DH2E Character Cast: Inquisitor Fidele and his personal warband

Inquisitor Encenzo Fidele

Presiding Inquisitor: Inquisitor Encenzo Fidele

Ordo Hereticus

Puritan Thorian

Age: 142 (Rejuvenat 37)

Description: Tall, medium build, short black hair, golden skin tone, perfect teeth, voice tinged with his native Baroquian accent.

Home World: Baroquia (Feudal World)

Background: Adeptus Ministorum

Role: Hierophant

Origin: Once a lowly parish priest of his homeworld, father Fidele began a small-scale campaign against heretical elements found on Baroquia. He would use a mixture of fear-mongering, inspiring rhetoric, and agents as tools against Chaos. He was noticed by a passing inquisitor Zaid Morad, a Tallarnian inquisitor that held similar fervor to Ricasso and saw a kindred spirit in him and took him on as an interrogator. They worked together for decades until Morad deemed him worthy to take up the rosette. He has been an independent throne agent for twenty years, having taken interest in the “doomed” sector of Askellon. His headquarters are in Juno.

Don* Fidele is very influential and has a heavy presence on Juno with a fortress and a full organization. He receives promising recruits via allies. These allies either have debts to him, are cowed by his stature as a throne agent, or are proper friends that understand the gravity of his work. Ricasso is one to work while openly wearing symbols of the Inquisition and the Ministorum as he purges the unclean. He can be found leading the troops under his command on the ground. He is one to make grand inspiring speeches and can convince a crowd of millions to enact the Emperor’s will. He looks proudly upon those who openly take to the flamer and hammer that fully show the fury of the Emperor to His enemies. He does not disparage those acolytes that take to stealth and subterfuge but looks for fervor among his followers. As an agent of Ordo Hereticus, he looks for heresy in all of mankind. His cells of acolytes are accompanied by trusted, vetted, and fervent acolytes whom he personally trusts. These men and women tend to come from the Adeptus Ministorum, the Adepta Sororitas, the more religious Imperial Guard regiments, and the Missionaria Galaxia.

*Don is the title for priests on Baroquia, meaning the equivalent of "father" in other dialects.

Inquisitor Fidele's personal warband

Dies Irae- A sister of battle and the leader of the group when Inquisitor Ricasso is away. She is always ultra serious and humorless. Irae is a very frank, blunt, and straight to the point type of person. She is ultra fervent. She is easy to anger and her retribution is swift. She acts as the frank face of the group as the personification of the loud brimstone and hellfire approach puritans like to strike. She can back it up with supreme fighting skill as well. Along with that she creates and inspiring presence that could turn a hiver mob into a righteous group of zealots ready to purge at her will. Some say she has been personally touched by the Emperor. She almost always wears her intricate angel theme engraved power armour given by the Adepta Sororitas and a two-handed power claymore. She is being trained as an interrogator.






Lacrymosa- A redeemed death cultist. Lacrymosa is still obsessed with the idea of death and the things around it but no longer carries out ritualistic murders for her cult. She often strikes a low key fatalistic tone and often loves to mess with people by talking morbidly and cryptically. Lacrymosa often uses understated humor to lift the warband's spirits and to unnerve strangers. She wields a power-glaive and dresses in dark robes hiding maneuverable mesh armour underneath. She is also the warband's chirurgeon and uses a variety of poisons in her work. She likes her work.



Canta Firma- An ex-scribe of the adeptus administratum. Canta is the sage of the group. Her fighting skill is not great and she is the most flighty of the bunch, but she has an eye for information and logical analysis. She somehow finds going through piles of information and colossal tomes stimulating and she shines at information gathering. Otherwise, she is a nervous and shy person. She retained the administratum robes that she hides flak armour underneath. In combat, she can mainly be found behind the others, fearfully firing suppressive fire to allow the others to make kills.

S.R. Decc- Primaris psyker specializing in cryomancy. Ex-private eye now lending his investigational skills in both the material and immaterial to the inquisitor. Normally wears a hat, a dark grey button-up pressed suit coat, pressed pants, a black vest, white shirt, blue tie, black shoes, and keeps two signature customized stub automatic pistols hidden in his coat. The pistols are for show and to supplement the use of his powers. His psy-foci are specialized black gloves with ethereal materials built inside. He is middle-aged with a well-kept mustache, short trimmed hair, light blue eyes, and a medium build. He stands at 6'0". Inquisitor Fidele has a distant professional relationship with him. He understands Belle's uses but also is wary of him as a psyker. Ricasso attempts to show him respect but he treats him almost like a tamed wild animal that could pounce at any moment. He still has this idea in his head even after years of working with Belle who has shown to have a proficient amount of control over his powers along with being a strong asset with his non-psychically inclined attributes as well. Belle understands this and is honestly just happy to do similar work to what he did on his homeworld of Sagittarius as an investigator. Someone's got to do it. Belle found his powers emerge in his twenties and kept them secret. He understood if he wanted to survive he needed to submit himself to the black ships, but took a few years to train himself in order to maximize his survival and not be the unfortunates with no control that are executed before reaching Terra. His cryomancy powers have the benefit of imparting fatigue on targets thus making them suitable to subduing those he needs to interrogate along with allowing destructive power for targets he is required to purge. With self-awareness of his position in a puritan's warband he is also the most likely to act off-script and follow his own motives when he can afford to. Encenzo keeps him around to hunt other psykers. He is sometimes given the designation "psy-hound". On Sagittarius, due to his brave and brazen interactions in the criminal underworld to the point of straight up walking right up to crimelords and talking to them one night and busting them the next, he was known as "Stagger Belle". He is cool-headed, slow to anger, perceptive, and easygoing when he can be. He takes his work very seriously and although he is not physically the most imposing person he creates a presence through his will and personality that has cowed veteran criminals before. Belle loves to play up the wise old man act even if he is about a century younger than his Inquisitor.

(His appearance is based on the depiction of detective Oscar Clemmons from the Greg Rucka run of The Punisher but the voice I imagine [and come nowhere close to doing] is closer to the older raspier Danny Glover)
Cryomancy is from IraDeLucis's homebrew found here: 
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vy1nXDzS11cW1bsyohYDmaRIHjlEVM3jtis0dxxQaX0/edit#gid=1412909590

Dark Heresy 2E Adventure: The Path of Exuberance (WIP)

Path of Exuberance

Table of Contents

Children of the Exuberant Being 2

Inquisitor Fidele Cavello 4

A Requiem for Sister Rosali 5

Children of the Exuberant Being

Group Marked for Extermination

Cult Designation: Hereticus Minoris

Forbidden Worship: The Emperor of Mankind is the only god acknowledged in the Imperial Creed. All others are seen as primitive deviancy at best, and Daemons or echoes of the Warp at worst. On some planets, proscribed rites still thrive, and ancient powers or xenos races are worshipped in the Emperor’s place.

Demagogue: The cult is held together by the personal magnetism of a central figure. He may be a particularly driven madman or a charming orator, but in either case, it is his words that hold his power.

Charismatic: Through force of personality or sheer charm, the cult leader is universally revered by his followers. His influence is felt even when he is physically absent.

Heavy Firepower: For a shadowy cabal or coven, the cultists have far bigger guns than might be expected. They make frequent use of powerful weapons in their battles, such as heavy stubbers, grenade launchers, or more devastating devices.

Marked Flesh + Hidden Sign: A rune or other visual motif identifies the cultists. They might wear the sign on hidden pendants, hide it amidst other signs at businesses they control, or otherwise display it to those who know where to look. The perfidy of the cultists is worn on their very flesh. They may bear a hidden brand or tattoo declaring their membership, or a worse deformity might mark them as among the ranks of an inhuman throng.

Purpose:  Some citizens of the Imperium find themselves yearning for something more fulfilling than endless labour to support a war machine they never see. These empty souls often turn to cults that claim to provide meaning or purpose to an otherwise pointless existence.

Flesh Twisting: Most common as a ritual of initiation or advancement, the deliberate mutilation or mutation of a cultist’s flesh is often seen as a show of dedication.

Nurgle: Morbid enthusiasms about death, but also rebirth, anchor the cult’s beliefs. Its members thrive on disease and decay, their appalling forms energetically eager to share their blessings with everyone around them.

Hereticus Minoris: Even the smallest Inquests represent heresies worthy of the focused attentions of an Inquisitor and his Acolytes. Inquests of Minoris scope are relatively straightforward (as such matters go), and the Inquisitor and Acolytes might even know the approximate whereabouts of the target. An Inquest Minoris requires 600 Investigation points to complete and includes 1 to 3 Confrontations.

Enemy types: The Children fit well with the profiles of the enemies from the Callers of Sorrow and mutants in the Dark Heresy 2E core rulebook. Unlike the Callers of Sorrow, however, the Children use their gifts from Nurgle to openly practice their heresy when their group is threatened. Their troops are mainly tough, muscled mooks wielding an assortment of heavy weaponry, melee and ranged. Their unnatural toughness carries them through fights moreso than their armour which consists mainly of hive leathers and maybe the odd flak vest.

Melee weapon preferences: Chainaxes, great weapons, warhammers.

Ranged weapon preferences: Autoguns, heavy stubbers, shotguns.

Armour preferences: Flak, Leathers

(Special Rule) Blessed by Exuberance- The Children are given blessings by the exuberant being that increase their overall resilience and strength. These are in the forms of serums and potions for possible recruits. For those initiated without fear of the Exuberant Being or the Corpse God there are rituals beseeching immaterial patrons including complex rites.

All troop type NPCs of the Children gain the Unnatural Strength (1) and Unnatural Toughness (1) talents.

All elite type NPCs of the Children gain the Unnatural Strength (2) and Unnatural Toughness (2) talents and Sturdy and Undying traits

All master type NPCs of the Children gain the Unnatural Strength (4) and Unnatural Toughness (4) talents and Sturdy, Toxic (1), Undying, and Touched by the Fates (1) traits.

Being a minor cult without the resources of grander conspiracies, they use what they can get.

 

Introduction

Introduction: Inquisitor Cavello has built a contact network in Askellon and the sectors around it. The PCs have been taken to the Wick, Cavello’s fortress located within the capital hive on Juno. Its name comes from the overall cathedral-like design and the many sets of candles that are lit by clergy that Cavello has gathered. The candles serve a spiritual purpose and are also believed by Don Cavello and others to keep evils away. Its winding halls are built to be defended from attack, and holds armouries, garages, medicae clinics, barracks, musterhalls, messes, and other facilities needed to allow the Ordo Hereticus to pursue their duty on Juno. The PCs have been given an autocarriage, a domestic Model M Tirelli, and are gathered at one of the garages which opens up to Juno.

This garage is an underground complex of rockcrete that mainly has civilian vehicles. It is guarded by levy troops wearing blackened flack armour, red fatigues, and inquisitorial rosette patches. They are from a variety of worlds in the Imperium. They man a checkpoint with a building that contains the controls and pict feeds of the garage. They take account of what vehicles are signed in or out.

The PC’s autocarriage is being driven by one Confessor Maxim Letov, a veteran of the Valhallan Ice Fighters. He is utterly loyal to Don Cavello, and follows his orders to the letter. He is a brawny, short man, with close shaved dark brown hair, fair skin, wearing a black leather coat, dark green fatigue tops and pants, black boots, and white socks. He often has a very serious disposition, but is not abusive or belittling. He is not one to crack a joke, nor laugh.

The PCs start play out on the road. Their mission briefing: 

Dark Heresy 2E Malice Campaigns Setting Cast: Inquisitor Rondos and the Straussheim Cell (WIP)

These are the profiles and the common cast of allies and fellow Inquisitorial agents used in my series of Malice campaigns on the blog. Refer to this page when I mention a character from it.

Inquisitor: Korudon Rondos
Overseer: Harkonn Straussheim
Acolytes: Connor Gallach the Highlander, Samael the Untouchable, Colastia Myri the Ace, Veljack the Manhound, Titus Andron the Bard.

Allies: The Warband (Players), Togo Katoichi the last Flame of Yaketsuku, Ibram Ali the Firebrand, "Yankee" Rose the Bounty Hunter, Lady Aya Rosa of Great House Rosa, Balthazar Surena, Tracius Geneon, and Rosa Initiative Sanctionary Lieutenant Benjamin Breeg.

Persons of Interest: The Harlequin known as the Argent Mask, Rosco "Oz" Tyruss the Rook, "Big Smile" Siggy of the Joy Troupe cloudboy gang, Zel Franz the Rat King, Magos Kaecipher of Selvanus Binary, Inquisitor Eldrus Ivo the Ordo Xenos radical, and Inquisitor Fidele Cavello the Ordo Hereticus puritan.

Enemies: The Tarot, the Serrata Dark Eldar Kabal, the Bilious Legions Nurgle collective, and the Callers of Sorrow Nurgle cult.

Profiles and descriptions to come later

Korudon Rondos: Inquisitor Rondos weaves a web of intrigue throughout Askellon and reaching farther sectors. Born a native of Maccabea, Rondos was discovered as a potent Psyker early in his life. He survived the sanctioning on Terra and became a primaris psyker. He was immediately requisitioned by the revered and venerable Inquisitor Monitore Ritornello. Korudon grew to be an extremely powerful psyker that could hold the influence of the Immaterium in check while unleashing devastating power. He had an almost meme virus-like thirst for knowledge pouring over countless tomes, volunteering for dangerous missions into strange places, and being the face for warband groups when inquiry, interrogation, and an investigation was needed just to learn and discover things. This led him to impress Inquisitor Ritornello and led him into Ritornello's inner circle to be given the title of interrogator and later uplifted to inquisitor.

One of Korudon's defining characteristic as an acolyte was an intense curiosity for the strange and esoteric. Curiosity is seen as a dangerous thing in the Imperium of Man, and his master trained his acolyte to temper his knowledge seeking lest he falls down the path of many whose innocent thirsts for knowledge lead them to Chaos. Korudon heeded his master's words but never gave up his inquiring spirit. Korudon possesses abounding charisma and a calculating mind. Korudon prefers to fight his wars by proxy. Manipulation and intrigue are his bread and butter. He can talk a loyal bodyguard into stabbing his master in the back. He can destroy a cult through its rivals or plant the seeds of betrayal from within without lifting a finger or wasting his resources. As an inquisitor, Korudon disdains the brimstone and hellfire approach that is used by inquisitors like Fyodor Karamazov. He prefers to weave his intrigue through the use of many individual cells of trusted handlers commanding and looking over operations of their own acolytes. He values subtlety and covert action. He does understand when a certain volume of action is needed but prefers it to be at the climactic crescendo of the Imperium's many enemies' downfall rather than the useless barking that he finds loud, pontificating, and flamboyant inquisitors to employ. Inquisitor Rondos is not a believer in the credo of killing millions to save billions. He believes such widespread styles of witch hunts are inefficient and wasteful of the Emperor's resources. A scalpel does better to cut out affliction where the commonly used hammer would bludgeon cancer but leaves it to spread. Rondos employs covert investigation and infiltration along with garnering alliances with the powers in Askellon and quick surgical purges to defend humanity

Inquisitor Rondos's current goal is to destroy the pandaemonium and eliminate its threat to Askellon and the surrounding sectors. He is labeled Ordo Xenos but he also fights daemons and heretics in his current missions as these are all linked.

Korudon would most likely be generalized as a radical by puritans, but it is closer to truth that he lands somewhere in the middle of puritanism and radicalism in terms of ideology and utility. He dislikes the use of Xenos weaponry, mercenaries, and alliances but mainly due to pragmatism. He knows the dangerous and perfidious nature of xenos species but he mainly does not draw upon xenos personnel or tech to keep out of the eye of puritan inquisitors that would impair his work. Short term he would employ species he deems uncorrupted such as the kroot. He would never deal with the Dark Eldar, Orks, or Tau and would be extremely reluctant to interact with craftworld Eldar. Tyranids and Necrons are also right out. He does rarely choose to use xenos materials such as the Rythi Victus, a psychically linked tome that is important to his current mission to destroy the pandaemonium. He has a zero-tolerance policy for any materials related to Chaos. The most he may allow is an aetheroscope and only in trusted hands. He would immediately personally execute or call for the purge of any acolytes trying to create daemonic weapons, forming daemonhosts, summoning daemons, or attempting to make sincere deals with factions of Chaos. Any unsanctioned psykers he finds will go to the Black Ships. However, he is known to train unbound psykers at times to increase the chances of them receiving primaris status if he finds that he could requisition them after sanctioning. To this end, he will delay sending them to the Astra Telepathica. A puritan discovering this would find this absolutely heretical, but Korudon believes the risk is worth the reward.

Inquisitor Rondos has a somewhat detached personality. He has an inner circle of trusted lieutenants and only of a fraction of them could he call a friend. He does not see his underlings as disposable resources but he definitely keeps distance personally due to the nature of his work and officially as he often works through a large network of cells and assets. He looks at them in a sense of respecting their usefulness as tools in his war. He would not disrespect them as individuals or see them as beneath him in stature but often keeps the big picture in mind in his work thus does not form any other relationships other than professional ones. His interactions with the immaterium as a very powerful psyker may contribute to his detachedness. The fact that the Inquisition's work is deadly does not help either. His life is the job. It is what interests him and feeds his curiosity.

GM Note: Rondos has a tenor pitch to his voice with a Mediterranean accent from his home planet of Maccabea. I believe it has been portrayed differently but I'm going with this. Also, he will often be absent with Straussheim as the acolyte's handler in the first two campaigns.




Harkonn Straussheim: Cell Leader and veteran of the Armageddon Steel Legion. Once a bookish universitariate student of the Helsreach minor house Straussheim, events were set in play that would lead Straussheim to join the Steel Legion as a commissioned officer and cross paths with Inquisitor Rondos on the planet of Ozymandias II. Rumors about him have never been solidified, however, there is one that has stuck longer than most that the man is a patricide. On Ozymandias II Rondos would also briefly meet Erioch Karpath, now the traitor general known as Rainmaker. Harkonn's studies before his military career were based on greater Imperial and military history, a tough subject to for any scholar in the Imperium, and he combined his insight along with a fierce determination based on a solemn promise to someone important to him to bring to his duties as an officer. He excelled as a leader and eventually became a colonel in the Legion before being levied by the Inquisition. Harkonn is an intelligent, analytical, calm, collected man with a warm disposition. He knows when to get serious and when levity is required. He treats the acolytes he commands as colleagues rather than tools. He is very honest with them, however. He does keep secrets but only those personal to him or important to keep hidden for his inquisitor. He is often found at the hideout he heads poring over countless notes and data slates while taking notes of his own. He is also of found with a bottle and a glass of Aldermann brandy, an amasec domestic to Desoleum made by House Aldermann. He is no slouch, however. He can command and hold his own in a fight with the experience he gained with the legion. He has a friendship with Inquisitor Rondos and is part of the inquisitor's inner circle. He has no intention of following his master's path as an interrogator. By his words, the responsibility would be too much for him.
GM Note: Straussheim has an accent similar to Hugo Weaving's character Red Skull.




Connor Gallach: Sacrisian Highlander. Once a candidate for the Storm Wardens chapter of the Adeptus Astartes, Connor Gallach wandered Sacris fighting the strongest fighters and monsters he could find in his shame of not being chosen to become a Space Marine. He killed a high king's son in a duel, and while awaiting execution he was saved by Inquisitor Rondos. He now owes a debt to him, and he takes the skills he learned to serve the Inquisition. The initiate he lost to is now the Deathwatch Seargent Duncan MacGhoil. Surviving the final trial of the candidate process, he was given mercy by Duncan. Connor felt further shame at not being good enough to become a chapter serf for the Storm Wardens as well. The astartes that was overlooking the trials had the logic that Connor would be more useful in becoming a warlord on Sacris thus training a whole bevy of candidates for the chapter. This did not happen. Connor returned home to a feast by his clan honoring his attempt at demi-godhood. Connor read this as his family being ashamed of him. They were the opposite. He never reconciled what he thought with the truth. In his shame, he decided to travel the lands. The aforementioned event occurred while Inquisitor Rondos was active on Sacris for a short period. Connor Gallach is an angry, boastful, and daring man. He is extremely sarcastic. He follows his commands to the letter and with gusto. He is often found screaming the name of his rival as a battle cry as he charges into battle feeling the memory makes him a better fighter through his anger. He has still never given up his grudge.
GM Note: His voice and mannerisms are pretty close to the Scotsman from Samurai Jack.



Samael: A young Desoleum Primus street tough and powerful untouchable. Once a street rat, Samael was taken by the heretek Somnius Halbrel to clear a path through the Pristine City, a cursed place inhabited by warp perception linked xenos mutants. He was saved by the acolytes working under the service of Straussheim, and is now being trained to become an acolyte where he can use his nature to ward off the powers of psykers and fiends from the warp. He is from a sector of Desoleum Primus known as the Roost for its being a center of butcheries. He is a cocksure and confident teenager with a daredevil attitude and loves to show off his street smarts. He also has internal issues with the knowledge that he lacks a soul and that it explains how he was treated for most of his life.
GM notes: Samael speaks in a cockney accent using cockney slang. (Do you get it? The Roos- okay) 



Colastia Myri: Pilot. Veteran of the "Decaps", the Cadian survivors of the Cilleathe campaign. She flew a valkryie for transport and support missions. Her ground combat experience is small, having only once needed to fight on the ground when her bird was shout out of the air and she was forced to trudge back to a FOB with the survivng platoon with their only consistent light being a flamer spout while attacked by exodite warriors in a dark jungle. She often piloted in missions dropping Kasrkin and built a rapport with a major Tyruss. Colastia has purple eyes befitting a Cadian trueborn and medium length brown hair. She is a mother and wife. She loves dancing. She goes to pict shows regularly with her husband. To the cell she puts on cold front due to being impressed into surface in a very short period of time. She is paid and she has a special status with being the one domestically based and recruited acolytes. She can put on a calm stoic persona but is passionate and excitable. She can warm up to others. After Cilleathe, she flew commercial aerolines for merchants. Her oath belonged to House Grym-Zollern 
Husband: Erick Jann, foreman of a lasgun manufactorum.

Sons: Dan, Quint

Veljack the Manhound: Dog(?). She changes between bipedal to quadrupedal being built to act as bodyguard and look like an above-average sized dog standing at seven feet when bipedal and four when quadrupedal. She looks like an ancient Terran German Shepard. Trained in melee weaponry. She is a good girl. Veljack is a Manhound, a genetically and physically restructured canine whose body is rebuilt to be a novel bodyguard for merchants and rogue traders. She cannot speak Gothic but she has a near human understanding of language. She was part of a batch of bringing Elquon Manhounds to Desoleum Primus. The program was abandoned due to lower forecasts of profit than the people helming it thought was worth trouble for. The litter was left in the underhive and abandoned. Veljack was one of the few that survived and were rescued by the acolytes (see Polonaise of Pestilence). She is very good at chases and subduing along with having a powerful bite and skill with a chainsword. She was built to follow orders and builds loyalty to masters who treat her well easily. She often engages in dog social dynamics with other humanoids who have not made their station in the pack clear. (Gm note: One of the acolytes in my campaigns is treated like a beta by her because they did not understand a contest)

This manhound profile is based on a homebrew profile made by Lightbringer on the FFG forums, link here:https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/15601-elquon-manhound-a-new-type-of-familiar/

Titus Andron the Bard: Titus is one of the few Desoleum natives that lacked an oath at birth. He took up what many oathless do, performancy. He is a traveling troubadour by trade playing his guitar and singing for food and scrip. One day, he got a look in the inner chambers of a Joy Troupe hideout at something he shouldn't have seen. They hounded him and he fled to the underhive spurred on by an offer from a ganglord. After being ripped off, Titus helped the acolytes bring down the Storm King (See Polonaise of Pestilence) and earned a ride back to the mainhive where he planned to find a way off-planet. Unfortunately, Titus's other side came out in the climactic showdown between the Storm King and the warband. His name is Castorius, and he is the ethereal incarnation of Titus. His soul. When Titus was born he suffered a strange phenomenon where in impossible odds he had a sort of incomplete making of an untouchable. Rather than being born without a soul and a soul-sucking presence in the warp, he was split into two. Titus, the physical form, and Castorius, the immaterial form. Castorius is summoned involuntarily during times of great emotional stress to Titus. Titus is the reserved, kind, thoughtful personality while Castorius is the brazen, danger-seeking, id-driven personality. Titus can be seen as the superego of the whole being while Castorius is the id of the whole being. He was taken to Straussheim and under advisement by Inquisitor Rondos, was given one year to create a controlled combination of id and superego into a sustainable ego. Titus cannot use psychic powers, but Castorius is a powerful psyker. He uses his guitar as a psy-focus and specializes in telepathic and concussion-based power. Until he is taken to the Black Ships, he is an asset to the Straussheim cell.

d

Dark Heresy 2E Damage Modification

(By the co-writer and editor known as Tanta Formidda)

Overview

One of my biggest personal gripes about Dark Heresy, Only War, etc. is the damage; it just feels too random to me. A normal human should not be able to survive a hit from a plasma gun, but a normal street thug (wounds 9 TB 3) has a 40% chance of doing so. In addition to this, I personally really like the damage system in FFG's Star Wars line, where each weapon has a base damage that is increased by rolling successfully. In light of these two things, I decided to make a conversion mod for making Dark Heresy's damage system function in a similar way.

Basics

Each weapon changes its damage profile from Xd10+Y to Y + (4 * X)- In less math-y terms, each weapon has a base damage rating of its original damage modifier plus 4 per d10; as examples, a human sized bolter would have a base damage of 9 (5 + (4 * 1)), while a melta gun would have a base damage of 18 (10 + (4 * 2)). I chose 4 because after about an hour of testing I felt that 5 was a bit TOO lethal, but that is of course a matter of personal taste; one of Dark Heresy's selling points is how deadly the combat is, after all. Pen is unaffected.

Once an attack is successfully resolved against a target, it's time to calculate damage. This is simply the weapon's base damage plus the Degrees of Success on the attack. As an example, if an acolyte fires a stub revolver (base damage 7) at a cultist and scores 3 degrees of success, the attack would hit for a total of 10 damage. 

Weapons also have a multiplier rating equal to the number of d10s they would roll (e.g. a lasgun has 1, a frag grenade has 2, an autocannon has 3, etc.). This rating multiplies the degrees of success by X; in the example above, if the acolyte fired a melta gun instead, they would add 18 (base damage) to 6 (2 * DoS), reaching a total of 24 damage.

Since weapons no longer roll d10s, Righteous Fury is instead generated by the attack role when the attack roll results in consecutive numbers (e.g. 01, 12, 23, 34, etc.).

Traits and other things

Accurate - Instead of giving a weapon additional d10s, accurate increases damage by 2 per DoS rather than 1.

Being on Fire - Fire does 4 damage per round + the Degrees of Failure on the agility test to put it out. If a character chooses not to make an agility test to put out the fire (or is unable to make the test at all), they count as having rolled a 100. An alternative is to simply use Degrees of Failure, if you feel that this is too punishing to characters with mediocre agility or willpower.

Toxic - Instead of a d10, Toxic does 4 damage + 1 damage per degree of failure on the test to resist it. If you would prefer a more set damage, I think that 4 + the toxic rating is a decent alternative.

Force - Similarly to Accurate, each Degree of Success on the Focus Power test increases the multiplier rating by 1. Also, like accurate, this is somewhat less powerful than the base game, but the same modification of +4 damage per DoS should undo that if desired.

Maximal - Instead of adding a d10 to damage, increase the base damage by 4 and the multiplier rating by 1.

Overheats - Use Degrees of Failure for determining the damage to the arm.

Primitive - Weapons with this primitive X cannot benefit from more than X Degrees of Success on the Attack. As an example, a bow (primitive 6) could never do more than 10 damage (4 base + limit of 6 DoS). I'd also personally suggest lowering the primitive rating of all weapons that have it by 1 or 2 to reflect this change in function.

Proven (x) - Weapons with proven x count Degrees of Success as x if they would otherwise be lower for the purposes of damage.

Spray - Since the attacker does not make any attack roll on Spray weapons, they use the Degrees of Failure on the agility test to avoid the attack in place of the non-existent Degrees of Success.

Tearing - Tearing weapons may use any pen leftover after armor reduction to reduce unnatural toughness (but not normal toughness bonus or the bonus from daemonic). 

Vengeful (x) - Weapons with Vengeful (x) generate righteous fury on any roll where the 1s digit is equal to or greater than x (e.g. a weapon with vengeful 8 would generate righteous fury on any roll that ends in 8 or 9, such as 38 or 29)

Multiple Hits and Righteous Fury - If you generate righteous fury on an attack that also generates multiple hits (such as full-auto attack), you only generate one Righteous Fury roll by default, on the first hit. However, you can decrease the number of hits you deal by one to get an additional righteous fury roll, as long as that would not result in rolling more righteous fury rolls than total hits. For example, if you rolled righteous fury on an attack that would result in 5 hits, you could choose to get 5 hits and 1 righteous fury roll, 4 hits and 2 righteous fury rolls, or 3 hits and 3 righteous fury rolls, but could not choose to get 2 hits and 4 righteous fury rolls.

Multiple Hit Damage(optional) - If you feel that the damage increase from multiple Degrees of Success combined with the fact that increased DoS mean more hits are overly strong, you can choose to make each Degree of Success either increase damage by one OR grant another hit. For example, if a base damage 8 weapon gets 4 DoS on a full-auto attack, you could choose 4 hits of 8 damage, 3 hits of 9 damage, 2 hits of 10 damage, etc. If the hit results in righteous fury, you have three choices on where to spend DoS - hits, damage, or righteous fury rolls. This is a pretty specific scenario for an already extremely specific mod, but I thought I might as well include it.  

Final Thoughts

These changes have a few major effects - low level weapons are far less likely to wound very high durability targets such as space marines and vehicles, high level weapons are very rarely going to fail to wound more vulnerable targets, like gangers and PCs; in short, damage is going to be much more in the middle.

Whether this is a good thing is mostly a matter of taste, but I think it makes for a fun change of pace from the d10 damage system.

(Editor's note: this mainly changes how damage is done, weapon qualities, and righteous fury. If a change not mentioned, follow the rules of the core rulebook for multiple hits, calculating DoS, and so on.)