To my fellow GMs...I'd like your opinion.

I have a Dark Heresy campaign that is progressing well. It started with a couple of loosely connected adventures (mainly as my group had never played DH before and we weren't sure how it'd go); but it's turning into a more cogent campaign, we're having fun, loving the characters as they develop, and I want it to kick on.

Currently, the acolytes are aboard a Dauntless -class light cruiser they assisted in recovering from a space hulk after it was lost in the warp around 50 years previously. Their Interrogator saddled them with acting as "honour guard" for its return to a civilised planet for refitting in the service of the Holy Ordos. The fun is in the fact that the ship is virtually a wreck. It leaks atmosphere, is riddled with warp-tainted remnants of the previous crew, has no void shields or weapon systems and has a Gellar field that's "a bit rickety" (as their Tech-Priest put it). The Admech contingent who are actually running the ship have nothing but disdain for them; and as the ship used to belong to a very dodgy Rogue Trader, it's full of heretical and xenos artefacts (none of which the players understand and have had the good sense not to mess with).

The ship is a great setting - they've developed a bit of a love-hate relationship with it. I want to keep it around, but when they arrive at their end point, they'll have to hand it over.

I had an idea to keep it - and this is where I need the opinion of my learned friends...

They are a fairly puritanical group. I'd thought maybe I could do a big reveal of their inquisitor as a radical who's stepped way over the mark. Over a series of adventures, they would learn this and have their loyalties tested. Finally, they would either join her as radicals (unlikely - they're pretty big on the "burn em all and let the Emperor sort em out" approach), or turn on her and reveal her to another Inquisitor, preventing her plot from all falling into place.

This would leave the holy ordos in an embarrassing position - they can't really acknowledge that one of their own has fallen and they can't just execute the acolytes (who have significant influence by this stage). They decide to get them out of the picture by procuring them a ship and a Warrant of Trade.

How magnanimous! But what shall our ship be...no...you can't mean...

The next stage of the campaign will be the characters saddled with no money, a ship that could be amazing, but barely works and has virtually no crew (in Rogue Trader terms - a broken ship and virtually no Profit Factor). They have to use all their wit and guile to just get the **** thing moving.

Thoughts?

I say, this sounds quite interesting... I love building love-hate relationships in my games, and this sounds like a great one.

Not sure how well transitioning from DH2 to RT would work. I assume you would just continue to use the DH2 rules combined with RT fluff and ship stuff...? If your primary goal is to keep the ship, it might be simpler to just have an Inquisitor claim the ship as their own (to serve as a mobile base) and appoint the Acolytes as 'command crew'.

Transitioning to the RT rules would be a big step backward, but it sounds like you have a good thing going with this ship being in the picture. If your players want to full on become rogue traders and stop working for the Inquisition, you can finagle by having the players find the trader's warrant that with some ancient legalese in it that puts them on equal level with their Inquisitor and frees them from servitude. If they're fine still taking orders, have rogue tradering be their new orders. Either way sounds like a great setup.

How about this?

I don’t like sudden betrayals (especially if there aren’t previous hints). Instead, the players work for a puritan inquisitor (as they are puritans themselves) who has been taken down by a cabal of radical inquisitors while they were messing about with their dauntless cruiser “Senseless Sunday” [or insert the name of your choosing]. The cabal is now after the acolyte teams of the puritan inquisitor and has already killed off a few. The players arrive at their home destination and think they are in for a bit of R&R while the ship is refurbished.

Instead, a contact of their master warns them just in time and tells them their master has been declared a traitor (maybe he burned the wrong person or just too many citizens and he had to ‘splain himself before a tribunal of his peers) and that they need to disappear immediately or be killed themselves.

They are officially fugitives from imperial justice….and all they have are the clothes on their backs and a rickety ship. Thus begins the odyssey of the “Senseless Sunday”.

Your campaign can then go (at least) 3 different ways:

1) they can become traders/free captains without papers, severing all ties to the imperium. (full sandbox)

2) they can try to avenge their fallen master, 47 ronin style with their own ship, taking out radical inquisitors while dodging hit squads. (tightly focused campaign)

3) they can try to locate secret assets of their former master, each asset providing assistance and a stepping stone towards something that might allow them to either take the cabal down or redeem their former master posthumously. Or perhaps their master has fled, leaving pieces of a star chart which must be put together to find the location of his hidden fortress. (mix of sandbox and tightly focused campaign).

How about this?

I don’t like sudden betrayals (especially if there aren’t previous hints). Instead, the players work for a puritan inquisitor (as they are puritans themselves) who has been taken down by a cabal of radical inquisitors while they were messing about with their dauntless cruiser “Senseless Sunday” [or insert the name of your choosing]. The cabal is now after the acolyte teams of the puritan inquisitor and has already killed off a few. The players arrive at their home destination and think they are in for a bit of R&R while the ship is refurbished.

Instead, a contact of their master warns them just in time and tells them their master has been declared a traitor (maybe he burned the wrong person or just too many citizens and he had to ‘splain himself before a tribunal of his peers) and that they need to disappear immediately or be killed themselves.

They are officially fugitives from imperial justice….and all they have are the clothes on their backs and a rickety ship. Thus begins the odyssey of the “Senseless Sunday”.

Your campaign can then go (at least) 3 different ways:

1) they can become traders/free captains without papers, severing all ties to the imperium. (full sandbox)

2) they can try to avenge their fallen master, 47 ronin style with their own ship, taking out radical inquisitors while dodging hit squads. (tightly focused campaign)

3) they can try to locate secret assets of their former master, each asset providing assistance and a stepping stone towards something that might allow them to either take the cabal down or redeem their former master posthumously. Or perhaps their master has fled, leaving pieces of a star chart which must be put together to find the location of his hidden fortress. (mix of sandbox and tightly focused campaign).

I do love those ideas - but the problem is in their ability to run the ship.

The Admech cadre doing the actual nuts and bolts stuff doesn't like them, and is only crewing the ship thanks to a deal with the Inquisitor. Once they hit port, they're off - and that's been revealed to the player group.

That said - I do like a little sub-plot about their former master having left a trail (potentially to some kind of McGuffin). I reckon that's getting incorporated into the greater narrative. My thanks, Ranoncles

You’re welcome. As to losing Tech support…..if they dock at a space port, there will be an abundance of spacers there with skillz, many of them probably looking for a kinder master….they will be technomats who have picked up the know how to operate a space ship without knowing how or why so major repairs etc is out and eventually you’ll need trained tech support but for the present, your team should be ok.

The fluff indicates that there are hereteks who provide technical services, including space ship service (after all, pirates have ships too) for the right price. And that’s not mentioning the shipyards in the Koronus expanse or in the Howling Vortex.

So it should be possible to hire a skeleton crew of a few thousand men at the port and escape into space. Doing this quickly and without notice by the authorities would be the challenge.

After that, it becomes an issue of keeping the ship operational which will require a deal with hereteks and a shipyard which will supply them with fuel, spare parts and supplies.

Maybe the puritan players will have to turn pirate themselves in order to maintain their ship and keep their crew happy….

I don’t know if you have the Rogue Trader books but they provide info on the shadier part of running a ship.

I do love those ideas - but the problem is in their ability to run the ship.

The Admech cadre doing the actual nuts and bolts stuff doesn't like them, and is only crewing the ship thanks to a deal with the Inquisitor. Once they hit port, they're off - and that's been revealed to the player group.

That said - I do like a little sub-plot about their former master having left a trail (potentially to some kind of McGuffin). I reckon that's getting incorporated into the greater narrative. My thanks, Ranoncles

If you're the game master, then there is no problem.

You must simply create scenarios and situations in which the players will be able to take control. That's it.

I personnaly like very much the third option, which would be a campaign I would likely love to play!