Hi,

I am about half way through running Shadows of twilight and am just about to run the encounter with the ghosts. At this point the adventure seems to hit a couple of discrepancies.

1 - The party decide to stick with crovus - The adventure advises the story should move straight to 'In the dark'. Surely the characters have got time to go looking for Adorjin and there is nothing to stop them retrieving the sword. Maybe it will take so long that the Dark Eldar will arrive as they retrieve it.

2 - The party decide to leave the way they came in - It is noted on page 79 that the PC's will have a relatively easy time if they attempt this. This is more likely happen if 1 occurs. Even if they go with vogel they may decide that retreiving the sword is too important to risk a confrontation with the dark eldar.

What do you think? How much would you tweak things to make sure there is a final encounter with the dark eldar?

Ant

antony131073 said:

Ok make sure you ham up the Crovus/Vogel talk and Acolytes with any sense will follow Vogel. My players actually did both, they observed the interaction and some stayed and prayed or listened to Crovus harp on about the impending ascension whilst a couple of my other players went off to chat with Vogel.

If they go with Vogel make sure it's pressed on the Acolytes that the book is extremely dangerous and shouldn't be left in the hands of maniacs, the sword is basically a famous trinket in the grand scheme of things.

If they side with Crovus then as you say will probably just want to get the sword and leave. The problem with this is they'd need to search the ship and Crovus seems to be rather unstable so if questioned on the sword and Inquisitor he may fly into a crazy rage with the others and attack them as mentioned on page 76. They wake hours later and you run the Dark Eldar attack.

Otherwise if they search the ship you could have them stumble on Forden nicking the book thus making them aware of it which would hopefully rouse their interest. After searching the ship and finding the sword they go to leave and the Dark Eldar arive leaving with the dilema of stay and fight or run. If they simply run they make it out (maybe with the odd Warp Beast attack) and technically they've achieved their mission. If that happens and you want them to know they missed a huge bit you could have Sergeant Agamorr bust in on the debriefing (freshly picked up from an escape pod) and report seeing Dark Eldar take a book off the traitor Forden then vanish back into their webway portals.

1 - The party decide to stick with crovus - The adventure advises the story should move straight to 'In the dark'. Surely the characters have got time to go looking for Adorjin and there is nothing to stop them retrieving the sword. Maybe it will take so long that the Dark Eldar will arrive as they retrieve it.

What happens if the PCs stick with crovus: His plan is basically to sit on his arse with the other spirits and pray to the Emperor for salvation. Presumably the PCs will eventually get fed up with him and go searching the ship for the sword. Only they have two problems - they don't know where it is and Forden will have gotten there first. Without Vogel as a guide, it will take them much longer to find it (it could be in the crew quarters, command station, or any of the 13 holds. As it's actually in the on at the far end of the ship...). Of course, Forden didn't know where the book is, so they'll probably arrive just after he's retrieved it. Combat will probably ensue. He may take the sword as well, to use as a bargaining chip - he'll trade the book if the PCs let him escape (an offer Forden's former friends are unlikely to agree to, as they probably want him dead by now).

All this will take time... which means that by the time the PCs are ready to leave, the Dark Eldare are probably about to arrive.

Of course, this is all pretty unlikely. The PCs will probably realise very quickly that Crovus is a mad idiot. Even if they let Vogel walk (float?) off alone, they'll probably go looking for him.

2 - The party decide to leave the way they came in - It is noted on page 79 that the PC's will have a relatively easy time if they attempt this. This is more likely happen if 1 occurs. Even if they go with vogel they may decide that retreiving the sword is too important to risk a confrontation with the dark eldar.

This is an easy one - just point out to the PCs that they don't know how long they have until the hulk is destroyed. They might be only half-way to their craft before the fleet blows them away. Desperate as it may seem, their best chance of surviving the bombardment is the escape pods. But they need to hold off the Dark Eldar until the bombardment begins.

#1- I agree there is nothing to stop them from retrieving the sword. Why the heck wouldn't they? It's what they came for.

I think your answer to #2 really depends on what happens when they go to get the sword. You can draw their attention to (or make some rolls to see if they notice) the book very well secured to her. Then the confrontation with the Eldar becomes dependent on whether or not they have the Liber Daemonica. Remember this is what they really came for.

Honestly, regardless of whether from that point on they went back the way they came, or found another way out, if they didn't have the book, I wouldn't have the confrontation with the Eldar. In fact I'd draw attention to how they hear nothing else from the Eldar "almost as if they got what they wanted." Cue plot hook for this to come back and bite them in another adventure.

If they have the book, the Eldar will almost surely find them wherever they are.

Although the point made above about time ticking is a valid concern. It is very unclear how much time the PC's have to get out at this stage of the adventure. They also don't know if the way back is still blocked with warp beasts. If they don't find the book, you can at least spice up the ending by forcing them to come up with a brilliant plan to escape the ship because they don't have enough time to make it back to the Helios.

My players didn't want to wait around for either the dark eldar attack OR the uncertain timing of the bombardment. They decided to hijack Vogel's signal and sent a message to the fleet to begin the bombardment immediately.

I let them play it - it was pretty awesome. Especially because en route to the escape pods there was a double-cross betrayal situation with Forden and one of my players.

I have another potential glitch with this scenario:

The first Dark Eldar encounter the party has the chance to suprise an eldar scout or at least have a fair fight - however, that eldar is supposed to blow his infernal whistle before he dies, summoning the forces of the immaterium so that he can make his heroic "last stand".

However, if the PCs actually manage to sneak up on the eldar, get a lucky headshot or Fury, and destroy the xeno before he can blow his whistle, won't that ruin the story?

Friend of the Dork said:

No. Just have the warp beasts turn up anyway.

Or have a device on the scout beep, and a voice speaking an unknown language come out. It's the other Eldar asking for a report. If he doesn't report back they send in the warp beasts.....

Friend of the Dork said:

One of my play test groups had exactly this happen...

And then one of the PCs picked up the strange device on the scout's belt and activated it "by mistake".

I usually hate when stuff like this is scripted to happen no matter the PCs actions, even though I realize it would pretty much break the module if it didn't.

Luckily, as I played last night I had just time to have the corsair sound his whistle after taking 2 critical damage, before he got knocked out by another critical. He did also manage to seriously wound 2 Acolytes before that, although the terrorfex was pretty ineffectual.

We had to cut it just as they encountered the next 2 large warp beast. Who let the beasts out? Warp, warp warp warp warp!