[ A Killer in the shadows ]
The following is meant as an event a GM can "throw" at the pc while they are "in the warp". Perhaps other GM would like to "pool" their written events here. After all, many player groups will spend many a day "under warp", so many dreadfull things could happen...

The shipguards reports a corpse, obviously a murder victim. Why this is not unknown on a ship, the body was literally slaughtered. This needs to be investigated. If the pc don´t investigate, the Moral will drop by one each weak while the killing goes on day by day ("and what is our Lord Captain doing about it? NOTHING!")

Play it out as extended test for Inquiry, Medicae, Search and Logic (all+10) . Each day, each Investigator is allowed to role once for every skill (or assist another who will role for the check). If five successes are collected, the pc will have clues that the killer is not men but daemon. At this stage, the pc can try to track down the daemon to face and banish it.

For this undertaking, 10 successes on an extended test are needed. Skills that can be tested by each investigator for each day are Search (+0), Inquiery(+0); Forbidden Lore (Daemonology) (+10), Forbidden Lore (Warp) +10, Psyniscience (+10) and Scholastic Lore (Occult) (+10) . As soon as the successes are achieved, the pc will be able to pin the daemons location. If at least three of the success are from Daemonoloy, they know that they are facing an Ebon Geist (see p.378). What they will not know is that they are facing two of them!

The thing seems to lurk in the darkness of a sewage basin. The pc can empty this basin completely and put together a hunting party. They might want to enlist help from the shipguards or similar crewman. That is fine, but to avoid friendly fire the group should not be larger then 12 all together.
Make an opposed test between the figures composing the “hunting party” and the silent move of the Geist. If the Geist wins, he will surprise the party and spring them. Otherwise, play out a fight against a nightmarish creature in dark surrounding with many pillars. Have fun!

Personally I'd have the big bad be a:

1)'Nid Lictor escaped from a forggotten hold

2)Crazed astral ghost of the last captain who was disengrated by a chaos tainted Navigator

3)Chaos space marine who's been in cold sleep in a damaged drop pod lodged in a forgotten deck.

4)A horrible mutated insane chaos tainted Navigator of unknown age. (Go crazy with both mutation tables)

How should the investigation be run if one of the players decides to use telepathy ?

Bilateralrope said:

Good Question, I didn´t really thought about that. The Telepath in Question would start to "mind ****" suspects deemed to be the possible culprits... .I think a +10 or +20 bonus on the Inquiery check should do it. After all, it is not like anyone is lying or hiding something from them (every crewman put to question IS innocent, after all) which (after "uncovered through MindRape") would shurt-cut anything. So, they only "benefit" from it is that it will take less time to come to the point that if it´s not a death cult, a maniac or a possessed but something hiding somewhere.

The bonus should reflect this.

Please take note:
This one is by no means inteded to be a full scale adventure (which is why I deliberately restrained from "big bads" like Chaos Space Marines or Crazed Navigators) but a "Warp Travell Encounter". Something that just happesn "during the journey" which a GM can use to reflect that "warp travell IS dangerous".

With telepathy I'd take one the follow or all of them:

1)Reduce ship moral by 2d5 or 5d5 (if the pysker is not ignore unrelated minor crimes) with a +30 or so for investigation rolls. Who wants to serve on a crew where they are subject to occasion mind ****?

2)Use the closer than flesh rules from DH, and have the psyker have to roll against gaining insanity from the less sane crew members.

3)Have the daemon posses a target of the telepath. Now the telepath risks the daemon gaining access to him. The psyker risks insanity and corruption from telpathic contact. A smart daemon might turn the tables and read the psyker's mind. Daemon could end up knowning exact where the PCs are in their investigation. (Obviously you'll want to wait and spring this on the PCs after the are getting close.)

In my campaign there was a misshap with the warp travel. Nothing fancy, just the Gellar Field fluctuating. But alarm bells were ringing all over the bridge and the entire crew looked towards the RT for reasurance. The RT stood up and started to bark out commands. Only to roll a 100 on his command skill. His first public appearance in a crisis.

Chaos erupted as the crew of the bridge decided that the captain was crazy and they had to save their own skin by taking decisive action. The RT was overwhelmed by a few sturdy bodies, commands were shouted to the Navigator who refused to listen to any voice then the captains. Fisticuffs and firefights broke out as people were trying to force their opinion in the cacophoney of redlights flashing and the aformentioned alarmbells making such a racket that conversations were near impossible.

Only the Explorator ignoring the chaos, the shouting and the shooting managed to restore the Gellar Fields and saved the ship from worse. Which is to show that travel in the warp can be dangerous indeed.

Thanks, Sister. Any idea how to form an event out of this? One another GM could use to keep his players busy with a small episode in the warp instead of saying "you travell for X day, but nothing happens which should demand your attention"?.

How about this, mind you this is the normal standard warp travel misshap:

[ Gellar Field Fluctuations ]
Dafydd Miller stared at nothing in particular, his third eye scanning the warp streams, looking for threads to the vessel he was navigating through the swirls of warpspace. He frowned as he noticed the ship plunging into a particular thick warp energy edify. He had miscalculated badly as he saw the ships Gellar Fields buckling under the onslaught.

On the bridge, alarmbells started to ring with a deafening voice. Red lights blinking in hypnotic flashes. Everyone on the bridge froze in shock as they a stared at the dials and screens.

WARNING WARNING GELLAR FIELD LOSING INTEGRITY WARNING WARNING

A few crewmembers started to sob, others prayed to the emperor with all their heart. Servitors kept working at their controls, uncaring for the disaster about to struck them.

Most however, stared at the only man on the bridge able to do what must be done. They looked at him with eyes wide from fear. Some of the experienced officers shouting that they must leave the warp while they could, others shouting that to leave warp was to invite disaster. It was time that the Captain showed them why the Emperor had chosen him to lord over them.

First order of business is to take control of the situation. Command skill check to bring the bridge back under control. Then an assessment must be made, will the Gellar Fields hold long enough to clear the warp eddy? Will it need to be reinforced with additional power? Or must the ship leave Warp in a hurry with the risk of damage to the engines or leaving the ship in a dangerous spot in the void?
For this a Forbidden Lore Warp , Tech Use -20 and or Navigation Skill check seem to be in order.

To restore the Gellar Field a challenging Tech Use roll must be made. To leave the warp a Navigation -30 roll to leave in a hurry. If the reinforcing of the Gellar Field fails, a rupture could appear in the Field resulting in one of the ships components hit with a Deamonic infestation. This will cause loss in population as well as a big hit in morale. If the ship fails to translate safely back in normal space this could result in damage to the warpengine and or the impossibility to translate back to the Warp as the Warp is still in turmoil and they need to wait until it returns to normal.

Thank you for formulating it out, "Sister".

These are exactly the kind of entries I am hoping for to make this topic into a "look & ******" for fellow GM´s around

Gregorius21778 said:

Hello!

Wouldn't most Rogue Trader ships have wards, countermeasures & such set against a roving daemon (or warp incursion)?

L

LETE said:

The Gellar Feild is what keeps incursions from the warp outside the ship. That and the navigator skill in avoiding trouble spots. Once that is breached however, the ship an crew is in big trouble. I am sure there are warded places in the ship, but warding every corridor, every nook and cranny of a 1.5 kilometer long voidship seems impractical. Not to mention expensive.

Remember, this is W40k, where deamons and the like do threaten the human race and battling them is a huge task even when people do not enter WarpSpace themselves. Imagine what happens when you enter the deamons home turf (the warp) in an ancient vessel where half of the ships systems are not even understood by the crew.

LETE said:

Hi Lete,

in addition to what "Sister C." pointed at, there are examples in the "fluff" for "daemonic intrusion" in a warp ship. The "Creatures Anathema" of "DarkHeresy" has an entry for a Daemon encounter during warp, the "Lady of the Voids". A siren-like slaani-creature which took over large portions of the crew.

One wonders how this works with the gellar field...especially since it was mentioned in "Forsaken Bounty" that a raising of the warp field would be able to "banish" a warp entitiy from the ship.

My "reason" behind this is that while the Gellar field can banish things while in the physical world, it us only strong enough to "keep things at bay" while "in the warp". If something gets in, it is in. Would nice to have some comments of this from FFG, but till then I think the "Killers in the Shadows" are fair game.

Dreams

One of the crew members, preferably a pc, will be visited by a strange dream. The dream will tell him to do things, if the victim doesn't do what he is suppose to do he will be humiliated by the dream. If he does do it he will be left alone for the time being.

Mechanic:

The moment the ship travels to the warp the crew member suffers this dream. If during waking he doesn't do as instructed he must roll a willpower characteristic roll. If he fails he gains a 1d5 insanity point, as the dream suddenly comes as a hallucination in his waking moment taunting him. But if he does do as instructed he gains a 1d5 corruption point and leaves him alone until the next day in which the process cycles again from dreaming to instructions to the pc deciding if he would follow or not. This dream last until the ship leaves the immaterium.

Example:

Damien the navigator has secretly lusted after Janeleth the rogue trader's wife. The moment he sleeps in the first day of travel in the immaterium he dreams a very strange dream. In his dream he is in a very luxurious cabin filled with perfume and the place is filled with very expensive curtains hanging all over the place. The room is barely visible as their is very few light in it but Damien can still see with some effort. All of a sudden he hears a moaning sound and as the curtains part he see's Janeleth having sex with someone. At first he didn't see the partner as he is behind them but as they notice him they stop and he realizes that Janeleth's partner is him! His dreamself speaks to him that what he is dreaming could become a reality all he has to do is write a simple symbol below the stature of the icon of the emperor in the temple the next day.

If Damien refuses to do as he is told he will be attacked by hallucinations of his dreamself. Like for instance while eating in a mess hall someone suddenly sits next to him he realizes to late that its his dreamself and it taunts him for his weakness. When he reacts the crew in the mess hall will give him a puzzling look as he seems to be talking/arguing with no one in particular.

If he does do as instructed he feels powerful for the first time in his life but realizes that nothing seems to be happening. For one day it seems as if the dream was really nothing and he is angry for doing something stupid. But the next time the dream returns it informs him that there has been some difficulties and he has to do something else but not to worry because it would be as easy as last time.

*My advice: If you are interested in running this please keep in mind that the task the dreams are giving to this unlucky pc should never be dangerous, it should seem trivial (well maybe at first). The motive of the dream is not to destroy the ship but to corrode the soul of the character.

Gregorius21778 said:

Mmmm... I thought vital areas of the ship (at least) would have hexagrammatic (sic?) wards & such in place to deter stuff like this from happening. One harkens back to "classic hard scifi" where the ship's sections/areas could be jettisoned/made inaccessible (by blast doors & stuff) to at least stop the danger for a while ("We've got it contained in level 42 Sir!").

Thanks for the headsup. I thought RT ships were better suited for these "little inconveniences."

L

LETE said:

Hi Lete,

I think the ships still have those doors and they might be able to hold some of those things back. Which would make "sealing of a Deck" a valid tactic. In fact, it has to be this way, otherways the "black holds" would not exist. So, good idea, thank you!

But simply sealing deck portions of should have a negative effect on the ship as a whole. Any suggestion what could/should be the penalty to the ship?

@Newo
Personally, I would tamper the "interval" to "every WPB in days". If it comes back every night, it can ruin the PC very fast. But that is "my taste". Thanks a lot for this entry, Newo!

Sister Callidia said:

This post alone makes me want to buy and play Rogue Trader

Friend of the Dork said:

Thanks for the complement. It truly is a fun system when you have the right group. Go for it.