White Glove Party

So I had an idea for Rogue Trader where you invite a bunch of dark eldar to a fancy dinner party where everyone attending has to wear white gloves.

At the end of the meal, anyone who has soiled their gloves will be served at the next White Glove party... as the main course.

(Of course, nobody would ever suspect that you are simply wearing 2 pairs of gloves, and that all you need to do is remove the first pair to appear as though you have left your hands immaculate)

Why exactly would any official Imperial authorities have such intimate connections to the Dark Eldar without raising the ire of the big I ?

Sounds more plausible if it's the Dark Eldar hosting it, and attendance isn't voluntary, that way they get to play their games with the inferior Mon'keigh.

>be an ork
>attend white glove party
>gloves don't fit, become fingerless gloves
>dinner is served
>smash face into plate
>finish meal with face covered in steak sauce
>inspection time
>gloves clean, face and shirt total mess
>zero fucks given

oh, yeah, sorry, thats what i meant.

Then it actually seems kinda fitting for the wackier side of 40k canon, go for it.

I wanna run this now
Dark Eldar vore is my magical realm

I'm assuming you do get silverware

>All the silverware is coated in small, very fine spines and blades, as is the Dark Eldar aesthetic
>If you don't use it, you'll soil your gloves
>If you do it wrong, you'll tear your gloves

You could do the same thing with orks, only make it an eating contest, and whoever eats the LEAST will be the next course.

What's the point in being hilariously wealthy if you can't pay people to spoonfeed you?

Speaking of stuff like that, I've intented to have the players in my RT campaign deal with the Dark Eldar (they've kind of promised to do a favor for a DE Archon in exchange for gettign them out of some serious trouble), and I'd need some ideas on how to portray the Archon (I intend to run Soul Reaver, although modified to remove some of the annoying parts, so the Archon is Salaine Morn from the book, but probably with not much in common except the name and backstory).

The thing is, that while the character should be at least somewhat likeable so the PCs are willing to work with her, I also don't really intent to compromise the way DE are portrayed. So I though the best way to do that would be to focus more on the more whimsical side of DE, portraying the Archon basically as like an eccentric noblewoman who initially appears to be just decadent and self-centered, but causually drop stuff that implies she's probably the most vile and evil person in the entire campaign (like, the players wouldn't directly see her doing anything more evil than standard "decadent noble" stuff, but it'd be implied or able to be read between the lines). I'd also like for her rival to come across as the more "virtuous" of the two; still definitely evil and wanting to kill the PCs, but actually having traits that could be seen as positive.
However, I'm not entirely sure how to get that across, and exactly what sort of things she should be up to.

>grinding up imperial's manhood for sale as an aphrodisiac. (Stronger the hero, the higher the price)
>selling "discounted" corpse rations. (Warning: may contain Tyranid or Ork spores)
>having prisoners decide on each others tortures, whoever imagines the worse one survives another day. (Or not, depending on her mood)

Implied antropophagy is also a good one. Can't get much worse than a literal baby-eating villain (and you can do the "I'm an avid humanitarian" joke). Bonus points if she negociates with the PCs over dinner, and they only later realise just what they ate.

Generally, I think a good way to establish the character is a really terrible person despite them not really being a big threat is to give them utterly base motivations and unadmirable traits. While some villanous traits are still in a way admirable (like a lot of villains are very ambituous, resourceful, and determined), she's got none of those, instead just being petty, lazy, hedonistic, and immature.

Like, the BBGE might be far more threathening because he wants to conquer the world (or sector/subsector in an RT game), but conquest in itself is in a way an admirable goal. While the archon has no motivation beyond satisfying her immediate desires. She might raze a colony because it was founded by a rogue trader that once insulted her sense of fashion, ransack a holy shrineworld because she though the fresco decipting the Great Crusade they had on the ecclesiarch's palace would look good on the wall of her dining room (and then realise that the gold on the Emperor's armour clashed with the lighting of the room and throw the thing in the trash), or just inflict horrible torture on people for her amusement.

The most terrible kind of evil is the kind that is in some way "ironic", making a mockery of our values and convincing us that our morality is mostly just for show.

You can't just eat a baby, there is no real irony in that. Irony is what allows the pretense of civilization to continue despite the barbarity.

If you were to just go around eating babies, you could never develop a cult of personality, nobody would follow you, people would just think you were a senseless animal that was incapable of reason.

For the cruelty to make sense, there has to be some pretense of civilized mannerisms.

The other thing is that the punishment has to fit the crime.

If a messenger is late with vital information that costs you the war, you don't just hang him or have him shot, you cut off his legs or take away his ship.

Whatever the perceived failing in your subordinates or rivals is, you draw attention to it through your punishments and retributions, so as not to call attention towards your own failures and potential lack of discipline.

Was thinking less "I'm so evil, I'm going take this baby and EAT IT!" and more about eating lavish meals where all the courses are prepared with decidedly unethical materials and means. Human foei grais, and the like.

Kind of as mentioned, I think DE work very well with a theme of "false nobility"; that they are very big on appearring as sophisticated and refined, but in actuality are horrible, depraved, and violent people putting on a mask of nobility. They're the kind of people who waste tons of resources on utterly frivolous things just to show they can, covet things not because they have value to themselves but because others value them (if you have something they don't, they'll want to take it for no other reason than you having it and them not), and always being a split second away from trying to slit their rival's throat. Pretty much all negative traits associated with rich people turned up to 11.

I also like the suggestion in Soul Reaver for portraying the DE, in that they don't see themselves as evil as much as they're incapable of understanding human morality. For DE, torturing and enslaving other beings are perfectly normal things, and somebody suggesting that they're somehow morally wrong would be like suggesting to the average person that eating bacon is morally wrong.

Eating bacon IS wrong, that's what makes it so delicious.

Tyranids must have eaten some babies at some point. Probably while they were still alive.

Maybe they are from that seperatist faction from Only War that is allied with Deldar

like i said, is what i meant