I'm GMing the Haarlock legacy since this spring and we started Dead Cities last sunday. However I feel it is severly lacking in Haarlock tie-ins, and mostly just illustrates the collateral damage Erasmus causes with his quest. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one to feel this way. So now I ask you, my fellow GMs, for whatever clever ideas you came up with in this area. I will share the two good ones I have came up with so far.
First a note to my players: Om du är Björn, Valle, Jonne, Martin, Andreas, Peter, Redul eller någon annan som spelar med mig hemma hos Valle på icke-lajv-söndagarna, sluta läs nu, annars blir du besviken!
Links to Komus.
I simply printed a few of the handouts from the Hereticus Tenebrae section of DotDG and had the Inquisitor hand them over to the acolytes with the notion "I cincerely hope these have nothing to do with the murders you will be investigating.". Page 14 is the obvious one, and I included page 10 and 18 as well. The characters experiences during Tattered Fates is of course enough to make them highly suspicious. I made sure to tell the players that the Feast of the Emperors Ascension was several months away, lest they would feel cheated with an anti-climax that "only" contained a daemon after recieveing a handout that implicated the Tyrant Star.
The Haarlocks estate
First of all, I apologize if I missplace or missuse any of the words of economics/law. English is not my first language and this is an area that I seldom get practice in. I hope the intention will still be clear. The acolytes Inqisitor is in posession of a receipt of a real estate left as pledge/mortgage/security by Erasmus Haarlock to the Maywroth noble family. Exactly how he came into posession of this pledge is not hinted at, but since he is part of the Krinn family as well as an inquisitor it's not that far fetched that he recieved it in a trade somewhere. The Krinn family might even have bought it off Erasmus himself if he was in need of quick money the last several hundred years. Their Inquisitor have now payed off this pledge by equalling it to debts of a rather larger value that the Maywroth family owed him since earlier. The original loan was taken about 400 years prior (while the nobles of Sinophia still had money) and is about to forfeit in roughly two years time (sometime rather soon after the return of Erasmus, so he could practically pay it off after his return). The acolytes are given this receipt and a receipt of the reducing of the debts of the Maywroth family to the Krinn family. Strictly speaking this is an offer made by the Krinn, that Cal Sur'Maywroth doesn't have to accept, but given his lousy state of his finances and the rather persuasive nature of the acolytes I expect them to be able to confirm the trade.
Upon completion of the deal the acolytes will recieve a key (formed as a spider ofc, where each leg is carefully formed to fit into a part of the lock) and they will be given an adress that is by the square of saint-someone. The pledge includes an aged and moulding painting of that rather large (~500m-across) thirteensided square, sporting a glorious fountain at its south edge and beautiful mansions around the square, apart from two segment of the north side that opens up towards Drusus Flow. The catch is of course that the mansion is situated in district XIII. Cal knows nothing about the estate, apart from the fact that it is in district XIII, wich he will do his best to hide from the acolytes until the deal is settled.
So the acolytes will be forced to work their way into the slums, dig around in the lower levels of half a millennium of random buildings inhabited by scums and dregs that might not be too happy about their incursion, in search of original streetsigns. Of course the acolytes could requisition help from the thinly stretched and overworked arbites in searching through the area. In wich case they will recieve 5 very unenthusiastic arbites. If they force more arbites to help them they can recieve several squads but then an important Imperial location will be raided since it is left unguarded. Make sure Constatine makes a point of very obviously not blaming the throne agents for prioritizing this way. Skarmen might be a bit more critical. Alternatively they can requisition help from the Enforcers. Khan will be all to willing to comply to an Inquisitorial order to raid district XIII, but will not go with less than an official written order and allowance to bring _plenty_ of enforcers and vehicles. This will for sure lead to mayhem.
Once found, the adress turns out to be exactly the fountain. Now used as a source of relatively fresh water for many of the inhabitants and controlled by a rag-baron with entourage that lives in the houses built above/around the fountain. He might not be exactly thrilled over having strangers/inquisitorial agents in his livingroom, and interfering with his water-trade. In the base of the fountain is a socket where the spider-key fits. Once the key is turned the entire top of the square will slide open with a mighty rumble and show a subterranean landing pad with room for several shuttles. This will send several thousand people plummeting to their deaths, or at least severe physical damage, as the ground under their feet is litterally pulled away. It will also open up the secrets of the Haarlock to most anyone in the city. This last thing especially will be horribly stressing to my very secretive acolytes.
In the now open landing pad two surface-to-orbit shuttles are parked, with room for more. These will promptly be looted to pieces by people living in the slums. See the movie Lord of War for a good illustration of this. This could be stopped by putting a full squad of arbitors or an overwhelming group of enforcers to guard each ship. See earlier notes about looting or mayhem respectively. There are also several service areas and simple storage shacks full of somewhat functional things that will be quickly looted. There are also some stores of basic weapons here that the XIII-inhabitants will be armed with in order to up their hitting power in the later stages of the story. Most importantly there will be a wide and huge tunnel leading northwards under the Drusus Flow.
The tunnel will be guarded in Haarlock style with some combat servitors, nasty traps and similar. These things can be left to work their magic on the looting hordes, with damaging results. However it will mostly slow the looters down. The acolytes can either saunter along after the hordes and look at them being destroyed one or two at the times by nasty, inventive and expensive harlock traps designed to kill of single nosy adventurers and relatives, while the ones coming after loots the rooms full of more or less valuables. Let some of the things they carry away be omnious paintings and strange contraptions, just to make sure the acolytes worry about what leads and dangerous warp/xenos artefacts might be lost to the Undertow. Alternatively the acolytes can try to stop the desperate looting hordes from entering the tunnel, this is likely to require quite a lot of manpower, creative solutions or huge amounts of firepower. Then they will of course have to handle the traps themselves, and recieve any suitably omnious Haarlock-related loot of course.
As the tunnel goes norhtwards it passes several underground living- and working spaces, apparently enough to keep quite a bunch of people active. There will be a tunnel that obviously goes in the direction of the Folly, useable as the sneaky entrance during the final assault on the tower. At the end of a rather long empty stretch of the tunnel it changes to a wide spiral staircase that winds clockwise (thirteen full turns if someone counts) up through the ex asteroid that is District One and ends in front of a huge blastdoor with a keyhole similar to the one at the fountain base. This door will not be breachable by the looting hordes (at least not today, there are factory workers and ex-pdf troopers that can surely do it given a bit of time and resources. Make sure your players understand this). They spider key opens it.
Inside is the mechanism to the clockwork court that is situated diretly above where you are standing. A large open cave with a huge clockwork that hangs from the roof. The clockwork is kept by a very old blind man, the watchkeeper. He is a servant of Haarlock that has been maintainging the clockwork for 400 years. He comes running as the blast doors open, full of fear and with a servile attitude he bows in the direction of those of the acolytes that are of Haarlock blood and ask for forgiveness. "I did not expect the Master to return yet, I am so sorry. I will arrange your dinner at once." After that he backs away and moves to disengage a stasis field that is situated directly under the clockwork. Inside the field is a perfectly set dinnertable including candelabra, fresh fruits, steaming food of very high quality etc, with one head seat and six seats along each long side of the table. There is a distinct risk the acolytes will get company inside, since the door will not close again.
A quick search of the premises turns up a shrine along one wall of the clockwork chamber, the centerpiece of whitch is a huge twohanded hammer, inscripted with runes for the control and banishing of daemons (this information is available after appropriate forbidden lore-checks). This is the hammer Erasmus used to break the mirror with, and it will be needed to threaten and/or destroying the daemon in the mirror (if you are playing a high-lvl campaign, this might even be one of the authentic Daemonhammers of the Crusade from Ascension). On the walls are mosaics of important Haarlock claims in the calixis sector, including places where the acolytes have already been, and a few shows of Komus. The ceiling is of frosted crystal and shadows of people can be seen moving above. There is no way to pass through to the clockwork court less than meltablasting your way through and thus destroying the clockwork mechanism and thus gaining some badwill with the nobles. There is also a small sleeping alcove, a toilet and a workspace with plenty of tools for advanced repairs of mechanical devices. The only other room in this part of the estate is a rather large storage room where can be found imperial guard standard ration packs enough to last one person for two years, including two re-choco treats, one for every Day of the Emperors Ascension. There are also neatly stacked wrappings and cases, as well as previously occupied storage space, corresponding to roughly 400 years of one person living on this diet (make sure you have an exact number of re-choc treat wraps, matching years passed since the estate was left as pledge/morgage/security). The storage room also contains a good supply of spare parts for clockwork, as well as lubricants and spare tools.
The watchkeeper knows wery little of the schemes, having turned quite mad after 400 years of isolated service in this un-ageing place. He is mostly frightened that "the Master" will be displeased with his work and punish him. He will to the best of his abilities follow any instructions given to him by an heir of Haarlock, but is not very competent at all outside keeping the clockwork going. He can not tell, but show, how a person should go about the incredibly complex routine of oiling all important parts of the clockwork. Anyone with the patience to follow him for the 13 days it takes to complete the process and with knowledge in tech-use can tell that the service work is much more symbolic than practical since there are several parts that never gets oiled up at all. Indeeed 13 working days would not at all be enough. If removed from the premises the watchkeeper will grow restless, distracted and eventually fall into mental illness and pass away over the time of about half a year.
Haarlock did of course leave this entire cavern as a lead to pull people further in on his trail, with the option of coming here himself after his return if noone took the bait.
That's the two additions that I have already made to Dead Cities. I'd really appreciate hearing about your clever Haarlock-hooks.
