Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So, we're starting a new league at my local store, and for those of you who don't know, I do narrative battle reports. Up until now, I've been trying to integrate the various games I've played into a single theme, but I'd like to take things into a deeper direction.

Basically, I have a lot of seed material, but don't know how to tie it all together. I could use a little creative input, as well as factional advice.

So far, the story is that an Imperial Guard force is on a local crusade. The main enemies they've been fighting are grey knights and necron (with a little chaos mixed in). I'm trying to come up with a unified story that would make sense. So far I have...

Imperial Guard - the Imperial Guard forces are drawn entirely from the planet of Folera. Said planet was originally brought into the fold not by crusade, but by missionaries. Ever since, there has been this long-running tension between the ecclesiarchy and the rest of the Imperium. Recently, the Ecclesiarchy lead a revolution on the planet, deposing the Imperial governor (the king of Folera), and replacing the leadership with a new cadre that is more pro-ecclesiarchy than the previous regime.

Ever since, the ecclisarchy, working through said new political order, has been raising a new group of elite soldiers known as "Kingsguard". These elite soldiers are being carefully trained, both physically and spiritually (not to mention doctrinally) by the ecclesiarchy. They need not only the resource of an entire planet, but an elite fighting force to accomplish their mission.

But what is their mission? Why did they launch the crusade THERE?

Necron - I know basically nothing about Necron. The one thing I know is that I don't want the place the guardsmen are crusading at to be a tomb world. The Necron are there for something, but for what?

Grey knights - this is the most difficult one for me to figure out. Are they there for their own ends, and the ecclesiarchy is accidentally doing it's crusade which is fundamentally screwing up their own plans? Are they there BECAUSE the ecclesiarchy is doing something that is actually "heretical" and they're there to stop them? Are they there because of the Necron (or for the same reason as the Necron), and these stupid guardsmen are being a nuisance? Is there some dangerous thing that they're doing with demons that the ecclesiarchy is bent on stopping?

Chaos - the one thing I know about this faction is that I don't want it to be the driving force. They are there because of the main plot point, rather than being the plot point themselves.

Anyways, I'm trying to figure out how I want this tangled web to be woven, and could really use some help, especially with regards to the motivations of factions that I don't well understand (aka not guard).

Necrons now travel around by using hijacked webway portals, building their own gates to pry them open. These are near impossible for Necrons to build in their current state, so finding and activating one is a great commodity for them.

Grey Knights I'm not very familiar with, but last I heard, they're kept secret from the rest of the Imperium. Maybe some friendly fire and lack of communication between the guard and knights has lead to a misunderstanding, with both sides treating the other as hostile. Disaster built from a bureaucratic blunder, very Imperium.

Chaos smells blood in the water and does what chaos does best, pillage and burn.

Ecclessiarchy is there, being jerkwads, because this planet may contain stolen geneseed of the Emperor himself (BAM, Grey Knight interest too). Necrons are showing up because Trazyn the Klepto catches wind of it and wants it so he can unlock the "Way to be a jerk, jerk" achievement, so he and his cadre of five finger felony robots show up en masse. Chaos is there because who the hell doesn't want Emperor juice. It's a little contreived, but hey, so was Allies of Convenience between Chaos and Necrons and Necrons and GK.

Here's an idea. How about someone in the Ecclessiarchy, one of the leaders, has been corrupted by a Lord of Change (Or any suitable daemon prince) and is using the Foleran forces to destroy the Grey Knight forces? At first, the Foleran troops do not put together that someone is forcing them on the Grey Knights at every turn they make. Meanwhile, the supposed mission that the brass is shoving down the officers throats is to fend off the Xeno forces. The mission against the Necrons makes up the bulk of their fighting. Depending on how the fight against the Necrons/Grey Knights go, they either figure what's going on with the Ecclesiarchy over some debate or just finish the mission and pat themselves on the back for a job well done. You can also make the corruption of one of your characters by Chaos a subplot throughout.

How the Necrons relate would be the main plot point. Some ideas for them is that they could be here to stop the Imperium from taking an ancient and devasting weapon. If the Necrons take it, they use it to destroy invading Chaos forces. If the Imperium gets it, the Admech dismantles it and takes it back to their worlds. It doesn't ever help the Imperium since it's decided that it's -not- a DAoT relic and subsequently destroyed.

The CSM are there to ensure that the Grey Knight forces there are devastated so that they can not only corrupt the world but seize the Necron weapon. If the CSM succeed, the world is plunged into Chaos and is then quarantined by the Imperium. Strangely enough, around the same time several top members of the local Ecclesiarchy disappear...

The Grey Knights are there to prevent the world from being invaded by Chaos and to destroy the Necron relic.

Of course, if you aren't into the whole "Mysterious relic" thing just discount those parts.

Most likely the inquistion would be involved in deciding if the world should be purged. I'm guessing that these 'imperial guard' are male? If so not only would the ecclessiarchy be avoiding imperial tithes by not giving soldiers to the actual Imperial Guard, they are also directly contraving the edicts put in place stopping the ecclessiarchy fielding 'men at arms'.

Most likely this revoltion was not planned by the ecclessiarchy but by a power hungry individual that has used his influence and sold his lot in with dark powers to strengthen his power base. I can see this person ending up being put to death front of the throne of judgement.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Most likely this would get investigated by the ordo heriticus but if the leader is going to call on deamons then the Grey Knights would be in play as well.

Why not just come up with substitute factions for the Necrons and Grey Knights? The Grey Knights can be some technologically advanced offshoot of humanity that accidentally activates a factory from the dark of age of technology that manufactures insane robots (Necrons). The Folerans are interested in the world because Saint Blah Blah, the most venerated martyr of Folera founded a shrine on this world. The world was lost for a long time, but now the Folerans find out where it is and go there to reclaim the shrine. Unfortunately there are heretical humans who turned on the robot factory there and they are fighting each other and then the Folerans. The forces of chaos come to claim the robot factory for nefarious purposes.

If you're adamant about using the actual factions. The Grey Knights investigate daemonic invasions. They have been given intel that the Grand Ecclesiarch of Folera is going to open up a gate that will cause a daemonic invasion. Instead of trying to find out why, they have decided to kill the Ecclesiarch and the Folerans are resisting since they love the Ecclesiarch so much. Chaos has heard of the daemonic prophecy and has come to ensure that it occurs. The Necrons are now being treated as Tomb Kings in space, so they have dynasties of nobles that lead their tomb worlds. The recently awoken tomb world of Blah is lead by The Great Blah the Terrible. He once ruled this portion of the galaxy. He buried his great space ship on this planet before hibernating and has come back to get it back to reclaim his lost glory and this region of space.

A few things I stumbled upon whilst reading the thread ..

Ailaros wrote:Said planet was originally brought into the fold not by crusade, but by missionaries.

That's fairly normal, actually. Whenever a lost human colony is rediscovered, the first thing the Imperium often does is to send an infiltration team of Sisters Sabine to undermine the local society by posing as natives and establishing themselves as prophets. When the Imperium finally arrives in full force, the Sisters Sabine will have foretold this event (thereby cementing their status as actual seers and holy people in the community) and lead a rebellion against the established government/faith. The crusade force will also contain the Missionaries, who will then continue the work of the Sisters Sabine and search for ways to merge the local faith with the Imperial Creed in ways deemed compliant by the Ecclesiarchy.

Ailaros wrote:Ever since, there has been this long-running tension between the ecclesiarchy and the rest of the Imperium. Recently, the Ecclesiarchy lead a revolution on the planet, deposing the Imperial governor (the king of Folera), and replacing the leadership with a new cadre that is more pro-ecclesiarchy than the previous regime.

Here, the Ecclesiarchy would overstep its mandate. Putting an Imperial Commander in place is something done by the High Lords, as representatives of the Emperor - as is the classification of a planet and under which level of Ecclesiarchal jurisdiction it falls (the highest level being Shrine or Tomb Worlds directly governed by the Imperial Church, the lowest being no influence at all as with Marine fiefdoms or Mechanicus Forge Worlds, but with most planets existing somewhere in-between).

What could have happened is that, possibly, you have a "rogue cleric" who is abusing the government which has been put into place by the Adepta Sororitas (with the Sisters Sabine on-site either being reassigned or detained to prevent word from "getting out" ), and prevents the usual transfer of power from the locals to the newly appointed Imperial governor to happen. Maybe said governor is detained as well, or he is killed in an accident (read: assassination).
Or maybe the legally appointed governor just didn't arrive yet because his ship got lost in a freak warp storm, and the "rogue cleric" decides to take matters into his own hands, like a self-appointed regent who thinks he's the man for the job, possibly even convinced that he is doing the right thing, and justifying his acts by claiming to do it for stability and order. Such motivations are, I think, always the most compelling narratives, as you don't have a simple NYAHAHA~ villain but rather just a misguided man who thinks that the greater good justifies evil acts, and then gets worse from there as events force him into becoming a twisted version of his old self, desecrating old ideals by desperately clinging to what power he has left.

Ailaros wrote:Ever since, the ecclisarchy, working through said new political order, has been raising a new group of elite soldiers known as "Kingsguard". These elite soldiers are being carefully trained, both physically and spiritually (not to mention doctrinally) by the ecclesiarchy. They need not only the resource of an entire planet, but an elite fighting force to accomplish their mission.

This sounds a lot like a violation of the Decree Passive. If those guys are more than Frateris Militia, the Ordo Hereticus and/or the Sisters of Battle might be interested to hear more about the issue, if they ever get wind of it. Just as an option to insert two more factions into the campaign.

bogalubov wrote:the Grand Ecclesiarch of Folera

There is only one Ecclesiarch, and that guy 's a High Lord of Terra. >_>

Imperial Guard: These are the planet defense force and has been besieged for years thought to be “pirates” but had been the Necrons grabbing all orbital traffic to gather intelligence on the planet.
Necrons: A “Tome of Names” is rumored on the planet which is a list of “Daemons” which would give power over them. They are curious if the Cetan (their old masters and opponents) are listed mistaken for demons.
Chaos: List of daemons?!?! The value of reminiscing over the good old days would be enough, death and destruction is justification in its own right.
Grey Knights: They had caught word of the Tome of Names and it would be an amazing weapon against the daemons. Figuring out their true names is a cornerstone to fighting the daemonic.

So, as part of the fluff for Folera, the planet is in a semi-permanent state of clan warfare. The old guy in charge gets usurped, they all have their little fight, and some new guy emerges on top. The imperium then post-facto blesses the winner as the Imperial Governor, at least, until he gets "replaced" by someone else. So long as the planet remains loyal and pumps out guardsmen, the Imperium doesn't feel the need to get its hands dirty in local politics.

As such, the fact that the king (what the office of the governor is known as, locally) was booted out isn't new. That someone from the imperium would get involved, however, would be rather unusual. As you mentioned, the ecclesiarchy can't have it's own men at arms, but that's not to say that it can't call for a holy crusade somewhere and, oh look, here are some guardsmen that we can use for crusading (*wink* *wink*).

I like the idea of the ecclesiarchy being subversive, but I really don't care for the idea that some higher up secretly switched over to chaos, as that theme has been done ad nauseum.

Instead, I'd rather keep it within the imperium. I really like the post-age-of-apostacy infighting, and I'd more like it to be something like the guardsmen are being used as pawns in an attempt by the ecclesarchy to get revenge on the grey knights or something. I just can't figure out how it all fits together.

Ailaros wrote:As you mentioned, the ecclesiarchy can't have it's own men at arms, but that's not to say that it can't call for a holy crusade somewhere and, oh look, here are some guardsmen that we can use for crusading (*wink* *wink*).

That is indeed how the Ecclesiarchy often gains its troops for its crusades! Frateris Militia form the masses, but each and every Imperial Guard regiment and Navy capital ship has its own Confessor and a crew full of believers in the Imperial Creed, which gives the clergy tremendous influence in the day-to-day activities of Imperial forces. It is not uncommon that entire regiments of Guardsmen "volunteer" to help the Frateris Militia, ostensibly outside the Ministorum's chain of command, but with the officer in charge hanging on the lips of his preacher.

Ailaros wrote:I really like the post-age-of-apostacy infighting, and I'd more like it to be something like the guardsmen are being used as pawns

The more you describe your intentions, the more it reminds me of Cardinal Bucharis' little empire. You know his story? Might be good for inspiration.

Ailaros wrote:an attempt by the ecclesarchy to get revenge on the grey knights or something

That feels really thin. The Ecclesiarchy has no quarrel with the Grey Knights.* They'd rather denounce some Space Marine Chapter and launch an attack against that, as this has happened in the past. But how about simply denouncing the Imperial Governor of a neighboring system as a heretic?
A problem would be that a War of Faith requires approval of the High Lords, so something would have to be engineered - or the cover-up needs to be really good.

But I'd still suggest to keep it limited to a single planet, or perhaps a single star system with a few planets, and duke it out there. Kind of like Kaurava in Soulstorm. Although you don't even need several planets to explain a variety in terrain - just look at Armageddon, or simply our real Earth.

*: keeping in mind that info about the Blood Tide would be meta-knowledge and not something that anyone but the GKs and some few within the Ordo Malleus would know

Maybe the Grey Knights have been meddling in their affairs and the local Ecclisiarchy wants it to end. The how and why... well, that's hard if you don't want any Chaos corruption. Grey Knights destroying Chaos is sort of their M.O.

How about "suspected Chaos" or "threat of taint"? If you really want to force the GKs into this, perhaps it could be an issue about some artifact where the Ordo Malleus says "it's dangerous" and the Cardinal says "no it's holy!"

Could even be a potential Saint - now that I think about it, there was a similar story in the ole' WH 'dex. Look at how close they came to fighting each other there. And maybe in OP's case, the guy could even be truly innocent!

Other than that, I also recall that the new GK Codex mentioned they can now be called upon by more Inquisitors than just the Ordo Malleus? Kinda how, in theory at least, the Sisters could also be called in by the Ordo Malleus or the Ordo Xenos.

On a funny sidenote, the guy Karamazov had arrested and burned was theorised by Thorian Inquisitors to be a potential vessel for the Emperor Reborn - and in our real live, there is a novel called "The Brothers Karamazov" which contains a poem where an Inquisitor arrests the resurrected Jesus Christ.... DUN DUN DUNNNN

TheCustomLime wrote:
Maybe the Grey Knights have been meddling in their affairs and the local Ecclisiarchy wants it to end. The how and why... well, that's hard if you don't want any Chaos corruption. Grey Knights destroying Chaos is sort of their M.O.

The only problem is that meddling is not what Grey Knights do, that is the inquisitors. It is unlikely that the Grey Knights would get involved in a political fight as inquisitors have personal/recruited forces for this. You also have to account for the fact that the level of ecclisiarchy present will have no knowledge of the Grey Knights at all and even the few that do either work with the inquistion or are politically clever enough (high lord) to know such an act will end with a bullet in the head.

BluntmanDC wrote:The only problem is that meddling is not what Grey Knights do, that is the inquisitors.

In theory, an Inquisitor could have the GKs "meddle on his behalf" by not giving them all the info he has. It's a dangerous thing, for if they find out that the Inquisitor has abused his position they'd surely pass on this info to other Inquisitors, and there would be a little house-cleaning ... but on the other hand, I am sure there are quite a lot of Inquisitors who are not afraid of engaging in such games. Just look at Karamazov having his place besieged by other Inquisitors because he was dead-set on burning that one guy the Ecclesiarchy wanted alive.

Also reminds me of the plot in Daemonifuge, where one Inquisitor used the GK to get rid of a rival.
"Grinn is a Brother-Inquisitor; I would prefer to spare him the agonies of an Ordo Malleus interrogation chamber. Tell your brethren to shoot to kill."

What would the Gray Knights, Imperial Guard, Necrons and Chaos all want from one world, to the point that an empire would betray its kin?
Find something like an artifact that each faction covets. I mean the Imperial equivalent to the Vatican is involved, there's got to be an item of holy significance.

 BluntmanDC wrote:

TheCustomLime wrote:
Maybe the Grey Knights have been meddling in their affairs and the local Ecclisiarchy wants it to end. The how and why... well, that's hard if you don't want any Chaos corruption. Grey Knights destroying Chaos is sort of their M.O.

The only problem is that meddling is not what Grey Knights do, that is the inquisitors. It is unlikely that the Grey Knights would get involved in a political fight as inquisitors have personal/recruited forces for this. You also have to account for the fact that the level of ecclisiarchy present will have no knowledge of the Grey Knights at all and even the few that do either work with the inquistion or are politically clever enough (high lord) to know such an act will end with a bullet in the head.

I should've added "If you want to use this angle you'd need to get an Inquisitor involved" but that's my bad. And it doesn't have to be a political grudge, just that the Eclessiarchy is doing something and they don't want these grey upstarts to mess with their affairs. They would certainly know about the Grey Knights if they showed up, though.

As lynata stated earlier, with the whole Shrine thing, that is an easily believable and realistic event. Guardsmen hunkering down to defend a planet on what they believe is holy ground, but little do they know they're own HQ is on top of the tomb of a Khornate Champion buried with a powerful daemon weapon. The Grey Knights know this and rather than risk the corruption of an entire army, they plan to wipe them out just to be safe.

Also stated earlier, Inquisitors have tons of factions within their ranks that all have certain ethos, and I'm sure you could do something along the lines of Radical Inquisitors, what with their communicating with warp entities, using daemon hosts etc.

TheCustomLime wrote:And it doesn't have to be a political grudge, just that the Eclessiarchy is doing something and they don't want these grey upstarts to mess with their affairs. They would certainly know about the Grey Knights if they showed up, though.

Aren't the GKs still a huge secret? That might be even better for the plot - because nobody actually knows who they're dealing with, thinking it's a random Marine Chapter digging around on holy ground.

That said, they would recognise an Inquisitor's authority ... this could, however, be countered with having another Inquisitor around who disagrees with his colleague and would be willing to incite the locals taking up arms to defend the relic. This Inquisitor could have less political pull inside his own influence, but since the local clergy does not know this they think it's the other Inquisitor who must be wrong. And it all spirals down from there.

The second Inquisitor could be either a Radical who hopes to recover the Chaos artifact for study, or a Thorian Inquisitor who genuinely thinks it's a holy item that should be preserved.

If you want to play up the irony, have it be a Radical Inquisitor (who claims to be a devout follower of the Creed whenever dealing with his Ecclesiarchy allies) ... and then have the relic still be no Chaos artifact at all but just a bunch of old bones, or the rusted cutlery of a long-deceased Saint. Essentially having thousands, if not millions die over something completely harmless just because one side thinks it's Chaos and the other it's Holy. Grimdark!

 Lynata wrote:

TheCustomLime wrote:And it doesn't have to be a political grudge, just that the Eclessiarchy is doing something and they don't want these grey upstarts to mess with their affairs. They would certainly know about the Grey Knights if they showed up, though.

Aren't the GKs still a huge secret? That might be even better for the plot - because nobody actually knows who they're dealing with, thinking it's a random Marine Chapter digging around on holy ground.

That said, they would recognise an Inquisitor's authority ... this could, however, be countered with having another Inquisitor around who disagrees with his colleague and would be willing to incite the locals taking up arms to defend the relic. This Inquisitor could have less political pull inside his own influence, but since the local clergy does not know this they think it's the other Inquisitor who must be wrong. And it all spirals down from there.

The second Inquisitor could be either a Radical who hopes to recover the Chaos artifact for study, or a Thorian Inquisitor who genuinely thinks it's a holy item that should be preserved.

If you want to play up the irony, have it be a Radical Inquisitor (who claims to be a devout follower of the Creed whenever dealing with his Ecclesiarchy allies) ... and then have the relic still be no Chaos artifact at all but just a bunch of old bones, or the rusted cutlery of a long-deceased Saint. Essentially having thousands, if not millions die over something completely harmless just because one side thinks it's Chaos and the other it's Holy. Grimdark!

This artifact could be what the Necrons are in the system for. To think, all this blood shed and violence over some piece of Cron tech.

It could be an old Necron tomb world that is either being awoken/waking itself up just as the Imperial Guard are launching their crusade for the a holy building which turns out to be a Warp portal capable of bringing through greater daemons (or worse!) Hence why the GK are interested. But because they think that the Guard have become/are corrupted and decide to shoot first and ask questions later.

 The Crusader wrote:
It could be an old Necron tomb world that is either being awoken/waking itself up just as the Imperial Guard are launching their crusade for the a holy building which turns out to be a Warp portal capable of bringing through greater daemons (or worse!) Hence why the GK are interested. But because they think that the Guard have become/are corrupted and decide to shoot first and ask questions later.

The OP says he doesn't want it to be on a tomb world, though.

Whoops, didn't see that bit.

Erm, ok replace tomb world with some kind of tech-y doohickey that'll turn the Necrons back into the Necrontyr maybe? That could work couldn't it?

Wasn't there some Necron Lord who likes to collect weird stuff - including human relics? It could simply be that he wants it for the lulz, yet it's not actually that important to them.

Or perhaps it's some sort of McGuffin left behind by the first colonists, and everyone just happens to interpret it differently:

Ecclesiarchy: Doesn't have a clue, just sees a few markings and goes "zomg it's holy!!1"
Inquisition: Deems it dangerous (Dark Age Tech?), sends the GK to destroy it
Crons: Are really just curious because their scans picked up a few weird waves.

So, what about this being a part of it?

The inquisition knows about Abbadon's plan to create a demon uprising on Cadia by killing guardsmen and engaging in violence as the plan for his black crusades.

There are many inquisitors who are working on the problem, but there has been one who has been tasked to find out if it's even possible or not.

As such, he set up a controlled experiment far away from the eye of terror. The plan is to lure a bunch of guardsmen somewhere and then slaughter them en masse and see if any demons do, in fact, show up.

Of course this experiment is being slightly complicated by the fact that demons are attracted to grey knights wherever they are, just because, and there are these stupid necron here for some reason they can't figure out.

 Ailaros wrote:
So, what about this being a part of it?

The inquisition knows about Abbadon's plan to create a demon uprising on Cadia by killing guardsmen and engaging in violence as the plan for his black crusades.

There are many inquisitors who are working on the problem, but there has been one who has been tasked to find out if it's even possible or not.

As such, he set up a controlled experiment far away from the eye of terror. The plan is to lure a bunch of guardsmen somewhere and then slaughter them en masse and see if any demons do, in fact, show up.

Of course this experiment is being slightly complicated by the fact that demons are attracted to grey knights wherever they are, just because, and there are these stupid necron here for some reason they can't figure out.

Grey Knights do not attract deamons, Grey Knights find deamon attacks.