An adventure in three parts. Part I- Make a deal with the Dark Eldar (sure, that'll be a good decision);.Part II- Hop on board the Choo-Choo Train Express (wherein PCs are captured, have their nifty toys taken away, you as a GM have to prepare yourself for the whining that ensues, and the PCs will have to rely heavily on the Dark Eldar and/or slave races for escape assistance, an echo of the Hand of Corruption plot clusterfeth…sure, that'll be a good idea). Part III- Set up for failure from the starting gate, PCs (and NPCs) achieve goals completely at odds with their initial interests. All in all, the adventure itself is a lame railroad. Good for the ready made Kabals and their politics. Brimming with Dark Eldar foes, their gear, equipment, and weapons. Otherwise, meh.

Alekzanter said:

Hi Alezkanter,

thanks for the warning. Looks like it would boil down to an "Dark Eldar show case" that tries to be an adventure.

Let me guess: the RT SHIP (which was claimed to be "the additional character" in the core rules) does not has use/meaning in this modul (again), right?

Ugh. More and more reason for me to wish it had been The Soul Reaver: A Player's Guide to Dark Eldar.

If they had scrapped the adventure, we could've gotten alternate ranks, more weapons, an overview of Commorragh, and just more good stuff overall. So dissapointed in this product. No Scourges. No Incubi. No Wyches. No Wracks or Mandrakes or rules for playing as an all-Kabalite party. No Sslyth or Beastmasters or any of the other fun stuff. What a waste.

Plushy said:

Don´t worry. Measured by the effort they make with the Dark Eldar recently I guess we will see an additional core game sooner or later… this time based on everyones favorite sadistic torture elves.

Plushy said:

My thoughts exactly. In the When Does Soul Reaver Release thread, there are page after page after page of comments/questions about Dark Eldar stats/rules, but (if memory serves) only one positive mention of the Adventure itself…

I start to wonder….

could it be that FFG was somehow… influenced by GW to write something like Soul Reaver?

"Hey guys… you know, we need a little support for the DE product line. Please go and write an adventure centred on the Dark Eldar. It does not matter what the adventure is about, but make sure that you show a lot of the kewl DE stuff …oh, and make sure that their are some kewl DE Beasts in Koronus Bestiary as well."

If a writer gets some… order what to include into a story and what not, it wreaks havoc to creativity. This would at least be an explanation for the tried-but-hated "we railroad the players intoc a kidnapping" thing.

EDIT: But could somebody answer my RT-Ship questions from furhter above? Is the ship making any difference this time?

Gregorius21778 said:

You might have something there, Grey knights, dark eldar and necrons are all the most recent tabletop codexes to be released, and so we've got daemon hunter, soul reaver and the outer reach. None of those are going to hurt model sales after all.

Back to the topic though, it's a shame to hear that the adventure isn't all that. Might have to use it as a source of little scenes rather than something to play as written. Maybe FFG just didn't think they'd be enough interest in the dark eldar to warrent a full book, hopefully as the comments and interest on the forums show, there is plenty of interest in a further expansion book at some point.

yipee, yet more complainers. As if one thread wasn't enough… I won't say anything else, seeing as most will see this post as spam but… just for the record: I loved the adventure, and i don't find anything missing. Maybe It has something to do with the fact that I keep in mind this is an ADVENTURE with some bonus rules and not a SOURCEBOOK , and FFG never said anything else.

Regarding the Soul Reaver itself…

As written, the RT PCs do not get to keep it. It's just a plot device, from beginning to end the unattainable brass ring. It has no "stats"; it's just a bauble to loot/sell/trade.
Like I said, the book is filled with Dark Eldar adversaries, like the Chronos Spirit Engine and Hellions, quite a bit of DE gear and weapons, and the Dark Eldar Kabalite Warrior PC Career.

Some few have said they feel the adventure is well-written, but I disagree. From the very beginning, there is no clear and concise manner to introduce the plot to the PCs. There are three suggestions: a random/chance encounter with the Dark Eldar introduces the PCs to a whiny butt-hurt Archon looking for revenge (why would she whine to petty Humans?); the PCs are notorious profiteers, out for glory and money regardless of whom they interact with, and the whiny Archon specifically seeks the PCs out for aid (why not recruit other disaffected Dark Eldar instead of Humans?), or she has some knowledge of their seedy underhanded dealings and blackmails the PCs (sure, tattle-telling seems Dark Eldar-ish [sarcasm]); finally, the Machine Cult has heard of the Nexus of Shadows (a device of ancient providence) and begs the PCs for their assistance in obtaining it (referred to in the text of the book as "Tears of the Machine God"…Machine Cultists turned into whimpering little girls that absolutely have to have their own tiara). Actually, a true summary of the supplement would be to say the "adventure" is a collection of suggestive summaries which concludes with a lot of kickass Dark Eldar stuff. A 141-page adventure supplement, consisting of 3 wasted pages (cover page, credits and contents listing), 91 pages of "adventure", and the remaining pages devoted to Dark Eldar sparklies.

My last complaint regards some of the Dark Eldar fluff-turned-game mechanics. As a Player of a Dark Eldar Kabalite Warrior, you will be required to track Pain Tokens. !? So, because they're called Pain Tokens in TT…? Why not name these points (for that is what they are, much like Fate Points) after the Trait that describes their accumulation and use? Power Through Pain Points? Doesn't roll off the tongue? Okay, how about Gluttony Points? BD/SM Index?

I bought the supplement with an expectation of eventually incorporating the adventure into my campaign. I'm disappointed with it. Aside from the Pain Token tracking mechanic, I will have hours of enjoyment using the Dark Eldar sparklies in the final 46-page Dark Eldar Showcase of this supplement (which includes all the DE NPCs) in conjunction with The Koronus Bestiary (though the Clawed Fiend, Khymera, and Razorwing have all their basic stats reprinted for use with the DE Beastmaster).

Adventure: poop
Adversaries: pure gold

Plushy said:

Plushy,

There are Scourges, Wyches (including individual stats for a Hekatrix Bloodbride), Hellions, Beastmasters, Trueborn, Reavers, Wracks, and Grotesques…no Incubi, no Mandrakes. There are quite a few alternate DE weapons and fields/armour, and a cornucopia of drugs and poisons. The "Pain Token" mechanic IS actually conducive to running an all-DE game, it's just a clunky mechanic that interacts with several different Talents and is driven by incidental events (like people catching fire in close proximity to DE), requiring more record keeping on the part of Players. The Kabal histories provided present a good starting point for politics, and the Nexus of Shadows is an alternative starting sandbox, conveniently linked to the Calixis Sector, Koronus Expanse, and Screaming Vortex.

Hi Alezkanter,

ist their any ship-action for the RT-ship or any point of the written adventure where some of the RT ship equipment comes into use?

Gregorius21778 said:

Sure. I misspoke…The Soul Reaver does have stats, but it's a literal ghost ship, completely corrupted by uncounted ages lost in the Warp. The art and description make it look and sound like an Eldar ship turned in upon itself, and it's been modified with Dark Eldar tech. Perfect for Black Crusade PCs, sure, but not any Rogue Trader I know, no matter how depraved. The Nexus of Shadows has ship-level surface to "orbit" defenses, there are two Dark Eldar vessels listed in the back (Torture-class Cruiser and Corsair-class Escort), and there are some DE vehicles (Reaver jetbike, Raider, Venom, and the Razorwing Jetfighter).

It really is a collection of suggestions, so you can have all the ship-ship action you want and leave out everything else.

Alekzanter said:

He's asking about the Rogue Trader's ship, not the Soul Reaver.

I don't think so, Gregorius. I've only skimmed through the Adventure, but it looks to me to consist entirely (or almost entirely) of 'legwork'.

Alekzanter said:

Because the Archon in question is already outcast and down-on-her-luck - approaching other Dark Eldar for help would either yield insufficient response (the Dark Eldar aren't known for their compassion) or the violent opportunism that comes from seeing a potential rival weak and vulnerable. A motley group of human interlopers, driven by base greed and witless ambition is a far easier thing to manipulate, and entirely expendable.

Alekzanter said:

Because I wrote those rules and I chose to maintain a clear thematic link between their defining mechanic in the wargame and its equivalent in the RPG. You're free to dislike that decision, but that doesn't impact me one bit.

Alekzanter said:

A nice chunk of the weaponry either still lacks stats or is spread out between The Soul Reaver, Koronus Bestiary, and Hostile Acquisitions, with alternate stats in Black Crusade. For a resource on our lovely little Kabalites, a lot of things are missing from it.

Adventures are not terribly helpful for many GMs, who don't feel a need to shoehorn other plots into their running games. Exceptions can be made for great work, but The Soul Reaver is horrendously linear and rail-roady. Cutting or shortening what a lackluster text in favor of more gear, fluff, or a handful of alternate ranks might have been a better use of space and ink.

All that said, I may be the only person who wants a Sslyth Mercenary career path.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Hoh, I don't know about anyone else, but with my group that Archon would see the violent opportunism that comes from a bunch of greedy humans seeing a weak and vulnerable walking pile of DE gear.

Plushy said:

Firstly, while I can't say anything for the final product (I've still not seen the finished book), I made a point of including all the Dark Eldar weapons that had already appeared in Hostile Acquisitions (as I wrote the armoury for HA, so I knew what was there already), specifically to avoid this. I don't know what's in Koronus Bestiary (I didn't work on it), so I can't speak for the content there.

Secondly, material that differs between Rogue Trader and Black Crusade is more a matter of differing rulesets as anything else - the biggest example, the Toxic quality on splinter weapons, works differently between games (Rogue Trader's version imposes a variable penalty based on damage inflicted, Black Crusade imposes a static penalty that varies by individual weapon).

Plushy said:

As much of a surprise as it was to me (I didn't even know work was being done on them), downloadable content containing a second career path and three alternate ranks for Dark Eldar characters has been made available for download.

After a look through of the book, I think I would have rather had a Dark Eldar supplement with an adventure in the back, instead of an Adventure with a Dark Eldar supplement in the back.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

So you didn't write The Dark Kin expansion then? Interesting.

I've been reading through The Soul Reaver adventure, and I found one part that seems off. The sidebox "Kicking in the Door" describes a backdoor assault on the Kabal HQ through passages that are relatively unused. However, they are guarder by gun emplacements (OK, sounds good) and, if attacked, Raiders start showing up carrying Dark Eldar troops. But…

All of the guards sitting in the gun emplacements are Trueborn. Further, all of the reinforcements arriving on the Raiders are Trueborn too.

That just seems wrong for two reasons. Firstly, Trueborn are supposed to be elites and shouldn't just be sitting on guard duty (especially considering their higher social status and how easily boredom comes to Dark Eldar). Secondly, I didn't figure that the numbers of Trueborn in a Kabal are particularly high. Having all of these guys be Trueborn really cheapens that.

EDIT: Now I find the part where all of the upper approaches (balconies) are covered by even more Trueborn guards. These guys even go on to show uncharacteristic focus for Dark Eldar since they all remotely check-in with one another every 1d5 minutes.

This is getting really tiresome…

Talking of tiresome, I'll be mighty glad when FFG gets tired of its Eldar obsession and stops making every **** adventure campaign centre around them, and also stops filling page after page of books like the Bestiary with more and more boring Eldar stuff (How many new types of Eldar in that book? About sixteen! Not to mention all those lame Dark Eldar pets).

I know a lot of folks love 'em but hell, enough already. Though I'm with the Eldar fans on one thing: I'm all for the Eldar getting their own core book and game line if it means they up-sticks and clear off from hogging the limelight in Rogue Trader.

Plynkes said:

Eldar get a lot of attention in the Koronus Expanse because - as has been pointed out in many of the RT books - it is a site filled with numerous Eldar holdings (some active and some less so). If the game was set near the Eye of Terror, I'd expect most of the stories to include Chaos. If the game was set on the Eastern Fringe, I'd expect Tau and/or Tyranids to take the stage. So, unless the focus of RT shifts away from the Koronus Expanse, I expect we'll see more Eldar involvement in the RT line.

Yeah, but it's only that way because they choose it to be so. They could focus on other things if they wanted to. The Expanse is crammed full of interesting adventuring possibilities, but all we ever seem to get lately is… bloody Space Elves. Zzzzzz….

I really, really hope you are wrong. More Eldar involvement in the RT line (though I don't really see how they could be MORE involved than they already are, surely they're at saturation point?) will definitely see less Plynkes involvement in the RT line, at least in the sense of buying the books. I want to keep supporting this game, but if they insist on continually releasing these Eldar-centric adventure books then I'm not going to be able to.

Plynkes said:

Sure, they made the choice to have the Koronus Expanse focus on the Eldar. However, they made that choice years ago and it's relatively set in stone at this point. That said, there's still a great deal that they can do to flesh out the Ork and Rak'Gol threats along with the Stryxis (who, to be fair, do appear to have some Eldar links in their background). The Yu'vath, despite being extinct, are still a second strong focus of the Expanse, and I wouldn't mind seeing an adventure - a full adventure - that really explores their remains.

Thing is, in the original rulebook, the Eldar just got a couple of pages. There wasn't anything there to lead one to believe that future adventures were going to be all about the Eldar, and nothing to hint that the Expanse was crammed with them and they were the main focus of the setting. They were just one of many races in the Expanse. Though now it seems they're the only one FFG are interested in.

I'd be up for your idea of some Yu'Vath archeological shenanigans (my players have expressed a desire to go dig up some Xenos ruins and pinch their stuff). It's funny that while I was drawn to this game because I loved the old Rogue Trader tabletop game as a teenager, the things I like about it most are those aspects that are more or less unique to Expanse setting rather than ubiquitous to all 40K. The things made up by FFG writers that weren't part of the canon before like the Yu'Vath and the Rak'Gol. That and the idea of ancient, dark, dead things buried on corpse worlds out at the far edge of the galaxy. Things that should not be. The Lovecraftian sort of stuff.

Despite my (admittedly sometimes unrationally rabid) dislike of the Eldar, I did actually buy The Soul Reaver, as I wanted to give it a chance to change my mind. Maybe that was a bit silly of me, because so far I am rather underwhelmed by it. But I did want to give it a fair go. No more Eldar adventures for me though, I think.