FFG wrote:The Power of the Emperor at Your Command
Announcing the Dark Heresy Second Edition Game Master's Kit



A trail of corpses and forbidden xenos artifacts leads into the lawless depths far below Hive Desoleum. Vicious gangers and heretical cultists are out for blood, while the vile forces of Chaos are eager to devour fresh souls. Ready your bolter and chainsword, and enter the grim darkness of the 41st millennium...


Fantasy Flight Games is pleased to announce the Dark Heresy Second Edition Game Master’s Kit, a vital resource for Inquisitors and Acolytes in their defense of Mankind. Within, Game Masters gain useful guidance and advice in crafting powerful Nemeses to act as recurring antagonists in campaigns across the ancient Askellon Sector. The kit also includes a brand new adventure that continues the action from the Dark Heresy Second Edition rulebook, and a deluxe Game Master’s Screen that puts the most commonly-used rules close at hand for easy reference.

Nemeses in the Askellon Sector

The Dark Heresy Second Edition Game Master’s Kit provides everything that Game Masters need to develop powerful Nemeses to oppose players. These powerful adversaries will provide tough opposition for players across entire campaigns, and GM’s can harness their power to create intense and challenging encounters in their adventures!



Desolation of the Dead

The included adventure, Desolation of the Dead, is a complete adventure that can be played on its own, or as an ongoing campaign following the adventure in the Dark Heresy Second Edition Core Rulebook.

In this adventure, the players’ Inquisitor has tasked them to investigate a possible xenos relic found amidst the scene of a horrible mass murder. Their adventures take them from the lower hive reaches to the lawless depths far below its surface, where violent gangs and unholy mutants prowl decaying and pestilent regions. Deep in the Underhive, they must stop a foul cult festering in the lower depths of Hive Desoleum before its leader can raise a powerful Daemon and unleash hordes of reanimated corpses upon the hive!

Command the Askellon Sector

The Dark Heresy Second Edition Game Master’s Kit will be available in the third quarter of 2014. As you prepare to enter the grim darkness of the 41st millennium, keep checking back for more news and previews related to Dark Heresy Second Edition and Warhammer 40,000 Roleplaying.

FFG wrote:Hold the Line in the Spinward Front
Shield of Humanity, a Supplement for Only War, is Now Available



Shield of Humanity, a supplement for Only War is now available at your local retailer and through our webstore. The time has come for or new recruits and veteran guardsmen alike to stand in service to the Emperor in the Spinward Front. The Imperial Guard stands as humanity’s shield from the myriad threats to the Imperium. With new rules for auxiliary regiments, advanced specialities, and rules for characters with religious backgrounds, Shield of Humanity is a must for any Only War player.

For more on what’s inside Shield of Humanity, here’s developer Tim Flanders:


A Word from the Developer

Shield of Humanity gave me a great chance to dig even deeper into the forces of the Imperial Guard. The spiritual successor of Hammer of the Emperor, Shield of Humanity focuses on those men, women, and abhumans that take up arms, prayer-books, and plasma-cutters in defense of Mankind. Specifically, this books includes information and for playing characters attached to the Imperial Guard who hail from the two most important religious institutions in the Imperium: the Adeptus Mechanicus, and the Adeptus Ministorum, as well as characters belonging to either of the Abhuman sub-species that fight with the front ranks of the Imperial Guard.

Shield of Humanity offers options for players covering a number of auxiliary regiments, including Ratlings of the Cyprian Huntsmen, and the tech-soldiers of the Crimson Guard, joining the fight in the Spinward Front from the distant Lathe Worlds. In addition to these new regiment rules, Shield of Humanity also includes a host of new rules for creating new regiments. New Home Worlds, new Doctrines, and many others give Players and Game Masters all the options theyneed to create their own unique regiments.



Of course, what Only War supplement would be complete without new Advanced Specialities? From the Architectus Magna, to the Praecentor of Penance, to the Ogryn Bone ‘ead, this book offers Players thirteen new directions to take their Enginseer, Ogryn, Ratling, and Priest characters. Of course, these Advanced Specialities are accompanied by an enormous spread of new Talents, Comrades, Orders, and wargear including advanced Servitor Directives, Ogryn and Ratling Comrades, and a fleet of new tanks and vehicles.

I am excited to have worked on Shield of Humanity and I’m looking forward to Players and Game Masters getting their hands on the new options inside!


Purchase Your Copy Today!

Thanks Tim!

Shield of Humanity is now available at your local retailer and through our webstore. Purchase your copy today, and keep checking here for more news and previews. Be a Shield of Humanity, in His name!

Deathwatch: Falling Star
After centuries lost in the Warp, the Ardent Crown has returned in a degrading orbit around the world of Solace. This vessel vanished carrying a number of important relics, and in this Deathwatch adventure, a Kill-team has been assembled to board the derelict as it drifts toward the world of Solace, secure the sacred artefacts, and extract from the voidship.

However, the Battle-Brothers are not alone in their ambitions aboard the Ardent Crown. An Eldar Farseer also has designs for a particular relic, and leads an elite team of her allies in her quest to take it back. And while the Eldar are powerful and duplicitous foes, something even more terrible lurks aboard the Ardent Crown, stirring after aeons of cold slumber as footsteps fall once again on the long-abandoned decks. The Battle- Brothers of the Deathwatch must face these enemies, cast them down in the name of the Emperor, and escape the Ardent Crown before it plummets to its demise. The fate of the sector and the honour of the Deathwatch alike hang in the balance.

Rogue Trader: Shedding Light
In this adventure for Rogue Trader, the Explorers delve deep into the ancient secrets of Solace. Solace was colonised by the Imperium in the final hours of the Angevin Crusade to unite the Calixis Sector, but its secrets wind perilously back into times forgotten by all but the most ancient. There have always been dark tales in Solace’s mines about the things that dwell beneath the world’s parched surface, but there have also been whispers of fortunes beyond
the comprehension of any mortal.

These whispers have spread far and wide and have reached the ears of a daring Rogue Trader, a warrior-privateer who braves the dangers of the unknown in the name of incalculable wealth and glory. Now, an avid group of Explorers journey to Solace, delving deep into an ancient chasm that contains strange relics of forgotten aeons. But when a cataclysm rocks the world of Solace, the Explorers find themselves facing a terrible threat that is not pleased about its rude awakening.

Only War: Salvaging Solace
When an unknown voidship strikes the world of Solace, the surface shakes and the brave men and women of the Cadian 99th must gird themselves for battle once again in this adventure for Only War. Having just suffered losses campaigning in the Spinward Front, the Cadian 99th is caught on the outskirts of the catastrophe in the midst of a training exercise. In addition to the devastation the crash wrought, the impact has sent waves of mutants surging up from the underhive, and so the troopers must step forth into the breach to restore order to Hive Solace.

Unfortunately, this is only the start of the Player Characters’ troubles. As they struggle to bring Hive Solace under control, still more crises loom over them, and the troopers must go above and beyond their normal duties to have a chance of survival. With the lives of everyone on the planet—including their own—resting on their actions, the PCs are the last line of defence against the coming catastrophe. If they do not rise to the occasion and triumph against the odds, there will be no saving Solace.

Black Crusade: Binding Contracts
Binding Contracts follows a group of Heretics as they pursue the prophecy of the Many-Eyed, a dread oracle of Chaos. The Ruinous Powers have whispered to her that Solace will end in fire when a star descends from the sky. They murmur that the terror and confusion this event brings about must be properly dedicated to the Chaos Gods.

Before this portent appears, the Heretics must infiltrate Solace and rally the wretched mutants that live beneath the hive. Then, once the star burns bright in the sky, they must lead their newly assembled army up one of Hive Solace’s spires, where they can cast down a rival sorcerer and take control of his ritual to summon a Daemon of unfathomable power to the Materium. If they succeed, the Heretics will have struck a blow against the Imperium within the Calixis Sector and won vast glory for themselves. If they fail, however, the unholy ritual could be their doom.

FFG wrote:Will You Save (Or Destroy) Hive Solace?
Four Warhammer 40,000 Roleplaying Adventures are Now Available for Download






Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce that four adventures for Warhammer 40,000 Roleplaying are now available for download.

Whether you defend the Imperium as an Imperial Guardsman in Only War, crusade for the Emperor as a member of the Deathwatch, ply your trade as a cunning Rogue Trader or spread chaos throughout the galaxy in Black Crusade, you and your group will enjoy one or more of these interconnected adventures! Download one or all four of them today by clicking the section headers below.

Originally written for use at Gen Con Indy 2013, Binding Contracts, Falling Star, Shedding Light, and Salvaging Solace are adventures for Warhammer 40,000 Roleplaying. The four linked scenarios concern the fate of the Imperial world of Solace. While each adventure stands on its own as a complete module suitable for immediate play, a group that plays all four adventures will spot the connections between the events as they transpire around the hive world of Solace.

Binding Contracts, Falling Star, Shedding Light, and Salvaging Solace each include a full adventure, pre-generated characters, and the profiles for any NPCs unique to the adventure. Each is designed to be run with the system for which it was written and requires a copy of the appropriate Core Rulebook to play.

Using all four of these adventures, a GM can create a cohesive event that tells the story of the Fall of Solace from multiple perspectives, revealing the many factors that contributed to the events slowly over the course of the four individual stories.

Because these adventures were originally written for use at a convention, each one includes notes on the time that should be devoted to given sections. If the GM wishes to run one of these adventures in a typical four to six hour convention timeslot, these notes can be useful; if the GM is not under any time restrictions, however, he should feel free to pace the adventure as he sees fit based on the group and other circumstances.


Binding Contracts



Binding Contracts is a Black Crusade adventure which follows a group of Heretics as they pursue the prophecy of the Many-Eyed, a dread oracle of Chaos. The Ruinous Powers have whispered to her that Solace will end in fire when a star descends from the sky. They murmur that the terror and confusion this event brings about must be properly dedicated to the Chaos Gods.

Before this portent appears, the Heretics must infiltrate Solace and rally the wretched mutants that live beneath the hive. Then, once the star burns bright in the sky, they must lead their newly assembled army up one of Hive Solace’s spires, where they can cast down a rival sorcerer and take control of his ritual to summon a Daemon of unfathomable power to the Materium. If they succeed, the Heretics will have struck a blow against the Imperium within the Calixis Sector and won vast glory for themselves. If they fail, however, the unholy ritual could be their doom.


Falling Star



After centuries lost in the Warp, the Ardent Crown has returned in a degrading orbit around the world of Solace. This vessel vanished carrying a number of important relics, and in this Deathwatch adventure, a Kill-team has been assembled to board the derelict as it drifts toward the world of Solace, secure the sacred artefacts, and extract from the voidship.

However, the Battle-Brothers are not alone in their ambitions aboard the Ardent Crown. An Eldar Farseer also has designs for a particular relic, and leads an elite team of her allies in her quest to take it back. And while the Eldar are powerful and duplicitous foes, something even more terrible lurks aboard the Ardent Crown, stirring after aeons of cold slumber as footsteps fall once again on the long-abandoned decks. The Battle-Brothers of the Deathwatch must face these enemies, cast them down in the name of the Emperor, and escape the Ardent Crown before it plummets to its demise. The fate of the sector and the honour of the Deathwatch alike hang in the balance.


Shedding Light



In this adventure for Rogue Trader, the Explorers delve deep into the ancient secrets of Solace. Solace was colonised by the Imperium in the final hours of the Angevin Crusade to unite the Calixis Sector, but its secrets wind perilously back into times forgotten by all but the most ancient. There have always been dark tales in Solace’s mines about the things that dwell beneath the world’s parched surface, but there have also been whispers of fortunes beyond the comprehension of any mortal.

These whispers have spread far and wide and have reached the ears of a daring Rogue Trader, a warrior-privateer who braves the dangers of the unknown in the name of incalculable wealth and glory. Now, an avid group of Explorers journey to Solace, delving deep into an ancient chasm that contains strange relics of forgotten aeons. But when a cataclysm rocks the world of Solace, the Explorers find themselves facing a terrible threat that is not pleased about its rude awakening.


Salvaging Solace



When an unknown voidship strikes the world of Solace, the surface shakes and the brave men and women of the Cadian 99th must gird themselves for battle once again in this adventure for Only War. Having just suffered losses campaigning in the Spinward Front, the Cadian 99th is caught on the outskirts of the catastrophe in the midst of a training exercise. In addition to the devastation the crash wrought, the impact has sent waves of mutants surging up from the underhive, and so the troopers must step forth into the breach to restore order to Hive Solace.

Unfortunately, this is only the start of the Player Characters’ troubles. As they struggle to bring Hive Solace under control, still more crises loom over them, and the troopers must go above and beyond their normal duties to have a chance of survival. With the lives of everyone on the planet—including their own—resting on their actions, the PCs are the last line of defence against the coming catastrophe. If they do not rise to the occasion and triumph against the odds, there will be no saving Solace.


Download Today!

Purchase these adventures today, and determine the fate of Hive Solace! Then, keep checking this page for more information about Warhammer 40,000 Roleplaying!

FFG wrote:A Crusade in Twilight
A Rogue Trader Adventure and Character Guide Are Now Available For Download





“Your training will be harsh. It will last a lifetime. It will be rigorous, meticulous, and all encompassing. You will learn the lessons of the greatest minds the Fire caste has produced, but also how and when to use them. All of this will be so you can fight for the Greater Good, and likely perish in the process, but it will be an endeavor you will willingly embark on.”
–Commander Blindside

The Rogue Traders voyage across the vast reaches of space, searching for adventure, renown, and riches beyond count on the edges of the galaxy. To be a Rogue Trader and bear the sacred Warrant of Trade means journeys beyond the boundaries of the Imperium. In some cases, these adventures may lead you to strange realms and stranger alliances.

Two new Rogue Trader digital-exclusive supplements are now available for download: the Twilight Crusade adventure and the Tau Character Guide! Journey to the edge of space in the company of an Inquisitor and his unlikely allies: a cadre of Tau Fire Warriors. As you journey to confront an ambitious Rogue Trader, the Tau support you, and by using the Tau Character Guide, you can become a Tau Explorer yourself.




Twilight Crusade

Twilight Crusade is a three-part adventure that focuses on your mission to confront the heretical Rogue Trader, Vir Modren. Your Explorers must embark on a Grand Endeavour into the heart of Modren’s Realm, alongside the acolytes of an ardent Inquisitor and his unexpected allies – a hunter cadre of Tau from the far-flung reaches of the galaxy. To confront Modren directly, you must venture deep into his domain and negotiate his followers’ power-struggles, before gaining entry to Modren’s personal fortress.

This adventure’s Grand Endeavour provides your GM with an excellent framework to gauge your progress and success, no matter how you choose to venture deep into Modren’s Realm and navigate the intrigues within. This Endeavour can be modified to suit the GM’s needs, inviting freeform action from you and your fellow Explorers. To help the GM guide the Explorers even further, a detailed breakdown of the Grand Endeavour’s objectives can be found at the end of each chapter of the adventure. In addition, this adventure offers the perfect opportunity for players to use the Tau Character Guide, as Tau warriors feature extensively throughout Twilight Crusade.




For the Greater Good

The 43-page Tau Character Guide provides Rogue Trader players with all the necessary information and rules to play Tau Explorers, whether in the Twilight Crusade adventure or in another voyage across the Koronus Expanse. In this supplement, you find a concise history of the Tau Empire, rules to play Tau Warriors of the Fire Caste with various specialised classes, and an armoury for outfitting characters with the advanced technology and powerful wargear of the Tau empire.

As you realise your Fire Warrior more fully, you may choose to take alternate career ranks. The Tau Character Guide offers three options for alternate career ranks, enabling your Explorer to become a Pathfinder, a Drone Handler, or even a Battlesuit Pilot. Of course, the Tau Empire would be nothing without its hyper-advanced technology, and you’ll find plenty of equipment and battlesuits in the Tau Armoury. Whether you strike from afar with a Kroot Hunting Rifle, blind your foes with Tau Photon Grenades, or experience the raw power of an XV8 Crisis Battlesuit, you’ll find Tau technology is a great companion in the wild space of the Koronus Expanse.


Begin Your Journey

The hubris of Vic Modren’s realm can no longer stand as an affront to the Imperium. By the will of the Emperor, and for the Greater Good, Modren must fall. Are you prepared to embark on this adventure? Purchase Twilight Crusade and the Tau Character Guide, and begin your ship’s journey past the edges of the Koronus Expanse!

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
New Tau Career for Rogue Trader!!!

FFG wrote:Serve the Emperor
Preview Character Creation in Dark Heresy Second Edition



In Dark Heresy Second Edition, you and your friends assume the roles of Acolytes in the service of an Inquisitor, battling heresy within, without, and beyond. An Acolyte can come from any planet and any background, but all Acolytes must face the universe’s secrets – the existence of the Warp, and the ravenous hunger of the Warp’s Daemons. In creating an Acolyte, you craft a character to strive against these terrible threats.

These steadfast men and women that you create are all that stand between the Imperium and the extinction of all Mankind. In this preview of Dark Heresy Second Edition, developer Tim Huckelbery introduces how you create characters in Dark Heresy.

A Designer Diary of Character Creation in Dark Heresy

Character creation in Dark Heresy is comprised of three main selections: the Acolyte’s home world, background, and role. A character can be made from any combination of these choices, so there’s a huge variety of possible Acolytes to be created! Each selection a player makes develops his character, from generating starting characteristics and equipment to granting special rules unique to his selection. The Dark Heresy core rulebook offers dozens of examples of settings, organisations, and people from the Askellon Sector, giving players new ways to create their own characters.




Stage 1: Choose Home World

A character’s home world is the planet or location where he was born and likely spent much of his life. It determines his physical appearance, mannerisms, and perspective on the Imperium as a whole.

Dark Heresy contains six home world types in the core rulebook. Four of these are archetypal Imperial planets – feral, forge, hive, and shrine worlds – giving players a range of primitive savagery, technological immersion, cut-throat survival, and devout service. The other two home world types represent origins that could come from planets across the Imperium: the power-drenched environs of the highborn, and the artificial, empty reaches of the voidborn.


Stage 2: Choose Background

A character’s background represents what he has done with his life up to this point, including the previous Imperial organisation that he served. It determines what sort of training the character received throughout his life, what kind of resources he can access, and who he knows.

Seven potential backgrounds are included in the core rulebook: the Imperial agencies of the Adeptus Administratum, Adeptus Arbites, Adeptus Astra Telepathica, Adeptus Mechanicus, Adeptus Ministorum, and the Astra Militarum, along with Outcasts, those who have escaped the confines of any group or organisation. Forming a character with a background in an Imperial agency allows players to create Acolytes from powerful organisations, steeped in connections, but simultaneously entrenched in their own structures. An Outcast has greater relative freedom, but fewer allies, save for others who also exist outside the Imperium’s many strictures.




Stage 3: Choose Role

Roles illuminate an Acolyte’s essence. While a home world establishes where an Acolyte came from, and a background indicates his prior experiences, his role reveals who he really is underneath his clothing, armour, and cybernetics. It reflects how he views the world around him and his place in it, and broadly defines how he faces dangers, interacts with others, and resolves problems. A role also dictates what areas of expertise he excels at, and how he grows and learns with experience.

Dark Heresy includes eight roles in the core rulebook: Assassin, Chirurgeon, Desperado, Hierophant, Mystic, Sage, Seeker, and Warrior. While it is common parlance in the Imperium to mention that someone comes from a feral world, or works for the Adeptus Mechanicus, roles do not actually exist as titles or Imperial designations. Roles operate within the context of the game, indicating a mindset or attitude that a character adopts over his lifetime. Desperado or Seeker, for example, don’t exist as actual occupations or titles in the 41st millennium. Instead, players will find a Trade Sable smuggler or a Hive Desoleum Bondhound Sanctionary.




Continuing Growth

Once these major choices have been made, players develop their new Acolytes further by advancing initial characteristics, skills, and talents, as well as purchasing weapons and other gear. Players also bring their characters to life by giving them names, selecting special Divinations to show the Emperor’s Will in their lives, and choosing other additions to make their character unique.

Character creation doesn’t have to end once you have a character, though, as players can use elite advances to modify their characters. Elite advances represent large, defining aspects of a character that set him apart from his peers. Each is unique and could be the result of a new position, an aspect of a character that has been part of him his entire life, or an ability that emerged more recently due to external stimuli.

Dark Heresy includes three elite advances in the core rulebook: Inquisitor, Psyker, and Untouchable. Using these, an Acolyte can rise to become an Inquisitor himself, allowing a group to have one or more Inquisitors if the players desire. A character can also become blessed (or cursed) to become a psyker and wield the terrible powers of the Warp, or discover himself an untouchable, one of the soulless pariahs who are anathema to psyker and Daemon alike. An elite advance doesn’t alter a character’s role, however. A Warrior still views violence as the best solution to problems, even if he gains the Psyker elite advance. A role defines how a character views the galaxy and his position inside it. Elite advances may take a character along different paths, but they don’t change how he walks upon them.


Success Is Measured in Blood

Thanks, Tim!

The endless threats of the Askellon sector threaten to completely overwhelm the Imperium. Only you and your Acolytes can keep humanity safe for another day. In our next preview, developer Andy Fischer creates his own Acolyte. In the meantime, preorder Dark Heresy Second Edition at your local retailer today!

The galaxy in Dark Heresy Second Edition is a grim and terrifying place. The heresies that threaten the Imperium come from all directions – within, without, and beyond. All that stands in the way of Mankind’s destruction are the Acolytes and Inquisitors that you create and play as to wage a constant, secret war against heresy in the Imperium.

Last time, Tim Huckelbery gave an overview of the character creation process in Dark Heresy. Today, developer Andy Fischer leads us through this process by creating his own Acolyte! Read below to see how he gives life and purpose to another unsung warrior of the Inquisition.

Developer Andy Fischer Creates a Dark Heresy Character

When we created Dark Heresy’s character creation system, our goal was to make a system that gave you a few clear choices that had a big impact on your character and guaranteed you the flexibility to create whatever type of character you wanted. You can either start with a clear character concept to bring to life, or you can come to the game with no idea what you want to play, and let the character creation process inspire you as you follow its steps. For this example, I’ve chosen the latter approach. I’m going in without big preconceptions about what I will create, and I’m letting the combinations of my choices inspire the character for me.

Stage 1: Choose Home World

To start, I have to select where my character was born. I’ve recently played a lot of combat characters, so I’m interested in playing as a more cerebral character. I look through different home world choices, and settle on voidborn. Choosing voidborn as my home world gives me a better chance of having high Intelligence and Willpower, and provides me with the Intelligence aptitude, which helps a lot when creating a character who uses her brain over her brawn.



True to my home world choice, I end up rolling a 40 for my Intelligence and a 45 for my Willpower (the highest possible starting value)! Unfortunately, in the other direction, I rolled a 31 for my Strength, and roll a 1 when determining my wounds, giving me a total of 8 wounds and a pretty frail character. Based on my low Strength and wounds, I decide my character is probably getting old, and has been riding the ship she was born on for her entire life.

Stage 2: Choose Background

Now that I’ve decided where my character was born and lived most her life, I have to decide what she has done, and what part of the Imperium she spent her life serving. I look through the various backgrounds I can choose from, and based on my character’s Intelligence, I decide she belongs to the Adeptus Administratum. This gives her some useful skills such as Logic, Medicae, and a Scholastic Lore of my choice. It also allows her to take the Knowledge aptitude, which guarantees my character will continue her intellectual pursuits once I start playing the game.

After reading through the background on the Adeptus Administratum, I decide my character fits best as some sort of scribe. She’s been given the task of recording the full history of the ship she rides and sorting its massive library of materials. Her entire life, she has sat among the mountains of scrolls and tomes, recording everything the ship does, and everything that happens onboard. She is the collector and holder of all knowledge on-board the ship; if you want to know something, you go to her.



Stage 3: Choose Role



Lastly, I have to decide what my character’s role for the Inquisition will be. What makes her special? What function will she serve, and how will she grow? As I consider my options, Sage stands out as a good fit for my current character concept. I haven’t done anything with my incredibly high Willpower, though, and I want this character to have something that stands out beyond being an incredibly knowledgeable member of the Administratum. Based on this, I decide that the reason she is so good at her job is that she has unnatural gifts that no one else suspects. She harnesses the powers of the Warp in unnoticable ways that allow her to see beyond her stuffy library and subtly control those around her. To reflect this, I choose the Mystic role.

The Mystic role grants my character the Psyker elite advance for free, and grants her a number of aptitudes that fit perfectly with my character concept. Additionally, a couple of the aptitudes double up with ones I’ve already received in character creation, allowing me to choose from a list of options as a replacement for any doubles.

Now, all that’s left is to integrate the details of the psyker elite advance. Unfortunately, because my character is not a member of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, she’s not sanctioned. This means that she is a rogue psyker, never taken by the Black Ships to Terra, and hiding her powers from everyone around her. Because she never underwent sanctioning, she starts the game with a random amount of Corruption. I roll for a total of nine Corruption, which thankfully just misses forcing me to start with a malignancy!

Finishing Up

My character has come together on a solid foundation. I know where she was born and lived, what function she has served in the Imperium up to this point, and the role she will serve in coming adventures. All that’s left is to decide the final details.

As a member of the Adeptus Administratum, I decide to give my character a High Gothic-sounding name: Sophronia. She’s a very old woman who has worked aboard her ship as long as she can remember. She’s so valuable to the Administratum, they do everything in their power to keep her alive. As a result, many of her body parts are replaced with cybernetics. I decide that Sophronia came into the service of the Inquisition when an Inquisitor came aboard her ship for transport between systems. During the journey, he discovered Sophronia’s secret powers and after seeing her talents, decided to bring her into his retinue instead of reporting her to the Astra Telepathica. Ever since, she has put her intellect and powers over the Warp to use fighting heresy throughout the Askellon Sector.

Now that my character is all finished, I’m ready to dive into a game of Dark Heresy Second Edition! As you can see, there are tons of possibilities for different characters. Just given the three big decisions covered in this designer diary, you can make hundreds of different character types! Above and beyond that, there are dozens of smaller decisions you make to customize your character that I didn’t have room to cover here. Altogether, the possibilities Dark Heresy offers for creating a unique character are virtually endless.

Thanks, Andy!

Heresies and insanities await you in the Askellon sector, and the Acolytes and Inquisitors you create are all that stand between the Imperium and eternal midnight. Take up bolter and chainsword, and join us for our next preview, as we examine the process behind creating the iconic cover of Dark Heresy Second Edition.