[scoutfox]

Choose from the following entries:

Shas’O Sa’cea Doran Yon Shavar
Shas’O Doran Yon rose to fame during the fighting to free Kroot worlds held by Orks. During the first battle for the Tor Trok badlands Doran Yon and his small Cadre rescued a group of Kroot, which had been isolated by Orks of the Brokentoof Clan. Initially the battle went poorly for Doran’s Cadre when it was intercepted by a Speedfreak cult resulting in the lose of a Crisis team and two of his four Delvilfish Transports full of Fire warroirs. Once his Cadre reached the trapped Kroot, Doran lead his remaining Crisis Teams on hit and run raids while the rest of the cadre re-enforced the beleaguered Kroot . The battle reached it’s fever pitch during the third day when the Ork warboss ordered his entire warband to attack the entrenched allies . Doran’s Crisis suit was out of missile ammunition and had taken several heavy hits one of which damaged his arm mounted plasma rifle, forcing him to use a Kroot Gun in order to continue fighting . Time and time again Doran would eliminate the biggest or best armed Orks in order to disrupt the Ork attack, and is credited with killing the warboss, ending the attack and routing the remaining Ork forces in the area. Doran’s actions so impressed the Kroot Master Shaper that he was made a member of the Shapers Kindred and gifted the kroot gun he had used to dispatch the Ork warboss. From then on Doran Yon would use his tactic of head hunting to throw the Ork forces in to disarray. After the remaining Kroot worlds were freed Doran Yon stayed on Pech to help foster the new alliance, and formulate new tactics for the Tau Fire Caste. While on Pech Doran continued to hone this tactic and used it to great effect against other foes of the Tau Empire.

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Shas'O Siri'ona

The castes are seperate...or nearly so. Every once in a great while, through misunderstanding or mishap, there is born a tau with a parent from each caste. Siri'ona was one such child, with an Earth Caste mother, and a Fire Caste father. Fortunately, there is a place for everyone, no matter how odd, within the Greater Good, and Siri'ona found himself a combat mechanic, fixing drones and suits on an orca during the taros campaign.

He sighed to himself as he carefully rewired the fallen troopers carbine to the drone's blackened metal shell. Casualties had been mounting in the Taros operation, but things were appearing to go well, with the open desert favoring the tau.. **BEEP BEEP** The drone sprang to life, indicating that it was against fully functional, with it's jets able to compensate for the extra weight of the markerlight. Siri'ona grinned, then made a last check of all suits in the bay. All was in order, so he set down his toolbox, and allowed his fatigue to get the best of him, and curled up beneath the gun drone. So tired was he, that he was not awakened by the sound of anti-aircraft fire streaking past* the hull, or the sound of the siren alerting the troops to man the Firestorm Suits assembled within.

He was, however, awakened when the Orca opened it's giant rear door, and pulled up sharply, in a "hot drop" manuver that would allow the jet-pack enabled occupants to land neatly in one place. He let out a scream as he desperately tried to cling to the decking, watching the suits vanish torward the distant desert below. He might have made it too, had not his sliding toolbox crashed into his knuckles, weaking his grip enough for him to hurtle down after the strike force.

The impact shocked Siri'ona badly. He'd expected it to be both much more fatal, and further away. Glancing downward, he realized what had happened. A shield drone was almost directly beneath him, and the energy shield had broken his fall. However, it was also preventing him from getting a grip on it, and in any case, he knew the engine couldn't possibly stop them both from such a fall. Quickly surveying his toolbelt for something of use, he came up a spare antennae cable and a decently sized wrench, which he tied together. As he slipped off the drone, he spun around, neatly tossing the wrench where it would snag on the nearby Firestorm's drone controller. Hanging on for dear life, only now did it occur to him that people were still shooting at them.

The ground came all too fast, and the impact shook him off like a bug. Crashing into the earth with enough force to leave him stunned, all he could hear was incessant automatic weapons fire, punctuated by occasional lascannon blasts. Gasping for breath, he struggled to his feet, only to be knocked down again by the dismembered gun drone he'd repaired such a short time ago. Huddled beneath the dubious protection of the torn frisbee, he surveyed the battlefield. Only two XV-8s still stood, with a solitary shield drone orbitting the leader, though the area was littered with dead guardsmen, and a couple strangely armored gue'vsa that appeared to be much larger than normal.

Had he been in the combat team, he would have been briefed on the space marines, and probably would have been somewhat less surprised when one suddenly appeared over the nearest dune, flying torward them rapidly, pouring a hail of plasma death into the suit that overcame the shield drone's best efforts to stop it. Siri'ona frantically began undoing his earlier work, detaching the carbine from the drone. Fortunately, this was a remarkably easy task, and thus, he was able to begin returning fire almost before the crisis suit crashed into the earth next to him. Not that it did any good, it appeared as if neither his nor the last Firestorm was able to penetrate his armor.

The plasma pistol, however, literally glowing from the heat within the space marines hand, ceased to fire...until the seargent threw it at the crisis suit. With a deafening explosion, the armored tau toppled to the ground. He banked slightly, coming exactly torward the frightened mechanism firing the carbine so wildly.

The ammunition ran out, and knowing there would be no time to reload, Siri'ona desperately mashed the fire mode selection button, hoping to activate a grenade at least. No such luck. He did, however, manage to activate the markerlight, triggering a launch from a nearby pathfinder team. The seeker struck the marine as he was only inches away from turning Siri'ona into Kroot food, decapitating him entirely.

The tale of how he fought his way back to the lines is one for another day, but these were the events that set Siri'ona along the path to Shas'O that he currently holds today.

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Shas'o vior'la kav'y'an*
Commander Tsunami

* Commander Tsunami is one of the empire's most skilled commanders. He has an undying devotion to the greater good, and is capable of making any sacrifice, either personally or by commanding his troops, to ensure a victory for the tau. Although he has a string* of earlier victories leading to his ascension through the tau ranks, his most notable actions took place during the recent thrid sphere expansion crusade,
where he served closely under the hero of the empire, commander shadowsun.* Most famous of these, was on the conquest of Kaldoth, a gue'vesa world* that had defected from the imperium.* The orginal drop of tau forces was* decimated due to a coven of psykers throwing up a vicious storm of psychic energy,
destryoing fully half of the empire's troops before they could land.* Commander tsunami was able to hold his warriors together, and create a rearguard for shadowsun's kill force which went after the pskyers. Despite being out numbered greatly by well equipped soldiers, tsunami's men were able to hold out long enough for shadowsun to elimiate the psychic storm, allowing quick retribution from waiting empire forces in orbit.* There were only 17 surviors of the rearguard action commanded by tsunami.*

However, despite his tactical brilliance and devotion to the greater good, Tsunami's personal traits cause some to doubt him, which interferes with his further advancement. Tsunami is notably cold, showing very little if any emotion at all. His willingness to sacrifice anything for the greater good also leads some to doubt his caring or devotion to the warriors under his command. Tsunami also holds any empires of the empire with much contempt, and has sometimes destroyed a helpless enemy before they could be offered the chance to defect to the empire.* Tsunami is currently testing new equipment, like many other high ranking tau officers. Although he prefers old and reliable technology, Tsunami takes this task without complaint as he sees it's value to the overall greater good.

[Durza]

Erm, isn't this campaign set before the third sphere expansion?

[Ravager]

Originally Posted by Durza

Erm, isn't this campaign set before the third sphere expansion?

This is correct.
Scoutfox, you might have to twiddle with some stuff to make it fit in.

[Genmotty]

Originally Posted by Ravager Zero

This is correct.
Scoutfox, you might have to twiddle with some stuff to make it fit in.

Indeed. It is likely that the fluff would have/will be twiddled with sightly anyhow, if only to make it Golgotha Specific, which I might add is a shame as not of these characters even mention Golgotha in the fluff. Second I feel slightly disappointed at the fact that only Tau characters are in the vote, and not any Gue'vesa ones. Thirdly because they are all 'o rank, it doesn't leave much room for character progression.

A futher note, said commander will never don a XV-8 suit in combat unless the Tau get completely battered on Golgotha, so having a hero is of little importance. To be honest I am slightly disappointed at the entry's, however if this is what the players want...

Genmotty

EDIT: The date is 874.M41 and so you can't have the last character training under Shadowsun or part of Third Phase actions...Just for your infomation.

[Agent Purple]

Well the golgotha campaign could be one of the battles that led to either character's rank progression. Since the campaign is historical, and none of the characters state exactly when or after which battle they were bumped to the 'o' rank.

[Savon Saal]

Commander Tsunami... dodgy name

[shasocastris]

Originally Posted by Genmotty

A futher note, said commander will never don a XV-8 suit in combat unless the Tau get completely battered on Golgotha, so having a hero is of little importance. To be honest I am slightly disappointed at the entry's, however if this is what the players want...

I'd have written something, but Scoutfox said no, so sorry. What is the purpose of these characters, exactly? I'm just wondering... Oh, and why don't you make them 'els for progression purposes?

Cheers!

[Xisor]

Originally Posted by Genmotty

To be honest I am slightly disappointed at the entry's, however if this is what the players want...

It's not really though, is it? A sound vote would have an option such as 'Re-open Nominations', or Shas'o Ron, as we may like to call this amazing entrant...

[Agent Purple]

Whats the background matter if you're just going to switch it to make it fit anyways? If all thats needed is a name you could have just asked for names, and picked the rank yourself. I know I and it looks like other people just posted fluff for characters they had already created.

Also, if you wanted a tie in for golgotha you should have asked for one. In addition, a link to the fluff for golgotha would have also been relevant.

[Genmotty]

Originally Posted by Agent Purple

Whats the background matter if you're just going to switch it to make it fit anyways? If all thats needed is a name you could have just asked for names, and picked the rank yourself. I know I and it looks like other people just posted fluff for characters they had already created.

Because I wanted to involve the players in the fluff creation process, considering my original characters were lost to a computer virus.

Originally Posted by Agent Purple

Also, if you wanted a tie in for Golgotha you should have asked for one. In addition, a link to the fluff for Golgotha would have also been relevant.

I did, look back at the discussion posts beforehand I clearly stated Golgotha. Posting a link to all the Golgotha fluff would be difficult, there is quite a bit of it and most of it ties to futher articles or stories, hence it would not be practical listing endless links to the articles.

Secondly if I gave you all the fluff then there would be little left for the campaign pack and website etc. There is fluff for Golgotha posted up on the Campaign boards and I was hoping that players would have read that and built their characters around that (at least one player has).

Originally Posted by Agent Purple

Well the Golgotha campaign could be one of the battles that led to either character's rank progression. Since the campaign is historical, and none of the characters state exactly when or after which battle they were bumped to the 'o' rank.

Nice idea, but what if over the course of the campaign one of these characters gets bumped off? Time Paradox has been created.

Originally Posted by Xisor

It's not really though, is it? A sound vote would have an option such as 'Re-open Nominations', or Shas'o Ron, as we may like to call this amazing entrant...

Time constraints. As it stands you players will pick the characters, then it will come back to the committee and we'll redo the fluff to link in with Golgotha while maintaining other actions as well. I will discuss with the creator of the character on this process in order not to spoil his/her work. Then its over to you to watch this space...

Side note: Golgotha is a name, so please can it be spelt with a capital?

Genmotty