I came up with this little mission and was wondering what you guys thought of it

Location:

This mission takes place at the pleasure world of Pellor near the edge of the velken sept

where nobles of the jericho reach escape the war ravaged parts of the sector and live a life of luxury

unfortuntly this has dull down. watch station andronicus has recieved a distress signal as nobles are going missing, this would not be a job for the deathwatch if heresy wasnt suspected

in the end it turns out that there is a heretic cult taking place under the Pellors blanket of tranquilty

these heretics are acting under emisarys of chaos from the acheros slaient it is the kill teams mission to find the truth behind these kidnaps and put an end to

this may seem difficult as it seems as the kill team must get invloved with the rivalrys of the proud nobles of that world

The planentary defence milita is also investigating and are releived when the deathwatch get invloved, they are willing to help from provided, supplies cargo to information.

If you read the canonical background very strictly, then you should consider that human heretics are no reason to involve the Deathwatch: The Deathwatch is part of the Ordo Xenos that kills Aliens and not of the Ordo Hereticus that deals with heretics. So if there are canonical-background-fanatics in your group, you should spread some rumors about xenos on that planet or you should find another reason why the Deathwatch gets involved.

However, if your group simply doesn't mind about the canonical correctness, then just play it as you figured it out.

Don't forget that the Deathwatch won't let itself be pushed around by nobles unless they have a very high position in the Imperium.

Maybe it would be interesting to give one of the nobles some degree of influence on the inquisitor who is advising the Deathwatch: So this noble cannot push around the Deathwatch directly, but he can persuade the inquisitor that there might be a better place for the Deathwatch to do their job than in his realm...

An easy solution to the 'heretic' ordos relationship is to make the cult a Genestealer cult, or suspected genestealer cult. Then the nobles would want to exert a lot of pressure on the Inquisition to help because they don't want the hive fleet to focus on their precious pleasure world.

I like Graf's idea about the indirect influence- perhaps he has a bit of blackmail or something else on the Inquisitor, who helps nudge/persuade hte DW to undertake certain actions and make it look like their orders/requests are legitimately from the inquisition.

I do like the idea of the DW having to deal with the nobles, and to keep this 'in canon' maybe throw in some bit about strained relationships between the crusade forces and the inquisition. The watch commander/captain has decided to order his Kill Team to 'play nice' in order to not strain relations further. If your game has the DW not wanting to work with crusaders in general, an option could be to give the DW plans to 'use' the Imperial forces to further their own ends, so they want to play nice in order to convince the nobles to help them out.

Great points Charmander.

Another possible way to involve the deathwatch is the possibility of Xenos being smuggled to the planet in order to fight in gladiatorial arena battles with combat servitors for the nobles entertainment.

Or maybe a xenos-derived narcotic? Or Xenos-tech? Perhaps someone investigating the dissapearances was found dead/dying with an eldar shuriken in them or Tau rifle wound or tyrannic claw wound? Maybe even a fleshborer beetle or devourer worm found in the wound? Every other investigator has dissapeared. So the deathwatch investigate to see if a xenos threat is responsible. Even if they find Chaos is the cause it's still a Deathwatch issue, especially if foul xenos are (knowingly or unknowingly) cooperating with the forces of Chaos.

This might be a great opportunity to explore the connection between Tau and Necromunda's Spyrers! An elite Spyrer team would be cool opponents for a Deathwatch team.

Thank you all for the respones

I like the idea of a noble having indirect power over the kill-team via the inquisitor

the sound of using some spyers sound good and the agreement with the tau of the velkan sept and the genestealer cult idea also sounds good

but its so painful! so many good ideas choices choices! i'll write a new post with a new story based on your ideas and mixed with my own

Thanks!

Pellor is a pleasure world ruled by Nobles who are veteran commanders, retired from the war efforts or civilians who have struck gold and are living the rest of their lives in luxury. The Ordo Xenos have been contacted from this world by the proud nobles after a recent affair has arisen. Fellow nobles have been found dead on the streets. Investigations have led to investigators ending up having suffered the same fate as the victims. Normally this wouldn’t be a job for the Ordo Xenos or the deathwatch if Tau pulse rifle wounds weren’t found in the victim’s bodies. Of the dead investigators is an Ordo xenos Inquisitor charged with discovering the truth of the matter. The kill team will be under command from an Inquisitor on vox telling orders from the inquisition, in actual fact they are the orders of a Noble on the planet who has a strong place in the imperium who has put strain on the inquisitor to use the kill team for his own ends,

On the planet the kill team must ‘play nice’ as many of these nobles can put much strain on the crusade under the orders of the watch commander the kill team must not allow further stress for the crusade.
The truth ends up that they are a hidden noble gang most being the sons of the great nobles, who have dealings with the velkhan sept to intergrate Pellor into the greater good which could be used to disrupt the crusade the dealings include giving them pulse rifle shipments.

what do you think?

Remember that the Deathwatch are a blunt instrument, created for killing things, rather than investigating and diplomacy, and that they're stretched thin just doing that. In meta terms this means that this is means that your mission is more likely a job for DH acolytes, and in game terms the PCs might find themselves woefully short of the correct skills and abilities required for the job. Plus: Marines aren't very good at covert investigation. It's not like they can stake somewhere out subtly on a street corner.

To get around this, I'd make it more 'obviously' a combat mission to start with. It also gives an excuse for a Buffy-style 'warm-up opening credit combat'.

I'd send them there under combat pretext of some kind... let them mop up the suspected problem fairly easily (genestealer cult or whatever), but then unearth another problem which requires investigation.