I just ran my players through the "purge the unclean" trilogy, and they did decently well. They came close to getting themselves killed in "shades of twilight" and they kinda hated offing the old guy at the end of the last mission. We did however reach a concensus that after reachign the end of this campaign (they were all sitting somewhere between 4-5k exp each) they wanted to start a new one. It was their first DH campaign, they'd done a few things with their characters that didn't work as well as they'd thought, and they wanted to create new ones for me to run them through some stuff where I didn't pull punches now that they have a grasp of how things work.

Thus, I am planning to run them through the house of dust and ash, and then through the haarlock trilogy.

Now, the house of dust and ash is a mean one, clearly not intended for rank 1 NPC's. What I'm wondering is, what kind of stuff should I give them to start? I'd like advice on the following, as thus far the only campaigns I've started have been from rank 1.

Starting EXP (rank)?

Starting gear?

Starting wealth?

I figured I'd base their starting gear on how they spent their experience, maybe give them a basic weapon from any of the weapon skills they trained in, as well as some decent starting armor. And then possibly allow them to buy a few things with their starting wealth, based on wherever I start them. I also want to have some sort of random generator for each of them to get something neat to start out with, like a deck of many things from DnD, if anyone has a recommendation on how to make this work, I'd appreciate it.

For reference, I have 4 players. 1 firebrand cleric, one combat techpriest, one guardsman, and one who is undecided at the momment.

Hi!

I would say let them start with enough xp to build them Rank 3 characters. After all, "House of Dust and Ash" is kinda survival horror. So your PC should be in trouble deep.

Giving them one complete month income per rank should do the trick nicely. If you are afraid they might be "unarmed", add some weapons and armour to the auction. Best Quality or even Xeno, of course. As they survived the "first onslaught", this should help them a lot.

If you still fear that they need some help, allow them to team up with one or two of theother parties involved. Prime Candidates are either the RogueTrader (the REAL one!) or the Bloodsworn. Or simply allow them to rally some of the present PDF soldiers as cannonfodder npc. It is always good to have some red shirts with you.

"Disciples..." recommends Rank 4-5 for that adventure. Even then it's likely to be rough on the characters.

I think your notion of weapons and armour based on their xp expenditure is a decent one. A month's pay per rank not bad either, maybe more depending on how generous you're feeling.

To note, in a previous DH campaign I gave starting character 10k thrones (15k for nobles). In hindsight that was far, far too much unless you want the party to be attempting ascension-like adventures.