#iapetus liveblogs Rogue Trader 2023

[iapetusneume]

Played a bit more of Rogue Trader.

Finally recruited Henrix von Calox. I'm not sure what I think of him yet. I do respect that he does want to help the RT before getting to Footfall, and is grateful for the help. Navona, Armony, and I had fun joking about how it was obvious I finally recruited a romance option, and I could tell from the dialogue.

I LOVE PASQAL OMG. Owlcat why won't you let me smooch the cyborg.

Still don't know if I want to kiss Idira or just have her be my best friend.

[iapetusneume]

So, finished the Prologue. A collection of thoughts.

Lavinia may have her history as a Crime Boss, but it's also important to remember that you don't become a leader without knowing how to talk to people. She's extremely pragmatic. And finding herself in the situation of having to become part of the Rogue Trader's retinue because she's a distant cousin and they're hurting for heirs is... yeah. Of course she's upset she was taken away from her little kingdom she's carved out for herself. But she isn't gonna survive long by having an attitude. (At least, in her perception.) And she can't manipulate people until she learns how they work.

Lavinia is also non-binary and uses she/they pronouns, but very specifically is addressed as "her Lordship" instead of "her Ladyship."

.

I'm really liking the game design. There's always going to be that learning curve with a game when getting started, but the feel is great. And Navona had jokingly told Nat that Rogue Trader was "Warhammer BG3," and she ain't wrong.

When I booted up the game I did make my subtitles as big as possible, and I do appreciate that you are offered those controls before you start (and then can be edited later, if you wish).

My only quibble so far is that sometimes when the subtitles are playing without any audio, it goes a little too fast. Luckily this doesn't happen a lot.

.

NAVONA: that's a lot of enemies for two people ARMONY: it's ok, she's the Rogue Trader. She's a named character in Warhammer. She'll be fine.

.

Navona is predictably excited about Argenta. I do really like everyone so far. Idira has been the one to trigger my biggest "MUST PROTECC" instinct.

.

Had to stop because RL sucks and I have work in the morning, but also Navona was getting sleepy. At least finishing the Prologue was a good stopping point for the night.

[iapetusneume]

Started playing Rogue Trader, and got to one of the truly hardest parts of any video game: the Character Creation.

The short version, for my friends who have played:

Name: Lavinia Homeworld: Deathworld Origin: Crime Lord Triumph: Apex of Brilliance Darkest Hour: Grim Portents Archtype: Operative (considering Assassin or Bounty Hunter at level 16) Voidship Name: Unbound Avarice

I put as many points as I could into Intelligence because I really liked the idea of Operative (which relies mainly on Intelligence and Perception), and I started with some negatives from my lore choices, lol.

For those of my friends who are following and haven't played the game and/or not familiar with 40k, descriptions of each choice are under the Read More.

I didn't get very far because I plan to stream it for my partners, and I wasn't sure how long I was going to spend analyzing my choices.

Decided on Crime Lord for a background in part because I think I want to learn more about the mechanics of the game and so on before I do a playthrough with a RT who is more Chaos-aligned, and I didn't want to just be an Imperium shill. Also, I'm a big fan of "hey man I'm just trying to survive here" as a way to do a first playthrough of a game.

(Just "trying to survive" and getting an entire star system under her thumb as her own personal den of thieves, nbd.)

[iapetusneume]

Doing quests. Decided to go after Cassia first, because Lavinia's first instinct would be to want to replace the person navigating through the warp. And it's for this reason that she'll be going after Pasqual next.

But yeah, we're working on trying to find Cassia and I was told to build the "key." Ok, got it. Got everything I needed, too. ...and then I couldn't figure out how to open the big door in the main area.

And it was obvious that Something Needed To Be Triggered, but I was missing what it was. And I tried reading a guide, and it wasn't making sense yesterday, and then I was too tired so I went to bed early.

Tried today, and it still took a few tries before... I found out that I somehow completely missed the doors in that one hallway.

I felt so phenomenally dumb when I realized that was what the problem was. I have the game set to Story Mode, so it's not supposed to be difficult.

This, yet again, reflects something that I feel might be the most frustrating part of the gameplay for me so far. My cursor was just... not where it needed for me to see the door outline. But it will teach me that when I'm trying to find things, I should frequently rotate the camera so I can pass the cursor over everything, just in case.

As for actual story, LOL at Idira being worried about Cassia. You know shit's wack when the psyker is like "...ummm, you sure about her, boss?"

Hard to have an opinion on Cassia yet, but I do like my first impressions. Laviana convinced Cassia to come along of her own free will.

Idira is still my boo.

Navona and Armony think that I should always have Abelard in the party so Lavinia can be like "Abelard, introduce me."

[iapetusneume]

Lord Captain Lavinia von Valancius

And because I have a chance to grab them now:

[iapetusneume]

Meet Your Commentators

Since I know I'm going to be including commentary from my partners as I play, a bit of an introduction for those interested in following my liveblogs are in order.

IAPETUS (ME): as y'all know, I am very much a Blood Angel Enjoyer. I'm also a huge fan of the T'au - which is actually what got me into 40k in the first place way back when! - which I do hope show up at some point in this since it's set in modern 40k. Sanguinius (RIP) is my primarch.

NAVONA: Wife. Lover of Adeptus Mechanicus and Dark Mechanicum, Thousand Sons, and Sisters of Battle. Often jokes about how she longs for the way she can cast aside the Weaknesses of the Flesh and become a cyborg. When we're playing our Rogue Traders TTRPG, she's the DM. Magnus is her primarch and has not done anything wrong.

ARMONY: Wife. Lover of all Aeldari, but especially Craftworld. Has significantly warmed to Astartes since I've started to dig more into the Lore, but still thinks Aeldari are superior. Wants the Avatars of Khaine to please win something. Still mad that we can't have dinosaurs because the Exodites are not playable. Still mad that she has models old enough to drink. Does not have a primarch but if forced to pick her favorite it would be Vulkan because he's a solid dude and also Dragon.

NAT: Boyfriend. Tyranids plz. Genestealers = love. He really respects that the Tyranids are just hungry and want to eat, you guys. Knows the least amount of Lore of the four of us, and I predict will be asking most of the Lore Questions.

I will probably make another post at some point about the characters from our Rogue Traders TTRPG because I also feel like they're going to come up in conversation.