Yeah, you read that right.

Our year long Rouge Trader campaign has recently taken a level in scope. For the past year of play (five years in game with various time skips), the party has been working to utterly remodel the government and military of the local homebrew Vladic Sector. Some context:

The Vladic Sector is bordered on two sides, on one by the fringe of the Tau Empire and on the other by a warp rift called Shemjaza's Eye. The Eye is very temperamental and often is inconsistent in where it leads, but ships travelling through usually end up on the edge of Imperial space or in the daemon infested hellhole called the Tear.

The sector has been an exemplar of factional infighting within the Imperium. The Ecclesiarchy maintains a heavy presence there, but, thanks to the actions of our players, all of the factions are now subservient to The Lord Governor of the sector. Also, they have tricked the governor into believing that the tau technology is really just an archrtoech STC stolen by the Xenos, and with no mechanicum to prove them otherwise (long story) the sector is now one of the most unified an technologically advanced human zones in the galaxy.

So, seeing as they did such a great job at fixing the sector, now they want I fix the whole imperium. By bringing back the emperor.

Here is their plan:

1. Close Shemjaza's Eye so that the Vladic Sector becomes an isolated base of operations that the rest of the Imperium can't get to.

2. Use the Webway to tour the galaxy, informing the White Scars and their successors that they intend to attack Comorragh an rescue Khan.

3. Attack Comorragh and take it over with the White Scars. Ideally they want the marines and the eldar to kill each tort to the last man, and then take over Comorragh as the prime tactical position of the Webway.

4. Having taken Comorragh, use the Webway to reach Macragge and use a dark eldar tesusatrix chamber to heal Guilliman. They hope that Guilliman will be horrified at the **** hole the Imperium has become and will lead the Ultramarines to Terra to help them dethrone the high lords and revive the Emperor.

5. Siege Terra.

6. Resurrect the Emperor using the dark eldar chamber.

7. Roll up some rank 1 dark Heresy characters for a new campaign.

Obviously GMing something of this scale is daunting and I have no idea how to go about it. Thoughts? Tips? Suggestions? Advice?

Heck, let them try. GW have shown no intent of ever doing it so why not. Dont forget to throw in cypher and abbadon in the mix, and the tyranid main fleet, death of Iyanden. The ressurection of the emperor is like breaking the seven seals of the apocalypse and it should beat least as grand.

My tip is to think just about everything that COULD go wrong with such a plan, and let it do just that, at the same time keep the grim possibility looming over their heads that the players could become responsible for the destruction not only of the Empire but also of humanity itself and possibly the galaxy.

Would the emperor be beyond ressurection, or ressurect terminally insane then the empire stands without leadership, without the astronomican and without hope. Facing another civil war between factions, ecclesiarchy, cult mechanicus and adeptus astartes turning on each other and on ghemselves, plus the buerocratic machinery centred on terra could verry well be damaged beyond repair and the cataclysmic consequences of the destruction of the adeptus munitorium, oeconomica and what not.

Plus, dont forget the farseers, daemons and ctan that could catch drift of this plan and attempt to twist it to their own means, in fact many of them have probably already foreseen such a thing comming sooner or later and possitioned their pieces accordingly, with indication that someone have set the ball in motion they would step up their game and go for broke in all-out total, come-the-apocalypse ragnarok war.

In fact, seeing how GW tries tu run itself into the ground, this campaign need to happe to give us closure.

5. Siege Terra.

The entire idea fills me with mild terror, but I love how understated this step is.

Yes, many, many problems. It sounds like it would be fun, and adventurous, but if you want it within 40K lore there are so many problems with this. I will preface my old person whinings and moanings with a disclaimer that as long as your group is having fun, then nothing you do is wrong. Heretical probably, but not wrong.

1) How in the warp-blasted Hell are you going to close a Warp Storm? The Necrons sort of have technology that can do that around Cadia, but even they could not seal the Eye of Terror and sealing up the Warp is their raison d'être. Also closing a Warp Storm would mess up the warp routes sure, but it would mess you up both coming and going. And it wouldn't seal you off, it would if anything draw the Inquisition's attention as to what could be going on here.

2) When did you get access or knowledge to patrol the Webway? Why are the normal Craftworld Eldar not immediately murdering you for having access to it. Why aren't the Inquisition torturing you for why you are travelling around without Navigators? How will you use it when there are many points in the galaxy that you can't get to with the Webway, and there are random collapsed sections that have daemons in them.

2.5) How did you find out Comorragh exists? How do you know that Khan is there? How do you know that Khan is alive? A lot of the deaths of the Primarchs are not really talked about. Most of the Dark Angels don't even know how the Lion died, and unless you have some hard, concrete evidence I can't imagine the White Scars dropping everything to investigate this chance.

3) Leaving aside your belief that the White Scars (and their successor chapters) can somehow EXACTLY kill every Dark Eldar and leave you in a good position, given that the lie that brought them here is that Khan is alive this is going to severely cripple them. Also Comorragh is the last bastion of true Eldar civilization, and by all accounts is incredibly, insanely, impenetrably defended. Space Marine chapters fail at assaulting Craftworlds, and this is a stationary murder death fortress populated by immortal Space Sadists who remember how technology works. Also they can just close the Webway on you. Your players could roll in their leading a charge, and then be really, sadly, awkwardly alone. And then dead.

4) Now you are assaulting the Ultramarines by proposing crazy, untested Xenos technology on their Primarch, which means disconnecting the stasis field keeping him not dead, rushing him into the chamber, hoping that it reverses the eternal Chaos poison that was microseconds away from killing him even though a Primarch is likely three times as big as a Dark Eldar and couldn't fit in their chambers, and that the millennia of potential mind scarring torture isn't enough. Plus side, I do think he might be horrified at what the Imperium became.

5) Can't see anything going wrong with this step of the plan.

6) The instant the Emperor is removed from the Golden Throne, billions of daemons pour out of the hole in the Warp that His eternal vigil keeps from sieging Terra again. Terra then falls to the infinite daemon horde, and the Astronomicon is irrecoverably lost. This is really the crux of the issue, in that the Emperor was the most powerful being alive. If it's just a question of His body being damaged, He must have been able to fix that. We don't know what happened other than he was stabbed by a sword empowered by all four Gods of Chaos.

7) Dark Heresy is pretty fun.

So to summarize, here are the two main problems.

1) Using the Webway to ball around is delightful, and was actually what the Emperor was trying to do this entire time. Unfortunately it took Him centuries to try, and was interrupted by Magnus playing his **** goth music too loud. Then some other stuff happened.

2) The damage to the Emperor (and Robot Gorillaman) is not just physical, but almost certainly spiritual. A simple recovery chamber isn't going to fix this.

I think this has been proposed before, and someone suggested that in actuality the players were held captive and living out some sort of delusional Chaos induced hallucination that was also being used to probe them for information about the Imperium. That seems more fun.

Oh! The Pain! The Pain!

Kill them. Kill them all.

Just. Kill. Them.

Oh! The Pain! The Pain!

Kill them. Kill them all.

Just. Kill. Them.

He already said he was a GM. Isn't this what he's always trying to do?

Siege of Terra is the easiest part of this plan and it really talks about the whole plan.

Can you tell us some details about your group's PCs and stuff they have? PF, if it's still relevant at all?

Erathia,

You make many good points. Allow me to answer some of your questions:

1. You make a good point about Shamejaza's Eye. The current plan is to construct an enormous halo using null rod ethnology around it, and our Inquisitor PC is currently scrounging the sector for pariahs so that he can cut their brains out and add them to the device.

2. The party spent many adventures gaining access to the webway. The craft world eldar have always been a strong presence on the sector but the party managed to, through very good role playing, force them to make a mass exodus off ino the depths of space beyond the sector (long story.) Before they left however, the party used it's dark eldar allies to steal a webway key, which the Inquistor character then replicated using his enormous lab of maleteks (his only non essential ship coponent, which as result is utterly massive.) The PCs have had an ally in the form of a Strikig Scorpion turned Incubus called Ashabel, a dark eldar who returned to the craft world in an attempt to straighten his life out in 'aspect

Temple rehab' but fell off the wagon and is now despise by both his light and dark kin, leaving the party as his only friends.

As for the lack of navigators, I apologize if I wasn't clear: our party is actually the faction that helped the sector governed bing about his reign of tyranny. Not only do they have navigators, but they are also the administratum's special snowflakes.

As for the white scars being crippled, this is exactly what they want: the party feels that having twnety different legions with conflicts ideals has hurt the imperium more than it has helped it, and if the white scars can be removed, then all

The better.

The player characters are as follows:

Inquisitor Sylvester Toussant

Feared by many as the bloodhound of Governor Reinhold and now a prominent if infamous individual within the Inquisition, Sylvester is a man who embodies the ideals of organization, bureaucracy, and forward thinking. An outspoken Radical, Sylvester believes that humanity status as the perfect race allows it to use the technology of the foul Xenos, as humans have the right to steal and improve upon the alien. thanks to a number of botched surgeries Sylveyser now loves as an organic brain encased within a mechanical body, and his iron visage is a Terror to those who behold it.

Lord Cardinal Bubsy Malone

Bubsy Malone began as a simple missionary but through numerous bribes, threats and favors climbed the rank so the sector church until he sat at its head as the Templum Conquistadore Sanctus, it's joint papal leader and mitary commander. Bubsy believes that power is the ultimate way to achieve goals and, to aid his endeavor I revive the emperor, has made a pact with a daemon of slaanesh - if the daemon helps him overthrow the high lords of terra, the daemon will inevitably be the one elevating slaanesh above the other chaos gods by helping to take terra, an will

Likely ascended as a reward. Bubsy now bears the power ad ohysoology of a space Maine, and a daemon weapon containing the unbound essence of his daemonixbpoaaession associate. However he knows that the daemon will turn on him once he learns f it true it notions and as such is preparing for that day.

Viktir Blayze

Blayze was the stereotypical roué trader - gaudy, flashy, illogical, insane - before his disappearance at the end f the year. Now, a ship resembling his old Dangler Supreme has wen seen scouring the edge f the warp rift, attacking other ships, under te command of. Daemonix word bearer captain, Carax.

If people are interested in, I will post a weekt actual play series detailing the campaign so far and here it is going in the fuute

The question was asked earlier and you don't seem to have answered it - do any of the player characters have Forbidden Lore's (Webway) (Xenos) (Astartes) (Heresy) (Warp) (Psykers) or are the players meta-gaming, cause to me it seems like they come across as knowing far too much in planning that outrageous course of action

The question was asked earlier and you don't seem to have answered it - do any of the player characters have Forbidden Lore's (Webway) (Xenos) (Astartes) (Heresy) (Warp) (Psykers) or are the players meta-gaming, cause to me it seems like they come across as knowing far too much in planning that outrageous course of action

Not only that, but they all seem to have rolle Nat 1's.

Ah, my apologies. The lores are as follows:

Inquisitor Toussant: Every Lore with Mastery.

Ashabel: Common/Forbidden Lore (Dark Eldar).

Bubsy: Forbidden Lore (Heresy, Occult, Warp, Demonology).

Carax/Viktir Blayze: Forbidden Lore (Heresy, Occult, Warp, Demonology, Adeptus Astartes, Horus Heresy and the Long War).

So having an inquisitor with EVERY single lore and Mastery in your game suggests you're running an Ascension level DH game that happens to be set on a Rogue Trader ship.. that entirely changes the predicament!

I once ran a game where the end goal was the same. The Siege of Terra was the culmination of political lobbying by the Ascended group to muster forces and win allies - not all of which are of the 'loyal' kind - to follow through with such an unthinkable act.

Fun times indeed.

I still don't see this fixing most of the problems I pointed out, but it is a theory that someone with a bunch of Lores might come up with that wouldn't necessarily account for. I can't believe your plan to "fence off" a warp anomaly with null rods and Pariah minds would work, as they maybe have a range of about 5 meters, and you're trying to enclose something that is usually larger than several solar systems combined.

Also here's another thing: The Navis Nobilite should have declared war on you by now. You are proposing a method of space travel that is safer and more reliable than the Warp (right up until it isn't), and this means that the hopped up little mutants living their lives of opulent luxury on Terra are absolutely doomed as soon as there's a better method of travel than throwing themselves into the Warp and relying on Navigators. They would be purged as soon as the Imperium no longer has use for them, and they know it. They are also one of the most powerful organisations within the Imperium, easily dwarfing any Rogue Trader, and would probably be able to mobilize Space Marine chapters to take you down because they are so critical to how things are run right now.

My campaign actually had Eldar give our Rogue Trader the knowledge of how to travel the Webway in a limited course, and our Navigator PC once he found out immediately contacted his house to ready assassins, and made it clear if anything happened to him, or if the Rogue Trader tried this even once, they would outright declare war on the Dynasty. Forget resurrecting the Emperor, this would be galaxy-shattering on its own.

Second complication: No Eldar should want humans inside of their Webway, because humans have this unfortunate tendency to keep falling to Chaos, which would corrupt the entire thing forever. One ship has their rations spiked with lust inducing drugs, a chemical of battle stimulants, a virulent plague or whatever Tzeentch is using at the moment and there's a daemonic incursion inside of the thing that only works by keeping Chaos on the outside. Every Craftworld should be also mobilizing against you right now.

Your systems are also nice and organised and working together in a unified way to produce a massive fleet capable of taking on Terra? That's just begging for an Orkish WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH to come along and see how hard you are. Probably not that hard. I bet they could take you. Let's send wave after wave of our own men at them to try and conquer you. And in the best case scenario where your plans start to work and you're sealing off Chaos and finding a more reliable way to travel through space you begin with sealing off a Warp Anomaly. Enter the Necrons who are very curious to know what you've been up to.

Again, if you're having fun then please continue, but this system is set in a galactic dark age. No one likes it when some jerk comes along and opens up all the curtains and starts talking about cleaning up the apartment when we're all happy living in our squalor so long as we don't have to look at it. Everyone in the Galaxy is going to start trying to kill you.

I see. Allow me to try and answer some of your questions:

1. Currently, the Imperium is not investigating the sector as it is on the backwater of a relative nowhere, of little strategic importance, and since Governor Reinhold has taken control the tithes have actually increased due to improvements in productivity. So, being as the other Navigator houses in the sector have been wiped out, without ability to call for aid from the Imperium at large, I don't foresee other navigators intruding, at least for the short term. House Damocles, the House that serves Lord Reinhold, is a renegade house that has been promised by Reinhold total control over the sector as their personal kingdom - see the above point. Damocles enjoys Reinhold and views him as an ally, because Reinhold was willing to ruthlessly purge their competitors from the playing field. As such, I don't foresee them moving against him just to accost a small group of ships - a small group, mind you, that has Reinhold's personal sanction and protection.

The ships are as follows: The Solitaire, under the command of Inquisitor Toussant, the Wrath Indominate, under the command of Bubsy Malone, and the Dangler Supreme, yet to be renamed by Blayze's new alter ego. The Solitaire employs the cogitator interlink in conjunction with the navigator-less experimental drive from Hostile Acquisitions, meaning that Damocles is unable to keep tabs on him. The former Navigator of the Dangler has likely been murdered, replaced, possessed, or converted, and is no longer affiliated with Damocles. Obviously, if the Dangler were ever to return to Imperial Space, it would have garnered the attention of an authority far greater than a single navigator house - that goes without saying. Finally, the Wrath Indominate...

Let me tell all of you, dear listeners, about the navigator of the Wrath Indominate.

The ship's former navigator, of House Damocles, had commanded Bubsy to go to the Ecclesiarchal demilitarization zone to await investigation. Bubsy, and his daemonic ally Shey'Lyeh'Thuul - or Chad, as he is also known - disagreed, but acquiesed in the interim. During the interlude in the warp, Bubsy activated the emergency sirens, drawing the Navigator from his well. While the ship drifted, Bubsy summoned a Daemonette of Slaanesh with the help of Chad and summoned all of the bridge's guards under the pretense of "hunting it down." While the Navigator was alone, Chad slipped into the bridge and dissected him into his component part to conduct the Rite of Fleshmoulding, retrieving the navigator-ee bits to implant onto someone else.

He rolled a 100.

To escape, he transformed into a small black cat, and I rolled for Navigate (Surface) to move through the grates of the ship.

He rolled a 97.

When Bubsy returned to his chambers, what he found waiting for him was the severed lower half of a mono task servitors - knees, thighs, and pelvis - with a mechnadiditre fused to its crotch. On the end of this mechandendrite was the impaled third eye of the Navigator. The mutant's brain was wired into the waist of the machine, which flopping tendrils spiraling everywhere. Chad himself was stuck in a ventilation pipe, his lower half jammed uselessly out the end, tail and limbs flailing irritably. Bubsy pointed out to him that he could just shape shift smaller, much to his irritance.

Now, Chad navigates. Bubsy's death-cult of personality doesn't question why a random, handsome man in a simple suit has replaced the navigator - to those feral worlders, its all hooky witchcraft anyway.

As for your second point, I admit that I originally believed the Webway to be so vast and labyrinthine that the Eldar themselves have trouble navigating it, but if that's not the case, I will incorporate that information.

I'm not going to throw an Ork Waah at them from out of nowhere, at least not while they are still in the Vladic Sector - the Orks have never had a sizable presence and a Waagh suddenly appearing would make little to no sense.

Thank you for your comments and constructive criticisms, everyone - this is of great help to me in figuring out how to tackle such a Grand Endeavor.

I'm torn on this. On the one side, it violates all that is the spirit of 40K. But on the other side I love the epic, over-the-top, crazy, huuuge-ballsiness, mega-insane scope of it all. Heck, I'm tempted to do it myself, now...

I once ran a game where the end goal was the same. The Siege of Terra was the culmination of political lobbying by the Ascended group to muster forces and win allies - not all of which are of the 'loyal' kind - to follow through with such an unthinkable act.

Fun times indeed.

Sooooooo, I've just gotta ask, how did that work out?

Sooooooo, I've just gotta ask, how did that work out?

It was a long running campaign. But the general giest of it was simple:

1. The group had been of a Thorian persuasion, searching down/investigating Thorian intrigues for the most part.

2. During the course of pre-Ascension they were being sent by their Inquisitor (and later antagonist) to undercover varies heretics, devices, and sources that ultimately began to reveal a pattern of Ressurectionist goals (Halo Devices, The Tyrant Star, the Dusk Hag, The Sensei and Star Child Theory to name a few).

3. The group discovered later their Inquisitor, an Ordo Malleus Thorian, was planning on sacrificing the last sensei, the last heir of the Emperor, to ressurect him upon the temple-mount of Holy Terra.

4. Twist: The Ordo Malleus Inquisitor had become aware of the Decree Terminus through the premonitions and consultation of the Dusk Hag. He departed to lobby and garner the support of the Grey Knights to envoke the final sanction.

5. One of the characters was a noble who was a scion of a rogue trader dynasty. Upon learning of their masters radical plan, he led the party towards his family holdings, to contend for the rights of his house - usurping his master's 'mantle' as Inquisitor to orchestrate the coup.

6. After successfully eliminating his siblings, the character empowered himself with the prestige of his line, and after winning social combats to prove his manifest destiny, used his holdings to muster troops. It was not enough, and he (and the party needed more).

7. Another character was to be married into a rival family to garner further support. The following arcs involved lobbying political factions - particular the more disenfranchised factions, as well as consorting with radical powers (Phaenonites, Istvaanians, etc), to orchestrate a grand spearhead.

8. After finally garnering enough to perform a 'suicide run', the group pierced into Terra to stop their former master.

9. Twist: However, the forces of Chaos had learned of their endeavors and used their strike as a spearhead for their own attack.

10. The party arrives on Terra, and having to fight their way through the labyrinthine palace of terra, have to expend a large landing force just to get past the Eternity Gates and it's gaurdians.

tbc...gotta run for now.

As there is not much advice posted yet, I will attempt to provide some. However, the PC's plan is daunting , to say the least, with many variables that would make this entire endeavor fruitless. So, in order to make this work, you as the GM would have to want this to happen, and intervene and assist when needed.

......

So, seeing as they did such a great job at fixing the sector, now they want I fix the whole imperium. By bringing back the emperor.

Here is their plan:
1. Close Shemjaza's Eye so that the Vladic Sector becomes an isolated base of operations that the rest of the Imperium can't get to.

The PC's plan of Null Rods would be a MASSIVE endeavor. Years or centuries in the making, IMO. An alternate one is a ritual on a massive scale, using fragments of knowledge from the Old Ones when they were fighting the Enslavers and closing their portals. Ex: The PC's have carved out a massive asteroid and layered it with arcane glyphs and wards deciphered from the ancient writings. This "device" now needs to be placed in the center of the warp storm. It has taken 15+ years to build it, and during that time the PCs have amassed thousands and thousands of Psykers for the ritual. Unknown except to a select few, most will be be sacrificed to fuel the ritual. What is at the center of the Storm? No one has survived to tell.

Another plan is ancient Eldar, Halo, Old One, and/or Yu'Vath device(s) that alter the Warp Storm. Maybe it closes it, maybe it reroutes, maybe it turns in an opposite direction or transport it someplace else, or maybe it doesn't do any of this and does something else entirely. However, the device(s) will require power on a massive scale to work. The power could drain a sun, kill several planets, or require billions of sacrifices. Searching for the device(s) will require traveling to far distant places (maybe the Koronus Expanse?)

2. Use the Webway to tour the galaxy, informing the White Scars and their successors that they intend to attack Comorragh an rescue Khan.

As other people mention, the Eldar would be your biggest adversary here. Well, that, and the defunct Webway areas that would cause you and your ship to instantly cease to exist.

3. Attack Comorragh and take it over with the White Scars. Ideally they want the marines and the eldar to kill each tort to the last man, and then take over Comorragh as the prime tactical position of the Webway.

Commorragh is immense, containing hundreds of worlds linked to one place (or something like that). Kinda like your Warp Storm massive. One SM Chapter could not accomplish this. Your best bet is a raid, in an attempt to damage their devices that control certain aspects of the Webway (like closing certain areas and/or altering where they lead) and obtaining one of their "Tesusatrix Chambers." Think of it like a switchboard with the DE being the operator. If you somehow reroute the lines to make them continuously run off each other, simply pulling the lines of out the jacks won't cancel the call anymore. Or you could damage the switchboard controls to keep the operator from doing anything. How could you pull this off? No idea really, because I'm not really familiar with the Webway or DE. Maybe bombs placed strategically in certain DE Spires or Labyrinths.

If you really want them to take over Comorragh, then, IMO, you would need a whole crusade fleet. Maybe their small raid was intended to keep the DE from closing the Webway, so their Crusade fleet could make it into Comorragh and successfully assault it. This is something you are going to have to decide as a GM, whether you want it an insanely massive undertaking or not.

4. Having taken Comorragh, use the Webway to reach Macragge and use a dark eldar tesusatrix chamber to heal Guilliman. They hope that Guilliman will be horrified at the **** hole the Imperium has become and will lead the Ultramarines to Terra to help them dethrone the high lords

After either raiding Comorragh to accomplish what you needed, or using the Crusade Fleet, you are now at this step of the plan. Since I have no idea what this device is, I am simply assuming it's design was intended for DE use, and anything else is questionable. Trying to convince the Ultramarines to use this Xeno device on Guilliman is another matter. Maybe another secret raid would be required to obtain his "corpse". A climatic scene I just envisioned was the PC's teleporting Guilliman to their ship after distracting the Ultramarines. The Ultramarines then teleport onto the PC's ship just as the PC's lay Guilliman into the device. Obviously, the Ultramarines have slaughtered their way to where the PC's are located, and just before the Ultramarines open fire / attack / kill whatever PC they just subdued in the inevitable melee Guilliman comes too and says in a booming voice "What is that racket?!!," or something like that.

5. Siege Terra.

I don't foresee Guilliman agreeing to Siege Terra. If he does, it would take several SM Chapters loyal to him to do so, to include a massive fleet (like another Crusade size fleet or two). Because frankly, by the time you woke Guilliman and started amassing forces, the High Lords of Terra would of heard something. Maybe they would just demand an audience, or maybe they would amass a fleet to demand an audience. Anyhoot, if the DE Tesusatrix device worked on Guilliman, there is a good probability it would work on the Emperor.

6. Resurrect the Emperor using the dark eldar chamber.

Same as step 4. No idea if this would work. And, food for thought, maybe it doesn't ...............

7. Roll up some rank 1 dark Heresy characters for a new campaign.

Their best plan yet. What can wrong with this?

Ressuracting the Emperor... Halleluha!

Praise his blessed domain! Pray to his order! Celebrate for he is coming!

If only this could happen... if only...

Thank you very much, Nameless2All! Your advice has been of extreme help.

Allow me to respond with my views on your ideas:

1. Regarding the closing of the Warpstorm, you are absolutely right. The current plan is to find all of the Untouchables in the sector, but given your points, I no longer think that it will be enough. Also, given that there are Word Bearers nestling on the other side, ready to attack, I think a potential solution to the problem would be to have Carax, our resident Gal Vorbak, speak with their Dark Apostle in the hopes of recruiting them into a standing guard on the other side of the portal - a standing guard that only the players know about...

Given your ancient xenon device idea...I have an answer. A major plot point of the campaign so far has been an ancient Old One astrological formation known as the Ley Configuration. The Ley Configuration was created by the Old Ones to kill vast swathes of Necrons in galactic sectors. How it functions: The Ley Configuration consists of seven planets, which must be moved into a specific formation to activate them. Moving them requires the direction of a power cadre of psykers (I'm thinking Court of the Young King here). When they form a "stars are right" esque conjunction around the sector, the entire sector is transposed into a pocket dimension, existing somewhere between real space and the web way, skimming the edge of the warp. Think of the sector as occupying the same position in space, but on a different frequency. As such, warp storms like Shemjaza's Eye become irrelevant, as they cannot be reached. Within this pocket dimension, every organism with a "life force" - like Necrons, which re essentially just machines animated by disembodied life force - has its life energy sucked out and redistributed, with more life force going to more psychically cognizant entities. As such, psykers become more powerful, healing injuries faster and becoming super humans, while regular jackasses with psychic presence but no powers to speak of stay the same, and creatures with no warp presence shut down and die. The life force is redistributed through individuals called Loci - essentially the opposite of pariahs. Our Lord Governor wanted to use it to kill the Tau and close the sector before the party stopped him. Why did they stop him?

Because to move the Ley Configuration into position, the planets have to travel through the warp. During the War in Heaven this was ideal, as the warp was the peaceful domain of the Old Ones, so opening up temporary warp portals wasn't a problem. Now that the Chaos Gods exist, every daemon wanting to ascend itself is trying to corrupt the Loci, so that when the configuration is activated, the resulting life energy flooding out of the Loci will be tainted and spread the corruption. Also, when the planets move, warp rifts open up and daemons pop out. So, even though the player characters have four of the loci in their custody, there are still three remaining and no one wants to risk daemons.

2. You are correct, the Webway is very dangerous and, given that Comorragh is the most tactically advantageous position AND is essentially a plughole into the warp keeping daemons a bay, the Eldar would be very enthused in recovering it.

3. I think the plan is to enlist every White Scar successor as well - you see, Toussant feels that the Astartes, what with their eccentricc tactics, prideful independence, and inability to cooperate, has crippled the Imperium more than it has helped it. Case and point, the Horus Heresy. So, Toussant views this as an opportunity to take the White Scars Legion of the table entirely, if possible. His plan to attack Comoorragh, as it stands, is to allow the White Scars to drop in from above, and then bombard the city with macro cannon shells. However, I'm sure that Comorragh's void shields and arcane wards will weather most of the bombardment, and if Comorragh is utterly destroyed, then the rites keeping daemons at bay during dysjunctions will rupture, rendering the Webway's most tactical position useless to the players and their entire endeavor a failure. Ashabel, their resident Incubus junkie, will be sure to inform them of this - that way, they'll know not just to sit back and shoot, as that's no fun at all! I do indeed want a massive undertaking.

4. Allow me to elaborate - the Dark Eldar haemoculi possess a device that has no name, although a weaker and far shittier imperial equivalent is called a Resusatrix Chamber - you may recall it from the Hive and Forge section of the Inquisitor's Handbook. Essentially, the Haemonculi use the Resusatrix Chamber to grow new organisms like grotesques, but the archons of the dark elder cabals use them for a very different purpose - to revive themselves from literal death. Acccording to the codex, a single cell is all that is required for this to work - it may take weeks or months, but after a while you have regrown the eldar from scratch, with all its memories in place. Our Inquisitor is most adept at disguising xenotech as human archeotech - its been a part of every one of his plots so far - so I do not intend to stop him from trying. Whether the Guilliman's guards see through the ruse is up to the dice, after all. However, I have talked with the players, and as you suggested, "Grand Theft Guilliman" is a popular idea, sheerly for how much more fun it would be.

Your mental image is beautiful, by the way. The plan for explaining the current state of affairs to Guilliman is to leave him alone with a data slate in a locked room of multiple-meter-thick ceramite for a month or two. That way the party should be safe from the inevitable numerous rage quits. As for the Emperor's rage quit, everyone has just accepted that the psychic scream of that will probably kill them, and are ready to die as martyrs to the Emperor's Evangelical "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-"

5. My logic as to why Guilliman would siege Terra is as follows:

A. He is a man of standardization, organiation, and efficient government. This the High Lords do not make.

B. His most notable action as a Primarch was being sent to castigate Lorgar for writing the Lectitio Divinatus. This book is now the most widely read staple of the entire Imperium. A reckoning is in order.

C. If the Emperor could come back, that would be dandy.

Maybe I'll throw in a plot twist where Guilliman secretly wants to displace the Emperor, feeling that he would be able to fix it better, but I'll see how that goes - I'm already contemplating revealing during the raid of Comorragh that Ashabel was one of Asdrubael Vect's bastards the whole time, and given that at the end of our last campaign I revealed that the Omnissiah Reincarnated - a nice young blonde girl who everyone doted on like a younger sister or daughter - was actually a shard of the Deceiver, I don't want to just cripple the party's faith in NPCs altogether.

6. Who knows? Maybe the Emperor doesn't want to come back. It would be really interesting if, instead of coming back, he sent a vision to our players that he's too busy fighting all four chaos gods to govern a broken empire, and that instead, Guilliman should be emperor and that the players should become the new high lords. We have a fan theory that Goge Vandire did actually receive messages from the Emperor, like he claimed, but that because he wasn't a sanctioned psyker, that's what drove him cray-cray. And, after all, it could go terribly - once the High Lords have been dispatched, Chad is free to do as he likes, and if he successfully possesses Bubsy, then that's a whole new campaign in and of itself...

7. Another idea they had was to play as a Rogue Trader party comprised of all xenon players, on a space hulk, escaping the now-unbeatable Imperium of Man into a neighboring galaxy. Which, for me, will be an even grander endeavor...

In games I've run, everything you've ever been told about the Emperor is a lie. He's the most evil, awful, low-down, conniving cad that every trod the galaxy. He didn't invent anything. He stole it all from deserving people and used it to prosecute a genocidal war against all species in the galaxy. He got away with it because he's the alpha+++ psyker guy that dominates the minds of entire planets.

Using that idea, just let your players resurrect him. They'll be sorry. Of course, it will be too late.

I have a question about step 7.Roll upp new DH characters. Will these characters exist in a post or pre ressurection world?

From this question follows my second, what would happen to the 40k univere would the Emperor actually be ressurected?

In games I've run, everything you've ever been told about the Emperor is a lie.

Which is fair enough, he's not exactly getting best dad awards. What kind of games are you running where it's actually relevant, though? it's not like you can have a campaign where you have to console an Eldar farseer who's distraught that the Emprah she admired and secretly loved was actually a prick.

Thank you very much, Nameless2All! Your advice has been of extreme help.

Allow me to respond with my views on your ideas:

1. Regarding the closing of the Warpstorm, you are absolutely right. The current plan is to find all of the Untouchables in the sector, but given your points, I no longer think that it will be enough. Also, given that there are Word Bearers nestling on the other side, ready to attack, I think a potential solution to the problem would be to have Carax, our resident Gal Vorbak, speak with their Dark Apostle in the hopes of recruiting them into a standing guard on the other side of the portal - a standing guard that only the players know about...

I think the Forces of Chaos being willing to go along with this plan is a perfectly viable option, because resurrecting the Emperor is still not going to work in my mind, but the attempt to do so would massively destabilize the Imperium and leave them vulnerable to Chaos exploitation. Ideally they'd make a few innocent sounding pacts with the Dark Gods, and then at a critical moment have them come due to collect just as your players were trying to do something where daemonic possession is not their ideal social choice.

2. You are correct, the Webway is very dangerous and, given that Comorragh is the most tactically advantageous position AND is essentially a plughole into the warp keeping daemons a bay, the Eldar would be very enthused in recovering it.

3. I think the plan is to enlist every White Scar successor as well - you see, Toussant feels that the Astartes, what with their eccentricc tactics, prideful independence, and inability to cooperate, has crippled the Imperium more than it has helped it. Case and point, the Horus Heresy. So, Toussant views this as an opportunity to take the White Scars Legion of the table entirely, if possible. His plan to attack Comoorragh, as it stands, is to allow the White Scars to drop in from above, and then bombard the city with macro cannon shells. However, I'm sure that Comorragh's void shields and arcane wards will weather most of the bombardment, and if Comorragh is utterly destroyed, then the rites keeping daemons at bay during dysjunctions will rupture, rendering the Webway's most tactical position useless to the players and their entire endeavor a failure. Ashabel, their resident Incubus junkie, will be sure to inform them of this - that way, they'll know not just to sit back and shoot, as that's no fun at all! I do indeed want a massive undertaking.

Except there are legitimate examples when the Space Marines have saved the Imperium from disaster. See the World Engine, or the First Tyrannic War, or the Reign of Blood. Also again, to commit the entirety of the White Scars to this endeavour is going to require concrete proof that the Khan is there, or was killed by the Dark Eldar, and you still haven't explained where this information is going to come from. Or that they won't recognise that they're being set up to die like chumps, or since your plan isn't to destroy Comorragh, how you're actually going to wipe out the Dark Eldar.

This is probably the most technologically advanced race in the Galaxy that are not soulless robots who have had millennia to fortify their position and crazily prepare themselves for anything that could be happening. Also I am like 100% sure that at some point Asdrubael Vect rigged the whole thing to explode in the case of his death.

4. Allow me to elaborate - the Dark Eldar haemoculi possess a device that has no name, although a weaker and far shittier imperial equivalent is called a Resusatrix Chamber - you may recall it from the Hive and Forge section of the Inquisitor's Handbook. Essentially, the Haemonculi use the Resusatrix Chamber to grow new organisms like grotesques, but the archons of the dark elder cabals use them for a very different purpose - to revive themselves from literal death. Acccording to the codex, a single cell is all that is required for this to work - it may take weeks or months, but after a while you have regrown the eldar from scratch, with all its memories in place. Our Inquisitor is most adept at disguising xenotech as human archeotech - its been a part of every one of his plots so far - so I do not intend to stop him from trying. Whether the Guilliman's guards see through the ruse is up to the dice, after all. However, I have talked with the players, and as you suggested, "Grand Theft Guilliman" is a popular idea, sheerly for how much more fun it would be.

It's still not proven that it'll work on humans, or on Space Marines, or on Primarchs who have some really weird thing happening to their genetic structure. Also he's still been stabbed by Chaos.

5. My logic as to why Guilliman would siege Terra is as follows:

A. He is a man of standardization, organiation, and efficient government. This the High Lords do not make.

B. His most notable action as a Primarch was being sent to castigate Lorgar for writing the Lectitio Divinatus. This book is now the most widely read staple of the entire Imperium. A reckoning is in order.

C. If the Emperor could come back, that would be dandy.

Being sent to castigate Lorgar is so far from his most notable action. He...

1) Created a mini-empire of 500 worlds that were the most stable and consistent fixture in the Imperium for the last 1,000 years

2) Conquered the second-most territory in the Imperium after some guy we don't talk about anymore.

3) Became regent of the Imperium after the Horus Heresy, and oversaw the expansion of the Imperium to the highest point of power it's ever been in.

4) Reformed the Space Marine Legions into chapters and laid out some standardized rules so that the fellow Legions could actually work together.

He is also crazily loyal, although the last time he thought the Emperor was dead he did sort of found a secondary Imperium so that the virtues of mankind would not die out. Also to stress my third point, he was actually ruling the Imperium and laid out a lot of the structure for how it is run right now. He might not be pleased with how it turned out, but that's more due to corruption than anything else.

He could also have been driven crazy by being on the verge of death for the last 10,000 years or so. Fulgrim spent like a year in the company of a possessed sword and that was all it took for him.