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Anathema: Rules and background

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DM B:
Champions of Chaos do not fight alone. Well, some of them do, but that's not the point, the point is: You have a warband. The warband is pretty small and weak in the beginning, but should grow stronger during play (if it doesn't you're doing something wrong). Your warband is also a reflection of your Champion; if your Champion has very high Warcraft for example, then your band be more militaristic than than the norm. If your Tech is good your warband's gear is going to be superior. Characters with high Interaction will generally have Warbands than are better and more numerous than average.

Every Champion starts with:

Warband: 2

(the reason you start with 2 is so there is the possibility of losing something if you screw up)

By comparison a warband 0 is no warband at all and a warband 1 is just a weak bodyguard squad and nothing else. A warband 3 is significantly stronger than a Warband 2 (more than twice as powerful in fact).

Warbands scale by Tier; at tier 1 it's made up of squads. At tier 2 of companies. At tier 3 of entire regiments. At...you get the picture. So you'll never have a Warband: 100, but if you have a Warband: 7 at Tier 3 it means you have fifty or so regiments at your command.


Warbands are not uniform; they have some special characters in them, plus a variety of troops. If you want you can add some detail to them; 'Warband: 2' isn't very colorful or evocative.

Able assistants
These are you supporting characters. The GM might take control of them on occasion and/or present things IC through their eyes or mouths, but by an large they are yours to direct. They can also provide your warband with useful skills; either to augment your own (i.e. tech-priest AAs for a magos) or fill in the gaps (i.e. a tech-priest AA to help a Space marine take care of his gear).

Lieutenant: If you want you can have one of your henchmen (i.e. one of the 1-4 henchmen you start with) be your Lieutenant. He's your second in command. He can be a great asset, but he's also a potential rival and traitor. The more powerful he is (relative to you) the more independent he will be. If you die your lieutenant will take over with only minimal bloodletting.

If you want you can stat your LT. He has 12 points (default), but if you want you can give him 15 or 18 points instead. At 12 he's very loyal, at 15 he's a potential rival, at 18 he's just waiting to take you down (baring other factors, like having high Interaction).

Henchmen: These are you most skilled followers and able warriors. They usually have both names and useful skills, so briefly describe a few of them. Minimum 1 and maximum 4 (or more if you have good Interaction). More will be added later as the game progresses.

If you absolutely want you can stat them. The first two get 12 points, the other two get 9 points. If you upgrade one of them to LT you must take one of the 12 point characters.

Squads
Briefly name and describe the Squads you have; the type of creatures found in the and their usual fighting style should suffice. Undamaged squads have exactly 10 members (for the sake of simplicity).

Bodyguard: All Champions start with a single Bodyguard (aka Command) Squad. This is essentially an Elite squad, only it has slightly more powerful and interesting characters in it (we're the best of the best of the best, Sir!). Well-equipped stormtroopers are a good bodyguard squad. A full squad of Space Marines is pushing it.

Elites: These are your good troops. You get the one bodyguard squad to begin with, but no other elites (but you can get some later). Space Marines are ultra high-quality Elites, Stormtroopers less so, and veteran guardsmen with good gear are at the lower end of the range.

Troops: There are your other troops. You get a couple of squads to begin with (more if the quality is poor, less if better than average). Guardsmen are Troops of fairly decent quality, PDF less so, civilian rabble the worst of the lot.


Continued example:

Lieutenant:
Ravn, another Space Wolf that has followed him into exile. Rather unimaginative, but seemingly loyal (15 pts; Prowess 5, Cunning 2, Warcraft 5, Subterfuge 2, Faith 1).

Henchmen/women:
Irelda, a Cadian rogue psyker that sometimes makes accurate readings of the future (12 pts; Cunning 3, Interaction 2, Psychics 5, Faith 2 ).
Brello, a hulking mutant that Hrothgar rescued (9 pts; Prowess 6, Subterfuge 2, Faith 1).
Lt. Kipplin, a Guard officer from a distant sector, good with vox gear and a great liar (9 pts; Prowess 2, Cunning 2, Warcraft 2, Subterfuge 2, Tech 1).

Bodyguard (10): One squad of mutant scum and renegade guard veterans, scavenged body armour, hell-guns, and a couple of support weapons. While good fighters this squad is rather mediocre as bodyguard squads go.

Elites (0): None.

Troops (40): Four squads of assorted riff-raff, well armed, but poorly armoured. Roughly equivalent to normal soldiers (less skilled, but highly motivated). The high number of squads compensates somewhat for the mediocre quality of the bodyguard squad.

DM B:
Anathema isn't about grubbing around on a single planet. Anathema is epic, and epic means going places. Eventually you will go places in style, but for now you've no ship at all!

Every Champion therefore starts with:

Fleet: 0

Fleets (Like Warbands) scale by Tier; at tier 1 we're talking about a single smaller ship, like a raider or light transport. At tier 2 we're in the realm of proper warships (or alternatively squadrons of lesser ships). At tier 3 we're definitely on the squadron level - you'll command multiple capital ships and support vessels. At tier 4 you have an entire battlefleet at your command. If you have a Fleet: 5 across every tier that might mean something like a decent Raider-class --> a Lunar-class Cruiser --> A squadron of cruisers or even a battleship + support ships --> Big-ass fleet.

DM B:
Once your warband gets big and you start to have a fleet you need resources to support your assets. Resources can be anything from wartime plunder, to a treaty with a friendly Forge world, to the support of a greater champion, to entire worlds that owe you fealty. It doesn't matter what or how, only that you have the resources you need (but it's good for role-playing to take a stab at describing your resource base).

Every Champion starts with:

Resources: 0

Note that Resources aren't static - they have a tendency to become used up: Just like warband squads can be destroyed and ships shot to smithereens, resources can (and will) dwindle.

For now the only thing you need to know that Resources: 0 is only barely able to support a Warband: 2. You need to find some supplies (i.e. improve your Resources), particularly if you want to improve your warband.

Once you have both a warband and a fleet your Resources should be equal to your Warband/Fleet. So if you have a Warband 5/Fleet 5 you would ideally have (at least) Resources 5.

DM B:
Influence is less tangible than Resources or Fleet, but no less important. Influence means both your level of infamy and whatever influence you've managed to build up with the people that matter (people with significantly more tiers and resources than you, people that aid you and your cause).

Every Champion starts with:

Influence: 0

Unlike Resources you do not have to have any Influence to function, but it can be nice. The more Influence you have the greater the chances of good thing happening to you; being granted more troops, ships, and resources for example. Or being given better assignments and more loot. We'll cover this in more detail once it becomes relevant.

DM B:
The Host is a catchall for your Champion and your Assets: Your Warband, your Fleet, your Resources, and your Influence.

In BIRTHRIGHT terms we'd call it a Domain instead of a Host, but it's essentially the same thing. Your Champion is your regent; he's supposed to rule, but he's also supposed to be a great warrior and adventurer. Your Warband is a combination of you Able Assistance and your Army. Fleet is fleet; only fleet is really powerful and important in Anathema. Resources is your provinces and holdings, treasury and whatnot. Influence is sort of like Regency and Diplomatic relations rolled up into one.

If you don't play BIRTHRIGHT think of your Host as a Minor House (soon to be major) in a Game of Thrones.


Anathema is about your Champion AND your Host. Hopefully both will make it to the end, but there are no guarantees.

If your Champion is killed another one will rise to replace him. That's a nice feature of warbands; always someone ready to take over.  If you have a LT it will automatically be him, with a minimum of fuss (i.e. no additional loss of Assets). If you don't the waters are considerably murkier: It can be one of your existing AAs or you can make a new Champion. Whichever option you pick you'll lose some Assets to simulate the chaos and infighting that's likely to take place as a new leader asserts himself.

If your Host is wiped out it's game over, unless somehow you Champion survives and manages to scrape together a new Host. It could happen, in theory at least, but it's not a likely scenario - it's much more likely he goes down with his ship.


Hopefully dead Champions/destroyed Hosts happen too often. Players grow attached to their characters - and so do I. Building up new ones as rich and complex as the original ones demands a lot of work. So no, I'm no big fan of killing off PCs. But it wouldn't be 40k if there was no chance of death! And the game would be no fun at all if it wasn't challenging; games that guarantee success with no chance of failure are dead boring IMO. So I think I'll stick to my usual Ruins of Empire routine. If you don't know what that means, ask a player who does. It pretty much boils down to: Whatever happens, you will not be missed (your Host will carry on without you).

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