Session Two

Our session began with only one player bringing back a surviving Warrior – his lone and battered Barbarian.  The other three players had been decimated by Goblin Fanatics last game, so we would have three new Warriors this session.  We wound up with another Wizard, a Dwarf, and an Elf Wardancer to join the surviving Barbarian.

The new party had a choice of pursuing their original failed Quest, or to take a new mission offered by a mid-level noble to investigate a plague in the Altdorf slums that was centered around a particular sewer entrance.  So, looking for something different, the band of Warriors decided to take the noble’s offer.  None of the players spoke any Reikspiel, otherwise they may have had second thoughts accepting a Quest from one Baron Lieder von Keingelt.

We got right into the action with the Warriors descending into the twisted maze of partially flooded tunnels deep under the city, fighting off a group of Giant Frogs, swimming through flooded sections, and discovering a shanty town that was home to impoverished sewer dwellers.   These wretched folk sold the Warriors a few helpful items, and let them know about strange robed figures they’d seen roaming around the tunnels.

The first sign of trouble came when the haughty Wardancer pranced alone into an abandoned Smuggler’s Den.  He was immediately ambushed by seven Nurglings who ganged up and quickly reduced the brazen Elf to zero wounds before he could even strike back.  The Wizard, still one board section away, had to use reserve Power to cast Lifebringer and heal the Wardancer.  But the Nurglings’ Plague resulted in a permanent loss of 1 Toughness for the Elf.

Before venturing into the sewers, the Warriors had been given an item by the Temple of Sigmar to aid them in this Quest – The Decanter of Purity.  A drink from this holy relic would cure any disease or poison (including the Nurglings’ Plague effect.)  I created this custom item to introduce another tough decision for the players.  Each time a Warrior drank from the Decanter, they would roll 1D6.  On a 1, 2, or 3 they would have consumed the last drop.  The players would need to choose carefully which affliction they would heal.  With the sewers able to deliver a variety of disease effects of varying severity, a bad choice could see one of the Warriors end up with Nurgle’s Rot!  The Wardancer took little time to weigh this decision however, and hastily drained the Decanter down to its last drop.  His Plague was cured, and Toughness restored, but only time would tell if it was the right decision.

An amusing moment came with the Wizard found a Short Bow in the Smugglers’ Den.   Earlier in their explorations, the Wizard had succumbed to a Sewer Fever Event, where he had to choose two of his Stats to reduce by 1 for the remainder of the Quest.  Thinking himself clever, he chose to have the Fever afflict his Initiative and his Ballistic Skill Stats.  This brought his Ballistic Skill to 7+, making it impossible for him to fire any ranged weapons successfully during this Quest!  His joy at finding the Short Bow quickly dematerialized when this realization sunk in.

Next, the Warriors faced their first serious battle.  In a partially flooded sewer section they were beset upon by 10 Giant Spiders.  Soon afterward, about a dozen Chaos Cultists appeared from the other end of the room.  Surrounded by two groups of enemies, the Warriors fought a brutal and grim battle.  The Dwarf had earlier bought a Corrugated Metal Shield from the shanty town, which increased his Toughness.  He was feeling quite confident as a result.  However, he had forgotten about the Giant Spiders’ ability to Web their opponents!  Any webbed Warrior suffers automatic damage from future Giant Spider bites, with no regard to Toughness.  Sadly, the struggling Dwarf could not break free from the sticky webbing, and was quickly bitten to death by a swarm of Giant Spiders.

After the surviving three Warriors finally managed to clear the room, they beat a hasty retreat back up to the surface.  There, the Barbarian trained and reached Battle Level 2, gaining an Ignore Wounds ability that meant he had a chance of surviving a fatal blow.  The group also recruited the son of their fallen Dwarf companion.  The young Dwarf would enter the game with a Hatred of Giant Spiders, granting him an additional Attack against these creatures, albeit at -1 to hit in his fury.

During the second expedition into the sewers the Warriors had to double back after reaching a dead end, but then came upon the bulk of the Cult of Nurgle.  A Chaos Warlock was chanting a ritual in a Summoning Room, surrounded by Cultists and Demagogues who spewed hate-filled rhetoric at the heroes.  Here I rolled the minimum number of Chaos Cultists, so the Warriors were lucky.  The Wizard also managed to swallow the Warlock in a Pit of Despair in the first turn of the battle.  This prevented him from summoning who knows what kind of atrocity, and resulted in a final battle much easier than it could have been!

After mopping up the final few Cultists, the Warriors located both a steel ladder leading to the surface, and a large iron-bound door with Skaven markings that was barricaded shut from the inside.  The players speculated that a treasure room might lie beyond.   Or, was the door was barricaded to keep something out?  Skipping the chance for a quick exit, the Warriors decided to investigate the door, but Nurgle had other ideas.  A large group of Nurglings swarmed the Warriors, and at this very moment the Wardancer was hit with a severe bout of dysentery with left him squatting in a corner unable to fight for a couple of turns!  After this setback, the ashen-faced Elf waded back into battle, executing his Dance of Death ability perfectly, and slaying one foul Nurgling after another, leaving a trail of blood and slime.

Not wanting to push fate any longer, the Warriors ascended the ladder.  They cleaned themselves off, and presented their findings to Baron von Keingelt.  The distracted noble had to be reminded about the Gold payment he had promised, but as it turns out he did pay the Warriors in full, and seemed quite pleased that the operations of the Cult of Nurgle were so severely disrupted.  In the shopping spree that followed the Barbarian spent his last wealth on a 1,000 Gold Warhelm that would increase his Toughness by 2!

Having finally succeeded in a Quest, the Warriors are ready for whatever adventures present themselves next time.

Session One

In our session last night we had a Barbarian, Elf, Wizard and Warrior Priest.  We began with some light role playing to establish some relationships between the Warriors.  The Wizard and Elf came in as friends, the Wizard trying to look after the rather squishy (8 Wounds) Elf, and the Elf secretly longing to learn about magic, and thus sticking close to his Wizard friend.  On the opposite side of the table, the Warrior Priest made it his role to try and spread the word of Sigmar to the heathen Barbarian, who with reluctance admitted to a certain curiosity about the religion.

The Warriors were set on a quest to penetrate the Tomb Chamber of a Dwarf King dead for two centuries.  Their patron, an aged Dwarf named Galius Stonebrow, wanted to restore the honor of his long disgraced Clan.  His Clan’s custom was to engrave the walls of the Tomb Chamber with important information about the Clan, including maps, layouts of the Hold, and other valuable details.  He hoped that the Warriors could transcribe the information and return it back to him.  He promised a handsome reward - Gold commensurate with the amount of information they could return.

So the Warriors made their way to the World’s Edge Mountains, and through the cave entrance indicated on their map.  After traveling down a twisted maze of tunnels that seemed to go on forever, they finally made it to the entrance of the ancient Dwarf Hold.  They had no idea what kind of foul creatures they would find within, but the Barbarian grimly led them forward into the first room, holding the Lantern firmly before them.

They stepped into a large room bathed in a green glow.  This was a Skaven Warpfire Forge, and every turn they spent in the room they risked radiation damage.  The Warpfire Forge itself was at the other end of the chamber, accessible by an elevated walkway that also led to two doors leading out of the room.  The Warriors had heard of these tainted devices, a corruption of the masterful Dwarven forging technology by the vile mutant rat-men.  They also knew that if they thrust a weapon into the Forge, there was a good chance that it would come out with some kind of magical enhancement.

So they braved the radiation, and the Barbarian was the first to venture up to the seething green furnace and thrust his sword into it.  The whole room crackled with energy, and he withdrew his blade and saw that it glowed a brilliant green!  It could now be used like the Lantern to illuminate board sections, and more important, would now do an extra 1D6 damage whenever it hit!

The Elf was next to try his luck, but he did not get quite the same result.  Instead, the Forge belched, consuming his sword and spattering him with Warpstone magma, nearly killing him!  He also rolled to avoid a Chaos mutation from the exposure.

At that point, a Portcullis slammed shut, sealing the Warriors in the dungeon, and then they were assaulted by 10 Skaven Clanrats.  The rat-men were defending their creation against the intruders!  The battle was joined on the room’s ramparts, with the Elf quickly getting swarmed and taking fatal blows.  Fortunately for the Warriors, the Wizard was able to Resurrect him in short order to continue the fight.

Just then 8 Giant Spiders sprang out and joined the attack.  The Wizard at one point was totally surrounded by Spiders and Skaven, but with one mighty sweep of his sword managed to slay all the enemies surrounding him.  He quickly gained the reputation for being a Wizard whose sword was more potent than his Spells!

As the battle continued, the Warriors relied again and again on the healing capability of the Warrior Priest’s Ring of Jade.  Over and over again, the Warrior Priest managed to get lucky rolls that kept himself and his companions in good health.

Not able to get into direct battle due to a bottleneck, the Barbarian decided to explore beyond one of the doors in the room, and ventured into a passageway.  There he was challenged to single combat by a huge Orc named Skullbasha.  Skullbasha wielded the Sword of Malediction, which dealt an extra Wound and could negate magic next to it.  The Barbarian went into a berserk rage, gaining 1 Attack per turn, but had bad rolls the first few turns and didn’t manage to hit Skullbasha.  But finally his luck turned, and with the extra bite of his Warpfire-infused sword quickly put down the massive Orc with two blows.

With all of the Monsters defeated the Warriors collected their Gold and Treasure Cards, and regrouped in the passageway.  The Barbarian opened the next door, leading into the Shaman’s Den.  The Wizard decided not to enter the Den yet, because he knew doing so might wreak havoc on his spellcasting ability.  In the multi-level room, the party was first assaulted by the “Fascination of Slaanesh” – and had to try and pass Willpower Checks to avoid the effects.  Only the Warrior Priest succumbed, and stopped with a glazed look on his slackened face.  He would be incapable of doing anything until he was struck in combat and shaken out of the trance.

He didn’t stay under the Fascination for long, because 3 Hobgoblins ambushed the Warriors from the upper level of the room.  After a few rounds of fighting, the whole room started rumbling – a massive cave in was underway and any Warrior left in the room by the end of the next turn would be killed by the falling rubble!

It looked like the Barbarian was doomed because he was pinned in the room by the Elf, and the Elf was pinned by the others.  Since the Barbarian was the Leader of the group, he always moved first, meaning he would not be able to move for 2 turns while all of the other Warriors scrambled out.  But some “guidance from above” (from me, the GM) reminded the players that the Warrior holding the Lantern was the Leader, and the Leader always moved first.  Taking the hint, the Barbarian passed the Lantern to the Elf, who was able to move first next turn and get out of the Barbarian’s way so he too could high-tail it out of the room before everything collapsed.  This turn of events made the Elf the Leader of the group, and drastically changed the turn order.

With the way sealed off by a cave-in, and the dungeon entrance blocked by a Portcullis, the Warriors had no choice but to retrace their steps and try their luck in the other door in the Warpfire Forge Room.  Sadly, along the way in the passage way, the Barbarian fell into a pit trap.  Since the party did not have a Rope to rescue him, he seemed doomed to die there.  But in Warhammer Quest there’s always the dreaded Escape Table when all hope seems lost!  As luck would have it, the resourceful Barbarian managed to squeeze through cramped tunnels in the bottom of the pit and eventually managed to find his way to freedom – he escaped the dungeon!

Trekking back through the Warpfire Forge, the Warriors again felt the deadly radiation.  But despite this, the Wizard decided that he wanted to try beefing up his sword with some Chaos!  He thrust the blade into the glowing green orifice – and it was consumed much like the Elf’s was.  Now the Wizard – who was the meanest killing machine in the group so far – was without his sword!

Exploring through the remaining door led the group to the Torture Chamber, and the Warrior Priest bravely entered alone.  He felt the gnawing spirits of the tortured victims – this room had the potential of slowly reducing a Warrior to 1 Movement if they could not pass a Willpower Test to shrug off the malicious spirits weighing on them!  But worse, after entering the chamber, the Warrior Priest beheld a fearsome Skaven creation – the Rat Golem – a massively powerful Rat Ogre that the Skaven had augmented with mechanized prosthesis.

Eyeballing the impressive stats of this powerful creature, the three remaining Warriors thought it best to try their luck on the Escape Table!  The Elf and Warrior Priest were able to battle their way out of the dungeon, but the Wizard died in the attempt.

The three survivors decided to try and make it to a City instead of a Town or Village, so they would face six weeks of Travel Hazards.  They came out largely unscathed, and the Warrior Priest even led the group to root out a group of Chaos Cultists and everyone collected some Gold.

In the city, the Barbarian headed directly to the seediest Alehouse he could find.  After getting completely hammered, he was run over by a carriage as he tried to stumble home.  He would need to spend 12 nights in the hospital!  So much for a quick trip to the Settlement!

The next Warrior to meet misfortune was the Warrior Priest, who was accused of being a heretic and was driven out of the City.  He’d have to wait for 11 more days Out in the Sticks!

The Elf fared much better, even stopping a burglary of a jewelry store and receiving a handsome reward.  He wound up earning quite a bit of Gold and two Treasure Cards during his stay in the City!

The Warriors quickly recruited another Wizard and set off again to the dungeon.  Galius had informed them of an alternate entrance.  This time they entered into a Black Dais Chamber that contained 3 Goblin Fanatics.  The Goblins remained on the evil Dais, granting them +1 to their to-hit and damage rolls, and +2 Toughness.  With bad rolls by the Warriors, the Goblins managed to kill three of the Warriors before the Barbarian finally managed to slay them with his Chaos-enhanced sword.

That’s where we left it – with the lone Barbarian exiting the dungeon, having once again failed in the quest, but at least having the dubious honor of being the only Warrior to have survived the entire session, and with about 1000 Gold to boot – half way to the amount needed to reach Battle Level 2!