My players have finally become ascended. We are on break while me and my wife settle in with the new baby. That gives me a couple weeks to write a campaign that can be challenging in both fighting ability and brain power. My campaigns are more geared towards investigation with heavy conflicts involved when the time comes. Any ideas like plots hooks, settings, enemys, conspiracys or anything else would be greatly appreciated. In case people want to know my cadre they are as follows.

Lvl 9 Inquisitor(Psyker)

Lvl 9 Vindicare Assassin

Lvl 9 Magos

Lvl 9 Magos

Lvl 9 Judge

Lvl 9 Crusader

Lvl 9 Interrorgator

Lvl 9 Desperado

8 players? Or some sort of rotation?

Isidro

Without knowing too much about the PCs background and personalities, I'll only give general advice. Are there any villians or organisations they had especial trouble or grudges with in the campaign thus far? Well here's the PCs opportunity to target those enemies with all the new resources and skill they can bring to bear. The Logicians make them curse? Then offer the possibility of striking crippling blows against the hereteks, maybe even culminating in their collapse as an end of campaign goal. Thinking big is a good thing at ascension level. Character motivations are important when deciding how they will use their new power.

isidro said:

Yes it is an 8 player cadre...

Cool. Please accept my genuine respect. We only had 6 players MAX and it was a madhouse already. 8 players... I believe the picture of it will haunt me in nightmares for some time now

As for the original question:

Ordo Xenos

1. Slaught / Genestealer infiltration. Inquisitor might be first alerted that something is amiss when one of his 'friends in high places' start acting strangely. You know, actively avoiding contact or making funny decisions on certain matters. When inquisitor moves in to investigate, he would eventually discoverd his friend either is dead and replaced with xenos agent or infected (depending on whether we are talking about Slaught or Genestealers). Further investigation might hint on existence of an entire network of high-ranking Imperial officials replaced / enslaved by the xenos. At some point inquisitor might become aware all xenos victims came into contact with a renowned rogue trader shortly before they... stopped being humans. Pursuing and slaying the rogue trader might be the end of it, or merely the beginning, as the inquisitor might discover rogue trader's last visit was to one of the inquisitors of the Calixis Sector...

2. Rak'ghoul invasion. It may all begin with a report of several starships lost with all hands on the outskirts of Calixis Sector, in the vicinity of port Wander. Investigation will first lead the inquisitor to a burned-out hulk of imperial starship somewhere in deep space. After careful examining of the place he might come to a conclusion the starship wasn't attacked by pirates, but rather by some yet undiscovered xenos race. Subsequent rummaging through the archives might hint on the existence of Rak'ghouls or inquisitor might get a sample of it first-hand, with his own ship being the next victim. Either way, with threat identified it will be up to inquisitor to coordinate the Imperial Nave and hunt down the aliens. And once it is done, he might want to learn how the xenos made their way into Calixis Sector in the first place...

Ordo Hereticus

3. War of Faith. There are rumours of some religious unrest on one of the Ecclesiarchy worlds of Calixis Sector. Ecclesiarchy is notorious for not reporting such things to authorities, so the Ordo Hereticus sends the inquisitor to check it out, before they land up with a full blown War of Faith on their hands. Shortly after his arrival on the planet inquisitor becomes aware of several murders of high-ranking priests. Investigation reveals they are two distinct types of murders, so maybe its the work of two different cults. Eventually inquisitor will learn the victims were members of two factions of Ecclesiarchy and these factions are waging a proverbial Shadow War against each other (check out the Temple Tendency background, it fits in perfectly in this case). In the end inquisitor might come to an ugly realization this exact world is not the cradle of war, but merely a battlefield. The roots of conflict lie with two spiritual leaders of the Ecclesiarchy, each one controlling a world of his own, supported by Adepta Sororitas and Frateris Militia...

4. Seccession. Check out Malaki Vess profile and description. It provides fairly good start. An isolated world begins to exhibit seccesionist behavior, its leaders (reputedly) preaching independence from the Imperium. It might be a valuable world Imperium is loathe to bombard into oblivion, or the things might not be obvious and require confirmation... whatever the case, inquisitor must infiltrate the compromised planet, find the heart of the seccesionist movement... and rip it off. Governor is the apparent figure head of the seccesionists, but is he really in change? Maybe he is dancing to another's tune, or is simply an incompetent fool guilty only of his own ineptitude? And if this is the case, who or what is pulling the strings here? And - more importantly - how it can be stopped before another Imperial world burns?

Ordo Malleus

5. War of Faith (act II). Rewrite the third scenario, making one (or even both) of the 'spiritual leaders' pawns of the Dark Powers. In example, the 'War of Faith' might be a facade hiding a conflict between Tzeentchian and Nurglesque daemon worshippers. At some point curtains of piety will be thrown down and daemons will fight alongside their faithful. The ultimate cause of the war might be to banish rival greater daemon or to obtain a certain artefact of great power...

6. Great Sacrifice. Put a chaos sorcerer in charge of the seccessionists in the fourth scenario and make his ultimate goal to perform a great sacrifice to the Dark Gods, one that should let his ascend to the coveted position of a daemon prince. Inquisitor might crush the sorcerer's plans early in the game, but - if it takes him too long to identify the true scope of threat - they might come to fruition. If this is the case, at some point planet will go into open revolt against the Imperium and will probably be invaded by Imperial Guard intent on taking it back. Inquisitor (he is a pskyer, right?) might then notice that each death fuels the fire that begins to burn deep within the planet itself, slowly corrupting everything. Hasty investigation might reveal the site of some immense underground construction - and unholy tower thrust downwards, into the core of the planet. And if the heretics will finish its construction, entire world will be plunged into the depths of the Warp...

Alaric0503 said:

Anyway, so lets see...

How about sending them on some imperial world that is in a state of turmoil? The Governeur isn´t REALLY happy about this since
he believes (...or at leasts, wants the Imperium to believe) that despite the continued unrest he is very well cabable of putting an end
to this.

Of course, the Imperium (or more precisely: your Inquisitor pc) sees things different and thereby set´s up shop in the world
informing the Governor that (while he is still in charge) that he is expected "to provide assistance on any and every level.

The source of calamity should be based on the enemies your players are used to fight.

But all in all, it should involve a human cult.

If you are used to fight Xenos, it could be a Symbiont Cult or the planet could be a re-occupation of a Tau world... with some of
the populace having turned into staunch Tau-supporters!
If you are used to fight Chaos, have some Chaos-Cult underway inciting rebelleion
Otherwise, it could be regular rebellion.

Make sure to have some differen power groups (influence groups) with different interests on how things are supposed to go.

Gregorius21778 said:

I work Fire and EMS, Im on a 24 hour rotation meaning Im on for 24 and off for 48. So if the world dont need saving then I can write till my hearts content for a whole day lol.

Without knowing more about your individual characters and alliegences it is a little hard to get into speciffics. Has the Inquisitor sworn oaths to one of the Holy Ordos, or is he/she unaffiliated? What about their former master, the Inquisitor that trained and sponsored their eventual ascension?

What I am seeing in general is roughly two teams of specialists (again, generalizing based on the careers). Team 1 is the utterly unsubtle team, crap for most delicate undercover work and they likely stick out like the proverbial turd-in-a-punchbowl, but capable of putting out some serious hurt and able to make things happen when they are provided with evidence to work with. The 2 Magos are almost certainly part of this, and depending on the disciplines known by the Psyker-Inquisitor then (he?), the Crusader and possibly the Judge (depending on their style) also belong in this group. Team 2 is the more stealthy and covert operators, capable of extended undercover work, stakeouts, information gathering and so on. The Desperado and the Vindicare definately belong here, and possibly the Judge if he is more of an investigator type. Team 2 gets out in the target area and starts gathering info for their colleagues while team 1 does the official "meet and greet" stuff and get the base of operations set up, garner any support they deem necissary and so on. Then when they get results both groups get together to conduct any needed raids, then analize what they find and start the process again...

One thing that I am blessed with is my group does NOT have a Vindicare. They are VERY hard to kill and are unmitigated murder machines, but they are also borderline USELESS in social situations, which is a big drawback for a typical Ascension level campaign. Playing back-up for the Desperado will help this player from feeling useless between fight scenes. Chances are very good that your Magii are about as tough as a Chimaera, so it will become increasingly hard to injure them in a serious way without throwing SERIOUS ordinance their way... This is offset by the fact that the red-robed cyber-monsters are vulgarly obvious, so they are not game-breaking as long as they play to their niche. In the case of my group our Magos also has a tendency to take hits for some of his more "squishy" teammates if he is able to interpose himself between them and harm.

Try to rotate plot hooks or scenes from time to time so that different characters get the chance to strut their stuff. You can't get away with as much "I order you to go do this speciffic task" type plotlines as you could pre-ascension, but this gambit still remains in your "evil GM's bag of tricks", it just needs to be used much more sparingly: Your newly minted Inquisitor can now brush off odeous demands of many around them if they so choose, but an Inquisitor Lord (for Example Lord Caiden or Lord Marr) can still make inviolate demands of them. Imperial Governors, Cardinals, Bishops, Rogue Traders and other politically powerful people can still make life miserable for a young Inquisitor if they so choose, so the "*****, do my bidding!" briefings will generally be replaced by several important looking people in robes "Humbly requesting assistance" from the Inquisitor and his agents or "insisting that things are well under control, far beneath the attentions of an Inquisitor!"

The relationship and dynamic between the Inquisitor and the Crusader is a goldmine opportunity for story development, so definately throw some meat at it and see where things go. In the case of my group the Inquisitor is Malleus and a former Cadian IG officer, hardly a soft and defenseless target! The actions of her Crusader on the mission when he finally martyred himself have become the stuff of legend in my group. He sponged up an ABSURD amount of punishment, enough to kill Astartes several times over, before finally collapsing dead with the last of the group's foes impaled to the floor of an Imperial cathedral on his powersword! He was pretty much already dead before the final conflict even started and was making -30 Toughness tests every turn that he fought to not simply die of his existing wounds. After such an epic death it was decided that he would want more than anything to continue serving the Emperor and protecting his Inquisitor even in death, so the group went to the effort of procuring a best-quality melta pistol and a spoor targeter, then crafted their fallen comerade into a fully-customized cyberskull. The death was considered so awesome and epic by the group that the player's replacement character was granted 2 bonus Fate Points to reward his sacrifice.

Think Big is definately a good motto. Back when they were accolytes their missions were dark future versions of Law and Order or CSI episodes, but now they have graduated to the ranks of James Bond movies. Tom Clancy books might also be a good inspiration if you can adapt them to the 40K setting and still be relevant. I also freely make use of material from Rogue Trader and Deathwatch for my game whenever I need it, and the horde rules in Deathwatch in particular make things feel more epic. The current storyline has the Inquisitor and her agents in charge of an impromptu Crusade on a fringe proto-hive world that has suddenly become vitally important to the Imperium. A diversionary attack ordered by the Inquisitor cost the lives of 700,000 Imperial Guardsmen, and that was an "impressively low fatality rate". For obvious reasons we are using the mass-combat rules presented in Battlefleet Koronus for some of this... Not at all a suitable story for a Rank 9 group, but it is proving to be pretty exciting story for the group (Rank 9-13). I am going to be VERY hard pressed to top it when I finally conclude the Haarlock storyline... The Inquisitor and her agents have already decapitated the leadership of a renegade Space Marine chapter, after all! (Literally, they have the severed heads!). As a side note, traitor Astartes with brain-crits make for wonderful Praetorian Battle Servitor parts if your group has an enterprising Magos.

Welcome to the club!

In Nomine Imperator!

An idea could be use some sort of plotting Tzeentchian daemon. An enemy that has plans within plans, decoys, hidden machinations and stuff like that. That could mean that the characters have to also use their brains before they use their arms.