SPOILERS below, read further at your own risk.

Hello again my fellow GMs (and to any of my players, i.e. those playing the crew of the good ship the Thors Redemption, please go away now. reading the following may spoil your fun.

I've been ruminating on the finale to Lure of the Expanse. Like others here, I feel its a sad end, the players have had an objective in sight and it is finally denied them. They make some cash and reap the rewards of their adventures to get there, but it'll feel disappointing. My players, grumpy curmudgeons all, will grumble. However, i've got a solution.

I've re-written it at the end so that the head of the human natives of the Pearl has a necklace. A very special necklace. The necklace is a trio of large flat crystal plates, about the size of a paperback novel. Each is a data disc (not hat the locals know that). I plan to have the groups NPC tech priest instantly recognise that these are data discs of a very ancient design. He will point it out and hopefully the party will do soething creative to acquire the discs.

Each disc will be a STC template. That makes three templates. Oh yes. Riches and rewards await. There will follow some kind of auction with the mechanicus to sell them off and vast wealth will be acquired. This will be the "reward" for the pearl quest, especially since my players craftily managed to cheat themselves of quite a few of the money making opportunities enroute to the pearl (they shot down the friendlies in the Processional of the damned section without even hearing them out, cold blooded devils!)

Now obviosuly an STC template find is a HUGE event. It'll mean massive changes to the warhammer 40k world, but frankly these will mostly be beyond the scope of the game both geographically and time wise.

However, in addition to the sum they sell it to the Mechanicus for, i also want them to somehow benefit from what is actually on the disks. i.e. if its a vehicle design, give them a few prototypes of the vehicle, something they can actually use and see.

Which is where i'd like some ideas. What could be on the STC disks? I've already decided one will be damage and incomplete (but still with lots of useful suff, think Sollex fragment).

Any ideas for STC templates? I'd ideally like one of them to be something ship related.

I'd suggest you reduce it to one STC data-disk, since the background has it that one Guardsman who found an STC (I believe it was for a slightly sharper blade than was currently being used at the time) was rewarded for the discovery in such a way as he was able to purchase his own planet from the Imperium and live as a noble for the rest of his life.

These are once in a life-time discoveries, and finding 3 would (or should) put the Rogue Trader in a position to purchase an entire fleet of ships and let him retire, his wealth would be so massive, which sort of spoils the feeling of acomplishment of building your way up to such things.

Nah, it wasn't it a Guardsman, it was a team of Imperial Scouts that found the STC (one of the Gaunt's Ghosts novels). The STC made blades. Razor blades, swords, kitchen knives, bayonets. They were so good 5 entire Marine chapters were re-equipped with them. Each of the Imperial Scouts was rewarded with his own world, if that gives you any scale of the value of a simple STC that made kitchen knives. I wouldn't have it be a complete STC, but a fragment of one (which is still incredibly valuable to the Mechanicus).

That's the one! I knew it was in Gaunt's Ghosts somewhere

Make it an STC for a tech that exists but for which the STC has been lost. Maybe it will improve an existing techs performance. Lets say it will make Navigation easier by +25 or something tangible to the players by improving the Navigators Pit.

I think it would be more interesting if the device were Eldar and gave the players access to the webway, up until they are discovered and ejected or destroyed.

Perhaps you could choose something that would be relevant to the person whose been roleplaying best so far? As a specific reward for them? Upgrade some item of their kit or give them a bonus to an important skill - but I wouldn't make it as large as 25% as that's huge! Of course it depends how crucial/oft used the skill is.

I'm looking at potential STC rewards for my campaign as well. Not sure what I'll choose but I'd prefer it to be useful for all the players and not just a matter of profit factor. Anything that they can use to improve their ship would be good or items that they'd all carry - perhaps even an improved microbead. Of course they can't use it themselves they need a forgeworld for that so they'll have to make a deal with the Mechanicus.

One option I'm consider is giving them a template for something they really can't have a hope of using. They can then trade that with the Mechanicus for profit factor/gear that they can use. For instance they might feel like getting an extra customised ship with an unusually good crew of Tech Priests.

I'm also working on an expanded version of the loot table of 'unique' kit from Lure of Expanse so that I can provide them cool loot elsewhere. To my mind profit factor is nice but it's not personal or really special. The special bit about that is they can use it for things they choose for themselves - that best craftsmanship platinum plated melta they want to commission.

I like the idea. I would say lets make this reward a little more Grim dark shall we. Perhaps there are three slates. One is completely empty but pitted and dark. One has a sickly green tint to it and cracks with an unknown energy. The third has a light blue crystal clear glow to it. Each to the two energized plates have data fragments on them. One is for a more powerful energy amplifier that can increase the power of shielding for a limited time (personal shield, void shields, etc). The other is a fragment that contains the corrupted scrapcode from the Vaults of Moravec. It proves the means to make extremely powerful warp-tainted servitors, but it will corrupt and change the entire ship, its crew, and their equipment.

Salcor

Maybe three STC templates is a bit extreme. Maybe if the three discs are a transcribed single STC. This would as folks have mentioned be massively valuable.

As for the prototypes. I plan on giving my players a flat PF boost. And then something concrete, like 5000 freshly augmented mining helots, a heavy frieghter starship, a legion of Skitarii, etc, etc that they can actually go away and find something useful to do with. Then finally, a working prototype of the STC. This prototype i don't want as an awesome lewt type reward. More something that the PCs can point to and say "We found that". Who knows, if its something suitable, maybe its something they will start seeing around after a while as it slowly gets introduced.

So, back to the original question......what is the STC template on the disks for?

* A terra forming engine (still would take a century or so to terraform a planet)

* STC for creating Iron Men (If you want to screw them over)

* Enhance Plasma Drives (Lower Space, Higher Power)

* Mass Transit System (Mono Rail like)

* STC for a small fusion engine, for civilian power armour

* STC for a fusion bomb

* STC for a Storm Raven

What about it being part of an STC with legends of the other parts being elsewhere?

- Void / land Mining drone template

- Colony Hub template

- MK1 PA template

- weapon templates

- defence platform template

- forget tech Auspex / augury template

- Titan weapon / ship weapon partial template

- etc.

Note that recovering a STC isn't always huge deal if the STC already known.

Dalnor Surloc said:

Depends on the STC. A lesser forge world might hand over a great deal for plasma weapon STC comparable to Ryza-pattern. Or better yet the specs for inferno pistols.

Dalnor Surloc said:

Well, given that most of the 'STC canon' of the Adeptus Mechanicus is comprised of fragments and variants of the true and original STC designs, any new information relevant to even already-known designs is extremely valuable, often allowing refinement or improvement of the systems the Imperium already uses (such as the different variants of Land Raider, Land Speeder and Rhino used by the Space Marines, which have undergone changes since their first introduction).