No, not the adventure of that name but a series of rules to handle situations where adventurers have the corpse of some mutated rat and insist it's a "rat man, a skaven!" Rules that work towards keeping the "truth" suppressed. Borrowing a bit at times from Cthulhu concepts (skaven are like the mythos).

Everyone knows there's no such thing. Extra challenge die on all attempts to convince/motivate based on "the rat people are doing it etc. etc." - e.g., "you must send soldiers, the skaven are going to attack", "don't eat it, the skaven have poisoned it!"

You know what you're saying can't be true even as you're saying it. Suffer 1 stress every time you proclaim "it's the SKAVEN!" or similar to anyone who doesn't share your mad belief. Add following to all such rolls: comet - you get used to this difficulty and can ignore it in future.

It's awkward being around friends with these delusions/who don't admit the truth. If everyone in a group backs a declaration (takes 1 stress), okay but if everyone doesn't, then increase Party Tension +1.

One of Us, One of Us. Admitting you were wrong is very destressing. Automatically reduce stress by 1 and make a Discipline check as when rallying for more reduction if you openly admit your foolishness/error.

Any comments/alternatives?

The local constabulary, conspiracy-style, could just dismiss it as a mutant and:

1. Want to dispose of the body as soon as possible

2. Put the PCs in stocks for getting the local populace unduly agitated

3. point out local peasants with long nosesstart making wild accusations

4. tell of when old farmer gert dressed his dog up in clothesran around mad proclaiming it was his dead wife cursed by the presence of the new local apothecary (who really is a witch..)

jh

I think it's worth considering throwing in a lot of red herrings if you want Skaven to be considered a myth - IE. mutants with various rat mutations, assassin in "rat-cloaks", devious rat-wranglers that cause rats to act peculiarly, etc. That way most "Skaven" encounters are actually false and unless the players run into a bunch of Skaven then it's most reasonable to just conclude that a ratman corpse a just a mutant or something.

If even the players mostly encounter false Skaven then giving stress or adjusting tension for claiming a single case to be proof! seems to make sense.

Leaving aside the mechanical ideas posted above, yes I have plans/ideas about in-game world things that work against acceptance of skaven. It's a popular delusion spouted by the insane, there is a cult of chaos-tainted madmen who worship a "rat god" and doubtless cause many of these misunderstandings etc. Aside from being servants, the human cult of the horned rat makes a great scapegoat.

I'll reply here, rather than in your post on your story!

I think it's a good idea to play up the cult of the horned rat more than is suggested (and more than I'd thought to do). It gives someone to blame skaven activity on, and you could even use the cult as a group of ignorant people. i.e. They may believe in the rat God, but they still don't really know much about the skaven, and so they will also go into the woods, looking for ratty beastment to team up with - not understanding the real situation.

I think the other thing to do is play down the visible implications of skaven activity. Is a city-wide poisoning and an assault really any different in effect whether it's launched by beastmen who look like goats or beastmen who look like rats? So although humans have witnessed skaven before, they perhaps just haven't really joined all the dots. Even those with a lot of experience (like player characters - possibly) will still not know the true extent of skaven power. And even if they guess as or fear the truth... So what? What practical difference is it going to make to the way the Empire reacts? Sewer patrols may be increased, but they're basically a variant of the watch.

I think with my players, I'll give them an introduction to the old world, a sort of 'this is what you know'. As I plan to eliminate some of the more high-fantasy elements of the WFB setting, it'll be easy for my players to accept their characters' ignorance of the skaven as a part of the dark and gritty setting. Sadly, my players know me too well to ever believe that I'd cut the skaven from the setting completely!

Thanks for thoughts, they have built some momentum behind turning the human cult from a throwaway (I literally just tossed them in because players were determined to find something in sewers) to a scapegoat to a bit more.

In terms of summary for players, I gave mine an 8 point what you know/things about Old World, in addition to the core rules paragraphs on "Twin Tailed Comet sighted, etc.", that included a reference to rat people - bolded below

(after lead in about comet and different races sending aid etc.)

In the midst of this bleak, brewing turmoil, the Old World needs beacons of hope. Fate has called for heroes - humans of the Reikland, wood elves from Athel Loren, high elves from distant Ulthuan, and dwarfs of Karak Azgaraz.

Heroic champions are needed. Alas, you will have to do.

1. It’s a grim, muddy, smelly and likely doomed world of mostly illiterate characters accruing nasty critical wounds and mental twitches and finding what satisfaction they can until permanent death finds them ~ so party like it’s 1999 (well 2521 actually).

2. Society is pre-renaissance/post-medieval, with a growing merchant class, arrogant nobility and backward peasants all living in fear of the witch-hunter’s “burn them all and let Sigmar sort it out” philosophy.

3. Magic is linked to Chaos, the taint that corrupts and mutates flesh and mind. Chaos is ultimately Cthulhoid in its uncaring destruction of reality but its servants are manifestations of humanity’s darkest desires and fears. Chaos is like the “zombie virus” in a horror movie - Johanna is sweet and nice and it’s not her fault she was exposed to warpstone, and right now she’s still sweet and nice but some hour, day or year ... Mercy is risky – thus the witch-hunter’s approach and the tightly regulated nature of legal magic.

4. If there is a modern cinema model for a warhammer hero who has been successful it would be Captain Jack Sparrow - your most prized possession is a haunted boat, you’re more than a little addled, and there’s more than one something awful on your trail, and for all that you’re broke and some other guy gets the girl.

5. Foes are bandits and corrupt burghers, greenskins (goblins, orks), beastmen (monstrous humanoids with hunter-pack mentalities), chaos cultists and more fearsome chaos warriors (corrupted mortals serving chaos), undead, trolls, giants, daemons – but pay no need to scurrilous rumours of technologically advanced rat-people underneath the Empire’s cities, that’s a drunk-ratcatcher’s tale. Even less believable are tales of evil elves that look just like the regular ones, that’s some elf’s version of “my evil twin must have done it” (besides the regular ones are scary enough).

6. Thank the dwarfs (not dwarves) for steamworks and blackpowder weapons - and blame them when the unreliable (weapon quality) things blow up in your face - though really that’s the metaphor for anything more effective than just something well made such as magic - sooner or later there’s a price in more than just the coin.

7. There is no “alignment”. Judgment is in the next life, if you can manage to get your soul there without a chaos demon carrying it off beforehand. That said, the courts secular and clerical will judge you readily for misdeeds you’ve never done and you’ve no doubt you will be judged in the next world.

8. The setting uses dark, mature (or not) humour. From puns to elements such as Orks speaking in low-class English slang.

valvorik said:

Nice! I like it.

"– but pay no need to scurrilous rumours of technologically advanced rat-people underneath the Empire’s cities, that’s a drunk-ratcatcher’s tale"

Sadly, I could write that but even if it wasn't bolded, my players would all jump on that line and expect to see ratmen in every sewer from then on...

I'll have to try something a bit more subtle; admit to their existence (although warn them that this is out of character knowledge), but downplay how much of a threat they are in my version of the warhammer world. As I have every intention to downplay (or remove) the steampunk elements and a lot of the more fantastical elements of the setting, I should be able to get away with it.