UPDATES: What I'm Doing Now

So, I have a few wee projects on the go, so there might be some quiet times ahead. Here's what's up and coming...

• Converting the Binder class from 3.5 to Microlite20 (Binders are strange arcanists who bind the spirits of great heroes, dead gods, and eldritch abominations into themselves, to access a variety of abilities and powers. A very flexible, highly useful class, who can fill any given role in a party, but not as well as a specialist).
• A Dungeon for use in both the Risus Dungeon Crawl and OSRIC/OSR/AD&D games, with maps and new creatures and such. This one's gonna be posted as each individual floor, then collected and published as a PDF, maybe two - one without any system, and one specifically for OSR gaming.
• A new Goliath race for OSRIC.
• Those bloody Tau Careers for Rogue Trader.
• Some new Unknown Armies stuff (currently trying my hand at fiction once more, we'll see how it goes).
• A couple of reviews/"Let's Read" articles.

And, no doubt, a few more bits and pieces here and there.

Watch this space!

New Tau Traits

So, the Tau traits presented were to represent Tau who were still a part of the Greater Good - useful for all-Tau games, but not great for mixing with regular humans. So, here's something that might help...

Renegade

Note: This Trait replaces the For The Greater Good Trait possessed by other Tau

Not all Tau follow the Greater Good. Those who have found themselves seperated from the Ethereal Caste (most famously, Shas'O Vior'la Shovah Kais Mont'yr, more commonly known as Commander Farsight) find their opinion of the Greater Good waning, and some actively oppose the aggresive expansion and extremism of their own people.

Renegade Tau lose the For The Greater Good Trait, and the associated benefits and penalties. Instead, they gain a -10 penalty to all interations with non-Renegade Tau, but are much more free to interact with other races - gaining no penalties to interactions with them, once their renagade nature is known. (So, a human might have a bad reaction to any Tau, but once they have been seen to reject The Greater Good, and swear their service to The Imperium, they are no longer seen as such a threat).

They may also purchase the Mercenary Trait at character creation, for 100xp. This functions as the Kroot Trait (the character may use the group's Profit Factor instead of their own Willpower to resist Pinning and Fear).

When in the presence of an Ethereal, Renegade Tau must make a Difficult (-10) Willpower test, or succumb to the will of the Ethereal (losing this Trait, and regaining For The Greater Good.)

At the GM's disrection, non-Renegade Tau who have been removed from the Ethereal Caste, and other non-Renegade Tau, may make a Difficult (-10) Willpower Test each day (or at dramatically appropriate points) to resist turning from the Greater Good. Success means they remain loyal, but failure means the lose the For The Greater Good Trait and replace it with the Renegade Trait.

Tau who have turned Renegade after character creation may also buy the Mercenary Trait, but as an Elite Advance, costing 500xp.

Rogue Trader: Tau Racial Characteristics

So, I popped the rough draft up on RPG.net, to see if there were any glaring discrepancies/omissions from my statline.

Scarik, RPG.net's resident RT head, helped to shape the statline a bit to make it more in line with the representation of Tau elsewhere. So, as follows, your basic Tau, suited to a Rogue Trader level of play:

Characteristics
Roll 2d10 and add...

WS15
BS 25
S 15
T 20
Ag 20
Int 25
Per 20
Wp 20
Fel 20

Traits
For the Greater Good
Tau have an overarching belief in "The Greater Good", a concept that all should be equal, and everyone has their place within the Tau Empire.

This sets them at something of a disadvantage when dealing with others - they suffer a -5 penalty to any Fellowship tests against those who hold another strong religious belief (so, Kroot would listen to them, but an Emperor-Fearing Human would be hard pushed to listen to the heathens).

Being "Space Commies", they are also somewhat less concerned with money than most races - meaning that they cause any group they are part of to suffer a -1 to their Profit Factor.

Small-Souled
Tau have a very small Warp presence - so much so, they seem to be absolutely naive about the workings of the Warp. Tau can never become Psykers, of any sort. They also suffer a -10 penalty to any Forbidden Lore skill which relates to the Warp (so, Daemonology, The Warp, etc.) However, they are also far less likely to gain the attention of such beasts - they gain a +10 bonus to attempts to resist possession by a Warp entity, and GMs should ensure that the creature has either a specific plan to target the Tau, or no other choice.

Tau and Insanity and Corruption
Tau gain Insanity points and the ensuing complications as normal - after all, the horrors of war and the strangeness of the Warp affect anyone who thinks about them too long.

Corruption is somewhat different - instead of representing their fall to the Ruinous Powers, it represents their removal from The Greater Good. As they lose some of their "innocence" regarding the universe, Tau begin to waver in their faith in the Tau Empire.

A Tau who gains Corruption points does not roll for mutations though malignancies (where appropriate ) should still be used. As they move away from the Greater Good (and the Ethereal Caste in particular), Tau begin to revert to a more "feral" state, becoming quick to anger, prone to infighting, and somewhat more vicious and sadistic in their violence. The presence of an Ethereal can negate some of these effects - when an Ethereal is present, a Tau does not gain Corruption points, and their current Corruption point total is considered to be half its actual value.

Castes

Choose your Caste wisely - this will affect your stats, and also limit your choice of Careers:

Air : +10 Ag, -5T, treat any one Pilot skill as a Trained Basic Skill. Gain a choice of 2 of the Catfall, Leap Up, Rapid Reaction, and Weapons Training (Tau Basic). Talents.
Earth: +5 WP, treat any two "occupational" skill (frex, Tech-Use (Tau), Wrangling etc) as Trained Basic skills. Gain a choice of 2 of the Foresight, Iron Jaw, and * Talents.
Fire: +5 BS, gain Weapons Training (Pistol, Basic, and Heavy Tau Weapons). Gain a choice of 2 of the Quick Draw, Combat Formation, Marksman, and Disarm Talents.
Water: +5 Fel, treat Barter and one of Commerce or Charm as Trained Basic Skills. Gain a choice of 2 of the Air of Authority, Polyglot, Total Recall, and Paranoia Talents.

*Gonna fill that in later...

Ethereals aren't the best PC option, so I'm not touching them with a bargepole.

The Caste system replaces the normal Origin Path, hence giving a few more bonuses than usual. Tau PCs may (with GM approval) modify the existing Origin Path, re-naming and replacing certain options as the player and GM see fit, to represent "renegade" Tau, or those who have somehow avoided the speciation of the Caste system.

Careers to come soon! I plan on modifying the Void Master for the Air Caste Pilot, the Arch-Militant for the Fire Warrior, the Senechal for The Water Caste Negociator, and possibly creating something from scratch for the Earth Caste Engineer (maybe based around the Adept from Dark Heresy, with a few steals from the Tech-Priest/Explorator). After that, maybe a few Alternate Career Ranks for each, to represent specialities and divergences (like Pathfinders and Crisis Suit Pilots for the Fire Caste).

I'll also post up a few new Talents for the Careers...

Rogue Trader: Rules For Tau PCs

So, one of the guys in our gaming group has suggested running a "Kill Team" style game, using a hybridised combo of Deathwatch and Inquisitor. The current plan is to make our characters "in a vacuum" - we can make anything we like, from Space Marines to Abhumans to Hive Gangers, and this guy plans on working some manner of balance into the game. While the system sounds to me like what we call a "shitemare", the idea sounds like a lot of fun.

And, in a flash of oddness (considering I didn't know she knew anything about the 40k setting), one of the girls asked if she could play an Air Caste Tau. Not just a Tau, but one of a specific Caste and everything.

And it got me thinking - why the Hell would an Air Caste Tau be with an Imperial Kill Team? Unless they were with a Radical Inquisitor (a pretty fucking Radical one at that), or maybe a Rogue Trader...

Then it hit me - while the timeline makes them unlikely to be present in the Koronus Expanse, it's not impossible (I read the bit about them being in the Jericho Reach, and RTs going to the edges of the Reach in search of profits they can scrape from warzones). It struck me that Air Caste Tau who'd shown their skills would make a great addition to any Rogue Trader's retinue, especially those who had (for whatever reason) turned their back on "The Greater Good", or went outside the area of the Ethereal Caste's supposed "control".

So, I wanted to work out both the Tau Race (with Caste as a choice, much like Kindred for Kroot) and the Air Caste Pilot Career (based pretty heavily on the Void Master Career), mainly as a starting point to work out some more options for players wanting to fight for The Greater Good.

Next post - Tau Racial Traits, and after that, the first part of the Air Caste Pilot Career!