So, a couple of you may remember a post I made a while back asking for advice regarding my corrupted players. To quickly sum up, four of them have explosive collars around their neck while the fifth has the switch. (One was infected by a xenos virus and effecdtively became a vampire, one unwittingly and unwillingly birthed a genestealer broodling, one when native on a feral world and is currently toting a Tau Pulse Rifle she bartered for, and the last simply because she's the broodling mother's pupil.) They are under a puritan inquisitor who kept them alive for sheer need of manpower while she still operates undercover. The player who is holding the killswitch is a genuine battlefield hero because of some of his more public actions (the setting is a Crusade to retake Tyranid occupied worlds).

Though the xenos infected player was outright doomed once they came out from undercover, I did have a plan to get the other three out of their collars. Essentially the inquisitor would tell the xeno-vampire that she is free to leave, if she can kill her team mates and the inquisitor respectively. The others will be told to get their collar off, they must kill the xeno-vampire. This is what I planned for after their current adventure.

Well, the players are currently onboard a vessel that the crusade forces lost contact with. They get there and find out that the systems have been shut down and people are disappearing. Pressures built and snapped between the ship-board clergy and the security troopers. This led my players to a battle the broke out between some troopers and clerics. By this point, the players weren't entirely decided on who's the bad guys, so they start killing indescriminately. Then, one player decides rather forcully that the guards are the bad guys and points her rifle at everyone saying she'll fire if they continue to attack the priests. In the process, the battle hero accidentally strikes the nobleborn broodling mother. She promptly turns and stikes at him with a great saber with mono edge, using furious assault, lightning strike, and getting righteous fury, dealing 89 damage with 4 penetration for each strike.

The battle hero was gored, but burned a fate point to survive. The broodling mother claims that she didn't mean to kill him but knew he'd flick the switch if she just hit him once. Considering how lenient I made my puritan inquisitor be in an attempt to save the characters, I feel a little bit helpless in this situation because I feel it's pretty concrete now that the broodling mother will be joining the xeno-vampire in her last battle. The only other issue is that together, the two characters are incredibly strong (one was our tank, the other our sharpshooter.) Fortunately there are several senior acolyte NPCs for me to have there to even it out.

What do you guys think though. Do I have another course of action in this situation, or should I let events unfold and see where it goes?

Have you talked to your players? Are all of them happy with this situation and having their lives in the hands of another player? Do any of them want to generate new characters? I would use this opportunity to find these things out and possibly even things out between the party members

There are a few options to stop the game going completely belly up. In the immediate fight:

You could have the trigger mechanism damaged in the fight/knocked out of the war heroes hand stopping him from immediatly blowing the heretics collars.

Or whatever is killing the crew chooses this exact moment to leap out and attack everyone, creating a distraction and giving everyone breathing space, so that after the fight their characters can make a more considered decision.

The Inquisitor relaises their is something causing the levels of aggression to rise amongst everyone onboard. This has caused the fight. Everyone resolved of responsibility. Now they have to find it and stop it.

In the longer term...I would suggest you don't pit the members of the party directly against each other in this 'testing'. I cant imagine any but the most arrogant Inquisitor letting a heretic go based on a strenght of arms test, where there is the possibility the Inquisitor will get killed. What if they won? The Inquisitor would have willfully let a dangerous heretic live when they had a chance to kill it. Doesnt ring true for me. Some alternative solutions:

Mayhaps this once puritan is beginning to reconsider her stance and slide into radicalism. Shes kept several abominations alive and close to her which sounds fairly unorthodox. All the players can keep their characters this way.

Alternatively a Tech Priest has genetic technologies that could strain the vampirism and genestealer DNA from their hosts at some cost to the characters or their Inquisitor. Maybe statistic penalties, possibly burning fate or owing this Mechanicus something. This could generate further missions and again everyone gets to keep playing their characters.

If your determined to have the acolytes fight each other the Rogue Inquisitior they are hunting (They are hunting one arent they? I seem to recall the previous thread. Sorry if this is wrong) could offer them sanctuary, either secretly or in the final confrontation with him. This would be much more dramatic for the characters and gives them the choice of betraying their master or keeping faith in her mercy. You can have the fight and it will be much more satisfying for the players.

If you do it how your planning currently to then its possible it will completely derail the story and/or generate bad feelings amongst your friends (particularly if you stack high level npcs on one side of the fight making it unwinnable for them).

Just my thoughts on the situation.

Milova said:

Your inquisitor (a PURITAN) says to a filthy xenoshost "Well... let us give you a sporting chance... I know I can kill you right now as you deserve it and my urge to clean you is strong...but somehow I just feel like giving you a fair chance to defile this universe with your presence..."

Good thoughts! You brought up a couple things I hadn't considered. I do need to clarify however. The xeno-vampire and the war hero actually both want to make new characters that are actually waiting in the wings for me to bring them in (actually just before this test.) I orginalloy thought it would be entertaining to allow the xeno-vampire player to let his new character battle his old one, then it occured to me that this battle could absolve the other three collar wearers.

You were indeed correct that they are investigating a rogue inquisitor, they've actually just met him on the ship and are aware that he is the one imprisoning the crew in stasis pods as food rations for his Tyranid experiments. He has already asked them to join him, but in order to give them time to think, released them back out into the ship. Beyond the players the head of the clergy secretly knows everything and is in fact working for the rogue inquisitor, so the conflict is indeed half manufactured.

For onship matters, the players themselves have been given a route via a message that'll lead them to a neutral location once, and you guessed correctly again, the rogue inquisitor unleashes his tyranid mind slaves upon the remaining crew (he said his patience was wearing thin).

As for the collars outright, the battle hero actually was very good willed about it. He never once threatened to use the switch, and actually told the others he wished not to. Even if he had, the players would have discovered that it didn't actually do anything. The explosive collars are fakes.

The main player I'm concerned about upsetting is the broodling mother's player, as she wanted to keep her character in the new chapter of the campaign. Unfortunately she had to go and gore the battlehero thus proving more corruption on her part. Also, my inquisitor is very old and very stuck in her puritan ways, showing corruption on her part is a path I'd much rather not go down....

Gregorius21778 said:

As I said in the previous, I thought it might be fun to let the player's new character fight the old. My inquisitor would believe that the xenoshost has zero chance of winning anyway, between the player acolytes, the senior acolytes, and herself.

Milova said:

While I understand this intention (allowing the "new" figure to hunt the "old" which became a major npc) I would like to suggest a different route (me being a little puritan about puritans).

The problem is in the collar. You do not anybody to simply "push the button". So... why not introducing something that interferes with the signal? You mentioned your party to actually be in space. Radiation storms/eruption are a non-fiction hazard of "open void". So why not "fiction them" one into jamming any meaningfull signals into scrambled nonsense. I would imagine a "collar" to go off from receiving a "coded" signal. The "radiation storm" could even be "noticed" from failing vox system onboard the ship (and minor "radition sickniss" for some figures). The (now npc) xeno vampire could count two and two together in order to escape from line of sight... to return to take out the one with the "button".

Your Inquisitor, in turn, would know have a reason to "unleash" the rest of the crew... for he is eager to broadcast the "destruction signal" all the time from now... "just for the case it gets throw... and this xeno-vampire-beast did not find a way to remove it´s collar!".

This way, your whole (new?) group could hunt for the (now npc) xenos vampire. Ify the "xenovamp" would team up with some other "villians", you could still have your "player vs player" battle

ex- xeno-player leading xeno-vampyr vs. warhero pc
ex -xeno player leading NEW character against other antogonist
other pc fighting other antagonist and/or xeno vampry.

You just have to make sure that ex-xeno player will no fight "herself" (in that case, you as the GM has to take over)

Just my two cents

Ok so its really just the Brood-mother thats the problem... As I see it there are a few options avaialable where she doesnt have to die.

Firstly in the OP you said the War Hero did strike her first accidentally (I take it was a crtical fail or something similar?) The response from the brood mother was obviously meant to kill the Hero. This was in the middle of a pitched battle so maybe the other acolytes and Inqusitor didnt see the whole exchange, and the Hero was merely cut up. The fate point spent may have saved the Heros life but he cant remember who attacked him......This option only works if it dosnt run contrary to how things played out once the fight was ended.

If everyone clearly witnessed the fight then the only real option to keep the character alive and in party is to make the Brood mother important, more important alive than dead. Maybe she can manipulate the minds of the 'tyranid mind slaves' you mentioned using her genestealer pyschic link? Maybe a bio weapon could be incubated using her twisted genetics? Or something similar, though some players hate being the 'plot bunny' as much as dying...

Or the Brood mother could die but not before a pure clone is created from equipment in the Rogues laboratory complete with the same stats, skills and abilities but no gene taint. The cop-out option but may go some way to mollifying the player.

Or the final option where everyone jumps sides to the Rogue (which seems to make the most sense with the group) Everyone gets to live and take a walk on the wild side. The only pure member of the party wants to gen a new character anyway. Obviously this may screw your plans for the next stage of the campaign but it might be more what your players want (assuming their heretical choices werent just unfamiliarity with the setting)

Otherwise I think the only other thing is to sit down and explain the situation and talk the brood mother how shed like to die, whether with a whimper or a bang.

If the Inquisitor is such a staunch puritan I imagine she just thinks of the 3 heretics as cannon fodder, living weapons to be used and then discarded once the mission is done with, so survival is unlikely for the some members of the group in the long run anyway. I have never really found Radical and Puritan very good terms, prefering Orthodox and Unorthodox as more accurate terms (though less fun to shout). What would you describe your Inquisitor as in these terms?

Thank you Divinator, you've given me some really good ideas. I never considered the "plot-bunny" idea, but I like it. I already have her rolling up a new character just in case, I could let her finish and give her the option, of a stripped down version of her current, or the new character. I always planned on doing something with her altered genes, but so far it's just been "feeling pulls" towards genestealer authority. I suppose there's no reason this couldn't apply to tyranids in general, and possibly developed.

Following this route, I might just keep the collar on her, and strip her of everything say a weapon (sister repentia sort of deal). I'm liking this, but I think I'll give her the option between the two. Here I was starting to think that a daemonic pact was going to be her only way out. Thanks again.

Also, I've thought on my xenohost some more, and I think it might be more prudent for her to just slip away in the coming chaos (this ship is the end of a chapter and will have a nice climactic battle.)

Oh, one last thing. You were absolutely right. The war hero rolled himself a 97 I believe it was to hit one of the guards, that the broodling mother just happened to be on the other side of.

Glad I could be of help. Theres always a way out!

I had actuallly completely forgotten pacts. Still I find it best to avoid their use unless you already have daemonic adversaries in a campaign.

Cheers