Hi all,
we've played through a few battles and the characters have now Ascended. On their way to this level, they overcame and defeated Haarlock, and I want to bring this back into there next struggle, focusing on the Slaught invasion that is heralded in the vision near the end of Dead Stars. The idea as Slaught as hiding villains that suddenly come to the fore has appealed to me for awhile, but I'm struggling with some basic ideas that could make them more interesting or varied. Sorry if this has been discussed before, I'm new to the forum! :-)
Their Goal:
Surely there is more to the Slaught then to consume all human heads? Was thinking more in the line of trapping whole planets with no means to escape, turning them into a 'farm' for the Slaught to test and consume. I know this has the same outcome as eating all the human heads but it a bit more interesting as it has the Slaught striking from within to destroy or incapacitate leaders or spaceports. Any other suggestions?
Where they come from:
Depths of space, the far galactic rim. They had forged their own realm with a steady food source of local populace. However a virus developed that caused the indigenous population of that area to dwindle and die, causing the Slaught to look elsewhere!
There Army:
Already there has been Slaught Overlords, Constructs and warriors mentioned, but I'm looking at introducing other characters too:
• The Spirallax: Its basically a gigantic kraken like Slaught, used to destroy key locations before descending underground. Vicious but cunning, and near impossible to kill!
• A sect of Bar'il'tac: Basically Slaught high Priests/ scientists: They work on administering toxins into the biosphere which make the planet fit for mass Slaught inhabitant (it gets all cold and wormy etc)
• Mal'ka'tac: The leader of this sect. Has developed signs of the virus which cleansed the realm, His head has become a hideous skull shape (except the bone appears almost translucent). He is feared above all else by other Slaught, but followed due to his terrible power
Its still in the pipeline anyway, as they have only just Ascended! So I've a bit of time to develop storylines around what’s going on, to add other characters (a few traitors here and there) and to develop a clever way (if possible) to stop them!
I would really appreciate any advice/ constructive criticism with this project! Thanks!

Hello!

Sorry for the massive delay in answering- Its been rather busy over here.

So Haarlock is destroyed and now the guys want to deal with the consequences, eh? That's very good- and the Slaught are the perfect opponents for high level acolytes because they can STILL provide some sort of combat challenge.

Do you happen to own the Disciples of the Dark Gods? Inside that book is a full chapter where they discuss the "real" Slaught conspiracy as heads of the massive Amaranthine Syndicate, a massive corporation a trade cartel that deals in virtually everything except thrones, accepting payment as favors and other strange tasks that, as your dependence to them grows, become more intricate and complex.

Running the business as the Slaught Overseers, often accompanied by vassal constructs made of a horrendous flesh-looking materials…

The conspiracy is taken a step further in the Book of Judgement, where one of the High Ranking of the Arbites on Canopus [in the Josian Reach] has been completely corrupted by the Syndicate and is now in their debt, falling further and further due to his growing paranoia [f you want more information about this, feel free to ask]. There's mention of slaught activities all around the sector, in Scintilla [Gunmetal City] for example.

A nebulous origins for the Slaught is fine- the players aren't likely to dwell on where they come from anyways as long as they get them purged I don't know why, but I've always been a fan of the Slaught always having been there, living Underground in tunnels, sewer systems, abandoned places- but you're right in that they must have come from somewhere, and "Beyond the Stars" is always plausible.

I like the expansion on the Slaught Race- just be wary of turning the game into Deathwatch Unless of course, that's your goal.

As for possible ways to stop the Slaught: their inhuman nature is the most problematic aspect to their plans- they must always act in the shadows, pulling the strings of human agents. That would be the weakness of any of their plans: they spend time cultivating a debt in any single individual so that he might owe them something and thus bind him to themselves. If enough evidence is brought about to prove this person's crime or heresy, then they loose any worth to the Syndicate.

Possible missions could include striking at the human agents after stumbling on some problem in the official story- That Arbitrator we were talking about, a lot of his enemies [and simply colleagues] are dropping dead like flies. Small favors or random acts by individuals in the Hive almost seem to cover up these crimes… Establishing a link or a trace back to him and uncovering evidence could perhaps be feasible and would allow the Inquisition to drop the hammer without bringing about civil war… but the Slaught will try to hold up their end of the Bargain- at least until the High Ranking Individual can put in the final piece of the puzzle that will wreak havoc on the Planet.

HAARLOCK and HOUSE OF DUST AND ASH SPOILERS

Hi there Kenny.

This is a question quite close to my (or my character's) heart. He became rather obsessed with the Slaught following the House of Dust and Ash (partly because Nonesuch is the only villan to 'get away' from him so far). This did not improve following the Haarlock Legacy as we made the same choice that your group did meaning that the sector was threatened by Slaught invasion and not a deamon takeover (and once again Nonesuch escaped).

My take on the whole thing is that the Slaught are one of the races driven from Calixis during the Crusade, and who were subsequently prevented by Haarlock from returning. We never did discover what it was that he had over them, but my pc was sure to collect some shards of the destroyed gate (same as the widowmakers heart) so if we ever get our hands on another Haarlock Scion we can at least get back into the Blind Tessaract.

My PCs theory (he doesn't know about the Amaranthine sydicate per se, but does know that they have an infiltration network employing human agents) is that their homeworlds are probably in the Halo Stars. He is trying to get a cruiser so he can find them and destroy them.

For an ongoing DH campaign, I completely agree with Saldre that the Amaranthine syndicate is the way to go. Follow the trail of leads and trace that back to where they are from.

As an aside, may I ask what price your PCs paid to the Hag? It was an answer she gave to my PC's questions that convinced us to stop Haarlock. The price she demanded: My characters speed as a warrior -20AG. Yep 1350xp worth, all my AG advances. I am now a Rank8 Assassin with 30AG. Oh well, small price to pay for preventing the sector from becoming overrun with rebellious deamons. (Apologies for slightly off topic question).

Interogator Z.

I thought about using the slaught invasion as a basis for an ascension based adventure as well. The things that came to mind was why haarlock was such a threat to the slaught?

I figured that the only real threat was if haarlock discovered the slaughts main base/homeworld, their true purpose or the main weakness of their ships. As a back story, I would say that the slaught were aligned with another branch of the haarlock family, and haarlock intimidated the slaught to back off, e.g. by destroying one of their ships with the 'spear of destiny'.

If the PC's looked into the haarlock-slaught connection, they could question the widower, study the psalter as a starting point or try and find the navigator on mara again.

Alternatively, to hunt the slaught, the players could investigate the syndicate or contact another alien race (e.g. eldar,a radical act).

In the end, I would have the players board the spear of destiny looking for the ships navigation data (lots of demons to fight!).

I haven't had a lot of time to put brain cells toward this, but I have been thinking about a parallel campaign, one is a more robust version of the Haarlock legacy that leads the characters to Mara as the starting level of Ascension. The other would be a Deathwatch campaign set around hunting down the Slaught. To start both campaigns off I planned on having the Dark Heresy Characters run through a combined game that would start as Maggots in the Meat (ending in a cliffhanger) and the have them play through the adventure Final Sanction, but instead of tyranids, the adversary would be the Slaught. In the end the Marines would find the heroes alive, but hurt barracked in a place that the Slaught could not get them. From there the two arcs would split off from each other, as the Dark Heresy characters get swept off into the Haarlock Legacy. I want to break it into three acts, the initial investigations, the search for the spear of destiny, and then the quest to spot his return. The Marines, on the other hand are assigned to track down what this unknown threat it. I would have the groups come together on occasion for 'joint' operations of course. Hopefully in the end, the final chapter of the Haarlock legacy would be a joint op between the Inquisition and the Deathwatch. After that, if they won then they would start hunting down the Slaught to finish them.

I do agree though, I really don't understand why an entire race fears one person. I like your idea about knowledge of their homeworld, but why didn't they just kill him before his disappearance then? I like your suggestion that perhaps one of the other Haarlocks were teamed up with the Slaught, maybe the Haarlock clan is the group that started the Amaranthine Syndicate, and to remove their influence Haarlock created a virus that destroys the Slaught quickly. Perhaps he virus bombed one of their worlds, and then twisted them to do his bidding until he disapeared. So the Slaught are not really seeking to stop his return, but they are trying to find the virus and destroy it before he returns so he does not destroy them.

Salcor