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Prelude: Cadian Dawn (IC)

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DM B:
Dark clouds obscure the light of the rising sun, painting the world in reds, pinks and purples. Dark clouds of dust and ash, made from burned bodies, scorched fields, and flaming promethium. Every night the black rains try to wash the skies clean, but all they do is coat the world in grey mud and putrid slime. Sprinkled with hefty doses of irradiated substances and toxic compounds. It would not do to be outside in such rain. The wise and the wary seek cover within the ruins of the great Hemshin Hive. That has it's own dangers of course - the hive may be broken, but there are still millions of savage Cadians hiding in the underhive. Every effort to stamped them out has failed. Of late there haven't been much effort in that direction at all. Let them sit there and starve until they eat one another and save you the trouble.


Cadia was once a world pretty close to the Terran standard. Great oceans, continents, varied topography. Breathable atmosphere, diverse biosphere. The world had a human population running in the tens of billions. Divided between a handful of major fortress-hives ('Kasr') and countless outlying settlements (equally heavily fortified). Pretty typical of many developed Imperial worlds. Cadia was also one of the most militarized worlds in all of the Imperium - and that's saying something. On Cadia children learned to use weapon as soon as they can walk. It was a world were every man, woman, and child was a potential soldier. It had to be this way, for Cadia was a world under siege. Looking up from the planet's surface you stared straight into the Gates of Hell - or the primary path into the baleful glare of the Eye of Terror, the greatest Warp anomaly in the Galaxy of Man. How many times Chaos reavers had fallen upon the planet no-one really knew. How many had died was an equal mystery, but it must have been trillions over the course of more than ten millennia of war. You've been told the world has actually fallen several times, but always been scoured clean and repopulated - the Imperium is very loath to give up that which it has claimed.

But this time Cadia will not rise again. The world is dying. Actually it should have died long time ago, but these Cadians don't seem to know when they have been defeated. For sixteen years they've been at war this time. For all intents and purposes it died ten years ago when Abaddon returned and destroyed the Imperial fleet. Everything after that was just mopping up. Ten years of mopping up and still your not done. Ten years you should have been up there, among the stars, following Abaddon against Terra. They say he's reached the Segmentum Solar already and makes ready for the final assault on the ancient womb of humanity. And here you are in the mud, with nothing to show for your sacrifices...


Last night was no different from the rest, save the distant booms of half a dozen gigaton warheads going off somewhere to the distant east. It's been a while since ordnance of that magnitude was used around these parts. You've no idea if the targets were Imperial or not. The vox sets are all screwed up because of the blasts. You can barely make out some Imperial propaganda bleating on one channel. The only other station within is Radio Liberty: Transmitting from somewhere deep in the hive ruins. It's issuing a warning to the Liberator forces that the Imperials have deployed killer-swarms in the eastern fringe sectors. The usual droll drone.

A sentry interrupts you; something big has been spotted overhead. Stepping outside you scan the skies above; something indeed: A raider-class voidship lumbering across the leaden sky, pursued by a trio of xenos-looking fighter craft. As you watch one of the fighters are pulverized by defensive turrets, but not before scoring a crippling hit on the raider. The ships disappear from view behind burned-out hive spires. The craft briefly reappears, long enough for you to see another fighter smash into the wrecked hive. The last of the smaller craft pulls away. The voidcraft is in trouble, but it still has power and maneuverability - you know it will be forced to land somewhere in the wilderness zones further inland. Cold it be a way to get off this gods-forsaken ball of rock?

DM B:
OOC: All the players (and their warbands) are in the same situation; they are more or less trapped in or around a ruined hive on a large peninsula on one of Cadia's continents. The hive fell long ago. It no longer represents a threat to the Liberator armies. There are still some die-hard Imperials hiding out in the lower levels and there is still some resistance out in the wilderness areas east of the hive. Supplies ran out long ago both for Liberators and Imperials, leaving you to scrounge up whatever you can in an attempt to survive. By now you realize you've been pretty much abandoned by the Crusade - and you are all looking for a way out of this mess. The ship you all saw go down in the wilderness may just be that way out.

The above description is conceptually the situation as witnessed by a nameless Champion. It's intended to provide inspiration. The players will have to describe their own starting position as variants of the above.

DM B:
Week 1 (6.666.015.M42): Ruined hive, somewhere on the Cadian coastline

You are presented with a relatively simple choice:

1. To investigate the crash site of the downed voidship. It didn't look like it was shot down as much as forced to land. It could be a way out of this place. The downside is that the eastern wilds can be quite hazardous.

2. Continue with your daily routines (please describe in some detail what this is if you pick this option).


For simplicity's sake were using Weeks to track time. The game starts on Week 1. The corresponds to 6.666.015.M42 for those into such things (i.e. about 2/3 through the 15th year of the 42nd Millennium).

Lurk Skywalker:
Lector Severus and his men approach the ship from the rear, on the starboard side, they pause for a signifcant amount of time outside of what the Lector estimates would be the range of engines heat should they restart.
As silently as possible the Scouts are divided into two equal groups one led by Adorus Galrek, the Lectors' second in command and the other by Roldar, the promising assassin. Once both teams have taken positions on some higher ground to scan the area the Lector and his Marines take their own position, lowering themselves in a circle of bristling weaponnery, surveying the happenings at the ship and around them. The Marines, their weapons readies, clearly seem expectant of some local investigative presence coming to the site of the ship's landing.

Edit: typoes

DM B:

--- Quote from: Lurk Skywalker on October 06, 2013, 04:50:51 PM ---Lector Severus and his men approach the ship from the rear, on the starboard side, they pause for a signifcant amount of time outside of what the Lector estimates would be the range of engines heat should they restart.
As silently as possible the Scouts are divided into two equal groups one led by Adorus Galrek, the Lectors' second in command and the other by Roldar, the promising assassin. Once both teams have taken positions on some higher ground to scan the area the Lector and his Marines take their own position, lowering themselves in a circle of bristling weaponnery, surveying the happenings at the ship and around them. The Marines, their weapons readies, clearly seem expectant of some local investigative presence coming to the site of the ship's landing.

Edit: typoes

--- End quote ---

Your warband's small size and combination of stealth and firepower means you're uniquely well suited to exfiltrating from the ruined hive; the weak stay clear of you, while the strong never see you at all. 

Beyond the outermost shield wall awaits leagues of no-man's land; a land so devastated by the exchange of heavy ordnance that not a single feature of human civilization or natural terrain remains recognizable. The world beyond has been turned into a seemingly endless quagmire of filth, rot, and putrefaction. Despite the dangers the area has been picked over by scavengers; the odd useful item can still be found, but do not expect great treasures.

You follow the checkerboard pattern of a hundred burned-out and rusted heavy tanks across the wasteland; it is a route well known to the Lector's men and unlikely to hold much in terms of unpleasant surprises. On the other side, beyond the range of the fallen hive's defensive guns lies a range of forested hills - or they were forested once, now the only tree that remain are burned-out stumps, silhouetted against the eastern skyline.

The voidship went down up there. Finding it will not be difficult, for there is a pall of heavy dark smoke above the landing site. Or should we say crash site?

No further progress until the other players have had a chance to catch up.

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