Having completed TGS, my players are at 15 advances or so and I'm trying my hand at original adventures. (TGS is actually the first published adventure I've run in maybe 15 years, but my first forey into WFRP.)

I set the players to a small village that's having trouble with Nurgle-- a nearby wizard has gone all Chaos Sorcerer and plagued the town as a sacrifice to Nurgle, although it didn't go as planned and everyone died, but whatever. They waded through the rabid giant wolves, and then went up against a pair of plague bearers with one of those worm-thingies. That was a decent fight-- the Sigmarite priest got some nasty critical wounds and a disease, but I wasn't able to get any hits on the scout or the Dwarf pitfighter.

That's as far as we got. There's some actual plot stuff going on as well, but I think I need to reconsider my conclusion. I was planning on having the Chaos Sorcerer in a tower swarming with Imps, mostly because I didn't want to use plague bearers again. But I'm pretty certain the sorcerer and any number of imps just isn't going to put up a good enough fight, even with one of the players already pretty beat up.

So can anyone suggest a creature with a threat rating of, say 4 or 5 that it could plausibly make sense for a Nurgle worshipping sorcerer to have under his control? My question really is about theme rather than powerlevel... it just seemed there weren't many things that made sense at the right level.

Any ideas?

I'd go with nurglings instead of imps, and have them be highly contagious as well. Don't underestimate the value of large swarms of little things, it's what Skaven built their whole empire on after all!

I'd also look a bit into Nurgle as an entity himself, try to get his character down and let the chaos sorceror take similar traits.
He's not just monsters, they're fatherly, they care about their blistering, oozing, wheezing creations

Seeing as how the party is good on combat, for a stronger opponent, I would look into something with high toughness, it fits Nurgle after all. Something like a plaguebearer champion. They need to be struggling to damage him (due to the high To, and possibly some armour), while the champion's got a timer on the party in the form of diseases that might take hold of the PCs. Be sure to make the opponent as friendly and fatherly as possible, just to mess with their heads

My unsolicited advice would be:

Toss something above the challenge range you think would be a fair fight for the player characters. Since they are used to being super tough and squashing the minons of chaos beneath their boot heels then give them a true fight with something they can't beat. In any game system it is important to show the players that there are not only bigger fish than them...but giant whale sized fish they should still be scared of. Making players suffer needlessly is specifically bred into this game world...let em have it!

Have the chaos sorcerer become a Great Unclean One (it happened in the Warhammer novel Witch Killer, so there is some precedence for that kind of tom-foolery). If your players don't run screaming they get to die horribly (most likely). Heavy handed? sure. Over the top? absolutely. However, Warhammer isn't supposed to offer up a fair fight, especially if players have survived without growing a third eye long enough to become somewhat powerful. Besides, if they are confronted at this stage with something that is clearly beyond their capabilities it might foster some cool investigative/tangential adventuring to find something/someone to help them stop this greater daemon of chaos before it has a chance to cause irreparable harm.

Obviously, without knowing your group's tastes or your style of GM'ing the mileage you'll get out of my inane ramblings is sure to vary greatly.

If you are just looking for something in the 4-5 threat range you could hit em with a Beast of Nurgle from Signs of Faith.

Callidon, it's not unsolicited if he asks for it

And yeah, I toyed with the idea of a Great Unclean one as well, but sort of shied away from it because I'm too nice I think

Hell, combine our 2 posts. The hordes of little Nurglings have to come from somewhere, what better place than an incarnation of Nurgle himself.

I have a group with 33 advances, they are quite tough (Iron breaker, warrior priest of myrmidia, archer and a bright wizard). They have spent a lot of advances on other skills as well, so they are fairly rounded, but they are still a mighty force. They have often killed tough monsters in the second or third round. The last two chapters of TTT is tough however and they're truly in for a surprise and I don't expect them all to survive. It's not that I have in any way been too merciful. The iron breaker has been very close to death twice, the archer once and the bright wizard three or four times. They have always managed to protect their friends using defenses and good situational action cards like pinning shot. No cheating on my part either, since all my dice are rolled in the open and the result is final. Even though they haven't died, there have been some truly nerve wrecking moments.

The last part in Kislev is a big step up however and I look forward to seeing how they handle it.

That said I think I have gotten a lot better at balancing the encounters, because I believe it's most fun if the encounters are balanced to that some encounters are too easy, others are just right and then some are too hard, forcing players to flee or gamble with their lives.

You're a bit early as Forge World is only about to release the Fantasy Battle supplement that has quite a few Nurglish monsters. You can check some of them HERE .

Also if you don't mind higher fantasy make the whole tower a living thing. An enormous living maggot. Players need to get inside it and travel through it to meet the wizard. This should include a lot of enviromental hazards like stomach acids etc. that can be represented by various spells or with a long tracker (like the one for the scenario in Liber Mutatis).

Or if you would like more concrete enemies maybe chaos knights with marks of Nurgle and/or (chaos) trolls with the mark.

I would like to point out that as the wizard did end the torment of the villagers by messing up the spell he should be in a minor role as an enemy. Maybe he's only a living portal for demonic hosts, a puppet to be played with or something hideous. He made Grandfather Nurgle very sad and great father should get his misery out from someone.

Hi,

I like Doc's suggestion. And would agree you may want to play on the fact that the sorceror is obviously not a genius by his mistakes. Maybe instead of having the tower as a living maggot, keep it as a nightmarish pestillent ruin and have the chaos sorceror turned into a giant maggot like spawning creature at Father Nurgles displeasure. At the ground floor just nurglings and rats, and a strange sticky mucus plastering the walls and floors, with a rotten wooden stair spiralling round the inside of the tower wall (risk of collapsing each round of activity combat on it?). The second floor reveals the orifice of an egg laying abdomen hanging through a large hole in the rotten ceiling, secured by thick strands of the strange goo. Half a dozen translucent eggs, with embriotic nurglings inside, are being lovingly tended to by the sorcerors now hopelessly insane former apprentice. The next floor shows the full glory of the egg sack and more goo, with maybe some tell tale signs of what used to be a study, bookshelves, desks and the chance to learn what happened here. The next floor could have the former sorceror now chaos spawn, a drooling mess incapable of speech or rational (such is the price of failure). But good ol' Papa has sent a more competent servant to ensure the spawn is fed big and strong, and here stands a knight/champion of Nurgle with a pack of toads/beasts on leashes (all of whom can use their slimy feet to walk on walls/ceilings with no penalty). could even have the ceilings/walls partially collapsed so the final fight can quickly escalate to the ramparts?

Oh and totally second the environmental hazards. Swamps, thick sticky weeds, poisonous biting insects, etc. Nature lore tests on journey and approach. Use Fatigue! Fatigue plus nurgle equals nervous players. Make them feel how hard it is to carry heavy arms and armour through unpleasant terrain. Running HoH my players were rolling up to 7 black dice on physical checks from fatigue, disease and crits alone.

Hope this helps

Ooh, I like that. I sort of wanted to play up the "old school storm the wizard's tower" feel. Having the once prestine woods now become a fetid swamp (dare I even throw in a fenbeast?) Some pesitlent beasties at the ground floor, maybe a swarm of vermin... and then some big baddie who has come to collect on the sorcerer. That can definitely work.

Thanks, guys.