I thought I'd post my first Dark Heresy campaining designs here, so perhaps those with more ideas and experience can give me some direction as to what sounds good and what does not.

Scenario 1 - Tunnels of Doom

The first scenario is 90% copied from the Demo adventure: Shattered Hope. I changed some minor details and added one key character of my own:

The Black Trooper -> The Black Trooper is an elite soldier in a heavy black plated suit, serving Inquisitor Ralei as his body guard / most trusted servant and observer. As the players land on Sepheris Secundus to investigate the strange cult and mutant outbreak in the Gorgonid mines, the Black Trooper is always there, watching them in the shadows, observing. If the players mess up in this first scenario, the Black Trooper might render assistance, if he sees it necessary for the completion of the mission. In the end, as the players confront the Antithesis stone imbued with the corruptive power of Father Nurgle, the Black Trooper will, without a word, ****** a small surviving fragment of the pink stone in a force field of some kind and leave the area without a single word of explanation. If the mission is completed without issue, the players will have proven themselves to Inquisitor Ralei and are given their next mission.

Scenario 2 - Children of the Fields

The players are dispatched to investigate a string of stange ritual murders on the snakk Agriworld of Finkt III. Here the players will be confronted with fairly simple investigation and rumor-catching in one of the small villages where the farmers live, which will eventually lead them to observing a bloody ritual, in which insane cultists pour the blood of their victims into ceremonial skulls.

If the ritual is not stopped early enough, the cultists will corrupt entire fields of produce, which will mutate into carnivorous mutan plantlife, which will swiftly turn agaist the players and the villagers. It will be up to the players to hack their way through the murderous field to kill the leader of the cult, who is channeling forces of the Warp and of the blood God (Khorne) into the soil of the planet. His death will cease the disturbance and the plants will wilt away. Again, from the dark shadows, appears the Black Trooper, gathering yet another inexplicable trophy from the field, this time a strange carved skull idol smeared with blood.

Scenatio 3 - Bad omens

The players are sent away from their Inquisitor, supposedly to allow them a small reward of free time for the successful completion of their last missions. Just as the players board the space station orbiting the paradise planet of Kialis VII to gain clearance and transportation planetside, the station is rocked by a series of explosion, as missiled fired from planetary defence batteries open fire on the station. The players must quickly make their way through the rapidly deteriorating space station and enter the escape pods before the pod bays melt into slag as the wrecked station descends into the planets atmosphere.

After landing on the planet in the escape pod, the players discover the world wroight in conflict, as the small garrisons of Imperial Guard on the planet are attacked by separate PDF units along with revolting citizens of the planet. The players must survive for weeks in the midst of the raging civil war, avoiding the seditionist forces' Death Squads as they search the countrysydes and cities for remaining Imperials. The players seem to be haunted by inexplicable bad luck, as their enemies seem to always be just ahead of them, ready to spring a trap of some kind. After some time, just as the fighting is dying down and the Imperial forces seem utterly defeated, the sky shatters as new units of Imperial Guard, along with Astartes reinforcements, make planetfall and crush the rebellion. As the players make contact and identify temselves to their saviors, a small shuttle is sent to rescue them. As the shuttle lands to allow the players in, the Black Trooper appears again, exiting the shuttle to make his way into the nearby Capital city for purposes unknown to the players. In reality, he has been tasker by the Inquisitor, who seems to be sporting a quite unhealthy interest in the powers that lie in the Warp, to secure a collection of strange books that had reportedly appeared in the planetary Governors posession a few years ago, a secret gift from the good Inquisitor Ralei. The books hold powers of the manipulative Chaos god Tzeentch, which allowed the Governors Death Squads to bend the probabilities slightly in their favour and haunt the players.

Scenario 4 - Xenology

(This adventure is roughly based on the Games Workshop publication of the same name)

The players are sent by Inquisitor Ralei to investigate the workings of his colleague, Inquisitor Sasham, on his secret base built on a remote planet. Once inside the base, the players discover security systems to be sate of the art and the facility to be manned only by one man, the good Inquisitors manservant. It soon becomes obvious that Inquisitor Sasham has been conducting interrogations and studies of Xenos species in such ways as deemed heretical by Inquisitor Ralei. The players may take whatever course of action they deem necessary. In the original story, the Inquisitor conducting the investigation forced the lowly servant to conduc dissections on the living specimens to gather as much data as possible in the shortest time possible, and to get rid of the xenos scum at the same time. In the progress, one of the imprisoned creatures escapes the facility and ends up in a nearbly human colony, killing several settlers before being gunned down by the people of the settlement. These same people now take a new interest in the facility and attempt to enter it, only to have the gun-servitors attack them without logical explanation. This aggression sparks violence in the settlers, who now trap the players in the facility and are not willing to negotiate. The players are trapped in the facility with the mad servant and several xenos monsters. After some time, just in time before the players kill the last of the xenos, the facility's sensors detect a new ship in orbit, one bearing the ID signatures of Inquisitor Sasham himself. After a chaotic situation, in which the remaining xenos escape, the villagers attack and the facility defences go haywire, the ship in the orbit sends down an armada of landing shuttles, which bear Inquisitorial Kill Squads, tasked with ending the disturbances in the facility and capturing the players. The players either make an escape or are captured. Either arction leads to the finale of the campaining:

Scenario 5 - Games of Influence

The players find themselves in an unexpected situation. The ships of both Inquisitors have docked and each accuses the other of heresy. The players are forced to choose a side and solve the situation in any way they deem fit.

If the players side with Inquisitor Ralei, their lord and master, they will surely suffer the effects of the corruptive powers. This will give them powers and abilities beyon imagination, but will also shorten the players lifespan dramatically (probably will bring player over 50 corruption points). If the players are not successful in assassinating Inquisitor Sasham before he escapes in the later parts of the scenario, the Inquisition will muster is strength and send a unit of Grey Knights as well as other forces to annihilate Ralei and his servants in the near future. This will mean that the future campaining will always be overshadowed by the threat of imminent death.

If the players choose to side with Inquisitor Sasham, they will gain knowledge of several xenos species and can gain the services of some xenos servants, as well as access to powerful and exotin xeno weaponry and equipment. However, if in any future missions they are seen using any of these assets, there is a chance that their cover will be blown as the Inquisition in full discovers what Sasham is doing in his secret hideouts. This could lead to assassination attempts on the players lives at any time. This is basically the easy and most logical path to the players (unless they are fiercely loyal and do not wish to accept the fact that Ralei is meddling with the dark powers).

There is also a third way this mission will end. If the players are truly powerful and skilled and come to think of it, they might actually succeed in killing both of the crooked Inquisitors, redeeming themselves in the eyes of the Inquisition as a whole. This might lead to one of them, or even all of them, being made full fledged Inquisitors, allowing them to take on missions of ever greated magnitudes, until the Emperor sees fit that they fall in His service.

In any case this mission will consist of fierce firefights aboard both ships, attempts to stall the losing party from escaping and finally confronting the Inquisitor the players believe needs to die for his sins. Depending on their decisions, the players might end up fighting through waves of posessed crewmen, several lesser demons, the Black Trooper made demonhost and much more. Or, if the players go the other way, hordes of xenos creatures of many kinds, including a pack of Kroot and their Shaper who serve as bodyguards of Inquisitor Sasham.

+ + + That's it! Tell me what you people think! + + +

+ + + I will post short descriptions of the events of each mission as soon as I get them played out. I'm hoping to get the group finished with the first scenario in a few weeks time! + + +

Scenario 1 - Tunnels of Doom

I imagine your biggest issue here may be dealing with the question "why isn't this guy helping/doing the mission?".

Scenario 2 - Children of the Fields

As 1.

Scenario 3 - Bad omens

If the PCs are to survive for weeks, will you be skipping portions of time?

Scenario 4 - Xenology

There is a very logical explanation for gun-servitors mowing down villagers who approach - it's a secret Inquisition facility! If you're very lucky, you'll get a warning before the guns starting firing. Also, how have the villagers tracked down the base? Perhaps the alien left a trail.

Scenario 5 - Games of Influence

If you're planning to have the PCs take out an Inquisitor or two, they'll either need to be pretty tough personally or have access to allies (easier if they just pick one Inquisitor to take out).

Scenario 1:

He's not helping/doing the mission because he has a handful of convenient meat shields to do it for him.

Scenario 2:

See 1

Other than that, the only problem I forsee is that unless you are overwhelmingly generous with xp and equipment rewards, the players may simply not be strong enough to deal with the forces or a renegade inquisitor, much less 2 of them.

Scenario 1 - Tunnels of Doom

The Inquisitor states in the pre-recorded briefing, that he has been ordered to move to a different system to organize a taskforce, which will later return to do a proper cleansing of the mines. The players are just sent there to slow down the spreading corruption until the real Inquisition can organize and take over.

Scenario 2 - Children of the Fields

The Inquisitor, after seeing that the players can handle some corruptive powers on their own, wants to further test his minions to see what they can handle. He also already knows pretty well what is going down planetside, and wants to see how the players respond. Therefore he simply tells the players, via another pre-recorded briefing, that he must attend to matters on a different planet at the same time. He is a busy man!

Scenario 3 - Bad omens

Basically I will ask the players what they want to try doing, such as camping in a certain area or scavenging food from a ruined agri-village. Then I roll them dice to see how much time this takes and if there are random encounters, abushes or attacks in the said time. If they say they want to hide out in a small forested area near a village, I ask them to make survival rolls to determine how good of a jab they do in building shelter and finding food, and then I roll in secret if something nasty is coming their way.

Scenario 4 - Xenology

The villagers know that there is a facility, they have been ordered by the good inquisitor to supply the facility with food in exchange for protection from monsters (hee hee hee!). As things start to go wrong, the players might want to attempt to disable the security measures as they discover the villagers coming closer, to avoid bloodshed. But then again, it would make for a boring adventure if they just gained massive reinforcements all of a sudden, so... Boom goes the servitors!

Scenario 5 - Games of Influence

The Inquisitors will have most of their forces engaged with each other and their attention drawn to the major struggle taking place over both ships. This presents the players with a fighting chance against one Inquisitor and if they choose to go against both... well, lets say that with good planning anything is possible.

Fair enough. It seems you've covered the points I brought up!

Hi!

"Tunnels of Doom"
Make sure you "tune down" the mutation effects of the Antithesis stone. Some of them are putting pc beyound useability. Unless, you have a chirugical facility and a medic cleanser in a nearby shuttle...

The Following ideas for "Children of the Field":
How about turning the good old "Kill the cultists" form "this is the solution" to "this makes things worse!" After all, it is said that the Blood-God does not care whose blood is spilled as long as it is flowing freely. The killing of cultist could allow a Bloodletter (or a Fleshound) to materilize in the world.

Instead of "cleaning the fields by killing the cultist, the players must find a way to destroy the mutatet plant life. In a rural area, their will be planes (or other machines) cabable of delivering toxins to the field. The players will have however have to brew up something killing evey and any plant. While crazed cultist try to keep them from this. If they do not have pilot skills and/or chem-use they can either try to run to the next village or try to set the fields on fire. Which might night some more chemicals, but fuel should be readily available.
Afterwards, the soil is simply lost. I could imagine a "forbidden zone" to be declared.

Talking cult: was is the reason behind this cult? Unless all members where mad to begin with, their should be reason why they started this. A possibility: the planet suffered serious blights and the soil suffred from over-used mono-culturing. The farmers needed a way to fertilize the ground again, but some could not afford the fertilizers.

If you add a little tone down in the carnivorous part, it will become even more horrific. Imagine totally normal crop.. that is able to turn unnatural sharp. While running through it, you test agility or you sheet blood..which is eagerly absorbed by the ground/the plants. The maligne presents in the ground could even go so far as that it instills hatred and rage in those spending to much time on the ground... after weeks, tempers of farm-workers flare and from time to time argues between field workers become murderous as they turn on each other with sickles and other tools. Not to many, but to often to be turned away as simple inccidents. This could have started the investigation in the first place.

- Rising number of argues leading to death
- Drought planet, fields only yielding croop due to new fertilizer (red hering)
- Pc find out that the fields where the killing happens are a cartell that died NOT buy the new fertilizer
- of the Cartells whom did not buy the Fertilizer, they are the only with a healthy crop
- Investigation lead to the cult.

How about that?

Good points, Gregorius.

I also thought the mutating effects of the Antithesis stone were a bit severe, but then I thought that the characters were fresh and the players are not yet TOO in love with theirs. I think it might make for a great character building moment if one of the PC's were mutated horribly and the others must now, after the final battle, of course, execure their new friend or face the wrath of the inquisition for harbouring a mutant amongst them.

The point you make about killing the cultist channeling the powers of the Warp into the fields being a bad idea is a very good point too! Giving the players the ability to use clenasing fire or chemical aids are both quite valid options and I'll make sure to hint to the possibilities during the scenario. I also thought that as the final channeling of the warp is conducted by a single tranced individual, through muttering curses and prayers while holding a bloodied human skull in a ring of fire and death (how classic, eh?), just incapacitating that cultist might be enough to halt the event. I'll also try to make point that spilling any blood on the soil is a very bad idea as it will accelerate the corruption of the plantlife.

You also made a point about "how the cults are started".

In the Children of the Field the madness begins quite simply through corruption of leading figures. Inquisitor Ralei's assistant discovers the Khornite relic on the agri-world and receives instructions: instead of securing and destroying the blasphemous artefact, it is to be handed as a gift to the elder in charge of one of the largest agri-villages on the planet. The skull-artefacts corruptive powers soon corrupt the frail old man, who begins using his old and wise mind to instigate bloodshed, as his body is too frail for even Khorne's influence to make him a killing machine. The cultists are mostly villagers in good belief, believing that their actions are sanctioned by the Imperium and that the Elder's instructions to kill some of the traders and farmers visiting from nearby villages on the fields, and even the act of burning a smaller agri-village nearby to the ground, are made in their own best interest. The elder has also created made-up legends of how the Emperor himself did similiar acts to cleanse the Old Terra of non-believers. As the "cultists", led by their elder, make the final sacrifice just as the players arrive to witness it, the Elder becomes a channel between the Warp and realspace, and the other villagers run away, screaming in terror, as the fields come alive around them. The villagers do not attempt to stop the players, but might try to steal aircraft and vehicles to escape the horror, leaving the players in trouble all alone.

Does that sound credible?

EDIT: Oh! Forgot to mention that I inted to have the corruption also effect some random people, possibly including players who fail a Willpower test. Such a playerwould become enraged for 1D10 turns and had to attack nearest target, friend or foe, with any melee weapon available immedieately. If they draw blood during this time, this adds 1D5 turns to the frenzy effect. NPC characters simply become mindless raging madmen, wielding blades and farming tools, attacking any who are not affected by the crazies.

As a reappearing red herring I inted to use the Black Trooper mentioned in the first post. He will act suspiciosly most of the time and remain quite mysterious and distant at all times, yet in reality he is one of the good guys, loyal to the basic principles of the Inquisition. I intend to have the players become suspicious of him, while believing their Inquisitor to be pure. Some other red herrings, side-quests and plot hooks will probably be added on the fly...

WHAM said:

How about turning the cult into something that was already their for ages, some old blood-cult that even existed long before the artefact was found. The introduction of the artifact simply turned it to chaos and more violent, changing the pace from "a sacrifice to the emporer during spring and one before the harvest" to many more and much more frequently? Your elder could be the head figure of the cult on whom it is to decide when and who is to be sacrificed.

This would add two elements: first of all, some of your cultist could be quiet cabable assasines without any daemonic intervention to begin with. After all, they will have years of practice in abducting people, bringing them to the field and killing them their. Second, if your pc´s do not get the plot and need "finger point of the emporer" an assasine intended to kill them of could instead start attacking his peers during the fight. After things are finished, he explains the situation to the (overly lost) pc, because he has heavy doupts on what his "blood cult for the emporer" has become recently.
Even then, their would net to be some external factor that would make it believable to the cult members that now "more sacrifices are necessary to appease the emporer". Like bad weather, droughts and other events that ruin their crop.

The constant "missing people" every year could be explained away be regular visits of merchant ship whom use this planet as a stop each spring (selling equipemnt) and each harvest (making contracts and bidding for the crop that is to be brought in the next week so it can be feed to the hive worlds). The (prior) small inciddents of missing people would thereby be linked to the "void people" who have a (just) reputation for supplementing their ratings with people from the planets they stop by. Runaway on the look for adventure or taken by force, it does not matter.

You make a valid argument there... The transformation intoa a more bloody cult is a bit radical, though it could be softened up in the way you mentioned. I should change the cult into something older, that has always been a part of tradition, though originally they sacrificed Grox, not humans. A few years ago the first human was sacrificed and the crops were bigger, the next year more people were sacrificed and the crops grew even more... This would make it a logical escalation of the cult and would leave some good clues about the latest events in the local archives for the players to investigate.

I might still want to keep the fact that most of the "cult" members are not in fact in any way affiliated with Chaos or evil, but are just there because the wise elder says so (a good Imperial citizen never questions tradition!). "Innocence proves nothing!"

WHAM said:

If you like to go that way, I have a final idea:

Make sure that after the crop was drastically better two seasons in a row, an administratum official showed up, congratulated the community...and raised their share of the tithe! "It is a blessing to emporer that your crops yield so much success. See, one of the other agri settlements harshly declined in output. If it wasn´t for this strong crops, we would not be able to meet the tithe. You know, we either give Tithe in corn our in people for Mechanicus Factories. Many sons and daughters of our world are spared from a much harsher and shorter life in the fabrics. And YOU had part in it!"

This way, your "good citizens" can even reason that they "kill the view to safe the many". Something the imperium tends to believe in.

"Yeah, Selyen was one of the neigborhood. But if we hadn´t sacrificed him, the crop had failed. And then, he would have been given to the Mechanicus as a factor slave! Better quick death under the open sky then losing a leg and an arm after 10 years of muderous work in a factory and then being turned into a servitor!"

That is a good addition, allowing more leeway in explaining how even the more reluctant farmers of the society began to accept the cultist actions.

Thanks!

Scen.1

Can the players stop the black trooper? Kill him? Do they get a chance to pick up the fragment first? If not then the black troopers actions are essentially a cutscene. These can be annoying for players if they are not deftly handled. i.e. a black trooper walks in, immediately spots a tiny fragment of pink stone, erects an impenetrable forcefield around it and jet packs away with it. Meanwhile your players are thinking, what am I doing while this is going on? Don't I get a roll to do something about it? Is the trooper collecting things for the PCs inquisitor? If so then a clever inquisitor would probably just give his acolytes firm instructions to return any heretical artefacts back to him for "safe disposal". This will give them some cause to suspect his motives. Also, it opens up the possibility they don't comply and keep the artefacts themselves, which will add to their corruption. Any time you can adjust the scenario to give your players more meaningful choices, the better.

Scen.2

As you say this looks like simple investigation and rumor-catching. Personally I am not fond of breadcrumb trails because they turn the adventure into a guided tour with a boss fight.

Why are the cultists trying to make mutant plants? If Khorne cultists wanted to wipe out a hick village they would probably just get their chainswords out and get on with it.

How about the village is a testing ground? cultists are conducting rituals in the fields which alter the produce, making them fat and juicy and tasty. Yields are sky high and the vegetables are extraordinarily delicious. But, they carry the taint of chaos. Eating the tasty fruit/veg increases aggression. The volume eaten does not matter much but the variety does. The villagers eat their own produce so their tempers are on a hair trigger. They are surly, rude and unwelcoming. If provoked even slightly they lose their temper and resort to violence. The children too. Only two people in the village are not like this; the town drunk and an old man. If the PCs investigate they may discover the alcoholic spends all his money on drink, and has for weeks been subsisting on stale bread which he steals from a neighbouring bakery. The old man looks normal enough but is mad as a coot. He eats only insects. Maybe he thinks they are trying to take over the universe.

The PCs are sent to investigate a spate of ritual murders. What they find is that the murders, though extremely violent, are not ritualistic at all. Organs have been removed and partially eaten, people have been cut to pieces, etc but there is nothing ritualistic. The strange thing is what prompted them; i.e. small disagreements. These murders then become symptoms of the problem, not investigative breadcrumbs. This presents the PCs with a quandary. Something very odd is going on in the village, but what? The food is marvellously tasty and cheap and the more the PCs eat, the angrier they get. A pregnant woman treads on your toe? WP test to avoid punching her. Of course, she will fight back. As will her very angry family. And so on. As long as the increasing aggression seems to come on gradually, the PCs will not necessarily tie it to the food.

Most likely the PCs will quickly start to hate the villagers. They may even wipe them out themselves. This is an interesting twist on the Seven Samurai shtick. If they investigate well enough they will finger the food and then they will want to look at the fields. Nothing special there but they are dusted every few days. The pesticide is contaminated and all the cultists are holed up at their nearby airstrip. Of course, it is well defended. Covert entry or storming in guns blazing? Up to the PCs.

The PCs arrive at harvest time and all the while this is going on, the new crop is being harvested in the fields. The villagers keep it all until the harvest festival when they have a banquet in the harvested fields. This final fruit or vegetable is the last piece of the jigsaw. Anybody who eats all the types of fruit/veg grown in the village and then eats any of the latest crop soon enters a murderous frenzy. Unless the PCs intervene the villagers go berserk and kill each other with their bare hands. This puts the PCs in an interesting position. Usually they would expect to solve a problem by fighting it, but in this case fighting is the problem. How do you stop a field full of crazy men, women and children from killing each other?

Why are the cultists doing this? Because the agriworld exports food all over the sector. If the test is a success the cult plans to begin irrigating other settlements. They can then do to the entire sector what they hope to do to the village.

Scen.3

I am wary of GMing any large scale event. So hard to get them right because inevitably there is just so much going on. The intro you describe is really a hoop to be jumped through. Just as they board the station gets shot up? I would be right back on the ship I just got off. If they have to run through the collapsing space station, what influence do the PCs have on their survival? Can they make meaningful decisions or will this just be a sucession of agility rolls. If the latter, the PCs are essentially playing a platformer. Jump here. Duck here. Can they die? Would you let the group die due to bad dice rolls? If so then this could happen and as a player I think I would resent blowing a fate point for something I had no control over. If they are destined to succeed then what is the point? It is a special effect. Okay in a film, but it doesn't add much to the story.

I would suggest the next phase is problematic too. Combat can be tiring and repetitive and endless waves of wandering monsters is more like space invaders than roleplay. It is also hard on players who do not have combat characters. It may sound exciting on paper, but the reality will be hours of dice rolling while your players feel boxed in and controlled. If the opposition always have the upper hand then this will be frustrating for them because they do not know the master plan and probably won't care. If all their ingenuity and decision-making just ends up with 'sorry, they get the jump on you again' then it can be demoralising. As a player you start to think (and maybe say), whatever you are going to do to us, just get it over with and do it so we can get back to playing our characters.

If you intend to the PCs into a war zone, give them something to do and some way of achieving it fairly. Maybe they land in the middle of a shoot out and side with the imperial guard. The Guardsmen shoot down ten for every one they lose but the enemy is fanatical. The wounded captain tells them that all is lost, save one last hope. The enemyare religious fanatics and very superstitious. Perhaps someone can sneak into the enemy camp and desecrate their holy altar. Or assassinate the enemy commander. Or both. Then the fanatics would lose heart. Cue a mission for the PCs they can achieve and enjoy. When the PCs find the holy altar it is in fact an unholy altar. Their inquisitor has bade them to return any artefacts to him, remember. Do they?

In this scenario the black trooper is a passerby. The books, etc will mean nothing to the players if they don't have any involvement with it.

Anyway, have run out of time to add more.

I hope this is constructive. It is certainly intended that way. There are some interesting and various ideas here, but very important I would suggest to avoid endurance play, i.e. making your players endure things (like the war) just because their characters have to endure it. Also vital not to end up pitting yourself against your players personally, or seeming to do so. Always remember you are the umpire, not the opposition. Just like any game, it should be fair and the players should always have a fair chance of success. It is their story too.

David Jones

Hi,

as far as I got WHAMs concept:

Can the players stop the black trooper?
To them, the black trooper is "same team". Even more, he is like someone who assigned by your boss to look how you are doing and if you should be offered the better position your applied for. Not necessarly some-one you want to argue with or think about attacking.

Why are the cultists trying to make mutant plants?
They aren´t. They trying to increase the crop and even think they are offering up to the emporer. The only real cultist is the village elder (and perhaps some more) who knows what is happening. Yes, it is a little strange to imagine a Khorn cultist to be subtle. Some would even say it is "impossible" or not "true" or [term]. But the artifact that changed the elder wasn´t 100% Khorne to begin with.
That is (by the way) the reason nobody wipes out chainswords. This isn´t an "old school" Khorne cult.

@Your concept
This sounds fun as well. A little bit of mix of "the crazies" and "innsmouth". Already any idea where the village got the seeds from and why they are chaos tainted? Scheme by the pilgrims or some other doomsday-cult? warp incursion that just happens (it DOES happen!) Seed that got tainted during a gellar field fluctuation on the ride to the planet?)

Can the players stop the black trooper?

Of course they CAN, if they REALLY want to. But as Gregorius said, the Black Trooper is presented as an elite observer, sent by the Inquisitor to keep an eye on the new Acolytes, and to make sure something actually gets done right if the Acolytes eff things up.

Why are the cultists trying to make mutant plants?

Again, Gregorius is right. The villagers are not trying to create mutant plants, but the village elder is manipulating the taintless villagers to his own ends, which in turn are affected by the Khorne relic, which only has one objective: to generate as much blood spilled as possible. Having the entire population of the world turned into bloody shreds by mutant plants is as good a way as any.

The group which I'm going to play with (or is it 'against'?) have played the Chaosium Call of Cthulhu P&P with me and I did an Innsmouthish scenario with them a year ago. I think the "town drunk that is actually the most sane person around" is a bit used in this group... This scenario is meant to show a way Khorne and the warp can influence realspace events, and even though I am portraying Khorne's plans as fairly advanced, the attempt at using one world to irrigate mutant plants on other worlds might be stretching it a bit too far. I'll keep this stuff in mind though, as more than one nasty thing could be going on on one world, and following traces of possibly mutated plants to other planets might make for a fairly interesting side quest if done right.

About Scen 3

I will prepare a series of smaller scenarios, which I will probably randomize and alter as the game moves forward, in order to create a meaningful play of the weeks. Timeskips of a few days will probably be plentiful, with dice roll decided smaller events taking place occasionally. The space station cannot be escaped on with the same ship they came in on, as the ship makes a break for it as soon as things start blowing up, robbing the players of the natural path of escape. They will be presented with a time limit and some small challenges, such as escaping decompressing areas, avoiding firestorms and the running human torches they create, and will be given options to sacrifice some of their time to rescue others, who might become allies later in the scenario if saved, or enemies fighting over who gets to board the escape shuttles if the player's luck turns sour.

As a last note: I do tend to think myself as the opponent to my players, but I also keep things limited to pre determined rules, which I lay out for myself before each scenario or event. For example: The players are about to enter a mine shaft and the map they have leads them to a dead end. I have three possible threats which they might face, so I roll a dice to pick one, and then tell the players that they need to pick one of several corridors to proceed. I've now written down the oprions and which ones of the paths the players can choose lead to which encounters. I also decide now, before players choose to enter the surprise encounter, how the potential enemies are prepared if they are at all, and what they are doing there. After the encounter starts, its all out. No punches pulled.

Everyone has their own style . As does every group. Personally I like keeping the clues in the open and use dice very rarely. Which is quite coC really. Used to play a lot of CoC and I think it is a good influence for DH. In my campaign I am even using a modified version of the CoC sanity rules, because I am not fond of Fear and Insanity in DH.

I ripped the untainted survivors idea from the Andromeda Strain.

Looks good. Mind you, any campaign I write tends to end up looking radically different to how it started out

Yesss! I just got word that we'll be able to start the first scenario on wednesday next week. I'll be posting the short version of the events up here so you people can have your word about how things are proceeding. I have also arranged two separate play groups. Both will play the same campaining and I'm hoping to see alterations in the developements in the scenarios between the two groups. I'll post in this thread the advancement of the first group and make another thread for the other group for those interested in seeing how this campaining begins to unfold. If someone is interested, PM me, and I'll also post the scenario's and other material I have made for the sessions.

The party consists of following:

> A voidborn female techpriest, Nihila. The player has minimal knowledge of 40k universe, character joined inquisition for the chance to fight Xenos as revenge for murdering the only love she ever had in life.

> A feral world female assassin, Mora. The player has no knowledge of 40k universe, character was forcibly drafted to Inquisition for her murderous skills. She despises humans and keeps to herself, being overall antisocial and spiteful in company of others.

> Imperial world male arbitrator, Roth. Player has fair amount of knowledge of 40k universe from the tabletop game. A would-be military type, stuck in arbitrator forces on a forge world, until drafted into Inquisition. Joined willingly to be a part of a more elite military organisation.

> A male hive world Adept (I allowed it, though the rulebook is against it... I don't see why it can't be). Used to work as the head of a small data cogitation and data input facility, until something clicked. The man wanted to leave his job, his post in the service of the imperium. This was not tolerable and his life was soon forefit, as his damned curiosity led him astray. He pleaded to the Inquisition to take him, to clean his slate and to allow him to serve the Empreror's inquisition, and at the same time, gather information and understanding of the universe around him. This player has no information of the 40k universe and his character conflicts with canon in quite a few ways. I allowed him to create a fairly blasphemous character and then have the player slowly learn that the man he created is wrong in so many ways. I'm hoping it will create interesting choises in the character's future and make it more interesting for the entire group. We shall see if he corrects his ways, or is forever damned by his quriosity...

Wish me luck people!

WHAM said:

Best wishes! But about the female voidborne tech-priest: did the xenos murdered her person cognitator?

My idea was, that she is one of the few techpriests who have not always been in the mechanicus, or started as lowly workers and therefore led a normal shipborne life, though she was always wanted into the mechanicus for her personal skill at handling the machines she was allowed near. After the tragedy (her being aged 15-19 at the time, I'm not sure) she finally gave in and became a student of the machine, serving under one of the ship's mechanicus masters, until finally and at a strangely late age, being formally given the title of techpriestess.

The player was quite pleased with this and I thought it would be acceptably realistic in the game world, so we went with it. Just imagine a techpriestess with scarred human emotions and mixed feelings about either getting rid of all emotion and embracing the machine, or to carry on with the sorrow, exacting a hateful revenge on the vile Xenos that murdered her only love interest in life. I think we are onto something here!

First scenario played through last night. Here's the short of it.

Scenario 01 - Tunnels of Doom

The players received their briefing, a short tale of creeping corruption in the Gorgonid mined and the area called Shatters, before being tossed into a small shuttle and sent planetside. On the shuttle the group meets the Black trooper, a silent and distant character who does not speak one word during their short co-existence aboard the shuttle.

As the shuttle lands in the Imperial Guard campsite a few kilometers away from the Gorgonid mine entrance, the Black trooper leaves the ship first, disappearing amongst the tents and troopers. The players meet a flustered guardsman Jurtz, who speaks a few words to them before getting interrupted by a sergeant, who swiftly orders the guardsman to return to his post. The sergeant questions the new arrivals, making his resentment towards the quality of reinforcements clear, before leaving to inform the Comissar of the arrivals. The players decided to follow the sergeant and to get the meeting with the Comissar out of the way in order to get information and directions from him.

The Comissar briefs the players to current situation, describing briefly the past events in the mines, before handing them a map of the Gorgonid mines. At this point, one of the players briefly noticed the Black trooper standing in the shadows of the room, watching them. After receiving their information and asking about the possibility of receiving supplies, the players decide to pay a visit to the camp Quartermaster before heading out.

The quartermaster provides the players with a length of rope, CS rations, water canteens and (due to hearing about them from Goardsman Jurtz as he walked by, stammering about their saviors from the Inquisition finally arriving) a set of 4 frag grenades in a discrete cloth bag with a small not labeled "Do not open" labeled on in. (The players NEVER opened this bag, their quriosity was not strong). One of the players traded some money for some extra goods, purchasing a leftover backpack and a homemade frag mine (with tripwire) that the QM had made in his free time.

Now "well" supplied, the players walked to the mine entrance, where they awed at the massive seal that had been erected there. The Comissar ordered the seal opened and the players entered the dark mines.

It took the players over 30 hours to make it to the Shatters (they had regular rest breaks as well as one longer sleeping break in a small corridor they fortified into a defensible position. During one of their earlier breaks they heard a strange sound (which, though the players had no idea, was the seal being reopened and closed some six hours after they had entered the mines to allow Guardsman Jurtz along with a few guardsmen to enter at their request to assist the newcomers, as well as to allow the Black troopers covert entry into the mines).

A good while later, the players were slowed down by a collapsed tunnel and they took quite a while to arrange for one of them to jump across the chasm with a rope to create a "bridge". Guardsman Jurtz, now alone, catches up to the players, explaining why he entered and that his group was separated and his only remaining partner was killed by a strange beast while crossing some waist-high wastewater spill in a maintenance tunnel. The players welcome Jurtz and the extra food and water he is carrying and move on.

The Shatters

(I decided to alter the Shatters section quite a bit. I changed the layout, locked away the room with four mutants (to be opened later if things seem too easy. I also removed the choking gas hazard, as I was feeling too lazy to keep track of it).

The players enter, decidedly making their way through tunnels, peering cautiously into the side caverns, unwilling to investigate properly. The first room the player properly investigate (two investigate while two keep guard outside) is a small office / break room / sleepin quarter near the entrance, in which they discover a pile of bodies and gore. After short look around they leave in disgust.

The techpriest discovers a large metal crate in the corridor labeled "Power tools" and decides that it is a good idea to shoot the padlock out with her laspistol. The noise echoes in the corridors, scaring the living hell out of the other characters and warning all enemies of the players presence. Heated words are exhanged and the rest of the group advances, while the techpriest starts opening the crate and going through the contents ("Seet loot!").

The players discover a room that reeks of promethium and cautiously enter to investigate. They are jumped by a Mutan abomination who attacks with a massive rusty meatcleaver. The players withdaw, shouting warnings of the flammable fumes. The Mutant corners one of the players, along with Guardsman Jurtz, into a dead end just outside the promethium room. The assassing decides to risk it and fires two potshots with her hunting rifle. Both shots miss, one by several degrees. An unlucky dice roll dictates that the bullet strikes the metal door of the prometheum room, ricocheting and creating a spray of sparks which light the fumes, which now spew into the corridor. The ensuing blast catches three of the players (Techpriest, Arbitrator and Assassin by suprise and they suffer massive damage and are now on fire (as is the mutant, which screams and runs into a wall). Jurtz, who was injured by the creature earlier and knocked down, now fries to a crisp. The adept legs it, running away from the blast as fast as he can. In the ensuing fumbling and screaming fit, three players end up burning a fate point to stay alive (and to put out the flames). The players pull themselves together, crawling away from the burning room just in time to escape the next blast, caused by an intact fuel container boiling and bursting in the heat. The players withdraw into the office and take a 12 hour rest to recover and patch themselves up. (Not one of the characters has any medicae skill, but I allowed them to heal 1D5 wounds to keep them in the scenario, as otherwise the next combat would have been a near 100% sure death sentence).

After another encounter with a mutant guardsman, the players eventually walk up the corridor and discover a stone chamber in which the Antithesis stone floats in mid-air, pulsating a sickly pink light. The light waves over the players, causing two to suffer penalties on one to suffer a mutation. The techpriest's fleshi bits and hair turn a bright pink colour with gray marbling just barely visible under the skin. She cowers in fear and shock just as the stone begins to spew out mist which forms into a partially formed plaguebearer that now confronts the players. Two players fail their fear rolls and end up running away for 3 turns each (the Arbitrator and Assassin). The plaguebearer slices the assassing, causing a pus-spewing gash in her arm, which then begins to bleed profusely. The character is in too much of a hurry to panic and run away to tend to her wound, leaving a trail of blood behind her as she runs. The techpriest quickly recovers from the shock, firing a volley of lascarbine shots into the plaguebearer, succeeding in causing massive damage to the creature's head, popping it's sickly pus-flowing eyeball like a ripe fruit, though the creature still attacks. The techpries steps back, trying to get to better position, as the Adept suddenly grabs a grenade from his belt (one he picked up from the dead Guardsman earlier) and tosses it at the demon. The explosion kills the creature and shatters the Antithesis stone, which leaves behind only a small fragment on the floor. The shrapnel injures the Adept himself, as well as knocking the techpriest out cold.

In the aftermath, the Black trooper appears, placing a reassuring hand onto the Adepts shoulder, behore kneeling down to ****** the pink crystal fragment into a small stasis device. The Black trooper nods to signal an "all clear" and walks away, leaving the players to gather themselves and to escape. The assassin bleeds out in the corridor and burns her last fate point to stay alive as she collapses onto a staircase.

The outcome

A long time later, as the players finalle re-emerge from the mines into the daylight, they are greeted by the good Comissar, a squad of his men and the Black trooper. The two injured women are laid onto the ground as one of the soldiers runs away to get a medic. The Comissar takes a worried look at the garishly pink techpriest, who'se discolouration is clearly visible through the missing parts of her badly burnt robes. The players take no action and so the Black trooper steps up, pulls out a Hellpistol and points it at the now unconscious techpriest as if to challenge someone to stop him. The players do not act and a single **** rings out, as the techpriest's head is vaporized by the weapon. The Black trooper utters the words "Suffer not the mutant to live" and holsters his weapon, walking away calmly, as the Guardsman medic arrives to tend to the wounds of the survivors. The players are housed in a tent in the Guard encampment for three weeks for recovery, and are there to witness the Inquisitorial shuttles arriving to cleanse the mines properly. They encounter hardly any threats in the tunnels, except for a few stray cultists and mutants, which are crawling in the tunnels, looking for food. In their debriefing, supplied by an assistant of their Inquisitor, the players are congratulated on their action to solve the crisis in the tunnels, but they are also reprimanded for not despatching the mutant techpriest themselves. The three surviving players gained a good deal of exp, the Arbitrator and Assassin suffered scarring from the burns and thus a permanent penalty to their Fellowship stats. I also allowed (as a special occasion gift) for the Assassin to gain 1 total fate point, as she had burned both of her points in her first scenario.

The players seemed to enjoy the action and the atmosphere of the adventure and the techpriest is now pondering about rolling her second techpriest. She had begun to dislike her character so she was not at all saddened by the character's untimely death.

The PC's will now be ordered to board a freighter on the Inquisitors orders and to travel to a nearby Agri world to investigate a series of suspected cultist activities there. They will be joined by a new team member on the way. No rest for the wicked, eh?