Spoileriffic companion to the WHFRP blog

[Walsingham]

Right, chaps. As you should have read, the PCs have just been offerred a competing offer by the matriarch of the household of Gorthoba. She is offering them plentyo f gold to be 'captives', rather than set guards over them which she astutely guesses they will only escape from, kill, or both.

 

I want ideas for things for them to do in the city. These can be deliberate missions or complications to the missions.

 

Remember we have Matxin, the patriarch, who is involved in ambitious plans to form a new and effective military and take over the entire peninsula for the aim of reinforcing the beleagured empire farther East, using new gunpowder weapons. We also have a cult of chaos cultists who are exploiting the idle/desperate rich to generally mix everything up and keep the ineffective Prince of the city in power as long as possible. Then you have various Araby slave traders, southern barbarians, Tilean pirates and so on.

 

You also have the background timeline running which is that as soon as the snows properly melt and the tunnels near the dwarfhold drain then a Goblin army is going to pour out. Matxin's forces and alliances are the only credible way this army could possibly be stopped in the field, although the major cities will likely resist it.

 

Missions I have planned so far are

 

1. Investigation of a warehouse in the artisan docks area which wil turn out to be full of gunpowder and harquebuses. A pretty standard sneak and peek, with options for looting highly useful kit and possible exploding an entire section of the city.

 

In fact how they behave on this will have massive implications for the military balance of power, and if they do too much damage they may be consigning Matxin's plans to the dustbin with potentially horrific results.

 

2. The eldest daughter of the family is being pursued by a young man. A callow but dashing blade. Their brief will be to keep him away from her, but they will eventually observe him being kidnapped. This is because he turned to a bruja [chaos witch] in the swamps for a love philtre, and the disgusting beesom has fallen in love with him and detailed a nearby coven to seize him and bring him to her, where she will use the philtre ON him instead of FOR him. The plan here is to have the players retracing his footsteps around teh city, getting into all sorts of odd corners before finally establishing his destination in the swamp.

 

Pretty much any shenanigans could occur here.

 

Possible complications I have include an escaped anaurocj. A terrifying beast which would need them to think quite creatively to kill.

[Gorth]

for spicing up your warehouse quest a bit, what about a Clan Eshin agent, Squeek the Fox (Guy Fawkes just doesn't sound right for a Skaven) trying to blow up the Magrittan council hall with stolen barrels of gunpowder?

 

As you said, the outcome could affect the balance of pow(d)er

 

Edit What year according to the Imperial Calendar are things taking place? Just wondering if any Bretonnian groups of armour clad hot heads Knights Errant are passing by on the regularly scheduled errantry wars.

[Walsingham]

I like the idea of skavens digging their way in. I think such a plot could complicate matters substantially.

 

Thoughts:

 

What happens if you mix warpstone with gunpowder?

 

What if the players try to tunnel in and accidentally tunnnel into the skaven tunnels?

 

How many skevn would be involved and what are they armed with? How many more are out there? Are the skaven running out of a ship in the wharf rather than tunnels? That could be quite cool.

 

Is there some way I can have a Magrittan bull even the odds for our plucky idiots? I mean adventurers?

[Gorth]

I like the idea of skavens digging their way in. I think such a plot could complicate matters substantially.

 

Thoughts:

 

What happens if you mix warpstone with gunpowder?

 

What if the players try to tunnel in and accidentally tunnnel into the skaven tunnels?

 

How many skevn would be involved and what are they armed with? How many more are out there? Are the skaven running out of a ship in the wharf rather than tunnels? That could be quite cool.

 

Is there some way I can have a Magrittan bull even the odds for our plucky idiots? I mean adventurers?

Well warpstone is in itself highly explosive. Think RDX plus other explosives. Generally speaking, Skaven constructs and guns are powered by warpstone, but it is prohibitively expensive in slaves and favours, so black powder may be an acceptable alternative for Clan Eshin operatives doing field work (i.e. work with what you've got). Of course, it could trigger tunnel fighting scenarios that would make M.C. weep tears of joy. They are also known to bribe humans as a means to an end, usually playing political factions against each other. I don't know much about Estalia, since it isn't covered in either the wargame or the usual fluff (paperback novels), but if it is anything like The Empire, there will be layers inside layers of plots, pitting the interest of The Underempire versus various Chaos cults, vying for power and the means to bring down the human establishment.

[Walsingham]

I get the notion of tunnel fighting, and obviously the dwarf makes sense. But we've already had some good tunnel fighting, and are likely to have more later. I'd rather have this bit above ground.

 

Something to keep in mind is that from the little fluff available the kingdom of Estalia is upposed to be a dusty but generally congenial place. It's not terribly powerful, and isn't on the way anywhere else. So it tends to get overlooked as being too much trouble to conquer. But they're still pretty active, so the corruption is quite mild by comparison.

 

I want this campaign arc to be quite light, with most bad guys being pretty thick monsters. Even the Matxin, who is pretty bloody annoying as an antagonist is actually on the good guys' side. Once/if the players get bedded into their characters THEN I can have them travel North and get more corruption in their faces.

[Gorth]

Maybe not exactly adventure/quest material, but stuff that makes for nice tavern gossip in a harbour town, rumours of ghost ships (with zombie crew and all), a plague ship sailing into the harbour, having to avoid press gangs recruiting "volunteers" for the next expedition to Lustria (unlike the 17 previous lost expeditions, the investors are convinced this one is destined to return a fortune), mutineers, the threat of Barbarossas fleet, save the prostitute, the beer has been sabotaged/gone bad, whatever

[Tigranes]

The escaped anaurocj seems interesting enough to merit securing a place as the third option, actually. Potentially it could happen at the worst moment during (1) or (2), i.e. the chaos threatens to wipe out the evidence leading to the kidnapper.

 

(1) is also probably a good way to give the players a nice bit of loot, something not too powerful but unusual enough to feel special.

[Walsingham]

Can anyone suggest any stats for the anaurocj?

 

I'm thinking Weapon Skill 40, strength 6, toughness 6, wounds 60.

 

Keep in mind that - off the top of my head - on average the players will be causing an expected 1 wound a turn with hand weapons. While the beast will be causing an expected 5 or 6. And the players have 16 between them. [damage is strength, minus target toughness and armour, plus d6; taken off wounds]

 

If I put initiative at 35, or can plausibly explain why it's that low (lights, fire, drugs or something) then that will at least give the players a means of getting their actions in first, and out 'dancing' it. But they are going to have to do something clever to kill it, realistically.

[Gorth]

What is the nature of the beast (so to speak)?

 

Bipedal? Quadrupedal? For some reason, I keep thinking a warped and twisted, oversized bull. Is it immune to people waving a red cloth in front of it? This is Estalia after all

[Walsingham]

I made anaourocj up for this game, so I guess they can be anything I like. However, the basic model is a bull type of creature, about the size of a small elephant (only wider and with stronger shoulders), with at least some horns, and a discoloured pelt of warp hues, stretched over a clossal array of muscle.

 

Anaurocj are pretty wily, if they attain any great age. They can differentiate between humans - hence the feuds with certain auroceda - and discern a great deal from smell. If they had any sort of means of manipulating tools they would probably be considered smarter than trolls. And if they had any aspirations besides rutting and eating they might be more widely spread than ogres.

 

Anaurocj are not in fact related to minotaurs. The former are animal mutations. The latter are human mutations (probably).

 

For obvious reasons anaurocj are sacred to Slaanesh.

[Gfted1]

I made anaourocj up for this game...

 

 

Thank god you said that, it was really bugging me that I couldnt find that term on Google.

[Walsingham]

OK. Meanwhile, what do you think this cult is up to? How many sections are there? Who are the key motivators?

 

I like to have things driven by character rather than organisation. Because characters can be described to the players.

[Tigranes]

I don't know the stats for this ruleset, but I'd imagine you'd want it to be strong enough that the players would want to look for creative and extraordinary solutions, and not so strong that they'd simply hightail it without thought.

 

Perhaps the information about the anaurocj you just gave us, plus perhaps a persosnal quirk of this one that can be used to their advantage, can be nestled somewhere for them to find. Or perhaps it's too complicating.

[Walsingham]

Well, let's think about it logically. If the palyers themselves don't have sufficient strength to harm the animal then they will have to exploit some other source. This could be:

 

1. External military

2. Chemical potential energy, like fire or gunpowder

3. Physical potential energy, like a collapsing building

4. The animal's potential energy, at the charge, say

5. Try to focus their available energy into a single point, preferably the brain or heart or something. maybe a ship's mast as a extra large boar-spear.

[Gorth]

Dig a hole in the ground, fill it with stakes and dangle a virgin in front of it?

 

Well, you said the beast was sacred slaanesh

 

Couldn't they trick the cultists into dealing with it for them? Nutcases going to retrieve the "holy cow" of their religion. It would be a mighty accomplishment for a cultist leader hoping to advance the ladder (completely unauthorised by the demagogue of course).

[Walsingham]

I was thinking along those lines. Maybe they're trying to set a number of them free. Th eplayers show up to face a young one, rather than the older one.

 

Perhaps for comedy purposes the militia could shoot the older one to death with mass cannon fire as it goes past the Carcera, heading West. then many locals can go into mourning.