I've been thinking about designing a campaign where the PCs have to defend the material plane from invaders from another reality. The PCs are confronted by William Howard Taft who travels into the material plane in his dimension-shifting flying bathtub. He explains that from its first iteration in George Washington, the presidency was not only leadership position in the United States Government, but in the Freemasons as well. Upon completing their final term, the presidents are retired from public life and granted immortality. They stand eternal vigil over the multiverse and combat any forces that threaten the balance.
He goes on to say that in the 41st millenium, the forces of chaos were waxing strong, so strong that they threatened the survival of mankind itself. Chaos as represented by five gods: Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle, Slaanesh, and Malal. While separate entities, they also represented different facets of a unified whole. The Emperor of mankind traveled into the warp and did battle with the least of these gods: Malal. The Emperor triumphed, but Malal was too powerful to be slain outright. So the Emperor used his psychic powers to open a dimensional gateway and travel to the PCs' material plane. He imprisoned Malal deep within the earth, and then traveled back to his dimension. The forces of chaos were dealt a blow from which they never fully recovered, as chaos was now incomplete.
But recently, a chaos space marine champion named Abbadon discovered the secret of Malal's disappearance from the black library. Now chaos space marines are flooding the material plane, bringing with them demons, tanks, and heavy firepower. With the aid of several former presidents they meet along the way, the PCs must do battle with the chaos space marines while shutting down the dimensional portals popping up all over the land. The loyalist tories and British of the American Revolution will also make an appearance.
What do you think would be some engaging setpieces for this game? How would you handle stats for chaos space marines, and the weapons the PCs will surely loot from their corpses?
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Wow
What level game? Epic or are you toneing down the marines?
An artifact to shut off the wh40k tech, it can be worked around but it will slow down chaos. Perhaps one of the gods here is a distant relative to the emporor in the future. Lol that's heresy, IS the emporor in the future. He can Guide you to an artifact of power to protect you from the foreign tech.
Pathfinder stats of chaos marines, armor master fighter in adamantine full plate.
Wow
What level game? Epic or are you toneing down the marines?An artifact to shut off the wh40k tech, it can be worked around but it will slow down chaos. Perhaps one of the gods here is a distant relative to the emporor in the future. Lol that's heresy, IS the emporor in the future. He can Guide you to an artifact of power to protect you from the foreign tech.
I was thinking mid-level. Around tenth level PCs can regularly take on monsters capable of slaughtering whole towns, which is pretty much what chaos space marines are.
I would rather not have anything that shuts down the 40k tech, as that's one of the focal points of the game. I do like the idea of the Emperor being involved somehow. It'd be cool to have a PC or Paladin worshiping the Emperor. Although the "suffer not the witch to live" rhetoric would be hard to enforce in a fantasy setting. Also, all the non-human PC races would fall into the category of xenos filth.
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Ah, I was thinking along the power level of 10 spacemarines can hold off a whole tyrranid invasion.
Things i think the PCs should fight, because they are cool.
Dreadnought
Demon prince
Demons of all factions
Chaos marines
Possessed ones
Land raider
PCs should see
the effects of being hit by a las cannon.
How powerful psychic powers can be against chaos (psy could equal magic)
How vulnerable psychic powers make you to chaos
How much each chaos faction hates the others
Temptation
The chaos marines can use the best guns in pathfinder, being over 10th level maybe some could take the armored tank gunslinger archatype or just use light cannons., to be very scary. You should probably base the chaos marines off non humans, like trolls for khorn, undead for Tzeentch (liches with their phalactory being their armor) zombies for nurgle (nurglings could be goblins) then throw class levels on them.
Locations....
Ritual site
Being through the portal and in the 40k world trying to get back before they are trapped
An ancient temple to the imprisoned god
Defiled temples
Epic locations, mountain tops, middle of a storm, in a volcano.
With chaos touching this world, things can start to get weird.
Others will have better ideas, gl!
Edit I have not played the fantasy or 40k rpg they may have ideas too.
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I don't want it just to be about 40k, as awesome as it is. I'm thinking the British troops from the revolutionary war will be the cannon fodder, and each platoon will be led by a handful of marines. The PCs will also do battle against a mutated Ben Franklin, who has been seduced by chaos with promises of the presidency he never managed to achieve. Maybe he's a devotee of Slaanesh and has eight voluptuous breasts with toothed maws instead of nipples. I also want them to team up with Jesus Christ at some point. Or possibly fight him. Even God's only son is not immune to the taint of chaos!
This campaign sounds awesome, but I'm thinking it would be better suited to D20 Modern than PF, but that is my personal opinion. Then again combining stuff would be great. However if you really want to keep in the fantasy side of pathfinder, you could use Chaos from Warhammer Fantasy Battle, as it is the same chaos, without overpowering too much with the ungodly awesomeness that is Fluff marines and chaos.
You make a good point. The more I think about it, the more I realize that pathfinder may not be the best system for this game.
You are welcome Sir Viking of the Top Hats :) If you ever get this campaign off the ground, i'd love to hear about it :)
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holy fluffles... this is convoluted, kinda in a good way. being a 40k buff myself, and having poured over the lore.
in the 40k universe the emperor used many diffrent disguises throught the history to try and guide man to betterment, it is implied that before coming to the front, he was a few major figures in history.
he played pharoah in egypt, cesar in rome, Christ, Moses, and Mohammid in the middle east, and played ben franklen in america, a lot you can do with shape shifting and divinely psionic powers.
but that's the warhammer universe.
Also a corrupted ben franklen is a bad idea, franklen wasn't the kind of man to fall to corruption of the flesh (dispite his indulgences in europe) he seems more the mad scientist/james bond Q type for your campain.
Chaos Space Marines are a disorganized lot, usually rallying around a successful and ruthless champion, and bringing their veteran knowlage and well used weapons with them. if the champ dies, they tend to break and run.
British Troops would be on the side of law and order, the Revoloution was brother VS brother, they'd feel better to fight alongside american rebels than psychopathic space marines.
Mainly the brits would want to get back to the war, and estabish a formal outpost, then try and draw local support to help them.
they'd probably be an expeditionary force sent by english branch of secret socities, sent to claim land for king and country, since they lost america. making them a third faction.
British regulars would be likely level 5 gunslingers, they are professional soldiers, fighting in well diciplined groups, supported by cannon, grenaders (hand to hand fighters with bags of bombs) and Hessian Jeagers (level 5 rangers)
on the issue of christ you might wanna leave that outta this, it is a sensitive topic, if you must, he was the epotomy of Nuteral Good and was in fact appaled by the corruption within the temple at the time, he advocated reform, forgiveness, and love towards one's fellow man. due to his growing following and redical calls to charity and peace, he was crusified.
Space Marines are geneticly altered supersoldiers in amazing power armor, wielding what for a normal human would be heavy weapons.
I will go on if they topic isn't dead