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.

And so begins our Dark Heresy campaign!

Shattered Hope

We started aboard the Light Cruiser ‘Death’s Blessing’, with the accompanying corvette, ‘Pride of the Saint’. It was here that our acolytes first met each other, having been separated during their initial transit.

Jaqual, the eccentric, yet useful Techpriest.

Brutis Havelock, the stoic Arbitrator.

Mithras Nixios, Cleric of the Almighty God-Emperor.

And Claire Deatrix, apparent Scum, and quite handy with her handcannon.

The Acolytes were briefed on their mission – they were to be sent to Sepheris Secundus, an ice world covered in mining facilities. The Inquisitor Praetus Grendel told them of the Brotherhood of Malice, a cult that he and several of his colleagues had put down a year earlier. Apparently that was not the end of the Cult, and the local government called in the local Guard units in lieu of any actual Inquisition based support. While the Guard were able to pacify the cult, something else lurked in the depths of the Gorgonid Mines, the location of the cult’s headquarters.

With this, the Acolytes were sent to Sepheris Secundus – the Inquisitor himself apparently was too busy to handle such a trivial matter. They transferred over to the ‘Pride of the Saint’, and from there they set down upon the planet.

Upon arriving, the group quickly came to understand the situation – as the Guard ventured into the area of the Mines known as ‘The Shatters’, they were ambushed by mutants, forcing their leading office – a Commissar – to order a retreat. He then ordered the entranceway to the mines sealed shut. His orders to the Acolytes were to investigate the mines and see what was down there – after all, the Commissar reminded them, this was their kind of problem, not his.

After equipping themselves with what meager supplies the Guard could provide, the Acolytes entered the Mines. They first stumbled upon a bloody scene – mutated miners, all killed by the Guard. While nothing attacked the group, they did find documents that seemed to say that the Brotherhood had risen again.

The Acolytes managed to get into the Shatters and began investigating. They managed to kill a mutated Guardsman – once a friend of another soldier they had met above ground – and located a miner named Rat, who promptly passed out and soiled himself when told by the Cleric of the horrors that waited outside.

The group continued on, promptly massacring a group of mutants that attempted to ambush them. Brutis skillfully dodged a shot from the mutant, while Claire demonstrated her pistoliering skills by killing two mutants at once. Afterwards, they found another two miners – Dyrk and Martin – arguing behind a barricade. While the group almost brought down the hammer, they discovered that the miners were not in fact a part of the Brotherhood – they were just in the wrong place, at the wrong time. The group pressed on after placing Rat’s unconscious body in with the other miners (to their mostly unheard protests).

A bit further in, the group found a corridor, lit by faulty lights and with a curious trail of blood and inhumanly large footprints travelling along its length.

And even further was a soft pink glow, coming from the back reaches of the mines...

And that’s where we ended! To be continued, next week!

I've played through this adventure with my group - it was the first major part of our ongoing DH campaign, so I know what happens - but I still want to find out what happens next?

Have you got any more details on the four characters (backstory, weapons, useful talents/skills)?

An update, reposted from my blog.

In which the party finishes it's business in the mines, and goes into SPAAAAAACCCEEEEE!

As we left off, the group was investigating a small pathway, into which went a trail of inhumanely large footprints and a path of blood. This led to the end of the path which then split into two rooms, one of which was locked.

The group called up the Jaq (the Techpriest) to take care of the locked door, while Claire, Brutus, and Mithrus opened the other door. What they saw sickened them - the room was a charnel house, the bodies of dead guardsmen and mutants alike strewn about. Mithrus (failing a Willpower test) panicked and turned to run, but quick thinking on the part of Brutus and Claire kept the Cleric from running too far. It did result, however, in Claire's pistol connecting with Mithrus's head, leaving him dazed. Ow.

Unfortunately, it was at this moment that Jaq managed to get the door open. His celebration was cut short as a Mutant Abomination roared at him and charged. The group also realized that the room was filled with (damaged) tanks of promethium. A stray shot (*coughClairecough*) would ignite the room and kill the party in a terrible inferno.

Luckily, the party whipped out their close combat weapons (again, *coughClairecough*) and beat the Mutant to death. Finding nothing of value, the party turned back down the hallway, and decided to finally investigate the pink light.

Now, it was during this entire time that Claire had something... whispering to her. That, and the psychic presence that was apparently in the same area that the pink light was coming from, suggested to her that something unpleasant was lurking nearby.

And, of course, they were right.

As they entered the room, they discovered a large pink stone that extended from the ceiling to the floor. And in their heads, a voice whispered:

I... am corruption.

I... am mutation.

I... am ANTITHESIS!


And with that, the stone let loose a wave of light. As it washed over the Acolytes, they felt their skin crawl and rebel against them. They managed to retain control over their bodies - all except for Jaq, who found himself in a fight between his mechanical tentacles, and the fleshy tentacles that had suddenly sprouted from his chest.

The Stone then summoned a Plaguebearer... which turned out to be quite a bit less trouble than the adventure module made him out to be (turns out we've been doing damage wrong, which I'll correct for the next game... bwahahaha!). Stunned, the daemon could do nothing but turn into a sticky, green, slightly more smelly version of Swiss cheese as the party riddled it with bullets. As the daemon faded back into the Warp, the Stone shattered, the psychic presence dissipated, and the party took a moment for a group high five.

(Oh, and Dyrk, Martin, and Rat all died. Grimdark!)

And so the adventure was completed! The group left the mines (leaving the investigation of the Brotherhood of Malice to another Inquisitor and his team) and headed back up to the Pride of the Saint, to follow their Inqusitor to wherever he would lead them next.

To be continued...

And what, they're just going to pretend that the Tech-Priest doesn't have any tentacles coming out of his chest?

Oops. Crap.

Forgot to mention that the tentacles disappeared when the stone had been destroyed!

Heh. Thanks for catching that.

Yeesh. Been a while since the last update. Here goes...

So, in our continuing Dark Heresy Campaign –

(note: This was actually my first home-brewed, non-premade adventure. I messed up in a few parts, but the players took it in stride, and they seemed to enjoy it. Yay!)

Safely aboard the Pride of the Saint (as safe as one can be while travelling through what is essentially psychic-Hell), the party is suddenly called to the ship’s bridge by the captain. Arriving, they are slightly-startled by the sight in front of them – real space, and not the twisted, ever-changing sight of the Empyrean.

Captain Waderley informed the group that they had been pulled out of the Immaterium by a passing ship (having been travelling relatively close to what can be called the ‘surface’). Upon re-entering realspace, the Pride began receiving a distress call from the ship, which was quickly identified to be the Rogue Trader All for One, captained by a man called Aldo Slander. The Pride immediately began to pursue the All for One, thanks in large part to a distress signal coming from the ship that, essentially, meant that everything was FUBAR.

It was also noticed that that ship was on a collision course – and would crash-land in a few days – with a densely populated Hive World nearby.

When the Pride was the close enough, the group and a squad of Inquisitorial Marines were sent over to the All for One to search for survivor s in a pair of Arvus Lighters. After landing in the Rouge Trader ship’s hanger, the boarding party split up – the Acolytes would head to the bridge to find any information on what had happened, while looking for survivors, while the Marines would head to Engineering to see if they could correct the ship’s course, or at the very least stop the engines.

Oh, and as for the All for One – this is a massive ship. Easily three times the size of the corvette, it’s more of a space cathedral than a space ship. Baroque in design, the All for One featured massive archways and gothic architecture all along its length. As the Acolytes closed, they even spotted immense stained-glassed windows and gargoyles that stared out into the dark of space.

It was while the Acolytes were travelling through the cargo bay (which I described as the room from the end of ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark, only having it be 3-4 times larger, replacing all the wood with riveted metal, taking out half the lights, and putting skulls everywhere) that the group started to find hints as to what went wrong.

Continued from the last post (about time, too)...

Now where were we? Oh, right. The cargo hold of the All For One.

After splitting up with the Troopers, the retinue began searching the hold for clues as they made their way to the Bridge. After looting a couple of weapons, they came across a pretty big Emperor-damned clue - a device known as a Cryo-Cage, which had been opened. Cryo-Cages are devices that essentially flash-freeze living organisms. They're ancient technology (I say), so finding one is pretty rare.

This cage had, scattered around it, the remains of the ship's crew and some combat-servitors. They had all been ringed around the cage, obviously facing in towards it. Whatever had been in that cage had managed to bust out and kill everything in its path without taking any serious wounds in return. An inspection of the Cage's cogitator (the 40k-verse's version of a computer) revealed that the Cage had accidentally been opened by a software malfunction, and whatever had been inside of it was labeled as 'Xenos Majoris' - not something to be trifled with.

The party continued in its way out of the cargo hold, and to the shuttle. For reference, the All For One is made up of 2 different sections - the front, which contained the crew quarters and Bridge, and the back, which held the Cargo Hold, Hanger Bay, and Engineering/Engines. This was connected by a long tunnel in which a maglev-shuttle ran back and forth across. The acolytes took the shuttle across into the Crew Quarters. They found more of the crew dead. Before dying, the surviving crew had manged to barricade the door to the shuttle station, but something had manged to get in through an unnoticed ventilation shaft. Finding nothing more of consequence, the group proceeded to the Bridge.

Upon arriving, the group found the Bridge to be empty save for the single body sitting in the command chair - obviously the ship's owner. Claire manged to find both a ornate Data-Slate and impressive Autopistol. Claire then attempted to contact the Inquisitorial Marines, but only heard static. She rushed out of the Bridge with the others in tow, and upon leaving the room their micro-beads erupted into gunfire and screaming. Whatever had killed the crewmen of the All For One was now continuing its bloody work on the soldiers.

The group reboarded the shuttle and began to make their way back to the Cargo Hold. On the way, they began to go through the Data-Slate, learning that the Rouge Trader Aldo Slander had been transporting something in the Cryo Cage for a rogue Bio Magos for experimentation. Before they could learn anything else, however, the silent killer finally decided to reveal itself by tearing its way into the roof of the shuttle.

Yes - Slander had been transporting a Genestealer, one of the more deadly variations of the Tyranid species. This Genestealer, however, didn't have Lady Luck on its side. In an amazing couple rounds of combat, not only did it fail to really injure any of the party members, but the thing got its alien ass whupped! It managed to distract the party long enough for them to forget to slow the shuttle down, and it crashed into the Cargo Bay area station. The resulting crash caused a few minor injuries, and also killed the Genestealer.

On a related note, this was also the first time that Claire revealed herself to be a psyker to the party in-game. It caused some... interesting reactions.

The party then began to make its way to Engineering, by which they had to pass through the Cargo Bay first. This meant an encounter with not one, but 2 more Genestealers. Again, the party showed its ability to handle the buggers. One was torched by several flame grenades, and another was sniped by Claire's new handgun. This was a lucky shot, as the Genestealer had been in combat with Brutis, Jacque, and Mithrus.

Arriving in Engineering, the retinue found the grisly remains of the Marines strewn across the ground, walls, and equipment. Only the Squad's attached Techpriest had survived, and with his last words, managed to gurgle out that he had set the ship's engines to overload in a alarmingly short amount of time to prevent the All For One from reaching the Hive World (which would have then unleashed any remaining Genestealers on the unsuspecting populace).

The party quickly made its way back to the Hanger Bay only to discover that both the Argus Lighters had been sabotaged and rendered useless. Fortunately, Slander's personal Guncutter was still operational. However, it would have to have its restraining locks disengaged. Claire and Jacque prepared the cutter while Brutis and Mithrus took care of the locks. A 4th Genestealer attempted to ambush the two, but they quickly 'Dukes-of-Hazzard'ed' over the top of the Guncutter as Claire baseball-pitched a grenade right into the Generstealer's face.

With that, the party manged to take off (after spending a bit of Fate to re-roll a failed piloting skill test) and made it to a safe distance as the All For One blew up, taking any remaining Xenos with it. With a hurrah and huzzah, the PCs made it back to the Pride, and continued on their way to meet up with the Inquisitor.