Warhammer 40k One-shot

Warhammer 40k One-shot

Last night’s game went super well! Despite the fact that it was only 2 hours of game time (plus another hour of design-talk), we got a lot of stuff done and the seeds are there to continue the adventure. Sadly, I couldn’t figure out how to get it to record. Sorry guys. I’ll try to get that up and running before I run another game.

Huge thanks to Taejas Kudva , Noah Doyle  and Zach Swain , got a lot of great material both from the game itself and from the break-down after.

+++Begin Transmission+++

The story started with the Inquisitor, Psyker and Catachan Veteran taking on a gang of smugglers one of the Hive City’s loading areas, trying to get past them to the smuggler leader before the Adeptus Arbites arrived to cause all kinds of jurisdiction issues.

The Inquisitor used telepathy to weaken the resolve of the gang’s second-in-command and heavy-weapon support, so when battle was joined, the cover-fire was noticeably absent. The Veteran took out a cluster of smugglers with a well placed grenade, and the Psyker (as a registered Mercantile Warp-Navigator) used her Merchant House codes to get a mono-task servitor to drop a ten-ton shipping crate on the rest.

Rather than be exposed heading straight to the sky-dock, the smuggler leader (and the stolen warp-touched relics carried by two goons) cut a path through a busy cathedral-sized bazaar 20 levels up. Not only did the crowd density hide them, the mental cacophony also made it impossible for the Inquisitor to track them with telepathy.

The Psyker used her connections with the Noble Merchant Houses to acquire a grav-barge, allowing the team to soar over the bazaar and spot the smuggler leader; an exceptionally tall and heavy-built Death-Worlder with a massive explosive shotgun.

Thanks to their grav-barge, the team was able to set down ahead of the smugglers and set up an ambush. When the trap was sprung, the Psyker pushed a cargo container into the street, blocking the way. The Inquisitor stepped forward and announced their presence. While this didn’t have the terrifying effect they hoped, it did clear the nearby streets of Imperial citizens, who could see trouble coming.

When the Death-Worlder refused to stand down and submit to Inquisitorial authority, the fight was on. The Catachan Veteran burst out of hiding and tore the two goons to shreds in a rabid flurry of screaming death.

The Inquisitor charged the Death-Worlder, runic blade alight. The smuggler leader opened fire again and again with massive explosive shogun shells that would have torn the Inquisitor apart, had it not been for the psychic barriers the Psyker kept throwing up between the two.

An intense duel followed, with the Death-Worlder holding her own for a long series of exchanges until the Inquisitor feigned losing ground and lured her into overextending. The runic blade took off one arm at the elbow. The Inquisitor demanded surrender a second time.

This time, the Death-Worlder smuggler obeyed, pulling the evidence of her client and destination from her pouch… and promptly had her other arm lopped off. The Inquisitor didn’t want physical proof which could be fake. The Inquisitor would take the truth directly from the criminal’s mind.

Hands gripped on the dying smuggler’s head, the Inquisitor sifted through memories and traumas and victories and intimacies. And found that someone had been in there before. The smuggler’s patron had left a fail-safe, and it was decimating the smuggler’s brain.

Before the mind could be fully destroyed, the Inquisitor extracted a key image: A madman beseeching the sky, sacrificing holy relics to the storm-wracked heavens, on a distant, un-colonized, un-regarded world. The nexus of a ring of relic smuggling, a cult most foul, on a storm-scarred world.

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+++The Emperor Protects+++