The crew is back in action.
They visited a system falling into the edge of a Warp Storm, to find a man hiding out at a Promethium Mining Complex, who sells Warp Route charts. Getting these charts will map out more of the Expanse for them and make it possible to travel without making a near suicidal Warp Jump.
On entering the system they picked up ghost readings of a planetary body in the outer reaches of the system. Deduction and talking to an NPC later revealed it to be a planet that slipped into the edge of the Warp Storm and never came out.
The mining colony itself was a storm wracked, benighted world. I was going for "Future Innsmouth" and I think I hit it pretty well. They met some NPCs (of course a bartender) and got the distinct impression the town was weird about the guy they were going to see. Everyone was also sporting these purple blotches on their bodies, like birth marks but many not born with them. The Psyker felt a powerful psychic pull from the minehead the colony was built around. Suspicions were confirmed when the right questions were asked of NPCs, and they started hearing background vox chatter of people tracking their movements. Something began to thought-speak to the psyker, ordering him to kill the Captain, and/or indiscriminately. I had by this point wound the party's paranoia right the fuck up.
They were constantly being shadowed and watched as they moved through town, until the Captain finally shouted into the Vox for them to face him. Things got quiet after that. They met the man they were there to see, who turns out to be a Navigator from the cursed House of Nostromo, who fled to the planet and went into hiding, because the Rogue Trader captain his house used to associate with went on a murderous rampage and killed every member of his own dynasty, and all of House Nostromo.
The Navigator agreed to turn over all his charts to the players if they'd get him off the planet, something the PCs already deduced the townspeople were not going to let happen.
There's definitely something off about him, he's evasive about a lot of things about his past and association with the colony. He mentions the the miners discovered "something" of the Yu'Vath in the mine before he'd arrived, although he didn't specify what. He didn't really want to articulate why the people of the town and the "thing" in the mine wanted him to not leave the planet.
While all this RP is going on, the captain is outside in the command Chimera at the pintel mounted stormbolter...uh....basically just shouting at the townspeople watching and hiding in the surrounding builds to face him. I believe the phrase "Greenskin cowards!" crossed his lips. I have to give him credit, he's playing the completely vengence-obsessed ork hunter to the hilt, to the point he's often disconnected from the actual reality going on. It's a schtick for sure but it has its moments. I tell him he starts hearing engines being gunned in the streets nearby.
A ruse was attempted by the 1st Mate to disguise the Navigator but it mostly falls apart as someone (I forget who) opens fire from the Chimera right as the Navigator is getting in. But with everyone packed inside, it was time for Mad Max, 40k style.
So trucks mobilized on side streets in front and behind, and rushed at their Chimera while it began accelerating down the street. One player, the Gunner, is on the Heavy Bolter turret, the Captain is running the Storm Bolter on the pintel mount, the 1st mate is shooting out a side hatch with his Stalker-Pattern bolter, and the Eldar is driving. Guys are shooting at them from the street, from the windows, from the roofs, with pretty inferior weapons.
The gunners of the Chimera cut down town flatbed trucks pretty easily, one in front and behind. The pskyer uses his powers to rob the driver and the gunner of their sight and it swerves and crashes. Meanwhile townspeople begin laying mines (actually mining charges) on the street. The players see this and start picking them off with everything they have.
That's when I happened on an idea (it's a promethium mining facility after all), so the townspeople started chucking molotovs down on to the Chimera from the roofs. The Captain fails four agility tests in a row and is completely on fire at this point. Luckily for him he's in power armor, but once his shield failed it was actually going to start doing some damage. It was hilarious as he dropped into the Chimera and ordered people to put him out, and even they failed their rolls. Finally it was decided that well-stocked Imperial vehicles likely have some kind of fire extinguisher. Funnest damn thing for me as a GM that's happened yet.
Right about this time they hit an intersection and another vehicle comes speeding at them to ram them. The Eldar dodges around the vehicle and they keep going at full speed. The Psyker then Dominates the driver of the vehicle that just tried to ram them. The Gunner of the party and the 1st Mate mostly try and pick off the foes with molotovs, until they pass a bend in the street and see a bulldozer blocking the street exit into the wider, more open square at the edge of town.
The Gunner and 1st Mate open up on it, coreing the hull with a lascannon and destroying a front tire with a bolter, respectively. While it was immobilized and its driver cooking inside the cab, it's still blocking the street end.
They decided to slow it down and have the dominated enemies in the other vehicle siddle past them on the narrow street, so they could ram into straight into the carcass of the dozer.
Right about there we had to call it because it was getting too late.
My goals for this adventure were to:
-Give them an enemy that they didn't have to feel conflicted about fighting. (To be fair, the people of that colony are twisted by Chaos but they are fairly pathetic. It's hard to emphasize with hillybilly Chaos cultists bent on killing you though.)
-Threaten them with low-tech and the scene. Essentially the opposite of the last encounter where I threw gnarly battle droids at them. These colonists are armed with nothing more than Autoguns, some promethium in can with a wick and mining charges, and some trucks and heavy equipment. Yet I feel like I really the players are feeling more threatened now than by anything before. Some of their played Advanced Squad Leader, which is all about tanks and infantry and stuff, and a lot of what was happening was playing off their knowledge of real world battles. When I mentioned the top of the Chimera was covered in flames (because everyone had buttoned up by that point inside the Chimera), they mentioned how tank crews getting asphyxiated by fire on their vehicle. When your players are volunteering up that kind of information, willingly imagining how their situation might be more dire, you know you have them.
-Give them a little mystery. The last adventure was supposed to have more NPC interaction than it got but that's because it was too straight forward what to expect. Here they knew their mission but the circumstances around it made them curious. They kinda had to know more even though they didn't really need to.
For next time:
-I'm trying to decide how i'm going to arrange the collision at the end of the street. If left up to the Eldar player's driving skill, he'll easily pass anything but a tough challenge. But I want it to be really dramatic, ya know? Like, having to bail out of the Chimera because they tipped it or got it stuck trying to ram past the dozer....that would be a nightmare for them. They'd get swarmed and they're escorting a VIP. Would that be too much? How to do it when you know the guy rolling a) has great stats for it and b) has Fate to spend. They'll cheer if they smash past that dozer.
-Since planting those mining charges in the street wasn't very effective, I guess the colonists will just have to hold them and run up to the Chimera. Gonna go Mad Max on them and have guys jump down on to the Chimera's roof and blow theyselves up.
-The landing pad where their sub-orbital craft is will also come under attack. Speaking of Mad Max, I think it's time to add some fast moving buggies to the mix. That'll keep things interesting once they make free of town.
-I wrote up these big, Chaos mutated vultures to show up at some point during the adventure, attacking both the players and the colonists. I'm going to have to get them into the action sooner rather than later, as everything is being handled in vehicles and is moving quickly.
-I'm pretty sure the PC's plan is to fight to the ship, dust off, get back on The Deadly Dame and then nuke the colony from orbit. Since the Yu'Vath "thing" (they're thinking it's an actual live Yu'Vath. Truth is, even Yu'Vath artifacts and weapons and shit are sentient to some degree) is in the mountain, in the mine, the players questioned whether even their ordinance would be able to destroy. They just haven't thought it through though. It's a Promethium mine.
Fairly proud of this adventure despite it not really being very deep. (There's more they could have dug into there but weren't going to, nor needed to.) Had some fun RPing the bartender. Was told by one of my vets it was the best vehicle combat they'd ever played in. I frankly know how loose I ran it but eh, always chasing that better GMing dragon.
Now my problem is...I gotta spend some serious time on the next leg of the campaign. At the pace things have been going I've sorta gotten lazy about thinking ahead into the future. But I honestly owe these guys an ork encounter and a whiff of their foe's trail.
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