(Help plx) Off the rails in Edge of Darkness

By Tyraxus, in Dark Heresy Gamemasters

Howdy, all. I'm running Edge of Darkness for a group, with the intent of making it the start of a long-running campaign. However, I've hit a bit of a snag... when questioning Evard Zed, the party found out about the blackout fires, and decided to start being noble and go check out the ruined manufactorum (I winged it a bit when put on the spot and said the manufactorum was damaged in the blaze and partially rebuilt, but the machine spirits were churlish afterwards and so the Combine finally shut the place down to avoid having to do so much maintenance; I think I got the timeline wrong as well, as I have the blackout fires taking place a year or so prior to the Combine laying everyone off). The party Sororitas and Tech-Priest have expressed interest in attempting to repair the machinery (the Sororita out of a desire to make the people productive citizens, and the Tech-Priest because, hey, there's a bunch of machines that aren't working right).

I generally know what I want to do with an encounter at the manufactorum site, and how I want to tie it in to the campaign, but what I'm not so sure about is setting: what are they likely to find there? An empty shell of a building? Ruined scraps of metal? Machinery broken beyond repair? I figure Sikes would have "reclaimed" anything of any worth that he could, but what would he have missed? Also, is there anything in particular that gets manufactured as far downhive and away from everything as Coscarla?

Since the Combine is on the brink of total financial collapse, I'm thinking that any functional machinery would have been removed and sold to pay off creditors. If you want to make it clear to your players that this factory is a lost cause, you could have them look over the gutted manufactorium and estimate that it would take a minimum investment of hundreds of thousands of Thrones to get it up and running again...

Whilst that is a cool mission goal for your players, Adeptus-B is right; the manufactorum would be broken beyond repair (at least under the scope of the PCs). However, you could suggest to the players through the use of an NPC that if the area were to be cleaned up (getting rid of the Chirugeon, and removing the gangers) then perhaps the area would become used again and restored.

In my campaign, I did just that. We had a Sororitas character, and after defeating the Chirugeon the chapel there thought that the daemons were banished by the Sororitas, and proclaimed her a "Living Saint". This caused both a religious outcry, as well as an influx of new people, and the Corscarla was eventually rebuilt after later events of the campaign which lead to this Sororitas being named a Matyr.

Hi Tyraxus

I would do it the following way

-everything that could have been moved by manpower was "salvaged" (just the huge shells of machinery and patricular heavy pieces like engines are left)

- their are the remains of some "encampment" (homeless dregs who settled hear)

-their are signs of combat and old blood stains (the dregs where found and captured by the minions of the Surgeon)


So, you will get your pc "back on trail":

I generally know what I want to do with an encounter at the manufactorum site, and how I want to tie it in to the campaign, but what I'm not so sure about is setting: what are they likely to find there?

They could encounter feral dregs, hostile reclaimators, aggressive scum, uncontrolled heavy-duty servitors, skulking mutants, toxic rats, crusading redemptionists, hunting hive-gangers, initial Logician experiments and so on.


An empty shell of a building?

Sort of. Check out this for inspiration.


Ruined scraps of metal?

Sure.


Machinery broken beyond repair?

As already mentioned, salvageable material should already be gone. Other broken machinery could be around though.


I figure Sikes would have "reclaimed" anything of any worth that he could, but what would he have missed?

Maybe stuff that is hardly accessible, because you have to swim through toxic slurry or it is guarded by an uncontrolled and aggressive servitor…


Also, is there anything in particular that gets manufactured as far downhive and away from everything as Coscarla?

In my view the Manufactorum the inhabitants of Coscarla were working for, is a little away from Coscarla (and least one mono-rail station away) and in an area of the hive where many Manufactorums are clustered to form some sort of industrial region.
Mostly rather mundane equipment could be manufactured there. Metalware industry, chemical industry, food-processing industry or a promethium refinery sounds fitting in my view.

Mmm, all good stuff, thanks.

I actually already have the guts of an encounter already planned: since one of the group couldn't make the session, I gave anybody who studied the dataslate Interrogator Sand gave them a literacy test to read between the lines and notice that other =I= agents might be in the area. The player in question is playing a psyker who is on her first mission to investigate the blackout fires as part of a larger group. Said group wlll be under attack by underhive mutant canids (think Skags from Borderlands) and mostly dead when the party shows up. They'll have found not much of a lead, and the dead party's prime will have been given instructions to head back to Coscarla for more instructions. I'm hoping (maniacal grin) that neither group of characters will let on they're working for the =I=, introducing themselves as members of the Coblast Assay, with each suspecting what the other means, but none too sure. They'll join forces; if not, they at least have to go back to town together, and they've already touched off a lockdown (but don't know it yet) by drawing guns on Luntz's men in the Workers' Union: they flashed coin in a narco-gang hangout, two gangers decided to try to mug them and drew batons, so the gunslinger Scum and Sister drew on them and backed slowly out the door. Oh yes, Coscarla is going to be an interesting place to be when they get back to town demonio.gif

I have the nagging suspicion that any self-respecting agent of the Inquisition would not have let himself be brought down by skags. They'd have shot all that skag.

They're rank 1, fresh from indoctrination, and eager to prove their worth to the =I=. They haven't even met their Inquisitor yet; Interrogator Sand is their only contact to the =I=, and none of them asked him for credentials, so it's still up in the air if he's even their actual contact, or if something more sinister might be going on... I love it when players hand me potential campaign twists in the first session gran_risa.gif

Luthor Harkon said:

An empty shell of a building?

Sort of. Check out this for inspiration.

That is absolute setting gold. Thanks for sharing!

I looked up the plant where those pictures were taken and found some others on google images, mainly some larger ones that give you a better view of the area filled with cat walks and levels of stairs, it is an excellent way to describe a manufactorium or even a hive. Luthor, great job! ( ^_^ )