monkeylite said:

Oh, good strategy! Mine don't trust the roadwardens, either, unfortunately. The only person they definitely trust is back in Altdorf, unfortunately, so they can't consult with him.

I think I might have overdone "the world is a dangerously political place" bit with my group a bit.

Gathering Storm, Session Eight

Dead or a Livestock

Thrumdorin, Ironbreaker

Asterion, Wood Elf Waywatcher

Thorvald, Human Roadwarden

Flan, Bright Acolyte

So you set fire to the vault and headed up to the surface. When you got to the mausoleum you could see the doors bulging under the weight of what you assumed was the walking dead. It crossed Flan’s mind that it may have been his attempt at the Morrite ritual that made them so restless.

But Flan had a notion that if he were to put on the purple-stoned necklace that he might somehow achieve power over the walking dead. He put the necklace over his head but soon felt his mind join in a tremendous struggle against a dark power. He locked horns with the soul of the necromancer for a few moments in a battle of wills for control of his own mind. Asterion could see that something was wrong and quickly pulled the necklace away from the (not so) bright wizard. Thrumdorin tried to axe the necklace to death, but it did not break, and he only succeeded in tiring himself out.

You decided you had no choice but to open the doors and fight your way to the ladder you had left against the mausoleum’s wall. As the zombies streamed in Flan burnt a swathe through them with his fire magic, and Thrumdorin pushed them back as best he could, while Asterion picked off a number of them too. This gave Thorvald room to hack his way towards the ladder.

Flan decided you needed to find a way to get the stone up the ladder, and tied it with his lasso, hoping it would be strong enough to hold the weight. As the zombies pressed Thorvald had his arm badly gnawed but managed to climb the ladder to safety, as did Flan. They pulled the stone as hard as they could but barely got it to miove. Then Asterion climbed up leaving Thrumdorin guarding the base of the ladder. The wood elf managed to pull the stone some of the way.

Thrumdorin was getting heavily wounded guarding the ladder as the rest of you failed to pull the stone up, so finally he decided to climb up. And once he got to the top, his strength was enough to pull the stone up, too. You clearly had a very narrow escape.

And then you realised that you had left Waltrout behind. He looked up at you from the doorway of the mausoleum and began to cry, his hands still tied behind his back, as the zombies gathered round him. A heated debate ensued. Asterion grabbed the end of the lasso and jumped down to save the annoying village idiot. Asterion tried to cut Waltrout’s bound hands to give him a chance to escape but he was too slow and Waltrout disappeared under a sea of ravenous undead. Asterion just managed to climb back up to the roof, himself, only saved by Thorvald taking out a couple of the pursuing zombies with his crossbow.

So you managed to get the stone across the ladder bridge and out of the garden and you lugged it back to town. Captain Kessler didn’t really bother asking you what had become of Brother Grabbe, he could see by the state of you that it was not good news.

You decided to go up to visit Doctor Schneider. Thorvald convinced him to treat you on the cheap, but he wasn’t happy about it. He managed to patch you up a bit, but the elf had a bad head still and Thrumdorin had a couple of nagging wounds.

Then you headed to the temple to get some rest. Father Gottschalk was not looking good, either. He had had another strange vision and told you that he had seen a green thing on a throne with a crown, commanding an army of devils in the darkness with lots of fangs and a giant giant, or something.

In the morning you were feeling better but still the worst for wear. You thought it might be a good idea to spend all day in the village recuperating, but Kessler told you that the mayor wanted to see you.

Adler was talking to a farmer called Ackerman who was having trouble with some missing cows. The mayor was in a much better mood and was pleased he was no longer disturbed by his strange dreams. You weren’t very interested but the mayor thought it might be serious as they had lost much of their supplies to the storm and there was a long winter ahead, and Kessler couldn’t spare the men. He told you the village could stretch to 75 shillings if you would check out why his and his neighbours’ livestock was suddenly going missing.

You were remarkably disappointed to get called to sort out some meagre cattle rustling when you had saved the village from proper enemies, but still, 75 shillings was 75 shillings. You also managed to get the doctor to revisit you and some free beer out of the mayor.

And so you were soon heading south towards the hills on the back of farmer Ackerman’s cart, with your beer. You passed the strange building on top of the crag. Ackerman explained it was called Tempest Knap and had been there for as long as anyone knew, and that no one ever went up there because it was haunted. Thrumdorin wondered if it was dwarven but he could clearly see as you travelled below it that it was not that sort of style.

Ackerman also told you that he didn’t know what could be causing the loss of livestock. They had not had proper goblin raids for many generations and there were no bandits about as far as he knew.

Another hour got you up into the hills and into Ackerman’s farm. There was a watchtower built there, where he could keep an eye on his livestock. You were greeted by his eleven kids, and Ackerman made a point of introducing Thorvald to his attractive daughter Marien, and she went off to get some soup for you all.

You did a quick tour of the farmer’s fields. Marien went with Thorvald, though his roadwarden training seemed to make him very suspicious of her, even though he couldn’t come up with a concrete reason why that might be. Flan noticed a few strange husk like things in the field, and Thrumdorin thought they might be fungi, something like a puffball. He took a sniff of one and felt himself go a bit weak. You got the farmer to put all his cows in the fields nearest the watchtower and prepared to stay up all night in the rain and cold.

Flan and Thorvald sat up in the watch tower while Asterion hid in a tall tree, and Thrumdorin stood in the middle of a field grumpily. At about midnight, an arrow landed in the watchtower, and it was stuck through with one of those puffball things, though this one was fresh. As it landed it erupted in a cloud of spores and you had no choice but to breathe them in. And a similar arrow landed next to Thrumdorin, and he breathed the spores in too. As he got away from it he had time to recognise that the arrow was of goblin manufacture. And we leave you there in the middle of the night in a farm in the rain, all feeling sluggish

Gathering Storm, Session Nine

Squig!

Thrumdorin, Ironbreaker

Asterion, Wood Elf Waywatcher

Thorvald, Human Roadwarden

Flan, Bright Acolyte

You started in a wet field protecting cattle; some of you had been overcome with puffball spores and were feeling sluggish. Asterion was in the trees and hadn’t been noticed, and Thrumdorin had resisted the spores’ effects. Flan and Thorvald were in the watch tower.

It was dark and drizzly and you were having trouble seeing your attackers and you weren’t sure what they were but Thrumdorin was pretty confident they were goblins, which made him happy. Asterion managed to shoot at a couple who were near the watch tower, and killed one, the rest backed away into the hedgerow. Thrumdorin chased the other group down to the edge of the field.

Thorvald climbed down from the tower and headed towards Trumdorin, but Flan was having trouble focusing on his magic. Thrumdorin killed one of the goblins, and Asterion fired more shots into the woods.

Flan noticed some figures near the top of the field who seemed to be taking some of the cattle. He managed to summon some magic, and set fire to one of the goblins near Asterion, scaring the other goblins off. Unfortunately the effort was too much for Flan in his Sluggish state and he lost consciousness.

As Thorvald joined Thrumdorin, the other goblins decided to leg it, too. You could make out the goblins taking the cattle and you all ran up to them as quickly as you could. The goblins had managed to get four cows through the gate and down the lane by the time you reached them. They left three of their number to guard their escape. Thrumdorin and Asterion ran straight through them knocking them back and joined the ones with the cattle. Thorvald, running more slowly under the effects of the puffball, took on the three goblin guards, and managed to slay one, in a single move.

Thrumdorin and Asterion injured a couple of the goblins with the cattle, and they ran off, stampeding the animals down the lane. And the ones with Thorvald decided they had better leave the scene, too. So you had stopped the goblins taking any cattle and were left to round up the animals. Thorvald went to tell the farmer what had happened, and to get a rest and some food. Thrumdorin built a ‘scare-goblin’ in the middle of the field, by sticking the dead goblin’s heads on spikes.

You’d managed to get some sleep and at daybreak you decided to track the fleeing goblins to see where they had gone. Flan followed their tracks for over a mile through woods and along lanes further into the hills, and you came to another farmstead. This farmstead had a palisade and a stone-based watchtower. You could see some activity up on the walls by dark-cloaked figures.

You could also see some sort of crane had been badly constructed next to the farmhouse, above a hole in the roof. There was a bloody hook hanging from the crane, but it was difficult to see what they were using it for, thought there were a couple of goblins hanging around on the roof nearby.

You decided to mess with the goblins as soon as possible, as you wanted to act in, and you wanted to flush them out to see how many there were. From the cover of the tress, Flan fired a ball of fire at the farmhouse roof, and managed to set it alight. He then fired flames at one of the goblins in the watch tower.

It took a little while for the goblins to get their act together, but from your limited vantage point you noticed them trying to sort stuff out, getting buckets of water onto the roof and running around in a bit of a panic. Then the gates opened and out rushed a couple of squigs with a gang of herders. One group ran vaguely in your direction, while the other group headed off to the other side of the farm.

As the squig approached you, it sniffed around a bit, but couldn’t detect you. You decided to take out the handler with your crossbows and hope the squig would eat the rest of the goblins. You took the handler down quick enough and the loose squig charged straight towards you.

The squig tried to take a chunk out of Thorvald but he managed to avoid the blow, and you all attacked the thing, while the goblins rained arrows at you from a distance. The squig was clearly ferocious and dangerous and it took a chunk out of Thorvald, but you managed to defend yourselves and fight back. Flan finished the squig off with a blast of fire, and the goblins legged it back to base.

We leave you trying to decide whether to stick around for a bit longer.

Gathering Storm, Session Ten

The Stand

Thrumdorin, Ironbreaker

Asterion, Wood Elf Waywatcher

Thorvald, Human Roadwarden

Flan, Bright Acolyte

You started on the edge of the forest overlooking the night goblin-infested farmstead. You had beaten a Squig patrol but knew there would be another one around any minute, so you decided to head back to the Ackermann farm. You headed off back through the forest, and didn’t notice anyone following you.

You thought it might be best to abandon the Ackermann place for the night, if the goblins wanted revenge. Thorvald did his best to convince the farmer that he needed to move everything down to Stromdorf. But he insisted that the whole reason you were being paid to be there was to avoid that. Thorvald did manage to intimidate him into agreeing to abandon his farm, but in the end relented, and decided to go back to Stromdorf himself to get his squig bites seen to and to muster some reinforcements.

So Thorvald rode off on Ackermann’s nag while Flan and Asterion oversaw the building of defences around the farmstead. The Ackermanns built a fence to enclose their livestock, and Flan prepared a section of it to catch fire if required. He also set Thrumdorin’s goblin heads around the perimeter, and coated them with pitch for good burning. Thrumdorin ate and slept.

Thorvald convinced Mayor Adler to let him have a couple of watchmen and went to get bandaged up at Doctor Schneider’s but he wasn’t much use. He then headed back to the farm, with the two watchmen in his wake. He arrived back after nightfall. There was no sign of goblins, but you were sure they would turn up.

Towards midnight, Flan on the watchtower spotted some movement in the woods. He lit the goblin heads around the perimeter to warn the rest of you, and to scare the enemy. As the goblins made their way through the woods towards you from the west, you also spotted the squig and some goblins heading from the south end of the field. Flan decided to target the squig with his fiercest fireball. He scored a direct hit and roasted the squig and all its handlers. The thing got very mad and charged for Thorvald’s gate, dragging its hapless handler behind it. The squig jumped right over the palisade and faced Thorvald and his watchman, but from atop the watch tower Asterion shot it, and the thing fell dead.

Some strange green magic came out of the forest and smashed into Flan leaving him badly wounded and he dived down to the cover of the watchtower wall. Asterion used his quick wits to shoot rapidly back at the goblin shaman and killed him.

A band of goblins came out of the forest and faced Thrumdorin and his watchman, while another band began to make their way through the cattle enclosure. The ones who had been with the squig began trying to scale the gate, but were having little success and Thorvald and his watchman were picking them off.

And then you noticed some hulking monstrosity lumber out of the forest to the north, accompanied by more goblins. It was a troll and it smashed through the palisade into the farm courtyard. Flan was pushing himself and managed to launch some fire at the troll, but did little damage. Asterion hit it right between the eyes however, and the monster was visibly hurt. But as you watched the wound seemed to heal itself slightly.

Flan then wrapped himself in defensive flames but something went wrong and he turned himself momentarily to stone and got very stressed. The goblins with the troll fired up at the watchtower and hit Asterion a couple of times, and he fell unconscious. The troll tried to rip the watchtower out of the ground and throw it away, but didn’t quite have the strength.

With Thrumdorin fighting off goblins in the field, Flan in magical difficulties, and Asterion unconscious, only Thorvald faced the troll. He charged the thing, and took it down with one blow, then ordered the watchman to hack the thing up into pieces.

So we finish in the aftermath of the great battle for Ackermann’s farm. At the death of the troll, all the goblins ran for it, terrified. As you picked through the mess, you found the shaman had been being carried around on a piece of stone that looked just like the other ones. He also had a small fragment strapped to the top of his head.

This is a fascinating story that is well told.

Jay H

Gathering Storm, Session Eleven

The Final Stone

Thrumdorin, Ironbreaker

Asterion, Wood Elf Waywatcher

Thorvald, Human Roadwarden-Zealot

Flan, Bright Acolyte

You started in the aftermath of the battle of Ackerman’s farm. You were careful to hack up the troll into small bits because you had heard rumours of its powers of self-healing. Thrumdorin checked out the forest around the goblins’ bodies. He found the shaman had a rock strapped to his head which was reminiscent of the other stones. So he hung it on his shield as a trophy. The shaman had been carried around on a larger rock, which was of the same kind and had similar markings to the other stones, so he dragged it back to the farmstead. Thorvald found one of those soporific puffballs that had not been used, and so kept it. You piled up the rest of the bodies, and headed for bed. Asterion woke to find he had lost a tooth.

In the morning with Asterion and Flan recovered, the Ackermans made you a hearty breakfast and farmer Ackerman offered Thorvald a gift giving him the choice between his eldest daughter or his best cow. Thorvald said he’d think it over. You told the Stromdorf watchmen that they could head back to town and have the day off, and you decided to check out the goblin farmstead.

The goblin base looked like it had been abandoned in a hurry. You decided the farmhouse had been set up to keep the Troll trapped inside it, with the crane used to feed it. The goblins had made themselves at home, and had really wrecked the place. But they had left alone a fine-looking antique sword that was hanging from the chimney breast. Thorvald he might put it to good use.

You piled up much of the goblin stuff in the courtyard and made a big bonfire of it and then headed back to the Ackermans’. Thorvald decided to accept the cow and offered it back to the family for a celebratory feast that evening. There was also lots of beer. If Thorvald accepted the daughter, also, then he didn’t remember in the morning.

So, the next day, you set off contented and refreshed back to Stromdorf. Word of your deeds had preceded you and a few peasants stood and cheered as you entered through the town gate. Kessler greeted you with congratulations and went to fetch the 75 silver you had been promised. Asterion and Flan decided to give more money to Doctor Schneider, and Asterion got a false tooth the doctor had lying around, which fitted quite well.

Thorvald and Thrumdorin went to the temple and added the stones to your collection. They noticed that there were some charcoal marks on the stone from the graveyard, as if someone had been taking a rubbing of it (similar to the rubbing you took of the stone you sold to Schulmann).

You decided to try to piece the stones together to make one design. It seemed to be forming a circular tablet but there was a section missing, so you decided that one stone remained to be found. Soon Schulmann turned up. He wanted to buy the stone you got from the graveyard, and seemed to think you had found another one. You were more interested in heading to the Thunderwater Tavern and arranged to talk to him about it in the morning. And so you went down the pub and talked about what you were going to do about the Celestial Wizard. Most of you went to sleep in the temple keeping an eye on the stones.

In the morning Father Gottschalk told you he had a dream that the stones were all together again, which was weird because you definitely knew there was one missing. Schulmann turned up and you agreed to sell all your stones to him for 300 silver now, and 400 more when he could get back to Altdorf, provided he promised you would work together to find the remaining stone. Considering Gottschalk had had many strange stone-inspired dreams before any of the other stones had been brought to the temple, and because you realised the lightning had been striking the temple for some time, you concluded that the missing stone could have been in the temple all along.

You cleared the stones out up to Schulmann’s room and Schulmann and Flan scoured the temple building for any sign of Azyr. Flan detected a tiny trace emanating from the floor of the crypt and you decided to dig there. Gottschalk was adamant that you could not desecrate his temple no matter how you tried to persuade him. But you insisted on digging anyway. He went to get Captain Kessler to stop you.

Thrumdorin broke through the flag stone floor and was soon digging through softer earth. You found the odd hand and bits of bone, but kept digging and soon enough found the missing stone. You straight away piled all the earth and bones back into the hole, and managed to replace the last flag stone just as Gottschalk and Kessler came through the door. You told the priest you didn’t want to dig up his floor after all, and so Kessler went back to the watch-house.

You brought the final stone back to Schulmann’s room and soon had the tablet complete. You began to decipher what it might mean. Schulmann made a few calculations and told you he had some old maps with his equipment in the stables and was going down to get them. This sounded a bit wrong to you, and you decided you didn’t trust him and that you’d accompany him down there. When you did get there, he seemed to look out the window and cast a quick spell and he disappeared in a blur of Azyr leaving a foul smell behind him.

Looking through the window you could see he was suddenly halfway to the town gates and running for it. Asterion fired a couple of arrows after him and Thorvald grabbed a horse to pursue him. Flan and Thrumdorin ran after. When Thorvald got to the gate he could see Schulmann on a horse riding away from town and rode on after him. When Flan and Thrumdorin got there they could see that the guard had been attacked by magic and were told that the wizard had stolen a horse. They grabbed a couple of horses in the name of justice and rode on after him.

You chased the wizard along the muddy track pushing your horses as fast as you could but you couldn’t catch him. After a while Thorvald came to a fisherman’s cottage. The fisherman was dead and he could see that Schulmann had stolen a boat and was rowing up the river. Thorvald thought about getting in another beaten up boat and pursuing him, but decided it would be much more sensible to follow the boat on horseback from the shore. Schulmann seemed to cast a curse at Thorvald from his boat.

Not long after, Schulmann stopped rowing and began casting spells into the water. Some blue flares seemed to rise up as he did so. He seemed to be trying to unleash magical power from the river be, or something. Thorvald fired his crossbow at the wizard and hit him. Then Flan who had knackered his horse to catch up readied his fire magic. Before Schulamnn could finish whatever it was he was doing, Flan struck him with his fireball and the Celestial Wizard fell into the water. Before he disappeared under the water, Schulmann ripped off a pendant from his neck and shouted that you were doomed too. Then you saw the blinding light from the pendant fade as it sank beneath the waves.

You all instinctively looked up to see some sort of great comet falling from the heavens, heading straight for you. Thorvald kicked his horse into action and galloped off. Flan’s horse had given out, and he considered making a run for it, but Thrumdorin offered him a hand up onto his. They arsed about for a bit, but eventually Flan got up, and Thrumdorin spurred his horse on. But the comet struck, and the pair of you were caught up in the blast of its impact and thrown brutally to the ground. But you lived.

We leave you looking down onto the river as it settles once more after having had a great big comet land in it.

Excellent! Seems like you achieved a climactic feel to the whole sequence. (But then again, it seems like Asterion missed out on the finale?) I really like the fast-paced hunt and then the shooting down of Schulmann on the river.

And at the very least the image of the comet striking down from the heavens must have had a nice effect on the players!

ozean said:

Yeah, it was Asterion's bed time; week night, school the next day. In most of the logs he doesn't get any mentions after about two-thirds of the way through.

Session Twelve

A New Job

Thrumdorin, Ironbreaker

Asterion, Wood Elf Waywatcher

Thorvald, Human Roadwarden

Flan, Bright Acolyte

So we join you surveying the mess made by the comet that smashed into the river right on top of where the Celestial Wizard had drowned. You decided that he was mad and his secret weapon, a comet from the heavens, was the tactic of an insane mind. Flan had especially felt the force of the comet (although not as much as his horse, which was dead) and had been wounded by the impact.

You made your way back into town taking the surviving horses. Thorvald decided that he might have actually been given his horse by Kessler on a permanent basis and resolved that unless he heard otherwise officially, the trusty steed was now his. The rest of you turned in your mounts (including Schulmann’s) where you had stolen them a little earlier. You blamed the missing horse on the mad wizard (not Flan).

You went to see Kessler and told him what happened, and he seemed a little confused by it all. He did tell you that some bloke was looking for a band of mercenaries to defend his master’s estate from beastmen. He had been on the way to Ubersreik, but heard about you, as he was passing through Stromdorf, and thought that you might do the job. He was waiting at the Thunderwater.

You met the guy, Vern Hendrick and he explained that his master’s (Lord Aschaffenberg) new place Grunewald Lodge had been attacked by beastmen and many of the guards killed and he needed some mercenaries to defend the place. He seemed pretty sure the beastmen would be back soon. He offered you 6 shillings a day each which you accepted. He said if you left first thing the next day then that would give you plenty of time to reach Grunewald, which was less than a day’s travel away.

Flan and Asterion went off to see the doctor again, who you could tell, of all the villagers, was going to miss you most.

You had a think about what to do about the stones. You discussed splitting them all up and taking one each to a safe place, and you thought about taking them all to Ubersreik or Altdorf. You had a word with Krantz and discussed him taking all the stones together up to Ubersreik. You wondered if it would be safe from lightning, but the lightning had seemed to be striking less since Schulmann had died.

In the end you decided to keep all the stones together in the crypt of the temple, and told Gottschalk to guard them with his life. You gave Krantz the guild ring that you had been commissioned to find, and told him to go back to Ubersreik and tell them what had happened to Wechsler, and that you would be along soon to collect the second half of your fee.

You woke up feeling fitter, and noticed the weather seemed to be a bit brighter than normal. It was still raining, with thick low cloud, but the clouds felt not so thick and low as before, maybe.

You began the journey to Grunewald, with Hendrick and his driver, Heiko, by cart. Thorvald rode his new horse out of the town and nobody tried to stop him.

On your way Hendrick spoke of the beastman attack. He said they lost four good men and another two were too injured to fight, leaving the place short of protection. Hendrick himself had a wounded hand which he offered as evidence that he had been involved in the battle, but he didn’t look like much of a fighter.

He also mentioned that that was not really the sole reason he had hired you. Something was wrong at Grunewald Lodge and the baron was hoping you could sort it out. He was a bit vague, but he said that the old lord of the manor (Andreas von Bruner) had disappeared a year ago, and since then the place seemed to have been run down. The staff all seemed unhelpful or slackers, and there was a strange aura about the place. The baron’s wife had refused to live there until it had been sorted out. He also gave you a quick briefing on the famous von Jungfreud family of which the von Bruners and Aschaffenbergs were branches. Hendrick implied that von Bruner and now Aschaffenberg was given the lodge more as an insult than an honour. You vaguely recalled some sort of scandal from a while back connected with the von Bruners.

Hendrick mentioned a mad dwarf who lived there, and a zealous blind ‘priestess’ who they couldn’t get rid of, to illustrate how strange the place was.

As you turned off the main Bögenhafen road towards the lodge, the forest got denser and Vern Hendrick stopped talking and became visibly on edge. And as you approached the lodge, you could see bestial shapes in the undergrowth, watching and stalking you. Thorvald noticed a couple of shapes in the canopy ahead of you and shouted a warning to the driver. Only Thrumdorin reacted quickly enough, grabbed the reins and did his best to halt the cart. Unfortunately he halted it directly below the beastmen and they jumped you. At the same time more beastmen charged you from the forest.

The first beastman dropping from the trees landed squarely on Heiko the driver and they began to scuffle. The second, narrowly missed Flan, hit the edge of the cart painfully, and fell onto the ground with a yelp. Flan fired flames at the beastmen on one side, and Asterion a hail of arrows on the other. Thorvald killed one as they charged in. Several reached the cart, however, laying savagely into Flan, Hendrick and Asterion.

Thrumdorin managed to hit one of them off the cart, and Thorvald quickly killed another, and the few survivors quickly melted back into the forest. Round the next bend was the gatehouse and the walls of Grunewald Lodge.

Inside the lodge grounds Lord Aschaffenberg came out to greet you and thank you for coming, and was surprised that Hendrick had got back so soon. Some of you sensed someone looking at you from a window above, but when you looked, there was no one there. Thorvald tried to sort his horse out, after the long journey, but was put off by the state of the stables, which hadn’t been mucked out for a long time. Flan and Asterion headed for the hospice, where Lord Aschaffenberg had assured them the doctor would attend to their wounds, while Thorvald and Thrumdorin and Hendrick followed Aschaffenberg to his chambers where he could brief them.

He largely repeated what Hendrick had already told you on the journey. Something was up and the staff was not forthcoming. The old lord had disappeared in mysterious circumstances a year ago, and the baron was not at all comfortable being there. On top of all that beastman attacks had started and they weren’t letting up. He told you to look round the place for a few hours before dinner and see what you thought. You asked for a snack to be sent up from the kitchen and they duly obliged.

In the hospice, Flan and Asterion were greeted by a blind lady in Sigmarite robes who introduced herself as Sonja and after blessing you in the name of Sigmar, went to fetch the doctor. You got the impression she might not be a real priest, but at least she knew the right words to the blessing. In the hospice were a couple of soldiers who were wounded from the last beastman attack, and some other guy, who you later learned was the gardener. There was also the mad dwarf in the corner shouting stuff out and being mad. You spoke to the soldiers who told you what a heroic job they had made of the defence of the lodge.

Doctor Sieger came out to talk to you. You immediately noticed that he smelt strongly of something earthy and stewed, a bit like rotting vegetation. Flan asked him about this and he said it was probably the medicines he uses. You had a chat about making medicine and he told you about his herb garden round the back where he grows faxtoryll and Taal’s Root. Asterion knew about Faxtoryll and how it is good for treating bleeding wounds. You had a few words to the dwarf but it seemed to you he was just shouting nonsense.

Thorvald and Thrumdorin went up to the gatehouse to see what state the guards were in. You met the captain who seemed to know what he was doing, and a couple of his men. They were all in the gatehouse playing Find the Empress. Thorvald thought they should be patrolling the battlements, but there were a couple of men out there, and the captain didn’t think there was much point in making too much effort until it got dark. There was a bit of soldierly rivalry going on, but you managed to get on ok with the guards, and Thorvald settled down for some Find the Empress, at which he won a penny but there didn’t seem to be a lot of skill to it. You also chatted about the mad dwarf. The soldiers said that he used to be fine, but started acting strange a few months ago, and had been getting progressively worse.

Thrumdorin decided he should talk to the dwarf and so went to the hospice. He started singing the Saga of Grimnir to him, but Sister Sonja soon came over to shut him up. She told Thrumdorin that the dwarf’s name was Korden of the Kurgansson clan of Karak Azgaraz. Thrumdorin knew that this was the nearest dwarfhold to here, but he had never been there. You also got the impression that Sonja wanted to tell you something important, but thought better of it.

When Sonja had gone the dwarf did begin to open up and make a bit of sense. He was ranting about eyes, and about ‘them’ being after something, but they would never find it. And it was the only thing that they feared, and don’t shave his beard, and things like that.

So we leave you with Thorvald up in the gatehouse playing cards, and the three of you in the hospice chatting to various people. There’s a couple of hours to go before nightfall.

Session Thirteen (Eye for an Eye)

Dinner is Served

Thrumdorin, Ironbreaker-Soldier

Asterion, Wood Elf Hunter-Waywatcher

Flan, Bright Acolyte

We join you in the hospice. Thorvald decided to stay with the guards, in the gatehouse playing Find the Empress, and perhaps patrolling the walls, or preparing for the beastmen, or chatting to the guards, or drinking tea.

Flan and Asterion decided to check out the garden for faxtoryll and other things. Thrumdorin joined them on his way to the forge. On your way you were startled by a sudden deep barking and three ferocious Tilean Manhounds growled at you from behind a fence. Flan asked a nearby servant about the dogs and was told they belonged to Olver the hunter and they had been very useful in the battle against the beastmen. Flan also got the impression that the servant had not just wandered by but had been keeping an eye on you. You also noticed a rank smell coming from the kennel compound.

At the garden Flan and Asterion found the faxtoryll. There was a load of other plants there, too, which you couldn’t recognise. It was plain, though that the garden was not well looked after and it was rather over grown.

Thrumdorin looked around the forge and was entertaining the notion of starting it up and getting to work on repairing some weapons and armour in time for a beastman attack. He found an old wooden box that had its lock smashed in. He opened it but it was empty. The velvet lining however, held a clear impression of a dwarven hammer. Thrumdorin decided that that might be the thing that ‘they’ were looking for according to Korden.

You all decided you needed to get the place in some sort of readiness in case the beastmen attacked tonight. Thrumdorin began sharpening swords, while Asterion organised the collecting of branches and things that might burn, although much of the stuff was too wet. He also scouted out into the forest but couldn’t find any beastman tracks or clues to where they came from.

Flan got servants to collect flammable supplies from the cellars, and to set them up in good places to set fire to, to frighten off attackers. On one trip to the cellars, on the way out, one of the servants he had commandeered dropped a piece of paper from his pocket, which Flan picked up. It read ‘Goose is Good.’ Flan asked the servant his name (it was Jozef) but he didn’t mention the note.

As the sun set, the dinner gong sounded and you went back to the lodge to join Lord Aschaffenberg for dinner. Thorvald decided to have dinner with his soldier mates, staying to help them patrol the walls, or just play cards in the gate house.

Going through the entrance hall you noticed many portraits of what must have been past lords of the manor. There was also a stuffed goblin head of which Thrumdorin heartily approved.

Passing through the drawing room on the way to the dining room you felt a strange chill and uneasy feeling, and Flan sensed some strange winds coming from behind a blue velvet curtain. He tentatively drew the curtain back and faced a weirdly shocking painting. It was made up of geometric patterns that seemed to shift before your eyes, and the images came together to depict a huge blue iris, and within the dark pupil there seemed to be the shape of a man’s face. Flan found it unpleasant but steeled himself. Asterion became uneasy just looking at it, and Thrumdorin was utterly shocked by the thing.

You were rather distraught by the whole portrait busiiness but it wasn’t clear why. You discussed getting rid of it right then, and even setting fire to it, but you thought that might come across as a bit rude to your noble host to start burning his stuff. A servant called you to dinner, you asked him about the portrait he admitted that it was a bit strange, but it had always been there. You didn’t get the impression that he was particularly bothered by it.

Around the dinner table was Lord Aschaffenberg, Doctor Sieger, Captain Blucher, Otto the librarian, Olver the hunter, Berthold, the gardener who you had seen in the hospice, although he didn’t seem too ill at the moment, Heiko, your driver who had recovered a bit from being brained by a rampant beastman, and Hendrick. There were several servants in attendance, and they were organised by the butler, who had a bandage around his head.

Over dinner you chatted to the various characters. You had not met Otto before and were surprised that the lodge had a library. He said you could come and check the place out any time. You got the impression that he seemed to know what he was talking about re libraries. And you chatted to Olver about his dogs. He came across as a thug. Berthold the gardener turned out to be a bit of an idiot, but the state of his garden suggested that, anyway.

The main course was a choice of venison or goose. Lord Aschaffenberg recommended the venison and said his chef was very good. Flan and Thrumdorin decided to take the advice of the piece of paper Flan had found and chose goose. You managed to hint to Asterion to do the same. Thrumdorin was careful to note who ate what. Aschaffenberg, Blucher, Olver, Heiko and Hendrick all had the venison.

The meal was interrupted by Olver’s dogs barking loudly, again. He rushed out and you all decided to follow him. He went quickly to his kennels and grabbed the dogs and followed them. Thrumdorin went with him. Meanwhile Asterion and Flan did a circuit of the walls and went to the gatehouse to see what the guards were up to. Three of them were asleep in the middle of a card game. They had been drinking tea, which you decided smelled a bit like Doctor Sieger. You tried to wake them, but they couldn’t stay awake for long, and didn’t make much sense when you tried to talk to them.

You could see no sign of beastmen, and the dogs couldn’t seem to pick up any trace of them either. Thrumdorin sent Olver on a last circuit of the walls, while he sneaked into the kennels. He went through the place hoping to find Korden’s hammer. But he did find a half dismembered body of a beastman hanging in a cupboard and clearly the source of the bad smell.

Flan and Asterion went to the Hospice and managed to convince the wounded guards to get up on the wall and do their thing for this lordship. Although it was clear they would be little use in an actual fight, they went to hold the fort, like troopers.

You then went back to report to Aschaffenberg. When you got to the drawing room, you looked behind the curtain, but the painting was gone. The butler informed you that Aschaffenberg and Hendrick had felt very sleepy, after dinner, and had retired to their beds. You insisted he show you to Hendrick’s room, though. You managed to wake Hendrick but could barely get a word out of him.

Flan went back to the hospice and sneaked into the doctor’s quarters. He picked a locked door and found himself in the doctor’s private lab. There was the cadaver of one of the guards (who had perished in the first beastman attack, you assumed) stretched out on a slab, in the middle of a dissection. Also, there was a vat of green stuff brewing away that seemed to be producing a refined clear liquid. And it had the same smell as the doctor and the drugged tea. Flan poured the purified stuff into a bottle and took it, and then wrecked the rest of the equipment.

Thrumdorin went to get Korden, and despite some protestation from Sonja, took him to the forge where he might feel more at home. He gave him some beer and drugged tea and managed to get some words out of him. He told you that they would never get the hammer because he did not even know where it was. He said that they used to take him to look into the eye so that he would tell them where it was, but he never told them.

Flan then went to the library. He found Otto there, and it wasn’t quite clear whether he had disturbed him or not. Otto explained that when he said you were welcome in the library he meant during the day when it would be easier to read. Flan felt something was wrong, but left, deciding to wait for Otto to leave and then sneak back in. After a few minutes he heard what sounded like a door shutting in the library. So he sneaked back in. There were no visible doors and Otto was nowhere to be seen. Flan carefully searched through the shelves hoping to find some sort of hidden doorway, when suddenly...

We leave you with Flan in the library, Asterion out on the walls, somewhere, Thrumdorin in the forge, and it not being entirely clear where Thorvald is.

Session Fourteen (Eye for an Eye)

Daemon is Served

Thrumdorin, Ironbreaker-Soldier

Asterion, Wood Elf Hunter-Waywatcher

Thorvald, Human Roadwarden-Zealot

Flan, Bright Acolyte

We join you in Grunewald hunting lodge with strange stuff going on. Lord Aschaffenberg and Hendrick were drugged and asleep, and so were the guards. Flan was searching the library. Asterion was out on the walls expecting a beastman attack. Thrumdorin was in the forge with Korden.

Thorvald spent the time playing cards with the guards and chatting to them. Someone brought tea, but he didn’t really notice who. And soon he was feeling a bit drowsy, and the other guards all fell fast asleep. One of the guards was missing, but, Thorvald wasn’t really paying too much attention. Thorvald did hear the dogs making a fuss and went out to see what was up.

Searching the library, Flan suddenly felt all his magical power drain from him, and rush through a trapdoor-like shape in the floor. For a brief moment he sensed himself gazing into the eye of the painting you found earlier, and sensing a terrible, malevolent force behind it. He decided the best thing to do was leave the place immediately. On his way out he sensed that his power was returning once he got some way from the trapdoor.

You all met up at the forge. Thrumdorin was concerned about the drugged up Korden and found a wooden box to lock him in to keep him safe for the night. You checked the wounded guards on the walls and decided they would do their best to keep any beastmen out, but they wouldn’t be up to much.

And then you went to speak to Sister Sonja about Korden. Thorvald threatened her rather brutally to reveal what she knew about Korden and his hammer, and she told you that Sigmar had it at his shrine and it was hidden beneath dirt. So you went over to the shrine and Thrumdorin grabbed the hammer held by the statue of Sigmar, and cleaned it up a bit and sure enough it was an excellently made warhammer. You did wonder how a blind woman could hide it so effectively, in plain sight.

At that moment you looked up to see the clouds break and the bad moon Morrslieb shining full in the sky, seemingly gazing down at you with a malevolent grin.

You decided you might have been arsing about for too long, and that you needed to hurry to the library to put a stop to whatever was happening. Thorvald gave Asterion his goblin slackfungus which the elf tied to one of his arrows. You entered the library with weapons drawn and opened the trapdoor to reveal steps leading down to the cellar area. You wedged the door open with a bookshelf to make sure you would not get trapped down there. Thrumdorin led the way down, brandishing his new hammer. The cellar had a large black altar-like slab in the middle of it. On it was the body of your erstwhile driver Heiko. You noticed that the blood dripping from his throat had left a section of the altar untouched, as if something had been placed under his body when his throat was cut, and since removed. You could see the frame of the painting standing against the wall, the canvas having been cut away from it. You also noticed a bandage on the floor, that you decided wasn’t one of Heiko’s.

There was a book by the body, and Flan read the opened page. It described a ritual that required six people to perform. It also required a human sacrifice and the blood of a mutant. It spoke of summoning a daemon through a picture and it required the picture to be bathed in the light of Morrslieb. Flan decided he had better confiscate the book on behalf of the Bright College of Altdorf.

Searching the cellar you discovered another exit led to the lodge’s cellars beneath the kitchen, and a chimney-like route led up to the roof. You decided to get out into the moonlight as soon as possible to see if you could see the summoning, and went through the kitchen.

Back out in the open you could not see much sign of cultists or a summoning, or any sign of a beastman attack. But one of you noticed a brief movement and flash of colour coming from the roof, so you legged it back into the cellars, and then into the chimney section and began climbing for the roof upon metal rungs that had been set into the side of the chimney.

After a good climb, Thrumdorin pulled himself unseen onto the roof, and could see a group of six people standing around the now blank canvas. And in the middle of the group was the sinuous form of some sort of winged daemon, covered in strange-coloured feathers, with a monstrous beak and sharp claws.

As Thorvald pulled himself onto the roof, one of the cultists spotted you and they all turned to face you. Thrumdorin immediately charged into Doctor Sieger. He had a grudge to settle, regarding the mistreatment of Korden. The dwarf smashed into him, sending him flying off the roof and onto the ground below, dead.

As battle was joined you could just notice the fuss below, on the battlements. The wounded guards and Olver and his dogs were bravely trying to fend off a beastman attack, but they were gradually but surely getting overwhelmed.

Asterion climbed up onto the roof. Flan looked over the edge of the chimney and managed to cast a fireball at the group. The fire landed right on top of the daemon, and engulfed the entire group.

Having been scorched by the magical fire, the daemon charged straight at the wizard. He hit him squarely, knocking him off the rungs and the wizard fell to the bottom of the chimney, unconscious, but still alive.

Asterion fired a couple of arrows at the daemon thing. They both hit it squarely, but seemed to just bounce off, without doing the daemon any damage at all.

The cultists were clearly mad at you for attacking their daemon and some of them charged at you. Thorvald recognised the guard, Koch, who he had traded some banter with earlier, and they joined battle. Berthold, the gardener you had had dinner with charged at Thrumdorin, and some woman with an apron and a meat cleaver, who you guessed might be the cook, laid into Asterion. You noticed Otto, the librarian, slope off quietly. The butler guy seemed to be hanging back and ordering everyone around (including the daemon). The bandage had gone from his head, to reveal a large eye, floating on top of a long eye-stalk.

Thrumdorin decided to sing to the Daemon to attract its attention and bring it to fight him, where he trusted Korden’s hammer might be able to defeat it. The daemon flew in and clawed at the dwarf but missed, allowing him to strike him swiftly back with a well practiced move. Meanwhile Thorvald attacked the daemon too, but feeling groggy from the poisoned tea, couldn’t get much of an attack going. Meanwhile Asterion killed the cook with his rapier.

Thrumdorin struck the daemon again with his hammer, destroying it utterly, and it disappeared into the aethyr leaving only a whiff of brimstone in its wake. Thorvald killed Koch, and Asterion shot at the butler killing him, too. Only Berthold remained. He knelt before you and begged for mercy, telling you he didn’t really known what he was doing and that he was just obeying orders.

Thrumdorin smashed his head in with the hammer.

You could see that the beastmen were running rampant in the lodge grounds. All the defenders had been killed and the beasts were heading for the main lodge building. And you remembered that your main job was to actually defend the place and lord Aschaffenberg from beastmen.

You quickly left the roof, via the chimney to see to Flan. He was amazingly still alive, but was out cold. You did your best to try some sort of first aid on him. You also moved the shelf in the library and closed the trapdoor to stop the beastmen getting in.

So we leave you at the bottom of the chimney in the makeshift Chaos temple beneath Grunewald lodge, with Beastmen rampaging all over the place, wondering how you are going to protect lord Aschaffenberg and his loyal servants.

Very cool.

I've been thinking about running Eye for an Eye after Gathering Storm (as intro into Edge of Night). Did you adjust foes at all for more experienced PC's?

Rob

Yeah, I added an extra wargor to the beastmen in the next session, and I made the daemon immune to normal weapons (but with a wizard, Acitus from tGS, and Korden's hammer, it wasn't much of a handicap).

fwiw, I went straight into EoN after this and it worked very well.

Session Fifteen (Eye for an Eye)

Hiding under the Bed.

Thrumdorin, Ironbreaker-Soldier

Asterion, Wood Elf Hunter-Waywatcher

Thorvald, Human Roadwarden-Zealot

We join you on the roof of the lodge. Flan is still unconscious but you managed to drag him up the ladder from the cellar. You can see that beastmen are rampaging all through the lodge grounds. Apart from one of Olver’s dogs there is little sign of survivors. The forge was still largely intact, though and so you assumed Korden was alright. Many Beastmen were coming into the main lodge, too, including several larger ones.

Asterion jumped down from the roof onto the balcony below which you worked out should be outside Aschaffenberg’s rooms. Thorvald and Thrumdorin used a rope to get down, but they couldn’t manage such a graceful landing. The wood elf managed to use his mystical elven healing abilities to treat your bruises. You left Flan on the roof, on his own, unconscious.

Aschaffenberg was asleep on his bed and you could barely rouse him. You went out into the corridor to look around for more survivors. You could hear the screams and shouts of the lodge’s defenders, but there were no beastmen close by. You found Hendrick’s room and dragged him back to Aschaffenberg’s. You decided that pretty much everyone you’d met was accounted for, either killed by you or beastmen or run off, except for some of the servants.

You searched around for a secret exit from Aschaffenberg’s chambers and found a moving bookshelf that opened up to the chimney section. You barricaded yourself into the bedroom, blocking the door with the four poster bed and some furniture and waited for the beastmen to turn up. It must have been quite stressful for you.

Asterion went back up to the roof and shot killed a couple of rampaging beastmen. And you took some pot-shots at beastmen from the balcony, and soon enough there were noises outside the door. Thorvald tried to find a few inspiring words to make everyone feel better, but didn’t really know what to say, and Thrumdorin started singing again. You braced yourself and in piled one of the hugest beastmen you had ever seen, together with another, who was also pretty large.

The beastman let out a deafening howl that had Thorvald and Thrumdorin quaking in their boots. But Thrumdorin managed to howl back at it, although it didn’t look very frightened. Things were looking a bit ominous as the two beastmen squared up to you. Asterion jumped down again from the roof and shot the big beastman. It tried to strike Thrumdorin but missed and the dwarf managed to strike back, buoyed by his song. Then Thorvald struck with his blades and the beast went down.

The second beastman hesitated for a moment, but didn’t run. It charged in, but Thrumdorin managed to push it back out into the corridor. It charged back in, looking a bit confused by it all, and you piled into it, and soon had it dead. After showing them the head of its leader, the rest of the beastmen soon lost heart, and began to disappear back into the forest, leaving Grunewald behind, a complete mess.

Korden had survived, but few others had (only Otto the librarian was unaccounted for). You watched the place all night and into the next day, until Aschaffenberg and Hendrick finally stirred. They were shocked at what had happened and Aschaffenberg wanted to torch the entire lodge. But you talked him out of it. He decided to for leave for Ubersreik; he’d never really liked the place, anway. Asterion went out into the forest and managed to track down Thorvald’s horse, which he decided to name Goose. Flan began to recover, aided by the wood elf’s healing skills.

So the next day you accompanied Aschaffenberg back to Ubersreik. You managed to get a few more shillings out of Aschaffenberg as wages, but he didn’t come across as too grateful for your help (although, really, you had failed in your job to protect the lodge). You went back via Stromdorf and picked up the stones.

Back in Ubersreik, Thrumdorin managed to find a dwarf heading to Karak Azgaraz who would take Korden and one of the Stromdorf stones with him. You took your old rooms at the Red Moon inn and contacted the Merchants’ Guild to get the balance of your payment from the Stromdorf job.

Asterion bought a horse and called it Senlui. And he kinda arranged for his Stromdorf stone to be taken into Bretonnia by a merchant caravan, and left near to Athel Loren.

So we leave you hanging out around Ubersreik for several days, resting and recovering from your eventful last couple of weeks, with time to do whatever bits and pieces you feel like.

Session Sixteen (Edge of Night)

Services Rendered

Thrumdorin, Ironbreaker-Soldier

Asterion, Wood Elf Hunter-Waywatcher

Thorvald, Human Roadwarden-Zealot

So you had been hanging out in Ubersreik for a few days, staying at the Red Moon. Thorvald had been attending the Temple of Sigmar. You heard a few rumours doing the rounds. Most importantly for Ubersreik, you heard that the Emperor is revoking the town’s Freistadt status, and there will be a noble installed as the lord of Ubersreik, to run the town on his behalf. This has a lot of the guilds grumbling as the town had been doing pretty well since the von Jungfreuds were chucked out a few years ago. The noble would be appointed by the town council on behalf of the Emperor. Heissman von Bruner would be the obvious choice to be appointed.

But then you heard that the von Bruners are in disgrace after being implicated in some weird plot to summon a daemon to the von Bruner’s hunting lodge out in the sticks. Apparently, you heard, the only one to stand in the way of the plot, saving the area from the subjugation of the Dark Gods, was Lord Rickard Aschaffenberg. And so now it seemed Aschaffenberg is the new favourite to gain the lordship of Ubersreik. You weren’t impressed.

You also learned there were a couple of other main candidates in the running to become Lord Ubersreik. Graf Siegfried von Saponatheim the ruler of Bögenhafen seemed to be a good choice, as Bögenhafen was a prosperous town in a similar position to Ubersreik. And some newcomer from Altdorf, or somewhere, called Baron Manfred von Holzenauer had turned up.

You also heard down at the Red Moon, that a strange tentacle-like thing was fished out of the river Teufel by the watch, which they immediately burned, or something. Also, you heard that a beastman was found inside Borgun’s Brewery. Someone said the beast-man was in the form of a rat that walked on its hind legs. Everyone dismissed this as nonsense, of course, except the dwarf. Apparently Borgun has now employed a dwarf security guard for his premises.

You noticed in the sky that the dark moon, Morrslieb, was beginning to wax again, which was strange because it had been full only a week before, during your time at Grunewald lodge. But you knew that the moon’s course was famously erratic and unchartable. And you also knew that it always seemed to herald a time of ill.

Thrumdorin decided he had to go round to the brewery straight away to see what that was about and Asterion went off to the docks to check out the tentacle thing. The security guard at the brewery told you that he thought the beastman was obviously a Skaven but didn’t know what one might be doing down here; maybe it just had good taste in Beer. Thrumdorin asked if the beer had been tampered with in any way, and the guard said as far as he knew, the ratman had been disturbed before it could do whatever it was there to do.

You also had a chat about politics. The guard said he heard that von Holzenauer had lost his ancestral lands, and did not make an oath to regain them, which clearly, to the dwarf way of thinking, made him a bad person. Thrumdorin decided he didn’t want von Holzenauer becoming ruler of Ubersreik. The guard also said that von Holzenauer had been running up loads of debts since he arrived in town, and wondered if he had any real money at all.

You all agreed that Achaffenberg had snubbed you, unforgivably, and not only did you want to thwart his attempt to become the lord of Ubersreik, you thought there might be some profit in it for yourselves. And, having considered von Holzenauer’s dishonourable past, decided that you would offer your services to the Graf von Saponatheim.

In the morning you headed off for the Emperor’s Rest hotel where you believed he was staying. You felt a bit inhibited by the swanky establishment, but managed to get past the doorman. The receptionist didn’t want to disturb the lord on your behalf, but you managed to frighten her into promising that she would approach him on your behalf later that day. And she asked you to come back in the evening.

On your way back you came across a strange bunch of fanatical Sigmarites whipping themselves up in the god’s name and declaring the end to be nigh. Thorvald managed to trade some theological theory with them, but they were not the sort of people who listened to fresh points of view when it came to religion. They seemed to be against all the nobility, who they said were living outside the true way as exemplified by the life of Sigmar. But especially, they had it in for Lord von Bruner, who had recently been associated with the conspiracies of the dark gods.

You then went to the Axe and Hammer (next to the brewery) to see if you could find out more about the ratman. You convinced the barman to let you have a word with Borgun Foambeard the Braumeister. He didn’t have much to add to what the guard had said. You also spoke to him about politics, and though he favoured von Saponatheim, of the main candidates, he was not that interested in human politics, provided they left him alone to brew his Old Subterranean. Thrumdorin told Foambeard what he had learned about von Holzenauer and his debts. Thrumdorin decided that the Axe and Hammer was a better place to stay than the Red Moon, and arranged to take a room there.

You went down to the docks and the watchhouse, to see what you could learn about the giant tentacle. No one seemed to know too much about it. You weren’t sure if the watchmen were keeping to a story to hush the whole incident up, or if they genuinely did not know anything. In the end, you decided that the whole thing was not worth pursuing.

And so it was time to head back to the Emperor’s Rest. Perhaps surprisingly, von Saponatheim did agree to see you. You went up to his room and introduced yourselves. He did not seem to have much clue who you were, and he kept his bodyguards close. You explained to him about your association with Aschaffenberg, and your information on von Holzenauer and hoped you could come to some mutually beneficial arrangement. Von Saponatheim seemed intrigued by the possibilities and agreed to keep you on as informal advisors (ie someone to do his dirty work) but said that if he became lord of Ubersreik thanks to your efforts, then he would give you a couple of gold coins each.

You talked about how you might be of use. You agreed that if you could get word of Aschaffenberg’s misrepresentation out to the people of Ubersreik, but especially the town council, or you could dig up some evidence of von Holzenauer’s financial position, that would be good.

So after a successful meeting, you were wandering across the market square on the way back to the Red Moon, when you heard some screaming from a nearby alleyway. You rushed to the scene, to find a woman being tormented by a number of daemonic imps. After all the stressful interviews and negotiations of the day, you were all pleased to get the chance to hit something nasty, and you immediately went into action. Thrumdorin protected the woman with his shield, while hitting back at the Imps, and Thorvald knifed a couple of them, leaving Asterion to pick off the last couple with his arrows. The daemonic creatures disappeared before your very eyes and the area was safe once more.

You discovered that the woman you had saved, was in fact a priestess of Shallya. And as you escorted her back to the temple, it took you no time at all to begin to explain to her your expertise in matters daemonic, and the truth about a recent incident involving the Lord Aschaffenberg at Grunewald. She was very grateful to you for all your help, and lapped up the details of your story.

So we leave you turning in for the night at the Red Moon and the Axe and Hammer, recently appointed aids to the Graf von Saponatheim and eager to support his bid for the lordship of Ubersreik.

Great stuff, nice to see how you're handling the segues etc. I'm following you ( purely by accident of course, no not stalking you) with the sequence of Storm - Eye for Eye - Edge of Night. (at least that's the plan).

Any GM thoughts you have on running EoN will be very welcome.

I don't really have a lot to say about GMing EoN. It went by the book and pretty smoothly for us.

I gave the PCs a week or so just hanging out in Ubersreik before the adventure began but days or years would have worked. And, as we set up the idea that Ubersreik was their base right at the beginning of the campaign, that really meant that I was obliged to give the PCs any common knowledge about the town that cropped up, which meant they could concentrate on acquiring more juicy info.

The Aschaffenberg link worked well, as he took all the credit for defeating the cultists of Grunewald. This would give the PCs some decent leverage to exploit, I thought, but they were so annoyed by him that they didn't even consider that. They just became determined to help his opponents.

The party worked well. I would think it might be difficult to pace for some parties, but I just went for the very detailed descriptions and quarter hourly events. This gave the impression that there was some sort of scripted thing going on (coz there was), rather than a free-flowing informal sort of event. But I don't think the game suffered from that. It's was basically encounter mode with 15 minute rounds, which the rules accommodate perfectly.

I used a load of minis for the party guests on an vague map of the mansion, which worked well, but I imagine the NPC cards would do just as well.

My players were a bit reluctant to take the lead at the party, surrioounded by oads of VIPs, which is fair enough of them, but I think the scene is set up for them to be a bit more assertive if they can. But, realistically, they knew their place. Also, the only social schtick they have is to look mean and bully people, which doesn't really go down too well at that sort of party.

What I did do, off piste, was have the PCs' patron become mutated by the warpstone, which led to some good gaming down the line when they realised they were now working for a mutant.

Session Seventeen (Edge of Night)

Party Animals

Asterion, Wood Elf Hunter-Waywatcher

Thorvald, Human Roadwarden-Zealot

Flan, Bright Acolyte

You were hanging out in Ubersreik, trying to help Graf Siegfried von Saponatheim win the lordship of the town. Flan had been wondering about his stone, as everyone else was getting rid of theirs. He went to see Christoph Engel, who he knew was the most influential wizard in town, to see if he knew of any Bright wizards who might be heading back towards Altdorf. Engels didn’t know of anyone but you had a chat about the odd wizardy thing. Asterion went to find a craftsman who could make a decent sigil thing for his horse.

You decided it might be good to launch a campaign against Aschaffenberg by posting up loads of bills telling the truth of what had happened at Grunewald and saying that Aschaffenberg was a liar. These were clearly very serious accusations to make against a nob. You decided that getting the bills printed up might be too risky. So you spent the day composing a decent account, with Thorvald finding some inspiring prose, and Flan writing it all up, many times. So that night you snuck out and posted them all up around the market square and down by the bridge, and even on Ascaffenberg’s front gate.

Heading back to the Red Moon, you noticed the gang of Sigmarite zealots you had had a run in with previously. They were making their way up to the von Bruner mansion carrying torches and pitchforks. You followed them at a distance, and watched as they began to set light to the place, chanting anti-mutant slogans.

Thorvald decided it was his duty to step in and he reprimanded them all in the name of the law. There was a stand-off with the leader, as Thorvald tried to intimidate him into going home. Some of the zealots suggested that Thorvald might be a mutant, or a mutant lover, but in a few moments, the ringleader did relent and the mob sloped off sheepishly. You noticed that von Bruner’s butler had come to the door and had seen all this happen. You made sure the butler knew your names and you checked the building to make sure none of the fires had caught, much to Flan’s disappointment, and then headed off back home yourselves.

You woke to lots of gossip about Aschaffenberggate, so it looked like your work the previous night had paid off. You went to see von Saponatheim and he gave you uniforms in his livery to wear to the party. He told you to keep them clean.

That evening, you noticed that Morrslieb was full in the sky, an ominous sign. You arrived at the party with his lordship, and there were a number of guests already there. You did a recce of the premises making sure that things were secure, and checked out von Holzenauer’s own security which you thought was fine but not special. Flan had a word with Engel who had turned up a bit drunk. You noticed Aschaffenberg there, and he noticed you too, but managed to do a good job of hiding his irritation at the bills you had put up. Either that, or he hadn’t worked out you were responsible.

You noticed something going on out the back, and went to check it out. The beer cart from Borgin’s Brewery had been attacked in the street, but it seemed that the attackers had been driven off. The dwarfs were pretty sure it had been ratmen, but that the beer was safe. You inspected the barrels, with Borgin, and couldn’t find anything wrong with them.

There were a few events at the party, although mostly you kept yourself to yourself, feeling you shouldn’t be hob nobbing with the nobs. Aschaffenberg’s nephew turned up dressed as a von Bruner with a tentacle, which caused a stir. You noticed one of von Saponatheim’s men slip something into Aschaffenberg’s drink, and soon he began to be ill, and made his excuses. Thorvald thought this was very immature, but as this was your ‘side’ you decided to let it pass. A scuffle broke out when Aschaffenberg’s nephew started taunting Heissman von Bruner again, and eventually the lad was kicked out. Aschaffenberg re-emerged some minutes later and seemed much recovered.

When Flan went up to check the roof, he noticed something in the garden, and the dogs began barking. He lit up the garden area with a bright light, and managed to see a strange humanoid shape darting across the lawn towards the beer. He legged it down stairs and got Thorvald. In the garden the thing was still amongst the barrels, and so Flan blasted it, and then Thorvald dispatched the thing swiftly.

It was certainly a rat-like mutant. It had been doing something to one of the barrels which was opened. Flan noticed there were strange magical shapes around the opening which he deduced were caused by dark magic or warpstone. There were two pouches in the ratman’s belt which he inspected and they were full of warpstone dust. Before anyone else arrived on the scene, he quickly took them, and the two strange globes the rat also had and some strange gooey stuff.

You pointed out to Borgin and Holzenauer that the rat thing had poisoned the beer. Holzenauer ordered the beer to be poured down the well, which you told him wouldn’t be a good idea. And you told him he had to get rid of it in the river, downstream of the town. Everyone seemed to think it would be fine for the party to continue as it was only one barrel and one rat-thing.

Everyone argued over whose jurisdiction the incident came under, but eventually Captain Pfeffer insisted he would get the rat’s body taken to the watch barracks. You told him to make sure it was well guarded. He also made sure the beer would be guarded for the rest of the evening.

So we leave you there, just after the kerfuffle, with the party trying to get back to normal.

Session Eighteen (Edge of Night)

All’s Well...

Thrumdorin, Ironbreaker-Soldier

Asterion, Wood Elf Hunter-Waywatcher

Thorvald, Human Roadwarden-Zealot

Flan, Bright Acolyte

We join you at the party. Everything is getting back to normal after the incident with the rat-man-thing. Thrumdorin had been talking to Rogni Deepdelve who was here as an informal representative of Karak Azgaraz. They got on well enough and the dwarf was impressed that Thrumdorin had arranged to get Korden back to Azgaraz. Rogni revealed that although they were happy for the humans to get on with their own affairs, Ubersreik was an important trade partner for Azgaraz and so they wanted to make sure the place was in good hands. They were inclined to favour Aschaffenberg whom they saw as a safe pair of hands and a friend of the dwarfs. So Thrumdorin spent some time disabusing Rogni of the notion that he was an honourable man.

Asterion decided to go on a tour around the mansion and the rest of the hill to see if there were any more ratmen about. The rest of you went back in to mingle. Thorvald noticed one of the nobs, Florian Pfeifraucher, dressed as some sort of fertility god, was trying to chat up Marianne Hertzlich, the Shallyan priestess you had rescued from the imps the other day, and thought she might need rescuing again. Thrumdorin noticed young Doktor Bayer slope off suspiciously, and head upstairs, and decided to follow him. Flan thought he saw a small furry thing scurry across the floor and under a table of the grand hall, and decided to take a closer look.

Thorvald decided to face down Pfeifraucher and he managed to steer Hertzlich away from him, even though she seemed loathe to make a fuss about it. Although she mentioned that this was not the first time that Thorvald had saved her from annoying imps.

Thrumdorin followed Doktor Bayer to an upstairs room. He listened at the door and heard some squeaking behind it, although he decided it was more like a squeaking bed than a squeaking rat-man. He burst in deliberately to discover the good doctor in flagrante with one of the waitresses. Thrumdorin scowled at the doctor, unimpressed by his bedside manner, and left, believing he might be able to use the incident to leverage some influence on the physicians’ guild later, if required.

Flan had a look under the tables, and managed to find the small fury thing. It ran out into the middle of the floor and a few of the women screamed. Flan was unsure what it was and didn’t want to blast it, as it might just be the house pet, or something. Looking around, he then noticed that Engels, the grey wizard, was controlling it. Flan went to speak to him, the guy was clearly very drunk and was amusing himself by animating a guest’s fox stole.

Asterion noticed a rat-like figure skittering across the roof and shot at it, a couple of times. The figure went down. Asterion climbed up to the roof to check the thing out. It was indeed a rat man. He also noticed the creature had been blocking the chimneys with rags.

At about this time smoke started pouring out of the kitchen and many of the staff spilled out into the grand hall driven by the smoke. Flan decided to go out the front, while Thorvald and Thrumdorin headed through the kitchen and into the garden at the back. But they did not see anything else suspicious.

Asterion unblocked the chimneys and threw the ratman body down to Flan. Flan rifled through it, and got another pouch of green stuff and some more throwing stars. He then ordered a watchman to take the body down to the barracks with the other one.

As the smoke cleared, Thrumdorin and Thorvald checked out the kitchen. They found shards of glass in the fireplace as if someone had thrown something glass down the chimney before blocking it off. They warned the kitchen staff not to serve any of the food that was around the fireplace at that time, but were resigned to the fact that they would probably be ignored.

You met up in the garden and wondered what to do about the repeated ratman raids. You decided you wanted to become the hunters instead of sitting back and waiting for things to happen. To this end, Thrumdorin accidentally let the dogs out from the kennel. They barked a lot and yapped around the place. Asterion tried to organise them but they weren’t having it. In the end, Flan managed to show them the scent of the ratman and told them to track it. After a few moments they ran off to the well and started barking down that. Flan illuminated the well, and about a third of the way down, he could see what looked like a narrow passage recently excavated. Anxious to get down a narrow, dark, unpleasant, underground hole, again, Thrumdorin volunteered to go down and have a look.

You lowered the dwarf down by rope and he crawled into the tunnel, unimpressed by the shoddy workmanship. You decided you all needed to investigate this together, so when you’d all managed to get into the tunnel, you followed the dwarf along it. It was a squeeze, but in a few dozen yards, you came out into the town’s sewer system. It was smelly and foul, of course. Flan managed to pick up a whiff of warpstone among the other smells, and so you followed the effluent down into the sewer system getting von Saponatheim’s uniforms filthy as you went. After fifty yards or so, the small sewer tunnel emptied into a larger one, which was a lot easier to travel through. You followed this one for some way. You tried to work out where you might be in relation to the town above, but could only really get the feel that you were heading vaguely towards the river.

The larger tunnel joined another large one as you got to a point where many tunnels were all emptying into the same area. Flan had to sniff around carefully, crossing many of the sewage rivers, but eventually he picked up the scent heading into another makeshift tunnel, like the one that lead from the well.

Asterion stayed back in the sewers watching your back, and the rest of you crammed into the tunnel and crept for a few more dozen yards before it began to open out into a rough cavern scratched from the earth. It looked like it might be some sort of nest. Before you had time to study the place you were set upon by six ratmen from the shadows. They launched a hail of throwing stars at you. A number of you were hit, and Flan took a nasty hit to the head. They then attacked close up, and from a passageway at the back of the cavern came a humungous eight foot tall rat-monster thing.

Flan managed to immolate the entire cavern, killing one of the rats and singeing the fur of all the others. Thrumdorin faced the big rat. It tried to bash him, but he blocked the blow and hit back. And Thorvald cut his way through a couple of the rats. Flan was attacked close-up by a ratman but managed to avoid its blade.

The ratmen attacked again, but you managed to fend them off. Thrumdorin moved to protect Flan, taking a heavy blow from the rat-monster and Throvald killed a couple more of the rats. In a few moments there was only the rat monster left. Even Flan had a stab at it. But Thorvald finished it off with his trademark move. Asterion turned up to see what the noise was about. You only had a few moments to catch your breath, however, as a wall of hundreds of sewer rats swarmed into the cavern engulfing the place, driven as if by some supernatural force...

Love the squeaking bed & the climactic rushing of rats at the end!

Wonderfull writeups thanks a lot for sharing.

Session Nineteen (Edge of Night)

Skaven and Shallyans

Thrumdorin, Ironbreaker-Soldier

Asterion, Wood Elf Hunter-Waywatcher

Thorvald, Human Roadwarden-Zealot

Flan, Bright Acolyte

We join you in a skaven lair in the sewers under Ubersreik being overrun by hundreds of rats. You hacked and slashed at the animals blindly, and in a few moments the swarm began to dissipate and the creatures ran off to other corners of the sewers. But immediately there emerged from one of the tunnels a grey-furred rat-thing in a strange dark cloak wearing green-black glowing charms and carrying a staff. It was flanked by two more of the monstrous rat-ogres.

Before anyone could react, the grey rat opened its mouth and breathed a cloud of green fetid gas over the lot of you, which made you all feel queasy, overwhelmed at the stench. The ogre-rats ran at Thorvald and Thrumdorin and slashed at them, hurting them both.

Flan threw a ball of fire at them, which singed the ratman’s hair quite severely, but the big guys just shrugged it off. Thorvald and Asterion ganged up on one of the ogre things, taking chunks out of it, while Thrumdorin defended himself carefully from the other one. The grey rat cast some sort of magic at the ogres which seemed to send them into a mindless frenzy. The first ogre smashed into Thorvald recklessly, but so frenzied was it, it seemed to kill itself through sheer exhaustion.

Flan channelled magical power to fuel some more fire, and sensed that there was something not quite right about it all. He was getting more power than he should have and that felt good, but it seemed to be distorted and bad, or something. The rat-wizard fired a bolt of green lightning at him, which knocked him to the ground and left the poor wizard unconscious.

As you attacked the last ogre thing it lashed out at Thorvald and hurt him badly, and again it collapsed under the weight of its own exertions. This gave you a chance to pile onto the rat wizard and although it tried frantically to loose a final spell, you managed to do it in.

You wondered whether you should hang around in the skaven lair. You managed to bring Flan round, and Thorvald wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. So you made your way back into the sewers. Thrumdorin stayed behind for a few moments to check out the nest. He ripped a couple of black-green charms from the rat-wizard’s neck and explored further into the nest area. He found strange apparatus bubbling away in a side chamber. It seemed to be doing stuff to green-black rocks to turn it into powder.

Catching up, Thrumdorin said it might be better to follow the sewer system down to the river, to get out of there more quickly, but the rest of you decided it would be best to stick to the route you knew, and so you headed off back to the well at von Holzenauer’s.

Asterion was first to climb up the well, and expecting to see a party in full swing, was surprised at the sight. There was any number of guards running around the place poking people and shouting. There was a dead long-headed monster-man thing lying on the lawn. You recognised it as a cross between Florian Pfeifraucher, the guy who had annoyed the Priestess of Shallya and a creature you had vaguely heard of from the southlands, called a giraffe. You also noticed an octopus-headed physician trying to explain itself to the guards.

In their fragile states, this was too much for Thorvald and Flan to deal with. They went off to the temple of Shallya as quickly as they could. Asterion went too, to check on Senlui. Thrumdorin stayed and managed to make some sort of strategy out of the chaotic actions of the guards. He got them to round up the various strange-headed mutants and lock them in the dog kennels. There was a frog-head-man, a bird-head-man and a purple-head-man. There were a few mutant people left dead around the place, too. Soon, Thrumdorin was relieved by Major Blucher turning up with a company of hand gunners to bring law and order back to the area.

You laid low for the next couple of days. You heard many rumours about the mutant party and about the election for the lordship, that it had been cancelled, that there was going to be martial law, that the Emperor was going to take over, etc. Thrumdorin thought it would be best to get his warpstone skaven artefacts sent up to Karak Azgaraz to be destroyed. He arranged this with Rogni, and bought a lead casket for the job. Thorvald and Flan spent all the time at the temple of Shallya. They seemed to think just because they had rescued one priestess from naughty imps that they could have the run of the hospice. Asterion tried to get his horse to be nice to him. Flan also decided that the power coming off his skaven powder was not a good thing to have around, so he sealed the stuff away in a lead pipe, and put it in his pack.

You got the news that indeed, as you had hoped and expected, Baron von Saponatheim had been elected to take control of Ubersreik. And so, a few days later, you all met up and visited him. He agreed to see you, and greeted you wearing an unusual, and foppish, Bretonnian-style bouffant wig. It was all the rage amongst the dandies of Altdorf, but you didn’t really have von Sap down as that sort of noble.

He thanked you for helping him win the election, though he suspected that he would have won without your help. And he gave you the 1 gold piece he had promised to pay you each, though you were sure you had originally agreed 2 gold each.

Intrigued by his wig, as you were talking, Flan decided to make a sudden gust of wind blow the thing off his head. Von Sap was completely bald underneath, whereas a few days earlier he had had a full head of hair. As the wig blew off onto the floor, von Sap turned to look at it, and for a moment Flan could see that there was something he couldn’t quite make out on the back of the noble’s head.

Von Sap managed to collect his thoughts and abruptly called for his guards, while looking straight ahead at you. You decided it might be best to leave straight away. As you were going, von Sap said rather meaningfully, that you could be sure he would call on your services again very soon.

Session Twenty

Greenskins and Red Ague

Thrumdorin, Ironbreaker-Soldier

Asterion, Wood Elf Hunter-Waywatcher

Thorvald, Human Roadwarden-Zealot

Flan, Bright Acolyte

We join you the next day hanging out, recovering from your ordeal in the sewers. You were all feeling a bit under the weather, with Thrumdorin and Flan feeling the worst. It seemed you had all caught some sort of lurgy in the sewers, the Red Ague, probably.

You received a letter from von Saponatheim together with 4 gold crown:

Thankyou for your recent help. I am sorry our previous meeting ended so abruptly, but I had pressing business. Ah, the responsibility of office.

As you know, I am also the lord of Bögenhafen. Part of my eminent qualification for the rulership of Ubersreik is my unquestioned excellent charge of that great city.

A matter has arisen there that requires some attention. Unfortunately I am unable to find the time, so you, as my loyal retainers, are to travel to Bögenhafen and contact Magistrate Richter.

He has brought the matter to my attention and I have confidence in him. He will explain what is troubling him, and I am sure you will act in my interests on the matter.

Payment accompanies this missive,

Sincerely

Von Saponatheim (Baron)

Kaldzeit 22 ^nd “

You weren’t too sure about von Sap but decided the best thing to do was not to cross him and do what he told you, for now. So you got ready for you journey and were soon heading north towards Bögenhafen.

The journey was pretty uneventful. You spent the nights in coaching inns and made a relaxing pace during the day (only 2 of you had mounts). On the fourth day, you were set upon by a greenskin raiding party. It was unusual to see them down from the mountains, so close to civilisation.

You noticed eight goblins approaching you from the woods. Four of them were mounted on wolves. Asterion got off a hail of arrows before they could close on you, taking down two of the wolves. The other two wolf riders attacked Asterion and Thorvald.

Flan kept to the back attacking them with fire, while Thrumdorin faced the goblins on foot keeping them at bay. Thorvald dispatched his goblin and joined Thrumdorin. Meanwhile Flan noticed that 6 huge orcs had come round behind you and there was no one to defend him from them. He started running away. Asterion rode to the rescue and managed to grab Flan and pull him up onto Senlui before the orcs could reach. Two of the orcs ran off after them, while the other four charged Thorvald and Thrumdorin.

After a pitched battle, Thorvald had to ride away, and continue the fight by crossbow, while Thrumdorin stood against them. Eventually three orcs lay dead and the last one ran off with the surviving goblins. Meanwhile Flan and Asterion had killed the two who had pursued them. You were all the worst for wear, though and hurried away from the scene.

You spent the next two days continuing your leisurely pace towards Bögenhafen.

Session Twenty-One (Shadows over Bögenhafen)

Purple Brain Fever

Thrumdorin, Ironbreaker-Soldier

Asterion, Wood Elf Hunter-Waywatcher-Scout

Thorvald, Human Roadwarden-Zealot

Flan, Bright Wizard

We join you just arriving in Bögenhafen. There was a carnival pitched outside the walls of the city with lots of stuff going on. It was the local Braufest. You took a quick look around, and Thrumdoinr immediately noticed there was a wrestling ring with some huge champion wrestler taking on all-comers, a challenge he could not resist. If he survived 3 minutes in the ring with the wrestler he could double his money, and win a load more if he managed to defeat the guy. And the wrestler looked pretty tired already from his other fights.

The drunken crowd were keen to see the dwarf get pulped. The wrestler was strong, but Thrumdorin used his greater skill to stay in the fight, and after three (probably four) minutes, the dwarf was still holding his own, and the ringmaster was forced to concede that Thrumdorin deserved his prize.

After all the excitement you decided to head into town to find an inn, and check out the rest of the fair later. The guards tried to charge you 2 schillings a leg to get into the city, but you waved your letter from von Sap at them. The guard went to consult his sergeant and came back a few minutes later with a new letter from von Sap (which must have overtaken you as it had come by mail coach)

"Please disregard my previous letter dated Kaldzeit 22 ^nd and return to Ubersreik forthwith

Sincerely

Von Saponatheim (Baron)

Kaldzeit 23 ^rd “

You decided that you needed to spend the night in Bögenhafen whatever, and that you had come too far to not check out Magistrate Richter in any case. Thorvald and Thrumdorin checked out the Journey’s End, a decent enough travel inn near the city gate. Asterion and Flan went to the Golden Trout, a posh place near the Dreieckeplatz. They seemed to doubt Flan’s ability to pay, but he stayed to spite them. And Asterion left town to find a nice tree after they refused to let him worry their horses. Flan discovered that Magistrate Richter had been ill recently, and off work.

In the morning you all eventually met up and headed down to the court house. You were told that indeed Richter was ill, but by showing them the letter from von Sap you got his address, which wasn’t far away. At Richter’s place his halfling housekeeper let you in and explained that Richter was too ill to see anyone. You insisted and she showed you into his room. You could see him lying down all bloated and purple.

Thrumdorin managed to distract the housekeeper by being hungry and they went off to the kitchen while you tried to talk to Richter. He managed to say what sounded like ‘Ordo Septenarius’ and then promptly died. You examined the body but couldn’t find anything particularly suspicious. You decided the malady was purple brain fever which is a rare condition but not unknown. Flan used his magical sight around the body and there seemed to be a faint tint of ‘Tzeentchian’ influence around the corpse.

Thrumdorin chatted to the housekeeper and managed to find out they had lived there for a good while and the magistrate was rarely ill. She said he was well liked and didn’t have any enemies, apart from the obvious enemies a magistrate is bound to get. Thrumdorin told the housekeeper that her food was excellent and that she could get a job with him if she ever needed employment, but she seemed quite confident that she would be working for Richter for the foreseeable future. You decided to slope off before the physician turned up, and without breaking the news to the housekeeper that her master was already dead.

You wondered what Ordo Septenarius might mean. None of you had heard of it, but you decided it might be a pretty standard name for an order with seven people in it. You didn’t know what to do now, or whether you even needed to pry into the affair before returning to von Sap. Although you realised going straight back to Ubersreik might be a waste of time.

In the end, you decided you had done what you were supposed to and that it might be best if you made your way back to Ubersreik as von Sap had ordered. You were suspicious there might be some sort of trap involved and made plans to go back by a roundabout route to avoid any ambushes that might be laid.

When you got to the city gate, however, the guards recognised you and handed you yet another letter from von Sap:

“Despite what you may have heard from me, know that I wish you not to be distracted from your task. It seems there are forces at work here far greater than I had imagined.

Despite my orders, you must not travel back to Ubersreik. There is an entire company of Handgunners lying in wait for you, and a witch hunter order has been dispatched to make sure you never make it back here alive. It may also only be a matter of time before the Bögenhafen garrison is alerted to your presence.

Sincerely

Von Saponatheim (Baron)

Kaldzeit 24 ^th “

You wondered what to make of this, and decided to stay in town for a while and look further into the whole affair. Throvald went down to the market and picked up a load of local worker’s gear and cloaks, for you to wear in order to look less conspicuous. You found a dark alley to meet up in ‘Rosen Allee’ behind the Crossed Pikes and the warehouses that lined the docks and arranged if you got separated or something happened this would be the place where you could all meet up again.

Flan went to the temple of verena to see what he could find out about the Ordo Septenarius. He spoke to Sister Greta who had been there a long time and seemed to know lots about the town. The wizard could find no reference in any of the books of the library to the Ordo Septenarius. But he managed to find some references to purple brain fever. He noticed that a couple of years ago the mayor of the town, Karl Teugen, was killed by the that disease. Flan decided that this wasn’t an impossible situation, but it did feel like a bit of a coincidence, seeing how rare the disease was.

Flan asked sister Greta about the Ordo Septenarius. She said it was simply a semi-secret organisation of wealthy merchants of the town, that supported charitable works. They helped run the Shallyan soup kitchen down in the Pit (the slum area) and gave money to other good causes. They had even contributed to the library roof restoration fund.

You all piled down to check out the soup kitchen in the slums. You avoided the food, but the place seemed to check out, and you couldn’t find anything unusual going on there. Flan even used his magical sight on the food, but there was nothing wrong with it.

Thorvald had a chat with some low lifes about the wealthier merchants of the town who all served on the town council. He managed to get a ‘blind’ beggar to point out all the most important councillors as they left their council meeting and headed back up to the ‘Adel Ring’ which was where all the wealthiest townsfolk lived.

You saw Councillor Heironymous Ruggbroder. He was very elderly and was carried back to the Adel Ring on a sedan chair by his guards. His house symbol was a gauntlet holding some wheat.

Then came Jochen Haagen, a middle-aged smart, proud and undoubtedly very wealthy gent. He was flanked by body guards, too. His symbol was a lion’s head above 3 coins.

Then came the Steinhäger brothers, Franz and Heinrich. They were younger and were exceedingly conspicuous about their great wealth. They wore lots of gaudy gold and jewels. They were accompanied by many bodyguards as they were definitely a mugger’s dream.

Then came Mayor Johannes Teugen. He was a large and powerfully built fellow, who looked exactly like the man not to mess with. He also had bodyguards. His house symbol was the rose-cross.

They all headed up to the Adel ring in their respective retinues, and you followed on at a discreet distance. You managed to watch them into their mansions and keep a track of who lived where, but it was pretty clear that the likes of you (especially now you were dressing down), wound not be welcome round the Adel Ring. And it was soon apparent that the watch patrols in the area were remarkably regular.

You toyed with the idea of breaking into one of the mansions, but they all seemed well guarded and all were obviously inhabited. You decided to head down the Nulner weg back into town and take a look at the Teugen offices. You found the building easily enough just off the Dreieckeplatz and you managed to force a shutter open and break in through the window.

You found yourself in a non-descript office with a couple of plain desks in. Leaving that room you were in a posh atrium with an ornamental fountain and some tasteful house plants, with a reception desk and a bunch of office doors all around it. Amongst others you found a door marked Gideon Teugen and next to it, Johannes Teugen and decided to check out Johannes’ office.

You found a key in the receptionist’s desk and unlocked the door to Teugen’s office, then, trying to make as little mess as possible, started going through the papers on the desk. It all seemed to be fairly standard stuff about running a business. You found some stuff on the Ordo Septenarius but that seemed pretty innocent, too. One of the drawers of the desk was locked. Thrumdorin found not one, but three, secret doors in the wood-panel wall behind the desk.

The first led into darkness; its panel incorporated a portrait which disguised a pair of eyeholes, allowing anyone in the area behind the door to view what was going on in Johannes’ office. The second opened onto a locked safe and the third went to steps leading downwards into the darkness. You followed the first one, and after only a few feet came to a similar secret panel that led to a similar room. You could tell this was Gideon’s office. You went through this too, but there was barely anything in it. You decided that it was conspicuously empty, as if the occupant was only pretending to run a business.

You went back to Johannes’ office, and made some effort to get the safe open, but there seemed to be no chance of doing it. And so you followed the steps down from the third door. They ended in a sturdy door which you opened to reveal a cellar-like room. At the far end was a door with a small grille in it, and by your side was a cabinet. In the middle of the room was a copper circle, almost filling the room, and inside it was drawn a five pointed star. And on each point of the star was a candle.

No sooner had you entered the room but a strange pink shape coalesced in the centre of the circle, and formed into a horrific daemonic form. Flan thought that the thing might be reasoned with or something, but Thorvald rushed forward and smote it with Acitus. He cut through it and the thing disappeared into the aethyr.

You considered the nature of the daemon for a bit and then decided to go through the cabinet. Inside you found 5 sets of black robes, a silver dagger on a silver tray, and a silk handkerchief with the letters FS on it. There was also a human skull with an iron band around its temples. Flan had a look at it, and decided it had a faint trace of Tzeentchian magic about it, and there was a trace of the stuff on the knife, also.

You looked through the window of the second door, and could see (and smell) the sewers which were just a few feet beyond it. So we leave you in the cellar beneath the Teugen offices next to the sewers, in a daemonic circle.

Excellent stuff. Just catching up with it. I loved your improvisation of the mutations of guests at ball and shall steal them without shame.

Rob