Greetings, brethern,

I plan to send one of my groups onto a modified form of "Shades of Twilight" (PtU). The main mod will be that there will be no Space Marine and that the other group will a team of "Independt ArcheoTech Salvagers".


What I am looking for are some obstacles (not ENEMIES) I can put into the pc´s way.

My first thoughts where about some zero-g-manouvering but I intend to give them reasonable access to gear & weapons. Which means MagBoots and stuff (see IH; Void Section). They will also be granted a small team (four) of Boarding Troopers. So, I can play up the good movie tradition of killing off the red shirts if things are messed up.

So, any ideas about obstacles? Mine so far are...

• ...a corridor with normal gravity where a huge gab in the ceiling made cable spill down in the corridor like the guts of a wounded thing. The pc will have to wiggle themselves through the heavy cable ...which are blocking there side so they might not notice the gap in the floorbehind the cables until it is to late (Perception Test; Falling Damage).
• A huge shuttel hangar bay (their entry position) where a meteor hit home a while ago. Leading to a mess of wreckages and some parts (small&large) still moving & spinning about in Zero-G (Dexterity to avoid being hit; MagBoots ON make things harder, but at least you will not spiral out of control if you miss your test)
• The Bulkhead-Cutter (see IH; a tool similiar to a chainfist. For opening bulkhead) gets stuck in some wreckage blooking the part. Dexterity to pry it loose without swinging about with it. (yes, it IS cheasy! Not sure about this one myself).
• In a Low-Gravity Segment, a floor begins to collapse once they are moving over it (running to get out of segment quickly)

Any further ideas? Thank you!

The good old crumbling ceiling: the vibrations of the party's steps have the steel plates (of the ceiling of the passageway they’re passing through) loosening and finally falling on the party. Of course, some gravity is required.
Take it as an Agility test: have your players repeat the test every X meters. Every degree of failure is a +1 to a pool of failures: when the total score you have planned has been reached, the ceiling falls on the party (and perhaps even blocks their path).
Awareness (test with a penalty) helps them notice the plates vibrating: as they see it, they can act accordingly (examples: choosing to turn their MagBoots off and float thrugh the corridor; clinging to the handrail on the walls; moving a step at a time: it’s slower but they have a +10 or +20 bonus in their Agility test; and so on).
Hope that helps!

Reactor leaks. Radiation/tox damage.

Hull breaches with zero gravity and no floor.

Segements where ships have materialized INSIDE the ship, or have crashed into the ship, so a full on ship hull is blocking the way (too thick for plasma cutters to breach?)

Alien substances that prevent the use of magboots? Or maybe magnetized/demagnetized surfaces that cancel the magboots?

Volatile substances/gases in sealed compartments. Explosions and shrapnel to damage void suits, corrosive material?

Pressurized/non-pressurized compartments that will either suck them in or push them out if their mag boots or line aren't properly secure. Floating debris becoming projectiles.

Parts of the hulk do not connect and the acolytes need to traverse a small distance of open space, using thruster rockets and lifelines.

Power generators that can be brought back to life to electrify sections of ship, switch on the lights, control doors and such.

Long-dormant anti-boarding turrets that sputter back to life when they are triggered due to motion or proximity. Same with kill-rigged servitors that still roam sections of the hulk looking for intruders to repel.

Areas of strong radioactivity.

Warp disturbances where time and space are so messed up that the acolytes always end up where they began walking, or where they suddenly need to walk onto a wall and ceiling, or which spatially rearrange reality to encapsulate them in a wildly different part of the hulk.

Gregorius21778 said:

Hello, sorry for late response I understand you are playing this tomorrow. Yet, I will see what I can contribute with.

It seems you already got some input on possible physical obstacles (zero G, collapsing areas, Hullquakes, biological and chemical hazards etc.), but I think it could be fun to expand on the area the of the Black Ship itself.

But first, here is an encounter I thought about:

1. The acolytes are moving in a part of the Hulk which is in poor shape. Several doorways have collapsed rubble blocking them, some seem to be leading into straight walls itself. They eventually find a way that seems possible that they can follow for awhile.

After a fairly long walk they come to a partially collapsed but huge corridor. At this point they can still turn around but that means a long way back and losing precious time, so they may still want to try to move on despite the shortage of space. The Corridor narrows to a crawl, going up and down within the rubble in the corridor, maybe even down into pools of water that has collected at the bottom of the corridor (allowing them more space but meaning they have to get totally immersed in water - not necessarily a problem because of their Void Suits but still disconcerting since it means little visibililty for some periods of time.

They will of course start hearing noises further up while crawling this way - of something possibly alive. It can be whatever you want, but preferably a small but somewhat dangerous type of creature, such as Xeno bugs or some sort of creature with adaptable form ( like the Slaught, but they are probably too dangerous). Either before or after such an encounter, in which the acolytes can only face forwards, have ridiculously low speed, and cannot dodge or parry attacks, they may come to a stretch so cramped they will have difficulty getting through with heavy equipment and may have to take their Void suits or other armors off compleyely. If you force them to do this before the combat the creature can of course be less dangerous and have primitive bite/claw/suck attack. Taking off the Suits could make them more compact and thus be dragged through behind them (otherwise the acolytes will surely turn back).

Example creatures:

- Void Leeches, about the size of RL Eels.

-Arachnoids the size of small dogs

-Warp Creatures with a Phasing abililty, able to move through material.

-Tiny servitors gone rogue

-Corpse Marines (previous DW marines stuck in debree, clearly dead and able to crasp with their supernatural strength).

-Anything you planned to hit them with anyway that can fight in very cramped conditions.

2. The Mysterious Black Ship: I can't really remember the details of the actual adventure, but it was FAR from creepy enough. Here you can alter the laws of physics at will, have the acolytes see various hallucinations and ghostly apparitions. Make them on edge, have them making Initative checks and waste precious ammo on what is not real encounters. Little black-haired girls (The Ring or F.E.A.R. style), flashbacks into memories not their own... many possibililities.

Here's one: The acolyte (preferably a Psyker) finds himself alone in a cell, with a terrible pain in his back. He can hear screaming from one neighbouring cell, and mad rambling from the next. He feels an emptiness inside, like any joy of living whatsoever has been ripped from him, and that there is no point of existing at all. Suddenly, some of the symbols on the walls starts to glow, and then an electric burst ripples over the door before him ending in a small explosion. He can suddenly feel life flooding into him, and purpose. The world becomes alive again, colors return and become magnificent, and power surges through him. Simply by thinking about it the door before him is thrown backwards and he steps into the corridor. Two heavily armored soldiers points large Lasguns connected to small backbacks at him, but before they can shoot dark fires erupts all around him burning them to cinders in mere seconds. Yet something else comes before him, and a voice not his in his head says "yESSSS.... KILL THEM ALL!"

And then he comes back, the rest of the acolyte group looking worriedly at him, telling him he was totally blank for a moment there..

Anyway I hope you find some use for this or some inspiration and good luck tomorrow!

Hi Friend,

thanks for the idea. And I got some extra time due to a shift of schedule (another week, to be precise).

I think I will use a leg-mounted spider-servo-skull with this cramped passageway. Hallucinations are a good idea as well. I think I will steal something from the pc game "Vampire: Bloodlines". There was a haunted house (burned down hotel). In the final, I reached a room where most of the floor was gone due to the fire. Before I could make my first careful step....an Illusion flashed in and the room seems 100% normal, just like it must have looked before the fire. It creeped me out because I did not know where to put my figures food.

I think I will call for Intelligence to remember where solid ground was supposed to be.

For the hallucination (if you do go by the Bloodlines theme) it would be an amusing warpish twist if they failed the intelligence test, they think the floor is whole/real, they walk across no problem. Those who pass the test see the gapping void. If they call out in character to warn them, maybe a fel test to see if the characters believe their group mates of the 'danger'. if they do and they take a 'second look' with an intelligence bonus, if passed, vanish goes the floor.

In that vein, you totally need the scary axe wielding father figure appear every now and then, ghosts reliving terrible events.

Gregorius21778 said:

Nice to hear When I wrote "servitors" I was actually thinking about the small spider-bots from Deus Ex (which of course has no sequel..yet). The *ting-ting-ting-ting-ting* sound they made while moving was pretty creepy, especially when crawling in ventilation shafts...

I also love that scene from VtM:Bloodlines, most scary in game so far for me (and I have played Amnesia: The Dark Descent!)