Hello everyone! I hope that this thread will not be in vain, but I feel that it would be entertaining for others, and perhaps useful as well, to share my campaign and player's progress in an XComFiles Styled Dark Heresy campaign.
About a year ago I discovered XComFiles, an already avid player of Xpirates I was eager for a new an interesting challenge. I was not disappointed. Since that first game where I admittedly got to promotion II then got myself creamed by Sectoids, I was remined of an old game I tried to run. An Xcom Game using the Contact Tactical Alien Defense Role Playing Game.
A little spoiler, Contact's ruleset is absolutely terrible and suffers from failure to properly translate from German. Sadly enough it took only one session between me and my players to realize that the system was at its center, unusable. Fortunately for the system it had a lot of good ideas, from world building to little subsystems like its fully usable Base Building, research, engineering mechanics, rules for dogs, AI, and even playable aliens! These things I kept.
I then made efforts to convert the Dark Heresy 2E ruleset to an Xcom flavored setting. Dark heresy for those unaware is the inquisitor gamebook for Fantasy Flight Game's Warhammer 40k run of RPGs, using a d100 system set in the dark future of the 41st millennium.
This conversion took a while as I had to build the weapons, the equipment, and item lists from scratch, translate the character generation to something that was in lore, and using crude methods of extraction, copy the UFOpedia from XcomFiles as best I could to cobble together encounters using entirely home brewed encounters (Until I discovered the wiki for Xcomfiles and felt really dumb). I took inspiration from the video game Mercenaries and have made a ranked hierarchy of officers for a faction for my party to fight against, or deal with as they see fight in the name of Omega and Earth.
I don't know what I'm trying to accomplish with this thread, maybe I want suggestions, validation, or to be told its not worth my time and to leave you all alone. But perhaps its to have an audience outside of my gaming group of friends, and to share my homebrew resources with other enthusiast of tabletop gaming. If anyone has any request to see my work to use in their own campaigns, have questions, or perhaps just to tell me how much I suck at game mastering (Which by the way, I suck at a lot) feel free. I'll be happy to discuss and learn from others.
Without further ado, This is Season 1, the prologue.
"Omega was formed in 1982 in response to a drastic uptick in cult activity, villages disappeared, politicians were assassinated, a 1,000% increase in strange creature sightings, and over a hundred confirmed UFO sightings.
Omega's roots are in the OSS, on the Eastern front with intelligence sharing between Russia and America, including the deployment of a division of commandos. With their assistance, several vital, but downplayed engagements went splendidly for the Russians, resulting in an estimated million lives saved for the Russian war machine.
Since that day, a small but strong link has been forged between the east and west where vital but secret information was shared for everyone's betterment. One of those subjects was the supernatural and unexplained. In an atmosphere where a mistimed rocket launch could spell doom for earth, knowing when even the other side didn't know about an object could bring a deep sigh of relief.
Now, however, they take supernatural and cold cases, secretive even to the UN, answerable only to the security council and immediate circles. They have gained great political power after their warnings that disastrous political upheaval will strike the Soviet Union. Their words were prophetic, and as the smoke settles, the situation grows more grim.
You are a fresh recruit, taken in during a great influx of personnel to the rapidly growing organization."
As of the start of this campaign it is the 3rd of February 1993, Great Britain.
The introductory mission is set in a secret research facility with ties to Omega. While I had my players make their own characters, I wanted to give them a taste of power, and danger, using multiple different playstyles, skills, and weapons to give them an idea of what you can do and make. So I made 4 "veteran agents" to play as for the duration of this prologue mission.
Background information:
Data information:
The base was developing a high level AI using something called an Alenium shard. Its job would be to control a drone platform and fight alongside human soldiers as a relatively expendable combatant.
Development started on police bomb defusal and breaching units, but Anama Dennings had something better in mind. Having served with many units throughout his lifetime he was trying to develop practical prosthetics and mechanical aids for those wounded in battle. Gaining wind of the project he offered his services and within a week had drawn up a blueprint for an augmetic arm that would interface with the human body.
Due to the complexity of its programming an outsider, Julia Rotenye was brought on board. Rotenye was a leading expert in complex mathematical variables and had released a paper detailing how the human mind could interface with machines through an interface.
Together the two made a new side project to the main mission of the base. They realized that they could make a man shaped mechanical analogue for the AI core to pilot, and if they could do that then they could allow unheard of cybernetic modification to the human body.
It was then that Omega took command and the staff were apprised of the threat facing earth, and even met a few survivors who had become bed ridden due to their injuries. With a new purpose they set out to develop cybernetics and a human analogue to send alongside their agents.
Primary data packets
1: The Alenium shard itself
2: Prosthetic and cybernetic prototypes and data
3: Primary programming for machine and biological interface.
Most of this is stored inside the “Cube” a massive two by two foot server that holds all the relevant information as a backup. But denying the enemy all the assets, especially the Alenium Shard is important.
---
Characters for this starting adventure
Gabbro Garibaldi (His picture for the game on roll20 is Max Payne in Max Payne 1. he is played by L4oftheWest, claled L4 from now on): A French Foreign Legion veteran of five tours all around the world he then joined Interpol's Response Team as a lieutenant specialized in firearms. Gabbro ("Ga-Brow") is a troubled killer who has nearly seen it all. He was picked up by Omega after his entire response team was wiped out by an alien incursion in '89 at Saudi Arabia. The only survivor, his already existent alcoholism and drug abuse was compounded. He has outlived five Omega investigation teams who have either died or been too terribly wounded to continue their duties.
He has been assigned as security for Cyber Dynamics' Omega joint project. The only things he knows is that he's to play babysitter and make sure no one starts talking about their work outside of these walls. This coding and computer stuff is way beyond him. Killing goons though? That's his field of expertise.
Notable skills: Acrobatics, athletics, Sleight of hand.
---
Carol Wright (Her picture is a slight auburn haired woman with a pendent, played by my friend Necro Raven, referred to as Necro from here on in), 31, Female, detective for Scotland yard for three years before being delivered an offer she could never refuse. She joined the UN Paranormal investigation unit in '90 as a field agent, before folding into the secretive Omega unit.
Why was this offer impossible to refuse? You dream, you dream things that are to be, you dream things that are thought impossible. You've made a killing in the stock market at least, but your minds eye is focused on one thing: Your death, and how to avoid it.
Your clock ticks close to midnight.... You're called to the office, Omega is jumpy, and so are you.
Notable Skills: interrogation, Psynisicence
---
Julia Rotenye (Stereotypical punk, played by me for this opening session as the original player couldn't make it), hacker, computer expert, conscript in Omega's little war. You don't care, you want to get your fingers above things you'd never even dreamed of experiencing, seeing alien code with your own eyes, and get paid an embarrassing amount of cash doing it as well.
Course you haven't exactly gotten that yet, as an agent for Omega you've been stuck in this stuffy British office building in the middle of no where writing code. At least Anama's little drone project is cool.
Notable skills: Logic, Stealth, computers, electronics
---
Anama Dennings (Pictured is an older man in a hard hat, played by my old friend SomeEmoKid, named Smoke from here on out), 42, Male, member of the Royal Corp of Engineers for her majesty's army. Brought into this project due to his own interests in robotics, and robotic fighting machines. To Anama, today is different, the last finishing touches on your baby is complete.
Course now you got a couple of government agents snooping around, one more than before, but fuck it, one is dumb as rocks, and the other is quiet as a mouse.
But what you're working on? Well, it will change the world just as surely as aliens invading will. If only Doctors Jacque and Kipling will see.
Notable Skills: Command, Security, and electronics.