Fear Factory

Fear Factory is a play by post game run by Jerkface on the something awful forums.

Game thread: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3349329

Recruitment: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3348890

Background
Tasked by Inquisitor Ballast Croix to investigate a mining facility, the Acolytes uncovered a conspiracy that spans the Obscuras and threatens to embroil the Inquisition in a civil war with itself.

Mission 1
The Acolytes are sent to investigate a drop in production at a mining facility on the planet Warsch IV. This facility produces natural material which is used in starship engines/warp engines for the Imperial Navy and production cannot drop. The Inquisitor hears something that makes him think the Inquisition should investigate, and Senior Acolyte Maxilis is sent to round up a bunch of acolytes to throw at this task. The original team is 7 acolytes, and they immediately set about investigating the facility.

The Administratum appointed a Regent to oversee the facility, who himself had an Aide. The Aide's initial excuses for drops in production is a bunch of grisly murders. The Acolytes investigated the murders and found them to be committed by a cleric of the facility that the Aide attempted to have assassinated. Surviving, and going to ground, the Cleric, named Callidon Creed, proceeded to make war (being cleric of a Crusade Cult) on heretic workers who were brought in by the Aide. The acolytes found the head Adept under thrall of chaos brands, and the Regent himself as well. It turns out the Aide had the adept creating daemonic compacts, and having the Regent sign in blood, which was slowly draining his own life force.

Due to some... over zealous action by the acolytes, they managed to set the Administratum spire on fire (with witch-fire!) and kill the Regent in a way that completed the compact:

"Nihilius pulls the trigger, and there is a sharp crack as the laspistol discharges directly into the Regent's forehead. Skull shatters, brains liquefy, and the blood, bone, and hair splatter the surrounding area. Blood splashes the unsigned compact, fulfilling the daemonic oath. In an instant the compacts begin vibrating. A sickly glow overtakes the room, coming from the blood of the regent. Cracks run up the wall, and the windows on the right side of the room blow outwards. A howling gale sucks the compacts out of the room and into the night sky. A neon pack of bats flies across the factory, the daemonic compacts taking flight. Spiders crawl from the disgusting corpse of the adept, instantly frozen in rigor mortis, hands in the air grabbing for something unknown.

'''Nihilius holds on to the desk as chaotic energies whirl around him, eyes squeezed tight. When the storm calms down, he opens his eyes and looks around the remains of the room. "Well, I didn't expect that to happen," he says, smiling."'''

They moved immediately to the mines, and found a ritual being undertaken by the Aide, Havorst, to summon a daemon named '''Haedraejur'r. '''The acolytes interrupted the ritual, Krak felling Havorst with a crack shot (pun fully intended), then felling the daemonic vessel, foreman Bass, with an equally great shot. Vessel destroyed, the creature became a daemonspawn. Only after a few brutal rounds of shooting, and some quick thinking by Alexi to shoot a bundle of mining explosives, did the spawn fall.

The Acolytes recovered an ANCIENT TOME and ended the mission. The cleric Creed and the High Adept of the facility survived, and the latter was brought with the acolytes at the end of the mission. Rather than being picked up by Senior Acolyte Maxilis, they were greeted by Inquisitor Croix himself. He commended them for a job well done and took Solomon & the High Adept with him back to his base with the tome to study it further.

Mission 2
The Acolytes are given a month off, after which they are once again tapped by Senior Acolyte Maxilis. Some faces have gone, some new faces have joined, and soon they are off to visit a docked Black Ship. Inquisitor Croix suspects one of the imprisoned psykers may know something about the ANCIENT TOME. The Inquisitor running the ship is an old friend of Croix as well! Before they go, Maxilis gives some bad news: the ANCIENT TOME was originally archived in the Calixis Inquisitorial Enclave's library, and is now reported stolen. Someone may be going rogue!

The Acolytes meet Sergeant Qorn, head of the away team and docking security, as well as Major Trask, commander of the prison facilities. Trask leads them to the psyker's cell but the psyker is dead. Suspecting foul play, they interview psykers in adjacent cells and review the security footage. Krak checks out the storage hold of the ship, and finds a shipping container twisted open and full of blood and gore. For Krak, it appears as though something exploded out of a person. On the security footage they see a ghostly apparition enter the cell, kill the Psyker, and then leave by passing through the walls! The suspiscion is that it is a daemon-bonded assassin. A check of the records indicates that Sgt. Qorn is the one who authorized the shipping container be brought on board, and he overrode inspection. The Acolytes allow Major Trask to go after Qorn, while they focus on the Assassin.

Fearing it will kill again, the Acolytes head to the Navigator sanctum. There they find the assassin sucking the life force from the Navigator and engage it in battle. Vern is gutted by the daemon, but they eventually defeat it. Nihilius cuts a strange tattoo off the corpse. At that same time Major Trask is ambushed by Sgt. Qorn, who is attempting to release the psykers to cover his escape. The Acolytes drop down behind the enemy stormtroopers, and engage in a fierce fire fight. One of the Acolytes, Gaius, looses an arm. The team cauterizes the stump with a hellgun from a fallen stormtrooper and give chase to Qorn.

They eventually track him to the shuttles, where he is attempting to escape. Nihilius uses a psychic trick to get him to repeat the actions of starting up the shuttle, and that gives them the time to capture him and escape.

Mission 3
Capturing Qorn alive proves very useful, and the Acolytes interrogate him with the help of Maxilis. They learn that he works for Inquisitor Kyst, in the loosest sense. He is officially employed by the Black Ship, but he drops off psykers that they capture in safe houses for Kyst to do what he pleases with. He is a grunt following orders, and the Acolytes get the name of one of his safe houses.

They leave Qorn in Maxilis' custody, and head to the safe house. Given that the targets are psykers, the Acolytes find the red light district and score some mind altering drugs. One of the team injects the drugs, manifesting psychic abilities, and he and Nihilius are prepped for the ruse. They are dropped off at the safe house while the rest of the team prepares the ambush and starts counter-spying the enemy agents. It all comes to a head when Nihilius and Lor spring the trap with the rest of the team. They kill most of the pick up team, steal their truck, and get the location of the warehouse out of them.

They crash the party, rescuring 3 other psykers while killing the men working for Kyst at the facility. They get the location of the resulting 'factory' the psykers are shipped too. The acolytes were last spotted attempting to infiltrate the factory...

Player Characters

 * Nihilius Pax (Malicious Onion)
 * Eli 'Krak' Vern (Bobatron)
 * Alexi Novikov (Dapper Dan)
 * Solomon (Areyoucontagious)
 * Vern Ryhox (Atal)
 * Gunter Eisenmar (Clanpot Snake)
 * Davon Albiar (Diar)
 * Gaius (Winson Paine)
 * Lor Manyul (Count Drunkula)
 * Thug (Sion)
 * Bonesteel (Hooly)
 * 'Hack' Cromwell (CarrotColossus)

NPCS

 * Inquisitor Ballast Croix
 * Senior Acolyte Maxilis