Saturday 23 June 2018

It's Always Heretical in the Kronus Expanse: The Crew promotes Adventure Tourism

Rogue Trader: A quest for profit in the grim darkness of the 41st millenium. But dying in mediocrity and misery is for poor people and losers, and a Rogue Trader's retinue is anything but.

It's Always Heretical in the Kronus Expanse is bought to you by:

Lord-Captain van Hohenheim - Rogue Trader. Hero. The last of his line. Possibly insane, although a holiday has done much to soothe his agitated mind. Questionable epicurean delights have left him unreasonably muscled.
Magos Abigail von Thannhausen - A Magos Explorator-Chymist who possibly takes too much pleasure in the craft of Servitors. Accompanied by her servo-skull. Ever since doing warp-eel shots, she seems more insightful somehow.
Archaius "Boosto" Wash - A gunnery sergeant with a now less-irritating artificial voicebox and a jetpack. We are all amazed by his apparently-infinite agility, and his recent ability to just shrug off pain.
Sebastian LaMarck - A seneschal with a silver tongue. Spymaster and king of Human Resources. One hell of a butler, even when he's on autopilot.
Winter York - Astropath Transcendant. Monstrous willpower. Notorious advocate of psychic power pissing matches, and freshly endowed with wings, somehow. Your glorious narrator and remembrancer.


In the absence of a qualified Arch-Millitant, it's established the ship's lead marine is Texas Kevin, a kevin with a long drawl, an Imperium belt buckle, and twin belasco duelling pistols.

We recap where we actually are. In our haste, we've travelled clean across the Kronus Expanse, to the galactic northwest, out by the Heathen Stars -- we've covered Footfall to Zayth, and gone a little further beyond.

The rest of the command crew had a vision when we entered the temple; the pearl was split, scattered across the segmentum. The shards are located on:

Processional of the Damned, not far from Magaros.
Zayth, in the galactic north
Vaporius, just north of the Heathen Stars
One in deep space
Dross, a planet yet unlocated on our map.
Sabrine, a planet yet unlocated.


We plot a course to Vaporius, which should be a feudal world, according to our records. The journey takes several weeks. In this time, I've had the jewel-encrusted eye installed. I now see the world tinted blue through it. With that, and my red eye, I am now perfectly prepared for cutting-edge 3d video.

When we arrive, we find the planet a wasteland, according to the lord-captain and the ship's auspex. Using my special eyes, I can see the planet seems to fair glow with the aftermath of some serious psychic power; most of it focused on a mountain range -- apparently one of the tallest on the planet. Conditions are expected to be cold and unfavorable. I prepare a scarf. The Magos prepares her fur-lined outer robe.

We board a guncutter, and descend. As we get closer, the planet is more of the same; deep plunging valleys, windswept hills... not a lot of green. We're sticking as close to the terrain as we can safely manage when we're rising, and spot a small plateau; there sits a temple, and the Magos declares it to be exactly what we're looking for.

Wash looks for a landing place; he finds a plateau about five klicks out, but it's going to be a hell of a landing. He sticks it. There's barely three meters' clearance. I unclench my hands from my armrests and congratulate Wash on the touchdown.

At this point, we realize we didn't really come prepared for mountainclimbing. It's going to be a challenge to get up the mountain.

As it turns out, the weak link in a hiking expedition is the Lord-Captain, seeing as the rest of us can glide or outright fly. And so, between us, we manage to get the Lord-Captain up to the temple with our peerless teamwork and camaderie, covering the five kilometers in just a few hours.

On our way, we see some of the local wildlife. Huge, 3-10m tall animate piles of rock, they look like. The Lord-Captain is surprisingly knowledgeable about these sort of things, and believes they're not natural, artificially made or introduced.

Everyone's thoughts turn to money. Wash believes they'd fetch an okay price for a live one. The Magos certainly knows the order biologis would be interested in it. The Lord-Captain tries to smoke one, but his plasma pistol misfires and he drops it. Luckily, not off the entire side of the cliff.

We continue to the temple. Up close, it's not actually that large, just a few metres across, framing an impressive view of the landscape beyond. Through it, we can see something glittering in the sunlight. A city, made of glass? On the ground, scuffed markings and lines, not dissimilar to the markings on the temple on the fake pearl. Again, it looks like a map.

But it seems like there's something more to it, although nobody can quite make heads or tails of it. I take about ten minutes trying to figure it out, but no dice.

The party lingers, trying to figure out this map. If only we had a navigator here... I take another ten minutes, and still nothing, but I'm getting close.

Then I get it. I feel like I've just found a piece of a puzzle. I can see some stars and planets, and their fate -- moving through time, rather than space.

Endowed with knowledge, we decide to move on to the glass city.



As we get close, it's definitely an exotic city -- copper and glass stretching high, in the middle of the desert. Apparently human in origin, according to the Lord-Captain; he made a long lecture about divergence from the building memes of the golden age.

We park in the outskirts and clamp our guncutter, before heading into the city. And amazingly, people. For the most part, tanned, hairless people in robes. But people nonetheless. Could the city have somehow cancelled our auspex readings? Whatever it is, they are suprisingly nonchalant and aren't paying nearly as much attention to us as we expected.

The Lord-Captain makes contact with them; they speak heavily-accented high gothic, and seem agreeable. We learn that the city is run by those called "Priest-Kings", and we're suggested to speak with them.

Wash reminds us that he can't understand high gothic. The Magos apologizes, but then keeps on talking high gothic.

In the meantime, until we see the Priest Kings, we're going to hang out at a restaraunt. On our way, though, we're intercepted by men in unadorned, but hooded, blue robes. They bow deeply, and with a flourish. They're from the Priest King, and he'd like to speak with us.


We head deeper into the city. Straight streets, like spokes on a wheel. As we get closer to the center, we see there's a large structure in the middle -- like an oversized well. The crowd is thick, but they part like water for our guides in robes.

We arrive at a plaza, and inside the largest building, a reception area. Our guides leave us be, for a moment, and leave us to appreciate the ambience for a bit. The building is cunningly wrought from glass and copper, surfaces furnished with silks, tapestries, and rugs. An extremely neo-middle eastern environment. Technology appears to be rather primitive, the extent of exposed weapons mere swords.

Psychically, there's something here, and it's everywhere. I'm swimming in it, a subtle energy. Different from the stuff on the mountain. There's something nearby that stands out, a candle to my fire, but that's not the source.

The tapestries tell the typical stories -- caravans, military victories, prominent leaders.

We're collected by an orderly, and guided to an audience chamber. At the door, we're met by a woman in a beaded robe who offers us drinks, which we gratefully accept. The instant the water hits our lips, we're overwhelmed by a sensation of purity and clarity -- it energizes and revitalizes us, and it feels like we're finally able to think clearly.

I psychically check it; it feels like it might be the source of the energy all around us.

The priest king, his robes beaded and red, is a slight man, and he greets us warmly. Priest King Ansai welcomes us to Lah'undun. He asks us what brings us here.

The Lord-Captain says we're here for a relic -- the dread pearl. He claims the Emperor has sent us, rather than divulging that we're in this for personal profit, at best.

"The emperor?" he asks.

"The God Emperor of Mankind." "Rest he on his eternal throne," I add.

We're approached from behind by several large men. They're not hostile, but not friendly, either. Ansai tells them to "bring him out".

We wait for a minute or two, and are turned around to see a restrained man being guided to them roughly. His garb marks him as a member of the Ecclesiarchy.

We're asked if we recognize him. Which we honestly don't.

The priest king informed us that he, and his cohorts, tried to turn the populace against the Priest Kings, speaking of the one true ruler. He is not a happy chappy about this, and demands that we leave, or die.

I attempt to ascertain if they worship anyone at all -- going for the argument that we are simply worshipping two sides of the same coin. They don't worship anyone. So they're that kind of priest-kings.

The Lord-Captain decides to give diplomacy another try in the face of the ultimatium, but we prepare to shoot our way out.

The Lord-Captain's flowery words are heard, at least. To summarize: We're from the same belief, but not here for the same purpose. We're asked to prove it. Kill the missionary.

The Lord-Captain immediately, with no hesitation or deliberation, smokes him in the face with a plasma pistol.

Ansai laughs. We will find the other missionaries. We will render them unto ash and atoms, as well as those they have converted. And when they are no more, we will have the assistance we seek.

Saturday 9 June 2018

It's Always Heretical in the Kronus Expanse: The Crew ruins a Ceremony

Rogue Trader: A quest for profit in the grim darkness of the 41st millenium. But dying in mediocrity and misery is for poor people and losers, and a Rogue Trader's retinue is anything but.

It's Always Heretical in the Kronus Expanse is bought to you by:

Lord-Captain van Hohenheim - Rogue Trader. Hero. The last of his line. Possibly insane, although a holiday has done much to soothe his agitated mind. Questionable epicurean delights have left him unreasonably muscled.
Magos Abigail von Thannhausen - A Magos Explorator-Chymist who possibly takes too much pleasure in the craft of Servitors. Accompanied by her servo-skull. Ever since doing warp-eel shots, she seems more insightful somehow.
Archaius "Boosto" Wash - A gunnery sergeant with a now less-irritating artificial voicebox and a jetpack. We are all amazed by his apparently-infinite agility, and his recent ability to just shrug off pain.
Sebastian LaMarck - A seneschal with a silver tongue. Spymaster and king of Human Resources. One hell of a butler, even when he's on autopilot.
Winter York - Astropath Transcendant. Monstrous willpower. Notorious advocate of psychic power pissing matches, and freshly endowed with wings, somehow. Your glorious narrator and remembrancer.


We disembark from the gun cutter, and return to our ship to prepare for battle stations.

Wash gets an update on what the Eldar are doing. Turns out they're heading in-system to the one habitable planet. They're ignoring us. The Lord-Captain orders us to intercept, but as I predict, there's no way we're catching those filthy xenos in a stern chase, and they quickly leave our auger range.

The Lord-Captain wants to slingshot around the planet and use that momentum to ram the eldar ship...? The bridge crew is unsure how to respond to this, and spend the time instead looking at the planet in question; a small, verdant planet; small icecaps, tundra, dotted with seas, and gentle belts of water vapor. A pleasant-enough looking place.

At the very least, the captain is confident that when they park up, we can just shoot them out of orbit. And he knows they'll stay in orbit because they can't take an eldar craft down to the surface, and he knows that because the Imperium can't. That's solid logic.

We get a bit closer as we discuss the issue, although it's slow going, and rescan for the ship. No ship, but we're picking up wraithbone, the remnants of buildings in approximately 100 sq.km of space. We put the ship into orbit.

Before we get too into this, I posit that we might not actually have found the dread pearl, but Wash thinks otherwise, seeing as these Eldar were harassing us when we left, and that makes quite a coincidence.

The Lord-Captain isn't so keen on going down to this filthy xeno planet. Counterargument - if we claim it, it's not a filthy xeno planet anymore. We'll have to come back to it later if this planet's any good.

We're getting nothing on augers; psychically, I'm getting nothing but background noise, so could be literally anything. The Lord-Captain muses about melting the icecaps to turn the green planet blue while we keep pinging.

We give up, and go down to the planet, leaving instructions behind to hail us ASAP if anything ship-like shows up on auspex. Weather was clear when we went in, but chop rapidly sets in, and clouds begin phasing in and out, weather all over the show. Wash wrangles the controls well enough, though, and sets us down without killing us, around 20km out from the biggest readings. Bit of repair work needed, but only about an hours' work. Only carved a furrow in the dirt a kilometer long. We exit.

We're in a verdant fern forest, teeming with insect life and strange calls. There's a buzzing sound. It gets louder, deeper... from the other side of the gun cutter. Then there's a massive thunk as some gigantic, aquila lander-sized insect like a giant hornet, and stabs it with his stinger. It seems like it's looking for food.

"That's not food," the Lord-Captain says condescendingly. It hears him, and he points at the Magos. "Do better!"

Wash lets two absolutely sizzling shots with his plasma pistol off at the wasp, but all he does is piss it off. It surges towards him and tries to get him good.

Then the Magos cuts loose with her plasma cannon and melts a crater in the shell of the wasp. Then I follow up with an absolutely stunning krak grenade shot straight into it for gross damage. I've made a Friend today.

The Lord-Captain revs up his axes, and goes for the stinger. He digs in, but it pulls away from him.  The Wasp would try to kill me, but the Lord-Captain is closer. It grazes him, and doesn't poison him (The Lord-Captain has amasec for blood) but it does grapple him.

The Magos blasts it with the plasma cannon, and I focus my mind, whipping up winds around me as I declare "Let my Lord-Captain go!" and try to crush the wasp with my mind.

The Lord-Captain is struggling, but having no luck against the barb. Wash tries to free him.

The Magos passes her cannon to her mechadendrite, and draws her bolter. The bolter bounces off. My next grenade digs in a little, but is definitely less spectacular.

The lord-captain is still doing what he can. Wash is feinting and trying to cut him free, still.

The Magos runs for the gun-cutter -- there's turrets she could be commandeering! I give the wasp another stinger of a grenade, and it stumbles.

The Lord-Captain frees himself from the stinger, against all odds, and tears himself free! Wash still can't seem to penetrate it's thick hide.

The Magos opens up with the twin-linked heavy bolters from the turret, heavy rounds bouncing off the shell and penetrating indiscriminately. The monster sways, and topples over, finally slain.

The Lord-Captain would like a nap, being skewered by a wasp has worn him out.The Magos wants the head of the wasp as a trophy. The Lord-Captain says no, it stinks. I propose that we leave it outside until it's time to go, and then duct-tape it to the roof-rack on the way out.



For now, we need to find that broken city of wraithbone. The Magos sends out servo skulls, and finds some rubble; I take to the air, and looking in that direction, I can see ruins. Wash figures out a path, and we start walking.

It's twenty kilometers, a bit of a walk. But eventually, we start finding intact bits of building, and find a clearing. A large temple rises from the earth, and partway up the gargantuan structure is a platform, ringed with wraithbone structures. A deep feeling of insignificance overwhelms us.

The vox goes off. Ships have been jumping into the system over the last hour. It looks like we beat everyone else here. We make the plan; the ambition will fly away from the planet for a day, then return, passing by the planet to pick us up and then escape. The gun cutter is to wait, camoflagued, until we're done with the temple, or until the two days is up, to rendez-vous with the ship.

As we step through the gate of the temple, there's a rumbling, and we feel something wash over us; a gale of psychic energy, vibrating our bones. The Lord-Captain and Wash black out. The Magos and I remain awake. Above us, the platform begins to shimmer and sparkle with power. Ghostly forms appear, six eldar warlocks. As one, they raise their hands, and the energies spiral up into the sky. The temple shakes, shifts. Something is dreadfully wrong.

We must stop them.

Wash boosts halfway up to the platform, which is 20m above. Magos Abigail clambers her way up the wall, as does the Lord-Captain. I fly up to the platform, seeing the six humanoids standing atop it. Wearing strange helmets, they're phasing in and out, and with them, the platform itself flickers, awash with witchfire.

We all climb and fly up. Abigail takes a shot, and her bolter round vanishes the moment it hits the fire. The plasma shot from our Lord-Captain fares much the same.

Hovering in the air, I focus all my power, and try to play pool with the enemy wizards. I blink, and everything changes. The Magos is suddenly on the ground, bleeding out, and there's dead eldar everywhere. What the fuck happened?

The surviving eldar spray shuriken pistols at Wash and miss. Wash charges to join the Lord-Captain in finishing off an eldar that already looks like he's taken the wrong end of a chain axe vertically. The Lord-Captain finishes him off, and charges to engage another warlock, bloodlust in his eyes.

I have learned nothing, and push my power to crush an eldar skull. Unfortunately, power rubberbands back into me, and knocks me out of the sky, to land on my head. I'm out cold, and the rest of the fight is nothing but a distant haze.

The fight ends in our favor, and we regroup. The Magos' body is registering a very faint pulse. Above her body, a servo skull bears printout of a transcript of her last words:

+++ I want one of those sweet ass witchblades +++

The temple is stable once more, no longer phasing in and out. The top of the tower  is covered with what looks like a star map -- rendered unreadable by damage in the past, but unmistakably related somehow to other planets in the Kronus Expanse.

We call the guncutter, and load the Magos on, to the distraught of the Enginseer. Once we're all done, we render the tower destroyed and unreadable. Eat shit, Fel.

We make sure to take a human-sized chunk of wraithbone as cargo, and make our way to the far side of the planet to camp out until the Ambition is ready to make it's return. We see a couple of lighters touch down over the next day or so. One spirals out of the air and eats shit.

At the appointed time, we return to orbit, and catch the Ambition as it does a fly-by, and get out.

As we leave, LeFrancois hails us -- "Leaving so soon?"

I lie and say between the Eldar that harassed us on the way in and everyone else being in our way, it ain't worth it. It's a loss. I'm an abysmal liar, but he seems to accept it, and suggests we'll have to renegotiate the next time we meet. And then he hangs up on me. Dick.

The Lord-Captain places a call to our old friend Jeremiah Blitz, and kindly forewarns him of the inclement weather, unreasonable wildlife, and trashed tower.  In exchange, we just want him to take any opportunity to mess with Fel whenever possible, and distrust LeFrancois. The Lord-Captain shows off his sketch of Blitz, which is competent, and bids him good luck as we peace out.

We have a remarkable race ahead of us, and potential for considerable profit.


The Magos claims one of the 5 salvaged witchblades for her own; as do I. I claim one of the 8 shiny gems they were holding for my new cybereye to bling it out.

There are 5 helmets, 4 robes and 1 shredded robe; one helmet goes on the Magos' servo skull.

The Lord-Captain takes a full set of robe, helmet, shuriken pistol and witchblade for his trophy room.

Saturday 2 June 2018

Shit Our DM Says: GDPR Edition

As you approach the planet where you expected the Dread Pearl to be, an astropathic message comes through with high-grade encryption.
It's decoded and passed up the chain of astropaths to Winter, who opens it...
++We've updated our Privacy Policy!++