I just watched the movie God Told Me To the other day. It's a 'grindhouse' staple from 1976 that I have heard about for, well, decades, but never got around to seeing. Turns out, it's not very good, but it occurs to me that the basic plot would make for a great Dark Heresy mission with only a little tweaking:

--- SPOILER ALERT ( I dunno, do you still need to do that when a movie is nearly 40 years old? )---

A series of spree killings are plaguing the city. The perpetraitors usually commit suicide; those that are taken alive are surprisingly docile. When asked why they went on a killing spree, they smile and say "God told me to…" Investigation reveals that the killers have one connection: they have all crossed paths with a bizarre messiah-figure. He is fairly easy to identify; his records indicate that he was supposedly the product of a virgin birth. When the investigator tries to locate this individual, he draws the attention of a cabal of powerful men (politicians and business leaders) who are under the influence of the 'messiah', who has actual 'miraculous' powers (including psychically compelling the killing sprees) and whom they whole-heartedly believe to the the Second Coming. The truth, however, is that the messiah is actually a human/alien hybrid, implanted into a UFO abductee… It's mostly downhill from there, as the film relies on an absurd contrivance to come to an unsatisfying conclusion (-that never adresses why the hybrid(s) were created in the first place).

A little tinkering can turn this into a good DH scenario. Obviously, the hybrid should be suspected of being a new Living Saint. Maybe the Acolytes are dispatched to investigate that possibility, and subsequently learn about the mass killings- and investigate the possibility that they are connected. Rather than have the hybrid be the 'ultimate' adversary, I would have him be a pawn of his alien 'daddy': maybe he truely believes he is a Saint and the voices he hears in his head are from the Emperor, 'calling the faithful to join him' (that provides a good excuse for not having to make Decieve rolls when the PCs meet him). For the alien progenator, I would make his motivation that his warp vessel is damaged; it is hidden in a deep crater on the planet's moon (perhaps lying there for thousands or millions of years), and it needs psychic energy to power up. Toward that end, the alien has used the last of his ship's power to create a powerful psyker hybrid that can influence the population to mass murder (the killing sprees always occur when the moon is directly overhead); his vessel then absorbs the psychic energy released by masses of violent deaths- in effect the ship is powered by stolen souls. What will happen if/when the vessel reaches full power…?

Using big-budget movies as the insperation for rpg scenarios usually results in groans from players as they immediately realize what's going on, but less-well-known B-movies have potential for inspiring some good scenarios- and even if one of your players picks up on the source for the plot, they are more likely to respond with a sly nod than anything else…

So, anyone want to suggest other B-movies that can be given the Grimdark treatment…?

The two first Alien movies pretty much define the scenario of space hulk games, which are copied from the movies. The first one was pretty B-like.

You could go into thinking classic horror, something like frankenstein could be pretty much literally taken into DH, And mummy could be a more powerful warp zombie that is almost impossible to kill, and later on could develop an actual sentience and be able to some psychic powers.

Or a really used up crap that probably isn't anything new to copy:
EVIL DEAD. You could make the pc's receive info of odd disturbances about isolated planet, and get them to investigate, then just start a incorporeal warp entity to possess stuff/pc/npc and cause lots of mayhem. Of course the entity has destroyed "the bridge" back home, once they're in.

I feel fairly certain that some Matrix-like plot could be grimdarked. However it would have to be from the other perspective IMO. So rather than discovering they are in the matrix the PCs should be sent in to curb The One from ruining the system:

The matrix has been designed by the adeptus mechanicus to provide a new power source for forgeworlds. After all the main resource that the Imperium has is the billions upon billions of people. They have scraped up the dregs of a particular world (or perhaps just snatched up some whole population somewhere) and placed them in. Just like in the filme they started with paradise, but it got rejected, and so they have them in a simulation that makes it like a normal hive world. But there is the problem of the One. He is able to break the rules (i.e manifest some psykerness inside) and is rebelling against the system. The PCs are sent in as 'agents' to find and kill him before he grows too strong…

The Wicker Man (please god not the Nick Cage version) is actually a natural DH plot. Substitute "Garden Planet" for "Scottish Village" and off you go.

Alien Ressurection is pretty darn grim dark already and I've stolen some stylistics from it.

Event Horizon may be the most DH movie ever made.

About a third of the classic era Dr Who episodes can be used with a coating of grimdark.

Any of the various movies based on H.P. Lovecraft will translate exactly into genre, just add lasers.

At some point in every DH GMs life you have to run Night of the Living Dead, preferably with slow zombies in a Hive City.

Oh, Outland with Sean Connery could map as well. And Enemy Mine could be adapted to a band of Acolytes stranded on a planet with a relatively benign Xeno presence and a Chaos or 'Nid infestation.

Crunch said:

Yes! I'm currently developing a mission based on a combination of the Clive Barker short story Rawhead Rex (a farmer trying to clear a new plot of land accidentally unleashes a daemon bound under a stone obelisk in ancient times), the Stephen King short story Children of the Corn (a daemon takes over a rural community, compelling the children to kill the adults and become its fanatical worshippers), and the movie The Wicker Man (an inverstigation into an isolated rural community turns up strange pagan practicesand the possibility of human sacrifice; the investigator is manipulated into becoming the prime sacrifice).

A few more recommendations for little-seen movies that can inspire Dark Heresy plotlines:

HORROR EXPRESS (1972)

An early-20 ^th century scientist discovers a frozen ‘missing link’ ape-man in Asia. While transporting it to Europe aboard the Trans-Siberia railroad, it is discovered that the body is possessed by an alien intelligence, which can kill with its glowing eyes and jump between host bodies. Soon it’s a full-blown sci-fi/horror/murder mystery, as the stars (the great Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing) try to determine which passenger in the cramped train is currently the host of the deadly alien. When they finally locate it, it reveals that it can reanimate its previous victims as walking corpses…

This plot would work well as a ‘drop-in’ scenario between major missions: riding in a large cargo lighter on a multi-hour trip to a waiting warp vessel which will transport them to their next (official) mission, the Acolytes get caught up in strange occurrences and mysterious deaths that seem to involve a crate being shipped from an archeological dig on the planet’s surface…

RAZORBACK (1984)

An American reporter doing a story on poachers in the Australian Outback incurs the wrath of her unwilling subjects. Before they can ‘dispose’ of her, however, she is attacked and eaten by a giant mutant boar which has been terrorizing the area. Her fiancé goes to Australia to investigate her disappearance, infiltrating the gang of poachers by posing as a rich tourist looking to enjoy some illegal hunting. When he eventually gets the upper hand on the poachers, their gristly meat processing plant comes under attack by- guess what?

It’s not an especially good movie, and the storyline is simplistic enough that you could certainly come up with something as good or better with minimal effort. Adapting it to DH would be pretty straight-forward: replace the poachers with The Beast House (from Disciples of the Dark Gods ), and have the Acolytes investigate the disappearance of one of their Inquisitor’s agents. The only real trick is coming up with the criminal motivation for the Beast House (-since ‘poaching’ alone isn’t sinister enough to justify Inquisitorial intervention; maybe the BH have a contract to supply ‘bushmeat’ to a shipping cartel, but a drought is wiping out the local wildlife, making it difficult to meet their quotas. So, the Beast House has taken to supplementing the game they kill with humans from isolated settlements- protein is protein after all. The agent was looking into these disappearances when he met his end in the gut of a mutant beast, driven from its regular hunting grounds by the drought); also statting up a single beastie that can threated an entire team of Acolytes may be a challenge.

The real DH inspiration value of this movie, and the reason why I’m recommending it, is in its depiction of Australia as, essentially, an alien world. Between surreal, painterly landscapes and a degenerate rural population that has been out of the influence of civilization for a bit too long, Razorback provides a great template for depicting a dangerous Imperial Frontier World.

VIDEODROME (1983)

“The battle for the mind of North America will be fought in the video arena.” –Dr. Brian O’Blivion

Max Renn (James Woods), the operator of a pirate TV channel, discovers a broadcast of disturbing pornographic material and becomes obsessed with tracking down the source. Unfortunately for him, the transmission has been designed to be both addictive and corrupting, triggering physical mutations and rendering those under its influence susceptible to mental ‘programming’. This programming takes the form of orders to assassinate powerful people who stand in the way of the shadowy organization behind the broadcasts. These assassinations are carried out with organic weapons grown from the bodies of the controlled killers- projectile weapons that shoot cancer-causing teeth! Eventually Max discovers that the ‘videodrome’ technology used by the broadcast was developed by messianic celebrity scientist Dr. Brian O’Blivion (now deceased- a fact kept hidden by his daughter who currently runs his ‘ministry’). The late Dr. O’Blivion has become something of a ‘ghost in the machine’, directing a resistance effort against the agency which hijacked his invention. Both sides use Max’ susceptibility to programming to do their bidding, until events reach an apocalyptic conclusion…

Not really an obscure movie, this film (David Cronenberg’s follow-up to his hit Scanners ) was quite high-profile when it was released. Since few people under 40 seem to have seen it, however, I think its fair game for RPG plot-stealing. A hive city being flooded with dataslates containing addictive material that inflicts Corruption Points on the viewer, eventually triggering mutations and putting them under the psychic influence of a mysterious mastermind, is perfect fodder for a DH investigation.

“Long live the New Flesh!”

Hi Adeptus-B,

the older B-Movie "Cabal" (about a man having bad dreams only to be drawn to a Freak Mutant community hiding below ground near a village in a rural area...I guess beneath a graveyard) might be used for Inspiration as well.

"Mutants hiding away" is very 40K as is the lynch mob the villagers formed. What needs to be changed is that the characters Need to be involved, but not as an ally of the Mutant community.

This could actually start out with the characters being on a "R&R" on an agri world after some missoin that was harmful to the Soul. In fact, the Inquisitor has Connections here with one of the local Confessors (replacing the psychologist from the film..who was not a sane Person himself). While the characters are there to find a litte Piece of mind (removing one Point of insanity after perhaps 3 weeks of that are only played as vignettes) the one with the HIGHEST corruption Points starts having dreams.. about him.. about a hidden place... the mutants.

Vague at first. If he tells the confessor he will order him to chastise himself harshly (give him danage and the permanent loss of ONE Toughness Point)... that will lead to the Player thinking twice about confessing again.. but the Confessor will learn something is odd.

Have the Player put trust in his Peers.. have the Confessor trying to break that bound.. have the Group searching that place... have the confessor gather a Little lynch mob of the more fanatic followers of the surrounding villages... to follwo the characters that headed off into an area that is no longer used for agriculture "due to the ground being striped of nutrients" (fallen to wilderness... a whole village and Kilometers around).

It does not HAVE to be a three-way-battle.. the Confessor might be talked into him not being to place a death Warrant on an ACOLYTHE... but...well... it might be good for two sessions or three
And some good roleplaying, if the GM is good with the visions and the Players are good about a Little morality Play ("...he is not confessing to the confessor...but I have been through HELL with this one...I should trust him & help him..shouldn´t I?")

BE WARNED! With the wrong Group, that will lead to "Team killing".

the older B-Movie "Cabal" (about a man having bad dreams only to be drawn to a Freak Mutant community hiding below ground near a village in a rural area...I guess beneath a graveyard) might be used for Inspiration as well.

Hmm- never heard of it.

-Or was this movie released as Nightbreed in the US? Directed by Clive Barker?

Maybe it's just me, and it's not a B-movie, but Person of Interest sounds like a good plot to steal; a shadowy group is acting up on a Hive World where some ancient semi-sentient machine helps them save or eliminate people, up until an acolyte or thier Inquistior or a contact gets saved/killed by them..now the hunt is on as to who is that group, why are they doing what they do and most importantly; to what end?

the older B-Movie "Cabal" (about a man having bad dreams only to be drawn to a Freak Mutant community hiding below ground near a village in a rural area...I guess beneath a graveyard) might be used for Inspiration as well.

Hmm- never heard of it.

-Or was this movie released as Nightbreed in the US? Directed by Clive Barker?

Yes, it's Nightbreed.

the older B-Movie "Cabal" (about a man having bad dreams only to be drawn to a Freak Mutant community hiding below ground near a village in a rural area...I guess beneath a graveyard) might be used for Inspiration as well.

Hmm- never heard of it.

-Or was this movie released as Nightbreed in the US? Directed by Clive Barker?

Oh sorry, hereby confirmed: I -was- talking about "Nightbreed". Has been a while ....

eDIT: Just crossed-checked. Seems like "Cabal" was the release title here in Germany, but we are talking about the same movie here.

Crunch said:

The Wicker Man (please god not the Nick Cage version) is actually a natural DH plot. Substitute "Garden Planet" for "Scottish Village" and off you go.

Ironically the Nick Cage version is more like how a typical role play session goes, assaulting random civilians, hammy acting, dressing up in animal constume (wait what?) etc.

The one problem with the peaceful village with a dark secret scenario in Dark Heresy (as opposed to Call of Cthulhu) is the ultra violence get out clause.

The scenario is meant to go like this

1. PCs are drawn to remote village for some reason

2. PCs initial invesitigations get thrown off by some tangental invesitgation

3. PCs realise something is wrong in the village

4. PCs realise they have been lured into a trap.

5. Horror ensuses as the PCs are hunted down and maybe only a few survive to tell the tale.

In an actual RPG the scenario goes like this

1. PCs are drawn to remote village for some reason

2. PCs initial invesitigations get thrown off by some tangental invesitgation

3. PCs realise something is wrong in the village

4. PCs realise they have been lured into a trap.

5.The PCs invoke the ultra violence clause, bust out a variety of weaponry typically involving flame throwers.

6. Horror ensuses as the PCs proceed to mercilessly hunt down every half way suspicious NPC, being sure to plant evidence on border line cases.

Variations include the PCs barricading a well fortified location and gunning down the approaching mob of cultists, or joining the cult with a well placed Fel roll followed by double crossing the cult leader when he is alone with them.

This is a great thread; why am I only seeing it now? I really like the idea of God(-Emperor) Told Me To as grounds for a mission as well. Reminds me a bit of Anastasia's visions.

Here's my suggestion:

@Q
Not even that: the main problem I usually have with adopting a movie plot for any (ANY!) kind of RPG session is that movie characters do things so that scene x can happen as the script wants it to happen. The infamous "okay, we split up now" is only one of such happenings.
Player characters tend to be less....constructive in regard advancemnt of the the plot as the GM wanted it to happen. But that said, one still can benefit from them

@Back2Topic:
The Clive Barker Novell "Midnight Meat Train" (and perhaps to some extent: the movie based on it) can be used for DH as well. ("SPOOOILERS!!!")

In a large metropolis, lone nighttime travellers get abducted and disappear while using the subway. Nothing unusual as people disappear in big cities all the time. What goes unnoted and is only discovered by accident is that they are in fact slaughtered on the spot(!) but with no evidence to be found later on. No blood stained wagon, no train personal reporting anything unusual.

In truth, a large number (or: all) of the city officials are part of a nighmarish cult that kills people to feed them to some mutated ancestores (the cults true leadnig circle) that have secluded themselves to the bowels of the city and who in turn worship a Thing Men Was Not Meant To Know. Many a menial and minion of the administration (including at least some of the enforcers) are part of it.

A few more B-movies that might inspire good Dark Heresy plots:

THE MONOLITH MONSTERS (1957)

One of the most unusual threats in the 1950s ‘giant monster’ cycle of films. A meteor shower scatters strange crystals on the outskirts of a small town. When exposed to water, the crystals grow to the size of skyscrapers; then they topple and shatter, crushing everything in their path, and the cycle begins again. Worse, when a person touches the crystals, they slowly petrify! As scientists race to find a means to stop them, the monoliths are spreading toward the town’s reservoir. If they reach this massive water source, the whole state could be lost…

If the crystals were given a malign intelligence, this could make for a solid mission for Acolytes of the Ordo Xenos- and one that requires the PCs to exercise more brains that brawn as they try to find a weakness that will prevent the crystals’ spread before a valuable Agriworld is lost. In the movie, that weakness [spoiler ALERT] is common saline, but the GM should probably think of something more exotic (and possibly GrimDark…?) for DH .

For a variation on the theme, check out Day of the Triffids (1963): aggressive plants from space, instead of crystals.

GALAXY OF TERROR (1981)

A ragtag group of misfits (‘70s icon Sid Haig! Post- Happy Days Erin Moran! Pre- Nighmare on Elm Street Robert Englund! Zalman King, the creepy future director of Red Shoe Diaries ! And the guy from My Favorite Martian !) are dispatched by an undefined ‘space government’ to investigate a mysterious planet (for ambiguous reasons- this movie isn’t big on specifics). Upon landing on the nightmarish (obviously Alien -inspired) world, they are killed off one by one in a variety of gruesome ways. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason behind the various deaths, until the ‘last man standing’ learns the Terrible Secret [spoiler ALERT]: the team members are being killed by their fears made manifest ; by overcoming his fear, the last survivor becomes the new Emperor of the Universe. Or something- the movie is quite vague on key plot points…

While it’s not a very good movie on the whole (and definitely not for the easily offended, due to a heaping helping of its’ era’s trademark gore and sexism- it couldn’t possibly qualify for an R-rating today), this Roger Corman-produced quickie boasts some impressive visuals for a low-budget movie (courtesy of production design by future Oscar winner James Cameron, earning an early film credit; just ignore the stock footage lifted from Corman’s earlier Battle Beyond the Stars ) that could inspire interesting vignettes in a ‘dungeon crawl’-structured Dark Heresy game.

Beyond that, borrowing the gimmick of confronting DH characters with their greatest fears could prove to be an interesting test of a GM’s chops. Can you get your players to react accurately to circumstances that their characters would find terrifying, despite the separation between player and character inherent in roleplaying games? And how do you determine a PC’s ‘greatest fear’? If you want to attempt something like this in your campaign, having the players fill out a brief questionnaire about their characters- likes and dislikes, hopes and, ahem, fears - well in advance of the mission would probably be a good way to gain insights into PC ‘psychology’ (not to mention giving you a justification in writing for applying penalties to Fear Tests under certain circumstances). But fer gawd’s sake, don’t let the surviving PC become the new Emperor…

Oh, and if you are wondering about the movie’s nonsensical title, it was produced under the far more accurate Planet of Terror .

QUATERMASS AND THE PIT (1967; a.k.a. FIVE MILLION YEARS TO EARTH )

British sci-fi writer Nigel Kneale wrote multiple serials for BBC TV featuring heroic rocket scientist Bernard Quatermass battling non-human threats. The early ones were all adapted to film by Hammer Studios; all have the potential to inspire DH scenarios, but this , the third feature, is particularly well-suited to the Grim Darkness...

While excavating a subway extension in London, workers uncover the 5 million year old fossilized skeletons of strange proto-human ape men, followed by the unearthing of a large metallic object. The military is brought in to determine if the object is an unexploded WWII 'buzz bomb', but the truth is that it is a wrecked space ship from Mars! Professor Quatermass learns that the insectoid Martians were artificially altering apes in the distant past, in order to impart certain Martian characteristics on them and thus preserve a portion of their dying culture. Attempts to drill into the strange vessel cause it to become active, which triggers the multi-million year old 'race memories' and telekenetic powers of certain members of the nearby population- those who retain the most Martian DNA- causing these people to begin enacting a core Martian behavior: the mass extermination of those deemed genetically inferior...

This plot requires very little alteration to fit it into the 40Kverse: just replace the Martians with a mysterious extinct xeno-race, and the 1960s London setting with a Feral or Feudal World with a pre-Imperial population, and there you go. I would also make the aliens' goal in the distant (20,000 years ago?) past the imprinting of their species' consciousness on the planet's human population, rather than just vague race memories (consciousnesses that have been passed down dormant for thousands of years before being 'awakened' by the reactivation of the ancient spaceship) to really play up the xeno threat, but the movie's zombie-like telekenetic mobs aren't a necessarily bad way to go.

Island of terror

Pretty sweet movie starring Peter Cushing. The slow mysterious build up leads to good DH story potential.

People on a remote Island are found dead without any bones in them.

The scenario is meant to go like this

1. PCs are drawn to remote village for some reason

2. PCs initial invesitigations get thrown off by some tangental invesitgation

3. PCs realise something is wrong in the village

4. PCs realise they have been lured into a trap.

5. Horror ensuses as the PCs are hunted down and maybe only a few survive to tell the tale.

In an actual RPG the scenario goes like this

1. PCs are drawn to remote village for some reason

2. PCs initial invesitigations get thrown off by some tangental invesitgation

3. PCs realise something is wrong in the village

4. PCs realise they have been lured into a trap.

5.The PCs invoke the ultra violence clause, bust out a variety of weaponry typically involving flame throwers.

6. Horror ensuses as the PCs proceed to mercilessly hunt down every half way suspicious NPC, being sure to plant evidence on border line cases.

Variations include the PCs barricading a well fortified location and gunning down the approaching mob of cultists, or joining the cult with a well placed Fel roll followed by double crossing the cult leader when he is alone with them.

Or after step 1 they skip straight to step 5.

Bruce: "My character's paranoia drawback kicks in! I shoot the suspicious old man!"

Gm: "What?"

Mike: "The villagers are evil! waste them!"

Gm: "How?"

Mike: "Admit it, the odds of this being the case are pretty high."

Gm: "But..."

Also if we're talking the Original movie, the chances of a character joining in the town's orgy are pretty high, especially if it's my character.

The problem I had with the remake was Nicolas Cage halucinating about that little girl half the time, made me think the villagers were actually right and he is just some crazy guy. Also Cage's hammyness (NOT THE BEES!) while impressive is still no match for Christopher Lee in a dress.

No love for CHUDS?

'"Pumpkinhead" [80s Horror Franchise]

The plot of the first movie, and those that succeed it, is rather simple: a group of People does something very WRONG that brings arm (or even death) to others, but the law cannot be brought to bear (no wittnesses or similiar things). So, a vengeful person turns to an old witch to evoke a curse that brings to life a grotesque, supernatural monster, hellbent on the death of those it was summoned to act against, one afte the other. The one who came to the witch will, at the end, pay with his own life (and I guess, Soul) for it...and starts to do so during every death of the Targets of his vengeance, as he has visions about their Ends.

Adapting this for (perhaps low-Level) group of throneagents should be easy: the murder series starts, the THING doing it is either seen or the deed itself points to a malefic killer. While the characters are called in (or shipped in) a second murder happens, pointing to a killing spree in the making. The adventure will be about finding out what is going on...and stopping it. Simply killing the Monster will not help. It just Comes back after x nights.

In the movies (as far as I remember them) the only way of stopping it was kill the one who asked for it to be summoned.

No love for CHUDS?

They are sewer-dwelling mutant cannibals, you can probably find them all over the underhive in any hive in the imperium.

Ganger: "Hey Kronn, heard what happened to Robar the ripper? He got wasted and eaten by a pack of CHUDS."

Kronn: "Meh, I tought you had exiting news. Anyway i told him not to set up camp that deep in the underhive."

Movie is good tough.

No love for CHUDS?

They are sewer-dwelling mutant cannibals, you can probably find them all over the underhive in any hive in the imperium.

Ganger: "Hey Kronn, heard what happened to Robar the ripper? He got wasted and eaten by a pack of CHUDS."

Kronn: "Meh, I tought you had exiting news. Anyway i told him not to set up camp that deep in the underhive."

Movie is good tough.

I agree with all of that, except for the last line...

No love for CHUDS?

They are sewer-dwelling mutant cannibals, you can probably find them all over the underhive in any hive in the imperium.

Ganger: "Hey Kronn, heard what happened to Robar the ripper? He got wasted and eaten by a pack of CHUDS."

Kronn: "Meh, I tought you had exiting news. Anyway i told him not to set up camp that deep in the underhive."

Movie is good tough.

I agree with all of that, except for the last line...

Bad Movies can be fun.

Bad Movies can be fun.

Amen to that! Anyone here seen Starcash?

Bad Movies can be fun.

Amen to that! Anyone here seen Starcash?

Starcrash is one of my favorite 'so-bad-its-good' movies! Awe-inspiring cheese; just when you think it can't get any dumber, David freakin' Hasslehoff shows up, playing a knock-off of Princess Leia!