Hi. I'm having some trouble with thinking of fresh ideas for my campaign. Basically, I know what it's about but I think I need some ideas/suggestions on how I can flesh this out, It's my first rogue trader campaign and I've been playing in another rogue trader game for about 5 sessions, so I don't have much experience with Rogue Trader. I've been playing Dark Heresy for more than a year.

Here's the roundup so far: The whole campaign is based on a bunch of xenophiles and xenos waiting and planning for the return of an ancient xenos deity andf the explorers got themselves involved by agreeing to ferry some of the inquisition's acolytes to an unclassified planet where the cultists were seen heading to. They've already discovered xenos cultists in their crew and got them arrested. Needless to say, the cultists (on the planet) knew who the acolytes were and their purpose and had them in custody..I don't want to go into detail on what happened next. Let's say that it invloved a very, exciting space-ship chase. Anyway, they managed to escape and are currently on a hive planet, getting their ship modified. I'd like to point out that the Rogue Trader is very paranoid.

So far, I've had about three space combat encounters (and we're about 4 sessions in) and no ground combat. I don't want to have all or most of the combat in space. I'd rather have limited space battles. Oh, the explorer's ship has a teleportatrium, so they can teleport out of trouble in a hurry (I don't want to have them use it all the time).

Any suggestions or pointers would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Andy

Hello Andy,

some ideas for your campaign:

1) If you want to limit your PCs in using the teleportatrium, just let them teleport some of their NPC-troups by accident into the void instead of the real point of destination. If it is risky and dangerous to use the teleportarium, they will only use it in case of emergency.

2) The Xenos-cultist should make your Rogue Trader an offer he can't refuse. The Rogue Trader should recognize that he could gain a lot of profit if he helps the Xenos cultists in their plans instead of fighting them. So it should be his free decision if he wants to help the cultists or the inquisition.

3) The Rogue Trader could discover some rare and very valuable resources on the cultist's planet. However, the civilization of that planet consider those resources as holy and won't give them up easily. This civilization should be too powerful to be just blown away by the Rogue Trader's military forces, so he has to make them some good offers or he has to ally with others to get those resources.

4) Don't let it be a matter between only two groups (cultists vs. inquisition). You could integrate some other groups that have their own plans with the happenings (for example greed and profit, vengeance, discovering the myths and secrets of the old Xenos religion and its god etc.). The Rogue Trader should be free to decide with which of these groups he wants to ally.

You could also give the arc a rest throw them another little endeavor then return them to the main arc by having the Inquisitor or the Xeno initiate something also this gives you time to think about what you want to do.

- The Xenos have two factions. One siding with your players even a radical inquisitor and other faction with the warp/enslavers/Y'vath.

- Let them (the pc) the next encounter play, both the Xeno and Inquisitor understand that a RT is someone you should not push around, accidents happen very often in the Koronus expense a Planetary bombardment a cruel but easy reality. They can be more then bystander but power house of their own.

I see you mentioned that all your combats so far have been spaced based. The question is are your PCs really enjoying the space combat? Some groups prefer heavy space combat over ground combat any day. As for everything else the previous replies have some good ideas worth looking into. But perhaps for some flavor throw some new kinds of foes against them. Space raiders are always fun from my experience to do battle against. Perhaps they repel a boarding action from said raiders and maybe you throw in some "space ground combat"? Hope some of these ideas help.

-Space Butler

Well, into the Storm has limited the use of a teleportarium to "once per session" period. That should limit the use of it quite a bit. For further limits of teleportarium use, think Star Trek. Anomalies in the atmosphere, underground exploration where sensors cannot find them, force fields etc can limit the use of a teleportarium quite thoroughly as well.