Like two rain drops
An adventure for the Dark Heresy RPG system
Introduction
“Like two rain drops” is an adventure from Warhammer
40k universum in the Dark Heresy pen-and-paper RPG system (a dark low-fantasy/sci-fi
game). It’s an adventure designed for an inexperienced group of Acolytes
(servants of an Inquisitor). The adventure is designed for a rather short session
with a “detective story” theme.
Background
The adventure takes place on a dark and
industrialized world of Necromunda (in high gothic it means literally “dead
world”) where countless billions live in gigantic cities covering almost whole of
planet’s surface. Cities of Necromunda are these stretching over the horizon
clusters of hives – black towers so high, that they pierce lover altitudes of
stratosphere and reach planet’s core with their foundations. Sky is covered
with dense and toxic smog and only the most privileged have the right to live
above the clouds, where air is relatively clean. Rest of the population endures
living on lover levels, suffering from acid rains and lack of sunlight.
On the bottom of the social ladder (on the surface
of the planet or under it) live only outcasts, mutants and heretics who fled
there, where no imperial laws could reach them. Economy and industry of the planet
is based on recycling seas of wastes that accumulated here after ten thousands
years of aggressive exploitation of planet’s natural resources. Just like the
whole economy is based on recycling wastes of past generations, the same way lover
castes live off garbage that gets thrown into the abyss below by the more
privileged living closer to the clouds.
Most of
the population is uneducated and unaware human mass, cheap labor force not
knowing anything besides its own hive, working whole of their short lives in
one of the many manufactories of Necromunda. Those masses inhabit middle tiers
of hives.
The
adventure takes place a little bit higher, just under the clouds. On these
highly privileged levels can be found imperial departments and religious centers.
Inquisitor
Players
are being summoned before their master, Lord Inquisitor Helvetius (inquisition
is a secret political and religious police of the Imperium). His office and
operation centre functions under the cover of an imperial department – Office
of Internal Audits. The Inquisitor sits at the head of the office and players
are employed there as Auditors. Here is a description you might want to read to
your players, game master:
“After walking through the lobby and
the main hall you enter the Main Calculation Chamber. It’s a spacious hall
filled with several dozens of work stations centered around senior scribe desk,
which rests upon an elevated platform. Disorder and racket rules here as
sometimes even two or three scribes occupy one workstation – scribes and
protocol servitors bustle with their work, performing hasty calculations on
their personal digitalizers and processing heaps of paperwork. Single document
sheets glide through the air and the floor is strewn with tape - scribbled with
numbers and symbols and still pouring out of calculation automatons. A young
scribe with ritually shaved head bumps into one of you - not noticing anyone
before him because of a stack of files he carried, he falls down buried under
an avalanche of yellowed and jagged paper sheets. Senior scribe peeped from
behind towers of files occupying his enormous desk and sent a litany of juicy
insults towards the boy – veins on the senior scribe’s forehead has swollen so
much that for a moment it seemed that his bionic eye will pop out of its socket
and soar through the chamber, killing instantly with force of impact the poor guy
lying on the floor.”
Lord
Helvetius is a venerable and well respected member of the Ordo Hereticus (part
of Inquisition that deals with heretics). He is a wrinkled beyond belief old
man, anchored permanently to his hover-chair. Surely blind and deaf by himself,
he sees and hears everything thanks to servo-skulls orbiting his vehicle and
observing all with their dead eyes. Inquisitor has a task for the players: few
days ago a witness came up, he swears that he saw an individual who has been on
a wanted list of the Inquisition for years now. Players’ job is to get to that
witness, interrogate him and finally verify his statements. Name and address of
the vigilant citizen is handed to the players, so finding him won’t be a
problem.
Trace
Witness,
a men know as Kasirer Agaton, is a retired officer of the Adeptus Arbites
(imperial police). Two years ago, he and few other Arbiters were involved in an
inquisitorial ambush of an extremely dangerous heretic and terrorist. Unfortunately,
hastily prepared plan misfired and many officers and civilians lost their lives
– the heretic managed to flee and hide before the righteous wrath of the
Emperor could strike him down. Few months later, Agaton retired from the
service, perhaps unable to cope with loss of so many fellow colleagues.
Nowadays,
he lives in one of the residential districts of Sub Sole hive and manages to
maintain his rather high social position through security consulting contracts.
Left side of his body bears horrible signs of past events – stumps stick out
where his left arm and leg should have be and his face is disfigured and scarred.
Since they took his bionic implants after he left the service, he moves around
thanks to crude prosthesis.
Not more
than two weeks ago he saw in a place commonly called the Fish Market this
terrorist and heretic who fled two years ago from inquisitorial hands. Name of the
heretic is Udo Nash and it seems that he actually lives there. Agaton, first
not sure of his findings, observed the place and this is what he determined.
Now, when there is no place for doubt he decided to come out with this news to
the Inquisition, providing addresses, schedules and photos of the wanted
terrorist.
Game
master, it is important for players to have an opportunity of checking out
details concerning those past events and profile of the wanted heretic. They
can find out from their research that wanted Udo Nash is a trained intelligence
operative, former employee of the Office of Internal Audits at the position of
a Senior Auditor.
From his
files, players will be able to find out that Nash suffered some kind of a
nervous breakdown during his service – let them see an evaluation report conducted
after a psychological examination that explicitly states that Udo Nash is an
unstable individual with a number of mental disorders, including severe agoraphobia
and fear of heights interweaved with an obsession of leaving Necromunda – a
place where only living several kilometers above planet’s surface is a viable
choice. After the evaluation he should have been discharged from the service or
put behind a desk, but because of some kind of mistake (perhaps a scribe
carrying his files tripped and misplaced the report?) no one took notice.
Few weeks
later, Udo Nash took hostages in a desperate attempt to flee from the planet.
Many people have died that day, including women and children.
Naturally,
in this situation all that is left to do for the players is to prepare an
operation of capturing Udo Nash – an extremely dangerous and cunning heretic,
murderer and terrorist.
Showdown at the Fish Market
The Fish
Market is simply a place where the Fish Guild decided to sell their products.
This is the description you may want to read to your players:
“Between the Sub Sole hive and the
Spire Minor tower long time ago was built an overpass. Wide for several
kilometers and stretching between two heavily populated areas, it quickly
became a new local hub of commerce and a fighting ground for several guilds. Few
hundred years ago after a bloody riots instilled by the Fish Guild to rid of
any and all competition, this place was completely dominated by fishmongers.
Today, its a couple of dozens of little alleys and squares on which hundreds of
different manufacturers sell their fish products. Sea of customers flow through
the booths and stands day and night, passing countless glass tanks in which
fish are stuffed to the last centimeter – hatching, growing and getting fatter
without even a remote possibility of moving. All of this thanks to the wonders
of ancient biotechnology! The stench is unbearable as blood and insides of
gutted fish flows through the gutters into overpass borders and then pours down
to the abyss below. Every single merchant loudly praises his fish, while
customers carefully pick from wealth of offers, unaware of the fact that all
those tanks contain the same and only fish that ever seen surface of this
planet – a clone of some kind of pra-panga, which genetic code came here along
with first colonists, thousands of years ago.”
Udo Nash
lives on last floor of a four storey building, just at the edge of one of the
largest market squares. He occupies an one bedroom flat under a false name and
he has been there for couple of weeks now. He is prepared for anything and is
not about to surrender.
His flat
is booby trapped and it only depends on players’ wits if they manage to avoid
setting off the bomb and destroying all evidence and clues that could otherwise
be found at the place. Game master, make sure that no matter how the session goes,
you will make Udo Nash through his actions deny in some way what players could
have found out about him from his files. For example, make him try to run away
by crossing a one meter wide pipe connecting two buildings, effectively doing a
feat only a bit short from actual slacklining.
In the end, Nash will rather give up his life than let players take him
into custody – he will swallow poison if they manage to get a hold of him.
Let
players think that they succeeded and their task has been fulfilled – heretic
was killed and the world is a better place. Let them think that the session
could as well end right now – it depends only on them if they start to suspect
something.
If they
manage to not set off the booby trap in Nash’s flat, then they will find there
a glass tank and other cloning equipment used by the fish manufacturers. Tank
is large enough to contain a single human.
Hidden truth
Two years
ago, an experienced Acolyte of the Inquisition – Udo Nash – started to doubt
purpose of his work. For years fed with stories and reports of enemies of
mankind – demonic beings and untold alien horrors lurking in the depths of
space, fighting against whom he was supposed to sacrifice his life – he finally
started to doubt they even exist. After long years of service he never saw even
the weakest proof of existence of all those threats against which the Emperor
and his Inquisition was supposed to defend mankind.
His job
mainly consisted of fighting against “heretics” – political revolutionaries,
dissidents and sometimes even people who simply asked too many questions. His
fight with the enemies of the mankind started to seem more like fighting
against enemies of an oppressive system which functions only thanks to
countless sacrifices of its people.
His
comrades knew he is going to betray before he even realized that. He was sent
for an “evaluation” – an intense, pharmacologically and psionically enhanced
indoctrination session, after which he could have been reinstated into some
desk work and still serve his Emperor. They almost broke him, bringing the man
on the edge of madness. No more he was the same person, but he did not forget
who he was.
After
they released him, he could think only about one thing – escaping from this
planet, it became his obsession. He knew that his sister and her family need to
go with him, otherwise they would be the ones to pay for his sins. Acquiring
fake documents and tickets for a shuttle was the easy part – they would spend
rest of their lives on some galactic transporter drifting through space,
anonymous amongst tens of thousands of similar passengers, but at least they
would be free.
His
former colleagues once again turned out to be smarter. Things took a wrong turn
when few unaware of the situation Adeptus Arbites got involved in what seemed
as an execution of a man, woman and couple of children. The incident was later
completely covered up as a terrorist attack, from which only one person walked away
– one of the Adeptus Arbites officers, horribly disfigured and maimed, he was
the only witness of the terrorist’s escape, responsible for this slaughter.
After the
terrorist, a man called Udo Nash, an arrest warrant was issued and his genetic
code was added to the database of most wanted – he may hide in the underhive,
but surely he won’t be able to leave Necromunda.
Ending
Circle of
suspects is not that big so players will surely take interest in Kasirer
Agaton. Perhaps they will try to talk with his former colleagues from the force
or consult his file at the archives. They will find out this way that after the
events he changed a lot, started to suffer from amnesia and other mental
disorders. Final proof will come in form of his genetic profile matching the
one of Udo Nash.
Players will find Agaton getting ready for a shuttle
to the orbit. After official declaration of death of Udo Nash, his genetic code
was withdrawn from the most wanted database and finally, Kasirer Agaton can go
through the star port gateway and leave the planet. Agaton won’t try to resist
and will come out with the truth if confronted. Instead, he will try to
convince players to his findings. If it fails he will try to commit suicide –
preferably in some gruesome and desperate way. For example, by stabbing his own
throat with a pen.
Game
master, try to sow the seeds of doubt in players’ minds through Agaton speech.
Let them wonder if it isn’t really like he says – that all this talk about
enemies of humankind is only a cover up for a much simpler truth, that there
are only those who rule and those who are ruled.
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