Hm. We're going to have to insist on more standardized responses going forward. Also the tally function seems a little borked by people voting late for some reason.
The sun sinks to the West as you begin to wend your way down from the foothills of the World's edge mountains towards your destination. It was a long journey, up from Castle Drakenhof, to the banks of the Stir eastward of Waldenhof, then along the river's course through the hills that petered out from the Eirie Downs into the forests of the Dead Wood. Nothing, however, would cause you to forget the first proper sight of your destination, the river-split, disaster wrecked city clustered around the spiteful fortress of the Rock, ruined buildings clustered like frightened children about a stern, tall matron. Backlit by the hateful glow of the setting sun, the outskirts lent an eerie air by a waxing Morrslieb already rising, you took it as a good omen. The Dark Moon waxed strong, even as the sun itself sank and dyed the Stir, once-lifeblood of the city, in a deep and bloody crimson.
You were not most of your 'kin', and you knew it quite well. At Drakenhof, in presence of mighty Vlad and Dread Isabella, you were given your mission and your resources. Collect wyrdstone, that substance even Nagash coveted for necromancy. Handed an old merchant's cart and a warchest of 500 marks, you were tasked to find your own way to Mordheim and muster your own forces to see their will done. More than once you were accosted on your way to the city, though--
Bandits
[ ] One
[ ] None
--of them showed promise of usefulness.
Across the city spread beneath you now, you see a swirl of the Winds of Magic, but a few places grab your attention as possible starting locations in your quest to recruit a proper warband.
Starting Focus
[ ] A graveyard overflowing with Shyish and corpses both
-Initial Zombie and Ghoul focus
[ ] An odd pool of desperate, burning Aqshy commingled with Shyish.
-Initial focus upon Dregs
[ ] A spot outside the city walls where Ghur stilled into Shyish.
-Initial Dire Wolf focus
[ ] A shifting point of Dhar and Shyish intermingled, moving day by day from place to place
-Initial Necromancer focus.
[X] One
[X] An odd pool of desperate, burning Aqshy commingled with Shyish.
Looks like everyone who voted properly decided to take a chance on the highwayman, and hunting for dregs squeaked out a one-vote win over hunting for a necromancer.
This, Ditmar Dolch had concluded, was too lucky a find. For all his prayers, he knew deep down that the Night Prowler had no true love for men of his profession. Yet, there, in a small clearing in the forest, perhaps a half-hour's ride off the road from Stirland to Ostermark, was an abandoned merchant's wagon. Beneath him, he could feel's Bernadine's muscles tense and her heart set to racing. Leaning forward to rub a gloved hand against her flank and calm her, for he could smell the corpses of the wagon's draft team from here, overpowering the leather of the mask on the bottom half of his face. They couldn't have been too long gone; they reeked so. Tying Bernadine to a stout-enough looking tree and shaking the excess rainwater off his semi-sodden cloak, he padded with long-practiced care toward the steel-bound, chain-wrapped money chest left locked to the dark, water-stained wood of the driver's bench.
42+10 (former poacher)=52/100; Trait ???? revealed as former Stirland poacher: +10 to ambush, tracking, dealing with beasts
At precisely the moment he got within reach of the coin chest, Ditmar felt a sharp point press itself to his back, lined up between two ribs and pointed straight at his heart. Freezing, hand still in the process of drawing a set of picks out of his cloak, the dark-haired highwayman stopped moving, fingers warmed by the still-burning match of one of his brace of hidden pistols.
"I'd stay entirely still, were I you. Do so, and you might survive trying to rob me." The voice was low, for--at a guess--a woman. It was smoky as a damp campfire and soft-yet-textured as the fine velvet jacket he'd once lifted off a minor member of the Grand Duchy's aristocracy. It also--strangely--had a Stirlander accent.
88+20 Expert Pistolier = 108, Critical Success!
The boom of his pistol going off was echoed shortly after by the snap of a leather lead, as across the clearing, a terrified Bernadine tore free from where he'd tied her and bolted. Ducking into a roll as the shot went off, Ditmar could feel the speartip tear a long scrape across his back to his shoulder. Coming up from the roll, he spun and drew his rapier, only to freeze at the figure in front of him. Her dark hair hung in lank tippets about her neck and face, like the fur of a rain-drowned wolf. The face it framed was pale, uncomfortably so. Neither was what froze his muscles or choked off his breath, however. A fanged snarl twisted the otherwise beautiful face. Even that wasn't what most stopped him, however.
What stopped him was the visible bullet wound where his shot had hit her heart; well, plus the fact that she was still moving and standing in spite of it.
35-20 Terror=15, Critical Failure!
That, of course, was when his body ceased obeying his mind's frantic orders. Behind him, he could hear the horse-corpses shake themselves and stagger to their hooves, rain sluicing off exposed bone and tattered flesh-scrap alike as they did. As the blade of the spearhead rested against his neck, Ditmar had no chance to react before the vampire's arm tensed and:
VOTE: Choose ONE (1)
Highwayman:
[ ] tore his throat out.
-This Kills the Man
-Gain +1 Corpse, suitable for reanimation into a zombie, at no additional cost.
- Gain Equipment, following:
-- One (1) brace of pistols
--One (1) rapier
--One (1) cloak
--One (1) dagger
[ ] tossed a pouch of coin that barely weighed less than a fifth of brandy square into his chest.
-an Offer He Couldn't Refuse
-Spend 35 gold as hiring fee, leaving you with a remaining 465 gold in your war-chest.
-Gain Hired Sword: Highwayman -- Ditmar Dolch.
-Ditmar retains his equipment, and he is eventually able to retrieve his horse.
-He is (as demonstrated) an expert shot with a pistol.
-He is additionally an excellent rider.
This week has been hellacious regarding my major clinical depression. It should get better, since I'll be going back on my meds next week. There will be an additional update following the second half of the previous vote as soon as I can get it written, which will likely be after I return from a family obligation on Tuesday.
After he accepted your recruitment offer and your aid in corralling his startled mount, you found yourself able to have a pleasant and useful conversation with your newly-hired Highwayman, who introduced himself as Herr Ditmar Dolch. While he did not ask for the specifics of your history nor offer those of his own, the two of you were able to lay out clear terms for his employment. In exchange for the retainer you'd already paid him, he would accede to the wisdom of your suggestion he make his coin in Mordheim for the time being, accompany you for jobs inside the city--in exchange for additional combat pay on a per job basis, he insisted--, be willing to act as a go-between for you on a limited set of tasks, and agree not to fight against you and yours for so long as the contract between you lasted.
It also gave him the chance to exchange information with you on what little he knew of goings on there, granting you a general overview of the city's layout and a smattering of rumoured happenings within the city.
Ditmar Dolch's Rumours
The Count's Palace district is still occupied by something. Whatever it is, it has a use for captives, be it as food, slaves, sacrifices, or worse.
It's said among mercenaries headed away from the city that the reason ghoul attacks are reduced in Stirland is in part due to entire ghoul clans claiming territory in the city's lychyards and Gardens of Morr.
Recent Rumour placed the death-botherer priests of Morr alongside a few of those black, skull-helmed Knights of the Black Rosein nearby Cutthroat's Den. Creeps, the lot of them. Er, no offense meant.
Folk say they're attempting to hire men to form warbands for a push from the West Gate of the city in toward their god's ruined Temple next to the Cemeteries.
That they will be trying to eradicate the ghoul clans in the process is taken as a given by all involved.
That their efforts to do so has already led to bad-feeling and expected violence between the knights and the more morally-flexible elements of Mordheim's second-least-safe settlement is also a given.
After most of two months of being on fire, the constant flood of daemons and flames from the city's Great Library seems to have, if not stopped, at least reduced to a mere trickle now and then. Suppose it's an improvement, even if 'no fire' and 'no daemons' seems more like a goal to me.
You are not the first vampire to arrive in the city. Men say a wizened, corpse-like creature is among those trying to gain access to the no-longer-burning Library.
The Witch Hunters within Mordheim have largely been spotted either in the city itself or terrorizing the people of Sigmar Haven, aside from the occasional lynching or burning at stake of some poor bastard in Brigandsburg.
The money men behind Brigandsburg are beginning to get twitchy at the frequency of these fits of rabble-rousing. Nothing solid's come of it yet, but already murmurs of changing prices, quiet-like, started going around.
Course, those murmurs stopped when one the city's leading merchants got hung from his own stall in the middle of day in front of a crowd of marketgoers. It don't pay to fuck with the Witch Hunters in the more 'civilized' settlements.
Ogres, Greenskins, cultists, and worse are said to have been seen in the infamous Black Pit Settlement, and not just as enslaved fighters in the pits!
The owners of a number of bars and taverns fronting against the fighting pits have repeatedly had their livelihoods threatened by angry trollslayers, following rumour of dwarf beer being sold to an immense, black-furred rat-man.
One even went so far as to have to let the angry stunts scour his place top to bottom, and only got them to leave after they admitted they couldn't find hide or hair, scat or piss-stain of one of the Skaven there...and after he gave them all a round of Bugman's as...apology for their inconvenience!
Bulk of the story update is still fighting me. Here for now, instead, is the initial Rumour Mill for notable happenings in the city. As a bonus for hiring the Hired Sword, you get this rumour mill without any effort or cost. Future Town Cryer leaflets will have to be purchased, or rumours sought out by one of your Hero-type units for you to receive updates to the rumours regarding goings-on in the city. Mordheim is a large and chaotic (and Chaotic) place. Getting accurate information takes effort.
After the next story threadmark / Recruitment segment 2 is up, we will shift to rolls for exploration, and voting on eventual warband armament and composition with regard to your remaining hero options or henches.
Having settled your cart into the anonymity offered by the woods away from what you'd been told was called the Black Pit Settlement and leaving all but one of your nightmares unhitched and faking dead, with instructions to trample to death anyone who approached the cart without you, you returned to your consideration of the city's walls in the distance. Pulling the undead horse along behind you, you stared up at the shattered, seeping stone and the tower of the mid-city fortress that formed all that you could see from here. Your--it was still odd thinking of it as witch-sight, even if that was what it was--had glimpsed a number of souls with the mix of rage and desperation that might drive them to the service of a vampire. Of them, two of the brightest were on this side of the river and within the nearest quarter. Blinking your eyes and turning aside your witchsight as the roiling immensity of curdled dark magic that swirled about the air above what had to be the Pit left by the comet left roiling, chaotic after-images over your vision, you turned to Herr Dolch where he sat atop his horse. Vaulting up onto your undead mount's back, you offered him a nod and his freedom for the day.
"I found two who would make for excellent servants. I'm going to retrieve them. Feel free to see to your own accommodations, but meet me here at dusk. I will have work for you."
He gives you a look you aren't sure how to read before nodding and wheeling about to pass back into the woods.
Having settled on your quarry , you slipped away from your cart and toward the city. The evening was yet young, and you had much to accomplish in Mordheim this night. You were still in your traveling clothes,rough, beast-gnawed leather hat,bloodstained coat with oilskin mantle, and all. Leaning over the nightmare's neck and commanding it forward, you reveled in the speed and the sense of freedom it conveyed. Spear near to hand and ready, you rode toward the immense edifice of the city's southern entrance.
As you approached, you found yourself prompted to laugh. The gate was held, if it could be called that, by at most a bare handful of men, all spread out and standing, highlighted and blinded by burning braziers and hoisted torches. Gathering speed, you drove in at and then past them, the only sound you made was the hammering of your undead beast's hooves once you hit the cobbles. For their part, however, the guards, if they could really be called that, shouted and screamed, rushing about and, in the case of two of them, actually managing decent crossbow shots. Of the two, one was far wide of you, cracking off the cobbles well behind where you were. The other was admirably on point, if a bit misapplied. See, the thing about reanimated creatures is that they don't need all of the same bits they did when they're alive. In many cases, they don't even have all those bits. Take, for example, the particular nightmare you rode. Against a living horse, the man's shot would have downed it in one. The hunter in you couldn't help but admire the accuracy of the shot even as you laughed at its failure. The bolt went right between rib bones, past where the beast's heart would've been, then cracked against a rib on the opposite side, splintering the bone and itself, but doing absolutely nothing to slow or stop your ride. The shouts of the men receded in the distance behind you, and again you were left with nothing but the crack of hoofbeats on cobblestone as you focused your witchsense again upon the two hopefuls you'd found.
As you drew close to the first, most desperate of souls you'd sensed, you scented the air. You were assaulted by a reek you'd smelled before: the concentrated stench of ratman piss. Damned things were worse than an incontinent hound-dog most of the time. When you were assigned to go collect wyrdstone, the Lord and Lady had seen to it that you were familiar with the supposedly mythical ratmen, or Skaven as they'd called them, as they said you were certain to encounter them anywhere wyrdstone was.
Slowing your mount to a quiet forward step, you searched amongst the leaning, wrecked buildings and shattered cobblestone streets for further sign of your quarry, staving off embarassment and biting back rage over the notion that you might have wasted time hunting down a damned Skaven, thinking to recruit it. You took a long, slow, silent breath. In slowly, then out slowly. Let your mind settle into the hunter's focus. Rage, shame, pain, embarassment, ambition, hunger, all these things were but feelings. And feelings were irrelevant to the hunt. There was but you and the quarry. The hunt accepted no excuses. What happened? It happened. If you'd tracked down a Skaven, you'd kill it and all witnesses, and there'd be no proof for anyone to hold against you that you'd ever made such an error. You'd break their bodies and send their souls screaming through Morr's gate. Or...whatever twisted approximation the ratmen had. Dead men could only tell tales until their souls had passed on. If need be, you scatter them into enough pieces that even Lord Vlad would struggle to find enough to call back their spirits.
Not that He'd--what was that word--Ah! Not that he'd deign to resurrect a ratman in the first place.
As your superhuman eyesight easily made out the first of the hunched, bestial shapes ahead of you, you noted with some relief that they weren't the source of the desperate fury you'd sensed before. No, that was whoever the little figure they had cornered in a half-collapsed storefront was. A young girl, from the sound of her shouts and the cramped space she'd managed to squeeze into in order to avoid the reaching grasp of the creatures. Of the three reeking ratmen, all of whom combined the reek of rat-piss you'd noticed before with the stench of a city sewer, one was equipped with a crude spear that it attempted to wedge through the gaps in the collapsed boards to skewer the girl and cease the barrage of small stones, cutlery, pieces of broken wood, and a rather inventive array of profanity for a girl who couldn't be all that much past her womanhood, perhaps thirteen years at the eldest. So preoccupied was it, that unlike its companions, it didn't even manage to look up and freeze in terror at the sight of a dark rider atop a gleaming skeletal steed bearing down on it. You spurred your nightmare into a charge.
Petra attacks distracted spear-Skaven: 71+10 (WS4vWS3) =81; Hit!
To Wound vs distracted spear-Skaven: 60+20 (S5vT3) = 70; Wound!; note: Str only 5 due to mounted charge with a spear. Only counts as 5 this round of combat. Normally a 4.
Injury Roll: 6; Out of Action--Whether dead, gravely wounded, or insensate, the Skaven is unable to continue fighting.
Petra attacks shielded sword-Skaven: 65+10 (WS4vWS3) =75; Hit!
To Wound vs distracted spear-Skaven: 24+20 (S5vT3) = No Wound End of Surprise Round
To your delight, the first ratman barely had time to let out a squeak in fright before your
spear took him in the throat, tearing it out with a spray of that disgusting black fluid that passed for blood amongst Skaven. Disgusting stuff. Made your teeth itch just looking at it.
Not pausing in your attack, you kept the momentum arcing your spearpoint around, intending to ram it into the neck of its neighbor, only for a timely startle reaction to interpose the creature's shield before its head by sheer, dumb luck. Seething, you glare at the offending creature, and prepare your next attack.
Petra attacks shield and sword Skaven again: 83+10=93; Hit!
To Wound vs same: 61+10=81; Wound!
Injury Roll: 6=Out of Action
Petra Attacks dual dagger Skaven: 57+10=67; Hit!
To wound vs same: 57+10=67; Wound!
Injury Roll: 4 Stunned.
All Skaven are unable to act. End of round. All Skaven disabled, Petra may coup-de-grace the surviving ratman.
Breath seething out in a chill hiss, you again thrust your spear out to skewer the offensive rodent, only to be met with a squelch and spray of black fluids as your weapon sinks deep into the beast's eye socket. Not content to remain with a befouled weapon and a standing foe, you set your weight on the spearpoint, vaulting over the dead creature and using it as a pivot, to land and crack the butt of your spear hard against the remaining ratman's skull, dropping it in an instant. Ripping the spearpoint free from the second Skaven's skull in a spray of greyish-black blood and brain, you turn and stab the stunned creature through the heart, then again through the throat, just to be certain. Now sure your foes are all dead, you pull up your spear, grimacing at the foul fluids clinging to it. You consider wiping it off on your trousers for a tiny fragment of a second before your mind rebels at the idea of the stench that would hang around you. Instead you settle for the best you can manage in the circumstances, and wipe it as clean as you can on the ratmen's own hides and clothes.
That finished, you finally relax somewhat and return your gaze to the jumble of planks and stone that had once been the front of a shop. "You can come out, girl. I'm aware you're in there." When she does no such thing, you reach down, grab one of the dagger-rat's knives and toss it to clatter just before opening. "If you'd feel better armed, grab the knife. I'll not stop you."
A small, burr-edged voice, clearly unused of late, croaks out, "But you're a-,"
"A vampire. Yes. If you're afraid I'll eat you," you scoff audibly. "Don't be. If you're small enough to hide away in places like that," you gesture offhandedly to her hidey-hole, "then I doubt you'd have blood enough to make for more than a passing snack, and anyway, I've already fed. I'm not hungry."
When this didn't prove enticement enough, you went on further. "I'm being serious, girl. You don't have to fear me." You began ticking points off on gloved fingers, spear leaning against your nightmare's saddle. "I've already fed. You're too scrawny to make a decent meal anyway. You're likely too scrawny to make a useful zombie or skeleton as well. However, you might just be useful to me in another way. I need someone to run errands for me during the day hours, and I'm more than willing to pay in gold, food, clothing, some semblance of protection, and the like if you think you can handle that."
There is another long silence.
"Well, girl? Am I wasting my time here, or a--,"
"Viktoria."
"What?"
"My name is Viktoria. Viktoria S-Schlechter. It's not 'girl' or 'child' or 'you, brat!'"
You give her a moment to see if she's said her piece. It would seem she has. "Very well. Would you prefer Viktoria or Fraulein Schlechter?"
"Viktoria. Just...just Viktoria."
"Very well, Viktoria. Are you ready to come out now, so I can get a good look at who I'm hiring?" You gesture around you with empty hands. "The ratmen are all dead, for now, so I promise it's safe to do so."
After a few seconds there is a serious of scraping and scuffling sounds, before a young girl, skeletally thin and malnourished, comes crawling out of the little pocket in the rubble to scrabble forward, snatch up the previously proffered dagger, then jump to her feet and glare at you warily. Her feet are bare, bleeding, and splinter-stuck, and the rest of her isn't much better, clad in the dingy remnants of some frock or other.
You give her a moment to make the first move, remembering how important not startling them proved in training new hounds, the few times you could afford them, but she opts not to do so. With a sigh, you speak again. "Is there something on your mind? Perhaps you're wondering, 'Why me?'"
She startles at the question, eyes going wide and panicky.
"Before you ask or wonder, no, I can't read your mind. It's just a sensible question to be wondering in your situation." She relaxes at that, barely. "Fortunately for you, the answer is as simple as what I told you before. I wasn't lying. I do need to hire those who can do daylight work for me, but also...well, two other things. First, you're desperate." She opens her mouth defiantly, then thinks better of it and nods sullenly instead. "Smart not to try and argue that. It's obvious to look at you. And desperate people? They're willing to consider things they never would otherwise. For example," you simply shrug.
"For example, entering the employ of the undead." And the way she says it is, for a moment so clipped and self-assured, that you cannot help but wonder how this child with the air of an aristocrat found herself scavenging for scraps in...ah. That explains the Skaven. She tried to loot a butcher's shop. Not too practical. It's been months. Most of the meat would've gone bad ages ago. Unless they'd smoked it. Either way, it didn't matter as much as where she chose to head, so you put the thought out of mind. "And the other, is that you hate."
She looked at you bewildered at that one.
"Again, I tell just by looking at you. Hatred for...someone, something in this city has kept you moving. Kept you here, I'd bet." You grin widely and toothily, noting how the girl draws back and tightens her grip on the dagger as you do. "And I just so happen to have some experience on killing those that wronged me. So you're in luck! Not only are you not going to be rat-food tonight, but if you play your cards right, you might even get vengeance on who or what ever it was did you wrong." You shrug, then spread your arms again. "So, what do you say?"
In the end, there wasn't anything for her to say but yes, and she knew it. So, you set her to stripping the ratmen's corpses for gold, weapons, healing balms, or any wyrdstone they might have on them, albeit with a passed along caution not to touch any wyrdstone she found with her bare hands. She'd...probably already known that, seeing as she was still alive, but it paid to be certain.
Thus, leaving your nightmare to keep an eye on her and potentially trample any further ratmen, you stepped away, letting her know you'd be back shortly.
Following your senses again, you tracked the second desperate spite-beacon to a building overlooking a street heading toward the waterside. On foot, you creeped up and clambered up the building's outside, to get to the top and better get a look at your second quarry of the evening.
The first thing you noticed was the humming. A voice like worn, cracked leather was humming a rolling, merry, slightly off-key tune. In one hand, he held a burning strip of match, while in the other held a wineskin, sloshing in time to his waving conductor's arms and smelling of something far more potent than mere alcohol. And yet those weren't what first struck you on sight of him. No, that could only be reserved for what the man was wearing. At least, you thought it was a man and not some horrid mutant. At least, you hoped. For a moment after you caught sight of him, it was immediately evident that the man was wearing the skin of a damned manticore. Skinned, tanned, and dyed a bloody red, with a little golden crown painted atop it.
Somehow, he actually heard your approach. Rather than panic, however, he simply turned and, holding the bottle before his masked face--top half hidden under the manticore's, bottom half covered by a golden half-skull mask that hung down from the creature's upper jaw--and shushed you! He actually had the sheer balls to shush a vampire!
You weren't sure whether to be angry at his presumption or amused by it, and he didn't give you a chance to make up your mind, softly growling out with an exaggerated half-bow, "Hold on now, Lady. You're just in time for the best part." Before turning back to the street below with a flourish, his humming growing louder as a group of mutated and twisted men stalked around the street-corner and directly under his vantage. With a laugh like the rustle of swarming bat's wings, he set the match to his concoction and tossed thing down right into the midst of the group.
It immediately set to a billowing ball of flames that clung to everything they splashed over, as the man himself doubled over, coarse and leathery laughter echoing across the street. Rising shakily to his feet, he began to make his way off, gesturing for you to follow with a leathery laugh and a croak of, "Come on, now! We don't want to still be here if any of them manage to live through that, now do we?"
Content enough with his reasoning, you follow him for several minutes more before finally he stops, stepping inside a building several streets over from his previous perch. Stretching slowly, he worked several grunting sighs out around his joints before finally turning back to you and murmuring, "Normally I'd tell a young Lady like yourself 'Never get old,' at this point, but I can tell you've already beaten me to it on that advice." He cocks his head cheerily, oddly expressive in his dyed monster-skin, mask, and motley even as the motion sets the mane of quills to an oddly rhythmic clattering. "So. Most people would ask what you want of them, but you haven't attacked yet, I'm too damn stringy to make a good meal, and you're not gibbering about the Count or threatening to throw my soul before the Shadowlord, so that leaves only one possibilty!" He bows with a theatrical flourish, before brandishing....a knife in the exact shape as the Ostermark Runefang aloft in the air, the very picture of heroic dashing...if it weren't for literally eveything about the man and the picture making a mockery of it. "You've heard of me and my works of daring-do, and you've come to recruit the Crowned Manticore of Ostermark."
You give him a blank stare which seems to deflate him a bit.
"No? No recognition? Not even a little?" He sighs morosely. "The Crowned...see it's the symbol of the province? And I've got the..and even have a little replica of the runefang? Nothing?"
You shake your head, befuddled. "I've never heard of you."
"Oh." He slumps to a seat. "Really? Never heard of Kaspar the Crowned Manticore? Sometimes called Kaspar the Accursed these days, albeit mostly by ingrates in the Count's Court?"
You shake your head again. He subsides to near-mud level. "Oh. And here I thought I'd made my name as a fool quite well."
Offering the madman a branch to drag himself out of the mire with, you mentioned, "I have only just arrived in the city, though."
He perks up almost immediately. "Well that explains it!" You can hear the grin restored on his face, albeit alloyed with curiosity. "So what brings you to the presence of the greatest Fool in all of Mordheim, Lady....?"
"von Kelch. Petra von Kelch. To be honest, I was mostly looking for angry and desperate people to serve me while I hunted for wyrdstone. I'm just not quite sure what to make of...well," you gesture generally at him.
"That," he nods sagely, "is entirely a fair reaction." He seems to shudder. "Glad for your personal name though. It's almost impossible to find savory rhymes for Kelch. Try it, I absolutely dare you to try it. It just doesn't work. As for Petra, well," he trails off, manticore-gloved fingers rubbing the chin of his golden mask, "I don't suppose you know much about ancient Nehekharan history, do you?" At your shaken head he sighs, shrugs in an exaggerated manner. "Well, I suppose we shall just have to make do, then. Dusting his trouser-legs off, he hops to his feet and looks expectantly at you. "So, where are we off to?"
You blink, mind trying to find where exactly you lost your path through this conversation. "I...what? I haven't even told you the job offer yet?"
He looses that leathery rasp of a laugh again. "Lady von Kelch, if you haven't noticed, there isn't a terrible glut of alternative employment in this city. The ruffians I so delightfully rendered ablaze a few moments ago were sent by my last employer, the Count Steinhardt. Served his family for generations. As you can tell, however, we had a bit of a falling out, so I find myself in need of new patronage. As such, if you'll have me, you can consider me, Kaspar the Accursed, greatest Fool in Mordheim! to be at your service."
Not sure precisely what else to say, you accept his offer and lead the fool back to where Viktoria has finished cataloguing the, unfortunately meagre possessions held by the dead Skaven. Placing the salvageable bits among your saddlebags or strapped to your mount, you hope back atop it and, after helping both Viktoria and Kaspar up behind you, order the undead creature forward and back towards the exit, to return to your wagon and plan for the next day.
Recruitment Action Summary
Acquired the services of Viktoria Schlechter, a girl not yet of age scavenging scraps to survive within the ruins, a Dreg of Mordheim. -15gc from Warchest
Acquired the services of Kasper, no surname given, a mad old man dressed in mask and motley made from a juvenile manticore, also a Dreg of Mordheim. -15gc from Warchest
+2 Dregs to Warband roster; -30gc from Warchest (-5gc per dreg discount from Petra's Trait: the Lowborn and the Lowly)
Warband is officially up to the minimum required strength for combat. May opt to further expand the roster or to begin operations as soon as possible.
Overview of the City of Mordheim received from Highwayman! Map of Morheim unlocked and in Information Threadmarks on front page.
South Gate District Discovered!
1 spear, 2 daggers, 1 shield, and 1 sword collected and added to inventory
one (slightly dented) helmet added to inventory.
3gc found in one of the Skaven's pockets.
Voting options will be posted tomorrow. In the meantime, feel free to please discuss. I will post up a quick warband overview alongside the system notes either later this evening or early tomorrow to give time for votes to be discussed properly.
As mentioned in the FAQ post, I'll be using a kludged together Mordheim/CKIII/WHFRP/Mordheim:CotD set of rules. I'm mostly leaning into Mordheim rules for this, except where narrative sense would make an exception.
Fair warning, this is a pretty large infodump, and I'll be doing the rolls and handling pretty much all of the mechanical side of this, so you don't strictly NEED to know this stuff unless you want to.
How we're handling stats
Dice rolls are 1d100. 0-15 is a critical failure. 40-49 is a bare failure, 50-59 is a bare success, and 85-100 is a critical success (on a raw dice roll).
Stats modify your roll as bonuses or maluses.
For example, as a Vampire, Petra von Kelch has an initiative of 5. As the baseline human average is 3, that means she receives a +20 bonus to initiative rolls, +10 per point above average. Leadership works similarly. Here, the average is 7. Petra, as a warband leader, starts off wit h a Ld of 8, so a +10 to Ld checks. Your average Skaven, on the otherhand, has Ld 4, so a -30 penalty on Ld checks. On each area, I take the baseline average, and count that as +0/-0. Points above or below the average for the stat mean +/- 10 per point.
To hit
Hit rolls use a chart in the Mordheim rulebook comparing your weapon skill vs theirs.
Taking 4 as neutral, a 5-to-hit is -10, 4 is +/- 0, and 3-to-hit is +10.
If you hit, then they have a chance to be protected by armour. I'm still working this part out, honestly, as the baseline is unarmoured. We'll likely come back to this, as I could use some input on managing how to handle that.
If you hit and they aren't protected, then you roll to wound. It's off the chart below.
It is based on your (as modified by weapon or skill) Strength vs their Toughness. As with the Hit Chart, taking 4-to-wound as average, 5-to-wound is -10 to wound, 6-to-wound is -20, and past that, you require a natural crit or a supernumerary (above 100) crit to actually wound the thing. On the flip side, wound rolls go down to 2-to-wound, so +20.
If you confirm the wound, and it's the last wound the enemy has, which will be the case for essentially all henchmen and most heroes, I'll refer to the injury table.
Stunned are prone and unable to act for 1+ rounds. Knocked down enemies have a chance to recover at the start of next round, if not put out of action by further hits.
Zombies:
15 gc per corpse to reanimate; requires necromancer or ability to raise dead
Summary: Zombies are slow, being unable to run, but terrifying creatures. They are mindless undead, so they feel no pain or fear, nor can they be poisoned or affected by disease, but they are also brainless: they never get any better. They don't level up or gain experience like living minions do. They are extremely slow, but eminently expendable. Cheap, tough enough, unskilled, good for a walking shield of rotting meat between you and your (usually horrified) enemies.
Ghouls: hired in groups of 1-5
40gc to hire
Ghouls are living, but debased, creatures. Some say they're distant relatives of the Strigany caravans that wander the eastern Empire. All say they're mad and debased cannibals...because they are. They congregate to food and power and tend to travel in familial pack or clan groups. In combat they fight as a pack-unit or alone. They're not sufficiently sophisticated for weaponry anymore. Like zombies, they tear their foes apart with hands and teeth. Unlike zombies, they have claws and fangs.
Quick attackers, capable of improvement and learning, incapable of weapon use. Tougher than normal men, but not by much, and unskilled to boot. Zombies hold a line, ghouls swarm to flank, and eventually numbers will tell despite that.
Dire Wolves: 0-5
50gc to draw in / reanimate
Expensive, but intimidating. These reanimated giant wolves are the fastest fighters at your disposal though slower than they were in life, they still walk faster than horses, and they can charge down a running horse with ease. As with zombies, they're undead, so they feel no pain, can't be diseased or poisoned, and they can't learn anything new. They're just as good later as when you get them, no worse, but also no better.
------------------------------------
Warband Composition:
Undead Warbands may have up to 15 members. Beyond Petra, all of them must be paid for in some way or another from your warchest, be that in buying corpses for zombies, baiting and reanimating dire wolves, or buying corpses enough to feed a pack of ghouls, or paying for food, clean clothing, and shelter for your dregs. Honestly, most of the money is apt to go to corpses, oddly enough. But then, you set up near a settlement with a fighting pit and a backalley chirurgeon for a reason.
At present you are at your minimum strength required to undertake missions into Mordheim: 3 members, not counting your Hired Sword. While this means you can undertake missions now, it also means that if anyone were to be disabled by injury or killed outright, you would be unable to keep doing so until you'd replaced them or gotten them treated.
Warband Armoury:
2 spears: Attacks first; +1 Str on mounted charge; Str as user otherwise; can only use shield or buckler in offhand; 10gc
2 daggers; Str: user, +1 to enemy armour; 1st free, others 2 gc
1 shield; +1 to armour; 5 gc
1 sword; User, Permits parries: roll vs to-hit-roll, if your roll is higher, you're unhit.; 10 gc
1 helmet; downgrades stunned injuries to knocked down; 10 gc
0 Halberds; Str+1, 2handed; 10 gc
0 Hammer; S as user, stuns on 2-4 instead of 3-4; 3gc
0 Axe; 3gc
0 Mace; S as user, stuns on 2-4 instead of 3-4; 3gc
0 2h-weapon; 15 gc
0 Bow; 10 gc
0 Shortbow; 5 gc
0 Light Armour; 20 gc
0 Heavy armour; 50 gc
Misc equipment: (Hero only)
Rope and grapnel; reroll failed climbing checks; 5gc
Lucky charm; save against first hit in a battle (semi-rare); 10 gc
elven cloak; -1 to hit you w/ ranged weapons (Very Rare); 100+ gc
Hunting arrows; +1 to injury with bow/long bow/ elf bow; (Rare); 25+ gc
Net; ranged weapon, forces str check on target hit, prohibits moving, shooting, magic the next turn if failed; 5 gc
Bugman's Ale; a barrel immunizes against fear; (Rare); 50 gc
Tome of Magic; learn a new (random) spell either from lesser magic or wizard's own list; (Very Rare); 200+ gc
healing herbs; restore all wounds lost if used between rounds of a fight; (Rare); 20+ gc
unholy relic; auto-pass first leadership test per fight, if leader, can apply to rout tests; (Rare); 15+ gc
halfling cookbook; your warriors aren't motivated by good cooking. You don't eat mortal food. Your dregs might like it. Otherwise useless.
Lantern; see hidden foes from further away; 10gc
Mordheim map; may or may not help you find treasure in the city; (Rare); 20+ gc
Cathayan Silk cloak; pretty, expensive, inspiring. Prone to being spoiled in fights, however.
Your Current Warchest is 435 gc.
This will be used to buy supplies, weapons, armour, and hirelings.
Above I have listed the various hero and hireling types along with their hire costs and their pros/cons.
I also included the various weapon types your forces are trained to use by default. Heroes can gain broader weapon training, but henchmen always use the default list.
Purchasing is handled during Warband Management phases. It requires 1 or more Heroes to go and make the purchases.
Of the four settlements around the city, only Black Pit Settlement is currently likely to permit a vampire walking about openly. Your minions look sufficiently abnormal that they would be frowned upon in Sigmarhaven. By Witchhunters, likely. Cutthroat's Den is normally a riskier place to shop, but it would perhaps behoove you to avoid sending your minions there while the priesthood of Morr's eye is upon it. For now, that leaves Brigandsburg and Black Pit Settlement.
Items listed as semi-rare to very rare are harder to acquire. A hero must be sent specifically to buy that particular item, and they may or may not succeed in doing so. The higher the rarity, the lower the chance of success.
As with purchasing equipment, hiring henchmen and heroes is carried out during the Warband Management phase after fights and looting but before planning the next mission.
Now, I'm going to want y'all to DISCUSS plans for the initial warband. This means plan votes, and a moratorium. I'm not opening voting on this until I feel like y'all have hashed out plans for a composition vote.
Also, because Vampires start with 8 xp, Petra has gained 4 starting advances. I rolled for these.
As a result, her Weapon Skill was increased to 6 (Peak human, but not peak Vampire), and she may select two new skills.
I will be opening the initial vote on what kinds of skills you would like for her in a few minutes here, once the options are typed up.
Last edited:
Petra von Kelch: initial Advancements / Pre-Quest skills
Petra's Starting Skills
Please vote for 2 total skills. I'd prefer it go by plan voting, not ranked choice, since they can interact with one another and some have others as prerequisites. When voting list skill category and actual skill chosen under it.
[ ] Combat Skills
-[ ] Strike to injure; wounds more likely to entail serious injury
-[ ] Combat Master; +1 attack when in close combat with multiple foes
-[ ] Weapons Training; May use any melee weapon you can acquire, not just defaults
-[ ] Web of Steel; better crits -[ ] Expert Swordsman Would require write-in justification; reroll missed sword attacks on charge
-[ ] Step Aside; chance to roll with a hit and avoid being wounded
[ ]Academic Skills -[ ] Sorcery Locked unless Arcane Lore is taken
-[ ] Streetwise; +2 to find rare items when trading
-[ ] Haggle; -2d6 gc from any one item purchased per Management phase
-[ ]Arcane Lore; (Normally Locked behind access to a Tome; may be taken now, represented as training for the mission; if not taken now, will become available if tome is looted or purchased) -[ ] Wyrdstone Hunter Wouldn't make sense for her to know the ins and outs of finding wyrdstone without experience in it -[ ] Warrior Wizard; May cast spells while armoured; Requires ability to cast spells
[ ] Strength Skills
-[ ] Mighty Blow; +1S in close combat -[ ] Pit Fighter; bonuses fighting in enclosed areas; Petra does not have the background for this expertise
-[ ] Resilient; -1S to hits against him (harder to wound) -[ ] Fearsome; causes fear; Petra already does this, but it's a skill type dreg heroes can learn
-[ ] Strongman; 2h weapons strike at normal Initiative, instead of last.
-[ ] Unstoppable Charge; +1WS on Charge
[ ] Speed Skills
-[ ] Leap; may add distance to movement by leaping, permits parkour 1/round
-[ ] Sprint; Move x3 M rating instead of x2 when running or charging
-[ ] Acrobat; Fall or jump a significant distance without damage on Initiative test. Reroll failed diving charge attacks (charges from above)
-[ ] Lightning Reflexes; strike first when charged
-[ ] Jump Up; kip up instantly and ignore knocked down results unless due to helmet or No Pain preventing a stun
-[ ] Dodge; Chance to dodge ranged attacks
-[ ] Scale Sheer Surfaces; Climb up or down x2 M without a skill check
[ ] General Vampire Special Skills
-[ ] Mist Form; turn into mist. Cannot attack, only hit on crits, only wounded on crits. If hit -2 to injury roll, if knocked down, reverts to normal, may change back between rounds at will.
-[ ] Ratswarm Form; turn into swarm of biting rats.
-[ ] Bat Form; turn into giant bat, weaker, faster, but able to fly
-[ ] Giant Wolf Form; faster, strong, less tough, but able to fight unarmed
[ ] Von Carstein Special Skills
-[ ] Transfix; enemies in melee combat must pass contested Ld check to attack. If failed all attacks automatically hit transfixed target this round; Undead and Daemons are immune, as are those immune to Psychology.
-[ ]Aura of Majesty; double leadership aura, reroll first failed Rout per fight
-[ ] Summon Bats; Spend action as spell to summon 1-3 Fell Bats to fight in close radius of vampire
-[ ] Call Winds; Summon Storm in spell-like action that succeeds on 35+ on percentile die.
