Hello, I am new to Black Crusade and am running through a slew of ideas for starting a game.

I am thinking of giving my players an ancient and damaged daemonship to control for themselves. Ideally this would be something that would have a daemon being the main controller of the vessel, so that you would not need a huge crew to pilot the ship.

Are there any rules for such a ship, and if so where?

Or does anyone have any idea for how to bets mod some Chaos ships to fir this role?

I want to go for a Stargate: Universe type of feel for my campaign, so any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

In BC there is'n any rules for starship. If you wish to use full starship rules go to RT and use some ship as pattern for this daemonic vessel, but give it some daemonic weapon, which will be a bit more powerful than normal, it don't need a geller field because daemon will drive away lesser warp beings, it get's regeneration. So think about upgrades that makes daemonic vessel diferent from normal ship, but also think about minuses.

If it will be only plot device also pick up some upgrades but make them less mechanical and more interesting for your players, let's say there is demonic teleportatrium or heart of the ship is huge chaos shrine with artifact that binds daemon to the ship. Ship should speak to PC and e important NPC.

Also remember that daemons don't like to be binded to items. of course This daemon can control the ship so he could be happy with having such power but maybe it is his prison and he want to be free.

I have all of the RT stuff and was planning on using one of the ships in Battlefleet Koronus as a starting point.

I really like the idea of a chaos shrine that binds daemons, that kind of stuff is super useful.

One of the big concerns I have is the lack of crew and morale. Any good ways of handling this? I see it as a plus and a minus, since it would make it so that boarding actions are not really doable.

Also, Daemon ships are entirely filled with the daemon, to my knowledge, as I don't believe I've ever read of a daemon ship that actually had a crew.

When we played RT and then BC with our ship we didn't use crew or morale rating so this is one way ;D

But if you want you can say that as daemon gets wounded he's getting angrier at PC and he can attack them (morale) and he's presence in materium is getting weaker so he can't control ship as good as he would normally (crew).

MILLANDSON said:

Just because you've never heard of one doesnt mean it can't exist. Chaos is so varied that a daemon ship wit a crew seems pretty plausable if you ask me. And it's a cool idea, so thats another reason to allow it.

coolzyg said:

you are correct with for the most part...but robotic frame, vehicles and starships are a different story. though daemons do not like being bound into in animate objects the freedom of movement destructive capabilities granted by a ship are any other vehicle far out weigh any discomfort cause by the imprisonment to the "average" daemon.

MILLANDSON said:

SneakySly said:

actually you would have a crew(the deamon) and it would be more them capable of defending itself from invaders(warping corridors, venting sections to the void, growing arms/tenticles/other oddities from bulkheads...ect, ect,ect) now for making a boarding action add servitor crew and apply the demonic trait to them.

also you could add a "Crew Reclamation Facility" as "daemon engine manufatorum" or some such. i would also use xenos/archeotech items to represent the warping influence of the daemon and the odd inventions the the dark machanicus that created the thing. an eldar holo field seems to stand out to me as no brainer as i could see the daemon warping reality around itself as a natural effect of its "condition"

Thanks for all the ideas everyone! This is perfect. Keep them coming.

I think the ship will be pretty damaged / dormat and as they play they can repair and unlock new sections of the ship, restoring more of the powers, As they do so the daemon inside the ship will regain more overt consciousness and control after laying mostly dormant. This will allow their ship to level up as they play through the campaign. Maybe they will need to hunt down items of power or conduct rituals to reinvigorate particular powerful archeotech sections.

Thougts?

The Yu'Vath are a recently extinct race of Chaos-worshipping xenos would once controlled a small empire centered in the Calixis Sector. A badly damaged, long- abandoned Yu'Vath ship, found adrift in the Screaming Vortex, might make for a cool plot device, and you wouldn't have to worry about contradicting canon. Given that Yu'Vath technology is supposed to be freakin' weird, I think it might be something like the "living ship" from the show Farscape- but with a daemon at its core rather than a benign alien... If it were me, I wouldn't give it to the players on Day One, but make them earn it. Maybe start out with the Broken Chains adventure, then come across the vessel after their escape...

This Yu'Vath angle seems perfect! Which books have information on them? I don't remember seeing them when I last skimmed through the RT books at my LGS.

SneakySly said:

I LOVE this approach to it. There is so much possibility and reward inherent in this method. I really wish I could play in this game.

SneakySly said:

RT doesn't have as much info on the Yu'vath as DH does, and even in Dark Heresy it's a bit scant. Anything about the maze cities, or the Rak'Ghol connection in RT is what you're looking for. Halo Devices is another good keyword to keep an eye out for, though that's a bit broader, along with Cold Trade.

Hey there,

Dig the ship idea, especially blending some RT stuff in with BC. There's a big daemon ship in the Dark Heresy core book which may give some inspiration. I'm not sure if you've ever seen the show Lex, but its a sentient ship as well which could give some inspiration. Big bug lookin' thing with suspicious tentacles that spouted water that the crew would bathe with. I know I wouldn't use a big long tendril to get clean, but maybe your crew of heretics would!

Hope to hear more on this!

Goodwin said:

Because you've seen enough hentaï to know where that would end ? Sorry couldn't resist t he quote.

Iradial Cogitators and Meritek Shrike class raiders - a daemon bound into a cogitator stack that controls all of the ships systems through advanced and highly heretekial (lol!) AI networking. This gives the players the daemonic aspect to their ship and a lack of a crew, but without an entire structure physically possessed by a daemon.

Nearly all fiction i've read on daemon ships including the two places in rules they have been mentioned (battlefleet gothic and rogue trader) have said that daemonships are 100% possessed and controlled by daemons, bording actions auto-fail etc. However with my above suggestion you circumvent this by having a standard, well for chaos reavers, class of raider that just have a daemon-cogitator controlling. Think like Hal from 2001 but even more evil

Right, the ship will be occupiable by the PCS and others. It will just be currently abandoned and not really need morale since the daemon can handle most tasks (With PC help of course).

For space combat, what are good actions the players can do to participate in the battle?

SneakySly said:

Do you have access to a copy of Rogue Trader? These sorts of actions are covered in depth in there. Otherwise read the sample uses for skills in the skills section of black crusade - quite a few mention starships, the rest you can extrapolate.

I have RT, I was thinking of daemon ship specific ones. AKA something novel. Sorry I should have been more specific.

A good place to start looking would be in the Rogue Trader supplements. 'Edge of the Abyss' has fluff on the Saynay Clan, Chaos Sorcerers and Reaver Pirates. There are rules for the ship Promise of Sedition, though they could be turned into Supplemental Components:
* Reaver Crew - hardened heretics are ferocious in hth (+10 on all boarding actions)

*They Carry the Tempest - a miniature warp storm disrupts the Willpower and Psyniscience (-10 to tests withing 5 VU)

The best source is BF. Here's a quick list:
Bizarre Geometries
Corrupted Shrine
Nurgle's Rot
Plagueship
Scartix Coil
Soul Cages
Slave Holds
Teeming Hordes

Finally, in Black Crusade there are bizarre ships, like Q'sal Golden Ships, which rely on the powerful warp currents that spill into reality to sail through Voidspace.

Nik! Nöd lese da!

I am so stealing this idea. I will run it by my palyers this evening. I would crash them on a planet in the screaming vortex, where they will somehow find "the mountains of doom" which hold the secret of power. Other warbands will be competing against them. Turns out that the mountain itself is the actual crashed demon ship. the first half of the campaign they will have to fix it to make it airborne again. massiv sacrifices, occult items will be needed. plus they have to defend their price against other chaos worshippers and maybe even the empire.

An idea: the daemon bound inside the ship has the ability to opperate the whole vessle without a crew, but it doesn't have the inclination to take orders from the PCs. Every time they need to get the ship to take them from Point A to Point B, they have to bribe the daemon with large numbers of human sacrifices...

I really like this idea, also the first encounter with the ship could be like the movie event horizon, where the PC's are being messed with by the daemon and in the end PC's come to a pact with it.