Welcome back to my Wrath & Glory campaign. This story arc marks the conclusion of my campaign and involves the agents travelling to Ostia to uncover evidence of House Braul activities and the ultimate goals of the ruinous powers. The agents are investigating…
After completing the task of stopping Nurgle’s plans to contaminate the Gilead capital, the agents discover evidence that House Braul has been transporting shipments to and from the shrine world of Ostia. They uncover evidence of an Administratum official falsifying documents and after watching him for a day to gauge movements they capture him going in to his hab unit. They interrogate him as in the course of this an eerie wind and banshee cry blasts through the room, leaving most of those present stunned. The official gives little away and laughs revealing himself to be a heretic, after which he is given a swift Emperor’s mercy.
With little to go on, the agents travel to Ostia. Nothing is inherently wrong on the surface with the shipments as House Braul are under licence to carry out surveys and excavation work, but the agents are unsurprisingly suspicious that it masks some heresy.
On arrival, the agents head to the excavation site via a requisitioned arbites rhino. On their way they note a huge cargo hauler with House Braul logos heading towards the starport and pull over to monitor the vehicle. When the hauler passes, they sense a psychic presence outside the rhino and are discomforted by the ordeal. However, Errol receives a telepathic message to say the presence isn’t hostile. Sure enough, outside the rhino appear several aeldari rangers and a warlock. The aeldari introduce themselves and reveal an aeldari base near the excavation site. They have been monitoring House Braul activities and two of their team have infiltrated the base. Unfortunately, they have stopped transmitting.
The two teams agree to work together and infiltrate the external works site. They identify guards, pict devices and other security measures and once satisfied they can access the internal level they break in to the site.
The teams enter the internal compound with the aeldari heading for a nearby cogitator to access the local systems. The agents find a coded message from the missing rangers confirming they are alive and have gone into hiding on the base because of the increased threat level. The agents so find some of the heretic forces and easily dispatch the cultists. Umbrae probes the mind of one them that was badly injured and stunned realising there are more of them, but otherwise gleaning no useful information. Errol meanwhile spies a worker racing to trigger an alarm and despite his speed fails to prevent this. The enemy know the agents are coming.
Nox dashes across a wide passageway realising a team of heretic enforcers are waiting, he quickly hurls a grenade which kills some of them and fortunately for him he evades serious harm. As the team head around the ambushers, Errol makes an error of judgement and in attempting to take out the remaining threats is in turn ambushed by more enforcers, seriously injuring him. The team led by Amicia come to his aide and defeat the enemy and after a few minor threats head towards the far side of the complex. Here they are met by demonic agents of Tzeentch that breach reality and attack the agents, but after a fierce attack the agents repel
this threat and head towards the communications centre. They make short work of the heretic leader the remaining support and all is quiet. The agents met up with the aeldari to resume their search and before long the hidden rangers reappear. The agents gain further data on House Braul. They discover that Braul has built a weapon, but it lacks a Ctan shard that would enable it to become this super weapon. All roads lead to the Braul estate on Gilead Prime as the location that will provide answers to most if not all of the remaining questions.
En route to Gilead Prime, the agents consult with their Inquisitor patron and others. They plan their infiltration of House Braul and acquire the support of various factions to help facilitate this. The Gravediggers agree to provide cover support and the means to enter the estate through stealth, the Inquisitor offers a team to round up the staff and anyone else present for interrogation, the Sisters of Battle offer support to help the team evacuate and a troupe of harlequins already on the planet agree to support any major confrontation as part of their search for a heretical tome they wish to take possession of. In addition, the inquisitorial agent Gyongi had failed to report and was reported to be on site somewhere, potentially as a prisoner.
GM note: I set up the above in part to help the players focus on the bigger picture and avoid getting bogged down in the planning. This enabled them to focus on key actions and scenes and keep the tempo up. In addition, it helped affirm the higher level of play and reward the players for playing into that ie they are moving beyond being directly involved in every activity and ‘they have people for that.’ This is unusual but I think it proved to be rewarding for the players whilst making it easier for me with both the planning and execution.
So, the agents begin their operation. They carefully avoided obvious traps and opportunities for me to hinder them. They realise that stealth is needed for as long as possible and once discovered, they then need speed. The clock is ticking and they have no room to get caught up in unnecessary actions and when they detect a heretical meeting in one corner of the mansion, detecting warp activity they ignore it. After dispatching a few guards, they promptly search for access upstairs.
They head upstairs to find family members to interrogate. They find a staff member who is a carer for old mam Braul and she willingly leads them to his room. She turns out to not be a heretic and decides to help the agents. They gain access to the room to find Braul bedridden with some strange device on his head. Appreciating time is of the essence, Umbrae interrogates him. They discover that Braul thinks he is working to acquire Necron and other artifacts including the one worn in the belief that it helps him. In reality the device has been corrupted by Tzeentch agents and Braul has been unknowingly building a weapon for the ruinous powers with Khornite forces still on the search for weapons including the Archduke of Warsaw. He reveals the location of a heretical tome in the crypts and after Amicia delivers a killing blow they hear security outside the room. They flee out of the window and find a way back in and search for a way into the crypt.
They find this and head below and discover the missing agent is indeed held prisoner along with another. They hear the cries of another being tortured and close in to investigate.
Unfortunately for the agents their present is detect and they are attacked. They are able to repel this attack and move into the chamber killing virtually those present to witness the now deceased prisoner. Nox attempts to circumnavigate the chamber but is ambushed by the youngest Braul daughter who they discover is an assassin. Nox goes down as does Umbrae from a grenade. Errol and Amicia hold the fort and once all are recovered, they confront the main Braul agent and dispatch him with ease. However, as they survey the scene and prepare to take on the last enforcer, a Lord of Change manifests from the Braul agent’s corpse. The demon promptly steps forward and smashes Amicia to the ground. All looks lost for the agents, but then the harlequins appear to cut up the demon to leave it vulnerable for Errol to deliver the final killing blows.
In the aftermath, the harlequins find the tome, agent Gyongi is rescued and they discover the assassin has disappeared. They make their evacuation and inquisitorial agents continue with the clean-up operation. The agents then return to the Inquisitorial cruiser to begin a mission debrief.
GM note: At the conclusion of this story arc, the players all ascend to tier four of play. Umbrae will become a full inquisitor and there are threads to pull on should we return to the campaign but for now we take a rest.
But, the agents are successful and they destroy the cannister. In time, a squad of space marines from the Absolvers Chapter make their way to the site to complete the cleansing process and the agents are evacuated with medical support to eventually rendezvous on the Inquisition cruiser, the Gladius Imperator…
About the author:
As well as playing board games, Neil has been playing a variety of roleplaying games since 1982, including creating campaigns as a GM and espousing the art and craft of being a good GM and the therapeutic value of games generally.
