Hi guys, first time posting after lurking for ages.

Just wanna share some ideas and brainstorm with the community.

Post your half baked ideas and add onto previously posted ones

1.

Inquisitor (ie) Has charged his newfound Acolytes in the investigation of a missing ‘Black Ship’. While in transit with a cargo of some 2 dozen Psykers the ship was sent off course. Astropaths plotted its course,leading to Shrine World (ie) The players are to meet with a fellow Acolyte of their lord and search for the ship and find out why it was taken off course.

To their horror, they find the ship’s astropath a bloody mess, appearing to have blown up in his designated seat within the main deck. Investigating further, they find security footage showing a daemon within the warp using the psychic essence within the ship to possess a servo-skull

The culprit of this conjuring is believed to be a documented rogue psyker known as Arlun Dhalo. Mixing into the flock of pilgrims, devout worshipers of the God Emperor, Dhal and his untrained and corrupted band of Psykers could wreak unfathomable damage to the holy world and use the pilgrims as a sacrifice to manifest the servo-skull trapped daemon.

2.

A wealthy noble is found dead with his family in their spiretop mansion. Slain by an alien predator of relatively low intelligence the Arbites are puzzled by where they acquired it.

The trade of xenos as pets is forbidden but authorities -specifically those who work in hive ports- claim to be more diligent than they are.

Investigating the mansion the accolytes discover a few items of note- a pict of the deceased with an unknown man with a bionic arm standing above a slain xenos, written on the back it says “hunting trip on Jurna IX”, invitations to a masquerade ball.

The acolytes are tasked to go undercover at the ball where they uncover an underground xenos animal fighting ring and a lead to the the dealer.

3.

While transporting a captured heretic of high value though the warp, something goes awry and they are blasted into realspace, right into an ambush set by an Ork Krooza. Fighting a loosing battle against the ork ship,your vessel crash lands on an agri world with the kroozer hot on your heels. The players must work with what Imperial command is left and their few thousand soldiers to combat the orks and recapture the Heretic who escaped.

I started a similar thread a while back; rather than repeat my stuff from that one, I'll just post a link:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/123245-plot-hooks/

That thread has an unfortunate tendency to derail, though...

-And here's a sort-of related thread, about swiping plot ideas from obscure b-movies:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/78536-steal-this-plot/

Just a suggestion > remember to thread in a twist to your plots > even one if the players "win"

Tale after tale I come across in 40k the winners and the losers usually have some sort of twist get them in the end of said "tale"

It adds to the overall theme of Grim Dark

Doesn't mean abuse your players at the end of each adventure but rather should instill a sense of unknowing / nothing and I mean nothing is predictable even with the very best plans, rolls, and intentions...

Stay GAMING

Morbid

PS - I can provide examples from my campaign if desired

My preferred way of running DH is the way the writers wrote the show Lost, which was flying by the seat of their pants. I start with an interesting idea and see where the players take it, so my campaign ideas aren't fully fleshed out plotlines. They're more like opening vignettes to pulp mystery. And like Lost, each session I aim to answer one burning question and ask two more in the process (love or hate the show, they did an amazing job keeping people hooked doing this).

A couple I've been wanting to use:

- The PCs are tasked with stealing a corpse, given almost no information other than where it is being kept. Upon discovering it, they find that the body is covered in wards tattoos - it is a fully prepared daemonhost vessel. Why does the Inquisitor want this stolen? Are they keeping it out of someone else's hands? Or do they have darker aims. Why not simply destroy it?

- The PCs are shown a video recording of a successful daemon exorcism (a very rare occurrence!). The subject is a child, and survives. The Inquisitor performing the rite is on record as saying they're positive the daemon was destroyed during the ritual. But now, 20 years later, a daemon has been active nearby... a daemon with the same name as the one 'destroyed' back then. Was the original Inquisitor lying? Might the original victim have information?

These both have a lot of open threads the players can tug on and leave a lot of room to be reactive to the conclusions they come to about what's really going on.

The Haunted

Acolytes are sent to a world to decommission a recently decease Throne Agent (whatever you like them to be). The players must travel (insert random encounter) to said world whereby deceased "agent" possssed a manor home - within said home investigations start and end...

Analog: The Haunted (Call of Cthulhu - introduction Adventure Classic)

Stay GAMING

Morbid

i run this one and i think its a pretty solid and can be used as a filler in between.

A space station is harvesting energy from a pair of nearby red giant stars. their violent solar pulses provide huge amount of energy. everything was running smoothly until the void shields are starting to fail. radiation is leaking to the station. 3000 human souls onboard but only 300 awake each new interval,the rest sleeping in cryochambers. resource managing is important so far out in space but every interval is automated. maybe sabotage maybe a simple malfunction, but what is the purpose of this immense power station?

in my campaign a nearby dead planet had in fact an outpost of a grey knight safekeeping a warp gate. his outpost needed the power to keep him alive. imagine what would happen if the players failled!