Hey everyone.

I've been running my own DH campaign, but we're interested in starting the published DH adventures from scratch at this point.

What order does everyone think these should be played, and what ranks should I run them at for the best experience?

Thanks for any feedback you can swing my way.

I

I can only tell you how I did it so far (since spring 2008). Some here on the board suggested playing Damned Cities before Tattered Fates and The House of Dust and Ash. At least contextual it makes sort of sense and retrospectively I most probably would have done it either.

Shattered Hopes – Rank 1
Edge of Darkness – Rank 2
Illumination – Rank 3
Rejoice for you are True – Rank 3
Gateway 17 (from DarkReign) – Rank 4
War Wounds (homebrew) – Rank 4
Maggots in the Meat – Rank 4
Cold Tower (homebrew) – Rank 4
Shades of Twilight – Rank 4
Haouse of Dust and Ash – Rank 5
Tattered Fates – Rank 5
Baron Hopes – Rank 5 (where we are at the moment)
Damned Cities – Rank 5
Dead Stars – Rank 6
Masks of Tzeentch (homebrew) – Rank 7-8

Better leave out the weak Shattered Hopes. I had to increase the opposition in Rejoice for you are True a little in the end, I also put stronger opposition at the end of Gateway 17 (i.e. a few mercenaries, the surviving villains of Edge of Darkness and stronger “experiments”…). Maggots in the Meat was pimped in regard to contents (though not in regards to opposition…) as well as was Shades of Twilight (here also a little in regard to the equipment of the opposition though). House of Dust and Ash got a lot more NPCs of all (and sometimes lethal…) shades. Baron Hopes was also pimped up a little in regard to opposition and content.

Luthor Harkon said:

Interesting, could you please comment on these four (perhaps under the spoiler sign somewhere)?

P.S. OMG I don't see the Black Sepulchre!!!111one1

egalor said:

--- SPOILER

Gateway 17 is a nice outline for a potential follow-up scenario for Edge of Darkness one can find on DarkReign. I mainly used it to tie up some lose ends from Edge of Darkness, because Sybas Moran and the Churgeon were able to flee the Corscarla District as my players caused a lot of mess. The upper floors of the Alms House where simply redeployed into a warehouse in Gateway 17, because my players never have entered it in EoD. The Body Snatchers were improved with inbuilt Flamers and Heavy Stubbers in the meantime.
My players had a lot of fun with the setting (i.e. the peripheral area of Hive Sibellus where most of the huge Marco Haulers arrive at and leave the city) and its inhabitants (e.g. some mad max style wheel gangers besides others). I also included some background information how the Logicians, the Serrated Query and the Amaranthine Syndicate were connected with each other and/or were supplying each other with certain heretical contraband.

War Wounds is some sort of murder mystery where a certain heretic is desperate to renew his Dark Pact (of Immortality) with Balphomael, but lost a chalice that is needed for the ritual. The chalice is in the hands of a former Acolyte of the Inquisition, who hid it after raiding the holdings of the mentioned heretic and recently got in touch (in a sort of cooperative manner…) with the Brotherhood of the Horned Darkness.

Cold Tower starts with the death of an Interrogator under suspicious circumstances (i.e. crashed shuttle flight of the planets major mining cartel) and ends with a chase onboard a drilling rig that accidentally dug into some sort of xenos construction and awoke something in it…

Masks of Tzeentch is simply Masks of Nyarlathotep (from Call of Cthulhu) adapted for DH, including a Phaenonite Inquisitor (called Aubrex Praetus) trying to summon an everlasting Tyrant Star into the Calixis Sector.

Black Sepulchre is kindly ignored for the time being…

Thank you for your overview. Murder mysteries somehow are most interesting to play in my group.

Thanks for all the help so far!

Does anyone have the links for Shattered Hopes & Edge of Darkness? I know Black Industries is kaput but FFG, obviously, is here! But I cannot seem to find the mod...

In Rejoice, how did you juice it up?

And where do folks think BS might fit in? I know it says all ranks, but some books are better in certain ranks than others I hear.

If I pull out the homebrewed/netbook adventures Luthor listed, there are some good sized gaps at the earlier levels.

Based on Luthor's suggestions, NOT including BS, this is apparently how it would play out:

Shattered Hopes - Free Website Adventure - Black Industries - Rank 1
Edge of Darkness - Free Website Adventure - FFG Rank 2
Illumination - Core Rulebook - Rank 3
Rejoice For You Are True - Purge the Unclean - Rank 3
Maggots of Meat - DM Screen Adventure - Rank 4
Shades of Twilight - Purge the Unclean - Rank 4
House of Dust & Ash - Disciples of the Dark Arts Book - Rank 5
Tattered Fates - Haarlock Heresy Book #1 - Rank 5
Baron Hopes - Purge the Unclean - Rank 5
Damned Cities - Haarlock Heresy Book #2 - Rank 5
Dead Stars - Haarlock Heresy Book #3 - Rank 6

I suppose I COULD play them at these ranks and just let them autorank up, i.e. after Shattered hopes have them auto to R2 and so on.

Thoughts?

I

Shattered Hopes and The Edge of Darkness are both available on the FFG website, in the "support" section of the Dark Heresy site.

Shattered Hopes is here: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/dark-heresy/pdf/shattered-hope-lo.pdf

... and Edge of Darkness is here: http://fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/dark-heresy/pdf/edge-of-darkness.pdf

It's up to you, but I wouldn't play Shattered Hopes , really. It is mostly a summary of the combative side of Dark Heresy . It also brings your new acolytes up against some really quite dark opponents, when those could be saved for later. Edge of Darkness is written for new acolytes, and the text within makes specific reference to the acolytes having just been recruited into the service of the Inquisition. It offers them a sandbox town in which to explore and cause havoc, and a number of relatively simple opponents against which to fight. The "big bad" of the scenario is an effective one, and can lead into later scenarios. The game also provides you with an important NPC in the shape of Medicae-Interrogator Sand (but doesn't mention an Inquisitor, allowing you to decide who your players are working for) who can be of great use later on. The end of Edge of Darkness has Sand making reference to a task "off-world", whilst the start of Illumination has the players en route to the planet.

If you play Edge of Darkness (in the bowels of Hive Scintilla), go off-world for Illumination (and get the xenos tarot card) before returning for Rejoice, For You Are True, you've already set up the basis for a powerful story. Having seen the darkness of the underhive, the contrast with the wealth and opulence of the hive-spires is very 40k. You've also got the link between the tarot card and the harmony-meters used by the Joyous Choir. This should certainly be enough to start the players thinking. By the end of these three adventures they'll have established themselves well as useful agents for the Inquisition, having made contacts (and enemies!), thus giving you some leeway.

(Personally, whilst I'm running pre-written adventures, almost all of them need some re-writing in order to make them better "fit" your group and the desires of your players - along with your own individual storyline. I would say that Rejoice needs a little bit of tweaking, and if I were to run these three adventures together, I'd draw some links between EOD 's Chirugeon and Thedosia from RFYAT, dispensing with the Serrated Query and using the Logicians instead.)

Thanks Mnesimache.

I figured I might drop Shattered, and the next three do seem to fit well. Would you start them at Rank 3 (in Edge)? It might help the whole rank/level issue on my end I suppose...

I

Here's what I came up with, trying to arrange them in a logical narrative and keeping the "one end of the Sector to the other" travel times to a minimum. The power levels may not line up perfectly, but I have found that DH is pretty easy to "scale up" as needed ("You killed all of those guards with ease. But all the noise has attracted even more guards!")

1. Edge Of Darkness- This free download is the best option for an introductory scenario: set on the capitol world of Scintilla, good mix of action and investigation, and very nasty villains. Perfect into to the setting (well, except for the lack of maps of the crucial location...).

2. Rejoice For You Are True (from Purge The Unclean )- Also set on Scintilla, this makes for a smooth transition from the first module.

3. Illumination (from the Rulebook )- After getting to know their way around Scintilla, a trip to the barbaric backwater of Iocanthos makes for a nice dose of culture shock. I suspect that this module was intended to follow EOD , but I think it is more dangerous than RFYOT , so I positioned it here.

4. Maggots In The Meat (from the GM's Screen )- I don't own this module, so I'm just guessing here, based on the fact that Iocanthos is closer to Acreage that Scintilla and will thus cut down on the travel time...

5. The House Of Dust And Ash (from Disciples Of The Dark Gods )- The introductory scenario of the Haarlock Legacy ; Acreage is close to Solomon, so it makes sense for the Acolyte's Inquisitor to re-direct them there. On the return trip to Scintilla, be sure to place the PCs aboard a ship with an Astropath (ideally an Imperial Navy vessel) so that, shortly after entering the Golgenna Reach, the ship receives new orders to deliver the party to:

6. Shades On Twilight (from Purge The Unclean )- Set "somewhere in the Golgenna Reach", this provides a good break in the monotony of the long trip from Solomon.

7. Damned Cities- I haven't played the Haarlock Legacy series, but I've read multiple posts claiming that, although this is the second in the series, it works better coming before Tattered Fates .

8. Baron Hopes (from Purge The Unclean )- Because it's a short hop from DC 's Sinophia to BH 's Spheris Secondus...

9. Tattered Fates- After the last two missions, a brief layover on the pleasure planet of Quaddis may sound inviting... You may want to alter this a bit: instead of the Acolytes being targeted randomly , you could say that sinister forces have targeted them because they may have learned too much about the Haarlock Legacy after HODAA and DC ...

10. Red Wake (from Ascention)- I'm assuming that the PCs will be 9th+ level by now...

11. Dead Stars- I don't own this module, but, hey, where else are you going to put it?

I haven't bought Black Sepulchre yet, so you are on your own there; frankly, I wouldn't try to work two separate trilogies into one campaign.

Hope that's useful to somebody, somewhere...

Adeptus-B: What ranks would you play that suggested order in?

I think between your list and Luthor's, I can probably figure out a good order now, but the whole Ranks thing is what I'm trying to wrap it all around. I might be able to do something in between some of this, but I'll have to wait and see after we finish the first couple adventures.

I'm going to do Edge of Darkness first, but I have yet to decide on Illumination or Rejoice as the second. Illumination seems to, at the fluff level, REALLY lead well into Rejoice (the whole harmony meter subplot).

I

Inquisitor said:

Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. I guess it does make more sense to do Illumination first, even though it is more dangerous (in my opinion) than Rejoice .

Inquisitor said:

I think House of Dust and Ash is the only one intended for a specific level (4th), and my guestimate is that that should just about work out. Maggots in the Meat is an "introductory" adventure, but I have read on multiple posts that it is more appropriate for non-1st-level characters, so I'm thinking that should be playable at 3rd level- maybe add an extra adversary to the end if your party is heavily combat-oriented? Like I said, DH is pretty easy to "scale up" as needed.