The Burning Child

By Bloz, in Dark Heresy

Well im posting this as we play and there maybe some more uppdates to it, But read it and tell me what you think.

So about 10 mins ago this happend in our campain.

This is what happend when our scum and moritat whare out drinking togather.

The scum, like the kleptomaniac he is, tries to steal the barkeepers cashregister.
But when this fails, they both feel it is time to leave.
So they start walking toward the exit and there is no hard feelings in the bar.
But when they get close to the exit, the scum sees another oportunity to steal.

On a chair there is a noble woman and her companion.
The companion has a huge pouch filled to the brim with diamonds,
that the scum tries to steal.

what he didnt notice in his tipsy state was that the pouch was chained to the companion.
so when he tries to leave he drags the companion with him.
The moritat who realy rejects to all this looses his temper and stabs the scum in his
left hand. In the same instance all the mess has called upon the attention of them both.
the moritat now runs away and is gone from there.

The scum on the other hand tries to run to but in the state he is in he doesnt realy maneges
so well. but he sees a door that is open and about to close and jumps in.

SO no he is in total darkness and hears some strange sounds, so he decides to pull out his
flamer and spreads an arc of flame in the direction of the strange sound.
In the brief seconds that he can see anything in there he sees a boy, of about 11 years.
THe boy standing in the way of the flame gets incinerated and falls to the ground.
Now the scum looks around and sees a dark passage further on, but has no light.
SO he janks out the leg of the boy and sees to that it only burns in one end and walks furhter down.

THe whole group is now wondering how many Corruption points this would give?

Let me ephasize that the whole event is considered an accident in the eyes of the scum.

I'd be stacking a pile o Insanity points for that plus a few corruption. sorpresa.gif

Not sure about insanity or corruption. But I'd suggest that he encounters the kids parents while they have well armed backup. Is he worth someone using inquisitoral authority to save ?

Hrm. Maybe let him burn a fate point to save the kid (who is still horribly burnt, of course)?

A few D10 Corruption points and a roll on the shock table equivalent to failing a fear test at -20 are also in order (insanity is listed a result of making a tragic mistake).

By RAW, corruption points are dealed out if one deals with or is exposed to "warp" (space, daemons, whatever).
Please take note that a lot of official modules are wrong about dealing corruption for degenerate acts.

In this case, it should be insanity points. And quiet some unless he already is quiet insane...

Hm, true. Stick to insanity points, then.

The kid would die a gruesome death.
He'd have a world of trouble.
He'd get a hundred million insanity points.

Finally, I'd strip him of a fate point. Fate does not look kindly on baby killers.

Drakar said:

The kid would die a gruesome death.
He'd have a world of trouble.
He'd get a hundred million insanity points.

Finally, I'd strip him of a fate point. Fate does not look kindly on baby killers.

I think many an Inquisitor and the Emperor would argue with that one. Hard to kill a planet for the Emperor or what have you if you don't kill the babies on it too ;-)

Modern morality doesn't have much of a place in 40k where you almost have to be a total monster to survive much less carry out the imperium's wishes. That doesn't mean it will leave the character unscathed, though.

As mentioned above, no corruption. You can save 1,000 babies from a burning orphanage, but if a daemon wanted you to do it and set you on that path, you'd get corruption. If you were the one who set the orphanage ion fire to stop the plans of the daemon, ten no corruption for you. It's not a good/evil meter, it's a warp tainted, not warp tainted meter and noting more.

I'd second the insanity points though. The way I'd call it is if he has less then 30 IP's or doesn't have Jaded, have him make a WP check. The check is made at -20 if he has less then 10 IP's, -10 if e has more then 10 but less then 20, and at base if he has more then 20 but less then 30. If he succeeds, then he gains1 Insanity Point, if he fails, he gains 1d5, and if he fails by 3 or more DoF, he gets 1d10 9for using the kids leg as a torch).

Welcome to 40k where evil bastards are the heroes and the villains are even worse ;-)

Even Inquisitors take the act of killing seriously, however. Doing so from negligence or incompentence, or for pleasure, is not a desireable trait in an Inquisitor.

I'd still offer the chance to burn a fate point to save the kid's life. That will teach him to be more careful, and is a meaningful sacrifice.

No Corruption, but a lot of Insanity.

Gregorius21778 said:

By RAW, corruption points are dealed out if one deals with or is exposed to "warp" (space, daemons, whatever).
Please take note that a lot of official modules are wrong about dealing corruption for degenerate acts.

In this case, it should be insanity points. And quiet some unless he already is quiet insane...

Gregorius is correct - seeing as I wrote the bulk of those official modules, I know whereof I speak. gui%C3%B1o.gif Long story very short: the adventures were written in advance of the rules being finalized. The original "corruption" was very different than the final you lot see in Dark Heresy. Corruption is now exclusively warp based (which was called "Taint" once upon a time by the by).

Anywho, it is indeed Insanity Points that your wayward scum is dealing with. Oh, and that "it was just an accident" crap? I highly recommend that your game group watch the film, In Bruges .

Graver said:

I think many an Inquisitor and the Emperor would argue with that one. Hard to kill a planet for the Emperor or what have you if you don't kill the babies on it too ;-)

Modern morality doesn't have much of a place in 40k where you almost have to be a total monster to survive much less carry out the imperium's wishes. That doesn't mean it will leave the character unscathed, though.

@Fate point
True.

@Insanity
I do not tend to these as a morality thing, but as a "witnessed this/that" thing. Annhilating an entire planet is gruesome for sure...put perhaps easier to handle because you just gave an ordered and are able to turn away then.

Compare to a real world soldier and the government guy who is signing the death warrants in Texas (is Texas one of the states with death penalty? If not, I beg the pardon of any annhabitant). While both of them are "responsible" for the death of many people (and both were just following orders/doing there job/ did what was "right") I think the frontline soldier is the one more likely to come up with a unhealty mental condition since he was witness to the gruesome part while the government guy just signed some papers.

Thereby, I would call for Insanity since the scum

- torched the child first hand
- and was so "caring" to use one of it´s limbs as a torch (100% Menschenverachtend)

Some-one like this can´t be in his right mind.

@Moral & 40K
To quote 40K "Only the insane will prosper / Only those who prosper will tell you what is insane". While it might be socially acceptable, I still say it is "in game" to handle out some insanity for something like this... unless you already amassed some points of it. At least enough that the first Level of "Fear" (which is used for scenes of gruesome murder) does not touch you anymore.
This would "mechanically" reflect the fact that you can stomach your own actions that easy

Make sure at some point he faces a hideously burnt heretic with one leg... guess who survived and fell to the dark powers in his time of need

Artaxerxes said:

Make sure at some point he faces a hideously burnt heretic with one leg... guess who survived and fell to the dark powers in his time of need


I disagree here. If every random Jo and Jane the pc do harm returns as a evil daemonic mastermind, things will start to get pretty silly. After all, if EVERYONE AND ANYONE (regardless of background) whom suffered a cruel fate by uncaring hands would have the chances (and the willingness) to make daemonic bargains, the majority of all hive worlds would be daemonworlds by now.

However, a daemon might take the form to remind him of his own unrighteousness.

Gregorius21778 said:

Artaxerxes said:

Make sure at some point he faces a hideously burnt heretic with one leg... guess who survived and fell to the dark powers in his time of need


I disagree here. If every random Jo and Jane the pc do harm returns as a evil daemonic mastermind, things will start to get pretty silly. After all, if EVERYONE AND ANYONE (regardless of background) whom suffered a cruel fate by uncaring hands would have the chances (and the willingness) to make daemonic bargains, the majority of all hive worlds would be daemonworlds by now.

Who said anything about a Deamonic mastermind, just have a tortured heretic thats badly burnt with one leg turn up... if he's recognised, then give out some nice IP.

This is a really stand out incident of insanity and injustice by the Scum, it needs to have consequences for him in the hopes that he wont do it again, part of that is showing how even a child can be driven to Chaos

Artaxerxes said:

Who said anything about a Deamonic mastermind?



gui%C3%B1o.gif

But for sure, in a campaign that covers a span of more then 10 years things like this can happen ("Old boy", anyone?)

Gregorius21778 said:

@Insanity
I do not tend to these as a morality thing, but as a "witnessed this/that" thing. Annhilating an entire planet is gruesome for sure...put perhaps easier to handle because you just gave an ordered and are able to turn away then.

Quoting a good friend of mine, old Joe Stalin...
"A single death is a human tragedy. 20 million deaths is a statistic."

Gregorius21778 said:

Artaxerxes said:

Who said anything about a Deamonic mastermind?



No one. But since we are talking about a child, I simply suspected dark powers to be at work in the case that this crippled child would become an opponent for a group of (grown up) acolythes later. gui%C3%B1o.gif

But for sure, in a campaign that covers a span of more then 10 years things like this can happen ("Old boy", anyone?)

Hey, watch Lord of the Flies and tell me those kids arent frightening and possible opponents... hell hang around Tescos at midnight on a Friday and you'd get lynched...

Perhaps what would work better is for the other characters in the group to have flashbacks and hauntings, seeing the burning child out of the corner of there eyes when under stress and Chaos inspired fear

Artaxerxes said:

Who said anything about a Deamonic mastermind, just have a tortured heretic thats badly burnt with one leg turn up... if he's recognised, then give out some nice IP.

This is a really stand out incident of insanity and injustice by the Scum, it needs to have consequences for him in the hopes that he wont do it again, part of that is showing how even a child can be driven to Chaos

It was truly an insane act (the leg as a torch) and and hand full of IPs would help match the character up with ow he was RPed, but why dose the Scum need to be taught not to preform acts of injustice? Further, why dose acts of injustice need to have definite negative impact on the one preforming them?

Maybe I'm a little lenient but I would make my player make a difficult will test to avoid 1d5 insanity points. If he prays its just challenging. Of course most of my games have ****, torture, horrific voluntary self mutilation by players, and last but not least the cannibalism. No corruption just sanity loss. Only the warp can twist a person. Since it is an alternate dimension I view corruption points as the involuntary rewriting of a person, done perhaps by a madman.

Artaxerxes said:


Hey, watch Lord of the Flies and tell me those kids arent frightening and possible opponents... hell hang around Tescos at midnight on a Friday and you'd get lynched...



@Graver
Valid point. Why such behaviour disgusts many of us...this is WH40K. We are talking "genocide and worse" here.

I think, the main point that should be given (to the players) is that such things "aren´t fun" like in a comic but the acts of a callous monster. ... which is totally fine to be in this game. "But just be sure to know what you are turning yourself into..."