As the title suggests, the Tstar is an awesome plot device, however, upon reading it, i get the impression that it is also something that can be messed up really really easily. What is the best way to use it do you guys think that will keep the players scared of it and make it really seem intense and generate that an inevitable untimely doom is approaching?

Ryorus

i've stayed totally away from the Tstar in my campeign. no need for the sense of something big and bad coming. And besides if it was That bad the authorities would have dispatched a fleet to it.

Velvetears said:

If it was an enemy army or fleet, then military force would be the best answer.

It isn't.

It's not that bad, it's worse, and few people know anything about it outside of rumours, even within the Inquisition. Even those who know something can't figure out what the hell it is, only that it's extremely bad. It's seen as better to wipe from the records the names and locations of worlds subjected to the Tyrant Star's presence than it is to make the what scraps of knowledge the Inquisition has available to others, especially as those others would have no idea what to do with that information.

It's not really the kind of thing you send a fleet to deal with - what you'd end up with is a lot of dead and insane Naval personnel with nothing to show for it. How do you stop what appears to be a star in the Warp that intermittently emerges near a planet, unleashing all manner of death, pain and insanity, before vanishing again?

I guess having insane and warp visions-driven crew in the control of ship able to destroy whole cities nad continents is a VERY bad consequence of vanglourisous charge towards totaly evilish empyrean phenomena. :-)

Personaly I´m looking for next parts of Haarlock Legacy, it seems that Heretivus Tenebrae is somhow connected with our favourite rouge trader Solomon...

It certainly seems to be. I rather like the TS' involvement in Haarlock Legacy 1 . That is: a culmination which is (almost) unnavoidable and which the players are simply subjected to, i.e. they're there when it happens.

On the upside this means that not too much is revealed and that from the perspective of players 'all hell breaks loose' in a more mundane way; everyone goes a bit mental, everyone's chasing for them etc. My GM for that game has us running about on Solomon Haarlock's ship now (have been very restrained and not bothered to check if Glorious Retribution is a previous fan campaign or not, or whether it's new-ish to the online community; don't want to spoil it!) after being apprehended by various Hereticus Tenebrae baddies.

As a plot device, I find it to be rather like Abaddon's Planetkiller in Execution Hour ; it's just something (mad) that is happening , whether you like it or not. Then the campaign is weaved through that madness, not necessarily because of it.