Campaign: Creda
This the Creda sub-section of the Campaign section. In this sub-section are:
+++creda main+++
+++the planet creda: a brief history+++
+++ player background+++
<<<gm only: plot overview>>>
FOR GAMESMASTERS only, here's the plot in a nutshell (a pretty big nutshell, but a nutshell nonetheless). It includes an overall background to the plot, reasons for various characters being attracted to Creda, and information on the motives, methods and knowledge of the factions involved.
Of course, this just gives you the background - the direction you go once the campaign starts is up to you. Feel free to just make up any required detail that isn't written here.
Creda is a planet about to implode. The almost utopian lifestyle on the continent of Terra has blinded the people of Creda to the need to keep tabs on the industry of Silvum. Silvum has now deteriorated beyond repair and it is only a matter of time before the factories there stop functioning entirely, and destroy Creda's economy.
This will be a major problem for local Imperial worlds which rely heavily on Creda's exports, but the deterioration is now so far advanced that it is inevitable. All that can be done is to discover this before it is too late to make a contingency plan. With luck, if the extent of the problem is discovered soon enough, factories can be under construction on other worlds to pick up the slack when Creda ceases to function.
No one on Terra is aware of the dire state of things on Silvum except the Transport Union, the only such institution on the world, whose drivers make the trips there to pick up good for transport to Terra's starports. From their trips there they know that the ghost stories about Silvum told on Terra are far from invented; in fact, they are only a fraction of the truth. Not only have many supposedly active factories fallen into disrepair already, but the continent is rife with hostile mutants descended from SIlvum's construction workers, crazed Tech-Priests who 'rule' them, and all sorts of other unpleasantness to the point where the Union land trains mount concealed machine guns on every carriage.
However, the Union hides this even though they know the end will come soon, because they are so reluctant to give up the power, prestige and wealth that their position gives them. They intend to bury their heads in the sand and hang on until the last possible moment, preferring to condemn nearby Imperial worlds to being crippled for a few hundred years to giving up a decade or two's worth of money.
In their desperation to put off the inevitable, the heads of the Transport Union have turned to others for help. Through a mysterious man named Lorimar, they have struck a deal with Tzeentch, the Lord of Change - servitude, in return for the power and prescience to forestall the implosion of Silvum.
Unknown to them Lorimar is a mighty, semi-daemonic champion of Tzeentch and his plan is to destroy Creda even faster than would otherwise be the case, crippling the local worlds to ripen them for invasion before the arrival of the Eldar craftworld of Alaitoc, which would otherwise prove a major obstacle. If his plan bears fruit, he will have the surrounding worlds conquered and be in position to destroy Alaitoc too when it turns up. Over several decades Lorimar has built up vast hordes of worshippers amongst the 'population' of Silvum: the mutants descended from the construction workers who chose to remain on Silvum in M35, and the Tech-priests whose millennia-long isolation has driven them totally insane.
These people harbour a terrible hatred and jealousy of the population of Terra, and it was a simple matter for Lorimar to lure them with promises of revenge and power. It was through these worshippers that Lorimar gained access to the Transport Union, for Lorimar is a shape-shifter. He took on the appearance of a Union driver captured by his followers on Silvum and infiltrated the organisation in the guise of their employee. He proceeded to whisper dark things to the heads of the Union until they fell into the trap. When the time was right Lorimar revealed his true nature, as a daemonic envoy of Tzeentch, and is now acting as the leader of the Union.
Lorimar easily convinced the corrupt Union heads that their best chance of staying in power for as long as possible would be to disrupt Creda's public services and institutions with a measured terrorist campaign, drawing attention away from Silvum and reduce the chance that anything would be discovered, as well as attack any organisation that might be responsible for this discovery (government institutions, transport networks, customs offices etc.). They are attacking these things but others as well, in order to hide behind the fictional Front for Democracy; they have even bombed one of their own depots, resulting in the death of fourteen of their drivers, to draw suspicion away from themselves.
Unknown to them, however, what they are in fact doing is systematically attacking nodes of power and communication in order to make Terra easier to capture for the ragtag armies being formed on Silvum. These armies of followers are of course pawns themselves, and as long as they manage to accelerate the end of Creda as a factory world their job is done and they will perish with the rest of the planet. Of all the Chaos worshippers on Creda only Lorimar is aware of all of this - and he is orchestrating the situation solely to further his own rise to daemonhood. Such are the ways of the Great Deceiver.
However, there is a chance for the Imperium, for where there is anti-Imperial activity there will come Inquisitors. If they can discover the source of the evil and crush it, catastrophe may yet be averted.
Q: Why don't the mutants just trash the factories on Silvum? Why bother taking over Terra first?
A: Because they don't have time. There are many of them, but not so many that they can destroy an entire continent's worth of factories before Alaitoc appears and ruins everything. Besides, it was easier for Lorimar to exploit their desire for vengeance against Terra for abandoning them, than it would have been to convince them to destroy their ancestors' handiwork and thier homes!
Q: Why didn't Lorimar try to corrupt the PDF, rather than a load of truckers?
A: He knew that he couldn't gain enough of a purchase in the PDF to start things rolling without it becoming immediately obvious to everyone else that something was wrong. Therefore he used an organisation that, while just as powerful in its own way, was less likely to be noticed when he started messing around with it.
Q: Surely, in 5,000 years, someone would have noticed things were starting to go wrong on Silvum?
Not really. The factories are entirely automated, and it seemed that they were working perfectly - which, for the better part of 4,500 years, they were. No one had any reason at all to suspect otherwise. Because the concept of an entirely mechanical continent, populated only by mindless cyborgs, is a pretty eerie one it's fairly understandable why no one would want to go there unless there was a really essential reason - which, because the Transport Union always made it seem like everything was OK, there never was. It suited the contented population of Terra to shut Silvum out of their minds.
This section will help you decide who gets what information at the start of the game, and therefore form your player briefs.
These would be following up the rumours of anti-Imperial terrorism, especially Ordo Hereticus members. Istvaanian Inquisitors would, of course, be revelling in and propagating the general anarchy, probably hooking up with the terrorists. Whether they would be aware of who is truly behind the organisation is another matter.
Although Silvum's 'undesirable' nature as a topic of conversation tends to limit the number of off-worlders who hear about it, that would only make it even more compelling to Tech-priests who did manage to hear about it. Any Tech-adept who found out about Silvum would see it as his duty to investigate such a place, for if it has remained untouched for millennia it may yet house STC data - or even a databank…
Alternatively, it could be interesting to have someone play as one of the traitorous and utterly insane Tech-priests from Silvum, who has stowed away aboard a transport convoy in order to further the cause of rebellion personally, or else to capture more victims for their depraved experiments.
There is much money to be made from Creda's rich export industry and Rogue Traders could be looking to make a quick buck by buying and selling to the right people, or just making a refuelling stop or checking up on an old contact. Easy people to fit into campaigns, Rogue Traders.
Yeah, right.
Mutants, rebels, Chaos cultists, criminals and other Undesirables
The Transport Union is very keen to hire third parties to do its dirty work, to make sure that nothing can be traced back to them. These characters can therefore find plentiful work from the Union's small terrorist offices based in hidden locations in the cities' ghettoes. The types of missions they would be sent on include theft of weapons, bombings, kidnappings of officials and so on - general malicious disruption.
They will never be told the location of the base they are working from - instead they will be contacted when their services are required. They will be paid either in cash, equipment, or brownie points depending on the mood of the head of the local terrorists, but will always be rewarded well eventually - the Union has vast resources and doesn't want its agents turning traitor. 'Undesirable' characters could also be on Creda to engage in a spot of dodgy dealing, Ecclesiarchy-baiting or various other nefarious activities.
The Eldar know what's going on (albeit in rather general terms - they know that there is to be an uprising that will jeopardise Alaitoc), but since Creda doesn't have a Webway exit (convenient, that), they would only so far have been able to secrete a few agents there. These will most likely be rangers, especially as the Craftworld in question is Alaitoc, but equally could be other Eldar or even human pawns ('allies', sorry). These will have been gathering information in preparation for an Eldar strike against the rebels, probably from bases within the slave ghettoes of Terran cities where they will be less conspicuous. They may even attempt to warn the human authorities.
Other aliens are harder to crowbar in but could be there as Transport Union hired thugs, a trade delegation, or bounty hunters looking for terrorists.
The terrorists that actually carry out the bombings for the Transport Union are kept in the dark as to the identities of their immediate superiors. They operate in small cells of 5 - 10, using bases in the slave slums of Terran cities. They are forced to collect their orders from set rendezvous points, so they have no idea who their bosses are or how to contact them. This will mean that interrogation of a captured terrorist will reveal little of value, so a bit of cunning will have to be used here - maybe infiltrating the cells, then trailing their contact after one of the meetings.
Most of the terrorists will be genuine activists who oppose the hereditary government system, who have been duped by the Transport Union into working for them. Many of the them would probably react with horror if they found out who they were really benefiting.
Only the highest members of the Transpot Union are aware of the organisation's pact with Lorimar, and that they are behind the terrorist attacks; most of the Union's employees know nothing of what's going on. This means that the Union official who is sent to meet the terrorist cells to provide them with their instructions will usually be a powerful member of the Union. Sometimes they will even accompany the terrorists on a mission to make sure they do it right.
This also means, of course, that although lower-level Union employees will have been strongly discouraged from associating with Inquisitors by their superiors, a concerted effort from an Inquisitor will usually get them to cave in and co-operate - they'll fear Imperial justice more than getting fired! Cunning Inquisitors may be able to requisition lifts, ships to get to Secundus or Silvum, consignments of goods... almost anything really.
By the time the mutant invasion of Terra becomes clear, the Transport Union chiefs will twig that Lorimar never had any intention of helping them and switch sides - although by then, of course, they will be too late, both to stop Lorimar and to save themselves from Imperial justice...
Meaning the inhabitants of Silvum led by Lorimar and the insane Tech-Priests. These are fully aware of what's going on, although they are quite mad. Plans are in full swing, and a week or two into the campaign the first few mutants will begin surruptitiously arriving on Silvum by mugging Transport Union drivers and stealing their land trains. The mutants have a terrible hatred of the inhabitants of Terra, and by implication all 'normals', and will react with lethal force to any confrontation.
Lorimar has ordered his Tech-Priests and their lackeys to construct a massive communications array to act as a beacon for the Chaos fleets incoming from the Maelstrom, that he intends to capture the surrounding worlds with once Creda falls. They are doing this on Secundus, to avoid discovery and escape the interference from all the machinery on Silvum. Any Inquisitor discovering this will immediately realise that something very, very nasty is going on.
