My players have so messed up Damned Cities... (advice needed)

[Baldrick 0]

Okay my players have really messed up!

1. Introduced themselves to the enforcers at the start and showed Inquisitorial credentials before they even got to the Arbites. (Doh! cover blown in first 30 mins on planet)
2. Shot members of the enforcers because they are following them (didn't know they were enforcers)
3. When they were due to be taken to the Undertow Rag Kings when they were cornered in Priators old base of operations, they shot their way out killing the Undertow muscle. (So the undertow believe that it is war with the enforcers as the PCs never identified themselves as members of ]I[)

Now most of this has been caused by a single player who is being very trigger happy and not getting the idea of the an investigative adventure but the other players are not reining him in.

Since they've had a lot of warnings (and the player in question was briefed to try to fix problems without his guns this time by the Inquisitor Marr) I've decided the adventure needs to start going bad for them and they'll have to work to bring it back from the edge. However the adventure has a fairly static ending with no options on if the players start to fail..

Any advice?

Ideas I've had...

• PCs become constant targets for Undertow and the secret Police hampering the investigation
• Violence in city escalates, mobs going round the city
• The Daemon in the mirror feeds off the violence (which the PCs have made much MUCH worse) and manages to shut off the planet from the rest of the Imperium (similar to a shadow on the warp that Hive Fleets do)
• When the final encounter occurs the Daemon will be much stronger and have a lot more supernatural protections around the base.

Any other ideas? I'd rather go with roleplay problems then pure combat and dice problems.

[Gregorius21778 249]

Hi Baldric,

I would say, it is not that bad.

1) No cover
So, everybody in touch with the Enforcers (the nobility and those bribing enforers) are in the know. So what? The nobles where to know about it the
time the Acolytes get introduced to them during the later events. Rumours might be on the street, but this is hardly a game breaker. It is not like
"the antagonists" would not have known about them even if they had kept it a secret

2) Shooting undercover enforcers
The enforcers are not going to be to cooperative anymore. But they weren´t to begin with AND they cannot get mad at the pc. They KNOWED that they were shadowing agents of the Inquisition (the pc blew there cover from the start on). "There own fault", would be the answer of most of the legal arms
of the imperium. Khan is not going to go toe-to-toe with the =I=, this would be bad for his status quo.

3) A war with the Undertow
Well, I always wondered why the adventure did not see that this could happen. I still have to run it, but I know that my pc will get into a bloody fight as well.
My advice: they do not get the meeting with the Undertow (and you have to improvise the further attempts of the pc) and the "Escalation" ramps up. So, they will face turmoil in the streets more often since the Undertow goes all-out since they feel cornered.

...but this will hardly make to much of a difference for the adventure. Your gun-happy pc will enjoy the fighting and since the whole plott is proceding to the end with or without the pc, it is simply getting more violent.

All in all, I say it is not that bad.

[Baldrick 0]

 Thanks for the advice.

I think the problem I face is that I've got 1 PC who's trigger happy and believes he has a license to shoot anyone he wants and 5 PCs who were enjoying the investigative side of the adventure.

I want to keep it investigative in nature just make it more difficult. (and try to encourage non violent solutions to problems)

[Suijin 0]

If they keep getting into fights, they are going to be walking around everywhere hurt.  Getting healed can take some time, even if with a psyker they need to wait 8 hours before getting healed again (not sure if this is a limitation at higher levels).  Keep the pressure on them if they are acting that way and starting another fight while still being hurt from the last one or two or three, should drive your point home about going head on at everything.

I tried running an adventure where they were supposed to recruit help to take down a psyker/demonhost.  They totally ignored anything of the sort and went right in head on at the demonhost.  The result was the psyker getting her arm cut off, and barely winning the fight with 1 person still standing, only because the demonhost rolled perils that shorted her powers out for an hour.  They all ended up burning a fate point to survive or win also.  I think it helped running it this way some, but overall they will still always choose that path (head on) if given a choice again.

[The Laughing God 17]

I agree with Gregorius. The adventure is not entirely broken.

 

The Enforcers hate the pcs, so what. They were never helpful or useful. The meeting with the Undertow never happened ... but it still can. It will not take long for the Undertow to realize the pcs are not Enforcers, and to stop the all-out fighting they might again try for a meeting with them. Just make sure the pcs know they have a meeting coming up, and not an ambush, and even your triggerhappy player may hold his horses for the moment. The Turning Hand is a great place for such a meeting with Rag-Kings or their representatives.

The one thing to keep in mind [spoilerRRRRR] is that the daemon-possessed Arbites Marshal will use the violence and confusion caused by the pcs to his best advantage. While the Enforcers, the Undertow and the pcs duke it out, he can sneakily try to get his hands on the remaining mirror fragments.

While he does so, events will unroll as planned in the book, and the pcs will eventually face the daemon. Here they will pay the price for their carelessness.

Given all that, triggerhappy players can be very annoying. Don’t hesitate to have his reputation work against him. There will undoubtedly be an Undertow gunslinger who will outdraw him ...
 

[sister revolutia 0]

As for your trigger happy pappy ... I'd be making sure he was rolling every time he reaches for his weapon to see if his gun misfires or simply doesn't work.  He might want to shoot everything in sight, but that doesn't mean he can.  And there is a bunch of rules in the core book about this very thing happening.  You may have to let him shoot something every now and then to keep him happy.  But there is nothing to say that his weapon has to be of top Gaurdsmen quality, or can't be dodgy. If it's dodgy, you get back some control and your other players can concentrate on finding out the stuff they need to know.

[LETE 24]

Hiyas:

 

My 2 thrones:

 

Have the other side start to shoot back & don't forget the Fear & Pinning rules.  Getting shot at IS SCARRRRY.  Hell, even getting stabbed at is scary.  Maybe the acolyte can have a mod because of his/her profession (guardsman, right?), but, still.  No one wants to die!

 

 

L

[Inquisitor sapiens potensque 0]

Expel annoying player from group?

[Valdek 0]

Interesting, I don't think i've read Damned Cities, but as for a trigger happy player, easy to control, limit ammo, ammo cost thrones and can be relatively difficult to come across if you make it so, if the other players rarely use there weapons this isn't much of a problem for them.

As for getting them back on track if they have blown their cover then i would assume that the undertow can find that out and may offer to meet with the players again somewhere where weapons aren't allowed, but i would treat them as most suspicious and hostile, not nessarily at the point of attacking the players but definately not to favourable and have the trigger happy one have to give something up to applease them and make them more "helpful".

[Baldrick 0]

Thanks so much for the advice so far you guys rock.

As for the player messing up I think he knows he's messed up twice now and the rest of the players know, so (hopefully) that will handle itself in party.

Just to focus on the "end game" of Damned Cities. Near the end the adventure, the style goes from sandbox to linear in nature with the players being blatantly pointed towards the Daemon and it's lair with a big neon sign almost.

Any advice on how to "toughen up" the end of the adventure to:-

1. Give a supernatural sense of doom, things are going really bad on the planet and not just with the rioting and murders?
2. Make it less obvious it is the Daemon located in it's base, have them work harder for the final info?
3. Beef up the final fights?

Thanks!

PS As for the pieces of the mirror they are only likely going to be able to have a chance at getting one of them...

[Gregorius21778 249]

Hi Baldrick,

Baldrick said:

Any advice on how to "toughen up" the end of the adventure to:-

1. Give a supernatural sense of doom, things are going really bad on the planet and not just with the rioting and murders?
2. Make it less obvious it is the Daemon located in it's base, have them work harder for the final info?
3. Beef up the final fights?

First, the supernatural horror:

 

A flock of crows:
Start to mention crows hanging about in the city. At first, they are hear and there (and there where always some flocks of crows in the city!), mostly sitting around on the roofs or picking on some carcass (human or animal) in the streets. Later, they grow more numerous and behave nervously. Near the final, the pc see swarms of them moving like waves over the sky. Do not overdue this, so. This is not "Birds!"  As the summoning is on, mention to the pc that they see crows hacking at each other, both receiving and dealing bloody wounds. 

Rats are leaving the boat:
A city like Sinophia will have numerous rats. They will see them on the street and they will not be surprised by them. How about rats (just scattered and not in waves! Again, this is not an animal horror!) scuttling down the street... all into one direction (and away from the center of the city).

Nightmares:
If the pc have a shard and keep the shard close, you can give them nightmares. Ask for Willpower test (+10 or -10 if they are psykers; Resistance against Fear and Psychic powers does count!) the two nights before the final. If they miss, they spend the night tossing and moaning while experiencing horrible nightmares (leading to the temporariy loss of 1d10 points of willpower, +1 for every level of failure). Possible examples for nightmares

1) You are looked in a dark room with a bright door opening. You here steps. He is coming! He will torture you again!  You must escape! You run to the door opening...and cannot pass it! You whale and scream as you hammer your fists against the invisible barrier. you must leave. you must escape. HE IS COMING!
2) You cannot move. You cannot see. You can only hear. A voice questions you. Every word is pain, fire poured into your soul. You scream. The voice wants to know answers to problems you know to be unsolveable. First you refuse, but the questioning goes on. THE PAIN! For hours! You give. You answer. But the voice does not stop questiioning you. It is not satiesfied. !PAIN! Then, it strikes at you and you feel your body shatter. 
3) You move about in the city, you are seachring for answers. The streets are dark. And only get darker. You are alone, nobdy is hear, You hear a voice in the distant. You do not understand it, but the voice is ice to you and fear creeps up. You move about the streets, the city gets darker every step. The ground gets soft, stone turns to mud. The citiy melts and decays around you like wax. The voice comes clother. You try to run but you cannot find a way out. The voice comes closer, ever closer...

Madness:
A high ranking cleric hangs himself in the cathedral. The news isn´t responed to by the public since suicide is not uncommon on this world. An astropath goes mad, rambling about "his return". The pc here the cry of "mad dog!" on the street. the animal comes charging across a corner, the pc will put it down. Oddly, the creature has no foaming mouth or anything else. It is no combat dog either but a rather trustworthy that is not know to attack unprovoked.  While they are in the "Turning Hand", a sooth-sayer seeing them hastly closes shop. As the confront him he(she) snaps, yelling at them that doom is written all over their destiny, that bad things are coming for them and that he (she) will not have part of it. If they do not leave, the sooth-sayer is maddend by panic to the point that he(she) pulls a mone knife from under the robes and try to cut the pc so they let go and he (she) can escape. 

Weird things:
The pc walk past a statue so acient that the facial features became washed down by the elements to the point of being unrecognizeable. As the pc move by, the statue moves! With a groaning, the head turns to them and it leans forward. Then, the head falls of and the statue is crashing down on them! (ask for Agility/Dodge+40; it is easy to get out of the way). Of course, the statue was not moving. It was damaged already and that the pc where walking by at the moment was just coincidence. Or wasn´t it?

The weather is weird. On a warm day, it starts to snow. Of course the flakes melt and do not cover the ground. But it snows...

The pc come across dead cats. They see at least 3 of them in the streets on given day, in different spots. All of them are bleeding from the mouth. The rats do not touch them.
 

 

[Gregorius21778 249]

2.Make it less obvious it is the Daemon located in it's base, have them work harder for the final info?

Hard thing once the adventure is already running. If it is about gathering clues, it is better to have thought about the clues before running the game.
What is the actual point your group progressed to?

3) Making the fight harder
... I am not quiet sure if I get you correctly. You mean more opposition besides the fact the modul encourages you to staff the tower with as many arbites corpse minions as you want? Well, switching them from combat shotguns to bolters should do the trick

The pc will then need to fight there way up to the ceiling of the tower. As they reach the hidden chamber, they will be drained by some of their wounds already. And remember... there is nothing from keeping you to accompany Skarmen with two furhter corpse minions upstairs. Insert some heavy stone pillars they can take for cover (and that will make the ceiling come crushing down if the pc are stupid enough to chew them up with heavy weapons fire)

[The Laughing God 17]

I like the idea of rats fleeing the city and/or the tower. The crows, however, I personally wouldn't use, as they are thematically relevant to the Crow Father, the daemon Ytschak (or what's his name) on Iocanthos in the Illumination adventure. Best not to mess this up with adding crows to the daemon in the mirror and/or the Haarlock legacy.

Speaking of which, nightmares of spiders (the Haarlock heraldry!) seems like a nice twist

I have a psyker in the group and they are staying in the Turning Hand. When the city goes kablooie, the storm will damage the roof and the tarot cards suspended there will down .. ofcourse giving a 'reading of sorts' as they do

I am not sure if you need to beef up the opposition in the tower. There is the daemon ánd Skarmen both using psychic powers, there are the Risen (as many as you like) and there are the corpse minions (as many as you like). In my game the pcs definitely need some backup which they will get from Fihad Constantine rounding up some arbitrators and unleashing the cyber mastiffs in the lower levels ... yes he lets the dogs out

[graver2 4]

I'd agree that the crows might be the wrong animal (though Gregorius had, as always, some brilliant ideas). Perhaps replace the crows with spiders?

 

As time goes by, more and more spiders are encountered in the central portions of the city. At first, it's nothing unusual, just mention cobwebs or spider webs in windows, the corners of ceilings, under tables, etc, all the usual places, just make sure they're in your description somewhere. As time goes by, they are soon noticed hanging from street lights, most all door jams, strong up be tween polls, between fence posts, and under most eves. Several webs seem to have more then one large bloated spider in/on it locked in a life and death struggle with one another. Towards the end, spiderwebs are everywhere in the central portions of the city. They seem to have completely taken over any abandoned structure and the spiders themselves can be seen darting across sidewalks, trampled in the street, and offering a feast to the birds. Their webs have lost all rhyme and reason. There's no semblance of pattern and precision, they're just haphazard splashes of spider-silk shot into door jams, bizarrely into nooks in the gutter, or completely covering a window. No web has less then 10 spiders on in, some dead and half cocooned while others battle one another in a cannibalistic frenzy. And then the spiders start to fall from dead webbed trees, eaves, ceilings, lights, and wires to get caught in hair and cloths already dead or to die on the ground, their last mindless twitching being cut short by more spiders who rush to devour it.

Like Gregorius ideas and examples, they're not there to interact or threaten the PC's in any way. They're there to be creepy, wrong, a sign that things are definitely not right, and to serve as a symbol of the plight of the Haarlocks.

 

[LETE 24]

Gregorius21778 said:

Hi Baldrick,

Baldrick said:

 

Any advice on how to "toughen up" the end of the adventure to:-

1. Give a supernatural sense of doom, things are going really bad on the planet and not just with the rioting and murders?
2. Make it less obvious it is the Daemon located in it's base, have them work harder for the final info?
3. Beef up the final fights?

 

First, the supernatural horror:

 

 

A flock of crows:
Start to mention crows hanging about in the city. At first, they are hear and there (and there where always some flocks of crows in the city!), mostly sitting around on the roofs or picking on some carcass (human or animal) in the streets. Later, they grow more numerous and behave nervously. Near the final, the pc see swarms of them moving like waves over the sky. Do not overdue this, so. This is not "Birds!"  As the summoning is on, mention to the pc that they see crows hacking at each other, both receiving and dealing bloody wounds. 

Rats are leaving the boat:
A city like Sinophia will have numerous rats. They will see them on the street and they will not be surprised by them. How about rats (just scattered and not in waves! Again, this is not an animal horror!) scuttling down the street... all into one direction (and away from the center of the city).

Nightmares:
If the pc have a shard and keep the shard close, you can give them nightmares. Ask for Willpower test (+10 or -10 if they are psykers; Resistance against Fear and Psychic powers does count!) the two nights before the final. If they miss, they spend the night tossing and moaning while experiencing horrible nightmares (leading to the temporariy loss of 1d10 points of willpower, +1 for every level of failure). Possible examples for nightmares

1) You are looked in a dark room with a bright door opening. You here steps. He is coming! He will torture you again!  You must escape! You run to the door opening...and cannot pass it! You whale and scream as you hammer your fists against the invisible barrier. you must leave. you must escape. HE IS COMING!
2) You cannot move. You cannot see. You can only hear. A voice questions you. Every word is pain, fire poured into your soul. You scream. The voice wants to know answers to problems you know to be unsolveable. First you refuse, but the questioning goes on. THE PAIN! For hours! You give. You answer. But the voice does not stop questiioning you. It is not satiesfied. !PAIN! Then, it strikes at you and you feel your body shatter. 
3) You move about in the city, you are seachring for answers. The streets are dark. And only get darker. You are alone, nobdy is hear, You hear a voice in the distant. You do not understand it, but the voice is ice to you and fear creeps up. You move about the streets, the city gets darker every step. The ground gets soft, stone turns to mud. The citiy melts and decays around you like wax. The voice comes clother. You try to run but you cannot find a way out. The voice comes closer, ever closer...

Madness:
A high ranking cleric hangs himself in the cathedral. The news isn´t responed to by the public since suicide is not uncommon on this world. An astropath goes mad, rambling about "his return". The pc here the cry of "mad dog!" on the street. the animal comes charging across a corner, the pc will put it down. Oddly, the creature has no foaming mouth or anything else. It is no combat dog either but a rather trustworthy that is not know to attack unprovoked.  While they are in the "Turning Hand", a sooth-sayer seeing them hastly closes shop. As the confront him he(she) snaps, yelling at them that doom is written all over their destiny, that bad things are coming for them and that he (she) will not have part of it. If they do not leave, the sooth-sayer is maddend by panic to the point that he(she) pulls a mone knife from under the robes and try to cut the pc so they let go and he (she) can escape. 

Weird things:
The pc walk past a statue so acient that the facial features became washed down by the elements to the point of being unrecognizeable. As the pc move by, the statue moves! With a groaning, the head turns to them and it leans forward. Then, the head falls of and the statue is crashing down on them! (ask for Agility/Dodge+40; it is easy to get out of the way). Of course, the statue was not moving. It was damaged already and that the pc where walking by at the moment was just coincidence. Or wasn´t it?

The weather is weird. On a warm day, it starts to snow. Of course the flakes melt and do not cover the ground. But it snows...

The pc come across dead cats. They see at least 3 of them in the streets on given day, in different spots. All of them are bleeding from the mouth. The rats do not touch them.
 

 

 

Greg should be writing stuff for FFG.  Seriously.

 

L

[Gregorius21778 249]

@ Lete
Thanks! But I am actually no good at coming up with nice mission concepts on my own. However, I happen to be kinda useful fleshing things out.

@Laughing God & Graver
While I would not ...designate one animal at a certain daemon (after all.. those scary creature types would be used up pretty soon), I reluctantely have to agree on that matter.

The spider ideas are pretty good. Does anyone of you know the opening of the old anime "Dark Side Blues"? It contains a creepy scene where as strange spider spins up a long case clock. Just reminded me of this...

Anyway, more unpolished ideas:

As the pc walk about, they come path an old servitore drone. This might be either the case as they move through a household (perhaps after leaving a manson of some noble they questioned or by passing by a column of servitores let away by merchant who bought them/intends to sell them). As they path by, one of the servitores utters an odd sentence. Possiblities are:
"Leave it alone" / "He will return" / "It will be undone" (idea granted by "Doctor Who" and the Uud).

As the pc path by a stained window, one of them (Awareness test to decide who) recognizes "something". If he stops and has a closer look, s/he sees a shilouette through the window. A moment later the pc realizes that this shilouette is not on the other side of the window. [Here, pause and wait for the player to exclaim that the pc turns round]. As the pc turns, s/he sees nobody at to whom the shilouette could have belonged to. As the pc turns again, s/he glimpses the shilouette to literally jump at him/her. Then the window cracks.
Ask the pc for an ordinary fright check and make sure that an angry citizen storms out of the house and harasses the pc for breaking the window. (Horrofilm classic; can be used with mirrors or any other source of reflection as well. As long as something "breaks" the reflection.

Make a pc wake up at night. Something tingles in his nose, s/he sneezes into his/her hand. Finding a small hairy spider on the palm now (things like this can happen. Just for the creeps).

A chrono of one of the pc stops at the thirteented hour.

Out of thin air, the breath freshes up and turns into a stormwind whaling down the streets. Before long, small and light objects are flying towards the pc. A grey-stained piece of cloth flies towards one of the pc and warps itself about his head and face. The wind suddenly dies down. The piece is some rag made of linen with some rips in his fabrique. As the pc holds it infront of him, it has an eery familiarty with a skull (for a moment).

Some handheld electronic device of the pc suddenly and explainingly breaks down. If checked later, the cell operating it shows to be depleted of all energy in such a matter that any reloading will fail.

 

[The Laughing God 17]

I really like the spider idea! Especially since you have it as only an atmospheric thing, and not have them attack people or anything stupid.

Maybe they should congregate most heavily around the Folly. But it should not be overdone; just a quick mood-setting premonition of weirdness and doom, and then on with the adventure. It should not feel as if Haarlock has a Summon Monster spell

[Baldrick 0]

Oh nice! Shiny in fact!

Greg seriously send in your CV along with some examples to FFG. I've used more of your stuff with DH adventures than anybody else!

However I do agree that spiders should replace crows. They PCs have encountered followers of the Crow Father twice and I do not want to give them a more bum leads (they already have a few blind alleys to go down).

I like the idea of the servitors and other similar devices spawning out messages. They will be echoing the Daemon's desire to escape before Haarlock returns. “He is returning” “Escape & flee” etc etc

In addition I will have the PC psyker start having nosebleeds in the night and the planets Astropath choir report that local warp conditions are interrupting interplanetary communication. Suicide rate in the city starts to climb.

My group is big and experienced. 6 PCs rank 7-8, combat heavy. They have been enjoying the adventure especially as it’s challenging them in other ways (social and investigation skills). Currently I suspect the next few sessions will be.

• PCs find out where the Undertow meet was going to be (before they shot a dozen Undertow dregs), they will go along anyway to try to contact the Undertow anyway. It will be a trap, but a trap set for a large scale Enforcer raid. Hopefully players will be able to realise this and talk their way out/in. If they do shoot it out then PCs will be losing fate points.
• PCs find out that they are after mirror pieces from Undertow (they currently believe they are after glass or shiny items).
• Either way tension rises as both Enforcers and Undertow are at each others throats early in the module due to PC actions (doh)
• Players start to encounter hordes (as per Deathwatch) on the streets often.
• Weird stuff starts up. The veil between the warp and reality is weakening over the city. Psyker has headache when not in tower (which has a shielding effect)
• Raid on the Clockwork Court. PCs face risen for the first time in the court
• Tension rises again.
• PCs face Risen in a noble house raid. PCs have a chance at getting a piece of the mirror.
• Attack on the Enforcer General
• City goes to hell in a handbasket
• Contact at clockwork court passes them information that the mirror was looted from the tower
• Betrayal by Arbites
• Finale at Tower. Throw everything at them. However most likely they will not be able to get into the tower without help from wither the Undertow or the Enforcers.

I think Damned Cities is a good adventure. It gives quite a good sandbox for the PCs to operate in. I've enjoyed running it.

(I suspect the above timeline will not hold up due to PC actions)

PS thanks all of you for all the ideas and assistance. Will let you know how it goes.

 

[Friend of the Dork 15]

Baldrick said:

Okay my players have really messed up!

1. Introduced themselves to the enforcers at the start and showed Inquisitorial credentials before they even got to the Arbites. (Doh! cover blown in first 30 mins on planet)
2. Shot members of the enforcers because they are following them (didn't know they were enforcers)
3. When they were due to be taken to the Undertow Rag Kings when they were cornered in Priators old base of operations, they shot their way out killing the Undertow muscle. (So the undertow believe that it is war with the enforcers as the PCs never identified themselves as members of ]I[)

Now most of this has been caused by a single player who is being very trigger happy and not getting the idea of the an investigative adventure but the other players are not reining him in.

Since they've had a lot of warnings (and the player in question was briefed to try to fix problems without his guns this time by the Inquisitor Marr) I've decided the adventure needs to start going bad for them and they'll have to work to bring it back from the edge. However the adventure has a fairly static ending with no options on if the players start to fail..

Any advice?

Ideas I've had...

• PCs become constant targets for Undertow and the secret Police hampering the investigation
• Violence in city escalates, mobs going round the city
• The Daemon in the mirror feeds off the violence (which the PCs have made much MUCH worse) and manages to shut off the planet from the rest of the Imperium (similar to a shadow on the warp that Hive Fleets do)
• When the final encounter occurs the Daemon will be much stronger and have a lot more supernatural protections around the base.

Any other ideas? I'd rather go with roleplay problems then pure combat and dice problems.

Some of this is answered already, but I just finished this module so here is my input:

 

1. Unprofessional but not that important in this module. My PCs tried to stay incognito as long as possible and was actually pissed off at the Arbites for breaking their cover to other groups.

2. Almost expected. In my game the person fell off a building and died. Even if the Acolytes were blamed, it was only Khan who really took notice. This, combined with their arrogant way at the meeting later triggered an encounter I call "Wrath of Khaaaaaaan!"

3. The module stress several times that if you think your acolytes will not come willingly they should be invited instead of forced. Although the acolytes could potentially gain contact with the Undertow earlier, this is the point where the Undertow is willing to talk to the acolytes instead of trying to capture them. The Acolutes could refuse of course, especially if the Undertow insist about holding weapons etc. but they should not try to capture them unless you think the acolytes will let them.

Although the U-tow might think it was an enforcer attack, the fact that the acolytes are shadowed and noticed almost everywhere in the slums they will probably find out about them sooner or later. They might even get the intel from crooked Enforcers (which the U-tow certainly will have on the take), or from crooked nobles. And even if not a groups such as this might draw attention and the intelligent people among the U-tow might want to find out who they really are. In other words they could be contacted for a new meeting. I wouldn't give this for free though, but rather if the acolytes seems willing to investigate and have cause to talk to the criminal elements.

As for the final encounter I certainly buffed it, but only because my characters are rank 8 kickass people. Boltguns, Heavy Bolters, Grenade launchers, Long Las was among the challenges faced as the acolytes assaulted the Tower. After fighting their way through they encountered 8 mutated Risen with monoswords, and I gave Skarmen Force Barrage. It was a fun scenario but the events before the Climax and the Climax itself was 99% combat.

 

I also used Hordes to represent the rioting city, but beware they can be quite dangerous against mid-level acolytes.

[Friend of the Dork 15]

Oh I forgot to add... I really was scared for a bit about what could happen if the acolytes truly fail.

I like to keep it as an option but there is no information in the module about what exactly happens if the PCs are not there to foil the Daemon's plans.

There is an option about dealing with the daemon and the consequences of it, but nothing about what happens if the daemon just wins without having to make a deal.

 

AFAIK the Daemon just wants to break free so it can escape to the warp "before ze Haarlock gets here." Now it wouldn't be adverse to creating some havoc or causing suffering and destruction as it does so, but I don't think it belives it has the time to stick around and do evil stuff.

So the consequence seems to be fairly similar to what happens if the Daemon is beaten.

1. Daemon escapes from mirror and flees to the warp.

2. The daemonic influence that caused and excaserbated the problem is gone but not the underlying conflict, thus the riots might continue and civil war will probably break out.

3. Eventually one of the faction will win, Sinophia becomes even poorer, and the suffering of such an unimportant planet is largely ignored in the sector.

4. The acolytes return home as failures for not tracking down the scource of the attacks. Skarmen, if recovering, realizes what he has done and kills himself with bolt to the brain.  Many if not most of the Arbites falls dead as the warp-energy that sustained them is gone. Only a handul is left to pick up the pieces. Sur'Maywroth may still come out as a winner in this conflict and become the new Judiciary. His extreme views mean either the criminal faction in the city will be annhilated or a true civil war will break out. The PDF might come into the equation and depending on it's members may put down the revolt or join it.

[Bladehate 112]

My players did something similar.  Although they only introduced themselves to Constantine as agents of the Inquisition, they did so in front of the entire Arbitrator compound, including non-uniformed personnel.  As Fihad explained to them, it was only a matter of time before the rest of the city knew about their presence.

Deciding to run with that, the players asked Skarmen to introduce them to the Nobility and the Quorom, spending their time on relatively meaningless autopsies of the already autopsied bodies in the meantime (the tech-priest spent literally days doing this...) until Skarmen setup their meeting.   The rest of the group spent their time walking around the Folly (especially the catacombs and underground areas) since part of their task was to discover what they could about the Legacy from this holding.  Since its been thoroughly looted, they quickly (and mostly correctly) concluded that any relevant info must be found out in the city somewhere...

The downside of this is that I let myself get sort of blindsided.  I hadn't expected them to ignore Bal Grey and go straight to the nobility.  While not inherently a problem, it meant that when they started running the U-tow side of things a lot of what they discovered was just confirming stuff they already knew.  They had already fought the Risen at the Quorom.  It made for a slightly "longer then it had to be" feeling to the series of events in the Sinks since so much of the information they gained was just repeats.  I made the decision to cut the entire Yantra the Witness scenario just because it was getting tedious.  About the only things they did obtain from this was a relatively intact Risen corpse and a line of communication to the Undertow. 

In hindsight I should have played up the Bal Grey murder a lot more, and presented it to them sooner and more forcefully.  I was playing up the "apparent incompetence" of the Arbitrators too much, expecting my players to dig a little more then they did.  The players trust Fihad Constantine almost completely (which is good) but this also causes them to extend that trust to the rest of the Arbitrators (which is...less good), so they take a great deal of information from the Arbitrators at face value.  They haven't asked to examine morgue records or anything yet, even after discovering the Risen corpse.

I agree that DC is a great sandbox, but it can let you get slightly blindsided if you're not careful or your players miss out on a clue/situation. In my case, the worst that really happened was probably an hour or so of redundant activities but it could still have been handled better.

[Friend of the Dork 15]

Bladehate said:

My players did something similar.  Although they only introduced themselves to Constantine as agents of the Inquisition, they did so in front of the entire Arbitrator compound, including non-uniformed personnel.  As Fihad explained to them, it was only a matter of time before the rest of the city knew about their presence.

Deciding to run with that, the players asked Skarmen to introduce them to the Nobility and the Quorom, spending their time on relatively meaningless autopsies of the already autopsied bodies in the meantime (the tech-priest spent literally days doing this...) until Skarmen setup their meeting.   The rest of the group spent their time walking around the Folly (especially the catacombs and underground areas) since part of their task was to discover what they could about the Legacy from this holding.  Since its been thoroughly looted, they quickly (and mostly correctly) concluded that any relevant info must be found out in the city somewhere...

The downside of this is that I let myself get sort of blindsided.  I hadn't expected them to ignore Bal Grey and go straight to the nobility.  While not inherently a problem, it meant that when they started running the U-tow side of things a lot of what they discovered was just confirming stuff they already knew.  They had already fought the Risen at the Quorom.  It made for a slightly "longer then it had to be" feeling to the series of events in the Sinks since so much of the information they gained was just repeats.  I made the decision to cut the entire Yantra the Witness scenario just because it was getting tedious.  About the only things they did obtain from this was a relatively intact Risen corpse and a line of communication to the Undertow. 

In hindsight I should have played up the Bal Grey murder a lot more, and presented it to them sooner and more forcefully.  I was playing up the "apparent incompetence" of the Arbitrators too much, expecting my players to dig a little more then they did.  The players trust Fihad Constantine almost completely (which is good) but this also causes them to extend that trust to the rest of the Arbitrators (which is...less good), so they take a great deal of information from the Arbitrators at face value.  They haven't asked to examine morgue records or anything yet, even after discovering the Risen corpse.

I agree that DC is a great sandbox, but it can let you get slightly blindsided if you're not careful or your players miss out on a clue/situation. In my case, the worst that really happened was probably an hour or so of redundant activities but it could still have been handled better.

 

Hmm too bad, my players were not hard to make go to Bal Grey's murder. I mean, they are sent to investigate a murder, and their contact tells them a new one has just occurred hours ago, and he can take them there... should get most groups to investigate maybe even before entering the Folly.

It matter alot how you present it though. In your case I would probably have omitted the entire Sinks situation, or at least sped it up.

[The Laughing God 17]

Bladehate said:

I agree that DC is a great sandbox, but it can let you get slightly blindsided if you're not careful or your players miss out on a clue/situation. In my case, the worst that really happened was probably an hour or so of redundant activities but it could still have been handled better.

I was thoroughly dissatisfied with how DC just hands over clues to the pcs by them being in a certain location: an npc will walk up to them and start spilling the beans. The very first victim they find (Bal Grey) already has a Risen corpse next to it! Completey ruins the suspense.

So I rewrote the thing. They puzzled over autopsies, crime scenes (made them up for the previous four victims), and learnt the killers used brute force, messed with recording devices, were looking for something, and did not really care too much about covering their tracks.

Then I added an attack on the cathedral where the Pontifex was killed and a large stained glass window was smashed in. The glass shards on the floor looked as if they had been rummaged through. I hoped this would point the pcs towards a piece of glass as the thing the killers were looking for, but they never really acted upon that realization. So there my murder mystery kind of halted. Luckily I could break the deadlock when they visited Eupheme Tassel who could throw them a bone about a mirror in the possession on the Lady Amorite.

The attack on the Judiciary, IMHO the most outrageous attack in the whole series, will turn the state of turmoil to the final stage. I always found it strange that it was the murder on Khan, a bully and a criminal, that originally should do this.

[Bladehate 112]

Well, I heavily re-wrote DC as well, for many of the same reasons.  Which is also why I down-played the Bal Grey murder.  There was a report to the Arbitrators, but it was intercepted by Skarmen and downplayed and the characters basically looked right past it when Fihad mentioned it to them.

As I said, in my version I think that I should not have been afraid to cut relatively irrelevant sections of the Sinks, rather then have the chars go through them for an hour.  Lesson learned, kinda.

Funny you should mention the Cathedral LG.  I have the Logicians re-activate sleeper agents and long term Empty Men hidden in the population.  Coincidentally, their guy on the ground for this was a thoroughly corrupt Confessor at the Cathedral serving as the link for these sleeper agents.  Using him, the Logicians setup a rushed base in the dusty (but roomy and mostly empty) roof crawl spaces of the Cathedral.  The players investigated an "attack" on the Cathedral that was in reality an overloaded transformer that had burned out from the Logicians siphoning power from the Cathedral.  Flushing the Priest, the party raided the Logician hide-away discovering their plan to use the Empty Men v2.0 to assault the Folly and loot it for information and artifacts.

Thanks to their quick thinking, the party managed to secure the help of three SoBs visiting the Cathedral on pilgrimage but sent them to the Folly (through the now rioting city) before realizing that Skarmen was also in on it...things are getting interesting indeed...

[Friend of the Dork 15]

The Laughing God said:

Bladehate said:

 

I agree that DC is a great sandbox, but it can let you get slightly blindsided if you're not careful or your players miss out on a clue/situation. In my case, the worst that really happened was probably an hour or so of redundant activities but it could still have been handled better.

 

 

I was thoroughly dissatisfied with how DC just hands over clues to the pcs by them being in a certain location: an npc will walk up to them and start spilling the beans. The very first victim they find (Bal Grey) already has a Risen corpse next to it! Completey ruins the suspense.

So I rewrote the thing. They puzzled over autopsies, crime scenes (made them up for the previous four victims), and learnt the killers used brute force, messed with recording devices, were looking for something, and did not really care too much about covering their tracks.

Then I added an attack on the cathedral where the Pontifex was killed and a large stained glass window was smashed in. The glass shards on the floor looked as if they had been rummaged through. I hoped this would point the pcs towards a piece of glass as the thing the killers were looking for, but they never really acted upon that realization. So there my murder mystery kind of halted. Luckily I could break the deadlock when they visited Eupheme Tassel who could throw them a bone about a mirror in the possession on the Lady Amorite.

The attack on the Judiciary, IMHO the most outrageous attack in the whole series, will turn the state of turmoil to the final stage. I always found it strange that it was the murder on Khan, a bully and a criminal, that originally should do this.

Well the fact that it's a Risen corpse and what that entails are not immideately obvious. This requires some good Medicae to find out. And despite figuring out it's a zombie, or even the clue of Warp sorcery it does not have any clues about who is responsible for them.

None of my players felt that the encounter was info served on a platter. In fact the only such that happened in my game was the one with Eupheme Tassel. To make it feel less like it I divided it up. The first time the PCs actually heard about another room being attacked/searched by attackers at the Quorum, and decided to investigate it, thus naturally running into Eupheme. The second time she contacted them to give them more details that she got from researching her relative's materials.

Nice touch about involving the Cathedral, which in my game was just a red herring that the PCs investigated for anything Haarlocky.

 

As for the turmoil, when the Judiciary dies it is already Egypt-level turmoil, with crackdowns similar to the attack on the gangsters in the movie "Miller's Crossing." So it's already a riot. The boiling point however is when the Enforcers loose their upper leadership and looses ALL restraint, and start demolishing random areas in the Sinks, causing the revolt to turn to small-scale civil war as the Undertow fortifies and responds to the overt attacks.

Makes sense to me.