Hello all

Im a new gm to the genre and altho i have a thew good scenario ideas to throw at my players im struggling to generate reasons for investigations from the inquisition through the acolytes any suggestions or examples of anything other than psychic phenomena

cheers

Large scale drugs rings, or other illegal substances/items. Possibly warp or xenos related.

A series of strange murders, probably people totally unrelated to one another, found brutalised.

Honestly, anything works.

Well it depends on the Ordo of their Boss but these work well.

-Strange tech (IE warp, daemonic, xenos) where is it coming from

-Mutations where are they coming from?

-Cult who is behind it?

-Deaths of Adept/Arbites/Local government/etc

Aye, most anything could be investigated for one reason or anouther. For Acolytes, especially at the beginning of their career, it very well will be things that turn up that the Inquisitor in charge either:

1: Doesn't think will amount to much but it's always better to check out matters then leave them be so he puts the acolytes to looking into this potential dead-end or situation that will, more then likely, pan out to be nothing while he/she attends to more immediate threats.

2: Is working anouther angle in the case or is tied up elsewhere and really needs that matter taken care of right then and there.

3: Doesn't even know about the matter, but one of his longer lived acolytes or even Interrogator has taken the initiative to have the matter looked into to prove they can take on and handle such matters and, possibly, handle the responsibility of the Inquisitorial Seal (or maybe they just can't get in touch with him or her).

Some ideas for each of those three:

1: A small town on an agri-world claims to be bewitched. An Arbiter investigator and hunt team is already there, but appeals have been made or information has gotten out that said arbiter is only making the situation worse as he's using it as a platform to purify the town of all their criminals... and almost everyone is a criminal in one shade or anouther. As the precinct is doing little about this arbiter on a megalomania trip, the acolytes are sent in to find out if there even is a witch problem and, if so, solve it, and gather any evidence of illegal, over the line, or corrupt actions taken by the investigating arbiter but to not act on any evidence found unless it jeopardizes their primary mission. No reason is given for why they shouldn't act upon any evidence they turn up while looking into the arbiter.

2: a terrible heresy, a vicious cult, a body count in the billions, and the situation is just barely contained by the acolyte's Inquisitor and the forces he's gathered, but it finally is contained. However, while the real fight is being waged and heretics mopped up, the acolytes are sent into an Administratum Countinghouse charged with infiltrating it and finding out who misfiled form 22865b-0006565-c. If that form had been filed properly, this whole mess would have been stopped before it could have made it as far as it had. They need to find the incompetent scribe and insure such a mistake is never made again. Let's not forget, an oft forgotten mission of the Inquisition is inglorious task of dealing with and correcting incompetence within the Adaptus Terra (they seem to not be doing such a good ob at that either...)

3: Millton is the sole survivor of a op gone terribly wrong. The cult his cell was looking into found out about it and wiped them all out, even their handler, but he managed to survive. Since he doesn't know who or in what way to get a hold of the inquisitor (the handler knew that), doesn't have any credentials proving who he is, and is a hunted man, he went to ground leaving several cyphers about for the inquisitor or his men to find pointing to where he's hiding and roughly stating the state of the situation. The acolytes stumble across these cyphers while on anouther investigation, after they wrapped one up, or while they are stationed in a holding pattern to await further orders. Perhaps they find the cyphers 50 years too late and the cultist the old cell was hunting is the planetary governor now... either way, when they find the cyphers, they won't have access to their Inquisitor and will have to decide on their own what they will do.

Of course, not every op an acolyte gets sent on or finds themselves mixed up in will be an investigation. I've written down a few archetypicle op's that I used as a springboard for coming up with missions for my group. Here they are just in case such things would be of help to you:

Escort Service
There is something or someone that another something or someone would like to see destroyed. However, the Powers That Be can not allow that to happen or, at the very least, need the MacGuffin to remain in presentable condition until its use is complete. That's where the character's cell comes in. They must, above all, protect the MacGuffin from attacks and attempts to steel or destroy it by dangerous heretics, rival inquisitors, or Emperor knows what else until a certain time arrives, an enemy is defeated, or a destination is reached.
Common Escort Situations:
An agent who Knew The Secret died recently and now the enemy wants to hijack his brain to pull The Secret from it before the Cell can get it to safety. A high ranking planetary official has been targeted for assassination by a heretic cult bent of destabilizing the region and the Cell must insure his safety until the heretics can be dealt with. A hellish Null Box imprisoning a Daemon is being transported back to the Tricorn Palace on Scintilla and the cell has to make sure it makes it there. A heretic with sensitive information has converted and repented but the cult he left does not want the information he knows falling into the Inquisitors hands - they will stop at nothing to destroy him before he can be transported back to Home Base for proper information retraval...

Cleanup Crew
The characters' cell is activated to clean up after another cell's messy op or to work damage control after things go terribly wrong. This can be most anything from dead body disposal to exorcising daemons brought through the veil by a psyker self-destructing. What ever the mess is, it's there and the cell is the only one on hand to clan it up. And what's more, it has to be done before it can get any worse.
Common Messes:
A house full of dead bodies that must be replaced before the mark returns home. Twenty some-odd citizens have to be permanently censored after a psyker's warp-craft caused deamonic whispers to be heard by these unfortunate souls. Destroying the daemon possessed that begain poping up after one cell failed to properly censor all the civilians who were present when daemonic whispers were heard. Overseeing the clean-up efforts of contamination that was released during the firefight with that one cult. Spreading rumors and misinformation about why a preacher or holy monument was killed or destroyed in order to keep civil unrest from erupting...

Purge
It couldn't get any simpler, a target has been identified and the cell is activated to remove it. Why does the target need eliminating? Who knows. Why the are the characters the ones to do it? Beats me. The bottom line: someone has done a lot of foot work and identified a target that must be put down and the characters' cell is activated to do just that. Unfortunately, they won't have much time to do this. Usually, by the time a target has been identified, they have started figuring out that they are in trouble and may run for cover. This will not only overly complicate matters but could very well ruin months or even years of careful investigative work.
Common Purges:
Putting down a rouge acolyte, burning a known witch, silencing a citizen who Knows The Secret, eliminating a Cult Magus, purging all the friends and family of said Cult Magus, eradicating a nest of mutants, going down a hit list of known cultists and removing them and their families from the picture, assassinating a corrupted member of the Adaptus Terra, taking a Planetary Governor from power...

Eyes and Ears
Sign up with the Inquisition and see the universe! But what does an acolyte usually end up doing? They usually end up sitting in some shadowed room somewhere watching some slob shave, shower, piss, eat, work, and sleep all in the hopes that some obscure tip-off about the guy was right and that he would lead to more information. Detective work is the backbone of any Inquisitorial operation, the mind numbing backbone, but the backbone none the less. This time around, the character's cell is activated to do just that. They don't need to execute any orders, they don't need to stop any heresy, they just need to Find Things Out.
Common Types of Investigations:
Infiltrate a heretical cult, gain their trust, and learn how they are structured and who is at the top of the chain. Observe a target without being detected in the hopes of learning if he indeed does have connections to the Heretical Cult and, if so, who his contact is. Steak-out a certain block of the city which has had a few disturbing reports as of late watching for anything suspicious. Learning everything and anything they can about a certain target without being found out by said target by any means necessary...

Witch Hunt
There is an imminent danger, a hideous ugly evil praying on the innocent and defenseless and the character's Cell is activated to seek it out and put a stop to it. They may only have some strange phenomena to go on, missing people reports, or possibly an angry mob who is convinced the old woman at the edge of town is a witch. What ever is going on, the cell must get to the bottom of it, uncover the real culprit, and end it quickly before it goes much further.
Common Hunts:
Hunting for the witch responsible for afflicting several innocent girls with demoniac attacks in a remote village. Tracking down and purifying a dangerous mutant which has been rearing it's head up in mid hive hab stacks to abscond with citizens in the night. Turning up the real culprit in the murder of a high ranking Adept. Seek out the mad heretek which has been experimenting on human bodies and leaving them littering a mid-hive tenement block. Discover who is the real shape shifting xenos infiltrator in a remote ice mining colony...

Book Burning
Information is dangerous and must be carefully controlled -this is a well understood fact in the dark future. However, sometimes even the best of controls still aren't enough. In those situations, the information must be utterly and completely expunged. This is where the character's cell comes in. They are activated to completely eradicate a certain bit of information from a particular place, to make sure all traces of it are eliminated and they have to work quickly least the information find a leak, another medium to fall into, replicate within, and escape certain destruction.
Common Burnings:
The literal book burning with flamers in hand diving down into the depths of a record vault to remove all traces of certain dangerous tomes. Breaking onto an Administratum records hall to destroy a file on an inquisitorial agent. Eliminating the only five people left who Know the Secret. Spreading false rumors in a hive about an incident that never happened to bury, belittle, undermine, and otherwise discredit true information about a real incident until the lie seems like the truth and the truth seems preposterous.

Frame Job
Something just happened and someone has to take the blame. It may have been an op that the character's cell had just run that now needs a fall guy or perhaps someone is targeting the cell members and is setting them up as patsies in their own scheme. What ever the case, someone is going to end up taking the heat for something they had no part in.
Common Frame Jobs:
The Cell must plant a murder weapon or other form of incriminating or discrediting evidence on a high ranking political figure in an attempt to damage his standing and make him easier to attack. The cell has been targeted by a rival inquisitor who wants nothing more then a full scale Excomunicatus declared on the cell's inquisitor and, to this end sets the cell up for a radical fall. The cell is activated to work one side in a conflict against the other thus eliminating two potential threats without getting their inquisitors metaphoric hands dirty. The cells inquisitor used them as a patsy for one of his other cells' operation, having them dodge authorities, cults, and heretics while the other cell slips in and gets their job done undistracted.

Bag Job
The Powers That Be need something badly and the characters' cell is activated to get it. Whether it's as simple as black bagging a citizen on the streets or as complex as extracting a deep cover mole from within a corrupted governmental structure, the cell must devise a way of retrieving the desired MacGuffin and deliver it unharmed within a tight time frame or risk Losing It All.
Common Types of Bag Jobs:
kidnapping witnesses to Bad Things for appropriate censorship, extracting deep cover moles or informants, grabbing citizens or heretics who Know The Secret for proper interrogation, grabbing a Heretic's friends and Family for interrogation and possible control of the heretic, stealing guarded items that are Too Dangerous for Mankind from those who don't want to give them up...

Canary Squad
Something Strange has occurred or perhaps something has sunk out of sight and the Powers that Be need a means to find out more about it. Enter the PC's. Their cell is activated to metaphorically test the air, poke the bush, and see what leaps out. They are the guinea pigs, the bate in a trap, and whether they survive or not, the Powers That Be will be better informed for it and better able to act.
Common Bad Situations:
An entire settlement has gone missing over night and the characters are sent in to, 'find out what's going on'. An odd organic growth has been seen covering a lower level hab stack and the cell is sent in to collect samples and find out if it's fire proof. Mutations have increased in an area where the water has started glowing and the air sounds sharp and the cell is sent in to find out what they can as well as to serve as test subjects to see how contagious the area is. Ghostly apparitions have been witnessed wandering the streets of a small agri-town at night and the Cell is sent in to see what comes out to attack them. A beast has gone to ground and only an active psyker can flush it out, so the Cell is sent in to lure it into the open...

Laundry Duty
The Cell is activated to, of all things, perform a very mundane task. While the task is quite mundane, it's completion could be crucial to the continued operations of multiple cells or the Inquisitor him/her self. A simple task of simply delivering a load of laundry to a certain launderer at a certain time may enable another cell to successfully infiltrate their target while failure may equate to the other cells complete massacre. They may face opposition in the form of every day ordinary stressors and have to deal with them in a normal manner. They will have to stand in line, deal with the nobles yippy furry xenose pet, and still manage to secure that old abandoned house for another cells use without anyone becoming suspicious.
Common Duties:
Clandestinely purchase an house or building to be used as a safe house in future operations. Paint an encrypted message on a certain wall at a certain time to insure another cell is warned of impending danger previously not known of...

thank you very much

this has put me on the right track

MILLANDSON said:

With the emphasis on "strange" of course.

I mean, people get brutally murdered every day and by the truckload on certain worlds (Hive Volg on Fenksworld comes to mind). To warrant the attention of the Inquisition the victim or victims would have to be important people somehow (perhaps Inquisitorial agents or contacts themselves?), or the circumstances surrounding to the murders has to show something above the average violence (like the authorities finding chaos runes painted in blood all across the crime scene or that the bodies show strange and unusual bite/claw marks or something like that).

If it's just a bunch of poor sods who have been painted across the walls with a meathammer shotgun, the Inquisition wouldn't be very likely to care. Heck it probably wouldn't even warrant the attention of the local enforcers on most worlds (once again, Hive Volg on Fenksworld comes to mind).

Ain't Imperial society grand?

Varnias Tybalt said:

THIS. Remember that the Inquisition is unlikely to care about something unless it's of an unusual nature. There has to be something about the act which warrants suspicion and thus turns the inquisition's ears.

Unless you want to throw an ultimate red herring at the players, where you have the acolytes investigate said brutal murder themselves when they stumble upon it (doesn't need to be suss enough for the inquisitor to know if he never gets to see this), and after weeks and weeks of gruelling investigation, it turns it it really was just a crazy guy with a gun

Nice list of job, Graver. It will certainly be properly yoinked!