Karma Kollapse said:

There are definitely opportunities for the PCs to interfere with 1 & 2 on your list. Saving Starke's family from the fire would be a big one. They don't have to just be passive events happening in the background for color. If you have access to the Criminal Empire conspiracy card (I don't remember which boxed set it came from), I would use Valvorik's excellent idea of having the campaign start with the Agenda tracker on that card already being a little more than half way completed. Every time something bad happens that consolidates the Black Cowl's power, make a point of adjusting that tracker closer to completion. If the players save one of his victims or disrupt his plans in some way, either reduce the Criminal Empire's Stability rating or set their Agenda back a space. This lets you give the PCs something to do, and lets them see whether or not they're making progress. If the Agenda tracker starts getting really close to done, it may motivate the players to strike out against the Black Cowl's operation. Dominating the local underworld is just a means to an ends for the Cowl. He needs money, and he needs something to provide a little cover for the Skaven plot. So the PCs can totally destroy his criminal enforcers and empire without it crippling the plot. If you do get to the end of the Agenda track before chapter 2 starts, you'll want to come up with some consequence (ie: a benefit for the bad guys) to make it sting a little. If they do enough damage to the Stability, there are mechanical penalties that get applied to the badguys. Given that much of what the Black Cowl is arranging happens off-camera and out-of-town, you can let them trash his local resources without it ruining the big picture. If you don't have the Criminal Empire card, just improvise your own tracker with events and benefits on it.

It will also help a lot if you give the PCs some badguys to act against. In Valvorik's excellent write-up, he introduces Bischoff, the Black Cowl's enforcer. In my campaign, In my campaign, I have two NPCs (his Bischoff + an NPC my players added in their backstory) doing his dirty work. (One as the obvious face of the Criminal Empire, the other doing more behind-the-scenes work that the Skaven can't or won't.) This helps make the Cowl's advances more personal, and also gives the PCs somewhere to start when they want to strike out against him. Make sure this Luitenant to the Cowl has only limited knowledge of the overall plot, so the PCs can't just torture him to derail everything. You want them to be able to make short-term gains (stop, arrest, or kill a minor badguy, destabilize the criminal network, etc), but not put the breaks on the whole plot.

As for #3 … For starters, unless your whole group chose Affluent, money should be a motivator. The chapter in the rulebook about money and equipment mentions that even the cheapest PC needs to spend 3 to 5 brass coins per day for food and board. Characters of the Gold and Silver Tiers should be going through the cash at a faster rate than that. Charge them some coins, and they'll do the mental math to realize they need to get a job sooner or later.

Even without the money, Curd has plenty to offer the PCs. Access to the higher levels of society, invites to the good parties, social acceptability in general. When he makes his offer to the PCs, don't just dwell on the "5 silver for tomorrow" aspect, come right out and tell them that if it goes well he'll have other jobs for them later. Drop the names von Kaufman and von Alptraum.

If that doesn't work, go ahead and have Curd mention the missing gunpowder. Even if the players are just combat-monkeys or totally caught up in the underworld plot, they should be interested in keeping large amounts of gunpowder out of the bad guy's hands.

If you're players aren't interested in chasing after money, OR power, OR the obvious dangling plothook about bandits and missing gunpowder… then maybe it's time to have a serious chat with them about what kind of game they want to have and what actually motivates their characters.

Lastly, it's okay for Mauer and Kaufman to be at cross-purposes and giving contradictory directions, since there's a 2/3 chance that one of them is actually the villain. If you're players are kinda slow on the uptake, ham it up so they can't help but notice the difference in position.

Eventually threads come together (nobody vanishings, strange killings of ciminals, mutants, bandits, garden party shenanigans) and the fact the heroes happened to be involved in them allows them to put them together and "solve" the mystery others do not, and that others expressly believe are not connected (or know are but encourage disbelief of being connected).

This is not "bizarre forced coincidence" it's just "if this hadn't happened you wouldn't be here, it did, you are".

In my own game, I foresaw the problem of "we're looking into trouble on docks, what's this about going out of town even briefly on some other business" issue would be a problem (shades of 1000 thrones - chase the special child, no wait, find a missing chicken first). The way to solve that is to use the backgrounds and entrench them, give the PC's debts, favours owned, obligations towards von Kaufman/Curd/Red Arrow such that they will naturally take up this aspect of adventure just as they have background reasons to look for missing people.

Then it all comes together.

Valvorik raises an excellent point. Motivations for helping Curd Weiss should be growing organically out of the Background cards the characters start with. Here's some specific examples:

The Academic has ties to the Sun Society, which meets at the Journey's End, which is owned by Kaufman and managed by Curd. Kaufman is also one of the financial backers of the organization. Doing a favour for Curd and von Kaufman is a way for the Academic to earn some good will for or from the Sun Society. Offer a break on Sun Society dues, or simply have the other members of the society (Luminary Mauer or Unterlector Glottz) ask the PCs to do it.

The Foreign Messenger card includes either a link to von Kaufman or von Alptraum. If the former, it should be very easy to hook that player in. If the later, simply reverse the order of the Day 3 and Day 6 missions. Have Clothilde von Alptraum contact them, asking for their help in her carriage ride. "Your master wants my reply on an important subject, but I'm too distracted by all this banditry nonsense to really focus on that. Perhaps I'd be able to give you a clearer answer if someone could just solve my bandit problems first?"

The Gently-Born card includes a very tangential link to the Journey's End. It's not nearly as solid a connection as the Academic or Foreign Messenger have, but it's a possible starting point if the other backgrounds didn't get chosen. They clearly have spent some time at the Inn, possibly as a preferred customer.

Any PC of Gold or Silver tier might hear about the Party and the Expedition Artifacts available for viewing on Day 8. If you drop wind of that in advance, the presence of mysterious artifacts may well trigger their plot-sensors. The PCs may ask you "how do we get invites?" Graf von Kaufman (and by extension Curd Wiess) is the easy answer there.

So, favours owed, and if that doesn't do it you've can offer money, power, social connections, a hint at the larger scope of the criminal empire, and even a possible mention of the gunpowder if the first few things won't work. There's many ways to motivate the characters.

And then there's the "Won't take No for an answer" option. Graf von Kaufman may well be within his legal/noble rights to simply task the PCs with the responsibility whether they want it or not. I'd be reluctant to do so as it may annoy the players (and might not make sense depending on who wears the Black Cowl in your version), but such bossiness from a Graf would very much be in keeping with the themes and laws of the Empire. Flavour to taste.

As a final option if all else fails, you can always just tell the players, out of character: "Guys, I know you're focused on the docks, but trust me the plot leads to the bandit troubles. It will all connect together before the final reel. If you come up with your own reasons for your character to want to do Weiss a favour, when it's all said and done you'll be glad you did it. I even promise not to have anything interesting happen in town while you're gone." I know it's a bit of a strong-arm, but could work as a last ditch Plan B to fall back on if the players are absolutely stubborn or missing the in-character hint.

Found some cool artwork that will eventually matter:

That's very nice. For use in Averheim or in the trip north when one shows up in Wurttbad

My own trip north will be a bit different as I'm pulling a "surprise you don't expect inside the surprise you expect" re Skaven.

I'm think that instead of a skaven, it will a honeypot/poison attack by Jade Sceptre cultists alerted by a passing Adele (invoking only her authority as a superior cultist, not revealing her name/identity) to "deal with any possible pursuit from Averheim" (as she is worried the Black Cowl is after her). She has little time so much use whatever is to hand, but I think Wurtbad sounds like a place Slaanesh would have cultists.

Hello everyone !
For a start I'm going to apologize for my english, as it's not my mother tongue, so, please, be kind on me folks

I'm really impressed with all your prep work on TEW2! It's amazing and very inspirational!

We are playing 2ed(so I hope I'm not intruding in your forum) and I just bought the PDF of TEW2 as while I was starting prepping TEW1 two of my players told me they already did that.
I threw away all my sheets (pity they didn't remember playing it when we first talked of what to do next) and kept running FoN finale.
Meanwhile, I've started reading the PDF and thinking of how to put everything together and implement it with the players backgrounds. So far I'm just at the beginning but I'm going to tie their backgrounds to the plot so that they will be interested in the disappereances and in the Red Arrow Coaches job.
We like it best to build up the tension very slowly, so I'm not going to uncover any BC stuff until later in the campaign, where they will discover that all the minor stuff going on where just small pieces of a bigger plot. And probably we are going to start with a loooot revised Horror at Hugeldal(World's Edge Mountains set).

I just have a few questions: is there anyone thinking of adding some Elecotrship plot?
With the Mad Count dead and the Leitdorf squabbling, the Iron Countess is gaining popularity but still hurt from Ludmilla repression in Streissen.
The Black Cowl is surely gaining power from this no-elecotr count situation, and, if a count there should be, it's better if it's someone he could control.
So, I was thinking of adding some side quest where the pc could uncover some minor Leitdorf/Alptraum secrets that the BC could use to manipulate or stall the Election.
What would you think of that? Is it too much going on?

As for my players they are going with: Golden college Initiate (tied to the Von Tuch(watever) pet-wizard), Shallyan Initiate (probably mildly tied to Clothilde and the intiate running the doks soup kitchen), Agitator, Gambler(still working on them and waiting for players' feedback) and Mercenary (working for Von Tuch at the beginning and then tying him with the Red Arrow Coaches).

The electorship is an intriguing thing to add, and very logical, but I've avoided it as complicating the through-line of the campaign. The Conspiracy in Averheim in my campaign of course wants particular things but that is in the background to the Ruinous Powe(s)'s plans as Surtha Lenk etc. cut loose.

It's possible that the Gumshoe system has just spoiled me, but I'm dissatisfied with some of the difficulties on clue-finding Observation checks in TEW. This is intended as a heads-up for GMs that may follow me: certain very useful clues in the second half of Book One have been made arbitrarily hard for the PCs to get their hands on, and you may want to scale that difficulty back.

Day 6, for example, has NPCs carrying specially-marked pistols that are basically a clue to the depth of how far the Black Cowl's reach extends. In case the PCs fail to kill or capture the NPCs, they provide a broken discarded pistol as a back-up clue. However, to find that back-up clue, you have to pass both a Hard (3d) and a Daunting (4d) difficulty Observation check. Once you find the discarded pistol, in order to grasp it's significance you must pass an Average (2d) Education check - and remember you're not allowed to roll Education unless you've Acquired it. This is at best ominous foreshadowing that the players can do nothing with/about. Finding it gives provides the rationale for why von Kaufman doesn't hire Averburg guards on Day 8, so you really want the PCs to find out about this. Why make them jump through so many hoops to get the clue? A character with Int 5, a fortune die or applicable specialization, and both skills trained, has about a 25% chance to succeed at all three rolls in succession. That seems a little silly. For my own campaign, I'm going to cut the difficulty on finding the camp, and make finding the pistol automatic if they get to the camp. There's a treasure box there, which as-written is an auto-find if you get to the camp. Since it's a monetary reward, not a plot-relevant clue, I may make that box be the hidden thing and have the 4-difficulty search check apply to it instead of the broken-pistol clue.

Day 9+: When the PCs actively trying to find Skrabb, finding his tracks when looking at the mudflats is a Hard (3d) Observation check (and I should mention that technically it's also got 2 misfortune from Skrabb's "Leave No Trace" ability, though there's no reminder about that in the text so its easy to miss). I get that finding these tracks too early could derail part of the plot, but this difficulty is in the post-Day-8 section, and is amusingly followed by the subsection titled "PCs Stuck?" The PCs wouldn't be stuck here if the module weren't making them roll 3 purple (plus 2 black) dice in order to get to the next plot point. They're in the right place, doing the right thing, at the right time, and they've still got at best a 50-50 shot at getting the clue. At this point in the story you want the PCs to be forming a mental picture of what's been going on, not feeling confused and frustrated. I'd consider making success here automatic, or at least reducing difficulty to 1 purple + 2 black (rolling at all just to pay lip-service to Skrabbs anti-tracking power).

IMHO, die rolls (especially high-difficulty rolls) should only be called for when the results of failure are interesting. In the cases sighted above, failure either slows the plot or goes entirely unnoticed, and there's no juicy chaos-star results to make it interesting or perilous. Therefore, the only point to rolling here is to make the player feel like their XP spends on Int + Observation were worth it… if they fail, you don't even get that.

Fair points. Gumshoe's approach to mysteries (through line will be found, issue is "bonus information" that avoids difficulties etc.) is a good thing for a GM to be exposed to.

The basic Let it Ride and "every roll counts" concepts of indie games also useful. One reason I like WFRP3's dice system is there are fewer chances of a roll that produces no change even if it's a bit of fatigue etc.

I use 3+ challenge die rolls for "bonus things" (you want to learn even more about the effigy etc.) and happily let players fail if they "take on more than they should expect at this point" (you with your 1 Rank in Education want to learn more than just recognizing what it is basically about a Old Ones artefact, sure roll the only question is if a sanity-blasting vision hits you that's all). A stat 4, 1 deep in stance, trained once PC has just over a 50% chance of making that roll without fortune points spent etc.

Conversely I don't make rolls be made at all at times if a PC has exactly the right question. Examine the fallen branches, roll Observation, specifically say you are looking to see if they were cut down and I tell you yes you can see marks of a blade on the branches. Much like in Gumshoe having the requisite skill to "look around the room and just see X automatically".

I do find some of the rolls etc. in adventure questionable (the points about Menagerie scene construction for example, I think made earlier in thread and in my rewrite moving many rolls to where success doens't mess up story), though not as many as some I suspect. I don't mind the bandit treasure being in a box where a roll is required to open it without damaging the treasure (the roll success means more money).

The key to me is that failure matters too. In a fight failure to inflict damage can mean "one more round of risking damage from foe" for example. A failed Stealth check for example alerting guards, leading to confrontation. One reason I put actions on a definite "clock" - okay that was your afternoon action, time marches on. In this case , handling these sorts of things is for the outcome of "found tracks" to be automatic but still make roll - success found handily, failure, it took till dusk, you slipped and are now suffering Filthy condition and have 1 Fatigue.

In my own "post theft" sessions I've been throwing clues at them left and right and it's just a question of "which one do you follow up" not "do you find them".

I follow the gumshoe idea that clues exist for players to find, plus I just love giving scenarios everything that they were meant to be. If the players don observe those things right away, I always attempt to work it into the plot somehow. I'll have a npc mention it, have an omen, a rumor or just flat out hint that they get a feeling to look or that they missed something.

imo, it's all about using the different dice roll.

2 boons + chaos star, tell the pc's they could likely sell the pistol to the garrison, for them to use some of it as spare parts, with accusations of theft follow it.

2 banes, let one of the pc's try to use the pistol and have the trigger lock on his thumb, then have Clothilde ask what happened to the poor lad, then she gives the clue.

Same works for the tracks, have a pc trip, lose his pouch in the mud, but see the tracks.

I'd never allow a dice roll to deny players important clues, but I will let them decide how they find the clues.

Here's a card I made. It's a Family sheet (similar to those in the Edge of Night adventure) for use with the Von Kaufmans from The Enemy Within campaign.

You can use the progress tracker on the bottom to chart the PCs relationship to Graf Friedrich von Kaufman, and it incorporates how much effort it takes to get invited to the Party. The benefits of patronage are also on the card, modeled off the patronage bonuses of similar cards for the von Holzenauer, von Saponatheim, and Aschaffenberg families in Edge of Night. For more information on how they work, see page 27 of that adventure.

Note that the card presented here is a tiny bit stronger than the averages in Edge of Night. I adjusted the monetary stipend upwards (from 20 to 30 silver per month) to match the rates the Graf throws cash at the PCs in Book One of the campaign. Also, there's 2 skills instead of just 1 getting the specialization bonus, but the specific specializations are less useful than, for example, the Fencing specialization granted by the Von Holzenhauers, so I hope it balances out. And really, how often are PCs going to train (or use) Animal Handling?

I may get around to making similar cards for the other factions and families in The Enemy Within, but von Kaufman seemed like the right place to start given the Templemann Exhibit party and the various employment opportunities via the Red Arrow offices. The easy parallel to the Edge of Night cards (which already had an invitation to a Ball and the Patronage model) made it a piece of cake.

The Reputation slot will be filled (at my table) with the "Well-Traveled" Reputation (gives a bonus on Charm, Education and Folklore where exotic locales are involved). It seemed like a good fit for Graf von Kaufman given his Coaching business and funding of explorers. Alternately, "More Money Than Sense" would also be a good choice… and if von Kaufman is the Black Cowl in your campaign you might consider something more sinister

I created these using the <a href=" http://www.vendolis.org/forum/index.php">Hurlanc</a> and <a href=" http://www.liberfanatica.net/Addenda.html">Liber Fanatica 7</a> extensions for <a href=" http://cgjennings.ca/eons/download/update.html">Strange Eons</a>, plus a bit of Photoshop.

Very cool. I was thinking at one point of creating "favour tracks" for the main three NPC's modeled on the Witch's Song favour tracks with the three factions there but didn't have time and have mostly been "keeping in my head and playing it out with them" (e..g, right now Kaufman is very impressed and pleased, Baerfaust is grudgingly admitting of competence but not personally pleased, Mauer regards them as co-operators in the "the truth" about Sk, aham, rat-men mutants but otherwise doesn't think much of them in the literal sense of "not important really").

Rob

Given infinite time and energy, I'd love to make similar sheets for Baerfaust, Mauer, and the von Alptraums at least. That way the PCs could better choose where they're putting their smoozing efforts and get more tangible rewards out of it. The benefits of patronage are kinda strong, so adding an opportunity cost (not getting to have some other NPC as a patron) would be a nice balance.

It's a fair amount of effort to make one of these sheets, though, so I don't know if I'll get around to making ones for the other potential patrons. Brainstorming the patronage benefits was the easy part. Strange Eons didn't quite have the right layout and I had to chop it up and move stuff around in photoshop.

Good work.

I've been going a step farther than this. I dug out the secret societies and assigned one to each player. In my resources binder then I have a tracker for when they progress along that.

Fop - secret society of religion haters

Priest of Morr - Doorkeepers (the guys who kill those on death's door and murder Shallyans)

Gambler - Bootstrappers (tired of being downtrodden? Join with the Count!)

Pistolier - …I forget…anyways, he's assigned to one as well.

As we go along, I just make marks in there to emphasize their progress.

Each one is SPLIT into "Good" and "Evil". For example: the good half of the Morrites is simply priestly achievement. The Gambler may get to know important merchants. The Fop, has access to knowledge and those other souls who don't realize that they teeter on the edge of having their souls sucked into the void

jh

I made a location card for the Tanneries using two different Strange Eons plug-ins and a hundred-year-old photo I found online.

Tanneries are a very foul and nasty place to visit, especially in the pre-modern era. First you've got your freshly butchered hides and skins. These need to be chemically treated in a variety of ways, such as by brining, as well as by soaking in acid. One of the more popular acids for this process, at least in the middle ages, was uric acid. The inside of a typical tannery of the era includes several large tubs or vats of stale urine. In addition, you might find solutions of feces and water, and/or brains and water. Honestly. Then there's the quicklime. It's a nasty caustic chemical that burns and dissolves flesh. It's highly reactive to water, but that's kinda the point. So there'll be a dry area for storing it, and quite possibly a vat full of fat-burning nastiness sitting in solution. And lastly, there's the dyes to color the leather, and whatever solvents are needed to keep those dyes in liquid state. The butchered hides are soaked in these disgusting solutions for days on end, in particular sequences based on the desired qualities of the leather.

These various stinky solutions are often stored in pits or ground-level tubs, because one part of the process involved stirring them up and beating them a bit, which was sometimes done by having your young apprentices climb into the poo-tank and stomp on them bare-footed. I am not making this stuff up, I swear. So a large part of the building is a maze or grid of narrow little walkways over and between pits full of stuff you really don't want to land in.

Between soakings, the hides may hang to dry, or sit in piles on the ground. They may be dusted with, or packed in, salt. Some forms of leather required smoking, so you may have a large firepit on the premises. If so, there's probably a large supply of "punky" (which is to say "rotting") wood on hand as well, because the best leather-curing smoke comes from slowly burning rotted wood.

All that nastiness is standard for a tannery that sees regular use. The one in TEW has been sitting "empty" and probably sealed up for a couple of weeks, just stewing.

Also, if anyone's interested, I used the following text to throw together a Rambrecht Delfholt flyer about the Skaven. Held it back till the PCs had already encountered them, of course. It's absolutely nutty, but matches what the scenario notes say Delfholt believes to be true about the ratmen. Laid it out and printed it off just like Valvorik's excellent Delfholt handbills.

"Our Double-Edged Swords
Every commoner looks to the armies of the Empire for protection from the rampaging hordes of foreigners and worse always pressing at our borders. Those armies should rightly be at the edges of the wilderness, defending us from the enemy without, but if those armies were stationed only on the frontiers, what unfortunate patriots would do the dirty work when a nobleman wanted to evict a loyal pauper, or put down a popular movement by way of bloody violence? Troops on the frontiers protect, but troops closer keep we brassy serfs downtrodden.

Oppression, Lies, and Taxation
To justify those local armies, the barons and their captains have invented a most terrifying boogieman. The rat with human hands, which lurks beneath our cities and can strike from our own sewers and catacombs. They pretend to hush and deny these very rodential rumours they have themselves started. They doth protest too much! These denials are but a show piece to sell the illusion that we are in constant peril and must be surrounded with jackbooted mercenaries. To pay for the armies of our oppression, they tax us into submission!

A Tragedy of Taxidermy
We are told of the tragedy of Nuln, the city that was supposedly beset by ratmen in 2499. Those who have seen the stuffed corpse of the so-called Ratman of Nuln can attest to it’s obvious fakery. A man-made monster composed by stitching the head of a giant rat on the body of a mundane beastman. The Guild of Taxidermists has a Guild-Hall in Nuln, and another in Altdorf. From whence didst The Horned Rat come? Not the sewers of Nuln, but the Imperial Court itself!"

I like that Tannery location card. I just finished the fight scene there (will post in next update to play reports) and would have liked to have had it in play.

Though it was a tough fight for my 5 PC's as it was - two were unconscious by end of it.

R_B - that pamphlet is brilliant - using it tonight!

Hi all,

Has anyone done any work into fleshing out some of the travel encounters?

I realise that they are predominantly just avenues to give PCs rumours/news, and the sense of danger on the road, but to me it seems a little dull to roll a test for travel followed by a combat or a quick social encounter. I'd quite like to have something just a little more involved, hence the plea for ideas…

Lookin at the first leg north I was thinking of putting together a little scenario based around some trappers rustling sheep from the farmers after local greenskins have made the woods unsafe and scared off lots of the wildlife. Thinking of linking it in with some of the trader encounters listed in the book (noticing the timber merchants also have a fair collection of sheepskins, as the PCs go north it gets noticeably colder etc).

Cheers.

I have created a multiple role version of the travel rule, based on One Ring, that has been my main thing. I created a more full 3 act encounter with Jade sceptre cultists to replace skaven near Wurtbad. I plan to select the cards for a couple of travel encounters and think about elaborating later this week. Otherwise I plan to alter the prophecy fortune telling to not reveal gender etc., add more improved outcome results to those encounters that lack them. A chance to get some healing herbs, draughts etc. would've good.

A brief heads-up for those running the Clothilde's carriage sequence on day 6. The PCs may figure out on Day 4 that the gunpowder is the important thing that went missing. If so, this may color their opinions of von Alptraum and von Kaufman's plan for Day 6.

At my table, for example, the Pistolier and the Battle-Scarred character both very quickly grokked to the missing gunpowder… it was on their radar the first time they went shopping, and later cemented by various clues (including one on a card). So when day 6 rolls around, and Clothilde wants to imperil herself by spreading word about the diamond on her finger and her carriage ride, they were very critical. My players immediately concluded this plan meant she and von Kaufman are both dumb-as-trolls. They repeatedly declared their belief that if she was going to be attacked, it would be by people with no connection to the Black Cowl or anything plot-related, and probably not anyone related to Red Arrow's previous troubles. A waste of their time, but they'd do it anyway for the money. "Worst. Plan. Ever." they said again and again. Our PCs now have barely-contained contempt for the major NPCs that they're supposed to be working for / trying to earn the favour of. Not such a great plot twist.

Then, when the carriage was stopped by the roadblock, but NOT attacked while it sat there ('cause per the scenario it gets attacked after it starts up again), those cries swapped to "Worst. Bandits. Ever." It was definitely a low point in the campaign thus far. Consider yourselves warned.

r_b_bergstrom said:

Seems to me your players are just very on the ball - though given that the Black Cowl is meant to be achieving a stranglehold on the city's underworld, speculating that the bandits could be working for anyone other than the Cowl seems a bit odd. By Day 6, everyone who isn't working for the Cowl are showing up dead, and every ounce of trouble the players are running into is related to the Cowl in some way (or the Skaven, but the players shouldn't know about that). One would have to be a very brave bandit to attack a well publicized target when it is common knowledge in the underworld what happens to those not following the Cowl.

I found my players engaged with the Curd Weiss stuff a lot better than the Docks - excluding the material I added myself (I took the above advice about adding a lieutenant into the mix), the Docks seemed to do nothing but frustrate my players and left them feeling like they've missed clues (which they did a little - nobody picked up on the weather patterns despite a few less than subtle hints).

I too had a table where the weather pattern/deaths was not used - Players noted a possibility there among many ideas floating around but pursued other channels. A "well-built" rpg mystery has lots of "entries to the solution" and I think this one does that job - they find out this way or that etc.

The Players having that thought-out-theory about black powder etc. is cool. I would have had Graf von Kaufman point out that he has had more shipments than just blackpowder ones interfered with. Though the black powder always being hit is getting suspicious (he will reveal his growing suspicion of a leak in the Averburg), he wishes it was indeed only those shipments the bandits attack. On premise they are greedy, the plan with Chlotilde makes sense. "Overweaning ambition and greed beyond what is necessary - that is the down fall of many a villain" , says the Graf has he twirls his moustache.

valvorik said:

Had their statements been in-character and directed to NPCs, that would have been a possibility. "Worst. Noun. Ever." is a Simpsons reference, not something one says in the Warhammer world.

They didn't start saying it until well after they were alone on a carriage with Clothilde, anyway. Though they mostly held their tongues, they were still generally contemptuous and disrespectful of the Gravin, disregarded her instructions and made **** sure the bandits knew the carriage was guarded by a Bright Wizard.

The most logical consequence of their actions should be no more jobs or contact from von Kaufman or von Alptraum… but that'd be pretty much the end of the campaign as-written, so a little creativity is in order. I'm on top of it.

I like how Valvorik expanded the Menagerie social section. There were 4 "mini encounters" where each PC could go off and do his own thing. It came down to more than just one roll and not everyone was moving in a herd.

I'd like to do something like this for the travels. A bit of boxed text, some player choice on how to proceed, and a roll or two.

Assist in the comfort of passengers

Bury the dead nearby

Sheep rustlers (like no 12 mentions)

Coachman getting bored and not paying attention (keep his eyes on the road) and helping him avoid ruts, bumps, stumps, etc.

Watch the horses for lameness at stops

Carriage repair

Choice to run off into the woods for guaranteed food (wounded deer shot by the blunderbuss) or hope that somethign else comes along

Music for a guest on the road

Morale or the telling of a good tale

Keeping two people from fighting (maybe the coachman and a guest)

"listen..there's that sound again"

Playing a game on the road

A chance to repair equipment or clothing

etc.