Hi all! I am just looking for any general ideas for getting the initial group of characters together for the first time. Any ideas would be welcome. This has always been an issue with my group, so just looking for general ideas that work for getting a group of disparate characters together for the first mission and then it is easy from there…so to speak.

The 'standard' approach is to say that the Acolytes have all been recruited previously, and are thrown togeather just prior to the first mission.

For my campaign, I decided to start off with the PCs intital recruitment. They all stumbled upon a conspiracy in a hive city while going about their normal lives, and the Inquisitor investigating the conspiracy decides to use them as 'unofficial' operatives. If they succeed, he will offer them positions as Acolytes in his employ; if not, well…

I was keeping a campaign journal; it's two-and-a-half missions out-of-date, but the info on the first mission might be useful to you:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=70&efcid=46&efidt=424759

"All of a sudden everything goes dark, their is a stroung smell of Clorofome as you fade off in to unconcousness"

"as you make your way down a bissy street you feel a sharp pain in your leg, things start to go hazy, the last thing you rember is someone saying "Are You all right… I'll call you an ambulance""

Ect.

when they wake straped to a vertical metal frame up with tiny sharp metal teath with trailing wires clamped to their tender reigons, in a darkend room with a blinding spot light aimed derectialy in to their eyes.

"<insert Character Name> You have bean a very Naughty Boy/Girl/Other, but we are ready to forgive you all you have to do is a little job for us!"

"….. Your Inosent you say well as a loyal Citisen you should be more than happy to help us out"

"….. You where mislead? well you should be more than willing to make amends, after you give us the identies of those who lead you astray"

"…. It was all a set-up, well if you do us this little favor it will give us time and free up resorces to look in to it and find those trualy responcible"

There are a bunch of ways to do this, but it depends on your players, their characters, and the tone you want to set for your version of Dark Heresy and their Inquisitor.

• Grabbed off the street : The characters get no training in advance of their first mission, and are simply thrust into the fray. I feel this works best for action oriented scenarios, with combat-focused characters (and less so for Adepts and Scum). It can give a fast-paced action/thrilled feel if done correctly.
  
• The Moles : As in Edge of Darkness , the characters are given introductory training by the Inquisition, and then lived under cover identities, waiting for a message but don't know each other. They're all summoned to the same location and given a mission by an Interrogator, who refuses to name their Inquisitor. This can lend to an X-files feel, and helps build suspense and keeps the players on their toes.
  
• We're on a Mission from the God-Emperor : With the method, the characters were trained together under the watchfil gaze of their Inquisitor. They know eachothers personalities and skills, and already have their own cyphers/glossia and (should) be ready to act as a fully-functional team. This gives the game a special/elite forces feel, where the players need to work together to survive, regardless of how good they are individually.

These are just three examples of what you might want to do to start them off, and there is a full spectrum of variations between them. Each, however, comes with its own ups and downs.

Your group dynamic plays into this very heavily. Do you have a bunch of lone wolves around the table, a group that sticks together instinctively, or something in-between? Do they fight for dominance or make decisions by committee? Are they prone to PvP'ing eachother or no? How familiar are they with the game and setting?

I happen to count myself as being extrememly lucky, and I have three great groups that I get to run for. I've used 'We're on a Mission…' for one group where we have one person who's read Eisenhorn and Ravenor, and another who's played Dark Heresy before. Since this group of players works very well together, and is a tight-knit bunch it's worked out very well.

Now, this also sets the tone for my game and tells the PCs a lot about their Inquisitor, since she helped train them. Since their Inquisitor is a former Seraphim, she takes training and teamwork very seriously, so she had them trained for six months prior to their first mission. All together, this gives them the feeling that they're an elite unit sent to bust up any heresy they find, which is exactly what I wanted for this game. Using 'Grabbeed off the Street' might give the players the notion that their Inquisitor is reckless or even desperate, where 'The Moles' has the Inquisitor removed from the scene, and makes them a distant authority figure, perhaps even uncaring.

Hope this helps!

I use a mix of different styles; first, they get kidnapped and wake up in some odd palce together (they don,t know each toher) one of them got some odd keycard with XYZ written on it (the exit) and they must simply reach the door and leave..of course, they're wearing prisonner's clothings but they don't know that, and they don't have their gear, short of their starting cash, a leather longcoat and a knife.

THEN if they manage that, they get their classes at the =I= school, since they are capable to geting out of a tight spot alone.

Thanks all for replying! Everything you guys wrote has given me a number of good ideas to form into a good starting idea. I was really looking for some stuff to generate a non-kidnapped/non-wake up together scenario, and the responses were just what I wanted. I appreciate the help!

~alemander