Well my little group of crusading miscreants has done me proud this week! My wife recently took over as Rogue Trader, and I am so gosh darn proud of her. But I find myself in need of some help deciding what to do next.

Here is what happened:

They landed close and got to the beacon. The Captain, being paranoid Bastille or more Eldar were going to show up out of nowhere SPRINTS up to the pedestal, much to the rest of the groups horror. Feckwad had gotten there first and left a melta bomb booby trap hoping to take out some competition (I really thought they would check for traps first, oh well). The explosion destroys the beacon, and attracts a horde of those rock giant dwellers. Several crack grenades, strafing runs, and a lance cannon strike later, they manage to escape by the skin of their teeth, the Captain feeling rather humbled.

Now comes the fun part.

So they go to the glass city, get the attention of the priest king, are brought before him, drink the water, etc. etc. etc. Feckwad (they don't know he set the trap, but probably suspect it) smirks at them as he leaves, having established a trade route.

Now the Captain is a bit of a "Joan of Arc", and considers herself the spiritual successor to Drusius, and is getting ready to spread the light of the Emperor after she secures a trade agreement. In the long run she hopes to gain allies and begin a new crusade in the Koronos expanse.

Now, if you have read the adventure you may be able to guess what happens next.

The king has the missionary prisoner brought out and demands they help him extract the "preachers of the false emperor!" They threaten his rule and attempt to turn his people against him. The Captain...does exactly what she should have done (I have know idea why the scenario didn't handle this possibility).

Heavy bolter fire suppresses half the room, a wall of cleansing fire the other, and the astropath is doing some mean stuff to the whoever is still capable of resisting. The captain uses her power sword to cut through the priest kings guards, cleaves his thrown in twain, rends his weapon in half, and slowly begins to push her power sword into his chest.

He is informed that he now has the privilege of kneeling down and swearing his loyalty to the god emperor of mankind, coming under imperial protection, and paying the imperial tithe. Otherwise the foundations of his world will be cracked, his people shall weep bitter tears of ash and curse his name, and he shall endure torments unimaginable at the tender ministrations of her missionaries before he finally receives the Emperors mercy. The drop pods begin to rain down and tanks are being landed, and the mountain in the distance is still visibly smoking and bleeding molten stone.

The priest king has a spiritual awakening, and tells his thralls he has seen the light and commands them to bow down to the Emperor. They do. Now it gets better.

The priest king has them go through the water ceremony again (knowing that if he can get them to drink 3 times they will become his thralls), and the astropath uses psyniscience on the water, finding its properties. Rather than being horrified they realize this is a golden opportunity, as the water replaces all fear with devotion, all doubt with certainty. The thralls of the priest kings could serve as the ultimate fanatical solders, unflinching, unyielding, crying out their devotion to their kings, and thus to the God Emperor of mankind. An excellent first step in their crusade! That is, if the priest kings are truly the ones in control, and if they can control the priest kings.

They confront the priest king, and after some discussion as for him to show them how he calls up the water. He acquiesces, and leads them into deep into the center of the palace. And I ended the game there.

So...now what?!? I need some ideas here.

It sounds like things are going great. Maybe you just leave it as is. Additional thoughts:

1)The leaders of Vaporius are just bidding their time. Once the PCs are gone they rise up kill or capture the missionaries and any troops. Then douse the survivors with water repeatedly. When the PCs return they happily trot out their priests, and pretend until the PCs leave.

2)The do the above and have the natives set a trap for the PCs.

3)Have the natives trade with Fel for weapons, and even a flight of shuttles. They arm their followers with lots weapons and have lots of people to pick up the weapons of the fallen. The shuttles suicide against the PCs ship causing massive damage.

4)The Vaporius natives still have a few dark age nukes, and rockets able to reach space. The atomic rules in the ship section of Into the Storm are nasty.

PS- You think you have troubles. My PCs got to the 1st site 1st. Then they destroyed most of the map before anyone else could get to it. They only gave their "allies" 3 point which we'd established wasn't enough.

PPS- Suppressive fire doesn't work on people who are fearless....

You have many choices:

- a typical drug produced from a plant.

- a warp tainted stuff. I beleive there is one DH mission where they find a world that produces a frenzy drug that is cultivated on old battlefields. (a Khorne flowers!)

- He as other RT allies in the backroom waiting in ambush...

- Another Rt bombards the planet to prevent your RT gaining the water.

- He gives them a fake ritual while thralling is crew through a another Priest King acolyte secreted through a shuttle by thralled crews that start to "convert" the water distribution unit on there vessel forcing the RT to deal with a mutiny and a possible heresy.

- Another RT learns of their trade and puts the Inquisition after them (this is Xenotech and highly suspiscious drug should it fall in bad hands like the Malfiens...)

- Another RT is even more fanatical then your RT and start a purification of the planet on a large scale and not really carrig if the players are in the way but won't succeed unless the players helps him (ambushed by a few chaos raiders that already trade the thralling water).

- a very powerful Chaos warlord is also very interested in the water and already waiting in the anti-chamber with is very many, very lusting and feverish allies and retinue. not really interested in a fight with a weak RT he is dismissive of the players and generally annoying yet offers great insight putting the PK on a bad foot right up and bargaining like a devil giving the same cut to the RT just to look at them with a smirk and leave with the knowledge that the deal is tainted and the RT in a dilemna, alternatively he could also offer the players to destroy vaporis (in front of the PK) relishing in the dilemna again presented to the players. could become a NPC to the campaign as a seducer etc.

- If i remember there are many Priest Kings on Vaporis each one as the secret to produce the water and one of them could be waiting there to help also.

- the water is created by the rock creature and they are the real power behind, with one the size of a real mountain or even an asteroid. once the creature killer the world is plunged into chaos as people that drank water for too long go frenzy (inverse effect of the drug).

- the water looses its property after a warp jump (either a geiler field effect or what not) causing a withdrawal crisis in the ship, mutiny etc...

- the rock creatures are created by peeing the stuff... or are created by turning humans into rocks after stopping drinking the water.

I should clarify, I'm not trying to DISSUADE them from doing what they are doing, or finding reasons to make them fail. I just need to continue on with the plot from here. Thanks for the replies so far.

My group decided they didn't want to know how it was produced after many comments about the King and family peeing into the jars. To explain the limited supplies....

riplikash said:

nothing i said should dissuade a RT

Excellent stuff.

My PCs killed the priest king they met after faing the missionaries detahs, installed his son as a puppet dictator and brought the imperial missionaries out of the desert as the official faith of that city.

When they returned much later they found that the new priest king had not waited long to revert to his heathen ways, the missionaries (with the battalion of House Troopers that the RT had left behind, had stormed his palace and executed him for heresy. Free of his influence the citizens tried to get on with their lives as loyal sons of the Emperor except that without the Priest kings magic to bring the water from the deep wells, only tiny amounts of water were available. By the time the PCs returned half the population was dead (either of thirst in this city, or turned away at other cities and dead in the desert). The Missionaries had kept the faith strong though ad the PCs evacuated 5,000 loyal imperials and moved them to another world loyal to the Emperor. They finished up by lance striking as many of the other priest king cities as they could find from orbit (i ruled they were hard to find as they don't have any adanced tech, i.e. no electromagnetic radiation to detect).

They finished up by lance striking as many of the other priest king cities as they could find from orbit (i ruled they were hard to find as they don't have any adanced tech, i.e. no electromagnetic radiation to detect).

Even if the cities are rather low tech, spotting them from orbit shouldn't be too hard from simple visual observation : unless everything is grown indoors, they'll be surrounded by a vegetation belt that will contrast starkly with the surrounding desert. The city's shiny copper-plated buildings will be fairly obvious too. With a well-planned orbit and a few telescopes, you can count on every major city being spotted and flattened.

That is an awesome Rogue Trader.

1) You could always make him a Wyrd of somesort. A tainted bloodline that calls the water from the warp via innate power. He would count as a psyker, but would only have access to limited "Bloodline" abilites. This ability would be similar to the Sorcerer type of psyker. Much ritual and willpower with less understanding of the nature of the warp. It would account for why the water affects the population the way it does.

2) An archeotech device that rests in the bottom of the temple. Only a certain gene activates it and only the priest kings have it. The machine adds the chems to the water to make the population more easily controllable. (Think PAX from Serenity)

3) A Xeno creature made entirely of water. It never dies and you can always drain water from it.

Hmm, this is giving me some good ideas. Some notes from the book:
1) there is a class of people that are raised for the king, the water children, or some such thing. Once they are of age they are given to the king and are never seen again.
A sacrifice then, to whatever grants the water?
2) Yes, the priest-kings seem to be some sort of psyker mutation that arose up generations ago
3) The planet was once colonized by humans during the age of technology, and they attempted to terraform the world. The stories the people tell are that they were foolish to try to do so and that they failed, and that the priest kings rose up and saved them by calling forth the water. However, there are entire forests of petrified trees and a long dried up ocean with fossils of sea life.
Perhaps the planet was terraformed successfully at one point. But something happened and the planet reverted to a deasert, thus allowing the Priest Kings to rise. Perhaps the colonies AI turned on them? Or there was a warp incursion?
4) It is theorized that the water may be sentient.
The original inhabitants of the planet? Once the planet was cut off in the dark age they rose up and "conquered" the world. Peacefully, but still...
5) There are still humans in the desert and mountains (basically Fremen from Dune) who are free of the water and avoid contact with the city. It is said that they may have massive cisterns of clean water deep beneath the mountains.
6) The Dwellers in the Mountains. Stone Golems of indeterminate origin, obviously unnatural. They seem to be animated piles of rocks, and I have let on that they have NO warp signature, which almost all living things have.
7) Tales are told of an ancient city that was built by the first humans . Rumor has it that it still exists out in the dunes somewhere.

Musings:
Did the AI turn against them, perhaps due to a warp incursion? Is it now insane and requires sacrifices?
Did the sentient water that once ruled the world rise up against them? And requires human sacrifices?
Where did all the water go? It seems to be under the earth. Can it be reclaimed?
The Priest-Kings: Are they puppets or the puppeteers?
What do the Fremen like people know? What do they have to do with anything?
Where did the Dwellers in the Mountain come from? Are they manufactured?

1) from my reading, it felt more that they were kept out of sight for the priest's kings enjoyment - since it seems they keep the most outlandish of their amusemements safely tucked out of sight in their palaces, the Water Childs provide suitable material. This doesn't prevent form being sacrificed once they lose their novelty appeal or get too damaged...

A bit of thought about who the planet's past :

- the dwellers are a native lifeform. They have an ability to control the planet's shape - though rock beyond their own from is really ahrd to move. They wer using this control to direct erosion and sculpt the landscape into pleasant shapes - being living rocks with a presumably rather extreme lifespan, they didn't care it was slow.

- when the planet was initally clolonized, the dwellers kept to themselves, planning to wait for a few milleia to see what would come. They didin't expect an intelligent specie to be as short lived an prolific as mere animals...

- Seeign the human's effort at terraformation and mining ruining their artwork, the dwellers decided to make the planet unsuitable for them, using their control over the water to hide it beneath the planet's crust. Variant : a related, water-based lifeform is the one controling the water and did the trick

- with the water vanishing, th human population attempted a last minute plan and used what little knowledge it had gained about the dwellers (or their watery brethern) to created the priest-king mutation and wrestle the water back. Too late to keep their infrastructure, but soon enough to keep humans on the planet

There's also the possibility of their crew/minions becoming TOO fanatical. Competing with each other to show who loves the RT more. Scarification, ritualistic combats breaking out, death cults forming amongst the crew who serve in Her name... Imagine having an entire crew of fanatical stalkers who'd do ANYTHING for your love. After all, the thralls of vaporius are conditioned from birth to treat the Priest-kings in a certain manner. The crew of an imperial starship doesn't have quite the same level of cultural training!

professor_kylan said:

This I like. Stealing.

First and Foremost; I do have the same problems with some of the FFG Material: they sometime doe not take into accoutn that the players play 40Kish and are ready to solve things about faith the very violent way here & now .

To your situation:
The High-King brings them underground to a cavern filled with deep blue water. Alone, no guards of him. The pc will be allowed to come up with everything and everyone they want. There, he tells the pc with this Fearless and convident manner again that they now have the privilege of surrendering and drinking the water. He gives him this opportunities since he is impressed by they recklessness.

Of course the pc will not accept and might even kill him on the spot. He won´t mind. He is fearless. As the pc either kill him or try to leave, they hear a sound like waves of the ocean and the rush of water. The WATER erects itself and attacks with tentacles of the stuff, attacking as a giant blob, threatening to drawn the pc. The pc have to flee.
Upstairs, everybody will know that they killed the High-King. They simply know and everybody will attack them in a suicidal rage. The whole city.

The pc will then have found out that their true enemy is the water, forming some kind of gestalt if encountered in very large quantities (which is seldome the case). The High-Kings are mearly puppets to the water. They might find out later that the water is psycho-reactive. It gains real sentience if enough people are about.

So, to make use of the water they have to scatter the populace and destroy their cities.

Gregorius21778 said:

nice one, makes me think about an old horror movie where a brand of Ice Cream was a blob like monster.

Gregorius21778 said:

Of course sentencing everybody to die of thirst. But hey that is a small price right?

Sister Callidia said:

Right you are, sister. So some small groups might survive.

Interesting point here: another antagonist (in this course of action) might be a Missionary backed by the Ecclesiarchy. After all, they want to convert the heathens. Not killing ALL of them.

Follow up:

Thanks for all the great suggestins. It got me thinking in some interesting directions. Here's what happened:

The priest king led them down to a pit deep beneath the city and began a ritual. Towards the end a girl was cut and the blood allowed to run down in to the pit. A water tendril comes up and inspects the Rogue Traders, a la "The Abyss". The girl is then absorbed by the water tendril and taken back down the pit, and water is returned.

The PCs are uncomfortable, but decide this is the best way to make a profit off the world, set up up a supply chain to keep the missionaries on regular water, warns that if they find any funny business they will glass the whole planet, and prepares to leave.

As they prepare for departure their OCD auspex officer detecs some anomalies in the northern deasert. They head off to inspect and ship down hundreds of crew to start excavating "raiders of the lost arc" style. They discover the "City of the First Born", the first settlement on the planet, still intact and with emergency power, shielded beneath the dunes. After finding their way in they explore a bit (rolling well and not alerting the 'sleeping' AI to their presence). They find their way to the administration building and find the governers logs.

It becomes apparent that the AI went Rogue and purposefully collapsed the planets ecosystem into a desert and the planets inhabitants were forced into the cave systems, bringing with them most of their supplies and vehicles.

Upon finding out about the possability of a fully functional STC in the hands of a Rogue AI beneath the city my players amazingly...decide this is way above their pay grade and to use it as a barganing chip with the Ad-Mech. They will "sell" them rights to excavation and try to be as far away as possible when it happens. They manage to totally avoid interacting with the dormant AI (smart cookies, my players).

They do decide to go and try to find salvage in the caves. At first they find nothing, but after some dedicated searching they find a store-room with recent supplies. Long story short they find the human tribesman living in the mountains, free of the water from the "blue eyed devils", as they call the kings.

The Tribesmen impress them with their combat prowess and cunning (they are basically 'Fremen' from Dune), and tell about how after their ancestors were chased from their homes they lived in the caves, hiding from the AI. Life was hard, but they survived. Eventually the "blue eyed devils" came, offering water, and seduced away 2/3 of the tribesman into the glass cities, where they have been ever since, slaves of the priest kings. They have been bloody enemies ever since.

They now had the choice: side with the priest kings and get millions of fanatics, or the Fremen for hundreds of elite troops. They decided they were uncomforatble with the Priest-Kings, and that it was too dangerous. So, she produced 3 "miricles" for the Fremen. She had just come from the city of the first born. They called down a lance strike on the Glass City to demonstrate their intent to help them. They the made it rain in the desert (transports filled with water). Finally, they left beind a cache of weapons and promised to come back and help liberate their world.

At this point the Fremen were fanatically loyal to the Rogue Trader.

Conclusion, and future developments:

They now have 2000 Elite Fremen Warriors (veteran light infantry special forces) and the undying loyalty of their nation, but are committed to helping them overthrow the priest kings.

They destroyed the only priest-king who knew of their visit and lift his city a smoldering crater.

Their astropath has a case of the water (plans on researching it and perhaps using it as a will boosting combat drug).

There is a dormant Rogue AI, and possible a functional STC unit and factory (obviously it would be corrupted), as well as numerous examples of pristine Age of Technology equpment (all guarded by 'skynet' of course)

Some sort of xeno/warp water thing that DOES know of their presence (and may tell the other priest-kings)

Krawken Feckwad knows of the planet, has a shipment of the water, and is known for meddling.

I don't expect them to come back until after they find the Dread Pearl, but at that point I will definately need some new material. Any ideas on developing this?

Well you have a bunch of material to use just try to tie them up good:

- The rock Dwellers

- The Fremans

- The priest king

- The water creature(s)

- The AI (SkyNet)

- the Ad- Mech (they have a bunch of Ad-Mechs around now and they are never easy to interact with)

- a possible STC

- The Fanatics

- The other Rogue Trader (Krawken Feckwad)...

is there a Fire and air elemental too if there is a earth and water? I mean you have it there just find a dynamic between your various factions (You have a lot too maybe too much, you could probably merge to water and earth being as a sort of element inhabiting spirit?) but I would keep them all independent probably makes a real rich world to play with.

Hi Riplikash,

so, how to cook up your good little stew? (Besides: for nomads in a desert cave, 2000 is a very huge number. I would have expected the whole encountered tribe to be no more then perhaps 500. But your game, your rules )

1) Beware of these faces
The water-thing showed the faces (Abyss-Style) to all his priest-kings. They made "hate sculptures" and spitting images of them, in every town. If the PC return, they will find the citizens hostile. And if they enter towns or settlements they will find statues or miniatures with THEIR faces on them. All of them have been thrown at with excrements or similiar. That way, the Water and the Ansai spread the picture of the enemy.

The priest-kings will see them as enemies and will wage war. As all slaves of the Water, they are fearless and willing to fight and die to the last one of them. Of course, the PC can lance-strike every city...but where is the profit in that? It will reduce their profit factor (long campaign - no gain) unless they find other ways to make profit of the planet

2) Subsidary wars
Make Feckward support the priest-kings in secret with weapons in exchange for the water (which he sells for high prices in the Imperium) and loyal slaves (he will be able to staff his ships with ratings utterly loyal to him due to the priest-kings word.. as long as he supplies them the water which he gets from them as well). In addition, he might tipp of some notorius pirates (orks, human, whaetever) if the ship of the PC returns over and over again. He offers them shares of his profit and a tipp-off to a mission ship now and then...if they take out the pc. The plunder of the pc´s ship is of course theirs.. (throw more wolf-pack raiders at them).

3) The Ministorum
A ship alligned to the Ministorum shows up, to bring more missionaries. This time, the have an astropath along. The Arch-Missionary takes a very dim view of any RT (Feckward, the PC) who slaughters his "soon to be good imperial converts" as long as he did not approve it. His Fraternize Militia are no match for any faction on this world (especially not after Feckward secretly armed the priest-kings) but with him is a detachement of battle-sister for the protection of his missions and the hundres and thousands of missionary he has with him. An he has an astropath, threatening to accuse anyone who "hinders this holy mission" of heresy against the god-emporer by reporting them back.

Feckward will try to blame the PC in regard to the weapons delivery and claim that he is only selling survival gear and machines (which he does in addition to everything else). What will the pc do? Will they win the Arch-Missionary to their side?

I was thinking along the same lines as far as Feckward goes. I love the missionary idea though. The main problem will be keeping the Captain from just charming him into her crusade (peer ministrotum +10, noble +10, warrant of renown +10, some other thing I can't remember + 10, + 75 fellowship....see if you can roll under 115 my dear). I like the idea of the water actively advertising their actions too.

As a side note, the warriors weren't from as single tribe. They had gathered all the tribes together to convert them with a show of "miracles". Even being conservative about there numbers I figured there must be at least 50,000 tribesmen.

riplikash said:

Simply, "bann" some of the boni. Sounds harsh and unfair, but if said Cleric simply despises RT "for what they are", a warrent of renown won´t give any benefit. In addition, do not make it a thing of one dice role. Sometimes, all the charm in the world will not win over somebody who HATED you before even knowing you. Unless, you are a Slaanesh Daemon. In addition, make such attempts contested againt the Clerics willpower. And give the Cleric a will to match. Feckward wil have the same problem as wel... but his intention is not to end of the good side of the Cleric but to leave the impression that the RT player is the worse of two evils. It is much much harder to counter a smear campaign then setting one up. Simply ensure that Feckward starts throwing mud first. Of course, Feckward will have the same hard times gaining the benefit...but he does not want it, anyhow.