So I was trying to brainstorm some ideas for games, and it occurred to me that plenty of authors out there have already wrote great stories for me, they just need some adapting. So what are some "classic" novels that you can think of reimagined in 40k? I'll start:

Frankenstein: A Magos of the Adeptus Mechanicus approaches party to help him hunt down one of his creations: a self-aware machine that is masquerading as a Tech-Priest and committing many tech-heresies and crimes. It seems to have developed a cult-following of other Tech Priests.

I also feel that A Picture of Dorian Gray translates pretty directly to 40k and could actually make a pretty cool character background.

Similarly, Phantom of the Opera could be done with some sort of Muse interacting with the ship's Tech-Priest; giving him suspiciously wonderful new ideas….

The obvious one for Rogue Trader would of course be The Odyessey.

Dr Jeckell and Mr Hyde would be good for a crazy Rogue Trader rival or possibly a Navigator!

20,000 Light Years Into the Warp : A heretical rogue trader (or perhaps an Eldar Corsair) who renounced his Imperial citizenship, and now goes only by the name "Omen", has acquired a void ship with a unique ability; simultaneous existance in the empyrean and real space (and yet wholly neither). It takes advantage of this duality traveling superluminally without the need for either Geller field or navigators (or the Web Way if Omen is a Corsair). This ship cuts through the void with an uncanny, almost Eldar-ish speed and grace. Omen has taken it upon himself to destroy merchant Imperial vessels, leaving an aftermath which appears to be attack by void kraken. In fact, this vessel is often described as a "living thing" by survivors due to its unnatural speed and grace. The ship rarely engages with battlefleet vessels and easily alludes all of their weapons by slipping effortlessly nto the Warp to escape.

The explorers are investigating these distubances when their guncutter is attacked and destroyed by Omen's ship. They are rescued and taken onboard this weird vessel where they are met by Omen and his fanatically loyal crew, who are much more than they seem . . .

Who is this Omen? Why did he rescue the explorers? Why does he attack the IoM? Will the explorers survive? Will they survive their travel unscathed?

Shakespeare's Coriolanus : a brilliant and highly-successful Imperial Guard General almost single-handedly puts down a planet-wide rebellion. He's given great military honours and made Governor of the world. Howerver, some scheming Nobles and Administratum members conspire to have his nomination as Governor thrown out due to his failure to adhere to some ancient and obscure local custom. Having been denied his honours, the General joins up with what is left of the rebellious elements and decides to make war on its capital city.He leads his army to very gates of the defenseless city but a mystic claiming to speak with the Voice of the Emperor meets with him and convinces him to stop his hostile action for the good of the Imperium. He agrees to stop his hostilities but the rebels, so close to freedom from the oppresive Imperial yoke, turn on Coriolanus and kill him.

The city is saved, the rebels turn on each other and are eventually wiped out by the PDF and Imperial Guard forces. General Coriolanus is branded Excommunicate Traitoris and his name is expunged from the Imperial record.

(as a bonus, all of the names in the play sound amazing as-is for Imperial names!)

(This one works better for Dark Heresy, methinks) As an adaptation of (and slight deviation from) The Crucible , but from a different POV, an acolyte cell is contacted by their Inquisitor and told to investigate a Radical Inquisitor who is on trial for suspicion of heresy. The Radical has served as an Inquisitor for many years quite loyally and accomplished many feats, but as he approaches the end of his life, his career is called into question. The prosecutors agree that his methods are effective, but suspect he has been corrupted beyond redemption. Are they right, and if so, what does that mean for the Acolytes' Inquisitor, who looks up to the man on trial and is possessed of a Radical bent? Or are they wrong and implicated in some political scheme that might shake the Acolytes' faith in the Imperium? And what does that mean for the cell when their next investigation requires more radical methods to succeed? It makes the players question their loyalties, think about morality, and it puts a man's life in their hands.

The dark city

A city floating in open space under the control of some possessing psychic entities. The city itself can be manipulated and altered by a psyker. The humans held captive there have their lives rewritten over and over.

Macbeth

Eldar seers give a noble a prophecy that causes him to betray his governor and preform a coup. However he doesn't stop there, and is now seeking dominion over the sector.The newly eldar made megalomaniac needs to be put in his place.

Harry Potter

The players discover a planet that needs to be brought into the imperium, however the problem is the planet has a vastly increased portion of the populace that are psykers. This group of psykers begin harnessing their powers at an early age in a school, hidden from the no psychic populace. Unfortunately chaos has found the planet at the same time and are working on subverting the school and taking over. (the gm I saw do this 40k-arized the school as well… it wasn't a very nice place lol)

The never ending story

The players find a planet that is mirrored in the warp. The mirror is inhabitted by seemingly friendly people who call upon the players for aid in saving them… not from the warp, but from nothing iteslf. Portions of the planet are being erased and the entities are helpless to stop it. Examination of the material form of the planet shows that the populace is being effected by a entity that is feeding on emotion, creativity, and dreams (all the stuff that powers the warp). Turns out those very things are the connection between the world and its mirror, figure out a way to stop the feeder and restore both worlds.

I agree that pretty much any book or movie could be converted to a 40k plot. I hope my suggestions are useful to you and wish you luck.

As I was clicking publish another thought came to me:

The players are going about thier business when a blue police box appears in the middle of the bridge. The Doctor steps out of it and greats the players…

That is not necessarily a serious plot but it could be rather amusing.

Cryhavok said:

I smell the stench of Tzeentch! That's an exterminatus.

"Hast seen the White Kraken?" ++Message received by Chorda Vessel Rachel from the Pequod during exchange of mail, near Kain's Abyss, 817.M41.

"Aye, aye! And I'll chase him round the Cauldron, and round the Siren Star, and round the God-Emperor's Scourge, and to the Rifts of Hecaton before I give him up. And this is what ye have shipped for, men! To chase that white Kraken over all sides of the Expanse, till he spouts black blood and rolls tentacles out."

“Vengeance on a dumb brute!" cried Void Master Starbuck, "that simply smote thee from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing, Lord Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous.”

“Oh, my Captain! My Lord Captain! Noble soul! Grand old heart, after all! Why should any one give chase to that hated thing! Away with me! Let us fly these deadly regions! Let us home!”

Plynkes said:

That was pretty epic.

Plynkes for the win!

Recently, another thought came to me; The Hobbit.

Rogue Trader is going about his business when he is hailed by an unfamiliar and small ship. When he allows them to come abord, it is a party of Squats looking to purge their homeworlds of Tyranid invasion and make a fortune on the STC fragments available there.

Gandalf is an Inquisitor, Gollum is a mutant, and the One Ring is a chaos artefact forged by Daemon Prince Sauron that, instead of turning you invisible, shifts you partially into the Warp, giving you the Phase trait.

The crew are seconded by a highly senior Ordo Malleus Inquisitor, who places them under the command of a more junior Inquisitor. They are informed that an entire Conclave of Hereticus Inquisitors has gone Radical and been declared Excommunicate. The party are charged to "Execute Ordo 66."

Kinda hard to beat the Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven for a good working plot. Of course, you'll want to Goth-darken it up a bit for the setting, and instead of 7 it'll be more like 7,000, but I think you get the idea…

David Brin's Uplift series has some good stuff that only needs some 40k-ing. Being stuck on a world invaded by unholy xenos while your ship is being repaired in some neutral space dock, or being chased by fleets of the unholy xenos whose tech far surpasses your own.

Larry Niven's short stories on the Pak are also very doable. A Rogue Trader becomes a Brennan-monster, or perhaps some Inquisitor does.

You could always go the War & Peace route and center your campaign around the players feeling like small fry while a great crusade whirls around them and their futile exploits.

Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy - A game of intrigue and backstabbery focussing on the spying and information trade of several rival Rogue Trader houses and their Seneschals.

Island of Doctor Moreau - The players ship is thrown from the warp into a backwater system. Whilst effecting repairs on their warp drive, the ship sends down an away to what seems to be a paradise world only to find the twisted machinations of a rogue ad-mech Magos (with potential for some Dark Eldar Haemonculus involvement too)…

When the sleeper(s) awake - The characters find their return journey back to the calixis sector after profitable adventures to be a nightmare as they are caught in the grasps of a powerful warp storm for months on end. Tired and haunted they finally break free and return home only to find thousands of years have passed and while their dynasty's wealth has earnt interest with the banking guilds and they are now one of the richest rogue trader groups around, the world they left behind is horrifically changed.

Star Wars - a forest moon planet circling a gas giant, the shattered remains of a vast (Xenos?) war engine shattered in some ancient conflict still in orbit around the moon. the Mechanicus believe this device might once have been able to shatter planets with a single burst from it's massive weapons but surely that conjecture must be mistaken. Scattered around the planet are examples of lost Archeotech (bunkers, huge war machines, walkers that seem based on STC patterns used by Imperial Guard), as well as fragments of the aforementioned war machine that crashed into the planet long ago, contaminating patches of the forest with strange radiations. the only inhabitants of the forest moon is a primative race of sentient Xenos, scrawny in size yet particularly stealthy and skilled at hunting. meat eaters with a predeliction for the flesh of humans, they daub their fur in strange symbols and blood of their enemies, giving praise to their god who demands a toll of skulls and violence.

Hellraiser (oh come on! you knew this was coming!). while resupplying at Footfall, the ship and crew hear rumors of a strange and particularly gruesome series of deaths. the locals are hunting for whomever or whatever is causing this murder spree, but no connection between the deaths has been found. At the same time, the ship's captain wins an odd little puzzle box in a high stakes game of chance…a box that makes the Astropath extremely nervous….but the box has the captain in thrall. he keeps it in his jacket pocket, sometimes taking it out, tracing patterns he finds engraved on the sides of the box.

Homers "The Illiad" and "The oddessey" would make for an awesome rogue trader campain. After helping a crusade the rogue trader fails to give proper homage to the emperor and during his trip home his navigator loses the astrinomican, ending up wildly off course and into unknown regions, they group must find its way home before his dynasty is consumed by "allies" that believe them dead.

Cryhavok said:

Any more info on how the HP world was 40k-ized?

Cryhavok said:

Very cool. I will use this somehow, some day!

Let's go for some obvious ones- Dune . Can be run pretty much straight out of the box, albeit you may need to turn the stakes down slightly (Shaddam IV Corrino can hardly be the Emperor, for example). But desert planet that produces a rare substance that can enhance psychic/navigator powers? Dynastic squabbles and intrigue? Wars fought over trade monopolies? Sounds about right.

Forbidden Planet (or, of course, the Tempest, the Shakespeare play it's based on). The Explorers stumble upon a destroyed world, inhabited only by a small archeoxenan research camp run by an eccentric/insane academic, his daughter and a cyborged bodyguard/servitor. The Academic is playing around with a psychic enhancer left from when the Enslavers ruled this part of the galaxy (change precursor race to fit, but the Enslavers is particularly apt, as they are sometimes known as the krell, who were the ancient aliens from the actual movie). The Explorer's shuttles are seriously damaged/destroyed by an "invisible beast", which, unknown to pretty much all, is a manifestation of the Academic's latent psychic abilities, unleashed by the technology the Krell left behind. Shake and serve, with the fun twist that the Krell devices could well turn even non-psykers into hosts for an Enslaver infestation…
Definitely worth grabbing Creatures Anathema for that one.

Rocky Horror (Picture) Show . Bear with me on this- The Explorer's ship suffers some terrible tech failure, leaving them effectively stranded in system, but as luck would have it, there's an active dock in the system, which looks to be fairly crowded with the sort of craft that might be owned by the idle rich (or other rogue traders). Indeed, there seems to be a festival of some sort taking place, and the Explorers are invited to join in the celebrations while their ship is being repaired. The host and guests seem rather sybaritic and hedonistic, even to the jaded star-travellers that make up a typical Rogue Tradder dynasty, and it gradually becomes clear that they have sorcerous powers. Then comes their Host, the Baron Frank-N-Furter's triumph- a patchwork amalgam of parts to create his own "astartes" slave*! Throw in some slaaneshi sorcery, mind control, and so on, and there you go.

*May work better as a patchwork daemonhost. Must think about that.

Bonus points, of course, for working in quotes from the original sources and seeing if the players notice…

The Call of Cthulhu. Alien and/or Chaos cult worships a god like insanity inspiring Xenos and/or Chaos God from the dark regions of space. The Cyclopean Ruins of its underwater prison contain all manner of valuable artifacts.