Black Crusade (RPG)

Black Crusade
RPG published by Fantasy Flight Games
Rule System	d%
No. of Players	3+
Session Time	10+ minutes
Authors	Sam Stewart, Jay Little, Mack Martin, Ross Watson
First Publication	2011
Essential Books	Black Crusade Core Rulebook The Game Master's Kit The Hand of Corruption The Tome of Fate The Tome of Blood The Tome of Excess

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This is for the RPG, not the apocalypse-style crusades by Chaos.

Black Crusade is the fourth Fantasy Flight Games Warhammer 40,000 Role-Playing Game, and it's main focus is the forces of Chaos, like cultists and the Traitor Legions.

This is the exact opposite of the earlier books in every way. Even the Human characters in Black Crusade are considerably more powerful than those from previous games, able to receive powerful mutations and game-changing blessings. The Chaos Space Marines are even more powerful, having the benefits available to human heretics as well as the hard combat capabilities of space marines, and weaponry ranges from rune swords, to daemonic bolters, to reaper autocannons. Alignment often leads to extremely interesting role-playing as well.

One of its greatest features is encouraging competition between players, often by making the personal goals of their characters mutually exclusive, or counterproductive to the mission, thus mirroring the climate of a Chaos warband. This can go very right, or oh so wrong.

Archetypes

Characters don't have classes, but instead have archetypes, each of which is apparently meant to be a blanket term for a specific type of character. Chaos has all sorts of mixed individuals with multiple skill sets; so unlike the other games, you don't have a talent tree limiting you to a specialization beside elite advances, but everything is available to everyone. The only limitation is alignment, which gives you discounts and penalties to the appropriate advances.

The PCs, affectionately called the Heretics, come in two flavors: Chaos Space Marine, and Disciple of Chaos ("regular" humans). Marines start the game equipped with stupid levels of combat abilities, but don't start with too much else. Humans are a bit more balanced in that regard, but will often struggle to keep up with the marines in combat.

The Marines have the following Archetypes to start out with:

• The Champion is the all-rounder and leader type, good for any situation but not exceptional at any, barring command.
• The Chosen is the combat-specialist, often seen as a duelist or hero killer build. They specialize in straight up strength of arms, and can be made into any type of combat monster: Ranged, melee or heavy.
• The Forsaken is the lone wolf and the survivor, essentially a Black Crusade version of a Black Shield. They are practically built for extended operations, survival, and self-reliance.
• The Sorcerer is the auto-include magic user. He combines the flexible utility of a psyker with the massive physical power of a space marine, and is especially deadly when combat-oriented psychic powers are taken.

The Human disciples of Chaos have the following:

• The Apostate is the manipulator and schemer [read: the face]. This one is probably the least combat-oriented class, but is probably the class with the greatest utility since he has the highest potential for minions and manipulation.
• The Heretek is the Dark Mechanicus adept, and the obligatory tech character. Useful to have for Tech Use tests and crafting, and probably the toughest of the human archetypes with the upgrades available to him.
• The Renegade is the combat-oriented archetype for the humans. Strong, but lacking as much raw power as a Marine, yet more flexible.
• The Psyker has more psychic potential and power than sorcerers, but have a higher chance of bad things happening, and they start with the least combat utility.

From the Splatbooks

Each of the splatbooks introduce two archetypes for Humans and for Marines, each themed for, but not necessarily aligned to the corresponding deity.

Tome of Fate

• Thousand Sons Sorcerer - A slightly stronger Sorcerer that starts aligned to Tzeentch, that starts with Unnatural Willpower, more talents, more Lore skills, and a bolt pistol with Inferno bolts. He starts aligned to Tzeentch, so he can use psychic powers aligned to him from the start, and he can replace a the ones or tens die when he rolls Perils, and can take a Rubric Marine as a regular Minion of Chaos instead of a Greater minion. He's easily considered to be broken as hell once he starts racking up XP.
• Alpha Legion Marine - What it says on the tin, a member of the Alpha Legion. A sneaky marine who's about fighting smart, with some utility skills. He's great at deceiving people and starting insurrections.
• Q'Sal Magister Immaterial - A Human character (in the loosest form possible) from the Tzeentch world of Q'Sal. Technically a mutant. He is the most powerful starting psykers, with Psy Rating x4, more XP to sink into psychic powers than anybody else, and the ability to direct their any Perils onto any visible target (friend or foe) at the cost of 1 infamy point. He has a some nice utility skills that give him some limited capacity as a face and a sage, also starts aligned to Tzeentch.
• Idolitrex Magos of Forge Polix - An advanced Heretek, with higher quality augmentations and a Psy Rating x1. A mean, but otherwise standard mad scientist from the 40K 'verse. Has lots of talents that revolve around tech, and plenty of Lore skills and stuff that take advantage of his high Int score. Don't plan on relying on his talents as a Psyker at first, since his PR max is limited to his Corruption bonus.

Tome of Blood

• Khorne Berserker - CSM. "Blood for the Blood God" everyone knows how great these guys are in combat. Begins aligned to Khorne, if allegiance changes he permanently loses his close combat rules and a full 8 points from every characteristic. Always take the two Chainaxes.
• Night Lords Chaos Marine - CSM. Stealth and Shock Marine, specialized combatant focused on melee, while incorporating strong stealth and terror tactics, with other stuff to round him out outside of combat. Can come out of the gate with a fair Raptor build, and good for being brooding and edgy all the time, but surprisingly little emphasis in the crunch for being a space terrorist.
• Xurunt Frost Father - Human. Experienced tribal fighters with great leadership. Great close combat weapons, but still starts with using a bow and arrow, even if they can punch through power armor. Also starts out with a huge riding lizard. Plays well aligned to Khorne, and starts that way.
• Chem-Hunter of Messia - Human. Basically a drug-addict Renegade, with a lot of survivalist thrown into the mix. A great character for those who are addicted to drugs, these guys get good bonuses when substance abuse is involved. In addition to the effects of any drug, these guys gain +10 to any skill test bonuses, or +1 to any characteristic bonus, or an extra die roll for drug duration, and they can find the higher quantities easily. They can also make a drug that gives them Unnatural Strength and Toughness (+1) and Frenzy, but can kill anybody else that tries to take it. Best to go with Khorne or Nurgle.

Tome of Excess

• Noise Marine - CSM. Well, you know who this guys are, and what they are made of. They begin aligned to Slaanesh of course; and, enjoying it's gifts, there is little that they CANNOT hear with great bonuses to hearing. In battle, they get bonuses for every body involved in fighting, the more massive battles, the better. Being a masters of sonic weaponry, they are very shooty, and can enhance their output once per combat, or alternatively, force enemies to test willpower or get some nasty effects. As they start with sonic blaster, things starts getting loud all the time.
• Dark Apostle - CSM. Not strictly a Word Bearer, but these guys have all the same things: being a loud, charismatic, and influential servant of the Dark Gods. With their abilities, it almost becomes child's play to convert hordes of Imperial citizens to chaos. They can affect moar targets with their Interactions skills than any other archetype in the RPG books. They also can build altars and monuments to the gods, empowering rituals and rites aligned to the corresponding gods. They begin play with an Accursed Crozius, which is easily one of the most powerful melee weapons without possession (oh, and there's a possessed variant, too). They begin play Unaligned.
• Pirate Prince of Ragged Helix - Human. Essentially a chaos Rogue Trader. Aristocratic and pampered. Really fucked up. Narcissism, influence, space ships and all this. Good things. They're focused on being aristocratic, piratical captains, they begin play with a space ship, and various high-quality crap, because anything less than the best will make them a lesser person. They begin aligned to Slaanesh.
  • Did we mention they have a space ship.
• Flesh Shaper of Melancholia - Human. Another lot of repressed sick fucks hunters of pleasures, they GM is actively encouraged to make these guys have to take willpower tests to avoid doing potentially stupid shit. Also, these guys can change their own flesh and bodies of others to gain some very interesting results. As they also have access to the (really broken) Rite of Fleshmoulding, with enough time and "resources" in hand, they can create their own sort of "space marines". The Rite of Fleshmoulding, which gains bonuses on unwilling subjects, and can Regeneration (6), Multiple Arms (6), Unnatural Stats (+6), and more. Sounds good, right? I'll take twenty! They start aligned to Slaanesh.

Splatbooks

• Core Rulebook - The main book, required for all the others to make sense. Including everything you need to play Black Crusade, it gives general information about the Screaming Vortex, and basic rules about minions, daemon weapons, Chaos rituals, a pre-written adventure, and a glorious fourteen pages of mutations.
• The Game Master's Kit - Standard game master kit; comes with a GM screen with rules on one side, and art on the other, as well as a pre-written adventure. Take good care of it, and your Game Master's kit will take good care of you.
• Hand of Corruption - A pre-written adventure book in three acts, where the Heretics go to prison and teach everyone about prison rape infiltrate an industrialized Imperial penal world to bring the whole planet into Chaos' writhing, angry, slimy embrace. And when you almost get there...suddenly...Necrons!

Books of ye Gods!

There is an ongoing series of books, each one is dedicated to each god, but gives plenty of general rules and fluff to expand on the vanilla game. Each one includes an expanded armory, more rituals, more enemies, daemons, daemon engines, information on worlds and places in the Screaming Vortex, a pre-written adventure, and introduces two archetypes for Marines and two for humans, all themed around the respective god. The books are:

• The Tome of Fate - The book on Tzeentch, and gives all kind of info on him, his servants, and playing Tzeentchian heretic archetypes. Introduces the rapetastic Thousand Son Sorcerer, as well as the Alpha Legionaire, and two human archetypes that you wouldn't have heard of unless you have the core book, the Q'Sal Magister Immaterial and the Idolitrex Magos of Forge Polix. Other unique features include expanded psychic powers, rules for investigations, and more rules for Necrons.
• The Tome of Blood - The tome of Khorne, because who else would it go to? New features include turning weapons into Legacy Weapons (think of what sets apart a chainaxe from Gorechild); mounted riding rules, which of course edge into rudimentary vehicle rules; advanced horde rules and rules for large-scale battles. Not too much unique stuff, but then everything is about the ways to wage & rage war in Khorne's name. Also introduces the overtly broken Khorne Berzerker class, Night Lords, the Frost Father who is a Khornate tribal warrior. And the Chem Hunter, a drug addict who was too hardcore to be thrown in with that pussified Slaanesh book. Oh, and ever wanted to summon a greater daemon? This is your tome! Also, it's the first book to mention Doomrider in ages.
• The Tome of Excess - Slaanesh's tome. Gives us the and Emperor's Children Noise Marine and a Word Bearers Dark Apostle, also a Rogue Trader-like Pirate Prince and the surgeon/face Flesh Shaper. Also noted that there in no Unaligned archetype for humans, which is UTTER BULLSHIT frickin' sweet! something players should judge for themselves. New rules include extended rules for minions, verbal combat, seducing NPCs and fellow heretics, and has all kinds of small rites to perform to appease specific gods. The Khornate rites are the most amazing things ever, like rip the spine and skull of a still living enemy out intact and scream your allegiance to the blood god to grant you a little bit of corruption and infamy. The expanded armory includes drugs and rock'n'roll, but nothing explicitly about sex. Probably because Slaanesh is a registered sex offender and has to tread carefully, or something.

Also there will be a Nurgle tome one day, but it hasn't even been announced yet. It will include Plague Marines and Iron Warriors, and a bunch of Nurgle stuff. Beside that, we can only speculate on what else will be in it. Also, there some speculation that there will one day be a Chaos Undecided Undivided book that might include a Black Legionnaire Chaos Lord archetype, and probably a Red Corsair or something. However, hoping is probably just setting ourselves up for disappointment.

++needs work++

See Also

• A character folio for Black Crusade. Heretical Huzzah

Warhammer 40,000 Role-playing games made by Fantasy Flight Games
Dark Heresy - Rogue Trader - Deathwatch - Black Crusade - Only War - Dark Heresy Second Edition