I'm going to start a DH Campaign and have already played several introductory scenarios in which each PC in turn had the leading part. They told the story how come the players got involved with the big I and they worked quite well in getting some deeper background for the PCs and explaining the Core Rules to the Players.

All well and done. Till now. How do you guys handle the whole "inter gaming" stuff.

Meaning:

Where is the base of the PCs? How does it look like? Is there one or are they constantly travelling? Are they "inkognito" or does everyone know (well, the authorities anyway) who they are?

How are they getting in contact with their Inquisitor? Is there/who is a middle man? Where do they send their reports to?

Are they getting clear assignments or are they supposed to look for heresies themselves?

While I know there can be no distinct answer to any of my questions, I would appreciate some of your insights to get me started

Thanks!

While currently in my game (started last night) they are recieving their mission objectives directly from the Inquisitor, he intends to base them on a planet and let them establish themselves on the planet as his eyes and ears (and sword). They will be given access to the Astropathy to send him reports while he is off planet and will be semi autonomous (assuming they succeed adequately in thier current mission). Otherwise, they will probably be used as a direct assault unit while more subtle operatives assume the Eyes and Ears role.

My players have a space-capable shuttle Not warp capable, but it took them several months to get from Hesh to Larunder ^^

The shuttle has: Quaters, a small library (about 3 shelves big, filled with criminal records and the Calixis sectors most wanted etc etc. And the Tactica Imperials), a 10 metre firing range, and a crate full of various SP weaponary and clips of ammo. The Inquisitor doesn't contact them much. He snuck into said shuttle and had a chat with my characters wife, while we all sat downstairs, unaware ^^

Massaker said:

1.: My PC's have no base us such, as they are often travelling a lot (mostly in the Josian Reach, which became some kind of precinct for them). What comes nearest to a base is the Tricorn in Hive Sibellus on Scintilla where they sometimes (twice so far) meet their Inquisitor inbetween missions

2.: In my vision the Tricorn is a huge building (complex) the size of a town (put the Pentagon 20 times on top of each other to come near the size) with an interior reminding of a renaissance castle or cathedral. Huge corridors and aisles with high vaulted roofs, cool and intimidating and without the feeling of being within a hive city actually. It is lacking technology apart from very arcane or important stuff. The PC's live in small monastery-like chambers and a lot of hooded servants and clerks an be found in the corridors (and almost no servitors). Normally one never encounters an Inquisitor (as only a handful is present at any time) in person. My groups Inquisitors office reminds of how you would imagine the office of a spanish Inquisitor in the 18th or 19th century (upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Le_grand_inquisiteur.jpg ).

3.: They are not constantly trvelling, but a lot.

4.: They are mostly inkognito actually. Out of all adventures we played so far only Illumination was a clear overt operation, where all knew the PC's are operatives of the Inquisition. In the other adventures they had either a cover identity or none at all and even the authorities did not knew who they were in fact. Still, if clashing with the Magistratum or the Arbites they sometimes drop their cover.

Massaker said:

5.: Sometimes the Inquisitor or Interrogator contacts them or the PC's have a clear 'meeting point' after a mission is acompished or at a certain arranged timepoint.

6.: My group's Inquisitor has 3 Interrogators and one Explicator. Two of the former already acted as sort of 'middle men'. One seem to be always at the Tricorn and the other is more or less based in the Josian Reach Sub-Sector so to speak. Anyway, in the more important cases the Inquisitor is in direct contact with the Acolytes, especially when they rise to higher ranks and thus importance and usefulness (see page 276 of DH).

7.: They mostly send their reports to the one mentiond Interrogator at the Tricorn (Ormadha Sand actually) if not directly to the Inquisitor.

Massaker said:

8.: They are getting clear assignments, but besides have the standing order to look out and eradicate any heresy they encounter presupposed their mission allows it (see page 278 in DH).

The 'look-out-for-heresies-themselves-credo' is the reason why the PC's are/became Acolytes of the Inquisition in the first place. Being free-thinking and free-lancing are important characteristics for Acolytes. This is a huge exemption to the norm in the 40K universe, where such behaviour is normally frowned upon and where 'ignorance is a blessing'...

They should probably remain incognito most of the time...

If they were to flash the rosette around, the good servants of the Imperium would give them their firstborn children if they asked... but it's not the good guys they're investigating. Think of it like undercover police... they're undercover for a reason. If the bad guys knew they were police, they'd soon be dead (or at least kept WELL away from any illegal activity and never told anything meaningful).

In the majority of situations, people knowing you're with the Inquisition is a BAD thing.

The question will arise to me after my group will finish "Gateway 17" and the adventure I have in store for them after that (!)

Anyway,

they will not have a "headquarter". Instead, their =I= will use his influence to give everyone of them an occupation... and will give every one of them three points "to get in contact with to wait for orders. Every three days".

This will be there respective homes OR FAILING THIS a certain account by a "messengers guild" OR FAILING that a rather obscure contact to visit. (person in certain location).

My reason: the group is rather low level (rank 3 or 4). I will come up with a "head quarter" or will treat them as "permanent retinue" far later in the game.

In my group i re-use Interrogator Sand as a contactman, but also introduced them to one of the money-laundry-cooperations of the =I=. For me, an organisation like the =I= uses huge amounts of money, but to mask them from public (and heretics) they set up several cooperations throughout the Sector millenia ago, save havens where Accolytes can hide, ask for equipment/money, report problems/successes. A coded message in an 20 pages long letter to the companies HQ in Hive Sibellus can contain a lot of (coded) information without standing out. That way they can easily get contacted by the =I= or give their Boss a report from nearly anywhere on Scintilla without arising suspicion.

Just started playing in a DH game (I ran one until one of the other players asked if he could run DH, I ok-ed it as I wanted to start a WFG game), and we immediately went into the Tattered Fates Beast House scenario, much to the chagrin of my delicate adept (fashioning him after Keifer Sutherland's character, Dr. Daniel P. Schreber, in Dark City. Right down to the gasping speech pattern). Looks like we have a cargo vessel as a temp base (if we ever get back to it lol!) where we are one among many. Apparently most of the passengers don't know that they are actually transporting Acolytes of the Inquisition. Should be very fun (esp if some rogue psykers stow away on our ship!).

My players operate from a ship of the Adeptus Mechanicus, they did some favours for the organization in the past and pay 4000 thrones a month as lease for the facilities and quarters. So yeah, add another one for the collection of "mobile bases in space". The ship is mostly geared up for research, and can do most of its activities anywhere; also the characters are likely to go to interesting places and their "contract" agrees that any technological artefacts they find will be handed to the Mechanicus.

One of the PCs is an Inquisitor herself, so contact is easy enough. Before this, however, their missions always involved a contact who knew how to find the Inquisitor.

The players initially had no base of operations themselves, but operated out of their Inquisitor's office on the planet most of their work focused on. Initially all their work was on that world, and strictly undercover, but as they progressed and became more trusted they began getting sent to investigate problems off world, and were allowed more access to Inquisition resources. Eventually they set up their own secret meeting place, away from any oversight or monitoring, in the same hive so they could operate independently (as they've begun to suspect a spy in the Inquisitorial facility). They recieve both general guidelines and specific missions from the Inquisitorial office, usually from their main Inquisitor, but also from his associates. While they've almost universally been covert, they were most recently sent on their first overt assignment along with the power and responsibilities of their own Rosettes (initially they were just going to have them for the one mission, as there would be no other =][= authority in the system they were going to that could pull the strongs they might need to pull, however they did so well with them that their "boss" will probably have them keep 'em).

Initially I had the PC's living their ordinary lives until summoned to Sands for an =I= mission. They also have a safe house. The house was guarded by two heavily armed servitors and could only be disabled with a password issued to the players by Sands. The house contains small arms, basic medical facilities, false ID's and enough rations for two people for a week.

They have just completed Shades of Twilight and will meet for the first time with the shadowy Inquisitor they have been working for. The Inquisitor is based on an armed warp capable merchantman. I do not think the PC's are ready yet to join his/her retinue on board but it won't be long.

One of my PCs is a noble, and as part of his backstory we ruled that his enemy was in fact a branch of his own family, one of whom he (rather clumsily) assassinated to get control of a particular asset- a sprint trader flagged by the Ecclesiarchy (specifically, the diocese of Gunpoint). This not only gives a good reason for his higher income levels, but also a base of operations, mode of interstellar transportation and a cover/plothammer to force them into missions for parties other than the Inquisition.

Our group of Acolytes has a cathederal sized space vessel we travel around in, complete with a crew of servitors. Originally we had to be transported within other vessels as our Warp Engines were inoperative. We got it fixed in exchange for a Planetary Govenors name not being mentioned in our reports after a mission. We have now been gifted an outcast navigator by our Inquisitor so are fully warp capable!

We started off as a fairly established team though, with the trust of our Inqusitor. Our team alternates between using false identities and cover stories to throwing around our letters of comendation and drafting however we want. We have also got a pet Archoflagellant!

Our group is a sort of a mercenary gang, a bit like the 40k equivalent of the A-Team. We used to have to rely on commercial transport but recently acquired a very small warp capable cargo ship. One of our members (me) plays a noble that recently started a chain of retail clothing stores called.....wait for it, Britches and Hoes. Our cover, when we need to use it, is that we are searching for new venues and trade partners in the textile industry.

We have no consistent base of operations outside of the freighter and possibly the original storefront in hive Sibellus which we fortified rather heavily just in case. We move around a lot and only get back to Sibellus every year or so.

Inquisitors get in touch with us using an astropath mailbox type system. They send a message from anywhere to sibellus, it gets recorded and then filed. Whenever we get to a planet we hire a local astropath to contact sibellus and have messages sent through. After its outlined the first time we just say usual landing procedure to the GM and he knows what we want.

The type of missions we recieve generally don't have reports associated with them. They often involve dragging in some criminal or what was left of him, wiping out a cult, or transporting a package. The group isn't to keen on leaving witnesses either. Inquisitor's know if they hire this crew there is probably going to be a certain amount of collateral damage to be expected.

Perhaps not so much undercover police as out-and-out Secret Police, Spies, and Secret Agents. The way I see it, there are three wings to the =][=: The Face, the Covert, and the Hammer. There is the face with the giant black arcology on Calixis to remind people that they are always watching and to provide a mailbox so people know where to go to inform on eachother. Then there is the covert wing which can be divided up into subwings: those cells that work in secret with the planetary government, and those cells that work in total secrecy. The covert cells will then track down, hunt, and infiltrate heretical groups until the time set for one of two things to happen. In the first scenario, the covert cells will move into action snuffing out the lives of heretics one by one in a single dark night or... the third wing comes into play. The blackships show up on the planet's doorstep the next day, Ride of the Valkyries blaring, with a monodominant sticking his head out the window and waving a ten gallon cowboy hat that reads "Purgin' Time" and saying, "Ma, Pa, get all yer psykers together, we're going home. YEEHAW!!!" while the ants scurry in the fleet's shadow.

In our game, the Acylotes live in a Ampartment owned by there inquisiter, where all the other of her Acylotes live to, and her self to. They get there mission from her sometimes or from a Astropath. The ampartment Lies on Scintilla, on the Sibilius the Capital planet, and Capital hive.

The base of our group is our Inquisitor's ship. It gets us where the Inquisitor needs us for our hop-off-hop-on-missions. The only mission that took a little longer were some investigations on Scintilla during which we lived in the appartment of a noble Inquisitorial informant. It was quite funny as our cell basically doesn't trust anyone so we didn't want to leave our stuff with him. We finally bugged the appartment. We're simply too paranoid .

In my game the PCs have no base at all. When they have down time they go back to their cover id. The guardman goes back to baracks. The adept to an archivist position. Arbiter goes back to a Arbite fortress. The scum to a rented flat where he operates as a fence.....In the case of the guardsman he is attached to a headquarters division and in theory is charged with readiness inspection of PDF companies. In practice his "boss" doesn't want to know what he does. (Mainly he goes out drinking.) Like wise the Adept is doing a long drawn out research project.......