Soon i will be running a Dark Heresy Campaign for my gaming group. each of these adventures will be themed around a specific Ordo. each adventure is intentionally a stand-alone:

Xenos: Reaper in the Corn

The Party has been sent to investigate a series of killings on a backwards agri-world. this involves a mad cult, ,murder and a nasty xenos monster.

Hereticus: Deus Ex Machina

The Acolytes have been sent to investigate a signal deep from the city of Ironkeep. The signal is from an Inquisitor long fought dead, lost in the depths. What is lurking in the sprawling catacombs below Ironkeep? The party is about to realise that they have more problems than an old signal!

Note: this will be the finalee adventure.

Now i just need a good idea for the Malleus themed adventure. also just a few general queries i have if you can help:

1. Can Daemonhosts be created with a non-human body such as an animal?

2. How would the Guardsman mercenary licence (from starting gear) work? and would it be cool if i made a physical licence for the player for his character?

Thanks

1. No, the Daemon replaces the soul in the creature. The creature would have to have a warp presence. That would include creatures like Eldar and other humanoid self aware creatures. So the host must be human or humanoid. No animals.

2. The license is similar to a dataslate. It can be scanned and shown to prove that the mercenary is completely approved by the inquisition and any other governing body. But most likely it can be anything you want. If you made one up for your guardsman character that would be wickedly awesome but you dont want to give the other players something to be jealous of. You would have to include other props from other characters.

As for the Malleus themed adventure, if the cult your acolytes find happens to have more far reaching connections then just this one sect then you are able to extend the cult to many worlds and have a "cult leader" send other mercs to try and take down your characters in random places. I advise you read the Ravenor Series. You will get tons of good ideas from the first book alone. And if you want The Eisenhorn series too. Beautiful books.

You can use animals to make a sort of "lesser" daemonhost called a Dybuk. The rules for their creation is in Disciples of the Dark Gods.

Also consider creating an Ogryn Dybuk.

didn't think of a dybuk, nice one have to have a look at those rules ( i always thought a daemonhost-hound would be cool). the eisenhorn and ravenor books are great (the eisenhorn is the main reason why i think the inquisition is so awesome)

Anyway for the adventure i have a nasty plan:

'You have awoken, you can smell blood and death, it is then you look down. your hands are stained in blood and the body of a richly-dressed noble lies in front of you, clearly dead. you realise with numb horror that you can't remember a thing. your companions stand around the body as well looking wild-eyed and also blood-stained.'

The party has basically been brainwashed into killing this noble to steal a tome from his collection (he is a collector of rare books and items) this book is actually the Tome of Rot (a book detailing the creation of new diseases) and a nurgle cult known as the Cult of Flies aims to steal the book and test its authenticity on a mass congregation on a neaby cathedral or chapel. the characters now have to run from the cult, the police (arbites probably) and vengeful members of the nobleman's family and work what is going on.

@Daemenhost out of animals
Think in another direction: would a daemon be able to possess an animal? Hereby, I would say "yes".

@Malleus
plot-device-Mind-slaving a non-mindwipe pc is a good way to piss of the player and sabotage any further adventure hook that involves trust in somebody

How about sending them on a mission starting with a "cleansing" of a noble estatet where prior investigations of other acolythes brought proof that said noble is in league with chaos? The pc are given two squads of Kill-Team Soldier, a gun-cutter an a satelite map of the manse (which is outside of the next city). As the pc strike, it first look the part: cybernetic attack dogs go after them, guard servitors respond and so on.

But as they actually enter the manse, they notice that something is wrong. No-one is their. On the floor is a recent corpse of what looks like a cultist that creept up the stairs and died on the floor from a gut wound.

In the cellar, the pc find a cult room, complete with an altar and the remains of a botched ritual. Further investigation will show evidence that the group was worshipping "the Horned Darkness" (see DotdG, but any other cult will do!) and where preparing to bring an offering. Something went very wrong here. The pc will notice that among the corpses nobody looks like an "offering" but everyone wears those fancy cult robes..

Further investigation might tipp of to the following:
- the household staff where given a free day (so the cult was undistrubed)
- the ritual involved the offering of a 10 year old girl (which is missing)
- security pict deveices show the girl wandering off...bloodied
- the building does include a dungeon (in the original sense) and one of the holding cell was used to
hold a prisoner for a day or three (latrina is not cleaned and tells the part)

[What happend?]
The cult payed some criminals to kidnapp a girl form the streets. Some of the household members where aware of this but prefered to look the other way. In fact, the majority of the household didn´t know a thing about chaos but expected that the Lord and his guests intended to "have their way with this girl".
Unfortunately, the street urchin kidnapped was a latent psyker. The ritual didn´t worked out to plan and an astral spirit slipped into the girl. The girl, in addition, developed the telekenetic blade ability, but does not have control of it.

Now, it wandered of into the street, scared and confused. The daemon spirit will wrest control from here once in a while to slake his urges and then give it back to hear, feasting on her terror and fear as she flashes back in and sees what "she" has done. In addition, the daemon enjoys what "his little girl" is able to do with her new blade power and how uncontrolled she is...

Objetc: Find the girl, neutralize the daemon.
The pc can either follow her trail or try to get information from the household on the channels the girl was purchased from. Talking to the criminals gives a good idea where the girl was snatched and thereby where the pc have to look.

Studiying the material of the ritual and the forbidden textes will give hints on the daemon and where (and to what acts!) he might lead the girl.

I once had a similar adventure plan to your reaper in the corn, however it was more a Malleus than Xenos adventure.
if you haven't read about the murder room, its page 159 disciples of the dark gods,

Thanks for the advice i'll see what i can come up with

Gregorius21778 said:

Maybe, instead of finding dead cultists laying around and a missing offering, the cultists are hiding in the walls and the PCs are in fact the offering. The inquisition's presence has been anticipated by the cult, and they laid a clever ambush hoping to catch an inquisitor to sacrifice. (Though I suppose acolytes will have to do instead)

Golmorgoth said:

Good plan as well, especially if the cult has a magus with prophetic powers. Of course, you are going to need another "second part" here. Otherwise, the adventure will rather be a combat packed short story. :0) Which will last a whole evening, never the less! (combat takes time and time and time and time...)

Heres what i've come up with so far:

The Party has been tasked to investigate an associate and previous agent of the Inquisitor. they will use the disguise of relatives of the murder victim.

The Cult of Flies

The Cult of flies is a cult of Nurgle, their aim purely the rotting and diseasing of all living things for the glory of Nurgle. They disguise themselves either as lepers, pilgrims or missionaries and spread disease and death into anywhere they can. they see the natural world as a dull wasteland of greys but the true rotting horror of death and decay as the real world.

The Tome of Rot

The Tome of Rot is book said to contain details on every disease, illness, ailment or syndrome there is or shall be. the book is written by an unknown author and has been lost for many centuries. the Cult of Flies need the book to further their aims, making there work even more horrific and unstoppable.
The Cult intends to use the book in a mass congregation in one of the temples.

Dramatis Personae

Lady Faust, The Grey Lady

Lady Faust is the cult's magister and financer, bringing her substantial into financing the cult. many years ago Lady Faust has lived a life of opulence, grandeur and boredom, so she soon tried to find ways new interests and passions.
A former lover introduced her to the cult and she soon rose in its ranks, seeing the true majesty of decay and disease. she is also responsible for a series of murders where she would marry a wealthy lord or noble, steal his wealth and the victim and her would disappear leaving no trace.
Lady Faust is now a horrific monster feasting the youth and ;life, she wears The Mask of Tears, a horrific chaos artefact that shows her former beauty not her true rotten self.

Lord Domnius Drake

Drake is a wealthy and powerful member of the Drake trading family. now retired and living on his high-rise estate on Salvation, he is a collector of rare and unusual antiquities and the most recent item is the Tome of Rot.
The Cult discovered he has it thanks to a servant.

Brother Gelt

Brother Gelt is an inquisitorial agent sent to investigate rumours of the book, upon hearing of the noble’s murder he has been sent to find and aide the group, hopefully recovering the book.