Hey folks, wanted to start by saying, I love the inspiration & ideas floating around on the forums here, really enjoying reading through other GMs trials, tribulations (and crushing triumphs, of course). I'm about to start running LotE this week, as an epic arc of a campaign I've been running for a few months.

My group consists of the following PCs:

Remington Sabras - Noble Born Rogue Trader (Scintilla)

Rail Cobalt - Void-Born Void Master (Port Wander)

Lucius Quintus - Hive World Explorator (Solomon)

Kayliss - Death World Necrophage Archmilitant (Koronus Expanse)

The group has a PF of 40 going into the start of LotE and their ship, 'The Medusa ', a Havoc Class raider that punches WELL above it's weight. The ship has an Holo-Targeting array, Tenebro Maze, Plasma & Las batteries and... pride of place... a Teleportarium - which makes their boarding actions extraordinarily precise & devastating

Notable NPCs are:

Shane - Seneschal

Yerevan - Astropath (girl-child)

Hieronymo - House Allene Navigator

So far I've run my group through a few simple undertakings... Discovering and claiming the righteous path (soundly defeating Hadarak Fel in the process); Establishing a potentially lucrative trade in combat drugs from Naduesh; Getting in the good graces of the Ordo Xenos & Deathwatch by assisiting in a recovery mission on a spacehulk (modified version of the DH adventure "Shades on Twilight"); Discovered a space-faring, non-Imperial human civilization on the world of Gallant.

These adventures have been fraught with peril as well as profit, with Rail losing a leg, Remington almost losing his head and Kayliss almost losing his soul at various points. Only fate saved them on these occasions and only connections with the Deathwatch and the Adeptus Mechanicus rebuilt them.

As the story picks up, the group are recuperating on footfall, watching the arrival of many other Rogue Traders and trying to find out more about this rumored witches foretelling...

Just before I get into the action from session 1, there's a couple of corrections & clarifications to the background info (serves me right for trying to post that information from memory while I was in work)

The Medusa is a Hazeroth Privateer Raider class hull

The NPC Navigator's name is Quintus Aleene (Hieronymo was a previous, short lived character)

We decided to change the Seneschal's name to Arakasi (Shane had been chosen by one of the players in some fit of mediocrity... it had to go)

Kayliss, the Arch-Militant is from the planet Burnscour

SESSION 1:

We opened with the Medusa docked at Footfall and the command crew healing up after their recent recovery mission onto the spacehulk 'Twilight' . Rather than railroad the group into specific endeavours, I usually have their factors and agents report tidbits of news to them that can be pursued, typically 2-3 possible opportunities at a time. However, the entirety of Footfall was already whispering about a foretelling by the seven wicthes and the close void around the station was packed with Rogue Trader vessels cheek-by-jowl, so the group didn't need much more motivation to seek out this foretelling. For this session, The Void Master's player couldn't make it, so he was overseeing the restocking and maintenance of the ship, while the other 3 PCs did the legwork.

As well as restocking their crew and provisions, the explorers also did some personal shopping and it was while they conducting this business that they were approached by several functionaries of the Adminitratum Oeconomica Imperialis, regarding tariffs due. Both Lucius & Kayliss immediately spotted the dodgy uniforms and the group had a quick conference about the merits of either paying or butchering these shakedown-merchants. Their initial response was to send the gangsters packing, with threats being fired in both directions, but they had a rethink as the 'officials' were walking away (probably brought on by the mention of gun batteries) and sensibly negotiated a payment, though they do intend to exact vengeance on the leader of the mobsters, Esgar Volsin.

That same day, they received the invite to the banquet hosted by Tanthus Moross. They readily agreed to attend and showed up in their finery later that evening. As well as the low lifes of footfall (including their new acquaintance, Esgar Volsin) several of their rival Rogue Traders were in attendance; Hadarak Fel, Lord Admiral Bastille VII; Baron Djanko Scourge; Madam Charlabelle & Sarvus Trask (who they had encountered before and taken an immediate dislike to). There was also a Merchant Noble from far Scintilla, one Vownus Kaede. They made small talk and sized up rivals until dinner was served and the real fun began...

Kayliss, being a raw-flesh-eating mutant, immediately tucked into the live Dolorium Crab, much to the approval of Liege Moross, while Remington & Lucius went for the creeper to start... so far, so good, the only ill effects were Remington feeling a bit queasy. Next, Lucius decided to jump straight up to the Brain Fluke and managed to gulp it down without going any more crazy than he already was. After surviving this with no side effect, he opted to go for the big one, the Warp Eel. He failed the WP resistance roll and had to roll on the mutation table... 00, Hellspawn!!!!

To the horror and mounting terror of the rest of the diners, his already augmetically deformed body began to spasm and mutate before their eyes, talons and fangs sprouted, rams horns ruptured from his brow and his skin turned obsidian and scaled. Immediately many of the other diners and their bodyguards drew weapons and prepared to put the Daemon down... I explained this to Lucius' player, who opted to burn a Fate point. The company breathed a sigh of relief as the Explorator managed to resist the corruption of the warp through willpower alone, reciting logic-verses in binary cant to purge himself of taint.

Liege Moross was highly impressed, though worried enough to have the rest of the Warp Eel taken away, however, before the staff could remove it, Kayliss decided that he couldn't be outdone by a priest and took a healthy bite of it himself! He didn't fare much better though, as a multitude of eyes erupted all over his flesh, blinking madly at the the other guests. Again, he chose to burn a fate point so that his already mutant regeneration could ward off this new affliction. At least they got the information they needed about the foretelling... they were so popular after their exploits that they managed to uncover all the details available of the auction in the Obsidian Emporial the following night.

SESSION 1 (Cont.)

Eventually they left the gathering to return to their ship, slightly the worse for wear. It was then that they were accosted by the Narco-thugs hired by Krawkin Feckward. These thugs would normally be no threat to them, except this time they were in their dining finery - ie, without any armor. The hired guns were dispatched quite easily, but the mutant wielding the Pneumo-Shock breaker's sledge managed to pulverise Lucius' arm and shoulder before the PCs blew him to pieces (costing Lucius another permanent Fate point, just to stay in the game). They called up some crew men to escort then back to their berth, dragging Lucius and a surviving hired gun with them. Some crude but effective questioning eventually yielded up the name of Krawkin Feckward as the money behind the attack.

Over the course of that night and the next morning, all of Footfall became aware of multiple attacks on various Rogue Traders, Merchant Princes, Privateers and Free Captains in port, with several losing their lives, their ships or both (though none of the major Rogue Trader NPCs were too badly affected). Remignton, Kayliss and their seneschal Arakasi were attending the auction that night - all wearing full power armor this time. The players spent quite a long time trying to decide what their bid should be... part of their problem was that they had forgotten exactly what assets they had at their disposal. Eventually, after some heated discussion, they settled on offering their cadre of Charon pattern Battle Servitors, a Sollex Aegis Energy Blade and the warp route coordinates for the planet Naduesh along with their contracts for certain gemstones and combat drugs supplied by certain Nadueshi clans.

The auction ran smoothly, with all the major players making successful bids. The PCs took the opportunity to spread the word around to a few of their rivals that it was Feckward who had orchestrated the sting of attacks the previous night. They hope to drum up enough support to make a decisive strike against him.

That was where we stopped the session, so next time will be the foretelling itself and hopefully the hunt will commence - with poor Lucius healing up as they traverse the warp.

Oh that crazy warp eel. My groups arch militant also failed the WP test and much to our delight had to roll for a mutation, only to get feels no pain. +5 wounds and the Iron Jaw talent. Making him even more badass.

Still, the lack of pain became quite humourous when he took a couple of powersword stabs to the gut and assumed that his armour had stopped the blows. The rest of the PCs all staring at his intestines hanging out and blood going everywhere.

To be honest, I think Kayliss spun the 'Warp-Eel wheel' for a shot at getting some kinda crazy good mutation (like his necrpophagia) but probably wasn't fully aware of how stacked towards disaster the random mutations table actually is... well I sure as hell wasn't gonna tell him. This is the same Kayliss who insisted on trying to master a recovered Daemon weapon despite the constant warnings to stay away from it by the other explorers (how he burnt his first fate point - blowing his own head off in a last desperate attempt to thwart the possessing daemon - I ruled that he did enough damage to make the daemon abandon his 'corpse' but not so much that his mutant regeneration couldn't save him). I'm sure it won't be the last such incident...

Ok, not 100% sure when our next session will be, due to the upcoming festivities, but it will most likely involve the PCs attending the actual foretelling and then setting off in pursuit of the dread pearl. As mentioned previously, they are aware that Krawkin Feckward was behind attacks on several of the Rogue Traders and other interested parties, including themselves and have spread this knowledge around to try to drum up support for an attack on the slaver.

My question is, who (if any) among the other rivals would be likely to cooperate with them in such an attack, assuming all of the named rivals were targeted by some sort of attack/sabotage? I was thinking Abel Gerrit would be very likley and possibly Madame Charlabelle, who would love to claim a vessel considering her situation. I don't think Jeremiah Blitz or Hadarak Fel would be too interested, though they might stay in the vicinity in the hopes of an opportunity to finish off any badly damaged competition...

What is the likelihood that any of the 'big three' - Djanko Scourge, Admiral Bastille or Lady Sun Lee - would lower themselves to getting involved in such a petty action? Maybe they could assign some of their escorts to see to this business? Finally, there are the Eldar, who will happily take any chance to destroy a distracted or badly damaged RT craft.

Did any of you GMs run any particularly tasty encounters or battles during this period while all the rivals were departing footfall? Who did you decide were the aggressors, who most willing to ally with the PCs?

Depending if they believe the players of course. I would think that Lady Sun Lee, might talk to Feckward offering a warning that the next time he can expect to be called out for a duel. Djanko is a psychopath who knows what he will do. Bastille sounds to me like the man who woukld not balk against crippling Feckwards ship as a dire warning to stay out of his way.

In my game, there was no big battle and the pc's ended up making sure to inspire hate all around with a bit of thievery involving Djanko's Plasma pistol. Of course they could not resist helping Fell when the man was attacked by the Eldar. Rescuing him again. The rivalry between Fel and Fell is growing quickly in my game. They did have great fun with Jeremiah Blitz betting who would dare to taste the food Though neither dared the Warp Eel

Knight of Dark Renown said:

In my opinion, most of the other RT would not answer such a "rough size-up" with a ship attack. After all, the goons that were going after them were incabable. It would be clear to the most that this was "bad style", but hardly a real threat (at least, for somebody worth of his/her warrant!)

If you insist:

Hadrak Fel had some mettle with the pc in "into the maw" (did you played this?) or is not a clean type himself. I do not think that he will act against the Slaver
Madam Charlabelle is to thin on resources to throw herself into feud over meager reason.
Jeremiah Blitz seems like a "sports man" and would take it as such. But he might be interested in a revanche. At the "rumble in the jungle", he might site with the pc if things get nasty
Lord-Admiral Bastille would be a likely candidate for retribution. After all, scum has to be shown there proper place! But I do not think that he attack the ship for it. Not in an all-out battle. Perhaps showing up, loading weapons and then hailing the scum, telling him how foolish he was and leaving with a good-by salvo.
Lady Sun Lee would for sure not risk her petty ship about something like this...but she might lend a wolf raider for a joint action.Especially since she might very well hope that Krawkin and the pc might wreck each others ships in the battle while she is merely losing an escourt (and even not that if the ship treats carefully!)
Baron Djanko might very well offer to send some of his slave-troups (and a skilled man to handle them!) to lay an ambush on Feckward

Scenes:
You could very well have a running battle in footfall, with Baron Djanko´s and the pc´s troops attacking Feckward and his entourage while they get back on bord. This would be a hasty affair and will properbly not do to much harm. The pc will have to bribe the secuirty to stay aware and/or leaving them enough time and making enough noise in there approach so they can depart. I think ten rounds of fighting (about a minute) should do the trick.

If the pc side with the Lord-Admiral, they could try to face Feckward away from Footfall, but this would be more of a chance encounter. Perhaps if the Lord-Admiral and the pc and Feckward meet ... in a field strewn with debris of ships.

I just completed Lure of the Expanse with my group, and on the whole it went well.

I upped the danger of the ambush on the way to the auction. My players are very good at combat, they played Dark Heresy from rank 1 to 8, and riff raf just evaporates without them breaking a sweat.

So I had a disused arcade with the players walking through an open area and three stories of balconies for the ambushers. Two ambushers behind cover with rocket launchers on the 3rd floor, a small pack to slow the players down on the bottom where the players were crossing. Poor lighting conditions.

A rocket took out the Rouge Trader's leg in the surprise round. It took them a few rounds to pound up the stairs and kill or capture the gang. Under pressure, a prisoner coughed up Feckward's name as the guy who hired them.

* * * * *

Then, on the trip to the jump point, the players witnessed the Eldar attacking Feckward's ship. They laughed and taunted him. When the Eldar switched to them, they couldn't hit the ship, but did manage to send a raiding party on board. The crazy insides of the ship gave the Eldar bonuses, but the players rolled well and caused enough damage for the Eldar to take off.

* * * * *

At the temple, the PCs, Charlabelle and Djanko killed Feckward and handed his ship over to Charlabelle. In my campaign, Djanko is a member in good standing of the Ameranthine Syndicate (DotDG), and has recently recruited a desperate Madam Charlabelle. Feckward was in thick with the Kasballica, who are fighting over the cold trade with the Syndicate.

* * * * *

A bit of advice: The final battle on the Dread Pearl was a bit of an anti-climax for my group, you might want to spice it up or have other Rogue Traders slow them down. When the Farseer told the humans to leave the planet, they did. (They did yell at the Santarchs that couldn't fit in the guncutter to "run to the gate.") The PC pilot is so good the escape was over in a few dice rolls.

One thing that did work in the mad dash to the guncutter, I had the players with Forbidden Lore (Xenos) roll for a very frightened Gyrinx who wanted to get away from the combat. Now our Mistress of the Augers has her very own Eldar kitty.

I had used the Seedworld in my DH campaign, so I had a "cut scene" "I don't know if your characters will every know this but here is what happens to the Santarchs that went through the gate." The Santarchs exit right into an Inquisition run dig, run by two characters from the DH campaign.

Sorry about the long break, hopefully going to get back to the campaign this coming weekend...

I've been reading the comments here and thinking more about the players call-to-arms against Feckward. I've decided it's likely that Feckward already had plans to get off Footfall ahead of the pack (assuming someone would finger him for the sabotage) and use his ships impressive speed to stay ahead of any pursuit. The players could catch him before translation if they left immediately, but I don't think I'll have any of the other successful bidders join in.

In previous sessions the players have had run-ins with Sarvus Trask and The Sabre , no combat but lots of barbed comments etc. I think I'll have the Sabre lurking in the vicinity too, looking for an opportunity to pounce on any weakened rival.

With any luck, I'll have an update to post on Monday

Ok, so I'm a week later than expected, but finally had another session. We picked up with Lucius, the explorator, undergoing surgery to implant an augmetic arm to replace the one he lost in the ambush by Krawkin Feckward's goons. This meant he could not attend the actual foretelling. Representing the Medusa there was the Rogue Trader Remington Sabras, the Helmsman Rail Cobalt, Arakasi the Seneschal & Kaeliss, the crew's Master-at-Arms.

The foretelling itself was creepy and disturbing, just as it was supposed to be. Kaeliss catastrophically failed the fear test for initially entering 'the cell' and ended up soiling himself and vomiting profusely... which was quiet dangerous since he was wearing an enviro-sealed power armour helmet. Fortunately, the quick responses of the guards allowed him to recover, though when the time came to immerse themselves in the actual vision, Kaeliss opted to resist and managed to succeed on the willpower test.

The other 3 characters endured the foretelling and determined the approximate location of the world revealed. A frantic day of preparations followed, aided by Lucius insane recuperation speed (working on ship systems 24 hours after having a new arm 'installed'). They also received word that Feckward had already cast off his moorings and was making haste towards the translation point. No doubt this had been his plan all along, anticipating the vengeance of the rivals he had tried to murder or sabotage. The PCs payback will have to wait for another time...

The following day, the Medusa left footfall and headed to the fringe of the Furibundus system. Their intention was to make for Gallant using an already known warp route and then perform the astromantic ritual there to guide them to 'the dread pearl'. Nearing the jump point their augurs picked up the signs of battle... Madame Charlabelle's Grace of Sophia blazing away into the void at an unknown opponent. As the PCs got closer, they finally picked up signs of the Shard of Dawn and moved to engage.

Perhaps because of their angle of approach, but they completely got the jump on the Eldar vessel and utterly annihilated the Shard... leaving it hulked while not taking a single hit themselves - As an aside, due the superb ability and skill scores of the PCs and a canny selection of ship components which strongly emphasize combat function, I think the only way I will be able to challenge the Medusa in starship battle without throwing far superior numbers or far more mega-tonnage at them. Anyone else have this same issue? - Despite completely destroying the Shard's bridge, life support & crew quarters, many of the components were salvageable. Therefore the PCs decided to spend the few days towing the hulk of the Eldar craft back to footfall and anchoring it, with a complement of their own security. They're not 100% decided on what to do with it, but they're pretty sure it's got to be worth something to someone.

Finally they made their way back to the translation point and set out on their quest to find the dread pearl... first stop Gallant

Thats a really cool read.

In regards to the starship combat problem. Its is better approached by employing extended actions and other NPC with actual skillsets than just the pure equipment.

As a test i once ran my groups cruiser against two Imperial Tyrant cruisers. Both got crippled within one turn of shooting, simply because the Lunar has been fitted with 2 Mars pattern broadsides and a munitions depot. The titanforge lance battery in the prow seems rather meh.

The encounter against the eldar was over after flub rolls, with just enough damage to make it safely get away.

Barring the teleportarium/Murder servitor combo, most weaponry is highly dependent on the guy whos at targeting console on the bridge. If youre only looking at the NPC side, its pretty irrelevant. But a PC with BS 50+ and the RT breathing down his neck, the command bridge bonus (let alone the ship masters bridge), lock on actions etc. Far too many shots will hit. A dreadful thing if said PC is a Void-Master who gets rerolls on the macrocannons.

Leveling the playing field by giving NPC ships some major NPCs as well might help. Not fighting in the dead of space might help too. More debris, force someone to actually fly the ship, instead of the RT bellowing order so imply point the broadsides at the enemy. (I am simply restating old stuff, but i hope it helps) Give them terrain that needs to be overcome, and not simply an enemy vessel to be blasted to smithereens.

The point about having them come up against notable NPCs with comparable ability scores is a fair one, so far most of their victories have been over 'generic' opponents. I'm not sure the complicated battle field would work against them, as speed, manouverability and an excellent pilot have been a big part of their success so far, and a cat-and-mouse fight in an asteroid field could skew things even further in their favour, with their less skilled enemies never even getting into a position to fire on them at all. Really, I need to combine both elements above and that might make things interesting.

Knight of Dark Renown said:

Can you please tell me a detailed character generation path to get a death world necrophage archmilitant? As far as I know if you manage to roll that mutation the (into the storm career path says that you must reroll the mutation)?

Didn't have Into the Storm at the time of character generation. I can't remember exactly, but I believe the RT book allows the Necrophage Mutation result, but was errata'd later (again, after character creation) so I decided to just go with it and apply some of my own drawbacks. Mainly, if Kayliss regenerates more wounds in one encounter than his toughness bonus, he immediately becomes fatigued until he can 'restock'. Also, he has difficulties with augmetics being accepted by his body and can't avail of Imperial medicae care without risking being reported to the big 'I'. All in all, it's turned out to be more of a RP feature than game altering, so far anyway.

Ran another session over the weekend, first detailing the voyage from footfall to the Gallant system. The only notable activity was the crew dealing with a bout of insubordination (fomented by crewman Krooker in the Plasma conduits) leading up to a small-scale mutiny. In fairness to the PCs, they did offer an amnesty on multiple occasions just to resolve the issue peacefully. Because of this, I decided that most of the mutineers other than Krookers inner circle surrendered and went back to duties. In the end the PCs stormed the holdout and killed Krooker and his loyalists with minimum loss of crew population or morale.

When the Medusa finally reached Gallant, I had a surprise waiting for them: "Da Wurldbreaka" ! As they translated into realspace, the ship's collision alarms went off immediately, as decris from hulked ships and the orbital station drifted around them. The independent station that they had discovered here on a previous trip was now devastated and the world below was overrun with greenskins.

They were hailed by a fleeing Stryxis convoy and advised to make haste out of the region. This was reinforced by the fast approach of a pair of Ork kill-kroozas and an indistinct auspex return of something... huge... coming around from the far side of the planet. Fortunately, the Medusa is very fast, so with the head start they already had, they managed to stay ahead of the Orks long enough to complete the navigators astromantic ritual and plot a course based on the foretelling. This warp journey was completed very quickly (a quarter of the expected 50 days due to exceptional navigation roll) so we finished the session with the ship in orbit over Quppa-Psi-12, scanning for anything that looks like the world in the foretelling...

The PCs (Remington, Rail, Lucius & Kaeliss) opted to take their gun-cutter down to the planet surface and save the teleportarium for an emergency extraction if needed. As they were manouvering the Medusa into a low orbit, their augurs detected another small, fast ship moving away from the far side of the planet. They also had readings of multiple vessels moving in-system from the translation point, so they knew that some of their competitors at least were closing in.

Due to the exceptional piloting skills of Rail Cobalt, they managed to ride out the atmospheric defences relatively intact and landed about 10-12kms from the largest structure they had detected from orbit (the temple). They chose to take only a small retinue in the gun-cutter, who they left behind to secure and repair the craft while the 4 command crew made their way to the temple on foot.

Barely and hour away from the gun-cutter, they heard from behind them the unmistakable chatter of heavy weapons fire... a garbled message came over their vox, something about huge flyers attacking the ship. This put them on edge, but they figured there was no point in going back, they wouldn't arrive in time to intervene. They just had to hope the hail of heavy bolter filre would be sufficient to drive off the attackers, whoever they were.

A little farther on, the group had their first encounter with the local wildlife, as a pack of 5 whippers sprung an ambush and attacked. The party managed to kill most of them and chase off the last couple, though Rail did receive a nasty bite to the arm, even through his power armour. As they continued their march, they started to spot structures crafted from a strange, pale material. Eventually Rail recognized it as wraithbone and therefore that the structures were Eldar in origin. Lucius' highly sensitive internal auspex array detected a passive electro-magnetic field surrounding the structure. As they discovered more of these monoliths, they reasoned that their purpose was probably as power sources and/or relay points in the atmospheric defence network they had ancountered during the landing.

Some hours later, they came across a larger structure, one that appeared to have once been a habitation of some kind, though now mere ruins. They were cautious on approach and again, Lucius' extraordinary senses indicated that there were lifesigns lurking among the tumbled structures. As they entered the ruins, the would-be ambushers attacked. There were a handful of mercenaries and lowlife gunsligers, backed up by a chain-axe wielding Ogryn, all being commanded by none other than Krawkin Feckward! A brutal, close range battle ensued, during which Kaeliss was grievously injured by the Ogryn before it was finally hacked down. However, the combined efforts of the explorers to kill the abhuman monster meant that Feckward managed to escape with two of his lackeys, no doubt to appear again at a most inopportune moment...

Next session should be in two weeks, hopefully culminating at the temple

Back again, for a bumper session with all 4 players present (somewhat of a rarity, often I have to run with only 3 at any given time). We picked up in the aftermath of a run-in with Krawkin Feckward and a bunch of his goons, during which they had forced Feckward to flee. Kaeliss appeared to be grievously injured by Feckward's chain-axe wielding Ogryn bodyguard, but much to the surprise of the other PCs, within a few minutes he came round and was able to pick himself up... though he did look drained and gaunt. However, he was fit enough to volunteer to drag the bodies of Feckward's out of sight... though it took him a very long time...

Side note : You may recall that I mentioned earlier in this journal Kaeliss having an encounter with a Daemonic entity - the team had discovered a Daemon weapon, which Kaeliss tried to wield. When he realized that the Daemon's will was too strong to fight off, he resisted possession in his own unique manner - he shot himself in the head so the Daemon would flee his "corpse" (and by burning a fate point I judged that his mutant regeneration allowed him to recover). A side effect of this whole fiasco was that I allowed him access to the 'Glimpse the Beyond' advance package from Into the Storm (I think that's what it's called) which he finally bought. This gave him more corruption (28 points now) and also gave him the 'bloodlust' malignancy...

Once the team got their bearings, they continued towards the location of the structure they had detected from orbit. Their route brought them directly through the middle of a whipper nesting site, though they easily butchered most of the disturbed beasts with no injuries to themselves. After several more hours marching through the fern forest, just approaching dusk, they finally emerged in a large clearing, in the centre of which they could see a huge wraithbone structure, the temple at last! But they were not alone... away to their right they could see another group of figures already making their way across the clearing, Feckward and his remaining hired guns!

A brief and one-sided firefight ensued - Feckward & 7 guards against Rail and his pistol collection plus Kaeliss and his stormbolter (Remington and Lucius mostly just provided moral support in this fight). Within 15 or 20 seconds, 3 of the lackeys and Feckward himself were all down and the other hired guns surrendered (luckily Kaeliss made his WP roll to resist bloodlust).

Suddenly the ground trembled and everyone was knocked flat by a shockwave surging from the temple! Rail was knocked out by this blast and had a strange vision, which he took to mean the planet was about to explode, while the rest of the PCs gazed towards the arcs of energy and the unmistakably Eldar figures now visible at the summit of the temple.

As the team were about to flee back to their ship they were hailed by another group of figures crossing the clearing, Madame Charlabelle and her retinue of Kroot mercenaries. She was well disposed to the team as they had aided her in battle against the Shard of Dawn. She also knew her guards couldn't defeat the Eldar alone, so she shared her understanding of the vision with the team. She believed the vision meant that the keys to finding the dread pearl were scattered across the expanse and she was pretty sure that the Eldar were trying to prevent that from happening.

So, along with the Kroot, the team clambered up the temple structure to the platform and assaulted the warlocks. It was a brief enough battle, the Eldar having insufficient numbers to both complete the ritual and defend themselves against 4 PCs plus 4 Kroot. The last surviving warlock cursed them in his foul tongue before vanishing, leaving them in control of the temple and star-map. The PCs had a brief thought of attacking Charlabelle and her troops at this point, but decided better of it. Lucius pict-grabbed an image of the map and, when Charlabelle had done the same, one of her cohorts set a krak charge in the centre of it.

All parties set off back to their landing craft to carry on the hunt, the sound of a krak explosion ringing in their ears. Back on the Medusa, the team handed the image of the star-map to Quintus, their navigator and commenced preparations for another warp transit, once he figured out where they had to go next.

So, the PCs are entering the 2nd phase of Lure of the Expanse, having just left Quppa-Psi 12. With a couple of days to work at it, Quintus their Navigator determined the coordinates of the five nexus points on the Heathen Trail. After some discussion, the group opted to make for the Damned Gateway as their first stop. Knowing that they could choose any one of 5 routes (or some entirely different course of action) I had set up this session to be a transitional one, until I knew where they were going next.

So, during their 20-day voyage from Quppa-Psi 12 to the gateway, on one of their scheduled recalculation warp exits, their auspex picked up distant returns indicating some type of void battle. As I suspected they would, they decided to investigate and found 2 ships of Imperial pattern being attacked by 3 raider class vessels of unknown origin. After some quick scanning, they hailed the Terran design vessels and discovered they were crewed by Stryxis merchants. The Stryxis immediately requested assistance against their opponents, who they referred to as 'Rak'Gol'.

None of the explorers knew much of these except for the void-master Rail, who had only heard rumours of implaccable raiders who never negotiate, never communicate, never take prisoners. The Medusa launched into the fray, with 2 of the raiders breaking off to intercept. As has become the norm, the skills of the PCs were more than enough to compensate for being outnumbered. They were consistently able to acquire superior tactical position, their gunnery and hit-and-run attacks were far more devastating and they handily defeated all 3 raiders with the help of the remaining un-crippled stryxis craft.

In gratitude for their intervention, they obtained promisary notes, allegedly to be honored by any Stryxis in the expanse, of a full years resupply for their ship, when they require it... which should make extended exploration quite a bit easier later in this endeavour.

Next stop should be the Damned Gateway and the Processional beyond...

Back at last, after a long hiatus. Finally got to continue the campaign with the creepy journey through the damned gateway into the processional of the damned. When the Medusa breached the portal, they could see the vast, dimly lit debris field stretching out before them. They were immediately wary, running constant auspex sweeps, with their void shields up and armsmen on station.

As they slowly moved in-system, their vox started to pick up odd bursts of static, snippets of messages or encrypted binary blurts... and a single clear distress call, from the 'Hatamoto- Chi' of the 73rd Terran Crusade fleet... 10,000 years old!

Their sensor sweeps finally picked up the Eldar structure they were looking for in the inner reaches of the system, in a decaying orbit close to the doomed star. Just as they determined their target, the ships augurs also detected multiple faint energy signatures converging on the vessel - the Hollow Men. Despite liberal use of their main batteries, plus a hail of fire from their defence turrets, a few dozen of the sinister wreckers made it to the ship and started assaulting the hull plates.

Remington, Kaeliss & Lucius each led contingents of 50 void-suited armsmen to fend off the assault, backed up by Rail doing strafing runs in the gun-cutter. They managed to destroy or chase off all of the hollow men without any ship damage. However, Remington fell in close combat with one of the monstrosities, a freakish blow of it's bulkhead cutter breaching the energy core of his power armor and cooking him alive inside the suit!

The twin-linked heavy bolters of the gun-cutter obliterated the creature (and most of the few remaining armsmen - acceptable losses undoubtedly) and the captains' body was retrieved. Miraculously he was still alive, obviously blessed by fate and the Emperor. They rushed him to the Medicae facility and Lucius set to work stabilizing him. It would be several weeks at best before he would be even mobile again, never mind fully healthy!

Shortly after this battle, one of the vox officers reported a stable & consistent message received... the outcast Carrion of Wrath Umbolts' crew, seeking rescue. The PCs were understandably cautious, but eventually agreed to let the outcasts come on-board. Once they heard the refugees story, they agreed to pick up the other groups (since it was mostly on their route anyway). The outcasts pledged 2 years service in return.

The journey became ever more hazardous, with the gunnery teams working the batteries regularly to blast large debris that was on a collision course. With their efforts, plus the sublime piloting skills of Rail, they managed to traverse the processional in 6 days, picking up 3 more clans of outcasts, with only one significant impact... a good performance by any measure.

As they took the last group of refugees aboard, they had their bearings set for the Eldar temple adrift on a crumbling asteroid. They knew that Quintus, the ships' Navigator, would have to take some form of reading at the structure so the healthy members of the command crew plus a contingent of their newly recruited outcasts suited up and took the cutter down to the temple.

For several minutes the reading was undisturbed... then, out of the surrounding dark they made out the distinctive forms of Hollow Men gliding towards them. A brief battle ensued, though Kaeliss managed to destroy a number of the exo-wreckers before they even got in range, courtesy of his stormbolter. This time the PCs prevailed without any serious injuries and Quintus confirmed that he had the information they came for.

The Medusa immediately set course for the outer reaches of the processional and the gateway back to the Heathen Stars. Unfortunately, the Auspex detected 3 raider class vessels detaching from the surrounding wrecks and debris, powering weapons and shields...

That's where we finished the session, hopefully we'll continue very soon

So we picked the session up as the PCs were trying to make their way back to the damned gateway from the inner regions of the processional. They had detected at least 3 vessels paralelling their route (the corrupt & insane members of Wrath's Carrion). There followed several days of cat-and-mouse manouvering, before the Carrion ships finally tried to close in to attack. As soon as the PCs detected this, they launched themselves towards the most isolated of the 3 raiders (managing to make a 'adjust speed & heading' roll by enough successes to move 15 VUs and make a turn after 10 of them). They caught this particular raider completely cold and crippled the craft in 1 turn, taking minimal damage in exchange. One of the other 2 raiders managed to get close enough to take a few speculative shots, but dealt no damage before the Medusa made it back to and through the gateway.

Needing to make some repairs to both the ship and the crew numbers & morale, they made for the breaking yards. They spent a couple of weeks there (all told, enough time for the Rogue Trader Remington to recover from his near fatal wounds at the hands of a Hollow Man) and managed to repair half the damage to their ship before their lines of credit ran dry. However, they were unable to recruit more crew there, so they laid course for Naduesh, to draft some of the primitive natives of that world. When they arrived, they discovered a small war party of Rak'Gol warships in orbit, several launching assault landers towards the surface while another couple were engaged in combat with an Imperial ship.

They were immediately hailed by this vessel, which turned out to be t he Cerberus , new flagship of their rival, Sarvus Trask. He suggested that, since they were most likely in this system for the same reason as he, to trade with or resupply from the natives of the planet, it would be in their interest to destroy the xenos raiders. This was achieved quickly and easily between the 2 rogue trader ships (is it just me or do the Rak'Gol just pose no threat in space combat without vast numbers? ). This left only those alien monsters who had made it to the surface of the world to be dug out and mopped up...

That's where we broke off for this week, should be more next weekend...

I'm really enjoying reading the posts in this thread! Thanks for the play by play, it gives me some ideas and good examples for running a Rogue Trader game.

Thanks for the feedback, glad to hear that someone is enjoying the read. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to chime in.

Finally managed another session over the weekend, so we joined our intrepid heroes in orbit around Naduesh, having just slaughtered a small Rak'Gol raiding fleet. In the process, they had stranded several hundred of the Xenos on the planet, at large among the human population on an island continent. If they had decided to travel to the surface to deal with the beasts in person, I had some options and potential rewards. In the end they went the 'acceptable losses' route and just bombarded the island from low orbit... this may or may not come back to haunt them at some later stage.

They managed to repopulate their crew from other regions of the planet and affect some hull repairs. After consulting their charts and the calculations of Quintus, the navigator, they decided to make for Zayth to take their next reading. The warp transit went smoothly and they arrived in-system within 9 days. They spent a day or so scanning the planet for structures similar to the temples they had previously journeyed to and eventually pin-pointed the location.

They also detected the presence of two of the landships of Zayth, in the vicinity and closing on one another. Rather than try to get in, get the reading and get out quick, they opted to hail the ships and declare their intent to land and 'conduct research'. One of the landships simply advised them to leave orbit or come under fire, but the other was eventually willing to negotiate access. The inevitable happened and the landship offered free access to the site if the explorers assisted in their battle against the other mobile city.

Needless to say, 2-on-1 was not a very lengthy battle and the rival landship surrendered within 3 strategic turns. The PCs were allowed to fly down in their gun-cutter to and descend into the ravine where the temple was located. Their arrival attracted the attention of a gang of grossly mutated desert scavengers however, who attacked while the group waited for Quintus to complete the reading. Due to the swirling dust and poor light in the ravine, the mutants were able to close almost to melee range before the explorers detected them.

It was a brutal, close-in fight, the scavengers proving very resilient and hard-hitting, even if they were not very skilled. The party managed to take them down, but as the dust cleared Kaeliss and Remington realised that their helmsman, Rail Cobalt, was down and unmoving... and missing his right arm! They performed some hasty field dressing and used the teleportarium to get him swiftly to the medicae chambers on the ship. Lucius set to work immediately to stabilize him and hope he had not lost too much blood and would eventually come round... (Rail's player was trying to decide whether to burn a fate point or re-roll)

We stopped there. Next session should see the team return to the victorious landship and try to negotiate some contracts for supply in exchange for weapons tech and, possibly, discover the wrecked shuttle of the Mechanicus envoy and follow up the opportunity presented. Depending on how much or little side-tracking they do, they might even get to their next reading...