Advice and opinions sought from fellow GMs out there.

My group have been playing DH for approximately 18 months, playing a day session once a month and in that time we have worked our way through the official published adventures:

Edge of Darkness

Illumination

Purge the Unclean trilogy

House of Dust and Ash

Their last mission was one of my own creation that sent them undercover as prisoners to the prison facility on Phyrr. This had the benefit of getting them out of way whilst the meta plot surrounding the Haarlock Legacy and Tyrant Star developed.

I have used Inquisitor Kaede from the main rulebook as their Inquisitor and over the campign they have built up a grudging respect for him, with at least two of the characters avoiding any temptation by the dark side and remaining steadfastly loyal to him. However I have planted the seed that Kaede was previously a student of the mysterious Silas Marr, whose loyalty and position remain a mystery. They were of course seconded to Marr for the HoDaA. They have not heard from Marr since they reported their encounter with Master Nonesuch and Marr hurriedly assembled his throne agent cadre realising what Nonesuch actually is and the threat he poses.

Now my players know that I love the Radical's Handbook and I think they were on their guard thinking that I would try to shoehorn them into the hands of a radical inquisitor so I could play with my shiny new book. Not wanting to be seen to rail road them I have course not done that

Now we are about to start the Haarlock trilogy, beginning with Tattered Fates. Returning from Phyrr with a partial sucess to their mission, but relevant failures, they cannot get hold of Kaede at all and are now concerned for his safety, especially as they fully expected a thorough dressing down from him due to their failures. They are now concerned that either the Tyrantine Cabal have done something to him or that their indiscretions at the HoDaA have caught up with their Inquisitor. This will lead me neatly into the media res start to Tattered Fates.

Now to make the scene more dramatic I am thinking of replacing Inquisitor Karkalla with Kaede. This will give more poignancy to the scene and also motivate my players even more to find his killer. It also seems to fit nicely into the more overarching themes of our campaign.

This would inevitably push them into the arms of Silas Marr, as he is the only other Inquisitor they know, but they already regard him as a Radical. However I want to avoid being accused of rail roading them into the service of a radical Inquisitor.

So has anyone else killed off their Acolytes' Inquisitor? Given the scenario presented would you kill Kaede off or leave it as Karkalla?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

I'm not too familiar with the different Inquisitor's within the books but You mention at the beginning of your post that Silas Marr has an unknown stand. If it would fit well into your campaign to have the acolytes be seconded to Silas you could do that even tho they suspect him of radicalism. If they do not truly know his loyalty you can surprise them by actually making him puritan, only let it be hard for them to find out. different clues that could point either way and then at some climatic and opportune moment you can reveal to them his puritan stand.

Perhaps he is letting the acolytes think he is radical because he is unsure of their loyalty and he is testing them. Tempting them with small bits of forbidden lore or material to see if they resist the lure of radicalism and only when they have proved their explicit loyalty will he reveal his own.

There will always be opportunities to turn radical later but once you step on that path its a oneway trip.

-L

I would personally avoid killing your inquisitor at all costs, especially one as 'well known' as Kaede, who I think is likely to turn up in more official sourcebooks as time goes on (because let's face it, he's **** cool). Besides, at the very least, your party is now inquisitor-less, and the effort you'd need to expend sorting them out with a new inquisitor could be better put to use fleshing out your current one, if you get where I'm headed.

Inquisitors aren't comicbook heroes. They don't get resurrected too easily.

I think killing their Inquisitor sounds like a great way to develop the story. It certainly sounds like it would motivate them and provide some great energy.

If you're concerned about railroading them into the only other Inquisitor they know, I'd suggest giving them access to another Inquisitor. Provide them with someone else to go to and give them a choice between the radical they (sort of) know and this new figure... perhaps don't even make them decide right away.

Personally, I like the idea of seperating them from their first Inquisitor for a bit. I agree with Hobo Hunter, don't kill Kaede positively, just leave it a mystery as to whether or not Kaede is actually dead. However, I think giving them a choice of one they think might be a radical and one that is mostly unknown is a good path to send them down in regards to who they work with next. Leave their potential radical future in their "misguided" hands. Hopefully, this few replies have been fairly helpful in your decision-making process.

Kerstrom

If you want to pull your players hearts, have them unable to completely destroy their Inquisitors body before Beast House reinforcements arrive. Then, perhaps several adventures later, have them spot their master's face amongst a crowd. Was he never dead? Could he have been mechanically resurrected? Or are there darker forces at play here?

From personal experience, the assassination of the PC's inquisitor in my game was quite possibly one of the best and most dramatic things to happen. For nearly a year of gaming, they had to survive by out running, out thinking, and out scheming those forces that killed off their inquisitor while trying to come up with a way to survive in the long run. Eventually, it boiled down to them siding with forces of a terribly heretical bent who could protect them or towing the party line and turning their dead master and the locations of any remnants of his network over to a more puritanical inquisitor as well as themselves for judgement and execution. Only one chose the latter and he's on is way to full Inquisitor status now...

Taking out their safety-blanket and putting them in the burned-agents-on-the-run situation can lead to a great amount of fun. And don't be intimidated by Kayde's status as a Cannon character -just because he's in the cannon is no excuse to do what you will witty him and if you ever find your self afraid of doing your own thing because something latter in the books might contradict your decision, why use a cannon character at all? When you use a character or the setting you make it your own and you can't be made to wait to see if the designers will or will not do anything with the piece you've taken, otherwise you might as well not use anything they provide at all. In other words, if you feel Agents on the Run is a good rousing story, kill Kayde and be damned with any rare cannon incongruence's that such may cause. In the end, such can usually be solved with a simple and painless name change ;-)

Some inquisitors are 'hands on' - others operate from the Shadows. In our campaign the characters started off being told they were accolytes to an inquisitor and then later when confronted by the trusted accolytes of this same inquisitor we found out that he didn't know about us at all! We also came accorss other accolytes who served their masters, but had never met them (they 'thought' theirs was Astrid Skaine - so we told them she was ours as well... They made great cannon fodder! hehehe)

My point is you don't need to remove an Inquisitor - if they are too busy to deal with their accolytes then they will send trusted accolytes to deal with them, who may also send their accolytes - Your Inquisitor may not be dead, he may be operating through a network of accolytes, some of whom may have conflicting interpretations of His will...

However - it would not be unknown for an Inquisitor to fake their own death in order to bring their prey into the open either...

The players don't need the inquisitor, they just need his contacts and personal codes. They can play at being their inquisitor for ever if they have access to all his stuff.

Consider also that one of the PCs might take on his role, or at least become an interrogator. Even if you don't use the Ascension book you can still roleplay that. That way you don't have to shoe horn any inquisitors in at all, they will have to take the responsibility on themselves.

Hellebore

Graver said:

This is exactly what I was thinking of doing once I start a campaign. Nothing quite as exciting an dramatic as being the 'Enemy of the State'. All you once new to be safe and true is suddenly out to get you.

Nice.

After a few sessions, going through the introduction adventure in the core rulebook with Tyburn Graves as their Inquisitor- long story short, they found out through various sources that in fact he was the one responsible for allot of heresy on a nearby hive planet to Scintilla.

So in a dramatic final face off they killed him and was taken under the wings of another Inquisitor, this has lead them to really distrust anyone of The Inquisition as heretics! It is really funny how they time and time again never let themselves trust the organization they work for out of fear that they might be employed by another Heretic!