It's my first time being a GM in this setting so this is a little adventure I came up with. Tell me what you think :

Overall
There is a new drug in town, X71. The problem with it is that all people who take it, have disappeared and now it has hit the Noble's.

Hooks
X71 is a drug made out of the body of the user itself. It has been created by a CEO of a big corporation who has made a pact with Slaneesh.

Headhanger said:

Let me see if I have got this right:

The BBEG noble made a pact with some Slaaneshii power to get the concoction of a drug which he has distributed amongst the lower hives in order to wipe out the lower classes?

correct.

Does this sound ok or ...

It's fine if the noble is a bit of a madman and recluse. Only because his workforce (i.e hab and manufactorum workers) is being depleted. Unless I misread your comments and the drugs are being circulated in the underhives .

Just a few more questions:

Is he part of a Slaanesh cult? Who did he strike a bargain with? Where did he find enough information to make this kind of deal (i.e. forbidden tomes, cult membership, dark pact etc.)? What is the Slaanesh "representative" getting out of this? How is the green slime collected? Does the slime leave a trace that the Acolytes will be able to analyze?

Well i think there's a bit of work to do sorting out the logic of the situation. Here's some questions that occur to me...

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Um. OK. So why would anyone take this drug?

If it turns its user to green goo after 2 uses, word is going to spread pretty darn quickly through the underhive isn't it? 'Don't take that stuff man, it'll turn you to goo!' Presumably, a drug user will take two or more doses in a nightclub, so there will be venues full of gooey piles.

Also, how is this goo reclaimed and turned into the drug? Who does that reclaiming? How do the drug sellers know where the drug users are to go and collect the goo? And what were the first batches of drug made from?

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OK. Well, this is a pact with Slaanesh right? Slaanesh is surely more about pain, suffering, pleasure, etc. So why would Slaanesh support something that simply kills its victims?

This noble wants ultimate power. As a noble, surely he'll understand the need for an underclass? Why would he want them wiped out? Why does he want the lower hives exterminated? How does that help him achieve ultimate power?

What involvement does the noble have in reclaiming the goo and creating the drug?

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So if the noble is using this to wipe out the underhive, why isn't he advertising it? How does he get around the word of mouth problem that people will quickly become aware of the drug turning you to goo? Are you suggesting the entire underhive population will be searching out a new drug? Even if so, why would they take a drug they've heard turns you to goo?

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How has the Inquisition heard about this? If its 'known', what are the Adeptus Arbites and local provost doing about it? Why would the Inquisition take an interest in a street drug problem? If its known that two doses turn you to goo, why does anybody take it?

Even if the acolyte PCs do get involved, how are they going to possibly track those responsible, since presumably every victim and anyone who would know about the dealers is now a dead pile of goo?

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How does the drug serve Slaanesh? How does it help the noble achieve ultimate power?

Hopefully the answers to questions like this will help you hammer out a coherent adventure...

Edit : Good grief the quotation system on these new boards just...well...there's no way round this...it just sucks...

Headhanger said:

No you didn't misread, The drugs are being distriputed through a company the noble owns.

Is he part of a Slaanesh cult?
Yes, when the Acolytes reach his "place" they'll find enough signs
Who did he strike a bargain with?
Uncertain at this point. Maybe you could help?
Where did he find enough information to make this kind of deal (i.e. forbidden tomes, cult membership, dark pact etc.)?
See the above
What is the Slaanesh "representative" getting out of this?
See the above
How is the green slime collected?
I thought about the fact, when you first take the drug nothing happens but due to it's addictiveniss you have to take it another time, but when you take it a second time the horrible symptoms start. The noble's company owns alot of "drug"houses in the Hive. And there is the only place to buy and take the drugs. In those houses there are people who clean up the mess, bring it back to the main factory and there they make the drug again out of the dead victims.
Does the slime leave a trace that the Acolytes will be able to analyze?
In the beginning no, they could find a test subject or just get infiltrated and get to one of those "drug" houses

Indeed, it would help me alot. Since this is a first timer for me. I've been GM'n more historical stuff, more WW2 and stuff like that.

I'll take the questions and short things out. Thanks for the help, however reading them I think I made the wrong "hook" there.

Could you give me any idea on what to do, which adventure I would choose

Maybe you can turn things on their head a little?

How about you have the noble close to death thanks to an incurable disease. He's spent a great deal of his family's remaining fortunes on trying to find a cure but to no avail.

When a dark, robed "priest" visits his bedchambers, uninvited, and offers him a cure for his disease in return for his support circulating a drug that will further the priest's master's plans. The noble, hoping that the robed individual is simply a sinister member of the ecclesiarchy who is trying to push drugs that will placate the hive's workforce, agrees hastily.

In truth, the drug this "dark priest" is pushing is somewhat like Spook - only it will gradually change its users into chaos spawn or produce a dangerous number of temporary psykers through which the fragile boundaries between realspace and the immaterium might be breached. This should be a slow process, but the drug should be highly addictive. This way, a whole hab dome might disappear over a course of a few weeks. People would not just be dying because of the drug's effects, but also because of the crazy things going on thanks to the drug's embibers. That way blame might not immediately be put on the new drug (which could disguised be a very cheap form of Obscura?)

When Mr. Noble takes his reward he feels alleviated from his illness, but to keep receiving his weekly dose of the magical cure he has to ensure that a small portion of his family's manufactorum are converted into drug-brewing houses for the dark priest's evil concoction.

The Inquisition (Hereticus or Malleus depending on whether you go for the psyker or chaos spawn drug idea) becomes interested when things get freaky.

I'm sure there are some holes in this idea, but I thought of it during my lunch break. Also with this idea I think you could change Slaanesh for Nurgle or possibly Tzeentch (just as planned!)

Edit: Or you can put things on a slant a bit by having the noble's assets linked with air filtering/recycling. The corrupting drug could be vented into entire hab blocks or factory levels! Or perhaps the noble is in charge of a shipping business that imports herbs and spices used in incense burners; he replaces the incense with the dark priest's drug and people are infected when they attend ecclesiarchy summons to service!

Headhanger said:

Headbanger, you are a real help thanks ! This is my jumpstart

I have a question though, where would the Acolytes begin their adventure?

I had a simmilar idea that I've used in my WFRP game. I'll give you a basic rundown on what I've done and you can feel free to utilise whatever you like from it, or none at all. My players (a bunch of degenrate Bretonnian Nobles) discovered a copy of a play on a barge belonging to some crazy (aren't they all though) Imperial actors who had just perfomed an obvious heretical play for them -- and then tried to murder them. While the PCs didn't really find the play offensive, they thought it <<très drole>> they weren't too keen on the whole attempted murder bit. Fight ensues, cultists killed barge looted. Here enter's the drug. They find in the back of the play the following a Botanicle as seen below and a page with strange writing on it (Druuchi) and the two odd little pictures or the man and woman along with more esoteric symbols (also as shown below) Written beneath the picture was the strange little lines in Classical (High Gothic -- whatever).

Also atached within was a small pouch of white candied petals and bright yellow stymens both were stiff covered in some type of sweet nector or sugary substence that rendered the still silky petals and stymens quite rigid and stiff, they smelled wonderful and so being the enterprising 'nobles' that they were what did they do but eat some. (Just the petals mind you.) So after the PCs go on a mind bending estaic trip (that garnered both CPs & IPs) They share the love with the other NPC nobles, now they (the PCs) only aet some petals but they gae one of the NPC a Stymen to 'see what it would do'.

The stymen had a more pronouced effect insofar as the high, but also acted as the catylyst for the plants / drugs reproductive cycle. Which is to gestate inside a human host until finally sprouting from their head and hence giving birth to new lovely flowers to snack on. The petals and stymen were highly addictive gave a wonderful high (acompannied by horrific visions) and slowly taint the soul and mind of the users. The PCs were hooked for a bit untill one passed an incredibly difficult WP test to resits takin more and then another difficult test to chuck the resst of the flower bits thus saving them from total damnation.

I had the drugs only in game effects being that the PCs really liked it and thus had to make WP tests at increasingly more difficult increments in order not to take the drug when avalible (-10, -20, -30, -40, -50) until a does was taken and then the tests would reset. They would test whenever the drug was seen, mentioned or every 24 hours. In addition each dose (not use) [one petal = a dose, a stymen = 2 doses] awarded 1/1d3 IPs (depending on whether or not they passed a Cl / WP test) and 1 CP.

Consuming a stymen pretty much seals a charactor's fate and nothing short of burning a Fate Point will save them. Within 15 weeks the player will have 6d6 flowers erupt from their cranium with each flower causing 1d3 Wounds (irespective of armour or toughness). However to insure the host's survival during gestation the following 'benifits' are gained by the infected individual. (All bonus are acululitive to one another.) :

• Week 1 Radiant Glow +5 Fel
• Week 2 Radiant Glow +5 Fel
• Week 3 Radiant Glow +5 Fel
• Week 4 Sweet Scent -5 Other’s WP (1 foot)
• Week 5 Sweet Scent -5 Other’s WP (1 foot)
• Week 6 Sweet Scent -5 Other’s WP (1 foot)
• Week 7 Sweet Scent -5 Other’s WP (1 foot)
• Week 8 Nectar Poison Test (Intoxicant) -5
• Week 9 Nectar Poison Test (Intoxicant) -5
• Week 10 Nectar Poison Test (Intoxicant) -5
• Week 11 Nectar Poison Test (Intoxicant) -5
• Week 12 Puissant Perfume WP test to attack (2 feet)
• Week 13 Puissant Perfume WP test to attack (2 feet)
• Week 14 Puissant Perfume WP test to attack (2 feet)
• Week 15 Puissant Perfume WP test to attack (2 feet)

Radiant Glow: The individual seems possesed of a wonderous fresh faced vigour and gains a healthy lustorous sheenbeing greatly increased in physicaly beauty.

Sweet Scent: They exude a light but very sweet scent, much like a field of wild flowers, or perfume.

Nectar: They excrete a golden hued fluid from their pores in liue of sweat, from their flesh in place of blood, and as substitution for other bodily excretions (tears, salivia '&c'.) Those who come into contact with the substence must test versu poison or become 'drunk'.

Puissant Perfume: A strong perfume radiates from the infected anyone within the range of the pheramones must make a WP test or be unable to take any hostile actions against the individual.

Slaanesh's Bloom

(The Princess Petals)

"Give first the great pleasure to those whom are worthy and love them not those who feel not his glory. 6x6 shall be the reward. Exquisite mysterious oh glorious agony the scent of such radiant suffering is my incessant joy."

The drug was primarly used as a recruiting tool, as a sacrement, and as a means of communing with Slaanesh. Special individuals were usualy selected to host a new brood of the flowers and the cultist saw becoming a host as a great honour. There was no commercial use in my game but a simmilar drug could be utilised if you wanted. Anyway just though I'd share as your initial post reminding me of the game I am running.

When you mentioned that the story was to revolve around a drug made from those who took it and then that Slaanesh was mixed up in it, Green Goop wasn't the first thing that came to my mind. I almost instantly imagined of some waisted and addled addict huddled in a trash strewn corner illuminated by a single bare bulb carving bloody swaths of flesh out of of his arm with a mad pain filled intensity as he muttered "just need enough for one more... just need one more hit..." There's just something so disturbingly wrong about self cannibalization.

Perhaps instead of a transformation into green goop, the addicts of the drug would actually have large traces of it left in their flesh, traces which aren't flushed out and not used by the body. These traces might even go through some ind of odd chemical reaction once introduced to human biology making the various tissues actualy begin producing the chemical and storing it in their cells. On some basic level, the same level that allows us to know that iron can be found in soil and results in individuals with sever iron deficiency to compulsively eat dirt or some such, the body understands that the substance that it is so addicted to can be found in it's own flesh. This, to a desperate addict when cut off or unable to afford another hit, would cause them to, at their rock bottom lowest, to actually cannibalize themselves, stripping their own flesh in an attempt to harvest the chemical they so desperately need.

Destroying your self for pleasure seems a lot more up Slaanesh's ally then turning to green goop after only one hit. Though if you go with the Green Goop approach, the drug should definitely have a profound and mind / chemically altering ability. Fist, if it is to be highly addicting, it has to alter the chemistry of the user enough that the body needs another hit to continue functioning as it should. If it's psychologically addicting, then it needs to have a strong pleasure component to get the mind's desire more of it. In the end, I don't think Slaanesh would back anything that doesn't give someone pleasure... if it's just one nuter getting pleasure due to the massacring hundreds of folks, well that's more Khorne's territory.

As for where to start, I've always had the best luck by starting somewhere in the "middle" of the story... or with a bang. Since the story is the acolytes investigating this drug, then start them off with an addict who is turning to goop/turning to some warp beast/awakening as a psyker/grinding their hand in a meat grinder while eating what comes out with tears streaming down their face. In other words, put them face to face with what it is they have to deal with it right from the start in such a way as they have to immediately interact with the scene in a tense or dramatic fashion.

After the tense opening bang is resolved, some flashback scenes can be used to impart more information on who the characters are, why they are there investigating this craziness, and play out any other slow but info filled bits that are necessary. This helps to drag the players into the game by their nostrils by giving them something to be engaged with immediately before slipping off into areas that might be a bit less engaging (like a gripping opening scene in a movie to pull the viewer in).

Once the addict is dealt with, they would have their first lead. Perhaps they were able to question him, perhaps they have a body that with a bit of medicae and chem-use of SL (chemistry) they can find out that odd bits of toxins are in the body that caused X to happen and now have to figure out who in the area have access to X chemicals. Perhaps they simply find a name and address (a dealer, a drug house) in one of the pockets and ought to go check it out...

A drug that induces self cannibalisation.

Graver my friend, i doff my cap to you.

That is a masterful, astonishing, depraved, original idea; utterly Slaanesh, and completely grim.

Well done sir.

Congratulations, Graver, it's not even 0730 and I'm already worried about going to sleep tonight.

That said, a drug which causes the user's body to metamorphose into more of the drug is really quite cool. One that makes a user carve himself up to get more of the drug even more so, although ridiculously creepy also.

Hi!

Great stuff on the self cannibalizing junkies! ... Now then, sorta though about it...

Results: To add a bit of a over the top twist to that whole cannibal fleshy drug. The stuff could be farmed ! Like these ebil dudes have this iccy super obese bloated man/woman ball that they keep on life support and feed constantly via supernatural means thing just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Mean while they harvest the drugged up flesh of this man-kebab... Thats some evil crap right there. (yes of course they feed its own flesh to it aswell )

hah! In a weird kind of way, that reminds me of a scene in Slither

I like the idea of the morbidly obese half eaten drug factory twist. I think I know what my next story is going to revolve around now. I just have to work in a faceless quadruple amputee sex symbol and my group will be set for the next couple of months:-D