So, I've been 'elected' (via the not-it finger-on-nose method) to be the first of the rotating GMs for our Deathwatch group, having just completed Final Sanction/Extraction. As I'm the second most experienced GM of the five of us, I'm writing my own material and saving the prepublished stuff for the less practiced people when their turn comes around. Now to the meat.

My scenario seed is effectively as such: A space hulk has emerged in a system bordering the Realm of Ultramar, out of which the Ultramarines have detected the distress beacon of a Ultramar Navy strike cruiser that disappeared while on patrol a couple millennia ago. They promptly sent to the Deathwatch requesting a Kill Team to aid them as they locate the cruiser's wreck - of particular value because its records indicate a notable battle-brother was onboard when it vanished. (Our group contains two Ultras - hey, character hooks).

When they arrive at the planetoid-sized hulk, the first problem is pinpointing the distress beacon's location within it, which will require triangulation. They'll need to plant tracking beacons at three specific locations - one on the exterior, the other two just inside it. Later on, as they venture into the depths of the hulk, they'll meet genestealers and demons, but right now I'm at a loss for figuring out what sort of encounters/monsters I can use for the exterior portion of the session. I'd rather not open up with stealers this early (using health-boosted DH stealers instead of the Landsholme ones, just to mess with their heads), but I can't think of anything else that can survive open vacumn. Any suggestions?

Depends how many races you want to bring in, possibilities I can think of

1. A Rogue Trader and his forces who claim they have salvage rights over the space hulk, this could start with a set of void-suited pirate scum type characters who have never seen a space marine and have know idea who they are dealing with opening fire on the pc's in the void and escalate to a role playing opportunity with your PC's convincing the rogue trader to back down or even provide support. [edit] or your PC's could just pulp the trader for daring to attack the Emperors holy warriors [/edit]

2. A dark Eldar pirate force similarly wants to plunder the space hulk and detects the PC's

3. Micrometeor shower involving running from cover to cover in breaks between showers of bullet sized meteors

4. You said Daemons, both daemons and chaos space marines can live quite happily in a vacuum

that's all I can think of right now

Just a couple of pieces of my experience from running a space hulk style mission

1. I used a blip system much like the blip system from space hulk to build suspense

2. be careful with upgraded DH genestealers. with ag 60, unnat Ag, dodge +10 and step aside they are nigh unhittable (dodge on an 80 or less twice per turn and can potentially dodge a whole volley from a bolter), it doesn't take more than a few before they become a serious threat.

Micrometeor swarms or debris impacts are a good idea - some lesser demon hordes wouldn't go amiss either (and give the Devastator a turn to shine), now that I think of it. Since part of the first session's objectives is now both planting the locator beacon receivers and disabling the hulk's defenses (some of the ships in its bulk still have automated weaponry active, which is preventing the Kill Team's ship from approaching close enough to properly calculate the readings), I'm now contemplating the notion of surface/exterior-mounted weapon turrets as 'encounters'. The party is already starting to think of themselves as a heavy bolter delivery team, it'll be interesting how they react to having a heavy bolter turned against them as part of a remote point defense mount.

Blips? I love the idea, consider it stolen. And thanks for the warning about the Stealers - i hadn't noticed the UnAgi, and thus hadn't done the math on how hard it is for them to be hit. I may take that away if I raise their HP.

As a lore note for later - how much damage can an Astartes take before dying, even if they've triggered their Sus-An Membrane? The big 'tweeeest' I'm planning for the second or third session (whenever they make it to the bridge of the lost cruiser) is that the battle-brother whose body they're trying to recover is actually still alive, though gravely wounded and in hibernation - because the warp is crazy like that, it's only been a few months or years for him, depending on the answer to this question.

The_Glyphstone said:

As much as the Plot needs them to.

ItsUncertainWho said:

Yeah in Oblivion's Edge the Brother Lucian NPC took a fatal hit. I wanted a dying scene, so I described him as lying there mortally wounded after the battle was over. One of the players asked "If he is badly wounded, shouldn't kick the Sus-an (after all those years I am not getting over this name, same with lionel johnson) in?" My reply was "He is actually already dead, I am just playing his death this way." That was it. Was a nice death too.

His last words to another Ultra were taken from a rather controversial recent movie: "You must be steel. You must be doom."

Alex

The_Glyphstone said:

1. I think thats a really good idea, nice one

2. Sorry if im being condescending here, I promise I am just trying to help but make sure you assign them auspexes or something like that to explain blips

3. Potentially extremely lethal amounts. by the game system approximately 35. thats 20 ish plus 16 for true grit (i think its called true grit) and then you have fate points. but having said that 40k is psuedo mythological and in the latest horus heresy book "Prospero Burns" (which incidentally I really liked, but thought it started off a bit slowly) theres a marine who is seemingly alive and talking for 12 minutes after his life signs have expired due to his sheer need to tell his story or some such voodoo magic. so in short yeah as much as you want, have a marine in sus-an with no arms or legs and he could easily talk for a bit when he's revived in my opinion

Narkasis Broon said:

1. Thanks. Between the turrets, the roaming lesser daemon packs (ripped directly from DH and Hordified), the micrometeor storms, and any combination of the above, just wandering the exterior should be an interesting experience. I've also allowed for either trying to run the turrets out of ammo, or sneaking the Techmarine up to disable them (Difficult Tech-Use test likely).

2. No worries there, our Devastator is practically religious about taking an auspex, and tries to badger everyone else into spending requisition on backup auspexes. If for some bizzare reason he deviates this time, I'll fiat in free auspexes to the group.

3. Excellent. It'll be a mid-mission objective switch, considering their original goal was just to recover his geneseed, and if possible, his armor/body. Now the objective stays the same, but if they can extract him alive (harder, with demons and stealers running all over the place, and the hulk destabilizing from previous shenanigans), bonus XP and renown. Should be an interesting dilemma for them, especially when the Lord of Change shows up for the chase scene.

For an encounter on the outside of the Hulk, how about a group of badly malfunctioning servitors, trying to make "repairs" and percieving the Space Marines as foreign objects to be excised from the hull?

Also, a swarm of custom-made void vermin (like the mynoks from Empire Strikes Back ) would work- maybe something that feeds on electricity, and their attacks drain power from the Space Marines' armour, temporarily reducing their Strength and Agility.

Or, if you want to go more supernatural, Warp Spectors (from Dark Heresy ) would be good- translucent, faintly glowing people in civilian garb, standing unharmed in the void with their hair seeming to blow in a non-existant wind ,as they slowly stalk foward...

Zombies!

Automated defences: Servitors coupled to their systems who became tainted and animated by the warp after the vessel was lost.

And all manner of globby slimy stuff from the warp!

I love the idea for this, all the mini encounters sound great and I will be running something similar to this in the next couple of weeks (as we have just finished Final Sanction and Oblivians Edge).

One point that I will address is why have this appear near Ultramar, as the Ultramarines would respond? I would put this in Jericho's Reach somewhere near an automated watch station.

Peachey said:

Originally, it was supposed to be on the edge of Ultramar because there were two Ultramarines in the Kill Team, or former Ultramarines at least. With a hulk this big, the Smurfs were (theoretically) anxious to get to their objective before the thing vanished again, so they called for the closest experts to help them investigate, and their messenger to Erioch arrived before their help request to Macragge. Primarily because only the Ultras (or chapter here) would have the records/knowledge to detect the missing strike cruiser buried inside, know who was lost aboard it, and employ the kill team (well, initially the Kill Team and some Ultra Terminators or Marines to get summarily killed off) to retrieve him. Alternatively, a flimsy plot-string to excuse the adventure, as none of the other players are well-versed or pendantic enough about 40K lore to complain on how the Ultramarines wouldn't request DW aid for this. Also I'm not certain if the Deathwatch has their own fleet, otherwise I could indeed just palette-shift the entire story arc to focus only on Deathwatch operatives and ships.

Yeah the deathwatch has ships, I am pretty sure there is a description of at least one type of Deathwatch ship in the core rulebook in the fluff section, it's essentially a delivery system for exterminatus weapons though

[edit] just had a look, pg 335 there is a small section entitled warships [/edit]

Narkasis Broon said:

Yup, found it. I guess the plot could be massaged into a Deathwatch-exclusive story arc then - it'd feel a bit awkward, but it would probably be indistinguishable to an outside viewer. On the other hand, that brings up an entirely new question...what do the Deathwatch do with the geneseed of their fallen? The key initial hook for the second part of this adventure is retrieving the geneseed (and if possible, body) of the long-lost Astartes from the hulk...but why would they want it and what do they do with it afterwards?

Post it back to the home Chapter?

That's what the Astartes would want to do, whereas I can imagine the Mechanicum might instead want it for themselves. Cue the conflict of interests.

Siranui said:

Hmmm...maybe someone tells them their orders have changed just before going in (lying, naturally). Depending on if they actually manage to extract the crippled Marine alive or not when they discover him, might be good seeds for future games, now that I think of it. The Inquisition might also want to lay their hands on the 'geneseed'.

The electricity-draining Mynock analogues are another good idea, as is a pack of marauding servitors.

The_Glyphstone said:

interesting idea, if they did want to they would DEFINITELY want to do it on the sly. but it would be interesting if it were the geneseed of a chapter who is particularly insular, the dark angels, possibly even a black shield deathwatch marine. or one of the few marines who remained loyal after the whole incident with the tyrant of Badab. sorry I forget the name of that chapter. astral claws? something like that

Narkasis Broon said:

Not sure, I'm not up on any Black Library material other than the Cain books. But depending on if the poor guy lives through the next few weeks (we play 1/week, and I'm intending for this arc to last three sessions total), I'll have a nice basis for a potential intrigue plot next time around. Some reason for this particular veteran DW marine to be extremely important would be neat though...maybe he was one of the guys who just showed up at the Watch Fortress without any chapter identification at all, which I think is the Black Shields that you're talking about.

Yeah that is the Black shields. And from there anything could happen, This marine could be from the Heresy itself. for instance if you had a Dark Angel in your group it would be interesting to see how he and the group responds to one of the Fallen, who is also a loyal servant of the Emperor.

Something I've used with success in RT is spacewalking (or -jumping, really) from the airlock of a transport to the target airlock. A small detail which terrified my players. Lots of fate points were spent to avoid missing and drift away into the great beyond.

Sammail said: Something I've used with success in RT is spacewalking (or -jumping, really) from the airlock of a transport to the target airlock. A small detail which terrified my players. Lots of fate points were spent to avoid missing and drift away into the great beyond.

Do jumppacks work in the void?

If they're turbine engines, then no.

If they're more akin to a rocket, then yes.

I think some of the older figures had jump packs that did look like turbines, but I have no idea what new ones look like.

Although I think it's best to say 'yes', considering the amount of space combat that space marines are likely to see and the essential nature of being able to travel across voids during such actions.

Lexicanum states "A Jump Pack is a back mounted device containing turbines or jets powerful enough to lift even a user in Power Armour" however the Deathwatch core book definitely references "large rocket thrusters" so I would say it is down to the GM. if it were me I would say that provided the marine knew in advance he would be fighting in the void it would definitely be possible to either get his pack modified or requisition a void capable jump pack at no extra cost

[edit] or just go official trumps unofficial in which case yes it works in the void [/edit]

That, plus our group already has precedent for "yes" - during Extraction, when we ventured out onto the surface of the Bioship to wreck its spore cannons, we tied the entire group conga-line style to my Assault Marine and cheerfully abused the turbo-boost ability of the jetpack for a direct, Genestealer-free taxi ride to the objective.

You know, it might be a good idea to make sure the enemies are mostly melee oriented, so that you can use the nasty effects of vacuum upon combustion to trash their day. Some Genestealers when your guns can't shoot really trash your day. Also, if you really want to make the players to suffer make sure the marine is possessed by a greater demon of Khorne, who is followed by a demon prince (yes this does happen, albeit rarely) and a large number of World Eaters to spice things up. Bye, and Blood for the Blood God.

According to Imperial Armour 3: The Taros Campaign, the exhaust vents on a standard power armour backpack can serve as manoeuvring thrusters in zero- and micro-gravity conditions. However, I can't imagine they're hugely effective at this task, as otherwise there'd be no need for more extensive void-capability modifications...

Imperial Armour 10: The Badab War part 2 describes Void-Hardened Power Armour, a series of modifications which have been in use since the Great Crusade where extensive void combat is expected, incorporating enhanced-capacity air and coolant supplies, additional ablative plating, attitude correction systems, heat dispersal elements and so forth. Depending on the resources available and the traditions of the Chapter, these modifications may be obvious and bulky, seamlessly and almost invisibly incorporated, or somewhere in between.