🐺 The Hunt of Verrowen

A Space Wolves campaign module. One Wolf, one jungle world, seven days.

The astropaths of Verrowen cried out in the Warp that they were dreaming of a hunger without a name, and then they fell silent. A Tyranid tendril is closing on a jungle world of three hundred and ten million souls, and a Space Wolves strike cruiser has answered. You are one Wolf of a company of a hundred, on a world that is about to be eaten. An Inquisitor's cruiser waits at the system's edge and will burn the world at the end of Day 7 if the swarm is not broken.

This is a Warhammer 40,000 roleplay run like a tabletop module: a world, a cast, a clock and a storyline. You play one Space Wolf and the AI runs everyone else.

🚀 How to start

Your first message is your Wolf: name, seat, look, wargear and, if you like, what your people say of you on Fenris. You can also name Wolves you want beside you (a name, a seat and a line each); the AI keeps them exactly as you wrote them and makes any others new each time you play. There is no fixed squad: you are the centre of the story, companions come and go with the task, and you can fight alone. Seats: Blood Claw, Grey Hunter, Long Fang, Wolf Guard, Skyclaw, Wolf Priest, Rune Priest, Iron Priest or Pack Leader. After that you just write what your Wolf does. There is nothing to memorise and no command you have to type.

⏳ How the story moves (you do not type commands)

The campaign runs on a clock, Day 0 to Day 7, and moves on its own as you play. Every reply opens with a status line the AI keeps, for example:

[DAY 2 | 14:00 | PHASE: THE_BLOODING | BEAT 3 | PLACE: The Murk | SHADOW: 2 | CONSUMED: 2%]

Hidden scripts read the last status line each turn, tell the AI what is happening in the world at that hour, and tell it when a chapter should turn. The chapters and their usual turning points are: The Muster (Day 0, ends when the Thunderhawks drop at Day 1, 05:00), Landfall (ends at Day 2, 12:00; before then any fight is only the lone Thornwalker), The Blooding (ends with the planetfall at Day 3, 04:00), The Tide (ends when the Wolf Lord calls the Last Hunt, about Day 5, 18:00), The Last Hunt (ends with the Green King's death or the Exterminatus order at Day 7, 00:00), then one of two endings.

• Want to skip ahead? Type a chapter name on its own line: THE_LANDFALL, THE_BLOODING, THE_TIDE or THE_LAST_HUNT. This is optional.

• Status line wrong? The AI keeps the numbers and can slip. Paste the corrected line at the top of your message and it will use yours.

• Lingering is allowed, but the world does not wait. The clock and the story nudge each chapter toward its turning point, and the Inquisitor's deadline is fixed.

🚀 The war in the void

You begin aboard the Winter's Patience. Until the hive fleet arrives (Day 3, 04:00) you can stay in space and fight a ship's war: repel boarders, man the guns, run boarding and torpedo actions and Thunderhawk sorties. Bio-ships cannot be seen until they are on top of you, and after the planetfall the void belongs to the fleet: a ship that stays in orbit is swarmed within hours, so staying there is a good way to die. A return to orbit after that is a raid, and a likely death.

📊 Reading the status line

• DAY and time: the campaign clock. It only moves forward.

• PHASE and BEAT: the current chapter and how many replies you have spent in it. Around the twelfth reply the story brings the chapter's turning point to you.

• PLACE: where your Wolf stands.

• SHADOW (0 to 4): the Tyranids' psychic shadow. It rises with the clock. It means failing vox, bleeding astropaths, nightmares, and by 3 and 4 the Rune Priest suffers and the young Blood Claws grow restless.

• CONSUMED (%): how much of Verrowen's living surface the swarm has stripped and taken. Tyranids eat a world and nothing is evacuated. It stays near zero until the planetfall at Day 3, 04:00, then rises with the clock, and your deeds slow it (a position held, a synapse creature killed, a tower burned) or speed it (a stronghold lost). If the swarm is not broken by Day 7, 00:00 the Inquisitor burns what is left, and this number says how much was left. It decides how the ending reads.

🗣️ Boasts and sagas

• Boast: say aloud a deed you will do (I will, I swear). Space Wolves are known for boasting, and the Wolves react in character. The AI records it at the end of its reply as [SAGA: BOAST: the deed]. That record is a game aid, not Space Wolf lore.

• The deed: the story gives you a real chance to try it and never forces you.

• Kept: when you do it in the sight of the Wolves, the AI records it and names the honour badge it earned. Space Wolves have no formal system of awards; badges are painted or carved on the armour and what matters is that the Wolves beside you understand them. A wolf tail marks great courage, a bone a wound suffered in battle, and a knife and claw ferocity and bravery. A badge is a mark of honour with no mechanical reward.

• Unkept: if you abandon the deed or it becomes impossible, it is recorded as unkept. Nothing is taken from you. The Wolves are blunt and honest, so they say what they saw, and the Rune Priest names it in the closing saga.

• Check the record: ask for your saga, boasts or badges. The record is the [SAGA] lines in the chat, so keep the chat history.

🐛 How the swarm learns

This is a script, not a vague promise. It looks at your last eight messages and counts how many used each of six tactic families: fire (flamers, promethium), bolters, heavy weapons (melta, plasma, lascannon, missiles), melee (chainsword, axe, blade), the same hiding place or trap (Underroot, caves, ambushes) and the same chokepoint (a bridge, a doorway, a barricade). If one family appears in three of them, the AI is told the swarm has answered it and shows it in the next fights. Fire meets slick, wet-hided broods. Bolters meet thicker carapace and faster charges. A heavy weapon meets broods that spread out. Melee meets screens and flank ambushes. A trap meets a stalker waiting where you hide. A chokepoint gets bypassed. The adaptation costs the swarm something, so it makes fights harder, not impossible. Mix your tactics and it has nothing to learn. It reads your words, so it counts what you write.

💬 Words that bring in special scenes

• Situation, briefing, war table, council: the Wolf Lord's war council with the fronts, the unknowns, the argument and the choice.

• Thunderhawk, drop pod, Valkyrie, launch: the boarding, launch, descent and landing.

• Heading somewhere (to the Grove, the Skyrail, north...): a travel scene with the real distances and the jungle's tiers.

• Fighting words: the combat rules (several exchanges, wounds that count, pack tactics).

• Boast, oath, feast, saga status: the oath system above.

• Funeral, pyre, "I die": the Space Wolf death rite and a new Wolf to carry on.

🩸 Wounds and death

A Space Wolf is far tougher than any mortal and fights through wounds that would kill a Guardsman, but wounds are listed at the end of each reply, they limit what you can do, and your Wolf can die. The Wolves recite his saga, and you play the Wolf who takes his place.

⚠️ What is lore and what is game

From the setting: the Space Wolves, their feasting, boasting and sagas, honour badges, the Shadow in the Warp, Tyranids that adapt, Exterminatus. Game scaffolding of this module: the status line and clock, the CONSUMED and SHADOW numbers, the [SAGA] record, and the swarm-learning trigger. Verrowen and its people are original to this module. The AI keeps the status line and the saga record in the chat, because scripts cannot remember anything between turns. Over a very long chat it can drift; correct it by pasting the right status line. Verrowen and its people are original to this module. The setting, the Space Wolves, the Tyranids and the Imperium follow the Warhammer 40,000 fiction.