Hey guys

This is my first time to the forums so I wanted some advice on my main campaign. I've been GM for a four-man stong Acolyte band for about a year now and they are all starting to reach Ascention-level. So now I want to up the ante. Recently, the PCs explored a mechanicus research facitlity in a joint inquisitorial task force involoving a Deathwatch Space Marine (Ordo Xenos), Inquisitor Nero and his Retinue (Ordo Malleus) and my PCs (Ordo Hereticus).

Finding that a deamon had been trapped in the facility's reactor to power the whole planet's defences, my Acolytes promptly began to purge the whole place. However they discovered one of Nero's men was in fact a deamonhost and decided to open fire on them. With suprise and a Space Marine on their side, my PCs took out the host and burned Nero alive, thinking they killed him. However, I left out the fact that Nero has Touched by the Fates and was recovered and now wants a spot of revenge but with my Acolytes now focussed on other investigations, I was hoping for some insiration on how best to bring Nero's schemes into my current story.

Any Ideas?

I'd have their contacts start going missing or dead as an assassin in Nero's employ closes in on them, throwing them on the defensive, and either have the assassin try to isolate and take out members or have a significant taskforce of Imperial Stormtroopers try to capture them for their "heretical" acts.

I guess I might need to know more about the situation

Nero is an Oblationist so "dying" actually helps him get on with his crusade. I was thinking of sending a pair of death cult assasins their way, as this will hopefully show them just how stupid taking out an inquisitor can be. Also as another twist, one of my PCs actually wants to become an Oblationist so I was thinking Nero could take on a new name, train the Acolyte and ultimately use his as a way for the group to let their guard down

An assassination attempt should make for an interesting mission, especially if there's no indication who the assassins were sent by.

The oblationist connection would be too much fun, I think, for me to resist doing. Sounds like a great plan!

In terms of bringing in Inquisitor Nero's other schemes; after killing him, I would assume the player's inquisitor might well task them with disassembling Nero's organisations - contacts, projects, etc. Dismantling this would involve dealing with a fair number of borderline (and actual) heretics, but also with genuinely loyal servants of the inquisition who don't know (or believe) that Inquisitor Nero is dead. And, until/unless the player's Inquisitor gets a Carda Hereticus Diabolicus ratified, are going to see the players as murderers and aren't going to like them much even afterwards. This is, of course, a great way to 're-introduce' Nero - pretending to be one of his own acolytes, now repentant, helping the players hunt down the rest of his organisation (and revealing some of the secrets of the oblationists as he does so).

In order to bind daemons, for example, Nero must have a librarium, staff, people procuring both ritual components and potential hosts. Finding them is important, because if left at liberty they may carry on, now working for themselves or for a new patron - potentially one worse than Nero.

Equally, why was he experimenting on that planet specifically? The 'experiment' was proven by powering the entire planet's defence net, but what was the end-game? Was there something else Nero was after powering up with a daemon-reactor? Maybe not, but the possibility should be enough to prevent an inquisitor sleeping properly.

Equally, 'cleaning up after a rogue inquisitor' seems like a significant enough task to grant the acolytes interrogator status (or at least Quaestor status) and dispatch them on an independent mission. Which is a good lead in to Ascension level.

As the missions go on, it should become clear that someone is competing with them to collect up the fragments of Nero's operations - librariums or depots cleared out before they get there, individuals missing or killed, new items that have been procured after Nero's death. This is, of course, Nero himself (in his new guise) with the advantage that he's now intermittently working with the players and has a much better idea of what they're up to.

Another option might be to have Inquisitor Nero go after them formally. He can prove that the acolytes attacked him- presumably he is disfigured somewhat by his run in with the wrong end of a flamer- and all evidence of his experiments are gone now, thanks to the acolytes. The only impartial observer in such an accusation is the Deatwatch Marine, who could either legitimately or due to design be dead, on duties which do not allow his presence, or out of an area he can be contacted in.

This could even be used in addition to any of Grendel and Pixels' suggestions. Let them go about deconstructing his networks, and once they reach Ascention-level when one of them is presumably trying to become an Interrogator or Inquisitor have Nero formally sanction them or find some way to stop their promotion. Imagine being about to make Inquisitor and then having the radical Inquisitor thought dead show up and throw a wrench in the works!

I had a similair plot in one of my acolytes missions. My inquisitor had more than one retinue on hand at any time. After a failed op one agent went rogue and began to systematicly take out every facet of the inquisitors life. The twist started with a failed attempt on the inquisitors life with an explosion in his apartments. From there I had the acolytes delve into the underworld of scum to try and survive the night and whatever was thrown at them.

Thanks guys, this really helps. I had never given much thought to how expansive Nero's organization could be and I now already have ideas for plot hooks.

As for Grendel's question, Nero hadn't been experimenting on the the world. It was headed by a magos who believed malefic tech could power the any machine (including titans but that's a whole other adventure!). He chose an abandoned dead world to be as isolated as possible. However the magos had a fail safe that if he was killed, the defense systems of the facility would deactivate, including the machines holding the daemon. During the resulting fight, Nero's daemon host revealed himself and exposed Nero (never trust a daemon).

One of my PCs wants to be a Puritan inquisitor and this idea of taking down Nero's empire sounds like a perfect crucible for him, so thanks again

It's a pleasure.

One of my PCs wants to be a Puritan inquisitor...

...one of my PCs actually wants to become an Oblationist...

Do these two know this about one another? I smell opportunity for great amusement as a GM

The puritan thinks the other wants to be some sort of Radical but not what type and he has no concrete proof for the claim, so suspicions abound in our little group

I'd have their contacts start going missing or dead as an assassin in Nero's employ closes in on them, throwing them on the defensive, and either have the assassin try to isolate and take out members or have a significant taskforce of Imperial Stormtroopers try to capture them for their "heretical" acts.

I guess I might need to know more about the situation

Unexplained attacks from mercenary guilds. Side adventures where for some reason the ship they might be travelling on gets sabotaged or attacked by xenos or pirates. Maybe even finding a way to get your cell branded as heretics and set upon by witless puritans not knowing they are being manipulated by this enemy of the cells. There are many options!

One of my friends was talking with me today. One of his ideas was an Inquisitorial ship crash lands on a feudal world and the Acolytes are sent to salvage it. Only Nero set it all up and inside the wreckage is a special capsule with an Eversor Assasin inside on a release timer....

One of my friends was talking with me today. One of his ideas was an Inquisitorial ship crash lands on a feudal world and the Acolytes are sent to salvage it. Only Nero set it all up and inside the wreckage is a special capsule with an Eversor Assasin inside on a release timer....

I like it. Them picking over the bodies of the dead crew you were to rescue. Not to mention fighting the locals / dealing with them till you finally realize the threat. If they don't realize who really sent it. The cell might even make a new enemy by accidentally attacking another rival after. Assuming it was them.

Evesors aren`t exactly easy to come across. add to that all temple assassin deployments have to be approved by the high lords of Terra.

Either Nero has terrifying pull or you should maybe consider some stimmed-up murder servitors or acroflagellant type thing, possibly even another lesser deamnhost. I find not enough people consider Khornate damonhosts for their killing machines, why arse about with a tzeentchian deamo who might trick you when ou can just bind a raging warp-fuelled psychopath of terrifying resilience and high psychic resistance to your will?

When all else fails, blow up something important and blame your heavily armed enemies who happened to be mysteriously loitering nearby at the time following a false trail you laid.

all temple assassin deployments have to be approved by the high lords of Terra.

Yes and no. Apparently the more senior members of the Ordo Sicarius can okay a deployment and get it approved retroactively if time doesn't allow.

The daemonhost is probably a better plan, nevertheless. It ties in with the setting (the stasis chamber contains a daemonhost that was being shipped to the research site but never got there before the incident ).

Also, having played Ascension , let me be clear. An Eversor Assassin is murder made flesh. Be really, really sure you want to include one in a game if there isn't a ready-made escape route because he will hunt down the players and skin them before their guns clear their holsters.

A daemonhost can be scary enough, but at least the players know what to expect, can (should!) have brought along appropriate countermeasures and there is a chance there were some on the ship.

Of course, if you really, really want to mess with their heads, they know it's a transport carrying the daemonhost. They find it, crashed, derelict, and board it. Many dead people. Some killed in the crash, some... not . They make their way to the storage chamber, where the stasis vault looks like it might have been tampered with but is intact, active, and occupied (the chained-up daemonhost can be seen inside).

Which, of course, raises an important question - if the daemonhost is incarcerated, who killed everyone. If the daemonhost did it, who locked him back in?

The answer, of course, is that the man trapped in the stasis cell, with chains and wards stitched through his flesh, isn't the daemonhost. He was, but the daemon isn't there anymore - something the players won't realist unless they were to deactivate the stasis field - at which point a psyker or anyone sensitive to warp corruption will instantly sense its absence, and frankly the agonised half-sane screaming will be kind of a clue for anyone else....

The daemon left resting inside the skin of a local who came to investigate the crash. Said freeman has since been to see the local noble about 'what happened', and since then no-one's seen him. The noble has been acting slightly oddly since, as well. For one thing he seems obsessed with getting a private audience with the Lord-Governor...

The idea of an eversor was more because one of my PCs said he wanted a more combative challenge, and I thought "well then, you asked for it....."

However, now that you say it, it would make sense to leave the murder-machine until Nero gets desperate enough to call in favors from his Ordo Sicarius contacts. And that idea of "the Thing" style infiltration using a daemon sounds amazing!