Hello fellow GMs,

since a long time has passed since our latest session I am considering a "cut" in the story. I am thinking about having my players "wake up" in a penal- or slave-legion. They have to find out how they ended up there (drugs? Magic? ...?) and have to do some missions until they find out how to escape or start a mutiny or such. This gives me the opportunity to get away with story-amnesia (I tried to implement a system where every player has to write short essay about the last adventure, but my players never followed it through...)

So, any ideas, story-hooks or such on the matter?

Here is one idea. The PCs find themselves in a monastery-asylum in a remote location (a mountain, an island, Border Princes etc.). They do not remember their names or who they were. They have a slight recollection of the other PCs, like they know these persons from somewhere - just can't remember where. Different tasks and dilemmas reveal to them some of the abilities that they have. For example, a warrior might realise he is very good with an axe while he is chopping wood.

What has happened to them then? They have been captured by Cultists of Malal who have invaded the asylum and use the inmates in worshiping their foul god. The cult magus used a ritual to steal the identities and names of the characters and stored them in small hourglasses (or pieces of vellum, or small wooden carvings etc.) that must be destroyed to get back their identities. More on Malal see the excellent The Cult of the Possessed by Lauri Maijala.

To save themselves from this fugue state the PCs have to ally themselves with some of the inmates (exiled sons of minor Noble families, mutants, other people like them etc.). They might have to deal with some, violent, inmates. Because of the influence of Malal most of the inmates are lucid half of the time and in a strange dreamlike state the other half. The PCs must find maybe three or four different things they need in order to dispel the ritual cast on them and then escape. The missions could take place in the strange dreamstate/Malal's realm (little bit like in the movie Sucker Punch ).

Here are the basics from my "Pit Fighter Prison" campaign which I used as a starter for TEW. Remember, prisoners have NOTHING but a loin cloth to cover their privates and you decide how they are equipped during each fight. This gives good roleplaying opportunities with the Pit-Fighter Master. Also, doing "good" (ie killing people) should be rewarded with a tasty meal, wine and maybe some time with ladies (who pay to hang out with pit-fighters). These ladies could be used to pass information to the outside and back inside.

1) Group imprisoned for something ridiculous (pre-game story...in their case it was selling a coat to a bright wizard accused of being associated to the ruinous powers)

2) Fight each other in the pit. Work with the players to come up with "the scenario" for the pit fight. For example our 3 players did a "2 panzy elves vs. 1 armored knight" scenario but all of them were human (assume they can find a clown outfit that the crowd will believe is a panzy elf). The roleplaying of "faking it" becomes fun as hopefully your players don't actually want to kill/injure each other. When attacking "to subdue" I treated chaos stars as a critical. Win the crowd!

3) Fight as a group against other humanoids (I used fish/rat gangs in TEW, but use whatever fits your campaign). Again the players have to decide whether to "fake fight" or actually run through the gimped opponents (we had a lively argument over this as one player offered no quarter...asking for quarter is a controversial subject among gladiators it can make you friends and enemies). At the end of this fight one of the players (either a noble or an awesome fighter etc) will see someone in the crowd in the front row they recognize. This person will beckon them and tell them their release is being arranged.

4) Fight as a group against 2-3 ogres. Do they dare offer quarter to Ogres!?!?! Big friend opportunity...but this surely fails without a severely wounded ogre, a high fellowship/intimidate and a winning smile.

???) Stealth opportunity - sneaking into Proximo's office (if a player scavenged some make shift tools from the arena floor; 2d check for a couple locks, lots of stealth checks). The Pit-Fighter Master (Proximo) has a contract in his office showing him purchasing a troll from a breeder. Troll breeding is of course illegal. Also, the breeding/sale of trolls might be tolerated in the area if the proper authorities have been bribed but in this case they haven't. This knowledge is a way for the players to get the operation shut down and be released if the information is passed to the noble /awesome fighter contact (from #3).

5) If they offered quarter to the humanoids, one of them should be able to get them "something from the outside" to help them. In our case, it was a pistol that a crowd member would toss into the arena during the epic fight for freedom (see below). Surely your broke players with nothing will want something...

6) The player's whose release "is being arranged" is called into the office of the Pit-Fighter Master (I called him Proximo). The Pit-Fighter Master feeds the player a brilliant meal with wine and then asks him how he feels about his imprisoned friends. The Pit-Fighter Master is trying to trick the player into signing an agreement to stay in pit-fighter prison for "an epic dual for freedom for him and all his friends." The player can of course refuse this and then be free. Our player signed onto the epic fight for freedom and we had a good laugh as most people can't write so he had to make his "shield mark" as a signature.

7) Epic fight for freedom vs a Troll and 1-2 ogres. Maybe one or both of the ogres are friendly? Maybe a player has arranged a pistol (from #5)? Maybe the agitator (either a PC or a befriended humanoid NPC) riles up the crowd for a pitch invasion that allows the group to escape?

8) Depending on how things went, the PCs might have lots of friends (humanoids, an ogre) and lots of enemies (proximo, the breeder, relatives of killed humanoids etc.).

The silence before you strike and the noise after...rises up...like a storm...as if you were the thunder god himself

Wow, thanks for the elaborate input!

I am thinking on combining the two. making the Malal-Cult's activity the start and somehow have the players end as pitfighters afterwards. Have to ponder on how a bit more. Maybe the get rescued only to find themselves in the frying pan. So I have both aspects: memory-loss/-inacuracy and the option to break with some loose ends and have the world turn while the heroes are finding out their abilities and how to get out of the slave-masters grip.

Maybe a familiar face in one of the crowds makes them remember things and they want to get out. Or an old adversary (they have lots of those...) tries to get rid of them when he/she realizes their state...

I like it!

If you're using that cult, you might find this very interesting: http://dailyempire.guildredemund.net/?s=malal&submit=Search

Hah, just saw "Black Death" and will incorporate that also. Off to my gaming session! (Have to wing it a bit today, but with all your input, I am hopeful for a cool evening...!)

Good luck! Let us know how it went.

So, here is what I did:

We only had 4h of playing time (our usual amount), so not much developed:

- I started the players in cells with strangers and memory-loss. They did remember the world and their race and basic things, but nothing about their past, their name or such.

- Bit by bit they recalled things through trigger-stimuli, like reflex-moves (special actions) in a fight or words used or similar situations to those in the past.

- I had every character interact with the other prisoners first, a special challenge being only one lump of bread an one tankard of water served by the "jailor/slave-master-minion" to see who is fit for fights in the arena and to build up some tension.

(Players Rank 4)

The Sigmar-priest was in a cell with a female ogre, who he managed to talk to his side and thus remembering bit by bit through holy texts he remembered when trying to persuade her to part with a crumb of bread - future love story considered... :-)

The Wood-Elf (all around fighter/sniper) was in a cell with a dwarf and 2 humans. He let them fight over the bread and snatched the tankard, which he gulped down and used as a weapon to knock out the dwarf and hold the humans at bay.

Our Dwarf-Thane took over the role as a leader and shared the bread and water evenly with the 3 humans in his cell and was on good terms with them.

Our Dwarf-"Healer" found himself in a cell with a halfling and two humans and had to knock out the hungry hobbit to share the bread and knock down another human. But afterwards he cared for their wounds and thus earned their trust. (This player had to leave early and took not part in the rest)

By this time they also remembered a kind of feast as the last memory they had before a long blackout (more to come in the future - see suggested cult-activity by d6EvilMen - working this backwards)

Then they were told to stage a good show for future benefits (my group is not one to question such things - they just do like they are told most of the time and always look for the next big fight...)

I had them fight against their fellow inmates and let the not-playing PCs play the NPCs and flesh them out a bit on their own - borrowed concept from a different rpg - can't remember (Living cities? Fate?).

I had them try special moves with black dice to win the crowd (only the slave master and some guards) and counted their success (comtes got extra points, crits, etc.)

Went quite well, all characters were well suited to this task. The Sigmar-priest had a bit of a struggle between being reasonably fair to the ogress and his disgust for her eating the killed gladiators in the arena. He went with full sigmarite might and anger... thus now the ogress is kind of angry with him - well he could not kill her and she made some cool moves, so both lived.

I then had a Shallyan Anti-Nurgle-Combat-Squad pick the heroes (and the ogress and another human, who fought well) for a special task, offering each to his own likes (religious fame, food, ancient elvish longbow, gold, ...) and making some kind of "blood-pact" to bind them to this. Will see how it goes further. I did a thing where the yhad to cut open their hands and do a handshake with the shallyan warrior-priest, which healed afterwards (I am not that firm on the background in that area, but my players aren't either...). Will let that bleed again, if they stray from the shallyan path.

My plan is to somehow let them raid the exact village, where the players were drugged. Not sure how I will interweave the Cult of the Possessed and Nurgle. Have to think a bit more in that line till the next session. Thing is, I go with what my coffee-hyped mind comes up with shortly before a session. The thought of a shallyan Anti-Nurgle-Squad somehow came to my mind to not have the many times used Sigmar-witchhunter.

Well so far for now!