Hi everyone, newly-converted WFRP fan here.

Wanted to ask you guys for help with thinking of ways to further complicate the final encounter in Eye for an Eye, which I'm running tomorrow.

So far: my players consist of an elf scout, dwarf 'breaker, human pit fighter, and zealot being roleplayed to the hilt, insanities and all. The party, being very combat-oriented, was a little lost during the investigation (thankfully the high elf could at least read, and the zealot was, well, appropriately obsessed with rooting out even the smallest trace of Chaos). The elf and zealot quickly became suspicious of the librarian after the heretical books were found. The dwarf and pit fighter wandered around, the dwarf fixated on finding the hidden hammer, and the fighter, being a little unskilled, ran into a bunch of investigative dead ends. The zealot insisted on investigating the librarian further, spending most of that chapter loitering around, waiting for the guy to leave the library. When he finally did, the zealot quickly found the trapdoor and passage down. It took some heavy-handed "do not go down there alone" hinting to have the zealot abandon the trail and proceed to dinner.

They found the painting, the hammer, and the note, chose goose at dinner, after which they decided to all go down together (except for the elf, who decided to help out with the disturbance at the wall). When they found the cult, they promptly slaughtered everyone with relative ease. Poor Piersson survived only to the second round of combat, owing to having a dwarf and zealot concentrating solely on him. That disrupted the ritual, and, just to make things interesting, I had the beastmen outside break through the walls, running rampant through the grounds with the elf and the few defenders frantically trying to hold them off.

So. I was thinking of ending with a grand fall back, barricade-the-manor, Living-Dead style final encounter, but I'm thinking of how to play out the remaining plot elements:

1. I want the demon to somehow break loose. I was disappointed that I wouldn't be able to play the demon, so I'm wondering if I can still use him somehow. I'm pretty sure my players can handle him, especially in his weakened and uncontrolled state.

2. There are still some surviving cultists in the house, the cook and the gardener, who haven't been revealed as cultists yet

3. A whole horde of beastmen outside, led by the wargor.

4. I want to give Sister Sonja an unexpectedly epic role in this encounter, maybe having her conduct a ritual that will destroy the painting, while everyone else is running and fighting.

Any suggestions? Or do you guys think that may be too much happening, and I should just leave out some elements?

Blind Sister Sonja could get hit on the head and have a vision (one of those lovely "is she balmy or seeing truth, or is it that only balmy blind people can see the truth" things).

I would try to avoid deprotagonizing heroes - if they know it was about summoning a daemon and they know they prevented the ritual, and they have not "botched" anything I wouldn't take that from them. The daemon can be "recast" in another adventure/encounter later.

If they don't know the fate of Andreas Bruner that is something you can play with. In my game I made it that the "daemon" was actually him returning a year and day after being off "remade" into a Chaos Warrior. In your game, you could find "another thing" that could be have been going on that now complicates matters. Whatever it is, it has to be "shameful, mutant worthy, bad for Bruner reputation" to tie into Edge of Night events.

For example, maybe Piersson arranged for Andreas to be mutated by chaos energy and he's a "really bad ass mutant, still recognizable as Andreas" (we're talking excellent soak, extra purple die on all attacks against him level bad ass, something to make your combat-machines cry for their mommas). Andreas escaped Peirsson and wandered off intowoods where he met up with a beastman herd, killed it's leader and became their defacto leader, bringing them back to destroy the place of his fall. A final wave of beastmen is lead by Andreas himself. Blind Sister Sonja can "recognize him", and the key to winning this Act is "reaching out to whatever humanity is left in him" (and showing Piersson is already dead), in which case he turns on the beastmen and dies, overwhelmed by them but also breaking their numbers and saving the manor. Partial success reaching his humanity weakens him (remove the extra purple die on attacks against him). In short, win the fight with a social encounter.

Interesting suggestion, bringing back Andreas as a Chaos Warrior. I might be able to work that in somehow. And yeah, maybe I won't use the daemon yet, but I plan to set them all on a sidequest to totally destroy the painting (while I wait for Edge of Night to be shipped to my address in a couple weeks).

Maybe then I can sic the daemon on em.

Thanks, man

Raymz said:

I agree with Valvorik that you shouldn't trivialise the accomplishments of the players by ignoring their success and going ahead with the ending you intended anyway.

But another way you could use the daemon - now or later - is have it materialise and hunt down and kill all of the cultists in revenge for the botched summonging. It could leave the players alone. What do the players do then? Kind of embarrasing to have a daemon hunting down your enemies...

Well, I ran the encounter, and it was a long one. valvorik, I borrowed your Daemon-is-actually-Andreas idea and ran with it.

I had the beastmen quickly overrun the drugged guards' positions, with the wargor and his troops going straight for the zealot, who had possession of the painting. They played a running battle in the manor with the beastmen, taking down the wargor, while they collected the surviving manor staff, including several servants, Korden, Gand and his hounds, and Sister Sonja. She reveals that she can destroy the painting with a ritual, but doing so will release the daemon, but in a much-weakened state. The players then decided to hold a Sigmarite cleansing ritual down in the underground ritual chamber the cultists used (after some cleansing and sanctifying, of course).

They covered the civilians' retreat down into the more defensible secret passage from the library, throwing back several groups of gor and ungor, who by then had begun looting and burning the place. They then shut the trapdoor and barricaded themselves in. To destroy the painting, the Sister told them they had to shatter it using a holy weapon (Korden's hammer), which then brought out the demon -- which I had modified to to be a customized Chaos Warrior, with eyes embedded all over its spiky metal-encased body, with Andreas' eyeless, moaning, torn-off face riveted into the faceplate (players were appreciatively grossed-out).

The four now-heavily wounded players, along with Gand, his hounds, a guard, and Korden, who managed to shake off his insanity long enough to fight, then had a long, intense battle with the Chaos Warrior. The guard was killed, and two players getting knocked out and almost killed over the course of eight rounds of combat. They finally killed the demon (only the 'breaker, Gand and the elf were left standing), and upon its death the beastmen above began to retreat (cheers and high-fives).

They came away from that fight with an attitude of "good thing that daemon was in its weakened state, because there's no way we'd have survived a fight with it at full strength." So that allayed my fears of robbing them of the satisfaction of stopping the ritual. Overall they had a lot of fun, because they had to juggle between fighting off beastmen, defending the staff (the zealot managed to convince the survivors to follow them down) , and finding a way to destroy the painting while the manor was on fire.

So thanks, guys, especially valvorik, for the advice. Everybody had a lot of fun in that encounter, including me.

That sounds great, thanks for looping back and letting us know how it turned out. Andreas' face detail suitably laws of nature upturned - do you also act as a Call of Cthulhu Keeper?

I really liked the " destroy the painting releases weakened version " twist, that's a great way to create "accomplishment but not out of the woods yet" structure and if I can only remember I will be stealing that one for some other profane item down the road.

Rob