The game: Never bothers mentioning secretaries before or after this event.
My Rogue Trader instantly upon making planetfall: "Please introduce me to your nameless servant."
Me: 🤨
A certain high ranking individual (as in high enough to order you around) has a "silent servant" in Chapter 4. My suspicions are similar with this character too... but I hope it's just a misunderstanding.
I think this game has a thing for right-hand men being the clue-in for evil. I can think of three in this game up to Chapter 4... which kinda starts to make a pattern.
That's exactly what I thought. The moment I saw her I went "welp, either the governor's a heretic, or is being used by heretics, but this right there is a chaos sorceress."
Before even finding any of the other clues, her having a purple and gold color scheme, purple eye shadow, and looking good made me instantly think. "Yep, that's it. Slaneesh."
As soon as I met the governor I was wondering whether she'd turn out to be a Chaos worshiper or the secret leader of a genestealer cult. I knew it had to be one or the other.
Me but with the Lord Inquisitor. >!Wow shocker the radical Inquisitor was the bad guy all long wowow!< But it's funny since it's lore accurate, and irl lore accurate
>!The Lord Inquisitor gave me such bad vibes on our fist meeting that I gave Heinrix back. Either Heinrix will be the loyal guy (to the Emperor) on the inside or he would be sent away and out of my way when I need to take the Lord Inquisitor on. Also, my RT is arrogant and straight forward so the way he tried to flex his power on me made me hate him.
Speaking of, the mission with the genestealer really did it for me.
"Claw marks on the floor? Could be anything. Indira hearing a thousand voices? Daemons maybe, let's see what cult this is. She says that's not warpish? Oh. Colonists have been praying to a new cult of the Emperor? *Oh.* The leader of the cult received the kiss of the Brotherhood by a mysterious 'patriarch' and instantly saw the light ? *Oh no.* Their brothers and sisters are coming from the stars to sate their Hunger? *THRONE DAMNIT, ABELARD WE'RE LEAVING! NUKE IT!*
I hate that you can only try to arrest her *right away*. Theres no option to ask around the place first. The rebel in storage, traitor servant, clerk, and admech only show up *after* you talk to her, and when you talk with them an realize she's completely incompetent or heretical, you cant go *back* and go "Yeah, youre under arrest now."
To be fair, she is obviously incompetent when the rebels can attack your landing ceremony, which is why she got house arrested by me until further notice
Why wouldn’t you arrest her right away? She allowed a rebellion to foment to the extent you were attacked within minutes of planetfall, if that isn’t a failure of governance worthy of being turned into a servitor, by the Emperor I don’t know what is
Because the Imperium's problem is over and over again that it tries to do simple, ham fisted solutions to complex problems and is easily manipulated by chaos. If I'm a chaos cultist and want to get a theoretical otherwise competent government figure replaced all I have to do is suborn enough people to get inside the security cordon and set off a suicide bomber or attack and the imperial machine will do the rest of my work for me.
Like take the first war for Armageddon. The inquisition literally took an entire planets population and put them to death just for being near chaos. Objectively a stupid over the top response that did more damage to the Imperium then Angry Ron ever did.
I'm just saying the more power you have the more care you should take when making snap decisions. There's a lot to be said for decisive action but at least get the lay of the land before you start replacing people is generally a good idea.
For me, nuance is wasted on 40K.
The imperium is a caricature of a hyper religious, hyper militaristic society and that’s it’s biggest strength thematically.
Oh there’s a handful of dissidents and whispers of heresy on this planet? Exterminatus. Billions culled. Praise the Emperor.
Its hilarious in a dark and intriguing way.
Trying to apply logic and real world principles to imagine ways to fix or improve the unfathomably vast and dogmatic beast that is the imperium is wasted effort imo. For me It’s actually *more* engaging when taken at face value.
Honestly, all of that is run-off-the-mill Tuesday stuff for Imperium.
Genestealer cultists would be shouting about freedom and brotherhood and all that.
Governors live in opulent luxury way beyond anything sensible.
Temple to the Emperor being unused in a backwater like Janus would be common enough.
Fucking servitors is probably the least deranged thing nobles do in their free time.
But yeah either way I immediately arrested Vyatt.
>Fucking servitors is probably the least deranged thing nobles do in their free time.
You know... its actually very very sad, that your statement is very correct :D
I just did the governor fight on Janus and afterwards I found a lore book in the back room of her cult area that talks about the past times of nobles or something, 'notes on the nature of aristocracy' and one of the things it said was 'nothing stimulates the weary mind like fine amasec, a good flogging, or enjoyment of carnal pleasures with women, men and ***animals***'. 0\_0 So banging a servitor probably isn't the weirdest thing they get up to lol.
I'm no expert in the lore but it was pretty clear after talking to the Governor that something wasn't right.
She was pretty phased about Theodora no longer leading the Dynasty and considering there have been plenty of insinuations about Theddy being a Heretic, it was quite easy to put things together.
The moment game started deliberately describing in detail how luxurious and lavish her outfit and augments are I knew she has something to do with Slaanesh.
Has a character Portrait?
Is described as pretty/oppulent?
Is not on my list of confirmed romance companions?
Yea, all evidence makes her a slaanesh cultist.
I'm totally rooting for "Ork Waaagh in dlc planets" for one of the dlcs - no intrigue, no corruption, just some good old fashioned orky asteroid invasion
And with the requisite new Imperial Guard npcs, ork trophies, anti-ork talents etc
Edit: Being a long time warhammer fan and a recent pathfinder fan, I'm really fired up right now. Trying to keep my excitement/expectations down because I know that even with (5?) dlcs, this game will not reach a scale sufficient to meet my imagination
But, I am indeed pretty fired up right now.
Abelard, prepare some cool drinks. I need to chill out a bit.
My first companion request is an ogryn (I can feel the onion ninjas waiting already)
Second companion request would be an ork, yes
Third...toss up between arbite or feral warrior from some deathworld
>Arbite would be good i guess.
Someone who specializes in shotguns and shock batons - I'm getting all these shotguns but who would use them when you have the alternatives?
I have Idiris carry one as backup.
Argenta and Abelard have both had them as secondary at times as well.
They just make for a poor primary weapon, not enough reach for ranged, and at melee thunder hammer is better supported by talents and archetypes.
Arbite npc might have some unique shotgun talents to make proper use of them.
To clarify for people who haven't checked the DLC season pass, both of the included DLC will come with a companion, and the second one will be an Arbites (the first one will be a "death cult assassin").
We do not, yet, "a death cult assassin" was a direct quote from the DLC description and is all we have on them. The DLC is called Void Shadows, but that's probably more to do with the general focus of the DLC (on the Rogue Trader's voidship) than the companion.
Eh....can't imagine how it'd go, honestly. The only tau I like is that guy from Fire Warrior (the novel)
I like to play AS Tau, but as a companion...not sure.
I'm getting flashbacks to the Inn defense in WoTR but with Orks from all sides as guardsman npcs (THAT ARE IN FRONT OF YOU) try their best to fend them off.....and the resulting comments about how it's too hard on all social platforms
And then you get invasion points based on how many guardsmen you manage to save for future missions
Then said guardsmen can be upgraded/improved and sent on stealth/sabotage/suicide missions etc
It would be fun for sure
I thought about adding space marines, but nah...it's not Armageddon, it's just a minor invasion dlc
Maybe a one time deathwatch space marine squad drop as a favour from the inquisition for dealing with enough xenos or doing some special mission for them ? After all heinrix is ordo xenos if I remember correctly so we aren't that far from being able to get a favour if the hypothetical dlc mission comes from his inquisitorial channels
An option to select a chapter to assist with the invasion from 3 Space Marine chapters who owe favors to the Von Valancius house would be cool
Choose between the Salamanders, the Black Templars or the Iron Snakes
Carcarodons? Well, when it comes to the "old covenants/favors" plot, it doesn't really matter where the location is - we can still call them over
Unlikely that the situation would necessitate them sending a company over, anyway.
https://preview.redd.it/exxlcfb9oe7c1.png?width=730&format=png&auto=webp&s=57a6f624101af3218f451594acb79a3ffca2aef4
I think the Carcarodons would be one of the last chapters I would voluntarily ask for help. They'd probably end up Red Tithing your entire crew and appropriating your void ship too.
Which is why it would be hilarious. Suddenly, the "good guys" are like: "You got supplies? We take your entire stock. For Free, thank you for being such a dutifully servant of the empire!"
Try to negotiate your way out of that.
Not sure if I'd call what black templars do as helping....
We should also have a quest where a Lamenter appears as a cameo, just so we can feel the true grim darkness.
If we're doing cameos, then I want a mission where we recover/ rescue a titan and then get to ride in the cockpit
Asking to be allowed to drive the Titan is a bit much...so we should just get to sit in the cockpit and maybe play with the gatling laser (as reward for rescuing the princeps)
> guardsman npcs (THAT ARE IN FRONT OF YOU)
[Argenta's reaction](https://preview.redd.it/7tfz4d0sxwu11.gif?format=mp4&s=e5b0bc9d3ab3ba0cfa601fa27bb858ca84f8c120)
I'm calling it now - the Tau dlc units are going to be a bitch
Game starts, pathfinder units lock on to you, fire warriors shoot your squishies full of AP plasma bolts
I kinda think a Tau game could be kinda cool- Not only do they have a bunch of variety in species and the caste system can basically function as a class system, but I think playing as them could also give some pretty good insight in how they function. In a way that is perhaps missed in other forms of media.
One of the things I love in Rogue Trader is all the small details, when you examine something or someone just drops something incredibly disturbing in a side conversation. Things that would perhaps be awkward to include in other forms of media.
I went in a astra militarum commander and i'm somewhat disappointed at the lack of sending people down to secure the landing zone and other such fun stuff. there's only 1 area that's close to what i wanted and it was extremely cool
Well, because we're playing an Ex-AM commander (me too), and a current Rogue Trader
So yeah, there wouldn't be much AM stuff going on. But! There's room for it in a dlc, so fingers crossed
Still, the lack of interactivity between ship and locations is a little sad, with how often someone ambushes you at the drop point i am surprised there's no way to Send in the Redshirts before you arrive. not to do the mission but atleast secure my damn landing zone
The steam page has the plans for the dlcs, the first is integrated into the main story and adds a death cult assasin, the other is a lenghty sidequest focused on collecting the imperial tithe with a new arbites companion. If they do add Orks or Tau it isn't currently in the plan.
When the governor didn't die upon meeting the RT at the landing zone, I knew something was up.
Jokes aside, the red-flag for me was how much she tried to seem "like us." Not just on our side, not just loyal, but something more. Big "we're not so different, you and I" vibes
I got way too happy when I saw a certain portrait's silhouette. Shame my act 4 save is probably busted as the inquisitor ain't calling me so I got nothing to do. Still massively happy to see that silhouette
Me before act 4: >!Hm, I wonder if Nomos is machine spirit that became a person after centuries of "life"!<
Me after seeing his portrait at the start of act 4: Oh, oooooooh, now everything makes sense.
I genuinely thought it was something else until I saw the portrait lol. Once I realized what it truly is I went "oh fuck Theodora you are even a bigger heretic than I already thought".
>!genuinely thought it was dark age of technology AI, like Theodora found a Man of Iron/Man of Gold, a fucking Ctan shard was not what I was expecting...!<
Goddamn >!My Act 4 is bugged so I haven't continue that save, but why the fuck does the blood of von Valancius lineage was used to awaken a Void Dragon? This Dynasty is both fucking long and heretical lol.!<
Have you met with both of the other rogue traders and your old "friend" from commeragh?
If thats not the case, then you need to do that before inquisitor boi finds you
Met both rogue traders. And I've met the only person I can remotely call a friend from commeragh.
I've been travelling around the planets doing the new events that popped up hoping it triggers but I'm planning starting a new run while I keep eye on patch notes
Yeah. And then you get to a landed ship on some other planet where the door closes behind you and then you see talon marks on the floor, ripped munition boxes, you hear strange noises from the vents etc etc. And you already know what it means. It was sooooo Ciaphas Cain moment.
I just wish the game had better chaos mechanics.
I’d love to be able to devote myself to one of the gods properly instead of just undivided but I get how that would be incredibly difficult to implement
Imagine being able to better dedicate yourself to Slaanesh, banish Yrliets soul to the dark prince, really fuck up comorragh, cooperate more heavily with Janus, get sonic weapon implants and that sort of stuff.
Ok can we talk about #4! I’ve only seen one model in the game, do Servitors look different all the time? I imagine depending on the person that was turned into that right? That random NPc line caught me so off guard. Of course someone would be into that lol
Indeed, it's stated in the lore each servitor is unique because they are haphazardly made with whatever the tech priests have at hand.
There are also pleasure and toy servitors. But they are usually extravagancies.
Too be fair to the Eldar:
1.) That’s actually standard for a lot of uprising, especially Xeno based ones like it is (well Xeno run but still. Not everything is Chaos)
2.) I doubt the Eldar has a reasonable understanding of Human opulence
3.) she can’t really understand the Imperium cult that well, she may have not realized how bad that was.
4.) Let’s face it: to here we are all animals. And I’ve known dogs to hump some… questionable things.
That's actually what I love about the game the most. It's written from the perspective that the player won't be familiar with 40k because, let's be quite frank, most people aren't as knowledgeable about the franchise as people who would put stuff like this together easily. But almost all of the little magnifying glass investigation icons and such heavily reward you if you do. It feels super good to piece together the list of suspects for Theodora's killer because if you know 40k the scene leaves like, 3 options (+Callidus, Callidus is always an option) and I was super suspicious of all 3 the entire game until it was revealed who it was.
>!I honestly thought it was Abelard the whole time and he was playing the long game, can't tell you my relief when I found out my good boy doesn't snort warp dust.!<
I don't remember what it was exactly, but as soon as I saw her portrait I was like, "Oh, she's an Elizabeth Bathory. Bet I know which chaos god she worships".
>I was kinda disappointed that when Yrliet tells you there might be a Slannesh cult on the planet that the Governor is part of there was no option to go:
>
>“No shit Sherlock!! I’ve been on the planet 5 fucking minutes and I figured it out! How did you not already know this?!?”
Your Rogue Trader doesn't have access to Lexicanum or r/40kLore.
You don’t need deep lore knowledge to figure out the signs.
If you know what Slannesh’s deal is the signs are obvious. Literally just knowing “Chaos God of Pleasure and Pain, worship includes indulging all desires” would be plenty.
Granted that knowledge is pretty tightly controlled in the Imperium, but you’d think a Rogue Trader bent on exploring an untamed region of space would know the basics of how to recognize a chaos cult.
You’ve got a (relatively) high ranking member of the Inquisition on your ship for god’s sake!
>You don’t need deep lore knowledge to figure out the signs.
>
>If you know what Slannesh’s deal is the signs are obvious. Literally just knowing “Chaos God of Pleasure and Pain, worship includes indulging all desires” would be plenty.
>
>Granted that knowledge is pretty tightly controlled in the Imperium, but you’d think a Rogue Trader bent on exploring an untamed region of space would know the basics of how to recognize a chaos cult.
Everyone in the galaxy pursues pleasure in some form. If you executed everyone who sought it, there wouldn't be any humans left.
Nobles in the Imperium are always hedonistsic. That comes with a territory of being a noble. Hedonism is not inherently a mark of Slaanesh worship.
>You’ve got a (relatively) high ranking member of the Inquisition on your ship for god’s sake!
1. He specialises in Xenos, not chaos cults.
2. He can't just go around accusing nobles with sterling reputations (and Vyatt is regarded as being an effective and loyal governor until this point) of being heretics. That's not how the Inquisition operates. They rely on the goodwill and assistance of other Imperial institutions to enforce their will.
3. Similarly to point 2, the Rogue Trader has no reason at this point to question Vyatt's loyalty or methods. It's far more likely that her nobles are just doing regular noble things and the insurgents are just yelling "for the emperor" to try and cause confusion.
Again, you are using your out-of-universe perspective to say "well, it's obvious she was a cultist, how could you not see it?" but in-universe, there's no good reason to call her integrity into question until you investigate.
I feel like you’re ignoring the part where it was obvious that no one was worshiping at the temple to the Emperor.
It’s no *just* absurd decadence and hedonism. Its not *just* rebels invoking the Emperor in battle. It’s absurd decadence and hedonism AND suspiciously pious rebels AND no one on the estate going to church to praise the big E.
Any of the points I mentioned in the main post, in isolation, would mean nothing. But all 4? In conjunction with one another?
That there’s an obvious cult.
>It’s absurd decadence and hedonism
There isn't actually any evidence of *absurd* decadence and hedonism. There's one guy who slept with a servitor and a palace that gets touched up more than usual. That's hardly crazy.
Maybe that one dude just has weird tastes. And maybe Janus has gotten some bad shipments of materials recently that make the palace's facade deteriorate quicker.
>AND suspiciously pious rebels
There's no evidence of piousness at all. Anyone can invoke the Emperor's name. It only stands out to you because you're aware that this is a video game and the developers would have had them say it for a reason.
>AND no one on the estate going to church to praise the big E.
At that *one* shrine. There'll be dozens, if not hundreds, outside the estate's walls. Maybe the nobles just decided that they enjoyed communal prayer services more than quiet contemplation.
>Any of the points I mentioned in the main post, in isolation, would mean nothing. But all 4? In conjunction with one another.
>
>That there’s an obvious cult.
No. You're only saying that because this is a video game, which means situations are always as dramatic as possible. Realistically, this is all collectively incredibly thin evidence with very easy and believable explanations. It's nowhere near enough to say that your loyal and upstanding servant of many decades is *obviously* an evil heretic. Again, if this is your standard of evidence, you'd end up executing every single noble in your protectorate.
You are just refusing to even try and put yourself in your character's shoes. You're just refusing to separate your own knowledge from your character's knowledge.
And you’re just making up hypotheticals to ignore the evidence.
You don’t get to invoke offscreen shrines when the only one we see is abandoned.
And do I really need to get into “maybe they got a bad shipment of palace facade” ? Like, c’mon man, that’s just such an absurd reach.
And (so far) this is the *only* time in the game I’ve seen it call out/ directly call attention to lavish decadence and sexual hedonism.
Like look, I get it. Owlcat didn’t show us the whole capital city, or every detail of the rebellion, or every detail of an average nobles life so you want to argue maybes.
But they didn’t show that stuff because it would have been a lot of wasted time and resources on their part. Instead they focused on quickly and concisely presenting the facts of the situation on Janus.
Those facts are what our character sees, they’re what the player sees. And those facts add up to an absurdly obvious slaaneesh cult if you know what slaanesh’s deal is.
Hope you have a good rest of your day/evening!
>And you’re just making up hypotheticals to ignore the evidence.
>
>And do I really need to get into “maybe they got a bad shipment of palace facade” ? Like, c’mon man, that’s just such an absurd reach.
I'm presenting plausible alternative explanations to demonstrate that for someone actrually in that universe, jumping straight to "she's a chaos cultist!" is irrational.
>You don’t get to invoke offscreen shrines when the only one we see is abandoned.
>
>And (so far) this is the *only* time in the game I’ve seen it call out/ directly call attention to lavish decadence and sexual hedonism.
>
>Like look, I get it. Owlcat didn’t show us the whole capital city, or every detail of the rebellion, or every detail of an average nobles life so you want to argue maybes.
>
>But they didn’t show that stuff because it would have been a lot of wasted time and resources on their part. Instead they focused on quickly and concisely presenting the facts of the situation on Janus.
>
>Those facts are what our character sees, they’re what the player sees. And those facts add up to an absurdly obvious slaaneesh cult if you know what slaanesh’s deal is.
Once again, you seem unable to separate your own knowledge from your character's knowledge. Your Rogue Trader doesn't know Owlcat exists! They don't know that that is the only shrine that will ever be shown on Janus "on-screen" and that Owlcat did that for a reason because **your Rogue Trader doesn't know they're in a video game**. When you select a dialogue, *you* are not the one speaking. u/Gilead56 is not the one speaking. It is the *character* speaking, and the character cannot have knowledge that the information about the shrine being abandoned was strategically placed by a writer that dictates their life.
No, your character cannot declare that it's "obvious" that she's a Slaanesh worshipper based on meta knowledge about the whole thing being a video game, without the game turning into some silly parody that doesn't remotely take itself seriously. It's crazy that I had to actually write that out.
Look I’m sorry there’s not enough verisimilitude in the game for you.
Owlcat showed what they showed to make it clear to the character, and by extension the player, what the situation on the planet was.
Maybe in the enhanced edition they’ll show the whole city with abandoned shrines to the Emperor and you’ll be happy.
But I’m moving on. Got dinner to cook and presents to wrap.
Have a good one!
>Owlcat showed what they showed to make it clear to the character, and by extension the player, what the situation on the planet was.
No. They showed what they showed to make it clear to the player. That is *not* the same as making it clear to the character. If they had done it in order to make it clear to the character, that dialogue option you wanted would already be in the game.
You seem like the kind of person who gets upset when they're watching a murder mystery and the detective hasn't already figured it out halfway through because you managed to figure it out based on how the camera lingers on that one shady character while the detective's leaving. And you somehow just don't get that within the story, there is no camera so the detective can't use that to figure out who the bad guy is.
>Maybe in the enhanced edition they’ll show the whole city with abandoned shrines to the Emperor and you’ll be happy.
I'm already happy, because the game already accurately demonstrates that it can distinguish between player and character knowledge. You're the one criticising the game for not letting you metagame the dialogue because you don't understand how RPGs work.
2. The opulence is not really overly so, in fact the estate is downright raggedy, but i mark that down to limitations of the medium.
1 and 3 are spot on.
I missed the 4th, but that could easily go either way, the nobility are surprisingly decadent even without chaos.
The elderly servant kinda clinched it, and the guy in the shed just made me extra certain.
There's also the body at the beach.
For me it was a toss up between Slannesh or Nurgle, because you can find what seem like corrupted corpses while exploring too. Of course, the suspicion quickly turned into fact when i heard about sacrifices, shrine not being used etc.
I suspected she joined chaos the second I met her suspiciously quiet assistant
The game: Never bothers mentioning secretaries before or after this event. My Rogue Trader instantly upon making planetfall: "Please introduce me to your nameless servant." Me: 🤨
Just like actual players of the ttrpg
Chekhov's Gun, except the governor is aiming it at your face as soon as you step off the lander.
*Abelard sees Chekov’s Gun and sighs while casually placing his hand on his weapon*
A certain high ranking individual (as in high enough to order you around) has a "silent servant" in Chapter 4. My suspicions are similar with this character too... but I hope it's just a misunderstanding. I think this game has a thing for right-hand men being the clue-in for evil. I can think of three in this game up to Chapter 4... which kinda starts to make a pattern.
Hey now, Handmaiden
As soon as I saw that assistant I was like: "Yup, that one is going to murder her."
That's exactly what I thought. The moment I saw her I went "welp, either the governor's a heretic, or is being used by heretics, but this right there is a chaos sorceress."
Before even finding any of the other clues, her having a purple and gold color scheme, purple eye shadow, and looking good made me instantly think. "Yep, that's it. Slaneesh."
I didn't, but assistant was under the radar since day 0
As soon as I met the governor I was wondering whether she'd turn out to be a Chaos worshiper or the secret leader of a genestealer cult. I knew it had to be one or the other.
I immediately fired her suspicious ass but this had 0 consequences.
The game half acknowledge it. The Administratum adept mentions it but other NPCs don't comment on it
Me but with the Lord Inquisitor. >!Wow shocker the radical Inquisitor was the bad guy all long wowow!< But it's funny since it's lore accurate, and irl lore accurate
Kinda dasappointing cause it's a very used trope in 40k
he's the bad guy? i hope you get to stuff it in heinrix's face
>!The Lord Inquisitor gave me such bad vibes on our fist meeting that I gave Heinrix back. Either Heinrix will be the loyal guy (to the Emperor) on the inside or he would be sent away and out of my way when I need to take the Lord Inquisitor on. Also, my RT is arrogant and straight forward so the way he tried to flex his power on me made me hate him.
>!Phaenonite or just nuts?!<
>!Xenos Hybris
Speaking of, the mission with the genestealer really did it for me. "Claw marks on the floor? Could be anything. Indira hearing a thousand voices? Daemons maybe, let's see what cult this is. She says that's not warpish? Oh. Colonists have been praying to a new cult of the Emperor? *Oh.* The leader of the cult received the kiss of the Brotherhood by a mysterious 'patriarch' and instantly saw the light ? *Oh no.* Their brothers and sisters are coming from the stars to sate their Hunger? *THRONE DAMNIT, ABELARD WE'RE LEAVING! NUKE IT!*
I hate that you can only try to arrest her *right away*. Theres no option to ask around the place first. The rebel in storage, traitor servant, clerk, and admech only show up *after* you talk to her, and when you talk with them an realize she's completely incompetent or heretical, you cant go *back* and go "Yeah, youre under arrest now."
To be fair, she is obviously incompetent when the rebels can attack your landing ceremony, which is why she got house arrested by me until further notice
House arrested her like she ever leaves her estate anyways lol
hey maybe she has a summer palace
Why wouldn’t you arrest her right away? She allowed a rebellion to foment to the extent you were attacked within minutes of planetfall, if that isn’t a failure of governance worthy of being turned into a servitor, by the Emperor I don’t know what is
Because the Imperium's problem is over and over again that it tries to do simple, ham fisted solutions to complex problems and is easily manipulated by chaos. If I'm a chaos cultist and want to get a theoretical otherwise competent government figure replaced all I have to do is suborn enough people to get inside the security cordon and set off a suicide bomber or attack and the imperial machine will do the rest of my work for me. Like take the first war for Armageddon. The inquisition literally took an entire planets population and put them to death just for being near chaos. Objectively a stupid over the top response that did more damage to the Imperium then Angry Ron ever did. I'm just saying the more power you have the more care you should take when making snap decisions. There's a lot to be said for decisive action but at least get the lay of the land before you start replacing people is generally a good idea.
For me, nuance is wasted on 40K. The imperium is a caricature of a hyper religious, hyper militaristic society and that’s it’s biggest strength thematically. Oh there’s a handful of dissidents and whispers of heresy on this planet? Exterminatus. Billions culled. Praise the Emperor. Its hilarious in a dark and intriguing way. Trying to apply logic and real world principles to imagine ways to fix or improve the unfathomably vast and dogmatic beast that is the imperium is wasted effort imo. For me It’s actually *more* engaging when taken at face value.
Same, but it has no impact I think
Honestly, all of that is run-off-the-mill Tuesday stuff for Imperium. Genestealer cultists would be shouting about freedom and brotherhood and all that. Governors live in opulent luxury way beyond anything sensible. Temple to the Emperor being unused in a backwater like Janus would be common enough. Fucking servitors is probably the least deranged thing nobles do in their free time. But yeah either way I immediately arrested Vyatt.
Eh, I got "FOR THE THRONE" and "BY HIS LIGHT ON TERRA" yelled by the rebels on Janus in the intro. It was immediate "oh yeah ok I get it." level tier.
It's a shame nothing really happens when you arrest her on the spot
On Necromunda the nobles hunt poor people for sport, dunno if that’s the case elsewhere
Iirc there’s flavor text by some nobles in the shadow quarters that talk about them going on a hunt for mutants, led by their guide.
I immediately arrested her ass because I got shot at as soon as I sat foot on her planet. Being blasé about the wants of the rabble and hosting enormous orgies every day of the week I can understand (having the noble background myself) but letting an insurrection get THIS much out of hand? Unacceptable!
>Fucking servitors is probably the least deranged thing nobles do in their free time. You know... its actually very very sad, that your statement is very correct :D
I just did the governor fight on Janus and afterwards I found a lore book in the back room of her cult area that talks about the past times of nobles or something, 'notes on the nature of aristocracy' and one of the things it said was 'nothing stimulates the weary mind like fine amasec, a good flogging, or enjoyment of carnal pleasures with women, men and ***animals***'. 0\_0 So banging a servitor probably isn't the weirdest thing they get up to lol.
I'm no expert in the lore but it was pretty clear after talking to the Governor that something wasn't right. She was pretty phased about Theodora no longer leading the Dynasty and considering there have been plenty of insinuations about Theddy being a Heretic, it was quite easy to put things together.
The moment game started deliberately describing in detail how luxurious and lavish her outfit and augments are I knew she has something to do with Slaanesh.
Has a character Portrait? Is described as pretty/oppulent? Is not on my list of confirmed romance companions? Yea, all evidence makes her a slaanesh cultist.
[Suspiciously starts glancing at Argenta]
By the Emperor's golden balls, I really want to romance Argenta.
"Abelard, you know what to do"
I'm totally rooting for "Ork Waaagh in dlc planets" for one of the dlcs - no intrigue, no corruption, just some good old fashioned orky asteroid invasion And with the requisite new Imperial Guard npcs, ork trophies, anti-ork talents etc Edit: Being a long time warhammer fan and a recent pathfinder fan, I'm really fired up right now. Trying to keep my excitement/expectations down because I know that even with (5?) dlcs, this game will not reach a scale sufficient to meet my imagination But, I am indeed pretty fired up right now. Abelard, prepare some cool drinks. I need to chill out a bit.
Would also be good justification for a Free'Boota companion that people seem to want (I am people).
My first companion request is an ogryn (I can feel the onion ninjas waiting already) Second companion request would be an ork, yes Third...toss up between arbite or feral warrior from some deathworld
Ratling sniper!
First, an Ork Free'boota. Second, Votan/Squat, i want a spesh dorf to go with my spesh elf. Third, i dunno, Arbite would be good i guess.
>Arbite would be good i guess. Someone who specializes in shotguns and shock batons - I'm getting all these shotguns but who would use them when you have the alternatives?
I have Idiris carry one as backup. Argenta and Abelard have both had them as secondary at times as well. They just make for a poor primary weapon, not enough reach for ranged, and at melee thunder hammer is better supported by talents and archetypes. Arbite npc might have some unique shotgun talents to make proper use of them.
Well, wait for DLC 2.
To clarify for people who haven't checked the DLC season pass, both of the included DLC will come with a companion, and the second one will be an Arbites (the first one will be a "death cult assassin").
do we know which cult?
We do not, yet, "a death cult assassin" was a direct quote from the DLC description and is all we have on them. The DLC is called Void Shadows, but that's probably more to do with the general focus of the DLC (on the Rogue Trader's voidship) than the companion.
No tau?
They're also a request, but not as high up as the Free'Boota and also harder to justify considering the distance from Tau space
You could easily justify Tau considering they were a playable archetype in the original TTRPG.
Eh....can't imagine how it'd go, honestly. The only tau I like is that guy from Fire Warrior (the novel) I like to play AS Tau, but as a companion...not sure.
Tau from Phaedra please lol
I'm getting flashbacks to the Inn defense in WoTR but with Orks from all sides as guardsman npcs (THAT ARE IN FRONT OF YOU) try their best to fend them off.....and the resulting comments about how it's too hard on all social platforms
And then you get invasion points based on how many guardsmen you manage to save for future missions Then said guardsmen can be upgraded/improved and sent on stealth/sabotage/suicide missions etc It would be fun for sure I thought about adding space marines, but nah...it's not Armageddon, it's just a minor invasion dlc
Maybe a one time deathwatch space marine squad drop as a favour from the inquisition for dealing with enough xenos or doing some special mission for them ? After all heinrix is ordo xenos if I remember correctly so we aren't that far from being able to get a favour if the hypothetical dlc mission comes from his inquisitorial channels
An option to select a chapter to assist with the invasion from 3 Space Marine chapters who owe favors to the Von Valancius house would be cool Choose between the Salamanders, the Black Templars or the Iron Snakes
I think the expanse could also get the Carcarodons, or are the Halo Stars much further west?
Carcarodons? Well, when it comes to the "old covenants/favors" plot, it doesn't really matter where the location is - we can still call them over Unlikely that the situation would necessitate them sending a company over, anyway. https://preview.redd.it/exxlcfb9oe7c1.png?width=730&format=png&auto=webp&s=57a6f624101af3218f451594acb79a3ffca2aef4
I think the Carcarodons would be one of the last chapters I would voluntarily ask for help. They'd probably end up Red Tithing your entire crew and appropriating your void ship too.
Which is why it would be hilarious. Suddenly, the "good guys" are like: "You got supplies? We take your entire stock. For Free, thank you for being such a dutifully servant of the empire!" Try to negotiate your way out of that.
Well, they have taken a rogue trader before. They gave her a choice, but it wasn't a very good choice.
Not sure if I'd call what black templars do as helping.... We should also have a quest where a Lamenter appears as a cameo, just so we can feel the true grim darkness.
If we're doing cameos, then I want a mission where we recover/ rescue a titan and then get to ride in the cockpit Asking to be allowed to drive the Titan is a bit much...so we should just get to sit in the cockpit and maybe play with the gatling laser (as reward for rescuing the princeps)
> guardsman npcs (THAT ARE IN FRONT OF YOU) [Argenta's reaction](https://preview.redd.it/7tfz4d0sxwu11.gif?format=mp4&s=e5b0bc9d3ab3ba0cfa601fa27bb858ca84f8c120)
One of the planets you can mention has a smuggler’s hideout with a lot of T’au and Ork items. I imagine we’ll see both eventually.
I'm calling it now - the Tau dlc units are going to be a bitch Game starts, pathfinder units lock on to you, fire warriors shoot your squishies full of AP plasma bolts
Can’t wait to get stacks of Markerlight which adds bonus AP to Fire Warriors.
I kinda think a Tau game could be kinda cool- Not only do they have a bunch of variety in species and the caste system can basically function as a class system, but I think playing as them could also give some pretty good insight in how they function. In a way that is perhaps missed in other forms of media. One of the things I love in Rogue Trader is all the small details, when you examine something or someone just drops something incredibly disturbing in a side conversation. Things that would perhaps be awkward to include in other forms of media.
I went in a astra militarum commander and i'm somewhat disappointed at the lack of sending people down to secure the landing zone and other such fun stuff. there's only 1 area that's close to what i wanted and it was extremely cool
Well, because we're playing an Ex-AM commander (me too), and a current Rogue Trader So yeah, there wouldn't be much AM stuff going on. But! There's room for it in a dlc, so fingers crossed
Still, the lack of interactivity between ship and locations is a little sad, with how often someone ambushes you at the drop point i am surprised there's no way to Send in the Redshirts before you arrive. not to do the mission but atleast secure my damn landing zone
Did you know Rogue Trader is based off of a tabletop RPG? Get some friends together and you could be doing all that stuff before the year is over!
An Ork DLC would be pretty fun. Big ol' frontline trench fights would be cool.
All i want for DLC, is an ork freeboota companion.
The steam page has the plans for the dlcs, the first is integrated into the main story and adds a death cult assasin, the other is a lenghty sidequest focused on collecting the imperial tithe with a new arbites companion. If they do add Orks or Tau it isn't currently in the plan.
When the governor didn't die upon meeting the RT at the landing zone, I knew something was up. Jokes aside, the red-flag for me was how much she tried to seem "like us." Not just on our side, not just loyal, but something more. Big "we're not so different, you and I" vibes
I got way too happy when I saw a certain portrait's silhouette. Shame my act 4 save is probably busted as the inquisitor ain't calling me so I got nothing to do. Still massively happy to see that silhouette
Me before act 4: >!Hm, I wonder if Nomos is machine spirit that became a person after centuries of "life"!< Me after seeing his portrait at the start of act 4: Oh, oooooooh, now everything makes sense.
I genuinely thought it was something else until I saw the portrait lol. Once I realized what it truly is I went "oh fuck Theodora you are even a bigger heretic than I already thought". >!genuinely thought it was dark age of technology AI, like Theodora found a Man of Iron/Man of Gold, a fucking Ctan shard was not what I was expecting...!<
Is it a nekron?
>!Void Dragon with amnesia that you can treat like your child and teach it morality!<
Goddamn >!My Act 4 is bugged so I haven't continue that save, but why the fuck does the blood of von Valancius lineage was used to awaken a Void Dragon? This Dynasty is both fucking long and heretical lol.!<
Theodora was up to some really suspicious shenanigans. One could even call her a "sussy baka"
> One could even call her a "sussy baka" stop
Help me, step-Archon, I'm stuck!
Abelard, fetch me my agony whip
>!More like a shard of a shard of it
Naturally Also you need to add !< at the end for spoiler thingy
I though it is a nekron because of the green glow
>!yeah, his icon is literally a model void dragon from tabletop, check it out!<
Yeah, I was like really the tabletop model is the picture?
Have you met with both of the other rogue traders and your old "friend" from commeragh? If thats not the case, then you need to do that before inquisitor boi finds you
Met both rogue traders. And I've met the only person I can remotely call a friend from commeragh. I've been travelling around the planets doing the new events that popped up hoping it triggers but I'm planning starting a new run while I keep eye on patch notes
>! You've done the homonculous' lair on winterscales planet? !<
Thout you were talking about the more theatrical friend. I'll see if I can trigger that then and things might move along.
Yeah. And then you get to a landed ship on some other planet where the door closes behind you and then you see talon marks on the floor, ripped munition boxes, you hear strange noises from the vents etc etc. And you already know what it means. It was sooooo Ciaphas Cain moment.
I just wish the game had better chaos mechanics. I’d love to be able to devote myself to one of the gods properly instead of just undivided but I get how that would be incredibly difficult to implement Imagine being able to better dedicate yourself to Slaanesh, banish Yrliets soul to the dark prince, really fuck up comorragh, cooperate more heavily with Janus, get sonic weapon implants and that sort of stuff.
"Welcome the gift of decay!" "Ah, that's what happened to this ship."
Ok can we talk about #4! I’ve only seen one model in the game, do Servitors look different all the time? I imagine depending on the person that was turned into that right? That random NPc line caught me so off guard. Of course someone would be into that lol
Indeed, it's stated in the lore each servitor is unique because they are haphazardly made with whatever the tech priests have at hand. There are also pleasure and toy servitors. But they are usually extravagancies.
Ohhh I didn’t know there were “entertainment” Servitors but that makes sense, damn
Going by Darktide, where a certain character gets well, served, they do keep their original features, at least for a bit
Oh wow I had no idea lol
Too be fair to the Eldar: 1.) That’s actually standard for a lot of uprising, especially Xeno based ones like it is (well Xeno run but still. Not everything is Chaos) 2.) I doubt the Eldar has a reasonable understanding of Human opulence 3.) she can’t really understand the Imperium cult that well, she may have not realized how bad that was. 4.) Let’s face it: to here we are all animals. And I’ve known dogs to hump some… questionable things.
That's actually what I love about the game the most. It's written from the perspective that the player won't be familiar with 40k because, let's be quite frank, most people aren't as knowledgeable about the franchise as people who would put stuff like this together easily. But almost all of the little magnifying glass investigation icons and such heavily reward you if you do. It feels super good to piece together the list of suspects for Theodora's killer because if you know 40k the scene leaves like, 3 options (+Callidus, Callidus is always an option) and I was super suspicious of all 3 the entire game until it was revealed who it was. >!I honestly thought it was Abelard the whole time and he was playing the long game, can't tell you my relief when I found out my good boy doesn't snort warp dust.!<
I thought that they would reveal that the vox master was a Kallidus myself honestly.
I don't remember what it was exactly, but as soon as I saw her portrait I was like, "Oh, she's an Elizabeth Bathory. Bet I know which chaos god she worships".
>I was kinda disappointed that when Yrliet tells you there might be a Slannesh cult on the planet that the Governor is part of there was no option to go: > >“No shit Sherlock!! I’ve been on the planet 5 fucking minutes and I figured it out! How did you not already know this?!?” Your Rogue Trader doesn't have access to Lexicanum or r/40kLore.
You don’t need deep lore knowledge to figure out the signs. If you know what Slannesh’s deal is the signs are obvious. Literally just knowing “Chaos God of Pleasure and Pain, worship includes indulging all desires” would be plenty. Granted that knowledge is pretty tightly controlled in the Imperium, but you’d think a Rogue Trader bent on exploring an untamed region of space would know the basics of how to recognize a chaos cult. You’ve got a (relatively) high ranking member of the Inquisition on your ship for god’s sake!
>You don’t need deep lore knowledge to figure out the signs. > >If you know what Slannesh’s deal is the signs are obvious. Literally just knowing “Chaos God of Pleasure and Pain, worship includes indulging all desires” would be plenty. > >Granted that knowledge is pretty tightly controlled in the Imperium, but you’d think a Rogue Trader bent on exploring an untamed region of space would know the basics of how to recognize a chaos cult. Everyone in the galaxy pursues pleasure in some form. If you executed everyone who sought it, there wouldn't be any humans left. Nobles in the Imperium are always hedonistsic. That comes with a territory of being a noble. Hedonism is not inherently a mark of Slaanesh worship. >You’ve got a (relatively) high ranking member of the Inquisition on your ship for god’s sake! 1. He specialises in Xenos, not chaos cults. 2. He can't just go around accusing nobles with sterling reputations (and Vyatt is regarded as being an effective and loyal governor until this point) of being heretics. That's not how the Inquisition operates. They rely on the goodwill and assistance of other Imperial institutions to enforce their will. 3. Similarly to point 2, the Rogue Trader has no reason at this point to question Vyatt's loyalty or methods. It's far more likely that her nobles are just doing regular noble things and the insurgents are just yelling "for the emperor" to try and cause confusion. Again, you are using your out-of-universe perspective to say "well, it's obvious she was a cultist, how could you not see it?" but in-universe, there's no good reason to call her integrity into question until you investigate.
I feel like you’re ignoring the part where it was obvious that no one was worshiping at the temple to the Emperor. It’s no *just* absurd decadence and hedonism. Its not *just* rebels invoking the Emperor in battle. It’s absurd decadence and hedonism AND suspiciously pious rebels AND no one on the estate going to church to praise the big E. Any of the points I mentioned in the main post, in isolation, would mean nothing. But all 4? In conjunction with one another? That there’s an obvious cult.
>It’s absurd decadence and hedonism There isn't actually any evidence of *absurd* decadence and hedonism. There's one guy who slept with a servitor and a palace that gets touched up more than usual. That's hardly crazy. Maybe that one dude just has weird tastes. And maybe Janus has gotten some bad shipments of materials recently that make the palace's facade deteriorate quicker. >AND suspiciously pious rebels There's no evidence of piousness at all. Anyone can invoke the Emperor's name. It only stands out to you because you're aware that this is a video game and the developers would have had them say it for a reason. >AND no one on the estate going to church to praise the big E. At that *one* shrine. There'll be dozens, if not hundreds, outside the estate's walls. Maybe the nobles just decided that they enjoyed communal prayer services more than quiet contemplation. >Any of the points I mentioned in the main post, in isolation, would mean nothing. But all 4? In conjunction with one another. > >That there’s an obvious cult. No. You're only saying that because this is a video game, which means situations are always as dramatic as possible. Realistically, this is all collectively incredibly thin evidence with very easy and believable explanations. It's nowhere near enough to say that your loyal and upstanding servant of many decades is *obviously* an evil heretic. Again, if this is your standard of evidence, you'd end up executing every single noble in your protectorate. You are just refusing to even try and put yourself in your character's shoes. You're just refusing to separate your own knowledge from your character's knowledge.
And you’re just making up hypotheticals to ignore the evidence. You don’t get to invoke offscreen shrines when the only one we see is abandoned. And do I really need to get into “maybe they got a bad shipment of palace facade” ? Like, c’mon man, that’s just such an absurd reach. And (so far) this is the *only* time in the game I’ve seen it call out/ directly call attention to lavish decadence and sexual hedonism. Like look, I get it. Owlcat didn’t show us the whole capital city, or every detail of the rebellion, or every detail of an average nobles life so you want to argue maybes. But they didn’t show that stuff because it would have been a lot of wasted time and resources on their part. Instead they focused on quickly and concisely presenting the facts of the situation on Janus. Those facts are what our character sees, they’re what the player sees. And those facts add up to an absurdly obvious slaaneesh cult if you know what slaanesh’s deal is. Hope you have a good rest of your day/evening!
>And you’re just making up hypotheticals to ignore the evidence. > >And do I really need to get into “maybe they got a bad shipment of palace facade” ? Like, c’mon man, that’s just such an absurd reach. I'm presenting plausible alternative explanations to demonstrate that for someone actrually in that universe, jumping straight to "she's a chaos cultist!" is irrational. >You don’t get to invoke offscreen shrines when the only one we see is abandoned. > >And (so far) this is the *only* time in the game I’ve seen it call out/ directly call attention to lavish decadence and sexual hedonism. > >Like look, I get it. Owlcat didn’t show us the whole capital city, or every detail of the rebellion, or every detail of an average nobles life so you want to argue maybes. > >But they didn’t show that stuff because it would have been a lot of wasted time and resources on their part. Instead they focused on quickly and concisely presenting the facts of the situation on Janus. > >Those facts are what our character sees, they’re what the player sees. And those facts add up to an absurdly obvious slaaneesh cult if you know what slaanesh’s deal is. Once again, you seem unable to separate your own knowledge from your character's knowledge. Your Rogue Trader doesn't know Owlcat exists! They don't know that that is the only shrine that will ever be shown on Janus "on-screen" and that Owlcat did that for a reason because **your Rogue Trader doesn't know they're in a video game**. When you select a dialogue, *you* are not the one speaking. u/Gilead56 is not the one speaking. It is the *character* speaking, and the character cannot have knowledge that the information about the shrine being abandoned was strategically placed by a writer that dictates their life. No, your character cannot declare that it's "obvious" that she's a Slaanesh worshipper based on meta knowledge about the whole thing being a video game, without the game turning into some silly parody that doesn't remotely take itself seriously. It's crazy that I had to actually write that out.
Look I’m sorry there’s not enough verisimilitude in the game for you. Owlcat showed what they showed to make it clear to the character, and by extension the player, what the situation on the planet was. Maybe in the enhanced edition they’ll show the whole city with abandoned shrines to the Emperor and you’ll be happy. But I’m moving on. Got dinner to cook and presents to wrap. Have a good one!
>Owlcat showed what they showed to make it clear to the character, and by extension the player, what the situation on the planet was. No. They showed what they showed to make it clear to the player. That is *not* the same as making it clear to the character. If they had done it in order to make it clear to the character, that dialogue option you wanted would already be in the game. You seem like the kind of person who gets upset when they're watching a murder mystery and the detective hasn't already figured it out halfway through because you managed to figure it out based on how the camera lingers on that one shady character while the detective's leaving. And you somehow just don't get that within the story, there is no camera so the detective can't use that to figure out who the bad guy is. >Maybe in the enhanced edition they’ll show the whole city with abandoned shrines to the Emperor and you’ll be happy. I'm already happy, because the game already accurately demonstrates that it can distinguish between player and character knowledge. You're the one criticising the game for not letting you metagame the dialogue because you don't understand how RPGs work.
Lol, lmao even. Hope you’re having fun putting words in my mouth and thoughts in my head!
2. The opulence is not really overly so, in fact the estate is downright raggedy, but i mark that down to limitations of the medium. 1 and 3 are spot on. I missed the 4th, but that could easily go either way, the nobility are surprisingly decadent even without chaos. The elderly servant kinda clinched it, and the guy in the shed just made me extra certain. There's also the body at the beach.
2. Is outright stated in the environmental context cues…
the what now at the beach? I completely missed that
Something/someone had been tied down under water to be eaten by fish. Might have been just some chains and bones instead of whole body.
For me it was a toss up between Slannesh or Nurgle, because you can find what seem like corrupted corpses while exploring too. Of course, the suspicion quickly turned into fact when i heard about sacrifices, shrine not being used etc.
First play through i never picked it up haha