"Only in the corruptions of decay can we return to purify from which life sprang."

Burning Octavian

(all pc's start not being able to see and have hoods over their heads and hands are bound behind them).

The planet of Octavian V once was a healthy green and blue pearl in the midst of the Jericho Reach, but with the shadow that swallows anything that the light of the Imperium cannot sustain, she burns, all life snuffed out, all things crushed and put to the pyres of destruction.....those lucky enough were slain on the planet they were raised from, fought for, and at the end, spilt their blood into her soil as she was raped of her resources. Noone heard the calls of help, no divine being swooping down to stop the invaders....all there is now is damnation and survival...

"You are all forsaken in the eyes of your false god. This fragile world you clung to now BURNS in the glory of Chaos!! you are damned, forgotten, fodder thrown into an inferno while your "leaders" fled to survive in luxury".

There is heavy steps heard pacing from somewhere infront of you, they stop almost in mid stride with a sudden outburst of someone to your right "YOU TRAITOR DOG! THE EMPEROR WILL ALWAYS WATCH OVER THOSE WHO SERVE HIM LOYALLY!!!"

A gruff chuckle and almost a smooth silky "So.......you still wish to cling to a corpse god even as death comes so close to feast upon your worthless soul??? Here....I will give your "god king" a chance to save your sooul before it is lost to the warp"...The footsteps close with where the voice of the bold underdog more than likely was.

"well???......I do not see any "savior" come to whisk you away from the whims of the TRUE Gods. Those of Chaos...No? It looks as though he has forgotten youre pathetic planet AND a worm like you!!! Why would you matter at all? hmm? Let Chaos embrace you in the damnation and oblivion that will consume all".

There is blood wrenching screams from a woman, something metal sliding across bone, more screaming. (the kind that would tell you "HOLY SHEET HES KILLING HER WITH AN AXE!!!...yea thats the one.) This is followed ripping, flesh departing from sinew and meat violently and wet splat noises as gobbets of tissue hit the metal floor and finally a THUMP that sounds dangerously like something wetted in syrup landing close by.

"Does anyone still think that your "god emperor" is going to come save you?"......There is only silence and some whimpers for a response from around you.

"You are no more part of the imperium that used you up and then allowed you to be cast aside like filth. Now you are servants, at the mercy of Ruinous Powers, no, now you will serve Lord Voldorius and the Legion. Either through your dedicated servitude and growth, or through your failure and death you shall indeed serve Chaos...".

Rough armored hands grab you by the back of the neck and hoist you to your feet, for the first time you notice the shackles around your ankles with them clanking slightly with each step. Theres no other noise save for the soft foot steps of those bound to you trudging in unison and the heavy thumps of your guards.

Finally after several minutes of forced marching you stop after bumping into the person infront of you. Metal hands unlock your restraints and shove you bodily forwards. With a few protests to your landing on other bodies. You immediately reach up to pull the dirty canvas hood off your head and blink at the dull metal walls, and barely lit glowglobes, the bare room filled with perhaps 50 prisoners or so....you notice a small group near the edge of the double sliding doors that appear to be the only access to this cell. As you walk towards them an itching voice at the back of your brain warns you "stay away, they are coming to cleanse you all of the imperial lies". Looking around you see noone behind you whispering in your ear, with a wary shake of the head you huddle down close to the dozen or so gathered by the door.

Within seconds of you getting as comfortable as a metal floor can offer, the doors hiss and slide open, a group of gas-hood wearing soldiers line the opening, armed with various weapons. With a muffled order from the leader they raise guns to shoulders and before a single scream or warning can be given they begin the culling. bodies cramming away from the attackers, almost animal like in the vain attempts to escape the slaughter. you stay low but keep the others infront of you, one manby you falling over as an autogun shell explodes the back of his skull, brainmatter and bone chips paint the wall behind him. In a almost surreal daze you wipe your face, fingers red with a strangers blood. How did things come to this????? to be damned to this fate where the only sin committed was being alive and on this planet???

You look up as some of the people in your collective group slip closer to the soldiers as they casually stroll forwards from the doorway gunning anything down that moves. they seem to have overlooked anything right by the doors, their focus on the mass of terrified slaves towards the far wall. There is one zealot with a flamer that strays from the group, working his way towards you with his head turned. One of your fellows kicks out, striking the side of his knee with enough force to make the popping noise heard over the gunfire and clink clink clink clink of empty shells littering the floor. He bellows a muffled scream under his mask and drops, both hands going for his injured leg. Two others jump on him, beating at him with desperate fists and even biting him, anything to resist this mudering. the man that kicked the solder in the knee grabs up the flamer, looks it over and then rushes the other zealots, pressing the trigger within 10 feet of so of the other few soldiers and WHOOOOSH!!! douses them in the agonizing pain that lit promethium delivers to those unlucky enough to recieve its warmth. (allow dodges and grapple rolls if you want the players to actually involve themselves in this fight)

After the fight and searching the bodies, the group notices in dumb luck that the doors are still open. The hallway resembles that of a voidship (for those who would recognize it), but, different. A constant subtle buzzing noise seems to fill the passages, you can swear you thought you saw things out of the corners of your eyes and hear slight faded heretical words chipping away at your resolution....but you are never sure that you actually heard anything. To the right there is another muder squad entering another cell, the terror beginning anew to other unwitting souls. To the left are some servitors carrying supply crates towards the far end of the hall. With vengeance and bred hate some of those who armed themselves charge head long into the group of zealots, perhaps trying to make up for any sins against the emperor by saving another loyal follower. Various vain battle cries are yelled, and bullets ping off bulkheads as shots are exchanged at one another. To anyone with a touch of tactical knowhow, this is an obvious suicide fight without help, these loyalists grox entering the butcher stall. (horde mag. 30-40 zealots)

(note: the horde mag. is simply there incase someone asks, try to work the story to avoid this fight since I drew this simply as a "herding" tactic. "oh look big mob there with guns n knives....well, lets go left since theres not death waiting for us")

The hallway leading away from the battle opens to a well lighted area, open space something as an odd thing to see since being captured. With a glance over your shoulder you ponder....fight for a lost cause and join those fighters in death??? or embrace self preservation and servitude to fell powers???

Looking back to the opening of the new room that will possibly spell your "salvation", you see that it is some sort of warehouse, supply area. A gantry running the length of it to the far end of the large space. The bright flourescent tube lighting stings your eyes after such dark rooms and lack of usage. (-10aware/percep) There on the gantry is an armored giant his armor sort of purple and almost a glow hue like green sheen of....scales? , leaning down and watching you and your fellow heretics enter the room. He stands up and walks closer before addressing you his voice a sharp grating bark from the grill in his dragon shaped helmet.

"Enter slaves. You have forsaken your fellow dogs of the corpse god, I know you abandoned them to be cut down for their lack of faith, but then, only those who wish to gain power know that sometimes sacrifices must be made"....theres something drippingly sinister to his last words that make the hairs on your neck stand on edge, you can almost imagine a leering viperous grin spilling the hint of secret betrayals and backstabbing. "I am Nullus, leuitenant to your new master, Lord voldorius. You have no home, and only death awaits you. Serve loyally under our master and myself...and make your petty exhistance perhaps worthy of the Dark Gods".

Nullus then points to your group, "KNEEL before your master!...(-20 to resist WP Nullus' WP is 50, successful rolls result in armed zealots popping out from behind crates and machinery with guns aimed at whoevers standing till they obey).(also if the whole group obeys without coazing then they should get some sort of cookie at the end of the session, and they each gain 1 corruption for willfully casting off the light of the emperor)..Good. I can see that you all are ready to embrace and serve Chaos. Our Master has a task for you to test your fealty. There is a planetary govenor that needs dealt with before Lord Voldorius can fully take what is rightfully his. With him removed and the seeds of chaos planted this process will take significantly less time." He pauses, glaring down at each member before continueing. " I need not remind you slaves that trying to warn anyone of our plans will *chuckle* not only fail but....end with deamons feasting on your souls for eternity". Zealots emerge from behind the group, shadows cast off, and they grab the group members restraining them no sooner can you try to fight back than a shock maul meets each person, dropping them to the floor like chaff.

You awaken to find that you and the others in your group are in a barracks type room, no real aminaties(sea animamnemamennameeees HAHAHA sorry couldnt help myself) freshly branded marks still red, no real blistering but the pain still present. 8 pointed stars burned into chests, foreheads, and shoulders. On the left shoulder of each person has been burned a multi headed dragon....a hydra. Yes it would seem that indeed any hope of returning to the imperium and the Emperors grace has been all but snuffed out. Surely any imperial forces would shoot first and ask later...



So its getting late, This goes on to set the stage for the assualt on an imperial cargo ship and from there on to this planet to start paving the way for the warbands invasion. please lemme know what you think, some suggestions, and feel free to use this in any of your games.

It looks good overall.

It may be a bit challenging if you're a new GM. You seem to have anticipated many PC reactions ,but still, there's an awful lot they can do to throw you off your story. If you have a PC with a never say die attitude, it could be outright impossible to not end the scene with Nullus without bloodshed.

My advice is to make sure your players know roughly where you're going with this before you start the game. Some players may still be a problem if they're the contrarian sort (if they dare your NPCs to kill their character, my usual advice is to warn them OOC once, and then indulge their desire to make a new character if they persist). Overall, I'd make sure that everyone agrees that this is just an intro and their PCs are given a little latitude to act out of future character. To that end, introducing some description of a narcotic or psychic effect along the way to cause them to believe their willpower is compromised.

Be very careful though. This is a good scene for a movie, but those don't always translate into games. The classic example is a group of fantasy characters waylaid while traveling through a forest. The GM has planned out introducing their leader as a charismatic rebel rather than bandit, but the players immediately start hacking as soon as the first bow is pointed at them, bandits are bad guys, right? They end up killing Robin Hood before the adventure even begins!

What CorpseGod said. Planning, scenarii and anticipation are all well and good, but at some point or another, you will have to improvise. Instead of defining an overprecise script, try to define situations, characters and personnalities, and then act out what you feel your NPCs would do depending on the PCs' actions and reactions.

Other advice: when playing a commercial scenario, or one of your own that you wrote too precisely, do not ever try to follow it blindly, because you will find yourself hesitating, contradicting yourself or trying to steer the action towards the planned course of action, three very bad things when GMing. Why? Hesitating shows that you are not sure of what you are saying, and thus that it's not important, leading to metagaming; contradicting yourself, because it creates confusion, and confused players rarely remember the important details; and steering, because it is frustrating to the players, breaks the willing suspension of disbelief and is bad for the general mood.

So always improvise, and stick to what you think is cool on the spot instead of reading what is written in front of you, it generally makes for a better experience. Otherwise, if your players follow your lead (if only for this intro scene, because they rarely do otherwise), nice intro. Wiggle some room for existential doubt, angsting and resistance though, pause a little bit, describe the atmosphere longer, all the better to lead the players where you want to lead them. The problem here is that if one of your players tries to stand up to Nullus, the only logical next step is execution for the example. So, have a NPC join them, and get executed in their stead. That way they'll know they have no other possible choice.

Ah my hearty bucket O' davice Kobalt returns.=) Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas. (BTW- CORPSEGOD: yes some of the players have seen part of this and Ive explained this is basically supposed to be a fancy intro to their first actual mission where they will get to slay many things and start working on their real mission......the downfal of the Angels of Absolution Chapter. that is the end result, they thought it up cus I made them sit down and come up with a compact, I will probably have them re-sit down since one or two ppl didnt make the last meeting regarding that and I want everyone to have a fair say in this.

Yea I do tend to get pretty detailed with those "ideas" that start working their way into paper n pencil. But If I have a pretty good idea of how Id like to skeleton the story....and some (i think) pretty good ways of painting the scene for them how do I try to retain some measure of keeping them (somewhat) on the path without having to contradict myself and use a .3 second thought on how a certain NPC they encounter should act etc etc etc if they decide to just freelance or throw me for a loop??? in otherwards Kobalt n Corpse: how would YOU guys go about setting up a grand schemed series of missions like what my group (for now) has decided to undertake????? If you can get back to me in the next couple days that would be awsome since for now just as filler due to schedule conflicts and yours truly being sick, we got 3/4 of the way through the mission included in the GM kit. Think it was called : Grab for Glory or something like that.

Anyways Happy Holidays, stay safe an as usual, if you were on the naughty list then Karn will drop down your chimney tonight >.<

I'm not sure what the question is here, so I'll answer these two.

-You can't MAKE players do stuff is one thing I've learned (well, mine, at least). The easiest way to have them follow a certain pre-planned route is for them to be convinced its their own interest. To do that, take their backgrounds, look for what they want, and present working with Nullus and/or working toward the overarching goal as THE way to achieve their goal in the easiest way.

(You might add, as a supplemental motivation: he will hunt you down and kill you should you try to **** him, via the sorcerous brands, for example. To demonstrate that, use a NPC that fled to be killed when they first report to Nullus. Beware however, most PCs will take any chance to kill Nullus/replace him) .

That way, they will be all the more willing to do it themselves, rather than feel forced or guided, or worse, go completely off path into GM-uncharted territory. If they nevertheless do (they probably will), do not hesitate to tell them so, stop the game, prepare for the next one by rewriting a few scenarios, and start again. Finally, try to define all the major players in a given area, so you don't find yourself completely lost when they want to talk to "the obscura-baron of the lower-hive". If necessary, have a few "generic" NPCs without a specific location or occupation you can throw into any role or job you want at a moment's notice. A list of random names doesn't hurt.

-As for the structure: at first, let them be errand boys, but let them pick up on a few rumors and leads of their own. Then, as they gain more power and Infamy, Nullus will be satisfied with them, trust them a bit more and give them more leeway, setting them on larger schemes, giving them their own ship, and that's when the PCs can start planning for themselves, albeit with a large goal. This is generally very very impro-heavy, however. Finally, when they start reaching the peaks of power, have them define their goal, write to that end, which should be a lot more streamlined, and play it out. It can be destroying the Angels, striking a pact with Voldorius to take take Nullus' place, destroy another warband they hate, etc. But should be much more linear whatever they choose.

Good luck, and I don't mind Kharn, he's a pretty cool guy.

Even through my lack of really howing to ask the question you STILL come at me with informative suggestions and ideas. you get the extra extra chocolate chip chaos cookie for today Kobalt. Thanks tons, and well this will probably be an ongoing thing since you got a pretty good outlook on stuff.