One of my favorite Threads in the DW Forums is the ' Deathwatch Mini Idea Dump ', where people post plot hooks for 'stand-alone' scenarios. I thought it would be fun to steal that concept for DH2 . Here are a couple to get the ball rolling:
IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY PLANET
The Acolytes' Inquisitor has received a communique from a member of another cell, stating that he believes one of their members has been turned by Chaos and murdered the party leader. Ordering that group to 'hole up' in an abandoned manor house in the ash wastes of a hive world and wait for further instructions, the Inquisitor dispatches the PCs to suss out the potential traitor.
Shortly after arriving at the manor, an ash storm whips up, trapping the PCs and the other group of Acolytes inside until it blows over. Only the Acolyte who contacted the Inquisitor (an elderly Adept, kept alive with extensive augmetics) knows who the PCs are and why they are there. As they investigate the suspects, clues begin to pile up that each NPC in turn may be Corrupted.
Unknown to the PCs, the real culprit is the 'helpful' elderly Adept, who wants to collect the parts to a dissembled Chaos artifact that his group discovered on their last mission and divided the parts up amongst themselves to neuter its power. He lucked into a situation where he could kill the party leader, but is too decrepit to risk a confrontation with the rest of the combat-optimized group now that they are alert to danger. So, he is trying to arrange for another group to do his dirty work, planting clues to cast suspicion on his (loyal) team-mates. To insure the conflict turns bloody, he is also planting false clues that the newly-arrived Acolytes are in fact a disguised assassination team sent by the Inquisitor's arch nemesis...
SIGMA PRIMUS
The Acolytes are charged with locating the anonymous bidder who purchased a book of necromantic lore in a black-market auction. They eventually discover that the bidder is a decadent nobleman whose residence is an orbiting station dubbed Sigma Primus. Entering the seemingly lifeless station, the Acolytes discover that it is riddled with deathtraps, some mechanical, some sorcerous in nature. He also has a menagerie of illegally-acquired xenobeasts that he keeps in special containment facilities with automated doors which unleash them upon intruders. If the Acolytes succeed in crawling through the numerous hazards of this orbiting dungeon, they will discover that the warp-dabbling nobleman used the necromantic rituals contained in the forbidden book to put himself beyond such petty concerns as 'life' and 'death'...
Edited by Adeptus-B