Well, I'm working on my groups next exciting adventure and found my self out of fresh new ideas for a particular chunk of it. So, I decided to turn to the forums for a few new ideas and points of view to help keep things exciting for my players. Wat i need is just some very basic somewhat generic events that would come about due to Unclean Spirits roaming about.

Here's the situation in brief. The acolytes will be in a small village on a planet suffering some serious insurrection problems. Most authority has been called off to war etc. The PC's are in possession of some tomes a sorcerer would like to have. To find the tomes, he's summoned up 5 unclean spirits and charged them with the task of finding and, if possible, recovering these tomes. He can get the tomes once found by other means, but stupid unclean spirits being stupid unclean spirits, they might and could interpret his wishes a bit wrongly. The PC's will be secluded in a dying village of only 100 or so souls in a barren desert like environment. The PC's have back-up, a squad of Guardsmen, etc and the villagers know they are Inquisition. They are also terrified of the heretics that lie in wait for them in the wilderness beyond their village, the war that's burning across the planit, and the "old which what lives out yonder."

So, that being the set-up, can any of you all come up with decent generic styled haunted happenings? Just little interesting asides and events that clue the PC's into unclean spirits mucking about and doing what unclean spirits are want to do as well as trying to fulfill the sorcerers orders? A sentence or two would suffice, just something I could keep in reserve for those times when I need something (anything) to happen.

Of course, this eerie feel of being watched and sudden shivers of cold and the like. The "presence" of the unclean.

In additon, animals start to behave strangely. Perhaps a cat from the other site of the street/alley hissing at them (or so they perceive it. In fact, the cat is hissing at the unclean spirit that latched itself at the pc.

Little things the pc need to "get around" can simply disappear (due to "Spectral Hands". Car keys, for example. They will end up in a gutter or under a sofa)

A vino might ramble along...when suddenly turn on the pc, staring him straight into the eye demanding "give me that book!"...just to sober up immidiately as the pc turns on him.

Make all of this happen as the pc are alone or alone with the book. With a small bit of luck, perhaps they think it´s the books, not a unclean one.

What does your group consist of? Any Psykers, or witch-hunter esq clerics, or even a sister of battle?

Here are a few various shapes of malignancies. They are mostly variations on the "find order where chaos were expected" and the direct opposite.

A local game of chance and betting turns into calls of "cheater" and "loaded dice" and eventually into fistfight (possibly knives and guns if that suits your village). The reason: All the dice rolled this afternoon turn up ones.

Have all edged weapons and tools turn out blunt. (In swedish folklore mythology the "blunting curse" was a common way of witches to mark their dislike of a household) Evil bonus cookie for blunting latheweapons and mastercrafted monoedged swords and having the village balcksmith offer to "fix them up"...

Have household supplies turn out rotten, spoilt or in any other way aged beyond usefulness. (Souring the milk is the witch/faerie/gnome/etc classic from many cultures of folklore)

Make what plants there might be wither and die, preferrably doing so in a precise wave that flows over the village from west to east over the course of roughly 3 hours.

Let someone drop a box of small items that rolls over the floor and ends up drawing a mythical pattern. (classical star with odd numbers of points, mystical runes, circles of binding, icons of tzeentch etc etc)

Have some traces of the controlling spells bleed over into the world. A strange smell of off-planet herbs (used for rituals of binding maybe?). Parts of spells written in high-gothic, drawn in the dust by the water dripping from a leaking bucket. Five strangers stop in the middle of the street in a perfect circle and stare emptily at eachother for 3 hours, 9 minutes and 27 seconds (the time it took to cast the binding spell). Different types of Forbidden Lore might be enough to identify the type of spell being worked.

Shoelaces never stay tied up, but shoes left to themselves for more than 3 hours 9 minutes and 27 seconds always have their laces found in a disorderly knot. Similar with buttons, velcro-strips, zippers and magnet-tightened assassin corselets.

Have minor annoying things go to heck, not seriously to hell, just a short way down the road to Heck. Insects in your clothing, sand in your guns, the beersupply in the isolated village runs out due to a leak in both the last two barrels, your microbead comm-system always seems to be out of battery.

Dissapearing left socks might be too much of a comical relief.

Dissapearing left boots might turn out very annoying. What is the difficulty modifier for fighting barefoot, or indeed oneshoed, on hot desert gravel? What is the difficulty modifier for Intimidate tests if you are only wearing one boot.

Dissapearing left feet might be more "gory" than "malignant".

An annoyed mob that demands "justice!" of the inquisitors. (or an angry mob that is too scared to say anything to the inquisitors, so just look at them accusingly when they think they aren't being noticed)

Maybe have a gang of local troublemaking kids being blamed for stealing left boots (or the above mentioned car keys), their leader swearing that she knows nothing. Have the spirits leave parts of the stolen goods in the kids "secret hideout". Have the villagers all turn to the Inq for solving their problem. Insert loads of possibilities for interesting cases of conflicting interests. Have some of the mob continue to demand "justice", add a few people (parents maybe?) that claim "they are just kids". Make the players choose from stuff like: protect the kids, punish the kids, torture the kids to get the truth, keep the local populace helpful to the inq, keep the local populace fearful of the inq, etc etc etc...

Try to refrain from quoting the mad scien... sorry, Evil Genius, from Lilo and Stitch when you steal everyones left shoe.

If you have something like some a small group of monks or scribes (about two or three) inside the village whom dedicated there life to making copies of textes (religious or otherwise) and thereby have a room full of books.

Well, imagine them to return to there work one morning and find all books pulled from the shelves and strayed about! (a unclean one whom searched for "the book"... he saw books and thought to him self "aaaah...books...lots of books... must be heeereeee *giggle*")

In general, a lot of books could end up on the floors in these village. Happly, since even cilivized imperial citizens are only semi-literate, this won´t be to obvious. Likely targets are

- the office of the village (books to keep track of things like ground ownership, lineages, chronics, criminal reports, birth, marriage and death, etc.)
- shop owners (each one of them will have at least one book...the one they use for accounting!

Awesome ideas Gregorius and Mellon! Thank you! My ghostly events have been getting a bit predictable for my group. The book idea is great one that should be a lot of fun and the adept in the group always makes a bee line for any library or book collection in the area.

Oh, and Ira, there's no Faith powers about and only one npc with psynicience. They were originally put together as a head-hunting cell that ended up hunting a witch -oops. The group consists of 1 stabby assassin, 1 corrupt medicae-adept, 1 feral guardsmen sargeant, the remaining 3 npc feral guardsmen from his unit, 1 npc assassin gunslinger, 1 npc confessor of Dursus, and 1 npc astropath.

Again, thanks for the wonderful ideas posted so far!