Karlson's Rest
Karlson's Rest was settled millenia ago by a rogue trader dynasty whose name has since been buried under the dust of time. The colonists were part of an expedition to exploit the newly discovered Ohm cluster, said to be full of virgin planets and vast mineral reserves but which was ultimately found to be a stronghold of a well entrenched and particularly murderous empire dedicated to the ruinous powers. During their passage through the warp the colony ship, Karlson's Vigil, suffered a catastrophic Geller field malfunction which forced an emergency re entry into real space causing critical structural damage and destroying the Geller field generators completely. Luckily for the colonists they found themselves mere days travel away from a system with what looked to be a Eden world when surveyed through the ships auger arrays. The Karlson's Vigil limped into orbit and more detailed scans confirmed that the world was covered in warm oceans, lush grasslands and several imposing mountain ranges which held the promise of considerable mineral reserves. There were no indications of prior colonisation efforts or any signs of intelligent life had ever visited the world. The colonists quickly established a foothold and began constructing the necessary infrastructure that would allow them to survive on their new home and their initial exploration missions confirmed that the world was indeed a paradise although prospecting was only able to locate small veins of base metals which would not be able to support a true heavy industry. Unfortunately for those early colonists there is no such thing as a paradise.
Karlson's Rest is home to a unique and deadly phenomena, some insidious force is able to control all the flora and fauna within an area and turn them to its own dark purpose. Every insect, every blade of grass becomes a weapon creating a killing zone that is almost invariably fatal to anyone unlucky enough to be caught inside it. Some zones are only a handful of meters in diameter but the norm is approximately 100 meters and in some rare cases the killing zone can be several kilometres in diameter. Some zones last a matter of minutes while others can last years and they can occur anywhere at anytime. In short they are impossible to predict without prescience and even then the window of warning is very short.
Soon after the colonists arrival expeditions began to vanish without a trace, or if they were found their bodies were torn to literal shreds. Panic gripped the stranded colony but there was nothing that they could do other than fortify their settlements and attempt to discover the nature of the threat that they faced. Over long years of fear the colony slowly grew and expanded but herds of livestock, work parties and even isolated settlements would still regularly disappear with little or no warning and the fragmentary vox signals that these poor unfortunates were able to send spoke of the trees coming alive and vicious attacks by formerly benign wildlife. Eventually the inhabitants came to have a working understanding of the phenomena that had taken so many lives but were unable to predict when it would occur or discover what was driving these events nor were they able to find a way to avoid its effects. Occasionally an individual was able to escape a killing zone through sheer skill or luck and even more rarely they were able to a strangely coloured mushroom that grows in the centre of larger zones and is not found anywhere else on the world and which is impossible to cultivate. This mushroom, which came to be known as the Emperor's Tear, has amazing properties, it is able to cure any know disease and anyone who ingests the entire mushroom apparently stops aging, no one who has ever eaten this mushroom is ever known to have died of old age, although the population of Karlsons Rest rarely reach old age. For everyone lucky enough to survive a killing zone tens of thousands die and for every survivor barely 1 in 100 manage to retrieve a Tear.
Settlements on Karlson's Rest are simple affairs, concrete and plascrete structures armoured against the attacks of the local fauna with large areas of bare earth surrounding each settlement providing some protection against the local fauna. It is impossible to completely safe guard against the deadly effects of the killing zones however and settlements are frequently lost due to subterranean creatures burrowing through the foundations of buildings and causing entire streets to sink into the earth or for entire populations to be massacred by concentrated attacks by household pests.
Contact was re-established with the Imperium after several millennia where Karlson's Rest received the well deserved classification of a deathworld and would probably have been evacuated were it not for the vast value of the Emperor's Tear. Its properties and extreme rarity ensure that its price is astronomical, prime examples can be sold for enough Thrones to buy an entire planet. A covert war was fought for control of Karlson's Rest which drew in nearly every mechant house and Rogue Trader in the Segmentium Pacificus before it was finally claimed by the Sigal Conglomerate whose claim has been ratified by the Adminstratium. Having secured the sole trade rights to the Emperor's Tear they installed a planetary governor in a heavily armed orbital Waystation and left the day to day lives of the population relatively intact.
The Magos Biologis became interested in the Killing Zones and have dispatched several expeditions to Karlson's Rest since its rediscovery. They have been lost without exception and their findings have been meagre. What they have discovered though is chilling, there is clearly an intelligence directing the Killing Zones. During a Killing Zone the local flora and fauna exhibit characteristic patterns of behaviour that can be clearly detected with detailed orbital augery. Despite intensive surveillance killing zones have only ever been found when surrounding Humans, their livestock or settlements, they have never been found in uninhabited areas. Attempts have been made to gather Emperor's Tears from an active Killing Zone by armoured vehicles, powered industrial armour or even by teleporting the section of ground surrounding the Emperor's Tear to a safe location. Each attempt so far has been almost successful, the recovery team will typically get to within mere meters of the Emperor's Tear only to see it wither and rot in front of their eyes. The varied circumstances and the exact same outcome of this event can only mean that something is able to observe the recovery teams and ensure that they can see their prize but never claim it. The Magos Biologis teams seem to be targetted specifically by the Zones, they will invariably find themselves within a Killing Zone within minutes of leaving what relative safety there is on Karlson's Rest. The Killing Zones obviously want to ensure that their secrets will never been discovered.
Living in constant fear has bred a strong sense of fatalism in the population, sudden Death is nearly a certainty, it will come unannounced and it will be almost impossible to avoid so there is little to be done other than put faith in the Emperor and accept the Emperor's judgement with grace. This shared stoicism has also fostered an extremely strong sense of community, crime is extremely rare and is almost always punished with death. Outsiders are uncommon and usually short lived, the Killing Zones seemingly don't like offworlders, so most of the population don't even bother to create any kind of relationship with the few offworlders that they come into contact with, especially as it may well end up being fatal.
Karlson's rest is one of the few Imperial worlds which don't produce any psykers, although nearly the entire population has evolved a level of prescience that is just under the threshold required to attract the attention of the Black Ships.
LIke all Imperial worlds Karlson's Rest pays a Tithe of men to the Imperial Guard, although rarely given the planets sparse population. The Regiments are usually named after famed heroes of legend although they are officially known by their formal regimental designation, the 3rd Karlson Fusiliers is more commonly known as Karanak's Fyrd for example.
In common with all Deathworlds the regiments drawn from Karlson's Rest are of superb quality, fearless and skilled with an unshakable faith in their comrades and the wrath of the Emperor in their eyes but they also have an attrition rate among offworld specialists, especially commissars, that is significantly higher than the norm yet even after detailed examination and investigation no proof of wrong doing is ever uncovered.

45th Karlson Fusiliers.
The 45th Karlson Fusilers ('Spirewyrms') are the first regiment to be raised from Karlson's Rest in a generation. The tithe was originally called to answer the demands for troops to reinforce Imperial line along the Keralis front but with the death of the Keralin Imperator and the subsequent collapse of the secessionist forces the Deathworlders were no longer required. Lord Commander Sebastian Krove was able to exert his considerable influence and have them attached to his command, effectively becoming part of his house troops although they would still be under the nominal command of the Adeptus Munitorum. The regiment is comprised of 3 battalions each containing 3 infantry companies and an HQ company. The first and second battalion are equipped as line infantry while the 3rd battalion is a composite battalion with an Armoured fist company, a Recce company and a Breaching company. As the regiment has yet to see combat it is still at its full complement of 3000 combat infantry plus a further 500 support staff.
Although the 'Wyrms are untested in true combat they are well practised in fieldcraft and marksmanship and they have undertaken extensive training in preparation for their initial deployment. They are eager to administer the Emperor's grace to his foes.
Regiment character attributes:
Characteristic modifers: +3 agility, toughness or perception
Starting skills: Survival (forest, grassland), awareness.
Wary of Outsiders: -10 interaction tests in formal surroundings, -10 interaction tests with anyone who isn't from Karlsons Rest or an established member of their immediate squad.
Starting wounds: +2
Deathworld: All native inhabitants of Karlson's Rest have the Jaded and Lightning reflexes talents
Honest: Theft is extremely rare on Karlson's Rest and what few thieves there are shunned and despised by the rest of society. If a Karlson's native should be discovered stealing in anything other than a genuine life or death circumstance from another native they will suffer a permanent -30 fellowship penalty when interacting with other natives and may well find that they have become strangely accident prone....
If the theft is from an offworlder the fellowship penalty is reduced to -10. This is not cumulative and looting the dead or Xenos does not count as theft.

Regimental commander: Sanguine
Regiment type: Hunter killer (the majority of the regiment are line infantry however)
Training doctrine: Sharpshooters
Equipment:
Standard universal kit
M36 Lasgun with 4 charge packs or Combat shotgun with 4 clips
2 Frag grenades
1 Krak grenade
Mono melee attachment
Light carapace suit
Respirator
Photo contacts
Field suture kit
Microbead
Favoured weapons: Autocannon and grenade launcher

Lord Commander Sebastian Krove
Lord Commander Sebastian Krove is a man of average height, unremarkable features and an aura of command that is almost palpable. Well over 200 years old he looks like a man in his mid 30s thanks to extremely expensive rejuve treatments and exquisitely crafted implants. Aboard his flagship Sword of Jharun and when in more civilised environments he dresses in the highly embellished uniform of a Lord Commander of the Imperial Guard which he has more than earned. In combat he dons his suit of beautifully plain archeotech power armour and can almost always be found at a forward command post directing his men with a surety of command that has been learned through long decades of experience on dozens of worlds against a dozen foes.
A 3rd son of a minor a minor royal house on the Feudal world of Gryphys Sebastian Krove sought advancement in the ranks of the Imperial Guard where he was able to use what little influence that his family had to obtain a junior staff appointment on the staff of Warmaster Thoth for the Green Reach crusade. Over the next 57 years his diligence and superior, if not brilliant, planning skills saw him rise steadily through the Crusade hierarchy and by the crusades end he was in command of the entire spinward front with the rank of Marshal.
The next century saw Marshall krove fight a succession of minor wars against Xenos and secessionists but it was the Scouring of Omnissiah's gift that was the make his name and rewarded him with his warrant of trade.
Ommnissiahs Gift is a Forge world deep within the Segmentium Pacificus which is home to one of the 12 great marvels of the Machine God, the Forge of the Ancients. This hallowed relic is a vast industrial complex of pre Imperial origin filled with archeotech machinery which is far more efficient and advanced than even the best of the Technomagi of Mars could dream of constructing. Its machine shops and foundries are capable of rapidly constructing warpcores, plasma reactors, void shield generators and a host of other highly advanced equipment and components at a blistering speed and as such it is an extremely important node in the vast and fragile supply network of the Imperium. Not only the Adeptus Mechanicus have an interest in the ancient machines of the past, there are other, darker, individuals and organisations who have a deep interest in the tech arcane. The Company of the Gear are one such group who have delved deep in ancient technoarcana and produced blasphemous hybrids of human and xenos technology and, even worse, have consorted with the followers of the ruinous powers in order to construct deamon engines.
Working in secret over many decades they were able to establish a solid presence on Ommnissiahs Gift and were even able to gain covert control of a small but significant proportion of the archeotech manufactories. In a carefully planned attack a specially designed virus rendered virtually the entire human population permanently unconscious while the main Skitarati barracks and Praetorian Hangers were Attacked with low yield atomics . The few tech priests whose implants allowed them to resist the virus and the scattered survivors of the Tech Guard were helpless in the face of the legion of daemon engines that had been manufactured in secret and the steadily growing army of combat and murder servitors as the planet's sleeping population were harvested. Within a month the planet had been completely lost to the Imperium. So great was threat that this represented that a reconquest was launched within days of the news of the attack reaching the Imperium.
Conventional warfare was out of the question given the extremely valuable nature of the planet's infrastructure but Space Marine aid would be unavailable for months and the Adeptus mechanicus was unable to provide aid beyond several regiments of Skitarati and a significant warfleet who would be of limited use in ground combat. The brunt of the fighting would be borne by the Imperial Guard who would be facing extremely capable opposition without the use of their most potent weaponry. Marshal Krove was the most senior Officer within easy reach of the Ommnissiah's Gift so he was given command of the operation, this turned out to be fortuitous. A more typical Imperial Guard commander would have launched a traditional planetfall operation over major centers of resistance but krove realised that this would be folly, instead he opted to conduct hit and run raids from orbit and from several heavily fortified bases that he established in the toxic wilderness outside the main manufactoriums where the full force of the Imperial Guard's firepower could be safely brought to bear which were able to weather the storm of attacks that they faced on a daily basis due in part to the precision bombardments from the orbiting fleet. Initially these raids were simply to gain intelligence and to test the enemy's capabilities but once sufficient reinforcements had arrived the emphasis turned to elimination of the cult's hierarchy and the extermination of their blasphemous creations while specially formed units of Tech priests and Skitarati were employed to wrest control of the Manufactorums back to their rightful owners. After a year of heavy fighting, and extremely heavy casualties, the Company of the Gear was all but shattered, their legion of Deamon engines had been exorcised and their horde of servitors had been reduced to a single cadre of murder servitors, several thousand hastily constructed combat servitors and a bare handful of hereteks. These few survivors had taken shelter in Manfactorium prime and had sealed its impregnable blast doors, shortly afterwards alarming energy fluctuations began to be detected deep within the Manufactorium's foundations. By this time 4 entire legions of Preatorians had arrived and krove was given explicit instructions that these, and only these, would be permitted to enter the manufactorium and cleanse the taint of the Heretek. Via transport tunnels and effluent systems the Praetorians fought their way inside and after 6 days of fighting barely a quarter finally made their way out of the manufactorium's main blast doors carrying the heads of the final 9 Hereteks . Only the Mechanicus know what occurred inside but it was the final action in what was to become known as the scouring of Ommnissiah's Gift.
Despite the complete eradication of the planet's population only 6% of the planets infrastructure suffered significant damage and even then the majority of which was repairable. So pleased were the Adeptus Mechanicus with this result that they sponsored the recently promoted Lord Commander Krove to receive a warrant of trade and provided him with an ancient Lunar class cruiser, the Sword of Jharun as well as the troopship Meru, the Sword class frigate Diorat and a small fleet of support vessels. In addition to these lavish gifts he also received some very lucrative contracts in the Koronus expanse. With such powerful gifts and an even more powerful backer Lord Commander Krove has recently arrived in Port Wander and will soon head into the expanse to bring the Emperor's light to the darkness that he will surely find there.

Meru
The Meru is a whale class transport, comparable in size to a Navy battlecrusier, that has had almost half of its storage bays converted into barracks, armouries, training facilities, workshops and all the other infrastructure required to transport battle ready troops and equipment. Despite this it still boasts cavernous storage bays that can easily accommodate millions of tonnes of trade goods. For a Troopship the Meru is also surprisingly well armed, her sheer size allows her to mount 2 port and starboard Jovian pattern missile batteries and a pair of Sunhammer lances mounted on Dorsal turrets. Her armour is thin however and she is slow and sluggish at combat speeds. She can easily defend herself from small wolfpacks of raiders but anything larger than a frigate would be a serious threat
The origins of the ship are vague, rumoured to have been brought into the Emperor's service after being found adrift in the Agaj asteroid fields sometime in the 35th millennium, the fragments of the ships service history that remain are unremarkable, although it bears the scars of being cripped by lance fire at some point in its earlier history. Lord Commander Krove obtained the Meru from the Gellen Triumvirate, a trading house operating out of Grund, it is rumoured that hardly had to pay a single throne for this immense vessel but its true cost was is known only to the Lord Commander and a select few Triumvirate dignities.
Before the Triumvirate acquired the ship it was owned by a Rogue Trader house, although almost all trace of which has been erased from the ship, whole swathes have been redacted from the ships more recent ships logs and all traces of human habitation have been scoured clean, even from the foetid and cramped convict crew quarters that line the main plasma conduit along the spine of the ship. Fragments remain however and these, along with the ever present galley rumours that infest all Imperial ships, speak of the wrath of the Ordo Xenos falling upon a now nameless Rogue Trader for crimes against Humanity, the more lurid tales claim that his crime involved genetic experiments on Xenos species in an attempt to breed an army of ferocious shock troops for use in piratical boarding actions and planetary raids. The Rogue Trader suffered a nameless, but thoroughly deserved, fate at the hands of the Inquisition and the entire crew were exposed to the void as penance for allowing such heretical work to be undertaken. Such tales are common but something made the Gellen Triumvirate suspiciously eager to distance themselves from the Meru so soon after coming into its possession.
The ship itself has a crew of 20,000 souls; 5000 convict crew, 13000 Voidmen and 2000 Armsmen, and it can carry a full complement of 30,000 troops and 2 full armoured regiments along with their equipment and stores although it is currently only transporting a third of this number. It also has a small manufactorum with is able to produce sufficient ammunition and basic equipment to maintain ground operations on isolated worlds for a considerable length of time.
The Meru is currently transporting the 45th Karlson's Fusiliers, the Damaris Drillers, the 12th Ferer lancers, and the 546th Lurox combat support regiment. Karlson's Fusiliers are newly raised regiment of deathworlders who currently provide the majority of Lord Commander Krove's infantry.
The Damaris Drillers are a veteran artillery regiment who have been reduced to 2 batteries of medium artillery, 1 battery of heavy artillery and a air defence squadron. The Drillers were originally recruited from the asteroid miners of Damar and they have a long and venerable history, including 2 successful crusades.
The 12th Ferer Lancers are a veteran armoured regiment who had been granted the right of settlement on Huroh until the planet was sealed by the Inquisition and they were then transfered to Lord Commander Krove's command. The regiment is currently only at quarter strength with only 1 full company of Leman Russ, a demi company of Leman Russ support tanks, an Armoured Fist company and a recce squadron.
The 546th Lurox combat support regiment provides logistic, medical, signals and intelligence support to the forces of Lord Commander Krove. It is a newly raised regiment which was mustered expressly for the use of Lord Commander Krove.
The Meru boasts a Lighter bay which is well stocked with various Landers and is home to both a Valkyrie and Vulture squadron for ground operations and a Squadron of Lightning fighters to provide a capable escort.
Life onboard is relatively comfortable for an Imperial ship thanks to the Vitae pattern life sustainers and the recreational areas on every 5th deck which keep the crew and troops distracted with all manner of entertainments from brothels to holovid theatres and ecclesiarchal rallies. Like most Imperial ships the crew are from a variety of sources; the Voidmen were commissioned from 6 distinct Void Clans who each have their own areas of expertise and their own living quarters, the convict crew were requisitioned from the Varix IV Penal colony and the Armsmen are made up of volunteers from each planet and station that the Meru has docked at since it came into the possession of the Lord Commander. The officers and non commissioned officers, almost to a man, have extensive service experience in either the Imperial Navy or Imperial Guard. So far there have been no serious incidents amongst the crew, the Command staff have bedded in well, morale is high and there has been no sign of anything untoward with the ship itself.

Senior Commissar Hetik
Senior Commissar Leora Hetik is a respected but not well loved figure by the troops that she administers. A severe and unforgiving woman who's age is undeterminable due to the extensive scars that cover her body and the large number of implants and cybernetics of varying craftsmanship that adorn her body that speak of a lifetime spent at the forefront of the Emperor's armies. Little is known about her past save that she served with Lord Commander krove and the medallion of the Order of St Kark and bar that she proudly wears on her chest marks her out as a commissar who will not hesitate to execute any and all officers and men who she feels have failed in their duty to the Emperor. Senior Commisar Hetik is currently serving as the Company Commissar to the Alpha Coy 1/45th Karlson Fusiliers. She will need all her resolve and will power to survive her deployment with the 'Wyrms as summary executions will doubtless invite murderous retribution from the luckless guardsman's comrades.

Sergeant at Arms Skrol
A veteran of Battlefleet Kronus with vacuum scarred skin and an bulky cybernetic arm studded with kill marks and trophies. Sgt at Arms Skrol is an imposing figure habitually dressed in an immaculately pressed Battlefleet Koronus unifrom the left breast of which is literally covered with awards and distinctions ranging from the commonplace marks of service to some which mark some very uncommon feats of arms. Sgt at Arms Skrol who is too jaded and saturnine to make a good shipboard NCO but who is never the less trusted by his armsmen in combat due to his highly attuned instincts and his prowess at close quarters. He has spent his entire life plying the void within the expanse and has fought eye to eye with everything from Rak Ghol marauders to Dark Eldar corsairs and lived to tell the tale (and provide him with more than a few galley tall stories). Few men know as much about the expanse as Sgt at Arms Skrol, how much of his knowledge is accurate is, however, debatable. He is currently assigned as liaison between the ships command staff and Alpha Coy, 1/45th Karlson's Fusiliers, much to his disgust.

Welcome to the Expanse
The only experience with warp travel that you have had was the relatively short 2 week journey through the warp that took you to the mustering grounds on Demeris just as the Keralis front was collapsing. It did little to prepare you for the 6 month journey to Footfall and the Koronus expanse. You are 3 months in and while the nightmares have begun to fade and the pervasive smell of ozone has begun to merge with smell of coolant, metal and endlessly recycled air you doubt that you will ever truly get used to being so close to the warp.
Although it is relatively new to you ship board routine has already become a chore, a seemingly endless cycle of 2 weeks of guard duty, 1 week of training and 1 week of administration/rest. Guard duty consists of patrolling prominent locations on the ship, commonly the entertainment areas and major thoroughfares, to ensure that the voidsmen respect the proper authorities and assisting the ship's Regulators maintain order. Each cycle of guard duty takes place in a different location to ensure that there is little fraternisation between the guardsmen and the voidmen and to prevent the guardsmen becoming complacent in familiar surroundings.
Your section are midway through your first week of guard at the rather seedy brothels and bars that make up the majority of the recreational facilities between launcher 73 and 79 in the upper starboard missile battery. Your company is stationed along the main thoroughfare, a high vaulted corridor 30 meters wide stretching for nearly a kilometre, lined with metal panels that were once painted light grey but have started to discolour to a sickly pale yellow and lit by the wan glow provided by dark hours glowbulbs. The corridor itself is perfectly straight with regular branching corridors leading to missile launchers, store rooms, and currently closed drinking dens. During this watch the corridor is all but deserted, with only a few maintenance crews in evidence, most of whom seem to be comprised of servitors. For once the ship is almost quiet.
Your section has been tasked with guarding the intersection with Launcher 75 and the optimistically titled 'Emperor's Best' galley. As the risk of mutiny is so low small arms are all that is deemed necessary to keep the peace, anything larger would simply be too dangerous to be used except to repel a serious threat to the ship. Each company has been assigned a small cadre of Regulators who provide a direct link to the ship's chain of command as well as deal with any discipline issues that may arise, currently Regulator Hyr is on station alongside you.
You are now 3 hours into your watch and time has really started to drag when a rating hurries over and tells Regulator Hyr that he has found something that he should be interested in. The regulator and the rating move off down a small side tunnel that you think contains nothing more than a disused electrical substaion. Your section remains on guard for about 10 minutes listening to metallic hammering noises and the sound of a drill emanating from side tunnel when you hear a scream of pain and what sounds like a blade scraping on metal followed by a loud crash and what sounded like a chainsword cutting bone.
You rush towards the noise and find Regulator Hyr unconscious in the substation next to an open hatchway. His leg has been severed just above the knee (easy awareness/medicae test if passed it has been severed by something relatively blunt but used with great force). He has already lost a great deal of blood and will soon die if not treated (30 second timer and an ordinary medicae test is needed to staunch the bleeding and stabilise him). Once stabilised he will regain conciousness and say that he was called to investigate a hatchway that had been found by a maintenance crew in the substation floor that seemed to have been welded shut from the inside, he instructed the servitor to cut the weld which revealed a dark corridor lined with something organic. He had just turned round to summon your aid when something hit him from behind and he lost consciousness. He has no idea what became of the ratings on the maintenance crew nor the servitor. If the Regulator died an ordinary awareness/perception check will reveal that the hatch has been secured from the inside.
The corridor is otherwise a dead end so the maintenance crew must have gone through the hatch way. You inform your company commander of what has occurred who orders you to investigate and use an escape ladder to descend into the newly opened corridor.
The corridor is quite small, 6 feet by 7 feet, and its walls and floor are almost completely covered by spongy fungal growths which a sweet, yeasty smell that is very reminiscent of baking bread. The corridor is dimly lit by emergency glow bulbs but which is more than adequate to navigate and to examine your immediate surroundings. The most noticable thing is the servitor which has obviously been damaged beyond repair and is missing an arm(an easy awareness, perception or tech use check will show that it has been attacked repeatedly with a large blunt blade with a great deal of force, 2 degrees of success will show that the teeth of its cutting arm have a light coating of a dull black liquid that could be some kind of blood and that there are small chips of a reddish boney materiel lodged between several of the blades teeth, both of these things may have an innocuous explanation however).
The fungal growths quickly regain their original form when pressed which has removed all traces of the attackers, aside from liberal splashes of blood around the hatchway, so all that remains to be done is to follow the corridor to see where it leads. The corridor is unbroken for several hundred metres when you come to a large open area with several raised objects arranged in rows in the centre of the room, their exact form or function has been hidden by the fungus however.
(at this stage there isn't anything to do except advance into the room) When the section reaches approximately the centre of the room a voice calls out Halt! You are surrounded! in low gothic. The voice sounds deep and strong but with an odd inflection and misplaced pauses as though the speaker isn't used to talking aloud or is sufficiently unfamiliar with the language to need to think about exactly which words to use.
(if the party takes up a combat stance the voice will order them to lower their weapons, if they refuse then the voice will withdraw silently. If the party does lower their weapons or hasn't taken an aggressive posture a figure will move slowly forward.
The man could be of any age between 30 and 60 and looks careworn, clad in the rags of what is most probably a voidsman uniform but is now little more than threadbare scraps. In his hand he brandishes a disposable pistol, the kind common in survival kits and which can fire 6 medium calibre stub rounds (assuming it doesn't jam or simply fall to pieces first). Despite his ramshackle appearance the figure has clearly made some effort to maintain his clothing as it is much patched and relatively clean.
He asks what is your purpose here?
He explains that he has a good idea about the attackers were, and no it wasn't anything to do with him.
He offers to take you to where they are likely to be hidden if you agree to escort him back to the ship proper.
If you refuse he simply retreats into the shadows. If you engage him you will easily kill him (he has nothing worthwhile by way of loot as his pistol turns out to be unloaded)
If you accept he will reveal that he is actually alone and that he has been in hiding for a very long period of time, certainly years, possibly decades. What he was hiding from or who he is he won't say.
He explains that the attackers (or them as he describes them with barely concealed venom) will probably be found in what he describes as the 'clean lab' which is about 300 metres down a corridor off to the left. The other corridors all end in storerooms and the like of little interest or value but which waste valuable time
The clean lab is of a similar size to the last large room, with similar fungal growths in the centre of the room. This time however it also contains several large insectile creatures. Each is about 2 metres long, with dull reddish scales, a small head with sharp looking mandibles, 3 sets of small but powerful legs and an upper pair of bladed limbs. They currently appear to be asleep but appearances can be deceptive.
If the party was guided and approached stealthily they will get a free round. If they approached stealthily without a guide they must take a stealth check (at the lowest value of the group) or roll for initiative normally. If they spent time exploring the last room the stealth check has a -10 modifier to represent the creatures beginning to wake up. After winning the combat the room can be searched. The mounds in the centre of the room turn out to be corroded steel lab benches with contain nothing of real interest. In the corner of the room is a small bone pile which on closer inspection will contain what's left of the servitors arm as well as a tattered and newly bloodstained voidsman's uniform. Roll a D3 and consult the loot table to see what else they find amongst the detritus:
1. Common quality hand shotgun with 10 shells
2. Chain melee attachment
3. recoil gloves
(the higher numbers also find the lower tiers, a 3 will find all the loot on the table for example)
Should anyone want to look closer the person with the best awareness or scrutiny roll will find an old and badly battered lasgun. Even though the weapon itself is corroded and the barrel has been bent the powerpack looks brand new and of very high quality manufacture, even more amazingly the charge light shows a steady green. Further testing will reveal that it is in fact an archeotech powerpack which adds significantly to the power output of any weapon that will accept a standard lasgun charge pack, it will last for hundreds of shots before shutting down for several hours to recharge itself via some arcane means (+2 dam and pen plus it will never run dry in normal combat situations).
Once the room has been explored to the section's satisfaction the man will scuttle off to a small workshop that was almost hidden amongst the fungus. It would appear was at one time his home but the beasts must have forced him to move hurriedly. An old cot sits in the corner and there are several workbenches and tool racks against one wall, their contents dusty but neat. The other wall is taken up with storage boxes. The man explains that his name is Teyr, he is an Artificer's mate second class. He was 17 and he was on his first interstellar voyage on the Meru under Captain Metz of House Krayn. He was part of a climate control engineering team that was working in the lab deck maintaining the environmental monitors during a dark watch when the ship came under fire and the entire laboratory deck was automatically sealed, trapping them inside. He doesn't know who attacked them or why and you are the first humans that he has seen for a very long time. Originally there were 37 crewmen, 1 officer and 5 servitors who survived from 'a long time' on emergency rations and the remaining provisions in the galley although the servitors quickly ran out of charge and became dormant. The repair crew were unable to attract any response from the rest of the crew and the vox net had been disabled, they were also unable to access the laboratories themselves and were unaware of their contents although the officer seemed particularly apprehensive about them. After a period of time the ship's main power failed or was turned off which unsealed the laboratories and more importantly their holding pens. Teyr doesn't know exactly what the creatures they contained but he does know that they are murderous. Half of the survivors fell in the first attack and the remainder were hunted down over the following weeks leaving only Teyr left alive and that was purely because he had managed to find a relatively secure hiding place before the creatures inexplicably became dormant and apparently went into hibernation. He eked out the years by scavenging as much as he could from safe areas and by eating the fungal growths that now cover nearly every surface, apparently the fungus was undergoing testing to gauge their suitability for use as a food source on voidships at least that's what the notes that Teyr found in a small side office claimed and he seems to have suffered no ill effects after eating nothing else for years.
'They' began waking up several dozen sleeps ago, probably around the time that the Meru embarked, and Teyr was forced to flee from his lair and he has been lurking in remote corners at the edges of the lab ever since which is where you found him. Teyr explains that there seem to be two groups of the beasts, one that you have killed and another one lead by particularly large specimen, probably some kind of queen or alpha male that seem to spend their time in the main lab itself, Teyr also explains that the main laboratory logic engine can be found in an adjacent chamber which will doubtless contain much information of value.
The section can now either return to the entry point and report and handover Teyr to the regulators to meet whatever fate will be decided for him or they can press onwards. If they return they will be ordered to return to clear out the beasts by their company commander although they can resupply with basic items first (ammo, grenades etc).
The lab itself is massive, easily several hundred meters in diameter and like the others rooms in this deck everything is thickly overgrown with fungus. Approximately 50 meters off to the left near what appears to be a heat exchanger you can make out a cluster of the same creatures that attacked you previously, although these seem to be slightly darker in colour, surrounding a massive example of their kind, easily twice the size of its smaller brethren.
If the party returned to report they blunder into the creatures who will have fully woken up, fight the combat as normal. If guided by Teyr and approach silently the section will get a free round and will gain a +10 bonus to their initiative for the combat.
Once the combat is over the lab and its storerooms can be searched although there has been considerable damage over the years, roll a D4 and consult the following loot chart:
1. 3 doses of detox
2. Auspex
3. Advanced medkit
4. good quality carapace helm with inbuild rebreather, magnoculars, microbead and preysense googles.
As before higher rolls include lower results
The logic engine seems to be in working condition but you are unable to perform the correct rites of initiation, someone more favoured by the ommnsiah will be required to coax it back to life and acquire its secrets.
You leave the lab deck and make a report to your company commander who relieves you of the remainder of your watch and you go and get your head down. You never hear of Teyr's fate and exactly what occured in the lab or its purpose and what became of house Krayn will remain a mystery to the likes of you although some of the galley tales seem a lot less tall than they used to.