I mentioned it in one of my sessions and the explorers seemed very interested in going there. I have a few things planned, but I was wondering if any of you have had any experience with the place?

If you are unaware of what I am talking about, check out Edge of the Abyss page 21 and onward.

I ran EotA. My players really liked it, and we had further scenarios involving Rak'Gol afterwards. They were one of the party's favorite foes.

Don't lick the maze walls. Well, unless you're an ork, orks can lick the maze walls. That is all.

I also ran it, which my group found it interesting. The thing to remember about the Egarian Dominion mazes though, is that they are literally mazes. Either due to the material it was made from, the way it resonates warp energy, the energy hidden in its depths, or any other factor or combination thereof, the mazes defy human logic and normal navigational and mapping techniques.

With that said, only savvy PC's with canny ingenuity can navigate their ways through them. Not to mention the unheard of traps that lurk therein, and the untamed warp artifacts that could kill and/or corrupt the lowly NPC's sent in.

The thing with Rak'Gols, IMO, was they were scary in a face to face fight, but in boarding and hit and run actions, they didn't do much. You should substitute their Fel with Str, and Command for Intimidate to lead their boarding actions, and up their bonus to +30 or +40 if equipped with a barracks. A normal Rak'Gol can take a Hellgun with very little problems, which you normal arms-man is not equipped with. Send Rak'Gol against House Hold Troops with lasguns and autoguns, and you have yourself a RT retinue slaughter.

Anyhoot, with the Egarian Dominion places, I had them give off an unnatural glow and feelings of wrongness and incomprehensible layouts and paths. A sensation that something lurks the within it's depths the deeper the PC's went, though they could never find it, nor pin-point what it was. Served my players well the couple sessions in the mazes.

I once gave my players impression that mazes are the only perceptable by human (including navigators) peak of an iceberg that Egarian Dominion really is ( - not was). Never got chance (or even intend of) getting deeper into this idea.

I ran EotA. My players really liked it, and we had further scenarios involving Rak'Gol afterwards. They were one of the party's favorite foes.

Eota?

Edge of the Abyyss, or to be more precise, the adventure herein, I suppose.

ah thanks

Yeah, you need to house rule (again) to make boarding actions work, for Rak'Gol or anything else, BUT Rak'Gol still make formidable opponents in starship combat. Just use lots of their little ships and ram.

So, are the Rak'Gols enslaved/mutated Egarian survivors from a Yu'Vath onslaught that took place just prior to the Angevin Crusade?

Theories, theories please.

I've posted elsewhere, but my theory regarding the Egarian history as a short-form is as follows

Egarians: Came first, they were peaceful, bioluminescent insects that communicated entirely through light, which is why their maze cities is built out of weird, apparently useless crystal. It's great if your whole body is a laser light show though. They made peaceful contact with other races, which is great up until you remember we're living in 40K, and they ran afoul of Orks and Slaugth, both of whom loved to slaughter them. As a result they began experimenting with themselves creating...

Rak'Gol: The first Rak'Gol were somewhat intelligent and capable of communicating, but instead of the bioluminesence of an Egarian, their skin was hardened and single-coloured. They adapted the Orkish model of war (it being one of the few they're familiar with) and unleashed terrifying, relentless killers to reclaim their space in a bid that was mostly successful. With their borders secured, they now had the equivalent of shell-shocked veterans who couldn't re-integrate into society. Leading to them to try experiments to restore the light to the Rak'Gol. In desperation they turned to the Warp, which created...

Yu'Vath: The Rak'Gol themselves were already imperfect, so they just became mutated. However when these warp treatments were tried on pure Egarians, they turned into Warp-obssessed purple crystal-shouting omnicidal maniacs who enslaved and further degraded the Rak'Gol into mindless beings, then turned on each other and the surviving Egarians to eliminate potential competition. The Yu'Vath themselves are gone, and the Rak'Gol Techno-Shamans are a really poor imitation of a true Yu'Vath monster. If there are any surviving pure-strain Egarians out there though....

I am totally stealing this.

I am totally stealing this.

Same.

Where can I find the long version in case I want to shamelessly plager... er research?

It mostly exists as a series of notes and plot hooks, but I'll work on putting together a shared doc for people if they're interested.

Yes please.

Here you go: http://tinyurl.com/EgarianHistory . There's room for some plot hooks and history in there, and probably some things i've left out. Feel free to add your own changes to it!

Awesome, thanks for that. That will fit into my campaign pretty well with only minor adjustments.

Awesome, after the next 2 sessions, it is looking like this is what the players will be looking toward. Concerning the Rak'Gol, I am concerned with sending the party up against them. They have, as an example, Body Armor 9 and TB 10; so the party would have to have weapons that can either penetrate that armor or do over 19 damage to start hurting them. Should I "dumb" them down a bit or let it be?

Stealing what you posted concerning EotA, been looking up actual maze type maps to prepare for how in depth the players want to get with this. Hopefully, this will heighten tension.

Just make sure that the first time they encounter the Rak'Gol, they have a way to escape or call in adequately armed reinforcements with extra heavy weapons for them to use.

Awesome, after the next 2 sessions, it is looking like this is what the players will be looking toward. Concerning the Rak'Gol, I am concerned with sending the party up against them. They have, as an example, Body Armor 9 and TB 10; so the party would have to have weapons that can either penetrate that armor or do over 19 damage to start hurting them. Should I "dumb" them down a bit or let it be?

Just have them be "workers." Same stats, no armour, with a few of their weapons laying around. And then have 1-3 warriors come in after the workers have been defeated, to give the pcs a taste of their true potential. So nope, nothing wrong with you dumbing them down for the pcs of they are not adequately armed or armoured.

Just make sure that the first time they encounter the Rak'Gol, they have a way to escape or call in adequately armed reinforcements with extra heavy weapons for them to use.

This. The adventure in EotA leaves heavy bolters in the camp. This gives a solid chance of killing a given Rak'gol.