So, it appears that my Rogue Trader game will be restarting. A combination of real life and game kludge left it floundering, but it seems we will be restarting next week. I'm planning on cauterising where it left off (half way through a sprawling endeavour that wasn't flowing well and that most of the details of will have been forgotten) and starting with a new arc (though I intend to check with players on whether this is acceptable or not first, obviously). I thought I'd see if any suggestions accrue here

Crew of the Blessed Eventide, if you happen to be reading this, clear off.

So, the crew has ties to Malfi. The Senechal in particular, who spent years practicing law there and who is married to a former member of house Belasco's sniper recon cadre as one of several of the Dynasty's ties to that house. She's also under a death warrant from the Blood Guild bounty hunters, under a flimsy pretext invoked by her personal rivals (Noble background, scion of a fallen planetary house in the Ixaniad sector). There is motivation to head back to Malfi and clear her name, and given this crew it's either going no be done in the courtroom or in the dining room. Throw in some intrigue and a conspiracy or two and boom.

Next up, they have a rival in the form of fellow Rogue Trader Hadrak Fel. I modified the rule book endeavour so that they have found a ship of the lost fleet rather than the flag, and recovering the remainder has become an ongoing element. Fel is bitter over this, and has be working on his own plans. Point the players (especially The Lord Captain) at either his stronghold or his current operation and they will chase after him. Here I'm a bit fuzzy on what will happen, but I'm inclined to do some on-foot (or at least dirtside) exploration. Xenos artefact in the jungles of a deathworld? Skirmishes with a rival Dynasty in the halls of a Space Hulk?

Third act is the culmination their hunt for the Righteous Path, an Angevin Crusade era lost ship filled with the treasure of a long-dead world. It hurtled in to the Processional of the Damned, and there lies amongst innumerable half-real hulks and ghosts. Tracking it down would be impossible without the skill of their Navigator (who is worryingly good at this) and the Dohicky of Plot they acquired from Out of Fel's clutches in the above. Very little actual combat, but a lot of weirdness. Screaming pleas for help transmitted live from the shattered hulls of ships with no survivors, the Hollow Men crawling over their hull taking apart the ship pannel by pannel, waves of psychic force and so-on. The whole system is a Place You Should Not Be, but the prize makes it worth it.

Now, I want to flesh this out a bit. In particular, I need ideas for encounters amongst the backstabbing gifts that are the Malfian nobility and where the showdown with their rival takes place.

During a private negotiation with one of the Malfian nobility about opening up a market for some ore deposit your Rogue Trader discovered in the Expanse (or something similar) a madman assaults the party, screaming about how the unclean must be purged. Lightly armed and armoured, he would be no challenge to the Rogue Trader - assuming they hold their fire then the noble's bodyguards will take this man down but it won't be their first option.

Examining the dead man will find an Inquisitorial Rosette among the possessions, leaving the noble to accuse the Explorers of murdering a member of the Inquisition - or have his bodyguards been tricked into it by their duplicity. They find themselves threatened and blackmailed into not having the event reported to higher authorities which would surely spell doom for the Explorers.

The nobleman has of course been secretly recording this conversation so simple murder might not work, and the Explorers may have to pay a point or two of Profit Factor to keep quiet about this. However if they look into it they'll find the situation was a little too perfect, and the "Acolyte" was just an actor hired to assault the party - presumably expecting a less lethal response. If they launch an investigation they'll find he was gloating about coming into some money, or that there are a number of people paying this noble for suspiciously similar circumstances. Sufficient investigation and roleplaying could lead them to be able to turn the tide on this noble, perhaps even blackmailing them in return for hiring people to impersonate the Inquisition.

When you say dirt-side on the jungle world, do you mean an explorer 'away team' or a full blown planetary assault?

For the encounters, can't go far wrong with a big formal ball. Which of course, since the explorers are trying to get everyone they need favours from together, they're going to have to pay for. Any you can't do this half-heartedly; on Malfi 'discrete' and 'small-scale' are social suicide, but you can't hold a social event of scale and invite A, B, and C without also inviting X, Y, and Z unless you want to take sides by default in their respective mutual vendettas. Which means you have several mutually antagonistic factions in the building and - guess what? - you're responsible for their security, from one another as well as outside threats.

In addition to murderous noblemen, Malfi has a decent Ecclesiarchal contingent - maybe one of them might be trying to pressure the explorers into carrying a much more sizeable missionaria contingent.

This would of course impact the rogue trader's abilities to perform nefarious shennanigans whilst they're still aboard (impacting any criminal endeavours or any endeavour where they don't take every opportunity to spread the Word); so either they need to get something in return worth the hassle, or find a way to offload them onto someone else without offending one of the most powerful organisations in the imperium.

If they play it really, really well, you could always (later in the negotiations) dangle the carrot of a 'bodyguard' in the form of a short commandery (say three or four squads?) from the militant orders....