Hi guys,

I have a bit of a problem in my current campaign in that I have one player that has made it exceptionally easy for me to bring their personal plot to the fore. This is fine but I am concious that the others have not and are perhaps not getting as much time as they should. So I thought I would ask for some advice on stuff for them. I'm sure you'll be able to help!

So the easy one is:

Scum: her son was taken by the Black Ships years before she became an acolyte, she fought against it and he only gave himself up when he realised that the Inquisition would torture her to find out where he was. So she has a whole protection of children/the innocent thing going on. I've also had her son turn up as a sanctioned psyker - but mind cleansed so he doesn't know her. My plan is to have him die but then for them to find out that a Radical Inquisitor has been cloning him so she will meet copies of him through the course of the campaign.

The harder ones are:

Feral World Guardsman from Dusk. Fought on Tranch so hates mutants and massively distrusts them. So far I have had a member of his old squad turn up as a mutant but I don't think he is going to give the NPC a chance to explain that he is a mutant through accident. Basically I want to challenge him with the fact that not all mutants are made by their own delibrate corruption. Also when they visit Dusk I plan to have members of his tribe/family under threat of mutation. Any other thoughts?

Tech Priest: became a tech priest after nearly getting caught by a Slanneshi cult. He was going along before he realised what it was. When he did he had himself chem gelded so he could be tempted again and is essentially doing his best to purge all emotion from him so he can't be weak again. I have tempted him already but he didn't go for it. I plan to tempt him with exciting new tech and then have someone point out that he has fallen - just in a different direction. Again this relies on him at some point actually giving emotional responses to things, if he doesn't I can tempt him till I'm blue in the face and nothing interesting will necessarily happen!

And Void Born Assassin: Took the strange onw from Radical's handbook can't remember what it is called but his ship got lost in the warp and that is where he was born. So grew up under constant threat of incursions etc. When the ship finally popped back out again the Inquisition purged it finding only a few of the crew worth saving. He is a bit paranoid about the things he saw so I am leaving them for now preferring to build the suspense but at some point a demon will know him. Also he has a younger sister that was saved as well. She is in the Schola Progenium but I am not sure how to use her yet. He is protective but I can see no reason at the moment for someone to go after her… I have also considered her becoming very puritanical under the teaching they get there and perhaps deciding that they didn't deserve to be saved or something.

Anyway any suggestions gratefully received!

Wow, thats more than I usually play on my players backstory. I just wonder if all your players want a personal story, some might want new and intresting dilemas or epic battles rather than what they created.

One idea I had was to "tempt" the teckpriest with no more temptations, no more feelings or pain in father Nurgles "safe" family.

Feral worlder guardsman: make a mission on a hive world where they msut interact and get help form underhivers, where (weak/small/non crazy ass) mutations are frequent, enough to be ignored by most hivers..and since you need Mr X's help, I guess you'd better suck up the fact he's got a foot growing on his shoudler, or red eyes, or a tentacle hand or scaly skin etc etc…Worst case make'em imperial, like half way around the mission the mutant ally got to leave, what with church being on and he doesn't want to be late and all and be shamed in front of his peers and the Emperor.

BrotherKane said:

good stories.

for the scummer: maybe even force her to kill her son (set up the radical as a rival?) then given a mental disorder when she does. she starts to see her sons' past lives and the different ways that they have been forced to kill him. you could even go so far as to let the inquisitor program the son with some memories but have him be poisoned against his mother.

for the guardsman: maybe have a mission where the party must infiltrate a mutant culture in an underhive. having him depend on a mutant contacts knowledge of the community, getting to know the contact, as well as opening up and learning that some mutants are just a product of a sh*tty environment.

the tech priest is a challenge. thinking logically, with the help of possibly warp tainted tech, he begins to become increasingly paranoid. has an obsession with seeking out new information no matter the content, forbidden or not, and delves into a tzeentchian style manic.

void born: you could either have someone going after her to hurt him, have the demon that is familiar with him turn her against him, have the demon posses her and try and kill him, or have the demon start a cult designed to poison the schola causing mass suicides.

i try and go for the brutal method of play because it is 40k. each one of these back stories provides you with a wide range of side missions that lead to character development/insanity, and they can really flesh out weak areas of a campaign

BrotherKane said:

Very cool to see so much work being put into the characters' personal plots. I salute you!

I think that one of the important things is to not try and force your players' characters in one way or another. Also I wouldn't really try and push things on them but rather do what I intended form the start and see how things develop also with their quirks. For example in the case of the Guardsmen I wouldn't try to push the "mutants are just misunderstood" too hard since it would feel artifical and very specific targeting him with little rational for the world to actually act in this way. In fact I could see him encountering a mutant or two who were not scum, although given Imperial stigmata placed on them they would still be considered such, and mix it up with various hostile mutants.