Our campaign has been running a few months now, the PC's are fitting well into their roles onboard the (very modified) Dauntless Class "... Ask Questions Later", captained by 1 Tiberius Flash-heart. The family line fell to its last remaining heir upon the death of his Grand Uncle Octavius, something of a librarian-recluse who had spent most of the family fortune, but nobody really knows on what. All that remained was the ".... Ask Questions Later", with a very heavily modified sensor array and a few holdings. The shine on the Warrant began to rub off somewhat when Flash-heart realised that he owed a fair bit of cash to a number of people; including the nice AdMech gentlemen who wanted paid for completing the spangly sensor array on his ship as well as a number of other contracts his uncle had left outstanding.

He had 2 choices; let them take the ship and move into something much much smaller... or do 1 small Cargo run for the a ranking Admech from a nearby Forgeworld as well as handing them the 13th Hold on the ship permanently (for an undisclosed reason?!). Flash-heart took option 2, reasoning that a cargo run wouldn't be that difficult?!

The Admech Ramirez requested that the vessel move to an Admech dock for loading, was a little bit disconcerted to discover that the outbound cargo was Skitarii and combat drop vessels. Admech Ramirez was unavailable for communication until the voyage was well underway, at this point he divulged that the destination planet was Arkazius, a planet undergoing a civil War and currently under Imperial Blockade for the last 25 years - the Admech had been levying the local Imperial Administratum unsuccessfully to pacify the planet so decided to recover a rare mineral themselves. By using a Rogue Trader ship, they maintained pausible deniability, as well as having an expendable vessel. Fortunately, the blockade ship was a small Cobra warship which was 1/2 way through its 8 year mission to orbit Arkazius which possessed no space fairing capability whatsoever. Flash-heart took the simple and direct approach, he pulled alongside the protesting Cobra class ship, pointed out that he had a bigger vessel with more firepower and invited the Captain aboard for "negotiations". His Warrant did not allow him to break the Blockade, but for a small consideration the Captain of the Naval vessel informed Flash-heart of his Orbital path, by falling in about 12 hrs behind the Naval ship the Rogue Trader vessel was in the planetary deadzone for sensors... The Naval Captain could honestly claim to have last seen the Rogue Trader ship breaking orbit as a result of their meeting.

The PC's made a hot combat drop with the Admech and cleared a large mining operation where a stockpile of rare minerals had been left store for over 2 decades, wiping out the defending army in the process. The Defenders were merely 1 faction in many, these were anti-Imperial and it was clear that the planet had a fairly low tech-level. The Admech were quite happy to secure the precious minerals and left many lesser (but still worth money) minerals behind, at which point the penny finally dropped and Flash-heart produced his most cunning plan yet....

Why settle for a simple cargo run with the Admech when he could steal the entire planet?! Not literally, but the Imperial Captain had mentioned at the meeting that if the Empire were to establish peace or a pro-Imperial Faction to gain power the blockade would be lifted as there would be no need for a pending attack at some stage to liberate the planet. Flash-heart and his command crew went about locating some friendly pro-Imperial factions and creating a powerblock. Over the next few adventures the PC's joined forces with a few Warlords, whacked a few opponents and finished the scenario with a daring raid on the enemy powerbase, backed by the Admech Skitarii whom they had cut a new deal with and virtually "beheaded" the anti Imperial factions in 1 fell swoop, leaving there pet Warlord as new Governor and Flash-heart as his Advisor / Trade Minister!

Bravo! This sounds like a superb campaign arc! Any idea what the crew is planning to do with their new toy?

Sounds like my kind of game! Bravo! I figure if a Rogue Trader can make a profit AND bring a p[lanet into the imperial light = then that's what they should do!!

Flash-heart being Flash-heart, he tried to accomplish the entire task with style, panache and aplomb.... and failed miserably. He has the Admech PC's gunskull rigged up as a mobile Camera drone that captures all of his best moments for re-editing at a later date, but even that struggled to keep up with the long list of hilarious gaffs the PC's made in the final battle.

Firstly, they came to the erroneous conclusion that the main enemy Warlord was a Chaos Warrior, coz he was really big, really fighty and had 2 chainswords. This got them rather paranoid, to say the least. When the last battle was going down they had the task of heading in and killing him in person; that would likely swing most of the neutral factions whilst closing down the strongest anti-Imperials. The trouble was that he was fortified in an Old Mineworks sat on top of the rare minerals that had yet to be mined, which were also very unstable hence no orbital bombardment (if there is a non dangerous way to whack an enemy, Flash-heart will take it!) so they had to do it the old fashioned way; in through the mineworkings, through the guards and eliminate the Chaos Warrior?! They headed toward the target in an old Valkyrie lent by a friendly Warlord which proceeded to get shot up and heavily damaged, knowing that they were near the target the pilot came in low and tried to hold it steady for an emergency evac; a few Agility checks were in Order and Flash-heart promptly rolled a 99! No problem, I'll spend a fate point.... followed by a straight 100!!! What are the odds of that?!?! Pretty high I'd say.

So, the scene is; damaged Valkyrie trailing smoke in the midst of a warzone, tracer fire and ack ack coming up everywhere, the Valk is jinking and dropping trying to stay level so that the valiant attackers can zip line to the ground. Valiant Flash-heart , misunderstanding the height disdains the zip line, safety wire, etc and merely leaps out, into the fray.... 40ft below.... It made for some **** good Gunskull footage in the later transmissions though, he appeared to be 1 super heroic sonofabitch, right up until he landed in a crumpled heap at the bottom It was ok though, a med pack and some judicious editing later and he'd miraculously made a safe landing and was wading through defenders like they were wheat!

The journey through the Tunnels was hilarious, they managed to mess up almost every dice roll they needed to make, silent movement? not a hope, they'd have been quieter bringing a brass band. 8ft wide pit, about 40ft deep - not much of a challenge, but 2 of em fell down it ; even funnier 1 of them had declared he was tied to a length of rope and that he had about 100ft of it so he'd be alright?! At least the other PC managed to fate and grab the edge, being pulled up by his mates. By the time they reached the inner defences they were in a fair sorry state and the ensuing battle resulted in the Bodyguard and Astropath both losing legs, although the Spymaster did well with his sneaking about in Synskin and managed to butcher a fair few of the defenders. They absolutely bricked it with the "Chaos Warrior" appeared, kept falling back and shooting at him. He was a huge fella, about 9ft tall with a naked and scarred chest and 2 chainswords, wearing a Force Field he was near impossible to shoot at and they weren't right keen on engaging him in Close Quarters. That's where the legs were lost, as the cannon fodder got in his way he managed to delimb the first couple that got close (they were on little or no wounds prior to being chainsworded though) and this forced Flash-heart and his Spymaster to do the unthinkable ; charge him! The Spymaster went first and managed to hit a fair old wound, but it was at this point that the Universal balance was restored when Flash-heart charged in with his families trusty Powersword and ran him through, rolling a 10 for damage followed by about an 8, they were pleasantly surprised when the enemy Warlord dropped dead! Turns out he was just a big Mutie and not a Chaos Warrior, but they did have a moment or 2 of utter fear.

Needless to say, the Gunskull camera was running the entire time and, after a quick re-edit, a transmission of Flash-heart leaping in the action, cutting through hordes of guards and finally dispatching the enemy Warlord was on every screen and hololith on the planet! After this, the Pro-Imperial factions all swung in behind Flash-heart and most of the enemy were wiped out or went to ground. As newly appointed Trade-Minister, Flash-heart declared the planet back in the Imperial Fold and negotiated a mining exclusivity deal with the Admech, part of which included payment of 2 High Quality replacement limbs and a suit of Power armor for his bodyguard! They finished the adventure by hiring a couple of merchantmen to run back and forth making regular Ore runs outbound and taking shiny baubles inbound.

It was a great scenario, everybody had a real laugh. Flash-heart is ran as a completely Cowardly version of Kirk / Blackadder / Flash-heart, he is only brave when he has an audience and chases every remotely attractive female he meets. We've allowed him a quirk which gives a +10 to all Fear type rolls when he has an audience other than his advisors and a -10 when he doesn't. If nobody is looking, he is likely to leg it in other words. Outwardly he is blinged out and has an air of authority, speaks like a true hero and alround Square Jawed good guy ; in reality he's ,more likely to take the money and run.

More! More!

I quite enjoy reading how others games are going. Even more when the PCs are good Imperials. In my game the title "Rogue Pirate" has been said almost as much as "Rogue Trader". My Rogue Trader and her council almost fire on or run away from fellow Imperials...actually they do that to almost everyone...

I love the camera servitor - I'm going to steal that for my Lady Captain!! As Seneschall I will of course make sure it is edited correctly!

Giaus Novus Khan said:

That sounded suspiciously like "the footage from her bath will only be seen by me" in a stalker-like lovely way ^^U.

I think this adventures are superb (and also the ship is quite good in the other post), but no surprises looking at your signature. The Pratchett-style is always welcome! ^^.

Sadly, my only "funny" moments in campaing came when my tech-priest (rank 1 at that time) sucessfully seduced the captain of our Vessel (the Tamari's Pride, captained by the, yes, you wondered right, Captain Tamari. Amd yes, I scored a 02). And when our GM said something like "wow, now she is going to know what's under the armour of a tech-priest" I answered "what? I only was trying to have a better look at her Glavian implants"). It was more funny then, of course. Strangely, her ship has become our "pseudo-inquisitorial" transport...

This sounds like a hilarious campaign to play in or run. Nicely done!

Wing Commander said:

You have indeed created a splendid character here - but from your description above look no further for inspiration than the 'alarmingly' similarly named Harry Flashman, starting with the novel 'Flashman' written by George McDonald Fraser. Flashman is a 19th Century poltroon, womaniser, and cowardly bully who nevertheless becomes one of Britain's most acclaimed imperial heroes.