Monday 27 July 2015

Campaign Hooks



Over the next wee while I am going to introduce some of the many planets in the Carthax sector which are available for use in your own campaigns. I came up with a number of worlds for the express purpose of adding some colour to the sector, and making it feel more lived in. Upon the wiki, there are a number of systems and planets which are open to all to add details to to further bring them to life. These are marked as “Declassified” on the wiki, a rundown of which can be seen on this linked page.

The bulletins associated with these worlds will also provide plot hooks for basing your campaigns there. There are of course near-limitless reasons why an Inquisitor or other powerful individual would travel to each world, and the plot hooks for one world could easily be transplanted to another if you'd rather not be in a hive for the umpteenth time, or if your tabletop terrain suits an agri-world.

Let's start with Bolo, a frozen world in the impoverished and crime-ridden Antonine Cluster.


Taken from the wiki:

Perhaps the last true successful world in the cluster, Bolo is a world of sealed habitats amongst glaciers of ammonia. It is a minor world as far as the greater Imperium is concerned, its population is little more than three hundred and fifty million, and its output limited to small volumes of precious metals mined from its crust. While it has never scaled great heights politically or economically, it has managed to maintain its status while all its neighbours have floundered. Many in the sector hierarchy now consider Bolo the most important world of the cluster and are considering the redeployment of military and naval assets to bolster the world's somewhat meagre defences. The uninhabited, atmosphere-less satellite Nina is being muted as a site for defence facilities.

Nina is around 60% the mass of Bolo and has large gravitational effects on the world it orbits. The frozen ammonia of Bolo is dragged by the passage of Nina, and much like the seas of ancient Terra has tides. This makes travel across the surface of Bolo especially treacherous, and anti-grav vehicles are favoured. Bolo has a number of models of jet bike and larger craft that are not seen anywhere else in the cluster, and draw a great number of tech priests to the world.

Beneath Bolo's stable facade lurks a growing anti-imperial sentiment. Many on Bolo considered themselves to have been abandoned by the Imperium over the last millennium, and their prosperity is purely due to their own hard work. They see greedy off-worlders siphon away their life's work in greater amounts every year to make up for the lack of tithe goods from the cluster as a whole. They feel exploited, and secession is on their minds.


The most obvious place to start with gaming on Bolo is to run a campaign based around the aims of the secessionists. Scenario ideas include:

  • Freeze them out! The rebels are planning bomb attacks on the generatoria that power the heating elements that keep a hab city from freezing. Can they be stopped in time, or will a million souls perish in the cold?
  • Outside Aid. The rebels have turned to some of the darker forces of the Antonine Cluster and hired a band of mercenaries to carry out their attacks. These Chaos worshippers have begun a systematic eradication of Imperial citizens, starting within the Church of Saint Helene. Can they be stopped before they summon forth their daemon lord?
  • Martian Opposition. The secessionists must convince members of the Mechanicum to join them in order to maintain their generatoria. Their secluded meeting with a turncoat Magos is interrupted by the Lords Dragon, and they must fight their way out of the ambush.

Throw in your lot with the Children of the Abyss at your peril, secessionists...

The secessionists might find themselves aided by an Istvaanian Inquisitor keen to foment rebellion to keep the Adeptus Arbites and PDF on their toes, while an Amalathian may be keen to prevent Bolo leaving Imperial rule. Conversely, an Amalathian keen to see the Antonine Cluster return to the prosperous state it was 1000 years ago may see rebellion on Bolo as a way to draw sector command's eye to the cluster and flood it with first troops, and then auxiliaries to create supply lines, thus reinvigorating the cluster's industries and returning wealth to the systems.

Bolo's frozen surface and mining industry present other options for scenarios:

  • Who Goes There? In the furthest reaches of the southern pole, a research outpost has stopped broadcasting. Upon investigation, it appears the staff all turned on one another. Three bodies are unaccounted for. What caused the men to fight amongst themselves? Could it still be there? Have the investigators unwittingly infected themselves by exploring the site?
  • It came from below! Deep within the palladium mines of northern Tungyski, workers are being found eviscerated. Some say they awoke something in the darkness, and it is moving upwards in search of freedom. The tunnels must be scoured and this ancient evil returned to whence it came!
  • Wanderers from the Webway. Hidden in the shifting glaciers of Bolo's surface lie a number of wraithgates through which the Eldar visit the cold world. Locating one of these gates and gaining entry to the webway has become the goal of an Ordo Xenos radical. A puritan stands in his way, and the Eldar themselves have an opinion on the matter.

What have those miners unleashed?!

There are many more ways to game on Bolo, as on practically every Imperial world there are always cults operating in the shadows, dogmatic priests whipping up crowds into frenzied mobs, xenos infiltration and Inquisitors at war with each other behind the scenes.

A sample profile for a Bolo Secessionist is available along with other Carthax Sector Archetypes for download here.

Anyone is welcome to edit planet entries on the wiki (in line with the guidelines on the “Declassified” page), and of course anyone is free to add their own systems and planets to the wiki. Detailing them with plot hooks is of course a welcome addition!

For more updates on the Carthax sector or Inquisitor hobby happenings like the Facebook page or follow @T_C_Inquisitor on twitter.


The Carthaxian Inquisitor 

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