Hi everyone,

Just would like some input on our first mission we are about to run on 2/15. Input on the current story I have written and any ideas you might have to throw in and on how to progress from the point I am at.

Here is the story:
(If you have watched the Roll Play Dark Heresy series with TB you can tell the story is loosely based on the same set of circumstances, but I haven't watched the full thing so I don't know )

The ordo Hereticus team is being sent to a Hive world that had given an insufficient tithe to the imperium in the previous year. It was off by only 0.001% but even that equates to at least a couple million in gelt and failure is not tolerated by the Imperium. The reason the 0.001% equals so much is this Hive world is very rich due to its ability to make billions of stimms, and other chemicals.

The inquisitor and his interrogator in charge of investigating this incident are both busy with other, much more pressing investigations of Heresy. So, believing that this is only the work of an organized group of dock workers committing theft that must be executed they are sending only a team of three acolytes to deal with the problem (Psyker, Assassins, and Scum).

The team will be briefed that they are being sent to the Capitol "Hive Pax" and are going to be in the section of the Hive that is dominated by the docks which are owned and run by Noble House Delloc. They will go in covertly and their first lead will be a couple of dockworkers trading Spook in the alley. If they interrogate them the dealer will confess that it is at dock 29 where the spook is being smuggled out of the system. Further interrogation will reveal the name of the arbitor that is being paid off to allow this. And excellent further interrogation will reveal the operator of this smuggling and the time they plan to smuggle the next shipment. This will get the team a lead but they know that the amount of spook that is requested by the tithe is little to none; it’s the stimms that are more important to the imperium and would make up that 0.001%, not spook.

That's all I have so far.

I am thinking that dealing with the spook operation will lead them to the much more grand stimms operation, but I'm not 100% sure how it will be done. Furthermore, I know they will immediately suspect House Delloc is running the operation so I want a separate noble house to somehow be pulling the strings and hoping the eyes of the Imperium will be too focused on Delloc to know it's them.

Thoughts on the current story, and Ideas?

Firstly: that campaign's occasionally a bit iffy on the lore (it's not exactly aimed solely at the 40k nuts so we can let it off), since the typical "Hive" designated planet normally mainly tithes people for colonists and guardsmen and such. But I guess that's just picking at minor details. So I digress:

The first thing you need to consider is who's behind it and why. For instance, I've set my latest campaign on the mining world of Luggnum, in the wake of a great witch purge that left no family untouched. Leading the heretical elements in my story are a witch, a disillusioned cleric and a dangerously ambitious heretek, who each had their distrust of the Imperium cemented into hatred when they saw innocents who they loved executed in the name of the Emperor's Justice. All three of them soon fell under the influence of an aspect of Tzeentch, a daemon they call the Father of Darkness, who compels them to restore an ancient xenos vessel buried beneath the surface and carry their followers away from Luggnum, destroying the planet in the process. This endeavour to restore the xenos craft requires the siphoning of ores and labour from the mines of the planet, arousing the suspicion of the Imperium and allowing the mystery to slowly unravel until its endgame, when the Acolytes must fight a covert battle with the heretic leaders over the final components to restoring their secret vessel.

Acolytes are sent to investigate once the Inquisition sees evidence of the sprouts of heresy. You've got ideas for what the sprouts are but if you work out what the roots are, you'll have no problem working out the rest.

I'll give you an idea if you want one:

The heresy is rooted in Lord "X", who runs many of the planet's major spaceports. His Enforcers are responsible for inspecting much of the cargo going off-world so he has the pick of what's inside. A hard-working man, he has for many years been siphoning off token amounts of the manufactured drugs in order to heighten his concentration and allow him to work near 24/7 and be the planet's most alert and shrewd noble.

But lack of sleep takes a toll on his wits and he starts... Experimenting. Spook quickly fills his mind with visions, strange voices urging him to indulge his basest desires, offering him the means to achieve them. Lord X becomes a wyrd, exhibiting subtle telepathic powers, strengthening his grip on the trade of the planet. Then the daemonic grip on his mind tightens, compelling him to form a dark pleasure cult. A daemon encourages Lord X and his associates to spread their actions in secret, every drug-fueled orgy fuelling the daemon's power. Meanwhile, Lord X uses his wits and powers to manipulate the nobles in charge of the manufacture of the drugs he is stealing into mistrusting and scheming against eachother. Lord X's kidnaps and blackmailing and vandalism and assassinations to destabilise and galvinise the other noble families may be what eventually draws the acolytes to investigate him and find the rabbit hole of the cult he orchestrates.

But yeah. This guy began as any ambitious, misguided noble and ended in a daemon's thrall. You want a character with an agenda and then the story unravels out from there

The standard technique for writing a mystery is to start with the ending and work backwards- in the future I would recommend defining the main adversary first, then spin the conspiracy out of his/her goals. I was at a panel discussion at a comic convention some years ago, and someone in the audience asked how hard could it be to write comics- after all, everyone has ideas for great stories. Frank Miller ( The Dark Knight , Sin City ) cut him off and said "No, everyone has ideas for great scenes . It's only a story if it has a beginning , a middle , and an ending . Almost no-one with these 'great ideas' for individual scenes has the discipline to plot out a full story"

Pixels is right: you have to try to create a compelling villain and his nefarious objectives. The first thing that comes to my mind is that the massive amount of missing Stimm is being used to render a small army immune to pain... As for the mastermind, it could be a traitor within the noble house, rather than the nobles themselves- say, a disgruntled Seneschal orchestrating a decades-long plan to simultaneously destroy his hated employers and raise himself to a position of power.

As for the mastermind, it could be a traitor within the noble house, rather than the nobles themselves- say, a disgruntled Seneschal orchestrating a decades-long plan to simultaneously destroy his hated employers and raise himself to a position of power.

Yeah. Your idea's better than mine. The good old Evil Vizier character. Hard to pass that one up.

Firstly: that campaign's occasionally a bit iffy on the lore (it's not exactly aimed solely at the 40k nuts so we can let it off), since the typical "Hive" designated planet normally mainly tithes people for colonists and guardsmen and such. But I guess that's just picking at minor details. So I digress:

Yeah, I agree that their story didn't quite add up, if mining was their main prospect it would be a mining world. However, with a planet dedicated to the production of chemicals it makes sense to me to require a large (and easily replaceable) workforce. And having it on a Forgeworld seems like a waste to me, when they are usually so focused on building infrastructure/wargear. So to be truer to my story, I guess a Hive/Industry world is a more appropriate term? Perhaps it’s just because the Eisenhorn books have factories on Hive worlds as well.

Anyway, I really like the spook story! I originally intended for this spook guy to be a nobody heretic and act as a secondary objective but having some sweet background like this would be awesome! However, I wanted this mission to be a “one-off” for lack of a better term? I want them to have this investigation be a single session long to give them a glimpse into what’s to come. (Thinking about it I probably should have mentioned that in the original post, sorry!)

But the spook story definitely gives it some more depth and I love it!

As for the mastermind, it could be a traitor within the noble house, rather than the nobles themselves- say, a disgruntled Seneschal orchestrating a decades-long plan to simultaneously destroy his hated employers and raise himself to a position of power.

Yeah. Your idea's better than mine. The good old Evil Vizier character. Hard to pass that one up.

I love this idea too! Sounds like something they definitely wouldn't expect, consider this incorporated as well!

There's nothing wrong with a Hiveworld planet being a chemical works. That requires plenty of people to man the industry and it may have 'gone hive-world' earlier in the planet's life-cycle than population demands would otherwise reuqire.

After all, the imperium doesn't do things by halves. Whilst it may not be a world with hundreds of billions population (the sort which tithes manpower) the environment outside of the hive is probably utterly destroyed by the chymistry manufactorums; acidic efflux, waste, etc, etc.

The environment in the hives (at least the lower levels of Pax where the manufactorae are) is probably no spring picnic either!

If the planet is essentially a massive drugs factory, then yes. The imperium would tithe drugs supplies - and stimms are a nice enough approach. It's also going to give you a nice "wierdness" for the planet's population - if the stimms are produced in planetary bulk then they're essentially 'free' to the nobles who control the planet; hence I imagine they'll be used with a will on the indentured workers in the manufactorae, making them work essentially until they crash, and there would be a general "sleep is for the weak" attitude on the planet.

If the tithe is assessed as deficient, there are two real possibilities - either it wasn't large enough (short of X tonnes) or it wasn't of high enough quality. The latter seems more likely - if I was skimming off some of the production capacity, I'd consider diluting some of the stimm tabs so I had the right quantity.

Plus...cast in the role of fiendish heretic...one wonders what I might consider diluting said stimms with . The bulk of the supply will end up in the hands of imperial guardsmen on a warzone front line. I wonder what might happen if a random sampling were dosed with spook? Especially if it's a low enough dose such that it's untraceable in the tablets but builds up in the body over time (like some metals do) - the upshot being that those guardsmen who spend lots of time at the front in stressful conditions start suffering the effects of spook hits at the same time....

A group of dissolute nobles experimenting with spook seems perfectly sensible as a 'starting point' for heresy. The nice follow-on to real heresy is the individual who introduced them to spook in the first place (genuine hardcore heretic - a Menagerie cultist or something?) - who is the person I'd finger for your 'grand visier' type. The menagerie are such a nice, useful 'arch-villain' because they're tzeenchian sorcerors, really smart, really devious, and many of them are capable of 'face-dancer' type shape-shifting, making it easy for them to get away and return as a villain again further down the line....

Lastly, I'd suggest something a little interesting; The tithe is both deficient in quantity and quality. The quality deficiency hasn't been noticed - and won't be, unless the acolytes discover it, until the Tranch occupation force disintegrates in a mass of hallucinations and psychic phenomena. The quantity deficiency has been. Which - if the acolytes have enough sense to think about it - is very impressive. A 0.001% shortage, on tonnes of items from countless manufactorae, shipped to dozens of destinations on hundreds of ships, and the administry picked it up. Good on them!

Except they didn't . They wouldn't admit it (unless challenged) but they were led to noticing it by the grand visier type. His spook comes from a much better-hidden source in a difference manufactory complex (which, thanks to its over-stimmed workers, still meets its production requirements, albeit at a cost of numerous worker deaths - but hey who cares about that ?!?!), but he's subtly encouraged the dissolute nobles to start making their private spook in an imperial manufactorium, knowing they'll get caught.

And, as the oh-so-loyal servant of the emperor who secretly blew the whistle on their failure to meet quota (not that he realised they were engaged in such heresy as using proscribed drugs, obviously !), he stands to inherit direct control of most of the manufactorae on the planet. At which point the cult will have control of a planet of obedient, drugged citizens it can use for its own ends and 'doped' stimms will start flowing to every corner of the Guard's deployments in Calixis.

Mwa Ha Ha Ha....

So many ideas! Thanks everyone I appreciate it! There are so many good thoughts coming out of this I probably won't be able to use them all this mission but I would love to use this one for either this mission or a future one!

And, as the oh-so-loyal servant of the emperor who secretly blew the whistle on their failure to meet quota (not that he realised they were engaged in such heresy as using proscribed drugs, obviously !), he stands to inherit direct control of most of the manufactorae on the planet. At which point the cult will have control of a planet of obedient, drugged citizens it can use for its own ends and 'doped' stimms will start flowing to every corner of the Guard's deployments in Calixis.

Mwa Ha Ha Ha....

This is excelleeeeeent

Thank you. One thing I've found on this forum; bounce plot ideas back and forth between the various players and you'll end up with some truly diabolical schemes. I think my favourite so far is the players being asked to investigate some 'highly suspicious murders' which involved them finding their own mutilated corpses.

You know something you could have is that the PCs uncover all kinds of heretical cults, beliefs and plots but none of them solve the mystery of the 0.001%.

That is because the 0.001% isn't going astray from the Hive Worlds end. Rather some natural chemical reaction or other is occuring during transit on the Administratum Tithe vessel that is evaporating off this tiny amount.

Or better yet the whole thing is just an accounting error caused by the Administratum using a Segmentum Solar varient of High Gothic to calculate the Hive Worlds tithe in accordance with their Charter to Terra while the Hive World uses a local varient.

Or better yet the whole thing is just an accounting error caused by the Administratum using a Segmentum Solar varient of High Gothic to calculate the Hive Worlds tithe in accordance with their Charter to Terra while the Hive World uses a local varient.

That is soooo 40k