House of Dust and Ash minor items

[Friend of the Dork 15]

Hey guys I'm running this game and the module suggest making alot of minor items to have at the auction. Problem is I have a hard time thinking of any except the occasional plasma gun.

So I would like to make a list of what other GMs have used and what worked and what was boring. I was thinking letting the PCs buy stuff they can't normally get, such as Best quality Rare items (Eldar Mesh), warp-touched items etc.

 

So what do you got?

[The Boy Named Crow 0]

 I have not played this mission, but if that is the calibur of stuff you are considering, I'm guessing it is a high society auction? I would also suggest maybe throwing in some clearly high quality items that may not necessarily be weapons or gear.

Extremely fine vintage wine or amasec from a pleasure world

Plant seeds, soil, or water from Holy Terra

Perinetus-Pattern Personal Hover-Car

Statuette of Saint Drusus carved by a renowned Artist

Offworld Property

Invitation to a party hosted by a famous War Hero

Passage onboard a pilgrim ship to the Shrine on Maccabeus Quintus

Gilded Regicide Set

Sanctified Transcription of a sermon of an important member of the Ecclesiarchy

A portrait of the current or former High Lords

Carnodon or similar predator killed and stuffed

Ornate furniture

Fancy clothing of all sorts

Rare, or ancient texts

Accessories, such as canes, hats, purses, scarves, of exceptionally high quality. Possibly with an additional function.

 

I could keep going probably. All that stuff is more or less puritan, but I'm sure an equal number of radical things of similar caliber exist.

[Friend of the Dork 15]

The Boy Named Crow said:

 I have not played this mission, but if that is the calibur of stuff you are considering, I'm guessing it is a high society auction? I would also suggest maybe throwing in some clearly high quality items that may not necessarily be weapons or gear.

Extremely fine vintage wine or amasec from a pleasure world

Plant seeds, soil, or water from Holy Terra

Perinetus-Pattern Personal Hover-Car

Statuette of Saint Drusus carved by a renowned Artist

Offworld Property

Invitation to a party hosted by a famous War Hero

Passage onboard a pilgrim ship to the Shrine on Maccabeus Quintus

Gilded Regicide Set

Sanctified Transcription of a sermon of an important member of the Ecclesiarchy

A portrait of the current or former High Lords

Carnodon or similar predator killed and stuffed

Ornate furniture

Fancy clothing of all sorts

Rare, or ancient texts

Accessories, such as canes, hats, purses, scarves, of exceptionally high quality. Possibly with an additional function.

 

I could keep going probably. All that stuff is more or less puritan, but I'm sure an equal number of radical things of similar caliber exist.

 

Yes well since this is the property of one of the richest and most powerful Rogue Trader in the sector, I was thinking a bit higher scale. The people that attend this auction have millions to spend here. Thus we're talking more than just trinkets, it must be items people would sell their own mother and risk their lives to obtain. 

 

Hmm maybe if I make some small alterations...

Ownership of a small vintage pleasure world

Plants or seeds from the throne room of the Emperor. 

Ancient hover-car using archaeotechnology.

Statuette of Saint Drusus with an imprisoned part of his soul (might be some other soul though). 

Gilded Regicide set that will kill whoever loses the game. Or maybe just one with living pieces. 

Carnodon turned into a servitor-like state (and it's controller chip). 

 

Things like that. It must be expensive and extremely rare (as in unique and or proscribed), but not quite priceless. 

[graver2 4]

An unopened and sealed rose wood box. The seal bears the crest/emblem of one of the PC's former employers/masters/rival houses/etc. It is labeled "Unopened Box"

A large alluring ruby-red button set in a brass mounting but attached to nothing else. The plaque simply states "The Red Button"

A deck of the Emperor's Tarot which belong to Erasmus' Wife's personal seer and advisor. The deck sits in a mirrored display case. The mirrors are cracked and the card displayed is the Tower.

A six fingered hand in a jar with a corroded brass plaque on the base reading "vengeance". The lable on the display reads "Hand in Jar labled 'Vengeance'"

A golden pocket chonometre with intricate scroll-work which is apparently stopped at o-thirteen-hundred hours. The plaque reads "The time-piece of Mathias Haarlock; broken"

A wrought iron door hinge labeled "from the Porta ex Lamia Dis"

* These are all rare, pricless, and one of a kind artifacts... beacsue they were owned by the Haarlocks.  Collectors can be some seriously wierd people ;-) *

[Gregorius21778 249]

Hello "Friend"

somehow, my mind can´t help but think about items personally related to Erasmus Haarlock (close to him or founded/made by him on his journeys. Afterall, it is an auctions regarding his household!)

["A piece of art given form by unknown hands, presumably made out of material from the fringes of the Imperium."]
A strange man-sized piece of sculpture resembling irregular shaped pseudopods entwined around themselves and all in all poised like a tree that has grown under constants winds. The sculpture is made of lightblue material similiar to wax in appearance but hard and very cold to the touch. If touched, the spot will glow with a light green hue for about a minute.

 

["An archaeo-clockwork ballerina; functionable"]
A small (50cm heights) archaeo-clockwork ballerina seemingly made of beamless copper. It is "winded up" by dancing and pioretting around it in circles in about one yard distance (quickly, for half a minute) . After that, it will itself dance in circles and piorettes while it sings with a little girls innocent voice "Dance, Dance / Around it goes / Dance, dance / On the top of your toes / Dance, Dance / Around it goes / Till the clock, it strikes (number;stops before singing (13))"

["A portrait of Erasmus Haarlocks Wife"]
The portrait shows the beautiful wife of Erasmus Haarlock. After her loss and during his plans for revenge, he stood countless hours before it. His extrem will, moaning, desire for vengeance and finally his wish to undue it all left a psychic imprint on it. Those who study the portrait for about an hour will start to feel like him. After thirteen hours (or 13 success on an extended hard Psyniscience test; one role per 15 minutes) the viewer will know about Haarlocks plan to bring her back (but not how. Haarlock stopped looking at it from roughly that point on). But at this point, the viewer must pass a challenging willpower test or gain one point of Insanity and an additional one for ever level of failure (Haarlocks madness left an imprint as well!). The fact that an imprint is left can be told with one difficicult test for Psyniscience.

["A pict documentation about most unusual celestian phenomenons; no sound/comment, acceptable qualitiy"]
A best quality and finely ornamented pict device with the emblem of the Haarlock line. It contains a collection of very old but priceless visual recordings of unique and strange celestial phenomenons from Haarlocks journeys, about 30 hours of material. The final is a recording of the appearing of the Tyrant Star. Even the viewing is dreadful to mind and soul (ordinary check for willpower, otherwise the viewer gains one point of insanity and corruption ones) but will prepare the viewer (+3 to all rolls resisting the effects of the Tyrant, if ever encounter in game).

 

[Decessor 107]

I just dug out the lesser items list I used when I ran this scenario in Rogue Trader. Some of the items had descriptive placards, others were presented as-is presumably to weed out the incautious.

 

1. Handbow from Acreage (best quality) - Astropath felt a taint of silent death

2. Needle Pistol - "Once owned by an Inquisitorial alien hunter"

3. Web Pistol (good quality) - "Once owned by an Inquisitorial alien hunter"

4. Power Blade (good quality) - With Haarlock symbol and writing

5. Lightning Chain (best quality) - "Property of a King's Guard of Acreage"

6. Acreage Silkmail (best quality)

7. Heretic's Wake Deck (best quality) - Blasphemous but beautiful version of the Emperor's Tarot (not explicitly stated on placard)

8. Volgite Gloom Eye - "Worn by the infamous bounty hunter Jarvis Quin until his retirement"

9. Three bottles of Golden Tokay - "A fine wine of Quaddis"

10. Vivisector with Injector Rigs (best quality)

11. Jokaero Light Sculpture - Constantly changing pattern

12. Grey Device

13. Dorcas Pattern Trophy Stub Automatic - "The backup sidearm of one Segeant Rhone, who slew scores of rebels and held a position by himself for three hours until relief arrived."

14. Shade-Servitor (good quality)

15. Psy-Tracker - Had very obvious inquisition symbols

16. Hrud Fusil - "Weapon of the near-mythical Hrud"

17. Crimson Bestiary (best quality) - "Xeno bestiary of Fenksworld"

18. Preserved Arm of an Eldar

19. Zamarkand Rose Tree - Was in sealed glass case to prevent "accidents"

20. A "Perfect Needle" of xeno-metal in a suspensor field. - "A Perfect Needle, with xeno glyphs written into its very molecular structure"

[Friend of the Dork 15]

Thanks guys I love these items

 

 

[Cifer 211]

Yes well since this is the property of one of the richest and most powerful Rogue Trader in the sector, I was thinking a bit higher scale. The people that attend this auction have millions to spend here. Thus we're talking more than just trinkets, it must be items people would sell their own mother and risk their lives to obtain.

I disagree. Apart from the ship passage and the invitation (which is kind of odd, considering that AFAIK Haarlock was missing for quite some time before being declared "dead"), the items presented by The Boy Named Crow would certainly be worth a few ten thousand thrones - just in line with the suggestion of auctioning off a few weapons so the PCs are properly armed.

 

Plants or seeds from the throne room of the Emperor.

Plants, water or soil from Terra or even just the Sol system would probably already fetch a few hundred thousand or million thrones. Something from the Emperor's Throne Room would be very definitely priceless - and obviously a fake.

 

I'd advise you not to overdo it with the items - there's a fine line between "that's awesome" and "yawn... when are we going to see the Emperor's left ******** auctioned off?"

 

@Graver

Ok, I got the six-fingered hand (did it belong to someone who murdered a sword-smith?). The rest... not so much.

 

[The Boy Named Crow 0]

Cifer said:

 Apart from the ship passage and the invitation (which is kind of odd, considering that AFAIK Haarlock was missing for quite some time before being declared "dead")

Well, like I said, I was just working from the assumption that it was going to be a high-end imperial auction. Having not run the adventure, I didn't know the specifics. This thread made me want to run it, though.

[Baldrick 0]

If I may be so bold as to link to one of my favourite threads ever. http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=101&efcid=3&efidt=205204 

I used the blank dataslate template, that is kicking around, and created handouts for the players. They get brief descriptions before they leave on the skyship (so they may get into trouble if they mention the Greyskin Psalter in front of a certain NPC on the ship). They will then get full descriptions (similar to the detail on the thread) when they get to the auction.

My only question is the PCs budget. They are given "a credit block ... valid for sums up to one million thrones..." (cue Doctor Evil laugh just for the hell of it...)

Now I'm reading that they get given a total of 1 million thrones to spend at the auction; however you could read, grammatically, that with the plural "sums" in the sentence that they might be given access to a million thrones multiple times so long as each single transaction is no more than 1 million.

Personally I'm assuming that the total amount is 1 million thrones (cue another Doctor Evil laugh) and the players are going to have to budget what items they want to try to keep out of other collectors pockets. I think if the players can just bid up to 1 million on each item to hoard them all for the =][= then they will quickly become marked for death by all the other collectors...

...not that it matters with what happens next 

 

[Xisor 0]

 I had:

- An Egerian Geode
- Kar Duniashan Meltagun
- Las Gauntlets
- The Bionic Heart of We'qan (an aide to a Saint, best quality charm)
- Shifting Fabric Suit
- Terran Turf 
- The Veil of Armageddon (A big veil on a simple steel frame, featuring vague descriptions such as "Armageddon, Paradise Hiveworld" or "Psynicience reveals visions of a wondrous, utopian hive world knowing peace for centuries")
- A Fractal Blade
- The Haarlock Multicompass (including 'galactic' indicators, such as Terra, Ophelia IV and Hydraphur)

The trick with these was to then play up certain aspects of the other items, as well as these. The Logician Octavia was openly talking about how she was very strongly resisting purchasing the KD Melta, the old man normally rambled on about We'qan if the PCs failed a social skill test near him (or just let him ramble) and so forth. Nothing terrific, but enough to give a certain 'scaling' to the auction. The players also didn't know which were minor and which were major. The 'display of the Widow' comes just prior to the auctioning of the Onyx Statuette (taking them in order with the minor ones above first).

So there was more of a 'crescendo' feel to the auction, building up to the last, big items. 

As Baldrick indicates, however, there's trouble in how much they can bid. I initially read it as 'max 1m per final bid', but then realised this didn't make terribly much sense overall; but then it could be part of their guise. If they are left with the impression they're there to 'stop heretical stuff going to the wrong bidder', then giving them a 1m upper limit is pretty handy and allows for a few skill tests on how they handle themselves against other interested parties.

For my part, I went with the simpler '1m total' which meant they were a bit impoverished and hesitant as soon as they started spending. Still, it's always fun to see how attached players get to their ideas and notions.