Since Craftworld Eldar prefer risking the lives of others before risking an Eldar life, I'm going to have them hire the players to do a task for them. When the players agree to it, what they will actually be doing is divided into three parts:

- The task they were hired for: I'll need some ideas for this. All I know is that it must require players to travel through the warp from one specific planet to another.

- The obvious trick: By attempting the task they were hired for, they will be forced into completing another task. I know what this one will be, and it will involve the players acquiring some soul stones.

- The less obvious trick: By completing the obvious trick, they will be drawn into my long term plot.

I have some questions:

1 - How are the Eldar likely to contact the players ?

My current plan is for the players, while surveying an uninteresting system, receive a vox message from the Eldar. It will seem like a real time communication, up until the auspex operator reports that there is no ship close enough for real time comms.

Does sending their half of the communication from several light-weeks away, then returning to the webway before the players enter system, fit with the Eldar's style and capability ?

2 - What would be a good mission that the Eldar would hire the players for ?

The requirements for the mission are:

- It must be a task worthy of a Rogue Trader.

- It needs to cause the players to take a route through the warp that very few others do. This seems easy enough, have the Eldar contact the players in a worthless system, then add in some time pressure to get to another system. Players will then take the quickest route through the warp they can find and, since one end is a worthless system, there is nobody else out in the Expanse with any reason to ever take it.

- The Eldar are not going to hide that they are hiring the players, and will meet with the players to provide payment and pick up the soul stones.

3 - What is a worthwhile payment for the task they are hired for, and for retrieving the soul stones ?

Would the Eldar steal Imperial equipment, just so they could offer it in payment for a task like this ?

4 - How should I describe a soul stone to players ?

Their characters aren't likely to know what one is, so I'll describe what it looks like.

5 - Does anyone have any creative uses for a soul stone ?

For example, building a torch that uses one instead of a light bulb.

Bilateralrope said:

1.I don't think that the eldar have FTL non psyhic methods of communications.

3. Nothing the eldar would just attack the rogue traders with overwhelming force they are just monkeys(spelling) and try to kill them, after they recover the soulstones).

As I understand it Eldar use visions of the furture to guide them so maybe one of there farseers has has major visions that the PCs need to be the one to complete this mission.

I would have them use intermederies to test them first then make limited contact.

As for payment the best would be to provide the players with information (eg new warp routes or the location of an uncharted resource world)

It might be worth reading the Ravenor Obnibus by Dan Abbnet as I believe that has Eldar in it.

I hope that helps

Bilateralrope said:

1. They will hail them on their ship of anything like that. Being the mysterious creatures they are, theyll achieve a perfect silent running test, appear in the aft quadrant of the ship within perfect core shot range and simply be nice.

2. Anything that a farseer has seen. If the PCs are needed to stop some invasion that might endanger a few eldar? Sure the contact would be worth it. To the Eldar a single Eldar is worth more than a billion mon keigh.

3. Payment would be the vision that shows them a potential success and any loot they could come across. So none is a good answer. Maybe they might have some trash they would give a RT, if the farseers vision entailed something like that.

4. A soul stone would be a dead if colourful stone. When an Eldar soul is actually trapped inside and thus saved form Slaanesh, it will glow in many shades and hues of tst colour, maybe even change colour. it will most definitely seem alive.

5. There is no creative use, except for the fact that an Eldar soul is stored inside. The DE eat the souls. Chaos would have alot of fun with the soul (especially slaanesh worshippers). For a normal, law abiding human its just a nice trinket. A very, very rare and shiny trinket. A dangerous trinket. Expect a visit by a ranger with a gruesome death. One fluff story had the Eldar give the person in question into the care of DE for free. The DE had to promise a continouus torture for the rest of his live with the "criminal" dying of natural causes.

thor2006 said:

thor2006 said:

thor2006 said:

1 - But they do have powerful precognition. My plan is the Eldar show up, broadcast their side of the conversation over vox, then leave. A few weeks later the players show up, receive the broadcast, and think it's a real time conversation (The Eldar predicted exactly what the players would say), until someone notices that there isn't anything close enough to be sending a real time signal.

This trope is what I'm going for, with the Eldar used the time it takes for the radio signal to reach the RT ship to delay their side of the conversation.

3 - Except that the third part of what they draw the RT into is a long term plot, one that also benefits the Eldar. Meaning that they want the players to survive the meeting. Also:

- Attacking would risk Eldar lives* and the survival of the soul stones. Trading can be made safe with a much smaller force, as you only need to convince the players to not attack until they have heard what you want to say.

- Unless the players roll really well on a Forbidden Lore (Xenos) roll, all their characters will know about Soul Stones is that they are glowing gems that the Eldar value.

*When someone has a ship capable of orbital bombardment sitting overhead, making them realise that they won't survive meeting you is just asking for them to make sure you don't survive either.

@Arnu:

I would have them use intermederies to test them first then make limited contact.

I know that is the typical way for the Eldar to do things, especially when they want to hide their influence. But I can't see how it would make sense in this case:

- Adding an intermediary just complicates matters while adding more points of potential failure. Complications for no reason other than to complicate are the domain of Tzeentch.

- Hiding Eldar influence is going to be very difficult when soul stones are involved. Either the person offering payment for the first task has to reveal his link to the Eldar, someone approaches the players asking for them (very suspicious), or the players have to go looking for a third party (where should the players start looking). Arranging a face to face meeting before the players find the stones is much simpler.

- Rogue Traders are one of the groups in the Imperium known for directly dealing with xenos.

Also, I have no idea what to use as an intermediary and like the idea of the vox trickery also telling the players that they can't surprise the Eldar.

As for payment the best would be to provide the players with information (eg new warp routes or the location of an uncharted resource world)

A resource rich mineral planet that doesn't orbit a star is a reward I can modify to the appropriate value. With the potential for plot-relevant complications.

Now I just need to figure out what the Eldar would offer for the soul stones. Preferably personal gear or ship components (even more complications ) instead of profit factor. But I don't know the kind of items the Eldar can/would offer.

Voronesh said:

If the payment is nothing, why would the Rogue Trader accept the job ?

As for the creative uses, I'm thinking of things the players will find the soul stones in. The gruesome death for those involved part is already planned, assuming any of those involved survive until the players trigger it.

Well it really depends on what the Eldar want to have done.

Mon Keigh are simply tools for them. There needs to be a reason that the Eldar cant do it themselves, and often enough this is a simple manpower issue.

The Eldar certainly woudlnt be above killing a few thousands of Sauls crewmen, grab a few weapon chaches he has and give that to the players. But to the Eldar the payment is exactly the bare minimum that they neded to do, to get the PCs to play along. If the PCs can be made to do it for free, thats the way to go.

Since i dont really know too muich about your background story, but a good idea is this:

Think of the Eldar - human relationshipo as that of master and dog. A sometimes unruly dog but nonetheless, this is how the Eldar perceive it. Your dog certainly doesnt get a treat only because it sits down at the appropiate time, does it?

Voronesh said:

What about a payment that forces the players into further work for the Eldar ?

Like a Runecaster that the Eldar will even install for the players because, since the Runecaster is Eldar tech, they can integrate it into the ship much better than anyone else. However, that will require the players to give the Eldar access to a lot of ship systems to install technology that only the Eldar understand

Do the Eldar have ways of shifting cargo without requiring one of them to travel with the cargo ?

I'm thinking that, when it comes time for the trade, the Eldar send in an unmanned vehicle to give the players their payment and take the soul stones. Or maybe use a teleporter instead of a vehicle. That way, there aren't any Eldar lives at risk. Unless the players do something stupid like try to take payment and keep the soul stones. Then things will get messy.

That method would limit the prize to personal items and/or data. But I can work with that.

The "payment" could be left in space or on a planet. The Eldar simply vox the location instead of handing over the payment.

I dunno if the Eldar would part with such a piece of technology.....Essentially its your game, but id only hand out a shuriken weapon or maybe a powersword instead. (But thats really just me, your method has the advantage of binding the players; which is something the Farseer might have forseen as important)