These being the chronicles of Birgitta Tageslicht. A Roadwarden seeking simply to bring the Emperor’s law to all creatures that dwell in his domain. The first chapter details the very beginnings of her adventures and begins, as with most things worth remembering, in death so that life may continue and the Empire last forever. Sigmar be praised.

Character sheet and background
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15746096/WFRP3%20-%20PC%20-%20Birgitta%20Tageslicht.pdf

Rutger's Letter
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15746096/Rutgers%20letter%20-%20Dear%20Birgitta.pdf

Having read the letter from Rutger, Birgitta immediately set about preparing for her journey to Ubersreik and the Red Moon Inn. Even though she technically was a Roadwarden since her initiation her superior, who had known her almost all her life, realised the folly of ordering her not to go. He did however strictly forbid her from carrying out any official duties as a Roadwarden while seeing this tragic affair to its conclusion. And as much as it hurts him he could not pay her a salary either, though he did sell her a crossbow at half price, and included a dozen bolts. On her way she went as soon as everything was ready and as quickly as her limp horse could carry her. A sad creature that was and even then she'd had to pay the trader all but her very last coins from her and her father’s meager savings.

It was a dry spring and the road stretching out between Bögenhafen and Ubersreik was as good as it ever had been and she made good time. On the second days second half a light rain started to fall as the Reikwald drew nearer on both sides. She knew from coming this way with her father that she would soon come upon the village Gleissbach. After a little while it became apparent that the light rain would soon turn to heavy and with it bring thunder and lightning.

A day late, a shilling short.
As her father is, or rather was as is the case now, one of the most capable Roadwardens patroling the roads in the south of the Reik she did not lack any knowledge of how to stay alive on the open roads. Despite the increasing rain she clearly heard the noise coming from up the road and immediately recognised it for what it was - sword fighting. Soon she also recognised the guttural brays of beastmen! Thanking her lucky comet she so forewarned dismounted, readied her crossbow and snuck quietly towards what surely must be beastmen having laid ambush to some poor traveller.

Looking out from amongst the branches towards the road up ahead she soon spotted the leader of the herd, a strong and burly Gor savagely attacking a lone man barely able to defend himself before the onslaught. Another man lying dead or dying on the road and a few Ungors throwing crates and boxes from a coach standing on the side of the road, the horses dead, bristling with spears. It seemed like they were trying to gain entrance to the inside of the coach.

Unperturbed by this grizzly sight Birgitta only hesitated to wondered if aiding the poor fellows would mean that she would act as a Roadwarden and thereby break her superior's trust. Deciding that anyone surely can lend a hand to another soul in need she raised her crossbow and carefully took aim. The bolt went wide but she was granted a boon as the creatures did not recognise they were under attack. Taking aim yet again her bolt now struck true and lodged itself deeply in the cheek of the gor and the foul creature fell to the earth as if struck by lightning. The human who surely had been scant moments from his death fell to the ground next to his now dead assailant. Presumably, hopefully, in thankful exhaustion.

This time the ungors could not fail to notice and they all leaped and bounded towards her in their strange and inhuman way. Never losing her nerve Birgitta slowly retreated backwards into the woods as she continued firing her crossbow, felling two of the three creatures as the third leapt and attacked her with a vicious blow. Easily dodging the clumsy attack Birgitta simply took another few steps backwards as she stared down the creature with all the contempt for it and its filthy chaos kind that she could muster. Which, especially considering her young age, was not a little.

Under her righteous stare the cowardly creature could not hold and as it fled back from whence it came Birgitta almost casually put a crossbow bolt in its back, sparing none of the chaos creatures to continue with their miserable existence.

This is my attempt at writing up the game my wife and I just kicked off. After months and months of not finding time (we've got three small kids) it's great to finally be under way.

Our first short session we played in bed but it didn't work very well with all the chits and bits (not to mention that our youngest refused to go to sleep for some reason). Otherwise we had a blast and she's already getting frustrated that it's another week (hopefully) until we get to play again.

We played together before but this is our first attempt at something "serious" and long-term.

I love WFRP3 and it seems very beginner friendly, once you've gotten past all the "bling", but can't really say much about the system yet.

Anyways, so far so good and I hope to make regular updates here.

I would also like to warn any would be readers (perhaps this should have gone on top?) that english obviously is not my first language and even though I do my best there are bound to be numerous grammatical errors. So, sorry in advance, I hope it's at least passable!

Thanks for reading, feel free to comment!

(this is a cross-post from rpg.net btw - for maximum coverage!)

I would attempt to get my wife to start playing based on your fantastic write-up but:

a) I'm already running a game, and I want be one of the PC's for once.

b)I don't think I would react well to having all my wfrp stuff flushed down the jacks.

But this write up is cracker stuff, keep it up...

Oh to be a PC...

bladerunner_35 said:

Sounds great so far, and I wouldn't have guessed from your English that you weren't a native speaker until you said so.

I'm looking forward to seeing how the story progresses and how you and your wife find the game mechanics as you become more familiar with them.

A day late, a shilling short continued (session 2)

Surveying the scene before her Birgitta quickly gathered that everyone, or everything lay either dead or dying on the road and she carefully stepped out on the open road and made her way towards the coach. Peering inside she see a large man with small piggy eyes staring back at her and almost at once she finds herself under a verbal assault that leaves her flabbergasted. Try as she might the man will not stop talking or listen to reason but goes on and on about his important business with concerning a noble lord Aschaffenberg. At one moment berating her for not acting quickly enough and in the next ordering her around to secure his wellbeing and wares, preferably all at the same time, Birgitta becomes more and more flustered.

She moves away to examine the condition of the two persons lying on the road next to the vile beastmen. She finds one of them conscious and administers aid to him but can do little more, and even less for the other unfortunate soul that seem to be critically wounded. She notice the blunderbuss lying next to him and picks it up as she again approach the belligerent man inside the coach. A man she now knows to be a Klaus von Rothstein, a merchant on his way to Ubersreik.

As Birgitta tries in vain to explain how his guards are severely wounded, the coach broken and the horses dead and that they need to move out the conscious guard cries out a warning and points towards the woods. Birgitta peers that way around the coach and sees a lone beastman ungor that is almost upon them!

Caught somewhat unawares she is slow to act but grimly readies herself for another fight, her crossbow in one hand and the blunderbuss in the other hand. Suddenly no less than three ungors charge the guard and she curses herself for not paying more attention. Having crept up on them the two ungors had been hidden by the coach and Birgitta had failed to notice them. Now it seemed the poor guard would have to pay for her mistake as he was surrounded by the viscous beasts as they rained down blow on him. Amazingly he managed to stay upright and defend himself through the first desperate moments of the battle but things did look decidedly grim for both him, Birgitta and Klaus!

Torn between her want to help those in need and her will to stay alive Birgitta hesitates for a few precious moments, desperately trying to remember all her father’s teachings. Deciding upon her action she backs away a few paces from the coach holding both the crossbow and the blunderbuss one-handed still. She grimly raises the blunderbuss and aims it towards the melee. With a prayer to Sigmar she squeezes the trigger, half expecting nothing to happen, the blunderbuss throws her back half a step and as it roars it spews forth a swirling cloud of nails, stones, metal and death towards the ungors and the unfortunate guard.

Screaming and mewling they are all thrown into a bloody heap like so many ragdolls thrown onto a solstice bonfire. No sooner had they fallen than a huge gor appears from behind the coach and launches a berserker charge towards Birgitta. Taken by surprise, again, she has no time to fire her crossbow before the hulking beast is upon her. Drawing her short sword in the nick of time she deflects the brunt of a savage attack that still leaves her bruised and bleeding. She lashes out against the fell creature and manages to put just enough distance between her and the beast that she can turn tail and run away. One lesson from her father that she did take to heart was that it is a useless death to die as a hero in some futile last stand.

The life of a real warden has no place for glory…..

The progress is slow but I am happy we have managed two sessions and we’re having a blast. She is still learning the rules and I am still trying to keep everything in my head (I now realise that I forgot to subtract the enemies Toughness from wounds inflicted upon them last session) but so far so good.

Or youngest still refuses to sleep though….. I am not quite sure if this is as casual as it gets, or as hardcore?

I am loving the dice mechanic (to the point where I am trying to figure out how to adapt it to my other favourite game)! The Chaos Star and Sigmar’s Comet really puts a nice twist on things. Since Birgitta was really busy and focused on the scene and Klaus I made her roll an easy observation test to see if she noticed the beastmen reinforcements emerging from the woods. She did notice but because she rolled a chaos star I had her see only the one ungor as the other beastmen were covered by the coach. This made her lose her one advantage, range, and forced her on the defensive right from the start.

As a result it left her with a very real and immediate moral dilemma (sort of replacing the moral dilemma of Klaus from the adventure-as-written): does she fire the blunderbuss at the creature and the guard and thereby increasing her own chances for survival, or does she try to rescue the guard, almost surely dying?

It really left her foundering and she poured over her background for any clue as to what Birgitta might to in this situation. Even though I stressed that the character was hers to do with as she wanted (I designed the character for her and wrote her background) it was great fun to watch!

I pretty much disregarded the whole rally step mechanic. Both because she really smacked down the first beastmen quickly enough (partly due to my error) and because it really didn't feel right. I want to at least try the official story structure though so I'll try to use it as written once we know the basics a bit better.

Now I am left to decide what happens with Klaus. He is a great character and I am loath to see him dead even though that feels like the likely outcome. On the other hand he is a determined fellow and the chance to throw him in the game further upstream as a jack-in-the-box to make things sour is probably too good to pass up…..

Cool, you could keep Klaus around a couple of ways.

Depending on your plans for him otherwise, perhaps he (a) turns out to be more competent than thought, having callously let guards do fighting but if assaulted pulling out two pistols and letting go; or (b) is more than he seems, bwah hah hah. Later she returns to the site to find coach door open, a blasted corpse of a beastman and no sign of the occupant of coach.....

Love the photo. Has the little tyke said their first words yet? Mommy, Dadda, Mutant?

I have been leaning towards "more resourceful than appearance suggests", after all Klaus is managing a business at least somewhat successfully. I really like your suggestion with him having a pistol or two concealed under his bulk.

So far my very early thoughts on Klaus has been of the kind of throwing him into a delicate social situation in Ubersreik during the Edge of Night as soon as a chaos star comes up: "You?! YOU! It's you who left me to die! Don't you know who I AMMM!!!"

But clearly Klaus is meant for greater things. Thank you for your comments Valvorik, I read all your stuff:

My youngling is a shade older than half a year and have so far only managed pa-pa-pa-pa-pa, which most certainly count! He was very impressed by my impersonation of Klaus by the way.

Bahahahahaha! Most amazing gaming group ever!

You need to write that kid up a character sheet! I mean sure, it might not have much depth or background, but isn't that what swordmaster and trollslayer were made for?