Game On!

There has been a long silence on the gaming front for me, at least as far as my face to face group goes. I've been away from home for two weeks, but tonight is the night. It is time for some more Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

Gaming has continued for me. I've done a bit of solo delving into Tunnels and Trolls: City of Terror, which I need to do an update post or two for. More exciting then that is I have joined an play by post game, and more to come on that as well.

Come to think of it, I have lots of posting to do. So little time, so many dice.

The Enemy Within Session 6 Report (WFRP)

After an unexpected delay of a week, the group was able to get together to play out session 6.

Action picked up immediately where session 5 left off. Having discovered a secret door behind a book shelf, the characters - plus Rudolf the Protagonist - entered the secret door and followed a trail of blood they presumed was left by the head of Emilo Valantina, the now headless former leader of the Valantina Gang.

A short off topic bit here, one of the things I like about the Old World setting of WFRP is that there is no "Thieves Guild" like that found in most D&D settings; instead, a community will have one or more gangs, how many depends upon the size of the community. These gangs sometimes work in unison, dividing the vices so to speak, in an attempt not to step on each others' toes. Some are not so civil and are often at odds with each other. Many of these "gangs" are guilds in disguise. One common "guild" that is in reality a "gang" are stevedores and teamsters. Often both guilds are legally recognized by the community they operate in, but in reality, they are strong armed gangs making just as much, often more, from smuggling and racketeering operations. My last campaign was based in Marienburg, and I made heavy use of this theme, as all of the characters worked for the Stevedore "Guild".

Back on topic, the secret passage opened onto a roughly cut set of stairs which, as could be told from smell before sight, led into a sewer passage. They were not long in the sewers before a vague humanoid shape was seen bearing a whip. This vague shape was hunched and from its silhouette a snout and tail could be made out. The thing seemed to be driving a swarm of rats towards the party.

Another aside here. The players immediately thought "Skaven" when they saw the rat-like silhouette. In the Old World, there are rumors that a race of rat-men called Skaven live beneath the cities and towns. Some even believe that their lairs connect into a giant underworld. In this underworld, the Skaven worship their dark god - the Horned Rat - and plot to enslave mankind and rise up as the dominate race. Of course many do not believe that the Skaven exist; even though it is written in history that they once nearly overthrew the Empire. Many believe the tales of a secret race of rat-men are exaggerations. While it is believed that a horde of chaos nearly once destroyed the Empire, many scholars are now of the opinion that it was a horde of Beastmen that just happened to appear "rattish".

Back on topic, the swarm of rats soon overtook them and it was obvious that they had to escape quickly or die a slow death of numerous rat bites. A handy abandoned, but operational, mine cart served as an expedient escape. After making their escape, they discovered that they were not alone in the mine cart. There was a rat chewed body, covered in plague like boils. Also in the cart was an equally disfigured head. Upon the body, they discovered the item that Alphonse Oldenhaller had dispatched them to find.

The mine cart landed them in the Huyderman Gangs' base within the Asylum. They Huydermans' were also under attack, but not from the Valantina Gang. The Huydermans were under attack from some strange cultists and some sort of hideous beast. One of the cultists was a Warlock in league with the Ruinous Powers. The remaining four Huydermans joined forces with them.

The players were nervous about this combat, but in the end, they made some lucky rolls and escaped with a pretty easy win.

Suspecting that they would not get paid, they sent Rudolf - who seemed as baffled by the evenings' events as the player characters - to arrange things with Three Fingered Willy and Alphonse Oldenhaller. A meeting was set up at a ware house belonging to the Oldenhaller Mercantile Family.

At the ware house, they were greeted by Three Fingered Willy and four thugs in either his employ or Alphonse's. When Alphonse entered the room, he looked quizzically at Bartolf and uttered in the form of a question a single world: "Kastor?" Immediately after he did this, he was stabbed from behind by one of the thugs wielding a wicked looking dagger shaped as a tooth. Three Fingered Willy and the other thugs, but not Rudolf, raised similar daggers as Willy shouted "FOR THE YELLOW FANGS!"

Before Willy and his thugs could attack the characters, if they ever were going to, they in turn were attacked from a hidden enemy concealed in the rafters. The "assassin" was never revealed; however, he attacked with weapons of a strange nature. The PCs escaped the ware house as it burned, but aside from recovering a lock box containing 30 GC's, they were never paid.

The PC's spent a few more days in Nuln. They were eventually approached by Rudolf. He told them that things were getting hot in Nuln as the Schatzenheimer Gang were busily trying to find anyone involved in the events of their night at the Asylum, plus Albrecht Oldenhaller was seeking out those responsible for his brother's death. He strongly suggested that they all get out of Nuln.

He has a plan. He has a cousin in Mittlesdorf that is running a gang of outlaws and he is sure he can get the characters on, if they wish.

This adventure is not my own. It is "The Oldenhaller Contract", an adventure that originally appeared in the first edition WFRP rule book. Having never run it before, I decided to give it a go. It was fun, lots of twists and turns. It was later updated for 2nd edition and is available here as a free download.

We will be playing next Tuesday the 15th of March, but work will force me to take a two week break after that.

The Enemy Within Sessions 3, 4 and 5 Report (WFRP)

I did a quasi report of sessions 3 and 4 previously, but am reposting them here. Also, One of my players posted a report of session three

Session Three:

Session 3 was our first evening with no combat. There was actually minimal rolling of the dice. After the action heavy session 2, this was a nice change of pace. The players dug into the meat of the investigation itself and moved things along nicely. There were only three players for this session. Our new player was once again a no-show, and was for session 4 as well. We have not heard from him and at this point, I've ruled his character on official "Red-Shirt" status. Our out of town player was having technical difficulties and was thus unable to Skype in.

Session Four:

Session 4 was a different beast. We were up to what I now consider full-force, our out of town player was able to Skype in.

Having followed many clues to their conclusion, the bulk of session 4 was spent at a quickened pace. Their investigations from session 3 and a few more leads that the players followed up on in the beginning of session 4 brought them to the conclusion that a butcher by the name of Emil Stark was holding Hannah hostage. Moving at a break neck pace, they arrived at the final confrontation with Emil, whom they killed, and two beasts of chaos, one of which was Hannah the poor missing daughter of the butcher Herr Fleischer - Emil had been feeding her chaos infected sausages and the second was a missing noble rake named Rudi who had also been horribly mutated by Stark.

During the final battle, Gottfried received a critical wound to his left hand, courtesy of a crossbow bolt fired at him by a niggling little street thug named Dirty Dan (truth be told, I don't know if I ever revealed his name to the players - BAD GM! BAD!).

The group first encountered Dan in session one. He offered to take them to an inn that was sure to have open rooms for a mere two pence and instead led them into an ambush of thugs. They encountered him by chance in a tavern during session three. They were hoping for some payback, but Dan eluded them yet again. I had decided that I would give them one more chance at revenge.

It was called out in the adventure, "Sing for Your Supper" that their main antagonist, Emil Stark, was to have a lackey on hand awaiting to ambush them. I arraigned for this lackey to be good-old "I'll do anything for two-bits" Dan. When they arrived at the ambush sight, I rolled a secret Perception test for each player. None of them passed. Dan fired his loaded crossbow at Gottfried. I rolled a "10" for damage, re-rolled Dan's Ballistic Skill and confirmed the critical hit. A total of 15 points of damage was dealt to Gottfried's left hand. Gottfried passed his test to remain conscious and delivered the groups' final vengeance upon Dirty Dan.

They did not deal with the chaos mutations. Instead, they turned Hannah over to her father and the mutated Rudi, Gottfried reported his circumstance to the Cult of Sigmar who dealt with him. This occurred only after they considered burning half of the city down to take out one mutant. Our group has a history of burning cities down.

All of the above happened in session four. I ended the session leaving Gottfried's player in suspense. I didn't do this just to be cruel, that was only a small part of the reason, the main reason was I had just re-read some interesting optional rules on Barber-Surgeons and wanted to make use of those rules.

In the end, despite the fact that the girl and her father were given the final mercy by Shallyan Priests, they received their promised reward of 25 gold crowns, quite a small fortune.

Session Five:

Play action was picked up the morning following the events of session four. My first order of business was determining the fate of Brother Gottfried, Initiate of Sigmar.

I ended session 4 leaving Gottfried's player in suspense. I didn't do this just to be cruel, that was only a small part of the reason, the main reason was I had just re-read some interesting optional rules on Barber-Surgeons and wanted to make use of those rules. I did so in the beginning of session five, and they were entertaining. I was merciful by ruling that Gottfried had spent a pain filled evening at the Cult of Sigmar where they had made it a point to clean and dress the wound. This ensured that he wouldn't have to deal with the nastiness of infection. It also allowed his Fortune Point Pool to replenish.

For those that don't know Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay that well, each character has a number of Fortune Points that he can use each game day. One of these can be spent to re-roll a bad dice roll, and for a few other things as well. The number of a character's fortune points is determined by his Fate Points. Fate Points are spent to avoid death. They are not a "get out of jail free card", meaning, if a player is forced to spend a fate point to pull his bacon out of the fire, it probably means he may have been dealt a deadly critical wound. Crits are deadly in WFRP and can often result in neat new nick names like "Lefty", "One-Eyed Jack", or "Crutch". It is a grim and perilous world.

Thus, having the Barber-Surgeon appear the next day was a great boon for Gottfried. All turned out well for the initiate. The surgery was performed by an old bone-saw that had seen much action in the Imperial Army.

I let five game days pass. This allowed Gottfried some much needed healing time and it gave the characters an opportunity to spend some of the 25 gold crowns they had been paid. Willow the halfling took advantage of this, and had some new armor tailored to fit her small frame. The elven Wizard's Apprentice replenished his stock of magical components, which included some time spent trying to catch fire-flies. Bartloff, being the good protagonist he is (read "Asshole for Hire") went looking for trouble and easy coin.

Trouble he found, along with an offer to make much more money then he'd ever dreamed. He met a fellow protagonist named Rudolf (yes, he had a red nose) that after Rudolf challenged Bartolf to fight, in which Bartolf gave as good as he got, he told him that his boss, one Three-Fingered Willy, was looking to hire a few blokes for a dirty job. Rudolf gave no details, he only stated it involved busting some heads and that it would pay 100 GC for each participant. He also mentioned that if Bartolf knew a few blokes that were looking to make some coin, he could get them in on the deal. The job was to happen in a few days time.

The next night, a thief that had been secretly following Willow around after seeing her pay for new armor, tried to rob them. The players had opted to get themselves a private room instead of staying in the common room that they were previously. Willow awoke to find the thief trying to steal her purse while she slept and she alerted the other characters to the situation. They easily overcame him in a short pursuit. The thief had nothing of value on him but some lock-picks and a dagger. He was also carrying a note with a leaf motif that had one word upon it: "Malindi". Bartolf then shocked Willow with how he dealt with the thief. His solution was to tie the thief's hands behind his back and throw him out the window, where he fell upon his head, snapping his neck.

A couple of nights later, the characters met Rudolf and Three-Fingered Willy and were given more details about the job. The job consisted of raiding a place called The Asylum. The Asylum is a complex that three separate gangs use as a hide-out: the Schatzenheimer's, the Valatina's and the Huyderman's. Three-Fingered Willy is a prominent member of the Schatzenheimer Gang. He has the backing of over half of the gang behind him and he is looking to depose the current gang leader Kurt Volger. Three-Fingered Willy is being bank rolled by Alphonse Oldenhaller, the younger brother of Counciller Albrecht Oldenhaller who is a successful merchant of Nuln.

Alphonse hopes that with a newly organized Schatzenheimer gang on his side, that he can take his older brother's place as head of the Oldenhaller Merchant Family. Also, Alphonse had hired the Schatzenheimer gang to acquire an item for him. Smelling more money then what was offered, Volger has been refusing to turn the item over. Willy was made it a point to not tell them what the item was.

Willy's plan was, he had a majority of the Schatzenheimer gang willing to back him. His "boys" were to be in the hide out that evening, with Volger and a much smaller number of Volger's supporters. Willy had arraigned for the bulk of Volger's supporters to be out that night doing a job, which they were not to return from until early in the morning hours. Willy and Rudolf were going to lead the characters into the hide out where they and Willy's supporters on the inside, would slaughter Volger and his boys. When Volger's other supporters returned in the morning, they would set up an ambush, giving them two choices: accept Willy in charge, or die.

The characters were of course suspicious, but the lure of a king's ransom in gold helped them overcome their doubts. When they arrived at the Schatzenheimer's den, it was obvious that someone had beaten them to the punch. All of the Schatzenheimers were dead. The Valantina Gang had killed them leaving calling cards on the corpses that read: "Congratulations, you have just met the Valantina Anti-Personnel Crew". The characters noticed that the leaf motif on the calling cards, matched the leaf motif they had found on the body of the thief that had tried to rob them. After searching, Willy announced that the item that they were to retrieve from Kurt Volger was missing.

Willy stated that he had to report this to Alphonse Oldenhaller. He asked to characters to enter the Valantina hide out and retrieve the item. An argument occurred at the end of which Willy offered to increase their payment to 150 GC's and he was forced to tell them what the item looked like: a small lead box fixed to a chain, the lead box has a single coin in it, and it should remain inside the box. Rudolf also informed them that the calling card they had found upon the thief was most likely the Valantina's current password.

The agreed to the terms and proceeding forward, they used the password, Malindi, to gain entrance to the Valantina hideout. There, they managed to pass themselves off as stevedores. After posing as stevedores, they managed to gain an audience with the leader of the Valantina gang: Emilio Valantina; however, someone had managed to sneak into Emilo's room and behead him. They found his headless body, no head was found, nor was anything found that matched the description of the item they were sent to retrieve. A trail of blood led to a book shelf and ended. After a short search, they discovered a hidden door behind the bookshelf.

That is where play ended, session 6 will pick up in action.

Today's Find at the Hobby Shop

After many years of haunting ebay and after being outbid more times then I can remember, I walked into my hobby shop today. Not believing my eyes, I pinched myself to assure I was indeed awake, I spied a copy of WFRP Empire in Flames on the shelf.

For those that don't know, EiF is part five of the classic Enemy Within Campaign. It was published by Games Workshop many moons ago. Fans received it, and Something Rotten in Kislev - the volume preceding it, poorly. While Shadows over Bogenhafen, Death on the Reik and The Power Behind the Throne (the Enemy Within parts one, two and three respectively) were all applauded, most found the final two installments lacking.

I've run SoB and DotR, plus I've been a player in the Enemy Within up through PBtT. I own and have read SRiK. Up until now, I've never had the opportunity to read Empire.

I'm sad to say, while all the pages are there, there are loose pages in the beginning and end; however, the price I paid reflected the damage. I paid $40 and I've routinely seen this book online with a $99 price tag. So overall, I'm happy with the price I paid.

I'm looking forward to finally being able to form my own opinion on the concluding chapter of the Enemy Within.

Mini Review of Plundered Vaults and Report on Sessions 3 & 4 (WFRP)

One of my players all ready posted a report of session 3, but I wanted to add my own short report of that session and session 4 in preparation of session 5 tomorrow night and as a mini-review of the adventure and book it is found in itself.

I've been running my players through an adventure called "Sing for Your Supper" which is included in the book Plundered Vaults which you can read about here.

The book includes 3 reprints:"Rough Night at the Three Feathers", "Grapes of Wrath" and "The Haunting Horror"; and three new adventures: "For Love of Money", "Carrion Call" and the adventure at hand, "Sing for Your Supper".

Before I get to "Sing" I will say a few short words about the book itself. When it was first published in 2005 by Black Industries, it represented exactly what I had hoped for in a second edition of WFRP. When Hogshead (hereby designated "HH") stopped publishing the first edition of the game, fans such as myself were left in hiatus. HH had promised reprints of many long out of print Games Workshops titles. I was eager to buy, read and play a promised revision of the final chapter of the Enemy Within Campaign. The original "Empire in Flames", I have never owned, read nor played, but from what I've gathered, it was a flopping disappointed. I had managed by haunting my local game store and shopping online, to acquire most of the original first edition books; however, a few always alluded me. "Empire in Flames" and "The Restless Dead" were two of the few I have not yet managed to acquire. For the most part, I've given up on finding those books I've missed. The Doomstones Campaign never held much interest for me and the uber hard to find Realm of Chaos titles are too expensive for my purse.

Plundered Vaults was an early publication in the new line up. It included two scenarios from The Restless Dead, two adventures I did not own, and three new adventures. It seemed things were of to a good start. Black Industries was doing as promised. They were bringing back some hard to find older materials and publishing new material to boot. To their credit, before 2nd edition went "tits up" this promise was mostly carried out; however, a revision of "Empire in Flames" went, well, up in flames (pun intended). Now, with 3rd edition being published by Fantasy Flight Games, it is once again in doubt that an official revision to the seminal conclusion of TEW will ever see light. Three is a wonderful fan created re-imagining available by the golden pen worthy MadAlfred available for download here (I discourage my players from downloading and reading it).

I chose to open my campaign with "Sing for Your Supper" because it offered my favorite style of WFRP adventure which includes investigation, creeping doom and just the right mixture of combat. Written by Nathan Greavey, "Sing" is not a perfect adventure. While it does not necessarily depend upon players being led by their noses, it does make a few leaps in faith that players WILL follow up on sometimes obscure leads. I anticipated this ahead of time, and was able to fill in the blanks by making things jive on the fly. This didn't bother me for as GM, I welcome this opportunity. It did do exactly what I wanted. It served as a nice introduction to the flavor of the city of Nuln and despite a few false starts and a bit of moving things along on my part, it was a good investigation adventure. I added a bit more combat then was originally called for, but I did this by choice to knock the dust off the WFRP percentile dice. Now I will address the sessions themselves.

Session 3 was our first evening with no combat. There was actually minimal rolling of the dice. After the action heavy session 2, this was a nice change of pace. The players dug into the meat of the investigation itself and moved things along nicely. There were only three players for this session. Our new player was once again a no-show, and was for session 4 as well. We have not heard from him and at this point, I've ruled his character on official "Red-Shirt" status. Our out of town player was having technical difficulties and was thus unable to Skype in.

Session 4 was a different beast. We were up to what I now consider full-force, our out of town player was able to Skype in. As a group, they quickly followed up on loose ends from session 3 which launched them into the final confrontation with the adventure's villain, Emil Stark. This final confrontation involved confronting Emil himself, whom they killed, and encountering two beasts of chaos, the poor missing daughter of the butcher Herr Fleischer and a missing noble rake named Rudi who had also been horribly mutated.

In the end, despite the fact that the girl and her father were given the final mercy by Shallyan Priests, they received their promised reward of 25 gold crowns, quite a small fortune. Gottfried, our initiate of Sigmar, received a critical wound to the left hand. No doubt, they will spend part of session 5 learning the fate of Gottfried - it is not known at this point if he will be able to keep his hand -and spending some of their new found wealth. After this, I will launch them into an entirely different style of adventure.

The Enemy Within Session 3 Report (WFRP) - Willow's Journal

I wish I could claim that I painted this well done mini, but I didn't. You can find out who did here (plus see some other great stuff!).

The following journal entry is also not by me, but by Willow's player.

Dear Mother and Father,

It has been almost two weeks since I arrived in Nuln and I am still wondering why, exactly, I came. I know I need to make some coin to help pay off the farm debts, but things here are very different to home. Streets paved with gold? They’re even more covered in muck than the roads in our village!

On the boat I sort of fell in with some fellow fortune-seekers. I don’t have much in common with them aside from that fact, but there’s no one here I know, and it’s already proven to be a good idea to have people at my back. Right off the boat we fell into a bad crowd when a cowardly scum-faced beggar led us into an ambush instead of to the decent inn he advertised… I am well now, but I had to spend a lot of my savings on a healer. Fortunately, my compatriots had the decency to help me out, and we’re sticking together, at least for now.

We’ve found a decent inn, but steady, good paying work is proving hard to find, and Bill’s lodgings and food, as well as mine, are eating into my coin. Still, today we were offered a job and given an advance, with the promise of more if we complete our job successfully. Things are starting to look up. We also met a nice elderly lady who helped us get into a restaurant we were investigating (We’re making an investigation! It’s just like the stories!), though the cost of the meal nearly bankrupted us again. Still, it was a nice change to eat decent food again. I miss your cooking, Da.

That’s all there is to tell for now… I am well, and so is Bill. I miss you, but with luck I’ll be able to send home a little coin soon, and maybe, in a few months, come back home for good.

Give my love to the cousins.

Your devoted daughter,

Willow

The Enemy Within Session 2 Report (WFRP) - Gottfried's Journal

The following report of session 2, which I previously entered, is written by one of my players from his character's POV.

By the light of Sigmar, and all that is holy, this is a dirty city! Even the people coming into "The Rest", where I have been staying smell of the sewers.

I have spent several days attempting to convince Eponaia, a stout member of the Elvish Folk, about the goodness that is Sigmar. He will require more convincing of the light of Sigmar, but I am sure he will come around.

This evening, two of the ones smelling of sewer came in, and got themselves into what I suspected would be a bit more trouble than they bargianed for. I observed the fellow the smelly one had been talking to passing money around to others who then followed him out.

Suspecting foul play, and having that sense of guilt over the traveler I met on the road to Nuln on my conscious, I went to the back door to warn the smelly one that he was about to be in for more company than he bargianed for.

As the fellow with the coins and friends came about, one of them ordered me to close the back door, while they tussled. I bristled at this and pulled out my bow in responce to his crossbow pointed at my chest.

I had no choice, and opened fire, By the light of Sigmar it was in my mind the rider in the forest all over again.

The fight ended swiftly, some dead some run away.

Back in the Rest as we were drinking eating and Praying, I noticed a fellow twitching at his ear. When I got up to investigate him and his friend got up and ran out in a huff. I no sonner followed them out than I heard two thunks which turned out to be cross bow bolts in their neck and eye. Stripping them bare of their refinement we found purple hand tattoos on their shoulders. I thought this most strange, thus making note of it.

Upon our re entry once more into the Rest, a fellow came up saying how he liked the way we fought and handed out a card. By the Light of Sigmar, I know it was pompous of me, but I knew that my training at the temple in Reading and Writting would allow me to read this card, and I assumed the rest of them didn't know how to read.

"Herr Georg Fleischer", the card read complete with his address.

During the confusion about who and what the note was for and why, I became introduced to the smelly one, Bartolf, and his female companion Willow, and another man named Rickter, who smelled almost as bad as the smelly one.

They retired, to baths thank the Light of Sigmar, and I likewise retired to my sleeping area to pray and contemplate how the Light of Sigmar was guiding me.

Character Background (WFRP): Gottfried Oberholtzer

The following is written not by me, but by one of my players.

I am Gottfried Oberholtzer. I am an initiate of Sigmar, Light be upon him. I came to be in the service of the Great Sigmar from my fathers poor farm about half way between Nuln and Strelssen along the River Aver. My parents were very religious, and very poor. I was urged to work the farm with my hands, and praise Sigmar with my heart. Eventually however I grew bored with helping my parents with the farm, and with their blessing I set out to become an Initiate of Sigmar. It would after all bring great blessings on my parents and family for their son, me, to become a priest of Sigmar.

All Journeys have their beginning, and this is mine. I traveled to Nuln on a whim, instead of Strelssen, I don't know why. As I traveled the road to Nuln, I decided to wander off the road, having seen a Hare which I thought would be good eating. Having chased the Hare some distance into the forest I came upon a dieing rider and his dead horse. He had been so badly hurt that he could not even speak. To my shame I thought to run away, but I could not bring myself to move. He had been attacked, or so it seemed, and he was beyond any help. As I leaned in he asked me to help him end his pain. By the light of Sigmar, I have told no other, I unsheathed my sword, and ran him through to end his suffering. I still feel shame that I took his bow, and the roll from his horse which had this complete set of leathers, and a small purse of gold, but it seemed a shame to waste them.

When I arrived in Nuln I found myself readily welcomed by the Priest of Sigmar as an Initiate. They prayed with me in the temple, and trained me in the Light of Sigmar. Yet I could not bring myself to tell them of the traveler I found n the road. I feel such shame and guilt that I do not know if I could ever tell another soul. I was sent forth by old priest who told me that I had to grow in my faith with Sigmar, cure the pain in my heart so that I could embrace Sigmar fully as His servant. I could have sworn that the Priest suspected but no one knows. Having been told to convert others to Sigmar and come back with more experience under my belt, I took up Sigmar's blessed hammer to make my way in the world hoping one day to return and be allowed to become a Priest.

This sorta disappointed me, I had expected... more. I didn't know what I would do at this point, and having no immediate plans or goals I set off for "The Fisherman's Rest". Having been on the river much as a younger boy, I thought I might find something familiar and comfortable here. Armed with my trusty Sword and Bow, my Leathers, and my faith in Sigmar, I have set forth to glorify Sigmar's name in the Empire.

For My Players who cheered for the Packers....

...you wake up, alone and naked in the Chaos Wastes of the Far North. You do have your trusty fruit knife with you, but no rations.

The Enemy Within: Session 2 (WFRP)

A long work week, with after hours filled with unexpected house hold repairs have left me with little time for blogging; however, we did manage to squeeze in a second session of WFRP this past week.

We had one player from the previous session fall too ill to play, but we had two more players join in, one via Skype. Skype opens up new avenues for role playing. One long time member of my table retired this past year and moved out of state. We had tried Skyping him in before, but a slow connection made it impossible at the time. Now, armed with a faster connection speed, we were able to make it so.

Neither of the two players who joined in had an opportunity to make a character ahead of time, so our first hour and half was spent making characters for them while chatting. I didn't mind this, as I had not spoken with the player that was Skyping in a good long time. Our start was also delayed as our other player joining in was running late himself due to illness.

When all characters were complete, we started. Our party now stands at a strength of five: Bartolf (human male Protagonist), Gotfried (human male Initiate of Sigmar), Ildrial Eponaia (elven male Wizard's Apprentice) and Rickter (human male Marine). I kept things simple. With the time remaining alloted for gaming (about two and half hours), I had four goals:

1. Introduce Gotfried and Ildrial to the group while keeping Rickter involved (Ricter's player stayed home sick).

2. Let enough time pass for Willow to heal from her wounds suffered in session 1.

3. Introduce some future plot elements.

4. Get the players involved in the main plot.

All four goals were easily met. I started with goal 2. Following up on one of the notices found at the Reik's Platz in session one, Bartolf and Rickter took a job with the Nuln city watch repairing, replacing and dredging sewer grates. They stayed at this job for three days, earning a bit of coin and giving Willow enough time to heal her wounds.

The first goal was accomplished by having the characters all end up at the same inn for a night of drinking: The Fisherman's Rest, more commonly referred to as "The Rest". While there, two strangers dressed in the garb of middle class merchants, attempted to send secret signals to Bartolf. They seemed to believe he was someone else. This was observed by another stranger. A tall human male wearing a grey cloak. He seemed to make sure that no one could see his face by keeping his hood up. When the two strangers gave up on sending signals to Bartolf, they left with looks of confusion and disgust upon their faces. The characters decided to follow them out.

The two strangers realized they were being followed by the characters and took off at a dead run. They did not get far before the sounds of them being attacked were heard. When the characters caught up to them, they were both dead. One had a bolt through the neck, while the second had a bolt through the right eye. The bolts were from a hand crossbow. The characters tossed them for what they could find, even stripping them of their fine clothing. When they stripped them, they saw that both men had a half-dollar sized tattoo of a purple, right hand print upon their left shoulders.

They returned to the Rest where a bit of camaraderie was established by having a fellow protagonist challenge Bartolf to a brawl. Bartolf accepted and Gotfried and Ildrid noticed that Bartolf was not going to be met alone, and was walking into an ambush. They jumped into the fray to help, joined by Willow and Rickter. A short combat occurred with the characters walking away with an easy victory.

A very drunk merchant observed all of this and afterwards gave his card to Gotfried. He introduced himself as Herr Georg Fleischer. He stated that he had need of people with their skill sets and that they should visit him at his butcher shop the next day.

The Enemy Within: Session 1

Two weeks ago we had our first WFRP session. We are playing Warhammer Fantasy Role Play Second edition. While I am using the second edition rules, I typically ignore the Storm of Chaos element that is embedded within the edition.

For those that do not know, when the second edition was released, it was done so with an advancement in the time line of approximatively 12 years later then that provided in the first edition. During those 12 years, the Old World was nearly overrun by a Chaos Hoard from the north. Accept for my first time running second edition, I typically ignore this timeline advancement and have chosen to do so with this campaign as well.

This will be the classic WFRP Enemy Within Campaign. Almost all of my WFRP campaigns are set within the EW, or at least in some hybrid form. Three of the current members of the group have experienced elements from Death on the Reik , but have never played Shadows over Bogenhafen. We may have one more player Skype in for the game, and he has played SoB before, but I can trust him not to ruin it for the others. We have a fourth player that has never played WFRP in any fashion as well. With this in mind, I will be playing them through SoB, and an abbreviated version of DotR before launching into The Power Behind the Throne and beyond. I did choose however, not to start them with SoB, but something else. If all follows my nefarious plan, the characters should be in their third careerer, or close to it, by the time we play tPBtT.

We had one missing player of our typical four, but that was okay as I was expecting a slow start. We spent half the session making characters. When characters were completed, I started the characters out on a river barge destined for Nuln. I had considered before hand playing out the river barge journey, utilizing part of DotR along the way, but decided against it and brought them straight into Nuln.

I gave them a bit of flavor text so they could get a sense of what Nuln is like. To the best of my memory, I don't think I've ever portrayed Nuln to this particular group. I tried to give them a sense of how important the Gunnery School is to the populace. Also, Nuln was one time the capital of the Empire. With this sense of past pride, the nobles and noble-wanna-bees of the city are very fashion sensitive. The latest fad in Nuln to date are exaggerated and extravagant cod pieces.

By the time they made their way off the river barge, it was late and drizzling rain. The characters were seeking shelter and not having much success. A beggar offered to lead them to an inn where he was sure he could find lodging for them if "the g'zz 'im a couple shillins". They were not surprised when he led them into an ambush.

Since we had one player who has never played WFRP in any form before, and for the benefit of all as it's been a while for the old guard in the group, I had decided to have a combat early in the session to warm up the dice. I placed them against four thugs and didn't expect them to have too much trouble with them. Also, a TPK (Total Party Kill) had abruptly ended our Tunnels & Trolls campaign, so I was not inclined to make it difficult. I did decide to keep my dice rolls in the open though, as I still believe in letting the dice fall where they may.

They did win the combat, but I was a bit surprised that one player ended the combat with 1 wound point left and another with only 4. In WFRP terms, this meant that the player with only 1 wound remaining was heavily wounded and could only heal one wound point per week without the benefit of a physician. With a physician, she can earn one wound point per day maximum. When she reaches four wound points, she can then either heal one wound point per day, or visit a physician and heal 1d10 per healing session. In short, she was not in good shape.

After the combat, they did not have any more luck finding an inn. They did find one with lodging available; however, a mishap with the door and the an extortionist inn keep convinced them to not stay there. They were lucky enough to have a town watchman take pity upon them. He allowed them to stay the night in a cell and even fed them a meager prison breakfast of gruel in the morning. He suggested to them that they may be able to find work at the Reik Platz. At the Reik Platz, there is a tree where job notices are posted. They would, he warned them, have to find different lodging for the night.

They thanked him and set out on their way. The first found lodging, then after asking directions, found a physician. There visit to the physician went well for them. Only the heavily wounded character is still injured. After paying the physician, the still wounded character, a female hobbit, went back to the room to rest. The other two players, a male human Protagonist and a male human Marine went to the Reik Platz to seek work. They found four possible leads for jobs posted at the tree.

That is where we ended the session. Not much was accomplished and most of the night was spent with me spouting flavor description to them to illustrate Nuln and the Old World to them. I was surprised by the level of carnage reached during the combat, but in the end I was pleased as it showed very well, especially to our new player, just how deadly combat can be in WFRP.

I'm handling experience very ad-hoc. I am simply awarding 25 xp per each hour of real time played. Our average session length is 3 hours. I'm offering a 25 xp bonus for a short session report, which if I get any, will be posted here.

We didn't play this past week, but hope to next week.

Steelers BABY!

I had big plans of getting at least three blog posts up this weekend, the second in my series on Lin Carter and a couple of reviews; however, the playoffs ate up most of my time, alongside unexpected house repairs. I have been re-reading much Warhammer material, I'm sure there will be something on that soon, as session one will be this Tuesday.

Game on, and GO STEELERS! BREAK THE JETS ALL THE WAY TO THE SUPERBOWL BABY!

Is WFRP OId School?

In this post, I am referring to WFRP 1st/2nd edition. 3rd might be a different animal all together.


Is or can Warhammer Fantasy Role Play be considered "old-school"? That is the question going through my mind. Keep in mind, the answer does not change the fact that I am a huge fan of the game regardless. For myself, I feel the rule system should be dictated by the setting. For instance, for high-fantasy sword & sorcery with lots of dungeon crawls and hidden chests full of hard won treasure, well Sir, for that I want some form of Dungeons & Dragons. I say "some form" because, again, which version (OD&D or retro-clone, Cyclopedia Rules, AD&D/OSRIC or 3/3.5 edition) is dependent upon what I want to do with the game.





Then again, if I'm in the mood for something quick and easy that I know I can make up on the fly, well then Sir, give me a helping of Tunnels & Trolls please.





If I want low-fantasy, served grim and perilous with lots of secret cults and plots within plots, well Sir, please serve me up some WFRP.





WFRP works well with some old-school styles, particularly a sand-box campaign. I guarantee, from experience, that a healthy knowledge of the Old World will enable you to set your players free and say "go where thou wouldst" and you will have several evenings of entertainment. Then again, while you could use WFRP for a Dungeon Crawl, or even a mega-dungeon crawl, you would be missing a lot of flavorful opportunities. While dungeons do serve a purpose in my WFRP games, they are not a prominent feature. I would assert that this is the case with most WFRP games.





This is one aspect of the game that makes it decidedly anti-old-school for me: it often seems there is a "wrong" way to present the world of WFRP. If you are running a dungeon based campaign where treasures are won along with magical weapons from defeating monsters guarding said treasures, well...while I wouldn't do so far as to stop you from doing so, I would claim that you are missing the point of WFRP and I would do so with the chance of seeming like a snob.





I'm not claiming that all dungeon based games are as I described them above, but I would say that mine are.





My WFRP games have decidedly few "dungeons". When running adventures in the Old World, I prefer investigation scenarios built around event based encounters. Think Call of Cthulhu with swords and you have the basic idea of what I like to throw at my players. If not that, then I like location based adventures that allow my players to interact with the world at large (or in a micro-cosom); combine a healthy dose of both, and you have in my opinion the perfect WFRP game.





There are several other factors that make me wonder, "is this beloved game of mine not old-school"? For instance, I feel a skills system is necessary for WFRP. While at the same time, for most high fantasy adventures, I prefer no skill system be implemented as this allows me to decide on the fly if the characters can figure out that trap, or better yet, let them figure it out on their own logic, not dictated by a dice roll. Skills are ingrained into the WFRP system. Without the need to gain experience points and buy skills, changing careers and/or upgrading from a basic to an advanced career becomes meaningless. Therefore, to run an WFRP campaign effectively, you must use a skills system.





While combat is brutal in WFRP, the use of Fate and Fortune points gives a WFRP character an advantage that is not present in the typical old-school OD&D game (or equivalent). When I run an old-school high fantasy game (regardless of what rules system I use) my players expect that "0" hit points equals death. Not so in WFRP. In this game, if death is certain, a player can spend a Fate point and avoid it. Granted, Fate points are a finite number rarely bolstered beyond the beginning amount (at least in my games). Fortune points work the same way. Make a bad roll that is going to cost you? Spend a fortune point and re-roll. This can be done a set number of times per session, or game day, depending upon GM preference. In my high fantasy games, all rolls stick.





So in the end, I don't have an answer, other then, the WFRP rules system just feels right for the Old World. For me, it's old-school enough.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay

This shall be a short post, as I just finished stuffing myself with sushi, Saki and beer while watching the Wild Card games. I'm currently out of town on business, and sad to report that I won't be home in time to game this coming Tuesday.


During my off time whilst hanging out in my hotel room, I've been re-reading lots of WFRP material (1st and 2nd edition) that I plan on using in my upcoming game.


As I mentioned before, my short-lived Tunnels & Trolls campaign came to a sudden end with a TPK. I intend to keep my campaigns short lived for the foreseeable future. Not because that is necessarily what I want, but because I do travel often, and sometimes for extended periods of time. This makes an ongoing campaign difficult to maintain. However, I did not intend my T&T campaign to be as short as it was. That happened because I am a big believer in letting the dice fall where they may.



We will be playing WFRP, and for anyone that is familiar with the game, the quintessential campaign, and my personal favorite, is the Enemy Within campaign. EW consists of five main parts: Shadows over Bogenhafen, Death on the Reik, The Power Behind the Throne, Somethings Rotten in Kislev and Empire in Flames. I have been a player in the campaign once, making it all the way through Power Behind the Throne and this will be my fourth go at running it. As the GM, I've never made it past Death on the Reik.





The reason has nothing to do with the enjoyability of the campaign. I personally have read all five volumes, and while I do not care for SRiK or EiF, the fist three volumes I enjoy immensely. Usually, I and my group get so wrapped up in the complete sandbox immersion of Death on the Reik that we never make it to PBtT before life ends the campaign.




So why am I starting a campaign that I know I have a bad track record with? In Sigmar's name, it is one hell of a ride! I love WFRP 1st and 2nd edition. I like the career path system, I like the fact that combat is lethal and unforgiving, I like the insanity rules, I like The Old World with all of its secret cults and twisted politics.

I have found other game worlds in the past that I enjoy. The first that I really got into was TSR's Birthright campaign setting, more recently, I thouroughly enjoyed The Phoenix Barony, but neither of them comes close to how much I really like the Old World.

I must ask myself the question: Self, can you stick it out this time? The answer can only be: I hope so. Happy Gaming.

The Phoenix Barony: Session 4 the TPK!

Last night was our fourth, and alas, final session of The Phoenix Barony utilizing Tunnels & Trolls 5th ed. for our rules system.




I didn't intend it, but I had my first TPK (total party kill) in many years. It was not very well timed, but death never is, as we had a new player enter the fold, giving our dwindling numbers a much needed boost. I'm hoping a TPK on his first evening gaming with us doesn't scare him off.

The TPK came about because I am not familiar enough with T&T to judge what is a balanced encounter. I'm not a huge advocate of "everything should be balanced", I think that sometimes the characters should run-away in abject terror. Honestly, I didn't think the encounter I had planned for them would ultimately end in everyone's demise, but in retrospect, I didn't leave much avenue for escape.

After being joined by a new member, a dwarven warrior named Ashkore, the players decided to descend to the next level found in the previous session. The entrance was in the form of a hidden trap door that opened to a ladder which descended down. At the bottom of the ladder they found a narrow tunnel with a shallow ceiling. This forced them to crouch (even the dwarves) and they entered knowing that they could not easily turn, or fight effectively with anything other then thrusting weapons.

Twenty feet in, they were harried by Rattlings that attacked them with javelins through murder-holes. They managed to survive this, although Olga our female dwarf warrior only made it by Alesion sharing a Restoration potion with her.

They fought their way into an opening where they could fight the rattlings. Ashkore, who had all ready taken damage in the tunnel, tripped a falling block which brought him near death. The rest of the combat against the 8 rattlings lasted only two rounds. Alesion and Kilshalt both cast Take That You Fiend, managing to reduce the number of rattlings to 7; however, the group lost the first combat round so all four characters took wounds. Ashkore absorbed too many wounds and fell to the ground skewered by javelins.


Round two went the same. Alesion and Kilshalt reduced another rattling to cinders, but the players again lost the combat round and had to each take wounds. I rolled a windfall of spite damage, and all the heroes died.


Afterwards, we discussed making new characters and starting fresh; however, an out cry for a return to one of our main stand-by games was raised. The game in question being Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd edition. It's been a year since we've played an WFRP, and as it is perhaps my favorite fantasy game of all time, I was not against the idea. I considered trying out 3rd edition with them, but decided I'm not ready to give up on 2nd edition just yet. I've read and own 3rd, and while there are some things I like, I have some deep reservations.


The best part for me is, all of the players presently active in the group have not been run through Shadows over Bogenhoffen nor Death on the Reik, two of my favorite WFRP adventures. I am out of town right now, but hope to be back in time to run WFRP next Tuesday, if not then the Tuesday next.


It's going to be a grim and perilous adventure.

Campaign Journal: Session 1, May 11, 2010 Musings of a befuddled old-school gamer: Failed Campaign, new “old” system selection and character creation

Recently, my gaming brain has been on hold. Namely, I just couldn’t get into finishing the current campaign. I started, late in 2009, a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Campaign (second edition) self titled: Things to do in Marienburg before you die. The original concept was to run the game sandbox style. I was using Hogshead’s Marienburg: Sold Down the River as my main resource.

I was excited about it on several fronts. First, I’ve been wanting to get away from my usual story driven game master style and return to the sandbox style of my college days. Second, WFRP (first or second editions) is possibly my all time favorite, and normal “go-to”, RPG of choice. Third, I really dig M: SDtR, and think it is one of they single best RPG city books ever penned.

The campaign started off strong. The real time game start date was just before Christmas of 09. I was in the Holiday spirit, so I created an adventure based upon the Dutch stories of Sinter Klaus and Zwarte Piet. The first three sessions went very well. My plan was to start things off with a solid story line, and then hand the reigns to the PC’s. I thought I had given them an interesting background. They were all affiliated in some fashion or another with the Stevedore and Teamsters Guild. I seeded the plot with some political ins and outs, and hinted at dark things happening inside and outside of Marienburg. As a second resource, I was using Warpstone 25: The Fimir, Ruinous Inheritance. My “uber” plot was to eventually place the PC’s in a moral dilemma in first indirect and then direct conflict with the Fimir.

Flop. Pure flop. I tried rescuing the campaign by trying to steer the party in a direction that would lead into the portions of The Enemy Within campaign that I have not run them through (basically the last third of Death on the Reik then lead them into The Power Behind the Throne). Again, flop. In a last chance “hail Mary” I started introducing them into The Dying of the Light.

I realize now my mistakes from the beginning. My first mistake is, with this group, I have never run a campaign sandbox style. I have always, no matter what system we play, but normally WFRP, run story driven games. Second, I wanted them to take the reigns and run with the ball, but I didn’t hand them the reigns from the get-go. They reacted to my first adventure, story driven, and were expecting more of the same.

So now, I return to my favorite version of Classic D&D. This is not the first time I have used this rule system with them. About one year ago from the day I wrote this, I started a mini-campaign called Kill Bargle! The concept of that was to take the classic evil wizard from the 1983 Basic boxed rules version, and have him become the groups’ nemesis. Kill Bargle! was not intended to be sandbox, I planned it as a story. We only played, I believe one session, but it went well enough. It would have lasted longer, but my real world obligation as an Air Force Reservist demanded that I travel to Iraq for six months.

So here I am at the beginning of my lastest attempt at OD&D. My latest campaign is titled Retainer Dogs (yes, it is an obvious play on the Tarintino film Reservoir Dogs). My intention is for the game to be sandbox style. The only story element I am supplying is a reason for the group to be together: they are the hired retainers of a recently successful band of adventurers calling themselves The Fortunate Fools. The Fortunate Fools have been contracted by the Wizard Zebulon Whatley (name shamelessly stolen from H.P. Lovecraft’s The Dunwich Horror) to clear the dungeon beneath his temple of unwanted beasties. I will resist the temptation of binding them to the “story”. I will supply plot-hooks, but my preparation time will be minimalist, allowing me to scrap anything planned and “go with the flow”.

I’m starting the campaign with a couple raped and bastardized canned adventures to start things off. Both are sandbox by nature. In an attempt to stick to the sandbox style of referring, I am primarily running a meta-dungeon campaign. There will be some wilderness adventure, and perhaps a bit of city adventuring for dungeon breaks, but most of the action will take place in the dungeon, which I will prepare some of prior to each session and much of it on the fly, taking cues from the players to read what kind of adventure they are seeking. Most of my preparation will be in the form of providing interesting NPC’s, and I’ll strive to keep encounters memorable.

Normally, I encourage my players to give a detailed background for their characters; however, I am using an old-school approach to world design. I may end up using the Known World as my backdrop, but I am intentionally keeping those details vague at this point. This is not spawned from a sense of mystery on my part, but rather I think it will be interesting to allow the world to grow organically around the characters. Hence, much of their background will be created in session to deepen character interaction with the world at large and will come when and if the need is felt to go beyond the dungeon. This is a trait of old-school RPG’s that I miss. It doesn’t have to be about setting or “the story”. Instead, let it be about the characters and “their story”. I do not know how long I will run this campaign. I have no long term plans, which is a conscious decision on my part. If there is no direction, it can end when it needs to instead of fizzling as my Marienburg campaign did.

My normal mode of operation is to conceive of an over-arching campaign story, but I am avoiding that. I will seed the sessions with story devices. If the players “bite” on a plot-hook, I will expand upon it. If not, I’ll shrug my shoulders and move on. I do have a theme in mind. This is a group that likes and is used to WFRP. I am borrowing a page from my Warhammer book: things are a bit shadowy and not what they seem, there is more going on then meets the eye, or is there?

I debated on what rules system to use. Normally, my go-to system is Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. WFRP is great for what it is: a grim, dark land of perilous adventure, set in a world of low-magic. That is not the tone I am shooting for here. My tone for this campaign is a high-magic realm, cinematic action with door kicking cowboy antics. So I immediately ruled out WFRP and looked to other systems.

My candidates were: FUDGE, Tunnels and Trolls, and Classic D&D (in my opinion, anything pre-3rd edition). I ruled against FUDGE simply, because it did not feel right for what I wanted to do with this campaign. I’ve never played with FUDGE, but I want to. I think it would be a great rules system for some campaigns, but did not feel old-school enough for the tone I am trying to achieve. I have a belief that one system does not fit all. Some systems fit well with the games they are meant to run (such as WFRP). Even universal systems, such as FUDGE and GURPS, in my opinion, work well with some campaigns, but not others. Tunnels and Trolls definitely has an old-school feel to it and I’ve used it in the past; however, I’ve never been happy with the combat system. I feel combat gets too dragged out and while I like a narrative “wing-it” feel to combat, I also like a system that has more strategic possibilities. Dungeons & Dragons, circa 1981 to 1983, works for the tone I am setting and has the old-school feel I wanted, is free-style enough, yet strategic enough, and I get nostalgic just flipping through my dusty box of old-school, geeky goodness. It was my first RPG love, and I always return to it, eventually.

In my preferred version of D&D I freely mix Moldvay with BECMI and traces of AD&D 1st edition. My preferred tome is The Rules Cyclopedia (RC), but I am also allowing Labyrinth Lord. I am taking LL into consideration because it is close enough to my revered RC and is available for free to my players. Let me say that again: FREE. I determined that in this day and age, I will not play a game that requires a considerable financial obligation from my players. “Gratis” is good and hence my initial consideration of FUDGE. I also have copies of the 1981 Moldvay edition and 1983’s versions of BECMI Dungeons & Dragons editions floating around the game table. All in all, if it was published after 1980, it is close enough, but if there be squabbles, then RC trumps all others, unless I decree otherwise.

As I stated earlier, this is my second time running D&D with this group. There was some drastic resistance the first time. One player, who unfortunately had to be so foolish as to successfully retire from his career with the FAA and move out of state to become a professional ski-bum, was vehemently opposed the first go around and sat it out. Another player did so as well. He had other things going on in life at the time, so he bowed out of my Kill Bargle! game. He is still playing with me, and I hope he stays. He is being a sport about it this go around and is giving it a fair shake. A third player only has experience with D&D 3rd edition. He is trying his best to wrap his mind around the concept that dwarf is a class, and is happily doing his best to figure out the calculus of THAC0. My last two players are a married couple, both have played AD&D 2nd edition, D&D 3rd edition and I believe 3.5, and agree with me that 4th edition looks like the bastard child of World of Warcraft, and NOT D&D. They are for it and their infant son believes that all dice look tasty, regardless of the system being played.

Our first sessions was spent rolling up characters. I encouraged the group to include a dwarf, a cleric (no spells till 2nd level in my games) and a mage. I also instructed them to make two characters each and I recommended they round out their “back-up” characters with fighters. I decided to roll 3d6 and let the dice fall where they may. In other words, no arraigning, simply roll and write them down in order. I did allow them to re-roll one attribute that was 6 or lower and keep the higher of the two scores. I also allowed them to adjust their ability scores as per the character creation chapter of RC. I have always house ruled that 1st level characters begin with maximum hit points. Optional rules in use are Weapons Mastery and Skills. Since I use Weapons Mastery, other then Mystics and Druids, I do not require characters to follow usable weapons by class. If you want to be a sword wielding magic-user, go for it. Clerics may use edged weapons as well. With Weapons Mastery, it balances out. In addition to this, I used an article from issue 2 of OD&DITIES, Special Items for New PC‘s. I had them randomly roll for one item for each of their two characters.

I have four players with two characters each. I believe the primary characters are: the cleric, a mage, a Halfling and a thief. The secondary or “back-ups” are two Halflings, a mage and a thief. There is no dwarf and no fighters. This is not a big deal, as I had planned on throwing in two or three NPC’s to round out the party, depending upon their overall strength and needs. I believe I will add a dwarf and two 0 level men-at-arms commanded by a 1st level fighter. Plus, the Fortunate Fools as well, who will be a mixed adventuring party of 4 with 10 total levels between them. This sounds like a lot, but there is a method to my madness that I can not explain further at this time.

I had intended to run each of them through a solo adventure (one player with both of his/her characters), to give them a bit of background, a wee-bit of experience and perhaps some extra coin or a minor item obtained. I was going to spring board from having each of them going to the market to buy their weapons, armor and equipment. This would have been great, but frankly, character creation took much longer then I expected, it always does. During these solo adventures I was going to deliver two rumors to each of them. One of the two, all players would get, and another (rolled randomly) would be gotten by players individually. Not having time to run the solo adventures, I instead gave them each the shared rumor and their individual random rumors.

Rumors gained were:

The Fortunate Fools are hiring brave adventures to help them clear beasties from the Wizard Zebulon Whatley’s dungeon. They’re in the small village of Pendleton hiring candidates now (shared rumor)

Goblins have been spotted in the area and I ain’t seen goblins in these parts ever before

The Darkling Woods are haunted by slain priests of a best forgotten dark cult.

There used to be a Chaos worshipping cult in these parts. They had an abbey, but it’s crumbled and gone. Nothing is there anymore.

Kobolds ate the baby of Old Farmer Tann up the road. They broke in plucked the child right off the tit of Old Tann’s young wife. She was too young for him, if you were to ask me.

The next session will begin with the players in Pendleton seeking to be hired on as Retainers for the Fortunate Fools. I’ll try to resist having them meet in a tavern, but no promises.