Dark Heresy 2nd Edition: Do you got what it takes - Chapter 1 - Nicas the Priest

I've had this and another story lying around for awhile now and I forced my way through it, so the quality is far from good enough in my opinion, but if I did not finish it, I would not be able to progress with any of the other stories, so here it is: Fatman's story.




That guy, Luigi, had already taken most of the food, but I grabbed whatever was left and stuffed it into my pockets. The door was slowly opening so people was gathering near it, ready to leave, so I stayed a little back to not be in anyone's way. When they had piled out of the transport and provided enough room, I walked outside to see that there was several people who had started an argument about what to do, some had found weapons from some sort of crate at the side of the transport and was handing them out.

The area outside the transport looked pretty rundown, a lot worse shape than what I was used to back on Terminus prime. The air was also hummid and smelled terrible, several people had already thrown up due to it, even if it was really bad, i was thankful that i managed to keep my own food down.

I tried to listen in on the arguments when I felt a sharp pain in my side, one of the thugs had apparently prodded me with one of the blades. "hey fatty, take one", he looked like he was about to stab me, but when I stepped back a little, he just threw the sword in my direction and said "no fun" before going elsewhere. I did not remember the thug's name but I certainly did not like that look he gave me.

"this way" said one of the guardsmen, guardswoman infact, the only one that looked like a feral worlder. She had started to walk in the direction of a small passageway, without giving the others in the group any option but to follow, we all knew we had to get to the middle hive, and staying was not an option.

Most people was up front and had searched the area but we seems to be passing through a passage with several rooms on the side, there was some comments about cover, which got me thinking that there might be hostiles in the area. I must have started shaking because one of the arbites commented "you should not eat now, its hard to run on a full stomach", at first I was confused as to what he meant but then I noticed my habbit had kicked in, whenever I was stressed or nervous, I eat food to calm my nerves.

There was some noice up ahead, I barely got the sentance "what the inquisition promised" before the sound of weapons being drawn blocked out the sound of the rest, we had apparently been attacked.

I rolled into one of the sidepassages while the arbitor had his sword drawn and shouted at the nearby non-combatant "Follow the priest into cover!" and they all piled into the sideroom I was in, it would be a lot easier for the arbite to block the entrance when he did not need to protect several people in different places.

Not long after we had gotten into the sideroom, several gangers with blades and gang-scars attacked us, they had apparently gotten past the main group of combatants and was aiming for us since we would prove easier targets. The arbite did what he could, but he was far from as efficient with a sword as the gangers were and he ended up on the floor, brawling with one of them as 2 other gangers entered our sideroom.

One of the gangers advanced on the scribe and another on a robed hiveworlder, both were flurishing their swords and making a frightening display that cowed the lot of us, even I was trying to hide behind anything I could find. But the illusion of hopelessness was shattered when one of the gangers screamed in pain as 2 large rats were gnawing at his arm, he had dropped his sword and were stumbling around the room, the other ganger along with us, looked in horror at what was happening. Several more rats had appeared underneath the gangers clothing and were gnawing at him, slowly tearing chunks off him untill he was just a spasming body on the ground and the rats vanished somewhere, how or where we could not find any logical explanation to.

the scribe was the first to snap out of the situation, or maybe just paniced, she picked up a bent metal pipe and swung it at the shocked ganger, knocking him to the ground, he was about to get back up when more of us joined in, we picked up whatever we got our hands on, or just used our fists. the group beat on the ganger way beyond what would kill him, I had not joined the frenzy due to shock but only by my words did  they stop. "citisens! we must not linger! more will come and put our life in peril! we have to make our way to the middle hive!". It was more a display of fake confidence than anything I felt myself, but the group seemed to need it and they moved out to help the combatants.

The arbite was still lying on the ground, but thankfully he had managed to deal with his opponent by the time we had dealt with ours. I leant him a hand as he was trying to rise, and he answered with a huff "see? told you that you should not eat". he patted me on the back and we made our way towards the main fight, which from the looks of it, had already dispersed.

Most of us got to sit down once the situation had calmed down, I was amongst them, there was little for us to do than try to get out adrenaline shock down, while the some of the others were interrogating one of the gangers what had apparently been injured enough so he could not run. He was giving them some satisfying information, well in the terms of explaining the events but not in terms of easing the perils we were in. I would of course not learn this until later when rumors started to spread, but I noticed that the prisoner had offered, or forced to offer himself as a guide to the middle hive and to avoid his fellow gangers.

It was not long after that we set out, with some of us acting as scouts both up ahead and behind, and with the ganger as a guide, we easily made our way past most patrols or took detours to avoid them. I was thankful that both the direction and the scouts abilities to keep us unnoticed was successful, but when I saw the end of our journey, it was apparenty that not everything was going to be easy.

We had to cross a outlying part of the ganger's main camp, climb down some chains to a pier, and cross a hive sump-river by using the metal piers, then climb a tower that would lead towards the middle hive.

I was in no possition to argue as several of the headstrong members of our group was already pushing ahead, and alarms had started sounding around the ganger base. Our guide had said something and started to climb down the chains, and the sister militant ordered everyone else to follow.

I was a bit slow, so I saw the first group reach the bottow before i even got to the ropes, and by then the second group had already started climbing down. The combatants were taking up possitions against the hostile gangers, but since they were not equipped with anything other than swords, out situation looked grim.

I was in a bit of a shock of what happened next, one of the scouts had picked up a small piece of broken metal and handed it to one of the nobles, saying "throw the grenade!". I was about to comment when the scout pushed me towards the chains and started to climb down himself, which i was forced to follow. Behind me I heard "Fire in the Hole!" and saw the rest of the combatants followed our decend to the piers.

At the bottom, I almost stepped on someone and one of the sister militant from the second group pushed me aside and shouted "NOOOO!". The body was of Katherin, the sister famolous who had stopped the all out battle in the transport. we were quite packed and the gangers would follow soon, so I was waved on ahead, but I did notice that there was a blade sticking out of the body, a blade that clearly had belonged to a ganger, I looked around for our guide and saw him up ahead, way too far to had done it.... who could it be?

I had no time to think, I waddled across the pier as fast as I could along with the rest, looking back several times to notice that the gangers were progressing. however, I had barely gotten 1/3 of the way when a huge spray of water emerged from the sump to the far right, something large was comming towards me. Judging from the actions of the gangers, seeing them running away, it was clear that we were in peril, very much so.

I ran, ran as fast as I could, which I'm sad to admitt was not very fast. The creature in the sump was attacking the pier but we had avoided him so far by spreading around on the different paths we could take, and when some of our group reached the far end, they started to shout directions. I was clearly the slowest one and they shouted directions for me as this massive creature shook the piers around me. I was really panicing and the adrenaline was pumping like mad, I had not even realised that I had reached the end and was running up the ramps towards the tower.

By the time i reached the end of the ramp, the fatigue had caught up with me and when I stared at the ladders reaching beyond the celling, I was filled with hopelessness and sat down. someone asked if I was alright but I just answered "just need to rest". They apparently got annoyed and left me to climb the ladders along with the others.

It took quite awhile for me to get my motivation back, as I saw that I would be left alone in the underhive, so I made my slow progression towards the top of the ladders, it was a slow and painful, I almost fell several times. But when I reached the top, I was relieved for a few split seconds as I got some helping hands, but they proved to be from someone unexpected.

The men who "helped" me was wearing red carapace armour, chainmail and batons. They dragged me away from the ladder and started beating on me until I fainted.

When I woke up, I found myself in a cell along with the body of katherin. Outside the cell stood a man with a =][= on the collar of his coat. "You have failed your task and you do not belong in the inquisition". I was not sure what to think, my mind was processing the information coldly, or maybe i was just too fatigued and beat up to care. Seeing my lack of expression, the man continued "you are to deliver the body of Katherin back to Thaur, then make your way to Terminus Prime, the inquisition will make use of you in different ways". With that, he left and one of the other prisoners opened my cell with a key he had gotten.

I followed the inquisitorial agent, while carrying the body for a little while before being told where the transport would be arranged. In the meanwhile, One of the sister militant performed a minor blessing for the deceased, it was a worthy action which gained my respect so I thanked her and told her that I would take care of the body and see it to its destination.

Dark Heresy 2nd Edition: Do you got what it takes - Chapter 0 - Kade the IG Scout - part 2

My regiment had apparently been picked for some sort of inquisitorial training, we were supposed to do some trials to test our capabilities alongside several civilians. We stood at attention most of the time, it was not as easy around the infectious sway of the others in the crowd. Sarge said that we should just do what we are told and stay on the lookout for anything important, so thats what we did.

We got some basic information about our tasks, but I have a feeling that it was left vague on purpose, kinda like every day in the guard, but still a little different. We were forced to store our ranged weapons in some transport crates and mark them with what I later learned to be bloodlock trackers.

Then we found ourselves inside a small transport with about 30 people, it was kinda claustrophobic, but being from a hiveworld and living in the guard, pretty much made us immune to this. "Kade!, you are good with people, have a look around and see what you can pick up" Sarge said, "Yes Sir" I responded and started walking around the transport.

I saw an arbite and a noble playing regicide, it was a close match, but it reminded me too much about a recent fight againt seccessionists and how we were victorious at a devastating cost, Our regiment barely survived thanks to fresh recruits being sent our way. I noticed a IG medic by the food tables, trying to avoid a obese priest, I did not want to talk to the medic yet, she was not from my regiment and feral worlders tend to be a little aggressive, I would rather wait and see how she reacts to other people first. A guy in a black bodyglove tried to get into a conversation with me but I could not understand his accent at all, so he gave up and went elsewhere, something told me that this guy was dangerous, so better leave him alone. After getting a good look at the other people around the transport, I started having a chat with a few of them and picked up that the sisters sororitas was trying to make sense of our situation. While I did not get personally involved It looked to me that one of the Militants and the famulous was right on top of things.

After a few hours of interacting with people, the tension in the transport started to shift, me and Lilla, a Sin-Eater that I sorta gotten to know, had picked up some rumors that the majority of the people in the container, or the ones that could fight at least, was wondering if it was an all out battle between all of us to figure out which one was best suited to join the inquisition. The rumor originated from one of the sister militants and it was getting serious, Lilla had no sway over the criminals so she kept to herself, I on the other hand had to report to the sergeant.

"Alright men, stick togeather, if there is a fight, we will take down the biggest threats and work from there, do not pick targets you cannot fight, let them destroy themselves first" Sarge said, he was expecting this and had to make the best of the situation, I felt that it was the right approach but would prefere to not be involved in a fight, any sort of battle here would be devastating, which was the point i guess, but what if a fight was not the goal of this task?

Tension was extremely high but the sister famulous was desperatly trying to keep things under control, when the medic by the food tables made some comments that kicked the tension back into overdrive. We were only a split second away from a fight, when the Sister Militant, Xania by name, shouted an order so loud that even Sarge jumped to attention. We were still unsure but in order to get control over the situation we were told to stay in our little groups and make reports to the scribes we had with us, we were going to tell them everything we had picked up so far so that they could make sense of it. It was better to act on information than out of desperation.

The timer on the wall was counting down but we kept our heads low and reported what we knew to the scribes, there was still tension in the air but Sarge gave us strict orders to not interact with anyone outside out group. Thankfully he overlooked my quiet whispers to Lilla, seeing that she was not part of any group.

When the timer hit zero, we all looked at it with anticipation for seconds that felt like hours, and it changed from blinking "00:00:00:00" to "Get to the Middle Hive", and then it was replaced with "Survive".

The door opened and we saw where we were, in the depts of a underhive.

Dark Heresy 2nd Edition: Do you got what it takes - Chapter 0 - Lilla the Sin-Eater - part 1

"Finally" I almost said out loud, as I watched the man in the grey jumpsuit climb on top of a metal box to be seen easier by the crowd. One of the other agents raised their shotgun in the air and fired of a shot that caused a deafening echo in the storage hold, and caused everyone to go quiet, barely daring to whisper.

Agent that looks like a Pilot:
"You have all been handpicked as potentional recruits for the inquisition",
a few people started to whisper at this notion.
"Over the next few days, you will be put through a couple of trials that will test very spesific capabilities",
he shifts towards 3 large containers behind him, point out a priest and some storage boxes.
"The first test require all of you to hand in your ranged weaponry, the priest will bless you before you enter the transports".
At this point, two other agents walk through the crowd and evenly divide them into 3 groups,
"Inside these transports is a timer, when this timer runs out, a new objective will appear in place of the timer.".
"There will be plenty of food and supplies to substain you for the duration of your stay inside the transports".
"if anyone have questions, they will be answered at a later time"
At this point all the agents indicate for the first group to move up to hand in their weapons, get blessed by the priest and enter the transport.

"so they are testing to see if we got what it takes to become acolytes" I think to myself as I evaluate the various options. I could run away but the inquisition would likely prevent a favourable outcome, I could fail the test, but same would happen then, never heard about a failed, live, member of the inquisition, then again, what do I know. So overall the only option is to succeed if I want to survive.

While I was pondering the various options, I slowly noticed other people in the group and how they handled the situation, instead of focusing on my own doubts, I started picking up details about everyone around me, slowly building a metal image of every single person in the group take it into consideration of how it would affect the outcome of any trials we would be put through.

It was our turn to get into the container, as people was reluctant to hand in their ranged weaponry, I took the initiative to hand in my autopistol, while I was not the first to get into the line, I had added to the que early enough to convince the rest to follow suit.

Inside was several bunks, enough for the lot of us, about 30 people, there as some small form of entertainmen, some cards here, a few dice there, and one regicide set. Looks like there was plenty of food too.

I sat myself down on a bunk and watched the crowd, picking up information. There was afew people like me, well, not like me, but people from my hive, most whom is also linked to a life of crime. There were a few arbites, it was clear that conflict might arise between the two group but it was suppressed for now. There was some guardsmen, they were quite diciplined as they just walked up to their bunks and started resting, guess that is how they handle most situations that is not direct combat. Then there was the clergy, a few priests and some sororitas, no powerarmour however, so while at least 2 looked like they can handle combat, they were no proper bolterbitch as they say. Lastly, there was several civilians, it was a mix of seemingly random people, some lowborn that could very well be outcast or whatnot and some highborns, or anything in between.

When the door to the transport closed, the timer lit up: 48 hours remaining. "what the hell? 2 day-cycles coped up in this shit?... feth it", People had started talking but I did not really care, I lied down on the bunk and fell into more of a meditative trance than sleep as the talking around me sometimes woke me up. I was normally used to this thing back on Hulee V, but these people were offworlders, and their distinct accents and way of speaking was quite interupting.

I only lied in bed for what seemed to be two or three hours, before I gave up and went back to studying the people. "lets see" my eyes glazed over most of the people before settling on one guy, a preacher. I watched how he interacted with people and picked up snippets of information.

The guy was called Cromwell, he was a preacher from Thaur, a shrineworld, looked like he was getting along with a frateris millitia by the name of Mazion. Cromwell also looked quite confused and maybe out of his dept, still, people seemed to like him as he was soft-spoken, if a bit high-pinched.

The frateris millitia, Mazion, was also from Thaur, "maybe Thaur was a major recruiting ground?" I thought. He did have quite a few comments about various people around the transport, indirectly accusing them of heresy for not being as dedicated to the emperor as him, Cromwell was slightly put of by these notions and they managed to stay as meaningless accusations rather than stirir actions.

I tore my eyes away from them and tried to find another 'target', when some snoring to my right got my attention. In the bunk beside me was a guy who were dressed as a penal legionnaire, complete with ID-tattoo and explosive collar. From the first time I saw him, he looked tired, so seeing him sleeping was nor surprising, he had made some quotes during the speach but they were mostly complaints about being forced into more service and general discontent for his warden. Still, he looked quite relaxed now that he was sleeping.

"where could the warden be?" I looked around and spotted him moving back towards his bunk from where the food was stored, he carried some basic nutritions with him, only enough for himself however. the Warden, Boras, according to his nametag, sant down on his bunk and started eating, still keeping an eye on the legionnaire with great discontent. There was tention between those two but it was quite logical that a legionnaire and a warden would not like eachother, they were pretty much natural enemies. I tried to get a better feel for how he acted but it was hard, over the time spent in the transport, I would notice that he was more drawn towards the tech-priests than the priests, there might be something there but it was way too little to go on.

A laughter could be heard nearby and I saw two guardmen talking, one was a trooper and the other was a sergeant, I tried to get a look at their nametags and saw Voross, that would be the trooper, and Lagain? no, Lahain, which was the sergeant, They looked quite content with their situation, the trooper was talking about their recent victory but put a negative spin on the commissar that he called Gone. I looked around and saw no commissar, he might have been in a different group. The sergeant looked content with dwelling on the victory, but for some reason it felt like a mask, like someone who have experienced someting that they are trying too hard to hide.

I got distracted by a smell and turned my attention towards one of the feral worlders, this guy was wearing beasthide leathers and had several trophies like severed claws and beast skulls. Almost everything on him had some kind of smell that added to the bad impression that everyone around him got, still, it did not looked like he cared. I had picked up his name somewhere, Apollyon or something, but other than that I could not manage to learn.

"hungry" I thought and got up from my bunk, pressed my way past several people, who was clearly staring at my tattoos, then made my way over to where the food was stored. Two people was blocking the way, a fat priest who grabbed all the food he could carry and made his way over to a table, and a small guy with hive leathers. The small guy was called Luigi, he had taken off his jacket and was collecting all the food that would fit in it, carrying it like a slingbag. "don't take my stuff" he says as he spots me, to which I respond by pointing at his 'bag' and says "you wont fit any more, and beside, it's not yours". It looked like he was just aware of it and got slightly frustrated "fine, but dont take too much" before taking the big bag of food and starts trodding over to his bunk. "moron" I thought to myself as I found something that looked tasty.

"You gonna eat that?", I turned to the one who spoke, it was the obese priest, "Yes" I answered and put whatever I had in my mouth. The priest looked disappointed, "oh well, I did manage to convince another guy to give me his food so I should not complain", the priest must have had read the confusion on my face as he continued "some guy called Alric gave me his food". I was not feeling quite talkative with the priest, so I kept my mouth shut to not provoke a conversation. He must have understood as he tried to turn his attention to another person sitting at the same table as him.

"Hey, the name's Nickas" he said to a nearby feral worlder, guardswoman from the looks of it, her tag said Melankolia. She moved away from the priest, but he followed slightly trying to make friends as he saw that the guardswoman also was scuffling down food like its the best thing they have eaten since the great heresy. I tried to get a feel for the guardswoman but the personality was kinda off-putting as she seemed to radiate a "leave me alone" kind of vibe, that or she was just in a bad mood. However, I did notice that a lot of her gear was different than the other guardsmen in the group, her gear was more feral and there were several pouches and small bags that seemed to contain salves and bandages, maybe she was some kind of medic? but not one that I've ever seen.

"Where is this Alric you mentioned" I asked the priest, his face was stuffed so he could not speak but he did point out a man in nice robes speaking to another one of his kind. The two nobles were having a chat about some planet called Terminus Prime. The guy called Alric was quite open and friendly, but the other guy, who introduced himself as Krenning, apologised for not being open about his family and name but was willing to have a friendly chat and talk about their homeworld, the noble courts and the heraldry of their hive. Alric looked quite knowledgeable, as if he had spent great parts of his life to study and remember things, while Krenning was more the social and, lets say eccentric type.

An arbite was nearby, looks like she was taking notes and scratching his head quite often, looked confused. Her nametag said Loiacona and her short build marked her as a forge worlder.

The general talk about the high quality of life for highborns annoyed me to no ends, so I left them to themselves and went back to my bunk to vent the frustration on the rest of my food. "Relax, there is no danger here, so no point in being so tense", a nearby guardsman had apparently seen my frustration and felt like commenting on it. "Danger has nothing to do with it" I responded maybe a little to hastily. I had just gotten a proper look at the guardsman, well, scout is more the proper word for it, he was cleaning his boots next to his bunk and looked quite relaxed, almost the annoying infectious type. "some people just have it better than others, so of course people get frustrated by that" I said as a followup. "Ha, tell me about it, in the guard you could be lucky if you got a decent meal in a lifetime, and let me tell you, our lifetime is quite short in comparison" the guardsman jokes, "name's Kade by the way, yours?" he held out his hand. "Lilla" I responded and shook just for the sake of it. He put had put away his boots and took a look around the room "So you have been picking up a bit of info about the others?", he is good I thought, or me have been watching me. "you could say that".

"See that storm-trooper over there, next to the two sisters?", I look over to where Kade was indicating. "The guy's name's Deroin, but he looks a bit too hessitant to be a storm-trooper, and as you see, it looks like he has a thing for the sisters, not that I blame him", Kade grins childishly at the notion before continuing. "the big sister there is Debroah, a sister militant, and it looks like she is constantly expecting trouble, you should have seen her when the door closed, she almost freaked out". "the little sister, Thorn, is one of the sororitas scribes or something, im told they are called dialogus, while she looks calmer, I can promise you that she shares her big sis' worries".

"What about the other sisters?" I asked, noticing 3 more that looked like they wore similar style. "Well..." said Kade, "that lady over there, the one who looks like a noble, she is apparently one of the socially trained ones, she have been talking to a few people and seems to know how to build connections, cant say I remember which order she was from however, but her name, Katherin I think it was.", Kade looked like he took some pride in knowing things, guess that was what made him a good scout, or maybe he just noticed my appriciation for gathering information.

"And the sister hospitaller over there is called Suellen", I noticed that she was kneeling on the floor, rummaging around in her medkit for something, while chatting with the other sisters. "and the last one", Kade looked around to see if he could spot her, "ah there" he pointed out another sister militant with a gasmask, which was a bit strange in my opinion but maybe she was used to it in her line of work. "I overheard the other sisters calling her Xania, and like Katherin, she is getting more involved with the group than the other sisters, who prefere to keep to their own closed little group."

"Anyone else you would point out" I asked, to which Kade pointed without looking, towards one of the sellsword. "That guy is called Lombardino, he is a convicted murderer from my hive, he does got some connections so avoid that guy at all cost, he is generally bad news". "Hive?" I asked, "yea, back on Hulee V", Kade seem to notice where the question was going, "section 857B". I was kinda disappointed, that was the opposite side of the hive, rarely been there, "close, but not close enough, I never heard of the guy".

"Just try to ignore him" then he pointed towards the next person, "that is Harran, don't know much about the tech-priest but he grabs anyone who asks him any 'intelligent' questions and force them to stay and listen to his explanations, so be warned". "what about that other tech-priest?" I pointed towards a similar built tech-priest. "thats an enginseer, focuses more on ships from what i remember, thing's name Khairy and its quite a nut". "it?" I was kinda confused, "Just look at the augmentations, I would be surprised if there is even a shred of flesh left on it" Kade said accusingly in the direction of the oblivious enginseer.

I yawned, "you know what, I'll grab a shuteye, we might talk later", and I made a quick hive-signal with my hand that indicated "see you later". Kade responded in kind and went off to get some food or something.

I was tired enough to actually sleep through the noise that people made, and when I woke up i saw that there was about 25 hours left and most of the others have already gone to sleep, guess it must be their natural night cycle. I took a look around to see who was still awake, there was the arbite trooper by the regicide set, had he been sitting there ever since he arrives? He was currently playing with Galan, a twitchy gunslinger that caused a few minor episodes when the inquisition took away his guns, he was shaking like a leaf but still trying to focus on the game at hand. The arbite himself was quite at ease and acted like a pompus noble that I was used to back on Hulee V, guess he must be one of them huh? A quick look at his badge told me he was called Arcite.

Looking around for other people, I noticed a feral guy in grimy robes by the food tables, he was apparently feeding a small rat in the sleeves of his robe, guess he must be a bit more feral than he seems, would fit right in, in the underhives. dunno what his name was, but his mumbling kept mentioning Captain and Alrod.

I should have gotten a good look at most of them by now, I went over the people in my head and had gotten to 26 people, "should be 4 left, me included, so 3 other people". I looked around for 'new' faces and my eyes fell on a female scribe, she noticed my stare almost immediatly and hurried over to her own bunk and hid under the covers. "That is Frederica, and don't worry, she is skittish like that", Kade had apparently noticed that I was up and felt like engaging in conversation again.

"Hi Kade" I greeted, "I think I got a good overview now, but what about those two?". "who?" Kade asked, he did not see who I was pointing at, "those two in the black bodygloves", I had indicated two people in the room, one that looked like he was watching the group and the other who kept to herself.
"shit, I dont know, but they look dangerous", Kade seemed eager to avoid the topic, which was understandable, because there was something that gave the impression of lethality from them, which did not really make them approachable. "you might be right Kade, some things are best left alone."

Campaign idea 2: Only War - Last Chancers

This campaign is not really detailed but have a basic concept of it.

This was meant for my Rogue Trader group but the game stopped so it was put on ice.

The group owed a favour to colonel schaeffer, an unspecified favour but it gave him total authority over their ship and its crew, including the players.

When this favour was called in, there were to travel to undred undred teef to stop a warboss, rather, there was several warbosses.

Colonel Schaeffer have gotten rumors about a fighting pit on one of the planets where warbosses fight to pick a leader for the next waaagh!, this rumor was gotten through a former ork freebooter called Grimstuff, and his pet warphead. If the waaagh! was started at this time, Grimstuff could not carry out his cunning plans (not gone into details but there is a history here that is not quite written)

so the group was to travel to the pit and assassinate the winning warboss and reignite the fighting amongst themselves so the status quo could be maintained.

the group had colonel schaeffer, Kage, a few last chancers and the players. I had planned for this to be a only war campaign with premade characters, so lots of characters was already made (one of each career in the OW core book)

Then they travel to the section of space, get into 3 flyers and fly down to the planet from afar, without fuel to return (it must be scavaged downt here or brought (danger of blowing up the landers if they are shot down)). Then they must avoid a planet full of orks, make their way into various installation and scavage explosives and whatever they need to take out the warbosses. and actually carry out the mission.

Further than this i have not gotten, but after Shadows of More Doors was released,
the concept of warbosses could be worked out like that, with Grimstuff and the warphead being 2 of the orks that could be promoted to Waaagh! and take it in a different direction or keep the orks busy for the moment.

Campaign idea 1: Only War - Arkan 1st. Heavy Recon

I can't say I'm back but I am recovering, at least enough to attempt to pitch some campaign ideas that I've never ran or been unsuccessful.

So here is my first campaign, which was never ran due to players not being interessted in playing this sort of regiment and its been on the shelf for so long that I forget about it every time i have the chance of starting up a new game of Only War.

So lets get to it;

Arkan is a feudal world which have recently been conquered by the imperium, the population is a rebellious lot and there was quite a fight for the imperium to capture the planet and conquering its people.

It would have taken longer if it had not been for the Blood Angles chapter that decimated the majority of the military forces of Arkan, leaving the population with a built-in hatered for the space marine chapter.

The population is also a inventive bunch, which puts them at odds with the adeptus mechanicus for their almost heretical technology. (outwardly it looks very steampunk-ish but it not too far from "modern" tech, function over aestetics).

The Imperial Guard have recruited about 8 regiments of foot soldiers from this world before they finally were allowed to add the arkan walkers to its millitary assets, the Arkan walkers are a form for power armour that is too big and clunky to be a typical power armour, and it handles like a Sentinel Walker. It was mainly constructed to oppose the Blood Angles.

The population is split in two, its the common people, and the champions and nobility. In the regiments, the common people are outfitted with scouting gear and make exellent trail-blazers. While the nobility often make for the command roles, however, when the Arkan 1st. heavy recon was put togeather, it was only the nobility and the champions who were granted a Arkan Walker, while the rest supported these scouting vehicles.

It should be mentioned that champions are proven individuals, worthy of respect, these can be from the most primitive of the badlands raiders and still be viewed in awe by the noble court of the planetary govenor. This has a bit more to do with tradition than actual skills, but skill is still very important.

With the background out of the way, the regiment is sent to a ice world to fight the severus dominion, taking out a few outposts and flank in on supply-depots and installations while the majority of the enemy force is focused on the main IG advance (a few other regiments).

However, during one assault on an installation, they find a captures blood angle, or they assume so due to his lack of weapons, chains attached to him, no helmet and generally bad shape... but still beating up anyone in the installation.

This scene cause the majority of the NPCs in the regiment to feel the built in hatered of the blood angles and they open fire, unless the PCs can stopp them (they also have to do the test so that they are not completely free from their ancestral links, except certain support classes like commissars).

Depending on how this goes down, they can join the Severus dominion and fight back the imperial guard, then be stationed elsewhere in the Dominion, or disgruntedly continue to fight for the imperium while the regiments morale is becomming an ever increasing problem and shifts the focus of the game to internal struggles rather than external ones.

And that is what I had for this campaign, some loose notes is lying around somewhere and I can find it and refine the campaign if I were to ever run it.

Lack of motivation

I like writing these stories, but lately I've been struggling with depression so my motivation to do anything have severly dropped. I know that the majority of the causes for my depression will be solved before 15th of october, so hopefully I'll be able to start the stories back up after that.

When the stories are done, I have plans for writing campaigns that I've never gotten to run, or maybe share cool ideas that goes unused, maybe even keep an update for my current games (right now I'm running a Only War campaign). but we will see, need to get over this damn depression and get my movitation back.

Edge of the Empire: Modified arm of the Hutt - Episode 2

The PCs took off from landing bay Aurek, and was quickly detected by several tie fighters, since the HMRI was not installed yet, they had a fight on their hands.

So with Bucket and Arali'una working to fix the HMRI, Hannash at the helm, and It & Alex at the gunnery stations, they engaged the tie fighters.

It was expected to be a close fight, but the inexperienced Alex had some incredible luck, treating the space combat like a ground fight, and due to the tie fighters's lack of experience, it was more than enough to just lead the shots and take down the tie fighters. It managed to get some himeself but the majority was taken down by Alex.

As soon as Arali'una had fixed the HMRI, they set off with lightspeed, out of Tatooine's system.

Several lights appeared in the display and it was a clear indication that something was wrong, After dropping out of hyperspace, they set to work, figuring out what this was all about.

There was a strench in the ship, it was distracting for most but It had a stronger sense and was even more agitated than the others for some strange reason. There was also some horrible sound comming for some of the speakers in the cockpit, and 2 lights was flashing. All of this was in trandosian language, which none of the PCs knew.

Alex and It tried to find the source of the stench, and set out to explore the ship, while hannash and Arali'una tried to figure out what the signs ment. First light was fuel, there was pretty sure about that, and it was pretty low, no way they could fly anywhere with this small amount. The second light looked like some sort of cage, which could indicate prisoner? Arali'una went to team up with Alex and It for that part. Hannash would stay and struggle with what was later known as trandosian opera being played on the speakers.

The source of the stench was a hidden cargo hold which contained 4 wookie pelts, no wonder It was agitated, so they threw it out the airlock. While the area where prisoners was kept, they found one Twi'lek with a scorched Lekku, and another cage with some kind of marked shell inside it.

They never figured out what the genosian (or however it was spelled) shell was, and it did not come into play for the rest of the game. However, the Twi'lek was more interessting, after being let out of the cage and given water, he told the PCs about how he was captured, that he was from the planet Ryloth. As a thanks for being rescued, he offered to find a way to get their ship repaired.

Trex was put in the Twi'lek's cage and they set out to explore the rest of the ship.
Alex found a holochess and challanged the twi'lek to a game while they waited.
The others found a small repair shop with a droid in it, a quick repair brought it back up.

The droid introduced itself as Packetstorm, a new player has joined the game.

Edge of the Empire: Escape from Mos Shuuta - Episode 1

I guess it's time for a new game now, this one is a bit fresher in memory as I ran it over the course of last year and maybe a bit at the beginning of this year.

The group was highly varied in terms of people but we had some core players in this game, and the players were as follows:

It: the Wookie explorer scout
Hannash Randar: the human smuggler pilot
Arali`una: the twi'lek colonist doctor
Alex: the human bounty hunting assassin
Packetstorm: the droid slicer technician
John De Griz: the human outlaw technician (would be joining later in the campaign)
Vuko Vandap: the Rodian Exploring fringer (would be joining later in the campaign)
Virani: the Twi'lek Colonist doctor (would be joining later in the campaign)
Mordus: the human smuggling scoundrel (would be joining a lot later in the campaign)
Cynewolf Mozo: the human hired gun "no-mercy-nary" (would be joining a lot later in the campaign)
Voron Moorheart: the human outlaw technician (would be joining later in the campaign)
Jar'o: the chiss technician mech (would be joining later in the campaign)


They were running through the intense heat of Tatooine as a group of Teemo the hutt's gammorrean thugs were after them, seeking shelter within the local cantina, they would be able to avoid the scorching sun but it would only provide a small window that they could use to catch a break.

They had to find somewhere to hide, quickly.
- It sat down with a group of people trying to fit in,
- Alex did so too but none of them did it well and their cover would not work, but they had no more time.
- Arali'una ran up to a twi'lek dancing at the back of the cantina and asked if she could hide her, after a successful charm check, Arali'una was let in backstage (where she found a disguise kit).
- Hannash Randar sat down with a different group of people and managed to stay hidden.
- Packetstorm hid in a storage closet behind the bar.

When the gammorrean entered, they saw the wookie and the laminate armoured bounty hunter easily enough and started to move towards them.

The fight was done quickly enough... well, not THAT quickly, but the group survived without causing too much collateral damage or taking too many woulds, the gammorean however.

After the fight was over, the devaronian bartender approached them and told them that he heard about someone pissing off teemo, he figured that it was the PCs, so he dropped the hints that there was a spaceship in landing bay Aurek at the moment, but it was lacking a Hyper Matter Reactor Igniter (HMRI), that there was likely one at the junkshop, and that the ship was owned by a bounty hunter named Trex. After telling the PCs this, he said "now, get out of my cantina".

The junkyard was easily enough to find, it was just to follow the edge of the large scrapyard to a low pourstone building. Inside a man dozily notices then, then kicks a old R5 droid and snaps "you are supposed to tell me when we have customers, you rusted bucket of bolts."

The shopkeep Vorn turns to the players and says "welcome, what'cha buying", while the droid surly boops out into the scrapyard to do salvage work.

The PCs asks about the HMRI and learns that Trex is expecting it, and yes he got one, they fail to convince Vorn that they are there to deliver it to him and does have a lot of problems with haggling the price down. Meanwhile, the wookie walks out into the scrapyard (or sneaks rather, surprisingly enough for a wookie), find the droid and plays on his motivation for droid rights. He tells the droids that they are going to steal the ship and need the part, if he helps them, he can get a free ride, joining the ship. The droid accepts and would be known as Bucket, the ships minor-repair droid (any PC is considered to have at least 1 rank in mechanics as long as Bucket helps them, people who already have mechanics, gets a boost instead).

So the others learns that the droid will bring the part soon, and they finish up shopping with Vorn, getting a few repair kits and stim packs, before headding out to wait for the droid. And as soon as they get it, it is off to the spaceport control. They talked to Vorn about the details of the ship and he mentioned spaceport control had it locked down for administrative reasons, if they wanted to leave, they had to talk to them first.

Outside spaceport control, were a few droids but the door was open, so they made their way past and over to the control desks, the lady in charge had a quick chat with hannash about the ship but were not convinced, she just told them to leave, they could find their own way out. Hannash however, would have none of it, and hacked a computer that was just out of sight, since the people did not bother to pay the group much attention. They unlocked landing bay Aurek's controls and narrowly avoided triggering security alarms in the computer system.

Now it was off to the landing bay, however, they saw a group of 4 storm troopers making their way past the crowd, pointing at the PCs and shouting "there they are!", a second later, another group came into view through a side passage.

The group figured that fighting here would risk them hitting innocents and they needed to get the hell out of there quickly, so they rushed through another side alley, into a building, and thanks to Hannash's knowedge about the street, they made their way through a rundown gamblers den, where some of the PCs drew they weapons and said "please, stay seated" as they moved to the back door. However, one of the PCs, i think it was Arali'una, helped herself to the money on the table.

When they reached the back entrance, they got into another alley and followed it around towards to the landing bay. While the landing bay was guarded, they came to the side where it had a maintenance entrance. Cracking the security, they got in and snuk to the main entrance to lock the door, sealing anyone out, not being able to follow them.

The group split up here, 2 went towards the ship and another 2 headded to the controls for the roof. The roof was easy enough to open, the ship however... had Trex inside it. Trex was quite tenacious but he stood no chance against several shots of the wookie's bowcaster. And even if he tried to escape, Arali'una had a net which he threw over Trex, prevending him from escaping.

The group had captured themselves a bounty hunter, and a brand new spaceship, the only thing left was to leave this dirtball called Tatooine.

Iron Kingdoms: I'm a fool to not remember more - Episode 5: quick final summary

I only have sporadic memories of the rest of the game from this point, as Blaze the bloody and Spike the crushed was working with me in order to take over as GM. I was leaving the town and a new GM had to step in, so I spend the last 3 months or so, training/helping him to become a GM.

a few things happened since, including continuing into the new GM's game, so lets see if i can get some of the details down:

Solomon got captured by the fraternal order and blamed for the damage to the town, and suspected of being linked to the attack, so the player made a new character, a Stormknight, who I dont think played in my game.

I made a new character, a Iosan seeker / cutthroat on a mission to recover artifacts relating to scyrrah,

Everyone died at least once but Ichabod survived the long run.

The new GM ran us through a few quick missions:
- talk to a administrative noble suspected of corruption
- investigate a pirate den
- do some general business around town

and then I had to leave, the story continued but I was not there to learn what was going on about it.

Iron Kingdoms: Only Fools Come Back - Episode 4

Right, so it was time to return to Corvis, without a barge, they had to swim with of the hideout then along the river's edge until they could climb up on land and walk, wet and cold, to town.

When they arrived, they saw that the town was burning, the walls and gate were destroyed while the area around was filled with broken warjacks and corpses, the ground was also filled with ash, likely from the steam powered 'jacks, but this amount was strange.

Inside the gates, people ran around, busy trying to repair things and tend to the injured. In the middle of the first square was a huge pile of steamjacks. While the rest of the group went around gathering information and helping, Solomon climbed up on the pile of jacks and saw that it was more a wall around a person, who was emitting some sort of energy but completely froze. Solomon climbed down to him from the top of the wall of steamjacks and touched him, this activated something that sent him flying with incredible force, through the wall of broken steamjacks, through 2 buildings and into a broken shop, where he got injured that made him permanenty scarred (another -1 to social skills and +1 to intimidate).

However, because of the touch, he had seen through the eyes of the person, what had happened. Khador was attacking, the steamjacks emitting more steam and ash than normal, causing everyone go to into a frenzy, murdering everyone and destroying everything. The person felt an increasing emotion of anger, untill he snapped, somehow drawing upon arcane energies to telekineticly throw khadorans and steamjacks around like they were ragdolls, the energy was ever increasing and the steamjacks were piling on the person to stop him, but his power reached its peak where it exploded, leaving him an empty shell, as well as a statue.

The others in the group learned this through the tales of survivors, some said that the person had failed a ascension, while others say it must be a failed Scioning... both the brother morrow and sister thamar wanted him as their avatar but none of them got him, which left him like that.

After recovering enough to visit the charter house, they discovered that it was damaged and now had to find a new one, a few quick questions about the leaders of the charter they heard that they were connected to the attack and had ran away towards Llael. (so the PCs shut up about their affiliation with the charter).

But they had no money, so the best way to get some was doing work, The new guard lieutenant would likely have some work, and also give them any pardon to their links to the charter, so off they went to earn some money.

The sergeant from their first campaign (only fools rush in) met them and said that they had too much to do now due to criminals exploiting the situation, the civvies are panicing,, and plenty of the south-western wall of the town lies in ruins. But he believes that the former lieutenant might be involved or know something due to his corruption, so he lets the PCs visit the broken watchtower, where the corrupted lieutenant sits in the basement, in a jail cell.

The PCs easily finds the cell and ignores the other prisoners, however, through the bars of the cell, they see that the far wall is broken and there is noone in the cell... dammit, he had escaped. Quickly they followed suit and found a small shantytown, set up in the larger parts of the sewers, a few large buildings were here, a small rundown pub, beggars everywhere, and the general air that this is not somewhere they should be. People in poor places is desperate, and desperate people do easily make misstakes, which could cost the PCs.

Anyway, they ignored the people here and walked towards the pub. When they got close, they heard someone from the second floor shout "200 gold" to whomever get rid of these fools!". A fight broke out, The gobber, Goda Hoblock was standing on a small, thin pier next to one that was about to draw his dagger, So Goda poked him with the rapiere in the bum and made him fall forwards, into the sewage about 3 meters below.

The rest fought off the beggars and thugs with somewhat ease, When Ichabod put enough supressive on the former lieutenant to make him retreat, they followed him into the building, encountered one of the massive ogrun bouncers, but Blaze managed to tackle him off the second floor to allow the rest to pass.

They found the lieutenant in a small hook, who had just enough time to activate a bomb before prepareing to defend it, while shouting "you will never take me alive, I'll be sure to take all of you with me"... a few more cursewords is included but I cant remember what was used. Goda was here at the time, along with the dwarf stone sorcerer, while the dwarf used stonestance (all friendlies in his command range ignores knockdown), earthquake (everyone in his command range is knocked down), and pickaxe (boosted damage against knocked down targets), the lieutenant went down (but not dead) quickly enough, while Goda tried to disarm the bomb, when he remember... "No machine Goda knows ".

They all legged it, with everyone but 1 person being able to get far enough, it should also be mentioned that Solomon the flame sorceror at this time choose to run away from the party, to a different place in the sewers.

Spike the trollkin fellcaller (Blaze's new character) was too slow and knew he was going to be crushed by several tonnes of stone, Goda (the gunmage's new character) also failed, but Spike used his last actions to pick up Goda and throw him to safery, shouting something like "be save little one". Before being crused as the explotion brought down the pub along with supports, causing the roof of the sewers to collapse.

The PCs made their way back through the lieutenant's cell and out, where the guardsmen and sergeant was standing, quite annoyed at the situation but not suspecting the PCs. They did however notice some spells being flung back and forth across this large hole that had appeared in the middle of the docks, revealing parts of the sewers below.

Iron Kingdoms: Only Non-Fools Get Out - Episode 3

So, there were 4 players this session, Blaze, Ichabod, Solomon, and the Gunmage. And they were all imprisoned in the cages, in the very same room that they had fought during the last session. The thamarite was gone but in their place stood 4 people with improvised torture tools, like a heated iron poker.

Blaze managed to taunt the guy with the iron poker to him and take him out before being attacked by the others, the body of the first torturer fell near Solomon and the player was completely oblivious to all the hints that the torturer might have the keys to the cell. So I improvised a small action that caused the body to roll over to Ichabod, where he immediatly looted the key and got out... to what Solomon's player would say "I would have done that"... the other PCs just shaked their heads and we continued.

After dealing with the torturers and Blaze had again fallen victim to spitting blood critical... the group figured that he earned a new nickname; Blaze "Bloody" Heartly. Equipped with torture tool and stabilising Bloody, they explored the room, there was no way that they would survive if they ran topside, so everyone insisted on looking for secret passages in a slim hope that there was another exit.

Thankfully, I had planned this option because if the PCs were to completely steamroll the previous fight (they did not), a new bloated thrall would emerge from a secret passage. So the PCs found this and discovered a sewer complex.

With Solomon's fire spells and plenty of unlit torches around, they easily navigated the sewers, only having to jump over the sewage-water one time. However, they saw that something was following them in the water, and as long as they were not in it, they felt... safer?, anyway, they had nothing to fight it with at range, Solomon's fire would not penetrate the surface of the water, just heat it slightly.

At the exit of the sewer, they found that it led to a cave, however ,getting to the cave entrance required to walk through the sewer-water. So when the PCs jumped in, they managed to place themself in a formation which left Blaze open to attack from a crocodile of sorts. Blaze had earned his nickname well as he went down on spitting blood again, but got up and killed the crocodile with a impovised spear the had gotten.

So, it was starting to get silly now but they followed the path through the cave and got to a square room, there was an endless pit in the middle of the room and the PCs needed to cross it to get to the other side.
The pit was filled with floating, perfectly round, stones of sorts.

Solomon tried to touch one with his foot, it was pushed out of is place by the force, but floated back to its original possition when he removed the force he had applied to it.
The gunmage tried to jump from stone to stone, but failed and was hanging from the stone which now was dipped lower than anything else, so he had to be rescued. (the stones could only be pushed a certain distance out of its possition before it could not be moved further).

The PCs tried to come up with ideas by using various knowledge tests, but Solomon said he wanted to try to jump across. So 3 spent fatepoints later, he was hanging by the last stone near the end and needed help.

The other PCs tried variosu tests and only 1 succeeded, so as a GM, i wrote the word "slide" on a post-it note and handed it to the player.

Player: "guys, let me try something, I need runspeed"
Others: "you are going to die if you try to jump this"
Player: "Watch this... WEEEEEEE!"

the PC slid across the stones, moving the weight to a new stone quickly enough to continue the momentum, there was also no resistance so the speed got him to the other side in a matter of seconds.

... the look of Solomon's player at this stage... priceless...

The others followed suit and then rescued Solomon from falling to his death. On their way they went, untill they came across another room, this was more a hallway. in the middle of the room was a chest, and there was clear markings of a square on the floor around it. Blaze and the Gunmage wanted loot, so they rushed in and opened the chest, the floor gave in and they fell into a pit.

This new pit had a glazed wall so it was as good as impossible to climb out without help, and there was another chest in this pit.

Blaze: "I'm opening the chest"
GM: "gunmage? do you want to climb out?"
Gunmage: "naa, im good"

The chest was opened and it was another fall-trap, this time to many sets of spikes which was certain death, so this is where Blaze "Bloody" Heartly met his end? and the gunmage also catched his last breath.
This idea was inspired by a post on reddit, talking about interessting traps and twists relating to exploring.

Ichabod and Solomon just watched this happened, without rope or equipment, there was nothing they could do but continue. The door at the far end was also trapped (from reddit this one too), when Ichabod tried to open the double doors with the handle on the middle, the sides of the doors came loose and slammed togeather, squashing anyone who tried to use the handles of the door. Ichabod only took some damage and was disoriented, but alive.

Past the doors was a small cave with a river, it opened up into a larger area, it was deserted at first, but they saw a barge incomming. On this barge was several gang members from the first session (the bloody skiff gang), they had apparently taken prisoners, a trollkin fellcaller (blaze's new character), and a gobber investigator named Yoda (the gunmage, and yes, he talked like yoda all the time).

Waiting for the perfect time, they attacked just as the barge set out again, quickly taking out the ones guarding the prisoners, letting the trollkin charge and shoulderbarge one of the gangers into the water, it was quick business due to Solomon's spells and the trollkins shoulderbarging.

In the gangers den, they found plenty of equipment to restore what they had lost, but with no barge, they were forced to walk back to Corvis.

Iron Kingdoms: Only Fools Rush Out - Episode 2

The group gathered up in the Charter house to recover and get a bit of crafting done, a new player had joined the battle, a very very oily dwarf mechanic... which i also have forgotten the name of.

After some investigation in the town (do not remember this part), they have gotten several clues, linked to the package, and to personal quests, like the Gunmage's sister who was a spy for the Khadorans, and Blaze's brother being kidnapped by bandits.

So the group had a few leads, and the one they choosed to follow was hint of a rider, riding towards Fort Ryker, so they rented some horses (except the dwarf who rode on the back of his steamjack).

The trip was mostly uneventful as they had avoided the areas that the bandits regularly attacked and it was mostly military who patrolled this road, so they reached the fort. but instead of entering it, they traveled to a nearby village, where the dwarf outdrank a few mercenaries and learned that the fort was held by some mercenary group that recruited just about anyone, while the gunmage seduced a farmer's wife after learning that the daughter was too young for him.

After figuring out that  they should try to pose as mercenaries, they made their way to the fort and convinced the guards to let them in, but they were warned that when they got inside, they were not allowed to leave (at this point it should be mentioned that the dwarf stayed at the farm to outdrink mercs).

Inside, the group saw that a khadoran army was assembling, most likely to attack corvis... shit, they needed to do something but they could not leave. So far they had a good cover, so by using it for what its worth, they could gather proof and try to find an escape.

After a bit of exploring, they headded into the main fort, found a sideroom and discussed their tactics, they were interupted by a patrol, but managed to come up with a plausible explanation and the patrol went on his way.

Not being granted access to the floors above, they attempted to make their way down into the basement, maybe there was some sort of exit there.

A guard was keeping watch, and behind him was some sort of magical barrier, the PCs said that they had an appointment and was let through. The guard waved a item of sorts and the barrian faded, the PCs passed through and the barrier automaticly recovered.

Downstairs, a battle was sure to start, so they prepared everything they got and peeked around a corner. There they saw a Bloated Thrall with a cannon, along with a thamarite of sorts. Why was this cryxian thamarite working with the khadorans? They did not get the answer to that before Blaze managed to make his presence known.

So a fight started, there was 4 mecha-thralls, 1 bloated thrall, and 1 thamarite, at first the PCs did so much burst damage that I was worried that the PCs would finish the fight in the second round. But when the thamarite cast a powerful AOE spell and the bloated thrall fired his AOE cannon, most of the PCs were down to almost 0 vitality.

To make sure that the enemy did not get to use their AOE, they ran into melee with the enemies, even the ranged PCs, but the weak Mecha-thralls intercepted them, making it hard to reach the bloat and the thamarite, further causing a lot of trouble.

During the fight, Blaze got his rapier eroded by acid from within the bloat and got smashed to the ground, the others got him back up again but he kept going down each round. by the end, there was only 3 players left, the thamarite and the bloat. The thamarite used his aoe, knocked all the players down, and destroyed the bloat by friendlyfire. Then he walked around and taking out the PCs with his staff.

Instead of doing a TPK, The group was imprisoned and robbed of all their gear, including the Package.

The group never learned what happened to the package so I can spoil it here, the thamarite was also a mechanic and he had been building a helljack in secret, this cortex was different than regular ones, it made the Helljack more sophisticated, while not being able to communicate, it would be able to analyse tactics and make its own plans. It was impossible to be bonded with a warcaster however, so while it could give itself orders, it would not benefit from the abilities of 'jack marshals or warcasters.

Next up; the PCs try to escape:

Iron Kingdoms: Only Fools Rush in - Episode 1

Soo much warhammer 40k, time for some different games. Lets start with my first game of iron kingdoms, a game I found in the hobby store that my group played in, and I was immediatly sold when I saw that you could play as a Gunmage. Another friend also liked the game so we both studied it and tested the system before getting a group togeather to play.

The group consisted of me as a GM;
- a Sorcerer named Solomon (aka ego-psyker from my previous game)
- a Ranged named Ichabod (who played a stealthy assassin in my former game... i got to hand it to him, I did not remember him so he did a REALLY good job with staying in the background)
- a Gunmage that I dont remember the name of (aka the sororitas from my previous game)
- and a duelist named Blaze Heartly (aka the redemptionist from my previous game)

The group started out being called upon by the local city watch in Corvis, and asked to help out with a hostage situation, the lieutenant's wife and child had been kidnapped and the kidnappers demanded that he handed a package marked Miscellanious surplus, to them, and the package was currently in the possession of a alchemist. The City watch could not be linked to this, so thats why the group's mercenary charter was given the task.

After a bit of chatting and a few minor encounters with the regular people of the city, they came to the alchemist's house and saw 2 soldiers of the golden crucible standing outside, guarding the entrance. The Solomon thought it would be a good idea to climb up on the roof in plain sight, making the guards really agitated, so when Blaze tried to talk to them, they were forced to warn him that if he took a single step further towards them, they would shoot (they had cannonshields, which would really hurt).

Seeing no other way, they all opened fire while Solomon climbed up on the roof, they had almost killed the Crucible guards when Solomon dropped inside the building, just to discover a fuse had just ran out, and the top floor erupted in an explosion, sending Solomon flying out the window he just had jumped through, then 3 storied down to the cobblebrick road, sending him from full health, down to a critical wound that left him scarred for life (-1 to all social test except intimidate, which gained +1).

The others were knocked down and recovered in time to see the crucible guards running away. The building was burning and they had to do something, so Blaze and the gunmage forced themselves inside, discovered a signature marking of a gang by the docks and no indication that the package was in the building. So they left the burning building and made their way into the city to avoid any guards that would try to stop them to ask questions.

Looking around the docks, they found a barge that belonged to the gang, so the idea to take over the barge stealthily was considered, but as soon as one of the barge's crewmates opened fire at the first PC to make the pier floorboards creak, they charged in and slayed everyone. Except 2, 1 crewmate was unconcious, and there were 2 prisoners on the barge, 2 golden crucible guards.

One of the guards had been executed, the other jumped into the river to avoid the ones that tried to execute him, and the attacked from earlier that day.

With everyone down, the hatches to the lower decks opened, and out stepped a woman in robes and a large ogrun with a giant shield and wielding a 2handed cleaver in 1 hand... this was a real fight.

The robed woman casted a spell and all the people they had just killed, was raised as undeads... this was horrifying.

The fight was difficult but some interessting things happened, Blaze went down bleeding to death, but the gunmage used all his skills and actually managed to stabilise Blaze by doing the following: Shot 1 undead in melee with a thunderbolt (knockback) so he was not in melee anymore, ran over to blaze and used Medicine to stabilise him... and reloaded his magelock.

Another thing was that Blaze went down, got up, went down, got up, went down, got up... it was getting quite tiresome, but comical.

Then there was the gunmage's thunderbolt that hit the Ogrun, kocked him back into the Robed woman, and killed her with slam damage. The ogrun was brought low soon after.

When the fight was done, Ichabod and Blaze wanted to interrogate the last surviving crewmmeber, while Solomon and the gunmage went below deck to figure out what was there, however, something felt wrong and the gunmage came back up.

Solomon entered the captain's cabin and saw the package opened, he looked at it and saw that it was important, but somehow evil, while he had little idea of what it was, he took it and never wanted to give it away. (it was a Cryxian cortex, aka a brain for necromancers steamjacks... which is this world's equivalent of spacemarines).

Meanwhile on deck, I believe that I managed to roleplaying the captured crewmate really well, as we ignored all dicerolls and the players asked questions in character, while I answered them in character.

Once they had what they needed, including Solomon and the package (solomon was carrying it and he did not want to give it to anyone). They binded their prisoner and dragged him after them.

When they left the pier, they met the guard Lieutenant and they were ready to hand the package over (solomon still refused), they mentioned the lieutenant's wife and child, and the lieutenant laughed. He had lied, he wanted the cortex for other reasons, and before they could negotiate anything, he had gotten enough of waiting for them to hand it over, so he attempted to take it by force.

The PCs was caught in the open when the lieutenant and several watchmen attacked them, unfortunatly, their prisoner was hit by the first volley and died, fortunatly, there was plenty of cover for the rest. However, they were outmatched.

They had not recovered from their previous fight and was in quite a lot of trouble, but then they saw 3 members of their charter, the actual leaders joining the fight to help out. A large trollkin with a shield and sword, a man in gasmask that threw grenades everywhere, and a arcanist that help up a shield so they could get closer to the fight without taking much damage.

The fight was almost over when a large steamjack entered the fight and caught the lieutenant unaware, it grabbed him and held him immobile, the rest of the guards gave up then. Shortly afterwards, the leader of the charter came into view, wielding her wrench and shotgun ready for use.

With a quick wrapup, the group managed to get the corrupted guards imprisoned and a new lieutenant had stepped up for now, this one could be trusted a little bit more at least. They got to rest and recover before setting out towards their new leads.

Dark Heresy: Ok, maybe I do remember this - episode 5 - last episode

Ok, we were at the potentional final showdown and I had plans for wrapping up the campaign for some reason (I think I was going to have my final exam and then get ready to move to wales for a year).

For this session, 2 players could not make it, the Psyker who would die, and the cleric. I had felt bad for killing the psyker and trying to figure out how a new person could join up, but since he was not there, it made it easier. However, while we were playing in a hobby store and the one that closed down for the evening were not in out game (yes we stayed after closing time tanks to an arrangement), I asked if he would like to join our last session, he said no, but stood in the door to listen to the start of our session, which went something like this:

GM: "So you see this large shade emerging from the Psyker, threatening to rip its way through"....
Store-keep: "ok, im in, who do I play?"

We all laughed at that, then we discussed what we could do to accomodate for him, which really just boiled down to playing 1 out of 2 secret characters i had prepared, playing the ork trappa who felt bad and wanted to help them afterall... or play the cleric, he went for the cleric.

So the daemon was ripping its way through the materium and the group was preparing to fight, when the psyker's body fell limp and the shadow exploded in a shockwave of dispersed warp energy.

The cleric was thrown into a tree, hit his head hard and the first thing he said when he came to was "who am I?"

The rest recovered to see the dead psyker and a man standing at the enterance of the spaceship, he had the mark of the inquisition on him. The group recovered as fast as they could, while making sure that the cleric believed he was named something that had to do with tits (forgot the word we used). The Inquisitor made a quick introduction, saying that he was an interrogator (not a full fledged inquisitor) and he needed their help, while completely ignored the dead psyker. Noone knew how he stopped the daemon, and the only one who would have an idea was now dead, they still had a bad feeling about it.

The interrogator was George Gibbs, while he did not say how he arrived where he was, he did say that he survived in stasis for an undetermined time. Now he needed the help of several people and equipment in order to save his brother, Henry Gibbs, who was still on the ship.

The group explained that they needed something from the plasma generators and George said he would point them the way if they helped rescue his brother, which they agreed to.

So they went through the ship to a heavy storage room with several seals around it and a LOT of rubble in front of it, they cleared this away with George watching, then they opened the door (it was not locked), inside, they saw a man chained to the wall of a square room, with lots of occult runes covering every surface of the room. The man looked completely normal but looked asleep.

George stood outside and pointed at a spesific rune that did not look much different form the  rest "erase that rune". The PC did not ask questions and removed this, and with that, George stepped inside and erased 3 more, leaving the rest. Then he walked over to his brother and started taking off the chains while talking to him, and just quickly informing the PCs of the directions to the plasma generator.

The PCs felt annoyed that they did not get much more help but they made their way towards the generator, encountering a lot of obstruction along the way, having to go a long way around. When they arrived in the generator room, they heard their vox activating along with their microbeads. With a distorted voice, someone said "we have gotten what we came for, awaiting pickup"... The PCs finally understood that if George got to the ship, they would be left there, he did not seem like someone who cared about them, so they got on their vox and said "ignore last message, someone is trying to steal the flyer"... the voice of George Gibbs became clear on the vox now "You are dead!".

The PCs had yet to get the part, so the sororitas franticly tried to get it along with the cleric while the redemptionist took up cover position waiting for them to come. At first they heard nothing, then they started to hear sounds of bolts exploding, George had apparently no patience for going the long way around and hence blasted his way through the blockades, which would take longer. So they had a plan, once they had the part, they would take the long way back, and avoid George and his brother.

This would not be the case, as they came up behind them, instead of ignoring them, they took the chance to ambush them. throwing a flash bang, the cleric not understanding how it worked and ran in at the same time instead of waiting for the flash (blinding himself... this was on purpose, and it was funny, but dangerous), the rest took cover and started fighting George, which proved to be a radical psyker, using insanity and corruption invoking powers along with a powersword and boltpistol. While his brother was floating in the air, chains still attached to him and using telekinesis powers. Every cut that was inflicted on Henry revealed that something more terrifying was lurking below his skin. The Players had at this point already figured out that they were up against a daemon host.

The battle reduced everyone to critical wounds but at last the Redemptionist used a power called Martyr, which dealt a LOT of damage to psykers and daemons, sending the daemon in the host back to the warp while destroying the body, and impaling George on the chainsword... however, George had a displacementfield which caused a lot of trouble in the fight, it activated this time, teleporting both him and the redemptionist into the warp, to where they were both unprotected from the influences that exist in the warp.

This is a potentional plot hook that I have yet to use for my games, and have yet to find a good place to use it, so maybe we will see a return of George in some... other.... form...

Anyway, the rest of the group who survived, including the sororitas... who lost all her fatepoints at the very first session, had survived all this time... it was quite the feat, but I dont remember doing anything about it, as it got late and we needed to finish the game.

So we wrapped up, the PCs being rescued, learning that while they were gone, eldars had visited the ship and was somehow helping out restoring Lord Captain Tristan to full health (with a few internal cybernetic), Tristan then had a chat with the eldars in private, before informing the PCs and Navigator Gary Carbona that he was leaving, taking one of the few still working warp-capable ships in the graveyard and setting course for Thamar Praxis. Since the PCs had distinguesed themselves in service, he invited them to join him as acolytes (Tristan had readily revealed his inquisitor badge, and everyone seems to already know this but still called him lord captain).

When the PCs asked what they were going to do at Thamar Praxis, the HQ of the inquisition, Tristan answered. "we are going to steal an artifact from right under the high lord inquisitor's nose"

Dark Heresy: Ok, maybe I do remember this - episode 4

The group had some time to recover and get some reward before they were given a new task. Some time ago, Grimstuff the Ork mekboy had wandered around the other spacehulks, looking for parts to use for a project of his, but during this time, he had activated the ships engines and sent the ship crashing into a nearby planet. The ship ratings of the Lost have found documentations showing that the ship had a lot of similarities and plenty of the parts could be used to repair damaged parts of the end of time, the plasma cores in particular. So the PCs were given the order to go planetside, find the ship and recover the parts for the plasma cores if possible, even if it was damaged, it could possible be repaired so it would be worth a look.

The PCs were given a flyer which had been recovered not too long ago, and a long range vox. The flyer had an assigned pilot, they were dropped off and then it would return to the End of time and wait for their signal to be picked up.

So the group set out, but not before being notified that the spook psyker had died to his injures and the cleric had informed the group that one of the redemptionists from the chapel was willing to help their cause.

So they set out, the planet was a forest world, causing it to be difficult to land, so first they attempted to land near the ship... oh shit, it was surrounded by an ork base... fly away quickly. Instead, they settled on landing in a clearing a distance away, so they could sneak into the ship under cover of the darkness.

Walking through the forest was not that difficult but a few difficulties were encountered anyway. First they were attacked by some sort of scaled lizard-panter, then they came to a lake, they could go around but they thought that more of the beasts were stalking them so they tried to pass a cliffside along the lake that would be the shortest route, however, they all failed, in turn falling into the water, and the last ones being attacked by another beast, and willingly jumping into the water.

There was some horrible failing with swimming tests, causing the cleric and the ego psyker to burn a fatepoint, maybe even the redemptionist. As they burned the points, a giant lake-monster (crocodile-like fish) tried to nom them, but got ahold of the rope with them hanging on each side of the mouth of this massive creature. It emerged from below the surface, the rope snapped and sent 2 of the PCs flying towards the shore, with the last person (who did not burn fatepoint afterall) walking along the lake-floor, towards the shore while holding his breath (this was due to a very heavy armour)

This reminds me, I should mention the landing, they did land on a pentagon shaped platform, which prooved to be a tomb of sorts with lots of mastercrafter ceremonial weapons, only the cleric used these, and with the psyker completely ignorant, did not notice that these items were cursed with the souls of the dead. While the weapons and armour (1 set + a few pieces) were designed for shorter than normal humanoids, noone knew if this was aliens, abhumans or humans that came here from a high-gravity planet, they were all short anyway.
During the trip towards the lake, they encountered the stalking beast, but they also encountered a hostile warp-ghost, the redemptionist managed to take it out but they had suffered a lot due to its attack.

Now, back to the lake shore:
They could not continue with everyone being so injured and tired, so they had to set up camp, far away from the lake and the crocodile-fish as possible. With double watch, they managed to get at least some rest, giving the ones who were hurt the most, the better part of the night. In the morning, they were all woken up by a warp-fart... that is to say that the player who played the ego-psyker had found another exploit in his psychic powers, healing everyone up to full health in a matter of seconds with no difficulty. (So i had to put limitations on the power, it worked like it should in combat, but out of combat, due to the adrenaline not being as present as during combat, things went slower, so instead of fully healing someone in 18 seconds, it took  5 minutes per wound, 15 minutes per critical wound).

So with all of them back to full health and nothing bad except the warp-fart, they continued on their way. After a little while, they came across one of these stalking beasts, trapped in a primitive hunter's trap. They heard more sound and hid. An ork appeared, watched the stalker for a bit before stepping in and skewering it with a spear. Once the ork made sure the beast was dead, it was cut down and thrown over the shoulder.

At this point, one of the players made himself be noticed... that is to say that the Redemptionist stepped in with his chainsword, ready for a fight. The ork however, ignored him and went on his way, leaving the group shocked... "what? an ork that refuse a fight? what is going on?"

They followed the ork to learn this, and passed by a field of plants that released spores every now and then, all of them failed to spot this or resist its effect and since that point was affected by something called Tranquil, a drug that severely reduces the hostility within certain creatures (not the stalking beasts).

When they saw the camp, they saw an ork guard sleeping outside, the ork trappa carrying his prey inside, the ship was quite visible within the ork base. One of the players snuk up to a low wall and looked inside, orks were walking around doing anything and everything, then a gretchin spotted the PC.

There was a staredown for a little while before the PC waved to the gretchin... to which the gretchin waved back and went on his way.... wow strange, much confusion.

Having learned that the orks was not hostile, they all walked in the main gates, the sleeping guard barely noticing them before going back to sleep. The orks saw them but ignored them, so the PCs just strolled up to the main entrance, where they met a ork with a staff and robes... "Aaah, starwalkas. come! Grimstuff waits" the robed ork said before walking to what usually is the engineering deck on the spaceship.

Grimstuff? the ork that worked for the los pENETRADAS? ok, they were getting somewhere, the ork had worked with humans before, maybe they could talk to him about it, he was a mekboy too, he should know a lot about this sort of thing.

So they followed the robed ork to a workshop, there was a lot of metal contraptions in the area, but they saw no ork... "Boss, umies ar ere"... at the voice of the robed ork, one of the large contraptions turned around... a killa kan, "I am Grimstuff, Wot do u umies want?"... the PCs explained their situations and had a discussion with Grimstuff and the Warphead.

They learned that the ship had been broken in two, the part they were looking for lies to the east, Grimstuff assigned one of the ork trappas to their group to guide them past an area that had a LOT of traps, and they would surely be trapped if they did not have a guide.

They also learned about the tranquil, the plant that reduced the hostility in most species, the orks are affected to it but if they feel pain, they are right back to their normal behavious (players were clearly shocked by this, they had planned to attack the orks while they were all dosile, this put a stop to this plan).

The wraphead had explained that Grimstuff was leading them, plotting and planning to set out into the void on his own Waaagh!, but they were still a long way from doing so yet, but the tranquil seems to help a lot due to reducing the infighting between the orks, with only Grimstuff being immune to its effect due to his Killa Kan.

The few PCs who originally served the inquisition (ego-psyker and the sororitas), felt that this is something that should be stopped, but they had no power here, they must return to the inquisition to report... well, at least the sororitas felt like that, I doubt the ego-psyker had the same opinion.

Anyway, they went on their way, easily enough found their way to the other half of the starship with the help of the ork guide, but the guide left when they came into view of the ship as he had no other purpose and he had showed them the way to get back.

So there they stood, outside the entrance of the ship ready to enter... when the ego-psyker said "I'm gonna heal everyone again" (as some had taken some minor damage from traps that the guide had forgotten about).

GM: ok, roll
Player: I rolled a 9... no fatepoints, dammit, ok roll my phenomena
GM: rolls... 100
Player: shit, oh well, havent happened anything bad to me yet so it cant be bad, only the spook-psyker got the bad stuff.
GM: rolls.... 100

The entire table went quiet, the part on the perils of the warp was that the Psyker died instantly, not allowed to burn fatepoints, and a daemon would be in its place. and as the player had min-maxed everything he could, I as a GM was sure that any daemon that would appear in his place, would be powerful enough to cause a TPK.

So we stopped the session here so I could think about it.

Dark Heresy: Ok, maybe I do remember this - episode 3 part 2

Ok, so the group continued, it was pretty straight forward, they got to a place that had some large promethium tanks to the right side, and an elevated position, where a green mutant was shooting at them with a shotgun, missing due to long range. The PCs did not hit either so they approached but successfully realised that the promethium tanks was sabotaged and if they walked past them, it would blow and set them on fire. So they walked along the opposite side, to which the green mutant realised that her plan had failed, so she left, planning a new idea.

The next area where they encountered her, was a dark room with a lot of square boxes or engines (we never specified as far as I remember, it was just to set up the shape of the room). The green mutant had a mutation that gave her incredible speed so she ran around the room. The PCs went in a formation to find her but she avoided them all the time, barely hinting at her location as she ran past their field of view. So in the end, the group was forced to split up in order to corner her.

Their first misstake was when the cleric actually found her, just around a corner with her shotgun in overwatch... point blank range, their second misstake was the spook psyker casting Fear. he did not tell the others about it so they did not expect the psyker to take on a visage of their worst nightmare. Everyone, including the mutant paniced, the cleric got the worst of it, his eyes were glaced and he fell over in a nightmare induced unconciousness (taking over 10 insanity in a extremly horrible fear check)

One of the PCs managed to recover quicker than the mutant and injured her to such a degree that she was forced to run away. So the PCs recovered again and followed, this time to a large water storage, 4 large tanks covered the area, she was at the far end, waiting. They knew it was a trap, but they had to kill her, so they went for it. As they entered, the door behind them was closed with a panel next to the speedy-gonzales, and she shot 2 of the tanks in rapid succession as the group advanced. Water bursted out, starting to fill the room with water, but Speedy was also a wyrd, so she cast a random power (used the spook table) and threw vortex of doom in the middle of the room, blocking their advance.

So the PCs retreated behind the other tanks, the room was not filling as fast but was up to their shins (making it hard to move), so they split up, using ranged, running around the tanks to flank her and trying to counter the vortex with psychic power.

However, as expected with psykers, spook psyker especially, things were going to go wrong, so the spook psyker summoned a smaller version of the Herald of Khorne (forgot their name), and the daemon killed the spook psyker, removing his arm in the process (the psyker lost a fatepoint and then died on the operating table later, then was replaced by a Redeptionist), the daemon attacked the ego psyker on his last round but the psyker managed to parry with a success of 1 in an opposed test (dont remember the roll but something like 28 vs 29, there was some houserules as to dodge and parry but ignoring that for now). So the daemon's hellsword was parried by a mono-sword, the mono-sword was destroyed by its "powerfield" but it returned to the warp afterwards)

The cleric ran up into melee with the Magic-gonzales and got in 1 hit with his holy-club of holiness, before the vortex moved, covering both the gonzales and the cleric, killing the mutant and critically injuring the cleric, then collapsed in on itself and the room again started to fill with water.

With only 1 person left standing, there was a bit of a panic to open the door to the area, but they managed without getting a complete party-kill.

So there was only 1 mutant left now and they had taken some serious beating from single enemies, mutants even, lowly mutants with about +5 or +10 health and 2 positive mutations. Then again, it was the environment and how they used it that caused the trouble.

Again with the memory problems, I do not remember how they got to the last mutant, but they did. He was holed up in the engineering deck, with the plasma generator and had rigged it to blow, unless they did something within 7 rounds... they would all die... everyone, every single one on the ship, there was nowhere they could run, and they would have known this if it were not for the spook psyker (burned his last fatepoint and was slowly dying but wanted to finish the mission before switching character).

The spook psyker failed his test and caused everyone in the party to become frenzied (in newer games, it requires you to attack ANYONE near you, but in this, it was only hostiles), so they all charged in without looking for ambush.

The last mutant was a sniper, who carried a triplex pattern lasgun (used sniper modus to pick off the PCs), he had also put random mines around the area, very few of them were useful, as some was smoke, some was anti-plant, some were frag and some were melta... but the melta ones was never triggered as they were set up on stupid locations (I randomly rolled for each mine, had made a table).

The PCs managed to discover and find the control panel on the first floor (ground floor), while the mutant was sniping at them from a vantage point, 3 floors up. There was a few stairs and walkways to get there.
At the 7th round, they managed to successfully use a tech-use test to activate the cooling system, which gave them another round before TPK, the PC was working on it franticly and had thankfully bought Tech-use the session before. so every round he had to do tech-use tests to buy the group enough time.

It was a VERY VERY close call, as the last person who could do anything before the plasma generators overloaded, managed to hit the correct switch at the mutants vantagepoint (while being shot at by the still not dead mutant). So they were saved by luck and non-stupid actions during the second part of the battle. The mutant however, while dangerous to fight, was oneshotted due to being very very weak, and they had saves the End of Time.