After wrapping up my 5e Swords of the Realms campaign, I started running some 2e Dark Heresy. It's kind of an ongoing campaign. I've run about ten sessions for it, but I've put it on hold to go back to Pathfinder and run "Eyes of the Lich Queen". I plan to take a couple of breaks from Eyes of the Lich Queen and continue to run this campaign.
Session #1 (Dark Pursuits, part #1)
War band: Russa (feral world, outcast, desperado), Havelock (frontier world, arbitrator, seeker), Mordecai (hive world, arbitrator, seeker), Zoe (rogue trader fleet, ace), Pontius (forge world, adeptus mechanicus, chirurgeon)
The Acolytes begin on a Rogue Traders ship called the Sabre. They are on their way to planet Desoleum in the service of their Inquisitor Kane Solothan.
During their voyage he tasks them with hunting down a gang of mutants that has infested the bowels of the ship. The session begins with Zoe piloting an open topped, maintenance flyer, nicknamed the "flying crab" due to the mechanical pincer arms hanging off the front. They are whipping through a massive maintenance tunnel, deep in the bowels of the vessel. The tunnel is over a km long and 50m wide. Havelock rides shotgun and the rest of the warband are in the back. They soon find a few mutants shambling along the walkway top of a massive pipe. Zoe flies in and engages them with the pincer arms of her vehicle, but she doesn’t get a grip on the one she attacks. One of the mutants has a big, long tentacle protruding from its stomach with a spiked ball on the end of it. Russa shoots it with her hand cannon, pissing it off, and it lashes her with its tentacle, inflicting a pretty serious wound.
Another of the mutants, this one with a pincer arm, leaps onto the hood of the vehicle and snaps at Zoe. She puts the speeder into a nose dive and shakes it off, sending it falling to its death.
They then start taking fire from las rifles. They spot another trio of mutants on a cat walk up ahead, and one of the mutants has a las rifle. Zoe flies over and attacks him with her speeder's pincer, while Havelock shoots the mutant sniper with his shotgun at point blank range, blowing his head up.
A four-armed mutant leaps onto the hood of the vehicle and slashes at Zoe. Then an even bigger one also jumps on, but it rocks the speeder so much that both it and its ally fall off and vanish into the darkness. The war band flies back to the pipe where another mutant is firing at them with its own las rifle. They quickly take it down, and then Mordicai finishes off the tentacle mutant with a shot to the head from his hand cannon. The mission is a success, with only Russa showing significant injuries.
A few days later they find themselves in Rogue Trader Ivana Kartov’s private dining hall. Here inquisitor Solothan briefs them on their mission. They are to go to Hive Desoleum and investigate a series of deaths among that nobility that seems to be connected with illicit xeno artefacts that are coming into their possession. The war band is to investigate the deaths and find out where they are acquiring the artefacts from. They are then to shut down their distribution. They are given the names of some contacts Solothan has in the hive, and they are given permission to make use of his safe house and its supplies for the duration of their investigation.
Eventually, they arrive in Hive Desoleum. They check into their safe house and find it to be well stocked. They decide to first visit the home of the Spaeton noble family, which is a contact that Solothan suggested they make use of. The family patriarch Friedrich Spaeton has them for dinner and brings them up to speed on what he knows about the deaths. He informs them that have been several deaths over the past ten months. Some are believed to be suicides and others murders. A few xeno artefacts have been recovered by the Adeptus Arbites and are believed to be in their possession. He also relates that his neighbour Lans Gulijan has been acting very strangely, and Friedrich suspects that he may have come in contact with one of the artefacts.
The next day they visit the fortress precinct of the Arbites. Mordecai has contacts with the Desoleum Arbites because, up until recently (when he was recruited as an acolytes of the Inquisition), he was posted at Hive Desoleum. They meet with Officer Jovian Kandor. He informs them that there have been 8 deaths that the Arbites are aware of, which have involved 5 noble families. The deaths have been spread over 10 months of time. The families include: House Stellack, House Ostenhoff, House Dhurher, House Fortenz, and House Tyrus. Officer Kandor gives the main details of each of the incidents. He indicates that their resident sanctioned psycher examined the items and noticed the lingering taint of the warp on all of them. They are as follows:
Deaths #1&2 (1o months prior): House Stellack- a disgruntled and possibly insane servant got hold of Xenos energy firearm of unknown origin. He managed to incinerate Lord and Lady Stellack before the house guards killed the man. The weapon was confiscated by the arbitrators and remains in a reliquary box in the precinct.
Death #3 (9 month and 2 weeks prior): Lady Ostenhoff slit her own throat with a kitchen knife. Servants report seeing a strange statuette of possibly xenos origin beside her body, but somewhere between when the arbitrators were called and they arrived it disappeared.
Death #4&5. (6 months prior): Lord and Lady Dhurher were found dead by servants in their bed chamber. Servants report a strange Xenos item hovering in the air above the bed. However, some time before the Arbitrators arrived it vanished. There was no apparent cause of death discovered.
Death #6&7 (4 months prior): Lord Fortenz was found dead after he was murdered by Lady Fortenze with a strange Xenos knife. She then cut her own wrists and bled to death before the Arbitrators arrived. The xenos knife was taken it possession by the arbitrators and put into safe keeping in a sacred reliquary box.
Death #8 (2 weeks prior): Sir Edwin Tyrus, eldest son of Lord Tyrus was found dead in his chambers. On a table beside him was a strange black sphere of xenos origin. Nearby him was an empty vial of acid that he had seemingly used to burn his own eyes out. The exact cause of death was not determined. The orb was confiscated by the Arbitrators, and it currently remains in their possession, stored in a sacred reliquary box.
Mordicai inquires about whether or not their is any apparent pattern to the timing or locations of the deaths, but if there is the Arbitrators have not seen it. Officer Kandor offers to show them some of the artifacts, but for now they decide it best to leave them inside the reliquary boxes.
The war band decides that their next move will be to pay a visit to House Gulijan, and see if Lord Lans Gulijan has come into possession of a xenos artefact.
Session #1 GM Commentary: I wanted to start the session/campaign with some action, so I whipped up the encounter with the mutants. The bulk of this adventure is the intro adventure from the Core book. I had to fabricate he details of the deaths among the nobility since none of those are laid out in the adventure, though it seems like it would be important information for a scenario based on an investigation of the incidents.
I think the session went well. We are new to the system, but I found it easy enough to run. Characters start kind of gimpy considering they are supposed to be a cut above the masses of humanity, so I gave them some extra xp to beef their characters up beyond the base level for starting PCs.
Session #2 (Dark Pursuits)
War band: Russa (feral world, outcast, desperado), Havelock (frontier world, arbitrator, seeker), Mordecai (hive world, arbitrator, seeker), Zoe (rogue trader fleet, ace), Pontius (forge world, adeptus mechanicus, chirurgeon)
Posing as agents of the Arbites, the war band visits the Gulijan manor. A servant grants them entrance and has them wait in a parlour while he goes to see to his master. He returns a few minutes later looking rather disturbed. He attempts to shoe the acolytes out, but there is a terrible scream from upstairs. The investigators rush up the stairs, and find Lord Gulijan in his study. He has seemingly gone mad, and he has clawed at his face and gouged out his eyes with a letter opener. A strange black orb of possibly xenos origin sits on the desk of his study. His oath cog is shattered on the floor.
Mordecai and Pontius are overcome with supernatural terror and stagger out of the room. Havelock smashes Lord Gulijan with the butt of his rifle in an attempt to knock him out before he kills himself. At the same time Russa throws as tapestry over the orb. Lans’s bodyguard, Shank, sees Havelock club his master and pulls his gun, but Havelock talks him down. The acolytes secure Lans, and Zoe brings in a special reliquary box from the autocarriage that they put the orb into. Mordecai then makes a call to the Arbites. The Arbites arrive on the scene a little while later and bring in Lord Gulijan, Shank and all the servants for questioning. However, before they arrive Gulijan expires. Pontius determines that his death does not seem as a result of the physical injuries he was suffering. It’s more like his brain just decided to shut itself off.
Back at the precinct the war band begins a lengthy interrogation of the all the servants, in particular Gulijan’s bodyguard Shank. Shank is by far the most informed. He relates how Gulijan developed an interest in collecting xenos artifacts from some of his peers and learned of a cloudboy gang called the Babyfaces that has been acting as a supplier. He ventured down to the lower part of the main hive and met contacts from the Cloudboys at a cantina called the Screaming Wheel. They sold him the orb that seems to the cause of his madness. Shank accompanied him to the meetings with Cloudboys as his bodyguard, and he gives directions to the cantina. The acolytes leave Shank in the custody of the Arbites.
They also discover that one of the servants has a mutated hand, and when they interrogate him they discover that Gulijan had been forcing him to move the orb in and out of the box he had been keeping it in. Contact with the artifact seems to have caused the mutation. Pontius promptly performs surgery on the servant, sawing off his arm.
The acolytes decide to visit the Screaming Wheel. Mordecai poses as a member of the nobility. To help prepare for his role he calls in another favor with Lord Spaeton, and the lord spends two days giving Mordecai a crash course on etiquette.
The war band ventures to the lower hive, and they visit the cantina. Here they find three cloud boys tormenting a manufactorum worker. Mordecai’s disguise works, and he convinces them that he is a potential buyer from the hive apex. He then leaves with his “security detail.” He and Pontius hide out in the alley. Zoe waits in the autocarriage a ways down the street, and Russa takes up a sniper position on the roof of the cantina. Havelock remains in the cantina and witnesses them kill the worker they had been bullying. After that they grow bored and leave. When the gangers come out Mordecai and Pontius attempt to follow them, but the gangers notice the pair trying to tail them. The cloud boys go for their weapons. Russa targets one with her sniper rifle and obliterates his skull. The other two engage Pontius and Mordecai. There is quick skirmish, during which the leader of the cloud boys slashes Mordecai with his sword. Still, they manage to subdue him and kill his companion. They then load the three heretics in the car and return to their safe house.
Here they cut off Skinner’s feet, as Russa and Pontius had each shot one up. They then get out the excruciation kit and conduct a thorough interrogation. Havelock takes point on this task, and they learn that the cloud boys have been getting the xenos artifacts from a black market merchant named Zax Holthane who operates out of an area of the hive known as Three Stakes Rest.
Session #3 (Dark Pursuits, part #3)
War band: Russa (feral world, outcast, desperado), Havelock (frontier world, arbitrator, seeker), Mordecai (hive world, arbitrator, seeker), Zoe (rogue trader fleet, ace), Pontius (forge world, adeptus mechanicus, chirurgeon)
The warband heads to Three Stakes rest to find Zax Holthane, a smuggler supplying xenos artefacts to the Babyface gang. After questioning several dregs living in the area they locate Holthane’s hideout. Russa does some scouting and spots three guards at the end of a long hall on guard duty, protected by a wall a of sandbags and razor wire. Zoe and Mordecai hastily disguise themselves as Babyface gangers (using masks taken from the gangers), and they approach the guards on Zoe’s bike. As soon as they enter the hall they trigger a screamer alarm and the guards demand they halt and introduce themselves or be fired upon. Mordecai does the talking and tries to convince them that they have come to warn them about an impending arbitrator raid, and that they need to speak with Holthane. The guards fetch their boss, who arrives moments later. He senses treachery and tells his men to light them up. At this point Russa and Havelock upon up on the heretics. Russa obliterates the head of one of the guards with auto fire, while Havelock pins them down with auto fire.
A nasty fire fight breaks out. The hired guns blast at the acolytes with las guns, while the acolytes return fire with their own weapons. Highlights include Russa popping enemies with her sniper rifle, Holthane retaliating with his bolt pistol but getting shot in the head twice before dying, Zoe boldly riding her bike up to the wall of sandbags and spaying down her enemies with her hand flamer, and Mordecai spending much time trying to close in, all the while missing with shots from his hand cannon (damn high rolls). Eventually, Holthane is killed, and the acolytes emerge victorious with relatively few injuries.
They capture a few of the mercs and start searching the place. Russa and Zoe go off to investigate a couple of vehicles in possession of the smugglers, but they are ambushed by a few more mercs. Another fight erupts, this one at a much closer range, as Zoe and Russa go up against three mercs. They hold their own long enough for their companions to come to their aid, and take them down.
Finally, the area is secured. Interrogation of the mercs reveals that Holthane keeps a combat servitor in his office to protect it, and the acolytes send in two of the captives to distract the servitor while they blast it to bits. Inside the office they find a data slate and a shipping crate of obscura that has a secret compartment inside. Here they discover a strange, blackened, gnarled severed xenos hand.
They load the evidence and loot into their newly acquired vehicles and head back to base, bringing with them the remaining two captive mercs. Pontius manages to salvage a special utility servitor and the remains of the combat servitor. Back at the safe house they further interrogate the mercs. They learn that they were hired by Holthane to provide security for his operation. Holthane moves his smuggled goods into the hive via the Gyre Void port, but they know nothing about who he gets the goods from.
Pontius hacks Holthane’s data slate in hopes of getting more information, but he finds that all the files are encrypted.
Mordecai uses his influence with the Arbites to gain access to their best code breaker. They turn the data slate over to the Arbites, and within a day it is returned with the code broken. The data slate reveals much (see notes).
Notes: Holthane’s encrypted data slate reveals records of shipments, and that his shipments come from the Kappex Orbital space station. They are brought in by a lighter that lands at various landing pads within Port Gyre. He picks his goods up in the loading tunnels, brings them back to his hideout and later sells them, often to gangs like the Babyfaces. He pays off people in the port administratum to doctor shipping records and otherwise turn a blind eye to his illegal practises. His most important contact in the port is Prefect Gaius Anteshern. His main contact at the Kappex Orbital is named Victor Leech. Holthane is expecting an important shipment in the next couple of days, and he has a very specific buyer lined up that he does not particularly trust.
Session #4
War band: Russa (feral world, outcast, desperado), Havelock (frontier world, arbitrator, seeker), Mordecai (hive world, arbitrator, seeker), Zoe (rogue trader fleet, ace), Pontius (forge world, adeptus mechanicus, chirurgeon)
The war band intercepts an e-mail to Zax Holthane’s captured data slate that indicates when the next shipment of heretical artefacts is coming into the Gyre Voidport.
They head to the void port in their newly acquired battle wagon, which Zoe has been in the process of modifying. They arrive a couple of hours before the shuttle is scheduled to arrive. Russa scales up a closed down landing platform, assembles her sniper rifle and waits. The remainder of the team waits in the loading tunnels near the platform’s cargo elevator.
Eventually an Arvnus Lighter approaches the landing platform and sets down. Russa watches through her scope from about 100 meters away as the ship’s cargo ramp opens and four hired guns step out. They escort four robed individuals, who are in turn escorting a large, rectangular container that looks like an elaborate, hovering sarcophagus. Russa puts in the vox call to her team, and Zoe drives the battlewagon into the cargo elevator, which they take up to the platform. While this is happening, Russa notices one of the robed individuals fall to the ground, where he remains.
The doors to the cargo elevator open up at the top of the platform and Mordecai uses the loudspeakers on the battlewagon to command the heretics to surrender. One of the hired guns raises his lasgun to fire on the truck, but he is immediately sniped in the head and killed by Russa. The other three start to withdraw, while the robed heretics run for the lighter. Zoe guns the engine and drives the truck right into the shuttle’s loading ramp, crushing a robed heretic that is in the midst of trying to climb onto the ramp. Gunfire erupts as Havelock flings open his side door and fires a full auto burst at a merc. The recoil causes the burst to miss, and the merc returns fire with his las gun. Luckily, Havelock manages to pull the door shut and fall back, as a las bolt shatters the window.
Mordecai jumps out and engages a robed heretic with his hand cannon, but his enemy knocks Mordecai’s arm to the side with his staff and causes the shot to go wide. By this time Pontius has cranked down his side window; he extends out his own massive revolver and shoots the same cultist Mordecai is engaged with in the back of the head, spraying his brains across the front of Mordecai’s carapace armour.
Russa tries to pick off more of the mercs, but she can’t seem make a shot, which allows a couple of the guards the opportunity to escape into the lighter. The remaining robed cultist attempts to use his psychic powers on Havelock, but Havelock’s will prevails and the psycher is soon blasted by Zoe’s las pistol. The sarcophagus has been left unattended, and suddenly its lid is flung off and a terrifying being emerges. The thing appears to be a gaunt, twisted man, covered in strange sigil scars and xenos flesh grafts. The entity’s eyes blaze with purple warp light and it floats through the air, hovering a couple of meters above the ground.
Mordecai sets eyes on the thing, and he is overwhelmed with supernatural terror. He flees for the lighter and rushes up the ramp in an attempt to escape. Pontius is also filled with terror and throws himself to the floor of the truck where he lays gibbering. Fortunately, Havelock, Zoe and Russa all manage to keep themselves together. Inside the cargo hold of the lighter, Mordecai finds a total of four hired guns that are busy strapping themselves into their seats and preparing for take off. Mordecai, who is still in a panic shoots one in the head, but another merc jumps out of his seat, and throws the acolyte down the ramp. Mordecai then scrambles to his feet. He catches another glimpse of the fiend, and he runs to hide behind some shipping containers on the far side of the platform where he attempts to recover his wits.
The unnatural horror floats over to the truck and attempts to make Zoe burst into flame with his psychic powers. Luckily for Zoe, he is still recovering from his imprisonment and fails to channel his power. Zoe, Havelock and later Pontius all start firing on the creature. Havelock unloads a full burst into it. Most of the rounds seem to do nothing, but one goes through its eye socket, causing it to howl in fury. Zoe then scorches its face with her hand flamer, enraging it even further. It then glides up to the driver side window and reaches a gaunt, clawed arm inside to tear Zoe’s face off. She scrambles back and avoids the attack. It is now in Russa’s line of sight, but she still can’t make a shot. Fortunately, the damage inflicted by Zoe and Havelock are enough to make it flee towards the edge of the platform. It is about to leap off when Zoe tags it with her las pistol. The shot knocks it to the ground for a moment, giving Russa a chance to line up a proper head shot. She fires the last round in her rifle, and this one is true. The fiend’s head detonates in burst of warp energy and its entire body erupts in purple fire.
By this time the lighter has flown away, and the war band is alone on the platform. Havelock grabs a fire extinguisher and puts out the burning corpse. They then wrap it in a tarp and load it in the back of the truck along with the sole surviving cultist and the strange sarcophagus.
Back at the safehouse, Pontius examines the body and determines that it was once human but has undergone some sort of transformation- probably due to the chaos power. Interrogation of the pyscher reveals that he is a unregistered psycher who had been living with several others of his kind in some of the forgotten tunnels of the Kappex Orbital. He claims to have been recruited by a man named Victor Leech to help escort the strange sarcophagus to port Gyre. He and his brethren were required to perform a chant that would help keep the entity bound within in the sarcophagus. However, when the acolytes attacked they abandoned their chant, which allowed the creature to escape. He claims that he had never seen the horror inside and knew nothing about it other than the fact that it was a dangerous, imprisoned entity. He also claims to know nothing about where it came from or to whom it was to be delivered to.
At this point the acolytes decided that they have done enough investigating to warrant filing a report to Kane Solothan and seeing how he would like them to proceed.
Notes: Despite the adventure being complete there are several loose ends. Who sent the sarcophagus? What was the creature bound within? Who was to receive it and what were they going to do with it?
This pretty much wrapped up the Dark Pursuits intro adventure from the core book. It went reasonably all things considered. I had been worried about a TPK because of the presence of a daemon host in a beginning adventure. The Daemonhost was in a weakened state, but even so it was kind of like putting a 1st level party up against a CR 9 demon. It had a damage of soak of 16, which meant that most of the acolytes weapons wouldn't do much to it. Luckily they scored a couple of crits, which I used the 1e rules for (rolling an extra damage die), and Russa's sniper rifle had the accurate quality, which can add up to an extra 2d10 damage if the attack roll is good enough.
There adventure left a lot of room for future adventure. I considered running the adventure from the Game Master's Screen package next, which is an intended sequel to this adventure, but although the story looked kind of neat I was frustrated by the fact that it features several rather complex encounter locations (e.g., a factory where they take bodies apart), but there aren't any maps for any of them. Consequently, I ended up coming up with my own sequel adventure to this one.
Session #5 (Tracking Victor Leech)
War band: Russa (feral world, outcast, desperado), Havelock (frontier world, arbitrator, seeker), Mordecai (hive world, arbitrator, seeker)
A few weeks have past since their confrontation with the daemon host. Mordecai, Havelock and Russa are sent by Inquisitor Solothane to the Kappex Orbital void port above Desoleum to search for Victor Leech. Leech is prefect serving the administratum on the orbital, and the man rumoured to be responsible for helping to traffic xenos artifacts to the Gyre void port and into Hive Desoleum. Apparently he learned that the Inquisition was looking for him, and it’s believed that he fled the orbital. Inquisitor Solothane wants him found.
On the space station the acolytes pose as arbites and meet with High Prefect Luscious Krona. He is cooperative towards their investigation, and he introduces them to the three prefects that worked directly with Leech before he disappeared. They interview each prefect and learn that Leech is a member of a wealthy merchant family that is heavily involved in transporting people and goods to and from the orbital. His family is well connected to the Korna noble family, and because the high prefect is a member house Korna, Leech gained his position through nepotism. Leech is not popular among his co-workers. However, he does have one coworker who seems to be a friend. That man is Mortan Krona- nephew of the high prefect (more nepotism). Mortan tells the acolytes that the night Victor disappeared he had told Mortan that he was worried that bad men were coming after him and that house Tyrus had set him up as a fall guy. Mortan goes on tell how he and Victor went to a vice den called the Red Curtain and had a few drinks. Afterwards, Mortan says he went home, but he claims that Victor stayed behind to be with his favourite female “companion,” a girl named Lyla.
Next the acolytes go to Victor’s hab unit and give it a thorough search. Mordecai locates a secret compartment in the ceiling, and here they discover two items of interest. One is a scrimshaw snuff box containing five packets of brown obscura powder in small plastic bags marked with an infinity symbol. The other is a object about the size of a shoebox that is kind of oval in shape and looks like it made of liquid mercury. Strangely, it still retains its solid form. It has a circular dial set in the centre of the top. Mordecai suspects the second item is of xenos origin and he is very hesitant to touch it. They decide to take both items back to their rented hab cell.
They decide they should go to the Red Curtain and see about talking to Lyla. As they are making their way through the orbital red light district they encounter a band of off duty imperial guardsmen. These guardsmen are savages from Russa’s homeworld. In fact, they are members of a hated rival tribe. They don’t immediately recognize Russa, as she has changed her look to fit into hive society, but she makes a comment to one of them, and he instantly spots her accent. Without hesitation, they draw knives and attack. A nasty skirmish ensues. The savages are decent warriors, and even though Havelock and Mordecai have firearms, their guns don’t prove that advantageous in the ultra close quarters. Havelock takes a few nasty stab wounds; luckily, the sanctuaries arrive on the scene and break up the fight before it gets deadly. Both the acolytes and guardsmen are sent on their ways with a stern reprimand.
They arrive at the Red Curtain looking like they were just in a knife fight (which they were). The madame is a little disgusted by their appearance and strongly encourages them to go with a few of her girls and get themselves bathed and cleaned up before spending more time in the gambling hall. Thus, they each find themselves in one of the private red curtained rooms being attended by an attractive companion. It turns out that Havelock’s companion is Lyla, the girl they are wanting to talk to. Havelock manages to coax some information out of her. He learns that Victor had visited the establishment and that she hasn’t seen him since. She isn’t overly eager to share much more, but Havelock offers up a hefty chunk of bribe money, and she confesses that he sniffed too much obscura, and while he was high he mentioned that he was going to Port Aquila and from there to a frontier world named Boreal.
The acolytes return to their hab unit and rest. They decide they have enough of lead for the moment, so they decide they will return to Hive Desoleum and report to Inquisitor Solothane.
So most GMing advice says that red herrings shouldn't distract PCs from overly long, but I kind of went with the opposite line of thinking on that for this adventure.
The smuggler they were hunting (Victor Leech) had previously been tipped off that his smuggling operation was being investigated (this was a consequence of their lack of subtlety in the previous adventure). He decided that he would plant a false trail for them to follow in hopes to send the investigators off his trail. Thus, all the leads they came across (such as their chats with Lyla and Mortan) were set ups to mislead them. Lyla and Mortan had both been prompted by Leech about what to say to anyone who came around asking about him. The PCs had opportunities to figure out they were being misled, but they pretty seemed happy to be fed information from NPCs and not question it. For example, no one in the party even asked to make a scrutiny check to see if their character could tell whether Lyla was being truthful with them, and since they didn't ask to make the check I just let them do what they wanted with the info they received.
So now they are planning to head offworld in search of their quarry, which will send them in the complete wrong direction. There will still be plenty of adventure to be had, but they won't be finding Leech.
Session #6 (Journey to Boreal World)
War band: Russa (feral world, outcast, desperado)*, Havelock (frontier world, arbitrator, seeker), Mordecai (hive world, arbitrator, seeker)*, Zoe (rogue trader fleet, ace), Pontius (forge world, adeptus mechanicus, chirurgeon)
Having returned from the Kappex orbital, Russa, Havelock and Mordecai debrief with inquisitor Solothan and plan the next phase of their hunt for Victor Leech.
Solothan takes them to the administratum archives where they gather some information on Boreal world- learning that it was colonized long ago, but the planet was lost for many centuries when it was consumed by the great warp storm known as Pandemonium. It reappeared a few centuries ago, but imperial civilization had not survived. In the past century recolonization efforts have been made by a consortium of noble families from Desoleum- Krona, Tyrus and Haveofast. The planet is still very much a lightly settled frontier world with mining and grox ranching being the centre of its fledgling economy.
The acolytes decide to pose as a tech priest and his entourage, and Inquisitor Solothan is able to book them on a transport ship called the Maiden’s Tear that is bound for Boreal World with supplies and colonists.
The journey is several weeks of warp travel, but given the nature of warp travel, exact timing is virtually impossible to accurately predict. They are given accommodations in the passenger section of the voidship, and find several other passengers sharing the area with them. Other passengers include: a few merchants, a couple of nobles, a preacher, a score of harlots and their chaperone, eight oathguards, and a bounty hunter.
Over the course of the journey Zoe manages to form a bit of an acquaintance with one of the nobles (via fencing), and she discovers his name is Feldren Tyrus. He is going to Boreal World to help manage the Tyrus family's ranching operations.
The journey is fairly uneventful until there is a brief failure in the ship’s Gellar field. This results in a warp surge that bombards the passengers and crew with corrupting, sanity rending warp energy. It also allows several minor daemons to manifest aboard the ship. One such daemon finds its way into the passenger hold's galley where it tears apart the kitchen staff. The acolytes investigate after seeing a cook stagger out into the mess hall on fire. They confront a multi-armed, slathering daemon in the kitchen. It proves to be a dangerous enemy that is difficult to kill. Havelock ends up splitting it in half with a point blank blast from his shotgun, but even that doesn’t kill it. In fact, it makes things worse because they then have to fight two smaller versions of the horror. Russa uses her chain sword to open a big fryer vat that burns the things with hot oil. They shriek in agony and one of them responds by burning her with its flaming breath. In the end, the acolytes just keep blasting at the horrors until they stop moving and return to the warp. Russa is only one badly injured, but the encounter is straining on the minds and bodies of the entire war band (insanity and corruption points gained).
The session ends with the war band about to arrive at Boreal World.
Session #7 (Port Krona)
War band: Russa (feral world, outcast, desperado), Havelock (frontier world, arbitrator, seeker), Mordecai (hive world, arbitrator, seeker), Zoe (rogue trader fleet, ace), Pontius (forge world, adeptus mechanicus, chirurgeon)
The acolytes are shuttled from the Maiden’s Tear to Port Krona on Boreal World. They make landfall on the tarmac of the town’s crude void port. Here they are greeted by a crowd of commoners and delegations from the three noble families that control the frontier planet (Krona, Haveofast and Tyrus).
Lord Erebus of the Krona family introduces himself. He is pleased that a tech priest has arrived, as the planet’s top techpriest- Enginseer Damacus, had apparently sent an astropathic message to Desoleum requesting more tech priests be sent to help on the planet. The request had not received a response, so Lord Erebus is a little surprised to see Pontius arrive, but grateful none the less. Pontius and his entourage are given the choice of finding lodgings at the hotel in town or coming back to the Krona family mansion to stay with Lord Krona. The acolytes decide they have a better chance of finding Leech by going back to the mansion, so they take Lord Erebus Krona up on his offer.
A small convey of auto-carriages drives the acolytes, the merchants and Lyle Krona and his family (Lyle being one of the two nobles that had travelled to the planet from Desoleum on the voidship with the acolytes- not the one Zoe interacted with though) through the frontier town of Port Krona and up into the hills that surround the settlement. They soon arrive at Krona Manor, which occupies a plateau overlooking the town. The manor is a sprawling, three story gothic structure. It includes a large, detached garage that can house at least eight vehicles and a second outbuilding that is a stable for horses.
They are greeted by Lord Krona’s family (wife and three daughters) as well as several of his guards and valets. The butler, Cranston, escorts them to the guest wing that they will stay in. It is on the third floor of the manor. They are given spacious rooms and allowed time to themselves to settle in. The only real problem they encounter is that Lord Krona won’t allow them to bring weapons into his home, and his guards take their guns to be stored in a secure chamber. Fortunately, Pontius is allowed to keep his crawler drone with him, and they smuggle a few pistols in with them in its hidden internal compartments.
That evening, after getting settled in their rooms, they join the Krona family for dinner in the state dining room. Here they are fortunate to overhear some interesting conversation between Erebus and Lyle Krona. They hear that Victor Leech had been staying the Kronas, but he had insisted on being part of an expedition to a place called the “ruins,” which they later learn is a ruined city on the other side of the eastern hills. It was built by the previous imperial civilization, but it is now in ruins and the home of tribes of hostile mutants. Apparently, the Kronas send regular salvage expeditions to the ruins to recover useful salvage for their mining operations. In addition, they learn that mutant raiders are the primary threat to the town. They are even more of a threat to the outlying ranches, which are operated by the Tyrus family. In fact, the acolytes hear Eerbus mention to Lyle that the Tyrus family has resorted to hiring xenos mercenaries to help protect their ranches. Unfortunately, he doesn’t mention any details regarding the nature of the xenos.
Eventually, Lord Erebus finishes gossiping with Lyle and starts conversing more directly with Pontius. He informs Pontius that enginseer Damacus is currently visiting one of the mines, but he is expected back in a few days. In the meantime, Pontius and his entourage are welcome to reside at the manor. Pontius thanks Lord Krona for his offer and accepts.
After dinner the acolytes meet in Pontius’s room and discuss their next course of action. They decide they want to go to the ruins and try to find Leech and see what he’s up to.
The next morning Pontius meets with Lord Erebus and mentions that as a tech priest his order has an interest in ruined imperial civilizations and any salvage that might be recovered from them. He suggests that since they have a few days before Enginseer Damacus returns that he and his entourage will make their own expedition to the ruins. Lord Erebus says that it is ill advised due to the danger posed by the mutant tribes, but in the end Pontius doesn’t find it particularly difficult to convince the Lord to loan them a vehicle. Lord Krona also gives them directions, though he claims that he hasn’t actually visited the ruins personally.
The session ends with war band setting out into the hills for the ruins in their mad max style dune buggy with Zoe at the wheel.
Session #8 (Into the Badlands)
War band: Russa (feral world, outcast, desperado), Havelock (frontier world, arbitrator, seeker), Mordecai (hive world, arbitrator, seeker), Zoe (rogue trader fleet, ace), Pontius (forge world, adeptus mechanicus, chirurgeon)
The war band sets out into the hot, barren hills, driving in their dune buggy in search of a ruined imperial city where they believe their quarry Victor Leech might have gone with a salvage expedition. Zoe is driving, Pontius sits in the the passenger seat and Mordecai, Havelock and Russa stand in the back flat bed, hanging onto the roll bars.
They have been on the road for over an hour and have covered about 100 km when suddenly mutants riding off road bikes come ripping down narrow paths from up in the hills. One of them gets ahead of the dune buggy, another pair come up on its flanks, and a few more enter onto the road from behind. The bike that pulled ahead of them has a passenger on the back, a nasty mutant with a autogun aimed at their buggy. Zoe punches it and the aggressive machine spirit in the buggy launches it forward. Their vehicle rams into the back of the motorbike, causing its driver to loose control and crash. Mordecai, Havelock and Russa draw their guns and start firing on the other mutants closing on them. They make several good shots that cause them to crash and burn.
Their troubles haven’t ended, two more vehicles burst down from a ramp like side road that converges with the road they are driving on. One is single man scrap buggy, the second is a modified muscle car with a driver and a rear gunner operating a forward facing heavy stubber. The dune buggy tussles with them a little and the car comes onto the road behind them. Zoe calls out to her companions to hold on and pulls a 180 that nearly throws Havelock and Mordecai out. She then guns it forward, playing chicken with the oncoming car. Before the gunner can open up on them, Russa fires on the driver and blasts him with a las bolt that causes him to lose control and drive off into the rocks on the side of the road.
There is still another problem. Up on a natural arch that spans the road are three more mutants, one of whom is a sniper with a long las. It makes a shot that blasts Russa in the chest and knocks her to the floor of the buggy, leaving her critically damaged (2 crit damage). Zoe accelerates and hurries towards a bend in the road. She gets around the corner and out of the line of sight of the sniper before he can take anyone out.
Zoe slams on the breaks and pulls over on the side of the road and readies her hand flamer. She readies for the dune buggy to come around the bend. Seconds later it comes flying by in pursuit of the war band. Zoe is ready and she unleashes an inferno of fire at the mutant driving the buggy. The mutant screams, breaks and brings his buggy to a stop further up the road. He opens the door, falls out, on fire and tries to put himself out. He manages this task, but then succumbs to his wounds.
The acolytes discuss their next move, while Pontius treats Russa’s las wound with his medkit. They know that they can’t risk driving back around the corner with the sniper waiting to pick them off, so Russa readies her own sniper rifle, and she and Zoe stealth up the rugged hillside. Russa finds a vantage point that provides some decent cover, and she sets herself up. She sees that the mutants are still up on the arch. Besides the sniper, there is a horned mutant with a lasgun and a hulking, ogre-sized mutant with a hood covering his face. One of his hands has been replaced with a buzz saw. She also notices that the car has gotten itself turned around and is in the middle of the road, near the arch, facing the bend. Its gunner is ready with the heavy stubber in case the acolytes come back around the bend. Unfortunately, they don’t see Russa. She sets up her shot, and picks off the sniper. The round blasts him in the chest, and he falls forward off the arch, splattering on the ground beside the car.
The gunner in the car notices where the shot came from and unleashes a stream of bullets towards Russa. Russa ducks for cover behind her rock and waits as the gunner unloads all his ammo on her location. When the stubber finally stops, she pops up and fires a shot that takes the gunner out. Next she finishes off the driver. She then turns her attention to the remaining two mutants on the arch, but that pair has already fled for cover and are out of sight.
Russa and Zoe return to the buggy. The war band mounts up, and Zoe floors it. They go hurtling through the ambush site and are untroubled by the remaining two mutants, who have apparently lost interest in the conflict. They continue on through the badlands, heading ever eastward. About a half hour later, the road comes to a canyon spanned by an ancient arch bridge. The bridge looks to be intact, but on the farside of the canyon is an escarpment. There the bridge ends and the road enters a tunnel.
If they wish to continue, they have little option other than to head into the tunnel. Russa, swaps the sight on her gun from telescopic to preysense. Zoe switches on the headlights and races the buggy across the bridge and into the darkness of the tunnel. Not far in they find that their route is blocked by a jumble of rusted, stripped down vehicles. Scattered before the vehicles are the charred corpses of several dead mutants. Here they are hailed by a man hiding behind one of the old cars. The man reveals himself, and he appears to be a ministorum preacher (with a flamer). He is supported by an indeterminable number of gun men taking cover among the vehicles. Those that the acolytes see are equipped with urban camo flak armour, las guns and thermo goggles. Mordecai initiates a parlay while the other acolytes cover him with their own weapons. Russa lines a shot up on the preacher with her sniper rifle.
The situation is tense, but Mordecai keeps things from escalating. The preacher tells them that they can’t pass through, and that no expeditions have come this way for a long time. He also claims that the ruins they were planning on going to are poisoned with radiation and infested with mutants- they will find only death if they go to them. There is obviously a conflict of information here since they were told that a salvage party had gone to the city.
Mordecai also finds it rather suspicious that these men are out here in the middle of nowhere, holed up in a tunnel ready to fire on anyone coming through. He calls them out on this, but the preacher will only say that they are out here doing the “Emperor’s Work,” by culling the mutant population. Havelock gets the sense that though the preacher is essentially being truthful there is more to his story than his is letting on. Mordecai isn’t satisfied with the preacher’s explanation for their presence, so he pulls the inquisitor card and identifies himself as such. He insists that the preacher escort them back to the camp he had mentioned and introduce the war band to their commissar. The preacher agrees, and two armed lead them through a maintenance door and up a set of stairs to the top of the escarpment. Here they are loading into another offroad buggy and driven to the base camp.
Here they find Commissar Titus in the infirmary tent, trying to recover from a grievous battle wound. Mordecai introduces himself as an acolyte of the inquisition and explains the situation of the war band. Titus eventually admits that he too is an acolytes of the Inquisition, and that the camp is in fact a training camp for potential acolytes that was set up by his own Inquisitor. Prospects are sent to the camp from off world to spend a terran year hunting mutants and slaying lesser daemons. If they perform well they ordained as full fledge acolytes. Titus is the commanding officer, charged with overseeing the camp.
Titus allows the acolytes to spend the next few days at the camp, so that Russa can recover from her wounds. He also gives them access to a vox caster, so that they can communicate with him. The war band decides that they will return to Port Krona and see if they can get to the bottom of what has been going on.
Session #9 (Assault on Krona Manor)
War band: Russa (feral world, outcast, desperado), Havelock (frontier world, arbitrator, seeker), Mordecai (hive world, arbitrator, seeker), Zoe (rogue trader fleet, ace), Pontius (forge world, adeptus mechanicus, chirurgeon)
The acolytes convince Commissar Titus to allow them to make a short expedition to within the vicinity of the ruins to see if there are any signs of any kind of expedition having entered them. Pontius borrows some servo skulls with pict casters to fly over the ruined city and send him surveillance footage. This takes time, but they see no signs to indicate that any kind of expedition has entered the city. They do see evidence to suggest that the place is infested by irradiated mutant tribes.
With it confirmed to their satisfaction that no expedition has gone into the ruined city, they return to Port Krona. It is still possible that an expedition was sent, but did not ever make it to the city- perhaps having run afoul with mutant raiders in the hills. Fortunately, they have no more encounters with such mutants on the way back to Port Krona.
When they arrive in town, they visit the local saloon. Here they converse with a bar wench and discover that she has not heard of any expeditions being sent out into the hills of late. With this confirmed, they decide that they need to have a “chat” with Lord Erebus Krona and try to figure out what is going on. They drive up towards the Krona Manor, but as they approach the gates the two guards in the watch tower overlooking the drive open fire on them! One of the guards is manning a heavy stubber turret that shreds ground in front of their vehicle. The second fires with a las gun. Zoe guns the buggy, driving it through a hail of bullets and right up to the gate. Here the acolytes leap out of the back and take cover behind the buggy. Russa and Zoe creep around the gate wall and head up into the tower. Here Russa cuts down a guard with her chain sword, while Zoe scorches another one from below with her flamer.
By this time an alarm has been sounded and more guards are surging out of the manor. They wear full flak armour and carry lasguns. A deadly fire fight break out outside the manor as the acolytes suddenly find themselves attempting to storm the complex. Russa, pulls a lever that opens the gate, allowing Mordecai to drive the buggy into the grounds. In his attempt to run down a guard, he plows the buggy into the stable building. Havelock takes up position near the open gate and fires on guards with his autogun. Zoe immolates them with her flamer and Russa picks them off with her sniper rifle. The acolytes fair well, and soon have cleared out the initial resistance.
With the way clear, they rush for the manor. Havelock and Zoe boost Mordecai in through a window, and Zoe jumps in after him. The pair are confronted by Lord Erebus who tries to detonate Zoe’s head with his bolt pistol, but he fails to hit and retreats into the main foyer. Havelock and Pontius join them inside and Russa moves up to the front doors from her position in the watch tower outside. Mordecai leads a charge into the foyer, and when he bursts into the room several guards are waiting to fire on him with their las guns. Fortunately his armour gives him significant protection, and he survives the barrage. Zoe starts frying guards with her flamer and Havelock opens on them with bursts from his autogun. The room is filled with bullets, las bolts, flames and death. In such close quarters it isn’t long before it is all over. Havelock kills Lord Erebus with a burst from his autogun, and soon after they finish the remains of the guards. The acolytes have sustained wounds, but only Havelock is badly hurt. Unfortunately, with Erebus dead there is no one useful to interrogate.
They do a sweep a the manor, and eventually they find Lady Krona hiding in her chambers. She is cooperative with their questioning, and she explains that Lyle Krona (the nobleman who arrived with them on the voidship) had told her husband (Erebus- now dead) that he believed that Pontius and his entourage were actually undercover Arbites hunting down a family friend named Victor Leech, who had been implicated in some criminal activities back on Desoleum. Victor Leech had left a false trail to send them off in the wrong direction, and they had ended up on Boreal World. Lyle convinced Erebus to help him by fabricating a conversation about an Victor being on the planet and joining an expedition into the wilderness. Lyle’s plan was that the arbites would go after him and would end up dead out in the mutant infested wilds. The plan worked to a point- except for the part about the acolytes dying. When word got back to the family that they had returned, Lyle again called upon Erebus for a favour he asked that his guards gun them down as they returned to the manor. This too failed, and Lord Erebus is now dead.
She doesn’t seem to know where Lyle and his family is. She believes that he may have fled the manor while they were searching it. Perhaps he was going to try to get back on the void ship and get off world.
The session ends here
XP for Session #9: 500 (for all characters present)
XP totals 5400 (Zoe), 4500 (Pontius), 5500 (Russa), 5500 (Mordecai), 5800 (Havelock)
This is as far as we have gotten with this campaign. We have since moved onto Swords of Saltmarsh, but I do plan to run some more of this in the not too distant future.
The players and I both enjoyed the change of pace that Dark Heresy gave from games like D&D and Pathfinder. I like the grittiness of the setting and the system, and I enjoy that PC power levels advance steadily, but don't really seem to go into the super hero sort of levels that D&D/Pathfinder characters soon arrive at. However, we haven't played enough of it to really see how the power level scales over the long haul.