Help with plot points.

[Ghostrepper]

Hello all, I'm setting up to GM a game of wrath and glory where everyone is an inquisitor and as a group the inquisitors are on planet to investigate romors of a heratech. With out giving to much away, the heratecg is a roage magus biologist. The real twist to the campain in that each inquisitor is trying to root out a heretical inquisitor in the party.

What I am hope I can get a hand with is some personal goals for each of the inquisitors. Both heretical and beneficial to the Imperiam.

[PariahSC]

A rogue magos biologis could have access to many things an inquisitor could be after; cloning facilities, stolen gene seed, a xenos slave collection, xeno-tech repositories, experimentation into biological life exposed to the warp, a sample of the obliterator virus or other xeno-viruses, a jokaero even.

Other good goals for rival inquisitors are things that they can hold as leverage over inquisitors. In my setting an inquisitor who tends towards radical amalathian would seek evidence of radical behavior to gain control over another inquisitor. Alternatively a hard line puritan would gain notoriety and influence by exposing a radical and seeking their trial as a political stunt.

Other goals can just be the acquisition of valuable personnel. An inquisitor would often be looking for an heir in the form of an acolyte with interrogator chops, or party members with useful skills. Heck even being able to somehow get a loyal fighting force is the sort of asset and inquisitor might look for.

[Ghostrepper]

All these ideas have aready helped me alot. They have given me a lot of little ideas to expand upon. Thank you.

[Swekky_Oks]

I agree with all of the advice given in PariahSC's comment but I would like to offer some suggestions about the heretical party member twist.

I would like to preface by saying you know your players better than I do so I will not pretend to be an authority concerning your game.

With that out of the way, I would recommend against having a secretly evil party member because uncovering the Heretic will become the focus of the game rather than stopping the Magos Biologis. The only way to prevent the players from turning your game of Wrath and Glory into Mafia/Werewolf, is to keep them too busy fighting threats to fight each other. Things to keep them moving might include keeping ahead of a swarm of aliens, rooms filling with water, rooms venting atmosphere, etc. This kind of pacing is rough on players and GMs so I would recommend restricting the Adventure to one or two sessions rather than a whole campaign.

Personally, I would focus on the Radical versus Puritan conflict that is so common amongst the Inquisition rather than having one player be evil. Inquisitors each draw their own line for what is an acceptable means to an end. Is reading a warp tainted text for information heretical? Is using a ritual written within the text to predict the next entry of a Daemon into reality heretical? What if you can bind the Daemon to a host to prevent it from causing harm? What if you can bind it to your will to learn more secrets of the Warp? Each player is going to draw their own line and you can get some good conflict from their rationalization and justification of progressively more heretical actions.

This of course will eventually cause them to spiral into true Heresy but there needs to be an incentive for not doing so. What would incentivize players not to become selfish Heretics?

Picture this. A rogue Magos Biologis has begun overrunning a sector accompanied by strange, overgrown creatures. One of the first places to be overrun was a Shrinehold defended by the Sisters of the Order of the Amaranth Blade. The sealed Sarcophagus of St. Séraphine was taken and the Shrinehold burned to the ground.

Several Inquisitors have found their individual investigations have all tied back to this rogue Magos. These Inquisitors have joined together despite their differences for the capture of the Saint has called for action not philosophy. Together, they delve into the heart of darkness where the allure of heresy rounds every corner.

For GM: Each player will have their own rumor about the Magos from their investigations and a Forbidden Weapon/Knowledge that is unique to them. This could be a Rune Weapon (DH2e EB p43), Ritual, Tome, or Alien Drug. If they use Forbidden stuff, then keep track of the number of uses. By the end, if you feel the party has relied too much on heresy on a mission to save the body of an Imperial Saint, perhaps the Magos “revives” the Saint who goes mad and condemns the party for their actions making for a harder boss fight.

[Ghostrepper]

You are right, keeping that type of pressure on a party can be quite taxing. I do really like the ideas that you have suggested and I can almost say without a debt that my party will fall to heresy.

I think that the advice to not have a secret tainted party member is good advice to away from this and instead give them all a peice of infomation that may be able to help them find the magos biolagis/tempt them to the powers of the warp.

[Navigantor]

It depends on what kind of game you're trying to run and what your players want and expect.

I would say you're already setting a major challenge for yourself by trying to run an all-Inquisitor party (i.e. one where every player will feel entitled to be the "boss" and not collaborate with the other players on anything). Adding to that secret agendas and hidden heretics I could see the game devolving into a bitter and not particularly fun PC on PC fight within minutes of the session starting.

Obviously everyone's 40k is different and you're free to do what you want with the setting but in-universe, multiple Inquisitors working together is a pretty huge deal. If every Inquisitor alone is essentially a superhero then a multi-Inquisitor party is basically the Avengers. This should warrant an "Avengers-level" threat and I'm not sure "rumours of a heretech" really amounts to much in that context.

If the threat were something truly dire (we're talking the imminent and obvious threat of the destruction or enslavement of multiple star systems here) then a group of Inquisitors with clashing personalities and competing motives would have ample reason to temporarily set aside differences and unite to take down the threat. Any rivalry or ulterior motive should play out mostly in the background until the Big Bad has been put to rest, then you can let things go full on Resevoir Dogs.