The Watch squad suddenly find themselves attacked by crazed locals who charge madly forward. These lunatics do not seem to be particularly effective, though Sören is unlucky enough to take several grievous injuries. The rest of the squad, however, cut through them like they are reaping wheat.
Once the last of the madmen have fallen, the squad presses on to Fort Blackfire only to discover that it is basically in siege mode, having thrown back several mad attacks by the locals. Lieutenant Brotte, the ranking Watch officer, is momentarily hopeful that the squad are just the first of the reinforcements she sent for, then crestfallen when she learns no one at the main barracks know of their plight. Grievously injured herself, she brevets Jörg to full Sergeant as she already has a Korporal.
With a great shout, a massive force of locals surge toward the fort like mind-controlled madmen. Jörg is forced to assume command with Lieutenant Brotte’s injuries overwhelm her and she passes out, but he leads the defenders to a great victory. The attackers rout in all directions, leaving the vast majority of their number on the ground, dead or dying.
Though it felt like only moments, everyone is startled to realize it is full dark and Morrslieb hangs low over the town, bathing Bögenhafen in the eerie green light. Lieutenant Brotte, now once more awake, agrees to send Jörg’s squad to the nearby Shallyan Mercyhouse to seek medical aid.
En route, the squad enters a small Sigmar chapel that looks to have been attacked. Several bodies are present, but not the priest. Sören takes a number of altar relics for safe-keeping.
At the Mercyhouse, they find the Sigmar priest being attended to by Sister Brigitte who heals Sören. Both the priest and the sister agree to travel to the fort with the squad. Just as they are preparing to depart, they all hear someone trying to open a well-hidden trapdoor that is blocked by boxes. This is revealed to be Enfys! He cries out that they must stop them…
Just then, outside, there is a great tearing sound and a pinkish light stabs up into the sky. An immense daemon tears its way into the realworld.
And then, the screaming begins.
GM Notes:
Very late recap. Partially my bad. Mostly.
Nosh will be back next session.
We had a bye week as I realized I’d written myself into a corner and, in addition to having a very busy real life work week, I needed an extra week to (hopefully) figure out how to get out that corner.
The opening fight worked out pretty well (though I wasn’t expecting Sören to get as messed up as he was) but the mass combat was pretty much a wash.
Having Enfys show up where he did was a last minute addition that seemed like a great idea at the time, but turned out to be a really stupid one that has caused me a lot of heartache. Semi-professional tip: don’t be a dumbass like me.
The Watch squad re-enters the sewers and make their way to where Sören is expecting to find Sergeant Klumpenklug’s body. Instead, they find a blood trail and follow it to the spot the goblin entered.
There they discover what looks to be Klumpenklug holding a man over the effluent. Upon their approach, the thing wearing Klumpenklug’s flesh suit tears off the man’s head and throws it at them where it explodes. The false Klumpenklug explodes into shadows and disappears.
Coppertong is forced to enter the effluent to retrieve a box containing the real Rudi Klumpenklug’s body (now on fire).
Back at the barracks, Sergeant Überraschung hides the body, then tasks them to visit Klumpenklug’s home in the Artisan’s Quarter … which he should not be able to afford.
They are forced to break in and eventually discover a chained up thief in the cellar several of them recognize from their first day on the job. Alette Zimmermann claims to be an innocent vitim in all this, though the evidence does appear to indicate that before his death, the real Klumpenklug was organizing a big heist in the Adel Ring.
Outside, they are surrounded by stevedores who order them (in a creepy voice) to leave or be destroyed. The squad (and Alette) return to the barracks.
The following morning, there is an assembly and the captain introduces his new lieutenant, Wendale Gormann, who is going to be taking over. Worse, the squad are reassigned to the northern barracks in the Pit which everyone calls Fort Blackfire! Sergeant Überraschung tells them to keep digging if they can while she pokes around here.
The squad gather their gear and depart, with Christoph realizing he has the same weird feeling around Gormann that he had around the thing in the sewer last night. They cross the river via a ferry and enter the Pit, then start heading toward the barracks.
But suddenly, lunatics attack!
GM Notes:
Very late recap. My bad.
Nosh is still unavailable due to work
The sewer stuff was a mess and it’s all my fault. I did a terrible job of explaining the environment, then stupidly got a little annoyed when the players were confused.
I actually expected the PCs to fight the initial band of mind-controlled stevedores, but they surprised me again.
I’ve also noted that this group is really reactive so … I suspect the Evil Plan that grognards are familiar with is going to succeed…
Sören stares at the corpse of Sergeant Klumpenklug and coordinates with Franz Baumann over moving the body. He returns upstairs only to discover the false Klumpenklug has left. He reveals to the others – sans Enfys, who has apparently gone home for the night – that Klumpenklug may be dead. They initially think he’s drunk.
Upon returning to the barracks, Jörg is summoned to the captain’s office where Sergeant Überraschung is standing watch. They have a long conversation, complete with some quite excellent brandy, though Jörg feels like he missed something.
The following morning, Enfys is still missing and they look around for him, with Sören learning that he was seen heading north with Klumpenklug the night before.
The half shift passes quickly, though Coppertong is at the forge all day. Jörg debriefs Magistrate Richter, and then word spreads about the witch hunter attack upon the Steinhäger merchant house. Around midday, the three at the Schaffenfest encounter Jörg’s parents who are meeting with Josef Quartjin over some beers.
Christoph is convinced that he sees Sibylle, the witch who cast spells upon her, and pursues with Sören following, but loses her in the crowd.
The three head to the Blitzen mansion to inquire if Enfys is here, but the young man who answers replies that there is no guest of that name here. As the three are heading back, they observe a great number of witch hunters and their soldiers storming the Teugen Mansion. They are quickly tasked to serve as road guards (since they’re still wearing the Watch uniforms.) Johannes Teugen is slain.
And possibly worse, Morrslieb, the Chaos Moon, has risen full.
Now with dark setting in, the three pick up Coppertong and head to the barracks where Jörg reports to Sergeant Überraschung, relating everything he knows about Klumpenklug. She demands Sören elaborate, then orders them back into the sewers to retrieve this body. Sören is very irritated at Jörg for this.
They stop briefly at the Crossed Pikes for a drink and so Sören can discreetly telling Baumann to have the body placed in a good spot.
And then, grudgingly, they enter the sewers again with Morrslieb glaring down at them…
GM Notes:
Nosh is unavailable for a number of weeks due to work, so I decided to have Enfys abducted and will turn his disappearance into the investigation for the PCs while the witch hunters tear apart the town, looking for Franz Steinhäger and dealing with Ordo Septenarius stuff. I’m sure there isn’t a secondary plan going on somewhere…
For old school grognards, the changes here are definitely noticeable. Johannes Teugen was the bad guy in the original adventure (sorta) and I just killed him off, so clearly, my run has evolved a bit, mostly due to that assassination of the witch hunter (that I totally intended on being a session in and of itself until the player jumped the gun and caught me flat-footed).
Players always confound and the decision by Jörg to advise Überraschung instead of them heading to Klumpenklug’s off-base housing threw me for a minor loop. So … it’s back to the sewers!
The battle with the suspiciously rat-like beastmen is over and the PCs turn to patching up injuries. To Jörg’s confusion and mild frustration, Christoph is resistant to providing any aid to Witch Hunter Albrecht, which results in Jörg having to do it. Once roused, the witch hunter dispatches Christoph to the temple to bring reinforcements. The scout (and secret hedge-witch) grudgingly obeys.
Once he is gone, Sören breaks into a cabinet at the witch hunter’s direction, discovering a scroll, a sacrificial knife and a strange piece of greenish crystal that he discreetly pockets. Surely, this won’t come back to bite him in the butt.
At the temple, Christoph must interact with the younger Witch Hunter’s grim father who stares at him coldly before leading a team of warriors and priests into the sewers where they take over the investigation, focusing upon the possible secret entrance that Jörg thinks he has found. Healing is dished out save to Coppertong who refuses.
A secret path is revealed and leads upstairs to the offices of House Steinhäger. A brief confused fight breaks out but is over before the PCs follow, with every one of the merchants seized and arrested. Notably, the elder of the House, Franz, is not present, having fled the building moments earlier. The PCs are ordered away, though the senior witch hunter watches them all suspiciously.
After a brief check-in with the Watch, they go off shift and Sören shows the green rock to Christoph and Enfys, the latter of whom nearly panicks at the sight of raw warpstone. They agree that it must be gotten rid of and, after a few too many pints, they hit upon breaking into the Steinhäger building and leaving it (along with Christoph’s irritating ring) there.
This B&E goes surprisingly well, though their last minute decision to fit the ring around the warpstone catches the GM completely off guard. They return to the tavern, pleased at having evaded the patrolling witch hunters, and discover Sergeant Rudi Klumpenklug, their ostensible commander, at the table with Coppertong and Jörg. More notably to Sören is that the tavernkeeper, Franz Baumann, whom Sören knows to head the Rainaldan thieves guild, is staring intently at Klumpenklug, an odd expression on his face. When Sören meanders over for a refill to ask why, Baumann tells him he needs to see something.
In the cellar, Sören warns Baumann about the witch hunters exploring the sewers and the other man scowls before revealing that they fished a body out: it turns out to be none other than Rudi Klumpenklug, clearly dead for several days … and missing his heart…
Upstairs, Enfys staggers to the jacks and as he is buttoning back up, a familiar voice calls out his name. He turns … and everything goes black…
GM Notes:
Very late recap. I have no one to blame but my own laziness.
For old school grognards, the changes here are definitely noticeable. Steinhäger and the Ordo Septenarius were heavily involved in the original game, but mine has evolved a bit, mostly due to that assassination of the witch hunter (that I totally intended on being a session in and of itself until the player jumped the gun and caught me flat-footed).
Nosh is unavailable for a number of weeks due to work, so I decided to have Enfys abducted and will turn his disappearance into the investigation for the PCs while the witch hunters tear apart the town, looking for Franz Steinhäger and dealing with Ordo Septenarius stuff. I’m sure there isn’t a secondary plan going on somewhere…
Players always confound and the decision to (A) steal the warpstone and (B) to put a magic ring onto it and (C) plant it in the Steinhäger building definitely caught me by surprise, which is why that entire sequence is garbage. That said, I had Christoph make a “universe reaction roll” into the dice tower to see what happens with the ring & warpstone … the results will be observed next session…
Having been volunteered to venture into the sewers to retrieve the three-legged goblin by Sergeant Klumpenklug, the team are further dismayed when the senior witch hunter declares that his son, Albrecht, will be accompanying them as well.
They descend into the hideously-smelling sewers and backtrack to where the goblin entered before picking up the trail. It leads them deeper into the system where they discover a smashed in door that opens up into a shrine-like chamber, complete with a summoning circle that has the name ORDO SEPTENARIUS upon it.
Dropping from the rafters above them, five suspiciously rat-like beastmen attack. A fierce fight ensues with these creatures – Coppertong recognizes them as skaven, though to the Imperials, skaven as a race were exterminated centuries ago – which leaves all but Christoph and Jörg unwounded. Albrecht is the mostly grievously injured and passes out soon after the battle ends. Everyone is quite surprised when these suspiciously rat-like beastmen dissolve into pools of acid upon death.
GM Notes:
For old school grognards, the changes here are definitely noticeable. In the adventure as written, there’s a lesser daemon there and looking over the PCs stats, I had my doubts that more than one or two would make the Will check against its Terror-3 aura so I wanted to replace it somehow. Further, knowing the skaven play a part later in the campaign, I wanted to introduce them a little earlier and a former player who is more familiar with the Warhammer setting than I am suggested using Clan Moulder who are really into flesh/genetic engineering. Not all skaven are going to die like this, but the PCs don’t know that.
Having the apprentice witch hunter along as an “escort mission” was something I decided during the week before the game … though I wasn’t quite expecting him to get as jacked up in the fight as he was. Still, he’s still alive (currently) so … I have another opportunity to give him a proper personality. As it stands, he could legally have Enfys executed for casting spells without the presence of Enfys’ master per the apprentice license.
As I expected, the entire session turned into a combat and, to the Players’ consternation, I was rolling pretty well for a change. We ended up with all but two of the PCs wounded, with Enfys having only 1hp. Which means I get to bring in potential infections and all that jazz due to the environment. Albrecht Kessel, the apprentice witch hunter, is 2 points away from a death check.
We open with a flashback, to the night of the murder of the witch hunter. Just as it happens, Enfys recognizes his brother, Brynmore, and his brother’s wizardly mentor, Etelka Herzen. He observes his brother cast a powerful spell of Panic that causes huge numbers of the crowd to flee in all directions. Enfys attempts to pursue his brother who goes in the opposite direction that Magos Herzen does, but loses Brynmore in the crowd.
The new Watch mostly have the 6th day off. Jörg intends to visit his parents’ home but instead ends up getting roped into helping Coppertong repair the Shallyan Mercyhouse. Christoph asks a couple of magic-based questions of Enfys and shows him the plain copper ring, then says a little too much which causes Master Loom to begin suspecting that his young friend may have been involved in the death of the witch hunter; Enfys then spends some time trying to find his brother again while Christoph tries to track down “Sybille” only to discover that she’s long gone. Sören spends the day wandering around town, feeling out the local orphans with an eye toward recruiting them later.
Word reaches them all late in the day: another troop of witch hunters and their entourages have arrived.
The following day, they are assigned to day gate guard, which is quite busy; of course, Sergeant Klumpenklug, their ostensible superior, is nowhere to be found. Rumours about the witch hunter activity abound: a ritual has been conducted over the slain man’s body and he burst into green flames or sat up and spoke the Name of his murderer or stood up, dusted himself off, and joined the manhunt or … the variations are endless. Afterward, Enfys mentions his suspicions about Christoph to Sören, and the two recall how frightened Christoph looked whenever the dead witch hunter is mentioned. They decide to corner him without involving Jörg or Coppertong, and he glumly admits the entire truth about being magically ensorceled. He also reveals to them how he buried that ring (at Enfys’ suggestion) and the bloody thing was in his pocket again the next day.
The following morning, the Watch are assembled in the main barracks for a rewards ceremony and to their irritation, Sergeant Klumpenklug is presented a medal and some shillings for gallantry, and is credited for all of the things that the newcomers actually did, such as putting out the fire, chasing down footpads, and standing firm during the riots. Afterwards, When Captain Goertrin fails to inspire with a speech, Sergeant Überraschung takes out and issues orders for tomorrow’s Schaffenfest. Jörg will be in charge of the team as she has Klumpenklug assigned to the magistrate’s tent.
And then, it’s another day of gate guard, which is even busier. More disconcerting for Christoph, though, is the witch hunter who shows up on horseback around noon and just … sits there, studying everyone, whether it is the guards or the people streaming into and out of the gate.
The Schaffenfest begins the following day, and it is rather hectic, with the PCs patrolling the various hot spots: the wrestling ring where Jörg almost gets suckered into fighting with his cousin; the beer tent that several of them look at longingly while escorting drunks (including Gottri, a drunk Dwarf that Coppertong is vaguely familiar with) to the magistrate’s tent; the archery contest sponsored by the graf himself which implies he is assembling a new company of bowmen … though Christoph recognizes two of the men running it as members of the dead witch hunter’s retinue, so he steers clear; and then Doctor Malthusius’ Zoocopeia which promises to have “strange creatures from all korners of the world! The marvellous, the bizarre, the disgusting!“
A pair of witch hunters are present, coldly observing the display much to the “doctor’s” dismay, and Enfys demands to see everything first, throwing around his weight as a member of the Watch freely. With enough paying visitors present, Malthusius begins his spiel and has his Dwarf companion bring out the various oddities and creatures. He shows an array of extraordinary creatures, including ‘the Horrendously Hairy Horror of Hochland!’ (a long-haired ape of some sort), ‘the Dastardly One-eyed Dog of Diesdorf!’ (which actually is dog with a single eye in its forehead; this causes the witch hunters to frown harder and exchange a look), ‘the Immeasurable Maw of the Middle Mountains’ (a relatively small Squig), and ‘the Ghastly Three-Legged Goblin of the Grissenwald!’
When the three-legged goblin is brought out, it abruptly bites the Dwarf’s hand, causing him to let go of its leash, and then makes a break for freedom, vanishing into a small hole in the town wall where an iron grating has rusted away to nothing. As the crowd’s panic subsides, the older witch hunter strides forward and orders the Watch present to clasp this man into irons for trafficking with prohibited creatures.
Leading the shackled entertainer to the festival courts, they find Chief Magistrate Richter still overseeing the various petty crimes and misdemeanors placed before him. He listens to the witch hunter list the crimes, reviews the evidence brought by the PCs, then agrees to turn Malthusius over to the witch hunters for Questioning. The younger witch hunter asks about the mutant goblin now escaped into the sewers.
And Sergeant Klumpenklug immediately volunteers Korporal Lange’s team to retrieve it.
GM Notes:
Recap notes up late. We didn’t play this last Saturday, instead opting to do session zero for Giger’s Old West game.
I would have considered this session something of a WHIFF if it wasn’t for some really entertaining roleplaying between the characters. Nosh’s decision to have Enfys become suspicious of some of the things that Christoph asked or told him was amusing, but when Ronnke was brought in, it became a lot of fun and the best part was I didn’t have to actually do anything! Why a WHIFF? Because I don’t think I did a very good job with the Schaffenfest.
The next session will have them entering the sewers and I’m making even more tweaks to that which old school grognards will recognize as such.
Pandemonium has ensued. Fabergus Heinzdrok, infamous witch hunter, topples, an arrow buried in the back of his skull. There is a long moment of stunned disbelief and then a wave of panic sends everyone scrambling away from the scene, filled with terror.
Christoph is able to escape the Göttenplatz mostly unseen, though he is convinced that a few people did notice him; in the mad chaos, though, it was likely just a fleeting glimpse and not enough to draw an accurate portrait of him. More importantly, though, he can feel the lesser geas cast upon him evaporate since Heinzdrok is dead and as that happens, so too does the false memory he had dissipate. He was charmed!
Jörg, who was passing through this way with Sergeant Else Überraschung on their way out of town, is also hit by the panic, as is Sören (and possibly Enfys, though we won’t know about that until next session with the flashback!). Coppertong, being a Dwarf, is unaffected, but still wisely scrambled for cover. In the chaos, Sören heads toward the two thieves he knows and they hurry him to a manhole cover and the sewer, aka the “Thieves Highway.” Their boss wants to see him.
As the courtyard and streets clear out, SGT Überraschung orders the Watch personnel back to the barracks to gear up; she’s see this sort of madness before and knows riots are coming. Jörg and Coppertong follow her, and are joined en route by Christoph who has donned his Town Watch tabard as cover. There is no sign of Enfys or Sören.
Sören, as it turns out, is being recruited into the Crooked Fingers, the current thieves guild running the town and a religious order of Rainald as well. From the leader, Franz Baumann, he learns that his parents were members in good standing – his father was actually the Ranaldan high priest – until they died under mysterious circumstances. Baumann wants Sören to join and promises that it’ll lead to a big payday down the road. To prove his worth, Sören is tasked to help a fellow escape from the barracks while the rest of the Watch are out dealing with riots.
He does so by slipping the thief lockpicks, then ducking away to change into his Watch uniform; unfortunately, the thief panics upon seeing someone dressed as the Watch and attacks, injuring Sören before fleeing.
After being patched up, Sören rejoins the rest of his team (sans Enfys, who is still missing) and they participate in anti-riot measures all night and into the morning, finally ending up on the north bank, defending the Shallyan mercyhouse from crazed locals obsessed with digging up a nonexistent treasure. Exhausted, they return to the barracks around noon, only to be reminded that they have night duty that evening.
The night drags only slowly for the exhausted personnel, especially with SGT Rudi Klumpenklug overseeing them and swearing he was in the middle of the riots (though no one remembers seeing him at all.) Once back at the barracks, the new Watch members have no problems sleeping through the day … and they have gate guard tonight. Klumpenklug reveals that the Town Council decided that the gates will be closed from sundown to sunup thanks to the recent problems and no one is to be admitted.
Around midnight, a large group of witch hunters and soldiers arrive, demanding entrance, but Jörg, who is currently in charge as SGT Klumpenklug has “mysteriously” wandered off for some reason, politely refuses due to his orders. He gives his name when the witch hunter demands it, and the Templars of Sigmar ride away to the other gate. On the morrow, they will learn that the other guards bent under pressure and allowed the witch hunters to enter … and yet another group of them arrive around noon.
That evening, just as their third night shift begins, the Watch members are at the site of a “road rage” incident between merchants when Sören notes some men making familar hand gestures he recalls from another group who mistook him for Kastor Lieberung. They flee into the crowd when he tries to approach…
GM Notes:
Original plan was for us to skip this week and do a session zero for the GURPS: Old West that Gigermann is spinning up but Nosh wasn’t able to join us so it was back to GURPSHammer.
The Action Challenge System is something Gigermann started working on a while back for action scenes that couldn’t be handled by standard GURPS combat (or would be difficult to do so). It’s not quite GURPS: Mass Combat which both of us have some problems with, and has gone through some iterations. Mostly worked for my needs, but I didn’t do as good a job with setting the conditions as I’d like.
I wasn’t happy with where the session ended and naturally, 30 seconds after everyone had logged off, I realized what I should have actually done.
Nosh is back next session and I’m going to do a quick (hopefully) flashback for Enfys to setup what he’s been doing and reveal some things that will hopefully make the crazyness a bit more clear.
The Schaffenfest and Enemy in Shadows adventure will actually (finally!) kick off next week as well.
I also realized after the fact that, since I’m using that GURPSHammer fan supplement (which admittedly is based more on WFRP 1e), all religious spellcasters with Warp Empathy 0 (which is basically Magery 0, but without the magical awareness; Power Investiture is not a thing in GURPSHammer) have access to the Divination spell … which means the Witch Hunters are going to be tapping into that by using Sigmar priests … so I’ve started using “The Hunt: from Monster Hunters 2 but in reverse to see how close they can get to Christoph before things turn to crap…
Following the fire, the new watchmen are off-shift until this time tomorrow when they go onto the night shift.
Most of the rest of the crew seek out a tavern to drown their bad day, but Christoph, needing some replacement arrows, observes Sybille in the market. She nods toward a disurbance, which turns out to be the infamous witch hunter he met briefly the day before. She casts a discreet spell that causes his saddle buckles to snap, dumping him into the street. Enraged, the witch hunter orders one of his escorts to be seized for daring to laugh; he must be Questioned to determine if he had just tried to murder the witch hunter.
Possibly more important (or not; time will tell) is the magic ring that spills out of the witch hunter’s saddlebags and inexplicably rolls across the dirty cobblestones to Christoph’s boot.
Afterward, Christoph follows Sybille, insisting that he wishes her to be an ally; she takes him to her hidden camp outside the town where she gives him a scroll to test whether he can learn and possibly aid her in killing the witch hunter who she claims killed everyone in her village. When he does so and counters with wanting her to prove she can cast spells, the GM laughs and casts: Charm, followed by Weaken Will, then Weaken Will again because he beat her, then Lesser Geas (to kill Fabergus Heinzdrok, Witch Hunter), then False Memory to hide what she just did. They agree to meet the following evening to discuss plans.
The following day sees the new Watch members called into a fight at the Journey’s End between rival Merchant Houses. Against Sergeant Klumpenklug’s suggestion, the crew get involved and the fight spills out into the streets.
Afterward, Jörg finds Watch Sergeant Else Überraschung, the woman he was courting before the bad times, waiting at the barracks so they can talk; she agrees to join him as he heads to his family’s farm and they depart Bögenhafen. The others are more interested in observing an execution of a heretic by a witch hunter, though Christoph breaks off by himself, sneaks to a building that he climbs onto the roof of so he has a clear vantage point. Just as the witch hunter is about to ignite the pyre, Christoph looses an arrow that punches into the back of the witch hunter’s head, killing him instantly.
Pandemonium ensues.
GM Notes:
Well. That escalated unexpectedly. My original intent was for Christoph and “Sybille” to sneak into some place within the temple of Sigmar after the execution, during which Christoph would have an opportunity to resist his geas … but FX embraced it and bam, dead witch hunter. This is going to result in a bit of revising the next sequence…
I’d considered using the sequence of mind control spells earlier in the week, but was actually beginning to lean away from it and more toward the “long con” … until Christoph asked Sybille to prove that she was a spellcaster. That was too good of an opportunity. Unfortunately for her, the calamity stuff from her exceeding her Threshold (see GURPS: Thaumatology) has left her in a very bad place: all spells are cast at -3 for 8 fricking weeks and her Threshold level is reduced to 7 instead of 30 for 3 mos. She’s going to be very wary about casting spells for quite a while.
Nosh had some computer issues in that his laptop died, so he was watching the stream on Twitch and logged into TeamSpeak via his phone. He should be back to normal at the next session.
This ep turned in a super focus on Christoph and FX, the player, is aware that the character is potentially in a lot of danger, so he has given thought to a replacement character if necessary.
No session next week: we’re going to do a “Session Zero” for Gigermann’s Old West game instead. This gives me an extra week to work on plans.
With Coppertong assigned to the barracks armoury, the other four survivors begin patrolling under Sergeant Klumpenklug. On their first day, they are promptly involved in a foot case to stop a thief.
After their day of patrolling, the team splits up to advance individual goals and objectives. One of Jörg’s sisters is waiting for him and takes him out to eat.
Sören investigates the apparent disappearance of all members of the “old” thieves’ guild.
Christoph visits the shrine of Taal again where he sees a townswoman hiding, and interacts, briefly, with a witch hunter who appears to be hunting her.
Enfys interacts with Magos Hieronymous Blitzen, is given some cryptic information and four scrolls to study, before the wizard departs.
The following day, just as they are about to go off shift, they discover a great fire has broken out at a dockside tavern and, contrary to Klumpenklug’s indifference, rush to assist, with Enfys managing to extinguish the entire blaze at once. Afterward, the pyromancer is convinced this was not a naturally occuring blaze, but rather arson…
GM Notes:
Was down Coppertong’s player as expected.
Grognards may recognize the core elements from the WFRP 4E “Starter Set.” That’s due to one of the players having gone through this before, so I wanted to change things up to ensure he’s still guessing.
The chase lasted a lot longer than I expected it to.
Enfys’ player is technically on vacation right now, but the place he was at lost power and he hadn’t charged up his laptop, so he was out of the game until power came back.
The small convoy has arrived at Bögenhafen. After their drivers cover the (expected) entrance toll for laden wagons, they proceed to the House Steinhäger offices to begin the process of offloading their wares. While waiting outside the office, Christoph is addressed by Josef Quartjin, an old family friend who is a boatman and is present to do the same. They arrange to meet later at a riverside tavern.
After taking the wagons to a warehouse where members of the Teamsters’ Guild offload them, the five survivors are paid their final wages and allowed to seek their fortunes as they will. Both drivers thank them and head off.
After spending most of the night catching up with Josef and drinking their wages away, the survivors overnight at the tavern-slash-inn, and turn to individual tasks the following morning. Jörg is seeking out the families of the slain members of Die Grau Kompanie to pass on word of their deaths; Coppertong is checking into the schedule for hangings, then trying to find work at the Metalworker’s Guild; Christoph briefly flees the rapidly filling town to pray at the shrine to Taal outside the walls, then joins Enfys and Sören who are attempting to conduct research into the latter’s possible family.
In the end, the entire group reunite late in the day and head to the offices of Lock, Stock and Barl, Barristers; once inside, they realize that it is a trap when doors and windows are shut and barred from the outside. A voice calls out: ‘Kastor Lieberung! Otherwise known as the magister impedimentae of the cult of the Purple Hand! In the name of the Emperor, I arrest you and your companions for conspiring with Chaos, murder, theft, and other crimes hereinafter to be enumerated! Lay down your weapons and surrender!’
And then, there is a terrible sound heard from outside. Ripping noises and screams and more tearing sounds before it goes abruptly silent. Just as the survivors venture out to investigate, they discover the horrifying sight of multiple bodies torn apart. Bystanders moving to investigate the noises flee screaming and the PCs are discovered by the Town Watch standing over the bodies.
Following a night in prison, the five are taken before Chief Magistrate Richter whereupon they learn that a riot happened after the chaos and they are being blamed. A barrister named Osanna Winandus, whom the five know they did not hire due to the expense, takes their case and discusses privately with them: someone is setting them up but her benefactor or benefactors (who wish to remain private!) wish to oppose this. With their permission, she speaks to the magistrate privately, and he issues his judgement: at best, they’re guilty of disturbing the peace, so a year and a day serving in the Town Watch will is their punishment.
Escorted to the main barracks, they meet Captain Reiner of House Goertrin, who turns them over to Sergeant Rudi Klumpenklug; he will show them their duties.
They’re in the Town Watch now!
GM Notes:
Will be down Coppertong’s player due to family plans, so we’ve determined that she gets promptly tasked to work at the barrack’s anvil, repairing arms and armour.
Grognards will recognize the core elements from “Enemy in Shadows” or “Shadows Over Bögenhafen” (depending on which version of TEW you’ve played) but will also note that I included elements from the WFRP 4E “Starter Set.” That’s due to one of the players having gone through this before, so I wanted to change things up to ensure he’s still guessing.
Dropped the ball more than a couple of times, particularly with regards to Sören’s family questions.
The more time that has passed, the less happy I was with the session. Usual second-guessing and nitpicking.
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