Hello there. This is my first time posting on this forum and I would like a little help.

Most of the players in my regular group have never played a 40k game before and I would like to ease them into the game and setting with as little fuss as possible.

My idea is to start them off as youths living in the lower-middle hive of Scintilla or some other hive world. This will be their first adventure, getting waylayed by hive gangers and trying to return home. After that first game we''ll jump a few years, and a thousand or so XP into the future. From there I'm thinking about adapting a few CoC adventures and possibly a campaign, for their first few sessions as an amateur cell. They won't become official members of the Inquisition until much later.

This format presents some complications and advantages and I would like to lay them out and see what your views are.

1. Narrowing the scope: Instead of throwing the entire setting at them I can concentrate on one game world for a while, introducing the 40k universe a bit at a time.I would imagine that people who haven't been involved in this game, for TT and RPG, would get overwhelmed by the sheer of stuff out there. However, my regular group loves customization and making very unique characters. I would kind of feel bad taking that freedom away from them.

2. Starting as teenagers: This one I'm not sure about, mostly because of career paths. I'm thinking they'll just be 0-xp in whatever career they choose, but will the career simply be something they want to do in the future, a set of skills they're naturally talented at, or should they just be apprentices?

3. Using CoC campaigns and adventures: I love playing Call of Cthulhu and think that porting over adventures and campaigns to Dark Heresy would be a blast. I have my eyes on Tatters of the King for the first campaign arc and possibly Masks of Nyarlehotep for the big, galaxy spanning campaign. Are there any others that might work?

4. Introducing the Inquisition later: For most of the sessions the players will be essentially in a horror game, pursuing evil and exploring the darkness for their own reasons. I'm thinking that around rank 4 or 5 is when I'll induct them into the Inquisition. The thing is, I've never heard of this done before. Most of the people I've talked to started the players off at the lowest level, working for an inquisitor.

P.S: I just had and idea; I could use the time-skip to allow the players to pick up background packages, possibly mitigating the lack of starting character options.

Hi there,

I would suggest not to use "Teenagers". It will not help you at all. The world is still the same and you will still have to explain the same things to them.

Instead, use pre-gen characters with some options. Playing "Edge of Darkness" might work. Otherwise, come up with something that explains the different view on Technology.

Do your players have experience with a more fantasy based RPG? If so, you could try starting them off as Feral World characters, as they have a fairly straightforward variety of career paths available to them. Then have them scooped up by a mercenary company or something and taken off world, the first time they have done so, then plunk them down into a more 'civilized' setting of the Imperium. That way, being back-water yokels with little to no knowledge of the Imperium at large, the characters are introduced to the universe the same time as the players are.

This also allows you to leave the more lore-specific careers, like Cleric, Arbitrator, Tech-priest and Adept for when they are slightly more familiar with what is going on.

I would suggest getting them to roll their characters though. Being given a sheet of information and told that this is the character i am supposed to play has personally never been fun for me. Even if you just stick with the basic homeworld and starting career skills and items. That gives the players a decent selection of basic skills and talents, items to consider and try out before introducing them to the more advanced abilities and gear. You might even find that you dont need to do the whole "x years, and experience later" thing, that they want to keep going with their creations.

A good idea, but I would like the game to be slightly more investigation based.

kingle said:

Hi kingle,

in that case, start on a imperial colony planet. I would suggest a mining colony similiar to what was depicted on "Ghosts of Mars". The nice thing with such world is that you do generally have free hand about the level of technology. So, you can just have the "standard SciFi stuff" (everyone gets used to lasers and generators very quickly) and can start to bring in some of the 40K concepts (Servitors, Servo-Skulls, Tech-Priests, the high level religious faith and the results in life-style).

But what should they be investigating on this world?
Reports filed in with the imperium (or being presented by the small planetary arbites station) show a sharp increase in violent attacks on security agents (a.k.a the local enforcers) in a certain settlement. The pc are send there undercover (new colonists) to investigat what is the reason. Mainly because it could be the start of an anti-imperial-movement.

What is going on?
The attacks aren´t strictly aimed at security personal. In fact, there is an over-all increase in violent outbursts in the settlement. Simply, the inccidident where colonists turn upon each other are being swept under the carpet. Since the majority of the attacker where not violently figures to begin with, it is written of as the side-effect of a new drug that has been around for a while now.

But the drug is not the trigger. Some of the attackers where "clean" and interrogating the dealer shows that those who where his clients where NOT attackers (he sells Obscura, which is more sedative then anything else).

The reason for all of this is a rogue psyker who fled his home world to the colony with a set of false ID. He (or she) start to get heinous headaches over time (pent-up warp energies s/he does not know how to handle) and after a while just "let´s go of it" (which results into somebody in the vincinity to go into a frenzy). The attacks go on security fist (if any is present!) since he has a sublime fear/hate of them.

How can this be found out?
All the incidents happen in the same place: the church (least frequently); the major cantina; one of 3 or 5 bars of the settlement; the worker showers of mine 018. And of course, some are happening in the street during shift beginning and/or shift end. All this place have two things in common: they tend to get crowded and the psyker visits them (he works there; eats there, washes there, prays there but only frequents the bar to buy drugs).

As soon as the drug trade is shot down, things will get worse since the psyker does not have any more access to his obscura.

Any final fight suggestions?
His/her psy rating is 3. He is slightly telepathic/emphatic and will know if the pc are after him as soon as they are closing in. Since he is a worker himself, he is not a weakling. As soon as he panics, he will flee and make use of "See Me Not", White Noise; Weapon Jinx and Distort Vision. Unfortunately for him and the pc, he will try to "hide in the public" and since he is in panic, a lot of workers on his way will frenzy. And if pc or security show up, these are the targets of those workers...