Player Character Conflict

PvP = Player vs Player, conflict between player characters (PCs), often referencing to violence between PCs.

PvE = Player vs Environment, where the primary conflict is between PCs and Non-Player Characters (NPCs).

Death Unto Darkness is not a game driven by intra-character conflict. Our stories are about the servants of the Inquisition cooperating against the external threats that threaten to bring about humanity's extinction. Although the Inquisition often has competing objectives it’s not the intent of the game team to create situations where PvP conflict would be a norm we encourage via our writing.

However, the Game Team does not want an inorganic situation where intra-character violence is mechanically impossible. It is a grounding fact that conflict between characters can occur - for whatever reason. One of the core driving themes of Death Unto Darkness is that actions have consequences, and a character who is acting in a heretical fashion or against other players must face those consequences even if those are retribution from other player characters.

But just as there are consequences of a heretic actions, there are consequences for violence against your fellow agents and you answer to the Ordos Prosperitas ultimately, a character found to have killed or violently assaulted another is answerable to the Inquisition, and can face penalties up to and including execution or permanent incarceration - so it is best to have evidence to back up your actions.

Even without conflict being initiated by the actions of characters, Death Unto Darkness takes place in a world where the dark powers of Chaos can turn someone you thought was a friend into an enemy, or where sanity cracking can make a frothing murderer of the most kindhearted soul. There is a risk of any character being involved in violent PvP even if they are the most cooperative individual even if they are defending against it.

Reporting Crimes and Heresies

Sometimes you lack the ability to enforce your will when you notice wrongdoing - in such a circumstance where you believe that a character is up to no good you may pass on information to Inquisitorial Authorities (the Game Team) who will react appropriately to the news based on presented evidence. This may result in punishment during the downtime between events or some kind of uptime consequence if it is thematically appropriate to the event to have an immediate Inquisitorial response. Violence against Abhumans, Psykers and Inhuman Characters The Imperium is a vile prejudiced place and even amongst the highest ranks of the Servants of the Inquisition those prejudices remain strong - although it is already noted on the pages associated with them - playing characters like this is embracing the clear and present danger of being treated constantly, often without justification, as a risk to a mission by other characters.

The most obvious example of this is that most NPCs will turn a blind eye if a character shot a Psyker because it began to experience strange warp effects because that is the accepted protocol for dealing with Psykers.

To this end we’ll caution here again that you should be -certain- when playing a character like this that you are willing to accept this kind of treatment up to and including your death being justified by what you were, rather than any actual crime.

OOC Welfare of Players

While we are choosing to make the risks of PvP violence very clear above we appreciate that there can be emotional reactions to having your character violently harmed by another player - we encourage players, where violence is not spontaneous, to try and have a ref or game team member present to ensure the welfare of the defeated party - and we are called on as soon as you can if it is spontaneous, if there is any welfare concern.

Where you want to take another character captive rather than killing them, please involve the Game Team to arbitrate a satisfying resolution for all players - being held in a room all weekend is not everyone’s cup of tea - and the game team can at least give a way for a captive character to exit so the player can choose to use a stand-in character or be able to adapt to accommodate that situation and ensure the player’s enjoyment of the event is at least better than their characters.

When role playing violent conflict between player characters, please be mindful of the OC experience of others. A character who constantly threatens other characters to win an argument would not be promoted to the level of the characters in this game, who are expected to be capable of functioning at a higher and more independent level than the usual Imperial first-reflex of violence. This is an IC gloss on an OC request to make sure physically smaller, quieter and less aggressive players are not forced out of some game areas by volume or physical intimidation.