X
Xaosseed
Guest
Inspired by Tabletop Curiosity Cabinet's slush pile post for #Dungeon23 below are a dozen or so ideas lying around in the setting.
So for #City26 what are the most fun adventure potential things I got? Why go near RT-87?
1. Swashbuckling heist-likes around the cyber-saurs used to train knights. Most iconic has to a "capture the runaway carnasaur" quest. Something that delves into the ogryn megasaur-wranglers subculture, the knight houses and their mecha-driving culture, the sacristans and their weird-tech, all of tied up in the core identity of the world. A missing carnasaur with a control-throne is something the Adeptus Mechanicus, cold traders and all sorts of wild and woolly groups will be trying to get their hands on ahead of the legitimate knight-house authorities.
2. Sniffing out corruption and sabotage in the dino processing cycle, in the hauling up of the big ships on the preposterous conveyor from where the shoreline now is, the Ogryn Wranglers bringing the dinosaurs through the Minotaur Slaughtermen and the cults going on there, with a big side order of Ministorum clergy and parades and processions followed by where the precious meat goes, how the bone gets reused, the oppressive demands of the Imperial tithe and everything that happens in that dino meat focus.
3. Counter-espionage and overwatch. This Knight-world is early exodus with Dark Age of Technology legacy - there is a fairly chunky strategic priority to keeping the the lathe of St. Simeon STC running and No one's sure the AdMech could take it over. A whole stack of different rungs going. There are reasons to tread tread carefully here, wanting to maintain the sacristans capabilities for their pdf gear repair yard and wanting to maintain the this place as a as a knight's repair dock or a repair dock for you know weird old gear. The small legitimate
4. Serve as guards for the hive recycling industry - where the scarcity of materials centers around the maglev rail heads, the rail guilds and merchant combines defending their monopolies on salvaging the ruins. Bandits try to prey on operations breaking up and hauling in of the abandoned outer hives, defending those trains against wasteland raiders, potentially punitive raids with houseguard groups - getting to see beastmen cavalry on cold ones - and all dealing with the really nasty environment out there.
5. Seek and destroy the second order consequences of hauling in and breaking-up the old hives - things lurking in the remnants, chaotic artifacts, Genestealer cultists - all things to be hunted down in the depths. In parallel the wealth of the salvage trade, the rare materials broken out of the hive-fragments, plus other plunder found on site and brought back. All of this hiding an illicit 'technology laundering' circuit that drops in forbiggen xeno- and dangerous archaeo-tech.
6. Spying and sneaking within the upper hive. The planning and lawfare loop, the high intrigue fiddling of studies and thumbs on the scales and the combing of data files and the forging of test reports and the redactions and the warping of history - all to try and swing the fate of the whole world between being dedicated as a Knight House or being ground under as a hiveworld.
7. Get drafted into planetary defense. As a semi-generalist world the place is prey for chaos, corsairs, etc. - so you've got the active sabotage loop of the ongoing fights against Chaos Raiders, Offworld Corsairs, all of that. The fading nuclear winter from the last raids, the planetary defence auspex trains, the ancient hive defence towers, the saboteurs and raiders.
8. Venture forth to untangle the ancient Exodite connection - dinosaurs, eldar - buried deep in the wilds. The cold trade is a deadly threat because they really do not want the Xenos poking their noses in. The Eldar are persona non grata here. However, there is a strong interest in market in exotic dino parts and shipping those off to people who are interested.
9. Dive into the beastman underground railroad. While bringing abhumans to this place of (relative) acceptance, the folk being inducted sparking friction with the "must be holier than holy" beastfolk imperial cults. Those cults are seeking to find the first abhuman saint, feed the Astra Telepathica Tithes for the Black Ships and support the Imperial tithe with beastfolk manpower - trading tolerance of horrific conditions for some manner of acceptance.
10. Manage the ferocity and collateral of the clash of faiths - abhumans trying to be holy-beyond-question to gain some shred of acceptance; with hair-trigger vigilance against heresy. The chaos and genestealer cults that lead to the ruination of the other planetary hives are being brutally hunted in the depths of the hive with a lot of collateral damage.
11. Quell abhuman/human tensions and root out the vilest abuses of the weakest as fanatical beastmen seeking to be blemishless in the eyes of the Emperor and the refugees filtering in from the ruins of the fallen hives all bitterly compete for places in the horrific bone-recovery work-camps.
12. Against-the-clock de-snagging of the endless shoring up of the concrete and stonework cityworks rotting in the ruined atmosphere. The building of bone form-works, the swarms of workers carrying plaskrete, the endless labor to maintain the structures.
13. Social intrigue and dirt tricks in the competition between the '1000 Shields' noble houses from the ruined hives, besmirched by the loss of their powerbases and the merchant costers running offworld military support and repair and refit for active Knight houses. Pride versus practicality.
14. Competition and kidnapping around the high-hive talent market where off-world power players seek to pluck up the 'knight-trainees' for whom no Knight awaits. Inquisitors, mercenaries, specialists and the ambitious of all flavours are looking to attract the right kind of attention.
15. Sneaking and skulduggery in the shadows of the technology trade. The black markets hiding beneath the legitimate repair and refurbishment trade or the artisanly crafted jetbikes and Imperial robots where the Sacristans sell the fruits of their carefully husbanded secrets.
Campaign Themes
I think a 'Administratum' themed campaign with the players running around as fixers trying to keep the show on the road could be fun, it aligns them to the mire of compromises made from the top down as everyone struggles to meet the Emperors Tithe - purge abhumans or retain their labour, stop hauling in hazardous bits of cult-infested hives or go without scarce raw materials, etc.
Continue reading...
So for #City26 what are the most fun adventure potential things I got? Why go near RT-87?
1. Swashbuckling heist-likes around the cyber-saurs used to train knights. Most iconic has to a "capture the runaway carnasaur" quest. Something that delves into the ogryn megasaur-wranglers subculture, the knight houses and their mecha-driving culture, the sacristans and their weird-tech, all of tied up in the core identity of the world. A missing carnasaur with a control-throne is something the Adeptus Mechanicus, cold traders and all sorts of wild and woolly groups will be trying to get their hands on ahead of the legitimate knight-house authorities.
2. Sniffing out corruption and sabotage in the dino processing cycle, in the hauling up of the big ships on the preposterous conveyor from where the shoreline now is, the Ogryn Wranglers bringing the dinosaurs through the Minotaur Slaughtermen and the cults going on there, with a big side order of Ministorum clergy and parades and processions followed by where the precious meat goes, how the bone gets reused, the oppressive demands of the Imperial tithe and everything that happens in that dino meat focus.
3. Counter-espionage and overwatch. This Knight-world is early exodus with Dark Age of Technology legacy - there is a fairly chunky strategic priority to keeping the the lathe of St. Simeon STC running and No one's sure the AdMech could take it over. A whole stack of different rungs going. There are reasons to tread tread carefully here, wanting to maintain the sacristans capabilities for their pdf gear repair yard and wanting to maintain the this place as a as a knight's repair dock or a repair dock for you know weird old gear. The small legitimate
4. Serve as guards for the hive recycling industry - where the scarcity of materials centers around the maglev rail heads, the rail guilds and merchant combines defending their monopolies on salvaging the ruins. Bandits try to prey on operations breaking up and hauling in of the abandoned outer hives, defending those trains against wasteland raiders, potentially punitive raids with houseguard groups - getting to see beastmen cavalry on cold ones - and all dealing with the really nasty environment out there.
5. Seek and destroy the second order consequences of hauling in and breaking-up the old hives - things lurking in the remnants, chaotic artifacts, Genestealer cultists - all things to be hunted down in the depths. In parallel the wealth of the salvage trade, the rare materials broken out of the hive-fragments, plus other plunder found on site and brought back. All of this hiding an illicit 'technology laundering' circuit that drops in forbiggen xeno- and dangerous archaeo-tech.
6. Spying and sneaking within the upper hive. The planning and lawfare loop, the high intrigue fiddling of studies and thumbs on the scales and the combing of data files and the forging of test reports and the redactions and the warping of history - all to try and swing the fate of the whole world between being dedicated as a Knight House or being ground under as a hiveworld.
7. Get drafted into planetary defense. As a semi-generalist world the place is prey for chaos, corsairs, etc. - so you've got the active sabotage loop of the ongoing fights against Chaos Raiders, Offworld Corsairs, all of that. The fading nuclear winter from the last raids, the planetary defence auspex trains, the ancient hive defence towers, the saboteurs and raiders.
8. Venture forth to untangle the ancient Exodite connection - dinosaurs, eldar - buried deep in the wilds. The cold trade is a deadly threat because they really do not want the Xenos poking their noses in. The Eldar are persona non grata here. However, there is a strong interest in market in exotic dino parts and shipping those off to people who are interested.
9. Dive into the beastman underground railroad. While bringing abhumans to this place of (relative) acceptance, the folk being inducted sparking friction with the "must be holier than holy" beastfolk imperial cults. Those cults are seeking to find the first abhuman saint, feed the Astra Telepathica Tithes for the Black Ships and support the Imperial tithe with beastfolk manpower - trading tolerance of horrific conditions for some manner of acceptance.
10. Manage the ferocity and collateral of the clash of faiths - abhumans trying to be holy-beyond-question to gain some shred of acceptance; with hair-trigger vigilance against heresy. The chaos and genestealer cults that lead to the ruination of the other planetary hives are being brutally hunted in the depths of the hive with a lot of collateral damage.
11. Quell abhuman/human tensions and root out the vilest abuses of the weakest as fanatical beastmen seeking to be blemishless in the eyes of the Emperor and the refugees filtering in from the ruins of the fallen hives all bitterly compete for places in the horrific bone-recovery work-camps.
12. Against-the-clock de-snagging of the endless shoring up of the concrete and stonework cityworks rotting in the ruined atmosphere. The building of bone form-works, the swarms of workers carrying plaskrete, the endless labor to maintain the structures.
13. Social intrigue and dirt tricks in the competition between the '1000 Shields' noble houses from the ruined hives, besmirched by the loss of their powerbases and the merchant costers running offworld military support and repair and refit for active Knight houses. Pride versus practicality.
14. Competition and kidnapping around the high-hive talent market where off-world power players seek to pluck up the 'knight-trainees' for whom no Knight awaits. Inquisitors, mercenaries, specialists and the ambitious of all flavours are looking to attract the right kind of attention.
15. Sneaking and skulduggery in the shadows of the technology trade. The black markets hiding beneath the legitimate repair and refurbishment trade or the artisanly crafted jetbikes and Imperial robots where the Sacristans sell the fruits of their carefully husbanded secrets.
Campaign Themes
I think a 'Administratum' themed campaign with the players running around as fixers trying to keep the show on the road could be fun, it aligns them to the mire of compromises made from the top down as everyone struggles to meet the Emperors Tithe - purge abhumans or retain their labour, stop hauling in hazardous bits of cult-infested hives or go without scarce raw materials, etc.
Continue reading...