X Kingdom: Rabble-Rousing

Midian explains that he has heard of “Malkuth” before. It’s a word that refers to real-space in certain occult philosophies. Doubt (to put it mildly) is expressed at the ritual’s ability to “conquer” all of real-space, but Midian at least is determined to see it through.

Mordecai, on the other hand, is far more interested in the revolution. He seems genuinely interested in the welfare of the people – though only, he claims, because it seems possible that he could make Vinh a safe haven for himself. So while he doesn’t accept the “Kingmaker” role that the confused, daemon-haunted witch had labelled him with, he is willing to perform the role’s duties.
He will not choose Grigor Orlac, which seems to leave Hala Chen as the only viable candidate. He prudently decides to investigate further, first.

Grigor’s place is a bust. He lives poorly, in a workman’s dormitory in the lower reaches. Those who live there know him to be a tough, resolute figure and respect him for it. Even the most runtish of the residents – the butt of all jokes – holds grudging respect for the man. Grigor’s locker holds nothing too incriminating. Midian sees nothing psychically active among the clothes, tools, revolutionary pamphlets and battered, recovered xenomesh.

Hala is more uplifting. She works more hours than she is paid for, seeming to genuinely to care about the people. But if Mordecai was to choose her to lead these people, she’d need a little more steel.
When she leaves the clinic, exhausted, it is the dead of night. She wanders through the dirty streets oblivious to her surroundings and the denizens that lurk within them. She is too tired for caution and too at familiar with her environment to consider the danger…
The dreg approaches stealthily. He holds the voices at bay because his is stronger. But the darkness is there, rotting his resolve, and all it takes is a more coherent voice in his head to push him to act. But as he raises the knife and moves to grab the pretty lady, a different monster steps out of the shadows! Midian’s bleached white skin reflects the meagre street lighting, making the liquid opal orbs of his eyes all the more threatening. The lunatic flees into the night.
The protagonists escort Hala home. She lives in something not dissimilar to a prison cell, but at least she has privacy. Without asking, she shakily pours them all a drink and, her defences well and truly down, the protagonists begin their inquiry. Scanning her mind (the strongest he’d encountered so far) Mordecai learns much about who she is. And she’s genuine. She genuinely cares about people, genuinely wants the best for them. She knows the revolution will be bloody, knows people will suffer and deeply regrets the necessity. She won’t shy away from it, however. She dislikes Grigor and his methods, but believes the people won’t continue to follow him once the oppression of the current regime is removed. The way she sees it, she’s using him – nature will take its course afterwards.
After using his now quite extensive knowledge of her psyche, Mordecai plants the seed that Grigor may have sent that psycho to “martyr” her – a not ineffective tactic, if it could be used for good…

It was time to push the revolution forward.
Midian began by organising some arms shipments; then intimidates Enforcers (when they back down, it not only demoralizes them, it shows those who see it that they aren’t to be feared); and convinces Hala that Xanatov’s eventual execution must be public, or justice won’t have been seen to be done (though it means some of her best people will die, she agrees). He draws the attention of Enforcers, but flees into the crowds.
Mordecai coaches Hala into becoming a better figurehead; steals secrets from the minds of corrupt officials and exposes them; and spreads occult-laden rumours about the noble classes (the superstitious masses start labelling them as touched my Menqual). He draws the attention of an Ecclesiarchy “purge” squad but, like Midian, loses them in the sprawl.

Fifteen days later, Maya Zin calls them to a meeting with Grigor, Hala and the other leaders of the revolution. Midian reads them and sees that no less than one-in-seven are dangerously corrupt. The revolution begins in two days.

X Kingdom: Kith's Army

Midian and Mordecai study the pages. If they are to be believed, it seems the unnamed author had been testing a variety of occult theories. Discovering how and why is frustrating, the difficulty multiplied by the fact that many pages are missing.
Never-the-less, as they become familiar with the author’s idiosyncrasies, the content proves to be quite fascinating and the ideas start to make them question what they’ve been taught about Navigation and Psychic Lore. At the very least it provokes introspective thought and inspires them to come up with new conclusions to old concepts.

The protagonists communicate with Maya only by notes left in Kith’s quarters, instructing her to build up a profile of Amael Lucretia’s movements.
(Limited: Spends all day and most of night in archive, never out of earshot of her eight bodyguards.)
On the third day her pattern changes, writing off much of Maya’s work. The Amael reopens the archive.
Given the time since Kith’s investigations first tipped her off, Mordecai hypothesizes that she’s likely purged anything dangerous or embarrassing.
Midian advises her to begin mapping the Amael’s patterns, but Maya has something more pressing for the protagonists, someone she wants them to meet…

She takes them down to the bottom of the ziggurat, to one of the many warehouses. A man with an augmetic eye stands watch but, after she vouches for them, they’re allowed to proceed. His distrust is still evident.
Inside, three dozen malnourished, bitter-looking plebs sit or stand, listening to a man standing atop a crate. The orator is a tall and wiry man with black hair, and looks like a worker himself. He is more heavily scarred than anyone else present and bares fresh bruises on his cheek and arms.
“…and it shall never change.
“The poor worker will always suffer. It is our lot – and we accept it… endure it.
“But must we suffer alone? Why do the rich deserve their comfort? What have they sacrificed? Why should they be spared?”
A lone voice calls out; “We must have faith!” but it’s a weak voice, and there is no conviction behind it.
“Faith? In what? Brothers… sisters… our ancestors departed the bounds of the Imperium. They came beyond its borders. Spurned the protection it ‘claimed’ to offer. They struggled – as we all struggle – but they were not free. Has Governor Xanatov not just given the resources of our world away? Has he not taken the food from your mouths and given it to distant, uncaring bureaucrats who offer – who can offer – nothing in return?”
[more bitter cheering, interrupted by another single voice] “But the PDF!”
“Bokor* is dead. Does anyone doubt this? And we are far from toothless.” Grigor prizes open a crate to reveal a rack of autoguns. “But more importantly, brothers and sisters, I ask you… With what little you have to lose, are you really willing to let the injustice of the fat man’s decadent rule?”
The crowd begins to nod, grim resolve building within them. As the orator steps down, they begin speaking in smaller groups, discussing useful targets (or else plotting petty vengeance).

A woman – who Maya identifies as Hala Chen - who stood watching behind the orator, takes him to one side. Maya leads the protagonists towards these two, explaining that this Grigor Orlac had been shaping up to be her most likely candidate to replace Xanatov.
As they approach, they overhear him Grigor arguing with Hala. She wants to use the remainder of their money to provide medicae for the masses, but Grigor eventually convinces her that unless the people are at their lowest, they’ll never fight back. He regrets the truth of it, but if their misery abates they’ll still put up with the status quo. Unless their fear of losing what they have outweighs their fear of the Governor, they’ll never rebel.

Mordecai peers into Grigor’s mind and does not like what he finds.

• Grigor is in significant pain, which does not show at all in his body language or demeanour.


• He genuinely wants a revolution, but knows people will suffer during it. He doesn’t mind this – he likes it.
  
• He got the bruises from fighting with Enforcers who were shaking down a farmer.


• He feels genuine relish from suffering (his own and that of others). This isn’t sexual, but instead a source of both pride and satisfaction.


• There are familiar traces of something that scares Mordecai in this man’s mind. Something that is encouraging the dark impulses within Grigor.

(He also pulls Grigor’s home address – a dormitory in the lower levels.)
At Mordecai’s telepathic prompting, Midian reads Grigor’s soul. The man is certainly corrupt, and he confirms that he has been ‘touched’ by some kind of darkness.
Maya introduces the protagonists as people who were working with Kith. When Grigor happily enquires as to how they intend to further the cause – how they can weaken their oppressors, strengthen the rebels or recruit converts – Midian is vague, obfuscating with rhetoric worthy of a practiced politician. Given the resources that their associate (Kith) has poured into the cause, Grigor doesn’t seem to mind.

Given what he’s learned, Mordecai is horrified that Maya would think to replace even a decadent, self-interested ass-wipe like Xanatov** with someone inherently worse (Grigor). Maya shrugs – she wasn’t thinking of choosing him because he was a good person, but because he was most likely to succeed. She adds, quite callously, that it wasn’t like she and Kith intended to stay afterwards.
When she leaves he questions Midian about the whole endeavour. It seems more and more likely to him that their actions will further the agenda of a ‘daemon’. Midian responds that he doesn’t care if it does. If there is a chance that their current path can increase Midan’s knowledge, understanding or power, it’s worth risking the wellbeing of people he doesn’t know.

Back at their lodgings, the protagonists continue to study the pages. Though much of the text is gibberish, much of it also seems familiar, and Mordecai finds psychic focusing rituals and meditation techniques which, with very little practice, he could add to his mental training regime.
Many of the experiments documented parallel theories you’ve encountered through their own research (SL: Occult). Huge sections of it, however, turn out to be incredibly detailed Navigational formulae. With these algorithms you could plot Vinh’s position not just within the system, but within the Expanse, the Sector… even the Segmentum, if you really wanted to go that far. It takes into account everything Midian can think of – from stellar drift and galactic expansion to the gravitational effects of irregular cometary matter. It is frightening the level of detail someone’s gone into – a Navigator would never need to do this.
At some point, the author must have made what they believed was a breakthrough, as the later pages detail some kind of sorcerous ritual. Devised by the author, the purpose of the ritual is, evidently, to “conquer” or “master” somewhere or something called “Malkuth”.

---

* Colonel Harakeen Bokor was killed on Blemish (a meeting place for several pirate-kings) by Sabine Alcina (facilitated by Sarvus Roe and his command crew – Midian included). Despite having been officially retired from command of the PDF, his name still made them feared

** Governor Oren Xanatov has been exaggerating his defence requirements to the Administratum; using the defence budget to line his own pockets, at the expense of the people of Vinh. “At great cost”, he also acquired the “Black Imperator” – a staff that was reputedly cursed, but was in fact harmless – and handed it over to the Ecclesiarchy for disposal.

X Kingdom: Prophesy

Anya’s place it sits in the back of a semi-circular depression, making the building look like it has backed its way into a corner. Roots from trees on the ridge above have emerged from earth behind it, their blind progress following the building’s surfaces. Were it not for the flickering light of the many candles inside the protagonists would guess this was deliberate, natural camouflage.
The shack itself is old and rickety. The boards are uneven and have a rough finish to them, porch roof appears to be held up by stripped tree branches, and the windows are unglazed – only tacked-on gauze keeping the insects out. From damp, rotting beams hang wind-chimes made from clattering animal bones. Before the threshold is a thick arc of red-brown powder which Mordecai shifts with the tip of his sword.
After Midian’s inquiries are rebuffed by the occupant, Mordecai kicks the door in and brusquely enters the abode.

Anya herself looks in worse shape than her home. She is old, perhaps in her eighth or ninth decade and wears a cloth patch across her left eye (which, Midian later notes, removed two or three weeks ago). From her squint, it seems her other one isn’t working too well either.
She was afraid of and cowers when Mordecai telekinetically wrenches the knife from her hand.
At this point she gives up, and does whatever she can to get rid of the strangers (beginning with patching Midian up sufficiently that he can walk unaided). Her subsequent interrogation is hampered by her addled mind and she frequently mistakes Midian for Kith (referring to both by one of Lum’s epithets, “Wayfarer”), so Mordecai attempts to take what he needs from her mind. At this point his own mind is almost sucked down into a spiralling darkness the likes of which he has never experienced. Whatever is in there with him certainly enjoys the rising panic before he extricates himself, fleeing into the night. Midian tries to stop him, attempting to freeze him in place with one of his warp-spawned talents, but (having to restrain himself so as not to injure his felow renegade) is unable to overpower the psyker’s formidable mental defences.

Not wishing to leave empty-handed, her returned and perservered with the interrogation piecing together what he could. Anya hadn’t been able to tell Kith what he’d wanted to know – there were no “magical” ruins about the place and certainly no temple. At one point she muttered, “I told you what you wanted to know – you should already have your army by now!” but when pressed said she didn’t know why Kith/Midian/Wayfarer needed an army (and was confused as to why he wouldn’t know), only that she wanted nothing to do with it.
Eventually, after Midian promises to return the eye he took from her, she is pressed into redoing Kith/Midian/Wayfarer’s “reading”.
She takes a fat yellow serpent from a basket and prays at a cluttered shrine consisting of herbs, animal bones, a Vinh-minted coin (Xanatov’s side is on display), a ceramic figurine of a woman holding a basket of fruit, and another figure – this one of carved stone - of some robed figure. Midian notes that it is not uncommon for primitive religions to disguise themselves within the trappings of a dominant religion, so doesn’t question these things. All this time she mumbles nonsense words to herself. She finishes abruptly, cutting open the serpent and emptying it’s entrails into a burnished copper bowl.

“See! Same as always, Wayfarer. Same as Anya always tells you. You and the Kingmaker are already on the path.”
She then goes into a fit. It abrupty ends and her bodylanguage shifts to that of someone with much greater confidence.

“A hollow soul, marked by sin,
“A traveller lost, hell beckons him.
“The monarch chained to stolen throne,
“A temple found… [laughter] by eye of crone.
“An ancient prize, sought, seized and won.
“First found, last forged, soon done.”

Whoever Anya is at this point isn’t too helpful. It doesn’t know nor cares about Maya Zin and sees the Wayfarer and Kingmaker’s progress as inevitable.

The reading leaves Anya weak. So weak that she can’t resist when Midian deocularises her with her own knife.
He realises that he has essentially doomed her to a painful death – likely sooner than later – so she is, effectively, of no further use to him. With this in mind he further realises he can engage in the spite he had intended to visit upon her for wounds inflicted by the undead in the jungle around her home (given what she was harbouring inside her, it doesn’t seem that unreasonable that she was their cause). He starts up his chainsword and carves her into chunks. As an afterthought, he searches the place thoroughly, finding a spidery grimoire beneath the floorboards. From the multiple corrections in various hands, he deduces that Anya wasn’t the first witch to own this book.
With the source of his terror very much dead, Mordecai is able to return and the pair snatch some fitful sleep.

The next day they head back, avoiding the village of Perdition alltogether. Hal (who is late) notes on the way back their dischevelled, bloody clothes, and listens with mild interrest to their story of how they killed some peasant witch.

Back in Vinh City, they head for a public park, the location of which Midian had planted in the transportation network. They wait for some time but eventually find their quarry. Maya Zin pulls a gun on Midian, preparing to publically execute him. She is forestalled not by threats or subtle mind-control, but by logic.
She initially tells them that she knows Midian set Kith up, and that Midian was trying to userp Kith’s place in the great work they had done on Vinh. Midian can see that this isn’t something she really “knows” (it can’t be, it isn’t true (though if he’d known it would have been – ha!)) but something she’s trying to convince herself of. Why? Because Midian’s someone she can kill and get away with it. The person she really suspects (and who our protagonists push her gently towards) is the Amael, Lucretia Casmirre. But that, she knows (so must already have conciderred) is a suicide mission.
The protagonists get a little more out of her, but she slams on the breaks before revealing everything she knows. Eventually, she wants an oath from Midian – he will not leave Vinh until Lucretia Casmirre is dead. Midian conciders. What she has is too important, it could get him something he very much wants. So, quite honestly, he agrees (for one, he suspects a second assassination attempt would be less nihilistically planned). She stares him in the eye and understands.

Maya Zin was bought when she was, she guesses, aged 11 or 12. This would make her about 23. Kith had her raised and trained to be a spy. Spies are a necessity for noble families, so Kith’s purchase isn’t unusual, but it hints at long-term vision, an independent streak and a more than healthy sense of paranoia. As she grew the two fell in love (Midian notes that this is unusual, if true – Navigators shouldn’t risk weakening their bloodlines by poluting it with offspring not wholy “of the gene”), culminating when he granted her her freedom.
A year or so ago, when the House’s fortunes started to slide, Kith decided to devote himself to what had previously been a dalliance – the study of Lum. He became convinced (for whatever reason) that Lum’s eventual disappearance wasn’t a mundane event, but the result of some empowering event. And it was power that Kith too could gain access to.
There’s more, but Maya tells Midian she’ll need to make contact with others first. In the meantime she sends him to Hostel Sierra, where she has stashed the mysterious “pages” with which she hooked Midian’s attention.

Midian finds them exactly where he is told they’d be – in a small, glass-fronted wooden box taped to the back fo the dresser. The first of the velum pages is an Astromantic map of the Vinh system, with an odd error upon it: it lists Vinh as “SRef: X”, but Vinh isn’t the tenth Stellar Reference point in the system, it’s the first (there being no other planets between it and the system’s sun).
The rest of the pages are unclear – they’re someone’s personal notes, written solely to benefit themselves and use phrases whose meanings are never explained. It would take some time to make more sense of it…

X Kingdom: Expedition

The protagonists get Hal to take them to the last place he took Kith – a tiny village called Perdition. The trip is pleasant, whipping along on a landspeeder, skimming the treeline, warm air racing passed. It’s only after he drops them off and they’re standing in the still air that they notice just how unpleasant Vinh actually is.
33 degrees by day, 26 degrees by night; 88% humidity. Unending clouds of buzzing, biting insects. Within five minutes Midian is miserable.

The able-bodied of the village are out in the paddies, leaving children and a few old folk in the village hub. The protagonists are dressed as nobles in comparison to the locals, who wear short, formless, threadbare robes. They are left alone by adults (who clearly expect nothing but trouble from these “rich” outsiders) and spied upon by the children.
At a watering hole, they are given free drinks by an elderly barkeep and asked to leave. When Midian’s questions provide little information – he pleads ignorance to everything – Mordecai savagely tears through his mind.
A navigator did come here, with a woman in tow. He asked about old buildings from the first surveys or the founding but, like with Midian, no one was forthcoming. So he executed someone in the street. Nobody was able to help but, desperate to appease the callous noble, they steered him in the direction of someone who may know more – a local woman who had been shunned and exiled and branded witch, called Anya Qi. The navigator returned the next day, but there was no more trouble.
The man knew only the rough direction to where Anya had gone to make her new home but, bribing some children, Midian was given a fairly decent map.

The trip is gruelling, but Midian proves himself a master of all forms of navigation as they trek through the steaming, rotting, serpent-plagued jungle.
They neared their destination around dusk. Rather than be relieved at nearing the end of the exhausting journey, Mordecai becomes suspicious. Something isn’t right. At his urging, Midian continues more cautiously. Even so, Mordecai notices them first.
Initially, it’s the smell of rotting, bloated flesh. Then the rustle of leaves. Then, through the dense foliage, they start shuffling into view – the walking dead.
Midian is quickly* surrounded. He fights a desperate fight, searching potential future-tides that will best keep him alive, but eventually falls – only moments after realising the creatures’ downfall was in his grasp all along. He lies on the ground, bleeding to death.
Mordecai fares better. Encased in a telekinetic field, he lashes out, striking the undead down, or else hacking them down with his sword. At no point does it seem he considers running. But is this loyalty to his meal-ticket, or simply him revelling in his superiority to the monsters the universe throws at him?
Battered, bleeding only a little, covered in putrescent gore, he soon stands alone. Through the trees he sees a rickety old shack. Shouldering Midian he makes towards it…

---

* A little too quickly. Oops.

Renegades

Midian Astis-Kyn: Rogue Navigator

Midian took his charter with the Rogue Trader Sarvus Roe to get away from the stifling restrictions of the Imperium, but found that he still felt suffocated. Abandoning his obligations, Midian seeks knowledge and freedom from a galaxy which will never be allowed to accept him.

Mordecai: Rogue Psyker

Born to be hunted, Mordecai seeks a place where he no longer has to run, and can explore his abilities in peace. As soon as that bloody navigator gets him on board a ship, he may get a chance at finding it.

Maya Zin: Spy

A former slave, trained from youth by the far-seeing Kith Conran as a spy for a House that was sliding into Shadow. Maya fell in love with her master and she believes he felt the same. He took her to his bed, granted her freedom, and promised her a place by his side.
But Kith, as has been pointed out more than one, kept secrets…

X Kingdom: Investigating Kith

Satisfied with the progress Bao is making uncovering Kith Conran’s research, Midian makes an additional request – find anything interesting about the Architect, Alba Kos.


Transportation Department

The protagonists then arrange a meeting with Niki Camen under the false identities (Navigator Malachi and his servant, Manfred Phillips). They find her amid heavy cargo-lifting Sentinels and civilian pattern Landspeeders. Niki is a short blonde girl with almond shaped eyes and blue irises. She is pious (to the Machine Cult at least) and proper. Kith apparently came to her, obviously having heard that she was the best pilot in the city, asking to hire her for trips into the wilderness. This outraged her – she would never waste the city’s resources (fuel, wear-and-tear on her assigned Landspeeder, etc.) for personal gain. The look on her face told Midian that others were not as “by-the-book” as Niki, but she was not one to complain about a fellow pilot. Luckily, she didn’t need to – she was thinking about one, and that put her firmly in Mordecai’s territory.


“Yaroshenko’s Landing” (a Pilot’s Lounge)

The lounge is lit only by narrow-beamed spot lamps, providing areas harsh illumination and shadowy darkness. The protagonists find it unusual, but the regular patrons seem to be comfortable with it, sitting amid clouds of Lho-smoke drinking shots of Rhya wine.
A small gratuity gets them pointed towards Hal Veche, the pilot Niki had thought of. Hal stands out amongst the other pilots, who are mainly short, dark and olive-skinned. Hal is a tall, fair-haired man, apparently in his late twenties. His hair is roughly cropped and his face covered in stubble. He wears a sweat-stained vest and his flight suit is tied about his waist. On one bare forearm is an Aquilla tattoo; on the other, a series of female names, all crossed out (Niki’s is fourth up from the bottom). He sits alone.
While Midian questions him, Mordecai once more exercises his Telepathic discipline:

• Most of the vehicles being demilitarised (only Planetary Defence weapons unchanged) and there were many redundancies (not a good time to be seen as a liability to the city).


• Kith had a girl with him (Mana or Mara?). She was quiet, but pretty and obedient (Hal was quite jealous of the latter).


• Hal took Kith many places – mostly the initial survey sites, frontier outposts and the outlying geologis operations. He came back from these places in roughly the same mood he left, until the last time (to a place called “Perdition”) when he seemed thoughtful, barely speaking on the trip back.

If they need him to take them anywhere he says he can do it for the same rates (Mordecai knows this is a lie – Hal is asking for more, but given the risk has increased this isn’t unusual).


The protagonists' temporary dwelling

Bao voxes Midian, distraught, afraid and angry (so much so that he isn’t thinking clearly – broadcasting on an unscrambled vox-channel). Kith’s research uncovered something shocking, something the Amael would of course want to keep secret, something that could provoke her into her current panicked investigation into the Archive.
Saint Akiah, the Lady of Prudence herself, was engineered to boost morale. The “Saint” supposedly arrived on a ship called “The Penitent Sinner” (which Midian knows is the same ship Lum arrived on), but that name doesn’t appear in The Penitent Sinner’s crew or passenger manifest).
Her three “miracles” were predicting the erosion of a series of dams and organising the safe and efficient evacuation of the people working near it (prudent foresight); toiling in the fields for seven days and seven nights without break (dedication to duty); and defeating the daemon Menqual (destroying evil).
All of these reflect traits one would like to encourage in one’s workforce, if one were willing to commit Heresy (inventing miracles detracts from true miracles). Mordecai muses that in the local slang, the worst criminals – murders, traitors and rabble-rousers – are referred to as having “a touch of the Menqual”, even now.

Maya Zin's part in all this remains a mystery. But, Midian muses, if Kith had access to the Transportation Comm-net, then so does she. Perhaps a signal can be planted to draw her out...

X Kingdom: Research

Midian checks at an Enforcer station, looking through the mug shots of missing slaves, hoping to find the identity of the girl who was with Kith. Sadly, if she’s an escaped slave she hasn’t been reported.

The protagonist’s next destination is the City Archive. It is strangely crowded – more Adepts present than desks, all agitated. They meet the frustrated and eminently corruptible Adept, Bao Alenichev. Bao agrees to meet them after his shift changes.

While they wait, Midian engages the services of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica to contact the ship Kith arrived at Vinh on, “Odette’s Lance”.

---

The next day he will receive answers to his questions:

• They picked him up from a small world in the same region.


• The girl Kith was travelling with was called Maya Zin (if the Captain didn’t know better, he’d have sworn the girl had a crush on the mutant).


• He was a good enough navigator, but there were times when the Captain thought he may be a little too fond of his Chems.


• While drunk he told some of the crew he was going to collect (or inherit?) the “Legacy” of Lum.

---

Later, at the Recaf Emporium:

What’s happening with the Archive?
“The Archive has been closed off. The Amael spends most of her time running the entire Transition through some augmetic link to the Administratum Communications Net, rather than from her office like a civilized person. It’s driving all the staff crazy as they have to wander all the way down if they need something signing. It may not sound like much, but the Amael is the centre of all city decisions – er, after the Governor, of course – so small delays with her ripple out. She delays ten Indictors, who each delay ten Scriveners, who each delay ten Adepts…
“It’s starting to become costly. And what for? She gives no explanation. The Administratum took copies of everything when they collected our Tithe, so checking the Archive is in order can’t be this important, surely? Especially not during the Transition.”

What do you mean by ‘Transition’?
[Laughter] “Switching the converted Sentinels and Landspeeders back to civic use, laying off the dead-wood in the PDF, that kind of thing. More than half the assistants for the Medicaes have already been shipped back to their parent’s farms.”

Why?
[Nervous] “Because we aren’t really in that much danger. But if we can justify the expenditure – given how dangerous the region is – the money can go into the Governor’s pockets.”

Do you know Kith Conran?
“I don’t think so. Who is he?”
A navigator.
“Niki Kamen said something about a navigator... I’ll check with her.”
(Niki will tell Bao that Kith wasn’t just bothering them, he was bothering the pilots too.)

Midian also convinced Bao to risk his career by following the logs to find out what Kith had discovered.

---

He will be only partially successful, managing to glean the following:

• The city was designed by Architect Alba Kos; a competent man, but not a great one. He was “assisted”, in some capacity or other, by Lum. (Embarassing)


• The term “Amael” was a late addition to the Lexicography and Charter – where the term originates from has been lost. (Obscure)

---

X Kingdom: The Protagonists Meet

Vinh Gazetteer:

• A frontier agri-world located in a place that is difficult to get to, given its position between The Cauldron (a warp-/real-space overlap) and The God-Emperor’s Scourge.


• In Koronus terms, Vinh is an old colony, but as it’s difficult to get to and relatively far enough away from Footfall, sufficient bodies haven’t been thrown at it to make tame it too much.


• The world’s main export is Rhya – a rice-like plant native to the world. That which isn’t already a rice-paddy is slowly being transformed into one. The local drink – Rhya wine – is a sharp spirit tasting something like a blend of vodka and sake.


• The world’s patron saint is Akiah; the Lady of Prudence.


• The only major city on the globe is the imaginatively titled Vinh City – a 7 tier ziggurat sat in a wide valley near the centre of the planet’s main continent, in the balmy equatorial band. The city’s tiers are subdivided into levels (or “landings” as the locals say) a further 7 times, making it a mere 49 stories high (50, with the garden atop the highest tier).

Biana’s Coil: Tier 1, 3rd Landing

The protagonists find themselves in the same bar; Biana’s Coil. It’s an alarmingly cheap establishment frequented primarily by voidsmen on shore leave.
Mordecai (played by Shane) is there, looking for a way of getting off-world. Midian (played by Dougan) is meeting a fellow Navigator (and Apostle of Lum), Kith Conran. Kith, who is researching Lum’s possible involvement with the founding of the colony, gets drunker and drunker, complaining about how his investigation is being blocked by somebody in the city government.

Lum was a (in)famous navigator who worked for one of the Expanse’s most famous Rogue Traders, Sebastian Winterscale. He had a reputation as an exceptionally gifted navigator, but one that took insane, unnecessary risks, often flying while chemically incapacitated (earning him the twin epithets “Lum the Mad” and “Lum the Wayfarer”).

While Kith vents his frustration to his colleague, both Mordecai and Midian notice some patrons who don’t quite fit in – two Eccliesiarchy priests. The two men look nervous and scan the room as they pass through to the other end. While both protagonists make efforts not to draw attention to themselves, four more priests enter. Two position themselves by the bar, two by the front entrance. Their leader, Sibellus, climbs atop the bar, declaring that they are looking for a fugitive and intend to check the travel papers of every man present (his men, who are up until this point just checking faces, start asking to see documents).
Mordecai glances around the room. The most nervous man in the room is the navigator. After that is a voidsman sitting nearby. The psyker subtly probes the hapless sailor’s mind… “Don’t find the xeno’s-porn slates. Don’t find the xeno’s-porn slates…” and a plan begins to form in his mind.
It is scuppered when Kith’s paranoia gets the better of him. Screaming, “Death to all oppressors!” Kith stands, whips off his headscarf and fries the mind of the priest behind him (along with half a dozen hapless voidsmen).
A chaotic fight breaks out while the voidsmen try to flee. Mordecai begins to crush the life out of the priests on his side of the room while Midian (and his faithful flight-servitor, Loki) take the other flank. Mordecai emerges without a scratch, but Kith is killed by Sibellus, who goes on to wound Midian before his death at the hands of his own men and Loki. Midian then repeats Kith’s trick to kill the remaining priest (and, again, a half dozen voidsmen). Briefly searching a couple of the bodies (little cash, bolt pistol and pass-icon from Kith, dataslate with target pict from Sibellus), the pair flee the scene.

Mordecai wants off world; something now difficult given a room of (admittedly panicked) voidsmen witnessing him killing Eccliesiarchy priests with psykic powers… but a navigator and his entourage would have no problem finding a shady Captain who would ignore this “unfortunate inconvenience”. Midian agrees… but is also curious. What just happened, and why?

Vinh City is unusual for an Imperial metropolis. Even at the lowest tier the air is quite fresh, thanks to an ingenious network of open internal balconies that branch and spiral throughout the superstructure. Though surfaces are plastered with inspirational propaganda posters, promoting duty, productivity, the virtues of servitude, etc., the architecture is a more minimalist than the protagonists were used to.
Other aspects of urban Imperial life are faithfully replicated – distilled even, almost to the levels of parody. Enforcers are seen openly beating suspects in the open, nervous joygirls argue and fight over territory, and queuing, sullen-faced workers pray to the God-Emperor that the local Medicae will have sufficient chems to treat the wounds they’ve received in the fields.

Kith’s Place: Tier 2, 2nd Landing

Kith’s place is alarmingly sparse. Even if his House had been declared renegade and his charter lost, he’d still be able to live in relative luxury if he were willing to sign on with a pirate band. Instead he lives… here.
His apartment is large – perhaps once the property of an overseer – but is in a sad state of repair and the humidity is turning the wallpaper into interesting sludge. The furniture is old, but simple and battered. Two of the three electrosconces that would have provided illumination have been stripped, the wiring twisting a short way into the room.

Midian finds few personal possessions. The wardrobes are mostly bare, a few sets of Nobilite robes left hanging (but they’re last year’s fashion). But there are a few articles of women’s clothing, also – one expensive dress, several work uniforms, and some really poor quality stuff that is almost rags.
The protagonists muse – was this some kind of romantic relationship (navigators rarely rut with ‘base’ humans; but one navigator living here is odd, two would be strange indeed), or professional (the varied outfits from different social strata points to the owner being some kind of house spy). A brief, informal word with a neighbour reveals that the girl was apparently Kith’s slave.

His personal navigational log is also a little depressing – there are multiple tally marks along each route he’s logged, probably indicating how many times he’s sold the charts. They indicated he’d been around most of the colony worlds in the region, never staying for more than a few days (unlike Vinh, where he’s been for three weeks). (This was highly unusual; there wouldn’t have been time to negotiate his fee, he’d have just had to accept each ship-master’s first offer.)

Mordecai looks through Kith’s books and in “Voyages (Koronus Edition) Volume IX” finds a passage that Kith has circled - Sebastian Winterscale complains about the incompetence of new navigator (for his flagship, “The Emperor’s Vow”). Midian notes that in “Fulgrim’s Almanac” it states that Lum renewed his contract with Winterscale just three years before, so he should have been in Winterscale’s employ for another seven years (Vinh is also nowhere near the “Winterscale’s Realm” region).

Finally, they find letters from three different city money lenders demanding payment – just a few weeks after taking the loans out. After talking to one of the lenders (4th Tier, 1st Landing) they discover that the “Amael” (Comptroller), Lucretia Casmirre, personally blacklisted Kith, reporting that he wouldn’t repay them. This is an overt attack on Kith’s reputation by Lucretia. His reputation among voidsmen would have to be appalling (losing a ship, killing the entire crew, being cursed, etc.) in order that not even blackguards wouldn’t pay for the services that he could provide.

While the protagonists rest, someone visits Kith’s quarters. They take most of the female clothing and leave a note: “They’re getting restless – meet me at the usual place.”
Something else is found – a vox code scratched into the bedside table. This proves to be for the city’s transportation bureau – an internal comm net intended solely for government employees.


Timeline

• 154.M41 (662 years ago) : Lum breaks contract with Winterscale and fades into legend.


• Seven months ago : His house sliding into obscurity, Kith breaks contract with his own employer and bounces from system to system, never staying on a planet for more than a couple of days.


• Three weeks ago : Odette’s Lance (the ship Kith arrived at Vinh on) departs, leaving Kith behind. Kith starts taking out loans. He is accompanied by an unnamed female in Adept’s robes.


• Unknown timeframe : Kith begins making overtures to the city government – ingratiating himself with well-placed bribes.


• Unknown timeframe : Kith acquires access to the transport bureau’s comm net.


• Four days ago : Kith is barred access to the city archive. The Amael has him blacklisted and the creditors start to circle.


• Yesterday : Kith tells Midian he believes Lum was involved in the founding of Vinh. When the Eccliesiarchy arrive he (incorrectly) believes they’re here for him, and starts a fight.

Outline

I'm planning The Path as a fixed-length exploration campaign set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

Fixed-length

Our story will have a beginning, middle and end. The “plot” of the campaign is linear, the individual episodes and your character's reaction to them are not.

The Path will be perilous, hopefully in more ways than is initially obvious. Characters may not live to see the end. Even if they do, they may no longer be suitable for any of the other, “standard” 40k games, effectively forcing their retirement, barring an (unlikely) sequel.
Your characters can bail at any time, but if you both decide to go no further the campaign ends.

Exploration

“Linear progression?”, “Forced retirement?” What am I offering in return?
Mystery, power, small and large scale change. And answers.

There's stuff I wanted to do in Warhammer Fantasy, but couldn't because there would be no way for the characters to understand what they were experiencing. I don't think they'd work for Rogue Trader either, because you were (quite correctly) playing Imperial citizens, happy to maintain the status quo while excelling within it (well, apart from Midian; but that's because Dougan's a freak).

Please keep these things in mind as your characters progress. If your character is too cautious, not rebellious or curious enough, or is unwilling to suffer to get what they want, chances are they'll wonder why they're getting involved.