Ok gang - so my group has about wrapped up Eye for an Eye - and the Initiate of Sigmar found the mad dwarves hammer in the Shrine - he immediatly swore and oat to Sigmar to return it to the dwarves clan.

So....my Red Red Rose adventure may have to wait....as they need to hike through the mountains to the dwarf hold first...lol.

The reason for this post are a few:

Ideas for some smaller encounters or even a full adventure for the 'Return the Hammer' adventure...

or

A take on whether the oath to return the hammer IS a pressing immediate thing? ie - would Sigmar be pissed if they went about other things before returning the hammer? I think he would be mighty peeved...as would the Dwarven Hold when they found out...but....can work it either way I s'pose.

So thoughts or adventure seeds/ideas! Or both!! lol

The journey to karak-azgal isn't that long from übersreik, but could still prove for an interresting journey.

1. Greenskins should be part of it. Perhaps a band of greenskins pick up the players trail and suspect the hammer is of great importance to the dwarves. An ambush.
2. Perhaps the hammer is a fake. It was copied by a chaos worshipping dwarven smith in übersreich and infused with dark magic that will do some horrible thing once it's in karak-azgal in the hands of a certain blood line. First the players need to find out what bloodline this hammer belongs to. They then find a very detailed drawing of the hammer but there are strange inconsistencies. If they investigate the hammer closely they will notice some strange symbols. They can also notice the initials B.B. They can discover these belong to a fairly famous dwarven smith in übersreik. If they seek him out he has disappeared and all this leads to uncover a chaos cult with some sort of vengeance against the dwarven blood line. Perhaps they discover the hammer needs to be destroyed in a forge in karak-azgal and this may even save Korden, by lifting the curse.
3. They arrive at karak-azgal and discover that the place is under siege by green skins.

Just a few quick ideas, but I always use the players personal goals and ideas in my campaigns to create side treks, side plots and individual adventures. The idea with players handing in their personal goal after each session is pretty good (as detailed in the ToA).

EineHund said:

My dwarf's in a similar situation (although he never actually made an oath). I see nothing wrong with him taking a year or more to return it, if he stays busy in the meantime. As long as he means well. And a year to a dwarf isn't a big deal, to my mind, when compared to their ideas of dwarfhold and continuity which are measured in millenia rather than years. 'The speed of plot' is the best speed to do everything, in any case.

Also, my Ghost of Mondstille adventure was written with just this trip up to Karak Azgaraz in mind.

http://www.chumley.co.uk/wfrp/ghostofmondstille.pdf

Maybe Sigmar, his attention brought on to the hammer, has a task he needs completed before the hammer is returned - a task for which the hammer is required.

Quick ideas - a dream leads the characters to an abandoned temple which has been infiltrated in someway by Chaos, or the Beastmans clan stone (or what ever its called) needs to be destroyed it is gaurded and the clan is being directed by a demon, or a local Temple of Mor has been infiltrated by some form of demon that is slowly extending its power (maybe raising undead etc) without the priests knowledge etc etc

Or a priest they encounter on the road recognizes the hammer and realizes it's needed to complete X or Y task set by Sigmar years ago. It's still doable (kill this or use the hammer to seal a particular cavern entrance - a new power it can only be used for) or so forth.

There's an off hand reference in Sigmar's Heirs to the Grey Lady Pass being named for the ghost of a woman who died of grief waiting for her husband to come back from war. Perhaps you could do something with this, or even just have her ghost make a cameo as the party head to Azgaraz.

If you really don't want to deal with this and continue on to your adventure, you can have dwarves from the clan meet the party and transfer the hammer there.