Whelp, I've got a group of five players and I'm about to drop them head first into the stinking mess that is Marienburg. This is my catalogue of woe and hilarity for them.

First up, I've headbutted them through eye for and eye and winds of change, the time has come to kick this once off malarky in the funny bits and settle down to some proper campaign fun.

Experience-wise, the group is pretty mixed, two players are at a lofty five points, one at four, two at three. I gave a weeee bit too much in the one shots and am pulling it waaaaaaay back to one point every other session with a flare point to one player every session.

The group consists of:

Troll slayer.

Gold wizard.

Watchman.

Burgher.

Amethyst(sp) wizard.

It's going to be... interesting. Socially, they've kind of left a lot of skills to die in a ditch. Stealth? HA! Plus, I don't think they're even all that hot in combat. But I didn't want to railroad anyone, so this is what I got, I'm a little cranky at having two wizards, I'll just hint at how great it would be to take an alternate career. Plus, hey, is that a complete lack of healing skills? Brillo, someone's bound to kick the bucket sooner or later.

Anyway, first session is next week, I'll let you all know how it's going.

Just finished first session of campaign...

That was hilarious.

I guess I'm somewhat blessed in terms of player group because they are a funny bunch and they manage to keep me laughing. I can't let them see me saying this though. I'm slightly worried since our amyythyst wizard was absent, but I can squeeze him in somewhere.

ANYWAY.

They arrived in Marienburg(with four tons of timber and four tons of sawdust, don't ask) and made a few sheckles for themselves. They then took up some lodgings and then... Managed to leapfrog the information gathering section of the adventure completely. They were really, really focused on going to the the temple district. So off they went and thanks to their having an astronomical observation skill set, spotted the abbess of Shallya dangling in a gibbet. They also not only managed to rescue her, but also replaced her with one of the rabbits infesting the temple of verena. ("Damnit ininiate Dougal, I won't be happy until the only rabbit left in here is the one up in your head, working the controls.")

This led them handily to the Golden Lotus where they eventually cajoled the necessary info out of witch hunter Osric.

So, after a certain amount of discussion, into the marshes they went. Their first combat encounter went swimmingly well for them however, to the point that I am now somewhat worried. Namely in respect of the fact that the troll feller strike did exactly that, in one blow. Worried? Me? Hardly.

Bloody hell, say I, isn't this all going along splendidly. The session took aboooooout...five hours.

One experience point for all, since we got rather a lot done, flare point for the Burgher.

Next week, temple in the swamp. I'm a little worried about encounters between now and then. Since nobody is making navigation roles or whatnot, I was just going to give them:

A swarm of bugs to deal with.

The dubious attentions of forest spirit, who tries to lure them to their doom.

Return journey...

Some kind of lizard, I shall see what the wonders of the creature vault can provide me.

That's very fun.

How familiar are you with 1000 Thrones material? I love seeing a GM able to "sandbox" published adventures and let heroes go through them in their own way yet still get the value out of published material.

I read through the relevent chapters and try and make sure I'm solvent on all the necessary bits before the adventure itself. I might have to root through some bits, but usually, I'm ok. There was perioulous talk of leaving Marienburg altogether and sallying out after the kid, but fortunately our Burgher stepped in and saved my proverbial bacon.

And it's session... I can't remember which session it is after the once off, let's call it session 2.

The characters are, hilariously, still in the swamp, well not so hilariously, reallly, let's move it along people...

The first thing they manage to do (after the troll slayer decides to keep some of the bits from the troll. Tasty.) is find player number five. I could hardly just have the bugger appear out of nowhere, so the PC's happen upon the chump just as the mutants that kidnapped him are discussing whether or not to dump him into the marsh. I shoot the gold wizard with a crossbow and mildly scuff the trollslayer. The amethyst wizard introduces himself and the party discusses whether to finish the job the mutants were starting.

"He's a witch!"

"I'm a wizard, I can talk to him."

"We're not going to bond here, you're clearly a Hufflepuff."

And other stupidity. They eventually get back under way, carefully avoid the large rotting logs filled with biting insects, (Stupid observation rolls) and that evening get attacked by tree spirits of various shapes and sizes. This gets a little involved, jokes are had, spells are flung. Even the troll slayer starts having trouble with the tree kin, who largely shrugs most of the damage inflicted on him, when I realise, to my dismay, I've only got an hour or so left before they kick us out of the building.

Bugger.

Wanting to al least get the group to the main beasties tonight, the tree spirits, effectively, leg it. The troll slayer is a bit irate at me having stolen his kills, yadda yadda yadda. More paddling gets them close enough to the ruined temple, the group piles out of their little boat convey, (four now, they just don't want to leave them alone,) and march toward the ruins. Their absolute lack of stealth or desire to wait till dark immediately alerts the cultists, who send a group out to deal with them. The enemy group, however, has to deal with the group's astronomical observation skills. They get spotted in fairly short order. At extreme range, the group charges.

I am doing this again.

Their headlong charge casts every shred of group coherency to the wind, while the cultists riddle them with crossbow bolts. The troll slayer gets a bolt or two, the gold wizard and the burgher are miles behind and the slayer, while being first to reach the enemy, gets buckled with stress and fatigue. (three stress, seven fatigue) This is fantastic, they do, in fairness, eventually get close enough to start wailing on them, but not before there are ALOT of wounds tripping about the place.Then the cult leader shows up for a cameo, and soul drains the Watchman. The troll slayer has an insanity, the watchman(dwarf?) has an insanity, three crits and some wounds. Everyone else is in various states of unhappy.

Aaaaaand then I have to pack up and go home. Pooo. I was having fun there. But I keep reasonably good track of what's happening, and I know what to prepare for next game.

First, the cult leader legs back to the temple. Moral amongst the cultists remaining quickly takes a turn for the worse and they soon peg it aswell.

Rally phase! I haven't really had an opportunity to use one of these mid combat, so I'll enjoy this.

More crossbow bolts. The temple is protected by, a scattering of cultists, a mutant, a chaos spawn, and the leader. Closing the range should be even more horribly painful, especially with me hurling soul drains about like a crazy man. Let's see how they react.

Session the third and I pick up where I left off from last session. Mid-way through a combat. Surprisingly, we are able to pick it all up quite easily. The cult mage who fired a few nasty bits in their general direction pegs it, the last few baddies die, then I get my first rally phase! Yaaaaaay! I'm not sure I did it properly and I'm also conscious that I let a few people away with criticals they shouldn't have ignored,but I'm sure I'll pick it all up along the way and fill in these various blanks as I go.

And so the idio...heros advance on the chaos temple! Shazzam! They do not learn. They just do not. More crossbow bolts, more superflouos wounds that could be easily avoided by coordinated effort, just as expected, the slayer pelts ahead of everyone. Various nasty spells leave him pretty pounded with corruption and desperate for some healz. A chaos spawn,(on his very last hit point no less!) barely scrapes through with the last hit to knock him out. Then he draws his critical. Double concussion. Hi-freaking-larious. Cult leader captured, interrogated, then everyone sorta realises(including the cult leader) "hey why are we letting this guy live?" WHALLOP. That's the eeend o' that mystery. At this stage I am two players down, having just left, so I wrap it up and swing them back to Marienburg, largely in one peice. A significant amount of income is generated. I let them randomly bimble about. One xp each. Flare for the slayer.

I'm starting to put together a nemesis group based on the background written by the watchman player. It won't mature until they leave Marienburg, but it is an equally sized group of skilled individuals who persistantly harass the group as they make their way along. Suggestions welcome.

And then the sideplots arrived...

The PC's meet their freind Maria in the local tavern(The Lofty Pillow Biter) who asks after their recent escepades and introduces them to their latest party member, a bounty hunter.

And then everyone pretty much stayed there. Thier Witchhunter "handler" arrived, all fire, brimstone and poor social skills, asking after their escapades and demanding results. Nobody notices he seems particularly interested in any warpstone they have come across. Drinking occurs, the gold wizard gets a bit sozzled.

"Barkeep I'll have one fuzzy navel and the girly-est drink in the house."

"Two fuzzy navels commin' riiiight up..."

Everyone goes to bed. Before that, all the not-wizards get a knock on their door. "Be up early."

While the wizards get invited down to the bar for MORE booze.

SO morning time arrives and the nin-wizards are taken off on a trip about town...

While the non-wizards wake up to a breakfast of porridge and hangover.

After a lengthy jaunt, the witchhunter starts asking invasive questions about their contact with warpstone and the wizards.

The wizards notice the bar filling up with burley types.

The non-wizards start desperately obfuscating. Well, not too desperately, it's not so much a question of "if" they sell out the wizards, but "how to do it properly".

The wizards prepare for a scrape by casting some spells... But then discover their porridge was poisoned with lodestone.

The Burgher performs one of his most important functions. Annoying NPC's to the point that they attack him. Combat ensues.

Maria, the NPC, who stayed with the wizards, starts mouthing off. A heavy wanders over and hits her.

The witchhunter shoots the dwarf watchman. He notices a tingling sensation.

Maria gets whalloped, again, back in the tavern.

A swordsman pitches in to help the Witchhunter, his failure is catastrophic.

Maria gets another knuckle sandwich.

The witchhunter attempts to leg it.

Maria gets another smack in the jaw.

The bounty hunter blows the witchhunter's leg off.

Maria gets hit again, and this time, the gold wizard sees something bounce and roll along the ground. It stops just short of him. It seems to be a fake eye, made from lodestone.

At which point Maria stands up and wraps her fingers around the heavy's windpipe, purple lightning arcing around her.

"Now let's have a chat about your creative opinions on women..."

And by chat, she sorta meant "turn you into ash and bleached bone". What's left of him crashes into the floor. At which point she points at the leader and says "soil yourself" which he does, and then collapses in a gibbering heap.

Maria, apologises for the subterfuge, her actual name is Anjya von Reuteur, a wandering scion of the amethyst college. She takes the PC's into her employment, as well as offering to manage the issue of the witchhunter, someone she had been trailing for quite some time.

And then Aido put his PC's back on the railroad.

Incidently, I would love some help building a social encounter. They're off to a dodgy boozer in the dodgiest part of town, so I was hoping to put together an encounter involving lots of stress, plenty of sneaky social actions and hopefully some other fun.

And lo, late post, but session the...fifth?

I try out the social combat rules. I quickly get annoyed with the social combat rules and abandon them. They are clearly not for this group. I imagine many groups might have one or two such characters, hopefully more, who do alot of the talking, double-dealing etc.

Not these clowns.

WIth only one person who I can really rely on to have a social action that he can attempt, I'll have to leave the majority of these encounters in story mode. But, nonetheless, alot of fun is had. In particular, not only do I pull several of my favourite actions and stick them into the mix, but the gold wizard gets in on the game and attempts to use skills other than his fellowship to try and bull the witchhunter. Now, the witchhunter being the preist of Verena and having an astronomical intuition roll, this doesn't go well, but still, I appreciate the effort. The death wizard causes terror to everyone, (I fluff the first roll, just to freak the gold wizard a bit) which...helps? He follows up with another CS when they head to the Jolly boatman, sending most people rapidly packing, but they get most of the information they require. Then, they head to the Hound's Den to try and extract some more info. This time, it's the Burgher who comes up trumps, gambling the leader out of a few sheckles and the information they needed.

I enjoyed this session since it had absolutely no combat whatsoever. I was very pleased with this and I think everyone had fun, the only one I was worried about was the bounty hunter, who skulked in the shadows a bit and did very little else.

One xp each, flare for the Burgher.

If you're interrested my TTT notes for all chapters are available on liber fanatica or in my signature.

I appreciate that. Currently, I think I'm doing ok, I'm adding my own little elements as I go, certain parts of this whole malarky may be changed slightly to suit certain PC or NPC background, right now, I'm just having an awful lot of fun making the conversion.

No game this week. Poo. Guess I'll just get them ready for next week then.

*shuffles diseases deck with glee*

Tuesday and no update? What am I bleeeeeeedin' like?

So, into the sewers with them. The party was running split this session, for two reasons: The first was that we had a new player and I didn't want to send the poor girl wandering into a sewer where she could likely be killed, it didn't have anything to do with the fact that I hadn't finished her character sheet, no siree bob.

The second was that I kidnapped two of the fools and had them enjoy a pleasent social experience with some skaven.

So, four of the group go wandering into the sewers looking for trouble and nurgle cults. They find both in abundance, the new player, replacing an old player, is asked to join the group and assist with some light investigation work.

The group wanders into sewers and is met quickly by a welcoming party of skaven, most notably two skryre enhanced assassins, Rik and Tik. Two of them get tazed, bagged and dragged away. What happens next makes me soooooooo happy.

Meanwhile, our new elven envoy meets her two cousins, who ask her if she'd like to keep herself busy for the next short while. She agrees and is brought to the Doodkanal to assist Pieter Vostrachen with the investigation of a crime. She/he meets Pieter and his pleasent smile and Anjya and her frosty glare. Both are standing next to a cart pulled up next to the canal, I wonder what could be inside???

The gold wizard gets the bag whipped off his head and meets Dink Chik-chik, warlock engineer. Dink offers Ferrous a bag of shinies(!) for his assistance in keeping tabs on the cult of the child. Ferrous agrees. Note, at no point did I say reluctantly. They are then reunited with the group. Muhahahahaha. The gold wizard practically hopped on the chance to work with the skaven. Glorious. Further he wrote some excellent fluff later on, I am well pleased.

Back on the canal, the contents of the cart are revealed to be Dubrovich, the Burgher that had been assisting them for some time, he's been stripped, bound and had his throat slit. Seems like a sacrifice of some sort. But by whom, and to what? Dun dun DUUUUUUUUUUUUN!!!!!! Andrial, (I finally get a name) resolves to help.

And the group finally crawls into the nurgle temple, which promptly gets them hopped on by not one, but two beasts of nurgle. The watchman's annoying capacity for soaking up damage is circumvented by a few slobbers, as well as giving him a disease or two, The beast's regeneration keeps them in the fight just long enough to vomit criticals all over the slayer before he finally slaps them into next week. Or rather he would, if the gold wizard didn't keep killstealing. (LOL!)

Since I'm keeping track of the calander, it is now just before the weekend so I give them a few days off to recuperate, Maida, the ex-abbess of the temple of Shallya, deals with most of their crits and diseases, so they're all ready to rock. They also attend to funeral of their departed freind.

One xp for all(chapter finished) and a flare for the gold wizard.

I've just finished a session last night, and since the effects were too funny not to write up, I'll have it up soon.

And lo, the fools set off towards Altdorf.

Andriel, our lovely elf bonds a little more with the others, by which I mean she stares at them and tries not to let off too many puns. Wine is consumed. Supplies are acquired, because I've been foolish enough to attempt to drown the PC's in money, they hire a ride on a carriage to altdorf. Foolish Aido. One day into their travels and they spy a carriage has been run off the road. Lo, our heroes approach and offer assistance...

A well dressed man approaches telling them that they have the situation in hand, which it seems to be... Until the watchman's mortal enemy, the man he has been hunting all the way from Karag Azgaraz, walks around the side of the stage coach.

Oaths are sworn, arrests are hollared, the duellist opens up on the watchman and all hell breaks loose.

Combat, in the initial stages, does not go well. The NPC group has about three "player" actions a peice and is of the same size as the PC's. Also, the PC's aren't exactly coordinated well. By the time all sides are engaged, two turns in, the NPC's have yet to take any damage. A grey wizard zips about hurling condition spells or magic darts at the group, while the watchman makes the appaling error of using saga of valaya instead of grungni, I can't beleive my luck, the grey wizard starts pelting the gold wizard, who, now perplexed, can't see him. Hits bounce off the enemy dwarf, who sheild binds the trolls slayer and the duellist is ready to start some serious pain...

Then the watchman's mortal enemy legs it. The whole enemy formation goes to pot, and everyone breaks and heads for the forest, with a ratcatcher and the grey wizard trying to cover them. They just manage to drop the enemy dwarf but he gets a healing draught into him and, with only three wounds, pegs into the forest. The ratcatcher's small but vicious dog uses herding instinct to keep pursuit away. The slayer starts to beat on the duellist. The duellist, with only a pistol since his rapier got turned to a spring(of superior quality!) by the gold wizard, shoots the troll slayer. Of course, before he does that, he burns everything, aggression, expertise, you name it. The net result is twelve damage, (meh) and three criticals. Not so bad right? Right? The last critical wound to get turned over?

Severed sword hand.

Yes, the critical threshold was well crossed. Yes, we stopped play to roll on the floor laughing.

In his own words, the slayer beat the duellist to death with the stump, then went looking for the dog, which, aware of how cruelty to animals is observed, I had allowed to leg it. The ratcatcher surrendered, the grey wizard disapeared.

PC's:1

NPC's:1/4

That was one of the funniest sessions we have ever had, and the jokes keep rolling out. Fortunately the group found a physician in the carriage(which will be turned into it's own little can of worms in due course.) and will shortly be retiring to a nearby town to rest. Which town? Why Pfeildorf of course. How convenient.

One xp for the four of them, given their trials and tribulations, bonus, obviously, for the slayer.

Lo the characters have arrived in Pfeifeldorf to investigate the scurrilous case of THE MISSING CHICKEN!!!!

So I started an unquiet peace. I hope to wrap it up awfully quickly. Twenty four hours of campaign time should not take three weeks of sessions, especially when I'm on a college timetable. This pains me somewhat because most of the characters encountered are, in actual fact, great, blindingly hilarious and great fun to play out. Especially Wendell Ott. Oh Wendell you chronically depressed bastard, our time together is short, but I shall always remember you...

Unless I butcher you next session, obviously.

The chapter did not start with the typical Blausblut roadblock since the party was travelling at breakneck speed towards anywhere even closely resembling an inn, so Grimmoire the slayer could deal with the small matter of getting his shattered stump of a hand amputated. Everyone gets a giant lump of stress and heals a few criticals over the night. (The slayer, I might add, is currently on FOUR)

Then it's out into the world to see what they can help with! Ferrous the gold wizard gets a shock when he finds out the "fair maiden" they get sent to help has a face like a melted wellington boot and is well past her prime. But they pick up the investigation in ernest, I forget to mention they should talk to the town Bailiff(whoops!) but they sneak the cloth off old blind Eyeson with very little trouble, then it's away to the Wet Whistle again, since the Amethyst wizard's deathsight is picking up straaaaaaange signals. Which I helpfully refuse to expand on. At this stage they are deeply concerned about the heraldry displayed on the cloth, but the local Von Speier coat or arms doesn't resemble it at all... I can see the wheels turning, I have a good idea what they're thinking... But not yet, just a few more clues... Then we'll be golden lads.

Endril, the elf of questionable gender, decided to investigate the curious human funeral rituals going on in the house just further up the road, which lead said Elf to be intrigued enough to find the rest of the group and pretty much demand they go see her. Fortunately, Francis Arouet had just been given access to her slightly questionable text and was only too happy to help out.

The group heads towards Casper Schmidt's house...

And that's the session done, next week, a refreshing return to combat, and I try and gouge out the Gold Wizard's eyeball.

And lo did the characters decend into the bowels of the Von Speier Mosalaoum!

So after a decent amount of reasonably good roleplaying and some lateral thinking the PC's talk and bull their way to the big bad guy. Once in the masala...Moso... Tomb place, zombies crawl out of the woodwork, as well as a freindly neighbourhood wight. It's enough for me to layer them all with an AWFUL lot of stress and fatigue, but not enough to actually stop them from getting the slayer into contact with the vampire on turn 2 and do 27 wounds. Twenty seven! What the hell? Hilariously though, clever use of the beguile action allowed me to do seventeen wounds in return... Coming in the form of an overpowered shot from the hunters' handgun, which drops the slayer down to 3 wounds. Should have seen this coming really. Oh well. Need to read that action up a little more methinks. Three more actions and I'm pointlessly keeping the vampire alive for no good reason. I drop him to unconcious and fill the room with eight strogoi vampires. That should, at least, keep them busy enough to do two things.

Get the Blood Dragon away in good enough nick that the plot proceeds along it's own merry way.

Carve the gold wizard's eyeball out.

I'm not sure I want to kill the trollslayer at the moment. I could, he's one critical hit away from a very grizzly demise. But the blood dragon has been fended off and they have roleplayed reasonably well. I will likely kill him... and quite soon, but not this time, I think he should be allowed to enjoy the fruits of his foolish honour seeking labours a little longer.

Yes, a very short write-up this week. Deceptively little done as far as character developement went and the whole thing ran quite smoothly. I may have rushed them a little, but that was because I forgot all my campaign notes, couldn't remember any of my NPC's names, and started ad-libing new names and accents based on Tilean gentlemen of questionable preference.

"Excelsio is here, they call me Excelsio the faaaabulous, you may come to the study with Excelsio, please-a, follow the sight of Excelsio's well oiled, muscular buttocks yes?"