I don't know how I get myself into these situations… Running an Ascension game so my Inquis has a ship at his disposal. This guy has gone fairly radical and has a bone to pick with the Ecclesiarchy, but that's actually beside the point.

He has decided to take his ship and cadre and make a pilgrimage to Holy Terra. While this is fun, it leaves me with the unenviable task of trying to show a couple of things to them while they're there and I have no idea how I'm going to pull it off. Namely:

1) The crippling beaureacracy of the government.

2) The stunning epic scale of the architecture.

3) The fact that the Inquisition might not really care for them doing what they're doing.

4) The OUTside of the Golden Palace, or the Throne Room anyway. There's no way they'd have access, but they're used to the idea that they can do what they want. I'm thinking the Adeptus Custodes could simply refuse to grant them entry without special dispensation from the local ranking Inquisition but I've no idea who those people might be or how they could be contacted.

Anyone have ideas for this stuff or did it in their game?

There are descriptions of various grand structures on Terra in at least a couple of black library novels. Can't remember which at the moment, but think shrine world on steroids. Vast cathedral spires stretching towards (or past) the clouds, rotten neglected depths, maybe inhabited by mutated imperial cultists.

As for the bureaucracy, try to get across the idea that the core of imperial society is ever so slightly mad. Stadium sized rooms full of scribes collating meaningless data buried under mountains of scroll work, possibly forgotten by their superiors. Pointless requirements to move from place to place, ex. 97 permits and/or ident forms required to descend one level (all must be notarized in triplicate). Have them obtain the proper permissions from one authority figure, only for another to claim they're insufficient, fraudulent or to never have even heard of the fellow who issued them in the first place. Think the DMV writ large.

It's probably sufficient to show the displeasure of their peers by having them tailed the whole time (but not attacked or directly interfered with) Maybe by a callidus assassin or other such high level spook.

Unless their cell is a really huge deal, no way they get within 100 miles of the palace, especially if they're known radicals. Nor would the local arch inquisitor or whoever have time for them, given that he probably answers directly to the high lords. If they force the issue, the custodes will probably "refuse" them with bolt shells.

EDIT: Oh, wow. I just noticed the age of the thread...