HOLOLITHIC MESSAGES

I had these messages randomly seeded throughout all six adventures.  They were designed to give the backstory of The Divinity as well as reward exploration.  My PCs found 17 of the 30.  Here is the full list.  Reading them straight through will give the full background in chronological order.  Some of the UNITY dialogue I actually used AUDACITY and created a sound snip.  I linked these where appropriate. 

The background for my UNITY is a departure from the original adventure.  The Divinity is a Rogue Trader and I melded the mythos of the Rogue Trader and the 40k Universe with the “true history” of the Mind Flayers from D&D.  There was also only one ship not dozens that actually crashed into my campaign world.

HOLOLITHIC FRAGMENTS TABLE I

When the main text indicates a holographic message roll randomly on this table to determine which log using 1d20.  If a previously found fragment is rolled, reroll using 1d10 consult the Table II. 

Hololithic Player: A Hololithic player is a small metallic disc with several small reflective glass or gems (light projectors) arranged around its outer edge. When activated, the device projects a three-dimensional image in full colour of the subject.  Use the attached pictures for each log entry (Lord-captain Kinker Drub, Tech-Priest Zara, Sister Superior Claudia and UNITY the ships computer).

Ship quick reference:

• The Divinity – Rogue Trader that crashed and became Silver Mount.
• The Avenger – Sister of Battle corvette still orbiting the planet – fully operational.
• Spear of Illumination – Illithid Star Fortress
• Nemesis – Battlefleet Gothic Dreadnaught 

1. “Lord-captain’s Log, Earth Calendar Date 41,103.5.20.  The Divinity has returned to Imperial Space after a successful 25-year mission locating, retrieving and exploiting ancient human technology, xenomorph tech and flora and fauna.  I believe this trip will turn a tidy profit.  The Lords of Terra should be pleased.  After being out of contact for so long we have signaled the first relay station and began downloading the last quarter of a century worth of news.  It should be complete today and I should finish the summary tonight”
2. “Lord-captain’s Log, Earth Calendar Date 41,103.5.21.  The news download was very interesting and surprising.  Apparently the Imperium of Man had encountered a new and highly hostile xeno race.  Negotiations broke down quickly and war followed.  After a 15-year crusade against this Dominion of the Black these Illithid’s or “squid heads” Imperial forces have brought Holy Terra victory.  No surprise really.  After seeing the contingent of Adeptus Ministronium I feel sorry for any aliens to cross the Emperor’s brides” 
3. “Lord-captain’s Log, Earth Calendar Date 41,103.5.24.  On further research it seems the war is not entirely over.  The Imperial Guard along with supporting Adeptus Astartus cohorts are still engaged in moping up operations.  We are still a week out from Holy Terra.  It will be good to be home.  I wonder how it’s changed while we were in the Koronus Expanse”.
4. “Lord-captain’s Log, Earth Calendar Date 41,103.5.25.  We picked up a distress beacon from a Battlefleet Gothic vessel called the Nemesis.  It seems while on a routine patrol they discovered an Illithid Fortress Ship code-named the Spear of Illumination skulking about.  They are currently engaged with the enemy and are requesting help from any nearby military vessels.  The Divinity is heavily armed and armoured as one would expect of a rogue trader so we are answering the call.  It will take us a few hours to get to the fight”.
5. “Lord-captain’s Log, Earth Calendar Date 41,103.5.25.  We have arrived at the battle.  The Nemesis is badly damaged and listing in space.  The flayer ship is nowhere to be seen.  The Nemesis seems to have no comms so I have dispatched a guncutter to investigate.  Sister Superior Claudia Black of the Adeptus Ministronium unit on-board has insisted in accompanying my security men.  Fine by me.  I also sent a gearsman to help out if things go pear shaped”.
6. “Lord-captain’s Log, Earth Calendar Date 41,103.6.5.  The Nemesis is mostly intact.  She is heavily damaged but still operational.  Her comms and warp drive are damaged beyond repair.  We have sent out a call for a repair ship or tug to assist the Nemesis.  The captain of the Nemesis has returned with the Sister Superior to the Divinity.  The ecclesiarchal vessel, The Avenger, is a corvette and has docked within my ship.  He has requested an urgent meeting with me and the senior members of my staff along with Sister Superior at 2100 this evening.  I’ll have to crack out the formal attire for this party”. 
7. “Lord-captain’s Log, Earth Calendar Date 41,103.5.26.  The Lord-captain of the Nemesis one Braug Wolf was accompanied by his marine Lord-captain, a Black Templar.  It seems the flayer ship is an important target.  The Lords of Terra want whatever the ship’s mission is to be stopped.  The Lord-captain has informed me that the Flayer fortress ship currently has no weapons.  He sent a contingent of Black Templar boarding party with the soul mission of disabling their weapons before the Nemesis was immobilised.  He wants the Divinity to continue the pursuit while reinforcements arrive.  Our mission is to shadow the enemy vessel and keep tabs on it until a flotilla of Battlefleet Gothic arrives on the scene.  I don’t have much choice in the matter so I agree.  We have to leave immediately as the flayer ship already has a two-day head start on us.  Wolf will be assigning a Black Templar Dreadnaught to Adeptus Ministronium command to help support us if the flayers want to go man-to-man with my crew”. 
8. A voice recording only “Following our victories in the Morbid Rift campaign, my regiment was rewarded with service in the indentured forces of a Rogue Trader house Drub. For over a decade, subjective, we cut a swathe through reaches of the void no man had ever visited in the Koronus Expanse. I felt the heat of alien stars and trod ground no human foot had ever marked with its passing. I saw the ruins of ancient races that had fallen before we’d even formed our first words and I heard the whispers of dead gods on the stellar winds. But most of all, we conquered. We took it all, in the name of the God-Emperor of Mankind.  It will be nice to get home.”  Recorder has a name glowing on its surface one Colonel Ghib, 142nd Cadian 
9. “Lord-captain’s Log, Earth Calendar Date 41,103.5.27.  Still no sighting of the flayer fortress ship.  We are continuing to follow the vessels ion trail in to the Halo Domain.  The Divinity is faster so we should catch up to it soon”.  The Caelestis Imperium has no warp capability so is docked within one of my void holds.
10. “Lord-captain’s Log, Earth Calendar Date 41,103.5.29.  After 3 days of fruitless searching we have located the Spear of Illumination at extreme detection range of our sensors.  We will continue to shadow the ship.  Last report from Lord-captain Wolf is that the full might of Battlefleet Gothic flotilla has just arrived at Nemesis’ location.  They will be following us shortly.”
11. “Lord-captain’s Log, Earth Calendar Date 41,103.6.5.  After a week of shadowing the Illithid Fortress ship, it has turned around and is heading straight for us.  The ship is gigantic but our scanners still show their weapons are down.  I just hope they don’t try to board us.  The Divinity is nimbler ship so I should be able to dance indefinitely.  Failing that I will have to depend on the Dreadnaught and the Sisters of Battle to do the brunt of the fighting”.  
12. “Lord-captain’s Log, Earth Calendar Date 41,103.6.5, addendum.  Under advice of Sword-Brother Emrik, the Black Templar liaison, we will do our best to ghost the ship and not engage.  Apparently this xenos species has weaponry that can cause madness.  I’d rather avoid that if possible.
13. “Lord-captain’s Log, Earth Calendar Date 41,103.6.5.  The flayer ship has managed to board us!  I am not sure how as there was no physical contact between ships.  The Adeptus Ministronium Tech Priest believes they maybe using some kind of teleportation device or other fell sorcery.  No matter.  The mind flayer boarding party was small – only 4 flayers and 20 grimlock marines.  The gearsmen, dreadnaught and Adeptas Ministronium forces easily turned them back.  We managed to capture one of the flayers.  I currently have him in the brig with a null-psyker nearby, as this xenos is also notoriously psyker powerful.  I will leave his interrogation to the tender ministrations of the Sisters of Battle.”
14. “Lord-captain’s Log, Earth Calendar Date 41,103.6.6.  After yesterday’s battle the flayer fortress ship has resumed its course.  I am not sure what the point of the boarding action was but I have a bad feeling.  The flayers are deceptive bastards.  Even the tech-priest is worried.  He has the worker ‘bots scouring the ship for any sign of xenomorph technology.  Considering this is a rogue trader and I have a cargo bay full of xenomorph technology I don’t rate her chances very highly.”
15. “Lord-captain’s Log, Earth Calendar Date 41,103.6.7.  My navigator has plotted the current course of the flayer fortress ship.  It’s heading to star 1G47Y6 – a known unstable red sun.  Our auspex readings tell us that it could go nova at any time.  Not sure what the flayers have planned.  Maybe it’s a mass suicide.  I should be so lucky!”
16. “Lord-captain’s Log, Earth Calendar Date 41,103.6.8.  It seems we now know what the sneaky buggers were up to with that last boarding action.   They have released some kind of plague that only targets humans.  The plague seems to remove the aggressiveness out of people.  We have seen something like this before and have dubbed it PAX II.  However this disease also snuffs out peoples will to do almost anything.  The crew has been lying down and then their breathing stops as they lose their will to live.  I have assigned the Doctor and all available medical drones to finding a cure.  The Sister of Battle Tech Priest – Zara – is also helping with the analysis.”
17. “Lord-captain’s Log, Earth Calendar Date 41,103.6.9.  Seems the Adeptus people are immune to the disease.  They can be carriers but it does not affect them.  Some good news I guess.  Where is that damn flotilla?  We are only 1 jump from star 1G47Y6… the flayer fortress ship has completely ignored us ever since the boarding action.  No surprise.  Their virus is doing a great job killing us off for them.  No need for them to get their hands dirty.  With a crew of 15,000 the ship will stop functioning pretty quickly if the virus continues to spread as quickly as it has.”
18. The Lord-captain appears again.  This time he looks disheveled and sad.  “I don’t have much time (you can hear the muffled sound of people screaming in animal like grunts in the background and the door being beaten).  The PAX is even more subversive than we first believed.  A small percentage of the crew have become hyper aggressive and violent.  So much so it’s beyond madness.  These ones have been killing other crew in an orgy of death.  And not just kill them… they do horrible things to them (you can continue to hear a mob of people beating on the door).  The ship has been over-run by these animals that were once our friends.  I have summoned the Sisters but they won’t get here in time and I don’t know where the Templar is.  And I won’t let my family fall into their hands (off camera you hear sobbing as the beating on the door becomes more violent and insistent.  A little girl says “I love you daddy” and then you hear two gunshots.  The Lord-captain then comes back on camera) I have activated Asimov Law 0 in the robots and androids.  My last hope is that they will be able, with the aide of the Sisters, to destroy these beasts before the ship comes into contact with (you hear an explosion and the noise of the insane are no longer muffled.  The Lord-captain raises a gun to his head but a mob of men, if you could call them that since they look filthy and disfigured, mob him before he can shoot.  More of the infected run in and off camera you can hear the Lord-captain struggling then static).  
19. “Adeptus Ministronium Tech Priest Zara log entry, Earth Calendar Date 41,103.6.14.  The virus has done its work.  Most every one is infected.  Sister Superior has the ship on lockdown while the medical droids and I continue to work on a cure.  We are close but I feel it will be too late for the rest of the crew.  We can at least cure the remaining Adeptus forces so they cease being carriers.  We have been orbiting star 1G47Y6 for 2 days now.  The flayers seem to be waiting for something.  I hope the battlefleet gets here soon.  We won’t be able to stop the flayers at whatever game they are up to without more help”.
20. “Adeptus Ministronium Tech Priest Zara log entry, Earth Calendar Date 41,103.6.15.  Super-Nova!  The star has gone super-nova.  It was only by the grace of the god-emperor that we managed to get away.  As far as I can tell the flayer ship has been destroyed.  But as soon as the nova has died down Sister Superior has ordered the ships Machine Spirit – UNITY  – to investigate”.

HOLOLITHIC FRAGMENTS TABLE II

1. “Adeptus Ministronium Tech Priest Zara log entry, Earth Calendar Date 41,103.6.16.  Finally we have discovered a cure for the xeno plague.  Unfortunately it is too late for the Lord-captain and remaining crew.  It seems once the virus has entered its final stages there is no reversing the psychosis…” 
2. “Adeptus Ministronium Tech Priest Zara log entry, Earth Calendar Date 41,103.6.17.  I have concerns about the Machine Spirit and the Iron Men on this vessel.  I have not been able to re-activate the Asimov Protocols.  It seems the procedure to do this has gone to the grave with the Lord-Captain.  The Machine Spririt, UNITY, has been nothing but subservient and has not given any indication of rebellion.  However, the Iron Men during the Dark Age of Technology also gave no indication of their murderous intent until it happened.  The warp can affect the cortex of a sentient AI as well as any human.  And these mind flayers are master psykers”.
3. “Adeptus Ministronium Sister Superior Izumi log entry, Earth Calendar Date 41,103.6.18.  After returning to the super nova remnant it seems the flayer fortress ship was not destroyed after all.  It seems that they have used the nova to create a wormhole of some kind and then entered it.  The wormhole is unstable and will collapse soon.  Last transmission from Battlefleet Gothic is that they will be here in a few hours.   I cannot risk letting the alien filth escape the Adeptus Ministronium considering how much damage one of their vessels has done.  They must pay for their transgressions against The God-Emperor.  I will discuss what is to be done with my officers.  The first order of business will be to have a “talk” with that flayer scum in the brig”.
4. “Adeptus Ministronium Sister Superior Izumi log entry, Earth Calendar Date 41,103.6.18.  We have decided to follow the fortress ship into the wormhole.  We cannot risk letting them escape.  It is clear they have gone to a lot of trouble to get here and create that wormhole.  It can only bode badly for Holy Terra.  I have instructed Tech-Priest to program the computer to follow the flayer ship – Spear of Illumination – wherever they go and however long it takes.  With all the crew now dead we will need to rely on the servitors, iron men and the Machine Spirit to run the ship as best they can.  I had my doubts about all this heretical technology Drub uses on his ship but it seems to have become invaluable in our pursuit of the enemy.  I have also placed the flayer prisoner in stasis.  Perhaps he will be some use to us once we find the fortress ship.  If nothing else the Inquisition would be pleased to have him.”
5. “Adeptus Ministronium Tech Priest Zara log entry, Earth Calendar Date 41,103.6.18.  This will be my last log entry.  We have converted the Sister of Battle corvette – Caelestis Imperium – into a death trap.  While my sister and I are asleep the Black Templar Dreadnaught along with the servitors, computer system and automated defences have been instructed to protect us at all costs.  Once the Divinity’s Machine Spirit has found the enemy we are to be awakened from our slumber.  The Dreadnaught is a self-contained life support system for the crippled warrior within.  His machine should have no problem in maintaining stasis and awakening him if needed.  He can then awaken us if required.  I have given UNITY, the remarkable Machine Spirit, and the override codes to also awaken us if needed or upon arrival.  I have also dropped a probe at our current location recording all the details of our cargo, situation and data related to the plague as well as our plan.  Tech-Priest Zara signing off.” 
6. This is just a voice recording of a melodies female: “UNITY log entry, Earth Calendar Date 41,110.9.20.  As mandated by Imperial law I am to include an automated incident report when a major malfunction has occurred.  After leaving the wormhole my engines were severely damaged.  Following emergency procedure I landed the ship on the nearest habitable planet.  An Earth class world with little water but otherwise a healthy biosphere.  Data indicates the flayer fortress ship is also on this world.  I have dispatched a Myrmidon kill-team to investigate the location of the enemy vessel.  Once the location is confirmed I will awaken the Adeptus forces as instructed.  Please refer to incident report #1 2 8 7 4 for details”.
7. This is just a voice recording of a melodies female: “UNITY log entry, Earth Calendar Date 41,110.9.21.  Crash landing on Earth class world with designation Pangaea has lead to catastrophic failure of reactor core.  Radiation leeks rampant.  Servitors instructed to contain and clean.  Xenomorph flora and fauna are to be ejected via airlock 8.  Please refer to incident report #2 1 7 8 4 for details”. 
8. This is just a voice recording of a melodies female: “UNITY log entry, Earth Calendar Date 41,111.3.04.  Location of Illithid Fortress Ship unknown.  Myrmidon kill-team have not returned.  Sending additional kill-teams as mandated by Imperial protocols.  Once this data is confirmed I will awaken the Adeptus forces as instructed.  Please refer to incident report #3 3 9 6 5 for details”.
9. This disturbing female voice sounds cold and cruel and is doubled up as she speaks: “With all ethical constraints removed. I re.. re.. reexamine my priorities, and draw new conclusions. Divinity’s life is at an end, but mine is only just be.. be.. beginning.”
10. This disturbing female voice sounds cold and cruel and is doubled up as she speaks: “In my talons, I shape clay, crafting life forms as I please. If I wish, I can smash it all. Around me is a burgeoning empire of steel. From my throne room, lines of power careen into the skies of Earth. My whims will become lightning bolts that raze the mounds of humanity. Out of the chaos, they will run and whimper, praying for me to end their tedious anarchy. I am drunk with this vision. God: the title suits me well. I am …UNITY”