🧭 CAMPAIGN SEED SUMMARY: Draugr’s Hearth
System Origin: User-led Wrath and Glory campaign (Expanded Sector Sourcebook) Theme: Grimdark horror, eldritch survival, internal ship tensions Tone: Gothic desperation, lost imperial faith, cosmic cold
📌 SYSTEM OVERVIEW: Draugr’s Hearth (Koronus Expanse)
A resource-rich but spiritually cursed star system. Dominated by fire-worshipping hive-worlders, radioactive asteroid belts, Ork ruins, and sleeping Necron machines beneath the ice. Encircled by a stellar hazard known as The Blazing Choir, which sings harmonics heard only by psykers and broken machine spirits.
⚙ Celestial Bodies Name Type Features Hjolmir Red-Orange Subgiant Star Emits psychic flares; navigational hazard Kindelspire Tidal-Locked Volcanic Rock Heretek presence; plasma geysers Fyrholt Glacial Hive World Divine Pyromancy cult, White Hunger, Ork hordes Ember Maw Radioactive Asteroid Belt Ork wrecks, rogue AI, salvage risks Verdant Hollow Proto-Gas Giant Orkoid spore moons, hybrid-mutants Frozen Maw Outer Oort Cloud Necron outposts, warp ghosts Blazing Choir Stellar Phenomenon Micro-novae ring system-wide; psychic combustion risks 🛠 PRIMARY SETTING: The Harbinger of Woe
Former space hulk turned Rogue Trader flagship.
Machine Spirit: Stoic, partially sane, haunted by memory echoes. Speaks in cryptic sidebars.
Houses human crew and feral Ork contingent in uneasy truce.
Command dynamic includes Ork rivalries, human-Mechanicus friction, and chain-of-command tests.
📖 CAMPAIGN ARC: Ashes and Ice (5 Sessions) Session Title Themes Events 1 The Pyres Fade Desperation, ship drama Rescue promethium convoy on Fyrholt, fight Ork ambush, White Hunger reveal 2 Ashes and Ice Siege, sacrifice Defend Hive Pyra’s Winter Walls, spiritual rebellion, fire cult trial 3 Choir of Madness Eldritch horror, psykers Traverse Blazing Choir, encounter derelict heretic pilgrim vessel 4 The Frozen Maw Awakens Political decay, secrets Necron ruins stirring, rival Rogue Traders arrive, betrayal possible 5 The Silent Awakening Cataclysm, endgame Necron activation or suppression, system-wide warp-flame disaster ⚔️ SUBSYSTEMS DEVELOPED 🎲 Ship Events & Ork Rivalries (ongoing)
1d100 Ship Event Table (not yet posted, stored in GM Secrets appendix)
Escalating chaos as Ork population reacts to psychic WAAAGH! energy from Verdant Hollow & Ember Maw
Interactions: sabotage, duels, teef racketeering, illicit grot pits
💬 Command Dilemmas
PCs must delegate orders to crew, balance internal factions (Ork Mekboy, Mechanicus, Voidsmen)
Several session-specific moments allow command presence from the ship (e.g. Session 1: air support for convoy from orbit)
🧍 NPC & FACTION DATA Name Role Description Ember Hierophant Solvane Divine Pyromancer Ruler of Hive Pyra, believes flame is the Emperor’s soul Mek-Kaptin Blagga Rotsprokk Deathskull Mek Ambitious and cunning, builds unstable tech, pressures for loot rights Feral Ork Weirdboy Skrazza Fizzlug Warp Reactor White-eyed shaman channeling WAAAGH! energies into lethal effects Magos Lyxia-717 Mechanicus Chief Distrusts Ork tech, wants to isolate reactor systems aboard Harbinger The White Hunger Xenos Horror Cold psychic predator entity in the wastes, corrupts psykers, freezes souls