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++ BLACK CRUSADE RPG CAMPAIGN ++ ++ THE BLACKEST HEART ++ 'The Imperium suffers the painful throes of many deaths, and I have planned them all as repayment.' - Huron Blackheart. (CHARACTER/DATASLATE THREAD) DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Hagga Rykaz, 'The Heart Eater' - Lysimachus Xerxes - A.T. Crux'as 'The Smiler' - Lord_Ikka Tarh Teshub - Trokair Ukalegon Moros 'The Twice Lived' - Necronaut Kraggan - Machine God PERSONAE CALAMITUS: Red Corsair Agents ++ CONDITIONS OF PLAY ++ CAMPAIGN RULES: Party Composition: No Party splitting. Either you do it together, or not at all. Players may choose from either Mortal or Space Marine Archetypes. Player Characters and Game Attendance (AUTOPILOTING): Players have to deal with real life, I get that. People who are busy will no be penalised, but I can't autopilot for long periods of time, since I have a lot to do on my own account. Therefore, if a Player enters a Compact, (goes on a mission etc) and cannot attend for whatever reason, the character will be deemed to be present, but otherwise unavailable, occupied, or what-have-you. They will take no part in the combats, either dealing or taking damage, and will to all intents and purposes be in the GM Bag Of Infinite Holding. Note that I will massage the numbers and quality of the enemy to compensate, but I will not run your Character. I simply have too much to do. Infamy Rating, and Security Threat: Players will have an Infamy Threshold of 85 for this Campaign. Alignment: Gear: Allies and Resources: ADVERSARIES: + [PLAYERS MAY NOW POST] +

I've been jawing things over with @Necronaut for a while about how to keep a BC game cohesive so it doesn't implode, and still provide a Sandbox for people to frolic around in. I proposed taking over the Vulgar Display game, but I thought too much water had passed, and I'm a sucker for Session Zero build-ups. Back in the day, I ran a game called Beneath a Hateful Sky, which was a half-baked precursor to the excellent and successful To Plunder The Stars, by our own @Lysimachus and was a Deathwatch game set on the Secessionist side of the Badab War. I also tried another similarly themed, but pure BC Ruleset with Magellan's Devils. Seems I just can't get away from Uncle Huron... This time, with a hardened cadre of Players, I thought I could make another go of it. The Dastardly Plan: So, I wanted to float a few proposals. One is that I would prefer a homogenous Party. Either all Mortals or all Marines, but basically we blend the theme of the BC Intro game Broken Chains as the part gen and start you off all in the Big House. You could either start as mortals and get implanted, or could start as neophytes or recently elevated neophytes (up to you) of a Renegade Chapter. Huron does not get on well with legions, so no Legions builds, nothing advanced. It's BC Core ALL the way. You pick your Archetype and Class, and then start with a loincloth and a tin whistle, if you're lucky. Alternatively, you may all join from mortals into a legion who have raided the prison planet - but it's ONE legion. BC Core applies. You're not vets of this legion, you're ne'er-do-well's in the front line holding a sharp stick and a pair of tin underpants (where on your person you wish to wear them, is your choice, and we will not judge). No crazy stuff with millions of rules, no robots with cigar lighters for eyes, no instant armpit tentacles. On the Party, no splitting. Either you do it together, or not at all. Then you're appointed to a Red Corsair (or a Legionary) 'Advisor...' and sent to destabilise a region in your own, rather beaten up and run-down barge. An Imperial region (which can be post-Cicatrix, if you desire). Infamy Rating, and Security Threat: Infamy works as the book with a few extra bells and whistles. Each Infamy Point a PC possesses will result in a corresponding Imperial Threat Rating, so as your Infamy scales up, your enemies will scale up, but that's not all. Each zone of the operational area (AO) will have it's own Security Rating, which will be fixed. Now, all that means is that your Threat rating + Security Rating means Quality and Quantity of opposition, or the forces already established therein. The Imperial Defence plan is a designed as a constricting net of steel, formed into concentric rings, each collapsing onto the disturbance in order of economy of force. You can see this in the Battle for Armageddon. Example: Moroc is a Chaos Space Marine. He has a ball and and 2 Infamy Points. The ball is red, and very bouncy! See Moroc run and play! Unfortunately, Moroc has been kicking this ball against a wall, and has invoked the wrath of Old Man Jenkins, who is a Justice of the Peace, and saw Moroc widdle on his prize water-lilies last week. His threat rating of 2 means (for example) Moroc will be looking a herd of PDF troops in a Level 2 Security Zone, but because he is a complete asshat, he's crossed the border into a Level 3 Zone, and now he's looking at a couple of squads of Arbites. He's beats them up, and gains another Infamy Point, so now he's Threat Rating 3, and so if he breaks Jenkins' window, the Arbites are going to bring a Rhino, and support troops, possibly with a Sororitas, and now he's dead. Poor Moroc. Missions will be 'Compacts' as described in the book - from small ones like a supply raid on a fuel dump, to large ones (required) on the Precinct House. The bigger the Compact, the more your Infamy goes up, and therefore...poor Moroc. You will be required to scout for, and establish, hideouts in your chosen Operation Zone. Every time you undertake a mission, there is a chance Imperial Intelligence will get wind of your hole (in the ground, you Slaneeshi perv), and go and kick over the rocks. This could mean losing your assets. Undertaking a big mission will reduce these chances, all the way down to zero. Let me be clear: if you keep low-balling to dodge the claws of retribution, and avoiding high-level missions to actively combat your persecution, you will eventually be found, and they will kill you off, Infamy or no. The Imperium is looking for you - always. Alignment: The alignment system is, to me, pish. I hate it, and I think it's one of the weaker aspects of the ruleset - albeit I know what they were doing and where they were going. Now, unfortunately, pulling the ruleset apart is a no-go, unless I start a gofundme for Imperium Maledictum, and we can try that instead, but I digress. Alignment will rely on what you do, not what you pick - however - and I stress this, it will still count. It will be assumed that your choices show the predilection your PC has for which way they are going to fall. Now, if you wish to follow the path of Khorne (and his big red ball), then you can do things dedicated to him, but, if your Alignment is contrary, then you're going to get the attention you deserve, uh, of someone else. Gear: You get jack and nowt, and jack already left town with the best stuff. If your Party chooses to be Marines, you will be equipped with Legion Power Armour. However, this is not without caveats. You will roll for a random number of pieces of different armour marks. Deathwatch Rites of Battle Histories will not and do not apply. Armour customisation will be GM moderated, since, quite frankly, some of the options are garbage. Every armour piece will require a D10 roll to see how awful it actually is. On a 7+, the armour piece is knackered, and provides 1 AP lower than standard. Weaponry is the same. It's busted. You want better stuff, you'll have to beg, borrow or steal it. Everything beyond starting Acquisition rolls is one bracket higher than normal. Further, you have a choice of either: One of your Starting Weapons or Items is gone. The rest is unaffected. All of your staring Weapons or Items downgrade (you may pick) by one penalty (cursed metal etc). The PC's will have full access to as much intelligence about the AO and Imperial Ops as your Harrowmaster can muster. If you want more, you'll have to get it in a raid. You may not start with a Minion. Allies and Resources: There will be people who want to defect to the side of tentacles and blood. These informers can provide intelligence on targets for raiding, personnel capture, or loot. They won't repeat. As your influence and power grows, so will your allies. You will be able to requisition (Infamy) vehicles, support squads, artillery, air power and comms support. All these can be lost if the Imperium manages a reversal. The Four Kings and the Crown: To prevent a reversal, and to ease the grip of the Imperium on your throats, you must defeat the four rulers of the sector who govern over each of it's main arms, such as the Fabricator Maximal, the Sector Bishop of the Adeptus Ministorum, the Planetary Defence Commandant, and the Administratum General. Above them, sits the System Overlord, and Lord Commander Sector Imperialis. These five beings cannot be attacked directly. It is impossible, and any attempt to assault their power will result in instant failure. Each one of these august Imperial lackeys has a number of things which may topple them, removal of key commanders, exposure of dirty secrets, inability to meet quotas, that kind of thing. The Adeptus Arbites and the mighty Adeptus Astartes are independent actors, and thus, incorruptible. This is the proposal and my general thoughts on the layout of how this game will operate. Nothing is set in stone, but I won't be wavering too far off these tenets. Feel free to have at it below - do note that Silent Architect is in hiatus, and I need to leave that one on the shelf for now, as I've lost my way with it a little bit, so it will be either this, or Architect I will be running for the foreseeable future. Thanks for looking.

+ THE RPG NOOK, IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE CABAL OF DEAD INK, PRESENTS + + A BLACK CRUSADE RPG ADVENTURE + ++ THE BLACKEST HEART ++ 'From the Maelstrom's deepest pit, I do spit at thee! Should my chest be fit with cannon, Wouldst I fire both my Hearts upon it! My vengeance knows not the cold of mercy, Nor does it shrink with terror in the dark, for wherever you should hide my due, Even buried in your in your souls, e'er will I rake for it...until the stars burn out.' - Lugft Huron, The Blackheart, Tyrant of Badab, Master of The Maelstrom. +++++ PROLOGUE: Assault on CARTHAGE XIII: When the siren begins, it is a klaxon heard by all as it screams a shrill warning across the surface, skies and subterranean vaults of the planet. Purpose-built as a wilderness of violence and wickedness, decorated with oases of Imperial sanity, power and civility built deep into bedrock, shudders. This is not the ruckus of expected supply drops; or the harsh tocsin of a prisoner transfer, but something altogether more alarming still. Weapons emplacements pan and traverse across the prison yards, the gears of a machine grinding - a mighty shrugging of the Imperial pinions contracting. + PENITENTS, REMAIN CALM, FOR SALVATION IS AT HAND. THE EMPEROR’S MERCY HAS BEEN GRANTED TO ALL. AVE IMPERATOR. + A serene, controlled statement, given in a firm, calm voice. In juxtaposition, it merely stirs the populace into paroxysms of glee and terror, depending on the severity of heresy in their soul, their expectation of punishment or release a heady mix of personal poison. It is an announcement never made before on this scale. The inmates of this network of dungeons know the voice, for it is the judgement of those on high, the Word of the Master of Mankind himself. It is said by Judges, by Imperial Soldiers, by Commissars, by the Guildmasters of the Forges and Workhouses. By Executioners. Normally, death is rooted to a sector or block, where the culling of the wicked sinners is enacted through neutron bombardment, their belongings, cybernetics and chattels all used for the next raft of prisoners, or sent off-world to pay the debts of the incarcerated. ++ PENITENTS IN BLOCKS A, B, C, D, SHALL RECEIVE THE EMPEROR’S WILL ++ The guilty and innocent shriek in howling wails as the Penitentiary rouses for a mass slaughter, but the wise amongst the old hands, the few lowly trustees, that something else is wrong. There is threat not just from within the walls, and the souls dwelling there, but from without. Some of the inmates go berserk. They run at the walls, the gates in a mass panic, attempting to overwhelm the security, to breakout via a press of flesh and tide of blood. The throaty roar of emplaced weapons cut them down, exploding bolt rounds tossing charred gobbets of flesh in minced, bloody confetti. The grisly perfume of burned meat clogs throats and nostrils, even as the thunder of giant hammers resonates on the walls outside, causing huge blocks of masonry – plascrete and rockrete, painted dark with grime and blood over the pocked surface – to spall onto the huddled, broken masses beneath, crushing many and ending their cries for mercy, for forgiveness or curses brooking damnation to end with a brutal, gavel thump of finality. In the open segments of the prison, Perdita squads of the Adeptus Arbites swing into action, shotguns bellow, flamers cough in throaty swathes as many of the prisoners outside the Purgation Zone are cut down or boiled alive in blessed promethium. In the skies above, glimpses can be seen of Imperial Lightnings duelling with angular blades zipping around the skies. Bulk landers crash hard into the prison walls, making breaches in the low-level security zones. A guard tower crumples, and a neutron array fires prematurely, obliterating all living within its deadly caress and scope, before dying a heartbeat, and firing again. The sentries within are flung against the armaglas with such force, they lie broken and staring from the collapsed Babellian* overwatch, now brought low. Miraculously spared by the momentary pogrom, an old man, wearing nought but tattered rags, exposes himself obscenely to the crashed tower and Prison Judges therein, cackling at their fate, his tattoos of the Eightfold marking him as a true believer. He tears the mouldering garment free, and capers in wanton abandon. ‘Hahaha! Take that you fu-’ The tower explodes, tearing a crater in the pit of the prison earth, slaying friend and plucky, rude foe alike, punching great runnels in the ground and plascrete. It is then, and only then, when the squalid prison carcass is broken open for the straggly innards to be devoured, that giant shapes punch through the choking dust to feast. Dark figures cleave through the miasma of floating silt, in a cacophony of thunder - explosions billowing amber in the murk - and the skirl of whirring, chainsword teeth. Black and red, a melange of gold and steel, titans come with guns and blades. Almost as one, the hordes of darkness unleash, the Black Hand, the Ravaged Claw of Badab tears at the walls, raking out the charnel pit in a long harrow of screams and pleading, eager for fresh meat and raw victims to clutch to his cause. +++++ + [ AVE REGNIS CREUI ] +