Zelda and Daedalus dodge the librarian and run at Gregor screaming and try to grapple him over the side of the roof; one of them will try and smother his mouth at the same time with a fist, pommel, head butt..

Is this perform a stunt? Do we combine our Strength/Agility to push him over the side? and what is the difficulty?

Let's do a couple checks for this one:

(1d) Coordination or Athletics check (this is a maneuver, so it doesn't eat up your action) to get past the Librarian-intent-on-stopping-you. If you fail, you'll still get by, but he may get an attack on one of you. I made the difficulty (1d) b/c both of you are going.

(1d) Terror check b/c of the materializing daemon between you and Gregor.

Lastly, we'll wing this one with grapple (and add an effect or two as necessary):

Daedalus makes his Agility check to dodge the libarian: 1 reckless, 1 characteristic, i challenge: Result:1 success , 1 chaos (ohh crap!)

Terror check: 1 challenge, 2 characteristic,1 reckless: Result: 3 success, 2 banes

Second Agility check to grapple: 1 reckless, 1 characteristic, 2 misfortune, 1 fortune (if there is one?) Result: wow; 4 success

Zelda next: Agility to dodge: 2 conservative, 1 characteriestic,1 challenge: Result: 2 boons

Terror check: 2 conservative, 1 challenge: Result: 2 success, 1 delay, 1 boon

Athletics check to grapple: 2 con, 2 char, 2 misfortune: 1 success, 1 boon

Hope I got all those right?

((Despite my better judgement, I'm quickcasting again...))

With his last attempt not enough, Diedrich focuses and channels once more. Though it worked sort of awkwardly last time, he decides to cover the rest of the cultists in a blur of shadows.

Channel (Now at 7 power)

Rolled: 4 Characteristic, 1 Fortune, 1 Challenge Result: 2 Successes, 1 Boon

Pool of Shadows

Rolled: 5 Characteristic, 1 Fortune, 2 Challenge Result: 2 Successes

The pool forms, surrounding the cultists in darkness.

Zelda and Daedelus manage to dodge past the chanters and the manifesting daemon to tackle Gregor Piersson. You clap a hand over his mouth and smash him into the nearby chimney and have him teetering on the edge whilst his mouth-hand attempts to attack you! He suffers 3 more wounds from the successful reckless grapple.

He will attack Zelda using Profane Rights (his hand chews a bizarre pattern into your flesh):

Rolled: 1 Characteristic, 2 Conservative, 1 Expertise, 2 Fortune, 2 Challenge, 3 Misfortune
Result: 1 Success, 3 Boons

*(He inflicts 7 damage with pierce 2; you also have to draw an insanity as detailed below)

The others continue their chants but pull daggers and hustle over to you, but are unable to attack right now. The image of the daemon waivers a bit.

If you wish to throw Gregor over the edge, now that you hold him, it is a (2d + 1 black +1 white) Athletics check by whichever of you is stronger.

What would you like to do?

The gor rampages up the stairs towards Diedrich. Diedrich, you go before the Gor. What would you like to do?

Stealth roll

Rolled: 2 Characteristic, 1 Challenge, 1 Misfortune

Result: 1 Success, 1 Boon

Does Bertoldt see me? If not then I'm going to attempt to get behind him and knock him out with the hammer, otherwise I will try and convince him to release Sonja.

He does not spot you peeking into the room. YES, you succeed in getting behind him. Make a basic attack with 2 bonus white dice.

For now, Diedrich will attempt to put some distance between himself and the Gor.

For now, Diedrich will attempt to put some distance between himself and the Gor.

Why do I suddenly have the music from the Benny Hill show stuck in my head?

@Diedrich: You practically shoot out of the hole onto the roof and are suddenly surrounded by chanting cultists wielding curved, evil-looking daggers. The gor charges up the stair, but his massive horns catch in the exit to the roof, smashing and crunching the exit.

You have a moment to decide what to do. Zelda and Daedelus have pressed Gregor to the edge of the roof, but he is resisting being thrown over (for the moment).

A daemon is being summoned between the cultists over the top of a blood-smeared painting. You can hear ungor crawling up the walls on the vines towards the roof.

Thunder rumbles in the clouds overhead...

One of the cultists stabs at you with Melee Strike:

Rolled: 2 Characteristic, 1 Conservative, 1 Expertise, 1 Fortune, 1 Challenge, 3 Misfortune
Result: 1 Success, 1 Bane, 1 Comet

Effect: The cook cuts you deep and she revels in the blood, smearing it across her own neck with her other hand. The daemon flickers again inside the circle. SUFFER 8 wounds and draw one critical.

What would you like to do now?

All players - it's your turns.

Ok, lets see if I can construct this dice pool correctly. If not I can always reroll it. I'm going to spend my last fortune point on this roll, I need it to succceed!

1 Challenge (base) + 2 Characterstic dice (strength) + 2 Fortune dice(modifier you told me to use) + 1 Fortune die (for the hammer) + 1 Fortune die (for the one I spent) + 2 Misfortune dice (poisoning) + 1 misfortune die (defense)

Basic attack

Rolled: 2 Characteristic, 4 Fortune, 1 Challenge, 3 Misfortune

Result: 1 Success, 1 Bane

You conk him on the head pretty good. He painfully backs off from Sister Sonja in surprise towards a corner. Suddenly Kordren the dwarf jumps him, knocking him to the ground. The dwarf sees red and starts speaking in tongues. He repeatedly, and in complete madness, pummels the gardner to a bloody pulp with his bare hands. You hear a terrible smacking and wet crunching sound and it is over. There is blood and brain spatter over the dwarfs face and dripping from his beard. He then turns to look at you and sees you have his hammer.

The dwarf is going to need some calming down. It is a (2d + 1 black) appropriate social check (or appropriate blessing).

What would you like to do?

a one, a two, a one two three: Zelda and Daedalus attempt to launch Gregor off the roof: Roled: 1 black, 1 white,2 challenge, 1 characteristic, 3 conservative: Result: 2 success, (2 boons cancelled 1 chaos?)

I think they have a free manauver left over so will turn around and prepare to face down the other cultists......

Heave-ho! Off the roof goes Gregor, but his chaos hand grabs the sleeve of Daedalus and yanks him with, leaving both dangling off the edge. Gregor laughs and hisses as he shakes violently at your sleeve trying to take you with him. Daedalus, you are barely clinging to the ledge, when suddenly an ungor comes climbing around the corner. It grabs a hold of Gregor and climbs up him and you over the ledge. Gregor takes a hoof to the face and attempts a (2d) athletics to cling to you.

Rolled: 3 Characteristic, 1 Conservative, 2 Challenge
Result: 1 Challenge, 1 Delay

Gregor slips, sliding down further, and then finally his grasp is lost. He screams and curses at you all the way to the ground. SPLAT! Then he is mutilated by a gor's axe..who then looks up at you. He points skyward, and 2 more ungor scale the vines around the house.

Zelda, you finish wiping your hands of Gregor and turn to check on Daedalus..but he isn't there. AN UNGOR IS THERE.

Two more ungor climb over the ledge. The gor, comes out of the secret crawlspace. The cultists start to break their chant and the daemon image waivers. The Gor marches right past stabbing daggers of the cultist, past you all. He grabs the bloody painting and hops over the edge to climb down with his prize. The three ungor block his escape.

The daemon image disappears and the cultists stand in horror and rush the 3 ungor with their daggers

What would you all like to do?

Well since the Ungors, Gors and cultists all seem to be occupied with fighting over the painting; no sense in spoiling the party; Zelda will help pull Daedalus back over the edge and the 2 will attempt a quick exit through the crawl space hopefully using the strange shadows that Diedrich created to creep out un-noticed? If that way is blocked they will attempt to climb down the ivy.

I'm going to use Soothing voice. Is it still 2d + 1 black die, or would I used the roll written on soothing voice (1d)?

Diedrich pauses, and gulps. He stays patient and thinks about what to do next.

Assess the Situation.

Rolled: 5 Characteristic Result: 3 Successes

@ Hanna: yes, just the difficulty on the action (1d).

[edit: I'm automatically giving you a success and doing a wrap-up in the next post]

The beastmen quickly down the cultists and make off with the painting. A warhorn sounds and the remaining beastmen inside the walls and manor retreat deep into the forest with their chaos artifact.

Meanwhile, down in the hospice, Hanna is facing off with the insane dwarf, Kordren Kurgansson. She succeeds in performing a calming blessing, effectively making him lucid (he is no longer in a state of madness). He immediately runs to Sister Sonja to see if she is ok. Other members of the staff lie unconscious from an apparent drugging..Schlaf, is what Kordren says the Doctor called it. He grows it in the herb garden. Kordren is extremely grateful for the assistance and grants you his hammer. He deems himself no longer fit to use it. If you choose not to keep it, he indicates that he wishes you would take it to his brother at Black Fire Pass...that is another tale.

All seems silent inside the manor house. Lord Aschaffenberg is finally awakes and notices muddy hoofprints dotting the carpet. A dripped bloodstain is near the pillow, but it is not his blood. The warhorn must have pulled his executioner away just in time...

Lord Aschaffenberg is shocked to learn that there was a Chaos

cult within the manor and will be very grateful to the PCs for exposing
it and wiping out the heretics. However, he is now responsible
for making repairs to the estate and caring for his staff out of
his own pocket; still, he will be as generous to the PCs as he can. He

pays them the remainder of their fee: six silver schillings for today’s
work and covers any expenses they incurred, within reason. He
also allows them to keep any of the mundane tools, items, or arms
they acquired within the manor grounds.

He will write them letters of introduction to other nobles
or the heads of guilds living in Ubersreik and Altdorf. Aschaffenberg
is even be willing to put in a good word with the von Bruner
family, who may be able to provide the PCs with employment or
have other mysteries that the PCs could try to solve.

The PCs may also have earned themselves some enemies. Some
members of the Unblinking Eye (several of the staff) have escaped detection or
fled from a fight into the Reikwald Forest. Lord Aschaffenberg proposes to
hire the PCs to hunt down members of his renegade staff so he
can bring them to justice...

THE END

Any questions or comments about the running of this scenario?

Jay H

Jay; thanks for running this. It's been really useful for me, has taught me some tricks of the trade and made me think about ways of running my own games. I am going to worry less about the fine detail of which dice when and more about atmosphere and pace (and let the layers correct me if it bothers them)

I am just starting this off again with a new group (new to the game and RPGs) and have put in a lot more prep such as the clue cards I found on this site somewhere and using the advice you posted yourself elsewhere. It's great to have this sort of support from the community and Fantasy Flight Games should award you with Official Mentor Status or something.

I shall be posting a few questions over the coming months; not so much about rules but about how others organise their bits and pieces, what they have swapped out and changed etc. I have got rid of those card boxes for characters and replaced them with plastic pouches, replaced the little tokens with more clearly coloured beads and am thinking of making a magnetic board onto which will go the party sheet and all the other tracks and in game record keeping. Oh and I have created a character sheet with bigger, bolder boxes, clearer text and far less intrusive background artwork.

Thanks again,

David

Thanks for running this, it was a lot of fun! I feel that I have a pretty good grasp of the basic mechanics now (and a good idea of how magic/invocations work). This has also given me some ideas on how to run games for all systems (such as giving ideas for actions to take). I should get a chance to run through this same scenario with my group within the next month or two and see how they like the game!

So I've been reading through the scenario in the book, and this will probably be the first WFRP game I'll host for my friends. There's one thing that does kinda both me, and feels like it seems for a poor choice to have in a scenario that's supposed to be for new GM's and players alike, and that's the amount of NPC's in the Lodge itself. For GM's who were new and played this scenario early on, didn't it feel like a hassle to implement all the NPC's? How did you handle this during the session? Did you use a cheat sheet with their names, health and possible Chaos affiliations on it? Or did you drop a few NPC's and thus reduced the amount of staff on the premises?

It's not bad. I copy the list of NPC's and stick it on my GM screen.

I then made another list to hand to the players (without listing who is a cultist). You don't have to use all the NPCs, especially inconsequential house staff. The NPCs out in the yard and at the front gate are a must and obviously the major ones in the house.

Several of the house staff can be used as red herrings..make them do stuff that makes the PCs follow them around to nowhere: someone goes outside to smoke, complain about another staff member's relationship or laziness.

Recall that the staff are busy running around, and past the PCs, and don't have the time to sit and be quizzed by the PCs (and the manor owner knows it). They may blow off PCs' questions or give "ask me later" type answers. I've found that the Cook not liking lazy people loitering about the kitchen is a good thing..put them to work..and send them into the basement to get root vegetables and whatnot

Do your best to break up the group of player characters.

Anyways, having the list handy with some rough details helps a lot. Roll with it Here's the list: http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/95698-new-gms-how-to-gm-walk-through-of-eye-for-an-eye-play-by-post-new-gms-join-us-spoilers/?p=940684

[edit: one more thought: having a LOT of NPCs is much better than too few. When you have a situation like "The Gathering Storm" where there are too few NPCs, the players can pretty much figure things out before they even get started.]

jh