The Dei-Phage

We finished up the first leg of the Apostasy Gambit! In this adventure, the inquisitorial agents continue exploring the Haematite Cathedral, make a stunning discovery, and come face to face with a Daemon of Tzeentch.

The Characters

Ash Underblade, assassin plucked from a Schola Progenium and trained for murder

Absalom Athanasius, sanctioned Imperial psyker with a talent for telekinesis 

Erastus van Saar, ancient and venerable savant who hails from a Hive World of scum and villainy

Sister Lucrezia, a Sister Hospitaller adept at both healing and confronting heretics with a hand flamer

Events

The acolytes continued to explore the Haematite Cathedral after Ash pryied open the rusted door to the sanatorium. Unfortunately, as soon as they entered the northern wing of the cathedral they were set upon by rotting mutants. One of the mutants, Vorkas Hekate, made a direct line for Erastus because the savant was still carrying the hunting rifle that used to belong to him. Ash put a few mutants down with headshots from his rifle; Sister Lucrezia lit some up with her hand flamer. Ultimately, Vorkas proved difficult for them to put down. Erastus gave up the rifle, which Vorkas repeatedly tried to brain him with until he was finally slain.

Inside the sanatorium cells they found a mysterious message scrawled on one of the walls, as well as an image of a bird-like Daemon gouged into the plaster. The final room of this wing was a chamber in which a skeleton was strapped to a medical table. A broken-down auto-surgeon loomed above. Sister Lucrezia determined that the auto-surgeon had been used to perform operations of little medical merit; mostly it had been used to perform trepanations meant to increase the patient's "cosmic awareness."

The group then decided to explore the planetarium tower. Inside was a large model of all the planets in the system; each planet was represented by a human skull encased in glass. Above them, it was apparent that the top of the tower could be opened up to allow the planetarium's telescope to gaze upon the night sky. When the inquisitorial agents started to experiment with moving the planets in the orrery, suddenly Koronath Hekate appeared at the room's desk. Koronath's skin was covered in strange mathematical equations, and his appearance in the room was accompanied by the tower opening and the telescope extending. Weirdly, an unnatural light began to pour into the room from above.

Erastus engaged Koronath in a spirited debate over the hidden truths of the cosmos. Koronath's position was that the stars still had much guidance to provide to mankind, while Erastus insisted that the only beacon of light worth following was that of the God-Emperor himself. Ultimately, Sister Lucrezia ended the debate by turning her hand flamer on Koronath, melting his flesh from his bones. As he sizzled and liquified, he thanked them for giving him much to think about. After he dissolved, he left behind the third portion of the skull-and-cog emblem that would fit into the depression by the canon in the nave.

Their next stop was the library. A little searching revealed a hidden alcove of secret books. Sister Lucrezia attempted to read one, but all she got for her efforts was visions of a galaxy on fire; the book then dissolved into green slime that ran through her fingers. Erastus fared better with the two books he examined. The first book made an unreasonable anger boil up within him; however, he mastered himself when he realized that he had drawn his snub revolver and was deciding which of his companion's he should execute with it. The third book, bound in bronze plates, contained the Tzeenchian theories of Koronath Hekate.

The group returned to the nave, noting that there were now three desiccated corpses sitting on the pews, and fit the skull-and-cog emblem into the matching depression in the wall. A section of the floor opened up, revealing a shaft that went down into the darkness. The shaft looked like the inverted image of a spinal cord, complete with handholds and footholds. A quick test, dropping an object into the shaft to listen for how long it would fall before striking something, revealed that the shaft was quite long. 

At the bottom, they found themselves in a small circular chamber lit by servo-skulls. The sound of machinery was very loud down there. A strange map on the wall revealed the Haematite Cathedral's biggest mystery: it was no place of worship, but rather an Imperator Titan! The upper works that they had explored was simply the structures built atop the titan's exterior; now they were in the belly of the Pax Macharia!

As they explored the interior of the titan room-by-room, they found the corpse of Barabus Zanatov, aka "Tauran Hekate." Zanatov's head was missing, but a bolt pistol was by his side and a vox recorder sat in his lap. By replaying the vox recording, they learned that Zanatov had come to the planet bearing a secret uncovered by Inquisitor DeVayne. Zanatov traded his rogue trader riches to establish himself and his crew as the noble Hekate family, all the while building the Black Sepulchre to decipher that secret. He also claimed that the Gilded Cathedral had been built to block the Black Sepulchre from fulfilling its purpose; the Black Sepulchre needed unfettered access to the dark of the Barsapine's night sky. Zanatov also mentioned that he had been pursued by agents of the ruinous powers and the Dei-Phage moved to stop him. Rather than be driven insane, Zanatov resolved to take his own life. The last thing captured on the recording was the chilling sound of Zanatov blowing off his own head with a bolt pistol.

The group also located the genatorium, but the chamber was clearly befouled by Chaos: daemonic ichor ran down the walls and the floor was covered in pulsating flesh! However, in another chamber they were able to restore a cogitator to power; the cogitator explained how to raise the genatorium's shield and replenish the titan's fuel. Donning protective gear, Ash successfully revived the Pax Macharia from its long slumber. In awakening, the titan began to free itself from the "cliffside" that had accumulated around it over the long generations. A mechanical voice called out, telling them to man the "battle stations," as a Daemonic presence was now incoming.

The agents rushed back to the nave, where they saw a one-armed Daemon of Tzeentch rise from the sea and begin to fly on tattered wings directly toward the Pax Macharia. Erastus and Ash sprang into action; Erastus quickly figured out how to make the nave's canon operational, and Ash was ready to fire it as soon as it powered up. When the time was right, Ash pulled the canon's triggers--and the canon promptly exploded, sending both Ash and Erastus hurtling across the room as the canon destroyed itself. Though the canon was now inoperable, it had indeed hit the Dei-Phage. 

The Daemon barreled into the nave ON FIRE and badly wounded. Nevertheless, it was still a great and terrible threat to the inquisitorial agents. Though they had managed to grievously wound it with the titan's canon, they were now having trouble piercing through its unnatural, warp-tainted toughness. (Absalom telekinetically hurling a flaming piece of wreckage at it was fairly effective, though.) The Dei-Phage, however, was not having trouble wounding them. A blow from its claw ripped through Sister Lucrezia, and another blow nearly killed Absalom. The Daemon flew at Absalom again to finish him off, but the psyker managed to send all of his kineblades against the horror, shredding it into a mass of rapidly putrefying meat just as its remaining claw grazed him.

Once the Dei-Phage was destroyed, the Pax Macharia began to march through the sea in the direction of the Gilded Cathedral. When the Pax Macharia arrived, it sent the city into a panic. Masses of people were screaming and running, alarm sirens were sounding. The Pax Macharia announced that it had brought the agents to witness what was to follow. The Pax Macharia then charged its Plasma Annihilator and fired it upon the Gilded Cathedral. The Gilded Cathedral was reduced to golden slag. The destruction of the Gilded Cathedral, and the deaths of all who were within it, immediately robbed the city of all light; all that remained was the Black Sepulchre. But what secret did it hold?

Wrath & Glory Review

As I've mentioned a few times here on the blog and on my Discord, I've been interested in running an Inquisition-focused game inspired by Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn and Ravenor books. On the official front, the options are the old Dark Heresy rpg, the newer Wrath & Glory, and the brand-new Imperium Maledictum. This post is a review of Wrath & Glory and why I'm not using it for my current 40k campaign.

First, a Positive: High Action

I want to start by praising something I like about Wrath & Glory: the game is meant for high action 40k adventures where the characters are larger than life figures that overshadow the common citizens of the Imperium. This is an aspect of the game that makes it a good fit for Abnett's books. The characters in the Eisenhorn and Ravenor novels are all outstanding individuals with skills and abilities far beyond average. 

In contrast, Dark Heresy, which is ostensibly a game about playing characters in an Inquisitor's retinue, tends to produce characters that feel like greenhorn Imperial failsons. The fetish for "You are playing an incompetent loser" strikes again in its design, in my opinion. I've figured out ways to hack Dark Heresy to get the kind of characters I want to see in my game (namely by starting at Rank 5 and giving a bunch of free stat boosts, which is admittedly a lot of extra work in character creation), but this is something Wrath & Glory manages straight out of the gate.

All Things to All People: A Losing Proposition

The earlier 40k rpgs, Dark Heresy, Only War, Deathwatch, Rogue Trader, are all hyper-focused on portraying a specific aspect of the Warhammer 40k universe. (They are focused on Inquisition agents, soldiers of the Imperial Guard, space marines, and err rogue traders, respectively.) In contrast, the Wrath & Glory core book offers a wide variety of possibilities as its baseline. You can play as Battle Sisters, Astartes, Orks, Aeldari, Imperial agents, gangers, etc. Unfortunately, a focus that wide means that the game is ill-equipped to handle any of them with detail and depth. There's just too many possibilities competing for space, so most of them have yet to be fleshed-out.

The Imperium of Man gets the most focus in Wrath & Glory, but even that feels under-developed. Of course, there is an element of unfairness in this critique. To use Dark Heresy again as a point of reference, that game had an expansive line of supplements covering almost every possible element of being a member of an Inquisitorial retinue. Nearly everything I've gone looking for in Dark Heresy is tucked away in one sourcebook or another. In contrast, Wrath & Glory just doesn't have the backlog of material to draw from, and I honestly don't think it will exist long enough to get to that point. 

While it's true I could homebrew any missing content I need for Wrath & Glory, I prefer having that work done for me in Dark Heresy.

Sloppy Sloppy Sloppy

The last thing I want to focus on is the seeming lack of care that has gone into Wrath & Glory. This isn't something you immediately notice; it reveals itself over time the deeper you delve into the books. As an example of this, consider the Telekinesis psychic discipline. According to the book, "A mind practised in telekinesis can bend physics to their will, moving, crushing, or blocking objects using raw mental power." Sounds good, except there are no abilities for moving things with your mind. There are plenty of powers for throwing objects at an enemy or crushing them with telekinetic force, but I didn't find one that does what you probably think of when you hear the word "telekinesis." 

(There are a few minor psychic powers that let you manipulate objects, but nothing I could find would let you move a heavy object with your brain, catch a falling ally mid-air, etc.)

To stay in the psychic powers chapter for a second, here's another instance of the sloppiness I'm talking about: the Flame Breath power fails to note how much damage the fire actually deals. It's been years and this had not had any errata.

This sloppiness isn't confined to the core book. For example, in the Forsaken System Player's Guide, both the Astartes Chaplain and Astartes Librarian archetypes have an ability called Chapter Cult, but the abilities are completely different. This is clearly a copy & paste error that never got fixed prior to publication. These issues are small, but they add up to contribute to the game being an unappealing option to me.

Death From Above

I've finally followed through on my long-standing threat to run a Warhammer 40k game in which the players are part of an Inquisitor's retinue! To be honest, I experienced a little trepidation before we got started; would I be able to make the game feel like 40k? In retrospect, I'm pleased with how it went. I wanted the vibe of Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn and Ravenor novels (minus the presence of an Inquisitor directing things) and I think we got there. Plus, it was a blast. 

I'm using The Black Sepulchre, the first adventure in The Apostasy Gambit campaign published for Dark Heresy, but for the system we're using my own hack that combines Dark Heresy with Savage Worlds. It worked well; the characters felt competent like the agents in Abnett's fiction, so that is a win. 

Below is a record of what went down.

The Characters

Ash Underblade, assassin plucked from a Schola Progenium and trained for murder

Sister Rhiannyan, member of the Sisters Repentia who seeks atonement for the galaxy's many sins

Absalom Athanasius, sanctioned Imperial psyker with a talent for telekinesis 

Erastus van Saar, ancient and venerable savant who hails from a Hive World of scum and villainy

Events

The retinue had been tasked by Inquistor Sebaton Valker with collecting evidence of Bulagor Thrungg's heresies; in particular, they were to locate any items from the "Museum of Apostasy" in the dissolute noble's manor. To fulfill the Emperor's will, the retinue found themselves in a Valkyrie swooping in on Thrungg's manor as the Imperial Guard stormed his compound and engaged Thrungg's household guards in combat. The Valkyrie shot a hole in the glass-ceilinged chapel so that the retinue, each of them strapped into a grav-chute, could infiltrate the manor.

The chapel was supposed to be unoccupied, but instead two of Thrungg's guards and a gun servitor had been pushed back to the chapel. A pitched battle ensued, but the retinue managed to kill one of the household guards and disable the gun servitor. The other guard surrendered, but Sister Rhiannyan decapitated him with her Eviscerator anyway. Those who deny the Emperor must fall!

With the room clear of threats, they investigated the chapel. The most noteworthy thing in the room was a dead priest, whose arm had been severed at the elbow, but his lower arm was missing. He was lying facedown in a pool of blood; there was also a great quantity of black feathers that had been scattered throughout the blood. In the priest's remaining hand was a book of Imperial prayers--but Erastus quickly determined that the sermons contained therein had been altered in such a way as to encourage a congregation to adopt heretical views.

Their vox beads crackled with a message from Captain Scipio of the Imperial Guard; Bulagor Thrungg had slipped away and was holed up in the manor's menagerie. He asked the retinue to cut off Thrungg's escape. They opened the hallway door and were nearly felled by a blast of fire--the las fire from the guardsmen and the household guards had lit the manor on fire. 

In the menagerie, hundreds of exotic birds had been released from their cages and were flying everywhere, obscuring line of sight. When they finally spotted Thrungg he was holding the leashes of two vicious beasts that looked like hybrids of crocodiles and hyaenas. They also noticed that one of Thrungg's arms ended in a large, demonic, armor-plated hand. Thrungg loosed his creatures on the retinue. Sister Rhiannyan fended off Thrungg's beasts. Ash crept into the underbrush to get the drop on Thrungg. Erastus took potshots here and there. Absalom focused his will and used his telekinesis to pick up one of the creatures and hurl it at Thrungg. This proved to be highly effective--the creature bowled into Thrungg at velocity and broke the heretic's neck.

When Thrungg died, the demonic hand detached itself from his body. Ash tried to destroy the hand with gunfire, but it was impervious. The retinue decided to place the hand in a bird cage so they could carry it around without touching it directly. Also, in one of Thrungg's waistcoat pockets they found a key. The mystery of the key's purpose was solved when they found a maid cowering in fear in a side room. The maid informed them that the key unlocked the trapdoor leading to the Museum of Apostasy. She showed them where the trapdoor was--underneath the body of the dead priest in the chapel. 

Down in the depths beyond the trapdoor, they found a series of pedestals showcasing a variety of heretical items. Among the weapons, Xenos artifacts, and books of Chaos was a single data-slate. When the data-slate was examined, it powered up of its own volition; it flashed a strange image of a golden cathedral atop a blackened heart. The data-slate also contained Thrungg's personal diary of heretical thoughts and his involvement with the Ruinous Powers of the Warp. Sister Rhiannyan recognized the cathedral as the Gilded Cathedral of Barsapine.

After the group forwarded the seized forbidden items and their findings to Sebaton Valker, he commanded them to board a rogue trader he had hired and make their way to Barsapine in search of information about the origins of the demonic hand that Thrungg had attached to his body.

The city of Kephistron Altis on Barsapine was located on the part of the planet that was cloaked in perpetual darkness. An orbital mirror had been placed to allow a single beam of sunlight to fall on the city. It was positioned to hit to Gilded Cathedral--the shining place of worship illuminated the entire city. 

At the Gilded Cathedral, the retinue were greeted by the elderly Abbot Jurutas, who offered to show them to the library where they might find the information they sought. On the way to the library, Jurutas pointed out a large something built into the cathedral that was covered with an expanse of black velvet. Abbot Jurutas explained that it was the Black Sepulchre, a tomb that hid a great weapon of the Imperium. Once they were ensconced in the library, the retinue decided to split their efforts. Erastus would look through the books for any references connected to their previous mission, while the others would attempt to take a look inside the Black Sepulchre.

Sister Rhiannyan caused a distraction by flagellating herself with her scoriada. Meanwhile, Ash attempted to look under the velvet covering. What he saw was a black doorway with a protrusion that looked not unlike a lascannon. However, attempting to get close to it was made impossible due to the presence of a protective field that repulsed their advance.

Back in the library, Erastus found references to a Haematite Cathedral that was involved with the Hekate dynasty, the Changer of Ways, and a Warp entity called the Dei-Phage. He also found corrodinates for the Haematite Cathedral. After Erastus relayed his findings to the others over their vox channel, they decided to pile into their transport and head to Haematite Cathedral to gather more intel. However, they were attacked on the steps of the Gilded Cathedral by cultists pretending to be beggars. Among the cultists was a pyrokinetic psyker! 

The cultists were dispatched fairly easily, but when Absalom attempted to channel his powers he triggered the Perils of the Warp--his eyelids melted, fusing his eyes closed! Luckily, Sebaton Valker had equipped them with a medicae servitor skull that was able to provide some (painful) impromptu surgery to unseal his eyes. These are the mortifications required of those who serve the Emperor's will.

Next time: The Haematite Cathedral.