Well, the title says it all. The player hasn't really made any background for his character, but he is played as a hard-line, no-mercy, kill-em-all-and-let-the-Emperor-sort-em-out kinda guy. He's recently undergone surgery and is sporting lots of deadly augmetics, all in the goal of being a better killing instrument for the Emperor.

So how would the dark forces proceed to tempt him from the straight and narrow? What might turn him to the path of the Radical?

In the Inquisition novels, the Callidus assassin Meh'Lindi is disabled by an opponent who uses a special device which directly stimulates the pleasure centres of her brain. As a Callidus assassin she is trained to block out immense pain, but struggles to block out pleasure.

EDIT: Such a device would be dangerous to an assassin with a spartan outlook on life who's not used to experiencing pleasure. There's a risk he could become hopelessly addicted to the experience.

I seem to recall hearing about an apocryphal experiment where they wired up a mouse's brain so that when it pressed a button, its pleasure centres would be directly stimulated by an electrical current. The mouse just sat there pressing the button for days, without eating, until it starved to death.

Interesting. I was thinking about making some sort of bait along the lines of making him a more efficient killer, since that is the only interest he has shown, but perhaps focusing on his undeveloped sides is the way to go... suddenly he realizes there is more to life, and the service of the Emperor, than killing his enemies.

Hmmm.

The dark forces would probably approach him in the guise of fellow loyalists, gain his trust and then start to introduce new tools and methods for his use... I mean how could that strange looking blade be cursed when it comes from an obviously loyal cleric? How could it be wrong to taste your opponents blood when that ritual is introduced to you by a fellow loyalist assassin? Give them bits and pieces of extra power along with the cursed items and heretic rituals... once they get used to it they'll be asking for more bonuses... and once they've gotten used to having lots of extra power are they really willing to give it up and go from hero to zero just because "its the right thing to do"?

In my "Tempting 101 for Dummies", it is written that the best sin to use as a lever against some-one walking upright and selflessness is selfrightousness and pride.

I would not even use an artefact, but would present the "Killer of the Emporer" with a "target" that is utterly blasphemous. A traitor Cardinal (or similiar figure of the clergy) that needs to be put down. Needless to say, he is in alliance with darker forces know, and while the players do not have much of evidence were to find him, kults spawned by his teachings rise.

Offer the group (and the pious Killer in person) the chance to consultat an Imperial Diviner. At best, they just freed him from a cult who planned him to become a sacrifice. The deviner provides them with clues and as they follow them, they REALLY get close to him...but he escapes by daemonic means. If the group turn to the Diviner ones again, he will be able to give some clues for the not-imminent futur.

The pc will find out that the Cardinal is a focal point for such an Evil that local Mediums, Seers and Diviners do (in fact) have a chance to give clues about him if he is, was or will be in the same region. Of course, the chance is rather slim (10% by Psi-Power Rating) so asking many of them might be a good idea.
...and the most usefull ones are not Imperial Diviners...

Make sure that some of his "Personal Angels of Death" are fallen brother of the same kult/school as your Killer-in-the-Name-Of. They share a common code for writing things down. The might get hand on some written instructions, but daemonic signs are woven into this so they are forgotten upon reading but an urge arise to do this-and-that (so if captured, the killer can give away his instructions since he isn´t knowing them). Will your Assasine risk his sole to get to his target?

As you see..offer him foul ways to achieve a rightous end. An make sure that the rightous ways are there, but so much harder and at much more cost. So, he cannot blame YOU for his choices...

Lightbringer said:

Actually it was even more creepy. A woman's brain was implanted with a chip that would shut out pain from a tumor in her body. An unknown side-effect was that the chip also stimulated the pleasure center, giving her pleasure comparable to orgasm. She just sat pushing the button continuously, neglecting all other activity, to the point where she developed blisters on the finger with which she pushed the button. Spooky.

Idaan said:

Actually neither of those stories is what happened, even though they are close.

The animal experiment was done with rats. It did, however, produce some very dead rodents. You can read about it from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasure_center

About the human experiments then... The reason for the imp,ants was actually trying to cure mentally ill patients. A total of 26 patients were implanted during years 1950 to 1952 and some of them were given a "self-stimulation" button. However, human brains seemed to work a bit different from rats:

"We ask Heath if human beings are as compulsive about pleasure as the rats of Old's laboratory that self-stimulated until they passed out. "No," he tells us. "People don't self-stimulate constantly as long as they're feeling good. Only when they're depressed does the stimulation trigger a big response. There are so many factors that play into a human being's pleasure response: your experience, your memory system, sensory cues..." he muses."

You can read more about the human experiments from: http://www.paradise-engineering.com/brain/

Don't let him know he's being tempted or used by agents of Chaos.

Have him take his orders from a corrupted Inquisitor or Interrogator. Each mission he is ordered to complete becomes more and more vile subtly and over a long period of time. Give him small clues during each of his missions. Perhaps the inquisitor asks for proof of each kill. An ear from one victim. A heart from another. Maybe he's asked to retrieve an item off the body that seems to be a relic of chaos.

Over time, the marks the assassin is asked to kill stop making sense. He could start out killing criminal elements and corrupted officials initially. After a while his marks become people who are normal citizens of the imperium. Over time you can have him ordered to start killing people considered beyond reproach. Perhaps he is asked to bring back a live baby after killing it's mother in front of it.

The less he questions the more grizzly the missions he receives become.

After a while, leave hints that he's been killing innocents and good people. Perhaps he catches an article in the local press which talks about all of the good deeds the deceased victim performed. When staking out his targets, he might see them being good imperial citizens. Maybe they are praying to the emperor at temple, helping the needy, working vehemently against a chaos cult.

Over time, he should come to the conclusion that he's been an instrument of a major chaos cult.

When he becomes a liability, guess who becomes the target?

How does he atone for his sins? Can he get revenge against the cult that has been secretly using him?

I don't know about you, but that is a campaign I'd love to be a part of.

That does sound like a sweet setup, but it won't fit with the groups current leadership (which is pretty much on the straight-and-narrow). Also, I don't see how this will tempt the assassin as much as give him an excellent cause for clean-up and revenge.

Having said that, I love the idea, and will probably try to incorporate it into the campaign somehow.

Darth Smeg said:

Make him stumble upon a pile of dirty magazines.

Duty is always a good hook, as is zeal.

First present them with two targets, both equally as bad, but they only have time for one. They'll justify a "lesser of two evils." This then gives you a clue as to what heresies they think are worse than others. A point of leverage for you to use later.

Avoiding obviously Chaotic enemies will force them to look at things in shades of grey. A heretic shouting about mutant rights is a far cry from a Chaos cultist, but not in the eyes of a monodominant, so draw them into the shadows that way. Another is offering informants and contacts who are witches, mutants or aliens, this way they have to weigh up their personal purity versus the mission being successful.

There is also bad information. A hit goes well, too well. It turns out the Cardinal's nephew isn't the leader of a Chaos cult / mutant sympathizer / xenophile / apostate, but don't worry, an important and corrupted NPC (a more Radical inquisitor, perhaps) can protect them. This escalates from killing the witnesses and covering up, to "neutralizing" other Inquisitorial rivals. That might be fun for the whole group when they have an enemy that is a twisted reflection of themselves. And by the time that they have decimated a rival cell, possibly earning dubious favour with that cell's enemies, there is no turning back. They are outlaws and renegades. Simply presenting them with a loyal, if Radical, cell working toward the same goal for a different reason may be conflict enough, depending on how hard line they are.

When corrupting PCs, it's best to offer them a choice of poisons so that they know that the decisions they made lead them to damnation.

You could have his character meet with a group of death cult assassins. Have them both meet while killing the same target, and make the target a heretical group like a well guarded corrupt noble family or something so that both the PC and the death cultists get to make some kills and show how bad ass they are to eachother. Make them cool enough that he respects them. During the next mission downtime, they can contact him and be introduced into their circle. Death cultists revere the emperor and killing - 2 things the PC seems to do as well, so any weirdness in their rituals (religious scarification, ritual bloodletting) can be written off as local planetary superstition.

Now the turn of the screw comes, as the cult is unknowingly being manipulated into Khorne worship. They start to get messier on some missions done w/ the PC, but always still killing cultists and the like. Maybe one of the cult is really evil. Have them induct him into some blood ritual to truly join their badass team, maybe give some ability or upgraded gear to the PC if he joins. Eventually, its revealed the cultists they've been killing are other gods followers and now Khorne is ascendant in the region. He'll figure out who is the one manipulating him and kill him, but does he turn against all of his assassin buddies? Even ones who were clueless and just got caught up in ritual bloodlust? Does he stop using some awesome killing power/gear he obtained, knowing that it came from chaos? Perhaps its use is justified against greater evils?

Just a few ideas you might work with. I will say this though- make sure he's not too screwed over. Some players want to be a puritanical badass of the emperor w/out exploring any shades of grey within the setting. Though this may sound straightforward and dull to many GM's or players who want to walk the line between orthodoxy and heresy, you shouldn't ruin his fun. Just make the puritan way a hard choice sometimes.

If its just for temptation and not because you truly want to turn him into a heretic, then have him offered weapons that are superior to what he uses, but make sure he knows these weapons are evil and have nasty side effect. So he knows that if he use this weapon he wil become better in combat, but because its a chaos weapon it wil also leak out warp enegies while he use it (find out something for side effects)

Tempt him with easy infomations, could be simple stuff like if they are looking for X chaos/psyker on a planet, then have the local crimelord henchmen by and tell them they got infomation. But they gonna cost big time, either lots of throne or you do a hitman job for us.

Or have him learn of a ritual (because he see its being done over a video recorder) that if he sacrifies a virgin/chirld/inocent on this corruptet ommisias altar, then he can see anyone he wished on the planet or whatever you feel could be worthfull infomation for the team.But ofcause he just have to do this ritual himself and all the infomations he needs would be his (or purify the places like a good acolyte would have done)

My gm gave me a helmet that was off a legendary psyker general. Now the helmet let me get 2 extra dices to my psyker rolls, BUT now boths 8 and 9s count towards the peril of the warp chart. So i might be far more nasty but hell the side effect are not fun, and well over half the corruption points of my teammate is because of me. (helmet take awhile to take on since it req a tech use to connect, so cant just take on and off all the time) ohh the sweet temptation to use it all the time, but no no no i gotta keep the faith in myself and only use it when its really really needed. Right ??

Darth Smeg said:

That being said, the fact that he was an unwitting accomplice still makes him guilty. He did the killings without question after all. Atonement can take many forms and even stopping the cult doesn't wash the stain of his sins from his soul.

As far as the leadership being on the straight and narrow, it would depend on whether these were NPC's or PC's as to how this would change. If they are PC's , then I'd say you've got a hard time with the recommendation I made.

If he's working for NPC's you can change their background or perhaps have them called away to deal with something else. Guess what, his new boss is a corrupt interrogator or inquisitor with a VERY different agenda from his prior bosses.

Assets like acolytes are exchanged between inquisitors all the time based on need.

Darth Smeg said:

He's already on his way. Every act of violence, every act of hatred is another small sacrament to Khorne. The more he commits, the more he comes to the attention of the Lord of Blood.

The more hatred he pours into fighting the enemies of mankind, the more he becomes like then. My suggestion is that you set him on a path of confrontation with a Khornate cult, beginning with small attrocities here and there (a man murders his brother in a jealous rage, a skirmish between two forces leads to the massacre of one, even as it surrendered, etc etc) and build it up until he confronts a champion of Khorne (although probably not a Chaos Marine, because that's possibly beyond DH characters until Ascension.) Make the attrocities more and more personal to the assassin, so that he's filled with more and more hate.

And the more violent and angry and hateful he is, the closer he gets. Soon he'll hear whispers urging him on towards greater acts. Those whispers will grow louder and louder, giving him more and more of an idea that he's walking the line. But obviously, at least to him, as long as it's done in the Emperor's Name, he cannot do wrong.

The final battle between the Champion and him, should he not have turned away from it. (And given that it should be exceedingly personal, it should be very hard for him to turn) will be the culmination. Should he kill the Champion, he'll have become the Champion, as it were. Mechanically, you can represent his fall with corruption points. I'd personally keep them secret from the player, and roll the malignancy tests myself.

The whole thing should bring him to about 31 corruption points, if he kills the champion in anger/hatred.

At 10 corruption points, if he fails the malignancy test, I'd given him Hatred

At 20, I'd give him dark-hearted (-1d10 to Fellowship, stops caring about other people)

At 30, if he fails, give him bloodlust.

If he kills the Champion, give him an appropriate minor mutation. The more he delves into hatred and anger as the campaign goes on, the more 'gifts' he can be offered. Slowly turn him into a human replica of a Bloodthirster.

If the player is smart, he'll try to change his ways after the first mutation, but if he's picked up dark-hearted and/or bloodlust, he'll always be just on that side of radical, using what he can to destroy the enemies of the Imperium.