We started role-playing again and we are using the Zweihander system to play in the Warhammer Old World setting (WFRP). Zweihander can be found HERE
The campaign we have chosen to play is The Thousand Thrones from WFRP2; a campaign that revolves around people believing that Sigmar has been reborn in a young boy. Though this book requires some work to be usuable, it is one of the few WFRP (both 1e and 2e) that we have not played.
--------
The Characters
Allow me to introduce our PCs...
Nitzer; Human, Barber Surgeon
Nitzer is a guilded Barber Surgeon who is not averse to moonlighting to get some extra coin. He is willing to take on almost any job and has recently been patching up mercenaries and criminals, no questions asked. He is a rampant alcoholic and needs the demon drink in order to stop the shakes he develops when he does not drink.
Mattheus; Human, Sell Sword
Mattheus served in a mercenary company for some minor Brettonian Baron near the Grey Mountains. The Baron was involved in a border feud with his neighbour when things went bad and Mattheus and the rest of the company had to flee Brettonian justice.
The remnants of his company now have a bounty on their heads that is large enough to attract the interest of bounty hunters. He attempts to remain incognito most of the time, but his sense of justice means he cannot help but get involved and draw attention to himself...
Alfric: Human (Elf Blood), Diabolist
Alfric, unbeknowst to himself, is of mixed blood; his great great grandmother had an affair with an Elf. This mixed blood lay mostly dormant in his family until poor Alfric who has grown to an impressive 6'7" in height as well as having Ebony skin.
The Empire is a bigoted place and he was dropped at a Shallyan orphanage rather than his parents raising him. Money was dropped off at the orphanage each month, however, and it allowed Alfric to be educated and eventually discover an aptitude for magic; attending the 'School of Natural Philosophy and Transmutation".
To deal with his appearance, Alfric tries his best to pass off as Arabian as he has seen these traders in Marienburg and tries to emulate their dress; better to deal with Xenophobia than be branded a mutant...
(Note: in my game, the Ebony complexion is a sign of a Half-Elf, which are not only rare but also shunned by Elf-kind as a pollution of their blood. The complexion is different from most people of the southlands as it is jet black, rather than olive or shades of brown. However, people of the Old World would struggle to tell the difference, but Elves can. This situation has been retroactively added to the world based upon this character's random rolls at creation).
---------
First Session: Welcome to Marienburg!
(Note: as this is the first time playing Zweihander I forgot several of the important rules including Peril and Corruption; I guess we just slipped in WFRP mode. Teething problems are expected with a new system, but need to fix that for next session.).
The PCs all had reasons to travel to Marienburg and had secured passage on a trading vessel sailing the River Reik. Nitzer and Mattheus had known each other for a few months (Nitzer patched him up a few times) whilst they just met Alfric on the boat (Alfric was raised in Marienburg and so they figure he can help them find their feet in the city).
Nitzer was to meet with one Crispijn Van Haagen, from a powerful merchant family, whose illegitimate child he helped deliver and now mother and child had gone missing. Alfric's presence had been requested by Avatil Foamstrider, a Sea Elf merchant, for unknown reasons. And Mattheus had been contact by one of his old companions to say that another of their number had gone missing in Marienburg while in the service of a woman that he only knows by name; Selena Reiva.
The went to the Winklemarkt district to find lodging while they decided their next move. As they passed through the district they noticed that a fair few buisnesses had closed in what appeared to be a hurry. In a local inn they secured a room and overheard some locals talking about people leaving the city, they asked the tavern owner and he explained that a boy with a magic hammer had killed some fellas and been declared Sigmar reborn and he left with a few hundred people to fight chaos.
They decided to go meet the people they needed to see and so they made their way through the city, navigating the bridges and islands, not to mention the Marienburg tax system...
Nitzer went to Golds Mound and met with Van Haagen who had been secretly sending money to the mother each month to raise the child, only now the mother and child had gone and he fears they were swept up in this silly boy-Sigmar buisness; Nitzer, as the only one who knew the mother, was tasked with finding her.
Alfric travelled to the Elfsgemeente disctrict and met Avatil Foamstrider who kept making cryptic comments about 'looking after our own' and claiming he knew his great great grandmother. Anyway, the upshot was that Avatil was going to take Alfric under his wing, offering protection and such like; he required Alfric, using his human looks (again, cryptic) to investigate this Sigmar reborn thing for the Elves and see if it is genuine and the threat that it poses to Elf kind (as Sigmar preferred the Dwarfs).
Mattheus, asking around town for the name Selena Reiva, met up with some ladies of ill-repute who told him of night time parties at a noble-woman's house involving debaucery (they were afraid to give details). He went to the house in Golds Mound and met with Selena (at night) who spoke with him abut his missing friend whom she suspects went with this boy-god; if he could investigate this boy-god for her, as she is keen for Sigmar to return, he might also find his friend.
It appears everyone wants to know about this boy-Sigmar.
Asking around the Winklemarkt district they found out several pieces of conflicting information; that the Grand Theogonist in Altdorf wanted Karl (the boy) dead because he challenged his position or that it was a chaos cult that tried to kill him. That he went north to fight chaos or that he went by the south road to Altdorf. But some elements of the story remained the same; that he had ties to the Shallyans, that he killed some people and that a few hundred people declared him Sigmar and left the city with him.
Heading to the Shallyan orphanage in Doodkanal they discovered that the Abbess is not very Shallyan (being somewhat cruel) and is infactuated with this Karl and has even started to convert the Orphanage into the worship of Sigmar and not Shallya; they also found out that the old Abbess had been branded a witch and is now in a gibbet outside the temple of Sigmar in Templewijk. Time to pay her a visit.
The 'witch' has a crowd of guards and people throwing vegetables and insults at her, so it was impossible to talk to her by day. They decided to attempt a rescue at night. Observing the guard patrols they made their move. Alfric followed the guard from the shadows to make sure Mattheus was not spotted breaking open the cage while Nitzer kept watch over the street opposite.
2 drunk nobles approached to 'spit on the witch' and were intecpted by Nitzer who ended up going for a drink with them. Mattheus broke open the cage and the noise attracted a guard who mysteriously dropped his lantern (he never heard the spoken incantation from Alfric). Mattheus threw Maida (the Shallyan) over his shoulder and made a break for it back across the bridge to Winklemarkt being chased by a guard whom he lost in the dingy alleys.
All meeting back at the room after a successful rescue they fed and watered Maida who told them of the Witch Hunter who found Karl in the swamp and how dangerous she believes he is. With this information (some of which they fed back to their employers) they got Maida out of the Winklemarkt with the help of the Elves and they decided to go looking for this Witch Hunter: Osric Falkenheim.
--------
Tune in next time!
