Dark Heresy: Sessions 4-5
The players awoke to the delightful sound of gun fire. The Strophe's house was under attack. Rapidly getting out of their rooms, a rather brutal combat emerged, where Trantor was thrown bodily backwards by one of the assailants. Getting their act together, the players managed to defeat enough mercenaries to drive them from the building. Questioning revealed that the mercenaries were employed by the same organisation, pressure point, as before.
Deciding time was of the essence, the acolytes headed for Ambulon after a days rest. They were rather impressed with the extremely weird turtle like city, especially Mordecai, who practically wanted to have sex with it.
Landing, the party met their contact on the city, and then went to meet the mysterious oracle.
The oracle gave the party some information, giving them an understanding of the force manipulating the joyous choir, a fairly evil bunch of mercenaries by the name of the Serrated Querry. With this in mind, the party went to their quarters to leave some possessions, and then most headed to the joyous choir temple.
Upon approach, the acolytes noticed Theodosia wondering around, giving orders. Getting closer revealed that he had not heard back from the mercenary team yet, which gave them a chance to snoop around. And snoop they did.
Splitting up in the temple, Trantor and Enoch went down a short corridor (through a door marked "no entry"). They were confronted by a Joyous Choir official, who, after some attempts of obfuscation on the players part, demanded identification. So they chopped his head off. This left them.. somewhat covered in blood, so they dragged the corpse into a room and hid in there to clean up.
At this point, Ravion came to the corridor to see it filled with blood and the acolyes missing. Seeing the trail leading to the door, he burst in with gun ready... and Enoch made him spasm, making a laser shot fire into the air.
Pulling the door shut, the acolytes drew their guns and prepared for discovery.... Ravion, however, had an idea, and burst into the corridor, claiming that he was searching for the killers. Sadly the two autogun wielding security men were not exactly holding to that viewpoint, and ordered him to get down on the ground.
At which point, Trantor tackled him, and pointed a gun to his head. Convinced by this performance, the two men wondered over to get posession of the supposed heretic.
At which point Trantor knocked them aside, Enoch jammed their weapons, and fighting began in earnest.
A brutal and dangerous fight happened in the narrow corridor, but at the end the acolytes emerged victorious. Calling to Mordecai, they heard he was only a few minutes away, so they decided to lay an ambush for the guards still in the main church.
Sadly, this didn't go brilliantly for them, as Ravion acted with... less subtletly than he should have, and the guards opened fire, taking down Enoch.
Mordecai arrived soon after, bringing the magistratum with him, and his added assistance dealt with the guards.
With the magistratum there to secure the temple, the acolytes headed down. Finding a locked door, Mordecia attempted to open it with some subtlety, but sadly wasn't able to cut the lock away very easily. Ravion attempted to kick the door in... and failed miserably. Finally, with a rather exasperated expression, Trantor took Enoch's shotgun and blew the door open. A grenade was hurled into the room, and then the party dived through. Sadly their bumbling had attracted attention, and they were met with a hail of fire which sent Ravion collapsing to the ground.
Revealed was a room clearly used for surgery, but with one... modiofication. It was much huger than it should have been, with weird writing scribed on the ceiling. It also contained Theodosia.
The final combat resolved with Theodosia unconcious, Ravion nearly dead, and a set of melta bombs ready to blow the building sky high.
Running away, they were able to secure the heretic, and question him on the Serrated Querry. Information gained was mostly a confirmation of what they had learned so far, and while they had clearly ended this particular scheme, it was implied that the Serrated Querry was still very much active.
Reflections:It's always fun to hurt your players! I'll move to the final fight in a minute, and talk about the Oracle, which is a character that annoys me. The Oracle has information on the Serrated Querry, and seems to believe they are linked to the Choir. Why hasn't it told anyone? In a WFRP setting, such a character is more believable because of the lack of over imposing central government, but in 40k, such a withholding of important information stinks of heresy- while the Adeptus Mechanicus are not a faction to anger, it strikes me as a little weird.
The final fight was awesome fun. The book provides you with little detail, and just left me to work out what was happening. I wanted the players to have a chance to explore the temple, then come back with reinforcements, so they could fight Theodosia alone, and fully equipped. Things... did not work out exactly as planned. In particular, the kill happy nature of my players was a little.. ridiculous, but never mind, it turned into a rather entertaining motif. While there was nothing about the destruction of the temple, it made sense to me that Theodosia would attempt that if caught, and added some enjoyable urgency to the closing scenes. Full auto fire is proving exceptionally effective.. I have a feeling the players will be using it a lot, especially with the wonder of man-stopper bullets!
There was a moment where I thought the party were going to get killed off, but the extra contingincies I had planned (reinforcements, servitor control), worked in the end. I think we managed the right level of lethality for the final encounter of an arc.
Labels: dark heresy, roleplaying
Dark Heresy: Session 2
The acolyes were tasked to build train lines across America. Unable to build in the same areas, they were also given secret missions to attempt to link some cities together. Failure to do so would result in demerits being given to their mission evaluation. Higher credit was given for those acolyes who managed to join far apart cities, and kept their trains in a continous route, so as to not force passangers to switch trains. Trantor proved adept at this task, performing several extremely difficult secret missions, and even managing to take on a few more along the way.
Following this task the acolytes played poker.......
OK, there wasn't a session this week....
Labels: dark heresy, random
Dark Heresy:Purge the unclean. Session 1. Sort of
The acolytes, having dealt with the daemon on Iocanthos, left to take the long journey back to Scintilla. Sadly, upon arrival they were dealt with... some suspicion, seeing as the acolyte supposed to be with them was no longer present. Subjected to an ever so pleasent interrogation, they were finally considered to be telling the truth, and were called up for a new assignment, along with a new recruit, Stilgar. Globus Varaak wanted them to inquire into a cult called the "Joyous Choir", a new cult of the Emporer that had appeared on Scintilla. The cult was for some reason using xeno technology to conduct it's affairs, although it was unclear what the tech was intended to do.
To help them accomplish this, the players were sent to live with an old friend of Globus', Laurent Strophes, and pretend to be nobles. Arriving on Scintilla, they were escorted by the bubbly and bored Julia Strophes, who proved to be ever so excited to have new visitors, whom she delighted in dressing in some... rather odd fashions. The majority of the next day was spent drilling in the various customs of the nobility, to prepare them for mingling in the circles, leading to an evening encounter with a mercenary, who promised to sell them a data slate, hopefully holding valuable information about the choir.
ReflectionsI enjoyed running this session. The initial part, where the party were interrogated, was not mentioned anywhere, but it felt right- the inquisition would find it hard to confirm the story by going to iocanthos, which isn't overly reachable, and would be much more inclined to thoroughly interrogate the party. I also like the idea of their own organisation giving them insanity points- it seems utterly appropriate given the Inquisition's nature.
I also enjoyed playing dress up with the party, primarily because the idea of dancing tech priests tickles me on a level I can hardly even explain. No combat this session, which will change in future. The session ran quite quickly, and I probably could have got away with running the party as well, but I hadn't really prepared, so decided to save it for next time.
Labels: dark heresy
Dark Heresy:Running a premade campaign-Also, review of the back of the book adventure
So, my third Dark Heresy campaign, and this time a premade one. This makes things easier, but in some ways harder, because sometimes the book will make assumptions on my knowledge that I don't really have. I am also criminally lazy in weird ways for session preparation. For example, I will spend ages thinking about a session, but not write out the stats of certain characters for combat.
The odd thing about premade campaigns is sometimes they really irritate me. They take characters to stupid places, and fail to anticipate what players are thinking. The adventure at the back of DH has the air of an investigation, but really doesn't let its players do any...
(Note spoilers from here on)
The most the players will discern is that their superior is clearly a bit unhinged, although I even deliberately played it up. There are some creepy hints along the way of what is going on, but they are horror movie style hints, and do not really help the players unlock the mystery. In fact I don't believe there is any sensible way for the players to work out what exactly happened even AFTER the end.
I would probably be fine with this if the game went into horror in a big way, but while it flirts with it, it doesn't really make it work, as the conclusion is a fire fight. Mike at one point tried to retreat, and the notion of the daemonhost chasing the players through stern hope is a MUCH cooler idea, and I wish it had occured to me to go with it. It might have resulted in some player death, but after all, that is what fate points are for. Indeed, reworking the adventure so the players, could, for example, lure the daemon into the genatoria and blow it up would make it more awesome, with a cat and mouse game happening until the players finally turned the tables.
Instead the game relies on the players getting a plot vital piece of information- a book which basically outlies what the players need to do (or rather doesn't, more on that later), robbing the players of much of a chance of a discovery. Also, while in a meta-game fashion it's pretty bloody obvious that the players should take to mystic witch lady and ignore their orders, from a roleplaying perspective it actually makes MUCH more sense for them to arrest her! While the inquisition does pride themselves on a certain amount of free thinking, these players have had about two sessions under the inquisition, and the rest of their lives obeying orders... It's annoying to me that the game is encouraging players to meta-think and then try and roleplay their characters into accepting that- thats not how the game should think.
Of course, as mentioned, the plot book isn't that useful. The book, while giving some background, doesn't tell the players how to hurt the daemon, indeed the line of dialogue giving them a hint is only optional. This hint is also nicely obscure, and while I tried to drop some hints, only a couple of sessions happening meant that the players did not really get it. There is another route to saving the day, talking to crazed superior in a ball of chaos and trying to persuade him. Yeah, it sound stupid to me too....
Finally, when you get the fricking hint it's too damn easy to hurt the daemon. I am typically brilliant at creating deadly threats that utterly fail to hurt the players (these now include a space marine and an eversor assasin), thanks to my inability to roll, but it is fairly easy to kill it off.
There were some things I liked- the notions for the mass combat was enjoyable enough, with some varied suggestions which were reasonably balanced so not to kill off the players. The plot itself was actually ok, although the resolution was bad.
I would definitely be interested in running this adventure as a one shot, skipping out a few encounters to focus on creepy horror, so the conclusion could be nice and scary (and also encourage players to run, which I admit is not easy!)
Despite the negativity I am looking forward to the next arc, which is better written, although we shall see how well the players keep on the carefully built rails! I actually like all three adventures in the book, and hope I do get the opportunity to run them all... we shall see how the time goes.
Labels: dark heresy, roleplaying
Dark Heresy, Lifeblood Preserves-Session 2
StoryThe party were woken up early to be met with Terronius, who informed them that not only had another murder occurred, but the police were claiming they had caught the perpetrator of the crimes.
Setting off to investigate the culprit, the party decided they did not want to reveal that they came from the inquisition. Instead the psyker played with the mind of the guard at the desk, and they pushed past, into the corridors. However, upon reaching the cells they discovered another guard, who pushed the alarm before the party could stop him. At this point Trantor decided that it was time to declare some authority.
The guards were almost instantly cowed by the legendary authority of the Inquisition, and became extremely helpful. The party were led through to the culprit.
Raelis was slumped in the corner, his body showing clear signs of a recent beating. Rousing him he revealed fangs sharpened to a fine point. Raelis was clearly far gone into heresy, and while he stuck to his initial story to begin with, a dose of psykic power quickly dissuaded him from continuing. He told them that on the appropriate night someone would mark the pub that the cult were to get their newest victim from. They would drug said victim, then lead him back to be fed on, and dump him in the chosen location. Raelis had never been back to the base, so had no idea where it was, but told them that the attack would be occurring that night. Dmitri, believing that Raelis had told them all the party needed to know, executed him.
The party then headed off, to look at the body and the place where it was left, which confirmed what they had seen already. They then went about finding the next location. This didn't take too long, St Drusus' Hammer was marked. The party then decided to split up, with most waiting in the pub, and the other two going across the street to watch from above in a sniper post. Quintus, the assassin and Mordecai the tech priest were chosen for this. Qunitus managed to convince the owner of the shop across the street (Carmail's gun shop), to allow them to rent a room, managing to imply along the way that he was intending to have a rather intimate encounter there... which made Carmail somewhat surprised when he saw the other gentleman was a tech priest....
The party set up for the evening. Eventually the cultists turned up, and sizing Trantor up as a target, made their move. After a while, believing Trantor had been thoroughly drugged, the cultists led him out of the pub. Enoch and Dmitri followed, and after a short while Trantor made his move. Both Enoch and Qunitus opened fire, and the cultists went down very quickly, with two managing to be took alive. Deciding to take them to the alms house, the party headed off.
However, before they could reach it, they were confronted with the extremely intimidating sight of a space marine chaplin, a man in black power armour with a skull painted on the helmet, a power field covering him. He demanded the players put down their weapons and hand over the prisoner. At this point a women dressed in black stepped out of the shadows.
"Thank you Mariella, you have been most helpful."
"My pleasure Tomias"
The players handed Tomias their id, but while he accepted that they were from the inquisition, he claimed that "this was a matter purely for the blood angel's chapter to deal with,". However, Tomias said that they could meet with him tomorrow at his room in the Venerate.
Needing only one cultist, Tomias executed the other, and left with the mysterious Mariella, commenting that they could interrogate the prisoner on her ship.
ReflectionsIt's an interesting experience, giving players more choice, as they can do things you don't expect. For example, the players suggested that they might move the red handkerchief from the Hammer, which would have been an interesting development. I suspect in that instance I might have used Mariella to stop them doing so, as she had been tailing them for the entire day. Indeed, Mariella, who originally was going to play a less active role in the adventure, proved to be very worth involving, as she enabled me to adapt to the players attacking the cultists outside the pub, rather than following them to their destination, as I had expected.
I really enjoyed this session, it was good to see the players basically getting to choose what they do, and how they planned to deal with any particular situation. I managed to adapt to it reasonably well, even when Dmitri randomly killed the prisoner, for which he got a corruption point.
Labels: dark heresy, roleplaying
Dark Heresy Write Up
So, I'm finally back online, and finally writing up this campaign. This is going to be the story, as in the plot as seen by me when designing it, and a brief round up of my thoughts.
StoryCenturies before the Imperium returned to the Calixis sector, a selection of humans decided they wished to live in a paradise of nature. Determined to experience the beauty of nature, but in an utterly controlled environment, a consortium of humans using technology undreamed of in the current imperium constructed a massive hive on the mostly desert planet of Baraspine- a world previously unused. It was designed so that plant life and foliage would grow within the hive itself- an utterly controlled natural paradise, utterly self sufficient. While there was a space port installed, it was not intended to see much use.
This dream was doomed to fail. The first generation were happy to live in their paradise, but many of the next wished for change, for something different than a life of working the earth they lived in. Their minds were ripe for a daemon full of ambition. Skraelig, a daemon of Tzeentch, worked on the minds of the younger generation, convincing them that it could bring change, the social upheaval they desired. All they needed to do was help it in turn....
Skraelig believed it could become nearly fully manifest in the world with enough sacrifice, and be powerful enough to dominate the planet and then the sector. However, some of it's cultists became wary of it's interests, and forged a plan to defeat it. When Skraelig became manifest, it discovered it had been summoned a kilometre under the earth. It's death scream obliterated all life on the planet.
Later, the imperium came to Baraspine. Lord Cafren's ancestor found an empty world which he claimed in the imperium's name.
With the return of life to Baraspine, also came the Imperium's greed, and they began to mine out the rich minerals from the planet, as well as convert a large proportion of the natural wonderland into industrial hives. With mining, they began to encover black stone which throbbed of the warp. For the first time in centuries, Skraelig began to be aware. It saw even more people it could corrupt, if it could only become flesh. A young Marr visited the planet, and it was then that Skraelig discovered someone amiable to his plans.
Marr became convinced that he would be able to summon a daemonhost, a truly unholy creation, a daemon bound to a human body. The ritual went wrong, as it was fated to do, and the daemonhost escaped. Skraelig was free to begin it's corruption of Baraspine.
With the stone already embedded in the earth, it just needed it to be mined out and collected together. Finally, Skraelig needed to be released from it's form, and Marr would be more than willing to do that....
Marr was willing, indeed it became an utter obsession for him. Sadly for Skraelig, he took it so far that he researched ways he might utterly abolish the daemon's presence- a holy relic might just do it. So as well as the ingredients for the ritual, he looked out and found a holy relic- a bone of St Drusus. Skraelig was not prepared for this; indeed, did not believe that such a thing could hurt it. This was to prove to be Skraelig's undoing.
ReflectionsI enjoyed running this campaign. In many ways I was possibly a little too generous with my players, giving them more money and experience than they maybe should have, but this allowed me to have fun with the new system, and throw new and interesting threats at them. The very led structure with each section taking about a session meant I was able to experiment with lot's of different adventure types along the way. For my next mini-campaign I'm going for a much looser structure, but I did enjoy this as it allowed my imagination to create fun little challenges along the way.
Labels: dark heresy, roleplaying
Dark Heresy Session 7
StoryThe party had succesfully obtained an invite to the pit fight, but had no real plan as to what to do next. Deciding to play it by ear, they turned up to an abandoned warehouse on the edge of the city, where the party was searched for weapons. Describing his gun as an "entertainment stick" (that still makes me laugh even now...), Nicodemus managed to give a hefty enough bribe to bring his weapon in- the rest managed to smuggle in a few knives as well.
The fight produced little productive apart from visceral entertainment- while men and wolves fought, there was no sign of the eldar. However, it was mentioned that those with special passes could come talk to the bookie. Bluffing his way through, Nicodemus managed to obtain a special pass, leading to a big exciting fight the next day, on level 5, one of the noble controlled levels.
On leaving, they heard someone being attacked in an alley way. Looking in revealed two guards beating the hell out of a very much down and out of his luck guy. Seeing them approach, an enforcer told them to back off. Nicodemus did not do so, and instead paid off the mans debts. Confused, the enforcers wondered off. Nicodemus then took the suddenly fortunate unfortunate, who was rather grateful, and pumped him for information, revealing that there definitely was an alien fighting, and that there was a fair amount of guards. He also described a sonic effect that the eldar used, and the party decided to guard against it.
Turning up the next day revealed a huge Colosseum, where once again the party were searched for weapons. This time they had bought up a large quantity of grenades, and attempted to conceal them in a bag. Despite a rather poor distraction, the searchers did not notice most of the grenades.
Wondering around the large waiting area, the party discovered some locked rooms, and also Lek stumbled across a loud drunken man at the bar. Further investigation revealed he had something to do with the back room.. a plan was hatched to follow him, and despite three of the party sneaking behind, the bodyguard assigned to the drunk failed to notice them.
Slipping into the bathroom, Barak slipped a hallucinagen grenade into the toilet, and quickly exited. This had the desired effect, and soon they were able to slip in and grab the keys without being noticed. As they made it for the door, however, they heard the guard begin to regain his senses, and swiftly killed him. Standing around discussing this, and intimidating the crap out of the drunk, led to a noble wondering in on the scence, but he was also persuaded to be kept quiet....
Swiftly the party headed down to the staging area, and, after a brief discussion, burst through and attacked, with ear plugs firmly in place. This led to a full up brawl, but while the guards did some damage (and set off an alarm), the party prevailed.
As the alarm had gone off, Lek, who had remained upstairs thanks to a constant tail of enforcers, bore witness to members of the redemption starting a full on war inside the building, causing a mass stampede.
The party then quickly decided to kill the eldar. Killing the stasis field, they opened fire. Not being able to hear it attempt to converse with them, they ignored it and continued shooting. In frustation the eldar desperately found strength enough to cut through the bars in front of it, but it was not enough. The unending fusilade ended it's life, an unglamorous death.
Grabbing the eldar, the party loaded it into the truck, and drove for freedom. They attempted to pick up Lek by bursting through the front door, but utterly failed, and decided to leave him to his fate. Bursting through a gate at high speed, and managing to lose any pursuit, they high tailed it for freedom.
Meanwhile, Lek, surrounded by chaos and death, decided it was best to make a run for it, and leapt out of the window, joining the crowds of fleeing nobles.
ReflectionsAn enjoyable session, certainly. My favourite part was probably when Nick decided to investigate the guy getting beaten up. I had included that purely for flavour, and had not planned an encounter, but managed to deal with it fairly well, and the party got some useful informaton out of it. There was one point where I needed the party to get a special invite, but because they were mostly sticking in the background, assuming that the eldar was going to appear at the first fight, they did not make enough of themselves.
The route chosen for victory was a reasonable one, although they could have been somewhat more subtle, following the guy to the toilet and getting keys was the plan I thought they might follow. If they had failed to come up with any ideas, the redemptionists would have set everything alight, and that would have counted as a distraction. Of course, this would have made things harder for them.
I was amused by the ear plugs shutting out all sound. It meant the party didn't hear the fighting, and also didn't hear the eldar, who would have asked them to kill it, seeing as it's life was hardly worth anything anymore. Sadly the eldar did not get a great deal of dignity in death, but never mind.....
I now have to plan for the conclusion of the campaign. I know pretty much what is going to happen, theres just a couple of events currently muddled in my head I have to sort out....
Labels: dark heresy, roleplaying
Dark Heresy-Session 6
(This brings me up to date, so these posts will become less frequent! They have been somewhat self indulgent admittedly, but what the hell- my blog is surely for self indulgence...)
StoryHaving retrieved the chalk, although not being able to find where exactly the rest of it and those who had taken it had gone to. Marr seemed fairly happy, although he was somewhat disappointed to discover that the two men that were killed had apparently been vaporised in the explosion, as no-one had the fore thought to drag them out....
Marr then gave the party their next mission- a wealthy collector named Lord Yarl had a bone of Saint Drusus, and Marr wanted it. Unfortunately, so did a lot of other people, and rather than directly conflict with them, he sent the party and a card with a lot of credit on it with them.
Visiting Lord Yarl, he made it clear that money was not enough- instead he wanted Lady Tabitha's aspect warrior. Rather mystified by these words, the party headed back and conducted some research, revealing that Lady Tabitha was the head of the gambling rings on level 6, including some not so legal pit fights. An aspect warrior was apparently an Eldar fighter of some kind- a dangerous alien.
Nicodemus (who was played by Mike for this session, Nick being ill), came up with a simple plan of making some rather large bets to attract the attention of the bookies, and thus get themselves an invite to the next pit fight. This plan worked fairly flawlessly, although the psyker and tech priest were treated with some suspicion, they seemed to fall for the act of decedance, and gave an invite to tomorrow's fight. Taking it, the party then headed back to a plush hotel to spend the night.
ReflectionsThis session went well. I had decided that I wanted to have more roleplaying based sessions, as I find those more fun generally speaking, although variety is of course the spice of life. I was unsure exactly how long this adventure would take, it depending on the party's plans and methods, and this session went somewhat slowly, thanks to waiting for Mike to replace Nick, and then some general disorder that happened for quite a while.
Still, the party latched on to what I feel is a decent plan fairly quickly- there were several other solutions they could have tried, and still could, and I was willing for anything that sounded plausible to be used, roleplayed right. As it was, few missteps were taken, and the party progressed.
I think the next campaign I run may well be more focused on this kind of style, although I don't mind the occasional big brawl of course, but roleplaying shouldn't just be about that. Combat should be the last resort ideally, although it depends on the situation.
I'd managed to put in more planning for this session, so there was little the players wanted to do that threw me, which was good.
Labels: dark heresy, roleplaying
Dark Heresy-Session 5
(Due to some surprisingly cunning timing on my part, the next session is tomorrow!)
StoryThe party returned, triumphant over the forces of chaos, to report back to the Interrogator. He received their news with no suspicion at the report of the death of Lazerus (which left out the whole getting shot in the back by his team mate situaton...), and upon hearing of the daemon that had aided their party, received it with some concern.
Karl informed the party that Marr had returned, and would have need of them tomorrow, and would probably have a replacement for them then. Most of the party retired to the medical facilities, as they sorely needed it. Meeting with Marr the next day, he introduced them to their new member, a tech priest by the name of Mallear, one adept with the mysteries of the machine spirit (how stuff works....).
He then gave the party their new assignment. The world of Barraspine (which I think I spell differently every time I write it), has a dark secret. It is rich with minerals, and so there is a large mining operation in place to take advantage of that, but every now and then, they strike more... dangerous materials. Looking like black chalk, the rock is embued with the essence of chaos, and wreaks havoc on those who find it. Not willing to condemn the whole planet, being a natural resource as it is, the habit on Baraspine has been to destroy the rock upon finding it, using a large quantity of explosives, which seems to break up any unnatural taint it has.
Marr, now, intended the party to deal with the next bit of rock, but before doing so, take off a small stick of it, and return it to him. While doing so they would pose as members of the adeptus arbites, the team that normally deal with the rock. The party felt some concern at this mission, but did not express it- they had been taught to trust their inquisitor beyond all, and the citizens of the imperium are nothing if not unquestionably obedient...
Marr gave them pagers, and told them he would contact them the next time the rock was found. This gave the party time to rest up, have their wounds heal, and also to make some purchases to upgrade or replace their weapons and armour.
Finally the call came, and they headed down to the mines. Level 1 is a deeply claustrophobic place, the walls tightly packed together, and the trains that lead to the many sections of mines rickety and shambolic. Still, they made it to the mine in question without too much trouble, but upon presenting their id discovered that someone had got there first. Somewhat shocked, Nicodemus still managed to put on an intimidating enough performance to convince the guard that letting them through would be the easiest thing to do, so they headed forwards.
Stepping into the mines, none noticed the tripwire across the floor, which let a huge bundle of rocks collapse on their heads. They managed to avoid too much injury, however (as, as per usual, I was rolling looooow). Further down the tunnels it forked into two path ways. Taking the left, they came across an odd scene.
Three mutants, dressed in miner's clothes, were attacking another, who was cowering in the corner. Seeing that they were mutants was enough for members of the inquisition, and battle was given. The mutants put up very little fight, only armed with picks and not wearing any armour, the party tore them apart. The remaining mutant thanked them, explaining that he had no idea what was going on. Helpfully, Cain pointed out that he had tentacles sprouting out of his face.
Nicodemus ended his wailing by pointing a gun at his face, and telling him to act as as their guide or face the consequences. The mutant agreed.
He led them back the way they came, taking the other arc until stopping abruptly.... "that wasn't there before".
There was a chamber with the bodies of 6 miners on the floor. Out of their bodies had spilled a sickly black blood, which had filled the chamber ankle deep with it. Stepping cautiously into it, Nicodemus discovered that the blood was highly acidic, and stepped back with alacrity. Instead, they decided to launch a rope onto the ceiling, and try to swing across. Cain and Nicodemus managed their swings fine, but at this point the corpses stood up....
One of them reached for the rope, and the party gave battle. They managed to kill the creatures, but not before the rope was dragged into the blood, and dissolved. Remembering that there had been rope attached to the trap earlier, the party headed back, and then noticed the large rocks that could probably be used as stepping stones. Taking these back, they made their way across.
At this point they rounded the corner to an ambush. A man dressed in the uniform of the adeptus arbites opened up with a heavy stubber. Diving into the room, the party took cover, and attempted to make pot shots. Little was effective, apart from Lek, who reached out into the man's mind, and caused his gun to spasm, flailing across the room, the bullets thudding into someone hidden from sight, who screamed in pain and died.
With the room no longer covered, the party charged forwards. Switching to his knife, the man gave battle against Jericus wielding a power spear, only to have it cleaved in two. In desperation, he grappled Jericus to the ground, but with 5 others outnumbering him, he had no real chance of survival.
Exploration of the room discovered an odd electronic timer. It appeared to be counting down..... It appeared to be a bomb.... Mallear grabbed it and attempted to disable it, but the machine spirit was unforthcoming, and he failed. Nicodemus took it, and with seconds left to spare, managed to halt the timer.
They headed forwards, until they came across a large, ornate door. "Thats curious," said the mutant, "that wasn't there before...."
Cain went forward and pushed it, and managed to keep his balance as his hand went through. There was a small pit on the over side, which the party managed to jump over without trouble. This led to a chamber with the hideous black rock. There was something wrong though- it looked like a lot of it was missing, and there was a collapsed corridor leading out of the room.
Still, there was certainly enough for a small sample. Sadly, being so close to the rock meant that their guide gave into the emenations, and turned on the party. He was easily cut down. They took the sample, set the demolitions, and then left, leaving the rest of the rock to be destroyed.
Reflections
This session was my desire to have a dungeon crawl. I really want all my adventures to make sense, so throwing in standard dungeon puzzles would not work here- they had to make sense in the context of the adventure.
I had two main puzzles. The pool of blood needed crossing, and then the bomb needed defusing. Both had a solution in the previous room- the pool could be crossed using pirates style criss crossing, and the bomb could be thrown into the acid, which would fizzle it. Neither of these solutions were thought of by the party. They decided to swing across, which was fine, although a lot more dangerous for them, as falling in would not be good for their health, or their weapons and armour for that matter.
The bomb puzzle didn't go as I wanted mainly because I got confused by my own notes. I threw the climatic ambush at the party before the minor encounter of the door and the bomb, which led to it being somewhat anti-climactic. As a mini-encounter on the way it makes sense, but as the final barrier, an illusionary door is rubbish!
The bomb was meant to be solved by either dissolving it, disarming it, or throwing it under a mine cart and running for it. With the bomb thrown in with the ambush, it was kind of lame, and also didn't make all that much sense as to why they had the bomb in the same sodding room as them. Never mind.....
The ambush was a little surprising. The heavy stubber's comrade had a flamer, so if the party charged forwards, they were going to get set alight. Instead, thanks to Lek's spell, the flamer carrier got filled full with lead, as I was far more accurate at shooting at my own minions. Also, the spell Lek was casting was incredibly effective, because it meant the heavy stubber carrier didn't have enough time to open fire on his turns, being too busy getting up again. Never mind. Things going the players way is actually more fun anyway, especially in an amusing fashion as this was.
I possibly regret making the mutant turn on the party- it might have been more fun to let them defend him the next session, in a world which is highly suspicious of such creatures. This way removed the dilemma from their hands, which I think was a mistake.
I once again enjoyed having the wider background that the party get to peek at- something has gone on before they got here, but they're not sure who or why it has happened.
Ultimately this session lacked mostly in roleplaying, which is a shame- that was kind of what the mutant guide was there to provide a little bit of, and he could have played a bit of a bigger role. Never mind, I intend the next session or two to be fairly roleplaying intensive, with less combat.
Labels: dark heresy, roleplaying
Dark Heresy-Session 4
StoryThe players, having defeated the enemy psyker, searched the room for loot and for clues as to what exactly he had been planning. Looking around they found a book that was clearly an artifact of chaos. One noticed that there was a glint coming from underneath the bed. They pushed it out of the way to reveal a glowing symbol, a disgusting sign of chaos, that threatened to warp their very sanity.
They immediately (well, actually, they had a bit of a discussion first...) attempted to destroy it, but found their weapons were ineffective. They would need to find something to eradicate it. Meanwhile, looking at the book proved difficult, but there was one passage which seemed to relate to the passage they had read, a riddle saying
"One in decay,
One in learning
One in Time
One in death"
Figuring this described the location of other similar symbols, they decided they would see if they could recruit help. The house was now eerily quiet, after the raucous noises that had pervaded it, and seemingly empty. An attempt at opening the door discovered it lock, and attempts to force it failed. Looking out of the window revealed a swirling mess of colour... Lek realised that they were in the warp itself! There would be no outside help.
The party split up to look for help. Exploring the upstairs discovered one in the bathroom, amidst much decay, and a few partygoers who were completely oblivious to the chaos around them.
As their explorations continued, odd events kept happening- small breezes, detached voices, and occasionally Lek felt as if there was an extreme disturbance in the warp around them. Time was definitely of the essence. Splitting up, Barak rounded the corner to encounter a disturbing sight. A heavily modified human being, half machine, waving a force spear, yelling that he wouldn't let them kill him.
Startled, Barak didn't ask questions, and opened fire, but missed in his panic, and was struck heavily by the glowing spear, knocked to the floor unconcious.
Hearing the commotion the others moved to investigate, and the madman burst through the door. Trying to talk this time yielded some information. The man had been called to do some work in the house- he wasn't too forthcoming on what it actually involved. Then the disturbance had happened, and things had got extremely weird. He had run out here after destroying a weird symbol....
At this point the man's eyes grew red, and he yelled and leapt at the party. A bloody combat ensued, as he wielded the deadly weapon against the party. During it, Lazerus, the party's guardsmen, was shot in the back by his own team member, Cain, and fell to the floor. The force spear proved dangerous, splitting two weapons in two, before the madman was finally dispatched.
Jericus picked up the powerful weapon to replace his own, torn in two by it's power field. They went to check Lazerus, who managed to pull himself up. Discussing what to do next, they were somewhat surprised to see Lazerus disappear before their eyes. Worry was replaced with calm as he managed to reappear a few moments later.
So when Lazerus vanished yet again, most of them ignored it. Unfortunately, this time he was not invisible. Lazerus found himself in a dark room with an odd presence....
The others continued onwards, discovering the kitchen, where some delicious cooking was revealed to be the chef, much to the disgust of several of those who had already eaten it. Moving onwards, they discovered the broken symbol. Realising that the spear was the key to destroying these, they endevaoured to find the rest and end them as well.
At this point Lazerus reappeared, but instantly Nicodemus realised there was something wrong. Lazerus was acting oddly, and was unable to understand the acolytes code. Nic decided not to be cautious, and unloaded his shotgun. Lazerus collapsed, the spirit departing, but his body still injured.
Needing all the help they could get, the party stimmed Lazerus up, and continued to explore the house. A thorough exploration revealed all the remaining symbols, which they managed to destroy (with some minor upsets along the way, as the house attempted to resist them). With the last one destroyed, the house was free... Except there seemed to a presence still outside.
Heading downstairs, they discovered 5 twisted daemonettes of chaos standing outside, having managed to slip through the rift. They gave battle. Lazerus, stimmed up and not thinking clearly, charged forwards, bearing the full brunt of their attacks. Things looked desperate. Lek fainted at the pure shock of seeing such beings, and the party seemed outclassed.
At this point ANOTHER daemon appeared, this time looking more like a man, but twisted an malformed, with large blue wings carrying it aloft. Thinking they were doomed, the party was very much surprise when the Daemon gave battle against their assailants, destroying them in short order.
"It's been very pleasent working with you gentlemen. I shall see you around, fools of fortune...."
The daemon flew off. The battle was finished, but not without a price. Before the daemonettes could be defeated, Lazerus, already heavily wounded, had been brutally killed.
ReflectionsThis was a harsh session on the characters. As they had no chance to rest since last session, most of them were already damaged, so all were in danger of death. Of course, they would have suffered no casualties if Steve had not decided to shoot into combat, and Antony to not charge the bloody daemons!
This session wasn't perfect. There was a very long hiatus between this and the previous one, and in between I had little time to see what notes I'd written. On the night itself I had to work with what I'd got. If I'd put more effort in I think I would have planned more carefully. The mechanic for deciding how many daemonettes the party would face at the end was based basically on how long they took to solve the puzzles, and could have used a bit more finesse.
My biggest regret was not allowing Antony to roleplay his character when possessed. Not only would it have been more fun, it might have been a bit more of a surprise when he betrayed them!
Still, this session was intended as a bit of a betrayal tribute, and on that manner I believe it succeeded. A few more events and omens might have been fun though!
At some points I was very glad Nick was paying attention, as I suspect no-one would have realised how to destroy the sodding symbols, but never mind. I actually would have allowed offensive psychic powers to damage the symbols as well, but as Kerrith's psyker doesn't have any, that would have been no good.
The introduction of the daemonhost was fun, with it's ridiculous power level proving quite astonishing. A will power of 95 indeed (out of 100). Nick, I suspect, has some idea of the broad plot of this campaign, which is fine, although I imagine I shall be able to provide a few twists and turns yet.
This section of the campaign was originally not going to be attached to the main plot, one of the main reasons an interrogator rather than the inquistior gave it to them, but I decided it made more sense to tie it in. There are more subtle ties again that the players cannot see but I know, which makes me happy. I like the world to have levels of detail that the players don't even see. This allows things to make sense, and for me to respond to unexpected player moves if they happen to infringe on plot elements.
Overall, while this session was somewhat combat heavy, it was not impossibly hard, and some smarter choices would have left the players more or less unharmed. I suspect that if I was doing it again I would have made the symbols a little harder to find, with more puzzlement attached to them, but never mind.
Labels: dark heresy, roleplaying
Dark Heresy- Session 3
storySuccesfully convincing the administrator that they were actually law abiding citizens rather than cold blooded murderers, the paryt then headed off. They decided they wanted to take their ship and the ship the two cultists had landed in back, but this presented a problem, as only Jericus could fly. Luckily, Inditor Larsen could fly. Unluckily, Larsen was the other member of the drug ring, and tried to fly the plane in the opposite direction. After a rather fraught journey, in which the plane almost went straight into the desert floor, the party managed to subdue Larsen and get back to the planet, where they reported to Interrogator Karl.
Karl was pleased with their progress, and let them take responsbility for further investigation. Interrogation of the prisoners, along with research into the Hardlight corporation, the name printed on the ship they had returned, yielded that the corporation was owned by a Lord Melchit Hawthorne, the ruler of level 35. It also gave the address of the Hardlight warehouse.
Visiting Lord Melchit sadly yielded little of value, as this estate was well guarded, and an attempt to bluff their way in failed. The visit to the warehouse proved somewhat more satisfactory, however, finding an abandoned building with one lonelyl guard, who happily relayed that Melchit's son, Lintel, was in charge of managing the facility, and had run it into the ground, although not before taking most of the ships they used for transport. He also mentioned that Lintel had invited him to a party, and happily gave up his invite.
After a brief discussion, they decided to head for the party, discovering it in full motion, with the guards themselves semi-paralytic. The party was the home of levels of depravity none of them had encountered before, with acts being performed that one would have throught impossible, let alone illegal. They decided to head upstairs, and immediately came across a locked door. Nicodemus managed to pick the lock, and they burst in on Lintel and four bodyguards, with Lintel performing a curious magical ritual.
"You're too late to stop me now, whoever you are!" Lintel yelled, and battle was joined. Despite being elite guard, the bodyguards managed to fail to put up much of a show of resilience, and the party managed to defeat them and Lintel, although not before Lintel had pressed a button on a remote he had been carrying......
ReflectionsI enjoyed this session, once again there was more roleplaying. The initial fight for the ship was utterly spontaneous. It had not occured to me that the players would want to take both ships back, and as they had failed to uncover Baltek's co-conspirator, I thought they could face the rather amusing consequences.
My main regret about the interrogation was not providing a few more leads for the party to take, to at least give the illusion of free will- perhaps only two was a bit lame, but never mind. The party's failure to access Hawthorne's estate was not inevitable, however. If they had taken a more honest approach Melchit would have had no reason not to co-operate, and indeed would have provided all the party with invites.
The invite issue was somewhat amusing. Having garnered only one, they assumed that they would only be able to get at most 2 of them inside. Considering the level of the adventure coming, and the fact that they would be sealed inside the house next session, I really did not want this to happen, and luckily they went for a look and discovered that the supposed bouncers were really not doing their jobs.
Once in the house they managed to head directly for the sodding room without even a moment of discussion, which was somewhat disappointing. Seeing as after this room was done the party would be virtually empty, my hard work of writing up scenes for every single room went rather wasted, but never mind....
This session took a little longer than I thought it would, thanks to the inital combat. Also I have a tendency to underestimate how much time combat will take- I should try to avoid throwing too many combats into one session.
Labels: dark heresy, roleplaying
Dark Heresy- Session 2
(Note- I only have four more sessions to go through before I'm caught up, so don't worry too much about this turning into a purely DH blog!)
StoryReturning from space, the much injured and tired party were confronted by Inquistor Marr upon making landfall. Hearing them tell him what had happened, he rushed off to Scintilla, the capital planet of the sector, to attempt to investigate who had sent the assasin against them. He gave the players some money and told them that one of his interrogators (under bosses) would have need of them in a few days.
After some much needed recovery, and some unneeded but greedy shopping, the party reported for duty before the interrogator. Markus Karl had been investigating the incursion into the hive of alien creatures native to the planet called storm wolves- vicious hounds with massive claws and teeth, to enable them to escape the terrible storms of the planet and also to tear apart their prey, the starfren. Somehow they'd been introduced into the hive, a strictly illegal act in an imperium which regulates carefully it's citizen's contact with xenoc life form.
He had finally found a lead- a research facility on the surface of the planet had been conducting experiments on the native life, and several unregistered flights had been recorded to and from it. In addition, it was known that there was a strong drugs problem at the base, and Karl had put two and two together.
The party's duty would be to infiltrate the base, posing as rich relatives of Lord Cafren (the governer of the planet), and try and find out who was running the ring, and, more importantly, who they were selling it to.
They headed out, with Jericus, the party's cleric, flying them out with reasonable skill. They were met with a pleasent welcome by the bases administrator, scholar Plundit. He gave them a brief tour, introducing them to the small team, and showing them the progress on the research. The aim was to control the creatures of the planet, with mixed success. While the starfren, a large bovine creature with a spiked tail, had not taken at all, the stormwolves seemed to be far more responsive to the control circuits being used.
The party had a chance to talk to some of the researchers, and soon discovered that some were clearly suffering from withdrawal- the implication was the base was dry of the drug. One of the addicts let slip that they would only have to wait "one more day".
More conversation revealed a potential ally, Inditor Cormak, the head of the storm wolf project, who told them who he believed to be behind the scheme, Baltek, and also that he must have some support from either the other project head, or Plundit himself, to be able to open the dome to allow planes to land. Nicodemus managed to strike up a conversation with Baltek himself. Baltek, always eager for more money, easily fell for Nicodemus' spiel, and told him that he would be able to provide more drugs that very night, by the time midnight had passed.
With a clear time of arrival, the party set in wait, taking positions in the hanger. Baltek walked in, flanked by two stormwolves, not noticing the carefully concealed party, and called in the ship. It landed, and two men came out. At this point, however, one of them spotted Barak, who had failed to be sufficiently careful while attempting to conceal himself. They opened fire.
A vicious combat ensued, but wrongfooted there was no chance of victory for the drug smugglers. A moment of panic ensued when Baltek tried to set loose all the wolves in the building... then Jericus accidentally did it for him! Luckily they were able to stop the wolves before much harm was done, but not without rousing the entire base, who were somewhat surprised to discover the tableau presented with them.
ReflectionsI was quite pleased with this session. I enjoy roleplayingie sessions, which is primarily what this involved, although it did have a short combat at the end (which seemed to go on forever, thanks to a failure on all parts to hit a barn door). It required a fair amount of preperation, and this adventure actually began as a murder mystery, but mutated into this when I decided I wanted the base linked to the surface, and also to the wider plot arc I have planned for the campaign.
Of course this adventure arc is one of those times where the actual plot goes over the players heads, and happens in the background, but thats all for the good.
I had expected the players to go for the easier root of trying to acquire drugs initially, and the adventure was somewhat biased in favour of that approach. However, their inital goal was instead to find someone sympathetic to their aims, and convert him to their cause. Luckily I had written such a character into the adventure, so such an approach did bear fruit, and they did end up managing to chat to Baltek in the end anyway.
There was one point where I was rather nice to the party, where Barak almost blurted out their knowledge in front of Baltek, which would almost certainly have resulted in all the storm wolves released on the base, and a much harder conclusion. I wanred Andy that Baltek was sitting at the same table, which was enough notice, and he rephrased his remarks.
I have a tendency in writing adventures to not clearly write the conclusion. In the previous session, my notes had given me no preperation for the adventurers getting down to the planet again. While there was an orbital craft, no-one in the party would be able to use it, so a rescue ship was required. Again in this session, I had not really considered what would happen after they triumphed... obviously the rest of the members of the base might find a vicious firefight under their roof somewhat amiss. An appeal to authority never goes wrong, of course, and I was able to decide what would happen on the fly, but preparing more for this in future would make sense.
Labels: dark heresy, roleplaying
Dark Heresy session 1
(these first few entries are based on my memories of something that happened a few months ago! NOTE: I begin by going through the story for the session in some detail, and then reflect on the session )
storyThis session began with all the characters meeting each other, having each undertaken inquisitorial training for several intensive and harrowing months. They were summoned to meet their Inquisitor at his headquarters, and after a stony reception from the front desk, made their way to him, where he introduced himself and told them of their first task.
A simple enough matter- meet an old friend up in orbit, then escort him down to the planet, along with the valuable item he happened to be carrying. A trip to the spaceport, and an emptying of stomachs from space travel later, and they were at the ship, meeting Lexographer Ralt, who, in a rather brash manner, told them they had interrupted his dinner, and he'd just go back and eat it if that was alright?
Considering he walked away without asking, and the ships captain had confined the party to their boarding vessel, it might as well have been. At this point, something went wrong, and Ralt returned to announce the presence of an eversor assasin on board. In panic the party wished to escape, but, of course, Ralt had left the item of immense value on board.
So the party went to recover it (discovering an intriguing black case...), discovering the bodies of the crew along the way, and headed back to their ship... where they found the assasin and the body of Ralt. The assasin appeared to be frozen in time from a stasis grenade (one of which the party had), but the ship was no longer functonal. They would need to commandeer the vessel to escape.
A voice ran out over the intercom- the captain announcing that he had called for help, but they would take a while to arrive. The party explored forwards, heading down a ladder when the way up was blocked.
Exploration of the bottom level revealed a hidden door, which led to a store room full of illict goods. Stepping in, however, an intimidating security voice asked for a password, which the party could not provide. After some warning, two chainsaw wielding servitors appeared, looking incredibly intimidating.
The party retreated, and explored the rest of the level, discovering the large hanger where the more legitimate goods were held, and a surface lander stored within it. The landers door was locked, and they could not work out how to get it open.
Heading back, they decided to chance the storage room, sending the assasin,Cain,to grab something fast and get out again, hoping to steal something good away before they were cut in two by the servitors.
Sadly.... this didn't go too well. While Cain managed to grab a nifty looking grenade, he was almost sliced in two by the servitor, flying back against a wall and falling unconsious. A frantic combat emerged, with the servitors defeated by sheer weight of numbers and some suprisingly inept actions from the deadly robots.
However, this noise appeared to have attracted the assasin. Taking positions for an ambush, Nicodemus readied the grenade dropped by Cain. Not having a chance to examine it, he took a chance and threw it as the assasin came leaping through the door. The assasin, perhaps wrong footed by the sudden assault, failed to dodge despite his unnatural reflexes, and the grenade exploded, tearing a whole in the very fabric of reality, and dragging the assasin with it.
Unfortunately, because they had no idea what was coming out of the grenade, the party was wrong footed by this, and almost dragged into the warp with it! By the bearest skin of their teeth they managed to avoid it, although they almost got pulled into space in the hole left afterwards.....
With the assasin dealt with, the party was able to search the rest of the ship, and call for rescue, which came swiflty. The captain had died, the door to his cabin torn off, indeed the only surviving member of crew was the ships chef, who had hidden in the kitchen, cowering holding only a cleaver for protection.
ReflectionsI was quite pleased with this session. It was my first time being a gm since I was about 14, and it went reasonably. The plot hung together well, being a linear railroad as it was. While the plot is a little railroady throughout this campaign, I'm fairly happy with it being that way- it enables me to tell a story more easily, and is also just much easier to deal with. The next campaign I run I will endevaour to make a little more free flowing, but this is fine.
There were some interesting points- the players headed downstairs immediately, as they were supposed to, but they could have explored the current level more- doing so would have discovered the chef, who would have told them about the hidden room, and given them a good idea of the password for them, as well as inform them of the location of the codes (the captains cabin).
Still, the main problem was that the party became convinced they would never be able to climb up again- the way up was sealed by the captain, but they did not put two and two together when there was a loud explosion from above- the assasin breaking through the seal. This meant they decided to fight the servitors. This was fine, but I possibly could have made it more clear there were more options.
I also regret throwing the assasin at them when I did- it would have been more fun to have let them hear it moving about... but not appear. However, they did have the grenade at this point, which was more than enough to defeat it. Of course they might have had time to examine it and not almost kill all of them!
My ability to fail to hit any of the party worked in the favour, including the assasin failing to dodge the grenade! I had intended for the assasin to just escape, but then the party would have to fight to push it in. Impressively I managed to roll a 96, with a chance of success of about 85%!
While this session was a little severe, I had no real problems with it, as it was the first, and I had always intended to make it a bit nasty.
Labels: dark heresy, roleplaying
