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Dark Heresy (DH hereafter) is a gothic science fiction RPG from Black Industries, set in the universe of the Warhammer 40,000 (40K) miniatures wargame produced by Games Workshop (GW). In the game, players are Acolytes of the Inquisition, serving the God-Emperor of Mankind by investigating and thwarting heresies, alien influences and daemonic dangers that threaten to destroy humanity from within.
The book is intended as a complete system for the game, containing character creation and player information, system mechanics and rules, GM resources and advice, background information on the 40K milieu, a prepared setting for a campaign and an introductory adventure.
While it has some shortcomings, it succeeds very well in delivering an atmospheric, investigation based dark SF game. It will likely appeal to most, though not all, 40K fans, and also to those who like investigative RPG stories.
As at January 2008, the book retails for around £35, USD$50 or AUD$80. Owing to a corporate restructure and downsizing at GW, the game line is due to end after September 2008 after which the rulebook and supplements will no longer be produced.
Preliminary Comments
Why the fuss?
DH has generated some noticeable buzz amongst gamers. Many have wanted an RPG for 40K for a long time. It is one of the most popular and ubiquitous miniatures wargames, with a very unique flavour of SF. It has also been around a long time, since Rogue Trader in 1987. Many gamers play it currently, or have played it at some point in the past. Until now there has not been an official, full-scale 40K RPG. Given the popularity of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP) over the last two decades, many gamers have seen this as a lamentable omission. Hence the fuss over DH now.
Disclosure of bias.
No, I don’t work for GW and I’m not reviewing a complimentary copy of DH. But I’m human, so I have inherent bias like everyone else. So: a brief note on the background shaping my opinions.
I played the 40K wargame from 1990 to about 1995. I retired around the time GW refocused their products to target the 12-18 y.o. male demographic, which was not me by that stage. I retain an SF enthusiast’s interest in the setting, but no particularly partisan positive or negative opinion on 40K or GW. I have read Ian Watson’s original 40K novels Inquisitor, Harlequin and Chaos Child, but not the more recent Eisenhorn and Ravenor trilogies by Dan Abnett that were apparently highly influential source material for DH.
In general, I play RPGs and not tabletop wargames, in recent years mostly White Wolf’s old and new World of Darkness, though I’ve played a lot of different RPGs over the years.
The Thing Itself
DH is a big hardcover book of 400 pages of high-quality colour printed paper. About the same thickness as Mage: The Awakening. The quality of the cover and binding seems good, though time will tell.
GW products have always had high production values in my experience. It continues in DH. The cover illustration by Clint Langley shows a trio of menacing individuals, presumably agents of the Inquisition, outfitted with grim and baroquely decorated weapons and armour. They look to be an Inquisitor, a cyborg sniper, and the obligatory ninja chick in a leather cat suit. Main colours are black, red and gold. It’s very nice and extremely evocative. The interior contains a mix of colour and black and white illustrations of similarly high quality.
The artwork throughout deserves special note, not just because of the quality, but also for the unified aesthetic and tone. Most RPG books contain a mix of artwork that varies or sometimes even clashes in the ‘feel’ it communicates about the game. (Some White Wolf products spring to mind.) What is really noticeable in DH is the way all of the artwork combines and complements to present a coherent ‘feel’ for the setting. One could get a good and accurate base idea of the setting simply from looking through all the illustrations. Given the unique, non-standard SF milieu in the game, this is potentially a useful thing for players new to 40K.
The book contains a few minor typos and punctuation errors. The editing quality is not as good as say, a D&D3.5 book, but no worse than White Wolf products. There are no cut-off paragraphs or ‘refer to page XX’. I found no errors of the size or sort that actually stopped me understanding what was being communicated in the text.
There is a three-page table of contents that includes an index of sidebar discussions at the beginning of the book. There is a good and reasonably comprehensive four-page index at the end of the book. It includes a separate index of tables and charts, which is always nice.
The writing style is accessible and easy to understand. Much of it is sprinkled here and there with setting flavour and the edge of black humour that is a signature of GW products.
Content
Introduction 5p
Begins by introducing the 40K setting. I’ll explain the premise and concepts of the setting as briefly as I can for unfamiliar with it, because 40K is an SF beast all it’s own. If you’re already familiar with 40K, I beg your indulgence.
40K began as a mish-mash of ideas begged, borrowed and stolen from other SF from the 1980s. Popular 2000AD comic strips of the time such as Judge Dredd and Rogue Trooper were a noticeable influence. One would have expected the result to be an uninteresting mess of derivative garbage, but somehow GW chucked it all into the cauldron and came up with something that after two decades of development has a style all its own.
In a nutshell:
- In the 15th millennium (13,000 years in the future), humanity gets a system of sub-light interstellar travel going and starts colonizing neighbouring solar systems.
- In the 20th millennium, warp drive is discovered, allowing faster than light travel by jumping through the warp, a parallel dimension consisting of emotional and psychic energy. Great scientific advances are also made, together this causes an explosive expansion into the galaxy. Humanity runs into some (mainly hostile) aliens.
- Around the 25th millennium starts the Age of Strife. Some Humans start to evolve psychic powers, and typically go insane or are daemonically possessed. Warp storms cut-off space travel between large swathes of human space. This causes widespread panic and war, and civilisation starts to collapse.
- In the 30th millennium it’s all come tumbling down. There’s a massive civil war between the Emperor of Mankind and His right-hand guy who’s been possessed. The Emperor wins, but is crippled and exists in living death encased in a life-support throne.
- The Imperium is slowly re-established as a feudal totalitarian state of millions of worlds. The level of technology is lower than in the era of expansion. Society is traditionalist and totally geared towards humanity’s survival in a hostile universe at the expense of compassion or morality, a perpetual state of war. The Emperor is revered as a living god. That’s pretty much how it proceeds up to the 41st millennium, the time of the game setting.
Dark, you may observe. What stops the setting from being a complete downer is the over-the-top baroque style, and the gallows humour running through it all. There’s a sly wink and a sense of fun underneath the darkness.
The premise of the DH game is then that the player characters are Acolytes working for the Inquisition. It’s an organization within the Imperium that secretly investigates and roots out rebellion and heresy, subversive alien influences, and the worship and influence of warp entities and daemons. This requires finesse and secrecy because these threats are forbidden knowledge, kept secret so humanity remains (relatively) docile and manageable. Players are not Inquisitors themselves, but low-level agents called Acolytes operating on behalf of an Inquisitor, who gives them missions from the background. Kind of a Charlie to the players’ Angels, to borrow from a completely antithetical genre for the purposes of metaphor.
The introduction also contains the obligatory ‘What is a Roleplaying Game?’ spiel and a short example transcript of table play, both of which do the job adequately.
Chapter 1 Character Creation 25pp
Describes the step-by step process to creating a new Acolyte character ready for play.
One’s race must be human. The first step in creation is choosing or rolling the Homeworld type you were born and bred from. Choices are: Feral World (mediaeval or lower tech level, tribal society), Hive World (highly populated, industrialised and polluted, urban society), Imperial World (all other world types, from agricultural to mining to religious) and Void Born (in space on a warp ship or orbital).
World choice provides several base traits affecting skills or abilities, reflecting one’s upbringing. It also has minor affects on generation of stats, and determines which Careers (classes) are available to the character. Each Homeworld type has about two pages providing background and explaining the traits and Career options.
Next is rolling base stats, which are percentile based (1-100). The base stats are: Weapon Skill, Ballistic Skill, Strength Skill, Toughness, Agility, Intelligence, Perception, Willpower and Fellowship. Some stats also have a derived bonus, which is simply the 10s digit of the stat (i.e. if Toughness is 34, Toughness bonus is 3). Stats are typically 2d10+20, but some will be higher (2d10+25) or lower (2d10+15) depending on the character’s Homeworld.
Career is then determined by choice or rolled. There are eight Careers: Adept, Arbitrator, Assassin, Cleric, Guardsman, Imperial Psyker, Scum and Tech-Adept. These are described in detail in Chapter 2. Each Career is given a set of starting skills, talents and equipment that includes some either/or choices that allow some adjustment to stat strengths/weakness.
Then the remaining stats and details. Wounds, the damage one can sustain, are rolled and the possible range is modified according to Homeworld. Fate points are luck allowing re-rolls, saving one’s bacon and such, and are generated in the same manner as wounds. Movement is calculated. Starting money is rolled, depending on Career, and can be used to buy additional gear. The character is then given 400xp to represent the initial talent that separated them from the pack in the eyes of the Inquisition and led to their recruitment. 400 is basically enough to buy four skills, talents or stat increases of +5.
Lastly a nice series of tables to generate build, age, appearance, quirks and personality based on Homeworld, and also a table for different names. One also rolls for an Imperial Tarot Divination, which was performed on the character upon entry into the Inquisition. These are phrases that are wonderfully baroque and evocative, and provide a small thematic bonus or penalty to stats. Examples include:
“Only the insane have strength enough to prosper, only those who prosper may judge what is sane.” (+2 insanity points.)
“Kill the alien before it can speak its lies.” (+2 Agility.)
“The only true fear is of dying with your duty not done.” (+2 Wounds.)
There is also short section of suggestions about developing the descriptions of character’s personality and back-story, what they desire and what they hate. After that, you have a character ready to serve the God-Emperor by rooting out the heretic, the alien and the mutant…
Chapter 2 Career Paths 49pp
This is an extensive chapter, and the best part of DH in terms of RPG design. Each Career gets about seven pages. There’s a detailed description explaining the background and nature of the Career and its Acolyte role within the Inquisition. There is a Rank Chart that is basically a decision tree showing how spending experience and Career progression works. An Advancement Scheme details the experience costs to improve stats for the Career. A series of charts then detail what skills and talents can be bought with experience at each rank of the character’s Career.
The system of advancement is quite different, and substantially more flexible and logical, than the Career system of WFRP from which DH inherited its general game mechanics. WFRP progression sometimes worked, sometimes it required some GM world-bending to rationalise, and sometimes it was just silly. The system also produced some odd and winding Career progressions as players would groom a powerful melee combat character. The system wasn’t game breaking, but far from good. It tended to harm suspension of disbelief after a while, and I am glad it has not been carried over to DH.
Acolyte characters remain in the same Career for the duration. As they spend experience, they progress in rank within that same Career. Every 500, 1000 or eventually 2000 experience, the character advances a rank. That’s total spent, whether it was on stat increases, skills or talents. They top out at eighth rank with 15,000xp at which point they go off to train to be full Inquisitors, or stone-cold bad-asses in some other fashion, and are removed from play. DH suggests around to 200xp per session, so that’s around 75 sessions for one character.
Each Career has its own table of experience cost to increase each stat. A stat can be increased by +5 up to four times, but costs compound and it gets pretty expensive. Costs vary depending on the strengths and weaknesses of the Career. 3 will be relatively cheap, 2 relatively expensive and the rest will be average cost. These costs stay the same regardless of the character’s current rank in their Career.
Skills and talents can be purchased for usually 100xp but sometimes as much as 300. What is available is determined by a chart for the current rank that will have between 15-30 choices. It quickly becomes clear that there’s no way you can buy them all, and you’re not supposed to. What you choose to buy determines the character’s focus within the broader category of their Career. For example, a Guardsman (combat Career) might focus on improving Weapon Skill and melee skills and talents, or Ballistic Skill and shooting, or Fellowship and command abilities. Once you’ve spent the xp range for your Career rank you advance to the next rank, and gain access to a new set of skills and talents.
The chart for skill and talent advancements is determined by a decision tree. This is linear for the first half, and then forks to 2 or 3 separate paths representing a different focus in the Career. For example a Psyker must choose between becoming a Savant (combat skills and powers) or a Scholar (social, investigation and knowledge skills and powers). There is a fork like this for each Career.
The end result is a system that provides a defined general Career idea for a character, but allows a lot of freedom to customise. Because each Career has different ways to specialise, a player can adapt their character to their play style quite easily. It also facilitates a broad skill set in the Acolyte group and each Career type can offer some different and useful to the group, rather than just variations on combat roles.
It has some crunch to it, relative to that which exists in WFRP character advancement. Character advancement is probably the crunchiest part of the game, but it is crunch with a purpose that benefits the DH system. It’s not actually difficult, and certainly no more complex than a character gaining a level in D&D3.5.
A brief summary of the Careers.
The Adept favours Intelligence, Perception and Willpower. Adepts are bureaucrats and academics of the Imperial Administratum, good at knowledge and investigation skills. Later, they can specialise in comptrolling Imperial knowledge or on forbidden secrets and developing psychic talent.
The Arbitrator favours Ballistic Skill, Toughness and Intelligence. Arbitrators are interstellar law officers, good at investigation, interrogation and combat. Later, they can specialise as brute force types or detective types.
The Assassin favours Weapon Skill, Ballistic Skill and Agility. Assassins are hitmen or death-cult members, not full blown kill-you-with-my-eyelash official Imperial Assassins. They are good at finesse combat, stealth and stalking. Later, they can specialise as battlefield killers or spy-infiltrators.
The Cleric favours Ballistic Skill, Willpower and Fellowship. Clerics are priests of the worship of the God-Emperor, and are something of generalists. Later, they can specialise as inspirational orators or as battle priests smiting the enemy.
The Guardsman favours Ballistic Skill, Weapons Skill and Strength. Guardsmen are Imperial soldiers or mercenaries, good at combat in general. Later, they can specialise as melee assaulters, officers or snipers.
The Imperial Psyker favours Intelligence, Perception and Willpower. They are psykers judged strong enough to resist corruption or possession and have been sanctioned by the Emperor Himself. Each possesses a sanctioning side effect (usually of minor detriment or disfiguration). Later, they can specialise as battlefield psykers or as scholarly mystics.
The Scum favours Ballistic Skill, Agility and Fellowship. Scum are social outcasts, usually criminals, good at stealth, social and information gathering skills. Later, they can specialise as violent enforcer or as criminal masterminds.
The Tech-Adept favours Toughness, Intelligence and Willpower. Tech-Adepts are technicians in an age of superstition and ignorance, cyborg servants of the Machine God. They are good at technical skills and develop unique powers based on cybernetic implants. Later, they can also specialise as knowledge gatherers or combat technicians.
Chapter 3 Skills 10pp
Skills work by covering a type of activity, and if you want to perform that activity you make a test against the stat tied to the skill. For example, to scale a wall you would use Climb, a skill based on Strength, you would test against Strength. Skills are classified as Basic, in which case you can test against your stat halved if you don’t have the skill, and Advanced skills that you have to have to be able to make a test at all. There are some opportunities in Careers to purchase skills again, gaining a +10 or +20 bonus to checks with them.
There are 48 skills covering social interaction, investigation, movement, knowledges, crafting and technical stuff. There’s a 1-3 paragraph description for each, and explanations of how it works in specific cases for some. (eg. Demolitions to defuse a bomb).
Chapter 4 Talents 11pp
Talents are abilities that allow a character to do something they could not otherwise, or reduce a penalty or provide a bonus to tests in certain situations. Many have pre-requisites of a certain score in a stat, or having a particular skill or other talent. If this sounds to you like feats in D&D3.5, you’re getting the idea. Some are combat focused, others make it safer to use psyker powers, make it easier to resist corruption, or give greater abilities in leading troops and followers.
Proficiencies in different weapons are talents. There are talents for SP (Solid Projectile), Las, Bolt, Melta, Plasma, Flame, Primitive, Launchers and Exotic divided into Basic, Pistol and Heavy weapons. Melee Weapons can be Primitive, Chain, Shock or Power. When these are considered in conjunction with their availability in Career advancement systems, one can see that access to the more powerful weapons is partially regulated by the fact that Acolytes won’t be able to operate them until they’re of an appropriate level to get the associated talent.
One subset of talents is devoted to Tech-Adepts, giving them powers representing the improving capabilities of their cybernetic bodies and the blessings of the Machine God. These include things like throwing bolts of electricity, being able to un-jam all weapons around them with a thought, telekinesis on metal objects, to being able to hover for short periods. The nature of these talents emphasise that in the superstitious setting, Tech-Adepts play more like magic-using priests that science guys.
There are also some nicely evocative names and descriptions for many of these talents to get players in the mood. ‘Cleanse and Purify’ improves one’s skill with flamer weapons, while ‘Into the Jaws of Hell’ improves the morale and courage of troops you lead.
Chapter 5 Armoury 31pp.
Starts with an explanation of money and income per month for each Career. There’s a fairly big range depending on one’s social class. There are rules for availability; if you want to find a particular item, you make an Inquiry test modified according to availability. There are some hard limits too - even if you’re an Inquiry whiz, you ain’t going to find a boltgun in a medieval village of 1000 people. Different levels of Craftmanship of an item can provide small bonuses or penalties to related tests, and can massively affect cost.
Weapons then get about 16 pages. This covers what weapon stats mean and different properties some weapon have (eg. Flame or Primitive), then tables and descriptions of different weapons. There’s a black and white illustration for each, which is nice.
DH does not cover the full range of weapons for 40K. It focuses on Imperium stuff that frequently undercover investigators would be using. There are a few powerful and heavy weapons listed, but they are very rare and very, very expensive. There are some options for attachments like red-dot laser sights, and different ammo like man-stoppers or hotshot charges.
Armour is given two pages and covers Primitive, Flak, Mesh, Carapace and Power Armour. Most common is Primitive and Flak. The Power Armour is non-Space Marine issue that has to be recharged every few hours. It’s so expensive that it’s probably cheaper to hire a bunch of mercenaries to go in and do the fighting for you.
The rest of the chapter covers sundry Gear, Drugs and Consumables, Tools, Services and Cybernetics. There’s a subset of cybernetics called ‘mechadendrites’ available only to Tech-Adepts with appropriate talents. Each one is basically a Doc Octopus style cyber-tentacle coming out of the spine, holding some kind of tool or weapon.
Chapter 6 Psychic Powers 21pp
Rules and lists for using psychic powers. It is somewhat similar to magic in WFRP. Somewhat. It breaks down like this. A psyker has a talent, which they can improve over time, called Psy Rating at level 1, 2…up to 6. To manifest a psychic power they roll a number of d10 up to their Psy Rating, and add the results and their Willpower bonus. There are some talents that can add more bonuses. If the final number beats the Threshold number of the power, the power manifests and provides the described effect.
Here’s the catch. Psychic powers work by channelling the raw stuff of the warp, which is generally Not A Safe Thing. If any of the dice the psyker rolled come up as a 9, they have to roll d100 for a Psychic Phenomena once for each 9. Phenomena range from harmless but spooky local effects, to deafening banshee howls or raining blood. If they got 75+, they have to instead roll for a Peril of the Warp. At a minimum the psyker and possibly friends will gain insanity or corruption. At worst, say hello to daemonic possession or being sucked into the warp and rolling up a new character. There are some talents available which help you avoid bad rolls on these tables.
So that’s the downside. The upside is the powers, which are split into Minor and Major, both bought as talents. Minors include stuff like bonuses to a skill test, healing, confusing or debilitating enemies, and manipulating objects or senses. They have a Threshold between 5 and 11.
Major powers require Psy Rating 3 or higher. They’re split into 5 Disciplines of 10 powers each. Their Thresholds range from 8 to 24. It is a good idea to focus on one Discipline, because once you have all 10 powers (mastery), the Threshold for each of them drops by 4. Each Discipline has a coherent theme, but most have a mix of applications.
Biomancy is a mix of electrical attacks, healing and shape shifting.
Divination is scrying, detection and combat precognition.
Pyromancy is straightforward burning stuff.
Telekinetics is combat force attacks and defence.
Telepathy is mind control and mental attacks and buffs.
Chapter 7 Playing the Game 35pp
The basic mechanic of DH is the test. You roll d100 and compare the result against the stat associated with the skill or the action. Under or equal, you succeed. Over, you don’t. For example, you want to dodge an attack, test Dodge (Agility) by rolling under or equal to your Agility stat. Each full 10 you get under your stat by increases the degree of success. That’s it. My slight criticism here is that I think the game’s base mechanic probably should have been explained earlier than 180 pages into the book.
Tests are modified as easier by up to +30 added to your stat, or -20 subtracted from it. It’s quick and easy, but it does have problems because most characters will have stats between 30-45, which means only a 30-45% chance of success on a straight roll. Like WFRP, it’s very dependent on a proactive GM understanding this and considering appropriate modifiers for situations. If every test is unmodified, players may quickly feel like low-functioning pinheads who can’t get anything done. That is not to say that players should have it easy. My point is the system depends upon the GM understanding that it’s not a percentile check mechanic, it’s a percentile check with appropriate modifiers mechanic.
Fate points provide a pool that can be spent to re-roll a test or be burned permanently to avoid being killed.
There is some discussion of tests for Investigations and social situations and rules for movement, but most of the rest of the chapter is taken up with combat. Combat is basically modified tests against the Weapons or Ballistic Skill. Damage works by an accumulation of wounds mitigated by Toughness and any remaining armour after taking the weapon’s armour penetration into account. Once wounds are gone it’s critical hit time, and these are range from crippling to deadly. Crits are heavy on gory narrative description but have some real game effects and modifiers as well.
Is it a realistic simulation of an actual melee or firefight? Of course not, but then neither is any other RPG or wargame combat system except maybe Phoenix Command or Millennium’s End. Melee can be powerful in some situations, but it’s generally better to shoot back from cover than charge the enemy’s guns. Automatic fire has tangible effects, and overall I think combats will be gritty and deadly for both players and their opponents. It’s nothing hugely innovative, but it’s a decent low crunch combat system that looks to be fast playing and easy and should provide fun and excitement.
Chapter 8 The Game Master 27pp
This chapter covers how to run the game, a staple for an RPG. The standard stuff of how to run a session, give players some fun and how to keep things on the rails. What’s noticeable about this chapter is the extent and clarity to which DH explains and reinforces the particular focus and themes of the game. This is a game specifically about investigation rather than shoot ‘em up, and it’s gothic and dystopian rather than bright and heroic. This chapter explains how to communicate and manage that in the game and its stories.
Also covered are experience awards, further rules for social interactions and influencing, and systems for Insanity, Corruption and Pacts with the Ruinous Powers. Insanity works by requiring Willpower tests in response to shocking situations. Fail and you gain some insanity points. Gain a lot and you start getting mental disorders. The more insane you are, the more blasé you are about things of minor shock value, but generally going insane is Bad. Get to 100 Insanity points and you’re retired from play. It feels somewhat similar to Insanity in Call of Cthulhu, though not quite as much an inevitable downward spiral.
Corruption uses the same sort of system, though for events that are warp tainted rather than mentally disturbing. Instead of gaining disorders you have chances of developing a malignancy or a mutation. With a mutation, your Inquisitor boss, if not your fellow Acolytes, are probably going to ‘cleanse’ you (permanently). If you somehow survive to 100 Corruption, the character is likewise removed from play.
After a summary of the four Ruinous Powers of Chaos, there are rules for making Dark Pacts with them. Basically a deal that gives you a power or benefit in exchange for service, sacrifice or one’s soul. DH notes that Dark Pacts are to enhance the story, not a power gaming tool. The fact that they’re in the GM chapter is a hint. I see their main use as for antagonists, or possibly in a game concerning heretical Inquisitors taking the Radical ‘fight fire with fire’ approach.
Chapter 9 Life in the Imperium 19pp
Setting information of the Imperium of Mankind. Explains the structure and different organizations of the state, and how the Inquisition fits into this larger picture. An overview of the different kinds of planets included in the Imperium’s millions of worlds, and their methods of government. A cool double page galactic map of the Imperium, low detail but giving a good idea of the sheer scale. The nature of Interstellar travel and communication, the importance of the Cult of the Emperor, and threats such as rebellion, heresy, mutants, aliens, Chaos and wars are all discussed.
Chapter 10 The Inquisition 15pp
An in depth look at the Inquisition itself. How it is organised, how it operates and how Acolytes fit into it all. Explains the three different Ordos (departments) focusing on different threats: Hereticus (threats from within), Xenos (threats from aliens) and Malleus (threats from Chaos and the warp). Acolytes operate on their own on behalf of the Inquisitor they work for, but their boss’s Ordo can largely shape what sort of stuff they investigate. This chapter also covers the various recruitment and training methods of Acolytes, and their duties. It also describes some of the traditions and customs of the Inquisitors of the Calixis Sector, the ready to run campaign setting provided.
Chapter 11 The Calixis Sector 38pp
This is the ready to run campaign setting provided in DH, an outer sector of the Imperium potentially threatened by aliens and Chaos forces, as well as the ever-present problems of mutants and heresy.
It gives detailed multi-page descriptions for 4 important worlds including the sector capital. There are the dispositions and agendas of the major power groups, including arms of Imperium, noble houses, corporations and cartels. A prophecy on which to base a campaign is given in the form of the Tyrant Star, an apparition of a black sun heralding apocalypse that matches unexplained phenomena in the Calixis sector. Descriptions are provided for Inquisitors in the sector as potential patrons of the player characters. The chapter ends with paragraph descriptions of 30 or so more worlds in the sector.
Overall this chapter is of high quality, and impressive with the wealth of specific material it gives a GM, providing a workable chunk carved out from the enormity of the overall setting.
Chapter 12 Aliens, Heretics and Antagonists 28pp
Gives extra traits for creatures and adversaries, things like natural armour, daemonic nature and such, and also tables for minor and major mutations with which to generate Unclean to be purged by Acolytes. The meat of the chapter is descriptions and statistics for a wide variety of enemies. It covers human or human-based enemies, hostile predator beasts and animals, warp entities, daemonhosts and daemons. It is quite comprehensive, particularly the range of different human adversaries. A GM will have ready stats for civilians, criminals, soldiers, cultists and heretics at their fingertips.
Chapter 13 Illumination 37pp
The last chapter is an introductory adventure, ‘Illumination’, set on a world in the Calixis Sector. I won’t spoil the story by discussing the plot or specifics, just give some general impressions.
The adventure is fair, not great and not terrible. It has some original ideas and interesting scenes, the plot makes sense, and it oozes 40K atmosphere. But it is rather linear as well, essentially being a procession from one area/event to another.
As an introductory adventure it falls short, for several reasons.
Firstly, all through DH there is a strong and convincing emphasis on investigative-type stories, but in ‘Illumination’ the characters are basically bodyguards to a more powerful NPC, responding to what happens around him. It is a very reactive model, which seems to be counter to DH’s supposed focus, and hence a bad introduction.
Secondly, the story hinges on serving a powerful NPC. In my experience this can cause the GM’s NPC to become the centre of the story at the expense of the players, and/or the players tend to look to the GM’s NPC for leadership rather than making their own decisions.
Thirdly, many of the combat encounters involve unusual environments and modifiers. There’s nothing wrong with those in general, but in an introductory adventure it would be useful for players to have a few vanilla combats first so they can grok the DH combat system and gauge their own capabilities, then mix things up a little.
None of these things are insurmountable, and I can see myself running it and players having a lot of fun with it, it just could have been a bit better for an introductory adventure. One might download Alan Bligh’s introductory ‘Edge of Darkness’ investigation adventure from the Black Industries website and run it first, and follow up with ‘Illumination’ later.
The endnotes of the adventure offer ideas for continuations of the story, whose base premise is quite interesting. It is also mentioned that the story continues in ‘Rejoice for You Are True’ from the forthcoming adventure anthology Purge The Unclean.
Appendices
After that is the index, a two page character sheet, and a couple of ads for products for DH and WFRP and for Black Library fiction novels.
Final Analysis and Conclusion
The art quality and aesthetic of the product is excellent. The layout, structure and editing could have been a little better, but is on the whole very good. For Style DH gets 4/5
The content is very good as well. It draws a manageable and playable focus and scale for a game out from a very large and varied source setting, the 40K universe. The mechanics are serviceable, relatively quick and low crunch, and easy to comprehend and use. The Career system looks very promising. The setting is well explained and there is a bounty of material and support for a GM to use. A pleasantly surprising 4/5 for substance.
All well and good, but the question most want answered when reading a review is ‘Will I enjoy playing or running this game?’ Which is of course highly subjective. I can make some observations about things that can’t be expressed in Style and Substance ratings, though.
Tone and Setting
The 40K universe and the Imperium is a strong, unique flavour. It’s dark and violent, xenophobic and fundamentalist, baroque and hyper-stylised. It is not science fiction so much as space-fantasy, what with the daemons, psychic powers and technology-as-magic. Some people just aren’t going to dig it.
If you’re not already familiar with 40K, I don’t know if you’ll enjoy it or not, outside broad extremes of taste. If your preferred science fiction format is bishonen having amusing romantic troubles in between piloting giant mecha against other mecha-pilot bishonen who wear black and sneer a lot, it might not be for you. If at some point in your life you’ve rocked out playing air guitar and head-banging to 2 Minutes to Midnight by Iron Maiden roaring from your stereo whilst wearing a cape made out of a bath-towel, it probably will.
What it is, and What it isn’t
DH is not, nor does it seem to be intended as, the catchall 40K RPG. It’s not about totally huge and awesome Space Marines gunning down totally huge and awesome Orks/Chaos Marines/Genestealers and racking up the xp to get bigger and more totally huge and awesome weapons. Or about space exploration, starship battles and discovering new worlds. It’s a small slice of 40K about investigating and rooting out hidden enemies, frequently in secret. The play model is closer to Call of Cthulhu than anything else. If that doesn’t appeal, DH may not be for you.
That said, you can of course adapt it. Have players make all Guardsman characters and run a military campaign. Or gin up some house rules for Rogue Trader, Eldar Pirate or Space Marine Careers. Given GW’s financial woes they probably can’t afford to send around the game police to rough you up for playing DH your own way. Just know that if you’re going to do that you’re getting less bang for your buck, because parts of the DH rulebook won’t be relevant to your game.
Mechanics and Crunch
Overall the crunch of the game is low-medium, and the medium crunch comes in only with character advancement. In comparison to other RPGs, I would put it as about the same as WFRP (obviously) and White Wolf’s World of Darkness line, and less crunchy that either Shadowrun 4 or D&D3.5 and d20 systems. Consider in relation to your own preference for high or low crunch rules in RPGs.
Product Support
Official products for the game long term will be limited. Currently there are 2 free adventures available for download, and a GM’s Kit that includes an adventure and a system for generating aliens is out at retail now. Scheduled releases are Purge the Unclean (3 adventures), The Inquisitor’s Handbook (player’s guide) and Disciples of the Dark Gods (enemies sourcebook for GMs). After that Black Industries ends and so does DH. The print run of the DH rulebook was small and sold out quick at the wholesale level, it seems possible it will be the same case for other products. You might not want to get into a game that’s shutting down.
On the other hand, the rulebook itself has everything essential for play. If a creative GM is willing to do a little work, there is also definite potential to use published adventures from other RPGs with some compatibility. Why not retool and run a campaign from Call of Cthulhu or Traveller?
That may help to decide if DH is going to be a game you’ll enjoy playing in or running.
Overall Ratings
Style: 4/5
Substance: 4/5
