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I'm just wondering if the story would be lore friendly

I've been thinking of a story inspired by Rambo first blood part 2 where an extremely skilled and retired Imperial Guardsmen/Stormtrooper(or possibly a disgraced Space Marine too ashamed to even join Death Watch)) is sent on a mission by a rather liberal and understanding Inquisitor(and long time friend) in exchange for a pardon for a crime to investigate experiments the Dark Eldar may be preforming on captured human prisoners of war and not to rescue them but he does anyways and you probably can predict what shenanigans he gets into on commorragh, with him rescuing prisoners, space marine, humans, and xenos alike via taking control of a captured valkyrie(or thunderhawk) and destroying everything he sees

The first problem would be gaining entry into Commoragh. The Salamanders only got there because Vect let them, and i doubt he wants to repeat the deed, especially not for Sly Marbos.

kaszak wrote:
The first problem would be gaining entry into Commoragh. The Salamanders only got there because Vect let them, and i doubt he wants to repeat the deed, especially not for Sly Marbos.

Which is why he hitches a ride with some Eldar pirates

BobtheConquistador wrote:

Which is why he hitches a ride with some Eldar pirates

If someone could manage to trick an enemy with vastly superior technology and lay waste to/stealth their way through their city (which is in itself at least the size of a planet, most likely bigger), he might as well just march into the Imperial Palace, kick Big E off the throne and take his place.

Change it to an dark elder slave staging area on an asteroid, or they get secret help from a harlequin who needs a diversion for his own reasons.

It's possible, But stealth would take a higher priority then guns blazing. Remember each and every dark Eldar is faster, more agile and has better reactions then your guardsmen, so any fire fight will be a big threat. Also remember Commarragh is big, beyond comprehension kinda big, so you need a specific mission that is keyed to a certain location or Kabal. I would suggest that your character gets purposely captured to get into the slave arenas of a certain Kabal, then using hidden digiweapons, a gift from the Inquisitor he leads a revolt. During the confusion he escapes with some, but not all of the friends he intended to rescue.

Yeah, a slave revolt would be cool

Revolt on a astaroid holding base?

There dark city is impregnable if they want it but outer slave holding points or raid outposts are easier targets to attack and infiltrate.

 jhe90 wrote:

There dark city is impregnable

Certainly not. Imagine the embarrassment a Kabal would suffer from having some of their slaves actually escape. It's not far-fetched to imagine the Kabals enemies (and everyone Kabal has them by the bucketload) giving the upstarts a nudge in the right direction with the aim of ridiculing the Kabal in front of their peers.


In fact, I recall exactly such a situation occurring with a squad of plucky guardsmen. They kill the jailor and, with the help of a slave, retrieve their weapons and conduct a fighting retreat to a webway portal and on to freedom. Of course, it turns out the whole thing is staged and the portal leads directly out into the sands of the Wych Arena, their escape just being the prologue to their messy demise.

An Inquisitor wouldn't care that much over human prisoners to even entertain a mission.... Not even for another Inquisitor I imagine.

Has there been any successful instances of prisoners escaping from the commoragh?

One we know of, he was set free after loosing his eyes back on an imperial planet. The Inquisition got hold of him and 'silenced' him.

To add another layer to the story, what if the Inquisitor had help from the Harlequins to get out of the City. Imagine it as a sort of get to the choppa moment, ''Get captured, Retrieve the prisoner, Stage Breakout and Get to these co-ordinates by this time where a temporary Webway Portal will lead you home'' Easy beginning, middle and end. Just don't think about what ''Owing you one'' entails when said to a Harlequin.

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
One we know of, he was set free after loosing his eyes back on an imperial planet. The Inquisition got hold of him and 'silenced' him.

To add another layer to the story, what if the Inquisitor had help from the Harlequins to get out of the City. Imagine it as a sort of get to the choppa moment, ''Get captured, Retrieve the prisoner, Stage Breakout and Get to these co-ordinates by this time where a temporary Webway Portal will lead you home'' Easy beginning, middle and end. Just don't think about what ''Owing you one'' entails when said to a Harlequin.

Thats sort of what I was thinking about, do the Harlequin hate the Dark Eldar?

Getting "help" from the inside (be that Harlequins, Craftworld Eldar or even an ambitious/foolhardy Dark Eldar Archon makes the whole thing much more workable.

Come to think of it, a Dark Eldar "man on the inside" would work best in this situation because then you have a reasonable explanation for the situation not escalating too quickly (think 'Dark Eldar Archon downplaying the situation to his peers, while NotRambo goes on his rampage fairly unmolested').

Doesn't seem possible given the background you offered. Straight off the guns blazing strategy wouldn't work at any point. Commorragh is huge, like continent sized, maybe even small planet sized, Haemnonculi live in the depths of it and that is where they are most likely to perform their experiments. After they escaped their cells they would have to make their way to the surface though what would essentially be a maze surviving booby traps that can take any shape, or even be chemical, or biological in nature, while avoiding guards.

Then they would need to steal a transport. Dark eldar are arrogant and wouldn't have "inferior" imperial tech like valkries laying around (it might make their hanger smell like monkeigh), so it would be far more likely a raider or something like that, which they wouldn't know how to drive. Then find out where a webway portal is at and make it there. Every step of this would need to be done in the dark, while their captor see fine.

Then they would have to elude the guards, fortifications, razorwing fighters, ravagers, raiders, reavers, and scourge that the would be patrolling the kabal's territory. If they were noticed then these forces would also be actively pursuing them. If they escape from that kabals territory then they would be a lone raider filled with slaves without an escort. So basically a perfect target for every other kabal and gang they encounter.

If they ended up on foot then it may be outright impossible. They would have no food or supplies and could be days, weeks, or even months from a portal on foot while trying to avoid notice. Every dark eldar is a predator actively seeking prey so even the homeless dregs they encounter would seek to kill them painfully. Hellion gangs who sweep through the street decapitating anyone they catch would be a constant threat.

If somehow they made it to a portal then they wouldn't know how to open it and it would be guarded. So they would have to wait for it be opened overpower the guards and make it into it. This places them in the webway which is a labyrinthine dimension that can even be dangerous to eldar who know how to navigate it, let alone slaves with no supplies who have never been there before.

You can write whatever fluff you want, but this would rapidly descend into extremely, even for 40K, unrealistic mary suedom. Honestly, if the inquisitor wanted to know what the heamonculi were experimenting with he would have better luck just asking them. If he was smart enough to begin to understand it might amuse a heamonculous to show him, if the inquisitor had something to trade.

Harlequins as whole get along with dark eldar just fine, depending on the masque. They might have different goals than the kabal and coven involved though. What would their motivation be though? Any help would risk everything for what reward? Helping humans ins't a high priority for eldar of any variety.

The eldar factions dont "hate" each other. they are just dicks to everyone

including them selves

they all have plans that span WAY into the future.

So could one help infiltrate rambo into the dark city? possibly.

would he be detected immediately? yes.

he would have to be a master psyker that is able to mask his prescience. or have another do so for him.

The Eldar Pariah managed to infiltrate Commoragh somehow. He was an Exarch of an unknown aspect (although he bore a strong resemblance to the Shadow Spectres that Forge World came out with about a decade later). He and Ephrael Stern then escaped using her Daemonifuge powers to rip a hole out of the webway.

What if he was a pariah/blank that happend to be really good at stealth

Its highly doubtful that any rescue mission would be undertaken into the Dark City. Nobody is that valuable.

That said, I could easily see the following mission.

An important person of interest has been captured by Dark Eldar slavers. They are currently at a pirate base. The operative has been tasked with infiltrating the base and rescuing this person, getting out just before the Imperial Navy shows up and obliterates the pirates of course.

The mission goes awry and the operative is forced to sneak aboard a dark elf ship, which is currently transporting the prisoner to Commorragh. The Navy shows up and obliterates the Pirate base on schedule, but the operative and prisoner are deemed lost.

Many hijinks later, the operative manages to escape Commorragh with his charge somehow.

BobtheConquistador wrote:
What if he was a pariah/blank that happend to be really good at stealth

Doesn't really matter, the psychic void they emanate is physically and mentally crippling to beings with warp presence (particularly the heightened levels of the Eldar) when in close proximity. Dark Eldar may not practice psychic abilities, but they still burn bright in the warp. And I imagine that as soon as a blank would get in a few hundred yards of an Eldar, they would be immediately alerted to his/her existence.

 Accolade wrote:

BobtheConquistador wrote:
What if he was a pariah/blank that happend to be really good at stealth

Doesn't really matter, the psychic void they emanate is physically and mentally crippling to beings with warp presence (particularly the heightened levels of the Eldar) when in close proximity. Dark Eldar may not practice psychic abilities, but they still burn bright in the warp. And I imagine that as soon as a blank would get in a few hundred yards of an Eldar, they would be immediately alerted to his/her existence.

Pretty much. Blankers aren't subtle or stealthy. Even nonpsychics can sense their presence, although they won't know what they're sensing other than 'something is wrong here'.

A few thoughts to go into this:

1) Who/what would be valuable enough to an Inquisitor to warrant them to sanction a rescue mission into Commarragh? My best answer is a Sensi, a perpetual scion of the Emperors linage that *certain* Inquisitors believe are the secret to resurrecting the Emperor in the Starchild theory. It's easy to consider in their long, immortal lives a Sensi was captured in a Raid and taken to Commarragh, where I imagine a Haemonculus would just *LOVE* to play with a Perpetual, he/she would be his prized possession. You now have a goal, get into the Dark City, rescue the Sensi from under the Archon/Haemonculi's nose and escape.

2) It's also quite easy to forsee a Harlequin being indepted to an Inquisitor for one reason or the other so the Inquisitor calls in her favor to give the Sensi an escape route. You now have an escape route, a fun little side story about how the Inquisitor and Harlequin are friends and more importantly a deadline, giving the story a sense of urgency.

3) Beginning: NotRambo is in early retirement after a long Spec-Ops career. Inquisitor pops up in a black Limo kinda deal, an 'convinces' (probably by flashing the Rosette) NotRambo to undertake a mission to dangerous and semi-heretical to be sanctioned on the books. Inquisitor has tracked the Sensi to a certain Kabal using the Emperors Tarot, and has predicted where that Kabal will likely strike next, perhaps the Inquisitor is a douche an organised an underguarded civilian shuttle just to draw them in? Any how, NotRambo is captured by the Dark Eldar, if not quietly.

Middle: A scene or two about the Sensi and her interaction with the Archon to introduce both characters interspaced between chapters of NotRambo becoming Alpha Slave and planning a revolt. Perhaps he gets to fight in an arena to show his prowess? Perhaps a mysterious figure has been helping them from the shadows all the time?

End: Revolt happens, assured to fail. but NotRambo and a small team of expendable characters use the distraction to sneak away, using some kinda Psykic Tracking device to locate the Sensi. Locates her, probably has some kind of standoff with the Archon with no winner, gets away with Sensi and is on the run. Time is running out. Try to navigate the twisted geometries of Commarragh while the full force of a Kabal is mustered against them, staying a few steps ahead. Mysterious Figure still helping out in ways, taking out small patrols or leaving playing cards as a kind of bread crumb trail. Mysterious Figure shows themselves to be a Harlequin at the last moment to save NotRambo and the Sensi with a temporary Webway Portal. Transition to the Inquisitor thanking NotRambo for his service, and taking the Sensi away for questionable purposes, NotRambo wonders if he took the Sensi outta the frying pan into the fire. The End.

It should end like that, with you not sure if it ended well, as the Inquisition is basically the Imperial Gustapo and they have questionable motivations and practices. Someone write this please, 10/10 would read.

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
A few thoughts to go into this:

1) Who/what would be valuable enough to an Inquisitor to warrant them to sanction a rescue mission into Commarragh? My best answer is a Sensi, a perpetual scion of the Emperors linage that *certain* Inquisitors believe are the secret to resurrecting the Emperor in the Starchild theory. It's easy to consider in their long, immortal lives a Sensi was captured in a Raid and taken to Commarragh, where I imagine a Haemonculus would just *LOVE* to play with a Perpetual, he/she would be his prized possession. You now have a goal, get into the Dark City, rescue the Sensi from under the Archon/Haemonculi's nose and escape.

2) It's also quite easy to forsee a Harlequin being indepted to an Inquisitor for one reason or the other so the Inquisitor calls in her favor to give the Sensi an escape route. You now have an escape route, a fun little side story about how the Inquisitor and Harlequin are friends and more importantly a deadline, giving the story a sense of urgency.

3) Beginning: NotRambo is in early retirement after a long Spec-Ops career. Inquisitor pops up in a black Limo kinda deal, an 'convinces' (probably by flashing the Rosette) NotRambo to undertake a mission to dangerous and semi-heretical to be sanctioned on the books. Inquisitor has tracked the Sensi to a certain Kabal using the Emperors Tarot, and has predicted where that Kabal will likely strike next, perhaps the Inquisitor is a douche an organised an underguarded civilian shuttle just to draw them in? Any how, NotRambo is captured by the Dark Eldar, if not quietly.

Middle: A scene or two about the Sensi and her interaction with the Archon to introduce both characters interspaced between chapters of NotRambo becoming Alpha Slave and planning a revolt. Perhaps he gets to fight in an arena to show his prowess? Perhaps a mysterious figure has been helping them from the shadows all the time?

End: Revolt happens, assured to fail. but NotRambo and a small team of expendable characters use the distraction to sneak away, using some kinda Psykic Tracking device to locate the Sensi. Locates her, probably has some kind of standoff with the Archon with no winner, gets away with Sensi and is on the run. Time is running out. Try to navigate the twisted geometries of Commarragh while the full force of a Kabal is mustered against them, staying a few steps ahead. Mysterious Figure still helping out in ways, taking out small patrols or leaving playing cards as a kind of bread crumb trail. Mysterious Figure shows themselves to be a Harlequin at the last moment to save NotRambo and the Sensi with a temporary Webway Portal. Transition to the Inquisitor thanking NotRambo for his service, and taking the Sensi away for questionable purposes, NotRambo wonders if he took the Sensi outta the frying pan into the fire. The End.

It should end like that, with you not sure if it ended well, as the Inquisition is basically the Imperial Gustapo and they have questionable motivations and practices. Someone write this please, 10/10 would read.

Sounds like a horrible b movie or something.

I LOVE IT!

Since Khan is supposedly still a prisoner there, if a Primarch can't escape, I don't think a bunch of slaves who are regularly tortured, raped, and rape-tortured for the sheer joy of it are going to fare better.

Commoragh is the size of a solar system, and exists in non-Euclidean space. There is no gate, there are no "sewer exits", no physical way to "sneak into" the city and back out again. You find a "lost" Web-Gate? Great. You're a non-psychic human, you can't open it. Even if you could, chances are, it opens into the heart of a star, or a daemon-infested section of the Web-way, or into the void of deep space.

This would work better as a story wherein Beefy McLargehuge, a Chuck Norris-standin, gets captured by Dark Eldar and then tries to escape. His attempt is valiant, and he frees (and, as things go on, loses) other slaves, until the very end when he's driven mad by the Xeno sorceries that keep the place existing, a city inside of a magic bubble, and finally learns that his escape, and the ensuing chaos, was permitted by the Archon that owns him, purely for his own amusement.

There was a short story in an anthology (Let the Galaxy Burn I think) in which a Commissar is captured by the Dark Eldar. He manages to escape due to the Dark Eldar haemonculus underestimating him and manages to convince a load of slaves to revolt. Knowing he would be unable to escape he instead detonates a load of explosives on the freed slaves (including himself) and the forces sent by the Dark Eldar Archon to capture or kill them (incidentally destroying their main factory). Commissar and Archon survive but are both captured by another Archon. Commissar mentions that the Archon will likely suffer an agonising death but he'll probably just be put down like an animal.

You could have him join an eldar outcast who has a personal grudge against Commoraugh. Its not uncommon and there are stories with outcasts seeing some humans as friends so perhaps he knows the inquisitor and the outcast leads Rambo into the dark city and provides support. I doubt its possible to make this scenario lore friendly but fortunately 40k has no true cannon. So it's what the player makes it.

Didn't the orks break there way in with weird boys ?

The only way I would see it work would be if an Inquisitor could get a favor out of some Harlequins to take him and guide him through the city.

 Desubot wrote:

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
A few thoughts to go into this:

1) Who/what would be valuable enough to an Inquisitor to warrant them to sanction a rescue mission into Commarragh? My best answer is a Sensi, a perpetual scion of the Emperors linage that *certain* Inquisitors believe are the secret to resurrecting the Emperor in the Starchild theory. It's easy to consider in their long, immortal lives a Sensi was captured in a Raid and taken to Commarragh, where I imagine a Haemonculus would just *LOVE* to play with a Perpetual, he/she would be his prized possession. You now have a goal, get into the Dark City, rescue the Sensi from under the Archon/Haemonculi's nose and escape.

2) It's also quite easy to forsee a Harlequin being indepted to an Inquisitor for one reason or the other so the Inquisitor calls in her favor to give the Sensi an escape route. You now have an escape route, a fun little side story about how the Inquisitor and Harlequin are friends and more importantly a deadline, giving the story a sense of urgency.

3) Beginning: NotRambo is in early retirement after a long Spec-Ops career. Inquisitor pops up in a black Limo kinda deal, an 'convinces' (probably by flashing the Rosette) NotRambo to undertake a mission to dangerous and semi-heretical to be sanctioned on the books. Inquisitor has tracked the Sensi to a certain Kabal using the Emperors Tarot, and has predicted where that Kabal will likely strike next, perhaps the Inquisitor is a douche an organised an underguarded civilian shuttle just to draw them in? Any how, NotRambo is captured by the Dark Eldar, if not quietly.

Middle: A scene or two about the Sensi and her interaction with the Archon to introduce both characters interspaced between chapters of NotRambo becoming Alpha Slave and planning a revolt. Perhaps he gets to fight in an arena to show his prowess? Perhaps a mysterious figure has been helping them from the shadows all the time?

End: Revolt happens, assured to fail. but NotRambo and a small team of expendable characters use the distraction to sneak away, using some kinda Psykic Tracking device to locate the Sensi. Locates her, probably has some kind of standoff with the Archon with no winner, gets away with Sensi and is on the run. Time is running out. Try to navigate the twisted geometries of Commarragh while the full force of a Kabal is mustered against them, staying a few steps ahead. Mysterious Figure still helping out in ways, taking out small patrols or leaving playing cards as a kind of bread crumb trail. Mysterious Figure shows themselves to be a Harlequin at the last moment to save NotRambo and the Sensi with a temporary Webway Portal. Transition to the Inquisitor thanking NotRambo for his service, and taking the Sensi away for questionable purposes, NotRambo wonders if he took the Sensi outta the frying pan into the fire. The End.

It should end like that, with you not sure if it ended well, as the Inquisition is basically the Imperial Gustapo and they have questionable motivations and practices. Someone write this please, 10/10 would read.

Sounds like a horrible b movie or something.

I LOVE IT!

I'd be better than the Ultramarines movie, that's for sure...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ironwolf123 wrote:
Didn't the orks break there way in with weird boys ?

Orks exist to break the rules.

"Nobody escapes from Commorragh."

That's the tagline. If you break it in a story, this tagline should still prove true, in some way. Salamanders? Allowed to leave. (Brought there as a weapon in the first place.) There's a story in one of the books (Fear the Alien?) where a guardsman escapes, but is so shattered by what he's seen that he commits suicide and is condemned as a heretic posthumously. Even though his body escaped, a part of him would always be left behind.

If you want to do a story where someone goes into Commorragh to get a bunch of prisoners out, it should end in a suitably pyrrhic victory, if it ends in a victory at all. (Or maybe the guy gets the prisoners out, but most of them have been conditioned by their torturers into acting as agents on behalf of the Dark Eldar: sabotaging defenses, deactivating shields, or betraying their command to the enemy. )

It's important to keep a respect for the antagonists as well as the favored protagonists in 40k. Otherwise you wind up with hot buttered garbage like 'Warrior Coven.'