Seventh Session - Unexpected Guests Pt. 1

So last session ended with the characters causing their Astropath to be possessed by some force and then shredded into a fine mist. No sooner did that happen when the Dynasty's flag ship voxed down, in forming the Explorers that 25 ships of unknown origin had now arrived.

It turns down that the unexpected visitors were a race that calls themselves the Scylla. These 'creatures' appeared to have some sort of wing device on their backs and eagle-shaped helmets on their heads. Their armor resembled that of Ancient Terran history - it was built to resemble bronze breastplate and their carried centurion-like shields.

It was noticeable to everyone that the design and aesthetics of the master shuttle (which they discovered in the bowels of the ship), was similar to that of their mysterious visitors. With a few decent rolls, the Explorator of the group was able to get their archeotech communication equipment to contact the visitors.

The visitors soon removed their eagle-helmets and revealed themselves to be human. Not long after, the Explorers were able to ascertain that these very different-looking humans were a race of people that were lost before the time of the God-Emperor himself. Indeed, they did not even know who He was.

The Scylla wanted to ensure that the party was not trying to waken the sleeping entity they found in the large, coffin-like structure. After great assurances were made, the Scylla offered the PCs the planet - provided they would keep the sleeper subdued and issued a challenge to ensure they were powerful enough to be its guardian.

Next followed a very easy combat. Partly due to my really terrible rolls, and partly due to the fact that this was the first tactical combat they had with their new psyker (Nick's using the Dark Heresy rules for his psyker).

The psyker laid down at Firestorm right off of the bat, which annihilated the Scylla's combat leader and pretty much ended the fight. I thought it was a pretty fair trade, however, because as a result, the psyker rolled one of the worst things that he could have possibly rolled for Perils of the Warp. He almost got daemon-possessed. Which would have certainly ended his character.

The rest of the session was dedicated to an exchange of information and culture with the aloof and mysterious Scylla. Part of the fun of this session was the lack of ability to clearly communicate with the Scylla. I had the Scylla speak a highly mutated form of High Gothic, which had everyone leaning forwards, trying to figure out what was being said. There was a lot of hand-gesturing, and pointing at objects. It's one of those very neat encounters you can only have in a space-exploration game like Star Trek or Rogue Trader.

In any event, the crew were able to negotiate a meeting with the Scylla and discover a fair number of things about the planet and the massive relic which ended the life of the Explorer's Astropath.

I will save those details for next time, however.