Skulls Without Number - Session 2

09 Mar, 2025

Credit: Fantasy Flight Games, Cubicle 7

The very first and second sessions of Skulls Without Number, my Warhammer 40,000 RPG campaign, are complete! While there are a few growing pains for me (the first time I've been in the saddle for nearly a year), I think it went off mostly well, to the enjoyment of my players.

Dramatis Personae

• Lady-Captain Matilda Ysolde of House Montague-Kurtz: Rogue Trader and bearer of the Warrant of Trade
• Os du Randt: Astropath, armsman, and guard of Lady Matilda
• Alis Zephyr-Emil of House Rey’a’Nor: Needle-toothed Navigator in a spider-chair
• Sebastion Echerole: Missionary and Chief Chirurgeon
• Gallius Vax: Heretek techpriest and enginseer
• Rassolvov van Law: Void-Master gunnery chief, and a decent gambler

First Session

During the first session, the party arrived at Port Wander, gateway to the Koronus Expanse, on their way to seek their fortune. After bopping around the station for a bit (meeting people, losing money at the gambling dens, etc.), several important things happened:

• They hear rumors that Aspyce Chorda is dead and House Chorda is in disarray;
• Sebastian learned about the legend of St. Cognatius, giving meaning to a dream he had while in the warp; and
• The party heard rumors of a Rak'Gol infestation in a system far from where they should be. However, after doing a bit of shopping and before they could depart, they were accosted by a gang of Navy shoremen and Arbitrators, both representatives of (very different sides of) Imperial law. The party decided to go with the Navy group, since Lady Matilda had made a good impression on Larius Sans, Commander of Port Wander. Commander Sans informs the group that they've been implicated in smuggling Halo Artifacts, with a hundred confessions of crewmen and an artifact as proof. Gallius examined the artifact (purportedly a xeno digital weapon), but was able to tell that it was a double-fake - not only was it not a xeno artifact, but a shoddily modified archeotech one, but also the House Montague-Kurtz seal was crudely attached. Only one faction would have the ability to essentially waste such an artifact on framing them - House Chorda.

Second Session

The second session summary was helpfully provided by Doubloon, Lady Matilda's player.

We meet with High Judge Dhorin of the Port Wander Arbites. We plea Not Guilty.

A couple of our crew got arrested, but they sincerely don't have any idea what's going on. Os rings back to the Cavalier on the psychic telephone, orders a self-inspection to turn over the ship before the Arbites have the run of the place.

We hire the Advocatus (lawyer) Surotheth Grimwrath, who is a very silly and anxious nerd.

We go searching for gossip in the voidship docks, looking for anyone who has word on quartermaster who've taken business from House Chorda. For the past two years, everyone assumed that Aspyce Chorda was dead in the Expanse. Until two days ago, when some of their sleeper agents suddenly came to live.

They were looking for some kind of criminal organization called Gentle Scrivener's Society.

We speak to Eve in the Court of the dead--the bard with the electro-lute. She tells us that the Gentle Scrivener's Society are a group of forgers. We ask about Lynetta Ress, and she suddenly gets all tense. She might be on the run from the Inquisition?

We find a representative of the Gentle Scrivener's Society, strongarm him into leading us back to their workshop. Speaking to the manager, a guy with half his skull replaced with metal, we hand over a hefty bribe in exchange for a promise to keep their name out of our mouths.

They reveal that they made seven uniforms for the agents of House Chorda. Seven of our uniforms--and we found seven "enlisted ratings" in the Arbites lockup. Their leader was named Ratibor Obartar.

Unfortunately, testing that theory fails to pan out. We send Advocatus Grimwrath in with a care package and some test phrases in the Cavalier's ship-cant. The detainees are able to understand and respond appropriately. They're not moles.

We head back to the ship, where the inspection is proceeding in fits and starts. Our presence hastens the search, and we find a few ratings who're able to report that a gang of outsiders have taken hostages and holed up in a region of the engineering decks.

Under flag of parley, we arrive and speak to Ratibor. Aspyce Chorda is alive and sends her regards. He demands safe passage off the Cavalier, lest he detonate the melta charges behind him and crack the ship in twain.

We agree with intent to deceive, purely to get him away from the melta bombs. The traitor he is, he sets the charges on a time delayed detonation. We hurriedly defuse the charges and swamp the infiltration crew in troopers while they're still aboard.

With unquestionable proof of innocence, Judge Dhorin and Cdr. Larius assent to our departure.

Takeaways

• I love random and semi-random character generation. House Chorda's enmity is due to several players picking some background features that gave them negative faction relationship with House Chorda and I just rolled with it. We also have a lot of creative characters, and can't wait to see how the Koronus Expanse breaks them.
• Things always, always take longer than you plan. A lesson I keep re-learning. I had assumed all of these events would be able to be finished in one three-hour session, but I was very wrong - we almost ran over time in the second session. This is definitely going to affect how I prep the rest of the campaign. I hope I can make better estimates.
• God bless the 40k Imperial Citizen name generator.
• Six people is a lot of people. There were various methods proposed to control the flow of information and discussion, which were implemented with varying degrees of success. Further, I believe this is the first time this particular set of players have played in a game together, so there's still a little figuring out of everyone's dynamics going on. I managed as best I could but I think I can do better.
  • One proposal was for a sort of "social initiative", whereby I would ask for response in a certain order (the order of usernames in Discord.) I didn't keep to this strictly, and ran into issues. I couldn't enforce a speaking order, silencing others while the person in the spotlight is speaking (the Discord server we're playing on doesn't have that tool, I believe). Since that wasn't supported, I'd had to call for it. The problem with that, of course, is that when I gave new pieces of information it prompted reactions from certain players and not others - so as soon as I have given a revelation, or spoke for a character, two or three people would already be talking, sharing their thoughts or declaring actions. My instinct was to respond to responses, not to step back and call out people in order.
  • One thing I started doing towards the end of the second session was designating a scene caller for each scene. The first time I did it, it was for Os, who was born and raised on a penal world, and so had some ability to talk with the criminal element on Port Wander. I think it can work well, but I need to be more firm in telling other players, essentially, to be quite while it's not their turn.
  • The players were fairly negative on allowing them to split up during the first session. I understand where they were coming from. I ended up having to kick the can on resolutions; I did a lot of hopping back and forth; there was the typical split-party issue of "Are the other people hearing this?"; and I definitely gave different levels of attention to different characters. I took their feedback to heart, and in the second session, firmly informed them that they were not going to be split as they investigated the framing. However, this was also dissatisfying for me. They had no ability to fan out, pursue different leads, and take ownership of clues and revelations. Instead, they all were sort of stuffed into one scene talking to one lead or going after one person, regardless of whether they were the best fit. They were jostling to talk to characters the right way and pushing their own idea to the exclusion of others. I need to find some balance between the two. I think splitting up is good, actually; I need to be able to give equal time, but the players need to be able to handle that as well. Remains to be seen if that's something the players want.
  • I hate how artificial and boardgame-y phases of play are, but maybe that's the best solution. There's a phase where everyone can talk and discuss to their heart's content, but when I call time, the caller or each player in order declares their intentions and we move on. Then I spend time resolving those declarations, I move to revealing information, and we start again.
• The players pretty quickly informed me of what quests ("Endeavors") they were most interested in, and for that I'm grateful.
• Despite different levels of familiarity with the setting, and the daunting challenge of playing people who are In Charge in a way that most RPG characters are not, all my players were game. My conception of Rogue Trader is a domain game, and domain games are not everyone's cup of tea, so I'm also grateful for players who are interested in that.
• I need to get more comfortable with intervening to clarify information. I don't want to remove the mystery element from the players, but I feel like a lot of circular discussions between the players were a result of misunderstanding something I had said, something I failed to say, or misinterpreting what each other were saying. (On the flip side, I think the players will just need to start grooving with each other, getting a better sense of what everyone can and wants to do. I'm confident this will come with time.)
• Gotta get that equipment list and list of descriptions together. Just something that will take time.
• The party was less successful at acquisitions than I was expecting. Probably just bad rolls this time, but something to keep an eye on. There's no point in playing wealthy characters if you can't actually buy lots of stuff.
• My butchery of the 40k setting is in full swing.
• I love inhabiting characters. I loved that I was able to give the party a morality pet team mascot interesting NPC in Surotheth; I loved getting to drop in Eve¹; I was happy to hear the feedback on my NPCs was that they arrived, made an impression, and left before overstaying their welcome. I'm looking forward to filling the list of ship's officers with even more NPCs.
• For the most part, I felt comfortable making calls, and I stand by the calls I made. I'm beginning to trust myself more. There were a few exceptions.
  • I was too loosey-goosey about how I handled the infiltration once it was underway. This was quite a dire first session threat: it could have blown up their ship.² When the frame job was revealed, the infiltration started, but I hadn't quite firmed up how long in hours or days the infiltration was going to take, or how long before they were caught. My plan was to have some ship's officer roll a Notice check against the Infiltrator's Stealth, but the players mentioned (as a stratagem against infiltration) the Clan-Kin Quarters fitting,³ and the crew's ability to detect outsiders. I waffled on what that would do - I knew that for certain that the infiltrators would never make it their target (the engineerium), and would be caught and cornered in another part of the ship. I didn't know how long that would take, and didn't want to declare it would happen instantly - that would make the ship's crew a little stronger than I think they should be, and would sidestep the frame job investigation. I rolled Notice against Sneak with a bonus, and the ship was successful. - so I decided to roll a 1d6 and declare it was that many days before they were caught. The players decided to search the ship on the second day (where their crew would have found them on the third). One player succeeded on his Notice roll, and found where the infiltrators had holed up. I failed by not coming up with the time (hours, days, etc.) that the infiltration and detection would take before the session, and assuming I'd be able to win it in the moment. Despite the outcome still being congruent with the setting I'm trying to establish, the fact that "Well, I don't want to throw away the mystery" was my justification for my decisions feels like failure.
  • The players were getting a bit frustrated by the end of the session, and the prospect of a combat soured some players. I'm not sure if I should have called the session early (stretching what was supposed to be a one-session little introductory investigation into three sessions), or forced it through. Ultimately, I took the treacherous proposition of the crew as my out, and turned down the consequences for doing so (making them gamble on their ability to find the planted bombs, and what would happen when their crew turned on the Chorda infiltrators.) I'm still not sure if I made the right choice in any sense. It ended the session, and they're now free to fly off into the Expanse. Yet I felt like I chose the option that satisfied my desire to resolve things quickly, not the decision that was true to the world and setting I'm developing. I did my best, I suppose. Something to think on for the future.

#rogue-trader #rpg #session-report #skulls-without-number