Dark_Heresy_-_Edge_of_Darkness.pdf

AN INTRODUCTION TO

DARK HERESY

CREDITS

Lead Developer

Ross Watson

Managing Developer

Michael Hurley

Design and Writing By

Alan Bligh

Publisher

Christian T. Petersen

P P P PPu b

Editing

Mike Mason

E EEE E d ii i i i i

Dark Heresy Designed by

Owen Barnes, Kate Flack, and Mike Mason

M MMMi k kke M

O O

Graphic Design

Mark Raynor, Adrian Wood

G G r a

Special Thanks

John French

ynn n no

Layout

Trent Urness

L L L L L L L

G AMES W ORKSHOP

S W O R

GG A

Cover Art

John Blanche

oo h

Licensing Manager

Owen Rees

Interior Art

John Blanche, Paul Jeacock, Adrian Smith, Karl Kopinski,

and Andrea Uderzo

Licensing & Acquired Rights Manager

Erik Mogensen

Intellectual Property Manager

Alan Merrett

Cartography

Mark Raynor

C Ca

Head of Legal & Licensing

Andy Jones

FANTASY

FLIGHT

GAMES

Fantasy Flight Games

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Roseville, MN 55113

USA

40,000 Roleplay, the Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay logo, Dark Heresy, Calixis Sector, and all associated marks, logos, places, names, creatures, races and

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transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publishers.

Product Code DHP2

For more information about the Dark Heresy line, free downloads, answers to

rule queries, or just to pass on greetings, visit us online at

www.FantasyFlightGames.com

C R E D I T S

L L L

D D D D D D s

P P P

C C C C r r r i s sst i i ian

C C C C

E EEEdii t

D Daar

O O w e e Ba

S S S S p

G A M

G A

S W

He a

The Edge of

Darkness

been forgotten, never to be relearned. Forget the promise of

progress and understanding, for in the grim darkness of the far

future, there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars,

only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of

the thirsting gods.

I t is the 41st Millennium. For more than a hundred centuries

the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of

Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods,

and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible

armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power

from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of

the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacriﬁ ced every

day, so that he may never truly die.

Yet in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal

vigilance. Mighty battle ﬂ eets cross the Daemoninfested miasma

of the Warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by

the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor’s

will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds.

Greatest amongst his soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the

Space Marines, bioengineered superwarriors. Their comrades

in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary

defence forces, the evervigilant Inquisition and the TechPriests

of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name but a few. But for all their

multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the everpresent

threat from aliens, heretics, mutants—and worse.

To be a man is such times is to be one amongst untold billons.

It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable.

Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has

INTRODUCTION

“The greatest resource our Holy Imperium possesses is the fathomless

multitudes of humanity itself. No power is mightier and no force more

dreadful when turned to a single purpose. By human hands alone

we have remade stars in our image. By this token the wise know that

true power lies in the mastery of blood and bone, in the very meat of

mankind.”

–Quastor General, Brantus Hurst, Departmento

Munitorium Penitential Command.

The Edge of Darkness is an investigation-based introductory

adventure for use with D ARK H ERESY . It is intended for a

group of two to four players and will probably take three or

six evening sessions of play to complete. The adventure starts

with a mysterious death connected to a forlorn district of

the vast hive city of Scintilla. The circumstances surrounding

this death have piqued the interest of the Inquisition and the

player-Acolytes will be called upon to act covertly to explore

the matter further. If you’re planning to play an Acolyte in

this investigation, you should read no further—as you’ll spoil

the mystery! However, if you are going be the Game Master

(GM), then read on.

U SING THE E DGE OF D ARKNESS

This adventure is intended as a prelude to D ARK H ERESY —

Fantasy Flight Games’ role playing game of intrigue,

adventure and horror in the 41st Millennium. This

adventure focuses the Acolytes being “undercover” agents.

E DGE OF D ARKNESS is a self contained adventure intended

for Acolytes fresh to the Inquisition’s service and can be

used as a taster for some of the themes and stories that the

game focuses on, as well as, an immersive introduction to

the whole Warhammer 40,000 universe.

The adventure also makes an excellent prelude to a start

of an ongoing series of adventures if you already have the

D ARK H ERESY C ORE R ULEBOOK in your hands; in which

case just ignore the Quick Start Rules listed here.

For obvious reasons, the full extent of Dark Heresy’s rules

and systems cannot be repeated here, however a sampling

of basic game mechanics can be found in the Quick Start

Rules on page 36 (we suggest that GMs print off these

rules pages for their players to use as handy reference).

Additional rules and GMs tips have been strategically dotted

around the scenario—do make sure to read through these

rules carefully. Six introductory Acolyte Player Characters

(PCs) have also been created for your use and these can be

downloaded from the Fantasy Flight Games website. Other

than this adventure, you’ll need some tensided dice (d10)

ideally two per player, and of course some willing players!

are recommended, as each will have more than a fair chance

to shine as the adventure progresses.

In order to help out novice GMs a far amount of advice on

running the adventure and using the rules has been included

in the text.

A DVENTURE B ACKGROUND

Heresy and evil takes root most readily and most easily in

forlorn and forgotten places, be they on distant worlds, in

isolated communities or, as here, in a place that has become

the victim of disaster, economic starvation and slow neglect.

In the shadows of the mighty spires of Hive Sibellus on the

world of Scintilla, in a run down and decaying district called

the Coscarla Division, a criminal and heretical conspiracy has

taken hold. Using the destitute and fearful populous as a shield

and a ready supply of “material” when needed, an individual

going by the name of “the Churgeon” and her lackeys have set

up a hidden medical facility to conduct horriﬁ c and forbidden

experiments. In order to mask their activities, the tech cult has

inﬁ ltrated and secretly usurped control of both a local Alms

House and the area’s enforcers to further their ends, and is

supplying chemical serums to criminal narcogangs in order to

induce their complicity in the cult’s dark plans.

The Churgeon is a renegade techadept in the employ of

the heretical cult known as the Logicians. She is a biosculptor

whose particular area of interest is the creation of (illegal)

alchemical serums and artiﬁ cial organs to augment human

biology. She requires live human subjects for experimentation

and the downtrodden people of Coscarla have proved a ready

source of victims. She has no care for the lives of her servants

or for those her macabre experiments kill or mutilate, and

already her servants have “vanished” scores of Coscarla’s

people. One such abducted experimental subject, a man

named Saul Arbest, managed to escape before dying on the

transit rail. It is his body, once discovered, that sparks the

Inquisition’s interest in the matter and the involvement of the

Acolytes.

Once the Churgeon’s current round of tests are concluded,

GM S B RIEFING

The Edge of Darkness is a mystery adventure and has much

in common with a detective story, with the ﬁ rst “clue” being

the discovery of the body of a habworker named Saul Arbest.

From here the PCs are presented with a number of different

leads to follow, which in turn will generate further clues and

information, leading them ultimately to the uncovering of

a conspiracy of heretical science which, if not stopped by

the Acolytes, could lead to the deaths of a great many more

people.

As with many such investigation and interaction based

adventures, there is no exact “right” or “wrong” path in Edge

of Darkness. Although some approaches and pursuing certain

leads will be more effective than others. Indeed, the wrong

question in the wrong ear, or the overt display of force too

early in the adventure will have very unpleasant consequences

as the villains of the piece will become aware of the PCs

investigation and consequently come “gunning” for the

Acolytes with possibly fatal results. Open adventures (like

this one), reward clever, imaginative and involved players, and

unravelling secret plots, pursuing the truth behind strange

events and uncovering dark conspiracies in this fashion are

some of the core themes that Dark Heresy deals with. This is

not to say that adventures such as this lack action, or indeed

horror, far from it, as in this case the villains behind the plot

are monstrous individuals guilty of gruesome crimes who will

have to be stopped by force. In addition, the setting itself is a

dangerous one, where violence threatens at any moment. As

a result a mixture of combative and more cerebral characters

F ROM S HATTERED H OPE TO THE E DGE

D ARK H ERESY ’s ﬁ rst published demo adventure S HATTERED

H OPE was an actionoriented adventure that dealt with

events at the Gorgonid Mine on the world of Sepheris

Secundus. This adventure, however, assumes no need for

that demo to have been played ﬁ rst and starts with a group

of newly recruited Acolytes for convenience of play. You

can of course carry on one adventure from the other (in

either order). If you wish to follow on from S HATTERED

H OPE , then it is reasonable to assume that sufﬁ cient time

has passed for wounds to heal, during which the Acolytes

will have been thoroughly questioned and tested for

contamination.

Both this adventure and S HATTERED H OPE make for

excellent preludes to I LLUMINATIONS —the larger starting

adventure contained within the D ARK H ERESY C ORE

R ULEBOOK .

she intends to cover her tracks by releasing a biological agent

to mimic the effects of a plague outbreak, killing perhaps tens

of thousands of people in the process. She has done it before,

and if not stopped, shall do it again.

Part II: The Twilight City

Here the Acolytes travel to the Coscarla Division to investigate

the dead man and gather as many clues as they can. They will

ﬁ nd an area of the city dying from slow urban decay and held

hostage to a nameless fear, and if successful, they will uncover

evidence that something truly evil is coiling at the heart of

things. There are opportunities for numerous encounters here,

including interaction with local NPCs both fair and foul, and

although combat is by no means guaranteed, the Acolytes

may end up in a violent confrontation with local criminal

gangs, corrupt enforcers, murderous dregs or even a barroom

brawl. If the Acolytes are circumspect and successful, they

will be drawn to what goes on behind the public façade

of the Tantalus Alms House for their answers. If they have

aroused the suspicions of their unseen enemies, they might

ﬁ nd themselves dragged to the Alms House as the Churgeon’s

latest victims.

S YNOPSIS OF THE A DVENTURE

The adventure is divided in to three distinct parts, the ﬁ rst is a

narrated introductory section where the Acolytes are brought

together by the Inquisition and briefed on the matter at hand.

In the second part, the Acolytes are left to their own initiative

to explore and investigate the dead man and the Coscarla

Division district where the adventure’s action is set. Depending

on the fruits of their progress (or indeed as a consequence

of their blundering,) the third part of the adventure, where

the uncovered conspiracy must be fought and defeated, can

kick in at any point, proving the adventure’s conclusion in a

fastpaced kill or be killed conﬂ ict.

Part III: The Chamber of Horrors

Part I: Among the Missing

The true face of what lurks behind the fear gripping Coscarla

is exposed and the horrors of the Churgeon’s alchemlab are

revealed— one way or the other. The results of this exposure

may well force the enemy into the open and the Acolytes

will ﬁ nd themselves ﬁ ghting for their lives with no escape

readily available. If this comes to pass, the Acolytes will

have to be smart to survive and overcome the Churgeon and

her minions, perhaps enlisting help from some unexpected

sources to do so. Triumphing over the evils of the Churgeon

will be difﬁ cult but rewarding, and ultimately will save a great

many lives, as well as proving the Acolytes’ worth as new

agents for the Holy Ordos.

The Inquisition’s attention has been stirred by the discovery

of a body on the Sibellus transit rail. This is not in itself

an uncommon occurrence; however the body, under forensic

examination, showed extensive signs of surgical tampering

and illegal organgrafting indicative of heretical science. The

Inquisition has kept the body and the incident under wraps,

and has determined it to be that of a missing habworker called

Saul Arbest. Arbest was reported missing over a month ago by

his sister, from his home in the dilapidated Coscarla Division

area of Hive Sibellus. The Inquisition is interested in just how

this heretical biocraft wound up in the body of this otherwise

unremarkable citizen and will brief the Acolytes as to what is

known and dispatch them to covertly investigate matters.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Here are several important Non Player Characters (NPCs)

involved in the adventure, detailing their personalities and

motivations. Owing to the adventure’s set up and freeform

structure, there are quite a few characters involved, not all of

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