can be chosen more than once.<br />
<br />
====Animal Handler====<br />
Considered either wildly overpowered or massively impotent, often depending solely on the situation they are in, animal handlers are an agile and deadly addition to almost any mission. Choosing the animal handler option will allow you to deploy with two animal handlers, who have three dog subunits each. These subunits act entirely independently of the handler, though they can only be redeployed if he is still alive. The handler is lightly armored, moving at a baseline pace, and is armed with an extremely useful non-lethal beanbag gun, which does damage through armor and stuns its target for a turn. He is generally survivable, and the two animal handlers together with their dogs can form a team of their own.<br />
<br />
Each dog has 5 MOVE, and 2 ACT, which allows them to move up to 14 squares a turn, making them the most mobile unit currently playable. In addition to this exorbitant flanking and outmaneuvering potential, they are capable of doing some stunning of their own, and can attack targets from a range to knock them down and stun them while they and their fellow canines rip them apart. Any single unit is in extreme danger to a pack of dogs, especially the lowly [M]edic.<br />
<br />
====Armored Personnel Carrier====<br />
The APC is a useful but not essential tool in most fights. It moves at high speed, and can hold four soldiers in it as well, although they can't do anything until they get out (which they can do to any direction besides the front of the APC). It also holds an unlimited amount of ammunition which soldiers can resupply from if they are inside it, and can deploy new recruits inside it for free, although it cannot redeploy subunits, making it an effective mobile base. It can even be chosen multiple times for backup APCs, or to split forces among multiple fronts.<br />
<br />
====Jeep====<br />
A fast-moving vehicular support unit, the jeep can hold up to 5 troops, one driving, three firing their weapons normally (though at possible penalties), and one on the turret emplacement. It moves quite fast, and is hard to dodge when running people over, but can eventually start to wear down and break from damage taken doing so. Choosing this option will allow three jeeps to be deployed on the battlefield, which is enough to carry most of an army.<br />
<br />
''Note to jeep passengers: It's good etiquette to label yourself accordingly if you are in the jeep, for instance [J1][R1], so that you may be more easily identified, as you cannot be seen on the map while in the jeep.''<br />
<br />
====Light Tank====<br />
Lightly armored, but swift, the light tank (or [La]), provides excellent and versatile support, like a well-armored infantry on wheels, without subtracting significantly from your forces like the jeep. Similarly, choosing this option will give you three light tanks to work with. Though highly vulnerable to explosives and even small arms fire, the light tank's machinegun is devastatingly effective against lightly or unarmored targets, as it does moderate damage at a longer range and far more accurately than an infantry, and can even fire up to a maximum of 5 times.<br />
<br />
====Medium Tank====<br />
A medium tank, while considerably slower than a light tank, is far better armored, and equipped with explosive tank shells. Though lacking as much splash as the [R]ocketeer's launcher, it is considerably more directed, and capable of firing multiple times before reloading. The medium tank is capable of surviving several point-blank explosions before being destroyed. Its moderate speed combined with its considerable firepower and decent armor makes it a good middle-of-the-road support choice.<br />
<br />
====Heavy Tank====<br />
Exactly the opposite of the light tank, the heavy tank is extremely well-armored, equipped with devastating weaponry, and moves at a snail's pace. Though it can't be counted on to keep up with the rest of the unit, and it's not especially difficult to dodge, the heavy tank is equipped with twin cannons as well as minirocket launchers. It does obscene explosive damage, though it is fairly inaccurate, so it is inadvisable for its allies to stand ahead of it. For penetrating a heavily defended area (when not in a rush), there is no superior alternative.<br />
<br />
===Officer Control Panel===<br />
Throughout the mission officers can choose to spend kills gained by soldiers on support options available in the Officer Control Panel (see below). Here is how to use them effectively. It's worth noting that only one option can be chosen per officer per phase.<br />
<br />
====Redeploy====<br />
Previously the Redeploy option was available in any phase in any location. This was phased out in favor of the Paratrooper support option in Codex 3. Redeploy is, of course, still useful for reinforcing teams that have taken fire or are at less than full strength, or who don't have enough manpower to face the enemy, but you can no longer drop your forces directly into enemy lines and have them start shooting immediately.<br />
<br />
Redeploy, like all control panel options unless otherwise stated, is activated during Action Phase. The officer selects a square on the map, and troops are deployed in a tight spread around it. All troops will be deployed in ''class card condition'', that is to say, standing up, fully loaded, and at full health. The option costs 2 kills per soldier, so it is unwise to drop them anywhere where they would be immediately massacred by enemy troops. Furthermore, the helicopter pilot will refuse to land within range of enemy forces and within sight of any enemy rocketeers, but this only applies to the specific square chosen by the officer. Subunits can also be redeployed with this option, such as the [A]'s dogs. They cost only 1 kill per unit.<br />
<br />
The Paratrooper support option can be chosen at the start of a mission to make this option more viable, as it will be usable during enemy phase, allowing instant reaction, and troops can be deployed anywhere, although they will not land in as tight a spread.<br />
<br />
====Air Drop====<br />
The officer selects a square on the map during Action Phase, to drop a supply crate on the field. The supply crate costs 5 kills, and has 4 uses. It will completely refill the ammunition of any one soldier. Therefore, it is most cost effective for it to be used by soldiers who are completely out of ammunition. There is some degree of error in the supply crate's descent, and it can land up to 3 squares away from its intended target in any direction, so it's inadvisable to deploy it in a situation where it requires pinpoint accuracy for the survival of troops. The supply crates can also be accessed by the enemy, so fights may break out over them, and accidentally deploying one into enemy lines could have consequences for your troops.<br />
<br />
====UAV Recon====<br />
The officer deploys an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle for reconnoisance. This option can be chosen during any phase, although the timeliness of its deployment is rarely the deciding factor in a fight. The unmanned drone will fly over the battlefield for 3 turns, revealing all enemy and neutral structures and units on the minimap, before passing. It is extremely useful at the beginning of a fight, especially on a largely outdoor map, to prepare for the enemy and reveal bottlenecks, ambushes, and defenses that might otherwise become nasty surprises. It is also useful for checking for and tracking enemy reinforcements, and to make sure the enemy is not flanking.<br />
<br />
====Artillery====<br />
The officer selects a square on the map and specifies the amount of salvoes requested. A salvo of artillery is a single blast, and each costs 5 kills. The officer can also select multiple targets, up to one for each salvo. Salvoes can be extremely inaccurate, and vary up to 5 squares in any direction, thus making them preferable for targeting groups of units or multi-square units rather than individual units, which may be missed even by the artillery shell's wide splash radius. Artillery is also useful for busting and crippling enemy tanks, although even a direct hit to an enemy Medium or Heavy Armor will not destroy it if it was previously undamaged, and the Light Armor's smaller size makes it harder to hit reliably. The artillery is also useful for softening outdoor enemy defenses, and several salvoes can devastate a fortified position. An artillery strike will hit at the end of the Action Phase it is called during. Artillery cannot penetrate buildings.<br />
<br />
====Air Strike====<br />
The officer draws a straight line through the map, and a bomber will fly overhead, and carve a swathe of destruction across the map, doing massive damage to everything in its way. The air strike is completely accurate, and will never vary from the line that is drawn for it, but the splash damage is relatively minimal. Though its path can be targeted to get the most destructive potential for the 20 kills that it costs, it is most useful for decimating enemy lines, groups, or accurately targeting enemy armor, although collateral damage must be taken into account, as the air strike does not discriminate between friend or foe or anything inbetween.<br />
<br />
==Playing as a Soldier==<br />
As a soldier, you have a duty to follow your officer's instructions, but strictly speaking, you don't ''have'' to. Often times the officer will give a general plan rather than ordering soldiers specifically, and it is your responsibility to interpret those orders in your action. There's a reason you submit your action directly.<br />
<br />
===Infantry===<br />
The [I]nfantry unit is the most effective and versatile class. With the most HP, and baseline ACT and MOVE despite their decent AR, they are survivable without being specialized, and their rifle and grenades allow them to be prepared for any situation. They are especially skilled in breaking up fortifications, however, and scattering support. Because of their versatility and relative simplicity, there are often more [I]nfantry than any other class on missions.<br />
<br />
The [I]nfantry comes equipped with a rifle capable of both single and three-round burst fire. It does baseline damage, which makes it mediocre against more heavily armored enemies, but its burst mode makes it formidable against other units, especially those with baseline or lower HP, or no AR. It is exceptional for eliminating high-value targets, or for gambling against the dice to kill an enemy with higher HP in a single phase. Their grenades can breach fortifications, dissolve blockades, and soften groups of enemies, and are capable of ignoring cover that otherwise could pose a serious threat.<br />
<br />
===Rocketeer===<br />
The [R]ocketeer unit is an impressive damage-dealing explosives expert. They are capable of providing heavy support, and their armor makes them hard to get rid of, though they cannot move as fast as other units. They are most useful for taking out enemy armor, and disrupting bottlenecks and killing floors, but a direct hit from their rocket will take out any base class, including other [R]ocketeers.<br />
<br />
Their only weapon is their rocket launcher, but it is unmatched in sheer damage-dealing potential. Its splash damage can kill whole groups of enemies, and it has no hard range, but rather travels at a rate of 6 squares per phase, meaning it will simply take time to reach its destination. The downside to this is that shooting past 6 squares gives the enemy the opportunity to dodge the rocket, but they can compensate for this by aiming at the ground rather than directly at an enemy, at the expense of some direct damage. The [R]ocketeer is also useful for creating extemporized doorways to allow troops to bypass normal entrances.<br />
<br />
===Telekinetic===<br />
The [T]elekinetic unit is a fearsome glass cannon. Though entirely exposed on the battlefield, they are equipped with a variety of psychic powers to allow them to survive even when they wade directly into fire, though it's not any more recommended. The [T]elekinetic is more of a stealthy class than one might think, and often relies on ambushes and covering fire to close the distance. They are also primarily a support class, and can aid their allies by immobilizing high-value targets and nullifying cover.<br />
<br />
The most personally useful power of the [T]elekinetic is the ability to provide a psychokinetic shield for themselves as a passive action. This can help them get to and through the front lines, but its usefulness does not extend into battle itself, as the [T]elekinetic will be unable to use any other power at the same time. They can also use their powers to damage an enemy's internal organs, and cause internal bleeding and hemorrhaging, while bypassing armor, making them a serious threat to any single unit except the [I]nfantry, and indispensable for eliminating enemy armor. Finally, they can lift enemies out of cover and immobilize them, at a further range than they could hurt them, which is useful for supporting allies without putting the [T]elekinetic in danger.<br />
<br />
===Medic===<br />
The [M]edic unit is a vital support class. Battles can be won or lost based on their [M]edic content alone. Even attaching one to a squad can increase its life expectancy drastically, and if not keep them fighting at least prevent them from dying. The [M]edic is an extremely mobile unit, able to speed across battlefields to wherever they are needed. They are, however, primarily a support class, and consequentially they are not apt at dealing damage. Their sidearm's damage is inconsequential at best. Their biggest boon, however, is their directional shield, which keeps them alive as they traverse the front lines. Keeping it pointed towards the enemy will protect them from even the worst explosions, though the [T]elekinetic can still strike fear into a [M]edic. They are also extremely vulnerable to being flanked, and to fast-moving units such as the [A]nimal Handler's dogs.<br />
<br />
The [M]edic laser pistol does not do a great deal of damage, and has limited range, but its unlimited ammo makes reloading not an issue for them, allowing them to save their ACT for sprinting, healing, and recharging shields. They can heal anyone, including themselves, and receive a bonus to stabilizing incapacitated units. They can even revived downed soldiers once they've been stabilized, keeping an army running even when everyone in it should be dead. Their shield also allows them to traverse dangerous battlefields and survive close encounters with the enemy, as it absorbs overflow damage, although as it is directional, they are at serious risk if flanked, as their lack of armor is necessary for their speedy movement, and they will fall quickly to surprise attacks.<br />
<br />
===Sniper===<br />
The [S]niper unit is a devastating long-range attack class. Though hampered by their inability to move before acting, they are extremely accurate, and their high-powered sniper rifle can one-shot most base classes. They are best suited to positions where they can fire on enemies without having to move much, and can prepare their bonuses, such as manning bottlenecks, barricades, and killzones. However, they will often have difficulty keeping up with the rest of their unit, and in exposed situations can come under fire while moving or reloading. They are also weak in cramped, urban situations, where their range is not an advantage and they can be easily ambushed, flanked, or picked off when they fall behind.<br />
<br />
Under perfect conditions, it is impossible for the [S]niper to miss with their rifle. The class-specific +1 for being prone, along with the normal +1, and a +1 for Overwatch zones, mean that the [S]niper will always hit a normal standing enemy. If penalties exist, the [S]niper is even more likely to hit them on their next shot. As well, the long range allows them to pick off enemies before they can become a threat. In addition, they can lay down mines without a roll, allowing them to set up defended positions for them to snipe from. A bunkered [S]niper poses a serious problem to any squadron.<br />
<br />
===Engineer===<br />
The [E]ngineer unit is a fortification and bunkering specialist. They can instantly create entrenched positions on the front line, and provide vital cover for units under fire. Their walls can turn the tide of a fight by giving the advantage of one-way cover to his side, and they can create bottlenecks and killing floors to ambush unwary enemies. In addition, they can set up defensive positions and control turrets in them remotely, allowing them to guard areas without even being in them.<br />
<br />
Though the [E]ngineer's machine pistol is subpar, they can essentially upgrade it by placing a turret and using it instead. The turret can also be used to remotely guard positions even after the [E]ngineer leaves. He can support his allies by throwing smoke grenades to allow them to pass through enemy killing zones unmolested, or use them to cover himself while he sets up his constructions. He can set up impromptu defenses anywhere on the battlefield, and is vital to moving as well as holding the line.<br />
<br />
==Rule Database==<br />
This is a database of frequently asked questions about the game. Please check here before asking.<br />
<br />
===Miscellaneous===<br />
* You are allowed to create as many characters as you like, however no two can be in the same battle at once.<br />
* You can shoot past normal range at a penalty of -1 to-hit for each square exceeded, unless the range is 1 or you are a [T]elekinetic.<br />
* You can move through friendly units, but not stand on top of them.<br />
* Blue circles are civilians.<br />
* Diagonals are identical to cardinal directions for the purposes of movement and range.<br />
* Soft cover is cover you must crouch behind to be protected. Hard cover is cover you simply must move behind.<br />
* Reloading costs 1 ACT.<br />
* Facing a corner will allow you to see (but not shoot) around it without exposing yourself.<br />
{{fanart|74193|caption=Looking around corners}}<br />
<br />
===Class Cards===<br />
* Arc: Any weapon marked with (Arc) can be arced to ignore cover at a -1 range and -1 to-hit penalty.<br />
* Subsonic: Any weapon with a subsonic range moves the given number of squares ''per phase''.<br />
* Tank Shock: Anyone the tank passes over must roll at least the given number to dodge out of the way (if possible).<br />
* Roadkill: Anyone the car passes over must roll at least the first number to dodge out of the way (if possible). The driver must roll at least the second number to avoid taking 1 HP damage.<br />
* Subunits cannot stabilize or use knives.<br />
* Subunits cannot deploy from an APC, but can be redeployed for half the cost.<br />
<br />
===Infantry===<br />
* The Infantry's grenade will not land where he throws it if he fails his roll; it will vary up to 3 squares in any direction.<br />
<br />
===Rocketeer===<br />
* The Rocketeer's rocket's movement is based on the straightest line between the Rocketeer and the target location, not the direction the rocket is facing when the phase ends.<br />
* The Rocketeer's rocket will not hit where he aims if he fails his roll; it will vary up to 3 squares in any direction.<br />
<br />
===Telekinetic===<br />
* Tanks are considered armor for their pilots.<br />
* Shields are considered cover for their medics.<br />
* Psychic abilities can't have their range extended.<br />
* Psychic abilities ignore hard and soft cover, as long as the Telekinetic or an ally can see the target.<br />
* The Hurt power ignores armor, dealing direct HP damage.<br />
* The Lift power can only lift troops, but it can stop subsonic projectiles in midair.<br />
* The Shield power requires 1 ACT, and counts as an action.<br />
<br />
===Medic===<br />
*Recharging the shield requires 1 ACT, and counts as an action.<br />
*Moving the shield to any direction requires 1 MOVE.<br />
*The medic cannot heal any downed soldiers who are not stabilized.<br />
*A stabilized soldier the medic heals is revived.<br />
<br />
===Sniper===<br />
* The sniper's Overwatch ability can be activated at the end of any turn, and is deactivated when they move.<br />
* The sniper cannot move in the same turn that she acts.<br />
* The sniper receives a +1 bonus when they shoot at a target more than once in a row. This applies to aimed and quickshots.<br />
<br />
===Engineer===<br />
* Shields and force walls will block '''all''' damage before they are destroyed.<br />
* The engineer and his allies can shoot through allied force walls. This applies for enemies and their force walls too.<br />
* Turrets are soft cover and force walls are hard cover.<br />
<br />
===Vehicles===<br />
* Tanks can punch through walls if they have at least 1 Length worth of lead up.<br />
* Anyone a vehicle runs over gets a free hit on the vehicle before they are hit.<br />
<br />
==Codex and Cards==<br />
<gallery><br />
Image:Codex3.png|Codex 3<br />
Image:AR Chart.png|Armor Rating Chart<br />
Image:Support Options.png|Officer support options<br />
Image:Control Panel.png|Partially unlocked Officer control panel<br />
Image:Common Skills.png|Abilities available to all classes<br />
Image:Animal Handler.png|Codex 3 Animal Handler card<br />
Image:APC.png|Codex 3 APC card<br />
Image:Heavy Tank.png|Codex 3 Heavy Tank card<br />
Image:Mediumtank.png|Codex 3 Medium Tank card<br />
Image:Light Tank.png|Codex 3 Light Tank card<br />
Image:Jeep.png|Codex 3 Jeep card<br />
Image:Pilot.png|Codex 3 Pilot card<br />
Image:Sportscar.png|Codex 3 Sports Car card<br />
</gallery><br />
<br />
===Custom Cards===<br />
<gallery><br />
Image:EvilPerson.jpg|Evil Person<br />
Image:Bob.png|Bob<br />
Image:Cross.png|Cross<br />
Image:Fryman.png|Fryman (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Apollo.png|Apollo (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Brosnikov.png|Brosnikov (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Canopener.jpg|Can-Opener (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Kuaki.png|Ku'aki (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Mason.png|Mason (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Nix.png|Nix (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Smokey.png|Smokey (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Suggestion.jpg|Suggestion (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Suh.png|Suh (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Yadoz Ritwuul.png|Ritwuul (Codex 2)<br />
</gallery><br />
<br />
==Fanart==<br />
<gallery><br />
Image:129611129617.png|Almost the entire squad MISSED in one round?!<br />
Image:Dogwalking.png|Who would walk a dog in a war zone?<br />
Image:Blackcompany.jpg|Crazy Ivanov strikes again!<br />
Image:Mrq.png|<HA HA HA HA, HA HA HA HO HO HO.> <This is DELICIOUS.> <DO be hasty in signing up.> <I CANNOT WAIT TO SEE BLACK COMPANY PUMMELED INTO DUST.> <YES, YE~S.> <br />
Image:Meatbag Beset By Dogs.jpg|Pvt. Meatbag is knocked down by enemy attack dogs. But he'll get up again.<br />
Image:Fryman And His Dogs.png|Fryman, and his dogs Kassandra, Alexi, and Lawyer.<br />
Image:Smokey Abandoning His Duties.png|Smokey decides he does not work well under pressure and quits the Officer Corps.<br />
</gallery> <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
{{Samuel}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Image Quests]]<br />
[[Category:Quests with Individual Players]]<br />
[[Category:Running Quests]]</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Featured_Article&diff=18032Template:Featured Article2013-07-25T11:06:10Z<p>Squeegy: TIME FOR A NEW FEATURE</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Feature<br />
|title=Gnoll's Bane<br />
|author=LonelyWorld<br />
|image=<br />
|imageext=270212<br />
|text=in a dark dimension, fantastical compared to our own, a world lies in peril, a dark warlock threatens. and now this world's fate will be determined by the actions of a single filthy moronic grubby gnoll. so it falls upon you! the wise spirits, ancient ancestors, benevolent angels, vile demons, mischievous ghosts and other incorporeal guides to protect this poor pathetic creature on her path to infinite glory! <br />
}}</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Whoopee_Quest&diff=18031Whoopee Quest2013-07-25T10:59:48Z<p>Squeegy: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Infobox<br />
|title=Whoopee<nowiki>!</nowiki> Quest<br />
|author=Fungasm<br />
|thread1=382302<br />
|thread2=519816<br />
|dead=1<br />
}}<br />
<br />
Something something golly.<br />
<br />
{{Stub}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Image Quests]]<br />
[[Category:Running Quests]]</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Puzzle_Dungeon&diff=18030Puzzle Dungeon2013-07-25T10:26:56Z<p>Squeegy: i am a ninja stealthy in the night</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Infobox <br />
|author=Squeegy<br />
|thread1=526810 |thread1name=The Only Thread There Ever Was<br />
|disthread1=73955<br />
|imageext=526810<br />
|suppressnum=1<br />
}}<br />
<br />
A series of user-generated characters navigate a series of sadistic dungeon levels. By [[Squeegy]]. <s>Very likely a dead quest by now.</s><br />
<br />
Then it got rebooted!<br />
<br />
{{Stub}}<br />
{{Samuel}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Image Quests]]<br />
[[Category:Running Quests]]</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Moulder%27s_Journey&diff=17845Moulder's Journey2013-07-04T10:14:11Z<p>Squeegy: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Infobox <br />
|author=Squeegy<br />
|authoralias=Samuel<br />
|thread1=455443<br />
|disthread1=60942<br />
|dead=1<br />
}}<br />
<br />
An alien invasion wipes out Pvt. Moulder's entire platoon, including her commanding officer. She must destroy the portal to the alien homeworld by herself.<br />
<br />
{{Stub}}<br />
<br />
{{Samuel}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Image Quests]]<br />
[[Category:One-Shot Quests]]</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Moulder%27s_Journey&diff=17844Moulder's Journey2013-07-04T10:13:47Z<p>Squeegy: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Infobox <br />
|author=Squeegy<br />
|authoralias=Samuel<br />
|thread1=455443<br />
|disthread1=60942<br />
|dead=1<br />
}}<br />
<br />
An alien invasion wipes out Pvt. Moulder's entire platoon, including her commanding officer. She must destroy the portal to the alien homeworld by herself.<br />
<br />
{{Stub}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Image Quests]]<br />
[[Category:One-Shot Quests]]</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Moulder%27s_Journey&diff=17843Moulder's Journey2013-07-04T10:12:43Z<p>Squeegy: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Infobox <br />
|author=[[Squeegy|Samuel]]<br />
|thread1=455443<br />
|disthread1=60942<br />
|dead=1<br />
}}<br />
<br />
An alien invasion wipes out Pvt. Moulder's entire platoon, including her commanding officer. She must destroy the portal to the alien homeworld by herself.<br />
<br />
{{Stub}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Image Quests]]<br />
[[Category:One-Shot Quests]]</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Samuel&diff=17842Template:Samuel2013-07-04T09:39:59Z<p>Squeegy: </p>
<hr />
<div>{| id="toc" width="70%" style="text-align:left; clear:both;" align=center<br />
|- style="background:#ccccff" align="center" width="95%"<br />
| '''Quests by [[Squeegy|Samuel]]'''<br />
|-<br />
| style="font-size:11px" |<br />
<br />
'''Active:''' <br />
[[Black Company]]<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
'''Completed:'''<br />
[[Prototype]] |<br />
[[Moulder's Journey]]<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
'''Dormant:'''<br />
[[Venturing Underground]] |<br />
[[Decisions]] |<br />
[[StealthQuest]] |<br />
[[Cast Quest]] |<br />
[[Puzzle Dungeon]] |<br />
[[Does This Thing Work]] |<br />
[[Phantom Star]] |<br />
[[Red Tape]] |<br />
[[Zalgo Quest]] |<br />
[[Kzeytch]] |<br />
[[Rat Quest (Squeegy)| Rat Quest]] |<br />
[[Sunken Stars]] |<br />
[[Psychogenic]] |<br />
[[Edge of the Void]]<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
''Other notable creations:''<br />
[[TGMUD]] |<br />
[http://theagora.net76.net/forums/index.php?topic=42.0 Foot Soldiers] |<br />
[http://www.tgchan.org/kusaba/questdis/res/67641.html Python Strip Poker Adventures]<br />
<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<noinclude>[[Category:Templates]]</noinclude></div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Dakdo&diff=17764User talk:Dakdo2013-06-22T17:58:37Z<p>Squeegy: Created page with "I do not understand why Black Company can't be in the Quests category. --~~~~"</p>
<hr />
<div>I do not understand why Black Company can't be in the Quests category. --[[User:Squeegy|Squeegy]] 19:58, 22 June 2013 (CEST)</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Black_Company&diff=17733Black Company2013-06-16T06:29:29Z<p>Squeegy: Fixed OPS</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Infobox<br />
|author=Squeegy<br />
|authoralias=Samuel<br />
|image=Black Company Title.jpg<br />
|suppressnum=1<br />
|thread1=274466 |thread1name=Thread #1 (Training, Mission 1)<br />
|thread2=375890 |thread2name=Thread #2 (Mission 2)<br />
|thread3=452871 |thread3name=Thread #3 (Mission 3, Mission 4)<br />
|thread4=471304 |thread4name=Thread #3b (Mission 4b)<br />
|disthread1=29364<br />
}}<br />
Black Company is a personalized, turn-based wargame where individual players join up as various classes of soldiers, and are led by their fellow suggestors in battle against GM-controlled forces in small-scale skirmishes. The enemy is commanded either by [[Squeegy]], the author, or [[MrQ]], also known as General Q. Waterbuffalo.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Plot==<br />
The suggestors play as members of Black Company, a division in the American military. The very first mission involved a surprise attack on a Black Company convoy by troops of the Mexican army, disguised as friendly soldiers at a checkpoint. They were slaughtered, and war sprang out between the two countries. Black Company took the fight to Zangano, the paramilitary organization that comprises the Mexican army much as Black Company comprises the United States's.<br />
<br />
==Game Progression==<br />
Much of the early fighting took place on the 4chan /tg/ board, including the initial failed mission and several missions in the first Mexican sector. /tg/ lost several battles due to poor organization, incompetent leadership and insufficient numbers. Since then, the game has been ported exclusively to tgchan, and the latest sector has been handled entirely by their forces.<br />
<br />
==Playing the Game==<br />
Each thread begins with a roll call, where all the players post their intent to play with a callsign according to their class and a name of their choice. New players may choose from the six main classes given in Codex 3, which are Infantry, Rocketeer, Telekinetic, Medic, Sniper, and Engineer. Once everyone has joined, those who have signed up as Officers (organizational and tactical support players who have no individual role in battle) are given a map with notable locations in the sector, and asked to choose which to launch an assault on. They are occasionally given support units, which players who have joined already must then be assigned to if no one steps forward to claim them. The map is then provided to the Officers, who must choose where to deploy the troops under their command, and the game begins.<br />
<br />
===Reading Stat Cards===<br />
[[File:Stat Card.png|300px|thumb|right]]<br />
1. This is your callsign and symbol. Your callsign is what should go next to your name when you post. For example, this soldier could be '[I] Pvt. Cann N. Fodder'. This will include a number when you're on the map (e.g. [I1]). The symbol is how you appear on the map. <br />
<br />
2. These are your unit statistics. The [I]nfantry has 4 HP and an armor rating of 2.<br />
<br />
3. These are your map statistics. The [I]nfantry has 1 ACT point and 1 MOVE point. This means he can move 4 spaces, and then perform an action.<br />
<br />
4. These are your weapon statistics. The [I]nfantry rifle does 2 damage per hit, up to a range of 6, and fires 9 shots before a reload is necessary, of which it has 2. You can fire beyond your range for a penalty of -1 to-hit for each square exceeded. <br />
<br />
5. These are your rolls. You can roll an aimed shot, which requires you to roll 5 or higher to hit, or 3 burst shots, which each require 8 or higher to hit. Each shot is rolled on a d10. Anything marked with a roll requires 1 ACT to do.<br />
<br />
6. This is an area of effect map. It shows that the grenade damages those in a 3x3 area around where it detonates, which is marked by an X. <br />
<br />
7. This statistic shows that multiple damage values can result from this weapon. The exclamation point next to the 3 denotes that it is the maximum, and only those hit point-blank by the blast will take that much. All those in the surrounding squares will take only 1. Most splash damage weapons will have damage maps on the card.<br />
<br />
8. This range has a note on it that signifies special conditions.<br />
<br />
9. Sometimes weapons or abilities will have notes that clarify their functions.<br />
<br />
===Turns===<br />
Turns in Black Company are split into '''Action Phase''', the phase in which all troops must submit their actions, and '''Enemy Phase''', the phase in which allied actions resolve and the enemy then makes its movements and actions. Once you have submitted an action, you are '''not allowed''' to delete or change it, though if you failed to include a roll you may do so in another post.<br />
<br />
Each phase represents a nebulous amount of time from how long it takes to aim and fire an assault rifle, to the time it takes to sprint down a city block. In general, battles are over in minutes.<br />
<br />
====Optimal Post Syntax====<br />
Optimal Post Syntax is the best way to format your actions when submitting them, so that they can be executed without error. If you are using OPS, then you may change your action at any time by '''linking to the previous action''' and posting another action in Optimal Post Syntax. If you do not use OPS, or you use it incorrectly, then you may not change your action after you first submit it.<br />
<br />
Move [directions] to [square]. (-# move for [pose])<br><br />
([Pose change])<br><br />
[Action] ([[dice goal]]) (at [callsign] on [square]).<br><br />
(Modifiers: +# -# x#)<br><br />
Ammo: #Rx#<br><br />
(Promotion bonuses: [bonuses])<br><br />
REPOST FOR EACH SUBUNIT. <br />
<br />
===Movement on the Map===<br />
Every class has a statistic called 'MOVE', which represents the amount of squares of movement that class can travel in one phase. For instance, the Infantry class has 4 MOVE, which means that they can move 4 squares every turn before committing an action. Notable movement rules:<br />
* You cannot move after acting.<br />
* One ACT can be spent to regain full MOVE, with a penalty of 1 MOVE for each ACT spent after the first. If a class has 2 ACT and 4 MOVE, they can sprint for a maximum of 11 MOVE.<br />
* Even classes which normally must choose between moving and acting (i.e. the Sniper) can spend their act to sprint.<br />
* Sprinting is considered a general term for moving faster, so the MOVE gained can be used while prone or crouched, for pose changes, and for any other normal expenditure of MOVE. This also means that vehicles can 'sprint'.<br />
* Changing poses costs MOVE, but can have benefits as well as disadvantages. Each pose change costs 1 MOVE, and changing from standing to prone or vice versa requires 2, because you must crouch first.<br />
** Crouching: +1 to-hit, -1 move, ''-1 to be hit (if on a hill)''<br />
** Prone +1 to-hit, -2 move, -1 to be hit ''(unless on lower ground, then +1 to be hit)''<br />
<br />
===ACT and Actions===<br />
Any number enclosed in brackets on a class card (for instance, 'Shoot [5]'), signifies that it is an action, that unless otherwise stated, requires the expenditure of an ACT. You must also roll to successfully complete the action, on a 1d10, with the goal of getting the number stated or higher. If you fail an action, the author decides what happens. You will never shoot an ally with a bullet unless disoriented, but explosives are unpredictable.<br />
<br />
====ACT vs Actions====<br />
The difference between an action, and something that merely uses ACT, is illustrated in sprinting. Sprinting is considered movement, and something that while ACT is spent on it, does not count as an action. It's for this reason that snipers can sprint. The difference, fundamentally, is that actions (which also technically use ACT) end your turn. Things that use ACT are almost exclusively actions, so this nuance shouldn't come up much.<br />
<br />
===Damage and Armor Rating===<br />
The damage of each attack is labeled on its card. In general, sidearms are Dam 1 and rifles are Dam 2. Explosives are often Dam 6 with splash radiuses with lower damages. Shotguns are Dam 3 and sniper rifles are Dam 4. These can be improved with promotions, for instance you could turn your sniper rifle into a Dam 6 anti-tank monstrosity. If your AR is zero, damage is deducted directly from your HP. Otherwise, the damage is reduced according to the AR chart (available below). If you have an AR of 3 and take 6 damage, you can look at the chart across from '6 DAM' and under '3 AR', and see that the resulting number is 4, so you will only lose 4 HP.<br />
<br />
===Promotions===<br />
Every phase in which you submit an action and come out alive puts you further towards your next promotion. All new players start out at the Private rank, but after their first battle or two they will be promoted to Specialist and be permitted to improve one thing on their stat card. This can be nearly anything except for ACT, but is generally a single number (for instance, your MOVE, or your gun's damage or range, your HP, or lowering the goal on a dice roll).<br />
* The only case where an upgrade comes at a penalty is AR, which will reduce your MOVE by 1 for each point it is raised by.<br />
* The other exception is range upgrades, which are +2 instead of +1 for non-psychic abilities.<br />
* Melee abilities (such as knives, stabilizing, and healing) cannot have their range improved.<br />
* You cannot lower a die roll more than twice.<br />
<br />
====Temporary Classes====<br />
Occasionally officers will bring support along on the mission that will require a player, such as animal handlers or tanks. While playing these temporary classes, you progress towards your next promotion as normal and will continue to upgrade your normal class. However, a character can choose to attach themselves to a support class permanently, which will allow them to upgrade that class, but they will only be able to play when that support is fielded, and will lose all promotion progress.<br />
<br />
====Spec Classes====<br />
At the ranks of Sergeant First Class, and Command Sergeant Major, players have the opportunity to make a '''spec class'''. This is an entirely new class, that is related to the base class that the player specced out of in some way. The first spec is more moderate, but by the second spec the class is often only tangentially related to the original class.<br />
<br />
'''Examples:'''<br/><br />
Infantry First Spec:<br />
*Shotgunner<br />
*Heavy Machinegunner<br />
*Field Tactician<br />
*Squad Leader<br />
<br />
Rocketeer First Spec:<br />
*Flamethrower<br />
*Grenade Launcher<br />
*Semtex Expert (Semtexpert?)<br />
*MANPAD<br />
<br />
Telekinetic First Spec:<br />
*Hypnotist<br />
*Clairsentient<br />
*Psychic Blademaster<br />
*Psychoporter<br />
<br />
Medic First Spec:<br />
*Knight<br />
*Combat Medic<br />
*Scientist<br />
*Scout<br />
<br />
Sniper First Spec:<br />
*Forward Observer<br />
*Autosniper<br />
*Long-Range Sniper<br />
*Archer<br />
<br />
Engineer First Spec:<br />
*Sentry Specialist<br />
*Entrenchment Specialist<br />
*Drone Engineer (Dronengineer?)<br />
*Roboticist<br />
<br />
Spec class limits are intentionally vague, so that players have freedom in class creation.<br />
<br />
===Death===<br />
Death is permanent in Black Company. Your character's promotion progress will be lost and their death will be mourned ICly. A soldier dies when he reaches -3 HP, and is incapacitated when he reaches 0 HP. While incapacitated, he will lose 1 HP per turn. A Medic can revive a soldier who is incapacitated if they are stabilized.<br />
<br />
===Lexicon===<br />
* '''Phase:''' The turn in which every unit on a side posts their action.<br />
* '''Turn:''' The collection of all the game phases. These include Action Phase, Enemy Phase, and Ally Phase if applicable. Civilians move on whichever phase is representative of their nationality. At the end of a turn, all players involved gain a promotion point if they posted an action.<br />
* '''Prebriefing:''' The pre-mission deployment of defending units.<br />
* '''Deployment Phase:''' The initial phase of the game, where troops are deployed into the deployment zones. Proceeds immediately to Action Phase, unless the defender has the advantage, in which case it proceeds immediately to Enemy Phase, with Enemy Phase beginning each phase.<br />
* '''Sprinting:''' The conversion of ACT into MOVE. This is considered movement.<br />
* '''Stat Card:''' The image that contains all of the relevant stats, die rolls, and other numbers necessary to play as a class. Also known as a '''class card'''.<br />
* '''Codex:''' The overarching ruleset and guidelines for playing. Can also refer to the image that contains the stat cards for the 6 core classes.<br />
* '''Callsign:''' The identifying letter placed next to your name in your posts. The number is also considered part of the callsign. Having both, when necessary, is called a '''complete callsign'''. Ex. [R1]<br />
* '''Symbol:''' The icon that represents you on the map.<br />
* '''Forward:''' Also called the '''forward element''', this is the Black Company-specific term for the group attempting to capture a location.<br />
* '''Operator:''' All Black Company troops on the map are operators.<br />
* '''Optimal Post Syntax:''' The best way to format your posts for the author's convenience. Also allows you to change your action. See [[Black Company#Optimal Post Syntax|Optimal Post Syntax]].<br />
<br />
==Playing as an Officer==<br />
The Officer Corps is the organizational branch of Black Company, and has no physical presence on the battlefield. They handle deployment, tactics and strategy, tactical support, answer the questions of the enlisted men, and are responsible for submitting actions for anyone who fails to get them in by the deadline. As a result of all this, being an officer can be a lot of work, as they are the most important class in the game. Missions have been won and lost based on the competency of their officers alone.<br />
<br />
===Delegating Responsibilites===<br />
As an officer, you will be easily overwhelmed if you try and take every duty on by yourself. Tracking who has moved and who hasn't, the results of their actions, planning tactics for the phase, and worrying about enemies or hazards you can't see all by yourself is an intimidating prospect. For this reason, even though you get all the benefits of having officers with only one, it's much more convenient to have multiple officers. Then you can delegate responsibilities on the battlefield amongst yourself, and only have to worry about one section of the battlefield or one aspect of the fight while still being able to communicate for an overall picture.<br />
<br />
As a lone officer, it's still a good idea to delegate some of those responsibilities among the enlisted men. If you divide them into squads, you might consider assigning squad leaders, whose job it is to keep track of movements among their own squad and report back to you. Any delegation of responsibility can make things much easier on you.<br />
<br />
===Mission Support===<br />
Before a mission begins, it may be given the opportunity to bring along one or more support options, chosen from the support page. Most can be chosen more than once.<br />
<br />
====Animal Handler====<br />
Considered either wildly overpowered or massively impotent, often depending solely on the situation they are in, animal handlers are an agile and deadly addition to almost any mission. Choosing the animal handler option will allow you to deploy with two animal handlers, who have three dog subunits each. These subunits act entirely independently of the handler, though they can only be redeployed if he is still alive. The handler is lightly armored, moving at a baseline pace, and is armed with an extremely useful non-lethal beanbag gun, which does damage through armor and stuns its target for a turn. He is generally survivable, and the two animal handlers together with their dogs can form a team of their own.<br />
<br />
Each dog has 5 MOVE, and 2 ACT, which allows them to move up to 14 squares a turn, making them the most mobile unit currently playable. In addition to this exorbitant flanking and outmaneuvering potential, they are capable of doing some stunning of their own, and can attack targets from a range to knock them down and stun them while they and their fellow canines rip them apart. Any single unit is in extreme danger to a pack of dogs, especially the lowly [M]edic.<br />
<br />
====Armored Personnel Carrier====<br />
The APC is a useful but not essential tool in most fights. It moves at high speed, and can hold four soldiers in it as well, although they can't do anything until they get out (which they can do to any direction besides the front of the APC). It also holds an unlimited amount of ammunition which soldiers can resupply from if they are inside it, and can deploy new recruits inside it for free, although it cannot redeploy subunits, making it an effective mobile base. It can even be chosen multiple times for backup APCs, or to split forces among multiple fronts.<br />
<br />
====Jeep====<br />
A fast-moving vehicular support unit, the jeep can hold up to 5 troops, one driving, three firing their weapons normally (though at possible penalties), and one on the turret emplacement. It moves quite fast, and is hard to dodge when running people over, but can eventually start to wear down and break from damage taken doing so. Choosing this option will allow three jeeps to be deployed on the battlefield, which is enough to carry most of an army.<br />
<br />
''Note to jeep passengers: It's good etiquette to label yourself accordingly if you are in the jeep, for instance [J1][R1], so that you may be more easily identified, as you cannot be seen on the map while in the jeep.''<br />
<br />
====Light Tank====<br />
Lightly armored, but swift, the light tank (or [La]), provides excellent and versatile support, like a well-armored infantry on wheels, without subtracting significantly from your forces like the jeep. Similarly, choosing this option will give you three light tanks to work with. Though highly vulnerable to explosives and even small arms fire, the light tank's machinegun is devastatingly effective against lightly or unarmored targets, as it does moderate damage at a longer range and far more accurately than an infantry, and can even fire up to a maximum of 5 times.<br />
<br />
====Medium Tank====<br />
A medium tank, while considerably slower than a light tank, is far better armored, and equipped with explosive tank shells. Though lacking as much splash as the [R]ocketeer's launcher, it is considerably more directed, and capable of firing multiple times before reloading. The medium tank is capable of surviving several point-blank explosions before being destroyed. Its moderate speed combined with its considerable firepower and decent armor makes it a good middle-of-the-road support choice.<br />
<br />
====Heavy Tank====<br />
Exactly the opposite of the light tank, the heavy tank is extremely well-armored, equipped with devastating weaponry, and moves at a snail's pace. Though it can't be counted on to keep up with the rest of the unit, and it's not especially difficult to dodge, the heavy tank is equipped with twin cannons as well as minirocket launchers. It does obscene explosive damage, though it is fairly inaccurate, so it is inadvisable for its allies to stand ahead of it. For penetrating a heavily defended area (when not in a rush), there is no superior alternative.<br />
<br />
===Officer Control Panel===<br />
Throughout the mission officers can choose to spend kills gained by soldiers on support options available in the Officer Control Panel (see below). Here is how to use them effectively. It's worth noting that only one option can be chosen per officer per phase.<br />
<br />
====Redeploy====<br />
Previously the Redeploy option was available in any phase in any location. This was phased out in favor of the Paratrooper support option in Codex 3. Redeploy is, of course, still useful for reinforcing teams that have taken fire or are at less than full strength, or who don't have enough manpower to face the enemy, but you can no longer drop your forces directly into enemy lines and have them start shooting immediately.<br />
<br />
Redeploy, like all control panel options unless otherwise stated, is activated during Action Phase. The officer selects a square on the map, and troops are deployed in a tight spread around it. All troops will be deployed in ''class card condition'', that is to say, standing up, fully loaded, and at full health. The option costs 2 kills per soldier, so it is unwise to drop them anywhere where they would be immediately massacred by enemy troops. Furthermore, the helicopter pilot will refuse to land within range of enemy forces and within sight of any enemy rocketeers, but this only applies to the specific square chosen by the officer. Subunits can also be redeployed with this option, such as the [A]'s dogs. They cost only 1 kill per unit.<br />
<br />
The Paratrooper support option can be chosen at the start of a mission to make this option more viable, as it will be usable during enemy phase, allowing instant reaction, and troops can be deployed anywhere, although they will not land in as tight a spread.<br />
<br />
====Air Drop====<br />
The officer selects a square on the map during Action Phase, to drop a supply crate on the field. The supply crate costs 5 kills, and has 4 uses. It will completely refill the ammunition of any one soldier. Therefore, it is most cost effective for it to be used by soldiers who are completely out of ammunition. There is some degree of error in the supply crate's descent, and it can land up to 3 squares away from its intended target in any direction, so it's inadvisable to deploy it in a situation where it requires pinpoint accuracy for the survival of troops. The supply crates can also be accessed by the enemy, so fights may break out over them, and accidentally deploying one into enemy lines could have consequences for your troops.<br />
<br />
====UAV Recon====<br />
The officer deploys an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle for reconnoisance. This option can be chosen during any phase, although the timeliness of its deployment is rarely the deciding factor in a fight. The unmanned drone will fly over the battlefield for 3 turns, revealing all enemy and neutral structures and units on the minimap, before passing. It is extremely useful at the beginning of a fight, especially on a largely outdoor map, to prepare for the enemy and reveal bottlenecks, ambushes, and defenses that might otherwise become nasty surprises. It is also useful for checking for and tracking enemy reinforcements, and to make sure the enemy is not flanking.<br />
<br />
====Artillery====<br />
The officer selects a square on the map and specifies the amount of salvoes requested. A salvo of artillery is a single blast, and each costs 5 kills. The officer can also select multiple targets, up to one for each salvo. Salvoes can be extremely inaccurate, and vary up to 5 squares in any direction, thus making them preferable for targeting groups of units or multi-square units rather than individual units, which may be missed even by the artillery shell's wide splash radius. Artillery is also useful for busting and crippling enemy tanks, although even a direct hit to an enemy Medium or Heavy Armor will not destroy it if it was previously undamaged, and the Light Armor's smaller size makes it harder to hit reliably. The artillery is also useful for softening outdoor enemy defenses, and several salvoes can devastate a fortified position. An artillery strike will hit at the end of the Action Phase it is called during. Artillery cannot penetrate buildings.<br />
<br />
====Air Strike====<br />
The officer draws a straight line through the map, and a bomber will fly overhead, and carve a swathe of destruction across the map, doing massive damage to everything in its way. The air strike is completely accurate, and will never vary from the line that is drawn for it, but the splash damage is relatively minimal. Though its path can be targeted to get the most destructive potential for the 20 kills that it costs, it is most useful for decimating enemy lines, groups, or accurately targeting enemy armor, although collateral damage must be taken into account, as the air strike does not discriminate between friend or foe or anything inbetween.<br />
<br />
==Playing as a Soldier==<br />
As a soldier, you have a duty to follow your officer's instructions, but strictly speaking, you don't ''have'' to. Often times the officer will give a general plan rather than ordering soldiers specifically, and it is your responsibility to interpret those orders in your action. There's a reason you submit your action directly.<br />
<br />
===Infantry===<br />
The [I]nfantry unit is the most effective and versatile class. With the most HP, and baseline ACT and MOVE despite their decent AR, they are survivable without being specialized, and their rifle and grenades allow them to be prepared for any situation. They are especially skilled in breaking up fortifications, however, and scattering support. Because of their versatility and relative simplicity, there are often more [I]nfantry than any other class on missions.<br />
<br />
The [I]nfantry comes equipped with a rifle capable of both single and three-round burst fire. It does baseline damage, which makes it mediocre against more heavily armored enemies, but its burst mode makes it formidable against other units, especially those with baseline or lower HP, or no AR. It is exceptional for eliminating high-value targets, or for gambling against the dice to kill an enemy with higher HP in a single phase. Their grenades can breach fortifications, dissolve blockades, and soften groups of enemies, and are capable of ignoring cover that otherwise could pose a serious threat.<br />
<br />
===Rocketeer===<br />
The [R]ocketeer unit is an impressive damage-dealing explosives expert. They are capable of providing heavy support, and their armor makes them hard to get rid of, though they cannot move as fast as other units. They are most useful for taking out enemy armor, and disrupting bottlenecks and killing floors, but a direct hit from their rocket will take out any base class, including other [R]ocketeers.<br />
<br />
Their only weapon is their rocket launcher, but it is unmatched in sheer damage-dealing potential. Its splash damage can kill whole groups of enemies, and it has no hard range, but rather travels at a rate of 6 squares per phase, meaning it will simply take time to reach its destination. The downside to this is that shooting past 6 squares gives the enemy the opportunity to dodge the rocket, but they can compensate for this by aiming at the ground rather than directly at an enemy, at the expense of some direct damage. The [R]ocketeer is also useful for creating extemporized doorways to allow troops to bypass normal entrances.<br />
<br />
===Telekinetic===<br />
The [T]elekinetic unit is a fearsome glass cannon. Though entirely exposed on the battlefield, they are equipped with a variety of psychic powers to allow them to survive even when they wade directly into fire, though it's not any more recommended. The [T]elekinetic is more of a stealthy class than one might think, and often relies on ambushes and covering fire to close the distance. They are also primarily a support class, and can aid their allies by immobilizing high-value targets and nullifying cover.<br />
<br />
The most personally useful power of the [T]elekinetic is the ability to provide a psychokinetic shield for themselves as a passive action. This can help them get to and through the front lines, but its usefulness does not extend into battle itself, as the [T]elekinetic will be unable to use any other power at the same time. They can also use their powers to damage an enemy's internal organs, and cause internal bleeding and hemorrhaging, while bypassing armor, making them a serious threat to any single unit except the [I]nfantry, and indispensable for eliminating enemy armor. Finally, they can lift enemies out of cover and immobilize them, at a further range than they could hurt them, which is useful for supporting allies without putting the [T]elekinetic in danger.<br />
<br />
===Medic===<br />
The [M]edic unit is a vital support class. Battles can be won or lost based on their [M]edic content alone. Even attaching one to a squad can increase its life expectancy drastically, and if not keep them fighting at least prevent them from dying. The [M]edic is an extremely mobile unit, able to speed across battlefields to wherever they are needed. They are, however, primarily a support class, and consequentially they are not apt at dealing damage. Their sidearm's damage is inconsequential at best. Their biggest boon, however, is their directional shield, which keeps them alive as they traverse the front lines. Keeping it pointed towards the enemy will protect them from even the worst explosions, though the [T]elekinetic can still strike fear into a [M]edic. They are also extremely vulnerable to being flanked, and to fast-moving units such as the [A]nimal Handler's dogs.<br />
<br />
The [M]edic laser pistol does not do a great deal of damage, and has limited range, but its unlimited ammo makes reloading not an issue for them, allowing them to save their ACT for sprinting, healing, and recharging shields. They can heal anyone, including themselves, and receive a bonus to stabilizing incapacitated units. They can even revived downed soldiers once they've been stabilized, keeping an army running even when everyone in it should be dead. Their shield also allows them to traverse dangerous battlefields and survive close encounters with the enemy, as it absorbs overflow damage, although as it is directional, they are at serious risk if flanked, as their lack of armor is necessary for their speedy movement, and they will fall quickly to surprise attacks.<br />
<br />
===Sniper===<br />
The [S]niper unit is a devastating long-range attack class. Though hampered by their inability to move before acting, they are extremely accurate, and their high-powered sniper rifle can one-shot most base classes. They are best suited to positions where they can fire on enemies without having to move much, and can prepare their bonuses, such as manning bottlenecks, barricades, and killzones. However, they will often have difficulty keeping up with the rest of their unit, and in exposed situations can come under fire while moving or reloading. They are also weak in cramped, urban situations, where their range is not an advantage and they can be easily ambushed, flanked, or picked off when they fall behind.<br />
<br />
Under perfect conditions, it is impossible for the [S]niper to miss with their rifle. The class-specific +1 for being prone, along with the normal +1, and a +1 for Overwatch zones, mean that the [S]niper will always hit a normal standing enemy. If penalties exist, the [S]niper is even more likely to hit them on their next shot. As well, the long range allows them to pick off enemies before they can become a threat. In addition, they can lay down mines without a roll, allowing them to set up defended positions for them to snipe from. A bunkered [S]niper poses a serious problem to any squadron.<br />
<br />
===Engineer===<br />
The [E]ngineer unit is a fortification and bunkering specialist. They can instantly create entrenched positions on the front line, and provide vital cover for units under fire. Their walls can turn the tide of a fight by giving the advantage of one-way cover to his side, and they can create bottlenecks and killing floors to ambush unwary enemies. In addition, they can set up defensive positions and control turrets in them remotely, allowing them to guard areas without even being in them.<br />
<br />
Though the [E]ngineer's machine pistol is subpar, they can essentially upgrade it by placing a turret and using it instead. The turret can also be used to remotely guard positions even after the [E]ngineer leaves. He can support his allies by throwing smoke grenades to allow them to pass through enemy killing zones unmolested, or use them to cover himself while he sets up his constructions. He can set up impromptu defenses anywhere on the battlefield, and is vital to moving as well as holding the line.<br />
<br />
==Rule Database==<br />
This is a database of frequently asked questions about the game. Please check here before asking.<br />
<br />
===Miscellaneous===<br />
* You are allowed to create as many characters as you like, however no two can be in the same battle at once.<br />
* You can shoot past normal range at a penalty of -1 to-hit for each square exceeded, unless the range is 1 or you are a [T]elekinetic.<br />
* You can move through friendly units, but not stand on top of them.<br />
* Blue circles are civilians.<br />
* Diagonals are identical to cardinal directions for the purposes of movement and range.<br />
* Soft cover is cover you must crouch behind to be protected. Hard cover is cover you simply must move behind.<br />
* Reloading costs 1 ACT.<br />
* Facing a corner will allow you to see (but not shoot) around it without exposing yourself.<br />
<br />
===Class Cards===<br />
* Arc: Any weapon marked with (Arc) can be arced to ignore cover at a -1 range and -1 to-hit penalty.<br />
* Subsonic: Any weapon with a subsonic range moves the given number of squares ''per phase''.<br />
* Tank Shock: Anyone the tank passes over must roll at least the given number to dodge out of the way (if possible).<br />
* Roadkill: Anyone the car passes over must roll at least the first number to dodge out of the way (if possible). The driver must roll at least the second number to avoid taking 1 HP damage.<br />
* Subunits cannot stabilize or use knives.<br />
* Subunits cannot deploy from an APC, but can be redeployed for half the cost.<br />
<br />
===Infantry===<br />
* The Infantry's grenade will not land where he throws it if he fails his roll; it will vary up to 3 squares in any direction.<br />
<br />
===Rocketeer===<br />
* The Rocketeer's rocket's movement is based on the straightest line between the Rocketeer and the target location, not the direction the rocket is facing when the phase ends.<br />
* The Rocketeer's rocket will not hit where he aims if he fails his roll; it will vary up to 3 squares in any direction.<br />
<br />
===Telekinetic===<br />
* Tanks are considered armor for their pilots.<br />
* Shields are considered cover for their medics.<br />
* Psychic abilities can't have their range extended.<br />
* Psychic abilities ignore hard and soft cover, as long as the Telekinetic or an ally can see the target.<br />
* The Hurt power ignores armor, dealing direct HP damage.<br />
* The Lift power can only lift troops, but it can stop subsonic projectiles in midair.<br />
* The Shield power requires 1 ACT, and counts as an action.<br />
<br />
===Medic===<br />
*Recharging the shield requires 1 ACT, and counts as an action.<br />
*Moving the shield to any direction requires 1 MOVE.<br />
*The medic cannot heal any downed soldiers who are not stabilized.<br />
*A stabilized soldier the medic heals is revived.<br />
<br />
===Sniper===<br />
* The sniper's Overwatch ability can be activated at the end of any turn, and is deactivated when they move.<br />
* The sniper cannot move in the same turn that she acts.<br />
* The sniper receives a +1 bonus when they shoot at a target more than once in a row. This applies to aimed and quickshots.<br />
<br />
===Engineer===<br />
* Shields and force walls will block '''all''' damage before they are destroyed.<br />
* The engineer and his allies can shoot through allied force walls. This applies for enemies and their force walls too.<br />
* Turrets are soft cover and force walls are hard cover.<br />
<br />
===Vehicles===<br />
* Tanks can punch through walls if they have at least 1 Length worth of lead up.<br />
* Anyone a vehicle runs over gets a free hit on the vehicle before they are hit.<br />
<br />
==Codex and Cards==<br />
<gallery><br />
Image:Codex3.png|Codex 3<br />
Image:AR Chart.png|Armor Rating Chart<br />
Image:Support Options.png|Officer support options<br />
Image:Control Panel.png|Partially unlocked Officer control panel<br />
Image:Common Skills.png|Abilities available to all classes<br />
Image:Animal Handler.png|Codex 3 Animal Handler card<br />
Image:APC.png|Codex 3 APC card<br />
Image:Heavy Tank.png|Codex 3 Heavy Tank card<br />
Image:Mediumtank.png|Codex 3 Medium Tank card<br />
Image:Light Tank.png|Codex 3 Light Tank card<br />
Image:Jeep.png|Codex 3 Jeep card<br />
Image:Pilot.png|Codex 3 Pilot card<br />
Image:Sportscar.png|Codex 3 Sports Car card<br />
</gallery><br />
<br />
===Custom Cards===<br />
<gallery><br />
Image:EvilPerson.jpg|Evil Person<br />
Image:Bob.png|Bob<br />
Image:Cross.png|Cross<br />
Image:Fryman.png|Fryman (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Apollo.png|Apollo (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Brosnikov.png|Brosnikov (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Canopener.jpg|Can-Opener (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Kuaki.png|Ku'aki (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Mason.png|Mason (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Nix.png|Nix (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Smokey.png|Smokey (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Suggestion.jpg|Suggestion (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Suh.png|Suh (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Yadoz Ritwuul.png|Ritwuul (Codex 2)<br />
</gallery><br />
<br />
==Fanart==<br />
<gallery><br />
Image:129611129617.png|Almost the entire squad MISSED in one round?!<br />
Image:Dogwalking.png|Who would walk a dog in a war zone?<br />
Image:Blackcompany.jpg|Crazy Ivanov strikes again!<br />
Image:Mrq.png|<HA HA HA HA, HA HA HA HO HO HO.> <This is DELICIOUS.> <DO be hasty in signing up.> <I CANNOT WAIT TO SEE BLACK COMPANY PUMMELED INTO DUST.> <YES, YE~S.> <br />
Image:Meatbag Beset By Dogs.jpg|Pvt. Meatbag is knocked down by enemy attack dogs. But he'll get up again.<br />
Image:Fryman And His Dogs.png|Fryman, and his dogs Kassandra, Alexi, and Lawyer.<br />
Image:Smokey Abandoning His Duties.png|Smokey decides he does not work well under pressure and quits the Officer Corps.<br />
</gallery> <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
{{Samuel}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Quests]]<br />
[[Category:Running Quests]]<br />
[[Category:Image Quests]]<br />
[[Category:Quests with Individual Players]]</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=File:Heavy_Tank.png&diff=17705File:Heavy Tank.png2013-06-15T04:47:08Z<p>Squeegy: uploaded a new version of &quot;File:Heavy Tank.png&quot;: Increased the speed</p>
<hr />
<div></div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Black_Company&diff=17704Black Company2013-06-15T02:24:26Z<p>Squeegy: Changing categories</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Infobox<br />
|author=Squeegy<br />
|authoralias=Samuel<br />
|image=Black Company Title.jpg<br />
|suppressnum=1<br />
|thread1=274466 |thread1name=Thread #1 (Training, Mission 1)<br />
|thread2=375890 |thread2name=Thread #2 (Mission 2)<br />
|thread3=452871 |thread3name=Thread #3 (Mission 3, Mission 4)<br />
|thread4=471304 |thread4name=Thread #3b (Mission 4b)<br />
|disthread1=29364<br />
}}<br />
Black Company is a personalized, turn-based wargame where individual players join up as various classes of soldiers, and are led by their fellow suggestors in battle against GM-controlled forces in small-scale skirmishes. The enemy is commanded either by [[Squeegy]], the author, or [[MrQ]], also known as General Q. Waterbuffalo.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Plot==<br />
The suggestors play as members of Black Company, a division in the American military. The very first mission involved a surprise attack on a Black Company convoy by troops of the Mexican army, disguised as friendly soldiers at a checkpoint. They were slaughtered, and war sprang out between the two countries. Black Company took the fight to Zangano, the paramilitary organization that comprises the Mexican army much as Black Company comprises the United States's.<br />
<br />
==Game Progression==<br />
Much of the early fighting took place on the 4chan /tg/ board, including the initial failed mission and several missions in the first Mexican sector. /tg/ lost several battles due to poor organization, incompetent leadership and insufficient numbers. Since then, the game has been ported exclusively to tgchan, and the latest sector has been handled entirely by their forces.<br />
<br />
==Playing the Game==<br />
Each thread begins with a roll call, where all the players post their intent to play with a callsign according to their class and a name of their choice. New players may choose from the six main classes given in Codex 3, which are Infantry, Rocketeer, Telekinetic, Medic, Sniper, and Engineer. Once everyone has joined, those who have signed up as Officers (organizational and tactical support players who have no individual role in battle) are given a map with notable locations in the sector, and asked to choose which to launch an assault on. They are occasionally given support units, which players who have joined already must then be assigned to if no one steps forward to claim them. The map is then provided to the Officers, who must choose where to deploy the troops under their command, and the game begins.<br />
<br />
===Reading Stat Cards===<br />
[[File:Stat Card.png|300px|thumb|right]]<br />
1. This is your callsign and symbol. Your callsign is what should go next to your name when you post. For example, this soldier could be '[I] Pvt. Cann N. Fodder'. This will include a number when you're on the map (e.g. [I1]). The symbol is how you appear on the map. <br />
<br />
2. These are your unit statistics. The [I]nfantry has 4 HP and an armor rating of 2.<br />
<br />
3. These are your map statistics. The [I]nfantry has 1 ACT point and 1 MOVE point. This means he can move 4 spaces, and then perform an action.<br />
<br />
4. These are your weapon statistics. The [I]nfantry rifle does 2 damage per hit, up to a range of 6, and fires 9 shots before a reload is necessary, of which it has 2. You can fire beyond your range for a penalty of -1 to-hit for each square exceeded. <br />
<br />
5. These are your rolls. You can roll an aimed shot, which requires you to roll 5 or higher to hit, or 3 burst shots, which each require 8 or higher to hit. Each shot is rolled on a d10. Anything marked with a roll requires 1 ACT to do.<br />
<br />
6. This is an area of effect map. It shows that the grenade damages those in a 3x3 area around where it detonates, which is marked by an X. <br />
<br />
7. This statistic shows that multiple damage values can result from this weapon. The exclamation point next to the 3 denotes that it is the maximum, and only those hit point-blank by the blast will take that much. All those in the surrounding squares will take only 1. Most splash damage weapons will have damage maps on the card.<br />
<br />
8. This range has a note on it that signifies special conditions.<br />
<br />
9. Sometimes weapons or abilities will have notes that clarify their functions.<br />
<br />
===Turns===<br />
Turns in Black Company are split into '''Action Phase''', the phase in which all troops must submit their actions, and '''Enemy Phase''', the phase in which allied actions resolve and the enemy then makes its movements and actions. Once you have submitted an action, you are '''not allowed''' to delete or change it, though if you failed to include a roll you may do so in another post.<br />
<br />
Each phase represents a nebulous amount of time from how long it takes to aim and fire an assault rifle, to the time it takes to sprint down a city block. In general, battles are over in minutes.<br />
<br />
====Optimal Post Syntax====<br />
Optimal Post Syntax is the best way to format your actions when submitting them, so that they can be executed without error. If you are using OPS, then you may change your action at any time by '''linking to the previous action''' and posting another action in Optimal Post Syntax. If you do not use OPS, or you use it incorrectly, then you may not change your action after you first submit it.<br />
<br />
Move [directions] to [square]. (-# move for [pose])<br />
([Pose change])<br />
[Action] ([[dice goal]]) (at [callsign] on [square]).<br />
(Modifiers: +# -# x#)<br />
Ammo: #Rx#<br />
(Promotion bonuses: [bonuses])<br />
REPOST FOR EACH SUBUNIT. <br />
<br />
===Movement on the Map===<br />
Every class has a statistic called 'MOVE', which represents the amount of squares of movement that class can travel in one phase. For instance, the Infantry class has 4 MOVE, which means that they can move 4 squares every turn before committing an action. Notable movement rules:<br />
* You cannot move after acting.<br />
* One ACT can be spent to regain full MOVE, with a penalty of 1 MOVE for each ACT spent after the first. If a class has 2 ACT and 4 MOVE, they can sprint for a maximum of 11 MOVE.<br />
* Even classes which normally must choose between moving and acting (i.e. the Sniper) can spend their act to sprint.<br />
* Sprinting is considered a general term for moving faster, so the MOVE gained can be used while prone or crouched, for pose changes, and for any other normal expenditure of MOVE. This also means that vehicles can 'sprint'.<br />
* Changing poses costs MOVE, but can have benefits as well as disadvantages. Each pose change costs 1 MOVE, and changing from standing to prone or vice versa requires 2, because you must crouch first.<br />
** Crouching: +1 to-hit, -1 move, ''-1 to be hit (if on a hill)''<br />
** Prone +1 to-hit, -2 move, -1 to be hit ''(unless on lower ground, then +1 to be hit)''<br />
<br />
===ACT and Actions===<br />
Any number enclosed in brackets on a class card (for instance, 'Shoot [5]'), signifies that it is an action, that unless otherwise stated, requires the expenditure of an ACT. You must also roll to successfully complete the action, on a 1d10, with the goal of getting the number stated or higher. If you fail an action, the author decides what happens. You will never shoot an ally with a bullet unless disoriented, but explosives are unpredictable.<br />
<br />
====ACT vs Actions====<br />
The difference between an action, and something that merely uses ACT, is illustrated in sprinting. Sprinting is considered movement, and something that while ACT is spent on it, does not count as an action. It's for this reason that snipers can sprint. The difference, fundamentally, is that actions (which also technically use ACT) end your turn. Things that use ACT are almost exclusively actions, so this nuance shouldn't come up much.<br />
<br />
===Damage and Armor Rating===<br />
The damage of each attack is labeled on its card. In general, sidearms are Dam 1 and rifles are Dam 2. Explosives are often Dam 6 with splash radiuses with lower damages. Shotguns are Dam 3 and sniper rifles are Dam 4. These can be improved with promotions, for instance you could turn your sniper rifle into a Dam 6 anti-tank monstrosity. If your AR is zero, damage is deducted directly from your HP. Otherwise, the damage is reduced according to the AR chart (available below). If you have an AR of 3 and take 6 damage, you can look at the chart across from '6 DAM' and under '3 AR', and see that the resulting number is 4, so you will only lose 4 HP.<br />
<br />
===Promotions===<br />
Every phase in which you submit an action and come out alive puts you further towards your next promotion. All new players start out at the Private rank, but after their first battle or two they will be promoted to Specialist and be permitted to improve one thing on their stat card. This can be nearly anything except for ACT, but is generally a single number (for instance, your MOVE, or your gun's damage or range, your HP, or lowering the goal on a dice roll).<br />
* The only case where an upgrade comes at a penalty is AR, which will reduce your MOVE by 1 for each point it is raised by.<br />
* The other exception is range upgrades, which are +2 instead of +1 for non-psychic abilities.<br />
* Melee abilities (such as knives, stabilizing, and healing) cannot have their range improved.<br />
* You cannot lower a die roll more than twice.<br />
<br />
====Temporary Classes====<br />
Occasionally officers will bring support along on the mission that will require a player, such as animal handlers or tanks. While playing these temporary classes, you progress towards your next promotion as normal and will continue to upgrade your normal class. However, a character can choose to attach themselves to a support class permanently, which will allow them to upgrade that class, but they will only be able to play when that support is fielded, and will lose all promotion progress.<br />
<br />
====Spec Classes====<br />
At the ranks of Sergeant First Class, and Command Sergeant Major, players have the opportunity to make a '''spec class'''. This is an entirely new class, that is related to the base class that the player specced out of in some way. The first spec is more moderate, but by the second spec the class is often only tangentially related to the original class.<br />
<br />
'''Examples:'''<br/><br />
Infantry First Spec:<br />
*Shotgunner<br />
*Heavy Machinegunner<br />
*Field Tactician<br />
*Squad Leader<br />
<br />
Rocketeer First Spec:<br />
*Flamethrower<br />
*Grenade Launcher<br />
*Semtex Expert (Semtexpert?)<br />
*MANPAD<br />
<br />
Telekinetic First Spec:<br />
*Hypnotist<br />
*Clairsentient<br />
*Psychic Blademaster<br />
*Psychoporter<br />
<br />
Medic First Spec:<br />
*Knight<br />
*Combat Medic<br />
*Scientist<br />
*Scout<br />
<br />
Sniper First Spec:<br />
*Forward Observer<br />
*Autosniper<br />
*Long-Range Sniper<br />
*Archer<br />
<br />
Engineer First Spec:<br />
*Sentry Specialist<br />
*Entrenchment Specialist<br />
*Drone Engineer (Dronengineer?)<br />
*Roboticist<br />
<br />
Spec class limits are intentionally vague, so that players have freedom in class creation.<br />
<br />
===Death===<br />
Death is permanent in Black Company. Your character's promotion progress will be lost and their death will be mourned ICly. A soldier dies when he reaches -3 HP, and is incapacitated when he reaches 0 HP. While incapacitated, he will lose 1 HP per turn. A Medic can revive a soldier who is incapacitated if they are stabilized.<br />
<br />
===Lexicon===<br />
* '''Phase:''' The turn in which every unit on a side posts their action.<br />
* '''Turn:''' The collection of all the game phases. These include Action Phase, Enemy Phase, and Ally Phase if applicable. Civilians move on whichever phase is representative of their nationality. At the end of a turn, all players involved gain a promotion point if they posted an action.<br />
* '''Prebriefing:''' The pre-mission deployment of defending units.<br />
* '''Deployment Phase:''' The initial phase of the game, where troops are deployed into the deployment zones. Proceeds immediately to Action Phase, unless the defender has the advantage, in which case it proceeds immediately to Enemy Phase, with Enemy Phase beginning each phase.<br />
* '''Sprinting:''' The conversion of ACT into MOVE. This is considered movement.<br />
* '''Stat Card:''' The image that contains all of the relevant stats, die rolls, and other numbers necessary to play as a class. Also known as a '''class card'''.<br />
* '''Codex:''' The overarching ruleset and guidelines for playing. Can also refer to the image that contains the stat cards for the 6 core classes.<br />
* '''Callsign:''' The identifying letter placed next to your name in your posts. The number is also considered part of the callsign. Having both, when necessary, is called a '''complete callsign'''. Ex. [R1]<br />
* '''Symbol:''' The icon that represents you on the map.<br />
* '''Forward:''' Also called the '''forward element''', this is the Black Company-specific term for the group attempting to capture a location.<br />
* '''Operator:''' All Black Company troops on the map are operators.<br />
* '''Optimal Post Syntax:''' The best way to format your posts for the author's convenience. Also allows you to change your action. See [[Black Company#Optimal Post Syntax|Optimal Post Syntax]].<br />
<br />
==Playing as an Officer==<br />
The Officer Corps is the organizational branch of Black Company, and has no physical presence on the battlefield. They handle deployment, tactics and strategy, tactical support, answer the questions of the enlisted men, and are responsible for submitting actions for anyone who fails to get them in by the deadline. As a result of all this, being an officer can be a lot of work, as they are the most important class in the game. Missions have been won and lost based on the competency of their officers alone.<br />
<br />
===Delegating Responsibilites===<br />
As an officer, you will be easily overwhelmed if you try and take every duty on by yourself. Tracking who has moved and who hasn't, the results of their actions, planning tactics for the phase, and worrying about enemies or hazards you can't see all by yourself is an intimidating prospect. For this reason, even though you get all the benefits of having officers with only one, it's much more convenient to have multiple officers. Then you can delegate responsibilities on the battlefield amongst yourself, and only have to worry about one section of the battlefield or one aspect of the fight while still being able to communicate for an overall picture.<br />
<br />
As a lone officer, it's still a good idea to delegate some of those responsibilities among the enlisted men. If you divide them into squads, you might consider assigning squad leaders, whose job it is to keep track of movements among their own squad and report back to you. Any delegation of responsibility can make things much easier on you.<br />
<br />
===Mission Support===<br />
Before a mission begins, it may be given the opportunity to bring along one or more support options, chosen from the support page. Most can be chosen more than once.<br />
<br />
====Animal Handler====<br />
Considered either wildly overpowered or massively impotent, often depending solely on the situation they are in, animal handlers are an agile and deadly addition to almost any mission. Choosing the animal handler option will allow you to deploy with two animal handlers, who have three dog subunits each. These subunits act entirely independently of the handler, though they can only be redeployed if he is still alive. The handler is lightly armored, moving at a baseline pace, and is armed with an extremely useful non-lethal beanbag gun, which does damage through armor and stuns its target for a turn. He is generally survivable, and the two animal handlers together with their dogs can form a team of their own.<br />
<br />
Each dog has 5 MOVE, and 2 ACT, which allows them to move up to 14 squares a turn, making them the most mobile unit currently playable. In addition to this exorbitant flanking and outmaneuvering potential, they are capable of doing some stunning of their own, and can attack targets from a range to knock them down and stun them while they and their fellow canines rip them apart. Any single unit is in extreme danger to a pack of dogs, especially the lowly [M]edic.<br />
<br />
====Armored Personnel Carrier====<br />
The APC is a useful but not essential tool in most fights. It moves at high speed, and can hold four soldiers in it as well, although they can't do anything until they get out (which they can do to any direction besides the front of the APC). It also holds an unlimited amount of ammunition which soldiers can resupply from if they are inside it, and can deploy new recruits inside it for free, although it cannot redeploy subunits, making it an effective mobile base. It can even be chosen multiple times for backup APCs, or to split forces among multiple fronts.<br />
<br />
====Jeep====<br />
A fast-moving vehicular support unit, the jeep can hold up to 5 troops, one driving, three firing their weapons normally (though at possible penalties), and one on the turret emplacement. It moves quite fast, and is hard to dodge when running people over, but can eventually start to wear down and break from damage taken doing so. Choosing this option will allow three jeeps to be deployed on the battlefield, which is enough to carry most of an army.<br />
<br />
''Note to jeep passengers: It's good etiquette to label yourself accordingly if you are in the jeep, for instance [J1][R1], so that you may be more easily identified, as you cannot be seen on the map while in the jeep.''<br />
<br />
====Light Tank====<br />
Lightly armored, but swift, the light tank (or [La]), provides excellent and versatile support, like a well-armored infantry on wheels, without subtracting significantly from your forces like the jeep. Similarly, choosing this option will give you three light tanks to work with. Though highly vulnerable to explosives and even small arms fire, the light tank's machinegun is devastatingly effective against lightly or unarmored targets, as it does moderate damage at a longer range and far more accurately than an infantry, and can even fire up to a maximum of 5 times.<br />
<br />
====Medium Tank====<br />
A medium tank, while considerably slower than a light tank, is far better armored, and equipped with explosive tank shells. Though lacking as much splash as the [R]ocketeer's launcher, it is considerably more directed, and capable of firing multiple times before reloading. The medium tank is capable of surviving several point-blank explosions before being destroyed. Its moderate speed combined with its considerable firepower and decent armor makes it a good middle-of-the-road support choice.<br />
<br />
====Heavy Tank====<br />
Exactly the opposite of the light tank, the heavy tank is extremely well-armored, equipped with devastating weaponry, and moves at a snail's pace. Though it can't be counted on to keep up with the rest of the unit, and it's not especially difficult to dodge, the heavy tank is equipped with twin cannons as well as minirocket launchers. It does obscene explosive damage, though it is fairly inaccurate, so it is inadvisable for its allies to stand ahead of it. For penetrating a heavily defended area (when not in a rush), there is no superior alternative.<br />
<br />
===Officer Control Panel===<br />
Throughout the mission officers can choose to spend kills gained by soldiers on support options available in the Officer Control Panel (see below). Here is how to use them effectively. It's worth noting that only one option can be chosen per officer per phase.<br />
<br />
====Redeploy====<br />
Previously the Redeploy option was available in any phase in any location. This was phased out in favor of the Paratrooper support option in Codex 3. Redeploy is, of course, still useful for reinforcing teams that have taken fire or are at less than full strength, or who don't have enough manpower to face the enemy, but you can no longer drop your forces directly into enemy lines and have them start shooting immediately.<br />
<br />
Redeploy, like all control panel options unless otherwise stated, is activated during Action Phase. The officer selects a square on the map, and troops are deployed in a tight spread around it. All troops will be deployed in ''class card condition'', that is to say, standing up, fully loaded, and at full health. The option costs 2 kills per soldier, so it is unwise to drop them anywhere where they would be immediately massacred by enemy troops. Furthermore, the helicopter pilot will refuse to land within range of enemy forces and within sight of any enemy rocketeers, but this only applies to the specific square chosen by the officer. Subunits can also be redeployed with this option, such as the [A]'s dogs. They cost only 1 kill per unit.<br />
<br />
The Paratrooper support option can be chosen at the start of a mission to make this option more viable, as it will be usable during enemy phase, allowing instant reaction, and troops can be deployed anywhere, although they will not land in as tight a spread.<br />
<br />
====Air Drop====<br />
The officer selects a square on the map during Action Phase, to drop a supply crate on the field. The supply crate costs 5 kills, and has 4 uses. It will completely refill the ammunition of any one soldier. Therefore, it is most cost effective for it to be used by soldiers who are completely out of ammunition. There is some degree of error in the supply crate's descent, and it can land up to 3 squares away from its intended target in any direction, so it's inadvisable to deploy it in a situation where it requires pinpoint accuracy for the survival of troops. The supply crates can also be accessed by the enemy, so fights may break out over them, and accidentally deploying one into enemy lines could have consequences for your troops.<br />
<br />
====UAV Recon====<br />
The officer deploys an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle for reconnoisance. This option can be chosen during any phase, although the timeliness of its deployment is rarely the deciding factor in a fight. The unmanned drone will fly over the battlefield for 3 turns, revealing all enemy and neutral structures and units on the minimap, before passing. It is extremely useful at the beginning of a fight, especially on a largely outdoor map, to prepare for the enemy and reveal bottlenecks, ambushes, and defenses that might otherwise become nasty surprises. It is also useful for checking for and tracking enemy reinforcements, and to make sure the enemy is not flanking.<br />
<br />
====Artillery====<br />
The officer selects a square on the map and specifies the amount of salvoes requested. A salvo of artillery is a single blast, and each costs 5 kills. The officer can also select multiple targets, up to one for each salvo. Salvoes can be extremely inaccurate, and vary up to 5 squares in any direction, thus making them preferable for targeting groups of units or multi-square units rather than individual units, which may be missed even by the artillery shell's wide splash radius. Artillery is also useful for busting and crippling enemy tanks, although even a direct hit to an enemy Medium or Heavy Armor will not destroy it if it was previously undamaged, and the Light Armor's smaller size makes it harder to hit reliably. The artillery is also useful for softening outdoor enemy defenses, and several salvoes can devastate a fortified position. An artillery strike will hit at the end of the Action Phase it is called during. Artillery cannot penetrate buildings.<br />
<br />
====Air Strike====<br />
The officer draws a straight line through the map, and a bomber will fly overhead, and carve a swathe of destruction across the map, doing massive damage to everything in its way. The air strike is completely accurate, and will never vary from the line that is drawn for it, but the splash damage is relatively minimal. Though its path can be targeted to get the most destructive potential for the 20 kills that it costs, it is most useful for decimating enemy lines, groups, or accurately targeting enemy armor, although collateral damage must be taken into account, as the air strike does not discriminate between friend or foe or anything inbetween.<br />
<br />
==Playing as a Soldier==<br />
As a soldier, you have a duty to follow your officer's instructions, but strictly speaking, you don't ''have'' to. Often times the officer will give a general plan rather than ordering soldiers specifically, and it is your responsibility to interpret those orders in your action. There's a reason you submit your action directly.<br />
<br />
===Infantry===<br />
The [I]nfantry unit is the most effective and versatile class. With the most HP, and baseline ACT and MOVE despite their decent AR, they are survivable without being specialized, and their rifle and grenades allow them to be prepared for any situation. They are especially skilled in breaking up fortifications, however, and scattering support. Because of their versatility and relative simplicity, there are often more [I]nfantry than any other class on missions.<br />
<br />
The [I]nfantry comes equipped with a rifle capable of both single and three-round burst fire. It does baseline damage, which makes it mediocre against more heavily armored enemies, but its burst mode makes it formidable against other units, especially those with baseline or lower HP, or no AR. It is exceptional for eliminating high-value targets, or for gambling against the dice to kill an enemy with higher HP in a single phase. Their grenades can breach fortifications, dissolve blockades, and soften groups of enemies, and are capable of ignoring cover that otherwise could pose a serious threat.<br />
<br />
===Rocketeer===<br />
The [R]ocketeer unit is an impressive damage-dealing explosives expert. They are capable of providing heavy support, and their armor makes them hard to get rid of, though they cannot move as fast as other units. They are most useful for taking out enemy armor, and disrupting bottlenecks and killing floors, but a direct hit from their rocket will take out any base class, including other [R]ocketeers.<br />
<br />
Their only weapon is their rocket launcher, but it is unmatched in sheer damage-dealing potential. Its splash damage can kill whole groups of enemies, and it has no hard range, but rather travels at a rate of 6 squares per phase, meaning it will simply take time to reach its destination. The downside to this is that shooting past 6 squares gives the enemy the opportunity to dodge the rocket, but they can compensate for this by aiming at the ground rather than directly at an enemy, at the expense of some direct damage. The [R]ocketeer is also useful for creating extemporized doorways to allow troops to bypass normal entrances.<br />
<br />
===Telekinetic===<br />
The [T]elekinetic unit is a fearsome glass cannon. Though entirely exposed on the battlefield, they are equipped with a variety of psychic powers to allow them to survive even when they wade directly into fire, though it's not any more recommended. The [T]elekinetic is more of a stealthy class than one might think, and often relies on ambushes and covering fire to close the distance. They are also primarily a support class, and can aid their allies by immobilizing high-value targets and nullifying cover.<br />
<br />
The most personally useful power of the [T]elekinetic is the ability to provide a psychokinetic shield for themselves as a passive action. This can help them get to and through the front lines, but its usefulness does not extend into battle itself, as the [T]elekinetic will be unable to use any other power at the same time. They can also use their powers to damage an enemy's internal organs, and cause internal bleeding and hemorrhaging, while bypassing armor, making them a serious threat to any single unit except the [I]nfantry, and indispensable for eliminating enemy armor. Finally, they can lift enemies out of cover and immobilize them, at a further range than they could hurt them, which is useful for supporting allies without putting the [T]elekinetic in danger.<br />
<br />
===Medic===<br />
The [M]edic unit is a vital support class. Battles can be won or lost based on their [M]edic content alone. Even attaching one to a squad can increase its life expectancy drastically, and if not keep them fighting at least prevent them from dying. The [M]edic is an extremely mobile unit, able to speed across battlefields to wherever they are needed. They are, however, primarily a support class, and consequentially they are not apt at dealing damage. Their sidearm's damage is inconsequential at best. Their biggest boon, however, is their directional shield, which keeps them alive as they traverse the front lines. Keeping it pointed towards the enemy will protect them from even the worst explosions, though the [T]elekinetic can still strike fear into a [M]edic. They are also extremely vulnerable to being flanked, and to fast-moving units such as the [A]nimal Handler's dogs.<br />
<br />
The [M]edic laser pistol does not do a great deal of damage, and has limited range, but its unlimited ammo makes reloading not an issue for them, allowing them to save their ACT for sprinting, healing, and recharging shields. They can heal anyone, including themselves, and receive a bonus to stabilizing incapacitated units. They can even revived downed soldiers once they've been stabilized, keeping an army running even when everyone in it should be dead. Their shield also allows them to traverse dangerous battlefields and survive close encounters with the enemy, as it absorbs overflow damage, although as it is directional, they are at serious risk if flanked, as their lack of armor is necessary for their speedy movement, and they will fall quickly to surprise attacks.<br />
<br />
===Sniper===<br />
The [S]niper unit is a devastating long-range attack class. Though hampered by their inability to move before acting, they are extremely accurate, and their high-powered sniper rifle can one-shot most base classes. They are best suited to positions where they can fire on enemies without having to move much, and can prepare their bonuses, such as manning bottlenecks, barricades, and killzones. However, they will often have difficulty keeping up with the rest of their unit, and in exposed situations can come under fire while moving or reloading. They are also weak in cramped, urban situations, where their range is not an advantage and they can be easily ambushed, flanked, or picked off when they fall behind.<br />
<br />
Under perfect conditions, it is impossible for the [S]niper to miss with their rifle. The class-specific +1 for being prone, along with the normal +1, and a +1 for Overwatch zones, mean that the [S]niper will always hit a normal standing enemy. If penalties exist, the [S]niper is even more likely to hit them on their next shot. As well, the long range allows them to pick off enemies before they can become a threat. In addition, they can lay down mines without a roll, allowing them to set up defended positions for them to snipe from. A bunkered [S]niper poses a serious problem to any squadron.<br />
<br />
===Engineer===<br />
The [E]ngineer unit is a fortification and bunkering specialist. They can instantly create entrenched positions on the front line, and provide vital cover for units under fire. Their walls can turn the tide of a fight by giving the advantage of one-way cover to his side, and they can create bottlenecks and killing floors to ambush unwary enemies. In addition, they can set up defensive positions and control turrets in them remotely, allowing them to guard areas without even being in them.<br />
<br />
Though the [E]ngineer's machine pistol is subpar, they can essentially upgrade it by placing a turret and using it instead. The turret can also be used to remotely guard positions even after the [E]ngineer leaves. He can support his allies by throwing smoke grenades to allow them to pass through enemy killing zones unmolested, or use them to cover himself while he sets up his constructions. He can set up impromptu defenses anywhere on the battlefield, and is vital to moving as well as holding the line.<br />
<br />
==Rule Database==<br />
This is a database of frequently asked questions about the game. Please check here before asking.<br />
<br />
===Miscellaneous===<br />
* You are allowed to create as many characters as you like, however no two can be in the same battle at once.<br />
* You can shoot past normal range at a penalty of -1 to-hit for each square exceeded, unless the range is 1 or you are a [T]elekinetic.<br />
* You can move through friendly units, but not stand on top of them.<br />
* Blue circles are civilians.<br />
* Diagonals are identical to cardinal directions for the purposes of movement and range.<br />
* Soft cover is cover you must crouch behind to be protected. Hard cover is cover you simply must move behind.<br />
* Reloading costs 1 ACT.<br />
* Facing a corner will allow you to see (but not shoot) around it without exposing yourself.<br />
<br />
===Class Cards===<br />
* Arc: Any weapon marked with (Arc) can be arced to ignore cover at a -1 range and -1 to-hit penalty.<br />
* Subsonic: Any weapon with a subsonic range moves the given number of squares ''per phase''.<br />
* Tank Shock: Anyone the tank passes over must roll at least the given number to dodge out of the way (if possible).<br />
* Roadkill: Anyone the car passes over must roll at least the first number to dodge out of the way (if possible). The driver must roll at least the second number to avoid taking 1 HP damage.<br />
* Subunits cannot stabilize or use knives.<br />
* Subunits cannot deploy from an APC, but can be redeployed for half the cost.<br />
<br />
===Infantry===<br />
* The Infantry's grenade will not land where he throws it if he fails his roll; it will vary up to 3 squares in any direction.<br />
<br />
===Rocketeer===<br />
* The Rocketeer's rocket's movement is based on the straightest line between the Rocketeer and the target location, not the direction the rocket is facing when the phase ends.<br />
* The Rocketeer's rocket will not hit where he aims if he fails his roll; it will vary up to 3 squares in any direction.<br />
<br />
===Telekinetic===<br />
* Tanks are considered armor for their pilots.<br />
* Shields are considered cover for their medics.<br />
* Psychic abilities can't have their range extended.<br />
* Psychic abilities ignore hard and soft cover, as long as the Telekinetic or an ally can see the target.<br />
* The Hurt power ignores armor, dealing direct HP damage.<br />
* The Lift power can only lift troops, but it can stop subsonic projectiles in midair.<br />
* The Shield power requires 1 ACT, and counts as an action.<br />
<br />
===Medic===<br />
*Recharging the shield requires 1 ACT, and counts as an action.<br />
*Moving the shield to any direction requires 1 MOVE.<br />
*The medic cannot heal any downed soldiers who are not stabilized.<br />
*A stabilized soldier the medic heals is revived.<br />
<br />
===Sniper===<br />
* The sniper's Overwatch ability can be activated at the end of any turn, and is deactivated when they move.<br />
* The sniper cannot move in the same turn that she acts.<br />
* The sniper receives a +1 bonus when they shoot at a target more than once in a row. This applies to aimed and quickshots.<br />
<br />
===Engineer===<br />
* Shields and force walls will block '''all''' damage before they are destroyed.<br />
* The engineer and his allies can shoot through allied force walls. This applies for enemies and their force walls too.<br />
* Turrets are soft cover and force walls are hard cover.<br />
<br />
===Vehicles===<br />
* Tanks can punch through walls if they have at least 1 Length worth of lead up.<br />
* Anyone a vehicle runs over gets a free hit on the vehicle before they are hit.<br />
<br />
==Codex and Cards==<br />
<gallery><br />
Image:Codex3.png|Codex 3<br />
Image:AR Chart.png|Armor Rating Chart<br />
Image:Support Options.png|Officer support options<br />
Image:Control Panel.png|Partially unlocked Officer control panel<br />
Image:Common Skills.png|Abilities available to all classes<br />
Image:Animal Handler.png|Codex 3 Animal Handler card<br />
Image:APC.png|Codex 3 APC card<br />
Image:Heavy Tank.png|Codex 3 Heavy Tank card<br />
Image:Mediumtank.png|Codex 3 Medium Tank card<br />
Image:Light Tank.png|Codex 3 Light Tank card<br />
Image:Jeep.png|Codex 3 Jeep card<br />
Image:Pilot.png|Codex 3 Pilot card<br />
Image:Sportscar.png|Codex 3 Sports Car card<br />
</gallery><br />
<br />
===Custom Cards===<br />
<gallery><br />
Image:EvilPerson.jpg|Evil Person<br />
Image:Bob.png|Bob<br />
Image:Cross.png|Cross<br />
Image:Fryman.png|Fryman (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Apollo.png|Apollo (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Brosnikov.png|Brosnikov (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Canopener.jpg|Can-Opener (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Kuaki.png|Ku'aki (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Mason.png|Mason (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Nix.png|Nix (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Smokey.png|Smokey (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Suggestion.jpg|Suggestion (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Suh.png|Suh (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Yadoz Ritwuul.png|Ritwuul (Codex 2)<br />
</gallery><br />
<br />
==Fanart==<br />
<gallery><br />
Image:129611129617.png|Almost the entire squad MISSED in one round?!<br />
Image:Dogwalking.png|Who would walk a dog in a war zone?<br />
Image:Blackcompany.jpg|Crazy Ivanov strikes again!<br />
Image:Mrq.png|<HA HA HA HA, HA HA HA HO HO HO.> <This is DELICIOUS.> <DO be hasty in signing up.> <I CANNOT WAIT TO SEE BLACK COMPANY PUMMELED INTO DUST.> <YES, YE~S.> <br />
Image:Meatbag Beset By Dogs.jpg|Pvt. Meatbag is knocked down by enemy attack dogs. But he'll get up again.<br />
Image:Fryman And His Dogs.png|Fryman, and his dogs Kassandra, Alexi, and Lawyer.<br />
Image:Smokey Abandoning His Duties.png|Smokey decides he does not work well under pressure and quits the Officer Corps.<br />
</gallery> <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
{{Samuel}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Quests]]<br />
[[Category:Running Quests]]<br />
[[Category:Image Quests]]<br />
[[Category:Quests with Individual Players]]</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Black_Company&diff=17703Black Company2013-06-15T02:23:29Z<p>Squeegy: Cleaned up rule database, added OPS, some lexicon stuff.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Infobox<br />
|author=Squeegy<br />
|authoralias=Samuel<br />
|image=Black Company Title.jpg<br />
|suppressnum=1<br />
|thread1=274466 |thread1name=Thread #1 (Training, Mission 1)<br />
|thread2=375890 |thread2name=Thread #2 (Mission 2)<br />
|thread3=452871 |thread3name=Thread #3 (Mission 3, Mission 4)<br />
|thread4=471304 |thread4name=Thread #3b (Mission 4b)<br />
|disthread1=29364<br />
}}<br />
Black Company is a personalized, turn-based wargame where individual players join up as various classes of soldiers, and are led by their fellow suggestors in battle against GM-controlled forces in small-scale skirmishes. The enemy is commanded either by [[Squeegy]], the author, or [[MrQ]], also known as General Q. Waterbuffalo.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Plot==<br />
The suggestors play as members of Black Company, a division in the American military. The very first mission involved a surprise attack on a Black Company convoy by troops of the Mexican army, disguised as friendly soldiers at a checkpoint. They were slaughtered, and war sprang out between the two countries. Black Company took the fight to Zangano, the paramilitary organization that comprises the Mexican army much as Black Company comprises the United States's.<br />
<br />
==Game Progression==<br />
Much of the early fighting took place on the 4chan /tg/ board, including the initial failed mission and several missions in the first Mexican sector. /tg/ lost several battles due to poor organization, incompetent leadership and insufficient numbers. Since then, the game has been ported exclusively to tgchan, and the latest sector has been handled entirely by their forces.<br />
<br />
==Playing the Game==<br />
Each thread begins with a roll call, where all the players post their intent to play with a callsign according to their class and a name of their choice. New players may choose from the six main classes given in Codex 3, which are Infantry, Rocketeer, Telekinetic, Medic, Sniper, and Engineer. Once everyone has joined, those who have signed up as Officers (organizational and tactical support players who have no individual role in battle) are given a map with notable locations in the sector, and asked to choose which to launch an assault on. They are occasionally given support units, which players who have joined already must then be assigned to if no one steps forward to claim them. The map is then provided to the Officers, who must choose where to deploy the troops under their command, and the game begins.<br />
<br />
===Reading Stat Cards===<br />
[[File:Stat Card.png|300px|thumb|right]]<br />
1. This is your callsign and symbol. Your callsign is what should go next to your name when you post. For example, this soldier could be '[I] Pvt. Cann N. Fodder'. This will include a number when you're on the map (e.g. [I1]). The symbol is how you appear on the map. <br />
<br />
2. These are your unit statistics. The [I]nfantry has 4 HP and an armor rating of 2.<br />
<br />
3. These are your map statistics. The [I]nfantry has 1 ACT point and 1 MOVE point. This means he can move 4 spaces, and then perform an action.<br />
<br />
4. These are your weapon statistics. The [I]nfantry rifle does 2 damage per hit, up to a range of 6, and fires 9 shots before a reload is necessary, of which it has 2. You can fire beyond your range for a penalty of -1 to-hit for each square exceeded. <br />
<br />
5. These are your rolls. You can roll an aimed shot, which requires you to roll 5 or higher to hit, or 3 burst shots, which each require 8 or higher to hit. Each shot is rolled on a d10. Anything marked with a roll requires 1 ACT to do.<br />
<br />
6. This is an area of effect map. It shows that the grenade damages those in a 3x3 area around where it detonates, which is marked by an X. <br />
<br />
7. This statistic shows that multiple damage values can result from this weapon. The exclamation point next to the 3 denotes that it is the maximum, and only those hit point-blank by the blast will take that much. All those in the surrounding squares will take only 1. Most splash damage weapons will have damage maps on the card.<br />
<br />
8. This range has a note on it that signifies special conditions.<br />
<br />
9. Sometimes weapons or abilities will have notes that clarify their functions.<br />
<br />
===Turns===<br />
Turns in Black Company are split into '''Action Phase''', the phase in which all troops must submit their actions, and '''Enemy Phase''', the phase in which allied actions resolve and the enemy then makes its movements and actions. Once you have submitted an action, you are '''not allowed''' to delete or change it, though if you failed to include a roll you may do so in another post.<br />
<br />
Each phase represents a nebulous amount of time from how long it takes to aim and fire an assault rifle, to the time it takes to sprint down a city block. In general, battles are over in minutes.<br />
<br />
====Optimal Post Syntax====<br />
Optimal Post Syntax is the best way to format your actions when submitting them, so that they can be executed without error. If you are using OPS, then you may change your action at any time by '''linking to the previous action''' and posting another action in Optimal Post Syntax. If you do not use OPS, or you use it incorrectly, then you may not change your action after you first submit it.<br />
<br />
Move [directions] to [square]. (-# move for [pose])<br />
([Pose change])<br />
[Action] ([[dice goal]]) (at [callsign] on [square]).<br />
(Modifiers: +# -# x#)<br />
Ammo: #Rx#<br />
(Promotion bonuses: [bonuses])<br />
REPOST FOR EACH SUBUNIT. <br />
<br />
===Movement on the Map===<br />
Every class has a statistic called 'MOVE', which represents the amount of squares of movement that class can travel in one phase. For instance, the Infantry class has 4 MOVE, which means that they can move 4 squares every turn before committing an action. Notable movement rules:<br />
* You cannot move after acting.<br />
* One ACT can be spent to regain full MOVE, with a penalty of 1 MOVE for each ACT spent after the first. If a class has 2 ACT and 4 MOVE, they can sprint for a maximum of 11 MOVE.<br />
* Even classes which normally must choose between moving and acting (i.e. the Sniper) can spend their act to sprint.<br />
* Sprinting is considered a general term for moving faster, so the MOVE gained can be used while prone or crouched, for pose changes, and for any other normal expenditure of MOVE. This also means that vehicles can 'sprint'.<br />
* Changing poses costs MOVE, but can have benefits as well as disadvantages. Each pose change costs 1 MOVE, and changing from standing to prone or vice versa requires 2, because you must crouch first.<br />
** Crouching: +1 to-hit, -1 move, ''-1 to be hit (if on a hill)''<br />
** Prone +1 to-hit, -2 move, -1 to be hit ''(unless on lower ground, then +1 to be hit)''<br />
<br />
===ACT and Actions===<br />
Any number enclosed in brackets on a class card (for instance, 'Shoot [5]'), signifies that it is an action, that unless otherwise stated, requires the expenditure of an ACT. You must also roll to successfully complete the action, on a 1d10, with the goal of getting the number stated or higher. If you fail an action, the author decides what happens. You will never shoot an ally with a bullet unless disoriented, but explosives are unpredictable.<br />
<br />
====ACT vs Actions====<br />
The difference between an action, and something that merely uses ACT, is illustrated in sprinting. Sprinting is considered movement, and something that while ACT is spent on it, does not count as an action. It's for this reason that snipers can sprint. The difference, fundamentally, is that actions (which also technically use ACT) end your turn. Things that use ACT are almost exclusively actions, so this nuance shouldn't come up much.<br />
<br />
===Damage and Armor Rating===<br />
The damage of each attack is labeled on its card. In general, sidearms are Dam 1 and rifles are Dam 2. Explosives are often Dam 6 with splash radiuses with lower damages. Shotguns are Dam 3 and sniper rifles are Dam 4. These can be improved with promotions, for instance you could turn your sniper rifle into a Dam 6 anti-tank monstrosity. If your AR is zero, damage is deducted directly from your HP. Otherwise, the damage is reduced according to the AR chart (available below). If you have an AR of 3 and take 6 damage, you can look at the chart across from '6 DAM' and under '3 AR', and see that the resulting number is 4, so you will only lose 4 HP.<br />
<br />
===Promotions===<br />
Every phase in which you submit an action and come out alive puts you further towards your next promotion. All new players start out at the Private rank, but after their first battle or two they will be promoted to Specialist and be permitted to improve one thing on their stat card. This can be nearly anything except for ACT, but is generally a single number (for instance, your MOVE, or your gun's damage or range, your HP, or lowering the goal on a dice roll).<br />
* The only case where an upgrade comes at a penalty is AR, which will reduce your MOVE by 1 for each point it is raised by.<br />
* The other exception is range upgrades, which are +2 instead of +1 for non-psychic abilities.<br />
* Melee abilities (such as knives, stabilizing, and healing) cannot have their range improved.<br />
* You cannot lower a die roll more than twice.<br />
<br />
====Temporary Classes====<br />
Occasionally officers will bring support along on the mission that will require a player, such as animal handlers or tanks. While playing these temporary classes, you progress towards your next promotion as normal and will continue to upgrade your normal class. However, a character can choose to attach themselves to a support class permanently, which will allow them to upgrade that class, but they will only be able to play when that support is fielded, and will lose all promotion progress.<br />
<br />
====Spec Classes====<br />
At the ranks of Sergeant First Class, and Command Sergeant Major, players have the opportunity to make a '''spec class'''. This is an entirely new class, that is related to the base class that the player specced out of in some way. The first spec is more moderate, but by the second spec the class is often only tangentially related to the original class.<br />
<br />
'''Examples:'''<br/><br />
Infantry First Spec:<br />
*Shotgunner<br />
*Heavy Machinegunner<br />
*Field Tactician<br />
*Squad Leader<br />
<br />
Rocketeer First Spec:<br />
*Flamethrower<br />
*Grenade Launcher<br />
*Semtex Expert (Semtexpert?)<br />
*MANPAD<br />
<br />
Telekinetic First Spec:<br />
*Hypnotist<br />
*Clairsentient<br />
*Psychic Blademaster<br />
*Psychoporter<br />
<br />
Medic First Spec:<br />
*Knight<br />
*Combat Medic<br />
*Scientist<br />
*Scout<br />
<br />
Sniper First Spec:<br />
*Forward Observer<br />
*Autosniper<br />
*Long-Range Sniper<br />
*Archer<br />
<br />
Engineer First Spec:<br />
*Sentry Specialist<br />
*Entrenchment Specialist<br />
*Drone Engineer (Dronengineer?)<br />
*Roboticist<br />
<br />
Spec class limits are intentionally vague, so that players have freedom in class creation.<br />
<br />
===Death===<br />
Death is permanent in Black Company. Your character's promotion progress will be lost and their death will be mourned ICly. A soldier dies when he reaches -3 HP, and is incapacitated when he reaches 0 HP. While incapacitated, he will lose 1 HP per turn. A Medic can revive a soldier who is incapacitated if they are stabilized.<br />
<br />
===Lexicon===<br />
* '''Phase:''' The turn in which every unit on a side posts their action.<br />
* '''Turn:''' The collection of all the game phases. These include Action Phase, Enemy Phase, and Ally Phase if applicable. Civilians move on whichever phase is representative of their nationality. At the end of a turn, all players involved gain a promotion point if they posted an action.<br />
* '''Prebriefing:''' The pre-mission deployment of defending units.<br />
* '''Deployment Phase:''' The initial phase of the game, where troops are deployed into the deployment zones. Proceeds immediately to Action Phase, unless the defender has the advantage, in which case it proceeds immediately to Enemy Phase, with Enemy Phase beginning each phase.<br />
* '''Sprinting:''' The conversion of ACT into MOVE. This is considered movement.<br />
* '''Stat Card:''' The image that contains all of the relevant stats, die rolls, and other numbers necessary to play as a class. Also known as a '''class card'''.<br />
* '''Codex:''' The overarching ruleset and guidelines for playing. Can also refer to the image that contains the stat cards for the 6 core classes.<br />
* '''Callsign:''' The identifying letter placed next to your name in your posts. The number is also considered part of the callsign. Having both, when necessary, is called a '''complete callsign'''. Ex. [R1]<br />
* '''Symbol:''' The icon that represents you on the map.<br />
* '''Forward:''' Also called the '''forward element''', this is the Black Company-specific term for the group attempting to capture a location.<br />
* '''Operator:''' All Black Company troops on the map are operators.<br />
* '''Optimal Post Syntax:''' The best way to format your posts for the author's convenience. Also allows you to change your action. See [[Black Company#Optimal Post Syntax|Optimal Post Syntax]].<br />
<br />
==Playing as an Officer==<br />
The Officer Corps is the organizational branch of Black Company, and has no physical presence on the battlefield. They handle deployment, tactics and strategy, tactical support, answer the questions of the enlisted men, and are responsible for submitting actions for anyone who fails to get them in by the deadline. As a result of all this, being an officer can be a lot of work, as they are the most important class in the game. Missions have been won and lost based on the competency of their officers alone.<br />
<br />
===Delegating Responsibilites===<br />
As an officer, you will be easily overwhelmed if you try and take every duty on by yourself. Tracking who has moved and who hasn't, the results of their actions, planning tactics for the phase, and worrying about enemies or hazards you can't see all by yourself is an intimidating prospect. For this reason, even though you get all the benefits of having officers with only one, it's much more convenient to have multiple officers. Then you can delegate responsibilities on the battlefield amongst yourself, and only have to worry about one section of the battlefield or one aspect of the fight while still being able to communicate for an overall picture.<br />
<br />
As a lone officer, it's still a good idea to delegate some of those responsibilities among the enlisted men. If you divide them into squads, you might consider assigning squad leaders, whose job it is to keep track of movements among their own squad and report back to you. Any delegation of responsibility can make things much easier on you.<br />
<br />
===Mission Support===<br />
Before a mission begins, it may be given the opportunity to bring along one or more support options, chosen from the support page. Most can be chosen more than once.<br />
<br />
====Animal Handler====<br />
Considered either wildly overpowered or massively impotent, often depending solely on the situation they are in, animal handlers are an agile and deadly addition to almost any mission. Choosing the animal handler option will allow you to deploy with two animal handlers, who have three dog subunits each. These subunits act entirely independently of the handler, though they can only be redeployed if he is still alive. The handler is lightly armored, moving at a baseline pace, and is armed with an extremely useful non-lethal beanbag gun, which does damage through armor and stuns its target for a turn. He is generally survivable, and the two animal handlers together with their dogs can form a team of their own.<br />
<br />
Each dog has 5 MOVE, and 2 ACT, which allows them to move up to 14 squares a turn, making them the most mobile unit currently playable. In addition to this exorbitant flanking and outmaneuvering potential, they are capable of doing some stunning of their own, and can attack targets from a range to knock them down and stun them while they and their fellow canines rip them apart. Any single unit is in extreme danger to a pack of dogs, especially the lowly [M]edic.<br />
<br />
====Armored Personnel Carrier====<br />
The APC is a useful but not essential tool in most fights. It moves at high speed, and can hold four soldiers in it as well, although they can't do anything until they get out (which they can do to any direction besides the front of the APC). It also holds an unlimited amount of ammunition which soldiers can resupply from if they are inside it, and can deploy new recruits inside it for free, although it cannot redeploy subunits, making it an effective mobile base. It can even be chosen multiple times for backup APCs, or to split forces among multiple fronts.<br />
<br />
====Jeep====<br />
A fast-moving vehicular support unit, the jeep can hold up to 5 troops, one driving, three firing their weapons normally (though at possible penalties), and one on the turret emplacement. It moves quite fast, and is hard to dodge when running people over, but can eventually start to wear down and break from damage taken doing so. Choosing this option will allow three jeeps to be deployed on the battlefield, which is enough to carry most of an army.<br />
<br />
''Note to jeep passengers: It's good etiquette to label yourself accordingly if you are in the jeep, for instance [J1][R1], so that you may be more easily identified, as you cannot be seen on the map while in the jeep.''<br />
<br />
====Light Tank====<br />
Lightly armored, but swift, the light tank (or [La]), provides excellent and versatile support, like a well-armored infantry on wheels, without subtracting significantly from your forces like the jeep. Similarly, choosing this option will give you three light tanks to work with. Though highly vulnerable to explosives and even small arms fire, the light tank's machinegun is devastatingly effective against lightly or unarmored targets, as it does moderate damage at a longer range and far more accurately than an infantry, and can even fire up to a maximum of 5 times.<br />
<br />
====Medium Tank====<br />
A medium tank, while considerably slower than a light tank, is far better armored, and equipped with explosive tank shells. Though lacking as much splash as the [R]ocketeer's launcher, it is considerably more directed, and capable of firing multiple times before reloading. The medium tank is capable of surviving several point-blank explosions before being destroyed. Its moderate speed combined with its considerable firepower and decent armor makes it a good middle-of-the-road support choice.<br />
<br />
====Heavy Tank====<br />
Exactly the opposite of the light tank, the heavy tank is extremely well-armored, equipped with devastating weaponry, and moves at a snail's pace. Though it can't be counted on to keep up with the rest of the unit, and it's not especially difficult to dodge, the heavy tank is equipped with twin cannons as well as minirocket launchers. It does obscene explosive damage, though it is fairly inaccurate, so it is inadvisable for its allies to stand ahead of it. For penetrating a heavily defended area (when not in a rush), there is no superior alternative.<br />
<br />
===Officer Control Panel===<br />
Throughout the mission officers can choose to spend kills gained by soldiers on support options available in the Officer Control Panel (see below). Here is how to use them effectively. It's worth noting that only one option can be chosen per officer per phase.<br />
<br />
====Redeploy====<br />
Previously the Redeploy option was available in any phase in any location. This was phased out in favor of the Paratrooper support option in Codex 3. Redeploy is, of course, still useful for reinforcing teams that have taken fire or are at less than full strength, or who don't have enough manpower to face the enemy, but you can no longer drop your forces directly into enemy lines and have them start shooting immediately.<br />
<br />
Redeploy, like all control panel options unless otherwise stated, is activated during Action Phase. The officer selects a square on the map, and troops are deployed in a tight spread around it. All troops will be deployed in ''class card condition'', that is to say, standing up, fully loaded, and at full health. The option costs 2 kills per soldier, so it is unwise to drop them anywhere where they would be immediately massacred by enemy troops. Furthermore, the helicopter pilot will refuse to land within range of enemy forces and within sight of any enemy rocketeers, but this only applies to the specific square chosen by the officer. Subunits can also be redeployed with this option, such as the [A]'s dogs. They cost only 1 kill per unit.<br />
<br />
The Paratrooper support option can be chosen at the start of a mission to make this option more viable, as it will be usable during enemy phase, allowing instant reaction, and troops can be deployed anywhere, although they will not land in as tight a spread.<br />
<br />
====Air Drop====<br />
The officer selects a square on the map during Action Phase, to drop a supply crate on the field. The supply crate costs 5 kills, and has 4 uses. It will completely refill the ammunition of any one soldier. Therefore, it is most cost effective for it to be used by soldiers who are completely out of ammunition. There is some degree of error in the supply crate's descent, and it can land up to 3 squares away from its intended target in any direction, so it's inadvisable to deploy it in a situation where it requires pinpoint accuracy for the survival of troops. The supply crates can also be accessed by the enemy, so fights may break out over them, and accidentally deploying one into enemy lines could have consequences for your troops.<br />
<br />
====UAV Recon====<br />
The officer deploys an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle for reconnoisance. This option can be chosen during any phase, although the timeliness of its deployment is rarely the deciding factor in a fight. The unmanned drone will fly over the battlefield for 3 turns, revealing all enemy and neutral structures and units on the minimap, before passing. It is extremely useful at the beginning of a fight, especially on a largely outdoor map, to prepare for the enemy and reveal bottlenecks, ambushes, and defenses that might otherwise become nasty surprises. It is also useful for checking for and tracking enemy reinforcements, and to make sure the enemy is not flanking.<br />
<br />
====Artillery====<br />
The officer selects a square on the map and specifies the amount of salvoes requested. A salvo of artillery is a single blast, and each costs 5 kills. The officer can also select multiple targets, up to one for each salvo. Salvoes can be extremely inaccurate, and vary up to 5 squares in any direction, thus making them preferable for targeting groups of units or multi-square units rather than individual units, which may be missed even by the artillery shell's wide splash radius. Artillery is also useful for busting and crippling enemy tanks, although even a direct hit to an enemy Medium or Heavy Armor will not destroy it if it was previously undamaged, and the Light Armor's smaller size makes it harder to hit reliably. The artillery is also useful for softening outdoor enemy defenses, and several salvoes can devastate a fortified position. An artillery strike will hit at the end of the Action Phase it is called during. Artillery cannot penetrate buildings.<br />
<br />
====Air Strike====<br />
The officer draws a straight line through the map, and a bomber will fly overhead, and carve a swathe of destruction across the map, doing massive damage to everything in its way. The air strike is completely accurate, and will never vary from the line that is drawn for it, but the splash damage is relatively minimal. Though its path can be targeted to get the most destructive potential for the 20 kills that it costs, it is most useful for decimating enemy lines, groups, or accurately targeting enemy armor, although collateral damage must be taken into account, as the air strike does not discriminate between friend or foe or anything inbetween.<br />
<br />
==Playing as a Soldier==<br />
As a soldier, you have a duty to follow your officer's instructions, but strictly speaking, you don't ''have'' to. Often times the officer will give a general plan rather than ordering soldiers specifically, and it is your responsibility to interpret those orders in your action. There's a reason you submit your action directly.<br />
<br />
===Infantry===<br />
The [I]nfantry unit is the most effective and versatile class. With the most HP, and baseline ACT and MOVE despite their decent AR, they are survivable without being specialized, and their rifle and grenades allow them to be prepared for any situation. They are especially skilled in breaking up fortifications, however, and scattering support. Because of their versatility and relative simplicity, there are often more [I]nfantry than any other class on missions.<br />
<br />
The [I]nfantry comes equipped with a rifle capable of both single and three-round burst fire. It does baseline damage, which makes it mediocre against more heavily armored enemies, but its burst mode makes it formidable against other units, especially those with baseline or lower HP, or no AR. It is exceptional for eliminating high-value targets, or for gambling against the dice to kill an enemy with higher HP in a single phase. Their grenades can breach fortifications, dissolve blockades, and soften groups of enemies, and are capable of ignoring cover that otherwise could pose a serious threat.<br />
<br />
===Rocketeer===<br />
The [R]ocketeer unit is an impressive damage-dealing explosives expert. They are capable of providing heavy support, and their armor makes them hard to get rid of, though they cannot move as fast as other units. They are most useful for taking out enemy armor, and disrupting bottlenecks and killing floors, but a direct hit from their rocket will take out any base class, including other [R]ocketeers.<br />
<br />
Their only weapon is their rocket launcher, but it is unmatched in sheer damage-dealing potential. Its splash damage can kill whole groups of enemies, and it has no hard range, but rather travels at a rate of 6 squares per phase, meaning it will simply take time to reach its destination. The downside to this is that shooting past 6 squares gives the enemy the opportunity to dodge the rocket, but they can compensate for this by aiming at the ground rather than directly at an enemy, at the expense of some direct damage. The [R]ocketeer is also useful for creating extemporized doorways to allow troops to bypass normal entrances.<br />
<br />
===Telekinetic===<br />
The [T]elekinetic unit is a fearsome glass cannon. Though entirely exposed on the battlefield, they are equipped with a variety of psychic powers to allow them to survive even when they wade directly into fire, though it's not any more recommended. The [T]elekinetic is more of a stealthy class than one might think, and often relies on ambushes and covering fire to close the distance. They are also primarily a support class, and can aid their allies by immobilizing high-value targets and nullifying cover.<br />
<br />
The most personally useful power of the [T]elekinetic is the ability to provide a psychokinetic shield for themselves as a passive action. This can help them get to and through the front lines, but its usefulness does not extend into battle itself, as the [T]elekinetic will be unable to use any other power at the same time. They can also use their powers to damage an enemy's internal organs, and cause internal bleeding and hemorrhaging, while bypassing armor, making them a serious threat to any single unit except the [I]nfantry, and indispensable for eliminating enemy armor. Finally, they can lift enemies out of cover and immobilize them, at a further range than they could hurt them, which is useful for supporting allies without putting the [T]elekinetic in danger.<br />
<br />
===Medic===<br />
The [M]edic unit is a vital support class. Battles can be won or lost based on their [M]edic content alone. Even attaching one to a squad can increase its life expectancy drastically, and if not keep them fighting at least prevent them from dying. The [M]edic is an extremely mobile unit, able to speed across battlefields to wherever they are needed. They are, however, primarily a support class, and consequentially they are not apt at dealing damage. Their sidearm's damage is inconsequential at best. Their biggest boon, however, is their directional shield, which keeps them alive as they traverse the front lines. Keeping it pointed towards the enemy will protect them from even the worst explosions, though the [T]elekinetic can still strike fear into a [M]edic. They are also extremely vulnerable to being flanked, and to fast-moving units such as the [A]nimal Handler's dogs.<br />
<br />
The [M]edic laser pistol does not do a great deal of damage, and has limited range, but its unlimited ammo makes reloading not an issue for them, allowing them to save their ACT for sprinting, healing, and recharging shields. They can heal anyone, including themselves, and receive a bonus to stabilizing incapacitated units. They can even revived downed soldiers once they've been stabilized, keeping an army running even when everyone in it should be dead. Their shield also allows them to traverse dangerous battlefields and survive close encounters with the enemy, as it absorbs overflow damage, although as it is directional, they are at serious risk if flanked, as their lack of armor is necessary for their speedy movement, and they will fall quickly to surprise attacks.<br />
<br />
===Sniper===<br />
The [S]niper unit is a devastating long-range attack class. Though hampered by their inability to move before acting, they are extremely accurate, and their high-powered sniper rifle can one-shot most base classes. They are best suited to positions where they can fire on enemies without having to move much, and can prepare their bonuses, such as manning bottlenecks, barricades, and killzones. However, they will often have difficulty keeping up with the rest of their unit, and in exposed situations can come under fire while moving or reloading. They are also weak in cramped, urban situations, where their range is not an advantage and they can be easily ambushed, flanked, or picked off when they fall behind.<br />
<br />
Under perfect conditions, it is impossible for the [S]niper to miss with their rifle. The class-specific +1 for being prone, along with the normal +1, and a +1 for Overwatch zones, mean that the [S]niper will always hit a normal standing enemy. If penalties exist, the [S]niper is even more likely to hit them on their next shot. As well, the long range allows them to pick off enemies before they can become a threat. In addition, they can lay down mines without a roll, allowing them to set up defended positions for them to snipe from. A bunkered [S]niper poses a serious problem to any squadron.<br />
<br />
===Engineer===<br />
The [E]ngineer unit is a fortification and bunkering specialist. They can instantly create entrenched positions on the front line, and provide vital cover for units under fire. Their walls can turn the tide of a fight by giving the advantage of one-way cover to his side, and they can create bottlenecks and killing floors to ambush unwary enemies. In addition, they can set up defensive positions and control turrets in them remotely, allowing them to guard areas without even being in them.<br />
<br />
Though the [E]ngineer's machine pistol is subpar, they can essentially upgrade it by placing a turret and using it instead. The turret can also be used to remotely guard positions even after the [E]ngineer leaves. He can support his allies by throwing smoke grenades to allow them to pass through enemy killing zones unmolested, or use them to cover himself while he sets up his constructions. He can set up impromptu defenses anywhere on the battlefield, and is vital to moving as well as holding the line.<br />
<br />
==Rule Database==<br />
This is a database of frequently asked questions about the game. Please check here before asking.<br />
<br />
===Miscellaneous===<br />
* You are allowed to create as many characters as you like, however no two can be in the same battle at once.<br />
* You can shoot past normal range at a penalty of -1 to-hit for each square exceeded, unless the range is 1 or you are a [T]elekinetic.<br />
* You can move through friendly units, but not stand on top of them.<br />
* Blue circles are civilians.<br />
* Diagonals are identical to cardinal directions for the purposes of movement and range.<br />
* Soft cover is cover you must crouch behind to be protected. Hard cover is cover you simply must move behind.<br />
* Reloading costs 1 ACT.<br />
* Facing a corner will allow you to see (but not shoot) around it without exposing yourself.<br />
<br />
===Class Cards===<br />
* Arc: Any weapon marked with (Arc) can be arced to ignore cover at a -1 range and -1 to-hit penalty.<br />
* Subsonic: Any weapon with a subsonic range moves the given number of squares ''per phase''.<br />
* Tank Shock: Anyone the tank passes over must roll at least the given number to dodge out of the way (if possible).<br />
* Roadkill: Anyone the car passes over must roll at least the first number to dodge out of the way (if possible). The driver must roll at least the second number to avoid taking 1 HP damage.<br />
* Subunits cannot stabilize or use knives.<br />
* Subunits cannot deploy from an APC, but can be redeployed for half the cost.<br />
<br />
===Infantry===<br />
* The Infantry's grenade will not land where he throws it if he fails his roll; it will vary up to 3 squares in any direction.<br />
<br />
===Rocketeer===<br />
* The Rocketeer's rocket's movement is based on the straightest line between the Rocketeer and the target location, not the direction the rocket is facing when the phase ends.<br />
* The Rocketeer's rocket will not hit where he aims if he fails his roll; it will vary up to 3 squares in any direction.<br />
<br />
===Telekinetic===<br />
* Tanks are considered armor for their pilots.<br />
* Shields are considered cover for their medics.<br />
* Psychic abilities can't have their range extended.<br />
* Psychic abilities ignore hard and soft cover, as long as the Telekinetic or an ally can see the target.<br />
* The Hurt power ignores armor, dealing direct HP damage.<br />
* The Lift power can only lift troops, but it can stop subsonic projectiles in midair.<br />
* The Shield power requires 1 ACT, and counts as an action.<br />
<br />
===Medic===<br />
*Recharging the shield requires 1 ACT, and counts as an action.<br />
*Moving the shield to any direction requires 1 MOVE.<br />
*The medic cannot heal any downed soldiers who are not stabilized.<br />
*A stabilized soldier the medic heals is revived.<br />
<br />
===Sniper===<br />
* The sniper's Overwatch ability can be activated at the end of any turn, and is deactivated when they move.<br />
* The sniper cannot move in the same turn that she acts.<br />
* The sniper receives a +1 bonus when they shoot at a target more than once in a row. This applies to aimed and quickshots.<br />
<br />
===Engineer===<br />
* Shields and force walls will block '''all''' damage before they are destroyed.<br />
* The engineer and his allies can shoot through allied force walls. This applies for enemies and their force walls too.<br />
* Turrets are soft cover and force walls are hard cover.<br />
<br />
===Vehicles===<br />
* Tanks can punch through walls if they have at least 1 Length worth of lead up.<br />
* Anyone a vehicle runs over gets a free hit on the vehicle before they are hit.<br />
<br />
==Codex and Cards==<br />
<gallery><br />
Image:Codex3.png|Codex 3<br />
Image:AR Chart.png|Armor Rating Chart<br />
Image:Support Options.png|Officer support options<br />
Image:Control Panel.png|Partially unlocked Officer control panel<br />
Image:Common Skills.png|Abilities available to all classes<br />
Image:Animal Handler.png|Codex 3 Animal Handler card<br />
Image:APC.png|Codex 3 APC card<br />
Image:Heavy Tank.png|Codex 3 Heavy Tank card<br />
Image:Mediumtank.png|Codex 3 Medium Tank card<br />
Image:Light Tank.png|Codex 3 Light Tank card<br />
Image:Jeep.png|Codex 3 Jeep card<br />
Image:Pilot.png|Codex 3 Pilot card<br />
Image:Sportscar.png|Codex 3 Sports Car card<br />
</gallery><br />
<br />
===Custom Cards===<br />
<gallery><br />
Image:EvilPerson.jpg|Evil Person<br />
Image:Bob.png|Bob<br />
Image:Cross.png|Cross<br />
Image:Fryman.png|Fryman (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Apollo.png|Apollo (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Brosnikov.png|Brosnikov (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Canopener.jpg|Can-Opener (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Kuaki.png|Ku'aki (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Mason.png|Mason (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Nix.png|Nix (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Smokey.png|Smokey (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Suggestion.jpg|Suggestion (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Suh.png|Suh (Codex 2)<br />
Image:Yadoz Ritwuul.png|Ritwuul (Codex 2)<br />
</gallery><br />
<br />
==Fanart==<br />
<gallery><br />
Image:129611129617.png|Almost the entire squad MISSED in one round?!<br />
Image:Dogwalking.png|Who would walk a dog in a war zone?<br />
Image:Blackcompany.jpg|Crazy Ivanov strikes again!<br />
Image:Mrq.png|<HA HA HA HA, HA HA HA HO HO HO.> <This is DELICIOUS.> <DO be hasty in signing up.> <I CANNOT WAIT TO SEE BLACK COMPANY PUMMELED INTO DUST.> <YES, YE~S.> <br />
Image:Meatbag Beset By Dogs.jpg|Pvt. Meatbag is knocked down by enemy attack dogs. But he'll get up again.<br />
Image:Fryman And His Dogs.png|Fryman, and his dogs Kassandra, Alexi, and Lawyer.<br />
Image:Smokey Abandoning His Duties.png|Smokey decides he does not work well under pressure and quits the Officer Corps.<br />
</gallery> <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
{{Samuel}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Image Quests]]<br />
[[Category:Quests with Individual Players]]<br />
[[Category:On Hiatus]]</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=File:AR_Chart.png&diff=17699File:AR Chart.png2013-06-14T06:25:06Z<p>Squeegy: uploaded a new version of &quot;File:AR Chart.png&quot;: Updated version of the armor chart to fix the gap in efficacy between level 1 and 2.</p>
<hr />
<div></div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Sabhaxlia%27s_Terrible_Life&diff=17698Sabhaxlia's Terrible Life2013-06-14T01:13:39Z<p>Squeegy: /* Trivia */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Infobox<br />
|author=coracleboat<br />
|thread1=448327<br />
|thread2=456798<br />
|disthread1=59466<br />
}}<br />
A young tombdog escapes an arranged marriage by fleeing south. <br><br />
<br />
Some artwork with interesting (though not necessarily canon) details about the setting and back-story to the quest can be found over on the authors furaffinity account, [http://www.furaffinity.net/view/7384112| here] is a good place to start. <br />
<br />
{{Spoilers}}<br />
<br />
==Characters==<br />
<div style="float: right">{{questart|449525||board=quest|caption=Sabby and Maexiks}}</div><br />
===Sabhaxlia Tashikoxix===<br />
The young, fleeing south, tomdog in question. Sabby is basically the last hope for the failing House Tashikoxix, meaning her parents are determined to marry her off to any House that can take care of the Tashikoxix family ghosts, whether Sabby likes it or not.<br />
As a result Sabby has led a rather boring yet stressful life, living in an empty manor house in the middle of no-where, spending her time learning all those useful skills a noble wife needs (like protocol, languages, calligraphy etc.) and getting into constant arguments with her parents about the arranged marriage thing.<br />
Unfortunately her husband to be is a bit of a buttjerk. Like a complete and utter buttjerk that no one would marry. Ever. At least she thinks so anyway.<br />
Not be out done in the “being a buttjerk” department, Sabbys parents are convinced that if they just shout at her and remind her how disappointed everyone will be if she doesn’t marry, she’ll eventually start to like him. <br />
<br />
Hence the running away thing.<br />
<br />
===Iaxio (the beggar)===<br />
The ghost of a No-Town beggar. Some local dog took pity on him and made a little shrine, near the road to Tashikoxix manor, from his corpse so his ghost wouldn’t completely fade away.<br />
Despite his cheeky demeanour, he led a rather miserable life as a Stranger, surviving on the handouts of others and making a little money by gambling. <br />
Its not know how he died but, in death all he can do is sit in his shrine, occasionally getting the chance to chat with passers by or Sabby, who considers him something of a friend. He in turn is rather friendly and protective with her, as well as a bit leery. <br />
Sabby decides to take a fragment of his corpse with her so she has someone to talk while running away and he gets to something other than sit by the roadside waiting to die. Again.<br />
His ghost has persisted so long, and with so little to do that he has lost nearly all his memories, even his own name. However an elderly corspebound in a nearby town seems to recognize him and calls him by the name Iaxio… <br />
<div style="float: right">{{questart|448758||board=quest|caption=The beggar at his shrine}}</div><br />
<br />
===Maexiks=== <br />
Sabbys other “sorta friend”.<br />
Maexiks is a quiet, Mantis, living as an outsider-under-license in town near to Sabbys house. She makes a living running a little market stall, and Sabby likes to hang-out with her sometimes. (Beats all the shouting at home).<br />
Maexiks is generally helpful and friendly (and maybe a little enamoured) around Sabby, and goes out of her way to help her escape.<br />
As a Mantis, Maexiks can see visions of the future by studying the skies of the Dream Remnant; she can also communicate with others through this shared dreamspace. Recently she has focused on the possibilities of Sabbys’ future. <br />
<br />
===McTrinkets===<br />
Or Ofrehkik of Tahlekmehrdn-em-a if you prefer, though it’s fairly unlikely that’s her real name.<br />
She’s a sharp-minded, trinket peddling river merchant, probably from somewhere south judging from her colouring and accent.<br />
She used to sell something a lot more valuable and a lot more illegal for a rising Family, but having lost both the merchandise and the money to pay them back, said Family now want to make her deader than dead. <br />
<br />
<br />
===Other Characters===<br />
<div style="float: right">{{questart|452465||board=quest|caption=McTrinkets}}</div><br />
*Tabaxian Geofahn – The buttjerk fiancé. He is confused by Sabbys opposition to the marriage, and has resorted to rather convoluted means to try and make her happy.<br />
*Corpsegramps – a corpsebound from the town Yaihahlrefdn-em. He and the ghost of his daughter, Saexix, seem to have some connection with Iaxio…<br />
*Kekahkik – McTrinkets’ stoic, ghostly, companion. A friend of her fathers.<br />
*Kehfn Doxedn – House Doxedns’ living heir. He is trying to discredit the family pursuing Mcktrinkets.<br />
*Akilfhren Doxedn - Kehfn’s sister, and officer in the Doxedns’ City guard.<br />
<br />
==The Houses==<br />
'''Tashikoxix''' – [Green / Pink] <br><br />
Was once a very large and influencial house but in the past five generations it has dwindled to only two living members, Sabby and her Mother. The only thing of any value the House has left is its historic lineage, something some younger Houses are keen to aquire by marrying into the family. <br />
<br />
'''Geofahn''' – [Strong Blue / Emerald Green] <br><br />
Started as one family that ran a good shipping business, and after a few decent marriages with other shipping families, was able to declare itself a House. <br />
Since then it has expanded in both members and territory, and now controls much of the sea trade with other remnants, and has a strong presence along the coast, particularly in the north. <br />
Despite its size and wealth, House Geofahn still lacks the ancestry to earn any respect from some of the more established Houses. <br />
<br />
'''House Fauhredn''' – [Red / Gold] <br><br />
A truly ancient House (possibly the oldest) and one of the largest Houses’ in the Remnant. <br />
Their territories are based to the south, inland away from the coast, and a lack of outside contact has lead to a more traditionalist attitude within the House, including strong prejudice against young and powerful Houses like Geofahn.<br />
Fauhredn is so large that it has birthed several client-houses (Ahnjaksis, Ahfdredn and Xiafdehn). The House has developed a complicated arranged marriage system to help keep its marriages internal. As one branch of the family becomes too large (or incestuous) they can be married into another client-house and back into the main Fauhredn household as necessary. These marriages are often planned out generations in advance.<br />
Consequently, all the client-houses and Fauhredn proper share ancestral ghosts, meaning the House has a population of thousands of well cared for ghosts to its name, giving them a daunting political and cultural presence as well as making them a very powerful military force.<br />
<br />
'''House Doxedn''' – [Yellow / Brown] <br><br />
A fairly old, medium sized house of around fifty living dogs and over a hundred ghosts, based in a huge ancient city. The House has a strong dislike of Family Hefehxn, but is happy to simply “outlast” its rival, rather than resort to open action against them.<br />
<br />
'''Family Hefehxn''' – [Dark Green / Grey] <br><br />
A small but powerful family that seeks to usurp House Doxedn, and take control of their city. A decade ago Family Hefehxn was unheard of, but though the trade of illicit goods, particularly corpse-paste, they have gained wealth and influence very quickly, as well as a rather grim reputation.<br />
<br />
'''House Aifix''' – [White / Pale Red] <br><br />
A tiny House that controls a single town. Said town receives some traffic as a river trade route, but the House lacks the manpower to even effectively collect tax from it. <br />
east side of town is ocean blue over white, west side of town is white over ocean blue<br />
<br />
'''Strangers''' – [No Colours] <br><br />
Stranger refers to anyone that does not belong to a House or Family, and therefore wears no House colours. The lack of family ties means Strangers are often hired for rather shady work, giving them dubious reputations as transients and vagrants.<br />
However the term has numerous uses and can be applied in a more polite fashion to foreign races, travellers, or even someone who is simply wearing unfamiliar colours. <br />
Strangers who are adopted by a House are known as outsiders-under-license, and typically wear House colours, with the addition of horizontal stripes in the submissive colour.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Setting==<br />
<br />
===Tombdogs===<br />
<div style="float: right">{{questart|449710||board=quest|caption=A partial map of the Tombdog remnant }}</div><br />
A race of anthropomorphic African Hunting Dogs (Lycaon pictus), that live throughout the swamps, mountains, and deserts of the Southern Remenant. <br />
Fur colouring differentiates by gender, with females having white chest and neck fur where as males have much darker tones. Desert dwelling Sourthern dogs can be identified by their greyer fur markings and longer ears. <br />
A unique aspect of their species is the ability to persist after death in a ghost form. This has led to a culture almost entirely based around the preservation of their dead, and a network of family Houses to ensure a line of descendents who can properly care for the deceased.<br><br />
Houses are formed when a large or influential family declares itself so, it will then independently (?) govern and protect its holdings, including family crypts. Each House even has its own currency, with a complicated system of exchange-rates, based on a Houses’ current reputation and standing. <br />
Steady lines of succession are so critical to a House that arranged marriages are the norm (sometimes planned out generations in advance) and refusal of marriage can be considered a grave insult. Childbearing outside of wedlock is considered very distasteful, and detrimental to a family’s line of succession, with the illegitimate child receiving as much blame as their parents. Consequently Tombdogs are very reserved in nature, public displays of affection of any kind are basically unwelcome, even a married couple holding hands or hugging is way too saucy for most Tombdog. What goes on behind closed doors is another matter, as long as it eventually results in children. <br><br />
Tombdog society is somewhat conservative with a rather obvious focus on family responsibilities, especially those that support ghost relatives. Relations between houses are done through an elaborate tradition of ritual and protocol. While Houses to the north have become more open and flexible due to contact with other races, the Houses in southern territories remain staunch traditionalists who value their privacy. <br />
Those who live outside the House system are known as Strangers, and are generally viewed with suspicion and are treated as second class citizens. Strangers and even foreign races can be invited into a family, and become outsiders-under-license. <br><br />
Membership of a House is represented by displaying a Houses colours. This is a central facet of Tombdog society, and to be seen not wearing colours is considered very unusual, to the point where foreign races residing in the remnant have adopted the practise. It is also considered a grievous offence to wear the colours of a House to which you do not belong. Ties to House colours are so strong that Tombdog ghosts are able to appear wearing the colours of their House.<br />
There is a lot of etiquette in the Tombdog dress code. Outfits are usually made of three items, a mantle, shirt and skirt, and are dyed in the Houses’ colours. Additional clothing such as hats or armour is often coloured to match. Not wearing a mantle and bearing ones shoulders or collarbone is considered very immodest; there is a strong taboo towards nudity in general. <br><br />
<br />
Some of the common patterns are as follows:<br />
<br />
<div style="float: right">{{questart|458956||board=quest|caption=A Hefehxn outsider-under-license, note the striped pattern}}</div> <br />
*Standard – The typical form of dress worn by most Tombdogs, with the Houses’ dominant colour shown on the mantle ands skirt, and submissive colour shown on the shirt. <br />
*Striped – Similar to the standard pattern, but with the addition of horizontal stripes in the submissive colour across the mantle. This form of dress is worn by outsiders-under-license.<br />
*Half-Mantle – Half the mantle is dyed with the colours of another House. This is to show a connection to another family or to a town of previous residence. This is a common pattern for those who have married into another House.<br />
*Three-colour – Patterns using three colours imply no affiliation with a House. They are usually worn by foreign races, as an act of courtesy towards Tomdog culture.<br />
<br />
Sub-families that a part of a Larger House, will typically use variants of the parent Houses’ colours. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
===Tombdog Ghosts===<br />
When a Tombdog dies it is immediately reborn as a ghost. This ghost form is partly non-corporeal, they cannot make physical contact with a living Tombdog (and in some cases other ghosts), but also cannot “phase” through solid objects like walls etc. <br />
Ghosts can however physically touch their own remains; in fact they are bound to their corpse and can only materialize and move within a few feet of it. If there body has been dismembered they can appear at any (post-mortem) fragment of their corpse they wish. If the body is destroyed completely, by fire for example, a ghost will not form. Consequently the loss or destruction of a corpse is considered utterly horrific in Tombdog society. <br />
While immaterialized Ghosts experience a dream like state, spending to long “asleep” is detrimental to a ghosts’ well being, and will damage their minds in a manner similar to dementia. If a ghost loses its memory completely it will fade from existence, essentially dieing again, permanently.<br />
<br />
Strong personal willpower will slow this, but an active and varied existence is the surest means to keep a ghosts mind healthy. Life as a ghost is often repetitive and monotonous, and loosing track of time is very harmful to a ghosts’ sanity.<br />
Conversation with other ghosts helps, but is no substitute for contact with the living, whose daily changing; busy lives are far more interesting than occupying space in a crypt. Strong emotional connections further boost the positive effects of socializing.<br />
<div style="float: right">{{questart|451433||board=quest|caption=A corpsebound and a ghost. The ghosts' corpse can be seen in the tree}}</div> <br />
A rather grim alternative, though unquestionably effective means of keeping a ghost healthy is the use of “Taxiholixif fhrefdemnm”, also know as corpse-paste. <br />
Corpse-paste is made by grinding up the remains of another dead Tombdog, killing said dogs ghost in the process. The end result is a powdery cobweb like substance, that when applied to another corpse has a powerful and immediate effect on the ghosts’ strength. <br />
The practice is highly illegal throughout the Tombdog lands but a sizeable black market trade in the substance exists.<br />
<br />
A healthy ghost will retain all its mental faculties and may even gain slight physical tangibility, comparable to that of water. Properly cared for ghosts are potentially immortal, some House Fauhredn ghosts for example, are thought to be more than a 500 years old. <br />
<br />
Ghosts have the same rights as the living, marital commitments continue and they retain ownership of all their property. Some ghosts even continue to work, usually in an advisory role, as physical tasks can be a bit problematic without a body. It is also fairly typical for the leader of a House to be a ghost. <br />
<br />
The majority of Tomdog corpses are placed in familiar or communal crypts. Living relatives take parts of a corpse and fashion them into relics and reliquaries to keep around the home or wear on their person, allowing the Ghosts a much greater choice of places to materialize. An alternative to this is the practice of Corpse architecture, where a corpse is set into the structure of a building. Ghosts placed in this state often make a living as guides, touts, doormen etc. Weaker ghosts preserved this way have also been used as a means to power and control simple mechanical devices such as door locks, and as a useful means of insect repellent.<br />
<br />
Less common is turning a body into a corpsebound. By properly preparing the remains of a tombdog, a ghost can posses its former body, allowing it the same freedom of movement as if they were alive, though they can no longer manifest at detached fragments of their body. The initial process is somewhat expensive and the corpsebound body requires regular maintenance and occasional reinforcement with iron pins and supports, to prevent it from simply falling apart. Corpsebounds are also traditionally used as caretakers in Tombdog crypts.<br />
<br />
One of the more significant uses of ghosts is their use as a means of long range communication. By dividing up a corpse and leaving it in different locations ghosts can quickly relay messages across vast distances. Many Houses maintain a network of such ghosts for just this purpose (?).<br />
<br />
The most important ability of a ghost is being able to bind itself to a living or corspebound, Tombdog. <br />
By doing this they can temporally pass their skills to their host. For example a ghost who was a gifted cook in life could bind themselves to a living Tomdog and guide their actions to make them a better cook.<br />
But more that that, the ghost quite literally lends their strength and speed to the living host. This has led to the process of “stacking” where multiple ghosts bind themselves to one person to create a Ghost Tower, greatly increasing the living persons’ physical capabilities. Personal and family connections greatly help this process and because of this it is rare to see a Ghost Tower of more then 10 ghosts. <br />
Ghosts Towers are used primarily for combat. Tombdog warfare consists of a handful of soldiers with 3-5 ghosts each bound to them. Because of this, the number of ghosts belonging to a House can be used as a direct measure of their military capabilities.<br />
<br />
<br />
===The Remnants===<br />
Thousands of years ago, massive apocalyptic event destroyed several worlds of very different origins, and caused the remains to merge together into a new world, know as the Remnants. <br />
<br />
As well as the southernmost continent that is home to the Tombdogs, there are three other landmass that make up these remnants, all separated by a large central ocean. They are quiet literally fragments of another world, and the environments, right down to the laws of nature (?) can vary greatly. Each is also home to a unique sentient species. <br />
<br />
<div style="float: right">{{questart|451940||board=quest|caption=Maexikis doing Dreambug things}}</div> <br />
*The Bird Archipelago – located in the eastern part of the world. It is home to “Birddemons”, as other races call them. A humanoid race of flightless(?) avians that worship millions of sprit creatures. <br />
<br />
*The Reptile Continent – located to the west. Home to a rather repressive society of Lizards, who have some means of reincarnation. It is rumoured that they also practice cannibalism. <br />
<br />
*The Human Continent – the north most remnant. The “Prayermen” have a reputation as easy-going, and worship numerous deities. <br />
<br />
Although the landmasses of only four worlds survived, races from other worlds did survive the catastrophe and live thought-out the Remnants.<br />
<br />
*Mantises - also known as “Dreambugs”. The Mantis remnant also survived; in fact it was never really destroyed, but is only perceivable as dream. <br />
The Dreambug remnant is where all Mantises truly reside. They can persist in this world even if their physical bodies die. They can also project themselves into the dreams of others, including other species. <br />
One the most notable features of the Dream Remnant, is its planet filled skyline. By studying the movements of these spheres, Mantises can prophesize the future. <br />
They can only see the possibilities of some ones’ future, and the further from the present they look, and the more possibilities there are in that persons’ life, the harder it becomes to discern their future.<br />
<br />
*“Walkplants” - plant people are an ambulatory life-phase of sentient trees. They sometimes grow into the form of another sentient species and live among them for a few decades<br />
<br />
There are thought to be numerous, unaccounted, remnant-less races as well.<br />
<br />
==Plot Summary==<br />
<br />
===Pre-Quest===<br />
Sabby lives a fairly boring life in her family’s’ rundown manor in the middle of a swamp. She spends her time visiting the family shrine, hanging out with her Mantis friend Maexiks. She also has to endure the advances of her buttjerk fiancé. It was bad enough when he walked in on her taking a bath, but when hired some thug to threaten her so he could swoop in and defend her honour like in some cheesy romance novel, she decides enough is enough. <br />
<br />
===Part I===<br />
<div style="float: right">{{questart|449125||board=quest|caption=Yep, totally running away}}</div> <br />
Sabhaxlia is running away. The big wedding is just around the courner and she can’t marry that buttjerk Tabaxian, and she can’t go on constantly arguing with her parents about getting married. After a particular unpleasant fight with her parents, she walks out, and keeps walking. This is totally planned and she totally knows what she’s doing. <br />
<br />
Before properly running away she decides to say goodbye to her sort of friend, the ghost of a nameless, amnesiac, beggar, who resides in a nearby shrine. It takes him about ten seconds to figure out what she’s up to, but seems supportive if a little bemused about the whole idea. He offers some money; to pass on a message to her mother and some useful travelling advice, seeing how he was a seasoned vagrant in his life. Realizing how unprepared she is for life on the road, Sabby comes up with the great idea of taking a relic of him with her, so he can be her travelling ghost bro. He is hella happy about this, as waiting die by the side of a road is a kind of miserable existence. <br />
<br />
They head for a nearby market town where Sabbys’ other friend, Maexiks, lives.<br />
Unlike Sabby, Maexiks has actually made some preparations, in case she planned to runaway from the marriage, and uses the Beggar’s money and her own merchant contacts to buy Sabby lots of useful travelling stuff, including a set of clothes in a made-up House pattern.<br />
<br />
While Maexikis is busy gathering everything up, Sabby and Beggar mange to come up with something resembling a plan. Head South deep into House Fauhredn territory. House Fauhredn is strict and old-fashioned, and probably not very friendly place for a travelling stranger (never mind a runaway bride), they do however have a fierce dislike of House Geofahn (Tabaxians’ House) meaning the angry in-laws to be, can’t follow her for long.<br />
They all spend the night at Maexiks’ house, eating, chatting, and playing cards. The next morning Sabby thanks Maexiks with a platonic face lick for being so awesome, and then hits the road again with The Beggar. <br />
<br />
They soon arrive at the town of Yaihahlrefdn-em; probably the furthest Sabhaxlia has ever been from home, though Beggar has some memories of the place. A little unsure of their next move Beggar suggests they try and make some money gambling, he was pretty good at it in life. <br />
While scoping the tables for someone to play with, an elderly corspebound calls out to them, apparently recognizing the Beggar as “Iaxio”. The corpsebound claims to be Beggars grandfather and the one who built his corpse shrine, though Beggar himself is drawing a complete blank. After introducing herself with the fake name of Taliaxix, Sabby suggests they continue their conversation over a game of dice. She decides to get rid of her near worthless family currency and… the corpsebound points out how a travelling young woman, in unfamiliar colours, trying to change lots of Tashikoxix coinage, so close to the day of the big House wedding, is something a runaway Tashikoxix bride might try to do…he asks them to follow him into the swamp.<br />
<br />
A little way out of town he leads them to a old tree, which is actually a hidden corpse shrine and introduces them to the ghost of Saexix. Beggars Mother. <br />
Saexix died when Iaxio was three years old, she had given birth out of wedlock and her corpse was denied entry in the town tomb, forcing Corpsegramps to hide her body. He also tried to raise Iaxio but being an illegitimate child; he too had to face the slander of the townsfolk and eventually ran away at age sixteen. Corpsegramps found Iaxios’ corpse some years later and built his shrine in effort to care for his ghost.<br />
Iaxios’ father was married to another woman, and had threatened Saexix into silence about the affair. He was an influential, Tashikoxix Housedog. Sabbys great-grandfather…<br />
<br />
The reunion with his family, and discovering Sabby is part of his family does wonders for Iaxios health as a ghost (he even begins to manifest wearing Sabbys made-up House colours). Despite some painful memories everyone is happy to be reunited. Sabby and Iaxio camp out for the night with Saexix, while Corpsegramps heads home.<br />
<br />
After a strange night in the Dream Remnant with Maexiks, Sabby and Iaxio head further south to a House Aifix town. They visit the docks, where they meet a travelling merchant; Sabby dubs “McTrinkets”, and arrange for him to take them down river that night. <br />
With some time to kill, Sabby buys herself a room at the Strangers’ inn. While haggling with the money-changer she hears a commotion outside, and sees an Aifix dog killed by a Geofahn dog and ghost tower. The town is in an uproar at Geofahns’ lack of restraint and Sabby panics, fleeing to the docks. She desperately tries to get Mcktrinkets to take her south now…and maybe let’s slip that Geofahn is after her.<br />
<br />
With a smirk he agrees to get her past the Geofahn river patrols, he even has a clever plan for doing so. Or rather she has, it turns out McTrinkets is a girl. Using some special fur dye, she disguises Sabby as a guy too, and they mange to slip out down the river with the guards none the wiser. <br />
<br />
McTrinkets says Sabby will have to pay her back for the escape with a favour, though both of them are too tired to worry about that now, and Sabby drifts off to sleep.<br />
She again has visions of Maexiks and the Dream Remnant. Maexiks says Sabbys future is to open for her to accurately predict, but there has been worrying development. She leads Sabby across the Remnant to an overlook, where they spy another Mantis, one wearing Geofahn colours… <br />
<br />
===Part II===<br />
<div style="float: right">{{questart|459189||board=quest|caption=Still running away}}</div><br />
Sabby wakes to find that McTrikets has shored their boat and set up camp. She has a simple courier job for Sabby to do in exchange for her smuggling her out of the Aifix town.<br />
<br />
Sabby decides to get it out of the way and hits the road with Iaxio. Her curiosity quickly gets the better of her and she opens the package to find it contains money, lots of money, and decides to hide it at the bottom her bag.<br />
<br />
Which turns out to be a good precaution, as not far down the road she is ambushed by a strange crew of bandits. The group consists of an underdressed knifewoman; an overdressed rifleman, a mean corspebound; and the ghost of the knifewomens’ boyfriend (?). They don’t hurt her but take all her personal money and are about to go through her pack, when they start bickering about the necessity of a strip search. While the arguing continues the rifleman allows Sabby to slips away. <br />
<br />
After a long trek she reaches the Doxedn City. While seeking shelter from the rain Sabby has a quick dream consultation with Maexiks. She can see some danger in her near future, and advises that the quicker she completes the delivery the safer it will be for everyone.<br />
<br />
Getting some directions from a gatekeeper ghosts, Sabby heads to the Hefehxn manor to drop of McTrinkets’ payment. She is greeted by a rather sombre butler, who seems a little surprised by the package, and insists Sabby comes in and answers some questions. Sabby insists otherwise and begins the walk back to camp, though not before reporting the bandits to the city guard.<br />
<br />
Not far out of the city Iaxio notes they are being followed by the creepy Hefehxn servant. The plan is to camp down by the road for the night and hope the guy gets bored. While laying out her bedroll, Kekahkik, McTrinkets’ ghost companion, appears. A little annoyed McTrikents planted a relic on her, Sabby fill him in on what happened with the delivery, and he relays it to McTrinkets. <br />
<br />
Exhausted, Sabby falls asleep and is greeted by a worried looking Maexiks. She feels guilty for telling Sabby to complete the delivery quickly, as this has made Sabbys future safer but has doomed McTrinkets, unless Sabby intervenes.<br />
<br />
Still dreadfully tired Sabby rouses herself and uses Kekahkik to tell McTrinkets about her Dreambug friends’ premonitions. She agrees there’s cause for concern and heads along the river to meet up with Sabby.<br />
<br />
Mcktrinkets comes clean and tells the full story. She used to sell highly illegal “corpsepaste” for family Hefehxn, and found an opportunity to steal some of their merchandise and sell for her own profit with them none the wiser. They eventually found out and unable to payback the debt she ran away. Most of the money she gave Sabby to deliver was counterfeit, and now they’ve realised this, they are after her again. The bigger problem however is that not only will they kill her, they will likely make their money back by turning her remains into corpsepaste.<br />
<br />
After a miserable night, they decide to head back and through Doxedn city, in order to get further south and avoid both Geofahn and Hefehxn, when Sabby hits on an idea.<br />
<br />
Why not snitch out Hefehxns illegal activities to a rival House? McTrinkets has plenty of details on their operation, as well as a package of their corpsepaste stashed in her boat, not to mention the relic of Kekahkik she hid in the counterfeit money.<br />
Doxedn is a known enemy of Hefehxn, and would likely welcome the chance to move against them if they had any hard evidence.<br />
<br />
McTrikets hides outside of the city, while Sabby heads in to try and use her knowledge of protocol to wrangle a meeting with the Doxedn higher ups. She is granted an audience with some eerie corpsebound nobles…but they are uninterested in the actives of an insignificant upstart Family.<br />
The plan seems to have failed but on her way out of the Doxedn palace a guard hands her letter. It is a short cryptic message suggesting Doxedn does want to act on her information, and lists an address for a more private meeting.<br />
<br />
With nothing to lose she heads for the meet. She is greeted by Kehfn, Doxedns’ living heir, Meandraxix one of Doxedns’ informants in Family Hefehxn. Kehfn wants to dismantle family Hefehxn before they become too big a problem. McTrinkets knows how Hefehxn sells their product and Meandraxix knows how they move it, now they just need someone who supplies the corpses.<br />
Sabby wonders whether the strange bandits from earlier could be involved. Kehfn smirks and says that even if they’re not they can still testify that they are. Everyone agrees on the insane plan. While Kehfn leaves to arrange for a carriage and guard to take Sabby to pick up McTrinkets and hire the worst bandits, Meandraxix offers to run Sabby a bath and cook up some food for her.<br />
<br />
After several weary days travel Sabby welcomes the chance of a little r & r. Enjoying a hot soak, she falls asleep, to find a paniced Maexiks. In her visions she has seen Meandraxix sell Sabby out to Hefehxn, and one of their men is already in the building!<br />
Sabby awakes to find an embarrassed Hefehxn dog peeking through the door. He says he give her a minute to get dressed before taking her in for questioning by his masters. <br />
Thinking quickly Sabby uses the corpsepaste to boost Iaxio and bind him and Kekahkik to herself to form a ghost tower, and rushes the Hefehxn dog killing him with a single strike. She then confronts Meandraxix, who reveals she is being blackmailed into being a Hefehxn spy, and is trying to foil Kehfns’ plan. Sabby steals Meandraxixs’ clothes but lets her live, and then makes her escape across the rooftops.<br />
<br />
She makes for the carriage house to try and find Kefhn. She instead meets Akilfhren, Kehfns’ sister, who was to be her guard escort and the ghost of their father, who seem stop be the leader of the Doxedn anti-Hefehxn movement. After explaining what happened at Meandraxixs’ house, they decide they can no longer offer Sabby protection, as she has killed a Hefehxn dog they are within their rights to kill her. Despite this Sabby is still willing to try and make the plan work, they only needed McTinkets and Meandraxix to testify anyway not her, and she can still use the Doxedn money to hire the bandits without their House being directly involved.<br />
<br />
She heads out of the city by carriage, only to see the exact bandits she’s looking for heading in… <br />
<br />
== Trivia ==<br />
[[Squeegy]] is running an author approved tabletop RPG campaign based in the Tombdog setting, currently on its first chapter, '''Rise of House Kaliaxix'''.<br />
The irc deets, chat logs and some player artwork can be found in the [http://tgchan.org/kusaba/questdis/res/59466.html#69378| dis thread] and [http://rubyrpg.x10.mx/downloads/tombdogs.htm the campaign info].<br />
<br />
==Gallery==<br />
<br />
=== Official ===<br />
{{questart|448807||board=quest|caption=Yay!}}<br />
<br />
=== Fanart ===<br />
{{fanart|69435|caption= tabletop-games|by=w_}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
{{coracleboat}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Image Quests]]<br />
[[Category:Running Quests]]</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Sabhaxlia%27s_Terrible_Life&diff=17697Sabhaxlia's Terrible Life2013-06-14T01:13:08Z<p>Squeegy: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Infobox<br />
|author=coracleboat<br />
|thread1=448327<br />
|thread2=456798<br />
|disthread1=59466<br />
}}<br />
A young tombdog escapes an arranged marriage by fleeing south. <br><br />
<br />
Some artwork with interesting (though not necessarily canon) details about the setting and back-story to the quest can be found over on the authors furaffinity account, [http://www.furaffinity.net/view/7384112| here] is a good place to start. <br />
<br />
{{Spoilers}}<br />
<br />
==Characters==<br />
<div style="float: right">{{questart|449525||board=quest|caption=Sabby and Maexiks}}</div><br />
===Sabhaxlia Tashikoxix===<br />
The young, fleeing south, tomdog in question. Sabby is basically the last hope for the failing House Tashikoxix, meaning her parents are determined to marry her off to any House that can take care of the Tashikoxix family ghosts, whether Sabby likes it or not.<br />
As a result Sabby has led a rather boring yet stressful life, living in an empty manor house in the middle of no-where, spending her time learning all those useful skills a noble wife needs (like protocol, languages, calligraphy etc.) and getting into constant arguments with her parents about the arranged marriage thing.<br />
Unfortunately her husband to be is a bit of a buttjerk. Like a complete and utter buttjerk that no one would marry. Ever. At least she thinks so anyway.<br />
Not be out done in the “being a buttjerk” department, Sabbys parents are convinced that if they just shout at her and remind her how disappointed everyone will be if she doesn’t marry, she’ll eventually start to like him. <br />
<br />
Hence the running away thing.<br />
<br />
===Iaxio (the beggar)===<br />
The ghost of a No-Town beggar. Some local dog took pity on him and made a little shrine, near the road to Tashikoxix manor, from his corpse so his ghost wouldn’t completely fade away.<br />
Despite his cheeky demeanour, he led a rather miserable life as a Stranger, surviving on the handouts of others and making a little money by gambling. <br />
Its not know how he died but, in death all he can do is sit in his shrine, occasionally getting the chance to chat with passers by or Sabby, who considers him something of a friend. He in turn is rather friendly and protective with her, as well as a bit leery. <br />
Sabby decides to take a fragment of his corpse with her so she has someone to talk while running away and he gets to something other than sit by the roadside waiting to die. Again.<br />
His ghost has persisted so long, and with so little to do that he has lost nearly all his memories, even his own name. However an elderly corspebound in a nearby town seems to recognize him and calls him by the name Iaxio… <br />
<div style="float: right">{{questart|448758||board=quest|caption=The beggar at his shrine}}</div><br />
<br />
===Maexiks=== <br />
Sabbys other “sorta friend”.<br />
Maexiks is a quiet, Mantis, living as an outsider-under-license in town near to Sabbys house. She makes a living running a little market stall, and Sabby likes to hang-out with her sometimes. (Beats all the shouting at home).<br />
Maexiks is generally helpful and friendly (and maybe a little enamoured) around Sabby, and goes out of her way to help her escape.<br />
As a Mantis, Maexiks can see visions of the future by studying the skies of the Dream Remnant; she can also communicate with others through this shared dreamspace. Recently she has focused on the possibilities of Sabbys’ future. <br />
<br />
===McTrinkets===<br />
Or Ofrehkik of Tahlekmehrdn-em-a if you prefer, though it’s fairly unlikely that’s her real name.<br />
She’s a sharp-minded, trinket peddling river merchant, probably from somewhere south judging from her colouring and accent.<br />
She used to sell something a lot more valuable and a lot more illegal for a rising Family, but having lost both the merchandise and the money to pay them back, said Family now want to make her deader than dead. <br />
<br />
<br />
===Other Characters===<br />
<div style="float: right">{{questart|452465||board=quest|caption=McTrinkets}}</div><br />
*Tabaxian Geofahn – The buttjerk fiancé. He is confused by Sabbys opposition to the marriage, and has resorted to rather convoluted means to try and make her happy.<br />
*Corpsegramps – a corpsebound from the town Yaihahlrefdn-em. He and the ghost of his daughter, Saexix, seem to have some connection with Iaxio…<br />
*Kekahkik – McTrinkets’ stoic, ghostly, companion. A friend of her fathers.<br />
*Kehfn Doxedn – House Doxedns’ living heir. He is trying to discredit the family pursuing Mcktrinkets.<br />
*Akilfhren Doxedn - Kehfn’s sister, and officer in the Doxedns’ City guard.<br />
<br />
==The Houses==<br />
'''Tashikoxix''' – [Green / Pink] <br><br />
Was once a very large and influencial house but in the past five generations it has dwindled to only two living members, Sabby and her Mother. The only thing of any value the House has left is its historic lineage, something some younger Houses are keen to aquire by marrying into the family. <br />
<br />
'''Geofahn''' – [Strong Blue / Emerald Green] <br><br />
Started as one family that ran a good shipping business, and after a few decent marriages with other shipping families, was able to declare itself a House. <br />
Since then it has expanded in both members and territory, and now controls much of the sea trade with other remnants, and has a strong presence along the coast, particularly in the north. <br />
Despite its size and wealth, House Geofahn still lacks the ancestry to earn any respect from some of the more established Houses. <br />
<br />
'''House Fauhredn''' – [Red / Gold] <br><br />
A truly ancient House (possibly the oldest) and one of the largest Houses’ in the Remnant. <br />
Their territories are based to the south, inland away from the coast, and a lack of outside contact has lead to a more traditionalist attitude within the House, including strong prejudice against young and powerful Houses like Geofahn.<br />
Fauhredn is so large that it has birthed several client-houses (Ahnjaksis, Ahfdredn and Xiafdehn). The House has developed a complicated arranged marriage system to help keep its marriages internal. As one branch of the family becomes too large (or incestuous) they can be married into another client-house and back into the main Fauhredn household as necessary. These marriages are often planned out generations in advance.<br />
Consequently, all the client-houses and Fauhredn proper share ancestral ghosts, meaning the House has a population of thousands of well cared for ghosts to its name, giving them a daunting political and cultural presence as well as making them a very powerful military force.<br />
<br />
'''House Doxedn''' – [Yellow / Brown] <br><br />
A fairly old, medium sized house of around fifty living dogs and over a hundred ghosts, based in a huge ancient city. The House has a strong dislike of Family Hefehxn, but is happy to simply “outlast” its rival, rather than resort to open action against them.<br />
<br />
'''Family Hefehxn''' – [Dark Green / Grey] <br><br />
A small but powerful family that seeks to usurp House Doxedn, and take control of their city. A decade ago Family Hefehxn was unheard of, but though the trade of illicit goods, particularly corpse-paste, they have gained wealth and influence very quickly, as well as a rather grim reputation.<br />
<br />
'''House Aifix''' – [White / Pale Red] <br><br />
A tiny House that controls a single town. Said town receives some traffic as a river trade route, but the House lacks the manpower to even effectively collect tax from it. <br />
east side of town is ocean blue over white, west side of town is white over ocean blue<br />
<br />
'''Strangers''' – [No Colours] <br><br />
Stranger refers to anyone that does not belong to a House or Family, and therefore wears no House colours. The lack of family ties means Strangers are often hired for rather shady work, giving them dubious reputations as transients and vagrants.<br />
However the term has numerous uses and can be applied in a more polite fashion to foreign races, travellers, or even someone who is simply wearing unfamiliar colours. <br />
Strangers who are adopted by a House are known as outsiders-under-license, and typically wear House colours, with the addition of horizontal stripes in the submissive colour.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Setting==<br />
<br />
===Tombdogs===<br />
<div style="float: right">{{questart|449710||board=quest|caption=A partial map of the Tombdog remnant }}</div><br />
A race of anthropomorphic African Hunting Dogs (Lycaon pictus), that live throughout the swamps, mountains, and deserts of the Southern Remenant. <br />
Fur colouring differentiates by gender, with females having white chest and neck fur where as males have much darker tones. Desert dwelling Sourthern dogs can be identified by their greyer fur markings and longer ears. <br />
A unique aspect of their species is the ability to persist after death in a ghost form. This has led to a culture almost entirely based around the preservation of their dead, and a network of family Houses to ensure a line of descendents who can properly care for the deceased.<br><br />
Houses are formed when a large or influential family declares itself so, it will then independently (?) govern and protect its holdings, including family crypts. Each House even has its own currency, with a complicated system of exchange-rates, based on a Houses’ current reputation and standing. <br />
Steady lines of succession are so critical to a House that arranged marriages are the norm (sometimes planned out generations in advance) and refusal of marriage can be considered a grave insult. Childbearing outside of wedlock is considered very distasteful, and detrimental to a family’s line of succession, with the illegitimate child receiving as much blame as their parents. Consequently Tombdogs are very reserved in nature, public displays of affection of any kind are basically unwelcome, even a married couple holding hands or hugging is way too saucy for most Tombdog. What goes on behind closed doors is another matter, as long as it eventually results in children. <br><br />
Tombdog society is somewhat conservative with a rather obvious focus on family responsibilities, especially those that support ghost relatives. Relations between houses are done through an elaborate tradition of ritual and protocol. While Houses to the north have become more open and flexible due to contact with other races, the Houses in southern territories remain staunch traditionalists who value their privacy. <br />
Those who live outside the House system are known as Strangers, and are generally viewed with suspicion and are treated as second class citizens. Strangers and even foreign races can be invited into a family, and become outsiders-under-license. <br><br />
Membership of a House is represented by displaying a Houses colours. This is a central facet of Tombdog society, and to be seen not wearing colours is considered very unusual, to the point where foreign races residing in the remnant have adopted the practise. It is also considered a grievous offence to wear the colours of a House to which you do not belong. Ties to House colours are so strong that Tombdog ghosts are able to appear wearing the colours of their House.<br />
There is a lot of etiquette in the Tombdog dress code. Outfits are usually made of three items, a mantle, shirt and skirt, and are dyed in the Houses’ colours. Additional clothing such as hats or armour is often coloured to match. Not wearing a mantle and bearing ones shoulders or collarbone is considered very immodest; there is a strong taboo towards nudity in general. <br><br />
<br />
Some of the common patterns are as follows:<br />
<br />
<div style="float: right">{{questart|458956||board=quest|caption=A Hefehxn outsider-under-license, note the striped pattern}}</div> <br />
*Standard – The typical form of dress worn by most Tombdogs, with the Houses’ dominant colour shown on the mantle ands skirt, and submissive colour shown on the shirt. <br />
*Striped – Similar to the standard pattern, but with the addition of horizontal stripes in the submissive colour across the mantle. This form of dress is worn by outsiders-under-license.<br />
*Half-Mantle – Half the mantle is dyed with the colours of another House. This is to show a connection to another family or to a town of previous residence. This is a common pattern for those who have married into another House.<br />
*Three-colour – Patterns using three colours imply no affiliation with a House. They are usually worn by foreign races, as an act of courtesy towards Tomdog culture.<br />
<br />
Sub-families that a part of a Larger House, will typically use variants of the parent Houses’ colours. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
===Tombdog Ghosts===<br />
When a Tombdog dies it is immediately reborn as a ghost. This ghost form is partly non-corporeal, they cannot make physical contact with a living Tombdog (and in some cases other ghosts), but also cannot “phase” through solid objects like walls etc. <br />
Ghosts can however physically touch their own remains; in fact they are bound to their corpse and can only materialize and move within a few feet of it. If there body has been dismembered they can appear at any (post-mortem) fragment of their corpse they wish. If the body is destroyed completely, by fire for example, a ghost will not form. Consequently the loss or destruction of a corpse is considered utterly horrific in Tombdog society. <br />
While immaterialized Ghosts experience a dream like state, spending to long “asleep” is detrimental to a ghosts’ well being, and will damage their minds in a manner similar to dementia. If a ghost loses its memory completely it will fade from existence, essentially dieing again, permanently.<br />
<br />
Strong personal willpower will slow this, but an active and varied existence is the surest means to keep a ghosts mind healthy. Life as a ghost is often repetitive and monotonous, and loosing track of time is very harmful to a ghosts’ sanity.<br />
Conversation with other ghosts helps, but is no substitute for contact with the living, whose daily changing; busy lives are far more interesting than occupying space in a crypt. Strong emotional connections further boost the positive effects of socializing.<br />
<div style="float: right">{{questart|451433||board=quest|caption=A corpsebound and a ghost. The ghosts' corpse can be seen in the tree}}</div> <br />
A rather grim alternative, though unquestionably effective means of keeping a ghost healthy is the use of “Taxiholixif fhrefdemnm”, also know as corpse-paste. <br />
Corpse-paste is made by grinding up the remains of another dead Tombdog, killing said dogs ghost in the process. The end result is a powdery cobweb like substance, that when applied to another corpse has a powerful and immediate effect on the ghosts’ strength. <br />
The practice is highly illegal throughout the Tombdog lands but a sizeable black market trade in the substance exists.<br />
<br />
A healthy ghost will retain all its mental faculties and may even gain slight physical tangibility, comparable to that of water. Properly cared for ghosts are potentially immortal, some House Fauhredn ghosts for example, are thought to be more than a 500 years old. <br />
<br />
Ghosts have the same rights as the living, marital commitments continue and they retain ownership of all their property. Some ghosts even continue to work, usually in an advisory role, as physical tasks can be a bit problematic without a body. It is also fairly typical for the leader of a House to be a ghost. <br />
<br />
The majority of Tomdog corpses are placed in familiar or communal crypts. Living relatives take parts of a corpse and fashion them into relics and reliquaries to keep around the home or wear on their person, allowing the Ghosts a much greater choice of places to materialize. An alternative to this is the practice of Corpse architecture, where a corpse is set into the structure of a building. Ghosts placed in this state often make a living as guides, touts, doormen etc. Weaker ghosts preserved this way have also been used as a means to power and control simple mechanical devices such as door locks, and as a useful means of insect repellent.<br />
<br />
Less common is turning a body into a corpsebound. By properly preparing the remains of a tombdog, a ghost can posses its former body, allowing it the same freedom of movement as if they were alive, though they can no longer manifest at detached fragments of their body. The initial process is somewhat expensive and the corpsebound body requires regular maintenance and occasional reinforcement with iron pins and supports, to prevent it from simply falling apart. Corpsebounds are also traditionally used as caretakers in Tombdog crypts.<br />
<br />
One of the more significant uses of ghosts is their use as a means of long range communication. By dividing up a corpse and leaving it in different locations ghosts can quickly relay messages across vast distances. Many Houses maintain a network of such ghosts for just this purpose (?).<br />
<br />
The most important ability of a ghost is being able to bind itself to a living or corspebound, Tombdog. <br />
By doing this they can temporally pass their skills to their host. For example a ghost who was a gifted cook in life could bind themselves to a living Tomdog and guide their actions to make them a better cook.<br />
But more that that, the ghost quite literally lends their strength and speed to the living host. This has led to the process of “stacking” where multiple ghosts bind themselves to one person to create a Ghost Tower, greatly increasing the living persons’ physical capabilities. Personal and family connections greatly help this process and because of this it is rare to see a Ghost Tower of more then 10 ghosts. <br />
Ghosts Towers are used primarily for combat. Tombdog warfare consists of a handful of soldiers with 3-5 ghosts each bound to them. Because of this, the number of ghosts belonging to a House can be used as a direct measure of their military capabilities.<br />
<br />
<br />
===The Remnants===<br />
Thousands of years ago, massive apocalyptic event destroyed several worlds of very different origins, and caused the remains to merge together into a new world, know as the Remnants. <br />
<br />
As well as the southernmost continent that is home to the Tombdogs, there are three other landmass that make up these remnants, all separated by a large central ocean. They are quiet literally fragments of another world, and the environments, right down to the laws of nature (?) can vary greatly. Each is also home to a unique sentient species. <br />
<br />
<div style="float: right">{{questart|451940||board=quest|caption=Maexikis doing Dreambug things}}</div> <br />
*The Bird Archipelago – located in the eastern part of the world. It is home to “Birddemons”, as other races call them. A humanoid race of flightless(?) avians that worship millions of sprit creatures. <br />
<br />
*The Reptile Continent – located to the west. Home to a rather repressive society of Lizards, who have some means of reincarnation. It is rumoured that they also practice cannibalism. <br />
<br />
*The Human Continent – the north most remnant. The “Prayermen” have a reputation as easy-going, and worship numerous deities. <br />
<br />
Although the landmasses of only four worlds survived, races from other worlds did survive the catastrophe and live thought-out the Remnants.<br />
<br />
*Mantises - also known as “Dreambugs”. The Mantis remnant also survived; in fact it was never really destroyed, but is only perceivable as dream. <br />
The Dreambug remnant is where all Mantises truly reside. They can persist in this world even if their physical bodies die. They can also project themselves into the dreams of others, including other species. <br />
One the most notable features of the Dream Remnant, is its planet filled skyline. By studying the movements of these spheres, Mantises can prophesize the future. <br />
They can only see the possibilities of some ones’ future, and the further from the present they look, and the more possibilities there are in that persons’ life, the harder it becomes to discern their future.<br />
<br />
*“Walkplants” - plant people are an ambulatory life-phase of sentient trees. They sometimes grow into the form of another sentient species and live among them for a few decades<br />
<br />
There are thought to be numerous, unaccounted, remnant-less races as well.<br />
<br />
==Plot Summary==<br />
<br />
===Pre-Quest===<br />
Sabby lives a fairly boring life in her family’s’ rundown manor in the middle of a swamp. She spends her time visiting the family shrine, hanging out with her Mantis friend Maexiks. She also has to endure the advances of her buttjerk fiancé. It was bad enough when he walked in on her taking a bath, but when hired some thug to threaten her so he could swoop in and defend her honour like in some cheesy romance novel, she decides enough is enough. <br />
<br />
===Part I===<br />
<div style="float: right">{{questart|449125||board=quest|caption=Yep, totally running away}}</div> <br />
Sabhaxlia is running away. The big wedding is just around the courner and she can’t marry that buttjerk Tabaxian, and she can’t go on constantly arguing with her parents about getting married. After a particular unpleasant fight with her parents, she walks out, and keeps walking. This is totally planned and she totally knows what she’s doing. <br />
<br />
Before properly running away she decides to say goodbye to her sort of friend, the ghost of a nameless, amnesiac, beggar, who resides in a nearby shrine. It takes him about ten seconds to figure out what she’s up to, but seems supportive if a little bemused about the whole idea. He offers some money; to pass on a message to her mother and some useful travelling advice, seeing how he was a seasoned vagrant in his life. Realizing how unprepared she is for life on the road, Sabby comes up with the great idea of taking a relic of him with her, so he can be her travelling ghost bro. He is hella happy about this, as waiting die by the side of a road is a kind of miserable existence. <br />
<br />
They head for a nearby market town where Sabbys’ other friend, Maexiks, lives.<br />
Unlike Sabby, Maexiks has actually made some preparations, in case she planned to runaway from the marriage, and uses the Beggar’s money and her own merchant contacts to buy Sabby lots of useful travelling stuff, including a set of clothes in a made-up House pattern.<br />
<br />
While Maexikis is busy gathering everything up, Sabby and Beggar mange to come up with something resembling a plan. Head South deep into House Fauhredn territory. House Fauhredn is strict and old-fashioned, and probably not very friendly place for a travelling stranger (never mind a runaway bride), they do however have a fierce dislike of House Geofahn (Tabaxians’ House) meaning the angry in-laws to be, can’t follow her for long.<br />
They all spend the night at Maexiks’ house, eating, chatting, and playing cards. The next morning Sabby thanks Maexiks with a platonic face lick for being so awesome, and then hits the road again with The Beggar. <br />
<br />
They soon arrive at the town of Yaihahlrefdn-em; probably the furthest Sabhaxlia has ever been from home, though Beggar has some memories of the place. A little unsure of their next move Beggar suggests they try and make some money gambling, he was pretty good at it in life. <br />
While scoping the tables for someone to play with, an elderly corspebound calls out to them, apparently recognizing the Beggar as “Iaxio”. The corpsebound claims to be Beggars grandfather and the one who built his corpse shrine, though Beggar himself is drawing a complete blank. After introducing herself with the fake name of Taliaxix, Sabby suggests they continue their conversation over a game of dice. She decides to get rid of her near worthless family currency and… the corpsebound points out how a travelling young woman, in unfamiliar colours, trying to change lots of Tashikoxix coinage, so close to the day of the big House wedding, is something a runaway Tashikoxix bride might try to do…he asks them to follow him into the swamp.<br />
<br />
A little way out of town he leads them to a old tree, which is actually a hidden corpse shrine and introduces them to the ghost of Saexix. Beggars Mother. <br />
Saexix died when Iaxio was three years old, she had given birth out of wedlock and her corpse was denied entry in the town tomb, forcing Corpsegramps to hide her body. He also tried to raise Iaxio but being an illegitimate child; he too had to face the slander of the townsfolk and eventually ran away at age sixteen. Corpsegramps found Iaxios’ corpse some years later and built his shrine in effort to care for his ghost.<br />
Iaxios’ father was married to another woman, and had threatened Saexix into silence about the affair. He was an influential, Tashikoxix Housedog. Sabbys great-grandfather…<br />
<br />
The reunion with his family, and discovering Sabby is part of his family does wonders for Iaxios health as a ghost (he even begins to manifest wearing Sabbys made-up House colours). Despite some painful memories everyone is happy to be reunited. Sabby and Iaxio camp out for the night with Saexix, while Corpsegramps heads home.<br />
<br />
After a strange night in the Dream Remnant with Maexiks, Sabby and Iaxio head further south to a House Aifix town. They visit the docks, where they meet a travelling merchant; Sabby dubs “McTrinkets”, and arrange for him to take them down river that night. <br />
With some time to kill, Sabby buys herself a room at the Strangers’ inn. While haggling with the money-changer she hears a commotion outside, and sees an Aifix dog killed by a Geofahn dog and ghost tower. The town is in an uproar at Geofahns’ lack of restraint and Sabby panics, fleeing to the docks. She desperately tries to get Mcktrinkets to take her south now…and maybe let’s slip that Geofahn is after her.<br />
<br />
With a smirk he agrees to get her past the Geofahn river patrols, he even has a clever plan for doing so. Or rather she has, it turns out McTrinkets is a girl. Using some special fur dye, she disguises Sabby as a guy too, and they mange to slip out down the river with the guards none the wiser. <br />
<br />
McTrinkets says Sabby will have to pay her back for the escape with a favour, though both of them are too tired to worry about that now, and Sabby drifts off to sleep.<br />
She again has visions of Maexiks and the Dream Remnant. Maexiks says Sabbys future is to open for her to accurately predict, but there has been worrying development. She leads Sabby across the Remnant to an overlook, where they spy another Mantis, one wearing Geofahn colours… <br />
<br />
===Part II===<br />
<div style="float: right">{{questart|459189||board=quest|caption=Still running away}}</div><br />
Sabby wakes to find that McTrikets has shored their boat and set up camp. She has a simple courier job for Sabby to do in exchange for her smuggling her out of the Aifix town.<br />
<br />
Sabby decides to get it out of the way and hits the road with Iaxio. Her curiosity quickly gets the better of her and she opens the package to find it contains money, lots of money, and decides to hide it at the bottom her bag.<br />
<br />
Which turns out to be a good precaution, as not far down the road she is ambushed by a strange crew of bandits. The group consists of an underdressed knifewoman; an overdressed rifleman, a mean corspebound; and the ghost of the knifewomens’ boyfriend (?). They don’t hurt her but take all her personal money and are about to go through her pack, when they start bickering about the necessity of a strip search. While the arguing continues the rifleman allows Sabby to slips away. <br />
<br />
After a long trek she reaches the Doxedn City. While seeking shelter from the rain Sabby has a quick dream consultation with Maexiks. She can see some danger in her near future, and advises that the quicker she completes the delivery the safer it will be for everyone.<br />
<br />
Getting some directions from a gatekeeper ghosts, Sabby heads to the Hefehxn manor to drop of McTrinkets’ payment. She is greeted by a rather sombre butler, who seems a little surprised by the package, and insists Sabby comes in and answers some questions. Sabby insists otherwise and begins the walk back to camp, though not before reporting the bandits to the city guard.<br />
<br />
Not far out of the city Iaxio notes they are being followed by the creepy Hefehxn servant. The plan is to camp down by the road for the night and hope the guy gets bored. While laying out her bedroll, Kekahkik, McTrinkets’ ghost companion, appears. A little annoyed McTrikents planted a relic on her, Sabby fill him in on what happened with the delivery, and he relays it to McTrinkets. <br />
<br />
Exhausted, Sabby falls asleep and is greeted by a worried looking Maexiks. She feels guilty for telling Sabby to complete the delivery quickly, as this has made Sabbys future safer but has doomed McTrinkets, unless Sabby intervenes.<br />
<br />
Still dreadfully tired Sabby rouses herself and uses Kekahkik to tell McTrinkets about her Dreambug friends’ premonitions. She agrees there’s cause for concern and heads along the river to meet up with Sabby.<br />
<br />
Mcktrinkets comes clean and tells the full story. She used to sell highly illegal “corpsepaste” for family Hefehxn, and found an opportunity to steal some of their merchandise and sell for her own profit with them none the wiser. They eventually found out and unable to payback the debt she ran away. Most of the money she gave Sabby to deliver was counterfeit, and now they’ve realised this, they are after her again. The bigger problem however is that not only will they kill her, they will likely make their money back by turning her remains into corpsepaste.<br />
<br />
After a miserable night, they decide to head back and through Doxedn city, in order to get further south and avoid both Geofahn and Hefehxn, when Sabby hits on an idea.<br />
<br />
Why not snitch out Hefehxns illegal activities to a rival House? McTrinkets has plenty of details on their operation, as well as a package of their corpsepaste stashed in her boat, not to mention the relic of Kekahkik she hid in the counterfeit money.<br />
Doxedn is a known enemy of Hefehxn, and would likely welcome the chance to move against them if they had any hard evidence.<br />
<br />
McTrikets hides outside of the city, while Sabby heads in to try and use her knowledge of protocol to wrangle a meeting with the Doxedn higher ups. She is granted an audience with some eerie corpsebound nobles…but they are uninterested in the actives of an insignificant upstart Family.<br />
The plan seems to have failed but on her way out of the Doxedn palace a guard hands her letter. It is a short cryptic message suggesting Doxedn does want to act on her information, and lists an address for a more private meeting.<br />
<br />
With nothing to lose she heads for the meet. She is greeted by Kehfn, Doxedns’ living heir, Meandraxix one of Doxedns’ informants in Family Hefehxn. Kehfn wants to dismantle family Hefehxn before they become too big a problem. McTrinkets knows how Hefehxn sells their product and Meandraxix knows how they move it, now they just need someone who supplies the corpses.<br />
Sabby wonders whether the strange bandits from earlier could be involved. Kehfn smirks and says that even if they’re not they can still testify that they are. Everyone agrees on the insane plan. While Kehfn leaves to arrange for a carriage and guard to take Sabby to pick up McTrinkets and hire the worst bandits, Meandraxix offers to run Sabby a bath and cook up some food for her.<br />
<br />
After several weary days travel Sabby welcomes the chance of a little r & r. Enjoying a hot soak, she falls asleep, to find a paniced Maexiks. In her visions she has seen Meandraxix sell Sabby out to Hefehxn, and one of their men is already in the building!<br />
Sabby awakes to find an embarrassed Hefehxn dog peeking through the door. He says he give her a minute to get dressed before taking her in for questioning by his masters. <br />
Thinking quickly Sabby uses the corpsepaste to boost Iaxio and bind him and Kekahkik to herself to form a ghost tower, and rushes the Hefehxn dog killing him with a single strike. She then confronts Meandraxix, who reveals she is being blackmailed into being a Hefehxn spy, and is trying to foil Kehfns’ plan. Sabby steals Meandraxixs’ clothes but lets her live, and then makes her escape across the rooftops.<br />
<br />
She makes for the carriage house to try and find Kefhn. She instead meets Akilfhren, Kehfns’ sister, who was to be her guard escort and the ghost of their father, who seem stop be the leader of the Doxedn anti-Hefehxn movement. After explaining what happened at Meandraxixs’ house, they decide they can no longer offer Sabby protection, as she has killed a Hefehxn dog they are within their rights to kill her. Despite this Sabby is still willing to try and make the plan work, they only needed McTinkets and Meandraxix to testify anyway not her, and she can still use the Doxedn money to hire the bandits without their House being directly involved.<br />
<br />
She heads out of the city by carriage, only to see the exact bandits she’s looking for heading in… <br />
<br />
== Trivia ==<br />
[[Squeegy]] is running an author approved tabletop RPG campaign based in the Tombdog setting, currently on its first chapter, '''Rise of House Kaliaxix'''.<br />
The irc deets, chat logs and some player artwork can be found in the [http://tgchan.org/kusaba/questdis/res/59466.html#69378| dis thread] and [http://rubyrpg.x10.mx/downloads/tombdogs.htm | the campaign info]. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Gallery==<br />
<br />
=== Official ===<br />
{{questart|448807||board=quest|caption=Yay!}}<br />
<br />
=== Fanart ===<br />
{{fanart|69435|caption= tabletop-games|by=w_}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
{{coracleboat}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Image Quests]]<br />
[[Category:Running Quests]]</div>Squeegyhttps://questden.org/w/index.php?title=Scellor&diff=14148Scellor2012-12-08T19:06:15Z<p>Squeegy: Scellor caste infodump.</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Maolla.png|thumb]]<br />
Scellor are a species of psychic animal/plant symbiotes from the innermost depths of the galaxy. They most resemble mammalian humanoids with mottled or spotted green skin and brightly coloured hair, with large eyes, no nose and three tongues in a mouth filled with sharp retractible teeth; they have a fleshy antenna on top of their forehead called an orel, and their ears are long tubes that hang down their backs, through which they also breathe. The majority of scellor are nameless drones that gladly obey the will of their species' collective consciousness, referred to as the Undermind, and through which their minds and memories persist through death and reincarnate in new bodies. Some scellor, however, have minds powerful and wilful enough to assert their own desires, becoming sentient individuals. Due to their "immortality", scellor are a recklessly inquisitive species and not afraid to push the limits of science, exploration or hedonism.<br />
<br />
Scellor have six castes, roughly describable as diplomats, workers, scientists, doctors, warriors and spies, each predisposed towards a particular discipline of psychic ability.<br />
<br />
==Physical Characteristics==<br />
Orthan and Praal (like [[Will of the Undermind|Mitrel]] and [[Will of the Undermind|Maolla]], respectively) are smaller than most humans could be, around or under 4 feet. Ulkam and Orthe (like [[Will of the Undermind|Shiia]] and [[Will of the Undermind|Rel]]), along with Ayaar, are about as tall as a normal but noticeably short human. Niiar, finally, go up to about 7 feet.<br />
<br />
Niiar and Praal have dense muscles and bones and are heavy for their size. Orthe and Ayaar are a little heavier than a human the same size would be, and Ulkam and Orthan are about the same as a human for their size. Precise weight, of course, depends on what planet you're on - the scellor homeworld has gravity that's a fraction higher than earth's, a little more than 1.2 gees.<br />
<br />
There is no notable sexual dimorphism in regards height among scellor. They do have differently shaped bodies, of course, so there is a weight difference, but not as much as between humans. <br />
<br />
==Psychic Powers==<br />
'''Telepathy'''<br />
<br />
1: Message. Send a short message to a non-psychic or hold conversations with other psychics.<br />
<br />
2: Empathy. Sense emotions, detect deception, etc.<br />
<br />
3: Contact. Conversations with non-psychics, complex information transfer with other psychics. At this level you can also Jam other people with distracting signals - or do the opposite and take distractions away, Focusing them.<br />
<br />
4: Read. Detect surface thoughts in unwilling subjects, deep information/memories in willing. You can also Disrupt other people's minds, stunning them.<br />
<br />
5: Delve. Extract complex information and memories from unwilling subjects, mindmeld-like contact with willing ones. A scellor with this ability can form unified minds with other scellor.<br />
<br />
6: Mental voyage. Journey into another's mind, psychonauts-style, to uncover hidden information, battle neuroses and even rewrite them from the inside.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Psychokinesis'''<br />
<br />
1: Creation. Produce sounds, light, heat and other energy forms.<br />
<br />
2: Projection. Use Creation at range.<br />
<br />
3: Psiblast. Fire a disrupting bolt of psychic energy.<br />
<br />
4: Manipulation. Alter existing forms of energy.<br />
<br />
5: Illusion. Light, sound, etc. can be formed into convincing fabrications, and the user can cloak most all emissions, turning themselves invisible.<br />
<br />
6: Kaboom! Blow stuff up real good.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Clairsentience'''<br />
<br />
1: Psychic Sense. Perceive psychic disturbances, powerful psychics, etc.<br />
<br />
2: Psycholocation. Know the location and nature of everything within a certain range, trumping most forms of concealment.<br />
<br />
3: Farseeing. Project any of your normal senses somewhere else.<br />
<br />
4: Precognition. Receive visions of the future, either as helpful instinctual urges or vague prophecies.<br />
<br />
5: Fabrication. Sad you can't see in infrared, hear radio signals or sense gravity wells? Well, now you can, by making new senses!<br />
<br />
6: Show me. Send your senses hurtling back into the past to witness history, either in your location or along your own timeline. Alternately, send your senses forward along your own timeline, sensing anything that you personally will - inescapably - experience.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Telekinesis'''<br />
<br />
1: Push/Pull. Do either of those.<br />
<br />
2: Lift. Carry things.<br />
<br />
3: Telekinetic Bubble. Create "solid" objects of telekinetic force.<br />
<br />
4: Telekinetic Crush. Apply contracting or expanding force. Doing so in a "burst" creates a shockwave. Contain liquids, gas and other dangerous substances in TK bubbles.<br />
<br />
5: Telekinetic Harden. Focus Telekinetic Bubbles into stronger shapes, making effective shields, walls, and so on. Focus pulls or pushes into telekinetic "punches". All TK becomes more powerful.<br />
<br />
6: Telekinetic Slice. Part things from each other at the molecular level.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Psychometabolism'''<br />
<br />
1: Hibernate. Reduce body's consumption of resources and slow its processes.<br />
<br />
2: Physical Enhancement. Improvement of strength, stamina, dexterity, etc - at the cost of the body's resources.<br />
<br />
3: Healing. Induce faster healing or regeneration. Useful when training.<br />
<br />
4: Renew. Help the body replenish itself faster, healing at a low level and clearing away defects as it does. Requires food.<br />
<br />
5: Mental enhancement. Improve reflexes, quick thinking and senses, again with the cost of resources - and the chance that the brain will overheat.<br />
<br />
6: Mutation. Who wants superpowers? Takes time.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Psychoportation'''<br />
<br />
1: Decelerate. Slow the passage of time within an area, relative to the rest of the universe.<br />
<br />
2: Accelerate. Make time flow faster in an area, relative to the universe at large.<br />
<br />
3: Gravity field. Press temporary dents into spacetime, creating small but powerful gravity wells that you can manipulate. Fun at parties.<br />
<br />
4: Teleport. Twist through space to transport yourself elsewhere.<br />
<br />
5: Gate. Create a pair of in/out portals that you can manipulate.<br />
<br />
6: Reverse. Turn back the clock - but only in a limited area, and only 20 minutes. Very dangerous!<br />
<br />
==Proto-Scellor==<br />
The scellor homeworld is less dense than earth due to somewhat less metals, but is a good bit larger, so has higher gravity. It orbits a binary star system which, in turn, orbits a supergiant, which is located unusually near to the galactic core; there is no "night" on the world, since even when all the suns are out of the sky the stars are far brighter and denser than on earth. It has one moon just barely large enough to hold a thin atmosphere and three that are smaller but still visible from the surface. There are many other planets in the system, generally tending towards hugeness. The homeplanet's crust is thin, with small tectonic plates; no large mountains or deep trenches and no major continents, mostly large islands and island chains spread over shallow, warm and mineral-rich oceans. Lots of earthquakes, though not as intensely, and lots of volcanic activity. Aside this disaster-prone environment, a quirk in the way this star system worked meant that every 86-and-a-bit million years the binary stars "stretched out" from each other and got closer to their planets, usually causing an extinction event.<br />
<br />
As a result of the intense emissions of local stars and the weaker magnetic field, life on the scellor homeworld is much more resistant to radiation than on earth, but still suffers a high mutation rate, which in combination with the fast-changing environment resulted in quick natural selection and evolution, with extinction events giving regular opportunity for species to "reinvent the wheel" in myriad forms.<br />
<br />
One form of life that persisted from an early stage, however, was kel, something like a plant or fungus that is notoriously hard to classify, as it changes itself very rapidly. It can do this because it absorbs psykonium from the environment and developed a primitive, vegetative "mind" which it uses to alter itself to mimic other plants or adapt better to its surroundings; kel spores can develop into trees, seaweeds, funguses, algaes and even develop entirely new forms when exposed to a new environment. The first animal life forms on the scellor world bonded with kel that developed symbiotically, using it in place of the mitochondria that exist in terrestrial animal cells. Almost all animals on the homeworld have some psychic ability, mostly low-level, primitive telepathy amongst members of a species; social animals are thus extremely common and can come in very large groups. Some animals instead developed internal psychic powers that enhanced their physiology, allowing the emergence of immense superpredators.<br />
<br />
The ancestors of the scellor dwelt in trees; they might be thought of as something between squirrels and monkeys, with rudimentary tool-use on the level of poking sticks into holes to get food out and making nests to sleep in. These creatures, under pressure from predators and the lure of warming seas, moved to coastal swamps and began to develop some facility with moving in water; on a diet of fish their brains grew larger, and they developed more sophisticated tools, most noticeably in the weaving of nets. They developed longer "snorkling" ears and developed "false scent" glands on the ends of their tails to throw off predators. As they advanced and spread further, they were exposed to natural disasters and became more nomadic, developing for better and quicker adaptation by adding again to their brain size and tool use, becoming properly sentient, more humanoid and developing into the first properly recognizable proto-scellor. It is at this time that they began to develop civilization.<br />
<br />
The proto-scellor spread across the world, and eventually developed into three "races" or subspecies: island or sea-dwelling scellor, who were smart and streamlined and lived off the ocean, who used their discoveries in combination with psychic power to begin to develop biotechnology; coastal swamp-dwelling scellor who were smaller, more reclusive and most adept with psychic powers; and land-dwelling scellor who roamed the hills and forests and developed fire, stonework and metallurgy. This was the scellor species in its natural state, before any alterations made deliberately to themselves. Each sub-species had a basic subconscious psychic link and easy telepathy amongst its members, but the Undermind did not exist and individual scellor did not normally reincarnate as they do now. Lacking the constant lure of their race-mind, all scellor were intelligent sentient persons.<br />
<br />
In time, the ancient scellor developed astronomy and learned the fate their star system had in store for them. Eventually, they decided to mine psykonium on a massive scale and plunged into psychic development, with the end goal of pooling all their psychic power into a minor adjustment in the orbit of their smaller sun, which would end the cycle of extinction their planet had been subjected to. The attempt was a success, but the ancient scellor were trapped in the joined mind they had created and its overwhelming influence eradicated their individuality and self-awareness. It was hundreds of years before any scellor's psychic pattern became strong enough to distinguish itself as a sentient being once again, wrestling their species' overmind into an Undermind and beginning the state that their species exists in now. In time, the scellor encountered visitors from beyond the stars and embraced technology with ease, adopting a transhumanist outlook which eventually saw them modify themselves into the physical forms they now have, including the restructuring of the original three races into six castes. <br />
<br />
===Pre-Undermind Scellor===<br />
Before the Undermind was formed, scellor were very different to how they are now. They were biologically the same species - a modern and primitive scellor would be able to reproduce, though the offspring might have health issues without advanced medical conditioning - but a lot has changed. Primitive scellor were not biologically optimized as modern scellor are; though they had few diseases compared to humans, they could develop internal health problems, particularly with age. Scellor women at this stage carried their children to term as placental mammals do; children were born as infants and had to be raised, though they still grew faster than humans did, reaching physical maturity at about 10 years of age. That's terrestrial years - the scellor homeworld's years are more than twice as long, and the ancient scellor usually measured long time periods by how often their pair of binary suns crossed each other in the sky (about once every 5 earth months).<br />
<br />
Psychically, primitive scellor were far less developed than their later descendants; most individuals were capable only of empathy (actually pretty similar to Lagotrope's neumono) and basic telepathy with individuals with whom they were "attuned", usually members of the same community. There was a spoken language, several of them in fact, but scellor vocal cords and diaphragm control was always rudimentary (modern scellor are even worse), and the relatively simple sounds they could make to form words had to be augmented with empathic inflection. Beyond that, other psychic powers were rare, but almost all scellor would at least have heard stories about them; for the most part, any serious psychic potential was the domain of hermits, mystics, cultists and occasional rare prodigies. Working in groups was a necessity for any truly impressive psionic feats, again except for rare individuals. Scellor could, as they do now, use psykonium to enhance their psychic abilities, but deposits of psykonium had a tendency to attract various giant monsters and other living dangers. Overall, psychic powers were treated like magic! And relatively low magic. Perhaps some day it'd be interesting to do a "sci-fi fantasy" story set in this time period, but not any time soon. Or perhaps someone else would like to? Hm. Well, let's move on.<br />
<br />
The different castes didn't exist. Instead, as described in previous posts, there were three major races - illustrated here from left to right, girls along the top and guys along the bottom. The first, older race might be referred to as pygmy scellor, being small, and who lived in tropical swamps, marshes and waterside forests by preference. Then seafaring scellor, who lived on islands and archipelagoes; and, finally, the giant scellor (actually only about the same height as a normal human), who lived on what you might call their planet's pitiful excuse for continents. The largest continuous landmass is smaller than australia, and even then is a twisty mess of fjords and inland seas, riddled with volcanic activity. Again as previously mentioned, the scellor homeworld has a thinnish crust with smaller and more numerous continental plates than earth, and its extra suns and moons contribute both to the geological activity and chaotic weather. Natural disasters were a problem for all the ancient scellor.<br />
<br />
The '''pygmy scellor''' (not their proper name, obviously - they didn't even call themselves scellor) were the most reclusive of the three, dwelling in relatively crude treetop villages in secluded corners of their waterlogged homes. They were the least technologically developed, mostly because they had no access to materials that wouldn't rot away in a few years. Occasionally they might get something more advanced from the other races, but the extent of their own development was simple devices of rope and wood, used for hoisting goods into the trees or laying traps for their food animals. They had small boats, of course, and had a particular fondness for nets: aside being their main source of food and essential for carrying things, they would also drape them around their homes to make climbing easier, and endowed them with religious significance, metaphorical for the strands connecting and tying together themselves and all other life in a great web. They liked them so much, wearing them was common, both for decoration and to have them handy to use; most other "clothing" was camouflage, usually involving leaves tied at the extremities to break up the outlines of their bodies and blend colours so as to let them fade into the background of their environment. The pygmy scellor had the most psychics of the three races, partly because of their funeral practices; bodies were moved to "gravegroves" where the bodies, consumed by the kel spores inside them, would become trees or other local plants. On significant days, fruit from these trees would be eaten, allowing the tribe to gain the "strength" of their ancestors (actually the traces of psykonium that had been in their bodies). These gravegroves were pretty sacred! Most of the trees would be marked in some fashion, and decorated in ways the tribe would feel was too dangerous for their own homes. Outsiders visiting and especially interfering with the grove could easily upset them; they were relatively dangerous in and of themselves, with spooky psychic phenomena drifting between the trees, faint echoes of the scellor who had died to produce them. Because of the pygmy scellor's isolated, tight-knit communities, their shaman-like psychics' powers tended towards the sympathetic: telepathy, prognostication and healing powers directed at other individuals. Overall, they were quiet and reserved; making a lot of motion and sound was discouraged, to avoid attracting dangerous predators. However, they were remarkable painters, with access to plenty of natural pigments, and filled the insides of their huts with vibrant colours in order to offset the relative gloom beyond their doors. There was little difference between the sexes.<br />
<br />
'''Sea scellor''', while having the most isolated settlements, were ironically also the most well-travelled of the ancient scellor, with a tendency to form vast trading networks. While they were as much at the mercy of the weather and geology as other scellor, their island homes were safe from giant predators (though the oceans were a different matter); with this relative safety, especially when combined with more environmentally secure islands such as as those formed by extinct volcanoes, they were able to develop a stronger sense of their own history and invest in more long-lasting structures, both physical and social. Stone circles designed for various time-telling purposes were common in their early history, leading on up to more elaborate works such as stepped pyramids and buildings carved out of natural rock. Despite having limited land, they made use of natural (and later, artificial) bays and tidal lagoons to develop sea-based agriculture, farming fish and shellfish, seaweed, and a kind of giant sea millipede (that's good eatin'!). A trained sea scellor diver could hold their breath for a bit more than 20 minutes at a time. Having little to fear from predators and an eager interest in showing off to outsiders, sea scellor were keen on decorating themselves, making use of leather, carved bone, stone and wood, leaves, flowers and whatever other sufficiently prestigious materials were at hand; they had little concern for coverings beyond that, especially those that would get in the way in the water, and mostly used crude skirts of leaves and crude rope to keep some of the sunlight at bay. In their spare time, storytelling was a common form of recreation, along with singing and woodwind music that humans would consider quite crude and simplistic. The majority of sea scellor societies disposed of their dead at sea, currents permitting, but a few disreputable cultures practiced cannibalism. This was a dangerous prospect for ancient scellor, as fragments of the dead scellor's personality could impress themselves on whoever ate their body; doing so repeatedly could cause insanity, depending on one's strength of mind. At the same time, however, such individuals developed stronger psychic powers, which sea scellor were otherwise pretty lacklustre with compared to the other two races. Such psychics were most famous (or infamous) for using telepathy to tame giant sea creatures; less immediately impressive, but more dire, was their tendency to develop inauspicious powers of prophecy, which also allowed their most advanced masters to sense the fabric of space-time and become the first scellor to manipulate it. The vast majority of scellor were understandably wary of and often repulsed by these people, but in time, secret cults practicing similar methods would spread through other scellor cultures. Other sea scellor psychics, few though they were, tended to dabble in more agricultural uses of their powers, and in later periods would begin developing crude biotechnology. Typically, female sea scellor mostly tended to the farming, while males went fishing further afield; males were responsible for trading with others, but females were responsible for dealing with traders who came to them.<br />
<br />
'''Giant scellor''', finally, were to become the most "civilized" by standard human reckoning. After early years as nomads, the majority would settle into fortified towns designed to fend off dangerous creatures and, later, other giant scellor city-states. They developed proper agriculture, pottery, the wheel, metalsmithing and even the production of glass. However, the scellor homeworld has a significantly lower proportion of metal than earth; iron, in particular, was split with psykonium, leaving it about three times harder to find than terrestrial iron. As already mentioned, psykonium itself, in ore form, attracted the giant beasts that used internal psionic powers to sustain themselves, making it horrendously difficult to mine even when it could be found. Combined with the scellor world being so waterlogged, all metals were valuable commodities, and the history of the giant scellor was rife with conflicts over supplies of the stuff. Warriors used armour crafted from the bones, hide or carapaces of superpredators, and the majority of the population made do with weapons and tools made of bronze when possible, saving more advanced aids for when real necessity required it. The sciences beckoned: natural disasters were still a plague for giant scellor, with tales abounding of settlements wiped from the map or crippled in such a manner that the creatures of the wilderness could finish them off, leaving abandoned towns and ghost castles to tempt foolish explorers. Environmental pressures, then, begged for the scellor to develop systems to analyze and predict the patterns of their world, observing the shaking of the earth, the surge of the tide and the sweep of the suns and moons for signs of disaster. The giant scellor led the way in such advances, though prompted and assisted somewhat by sea scellor, and it was advances in this field that allowed them to chart the stellar cycles that would eventually push the species to its fate (or doom). Wealth permitting, relatively advanced chemistry was available, as well as relatively crude (and expensive) clockwork devices. In contrast to their more nudist cousins, giant scellor wore something closer to what would be considered proper clothing, having developed weaving and its attendant advances. Furs were also common, and jewelry, albeit with gems set much the more often in wood or bone or elaborately woven strands of cloth than into metals, precious or non. Giant scellor enjoyed music and dancing when times were good, with particular favour for string and percussion instruments. Giant scellor settlements had a broad variety of ways of disposing of their dead, but most involved shipping them quite far away, so as to avoid attracting predators. The psychics of this race tended most towards the more blunt, brute-force psionic powers, such as telekinesis and pyrokinesis, and most often put such skills to work for crafting - or, somewhat more rarely, used them to combat monsters and enemy warriors. More rarely because such individuals tended not to live so long. Giant scellor had the most pronounced cultural differences between the sexes, with men as warriors and taking care of the most physically strenuous labour, while women handled more sedate crafts.<br />
<br />
All ancient scellor tended towards a certain fatalistic approach, partly from the relatively high probability of unexpected disasters, and partly due to influence from individuals who could genuinely get some sort of feeling for the future, though other scellor tended not to be comfortable around them (stop talking about that vast roar of endless voices screaming at you from centuries yet to come, dude!). There was a strong tendency in the whole species, as there is in modern scellor, to produce as many offspring as possible and send them out to colonize other lands, knowing that if there wasn't anywhere free for settlement, there soon would be. Politically, scellor were relatively varied, though humans would find them unusual in their lack of centralized leadership. By "default", each community would form internal, informal collections of individuals with similar skillsets, who would automatically become leaders when the situation called for their expertise. Within said groups, shifting tides of personality and strength of will would modify leadership every day, with empathic intuition clearing the sense of who was in charge at any particular time. Some communities, especially those who were more "civilized", would be more formal in their politics, with guilds or councils or advisorships or similar, but the basic structure was usually there. Psychics, though powerful in their communities, tended to be more interested in their abilities than in taking charge, a quality responsible for getting them the powers in the first place. It was only in the case of groups of psychics, for example the aforementioned sea scellor cultists, that psychics might tend to dominate a society's decisions. Which is not to say the scellor never had leaders: occasionally, particularly powerful personalities, most often well-respected polymaths (or unscrupulous telepaths) would effectively become chiefs of their communities.<br />
<br />
There was art, and philosophy, and politics. Relations between different tribes, different nations, both benevolent and hostile. War, crime, exploration, wonders and treasures and adventure. Music, stories, architecture, history. Culture. So what is left? Perhaps a few stones, piled oddly, covered in vegetation.<br />
<br />
All else is buried, sunken in the ocean of endless thought and noise.<br />
<br />
==Scellor Castes==<br />
[[File:Scellor Castes.png|thumb|right|The various scellor castes.]]<br />
As established, there are six castes of modern scellor; six was actually a pretty significant number to the ancient scellor, as was three, as they had three moons and three suns (actually, they have four moons that are visible to their naked eye, but one of them is small and only visible when no suns are out, and they generally thought it was some special wandering star). All of them are heavily modified and mixed from the three races of pre-Undermind scellor, but I'm saving the talk on the scellor's general modification of themselves for another post to itself. All scellor contain the genetic instructions necessary to develop the traits of any caste; diet, training and treatment during childhood is what decides what an individual will become, usually with strong consideration of their existing genetic predispositions.<br />
<br />
'''Praal''', the "builder" caste, are small (to make navigating the innards of ships and buildings easier) but strong and solid. They have dense muscles, sturdier skeletons, and firmer skin than most other castes, and of course are thus heavier than their size would indicate. You've possibly noticed that all scellor tend to go barefoot, and have a tendency towards what might be referred to as "mega man legs", where their proportions seem to increase outward from the knees down. This is because scellor evolved in marshy swamps and coastal areas where the water (or dense undergrowth) was filled with little bitey things, so scellor essentially developed boots built into their feet. In Praal, who were assumed to all have telekinesis anyway, the overdevelopment of the forearms and hands was for similar purposes; they don't need them for fine manipulation, so instead they've traded dexterity for strength and protection. Thick gloves built into their hands, to re-use the metaphor. Four fingers have been merged into three thicker, stronger ones. They have "claws" where the skin at the tips of their fingers is particularly hard and comes to a blunt point; they aren't sharp, but do make it easier to jab into vulnerable areas. Praal are the second most populous caste, making up the majority in urban areas.<br />
<br />
Praal, like three other castes, have a "fat" orel that thickens out before tapering to its point. They are small and cute, but should also have a little sense of power to them; stocky is not quite the right word, but compact. A slight sense of contents under pressure. A bit of muscle definition. They have spikyish hair, sort of a clean but unkempt look, and usually shortish but not enough that it looks like they particularly care beyond practicality. Similarly, I don't draw female praal with defined eyelashes, the goal being to make them look a bit less delicate. Their faces are a little rounded.<br />
<br />
'''Niiar''', the warriors, are the caste closest to the old "hill" scellor race. Knowing that by galactic standards their species was not very agile, scellor on the cusp of their new era decided their fighters would go for more brutish power. Big guns, big armour, and lots of troops, that's the scellor strategy. Space marines, but more like bootleg knockoff space marines; mass production would be the order of the day. Thus, Niiar were designed mostly for size, strength and toughness, and to be able to carry big chunky war machines. They borrow a lot of elements from Praal, enjoying the same benefits to skin, muscle and skeleton, and have a similar structure to their arms and hands, though Niiar arms are longer in proportion to their bodies than other scellor. Niiar would be the most populous caste if one judged by how many are produced; being warriors, though, the rate of attrition puts them in third place.<br />
<br />
Niiar orels have a "scorpion tail" look, with a little crest flicking back over the tip. They're not only taller but a bit broader than other scellor, particularly in the shoulder; they look powerful, but in a somewhat crude way. Just a little bit of hulk. Spiky hair, like Praal, and usually much shorter. Their eyes are a little smaller in proportion to their face than other scellor, and their faces are longer and a bit more angular. Plenty of muscle all over.<br />
<br />
'''Orthan''', the "diplomats" or managers, are small and thin, scrawny even, and closely related to the ancient swamp scellor. Based on the assumption that no-one would need more intimidation by their species, the scellor decided their emissaries should present a more vulnerable face; Orthan are designed, therefore, to evoke sympathy and concern. Being small is also a big help in that it reduces their dietary needs; Orthan can go longer without appropriate food than other scellor can, and their lower weight makes it easier for them to handle high gravity. Overall, they have been tinkered with in such a fashion that they are actually very adaptable; though comparatively vulnerable to direct injury, they are more comfortable in extreme or alien environments than other scellor are. Still, they are the second rarest caste; orthan drones are seldom used for anything else than telepathic relays.<br />
<br />
Orthan are tiny, thin and cute. Their orels are slim and whip-like. They have soft-looking curly hair, usually a little long, and have big, big eyes, often with large, defined eyelashes.<br />
<br />
'''Ulkam''' have a somewhat nebulous "purpose", being divided into two main professions: science and transportation. They're relatively unmodified compared to the other castes, being a more direct port and upgrade of the ancient island scellor. In a way, they're the closest to an average from which the others deviate, and ulkam sentients are the most likely to forego the traditional roles of their caste. They do, however, have particularly sharp senses compared to other scellor, with a bit more room in the braincase for the processing power to deal with it, and they have little more delicacy in their hands.<br />
<br />
Ulkam are the most plain-looking scellor. They have slightly longer faces, and straight hair. What makes them as characters is what they do or what they know; they're a little less scrutable than the others.<br />
<br />
'''Orthe''', called the "doctors" by other species because that's what the ones they meet tend to do, would be more appropriately called "growers". They are the most populous caste, making up the vast legions of scellor who produce food, create and tend to biotechnology, and raise children. Whole continents of scellor worlds are given over to production of food, with a layer of orthe spread out over the whole thing; even in cities and on space craft, biotech life-supporting and life-easing systems need daily supervision and gardening to keep them in line. Orthe were designed, then, to be a bit more efficient than other scellor (excepting Orthan), needing less food and able to go for longer without it. Orthe can be thought of as the "default" caste; a scellor child who somehow grows in isolation will become one.<br />
<br />
Orthe, being life/biology-themed, are the "sexy" caste, in a breedery sort of way. The females are a bit softer and curvier, and the males are a little more romance-novel-cover-er. Like Orthan, they have soft, curly or wavey hair, which is usually pretty long.<br />
<br />
'''Ayaar''', finally, are the spies, saboteurs and secret police of the scellor. They are the rarest caste, as they are only made "on demand"; when a sentient psychic pattern inhabits an ovum and indicates that it wants to become one of them. They are scellor with all the optional extras, given the best features of each other caste so far as they can be pushed without interfering with each other. With the advantage of extra medical effort and expense put into their physical development, they're the most versatile of all the scellor castes; the most agile and dextrous, while still being decidedly hard-wearing, powerful and economical, with decent senses and keen brains. "Not the best at anything, but second best at everything."<br />
<br />
Ayaar are the most physically variable caste, and can blend traits in regards face structure, eyes, hair and build, so long as they don't go to the extremes of the other castes. They are usually around the same size, though, and should have an air of competence and, especially, danger. Ayaar are in some ways the "best" scellor, so of course I would usually use them to represent the worst of the scellor, bringing the lurking threat and alien nature of the species closer to the foreground when they're involved. Ayaar characters, then, would be usually drawn to look crueler, creepier or crazier than other scellor.<br />
<br />
==Scellor Biology==<br />
{{todo|Add in image.}}<br />
I am not a biologist, so if any real biologists are devastated by my ignorance, please point out anything that's super dumb. Pointers on how to make things make more sense would be appreciated!<br />
<br />
Any understanding of scellor biology must begin with the basis of all animal life on the scellor homeworld, kel spores. Are they a plant? A fungus? Their own funky thing? They can be almost anything. After eons of mutation and extinction cycles, any individual kel spore contains several species' worth of genetic code; somehow, mystifyingly, the spore can use trace elements of psykonium to sense its environment and select the code it needs to adapt and thrive. No one species of kel spore can turn into anything, but each species has a vastly diverse range. One single species - that found in the scellor themselves - is responsible for forms as tiny as the trichloroplasts that live inside other cells, up to specialized organ systems, to the heavy seed-like ovum, even on to the massive trees that grow from a dead scellor's body.<br />
<br />
Speaking of cells - scellor cells start off roughly similar to those of a terrestrial animal, if a bit larger. The main difference is the kel spore inside each one, which as mentioned usually takes the form of a trichloroplast, serving the same symbiotic function as terrestrial mitochondria (though not quite as well). Even now, however, the kel is ready to switch it up as conditions change. If exposed to high light levels, it will push out normal chloroplasts to begin photosynthesis; perhaps more interestingly, if it finds itself in an otherwise healthy cell that doesn't seem to be moving around, it will drift towards the cell membrane and begin building its cell some cellulose armour, as we see along the top of the attached image. If, after a long period, the cell remains where it is and is not stretched or deformed, it will find that it has developed a sturdy cell wall. The upside of this for the scellor is that soft tissues that don't move much - away from the joints, against the bones and cartilage and under the skin - stiffen and become an extra layer of protection against physical injury. The downside is that inactivity carries the risk of one's limbs seizing up. Thus, although many scellor are more than happy to maintain health and strength using medical treatments, they must pursue a strict regimen of flexing and stretching if they want to stay mobile. Maolla, in the bottom left, would rather this was not the case. But what can you do?<br />
<br />
As a symbiotic but independent organism, kel spores can survive the death of their host cell, upon which they will devour its remains and begin growing into their tree-like form. Fortunately for their greater host, a young and healthy scellor's immune system actively searches for and destroys any "wood" growing in their body. What about big injuries, though? In the bottom right of this picture we have an example of what happens. Poor torpedotits here, after receiving a terrible wound and losing her arm besides, is bleeding profusely and has a ragged mess of dead cells bordering her injuries, too thick to let her immune system reach in. Exposed to the air (assuming her native atmosphere), a sugary sap-like substance in her blood swiftly gums up the wound and prevents blood loss. Coincidentally, this (delicious) rubbery gunk provides a feast for the kel to begin growing, consuming the dead flesh around her wounds but prevented from growing too far into her living tissue by her immune system. Over time, it will be pushed back as fresh cells pour in to replace those lost, and her wounds will eventually heal. Mostly. Scellor can develop scar tissue just as terrestrial animals can, save that theirs is consumed from within and develops into something very similar to wood. Thus, battle-worn scellor will appear to have patches of bark across their skin; particularly large scars may even put forth leaves or flowers.<br />
<br />
Scellor blood is a very dark brown (resulting in a variety of unimaginative epithets), ranging in precise shade depending on the individual's lineage, age and health; scellor entering old age have blood tinted more towards green, while young scellor or those engaged in a lot of physical training will be more reddish. A variety of other pigments, which normally express themselves through eyes, hair and flowers (if any), may tint the shade towards other colours. Generally, however, the casual observer under normal lighting will assume that their blood is black, and a scellor with flushed skin will merely show a darker shade of their normal skin tone. Many scellor would prefer if their blood was actually black, and individuals who demonstrate particularly dark blood through the shade of their lips or eyes are often considered especially attractive.<br />
<br />
===Senses===<br />
Along with a couple of other things. Once again if anything I say is monumentally stupid, tell me about it.<br />
<br />
As previously discussed on Xeno Theatre, scellor evolved on a world close to the galactic core, which was thus endowed with a particularly dense sky. A pair of binary stars orbiting a massive supergiant effectively provided them with three suns, making night and day erratic affairs; even when all three were on one side, the night sky on the planet's dark face was filled with stars and nebulae much larger and brighter than on earth. Early lifeforms were so swiftly dependent on light to find their way around that bio-luminescence became extremely common in organisms that had otherwise adapted for dark environs such as forest floors or deep seas. What this means for scellor is that they have poor night vision, their eyes suited to a light level somewhat higher than the galactic average; a human in a scellor ship or lit building would probably consider it uncomfortably bright. And, because scellor are adapted for environments with limited visibility - forests, swamps, hills, under murky water - they are also slightly more short-sighted than humans, though this difference has been minimized since modern scellor "tuned up" their bodes with genetic modification. The upside of this otherwise poor vision is that scellor are significantly better at seeing colours than humans are, able to identify smaller differences and perceive some additional colours.<br />
<br />
Scellor hearing, on the other hand, is worse in almost all ways than human hearing; it has a slight advantage underwater and is otherwise pretty terrible. They are compensated somewhat by being entirely better with another, more subtle sense, their proprioception - the sense of where their body parts are in relation to each other. This gives them an advantage when moving in three dimensions: their ancestors enjoyed this underwater or in the treetops, while modern scellor find it helpful in the absence of gravity. Combined with the use of their tail and other additional appendages, an average scellor has a better sense of balance than a normal human does.<br />
<br />
Scellor have a very rudimentary set of scent receptors in their ears; if those pick up anything that hints at being interesting, they'll take a breath through their mouth, where their secondary tongues will take a much more delicate sample. The primary tongue in the center, larger and longer than the other two, functions much like what humans would consider a "normal" tongue with normal tastebuds, while the secondary tongues to either side are thinner, more delicate, and covered in softer, feathery receptors that pick up more complicated scent and taste. Thus, for scellor, holding one's mouth open to breathe is an indicator of alertness and tension.<br />
<br />
Since we're in the area, I'll also talk about scellor teeth. Like certain earth animals such as rabbits, scellor teeth continue growing throughout their lives, albeit very slowly once adulthood has been reached. Their front teeth are terribly sharp: however, their hardness and thin edge make them very brittle, necessitating the ability to retract their teeth in order to protect them from casual damage. This also allowed the use of a length of firm tissue behind their gums to actually sharpen their front teeth every time they come out, so once again, they are very sharp; some ancient scellor harvested these teeth from their dead for use in tools and weapons. They have slightly blunter teeth towards the back of their mouths, but scellor do not really chew like humans do; these back teeth are for cracking shells or briefly biting into large chunks of food to see if anything dangerous or especially tasty is concealed within. The real work of grinding the food down is taken care of by the gizzard, which has its own chitinous "teeth", like some terrestrial insects do.<br />
<br />
All physical scellor senses are constantly being checked and cross-referenced with their psychic senses; on their homeworld, all living things produced a considerable psychic field, with animate organisms producing even stronger ones. Scellor bodies developed this checking system as a counter to camouflage, allowing them to tell whether that erratic boulder was actually made of rock or was in fact an example of the rare four-clawed granite grabber; or whether their mouthful of fruit contained any venomous wasp larvae. The downside of this for modern scellor is that they have a hard time identifying dangerous creatures that don't have any psychic presence (killer robots, for example), since a part of their mind has already disregarded it as an unimportant background element. Sources of extreme heat are an exception to this, provoking a strong fear response of the sort that develops when your planet has lots of volcanoes and you catch on fire easily.<br />
<br />
==Scellor Romance==<br />
Once again I hear your cry, "but Jukashi! I thought scellor didn't have romance!". Once again, you are an attentive and keen-minded examiner in xenostudies. And the truth is, you're right! They don't. But, as with culture, they used to have something... sort of similar. Close enough that a human could confuse it for the same thing. Listen now, and I'll tell you how things used to be, and how this ancient feature of scellor minds turned from a helpful social force to a dangerous mental illness.<br />
<br />
To start us off, we have to understand a few essential differences in the scellor mindset. The scellor homeworld is incredibly fecund - it's borne life for a long time, life which has been prone to very rapid mutation, and the result is that practically every corner of the place is crammed full of thriving lifeforms, thus providing more food than anyone needs. For most of their history, the scellor as a species also had no need for metals or other rare supplies (or at least, had not discovered a need), so ultimately, scellor groups only had only one environmental resource to really fight over: places of safety. Competition between individuals - for the best food, furs, etc. - was relatively unheard of, compared to humans, at least. This is part of what created the scellor's natural tendency towards "leadership by profession" (as mentioned in the last post), which in turn created a situation where competent, capable individuals were a valuable resource in themselves. When two scellor groups fought over land, they tended not to fight to the death; they would fight until one side was clearly going to be the victor, upon which the best of the losers would be taken into the victor's group to replace their losses. In some cultures this was slavery, in some a sort of timed servitude arrangement, some even just wholesale adoption, but the overall theme was the preference for capture rather than killing. Scellor, even at this point in their development, were almost never really inclined to do each other any serious harm; anger, hate or fear between scellor just doesn't inspire violence, the actual need to eliminate a threat, as it does between humans. The only scellor emotions that cause that sort of thing are either the dispassionate "needs must" of niiar mood, or a very extreme type of disgust or contempt that is relatively rare.<br />
<br />
The reason I explain all this is to provide the reason why scellor have a function which builds relationships quickly and strongly; the wholesale transplant of individuals into a new group was quite common. This is where we get back into our space magic, because the psychic powers are coming in. Two scellor who felt the same emotion towards each other - even if it was mild, and regardless of what type of emotion it was - would, if they stayed close to each other for long enough, start to feed their emotions back into each other. If for example they admired each other, the admiration of one would be telepathically felt by the other, feeding into their own admiration, which would feed into the first one again, raising theirs again, and back and again and so on, until the two would be experiencing an invigorating emotional high every time they came near each other. This bond would allow easier telepathic communication and encourage intimacy and learning about each other: co-labourers would work better together, rivals drive each other to new heights, males be persuaded to stick around with pregnant mates, and so on. And, because at this stage scellor only had so much psychic power available to them, there was a built-in cap preventing things from escalating too far. If the emotions involved in a bond were affection and physical interest, then the relationship would become something that a human could easily identify as romantic.<br />
<br />
With the Undermind in play, however, the whole thing went tits up. All scellor now receive a constant influx of emotion and psychic energy from the Undermind; thus, when this some bond begins to form in modern scellor, it escalates without any natural cap to put a stop to it; not only that, but any number of random, chaotic feelings and thoughts from the Undermind are prone to get pulled into the loop. The individuals involved will become dangerously obsessive, addicted to the intense emotions of the link; in time they'll begin experiencing mood swings, then go insane, and eventually suffer brain damage and, finally, death. Fortunately, the increased psychic link between all scellor allows other individuals to drag the participants out of their feedback loop, at least in the early stage. It's only when a pair are isolated together for long periods that danger looms, and this is, understandably, rare.<br />
<br />
So: scellor sort of have something that looks like romance? But they wouldn't think of it as such, and in modern scellor it's a ticket to crazy town. Most scellor would not be aware that it's anything more than an unfortunate glitch in how their minds work.<br />
<br />
Modern scellor do experience a phenomenon whereby multiple psychic patterns develop a tendency to pull back towards each other in successive reincarnations, but it is also rare, and its human equivalent would be more like a sibling relationship.<br />
<br />
==Fanon==<br />
'''Free Will Collective'''<br />
<br />
The Free Will Collective is a political movement that has existed in scellor society for quite some time. Formed in reaction to the early government's consolidation into a single power, they believe that the government is corrupt and obstructive, seeking to dismantle it and replace it with their own ideology of Free Will.<br />
<br />
When most species think of the term "free will", they think of the individual's right to make decisions and choose their own path in life. The Collective's meaning of Free Will, however, is something very different; it refers not to the will of the individual, but the will of the undermind. The Free Will Collective believes that the undermind represents the most complete, harmonious, and unbiased expression of the scellor race's needs, thoughts, and desires; as such, the scellor will be best off when they serve the undermind directly, without the wishes of any individual getting in the way. According to their members, the government - any government - is inherently obstructive, distorting the undermind's will through the mind of limited, biased individuals, forcing the scellor to obey their authority and distancing them from what is truly best.<br />
<br />
Of course, as any scellor knows, the undermind is far from harmonious, united, and unbiased. Free Will believers reply that serving individual rulers will lead to the same problems, but worse.<br />
<br />
As with any political party, members of the Free Will Collective vary widely in their beliefs, even in the context of their ideology. Some believe that Free Will sounds nice, but the government's doing a decent enough job as it is, and it's best not to do anything drastic. Others commit acts of terrorism and sabotage against government workers and facilities. Some want to go as far as forcibly converting all sentients (or, as they call them, "deviants") back to drone status, thinking this will calm the chaos of the undermind and make the scellor race into a truly unified whole.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Kel Haunts'''<br />
<br />
To the scellor, death is inconvenient but not tragic. For most of them, dying means returning to the Undermind, leaving some of their memories and skills behind, and starting a new life in another body, while their old body is recycled by the Orthe into useful organic machines. Some, however, cannot abide by this.<br />
<br />
At times, a particularly willful scellor will become so attached to his current state of existence that he refuses to pass on even as his body begins to fail. Usually motivated by some sense of purpose too strong to ignore, he will use his psychic abilities to remain behind, subtly warping his body so that he may continue to inhabit it even if he can do nothing else. This is seen as a sad state to exist in, both because it is mentally and emotionally painful for the short time it lasts, and because the interference makes their bodies hard to work with. Some Orthe, however, have managed to put these souls to good use.<br />
<br />
Officially named Psychoactive Echo Technology (Echotech for short) and nicknamed Kel Haunts, these machines are designed to work with, rather than against, the lingering scellor mind. The result is a stable organic machine which can live without its inhabitant's focus, instead letting his psychic powers serve as the device's function. Echotech comes in a wide variety of forms and functions, from a gun that shoots powerful bolts of psychic fire, to a vending machine that can heal the injuries of those who sample its drinks, to a satellite orbiting a dead planet which shows millennia-old images of when its inhabitants were still active. However, most of them have some features in common.<br />
<br />
First, they tend to be bulky. The presence of a semi-functional scellor brain and the organs needed to sustain it means that the device must be larger than normal. This is generally only noticeable for portable equipment, though.<br />
<br />
Second, they require a sentient scellor to operate them. Kel haunts are focused beyond reason on their own personal missions; letting such a mind run autonomously would risk disaster, and a drone would merely serve as a new body for the haunt to operate itself with. Even a strong-willed sentient can easily fall under the influence of the haunt's powerful emotions, which will in any case affect how the device functions. A weapon might impart its hate of humans onto its wielder, while a medical device could mutate its patients to match its own unique sense of aesthetics. While inconvenient, this same focus is capable of extreme power; combined with their specialized designs, kel haunts can peform feats of psychic might that are all but unthinkable for a "living" scellor.<br />
<br />
Third, they tend to require a startup period. Echotech is generally designed to hibernate when not actively in use, although there are some devices which operate continuously. Properly designed echotech can live for thousands of years and reach legendary status in people's minds, as lost artifacts of incredible power, or as magical forces "haunting" a local area.<br />
<br />
For obvious reasons, echotech is a controversial subject among the scellor. Some believe that creating it is horrifyingly cruel and that kel haunts should be mercy-killed for the sake of their own mental health. Others say that creating it is doing a favor for the kel haunts, allowing them to fulfill their self-ordained purpose when it would otherwise be impossible. Former haunts are generally grateful that it happened to them, but at the same time relieved that it's over; if there is any psychological damage, it appears that it doesn't last after rebirth. Both sides of the argument use this fact to support their cause.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Keybit'''<br />
<br />
In spite of the scellor having exceptionally dextrous mouths, due to their retractable teeth and multiple prehensile tongues, the scellor tend not to use them very much. Since they breathe through their ears, and speak with their mental powers, the typical scellor will mostly use his mouth for eating or for manipulating certain sensetive equipment. Some enterprising engineers have seen this as an opportunity to grant the scellor a bit of extra convenience in their day-to-day lives. The result is an accessory known as the keybit.<br />
<br />
Usually taking the form of a bar worn between the gums and held in place by flexible straps, the keybit is a miniature computer which can be used hands-free. Beneath each of the wearer's teeth rests a button which he can press by extending that tooth; meanwhile, the inner surface holds touchscreens, wheels, more buttons, and other controls which he can manipulate with his three tongues; in this way, the keybit can replicate nearly all the functionality of a standard control console in a readily available, easy-to-carry package.<br />
<br />
The "standard" model of keybit is a fully functional, self-contained personal computer consisting of the standard bar mouthpiece, an elaborate series of straps, and an eyepatch which serves as the computer's screen; audio output is provided by vibrating the wearer's skull, leaving the breathing tubes free. Several variations exist, such as a ball-shaped mouthpiece; a partial mask which covers the wearer's mouth, hiding the mouthpiece to minimize embarrassment; an eyepiece which rests to the side of the user's head, allowing use of both eyes but forcing him to twist his eyes to use the device; a fully internal model which can be held in the mouth invisibly; a model which provides output telepathically (generally considered a waste of good psykonium); and many more. In addition, keybits exist that, rather than containing an internal computer, serve as input for another device, such as an arm-mounted firearm or a vehicle.<br />
<br />
The use of a keybit is far from intuitive and takes a lot of practice, due in no small part to the fact that the user can't see the controls he's operating (some critics claim that the keybit would only be useful to someone capable of ESP, which fortunately includes much of its target audience); however, a practiced user can find it extremely convenient to have a device always available for use while leaving his hands free for other things. They are particularly popular among praal, who often find them easier to use than machines which would require their clumsy hands to operate. Overall, however, keybits are not very popular, considered more of an exotic toy, fashion statement, or "weird kinky thing" than something meant for practical use; most scellor are content with using standard consoles and handhelds rather than learning to use a keybit's arcane and limited controls.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Church of the Green Star'''<br />
<br />
Once upon a time, all scellor were of one mind, and this one mind was of all scellor. Thoughts and feelings flowed freely between them, and every scellor worked for the good of all, without knowing loneliness, hatred or ignorance. Then one day, something happened; perhaps a reality-warping catastrophe, or merely a stray thought, but the end result was Chaos. Its many ideas forgot that they were of the same whole; its appendages looked upon each other and saw friend, rivals or enemies; it began to love itself, hate itself, compete with itself, lust after itself; the One Mind had shattered into a multitude of small, ignorant, petty, selfish, greedy beings.<br />
<br />
Such is history as told by followers of the Green Star. Several of its members can confirm this, having memories which predate the Shattering. Many non-members claim that this cannot be true, as they were alive since the scellor's earliest times and know of no such event, but of course no one's memory is very reliable after too many incarnations.<br />
<br />
The core tenent of the Church is that the minds of all scellor are in fact different parts of the same mind, and that they are ignorant of this fact because of what they call "Chaos", emotional influence that distances them from each other by distorting their perspective and driving them to irrational, selfish actions. Their goal is to increase harmony and contentment among the scellor in hopes that their psychic patters will eventually reunite and once more become a single, brilliant Green Star, shining with enlightenment in the psychic realm.<br />
<br />
Nonbelievers often ask them "If you want us be united, why aren't you a drone?" The typical answer is that drones are not properly functioning minds (probably due to Chaos) and do not represent how the scellor would behave as the Green Star.<br />
<br />
The church is divided into many sub-factions. The Primevalists, for example, believe that not just the scellor, but all sentient beings are parts of the mind of a single universal omnipotent being; they cite as evidence the fact that the scellor can access the minds of other species (which should not be possible if telepathy was unique to them) and exert limited control over matter and energy with their minds. Primevalism enjoys a measure popularity among other species, some of whom are inspired to undergo the operation to join the Undermind so they can be "closer to God".<br />
<br />
The Purists have a more mundane worldview, believing that the scellor were simply a species whose brains were united telepathically into a single mind, until it encountered other species began to share their thoughts and ideas (by bringing their minds into itself, or simply through mental or social contact) which caused "glitches" in the mind's processes, eventually leading to its current divided state. Members of this belief system tend to be hostile towards scellor whose patterns were of another species in a past life; in practice, this usually amounts to "people who act in ways I don't like", since they have no real way of telling the difference.<br />
<br />
Obviously, there is considerable overlap between this group and the Free Will Collective; however, their philosophies are not the same, and many members of either group will be quite eager to explain the difference to anyone who confuses them with each other. For example, many believers in the Green Sun support the government hierarchy, believing it an excellent tool to guide the scellor away from chaos and ignorance; while it would be unnecessary to a whole Green Star, the Undermind obviously isn't there yet.<br />
<br />
{{todo|Put in a lot of the stuff posted in ITQ from the scellor}}<br />
<br />
{{-}}<br />
<br />
==Quest appearances==<br />
<br />
<br />
===[[Will of the Undermind]]===<br />
===[[Battle Quest]]===<br />
<br />
{{Races}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Races]]</div>Squeegy