Hey everyone! Very quick rundown, our group just got into 40k a couple of months ago and we've managed to play Edge of Darkness and Illumination, but with a different GM. For various reasons he will step down, taking the role of a player and I'll try to fill up his shoes. There will be a fresh start, with 4 new characters (3 of them will be the guys who already went through EoD and Ilum, 1 will be totally new to DH). The first adventure should be solid enough for 6-8 sessions (each session is around 3-5 hours).

Now comes my dilemma: what should I choose as a first adventure for new lvl1 chars?

While I have the experience of a player in DH and I can hold my ground when it comes to improvising, I'm absolutely new at GM-ing, so I thought a pre-written adventure would be the safest choice for now. Unfortunately, it seems we've already played through the best "starter" ones. For the past days I went through every DH adventure I could find, but I still have difficulties choosing one. Most good ones seem to be tailored for ranks above 3-4 and I do not want to "buff-up" the characters because both me and them will likely lose control over abilities (i.e.: Tattered Fates, Silence of The Void, Leave no Stone Unturned, The House of Dust and Ash, Scrivner's Star). Others are very "light" in terms of fillers and/or seem like they will be over in 1-2 sessions (i.e.: The Glass Assassin, Brutal Lament, Idyll Heresies).

The closest ones seem to be the 3 adventures in "Purge the Unclean" - although they seem to involve a LOT of tests that will certainly not be available at Rank1 (the book loosely states "under rank 5...") and Maggots in the Meat - which I just found out about (I only know it says "for ranks 1-2" at the beginning).

Any advice on the matter would be most welcomed, so thank you in advance.

I was going to recommend Purge the Unclean ... the first adventure (with the Joyous Choir I think, don't have it in front of me) is a great way to get players going. It has a reasonable amount of puzzle and enough combat scenes that you'll be able to have one big Donnybrook per session. I GM'ed this one and found it quite good.

The second adventure is a straight ahead crawl through a space hulk with a clock ticking in the background to keep the tension going, and with a reasonable twist.

Haven't done the third (I actually prefer to roll my own) but I'm sure it's probably on par with the other two.

All in all, you should be able to adapt any over-powering tests to the level of your characters ... and by the way, this is the grim future of the 41st century, nothing says your characters have to survive!

Hi AngryMarine,

while you already opted it out, I would still suggest "Brutal Lament".

Okay, Gregorius. You read my problem. How shall I fill it?
I am actually running a modified version of BL and could try to write up my "middle filler" for you. In short, it goes like this.

After the pc deciphered the secret content of the book, they got the following riddle.

“From those seeing without eyes
receive the key
finalize Helenius deed
for the place of the vault
containing the guarded prize”

With some Investigation regarding Hive Thebean they will learn about the once influental and now excommunicated Thysian Sisterhood (a psyker temple-school once part of the Scholastica Psykana; those seeing without eyes) and monument of the warhero Helenius (depicturing him in putting down some beastmen; Helenius deed). They will have suffered at least one attack from an unknown party sending Daemons after them.

Since there are rumours that members of the Sisterhood survived the purge and are still seeked out, the pc will search for them in the Messina District. Some investigation (perhaps with unwanted attention from Witchhunters or Headhunters) will point them to a ruined HiveSection called "the Slag" where they will find the surviving Sisters. Once they braved the unpowered and crumbling "Slag", they are faced with a choice: cooperating with the excommunicated or trying to wrest "the key" from 2 to 3 psykers and the fanatics guarding them?

One way or the other, they need to put the key to use with the monument of Helenius... which can be found in a section run by different nobles. One of them is a house the pc now might have reason to believe to be involved in the attacks againt them. They either sneak inside or try to get official sanction (in which case further attacks will follow) to receive the final hint to the location of the crypt safe.

I think that BL "as it is" might be good for about 2 sessions. The middle part I can provide will be about another 2 to 3 sessions. In addition, I will add some elemnts for the first part and the later.

If you would like to run it, I will start to put up the material over the course of this week.

Well, to begin with you are looking for an adventure for rank 1-2 (you reach rank 2 after only 100 XP, so in my experience after the first session) with enough substance for 6-8 sessions. EoD and Illumination are not an option as you already played them, but you liked there style if I get you right. Do you already know what kind of careers the 4 players will have?

Rejoice for you are True from Purge the Unclean sounds fitting in my opinion, even though it needs to be a little fleshed out (but probably not as much as others) for 6-8 sessions. I personally would sort of expand the ‘social events’ like Borella’s party and the following event at the Alabaster Court, mostly with more interesting NPCs to interact with. RfyaT expects – as you mentioned – a lot of social skills, and if you don’t have PCs of that expertise (e.g. 3 Guardsman and 1 Tech-Priest) it can get a bit difficult. Still, good role playing should give huge bonuses for these tests anyway in my opinion.
For more martially minded players you could also try Maggots in the Meat, even though most think of it as a rather weak adventure. But again, if fleshed out to the right degree, it can be an interesting and thrilling adventure to begin with.

Tattered Fates would fit the 6-8 sessions guideline and can be adjusted quite well in regard to the rank 1 guideline, but maybe it is a little to harsh for a starter and the same could be said for the House of Dust and Ash in a way.

So, my advice would be to play through Purge the Unclean at first. Maybe with some short offs in between the three adventures.

Luthor Harkon said:

Thank you all for the replies.

@BrooklynMike: I've read the first 2 adventures from PtU, they sound interesting and is likely I'll try them - today I'll probably have the careers of the 4 players and will see how to fit them in. I'd really like not to kill them in the first adventure though, especially since one of them is a "virgin" within DH and a lvl 1/2 death might be putting him off (not to say I'll do everything possible to keep them alive, if they fail that much they deserve it - but I wouldn't want a death to be caused by overpowering NPCs/circumstances).

@Luthor Harkon: Tattered Fates sounds like a great choice for anyone who has at least 1-2 adventures under their belt, in order for the initial setting to work properly. This is why I'll try to keep it for a later date. Thanks for the heads-up on MitM, at least now I won't have to read through it.

@Gregorius21778: Thank you for the extra content on tBL. Sounds very cool, but I still have some worries when it comes to who and how the party can Inquire or Interrogate (I feel I need to come up with a rather large number of random NPCs just for that, and although it sounds fun, I'm not that confident yet). Your addendum for "Rejoice..." I already had from these very forums (as I mentioned, I've been reading a lot these past days, on these threads especially). Thanks alot for that as well.

Angry Marine said:

my plans for this are so far

Inquiry: They will have to do some Inquiry about the Riddle itself and the Thysian Sisterhood in general. Later on, they will have to search for a "Contact" in the Messina district (Inquiry, Inquiry, Inquiry....I even have some small Inquiry tables for this with some "twists"). It even ends with a direct contact the pc can interact wiht.

Interrogation: Your pc have Interrogation at rank 2? Anway, if you like some Interrogations scenes I could add some for you. In that case I only have one request on my own: I would like to have feedback from your players and you on this "work-in-progress" modul (would like to send you a rapidshare download link for the material instead of using the forum. Thereby, I can polish the material before I "officially" put it up.

Most of the suggestions have already been covered so I'll just chime in with some more general advice.

As rank 1 characters the players are very restricted on what skills they have available, and what skill masteries they can purchase. This means that anytime you ask them to do a standard (challenging) test, if they are even able to roll they will be doing so against a 30-40% chance. That can become very frustrating, very quickly. I think in the book they actually suggest you "fudge" your difficulty modifiers by 10-20% in favor of players during the first few ranks to make it slightly less frustrating.

While that is one option, I think its just as important as a GM to mind what important plot information or elements the players obtain, regardless of dice roll outcome. For example, if the group manage to apprehend some cultist (a task in itself) and interrogate him, it might be easy to judge that a failed Interrogation check means the subject clams up and manages to hold out so long that the players are running out of time. A successful check means the cultist spills his guts about the location of the cult stronghold, and some idea of the defenses the cultists have, etc etc.

Rather then putting it into a pass/fail system like so many other systems, I suggest you use a more fluid sliding scale system. So for example...a failed check means the players still obtain the plot-necessary location of the stronghold (as a reward for apprehending the cultist in the first place)...but they fail to obtain the information about the defenses or counter measures in place. A successful check means they get the location and the knowledge of the defenses, and a super succesful check might mean they even get the daily password used to actually get inside the place.

Obviously this is a very general example but you get my drift. Since much of DH is investigation and story driven, it can be easy to put yourself into a position of plot-deadlock because of a bad search, interrogation, charm or what-have-you check...especially at the lower levels where skills are so much lower and characters are less diverse.

In any event, I wish you the best of luck with your project! =)

As it turns out, the all-new player will drop out, so there just 3 people left. The good news is all 3 are already experienced with DH from the previous 2 adventures. Also, the 3 careers have been chosen: I have a Cleric, an Adept and a Tech Priest. They have mixed stats for their classes (the Adept has excellent stats all over). I hope they will be enough to run through "Rejoice..." - does anyone think extra tweaking will be necessary? Like an extra NPC Acolyte perhaps or tuning down specific encounters? If all goes well I plan to throw them directly into the space hulk after that.

@Bladehate: I was thinking about something like that! Thank you for confirming this method.

@Gregorius: it seems there will be no Interrogation skill for quite a while indeed Anyway my worries were not related to the skill itself, as more to the NPCs and maps that should be available for any actions. TBL has a very interesting plot but almost no maps or handouts. Also with the number of Acolytes going down to 3, this scenario seems more and more difficult to go through at ranks 1/2. As it is, I'd rather keep the adventure for when I'll be able to properly spice it up and go with more constructed choices for now.

Angry Marine said:

Angry Marine said:

Sounds good so far. The Cleric could be the "noble" with the Tech Priest and Adept as close advisors. The Cleric most probably already has charm or something similar to get information and the Adept and/or Tech Priest could inquire stuff through talking with the retinues of other nobles via the use of Lore skills. As Gregorius mentioned, the only problem could be combat heavy encounters with only three PCs of the rather not so militant careers. So, Theo alone in the Ambulon chapel might do the trick, even though lone bosses tend to go down rather (and often surprisingly) fast in my opinion (through focus fire). About 2-3 SQ-operatives might be okay, but let Theo only appear after about all of them are more or less incacipated by the PCs.

Shades of Twilight is definitely more combat heavy, but your players might already have earned some XP in the meantime and have some nice NPC back up anyway...

Gregorius21778 said:

Well, my (bad-ass) PCs lost Theodosia as well (maybe because the groups Assassin was not around...). As a member on the forum once mentioned (through explicit listing of the respective rules and tests appropriate), if you do not catch Theo in the first round, you are hardly able to catch him at all (by the RAW).

None of the three classes have Charm until the 3rd Rank, unfortunately. Cleric has Inquiry though, right up, so the most likely candidate for the "noble" would be the Adept.

I was wondering about using a different (N)PC as the noble, instead of the PCs. This is because I hate situations where one guy has to stay idle while the others are running around.

@the noble is out of it
I pretty much ignored it and instead allowed the "noble" pc to go along. Under disguise, so. IF his disguise would have been blown in a fashin that could have leaked to the Choir, they would have had taps (or: an assasine) on them early on.

@Gregorius: how should I modify the "dressing code" then? The idea is that now, the Acolytes are supposed to be noble relatives of the Strophes: they should dress like such, otherwise they won't be able to properly walk around the Spire (not to mention the noble party). However, adventuring in the Middle Hive with noble wigs and outfits is not really viable? So this is actually my dilemma, how can I make them walk around the Spire but also be able to go down Middle Hive in the same outfits (they can't be all bodyguards...). Of course, I could simply ignore the outfits altogether, but I kinda liked the whole idea behind them.

Also, this just popped in my mind, are Tech Priests viable as nobles? I could always make him a bodyguard, but just wondering... I imagine there are countless rich Magos that would easily find a place in the upper Spires, but don't really know if they'd get invited into such parties. What do you think?

Hi Angry,

@Dresscode
A lot was said over the "long overcoats" at the beginning of the adventure. I just assumed the noble would be wearing one like that. I never had assumed them to wear wiggs, but it is a funny idea! Anyway, they are nobles from a backwater planet "Vaxanide" and could get away with the fact that there chic is different to...real chic. You could get example from the movie Dune, emulating the appearance of the House Harkonnen. Pictures should be pretty available on the net.

@Magos as noble
The only problem I see here is that the Joyous choir invites people with the prospect of "taking them in", either to milk them for money in exchange for a hazy believe or ... . In both cases, this is highly unlikely to work with a Magos, thereby a Magos might be a bad choice.

Angry Marine said:

Absolutely viable in my opinion. You could simply use Julia Strophes as the noble and the three PCs are her advisors/entourage. The Cleric could be her personal confessor (or simply some sort of therapist or major domo), the Adept could be her aide or some sort of teacher and the Tech Priest could simply be an emissary of the AM.

Angry Marine said:

Tech Priests are not viable as nobles in my opinion, as they are not interested in any social affairs (as well as for the reason Gregorius mentioned), even though he can act as some kind of emissary of the AM (as mentioned above). Many nobles like to adorn themselves with good contacts to the AM.

Well things are starting to shape out quite nicely, at least in my head , thank you all for the assistance! We're playing tomorrow, so I'll check back after that if I encounter any major issue.

Well, interesting discussion. But I can't find anywhere the rejoice-RevV2 on the not. All broken links. Any help to get the file?

Cheers

eponette said:

@eponette
It got remove for not being downloaded recently. I added it again
https://rapidshare.com/files/2001069838/RejoiceRevisedV03.pdf

you would normally be able to find most of my material somehwer on darkreign40k, but it is down for maintainance right now

Thanks

I'll read it and give you some feedback

Useless comment. please delete if possible

Hi Gregorius,

sorry for bothering you. But my HD crashed and I lost your file. And it is not in rapidshare anymore. Could you please put it back?

Thanks

Cheers

Sorry for HiJacking again

@Eponette

HI! I am a little late: http://darkreign40k.com/drjoomla/index.php/gm-tips/tips-for-scenarios/1080-rejoice-revised

Tattered Fates is perfect if you tone it down first. In fact, I'm pretty sure it was designed as a Rank 1 adventure since it provides an easy justification for how a group of people became Acolytes in the first place but later got changed for some reason. Just tone the power level of the opposition.