Ave Imperium: The party dabbles in human sacrifice

Today was the Dark Heresy group. Now Dark Heresy is unique among my games in that I haven't built this setting, it entirely takes place within the Warhammer 40,000 mythos. For those of you who don't know, Warhammer 40,000 (W40k) is a hilariously dark fantasy science fiction with *heavy* emphasis on the fantasy. The galaxy has been conquered by the Imperium of Mankind led by the Immortal Emperor of Man who sits immobile on his Golden Throne, worshiped as a god throughout the million worlds of the Imperium. Aliens, Daemons, and Traitors work tirelessly to undermine and destroy the Imperium and are basically succeeding. Everyone is going to die, but it is up to the Inquisition to police the Imperium from within and make sure they are loyal and worship the Emperor. Inquisitors usually have massive retinues of talented individuals that he or she relies on to investigate and destroy daemonic cults and expose traitors. The party is playing as those talented individuals.

Note: Dark Heresy is designed so that characters can die incredibly easily, but it is just as easy to make a new one quickly.

The Party:
1. Ephrael "Trauma" Castella - an Arbitrator who enforces the Emperor's laws with her trusty shotgun and club. Of normal size and complexion.
2. Solaria Taura - Scum, a fast-talker, thief, and social face of the party. Heavily muscled and sturdy.
3. Xantippe Callidia - A Guardsman from a backwater planet. She has issues with authority and doesn't generally like anyone. Short, slender, tan. Completely strange for a soldier in the Emperor's Army.
4. Reestheus "Red" Mordeci - Biomancer (utilizes bodily functions for combat purposes such as amplifying natural electricity), bright red hair and somewhat of a megalomaniac.

The only consistent survivor is Taura, though she is not without her battle scars and mental trauma. Ironically, her player wanted her to die in the very first session but does not have the heart to just do something overly suicidal, she is instead a bit more liberal with breaking cover and getting in the middle of a firefight (which in this system is trying to die) but she won't cop out with putting a bullet to her own head or picking fights she knows she can't win.

The original group Taura was in was completely annihilated with Ms. Taura as the sole survivor of the encounter, they began with the utter destruction (cleansing) of a small community given completely over to daemon worship and the local clergy that were tainted as well. After all was said and done the psyker punched a bull (due to boredom?) and was gored and trampled to death, his body used as a catalyst in a daemonic summoning later that night while the rest of them were resting in the (now empty) tavern.

Suddenly the air had gone chill, voices and shadows played about the edges of vision, a wretched howl wailed through the night, and the smell of rotten eggs choked the air. The daemon approached with its battleaxe held high for all to see, its armor of bronze stained with the fresh blood of the cultists who summoned it. The plates protecting it from almost every shot leveled its way. It easily broke through the barricades at the front of the tavern and stalked up the stairs. The whole time the party is hurling molotov cocktails at it, missing or doing almost no damage. The Guardsman of the original party fought back, scoring some deep wounds and hurling the last of their grenades at it, still it marched on.

The Guardsman had waited just a tad too long to get away and the daemon struck her violently in the back, severing the spine and spilling her guts out on the floor.

It was totally gross.

She immediately expired and the tavern was on fire. Taura continued to shoot at it on full-auto with her assault rifle, while the Assassin fought with sword, deftly dodging and parrying the daemon's blows. It received a grievous wound to the leg as it lost its balance on the floor slick with the Guardsman's blood. It crashed to the ground and the surviving team members run for it. However, in running away the Assassin left herself exposed and was brought low by the Daemon's axe, she fell to the ground dead as blood spilled out from her mortal wound.

There was a Sister of Battle with them too ( which is sort of a battle nun) though she wasn't able to do much the entire time and immediately moved on to other things after this debacle, leaving the party.

Taura and the Sister waited to see if the Daemon would emerge from the burning bar and breathed sighs of relief as the whole building came crashing down (It took gunshots, lacerations, molotov cocktails, grenades, and having a tavern drop on it to finally kill this thing). They confirmed the kill, radioed for evac and left that planet the following morning.

Taura was dropped off at the Sector Capital of Scintilla, Hive Tarsus. There she was debriefed by her sponsoring Inquisitor and given an address where she would conduct her investigation into this cultist conspiracy. She met her current team there as well as they had been awaiting someone with a bit more experience than them in fighting the heretical.

They would begin their investigation concluding that the clergy was not to be trusted as they had most certainly been infiltrated by the Ruinous Powers of Chaos and steered away from glorious Emperor worship. Their inquiries would take them all over the Hives of Scintilla looking about for any leads on this dire cultist caper. The evidence seemed to point to a small (comparatively) Imperial chapel where they would stick their Inquistorially sponsored noses all about.

Turns out that their suspicions and rude demeanor weren't entirely far off and the chapel was a safehouse for cultists (complete with a secret room behind the statue of the Emperor). Despite being outnumbered and surrounded, it was more or less a curbstomp battle, Mordeci was rolling *really* well and bringing about some righteous death. Well they take one single prisoner (a low level scrub) and he tells them that they are a Tzeenchian Cult and that they've been setting up a ritual to summon daemons beneath churches throughout the entire system. He also advised against going down into the basement area if their lives or their sanity meant anything to them.

If only he knew how little they cared.

They tie him up with strips of the robes his dead brethren were wearing and drag him with them downstairs. They find this:

First they marvel at it, not quite comprehending it. They discuss all things they'll do to see what it does.

They talk about smearing it

they talk about pushing a torch over

they contemplate shooting at it

they *do* shoot at it

but instead they do the most insane thing to it that I can possibly think of...

Toss

They throw in the prisoner to "see what happens". He explodes in a puff of smoke and blood and immediately their minds are beset by all things daemonic. Taura fails her Willpower Test in *big* way and takes in incredible amount of corruption, developing nasty character flaws and just barely able to keep from growing some daemonic appendage or developing a need to drink blood or something. Everyone else fails as well (not nearly as bad as Taura) and take sizeable amounts of corruption. Laughter plays about in their heads.

They decide to go ahead and smudge the chalk and the glowing summoning circle immediately ceases to glow.

Disaster averted.

The plan is to go back to base to let the Inquisitor know what's going on and maybe they can figure out where to go next. Outside the tenement building they are approached by a very twitchy, very nervous man who informs them that he is one of the cultist leaders and that he thinks this whole conspiracy has gone too far now that reports of the Inquisition's involvement have come his way. He tells the party about a meeting between eight rogue psykers (who are the conspiracy leaders) and that he was to be the ninth. He tells them the time and the place of the meeting and, noting their interest, he turns around to walk with them to their apartment.

Taura immediately shoot him in the head, they already had a time and a place and they weren't interested in making deals with traitors. They take this information to the local Arbites and they agree to send three of their troopers to help them take down the conspirators.

This part actually goes swimmingly. For reasons unknown to me Callidia had two full doses of a very illegal drug on her person and offered to insert it into the air circulation system that controls the environment of the Upper Hive Apartment. They go one floor above their targets' and Callidia lowers Taura down the side of the 301st floor of a 600 story building (Warhammer is all about implausible sizes for everything) with a bedsheet as a backup plan. Taura successfully makes it to the circulation unit out the window and pours the drug into it's filters rendering the occupants on the inside high as kites. The party and the three Arbitrators bust down the door and open fire sending the cultist sorcerers into a bad hallucinogenic trip. Four of the eight have an...interesting reaction and think they can fly, they jump out the window...

the remaining four seem to have hallucinated bugs all over their bodies and fall to the floor screaming. Everyone just sort of meanders through putting bullets in their heads, before capturing one to tie up and send to the Inquisitor for interrogation.

Despite their earlier retardation, they pulled it together for the final act. They put in motion a plan that I did *not* see coming and actually succeeded far better than my best scenario. They beat the system and they beat me. I was impressed. They were rewarded a generous amount of XP for their victory, provided with a discount price for Arbite storerooms, and were given a large bonus sum of money from the Inquisitor. Not to mention wiggle room if their copious amounts of accrued corruption if it is ever found out, but one thing at a time...