Hi all i'm back again with some more random musings.

To put my various posts containing characters and locations into a bit on context I've decided to post up some information on the campaign im currently running that i've called Shards of Heresy. To aviod spoiling the plot for any of my players i'll only detail the campaign upto the point we are playing - which is the start of Chapter 3 - and will post later updates as we progress.

Anyway here you go.

The group started as - 1 Scum, 1 Sister of Battle, 1 Psyker, 1 Guard, 1 Techpriest, and 1 Arbite

Prequal - Investigations on Tranch

This was my introduction adventure for the group, investigating the disappearence of guard personel from the warzone on Tranch. The investigation was handed down by the groups inquisitor (who was only ever identified as a he, never any more detail), and they were pretty much left to go about there investigation as long as they remained covert. In the process of there investigation on Tranch they met 3 important characters for the on-going campaign, The Shark, Enabren Tain, and Laura Hansbarack. At this time the Shark is a handling officer for there inqusitor, Tain is on planet with Astred Skane and is her handling officer, and Laura is an interrigator level specialist serving inquisition as a whole. This investigation eventually concluded when the group discovered a web of treacory in one of the Hives where a governer was being influenced to build a private army to rebel. Once the rebelion was put down the group were given orders to report to the Tricorn as a matter of urgency, and that they must not use there true names. In the course of this investigation the sister of Battle and the the Psyker died and were replaced by a Moritat and Eldar.

In Transit

This originally started as a 1 session mini adventure hunting hull-gast, but ened up taking 3-5 session and costing a guardsman his life. In this chapter the group also met a Deathwatch team and the characters Eli Jones and Venus Cleasean, all of whom feature later on. THe group successfully captured Eli Jones and escorted him to the Tricorn. On arrival at the Tricorn the Moritat left the group.

The Tricorn and Gunmetal City

This is where I started drawing the main story out of the mass of inter-connected plot lines that I always have running. On arriving at the Tricorn the group found out there inquisitor has be denounced for employing un-sanction xeno (at which point the group's eldar started sweating, he was sanctioned) and to prove there devotion and loyalty they were being sent to capture or kill him. They were told he was hiding in Gunmetal City and told to get on with it.

After much investigation and several small skirmishes they eventually found a bar that was eing used by xeno in the lower levels of the hive, and the groups eldar and cleric decided to go undercover and see what they could find out. Unfortuantly the cleric doesn't do undercover very well and ended up starting a fight with several Orks and eventually getting eaten by a Squig. The rest of the group carried on and eventually tracked there former master to a evil-villan type lair in the crater of the volcano that Gunmetal City is built around. They managed to sucessfully get him to the Tricorn alive, Where the groups Arbitrator left and a Metalican Gunslinger and another Techpriest joined.

Iocanthos and Solomon

The Group was then sent to Iocanthos and played through the Illimination scenario, on the way back from the successful conclusion of this mission they were diverted to Solomon and played through the Hous of Dust and Ash mission. During House of Dust and Ash they met Venus Cleasean again, who was killed by bloodsworn as the group made there escape. The group was returned to the Tricorn

Shards of Heresy Starts

Tricorn to Landunder

On returning to the Tricorn Palace the team gained 2 new members, and arbite and another guradsman, they were then sent to join Tain on Landunder Secondus (a failed forge world in the same system as Landunder). On arrival they discovered that The Shark had turned traitor and was no acting against the inquisition.

The team were tasked to locate The Shark whilst Tain gathered more senior members of the inquisition to deliver the killing strike. Unfortunatly The Shark was more than prepaired and had gathered powerful allies including, 3 chaos space marines lead by Diablous Vexx, a group of mutants from Tranch lead by Corpus Tai, a priest of the Crow Father called Grover Shale, and 2 cells of tained Acoylites.

Hunting Vexx

After several close calls the villans fled the system and the group was given the choice of which one to follow, they chose the space marines and ended up chasing them accross the sector to Kommitzar, where a showdown occured, and was resolved in the acolytes favour.

Investigating Haddrack

The team was then dispatched to the world of Haddrack to investigate some ritualised killings. Finding eveidence of tained the team followed a trail that lead them to Port Wander, and then on to Footfall. At Footfall they encountered Grover Shale again, this time in the company of 2 daemon hosts. After several battles a force weapon finnished Shale off, but one of the Daemon Hosts escaped after killing the Gunslinger.

Bringing it up to date

The team have now been sent to Kinog to recouperate after the events on Footfall, and the Gunslinger has been replaced by a bounty hunter.

To be continued........

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I realise this is a very brief overview, and if anyone wants more detail i'll see what I can do (we started back in june). I'll try and keep this thread updated on a session by session basis from now one, which should prove more detailed.

Surak

Random thought: Why do your players keep switching out characters? Do they just die that fast, or can one or two of them not decide on a character?

Kylen said:

All of the changes in character have been due to either death or players leaving the group. Considering we have been playing 3 sessions a week more or less, and started the campaign back in May/june its not actually that high a turn over. Though i have to admit one of the players is now on his forth character (guardsman, cleric, gunslinger, now a bounty hunter) and is considered something of a jinx. other than that we lost a santctioned psyker to perils of the warp, the sister of battle and moritat to the player leaving the group, the arbite due to some fairly incapacitating injuries (falling off tall buildings in bad for your health), and an assassin to a daemon.

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An update from last night's session

After 4 weekes in the warp the frigate the team is travellingg on stuffered some minor Gellar Field problems resulting in several Daemons manifesting aboard ship. After a desperate fight, and with the help of the crew, the team managed to see off the warp entities.

after 2 more weekss in the immaterium they eventually made orbit around the Pleasure World of Kinog and immediatly established themselves at the Inquisitorial recouperation safehouse on planet.

Ah. At 3 sessions a week I can see that happening.

Kylen said:

Brings back fond memories of my youth ... when I actually had time to play 3 sessions a week!

Sister Cat said:

Yeh its quite a challenge fitting 3 session into a work week, but somehow we still manage 9-12 hrs a week of play - though i'll admit we rarely stay on-task for all of that, far too muh random banter for that. But then again as the whole point is to have fun I really don't mind.

As for the topic, if people find the plot interesting im willing to try and write it up as a proper campaign - the question is is there enough interest in what is a very convoluted plot line?

Surak said:

For my part, at least, please do. Since I'm about to begin running my own DH game, I can use any help I can get. I have to wonder if I'm even qualified to run a DH game. There are so many layers of intrigue and conspiracy ... it might be more than my limited intellect can envelope. But, I'm willing to try ... it's such a cool setting. And, with the help of my fellow gamers ... I can see a way to make it happen.

@Surak: That's what I was getting at. As long as everyone if having fun, then it's a good thing.

Sister Cat said:

Don't worry.

Since im an arrogant bastard who have yet to be accused of being modest I will shamelessly admit that my own intellect is far from limited, but regardless of that I also have problems with grasping all layers of intrigue and conspiracy that's needed for certain Dark Heresy campaigns. (as with everything in 40K, it's all so f*cking HUGE to get the general gist of it all)

Also im a notorious "planner" when it comes to pulling off a campaign, which means I try to make up notes and stats and information for pretty much any situation that might occur during the scenarios, which of course insures that my production rate of ready-to-play adventures is reeeeally slow.

Anyhow, what I've learned from my personal GM style is that effort does show and is generaly appriciated by the players, BUT you can't get tangled up in too many details and trivia. Especially not in a setting like Dark Heresy, because if you do, you'll never be able actually start running the game because whatever you have in plan for a campaign will just feel "unfinished".

A tip to overcome that is to establish a general idea of the Dramatis Personae in every scenario (you know, the same kind of "cast list" that they have included in the beginning of pretty much every book published by the black library), make sure you have names, ambitions and affiliations established of each important NPC (allies and superiors as well as rivals and arch-enemies) and most importantly: what they want from the PC's.

Making a little spider-web mindmap of these important NPC's and draw lines of different colours between each name to distinguish affiliations, allies and enemies is a good start and will let you get a good overview of the intrigue.

Once you have that down, you can begin to tie in the PC's on that mindmap and thus get a good feel for how each PC's is connected to each important NPC or faction (i.e something more than the generic "you all work for Inquisitor X and if you refuse to work and waver in loyalty you get executed immediately"-motivation)

When all that is done, you'll have a nice setup for conspiracy and intrigue and can be easily intigrated to most scenarios and plots with minimum effort.

Now that I am putting together a DH game I really appriciate you putting this log of info up even more so! If you have others like this in the future I cant wait to read them, cheers!

Glad your finding the campaign log useful.

And now for an update

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after less than a day on Kinog the team was summoned rather rapidly (a thunderhawk landing in the main city square) to help deal with a developing situation on the edge of the system. After a rapid journy out of system the team found that they were to board a recently crippled imperial cruiser, which was slowly falling apart due to extensive damage from mines. After further investigation it was determined that someone had specifically targetted the ship and stolen a single exterminatus warhead that had been covertly stored aboard the vessel.

After this the team was re-routed to Vaxanide so as to actually get some leave time. However days after arriving they were summoned to orbit by another hight priority message, connected to the Kinog incident. After some investigation they found out that an old enemy (a mutant called Corpus Tai) is now working for the Logicians as a middle-man, and that both of them are connected to the missing warhead. The team have now been assigned to investigate Vaxanide for sgns og Logician activity and clues to the location of Corpus Tai.

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More to come thursday hopefully

And now for the concluding update following a 7 hour session yesterday (got to love Sundays)

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After a long investigation into the runnings of Vaxanide the Acolytes discovered Corpus Tai's safe house in the undercity of the capital. after a furious gun-battle Tai made his escape, sacrificing some of his logician 'allies' to ensure his escape. The Acolytes immediatly gave chase, and tracked Tai to a tramp frieghter heading to Gelmiro. Whilst on-route to Gelmiro the team recieved an important message from the Tricorn, informing them that the Gelmiro sstem could be a trap as Enabran Tain and his cell had been all but wiped out in the edges of the system very recently, at the hands of the Arch-heretic Malcus Voke. One in system the team decided on an agressive stratagy, trying to force Voke or Tai to show there hand.

In the End the team tracked the heretics to an abandoned Hive-statlite on Gelmiro Primus, and after being confronted by Lucius Sin, The Shale Champion, Corpus Tai, and Malcus Voke the team emerged battered but un-broken.

With the destruction of Sin, and the capture of Tai and Voke all of the major players from the so-called Arch-villans tea party on Landunder have now been accounted for. Leaving the team t o report to the Tricorn for new orders

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Coming Soon

a new Campaign log - Trust Issues