Hi Everyone,

It has been a long time since I actually run a Dark heresy campaign but I have been sorting out some general ideas and have given them to my group in advance as part of an information pack their inquisitor has provide them, enroute the to planet.

I would appreciate it very much if other Gms can look through what I have put and if you want make some suggestions!

One question I do have is, do you normally penalise players for sleeping in armour? My group has one player who insists on doing it in every roleplay he ever takes part in, quoting all kinds of presumably made up historical situations when it happened.

Marc

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Briefing

Greetings Beta team.

I am Inquisitor Archimedes and this is your first assignment. Should you prove to be competent, then great riches and fame could be waiting for you. Should you fail, well you won't need to worry about that will you?

Your mission is as follows;

A. Travel to the planet of Regulus and find out what happened to Alpha Team who stopped responding to communications two weeks ago. Coordinates of their last known location have been provided.
B. Assist Alpha team in completion of their mission to find out why the work force is in rebellion and use any force necessary to make the planet meet its tithe demands.

Additional information;

Regulus is an agricultural world with a population of around five million. Most of the population work in small farms and villages. There are four major population centres, Newland [pop 100,000] Outback [60,000] Stirling [50,000] and Hectare [25,000] Open rebellion has been in all four major areas, primarily around the food processing plants, which feeds a large amount of this sector. It is top priority this is resolved as swiftly as possible for Regulus to meet its tithe demands.

You are posing as members of the Kappa Sigma Mining Syndicate, searching for rare mineral deposits on Regulus. You are not to reveal that you are working for the inquisition unless you have to. All of your provided equipment for the mission, will be branded with Kappa Sigmar.

The last known location of Alpha team is the small village of Tynpott near the Blue topped mountains. You will be dropped off, with all your equipment at the starport of Newland which is around two hundred miles due west.

You may need to speak to the Governor Katrina Swartz for information. She is the only one on the planet who has been briefed that you are working for the inquisition, and should be more than eager to help. As she is a valuable ally, please do your best to accommodate her wishes. If she requests your help with some issues in addition to those mission objectives provided, please do all you can to help her out, as she may provide you with additional resources for completing her objective, beyond what she has already promised [see below].

Alpha team contains the following members;

Team Leader: Mikhael "Big Man" Davus, an X-Stormtrooper
Xtasy, free lance Gunslinger
0101100100011100000011 'Cogs' , Tech priest
Luca Mora, Adept

You are to be provided with a XP92N "Rough n Tough" mobile prospector by Katrina. This vehicle is around ten meters long, four wide, tracked, and four high at the highest point. The front contains a cabin with seats for six people. The middle section contains a kitchen on the lower floor and above that is the armoury, with a ladder up to the pintle mounted heavy stubber. The rear section contains sleeping area on the lower floor, sufficient for six people and on the upper floor your communications/mineral/seismic research centre. Attached to the rear is a motorcycle recon vehicle. This has been branded as a Kappa Sigma expeditionary vehicle as to keep with your cover.

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Persons of Interest

Governor Katerina Swartz, High Lady of Regulus, Defender of the Realm, First Mistress of the Order of the Emperors Burning light.
Age: 70. She appears to be in her early 30s [thanks to juvinat treatements]
Hair: Waist length dark brown hair, worn loose. Eyes: Brown. Height: 5'9. Weight: 9 Stone.
Description. An attractive woman, who wears modest, but fashionable clothing. She is utterly ruthless and will do anything to ensure her rule is not only obeyed but absolute.

Grandmaster Lucius Athemel of the Chrome Lions
Age: 130. He appears to be in his late 50s.
Hair: Long greying to his middle back. Eyes: Blue. Height: 6'3. Weight: 15 Stone.
Description: An aging, yet still strong looking man, wears his Ornate Chrome Lion Powered armour in public. Katerina's right hand man, she trusts him implicitly, so has more influence than his position would normally give him.
Note: The Chrome Lions are a warrior brotherhood loosely based on a combination of special forces, historical knights, arbites and astartes. The premier infantry found on Regulus, although they only number around 250 soldiers.

Lord General Richard Addus, Commander of the PDF
Age: 124. Appears to be in his 70s.
Hair: Short, dyed black hair. Eyes: Brown. Height: 5'11. Weight: 18 Stone.
Description: Overweight, wears extravagant uniform in dark blue festooned with medals. Not very popular at court due to falling out with Katerina about how to handle the riots, but well loved by the people as he is a war hero. Lost several hundred PDF in the first night to rioters and since then has withdrawn his men to their barracks. Commands PDF forces, totalling 10,000 across the planet.

Judge Damian Fayre, Judge Fear
Age: 54. Appears to be in his mid 30s.
Hair: Short, black, greying at the temples. Eyes: Brown. Height: 5'10. Weight: 14 Stone.
Description: Never found out of his Arbite armour, unadorned with no medals. He has a no nonsense approach to policing and has taken over control of the rioting situation. He commands around 3000 arbites, which are concentrated in the four main population centres. Not well liked generally, but considered to be ruthlessly efficient. Lord Addus's failure has given him a chance to step up and prove his worth.

Lady Rose, Imperial Diviner
Age: Unknown. Appears to be in her mid 20s.
Hair: Long white down to her waist. Eyes: Violet. Height: 5'3. Weight: 7 Stone.
Description: Aloof and quiet. Will only offer advice to Katerina in private, rarely speaks in open court. Wears fashionable dresses, more flashy than the Governor. It is unknown what her influence levels are outside of court.

Aldus Von Strumm, Astropath
Age: 204. Appears to be in his 80s.
Hair: None. Eyes: None. Height: 5'10. Weight. 10 Stone.
Description: Never found outside of his dark brown robes of office, he is the only link Regulus have to the Imperium at large. While he is considered to be loyal, there was a delay between the rioting being reported to the Adeptus Administatum that can only be held to be his responsibility.

Father Erheart, Bishop
Age: 35. Appears 35.
Hair: None. Eyes: Green. Height: 6'2. Weight. 14 Stone.
Description: Firebrand priest, who has an unusually large following for one so young. Is convinced that the riots are symbolic of the heathenry that has taken hold on Regulus. He frequently leads his followers on missions to turn back the rioters, most of which have led to violence. Incredibly popular with the masses, which is why he occupies this position.

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Planet details

Regulus is a small population agri-world set to the south of the Calaxis sector. It has a small population of around five million, and its primary export to the Imperium at large is wheat, grox and other food stuffs, from its continent wide farms.

Most of the population work in small farms and villages on the agriculture. There are four major population centres, Newland [pop 100,000] Outback [60,000] Stirling [50,000] and Hectare [25,000], one on each of the four major continents, primarily as a place to process and export the excess food stuffs.

For this mission, you will be primarily based on the continent of Ayre, a largely cereal plant growing continent of around 100,000 square miles. The principle city of Newland has a population of 100,000, the vast majority of which are employed in some fashion in the production of food. There are however other natural resources, such as large tin, iron and nickle deposits near the blue tipped mountains, where Alpha team went to investigate a lead.

Most of the population of Newland live in large multi story flats, with only the wealthy living in their own houses and in rare cases mansions. To the north of the town, the starport dominates, while all of the other important facilities lie around ten miles to the south in the nicer areas, such as the Governors palace, the Arbites fortress and the PDF HQ. Between them both lies the majority of the hab blocks, in three rough districts, A, B and C. A and B are located closest to the starport and house the majority of the work force, while C sits nearest to the Govenors palace and is where the better off folk live. The primary difference between A and B is that A accommodates those on the lowest incomes, typically many people to a room and it is perhaps no surprise that the majority of those involved in the rioting have come from district A.

Between the hab districts lies a relatively undeveloped commercial district and the large sprawling industrial districts. Both of these areas have been the prime areas of the riots.

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Additional rules/limitations

Please note the following rules are going to be in effect, just so there is no complaining when we actually start gaming.

You must ensure you are not carrying/wearing beyond what your weight limits are.

In addition, you can carry six hands worth of weapons. Rifles count as two, heavy weapons four. Swords etc count as one, great weapons two. Knifes/knuckledusters/throwing stars etc come under supplementary items below, and again will be considered on a person by person basis. You must describe, realistically, where on your person you keep these weapons on paper, so unless you state otherwise I will assume they are where you have wrote down.

You may carry a "reasonable" amount of supplementary items. Basically if you are trying to carry a ridiculous amount of stuff, like you can in Fallout, then I will stop it, but otherwise you can do what you like. Buy a backpack for ten gold to put stuff in please, or store it in the vehicle I am providing!

There are limits to how much ammunition you can realistically carry. I am inclined to limit the amount of clips you can carry to twelve total between all your weapons as a form of balance. Heavy weapons clips will count as three for each one you include as to prevent even more ridiculous abuses.

Walking around in full armour, festooned with visible guns is not always the best method of getting people to talk to you. Please remember this!

If you want to write a background please include WHY you were picked by the inquisition. This should be either something heroic or illegal, to have brought you to the attention. Please also include some information as to the type of person your character is.

Hiya,

First off, I like it a lot. I'm sure you have plenty of ideas as to how it will plan out but the open plan nature may throw up a few challenges and gives your players lots of freedom! This is really good in my opinion.

Regarding the background document I would adjust the number of PDF troopers upwards. 10,000 (even backed by 3000 arbites) would have no chance of holding control over 5M people. London has a population of nearly 10M and has 30,000 police officers. That does not include national sections like scotland yard, or the british transport police who look after the underground system. They are just for public order no defence as well. That said you may want to leave the place woefully under staffed to explain the riots.

I would also increase the time between the two teams. 2 weeks is pretty fast for the Inquisitor to decide that a lack of astropathic signal is cause for concern given the timescale of messages, I would say.

As for the sleeping in armour etc. I do like your restrictions at the bottom. I, fortunately, don't have players where this is an issue (at the moment) but nice clear rules are a good idea. I would definitely not allow anyone to sleep in any sort of heavy armour unless they want to be fatigued when they wake up (if they sleep at all). Sure you can sleep in gank leathers, maybe in a flak vest and helmet (let's face it people slept in helmets in WW2/vietnam etc.) but as soon as it is something like carapace where your movement is restricted the body simply can't relax enough to be comfortable.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the reply Brother Kane,

The idea is that there is local police force as well as Arbites, but the players haven't been told this. Primarily they would deal with the low end crimes, where as I was intending to use the Arbites as a cross between SWAT and Detectives, hence their lower numbers.

The PDF number I estimated, based on the British army having around 100,000 soldiers for 60 million population and more or less dividing by 10. I may however have to explain away the numbers issue by saying they had just had an Imperial Guard regiment drafted to hide the fact I did the numbers too small.

Two weeks is low, but the team were supposed to be in communication every day. Again, this isn't information the players need to know. By the time the players arrive, a few months will have passed, and the situation may be slightly different.

I am deliberately leaving it as open as possible with two vague objectives to complete. They have no overt inquisitorial power, although the Governor will be letting people know they are there as specialists to deal with the rioting problem, which should throw them in the deep end a bit, and let them try to muddle through.

I was going to suggest that any armour which provides more than 2 points of armour inflicts fatigue, eg, anything above bodygloves, leathers etc. I am already anticipating claims that infantry would easily be able to sleep in Guard flak armour, and trying to head that off before it occurs. This happens in my group because we have a GM who runs Fantasy and he always seems to ambush us at night if people fall asleep on watch…

Most of the restrictions I am putting in place are to stop the kind of stupidity that blighted my last campaign where a nobles huge wealth allowed him a near batman level of preparation with gadgets on top of gadgets to deal with situations, and enough grenades to blow a hole in literally anything I threw at them.

Hiya,

If you have already passed this out to players then I would definitely use the drafting excuse (if the players decide to make an issue of it!). Your comparison with the British army is interesting but I think it is necessary to think on different scales for 40K in general. To my mind I generally see PDF as responsible planetary defence all the way down to major insurgency/rebellion with actual police handling 'crime'. The reason I used the Met as a comparison is because you are looking at a public order situation. If your 10000 PDF are backed up by an appropriately sized police force for crime then it might be on the small side more for the area that it has to defend. If you think about trying to defend a whole planet it would realistically require more soldiers than that to have a chance. But if they are also needed to keep the 5M people in line I think they would struggle! Maybe the draft for the IG has left the planet weak and that is why whatever is causing your unrest has reared its head now? Having the PDF undermanned does help to stop your players eventually running to them for help.

Yeah the emails have already gone out, so changes will have to be made on the fly. Of course the information the Inquisitor has was provided by Alpha team and there is no telling just how reliable they are, since I haven't yet decided exactly what they are up to, and likely wont until I see what the players decide to do. Essentially providing me with a free hand to influence the game, that has been pre-written into the background.

Depending if they go to find Alpha team straight away or not will have some effect on how many of them are alive though and Alpha team is more or less full of the career paths that my group doesn't have.

The PDF were used to contain the riots precisely because there is a small amount of Arbites on the planet, although as mentioned in the background this has shifted and the Arbites are now taking control. The regular beat police, who havn't been mentioned, are not going to be involved in that sort of high level crime.

Most of the planet is very sparely populated, with the PDF and Arbites virtually entirely concentrated on looking after the population in the four towns, which have only 235,000 combined. The rest of the planet is much smaller villages and towns, which are looked after by the local police force types, much more akin to 21st century police.

I agree though, I don't think 10,000 PDF are very likely to prevent an invasion, so perhaps I can use that as a cover story as to why the rioting has begun, as it will conceal the real reason! At the moment, I am considering Tzeench cultists spreading the idea of change [basically a warped version of Barak Obamas campaign] as the prime cause, although this may alter before I get around to putting it in concrete.

I am aiming to get the group to participate in some situations which may make them uncomfortable, just to get them used to some of the realities of the 40k universe. Eg. When confronting rioters, they will have women and small children, one of the arbites gets shot, and they react with violent force because I am interested to see if they as a group will order them to stop, or indulge in the bloodshed. I am going to go all out to try and get some sympathy for the plight of the protesters as well, since their mission is to restore the tithe, the Inquisitor will accept the rioters winning, provided he doesn't know they are cultists!

If that happens, then it gives me a way in for a second story, cleansing these chaos cultists!

Might be interesting to have the real cause of the riots amongst those that are apparently loyal. Maybe the populace is merely reacting to the excesses of the nobility? Will the PCs encourage the arbites only to find that the protesters were right?

It's posibly a little too subtle for that particular god but maybe there are cultists on both sides that just want to see the planet devolve into open warfare for the glory of the blood god? Perhaps the PDF leader has withdrawn to enbolden the rioters so that when the time is right he can lead his forces out in a glorious slaughter? I think your order of knights could be quite useful there. Secretly their leader could have been drawn in by promises of returning to the glory days of honour and battle, only to find himself killing innocents to protect the Imperium…

You have interesting and very detailed plot, nice job I must admit, but i see you guys struggle with PDF and few arbitrators. Now lets make it clear, PDF is planetary defense force, that force should be able to repel invasion or at least hold for some time, and they wont come for some small riot (200k peoples?, remove children and females and what do you have?) That number can be equivalent to riots of today, and u wont see army in that "huge" riots, so dont be afraid to put a little bit more PDF-s on planet, so players wont give you "WTF". Why you can do that, cause PDF wont go for riots! Police will…

Now for arbitrators, you can have as many of them as you want, those are not policemans, nor soldiers, those are guys who are enforcing law to enforcerers (checking on enforcerer, to make sure enforcer is doing according to laws of Imperium), and they are more likely to battle aliens then to take care of some stupid riot (Unless they notice them as grand scale heretics, which they wont, right?). So here we go, place some arbitrators, and you are fine.

Now for the page 339, Enforcer, those are guys who are taking care for riots: dumb, with no too much of skills, or weapons, standard 40k policeman. Place them as many as you want and you see fit. They will do their best to take care of riots until the breaking point (it seams that you want some chaos) and then you can bring military, but it "might be to late". Enforcerers will do their best to take care of problem on their own, and wont look for any help for one really good reason: If they fail, they will have to deal with Arbitrators themself late, which is not nice.

At least one of the named NPCs will be involved in the encouraging the rioting, trying to cause problems and become governor themselves. I am actually tempted to have two of them working behind the scenes in conflict with each other as well. All of the named NPCs have their own agendas, I mean this is 40k, no-one is all happyness and light! Some may be loyal to the Imperium, others to themselves, or indeed to another party.

I think I may need to have Alpha teams "estimates" of PDF and Arbite forces to be wildly inacurate. Perhaps they had been given incorrect information by a party involved, or perhaps they did it to intentionally mislead, or indeed perhaps it was an innocent mistake and they misheard the numbers! I can at least weave that into my plot without too much trouble and it creates suspicion amongst the players, which I always enjoy.

I haven't ruled out a radical Inquisitor being involved yet either, trying to fan the flames of war Istavaan style, that may or may not come to pass, depending largely on how the campaign progresses.

The PDF have more or less been put on stand by due to the previous events. Partially to stop the players attempting to requisition their forces, and partially to create resentment between NPCs.

My group contains an Arbite, SoB, Psyker and Assassin. It is possible we may have a Guardsman as well although that isn't confirmed yet. Not my ideal mix of characters, but it will have to do.

As a fellow GM who has done many oh many open ended campaigns, I love the concept. You have left yourself a lot of options open, and haven't mentioned a specific adversary yet for the group (which is always fun to throw in there once you hear all the PC's idea's on what is transpiring and who is it may be). This also helps you to tailor the campaign to what the PC's like in the RPG. Combat, investigation, horror and paranoia (always good in 40k), indepth RPing, free reign paths, linear paths, more combat, etc. Although, since you mentioned that the vehicle they have has a weapon mount and a PC always seems to like to sleep in his armour, I'm assuming they are more combat oriented (not to mention 3 of the PC's are combat classes).

Anyhoot, not sure what your needing here. Other than the minor PDF issue someone brought up (which isn't a big deal IMO), I don't see any problems with the notes.

If your looking for adversaries, then it could be cultists making a move, possibly because they've added an unknown element to the crops that can cause people to lose their minds, and this is only a test. OR, it could be genestealers behind the riots, with one of the major NPC's being infected (or multiple ones, including *add mysterious music que* an inquisitor agent . OR, the arrival of the Tyrant Star with signs pointing them to the Haarlock trilogy. OR something like you or someone else mentioned, or a combination of several elements (don't you love a good mystery).

Elements which could add to the mystery are; hidden reports of mass people gone missing in far off villages, Arbitrator observing chaos markings being painted on cathedrals by unknown rioters, the Ecclesiarchy members being the first to riot or killed in certain villages, weird lights being spotted in the distant hills at an abandoned mining facility (and who's to say it isn't abandoned but really a hidden research facility, cultist hideout, secret underground prison that housed warp tainted sorcerers, etc etc), etc etc.

My list could go on and on (or more specific in nature), but not sure what you want or need. Looks like you have a grand campaign laid out though, just from reading the few notes you've posted. Also, not sure if any of your players frequent these forums, so posting specific agendas could be detrimental to the mission at hand. If you want more ideas from me, you can just state a general concept. Don't you just love paranoia though.

Thanks for all the replies everyone

Honestly, I am unsure exactly what I was looking for when I posted here, but I did figure if anything was blindingly obviously wrong someone would have pointed it out!

I am not my groups primary GM, so it can go years between me running games. Its been around three since I last run anything, so I am trying to prepare well in advance. This isn't due to start until our present WFRP ver2 RP is completed, so I have a bit of time to play around with concepts. I still have the player who is going to run a guardsman to sort out yet, hes only ever played one game of D&D and no other RP, so I need to run through all the basic rules with him and guide through his character creation

My party is combat orientated. Its an unfortunate side effect of letting everyone pick characters individually. They are fairly lopsided in terms of ability, since I don't personally think SOB or Guardsmen bring a whole lot to the party beyond their combat abilities. I did say at the outset I didn't especially want a techpriest, because the campaign is set on a low tech world and I didn't want any players getting upset with me for not catering for their character, however the guy who was going to play a techpriest is now a much more useful Arbite with inquiry at a decent level.

All of the rules for carrying etc I have laid out are to deal with players who try to push their luck. If I don't state it now, then there is a high probability that people will be trying to carry 10+ weapons! Its bad enough that some players have well over 300 rounds of ammunition.

How do people deal with psykers with Divination? Some of those powers make mystery campaigns, or finding items etc a doddle, and IMO can easily ruin a game as much as a mobile/cell phone could ruin the plots of a lot of good older films? I don't really want to out and out ban a whole psychic discipline, but I am curious as to how it can be handled?

I think divination is something that worries a lot of GMs trying to run mysteries but it is better to embrace it rather than try to artifically limit it. In the purest "What will happen if?" sort of use the best thing is to make it clear at the beginning that divination is not a science. It sees possible futures, it sees vague hints. It does not tell the PCs who is the big bad and exactly what their plans are. Equally it should not be used all the time. If they insist on using it a lot start making the psyker roll toughness or become fatigued. Peering into the future can also attract the attention of warp entities looking for a slip-up as a psyker obsessed with the future is obviously desiring something, and that desire could be exploited.

I'm pretty sure there is a sidebar about it in the book somewhere with some advice.

Also if divination is used to find out something that the PCs have no other way of knowing about and it causes them to move against someone that someone is going to work out that divination has to have been involved. That could lead to them trying to silence te psyker permanently to protect their plans…

Thanks BrotherKane,

I am hopeful that the psykers player will not want to use Divination. I think he will go for either Telekine or Biomancer with an outside chance of Pyromancer. I don't think he has grasped just how much more powerful Diviners and Telepaths are than the others!

One of the things I may use to my advantage is my NPC Diviner, if it turns out the player does start abusing the lore. I mean nothing says she won't be spying on them!

You ever remember seeing those movies with a person reading someones palm and giving cryptic warnings? It's like that, only more vague IMO. In none of the divination powers (besides Far Sight and possibly Soul Sight ) does it ever allow you to explicitly know what the doom/peril/problem/fate is.

I'm going to post how I've worked Divination into my campaigns. This is just my interpretation of it, so bear with me.

Dowsing: You need tangible evidence in order for this to work. Obviously once you have this evidence, you should already be on the right track of who might be at fault. And this only works for a specific purpose of what you know, not "Who killed Roger Rabbit."

Far Sight: Only helps if you know the exact location or have been there before. This does not help you any if you don't know when the bad guy(s) will show up.

Psychometry : I have no doubt that death and fear are the strongest emotions. So, say you used Psychometry at a murder scene and stayed there for 50+ rounds. You have discovered the victim's emotions at his/her time of demise, facial features, occupation, and name. Or say you are in an unknown sorcerers den and are trying to figure out who uses the place. Anything could of happened there. A sacrifice, torture, ****, severe beating near death experience, not just the sorcerers feelings of power he felt there. You might have to be there for weeks or months sorting them all out. And who knows all the bad things you could attract while doing so.

Personal Augury: Subject must be willing. So say you use it on the Countess you are protecting and get max net success. As the GM you know that the Countess will soon be kidnapped and then sacrificed because her blood has the key to summon a daemon the mad General wants to talk to. A symbolic image could be copious amounts of blood being invissioned, she will be lost, and then a great evil will emerge. Something that could save her is an "eye." And to weave this into a sentence, "Countess Zariethial, soon you will be lost, a wound that will shed your life force will be inflicted upon you and then a great evil will emerge from your bosom, and the only thing to protect you is your eye." Note: Eye meaning Inquisition i. See how cryptic that is.

Soul Sight: Can use it on anyone, willing or not. Problem is, who/what is around that might know you are "casting" it, and would it be dangerous to manifest this power in this area? Meaning, who/what there would kill you on the spot if you use psychic powers in their presence? Other Psykers can detect, via Psyniscience, if you are using Psycic powers. Certain creates and familiars, technological and xeno devices, and certain daemons/warp entities can also detect Psychic Powers through various means. Yay for you, bad for the PC. Anyhoot, how does using it really help you know "Who Killed Roger Rabbit" a day, week, month ago? And, this power doesn't detect Sorcery powers. Unless you Houserule that, and I was always in favor of Houseruling that it only detects active powers anyhoot.

I don't have the rest of my books with me, but I seem to recall other powers in another book. Anyhoot, hope this helps some.

Thanks Nameless2all, and everyone else.

All these comments have given me a lot to think on. I have established an enemy now, and a couple of lower level enemies as well, to throw in as a means of throwing the players off track a bit.

In my infinate "wisdom" I decided I would reward players for writing a decent background with between 100 and 300 xp. Now I have a problem. Some of the players have written very in depth backgrounds, and others have written fairly poor ones.

How do I give out differing amounts of Xp without upsetting the players? Should I suggest if they rewrite it like the other players they can get the same amount?

Crimsonsphinx said:

To be honest you said right away that it would be a floating value. Now when you look at the Background given to you, also look at the person who wrote it, do you think they can do better or is this "poor" background all they really can do from lack of game knowledge or "ability" to write.

Now if you want to give everyone a redo option, and can hold up a 300 point one, and say try to come to this level or the best you can.

I know my Moritat Assassin has a great Backstory and well now a "story" himself, but my Imperial guard squat from Volg well, not as well done, but it good.

Angel of Death said:

+1 to Angel of Death. He is exactly right. If the short story expo was from someone who lacks a lot of imagination and constantly plays the same type of character over and over again, then his half page paper might actually be equivalent to the prior GM now PC 3 page paper. Not saying you should reward the earlier max 300 exp, but 200-225 for an attempt is okay IMO. I like your style Angel.

thank you Nameless, you finished my thoughts off

In the end I handled the experience thing in a mature manner, I gathered all the players together to talk about their backgrounds and why each was given what they were given. It seemed to go down okay.

First session was completed last night. I am unsure how much they understand how beurocratic some of the 40k universe is, but I decided to see how much they would tolerate from the get go.

As they attempted to leave the city, I had every vehicle checked for contraband by some very redtape hungry enforcers. After a long time of them inspecting everything, they then insisted the players had to wait for full clearance because their vehicle wasn't on the approved list. Some of the civilians in the queue kicked up a fuss and killed the gate guards and made a break for it, which caused panic amongst the players as an alarm went off, bringing more enforcers to the scene. For some reason the players decided to make a break for freedom at this point, narrowly avoiding running over an official.

The players decided to chase and bring these criminals to justice. They eventually caught up with them, along with a bunch of their mates. A lot of talking occured, where they gang tried to convince the players they were the innocent party and it was the enforcers who were causing trouble. Then the players decided to shoot first, in a fairly short lived gun battle. Despite using parked cars as cover, the twelve gangers who were only armed with the equivelent of stub revolvers were mown down while only inflicting one wound on the party due to the players pretty much having flak armour on the majoirty of their guys, plus cover themselves and terrible dice rolling from me.

Unfortunately I then had one of the players scrounging everything of value off the dead bodies. So I really need to think of a way to stop them doing this, as it makes a disproportionate amount of money for the difficulty of the enemies. It got to the stage where he was seeing if they had any gold fillings in their teeth! Now if he was a scum I could forgive this, but hes an assassin, and already the richest party member!

Any advice on how to discourage this? You know beyond marking everything with chaos symbols? I am tempted to put servitors against them, since they have integrated weapons they cant just steal. Or give the enemy grenades, or some other one use items.

One of the other issues which occured was that one of the players shot an enforcer when he pulled them up for fleeing the gate. One of the other players has filed a report to their inquisitor reporting him for doing that. I think the Inquisitor will let them get away with that though.

Apart from that everything has gone relatively smoothly. They completed their first objective to locate Alpha team, who were mostly alive, and heading into session two, which will be a bit more political, things are looking okay.

I am wondering what penalties should be levied against the party for appearing at an official meeting with the Governor wearing armour or attempting to carry guns intot the palace? I am considering hefty fellowship difficulties should they try and get anything out of her.

With the looting stuff:

If you don't want them doing it then it has got to be hard to sell the stuff. I mean how many people are actually going to buy gold fillings? I personally don't think anyone in 40K gets fillings unless they are rich. And if you take them out of someone you've got to find a fence to sell to.

As for the guns they could be stolen. If they try selling them to anyone reputatable the enforcers could be called, if they sell them to someone disreputable once again they have to find them. If you make it more work than it is worth then they will either enjoy RPing through the process, in which case I say fine - go with it, or they will give up.

There does come a point though where you might just have to say "be realistic guys!"

Well they didn't have any gold filings, but that didn't stop him looking! It was nearly at the stage of getting his rubber glove on incase they had swallowed anything of value. In the end I gave him 130 thrones for 10 stub revolvers, 78 rounds of ammunition, two lasguns and two charge packs.

Ill have a word with the player, hes normally quite reasonable, and suggest not to loot again if it is just to sell rather than keep. If he does, he will find out the last guy they sold them to got arrested for dealing in stolen pdf weapons, so anyone they do find will offer them absolutely minimal money due to the hassle, and if it happens a third time, one of the bodies will be wired with a bomb.

Thing is, its not like I have been stingy, the players started with a months wages, their inquisitor gave them 1000 thrones pocket money to cover expenses as well!

So it has been a long time since I updated this thread. My campaign has finished, and one of my players has written a campaign diary, that I thought I would share with the people who had helped me with it!

Sister Amelia Salomis
Order of the Sacred Rose
Convent Prioris
Adepta Sororitas

Entry 1

I killed a man today. Two men, actually. I fired my rifle right at them, and they just dropped to the floor, dead. For the first time in my life I spilled the blood of others, and I don’t even know if it was in the name of the God-Emperor or not.

It started simply enough. I met with my team mates on Inquisitor Archimedes’ ship The Emperor’s Guiding Light, and there we were given our tasks. Canoness Helena had told me I should follow Inquisitor Archimedes’ word as though it were her own, and that I represented the Sisterhood.

We were to travel to Regulus to track down the missing Alpha Team, and resume their investigation into the riots and loss of tithes. We firstly had to elect a leader from our group. The Guardsman seemed very young, and probably more used to following orders. The psyker…I wouldn’t follow a witch into an empty field, never mind anywhere else. The gunslinger, Doc, had a disinterested look about him, and I suspect wouldn’t be comfortable leading.

That left the Judge. Drake. Given the situation on Regulus, it made sense to me that he should take responsibility for the mission – it seemed a law & order issue.

Upon landing we were to seek an audience with the Governor, Katerina Swartz, but we were told she could not see us for three days. Now although we could have expedited the process as agents of the Inquisition, we were to pose as prospectors and it wouldn’t do to blow our cover so early. So we had time to kill – we decided to set off the next day to investigate Alpha Team’s last known location.

To pass the time I went with Doc & Drake to a local bar – I thought it would do good to get to know my fellow team members in more informal surroundings. Doc’s choice of drinks were foul, yet somehow I kept ordering more. They started to affect me, and Drake had to help me back to our vehicle – Emperor preserve me, I fear I was a little drunk! Fortunately the sleeping area provided me with a recovery haven.

I was woken some time later by very loud alarms! It seemed Drake had decided we should set off in the night to gain some ground, but there had been some kind of incident at the gates – a local guard had been shot. There were guards at the door to our vehicle and for reasons known only to him, our psyker Voltron decided to shoot at them. He hit one! I knew these heretical witches could not be trusted! They are unpredictable and dangerous! The whole scene was utter chaos, and nobody seemed able to take control.

We ended up leaving Newland in pursuit of the shooters. I had such a headache, which could only have been a result of Doc’s drinks. I swear I will not touch the foul stuff again! We soon came upon a small group of vehicles, and several individuals. Doc and Drake went to investigate whilst I kept an eye on Voltron. The Guardsman went to man the Heavy Stubber.

Soon the individuals started gathering around and I sensed all was not well. I left the psyker and went out the back of the vehicle, Armageddon rifle at the ready. Suddenly there was gunfire, and Drake & Doc were under attack. I couldn’t see how it started. My years of training on Veneris took over instinctively and where there were men I now saw only targets. It can’t have been more than a minute before it was all over.

I’d taken down two of them, I knew that. I walked over to where they were laying and looked down at them. Dead. By my hand. We were under attack and defending ourselves. What else could I have done? Training can prepare you for battle, but it does nothing for the aftermath. Who were these people? Why had they been driven to do what they did? I’d likely never know. Maybe it doesn’t matter.

Maybe in time I’ll get used to seeing such things. The gunslinger, Doc, told me he had killed for the first time aged just sixteen. Sixteen! I had barely touched a rifle at the Preceptory at that time. Sleep was hard to come by for the rest of the night, with these thoughts swirling around in my head which was still suffering from the after-effects of the drink.

The next day we neared our destination and hit an area which interfered with our communications. Cautiously pressing on we reached the small town of Tinpott, to discover that it was a wreckage. I saw burned-out buildings, bullet holes…something big had happened here. Towards the centre of the town we came upon a vehicle which could only have been Alpha Team’s – indeed, we discovered the remains of ‘Cogs’, their Tech-Priest, inside – a charred carcass now. Clearly his false Machine God did not protect him.

An investigation of a nearby building turned up the remaining members of Alpha Team. Mikhael, the team leader, greeted us but informed us that Xtasy and Luca were very badly wounded in the fight which killed Cogs. He told us that around 50 to 60 people turned up at this abandoned village, where Alpha Team had followed a lead, and caused the destruction. They apparently then disappeared as quickly as they’d appeared.

Luca and Xtasy clearly needed urgent medical attention. My suggestion was for Alpha Team to ride back to Newland with us. Mikhael agreed for his comrades to be taken for medical attention, but chose to stay behind himself. He is still trying to continue his mission. His determination is admirable, and he surely serves the Emperor well. I admired his courage – he is a good leader; looking after his team mates, whilst still focussing on the mission objective. I hope that he will be okay when we return.

We made haste back to Newland and were able to admit Xtasy and Lucas to the best medical facility in the city, with some help from the Inquisition. Still, I went to the Ecclesiarchical Temple and offered prayers for their recovery.

Tomorrow we meet with the Governor. I do not know what will happen from here. I have never known a world outside of the farms of Spectoris and the Preceptory on Veneris. My nightmarish glance into the violent universe outside 14 years ago appears to be far more reflective of what life is really like out here. It is harsh, cruel and bloody. Little wonder that the Imperium strives every day to bring the light of the God-Emperor to all corners of the galaxy.

I will do this. I must do His work. And if those who oppose it meet death, then that must be His will.

Entry 2

Things are not getting any easier out here. The lines between right and wrong seem to get blurrier by the day, and I have nobody for guidance. Not Xander, not Sister Liana, not Canoness Helena…nobody. I feel I’m writing this personal log for the good of my own sanity now, rather than any need to keep track of what we’re doing on Regulus. Only my faith in the God-Emperor is seeing me through right now…thankfully that will never leave me.

We met as scheduled with Governor Swartz. She advised that the situation was as dire as we thought, and getting no better. We were told that her advisors were at loggerheads and could not, or would not, work together – we were to seek advice from each of them independently. This we tried to do. We sought first the Bishop, Father Erheart, who I had previously learned from the Ecclesiarchy may have a lead – indeed he did; he believed that we might find something in a bar in the Habs called the Fire & Brimstone. Father Erheart may be a tad zealous and possibly eccentric but, as I was to learn, he was probably the most helpful of them all.

Von Strumm, the Astropath, would not see us – claiming he was too busy. I don’t understand their ways so was in no hurry to interrupt him…but I know we must do a thorough investigation so we left a message for him to contact us at his convenience. After him we went to see the Diviner, Lady Rose. I did not like this witch. She spoke in riddles, and tried to sow seeds of doubt and paranoia amongst us, claiming someone is holding the truth from us. I think it’s as likely that she is holding something back. She could not tell us anything useful so I left Doc and Regis to finish the conversation; I’d had quite enough of her.

Apparently the Judge and the ex-General had left so we went to speak to the Grandmaster of the palace guard, who gave us a bit of background on the feud between those two. He was fairly helpful but I think he is a bit frustrated at being forced to stand around in the palace while everything is going on. Nobody could track down General Addus so we went to speak to the Judge – although we also left a message for someone else to contact us. The Governor had informed us that another Inquisitor was present, but we were advised that approaching him directly might get the wrong people’s backs up. I also sent a message to Inquisitor Archimedes, asking if he knew anything of this person.

The Judge was in the Adeptus Arbites’ headquarters, and I found him to be arrogant and obtuse. He didn’t feel the need for us to be there, nor did he wish to provide any assistance; if anything he thought we should be assisting him! It was here that we were interrupted by one of his lessers, who said a riot was taking place. Judge Fayre asked us to accompany him to “see how it is dealt with” for ourselves. As we made to leave, a messenger came to us from General Addus saying he wished to speak to us. The others went with the Judge and I deviated to go and see the General.

The General was likeable enough, and he confided that he suspected a set-up for his recent fall from grace; he observed that on the first night of riots, when he lost so many men, the rioters were far better equipped than they should have been. Indeed he claims that many were far better trained than they ought to be for civilians. However, those individuals have not been seen since – were they just there to start the trouble – stoking the fire if you will? Or is Addus clutching at straws to explain his failures? My instinct is to believe the old General, but I don’t know where the truth lies right now. I thanked him for his information, and he offered to take me by air to be redeployed with my comrades. I should have declined…

They made me parachute – parachute! – out of the aircraft. Suffice to say my landing was far from graceful. I doubt I shall be inducted into the Seraphim in the near future! I arrived to a scene of chaos; Arbite officers were holding back a large and raucous crowd, though there was more shouting and protesting than anything. As we stood by, a single shot was fired and struck an Arbite in the head, killing him. The Judge gave the order to return fire and within minutes they had gunned down…sixty…maybe more…I couldn’t tell. They were utterly indiscriminate, and Fayre was remorseless.

Women…children…they killed them all. For ONE casualty. They showed no interest in apprehending the actual culprit, and Fayre attempted to reason that the crowd was deliberately sheltering the one responsible. The evidence, he assured me, would come to light afterwards. It was brutal. Was this justice? The crowd fled, of course, and the protesting was over, but at what cost? We came here to get the planetary tithes back in order but if Fayre continues there will be nobody left to pay them! I have resolved to get this addressed as soon as I am able. I will seek help from every quarter. This is not the Emperor’s justice, this is a madman out of control.

Added to this was the fact that our psychotic witch ally gleefully joined in, shooting two people in the crowd himself. This lunatic needs a leash putting on him, and soon. After the crowd dispersed, Fayre’s men looked through the corpses and conveniently found the “evidence” they wanted – a large hand cannon found on the body of a small boy. I swear there is not a chance that boy could have wielded that weapon, but I didn’t outright accuse the Judge of anything. Unlike him, I expect to have some proof before making such claims.

Fayre told us that he had information about a potential lead that his Arbites could not get to at a nearby drinking hole called the Jackknife. Loathe as I was to help the Judge after this, I could not let his actions cloud the objective at hand, so we went. After some persuading, the barman pointed us to a singer, who in turn pointed us back to the Fire & Brimstone. Looks like we were heading after the Bishop’s lead after all. On the way we were ambushed by some kind of cybernetic assassin. He badly injured Voltron – which provided us with the distraction we needed. He did not respond to a request to disarm himself, so we took actions to defend ourselves. He died, but we were unable to notice any giveaway markings on his body.

So we’re not only being lied to by the Judge, but now somebody wants us dead as well. I assume this means we’re heading in the right direction, but what started as a simple investigation into a missing team and some tithes has turned into a plot of intrigue. Someone at the Court knows something, the Governor was right about that. The Judge? General Addus? The witch? I don’t know. We need some answers, and soon. Emperor guide us.

Entry 3

I feel like we’re going round in circles. We spent much of today chasing leads all over the city, and mostly hit dead ends. On our approach to the Fire & Brimstone bar, we were asked by some straggly-looking individual to follow him because his boss “had information for us”. Only three of us were present at this time – Drake had taken Voltron to the local medical facilities to have his injuries attended to. A quick conversation between myself, Doc and Regis concluded with the decision to follow this individual, but with caution.

I was soon put off. He led us to his boss’s location, which was very badly looked after, if the exterior was anything to go by. It wasn’t that which bothered me so, however. It was more the fact that part of this person’s group were mutants. Mutants! I immediately informed Doc that I would not be entering this place, and that he could proceed without me if I so wished. Doc did indeed go inside whilst myself and Regis stayed back. I kept a watchful eye on the mutants…you never know what they’re thinking. One even remotely hostile move and I would have put a bullet between their eyes…I think they all had eyes. It would have been merciful.

Doc emerged to tell us that the boss, who fancied himself a “Prince” by all accounts, had an offer for us, in which if we took out a rival of his – called the “Snake Father”, he would help us in our quest. I do not want to assist a man who openly consorts with mutants. However, Doc suggested we at least see this through a little further in case it assists us with our mission. It was a sensible idea.

We entered the Fire & Brimstone to follow up this lead, looking for a man called Gaius, and we found him there. He seemed to be convinced that the shooting which led to the slaughter of the protestors by Judge Fayre’s men was a setup. He also implied that should the protests be successful, he would be installed as the new leader. Either this man is very confident, or highly deluded. In either event, he told us that if we were to join his cause, we would need to pass some form of trial, the details of which he did not reveal. I convinced him we would need to consult with our comrades at the medical facility, and he agreed. The three of us left then.

On our journey back, we received a message from the Astropath stating he wished to speak with us back at the palace. We also got word from Mikhail back in Tinpott saying we should attend him as soon as possible, as he had made a significant discovery. We resolved to head back to our vehicle and get armed and armoured up. Put our game faces on, if you will.

Enroute to the vehicle, we discovered we were being stalked by three individuals and a couple of cyber mastiffs…those looked vicious, I must admit. The three men told us that they were associates of the cyborg which tried to kill us only a day earlier. They claimed to only be interested in retrieving his weapon, which Regis had taken. If we turned it over, they would leave. I have to say, Doc seemed quite ready to shoot his way out of the situation…and the Emperor alone knows what that lunatic Voltron would have done if he were there. Ultimately I asked Regis to give them the bolt pistol – there was little point in risking open conflict when we had far more important matters to deal with. The men left, claiming we’d see them again soon. They appeared to have golden sun emblems on their attire.

We returned to the palace, via the vehicle, and spoke with Von Strumm, the Astropath. He told us that an important message went missing from his department for a week at the beginning of the riots. However, he has not been able to ascertain who had perpetrated this. Sadly it seems the audit trail systems were not adequate. Since it is possible that whoever did this could be tied to the riots, we assured Von Strumm we’d look into it. He observed that the Governor herself might be able to answer some questions on it. How wrong he was. Governor Swartz was not able to offer any insight, and claimed that her palace guard’s investigation had turned up nothing to substantiate Von Strumm’s claims. She even said this had happened before. I don’t know…she seemed rather uninterested in following it up further, which is odd for someone whose very rule could be under threat. You’d think she would want all possible leads following up.

At this point we decided it would be better to take a break from all this politicking and left the city to go see what Mikhail had discovered. On the way we were attacked by two vehicles, but fortunately Regis was able to dispose of them hastily. We investigated the wreckages to find that one of the corpses bore a snake-charm necklace. We took this for reference, and arrived in Tinpott to find Mikhail telling us his discovery was only a short journey away.

He drove us there, and showed us what he’d found – some sort of crashed pod, which was empty and looked to have seated five humans, or certainly humanoids. It seemed it had been there a short while, and upon closer inspection bore the same snake symbol as was found on the charm we’d taken from our pursuers earlier. However we could not glean any further information. What would five people be doing crashing to the planet in a drop pod? What was their connection to this snake organisation?

With nothing further to do, we spent the night in the vehicle and returned to Newland the next morning, determined to follow up on the lead from this “Prince” character. This led us to a compound which we entered by way of deceit from Doc. That man can double-talk, I’ll give him that. We were led into the main building, and it was here that we discovered the head of the organisation. And on the wall was a giant snake symbol – the same as we’d previously encountered. We’d walked right into the belly of the beast. I gripped my blessed charm and uttered a silent prayer to the God-Emperor that He would guide us through this.

Entry 4

We might have made some progress today. We found ourselves in the building belonging to this Serpent group. Turns out they’d found Voltron sneaking around outside – which didn’t surprise me really. They brought him in too. Oddly there was no sign of our Arbite associate Drake, so where he’s gone to only the Emperor knows.

The woman claiming to be their leader asked us our purpose and we offered an exchange of information based on our knowledge of the location of this Prince fellow. We asked the woman if she could give us information about who in the government might be involved in the staging of the protests, but she couldn’t, or wouldn’t say. We did glean that they were involved with the Golden Suns, and that both were actively involved in the protests, but that’s as far as we got and we took our leave.

Following on from this meeting we headed off to see the Inquisitor at the palace. We passed by an arms merchant and I took this opportunity to arm myself with a flamer, as I’d shown a fair proficiency with such weapons during my time training on Veneris. If we came across further trouble I would purge them with fire!

The Inquisitor told us that he had run into much the same trouble as we had, when he’d tried to conduct an investigation. His suspicions are that multiple people within the government may be involved in these protests and riots. My head is almost spinning trying to work this all out! He did however, give us a lead to follow – a munitions plant elsewhere in the city where he suspects some questionable activity may be taking place. He sent his assistant girl, Lola, to guide us.

We arrived at the plant to discover three possible entry points – front, rear and skylight. Both of the conventional entrances were guarded so I took a quick trip up to the skylight for a recon on what was going on. I could see several Serpent guards, a couple of Golden Suns, some equipment and some people being kept captive in cages! I reported this back to the group, and the general consensus was to launch an assault on the rear of the building.

This we did, driving the vehicle right up to the doors, or as near as we could. I think Doc, who took the wheel, hit a couple of them. We jumped out and brought down the remaining guards with gunfire. It was fair to say the rest of the building’s personnel knew we were there! We opened one of the barrels that they were making ready for transport. There was some kind of fermented liquid inside…and then Voltron of course drank some. He suddenly went berserk and charged off into the building – although whether that was the effects of the drink is open to debate!

Once inside we discovered that one of the Golden Suns was wearing power armour, and the other was wielding some kind of staff – probably a witch of some sort. Volton went steaming headfirst into the nearest body, which I think was actually a simple worker – seriously, this guy is completely insane. I think I’ll need a word with Inquisitor Archimedes when this is all over; I can’t work with such unreliable team mates in future!

Doc and I concentrated our initial fire on the Golden Sun with the staff; we brought him down eventually after some witch-power saved him from the initial attacks. By now the Serpent guards were bearing down on us, so I switched to the flamer and opened it up towards a couple of them who tried to get out of the way. A less skilled person might have missed them but I was able to catch them. A couple of bursts later and they were both done for. The fight was short, as Doc did for a couple more, whilst Voltron went for the guy in the power armour. I’d say it was a stupid and suicidal thing to do but I gave up long ago being surprised by his actions, and if he meets his death doing so then he’ll have only himself to blame.

As it turned out, Voltron attacked the guy, and he hit him somewhere in the body – the next thing I know, he’s blasted off with a jet pack through the skylight! We finished off the guards and set about investigating. It turned out the people in cages were horrible mutants, mostly dead. One of them lived still – it resembled a girl with wings, but all mutants are corrupt abominations no matter their appearance. And given there was no way to know the extent of its corruption, I took the decision to purge it with flame. We discovered that the experiments in this building involved adding mutant blood to the beer; if it sent Voltron psychotic, it could easily be doing the same to the general population, making them more aggressive and violent in their protests!

At this point, Doc found some sort of trap door which we investigated to discover further cages, which also contained mutants! Their wretched existences were bad enough that their corruption had so manifested, but to be locked up as well…it was mercy to purge them with the Emperor’s fire. As we finished down there, we heard a noise from above – the vehicle from the rear of the building had been started up, and it drove through to the front and made to escape.

We got back to our vehicle, and Doc gave chase from behind the wheel. It got rammed off the road eventually and set ablaze. From the wreckage we retrieved a box, which contained some kind of map of the city which was unmarked save for a cross over one area. With no other clues available to us at this time, we made for the location. What awaits, I cannot imagine.

Entry 5

There were some major developments today; things are now moving along quickly. The location we went to from the map turned out to be some kind of depot, and there we saw the true extent of the goings-on behind these riots and protests. We saw several of the rebels engaged in a meeting with both General Addus and Judge Fayre – it seems they were in it together. Then Lola, the person we thought was an Inquisitor’s assistant, revealed herself to be the Inquisitor, and offered us employment with her instead of Archimedes. Her strategy was to blast the targets with orbital barrages, whereas Archimedes preferred us to go in on foot and see to it. The way I saw it, I could not betray our own Inquisitor’s wishes, especially given his acquaintance with Canoness Helena, so we turned down her offer.

Archimedes asked us to assault the compound where we’d previously discovered the Serpent group to be based. His troops would provide the necessary distraction whilst we snuck in via an entrance in the sewers. The sewers! I’ve heard the expression ‘dirty work’ but this was too literal for my liking! But we pressed on and we were eventually led to a dark room somewhere in the compound, and it appeared to be some kind of shrine. We searched the room and discovered some kind of device which could have been a weapon. I felt nauseous as well, but I hadn’t eaten anything unusual, so I’ve no idea what that was about. Voltron, of course, decided he would claim the weapon for himself, but since that was nothing to do with our objective, I had no problem with him doing so. We also found some letters proving that the General and the Judge were in league with the rebellion.

Just as we finished searching the place, we heard voices coming in this direction so me and Doc took cover, and Voltron did his vanishing act. Into the room came the woman we met the last time we were here, General Addus, the guy with the power armour and jet pack, and about ten rebel guards. They had no idea we were there, so we got the drop on them. I let loose with my flamer right into the guards, and although I had to expend an entire cartridge, they were all taken care of. In the resulting fight, we took down the other three, although Doc took an absolutely horrific hit to his left leg, and I think it was broken. To be fair though, he did take his revenge out on the armoured guy and General Addus in equally spectacular fashion!

In the aftermath, Voltron healed Doc’s broken leg with some of his witch-powers, although he seemed to take it a bit far and ended up causing him some pain too. It worries me a little that I can’t be absolutely certain that wasn’t deliberate.

I checked to make sure Doc didn’t want to leave now and seek further medical help but he assured me he was fine. Probably stubbornness, but I was curious about what else we might find so I was happy enough to go on for now.

Outside the shrine room we had two routes available; one which led to the sounds of battle, and the other which led the other way. We took the latter, supposing there was more chance of finding evidence this way. Indeed there was; but at first we found around thirty people locked up in cages. I could see no evidence of mutation, so I promised to free them. In the room beyond this, there were stairs leading to a sort of subterranean garage.

In here we saw, amongst other things, a Rhino armoured transport. But before we could take more action, the Rhino opened and a large Space Marine stepped out. I’d never seen one before; by the Emperor, they’re huge! I think it might have been a Chaos worshipper too, certainly from stories and descriptions I’ve heard, his adornments would lead me to believe so. I’ve heard tales of single Space Marines defeating scores of foes, and there was no chance the three of us could have taken him down alone, so we decided to retreat before he noticed us.

We left via the same route that we took to get in, and told the woman in charge of Archimedes’ troops that the Marine was coming. We contacted Archimedes himself then and he advised us that we should return to the government palace, which we duly did. There he told us that the Judge had taken the Governor away and she was presumed to be a hostage now. Our next objective, he told us, was to assault the Arbites HQ, located next to the palace, and which had been locked down for a while now.

This should certainly be a challenge.

Entry 6

No mission plan survives contact with the enemy – that’s one of the many lessons Sister Liana taught me back on Veneris during my training days. You can plan for several outcomes, factor in variables and research historical cases, but absolutely nothing can prepare you for the eventual scenario which will unfold.

The plan was simple. Go to Regulus, and discover what happened to Alpha Team; then investigate the rioting and restore planetary tithes. As I sit here now in my quarters, the mission behind us, the reality which unfolded was very, very different. I certainly didn’t expect us to lose anyone.

So, where were we last time? Oh yes I remember.

The five of us…yes, there were five, regrouped at the palace building with Inquisitor Archimedes who informed us our new primary objective was to storm the Arbites headquarters and attempt to rescue Governor Swartz. The main door blocked our entry, and so Inquisitor Archimedes kindly saw to it that it was removed, by a Leman Russ’ battle cannon. Doc, Voltron and myself formed a vanguard and entered the building, meeting with half a score of Arbite troops – heretical traitors, all of them.

I met the heretics with the Emperor’s purging fire whilst Doc and Voltron used their own methods to assault the enemy. I don’t know whether the heat of battle overcame Voltron, or he just had another of his crazy episodes but I swear I saw him fire upon Doc. Perhaps I was mistaken, but given his behaviour later on I actually doubt it. But between us we saw off the traitors, and were then joined by Regis, Drake and Inquisitor Archimedes. There were two possible routes to take, so the Inquisitor took the other two down to the lower levels whilst we three took the elevator up to the Judge’s personal quarters – perhaps he was holding the Governor there.

Our approach into the quarters however was barred by a heavy door which, when tried by Doc, appeared to be trapped with an electrical shock. Voltron assured us he could physically displace himself to the other side of the door and open it from the inside. Not that I trust witch-powers, but given our lack of options, and the chance that Voltron might disappear into the Warp forever, it was a risk worth taking.

After a few seconds, he did indeed open the door and myself & Doc walked in to find that Judge Fayre had a gun to the Governor’s head. His plan, it seemed, was to use her as a human shield to aid his escape. No way in the Emperor’s name was I going to let that happen. That said, it might have been amusing to try and see him attempt to evade the Inquisition. I suspect it wouldn’t have gone too well for the traitor.

In any event, both I and Doc attempted to reason with him to no avail – he still attempted escape. So when Voltron made a move to attack him, everything happened rather swiftly, but Doc was able to draw a sight on him and promptly shot him dead – without harm coming to Governor Swartz. At this point Voltron exhibited some behaviour which was odd even by his standards – he ran over to the corpse of the Judge and…well…he just started drinking his blood! It was really quite disgusting, and I have absolutely no idea what he was doing…not that I ever do. This witch is quite clearly deranged and I’ll be recommending that we don’t use him again.

Soon after this we were rejoined by Inquisitor Archimedes and the others, who looked like they’d seen better days. We were told that the final objective would see us transported to Thanatos Ridge so that we could assault the base there, where the Snake Father was said to reside. The transport would be Valkyrie; needless to say I was less than impressed! Still, perhaps this time it would ground itself and allow us to assault directly on foot.

Well no, obviously that was not the case. So there I was, a few hours later, attempting my second airborne descent. This time, however, the Sisters Seraphim would have been slightly prouder of me I think – an almost perfect landing! I still don’t see a future in that sorority for me!

Fortunately our attack on this base was supported by thirty Imperial Stormtroopers – who I am told are very precise. My faith in the Adeptus Astartes took a blow however when they failed in their only objective of removing all anti-aircraft fire from the Ridge. Then again, from a chapter calling themselves the Brothers Brothers, what would one expect?

Anyway. Whilst Regis, Drake and the Stormtroopers held off the base’s defenders, I entered the main building along with Doc and Voltron. Seems we are the only ones who ever seem to be around to head into these situations. Well…as it turned out this appeared to be the best choice. Inside we heard some heavy movement and took cover. Some kind of Chaotic-looking Space Marine emerged and fortunately moved right by us without noticing to join the battle outside.

We went up the stairs from whence he had appeared and found a temple-like room (my word these heretics love their temples, don’t they?) and some strange mutated inhabitant. Given that he appeared to be half-serpent I don’t think it was a stretch to assume that we had met the Snake Father. Doc and Voltron wasted no time engaging the evildoer, and I gave the bolt pistol a few shots, one of which struck true and between us we brought him down. I then cleansed the evil corpse with some holy flame.

From here we went up to the roof of the base to observe how the battle outside had gone. It seemed there really were only a handful of survivors; about five Stormtroopers. The Space Marine had made short, bloody work of the rest – including poor Regis and Drake! They had been quite horribly butchered and it took all of my will to keep my stomach from rebelling. The Marine was dead also though, so I hope that they had played a part in that, meaning their sacrifice would not have been in vain. We saw Inquisitor Archimedes emerging from a descending Valkyrie, so we promptly left the building to meet him.

Then Voltron did it again! He ran over the corpse of Drake – I assumed at first to mourn…but he just started drinking his blood! The witch is absolutely off his head! I’ve never seen anything like it. Apparently the Inquisitor agreed with me, and had him arrested on suspicion of being corrupted by Chaos somehow. He would be investigated, I was assured.

And so we left Regulus, our investigative team two men lighter than it had been when we arrived. Drake and Regis are with the Emperor now – we had eventually achieved our mission objective, but paid a heavy price for it. Was it too high? I think not – to die in the Emperor’s service is the ultimate glory, and a fate that undoubtedly awaits me someday.

I will face this when I must. Until then I will continue to do His bidding, His work, and seek out and purge His enemies, wherever they might be. I am Sister Amelia Salomis – a Militant Eloheim, servant and warrior of the God-Emperor.

A Sister of Battle.