I'm preparing my first Dark Heresy game, and I figured I'd use the forum as a sounding board. Basically, I'll write most of my 'game note' here and if you guys feel like reading and adding stuff (basically, as the title implies, help me brainstorm), you're more than welcome.

I did this when I ran my Deathwatch game, and it ended giving me many great ideas, so hopefully it works well here too

Cult of Freedom

Lord Kharsi used to be human. But that was long ago. He made pacts with the ruinous powers for immortality. In exchange, he serves the Dark Prince of desire as a willing pawn.

Kharsi believes that deep within every human there is a desire for freedom and that freedom eventually leads to excess. He has read extensively on the ages of old, even time before the golden age of humanity and firmly believes that if you give the people freedom, they will doom themselves.

As such, he has been planting the seed of freedom on several imperial worlds. His cults work insidious and slowly, changing the morale and opinion of the little folks and working class, from hive ganger to manufactorum worker – this process is slow and can take centuries. They bring ideas that are heresy to the Imperial Creed – personal freedom, democracy and equal rights.They at first masquarade as part of the Imperial Creed... but once they become entrenched and present enough that subterfuge become less necessary, they quickly drop the pretense.

The people first approached by this are the low class and the idea presented forth are sweet indeed to them. Many join the cults and start working toward the common goal of overthrowing their planetary government, some even dreaming in their madness of taken their ideals to Holy Terra herself.

As the cult progress into their madness, they break the imperial creed in many ways and eventually start to debase themselves with vile debauchery – for who is to tell a free man what he cannot do? The higher echelon of the cults is eventually initiated to the secret of the Dark Prince and everything that their cult do is in his name and in the name of their spiritual leader, Kharsi.

The cults have rarely been successful in completing their ultimate goal. They always stir trouble to various degrees and remain around the planet for hundreds of years, converting and subverting, but usually when the more aggressive part of a takeover process is called for, they get crushed by the might of the Imperium in one way or another. In one case however, the cult became so entrenched and vast that it totally paralyzed the planet in internal strife… until some cultist managed to get in contact with traitor marines, who saw the world as ripe for plunder. The world burned and Kharsi smiled.

As of now, the Inquisition is not aware that those ‘freedom based Slanesh Cults’ are all part of the hydra that is Kharsi.

Parabell, a Hive World, is faced with the threat of subversion from one of Kharsi’s cult. Inquisitor Drogon had already sent a lone agent to investigate… however, he has gone missing (presumed dead) in a riot. This has the Inquisitor on edge, but he has more pressing matter to attend to and while it seems too much of a coincidence to lose an agent in a ‘riot’, he has no real proof that chaotic event caused the disappearance… he doesn’t know for sure if this a job for the Inquisition of for the Arbitres yet. He now send a team of investigator (the pc) to get to the bottom of things.

Note: Kharsi will most likely become a recurring villain. I haven’t decided if he will make an appearance or only be hinted at. The 'chronicle's' main objective will be to find the missing Inquisitorial Agent as well as dismantle the Cult’s hold on the Hive World.

Kharsi’s idea of freedom and democracy are obviously something that will resonate with most of my players (In fact, if it weren’t for the whole slanesh thing, you could easily think of him as the good guy and the Imperium as the evil empire) and that’s the idea – a few of my players have a bit of a hard time with how oppressive and dark age-like the Imperium is, this is me messing with them. The inspiration for this is largely from the Caiphas Cain novel where he has to deal with Tau presence on Gravalax... The Tau stayed on an Imperial planet for hundred of years and slowly imperial citizen came to see them as neighbor and even friend... and eventually as a better alternative to the Imperium. Even the architecture of new building started to be Tau inspired. In a way, this is how the Cult of Freedom operate... but with a much darker motive.

I like the idea of an 'appealing' cult. I'd change the leader to be a Tzeentch cultist, however, as Tzeentch with its 'freedom of thought' and 'pursuit of wisdom and knowledge'-agenda seems more suitable for a freedom cult to me. After all, his greater deamons are the Lords of Change, and change has become a byword for democratic tendencies in our world.

Slaanesh - in my humble opinion - is rather focused on the individual, without any regard to society apart from regarding it as playground. Slaanesh stands for hedonism, for dominance and submission.

Hey!

I agree with the Avengers, and Iike the idea very much. If you'd like to make it even more "Gray", the cult leader himself could be unaware of Tzentch's true agenda, believing himself to be doing the right thing for the right reasons.

Granted, at this point, were going a bit further away from your original idea which I believe is Freedom for man to do what he wants. In truth, the Cult could be a cult of Chaos united. Which would add confusion as the players don't know who to blame anymore. At the top is a lord of Change and the cult leader- perhaps the former has convinced the latter he is a Keeper of Secrets to play on his hedonism, but between the both of us- Tzentch caters to as many power-hungry individuals as Slanesh.

I didn't think about making it a Tzeentch thing to be honest... Slaanesh was just the first thing that came to mind.

The idea being that 'freedom' is a getaway to hedonism and self-gratification... if you're free, you can do what you want, so do what you like. Take it to the excess. There's also the alluring charm of freedom to people who are essentially indentured servants from birth to death.

Than again... there's definitly something to be said about the goal of the cult, to change the system, the very way the world work... so change is definitely key.

I don't know, I'm afraid this may fall to close to the 'Everything is about change when it really comes down to it' that follows Tzeentch around (Blood and Slaughter? Well, that's a change from health and alive. Decay and Entropy? It's a change from growth and healthyness... ans so forth).

I'll consider it tho, could make for interesting cultists down the road, as the whole slaanesh cultist is a bit played out.