Tear Jerker / Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader

• Finding Theodora's body in the prologue elicits a horrendous Big "NO!" from Idira, who looked at the Lord Captain as a maternal figure, and she's left distraught through the rest of the sequence. She even blames herself for Theodora's death, as she laments how her visions should have prevented the murder from happening.
  • This comes to the forefront as part of Idira's companion storyline, as she starts drinking heavily, to the point that she lets the Warp whispers conjure up the ghostly figure of Theodora, eventually becoming a Daemon that tries to cajole Idira into falling completely.
• The fate of planet Rykad at the end of Act 1. No matter what you do, there is no way to stop the Drukhari from stealing the planets sun, or the Chaos Cultists from taking over the planet. In the end, you're forced to make a Sadistic Choice between saving the few survivors that you can, salvaging the mechanicus reactor, or destroying the planet before it can turn into a daemon world.
  • Even the "good" choice of saving the survivors comes back to bite you, as a number of the refugees turn out to be cultists in disguise who later sabotage your fleet.
• Commoragh is a saddening experience for almost all of your companions. After the Drukhari ambush and abduct you, the entire party is put through the wringer. After two acts of them being heroes of the Imperium, it's depressing to see them after the Drukhari have had their fun.
  • Abelard is reduced to a wreck, losing years of his life and stumbling around in a stupor as he calls out to his late wife. Going through the motions trying to live out happier times.
  • Pasqual has been taken apart and put back together with so much tech heresy it's a mess. He's horrified at what he's become, and can barely move when you manage to find him.
  • Argenta takes her experience in Commoragh well enough at first, fighting through the arena and finding a Commissar to gather people into a small group to fight for freedom. Except the Commissar's a Drukhari patsy, and either you kill him when his treachery is uncovered or for the sake of working with Malice. Losing the hope of turning things around is what causes her to finally crack, and her guilt and stress leads to her confession that she was the one who shot Theodora.
  • The Archon "torture" Idira by completely cutting her off from the Warp, which means that for the first time in her life, Idira can think normally and doesn't have to hear the voices that constantly plague her. Except that it is through implanting her with a device that will slowly kill her. Despite that, she actually prefers staying that way, to the point making her remove that device is a Hereticus choice.
  • Yrliet may have been the one to lead you to the Drukhari trap, but she didn't realize what she'd done before she was ensnared as well. And boy does she suffer for her mistake. The Drukhari decide to experiment and see what would happen if a Child of Asuryan was trained to use suffering to stave off Slaneesh. By the time you find her, it's obvious it's been a horrifying and miserable experience for her.