I'm looking at GM'ing for a game that begins upon a Feudal world, the acolytes being natives of that same world. As a new player to the game of Dark Heresy, I was wondering about any problems anyone could forsee when using only feudal weaponry in the combats. Obviously the variety available to players will be restricted but I'm sure we can expand it as we play. Thanks in advance for any advice

The main problem with low-tech weaponry really comes when you put it up against high-tech armour. Essentially using anything with the 'Primitive' descriptor will be a massive disadvatage if someone has non-primitive armour. So as long as you keep everyone at the same tech level it shoudn't be a problem.

Brother Kane is right in regard to Primitive Weapons vs. Non-Primitve armour. Squires, Militia and Beasts will be NO GOOD against a PC in guard flak or mesh vests.

I suggest to adapt the Primitive Rules from Black Crusade: It does not know "Primitive Armour" (it only has either lower AP or is much heavier!) and in case of weapons there is a "damage cap" for the dice (Primitive 8 means that any dice result above 8 is treated as 8 for examples)

I adopted it in my games as follows:
7 for most weapons and beasts
6 for things like Arrows and smaller weapons
8 for crossbows and muskets

Do not expect news to travel far. Messages have to travel by mouth or courier. This will take time.
Players who are focused on Tech and Tech-Use will be bored.
Remember that the PC will want to take lots of spare ammo with them.
Prepare for travel in the wilds
Do not give them vehicles..they cannot refuel anyway! (unless you use reactors and such)
If the PC do not disguise themselves, they will stick up like a soar thumb

Oh! And use the chance to confront them with some minor illnesses as soon as they arrive in a real city. These were hotbeds for all kinds of infections. The effect does not need to be more than "-3 or -5 penalty on Attribute X".

Same is true in regard to food. Food will not be that well preserved as many PC will be used to. Look at the iron stomach trait of the Feral World PC background and asks for Toughness checks to avoid feeling ill for the remainder of the day (-5 on all tests). This should only bother the PC for the first (5-TB) days, so. After that their stomachs will have adapted to the new food.

Those are good points. Another interesting thing you can do is decide where on the Imperial Creed the planet is. Is it completely converted to orthodox worship of the Emperor? Are missionaries in the process of converting the religion towards that goal?

I ran an adventure set on a world essentially like the one in wfrp (just without the chaos wastes etc.) where the Ecclesiarchy were in the process of converting the population to the view that Sigmar was the Emperor, and allowing the other cults to slowly die off. This caused a few issues with the techpriest (who had to wear bulky plate-mail all the time) and the feral worlder who couldn't quite wrap his head around the complicated religious implications.

Often I find that's it's good to use existing worlds in the rulebook and adapt them for your tastes.

Zillman's world is an interesting case. Remember that the King there is the King because he owns a las-gun. Your basic starting PC might have one. So if the PCs show up there, after having been created and started from another world, is the King just going to let them get on world without 'checking' their gun on the world in some way?

A lot of thought has to go into the idea is if the PCs are from there or just going there? If the PCs are from the world, then you must put a lot more thought into the background of the world. How long have they been in the Imperium? Why are they only a Feudal world and not some other type?

Thanks for the responses so far, I like the idea of adapting the primitive rules to those of Black Crusade, they seem to work better in the case of introducing standard 40k imperial weaponry to a feudal world.

The scenario I had imagined was perhaps something similar to Zillman's world, that being a world where, for the majority , people are ignorant of the Imperium's existence but the occasional piece of tech turns up. I think the idea was suggested in some Source book, that some feudal worlds are imperial worlds recovering from long ago Armageddon and I like that idea.

I'm not sure on the relationship the Imperium has with the world though, since extracting a tithe from the planet seems like it would be an obvious clue to the wider existence of humanity. Although a subtle method of contributing the imperium or generation long gaps between contact could still work.

One idea was to have the planet cut-off entirley by Warp-storms or some such and have the PC's serving the remains of some long ago established Inquisitorial outpost that has evolved independent of the rest of the Inquisition in the Imperium.

space blanket said:

Tithe does not need to be collected on a regular basis. There does not even need to be a regular contact to any kind of "collection agency" on the planet itself. I think it was the IH that mentioned that it sometimes happened that the tithe collection ship arrived after a generation or two only to find the primitive population greeting the landing ships with burnt offerings…BURNING THE TITHE as they thought would be right and proper in the eyes of the agents of their God-Emperor.

In case of your feudal world, how about the tithe being some precious metal (which is rare but makes for a great conducter and is thereby valuable for the Mechanicus first and foremost) and people (for the Imperial Guard). The tithe is only collected every 20 or 30 years… so the local version of the Imperial Creed includs the hoarding of "Litherium Blocks" (the metal) as "Tribut to the God-King of Kings" and a way to redeem for one´s sins in addition to the fact that the men of each family will have to go if the "war masters" of the army of the God-King of Kings comes asking… leading to the following:

- it is seen as a cultural duty to raise a family and to have sons that will take over once the head of the family is "tithed"

- those metal is used as the highest of coin and those who are very rich believe that more of their "minor sins" will go unpunished when they can pay for it

- peasants strife to at least earn one of the "Litherium Coin" which is buried with them so they can pay for their sins

- as the Tithe Ships arrive, the graves are opened in great ceremony so that the vassals of the God-King of Kings can collect the due

- grave robbers are the most despicable of people since they rob the souls of the dead of their afterlife

- graveyards are guarded by members of the community and only the skulls are "buried" in a crypt, the coin is place between the teeth

EDIT: In that case feudal vassalship could not be granted based on LAND (like it was in our history) but on the ability to provide Litherium Coin at the death of the vassal (one coin for commoner, more for a fighter, scribe or even more for a knight or such).

"I won´t pay for his death" means "I do not care for him at all"; "He is counted on Esralds scroll" means that he is in loyal vasallship to Esralds

In that way, the tithe collectors (showing up only every 3 to 5 generations) would turn to figures of legend. Legends people believe in but many would not ever see once in their lifetimes, but know somebody who did, somebody old and wise.

Thanks for the idea's Gregorius, I especially like alternate system of vassalage, that a lord would protect those peasants under his rule if only to avoid paying all their tithes at once .

I'll definitely be including this cultural flavor in the feudal world. The idea of the players returning one of their fallen comrades heads , along with a supply of coins, to a mausoleum is badass indeed.