What's the best way to start a total clusterfuck civil war in a Hive city?
The scenario:
-The players are high ranking sisters of battle with a lot of authority delegated from their MIA Hereticus Inquisitor boss and an alliance they gained from the Lord Governor of the planet (they actually managed to roll a natural 01 to open dialogue).
-There are three layers of conspiracy to the civil war. Layer 1 is full of all the reactive faction leaders like the major noble houses, the Imperial factions, all building up massive armies and weapons stockpiles sensing weakness in the Lord Governor and preparing counter-measures/coups. In Layer 1, people's motivations are largely concerned with just surviving and don't really know what's going on beyond "something bad." Layer 2 is full of instigators and opportunists, like the dark eldar and the slaugth, or the Arch-Deacon who intends to revive the Temple of the Saviour by making the Ecclesiarchy the dominant power in the sector. Layer 3 is where the Temple-Tendency Pontifex Maximums, the Ordo Malleus rogue inquisitor, Tzeentch-demon & the AI ship all lie, who have much grander goals in mind.
-Currently players are still in layer 1 of conspiracies. They have the choice to head straight to the Amaranthine wastes to try and track down their missing inquisitor/magos, or head to the refineries where there were credible reports of arco-flagellants & house-troops wearing power fields and utilising power weapons being used against underhive gangs. They are probably going to head to the refinery to question this suspiciously up-gunned refinery Lord.
-Said refinery Lord has a household guard fully equipped with power weapons, highest craftsmanship plasma weapons & personal protective power armour & power fields. All of these gear were recovered from derelict ships leftover from the
storm of the Emperor's wrath. They are a true believer in the Temple of the Saviour's cause and as such utterly despise the Ecclesiarchy & the Sororitas for betraying Goge Vandire.
Currently wondering whether it would be cooler for players to be ambushed on their way to the refinery lord... Or ambushed when they expect a meeting with the refinery lord. I could see two scenarios being pretty neat; one ambush on the road from a Temple assassination cell, or in the refinery itself, an ambush from a mix of guys with industrial kiln guns, household guard with dark age of tech weapons, dark eldar haemonculi observing arco-flagellants...
Or would it be better for them to talk it out with the refinery lord? Idk. I feel like in this situation the Temple heretics have everything they need to pull off a civil war and win. And it's in character that they hate Sororitas/Priests so much, that they'll go out of their way to eliminate them even if it might blow their cover. I'm also wondering just how demonic I should make all of this salvaged age of apostasy tech.
If you had a literal armada full of salvaged warp-derelicts from the age of apostasy full of master-crafted elite gear, I imagine there is enough cursed warp energy in that bad mojo to alert the attention of even the Grey Knights. But I'm trying to think of what -precisely- would fit in with the theme here. I'm thinking that the gear causes people to literally be possessed by the fervent souls from the age of apostasy, turning them into a weird kind of spirit-host. But I'm wondering what else would be thematic in the same vein of false saints, warp ghosts, actual heresy and rogue inquisitors trying to make "holy" demonhosts that can permanently kill demons, who sincerely believe the Imperium isn't righteous and zealous
enough. And while I like the idea of involving Tzeentch factions trying to co-opt the whole movement, I like the idea of them being another layer of trouble, not necessarily the driving cause of all this mess. Particularly since it gives more opportunity for warp nonsense and unaligned demons to appear. It's pretty important thematically that even if they end up using corrupting and warp influenced methods, that the Temple guys and Malleus radical sincerely believe they are holy and their cause is just, which would be a hard pretence to maintain if overt Tzeentch influence was noticeable