In my rework of the Edge of Night, I've taken a few liberties. One of the things I'm working on at the moment is the reason the Skaven are so interested in Ubersreik.

One consideration was to utilize the "Chest" rumor, and instead of it being a treasure, it was a large chunk of Warpstone buried in a lead chest under the River Tower. The only issue I have with this is that I can't come up with a good reason for the Dwarfs to put it there rather than in a Dwarf Hold.

So then I had the thought that inside the chest could be the head of a Vampire, that for some reason couldn't be fully destroyed and so the head was taken and buried seperately from the body. This would explain the undead in Morr's Garden, perhaps.

So I started turning this over and over and had the realization that I have no idea what happens to the undead when exposed to Warpstone.

Basically I've got a bunch of half baked ideas, and I'm trying to tie them together with a rope that's two feet too short. I know I want to have the Undead in the Garden be real (In fact, an entire section of the Garden is walled off to contain the out-of-control undead population... see the Thief: TDP Down in the Bonehoard (Horn of Quintus) mission to fully understand the scope of my plagarism), and I want the Skaven to have a real reason for coming after the town other than Rasknitt is just bored.

Edit-- The only thing I know about Warpstone regarding the Undead is that Nagash used it (Thus his ridiculous size) and that it was instrumental in the creation of the first vampires. Any other thoughts? Brainstorming session.... begin!

Perhaps the Dwarfs needed to keep it safe, but would not have a chance to get back to a hold so they buried the chest for safekeeping and then were never able to get back to it.

Perhaps the Dwarfs didn't know there was warpstone in the chest

Perhaps the Dwarfs did not own the warpstone/chest contents and as such were not in a position to have it taken to a dwarf hold.

See, there are numerous reasons to come up with.

Regarding warpstone and undead ... it pretty much affects undead like everyone else, although I expect that undead are a bit more resistant than most. After long enough exposure, the undead would likely change/mutate. A head packaged with warpstone might see the merging of the stone and the head, such that things like the eyes, teeth, or hair might become crystalline. Normal mutations could apply as well, giving a third eye, or unnaturally tough skin. Heck, it's even possible that the warpstone might even begin generating a body for the head. All sorts of fun possibilities. Again, I would expect the effects on an undead to take much longer than for a human, for example, as they are less mutable since they are mostly dead.

Thanks! I've been thinking about it as well, and made things even more convoluted to the point that I'm only going to get the basics down and in place for the purposes of seeding for later adventures.

I suppose keeping with the rumor as presented, it was the NPC's grandfather's grandfather who saw the chest, so we could conservatively say 150 years ago. That's not an overly long time for Dwarfs, who might still have plans to come back for it.

The Dwarfs would definitely know there was warpstone in this case; that's why they put it in a lead chest.

I can picture the humans of Ubersreik might ask for the Dwarfs to help with the item, without giving it over to the Dwarfs directly. Might be the way to go.

I think what I'm going to go with for now is that there is a Warpstone item of fell purpose in a lead chest buried under either the River Tower, Magnus' Tower, or the Bridge, but nobody (except Grodni Surehammer) knows where exactly. There could also be a shell game involved; a lead chest is under each of those locations, but only one contains the item.

Right now I'm going to assume it's a crown imbedded with warpstone, that is a relic of ancient Nehekara.

That should let me put the rumors out without giving too much away, foreshadowing a later adventure, but not distract from the upcoming masquerade ball with what's sounding like a full adventure arc... what with my thoughts that there could be the secretly buried remains of a Tomb Priest in the graveyard, and the recent events in Stromdorf released enough Azyr to give the "sleeping" Priest dreams of the location of his King's crown and rousing him slowly. Not sure yet... too often I get ideas that end up being a bust and I shelve them.

Then there's the whole concept of a warpstone-mutated undead creature that fills me with joy... that might be the way to go.

Some of the great adventures have a simple plot, but the players very slowly dig their way through to the truth.

Lets say there is some warpstone in a chest in the tower. You shouldn't present that rumor to the players. Instead you create two or three groups that want to get it and then let them take action to find the chest. The players get involved of course, in these groups quest for the chest.

Create some steps the three groups/cults need to go through to get the chest and use it

1. Find out where it is. This could have several steps where they first need to aquire a map, magical tracking device, find a person etc.

2. Find the key to the place, where exactly the thing is hidden inside the tower and perhaps the words needed to open the magic door.

3. Go get the item

4. Kidnap an important individual with the purpose of turning him into a pawn

5. Take the item to a special place

6. Perform the ritual to control the politically important person.

The players will discover bits about these groups motives through handouts, conversation and exploration. Some groups may even be false leads. For instance another noble family could have sinister motives, while having nothing to do with the ritual.

Then everything will play out around this political delicate situation. It could be a matter of appointing a new official in a town. The chunk of warpstone becomes a part of this, but it's the motives of those different groups that really drives the story.

Sorry for the rambling, just typing as I think, you have to make sense of it yourself

1. There is a big warpstone thing hidden

2. Different groups want it.

3. What are their motives for getting it

4. Other groups may have motives that weave into the story but isn't connected to the warpstone

5. how do the players get involved.

Start by creating the different groups and desribe their motives. Make some of the groups have conflicting motives. Then when all the motives are in place you can start describing what use the warpstone can be for them (if any). Finally you describe how the players get involved.

Let the players get clues about the motives and save the fact about the warpstone until later in the story. Let them discover handouts that vaguely reveal some of the motives and conflicts between the groups. Don't create a clear bad guy, but instead let them guess about who's good and bad. At some point let someone they trust turn out to have sinister motives, but make it clear that they can't confront the NPC directly, but instead need to be very careful and lure the NPC into a trap or wait for him/her to make a move.

The idea of a mcguffin in town that is drawing Skaven and maybe others is very fun.

If it is buried, wouldn't Skaven tunnel to it without having to deal with the humans top-side etc., no? They seem pretty good at tunnels that overworders don't notice.

So either it's buried and warded in some way that requires more control over area, or it's not buried.

If not buried, perhaps it was "contained" within the walls of a structure like the Tower of Magnus the Pious - something topside. The question of effective containment is an issue too, but in era of Magnus you had Teclis running around the Empire too so can explain all sorts of tough to manage things.

Rob

Been following this thread a bit, and while I'm not overly fond of undead (vampires in particular), I like the idea of McMuffins being for "real".

So... how about...

- The Dwarves cleared a skaven holding many hundred years ago, and in that process they killed one of the skavens mightiest Grey Seers (Yth Giztbiz). The doing is written down in the Dwarven legends, and there's a plaque in the Dwarven hold (can't remember the name in Grey Mountains), depicting the battle.

- What wasn't written, was that the Lord Rune Priest of the time (Torgrin Skjalarsson) found a HUGE piece of Warpstone after the battle. Reason why he didn't record it, was that he in secret send an envoy to the High Elf (or Wood Elf) court asking for advice on how to contain it. This would have been concidered high treason in Dwarven laws of that time, so it was done in secret. The high elves wanted no part in save-keeping it, but adviced to put it in a lead box, and dump it some place extremely safe, and trap it with all the rune-magic the runepriest could muster.

Now you have the dwarves, the skaven, and the high elves involved... more follows...

- Torgrin had a lead box crafted, of course living up to dwarven standards, with runes encircling it, and thought hard on where to dump it. Then like a miracle the dwarves were given the task to fortify Ubersreik!!! And while they were only given assignment to fortify it, they made the bridge as a "gift" to the Empire, and used it to make a safe place for the box.

- The bridge was the perfect place to safekeep the box, surrounded by water and rock. If the skavens tried to tunnel to it, they'd be flooded by the river, so the only way to enter is through a secret tunnel leading from the dwarven quaters in the city. The tunnel is also riddled with rune traps, and fortified with Gromril to hinder tunneling around it. Etc... hard to get to is the key...

Here enters the different forces who has a play in this...

- Skaven! A grey seer has gotten wind of this, and after several attempts to tunnel to the box, and after loosing some hundred skaven workers to flooded tunnels, he's come to conclusion that they can only enter through the dwarven quaters. Put some rumours about last years sudden water in the habor area... The seer tried to assemble a war-host to attack the city, but this lead to a civil war lasting 6 months in the skaven stronghold, so now he's given up on the idea of using brute force. Here enters the Gold wizard...

- The Gold Wizard (needs a name), got wind of large amounts of Gromril under the city, from an old work note, written in dwarvish, regarding a construction under the city. The note said nothing about what the work was about, but the wizard doesn't mind finding some riches as well, so started finding a way to get to the gromril. Doesn't matter how he got to it (constructed a mechanical thing, bought a drill from dwarves etc...), but he broke through the tunnel, from the sewers. The rumblings gave speculations to the citizens, but no rumour was even close to what was happening. But a certain grey seer understood what was happening, and bought some Clan Eshin to investigate...

- Clan Eshin... was bought, and found the wizard and the tunnel. They disposed of the wizard in his home (the players can be involved in this crime... afterall it's a wizard, and find drawings of the tunnel/drill), and made their way into the tunnel...

- Tunnels... Clan Eshin lost 4 good members, before realizing that the traps were to strong. So send for the grey seer. The grey seer refused to compensate for the dead clan eshin, and thus the clan eshin are still a player that wants to steal whatever the grey seer is after, and maybe even kill him.

- Grey seer again... now the players should follow the grey seers timeline, and see/hear things that indicate something is up. The grey seer is working frantically to get through the seals protecting the box... He'll break through all, except one last mighty seal.

- The Seal... now I'm loosing track...

Need to think more... but would like to include the high elves, the dwarves, and a greedy noble...

The more "players" who are involved in finding the box, the more more fun I think... would like the Clan Eshin to become a factor to, to avenge their dead members. Nothing is more fun than skaven/goblinoid infighting!!!

I'm with you on the Vampires Spivo.... at first it seemed like the obvious choice, but I just can't bring myself to include such an annoying cliche enemy in the campaign.

My plan is somewhat similar to yours, except the item is a Warpstone embedded crown taken from the chamber of a Tomb Prince on an expedition over 100 years ago. Of course there was a curse involved, so those with the crown began dying through mysterious circumstances, and the last of them fled north to the Empire with the ill-gotten gain.

I haven't ironed out all the steps, but the long and short of it is that it ends up in the hands of the Church of Sigmar, who have the Dwarfs assist them in disposing of it. The Dwarfs decide to do this by putting it in a lead box and putting it in the foundations of the bridge.

I like the idea of the greedy Wizard, and I do plan to have the Skaven involved. Rasknitt's plan to disrupt the town of Ubersreik is just one of his plans to get at the crown, and as events start happening, it's likely more individuals will wonder what all the fuss is about. Skaven, Undead, and a Wizard so far... should turn into something fun by the end of it. Luckily I have a while to sort this out, as the group still hasn't started on EoN and then we have another GM who wants to run some one-off missions before I get back to it.