Players in Demise of the Diocletian! Don't even think about reading this!

At some point fairly soon, my players' acolytes will be exploring The Diocletian; one of the Black Ships of the Inquisition that was supposed to self destruct but only got half way. It now hangs in two pieces, in a slowly decaying orbit around a gas giant.

My players only know that the campaign is called "Demise of the Diocletian", but beyond that they have no idea that they're unwittingly looking for a Black Ship that went missing (hey, the ship is black, space is black... it was going to happen eventually). Currently they have tracked down a servo skull which has the access codes and authorisation to get at records and systems on/relating to the ship. They're currently working on getting access to a sensor relay station which, combined with the security codes in the servo skull, will allow them to track the Diocletian's recent movements.

What I need from you guys is a bunch of really creepy things that can happen while they're onboard the ship. Bear in mind that it's been stuck where it is for about two standard months and virtually every member of the crew perished when life support began failing (although I see no reason why it shouldn't still be working in certain areas). Also, it's not in the warp and didn't just emerge from the warp so it can't be infested with psycheuineuendjndmn or however you spell it. The psychic daemon wasps. Yes it had a crop of emergent psykers, but it wasn't even nearly full. A simplified timeline of what went on to bring about this catastrophe follows:

1. Diocletian arrives in Tephaine system
2. Crop of psykers harvested from the hive world of Tephaine and its moon - the agri world Tephaine Minor
3. Diocletian is supposed to travel to Siculi and Reth
4. Inquisitor onboard develops emergent psychic abilities and can hear the thoughts of all the psykers onboard (I have a good reason for him suddenly becoming a psyker after serving for years as a monodominant)
5. Inquisitor executes several psykers and members of the crew, hoping to quell the voices in his head
6. The ship starts to become split by those who think that the Inquisitor is crazy, and those who think he is still fit to lead
7. The Inquisitor's most trusted assassin steals the servo skull X978-1 and flees to Tephaine
8. Inquisitor's primary acolyte cell pursues the assassin and goes to Tephaine
9. Inquisitor can't take it anymore - he sees treachery and chaos all around him! He orders the destruction of the ship!
10. The Tech Magos onboard disagrees with the Inquisitor and battle begins onboard
11. Eventually, the Inquisitor's forces manage to activate the self destruct and the Inquisitor flees to Reth
12. The Tech Magos, mortally wounded, attempts to stop the self destruct. He doesn't quite succeed or fail - instead, the Diocletian is ripped in half and left to hang lifeless after tremendous explosions blossom from within its core. Obviously the casualties are incredibly high and don't stop rising after the explosions.
13. The Diocletian enters a decaying orbit around the gas giant Cobalt004/Tephaine
14. Two months(ish) later, the acolytes arrive in a small craft and void suits along with two other small cells of acolytes who will be searching different areas of the ship to find out what the hell happened to it; their own Inquisitor stays aboard the ship that brought them into orbit around Cobalt004/Tephaine

So if anyone has any cool ideas for creepy things that aren't just Event Horizon or Dead Space then I'd be very grateful (although I will definitely be using the

Also, are there any irregularities in the history of this ship/anything you've spotted that would make this not work ? It's a fairly pliable backstory but certain elements have to remain concrete (such as X978-1 being smuggled off the Diocletian and the other Inquisitor surviving the half self destruct).

There are some creepy things that happen on a space hulk in one of the 'Purge the Unclean' adventures. I like your background to the incident and may add it to the PtU adventure when I run it. Having a psycho Inquisitor out there would make a nice change for them

The ship is destroyed, but the crew was so traumatized by the happenings that they became warp ghosts. As soon as the players enter the wreck, the inside undergoes a reverse Silent Hill effect till it looks like a complete and functioning ship with a crew that finds the thought that the ship was ripped in half very disturbing and definitely not funny...."How did you come on board anyway ? Guards! We have escapees on board, get them and bring them back into their cells!"

And use the soft cushions on them eventually.

Moff8 said:

There are some creepy things that happen on a space hulk in one of the 'Purge the Unclean' adventures. I like your background to the incident and may add it to the PtU adventure when I run it. Having a psycho Inquisitor out there would make a nice change for them

I don't have Purge the Unclean. I've always try to run my RPG adventures 100% home-grown so I've not got any of the released adventures. Or was Purge the Unclean the free one?

Ikkaan said:

That's not a bad idea. I was thinking that so many psykers, crammed into such a concentrated area, going through the emotional trauma of the ship's systems failing and shutting down, explosions, in-fighting, rebellion, random executions, and such like, that they'd leave behind a significan psychic "signature" that would effect the acolytes once they arrived.

Although, I might have the apparitions not notice the acolytes, or treat them as extended staff or something. Perhaps the acolytes can see events from before the demise of the Diocletian as observers, moving around unnoticed like in so many other stories. The question that remains is; what happens when the acolytes take their helmets off in such an area?

Well, in case of apparitions, i would imagine it to be easily discernible (translucent walls, spooky guards walking their rounds). The ships crew and prisoners would be shadows of their former selves, haunting the wreck. This would be a variant where players can walk around the apparitions and gather information about what exactly happened while being ignored by the ghosts. With the possible exception of a survior or "hard ghost" hiding in between, acting like the rest till it gets the chance to stab someone in the back.

What was originally going through my mind was the idea that the collective psionic presence forms some sort of semireality, existing solely by the minds of the crew and prisoners that died. As soon as the players enter the ship, their perceived reality shifts to the version of the ghosts ("Nothing happened."). Which means: If the look outside their own ship is gone (Because only they believe in its existence, as opposed to hundreds of pyskers and crewmen that don´t). As they aren´t in the roster of crewmen and also probably aren´t psykers they should logically be locked up in a cell - clearly they must be stowaways! Its up to them to think of possibilities on how to convince the crew that everyone died so they can get off the ship. Information gathering is also a possibility as they actually can ask people about things.

Taking off helmets....difficult in both versions. Someones head should shrink and pop. But it shouldn´t , it would be a cheap death by GM whim. Better let them live and say the warp did it.

Well, I am not with the warp-ghost-faction. The ship has not been into the warp nor was it destroyed there. If every dramatic battle would lead to a lot of warp ghosts... the imperium would have more ghost busters the inquisitor cells!

So, it is two month after the self destruct, the ship wreck(s) are in a an orbit that is slowly descending into a gas giant....

First of all, a group of Tech Raiders could have set up shop in the ship. The "warp wave" of the incoming ship of the =I= warned their much smaller craft away, but the salvage teams are still hiding on board. To worse matters, the TechRaiders belong a very ruthless rogue trader who enlisted the help of some xenos for his space salvage ventrue. Intelligent, multi-limbed, pale things, not looking human at all. Double jointed, able to survice in open space, living off energy an able to work it into bio-energy blast. (not more then one or three; VERY EXHAUSTING). Communicating through telepathy.
While the cell(s) search the ship, the TechRaider-Groups try there best to HIDE. But if possible, they will try to lure the cell members into traps..or will attempt a quick and deadly ambush if possibly.

Perhabs some of the internal defense systems of the ships are still working? Or some space worthy servant constructs like cherubim or servo skulls? How about little confused cherubims inside the wreck? Talk to them, but if you confuse them they will think that you are "one of the enemy" and attack. Have enough of them to offer the players a "try-and-error" approach. Perhabs the cherubims can offer some clues? If you can get a hand on it, try to look the anime movie The magnetic rose , especially the final!

Well, one or two warp ghost should be finde, but I would not use the whole ship crew.

By-the-way: be carefull with this "survivor"-thing: no void suit would keep its occupant alive for two full month! And if the energy core of the ship is gone...well, I don´t think that an auxilary live support would work for two month.
But you mentioned the tech priest and his followers. The more "enlightend" followers of the machine good are not much of a human anymore. Perhabs a brain in a terminator-like body. This COULD survive for a long time. Perhabs there are still some very damaged, very insane tech-priest on board? A dozen of them? Those who´s weak flesh was mostly removed?

Ikkaan said:

I think it would be better for the "warp shadow" past version of the ship to be visually indistinguishable from reality. No way to tell anything is wrong until they stumble through a hole in the deck that exists in the present but not the past.

Taking off helmets - have them begin to suffer decompression (which is not instant death/head explosion, it takes time to die that way) w/ some toughness/willpower tests vs. fatigue/wounds/unconsciousness, and if they make their tests they can get their helmets back on and/or help their friends that failed the rolls. Also the ghosts could act very confused by the acolytes sudden choking and collapse, etc.

of coourse to really screw w/ them you could make it safe sometimes and not safe others depending on the strength of the "shadow"

I think some Warp manifestations would be okay. The Warp is, effectively, psychic energy manifested in the material world. So, wouldn't it then make sense that, potentially, a bunch people dying horribly in explosions would leave their psychic imprint on the ship? Now consider the fact that many of the dead were psykers. That would, in my mind, strengthen the impression left. I'm not saying that something specifically from the Warp should have taken up residence, but I would play it as though the barrier between the Warp and Realspace was very thing, if not broken, in most places surrounding the Diocletian. Sorta like that fabulously awful movie Ghost Ship ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Ship_(film) ).

That said, if there are any pyskers in your group, they should definitely hear some voices, however faint. Even if you don't go the Warp-manifestation route. Any chance a pysker has to hear voices is a chance for good role play.

Ikkaan said:

This will certainly work in at least some areas of the ship. One player is a void-born arbitrator, the other a hive-world guardsman who is petrified of psykers, xenos, heretics, and childhood stories about daemons. He almost shot an astropath, so freaky things like this will really send his character reeling.

Perhaps there's something they can do to dispell the ghosts, like restore backup power from an emergency generator on a sublevel somewhere?

Gregorius21778 said:

I really, really like this. I hadn't thought of anyone else "accidentally" finding the Diocletian. It would be ironic that the acolytes have been looking for it for so long, trying to get access to sensor relay stations, finding ways to crack the encryption on Black Ship records, etc. and when they get there, a group of outlaw tech raiders found it first. It is also a very good opportunity to introduce aliens not found in WH40k tabletop games.

Gregorius21778 said:

As for internal defence systems, there will be some still active and I think they will form the majority of troublesome encounters for the acolytes to overcome, especially when they have to activate the defences in order to reach the next level. E.g.: "Although you have restored emergency power to this deck, the cargo lift is not powered. Diverting power to the cargo lift will also activate the servoguns along the starboard corridor..."

There will be at least one cherubim on board. I'm hoping the acolytes try to retrieve it rather than just leave it or deactivate it.

Gregorius21778 said:

The twist is that he was dead all along . The "survivor" is supposed to have died long before the acolytes reach the Diocletian - that's the spooky thing. They get him to follow them around, thinking he'll have information their handler/Inquisitor will find useful, and when they get him to safety they find he's dead and is suffering two months of decomposition.

Gregorius21778 said:

There will be more than one servitor on the way methinks. The kind with a fully-enclosed shell to protect them while they work on the ship's outer hull.

Headhanger said:

I got this one and I really like the idea. It is spooky.

What I wanted to point out is that the pc will not swallo the "survivor"-bait. Since 2 month in space are a very long time with a ship that is completely wrecked, with the core gone. They will assume the "survivor" to be ...something else. And since he tries to be helpfull, they will assume that he is hostile.

My suggestion: do not let the core explode. Leave it intact. Or explain that this pattern of void ship has a secoundary core that did not blow up during the self-destruct due to the tech priests intervention. This "auxilary core" could be in the hind quarters of the ship (near the engine) and might be good for "about two month".

Of course, most of the ship will still be out of energy due to the hideos damage from the explosion. Especially the "secound part" that is not connected to the core any longer.

By-the-way: the support section for DH contains a handout map for a black ship as part of the "Twilight"-Adventure from "purge the unclean". The map is rather "over all" and very generall. It might be helpfull for your own deck plans... and it gives you the EXACT, FLUFF APPROVED SIZE for a black ship . Well, at least for ONE "pattern"

Just some thoughts of stuff to throw at the players with little or no "outside" causes:

1. Random power surges. Even though the ship has been broken for two months, I'd bet that it still has some power left, if only in spurts. So a random power surge, or a loose or partially severed connections reconnects, and while the PC's are searching a room, a vidplayer suddenly comes on playing whatever was left in it. Or maybe the lights in a particular corridor suddenly come on full until the PC's step into it then they go out again.

2. Related to #1, but perhaps the ships computer system is decaying as well? Nothing nasty mind you, but perhaps some data escpaes the buffers and "leaks out." So the PC's might be going down a corridor and the voxcaster comes on with the Mad Inquistor's destruct order being played out again. Or the Tech-Magos' attempt to prevent the destruction of the ship. Maybe a love letter from a crewman to his paramour. How disconcerting would it be to be searching a derelict ship and you get Seaman Jones professing his desire for Annie in graphic terms over the air? Random log entries merged together and broadcast as the system rots could be interesting as well. more so if they're all out of sequence as well as just fragmentary.

3. As the ship's keel is effectively broken, it's no longer completely stable in a structural sense. So creaks, groans, and whines are going to be prevalent. More so as stresses increase on the hull. Bits are bound to fall off, or in front of, or on PCs as they progress. Snapping cables that may still hold a charge can create shadows that seem to move on their own (let the PC's imaginations do the rest).

I would have it that the most powerful psykers are kept in self contained cells that have their own power generators in case something goes wrong (like the ship being cut in half) and so one of them has manages to survive by leeching life from the others. The survivor could be giving them instructions that they think will lead them to wherever they want to go and it will seem to them they are going the right way but in reality they are making their way down to free the psyker and provide him with his next meal. Give them several opertunities to work out what is going on like having the survivor disappear for short periods of time and then come back with a plauable excuse, have a ship manifest that shows the survivor as a jailer and not what he has claimed (make the survivor the jailer that had been tasked with keeping the psyker locked up).

If you want to freak out the players make the psyker be weakening andlosing control and so whenever the survivor disappears really strange things start happening like all of the lights going off and the air getting cold and have the players start seeing and hearing things that arent there. Or have the ship appear as normal as someone else suggeested with the crew walking about and the systems all up and running. You could then have them snap out of it just as they are about to open the door to a section open to space. At the end make the psyker a small child who is chained up filthy and scared and see how the characters react to it. It really is a great setting for a survival horror adventure.

Hope it goes well.

Kaihlik

-EDIT- Have the survivor give the tale of the area of the ship with its own power source and life support but have him put it as a sort of emergency bunker for crew in case they had to vent all of the oxygen to kill the psykers. If the players really think about it they will realise it doesn't make that much sense but if they accept it on face value as the guy is willing to help them then you have your ghost.

Just came to my mind when i read about creaking hulls and groaning supports breaking the silence...the homewolrd soundtrack has rather lenghty tracks that will match exactly what you need.

These ideas are all great. Thanks guys.

I was thinking along the lines of a "surviving psyker prisoner", and Kaihlik's post has given me the beginning of a devious plan.

Also, thanks JRaup for the power surges and log readouts. Does anyone know what to search for if I want one of those voice altering things. You know, the kind you'd expect with a Darth Vader mask. You speak through it or push it against your throat and your voice comes out all mechanical and stuff. I can either use that, or record it all to a cassette and play it under the table while my players are in the middle of searching an area.

I think that if I do put the acolytes through a "waking dream" version of the ship where everything is working, I shouldn't punish them for removing their helmets until they leave the area. It's all happening in their minds after all.

I was using this image as the template for my ideas. I'm not entirely sure about the dimensions of a black ship - if it counts as a cruiser or what.

For a voice changer, you can probably just do a search for "voice changer" or "vocal frequency modulator." Cheapest option is probably to get a voice changing helmet, and cannibalize the vocal changer out of it. Easiest is probably to record your voice to your PC and tweak it in some wav/mp3 editing program, the burn it to a CD, or just tape it off your PC speakers.

As for the ship itself, while I generally like the Battlefleet Gothic stuff, I think it might be more interesting to use a precursor to them, the USS Cygnus

I was thinking of using Audacity or something to alter my voice.

But when I play a tech priest or someone on the other end of a vox, I just have to clamp my hands over my mouth (in the classic "respirator" fashion) and speak muffled sentences to my players. In the first session we had a classic drive thu " sever your leg please " moment.

Headhanger said:

As mentioned in my last post, the size and crude layout of black ship can be found at the DH support page

!WARNING! Contains spoilers to one adventure from "purge the unclean"

http://app.fantasyflightgames.com/dark-heresy/images/40K-maps/holds-big.gif

While does not offer your deck plans, it should help you for orientation and/or building your own plans.

Thank you Gregorius21778 - those plans will certainly come in handy for scaling the ship.

The tech-priest, as life support began to fail, attempted to leave a message for anyone who might find the ship. Unfortunately, the message delivery system had to be jury rigged. At random points throughout the ship telescreens and vox casters flair to life a blare a few snippet of the priests final words. If the players thing to write these words down and place them in order it may prove to be a valuable clue. On the other hand, the messages might just be the ramblings of a dying man, or instructions of some sort. Either way, the final bits of the recording should be encoded into the tech-priests on bionics. If his corpse is disturbed, the long dead vocal cords power up and deliver the end of the message, or a complete version of the fragmented message.

It is possible the tech-priest lived long enough to try to repair some of the damage caused by the incomplete self-destruct in the hopes that what was left of the ship could limp back to civilization. With most of the crew dead he would have had to rely on servitors to do most of the work. But with the tech priests dead, the servitors are wondering around on their own, attempting to follow the last order they were given to the best of their limited ability. As a result the acolytes find servitors wandering around critical ship systems doing incomprehensible and possibly dangerous things with scraps of technology. One may have been riveting the same bolt into the hull for the past 2 months. Another repeatedly electrocutes itself attempting to reconnect a primary power conduit. It spasms on the ground for a few moments, the it's self repair systems kick in and it gets up and repeats the process. A servo skull scutters through the air ducts trailing the acolytes, closing and doors and bulkheads they open in order to reinforce hull integrity. The acolytes may also find a makeshift lab where the tech-priests tried to make a additional servitors using what was left of the crew and passengers of the ship. An incomplete servitor is stretched out on the table, its unneeded organs removed and lying to the side.

Fearing that the Inquisitor may have been dominated by a powerful psyker on board, one of the crewmen swiped a book of inquisitorial lore and attempted to protect his quarters with hexegramic and pentagramic wards. He failed miserably. His room is now contaminated with warp leakage, and despite the lack of life support he may still be in there, drawing and redrawing the wards with his blood.

This might be a good red herring. A power surge cased by the incomplete self destruction magnetized a section of the ships hull. As the acolytes approach it their aspen and vox units start to malfunction. Once they get close enough their weapons (or any significant metal items) are pullet from their hands and fly off into the distance. They players may jump to the conclusion that a powerful psyker is still on board and has just disarmed them.

In the galley the acolytes find several partially dismembered corpses and a few meals being cooked from choice cut of meat taken from said corpses. If the acolytes look into it deeply they will find that someone with cooking skills resorted to cannibalism shortly after the explosion. The cannibalism started out as an act of desperation to keep a few survivors alive long enough to wait for a rescue. However, looking over the kitchen and the way the more recent meals were being repaired, it is clear that the chef and the diners became quite comfortable with the idea, eventually preparing the human meat in the manner of the finest gourmet dishes. You could have a few cannibals on board, or they could have dies when life support failed. The chef may have stuffed himself in the oven with an apple in his mouth, possibly out of guilt, or because in his madness he wished to become the perfect meal.

Attila-IV said:

This is certainly along the lines of what I will be using. I think the acolytes will have the choice of either tracking down each fragment of the vox recording and then piecing the puzzle together, or going through a very dangerous area of the ship to find the techpriest's corpse and listen to the whole message in full. That way they either get the XP rewards for a) visiting lots of areas and working it out on their own, or b) going through a single, dangerous, area and having it all laid bare for them.

Attila-IV said:

That servo skull is definitely going to be in there. It's going to follow the acolytes around, closing every door they leave open and returning every cargo lift they use to the default deck/floor.

Attila-IV said:

That's awesome. Definitely using that.

Attila-IV said:

While I won't be using the idea, that's pretty cool. Perhaps it would work in a later adventure; but for the Diocletian I want to create an atmosphere of absolute dereliction. The only living beings in the ship will be the acolytes and the other exploration cells (and maybe those tech raiders), unless you count servitors.

I'm also thinking that the party's Inquisitor has equipped one of the other cells with a large explosive device to destroy the ship once and for all if need be. The bomb-carrying cell will meet some grizzly end and the acolytes will have to go looking for them to retrieve the explosives. Maybe I'll even leave it up to them whether they want to blow it up or not. The Inquisition won't want it widely known that one of their number has gone crazy and neglected Terra's tithe, so the acolyte's Inquisitor will probably not want to alert the Adeptus Mechanicus to come and repair the ship.

If the acolytes don't bomb the Diocletian, it's going to crash into the gas giant at some point anyway. But blowing it up now rather than waiting would prevent people like the tech raiders from finding it, and might put a stop to the nightmares they'll be having afterwards.