So I’ve got a game coming up in Dark Heresy with a bunch of new guys and I’m getting a one-meeting adventure ready for them as we don't play very often, about 2-3 times every six months. As such I have seven different scenarios ready to use and I think that each one of them could hold some potential but I’m hoping to get some perspectives and hopefully some thoughts about them, and perhaps even a recommendation of which one to run with a band of fresh Acolytes thrown straight into the grinder for the glory of the Emperor. I have yet to flesh out any of them as I don't want to make work that will turn out in the end to have been wasted if the adventure isn't beingrun.

First in the description comes a name and short introduction to the adventure and after that some of my thoughts about it.

EDITED: And sorry for the crappy English.

1. Investigate a Adeptus Mechanicus space station: A space station belonging to the Adeptus Mechanicus has grown silent and apparently not responded to any attempt to call it. The priesthood of Mars has dispatched an investigation but before that arrives the Inquisitor would like to take a look around that station and see what’s been going on there. For the task there’s a batch of freshly recruited Acolytes ready.

– This one would be mostly inspired by Dead Space games and the Alien movies with a Sci-Fi horror stuff aboard the silent station. I haven’t decided what it is really about but a few ideas I’ve been throwing around is that it was attack by a cabal of hereteks or some weaker form of Abominational Intelligence that got lose from some artifact that was kept there and which turned the station against the personal there and used reprogrammed servitors to murder every living biological thing it could find. I suspect it won’t be very combat oriented but rather more puzzle-stuff and finding the solution to it.

2. Hunt down a wyrd: There’s a rogue psyker who has been selling his talents to various criminal elements on a planet and the Inquisitor has pinned his location down well enough to dispatch a group of Acolytes to take him down.

– It will probably be a bit of Film Noir with gangsters and such and the psyker in the middle as he works his way to become the new crime boss of the city and I can see a lot of fire fights and stuff in the fashion of some traditional mafia movies as the brave Acolytes clear the town. I kind of expect that this will be very combat heavy and even though the players may go for stealth my experience with them tells me it’s more likely to end up with them storming in with guns blazing in the end of it.

3. Investigate a rising Imperial Cult for any signs of heresy within it: On a planet where the characters happens to be there’s a new cult dedicated to the God-Emperor that is rising rather fast. This has caused tensions and the Inquisitor has sent a band of Acolytes to investigate in order to find out if there’s anything to worry about with this new cult. – I’m thinking that there won’t be anything really heretical about this new cult but that it may be that it has some links to criminal activity and that there are some corrupted (non-Chaos corruption that is) priests within the Ecclesiarchy who have decided to try and frame the cult to protect the staus quo.

– This will probably not be all that much of a fighting way as none have secrets to keep that are that important and absolutely none of the ones involved would even think about raising arms against the Holy Inquisition. Making evidence disappear, lying, misinforming etc. is of course something that they are all more than ready to do in order to advance their own interests.

4. Hunt down a anti-Imperial terrorist group: There’s a group of people who really and utterly despises the Imperium and holds it responsible for hurting them in one way or another. But due to the nature of this group the Inquisitor has decided that their destruction can’t be left to the hands of non-Inquisitorial forces and instead a band of Acolytes is sent to clear it up.

– I expect this to be pretty much a game with a beginning with a lot of investigation to figure out where the cell is either located or where they’re going next and after this is done it will turn into a brutal fight with the Acolytes against the terrorists. What the nature of the group is that makes it unwise to send standard law enforcement to hunt them down is something that I have not decided but I’m thinking that the group may be lead by a former Acolyte of the Inquisitor who through his service to the Imperium has come to hate it so much that he desires nothing more than to hurt the Imperium as much as he possibly can.

5. Apprehend a Xeno-savant: The Inquisitor has somewhat located a troublesome xeno-savant involved with the Cold Trade and most importantly spreading the heresy of xenophilia on this planet and he needs to be taken out. Due to his involvement with both local xenophiles and the Cold Trade the Inquisitor wishes the Xeno-savant to be taken alive if at all possible so that the information he possesses can be uncovered by the Inquisitor for further actions.

– This will also probably start with an investigation or perhaps more likely just have some preparation before they move to the fight with the Xeno-savant in his estate where they can move in through various means. It may not necessarily be a combat feast but it will most likely be more focus on physical action than not since they already have the target’s identity.

6. Strange events on a frontier world: There’s a newly colonized world which has only so far a few thousand human inhabitants because the process of moving people there was stopped due to strange events occurring with humans going mad and horrifically mutilate themselves or others in screaming madness. The Acolytes are sent there to find out what’s going on and make a report to take back to the Inquisitor after they’re picked up at the space port.

– This will have some good opportunity for combat but it will mostly be investigation to find out what’s going on. What is going on is that there is a calling from beneath the group from some xenos ruins that calls to humans and drives them mad in an attempt to re-construct their, or others’, bodies and rebuild the town to the forms they are made aware of by the alien-sent dreams and illusions. The players will only have a limited amount of time before their minds also starts to break down and they must, if they want to finish the mission, find out where this is coming from and if they want try to make something about it. Most likely this is coming from the remains of a xenos species most likely extinct and will have a pretty clear Lovecraftian element over it. It will be a bit more, I hope, adventure style over it as the xenos ruins won’t be concealed and the players will likely make a connection to them fairly fast.

7. Cult of Warp-dabblers: In the slums of a city a group of fatalistic and downtrodden bums have wondered upon something terribly enticing – a warp tainted item hidden and lost by a cult and obviously they must be stopped before they spread the taint of Chaos further, and for that the Inquisitor dispatches a team of Acolytes to clear things up and confiscate or destroy the item in question.

– This will probably be a rather combat hard mission as it pits the Acolytes against a group of determined people who may lack for skills and items but for the first time in their lives have something else than despair and the normal human self-destruction to rely on. Becoming tainted by the Powers of Chaos will obviously be even worse for them in the long run but its far from how it looks to them and they are gaining followers fast from the downtrodden of Imperial Society. The Inquisitor knows that if the local PDF would handle things they could also be corrupted and the instance could be used to justify an outright massacre “just be sure” in the city’s slums and thus he sends his Acolytes down. I’m thinking of ending it by having the cult summon some minor form of daemon into the world which once here will indiscriminately attack more or less anything in range until its taken down. The item itself I have given little thought and an outright idol seems to obvious but I’m pretty open to ideas.

Hi Gurkhal,

besides "Mechanicus Station" and "Xeno-Savant" I fear you might have trouble running these (otherwise totally good!) Scenarios unless you and your group a very experienced in running games that are only lasting one session.

Everything that involves more then the most basic investigation and more then on REAL fight (not taking into account combat encounters the PC can finish within 3 rounds) will take far longer than just one session.

In short, everything that allows dialog and in-game conversation will consume time. The more "full fledge NPc" (i.e. those that are interesting and made for actual interaction) the longer it will take. The more investigations their is, the more it is likely that the PC will actually "talk" to somebody.

This can be limited somewhat if Players & GM agree that every in-game conversation is not "fully played out" but summorized. Which is sacrificing a bit of what makes an RPG an RPG. But if you are very limited in time, one has to make some sacrifices.

My 2 cents

Gregorius21778 said:

Yeah you probably right that most of them would require more than one meeting to play through unless it would be made in a very shoddy way. I'm still waiting for some respons on these ideas from my brother who I kind if use to (this is a Swedish term and so might not make alot of sense in English) play ball with ideas with. But from your input I'm thinking of making it into an investigation for an "abandoned" Space Station as a good Sci-Fi horror scenario feels right up Dark Heresy's alley.

@The damaged Mechanicus Station
Okay, so what was going on...

What if the Mechanicus Station set up to was set up near a moon or planet where some remains of a pre-imperial civilization was found? The goal of the Mechanicus could have been to study and catalog the Tech found their.

So...what if this Technology was unwholesome to begin with? Making use of the warp? The world/moon could have been home to an isolated human group that looked after their own after the dark age of technology and turned to warp-spawned technology? Some the Tech-Priest could have grown mad upon the research. All the damage could be from the Tech-Priests having turned on one another.

If you own CA you could introduce Bronzen Malifects and even a Logis Daemonis the remaining maddend Tech-Priest try to set into existence.

Gregorius21778 said:

I think its a pretty cool idea to have Adeptus Mechanicus pick up some not very good technology and that it went all to hell. Kind of cliché in some ways but I could see that working. While a Bronzen Malifect or a Logis Daemonis would be cool I'm a bit afraid that it would be to dangerous for my band of Acolytes to tackle. Therefore I think that it will probably be some plot device and have a mad Tech-Priest being the main obsticle.

A scenario that I've been thinking a little about is that the Tech-Priest finds some kind of forbidden technology that he became fascinated by. I think that I will try to keep it mysterious but that it was built according to designs that left the Tech-Priests bewildered and in some way became an obsession for this Tech-Priest so that in the end he lead a band to suprise the others on the station and kill them, and over the course of the following time he has killed off most of the survivors so that he can keep the item all for himself to study. This is a basic concept I'm throwing out.

The question is of course if in the end the technology is either alien or pre-Imperium in nature. If pre-Imperium then yes, some kind of warp-tainted could be cool, but I'd have to be careful not to overdo it and make it another "its Chaos as usual that is behind it" scenario.

What Rank will the PC be? A malifect is actually not THAT dangerous. Especially if the group contains more then 3 PC.

If you think that the Malifect is to strong...disarm it! If the kybernetic arms it was made up are...just regular limbs their will be no blade & stuff and the bugger would really have to go and strangle a PC. Enough time & possibility to do something to get it OFF said char Where was this bulkhead-cutter again?

Gregorius21778 said:

Well we're talking about level 1 Acolytes so I don't want to throw them into water that's to deep, yet. A defanged Malifect could work defininetly, I'll have to check into that. After all there's nothing saying that the Malifect that was taken to the station wasn't damage or something when it got there.

Alright, I've now played the adventure and it went pretty well. Not very well due to me having not have time to make proper preperations but they seem to have enjoyed themselves and so I think we all had a good time.

There were many modifications to the origional design and I made some stuff up on the spot but in all it went well enough. Thanks Greg for the help.