Slaves of Destiny, Skaven session 2!

Our nefarious Skaven group got together last night to slink through the tangled plots and twisting events of ‘Slaves of Destiny’

This adventure from the ‘Children of the Horned Rat’ sourcebook is being played from two perspectives- human investigators and Skaven infiltrators.

Not only are we having a romp with the rules for Skaven PC’s, we’re also play testing a new character sheet.

Our dirty rats were:

Chris Lucas- Ritchet- the biggest, fattest boss rat of the group
Ed Morris- Skerrit Slee- the sneaky, strangely brave Skaven
Mal Green- Throlk- The clan Moulder Packmaster with an excitement problem
Dave Allen- Meffitt Ikk- (Almost) as sneaky as a Clan Eshin Assassin…

The story so far

Having been sent to Dotternbach by a Grey Seer, the pack has been busy at their secret task. Their efforts, however, have been stymied by the seditious thoughts contained within one of the Halfling agitator’s leaflets. Forcing an unfortunate slave to read the contents of the leaflet has opened the pack’s eyes to a world where might is not right… Ratboss Ritchet is not pleased! Discipline has had to be enforced- particularly after Skerrit Slee attempted to sneak away whilst his pack mates slept, fleeing back to Nuln to claim the glory for a completed mission…

Throlk- “You hurt slave!”
Skerrit Slee- “Gangrene won’t kill him before working pits will”

Mal Green- “we can’t do that, if we go that far we’ll fall off the map”

Richet- “I take man-thing armour- if it fit!”
Throlk- “Probably bit big- mind you, it fit you…as you so fat…oh glorious leader”

Meffitt Ikk- “Man thing read paper! If you do, you see sun one more time before work pits!”
Throlk- “Meffitt Ikk too kind to slave-thing”
Meffit Ikk- “Ha! Meffitt give reward and punishment in one!”

Richet- “Is day-outside bright?”
Throlk- “Yes! Moon is on fire!”

Meffitt Ikk- “Man-thing, what is ‘Vote’?
Slave- “Ah, it’s where everyone gets a piece of the power…the group gets to decide what happens, not the leader…it means you don’t have to do what you don’t want to do…”
Meffitt Ikk- “Aaah…”
Throlk- “Hmm…”
Skerrit Slee- “Interesting…”
Richet- “No-no! Stupid man-thing idea stupid! No pack work like that! Ha, no wonder you man-things become slaves of Richet if think stupid thought like that! Boss in charge is right way! RIGHT WAY!”
Meffitt Ikk- “Yes-yes fat leader- ah! - sleek leader, yes, boss sleek, not fat at all…”

Chris Lucas- “Frankly, I’m impressed we made it to the second session before infighting broke out”

Ed Morris- “Lets face it, it can’t get any worse- you might as well call on the favour of the Horned Rat”

Lost in translation

German review of GM's pack + Babelfish translation ="being hammer Fantasy game of roles"

Who knew 'Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay' could mean so much?

-BI Dev team

The plot thickens…

So, last night we continued playtest with the human side of ‘Slaves of Destiny’

We’re running the adventure from the back of the ‘Children of the Horned Rat’ sourcebook so we can test the new character sheets we’ve been working on.

There are two groups playing through ‘Slaves of Destiny’- the human investigators and the Skaven trouble makers.

So far our human group have been sent to Dotternbach near Nuln, to investigate why a wool shipment has not come through. Without giving away too much of the various plots and intrigues, they’ve found plenty of mysterious questions- and not many answers! Why are the villagers scared? What has happened to the sheep? Who are the Tilians? Just what was in that pie?

Our party members were:

Che Webster- Maximillian Kalternbach, the Nuln thief who’s not afraid of mysterious tunnels
Owen Barnes- Bigby Badgerbane, Halfling agitator, and Axelbrand Scherer, lofty shovel holder who’s silent as the grave…
Rob Broom- Wolfhart Vogel, the military historian finally getting a chance to see some action!
Rowland Cox- Hermann Baumann, impetuous messenger who is gradually falling under the spell of the seditious Halfling!

The Quote Book

Wolfhart: “Well, now, if we do run into trouble, why, we’re all men here! We can hide behind Hermann.”

Maximillian: “You know Bigby, you’re not really doing much to sort things out here”
Bigby: “Well, the ills I right are on a large, grand scale- not this sort of grass roots, ground level stuff”
Wolfhart: “But you’re a Halfling- the one thing you know is ground level!”

Hermann: “I smell self preservation”
Bigby: “I thought it was pie”

Hermann: “Well, we’ve done a good night’s work, and I’ve bled a good night’s blood”

Rowland- I ride up the hill with my lantern lit, singing loudly to cause a distraction
Hermann: (singing) “She was only the Ostermark’s Daughter, every solider wanted to… (censored)
Wolfhart: “Taal’s teeth Hermann, you’re so loud the bloody Emperor will be turning up on his Griffon in a minute”
Hermann: “Why, does he know the second verse?”

Maximillian: “Has anyone got a rope?”
Bigby: “I’ve got the remains of a pie…”

Hermann: “Stay with the horse, but be stealthy”
Bigby: “Well, I could strap myself to its side and pretend to be a growth”

The Black hand of distraction

No playtest tonight, we're off to see The Darkness play Nottingham Arena instead.

We'll play 'Slaves of Destiny' tomorrow night, so expect a report Wednesday!

-The BI Team (not in spandex)

Skaves of destiny...

Last night we got down to some solid play testing of the new character sheet.

We’ve got two groups testing it- one motley crew of Humans, and one pack of Skaven trouble makers.

We’re using the player character options from ‘Children of the Horned Rat’ together with ‘Slaves of Destiny’- the adventure from the back of the book.

The humans have already had a stab at the adventure (see the post below for more on that) so last night it was the turn of the loathsome ratmen:

Ed Morris: Skerrit Slee, The Scarred Skaven with a reputation for bravery
Chris Lucas: Ritchet, The Big brawny boss clanrat
Dave Allen: Meffitt Ikk, The Clan Verms Slavetaker (and secret brains of the pack)
Mal Green: Throlk, The Clan Moulder packmaster with big-big thing catcher

The Story so far:

Plucked from the teeming masses seemingly at random, the Skaven pack have agreed to work for Pit Boss Skitit. As a servant of Under Nuln’s Temple of the Horned Rat, Skitit needs the pack to perform a delicate task for him- so delicate a task that Skitit’s own master Grey Seer Rikik has taken an unhealthy interest in what’s going on. Skitit may well have forced the pack to pretend that they’re veteran Skaven with years of hardwon experience under their belts, specially summoned from Altdorf, but that’s better-good than Grey Seer Rikik finding out the truth, yes-yes?

On the promise of warptokens and possible work in the Temple, the pack have been handed a map and dispatched along the underway to the man-thing-place of Dotternbach…

The Quote Book

Phrase of the night: “I emit the musk of fear and run away!”

GM: So guys, are you going to introduce yourselves to your party members?
Ed Morris: Absolutely not! I want them knowing as little about me as possible!

Mal Green: I order my Giant rat to leap on the man’s face and attack him!
GM: Well…I’ve never had to GM that before

GM: Roll agility to get on the roof quietly
Dave Allen (on making his roll): HA! Paint me black and fly me over Moscow! I AM the stealth Skaven!

Chris/Richet: “You-you, skitter round big-tall wing-bell tower!”
Dave/ Meffitt “Yes, yes, I go…oh stuff it, just talk human, there’s a chance I might understand the plan then.”

Chris: Ha ha! you failed your stealth role
Dave: Yeah, well, Im' going to draw solace from looking at my 'you passed your intelligence test when everyone else failed' GM note- so there!

Chris: “Why does playing Skaven make you talk like Yoda? Mnn! To Windmill go you!”

Slaves of Destiny Begins!

Our woe ridden and mud drenched gang of investigators began playtest last night using the adventure from the back of ‘Children of the Horned Rat’

Our group consisted of:

Darron Bowley: Axlebrand Scherer, 6’ 9’’ and 120lb of morbid Grave Robber
Owen Barnes: Bigby Badger Bane, Halfling agitator on behalf of wee folk everywhere
Rob Broom: Wolfheart Vogel: Ousted Wolfenburger and student of military history
Che Webster: Maximillian Kaltenbech: Plucky, pushy Nulner thief
Rowland Cox: Hermann Baumann: The Middenland Messenger, who’s built like a brick. (and about as smart)

The story so far:

Summoned to the house of wealthy merchant Hugo Becker, the party all have their personal reasons for attending. Some owe him money, others need his services, whilst others know that the entirely legitimate businessman is not one to be trifled with if you like to have fingers.

The Party have been dispatched to the village of Dotternbach to discover why Becker’s shipment of wool has not arrived in Nuln. Travelling there via one of Becker’s fermented fish delivery carts has not made them the most pleasant smelling bunch, but right now, that’s the least of their worries…

The Quote Book:

“It’s the wool trade. What’s the worst that can happen?” -Becker
“We get fleeced”- Hermann

GM- Are you taking any precautions walking down this road?
Darron- avoiding the bigger puddles?

“I’m going to sleep with my horse- and not for the first time!” –Hermann

Bigby “Why, so confident are we of our success, we bring our own grave digger!”
Axlebrand “He means for the other side”
Hermann “He’s a gravedigger?”
Axlebrand “Yes. Why do you think I’ve got this shovel?”
Hermann “Oh, I thought you were just weird.”

“We need to know more about these Tilians- I mean, how do we even know they’re human?”- Wolfhart

Merchant- “I’ll thank you to stop spreading your Halfling sedition in this Tavern, here, stop your craw with this pie”
Bigby “Why, see here again, these oppressive stereotypes!”
Merchant “It’s a very fine pie”
Bigby “Why yes… this doesn’t mean I’ve compromised my principles you know!”

Maximillian- “You know Bigby, I don’t think you should be eating that pie. Nothing in this village is as it seems. How do we know that’s even lamb in there?”
Bigby <with mouth full> “Are you implying I would eat human?...though technically speaking it wouldn’t be cannibalism…”

More on this group next Monday!

The likely lads

So, we made some of our characters for our playtest sessions on Friday.

Basically, we’re playing through the adventure from the forthcoming ‘Children of the Horned Rat’ sourcebook. Chris Pramas wrote the scenario- ‘Slaves of Destiny’- and he included some notes on how you could convert the adventure from one with a human point of view to one with a Skaven point of view.

As loads of folk (Dave, we’re looking at you) were really amused by the optional rules for Skaven player characters that we included in ‘Children of the Horned Rat’ we figured, ‘what the hell!’ and have decided to run two groups on the same adventure- one group playing the human investigators and another playing the Skaven instigators.

All this flummery is just an excuse for us to test out the new character sheets we’ve been perfecting.

So Friday, we sat down and crafted the Human (well, mostly) investigator group.

We used totally random character creation, plus the name generator, heraldry and doomings from the Character Pack. Players got to roll once for careers- if they didn’t like what they rolled, they went again, but had to stick with what they got.

It consists of:

Wolfheart Vogel, Student of Military History, and brains of the bunch.
Hermann Baumann, 6’ 4’’ and 220lb of Messenger. No one stops him getting though!
Axlebrand Scherer, a Grave Robber doomed to die from some form of rot…
Ethanregar Bercock A.K.A Bigby Badgerbane, Halfling agitator for M.O.T.I.F (Mootland Organisation for Tradesfolk Interested in Freedom)

Just one more character needs to be made before we’ve got the investigation group ready to go!

-BI Dev Team

This made us laugh

Extract from the WFRP companion:

"The thing that exploded out of the closet was some hideous combination of man and potato. It's thousand eyes stared out, filled with madness..."

This is what happens if you let authors read the mutations chapter from the Tome of Corruption. Mantatoes. You read it here first.

-The BI Dev Team