Lore & More: Shield of Baal's Deathstorm

Growing up playing D&D, I always loved the overlap of games and stories, which allowed you to experience the same narrative a number of different ways. If, for example, I read and loved the stetting and story in the Forgotten Realms novel Darkwalker on Moonshae, I could get the campaign supplement and put offer a similar experience to my table.

This ideal is at the heart of what Lore & More is meant to offer, a sort of "Cliff’s Notes meets campaign sourcebook" for lore and RPG content from Warhammer's incredibly deep body of work.

I first tried out the concept with the Crusade: Nachmund Gauntlet supplement for the Warhammer 40,000 wargame. Here was a product Games Workshop had designed to appeal to the tabletop crowd, but actually offered so much more. It was a terrific war story writ large, and made for a fascinating campaign setting for GM’s to challenge their players.

This past couple of weeks Goonhammer has been looking at the Shield of Baal series, and as part of that I reviewed the novella trilogy: Deathstorm by Josh Reynolds, Tempstsus by Braden Campbell, and Devourer by Joe Parrino. Today we’ll be going back to Deathstorm, to get a look at the story, characters, and adaptability to an RPG setting.

Finally, note that for reasons that should be obvious this is not intended to replace the reading and enjoyment of Deathstorm. I strongly encourage the purchasing of the eBook in particular, not only so that you can enjoy the story as written but also for the ability to CTRL+F throughout the book if you choose to use it as a source of inspiration for an RPG adventure.

And now, like a squad of Blood Angels, a mission, and a teleporter beacon, let’s get into it!

Image credit: Games Workshop

1. The Overview

Deathstorm, being a novella rather than a full-on novel, has a very narrow focus. There's no planet-spanning quests here, just a single extraction strike on the Governor's Palace on a world being overrun with Tyranids. Make no mistake, this is thoroughly a combat story.

Asphodex, a planet in the Cryptus System (Red Scar Sector, Ultima Segmentum), has been invaded by Tyranids of the Hive Fleet Leviathan. It has past the point of salvation, but the Imperium is determined to deny as much benefit to the enemy as possible. The Blood Angels and Flesh Tearers are hours from planetfall, ready to raze as much of the world to the ground as it takes to poison the well of the enemy. The Tyranids may ultimately win, but they will reap no benefit from it.

Meanwhile, the Blood Angels have another urgent concern. Sanguinary High Priest Corbulo has dedicated his life to study of the twin curses in the blood of his Legion and its successor Chapters, the Red Thirst and Black Rage. He's found something in the bloodline of the planet's ruling Flaxian family, and he needs the governor or his progeny extracted from the doomed planet. Failing that, at least a drop of their blood.

Captain Karlaen of the First, the "Shield of Baal," has been entrusted to the task, and teleports down at the head of a score of Terminators to the capital city of Phodia. The squad splits into four teams and searches the ruins, but their arrival has not gone unnoticed. A Tyranid broodlord has been watching from the shadows, and moves its genestealer minions in on the attack.

Much like the early sequences in the movie Aliens, those early forays by the Blood Angels into the palace quickly go pear-shaped and Karlaen's team has to make a fighting retreat into the palace’s security hub. Vox-traffic is spotty, so the fate of the other three teams is largely unknown.

Fighting genestealers and even Tyranid warriors at every turn, they recover the head of a servitor from the security hub and make a break for the plaza outside to regroup. There, they are joined by warriors the Death Company, a unit comprised of Blood Angels who have succumbed to the madnesses of their bloodline heritage and are used as frontline expendables.

The remnants of the First Company’s other teams reconvene in the Plaza as Karlaen recovers data from the servitor head. Turns out there’s a secret undercity beneath the palace, a bolthole in case of emergencies. Governor Flax and many of the nobles have sought refuge there, and the entrance is hidden in the floor of the throne room.

Back in go the Blood Angels, continually attacked by the Tyranids directed by the malevolent intelligence of the broodlord. This time they’re aided by several of the Death Company, which has dropped from orbit to start pushing back the xenos menace.

They make their way into the undercity, finding Governor Flax and his coterie of nobles all laying around in a high. Speaking to the governor, the terrible secret of the Flax family is revealed.

When Governor Augustus Flax was a child, his parents- the current rulers of Asphodex- headed offworld on a trade mission to Satys. While there they were infected with the genestealer taint, which affected not only them but also his unborn baby brother. That brother is now the broodlord that’s been harrying the Angels, and has been itself hunting for Augustus in order to exact familial vengeance before it, too, is subsumed.

The broodlord throws everything it has at the Astartes, managing to scurry off with Governor Flax while its genestealers and carnifex deal with the Blood Angels. Karlaen sends the rest of his brothers back to the surface and goes after the broodlord himself.

He pursues the Tyranid deep into the tunnels before engaging in a fierce duel which he just manages to win. He gathers the comatose governor and returns to the surface, with the Blood Angels and Death Company holding a Tyranid swarm at bay until extraction arrives.

Image credit: Games Workshop

2. Dramatis Personae

Image credit: Games Workshop

THE BLOOD ANGELS – FIRST COMPANY

Karlaen, Captain of the First, "Shield of Baal"

'Karlaen is the rock upon which the First Company stands.' - Dante

Captain of the First Company of the Blood Angels
Face described as “battered, blunt and square,” acid-scarred. Blonde stubble for hair.
Has a bionic eye.
Equipped with blessed Terminator armor, blood-red with brass and gold chasing
The Crux Terminatus symbol on his left shoulder plate reputed to contain a sliver of the Emperor's own shattered armor from his battle with Horus
Has an aversion to teleportation. "There was no control, no precision, only blind luck."
Wields a storm bolter and the Hammer of Baal, a thunder hammer that is one of the Chapter's greatest relics and a gift from Dante when Karlaen ascended to Captain.

Alphaeus, Sergeant of the First, Squad Leader

Equipped with Terminator armor and a power sword
Tightly-shaved head with a "permanently determined expression"
Has a service stud over his right eye
"I know about architecture. You can tell a lot about a people from their architecture."
Squad includes Aphrae, Bartelo, Damaris, and Leonos

Aphrae, Battle-Brother of the First

Equipped with Terminator armor, storm bolter, and a chain fist.
Jocular and easy-going.
"Aphrae had a passion for calligraphy, as well as an inability to properly observe vox protocols."
Is the first to die to the genestealers during their initial incursion into the Governor's Palace (Chapter 3).
"There was too much laughter in him." He looked at Karlaen. "Captain, was he laughing as he died? I was not close enough to hear." -Bartelo

Bartelo, Battle-Brother of the First

Equipped with Terminator armor and heavy flamer
Taciturn
"[He] seemed to take pride in his position as fire-bearer for Alphaeus’s squad, and he was skilled at employing the cleansing flames to greatest effect."
Killed by a Tyranid warrior in the security hub (Chapter 5)

Damaris and Leonos, Battle-Brothers of the First

While they appear to be identical twins (and even finish one another's thoughts and sentences), this "twinning" was a "quirk of the Sanguination process" as they are biologically unrelated.
Equipped with Terminator armor, storm bolters, and power fists.
Very fair of aspect, with mellifluous voices and "too-perfect features that belonged on the ivy-shrouded statues of long-forgotten deities rather than on men."
Both killed by a Tyranid warrior in the Plaza of the Emperor Ascendant awaiting extraction (Chapter 17)

Joses, Battle-Brother of the First, Squad Leader

Squad Leader (team unnamed)
Bareheaded and battle-scarred
Equipped with Terminator armor and storm bolter.
Killed by the broodlord as the Blood Angels attempted to leave the undercity with Governor Flax (chapter 13)

Melos, Battle-Brother of the First, Squad Leader

Squad Leader (team unnamed)
Equipped with Terminator armor, power fist, and storm bolter.
His relic Terminator armor had a certain unlucky reputation.
Strokes the gilded skull set into his gorget absently.

Zachreal, Battle-Brother of the First, Squad Leader

Squad Leader (team unnamed)
Equipped with Terminator armor and storm bolter
"His crimson armour was scored by hundreds of gouges, battle scars earned over the course of a hundred-odd boarding actions, and a trio of silently fuming, golden censers hung from his chestplate, filling the air around him with a vermilion mist."

Image credit: Games Workshop

THE BLOOD ANGELS – DEATH COMPANY

Karlaen had heard that those who were so consumed were overcome by visions and ancient memories, and could not tell the past from the present. They fought the shadows of enemies past, and believed themselves to be on Holy Terra, fighting the forces of the Arch-Traitor.

Despite this, they were warriors without equal; it was as if, in their madness, they had been gifted with some small part of Sanguinius’s own strength. The warriors of the Death Company would fight until they died, and only death could quiet their rage.

- from Deathstorm, by Josh Reynolds

Cassor, "The Mad/Chained/Damned", Dreadnought

Renowned warrior of the Blood Angels even before he was interred into the Dreadnought
Fought for three centuries as a Dreadnought until his mind snapped at the action at Lowfang, and he was assigned to the Death Company
"Cassor stared at the scuttling horde that clambered over the bodies of his fellows and rumbled, 'Cassor stands alone. So be it. Vengeance must take place and Cassor shall deal it in red increments. Come traitors. Cassor is waiting. He has waited all of his life for this moment.'"
Killed by a carnifex in the Plaza of the Emperor Ascendant awaiting extraction (Chapter 18)

Raphen, Death Company Sergeant

Was an aspirant with Karlaen. "He remembered fighting beside Raphen on a hundred worlds, battling the Chapter’s enemies. But he had taken one path, and Raphen another and now… here they were.”
Equipped with a thunder hammer, bolt pistol, and jump pack
Killed by the broodlord in the Plaza of the Emperor Ascendant awaiting extraction (Chapter 17)

OTHER NOTABLE CHARACTERS

Augustus Flax, Governor of Asphodel

"Augustus Flax had assumed the gubernatorial seat at the tender age of seventeen standard Terran years, after his father, the previous office holder, had been murdered by separatists in a civil war which had briefly, though bloodily, rocked the Cryptus System. Flax was an old man now, and his reign had been an unmitigated success, as far as these things were concerned."
Retreated to the undercity beneath the palace when the Tyranid invasion began
Brother of the Spawn of Cryptus.
Augustus was the heir of the Flax seat of power, but when he was younger his parents left on a trade delegation to the planet Satys. While there, they were infected with the genestealer taint, and returned home “changed,” his mother now pregnant. The new child, Tiberius, was monstrous and inhuman, but anointed their heir.
Augustus attempted to have his brother assassinated, but when that failed he seized power in a coup with the backing of the nobility.

Tiberius, "Spawn of Cryptus," Tyranid broodlord

Strong melee and psychic power
Commands the genestealer population in the area
Brother of Governor Augustus Flax
After the assassination attempt, his parents hid him in the undercity for his safety with only servitors for company.
Though a Tyranid, Tiberius has a very small measure of autonomy at the time of this story. It knows that it will be subsumed to the will of the Hive Mind, but before that happens it is determined to find Augustus and exact its vengeance.
Stalks the Blood Angels relentlessly as they arrive at the palace.
The people of Phodia had named it the "Spawn of Cryptus," and it had been something of an urban myth for years before the Hive Fleet arrived, feeding from the shadows and growing the ranks of its genestealer 'children.'

Image credit: Games Workshop

3. Adventuring in Deathstorm

Deathstorm is a tale told across eighteen chapters, but is paced in a way that you can very easily consolidate it into eight sessions over three acts. In this next section, we’ll examine what those acts might look like, and how a gamemaster can position each of them into their campaign.

This story can easily be adapted into any game system you'd like to use, whether it’s one of the current generation of systems (Cubicle 7’s Wrath & Glory or Imperium Maledictum), the previous generation (Fantasy Flight's Rogue Trader, Only War, Black Crusade, Dark Heresy, or Deathwatch), or a homebrew campaign using the 5e ruleset or anything else.

You'll want to have stat blocks available for the following enemies: Broodlord, Genestealer, Warrior, Carnifex, Gargoyle, Ripper Swarm, Sky-Slasher, Combat Servitor

Image credit: Games Workshop

Act I: INSERTION (Chapters 1-5)

MISSION: The Blood Angels send down a strike team of 21 Astartes in Terminator armor to the surface of the planet Asphodex, a short distance from the Governor’s Palace in the capital city of Phodia. Their objective is to search the palace for either Governor Augusts Flax, one of his heirs, or (at worst) a sample of his blood.

SETTING: Phodia, like many Imperial cities, is massive- the size of a small continent. The air is thick and choking, filled with smoke from the many fires raging across the city as well as teeming with Tyranid spores. Packs of Gargoyles and Sky-Slashers shriek and flutter through the clouds. The sound of weapons fire in the distance tells of pockets of Imperial resistance, but eventually they lessen and still.

Tyranid flora is all over. Organic chimneys pump the air full of spores like perverse factories. Tendril-like growths give the appearance of the land being squeezed in a tentacled fist. Rippers scuttle just out of reach, frenetically gathering and rendering biomass for the Hive.

CAMPAIGN: Deathstorm is a fairly on-rails combat story. Including the Player Characters as part of Karlaen's strike team is the easiest way to get them involved, but the GM might look to place the players at the palace independently. For example, the PC's could end up in the security hub and be joined by Karlaen's team in their fighting retreat.

Session One: The Tribune Chamber

STORY: In Deathstorm, Karlaen and his brothers enter the damaged palace and split up into four teams. It’s not ideal, but time is working against them and they need to cover as much ground as possible. Quickly the ambient interference renders the vox nearly useless; each team is on their own. Karlaen joins his Sergeant’s unit and the six of them end up in the Tribune Chamber.

In better times, the governor would have held audience with his district lords here. It was large enough to land a squadron of the Chapter’s Stormravens. He let his stab-lights play across the curve of the vast, domed ceiling, but they could only pierce the edges of the darkness that marked it. It was simply too high and wide.

He looked around as he moved forwards. The chamber was marked by twisted debris and toppled statues. Whole sections of the upper floors had collapsed down, puncturing the floor, and amidst the structural devastation, the bodies of hundreds of Imperial citizens lay, heaped in great, gory mounds of mutilated meat and shattered bone. Karlaen had seen far worse butchery in his time, but it never failed to give him pause.

- from Deathstorm, by Josh Reynolds

It is here that the Tyranids make their first attack, with waves of genestealers appearing from all around- even dropping from the ceiling.

THREATS: Genestealers. They are being directed by a broodlord who- for now- prefers to hide in the shadows, observing and directing.

NOTES: In the story, Battle-Brother Aphrae dies here. He goes down in battle and is unable to be recovered. Barely alive, the broodlord comes upon him, probes this thoughts to learn more of its enemy, and crushes his skull.

Session Two: The Security Hub

STORY: The Tribune Chamber is too wide-open to be favorable for the Blood Angels, beset on all sides by an enemy whose numbers don’t appear to dwindle. They organize a fighting retreat down an adjoining hallway, shrinking the number of enemies they have to face at one time.

At the end of the hall is a security hub behind by a portcullis. Karlaen notes the coordinated behavior of the enemy and correctly deduces that there’s a greater Tyranid intelligence directing the genestealer force. They bypass the security gate and enter the hub, itself the site of a last stand by palace troops.

The space beyond the door was wide and filled with debris. It had seen hard fighting, despite the reinforced door. The walls and ceiling were badly damaged, and Karlaen took note of the toppled piles of sandbags and hastily erected barricades that marked portions of the chamber. Two parallel rows of statues marked the main drag of the chamber, and almost all had been knocked from their pedestals and shattered into unrecognisable lumps of marble.

'They made a stand here,' Alphaeus said, indicating the spent lasgun power cells and blood stains. He kicked at a crawling feeder-beast and sent it scuttling through a hole in the wall. He wrinkled his nose in disgust. 'These blasted beasts have already broken down the corpses. I can smell one of those digestive pools nearby.'

- from Deathstorm, by Josh Reynolds

The Blood Angels follow faint life signs to find a holomat (message servitor) pinned under debris, removing its head to take with them for later use (significant quest item). A trio of Tyranid warriors burst through the wall and attack, killing Bartelo.

THREATS: Genestealers will harry the players down the hall before disengaging. Once they’ve explored the security hub, they will face three Tyranid warriors (adjust number depending on party composition).

Session Three: The Fighting Retreat

STORY: With the warriors dealt with, the genestealers come flooding up the corridor, pushing through the portcullis scraps to get at the Blood Angels within. Bartelo has been killed by a warrior in the fight, and the team uses the last of his promethium tanks to flood the security hub with fire to cover their retreat.

Karlaen decides at this point that discretion is the better part of valor, ordering the team to get back to the Plaza of the Emperor Ascendant outside to regroup. Karlaen uses his hammer to batter a direct course to the palace exterior.

Once outside, vox service is restored, and they hear the sound of the other strike teams embroiled in heavy combat. They prepare for the next genestealer assault.

THREATS: Genestealers, Environmental. While the genestealers are in hot pursuit, they may only fully engage the players in combat if the players don’t retreat at a sufficient pace. The GM can provide some environmental challenges such as collapsed walls or open fires, or even ethical dilemmas like encountering trapped Imperial citizens or besieged palace defenders.

Image credit: Games Workshop

ACT II: DISCOVERY (Chapters 6-10)

MISSION: The Blood Angels have made their first foray into the imperial palace, at great cost. Fortunately, it was not all in vain. The servitor head they recovered from the security hub yields a harvest of critical intelligence. It had been sent out to scout the enemy disposition when the palace was invaded, and became pinned down by rubble. It is aware of the Governor's location- a secret undercity built beneath the palace for emergencies. The governor and many of the nobles have sought refuge there, and the entrance is beneath the floor of the Tribune Chamber.

Setting: The Plaza of the Emperor Ascendant.

The plaza was full of hissing, clawed shapes. There were genestealers clinging to every surface, perched on every statue and tumbled column. They swarmed up the fallen length of the statue of the Emperor Ascendant, surrounding the embattled remnants of Squad Alphaeus.

- from Deathstorm, by Josh Reynolds

CAMPAIGN: In this Act, we find Captain Karlaen's forces have been punched in the face by unexpectedly thick Tyranid resistance. He pulls everyone out of the palace to regroup only to face another overwhelming wave of genestealers led by the broodlord.

If the players aren't already a part of the campaign to this point, they can be introduced during the attack. Perhaps they saw the Death Company drop pods and followed one down, only to meet up with Cassor the Mad or Sergeant Raphen as they make their way to the Plaza.

Or perhaps you’re running a wild one-shot where the players are part of the Death Company! What’s important here for the narrative is that the players link up with the Blood Angels as they prepare to make their way underground.

Session Four: The First Wave

STORY: As the plaza erupts in combat, Karlaen hunts the broodlord he’s sensed directing the genestealer attacks after it directs a massive psychic attack against the Astartes. Karlaen glimpses within the broodlord's mind, getting his first sign that this Tyranid is something different than the usual when he sees a vision of a man, woman, and baby.

The broodlord gains the upper hand in their battle when it knocks a statue over onto Karlaen, but the Captain is saved by the appearance of the Death Company.

THREATS: Genestealers. The broodlord psychic attack.

Here’s how it looked in the story:

What was it waiting for?

The answer came a moment later, when his mind suddenly convulsed, wracked with stinging webs of malign thought. Karlaen grunted and bent forwards, clutching at his head. The others made similar motions, twitching as an unheralded pain tore through their thoughts, savaging them from within.

A haze of red descended over his eyes, but not the one with which he was all too familiar. This was a sickly haze, such as might overcome a dying animal’s last moments. He groaned as alien thoughts wormed into his own, boring through the walls of discipline and hypno-conditioning to hook into the kernel of humanity within. Old memories, long buried under new, were uprooted from the murk and brought forth screaming into the light.

- from Deathstorm, by Josh Reynolds

The psychic attack of the broodlord offers a number of opportunities for the GM to spice things up for the players. Keeping it simple, it could force disadvantage in combat until some tests of mental fortitude are passed, leaving players hamstrung as the genestealers press the assault.

For groups who enjoy a heavier role-playing element, each player might need to work through some tests associated with their memories as the broodlord tries to burrow into their minds. For example, "as the broodlord's attack probes into your mind, what personal trauma does your character most try to shield from its scrutiny?"

Once the players have withstood the broodlord's mental barrage, Captain Karlaen breaks off to hunt the beast as the genestealers keep up the pressure.

Session Five: The Second Wave

STORY: With the timely intervention of the Death Company, the broodlord has retreated. As Karlaen rejoins his brothers they must face more genestealears before a carnifex appears and attacks. The massive beast is repelled by the Death Company Dreadnought, Cassor the Mad.

Reinforced by the Death Company, the regrouped Blood Angels head back to the Tribune Chamber, uncovering and entering the vault door hidden there in the floor.

THREATS: Genestealers. Carnifex.

NOTE: This session is essentially all combat. Depending on your campaign's pace you can roll this into Session Four, or expand it with some additional discovery within the Governor's Palace before arriving at the Tribune Chamber.

Image credit: Games Workshop

Act III: EXTRACTION (Chapters 11-Epilogue)

MISSION: At this point the mission objectives have come into focus: find Governor Flax in the undercity and get him to safety. Thanks to the data mined from the holomat servitor, the Blood Angels know the Governor's location and how to get there. Karlaen also knows that there’s a personal element to the involvement of the broodlord, and that it isn’t going anywhere while they still have a mission to undertake.

SETTING: The first part of this Act is set in the undercity as the quest to find Governor Flax is concluded, then moves to the Plaza of the Emperor Ascendant for the final, climactic battle as the Blood Angels await extraction.

Session Six: Descent into the Undercity

STORY: The surviving Blood Angels and Death Company descend into the tunnels beneath the Palace, entering the undercity through a vault door that they are able to open using the servitor head.

Here’s how the undercity is described in the book:

The undercity was a mass of ruins, canals and tunnels beneath a roof of gridwork and pipes. Water dripped down constantly, somewhere out in the dark, striking metal. The sound of it echoed through the vast stretch of the undercity, bouncing from one hard surface to the next, until the point of origin was impossible to determine, even for one with the enhanced senses of a Space Marine.

- from Deathstorm, by Josh Reynolds

The Astartes hear music coming from a nearby plaza and follow it to find Flax and the surviving nobles luxuriating in a narcotic languor. They’re not unguarded, however, as combat servitors drop from the ceiling to defend them.

The servitors were repulsive things, made to order, and shaped more like the tyranids they were on guard against than the humans they were protecting. Jointed limbs stuck out from serpentine bodies composed of segmented, armoured sections, and human faces glared out from within cobra-hoods of ceramite.

- from Deathstorm, by Josh Reynolds

Once the combat servitors are dealt with, the players can secure Governor Flax

Governor Flax speaks with the Blood Angels, filling them in all of the family secrets that have led the broodlord to exact a personal vendetta.

Then, suddenly, the lights in the undercity all go out.

Beaten to the prize, the broodlord makes its move against the Blood Angels in the undercity. A mob of genestealers floods the plaza, and the carnifex makes a return appearance. As before, Cassor the Mad manages to triumph over the massive Tyranid.

The sluice gates above the plaza are opened, with torrents of water creating waterfalls as the spill into the plaza below carrying more genestealers and a warrior.

As the Blood Angels make for the exit, the broodlord kills Joses and snatches Governor Flax from the overwhelmed Astartes and makes off through the vault doors into the darkness.

THREATS: Combat Servitors, Genestealers, Carnifex, Warrior, Broodlord, Environmental (darkness, water)

Session Seven: The Hunt

STORY: Captain Karlaen is able to jump through the vault door before it closes, giving pursuit to the broodlord and Governor Flax. The rest of the Astartes are back in the plaza chamber, dealing with the remaining tyranids.

Karlaen pursues the broodlord, coming upon a sealed vault door. Sergeant Alphaeus has the servitor head back in the undercity plaza, so he’s forced to improvise. Recalling that the doors are gene-locked and that the genestealers- as "children" of Tiberius Flax (the broodlord)- have the genetic code to unseal the door, he kills two of them and uses one of their heads to open it. Tucking it away on his belt for further use, he presses on and is attacked by ripper swarms.

After they’ve been dealt with, Karlaen finds the Governor sprawled on a span of two crossbridges ahead:

[Governor Flax] lay prone on the surface of the intersection of the four great bridges which met above the main artery of the Phodian sewers, just beneath the palace gardens. Below him, water roared into the dark, converging on the great drain from dozens of sluice gates. Above him loomed the towering foundations of the palace he had claimed in blood and deceit.

- from Deathstorm, by Josh Reynolds

The Spawn of Cryptus attempts a psychic attack but is rebuffed by a resolute Karlaen. The broodlord then summons genestealers to attack and joins the assault itself. Karlaen takes a brutal beating, prevailing only when he uses his hammer to smash the bridge beneath them. The broodlord- and the section of the bridge it was standing on- tumble to the sewers below. Karlaen collects the comatose Governor Flax and prepares to exit the palace.

THREATS: Genestealer, Ripper Swarm, Broodlord. While this section of the story is a solo adventure in the book, threats can be scaled up depending on the number of players in the party.

Session Eight: Extraction

STORY: This is it, the grand climax. All of the remaining Blood Angels and Death Company have reconvened in the Plaza of the Emperor Ascendant awaiting extraction. The Spawn of Cryptus, while heavily wounded, survived its fall and throws everything it can at the Astartes.

Asphodex had entered its final death throes – the air was thick with smoke and noise, and buildings had begun to collapse, adding to both.

The city had become an inferno – towers of dancing flame rose from the ruins and waves of billowing smoke filled the streets and choked the air. Tyranid organisms screamed and shrieked throughout the city as they were caught up in the raging fires. Bio-beasts fled, trampling one another in their haste to escape obliteration.

In the distance, Karlaen could see shuddering mushroom clouds rising above the tops of those buildings which still stood. The red sky flashed and quivered like a thing alive, and the great clouds which marked the upper atmosphere were shredded and reformed by unseen forces. The ground shook beneath his feet, not with the trembling of seismic activity, but as if some vast titan were smashing his fist down on Asphodex. The Blood Angels fleet had begun its preliminary orbital bombardment of the planet, in preparation for the first landings of Dante’s main force. Time had almost run out.

- from Deathstorm, by Josh Reynolds

For an added element of tension, GM’s can put a timer on the extraction. The Stormraven is descending through a cloud of gargoyles and the players will need to clear the enemy resistance for it to be able to land and pick them up.

In the story, Damaris, Leonos, Raphen, and Cassor the Mad all meet their end here.

Threats: Spawn of Cryptus, genestealer, carnifex, warrior, gargoyles

Image credit: Games Workshop

Final Thoughts & Further Adventures

With Governor Flax loaded on the Stormraven and the extraction complete, the advanture is concluded as they land in Port Helos, the last Imperial-held spaceport in Phodia. They are debriefed by Dante and Corbulo.

From here, the Blood Angels will continue to contest the Tyranid consumption of the world. They cannot hope to win, but they can reduce the spoils of the enemy. For the players, a GM has several options.

For starters, there are certainly opportunities for other combat actions in the city. Perhaps a rescue operation, sabotage mission, VIP extraction, or recovery of a valuable artifact before it's lost forever.

Alternately, particularly any parties with a tie to the Ordo Xenos, the players may look next to visit Satys, the planet where the Flaxes were first exposed to the genestealer curse and the source of all the misery on Asphodex.

But for now, it’s time for a well-deserved long rest.

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