I'll be working on a weekend scenario, here are what I got so fare - maybe you can help me.

Pre-story: The Thunder Child was a battleship designed for the protecting the outer rim of Terra. The Thunder Child's job was to protect the planet from invading races. Even though there have been subsequent battleships the Thunder Child remains the iconic symbol of mankind’s will to survive, even after all these decades. By the time of the scenario, the Thunder Child has joined and won 34 successful defenses. The Thunder Child, during the process of searching for invaders, sends out a distress signal to the Command Center of Terra; the CoT dispatches a squad of Marines to investigate. As the Stormraven attempts to dock with the Thunder Child, a malfunction occurs with the automatic docking and the Stormraven is badly damaged; however the crew lands safely and sets off to find the Thunder Child’s crew.

WIP Scenario Ideas:

1. 6 players - 5 marines and a single sister of battle.
2. Horror styled gameplay, inspiret by Dead Space.
3. Puzzles, giving my players some mind-bending work.
4. Plot-twist including Tzeentch, and the PCs past.
5. A secret organization called, illuminati.
6. Monsters will be a mix of the creatures from Silent Hill and the soldiers/civilian of Imperial Guard.

I'll like to hear what you think of this idea so fare, and maybe come with some input to what I can do to make this even more interesting.

Everything canbe used.

Cheers all :-)

An obvious thing would be to play up the sense of isolation: there's no help to call to and no way out of there as far as they can see. That always makes people nervous, and you don't need to have only direct confrontations. In fact I would wager that the Marines would be shadowed alot more than attacked outright.

An idea would be to make one of the characters a secret follower of Chaos, or at the least corrupted, and that character can have a secret agenda that works counter to the Kill-Team. Paranoia and isolation easily leads to great stress and horror in my experience.

Hey Gurkhal, thanks alot it sounds very great - but I have some questions, I hope you might wanna answer.

First, let me say, your idea about no call for backup is the main thing the players cannot use as their line of communication will be cut as they crash land in the hangar of Thunder Child. :-)

That about thing about (not so much) direct confrontation is great, but do you have some ideas I can use. Because the only thing I came up with was a kind of "Stalker" enemy/monster such as Nemesis (if any know the Resident Evil series).

That "Secret follower of Chaos" is a great idea, and got me thinking alot - but will it be possible for me to have a player being a follower without knowing it? Or at the very least, do can you giev me some hints how to put a player in the role of NPC.

I have thought about the Paranoia in the game, and my mind allways turned to Dead Space - Maybe if I played something like the hallucinations from DS2, that might work.

Again to all of you, if you got some ideas - please of the sake of the Emperor let me know :-)

Cheers all, and thanks to you Gurkhal.

If you're including the Illuminati, is it safe to assume that somewhere on the ship is a Sensai? Or Grey Sensai even...

-Durandal7

I was toying with the idea of using the Necromorphs, though not quite in the same scenario that you have here. Fluff-wise, I was thinking of having them be some sort of creepy-in-their-own-right xenos that got stuck on a space hulk long enough to become heavily tainted by the Warp. If you like the concept below though, mix-n-match fluff to flavor.

My interest actually grew from a purely mechanics point of view... the 'dismemberment' factor of the videogame would lend itself quite well to 'called shots' and hit locations in DW. Throw a few enemies at them with a custom special ability... "Sweep the Leg: Strikes to body location X of this creature automatically bypass Toughness/Armor" and then just pour on a punishing amount of TB and AP. If they're clever, and recognize the enemy, they'll start placing called shots to see where an enemy type is weak... or if they're lucky, a seemingly unstoppable juggernaut might get put down by a stray bolt. Consequently, until the players catch on to the weak-point idea, combat would be a lot scarier. And once they get used to going for the arms? Throw something at them with a different weak point, make them spend precious time feeling out different foes.

+++EDIT: cleaned up the 'Sweep the Leg' wording a bit to make it less ambiguous

Space Marines don't really work well as horror patsies. Their usual reaction to something like this is 'kill it dead, and failing that die in glorious battle against the enemies of mankind.' I think you want to run them as Dark Heresy or Rogue Trader PCs.

With shadowing the enemies are always out of reach. The space marines can probably hear them moving about in vents and corridors further away, but they always skitter and run when the marines comes close. And when the marines lets their guard down or turns a blind eye on something - they are soon there and look around, and leave when the marines comes back. This way the marines might find themselves losing equipment and tools to scangers or finding friendly NPC:s murdered or taken if they leave them alone for more than a few moments.

I ran a demon that way in another non-40k game and the players certainly had a horrific struggle with a demon that would never show up for direct confrontation but always be ready to harass them and make their life a pain.

And if the characters lets their guard down, well the creatures can see that as a sign of weakness and come rushing to overwhelm a lone or wounded space marines. Only to scatter at first sign of reinforcements showing up.

In regards to the Chaos follower he don't really need to be an active follower, as much as being under unwilling influence from a daemon. For example the daemon might speak to him and taunt him with letting the others know of his warp-taint and perhaps giving ideas. If the characters comes to a situation and gets struck the daemon might be there and whisper a solution or important information to the character. And this can take many times and the daemon can give half-truths, withhold important information, outright lies and general being a **** to put push the character(s) on a slope towards its goal - which ever that is.

The daemon could even make a deal for the character where it says it can save them all, if the character sacrifices himself and comes under its thrall. The character might see it as a worthy sacrifice of himself but then the daemon can start to push him toward some other goal entirely and change the rules when half the deal is made. Or the daemon, if that might work better, can come to the character and offer to save him in return for leaving the others to the daemon. There are lots of ways that the daemon could work on this or that the character could be under Chaos influence.

A note on horror in RPGs: a good deal only works if you are willing to let players die and they know it. As such you should think your mission through before and identify the parts in which you are willing to see players killed or a TPK. Fate Points unfortunately mitigate this enormously. You might consider no fate points zones, where the light of the Emperor doesn't shine.

It's about the only way to make players feel real tension.

Alex

Sounds fun, the only issue I see is support. A thunderhawk/stormraven/stormbird cant get far on its own. There needs to be a capital ship to jump them there unless it is that close to something else, in which case....its still close to something else.

Pyrus said:

Well the idea of the team to meet monsters/enemies like the Necromophs was the first thing that come to my mind, but I was thinking of making them more like monsters/enemies from the Silent Hill series. Let me come with a simple explanation, "Mindtrick" thats where Tzeentch will be playing ehm his part. Otherwise I think it might me too similiar to Dead Space, but I'll like to use your idea for the 'dismemberment' factor :-)

Thanks mate.

Durandal7 said:

I was no going to use the same Illuminati as in the book, but I might have to change the name ;-)

Terraneaux said:

Well if you don't try you're never gonna find out, so for now I'm gonna stick to my "marines" and try it out ;-)

ak-73 said:

First thing first, this will be a 2-day scenario only - so that about just kill the players off might not work. But I was going to play the game without any fate points at all. But maybe you got some inputs on how to make the players feel real tension :-)

Cheers mate.

Gurkhal said:

Hey Gurkhal.

I'll take that into play, about the players hearing the enemies (fleeing when close and so on :-) )

I might wanna borrow your daemon story, to my plotline - if you don't mind :-)

Thanks to you as well lad.

To all, please keep coming with more, and I'll haev an update on my work soon :-)

Well if you don't try you're never gonna find out, so for now I'm gonna stick to my "marines" and try it out ;-)

Well, sure, but when you start resolving fear effects on them and have monsters that are improbably powerful merely to present the overdone 'PC's must run in fear from combat' theme, don't be surprised when your players say 'I didn't sign up for this.'

Terraneaux said:

It is written, that Space Marines will retreat from combat if they see it fit for their overall object that is to complete their task at hand. So I cannot see that as a problem :-)

Several points:

Isolation

Have a capital ship jump in, drop the Thunder/Stormhawk PCs are using and then jumping off again to drop off another party somewhere else. Give the PCs an arbitary time limit, sayng something like "Astropath estimates that the capital ship will be back here in seven days... if the warp stays calm.". Now they are on their own. No contact, no way out of the haunted ship and they must survive seven days. Except, knowing how warp is the seven days isn't guaranteed. Its seven days on average, maybe. If there is storms in warps it might be seventeen days, seven years or never.

Something Wicked This Way Comes...

Have the ships computers and surveillance systems act strange. Door closing and opening without anyone operating them. Cameras turning suddenly towards PCs and zooming on them. Surveillance systems giving strange alerts. Mysterious text appearing on screens as if someone was typing it... Make it heavy. Hint but don't show directly. Strange echoes in the corridors, lights going on and off, shadows playing on the walls. A nice ambient soundtrack on the background helps to set the right mood.

Combat is When You Are Short of Everything But Targets

When the first combat breaks out make it chaotic, confusing and scary. DO NOT describe the enemy and the effects of the weapons in fine detail. At least not yet. DO NOT give out or even hint on the stats of the opponents. Use the confusing surroundings to your advantage to play out on how scary the first encounter is:

How NOT to do it:

"You open a door and see a horrifying zombie-like alien running at you from the room."

"I'll shoot it." (rolls dice)

"Okay, you got 20 points of damage, that minus its toughness and armor... leaves 12 points. Your bolter bolt hits it and blows away a huge chunk of its torso." (rolls dice)

"The creature hits you for two points of damage to your left arm and then retreats back into the room."

How to do it instead:

"The door starts to open with a hiss, then stucks half-way open. The lights inside the room blink and suddenly, from the darkness, something lunges right at you through the half-open doorway."

"I'll shoot it." (rolls dice)

"The bolter shots and subsequent explosions of the bolts echo throughout the corridor and the room beyond. Sparks fly off the walls and suddenly the blinking light in the room goes out, leaving you in complete darkness for a fraction of second before your autosense switch to thermal. On thermal you see the fresh impact craters of your bolts glowing red-hot in the wall. As for whatever tried to come at you from the room... Where di it go? You didn't even see if you hit it or not." (rolls dice)

"After a few seconds you start to feel something warm inside your armor, in your left arm. Looking down you see three cuts in your forearm, still bleeding a bit even though your enhanced body systems are already limiting the bleeding. You don't know waht it was, but it just cut straightb through the power armors ceramite. Mark two points of damage to your left arm."

The point is that the Marines don't feel fear but not knowing what you are fighting against, if you hit it, how it was affected and how you are faring is much, much more discomforting and scary for the players than when they have "things under control". In the examples above the encounter is simple and in terms of difficulty its almost trivial. But it FEELS a lot more significant when played out correctly.

Varinus said:

I'm only happy to be able to help. I'll look forward to hear how it turned out.

Varinus said:

Well, yeah, but if you have 'gibbering fear' as your objective, you might things a little hard.

Things getting hairy on a space hulk is a pretty classic scenario in 40k, tho, so that's definitely fun.

The best chance for actual horror, I think, in a space marine game is not so much to have something external and scary, but to have the horror come from something the *players* do - more of a fear of one's self rather than a fear of some demon or alien; a fear of the character themselves turning into a monster.

Terraneaux said:

I was aming for a more fear of the character themselves then that of an alien, but still I will be using a sort of "main" villain :-)

Okay Plotline so far:

A prisoner carrier (The Thunder Child) has send out an emergency call to the nearest planet, and the team will be send in to investigate.
As the Stormraven attempts to dock with the Thunder Child, a malfunction occurs with the automatic docking, and the Stormraven is badly damaged; however the crew lands safely and sets off to find the Thunder Child’s crew.

WIP Scenario Ideas:

1. 6 players - 5 marines and a single sister of battle (Who will come in play later in the game, due to her being on the Thunder Child before the accident occur).
2. Horror styled gameplay, with thanks to all of you who had helped me with inspiration.
3. There will be no backup available to the PCs, there will be very few NPC - mostly will die shorty after meeting them.
4. Puzzles, giving my players some mind-bending work.
5. There will be very little combat, when combat occur it will be intense.
6. The players will have no Faith Points in this scenario.
7. Plot-twist including Tzeentch, and the PCs past.
8. Monsters will be inspired by the creatures from Silent Hill and are now in development, but I can say this much as there will be some Ogryns and SOBs.
9. Music will be a big part of the gamenight, as I'll be using a mix of soundtracks from games such as: Resident Evil/Silent Hill/Dead Space.

Cheers all, and let me know if you got any ideas to improve this even more.

One more thing popped into my mind. Insert clues into solving the puzzles into your descriptions of general surroundings. For example you might describe the smells and sounds of a room and then a short text flickering on the screens which cast an eerie, green light into the room. When the players realize that the sounds and the text on the screen were part of the puzzle they'll pay more attention to your descriptions of the surrounding and thus get more immersed into the general feeling you are projecting

In any case it sounds like a very solid plan, I'm looking forward to hearing how it played out.

I really like this idea. I was thinking along the same lines for one just a while ago, but all I could think of was using 'nids as enemies, and I didn't really want to use them for enemies. I also like the idea of maybe using some influences from Dead Space and Stargate Universe (if anyone has seen it) such as the ship dropping in and out of FTL (the warp) seemingly randomly, putting the team in various life threatening situations. The setting I was going to use goes as follows...

A long lost space hulk drops out of warp without warning and unexpected. Being the nearest Inquisitorial team, the kill team is sent to investigate. A short while after boarding, the warp drives initiate and the ship is sent into the warp suddenly. Effectively cutoff and lost, the team has no way of knowing when, or if, help will arrive. Stranded on the ship the team can investigate and try to find out the history behind whats happening and try to find a way home. The ship is haunted with the ghosts of those who died on the ship, various warp beasts and daemons, as well as warp mutated corpses (Dead space influence) The ship will occasionally drop out of warp for a random amount of time. I want to use this time to have the team encounter various situations, threats, and enemies (some known, some unknown.) This would effectively be a very long mission and I am unsure of how a kill-team would fare without resupply. I thought of maybe having them stumble across caches of supplies long lost or something. I'm not sure of how to steer the adventure or if the kill-team would succeed without a tech of some kind. I am also unsure of who to have that inhabit(ed) the ship or its original purpose. I plan on posting this in my own thread so as not to high-jack yours.

Thanks a bunch for all your ideas.

Cheers,

Austin

Hey Brother Carharias , I'll be happy if you were to borrow my ideas - it is always a great feeling to get if some one thinks they can use some of your own work to anything - so please feel free to use them as you like :-)
And for all of you others, I know it has been a long time since I have been posting - but I have been unable to continue this scenario do to various problems, which I'll not bother your heads with now :-)

Update: I got meself a deadline for this scenario, do to the release of the new game: Space Marine (this being the PS3 version) - my RPG Group is having a release party, where we will be playing the game (as well as other games, when needing a break from the SM ;-) ), playing this weekend scenario along the way that weekend as well. With more to come, I don't wanna spend too much "space" writing it all down.

So I have little over 2 weeks to be done with it, so if anyone one in here will help me with some of the following I'll be happy as an "Ork on a battlefield bashing heads".

Monsters, and them being the following: "All the following is just WIP names" please feel free to change them as you like. All my monsters will be inspired by the consol game Silent Hill, and so I'll like if their abilities such as attacks and "powers" were descried and works in that same way (if anyone of you can follow me on that level... :-) )

Barbie ( Battle Sisters ): This type of monster is the one part of the two common monsters, the other being "Straightjackets". The Barbie appearance resembles a pale, nearly naked human female, splattered with blood. The only clothe being her corset (with the Fleur De Lis), which seems to be part of her skin/flesh. Their skin has a plastic-like shine to it, and their hair is pristine platinum blonde or white hair, done in the same trendy fashion as the SOBs.

Scraper ( Sister Repentia ): Similar to the Babies, just without any clothe except for a back over their head. They will be armed with a very rusty Eviscerator.

Sister Belladonna ( Mistress of Repentance ) Being a "Boss"-type monster, I have only descried her background: This senior sister who has fought for many decades, has been pure of heart and utterly faithful to the Emperor in everything that she does. This made her the perfect judge for those who have failed in their duty or been found lacking in faith. Now something has changed her, still faithful in mind and being the perfect judge for those who had failed in their duty - she will be judging those who had wronged her new master. Armed with painful neural whips, the Mistress of Repentance will ensure that the players atone for their sins. (I was thinking having her looking like something the Babies, but I'll leave it to those who'll work with her)

Straightjacks ( Convicts/Human ): As it will be logical (at least in my head...) to have convicts in a straightjacket doing a transport, the monster will be resembling a humanoid wearing a straightjacket made of their own skin/flesh. I don't have that much else to work with here, without it being a complete copy of the Lying Figure - so please feel free to change this.

Insane Bulk ( Ogryn labour workers ): Their appearance being that of a bulky mass of flesh. They are completely covered with fatty bulbous flesh, with pus-like oozing open sores. Their heads aren’t very distinct, being a small bulb with a wound-like opening in the middle.

Alfred Lester ( Commissar ) Being a "Boss"-type monster, I have only descried his background: Exemplify power and bravery, made him a natural leader with a reputation for turning the tide of battle. A ruthless, fearless person who has dedicated himself to serve the Emperor – without any compassion or mercy for the men he must sometimes lead into battle. Now a changed man, dedicated himself to a new master – still as fearless as ever, just more ruthless. Ready to die, to bring his masters enemies to justice.

Mhodox the fallen ( Thousand Sons Chaos Marine ): He is related to the players background, and was giving a second chance. Now he wants the players to pay the ultimate price...

Photep T’zek ( Greater Daemon of Tzeentch ): What is there to say, oh wait it is a greater daemon RUN!

Any questions? feel free to ask :-) Cheers for now, I'll be watching my topic 2 times a day.

The monster list looks good to me. I presume there are some interesting plotline in regards to the Great Daemon and the Thousand Son aboard the hulk.

I would suggest some malign machine spirit or the warp wrecking havoc on the Space Marine's auto-senses, making it somewhat more difficult for them to see in the dark. That could also add an element of horror as their auto senses keep tracking phantom targets or not showing any targets at all when the enemy attacks!

Also be careful not to get the players frustraded or bored when running a monster who always runs away when they get close. It works, for a bit, but if the players never has a chance to catch it, there's a chance they will be pouty! A very difficult agility roll might help to ease this frustration, but remember not to let them see the monster too soon, building suspense is important. It's a thin line! =)

This thread have inspired me to make a Space Hulk/Dead Space mission of my own though, so thank you very much everyone!

Here's a few things I ponder using, maybe you can use one or two of these in your campaign to, Varinus?

* The Space Hulk is actually a cruiser that was exposed to the warp when the Gellar field dropped for a few seconds.

* A Tech Priest has physically merged with the bridge AND the warp, making him a immobile horror that has grown to be part of the ship. He is in control of most of the ships systems (very classic, I know!)

* The Tech-Priests followers and servitors have all been warped by the warp and is now parodies of their former self, stalking the halls with claw, heavy bolter and pure hatred for all things non-chaos.

* The PCs will find notes and recordings from crew members that barricaded themselves and survived, for awhile. The corrupted Tech-Priest was one of them, until he took it upon himself to investigate the bridge. He was never heard from again (until the PCs find him!). These notes and recordings will help build suspense and will be found before any enemies, at least the first few notes.

* The PCs auto-senses will be offline or be giving false readings, actually making shots harder, due to the warp influenced interference sent out by the Tech-Priest. Will they dare to remove their helmets in this hell hole though?

* Corruption and madness is a constant on the ship; bulkheads can be found that are both flesh and metal and some doors even have the appearance of giant mouths. These things will not be presented until they have fought a few monsters however, or get closer to the bridge.

* Some areas still have residue of the warp in them; whispers, ghostly apperitions of dead men living out their last moments, hands and claws reaching out of monitors to claw at the PCs with rending claws. Make the PCs take willpower saves or gain corruption or insanity. This is an excellent moment to make the PCs fight not only with their muscles, but their enhanced minds as well!

Some music that will fit an horror mission (you mentioned you have the Dead Space music, very good! Here's a few more tunes that might help set the mood!)

www.youtube.com/watch - F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin - School Theme

Be sure to let us know how the mission went!

Gurkhal said:

First of all, as said before it is not a space hulk - it will be a large prisoner transport ship :-) But I'm glad that you like my list of nearly homemade monsters, and yes the plotline regarding the G.Daemon and T.Son is (in my opinion) interesting - and I'll post it soon - but as no-one is willing to help with profile and special rules for the monsters it has to be my first priority.

Reclusiarch said:

As I have said in the beginning of my topic, I'll be using music through the gameplay - but new score is always welcome, so I'll take a look at it (thanks you very much lad :-) )

The idea of having the ship itself being an enemy... Well to be honest, it didn't occur to me - but I'll use it, what you have been writing is indeed great - and fits right in with my overall idea :-)

To all, I'm still looking for helpers with the monsters and their special rules and abilities - cheers