So I decided before my current campaign got well and truly going that I would have some sort of nemeses, and that they would be Tzeentch-worshipping Chaos types/daemons. I also want there to be seeds of some sort that wind up tying things together at the apparopriate time. I'm getting a bit of writer's block deciding on an overall plot. Now I'm not asking folks to do my work for me, but does anyone have any suggestions regarding a sufficiently Tzeentch-like scheme for my crew to be unwitting members of? I guess I'm asking if anyone else has done or is doing somethig like this, and if they would mind sharing some bare-bones ideas that might work. Thanks for reading!

Reform and worker's rights movements, the support of which will make the planet more profitable to the Imperium. All change is sacred to Tzeentch.

If you really want, they could include little anarchic twists like simultaneously sponsoring the reformists and a militant 'conservative' group who bomb all edifices of the social structure that actually support the reforms, or insisting upon a better class of education, and start teaching students to question the Imperium's rule.

Also- slum clearance plans, while the architect hired to build replacement housing starts setting up an enormous Logos Daemonis or other sinister and malevolent alignment to channel the powers of the Warp- as happened on Eustis Majoris in Ravenor Returned

My suggestion for concocting a scheme so devious no human mind could unravel it? Don't. You can't. Your mind is human. Plus, unlike Tzeentsch, you can't see the future, that is, what your players are going to do.

Instead, make stuff up as you go along. Improvise. After the fact, bind it all together, retroactively, into some grand plan leading to whatever point yout campaign is currently at. Incorporate whatever your players did so that it becomes part of the scheme.

I didn't like Illumination, and I don't particularly care for the Serrated Query (from Purge the Unclean), but I do like the idea of a bad guy who's plans include killing or sidelining divinators. It's not really a plot idea in and of itself, but I think it makes for an excellent back drop piece if the PCs can figure it out on their own -- if you have bad things happen to diviners over a number of adventures, and then drop that its a conspiracy, they can look back and see the threads that were there all along. At least, that's what I'm planning on doing with my group.

First off, don't try to plan out a vast, sector soanning convulted plan. It won't work, you'll just end up confusing yourself. Give yourself the result you want, as an example, I'll use the overthrowing of the Scintillian government, including ousting all Adeptus presence on the planet.

The cult (I'll call it the Syndicate) has a presence on Pry 44 (or is it 41?). Now, the players are visiting the investigate a trade in human slaves. The players arrive and root out the trade. It's nothing grand, 30 humans stuffed into bins and the like which are hidden around ships. Now, the players get a lead to somewhere offstation, with links to a minor family who have a trade in offworld mining and mineral trade. This family has a merchant who has a history of Narcotic abuse and xeno-study. He has evaded capture thus far and the family as a whole are unaware of his past and current activities.

He makes frequent trips offworld, to frontier worlds and feudal planets, studying the culture and the religions they have. Indeed, while most are the emperor, or an aspect of him, he delights in findinng the smallest scraps of text, a single line, a sentance, a phrase, that breaks away from the Imperial Doctrine. He pieces these all together, and tries to fit them with his knowledge of xenos species. His prime source are Eldar corsairs, who are feeding him false rumours of a sentient cloud of thought in the netherworld called "Slo'an".

Now, that's a base. A very rough one that I concoted over a glass of Orange Juice and a hob nob. So, from here on in, you need to subtly guide the players towards your desired result, while throwing as much random rubbish in as you can. Make certain numbers and codes reappear throughout the campaign, familiar faces and talks of an alternate aspect of the Emperor "Slo'an".

When the campaign ends, you should have woven a plot so thick that, no matter how determined the player, it is unsolvable. This was acheived by simply have a phrase, or a contact reappear throughout the campaign.

Sorry if that rambles a little ^^

The enemy of my enemy...

The Tzeenchian puppet's enemies are introduced to heretical elements and then the inquisition are subtly tipped off. The acolytes burst in and kill the guy, happily opening up the promotion to the totally honest and trustworthy ally of the inquistion...

It's an old cliche, but it works well if you can pull it off

bogi_khaosa said:

bogi_khaosa said:

Ok, but odds are the antagonists are also human. Even if they have a Chi’khami’tzann Tsunoi masterminding the whole thing, I really can't see his/her/its' mortal agents not asking questions and modifying things on the fly (change is sacred, after all).

bogi_khaosa said:

Oh definitely. I'm just throwing examples up that he can use to build up his campaign plot .

Essentially, make it up as you go along, but work out whether you want it to be a Xanatos Gambit , Xanatos Roulette or Xanatos Speed Chess (or any other similar idiom). In any case, reading Watchmen, T Lies of Locke Lamora and watching Gargoyles are good ways to grab inspiration. Pay particular attention to David Xanatos... IT's fun to note that Tzeentch is listed as an example of all those idioms, and does them all simultaneously...

Thank you all SO much! You'e given me some great things to think about and some good resources to study as well.

Alasseo said:

Ah, but their questions and modifications were already foreseen and anticipated in the plan.

Alasseo said:

I love ideas like this. Nothing FUBARS the characters' minds like the realization that good and evil aren't always as straightforward as we'd like to think. It also reminds players that Evil can do Good to achieve Evil (ie, for evil, the ends justify the means), while "good" must be an end in itself, and never use evil as a means to an end.

At this point, turning this lesson around on the PCs can be one of the defining moments of an entire campaign with the right players.

Two thumbs up for this idea, you magnificent b@stard.

cyclocius said:

I often have this problem in Call of Cthulhu. After all, how do I portray completely alien and inhuman (even obscene) intellects without either anthropormorphizing them or completely letting down the players? I take two approaches to the solution.

First. Don't try, as was said above. Do completely, utterly random stuff that completely defies logic. There is no purpose underneath all this. The players will try and try and try to anticipate your antagonists, and they will fail again and again, because they are looking for structure where there is none. If you happen to introduce a basic, straightforward plot in the middle of all this utter chaos, it will often get swallowed up by the background noise and not be readily apparent. This solution is best used sparringly, like a spice, because players will quickly catch on, and from there it's too tempting to metagame this knowledge. When thrown in as a red herring, it's wonderfully delicious to watch the players freak out about the possible implications.

Second: This takes WAY more effort than the first solution, but to me is far more effective. If you've ever read the Illuminatus Trilogy, the following concept should seem familliar. Your conspiracy is made up of 5 groups or 5 people who are movers/shakers. Every time you come at the characters, or every time you advance your plot, you use one or more of the 5 members of the conspiracy to achieve this end. Here's the kicker though. *Never* use the same combination twice. Never use a small variation in your combinations twice in a row. If you use groups B & C to attack the acolytes, the next step in your conspiracy should not involve B & C at all. Keep a list of all the permutations you've used in this conspiracy. Otherwise, keep your agenda straightforward. If you're using conspirators like inside a company or a family, not every member of that group should be a member of the conspiracy. Conspirators always should have plausable deniability, or some other cover other than the real agenda. The groups that go after the acolytes should hold grudges or have some other "legitimate" purpose, so that an ulterior motive is never realized until late in the game.

Why does this work? The human mind thrives on pattern recognition, but at the same time, is really, really poor at handling large numbers of permutations or combinations of things. With 5 elements to your conspiracy, you're dealing with 120 possible combinations of your conspiracy elements to achieve your goals. To the average human mind, when spaced out over time, this does not look like a pattern, this looks like noise, random chance. Adding a 6th in ups your permutations up to 720 or so, but 700 different combinations is difficult for *you* the GM, to juggle. If you're willing to undertake *that* endeavor, my hat's off to you.

The one time I tried this, the final reveal of the conspiracy felt like some immense, x-files epic cover-up, when in reality it was 5 people acting together in coordinated ways meant to throw people off the track. It was a nightmare of paperwork for me though on my end.

A different angle:

If you like to create a "spooky link FEEL". In additon to the other things, pick up a thing or concept and incorporate it with every climax of any story you run.


For example:
Your first "plot final enemy" goes by the familiy name of "apple". The investigations in your second plot point to a agri settlement that known for its vast apple plantages. The heraldry of the major (noble) enemy in your third invesitagion has an apple/-tree as one of the three prominint elements of its heraldry. The climax fight of fourth investigation is insided a fabrication building for nutry slurry. During the fight some of the canister/productions machines rupture and the slurry spills, making the ground slick and the air smelling like... yep, apples!. In the fifth investigation, apprach the group with street vendour girl/women who sales apples... and watcht your players go crazy about that!

The "objecT" (in this example: apple) does not have to have anything to do with the actual plot. But if you say "daemons", it might be good to have something weird that makes no sense but keeps the players mind busi for a while.

Final addtion on this angle:

Of really want/need a link to the "daemon enemy" at the end of it, make it a cheesy line. In the apple-sample, give him a line before the fight. Insert the a answer along the lines of "So you think YOU can stop my work? Haven´t you learned that the seeds I plant do grow ?":

Gregorius21778 said:

My entire party would groan and it would probably spoil the menace of any Big Bad Evil Guy.

I did run a Cthulhu game once where I secretly spritzed orange essential oil into a candle flame when nobody was particularly looking whenever something supernatural was about to happen. It was extremely subtle though, and I never commented on it.