So my campaign hit an interesting note last night and as always I am depending on the most excellent denizens of this place to explore what should or could happen next. I may be vague on some of my answers here...because few of my players caught on to me and read everything I put up here now! (Looking at YOU Ryan, Kaes, and Josh!!!)

So without further ado...this is what happened!

The Ordo Hereticus asked the Deathwatch for Astartes Support in determining why there has been a recent influx in the number of mutants within the Fortress world of Pyrathas. There are also disturbing reports of missing cardinals and other nasty things happenning in the hives below.

The kill team arrived at the Naval Fortress Adamant where the Inquisitor had set up operations. Immediately on arrival they were surrounded in a parade of zealots, censor burners, flaggellants, and preachers who surrounded the marines and served as a honor guard to bring the Astartes to meet Inquisitor Khazia. The players were forced to endure the theatrics of seeing people losing themselves in a religious fervor for their benefit. At one point, the Black Templar spoke to the ringleader merely to say "You speak the Truth" and after a moment of stunned silence from the crowd, the man next to the ringleader pulled a blade and slit his own throat because he had simply seen everything he ever wanted to see and knew he wanted that to be his last memory. Eventually, the Kill Team arrived at the large chapel within the station that held the Inquisitor in it. Sitting atop an imposing dias was Inquisitor Khazia, in the middle of a sermon / mission briefing. It turns out that the station was in almost Anarchy because General Calligoras had refused the inquisitors request for aid with hunting down and eliminating any mutants that might exist on the station. As such, the hundred thousand men that were following orders were prosecuting a campaign within the station to deal with the roughly 50,000 guardsmen who were resisting under the Generals Orders. There were still 30,000 traitors left and the inquisitor demanded that the General be killed or delivered to him for judgement and interrogation.

Agreeing that all mutants must die and all traitors must be annihilated, the Astartes managed to make their way to General Calligoras. The whole way being at first terrifying but then being cheered as the men of both sides assumed the Astartes were here to fight with them against the traitors. When they arrived the General explained that he and the regiments with him had served with valor and were heroes. They had come here for refit and resupply before being sent back to Khazant to continue their glorious fight against the great enemy. He then continued that his men were Heroes and he would NEVER comply with the outrageous demand that he has received. The Aid that the Inquisitor has requested was that the General select 10% of his forces at random and that they will be turned over for full mutation screening, which involves the painful vivisection and dissection of a subject to determine genetic purity. He was convinced that such a debased request could only be coming from a servant of the Enemy himself, and that they are attempting to undermine the crusade with such efforts.

The Astartes informed the General of the Error of his was and that the Inquisitor was in fact Genuine, and that he had disobeyed orders and caused the deaths of many more than 10% of his men. At this the General declared that he would meet this Inquisitor and attempt to broker a peaceful resolution. Returning to the Inquisitor with half of the kill team they informed the inquisitor that they had arranged this meeting and suggested he attend as they had brokered. Climbing atop his baroque edifice, the throne began to float along behind the marines as they escorted the him to the meeting place. In a room dominated by seven astartes and the inquisitor on his throne, General Calligoras entered the room and proudly addressed the Inquisitor.

The two spoke for several minutes and finally reached an accord. The General would take full responsibility for his actions and his men would be subjected to less fatal screenings (85% survival, but everyone would have to take the tests) However, the General was a Warrior and insisted on a death in combat. He issued a challenge to the Inquisitor that they should duel and the Inquisitor accepted with zeal.

The two fought with their power blades and it was clear that they were a close match, but that the General was the lesser man. Deliberatly opening himself up to a quick slash across the ribs which smoked and smouldered, he had set himself up for a perfect killing blow and with all of his strength began to thrust his blade two handed into the inquisitors gorget. His blow never landed though as the Iron Hands Techpriest had been preparing for such an event and tore the General apart in a hail of heavy bolter rounds.

Covered in gore and realizing that he was about to lose that fight, Inquisitor Khazia looked at the marines with a crazed look in his eye and declared "Kill All of Them!!!"

At this half of the marines descended on Inquisitor Khazia with chainsword, heavy bolter fire, and a bolter with Kraken rounds and he was destroyed utterly as his Conversion fields failed him. As soon as he died, his melta bombs denotated on him as the explosions were ripping him apart. The Resulting explosion caused a chain reaction within his Throne that caused it to explode in a white hot ball of a plasma detonation that tore the room apart and opening it to space. The marines luckily had ran out to the room before this happened and were spared the world of it's fury.

With both leaders dead, the Astartes again split into two groups and were able to broker a peace between the two sides that should hold as the Generals second in command stepped in. One of the two Interrogators of the Ordo Hereticus took control of his men and assumed that the whole thing had been a trap from the General. The Astartes convinced him that the General was the culprit the whole time and that the corruption had been cleansed. With this situation at the very least temporarily dealt with, the Kill team began to confer with the other agents that were in play about what was going on in the world below. But that is an adventure for next week.

So here is my main question...obviously the kill team is screwed because they killed an Inquisitor Lord. But what would be some fun ways to make them suffer AHEM...feel as though their actions have consequences...

Some initial thoughts i have...

1. Give all of them Rival - Ordo Hereticus

2. Have this simply haunt them as other members of the inquisition become somewhat less included to accept their support. Or withhold Ordo Hereticus Support at a timely moment

3. Have them actually go through a trial on Watch Fortress Erioch to determine if they did the right thing

4. Buy the Black Crusade book and start posting my questions on THAT forum...

My first thoughts on reading the title were: "Apologise profusely and claim it was all a misunderstanding." Then I actually read the rest...

I would always go for option 4 anyway, it is such a very nice little rule book, delicious content and some very nice artwork. Buy it. Give in to the Dark Gods...and FFG

Looking at the above though and it is getting late plus I have had very little sleep so excuse me if I misread a metric crapload...

I like the Inquisition...I'm an Ordo Hereticus tabletop player (Witch Hunters!) so death of an Inquisitor is painful. I gather that your Inquisitor Khazia has gone a bit mental realising he was about to die, perhaps seeing heresy, mutation and corruption everywhere he turns. However the kill team intervened too soon and the Inquisitor was within his rights to open fire. The General wished for trial by the sword and allow the Emperor to be on the side of the righteous, something which the players interfered with before coming to a natural conclusion therefore effectively invalidating the terms of the trial and making the entire thing a farce. Their mandate was:

There were still 30,000 traitors left and the inquisitor demanded that the General be killed or delivered to him for judgement and interrogation.

They delivered him for judgement and interrogation and that should have been the end of their official involvement. Anything done afterwards is them acting outside of their mission parameters and should be treated accordingly. It is therefore not the job of the Ordo Xenos to carry out the sentence or pass judgement on the supposed condemned, the players have gone beyond their official jurisdiction and should suffer the consequences for their rash actions. Additionally they have struck down, with no clear explanation (or not one I would buy if I were a semi competent Inquisitor), a valued member of the Emperors Holy Inquisition.

Rival - Ordo Hereticus sounds minor. Stack it with "Enemy". They have most certainly made enemies this day killing a figure who was a strong leader, one of exceptional age and wisdom no matter what could have happened or even if nobody knows, they failed to protect him sufficiently therefore they could almost be considered to have failed a mission and lose a bit of renown. I would go so far as to have the Ordo Hereticus refuse to officially support the KT on any such actions for the foreseeable future and submit official grievances regarding gross misconduct/lapse of judgement of the team to their relevant watch fortress. However I dont think they can be put on trial for their actions as this ends up with two branches of the Holy Ordos arguing with each other, Xenos versus Hereticus and that never ends well. Frankly it all gets lost in paperwork and there would be little point on that.

No, your best bet is to cease any aid from the Hereticus, give them "Rival" and "Enemy" until they make sufficient attempts to redeem their actions and most certainly ensure that words are had with them when they get back to the watch: "Chaps, we've received a complaint..."

Your General seemed like a proud man and would fight with valor. He was more than willing to admit a mistake but he also was cautious about submitting his men to die for false orders or wrong reasons. I would be considering is it worth a small aftershock with the platoon of the former general as well as no doubt the death of such a figure will not be seen in a favourable light.

With the whole "Inquisitors have no control of the Astartes" stuff in DW, I'd suspect that the best that would happen is members of the Imquisitor's faction will lodge a formal complaint to the Watch Commander, who will say they will deal with it internally, and then the inquisitors will never hear of it, again. The WC might chastise them, or agree that, in this setting, no Inquisitor can just shout "liqidate a team of the Angels of Death!", and not be "accidentally killed". They are too valuable a resource, and so many Inquisitors have so many enemies that the ones Khazia racked up will probably just move to protect the Kill Team, and fill the void in support. No one gets to just kill Space Marines because they were annoyed.

To be fair...Khazia was ordering the space marines to kill them all...referring to the traitor guardsmen. But it can be taken any way they need to.

I think I have decided on the best course of action here.

Give the Kill Team

Talent: Rival: Ordo Hereticus

Talent: Enemy: Ordo Hereticus

Someone as powerful as Inquisitor Khazia is bound to have a slew of Friends, Enemies, and Mixes of the both. There may be a formal complaint about it. But instead of anything heavy handed, the consequences of being noticed by these individuals will play out over time and in perhaps unexpected ways. After some time they could even redeem themselves in the eyes of the Ordo Hereticus...

sry, I misunderstood. I thought he was flipping out because the team interfered with his duel, and so ordered their deaths. My bad.

No he was flipping out because he realized he was about to lose a duel against a heretic...hubris and whatnot

With the whole "Inquisitors have no control of the Astartes" stuff in DW, I'd suspect that the best that would happen is members of the Imquisitor's faction will lodge a formal complaint to the Watch Commander, who will say they will deal with it internally, and then the inquisitors will never hear of it, again. The WC might chastise them, or agree that, in this setting, no Inquisitor can just shout "liqidate a team of the Angels of Death!", and not be "accidentally killed". They are too valuable a resource, and so many Inquisitors have so many enemies that the ones Khazia racked up will probably just move to protect the Kill Team, and fill the void in support. No one gets to just kill Space Marines because they were annoyed.

No one gets to just kill Inquisitors, either.

Khazia will have allies as well as enemies, and many who might not care about him personnally would seek redress simply on the grounds that an inquisitor's authority and person is sacrosanct, regardless of what extenuating circumstances someone might claim.

Bear in mind that the Watch Commander has the Inquisitor of the Chamber and assorted subordinates looking over his shoulder. If the Ordo Hereticus decides to formally reprimand/sanction them for their actions, and the Ordo Xenos sustains it, they can lean on him enough to ensure he does something .

The Ordo Hereticus would definitely be leery of providing any support if they knew it was that kill-team in particular. For that matter, the Deathwatch may well find themselves shy of support for any kill-team operations until the matter is settled (one way the witch hunters might make their displeasure felt).

• Rival/Enemy talents are a given.
• Some sort of formal caution by Mordrigael. How serious it is will depend on how influential Khazia was and if he had any allies in the Chamber. The fact that his request for Deathwatch support was approved isn't promising, though.
• Any actual mutants or traitors on the planet below will be rubbing their hands and warming up their manaical cackles after the Inquisitor charged with persecuting them was murdered. A subsequent mission back to the same world (now undergoing a mutant-led revolt) would be a nice one.
• Formal process be damned. A brother-inquisitor of Khazia may try to have them killed in some sort of horrible accident that cannot be connected to the Ordo Hereticus. If you plan on running Ark of Lost Souls, sabotage of the player's ship might be a good lead-in.

These are all great ideas and some of this will absolutely be coming into play! In the meatime...here is a mission update!

The Kill team has gone down to the world and discovered that there is in fact a Nurgle Ritual being enacted and there are plague zombies popping up all over the primary hive. They went to rescue the inquisitorial agents who were being assaulted by hundreds of plague zombies and discovered a small cohort of Adeptus Arbites loading a group of citizens onto a truck. When the rune priest looked at the truck, he immediately spotted a woman who was clearly with child, he was overcome with a feeling that this woman was of vital importance. Going with his insticts he retrieved the woman named Amanda and informed her that she would be coming with them. Terrified, but grateful that she had avoided her fate working in the methane reclamation systems in the underhive, Amanda went along with it. Dealing with the Seven magnitude 30 hordes of plague zombies, they rescued the inquisitorial agents who had six stasis chambers each containing a plague victim within. Having loaded up the Stormraven with everything they had the kill team set a course for Ice Station Zeta, a secret Magos Biologis facility with strong ties to the Ordo Xenos. On the way, the engines began to give them trouble as they flew through the massive sandstorm that was tearing through the barren wasteland. First one, then both engines died and the craft began to plummet towards to ground at an alarming pace. The screaming and terror of the regular humans died off when the ship suddenly stabilized and began a controlled descent. Seizing this opportunity, the techmarine went into the pilots chamber, sealed the door behind him, and shot out the windshield so he could go work on the engines.

Step by brutal step, the Techmarine walked along the top of the vessel with the aid of his mag boots. Once he got out on the wing he finally got a good look at the underside of the ship and came face to face with the pilot of an Eldar craft that had latched itself onto the underside of the Stormraven. With a look of suprise and contempt, the Eldar pilot began to roll the ship in an effort to dislodge the Techmarine. Desperately holding on with his mag boots and a firm grip from his servo arm. He doggedly refused to die. He even managed to dislodge the rock that had embedded itself in the engines of the craft. Satisfied that one engine was operational again he held on for his life. So he could attempt to get to the other engine. Seeing the one engine come back online...the Eldar made a gesture of some sort to the Techmarine and disengaged from the Stormraven, flying off a lighting speed through the hellish storm. Managing a desperate landing on one engine, they were able to finally fix the second engine enough to get them the remaining distance and took off again...with no sign of the Eldar at all...

They were able to link up with the Magos Biologis at Ice station Zeta where they were given seven litres of an Archeotech biological cleansing agent. It annihilates biological materiel on contact and leaves no residue behind. It also turned out that this was the complex that was doing most of the research into the Neural Toxin that was being developed for deployment against Hive Fleet Dagon. In fact, the Magos was very excited when she learned that this was in fact the same kill team that had retrieved her a fresh sample of the Primary Nerve cluster of the Tyranid Regeneration ship, and they were also the same ones who rescued her counterpart on the moon of Castobel.

Making their way back to the main hive they went deep into the bowels of the underhive and arrived at the source of the plague, the Air Purification systems.

Here is the description of the room.

"A great domed chamber roughly 120 meters in diameter with a large circular fan easily two dozen meters across drawing a cloud of noxious corpse fumes and a seemingly endless number of bloated black flies into the ventilation system. Below is a Central Dias surrounded by seven arranged cauldrons, each of which contains the soiled forms of screaming men. They are in various stages of being lowered into the cauldrons by rusted chains descending from a rotten wood lattice that has been erected over it. Halfway up the chamber is a catwalk leading all the way around the room. There are multiple banks of cogitators and blister ridden servitors tending to the machines. Around the cauldron itself are three large groups of blistered and ruined worshipers. Chanting out gurgles and praise through broken and rotted teeth to the Figure on the dais. Barely visible through the haze and flies is the twisted image of a power armored monstrosity. A sickly green glow emanates from the sickle shaped weapon he wields."

Seeing the kill team he declares through a rattle of wheezing and a slight gurgle. "I am Bazghal of the Soiled Harvest, I welcome you to my humble home. It has been so long since I found a worthy house guest I could share our wondrous gifts with..." They then made a fear 3 check and rolled initiative!

So in this fight there is Six Plague Marines being led by a Chaos Marine Sorceror with the Mark of Nurgle. There are three groups of 30 plague zombies crowded into the room as well. The Plague Marines have a plasma rifle, a heavy bolter, and four with bolters. The entire room is permeated with a miasma of corpse gas and bloated flies.

The fight began and we ran through the first two rounds of combat before we had to break last night.

One Plague marine is down, another is almost down. The Plasma gun overheated... The rest of the plague marines are at full health and are on an elevated position on the catwalk. A third of the plague zombies are down, but now they are in and around the kill team on the ground.

About half the kill team has been injured in some way. So far the one thing saving them is that the Rune Priest pushed a Force dome to try and shield his brothers from the incoming fire. Just wait until the blight grenades and Doom Bolts start going off...It will be glorious and terrible. Also at this point, the missing cardinals and priests are being lowered into the plague cauldrons at a steady pace. One is up to his neck, one at his chest, two at the waist, and three at the knee. I think it's safe to assume that bad bad things are happening in this room...as always, I expect a total party kill! But so far they have done an admirable job of keeping the offensive momentum.

Ah the stubbornness of some players, not willing to make a tactical withdrawal!

Well, it's pretty clear that if they do, they essentially sacrifice the hive if not the planet!

Sounds like an awesome adventure.

Hmm....

Consult the codex!

"Let's see.......p...p....'pinned down'......'pinnned down by'...Ah!...'pinned down by plague marine squad and sorceror with superior tactical position.'

Hmm..... 'Don't allow this to happen.' Gee, thanks for the inspiration, Gulliman."

Possibly some Tactics or Logic checks.

Thoughts that might occur....

• Hurting a plague marine with conventional weapons fire is hard. Taking out the local catwalk supports.....probably not so hard. It's not a military facility, after all.
• Hmmm.... a ventilation chamber filled with corpse gas (i.e. methane). Oooh. Flammable.
• Depending on the nature of the plague zombies, taking out the sorceror may remove the zombies from the equation as well. Even if it doesn't, he's clearly the primary threat.
• Seven nurgle marines, seven litres of cleansing agent. There's no way plague marine armour can still be environmentally sealed given how damaged and rusted it's going to be. Cillit Bang Grenades?

Well, it's pretty clear that if they do, they essentially sacrifice the hive if not the planet!

Sounds like an awesome adventure.

Hmm....

Consult the codex!

"Let's see.......p...p....'pinned down'......'pinnned down by'...Ah!...'pinned down by plague marine squad and sorceror with superior tactical position.'

Hmm..... 'Don't allow this to happen.' Gee, thanks for the inspiration, Gulliman."

Possibly some Tactics or Logic checks.

Thoughts that might occur....

• Hurting a plague marine with conventional weapons fire is hard. Taking out the local catwalk supports.....probably not so hard. It's not a military facility, after all.
• Hmmm.... a ventilation chamber filled with corpse gas (i.e. methane). Oooh. Flammable.
• Depending on the nature of the plague zombies, taking out the sorceror may remove the zombies from the equation as well. Even if it doesn't, he's clearly the primary threat.
• Seven nurgle marines, seven litres of cleansing agent. There's no way plague marine armour can still be environmentally sealed given how damaged and rusted it's going to be. Cillit Bang Grenades?

Actually one of the marines did shoot out the floor underneath a plague marine to make him use his reaction to avoid falling. Then the devastator lit him up with his heavy bolter from fifteen meters away... and specifically it isn't that it's "corpse gas" its supernatural Nurgle poison plague gas.

The one thing that may really help the kill team here is that I rolled a 99 with the nurgle plasma gun and jammed the thing. So the players will have a few turns of respite before the party restarts in earnest.

If one of the players makes a knowledge tactics or knowledge codex astartes I will pretty much be reading your codes musings word for word to the player who does!