Rogues' Gallery

I have had a couple of requests for the non-player-character portraits I mentioned in my post about running Fantasy Flight's version of The Enemy Within so here are the pieces I drew for my game.

The Enemy Within II - NPC Portraits (600kb)

Each piece was drawn at about 10cm by 15cm and scanned at 300dpi. Aside from Robertus von Oppenheim and Olaf "One-Eye" these are all based on existing pieces of art in the Enemy Within II boxed set and are not of my own devising. I present them here as an aid for players of the campaign and I claim no ownership over them; in the case of Oppenheim and Olaf, I donate them to the community.

The Enemy Revisited

I was asked about Fantasy Flight Games' version of The Enemy Within on G+ a few days ago and I remembered that I was going to write a post about my experiences of running the campaign but never got around to it. This is me getting around to it. Sorry.

If you're going to play the campaign do not read on as there will be spoilers. I mean it; there's a central mystery at the heart of the plot and it will be ruined if you know about it, so bog off if you're a player. Go and read Goblin Punch or something.

Game Masters, read on.

It's Not What You Think It Is

The Enemy Within II is not a remake of the original campaign, nor does it have much to do with the earlier adventures. To be fair this is explained in the introduction, but Fantasy Flight could have done a better job of advertising the fact -- it's the question I get asked most often -- although then the title would come across as an exploitative cash-in and we wouldn't want that, would we?

The new campaign does share some ideas-- it concerns a conspiracy to undermine the Empire -- and some locations with the earlier version, and the cult of the Purple Hand makes a cameo appearance, but otherwise it has no real connection with the original. It is set about twenty years later but also follows the timeline of the wargame and I'm sure there is a message board somewhere about how canon has been violated one way or another.

The campaign is written for the third edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay but is light on actual game mechanics so is easy enough to convert to another version of the game, or even an unrelated system. I noticed that beneath all the cards and funky dice a WFRP3 character is not that different to a WFRP2 character and I posted my conversion notes -- and they are little more than notes, because it's that easy! -- here.

That said, I did bump up the Black Hood's statistics a tad as he was a bit weak for a villainous mastermind. I regret nothing.

This Is a Bit Familiar

It's not a remake of the original campaign but neither is everything brand new. I was out of gaming for most of the life span of WFRP2 so I'm not familiar with everything released for it but I did notice that a fair bit of Ashes of Middenheim is reused -- sometimes amended, sometimes verbatim -- and I wouldn't be surprised if other stuff is recycled too; you may need to work on those parts if you have players familiar with the earlier material.

Rogues' Gallery

There are lots of non-player-characters in The Enemy Within II and a key part of the campaign is keeping track of who everyone is, where they are, and what they're doing. I don't mean for the GM either -- although it is important that the GM knows all this stuff -- because it's the player-characters who are going to have to pursue the Black Hood and counter her or his schemes.

In my first draft of this post I wrote that character portraits would be "handy" but I think "essential" is more apt. The campaign comes with character cards -- it is for WFRP3 after all -- but I thought these would be difficult to see at a distance so I created some larger images -- see left -- based on the original art and pinned them to my GM screen. I can make the images available if there's interest.

The Black Hood

This villain is behind most of the obstacles the player-characters will face and the mystery of her or his true identity is one of the key threads in the campaign. The writers introduce three key NPCs who could be the Hood -- and each of the NPCs plays a major role even if they aren't the villain -- and provide plenty of advice on how to modify the plot to fit the GM's choice of blackguard; there are even some brief notes on how to use some different NPCs in the role if the main three don't appeal.

The book also suggests that the GM doesn't choose the identity of the Black Hood until later on, so that the players don't guess too early. I think this is a little unfair -- ogrish even -- and I suggest choosing before the campaign begins and sticking to that choice; all that said I did ponder the possibility of two of the NPCs working together -- spoilers for Scream there, sorry -- and there's no reason why all three couldn't be in on it! I also considered using one of the NPCs as the villain and have one of the others also turn to evil but have no connection to the conspiracy, as a sort of double-bluff.

When I ran the campaign there were enough suspicious NPCs -- it helps that the Skaven all scurry about in black cloaks -- that the player-characters were never sure who the Black Hood was until the end, although their first guess turned out to be correct.

In the Beginning

The WFRP3 background mechanic is not used in earlier editions but if you are playing the campaign with an older version of the game I suggest making use of the cards -- it is WFRP3 after all -- to tie the player-characters into the plot and to each other. It can be difficult to get the player-characters involved at first and the suggested backgrounds help give them reasons to do so.

On that subject, the player-characters don't get drawn into the main plot of the campaign until a couple of game days have passed and so you may need to give the players a nudge to get them to stay in Averheim -- the starting location -- until then. You could also skip those first few days and jump right in but I think there's enough good material in there that it would be a shame to lose it; if nothing else the player-characters have a chance to build relationships that add depth to later events.

Whatever you decide, it's worth paying close attention to the start of the campaign and working out good reasons for the player-characters to hang around the Averheim docks looking for missing vagrants.

Bonus Content and Deleted Scenes

The campaign is structured much like Neverwinter Nights -- for those old enough to remember it -- in that most of the action is confined to three locations and there's not much in the way of connecting detail. You do get what are more or less random encounter tables -- converted to WFRP2 here --but that's it. You could just skip straight to the next location but my group was in no rush to finish the campaign so I put some effort into expanding the in-between bits.

If I had more time I would have come up with a secondary campaign that would play out in the gaps in the main plot but as it was I came up with a number of self-contained bits and bobs:

The barrow wights were used to give the player-characters something to do on the way to Middenheim and also introduced a plot element that came into play later on but wasn't explored in full; I hope more will come of it if and when we reconvene for the sequel.

The campaign has the player-characters stop in Delberz for a night on their way to Altdorf but as written nothing much happens, so I expanded a line from the WFRP2 supplement Sigmar's Heirs about unsolved killings in the town into a fullish adventure.

Also on the way to Altdorf the players-characters have a chance of running into a river troll. I wanted more than just a fight with a monster so I created the village of Mistheim and gave the player-characters a reason to stop and explore. I kept the river troll anyway because it seemed like fun.

The Beast of Krankendorf was my invention; there are a few lines in the book about a monster attacking the village but no further details are given; I can't decide if this "plot seed" is half-arsed or inspirational but I took it as the latter.

Some of the central plot points are light on specifics too; in Middenheim, the player-characters will be asked to go and obtain some ingredients for an important ritual and the campaign as written only gives brief notes on what could happen so it's worth fleshing this part out in advance. I added giants and beastmen in an attempt to make it a bit more interesting than a simple fetch quest.

As you can see there is plenty of room to add extra opportunities for adventure but there's also a bit of flab here and there and I did prune some of the text. I cut out three quarters of the -- optional -- fourth chapter of the campaign as it seemed a bit much to visit areas devoted to each of the four Chaos gods and then to play through four similar "are we in an illusion or are we home?" episodes on the return journey. Instead I skipped straight to the flying tower of Tzeentch and only put the player-characters through the illusion once; they almost fell for it too.

The players also missed a major subplot in Middenheim and as a result an innocent man was executed and a Chaos cult prospered, but I believe that player choices should matter, even if it means a major plot is skipped or a campaign finishes earlier than it should.

That's a Big Un

It took my group about six months of weekly three-hour sessions to run through the campaign. There were a number of gaps in which we missed a session for one reason or another or played a different game that week, so it was probably closer to four months. As mentioned above I expanded the campaign in a number of spots so if played as written I reckon it would take my lot about three months -- or twelve three-hour sessions -- to play from start to finish; even if you don't put in any extra work you'll get your money's worth from the adventure. Unless you stole it.

The Enemy Concluded

There you go. That's my briefish guide to running The Enemy Within II: Enemy Withiner. We had good fun with it and it's probably the most successful campaign I've run, even if it's not as good as the original; that said, it does have a better ending. I hope it's been helpful; if anyone has any further questions then post them in the comments and I'll do my best to answer them.

The Enemy Complete

Last time the party uncovered the true identity of the Black Hood, the nefarious conspirator who had been causing all sorts of trouble across the Empire, revealing him to be Marcus Baerfaust, war hero and captain of the Averheim Greatswords regiment. Baerfaust claimed to be a hero of the common man, and that his goal was to eject the corrupt aristocracy and put a more democratic system in place; the player-characters decided this was all bobbins and killed him, or would have if some weird blue energy squid hadn't sucked Baerfaust into a magical portal first.

The portal was still open, explained the somewhat erratic wizard Konrad Mauer, and would remain so while Baerfaust remained alive on the other side. The player-characters' mission was to enter the portal, find Baerfaust, and either bring him back or kill him; it was also explained that if any of the party were left behind then the same problem would occur and the same solutions would apply. This did not fill them with enthusiasm.

Luminary Mauer gave them an enchanted gem that would transport the party back to Altdorf when their mission was complete and Friedrich von Kaufman sent along one of his employees, a mysterious halfling who called himself "Harry the Tinker". Mauer used his magic to widen the portal to allow the player-characters to step through and for an agonising moment they felt like they were being pulled in all directions at once. Then with a flash of light they tumbled out on to the cold stone floor of a parapet part of the way up the side of a strange castle constructed from a silverish metal and stones of every colour; a quick peek over the edge revealed that the castle was flying high above a wasteland of jagged black rocks. It appeared that they were no longer in the Empire.

The castle's interior was even stranger, a knot of staircases and passageways that twisted and turned in impossible angles in no way at all like Jareth's castle in Labyrinth. As they fought off vertigo and searched for Baerfaust they found a prison cell containing a blue-haired man who claimed to know them -- thinking he was Tzeentch himself in disguise they left him to rot -- and got trapped for a while in an infinite library in which Harry was attacked by flying books and was told off by a spectral librarian nothing at all like the one from Ghostbusters.

After a good deal more wandering but with fewer 1980's film references the party heard an unsettling mix of agonised screaming and high-pitched giggling; the source of the odd cacophony was a small and windowless stone room in which a group of the horrific pink daemons the party had faced in the temple of Sigmar seemed to be operating on or torturing -- or both -- Marcus Baerfaust, slicing parts of his flesh away, reshaping them, then reattaching them to his squirming, screaming form.

The daemons did not last long against a liberal application of steel and spell but Baerfaust's predicament was more of a puzzle. It seemed that he could not be killed while chained to the crude operating table -- Harry tested this by setting fire to the good captain -- but Magnar was reluctant to free him, suspecting that he would prove to be a threat if they did so. As they pondered the problem the castle exploded.

The player-characters woke to find themselves floating in a blue void, surrounded by the remains of the castle also hanging in space. Nearby was Marcus Baerfaust, freed from his bonds but unconscious, but before anyone could grab him an inhuman and deafening screech filled the party with dread and a huge winged form swooped down amongst them.

I don't have a Lord of Change miniature -- and at £36 I'm not going to be buying one! -- and for some reason Fantasy Flight neglected to include a cardboard figure in the campaign box, even though there's one for Ludwig Schwarzhelm and he plays no significant part in the campaign. So I made my own. Yeah, DIY D&D! Except Warhammer. Or something.

The party thought they had no chance against the greater daemon of Tzeentch so attempted to gather around Magnar -- who held the magic gem they needed to return home in one hand and had the other around Baerfaust's neck -- but the lack of gravity made even the most basic of movements tricky, let alone a panicked rout in the face of superior opposition. Somehow they managed to all tumble into more or less the right space, all except their faithful friend Poddo the halfling surgeon. He was dazed and immobile some distance away with the daemon between him and the party; unwilling to risk leaving the portal open with a the Lord of Change on the other side, Aelric the elven mutant elven wizard unleashed a lightning bolt -- boosted in power due to their location -- and the loyal retainer exploded into wet bloody chunks.

Magnar activated the gem and the party were whisked back to Altdorf before they could be pecked to death by a giant vulture monster. They arrived to a hero's welcome as the cheering crowd carried them to the palace of the Emperor, where they discovered that his condition had deteriorated and he was near death; Mauer and von Kaufman suggested that one of the party end the Emperor's suffering and take control of the government. They promised the support and resources of the nobility and the wizards and Aelric and Magnar were almost swayed by the offer but some in the party had suspicions that all was not as it seemed; Aelric concentrated for a moment, saw magic all around them, and concluded that they were trapped in some sort of illusion.

With that realisation, Tzeentch's final trick was revealed and the party were transported once more to Altdorf, this time the real thing as far as they could tell. Magnar executed Baerfaust before any more eldritch shenanigans could occur and while no adoring crowd greeted the returning heroes this time, a couple of Sigmarite priests ushered them towards the Emperor's palace. This version of Karl Franz was as well as could be expected for a man who had been at death's door a week or so before but he was strong enough to receive the player-characters' reports on what they had seen and done. Pleased with their efforts the Emperor rewarded them with wealth and titles -- and for Magnar a promise to put in a personal word on the disgraced dwarf's behalf with the dwarven holds -- and made them an offer. Theodosius von Tuchtenhagen had been killed in the incident at the temple of Sigmar and so there was a vacancy in the ranks of the nobility; how would Aelric like to be the lord of Black Fire Pass?

So ended The Enemy Within II: The Secret of the Ooze. It took a while for the campaign to get going but I think we all had fun with it, and a big part of that is because Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is a great game; if you ever get the chance to play it then grab it with every hand you have. I think we will return to it soon -- as the last paragraph above suggests, I have some ideas for a follow-up -- but for now we'll take a bit of a rest from WFRP and celebrate finishing another campaign. Expect some more WFRP content here before the sequel happens, as I am planning a post about the campaign as a whole and my experiences of running it using the wrong ruleset.

Oh, and there was cake, because what's the end of a campaign without cake?

For Whom the Bell Tolls (Aelric Shadowstar, Apparently)

We're almost at the end of The Enemy Within II: Lost in New York so here's an update on the party.

Rudiger Adler, by this time having moved on to vampire hunting as a career, despite the lack of vampires in Altdorf.

Drandruel, the wood elf warrior who seems to have triple-backflipped out of a wuxia film.

Magnar, a lump of steel with a dwarf inside. Somewhere.

Aelric Shadowstar, high elf mutant wizard.

Thorek the Mighty, suicidal slayer looking for a daemon of note to kill.

Having filled themselves with tea and toast at the town house of Gravin Clothilde von Alptraum the party rushed to the temple of Sigmar where despite the early hour a large crowd had already gathered to watch the great and the good of the Empire arrive for the service; Aelric's fine robes and decorative face mask drew some speculation that he was Balthasar Gelt, the supreme patriarch of the colleges of magic.

As it turned out Gelt had arrived earlier, along with a number of other luminaries, including, er, Luminary Mauer, Friedrich von Kaufman, and more than a few of the Empire's Elector Counts, the nobles who held the power to decide the identity of the next Emperor. I cannot imagine why the players thought that some sort of dramatic event might occur at the service.

Colthilde von Alptraum did arrive, and Captain Marcus Baerfaust also seemed to be absent, although some of his Averheim Greatswords were in attendance in full dress uniform. Before the player-characters could get too suspicious, a couple of them spotted the witch hunter Adele Ketzenblum in the crowd and tried to push their way through the assembled nobility to reach her; Drandruel found herself face to face with some sort of Sigmarite zealot, all wrapped in chains and little iron prayer boxes, showing clear signs of attempted self-immolation, and who seemed keen that everyone should REPENT OR DIE, while the rest of the party got tied up talking to a pleasant but somewhat doddery priestess of Shallya. By the time they could get away Ketzenblum -- if it was her -- had disappeared.

The service began and so the player-characters had to choose between taking their seats -- near the back of the temple with the other less important guests -- or making a scene; they chose the former and sat on their hands, eager to burst into action, as the Grand Theogonist -- Volkmar the Grim, also an Elector -- began his long and pious sermon. At the appointed time the temple's great bell rang but instead of the expected clear peal the sound was a sickening warped rumble, a sound that forced people to their knees, clutching their hands to their ears as their balance failed and their stomachs emptied.

The odd zealot Drandruel had met earlier sprinted down the central aisle of the temple, spewing blue and purple smoke as he ran and soon he, the great altar, and the Theogenist were all lost in a noxious cloud. As the bell continued to ring the player-characters leaped into action but found the panicking crowd an obstacle; worse, the zealot's tiny prayer boxes flew out of the smoke and disgorged their impossible contents, a stream of bright pink daemons of the sort the party had seen before.

A desperate running battle followed as the player-characters fought their way through the daemons in an attempt to reach the bell tower, a task made more difficult as the bell's ringing filled some of them with terror and sent them fleeing in the opposite direction. Rudiger was first to the tower and discovered a group of soldiers in the belfry, accompanied by a scarred woman and a figure clad in dark robes and an ebony mask; the Black Hood himself!

Rudiger decided to wait for backup and soon Drandruel and Magnar arrived to even the odds a little. Thorek and Aelric remained below, unable to pull free of the daemonic mêlée; the bell's ringing had an odd effect on the elf's mutant physiology and with each tolling his body warped and changed until he became some sort of tentacled giant, as terrifying as any of the daemons he was fighting. As the former elf staggered up the stairs to the belfry where some sort of magic shielded his companions from the bell's effects, one final peal twisted his body and he hunched over in agony. When Aelric stood once more he found that he had been returned to his former (s)elf, with all mutations gone.

Thorek was not as lucky. Swarmed by daemons and all out of Fate Points the dwarf's, er, fate was inevitable and he was torn to pieces by the giggling, dancing things. All agreed that it was what he would have wanted.

Up in the belfry the surviving members of the party confronted the Black Hood, who was revealed as Marcus Baerfaust. The soldier's attempt to win the party over with his grand scheme to destroy the nobility and bring democracy and to the Empire failed to convince them and they charged him and his minions. They managed to halt the ringing of the bell before it shook the temple to bits but Baerfaust was a little more resilient, his impressive combat abilities boosted by some sort of unseen magic. In the end he too fell but before he could be captured a hole appeared in the air and blue tendrils of energy dragged him screaming into some other realm.

The player-characters were heroes!



There were some casualties in the temple below but the movers and shakers of the Imperial political system had all survived so the dread spectre of democracy was beaten back once more. The player-characters were rewarded with big bags of cash and free room and board in the apartments attached to the Imperial Palace, and the Emperor Karl Franz himself, much recovered now that Baerfaust's influence was gone, met them in person to thank them for their great deeds.

Everyone lived happily ever after.

Oh. No. Wait.

A week later, von Kaufman and Luminary Mauer met the player-characters in secret and told them that the portal in the belfry was not quite as closed as everyone thought and that the Empire needed some brave heroes to go through and bring Baerfaust back, dead or alive.

Bloody Chunks of Frazzled Thugs (or, Never Trust a Tilean With a Spider)

(You'd best make a cup of tea; this is a long one, as the actress said to the bishop.)

It was a hot and foggy morning in the Imperial capital as the player-characters set out to clear their backlog of tasks and jobs. Keen as they were to keep in Clothilde von Alptraum's good books they went to the Temple of Drama first to investigate the cancellation of the play that Clothilde was so eager to see. It turned out that the company was missing both a vital prop and their lead man; the former was a giant spider, and that little fact suggested a possible reason for the latter's disappearance. The player-characters ran into Carlo Spinezzi, a furtive and jealous understudy, and convinced -- they are getting quite good at threatening people -- him to admit that he had murdered the lead actor Nikolai di Fortessi and had freed the spider as a cover.

The spider was found stuffed into a box -- and quite angry -- in a store room beneath the theatre; also discovered were three barrels of gunpowder, enough to flatten half the building. Spinezzi claimed to know nothing about the explosives and while the player-characters were certain that the goal was to kill Clothilde they couldn't work out how cancelling the play, er, played into that. Still, they had the matter of a kidnapped elf to investigate and it was almost time for lunch so they took the gunpowder -- as "evidence" -- and dragged Spinezzi to the local watch house.

On the way back they spotted Frederick Grosz ambling down the street towards them, oblivious to their presence. This was notable not only because Grosz was supposed to be in Nuln but also that he'd been named on the Mysterious Note™ that had tipped them off about the kidnapping; they were convinced of his complicity when he spotted them and then legged it down an alley. Even with a couple of stumpy dwarves in the party Grosz couldn't outrun the player-characters and soon they began persuading him -- see above -- to tell them what he'd been up to since they last saw him.

(In hindsight this encounter looks a little too convenient but it was a genuine coincidence; this section of the adventure is based on a strict timeline and had the player-characters taken a little longer at the theatre or watch house they would have missed Grosz and their chance to rescue the kidnapped elf.)

Grosz revealed that he had been working for the Black Hood -- shock, gasp, etcetera -- and that he had indeed organised the kidnap of Eothlir. His associates were lurking on a riverboat named the Restless Spirit waiting for Grosz to return; they had been told to take Eothlir to Carroburg and wait for further instructions from the Hood. Grosz could give no clues as to the Hood's identity as the mysterious villain had been clad in, er, a black hood, but he did tell them where he'd met the Hood-- an establishment known as the Holy Hammer of Sigmar -- and promised to take the party to the Restless Spirit.

An unusual and brutal fight then followed as everyone got into a bit of a scrum around the boat's small cabin door and Aelric tossed lightning bolts into the tiny space behind; soon the cabin was packed full of bloody chunks of frazzled thugs and a small number of terrified survivors, all of whom were keen to surrender as soon as possible. Also present was Eothlir, tied and gagged in a corner and staring in wide-eyed terror at Aelric, whose head was engulfed in eldritch flame once more.

More persuasion -- see above -- followed as Magnar and Aelric were convinced that Eothlir knew why he had been kidnapped and that Grosz knew who the Black Hood really was and that both were being evasive on purpose. Neither belief turned out to be accurate and Grosz's cooperation was rewarded with a trip to the bottom of the river; there was some debate over whether the elf should also take a swim -- something something something dark side something something something complete -- but in the end he was allowed to live. As he hopped off the boat, Eothlir mentioned that he had an appointment with Friedrich von Kaufman to discuss an expedition to the Southlands that he had sponsored; as a long-forgotten plotline screeched into view the player-characters blinked at each other for a moment then pursued him to find out more.

The elf had been the captain on the voyage to the Southlands that had resulted in the discovery of -- among other things -- the jade mask that had later been stolen by skaven and melted down to make the tainted bell clapper that had been causing so much trouble. Eothlir thought there was something dodgy about the mask and wanted to warn von Kaufman of the danger; with their two major tasks for the morning completed the player-characters decided to accompany the elf to his meeting.

Along the way they couldn't help but notice a commotion at the theatre. Upon investigation it transpired that the performance had gone ahead as a result of their efforts earlier in the day but during the play Clothilde von Alptraum had been stabbed by two assailants, employees of the theatre company; the Gravin had survived and was recovering at her town house and the would-be murderers were in custody at the watch house.

Somehow the player-characters managed to convince the guards that they had the right to see the prisoners and recognised them as two members of support staff for the Tilean actors. After more persuasion -- see above -- the player-characters not only had confirmation that the Hood wanted Clothilde dead -- the stabbing was improvised after the discovery of the gunpowder scuppered the original plan -- but that the Hood was indeed based at the Holy Hammer of Sigmar. They were rather more surprised to discover that the Hood was -- according to the failed assassins anyway -- a woman, information that if true threw all their theories of the villain's identity out the window.

Upon meeting with von Kaufman at last they learned nothing new about the mask -- indeed, it was the noble who learned the most as they'd been too paranoid to tell him about the skaven and the bell clapper back in Averheim -- but they did note that von Kaufman had done very well out of the recent war with the Chaos marauders and that he had become a bit of a rising star in Altdorf; as such he was due to attend a special service at the temple of Sigmar the next day alongside a number of other muckety-mucks, and he invited the player-characters to attend as his guests. The players know a set piece encounter when they see one so the characters were enthusiastic in their agreement.

They also took the opportunity to report back to an exhausted Marcus Baerfaust on their less-than-successful mission to find out what Adele Ketzenblum knew about the Black Hood, and then visited an addled Konrad Mauer to deliver the purified bell clapper and report the death of his friend Robertus von Oppenheim; both Averlanders seemed worse for wear as a result of their duties at the ailing Emperor's bedside and neither seemed to relish being the heroes of the day.

Having done their rounds of the prominent non-player-characters and being no closer to pinning down the Black Hood's identity -- frontrunners at this point were Baerfaust, von Apltraum, and Ketzenblum -- the party decided to investigate the Holy Hammer of Sigmar and see if they could catch the Hood. Waiting until nightfall -- and with the Chaos moon Morrslieb high and full in the sky -- they gained entry to the insalubrious establishment but found that the Hood and his or her henchmen had scarpered earlier in the day leaving behind no clues other than a forgotten piece of plate armour of good quality. The staff were persuaded -- see above -- to reveal that a woman with a scar on her face had left in the company of a number of burly, militaristic-looking men that afternoon. Could this scarred woman have been the Hood?

The next day the party rose early and went to visit Clothilde von Alptraum. While weak she was pleased to see them and didn't seem to mind when they insisted on examining each of her maids and servants for scars. As the breakfast meeting came to a close, the Gravin expressed her intention to recover enough to attend the service at the temple of Sigmar later that day, causing a suspicious Rudiger to proclaim upon leaving the town house that "If she doesn't turn up, then she's clearly the Hood, and we should kill her."

Bear With Us

The party tried to shake the sleep from their heads as the mysterious black-clad figure mistimed its jump and landed with a stomach-churning crunch on the cobbled street below. Whatever was beneath that ragged black cloak did not rise again.

The two dwarves noted with some alarm that both the box containing the now purified bell clapper was missing. Peering down the street they espied a group of small, agile creatures lit from behind by a dull green glow that seemed somehow familiar, and behind that something larger and altogether more ominous lurking in the shadows.

What followed was a mad scramble as the party split up and engaged the mysterious enemies who -- of course -- turned out to be the dreaded rat men they'd encountered back in Averheim. Magnar and Rudiger sprinted downstairs while Aelric and Drandruel took up positions by the open window to provide covering fire. Thorek... well Thorek attempted to emulate Drandruel's wuxia antics from the last time they'd run into the skaven and leaped out the window to engage the four-armed mutant that had given him so much trouble before he'd become a giant slayer, only to fluff the manoeuvre and land hard on his face, shattering a number of his giant slaying teeth.

Poddo Bayleaf, the party's halfling surgeon, slept through the whole thing.

Rudiger fell to his knees clutching his side after an encounter with a gutter runner's poisoned blade and was a skaven's whisker from needing to spend a Fate Point to survive the battle, while Thorek again took a beating. Even though the elves were doing a good job of picking off ratty snipers -- Aelric's lightning bolts in particular proving to be quite destructive once again -- things were not looking so good on the ground as the strain of the party's long and difficult journey from Middenheim began to take its toll.

As such it was a bit of a surprise when the skaven sorcerer threw the bell clapper to the ground in apparent disgust and vanished in a puff of acrid green smoke; although his minions held their nerve for a while longer, with their leader gone the fight turned against them. Scooping up the clapper and the two boxes, the party returned to the Red Empress inn and settled in for a few days of solid bed rest; Poddo earned his share of the party's takings over those few days, and no mistake.

After a while, the party dragged themselves out of their beds and went to visit Rudolf Bruer, the head of the village -- on their way passing a number of villagers commenting on the unusual lightning storms of the night before -- to ask about the monster they'd heard about on their first day in the hamlet. He offered them twenty gold crowns if they could bring back the head of the Beast of Krankendorf and as greedy opportunists public-spirited individuals they agreed to plunder the hamlet's coffers save the good people of the village from the hellish thing.

First they attempted to find out more about the creature and tracked down a number of witnesses, none of whom could quite agree on what the beast looked like; it seemed that the player-characters were looking for something that had wings, horns, one or more glowing eyes, and flew around on a cloud. A search of the settlement revealed that there were large, monstrous tracks outside the village wall and none within the boundary, but the damage to the wall seemed to have come from the opposite direction. Puzzling over these contradictory clues, the party retired to the Red Empress and spent the rest of the day there planning their hunt.

Magnar and Poddo took the first watch that night and were soon alerted to cries of alarm from near the wall. A bank of thick fog enveloped the land just outside the wall and in that cloud there was a bright orange glow, like a single fiery eye; Aelric let off another lightning blast at the eye, prompting a furious roar from somewhere in the mist. The party pursued and found themselves picking with care through treacherous marshland; not enough care it seemed, as both Magnar and Rudiger fell into deep waters, the latter almost drowning after a number of ineffectual rescue attempts from his companions.

Wet, cold, and tired they were as they came to firmer ground and a small clearing filled with the eerie mist. Something roared and before they knew it the party were in hand-to-hand combat with some winged, spiked beast but they also seemed to be the target of some hidden archers. After a brief scuffle, Aelric once again split the air asunder with a bolt of magical lightning, severing the head of the creature, and sending the archers running off into the marsh. Close inspection of the monster revealed it to be a bear clad in spiked armour with wings made of wood and leather; the mist was in fact smoke issuing from a pair of censers attached to the armour and the poor animal seemed to have been drugged. One of the archers was captured and dragged back to the clearing and explained that the whole thing was a scam and that he would have got away with it if weren't for those damned adventurers.

In an unusual display of compassion the party let the conman go after he promised not to do anything of the sort again and then they returned to Krankendorf with the head of the Beast.

The next day the party hopped back on their barge and watching the riverbanks with suspicious eyes every inch of the way -- I can't imagine why -- they travelled on to Altdorf, the capital of the Empire. So relieved were they to be in civilisation once more that they didn't even mind paying the hefty toll to enter the city. They bid farewell to Yan and Yan, booked themselves into the Wayfarer's Rest, then went shopping.

While out and about they discovered that not only were Marcus Baerfaust and Konrad Mauer in Altdorf as expected, but so too were Clothilde von Alptraum and Friedrich von Kaufman. After a bit of egregious metagaming -- of which all involved should be ashamed, boo, hiss -- the party decided to keep an eye on these key personalities -- some of which they considered to be friends -- as one of them was bound to be The Enemy Within. Tsk.

While the two dwarves went out drinking with Poddo and Rudiger hid in his room having developed a fear of going anywhere ever in case he got stabbed again, Aelric and Drandruel visited the taproom of the Wayfarer's Rest and bumped into none other than Clothilde von Apltraum herself. She had sought her friends out upon hearing they'd arrived in the capital and had come to ask them if they could help in the reopening of a play that had been closed down due to missing props; an odd request but Aelric was keen to please von Alptraum and so signed the party up without hesitation.

The mutant elf wizard also spotted another familiar face in the crowd, an elf he'd known from Marienburg. Although the other elf also recognised and acknowledged Aelric he soon left the tavern in disgust at the performance of Great Oozelli, a Tilean artist who put the "trump" into "trumpet". The wizard found this encounter puzzling but paid no more thought to it until next morning when an anonymous letter arrived claiming that Frederick Grosz -- who they hadn't seen since Averheim and who was supposed to have gone to Nuln to live a crime-free life -- was not only in Altdorf but had kidnapped the elf from the night before.

Poddo the (Unofficial) Troll Slayer

Having discovered that the villagers of Mistheim were still alive, Rudiger, Magnar, Aelric, and Thorek -- what do you mean the slayer was back at the barge? -- launched an attack on the beastman camp. Their plan was to pick the beastmen off with ranged attacks and force any survivors to charge uphill to engage them in hand-to-hand combat, and for the most part the plan worked, except that some of the beastmen spotted the player-characters moving into position and the shaman seemed to have misunderstood his role and refused to die.

Even so the fight was not much of a challenge to a party that was by now becoming quite adept at the art of killing; the only real worry was an attempt by the shaman to take control of Magnar and force him to attack his fellows, a ploy that only failed through the use of a reroll the players had earned earlier in the campaign. Boo, hiss, etcetera.

Eyeing up a pair of ominous caves into which one of the beastmen had fled they sneaked into the camp to free the imprisoned villages then hurried them into the forest before any reinforcements could arrive. Meanwhile, back at the barge Poddo Bayleaf -- in theory the party's field surgeon but as a halfling also an adept cook -- was showing Drandruel, Yan, and Yan -- and definitely not Thorek, no siree -- how to make a tasty stew from fresh, natural ingredients and so engrossed were they all that no one spotted a trail of suspicious bubbles near the barge. As such everyone was rather surprised when a river troll lurched from the waters, snapped its jaws around the neck of one of the party's horses, and dragged the poor beast into the murky depths.

This was, I admit, a bit cruel of me. Drandruel's player was not present and Poddo and the two Yans were not what one may call natural combatants, and chucking a river troll at them while the heavy hitters were scrabbling through the woods was a bit harsh.

Of course I chucked a second troll at them too, because I am a moustache-twirling villain of the basest sort.

Even Drandruel, the Michelle Yeoh of the Great Forest, couldn't do much to fight off two of the stinking, dripping monsters, and Yan and Yan were having enough trouble staying alive, let alone fighting back. Thank Sigmar for Poddo Bayleaf then. The halfling surgeon had been bashed and beaten over the course of his journeys with the party but his enthusiasm for adventure had never waned and so he picked a hot coal from the cooking fire and sent it flying from his hitherto unused sling at one of the trolls. A 10 rolled for damage was followed by another and I think one more, and the troll stumbled from the barge with a smoking hole where its eye used to be. The fight went more in their favour after that.

Soon the rest of the party returned to find a pair of shaken boatmen, a beaming halfling, and one fewer horse than they left behind; I don't know if Rudiger, Magnar, and Aelric believed the others, but Thorek was probably annoyed that he'd missed out on killing trolls as he'd never quite ticked that one off his list. Still fearful of a horde of vengeful beastmen pouring out of the woods the party decided to take the surviving population of Mistheim with them downriver -- the extra space created by the missing horse came in handy here -- and this time everyone was eager to leave the blighted village.

The villagers were packed on the barge while the party travelled by road, a decision which caused some concern as they lost sight of the river now and then; as it turned out they needn't have worried about the boat. The party's scouts heard a commotion in the trees as something barrelled towards their position but were not quite quick enough to prepare the others for the arrival of a small orc warband mounted on boars and a gaggle of goblin archers. As if that were not bad enough the orc boss, a hulking brute with a ragged hole where his eye once was took one -- two-dimensional -- look at Rudiger and roared "I know yer! Yer took my eye!"

I didn't expect this fight to be much more than a speed bump on the way to the next town but Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay surprised all of us once again with its capacity for swingy chaos and what should have been a challenging but resource-draining battle became something quite special.

Rudiger wasn't keen on reacquainting himself with the orc boss and the party thought that eliminating the creature first would send the others running off in a panic; a sound plan making good use of knowledge of orc and goblin psychology, but one thwarted by capricious dice as the greenskins would not budge, even when the boss was felled.

The other boarboyz made a nuisance of themselves, hacking off chunks of the party and the boars themselves goring the party's horses and almost killing one or two. Before the boss expired he had given Rudiger a bit of a kicking and one of his boyz almost finished the Ostlander off, and it's fair to say that Rudiger's courage wavered a bit but even so he leaped back into the fray. Over on the other side of the battlefield Drandruel weaved back and forth slicing and dicing and leaving dead goblins in her wake while Thorek, giant slayer and possessed by an ancient hatred of the greenskins, er, failed to hit a single goblin throughout the entire fight.

None of us could quite believe this. Thorek has a habit of almost getting himself killed -- as befits a slayer, to be fair -- but that's more to do with poor tactical reasoning than incompetence. So it was a bit of a shock as this little bundle of muscle and frenzied brutality spent the battle waving his flail at a group of sniggering goblins to no effect as they stabbed him in his remaining kidney.

There was one more surprise to come as Aelric lost control of his magic twice during the fight, the second time resulting in a vision of an otherworldly -- one could say Chaotic -- realm, another insanity point, and, oh, a second mutation! Already burdened with a skull-like face, the elf's head was now also burning with a bright and quite unnatural flame and this is why WFRP has the best magic system.

Even with all that stacked against them, the party did defeat the orcs and goblins and a couple of days later staggered, bloodied and bruised -- although on the plus side, Aelric's head had gone out -- into the hamlet of Krankendorf. There they noticed that the settlement's protective wall had been breached -- the work of a mysterious monster, it was said -- but were eager to get some rest and booked themselves in at the charming Red Empress, an inn named after the infamous Empress Magritta, one of the satirical puns Games Workshop doesn't do any more.

Aelric sensed that something was not quite right and -- having not learned his lesson about frivolous spellcasting -- conducted a ritual to divine the future and discovered that an attempt would be made to steal the now purified bell clapper the party had been carrying with them all the way from Averheim. The elf alerted the others to the danger and they abandoned their separate lodgings to pack themselves into one room so that they could watch over each other during the long night ahead. Alas, tired as they were from their exertions they all fell asleep although one or two of them woke up just in time to see a figure clad in black robes leap out the open window.

The Strange Case of the Phantom Militiaman

Having, er, slain a giant Thorek was now officially a giant slayer but he was still out of Fate Points so death continued to nip at his heels as the party travelled south from Middenheim to deliver the now purified bell clapper to Altdorf, the capital of the Empire. The slayer's flirting with oblivion has become something of an ongoing theme in The Enemy Within II: Tokyo Drift and that would continue as the party made their way to Altdorf.

It was the other dwarf in the group, the tin-plated dreadnought known as Magnar, who ran into trouble first. The party's first stop was the town of Delberz, three days south through the perilous Drakwald forest, and about halfway through the trip the road narrowed to cross a stone bridge. Upon that bridge stood a Warrior of Chaos clad in armour black as night; as the party approached the Warrior's deep voice intoned the ominous words "None shall pass."



Back when Robertus von Oppenheim was introduced the players groaned even though Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay has long been notorious for its rampant punnery; I told them at the time that there was better/worse coming up and this was it. Yes, I didn't add the black knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail; he's in the book.

In a party of deadly killers Magnar fancies himself as the Fighter™ so he was the one who stepped forward to challenge the Chaos Warrior. The fight that followed was brutal as two skilled opponents clanged and chopped at each other. The dwarf had the upper hand early on -- because my dice rolling is appalling -- but the Warrior's greater endurance started to wear Magnar down and so a surreptitious signal was given and the mutant wizard Aelric unleashed a lightning bolt that punched through the Warrior's helmet and boiled his head.

The Warrior's body and armour dissolved into a black goo but his mighty broadsword remained, giving off all sorts of dubious emanations that gave Aelric the creeps. Nonetheless Magnar scooped up the blade and added it to his growing collection of fine murder aids.

The rest of the journey to Delberz passed without incident and the party stopped for a bit to ponder whether to continue by road or take the river; both would take about ten days but the river would be safer. Of course. Yep.

While in Delberz the party interrupted an epic conflict between a maid with a broom and a weird mutant rat and wondered if the Skaven from Averheim were back on their trail. They also heard about a series of murders in the town and sensing a potential reward being public-spirited individuals they promised the town's sheriff that they would investigate. A number of the town's most notable residents had been found disembowelled and their mouths stuffed with gold crowns; although it was clear that the murders were linked the sheriff had no other clues and was too busy with other events -- there was an implication of major criminal activity at the docks -- to investigate further.

The party soon discovered that all the victims had come into a fair sum of money and had all done so at about the same time; moreover they all had been members of the town's militia and had served in the same regiment in various conflicts. Two members of that regiment -- Ruprecht Machholt and Gawin Nachtman -- still lived in Delberz and were identified as the best leads; Machholt was holed up in his expensive town house and refused to admit the party until Aelric used his charm and wit -- his fleshless face doesn't affect his social skills, as long as he keeps his mask on -- to encouraged the terrified burgher to open the door.

Using threats of bloody retribution the party convinced Machholt to reveal that years before he and his regiment had discovered a ruined manor house during one campaign and that the cellars of the house contained a sizeable hoard of treasure; the soldiers agreed to share the wealth, all except Ludwig Frohlich, who argued for it to be returned to the authorities and threatened to turn the others in if they went ahead with their plan. Although the soldiers were friends, one among them convinced the others to kill Frohlich and hide his body so that the rest of them could be rich; Machholt was convinced that Frohlich had returned from his shallow grave to exact vengeance.

This seemed no less plausible than four-armed giant ratmen and an elf with a skull face so the party left Thorek and Drandruel to guard Machholt -- their players were absent and there's a concerted effort among the remaining players to keep the slayer alive, which given his profession is somewhat tricky -- while the rest went to Nachtman's cottage to warn him of his impending doom.

Upon arrival they found Nachtman already at the receiving end of a spear wielded by some sort of phantom resembling an Imperial foot soldier formed of shadow and smoke. The figure put up some resistance but couldn't last long against Magnar, Aelric, and Rudiger and soon fell; Nachtman himself was alive but not for long and with his last breaths confirmed Machholt's story.

Then the phantom soldier stood up and attacked them again.

I had great fun with this fight as it was as much a puzzle as it was a brawl. The party didn't have much trouble putting the phantom down but its continued resurrections had them baffled and they tried holy water, fire, even confiscating its spear in their attempts to stop it.

The phantom arrived at Machholt's house soon after the party returned and turned up again at the sheriff's office once they moved Machholt there having arrested him for the murder of Frohlich, hoping that would appease the revenant. The sheriff suggested that she had some paperwork to do and so would leave Machholt with the players for a moment and that they should be careful as all sorts of accidents could happen while she was in the other room; this hint proved to be a bit too subtle for the player-characters, but they came up with their own solution.

They confronted the phantom and told it that Machholt would stand trial for his crimes in the morning and if justice was not served then the phantom could take its revenge on them. One of the advantages tabletop role-playing still has over computer games is that it encourages this sort of player ingenuity; the adventure had a number of resolutions written into the text but the idea that the player-characters would take on the murderers' moral debt was an unexpected one.

This pledge seemed to appease the phantom and it collapsed for what the player-characters hoped would be the final time. The next morning Aelric -- the town's mayor being unavailable, perhaps due to the aforementioned business at the docks -- presided over the trial of Ruprecht Machholt, found him and his cohorts guilty of murder and theft, and sentenced him to death. Magnar volunteered -- he has his eye on the Judicial Champion career -- to do the chopping and so justice was served.

Later that day the party hired a barge from the father-son team of Yan and Yan and settled in for a quiet voyage down the river Delb to Altdorf. On the first night they stopped at The Hooded Man -- not ominous at all, that -- for dinner but chose to sleep on the boat; they woke to found that they'd been robbed of a substantial sum of gold and in possession of a note from "OF" suggesting that they'd offended someone. The party suspected that their double-crossing of the thieves' guild in Middenheim had not been well received and were keen to set off again as soon as possible.

On the fourth day of the trip the boat stopped at the village of Mistheim, which was not a big village but even so the two Yans were certain that its population should have been more than zero. A quick scout of the settlement revealed signs of conflict as well as some sort of monument made of bones and gore; they had seen something similar before. Knowing now that servants of Chaos were about Rudiger agreed with Yan and Yan that everyone should return to the boat and press on but sensing a potential reward being public-spirited individuals Magnar and Aelric argued for the rescue of the villagers.

A few minutes later the player-characters -- minus Thorek and Drandruel, who were making sure that Yan and Yan didn't sneak off -- were deep in the woods following the trail left by the marauding beastmen. Along the way they passed a standing stone covered in arcane markings and splashed with blood; upon passing the stone Aelric felt invigorated and detected an increased level of background magic. A quick experiment revealed that the elf-mutant's magical abilities were increased while he stood beyond an invisible line marked by the stone; the wizard theorised that there were other stones in the woods and that they were somehow focussing and amplifying magic within a certain area.

Rudiger scouted ahead and came upon what looked like a dried river bed in which some beastmen had set up a camp. He counted about half a dozen of the Chaotic things but was disheartened to see what looked like a shaman among them as well as a number of caves nearby that were no doubt packed full of more beastmen. A clear invitation to get back on the boat and forget all about Mistheim then, were it not for the cage full of living villagers at the edge of the camp.

Fee Fi Fo Fum

When we left them last time, the party -- Aelric the elf-mutant wizard, Magnar the iron-clad meat shield, Drandruel the wuxia wood elf, Rudiger the alleged vampire hunter, and Thorek the suicidal maniac trollslayer -- were roaming the Drakwald hunting for ingredients for a ritual that was hoped would cleanse the Chaos-tainted bell clapper they'd picked up in Averheim. They'd encouraged a pack of wolves to give up their skins and convinced a minotaur to donate his head and so, laden with bloody trophies, they headed back to Middenheim for the ritual. On the way out of the city they'd paid a local hunter to guide them through the forest but they'd sent him back earlier with professor Robertus von Oppenheim and so had to find their own way back; for some reason, despite growing up in the forest and, you know, being an elf, Drandruel had no ability whatsoever to navigate in the wilderness or follow a trail and the rest of the party were even worse off so it came as little surprise that they blundered around for a bit, until the sound of something huge stomping around nearby brought them to a halt.

Scampering up a tree, Drandruel spotted the head and shoulders of an enormous humanoid above the tree canopy just a few metres away from the party. There was a brief -- and hushed -- conversation as the group decided that they -- or rather Thorek -- were still a bit beaten up from their encounter with the beastmen and that they'd come back to deal with the giant later. Thorek of course wanted to deal with the giant then and there but wiser heads prevailed. Also, Thorek's player was absent and let's just say that when he's been at the table he's been role-playing the part of a suicidal dwarven drunk very well.

Rudiger sneaked up after the great beast and followed it to its lair in a hillside cave, making a note of the location for later, then the party carried on to Middenheim. Once again they were charged an entry fee and once again they grumbled about it but paid their dues; they had a plethora of adventure hooks to pursue in the city and I assumed we'd be spending a number of sessions there but I suspect that the high prices on almost everything put them off. I can't wait to see what they make of Altdorf, capital of the Empire.

The quivering lump of gore sometimes known as Thorek was dropped off with the priestesses of Shallya once more, along with yet another donation to the temple; they left the city before they could discover whether the temple's new roof would be dedicated to the dwarf. While their friend recuperated the rest of the party zipped around the city ticking off their To Do lists; the wolf pelts were booked in for urgent -- and of course, expensive -- preparation to be worn as cloaks during the ritual, the minotaur horn was given to a halfling herbalist for grinding into a fine powder, and Aelric went back to the Collegium Theologica to research giants and their habits. The wizard also tracked down the family heirloom he'd pawned for petty cash back in Averheim and its current owner, Johann Scheune of the Middenheim Marauders Blood Bowl team; it seemed that Scheune had given it to an elven maiden of his acquaintance in order to woo her, but the bitter and twisted Aelric cared nothing for the petty concerns of love and romance and convinced the footballer to return the bauble in exchange for a necklace of similar worth.

Later, in a tavern, Rudiger was approached by a bawdy woman with a moustache and an eyepatch who turned out to be Olaf, the gentleman of dubious employment history the thief-turned-vampire-slayer had asked about not-so-legal job opportunities a few days beforehand. Olaf told Rudiger that some friends of his had been arrested for a crime they did not commit and that their trial was in a couple of days; there was only one witness to the alleged theft and Olaf wondered if Rudiger and his friends could arrange for said witness to change his story. Rudiger and Magnar agreed; Aelric had got rather drunk by this point and lost track of the conversation, becoming fixated instead on Olaf's moustache and wondering if all human women had such voluminous facial hair.

The next morning, heads pounding just a little, the party went to the temple of Ulric to meet von Oppenheim and conduct the ritual of cleansing. The professor gave each of them a job to do during the ceremony: Drandruel was to stand at the doors and howl like a wolf, Thorek was to hold a stone goblet filled with wine aloft for the duration of the ritual, Rudiger had to walk a defined path around the temple with a lantern, Aelric had to hold the tainted clapper, and Magnar was supposed to guard the sacred flame of Ulric itself. All went well, aside from Rudiger finding his path blocked by a locked door -- only a minor obstacle as he'd stolen a set of temple keys days earlier -- and Drandruel having to fend off a drunken Knight of the White Wolf who thought it would be a grand jape to join her in her howling.

Oh, and von Oppenheim got burned to a crisp by the sacred flame when he thrust the clapper into it but given that the entire temple didn't explode and the clapper's taint seemed to have been removed, certain members of the party considered his immolation to be an acceptable outcome.

The party stuck around Middenheim until von Oppenheim's funeral, at which Aelric and the dwarves each spoke to varying degrees of embarrassment, then they left the city -- leaving Olaf's job unfinished -- and returned to the giant's cave. I'm not sure if giants in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay are rubbish or if my rolling was poor but the closest to any sort of peril for the party came when one of the giants -- for there was more than one; plot twist! -- fell on Magnar as it died, but the dwarf is so tough at this point that he emerged from beneath the great brute unscathed.

On the plus side, Thorek struck the killing blow on one of the giants and so was at last able to progress to the giant slayer career. It is unlikely to improve his chances of survival.

Beastly Behaviour

In the last session of The Enemy Within II: Freddy's Revenge the player-characters resolved to meet up with the witch hunter Adele Ketzenblum after pursuing her for weeks. The two dwarves Thorek and Magnar also resolved to not get into any more unnecessary drinking competitions -- although they'd argue over the proper definition of "unnecessary" -- before the important meeting, so that they'd be at their best if things went wrong. Alas for the party, the meeting with Ketzenblum did go a bit wrong as they let the less-than-charming Magnar do the talking. Again. I'm not sure what Magnar's exact Fellowship score is but it only just scrapes into double figures and both Rudiger and Aelric are much better speakers, although I can understand why the latter, a skull-faced mutant elf wizard, was reluctant to talk to Ketzenblum, given her profession. On the plus side, the meeting didn't turn violent, but it was clear that the party did not make a friend.

The party returned to Professor von Oppenheim to tell him about their success at the temple of Ulric, and the somewhat addled academic revealed that the ritual he expected to perform -- and that Aelric expected to result in the complete destruction of Middenheim -- was a bit more complicated than the party thought and that there was list of requirements for success, including acquiring a number of fresh wolf pelts and a quantity of powdered minotaur horn.

While this discussion was going on in von Oppenheim's study, the two dwarves headed to the college canteen for an eating competition, since they were banned from drinking while on the job. After a good few rounds of thick bread and hearty stew Magnar ended up with a stomach ache and Thorek ended up with vomit in his beard -- and across the canteen -- but also with the respect of the student body, if not the caretakers.

Rudiger knew that according to Middenheim custom the party would have to kill and skin the wolves themselves but Magnar and Aelric thought they might be able to get away with buying the powdered minotaur horn. They found a halfling market trader who claimed to have some for sale but her ruse was discovered and after some persuasion from Magnar -- it says "Intimidate" on his sheet -- she agreed to crush the horn for them if they brought one to her. This did leave the player-characters with the small problem of finding a minotaur and convincing him to give up part of his head.

Ranald seemed to smile on them -- as he would later on -- as they not only found a trader who spoke of a woodsman he'd met outside Middenheim who said he'd seen a minotaur accompanied by a tribe of beastmen, but they also found a hunter named Jost who agreed to both help them find a wolf pack and take them to the woodsman's hut.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay doesn't have a simple metric for determining the strength of an encounter -- there is something of a vague and half-hearted attempt in the monster book for the second edition -- but you can sort of guess and wolves shouldn't be much of a challenge to a group of characters as experienced as this party, and so it proved to be. Sort of. Killing the wolves wasn't a problem but making sure that everyone -- including a reluctant von Oppenheim -- each killed one was more difficult. As a result the last of the pack was chased around the forest as the two dwarves sprinted on their stubby little legs in an attempt to tackle it; given that both are former Blood Bowl players, one would think they'd be better at such activities.

The beastmen were more of a challenge. The party found the woodsman's hut burned to the ground and the woodsman himself eviscerated and hanging from a tree -- this was my little bit of Christmas cheer -- so Jost refused to go any further and returned to the city with von Oppenheim. The beastmen had shown no attempts to be stealthy so even the untrained party had no trouble following their trail to what seemed to be an ancient elven temple deep in the woods. The creatures of Chaos had defiled the place in the name of their dark gods by erecting some sort of altar or shrine made from offal and bones and were camping nearby; the minotaur was chained to the temple itself for some reason.

Rather than ponder the religious significance of the beastmen's odd living arrangements the party assaulted them. Or rather Thorek did. Regular readers will remember that the trollslayer also blundered into the undead-infested tomb and the skaven lair; the other members of the party are considering investing in some heavy chains for the impulsive dwarf.

Thorek was of course spotted and the rest of the party rushed to his aid. Rudiger dived into cover and Aelric held back as a voice only he could hear seemed to be urging him to stay away from the temple; the language was unknown even to him but the meaning was clear and the elf thought it might have something to do with the iron ring he'd found in the aforementioned tomb. Perhaps Thorek should get one.

The battle at the temple was the biggest fight we've had in WFRP2 so far but it was smooth and uncomplicated, even with a shaman, a chieftain, two squads of beastmen -- one of which arrived part of the way through the battle -- running around, and the minotaur too, although he wasn't doing as much running. We're not playing with the alternate initiative system any more as the players didn't like it but it would have been interesting to see how it would have worked on such a scale. After the game, the players all said that they felt genuine peril during the battle but as Ranald smiled on them again and I rolled a 90 or above for almost every attack their characters were never in much danger; the minotaur turned out to be a mutant with a magical third eye that inflicted a crippling malaise on a few of the party members and Thorek was mauled by the beastman chief -- almost losing his arm -- but they made it through the fight without too much trouble.

Poddo Bayleaf, the party's loyal barber-surgeon, was not so lucky and was spotted hanging around at the back unguarded, so a couple of beastman skirmishers started chopping him into pieces until he ran off in a panic. After the battle the party found him cowering under a bush and he soon lost himself in the cheerful work of slicing and sewing. Aelric and Magnar destroyed the altar of bones and Rudiger discovered a secret compartment in the temple pool; it contained a number of scrolls but the water got in and ruined them before Aelric could examine them.

Next time, the party returns to Middenheim for the all-important ritual -- assuming they are not waylaid before then -- and we see if Aelric's doom-mongering proves to be accurate. The death clock is ticking for Thorek at least, as the trollslayer is now out of Fate Points.

Battle-Axes and Bureaucracy

The previous session of The Enemy Within II: Money Never Sleeps ended in a cliffhanger as a band of marauders led by a HeroQuest Chaos warrior ambushed the party on their way to Middenheim. The group had heard stories of a vast Chaos horde rampaging through the northern half of the Empire and had seen Averheim's preparations for the war, but this was the first time they'd seen the face of the enemy. It wasn't long before they were kicking in the face of the enemy too.

Some very poor rolling on my part led to the marauders being somewhat less than effective as the dwarves soaked up the few attacks that did land and Rudiger and the elves danced about causing damage to the unwashed savages. Aside from a brief panic when the warrior spotted Aelric alone and unguarded at the edge of the fight and charged him, the most nerve-wracking aspect of the battle for the party was that the warrior's helmet was ruined by one of the wizard's lightning bolts and so wasn't able to be looted.

If you've read any Mark Millar comics it was akin to the limp resolution to one of his cliffhangers, except at least I wasn't doing it on purpose.

After that, the group arrived in Middenheim and were more upset about paying the one crown gate toll -- despite having the marauders' horses to sell for forty crowns each -- than anything else they'd run into so far in the campaign. Capitalist dogs, every one of them.

Once within the fortified city the party split up. Rudiger began investigating less-than-legal job opportunities in the city, while the dwarves rented a forge and spent a couple of days modifying the warrior's armour to fit Magnar, and Aelric headed off to the academic district to see if the not-at-all mysterious iron ring he'd found in the undead-infested barrow had any unusual properties. Rudiger made contact with a one-eyed fellow called Olaf, who promised to keep him in mind if anything lucrative came up, while the elf wizard played a series of chess games against the barman of a student pub -- his victories netting the party a one-off group Fortune Point -- and wandered about the Collegium Theologica, after a while bumping into Robertus von Oppenheim.

Von Oppenheim was the academic that they'd been sent to meet regarding the skaven bell clapper but before they discussed such unimportant matters Aelric asked the professor to examine the iron ring. In return von Oppenheim asked the party to organise a meeting with the priests of Ulric so that he could get access to the sacred flame of their temple in order to conduct his experiment on the clapper. The professor -- not much of a people person -- had been writing letters to the clergy but had not received any response to his requests; upon arriving at the temple and having to convince a corpulent clerk to arrange an interview with a young priest in order to arrange an appointment to access the flame, the party could see why, suspecting that Ulric was perhaps also the god of needless bureaucracy and that the letters were probably stacked on a desk somewhere in the depths of the building.

The group had some other business in the city. Back in Averheim, Aelric had been forced to sell an ancient elven heirloom and had heard it had made its way to Middenheim in the hands of one Johann Scheune, a name that seemed familiar to Magnar for some reason he couldn't quite place; they decided to not bother with that tantalising plot hook and instead went looking for the witch hunter Adele Ketzenblum, last spotted outside Talabheim, and a possible source of information on the party's apparent nemesis, the Black Hood. Ketzenblum herself proved as elusive as ever but the group did discover that she was presiding over a trial at the temple of Verena the next morning and made plans to return the following day, assuming the two dwarves didn't get too hammered -- ho ho -- in the meantime.

It Shouldn't Be a Surprise; The Game Is Called Warhammer After All

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay has a reputation for favouring investigation over combat so it felt a bit odd when my group's most recent session of The Enemy Within II: The Quickening was more or less fighting from start to finish. Part of this was the result of unlucky dice rolls but part of it was because these players seem to go out of their way to get into fights sometimes. Too much Pathfinder, I suspect.

Rudiger had just graduated from thief to tomb robber so on their way to Middenheim on a mission for Luminary Mauer -- to destroy the tainted bell clapper they found in the skaven lair -- the party decided to stop off in a part of western Stirland known to be scattered with the burial mounds of the ancient Styrigen tribal kings. This expedition went much as expected; traps sent piles of rocks bouncing off Magnar's tough skull to no effect and Thorek went around smashing burial urns and sending clouds of corpse dust into the air and into everyone's lungs, so now everyone is worried that they've contracted some kind of tomb rot.

Ho ho. As if.

The barrow was of course infested with the undead. The party faced only wights and skeletons but most large or supernatural monsters cause fear in WFRP, which can be quite dangerous as a character affected is paralysed and unable to flee or defend themselves, let alone attack. The griffon at the garden party and the large skaven mutant both proved to be tough opponents for this very reason but the risen inhabitants of the barrow didn't make much of an impression on the party and didn't last long. Alas for the tomb raiders, bashing skeletons wasn't as lucrative as they'd hoped and so with only minor loot to show for their troubles -- some old swords, a bag of Reman coins, a couple of bits of not-mysterious-at-all jewellery -- they returned to the road and headed for Middenheim.

They stopped off at a coaching inn and while most of the group retired to bed the two dwarves decided to have a drinking competition in which the loser would be the first one to fall unconscious. It was something of a draw and as such, the two toughest fighters in the party were out of action when a skaven assassin sneaked into the player-characters' room during the night to steal the artefact. Drandruel leaped through the small bedroom window and across a few metres of open space, to land on the narrow top of the inn's surrounding wall right next to the fleeing thief, a feat so implausible that the other player-characters were as surprised as the skaven. With Rudiger and Aelric in support, the rat man did not get far -- by "not get far" I mean "was blasted into atoms by Aelric's magic" -- and the bell clapper was recovered. Meanwhile, the dwarves dreamed of gold under the mountains as they snored in sticky puddles of their own vomit.

The rest of the session was made up of random encounters along the road to Middenheim. The Enemy Within II: Havana Nights is written for the third edition of WFRP but I've been running it in the second edition of the game and it's been easy to convert as there isn't a great deal of rules material in the adventures. The main exceptions are the little bits about travelling between cities; there's all sorts of stuff about building dice pools and counting symbols and the like but I simplified it into:

On the Road Again: Half-Arsed Travel Encounters in WFRP2

For each leg of the journey the party should make a single roll against a value chosen based on their method of travel. If the party are travelling by foot, then they should use Toughness or Navigate; Ride or Drive if travelling by coach or wagon; Ride if on horseback; Row if using a boat; or Navigate or Outdoor Survival if avoiding the roads and going cross-country. It's not an exhaustive list and I tend to let them use any skill they like if they can make a good argument for it being appropriate in the context. The difficulty of the roll should be modified by conditions so for example if the road is in poor repair there may be a -10 penalty.

The key bit is that one roll is made for the entire party so the player-characters should choose the highest value among the lot of them if they want to succeed. My group missed out on a sub-quest that would have given them a carriage and a professional driver for the trip so had to rely on their own resources and skills.

If the roll succeeds then that leg of the journey goes without a hitch but if it fails then the trip has been rough and tiring and each member of the party is at -10 to all rolls until they have rested. If the roll succeeds by 10 or more -- we call this a "raise" because Savage Worlds has corrupted us -- then the party has a friendly encounter but if it's failed by 10 or more then there is a less friendly encounter.

My players fumbled every travelling roll except for one -- meeting a group of Strigoni travellers -- and even that turned a bit ugly when they started bullying an old lady for being a stereotype. At another point, they were assaulted by a giant spider -- and this time the fear effect was more, er, effective -- but managed to get rid of it before it could harm anyone except for their plucky halfing surgeon, Poddo Bayleaf, who got poisoned and was rigid with paralysis for hours.

The last roll of the evening was one more travelling test to cover the last stretch of road before Middenheim and relative safety. Of course they fluffed this roll too and we ended the session with a band of mounted marauders bursting from the trees, led by a platemail-clad warrior of Chaos.

Random Skull Face

Last time on The Enemy Within 2: The Enemy Within Takes Manhattan the player-characters solved the mystery of the missing people of Averheim but were too beaten and bruised to deal with the apparent culprits, a trio of skaven, so the rat men escaped into the sewers beneath the city. As Aelric the wizard-in-training recovered under the watchful -- and expensive -- eyes of the sisters of Shallya he researched possible sources of the tome of magic he needed to progress in his studies; he identified a handful of other wizards in the city but the party decided against trying to rob them and instead focussed on rumours of an abandoned wizard's tower a day's travel from the city walls.

When Aelric and Thorek the trollslayer had both recovered from their injuries the party searched for traces of the Black Hood, the new crime boss in town; it had not escaped their notice that the skaven they faced had been wearing black cloaks. They started by trying to get retired racketeer Frederick Grosz's gang on side, only to discover that the Hood had already recruited the ruffians and had given them instructions to kill the party. Grosz'z former gang of lowly street thugs were no match for the player-characters but in the confusion of the fight the leader of the group -- and the only link back to the Black Hood -- was decapitated by Aelric's wild magic.

Frustrated, the party decided to head to the abandoned tower of the wizard Johannes Pappenheimer. There they ran into a group of bandits using the ruin as a hideout but made as short work of them as they did the gangsters back in Averheim, although the bandit leader got a lucky hit in on the otherwise near-invulnerable Magnar -- an invocation of Ulric's Fury for about twenty points of damage -- and the idea of searching the cellars of the tower for the wizard's belongings with the dwarf so weakened had them all spooked, so they chose to return to Averheim and resume the search when rested and better prepared.

A day later they arrived at the gates of Averheim to hear the sound of bells and streets thronged with people. While they were away news had reached the city that raiders from the northern wastes had swept through Kislev -- Warhammer Russia, more or less -- and had broken into the northern part of the Empire. The Emperor was raising an army to fight the barbarians and there was great excitement in Averheim with many young men signing up for the front; with no desire to fight, the player-characters decided to lie low and hope that no one noticed them. A letter on Aelric's doormat from captain of the Averheim garrison Marcus Baerfaust requesting their presence suggested that such subterfuge was already too late.

The party rested and the next morning Aelric woke up feeling quite unwell, his face feeling prickly and hot. Looking in the mirror he discovered that all the flesh had fallen from his face leaving a hideous skeletal visage; his scream brought the rest of the group upstairs and insanity points were handed out to one and all.

Back when they were running around the sewers looking for rat men Aelric had picked up a tainted throwing star with his bare hands and failed the Toughness roll to resist corruption; his body had been warping ever since but only that morning had his mutation blossomed. In the spirit of fairness I had Ben roll his own mutation for Aelric and he could have spent a Fate point to avoid his, er, fate, but he was quite sporting and decided to keep his new face.

After that shock and the subsequent discomfort of watching Aelric trying to eat breakfast, the party went shopping. They bought a decorative mask for the wizard -- they think they can pass it off either as an odd elven custom, noble fashion, or weird wizard stuff -- and secured the ongoing services of Poddo Bayleaf, a halfling barber-surgeon with perhaps more enthusiasm than experience, but also cheap, keen, and oblivious to the inherent dangers of hanging around with the player-characters. With their plucky new assistant in tow they then returned to the tower for the most underwhelming battle ever. The cellar of the tower was swamped in magical energy, clear to Aelric's witchsight but palpable even to the less aethyrically attuned members of the party, the source a secret room emanating a dull pink glow. The room seemed to be Pappenheimer's secret study, complete with a workbench covered in magical paraphernalia and a bookshelf of musty tomes. Oh, and a magic circle holding some sort of daemon.

Aelric sneaked into the room to grab one of the books but before he could say "don't disturb the magic circle lest you release the daemon within" Magnar disturbed the circle and released the daemon within. The brief panic that ensued was somewhat unnecessary as the daemon failed to slap Aelric to death then was smashed into a pulpy pink goo by one blow from the trollslayer. There was a chance that the thing would either explode or multiply upon death but neither happened, to my great disappointment.

With a grimoire of celestial magic in their possession the party returned to Averheim and went to see both Baerfaust and the wizard Konrad Mauer to ask them for help in tracking down the Black Hood. To their surprise Baerfaust asked them to help him find the mysterious villain, sending them to talk to the witch hunter Adele Ketzenblum, while Mauer knew next to nothing but did give them the job of taking the corrupted bell clapper the skaven had fashioned to Middenheim for cleansing or destruction. By a curious coincidence -- and nothing to do with soft railroading -- it turned out that Ketzenblum had left Averheim and was heading for Talabheim, which just so happened to be on the way to Middenheim.