WFRP4 - Campaign Session Reports Updates - From Bordeleaux to Dragonsbridge

Lord Agravaine, the player's nemesis

Oh boy, it has been awhile since I updated the WFRP4 session recaps. I knew it had been awhile, but not as long as it has. So there’s no way I’m going to go into the detail I did before for this post. Instead, I’ll try a bullet point list of the highlights and then maybe add back in some detail once we’re all caught up.

Map of Bordeleaux

Dramatis Personae

Boneshard, Norscan Marauder Champion (tier 3 career)

Regis de Pubiens (nomme de guerre – Don Gonada de Ciudad de … I don’t remember, some estalian identity)

Onfroy Proudhon le ‘Wretch’ – a new character who joined later.

Events

• As mentioned, with the aid of a chosen band of knights from Duke Alberich of Bordeleaux and four High Elf archers from the Ambassador’s guard, Boneshard and Regis plunged into the city sewers to find the Idol of Flies and stop the skaven plans.
• After many ambushes along the way, the adventurers made it to a skaven undercity with a slavemaster’s platform in the center of a market-looking square. From the derelict state of the affairs, the town looked semi-abandoned but then the group heard a crowd from a distance. Carved into some old sewers (built by High Elves in Bordeleaux’s far past?) was a large auditorium. The characters murdered some ratmen guards and snuck closer – there was a skaven Grey Seer before the Idol, his thousands of ratmen minions chanting and squeeking. The characters unleashed mayhem, ambushing the Seer with burning oil flasks and attaining several critical hits. Regis broke his leg jumping from the rafters to grab the idol, successfully chucked to Boneshard. Regis is captured while the knights hold off the rodent throng in the sewer and Boneshard runs out carrying the Idol. They make their way to the nearest sewer manhole, several passages and rooms past, and with some lucky rolls, Boneshard escapes.

• Boneshard makes his way through the streets as whatever skaven have amassed beneath the city boil out, frantically seeking the Idol. The Duke's men, warned by the characters, fight back, fires spreading throughout the city.
• Regis is captured by the skaven master Grey Seer, now burned. (He spent a permanent Fate point to survive.)
• After resting a few hours, Boneshard finds the Elven ambassador Menilthir who assists in finding Regis and teleporting Boneshard and himself below the streets. Boneshard kills the ratmen guards (and a ratogre), saving Regis
• The group advises destroying the Idol. In a ritual, Menilthir and priestesses assist in melting it down while fighting continues.
• Bordeleaux is saved, for now, though the rats have left behind disease and destruction. Not on the scale they could have unleashed with the Idol.
• After doctors' care, Boneshard and Regis now seek to save the cursed duke having destroyed the Idol of Flies and so travel to Castle Aquitaine.
• In the wilds on the journey, Boneshard receives a dream vision of a herdstone - with a large and powerful sword leaning against it. 

• Boneshard finds the beastherd, to Regis's dismay. He defeats the minotaur champion of the beastherd and the beasts bow to him. This lets him claim the sword, which now speaks to Boneshard in his mind. Regis goes along with the situation, but works with Boneshard to find a place for the beastherd to be wiped out in their raiding and rapine of the local Bretonnian towns. After gaining much corruption, the beastherd is drawn into a village which Regis prepared to defend itself a few hours before, and Boneshard cuts down the beastman shaman. Boneshard keeps the Sword of Souls.
• [DM note: Boneshard and Regis both gained much corruption in this episode. Boneshard's earlier acquisition of an enchanted bone necklace that summoned worms provided the pathway for the chaos sword to enter his mind and tempt him.]

• The duo emerges from the woods and soon finds Castle Aquitaine, but besieged by Lord Agravaine's host. They manage to signal a knight riding a pegasus and make it into the castle to tell Duke Armand's council their story of the Idol and that its destruction should free the Duke from the curse. The Damsel of the Lady, Dame Helvis believes the adventurers and lifts the magical slumber from the Duke. He is indeed no longer cursed. A new plan emerges: the adventurers will take their pages from the sorcerer's grimoire, captured in Castle Greemley many moons before, and letters from Agravaine to him and the summoning a pestilent demons to the King of Bretonnia, to formally accuse Lord Agravaine of sorcery. The Duke Armand, honor bound to defend his seat and his loyal men, will stay to fight off Lord Agravaine.

Castle Aquitaine

• [DM note: I made extensive siege rules if the adventurers had stayed, but they decided to come up with this plan of traveling to the King and I said to myself, that works.]
• With Sir Jaspert, the pegasus rider, Boneshard and Regis travel by flying horseback to the north. Then suddenly they are attacked in the sky over the Forest of Chalons near the western mountains of the Massif Orcal by a griffon, who slays their pegasus and they crash into the forest.

actually a lammergeier getting territorial with a vulture, but too cool not to share

• after crashing in the Forest, they encounter a traveling ne'er do well named Onfroy Proudhon le Wretch, wearing a wig on a horse. He was searching for work before getting lost in the forest after a drunken spree with a bard named Jarlyle. 
• The now three encounter a giant stag with many antler points, which speaks in their minds as the "King of the Wood." He will grant safe passage to the hungry travelers for removing an encampment of lumberers from the woods.
• Led to the camp of lumberjacks, Onfroy immediately accosts them at their palisade gate. They shoot arrows, yelling that they are free men not serfs of Onfroy. Armed with his Soul Stealer, Boneshard and Onfroy make short work of the 15 or so woodsmen who resist with but axes and gambesons. They take a few prisoners as slaves, and are allowed to leave the forest by the King of the Wood. They pass a troll crossing, slaying one of the river trolls.
• [DM Note: I did not expect their aggressive posture to the woodsmen to go so smoothly for them, but if you don't roll a critical, your PC got the Frightening trait, and they have some good rolls, they can carry out quite impressive feats. They also made short work of the trolls, which I forgot to use the surprise for.]
• The lord of the nearby manor allows the adventurers to stay as guests, as they reveal they are on an errand for the king with a known knight Sir Jaspert. They recover from the encounters in the woods and prepare to head north. They consider buying horses but do not have enough coin for Boneshard to have a horse.

Boneshard had gotten pretty ridiculous at this point

• They come to a monastery, really a nunnery, a few days travel to the north as they head for Gisoreux. Outside it's wall, a knight awaits with a lady nun. He challenges Boneshard to single combat, as she has had a vision of an evil and corrupted Norscan who should be slain. Boneshard agrees, and is badly wounded in the charge. Onfroy decides to attack the knight, seeing things going badly. Jaspert, horrified, steps in on the side of the Lady. Boneshard slays the knight, but Onfroy is blinded by the nun's prayer. They reach an agreement not to kill the nun to be left on their way. Jaspert refuses to travel with these men any longer, and takes the nun back to the monastery shrine.

• The party soon makes it to Gisoreux, bribing their way past the quarantine order on all southern travelers. While at an inn, they discover a man spying on them, having been paid good coin to report tales of a traveling Norscan and his companions, including an Estalian. They slay the man in an alley, then confront the innkeep if he has any knowledge. Onfroy, drunk, decides to stab the innkeep for the coin he demanded for his information not being good enough for Onfroy. All hell breaks lose, Onfroy tossing an illegal petard onto the doorframe soon after the local guards arrive. The Duke of Gisoreux's men-at-arms arrive soon thereafter. After much butchery and the use of flaming oil, the adventurers manage to escape. But they were spotted by the knight commanding the city men-at-arms.

• They steal a boat and collapse, exhausted in the slums outside the docks. Here they are taken in by the stevedores guild. Sometime around then Boneshard has used the chaos sword enough to develop a mutation, scaly skins granting 1 armor point. He was also having dreams of travelin to the Chaos wastes and becoming a mighty champion by slaying a chaos troll. The scales marked him as chaos-touched. 
• With her stevedores and spies in the slums of the docks, the Guildmistress Adele finds them, smiling to find Boneshard is chaos-touched. She offers them hospitality in her hall and revealed her interest in certain grimoire that spoke of opening a portal to the Realms of Chaos by orgiastic ritual. Sure enough at the full Morrslieb moon she brought Boneshard down to her secret temple to conduct a ritual with her and her cultists. During the orgy, Boneshard mutates further, growing spikes from his scales.

Adele at the ritual

Boneshard's spikes, approximately

• Boneshard dons a large helmet and black cloak to hide himself in public. The companions then decide to follow up on some leads, but end be drawn to near the Hall of Justice in the main Gisoreux square. Realizing they've been tricked, they knock out the investiagotr, but everything goes sideways for the adventurers. A general "hue and cry" is raised, and all within the city are mandated to grab weapons and seize the companions. Men-at-arms are assembling in the square. While distracted, somehow Regis steals Boneshard's blade as the adventurers scatter to the four winds running away.
• Separated, Onfroy and Regis make their way to the Stevedores Hall. Regis decides to set it afire to burn out the heretics, while Onfroy gets involved in a duel with a Hall's guard. Onfroy slays the guard, and before being found by a knight leading a continegent of men, they hide in the back alleys and escape.
• Meanwhile, Boneshard has been trapped on a main street by a large force of men-of-arms and knights. He throws down a burning oil flask as he is hit by several arrows. Three knights charge him, and he takes a lance wound as well. Bleeding, Boneshard cuts down a knight and intimidates the others. Then a mighty knight on a black destrier, his silvered armor fine and filigreed, leaps over the flames. Boneshard challenges him to one on one combat, which the knight accepts and combat is joined. Before his lance reaches Boneshard, however, Boneshard calls upon the dark powers to smite his foes, and knight's helmet crumples and he falls from the horse. Boneshard gathers the body, dragging him from the city as the gate's guards are too frightened to stop him.
• [DM note: through a long discussion with player badgering, I let Boneshard's player spend a permanent Fate point to kill the knight with a bunch of corruption points rather than merely save his own life - he would have died had he taken much more and was already burning Resolve to stop his bleeding critical.]

An impressionist rendering of Boneshard v. the knight

• That night, the companions tried to escape through the villages and hamlets ringing Gisoreux. They heard the howls and yelps of hounds and hoofbeats as the city gathered some force to find them. The companions successfully hid but abandoned the captured knight's body. They made refuge outside a village and found a deer for meat, but were soon found by some local knights, who they killed and stole their horses. Having been found, they decided to resume their quest to find the King in Couronne and resumed travels north.
• After getting lost in the ravines and valleys of the River Oise in rainstorms, the companions find the royal road. Exhausted, beset by a pack of wolves, they make their way to the village outside the Castle Dragonsbridge, which bridges the Oise in the mountains of the Pale Sisters. Winter had fallen and so the snows had come to the mountains.

Dragonsbridge

• In a tavern in the village beneath the mountain and castle, the characters take a room for the night and stable their stolen horses. With a knock at their door, a stranger introduces himself as Ferregus. He offers the characters a deal, but also a warning: the Lord of Dragonsbridge has been tipped off and is sending men. The characters escape and make their way to Ferregus's mountainside cave. There he offers them a bargain: he needs a key from Dragonsbridge to free a slumbering dragon beneath the mountain, and in exchange will aid the adventurers in any of their goals, as he will be a powerful Dragon Master.

what slumbers beneath the mountain?

[Warhammer4Friends] Actual Play: The Siege

So two sessions worth of recaps this time. I've embedded the video play recordings here too. We had some pretty fun shenanigans, although our friend Brad had to drop out due to health/chemo awfulness.

The Siege
System: The inestimable Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (4th edition)
Characters: Boneshard, Norscan Berserker (marauder career); Regis d'Pubiens, Bretonnian Spy

Returning to the siege camp, Boneshard nurses his arrow wounds from the battle between Ermengard and Agravaine's forces. Agravaine has been driven back to his castle, on a hill overlooking the valley with the stream where the battle took place. Regis, gossiping in camp, learns the two sides agree to a prisoner exchange and that Duke Armand is coming to negotiate a peace. Ermengard comes to the characters, suggesting they would be well-rewarded if they killed Agravaine when he comes and removed that treacherous bastard.

About a week later, Lord Chrodegar asks Boneshard as a doughty guard to accompany him to the prisoner exchange, among them his son, Sir Chilfroy. There, Boneshard is called out by a brawny knight named Sir Bohemond the Strong, Honor Guard of Lord Agravaine.

After the exchange, the characters go to the feast with the Duke, Agravaine, and Ermengard in attendance. From their view at the low tables, things do not appear to be going smoothly. Lady Griselda, the adventurers' old sponsor, greets them, asking why they betrayed her. The adventurers make excuses, and Griselda informs them that she does not trust Agravaine and fears for the Duke. There is an arm wrestling contest between Boneshard and Sir Bohemond, ending in a close Boneshard victory, to the merriment of all.

After the feast, the heroes try to investigate Agravaine's tent, pondering following up on the idea to assassinate him. But Agravaine rides off to his keep with some horsemen before anything is achieved. Soon, they hear shouts from the Duke's tent, and discover he has been marked by an assassin, who escaped, with a triangle inside a circle, burned into his flesh. The Damsel Helvis has placed him into a magical slumber, delaying the deadly poison she believes infects him, but cannot heal him. Plans are made with Lord Ermengard to assault Agravaine's castle to kill him, while the host will assault the walls.

Entering the castle...

(Overall note: this was a really fun session for me to DM as it was action packed and the culmination of several prior sessions' worth of set up.)

Agravaine's Castle, side view.

The next session the adventurers, informed by a servant who was captured by Ermengard's knights, climb up the rocky clifface behind Agravaine's keep to several sewage grates for the keep. Hearing the sounds of assault on the walls, Boneshard pried off one of the grates leading into the keep's dungeon and they entered the darkness (they decided to shut their lantern). They heard the sound of breathing from beyond the shit they crawled through, and then were ambushed by something that could see in the dark while they could not. With luck, Boneshard managed to parry the sound of a swishing blade in the darkness.

Opening the lantern, they found themselves in a large cell with several ratmen, and a waking, hulking giant of a ratman - a rat ogre! They hew through the ratmen, and narrowly escape dying at the hands of the rat ogre by slamming the cell door shut and tossing a burning oil flask (molotov) onto him. They run away down the dungeon hall, heading for stairs and fling flaming oil towards their foes.

They then trick the two men guarding the dungeon door leading into the keep itself, they apparently being tasked with keeping the ratmen in. After bamboozling the knights guarding the door, the adventurers betray them and kill them. They then try to whistle their way out of the area ('nothing to see here boys'). After some quick exploring, they find themselves going down a long hallway behind the main feast hall leading to some stairs. At this point, both Boneshard and Regis are wounded.

Running down the stairs, Regis runs smack dab into the armored chest of Sir Bohemond, who is escorted two ratmen down the stairs. He slashes Regis badly with a sword before Boneshard tackles him. Regis lights two flasks with a burning wick. The adventurers then manage to wrench open Bohemond's facemask and smash a flask onto his face, while another flask is tossed into the ratmen. Bohemond runs screaming down the hall, the ratmen, one of which was clearly a sorcerer of some sort, scurrying after as the adventurers run up the stairs deeper into the castle.

After peeking into the throne room and seeing Lord Agravaine bent over a map table with his counselors, they decided the room's armored guards would be too much in their current state and climbed higher on the stairs. On the next floor, Regis snuck into the corridor to see a drowsy guard. He was not noticed, but his attempt to garrote the man fumbled terribly, the guard escaping and yelling alarums. The two high tailed down the hall, squeezing through a narrow window and swinging outside on a grappling hook. They succeeded in not breaking their legs (taking more wounds) as they swung onto the outer wall of the castle.

Into the Bleakwood: Session Recap 3

The companions entered the Bleakwood to hunt the ancient spider, abandoning for the time being their broader quest to kill the Khan of the Variags for their ally King Robert.

Entering the wood, they learned of an oppressive spirit that had been spotted: the Old Man of the Bleakwood. He had been sighted with bear companions, riding an emaciated horse, and palpable gloom came with him, according to all who had seen him.

After many days journey, the companions scouted out the lair of the ancient spider: a giant woodfall with many bewebbed trunks, dark and foreboding.

nothing should be implied from this picture, vaguely representing the woodfall tunnel of the spider

They then attacked with fire and tangles against the spider, entrapping it with entangling spells. The ancient spider's hunting spider-companion also beset the heroes. Battle was joined, stabbing and webbing!

Oakrest

After emerging from their encounter with the spider's of the forest, the companions entered the town of Oakrest.

At first their way was barred by a guardsman, who was killed for asking for a bribe. (Right, I think so? He may have just been bribed...). The companions tried to buy provisions but the wary townsfolk would not sell without the lord's permission.

So they entered the hall and were greeted with a feast. Among the men of the lord's hall, were several Variag barbarian horsemen who shared their fermented horse drink with Davin the Drunk, a druidic type.

The companions talked with the Variags and the minstril and told tales of their bravery and dragon-slaying in the past. They also meet with the witch of Oakrest, who offered a task for Nymeria and the companions: slay the ancient spider, broodmother of the spider's they encountered in the past, and she would reward them. She gave some poison antidotes to them and a healing balm.

The lord then offered them a place to sleep at night. He then betrayed them in the room where they slept, but the companions made short work of him and his guards, killing several. They then departed into the Bleakwood.

Session Recap (7/12/15): Giant spider ambush

 (debating whether obsidian portal or a simple blog is better)

Characters:
Prudence Noaks the Dragonslayer (Hobbit)
Hazad (Man Ranger/Specialist)


After freeing the hobbit village of Reedhollow from the harsh and exploitative rule of Lord Brythnoth, the companions set out to cross the Blue River (River Lunnuin) to travel west towards their target: killing the Khan of Variags for their ally Prince Robert.

Before leaving, Pru was bestowed with the title of “Protector of Reedhollow” by the new Mayor, former resistance leader, Mr. Butterbottom. Many young hobbits look up to Prue the Dragonslayer now, and oaths of friendship were sent all around.

The former lord’s son and wife were sent packing to seek refuge from Prince Tancred Tancred the Wise, but Hazad the merciless sent an arrow through the Lady Lord’s chest, killing her as she, her son, and her handmaidens departed.

Hazad before slaying the lady

Upon crossing the river, a River Maiden appeared and as the companions covered their ears, the river began rushing southward, almost capsizing the boats.

The companions stablized the boats but were washed roughly ashore in a spider’s den. An ancient behemoth of a spider and its broodspawn set upon the companions, but they drove it back with fire and swords.

The companions have now emerged from the spiderswood to find themselves on the outskirts of the town of Oakrest, a stop along the Kingsroad through this part of the Bleakwood.

the companions journey