How many of you actually use dark pacts? I just found out about them and im not really sure on how to use them. I was going to say once you get 40 corruption points you could take up one of the offers, but the encounter wouldnt be a in game expericance, it would be out of game. Just want to know how everyone uses them.

I neither use them nor would I advice the use

Only use them if the player is okay with the idea that it will lead to their death or removal from player hands and return as a villain within a few sessions.

Maybe the Radical's Handbook will have some guidelines for using them as a radical Acoylte, but best to hold off until then.

If your acoltyes have a particularly heretical bent (and even that's not nessicary) you could always tempt them with Dark Pacts via the storyline of your campaign.

Particularly, they could (and should, in my opinion) show up whenever the acoltyes are dealing with Daemonic or Chaos cults of some sort, they could even be good ways of opening up a campaign arc invovling said daemons and chaos cults. As for why and how they show up? That all naturally depends oh the situation. If a pc gets severely maimed (i.e. their face has been melted off or they lost both arms or all limbs) and can't afford any sort of augmetic replacement, they could be approached with a chance to be made whole...At a price. The nature of the Pact and the gift imparted should determine what the PC has to give up or do to sustain the pack least they invoke the ire of the daemon they made it with. The core rule book has a few sample pacts and their affects but how the daemon is payed is due is up to you. Should they be forced to build a temple in their honour dangerously in near plain site for others to discover? Ritualisticly drain blood from unsuspecting victims or perhaps lend their bodies like a good friend lends his coat to use for certain periods of time...

It's up to you, your imagination, and the PC who wants/made the pact.

In the game I ran, the Mind-Cleansed Tech Priest ended up making a Dark Pact to regain her lost memories. In return, she did several things covertly over the course of the campaign that made the rest of the Acolyte's missions more difficult... and at the climax of it all, she shot the Inquisitor in the back of the head.

Needless to say, she did not last very long afterwards.

I had a player that he and I agreed upon giving him a dark pact. I didn't see a reason for them to not be given, as they are a part of the game that the Inquisition generally fall prey to eventually. The acolytes live hard, unforgiving lives in a universe that does not care about them. Players act this out by either striving to do good before they die, or by acquiring power in one of it's many forms (physical strength, knowledge, money) so that they can live comfortably above others before they are killed, gutted, incinerated, or driven mad by the horrors that plague them. This particular player was very attached to his Psyker character, and after receiving a crushing blow to the chest, that practically tore him in two, he was left behind as the other players ran from the threat of a very real daemon they had been tricked into summoning.

Facing a horrific death at the hands of said demon, and now faced with the fact that he was utterly abandonded while dying he took the option that the demon offered. He sold his soul to the devil for the strength to make them pay. The demon for his soul, was now obligated under pain of breaking this contract to help him undermine his fellow players for revenge. He patched up the player (the patching up and daemonic pact cost him a fate point, "entirely part of the surviving but with the worst outcome the book mentions for uses of fate points in this way") and pretended to terrorize what was left of the area, letting the mostly healed but still quite wounded player crawl towards his cowering party who was three rooms away. His continued yelps eventually brought them back to him, where they then took him back to the inquisitor claiming the mission had been a complete failure, but hiding the fact that they had been used entirely, only bringing up the fact that the "cultists" had summoned a daemon of great power.

Over the course of the next few adventurers the Psyker grew more and more powerful as he delved into the Divining path, and the group would remark on how the could practically solve entire cases by himself, it was at this point that the player began to develop the dark pact he had made and begin to rely on the daemon. The Daemon was a twister of fates, and could force the players to reroll successes whenever the Pacted player spent a Fortune point (a daily use of the fate point, this is the term our group uses for it) so the other players would often come out of fights worse for the wear than the pacted player. And it was clever how the player kept his pact under wraps, with fake rolls for dodges for shots he knew would swerve out of the way to avoid him. However he eventually got what was coming to him, as with all lies they can only last so long before they came out into the light. In the climax of the campaign, the players fought a battle to hold communications relay that would prevent a global communication by the cultists of the ruinous powers that were swarming up the hill to destroy them. They had gone into this fight knowing they would die, and had spent the night in the building, reinforcing it, and preparing for their deaths. They shared stories, and their companionship grew, several of the characters made it clear they had felt bad at leaving behind the wounded player, and as he grew guilty for the revenge he had wished them, he fessed up. He made it clear that he was not the man they had thought he was. In the battle the next day, he was mortally wounded, and as he called for aid, the players looked at him with disgust in their eyes and let him bleed out on the floor. Leaving his pitiful soul to be collected by the daemon who had earned it.

That's my experience with the only pact i ever gifted a player. And I was glad that it was hidden as well as it was. i kept worrying the entire time that if it got out, Real life problems would develop. Which has happened only twice in my long time of GMing but was patched over each time. In the end when the other players found out about it, there were some confused glances and stories told out of characters as the players recalled times when things "didn't seem right" but overall i was glad my party was adult about it. Another worry I'd have is if you give out multiple pacts, then the players who don't have them won't realize how bad they are. Dark pacts are made for one reason, and one reason only, to gain POWER the characters who gain pacts do so for the sole purpose of being better than everyone else. So if you have a power player, or a player that is a naturally bossy person in your group (everyone knows who i'm talking about, the guy who criticizes what other players do because it's not what HE would have done) I wouldn't recommend using pacts at all. It's only going to lead to arguments and headaches.

Well roleplayed, they can be about other things as well, of course. But your core point is well taken, and is the really important one to be made: dark pacts only work with mature groups who can roleplay their Pact well. That sounds like a really satisfying, well-played campaign, so it went well.

My favourite Pact suggestion in the book is the one to create a perfect work of art. No mechanical benefits for a power gamer, but neat to roleplay the motivations behind the pact and its results.

Dark Pacts are great seeds for future plot developments, and campaigns where you take the players aside to tell their characters thing specifically. Essentially if you'd like hidden motivations for everyone, Dark Pacts make a great addition. The Daemon itself also makes a great boss fight later on (typically over the body of the acolyte or using him/her as a host).

I will say this though, the one time I used a Dark Pact it actually wasn't daemonic at all. See I like running Ordo Xenos campaigns, so instead of a daemon approaching my player it was a powerful xenos psyker (a Slaan), it did the same things involved in a normal pact, he just had a physical presence somewhere in the universe that they ended up going to later. I suppose if you want something not quite as intense as a Daemonic Pact, a Xenos Pact might be up your ally.

I always have "very reasonable" Dark Packs in my games. Often the 1st hit is free;-) Of course in my view any pact binds the PC to the daemon who get the PCs soul upon his death. (Not to mention corruption points, and daemonic whispers.) Which tends to lead to the daemon either attempting to convince the PC to tread further down the dark path, or collect early..

DarkPrimus said:

Now that sounds like a great example for a daemonic pact. And it sounds like a great story. My approval.

I think the Dark Pacts make the campaign all the more interesting. Remember, you (The GM) are just creating the setting, and presenting the obstacles. It is the job of the PC to choose what he or she will do. And then you go on from their, guiding them down the path of which they have chosen, affecting the overall outcome of the campaign in either a great way, or in a way it is so subtle, it changes not even how others think of him (in game).

Gotta go with Hodgepodge on this,definatley wait until the Radicals handbook comes out,otherwise the players life expectansy would be down to minutes.

As for the tech-priest player making a pact to have his memories returned,well,anyone who has been mind cleansed would'nt have enough of a personality left to be bothered with lost memories..That's the entire point,all that is left is that persons skills and technical knowledge,everything else is burnt away to remove the chances of corruption and enough psyco-indoctrination for them to never question why it was ever done.(not to mention they are often implanted with cortical devices set to explode in extreme's of terror or elation)

The dark pact I have introduced was timed very well... The PC ate up all the power...it really did start to drive him crazy. He was able to drag the Tech Priest to his view and way of thinking. The guardsman was the only one that ever really caught the Psyker in the act of useing chaos. Still no prof was given so there was nothing that could be done. The dark pact lasted for a long time in the prgress of the adventure the Psyker killed an Inquisitor..caused a planet to blow up... and almost got his team killed twice.

Since the dark pact was with a lord of change there was always a lot of element of chance. In the last adventure from the PCs random choice he was brought back into the light of the emperor. All instances brought up some very good RPing sesions.

In other games that I have been involved in....PSykers seem to be the center of attention when it comes to dark pacts. I'd very much like to entice someone else. I may get that chance during tattered fates....since one of my PCs is related to the line of Haarlock he makes for a good target

As for the tech-priest player making a pact to have his memories returned,well,anyone who has been mind cleansed would'nt have enough of a personality left to be bothered with lost memories..That's the entire point,all that is left is that persons skills and technical knowledge,everything else is burnt away to remove the chances of corruption and enough psyco-indoctrination for them to never question why it was ever done.(not to mention they are often implanted with cortical devices set to explode in extreme's of terror or elation)

That's sophisticated servitors and Grey Knights, not mind-cleansed. The latter only have their anterograde amnesia plus a few implanted skills - they're not any more resistant to corruption (both with a lower and an upper case 'c') or any less sociable than their stats indicate.

Ignayus said:

Good Ravenor reference. one of my old GM had us all take a dark pact each with a different chaos god and had us work and fight against each other it was most enjoyable, i was gifted with the nurgle pact after a bad sniper incident (got my head nearly blown off) and was given the zombie virus DotDG and took out an entire planet...ahhh the memories lol

Jericus creed said:

The tech-priest didn't really have much of a personality, but was a bit of an information addict. The offer originally was enticing because it was information she would never have gained access to otherwise... as she recovered more of her old personality, of course, things became more emotionally-driven.