I know my players will eat it up. We ran Broken Chains ... and one of those pregens went on paper when the Core book dropped at Gen Con. This provides continuity of a sort. I'm setting up Hand of Corruption by subtly editing the other adventures. We are in Rivals for Glory . One of the star maps the Liege had (they bargained for them by doing favors for Vycraft) will show where Saint Annard's Pennance once was. Essentially, there will be a planet-sized "Warp Shadow" with no world in evidence. A little digging will reveal the planet was there...now gone.

I have one player who will literally burst into flame when this fact is uncovered. False Prophets will promise more info, and finally they'll be off to find De Orbis Mysteriis . They might win the book in a card game, but they'll be lead to him (forget his name suddenly) by either Palmere Grath or someone in False Prophets . By the time we get to actually playing out of Hand of Corruption itself, they'll be out of their minds with joy over the idea of owning a whole planet.

Vycraft...I'm using him as a template for what my wife's character (an Apostate) will eventually be. The Shadow Leige controls a small patch of rainy little Sacgrave. She's already said he sets his sights too low. For all his weird power (I had him refer to things players had only told me..or referred to the heretek as "throwing off the Chains of Judgement" so that he appeared all-knowing) he's a Big Fish in a Very Little Pond. Next episode, the Psyker gets to see his future self.. then we start screwing with our group's Night Lord CSM. I've got other examples of where the PCs are heading, like the scene where Frodo looks at Gollum and realizes Gollum is a mirror... that's what I want.

The Heretek, Hephaestus Bore from Broken Chains , will see himself in Tech Priest Rebis... and try to avoid her fate. I've been using the word d oom a lot. Mostly as a sound effect. Even had a litte auspex that pinged a tinny-high-pitched "doom....doom...doom" when approaching the Deluge in Rivals . They know the worst is coming. They just don't know what it is.

When the Necrons do appear, the players won't be fighting for their treasure or mere Infamy. They'll be fighting for a world they've spent months working toward, dying for... they'll be fighting for their home. (or the closest thing this band of deviants can ever call home).

Frankly, I pity the Necrons.

How difficult would it be to convert HoC to RT, rather than moving the planet into the Screaming Vortex, instead putting it in a place of the Rogue Trader's choosing? I have a piratical group of Explorers, and I'm looking for their next challenge after going through Lure of the Expanse.

Jephkay said:

Don't. Those **** party-crashers deserve everything that's coming to them.

Teneb said:

You could do it without too much effort.

The ritual can pull the planet to wherever you the GM want it to go. Maybe tweak the ritual to be less blood and bit chaosy if you felt like it. Or make the planet a bit chaosy or unaligned or whatever to help them justify their actions if needed.

@Teneb

Meh. A psychic ritual of that scale IMO reeks of Chaos (or Eldar). Any other faction being capable of using it without massively getting pushed towards Chaos would in my opinion do a disservice to the setting.

Jephkay said:

I just finished Broken Chains with my group last night. We took most of the tangents and made the adventure last 2 sessions. We didn't use the pregen characters, but luckily the heretics my group made had the right skills to get through the adventure. I chose Broken Chains because I thought it was well written and gives a great starting point. I wanted to avoid the classic D & D campaign starting point:

"Ummm... An elf, a wizard, a ranger, and a druid just all happen to walk into a tavern. Go say hi to one another... "

Broken Chains has a great starting point, and a perfect ending point. But now where do I go? Hand of Corruption should be arriving in the mail any day, so can I jump right in? From this thread, it looks like it might be better to hit the adventure with some heretics that have more advancements.

Would you guys recommend I run a few more sessions and get through RIvals for Glory and/or False Prophets first?

Haven't run the Hand of Corruption myself, so can't really put forward first-hand experience and pointers, but here's some rambling for you anyway.

I think the general consensus is that Hand of Corruption is indeed slightly more on the high-powered end of the spectrum than not. This in mind, I'd run something before jumping right in there, to give the Heretics more time to develop. Of course, the time spent actually going through Hand of Corruption is going to be a factor in how much experience they rack up before things start to get sticky.

I felt much the same about Broken Chains as you did, Dryad. Slogged through Rivals for Glory afterwards, it's alright. I think the main good thing to come out of Rivals for Glory and False Prophets is that they underline some aspects of the way Chaos-influenced societies work. Mainly in that violence, betrayal and being the biggest badass around are all good and acceptable ways to express oneself. That is, if the players aren't particularily familiar with the Warhammer 40,000 setting, and Chaos in particular. If they are, well, these two would seem to be alright as some sort of warm-up before hitting the actual player-designed compacts.

just read the adventure. pretty complex. but there is one looming question:

how the hell should a group after chapter 1 and 2 come even remotley close to finishing chapter 3? the shard alone is a guaranteed groupwhipe.

I know that I would probably remove the Necrons entirely and either have them wake up in the future for another dramatic plot or just say that they were never there.

The group breaks its ass off kidnapping and torturing the 4 main power players on the planet, then sacrifices them in hours-long ritual at the top of an Arbiter compound. This launches the planet into the Screaming Vortex. Awesome, but monstrously difficult for a typical group to pull off.

This should be a seasoned group with several thousand XP under its belt. Running Broken Chains, the GM Helper's Tyrant's Cord thing and another mission or two would totally be a smart thing to do. I would not put this up against a fresh group.

Secondly, I HATE the necrons. It is such a let down to break your ass for 90+ pages of adventuring and then go
"The planet has a 100 million crazy-difficult combat monsters on it, el oh el!"

The last 30 pages feels like a trolling and a lazy way out. The first 90 pages are pretty sweet.

I think not one of the NPCs except the shard is able to even damage our nurgle space marine...

I would personally draw out the Necron part of the adventure so that it give the Heretics time to build up their forces and resources turn it in to a full blown war, giving them chance to discover a way to end the Necron threat.