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Made in it
Fresh-Faced New User




Italy

So, allow me to explain to you exactly what my situation is: starting last summer, and ending literally last week, a friend of man acted as the "game master", for lack of a better term, in a narrative campaign he made specifically for me. Basically the idea is that I would play as a Character, by which I mean that I had to roleplay as a person who could be represented on the 40k table by a model that has the [CHARACTER] keyword. He concocted this amazing storyline that called for me to interact with various people within the setting, making difficult choices, trying to improve my standing with some key NPCs, and investigating the truth behind the plot: all this would be done in a D&D-esque manner, just to give you an idea of what we were doing. THEN, when the need arose to actually fight, we would take things to the 40k table, where I would have at my disposal my character and an army that obeyed standard narrative play/crusade rules. It was one of the most fun experiences of my life and I loved with all my heart, I won't bore you with further details right now (unless someone asks, wink wink), but suffices to say, I was playing as an Interrogator Chaplain of the Dark Angel, visiting a Knight World for the alleged purpose of helping organize its defenses against an impending Xenos invasion (the real purpose, of course, was investigating clues that might indicate the presence of a Fallen on the planet), only to get sucked into a multi-layered conspiracy which, at times, legitimately kept me up at night trying to figure out what was going on. My friend is a really good game master.

And now I get to the reason why I'm starting this topic. You see, my friend and I had an agreement, upon starting that narrative campaign: he would act as the game master and run the campaign for me, but in return I had to promise that, afterward, I would act as the game master and run a similar campaign for him. With this in mind, I have started brainstorming possible ideas as to what I could put together for him, and I really would appreciate any help you guys are willing to offer, because to be absolutely honest, my mastery of the 40k lore is nowhere near the level of my friend's, and I'm afraid that, if I were to ponder this on my own, I might come up with something too basic, too linear, and fail to live up to the level of complexity he created for me. Here are all the info you'll need to know about what we're setting up:

1) Factions to be included in the plot are NOT limited by model availability: my friend is a long-time player who owns a crapton of models from all manners of factions (even in the campaign he ran for me I used no models of my own, I borrowed everything, including my own character, from him), his brother-in-law is another avid collector who can lend us any models we lack, and we can proxy anything still missing after that. So yeah, assume there is no limit to the number of people/models/factions that can potentially show up.

2) My friend wants to play as a Chaos character. His goal is to live and breathe the life of an ambitious heretic, who starts small and goes on build his own warband, earning the favor of the Chaos Gods and becoming infamous in the process.

3) He doesn't like Black Legion, and is not too fond of any of the legions that are locked to one specific Chaos God. He'd rather be involved in a plot which involves all four, with the ability to earn favor with each of them in order to acquire specific boons. By my count this leaves Iron Warriors, Word Bearers and assorted renegade chapters.

4) Alternatively, Chaos Knights are also on the table: he did in fact preorder the new Chaos Knights army set. A while back MiniWarGaming did this narrative campaign that had custom mechanics for building, upgrading and maintaining the protagonist's very own Imperial Knight, I could do something like that but on the Chaos side

So yeah, I need to figure out something to put together based on all this. My main difficulty comes from the fact that I'm not used to thinking to Chaos worshipers as protagonists: when you think about it, the entire point of telling a story revolves around the simple fact that the protagonist has a goal, and then a complex narrative is built around it... Which is exactly what happened in the game my friend ran for me: there is the established goal for an Interrogator Chaplain (investigating Fallen presence), and then a layered plot structure with all manners of colorful characters is built around it.

That is exactly the kind of thing I need to build for him, but... What goal would a Chaos worshiper actually have? What do these guys want? Toppling the Imperium and bringing glory to Chaos, I reckon, but those are not realistic goals for a campaign that is limited in scope. I need something more grounded and straightforward to build a story around. I will meet my friend next week-end and he will almost certainly offer input and ideas of his own, but I would still prefer to show up having some solid ideas to put on the table, just to show him that I'm as serious about this as he was about the campaign he ran for me. To this end I've been reading books such as the Word Bearers Omnibus, to acquire better insight on the mentality of these Chaos followers, and get an idea of the kind of stories one can build around them... But that's ONE series built around ONE sub-faction. If you could recommend other similar books I could read that are about other sub-factions, that would be great. And of course, if you can think of any input, ideas, options, anything you want to say that could be food for thought, that would be amazing and immensely appreciated.

Thank you in advance!
   
Made in us
Storm Trooper with Maglight






Probably first of all figure out if they want to play as say a Chaos Marine or a human heretic.

The old Fantasy Flight Game rpg line had an entire series based on Chaos, called Black Crusade. If you can find some of those books (I know they sell the pdfs still somewhere), they can give you some insights into goals, resources, and so on. It also has rules for infamy and corruption that you can probably pull some ideas from - showing the increasing powerbase of the player as they advance their goals. There is also a pretty good adventure module they released that you could cannibalize for ideas called Hand of Corruption.

The simplest bit, ask your friend what sort of goals they have in mind - capturing a system to rule themselves, forming a coalition of chaos marines and renegades and the like to become one of the powerbrokers on the Chaos side of things, becoming a Daemon Prince, etc. Figure out the starting position of the guy and build them up from there through ups and downs - are they starting as a human cult leader? Rogue Imperial Guard captain? Lone Chaos Marine? Are they from one of the legions, a recent renegade, etc?

If they are going for a undivided, then make them walk the tightrope - they need to balance the desires of all 4 gods, and if they stray to favoring one too hard they might fall into the trap of becoming dedicated solely to them.

   
Made in de
Ork Admiral Kroozin Da Kosmos on Da Hulk






You could also have him play as a recently turned renegade who is looking for a place in the universe for himself. Let him pick whether he wants to follow a legion, an established warband like the red corsairs or maybe start his own warband of misfits as part of the plot.

You can have each of the chaos gods tempt him, staying at least somewhat sane and balancing the four ruinous powers is a difficult task all by itself.

7 Ork facts people always get wrong:
Ragnar did not win against Thrakka, but suffered two crushing defeats within a few days of each other.
A lasgun is powerful enough to sever an ork's appendage or head in a single, well aimed shot.
Orks meks have a better understanding of electrics and mechanics than most Tech Priests.
Orks do not think that purple makes them harder to see. They do think that camouflage does however, without knowing why.
Gharkull Blackfang did not even come close to killing the emperor.
Orks can be corrupted by chaos, but few of them have any interest in what chaos offers.
Orks do not have the power of believe. 
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran





You might have the chaos aspirant's goal to be the completion of some ritual carried out in a final game. Along the way various components and clues should be required for the task, a treasure hunt of sorts.

Maybe throw in a twist where the player discovers the presence of hated rival also seeking personal glory, so the aspirant has a chance to thwart his enemy's plans as well. Perhaps even the aspirant was first being used by another, only to discover the plot and turn the fates against his rival.
   
Made in it
Fresh-Faced New User




Italy

A lot of good ideas have been suggested so far, and I thank all of you. I am especially fascinated by the ideas you recommended about, as Kurhanik put it, "walking the tightrope" with the Chaos Gods.

Since myself and my friend both immediately fell in love with the new Abominant Knight, here is a potential idea involving it: you're a knight pilot and you're enjoying life, you know, young hot-headed noble seeking glory and fame, the usual.

You begin manifesting psychic powers, but you keep this a secret, and rely on your instincts and ingenuity to come up with new, interesting ways of making your bond with your machine deeper and more intimate, as the Warp empowers you both and makes you capable of incredible feats... Which of course, is tech-heresy: suddenly the AdMech wants your warp-touched machine destroyed for being an abomination, the Imperium wants you dead for being an unsanctioned psyker, your own family has disowned you. On the other side are the forces of Chaos, who also very clearly aren't your friends: CSM warbands just want to use your power as a tool in their latest schemes, which your pride cannot accept. You need allies, but who can you trust? Given your rising power and your situation, it certainly wouldn't be difficult for you to obtain the favor of the Chaos Gods, but that too doesn't sound that hot an idea, now does it? Do you really want to put your trust in beings that can so easily plunge you into complete insanity?

So yeah, that's an idea I can see working. Now, here is a question for the nice people who've been helping so far: how feasible would this kind of thing be, in terms of logistics? Like, we're talking about a big knight being on the loose from pretty much everyone in the galaxy: the ship required to get it off-planet is not going to fly itself, and the inevitable maintenance requires people too: how many people, at a bare minimum, would our protagonist to have on his side from the very start, on order for this to be even thinkable?
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran





Perhaps this traitor has the patronage of a very dangerous and influential Chaos Lord? Or he finds a way to convince others that he has this clout (such as carrying one of his signet rings), knowing full well the clock is ticking on his little ruse so he must accomplish his goals before being discovered. The minions of Chaos are easily cowed into looking the other way if they think their own lives are on the line. People will not wish to question the motivations of their betters unless they can guarantee their own safety, which is quite difficult in that society.
   
Made in de
Perfect Shot Dark Angels Predator Pilot




Stuttgart

This got me really inspired, so I put some thought into it. Sensible characters needed to keep the Knight running:
A Techpriest / Sacristan
This could either be a former Sacristan / Techpriest in service of the characters family who falls to chaos together with the character, or someone with his own agenda.
A mighty machine like a knight would certainly draw a mad engineer type character who wants to see the true potential of technology and demonic unleashed, without care who ends up on the wrong end of such might.
Could be interesting for the character to walk the line between upgrading the knight and risking full on demonic possession or even destruction of the knight.
Alternatively this could be a dark mechanicum disciple seeking to unearth inner secrets of the machine to further his own knowledge, and without a watchful eye of the main character may just disassemble the knight and disappear without a trace.
Transport ship crew, especially the Captain
The logistics behind transporting the knight may be a real key element to the roleplaying element of the campaign. How does the main character get from place to place?
I could imagine that the nobles descent to chaos is rather drawn out and slow, and that he has deep bonds with the crew. This really depends where you kick of your campaign, is the noble already fallen? Then he may be forced to strike an unfavorable deal with a chaos warband to ensure transportation. Can he convince former household allies to join him? This may open up more reliable and loyal means of transportation.
I have no exact numbers on the amount of people required to crew a ship capable of transporting a knight, but it should be considered that the knight requires a non-ftl transport craft to and from the planet surface as well as a ftl-capable vessel transporting the knight to different theaters of war.
But most of the personnel required might not be that important for the RPG aspect and could be hand waved as loyal to the captain of the main ship / pilot of the lander.
Mentor
This isn't as required as those characters above, but I believe it makes sense that the noble will seek somebody out to teach him more about chaos and psychic powers once his family and the Imperium want to kill him.
The mentors agenda could be anything from believing the main character is part of some prophecy to just wanting to lure the main character onto a path that benefits the mentors future schemes.
What I believe is important to note is the big risk of untrained psychers using the warp without any sort of training - the main character could quickly end up as a chaos spawn. So I would believe it to be quite sensible to including a teaching character of sorts into the campaign.

TLDR:
- A Techpriest to maintain the knight
- A captain of a warp-capable transport ship
- A pilot of a orbit-to-surface landing craft
- (Optional) a mentor to teach the main character about the warp

It may be sensible to decide where to start the campaign first, because some of these characters may be already known to the main character and swayed/corrupted through clever maneuvering - a mutiny to replace the captain with the first mate for example? Others could be replaced over the campaign - the techpriest no willing to take that extra step replaced with an iron warrior warpsmith?
   
Made in us
Storm Trooper with Maglight






If you are doing the fall of a Knight pilot, maybe begin with a "prologue" of sorts - like a mini-campaign under the Imperium of 2-3 small battles against Chaos, Xenos, rebels, etc. They begin play as a regular Knight essentially and begin getting Chaosy as things go. Let them make friends, allies, enemies, etc during this time frame.

Then, their heresy is noted, and maybe there is an escape mission, where they and their closest followers need to flee their former forces, perhaps to join the very people they were fighting against.

Chaos is chaotic, maybe several whole missions are based on obtaining the gear needed to maintain the Knight - maybe rumor of a captured Heretek currently imprisoned comes their way, or they learn of an Imperial supply depot that has a small gap in its defenses that could be abused. The player can then pick between say rescuing the Heretek, and gaining an ally (maybe a Tech Priest Engineer + 1 Squad of Skitarii are now open to be taken in the army at any mission), or taking the depot (which pushes forward the overall goals of the campaign sooner and gives access to more supplies [points, access to vehicles, etc].

While you said player wants to be a Knight pilot, either figure out their stats on foot, or give them a loyal lieutenant, that way for missions that say involve fighting through corridors, they can be involved still (the example of rescuing the Heretek).

Perhaps make the entire first arc of the campaign the Fall of the Knight, followed by them obtaining the resources to be self sufficient - fighting to take the very planet they were trying to save. Or at the very least aligning with the enemies of the Imperium until such a time as they can obtain a path off planet for them and their allies. Say conquer a continent and hold it long enough for retrieval, or take the entire world and be able to gain space access for more men/resources.

Make a few characters from their former household too - to be recurring villains. Some may be hunting them personally, some might bump into by chance, one or two might even fall with them etc.

You might want to look into...Renegades and Heretics I think the list was, back in 7th edition, for some ideas on how to build their army up of various disparate elements. Obviously don't use the list 1:1, but since this is an rpg style campaign, it might be nice to take ideas from all over the place.
   
Made in it
Fresh-Faced New User




Italy

Oh wow, you guys are giving me so much great advice! I knew posting here would be the right decision.

So, here are a few more things I was pondering, based on the feedback you guys have provided:

1) Determining in a very precise manner at what point the story starts, and how quickly the fall happens as part of the "prologue", is going to be a crucial story element. I'll be sure to talk to my friend and put together something that works for the both of us.

2) Black Crusade rules will most likely come into play. The protagonist's on-foot character will be created as a rogue psyker from that system, and the rules of that system will be used for social interactions, stealth missions etc. The reason for this is that I really want to convey the idea that our protagonist is a skilled Knight pilot and a blossoming psyker, but isn't really all that used to fighting on foot, and while he does have some basic combat training it is certainly not enough to go toe to toe with soldiers, xenos, skitarii or, Emperor forbids, Space Marines. So whenever the time comes to pursue a goal, my fiend would need to choose how to go about it. Let's take the example Kurhanik made: freeing a Heretek who's being held in a fortress. My friend could choose to infiltrate the fortress as a stealth mission, using skills, psychic powers, subterfuge and the occasional knife to the back in order to make his way to the Heretek's cell and bust him out... OR he could turn this mission into a 40k battle by just deciding to assault the fortress with his Knight, trying to take the Heretek by force. The beauty of owning a giant robot with weapons the size of a house is that you can brute force your way out of most situations, if you're so inclined, although doing so would involve multiple risks. Namely...

3) I was thinking that every single one of the protagonist's actions should be scrutinized by the Chaos Gods, and every single time he makes a decision his stance with them changes accordingly. Obvious example: choosing to resolve a situation by relying on psychic powers will gain favor with Tzeentch, but lose favor with Khorne. By hitting certain "favor thresholds" with a god, the protagonist would unlock the "Favor of the Dark Gods" upgrades for his Knight associated with that god... Which is an incredibly dangerous thing, because using those upgrades would itself be considered an action that gains favor with the god in question, meaning that, once the protagonist crosses a certain threshold, it would be very easy for his favor with/devotion to a specific god to snowball very quickly. And of course, you don't want that to happen, because getting too close with a specific chaos god is going to inflict you and your Knight with all manners of corruptions/mutations/permanent debuffs/assorted unpleasant things. So essentially you want to try and strike a balance between acquiring more power and retaining your sanity/physical integrity.

4) Lastly, I mentioned this earlier, but a while back MiniWarGaming did a series about a narrative campaign very similar to this project of mine, whose protagonist was an Imperial Knight. In that occasion they created a series of tables, special sheets and custom rules dedicating to taking care, improving, and potentially also damaging and ruining, your loyalist Knight. So yeah, I could use those as an example and rework them with a Chaos flavor (I'm a game designer, this kind of stuff is my job, I should be able to sort it out easily enough), in order to set up a system capable of keeping track of both combat damage and Warp corruption suffered by the Knight, as well as potential countermeasures, and also mechanical improvements, the protagonist might procure.

Essentially, this would end up being a game that has three layers: you have the standard 40k 9e battles, you have the stealth/social aspect done under Black Crusade rules, and you have the Knight management aspect. I think I should be able to juggle these three systems to make them enjoyable and flavorful, without them becoming overly complicated for the player to keep track of.
   
 
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