Sublime
"Doors creak and windows clap
and night's foul bird rook'd in the spire screams loud
the grave, dread thing
the grave"
Intro
Sublime is an adventure for Dark Heresy 2E. The planet of Desoleum faces strife and conflict. Great nobles are set upon each other in a cold war of rival hives and coalitions. Grand conspiracies abound. All of these are to be turned to nothing by the heinous revival planned by the Callers of Sorrow. A cell of the callers has infiltrated high and low powers of planet Desoleum . Plague infects every hive on Desoleum. The quarantined wards and sectors grow in number. A plan that is decades in its work is to conclude, and the fall of the wretched dying bodies of hives and man are to be torn down and reborn. Their grandfather awaits them.
GM note: (Needs a first act)
GM note: (Needs a first act)
Outline Direction for Acolytes
Finding the Rook at Baeza Trade Bloc, questioning them later, following them to the condemned Rosarius Medicae Temple, using the documents and ciphers found to lead to involvement in a Nurgle cult by House Rhomana, confronting lord Rhomana, learning of the grand plan the Callers of Sorrow are doing, being led to the Callers of Sorrow hideout, and stopping the Nephilim ritual.
As the Crow Flies
The adventure starts with the acolytes following leads to a masked terrorist known as the Rook. The Rook has been active for seven months by the start of the adventure. They are wanted for detonating bombs near clinics and murdering medicae. By the time of the adventure’s start, they have killed fifty medical professionals. Aside from this, the Rook has been hunting gangers, smugglers, and others seemingly unconnected to their primary targets. This gunman is equipped with special-forces quality weaponry including carapace armour, hot-shot weaponry, heavy weapons, and high-tech gear built into their intimidating visage. The Rook is known as such for the bird-like helmet and black hood he wears that conceal their identity and for the strange four-pronged symbol he leaves spray painted on walls that resembles a crow’s foot. As alluded to earlier, the Rook seems to have special forces training. They do not apparently work with anyone.
After talking to groups and investigating prior crime scenes, the acolytes will discover that sightings of the Rook correspond with the appearance of a black panel autocarriage van that has been glimpsed leaving crime scenes. Due to the mark they leave, it is known they personally exterminated the one-eyed kings, a gang found mid-hive. Witnesses and pict feeds show they walked straight into the front door and clinically executed the surprised criminals with overwhelming firepower and the protection of their specialized carapace. Later, he burned the tavern and hideout they occupied while leaving his mark. The marks he leaves seem to be made using a spray paint device used for autocarriages.
The important fact of the burnt down hideout is the fact that taking that as a relative location and connecting it to a slew of murders and detonations nearby the Rook’s activities can be localized to be recently occurring around Baeza Trade Bloc. Baeza Trade Bloc is a section of a hive spire that was abandoned after a widespread plague led to the deaths of 75% of its inahbitants (see the Polonaise of Pestilence adventure for why). The large pile of burning corpses outside of Silver Wings has long crumbled to ash and spread. The sector belongs to spirits now. Due to commoner superstition and the noblemen that owned their oaths not wanting productivity to drop from their enterprises due to possible widespread sickness, the sector and habs near it were abandoned and all oaths were moved elsewhere. The sector is now empty, and its support systems have been turned off. The buildings stand as still as statues. Not even common criminals or vagrants try to take refuge within for fear of the source of the plague persisting. The area is pitch black and the air is stale from receiving its supply from an adjacent sector’s air-wipe systems. If a fire were to break out in Baeza, it is not assured that the oxygen supply in the sector would persist for long.
Optional: To facilitate the Acolytes meeting with the Rook, the Rook can have planted messages or even called them via vox devices asking them to talk and leading them to where he will be staking out a meeting. They want to know why they are chasing them. They have noticed them and while they do not take interest in the enforcers and vengeance seeking gangers and cultists looking for them, an eclectic group like an Inquisitorial warband can stick out to them even if he does not suspect them to be acolytes.
The Rook’s van can be found near a hab-block overlooking a warehouse. The van is wired with a vox system that the Rook can speak through and about 20 kilos of explosives wired to its chassis. The warehouse looks like it sustained fire damage. The paint, rockcrete, and roofing is cracked, slashed, and rusting. The Rook lies upon the top of a roof outlet keeping a watch on the warehouse and the surrounding areas using the photo-visors built into their rook helmet. They are draped with a black camouflage cover that keeps them and the majority of the heavy rifle they are wielding covered. The first time the acolytes might see them is a shape that looks like a pipe jutting out of the roof he occupies. The “pipe” has a wide muzzle belying a long and sizeable barrel. The scope of the rifle is wiped with dirt to lower the chance of flashes appearing on it. The Rook knows of the Inquisition. They received their high-tech gear from an inquisitor they explained their situation to. It supplements the gear they either stole or purchased from black market gunsmiths or criminals. That inquisitor is a radical named Eldrus Ivo, and while his dealings with the Eldar in pursuit of the Black Library’s information about the pandaemonium kept him busy, he was able to outfit them. Ivo called the Rook and the Callers a, “self-solving problem.”
The Rook will speak to the acolytes if they wish. They would be waiting on the roof. On the journey up through around seven flights of stairs, they will notice the Rook has set mines and screamers up along the walls, roof, and stairs. The mines are on a detonator, but the screamers are activated by motion. If the Rook knows they’re coming up, they can disable them remotely using a control wand. If they don’t, well. They better pass Challenging (+0) Awareness, Security, or Acrobatic tests to avoid the screamers. If alerted, the Rook will open the door at the top of the stairs with a detonator in one hand to confront those trying to sneak up on them. First, he will attempt to speak to them. If the acolytes try to fight him, he will blow the explosives (which are frag grenade mines) and take his hot-shot volley gun, rocket launcher, and leviathan heavy sniper rifle, and clean up whatever is not exploded.
The Rook is here to spy on a meeting by an old friend. He has his rifle’s scope and a hidden Vox-Thief inside the warehouse to do so. The Rook is situated seven stories up overlooking the warehouse the meeting will be held in. The windows placed near the roofing give him sight over three-fourths of the warehouse with a blindspot at its south-east corner. The Leviathan is for penetrating rockcrete and thick skulls.
Finn Greely, ex-NCO of the Cadian 301st and a “blood-neck” of the “Headless legion”, has invited his old brothers and sisters in arms along with others to speak with them here. He has an offer for them. He wants to restore their dignity as warriors. He wants them to join his new mercenary company. The mercenary company is a front and source of fighters for the Tarot, a grand conspiracy that includes mercenaries, renegades, Khornate, Slaaneshi, and Tzeentchian heretics. They are directly opposed to the domestic Nurglite cults of the Callers of Sorrow and the greater sector-wide heretical cult known as the Bilious Legions.
Joining Greely are three figures, one of them hidden. The first is Sirgev Gach, a Desoleum kingpin that is in league with one of the heads of the Tarot with a dangerous relic that gives him the power to use shadow to summon whatever he can imagine for the price of slow corruption of his mind and soul. He has been quickly upending Desoleum’s underworld from control of the Insuratti, one of the most powerful domestic cartels, with his own Gach Clique. The Clique is built from those who left with him from the Insuratti along with a slew of vassalized gangs and cults found in Desoleum’s underworld either won with succor or force. It is Gach’s dream to be the ultimate kingpin and receive the respect he always thought he deserved. With his victory in sight and with the only true opposition being miscellaneous gangs and heretics along with a burgeoning coalition known as the “Illuminati” led by the enigmatic “Big Smile” Siggy, he is here as a favor to his true master, the Living Masquerade, another head of the Tarot.
The second is a sharply dressed albino man named Ivory, and he is of the Mirror Guard. The Mirror guard are the literal sons of the Slaaneshi sorcerer Lascivious, one of the heads of the Tarot. Born from pacts and “alliances” Lascivious has with Slaaneshi cult matrons, the Mirror Guard are a mirror image of him. While not receiving the traits of his gene-seed, they are unnaturally fast and grow to adulthood within months with a natural talent for killing. Garbed in beautiful auric rune-enlaid armour and wielding runic power weapons, they kill for and their loving doting father and protect him. Ivory is the result of a pact between Lascivious and lady Luxa Tentare, the matron of the Slaaneshi Incandescent cult. His name was given by his mother. Ivory wields Soul-Spitter, a power rapier specially made for him. His true threat comes from the archaeotech teleporter given to him by a secretive and hidden supplier to the Tarot only known as “the child”. The teleporter allows him to freely shift across the battlefield in an instant. Combined with his deadly abilities as a lightning-fast fighter, this makes him a menace to most who cannot keep up.
The third figure’s identity is secretive, and for good reason. He is a lynchpin to the Tarot’s plan but is allowed to indulge in what he fancies by them. He is known by his callsign, Wight Osprey. He pilots the archaeotech Aerial Weapons Platform, a mechanized suit of human origin whose designs were lost in the Dark Age of Technology. All except the one held by “the child”. Osprey is armoured in specialized adamantium and plasteel with an intricate design allowing finesse in movement. Along the back are razor serrated blades that resemble wings that Osprey can use to slice through a line of foes. Attached to him are a miniaturized but still as deadly version of a Predator Gatling cannon and an arm-linked missile launcher. His blackened form can screech through the air leaving devastation in his wake, expertly flying and diving through a myriad of battlefields.
All three are not here to stop the Rook. They are here to make sure the acolytes meet him and to ambush the Callers of Sorrow that seek to exterminate key players in the Tarot’s works. The acolytes have been very helpful to the heretical Tarot they pursue by getting rid of their rivals. They hope the inquisition will continue to do this while their own machinations are at work. The Rook does not know of them. He is here due to several street investigations revealing that Greely, a comrade of his from the terrible Cilleathe campaign, was in danger and he was going to be murdered at one of the meetings that the Rook was invited to but never attended. The Rook does not know of Greely’s involvement in the Tarot, but if he did, he would see him as another possible target. The Rook will not fire upon the Tarot fingers as they are called once he sees them fighting the Nurglites.
There is a complicating factor. The invitation Greely sent out was open to any warrior types. Four members of a Khornate cult who grossly misunderstand their own theology will come late into the meeting and drag in four bound and gagged citizens. They have blindfolds and are terrified from being kidnapped and held. The Khornates want to welcome their new brethren in Chaos with a sacrifice. Greely will chew them out for it and tell them to let the people go. Before that, in a rage, the Rook will dispatch the four. Then the Callers’ ambush will beging.
Six eighteen-wheeler autocarriages will roll in. The Callers will send a large group of cultists that includes strain infectors and pestilenants along with demagogue lieutenants. Much more worrisome are the beasts of Nurgle that trample out. At this point, the weapons Greely was saving for the end of the meeting will be handed out to its members. They are frightened, they are outraged, but they are mostly soldiers and know how to hold a line. They will set up along the Warehouse openings and fire upon the cultists that charge them. The Tarot fingers begin their bloody work, and Wight Osprey screams into the air from the place he was hidden and rends into the Nurglites. Gach settles his hat and uses his malefic construct to form two storm bolters he wields in each hand spewing a seemingly infinite amount of bolt rounds. Ivory will calmly but enthusiastically begin his butchers work and teleport around the battlefield sticking Nurglite cultists while giving self-congratulatory comments to himself. If the fingers meet the acolytes, they will just smile, wink, or nod and go on their way. The acolytes are supposed to be here. They need to deal with the Callers for the Tarot’s benefit in their inquisitional work. Their time will come.
The Rook wants the hostages out. He will make a deal with the acolytes whether they found him or not. The Vox-Thief in the warehouse can also act as a microbead of sorts. In exchange for the hostages, he will tell them everything he knows and get them to the bottom of the crusade he has been waging for months. He will clear space using his Hot-Shot Volleygun allowing the acolytes to reach the warehouse or escape to the building he occupies. On the way, they may have to fight small groups of three or four cultist types that the Rook could not suppress or put down via his overwatch yet. He chews a gory path with rapid hot-shot lasers to an extremely efficient degree.
The veterans inside the warehouse put up a decent defense. One will be wailing and rocking back and forth due to mental scars he received from surviving Cilleathe. The rest relive their deployments but know they need to fight back to survive. The veterans will give the acolytes the benefit of the doubt for a few moments for not looking like the cultists they are fighting. If they can talk their way in quickly, the vets will allow them to take the hostages to get them out. Greely is commanding this defense. Attacking him or the soldiers under his command will get the acolytes targeted by the Cadians inside.
The Rook will tell them to keep the hostages blindfolded and tied. He knows the Inquisition’s view on survivors of daemonic attacks. While not working for them directly, a section of his company was used by an Inquisitor. He overheard his commanding officer argue with the inquisitor at the time that the kasrkin they used needed to be put down or risk corruption. He needs the acolytes to bring them to his van to get them out. He will meet them later at wherever they decide next. On a previous adventure, he actually saw their hideout for a few moments after exterminating Insuratti hitmen sent after them for the Insuratti’s involvement with the Callers. He will suggest meeting there.
One-Eyed King
"They tell you in the Guard that all the stress, anxiety, and grief you accrue is fuel. You take all that pain, all the hurt, all the fear, and all the anger and use it as a tool against your enemies. It's a lie. It's a dripping faucet of poison that turns the soul to mush." -Rosco Tyruss, The Rook
The Rook will visit the acolytes the next day. He will be dressed in a jacket and hat and unmasked. He has a forged card he wears on his lapel which says his name is Tom Swain and that he is a messenger for Aegis Courier services. He is a man with short black hair, an aquiline nose, slightly sunken eyes, and is square-faced with a strong chin. He speaks in a near-monotone and is surprisingly eloquent. There is something slightly stilted to his words. It has to do with the way he tried to kill himself with. The laspistol he put under his chin damaged part of his frontal lobe. In his grief, he could not steady the pistol and thus missed a part of his brain that would have ended him. He will tell them this and more.
His true name is Rosco Tyruss, and he is a veteran of the 211th Kasrkin division. He fought in three campaigns with the third being the failed invasion of Cilleathe, an Exodite Eldar world. He was of the 3% that survived the war and were later stranded on Desoleum by a mixture of Munitorum and Administratum negligence. The surviving Cadians, now known as “blood necks” as reference to their nickname of the “Headless Legion”, were unceremoniously mustered out on Desoleum. They were either forced to integrate or attempt to find their own way. They had no one to speak for them. During the final battle of Cilleathe, the higher-ranking officers and nobles of the Cilleathe detachment were all killed. No one could petition for them to be redeployed or mixed with another company. The survivors either integrated, attempted to find their way home or to a new front through dangerous methods such as pilgrim ships, or joined up with criminal gangs or mercenary companies. He was of the few that was happy to be free of the Guard. He was a true believer until Cilleathe. He now knows it was an unnecessary war against a foe that did not even have void-capable ships that wished to be left alone. He has no tolerance for xenos such as orks, tyranids, or the craftworld or dark cousins of those Eldar that would trade billions of human lives for a handful of their own. Those exodites were some of the bravest beings he had ever fought against. He tried to understand them, which led to him being able to fight them better. The other guardsmen thought him strange and he was even the target of gossip claiming him to be downright heretical. Tyruss is no traitor to the Imperium. He does fully believe that the Imperium needs the colossal war machine it has created. It is wasted on campaigns like Cilleathe where the impetus was not out of a need to defend humanity but of simple greed. For every Armageddon, Black Crusade, and campaigns like them that are needed to be fought there are military actions born out of insipid lords’ and generals’ base desires. That is not what turned Tyruss on this path.
The people he hunts poisoned his wife and children. He was forced to see them suffer to the point of losing their humanity. In his grief and despair, he gave them and himself the Emperor’s peace. He still regrets that decision. Even after he was told that his family were just experiments for the Callers’ he still regrets it. Under duress, a Caller told him of their group and that they were preparing the planet to be reborn. She had an innocuous symbol that marked her out as part of the group. She held a pict as a keepsake, a graduation photo for medicae scholars. A great number of people had the same mark on them. They are who Tyruss have been hunting. He does not know exactly what they are doing. He knows it has something to do with a serum they have been giving people in the guise of different forms of medicine. The same that was given to his love and their children. He has been killing those guilty of helping them. Gangers, smugglers, and related heretics. He killed off the One-Eyed Kings and burned their hideout to the ground for distributing the serum and to gain information from their leader. He learned of the attack on the meeting from him.
Tyruss has an idea of where to go next. A medicae temple he drew his targets out of and shot down has been condemned. This is odd compared to others which have had their operations resume. The hospital is called Rosarius Central, and the name interests him due to Rosarius popping up during his attacks. Their name pops up on medical equipment, as a sponsor of organizations, and on the names of hospitals. He has scoped it out before, but the building is sizeable and contains a million blind corners due to its design. With the acolytes, they could search it out.
Whispers and Lies
As said, Rosarius Central is a large building. It is built seven stories high and is built wide, with a central towering edifice surrounded by three smaller buildings that lead to it. The smaller buildings were the sites of pediatrician, general care, and surgery centers. The tower held the office buildings for the director and workers along with hospice rooms for long-term stay. The inside belies dusty, dark, and dirty hallways and offices. Much of the stuff inside has been taken out but the rooms and nursing stations remain. Mold covers some walls. The air is stale. The hospital will take a relatively long time to search. The Rook will recommend going straight to the company offices. They would not keep medicine here and there seems to be a connection between Rosarius to the Callers on a wide scale.
The Rook killed three of the people in the pict here. One in its underground garage with a bomb set to the driver's ignition. That distracted the facility and its security. Another protected by sanctionaries whom Tyruss incapacitated with a shock maul hidden in a medical cart as part of his disguise as a nurse. He used it to beat the medicae to death. The third being the director of the hospital in his office. The Rook unceremoniously shot him with a hidden compact stub revolver in his nurse disguise. Tyruss is convinced that there is something valuable here for a few reasons. Of the places he has attacked, Rosarius Central is one of the only ones that has been condemned. The other clinics and hospitals have resumed function. Apparently, Central had a severe foundational problem due to mold in its rockcrete that was exposed when the Rook exploded the ground beneath the autocarriage. Another reason he feels the place has something about it is that when the Rook caught up to the director, he had not fled like the rest but seemed to be hurriedly collecting things and pawing at what looked like a hidden number pad. Third, the location, clientelle, and size of the place being a wide, seven-story-tall building is too valuable to just throw away. Nobles, guildsmen, whoever owns the Rosarius guild warrant would at least attempt to cover up any misdeeds. In fact, the garage itself is apparently built too far into the sector's rockcrete foundation out of line of local planetary regulation but they got away with it. Two of these people, the medicae beaten and the director shot, have had their bodies disappear. This attack occured two weeks ago. The Rook has been busy in his hunt since then.
The Rook killed three of the people in the pict here. One in its underground garage with a bomb set to the driver's ignition. That distracted the facility and its security. Another protected by sanctionaries whom Tyruss incapacitated with a shock maul hidden in a medical cart as part of his disguise as a nurse. He used it to beat the medicae to death. The third being the director of the hospital in his office. The Rook unceremoniously shot him with a hidden compact stub revolver in his nurse disguise. Tyruss is convinced that there is something valuable here for a few reasons. Of the places he has attacked, Rosarius Central is one of the only ones that has been condemned. The other clinics and hospitals have resumed function. Apparently, Central had a severe foundational problem due to mold in its rockcrete that was exposed when the Rook exploded the ground beneath the autocarriage. Another reason he feels the place has something about it is that when the Rook caught up to the director, he had not fled like the rest but seemed to be hurriedly collecting things and pawing at what looked like a hidden number pad. Third, the location, clientelle, and size of the place being a wide, seven-story-tall building is too valuable to just throw away. Nobles, guildsmen, whoever owns the Rosarius guild warrant would at least attempt to cover up any misdeeds. In fact, the garage itself is apparently built too far into the sector's rockcrete foundation out of line of local planetary regulation but they got away with it. Two of these people, the medicae beaten and the director shot, have had their bodies disappear. This attack occured two weeks ago. The Rook has been busy in his hunt since then.
The stairwells to the basement and garage have been closed by cement. The foundation has bombs planted. The top floor has the director’s office. Hidden inside a compartment away from wandering eyes is a large dossier detailing many dealings the Rosarius corporation has done. Including hidden supplements of shipments to a number of medicae temples the Rook has hit, “free agents” as the papers say, and a number of companies that are related to Rosarius. Hidden within are connections to shell companies set up to Rhomana Enterprises, great house Rhomana’s main company. Rhomana is never named in these papers, but going to the Adeptus Administratum and searching through their records would provide a connection.
The director's office is moderately nice looking from the rest of the hospital. There is a large genuine wooden desk, narrow wooden dresser with clothes inside, a comfy chair at the desk, a rug covering the entire floor, a standing cabinet in the corner, and general decorations all around the room. The director's certificate is framed on the back wall. Along with that is a painting of Saint Arabelle on the back, and picts of friends, family, and neat looking places on the wall. One pict that catches the eye is the graduation photo with around a thousand graduates. It is the same the Rook stole from Dr. Calth. The same three-dot symbol can be found on the graduates as well. The picture is labeled "Graduating Class of M40.XXX.XXX; Kroenen Universitariate (There is no definitive date besides 200 years before Cadia falls) The hidden compartment is concealed inside the wall of the office. The secret compartment is behind the dresser. The compartment is connected to a keypad underneath a false floor in one of the desk's drawers. It takes a Challenging (+0) Scrutiny or Awareness to find. The keypad can be accessed and the compartment unlocked with either a Challenging (+0) Security test to find out the number code, or with a Challengng (+0) Tech-Use test to open the compartment by plugging into the wire running down from the inside of one of the desk legs into the floor and up into the compartment and overloading it. Trying to brute force it open or failing at overloading it will result in the trap inside going off. A miasma will be set upon the room forcing all inside without immunity to make a Challenging (+0) Toughness test. Failing the test causes the gain of fatigue equal to DoF. Anyone trying to swallow something after within an hour will have to take a toughness or willpower test to keep it down. The miasma was set off by a power bound to a rune in the shape of a symbol of Nurgle. Inside the compartment is a shoebox with a large number of papers. On the top page in normal lettering is the word "Nephilim". On the papers are lists of hospitals, clinics, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and healthcare professionals in general. Along with that are a number of named guilds, companies, holdings, and other mercantile information about Rosarius. Rhomana will not be named inside. The information will have to be used as a reference in administratum, librarium, or inquisitorial records.
The director's office is moderately nice looking from the rest of the hospital. There is a large genuine wooden desk, narrow wooden dresser with clothes inside, a comfy chair at the desk, a rug covering the entire floor, a standing cabinet in the corner, and general decorations all around the room. The director's certificate is framed on the back wall. Along with that is a painting of Saint Arabelle on the back, and picts of friends, family, and neat looking places on the wall. One pict that catches the eye is the graduation photo with around a thousand graduates. It is the same the Rook stole from Dr. Calth. The same three-dot symbol can be found on the graduates as well. The picture is labeled "Graduating Class of M40.XXX.XXX; Kroenen Universitariate (There is no definitive date besides 200 years before Cadia falls) The hidden compartment is concealed inside the wall of the office. The secret compartment is behind the dresser. The compartment is connected to a keypad underneath a false floor in one of the desk's drawers. It takes a Challenging (+0) Scrutiny or Awareness to find. The keypad can be accessed and the compartment unlocked with either a Challenging (+0) Security test to find out the number code, or with a Challengng (+0) Tech-Use test to open the compartment by plugging into the wire running down from the inside of one of the desk legs into the floor and up into the compartment and overloading it. Trying to brute force it open or failing at overloading it will result in the trap inside going off. A miasma will be set upon the room forcing all inside without immunity to make a Challenging (+0) Toughness test. Failing the test causes the gain of fatigue equal to DoF. Anyone trying to swallow something after within an hour will have to take a toughness or willpower test to keep it down. The miasma was set off by a power bound to a rune in the shape of a symbol of Nurgle. Inside the compartment is a shoebox with a large number of papers. On the top page in normal lettering is the word "Nephilim". On the papers are lists of hospitals, clinics, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and healthcare professionals in general. Along with that are a number of named guilds, companies, holdings, and other mercantile information about Rosarius. Rhomana will not be named inside. The information will have to be used as a reference in administratum, librarium, or inquisitorial records.
When the papers are found, the trap will have been set. Dr. Calth will appear again having seemingly risen again. The Rook will immediately shoot her. Unfortunately, she is now a nephilim, a child of Nurgle who can regenerate, change her flesh into grotesque and dangerous forms, and spew corrosive bile that eats through armor and bone. She will taunt him, then the explosives will go off and bring the building crumbling down. Due to her new form she knows she will survive this. The warband and the Rook's survival is not as certain. The Rook and the acolytes have to run out of a collapsing and falling building to survive. This will be heavy on Challenging (+0) Acrobatics or Athletics tests. The acolytes will have to pass roughly four tests, but if they find alternate solutions or ways to help each other then allow them to. Failing the tests by 1-2DoF confers fatigue on the acolytes as the wrong steps, falls, and collapsing structure concusses them or causes internal damage Failing the tests by 3DoF or more causes 1d10 damage not mitigated by toughness or armor. If anyone burns fate points here, they will be dug out by their allies.
The Raven's Chosen
In this adventure and past adventures, the warband may have noticed that the Rook's marks will sometimes have candles and feathers placed under them. There may be even messages left petitioning the marked of Saint Corax to perform some deed for them. There are two black garbed men with missions in Desoleum. The first is the Rook himself on his suicide mission to hunt down those who poisoned his family and the ones that help them. The second is Togo Katoichi, an astartes of the Deathwatch acting as a kill-marine while under the supervision of Inquisitor Rondos to hunt down the traitor of his now dead chapter, the sorcerer Yoshihiro Takane with the pseudonym Oniboshi. Unfortunately for both, hivers can be a superstitious lot and have formed a small impromptu cult around them. They may not know that the Rook has been murdering medicae but they do know he has been exterminating gangers and smugglers associated with the Nurglites. They may not know that Katoichi is not the same person but they know an angel of death stalks the streets at night wearing the black clad armour of the Deathwatch with only a symbol very few people know to differentiate him from other space marines. In this hive, extremely few have never seen Astartes before. To them, the Space Marines may as well be theological figures of their god to aspire to. When a symbol of the Emperor's fury walks the streets then the faithful feel vindicated and wish to offer up offerings and prayers. The Chosen followers believe that the one that leaves the mark is an avenging angel in the vein of Saint Corvus Corax, primarch of the Raven Guard, and that they have been chosen by him to carry out work in the night against those that perform malevolent acts. An agent of the Emperor's light that dwells in darkness. Katoichi finds this to both be a boon in that the normal citizens of the hive show him respect, but also a possibly dangerous irritation that leads to crowds of the faithful and great proseletyzing in the streets as he continues from place to place.
Rosco loathes the cult. He does not want to be worshipped. He doesn't want normal people to think what he does is justified. He doesn't want a death cult to spring up in his name. The symbols were left to spark fear into his targets and not to garner support to a broken man who would rather a bullet to the brain than his killings uplifted. If he sees these makeshift shrines while traveling with the acolytes, he will become irate and stomp out the candles and scatter the ashes. If any worshippers are there, he will try to tell them to stop and may become desparate enough to threaten them or fire his weapon in the air to scare them off and make them think twice about worshipping his acts. He may break down after this and be unavailable to the party.
Rosco loathes the cult. He does not want to be worshipped. He doesn't want normal people to think what he does is justified. He doesn't want a death cult to spring up in his name. The symbols were left to spark fear into his targets and not to garner support to a broken man who would rather a bullet to the brain than his killings uplifted. If he sees these makeshift shrines while traveling with the acolytes, he will become irate and stomp out the candles and scatter the ashes. If any worshippers are there, he will try to tell them to stop and may become desparate enough to threaten them or fire his weapon in the air to scare them off and make them think twice about worshipping his acts. He may break down after this and be unavailable to the party.
Needle in a Haystack
The great towering halls of the Administratum record vault are filled with gargantuan amounts of files. Hundreds of savants and scribes work in its halls checking and archiving massive amounts of information. Much of the time, they would not allow basic outsiders to look through their halls. With a bit of Challenging (+0) persuasion, threatening, and posturing versus their willpower; and/or use of Inquisitorial authority they would allow the party in.
Finding the connection between Rosarius and Rhomana will take a good amount of time and a lot of searching. It is only found in very obscure archived charters that would connect a dozen shell companies, holding companies, and legitimate guilds and businesses in a labyrinthine connection to Rhomana. It will take a Hard (-20) Scrutiny, Inquiry, Commerce, Common Lore (Administratum), or Scholastic Lore (Bureaucracy). Failing takes more time to find what one needs, and gives the Callers time to set up an ambush with knowledge that someone is looking through Rosarius’s records.
Failure will result in the record vault being called and the acolytes being asked for. A vox news investigator named Kel Demme says he has been working on trying to uncover the Callers’ conspiracy. He works for Aquila News, a propaganda news agency that is heavily edited by the Administratum. He had been investigating the Rook’s targets to see if there was more to them. He saw them walk away from the Baeza fight. He wants to talk to them to give them key information about their plans. Now, of course, this seems slightly contrived. That is because it is. Kel has been looking into the matter, but he was caught by the Callers. They are forcing him to tell them this to get the acolytes into the recording studio where they will find him tied up with a melta bomb behind his back and the doors to the recording studio locked. The bomb can be disarmed with a Challenging (+0) Tech-Use test. Alternatively, if the acolytes catch on and still go to Aquila News, they can snoop around and find the Callers’ plant, another investigator named Erich Barrosa. Under a Challenging (+0) Investigation, he can tell them that the Callers have control over Harthos Rhomana, patriarch of the great house Rhomana and a member of the Consortium.
Eventually, it will be found that House Rhomana owns Rosarius. Rhomana has been supplying the Callers. Rosarius is a front for Rhomana's support to a Nurgle cult. House Rhomana is now implicated in furthering and funding cult activity. Now the acolytes will have to make it up to the Apex to confront lord Harthos Rhomana.
How the acolytes get up there is up to the acolytes. This adventure was designed with previous adventures found on the Malice blog like Tenorlied of Traitors and Polonaise of Pestilence in mind. They do not have to be played in order but the context they give would help with understanding. The easiest way, if their inquisitor won't punish them, is to use their master's influence to get up to Spire Gotha. The smart thing to do would be to ask for a meeting with Lord Harthos in a way that does not sound like they are suspecting him. They could shroud their visit to ask Lord Harthos about Lord Kotrohman for suspicions of heresy. Lord Kotrohman in the Malice continuity is part of the Consortium and the great lord over Jarzin. Due to a false assassination accusation placed on him, he has created a schism between him and the Desoleum Primus-based great houses. He is petitioning the sector governor of Askellon to change the planetary capital to Jarzin rather than Desoleum Primus due to a lack of confidence by the other lords of the Consortium led by lord Kotrohman versus the Primus clique which includes Gotha, Grym-Zollern, Rosa, Elden, Konstant, and Rhomana. Even without the Inquisition's influence allowing the acolytes entrance, using Kotrohman's name may be another way to disguise themselves to enter Spire Rhomana. They could conceal themselves as intermediaries sent by Lord Kotrohman to get Lord Rhomana on his coalition of other great houses and minor noble houses. Lord Rhomana, due to the oaths of Desoleum, may have to at least receive them to refuse them. The acolytes could do it the hard way and take an aerocraft and attempt to land at the spire's apex. They could also climb the spire, although trying to do this from its bottom would literally take days so they would have to find a way to get far enough up without raising suspicion. Those without clearance or are not of nobility, the adept organizations, or the inquisition would be seen as intruders and attacked in self-defense.
How the acolytes get up there is up to the acolytes. This adventure was designed with previous adventures found on the Malice blog like Tenorlied of Traitors and Polonaise of Pestilence in mind. They do not have to be played in order but the context they give would help with understanding. The easiest way, if their inquisitor won't punish them, is to use their master's influence to get up to Spire Gotha. The smart thing to do would be to ask for a meeting with Lord Harthos in a way that does not sound like they are suspecting him. They could shroud their visit to ask Lord Harthos about Lord Kotrohman for suspicions of heresy. Lord Kotrohman in the Malice continuity is part of the Consortium and the great lord over Jarzin. Due to a false assassination accusation placed on him, he has created a schism between him and the Desoleum Primus-based great houses. He is petitioning the sector governor of Askellon to change the planetary capital to Jarzin rather than Desoleum Primus due to a lack of confidence by the other lords of the Consortium led by lord Kotrohman versus the Primus clique which includes Gotha, Grym-Zollern, Rosa, Elden, Konstant, and Rhomana. Even without the Inquisition's influence allowing the acolytes entrance, using Kotrohman's name may be another way to disguise themselves to enter Spire Rhomana. They could conceal themselves as intermediaries sent by Lord Kotrohman to get Lord Rhomana on his coalition of other great houses and minor noble houses. Lord Rhomana, due to the oaths of Desoleum, may have to at least receive them to refuse them. The acolytes could do it the hard way and take an aerocraft and attempt to land at the spire's apex. They could also climb the spire, although trying to do this from its bottom would literally take days so they would have to find a way to get far enough up without raising suspicion. Those without clearance or are not of nobility, the adept organizations, or the inquisition would be seen as intruders and attacked in self-defense.
Revenants
Spire Rhomana is a colossal edifice. Lord Rhomana’s personal home lies on the top floors. For a long period, Lord Rhomana has been in the precarious position of being a member of the Consortium but not having any heirs or a spouse to pass a possible inheritance to. His wife, Sera, and their three children Andreas, Reynard, and Chale perished from disease many years ago. There are cadet branches of the Rhomana family and those he has made alliances with that could possiblybe given his holdings, but he is seemingly forever alone. He leaves the spire for counsels of the Consortium, his holdings, and for appearances at different social events held across the planet. Otherwise, he stays in his spire on the top floor. The tower is oddly lightly guarded for a member of the consortium. Most of the Rhomana’s martial servants lies on lower levels and can be called up at a moment’s notice.
If the acolytes had failed their Inquiry checks in the Administratum record vault, then the Callers will have had time to strongarm lord Harthos into dealing with them when they reach his spire. Harthos’s family fell to a plague three decades ago. He looks only around forty years old as a result of rejuvenat treatments but he is actually 207. His family was kept in quarantined rooms with clean and sterile air in order to maximize their survivability. It failed. Those rooms still exist, as does a decontamination room with air-lock gates leading to that section of the spire. This room would scrub the air and laser clean visitors as to not carry contaminants into the ailing Rhomanas’ living space. They can be modified to malfunction and fill the decontamination room with poison gas and fill the room with flame. If the acolytes are tricked into this room, the gates will close and lock. The room fills with the poison gas that will give the acolytes one fatigue every ten seconds they stay or every failed test in the room. The flamers then clean up any that would not be affected and the dead. Harthos is no techpriest and has familiarity with the machinery only because he had to interact with it for so much during his family’s sickness. His modifications would have been hasty. With a Challenging (+0) Awareness test, the acolytes can discover a slightly bulging panel from the wall inside the room. Inside the panel are crossed wires that tampered with the air filtration and the other systems. A Challenging (+0) Tech-Use, Sleight of Hand, or Tech-use test can turn off the gas and open the gates. A full party TPK here avoided by burnt fate points puts the surviving acolytes bound and locked away by Rhomana waiting for the Callers to snatch their prisoners away.
Rhomana’s deep secret is the revival of his family. They are unliving revenants hidden inside a large chamber on the top floor of spire Rhomana. They move, speak, and act like they did when they are alive. They have everything they did in life. They never complain about not being able to leave the spire. They are happy to see lord Harthos every day. They speak and move and are just like they were when they are alive, but they do not breathe. Their pallid visages bely their still-life. Lord Rhomana is fully in delusion about this. The Callers made a pact with lord Harthos. He wanted his family back. They would supply on the condition he would supply them with his vast resources. Past all the illusions he has mentally set up, he received a farcical fascimile.
Tyruss will fall to tranquil anger if he hears Rhomana try to defend himself and will attempt to beat him to death. He will either need to be physically restrained, calmed down, or reasoned with beforehand for him to keep his cool. The first requires an opposed strength versus strength check, the latter two require an opposed social check of either charm, intimidate, command, or logic against his willpower. Rhomana knows where the Callers’ leader is hiding. They are a great and terrible herald of Nurgle known as Putricifex. He knows where they are hiding because he went with the cultists that took his family to their hidden place built deep within the bedrock that Desoleum Primus was built around. He can take the acolytes and the Rook there. If they can convince him to or interrogate it out of him.
Creeping Death
A raid shall commence upon the hideout. Putricifex is waiting. The Callers have been injecting people for years with a serum that awaits a ritual for its true form to come out. It hides within it immaterial connection to Nurgle’s realm. With activation, the millions infected will turn into gruesome plague bearers and abominations. The Grandfather will bring to Askellon a slew of new children, beings seen as godly by Nurgle’s faithful. The ritual to transform the infected into nephilim will begin. They will feel sublimity of their Grandfather. They will fall in line with the various and far-reaching cells of the Caller and their allies with the greater Billious Legion conspiracy. With their grand transformation shall come the materializing of Nurgle's garden on Desoleum. The joining of billions through the serum and the to Nurgle, the further spread of plague across the planet, the narrowed split between realspace and the warp, and the ritual that uses ancient spaces of psychic power of the dead xenos of the Lothri will align and putrification and plague will spread throughout Desoleum. The fall of the sector is next.
Tyruss will tell the acolytes to suit up for the battle ahead. He intends on exterminating every living thing in the sanctum. He is going in full Rook regalia with his crow’s mark emblazoned on his chest armor with fresh paint, and he is bringing his volley gun, a heavy flamer, a missile launcher with five krak missiles in tow, his needle pistols, a combat shotgun, and a full bevy of grenades of around four each of the types he needs (frag, krak, photon flash, and stun). He may need an acolyte or two to carry and even use his weaponry without his trusty van to carry them. He will suggest bringing melta bombs with them to bring down the chamber when they leave. He has the detonator and the skill to set them up.
The Callers’ sanctum is found within abandoned magrail tunnels and mines deep in the bedrock that Desoleum Primus is built on. Not quite the underhive, but it is found downhive. The sanctum seems to be a bunker that was built in early human colonization. It has been forgotten to time as the hive grew up and out and around it in multiple layers. The air is pungent with the smell of mold, sulfur, and disease. The air itself is thick and a miasmatic shroud seems to cover the entire place. The sanctum itself is made up of narrow hallways leading to moderate sized chambers that lead to more hallways. It is a maze to move through. At the end of the maze lies a great chamber of hewn stone. A gigantic multi-layered alter makes up most of the room and grand pillars support the roof.
The way to get there is large enough for an autocarriage to move through. If the acolytes have an air vehicle like an arvus lighter or a gun cutter that could carry an autocarriage, they could bring their own rides or even the Rook’s with his collected weaponry.
The hallways will be thick with Nurglite cultists, mutants, and possibly daemons. However, the cells of the Callers will be spread all around the globe as the ritual requires multiple resonance points to make it work. This ritual is facilitated by the Catalyst, a ritual done by the Tarot that unchained the relatively contained Pandaemonium. The split between the materium and immaterium has narrowed. It also is the reason that daemon summoning has been easier.
The ending chamber has Putricifex begin the ritual. He is surrounded by three plague bearers and three nurglings (the nurglings are optional if one wants the fight to be more equal to the party). His new form as a Great Unclean One shall be shown, but the ritual must finish before he is rewarded for bringing a new planet to the grandfather’s garden. They will fight him in his herald form. Alternatively, if your players are very experienced, then you can have his Great Unclean One form be conferred upon him by Nurgle’s boon to give them more challenge.
Using null rods or untouchable powers will not disrupt the ritual. It will make cleansing the chamber easier, but the warp forces at play are too much for even the soul sucking nature of a pariah. There is another way to destroy the chamber and stop the ritual from going off besides killing the beasts. The seven pillars the Callers have set up are load bearing and this chamber was completed recently compared to the rest of the sanctum. Destroying five of them will bring the chamber down. They count as being made of stone. One can either use cover AP rules to destroy them, or one can use demolitions and/or melta bombs to destroy them. If the Rook has stuck with the acolytes this entire time, they have a bombs expert with them. Although his heavy weaponry would also be useful against the lesser daemons in the room.
Nephilim:
Characters
The Rook Profile
Official release: Terrorist. Bomber. Leaves an odd white mark that looks like a crow's foot painted on places he has been. 50 known medicae victims. Heavily armed. Special forces weaponry. Demolitions training.
Name: Rosco "Oz" Tyruss, Age 42
Wife: Lilly Swain, Deceased
Daughter: Miranda Tyruss, Deceased
Son: Tom Tyruss, Deceased
Served on Kulth, Kalf, and finally Cilleathe. He was promoted to Major on Kalf, and led a battalion on Cilleathe. In the Guard, his specialties were recon, stealth, and demolitions.
The 211th had R&R on the world of Adderoth, where Rosco found the inspiration for the Rook's equipment and the symbol he uses. It was the last world before the 211th was deployed to Cilleathe
For complete story information on the Rook, look up the blog post Cilleathe, The Decaps, and the Rook
GM Notes and how to perform him: Rosco will never think he was right in what he did. He will never think he had to do it. In the concrete passage of the story, his family had an equal chance of dying an agonizing, dehumanizing, and slow death; they would have become been transformed into Nurgle's servants; or worst of all for his situation now, they had a chance to heal. The Nephilim serum used on them was experimental. Those who it has been used on have survived, such as survivors of Baeza from Polonaise of Pestilence. You will never know, your players will never know, and as a kind of cop-out even though I made this whole thing I will never know which of the three it would have been. Just that it would have been one of the three.
Although he is heavily influenced by the Marvel character Frank Castle, he does not see himself as judge, jury, and executioner that is just barely morally in the right. He does not really have the dropped pretense of a sense of justice either like the version of the Punisher in the MAX universe. Tyruss is waging this war out of revenge, because it is the only thing that makes sense to him anymore as physiologically and psychologically he only feels calm walking into hell as I have said before, but also a longing for death. However, he is not entirely a fatalistic nihilist. He is doing this also to prevent others from suffering as he did. Not as a hero, but as someone who uses the tools his Emperor gave him the only way he knows how. This is his penance that will never be complete until he dies. He is carrion, he carries the symbol of carrion, and he picks among the dead like a carrion beast. Never make him think he is right.
Although he is heavily influenced by the Marvel character Frank Castle, he does not see himself as judge, jury, and executioner that is just barely morally in the right. He does not really have the dropped pretense of a sense of justice either like the version of the Punisher in the MAX universe. Tyruss is waging this war out of revenge, because it is the only thing that makes sense to him anymore as physiologically and psychologically he only feels calm walking into hell as I have said before, but also a longing for death. However, he is not entirely a fatalistic nihilist. He is doing this also to prevent others from suffering as he did. Not as a hero, but as someone who uses the tools his Emperor gave him the only way he knows how. This is his penance that will never be complete until he dies. He is carrion, he carries the symbol of carrion, and he picks among the dead like a carrion beast. Never make him think he is right.
Nephilim profile:
Increased damage is due to Mighty Shot
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