For Fortune and Glory:The Arenne
Arenne
High Concept:
Dauntless Class Light Cruiser
Aspects:
Ancient and Wise
Haunted
Storied Dynastic History
Clearly Enhanced By the Mechanicus
Stress: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
Consequences:
[Mild]
[Mild]
[Moderate]
[Severe]
Profit Factor: [1] [2]
Stunts
Eye of the Omnissiah
Because the vessel has Deep Void Augur Arrays, you gain +2 to Notice rolls to discover aspects on scanned targets.
Overpowered Warp Engines
While the warp engine is fully functional the ship is among the fastest vessels in the Immaterium and gains +2 to any Overcome rolls where speed is a factor.
Extras
Essential Components: Jovian Pattern Class 3 Plasma Drive, Markov 2 Warp Engine, Gellar Field, Single Void Shield Array, Armored Command Bridge, Euphoric Life Sustainer, Voidsman Quarters, Deep Void Augur Arrays
Weapons: Ryza Pattern Plasma Battery, Titanforge Lance
Additional Components: Main Cargo Hold, Barracks, Extended Supply Vaults, Trophy Room
ADDITIONAL DATA FILES LOCATED. ORIGIN INDEX CORRUPTED. DISPLAY? Y/N
> Y
AUTHORISATION GRANTED
LOADING FILES...
Laser Versus Plasma
On many ships, the lance crews consider themselves a cut above. Not for them the brute toil of heaving shells and aiming macro-cannon. A lance is a complex mechanism of lenses and focusing dials, power feeds and magnetic waveguides. When a lance speaks it is not one among dozens, each combining their voices into a single volley, but a single roar of energy that can turn adamantium bulkheads to slag.
The Arenne does not carry standard macro-cannon. Her broadsides are home to thickly armoured barrels, yes, but they are shrouds around potent accelerator coils. Her guns were born in the forges of Ryza, and their breath is that of the stars themselves.
Their attendants go about their duties in orange-daubed bodygloves, doubly warded against the hazards of heat and radiation. Their most prized members are those who can sense magnetic field shifts before a capacitor cell loses containment, those who can calculate the interplay of heat and pressure within the system to maximise the rate of fire without sacrificing damage, and the Stirrers, who are tasked with keeping the plasma reservoirs agitated - but not too agitated.
Aboard the Arenne, the usual pecking order on the gun-decks is reversed. It often takes fresh crew by surprise.
Rats on the Line
The Arenne, like most ships, primarily uses hard-wired connections between vox-stations. Even with the tightest discipline, running a ship requires clear communication. Wireless links are too easily disrupted by the conditions aboard a ship even during normal operations, let alone during a warp transit or in battle.
However, these links are not immune to interference. Power fluctuations, electromagnetic fields, and the various tasks involved in the never-ending maintenance of a starship can all cause communications to be dropped, echoed, overlaid or garbled. This is considered perfectly normal and a number of workarounds are regularly employed to ensure orders and reports can be properly conveyed.
What is not normal is the whispering.
Echoes of past transmissions. Voices of crew long departed. References to dates that appear to be in the future. Secrets. Lies.
They say the primary vox nexus was sited too close to the astropathic choir chambers, or that the machine spirit is harbouring some ill-articulated grudge. Traditions have evolved around the whispers, ways to placate the ship's spirit when warned of disaster, or fend off bad luck as a result of hearing words you never said in your own voice. Blood has been spilled more than once as a result of the whispers, stirring up feuds and jealousy among the crew.
The experienced say it is best to ignore them. The ship's not haunted, it's just rats on the lines. They're probably right.
The Boardwalk
The lowermost decks are almost without exception the worst places to be on a ship. A starship's bilges are often like those aboard marine vessels, but worse. Light and air circulation is poor, and anything that can drip, seep or condense makes its way down eventually to form a fetid lake despite the best efforts of pumps and sanitation orderlies. Radiation leaks, electrical hazards and malfunctioning machinery are common. Better-kept ships only have to deal with vermin, such as rodents of unusual size, but others can be unwitting hosts to entire families of mutant scavengers. Whether stowaways from insalubrious ports or descendants of "lost" crew, they scrape out a desperate existence, subsiding on whatever scraps rain down from above.
Arenne's bilges are overlooked by a single causeway that runs almost the entire length of the forward hull. Dubbed the Boardwalk, it is constantly patrolled...in theory. In practice, it is an unspoken custom that unlogged access may be granted for a coin per person. This custom is often used by the various organisations within the crew who feel the need to enforce discipline on their own terms. Those who have taken a stroll on the Boardwalk tend to return better behaved, or not at all.
