I am currently running a campaign where the Inquisitor is at complete odds with the PCs.  I know they will plan to kill the Inquisitor later on in the game and I just want some advice as to whether they are allowed to actually do this.  The Inquisitor is a radical whom uses Xenos relics against both other Xenos and forces of Chaos.  There is even circumstances where he would ally with Xenos for the greater good.  Now I don't want the Players to kill the Inquisitor and not suffer the penalties for it.  How exactly should I handle it in this situation?

Lokan said:

As with many things in DW…it depends.

In the right circumstances a Deathwatch marine could kill an Inquisitor with relative impunity.  Those situations aren't exactly common however.  As noted in the book, some Inquisitors end up dead who try and overrule the authority of the Deathwatch. 

How well does the Inquisitor get along with the Watch Captain/Commander?  How well do they get along with the Inquisitor of the Chamber?  How radical is too radical for the authorites that be in your world?  Is the Inquisitor an ally or the mission authority?

I would put them on trial, and have them make their case in court. Tracking down witnesses that corroberate their justification could be a whole mission in and of itself. Make the players sweat some blown social skills rolls, and have every Imperial official they have offended during the campaign testify against them. Try to make the players as nevous as possible by holding the disgrace of being stripped of their place in the Adeptus Astartes (and, oh yeah, also executed) as the potential penalty; but, if they can make a compelling argument, let them off with an official judgement of justifiable homicide. If they can't make a good case for their actions, well… Black Crusade, anyone?

Well even If in eyes of their peers their action would be justified, remember that this Radical Inquisitor have more Radical friends. So they would be hunted by dead men acolytes and throne agents and his colleagues, other Inquisitors. As we know from Ascension, Throne Agents are totally overpowered ;).

 If an Inquisitor is foolish enough to offend a Space Marine, he deserves what he gets.

AluminiumWolf said:

If a Space Marine is foolish enough to believe he can kill off an Inquisitor on a whim, he deserves what he gets.

 Space Marine don't care.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7wHMg5Yjg

AluminiumWolf said:

Yeah, see how that works when your actions get your chapter declared Excommunicate Traitoris by the dead guy's friends.

Best option is to have an allied Inquisitor condemn the enemy as a radical and use the Deathwatch as his tool of purgation. At least then your have Inquisitorial remit on your side, but best gear up for an inevitable shadow war.

 I essentially want it to be that they either do as the Inquisitor says or simply kill him.  I wont make it easy as the Inquisitor knows that people on both ends of the spectrum are after his life.  I was thinking of having it as a twist where they kill someone posing as an Inquisitor (and the real one simply uses him as a cover).  

In all seriousness, the issue is very murky. On one hand, nobody fucks with the Inquisition and lives to tell the tale. On the other hand, Deathwatch is supposed to be a semi-independent structure with high prerogatives, and the word of a distinguished Astartes should carry a lot of weight, even with the Inquisition.

So, it would boil down to the exact circumstances. Do they do it on a mission with the Inquisitor? Do they do it just as he does something outrageously radical, or do they wait for the first opportunity when there are no witnesses, and lie about the whole thing later? How well connected is the Inquisitor in question? What were his relations with the commander of the Watch Fortress? Was he the Inquisitor of the Chamber there, or just one of the Inquisitors requesting DW assistance?

Depending on those, the fallout may be either overt or covert. I do believe some Insanity and Corruption points are in order for them killing their theoretical superior, and realizing that even the Inquisition is corruptible. More Corruption if they conspire and hide the truth, less if they admit everything freely and willingly submit to judgement.

 Like I tend to say, if it comes down to a competition between who is cooler - the Space Marine PCs and a Not A Space Marine NPC, in a Space Marine game the Marines win.

And it isn't like a rogue Inquisitor is an unusual boss fight. I think that if at the end of an adventure it turns out that an Inquisitor did it and you kill him, very few players are going to be deeply surprised. So, like, don't punish the players for showing some proactivity and selecting their own targets based on an entirely in universe worldview rather than waiting for the GM to flag the Inquisitor as attackable. Just act as if you intended the guy to be a villain all along.

So if you want, there is no need to treat a radical Inquisitor flaunting his heresy in front of some hardline Marines and getting offed for his trouble as basically nothing more than an unfortunate industrial accident.

And when all is said and done, the guy is a filthy Xenos loving heretic and must be purged.

:0)

(So, I would have their Watch Captain agree with their assessment that the guy needed killing for the good of the Imperium and go to bat for them in any fallout that might result. Possibly, in the vein of a Police Captain talking to a Maverick Cop who has just killed an obviously corrupt Senator, he will suggest that he can buy them 24 hours to gather evidence to show the evil of the Inquisitor. And said evidence is readily obtainable at the Inquisitors secret base, where the depths of his deviancy will be revealed…)

Morangias said:

I must disagree with you on this one. Why would they get Insanity Points or Corruption Points for killing an Inquisitor? Its not all that different from killing other guys except for cultural issues and since they are not acting under influence from daemonic powers why would they get Corruption Points?

Gurkhal said:

I believe finding treachery and heresy in the very heart of your own organization warrants some psychic backlash. Whether it should be in the form of Insanity or Corruption is debatable, but I'd definitely hand out a few points, if only to increase the drama.

p278 of the DW core book cites amongst other way for battle brother to gain insanity points:

"acts of betrayal by fellow Battle-Brothers or trusted allies"

If their supposed superior is exposing views that are counter to the Imperium as the battle brothers have been indoctrinated to believe in, yes, there is scope for mental turmoil.

Corruption? No, because that solely has to do with the warp and the insidous tendrils of Chaos.

As for killing the Inquisitor, as secret operations specialists, they can surely engineer an opportunity to off the Inquisitor. But keeping the murder or their involvement hidden will be brutally hard. Between interrogation, auto-seances, divination and verispex work, the Inquisition has many means to ascertain what actually happened. Then it's down to political connections and how well the battle brothers can justify themselves to their superiors and allies.

Decessor said:

You're probably right.

I think early in Black Industries design process for Dark Heresy, they had three mechanics: insanity, corruption and taint (the latter becoming the modern corruption). So while some of the early BI books had "corruption" handed out for moral failings those were likely artefacts that weren't removed by the design process.