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Creating an Inquisitor for your Acolytes

Contributed by Old Scratch

Complaint: Gaping hole as far as the Inquisitor is concerned & a missing opportunity to use the Inquisitor to help define players' interests. My Solution: This is how I address the problem, by adding a step zero and using this as a means of creating a foundation for the Cadre, by communally developing the Inquisitor to serve as a sort of "center" for the group.

Character Creation

Stage Zero: Your Inquisitor Your characters will serve an Inquisitor, and it is that Inquisitors interests and agendas that determines what kind of Acolytes he recruits, what types of endeavors the Inquisitor assigns to them, and the resources and challenges they face.

As such, the Inquisitor is the one background element that all the Acolytes have in common and the players will create the Inquisitor to reflect the types of adventures that the Acolytes would like to experience. This gives the GM an idea of what sort of themes and challenges that players would like their Acolytes to face and creates a common bond in the past that unites the players into a cohesive group.

Step One: Choose an Ordo The Ordo you choose will determine where the Inquisitors primary interests lie, and thus your own cadre’s interests. By no means are adventures going to focus solely on this, but it serves as a signpost to what troubles and concerns the Inquisitor and the type of tasks that he may assign his cadres.

Ordo Hereticus: This Inquisitor is one of the “Witch Hunters” who roams the Imperium hunting down all who threaten the order: psykers, mutants, chaos cults, rebels and malcontents, and heretics within the Imperial Bureaucracy. If your group wants to explore the dark heart and mad fringes of the Imperium alike, sitting in judgment and carrying out sentencing, this is an ideal Ordo for your Inquisitor.

Ordo Malleus: The Inquisitor hunts down those most dangerous of foes: daemons and other entities from the Warp. They purge the otherworldly corruption and hunt down those who would sell their souls and the Imperium to the Dark Gods of the Warp. If your group want to look straight into the heart of the abyss and put their lives and souls at risk pursuing the most terrible of foes, choose an Inquisitor from Ordo Malleus.

Ordo Xenos: There are terrible dangers that challenge humanity from the fringes of space, aliens and entities of terrible power that threaten the might and integrity of the Imperium. The lying and craven Eldar, the rapacious Tyranids, the savage Orks, the genocidal Necrons and others. While the Imperium has navies and armies arrayed against such a foe, the Ordo Xenos combats the plots and intrigues of these aliens and the human collaborators that serve them. Ancient slumbering alien evils may awaken or the seductive words from alien lips may lead one astray and this is when an Inquisitor and his or her Acolytes sally forth to cleanse with prayers and flames the alien infestation.

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Other Ordo: If the GM or players have inspiration for another Ordo, this is plausible. Additional Ordos are hinted at in the book on page 273.

The choice you make will let the GM have an idea of what interests you, the Acolytes and what kind of foes you would like to primarily confront in Dark Heresy.

Step Two: Determine Faction: Is the Inquisitor a Puritan, someone who believes the Imperial Doctrine in its entirety? Or a Radical who questions some of this doctrine and looks for the inspiration from the Emperor in more than dusty tomes and the proselytizing adages of priests? Or some point between the two poles? Is your Inquisitor a firm believer, a quiet man or woman of their convictions, or a zealot? A freethinking philosopher-Inquisitor, a world-weary cynic, or a inspired rogue Inquisitor tottering on the edge of corruption and madness?

Step Three: Determine Demeanor Having determined the faction, the methods will emerge from their outlook. Does this Inquisitor value the Imperial Word only or do they seek out other truths, other writings, other ideas? Does the Inquisitor see in only black and white or is everything a shade of gray? Do they turn to words or swords first? At first hint of corruption does the Inquisitor excise the cancer or watch to see how deep the tumor?

In describing the Inquisitor’s Methods, you get an opportunity to give the GM an idea of how the Inquisitors themselves act and allows the GM to give a basis of how the Inquisitor will approve, or disapprove, of the Acolytes’ methods. You might be tempted to create the Inquisitor’s methods to reflect your own groups leanings, but giving your Inquisitor a different approach allows for a more complex and possibly contentious relationship with the Inquisitor that can make for a more dramatic and dynamic relationship with the Inquisitor.

Step Four: Determine Accessibility The spotlight is on the Acolytes and the Inquisitor will almost always be off on another task leaving the players to their own devices. That said, the Cadre is not working entirely independently. The Inquisitor will many times be available for correspondence or advice, and the Inquisitor’s network is another resource for players to draw upon.

First, how accessible is the Inquisitor? Is the Inquisitor immersed in their own work and abhors being distracted? Does the Inquisitor favor this cadre and assist them with advice and materials? Has the Inquisitor begun to doubt their ability and provide them with assistants who are little more than spies? Perhaps the Acolytes are viewed as little more than disposable pawns in a game or as mere tools to be used and discarded when no longer needed.

Once the Inquisitor’s interest in their Acolytes has been answered, the next question is how extensive is their Organization? Is this a new Inquisitor with nobody else but one cadre, or is this Inquisitor at the top of a sprawling organization of cadres, informants, safe houses, and control over the Sector Bureaucracy?

If the players want a desperate game living on the edge than give the Inquisitor a small organization, but if the players want a game heavy in politics and intrigue and interacting with other cadres and Inquisitors, give the Inquisitor a powerful and byzantine organization.

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Step Five: Determine Reputation, Friends and Foes What kind of reputation does the Inquisitor have within the Imperial Bureaucracy, the Sector and the Inquisition itself. Discuss what the group has decided about the Inquisitor previously and try to sum up his reputation in a few world: devout, overzealous, cold, calculating, cruel, brutal, sophisticated, knowledgeable, a loose cannon, hypocritical, dedicated, self-serving, ambitious, or whatever other adjectives fit in.

Once the reputation has been determined, determine how strong the reputation is and how wide it has spread. It can range from 0 to 20 and this is the reputation that extends to the Acolytes should the reputation of Inquisitor be known to those they interact with. This is used as a modifier in the game for interactions: intimidating people, attempting to requisition equipment, pulling rank, or in interrogations or inquiries. The modifier can be positive or negative depending on who the interaction is with. Those who are friends of the Inquisitor or dread them typically will have a positive bonus, while those who dislike the Imperium, authority figures, or the Inquisitor will turn that modifier into a penalty when the Acolytes know them.

You don’t acquire power without making friends and enemies along the way. Friends are those who have benefitted from the Inquisitor’s past efforts. This can be any faction within the Imperium, such as the Imperial Navy, the Imperial Guard, Death Cults, a planetary governor or others. You can choose none or a list of people who owe or have a favorable disposition towards the Inquisitor and their Acolytes. On the other hand, everyone makes enemies. Each Inquisitor has at least one faction resentful of something the Inquisitor or his Acolytes have done. The number of enemies must exceed the number of friends listed. This can be any group who has suffered at the hands of the Inquisitor, resented past intrusions or accusations, or rivals including other Inquisitors.

These friends and enemies of the Inquisitor are the friends and enemies of your cadre of Acolytes, should their loyalties become known. Just as the Inquisitor’s reputation reflects upon you, your actions may add to the number of friends or enemies that the Inquisitor acquires over time.

Step Six: Determine Training Unless the Inquisitor was desperate and wrangled up the cadre as a stop gap measure, the Inquisitor or his organization has given the Acolytes some training. How much training should be determined by the group and the GM, but players should be able to choose at least one skill from the list below, and more if they are highly trained or have long served the Inquisitor.

Ordo Hereticus: Forbidden Lore: Heresy, Mutants, or Psykers Ordo Malleus: Forbidden Lore: Daemonology Ordo Xenos: Forbidden Lore: Xenos All orders: Awareness, Common Lore (any), Deceive, Forbidden Lore: Inquisition, Inquiry, Interrogation, Intimidate, Scholastic Lore, , Scrutiny, Secret Tongue: Acolyte or other, Security, Shadowing.

Step Seven: Rumors Everyone at the table, including the GM, writes one rumor about their Inquisitor. This can be a brief alleged episode in the Inquisitor’s past, an error in judgment on the part of the Inquisitor, a terrible crime committed by the Inquisitor, or any other dark secret or episode that lies beneath the illusion of Inquisitorial integrity.

The GM chooses one at random: that rumor is true. The others are just that, rumors or hearsay and speculation that
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distorts the truth. These other rumors will be introduced by the GM through play, the truth of their Inquisitor the players will have to discover for themselves.

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