Hi there everyone,

my group already is amidst an ongoing campaign, bent on lifting the veil of secrecy over the dread Tyrant Star. So far i haven´t used any of the official Adventures and made my own explanation about said Tyrant Star. (The Acolytes are still relatetively clueless, they only know their Inquisitor sent them out often for some pretty..strange artifacts). But now i have picked up Tattered Fates, and while it looks pretty cool to me so far i have difficulty with the beginning of the Adventure, since the manner in which the Acolytes are captured doesnt seem to be very satisfying.

To clarify, my group consists of a Psyker, a Tech-Priest and an Assasin, all about Rank 5-6, so pretty powerfull already. They "own" their own small, warp-capable ship, which is significantly smaller than a frigate and is more of a permanent loan to them by their inquisitor since they get around in the sector quite a bit. To just say "Well, suddenly you all fall unconscious..." feels kinda lame...

My thoughts were perhaps along the line that a Beast House Ship awaits them on the Undertaking of their new Mission, shoots their ship apart and storms it by hand, overwhelming the Acolytes. They already have a powerful Nemesis in an enemy Radical Inquisitor who could well have tipped the Hand of the Beast House, or does that contradict parts of the Adventure i havent read yet?

My second worry is that they may be too powerful already to be threatened much by the Red Cage. The Psyker especially since he has Psy-Rating 4 and a nasty Combination of Biomancy and Pyrokinetics, and the Techpriest sports several Gun/Meleeweapon Mechadendrites as well. The only one who would quite helpless without gear would be the Asassin..

Should i strip away some of the others Powers (Like the Beasthouse cut off the Priests Mechadendrites like they tried with Doc Oc in Spiderman 2) implanted some kind of Psy-Jamming Device into the Psyker which the Priest later in the adventure can cut out, something like that, or should they be fine without such restrictions?

I´d be grateful for any tips, and sorry for spelling mistakes, my native language is german

I think being stripped of their abilities at the beginning is meant to drive home the point of how deep in the crapper they are. You don't want to hamstring them completely through-out the entire adventure. Bear in mind, they will not have any support of the local authorities since they have been striped of their credentials. In fact they may be harassed as they may look like blood soaked, street trash, nevermind how they would treat the psyker.

Also, remember that any ballistic mechandrites the tech priest has will probably be striped of all ammo, leaving him only melee weapons, which works pretty well in this adventure.

What are the groups abilities by the way. Like what nastiness can the psyker and tech-priest bring to the table and who are the others (their capabilities).

You could simply board their ship by some specialized hunter-cadre of the Beast House without shooting their ship apart. Ship-to-ship battles are a little to high-up for DH in my opinion and maybe even beyond the resources of the Beast House (even though they could hire some pirates or Dark Eldar…).

I do not think the Radical Inquisitor as a nemesis contradicts the adventure in any way. Actually, you could even use him instead of the False Prophet from the Pilgrims of Hayte (i.e. the Beloved) featured in TF.

I do not think 3 characters rank 5-6 would be too strong for the Red Cages and you could simply increase the numbers and/or deadliness of the opponents (check out some of the great encounters Gregorius made up on the forum). I had 5 characters of rank 4 and they did not fare that well (had to burn one or two fate points altogether).

TF mentions that captured Psykers are unable to use any powers due to some anti-psyker drug and Tech-Priests are hindered to use any Luminen, Ferric, Maglev and whatever powers until resetting his bionics. I also had a Psyker and a Tech-Priest in the group and I ruled that the Psyker had to role an extra die that just increased the probability of rolling a 9 (and thus Perils of the Warp) without adding its score to reach the power threshold. The Tech-Priest on the other hand had to find a combi-tool to be able to reset his bionics, whereas his mechadendrites (optical, medicae) were not attached to him anymore. In fact he found them later as the medicae dendrite was used by a Flenser-Heretek to cut Inquisitor Karkalla to pieces). After recovering them, he was able to reattach them with a combi-tool, but they counted as poor quality until he could find a Machine Temple to re-sanctify/re-calibrate them.

My groups Assassin was also rather helpless without his equipment (as was the player…), whereas the groups feral Guradsman lived up and could show that he was even able to hack Slavers apart only armed with a piece of broken bone…

Viel Erfolg dabei!

How to hamper the Tech-Priest and the Psyker? Well, you just need to expand
on the ideas already given in the module (as was already stated above)

Additional ideas:
Have the drug first completely elimante his power (Psypower = ZERO!) and the make his power come pack... one point of Psi-Rating per hour.
Or some similiar thing. It does need to be "linear". Perhaps the first point comes back shortly afte the opening arena scene while the rest
needs...well, hours.

Talking Tech-Priest, I would stay with the "they have been disabled" options for every Talent you do not like him to have. All of this can
be undone...with some minor spare parts, some tools and about an hour of work. The first two might not be available as long as they are inside the red cages. Unless you include some tools and useable parts in one ore more of the encounters/scenes for the tech-priest pc. Perhaps he is able to salvage something from old servitors or the kybernetics from a slayn foe?

Scaling Scenes/Encounters for Rank 4-5 acolythes
While acolythes get more formidable, it should not be to much of a problem to scale the encounters by simply heigthening the difficulty of the relevant test.

As it comes to combat, the fact that they do not have the "supreme gear" they normally have lowers the ability alot already. Your Weapon Talents for Bolters, E-Weapon and Plasma are simply no good if you do not have the matching weapon at hand.

The rest of the talents for combat is not much more then a +2 on damage, a lower penalty/better chance for hitting a certain "zone" on a target and the ability to handle more foes at once (no outnumbering; additional defense roles) or to speed up combat (more attacks per round). If you find out that one encounter was to easy, simply throw in some more foes in the next.

Talking encounters...:
I once wrote up the following. Perhaps they are useful

https://rapidshare.com/files/421200007/TF_RedCages_MM_02.pdf
https://rapidshare.com/files/362548138/CrimsonDarkness.pdf

First of all, thank you all very much for your input it has been really helpful!

I think i´ll go with the specialized hunter cadre and use some of the presented ideas for the Psyker/Tech Priest. The Asassin is also from a feral world and quite melee savyy so he should delight in using primitive weapons lying around. Can´t wait to see the look on my players faces when they realize THIS time they don´t have all their fancy toys at their disposal *bg*

@Gregorius21778: Thank you very much, this encounters look really cool and i will certainly use some of them

Well that went as well as expected. Due to my tendency to roll over 90 with an astonishing rate, even tough their ship was disabled by haywire weaponry, the enemy came in overwhelming numbers and was superbly equipped with needle-rifles, grenade launchers and carapace armor and even fielded a mutilated and leashed Pariah, my Acolytes ripped the enemy Kill-Teams i prepared a new one XD.

I had then use the leader of the Kill-Team an ancient and irreplacable Stasis-Grenade to "freeze" them up (Since a powerful radical Inquisitor backed them up, i decided they were equipped with it as last measure).

As for the Adventure itself, the scene in the Arena with the Spindlemaw was quite cool and cinematic (with my Acolytes of course letting the poor captives bear the brunt of the beast), and they reacted with righteous fury when finally seeing their gear in the hands of the Beast House :> Also much thanks for the encounters provided by Gregorius, i had a blast with the ScavCans.

Only Problem is, one of my players was unhappy as it was to much "Dungeon-Slay-Horror" for him rather then to only use their head. Unfortunelaty i had to wrap up the session and didnt wanted to let it hang in the air since our next game will be in 2 weeks and some of my players seem to have an uncanny ability to forget every shred of the current plot in short times..

Next Part of Tattered Fates is quite investigation-heavy as far as i´ve seen it..remains to be seen if my more trigger-happy players won´t be bored. Anyone has some good ideas how to engage them more in Investigation Stuff rather than "Blam-i destroy everything?"This has been a consistent worry of mine, with a group of three Players, one of whom enjoys using his head as much as his guns, one who would like to use his head but doesn´t seem to be able to do so (well, at least it fits with his character) and one pyromaniac lunatic, its sometimes very hard to engage all of them at once..

Kronus said:

Hi,

I would go one step further and say "it is impossible". But do not worry, this time TF alread helps you

By-the-way: Why did you opt out to use a "cliff-hanger"? As long as they have been in the Red Cages, their is not that much plot to remember. You have been captured - you try to espace - you are still inside the dungeon. Well, "missed chance" I would say

Back2Topic: AND TONS AND LOTS AND MANY AND SCORES OF !!!!SPOILERS!!!!

The second act already provides you with some opportunity for combat. First and foremost, it is likely that your "Fighter players" will try their skills insome form of arena combat in "The Wheel". You just need to brew some up. If you fighter-players are as... eager ... as they sound, they will tryp to kil lthe bride. So, their will be some combat with the Venomous Maidens. And the Arachnid Servitors. And perhaps the Brider herself. Unleash about 6 maidens at them at first, the Bride will step back. Have a couple of Arachnid servitors join the frey after 3 rounds. Make additional Maidens and/or Servitors show up during the progress of combat...or allow the Bride to interfer.

At some point (as they start to see that things go down) tell them that the Bride calmy asks them "Do you wish to surrender?". If they do. fine. If they don´t, go on a little further. Do a little more damage and then allow the bride to state "I would advise you to surrender now". Perhaps they will catch the drift.

Their is a fight at the "Broken Palaces" in the desecrated tempel/Church
They will face enemies as they have found the "White Scholar"

All in all, their is combat in the II act.

If you need more, I can provide you with some additional random violence. Will take me a day or two, so.

Hi! First, thanks as always for the sound advice.

I´m still quite a novice as GM and so i make frequently wrong decisions, such as not using the Dungeons as Cliffhanger. I had originally intended to use the Elevator at the end as cliffhanger, but our session had been cut short and i was unfortunenately to sold on the idea of reaching this end. A decision made on the fly and perhaps not the best one. As you said, missed opportunity, i´ll keep it in mind if i get in a similiar situation.

Some random violence will be greatly appreciated

So let it be written / so let it be done!

But I still advise to leave these "up the sleave" as a last restort. I do not think that you will even have any need for this. As already mentioned, the pc will get their chance for fighting at the "Wheel", after that they might be in troulbe against the ladies of the spider brider. Before they know what happens next, the might get into the fight with the Daemons at the Broken Palaces. And not to forget the fight that breaks out afte the discovery of the "White Scholar". And you still have the options to add a scene where they are wittness to a short-lived battle between the Widower & the Pilgrims (whom provoked him into an attack somehow...I have a scene about this..I just have to find it again)

Okay, here we go

[The Beast House strikes back]

Just because they escaped the Red Cages does not mean that the Beast House has given up on same. Use a number of Killers equal to your players. Or perhaps “plus one”. Use the stats for “Killer” found on p.63 in TF. Do –not- use slavers (these are much to brutish). Add “Shadow”, “Silent Move”, “Concealment” and “Inquiry” to the skill list.

For armour, I would suggest either hidden Mesh Vests (AP:3) or ballistic vests (AP:1; AP:3 vs. SP) under cheap costumes. For weapons, I suggest Compact Stub-Automatics with Silencers and Mono-Knifes.

These killers have been send after the pc by Jackal Mask after their escape was noticed. Since it will take a while for the Killers to track them, you have a good excuse for them showing up as things start to get to boring.

As for Awareness test from your pc and role opposed tests for the shadow skill of the killers. If they are not noticed, they will wait till the pc are in a less crowded place. The place do not need to be empty. It is just important to the Killers that they will not immediately draw the attention of a score of guards.
If the pc win the test, they notice that they are followed. And might lay an ambush themselves.

If the pc catch one of them alive, they might be able to learn where Jackal Mask is waiting for the rapport of the killers… which gives you a good excuse to present them his corps (see TF).

[street Thugs]
If the pc do not have a guide, you can always rule that they moved around the wrong corner. Especially if they end up the “Broken Palaces”. simply, have a couple of Petty Thugs (TF p.64) block their way. This is especially useful if they where not able to get themselves some gear. The thugs should outnumber your pc, so. Perhaps “pc+2” or “2:1”. If half of them went down, the rest will run for it.

If you are not into mugging or the pc simply do not go the wrong way, you can turn this into an old fashioned fist-fight with some drunkards. Use the same stats but do not make them draw weapons. That is, not before they got their a** handed to them and one of them gets up again (ignore his Fatigue, he just spend a fate point ;0) ) and goes after the leaving pc with a knife…or draws a revolver. Time to ask for an Awareness(+20) test. Hey, if it is fair in the movies, it is fair in your games. Isn´t it?

[A razor in the crowd]
The links I provided already include an option where a “Red Jack” goes about his desires. Simply use this one if it starts to get boring.

[i demand satisfaction!]
The pc bump into a young minor noble who spills his drink and calls the pc names. He happens to be a duellist and is edging for a fight. If the pc show some guts, he will immediately demand satisfaction. Use the stats for “Killer”, but add +5 to WS and add the “Blademaster” Talent (re-roles for the attack). The nobles attaché will happily provide good quality duel swords. It will be to the first blow. The duellist will use “guarded stance”.

[beast on the lose!]
If the pc are near the “promenade of arenas”, have something espcape. The pc will first need to keep their footing as they are faced with a mass panic (!) and are then face by…what ever you have read. But this is really very random!

I changed the start of Tattered Fates for my characters. Rather then have them captured, I had their Inquisitor order them to go to Quaddis for the Grand Conjunction, as it is the only time where the Haarlock estate Gabriel Chase opens to the public.

However, as its the play-planet of the most powerful, he had them leave all their Inquisitor gear behind and had them draw on their free trader contacts to get them a ride to Xicarph incognito. Their directive was to never admit to being agents of the Inquisition, and if they were caught they were pretty much screwed, so they had to do it "Where Eagles Dare" style. To avoid being picked up at the space port, their free trader contact "sold" them to the Beast House as fodder, along with the contents of his brig, getting them planetside without anyone being the wiser.

It meant that some of the "captured" sequences and hand outs were useless, but those always felt very artificial to me anyway. The flip side was that they had very little to do with Heron Mask, as his plans never really directly involved them in any way. It wasn't until they made contact with the White Scholar and had to fight the Pilgrim kill-squad that they started to realize just how much trouble they were in.

The only downside is that they never really got to confront Heron Mask on a personal level prior to Gabriel Chase, but that seems like a small price to pay. And also something that can easily be rectified if I were ever to do it again with the power of hindsight. Possibly having them run into him at the Fate's Wheel might be one option...

Anyway, the upshot was that the beginning of the adventure was a bit different from the written storyline. But the meat of the story is in Carnival of Blood and the Revel of Darkness, at least in my opinoin. The first part is just a setup to make the players "scared", something I had already accomplished.

Just pointing out that making fairly serious changes without rewriting everything is doable.

Hi Kronus,

some further material, this time regarding opportunity for arena combats in "The Wheel". I am not sure about the odds and the price money, so. I do not have much experients with this & the money system of DH is a pain to me. Anyway, since TF said that the fighters can earn between a couple of hundreds and up to 1.000 Thrones a fight, I hope I got it right.

[Menage a Trois]
A local crime lord (peddling into illicit arena combat himself) "owns" a duo of female twins turned kyborg- gladiators; Salisha & Fervoria. He regulary brags about their ability and offers 400 thrones price money to any fighter willing to take them on and is able to kill one of them.
Rules: Melee weapons only; no energy weapons
Bets: 4:1 (against the challenger)
Stats: Use Cyborg Gladiators, but add the "Double Team" Talent.
Option A: A "paired match" is possible as well. In that case, the price money goes down to 300 thrones for the winner and the bets are 2:1 against the challenger. This bout will only end if both combatants of one team are dead. As soon as one of the Kyborg- Twins has been killed, the other one will get the "Hatred" Talent in regard to her opponent/s.
Option B: If a lone challenger boasts that s/he can take out both twins, the price money will be doubled (800 Thrones) and the odds are changed to 7:1. The fight only ends with the death of either both twins or the death of the challenger. As soon as one Twin got killed, the other one will get the "Hatred" Talent in regard to the challenger.

[Rat Race]
A "mean fun" popular with underlord bosses, a gladiator is pitted against a pack of 8 hungry giant rats.

Rules: Melee Weapons only, Only primitive armor with AP up to 3
Bets:Bets are placed on the survival of the Gladiator (odds are 2:1 in his favour) or how many rats he was able to kill in 30 seconds (6 rounds of combat).
4 Rats 2:1// 5 Rats 3:1 // 6 Rats 4:1

Stats: Use the stats for “Ferocious Beast” (DH) and the rules detailed below.
In theory, up to four rats are able to attack the gladiator at once. But these beasts can be scared off. The Gladiator can choose between Intimidation(+0) as a free action or Intimidation(+20) as a half action. If the test is successful, one rat (plus another for every level of success) is cowered and will not attack this round.
The price money for the fighter is 200 thrones.

[The Beast]
"The Wheel" has an illegal attraction. A Fenksworld Pit Thing (see link for stats). The regulars know about it and watching the show is "invitation only". The fighter are not told what they are up against, only that they will fight "one off-world beast" and what the rules are.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/dark-heresy/pdf/dh-previews/Creatures%20Preview%202.pdf
Option A: Dancing with the Beast.
The fighter is told that he will not fight but must avoid a beast. Technically, the contender has to pass Dodge tests against the attacks (whom is considered to hit… it is not like the beast will have much of a problem under that circumstances) a number of rounds (at least 10). After that, a small side door opens and the pc can try to escape the sands.
The Dodge tests are challenging(+0) to begin with, but if a test fails with “levels of failure”, the difficulty rises by one step. This difficulty will only go down a step if a dodge test is passed with levels of success. The difficulty will not get any better than challenging(+0).

As the door opens, the pc needs to pass a Dodge test with levels of success to get into the right position and then needs to disengage from the beast.

Option B: Duel with the Beast
Somebody willing to duel with the beast is able to win a prize money of 1.000 Thrones. If s/he survives. For such events, the Beast will be given a dose of Stim, so. If one of your pc (most likely your Pyroment) take out “the Beast”, this is the point where Papa Grist could congratulate them and invite them to his private rooms for an “special offer2.

Option C: Group Combat
In fact, the “Wheel” has two “Beasts” (what? It is always wise to have replacements!). Up to 5 people will be allowed to take on the Beasts. The price money for the survivors stays the same.

Quartermus said:

I'm personally keen to run the series of adventures, but have been wracking my brain in order to avoid the GODAWFUL railroad introduction. Sadly, that seems to involve culling pretty much the entire first adventure.

Yeah that one wasn´t easy, especially considering the high rank and powerful gear of my acolytes, and the Beast House not exactly being in high supply of Power-Armored goons with Boltguns, or even anti-ship weaponry.

Since "my" Heron Mask is an extremely powerful radical Inquisitor who assumed the identity of a false prophet and has an acolyte in his retinue with connections to the Logicians (Tech-Adept Primus Maximilian Scholtheiß, who had encountered my players characteres twice before), i let him set a trap.

A false Astropathic Signal of their master lured the Acolytes ship into an asteroid field in an uncartographied system to an seemingly unconspicious Asteroid-Fortress where their ship was laid low by heretical Haywireweapons and subsequently boarded by a Logician Murder Cell. My players still managed to butcher an awfull lot of them, but eventually they were defeated by a Stasis-Grenade. In hindsight, it seems to be much easier to kill the players characters then to actually capture them alive :/

Still pretty railraodlike, but i preferred it to "You are somehow all defeated".

Now i´m preparing the second part of the Tattered Fates. Since one of my players (the one who usually likes to use his head) is not very happy with his tech-priest, mainly due to the group composition which lacks a skilled leadertype character, i talked with him and we both decided to kill off his character in the next session when the widower makes his first appereance. Since he is by now somewhat of the powerhouse of the group this will let the rest of them take the widower very seriously from the start.

By the way: Anyone else has the problem of players congratulating themselves overly when they, thanks to bad rolls on my part, pick apart my NPCs at ease, but ***** and whine when things don´t go their way? ("Wah wah, why does his Multilaser more damage then a single shot of my boltgun, not fair") I was very sorely tempted to let them eat all dirt...as if they were playing against me. Our Psyker ist particularly prone to this behaviour.

Said player wil play an Arbitrator who is tailored more to investigative headwork than pure wanton slaughter. I´ll just fit him in as second survivor of Inquisitor Karkalla´s cell (whom i replaced with an inquisitorial ally of the Acolytes they have long known by now) who presently accompanies the White Scholar and will then join the main group.

Input is, as always, much appreciated. Special Thansk to Gregorius for his awesome list of Fight-Ideas for the Wheel of Fortune

Hi Kronus,

"guard of the White Schola" seem very reasonable for the introduction: a good choice! Killing the Tech-Priest sounds nice as well. How about having a real fight with the widower... where they learn the hard why that they cannot harm him "(right now). You would of course then need to make this visibel to them as Heron Mask leads the attack against the Widower.

@Those players..
I do not have exactly the same thing, but one of my players (Arbitrator) had to many light times with goons that he already is annoyed and looks at me with this "you CHEAT!" expression when they do not go down with the first shot.
The only thing you can do about it is "repeat the lesson" until they learn it.

I absolutely plan to let them fight the Widower in a "straight" fight. But since it´s not the 13th Hour i have decided to power it up to such ridiculous levels that even if i roll badly, the outcome should be very much decided.

When the first player (in this case of course the Tech-Priest) is down, the Heron-Mask and the Pilgrims of Hayte appear and try to cage the Demon. When they also get cut down, even my most thickheaded players should cut their losses and run (hopefully)

Kronus said:

It's still a bit too rail-road like for me. My PCs have power armour and lots of fancy toys. A foe who was willing to take on such a group and defeat them wouldn't then just sell them into slavery for a few Thrones and consider it 'job done'. While the idea that someone would take on such a hardened group specifically to put them in the fighting pits is equally silly: They'd pick easier targets.

Plus the whole 'yeah, and your psi powers and machine implants have been disabled' line would have them throwing bricks at me. They considered the House of Dust and Ash too much of a railroad, and they'd be up in arms if it got worse!

Meh... if players start whining about my dice rolls, I'd start rolling out in the open. I've got no time for that kind of crap. Players are happy enough when their dice rock, after all.

I personally justified it as a win-win. After defeating them and then dropping them into the Cages the Acolytes would either wind up dead, ridding my Radical Inquisitor of some powerful enemies, or they would escape and be useful in his plans for the widower.

They were ambushed after they found Lady Melua, also looking for the White Scholar, and the Widower killed the groups tech-priest who charged it with all of his grenades primed and managed to weaken it, so the Pilgrims of Hayte under Heron Mask/The Inquisitor attacked it. (Unsuccesful, but still according to their plan).

*sigh* All a bit contrived, but i wasn´t in the mood to totally alter the Adventure...after all i bought it and wanted to use it

I'm thinking of just resorting to having them have to infiltrate the planet by posing as slaves and going that direction willingly. Although I'm not sure about that either, as after The House of Dust and Ash they decided 'we are never willingly going anywhere disarmed ever again'.

I plan to play this campagne. And I gather as much info as possible to make the most fun out of it.

gregorius, could you please resend these files. They are currently unavailable. Except if it is available on another website

Cheers

Hi eponette,

since Rapidshare is not forever, you will find the article(s) I once wrote on Darkreign40k

http://www.darkreign40k.com/drjoomla/index.php/gm-tips/tips-for-scenarios/1327-addes-scenes-for-qtattered-fatesq

If the Link is broken, just visit the Main site, go to the "GM Tips" section and then into the section detailing tips for specific scenarios. In generally, most of the things I put up end up at DarkReign40k. My username their is Gregorius21778 as well.

Enjoy!

I have already ran Damned Cities and House of Dust and Ash before Tattered Fates, as well as some Haarlock-related adventures of my own. The PCs know that the Pilgrims of Hayte are among the various factions fighting for the Haarlock Legacy. They will be sent to a planet to investigate rumours of a False Prophet there ... head in some red circus or gladitorium or cage fight area, where they will be captured by the Beast House. The Pilgrims know through dark divination and malefic ritual that they are coming and are linked by blood or fate to the Haarlocks .. and will be waiting for them. The whole liaison with the Beast House, after all, is to capture and transport individuals to Quaddis for the festival of Tattered Fate, so it's real easy for them when some of their prey walk into their trap by their own accord!

Kronus said:

My 2 cents: I've always had bad results when I pre-assume a combat/event/encounter will turn out a certain way despite the variables of independant action from the PCs, and hinge the scenario on only a single possible outcome...

Sorry for bringing back this old post, but I don't fond anywhere the file of Gregorius about the red cages. Could you please send it to me or put it somewhere where I can download it?

Thanks

eponette said:

Forget it… I've seen the answer 2 lines above… That is the price to pay when you create your own adventure before playing tattered Fate…