Hello,

Going to throw my players into Rogue Trader, worked on creating a plot hook, and setting up some background, looking for any more ideas people might think cool. I will post what I have so far... They were previously playing a different module before they all died.

WARNING: HERESY-- THIS IS NOT CANON, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

You find yourselves in a damp, humid jungle. You have located your gear, located in a trunk near where you woke up. Your ship is off to the side, landed perfectly, crushing trees where it decided to prop itself. You do not remember anything, your heads pound and you’re all hungry and dehydrated.

What do you do?

The heat is unbearable, and the lack of water is torture. Entering the ship is even worse, you do not know how long you or it have been here, but it is a hot box, and not to mention that the ship has no supplies at all, due to the state of the crew. You realize you are going to have to survive the old fashioned way, as you reckon you would not survive a trip on the ship due to your dehydration, you need to find water, and fast.

After any successful survival checks, they find a creek of fresh (-20 Survival) water, and a bush of delicious looking berries. Succeeding a survival check with 4 degrees of success will alert the explorer that something is amiss, but are clueless as to the cause. The berries are delicious, and fill you up rather quickly. Constant sounds of wildlife keep the explorers on edge, and make it almost impossible to concentrate. Eventually, they have a sinking feeling in their stomach as they realize, they are being hunted.

A Solid projectile whizzes past the ear of one of the party, narrowly missing, and causing utter confusion. Who could be hunting us, here? But there is no time to think, before saying anything another shot thuds into the tree behind Lok, they had better get moving…

As they sprint through the forest, another man steps out from the cover of a tree, swinging a huge axe, at least the size of him, at Lucius, drilling into his armor and knocking him backwards some 10 meters. They notice now this is no ordinary man, but in fact a bulging mass of bionics and muscle.

Whatever Lok does, the direction he moves, he walks straight into an invisible hunter, out from his wrist protrudes a vicious looking pair of swords, that have just dug into the midsection of Lok, and straight to the other side, and the creature picks Lok up with the one hand, and lets the blades slide up his body, until catching on his rib cage. The creature is tall, dressed in a suit or what looks to be light power armor, painted green and white. You can still see part of the armor becoming visible, and lines of energy surging through where it was invisible prior.

The machines are relentless, after knocking Lucius back, another dropped from a tree perched above Lucius, diving into him. After crushing his organs, and bones, it takes a boot, sticks it into Lucius’s face, and activates a jet, cremating Lucius’s face.

The one on Lok pushes his off whit his foot, and turns towards Alacorn, while the other two go towards Celiah. Celiah tries to fight, but it is futile, one of machines grabs Celiah by the upper body, and another grabs her by the legs, and the pull. In agony, and screaming, they slowly rip her in half. Blood, guts and oil spill out as you die, in shock.

What do you do Alacorn?

The machine walking towards Alacorn raises his arm, and a small compartment above his hand opens, and a very tiny needle shoots from it. The Needle strikes Alacorn in the pupil, and digs straight into the back of his brain. Causing him to go berserk, he tears at the flesh and bone on his head, trying to get rid of it, eventually digging his hands into brain. Sending chucks flying before dying.

You all wake up; you are in a medical bay, and still feel nauseas. You all remember, vividly what happened, but have no idea where you are or where long you were passed out. As you glance around the room, you notice some men standing guard at the entrance, and a beautiful woman tending to various lights on a holo-screen nearby.

You notice a young human man walking towards you. Black, perfectly groomed hair almost fully covers a chiseled, worried face. Piercing silver eyes, set charmingly within their sockets, watch merrily over the bodies in the med-bay. A moustache gorgeously compliments his nose and mouth and leaves a pleasant memory. He stands big among others, despite his brawny frame. There's something ambiguous about him, perhaps it's his unusual alliances or perhaps it's simply his good looks. This is the face of Elluin Nightgaze.

Silver, straight hair tight in a ponytail reveals a thin, time-worn face. Wide violet eyes, sit concealed within their sockets. An old tattoo resembling a flag is subtly placed on the side of the left eye leaves a gracious memory of her fortunate destiny. This is the face of Ylysea, She stands gracefully among others, despite her scraggy frame. There's something odd about her, perhaps it's her hatred or perhaps it's simply a feeling of remorse.


Regardless, the girl greats you, clearly a ranking officer of some kind. The man must be the Medicae professional, likely tending to them after their encounter in the jungle. You notice you all look completely normal, save Celiah, who is still cold to look at. The mutations, all gone, but you feel the same.

“My name is Ylysea, you are on board of the BC Intervention, and have been for a while now, do you remember what happened?”

“Indeed, Milord sent the Men of Iron after you, you have been here for the past 18 months, as we worked to rebuild your bodies. You see, the Imperium does more than soak into your ideologies, it eats at your bodies, as does the taint of Chaos. Elluin (pointing to the man) has done a fine job during your reconstructions, you are now free of warp taint, mutations and insanity, any previous bodily harm is gone as well. You are essentially brand new, how do you all feel?”

“The deaths were important, for only through death can you be reborn, and the marvelous technology of the Tau and Eldar, with the experience of Elluin, enabled us to do this in a very timely manner indeed. In fact, it was our fastest time yet, if all goes well, we hope to increase efficiency 200%, however that is a story for another time. For now I need you to come with me, it is a long train ride to the bridge, and I can answer any questions you have on the way there.”

You eventually get to the bridge, and she escorts you to a meeting chamber. Inside you see several humans, and a Tau. There is a large, unpleasant Magos there too. When you enter, all eyes turn to you, and the immense weight of power in this room seems to burn directly into your soul. A Man looking out of a window turns, and a smile happens across his face. “You’re awake, good, we have much to discuss.” The party enters the room, and Ylysea leaves the room.

Everyone introduces themselves –

Tau Ethereal – Aun’ Shi
Fabricator General of Mars – Gastaph Hediatrix
Rogue Trader – Aoife Armengarde
Chief Custodian – Constantin Valdor
Primarch – Ferrus Manus

Ferrus is not in the room initially, he comes after the initial introductions. The party can hear him walking down the halls of the ship. As the door opens, a massive man, in an impressively massive suit or armour walks into the room, ducking to avoid the dip in the door, and introduces himself as Ferrus Manus…

Ferrus explains what is going on, to the very confused party.

“8 Years ago Aoife discovered the location of a vault, in the depths of a Death World, unimportant at this point. In the vault was a massive cache of records, and technology from the Dark Age of Technology. It was a massively detailed list of accounts for the time period, and it was accompanied by a list of all items in the vault, and what they did. There was a stasis chamber in the vault as well. Aoife decided to open the chamber, and slumbering inside was what appeared to be a Jakearo, but much larger and intelligent enough to communicate. MX, he insisted he was called, explained that at the climax of the machine wars, he sealed himself in this vault, with the technology he had been working on. (MX then enters the room) MX was afraid of it getting into the hands of the Men of Iron and locked himself away for later use. MX explained that he was working on a device that could reconstruct a body given even the smallest gene sample. Aoife, realizing what he just happened upon, knew he could permanently change the Imperium with this technology, but he had to be careful about how he went about it. He took the vault, and MX onto his ship, and explained what had happened in the intervening years. They were traveling to Mars, the Magos on the Rogue Trader’s ship was owed a favor by a senior man stationed on mars. Though it was hard, they were eventually granted an audience with Hediatrix. Unbeknownst to all of them, Hediatrix had my body, from the time of the Heresy, and while MX was unsure if it would work on someone of my being. Using their combined knowledge, they were able to get the machine working again, however it had gotten old in the untold years that had passed, and MX was worried something might go a miss. He was right, it took a very, very long time, but it worked. While I was not a perfect clone yet, my DNA worked to fix that, and now I am as I was, with all my memories intact at that, truly an outstanding piece of technology.

You people in this room are the only people that know I am alive, upon being informed of what has happened during the time of my death, I decided we would have to do something. I received a brief vision from my father, but my mind was still numb, and I could not decipher its meaning. I gathered a valiant ally of my father’s from Holy Terra, and we have been on this ship since. This ship is completely immune to the effects of Chaos, even their greedy eyes. It does not even travel through the warp, one of the marvelous technologies discovered from the Vault was a Drive that tears through space, skipping the warp, much like the old Web ways of the Eldar.

Eventually, MX told us that the machine could still work; despite the huge damage it suffered trying to revive me. However, he needed a special type of metal to properly fix the archeotech components. The metal, he described, was known only to Hediatrix, and the Imperium’s supply had run out long ago. Indeed at this point the only place he knew of it being made was on Taros, or T’ros as it is now called… by the Tau.

Before we got there, I received a vision… (He Pauses) from my father. It warned of the coming of the Xenos known as Tyranids, and the hive mind, and just the mention of the words rocked my very brain. Whatever it is, it’s extremely powerful, and it’s coming to our galaxy. In the vision, I was informed that I would need allies beyond that of humanity, and its threat is even direr than that of chaos. It was then decided that we would seek the help of what Xenos allies we could. Most are as horribly xenophobic as humanity, but some saw reason, and the Tau had something we needed. They had interest in cleaning out the Tyranids as well, technological expertise, and the metal for the machine.

Now to you, about 2 years ago, I had another vision. I was instructed to obtain you three, but they must be cleansed as I was. Thus the reason you were hunted, I hope you do not mind. This did not reveal to me why we needed you, but we do. You now work with the Star Cabal, although mention of this will not be possible, blocks have been put into your mind to prevent it from coming out, secrecy is of the utmost. You will be out field agents, until the time comes that I can decipher your true purpose here. We will provide you with another ship, less obvious to the more radical inquisitors as well as a crew, and equipment. However, it will be mostly mundane items, while your safety is important; we cannot have you running around with Xenos and Archeo-tech. Take these (Handing you some devices that look like earpieces) another marvel, these will allow communication across the galaxy, and are linked to your bridge, and to Aoife. The others have access to seeing these messages as well.

On your ships bridge, you will find a dossier of people, whom we believe will help you on your ship, as well as a list of endeavors that would help us considerably. Bide your time for now explorers, but be expecting out call…

Ferrus sits down, and asks if you have any questions for them…

That what I have so farm just started today, but have a lot to flush out. Including the adventures. I got inspiration from Mass Effect 2, to recruit people to their ship. I also took inspiration from a lot of other places.

Any ideas or criticism would be great, thanks!!

So... this is all some sort of psychic test by an Inquisitorial agent to test whether or not the Rogue Trader crew immediately burn everyone in sight as is the only reaction to this heresy?

I have no idea what sort of feedback you want out of this. You've come up with a backstory that doesn't make a lot of sense in the setting, that is essentially meant to explain why your party died and then came back to life, and now they're going to be running errands for someone claiming to be a demigod that's been dead longer than the Emperor. And the Emperor's most loyal Companion. And the leader of the assembled technological might of the Imperium. And the woman who started the current vast militant wing of the Ecclesiarchy.

What are your Rogue Traders even for? Why are any of these people lurking in the shadows in the first place given that their assembled power should be enough to steamroll the Imperium. How is any of this profitable?

Good points, all. So let me clarify a little bit.

Yes, we all agreed our campaign was Not canon, so it should not make immediate sense.

Yes, they are all powerful, but they are meant as, to be cliche' the "Illumanati"

The idea is not to bring the imperium and xenos allies against themselves. It to fight the Tyranids.

Massing everything would leave them open to many other terrible things, these characters have no serious role, just run in the background and remind the players what they are doing.

Fighting the tyranids, building a fleet, allies, and profit enough to do it is up to the Rogue Traders. Much like Mass Effect two collector final mission. Gaining allies, and gear to bring the fight to the aliens. They will have to bring the fight to a Hive Ship perhaps.

Again, they are not trying to steamroll the Imperium. The sense of profit should come from the gathering of allies, equipment, ships, personnel etc...

I should mention as well, while I am going to run the Rogue Trader rules, they all died as inquisitors, they may not actually be in it for profit, just the adventure.

Thanks!

I pretty much have a flat " what? " and not much else for this one.

If you want to go completely off the rails then that's fine. Do what's fun first and last. But you pretty much are going completely off the rails.

The "sane" (at least in universe) response to all this is to assume the guy claiming to be Ferrus Mannus being some sort of eldar sham and for the player characters to run for the inquisition/high lords as fast as they can.

Note, the machine would be able to recover many of the primarches since many of the dead ones left behind bits and pieces or entire bodies. El Johnson, Sanguinius, Rogal Dorn, Gulliman. Same with any number of saints like Drusus etc. Why isn't it happening is a question you'll need to answer.

I pretty much have a flat " what? " and not much else for this one.

If you want to go completely off the rails then that's fine. Do what's fun first and last. But you pretty much are going completely off the rails.

The "sane" (at least in universe) response to all this is to assume the guy claiming to be Ferrus Mannus being some sort of eldar sham and for the player characters to run for the inquisition/high lords as fast as they can.

Note, the machine would be able to recover many of the primarches since many of the dead ones left behind bits and pieces or entire bodies. El Johnson, Sanguinius, Rogal Dorn, Gulliman. Same with any number of saints like Drusus etc. Why isn't it happening is a question you'll need to answer.

Perhaps I should just remove the aliens? Keep it a strictly human affair. The idea for the machine is it takes a ancient archeotech quantuam batteries to operate, and in addition to the resurrection of Ferrus, they trusted him enough to use the remaining battery to resurrect the party, they are after all, integral to the plot.

Thanks!

It's an interesting idea and I had a little time tonight so I sat down and thought it over.

Unfortunately the Eldar suffer from chronic backstabbing syndrome and wouldn't be trusted very easily. Same with the Cabal and their involvement in the Horus Heresy. The Tau would work given their outlook and appearance to the Imperium.

Here's how I would do it. Ferrus Manus is resurrected by a Jokaero invention. Not just any Jokaero though, one who is a fully intelligent savant. He can speak and plan and do more than just tinker with gizmoes (although he is obviously very good at that). He's even got a name and insists you use it (I'll call him MX for Monkey X). He is however mum on why he resurrected Ferrus. The resurrection wasn't perfect and Ferrus will take some time to recover fully.

Ferrus picks up his visions from the Emprah and he and MX manage to win over a small group of Tau technologists that MX knows. Ferrus travels in secret to the Golden Throne to confirm them and let certain people know he's alive, then to mars where he and MX enlist the aid of the priesthood of mars. Between his skills, MX, the technologists, and the priesthood of mars they construct the ship they need and improve the resurrection machine. Collect PC's and get them up to speed.

You can eventually ally with the Eldar and turn Orks towards the enemy, but that should be something you work up to. Start out by keeping things more human centric. First mission? Contact the Squat fleet. You remember the Squats? Ab-humans, mostly humans, space dwarfs, redacted. Perhaps instead of simply being consumed entirely they took to huge fleets of ships and sailed off, pissed with the Imperium for letting their worlds die and with a grudge against the space bugs. Their technical expertise might come in handy if you can win them over.

Next up, what about allying with the Tau as a whole, in secret of course, since most of the Imperium wouldn't accept that, even if a Primarch said it was cool. Again the Tau are technically advanced and creative (seeing a trend here?).

Well if technical proficiency is key maybe someone should try to track down Vulcan, or make an alliance with one of the Eldar craft worlds, or find some Slann.

Of course if you need to stall the space bugs you could turn a Waaaaagh or two in their direction.

Eventually you find out that the ultimate aim is to improve and refine the machine enough to resurrect the big E to fight the hive mind and lead the Imperium to a new golden age of crystal spires and togas and grape for all etc etc. You can have a fairly predictable twist where the Eldar try to steal the machine to resurrect their own dead gods. Or chaos followers try to taint the machine to turn the Emprah to chaos while it resurrects him or something similar.

It's an interesting idea and I had a little time tonight so I sat down and thought it over.

Unfortunately the Eldar suffer from chronic backstabbing syndrome and wouldn't be trusted very easily. Same with the Cabal and their involvement in the Horus Heresy. The Tau would work given their outlook and appearance to the Imperium.

Here's how I would do it. Ferrus Manus is resurrected by a Jokaero invention. Not just any Jokaero though, one who is a fully intelligent savant. He can speak and plan and do more than just tinker with gizmoes (although he is obviously very good at that). He's even got a name and insists you use it (I'll call him MX for Monkey X). He is however mum on why he resurrected Ferrus. The resurrection wasn't perfect and Ferrus will take some time to recover fully.

Ferrus picks up his visions from the Emprah and he and MX manage to win over a small group of Tau technologists that MX knows. Ferrus travels in secret to the Golden Throne to confirm them and let certain people know he's alive, then to mars where he and MX enlist the aid of the priesthood of mars. Between his skills, MX, the technologists, and the priesthood of mars they construct the ship they need and improve the resurrection machine. Collect PC's and get them up to speed.

You can eventually ally with the Eldar and turn Orks towards the enemy, but that should be something you work up to. Start out by keeping things more human centric. First mission? Contact the Squat fleet. You remember the Squats? Ab-humans, mostly humans, space dwarfs, redacted. Perhaps instead of simply being consumed entirely they took to huge fleets of ships and sailed off, pissed with the Imperium for letting their worlds die and with a grudge against the space bugs. Their technical expertise might come in handy if you can win them over.

Next up, what about allying with the Tau as a whole, in secret of course, since most of the Imperium wouldn't accept that, even if a Primarch said it was cool. Again the Tau are technically advanced and creative (seeing a trend here?).

Well if technical proficiency is key maybe someone should try to track down Vulcan, or make an alliance with one of the Eldar craft worlds, or find some Slann.

Of course if you need to stall the space bugs you could turn a Waaaaagh or two in their direction.

Eventually you find out that the ultimate aim is to improve and refine the machine enough to resurrect the big E to fight the hive mind and lead the Imperium to a new golden age of crystal spires and togas and grape for all etc etc. You can have a fairly predictable twist where the Eldar try to steal the machine to resurrect their own dead gods. Or chaos followers try to taint the machine to turn the Emprah to chaos while it resurrects him or something similar.

This idea is fantastic. I love it, and will incorporate almost the whole thing. (Tempted to call the jokaero Ceasar, lol)

Thank you so much for your input!!

Super excited now, lol

Welcome. Glad I could help refine the idea.

I'm just going to sit this one out.

So. You're posting to let us know you aren't going to post... OK.

So I have updated the OP, let me know what you think!!

I posted your entire OP unedited onto /tg/. No one even touched it.

But if I was your player, I would leave session one. I play 40k rpgs to enjoy a common universe with my friends and make my own story, not play through other people's fan fiction with zomg powerful npcs.