So.

Currently, I'm reading 'The Shadow out of time.' this story is not bad, but Lovecraft has done better... such as 'At the mountains of Madness'. Now for those who've read it... how AMAZING a game of Dark Heresy would that be? a player may have read it, but a good player will use what he knows of it to better roleplay his character.

Imagine, your team is called to an iceworld to investigate strange findings at a dig, reports of 'things' brought out of caverns in the snow. As you descend into the Atmosphere in a shuttle, you lose casual contact with the base, who have just begun autopsies of these 'bodies' - and when you arrive, the camp is destroyed, strange 'graves' have been made and filled with 4 of the 12 'bodies'... and the other 8 are missing. Your only choice is to investigate the strange tracks heading towards 'The Sheer Face', and into a realm of wonder, history and Gelatinous-Cube-like Xenos in the dark...

Any other good ones people have done / would like to do? Any author, any style?

Against a Dark Background by Iian M. Banks. Not my favourite Banks novel (that would be Use Of Weapons, hence my handle), but it would make an awesome campaign. It concerns the main character Sharrow and her emotionally bonded combat team on the run from religous fanatics called the Huhzs (or something) trying to find the mythical last lazy-gun to trade for her life. The team has PC-party written all over it and the story has lots of intruige, noble factions, dodgy statesmen, crazy sisters, giant pterodactyl like birds, interferring but rich cousins, monastic weirdos, some crazy solopsist mercs and heaps of action and background story too.

As for Mountains of Madness, there was some discussion of that over in the Deathwatch forum IIRC.

Shoggoths, shoggoths, shoggoths...

...shoggoth!

Reading the ending of 'at the mountains of madness' I was a little irritated as these people are a bit want to come over with a case of the vapours. anyway, YES Shoggoths! Brrrr.

Vegetable Anthopoids destroyed by their own hubris.

Now ppl keep telling me to read Mr Bank's Work, and I sort of agree, but I gotta finish Lovecraft's book first. Sounds like an awesome start for a campaign though! course gotta be careful only to steal the setup, otherwise the PCs may end up locked on target tighter than an oil tanker eating a maverick missile.

Also the 'call of cthulu' is a good start for one, but it's already got a whole game devoted to it (ON ANOTHER FORUM, TO SPEAK OF IT IS HERESY) so not worth it.

Hey!

OooooOh, another follower? Ia! Ia! Cthulhu Fhtagn!

Call Of Cthulhu, as a game, is famous for its scenarios and investigations: most of them are extremely high quality, very well researched and a blast to play. With a bit of work, you can easily convert one to DH.

Call of Cthulhu lends itself very well to Dark Heresy Scenario. Infact, I am now running a scenario called "The Plantation" [in the mansions of madness book] that I have converted thusly: The acolytes are sent to a plantation on Dusk owned by a Malfian Noble suspected of heresy- unaware that their strings are being pulled by Daemons, Eldars and otherworldly forces towards dark designs. [if your interested, I can give you my notes- those that I've written at least.]

Keep in mind that these are investigations, and though a lot of them are very free form... Its still an investigation! So it may not be for all groups, who would rather do their own things and root out heresy where they find it instead of investigating any specific case.

As for the Moutains of Madness- your a bit late to the party: Return to the Mansions of Madness is one of the best rated scenarios/modules of all times.

ALL TIMES.

In any game [EVER!] (Perhaps only second best to Masks of Nya!)

Its designed to happen AFTER The actual mountain of madness, it assumes the players (likely lovecraft fans) have already read the stories and it plays on that. Check it out If you'd like, its pretty crazy (no pun intended).

After I wrap up my current mission, I am planning on running the players trough several more Call of Cthulhu Scenarios (Likely involving the King in Rags of Tatters, also known as the King In Yellow [My Favorite!])

On the subject of Lovecraft, this gave me inspiration to screw with my players. I changed it for my campaign, setting it in a long isolated section in the underhive, where the players found lots of inbred redneck hillbillies and were quite surprised when the tech priest wandered off into the caves where the power signature originated from and was promptly minced by something dark and fast with many nasty claws

On the subject of Banks, I can only say: Read him! Now! While his culture books aren't the grimdark and dysfunctional stuff you need for proper 40K setting, they are excellent and still provide many a good plot idea. And they are stuffed with excellent ship names

My players had a good laugh when they had to track down "The Arbitrary Decision" and the "Credibility Problem".

@Saldre:

Not a follower, more of an investigator ("what's down this dark passage? oh I'm sure it's just a crisp cold wind...") I've achieve about 20-30 insanity by now, so the minor stuff like Mi-Go doesn't affect me lol tbh I've had the book for a few years, and I was a bit younger when I read 'Dagon' But when I started reading again I was really impressed with The Cthulu deep stuff. Herbert West - Reanimator still holds a firm place for heavily Weirding me out.

"Mansions of Madness"? Is this a board game or did I miss something? "Return to the Mountains of Madness" is the link you sent me, It looks AMAZING and dark and fun and a TPK by the 10th Act. Oh and it's expensive. Are all the rules self-contained?

Thank you for those suggestions though, I hope to get the feel of them out in one of my first non pre-written campaigns (My 'Beasts of Burden' Campaign is a straight-up investigation against what I should change to make 'The Beast House'. I might Re-write Maggots...against the AMARATHINE SYNDICATE!)

Is the "King in Yellow" from "mansions of Madness" board game?

@Smeg:

That Genestealer Campaign is exactly my kind of thing. Thank you for that Run from the monstrous depression in the long grass!

Lol a friend keeps berating me to read some of the culture books. I do like the Ship Names, it has to be said. Soon, perhaps!

So, Other Novels... erm. Dune? Someone must have done that. (I suppose 40k is quite dune enough already though) TBH while watching Cowboy Bebop I felt that Some of those episodes would make great starts to campaigns.

I don't think 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' Would make a good basis for one. Too many people being diversionary, and No PC has the savvy of George Smiley...

Oh God, I kept on changing Mansions and Mountains- there's a lot of madness going around in the Cthulhuverse so gotta be careful which one I am talking about.

Mansions of Madness is a Board Game from FFG, but before it was that- it was... Another Call of Cthulhu Investigation Book!

Sorry for the Mixup- the Plantation is a Scenarion from that book. Whereas Mountains of Madness is its own scenario. I don't think the rules are self contained- I don't own that particular book myself, though our old Cthulhu GM had it. On the other hand, if your wanting to run it on DH, the rules aren't that important because you'll have to convert them anyways. For example, setting the scene on Mara [an Ice planet] is already a good conversion start

And the King in Yellow [is a book that you all should read, because DH draws a lot of inspiration from it, especially the Menagerie] was written by Chambers and has inspired Lovecraft as well! He's not related to the board-game, but makes several appearances in Investigations and Modules of the Call of Cthulhu game [Which, like you guessed, are easily convertible to DH].

No worries Saldre, happens to all of us - But this stuff looks amazing. I fear the rules won't be self-contained, as it's a Call of Cthulu game, yeah? Just from reading the Article, I have to say I really liked the idea of being a PC in it (far more so than being the DM, I don't like bumping off PCs in huge numbers.)

Also, the King in Yellow - that sounds pretty **** awesome.

There must be something by Phillip K. **** that transfers over?

How about this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow_of_the_Torturer

Gene Wolfe's Shadow of the Torturer. It's about a disgraced apprentice Torturer who ends up on an epic journey in an Imperial World gone all to shite (it is actually meant to be future Earth, but that makes no difference). Decadent nobles, crazy byzantine power structures, tech ranging from medieval through high sci-fi, radom duels, mutants...

Have a look anyway, this won a lot of very important awards when it was released.

Not Dark Heresy, but Rogue Trader is just crying out for a Blake's 7 campaign.

A buch of criminals (some political-read 'recidivist heretics') on the run from the Federation ('Imperium') get their hands on the most powerful ship in the Galaxy and take the fight to the 'Imperials', every game session an episode, carrying out daring raids, solving ancient puzzles, thwarting dastardly schemes and all the while outwitting the finest space commanders the 'Imperuim' can throw at them.

Go on, you all know you want to.

ACH NEIN

Reading materiel. So much of it.

So then 'King in Yellow' and 'the Shadow if the Torturer' are on the inspiration list.

HOWEVER

Blake's Seven? No. I've not seen much, but tbh the theme is carried better by Firefly, Andromeda, hell even R-Type and Zero Wing. Can you imagine Rogue Trader with sets that fall down and vulcanised Rubber bad guys? Leave that to the Hellpits of BBC Sci-Fi (like several of the Dr Who Series.)

Speaking of which, I have been looking at Rogue Trader... WAIT NO I COMMITTED HERESY

NOBODY TELL THE INQUISITOR

Apparently I don't read enough... as my thought process to several of the comments made was some thing like "WTF are they talking about?"

My take on the subject wasn't what novel in general were good to add for stories, but whether or not it was a good idea or not.

Generally speaking, whenever you add a storyline to a campaign, be sure that the NPCs/Xenos, whatever that comes in, have abilities that are comparable with the existing universe or it won't work. Sometimes, people will have what seems to be a good idea, until when you're actually running it the antagonists can't do what they did in the book within the context of the game. So it becomes necessary for a GM to completely plot out what could happen, with possible side treks the PCs might take the investigation into. The question then becomes is the fun of adding a written story into your campaign, worth the extra time in doing the conversion?

Be careful, as a player may recognize the story arc you're running... then they might try to add something from that, and use the justification for it as what was used in the book... even if it's not possible for the players to do that. I've seen many players try to add things that upset game balance, so be forewarned.

Even so, I still remember a D&D campaign with a trek to Pellucidar... so if you are going to try it, do your homework before hand and it should probably be ok.

Good Luck!