We had a game session tonight and recently finished it. Initially i had intended for the PCs to reach their destination planet along with the IG Regiment currently onboard for a planetside warzone investigation...thanks to what began as a players amusingly harlmess ( but odd ) behavior ( The PC was a feral world guardsman ) who had a interest in learning every nook and cranny in the ship and so took most of his spare time exploring the ship each day if not otherwise engaged in duties ( he swiped some of his buddies weaponblack tubes from the armoury where his fellow PC is one of the armourers while they were fitting and preparing his custom carapace armour ) and using it to make "dots" like breadcrumbs to find his way around each section of the ship as he learned his way around after randomly getting lost in beginning of voyage. He concealed fact that hed taken the weaponblack or that it was him making the marks..after a few weeks of the excursions he got bored and decided to start putting the "dots" on the servitors that were cleaning them off the walls and bulkheads. When the servitors got back to station the tech priests noticed the "dots" ( one on each servitor assigned the sections cleaning details ) and they began looking into it.
After testing the "dots" for composition etc..they went to see the armoury..and the other player to discuss what was going on. Once he was notified the Armoury PC locked down the remaining weaponblack and coordinated with the other armourers and conducted a full inventory. once done it was realized that they were missing several containers of it. The ship arbites were notified and basic investigation commenced along with the assistance of the tech priests since they did not enjoy their servitors or the ships corridors "dotted". Once it was brought to the attention of the cell team leader things began to get ...odd....The armour PC started connecting the "dots" with all the given information he gleened from searching the armoury and all info the tech priests could give him ( a few months worth of seemingly random unusual events prior to and since the beginning of the "dots" appearance onboard the ship. And naturally..being a cautious and paranoid PC ( there were a few minor incursions of warp entities on ship earlier in the voyage as well as cult activity that ended in a bloody battle for control of ship ) The conclusion was that a potential cult presence was onboard and trying to subtly map out the ship ( all activity with the dots was confined to the lesser/disused sections of the ship ) So the team leader wound up ordering a full sweep and investigation/purge of the activity from the ship by request of the Captain once he was appraised of it all.
And..since the investigation was taking so long..after almost 2wks..it was time for a random encounter check ( ship encounters file from dark reign site ) and wouldnt you know it...they rolled Ghost ship ( 96% ) and then a 4 on the particular ( Fydae strain outbreak )..Which only served to reinforce the idea of a serious cult presence onboard...and killing over 100 crew and serving to give the PCs alot of fighting ( 5 levels in the section floor by floor room by room full sweep and clean search including damaged-out lighting sections and messed up lifts and doorways etc from the fierce fighting the crew put up from it..there were a few survivors from the crew in that area and the PC did get surprised a few times by the zombies being right on the other side of a door waiting to jump out and try to maul the PCs..one PC even got a IP for the events due to having a rather large zombie launching out of the doorway in front of him and having the tech priest blast it point blank with a full lumien charge shot subsequently killing it and immolating it at same time..a freightening picture right up in your face..lol )
Only my players could turn a totally harmless way to avoid getting lost repeatedly into a full shipwide Inquisitorial cult purge and delay the entire mission of a IG regiment ( due to fydae strain being too virulent to allow off the ship onto planet so the ship kept station at edge of system till the purge was completed once it was made known the strain was onboard ) thanks to ONE player wanting to be harmlessly mischievious..and another one having bad luck with dice rolls and connecting "dots" into a pattern that never existed..lol
But hey...they got levelled up for it due to their (1) playing in character very well the whole time (2) killing over 100 of the zombies by end of it all (3) coming up with creative and workable ideas on how to deal with the situations (4) the comic relief value of things they did and (5) successfully competing the given assignment of prosecuting the purge of the fydae strain virus and all infected from the ship in a timely fashion ( once it was found )
Figured id share this amusing session for you all..lord knows that i had my face-palm reaction going when i saw where the players choices and random dice rolls had things headed...lol Hope you enjoy the scenario..lol