The Forsaken Bounty pt 2

Having driven off the worm-possessed Navigator by shooting out a vista-panel and plunging the bridge into hard vacuum, the explorers now frantically search the corridors for another way to gain control of the Emperor’s Bounty, all while fighting off ever-growing mobs of Warp-animated corpses. In one particularly dark and out-of-the-way corridor, the party glimpses another figure moving toward them slowly at the end of the hallway. The Arch-militant raises her gun in preparation to destroy yet another wave of those Emperor-damned Warp-puppets. Just as she has her sights set on the silhouette’s center of mass, however, they hear the figure call out to them. The Rogue Trader commands the militant to stand down and beckons the stranger to approach.

The stranger, now identifiable as a man clothed in filthy rags. Begging the explorers not to shoot, he identifies himself as Erart, and he informs the party that he knows of a safe place to hide from the monsters in the ship. The Rogue Trader is initially quite wary of the stranger, but after some persuading from the rest of the party he acquiesces, realizing there’s really nothing else to do except keep killing corpses. Erart leads the party down a series of small dark corridors, deep into the bowels of the ship. As the explorers enter the series of chambers the refugees have claimed as their safe haven, their senses are assaulted by the sounds and smells of the area. The cries of the sick and dying echo through the cavernous chambers, and the smell is reminiscent of the sewage pools of an overpopulated hiveworld. Overall, it seems the refugees are almost worse off than their compatriots left on the bridge.

History of the Academy Part 3: Our Hero's Story

The following is taken from the Academy's student files. The Academy does not take terribly strict records on its students movements, to the following consists of Monk Yuri's entire permanent record.

Editor's Note: Those analyzing Yuri's past should be aware of the structure of the Academy, as it will be relevant to the records. The Academy sits with its back to the mountains, and its front surrounded by four semi-circles, each enveloping the last. These four semi-circles are self-contained biodomes, and each represent one of the four tenants of the monk training. New students begin in the outermost ring and move inward as they progress in their training. Starting from the outside, the four rings are the Desert of the Body, the Forest of the Mind, the Swamp of Spirit, and the Pit of Judgement.

The first two rings are self-explanatory. The Swamp of Spirit uses the hybrid nature of a swamp (where the forest meets the ocean) to teach the students about their place in the world, and help them understand nature, other living beings, and the energy that flows through all things. The Pit of Judgement is a giant hole in the ground, and only students who have made it to the innermost ring (and either passed through or failed and were sent home) know what lies within. The "Judgement" moniker is a clever double-meaning. The Pit is used to teach the monk proper judgement and morality in a dark, desolate environment. It also serves as the proving ground for the monk, where the Academy can judge whether or not the student is prepared to become a full Monk.

MONK YURI

Born on a farm not far from Academy. His parents were both Academy graduates. He joined the Academy at age 15, the traditional starting age.

Salvaging the Emperor's Bounty

“Forsaken Bounty”

                                                               

Characters used were premades and have been discarded/remade in subsequent sections, so I’m just going to refer to them by profession name. Also, Spoiler Warning for The Forsaken Bounty premade adventure available online.

Rogue Trader (Leader) – Ari (Later Nathan)

Arch-Militant (Big Guns) – Michael

Seneschal (Information Specialist) – Caolan

Void Master (Pilot) – Solon

Missionary (Burn the Heretic!) – Rachel

The “Forsaken Bounty” jumps right into the action with the party arriving outside a debris field containing the vessel known as The Emperor’s Bounty, to which the party has secured salvage rights. The seneschal scanned the debris field and was rewarded with the signature of a nearly-dead plasma drive, hopefully still attached to the Bounty. The Rogue Trader ordered the ship to move as close as possible and then commanded the gunnery crews to fire upon all debris between his ship and the Bounty. His Seneschal protested the seemingly needless use of violence, but his protests stopped when he realized a path was now clear for them to fly between the two vessels. They piled into the guncutter (a small inter-ship craft), threw a redshirt into the spare seat, and flew over to the Bounty. Within minutes the pilot found a void lock and the crew had entered. Upon entering, they found the air breathable, if rather stale; it was certainly no garden planet. Most of the power was out; the lighting was dim and none of the terminals functioned. Everyone immediately set about securing the immediate area, and that was when they started finding the bodies.

Rogue Trader is my new favorite system

So, first, the bad news; Because I have such a back-log of adventure built up that I need to write posts about, I'm just going to abandon most of them because the intimidation of the massive workload was preventing me from writing anything. So if you wanted to hear anything about Echofall, best speak up, or it shall remain unknown and forgotten (alternately, write your own post if you were there).

The good news is that I finally got to start up a Rogue Trader game, which is super awesome and definitely the best RPG system I've ever used. The core mechanic - while unusual for a D&D player - is very intuitive once understood, and character creation lends itself to the creation of deep backstories in less time than a new D&D player spends picking feats (which is actually an absurdly long time, for anyone who's tried that). Read on for information and backstory about the 40k universe, which most of my players would definitely benefit from reading.