Warning: Spoilers for Apostasy-Gambit, Purge the Unclean and The Haarlock Legacy Included. Did not include that in the title, Sorry!

Inspired by this thread

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/25103-the-definitive-haarlocks-legacy-speculation-and-spoiler-thread/

(Thanks to Laughing God and anyone else who participated)

I decided to steal some Ideas and create a campaign employing

The Haarlock Legacy (certainly my favorite campaign)

Purge the unclean (Rejoice for you are pure and Shades of Twilight are quite interesting adventures imho)

Apostasy Gambit (some of the most awesome Narrative scenes in my opinion)

as frameworks, adding more conspiracies from RH, DotdG and the Internet (thanks again to everyone posting here/on Dark Reign ) and creating "The Ultimate Story of Haarlock's Return as I Interpret it", which I'll then GM once it's finished and once I return from abroad (will get pretty boring without my RP-Group I presume, need to keep myself busy, no?

Anyway, thought it'd be nice to have some external opinions on the whole campaign, despite there existing only a rough synopsis of what I want to happen, as well as a to-do list.

Opinions of any kind are appreciated

Oh, and don't mind spelling/grammar mistakes... English is not my mother-tongue and for now, I want to focus on the "meat" of the campaign.

Now, here you'll find the Google-Doc: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B6Xw8NRQm1d7NzktZ2hYYk12OTQ&usp=sharing

Interessanter Ansatz

Update: Due to the progress I made and the... in retrospective pretty insane amount of writing to be done, It's now being split into multiple docs in a folder... overview-document inside the folder and stuff.

Hell, looking back, I'm glad I have some 8 months to finish that stuff... then again, Heresy grows from Idleness, no?

Updates will be done in the various documents, with things I consider milestones being announced here, should anyone be interested in following or something. Link in first Post is updated, new link here, just in case someone wants to have a look at it

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B6Xw8NRQm1d7NzktZ2hYYk12OTQ&usp=sharing

Shameless self-bump and update.

It has been pretty quiet on the RP-Side of life for me, due to being busy with other stuff (cursed real life for stopping me from writing > ) but as of now, I can once again work on this campaign. Once again, for those interesting of following it, here's the google-drive folder: Klick me or don't

Anyway, currently I'm working on a little adventure involving our favourite maggot-men, the slaught, as well as Solomon Haarlock's Journal of his 13-year Journey to the Calyx-Expanse (including foreshadowings, allegories and vague prophecies) as well as the Occultus ad Oculum (as mentioned in the Radical's Handbook, a cookbook for Daemonhosts, cause power to the players).

So, yeah, any and all feedback is appreciated, as are new ideas on how to make this (already bloated, admittedly) campaign even longer

*starts writing again*

An A for effort sir! (Waits patiently)

Alright, time for another update

- Occultus ad Oculus now mostly done, still needs a stylistic pass though

- Blood Harvest, an adventure involving the Slaught and an Agri-World is now taking up shape

- Added a bit on how I'll use "Rejoice for you are pure"

Everything's proceeding slowly, mostly due to me preparing to go abroad for half a year... hope I'll have some time to get more stuff done for this campaign, still so much to do D:

This is excellent! Keep it up

Are you including the precursor stories for The Haarlock Legacy, like Illumination and House of Dust and Ash?

Are you including the precursor stories for The Haarlock Legacy, like Illumination and House of Dust and Ash?

House of Dust and Ashes: Of course, it's an awesome connection between the Legacy and some other Conspiracies I plan to use. Currently and lately I can't/couldn't really work on the campaign (moving to Japan is... quite the ordeal). There's still A LOT of things to do, how the Seven devils are integrated, how the Hyades-Locks are integrated, whether I will indeed use the Old Ones as origin for the Tyrant Star or If I use the Echoing Vault and the Harrowing, whether I use an Eldar-Encounter similar to the one described in the document of Purge the Unclean (I really like the Idea of using this as a sort of long-time Quest) etc etc. I'm also monitoring those threads which are about exactly those problems (see the one replacing the Dei-Phage with the Radiant King). I'm also not exactly sure how the ending will look like, since one part of my wants Haarlock succeed with his time-travelling stuff in an unexpected way, with the players in the Epilogue finding a text of dubious credibility suggesting the Emperor's true name was "Erasmus Haarlock" )

moving to Japan is... quite the ordeal

You have my sympathy, I moved to Shanghai last year (still here) and it was... fraught...

If I can make a suggestion, don't use the Eldar encounter in PtU. Either make a modification for 'Fallen Suns' from Rogue Trader if you want to introduce the Eldar or create a space hulk from Arc of Lost Souls. The adventure in PtU is a bit too light on detail, and the DE are hopelessly underpowered.

moving to Japan is... quite the ordeal

You have my sympathy, I moved to Shanghai last year (still here) and it was... fraught...

If I can make a suggestion, don't use the Eldar encounter in PtU. Either make a modification for 'Fallen Suns' from Rogue Trader if you want to introduce the Eldar or create a space hulk from Arc of Lost Souls. The adventure in PtU is a bit too light on detail, and the DE are hopelessly underpowered.

Oh, I wasn't referring to the encounter with the Dark Eldar, I was mostly referring to the one mentioned in the letter, where that Interrogator collected 100 Spirit Stones and was allowed to see that play by the Harlequins. Think that'd make for a very memorable adventure (at least at those times where they're actively participating) and it'd be a way of giving them some information about the Old Ones and the War in Heaven (since I consider the Old Ones kinda being the Eldar Gods)

Would start with the players meeting and saving Krawkin Feckward on the Seedworld, where he arrived from the Dread Pearl by means of webway, which'd be rubbing salt into my players wounds, as their RT-Characters despised Feckward^^

Thats very cool. I'd still recommend having a read of Fallen Suns, it'd still fit nicely into that kind of storyline

Thats very cool. I'd still recommend having a read of Fallen Suns, it'd still fit nicely into that kind of storyline

I did read Fallen Suns, and I'm planning on running the Warpstorm-Trilogy as a "side-campaign" with the same players for the sole reason of me needing to know how it ends for the Overall Meta-Plot

Also, another Update: I'm now living in Japan for... a bit longer then two weeks, I really like it here and all the new people and food leave me little time for writing though. Currently I'm focusing on making my own "Encyclopedia Calixis" (not as sophisticated as the existing one, of course) in German, so my players have something to work with and won't start not knowing anything about the Calixis-Sector. Did that so I can both twist a few facts here and there and to exclude any spoilers... those that are in the Document are those I've left there on purpose

Anyway, yeah, that's the reason for my apparent inactivity, but if any of you are interested in the German Document, feel free to PM me... I hope to get the Planetary Encyclopedia done this week or next week, so I can finally work on some actual Plot again.

Shameless Self-Bump, taking the Shape of an actual, plot-relevant update helping me out of a conundrum I've been in for too long, namely how to neatly tie together the Hyades-Locks, the Seven Devils and Haarlock, which now results in the Tyrant Star being a Warp-Based Doomsday-device of Galactic Proportions build by the Old Ones during the last centuries of the War in Heaven (Eldar Legend included). Simply gonna post here, what I've come up with:

Short Version of “What is the Tyrant Star and how does it tie in with the Seven Devils and the Hyades-Locks?”

Old Ones fought the (by then already) Necrons, desperately build a Warp-Doomsdaydevice of Galaxy-Shattering proportion, using 100 Star-Sized focus-devices, which were build in the Calixis-Sector (and some of the surrounding sectors) with the Master Control Unit also being there. 99 Where finished, last one not quite, however, Old Ones still fired the device due to their location being compromised, it accomplished… not much, the Old Ones perished. The Array (let’s call it the “Swords of Vaul, shall we? ) was left to rot, which it did, although in a more metaphysical way.

The Unfinished Focus left the whole thing highly unstable and it became more and more corrupted by the Energies of the Warp, which became even more twisted and wicked through this weird device.

In M32 Finally, the Imperium came into contact with some of those Anomalies which were Really, Really, Really bad (even worse then the Eye of Terror, cause weaponized Warp-Matter made by Old Ones… Emperor’s Beard!) and did some Heretical Tech-Sorcery and Warpcrafting to Shatter the Master Control Unit into six pieces and seal the various focus-sites with the so-called Hyades-Locks.

The Sub-Parts of the Master Control Unit were corrupted enough to gain life on their own over the Millenia, thus manifesting themselves as the Seven Devils of the Dread Calyx (The Key of the Hyades-Locks is also kinda part of that array) and the Focus-Sites, which were not completely sealed off, later became the now well-known Tyrant Star

Different Roles of the Devils in the Device:

Voice of the Flame, Balphomael: Coordinator and Supervising Program tying it all together, fits with his theme of power

Dweller in the Depths, Sightless Gaze: What else but a targeting Device?

False Prince, Tychak Crowfather: This was a bit tougher, but considering his theme with "blindness" and "seeing stuff", he might be the manual (also, my intuition tells me it'd be convenient on a few levels)

The Treader in the Dust, the Radiant Prince: What creates lots of Dust and Radiation? Atomics. Well, our Array isn't exactly a conventional weapon, but with the obvious effects of Komus, he'd make a fitting artillery shell, madness and insanity included.

Eater of the Dead, Mord'dagan: This one's a bit tough as well, but I thought of making it the Dusk-Hag, who is also some sort of tactical analysis program. Kinda far-fetched, but she knows quite a lot of answers, and cold, tactical analysis kinda eats both the dead and the living.

Empty Hunger, Astral Entity, Psychic stuff: I'd imagine this being the power-source of the whole thing, basically "harvesting" the Madness created where the weapon struck... a bit like mental Tyranids.

Night Traveller: Haarlock, cause desription fits and Haarlock is awesome and has enough willpower to actually cope with the knowledge of this thing being a huge machine to give the Galaxy the Finger... at least sort of... you now what I mean, I hope.

So, yeah, I'd love to hear some opinions on this new Interpretation of the Tyrant Star (it does ignore the connection to the god from ancient greece mythology, but meh, whatever, It's Dark Heresy, not Dark Athens or Dark Sparta)

That is an elegant way of tying the plots together. I’m quite ignorant when it comes to the necrons and the Old Ones, but seems legit to me.

I really like the idea of key parts to a dooms-day machine that becomes sentient, and it immediately raises the question: do they know? If they do, how does it affect them?

I’m not sure if I understood how Haarlock fits into this, is he the foretold holder of the key/the key itself? Or has he through his stay within the tyrant star become a part of the machinery too?

I’m also, inspired by this thread, trying to connect the seven devils with the tyrant star and am somewhat bothered by the Radiant King being a servant to Tzeentch, since that give him an allegiance that the others doesn’t have and makes him part of someone else’s plot. Do you address this or doesn’t it affect your interpretation?

About the devils I like most of the roles they’ve been given

Thinking about the False Prince I thought that since he’s also known as “the Dancer at the Threshold” couldn’t he be some sort of trigger? Giving the part as manual open for the dust-hag since she is the one to ask for instructions. I’m not sure how the title “eater of the dead” would fit then though… On the top of my head: “to eat” could be an interpretation of “to keep”. Since a manual would be the thoughts of the makers, which are now dead, she would be the Keeper of the Dead

(Although I would be sorely tempted of having a manual become something that would later be known as “The avatar of madness” But the part you made for Treader in the Dust was too fitting to be wasted on that)

Darn, as usual I have no time and have to run without finishing properly. Further thoughts might come, and I blame any and all mistakes in grammar or spelling on shortness of time

Alright, gonna reply for now...

The knowledge about their roles would probably be more on an instinctual level... sort of unconsciously drawn to each other, yet still in conflict... of course, the manual would know about that, but, by virtue of being a manual with no actual "ambition" would see this more as a matter of fact then as an indicator "we need to become whole again"

How Haarlock ties in into this, well, here goes:

Mordecai Haarlock was active in the Jericho Reach, being a free-trader there, he then helped Sebastian Thor. We know the Necrons are active in the Reach, so what If he found some old Necron records on the Doomsday Device after he helped good old Sebastian Thor (see pg. 54, The Outer Reach, Deathwatch). He also somehow wound up with the Hyades-Key (cross-reference the silver Key from "House of Dust and Ashes" (Disciples of the Dark Gods, p. 218) with the Hyades-Locks Conspiracy by the Istvaanians("Radical's Handbook", p. 82 f.)) but couldn't actually achieve anything with it and it simply caught dust in one of the Vaults of the Haarlock's.

Erasmus then, when he started delving into the secrets of the Tyrant Star, got caught in it and, through his sheer power of will (remember what the dusk-hag said about him?) managed to stay... sort of sane... and managed to gain enough knowledge to piece together the puzzles (of course, the device won't help him, even if he'd fire it) which he is trying to do after his return from the "great place beyond" (hell, I love all of that fireshadowing :3)

Connection of the Radiant King with Tzeentch - Red Herring all the way I'd say, Lord of Change does not have any stakes in this whole operation (except for making sure the war of faith during the Apostasy Gambit Trilogy provides a fitting apocalyptic background... and maybe the instigators of the Maledictor's Hand were influenced by the Madness of the Radiant King and thus made their plan up? Like, If the real Ignato came from Malfi?). Overall I'd even go as far as saying the finished Doomsday Device would be more powerful then the Chaos Gods themselves, with it being a more... "pure" essence of the Warp and Chaos, totally without relation to the Chaos Gods.

Also, I like your Idea about the Dusk-Hag and the Dancer at the Threshold... yes, I really like it... and the whole thing with her being the "Eater of the Dead" instead of the "Keeper of the Dead" might be a simple matter of a reading error somewhere, when someone transcribed a legend... hell, I love that idea, thanks a bunch

Also, I gotta update my Campaign-Document but laaaaazyyyyyy

Edit: oh, and if you want more Details on what inspired me to this campaign, read this: AWESOME THREAD ABOUT HAARLOCK HERE!

Say that someone wanted to put this control together again, how would one do that?

Edit: Also, you update that Campaign-document right now, for the good of mankind!

Alright, gonna reply for now...

The knowledge about their roles would probably be more on an instinctual level... sort of unconsciously drawn to each other, yet still in conflict... of course, the manual would know about that, but, by virtue of being a manual with no actual "ambition" would see this more as a matter of fact then as an indicator "we need to become whole again"

How Haarlock ties in into this, well, here goes:

Mordecai Haarlock was active in the Jericho Reach, being a free-trader there, he then helped Sebastian Thor. We know the Necrons are active in the Reach, so what If he found some old Necron records on the Doomsday Device after he helped good old Sebastian Thor (see pg. 54, The Outer Reach, Deathwatch). He also somehow wound up with the Hyades-Key (cross-reference the silver Key from "House of Dust and Ashes" (Disciples of the Dark Gods, p. 218) with the Hyades-Locks Conspiracy by the Istvaanians("Radical's Handbook", p. 82 f.)) but couldn't actually achieve anything with it and it simply caught dust in one of the Vaults of the Haarlock's.

Erasmus then, when he started delving into the secrets of the Tyrant Star, got caught in it and, through his sheer power of will (remember what the dusk-hag said about him?) managed to stay... sort of sane... and managed to gain enough knowledge to piece together the puzzles (of course, the device won't help him, even if he'd fire it) which he is trying to do after his return from the "great place beyond" (hell, I love all of that fireshadowing :3)

Connection of the Radiant King with Tzeentch - Red Herring all the way I'd say, Lord of Change does not have any stakes in this whole operation (except for making sure the war of faith during the Apostasy Gambit Trilogy provides a fitting apocalyptic background... and maybe the instigators of the Maledictor's Hand were influenced by the Madness of the Radiant King and thus made their plan up? Like, If the real Ignato came from Malfi?). Overall I'd even go as far as saying the finished Doomsday Device would be more powerful then the Chaos Gods themselves, with it being a more... "pure" essence of the Warp and Chaos, totally without relation to the Chaos Gods.

Also, I like your Idea about the Dusk-Hag and the Dancer at the Threshold... yes, I really like it... and the whole thing with her being the "Eater of the Dead" instead of the "Keeper of the Dead" might be a simple matter of a reading error somewhere, when someone transcribed a legend... hell, I love that idea, thanks a bunch

Also, I gotta update my Campaign-Document but laaaaazyyyyyy

Edit: oh, and if you want more Details on what inspired me to this campaign, read this: AWESOME THREAD ABOUT HAARLOCK HERE!

It's beginning to make a sort of mad, chaotic sense

Keep up the good work!

Alright, finally time for some Major Update

- Campaign-Document is now... as updated as it can be for now. It includes an overview over the Story (superficial for now, but the various adventures should fill the gap, right?

- First self-written module called "Blood Harvest" is now more or less finished. It's about the Acolytes being send on a vacation on the Agri-World of Cyrus Vulpa where a Slaught-Vessel has crashed (this is, in fact, a true and honest coincidence... or maybe not ). The Acolytes will spend a few days on a vacation until they find the Vessel and ultimately solve the problem. It can be used as a standalone-adventure or as one in a campaign involving the Slaught and builds on both House of Dust and Ashes and Maggots in the Meat, so the players should be able to handle themselves in combat, as the number of Slaught-Overseer within the vessel is suggested to be 3.

- Next Plans: Write some stuff on the various other Adventures, though in a less detailed manner, more in a "scenes that have to happen" sort of fashion. I'll also hold back a bit on planetary gazetteers for now.

And another short adventure is (almost) done, still missing is some nice formatting, a few problems and a bit more GM-Advice.

Also, since most of the Documents my players need to prepare their characters are pretty much done (only a small campaign-briefing and the house-rules are missing) I can actually focus on writing the Adventures.

Since Blood Harvest took me quite a while to write though, I'll make a few shortcuts and update the adventures late, for now I want to get as many adventure-outlines done as possible, ideally one per week or so, but I highly doubt I'll be that fast. Well, I just have to get to the point where the Dei-Phage starts it's war, since from then on, I can (and will) use a lot of filler-adventures using other systems which I can simply make up as I go.

Alright, after a few lazy days, the next installment is ready:

Fleshtraders. It adheres to my new principles of being more of a Framework. The basic idea of this module is being very... modular and work as an introduction into Tattered Fates which isn't quite so harsh. The effects will be roughly the same, but the transition will be smoother.

The Adventure itself also allows for further plot-hooks and conspiracies and might well be used as an inspiration outside of my Haarlock-Saga Campaign. Direct Link

Oh, and it'd also be nice getting a bit more feedback for those adventures, since currently I'm kinda... in an opinion-vacuum of some sort where I do what I think is cool (all nice and dandy) but I think some 3rd-party-ideas might make it even better^^

Anyway, thanks for everyone following this thread, keeps me a lot more motivated

Edit: Wow, second page and third written adventure. Guess I'll hand everyone a glass of Amasec...

*Puts down a few hundred glasses of Amasec on a table somewhere around here*

This is wonderful, I’m having The Red Wake coming up in a while and this is truly great inspiration for introducing the Malfian nobility. Really good NPC portraits and I think both you and the players will have a blast (I especially like the “Assassin” incident).

I also enjoyed that you introduced Thrungg at this point in the campaign, will there be any foreshadowing to future events other than giving an emotional connection to the Baron?

And these pigeons… tell me more….

A few thoughts and questions:

Will the acolytes have someone they suspect of dealing with Beast House from the start?

Did you consider bringing Lady Melua and/or her brother (Tattered fates) into this party as well? Thinking at least the latter will be of interest to Heron Mask.

The party at Rejoice for You are True featured a man being murdered as part of a play. Do you have any such “cruel entertainments” in mind for this one?

As we’re on Malfi and you’re running the Seven Devils, will you plant any information of the Threader in the Dust on this?

Fun fact: Malfian nobility do not recognize off-word nobility as, well, nobility. Instead they refer to them as “Comerica” with a general air of scorn and loathing, especially Scintillan nobility.

Seems like a good setup for a nice sandbox episode, I’m generally a fan of plots and intrigues behind the curtain, it messes things up in the nicest of ways . And as always, well written ambience texts (or what you call those in English).

Thanks for the reply!

Any further foreshadowings with the Baron will probably not happen... I also decided to cut down on his role in the campaign, with the players incidentally discovering a hint proving Thrungg to be a heretic when they return to Malfi for the Threader in the Dust Arc.

The Pigeons are more a reference to the overall climate of intrigue and plotting, with the Baron seeing the Bomb as a minor annoyance then anything else.

I do not plan on using Melua or her Brother, but as well in response to your other points, I added a "rumor mongering" section, where some rumors (including one about the Museum of Apostasy) can be heard... there are also a few people going mad more then usual, that might be our old friend, the Radiant King...

Mostly, the players will simply be tossed into the cold water, in the fashion "Hey, there might be something over there, see if you can find it." Since the ending is quite clear with the Acolytes ending up captured, it doesn't exactly matter how much "off-track" they go.

Oh, and another Update, I decided to Merge the "Dead Hulk" Sequence into the "Tomb of Horror" sequence... on their way to the Tomb of Lythea Haarlock, the players will come across an abandoned vessel of the Imperial Navy... which has been harvested by the Slaught (Who will increase the frequency of their raids... I want to push my players into believing Haarlock to be their salvation after all )

Also, have a glass of the finest Malfian Amasec...

Really good stuff Darkforce!

Alright, another part is... not quite finished, but playable, The infamous Tomb of Horrors

It has been merged with another Adventure (A Dead Hulk, number 4 in the list) for reasons of practicality. The Tomb of Horror itself is... not quite up to the level of the rest of the adventures, it still needs some more polishing and a few more events so it becomes less of a dungeon-crawl to avoid traps, but I'll just put it up here already, when you have some nasty/nice ideas fitting to the adventures, feel free to post them... next project will probably be a few modifications on Dead Stars, especially the Mirror-Doors... hell, I simply FRIGGIN LOVE that sequence... gonna be so much fun actually playing that

After that, I'll rig up the "Carnival of Madness", "Dancing on the Threshold" and "Pilgrimage to Terra" Adventures and once they are finished (maybe earlier), I'll drastically reduce my writing speed since after Church of the Damned I can use a lot of fillers using Deathwatch to depict the Shadow War against the Slaught (culminating in the Purge of Vigil), Only War to show the war against the troops of the False Saint (Totally gonna make a section focusing on the Adeptus Mechanicus and a few Titan Battles in one of those fillers... something I really want to show my players) and Black Crusade to show what is going on on the other side... since not every Chaos-Worshiper is on the side of the False Saint... Emperor, this War alone has the potential of a good dozen of campaigns and adventures. I almost feel sorry for Duke Severus, who uses the Events to declare his secession... he will be pretty much a player from the sidelines, unless the players decide to get more involved with him.

Gotta Love World Building

Edit: Wow, this got a Hot Topic... thanks for the support, everyone! I'll be sure to keep the Amasec flowing

Edit 2: Updated the formatting for Blood Harvest... also counted the pages I've written... ~56 Pages public for the FFG-Forums in English and another 48 containing Information for my players and House Rules in German... Hope I'll be that productive for my Bachelor-Thesis lol...