So I have a beginning campaign where the acolytes have been sent on a mission to find out why their is an Ork infestation in a deeply wooded province on Gudrun and contain it. They land at a local starport and take an armored convoy (due to hostile activity on the main highways) to see the provincial magistrate who is about a two hour journey away. The adventure begins with the acolytes waking up covered in soot, dirt, oil, and ash in an overturned vehicle. As they exit and get their wits about them, they see orks beating the front drivers corpse into an even more blooded lump. As they engage the Boyz they see that towards the rear of the convoy a major fight is in progress. Both heavy cannons, machine gun fire, and shoota sounds emiate from the given battle, althought the acolytes can only see a a couple police shooting through all the debris from the destroyed convoy. As they dispose of the two Orks in a difficult battle, the last vehicle spins through the air and crashes down in a thundering explosion that almost knocks the acolytes to the floor. The gunfire from that area has also died down. They begin to hear high pitched gibberish behind the nearest truck as one of the police officers runs past them reloading an autogun. Two grechin round the overturned truck and begining yelling wildly. The acolytes take note of the police officers warning and flee after him into the woods surrounding the dirt road. A few minutes through the heavy brush and weeds, they find the officer behind a downed rooting tree and take refuge with him for two hours. They learn they are still an hour drive from the magistrates quarters and they are now on foot in the underscouted woodlands. Using the officers GPS Data slate, they travel for a half hour reaching a small hamlet that has a few of its houses burning. Concealing themselves in the treeline, they scout the village and discover Orks are using a barn to store the mangled lifeless bodies of the townsfolk. A couple Orks are toying around the entrance to the main building in the center of town, a church to the Emperor. A few womens yells can be heard sporatically coming from inside the church. The acolytes decide to travel around the hamlet and proceed to the nearest police station a few dozen kilometers away and inform the local arbitres. As they make their way around, they spot a young girl at the window of one of the houses. In the backyard of the house a few houses down, two Orks are enjoying the carcass of what could be a dog. The backyards have no cover since they are just fenced in yards. The officer and an Acolyte decide to sneak by the Orks and position incase they take notice of the other acolyte low crawling through the kneedeep grass of the yard that leads to the house with the girl.

This is where the adventure is now. I am thinking of having maybe a few local officers from the nearby station stop into the hamlet to investigate the smoke from the fires. This would then prompt a diversion that could help the acolytes do whatever it is they are trying to do in the town, if anything at all. The trek to the magistrates quarters is also very far so the acolytes have alot of wooded area to cover which is obviously heavily infested with Orks, grechins, squigs, and whatever other creeps Gudrun wildlife is. I am also thinking that once they get to the quarters, its under seige and has been for a few days. Heavy bolters positions have been erected at the gates and a large burn mark is seen a few hundred feet from the main gate. This burn mark is where the ork bodies are taken and then burned after each and every wave so as to prevent a further outbreak. Being that the local police force is having problems and they refuse to use the services of the Imperial army battalions, they are desperate when the acolytes offer help. I am thinking that towards the final battle on the Ork emcampment by the space debris that originally brought them, I can have the acolytes be in charge of directing the police force in the assault. They would also have heavy thunderhawk support and maybe even have them call an orbital bombardment to burn the area once all the ground fighting is done. Its kind of epic their for no reason except that its cool and I think my acolytes would appreciate being in charge and blowing lots of stuff up.

The main plot I am thinking is that once the acolytes get to the quarters, talk to the magistrate and investigate why Orks are in a central Imperial World to begin with is that a heap of metal had crashed into the province years ago to no noticable problems. This space junk turned out to be an Ork shuttle that was launched completely offcourse and that the Ork spores took longer than expected to flurish. Since the area is highly covered in foliage, the Orks survived on local wildlife until recently when they began attacking convoys on the highways. Local arbitres and police units have been unable to eradicate the problem and call on the service of the Emperors finest investigators to solve the Ork problem, the Inquisition.

Its a rough adventure I had to make on the spot in a matter of 30 minutes to feed some overactive friend who really wanted to play a dark heresy game and wanted to play NOW I wasnt expecting this to turn into a real game until we all began to get carried away in story and now we all wish to continue and I would like to get help from fellow gamemasters as to where I could take this adventure next and any advice or plot twists or even better plots. All help would be appreicated. Long live the Emperor.

One thought that came to my mind, is that you could find through investigating that a corrupt political official, wanting more power, influenced the ork crash landing on the planet, to overthrow the government, and the mojority of it's citizens. And when things got tough, he or she would call in the big guns, the Arestartes to eradicate the problem.

Maybe, once you discover this, you can have the acolytes decide his fate (once captured). My choice, would be to tie him down, and draw the attention of a few orks (or the warboss) to his location.

Thats actually a pretty awesome idea. He could have had ambitious thoughts of granduer to maybe become one of the lords of the houses on Gudrun and saw this as an oppotunity to be seen as "the champion who eradicated the Orks". That might actually make perfect sense seeing that the crash happened in a backwater area of the planet that would get little notice any other way. Hmmmm, I like the possiblities this could lead into. Maybe even have him be a member of one of the old houses himself. He could even turn into a main villian if the acolytes don't kill him.

There you go! *High five*

God I love my brain!

It only works when it's not working for me!

A few things that come to mind...

This was a new game that starts out with orks, heavy bolters, Thunderhawk gunships and orbital naval battery support? What exactly are your acolytes, and what rank did you start them off at for this? Unless they are stone-cold bad-posteriors right out the gate or the local IG/PDF troops arrive just in the nick of time to pull their fat (quite literally) from the fire then I suspect the logical story arc would be a new team of Inquisitorial agents sent to look into a team of acolytes that went missing during an investigation of some backwater world for possible xenos contamination...

Thunderhawks mean Astartes! Astartes in Thunderhawks means at minimum one Strike Cruiser parked somewhere in the star system. Orbital support means a naval cruiser or larger and commanded by either a Captain or Admiral of the sector battlefleet at a minimum firing lances at a planetary surface! Just what authority did their Inquisitor invest in these untested recruits?

Given this setup it is hard to immagine any simple plot curve. Clearly, something VERY wrong and dangerous to at least the entire planet is afoot, and threatening to the Imperium itself. This means it is bigger than a planetary revolt to oust the ruling government and replace it with whatever. It is bigger than a few stray ork-spores making the local beer taste funny. This would pretty much be a grand conspiracy that is paradoxically well known of in higher circles. What less would compel both the Imperial Navy and (far more difficult to justify) Adeptus Astartes to commit MAJOR assets to playing at being local magistratum investigators?

Maybe this is enough food for thought to inspire a cool and clever angle for the story or a slick plot twist? To make this story and setup work, the acolytes have pretty much stepped into a Baneblade-sized pile of biocarbon waste product.

Interesting angle I haven't looked at yet. Your right about the orbital bombardment being way over the top, but I figured that they would enjoy seeing such a massive array of destruction from some nearby hill top be a pretty inspiring note that these guys are part of a much bigger and stronger Imperial force. My acolytes have no such heavy bolters, I refer to the local provincial police having set them up to protect their grounds and thus giving the acolytes no such means of obtaining them. I figured I would use these heavy bunkers as a way to introduce them into how effective the overwatch command would be if placed properly. Maybe have a wave of Orks storm the compound while they are in it to see the heavy weapons at work.

Gudrun is a a main imperial world in the halican sub-sector that is home to famous houses that have been around since the dark age of technology. It already has a large battlefleet that is based off this world so I figured an orbital strike would be well within the reach of the worlds power. Being that it does have this massive amount of military presence already, having a senator pulling strings for the Orks would make sense as to why the debris carrying the Orks made it past defenses. The Thunderhawks I figured could have been borrowed to the province for this such occassion being that the planetary government would hate to have the problem spiral out of control under his jurisdiction. Since the police magistrate doesn't want to blow this obvious star on his resume, he would rather not use the help of the battlefleet unless totally needed.

The acolytes themselves will have nothing more than their starting equipment and their wits to get them through this obvious caca storm of a situation. This being obviously well over their heads, this is why I think I will have constant police patrols engaging various Ork parties they will encounter so they dont get overwhelmed. Unless they are trekking the woods which they will porbably be doing most the time to avoid main roads. I am also thinking of having the police officer have a vox unit that was damaged during the inital firefight. He can hear police chatter of nearby officers also using vox but is unable to relay messages to them since the outgoing speaker broke. This will then give the acolytes a means of using ambushes, helping or avoiding fights, and not be in direct lines of fire. Also in case I have a thunderhawk strike happen, they would be able to hear the pilot relay messages such as "ETA 2 Minutes" or "Commencing firerun on southside habitats". Its nothing but extra flare that would excite the players and make them feel not alone while they trek the long trip from the convoy ambush site to the magistrate quarters which i figured to be a 5 day walk through the woods, unless they grade a land speeder or something ofcourse.

I am also now thinking that if the acolytes do pull this off, the inquisitor will then be taken to run errands in the calixis sector due to his recent achievements from him and his acolytes, in reference to my given acolytes mission. I am also thinking that the inquisitor is fairly new himself and is trying to set himself a reputation that is boosted thanks to the gudrun mission. Thus, the inquisitor already trusts the new acolytes more, which would then cause rife with the inquisitors other acolyte bands... maybe helping fuel some interinquisitorial rivalry between the newly tested acolytes who are now in the inquistors good graces and the other jealous acolytes also fighting to get the lime light.

This game has not gotten very far off the ground and I am obviously running away with many different branching ideas. I need a drink.

Actually, doing some deeper research about the gunships i figured that using a vulture gunship besides a thunderhawk is much more practical since its the equvalent to an army apache and much more versatile to use in a wooded environment. On top of that, its in the service of the Imperial army and not the space marines.

Going with IG flyers is a great change to the story, and not just because it gets rid of the pesky "Just WHAT are the Adeptus Astartes DOING here?" question off the board and also eliminates the "incorruptable Space Marines" thorn. Short of the direct intervention of the Ruinous Powers such as during the Horus Heresy, Imperial marines are simply incapable of betrayal. Having nice, mortal Navy and IG forces involved gives you alot more room to wiggle in some sort of nefarious plot. The soldiers don't even have to be in on it! A secretly corrupt officer gives a set of orders and Imperial training says "yes SIR!"

I am fairly familiar with this world as luck would have it, seing as it was the home-base of Inquisitor Eisenhorn a few hundred years prior to our current date. The local IG units are called Gudrun Rifles and during Eisenhorn's career the founding of the 50th Gudrun Rifles occured. That should put your local troopers something in the ballpark of 56th to 58th Gudrun Rifles, assuming a 50 year tithe cycle. They wear red uniforms, including red guardsman flak. I do not recall the specific model lasgun native to this world, not that it much matters to the story. If you are dealing with large numbers of greenskins you might consider replacing the local police forces with IG troopers. This also makes the "where did the cops get all those heavy bolters from?" question go away nice and clean-like.

For the big dramatic BOOM that you want the team to witness... Got an idea there. If the Navy is at all involved (and with an ork invasion, they are!). Most of the fleet is likely parked in orbit around the sector capital, but that is just fine. Better than fine actually. This means for your big dramatic BOOM instead of lances from orbit simply replace with a bombing strike by a small flight of Marauder strike bombers. Unless your acolytes all have the Battlefleet Voidborn background then such explosions WILL impress! Even Imperial Guardsmen that serve in artillery crews can respect that kind of firepower. Want cooler? If one of them is fully trained in Tech Use (+0) or better then perhaps give them a specially modified "designator auspex" or somesuch and instructions that if they find heavy xenos presence in the course of their investigation to vox a special code provided by their Inquisitor on a speciffic channel and then designate a target. The Marauders then are launched on the bombing stike on tripple-blind Inquisitorial orders, routed through enough official looking black holes in the Navy command structure as to be clearly of Naval origin. Should they misuse this great and dire power then feel free to do "very BAD things" to the team leader by the Inquisitor's hand. And of course, they never saw any specially encoded targeting device. No such thing!

Gudrun also has a handful of very old early settler families (the local version of nobles really) that stubbornly cling to special legal and financial rights that later settlers are unable to claim, and thus nice big heaps of wealth, large private estates and so on. Eisenhorn pretty much destroyed the worst of the bunch: the family Glau, but that still leaves several other families to play and scheme with. Besides, since the Glaus ultimately were involved with causing the crews of (12 I believe) Navy ships to go rogue, making unholy business deals with xenos for warp-tainted texts, collaboration with at least one Slaneeshi Chaos Marine, trafficing in xenos devices, mass murder and treason.... Well that kinda leaves you some pretty big "wiggle room" to fit in "the second most corrupt noble family ever born here" as villains. Perhaps they would like to take over as the new planetary governors? Making the current administration look weak and ineffectual, then swooping in to "save the day" might be just the thing. Only flaw being, you never really can control orks. Ever. No really.

Throne! I think I just wrote your outline

Your skill in warhammer 40k is quite impressive. I did think the local police would have access to equipment such as heavy bolters but I assume a local battalion of IG would be a nicer touch, being that it is an old capital world to begin with. I think I will go with this then and just say the acolytes assumed police since one is a psyker who spent his last 10 years doing sanctioning on black ships and the other an assassin from a feral world. IG would fit nicely. A bombing strike from mauraders would be a much better fit but wouldnt obviously be a big boom like a direct orbital attack. This would also clear up the idea of why the navy would even bombard thier own planet. Maurader it is. I can also add that a house is directly behind the backing of the corrupted senator and thus are banking on him being seen as a savior of gudrun. This could then lead to both corruption from government and tradition. This can cause a very big catch I can use in even later missions for my group.

Your help has been quite resourceful and I will find myself changing a bit of my preconceived story to better fit a more realistic 40k scenerio. The only problem I am having is what I am going to make my group do during their long trek to the Battalion commanders quarters. They will obviously be hurting for rations so staying near roads and villages would be the natural way to go. But who and what will happen is whats bother me. I am sure it will come to me when the time comes but it never hurts to be amply prepared for such situations.

My poor acolytes have bit off more than they can chew. Not to mention the young inquisitor sending their freshest acolyte group into an ork festation on an ex capital world.