Homebrew Home world or Background: Felinid

Home World (Recommended)
Felinid Rules
A Felinid character applies the following benefits during character creation
Characteristic Modifiers
+Agility +Perception -Fellowship
Fate Threshold
2 (Emperor's Blessing 3+)
Home World Bonus
Cat's Eyes, Cat's Grace: A Felinid character starts with both the Catfall talent and the Dark-Sight trait.
Home World Aptitude
Finesse
Wounds
8+1d5
Recommended Backgrounds
Imperial Guard, Navy, Rogue Trader, Outcast

OR

Background
Felinid Rules
A character with the Felinid Background applies the following benefits:
Starting Skills
Acrobatics or Athletics, Awareness, Dodge, Scrutiny, Stealth
Starting Talents
Weapon Training (Low-tech, Solid Projectile), Catfall
Starting Traits
Dark-Sight, Natural Weapons
Starting Equipment
Sword and Stub Automatic or Shotgun, Light Flak Coat or Flak Vest, data slate, glow-globe
Background Aptitude
Finesse or Fieldcraft

FOR BOTH
A character with the Felinid Home World or Background applies the following malus:
Abhuman
Tests using Fellowship as a characteristic take a difficult -10 penalty applied to all other modifiers when speaking with loyal Imperial citizens and officials.
Optional Additional Maluses
-All gains in influence are reduced by one to a minimum of one. (GM discretion: depending on how and by who the influence was gained from, this penalty may be removed for specific individuals or influence gaining actions).
-Take influence as a negatively modified characteristic in exchange for a third positively modified characteristic.

Felinids are an interesting thing to make playable because there are basically two ways you can go about it. You can do the easy thing and make them a type of homeworld you can choose, which is easy since Carlos McConnell (which apparently is the canon name of their homeworld) is basically the only Felinid homeworld in existence. So slap that on, hey you're a cat person that could reasonably fit as auxiliary personnel to most of the backgrounds you can choose; the ones most likely abhumans would probably end up in being Imperial Guard, Navy, Rogue Trader, and Outcast. The other thing you can do is make them a type of background like mutants are in DH2E Enemies Within. That does not work quite as well as mutants can be found in most parts of the Imperium and still have differing homeworlds. Felinids have the one, and if you wish to extrapolate from the barest of lore, the ones you would most likely see in a setting such as the Askellon or Calixis sectors is as an auxiliary that an inquisitor or an Imperial organization finds some use for. However, with a background version, I feel you can get more fleshed out and make them more cat-like. I mean we're all here because it is neat to play as cat people. It speaks to a sillier 40k 1E Rogue Trader sensibility, much like my use of glam rock sorcerers using old versions of blastmasters that were literally guitars. Which is funny since Felinids are apparently a later lore creation.

Anyway, here is a homebrew homeworld or background. I recommend choosing the homeworld to make things simple, but maybe the mutant approach is better for others.

Just know for both since a felinid is an abhuman, a lot of Imperial subjects and officials do not really trust you. You are tolerated, not truly integrated. To reflect this I recommend a -10 penalty to Fellowship-based characteristic and skill tests. Not that one has to be hampered socially as long as one uses alternate characteristics found in the book. Command might be a skill related with fellowship, but a powerful will can make sneering guardsmen fall in line with its alternate characteristic use.

If one wants to really reflect a second-class citizen existence, I offer a secondary option to add a second negative characteristic modifier, influence, to reflect the lower status and resources an abhuman character would start with. If you want to take it further, reduce influence gain by one to a minimum of one every time you gain influence. The tradeoff to this would be a third positive characteristic modifier as a mechanical way of showing your upbringing taught you to rely on another characteristic in the face of a bigoted galaxy. Which sounds potentially overpowered, but I feel the drawbacks balance it out a bit.

March 16, 2019: As of this date, the Felinid post is the second most viewed on my blog going by view statistics. HMMMMMMMM, interesting 40K RPG community.

Homebrew Action: Melee Overwatch

Action                    Type            Subtype(s)                                  Description
Melee Overwatch Full Action Attack, Concentration, Melee  Hit Targets coming into a set kill zone

Melee Overwatch
Type: Full Action
Subtypes: Attack, Concentration, Melee
The active character guards a specific area or target, poised to shoot at an opportune moment. When Overwatch is declared, the active character establishes a kill zone consisting of 3 meters adjacent to a character. This kill zone must be within melee range. The active character then specifies Standard Attack, Swift Attack, or Lightning Attack, along with the conditions he will perform the chosen attack. Each any time the specified conditions are met before the start of the character’s next turn, he can perform that attack (so long as he is otherwise eligible to do so). This attack occurs the moment the condition is met, such as an enemy entering the kill zone. If it occurs at the same time as another character’s action, the character with the higher Agility acts first. If both characters have the same Agility, they make an Opposed Agility test to see who acts first. If a character on Overwatch performs any actions or Reactions, such as Evasion, his Overwatch immediately ends. Note this does not include Free Actions, such as speech. A character targeted by melee overwatch is considered engaged.

This is bad and outdated with 2.1's held action and defensive stance. Gaze upon a niche, overthought, and unnecessary mechanic.

Overseer Analysis (Current Summary of Campaign Enemies)