Hi.

First of all, if any in my gaming group are reading this (that means you, Karl and Hans Kristian) stop reading. I'm probably going to use you to playtest this.

Anyway, I've been wanting for some time now to make a proper PDF-based scenario for WFRPv3 as I feel theres very few available so far. Inspiration struck suddenly and I've just finished setting up the basic premise of the adventure and would like some feedback on it. I'm tempted to write a bit about my motives, inspirations and the process but I figure I can rather post about that later. I'd prefer to see what people see when reading my adventure concept with unbiased eyes.

I apologize for any spelling and grammar mistakes. Egnlish isn't my first language and I haven't run this through a spell checker yet.

What has happned

A great wedding is planned in the town. Johann, the only son of the von Dortdorf merchant family is to take the hand of Emilia, the only daughter of Graf and Gravin Immerglück, in marriage. As the big day approaches, wedding guests gather, cakes are baked, celebration preperations are made and everything seems to go be going great.
That is, until Johann dissappears. When rumours start floating around that he has been seen with another woman the day of his dissappearance, the scandal is a fact. The Immerglücks are livid and are threatening to call of the entire wedding.
In addition, one of the wedding guests, a Graf Bittern, has made his interest in Emilia known, giving the Immerglücks a possible alternative match, with a noble title as well.
The von Dorthofs need to find their son fast if the wedding is to go according to plan.

What has really happened

Many years ago, Helena Immerglück, the current Grafs great great aunt, fell in love with a visiting lordling who convinced her to elope with him. They were to meet at an abandoned chapel outside of town where they were to be married. However, the lordling revealed himself as a vampire as he feasted on Helenas neck. He turned her into his own kind, intending to marry her. Helena however, was driven mad by the revelation and subsequent turning. The vampire, dissapointed at her weakness, left her at the church and never returned. This broke Helenas frail mind even further and the insanity and new thirst for blood mixed into a bizarre feeding habit. She would enthrall a man from a nearby village or town and bring him to the church. Here she would hold a wedding ceremony culminating in a wedding night and honey moon in which she drank her victim dry. The dead body of her "husband" would then be placed into one of the benches, joining the wedding party as a guest for the next wedding ceremony.
Her madness was finally put to an end when she attempted to "marry" a witch hunter, who managed to free himself and set fire to the church. The witch hunter left records of the event with the local Sigmarite church, but after he left, the Immerglück family put their political weight to bear on the church to be allowed to keep the documents of the incident themselves to protect the family name. The documents were buried in the Immerglück manors cellar together with any other evidence of Helenas existence. The vampire threat was ended and the story of the mad bride dissappeared into local folklore.

That is until recently. Feeling nervous and irritated at being forced into a wedding, Johann went for a long ride in the countryside. Here he came upon the burned ruins of the church. He went inside and mockingly played out the wedding ceremony. When he finished, he had a sudden feeling of dread and hurried away from the place as the sun started to set. He had unwittingly stirred Helena from her rest and as the sun set, she rose from the ashes, seeking her new husband. She tracked Johann back to the city where she found him wandering the streets. She bent him to her will and made him escort her back to the church. Along the way, they passed a soup kitchen supported by Gravin Immerglück and run by Ms Plum, who recognized Johann and told the Immerglücks.
Johann is now imprisoned in the church as Helena makes all the wedding arrangements.

While this is going on, one of the wedding guests is not what he seems. Graf Richard Bitter is really Rudi, a charlatan who has insinuated himself into the wedding party by pretending to be a distant relative who happened to be in the area when he heard of the wedding. Rudi originally planned to simply pilfer som valuable trinkets from the house, pick some pockets and abuse the offer of a free bed and food. In addition to hopefully getting under one or two noblewomens skirts.
However, when the rumours of the grooms infedelity starts to spread, he decides to aim for the stars and starts to woo Emilia. His plan being to marry her, recieve a hefty dowery, ditch his bride outside of town and then head for the hills with as many valuables as he can heap into a carriage. To pull off the deception, he has gotten a couple of thugs in on the scheme who plays his servants, as well as making sure anyone sticking their nose into their business gets said nose broken.

Running the adventure

The adventure is set up in a town with several locations the PCs can visit at any time. They are only limited by what leads they have found, peoples attitude towards them and what they come up with.
The adventure uses two progress trackers:
One for solving the sub-plot of Graf Bittern. Solving this will open up the opertunity for Johann and Emilia to still marry if they manage to save Johann. In addition it increases the PCs standing with the Immerglücks, giving thme easier access to the manor.
And another tracker for the vampires wedding preprations. She will be gathering "wedding guests" from nearby graves and the more time the players use to solve the mystery, the more undead there will be to fight. In addition, if they take too long Johann is killed, menaign there's no reward forthcoming form the Dortdorfs.

What will probably happen during the adventure

* The PCs are hired by the von Dortdorf family to track down their son.
* The PCs lead an investigation around town, questioning NPCs. They learn that no one knows who the woman was, that she looked a bit like Emily, that Johann had been out by some old church and that there's something odd about Graf Bitter and his servants. They also learn that the Immerglücks are on the brink of bankrupcy and are forced into the marriage with the rich, socially climbing Dortdorf family to save themselves from being thrown on the streets.
* Graf Bitters "servants" corner the PCs and attempt to dissuade them from further investigations. With their fists.
* Researching Graf Bitter further will lead them to an expert in genealogy and heraldry who reveals that the branch of the family he claims to be a part of does not exist. He mentions that the only "loose end" he could be connected to is Helena Immerglück who no one knows what happened to.
* The PCs,after gathring enough evidence, confront the charlatan and he is either arrested, killed or flees.
* Trying to find out where the abandoned church is, the PCs will wind up in the local Sigmarite church which keeps the town records. Upon finding the history of the church, they also find a reference to its destruction by a witch hunter. But he has agreed to keep the details of the incident secret and entrusted the detailed account of the matter to the Graf Immerglück of the time.
* The PCs gain access to the Immerglück cellar where the account is stored. In it, it is revealed that a Helena Immerglück was a vampire living in the church.
* The PCs interrupt the wedding ceremony and defeats the vampire, rescuing Johann. Or they are killed by the vampire and added to the guest list.

Sounds pretty awesome to me. I recently wrote my own scenario, and I found that playtesting was the best way to tease out problems with the writing. Of course my players got arrested before getting very far through, but still.

This is a very good start. I hope you develop it further and post it for pubic use. You will need to develop what each NPC knows as well as locations for investigation. I like the structure and idea. If you can get it written fairly quickly, we may be able to include it in the upcoming issue of Liber Fanatica (#7). You can check on this by joining us at: liberfanatica.net/phpBB3/index.php

I've put the text of your scenario into a MSword format that I've been using. I hope it's of use to you. The paragraph styles can be helpful in editing.

dl.dropbox.com/u/167876/ralzar%20scenario.docx

Jay Hafner

Lead Developer, Liber Fanatica #7

Thanks! That looks pretty nice and I'll probably use that. I'm working on writing the location descriptions at the moment.

That is a very nice concept Ralzar. I like the backstory a lot.

I have a few ideas for you to consider.

Firstly, I would consider having the PCs arrive at the village before Johann disappears. Perhaps they are hired by some guests to escort them safely to the village for the wedding, or they could be hired as extra security (Graf Immerglück in attendance and all). Or, alternately, a famous halfling chef notorious for being a verbally abusive tyrant (a miniature version of Gordon Ramsay, if you will) has run out of some (dubious?) ingredients and hires the PCs to find some for him, fast and at any cost.

Having the PCs there before Johann disappears gives you to the option to have them talk with him before his disappearance and learn about his doubts concerning the coming marriage. Having met the man they are also more likely to care about his fate. Furthermore, after he diappears, the PCs could even be blamed for it as someone (Bitter perhaps?) saw them talking to the young man prior to his vanishing act. In addition to meeting Johann, the PCs could also witness Bitter wooing Emilia. This will surely make them doubt the man as Johann's potential kidnapper/murderer later.

Secondly, I would make Helena's sad fate a part of the wedding ceremony. Have the PCs witness a strange local custom that will grant the bride-to-be good luck and protect her from Helena's sad fate. No know remembers the details of the actual story or the origin of the local customs, but you can use them give out some hints and convey the proper mood. This also allows you to subtly foreshadow the fact that Helena is a Vampire (however, be careful not to give it away too soon).

Thirdly, I would give Helena a human helper. A grave-digger or grave-warden who is mind-controlled by her and who, during the day, helps her find "guests" for the coming wedding. This is a NPC that you can use to give the PCs hints about Helena's true form, her motivations, history and use him to help steer the PCs in the right direction if need be. By making him eccentric with a dose of black humour in a typically WFRP-way will give you a great NPC to have some fun with.

The records at the Sigmarite temple are a good way to give your players information about the backstory. I would also consider having some sort of a protective talisman there, Helena's wedding ring perhaps. The ring is believed to have protective powers over her. The local priest at the time knew this and, at the Noble family's request/demand, used this fact to convince the Witch-Hunter to leave the evidence in the village. However, the Priest could have been mistaken and the ring has no protective powers what so ever. Scenario-wise the reasoning for having such an item there is that it gives the PCs something to help them against this particular, rather challenging, opponent. Also, the ring could be used in some way to release Helena from her curse, or convince her that she is married and there is no more need to have these macabre weddings etc.

d6 Evil Men said:

Yeah, I was planning to include a bit at the start with suggestions for how to introduce the characters to the advenutre. I want to leave it vague with some different ideas though, so it's easier for the GM to make it fit into his game and the characters he's playing with. I'll probably list a few different adventure hooks the GM can use. I'm trying to avoid making the adventure too thick with extra stuff that might not be used.

d6 Evil Men said:

True. I might consider starting the advenutre a day earlier than I planned. Johann becomes a bit faceless if he's allready missing when the characters start the adventure.

d6 Evil Men said:

Good idea. I had planned to have Hannas fate as part of local folklore, but hadn't really figured out how to introduce it to the players so it isn't too obvious. I want to avoid the players suspecting anything too supernatural until they're starting to reach the end of the adventure.

d6 Evil Men said:

I was actually planning a gravedigger character but hadn't decided his personality or role. The thing is, I'm planning to use the progress trackers to trigger events that help the characters along in their investigation as the same time as the end encounter becomes harder. So my plan was that the first or second night, corpses will rise from their graves at a graveyard outside the town and wander off into the forest towards the chapel. The characters will probably go to investigate and meet the local grave digger.

d6 Evil Men said:

Part of why I included the Sigmarite church was actually to give the characters access to som anti-vampire weapons. I was also planning that the witch hunters notes would include notes about Helenas weaknesses. When I was first forumlating this adventure I considered a "happy" resolution to Helenas curse, but decided to discard it for two reasons. First of all, it too easily ends up with leading the characters by the nose to tell a story instead of the characters creating the story. Secondly, this is Warhammer. Happy endings aren't on the menue

You might want to change it a little bit more.

Some of the players may be fans of the source of Your inspiration (TB CB right?).

They might figure out too soon what is going on and who is who if they know the source well (first association came to my mind after reading family surnames, when I got to the wedding I already knew ).

Its too good to be spoiled accidentally .

von Dortdorf is too obvious

Bittern (aka Barkis) might be too obvious too, maybe replace him with a wealthy and lusty family member (cousin or uncle), total skinflint not liked by the rest of the family at best, who saw Emily for a first time, and wants to get his paws on her, after the Johann disappeared.

He might even act against the PC's, or became an enemy to them if they save the wedding .

Nice variation of the subject by the way .

Thank you

I was wondering how long it would take before someone commented on the source material

It's extremely obivous to me, since I'm writing it, but I was wondering how obvious it was for other readers. The Dortdorf name has been bugging me a bit, being a bit too close to the original (did you know "von Dort" translates as "over there", so "von Dortdorf" basically becomes "the town over there"). Bittern is straight from the source material, but I honestly didn't know the character had that last name until I read it on the wiki, so I figured few others would recognize it. Maybe I'll change it to Süssen instead

By the way. Take a look at the first name of the main characters and the first names of the voice actors

I was thinking of trying to use the players assumptions based on the source material against them and make Bittern be the descendant of the witch hunter who defeated Helena. But I couldn't quite make it work, so discarded it and went with the charlatan-angle instead. Other than simple story trubles there's the fact that introducing the witch-hunter very easily makes him take center stage instead of the player characters. Suddenly they're Bitterns posse instead of leading their own investigation.

I might go with the skinflint uncle angle instead. But I sort of like the charlatan angle because it throws such a big wrench into the investigation by drawing attention to itself instead of what's really going on.

To avoid players realizing the source material too early, I'm going to play up the more mundane explenations like, Johann has got cold feet, the Immerglücks are sabotaging the wedding to get out of it or Graf Bittern has gotten him out of the way. Distracting them with hints of that while playing down the financial difficulties of the Immerglück family (both families avoid talking about it. The Dortdorfs don't want to seem like they're extroting their way into high society while the Immerglück are obviously embarrassed.)

I was actually vaguely planning for the characters to rescue Johann without defeating Hanna. Then Hanna would raise a wedding party (aka undead army) and invade the town to marry her man. I might still use that idea though. If the characters find and rescue Johann during the day they'll maybe have to fight an undead guard or two and get away with him without too much trouble, only to have Hanna show up at the town gates in the evening. While if they go at night they fight Hanna in the burned down chapel.

How about giving a few red herrings to help disguise the source material?

Give Bittern (in either his uncle or charlatan guise) a female servant (if he is a charlatan, they could actually be a male/female charalatan team), who looks "abit like" Helena, and have her also have talked to Johann before he left, although no one need actually have seen this; the pcs only need to see her to falsely assume she is the one having posken to johann and follow up on that...

If she is a Charlatan, should could have simply been trying to get info from Johann on other guests her and bittern might be able to fleece money off, or if working for the uncle she could be completely innocent; she may even have been confiding in Johann about the uncles evil scheme...perhaps he's an uncle that planned johann's disppearance, and had a nefarious scheme ready, some thugs to kidnap johann and keep him out of the way, perhaps the uncle even thinks the thugs have kidnapped johann and assume everything is going according to plan, so he will be able to marry Emily.

The PCs could follow up those leads, discover the uncle's plot, think they are going to rescue Johann only to find the thugs empty handed at the farmhouse where they have been holed up. At that point the uncle and everyone else, is just as confused as to where Johann actually is, and the PCs need to re-track their leads to the Helena "real" kid napping.

pumpkin said:

For Helena Read Hanna and for Emily read Emilia (I was thinking too much about the source material's voices when writing this!!!)

Nice suggestions. I think I'm going to use a variation of that.

I've been planning to include a friend of Johann who was out with him on the night he dissappeared. This friend will have some of the clues necessary to solve the real mystery. I was planning to have him unavailable the first day of the investigation. But now I'm thinking he was kidnapped in a case of mistaken identitiy. So the thugs think they have Johann and tells Graf Bittern this.

Then when the characters rescue Johan they're allmost back to square one, except the man they just rescued have some important details that lead the investigation in new directions.

Ralzar said:

Yer, nice addition, I like it.