I´ve just got a thought about a campaign or an adventure to be played in an "under water"-city like the in Star Wars but with Humans in it instead of Jar-Jars. It should be covered with some sort of thick glass and there should be smaller pipes for transports to a surface spaceport or the mines outside of the city. In those pipes or near the wall it should be dangerous to fire arms. Specially explosives. It should be some chance that the glass is breaking and water is coming in.

I havent thougth of the plot of the campaign yet but maybe you can say what you think of the idea and maybe you have some new ones to share.

Hmm.. you may look into the "Ravenor: Rogue" and "Dark Disciple" novels (written respectively by Dan Abnett and Anthony Reynolds). Both books contain good examples of underwater adventures.

Alternatively, try unearthing some of the Lovecraft's "Call of Ctulhu" cycle of short stories. Namely, "The Temple" can offer some good ideas for possible adventure seeds.

Can't remember the name right now, but the Inquisitor's Handbook had a world at least somewhat like that on a completely aquatic planet.

you're talking about Spectoris its on top of the water but they mine minerals on the underside of the city

ThenDoctor said:

I think he may have been rather referring to the underwater world of Landunder.

Fideru said:

Spectoris - aquatic agri-world. The "complete" ocean. The entire surface of Spectoris is covered in ocean.

Landunder - "upturned" Hive World. The planetary crust is free-floating on deep chemical oceans.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Thanks a lot!

Both planets seem real cool and exciting to make up an adventure in. Is there any book there I can read more obout these?

Has anyone played or led a game in simular environment? It would be fun to hear some advises!

While I never played a game in such an environment, it would be reasonable that any and every weapon that would be able to breach the "hull" would be banned. No city government would allow Joe and Joana to carry something that would bring down the city if used stupidly.

Since their would a need to recycle air, each and every citizen might have to pay fee in order to stay in the citiy boundaries. Unless, you have a very well established plant system. This would make the "Air Gardener Guild" very influential indeed. And their still might be a limit on how many people can be tolerated. Which might lead to strict birth control and the "right to procreate" to something that is either granted as a high price or earned with very enduring labour.

While their might be tubes, another option would be airlocks so travell might be swiming or with some kind of water slided (the old James Bond "Fireball", anyone?). The mines would surley be affairs that are void of all air so people have to work in heavy underwater suits (many examples in SciFi here). Fish and algea farming coulde be another field of business, same as a perl industrie with hughe guarded field of perls. Perhaps with cybernetic sharks as "guard dogs" both to scare away sea predators hostile to the clams and to disencourage would-be-perl-thieves.

A mission could involve investigation on the work of a magus biology who forms bio implants to make people able to survive better in the sea. Is he still adherent to credo omnissiah or did he tempered with the holy human gene and is thereby a heretek. If so, can the pc deal with him?

Coolt said:

Ooh! I got it! It's an underwater forge world overrun by hereteks! Once a shining example of imperial technology, it's now a rotting ruin filled with feral relics of a bygone era. The main antagonist could be the infamous Randrew Ayan, a magos gone mad, feebly clinging to his once great underwater city! At his beck and call are half-human monstosities called "Large Patriarchs", created specifically to guard his army of cybernetic ratling girls called "Diminutive Sisters"! It's a super original premise and you'll probably be hoisted onto the shoulders of your players while being handed numerous awards. Yes, that is exactly what'll happen. Also, one of the PCs is Randrew Ayans mind-cleansed son for no real reason. Like, at all.

Syzygy said:

This... Wouldn't be the first time someone has thought of that. Last time someone mentioned it, they figured on a Genetor Magos for the big bad. On a similar note, there was a thread about doing something along the vein of Dead Space late '08/early '09 if I am remembering right.

-=Brother Praetus=-

A underwater city over run with Mutants and Hereticus.

Rapture, from Bioshock, is a underwater city overrun with Splicers.

A, formerly gleaming, metropolis of massive Art Deco-styled buildings, connected by networks of glass tunnels, Bathysphere systems, and submerged railways.

IMO Rapture is good for inspiration for a non-gothic underwater city.

Edit: LOL! I shed have read Syzygy post first.

from france

in my country a entire rpg was built around this concept it is "polaris" i think it have been translate in english. it can be be very useful. and for the air tax re watch "total recall" and you will see that paying for the right to breath is paying for th right to lives and the one who control the air control the city. governot or not unless he also control the air. so if you can't pay you air, you are screw without a fight

For some odd reason the idea of underwater city in Dark Heresy conjures into my mind a vision of the inside of WWII issue third reich submarine. Cramped, dark tunnels, red emergency lights, condensed water dripping from the ceiling... and not a single StarWars galss window anywhere. But I guess thats just me

Polaria said:

... and constant creaking and groaning from the stresses of pressure. A entire class of menials whose sole function in life is to combat the ever-present rust. Teams of harried and exhausted emergency workers stationed on every street corner, to respond quickly to the ever-increasing frequency of leaks. Constant rain-like drizzle in the lower levels from that same condensed water Polaria mentioned.

Polaria said:

That is because you have absorbed enough of the 40k-feel while we are still soaked in our contemporary popculture.

I once started a Deathwatch game (using the old player made rules up on Dark Reign) and had the marines investigating a research lab on an oceanic agri-world. The world had several hive-city style floating cities, and whilst i didn't delve very far into the designs of them , i was going for massive arks, which had later been expanded upon as more and more of the world flooded untill the only "land" available was the premium deck or hold space of the various city arks.

The planet was now a thriving agri-world, exporting fish, algae and other seaborne nutrients off-world to feed the imperial machine in the sector, yet it also had a darker side to it. Being relatively lo-tech and far from the busiest trade routes, it was overlooked by the sterner elements of the imperial heirarchy, and it's various guilds were too busy competing over gelt to have sensible morales. Thus a number of deep sea labs had been opened on the under-hulls of a couple of the city arks, with secretive deliveries made directly from spaceport, to cargo sub, to the labs.

I was aiming for a sort of Wild West vibe, but rather than cattle everyone was ranching fish, algae etc from the oceans. The poorest citizens would work the mass extraction plants owned by the guilds, whilst the more middling citizens worked their own communal areas, sharing fishing trawlers etc. Finally the richest citizens were either those that ran the guilds, or in even rarer cases, owned prime real estate plots of ocean they held the sole rights to harvest there.

Most of the city arks were large plasteel and ceramite affairs, their hulls able to withstand the pressures lower down and also bear the massive weight of the cities above. Some of the small-holdings were more simple wood and lo-tech metal affairs, clinging around the city arks like shoals of the planets much lauded fish.

Reserve - I'll come back to this and add more later on if anyone is interested, as i only had a vague concept ready at the time.

Thanks for the great ideas you give me!

Right now im thinking of something like an under water mining complex that has stop to pay their polls to the imperium. It is a chaos cult that has started an revolution that they will find out later. The acolytes is sent there to investigate the problem under cover. They arrive to the planet in a stealth plane. They have to jump from the plane like James Bond in Tomorrow never dies. This is just to avoid being detected. After that they have to swim with rebreathers down under water and into an airlock that another under cover acolyte(NPC) is guarding.

What do you guys think of that start?

Also to Kasatka: I would love to hear about the rest of your Deathwatch adventure and more about your water world.

Hi Colt,

sounds like a nice opening. Here are some additonal ideas

[Shadow in the water:]
During the mission pre-briefing, the pc learn about possible predators in the water. As they dive, they cannot see far since the water around the city is kinda dirty. While diving, they recognize a huge shadow getting close from beneath them. Good Perception and/or Survival tests will however tell them that this just a huge fish. If they fire at him, however, the blood might draw close some other predators. They will not show up immediately, but they will.

Rrrelease The Kraken!

How's that for an end-battle?

A huge monster from the deep, summoned and corrupted by the chaos cult when they see their evil plot is in shambles! You could use it as one huge monster, battling with the PC's undersea craft while they're pursuing the fleeing main protagonist. Or you could have the cultists summon it when all else fails. 'if we can't have the underwater mine, no-one can!'. I can easily imagine a huge eye sliding past a viewport and dozens of large tentacles probing the inside of the mining colony through well decks and forced openings. It could even be an epic battle for escape while the kraken drags the whole colony down into the abyss...

I'd like to add some claustrophobia to the end-scene. Have the Acolytes pursue the Big Boss up a twisted maze of maintenance ladders and catwalks of a mine elevator shaft that is rapidly filling with water with Cthulhuesque Kraken-monster is swimming in the water. As gunfire is poured up and down the shaft (Big Boss and his cronies are mainly shooting down into the shaft while Acolytes will probably shoot up and down) some of the ladders and catwalks will fall into the hungry mouth of the monster and the shaft is starting to cave in under the water pressure. Can the Acolytes capture/kill the Big Boss before he reaches the atmospheric shuttle in the landing platform on the top of the elevator shaft? Can they overpower the shuttle crew and get it into air before the monster gets to the landing platform and eats everyone? Can anyone actually get out of the elevator shaft before they become lunch?

You are really giving me wonderful ideas. So please keep up the good work. This is some thoughts about the ideas you have given me.

First the ideas from Gregorius21778 with an airtoll and laws against strong firearms:

I think like this: An underwater mine that have made a riot as I mentioned earlier. Its a chaos cult behind it. The mine is self-supporting with a mechanism that makes oxygen from the carbon dioxide in the water in the same way as fish breathes. So there wont be a airpipe up to the surface.

The laws against firearms is a realistic feature but it slows down the action part. So because the acolytes dont know what they are up to they swim down with their weapons and is let in by the inquisitors inside contact on the planet. He does only know that there is something wrong but not what it is. So in that way they can come into the mine with their weapons.

I also love your idea about the big fish just as a scary thing when the acolytes swim down to the mine. Did not think of that myself but its really great.

Polaria suggested the feeling of a WWII-submarine but I want something more like a big glass formation like in the simpsons movie. Outside the sould be something like the australian coral reef at night. Maybe even some illuminating plants or fish. Beautiful but still dangerous because you cant breath in it.

Mephs idea about kraken and Polarias about the elevator is also great but I want to give them a little makeover. Instead of a kraken I want the cult to summon a powerful deamon when they realise that they have lost. It should not be a greater deamon or a lesser but something in between. Maybe a Beast of Nurgle. It should be strong enough to smash the glass to keep the water outside so that it will be a flooding. My first idea was just that the deamon (who does not need air to live) is chasing the acolytes that will swim for their life to the surface. But now Polaria gave me the briliant idea of the elevator and ladder chase. If they react fat enough they can take up the chase after the big boss cult leader who is running/climbing towards the surface spaceport which is also controlled by the cult. It is well guarded from airstrikes but not so well from acolytes coming from behing.

If the acolytes takes to much time on them they will have to swim up to the surface to be picked up by their own space craft and to take up the chase of the big boss on another planet.

Another thing in the adventure is that i want the acolytes to risk radiation damage from the warp portal that they see when the cult is summoning the deamon. I want them to risk getting mutations.

what do you think? Give me more ideas

Hi there,

I will undue the quote marks, since they tend to make a horrible mess out of a post

airtoll and laws against strong firearms:

As far as I remember, fish breath oxygen, just like us. They simply filter it out off the water. But I might be mistaking. Anway, if you want no "air toll", just keep it out of your adventure . But you should not include a technology like the one you mentioned. Simply ignore the matter and have a lot of algea tanks doing the job plants do on our earth.

If you do not want the action to slow down, simply make sure everyone using "fire arms" that are no harm (less punch) to solid armoured glass. Like "nothing with any PEN". If your "keep-the-pressure" glass is like.. AP: 16 this would mean that most weapon could be allowed inside. The projectiles would just glance of against the curve!

Idea: Sabotaged Gear
The pc will have to purchase new flask of air from time to time. If they aren´t sublte about who they are (weaving around the rosetta or being to obvious about questions) , how about sabotaging their breathing gear? Small manipulation that will make the gear (tubes, pipes) break under the pressure of the air after about 3d10 minutes of usage. The pc will really need to hurry to "get back" (airlock, their underwater vehicle) or suffer from suffocation

Idea: The Daemon
Did you already decided about the cult? Do you have any other source books like DotdG? The Rakshasa of the Pilgrims sound good. Especially since they would not totally seem out of place in a water environment (gliding in mid air or in water...what is the difference?)

Another option: How about a patch of dimensional shadow? You could still have all the tentacles. Instead of a maw, it would just grab and drag the victims towards it inside. It would have about ST: 45 and TB: 50 (Daemonic: TB:10) and no other armour. WS as you see fit (36?). It would grabble, but with much more range. Those inside it´s tentacle would suffer form an unearthly cold (it would freeze the water around it..possible gaing more armour!) and would thereby have to make ordinary toughness checks each round in the grasp. If they loose, it is one wound with no TB/Armour reduction (unless the armour is keeping warmth) and a level of fatigue for three levels of failur and another one if five. One "drawn in the center", the test worsens AND the victim suffers 1d5 points of corruption. If unconsciouss, the dimensional shadow thing leaves the victim behind and takes the next one.

]

Hi there,

I will undue the quote marks, since they tend to make a horrible mess out of a post

airtoll and laws against strong firearms:

As far as I remember, fish breath oxygen, just like us. They simply filter it out off the water. But I might be mistaking. Anway, if you want no "air toll", just keep it out of your adventure . But you should not include a technology like the one you mentioned. Simply ignore the matter and have a lot of algea tanks doing the job plants do on our earth.

If you do not want the action to slow down, simply make sure everyone using "fire arms" that are no harm (less punch) to solid armoured glass. Like "nothing with any PEN". If your "keep-the-pressure" glass is like.. AP: 16 this would mean that most weapon could be allowed inside. The projectiles would just glance of against the curve!

Idea: Sabotaged Gear
The pc will have to purchase new flask of air from time to time. If they aren´t sublte about who they are (weaving around the rosetta or being to obvious about questions) , how about sabotaging their breathing gear? Small manipulation that will make the gear (tubes, pipes) break under the pressure of the air after about 3d10 minutes of usage. The pc will really need to hurry to "get back" (airlock, their underwater vehicle) or suffer from suffocation

Idea: The Daemon
Did you already decided about the cult? Do you have any other source books like DotdG? The Rakshasa of the Pilgrims sound good. Especially since they would not totally seem out of place in a water environment (gliding in mid air or in water...what is the difference?)

Another option: How about a patch of dimensional shadow? You could still have all the tentacles. Instead of a maw, it would just grab and drag the victims towards it inside. It would have about ST: 45 and TB: 50 (Daemonic: TB:10) and no other armour. WS as you see fit (36?). It would grabble, but with much more range. Those inside it´s tentacle would suffer form an unearthly cold (it would freeze the water around it..possible gaing more armour!) and would thereby have to make ordinary toughness checks each round in the grasp. If they loose, it is one wound with no TB/Armour reduction (unless the armour is keeping warmth) and a level of fatigue for three levels of failur and another one if five. One "drawn in the center", the test worsens AND the victim suffers 1d5 points of corruption. If unconsciouss, the dimensional shadow thing leaves the victim behind and takes the next one.

I just got Dark Heresy rulebook and GM kit. I can borrow Inquisitors handbook from my gaming club. Is the dimensional shadow in DotdG?

I have not decided about the cult. It is still in a brain storming phase. But i like the mysical feeling about cultists. maybe some of you can come up with other interesting enemies. I like mutants also.

Thanks again Gregorius21778 for your many ideas. Maybe I should write you as an source of inspiration in the adventure

I like your idea about the sabotage on the acolytes equipment. I think this can take part a bit into the adventure when they should go out of an airwent to invesigate something outside of the mine or in some waterfilled mine shaft. When they swim down to the complex seams to early because that will make the suspicions go back to the pilot or some other in the inquistors personal. Maybe i go with that later but if thats the case I think I would make this to more than just an adventure. Make it to a whole campaign with conspiracies to other planets and stuff. More work but it can also be interesting.

Coolt said:

Nope, it is not. It is just a idea of mine I toy with. I simply tag names to them early on. Helps me to "imagine thinks up" And you do not really need DotdG to come up with some nice cult. I just does provide some, two of them actualy Chaos Cults (The overly destructive and rather unsubtle "Pilgrims of Hayte" and the nobility fueled and powermongering "Brotherhood of the Horned Darkness").

Idea: Cult
Since you have a cult that has for some reason set up "shop" in an isolated place and has for some reason interest in those deep see mines, how about something named "The Circle of the Distant Echoes". In a "Radio Play" (German Expression: "Hörspiel") I know there where some kind of mystery experiment where recording microfones where places into an empty room isolated completely from the outside. After hundreds of days, the microphone recorded three voices whispering to each other, all of them in different human tounges.

"The Circle of Distant Echoes" could have found a method of summoning an unearthly power. For doing so, they first have to find a deep and silent place and wait in silence for a voice to come that will tell the ritual. Then, the room has to be prepared and left in darkness and silence again. That could be the reason they got interest in some abandoned deep sea mine. Of course, the sea is not silent...but you get my idea, me thinks.

The Circle could be very wrong about the nature of what they are helping into existence. Perhaps they thing whatever they summon will be gratefull. Or controlable. But they are wrong. What will come out of the mine just as the pc find it will be a primodal thing of alien mindset and maligne intent.

Perhaps the "Dimensional Shadow" is more true an "Echo Unformed", an assortment of ripples and echoes of most different nature but all disturbing and shocking. Then, their are no tentacles but waves of echoes reaching for the soul. The damage is still their (vibration) but with corruption comes insanity and madness.