Scenario: Locate the Retribution of Chalador.

Part 1:

Setting: A gloomy bar in the boughs of the space port,

Port Wander in the far reaches of the Drusian Marches
on the edge of the Calixis sector. The bar is pretty grimy.
The tables aren’t very clean and, due to this being quite
far down in the dark, tucked away under an overhang,
its quite dark and dusty. The characters have gathered
around a table in the bar, which is quite busy due to this
being the change of shifts, its about 6.00 in the evening.
What started off as a conversation between two
customers at the bar has shifted into a gathering around
one of the nearby tables between the characters as they
discuss tumours. Eventually the conversation shifts to
tales of daring do. ___(each character tells a tale)____
At this point, the doors burst open and a tall, heavily
scared, bald man    with a cybernetic visor over both
eyes, in a worn, but serviceable greatcoat made many
years ago from the hide of some kind of Xenos walks in.
The conversations stops for a moment, as everyone
stares at him, but he appears to be a semi-regular
customer and the conversation soon resumes. He walks
to the bar and orders a drink. Players hear the bar
tender say “Sasphris, good to see ya. It’s been a long
time. I see your’ve earnt yourself a new scar.” Sasphris
gives the barman a look, its not an unpleasant look, its a
tired look, like a man who’s seen too much. “Its a long
story, Fen” He downs his drink in a single gulp then
orders another. Just then he overhears the players
talking about their adventures and gives a laugh. He
picks up his drink and strides over to the table. “Telling
tales I see” he smirks. “Well I have a tale for you, and its
probably a damn slight better than ____(tale told by a
character)______ He sits down between two of the
characters and bangs his mug on the table. “Even better
still” he says “This one is actually true, never told before
neither, cause it just happened to me not three months
ago.”

Intro tale

My name is Gunt Sasphris, I’m a rogue trader from a

long line of rogue traders. Yes, I know I don’t look much,
it’s not my fault. A hundred years ago the Sasphris name
was a good one, wealth, fame, glory, the name had it all,
that was until my great grandfather inherited the family
title and blew the entire fortune on expensive almasec,
Iho sticks and bad business decisions. In just ten
extravagant years we went from heros to zeros. Nothing
left but the very meanest of our ships and the very dregs
of our fortune. My grandfather had to start again from
almost nothing, scraping a living together as a freighter
captain, my father and I have had to do the same,
hauling cargo from one end of the sector to the other to
make ends meet. Its been my lot in life too for the most
part, and I can’t say it doesn’t have its moments, but we
have all hungered for something better, some smidgen
of the empire we once ruled. My chance for a turn about
finally came however, about a year ago today, with a
risky cargo run from Yun Doskurk out on the eastern
fringe to Port wander, carrying a load of mechanical
supplies for ship construction. It doesn’t sound too risky
does it? But the thing is, half of the run cuts straight
through the fringes of the Koronus Expanse. I’m sure
your’ve all heard of the things that lurk in those murky
depths. Warpstorms, Deamons and more besides. I was
a fool to accept it in hindsight but it was just the change
I’d been looking for at the time. Extremely lucrative, I
figured it was worth the risk, so I set off from Yun in my
ship, the Exalcior, ten months ago with a full cargo hold
and a contingent of 12,000 crew. We made good
progress for the first six months through the warp, but
then we entered the Expanse, and that’s when
everything started to go awry. A warp storm forced us to
come out of the warp early and traverse by sublight for a
couple of weeks until it died down. The expanse was
deathly quiet and even our long range scanners brought
up nothing of note. The Exalcior has some good engines
on her, My father spend a good deal of what money he
could scrape together upgrading her until she was a ship
at least somewhat worthy of the title of Rogue Trader.
She’s a Vagabond-class merchant trader, a small ship
perhaps, but she’s got some solid armor to her for a
freighter and can pack a powerful punch with her lances
if need be.

It was nearing the middle of the second week when we

had our first encounter with it, a faint signal was picked
up by our astropath. It was a distress call of some sort,
but it was so faint and garbled that we couldn’t make
hide nor hear of it. We would have left it for nothing if we
didn’t get another slightly stronger signal a few hours
later. It was still very weak, but we were able to make
out two crucial words. Righteous Path. (All characters
have heard of this ship) Of course the whole crew was
immediately and ecstatically curious, myself included.
We homed in on the source of the signal and changed
our bearings to close in on it. My astropath however, rest
his soul, was not so intrigued. Instead he gave me a
warning. The message we had received was
undoubtedly a ghost echo, the voice of the dead, for the
Righteous Path had vanished into the warp millennia
ago and no-one had heard of it since. None the less, we
had to investigate it further. A further week of traveling
via sunlight brought us to the edge of a vast boron gas
cloud that meddled with out sensors and made it difficult
to scan further, it seemed desolate. there had been no
further astropathic signals since our change of course
and I had just given the order to return to our prior
course when one of the spotters gave a yell, emerging
out of the gas cloud not fifty kilometers away like some
kind of ill fated ice burg was a massive ship of
extraordinary grander. I can barely describe her star
frosted splendor as she pushed her way towards us a
gilt bow covered with extraordinary images of battle and
faith glistened through the starboard viewport. It was the
Righteous Path! Her name picked out upon her flank in
gold filigree. I must confess I shed a tear or two at the
sight. It was beauty beyond beauty and it was all ours
for the taking. Perhaps then I should have known it was
too good to be true. But alas my greed took me for a
fool. We were paying too much attention to the ship, no-
one noticed the scanners before it was too late, for the
ship was not alone. No! She was nestled inside an
asteroid field that until now had been concealed along
with her in the gas cloud.
Bam! The first asteroid hit, damaging our void shields
and rocking the ship. It was only the first of many
though, and as me and my crew frantically tried to steer
clear of the field we were hit again and again in rapid
succession. Our void shields we’re beginning to fail.
One thing my father had not spent and money on was
the ships life support systems, they were the first thing
to go, instantly the ship plunged into darkness and cold.
The emergency power came on eventually, plunging the
ship into a deep red light that would be my constant
companion for the next two months. Asteroids continued
to puncture the ship and, as sector after sector vented to
the void, I knew that sooner or later the bridge would
follow suit. I had to make a decision. Die with the crew,
or leave the bridge for my armored and self sufficient
staterooms where I would probably survive the incident
but die later when rescue failed to arrive. I’m ashamed
to say I chose the later. I had barely made it to my
quarters when I head the tell-tale sounds of the bridge
venting to space.

Your probably all wondering how the hell me and my

ship are still here by this point. Well, I’ll cut the story
short. I wasn’t the only survivor. Somehow, against all
odds, the ships chief engineer, Obadiah, had also
survived. It turns out the guy has augmetic lungs that let
him survive the void for periods of time. Obadiah was
able to reroute the systems while I was shamefully
hiding in my staterooms, and close off the worse
effected parts of the ship with bulkheads. However by
that time, everyone else was dead. Thats where our
story gets rather macabre. Obadiah was able to contact
me via the ships vox and, after I had suited up, we
assessed the damage to the ship. We were clear now of
the asteroid field, but it would be some time before the
ship was warp travel worthy. We would then have to
spend several months making short, navigator less
jumps back into imperial space. We also had no crew.
We did however, have plenty of raw components for
making servitors. The next two months were spent doing
just that, turning men into machines. I don’t think I’ll ever
be the same again. It was disturbing work. We managed
to get back in the end. Our crew of 12,000 reduced to a
mere thousand mindless metal puppets. It works, I’ll give
you that. But you lose your edge. Servitors just can’t
perform as well as a real, thinking crew can. The
Exalcior is a silent being now, scared and empty. I
completed the contract of course. It was a good thing
too, for I had to spend almost every last throne I had on
repairing my ship once I got back to port. Now I need
some new crew members, a navigator amongst others,
and they don’t come cheap. I still want it you see, now
more than ever, the Righteous Path could change
everything, if I could just get out there again and claim it.

Just then, three rough looking muscle bound dock

workers who had been listening in on the conversation
from a nearby table come over. “Me and my friends here
couldn’t help listening to your conversation” the middle
one says. “We’re all, very (sarcastic emphasis)
interested” He’s uncomfortably close, the players can
see the other two drawing out vibe knives.

-start combat-

3 “scum” type colonists armed with

“Give me those coordinates!”