i could use a little advice on how to reign in a psychotically devout arbiter. i mean he shot a guy in the kneecaps point blank with a shotgun for handing out religious fliers. and no matte what i throw his way his conviction never wavers even for a second. am i wrong in trying to test his faith or is it just a lost cause

If it's the Major faith of the planet's servant he shot, then get him arrested by ecclesiarchal specialist arbites.

By shooting a "Loyal" follower of Him On Terra the player pretty much commited a sin so deal with him as harsh as you see fit.

Personally, if that happened in my game i'd get him captured by a Black Bag squad, hauled before his bosses, disavowed by the Inquisitor he works for and then simply executed for Heresy.

But i can be a bit harsh like that, i mean i'll dish out back to the players what they dish out to the NPC's & Game World, which i guess means i'm just a big meanie at heart lol

i personally think that would be hilarious to have happen in a campaign. sadly he did not kill a follower of the god emperor he actually killed a follower of a cult that had as of yet to be revealed as a cult. so he was technically in the right but still he is almost tyranical in his faith in the god emperor. he makes templars seem like fairweather followers

So, he is an "ultra-conservative right-wing". So what?

It is not like the 41st is a fine, friendly, understanding and tolerant age to begin with.


But I think it is not his "believes" or his utter and ultra violent "defense" of said believes that gives you a pause. Put me right if I am wrong, but the main problem is his total unsubtleness that kinda ruins your plots, isn´t it?

My suggested "cure" for this: The Inquisitor (or an Interrogator or similiar figure of authority the Arbiter will accept) will take him aside for talking. The figure of authority will explain to him while his righteousness is looked upon with favor, it is not put into the way it serves the Emporer and the Imperium best. That such levels of harshness while being totally right in the first place will only make the main body of the filthy vermin crawl into hiding. First, the nest must be found. Then, it is time to poor out the gasoline and light it all up.

If the problem is, on the other hand, that he oversteps his bounderies and acts in a way that would even make an Arbiter suffer DIRE consequences... tell him as he announces his actions and tell him that he knows that he will be punished for this and that this is beyound his right. Arbiters will know what they can do and what they should not, after all.

Thereby, the Arb player has the chance to re-think his behaviour..with totally losing his moments of (self-)rightous brutality he thems to love so much.

my two cents

Well, this is 40K. You have to admit nothing screams Heresy like a guy handing religious flyers

So the problem seems to be that he is about as subtle as a bull elephant in a china shop? Hand out proper consequences. Causing violent scenes and screaming fanatical slogans of Imperial Creed in the middle of a ( supposedly ) undercover operation will get attention. The Cult/crime/whatever leaders will take necessary actions when they hear that some stranger is disturbing the neighborhood. The investigation is not going anywhere when every shady character in the town nows that the party are troublemakers.

Their Inquisitor will just love the party, when he hears that several months of preparations and investigations just went down the toilet ...

Kyorou said:

I'd be pretty suss too!

Unless the planet is a newly found backwater feral world which is in the process of integration and indoctrination with the Imperium, everyone else should have had it thrashed into them from an early age to go to church and stop wasting resources on paper. I mean really, who is this arsehole standing on street corners handing out paper to a bunch of already religious hicks that probably can't read anyway?

That's the churches job!

Give him a medal, slap on the bum and good job son.

MKX said:

SPOILER!

...and the Cult in itself is so unobstrusive and acceptable that he is permitted and legitimated even after their head figure is convicted of crimes against the Imperium! Thereby, not everyone handing out pamplets should be shot/burned/beaten up by default. I do not think that their is a must / must not, only a "may/may not".

I deliberately didnt run Rejoice! For you are True for that very reason. They where overtly sketchy enough just from the description that I think my PC's would have set upon a campaign of systematic abduction, torture and murder probably figuring they where Slaaneshi-cultists... they would have been wrong, but the end result would have been fairly much a sickening bloodbath one way or another. They're sort of the more traditional "Spanish Inquisition" in terms of methodology and political correctness than "Scoobie Do & Gang" detective work of saving the local peasents from evil property developers and their Mystery Wagon is an 8 tonne, 6wd truck full of of pain and things they've stolen.

Just like the Spanish inquisition, they're frequently wrong from both a tactical and moral standpoint, will be remembered for generations as being horrible human beings by anyone whos ever met them and have a wide array of utterly terrible enemies who want to do terrible things to them. But in essence, that is the plus of being the Inquisition, for someone in the Imperium you're actually quite upwardly mobile creatures in a society that has no idea of the concept most of the time and if you have to kill a fair few people to get there, they're well aware of the mundane existance of being a prole if they don't.

So no, I dont think my acolytes would have blown the man away on the street. They would have made friends with him, asked to meet his friends and in the quiet sanctity of wherever they meet up, probably set about securing them and dancing around with a can of promethium, lopping off the occassional ear and other sundry body parts until they find out what they want to hear.... which may or may not be what they need to know. But you get that.

What is the Inquisitor of this particular Acolyte like? I mean, my PC's Inquisitor is an underworld mob boss and former pirate, so he wouldn't so much care about some useless street preacher getting popped as he would care about the Acolyte so casually blowing their cover for no particularly good reason. He'd consider the Acolyte to be a tactless idiot with no sense of priority, but dangerous religious nuts do have their uses if pointed in the right direction. If the nut couldn't be directed when useful, the Acolyte would just vanish one day. Any smart Inquisitor has a special cell dedicated to removing problems from their Acolytes if needed, and low level Acolytes are easily replaced.

So far I've only had to do this once in our campaign. Again, it was an Arbitrator who went a little crazy when the party discovered that their Inquisitor was a nefarious criminal. The foolish Acolyte began documenting the heretical activities of his Inquisitor. A few days later the other PCs found their former companion hanging like a bled pig with a sign saying "to protect and serve" nailed to his chest. Working outside the law can be a double edged sword.

Personally I'd view this as an opening for a teaching moment, a plot hook, or amuse yourself and the other players. What I'd do is let it side. If anyone asks say "Well this is 40k, and he is an Arbite". Now work into the next adventure a NPC sure to set off the PC/player. Only this time:

- He kneecapped a noble, or under cover arbite/intergator/etc... This gets investigated by authorities, and the PCs have to dodge them the rest of the adventure. When the adventure end their boss has a few choice words for the PC. As he has had to step in to prevent the PCs from being arrested, end death cult contracts by nobles, or/and the like. He makes it clear that the PCs need to reserve such acts for when they are called for. They aren't employed to deal with minor acts of heresy. They are here to prevent the death and corruption of millions. My inquisitor of course would end this by spacing the PC in question until a PC accepted responsibility by the spaced PC. (Good news you can punish or execute him, bad news your boss will punish or execute for his screw ups)

-He kneecaps a gang member or brother of a gang member. Through out the adventure he is constantly being attacked. First is gangers with autoguns then it's long lasgun from a building across the street....

excellent, I am definitely getting some good ideas from all of this. A special nod to Dalnor because I think that would be a great nights gaming trying to dodge a bunch of thugs that the arbite pi$$ed off

Again, depends on the structure of the PCs, their Inquisitor, etc. If attacked by a gang, some Inquisitorial groups could be likely to just nuke the city in question for harboring heretics acting against the Emperor's representatives. Or perhaps a less drastic measure, like killing their families, friends, and neighbours for risk of them being heretics. If I was a gangster in this situation, I'd be a little unnerved about pissing off a group with nearly unlimited resources and carte blanche in acting in any capacity they see fit. Unless the gangsters aren't aware of the position of the Acolytes vOv

I'll put it in reverse: what if your PCs were a group of criminals in a city, and decided to attack an Inquisitors agents as an act of petty revenge. How would you respond to this as a GM? If these are starting Acolytes, and the Inquisitor still views them as expendable, the gangsters might get away with it. More likely, the Inquisitor would not care, but still flay them and many others alive for pissing in his cereal. Act against an Inquisitor and get away with it, and you ruin his reputation, and thus the reputation of the Emperor's invincibility. If the Acolytes are valued, they've pretty much acted like a paperboy kicking a mob boss' dog. A fanatic mob boss with a death star and Space Marines on call.

Bobby Fett said:

And then your Inquisitor gets to ***** at them not only for blowing their cover but for destorying a major economic hub that provided resources the Imperium needed. Looks like Tranch didn't get its supply of lasguns and rations this shipment, and the planet's now fallen. Regardless of your status, screwing up like this is unforgivable. Now you owe the Imperium one crusade; better get your lasgun blessed once more because you're going to be needing it a lot.

Also, now Timmy the war orphan and the rest of his class never got to finish their stormtrooper training because their schola collapsed internally upon itself. Even better yet, your master was interested in recruiting some of them to form a new kill-squad to take out useless acolytes. Guess that isn't an option now. Now you owe both the Imperium at large and your master some stormtroopers. Better hope you have some connections up your sleeve. Even better? Now you get to meet Timmy the narco-ganger. He's got an axe to grind.

Now the Ecclesiarchy would like to have a word with you. In their private cellar with the rack and the excrutiator kits. When you bombed that city from orbit (which the ship's captain was very nonplussed to do, and now has to answer to his superiors why he decided a civilian target in a peaceful, god-fearing system was attacked without warning) you also utterly annihilated a small sect of clerics tasked with the safekeeping of the sanctified chainsword of Saint Luciius XI, along with the relic itself. Now you've got the Church after your blood.

In addition to this, that Navy captain from before? He's picking up the signals of a new arrival on the edge of the system. Turns out that some other acolytes were heading this way to 'borrow' that chainsword because they were seeking its rumoured daemonkilling prowess for an upcoming confrontation with the Ruinous powers. Now they think you're a bunch of dirty heretics trying to sabotage their grand plan, and they're every bit as trigger-happy as yourselves...

Even better? Their Inquisitor is with them, making a beeline towards you with plenty of torture and mass executions abounding. He's traced your group back to its roots and the roots of your master, and now he's pissed too because he has to deal with an ultraviolent Monodominant doing more damage than you thought even possible to the sector. Now I'm having too much fun with this.

Nevermind the fact your original bad guys got away in all the fuss and commotion after they heard their newly-awakened sleeper cell got vapourised on some backwater planet.

Bobby Fett said:

There is nothing heretical about two rival gangs fighting in a turf war and having an undercover group of acolytes end up in the middle of it because one of em has a massive chip on his shoulder and a very itchy trigger finger. Although in his defense every time he does something like that he truly does believe he is acting in the Imperiums/Inquisitions best interests (y'know, getting rid of one more possible heretic). I mean for crap sake look at all the innocents that Inquisitor Rykehuss has killed over the years.

Exactly Hobo. It's a butterfly effect...

Ultimately, Inquisitors have near carte blanche in their actions. Like both of us have demonstrated, justifying just about any action, no matter how obscene, is possible, as the term "heretic" can just as easily translate to "someone I don't like". Not the type of people a gang would want to piss off. Inquisitors, governors, nobles, and generals can grossly abuse power. Life is cheap; it's the most abundant and renewable resource in the galaxy.

Smeed, it has nothing to do with right and wrong, or whether someone is an actual heretic or not. It's a matter of power - those who have it, and those who have more. It's the equivalent to a pickpocket shooting a CIA agent because he has a grudge with the government in a theoretical world that's quite a bit darker than our own. He's a grease spot, or might be called a terrorist. It's just a matter of when and how.

First of all, I would like to say hi to all forum members. I'm Reilly and I've been GMing Dark Heresy for a year and a half now.

As for the topic, I'd say send Mortiurge after him, after the warning from Arbites of course. Having a sniper at your back all the time you walk the city should prevent him from shooting everyone. Or, even more simply, give him some insanity points every time he does that - someone like him cannot be normal. You will gain explanation for his insane faith or something that lurks behind it. Then you can even give him corruption points as his anger is probably used by some darker power. If he's fine with it, it can even make his character more interesting, provide a base for another adventure and some additional gunfights or even an open war with Arbites when they finally lose their nerve.

SmeedandSmoot said:

Fanatically devout is fine. Fanatically stupid is dead.

I see nothing wrong in fanatically devout characters. As long as they reap what they sow.

Personally, I would have the local Arbites come after the Acolyte, assuming they had a presence on the planet. One of the greatest sins a Arbite cause commit is to act without due process for Imperial Law. I think randomly shooting someone might clash with that.

Although it does depend on where, when, how and what they are doing as a group. If they are undercover and in the lawless underhive, no biggie. If they are acting as Arbites or obviously are Arbites, then maybe a big problem. I would guess that the cult has just been tipped off and/or will be out to get that individual.

Arbites more than any other part of the Imperium will police their own. An Acolyte that ends up in an Arbite cell whilst on a undercover missions is going to find it difficult to call on their boss for support. And if they want to start shooting at the local Arbites, then that player just caused the deaths of the team when the kill squads turn up.