So, Badger finally came round last Friday so we could try out the new Memoir'44 stuff. We managed to get 4 games in: 2 of the new scenarios, taking turns at each side.
First we played Scenario 35: Nijmegen Bridges (click through and head for p.17 to see the map). This turned out to be a lesson in the power of artillery, the new big guns especially.
My first thought on seeing the layout as the Allied player was what terrible tank country it was. I had a force of 14 units, with 6 of them tanks, and there were no nice open spaces for overrun attacks. Tanks were going to be reduced to the role of mobile artillery in this game I thought.
I was still digesting this thought when Badger's big guns destroyed my artillery unit. Opening fire at long range, he took full advantage of the new zeroing-in rules- which give big guns an extra dice against a target previously fired at- to destroy my artillery unit with a single fortunate roll of the dice. I came to regret this.
As the game developed my attempts to move up on my right were hampered by Badger's damn big guns at least as much as by the terrain. I eventually managed to get some units far enough forward so as to be able to consider a rush at the road bridge and its valuable medal. In the centre I was manoeuvring armour around the pesky railway ready to try and make a grab for the railway bridge and its victory medal.
Painful as it had been then, the situation was shaping up nicely for a grab at victory. So I decided to launch my cross-river assault on the left as a diversion. This decision might've ended up costing me the game. My infantry took some fire as they crossed the river, then one of them disappeared under a Barrage. Some tough fighting ensued as I tried to clear the Germans out of the Fort Hof Van Holland- I even made some headway- but all of a sudden Badger got the inevitable 6th kill and it was all over.
I was game for another try, but Badger wanted to switch sides. He'd learnt the lesson about the power of artillery: as soon as my big guns ranged in on his own artillery, he moved them so that I didn't enjoy the extra dice which had proved so effective in the previous game. The artillery duel in this game was long and fruitless. I must have rained down around a dozen dice on Badger's lone artillery unit (he couldnt' move it every time I zeroed-in on it) and all I ever got were retreats, which were actually counter-productive since they stopped my big guns from zeroing-in on the target. Sheesh.
The survival of Badger's artillery made a huge difference to the Allies in this game. First the German's big guns were occupied trying to take out the Allied artillery unit, which meant that they weren't harassing the Allied advance. Second- and more important IMO: Badger was able to use his artillery to clear the Germans out of the south of Nijmegen. It wasn't that he was able easily to destroy the units located there; rather that he was able to force quick retreats with his artillery, which allowed his other units to advance into central Nijmegen without having to fight their way in. This was to prove decisive.
0-2 :(
After this we played Scenario 37: Across the River Roer (on p.22 this time).
I was the Allies first again. My attack got off to a very quick start: I had an Infantry Assault card, so I spent 2 turns massing infantry into the leftmost section before throwing everything across the river in turn 3. I didn't have a properly planned follow-up (ie. I didn't have a sequence of cards ready to play to maintain the momentum), but I had gambled that Badger would find it difficult to react quickly enough to punish me for this. My gamble paid off.
Other incidents in this game included my attempt to grab the eastern village across the minefield- my unit suffered crossing the minefield but survived so that it was in a position to move on the village. Then Badger brought an armour unit in and blasted the infantry so that all thoughts of grabbing an easy victory medal on the right flank had to be forgotten.
Also of note was Badger's mad charge in the centre: as I ground my way forward on the left, he decided that sitting behind sandbags on the far side of a minefield wasn't good enough for the 2 infantry units in his centre. So they charged forward into the guns of my infantry and artillery around Linnich. Badger maintained afterward that this move might've been a good idea. I guess it might've, but in the event, the units had to retreat before I finished them off, so I'm less than persuaded.
I can't remember that much about the game that followed, other than the fact that Badger won it without much difficulty.
1-3 :(
The new rules
The new rules that we tried out in this game were: big guns, roads and railways, fords, fortresses, minefields, and battle stars- collapsible assault boats.
By and large these rules proved logical and sensible expansions to the game.
Fortresses are strong defensive locations. Their presence serves to fill out the range of terrain types available in M44. The battle-star tokens have been added to designate units and/or locations subject to scenario-specific special rules. This is a handy addition to the game, and good encouragment for would-be scenario designers to bring in interesting unusual circumstances. Roads work by the hoary old mechanic of giving an additional hex of movement to any unit that moves entirely along the road. In the event, road movement wasn't a feature of the games in which roads appeared on the map.
Other new rules struck me as having a more significant impact on the game, or as perhaps being a bit less logical.
Big guns and minefields are rules that will have a big effect on your play I reckon. In addition to their extra range, big guns' zeroing-in rules make them more dangerous for harassing fire than basic artillery units. This gives you a real motive to get out from under the big guns when they've fired at you, something which can change the way you play your hand.
Minefields can similarly have a big effect on your game it seems to me. There are 10 minefield counters ranging in value from 0-4. The value of the minefield counter is the number of dice you must roll when you enter an opponent's minefield. In addition you must stop movement when you enter any minefield. By and large then, minefields are going to slow you down and leave you open to enemy fire more often than destroying your units themselves.
In addition to that, the effect of seeing a minefield in front of you is quite strong: you really don't know if it is worth risking running your units through those hexes. Sure, you might get lucky. But then again, you might not. As I said, the impact of minefields on play strikes me as being much greater than just filling out the range of terrain types represented.
The last new rule that saw play was the railway rules. Use by trains aside, these count as normal open ground except that tanks and artillery must stop when they enter a railway hex. I'm not at all sure why railways should slow tanks down so much. I can see why the designers might've wanted to have a rule that makes railways different from open ground- the effect of the rules in the scenario we played was reasonable enough I guess. But I have to confess that I can't really grasp why moving along railroads is just as hard for tanks as moving through towns and woods, and harder than going uphill.
That minor gripe aside, I thought that the effect of the expansions was just fine. Most importantly, I was pleased that the expansions didn't undermine the essential simplicity of M44, which was always a risk IMO. The other effect of the expansion I noticed was that it did increase set-up time: with three times as many terrain tiles to sort through it can take some time to find specific tiles. Noticeable and a tad inconvenient, but hardly worth complaining about. ;)
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Thursday, March 09, 2006
My little Old World: Swimming with the Sharks #2
Assaults in and on the Sword and Flail
The PC's welcome was just as warm as before. While they were waiting to get their drinks at the bar, Berthold noticed a drunk being taken through the door behind the bar. He was able to see into the stairwell, and to conclude that the stairs down into the cellar were through that same door.
Having learnt the local form on their last visit, the 3 companions decided not to go for a table this time. They decided instead to stand close to the one table that was occupied. Berthold managed to overhear the burly looking bravoes sitting at the table discussing the violent fate that was to befall some poor unfortunate.
Just at that moment, one of the bravoes noticed Berthold's earwigging. Feck off! the young scribe was told. Before he could react Seigfried jumped in and told the bravo to feck off himself, before launching into a tirade the long and the short of which was that he could take them all, starting with the one who had- in his own earthy fashion- told Berthold to mind his own business. Naturally enough, the bravo and his 4 companions decided to show Seigfried the error of his ways.
The resulting brawl only lasted a couple of minutes, and at first it seemed to go rather well for the PC's. Alane managed to put 2 bravoes to sleep using her magic, and Seigfried managed to knock 1 assailant down, and forced another to withdraw. It was when people stepped forward from the crowd to replace those taken out of the action that Seigfried realised that he had misjudged the locals' reactions to a brawl with strangers.
The final outcome had a certain inevitability to it. Alane and Berthold were quickly knocked out, leaving Siegfried to fight alone against 4 men. Blow after blow rained down on the young protagonist, to no avail. As his stand dragged on and on, Siegfried was filled with a peculiar joy. He knew that he would be beaten down in the end, but he also knew that he would be remembered by the locals at the Sword and Flail.
And so it was that when Grundi and Mordrin returned to the Sword and Flail, they found their 3 companions lying bedraggled and unconscious in the alley outside the tavern. Seigfreid was still full of himself when he came to: sticking his head round the door of the tavern, he tossed a gold crown into the taproom, announcing that it was to pay for the damages, and to buy drinks for the locals.
Not content with that, as the party headed off in search of another tavern in which to eat, Seigfried popped his head back in again to deliver a cocky message to the Sword and Flail locals. This provoked a local to come to the door. A few tense moments resulted as the local and Mordrin and Seigfried indulged in trying to stare each other down. Neither side had any appetite for a fight though, and the party eventually went on their way.
Fed and watered, the party returned to the Sword and Flail with the plan of breaking in via the 1st floor windows once the tavern had emptied.
At the appointed time the party snuck round the side of the tavern. After enduring the humiliation of watching Berthold succeed where he had failed in getting his grappling hook securely located in the 1st story window sill, Seigfried climbed up and levered open the wooden shutter with his dagger. Inside he found himself inside a room full of junk. Sneaking forward he could see light coming in under the door, and could hear the sound of laughter and ribaldry from beyond. At the same time he could hear scrabbling and moaning and exclamations of dismay through the thin wall of the room.
The noise continued for some time. Siegfried decided to risk a peek through the door. He carefully opened it just a crack, and saw in the hall outside the door the barkeep and another man head through a door into another room, leaving a 3rd man waiting for them. He heard the sound of a quick beating being administered in the room from which he had heard the scrabbling before the barkeep and his companion exited the room. Alright said the barkeep, it's time to go downstairs.
Siegfried waited a few minutes, then snuck out the junk room and made his way stealthily downstairs. Reaching the door to the bar, he opened it a crack as carefully as he could. He looked through the door to see shadowy figures crouched behind the bar. One of them was looking straight at him. Hoping that perhaps he hadn't been noticed, Seigfried beat a cautious retreat back up the stairs. Unfortunately Seigfried's efforts at stealth were in vain at this point: he was pursued up the stairs, and the next thing he knew, he had been grabbed by the shoulder and was tumbling back down the stairs, where a swift blow of a cudgel knocked him senseless.
Outside the rest of the party were already restless and edgy when Berthold heard the crashing and thuds from the tavern's stairwell. It was time for action everyone decided. Mordrin and Grundi crashed into the door, once, twice, and burst through. As Berthold and Alane followed they saw the barkeep standing behind the bar, and Siegfried lying still between 2 other men at the end of the bar. The noise of the dwarf's first attempt at the door had alerted the 3 men in the tavern, and they were already drawing weapons and preparing themselves for the fray as the PC's moved in to the attack.
Alane opened the hostilities with a magical firey dart. Grundi and Berthold charged the 2 men standing above their recumbent companion, while Mordrin charged the barkeep. As the combatants exchanged blows and Alane sent magic darts flying, Seigfried came to. Finding himself on the floor in the middle of a melee, he briefly considered crawling out of the way before deciding on a much more useful option: he grabbed one of the enemy by the legs. Moments later, a quick twist brought the man crashing to the floor.
Grundi took full advantage of Seigfried's surprise attack on his opponent, delivering some telling blows against a foe outnumbered, grappled, and then prone. With Seigfried on top of him and a dwarf lining up his axe for another swipe at his head, the man decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and promptly gave up. Seigfried put his knife to the man's throat to keep him honest, pulled his rope out of his pack, and began to bind the fellow. Grundi went to assist Mordrin's against the barkeep.
Meanwhile Berthold's opponent too decided that enough was enough. With some fancy footwork and feints from his cudgel he forced the young scribe back a pace or two, then slipped past him and headed for the door as fast as his legs could carry him. His luck was out though: Alane was still in the doorway and he couldn't slip past her. Alane tried to no avail to drop the man with a sleep spell. Then Berthold charged in and grabbed hold of him. In a superhuman effort the puny scribe was able to wrestle his burly foe to the ground, where he called for help.
Hearing Berthold's shouts Mordrin left the barkeep to Grundi's tender mercies and ran to help the scribe. The dwarf's intervention was enough to foil their foe's escape attempts and Alane was finally able to use her magic to send him to sleep. Berthold began to drag the man across to his fellow so that he could tie him up too.
Grundi meanwhile had been swapping blows with the barkeep, who was proving a capable and determined opponent. Seeing his companions down, he decided to beat a retreat. Vaulting over the bar to head for the door, the barkeep was unlucky when Grundi caught him a blow before he could get out of reach. The man went flying to land in a heap on the floor.
Grundi followed up and quickly had him pinned to the floor. Mordrin ran up and opened Grundi's pack to get at the dwarf's rope. But the barkeep hadn't given up, and he broke free of Grundi's hold. Grundi grabbed him again, and Mordrin laid into the man's head with the edge of his shield. Eventually, sheer weight of numbers and his wounds told on the man's determination to escape: he too gave in, and was quickly bound.
By this time Alane had headed upstairs. Going door-to-door she found a bedroom, the junkroom through which Seigfreid had made his entry, and an upside down room in which an unconscious beggar lay on the floor.
Downstairs Seigfried made for the stairs into the cellar, only to stop when he realised that he was heading into the pitch dark. He backed up and waited until a lantern was lit, which was done while Berthold made the ground floor secure, and dragged the prisoners out of sight behind the bar where he could guard them with a crossbow borrowed from one of his companions.
The cellar, when eventually entered, proved to be just that: a tavern cellar full of barrels. There was certainly no sign of the hideout of a chaos cult, although the PC's suspected that the Sword and Flail tavern had yet to reveal all its secrets.
Related@RD/KA!
Swimming with the Sharks
- #1 High poltics and mixed demeanours
- Index:- My little Old World: Ashes of Middenheim
The PC's welcome was just as warm as before. While they were waiting to get their drinks at the bar, Berthold noticed a drunk being taken through the door behind the bar. He was able to see into the stairwell, and to conclude that the stairs down into the cellar were through that same door.
Having learnt the local form on their last visit, the 3 companions decided not to go for a table this time. They decided instead to stand close to the one table that was occupied. Berthold managed to overhear the burly looking bravoes sitting at the table discussing the violent fate that was to befall some poor unfortunate.
Just at that moment, one of the bravoes noticed Berthold's earwigging. Feck off! the young scribe was told. Before he could react Seigfried jumped in and told the bravo to feck off himself, before launching into a tirade the long and the short of which was that he could take them all, starting with the one who had- in his own earthy fashion- told Berthold to mind his own business. Naturally enough, the bravo and his 4 companions decided to show Seigfried the error of his ways.
The resulting brawl only lasted a couple of minutes, and at first it seemed to go rather well for the PC's. Alane managed to put 2 bravoes to sleep using her magic, and Seigfried managed to knock 1 assailant down, and forced another to withdraw. It was when people stepped forward from the crowd to replace those taken out of the action that Seigfried realised that he had misjudged the locals' reactions to a brawl with strangers.
The final outcome had a certain inevitability to it. Alane and Berthold were quickly knocked out, leaving Siegfried to fight alone against 4 men. Blow after blow rained down on the young protagonist, to no avail. As his stand dragged on and on, Siegfried was filled with a peculiar joy. He knew that he would be beaten down in the end, but he also knew that he would be remembered by the locals at the Sword and Flail.
And so it was that when Grundi and Mordrin returned to the Sword and Flail, they found their 3 companions lying bedraggled and unconscious in the alley outside the tavern. Seigfreid was still full of himself when he came to: sticking his head round the door of the tavern, he tossed a gold crown into the taproom, announcing that it was to pay for the damages, and to buy drinks for the locals.
Not content with that, as the party headed off in search of another tavern in which to eat, Seigfried popped his head back in again to deliver a cocky message to the Sword and Flail locals. This provoked a local to come to the door. A few tense moments resulted as the local and Mordrin and Seigfried indulged in trying to stare each other down. Neither side had any appetite for a fight though, and the party eventually went on their way.
Fed and watered, the party returned to the Sword and Flail with the plan of breaking in via the 1st floor windows once the tavern had emptied.
At the appointed time the party snuck round the side of the tavern. After enduring the humiliation of watching Berthold succeed where he had failed in getting his grappling hook securely located in the 1st story window sill, Seigfried climbed up and levered open the wooden shutter with his dagger. Inside he found himself inside a room full of junk. Sneaking forward he could see light coming in under the door, and could hear the sound of laughter and ribaldry from beyond. At the same time he could hear scrabbling and moaning and exclamations of dismay through the thin wall of the room.
The noise continued for some time. Siegfried decided to risk a peek through the door. He carefully opened it just a crack, and saw in the hall outside the door the barkeep and another man head through a door into another room, leaving a 3rd man waiting for them. He heard the sound of a quick beating being administered in the room from which he had heard the scrabbling before the barkeep and his companion exited the room. Alright said the barkeep, it's time to go downstairs.
Siegfried waited a few minutes, then snuck out the junk room and made his way stealthily downstairs. Reaching the door to the bar, he opened it a crack as carefully as he could. He looked through the door to see shadowy figures crouched behind the bar. One of them was looking straight at him. Hoping that perhaps he hadn't been noticed, Seigfried beat a cautious retreat back up the stairs. Unfortunately Seigfried's efforts at stealth were in vain at this point: he was pursued up the stairs, and the next thing he knew, he had been grabbed by the shoulder and was tumbling back down the stairs, where a swift blow of a cudgel knocked him senseless.
Outside the rest of the party were already restless and edgy when Berthold heard the crashing and thuds from the tavern's stairwell. It was time for action everyone decided. Mordrin and Grundi crashed into the door, once, twice, and burst through. As Berthold and Alane followed they saw the barkeep standing behind the bar, and Siegfried lying still between 2 other men at the end of the bar. The noise of the dwarf's first attempt at the door had alerted the 3 men in the tavern, and they were already drawing weapons and preparing themselves for the fray as the PC's moved in to the attack.
Alane opened the hostilities with a magical firey dart. Grundi and Berthold charged the 2 men standing above their recumbent companion, while Mordrin charged the barkeep. As the combatants exchanged blows and Alane sent magic darts flying, Seigfried came to. Finding himself on the floor in the middle of a melee, he briefly considered crawling out of the way before deciding on a much more useful option: he grabbed one of the enemy by the legs. Moments later, a quick twist brought the man crashing to the floor.
Grundi took full advantage of Seigfried's surprise attack on his opponent, delivering some telling blows against a foe outnumbered, grappled, and then prone. With Seigfried on top of him and a dwarf lining up his axe for another swipe at his head, the man decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and promptly gave up. Seigfried put his knife to the man's throat to keep him honest, pulled his rope out of his pack, and began to bind the fellow. Grundi went to assist Mordrin's against the barkeep.
Meanwhile Berthold's opponent too decided that enough was enough. With some fancy footwork and feints from his cudgel he forced the young scribe back a pace or two, then slipped past him and headed for the door as fast as his legs could carry him. His luck was out though: Alane was still in the doorway and he couldn't slip past her. Alane tried to no avail to drop the man with a sleep spell. Then Berthold charged in and grabbed hold of him. In a superhuman effort the puny scribe was able to wrestle his burly foe to the ground, where he called for help.
Hearing Berthold's shouts Mordrin left the barkeep to Grundi's tender mercies and ran to help the scribe. The dwarf's intervention was enough to foil their foe's escape attempts and Alane was finally able to use her magic to send him to sleep. Berthold began to drag the man across to his fellow so that he could tie him up too.
Grundi meanwhile had been swapping blows with the barkeep, who was proving a capable and determined opponent. Seeing his companions down, he decided to beat a retreat. Vaulting over the bar to head for the door, the barkeep was unlucky when Grundi caught him a blow before he could get out of reach. The man went flying to land in a heap on the floor.
Grundi followed up and quickly had him pinned to the floor. Mordrin ran up and opened Grundi's pack to get at the dwarf's rope. But the barkeep hadn't given up, and he broke free of Grundi's hold. Grundi grabbed him again, and Mordrin laid into the man's head with the edge of his shield. Eventually, sheer weight of numbers and his wounds told on the man's determination to escape: he too gave in, and was quickly bound.
By this time Alane had headed upstairs. Going door-to-door she found a bedroom, the junkroom through which Seigfreid had made his entry, and an upside down room in which an unconscious beggar lay on the floor.
Downstairs Seigfried made for the stairs into the cellar, only to stop when he realised that he was heading into the pitch dark. He backed up and waited until a lantern was lit, which was done while Berthold made the ground floor secure, and dragged the prisoners out of sight behind the bar where he could guard them with a crossbow borrowed from one of his companions.
The cellar, when eventually entered, proved to be just that: a tavern cellar full of barrels. There was certainly no sign of the hideout of a chaos cult, although the PC's suspected that the Sword and Flail tavern had yet to reveal all its secrets.
Related@RD/KA!
Swimming with the Sharks
- #1 High poltics and mixed demeanours
- Index:- My little Old World: Ashes of Middenheim
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
My little Old World: Swimming with the Sharks #1
High poltics and mixed demeanours
Berthold, Grundi, Mordrin and Seigfried sat in the Sword and Flail tavern feeling very aware of the hostile glances of the locals and the searching scrutiny of the barkeep. They noticed that, of the 3 tables in the tavern's taproom, theirs was the only one occupied even though the place was beginning to fill up.
After a while, a well-dressed halfling walked in. Expecting the locals to provide a bit of a show at the halfling's expense, the PC's were surprised to see the small figure was given what passed for a friendly welcome from the locals at the Sword and Flail. The halfling approached the PC's. Ah, I see you've been keeping my table for me he said before introducing himself as Doddy Farthingale. Siegfried introduced the party. So, who sent you then, asked the halfling, as a local came up with a drink for him.
The PC's were a bit nonplussed by this, wondering what information this stranger could have on them. The conversation passed back and forth and the PC's found out that Farthingale was expecting to do business with them. It began to dawn on our heroes that Farthingale was probably a local fence and that this was his table. Seigfried made a last ditch attempt to persuade Farthingale that the party had in fact been sent by someone to do business with the halfling, but Farthingale was having none of it. The confusion notwithstanding the halfling was friendly, and he quickly put the party's minds at rest by ordering a round of drinks.
Just at this moment a woman came into the tavern. She hailed Farthingale and came across to his table. As she reached the table, Siegfried recognised her as Beyer- first seen in the guise of a man back at the Strutting Cock- and who he had been sure for some time was actually a woman in disguise.
Meanwhile, at the Guild of Wizards and Alchemists, Alane had found Bright Magister Nellie Eschlimann. The elf wanted to speak to Eschlimann about becoming a journeyman Bright wizard. Eschlimann explained to Alane that she would need to get herself a grimoire, and that grimoires are rare and expensive items. The Magister told Alane that she could offer her no particular help at the moment.
Alane's conversation with Eschlimann was interrupted by the arrival of Celestial Magister Valdric Gebauer. Gebauer was the wizard in charge of the research taking place at the Guild in Middenheim into the effects of the Storm of Chaos on the Winds of Magic. He had been Alane's stern taskmaster while she had been working at the Guild assisting the researchers with their work. Gebauer sent Alane on an errand to the Scholar's, an inn in the Freiburg frequented by wizards and scholars. She had to go and fetch Hildegund Reifsneider, a Grey Journeyman Wizard whose presence was required at the Guild.
Arriving at the Scholar's Alane soon found Reifsneider, playing a game of chess. The woman was irritated to be interrupted, but knew she had no choice but respond to Gebauer's summons. She made sure that Alane bore the brunt of her irritation though.
As the pair were leaving, Alane heard Deputy High Priest Claus Liebnitz's voice from an alcove. In the company of Gold Magister Giselbrecht Bacher- who Alane recognised from the Guild, and a stranger of striking appearance and nagging vague familiarity, Liebnitz was gloating over the success of political manoeuvres that had forced Commander Schutzmann to bring the Bauer trial forward to the very next day. Continuing past the alcove, Alane looked back to see Liebnitz staring out at her. The Deputy High Priest's face betrayed both surprise and malicious glee at the sight of the elf he had last seen in the dungeons beneath the Temple of Ulric.
Back in the Sword and Flail, Beyer had recognised the party too. She greeted them in a friendly manner as if appearing as a woman in front of people who had hitherto known her as a man was a mere bagatelle. Siegfried meanwhile was simmering with anger. He challenged Beyer about the message she had passed on that had sent the party on their long wild goose chase all the way back to the Strutting Cock.
Beyer was surprised to hear that the message had turned out to be false. She insisted that she had passed it on in good faith, explaining that it had in fact been passed on to her by none other than the same Doddy Farthingale sat at the table with the party. Beyer and Farthingale were pressed further on the matter, and the party were persuaded of their sincerity.
Farthingale was asked if he would say who had passed the message on to him. The halfling willingly agreed, noting that he had a reputation to maintain. He told the PC's that his source had been one Merkel Trachsel, a human scout who had recently been working for the city of Middenheim, guiding parties of refugees safely into the city. Hearing this, Siegfried asked if Trachsel might've known Baumer, a woodsman recently found murdered in the city. Farthingale replied that he didn't know about Baumer, but that Trachsel certainly knew many such people in the local area.
As the conversation continued, Alane was making her way to the Sword and Flail, having decided that she must pass on to her companions the news that they didn't have as much time at their disposal as they believed. She managed to make her way the short distance from the Freiburg to the Neumarket with no difficulty and soon arrived at the tavern. The elf's arrival caused a bit of a stir- and not a few leers- among the locals, but these calmed down when she joined her companions at their table with Farthingale and Beyer.
Alane passed on her news quietly to Seigfried, interrupting him in his- not unsuccessful- efforts to strike up friendly relations with Beyer. Meanwhile, Mordrin decided that it was time to see if he could get any information out of Farthingale or Beyer about the party's mission in the Sword and Flail. So, he announced, I hear that there's a rumour going round that there's a chaos cult here in the tavern. A stunned silence fell at the table.
You know what I mean, the dwarf continued, that Witch Hunter who's going on trial? He's supposed to have found a chaos cult here. This effort to retrieve the situation just made things worse. Beyer and Farthingale quickly finished their drinks and, bidding everyone a polite farewell, made a hasty exit from the tavern.
After their companions' departure, the party fell to discussing Alane's news. Her description of the peculiarly familiar stranger's bald head, bushy eyebrows and hooked nose rang bells in the minds of several other PC's. Soon enough, someone remembered that he had been seen a few times back in Erntezeit when the party had first arrived in Middenheim with the Untergard refugee party. He had had the air of a petty official, but that was all that anyone could recall.
By this time the PC's had decided that just hanging around drinking in the Sword and Flail wasn't going to achieve anything. It was time to leave. Outside, it was decided that Berthold and Seigfried would hang around in the Neumarket to keep an eye on the tavern, while Alane, Grundi and Mordrin would head off to the Temple of Sigmar to see if they could find out more about this mysterious stranger.
Back at the Freiburg, the 2 dwarfs and the elf found that sullen locals still hung around outside the front of the Temple of Sigmar. A strong Watch presence made sure that they were behaving themselves. So the PC's headed round the back, where they saw wagonloads of lumber heading for the nearby Square of Martials where tomorrow's trail was to take place.
Mordrin banged on the door, which was opened by one of the Temple Guard. The dwarf announced that he had to see High Capitular Werner Stolz immediately. State your business, replied the guard. It's a secret, said Mordrin, insisting that he be let in immediately. The guard was having none of this, and again told the dwarf to state his business. As Mordrin repeated his demands in the face of the guard's continued stubbornness and increasingly self-evident disbelief, Alane decided she didn't like the look of the dwarf's rising temper: she took to her heels to rejoin Berthold and Seigfried back in the Neumarket.
After a couple of minutes watching Mordrin getting angrier and angrier in the face of the temple guard's refusal to admit him without an account of his business, Grundi decided to intervene to prevent Mordrin from taking his axe to the door. It was time to try the front door.
Round the front, a watch sergeant intercepted the 2 dwarfs as they headed for the front door. Once again Mordrin insisted on being admitted to see the High Capitular. Once again he was asked to state his business. On replying that it was none of the Watch Sergeant's business, Mordrin was told in no uncertain terms that it was precisely the Watch Sergeant's business because his duty was to guard the temple.
The confrontation between the obdurate and the bloody-minded looked like being as futile as before until the name of Father Greimold came up. The Watch Sergeant agreed to check if Greimold would see the 2 dwarfs. A Watchman went up to the door, and Greimold appeared soon after. When the dwarfs joined him, he took them inside. Pausing just inside, he asked them what their business was.
The dwarfs passed on Alane's description. Greimold told them that the description matched Maximillian Lang, a city official. Mordrin asked if Lang was known to have any dealings with Liebnitz. Greimold said that the pair were known to cooperate politically, citing as an example Liebnitz's support for Lang when the latter was put forward for the position of overseeing Middenheim's efforts to support the influx of refugees into the city in the aftermath of the Storm of Chaos.
Mordrin pressed Greimold on the issue, looking for hints that there might be a darker dimension to Lang and Liebnitz's cooperation. Father Greimold could only reiterate that, as far as he knew, it was all just politics. In the course of this discussion, Mordrin was surprised to discover that Father Greimold knew nothing at all of the party's imprisonment by Liebnitz in the dungeons of the Temple of Ulric.
Eventually convinced that there was nothing more to learn, Grundi and Mordrin took their leave to return to the Sword and Flail. They had given Father Greimold something to think about. And he had perhaps taught them a lesson about how information works in the upper echelons of the Old World.
As these events had been unfolding, Alane had rejoined Berthold and Seigfried outside the Sword and Flail in the Neumarket. The 2 humans were aghast to hear that she had left Mordrin on the point of fighting his way into the Temple of Sigmar. Best left well alone then they decided, and concluded that it was time to pay another visit to the Sword and Flail.
Related@RD/KA!
Swimming with the Sharks
- #2 Assaults in and on the Sword and Flail
- Index:- My little Old World: Ashes of Middenheim
Berthold, Grundi, Mordrin and Seigfried sat in the Sword and Flail tavern feeling very aware of the hostile glances of the locals and the searching scrutiny of the barkeep. They noticed that, of the 3 tables in the tavern's taproom, theirs was the only one occupied even though the place was beginning to fill up.
After a while, a well-dressed halfling walked in. Expecting the locals to provide a bit of a show at the halfling's expense, the PC's were surprised to see the small figure was given what passed for a friendly welcome from the locals at the Sword and Flail. The halfling approached the PC's. Ah, I see you've been keeping my table for me he said before introducing himself as Doddy Farthingale. Siegfried introduced the party. So, who sent you then, asked the halfling, as a local came up with a drink for him.
The PC's were a bit nonplussed by this, wondering what information this stranger could have on them. The conversation passed back and forth and the PC's found out that Farthingale was expecting to do business with them. It began to dawn on our heroes that Farthingale was probably a local fence and that this was his table. Seigfried made a last ditch attempt to persuade Farthingale that the party had in fact been sent by someone to do business with the halfling, but Farthingale was having none of it. The confusion notwithstanding the halfling was friendly, and he quickly put the party's minds at rest by ordering a round of drinks.
Just at this moment a woman came into the tavern. She hailed Farthingale and came across to his table. As she reached the table, Siegfried recognised her as Beyer- first seen in the guise of a man back at the Strutting Cock- and who he had been sure for some time was actually a woman in disguise.
Meanwhile, at the Guild of Wizards and Alchemists, Alane had found Bright Magister Nellie Eschlimann. The elf wanted to speak to Eschlimann about becoming a journeyman Bright wizard. Eschlimann explained to Alane that she would need to get herself a grimoire, and that grimoires are rare and expensive items. The Magister told Alane that she could offer her no particular help at the moment.
Alane's conversation with Eschlimann was interrupted by the arrival of Celestial Magister Valdric Gebauer. Gebauer was the wizard in charge of the research taking place at the Guild in Middenheim into the effects of the Storm of Chaos on the Winds of Magic. He had been Alane's stern taskmaster while she had been working at the Guild assisting the researchers with their work. Gebauer sent Alane on an errand to the Scholar's, an inn in the Freiburg frequented by wizards and scholars. She had to go and fetch Hildegund Reifsneider, a Grey Journeyman Wizard whose presence was required at the Guild.
Arriving at the Scholar's Alane soon found Reifsneider, playing a game of chess. The woman was irritated to be interrupted, but knew she had no choice but respond to Gebauer's summons. She made sure that Alane bore the brunt of her irritation though.
As the pair were leaving, Alane heard Deputy High Priest Claus Liebnitz's voice from an alcove. In the company of Gold Magister Giselbrecht Bacher- who Alane recognised from the Guild, and a stranger of striking appearance and nagging vague familiarity, Liebnitz was gloating over the success of political manoeuvres that had forced Commander Schutzmann to bring the Bauer trial forward to the very next day. Continuing past the alcove, Alane looked back to see Liebnitz staring out at her. The Deputy High Priest's face betrayed both surprise and malicious glee at the sight of the elf he had last seen in the dungeons beneath the Temple of Ulric.
Back in the Sword and Flail, Beyer had recognised the party too. She greeted them in a friendly manner as if appearing as a woman in front of people who had hitherto known her as a man was a mere bagatelle. Siegfried meanwhile was simmering with anger. He challenged Beyer about the message she had passed on that had sent the party on their long wild goose chase all the way back to the Strutting Cock.
Beyer was surprised to hear that the message had turned out to be false. She insisted that she had passed it on in good faith, explaining that it had in fact been passed on to her by none other than the same Doddy Farthingale sat at the table with the party. Beyer and Farthingale were pressed further on the matter, and the party were persuaded of their sincerity.
Farthingale was asked if he would say who had passed the message on to him. The halfling willingly agreed, noting that he had a reputation to maintain. He told the PC's that his source had been one Merkel Trachsel, a human scout who had recently been working for the city of Middenheim, guiding parties of refugees safely into the city. Hearing this, Siegfried asked if Trachsel might've known Baumer, a woodsman recently found murdered in the city. Farthingale replied that he didn't know about Baumer, but that Trachsel certainly knew many such people in the local area.
As the conversation continued, Alane was making her way to the Sword and Flail, having decided that she must pass on to her companions the news that they didn't have as much time at their disposal as they believed. She managed to make her way the short distance from the Freiburg to the Neumarket with no difficulty and soon arrived at the tavern. The elf's arrival caused a bit of a stir- and not a few leers- among the locals, but these calmed down when she joined her companions at their table with Farthingale and Beyer.
Alane passed on her news quietly to Seigfried, interrupting him in his- not unsuccessful- efforts to strike up friendly relations with Beyer. Meanwhile, Mordrin decided that it was time to see if he could get any information out of Farthingale or Beyer about the party's mission in the Sword and Flail. So, he announced, I hear that there's a rumour going round that there's a chaos cult here in the tavern. A stunned silence fell at the table.
You know what I mean, the dwarf continued, that Witch Hunter who's going on trial? He's supposed to have found a chaos cult here. This effort to retrieve the situation just made things worse. Beyer and Farthingale quickly finished their drinks and, bidding everyone a polite farewell, made a hasty exit from the tavern.
After their companions' departure, the party fell to discussing Alane's news. Her description of the peculiarly familiar stranger's bald head, bushy eyebrows and hooked nose rang bells in the minds of several other PC's. Soon enough, someone remembered that he had been seen a few times back in Erntezeit when the party had first arrived in Middenheim with the Untergard refugee party. He had had the air of a petty official, but that was all that anyone could recall.
By this time the PC's had decided that just hanging around drinking in the Sword and Flail wasn't going to achieve anything. It was time to leave. Outside, it was decided that Berthold and Seigfried would hang around in the Neumarket to keep an eye on the tavern, while Alane, Grundi and Mordrin would head off to the Temple of Sigmar to see if they could find out more about this mysterious stranger.
Back at the Freiburg, the 2 dwarfs and the elf found that sullen locals still hung around outside the front of the Temple of Sigmar. A strong Watch presence made sure that they were behaving themselves. So the PC's headed round the back, where they saw wagonloads of lumber heading for the nearby Square of Martials where tomorrow's trail was to take place.
Mordrin banged on the door, which was opened by one of the Temple Guard. The dwarf announced that he had to see High Capitular Werner Stolz immediately. State your business, replied the guard. It's a secret, said Mordrin, insisting that he be let in immediately. The guard was having none of this, and again told the dwarf to state his business. As Mordrin repeated his demands in the face of the guard's continued stubbornness and increasingly self-evident disbelief, Alane decided she didn't like the look of the dwarf's rising temper: she took to her heels to rejoin Berthold and Seigfried back in the Neumarket.
After a couple of minutes watching Mordrin getting angrier and angrier in the face of the temple guard's refusal to admit him without an account of his business, Grundi decided to intervene to prevent Mordrin from taking his axe to the door. It was time to try the front door.
Round the front, a watch sergeant intercepted the 2 dwarfs as they headed for the front door. Once again Mordrin insisted on being admitted to see the High Capitular. Once again he was asked to state his business. On replying that it was none of the Watch Sergeant's business, Mordrin was told in no uncertain terms that it was precisely the Watch Sergeant's business because his duty was to guard the temple.
The confrontation between the obdurate and the bloody-minded looked like being as futile as before until the name of Father Greimold came up. The Watch Sergeant agreed to check if Greimold would see the 2 dwarfs. A Watchman went up to the door, and Greimold appeared soon after. When the dwarfs joined him, he took them inside. Pausing just inside, he asked them what their business was.
The dwarfs passed on Alane's description. Greimold told them that the description matched Maximillian Lang, a city official. Mordrin asked if Lang was known to have any dealings with Liebnitz. Greimold said that the pair were known to cooperate politically, citing as an example Liebnitz's support for Lang when the latter was put forward for the position of overseeing Middenheim's efforts to support the influx of refugees into the city in the aftermath of the Storm of Chaos.
Mordrin pressed Greimold on the issue, looking for hints that there might be a darker dimension to Lang and Liebnitz's cooperation. Father Greimold could only reiterate that, as far as he knew, it was all just politics. In the course of this discussion, Mordrin was surprised to discover that Father Greimold knew nothing at all of the party's imprisonment by Liebnitz in the dungeons of the Temple of Ulric.
Eventually convinced that there was nothing more to learn, Grundi and Mordrin took their leave to return to the Sword and Flail. They had given Father Greimold something to think about. And he had perhaps taught them a lesson about how information works in the upper echelons of the Old World.
As these events had been unfolding, Alane had rejoined Berthold and Seigfried outside the Sword and Flail in the Neumarket. The 2 humans were aghast to hear that she had left Mordrin on the point of fighting his way into the Temple of Sigmar. Best left well alone then they decided, and concluded that it was time to pay another visit to the Sword and Flail.
Related@RD/KA!
Swimming with the Sharks
- #2 Assaults in and on the Sword and Flail
- Index:- My little Old World: Ashes of Middenheim
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Fresh from my FLGS
So, after a hard day's work at the computer last Friday preparing for Sunday's WFRP I decided to reward myself with another trip to Static. It turned out to be very timely, netting me a real bargain and something I've been waiting for for quite some time.
PARANOIA: Mandatory BONUS FUN Card Game
Many citizen readers will be remember Paranoia, the rpg by Greg Costyikan that turned roleplaying on its head with its wicked sense of humour some 20-odd years ago. Some of you might even have been tormen... Erm, had the privilege of loyally serving The Computer in the years since. Recently rereleased in a brand new edition by Mongoose Publishing, it is a game that has been on my 'Please let me express my undying loyalty' list ever since my first taste of life as a clone Troubleshooter many moons ago. So I was exactly as interested as you would expect of a loyal citizen to discover that Mongoose also do a Paranoia card game.
Imagine my horror then to discover this treasonous game on sale for half price (?!) in my FLGS, a real no brainer for me as soon as I saw it- leave well alone! Unfortunately some Traitor must've slipped a copy into my bag, because what should I find when I get home but somebody else's set of this DNCPCG (Definitely Not Collectable Paranoia Card Game). This feeble plot to besmirch the good reputation of JMcL63- the most humble of loyal servants of The All-Benevolent Computer- is doomed to failure. I am sure The Computer will understand upon reading my report.
PARANOIA: Mandatory BONUS FUN Card Game is one of those games that will prove to be either a damp squib because of the simplicity of its elements, or a real winner because of its humourous encouragement of evil backstabbing by your sadistic gaming buddies. It's a simple cardgame in which players vie to have the highest security clearance once the first player has lost all 6 of their Troubleshooter's clones.
The playing pieces are cards: Troubleshooter and Security Clearance cards to keep track of the status of the players' Troubleshooters; and Mission and Action cards for the gameplay. Play proceeds in rounds in which players vie to kill each other or have each other declared a traitor while trying to fulfil a mission set for them by The All-Wise Computer. At the end the mission the Mission Debriefing Phase determines the success or failure of the mission, and the results for the Troubleshooters' Security Clearances; and the Internal Security Investigation Phase determines the fate of Traitors. Oh yes, you can survive and succeed in the mission and still die.
The rules are simple and clear... No, no, no, this is a treasonous game: the rules are complicated and incomprehensible. Nothing makes any sense whatsoever. I read my way through the disappointingly thin rules manual sadly full of far too much padding over and over again, and I was no wiser after all that effort than I was after a first quick skim through the skimpy pages. This poor excuse for a game system is in no way helped by the 150 nicely printed cards and 156 colourful counters used to keep track of your Troubleshooter's status. No doubt The Computer could do much, much better.
If there is one good thing I can say about this game, it's the rule for choosing a Team Leader (1 player is the Team Leader, who starts the game with a higher Security Clearance than The Computer's other, somewhat more treasonous servants):
But there isn't one good thing I can say about this game. There are two:
Mutants and Masterminds: Freedom City
As a longtime fan of superhero roleplaying suffering from HERO-system burnout and looking for a suitable alternative, I got myself a copy of Mutants and Masterminds: 2nd Edition as soon as I could last year. I was very impressed by the system and the production both. Here, I felt, was a superhero game that I wanted to run.
So, looking for as easy a life as possible as a GM, I thought it'd be interesting to try something in M&M's own setting: Freedom City. My wait for the arrival of the new edition of this setting product ended when I walked into Static last Friday, and it was a real no-brainer that I was going to get myself a copy as soon as I saw it on the racks.
Wow! If anything I'm even more impressed with Freedom City than I am with the M&M core rules. Why do I say this?
Well, M&M gives you exactly what you'd want from a core rulebook for an rpg. You get a good system that immediately serves to awaken your interest in playing the game, including some nice new mechanics that really hit the spot- the Hero point rules in M&M are rules I'm really rather keen to see in action, be it as PC or GM. There are superhero archetypes that could be used as pregenerated PC's to get you and your players quickly into the 2 introductory adventures, or in scenarios of your own devising against the villain archetypes also included. On top of all that M&M also contains some servicable advice for GM's on how to set up and run superhero games.
All in all then, the M&M core rulebook is a strong package which benefits from being written in a solid, no nonsense manner, and from being really well presented.
If I am that impressed by the M&M core rules, what is it about Freedom City that impresses me more? To sum it up in a phrase, I'd have to say that this book is the proverbial quart in the pint pot. Produced and written to the same high standards as the core rules, this book contains absolutely everything a would-be GM needs to get a superhero campaign up and running just as quickly as they could wish.
Freedom City itself is well detailed. You get a brief history of the city and an overview of its different districts. There's a look at a wide variety of institutions and locations, from businesses and the media, through parks and restaurants, to the media and science and technology, and more. This is all topped-off with a look at city government, law and order, and, of course, the criminal underworld.
This material is very strong. It's tightly written and well-focussed, giving you all the different sorts of locations and NPC's that could appear in a typical superhero story. There are several excellent maps, a good crop of fully worked out NPC's alongside plenty of key personalities, and a nice range of appropriate agencies and criminal gangs. The detail is sufficient to give you a good handle on all of these elements of the city for your game, but not so heavy that you'll have problems getting to grips with the content. And there's plenty of room for you to fill out the details as you like.
The rest of the setting material fills out the background of the rest of the world of Freedom City. This includes hidden lands, outer space, and other dimensions. These can obviously only be presented as the briefest of capsule sketches, but sufficient information is still presented to give you a good idea of how everything fits together.
All of this background material fits together to give a strong feel for a classic 4-colour superhero setting after the fashion of classic DC or Marvel. If you want a media-mogul who's decided to turn your heroes into public enemies, you've got it. If you want advanced laboratories in which your heroes can find people to investigate the weird alien technology they've just found, they're there. And of course, there is a mutant academy too.
If the setting material is strong, then the book's crunchiness is perhaps even stronger. There are dozens and dozens of fully detailed heroes and villains presented. There are enough villains in the book that you could run a Freedom City game for months without ever having to turn to designing your own. And the heroes could serve as inspiration for your own, as allies, or even as unwitting agents of villains with mind control powers. Truly an embarrassment of riches.
The book rounds off with notes on suggested frameworks for games; on how the various different supers origins might occur in the Freedom City setting; and on Freedom City 'secrets'- elements of the setting left open for the GM to decide in their own game.
And there you have it: richly detailed and full of just the sort of material needed for pretty much any and every comicbook scene you might wish to stage in your games; and chock full of useful crunch that you can make great use of. And that, I guess, could be getting close to why I think Freedom City might be even better than the core M&M rules. The core rules met my hopes in spades, and really whetted my appetite for the game. Freedom City positively exceeded my expectations, and has left me keen to get a game going just as soon as it's practicable.
Great stuff! Full marks to the crew at Green Ronin. ;)
PARANOIA: Mandatory BONUS FUN Card Game
Many citizen readers will be remember Paranoia, the rpg by Greg Costyikan that turned roleplaying on its head with its wicked sense of humour some 20-odd years ago. Some of you might even have been tormen... Erm, had the privilege of loyally serving The Computer in the years since. Recently rereleased in a brand new edition by Mongoose Publishing, it is a game that has been on my 'Please let me express my undying loyalty' list ever since my first taste of life as a clone Troubleshooter many moons ago. So I was exactly as interested as you would expect of a loyal citizen to discover that Mongoose also do a Paranoia card game.
Imagine my horror then to discover this treasonous game on sale for half price (?!) in my FLGS, a real no brainer for me as soon as I saw it- leave well alone! Unfortunately some Traitor must've slipped a copy into my bag, because what should I find when I get home but somebody else's set of this DNCPCG (Definitely Not Collectable Paranoia Card Game). This feeble plot to besmirch the good reputation of JMcL63- the most humble of loyal servants of The All-Benevolent Computer- is doomed to failure. I am sure The Computer will understand upon reading my report.
PARANOIA: Mandatory BONUS FUN Card Game is one of those games that will prove to be either a damp squib because of the simplicity of its elements, or a real winner because of its humourous encouragement of evil backstabbing by your sadistic gaming buddies. It's a simple cardgame in which players vie to have the highest security clearance once the first player has lost all 6 of their Troubleshooter's clones.
The playing pieces are cards: Troubleshooter and Security Clearance cards to keep track of the status of the players' Troubleshooters; and Mission and Action cards for the gameplay. Play proceeds in rounds in which players vie to kill each other or have each other declared a traitor while trying to fulfil a mission set for them by The All-Wise Computer. At the end the mission the Mission Debriefing Phase determines the success or failure of the mission, and the results for the Troubleshooters' Security Clearances; and the Internal Security Investigation Phase determines the fate of Traitors. Oh yes, you can survive and succeed in the mission and still die.
The rules are simple and clear... No, no, no, this is a treasonous game: the rules are complicated and incomprehensible. Nothing makes any sense whatsoever. I read my way through the disappointingly thin rules manual sadly full of far too much padding over and over again, and I was no wiser after all that effort than I was after a first quick skim through the skimpy pages. This poor excuse for a game system is in no way helped by the 150 nicely printed cards and 156 colourful counters used to keep track of your Troubleshooter's status. No doubt The Computer could do much, much better.
If there is one good thing I can say about this game, it's the rule for choosing a Team Leader (1 player is the Team Leader, who starts the game with a higher Security Clearance than The Computer's other, somewhat more treasonous servants):
This can be done by random dice roll or, more appropriately, by having the game's owner proclaim himself Team Leader.You can be sure that yours truly is going to enjoy that little rule (I waited over 20 years before I qualified to go first in Nuclear War by virtue of a similar rule).
But there isn't one good thing I can say about this game. There are two:
Note on pronoun usage: The Computer suggests any citizen concerned about this game's usage of 'he' for the generic third-person pronoun, instead of 'he' or 'she', should attend to more important matters, such as serving The Computer with fervent loyalty.The Computer is All Wise and All Benevolent.
Mutants and Masterminds: Freedom City
As a longtime fan of superhero roleplaying suffering from HERO-system burnout and looking for a suitable alternative, I got myself a copy of Mutants and Masterminds: 2nd Edition as soon as I could last year. I was very impressed by the system and the production both. Here, I felt, was a superhero game that I wanted to run.
So, looking for as easy a life as possible as a GM, I thought it'd be interesting to try something in M&M's own setting: Freedom City. My wait for the arrival of the new edition of this setting product ended when I walked into Static last Friday, and it was a real no-brainer that I was going to get myself a copy as soon as I saw it on the racks.
Wow! If anything I'm even more impressed with Freedom City than I am with the M&M core rules. Why do I say this?
Well, M&M gives you exactly what you'd want from a core rulebook for an rpg. You get a good system that immediately serves to awaken your interest in playing the game, including some nice new mechanics that really hit the spot- the Hero point rules in M&M are rules I'm really rather keen to see in action, be it as PC or GM. There are superhero archetypes that could be used as pregenerated PC's to get you and your players quickly into the 2 introductory adventures, or in scenarios of your own devising against the villain archetypes also included. On top of all that M&M also contains some servicable advice for GM's on how to set up and run superhero games.
All in all then, the M&M core rulebook is a strong package which benefits from being written in a solid, no nonsense manner, and from being really well presented.
If I am that impressed by the M&M core rules, what is it about Freedom City that impresses me more? To sum it up in a phrase, I'd have to say that this book is the proverbial quart in the pint pot. Produced and written to the same high standards as the core rules, this book contains absolutely everything a would-be GM needs to get a superhero campaign up and running just as quickly as they could wish.
Freedom City itself is well detailed. You get a brief history of the city and an overview of its different districts. There's a look at a wide variety of institutions and locations, from businesses and the media, through parks and restaurants, to the media and science and technology, and more. This is all topped-off with a look at city government, law and order, and, of course, the criminal underworld.
This material is very strong. It's tightly written and well-focussed, giving you all the different sorts of locations and NPC's that could appear in a typical superhero story. There are several excellent maps, a good crop of fully worked out NPC's alongside plenty of key personalities, and a nice range of appropriate agencies and criminal gangs. The detail is sufficient to give you a good handle on all of these elements of the city for your game, but not so heavy that you'll have problems getting to grips with the content. And there's plenty of room for you to fill out the details as you like.
The rest of the setting material fills out the background of the rest of the world of Freedom City. This includes hidden lands, outer space, and other dimensions. These can obviously only be presented as the briefest of capsule sketches, but sufficient information is still presented to give you a good idea of how everything fits together.
All of this background material fits together to give a strong feel for a classic 4-colour superhero setting after the fashion of classic DC or Marvel. If you want a media-mogul who's decided to turn your heroes into public enemies, you've got it. If you want advanced laboratories in which your heroes can find people to investigate the weird alien technology they've just found, they're there. And of course, there is a mutant academy too.
If the setting material is strong, then the book's crunchiness is perhaps even stronger. There are dozens and dozens of fully detailed heroes and villains presented. There are enough villains in the book that you could run a Freedom City game for months without ever having to turn to designing your own. And the heroes could serve as inspiration for your own, as allies, or even as unwitting agents of villains with mind control powers. Truly an embarrassment of riches.
The book rounds off with notes on suggested frameworks for games; on how the various different supers origins might occur in the Freedom City setting; and on Freedom City 'secrets'- elements of the setting left open for the GM to decide in their own game.
And there you have it: richly detailed and full of just the sort of material needed for pretty much any and every comicbook scene you might wish to stage in your games; and chock full of useful crunch that you can make great use of. And that, I guess, could be getting close to why I think Freedom City might be even better than the core M&M rules. The core rules met my hopes in spades, and really whetted my appetite for the game. Freedom City positively exceeded my expectations, and has left me keen to get a game going just as soon as it's practicable.
Great stuff! Full marks to the crew at Green Ronin. ;)
Saturday, March 04, 2006
General gamism
The emperor's new clothes? The state of roleplaying theory #2
A funny thing happened on my way to this article
I lost the plot. Seriously. This 2nd article in my look at current roleplaying theory was intended to be a pithy refutation of the essential underpinning of today's indie roleplaying theory- the idea that roleplaying is an art form. But, reading up on some of Ron Edwards' articles at the Forge amongst other stuff, and trying to familiarise myself with the indie blogsphere- a.k.a. 'the diaspora'- I found myself losing focus.
It was mostly because I was trying to cram up on several years' of debate in a few afternoons' haphazard reading. I was also having some difficulty in filling the gap between my own thinking (which dates right back to the mid/late 80's, before the whole storytelling thing took off- which I essentially missed BTW), on the one hand; and all this new narrativist stuff, on the other. Plus, to be perfectly honest, just like when I first heard an account of Edwards' GNS theory in a lecture at the Worldcon last August, I was finding useful insights in some of the ideas, even if they were just reminding me of stuff I used to have a notion of when I was an occasional GM and regular player back in the 80's.
More than that, I began to understand what it is these narrativists are on about- which had been my purpose in any case. I even began to wonder, to a certain degree, why 'mainstream' roleplayers make such a fuss about this stuff. And then I was rescued by Ron Edwards himself. I'm referring of course to his infamous- and already widely discussed- 'brain damage' thread at the Forge.
The fuss, and what it's about
The thread which caused all the hoo-hah spun off from here, although Edwards clearly hadn't coined the term there, to wit:
Remember now, this is Edwards' explanation of why people can't understand the rules of his rpg Sorceror (winner of the Diana Jones Award in 2002 no less): they're functionally brain-damaged to a degree that parallels physical handicap or even the trauma of childhood sexual abuse.
To put this in context, leave aside for the moment the sexual abuse analogy. Let's just imagine if someone had said that gay men couldn't understand romantic love because they were brain damaged by their own sad experiences, that brain damage being the source of their 'deviant' sexual predilections? Or that woman deserve to earn less than men for the same job because their brains are functionally inferior? Or that black people aren't fit to join polite white society for the same reason?
How many of those who made excuses for Edwards' remarks would let ideas like that pass unchallenged? Why then were so many of them willing to bow down to this sort of misanthropic bile? RPGpundit at TheUruguayanGamer deserves credit for calling out one Levi Kornelsen on this point recently.
The tragic irony of desperate measures?
When I originally read the thread, my first considered reaction after the obvious shock was that there was a pathetic air of desperation about the whole thing. Consider: as I mentioned in #1, RPGpundit reported last December on the closure, by Edwards, of the 'RPG Theory' and 'GNS Model Discussion' forums at the Forge. At the time, the pundit took Edwards' own reason for this decision largely at face value:
But seeing the cheap shock tactics Edwards employed in his 'brain damage' thread, I was reminded of the classic tactic of sectarian leaders: namely shocking the faithful with some abrupt U-turn or other dramatic and unexpected manoeuvre. The purpose of this is to generate a psychodrama that will bond the faithful all the more strongly with their glorious leader by instilling fear in them, then comforting them with your strong and implacable leadership in the face of the pseudo-crisis you've carefully conjured up.
If this is the game Edwards was playing, then why, I asked myself? What was the source of his perceived insecurity? This made me reconsider Edwards' reasons for his decision to close his forums last December. I was thinking about this while I was trawling through the indie blogsphere, and I was struck by a possible reason: the indie diaspora itself.
I mean to say: the Forge was instituted in 2001. Readers will already know of its position in the roleplaying ecommunity. Clinton R. Nixon has told us what it has meant to Edwards, and what Edwards means to it. In its own terms it was very successful. Now imagine the impact on it of the rise of the indie blogsphere: suddenly what was a tightly knit community held together at one virtual location and through one man's vision spins off more and more independent sites, which start to become little communities of their own.
At the same time, it is quite possible that the closed 'RPG Theory' and 'GNS Model Discussion' forums were becoming counterproductive from Edwards' point-of-view, because he was constantly having to defend his theories, and was undoubtedly in danger of tripping himself up. Or maybe he just got tired of all those brain-damaged bozos asking him stupid questions which showed that they had understood nothing they'd read in his major works (it's tough at the top I guess). I don't know, I'm speculating here, but this could be verified if anyone really wanted to sit and read their way through a pile of dead Forge threads.
In any event, what I am suggesting here is exactly what the RPGpundit said last December:
That's it for now. More on this just as soon as I have time to put it together.
Related@RD/KA!
The emperor's new clothes? The state of roleplaying theory
- #1: General gamism
- Roleplaying as art? Not for me
- It's art Jim, but not as we know it!
A funny thing happened on my way to this article
I lost the plot. Seriously. This 2nd article in my look at current roleplaying theory was intended to be a pithy refutation of the essential underpinning of today's indie roleplaying theory- the idea that roleplaying is an art form. But, reading up on some of Ron Edwards' articles at the Forge amongst other stuff, and trying to familiarise myself with the indie blogsphere- a.k.a. 'the diaspora'- I found myself losing focus.
It was mostly because I was trying to cram up on several years' of debate in a few afternoons' haphazard reading. I was also having some difficulty in filling the gap between my own thinking (which dates right back to the mid/late 80's, before the whole storytelling thing took off- which I essentially missed BTW), on the one hand; and all this new narrativist stuff, on the other. Plus, to be perfectly honest, just like when I first heard an account of Edwards' GNS theory in a lecture at the Worldcon last August, I was finding useful insights in some of the ideas, even if they were just reminding me of stuff I used to have a notion of when I was an occasional GM and regular player back in the 80's.
More than that, I began to understand what it is these narrativists are on about- which had been my purpose in any case. I even began to wonder, to a certain degree, why 'mainstream' roleplayers make such a fuss about this stuff. And then I was rescued by Ron Edwards himself. I'm referring of course to his infamous- and already widely discussed- 'brain damage' thread at the Forge.
The fuss, and what it's about
The thread which caused all the hoo-hah spun off from here, although Edwards clearly hadn't coined the term there, to wit:
Now - your set of examples is more or less a diagnostic board of what I've been calling, with various reactions 'round the internet, brain damage. There are so many bent/broken features of creativity and interaction embedded in those examples that it'd take a textbook to lay them all out in a way which shows what's really wrong.But brain damage wasn't enough, no. In the major thread itself, Edwards went on to develop his analogy:
Yes - "wrong." Since brain damage (which I think is literally the case) seems to get right up people's asses as a term, I'll analogize to limb-based physical limitations.
Now for the discussion of brain damage. I'll begin with a closer analogy. Consider that there's a reason I and most other people call an adult having sex with a, say, twelve-year-old, to be abusive. Never mind if it's, technically speaking, consensual. It's still abuse. Why? Because the younger person's mind is currently developing - these experiences are going to be formative in ways that experiences ten years later will not be. I'm not sure if you are familiar with the characteristic behaviors of someone with this history, but I am very familiar with them - and they are not constructive or happiness-oriented behaviors at all. The person's mind has been damaged while it was forming, and it takes a hell of a lot of re-orientation even for functional repairs (which is not the same as undoing the damage).Before examining quite how despicable that statement is, it is worth considering exactly who this storm in a teacup is about. Here is one of the many discussions that sprung up about this thread across the indie blogsphere (in as thorough a search as I could manage I counted 10 in total, 9 of which appeared to be part of the indie diaspora). Here, from the above-linked thread, are the words of Clinton R. Nixon, Edwards' closest associate at the Forge:
Not to get too about the Forge here, but he [Ron] is under an obligation to me, expressed financially through my continued hosting and maintenence of the Forge. He is under an obligation to the community that was built by him and others, as they have built him up and put him in the position he is in. Do you think anyone would be talking about his theories without a continued and vital community surrounding them talking about them outside the confines of one forum? While elections were not formalized, he is pretty much a duly elected president of a movement and community. And that position comes with responsibility and obligation, most certainly.And here is how Nixon felt about Edwards' remarks:
I'm not really planning on posting to the Forge again any time soon: honestly, I can't morally justify being a part of a community with those sorts of attitudes.And that's only one remark in which Nixon expresses his utter dismay at this turn of events.
Remember now, this is Edwards' explanation of why people can't understand the rules of his rpg Sorceror (winner of the Diana Jones Award in 2002 no less): they're functionally brain-damaged to a degree that parallels physical handicap or even the trauma of childhood sexual abuse.
To put this in context, leave aside for the moment the sexual abuse analogy. Let's just imagine if someone had said that gay men couldn't understand romantic love because they were brain damaged by their own sad experiences, that brain damage being the source of their 'deviant' sexual predilections? Or that woman deserve to earn less than men for the same job because their brains are functionally inferior? Or that black people aren't fit to join polite white society for the same reason?
How many of those who made excuses for Edwards' remarks would let ideas like that pass unchallenged? Why then were so many of them willing to bow down to this sort of misanthropic bile? RPGpundit at TheUruguayanGamer deserves credit for calling out one Levi Kornelsen on this point recently.
The tragic irony of desperate measures?
When I originally read the thread, my first considered reaction after the obvious shock was that there was a pathetic air of desperation about the whole thing. Consider: as I mentioned in #1, RPGpundit reported last December on the closure, by Edwards, of the 'RPG Theory' and 'GNS Model Discussion' forums at the Forge. At the time, the pundit took Edwards' own reason for this decision largely at face value:
This forum is no longer available for posting. It has served its purpose: to develop a sensible framework for discussing play, and the children of play, design and publishing.In other words, all other comments notwithstanding, the pundit accepted Edwards' decision as an arrogant expression of self-confidence from a secure position. This was fair enough on the basis of the evidence at the time.
But seeing the cheap shock tactics Edwards employed in his 'brain damage' thread, I was reminded of the classic tactic of sectarian leaders: namely shocking the faithful with some abrupt U-turn or other dramatic and unexpected manoeuvre. The purpose of this is to generate a psychodrama that will bond the faithful all the more strongly with their glorious leader by instilling fear in them, then comforting them with your strong and implacable leadership in the face of the pseudo-crisis you've carefully conjured up.
If this is the game Edwards was playing, then why, I asked myself? What was the source of his perceived insecurity? This made me reconsider Edwards' reasons for his decision to close his forums last December. I was thinking about this while I was trawling through the indie blogsphere, and I was struck by a possible reason: the indie diaspora itself.
I mean to say: the Forge was instituted in 2001. Readers will already know of its position in the roleplaying ecommunity. Clinton R. Nixon has told us what it has meant to Edwards, and what Edwards means to it. In its own terms it was very successful. Now imagine the impact on it of the rise of the indie blogsphere: suddenly what was a tightly knit community held together at one virtual location and through one man's vision spins off more and more independent sites, which start to become little communities of their own.
At the same time, it is quite possible that the closed 'RPG Theory' and 'GNS Model Discussion' forums were becoming counterproductive from Edwards' point-of-view, because he was constantly having to defend his theories, and was undoubtedly in danger of tripping himself up. Or maybe he just got tired of all those brain-damaged bozos asking him stupid questions which showed that they had understood nothing they'd read in his major works (it's tough at the top I guess). I don't know, I'm speculating here, but this could be verified if anyone really wanted to sit and read their way through a pile of dead Forge threads.
In any event, what I am suggesting here is exactly what the RPGpundit said last December:
So here Ron has set his dogma. Why now? Probably because he has nothing more to say, and leaving the theory open to ongoing discussion would only result in two things: people pointing out that the theory is full of shit being the first (and by far the least dangerous to him), and the second being followers of his coming up with heretical alterations to the theory that stole his own thunder (and that's the clincher, the one that he's really nervous about).Well, like I said, the first is verifiable. The second is verified: the FUNnel model, and the AGE Model Core Document v 1.a are just 2 of a few challengers to the Edwards crown I've found recently. The first is too crude to give Mr. Edwards sleepness nights. The second is an example of another threefold model, one "which emphasizes an ecological perspective of gaming"(?!). It seems that, just like in the earliest days of roleplaying, people who're copying each other have to borrow each other's acronymic stylings too.
That's it for now. More on this just as soon as I have time to put it together.
Related@RD/KA!
The emperor's new clothes? The state of roleplaying theory
- #1: General gamism
- Roleplaying as art? Not for me
- It's art Jim, but not as we know it!
Friday, February 24, 2006
Fresh from my FLGS
So, inspired after my game Sunday last, I headed into town the other day to visit Static Games, my FLGS, with the thought that I might get myself a copy of Doom the Boardgame. In the end I was distracted by some other stuff, so my own copy of DtB will have to wait.
Forges of Nuln
I knew this was due out in February so had a notion that it might be in stock, although thoughts of Doom the Boardgame had pushed it from my mind. But the cry of "the new WFRP book is in" as I walked into Static soon reminded me of this latest book from Black Industries. Forges of Nuln is the third and concluding part of BI's 'Paths of the Damned' campaign. As regular readers will know I am currently GM'ing Ashes of Middenheim, the first part of this trilogy. As such I just had to get my hands on this volume: the more time I have to get it ready the better I figured.
I've only had time to skim the book so far so I can't comment in detail. But it is certainly up to BI/Green Ronin's usual standards for the WFRP line (will that include the notorious typos I wonder?). The format follows that of Ashes of Middenheim and Spires of Altdorf, namely a short introduction to the city itself followed by the adventure.
In FoN this first section includes a couple of new careers, one of which is the illustrious Dung Collector, whose trappings include the instantly memorable 'Bag of Maggots' and 'Dung'. Some dozen or so pages are devoted to describing Nuln itself. This might not seem much, but I do have to say that, in my experience of running AoM it is adequate for a GM's purposes: there's enough there to give you something to work with, while the text's brevity means that it's easy to review material and scan sections for reminders. I guess a lengthier and more detailed account might be nice, but there's always the chance that it might become too unwieldy I feel.
One thing I like about this section is that- unlike AoM and SoA- it includes adventure hooks for all the specific locations mentioned in each district. Opinions on plot hooks vary, but mine is that a GM can never have too many plot ideas to hand. One nice touch is the listing of Otto Jaeger's house, in the Kaufmann district. Otto is of course the brother of Felix Jaeger, from the Gotrek and Felix novels by Bill King. The entry includes an adventure hook referring to the events in Skavenslayer, the novel set in Nuln in which readers were introduced to Otto. I suspect that more than a few players might want to walk in the footsteps of their favourite psychotic dwarf, and end up paying Mr. Otto Jaeger a visit.
There's not a lot I can add on the subject of the adventure itself. But I can say that it includes some nicely mapped locations, as well what looks to me like shedloads of NPC's. This leads me to expect that the adventure will be less linear than AoM has been, and a bit harder to run as a result. Still, it should prove entertaining if the high points of AoM have been anything to go by.
Memoir'44 Terrain Pack
So, I finally got my hands on the first of the long-awaited M44 expansion sets; and I do mean long-awaited: they were first announced last July, were expected to be available in August, and finally hit the shelves in December. The M44 Terrain Pack delivers exactly what it says on the box: a host of new terrain tiles and counters for use in games of M44, plus 4 new scenarios featuring the new elements of the game.
The new terrain tiles fall into 3 types: desert tiles; new terrain types for the regular boards; and what are called 'landmarks'.
The desert tiles include new towns/villages and forest tiles with artwork appropriate to the desert setting. There are 2 completely new terrain types introduced for the desert: the oasis and the wadi. The new tiles expanding the temperate terrain set are: high ground and flooded fields; marshes; mountains; railroad tracks, including a station; roads; and lakes and river forks.
In contrast to the generic and typical geographical features represented by standard terrain tiles, the landmarks provide special locations of the sort that might feature as an objective in a scenario. With 12 different landmark types there really are too many to list, but they include dams, airfields, cemeteries, factory complexes, lighthouses(?!) and prison camps.
All of the tiles are as attractive as fans of the original M44 would expect, with the landmarks looking particularly neat to my eye. The desert tiles are also on a sandy background which would look nice on the new winter/desert board.
The rules for the new terrain tiles are straightforward and logical modulations of the terrain effects on movement and combat rules from the basic set, with nice additions to reflect the unique characteristics of the new terrain features represented. Oases, for example, allow ordered units to recover lost figures after the fashion of the Medics and Mechanics tactics card. Dams can be sabotaged (although the rules don't mention players getting a bonus if they hum the 'Dambusters March' while rolling their dice). Lighthouses and churches provide spotting locations for calling in artillery barrages or airstrikes. Airfields can be used to bring in reinforcements. These kinds of rules should bring a lot of flavour to scenarios in which they feature.
The new counters include more obstacles, information markers for new rules, and more unit ID badges.
The unit ID badges cover a wide variety of new nationalties- eg. British Commonwealth troops- which are largely decorative, but they include badges for combat engineers. Combat engineers are a new special unit type with abilities that tabletop generals will prize. The obstacles are: field bunkers- bunkers that both sides can use; river fords, pontoon and railroad bridges; road blocks; and a train. All of these are nice, but the train looks really neat: it is 2 counters long, and can be a supply train- carrying reinforcements, or an armoured train- carrying artillery. Either of these look like being a lot of fun in play.
The remaining counters are largely associated with new rules. We now have rules for minefields. These are represented by counters laid unseen by the owning player which can represent anything from 0 to 4 attack dice. There are targetting markers for the new big guns rules. Big guns have a longer range than regular artillery, and enjoy the ability to bring down heavier fire on a target they have already zeroed-in on. I suspect that these will bring a new dimension of teeth-grinding frustration to your enemy's long range harassing fire.
The final new addition are the battle star tokens. These are generic tokens used to represent special rules. These are only limited by scenario writers' imaginations, but the examples given in the rules are interesting enough: blowing up bridges, collapsible rafts and boats, and heroic leaders, to name just a few examples.
And that's it for the contents of the M44 Terrain Pack. All in all I have to say that it looks like a great expansion to the basic game. A few desert terrain tiles and the nationality counters aside, everything in the box should add exciting and entertaining new dimensions to an already great game. With dozens and dozens of official and unofficial new scenarios featuring elements from the M44 Terrain Pack already available online I hope to be trying out some of this new stuff as soon as possible. I just have to get hold of a certain Badger again.
Forges of Nuln
I knew this was due out in February so had a notion that it might be in stock, although thoughts of Doom the Boardgame had pushed it from my mind. But the cry of "the new WFRP book is in" as I walked into Static soon reminded me of this latest book from Black Industries. Forges of Nuln is the third and concluding part of BI's 'Paths of the Damned' campaign. As regular readers will know I am currently GM'ing Ashes of Middenheim, the first part of this trilogy. As such I just had to get my hands on this volume: the more time I have to get it ready the better I figured.I've only had time to skim the book so far so I can't comment in detail. But it is certainly up to BI/Green Ronin's usual standards for the WFRP line (will that include the notorious typos I wonder?). The format follows that of Ashes of Middenheim and Spires of Altdorf, namely a short introduction to the city itself followed by the adventure.
In FoN this first section includes a couple of new careers, one of which is the illustrious Dung Collector, whose trappings include the instantly memorable 'Bag of Maggots' and 'Dung'. Some dozen or so pages are devoted to describing Nuln itself. This might not seem much, but I do have to say that, in my experience of running AoM it is adequate for a GM's purposes: there's enough there to give you something to work with, while the text's brevity means that it's easy to review material and scan sections for reminders. I guess a lengthier and more detailed account might be nice, but there's always the chance that it might become too unwieldy I feel.
One thing I like about this section is that- unlike AoM and SoA- it includes adventure hooks for all the specific locations mentioned in each district. Opinions on plot hooks vary, but mine is that a GM can never have too many plot ideas to hand. One nice touch is the listing of Otto Jaeger's house, in the Kaufmann district. Otto is of course the brother of Felix Jaeger, from the Gotrek and Felix novels by Bill King. The entry includes an adventure hook referring to the events in Skavenslayer, the novel set in Nuln in which readers were introduced to Otto. I suspect that more than a few players might want to walk in the footsteps of their favourite psychotic dwarf, and end up paying Mr. Otto Jaeger a visit.
There's not a lot I can add on the subject of the adventure itself. But I can say that it includes some nicely mapped locations, as well what looks to me like shedloads of NPC's. This leads me to expect that the adventure will be less linear than AoM has been, and a bit harder to run as a result. Still, it should prove entertaining if the high points of AoM have been anything to go by.
Memoir'44 Terrain Pack
So, I finally got my hands on the first of the long-awaited M44 expansion sets; and I do mean long-awaited: they were first announced last July, were expected to be available in August, and finally hit the shelves in December. The M44 Terrain Pack delivers exactly what it says on the box: a host of new terrain tiles and counters for use in games of M44, plus 4 new scenarios featuring the new elements of the game.The new terrain tiles fall into 3 types: desert tiles; new terrain types for the regular boards; and what are called 'landmarks'.
The desert tiles include new towns/villages and forest tiles with artwork appropriate to the desert setting. There are 2 completely new terrain types introduced for the desert: the oasis and the wadi. The new tiles expanding the temperate terrain set are: high ground and flooded fields; marshes; mountains; railroad tracks, including a station; roads; and lakes and river forks.
In contrast to the generic and typical geographical features represented by standard terrain tiles, the landmarks provide special locations of the sort that might feature as an objective in a scenario. With 12 different landmark types there really are too many to list, but they include dams, airfields, cemeteries, factory complexes, lighthouses(?!) and prison camps.
All of the tiles are as attractive as fans of the original M44 would expect, with the landmarks looking particularly neat to my eye. The desert tiles are also on a sandy background which would look nice on the new winter/desert board.
The rules for the new terrain tiles are straightforward and logical modulations of the terrain effects on movement and combat rules from the basic set, with nice additions to reflect the unique characteristics of the new terrain features represented. Oases, for example, allow ordered units to recover lost figures after the fashion of the Medics and Mechanics tactics card. Dams can be sabotaged (although the rules don't mention players getting a bonus if they hum the 'Dambusters March' while rolling their dice). Lighthouses and churches provide spotting locations for calling in artillery barrages or airstrikes. Airfields can be used to bring in reinforcements. These kinds of rules should bring a lot of flavour to scenarios in which they feature.
The new counters include more obstacles, information markers for new rules, and more unit ID badges.
The unit ID badges cover a wide variety of new nationalties- eg. British Commonwealth troops- which are largely decorative, but they include badges for combat engineers. Combat engineers are a new special unit type with abilities that tabletop generals will prize. The obstacles are: field bunkers- bunkers that both sides can use; river fords, pontoon and railroad bridges; road blocks; and a train. All of these are nice, but the train looks really neat: it is 2 counters long, and can be a supply train- carrying reinforcements, or an armoured train- carrying artillery. Either of these look like being a lot of fun in play.
The remaining counters are largely associated with new rules. We now have rules for minefields. These are represented by counters laid unseen by the owning player which can represent anything from 0 to 4 attack dice. There are targetting markers for the new big guns rules. Big guns have a longer range than regular artillery, and enjoy the ability to bring down heavier fire on a target they have already zeroed-in on. I suspect that these will bring a new dimension of teeth-grinding frustration to your enemy's long range harassing fire.
The final new addition are the battle star tokens. These are generic tokens used to represent special rules. These are only limited by scenario writers' imaginations, but the examples given in the rules are interesting enough: blowing up bridges, collapsible rafts and boats, and heroic leaders, to name just a few examples.
And that's it for the contents of the M44 Terrain Pack. All in all I have to say that it looks like a great expansion to the basic game. A few desert terrain tiles and the nationality counters aside, everything in the box should add exciting and entertaining new dimensions to an already great game. With dozens and dozens of official and unofficial new scenarios featuring elements from the M44 Terrain Pack already available online I hope to be trying out some of this new stuff as soon as possible. I just have to get hold of a certain Badger again.
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Meanwhile...
Not my little Old World
Well, the cursed cloud of gloom was upon me again last week, and I wasn't able to get the WFRP ready for last Sunday. So we just played some boardgames instead.
Roborally
We started off with a game of this gem. It's been a long time since I've had a multiplayer game of Roborally, so to get a 6-player game was cool. Better still: Martin wasn't playing, so I felt I was in with a chance...
Anyhoo, I chose a couple of easy boards without too many different elements and decided to go for a simple 3-flag race. I explained the basic principles of safe and dangerous flag location, and then we had a quick bit of random selection to decide who'd be placing the start and the 3 flags. Blow me, but did Tony not immediately get into the spirit of things by placing the 1st flag so that there were pits on 2 adjacent sides. That flag was going to be a real killer, and no mistake!
Sure enough: yours truly was first to the flag, and first into the pit, when Andy's bot sneaked in and pushed my Twonky off the flag just before I was going to vacate it with the aid of my Retro Rockets. I really, really should've known better I guess, but Martin's absence (and my nifty Retro Rockets) had lulled me into a false sense of security, and I charged in hoping for the best, as is my wont. Sheesh. At least I wasn't the only bot so to suffer, though I can't remember who was next.
That wasn't the only carnage in the game. Andy got himself the Buzz Bomb- a neat little option that allows you to fire a flying missile that you guide around the board by programing it with its own hand of 5 cards. This can be a lot of fun, but only having 5 program cards means that Buzz Bombs aren't very manoeuvrable, and they can sometimes be more dangerous to their owner than anyone else. This was what happened this time I seem to recall, as Andy's bot and his Buzz Bomb ended up having a rather explosive encounter soon after. Heh.
At least Andy could take consolation from also having the Mine Layer. He promptly laid a mine on the 1st flag before heading off for the next checkpoint, so that the next person to land on the flag was guaranteed a warm welcome.
Meanwhile, Tony had got his hands on the Drone Launcher. This option allows you to fire a flying drone instead of firing your laser. You mark the target's square with a targeting marker, and the drone flies there at full speed (3/phase). If it doesn't hit anything before reaching the square, it hovers on the spot, rotating each phase until it picks up a new target, and off it goes again.
I've never seen a drone laucher do very much before, but in this game Tony fired off all 3, and each and every one hit. They don't do a huge amount of damage (only 2 points explosive), but they do push the target bot back 1 square. So yes, you've guessed it, Tony was able to fire a drone at a bot beside a pit and bingo, down it went. Three shots, 3 hits, and 1 kill: quite simply the most effective use of a Drone Launcher I've ever seen. But that's what happens on a crowded factory floor.
Donald was doing his bit for the robot repair industry too. His bot had the High Power Laser. This cutie can shoot through walls, or even other bots, with the added bonus that if you shoot through a bot, it takes damage as well as the target beyond. Two for the price of one was a bargain that Donald couldn't resist.
Antony too was getting in on the demolition derby. As I made my escape from the chaos surrounding the 1st flag I took several points of damage. Time for a quick power down to repair it all I decided. So I headed for what I hoped would be a safe spot. No such freakin' luck though. In a fit of sheer malice, Antony just ran up and pushed me off the side of the board as my bot sat there inert. I know he enjoyed this, because he reminded me of his evil deed several times after the game.
Meanwhile Brian too had lost a life and had been sent right back to the start, which turned out to be fortunate, but futile. Fortunate because it meant that his was the only bot in any position to do anything to hinder Andy as he made his run for the final flag. Futile because his efforts failed, and Andy cruised to a comfortable victory.
Everyone enjoyed this game, and there is an appetite for more, which is just great, because Roborally is one of those multiplayer games where the rule of 'the more the merrier' definitely applies. Twonky will have his revenge, just you wait!
Doom the Boardgame
Andy brought his copy of Fantasy Flight Games' boardgame version of the original 1st-person shooter for us to try out. I've never played this before, but I've been keen to give it a go ever since I first got to look inside the box just after it was released. Doom the Boardgame is simply one of the most awesome boxes of gaming goodness I have ever seen. The box is big, heavy, and stuffed to bursting with plastic miniatures, jig-cut board sections, counters, cards, and more. Quite frankly, even GW at their most generous have never filled a big box with such goodies- yes, in terms of components, Doom the Boardgame even puts my beloved Space Hulk in the shade.
So, does the actual gameplay live up to the quite astonishing impact of this droolworthy box of delights? On the face of it, yes.
Andy has the Expansion Set, which is just as well, because the basic game only supports 4 players. With the Expansion Set we were able to play a Deathmatch. This had the advantage of letting us all play, and of getting us easily into a quick and simple game. Unfortunately it had the disadvantage of not letting us play with all the lovely monsters, because a Deathmatch is a straight shootout between marines. Still, we did get a good taste of the core mechanics of the game.
We played Deathmatch 2: Reactor Core (click through and head for page 10), with a 3-kill victory condition.
I won't review the rules or the gameplay in detail: the rules are all there online if you'd like to check them out, and the review at The Wargamer gives a good account of how the game works. What I will say is that the rules are logical and provide for fraught decision-making and tense gameplay. There are a lot of fiddly details to get used to, but they all make sense, and I certainly fancy playing the game often enough to master the detail and develop some serious tactics.
I got the first kill in our game: Andy decided to head for the reactor core- the red area on the map- to get the BFG; so I promptly headed for an encounter location and opened the reactor shield. Heh.
The game then devolved into a tense duel of manoeuvre, as people rushed to arm themselves with the most effective weapons and sneaked about trying to get the drop on each other. I quickly discovered the joy of grenades, which can be thrown round corners and can prove satisfyingly deadly. They can also bounce around unpredictably, with unfortunately catastrophic results, as I discovered to my cost (yep, more spectacular self-destruction!).
Among all the rules, I found the attack rules particularly interesting.
The attack rules use 6 special coloured dice: 1 red, 1 yellow, 2 blue, and 2 green. Each weapon/attack uses a fixed number of dice of set colours, from 1 red dice for a fist up to all 6 for the BFG. The faces of the dice show 2 basic symbols: a number, and damage pips. When you attack, you roll the appropriate dice. The total of the numbers gives you the range of the attack (this doesn't apply for close combat naturally enough). If this range is greater than or equal to the range to the target, then you've hit, and you apply the total number of damage pips to the target.
Some dice faces also have bullets on them. If a bullet comes up, then you're out of ammo. In addition, the red and yellow dice both have a miss symbol: if this comes up, then the attack misses no matter what.
This mechanic has some interesting effects. The simplest is based on the distribution of numbers and damage pips on the different colours of dice. According to Andy, the overall effect is that if you get good range you're going to do less damage, and vice versa. More subtle perhaps is the effect of abandoning traditional fixed ranges and to hit rolls: uncertain and variable ranges make long-range sniping a much iffier tactic than closing in and blazing away at short range. I'm not much of a computer gamer, let alone a player of FPS, but it seems to me that the overall effect of these attack rules is to enforce a style of play that has more in common with Doom the FPS than with more traditional tactical skirmish games. I like this.
Anyhoo, even with just the marines on the table, I really enjoyed Doom the Boardgame. I'm looking forward to seeing how things go when the marines are facing all the monsters that hell can throw at them.
Oh, and by the way: Tony won our game.
And finally: Memoir'44 less than perfect? Shock! Horror!
The games of Memoir'44 I played with Martin recently gave rise to a lengthy discussion about the vagaries of cardplay in which Martin and I didn't see eye-to-eye. Musing on this recently I was struck by a thought about how the deck works in M44. I found myself wondering if this feature of the game might prove to be something of a limitation.
In M44 your route through the deck is essentially quite fixed. That is to say: because you play one card and draw one card, the cards you will get in your hand are largely fixed by the shuffle. There are only 2 ways to change this: the 6 'Recon' cards- which allow you to draw 2 cards and choose which you keep; and the 'Their Finest Hour' card- which causes the deck to be reshuffled.
There are various ways- in respect of both authenticity and of gameplay- that this can be rationalised. All the same, this tightly structured access to the deck contrasts strongly with my other favourite cardgames. In Up Front you have the discard capacity that you don't have in M44, plus the deck is used for random number generation too- both of these will affect your route through the deck. In Ivanhoe the decision whether or not to withdraw from a tournament is crucial in this respect, and can be of great tactical importance. Settlers Cards and Fluxx too both offer different ways to run through the deck.
All of which leads to the big question: is this very limited ability to change the way that you run through the deck (it is the exception rather than the rule) a problem? Would M44 benefit from rules allowing players to vary their card cycle by, say, discarding and drawing 2 cards if they don't issue any orders? I'm torn here.
My instinct is that M44 wouldn't benefit from a change of this kind. This is because I feel that the game's card cycle is carefully balanced with the structure of the Command deck and of the fire and movement rules. M44's slower card cycle compared to, say, UF, strikes me as being designed to pose specific hand-building problems for the sake of generating a definite psychological tension as you balance your capacity to react to your opponent against your efforts to develop your own attack plans.
At the same time I have to confess that the idea of a card-driven game with such limited ways to change your route through the deck sits uncomfortably with me. At the very least this might be because knowing how to work your way through the deck is a cardplay skill that you'd surely prefer to let players bring to bear.
Like I said, I'm torn here. But then, perhaps it is precisely the absence of this level of cardplay that makes Borg's design such a winner. Why do I say this? Because I'm thinking that this very absence is a great equaliser in a contest between a veteran card player and someone who comes to a game like M44 with little or no experience of card games and the associated skills of navigating through a deck of cards.
Well, I guess I'm reassured at least. ;)
Well, the cursed cloud of gloom was upon me again last week, and I wasn't able to get the WFRP ready for last Sunday. So we just played some boardgames instead.
Roborally
We started off with a game of this gem. It's been a long time since I've had a multiplayer game of Roborally, so to get a 6-player game was cool. Better still: Martin wasn't playing, so I felt I was in with a chance...Anyhoo, I chose a couple of easy boards without too many different elements and decided to go for a simple 3-flag race. I explained the basic principles of safe and dangerous flag location, and then we had a quick bit of random selection to decide who'd be placing the start and the 3 flags. Blow me, but did Tony not immediately get into the spirit of things by placing the 1st flag so that there were pits on 2 adjacent sides. That flag was going to be a real killer, and no mistake!
Sure enough: yours truly was first to the flag, and first into the pit, when Andy's bot sneaked in and pushed my Twonky off the flag just before I was going to vacate it with the aid of my Retro Rockets. I really, really should've known better I guess, but Martin's absence (and my nifty Retro Rockets) had lulled me into a false sense of security, and I charged in hoping for the best, as is my wont. Sheesh. At least I wasn't the only bot so to suffer, though I can't remember who was next.
That wasn't the only carnage in the game. Andy got himself the Buzz Bomb- a neat little option that allows you to fire a flying missile that you guide around the board by programing it with its own hand of 5 cards. This can be a lot of fun, but only having 5 program cards means that Buzz Bombs aren't very manoeuvrable, and they can sometimes be more dangerous to their owner than anyone else. This was what happened this time I seem to recall, as Andy's bot and his Buzz Bomb ended up having a rather explosive encounter soon after. Heh.
At least Andy could take consolation from also having the Mine Layer. He promptly laid a mine on the 1st flag before heading off for the next checkpoint, so that the next person to land on the flag was guaranteed a warm welcome.
Meanwhile, Tony had got his hands on the Drone Launcher. This option allows you to fire a flying drone instead of firing your laser. You mark the target's square with a targeting marker, and the drone flies there at full speed (3/phase). If it doesn't hit anything before reaching the square, it hovers on the spot, rotating each phase until it picks up a new target, and off it goes again.
I've never seen a drone laucher do very much before, but in this game Tony fired off all 3, and each and every one hit. They don't do a huge amount of damage (only 2 points explosive), but they do push the target bot back 1 square. So yes, you've guessed it, Tony was able to fire a drone at a bot beside a pit and bingo, down it went. Three shots, 3 hits, and 1 kill: quite simply the most effective use of a Drone Launcher I've ever seen. But that's what happens on a crowded factory floor.
Donald was doing his bit for the robot repair industry too. His bot had the High Power Laser. This cutie can shoot through walls, or even other bots, with the added bonus that if you shoot through a bot, it takes damage as well as the target beyond. Two for the price of one was a bargain that Donald couldn't resist.
Antony too was getting in on the demolition derby. As I made my escape from the chaos surrounding the 1st flag I took several points of damage. Time for a quick power down to repair it all I decided. So I headed for what I hoped would be a safe spot. No such freakin' luck though. In a fit of sheer malice, Antony just ran up and pushed me off the side of the board as my bot sat there inert. I know he enjoyed this, because he reminded me of his evil deed several times after the game.
Meanwhile Brian too had lost a life and had been sent right back to the start, which turned out to be fortunate, but futile. Fortunate because it meant that his was the only bot in any position to do anything to hinder Andy as he made his run for the final flag. Futile because his efforts failed, and Andy cruised to a comfortable victory.
Everyone enjoyed this game, and there is an appetite for more, which is just great, because Roborally is one of those multiplayer games where the rule of 'the more the merrier' definitely applies. Twonky will have his revenge, just you wait!
Doom the Boardgame
Andy brought his copy of Fantasy Flight Games' boardgame version of the original 1st-person shooter for us to try out. I've never played this before, but I've been keen to give it a go ever since I first got to look inside the box just after it was released. Doom the Boardgame is simply one of the most awesome boxes of gaming goodness I have ever seen. The box is big, heavy, and stuffed to bursting with plastic miniatures, jig-cut board sections, counters, cards, and more. Quite frankly, even GW at their most generous have never filled a big box with such goodies- yes, in terms of components, Doom the Boardgame even puts my beloved Space Hulk in the shade.So, does the actual gameplay live up to the quite astonishing impact of this droolworthy box of delights? On the face of it, yes.
Andy has the Expansion Set, which is just as well, because the basic game only supports 4 players. With the Expansion Set we were able to play a Deathmatch. This had the advantage of letting us all play, and of getting us easily into a quick and simple game. Unfortunately it had the disadvantage of not letting us play with all the lovely monsters, because a Deathmatch is a straight shootout between marines. Still, we did get a good taste of the core mechanics of the game.
We played Deathmatch 2: Reactor Core (click through and head for page 10), with a 3-kill victory condition.
I won't review the rules or the gameplay in detail: the rules are all there online if you'd like to check them out, and the review at The Wargamer gives a good account of how the game works. What I will say is that the rules are logical and provide for fraught decision-making and tense gameplay. There are a lot of fiddly details to get used to, but they all make sense, and I certainly fancy playing the game often enough to master the detail and develop some serious tactics.
I got the first kill in our game: Andy decided to head for the reactor core- the red area on the map- to get the BFG; so I promptly headed for an encounter location and opened the reactor shield. Heh.
The game then devolved into a tense duel of manoeuvre, as people rushed to arm themselves with the most effective weapons and sneaked about trying to get the drop on each other. I quickly discovered the joy of grenades, which can be thrown round corners and can prove satisfyingly deadly. They can also bounce around unpredictably, with unfortunately catastrophic results, as I discovered to my cost (yep, more spectacular self-destruction!).
Among all the rules, I found the attack rules particularly interesting.
The attack rules use 6 special coloured dice: 1 red, 1 yellow, 2 blue, and 2 green. Each weapon/attack uses a fixed number of dice of set colours, from 1 red dice for a fist up to all 6 for the BFG. The faces of the dice show 2 basic symbols: a number, and damage pips. When you attack, you roll the appropriate dice. The total of the numbers gives you the range of the attack (this doesn't apply for close combat naturally enough). If this range is greater than or equal to the range to the target, then you've hit, and you apply the total number of damage pips to the target.
Some dice faces also have bullets on them. If a bullet comes up, then you're out of ammo. In addition, the red and yellow dice both have a miss symbol: if this comes up, then the attack misses no matter what.
This mechanic has some interesting effects. The simplest is based on the distribution of numbers and damage pips on the different colours of dice. According to Andy, the overall effect is that if you get good range you're going to do less damage, and vice versa. More subtle perhaps is the effect of abandoning traditional fixed ranges and to hit rolls: uncertain and variable ranges make long-range sniping a much iffier tactic than closing in and blazing away at short range. I'm not much of a computer gamer, let alone a player of FPS, but it seems to me that the overall effect of these attack rules is to enforce a style of play that has more in common with Doom the FPS than with more traditional tactical skirmish games. I like this.
Anyhoo, even with just the marines on the table, I really enjoyed Doom the Boardgame. I'm looking forward to seeing how things go when the marines are facing all the monsters that hell can throw at them.
Oh, and by the way: Tony won our game.
And finally: Memoir'44 less than perfect? Shock! Horror!
The games of Memoir'44 I played with Martin recently gave rise to a lengthy discussion about the vagaries of cardplay in which Martin and I didn't see eye-to-eye. Musing on this recently I was struck by a thought about how the deck works in M44. I found myself wondering if this feature of the game might prove to be something of a limitation.In M44 your route through the deck is essentially quite fixed. That is to say: because you play one card and draw one card, the cards you will get in your hand are largely fixed by the shuffle. There are only 2 ways to change this: the 6 'Recon' cards- which allow you to draw 2 cards and choose which you keep; and the 'Their Finest Hour' card- which causes the deck to be reshuffled.
There are various ways- in respect of both authenticity and of gameplay- that this can be rationalised. All the same, this tightly structured access to the deck contrasts strongly with my other favourite cardgames. In Up Front you have the discard capacity that you don't have in M44, plus the deck is used for random number generation too- both of these will affect your route through the deck. In Ivanhoe the decision whether or not to withdraw from a tournament is crucial in this respect, and can be of great tactical importance. Settlers Cards and Fluxx too both offer different ways to run through the deck.
All of which leads to the big question: is this very limited ability to change the way that you run through the deck (it is the exception rather than the rule) a problem? Would M44 benefit from rules allowing players to vary their card cycle by, say, discarding and drawing 2 cards if they don't issue any orders? I'm torn here.
My instinct is that M44 wouldn't benefit from a change of this kind. This is because I feel that the game's card cycle is carefully balanced with the structure of the Command deck and of the fire and movement rules. M44's slower card cycle compared to, say, UF, strikes me as being designed to pose specific hand-building problems for the sake of generating a definite psychological tension as you balance your capacity to react to your opponent against your efforts to develop your own attack plans.
At the same time I have to confess that the idea of a card-driven game with such limited ways to change your route through the deck sits uncomfortably with me. At the very least this might be because knowing how to work your way through the deck is a cardplay skill that you'd surely prefer to let players bring to bear.
Like I said, I'm torn here. But then, perhaps it is precisely the absence of this level of cardplay that makes Borg's design such a winner. Why do I say this? Because I'm thinking that this very absence is a great equaliser in a contest between a veteran card player and someone who comes to a game like M44 with little or no experience of card games and the associated skills of navigating through a deck of cards.
Well, I guess I'm reassured at least. ;)
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
My little Old World: Conspiracies and Consequences
Once out of the Temple of Ulric, the party's immediate objective was to get Hoffer to the Temple of Sigmar. Close as the 2 temples are, the PC's soon became aware of the din of a mob ahead. Leaving the area of the Temple of Ulric the party bumped into Grundi, who was returning to the temple in the hope of making a rendezvous with his companions [player back again]. Meanwhile, Alane explained that she had to go to the Guild of Wizards and Alchemists, and would rejoin everyone later [player absent].
Coming round the edge of the Freiburg district into the square in which the Temple of Sigmar is located, the party beheld a mob besieging the Temple, baying for the blood of a heretic. A stake and pyre were being prepared nearby and people were looting nearby houses and shops to build the pyre ever higher. Small groups of watchmen lurked here and there, but they were powerless to control the mob.
The PC's didn't pause to ask anyone what was going on; they just asked Hoffer if there was a back door to the temple that might be unknown to the mob. Fortunately there was and, skirting the mob, the party reached the back of the temple in a few minutes. There, it was easy to persuade the nervous guards to let them in.
Once inside the temple the PC's found themselves waiting around for a while while Hoffer was taken off to have his wounds tended to. Soon enough though they received a summons to the office of High Capitular Werner Stolz, the High Priest of Sigmar in Middenheim. There they found Hoffer- looking much healthier, and his Witch Hunter companion Ulrich Fischer, who they all remembered from the Drakwald a few days ago.
The High Capitular cast a searching glance across the PC's and spoke about their adventures showing that their reputation had preceded them again. He then initiated a discussion of the turn of events which had led to Witch Hunter Fischer seeking sanctuary in the Temple of Sigmar. Stolz had barely started speaking on the subject before Siegfried blurted out an announcement that Deputy High Priest Liebnitz was an agent of chaos.
Stolz, Hoffer and Ulrich all looked shocked at this suggestion. The PC's grounds for this suspicion were explained. Stolz's reply to this was strangely cautious. He explained that the tensions of the aftermath of the Storm of Chaos were bringing the longstanding rivalry between the Imperial cults of Ulric and Sigmar to the fore. In this context, if Deputy High Priest Liebnitz was able to prove that a Sigmarite Witch Hunter was a servant of chaos, then it would be a tremendous embarrasment for the cult of Sigmar, one capable of destroying the Temple of Sigmar in the city of Middenheim and thus unleashing another civil war in which the followers of Ulric and Sigmar turned on each other.
As Stolz outlined the situation the PC's began to consider that Liebnitz just might not be a chaos cultist after all. The fact that he had betrayed them and threw them into his dungeons wasn't proof of that much. The man might just be trying to exploit a bad situation to his own advantage, and they had somehow or other become some kind of threat to his scheme. Either way, if there was to be a reckoning, our heroes wanted to be a part of it.
In other words, reiterated Stolz, the situation emerging around Bauer's arrest was so delicate and so explosive that, even if the PC's suspicions about Liebnitz were true, wildly making such an accusation public would rebound against the cult of Sigmar and probably provoke the outbreak Stolz was committed to avoiding. Evidence, above all evidence, would be needed before any action could be taken. To emphasise this he explained that his own and Commander Schutzmann's hands were tied in this situation. They both had to go through with the trial- Schutzmann would in fact be one of the judges- and make sure that Bauer was found innocent. Otherwise, Hoffer and Fischer would have to be handed over for trial, and they would probably share Bauer's fate.
As Stolz reached his conclusion, the PC's quickly became aware of what was coming: they had the reputation of doing what needed to be done; the experience to get it done; and the anonymity to do it without been seen as obvious agents of the Temple of Sigmar, and so perhaps inflaming the tense situation beyond control. Hoffer might have been frustrated at being prohibited from coming to the aid of his companion Bauer, but High Capitular Stolz was gratified that the party was willing to help.
The party's assent to his request granted, Stolz reminded them once more of the magnitude of what was at stake, and that they only had a day and a half in which to find the evidence that would prove Bauer's innocence. Then he asked if any of the PC's were injured. For those who were the High Capitular invoked the Grace of Sigmar and laid his Healing Hands upon them. Then he bid the party good fortune.
Our heroes left the Temple of Sigmar by the back door. They were still carrying all their travelling gear. So they decided to return to the Untergard party's warehouse to leave that safely behind. Mordrin said that he had to make an important visit to the Chapel of Grungni, and that he would catch up with everyone else at the warehouse.
At the warehouse in the Southgate the PC's were met by a worried looking Captain Schiller. Schiller told them that Hans Baumer had been murdered. The PC's remembered Baumer as the woodsman who had accompanied them from Untergard. Schiller explained that Baumer's death was doubly peculiar. The man had hated the city and refused to enter it at all, preferring to pass messages through Otwin of the Watch if he needed to communicate with the Untergard party for any reason. And yet Baumer's body had been found inside the city- in the Grunpark, at the edge of the Sudgarten district just north of the Ostwald. Schiller found this incomprehensible.
The party's return to the warehouse had also forced an unpleasant duty on the aging leader of the survivors of Untergard. The warehouse was put aside for the refugees of Untergard he explained. The PC's had been able to lodge with the Untergard party in their capacity as guards. Now that they'd all found jobs in the city, the ordinances regarding the refugee influx meant that the PC's were no longer eligible to lodge with the Untergard refugees.
Schiller was embarrassed to have to tell this to people who had been so helpful to his charges, and was apologetic as he explained that this was a course that had been forced upon him by the city's ordinances. He told the PC's that there was no question of them simply being turfed out onto the streets, but that they would have to act soon. The PC's largely understood the difficulties of Schiller's situation, although Grundi grumbled a bit, feeling that this was a fine show of gratitude for what they had done for the people of Untergard.
Meanwhile Mordrin had made his way to the Chapel of Grungi, were he met with Chief Priest Hargund. He explained to Hargund the news about the threat of conflict between the Sigmarites and the Ulricians. The dwarfs of the Empire, Mordrin told the old priest, would do well to prepare to look after themselves should the worst happen. Hargund thanked the young runebearer for his news and his concerns, adding that the dwarfs of the Empire would play their part as loyal citizens of the Empire in the event of any such crisis. Feeling that perhaps the old priest hadn't grasped the full import of his words, Mordrin reiterated his warning, but Hargund reassured him that the dwarfs would do what was right by themselves and by the Empire.
Then Mordrin showed Hargund the broken stone hammer that he had found in Kazron Gorespite's tomb deep in the Drakwald. He asked the priest if he could identify it. Hargund told Mordrin that it was an ancestral treasure belonging to the Dwarf-Kings of the Black Mountains, to the very south of the Empire. Mordrin asked if there were any representatives of the Black Mountains' dwarfs in Middenheim to whom he could return the relic. Hargund told him that there were none, and asked Mordrin if he would not prefer to return it himself. Mordrin replied that at the moment he preferred to leave the relic in the care of the chapel. He thanked Hargund for his time, and left to rejoin his companions.
With Mordrin's arrival the party completed their preparations for their mission and left the Untergard party's warehouse to head northwards to the Sword and Flail. Siegfried was sure he knew where it was. He certainly knew it by reputation, as a rough place popular with mercenaries, the sort of place where a misplaced glance could provoke a fight.
It was early afternoon by the time the PC's headed out to make their way to the Neumarket to find the Sword and Flail. The streets were still tense and edgy, but the everyday activities of a thriving city had settled across the city like a blanket, muffling the underlying sense of incipient panic somewhat. Hopes were of an uneventful journey, but those hopes were dashed.
A small crowd was spotted ahead, thronging around someone whose ranting voice became clear as the party got nearer. They heard someone declaiming about the revelations following upon the death of Valten, then a gap in the crowd revealed to them the bedraggled and crazed looking figure responsible for these ravings.
At just that moment the figure shouted out that there is one of them, and the party realised that the zealot was none other than Karl, the librarian at the Collegium Theologica who they had questioned while investigating the Morten murder not long after arriving in Middenheim many months ago. Everyone in the party knew that something strange and disturbing had happened between young Karl and Grundi that day, but only Grundi and Alane knew the truth about the dwarf's vicious and unprovoked attack.
Yes, there is one of them the febrile voice repeated, going up a notch or two in pitch. The party stood gaping at the untoward sight. Karl's rant against the Sigmarite cult's laxity on the matter of dwarfs continued: the time has come to lift the veil from our eyes, to see these monsters for the chaos-deformed horrors that they are, and to drive them from our lands. Otherwise the taste of ashes that we know today will be as nothing to the bitterness the future will visit upon us.
As Karl continued in this vein the crowd listening to him began to get restless, and started casting angry glances towards Grundi and Mordrin. Siegfried chose this moment to intervene. His precise words weren't important. All he had to do was to instill in Karl's audience a sense of the danger inherent in taking heed of the young zealot's words, to break his spell over them so as to defuse their desire to find- in the young man's chosen objects of hatred- suitable scapegoats for their own fears and frustrations. Fortunately he managed, and the party was able quietly to leave unmolested.
None of our heroes felt comfortable after this unexpected encounter, although Mordrin felt somewhat vindicated in his fears for the future of the dwarfs in the event of the civil war the chances of which so exercised High Capitular Stolz. Grundi felt a cold hand clutch his heart. But only young Berthold realised the dizzying depths of the heart of darkness the former librarian's zealous rantings represented. Only Berthold, because as the sole follower of Sigmar in the party only he fully understood that Karl's call for a 'return' to the 'pure faith' at the expense of dwarfs represented a heresy that struck at the very foundations of the Empire as laid by Sigmar himself.
Soon thereafter our heroes arrived at the Sword and Flail, a small 2-storeyed building tucked away in a seedy corner of east Neumarket. The silence that fell and the understated hostility of the stares cast at strangers as the PC's entered the taproom confirmed the place's reputation. Perhaps Alane's absence was fortuitous, because she might've encouraged a more threatening curiosity on the part of the off-duty watchmen and other hardened-looking types congregated in the half-empty tavern that afternoon.
A heavy-set man presided over the bar. His face was covered with scars, some relatively fresh, and his missing teeth confirmed the impression that he was a man familiar with violence. He served the PC's without making any small talk. Mordrin looked round for tables, selecting one with a view of both the entrance and the only other door in the place, which was located behind the bar. The party sat down. They sipped at their drunks and began to wonder what they were going to do.
Related@RD/KA!
- Index:- My little Old World: Ashes of Middenheim
Coming round the edge of the Freiburg district into the square in which the Temple of Sigmar is located, the party beheld a mob besieging the Temple, baying for the blood of a heretic. A stake and pyre were being prepared nearby and people were looting nearby houses and shops to build the pyre ever higher. Small groups of watchmen lurked here and there, but they were powerless to control the mob.
The PC's didn't pause to ask anyone what was going on; they just asked Hoffer if there was a back door to the temple that might be unknown to the mob. Fortunately there was and, skirting the mob, the party reached the back of the temple in a few minutes. There, it was easy to persuade the nervous guards to let them in.
Once inside the temple the PC's found themselves waiting around for a while while Hoffer was taken off to have his wounds tended to. Soon enough though they received a summons to the office of High Capitular Werner Stolz, the High Priest of Sigmar in Middenheim. There they found Hoffer- looking much healthier, and his Witch Hunter companion Ulrich Fischer, who they all remembered from the Drakwald a few days ago.
The High Capitular cast a searching glance across the PC's and spoke about their adventures showing that their reputation had preceded them again. He then initiated a discussion of the turn of events which had led to Witch Hunter Fischer seeking sanctuary in the Temple of Sigmar. Stolz had barely started speaking on the subject before Siegfried blurted out an announcement that Deputy High Priest Liebnitz was an agent of chaos.
Stolz, Hoffer and Ulrich all looked shocked at this suggestion. The PC's grounds for this suspicion were explained. Stolz's reply to this was strangely cautious. He explained that the tensions of the aftermath of the Storm of Chaos were bringing the longstanding rivalry between the Imperial cults of Ulric and Sigmar to the fore. In this context, if Deputy High Priest Liebnitz was able to prove that a Sigmarite Witch Hunter was a servant of chaos, then it would be a tremendous embarrasment for the cult of Sigmar, one capable of destroying the Temple of Sigmar in the city of Middenheim and thus unleashing another civil war in which the followers of Ulric and Sigmar turned on each other.
As Stolz outlined the situation the PC's began to consider that Liebnitz just might not be a chaos cultist after all. The fact that he had betrayed them and threw them into his dungeons wasn't proof of that much. The man might just be trying to exploit a bad situation to his own advantage, and they had somehow or other become some kind of threat to his scheme. Either way, if there was to be a reckoning, our heroes wanted to be a part of it.
In other words, reiterated Stolz, the situation emerging around Bauer's arrest was so delicate and so explosive that, even if the PC's suspicions about Liebnitz were true, wildly making such an accusation public would rebound against the cult of Sigmar and probably provoke the outbreak Stolz was committed to avoiding. Evidence, above all evidence, would be needed before any action could be taken. To emphasise this he explained that his own and Commander Schutzmann's hands were tied in this situation. They both had to go through with the trial- Schutzmann would in fact be one of the judges- and make sure that Bauer was found innocent. Otherwise, Hoffer and Fischer would have to be handed over for trial, and they would probably share Bauer's fate.
As Stolz reached his conclusion, the PC's quickly became aware of what was coming: they had the reputation of doing what needed to be done; the experience to get it done; and the anonymity to do it without been seen as obvious agents of the Temple of Sigmar, and so perhaps inflaming the tense situation beyond control. Hoffer might have been frustrated at being prohibited from coming to the aid of his companion Bauer, but High Capitular Stolz was gratified that the party was willing to help.
The party's assent to his request granted, Stolz reminded them once more of the magnitude of what was at stake, and that they only had a day and a half in which to find the evidence that would prove Bauer's innocence. Then he asked if any of the PC's were injured. For those who were the High Capitular invoked the Grace of Sigmar and laid his Healing Hands upon them. Then he bid the party good fortune.
Our heroes left the Temple of Sigmar by the back door. They were still carrying all their travelling gear. So they decided to return to the Untergard party's warehouse to leave that safely behind. Mordrin said that he had to make an important visit to the Chapel of Grungni, and that he would catch up with everyone else at the warehouse.
At the warehouse in the Southgate the PC's were met by a worried looking Captain Schiller. Schiller told them that Hans Baumer had been murdered. The PC's remembered Baumer as the woodsman who had accompanied them from Untergard. Schiller explained that Baumer's death was doubly peculiar. The man had hated the city and refused to enter it at all, preferring to pass messages through Otwin of the Watch if he needed to communicate with the Untergard party for any reason. And yet Baumer's body had been found inside the city- in the Grunpark, at the edge of the Sudgarten district just north of the Ostwald. Schiller found this incomprehensible.
The party's return to the warehouse had also forced an unpleasant duty on the aging leader of the survivors of Untergard. The warehouse was put aside for the refugees of Untergard he explained. The PC's had been able to lodge with the Untergard party in their capacity as guards. Now that they'd all found jobs in the city, the ordinances regarding the refugee influx meant that the PC's were no longer eligible to lodge with the Untergard refugees.
Schiller was embarrassed to have to tell this to people who had been so helpful to his charges, and was apologetic as he explained that this was a course that had been forced upon him by the city's ordinances. He told the PC's that there was no question of them simply being turfed out onto the streets, but that they would have to act soon. The PC's largely understood the difficulties of Schiller's situation, although Grundi grumbled a bit, feeling that this was a fine show of gratitude for what they had done for the people of Untergard.
Meanwhile Mordrin had made his way to the Chapel of Grungi, were he met with Chief Priest Hargund. He explained to Hargund the news about the threat of conflict between the Sigmarites and the Ulricians. The dwarfs of the Empire, Mordrin told the old priest, would do well to prepare to look after themselves should the worst happen. Hargund thanked the young runebearer for his news and his concerns, adding that the dwarfs of the Empire would play their part as loyal citizens of the Empire in the event of any such crisis. Feeling that perhaps the old priest hadn't grasped the full import of his words, Mordrin reiterated his warning, but Hargund reassured him that the dwarfs would do what was right by themselves and by the Empire.
Then Mordrin showed Hargund the broken stone hammer that he had found in Kazron Gorespite's tomb deep in the Drakwald. He asked the priest if he could identify it. Hargund told Mordrin that it was an ancestral treasure belonging to the Dwarf-Kings of the Black Mountains, to the very south of the Empire. Mordrin asked if there were any representatives of the Black Mountains' dwarfs in Middenheim to whom he could return the relic. Hargund told him that there were none, and asked Mordrin if he would not prefer to return it himself. Mordrin replied that at the moment he preferred to leave the relic in the care of the chapel. He thanked Hargund for his time, and left to rejoin his companions.
With Mordrin's arrival the party completed their preparations for their mission and left the Untergard party's warehouse to head northwards to the Sword and Flail. Siegfried was sure he knew where it was. He certainly knew it by reputation, as a rough place popular with mercenaries, the sort of place where a misplaced glance could provoke a fight.
It was early afternoon by the time the PC's headed out to make their way to the Neumarket to find the Sword and Flail. The streets were still tense and edgy, but the everyday activities of a thriving city had settled across the city like a blanket, muffling the underlying sense of incipient panic somewhat. Hopes were of an uneventful journey, but those hopes were dashed.
A small crowd was spotted ahead, thronging around someone whose ranting voice became clear as the party got nearer. They heard someone declaiming about the revelations following upon the death of Valten, then a gap in the crowd revealed to them the bedraggled and crazed looking figure responsible for these ravings.
At just that moment the figure shouted out that there is one of them, and the party realised that the zealot was none other than Karl, the librarian at the Collegium Theologica who they had questioned while investigating the Morten murder not long after arriving in Middenheim many months ago. Everyone in the party knew that something strange and disturbing had happened between young Karl and Grundi that day, but only Grundi and Alane knew the truth about the dwarf's vicious and unprovoked attack.
Yes, there is one of them the febrile voice repeated, going up a notch or two in pitch. The party stood gaping at the untoward sight. Karl's rant against the Sigmarite cult's laxity on the matter of dwarfs continued: the time has come to lift the veil from our eyes, to see these monsters for the chaos-deformed horrors that they are, and to drive them from our lands. Otherwise the taste of ashes that we know today will be as nothing to the bitterness the future will visit upon us.
As Karl continued in this vein the crowd listening to him began to get restless, and started casting angry glances towards Grundi and Mordrin. Siegfried chose this moment to intervene. His precise words weren't important. All he had to do was to instill in Karl's audience a sense of the danger inherent in taking heed of the young zealot's words, to break his spell over them so as to defuse their desire to find- in the young man's chosen objects of hatred- suitable scapegoats for their own fears and frustrations. Fortunately he managed, and the party was able quietly to leave unmolested.
None of our heroes felt comfortable after this unexpected encounter, although Mordrin felt somewhat vindicated in his fears for the future of the dwarfs in the event of the civil war the chances of which so exercised High Capitular Stolz. Grundi felt a cold hand clutch his heart. But only young Berthold realised the dizzying depths of the heart of darkness the former librarian's zealous rantings represented. Only Berthold, because as the sole follower of Sigmar in the party only he fully understood that Karl's call for a 'return' to the 'pure faith' at the expense of dwarfs represented a heresy that struck at the very foundations of the Empire as laid by Sigmar himself.
Soon thereafter our heroes arrived at the Sword and Flail, a small 2-storeyed building tucked away in a seedy corner of east Neumarket. The silence that fell and the understated hostility of the stares cast at strangers as the PC's entered the taproom confirmed the place's reputation. Perhaps Alane's absence was fortuitous, because she might've encouraged a more threatening curiosity on the part of the off-duty watchmen and other hardened-looking types congregated in the half-empty tavern that afternoon.
A heavy-set man presided over the bar. His face was covered with scars, some relatively fresh, and his missing teeth confirmed the impression that he was a man familiar with violence. He served the PC's without making any small talk. Mordrin looked round for tables, selecting one with a view of both the entrance and the only other door in the place, which was located behind the bar. The party sat down. They sipped at their drunks and began to wonder what they were going to do.
Related@RD/KA!
- Index:- My little Old World: Ashes of Middenheim
Monday, February 13, 2006
My little Old World: The Poisoners' Trail #2
Where lurks evil in the hearts of men?
The warehouse showed some signs of damage from the siege earlier in the year, and was abandoned, just like some of the other buildings nearby. As some of the PC's examined the nailed-shut doors of the warehouse, others looked for a way round the back. There they found a small door standing ajar, and tracks in the dirt revealed that people had passed through the door in recent days. Peering through the door showed an empty warehouse with nothing inside but scraps of wood and the odd scuttling rat.
The party gathered round the door and prepared themselves. They crashed through the door ready for trouble and succeeded only in scaring off a few rats. As they looked around, someone heard a scuffling noise in a corner, from behind a stack of barrels. Investigating, the party found a rough wooden panel under which was a hole in the ground with a rope dangling down into the darkness.
Mordrin led the way as the party climbed down to find themselves in a cramped rough-hewn passage. He advanced for a short while then started as 2 crossbow bolts clattered off the stone walls. Ahead the dwarf could just make out 2 figures hunkered down behind some kind of barricade. He ran ahead to find the barricade was too wide to strike across. Meanwhile the cloaked men behind the barricade had had enough time to reload, and 2 more crossbow bolts shot out at the dwarf, fortunately to no ill effect. Mordrin began to clamber over the barricade.
Siegfreid was at the barricade too by this point, and managed to leap across to land inside the small cavern on the other side. There he was quickly engaged by 1 of the crossbowmen. The 2nd crossbowman pulled back into the centre of the cavern hotly pursued by Mordrin. Berthold began to clamber across the barricade while Alane followed up.
As Seigfried and Mordrin's experience began to tell against their opponents, 3 more men appeared from the passage to the left of the cavern, fanning out into a line ready for combat. Suddenly Mordrin felt a strange numbness passing through his body and he lost his grip on his axe and shield, so that they clattered to the cave floor. Meanwhile the newcomers to the cavern charged into melee, splitting up 1 against the now disarmed Mordrin and 2 against Seigfried.
Fortunately Mordrin's opponents were unable to exploit their opponent's vulnerability and Mordrin was able to grab hold of his axe and shield again with little difficulty. As the melee continued Mordrin was again and again to feel the strange sensation grip his body, but thankfully each time his dwarfish constitution came to his aid and the sensation passed before it could again benumb his fingers.
Experienced and ruthless fighters both, Mordrin and Siegfried were soon able to take down the first of their opponents, each with crushing blows to the arm. Berthold meanwhile ran out into the middle of the cavern to see what was down the side passage from which the other attackers had come, and from which came the glow that lit the bloody combat taking place around him. There he beheld, standing in the middle of the passage, a 6th robed figure. Alane was by this time sprawled across the barricade- having failed in her own attempt to leap across it- and was adding her magic darts to the melee unfolding in front of her.
As ever, events moved quickly as the melee reached its climax. Siegfried was wearing down his foes, despatching another with a vicious strike to the leg. Mordrin finished off his final foe with a blow that clove his head wide open spraying blood and brain matter through the air. Berthold charged the cloaked figure in the passage, soon to be followed up by Mordrin. As the pair launched their attacks, they soon got the impression that he was ignoring their attacks completely. In any event, he was certainly unharmed by their early blows.
The reason for the cultist's attitude soon became clear to Siegfried and Alane. Putting paid to his 3rd and final foe with a brutal stab through the gut, Siegfried turned at the sound of a stange noise from behind. He beheld a sight which froze the blood in his veins: a hideous winged creature shimmering through twisted air before solidifying before his eyes. Alane too was shocked at the sight, but the pair soon recovered their nerve and gave battle.
The finish wasn't long in coming. Siegfried found that he was more of a match for the daemon than he'd expected, and he'd soon chopped off one of its clawed hands. The creature was finally despatched when its arm was severed. And although the cultist leader was possessed of powerful magicks, he was no match in combat for 2 experienced adventurers, especially when one of them was a hardened fighter.
The melee over, the party turned their attention to their surroundings. They found little of interest save bedrolls in the entrance chamber. In the other main chamber they found an altar which Mordrin promptly destroyed. In a small side-chamber they found a few rusting old Skaven weapons and a small barrel, which was quickly revealed to be full of Warpstone. Meanwhile, searching the bodies of the dead cultists had revealed a leather-bound book on the corpse of the cult leader. Berthold quickly identified the title as The Liber Mutandis. Without a second thought and in an immediate and unanimous consensus the book was put to the flames and burnt.
Having looted the corpses and helped themselves to whatever they fancied, the party made the barrel of Warpstone secure and hauled it with them back to the surface. Once they got back into the abandoned warehouse the trials of the past day began to tell on them.
They had reached Middenheim after a long day's forced march only to be thrown immediately into the turmoil of the poisoning of the well at the Temple of Ulric. No sooner was that over but they had been sent out on their mission to foil the plot to poison the wells. It had been a long and very trying day, and everyone was tired. No one fancied trying to dodge the Watch patrols through the streets of Middenheim while lugging a barrel of Warpstone with them. In fact, no one fancied lugging a barrel of Warpstone through the city streets at all. So the party decided to bed down in the warehouse for the rest of the night, and to report back to Liebnitz in the morning.
The rest of the night passed uneventfully. When morning came it was quickly decided that Alane, Berthold and Mordrin would stay in the warehouse to guard the barrel of Warpstone, while Seigfreid would head off to inform the Deputy High Priest of their find. Siegfried set off.
Heading through the city streets Seigfried noticed that the city was simmering on the verge of major disorder. Watch and militia patrols were out in great number, and knots of people lurked here and there as if waiting for the slightest excuse to break out into mob violence. Clearly the poisoners' plot had enjoyed a measure of success before the party had tracked them to their lair.
It wasn't long before Seigfreid came across a mob who had found just the excuse they had been looking for. He found a house being burnt down while several men held a bound and badly beaten prisoner who was soon to join the house in flames on the charge of being a beastman. With his recent experience it didn't take Seigfreid long to notice that the 'beastman's' horns were crude forgeries tied on with string.
Taking all this in with a glance, Siegfried burst through the crowd before they were even properly aware of his presence, cut the string with his sword, and, telling the startled crowd to go off and look for a more suitable target for their anger, strode off to continue his journey to the Temple of Ulric.
It wasn't long before Seigfried encountered another diversion, and this time he was waylaid by the better nature he preferred to conceal if not actually deny. He spotted a Watch patrol pursuing a young girl through the streets. The girl was patently a mutant- the extra hand sprouting from an arm was a dead giveaway; but as she ran past Seigfried and up an alleyway her looks reminded the man of young Bianca, who he and his companions had rescued from goblins so many months ago.
Even as his rational prejudices bemoaned his sentimental stupidity, Seigfried acted instinctively and followed the pursuing watchmen up the alleyway. He found the 4 men, swords drawn, advancing on the cornered girl. The watchmen didn't take kindly to Seigfried's intervention on behalf of a mutant, and none of them were known to him, so he was unable to talk his way out of the situation when they ordered him to surrender. Disarmed, Siegfried was put under guard, and marched back the way he had come, towards the Watch headquarters.
Seigfried was confident that Commander Schutzmann would clear him when he got a message to the Commander, but he was still annoyed at the delay. It turned out that he didn't have that long to wait though. He and his guards hadn't been going for very long before they encountered Deputy High Priest Liebnitz accompanied by a party of his personal guard- the elite Teutogen Guard.
Spotting Seigfreid, Liebnitz enquired of the Watch patrol leader what was going on. Hearing of Siegfried's arrest, the Deputy High Priest overrode all of the patrol leader's objections, and ordered Siegfried's release. The Watch leader was clearly very unhappy about this, and was no happier when Seigfried couldn't resist a very visible gloat.
Released from his arrest, Seigfried quickly explained to Liebnitz what the party had achieved. The Deputy High Priest instructed Seigfried to lead himself and his guards to the warehouse, which Seigfried did with alacrity. Arriving at the scene of the cultists' lair, Liebnitz quickly took command. He ordered 2 of his Teutogen Guard to stay behind to guard the Warpstone while everyone else returned to the Temple of Ulric.
And so the party headed north through the still tense city streets escorted by the Deputy High Priest of Ulric and some of the toughest warriors in the city. Unsurprisingly the journey back to the Temple passed without difficulty. Entering the Temple, Liebnitz led everyone through the Great Hall towards the block where his private office was located. Once out of sight of the Great Hall, the Deputy High Priest barked an order and his Teutogen Guard drew their weapons and the PC's were forced to surrender and disarm while Liebnitz told them that they had outlived their usefulness.
The Teutogen Guard led the PC's towards the dungeons. There they were stripped of their equipment and locked in a cell. The last sight they had after the cell door clanged shut was the sight of Liebnitz's gloating face as the Deputy High Priest promised to return to deal with them later, when he wasn't quite so busy.
Angered as they were by Liebnitz's treachery, the PC's didn't spend much time bemoaning their fate. Instead they turned their attentions to their surroundings and the matter of escape. They were in a small cell carved out of the solid rock of the Ulricsberg. All they could see out of their cell was the cell across the way, in which they were surprised to see none other than Matthias Hoffer, looking in a terrible state. Hearing and recognising the party's voices, Hoffer told them that, while tracking the poisoners, his companion Bauer had uncovered a chaos cult in the basement of a tavern called the Sword and Flail, had found some kind of book, and had been arrested by the Watch. Then the Witch Hunter passed out.
In the end, escape proved easier than everyone had imagined. As a one-time thief, Siegfried naturally had a set of lock picks. He had tried to secrete these in his boot while Liebnitz's Teutogens were stripping the party of their equipment, but had been spotted. Unexpectedly though, one of the lock picks had broken inside his boot, something Siegfried discovered when he experienced a piercing pain in his foot. It wasn't easy, but eventually Seigfried was able to unlock the cell door.
Freed from their cell, everyone now turned their attention to escaping the dungeons. In the end the party succeeded in a simple plan cooked up by Berthold. Everyone could sneak up the corridor to the door of the guard room. There, Alane could cast a spell to create the illusion of noise coming down the stairs from outside. The jailer so diverted, the party could then pile in and overpower him.
The plan worked like a charm and our 4 heroes soon found themselves once more in possession of their equipment which had been piled up in the guard room. With the cell keys in hand, some PC's went back to rescue Hoffer. The Witch Hunter was so severely wounded though that even the short journey to the guard room was enough to reopen his wounds. There was no way that Hoffer could move in his current condition. So Berthold poured his own healing potion down the Witch Hunter's throat, hoping that this would do enough to keep the man alive while they made their escape.
Meanwhile, Siegfried had discovered that the original Purple Hand cultist who they had captured the previous night was still locked up in a cell of his own. Telling his 3 companions to wait for him, he let himself into the cultist's cell and locked the door behind him. Then he applied some simple violence to persuade the man to answer his questions. Alone and locked in a cell the cultist's loyalty to himself was greater than his loyalty to Tzeentch, and he persuaded Siegfried that he knew no more of the Purple Hand than did the PC's themselves.
Thus satisfied, Siegfried rejoined the rest of the party, and they made their way out of the dungeons. The final phase of the party's escape plan relied on 2 assumptions. First: because no one apart from Liebnitz knew that they had been in the cells in the first place, no one else would know that they were escaping. And second: anyone they did meet on their way out might remember their help when the well was poisoned the other day and so wouldn't be hostile to them in any case. And so it proved: the party were able to make their way through the temple's Great Hall and out into the city streets without any difficulty.
Related@RD/KA!
The Poisoners' Trail
- #1 Advice and assistance from friends old and new
- Index:- My little Old World: Ashes of Middenheim
The warehouse showed some signs of damage from the siege earlier in the year, and was abandoned, just like some of the other buildings nearby. As some of the PC's examined the nailed-shut doors of the warehouse, others looked for a way round the back. There they found a small door standing ajar, and tracks in the dirt revealed that people had passed through the door in recent days. Peering through the door showed an empty warehouse with nothing inside but scraps of wood and the odd scuttling rat.
The party gathered round the door and prepared themselves. They crashed through the door ready for trouble and succeeded only in scaring off a few rats. As they looked around, someone heard a scuffling noise in a corner, from behind a stack of barrels. Investigating, the party found a rough wooden panel under which was a hole in the ground with a rope dangling down into the darkness.
Mordrin led the way as the party climbed down to find themselves in a cramped rough-hewn passage. He advanced for a short while then started as 2 crossbow bolts clattered off the stone walls. Ahead the dwarf could just make out 2 figures hunkered down behind some kind of barricade. He ran ahead to find the barricade was too wide to strike across. Meanwhile the cloaked men behind the barricade had had enough time to reload, and 2 more crossbow bolts shot out at the dwarf, fortunately to no ill effect. Mordrin began to clamber over the barricade.
Siegfreid was at the barricade too by this point, and managed to leap across to land inside the small cavern on the other side. There he was quickly engaged by 1 of the crossbowmen. The 2nd crossbowman pulled back into the centre of the cavern hotly pursued by Mordrin. Berthold began to clamber across the barricade while Alane followed up.
As Seigfried and Mordrin's experience began to tell against their opponents, 3 more men appeared from the passage to the left of the cavern, fanning out into a line ready for combat. Suddenly Mordrin felt a strange numbness passing through his body and he lost his grip on his axe and shield, so that they clattered to the cave floor. Meanwhile the newcomers to the cavern charged into melee, splitting up 1 against the now disarmed Mordrin and 2 against Seigfried.
Fortunately Mordrin's opponents were unable to exploit their opponent's vulnerability and Mordrin was able to grab hold of his axe and shield again with little difficulty. As the melee continued Mordrin was again and again to feel the strange sensation grip his body, but thankfully each time his dwarfish constitution came to his aid and the sensation passed before it could again benumb his fingers.
Experienced and ruthless fighters both, Mordrin and Siegfried were soon able to take down the first of their opponents, each with crushing blows to the arm. Berthold meanwhile ran out into the middle of the cavern to see what was down the side passage from which the other attackers had come, and from which came the glow that lit the bloody combat taking place around him. There he beheld, standing in the middle of the passage, a 6th robed figure. Alane was by this time sprawled across the barricade- having failed in her own attempt to leap across it- and was adding her magic darts to the melee unfolding in front of her.
As ever, events moved quickly as the melee reached its climax. Siegfried was wearing down his foes, despatching another with a vicious strike to the leg. Mordrin finished off his final foe with a blow that clove his head wide open spraying blood and brain matter through the air. Berthold charged the cloaked figure in the passage, soon to be followed up by Mordrin. As the pair launched their attacks, they soon got the impression that he was ignoring their attacks completely. In any event, he was certainly unharmed by their early blows.
The reason for the cultist's attitude soon became clear to Siegfried and Alane. Putting paid to his 3rd and final foe with a brutal stab through the gut, Siegfried turned at the sound of a stange noise from behind. He beheld a sight which froze the blood in his veins: a hideous winged creature shimmering through twisted air before solidifying before his eyes. Alane too was shocked at the sight, but the pair soon recovered their nerve and gave battle.
The finish wasn't long in coming. Siegfried found that he was more of a match for the daemon than he'd expected, and he'd soon chopped off one of its clawed hands. The creature was finally despatched when its arm was severed. And although the cultist leader was possessed of powerful magicks, he was no match in combat for 2 experienced adventurers, especially when one of them was a hardened fighter.
The melee over, the party turned their attention to their surroundings. They found little of interest save bedrolls in the entrance chamber. In the other main chamber they found an altar which Mordrin promptly destroyed. In a small side-chamber they found a few rusting old Skaven weapons and a small barrel, which was quickly revealed to be full of Warpstone. Meanwhile, searching the bodies of the dead cultists had revealed a leather-bound book on the corpse of the cult leader. Berthold quickly identified the title as The Liber Mutandis. Without a second thought and in an immediate and unanimous consensus the book was put to the flames and burnt.
Having looted the corpses and helped themselves to whatever they fancied, the party made the barrel of Warpstone secure and hauled it with them back to the surface. Once they got back into the abandoned warehouse the trials of the past day began to tell on them.
They had reached Middenheim after a long day's forced march only to be thrown immediately into the turmoil of the poisoning of the well at the Temple of Ulric. No sooner was that over but they had been sent out on their mission to foil the plot to poison the wells. It had been a long and very trying day, and everyone was tired. No one fancied trying to dodge the Watch patrols through the streets of Middenheim while lugging a barrel of Warpstone with them. In fact, no one fancied lugging a barrel of Warpstone through the city streets at all. So the party decided to bed down in the warehouse for the rest of the night, and to report back to Liebnitz in the morning.
The rest of the night passed uneventfully. When morning came it was quickly decided that Alane, Berthold and Mordrin would stay in the warehouse to guard the barrel of Warpstone, while Seigfreid would head off to inform the Deputy High Priest of their find. Siegfried set off.
Heading through the city streets Seigfried noticed that the city was simmering on the verge of major disorder. Watch and militia patrols were out in great number, and knots of people lurked here and there as if waiting for the slightest excuse to break out into mob violence. Clearly the poisoners' plot had enjoyed a measure of success before the party had tracked them to their lair.
It wasn't long before Seigfreid came across a mob who had found just the excuse they had been looking for. He found a house being burnt down while several men held a bound and badly beaten prisoner who was soon to join the house in flames on the charge of being a beastman. With his recent experience it didn't take Seigfreid long to notice that the 'beastman's' horns were crude forgeries tied on with string.
Taking all this in with a glance, Siegfried burst through the crowd before they were even properly aware of his presence, cut the string with his sword, and, telling the startled crowd to go off and look for a more suitable target for their anger, strode off to continue his journey to the Temple of Ulric.
It wasn't long before Seigfried encountered another diversion, and this time he was waylaid by the better nature he preferred to conceal if not actually deny. He spotted a Watch patrol pursuing a young girl through the streets. The girl was patently a mutant- the extra hand sprouting from an arm was a dead giveaway; but as she ran past Seigfried and up an alleyway her looks reminded the man of young Bianca, who he and his companions had rescued from goblins so many months ago.
Even as his rational prejudices bemoaned his sentimental stupidity, Seigfried acted instinctively and followed the pursuing watchmen up the alleyway. He found the 4 men, swords drawn, advancing on the cornered girl. The watchmen didn't take kindly to Seigfried's intervention on behalf of a mutant, and none of them were known to him, so he was unable to talk his way out of the situation when they ordered him to surrender. Disarmed, Siegfried was put under guard, and marched back the way he had come, towards the Watch headquarters.
Seigfried was confident that Commander Schutzmann would clear him when he got a message to the Commander, but he was still annoyed at the delay. It turned out that he didn't have that long to wait though. He and his guards hadn't been going for very long before they encountered Deputy High Priest Liebnitz accompanied by a party of his personal guard- the elite Teutogen Guard.
Spotting Seigfreid, Liebnitz enquired of the Watch patrol leader what was going on. Hearing of Siegfried's arrest, the Deputy High Priest overrode all of the patrol leader's objections, and ordered Siegfried's release. The Watch leader was clearly very unhappy about this, and was no happier when Seigfried couldn't resist a very visible gloat.
Released from his arrest, Seigfried quickly explained to Liebnitz what the party had achieved. The Deputy High Priest instructed Seigfried to lead himself and his guards to the warehouse, which Seigfried did with alacrity. Arriving at the scene of the cultists' lair, Liebnitz quickly took command. He ordered 2 of his Teutogen Guard to stay behind to guard the Warpstone while everyone else returned to the Temple of Ulric.
And so the party headed north through the still tense city streets escorted by the Deputy High Priest of Ulric and some of the toughest warriors in the city. Unsurprisingly the journey back to the Temple passed without difficulty. Entering the Temple, Liebnitz led everyone through the Great Hall towards the block where his private office was located. Once out of sight of the Great Hall, the Deputy High Priest barked an order and his Teutogen Guard drew their weapons and the PC's were forced to surrender and disarm while Liebnitz told them that they had outlived their usefulness.
The Teutogen Guard led the PC's towards the dungeons. There they were stripped of their equipment and locked in a cell. The last sight they had after the cell door clanged shut was the sight of Liebnitz's gloating face as the Deputy High Priest promised to return to deal with them later, when he wasn't quite so busy.
Angered as they were by Liebnitz's treachery, the PC's didn't spend much time bemoaning their fate. Instead they turned their attentions to their surroundings and the matter of escape. They were in a small cell carved out of the solid rock of the Ulricsberg. All they could see out of their cell was the cell across the way, in which they were surprised to see none other than Matthias Hoffer, looking in a terrible state. Hearing and recognising the party's voices, Hoffer told them that, while tracking the poisoners, his companion Bauer had uncovered a chaos cult in the basement of a tavern called the Sword and Flail, had found some kind of book, and had been arrested by the Watch. Then the Witch Hunter passed out.
In the end, escape proved easier than everyone had imagined. As a one-time thief, Siegfried naturally had a set of lock picks. He had tried to secrete these in his boot while Liebnitz's Teutogens were stripping the party of their equipment, but had been spotted. Unexpectedly though, one of the lock picks had broken inside his boot, something Siegfried discovered when he experienced a piercing pain in his foot. It wasn't easy, but eventually Seigfried was able to unlock the cell door.
Freed from their cell, everyone now turned their attention to escaping the dungeons. In the end the party succeeded in a simple plan cooked up by Berthold. Everyone could sneak up the corridor to the door of the guard room. There, Alane could cast a spell to create the illusion of noise coming down the stairs from outside. The jailer so diverted, the party could then pile in and overpower him.
The plan worked like a charm and our 4 heroes soon found themselves once more in possession of their equipment which had been piled up in the guard room. With the cell keys in hand, some PC's went back to rescue Hoffer. The Witch Hunter was so severely wounded though that even the short journey to the guard room was enough to reopen his wounds. There was no way that Hoffer could move in his current condition. So Berthold poured his own healing potion down the Witch Hunter's throat, hoping that this would do enough to keep the man alive while they made their escape.
Meanwhile, Siegfried had discovered that the original Purple Hand cultist who they had captured the previous night was still locked up in a cell of his own. Telling his 3 companions to wait for him, he let himself into the cultist's cell and locked the door behind him. Then he applied some simple violence to persuade the man to answer his questions. Alone and locked in a cell the cultist's loyalty to himself was greater than his loyalty to Tzeentch, and he persuaded Siegfried that he knew no more of the Purple Hand than did the PC's themselves.
Thus satisfied, Siegfried rejoined the rest of the party, and they made their way out of the dungeons. The final phase of the party's escape plan relied on 2 assumptions. First: because no one apart from Liebnitz knew that they had been in the cells in the first place, no one else would know that they were escaping. And second: anyone they did meet on their way out might remember their help when the well was poisoned the other day and so wouldn't be hostile to them in any case. And so it proved: the party were able to make their way through the temple's Great Hall and out into the city streets without any difficulty.
Related@RD/KA!
The Poisoners' Trail
- #1 Advice and assistance from friends old and new
- Index:- My little Old World: Ashes of Middenheim
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