Hi guys.

Some of you might remember me. I was quite active on these forums about a year ago. But after having the main GM (I was basically reserve GM for when he was away) move on to other RPGs and the gaming group not playing over the summer, I lost contact with WFRP. But now I’m back to brush up on my rules knowledge, get the creative juices flowing and continue my Norsca campaign. We had our first session in a long while yesterday and finished what I had roughly planned so far, so I’m looking for some ideas as to where to take the story from here.

The characters are all Norse from the Graeling tribe. I use my own set of house rules to make Norse characters. The party consists of:

A Hunter, ex-Scout (good AG and INT, good for ranged attacks survival)

A Marauder, ex Reaver (Uses axe and shield. A total tank who’s also good at sailing)

A Berserker, ex Marauder (Uses two axes. Most problems are solved with an axe or Intimidate)

None of them have Fellowship above 3, so social challenges tend to have… amusing outcomes J

In our first adventure campaign this happened:

The party traveled to a shrine of Tzeentch deep within the forest where they sacrificed a bunch of thralls to discover how to save their village from a dragon.

They lead the defense of their village against a beastman army.

They climbed the mountain, navigated the ruins of a giant city while avoiding the dragon hunting them.

Reached the heroes tomb and returned his sword, which activated the spell to trap the dragon.

The new adventure has gone as follows:

The party is escorting the son of the old jarl to Bjarkoy, to swear fealty to King Garm. While King Garm is away on a large raid to the south, dark elves double-cross him and raid Bjarkoy. The party manages to round up a crew of townspeople and set after the dark elves in a boat.

When they catch up with the dark elves near a fog-covered island, a huge fight starts where the norse ship is set on fire and almost everyone on both sides fall.

Then a Black Ark appears from the mist and sinks the boat!

The party manages to climb up on some wreckage and paddle towards the island by the cover of night.

So. The situation now is:

The Berserker and the young jarl is unconscious.

The Berserker has a crushed hand (no more dual-wielding for him for a while).

The Reaver has a gouged eye.

The Hunter is hurt bad.

They’re all freezing and soaked.

They have no equipment or food other than their clothes and weapons.

They are drifting towards a large island with sparse vegetation and the only settlement is on the other side of the island (Whatever is left of it. It is doubtful the dark elves have left it alone.)

Behind them is a Black Ark and its fleet of ships who probably haven’t seen them.. yet. Although the dark elves might consider the party beneath their notice.

My original plan was to have the party be taken as slaves on the Black Ark, but they kept rolling so well they actually managed to avoid it. And since I had not really made any concrete plans as to what would happen after they became slaves I let them escape to the island.

As you can see from this short summary, I’m going for a bit of an over-the-top flavor to my adventures. Although I am at the same time trying to kill them constantly. With environmental hazards as well as enemies. The group is just tough enough to survive (although barely) everything I have thrown at them. My plan is to bring them further and further along the path of chaos worship until they are mutated warriors of Tzeentch.

Thoughts on what should happen next session? The last session was very combat-heavy so I think I might ease off the pressure a bit and give them social or environmental challenges.

Ok - so party is now in a island? And they need to get out of there?

How about rescue, but this is done by another tribe. Bjornlings have no mercy for Graelings, but maybe Varg or Aesling ship? There is always troubles with different tribes, its just matter how much trouble This would make nice social challenges. Maybe throw over eager Chaos Champion or Vitki among the rescuers.

And where is the ship going? This could be some perilous journey to the lair of some beast. You could throw sailing challenges, then overland travel, mountaineering...etc.

By the way - Have you checked all the WFRP3 stuff I have made for the Norse (and other northern marauders) - http://kalevalahammer.webs.com/ruleexpansions.htm

Oh yeah. We mailed a bit back and forth about rules for Norse back when we were both working on our own house rules for them. Good to see you're still active At the moment my players are in the start of their second career, so I will take a look at what rules I will use onwards once they're ready for their next career. I use a modified version of Gitzmans excellent charactersheets, so I do not really need to print out career sheets.

I will probably be using your Cold and Hypothermic cards though. The "Freezing" card from the game did not at all have the punch I needed for swimming in the icy seas of Norsca.

After thinking a bit about it, I've used last session trying to kill the characters through combat. Maybe I'll spend the next trying to kill them with Stress and Fatigue? The Black Ark will probably move off towards the Graeling lands and northwards, raiding as it goes. Leaving the characters on an island with almost no resources. The characters might meet some survivors from the village. Or they might just find the grisly remains of the dark elves amusing themselves with the villagers.

In addition, they are charged with protecting their villages future jarl. He's unconcious and possibly critically injured. It might be a devestating blow to the parys morale if he died. (Which might be the basis for their next adventure: completing an impossible quest to atone for their failure.)

Something else I've been mulling over, is introducing some kind of religious conflict. The Bjornlings are more "civilized" and have trade relations with the Empire. Perhaps a movement in the Empire is trying to convert the Norscans to a purer Ulric and Taal worship? Sending missionaries as well as military support? What if King Garms raiding party runs into an Imperial navy ship?

I din't get too many responses to this, but oh well. I mostly just needed to write it down to get it straight in my head. For anyone interested, this is what I have come up with so far:

The characters will have to do a bunch of difficult checks to get onto the island and build a fire.

The next morning, Vemund (the jarls heir they are escorting) will not have woken up and will have developed a life-threatening fever from his wounds and hypothermia.

The party finds a few survivors from the village who are hiding from a group of dark elf nobles who are amusing themselves with a hunt for the remaining humans on the island.

The villagers will lead them to the former village vitki who has been driven half mad from seeing her village and family killed or taken by the dark elves.

The party will manage to convince her to help them cure Vemund and help her to gather the components she needs for her ritual. The most important of these being a humanoid sacrifice.

The party manages to capture a dark elf, which the vitki sacrifices in a demonic ritual. The result of the ritual is that Vemund is healed, but also posessed by a deamon under the vitkis control (or so she thinks).

The vitkis goal all along was not to cure Vemund, but to avenge her village. And with the party and their deamon-posessed charge as her tools, she intends to sink the Black Ark.