Hello all!

So, even though you can keep your acolytes busy on a single planet for many, many sessions, space travel is an integral part of a Dark Heresy campaign which provides for a lot of fun situations.

Here's two such situations, one which I successfully ran several weeks ago and another I am going to be running in a few weeks.

Panic in the Enginarium:

Expanding on the Astral Specter hook from Creature anathema, the players find themselves aboard a ship that suffers trough a momentary lapse in its Gellar field long enough to allow for a specter to sneak aboard.

It slaughters its way trough the crew, butchering the tech-priests but leaving others horribly mutilated but alive as it hurries off to its target: the engine room.

The players chase after it and eventually find a trail of blood leading into the main control room. They walk inside, weapons ready, expecting a find and are surprised to find the three remaining tech-priest in a standoff, guns pointed at each other as they stand beneath the massive main control console. Each of them accuses the others of trying to sabotage it (shooting all three risks destroying the cogitator behind them!) but not all is what it seems: perceptive players notice that the tech-priest closest to the console has bloody fingers and broken fingernails, as if he'd recently been dragged around... If they go around them, they'll find that his robe is in tatters and his back is bloody.

When unmasked, the tech-priest lets out horrifying howl, turns out and smashes the console. An alarm blares: "Rerouting Power from all Systems to the Engines- Warning, Warning, Gellar Field failure Eminent." A 30 second counter appears on the screen and begins counting down just as the daemon sheds the skin of its latest possessed victim and the fight begins.

Complications!

1- The Countdown: the techpriest has to focus on fixing the system, its a complicated process that requires extended tests and accumulated successes. 30 seconds is 5 rounds, after which the entire ship is sucked into the warp...

2- Fragile! : Fighting in the engine room is dangerous- every shot fired, every missed swing, a chance to break or destroy a cogitator or a console. Not to mention the central ones right in the middle of the room where the Tech-priest is working.

3- The Weakest Link: The Daemon is smart enough to know, with the Tech-priests dead, the entire ship is doomed. Only one tech-priest has likely passed his fear test, the other NPCs are gibbering madly on the floor. [my Tech-priest is a radical with from beyond, so the fear test didn't affect him, you might want to tweak the NPCs to have a tech-priest ready to work the console.]

Impressions: The build up to the Engine room was very atmospheric and fun, the players quite enjoyed following the Specter's trail of destruction and were horrified by it. Once they got to the actual fight, that was also a blast- the stand off at the start caught em off guard. I changed up the specter ability to make it more interesting though: I gave it distort vision and made it corporeal. With an untouchable on the team, they were able to keep it from using its power once they figure out the trick and stopped going after the illusions.

Dybuk on the Roof:

The players are headed to Dusk to investigate a noble suspected of heresy. His nefarious cult wants to make sure the acolytes never arrive... In order to ensure this, a cultist sneaks aboard the ship and brings with him, hidden in a cargo crate, a Dybuk (Base mutant abomination- twice the mutation, twice the fun).

But the cultist isn't stupid- he knows that one Dybuk is likely to be easily dispatched by five heavily armed acolytes. Instead, he has a plan. Once the ship enters the warp, he unleashes the monster. He orders it to break trough the hull, head to sensitive location and wreck everything there.

Once it breaks outside, the alarm rings- the players are summoned to the bridge.

Optional Encounter: The cultist stops the players and threatens them with a Gun or a Grenade. He's likely to be easily dispatched before he gets a chance to enact his threat and will serve as exposition: "Your all dead once IT makes it to the (Important location)..."

The players head off to warn the captain but when they arrive, they are told that the ship's arrays have detected something moving outside, on the top of the hull. Impossible, they say! Madness! There's no atmosphere! There's the Warp!

The Interrogator (secretly a bad guy who would quite like it if SOME of the players died on the during) volunteers the lot to stop the thing. They are equipped with void-suits and sent out after the creature.

Complications:

1- Don't look up!: Though the immediate surface of the ship is protected by the Gellar Field, the former is still floating in the warp! The acolytes better keep their head down (Fighting Blind) or risk gazing into the insane sky that surrounds them (Risking a Fear 4 Test and lots of insanity!)

2- Explosive Decompression!: The creature's claws were able to rip trough the hull- you can imagine what they might do to a void suit. Even taking 1 point of damage is enough to rip the suit and expose the acolyte within to the harsh vacuum of space. A problem the Daemonic Dyduk doesn't seem to share...

3- Its raining debris: Players each pick a number from 1 to 10 (in my case, I have five players). Ships are known to carry large amounts of debris with them that float around in the Gellar field, attracted to the ship's gravitational pull, raining down on the hukk. Roll a d10, if the number matches a player, a piece of debris comes crashing down over their heads- dodge to avoid it or take 2d10 damage.

Impressions: Haven't played this yet, planning on trying it in a few sessions. I think its going to go well though, likely to be pretty fun- a strange location that makes an otherwise boring fight with a regular enemy a LOT more dangerous, if only because you don't want to look up...

So, any of you guys have any ideas or experiences aboard space ships? Fun fights that were out of the ordinary if only because of a strange and unusual twist? Discuss!

This sounds like two cool small plots that can take the PC's mind of things.

For my own scenario, the first part of my scenario they investigated a series of murders on a noble cruiser (think Atlantic luxury liners in space). Those murdered where mostly servants and ship personal, but the strangeness of the attacks called the inquisition in. All of them were strangled or poisoned by snakes it seemed. They found out a young noble had collected over a hundred of different snakes and had them with him on the ship (snakes on a plane anyone?). Later they found out through serious investigations that his older brother could control the snakes with some form of psychic power and get them to attack others. He proved to a slaanish cultist with a fascination for snakes. Their rituals consisted of taking drugs while masturbating/having sex with preys getting killed by snakes. Their leader could control and provoke the snakes to attack their victims. When the players found out they hunted him through the ship and he escaped of the ship unto a pleasure world.

Else their characters have been whining all missions long about how a hard time they were having, so they’re were mostly relaxing, training and studying when they are flying through space.

I will definitely try out your two encounters when they get into space again.

I haven't had a whole lot of spacetravel in my campaign so far. When it has occured, I've tried to play up how long and boring it is, akin to 'Age of Sail' trips between Europe and America, so that my players won't take it for granted and interrupt their current mission to go off on a six-month round trip to investige a 'hunch', while the real trail grows cold...

The one 'encounter' I've dropped in so far didn't occur on a spaceship itsself; rather, the ship the PCs were travelling on had to make a stop at an orbital refueling station, only to find the station quarrentined due to a possible xeno infestation. Rather than have their mission delayed for the weeks it would take for an Imperial Navy vessel to arrive and purge the station's infestation, the party presented their Inquisitorial identification and volunteered to deal with the infestation themselves, leading to a straight-foward 'bug hint' on the station. A detailed description can be found in my Campaign Journal (see link at bottom of post) under the date 122.816.M41 .

-And there is a space pirate attack looming in my players' future (seemingly random, but in fact the pirates have been hired by one of their Inquisitor's enemies...). I'm still in the planning stages, and suppose I should get some feedback. So, I picture warp travel by 'warpjumpers' without psychic Navigators to be similar to WWI-era submarine travel: the vessel has semi-accurate charts and can follow the major currents, but must 'surface' occasionally to take bearings. I'm thinking there would be navigational beacons placed at key points along warp routes, broadcasting navigational info which vessels that have emerged from the warp use to make course corrections before 're-submerging'. These navigational points would be the primary hunting grounds of space pirates, who try to strike before their prey's generators can build up enough power to flee into the warp. Does that sound about right, or am I screwing up how space piracy works?

It makes perfect sense- I've always thought about Warp Travel and how it works (or if its even possible) without a Navigator seeing as the latter are so [relatively] rare, prized and special- so I think I am going to take up your system now, it answers a number of questions quite elegantly.

Not to mention, pirates waiting at such a spot is not only plausible, but a likely risk (so as to reduce suspicions), especially on more distant fringes where there's less policing going on.

Overall, I think its a cool idea- especially if it ties into a revelation that the attack was not so random after all.

Arise zombie-thread and do my bidding!

Though Thread Necromancy is surely heresy, we'll call it radicalism.

In any case! An update on the previous encounter- it didn't go that well [not one of my better sessions!] The main problem, I think, was we rushed trough it too quickly. One of the players was overexcited to get things moving, kept on pushing the game forward faster and faster until that particular section ended up taking a whole 15 minutes, combat included.

The session after that though went VERY well- and I managed to "Flash-back" to the ship [The Crankshank, as per the Inquisitor's handbook] Which in my world is run by a la Einsenhorn's Maxilla's ship- a single captain, who happens to be a navigator obsessed with divination, crewed entirely by servitors [and some Engiseers of course]. He ran a little tarot-reading for one of the players and offered up some cultural knowledge about Dusk and Oneiromancy. A fleshed out encounter and character that the players both enjoyed and I think would like to see again.

Now, after this mission, I am very likely going to take the players to the Fydae System all the way to the mining planet of Junos. This system is plagued by space-pirates, so it would be very lucky if my players escaped without encountering at least one raid! [My Players are very unlucky ]

Now the question is: how to make a pirate raid more interesting than a standard ship-boarding action, more suited for Rogue Trader. As not to stretch the players' disbelief, this encounter should not really be related to the general plot.

Anyone got any ideas? I will spend the day trying to come up with something original, but if anyone has had any memorable experiences with a pirate raid I'd love to hear about them.

Edit- Bwahaha, the post right before this one talked about Pirates. But! Its mostly about HOW the pirate attack isn't going to happen- not what happens during the pirate attack

How did it go, Adeptus, if you've ran it? Hopefully, it went well. Any lessons from your experiences?

Saldre said:

Instead of the traditional pirate ship attack you could have the pirate captain infiltrate the ship's crew or have pirates board as passengers at a layover where the ship had to take on new supplies etc.

This 5th column is now trying to cripple the ship so it will be easier to intercept/plunder or such. The players notice something suspicious and must now prevent the pirates from reaching their target before the pirate ship arrives. To add complications, you can have the ship's officers not believe anything untoward is happening so the players have to dodge ship's security and automated defences as they try to follow the pirates and figure out what they are up to.

As to my ship encounters, I like to play up the whole warp thing. First time warp travellers must check WP and if they fail, they experience bad dreams and such as well as a few corruption points. The next few times the players travel, they must still check WP but each time with a cumulative +10 as they get accustomed to warp travel.

Then there is the occasional warp intrusion. Obviously, this shouldn't happen too often but it can offer a nice change of pace. This can be played in several different ways. As a mini-adventure in which their ship's section is cordoned off and about to be spaced unless the area is secured. The players must then decide to either eliminate the warp intruder or try to escape the section. Or as a series of checks (skill challenge) in which the players must come up with a plan to find and eliminate the warp intruder from a position of strength. If they fail, the warp entity attacks the players and it becomes a combat encounter.

Something I also plan on doing is having the players find themselves in the middle of two competing priests. Passengers aboard a void ship are basically locked in a large hull which offers accommodations, entertainment, bazar etc. Two priests differ on something and after an escalation from verbal abuse to small skirmishes, eventually mobilize their followers from the passengers and turn to all out religious war....The captain decides to let them do their thing as long as they don't try to break out of the passenger area. Now the players are either attacked by both sides or they have to pick a side and fight in a pseudo village aboard ship...

And lastly, there are always the ship's nasties. Mutants, crew deserters and whatnot, living in the abandonded areas of the ship and always in need of supplies or fresh meat....This can be played as a standard 'the nasties have crawled through the ducks into the passenger area' to several alternatives such as part of the ship suddenly being cut off due to damage or power failure. With air becoming scarce, the players must get to another part of ship by way of long abandoned decks, crawlways etc. Think Poseidon Adventure or Deep Rising, in which the the group is slowly wittled down as they try to escape...

I will try to keep this short for my own sake of sanity.

The boarding action is of course more than classic and something I think you should let the players try. Skills like Command and Scholastic Lore Tactica Imperialis now have a good chance to be used to man a proper defense. If they fail their checks the morale will be low and there will be holes in the defense.

This is also a chance for the players to fly their own flyer. The boarding action is often filled with scores of small combat vessels. Maybe let them fly an Imperial Fury Interceptor protecting the battleship from Bombers, Assault Boats and other Interceptors – while avoiding the blazing shots from the two large spaceships. I could be quite a hectic and confusing battle since it is in three-dimensions and lets the players use several skills to maneuver the ship.

Here is an overview of what skills and talents I would use:

• Pilot (Spacecraft or Military) – Control the Imperial Fury Interceptor, including dodging shots and tailing other planes.
• Heavy Weapon (Las, Plasma or SP) – Fire one or more of the Interceptors weapons.
• Tech-Use – You can use it to heal and resolve technical issues in the plane.
• Navigate (Stellar) – To find out where to go in this mad battle.
• Awareness (Sight) - Find targets and “lock on them”.
• Scholastic Lore (Tactica Imperialis) – Use to know what targets have the greatest priority and find their weakness. A successful of this skill could give bonuses to other skills checks.

The psyker can maybe find a new use for one of his for one of his powers.

The player’s mission will be to protect the main ship from the pirates.First in a stellar war and then from a battle inside the ship.

Hope it helps.

Hey!

Thank you both- Great ideas there. Its an original premise which will make for a fun encounter, especially since the players haven't gotten a chance to experience something like that before.

I will be sure to try it- not the next game, because of a sudden plot-destination change- but the one after, and let you guys know how it went!