Deathwatch Final Sanction Part II

Yet another snafu prevented us from starting on time. When we last left our crew, they had entered the the sewers under the Thornshalt Complex. As they navigated the tunnels, they detected the sounds of construction further down the tunnel. The team sent Rufus, the Wolf Scout, ahead to check things out. He reported back that he say some Cultists trying to cut their way through an armored door. There were two people cutting, several people standing around and one giant Aberrant. The Aberrant looked angry and flustered. It ended smashing a a piece of the control mechanism and a cultist in its rage.

This might strike someone that is very familiar with Genestealer Cults as slightly odd. Typically, the Genestealer Cult is linked both genetically, through somatic mutations passed down through generations, and psychically both through the nodal link provided the Genestealer Patriarch and the gestalt psychic link that all Genestealers have. This would prevent this kind of infighting. One Genestealer would never attack another or even a Cultist.

This is a subtle hint at something that is going on behind the scenes, but I don't think my players picked up on it. It was very subtle. I have to be careful what I write here because at least one of my players reads this blog. I plan to point out this contradiction by having the Kill Team find an entry of the Inquisitor's journal, which is an element that I have already established. Event his might be too subtle for them. Regardless, this is not a crucial part of the adventure.


The party decided to try an sneak attack that come off a little awkward. It ended up with the Sanguinary Priest facing off with the Aberrant for several rounds. I did the rules mostly correct even accounting for Toughness and Armor when taking damage from the PCs. I used a space Marine stat line for the Aberrant but I think that I may need to make them tougher in the future.

The Kill Team interrogated a cultist that they caught. Normally, a Genestealer Cultist would be very resistant to interrogation, but these are not normal cultists.

I also need to better define how social contests work. I let the PCs use Intimidate to interrogate the cultists and let them ask a question for each degree of success. Really I needed to handle this differently but I am not sure how. There are some rules for this in the Black Crusade books.

I also did not make them describe what is going on when they make the roll. In the future, I am going to have them describe their actions like scenes in Fiasco. They can either "establish" the scene and potentially get a bonus on the roll or them can "resolve" the scene and act out their roll.

It was a short session because we are old and needed to end early. Next time they are going to enter a complicated social interaction and potentially two big battles.

I doled out 1,200 XP for them to use before next session. This is rather high for what they have done so for, but there are some big holes in the skill pool of the group that need to be filled.