WARPHAMMER 99,000

WARPHAMMER 99,000

In the bright madness of the Hundredth Millenium, there is only Chaos. 

Things that have stayed the same for the last 59 Thousand Years:
- There are humans, copyright-free Angel Legions, Orcs, and all those guys you love.
- People fight with both massive sci-fi guns and medieval weapons with chainsaw-bits. 
- The Four Gods don't get along.

Things that have changed:
- The Four Gods of Chaos won, and now everything is all warped. 
- The Emperor you knew is gone, but others follow.
- Every being now serves a God in their own way, from gobbos to elders, bugs to inquisitors. 



Playing the Game

Saving Throws
Roll equal or under the appropriate Ability Score to pass.

Attacking
Roll the die noted by your weapon, and cause this much damage to your target. If the target has an Armour score, this much damage is ignored from the attack. If the situation is in the attacker's favour, Enhance damage to d12. If it is against them, Impair damage to d4. 

Damage
Damage comes off your HP score. If there is excess damage, it comes off the target's WAR Score and they must pass a WAR Save to avoid Critical Damage, which knocks them out of action, killing them if left untended for an hour.

Ability Score Loss
When WAR reaches 0 you die. When DAR is 0 you're paralysed. At GRM are 0 you lose control of your physical form and either twist into a spawn or explode into a demon.

Recovery
A Short Rest of a few minutes restores lost HP. A Long Rest of a week in safety restores lost Ability Scores and generally other ailments. 

Scale
Heavy targets can only be damaged by Heavy attacks or bigger. 
Super-Heavy targets can only be damaged by Super-Heavy attacks or bigger. 



The Group
Despite your different races and Gods you have pulled together because everyone else is a total dick. Those with most in common with you are probably worst of all. It's a free-for-all, so there's ripe opportunity to grab power. 

You get a Void-Boat (5hp, Heavy) between you, propelled through space by a bound Demon. 

The Gods

Everyone serves a God. Some claim to be free, or worship Chaos in its pure form, but they're wrong. Followers of the same God get along even worse than followers of different Gods, as nobody agrees on the details of being a good servant. 

The Holy Fire, Emperor Tzeen - Change, Secrets, and Ambition.
The Perfect Beast Slaan - Pleasure, Excess, and Aesthetics. 
The Lovely Grandfather Nurg - Disease, Submission, and Nurture.
KHOR KHOR KHOR - Blood, Warfare, and Trophies. 



Rolling a Character

Roll 3d6 for each of:
WAR - Fighting
DARK - Doing things in the Dark.
GRIM - Frowning, being closed minded and barking orders.
and d6 for Hitpoints. 



Cross reference your HP against your Highest Ability Score on the table below for your starter package. If no God is listed, choose one to worship. 

Starter packages are for humans, but the warping has made everyone a bit different. Angels are pretty much humans beneath their suits and mutations.



If your God isn't already decided for you, pick one. 

	1-2hp	3-4hp	5-6hp
3-10	Rat-like Mutant Smokebomb Psycho-Sword (d8, Ignore Armour)	Iron-Head Chain-Armour (1) Heavy Flamer (d10, Blast)	Stunty Mega-Suit (2) Hoverboard Slugger (d6)
11	Arcane Staff (d8 Bolt) Blue Angelsuit (2) Limited Psychic Tzeen	Soundblaster (d8)  Lash Whip (d6) Purple Angelsuit (2) Slaan	Blaster (d8) built-into Scythe (d8) Pale Angelsuit (2) Nurg
12	Chitin (1) Hook Swords (d8) Slaan	Spike Rifle (d8) Melt-bomb (d10 Heavy) Club (d6)	Chain-Mace (d8) Monk Robes Tzeen
13	Saw (d8) White Angelsuit (2)  Powerbike (6hp, Armour 3, d8 Blasters) Slaan	Great-Axe-Saw (d10) Red/White Angelsuit (2) Eat Anything Khor	Autocannon (d10) Wrecking Mace (d8) Iron Angelsuit (2) Nurg
14	Auto-Pistols (d8) Gang Affiliation Knife (d6)	Big Dog Head (d6 Bite) Chaingun (d10) Khor	Death-Mask Camo Suit Machete (d6)
15	Saw (d8),  Great Scent Grey Angelsuit (2) Khor	Plasma Blaster (d10) Sword (d6),  Hood Green Angelsuit (2) Nurg	Hammer (d8) Gold Angelsuit (2) with Gold Shield (Impair non-heavy melee attacks) Tzeen
16	Pig-Head Pipe (d6) Chain-Jaws  (d6)	Fancy Hat Big Pistol (d8) Laser-Eye (d6, Ignore Armour)	Reputation as a Killer Bionic-Legs Spike-Arm (d6)
17	Saw (d8), Bite (d6) Red/Gold Angelsuit (2) Wing Pack Khor	Blaster (d8), Sword (d6) Blue/Gold Angelsuit (2) Slaan	Power-Claws (d8)  Black Angelsuit (2) Khor
18	Bird-Staff (d6) Rainbow Robes (Armour 1 vs Warp Stuff) Tzeen	Goat-like Mutant Can only Bray Rip-Gun (d6, Spray)	Insectoid-Mutant Awful Smell Staff (d6) Nurg

Things to Fight

Hive Blight-Mother (Nurg, Heavy)

WAR 19, DAR 6, GRM 16, 10hp, Armoured Shell (2). Jaws (d10, Heavy)

- Birth out disgusting new lifeforms. 

- Take motherless beings under her shell. 

- Shed her rotten shell for an even more rotten one underneath. 

Elder Banshee (Khor)

WAR 10, DAR 16, GRM 12, 8hp, Red Screamer-Suit (Armour 1, Screaming Mask). Pyscho-Sword (d8, ignore armour)

- Herald the arrival of an Elder War-Host. 

- Seek to strike the unarmed and unready. 

- On Critical Damage, scream at you until your head explodes. 

Robo-Flayer (Slaan)

WAR 14, DAR 10, GRM 20, 4hp. Metal Body (Armour 1) under human skin, Flay-Gun (d8). 

- Use its ray to remove your skin for its own body.

- Try and fail to pass as human. 

- Seek to understand human emotion and sensation. 

Orc Ecksozist (Tzeen)

WAR 12, DAR 7, GRM 13. 13hp. Banishmunt Prod (d6, Non-Tzeen Demons must GRM Save or be Banished). 

- Summon a Demon of Tzeen, which is will refer to as an 'Oly Servunt. 

- Gather increasingly fancy ornaments for his headdress. 

- Report directly to a Holy Inquisitor Lord, who may provide orbital support. 

Submission of the Servers - Hellspace

Many people give up a part of their identity to a greater power. For Servers this is to Godmachine.



Others accept Demons into their minds and bodies, sometimes calling themselves Heralds.

Servers main agenda is spreading the Godmachine's presence across Hellspace. Despite their philosophical incompatibility with Boneheads both faction sees the other as misguided fools, rather than a genuine threat to their own ways. 

d6 Notable Servers

1: 8Z-Chrometongue - Mouth of Godmachine (2)

Gear: Metal Body with Head-Jack Removed, Voice-Amp. 

- Interface with a Machine

- Babble Machine-Gospel (+1)

- Cause Nearby Machinery to go Haywire 

2: Null-A-11-B - Void Drone (1)

Gear: Head-Jack, Smooth Body. 

- Interface with a Machine (+1)

- Shut Down all Machinery Nearby

- Have No Personality or Ego at All

3: Free-Agent Vermella - Rogue Troubleshooter (2)

Gear: Head-Jack, Gun-Arm, Powered Suit. 

- Interface with a Machine

- Protect Godmachine at Any Cost (+1)

- Get into Inaccessible Places

4: Seeker-H5 - Techno-Artifact Hunter (2)

Gear: Head-Jack, Tattered Maps, Grapple-Gun.  

- Interface with a Machine

- Interpret Signs from Godmachine

- Assess the Technological Function of an Object (+1)

5: 29-Vine - Anti-Organo-Activist (2)

Gear: Head-Jack, Cyber-Body. 

- Interface with a Machine

- Suppress Lingering Humanity (+1)

6: Bit-Channel-43 - Bio-Ware Engineer (2)

Gear: Head-Jack, Cyber-Pets, Body Augmented in Every Way. 

- Interface with a Machine

- Make Someone More Machine than Man (+1)

- Augment a Machine with Organic Material

Creating a Server Character




Take the Move
- Interface with a Machine

Gear: Take a head jack, and choose one of the following:
- Gold Beaded Robes.
- Neon Blood.
- Techno-Incense.

Roll 1d6 for your role, and your second Move.

1: Monk: Contemplate Quietly.
2: Monitor: Be the Eyes of the Godmachine
3: Judge: Punish an Enemy of the Godmachine
4: Inquisitor: Uncover the Truth
5: Lexicon: Translate Anything
6: Troubleshooter: Remove a Chaotic Element

Finally, Roll d66 on the Wild Card table for your final Move and Gear.

Being Arkbound

Arkbound know that humanity's best chance of survival is to stay on the Ark.

Some people say that the big ideologies of the Ark don't fit onto a spectrum.

We drew a diagram to disprove that.

As you can see, Arkbound are correct in two ways, being both pro-Godmachine and anti-Demon. Every other ideology is incorrect in at least one way. The burden of our correctness is that we fully support everyone's right to their own ideology. The burden of their incorrectness is that they must follow our imperative to stay aboard the Ark and provide fuel for Godmachine.

If we can get enough fuel to the forges the Ark will jump again, and Hellspace will just be a nightmare we woke from.

Our ranks and uniforms give humanity comfort through structure.

Our swords are a symbol of our dedication to peace.

We are the most human because we want a united humanity to survive together.

1d6 Famous Arkbound

1: Clarity Cox - Arkbound Investigator (3)
Moves- Enforce a Rigid Structure

- Spot a Lie (+1)

- Leave a Bad ImpressionGear: Black uniform, concealed shortsword, leap-boots.

2: Enforcer Eden - Weary Arkbound Enforcer (2)
Moves- Enforce a Rigid Structure

- Draw on a Bad Experience of Humanity

- Maintain good relations with enemies (+1)Gear: Brown uniform, copper sword, blast-glove. 

3: Satch Riza - Champion Duellist (3)
Moves- Enforce a Rigid Structure

- Overpower an opponent in a duel (+1)

- Use his Reputation for Mercilessness
Gear: Ceramic Armour and shield, blunted sword.

4:  Terrence Brig - Arkbound Outer-Patrol Captain (2)
Moves- Enforce a Rigid Structure

- Spot a Runaway (+1)

- Pilot in the Ark's ShadowGear: Interceptor ship, curved sword, stun-pistol, flying ace novels. 

5:  Lilly Mars - Arkbound Shepherd (2)
Moves - Enforce a Rigid Structure

- Bring Somebody Back to the Ark (+1)

- Gamble a Big StakeGear: White Uniform, shortsword, weird dice games. 

6:  Belus Balix - Reformed Bonehead Drill-Sergeant (3)
Moves- Enforce a Rigid Structure (+1)

- Break Recruits

- Speak of Visions from GodmachineGear: Video-mask over bondhead, heavy swords and jacked arms. 

Here's what you get for being Arkbound. 

Arkbound

Move: Enforce a Rigid Structure

Gear: Take a coloured uniform and sword, and choose one of the following:

1. Extra fancy uniform.
2. Extra fancy sword.
3. Life-Scanner.

Roll 1d6 again for the second part of your tag, and your second Move.

1. Enforcer

• Use force to calm things down.

2. Pursuer

• Chase down a fugitive.

3. Forge Feeder

• Claim a Sacrifice for the Forge.

4. Officer

• Boss around somebody below you.

5. Advocate

• Demonstrate the Dangers of Leaving the Ark

6. Duellist

• Demonstrate your superior skill with a sword.

What is Hellspace?

Or, why has there only been one blogpost in all of May?

Hellspace has sat on my back-burner under various names (Arkbound, DIE BONEHEAD DIE, Odd Future) for long enough. 

The Basics

The Godmachines are supercomputers that can see a little bit into the future and do what's best for humanity. They took us off Earth and onto the Ark.

All of our Technology is made by the Godmachines, so we don't really know how it works.

On the Ark we developed Ideologies from honour-obssed Arkbound and spaced-out Gazers to monstrous Saints and technophobic Boneheads. Despite such differences we mostly got along.

A century later we arrived in Hellspace, which is almost exactly what it sounds like. The Ark's engines stopped. 

Demons are simultaneously more alien and more human than we expected.

In Play

Your characters might look like this.

Nouveau: Tech-Enhanced Bodyguard (3), Server of the Unified Godmachines(2), Clean Freak (2)

Shroom: Chemical Stimulant Enthusiast (3), Vehicle Thief (2), Well Connected Low-Life (2). 

Lamprey: Slick Bonehead Trader (3), Gambling Addict (2), Alien Obsessed (2). 

Each thing after your name is a Tag. You can use these to do things you'd expect, as long as nobody's opposing you. Shroom can hotwire a shuttle, and Lamprey has contacts to sell to. 

Once there's opposition or risk it becomes a Challenge, and you roll a number of d6 equal to your score in that Tag. Take the single highest die.

1-3 is a Crisis and it all goes wrong and you'd better deal with it now. 

4-5 is a Mess, a sort of interesting partial-success. 

6 is a Success and you do it really well. 

No matter the result, you can't go back. Always moving forward. 

If you get hurt, note it down. If you get hurt again and you haven't fixed the last bit of hurt, anything goes when it comes to the consequences. 

But I love Into the Odd. Why not just use that? It has silly factions and aliens and guns too.

Because this game is going to do a few things I don't think fit well in Into the Odd. 

- Optimism for humanity. Despite vast ideological differences you're more likely to have to deal with people than kill or swindle them. The Ark has rough decks, but is mostly a triumph. 

- Religion at the forefront. Into the Odd has millions of little cults but they don't have something as tangible as the Godmachines to focus around. Hellspace also taps into a rich seam of ideas that I wouldn't put in Bastion or the Golden Lands. 

- At its core, Into the Odd is a game about exploration and problem solving. Hellspace is about choices and consequences. 

- Player Characters from Bastion are deliberately grounded in some normality. Hellspace has more scope for the sort of unusual characters I sometimes miss playing. 

- Weirdly, the aliens of Hellspace are less science-fictiony than those you might encounter in Into the Odd. 

- A less blank-slate setting, with key elements like the Godmachines, Aliens, and Ideologies more laid-out than the deliberate vagueness of Bastion and the Odd World. 

- I'm reluctant to bring up the OSR/Storygame (false?) dichotomy, but this is clearly a very different sort of game in its mechanics. 

Also, if you want a Sci Fi Into the Odd game, just use Into the Odd. 

Setting References

- Red Dwarf

- Sid Meir's Alpha Centauri

- Barlowe's Inferno

- Man After Man, Dougal Dixon

- Planescape

Visual References

Visual Inspiration for Arkbound's Ruined Homeworlds

From Top-Left to Bottom-Right

1: The Tempest affected each world differently. Some were transformed into lifeless deserts. Here we see one of the Subspace Pylons that unleashed the Tempest.

2: Robots still roam the homeworlds. Some are the original surviving machines but others are second generation, built by robots.

3: Some worlds still have a breathable atmosphere. On these worlds recolonisation is hindered by other hazards such as extremes of temperature or violent storms and earthquakes.

4: Some worlds found themselves flooded, their treasures now submerged below oceans.

5: Power had gotten so efficient on some worlds that the supply is still running. These power plants are prime targets for salvaging fuel for Arks.

6: Some worlds find themselves cursed with an endless night and smoke-shrouded sky.

Visual Inspiration for Arkbound Guns (and a Chainsaw)

a: The Slug Pistol is the most common weapon you'll see. It's easy to manufacture, plentiful in salvage hauls and ammunition can easily be produced. Most people on the slum decks have one stashed away somewhere.

b: The Bolt Rifle is the other low-tech weapon that has found great popularity on the Arks. Like the Slug Pistol it's simple and easy to look after. For what it lacks in mobility it makes up for with long range and a heavy punch.

c: A lot of weapons are produced on the Arks, both in and out of the Factory Decks. Every slum will have a number of weaponsmiths producing cheap but effective weapons from what they can salvage.

d: The Thudgun is mostly a big shotgun. Although unwieldy its huge shells can shred a victim to pieces. Scatter is much less than a shotgun so their effective range can be deceptively far.

e: Plasma Launchers resemble grenade launchers but blast out their canisters of super-heated plasma with devastating effect. These advanced weapons are usually reserved for Officers but the gruesome deaths they inflict make them objects of lust for slum gangers.

f: Railguns had become the standard long-range rifle on many homeworlds. They can be complex to maintain but deliver fearsome firepower at long range.

g: Somewhere between an SMG and a Minigun lies the Stormgun. They are sometimes nicknamed Screamerguns because of the rattling shriek they emit when fired at full rate.

h: Wave guns are one of the few purely energy-based guns, bombarding the target with flashes of energy that sear away at flesh and cause intense ongoing pain. The energy can be focused into a short beam that will allow the energy to penetrate even the toughest personal armour. Flash Guns use the same technology but are much less powerful and were a failed attempt to create a military standard, losing out in popularity to the Pulse Gun.

i: Pulse Guns were a standard military issue on many homeworlds. It fires a specially constructed bullet chased by an energy pulse. When the pulse catches up with the bullet on impact it reacts violently for extra damage. The special ammunition required for this gun is plentiful on homeworlds and always a target for salvage.

j: Not a gun, but melee weapons are commonly used by slum gangs particularly. The Sawblade (pictured here) and Powered Hammer are both power tools that have been weaponised.

Conflict in Arkbound

Like a story, a game setting needs conflict. This is especially true if you're going to be playing a game in that setting. So what conflicts exist in Arkbound?

Humanity vs Extinction
Survival is a key theme of Arkbound. The Arks might not provide much of a life to those on the Slum Decks but what's the alternative? The homeworlds were wiped out and re-settling them is thought to be suicidal. As the last survivors many people feel a responsibility to keep the human race alive. Will mankind find a better home and what are people willing to do to cling onto survival?

Officers vs Arkbound
The Officers have the authority, weapons and armour, cushy living quarters and, of course, freedom. The Arkbound have the strength of numbers, fighting spirit and a toughness that comes from living in such harsh conditions. The two come to blows regularly but both are dependent on each other. Spin-offs from this are the obvious Officer vs Officer and Arkbound vs Arkbound conflicts.

Humans vs Artificials
The only other survivors of the Tempest were the robots and AIs that remain on the homeworlds. Some are eager to help any humans that return to salvage goods but after fifty years without man some Artificials consider themselves the de facto rulers of their homeworld. Back in space, genetic modification has left some very much non-human lifeforms roaming the universe.

Arks vs Independents
Some humans have managed to avoid becoming bound to an Ark, whether through surviving on an orbital colony or drifting in a smaller craft. Most Arks will strive to take what they can from independents, whether it's salvage, weapons or skilled individuals. Ark vs Ark and Independent vs Independent are less common conflicts but could be interesting.

Taking a Bullet in Arkbound

When I play D&D my imagination can cope with characters' vitals being narrowly missed by swords, axes, arrows and musket-shots. Even though I know how deadly arrows were I can still picture an adventurer stumbling on bravely with an arrow in the shoulder and a gushing spear wound.

But getting shot with a present-day gun? Every piece of remotely grounded fiction I know tells me you're out for the count. That's not even considering your futuristic pulse rifles and bolters!

I won't get into the analysis of how deadly different era's weapons actually were. This is purely how my imagination sees them differently and may just be a personal quirk.

As I'm currently working on a sci-fi game I guess I'd better address how I'm going to keep guns in Arkbound feeling suitably deadly without it being impossible to keep a character alive.

Let's look at Mr. Average and what happens when he gets shot at in the open by Ms. Average.

Starting Stats average at 2.5, which is a little unhelpful. Let's assume that Ms. Average will be dealing with a Complication (-1) to her shot about half of the time. This means she'll be rolling with an average Precision of 2. The target number is always 10 and rolls are 2d6+stat so she'll need to roll an 8 to hit.

She'll hit Mr. Average around 42% of the time.

Your "entry level" weapons range from 1d6 damage for your typical pistol, SMG or autorifle and 1d6+1 for things with added kick like shotguns and the clumsy bolt rifle. We'll be kind and assume she's firing with one of the former.

Damage equalling Mr. Average's Toughness (average of 2.5 again) will incapacitate him and leave him dying. Doubling his Toughness will kill him outright. Here a roll of 3 will incapacitate and 5 will kill.

That gives him equal 1-in-3 spread between being wounded, incapacitated and killed.

If she hit him with one of the heftier 1d6+1 guns? Now it's only a 1-in-6 chance of a minor wound, still 1-in-3 chance of being incapacitated but a full 1-in-2 chance of being killed in a single shot.

Ouch. With odds like this why would anyone want to get into a gunfight? We need to look at what measures Mr. Average can take to push the odds back in his favour.

Firstly, light armour is accessible to all starting characters and subtracts 1 from any damage against you. This pushes the chance of a kill shot from the autorifle down to a less scary 1-in-6 and brings the bigger guns down from 1-in-2 to 1-in-3.

Even better than armour is being in cover, which roughly cuts the chances of Mr. Average being hit at all in half.

The chance of Mr Average being killed in one shot if he's wearing light armour and making use of cover? Just under 4%. That's worse odds than rolling a 20 on a d20. I'm quite happy with this figure.

Still not happy with that small chance of getting a bullet in the head? I suggest you either pump up your Guile score and stay in cover, save up for heavy armour or keep your character out of situations where people are firing at you.

But wait. The arms race works both ways. If Ms. Average has an Incinerator then your flammable cover won't offer any protection. If she's firing with a flashrifle your light armour is useless not to mention the really nasty 1d6+2 weapons like thudguns and rail rifles. Maybe she's got BodyMods and Stims pushing her Precision score higher and fancy weapon mods to counter the usual Complications.

In that case it's probably time to wonder whether it's worth being in a firefight at all. Surrender is a free action.