I have run a few pre-fab games of dark heresy and now I am looking to write my own adventure from scratch and I am looking for some constructive feed back on my ideas

The adventure begind with the acolyte's traveling to investigate a mysterious space station over a medieval world when thier ship is shot down from the surface of the planet and they are forced to crash land

once on the planet they will have to investigate the origin of the attack make repairs to thier ship find supplys to survive make contact with the local civilisation and endure environmental hazards

eventualy they will discover an impereal castle town where the locals are defending against an ork warlord and the acolyte's can aid the defenders if and when they achieve victory over the orks further investigation will reveal something the locals refer to as the "magic city" which will be strongly hinted to be an advanced civilisation and possably the source of the attack

then the acolyte's will have to travel through ork territory/general dinosaur infested badlands to reach the "magick city" which turns out to be a heretek conclave they can either pursuade the ork to turn thier agression towards the "magick city" but then the orks would be able to loot the heretek technology or they could make a deal to help the heretek's in exchange for passage off world wether the players defeat the heretek's or cooperate with them they can either salvage parts to repair thier ship or be granted passage to the space station

once on the station the players will find it mostly deserted deralict and in a general state of desrepair there they will either force thier way past guards or be granted an audience with the heretek leader inquisitor Cyrrik Scayl who will explain to the players that he and his deciples are investigating the technology on an ancient alien civilisation and that they cannot let thier research fall into the hands of the adeptus mechanicus just to be declared tech heresy and destroyed if the players attack Cyrrik he is easily defeated and turns out to be a replica his voice will ring out over the stations communication systems and tell the acolyte's that the station is fall out of orbit and detonate a powerfull warhead erasing any evidence that he has left behind and that they have a short amount of time to escape alive

a player will have the option of remaining behind and disarming the warhead thus saving the medival civilisation but dooming himself to die upon reentry

so that's it the players will have some motivation to persue Cyrrik and that will set up further adventures and possably a plot arc

Sounds like the players are going to have an interesting time.

It will be hard to shoot their ship out of orbit and make it crash land, and once it has crashed landed it will be even harder to get it back up into orbit. A space ship is not designed for atmospheric entry and rarely goes close to a planet unless it is to bombard it.

And if your players are fine with heroic sacrifice, hen disarming the bomb and burning up with the station is certainly a fine way to die.

the heroic sacrifice will be completly optional i dont want to rail road the players. at best i want them to feel compelled to make the heroic sacrifice

that is what i worry the most about really writing my game in a way that makes the players feel like they have few options and that they are just going along a pre=determined path so i am tring to balance structure and allowing the players to have creative input into how they solve the adventure

i am most excited for the part where the players crash land and have to come up with a plan of action make a shelter forage for food and search for signs of civilisation the thought of that was what really sparked that lightbulb in my head and say "hey this could be fun"

I agree, if you force the players to do some specific action, you can be pretty sure they don't want to do it. Writing for multiple choice is much better.

Sean Miller said:

For the player that sacrifices his character, if they so choose, you might want to give them a bit of a bonus when generating another character.Maybe allowing them some sort of peer status if they are related to or in the same chapter as the pervious charcter since the kill-team will have the heroic sacrifice fresh in thier minds.

Structuring you adventure is relatively easy has you have all on the major points, and one should flow to the other, but be prepared to the players to wander off track.

Orcs, Heretek city and heretek space station, that's a lot of things in one location, and orcs are notoriously hard to kill, unless your players are a med rank and well geared an orc war party will be too much for them, but nothing to say that a Feudal war isn't going on.

i mostly want to include orks because a have a table top veteran or two in my playgroup that would appreaceate the humor that being said the orks also keep the tone a little light hearted and the deralict space station is the time being the climax of the adventure is the time to set the serious noir horrors lurking in the shadows tone but overall i want the players to feel shipwrecked on a world that is mysterious to them

you gave me a good idea the orks clans can be competing with each other and having noticed that the party uses guns come to the conclusion that "dats da killy-est fing i ever seen i gots ta have dat" the competing warlords will fight over trying to capture the party alive and it will be more a humorus part of the adventure then combat oriented

You could always start them off on Grotz an' Gobboz for the 'orible greenskinz! Da big 'uns is bus..bus... occupied with krumpin' ova tha fat lootz! At first, anyways! If someone took Heavy Weapon (Primitive) then you can reward them with a completely gratuitous Roman-style Scorpion, WFB Boltthrower or other siege engine of dubious merit for their abuse and amusement! Basic (primitive) sucks alot less when you can pick up a crossbow and not be out of bullets, or for the bold, a looted Grotblasta! "Wow, did you just roll a 91-100 to hit? Oooh...."

If a player willingly does the heroic sacrifice thing, perhaps slip the player a free reroll on their Divination/Sanctioning if they so desire and an extra fate point?

If you do not abuse Army of Darkness puns with this one I will be a little sad.

Also, some guy with a lasgun, monoaxe and flak coat is going to be pretty darn heroic when faced by packs of hillbillies in leather and chain, so you can be a little more aggressive with this one for a starting group. Besides, "there are only 350 of them, I can take them!" SHOULD end badly (and full of comedy value!) if the players are that dumb!