If your name is Scorch (Ewan), Omega (Brunner), Fenix (Sgt. Solar) or Jonathan S. (Feyzra), stay the hell out of this thread or your characters will be set on fire for all eternity and your sheets will burst into flames.

Alright, so, my players.. they did something.

We've been running the False Prophets adventure from the Core Rulebook, after previously having done the Broken Chains free adventure and a bunch of other stuff.

Either way, for everyone unfamiliar with the adventure in question, it involves the players going to the Gloaming World of Kymerus, a desolate stone desert planet with a destitute population and it's main reason for even being colonized being the Temple of Lies, built where an Imperial ship once crashed.

Aside from being a Temple to Tzeentch, it is also an enormous library, full of all kinds of lore. It is well-known within the Screaming Vortex, and many people of great renown have had their fortunes told there, often rising to prominence shortly afterwards and then burning out just as quickly. The players are summoned there, swiftly betrayed, and if done per the adventure's assumptions, it ends up with you travelling away from the planet with a small group of the Prophets of the Blighted Path (Word Bearers Space Marines) that the Mendacious Oracle at the Temple of Lies tried to betray, and also means that you killed a great deal of guards there, along with the head of the temple.

The second in command of the temple, Elika the Seer, is supposed to step in afterwards and she has no idea why the players killed the Mendacious Oracle Renkard Copax, and the players have an uncertain future, and so on, and so forth. Fair enough.

The issue is, my players, my players weren't satisfied with this.

My players, having their own ship, decided to bomb the Temple of Lies with their macrocannons before sailing off towards the Flaming Tomb (to ferry the Word Bearers to their master, and also other reasons).

I gave them 1 Corruption and rolled a 1d5 for Infamy for the act, but beyond that, I'm not sure how to play it.

I would love to get some input from other people familiar with the Screaming Vortex in general, or ideas regarding the reaction of other factions. Presumably, the Temple of Lies have been some kind of neutral ground, or at least big enough of a player to not suffer incessant raids by greater factions. It has foretold the destiny of many, but there's no reason those people in particular would hold fealty to the Temple.

What after-effects should the players expect (or have expected, had they (or rather, the captain) thought this decision through before bombing it)?

The Temple of Lies is gone, the Mendacious Oracle lies dead, the library is destroyed, and Elika the Seer is MIA. The bombing was unwarranted and most likely pissed some people off, but.. yeah, I'm a bit at a loss.

Well besides the mandatory joke about how she was not that good of a seer if she did not see this coming :/ ( or did she and it was all part of Tzeenche's scheme ) I would say your players biggest worry might be another group who were on there way to get their fortune told. Also if the seer did survive somehow could be a great twist at the end of another adventure.

Course you could always claim there bombing was a mass delusion and the temple is unharmed

Every single person who got to position of power by following the temple prophesies, will be pissed off.

Every single person brought to misery because of the temple prophesies, will be happy (and that is not neccesarily thankful).

Every single divinationist of the Vortex (think of Many-Eyed Oracle, or Soloria Half-Blind, or Sektoth the False Whisper) will suddenly feel very insecure: it was some kind of unwritten law that aspiring champions of chaos listen to divinations and follow (or attempt to cry out against) them, but not murder the prophets and lay waste to the temples, since they're kind of valuable - up until now!

Destruction of the Temple of Lies creates a power vacuum on Kymerus. There will be a war between multitudes of cults and warbands who were connected to the Temple which is now but a smoking hellscape after a few direct kilo-tonn macrowarhead hits - and this war will echo far beyond the planet itself.

Word Bearers dark apostle, Naberus, might approve the fact that you burned the heretic's lair - the now-dead Oracle was resisting the will of the Dark Gods after all. Or, he might immediately attack the PC's ship - because he wanted the contents of the library, or because he worshipped Torestus as a holy scripture, or because he's paranoid and quite mad, and has all the reasons to believe PC's wanted to cover up something by nuking the entire site from orbit.

Depending on this, Alpha Legion marines scattered around the Vortex and seemingly operating on their own, since they are in a state of war with the Word Bearers, can and will mark PCs as their enemy, or possible ally, or a tool in one of their operations, or any combination of the above, depending on Naberus' reaction.

Since Blighted Path sees its goal in finding a chosen warrior of the dark gods to lead and unite the Vortex - chances are, every single daring warband (at least those mentioned in core RB in "myriad warbands of the vortex" section) will see this evolving war as their final proving ground.

And it will grow from here exponentially.

Or, if you want it slower for now, no one will care about the failure that was Copax. Dark gods did not preserve him, so he was probably too weak and too dumb to survive anyway, right?

Khorne worshippers have heard of this act and thinks it's great! They are even now planning to build a giant brass throne they can drop bomb onto the site. They some blood and skulls from the PCs to add to the throne.

Tzeentch worshippers, especially those who were waiting for their fortune to be told, will be out for/of the skins for the act.

I'd like to also point out that these kinds of heretics are not the kind who are polite, by writing strongly worded letters to their congregation leaders. They are the kind who will tear off their heads or flay them alive to just prove a point.

The Qsal hear that the oracle is still alive but being help captive by the players. Irgo they create a team to go "rescue" the oracle.

I really the mentioned idea of having ONE group (which was underway to get their fortune told by the temple) being pissed. While blowing up a renowned temple should have consequences, it should not turn the whole vortex against the characters, so.
this place is fractured, divided by infighting and I could imagine that word is not even spread that quickly. After all,

Who is going to Point fingers at the characters, anyway?
The temple was bombed from orbit. It is not like that barren rock had some surveillance fleet. Perhaps some People survived the bombing and can tell about the fight, but do they know who the characters were in the first place? The word bearers might spread the word", but this might take some time. So don´t drop bombs on them immediately.Some will Need to INVESTIGATE the Event and will then Need to track the your Players group.

Have another group set on their heels that wants to put them down to gain fevor of Tzeentch by destroying the SHIP that destroyed the temple of lies and killing those in Charge of it. Perhaps they will be able to achieve half of THEIR compact Goal =). Drop those other group in as additinal obstacle during another game the characters run (possibly not the NEXT but the OVERNEXT Thing you do). Your world will feel much more organic to the Players if things they did do not haunt them immediately.

In Addition to that, the characters might have a bad time talking to other oracles that have heared about that Thing and are able to link it to the characters somehow (again, it is not like there faces and names are immediately heralded by some mysterious tzeentch-Police all over the vortex). A -10 or -30 on all social interactions should be fine (depending on how the Standing of the NPC was in regard to the temple of lies. That somebody is aligned to Tzeentch does not necessarily mean that he could not be a rival of said temple.

If you want some immediate effect and if you want Tzeentch to Show some displeasure without unleashing buckets of daemons... make their next warp journey unruly. Make them lose time...not like "something that could never happen" but like "the worst Thing that could reasonably happen". Perhaps the characters will like to make some sacrifice to make good for that temple again.

Oh! And for every 2 or 5 People balking at them about what they did, add somebody that CHEERS them for it! And don´t turn it into a Lemon, but really make it feel like it was a GOOD Thing indeed. That will Play up the divided nature of the denizens of the vortex. Perhaps some small Bonus in interaction, an additinal Level of success during an reqisitions or such. Again, only if the Person could have somehow be able to LINK the characters to that deed.

Another thing is that every place they go to someone else CLAIMS to have done it, or rumours circulate that it must that OTHER person. No-one has heard of them, so it cannot be them.

Also being invited to go drinking in honor of this event with Khornate Spamce Marine Berserkers may make them wish they were being attacked by them.