An idea for a campaign. Imperial POWs in a Xeno Camp

they must decide between plotting escape, sabotaging xeno ops,

collaborating, or just waiting for release.

The PCs would be various officers, techs, gunners, voidsmen,

armsmen, munitioners, loaders, crewmen, etc from various

Imperial things: crashed starships, downed valkyries, wrecked shuttles,

failed missions, bad troop drops, etc.

Obviously some overall war front would be going on somewhere . . .

Margin campagin? Battlefleet Koronus ?

What are some good ideas for plots, NPCs, guards, etc

for a prisoner scenario. ?

Other than watching Hogan's Heroes marathon.

No I'm not running Only War, don't suggest it. So yes this is the right forum....

My other idea is to read DnD A4 In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords

as that is a prison scenario.

the prisoners must do daily work, havent decided what yet.

all abhumans are kept nearby, at an actual salt mine, and must do very hard labor.

prisoners are all reasonably normal Imperial humans, as others are handled:

haven;t decided yet who the xenos are.

who would be better as a captor ? something relatable like a dark eldar, or

something just intimidating like a rak-gol ?

This sounds like a really neat concept! Go watch The Great Escape . Prepare yourself for some sweet Steve McQueen motorcycle-jumping, Nazi-dodging, tunnel-digging awesome.

Make the prisoners do the work needed to sustain themselves (like gardening, latrine-cleaning, building camp improvements [better watch-towers, or clearing fields of fire outside the camp perimeter], etc.) first, and then give them a larger project that they are contributing towards like a massive temple or building roads or a large weapon's installation. There's nothing else quite like being forced to help create the instruments of your own enslavement!

Good luck with your concentration camp!

I never thought of Tau, and gut reaction; I don't like it.

Not mean enough, I said at first.

But then I took that Tau thought and said KROOT.

The place should be a tau camp, yet is run by them from afar.

The enforcers, guards and overseers are Kroot (with hounds to do the chasing)

but the senior officers and maintenance people would be Tau.

So there'd be about 300 Kroot for the muscle, and about 50 Tau for the supervision.

Oh yeah and the Drone Perimeter, sweet !

Now that I can get behind.

There also might be no actual Tau, if it's something they're trying to keep "plausible deniability" about. They might put another group, even humans, in charge of the actual facility and reporting to a more distant Tau commander. (it worth remembering there are 5th generation Tau Empire Humans by this time. The first were captured and colonized around 745.M41)

Edit: also, the Tau are likely to use the Imperial Creed's ability to control humanity for their own good, selecting or providing priests who preach a message "acceptance and unity". In a semi-literate society where the vast majority have never actually read (and can't) the holy books, they'll accept what their priest tells them. Until their taught to read Tau, and find Tau 'translations' of their holy books that support the Tau's view...

The enforcers, guards and overseers are Kroot (with hounds to do the chasing)

but the senior officers and maintenance people would be Tau.

Neat idea, too! Perhaps the Tau are just a dozen officers, with the camp commander not having a very good idea of the details that are going on inside the complex, preferring to have the Kroot mercenaries handle the day-to-day activities and "looking the other way" when stories of Kroot brutality do reach him/her as they're secretly somewhat afraid of the hired guards that are supposedly part of their command.

For the maintenance crews, perhaps Human "trustees" could be used.

Quicksilver's suggestion of there being no Tau at all is interesting as well. You could use Gue'vesa Auxiliaries as camp officers, perhaps as part of an experiment to see whether Humans could be trusted with guarding their own - with the Kroot mercs as a safety measure, as they would simply refuse orders from the Human officers that would put the camp in danger.

This scenario has a lot of roleplaying potential. The Gue'vesa could be idealists genuinely trying to convince their prisoners of the errors of their ways, perhaps even open for a philosophical debate between two leader-type characters about which side is in the right. Perhaps one of the player characters manages to fake interest and gain the trust of one of the Gue'vesa officers, managing to score special privileges that might help in the escape?

On the other hand, you could also have fanatics who are ashamed of their fellow, foolish Humans and who desperately wish to prove themselves in the eyes of their Ethereal masters, handing out harsher punishments than may be warranted. Or you could have a mix of both, to create a little bit of internal conflict within the Gue'vesa that the player characters may use for their advantage?

It makes me think of that one Outer Limits episode that played on Earth many centuries after aliens had invaded, in a prison camp where human guards were guarding human prisoners, for an alien occupation force that had actually left the planet again long ago...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5bkesrTkSs

I updated my Netflix Queue! my wife is gonna puke after seeing all these prison movies.

GULAG THETA

The senior staff will be Tau.

The middle managers will be Gue-vesa

The guards will be Kroot.

Prisoners are all useful workers and helpers.

This camp exists to feed, fix, and supply the mining camp down the road

( but that's a secret) the mining camp is the real "profit center" on this planet.

Anyone or anything that hurts mineral production will be corrected.

Senior staff will disavow all knowledge of maltreatment.

"Well you know how those Kroot can get"

PCs are all reasonably normal humans

Anyone who is huge works at the mine camp.

Barriers to escape - - -

Blatant & Obvious:

Less Obvious:

Inobvious:

Soil & Tectonic sensors.

Check this out for more information on these. (Gotta love Google!)

Also, these sensors .

Nah Tau are mean: They'll tell you it's not brainwashing and it's for the greater good untill you admit there is no emperor and there are five lights.

1. Build your map in Prison Architect.
2. Use the 40k skin.
3. Become addicted to PA
4. ???
5. Profit.

ps.: I still don't see how this will fit properly into a RT game.

Oh, it's a lot more than one-on-one brainwashing.

It does feel more like Only War to me - But it could be an alternate to, like, the Dark Eldar one right? That started POW/Arena didn't it?

Wait this is in the Rogue trader section?

Lol hadn't even noticed it yet... Read "P.O.W." and went, well thats one way to play OW...

the goal for the PCs will be to escape, and then lead the RT fleet

back to this place for revenge, and liberation of the others.

... or cut their losses and travel to another planet to Shanghai a new crew.

The PCs will be captured in various ways, but the main thing is they were supporting the margin crusade,

and were captured as a result from action within, or while off course from, the Jericho Reach.

RT: "Nice prison you got here. It would be a shame if something where to happen to it."

Comander C'Linq: "Like what, guela scum?"

RT: "Like my fully operational battlefleet bombarding the entire planet into dust."

C'linq: "Not with you here, surley?"

RT: "You haven't met my second in command, have you? She 'd really like to become captain if you catch my drift."

C'linq: "You don't mean?"

RT: "Yup!"

C'linq" Bloody guela!"... "Fine. RELEASE THE PRISONERS!"

RT: "Hey, those funny floating disk robots, are you selling any?"

C'linq: "Get. Out."

I've decided the sector the prison planet will be in is in between the Jericho Reach and Ultramar.

West of the Gate, northEast of Macragge, southeast of the Farsights.

When a ship comes out of the Jericho Gate, it often goes east or southeast into the Salients,

well this area is opposite those, to the west. Off the Deathwatch map to the left, if you will

It is one of a group of five Tau colonies nestled in a corner often overlooked by the Empire.

Other players in the Region are imperial and chaos.

From the Imperial view this is an old sector and is haphazardly managed by a sector government riddled with nepotism,

and a miniscule fleet, and 3 greedy rogue trader families that have prostituted themselves down

to being just one rung above Chartist Captains on the ladder of ambition.

There is an SM chapter here, Legates of the Emperor.

and the Sector Capital garrisons an IG army. 40th Palatine

The marines blockade chaos, and the guard protects the agro, the hive, and the capital.

This leaves the sisters and the inquisition to do the lion's share of actually bringing

the light of the Emperor to this place.

There is a forge world in the area, but they are just barely considered orthodox,

don't talk much with mars ; and are treated as a necessary evil by the other

imperial authorities in the region.

The laxitude here is why the Tau feel bold in colonizing this subsector.

The PC's RT house has nothing to do with this sector, they are here by accident.

When they escape the prison, they will have to decide whether to conquer this area

or loot it and go back through the gate to home-space.

props to Somewhathere for the maps.

A] I don't get the Tau 5 Lights comment.

B] I just watched Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence. Ugh. Don't think that tactic will work with Tau.

C] " To sum it up, Tau Empire is just as grimdark , evil and unrelenting as the rest of 40k, but they carefully hide their true nature behind the shining facade of the Greater Good. Kind of the "Brave New World" to the Imperium's "1984"" (from 1d4chan)

a) Star Trek Reference

c) Also strongly depends on who's versions you're taking, the Tau yo-yo on the grimdark scale like no other, to the point of directly contradicting events.

yeah. not a next gen fan much.

~

but the net result was good:

you had me scouring all the tau fluff and flavor text,

and codexes and lexicanum and wikia

trying to figure out he 5 lights of Tau Philosophy. funny

Okay I've got a checklist. it's mostly like the escape list posted earlier,

plus a few secret plot elements which I must hide on the off chance players read this.

Being prisoners/slaves/gladiators of the Dark Eldar is exactly what the Soul Reaver is about