Complete medieval Russian OB

[Walsingham]

http://www.xenophon-mil.org/rushistory/battles/ivanbook.htm

 

Fascinating and extensive resource on medieval Russian armies, including enough background social whatnot to make running a campaign in the era quite plausible.

[melkathi]

Some of that may be nice for a Kislev warhammer campaign...

[Walsingham]

Some of that may be nice for a Kislev warhammer campaign...

 

Yeah that's what I was thinking. My current campaign looks like the incopmetent buffoons may have to run for their lives, and you can't much further away than Kislev!

[melkathi]

A small frontier settlement in northern Kislev is just the thing. It's small enough to give every npc a name and personality. The chaos wastes spit out diverse enough creatures to keep things interesting and the diverse, corrupting nature of chaos can cause other things to happen.

 

Or: if it worked for the hero Konrad, it can work for the PCs

[Walsingham]

Well, I guess. But what would the story be?

[melkathi]

Oh, you just had to go and ask the difficult questions...

But even if they just hire on as guards at a mine or some harsh prison camp, as long as they have a reason to be there, you can come up with things happening.

[Walsingham]

Oh, you just had to go and ask the difficult questions...

But even if they just hire on as guards at a mine or some harsh prison camp, as long as they have a reason to be there, you can come up with things happening.

 

Well...

 

...Actually I can't say what they've been up to so far because there would be spoilers.

[Nonek]

A long time ago in a university far, far away me and the chaps were playing in a Kislev campaign, the GM mixed roleplay with battle rules and had us overseeing (read banished by the Ice Queen) a small keep on the border with troll country known as Grimwall. Finally our bloodletting gained the notice of a champion of chaos, who promptly gathered his warband, rode up to our walls and challenged us to mortal combat. We obligingly shot the dastard full of crossbow bolts, they didn't do the trick, his armour blessed by Khorne made him invulnerable to all weapons forged by man.

 

So laughing boy rides back north and we breathed a sigh of relief, until a massive horde of beastmen arrive with our friend Morngrang the Destroyer (yes rather cliche but he's Khornish, not known for originality) and his warband at their head. Siege, very gritty and barbaric ensued. Well long story short, with the Oblast empty of reinforcements, rats growing scarce and the taste of our own urine growing a touch galling we resorted to desperate measures. Set our dwarven sapper to making a tunnel we could escape through, and sod the enlisted men.

 

He found something. In the dark of the catacombs under the keep slumbered an ancient bane, a long slumbering evil, which awoke and offered us power in exchange for freedom from its tomb. Don't know exactly what the thing was, but our Bright Wizard told us that there were symbols of binding specific to Malal, the mad chaos god who hates and opposes all his brethren. We weighed up our options and were informed that the dwarf had found an old escape passage that he could clear in a day, we scarpered, bidding goodbye to our colleagues and the bound thing in the crypt.

 

Back in Praag, scraping a living as mercenaries and keeping our heads down we are intrigued by a glorious entry to the city. The brave men of Grimwall keep are riding into the city in triumph, having thrown back a massive chaos horde, at their head a lowly sargeant who strangled Morngrang the Destroyer to death with his bare hands, a man whose eyes gibber with madness and search the crowd. The GM had simply had the men go looking for us and finding the thing (and not knowing of the secret passage,) succumb to its temptations. We were in the crux of a most thorny dilemna, admitting our guilt would place our heads on the block, keeping quiet would let this abomination enjoy promotion and be empowered in its search for us.

 

It ended back at Grimwall, but there were many machinations and pleasing turns before we finally burnt that keep to the ground, with the aid of a most zealous Witch Hunter named Pursuivant and the sacrifice of our Bright Wizard Helmut von Bomm.

 

Always thought this was a great little campaign idea, pleasingly fluid, wish it had had a touch more of those slavic influences however. Good luck anyway.