hi there,

I am taking over a campaign from a friend, our little group started as a special ops unit in an IG outfit, got ported back in time to a fantasy world setting. Got sent back to sci-fi times in a completely new place .. tadaaa.. now the group has landed on Port Wander.

This campaign did not start out as a Rogue Trader game, just a game set in the 40k setting. We picked up the Rogue Trader book however and are beginning to adopt some concepts from it. While we are not using the rules, I am gonna use the setting of Port Wander, Footfall and the Expanse along with the many npc's and factions.

Now... i'm a 40k tabletop player over many years so i'm familiar with alot of fluff and canon, however Rogue Traders and the more non-military part of it ..not so much. So my take on it is something along the lines of Cyber/Steampunk version of the old english empire vs pirates and throw in the xenos and chaos.

So far we have arranged for the group to be hirelings under a Rogue Trader, so nobody is The Rogue Trader or any of the other careers in the rulebook (as we started before we got the book). The Rogue Trader is lending them a destroyer and they have been assigned to a handler, much like you'd see assets having a CIA handler in movies. I now have a viable way of sending tasks and missions their way without a need for hooks. Meanwhile they are free to do whatever they want when not on missions and have been given free reign of the ship, but it's still not theirs.

The overall campaign will be about them making it from the bottom of the Trader Dynasti to the top and maybe getting rewarded with a Warrent of Trade themselves.

The first mini campaign will be about a Dark Mechanicus cult that has begun worshipping Nurgle, they have secured shards of an ancient artefact (which corrupted them to worshipping nurgle) which they have designs for merging with machine parts that they want distributed among random spaceships. The idea being the ships with the corrupted machine parts will be corrupted so they can be sent to specific coordinates where they will form a giant ritualistic symbol and the artefact shards will power a summoning ritual. They will then attempt to summon a Great Unclean One's demon world into the material and anchor it there.

The groups first mission will be a simple exploration task, investigate some old xeno ruins that the Rogue Trader did not prioritise high enough for himself to deal with. These ruins were an old research facility of 'The Cabal', they were researching the ancient chaos artefact trying to discern if they could utilize it in the fight against Chaos. Biel'Tan did not see it their way and sent a ranger unit to intervene, this resulted in the destruction of the facility and the shattering of the artefact.

Upon the artefacts destruction a mighty ravine was created and the facility sunk into it, a terrible plague marsh began spreading nearby and into a forest aswell. The forest was scorched to prevent the spread of the decease, while to the east beastmen was created out of nothing by the chaos powers unleashed upon the destruciton of the artefact. Many eons later a base of Dark Mechanicus was established upon the world, not far from the ravine and they would soon discover the shards of the artefact and it would corrupt them and establish the link to a great unclean one who saw the oppertunity of entering the material more permanent than usual.

The Dark Mechanicus will be called the Clockwork brotherhood and i'm thinking Cyborg meets Undead, Tech + Nurgle.

They have established small cells of cultists on 4 sites, one of those is Port Wander, the cultists are then tasked with infiltrating some sort of machine parts repair shop so they can sell the corrupted machine parts.

The Clockwork Brotherhood reached out to the Amaranthine Syndicate to get the parts smuggled off to the cells, so the Amaranthine syndicate has a small docking/loading site near the old facility.

So the idea is the group heads out to the ruins of the facility, discovers ancient eldar runes/markings, maybe some obscure referals to the cabal, runs into clockwork henchmen or brothers overseeing the excavation of more shards, they might discover the nearby Amaranthine loading site and/or explore and find the beastmen (hex crawling). The Biel'tan Ranger unit was cut off and a few survivors are still roaming the nearby area trying to figure out what the Clockwork brotherhood is doing in the facility (maybe they already found out but are sorely outnumbered.) exactly how they should be exposed to the group is still unknown to me.

To start with i just want a simple "go search that dungeon" type of thing, but with stuff that can evolve and grow to bigger things. I have not determined if there are more shards in the facility but am considering making it some sort of semi-mega dungeon they can return to and explore more. But eventually one of their own machine parts will be one of the corrupted ones and they will have to figure out the whole thing one way or another.

How does this sound to some of you more experienced Rogue Trader GMs ?

I feel abit lacking in the department of Chartography on a specific world, like what is in the vicinty of the ruins, some good examples.. but i guess it's abit like creating maps for your basic fantasy world just sci-fi it up.

How do you emphasize the exploration bit of it all ? I was thinking about using hex crawl once set down upon a world to get them feeling like exploring.

Do you do random events while exploring a planet ?

I am considering using the Amaranthine Syndicate too eventually, putting the group on the trail of the Slaugth and exposing them.

Any general thoughts on my campaign idea ?

Cheers

Michael

Will you use the Profit Factor idea ?

Will the PCs as a group have influence & notoriety, as well as a line of credit ?

Some people hate the PF idea, but I think it represents how well they are doing overall.

Since you mentioned earning a warrant, you could measure the progress to that with a PF goal.

but on your question, emphasizing exploration:

Have random starships ready as opponents or NPCs.

Have Random planets ready to stop in at (maps have empty spots, the galaxy does not)

Each week at the end of the session, I ask the PCs where they are headed next.

They say like "that ice planet we heard of in that far subsector"

So I have 2 big things ready by next week:

1. the entire solar system around said ice planet,

2. random junk that might be encountered along the way.

some of which is not random, and foreshadows future campaign items.

but it seems random to players.

Also, have pirates, eldar, raiders, and other random enemies ready for encounters.

And don't forget warp entities for when the navigation goes bad.

also get this tool: Generator.

this is your friend.

At the moment I have not yet had a chance to read the Rogue Trader rulebook, i have seen some references on the interweb to the PF and it does seem like a good idea to pool up some sort of points to keep track of progression within the dynasty and so forth.

The previous GM set the group up with a hefty line of credit to start up with. Once we are clear of the start up phase i'll reel that back in a bit and start having them earn their credits instead of just having them.

Random systems, planets, ships, encounters in general might be my hurdle when it comes to this setting, although i have my many years experience in fantasy to draw on and my many years collecting 40k as well. But again, collecting 40k has lore wise mostly focused on the more militant side of the setting.

I will deffinently use the generator as inspiration, im still unsure how much detail we are going to have about planets and systems, i still need to get a feel for the groups interest in travelling about the star system. They might be more focused on stuff "on the ground" and just want the ship to be transit, we'll see.

" At the moment I have not yet had a chance to read the Rogue Trader rulebook," then you shouldn't be here, you should be reading the book. It's that simple. Just another FYI--they are called thrones, not credits.