Dark Days of Imprisonment

Not me, but the characters in my Dark Heresy game.

The massive leviathan of a ship that carried Mkoll, Sadis, Akareon, Jorn, Barl-Tok, and Gallus finally arrived at Scintilla to await their trial at the hands of the Inquisition. Our "heroes" were tossed into cells and summarily tortured daily in hopes of coaxing a confession from them to the tune of them being heretics, which none in the group (as known to the two who are currently active from the old group) confessed to.

As they were led in, however, Sadis and Mkoll spotted someone familiar to them in the form of Reth, Justin's old PC, and the psyker who had become Hesdus' adjutant. This seemed strange to the acolytes, but also brought hope that their trials here either would be...postponed, or they wouldn't make it til the trials. One or the other. Either way, probably fairer than some of the Big I's best "interrogation experts" could dish out.

Here is also where I introduced Kristy's new character...a sanctioned psyker by the name of Amethyst, who was, while the Inquisitor who she is seconded to was busy and their ship underwent repairs, had been assigned to assist in the interrogation and torture of prisoners.

This is where things got interesting, as almost every time I made a roll for a psyker, 9s came up. Anyone not familiar with Dark Heresy out there will want to know that rolling a 9 causes a brief lapse in order, or a peek of Chaos, however you want to look at it. Either way, it can, and did on more than one occasion, have truly dire consequences. Like when Reth was in, about to administer help and begin the breakout sequences of the game, he rolled a 9, then a 95. Perils of the Warp...ok, maybe this won't be so bad...then BAM! 100 on the Perils chart. Reth was eaten by the realm of Chaos right before Sadis' and his torturer's eyes, causing a deal of corruption and insanity amongst them. Similar instances plagued the time they were being held, and that's when the big dogs came in.

Hesdus had gotten into the rows where his acolytes were being held/tortured and started to shake things up himself. He burst through a door, where Amethyst happened to be assisting the torture of Gallus, and blew the head off the interrogator and then threatened the psyker, demanding the release of Gallus. When she, instead of doing as told, attempted to manifest a power, Hesdus took a shot at her, aiming for to maim, but missed her leg entirely, then tried to regain composure and made another threat, trying to pass off the miss as a purposeful error. This only made Kristy roll better, apparently, and she got the power off (Boil Blood), and due to the horrible nature of opposed rolls in Dark Heresy, took down a fairly high rank Cleric without getting winded, having surpassed him by 1 over what she needed.

Sadis and Mkoll could hear the gunshots from the bolt pistol rounds Hesdus was unleashing, but were strapped fast to their chairs and could do nothing but heckle their captors. Sadis was able to successfully piss his psyker off and he tried to Bio-Lightning the purple hued scum, but was unable to manifest the power, being utterly flustered by the irritation caused by the hiver and his blather. Mkoll, however, ended up being affected in the long term by his psychic predations with an overbearing hatred for psykers. Go figure...right when one enters the game as a PC...

Right after Amethyst drops Hesdus and starts to break for it to warn others, the doors at the end of the hall blow open, digging shrapnel in deep into the panicked psyker's armor and throwing her to the ground in time to see a grizzled man step through with gun raised. This one was Jericho, George's character, and an assassin who had "come up missing" and in question by the party right before the bulk of them were arrested and sentenced to tribunal before the Ordos Calixis.

Kristy kept to the trick that worked and immediately took the Assassin down with Blood Boil, showing him what for just as easily as she had Hesdus.

The game was called then. I admit, I was at a loss at what to do, having seen how easily a psyker took down 2 fairly powerful characters in the span of just a few turns and turning the jail break-ish plot to mush before all our eyes.

It's back to the drawing board before next week. We're supposed to be getting a new player, so hopefully I can tie him in to everything happening easily enough and then we'll see.

Also, I need to research opposed rolls more in the game. The way they stand, RAW, is way too lopsided to me. You would think there would be some adjustment, like subtracting degrees of success from those the winner of the contest gets to lessen the effect. It makes lots of things really, really deadly or otherwise difficult to achieve as is.