Dear fellow GMs.

I desperately need your advice on how to proceed with an adventure of mine. My group is in the midst of an investigation on the (in my campaign) ice-world of Cyclopea. It takes place in the only bigger settlement on the planet – the ancient domed (hive-)city called Drustos (20 million inhabitants on four major levels).

The group was sent there by their Inquisitor to look for the arch-heretic Castus.

Castus is a 150 years old scientist and chirurgeon who made a Dark Pact with Balphomael – a Pact of Survival. For this Pact of Survival he had to create a sacrificial cup which must be filled with the blood of a sacrificed son and his mother every 15 years. This gives him 15 years of unaging life. However, should this chain be broken, he will die when his years are up (and his soul will be consumed by Balphomael). The cup (which has no recognizable warp signature by itself) created must be used for all the sacrifices; failure to do so also breaks the Pact.

Castus is actually not in league with the Brotherhood of the Horned Darkness, even though they are on his heels and he once fled their captivity. Instead he was shortly allied to a seperatist faction in The Periphery for a time and was in charge of a small asteroid base there. He was obsessed with finding an alternative to the ritual of Balphomael and a way of maintaining his life without recourse to the bargain. Castus had an almost unparalleled opportunity to experiment on real living people.

The Inquisition acolyte Solomon sent undercover to the base nearly died in one of Castus experiments. He suffered from several of Castus rituals and experiments on body tolerances. He also witnessed the after effects of the ritual of Balphomael and saw how reverently the cup was treated. His mind was nearly broken by his experiences and he would have died, if it had not been for another captured Inquisition acolyte called Thaddius. Together they kept themselves alive in the hellhole of the asteroid base.

However Castus' reign came to a dramatic end when the Imperial Navy grand cruiser Reliant dropped into the solar system and attacked the base. During the confusion and chaos of the assault many of the stronger prisoners, led by Thaddius and Solomon, revolted against the prison guards. In the noisy chaos of that battle Castus tried to hide in his secure temple. However the prisoners tracked him down and he was mortality wounded by Solomon. As consciousness left Castus, he saw Thaddius lift the cup from the altar. However the flow of the battle changed and Thaddius and Solomon were swept away by the tide of fighting men. Some of Castus' cronies pulled him out, raced to the space dock and fled.

During the clean up, and treatment of the freed prisoners, the boarding parties were horrified at some of the discoveries they made. The Inquisition soon took over the running of the base and recovered as much data from the damaged cogitator units as they could. The freed prisoners were dispersed, and once the base had been stripped of all useful materials it was completely destroyed from orbit. Thaddius, however, hid the cup from the Inquisition as he was strangely drawn to it. He was fascinated by it strange warmth and faint murmurings that he only seemed able to hear. He ignored Solomon pleading advice to destroy it.

Thaddius and Solomon were soon afterwards retired from their service for the Inquisition and while Thaddius took a job working on the asteroid belt that surrounded the gas giant on the edge of the Cyclopea system (working his way up to a senior techgineer - his drive and natural intelligence making him a useful resource for the mining company he works with), Solomon, his mind wracked by his exposure to the warp, became a reclusive alcoholic who could barely hold his own small repair business running.

So, my party is sent to Cyclopea to make contact with Solomon and check whether he can be of help regarding Castus. The party all have fake Magistratum IDs that identify them internally as special agents of the Magistartum/Administratum. When they make planetfall they soon discover Solomon being violently killed and his spine missing (he was tortured and killed by Castus who is desprately trying to get hold of his cup as the 15 years are almost at an end - and the spine was consumed by a daemonic entity summoned by Castus). To make a long story short, the PCs make contact with Thaddius (who is about to make the very same Dark Pact with Balphomael), whose wife and son (ie. the potential sacrifices) are shortly afterwards kidnapped by Castus. The players located Castus' base in a huge evaporator chamber region downhive where he deluded a local gang into the worship of Balphomael and where he hides the family of Thaddius. Together with a Regulator squad of the local Magistratum and Thaddius (quite desperate to get his potential sacrifices back – even though he could set up a new family), they confront Castus in his base. Castus wants the cup, Thaddius wants his family and the PC's want a dead Castus. In the end a desperate Thaddius secretly uses his Psyker power Compel on a ganger to start a gunfight with the Regulator squad. The PC's storm the base and after a violent shootout (our Psyker lost an eye and a fate point) most of the gang is dead, but Castus sommons the daemonic entity again (using the spine of the gang leader) and all hell is breaking loose. The PC's, already heavily wounded fare very bad against the bizzare and powerful daemon, but while about to flee the base remeber they saw explosives lining the rear wall and start shooting at them (-20 BS called shot). While the Arbitrator and the Assassin miss with their Carnodon and Autogun, the Tech-Priest hits home with his Lasgun. The following detonation (causing 5D10 X damage in process) destroys the whole evaporator chamber (causing a minor hive quake thereby) as well as the daemon, all surviving gangers, all Regulators, the hostages (ie. the potential sacrifices), but neither Thaddius nor the PC's (they somehow did not even lost a fate point – but half of them is unconscious and the Guardsman lost all his armour in the process). Castus already fled with the help of the Psyker power Space slip during the shootout.

Now my question: How would you proceed?

Thaddius is really pissed losing his family and is hobbling away from the area (he actually hid the cup nearby after the Guardsman thought it would be wise to just drop it beneath some nearby debris during the gunfight – even though Thaddius already made his own cup just in case..). I actually wanted Thaddius to become the new major villain when I had the adventure in mind in the beginnig and I always thought Castus won't survive the adventure. Now Castus' plan was originally to leave the planet (with the cup) via a ship leaving the star base in orbit of the planet. But he did not got hold of the cup. So, what do you think might Castus be up to now? He is really despearate and erratic now. I also had in mind (should have Castus got hold of the cup) to let Castus being killed on the star base by a rival Inquisitor's acolyte (a black Priest of Maccabeus actually) just seconds before the PC's could get hold of him.

Thanks a lot for any feedback and help regarding this rather intricate and difficile status quo.

P.S.: One minor question: As I mentioned the rival Inquisitor's acolyte (ie. The Black Priest) might kill Castus on the space station. And while he has an Inquisitorial rosette with him, I do not want him to use it when the Navy security personnel (or Magistartum for that matter) rushes to the incident. Do you think it viable, that he identifies himself as an Ministorum operative and is therefore untouchable/unjusticiable by the Navy security or the Magistartum (as an Inquisition, Arbites or Commissarial operative certainly would be)?

H-H-Hm...

Castus is somewhat out of resources, right? And Thaddieus doesn´t have any, right? Not a good starting point to make a major villian. But hey...so it is.

How about the following:

1) Castus is desperate, he is out of luck, nearly insane and his time runs out. But his still might have a little left...and a little knowledge of another ritual or two. So, how about him using a strange ritual to ask a favour of a demonic entity in exchange for some souls... perhabs he could delude a group of bandits into raiding an isolated monestary? While the bandits are after the precious metal and gems the relics are made up, Castus only wants some minor pieces... and every brother, frater and priest executed at his command. For this, he will plan & lead the assault. A task he will be good at taking if his pact includes the "unnatural recovery". The "execution" will be done after him speaking some obscene prayers, turning it into a sacrifice. The sacrifice of two dozen souls and the desacretion of a holy place (the monestary that is "spoiled" by the slaughter). In turn, the demon entity might offer him "limited host", a demon taking over the body of one of the sacrificed brothers. Serving for a month with very limited powers. But able to track down the cup. Hell, pershabs the bandit are taken over by minor spirits so he can use them as his new guards and the monestary as his new headquarter? So, Castus is after the cup, again.

2)Thaddius changed his mind. He does not want an eternal life anymore. All he wants is revenge. Revenge on these acolythes he blames for the death of his familiy (of course, it is his own fault for dabbling with the warp, but his will ignore this out of his insane grief due to his final loss). The kidnapes a mother and her son and conducts the ritual. But instead of asking for a life eternal, he asks for the power to commit his wrath (like the DH Pact "Dark Powers"/Vengeance Pact). Baphomel agrees, but with another penality. For this power, he first has to use it slay a specific target. Perhabs the local cardinal, a certain noble or something. He has to achieve till the next night of the new moon and his has to drink the targets blood from the cup. The power comes in form of a demonic possesion, by the way. The posession is not final, and it is a weaker form. But the demon is able to "wrest control" from Thaddius and after the pact is really signed, he will even more be able to do so.

How it will play out
The pc will become notice of a major attack on [targets] main residence. While the attacker managed to kill all the guards and vanquish the securtiy, the attack was fruitless: unknown to the masses, the residence was empty. [The target] resides in a special residence at the moment. Outside of the doom, in a place built above seasonel hot springs where he..."enjoys him self". With his family with him; his wife and daugther. (make this as much or less depraved as you like). A fact Thaddius now knows. A scared-to-death household member told him...and was spared for it. Perhabs the pc want to execute him now for betraying on his master & cooperating with a warp thing
The pc will likly believe that this is castus, and may want to follow him in his wake in order to stop him. Part of his demonic power is, that he is able the demon is able to consume the soulfire of the living to regain power/recover wounds. This process leaves a mindless husk insane, disorientated, unnatural and hatefull (read: some kind of zombie). So, while following him through ice and snow, the will not only have to fight "natural" obstacles, but some husks from time to time.

When they catch up on him (no matter if he reached the targets real residence or not) the pc will be up to major fight. A dramatic one. If they win it or are threatend to lose it, make Castus new host-ally appear. If the Thaddeus-Host is still allive, he will battle the (surely know wounded/damaged) Castus and take the cup from him. If Castus lost, he will fight off the pc in order to take the cup Thaddeus had with him. Make sure the pc notice the monks garment and tell him about the fact that something about the half burned aquila (or something else) was strange. This things eventually will (after some investigation!) tip the pc off to the new monastry. And the final confrontation with castus. If you do not plan him to have fled this place already so they can hunt him down another day. Which would be appropriate if the Thaddeus-Host (or the Castus Demon Minion) roughed them up so bad that they are in no form to battle within the next weeks.

A hint: Does not matter if they beat Thaddeus-Thing or vice verse: the fact that Castus Minion rushed in, grapped the cup and left laughing will make them HATE this thing and your players will properably want Castus so bad that they will be motivated for a long time...

Thanks for the helpful reply. While I really like your ideas, it assumes that both, Thaddius and Castus, are really on 'good terms' with Balphomael. But actually, I do not really want too much 'divine' (or unholy...) intervention by Balphomael. It is more like that they know one or two rituals (or pacts...) devoted to Balphomael, but not that they really communicate with it so that it grants their wishes.

Castus might be out of his resources at the moment, but Thaddius is a highly intelligent and well connected person.

It is important for me that the two villains are very different in their manners and behaviour; Thaddius is cool and dangerous, while Castus is now completely unstable, desperate and erratic.

Castus: Castus knows he is fully committed now. But then he knows his time is getting short as the Brothers of the Horned Darkness are closing in on him. He needs to get the cup and get off the planet as quickly as possible. He prepared a surprise for the acolytes. He instructed Mar (the gang leader) to wire the base with explosives and traps and also wired Thaddius' family with explosive devices. He had a hair trigger switch that he could have use to remotely detonate the devices.
Once having the cup, he planed to blow up the hideout, while escaping through the use of a Space Slip power. He believes that the acolytes will assume he is dead. He hid the box necessary for his escape on the orbital platform. From there he hopes to smuggle onto a ship or at least hijack one. He is quite insane and believes this plan may work. He has not considered much beyond getting the cup back. During the confusion of the gunfight with the gangers he actually killed Thaddius family and vanished to the orbital base.

Thaddius: Thaddius knew that if he would have gone alone into the hideout with the cup he would have been killed. So, he forestalled this (Castus wants revenge on Thaddius, but wants the cup more) and started the gunfight with the gangers with the help of the Compel power.
Thaddius, actually, had nothing to lose at this point, but he wanted the return of his sacrifices. He didn’t need Castus' cup, as he has his own ready for the ritual. He won’t break Castus cup, as Castus would not die instantly and may kill his sacrifices. However: If all else fails he can always get a new partner, and, hopefully a new family The longer this confrontation was delayed the longer Thaddius believed that the acolytes would make a leap of logic (how naive...) and could figure out his plans. He reasoned it is best to force a confrontation with the acolytes and Mar’s thugs. He was sure that the acolytes (+ the Enforcer) would outgun the thugs and that Castus may also be killed (taking any knowledge or clues of Balphomael). If he would have been lucky he would have recovered his family.

So, Thaddius indeed plays the grieving husband and father rather well after the explosion. Blaming the acolytes so just that they feel a little guilty and do not suspect Thaddius for being responsible in any way. In truth, Thaddius could not care less, as he has his own cup already and has the time to start a new family (for new sacrifices...) and perform the ritual.

Any more ideas and advices are highly appreciated.