Warhammer Fantasy 4e

Game Master Nethru

Are any regional Lores acceptable as a substitute? I'm not sure any of us have Lore (history)...

I guess do it as whatever attribute is assigned to it at -20

Intelligence (10): 1d100 ⇒ 71

Well that won't do it :-p

Intelligence 32-20 =12: 1d100 ⇒ 20 - That's a really good roll, but no dice!

Landolf shrugs as the excavation continues. "Thulgrim said he wanted the stone out of the ground, not to know if there were funny markings on them."

It isn't often that you get to roleplay the idiots who dig up the forbidden badness in a movie! Whee!

Intelligence 28 -20: 1d100 ⇒ 61

None of you can really determine what the markings are or their origin.

Does your group continue to dig the stones out as requested by Thulgrim? Seems like general hard labor based on what you are seeing being required to get them out.

Landolf continues to dig.

Alberich gets on with the general hard labour.

"No reason not to keep digging I suppose..."

As you continue to dig the images become more clear. The creatures are brutish to look upon. Savage and gigantic with bodies shaped like barrels. They have triangular heads within which are set large singular eyes. The creatures are shown living in crude towers built around the edge of a large lake.

One of the creatures is much larger than the rest, and seems to feature prominently in the carvings. Judging from the creature’s pendulous breasts she is female. Whilst the other creatures are bald, her own hair hangs in long tatty braids.

One scene depicts some sort of war party, raiding a village of small, round huts and carrying loot and prisoners away with them. To the far right of this image the bloated female is shown brandishing the heads of slain prisoners over the waters of the lake. Above the waters, an indistinct impression of a monstrous horned head can be discerned.

The next row of images depict further raids and profane rites. A great beast — nearly four times the size of the other creatures — accompanies them, resembling a great lizard with four pairs of legs. Jagged, carved patterns like bolts of lightning emanate from its eyes, striking down hapless hut dwellers.

The final row of images depict the death and burial of the bloated female. The one-eyed creatures are gathered about her body, clawing the sky with their outstretched arms. She is then interred in the ground beside a great lake. A tall obelisk is erected to mark the place.

The outer rocks are much easier to topple and the final tall one remains...

Maybe pack it in for the day and try this one tomorrow? It's gonna be a real bastard. Let's work on extra firewood and possibly extra shelter for tonight? I don't know about you but I'm exhausted from a bad nights sleep

"Do you think Stiegler would want to take a look at this thing before we push it over? I can't make much sense of these things, but some people have weird interests. Maybe it means something to her."

"Whoever carved this thing sure liked cutting rocks."

It's only about mid day when you get this far into your work surprisingly working well together. The mist around the stones seems to grow thicker as the day goes on and you linger wiping the sweat from your brows.

"It's probably time to take a break at least. I'm really tired after that weird dream last night. Let's see if we can talk with Stiegler about all these rock carvings."

Do we know how much we'd have to rest to get rid of the Fatigued condition? I forgot about it on our failed Lore checks earlier.

Fatigue goes away with rest or spells/prayers.

You hear a familiar voice yell from down the path to the stones.

"You manlings almost done down there! yells Thulgrim.

Alex tears her eyes away from the disturbing carvings with effort, and calls back, "Just one stone left. It's... it's an odd one."

Thilo knows a grave when he sees one. He calls up to Thulgrim, "Master Dwarf, this ain't just a stone. Pretty sure there's something buried down here!"

"Nonsense. Finish up and come back to camp for lunch."

He scurries off back to the camp as fast as he comes out there.

"I guess Stiegler can always look at the carvings after we pull it out of the ground, if she's even interested," Landolf says with a shrug which he follows with a wearied yawn. "Let's hurry this up. I could use a break."

It doesn't take long to drop the last large center stone and when it falls out of the earth you feel a strange sigh of relief...

The fog seems to dissipate and you all just feel overall better unlike when you first entered the camp.

"Huh. In all the tales doing something like that lets all the ghosts out, but I actually feel a lot better."

Strange that... maybe the priests are right about this sort of thing... never paid that much attention .

Anyone want to keep digging since someone mentioned may be something buried here? :)

"Well, we got paid for a job and we did it. Now on to the next."

As much as Thilo is relieved that the immediate threat seems to have passed, he feels a personal affront to have his expertise in grave robbing thwarted. He crouches next to the depression and prods the ground that was beneath the rock with his spade.

"All is well that ends well. Let's go eat."

Thilo make Intuition test. If other would like to assist add +10 per per character up to your Intuition Bonus.

Landolf will help out with this.

Alex is more than ready to walk away, but Thilo's look of consternation halts her. "Something more we've missed?

She'll help too

Hershell is more than done with digging, but he waits to see what the others are doing.

Alberich puts his muscles to work and helps.

30int+5skill+40helping bonus(?) = 75: 1d100 ⇒ 52
With some assistance from his new friends pointing out the obvious things he clearly would already know about finding and/or looting something from an ancient civilization that is completely alien to his extremely urban childhood, Thilo finds something in the earth.

"Something is down here guys."

(not sure what "per character up to your Intuition Bonus" means)

Whatever the first number for your intuition is is number of bonus helpers so you have 35 so +30 max so 65.

The digging takes some time but in the end it's fruitful as your shovels hit something hard. You find the grave from the depictions! The sarcophagus has flooded with stagnant water from the Grausee. All that remain are hanks of ancient cloth, hair, and a few bones. However, there are six golden torcs in the grave as well.

Just as you uncover this Thulgrim makes his way toward your group since it took you so long and starts yelling.

"What are you manlings doing! I told you to hurry and you were making a racket back here!"

"The stone is out, sir. There's something else here underneath it though. Come take a look."

Thulgrim hurries to the site and look down at what you have discovered.

"Hey manling!" Looking at Thilo (who i'm assuming is pulling up the goods)

"Any gold found down there belongs to the Reuter-Stiegler concern."

Hershel watches as the dwarf moves to take the groups hard dug find.

"And this is why you shouldn't do more than you are being paid to do. Never worth it, aye master Thulgrim? Or are ya going to make it worth their while? I mean, they went through all the trouble after all. Say a 50% finders fee, incentivize such initiative after all."

44: 1d100 ⇒ 43 Hope there isn't a difficulty penalty on that one.

Thulgrim strokes his beard.

"I'll ensure your compensated. What did you find down there?"

If you try to hide what you find please make a check to deceive him.

Thilo has had plenty of takes go sideways when discovered mid-job, this is nothing new to him. Thilo has no problem borrowing from the dead, but things get complicated when the living get involved.
"We've got some old bones and jewelry, sir. Seems that these stones might be some kind of burial marker."

I was mostly waiting for Thilo on that one.

Landolf watches the proceedings with interest. Stiegler has been fair with us so far. Now we get to see if these stones are just as uninteresting to her as her foreman...

Thulgrim looks at the golden torcs.

"I'll ensure you get 7 silver shillings per torc. Hand them over and head back to camp to eat it's already getting late."

"Sounds fine to me, sir. I could use a break." Landolf climbs out of the hole and starts sweeping what dirt he can off his clothes and hands.

"Still...I wonder what that was all about," he muses to himself while looking back at the dig site and the stone.

Thulgrim shrugs. "Maybe some old hag who was worshiped as a god buried here long before any of us were a glint in our parents eyes manling. Probably nothing to be worried about."

"Well, they left us all a present, anyway. Let's go eat!"

Aye, and maybe an after meal nap... I slept poorly.

"No complaints here. Let's be off with the meals then."

Your party heads back to the camp, the strigany are impressed by your work taking down the stones. They offer you all peppery meat stew, which looks MUCH better than what Thulgrim was going to provide you.

The mood in the camp seems much lighter. After everyone is done eating the Strigany build a blazing fire and take to song and dance. Reiko comes over to your group and asks you to join them in their fun.

If you choose to join them you dance, laugh and have a bit of fun and night quickly approaches.

As the light of day begins to fade, Thulgrim will approach

"I need Reuter to open the chest of funds in order to pay you but I can't seem to find the manling."

Alex gratefully joins with the Strigany in their merriment until Thulgrim arrives with his ominous news.

"Oh. Let me ask around, maybe someone's seen him?"

Hershel is happy for the meal and the company.

Once Thulgrim approaches. "Guess we got to find him aye. On it I guess."

With that nonplussed statement he heads out to look. Might as well put his tracking to the test.

Landolf gets up wearily to help search. "It's not like there are many places to go out here. Did he just wander out into the forest on his own?"

Your group as well as some Strigany begin to look around the camp for the missing Reuter..

A younter Strigany begins to yell by the riverbank near a stand of bulrush, the dense, tall stalks waving in the breeze. You make your way over there and you see the body of Rutger Reuter. His corpse is a shocking sight. He is dressed in a white, linen smock drenched through with blood. His right arm is missing. The torn flesh at his shoulder speaks of many sharp and savage incisions. His face, for all the violence wrought upon him, is strangely serene, eyes closed, mouth slightly agape. Large, three-toed footprints can be seen stamped into the mud around the banks. Trails of mist still cling to his cold body, coiling around his arm and legs like wispy tentacles.

The Strigany begin muttering to one another in tones of panic.

Reiko says to the group "It is true that this place is cursed! The great beast of the Ortschlamm is here!" He gesture to the swamps that lie on the far side of the river. "It has come for blood just as Madam Vadoma said it would! The time to leave has come." At his words, the other Strigany make signs against evil. Some murmur their assent and head for their wagons.

Looking at his corpse you see the key to the chest is still around his neck.

if you take a closer look at his wounds and passes a Hard (−20)
Perception or an Easy (+40) Heal Test

Discussion Thread.

Let's see... my understanding of a quick read of the book is that we can roll & get free XP if we accept the results of the roll. If we roll and get something we'd rather not, we can just pick something else instead but don't get XP. Basically a no-risk roll. Is that right?

correct!

If you use discord we can chat over that as well for faster replies just created a quick room.

https://discord.gg/DEuVNhV

Also for race selection use the chart in the Gnome PDF since they added that after the main book came into play.

Profile is ready. Just needs to know what his doom is.

I will let you all come up with your Doomings. If it looks to wacky I'll say something :)

No rush on posting. I put up the intro just to put it out there but i will be away most of the long weekend. Finish up chars and we will continue next week! :)

Dooming: Scales and teeth is what I see in your smoke boy. Morr will come for you with scales and teeth. Just another victim to add to a long list of prey stretching over years longer than you have walked this land.

Vague enough, could be a dragon, or an orc wearing scalemail... we can make it fit a lot of circumstances if it comes up.

Sounds good!

"Not for you the slow death of age, girl. Your end comes in stinging smoke and flashing sparks."

(Finishing up Alex today or tomorrow)

Okay, advances are chosen and in the profile, ended up spending my 70 xp on an advance each in Classical language and Heal, and two advances in Weapon Skill.

Shekels: 2d10 ⇒ (3, 2) = 5
Bandages: 1d10 ⇒ 2

Oh also, I decided I'd like Alex to be from Averheim, any objections to me swapping Lore (Reikland) to Lore (Averheim)?

i'm fine with that

This is Nathan. I might be missing a thing or two, but I think I've pulled the character together now. I'll edit the profile to fill in the remaining character blanks.

Edit: And...I somehow threw away all the background I wrote up. I'll have to do it again when I can find time.

Who are we missing? Crowfoot and Helaman? You 2 still interested or should I fill slots?

Who are we missing? Crowfoot and Helaman? You 2 still interested or should I fill slots?

. I'm here, background is written up. Checking the requirements one more time and then posting to the profile section.

Been sick apologies. Posted

Well... can't see a pink ork in the open, but the boy sure can sing. That is 5 successes for an average challenge in case anyone cared to know.

I will try to do a few posts a day depending how work goes to try to keep things moving along. Hope that is acceptable to everyone.

very

Absolutely!

Praise Sigmar

The +20 goes on to the number you need to roll under. So, I have a fellowship of 44, a sing of 2 so 46. Now if I am doing a stupidly easy challenge +40 I add that to my 46 so I have to roll under an 86 now.

Think i should try to get one more player or keep as is?

Up to you boss, you could always get ahold of the gent who last voiced interest.

Got ahold of Rorek, he will have a character up in a day or two.

nice

What's everyone's Init score? I want to track it on the side for when we do combat have it all set.

40 her - which method do you plan on using btw?

36 - in my character line that should show now at the top of all posts.

Just going to use whatever your init is that is the order. Don't want to waste time having you guys roll for order on PbP making combat that much longer.

Landolf's initiative is 35

Initiative of 40

On the plus side, if I die the thing has scale and teeth... And, if it kills me it should be fed and leave the boat alone... it is a good death I guess.

Or, you guys could slaughter the beast, I would really like that.

This is all assuming that Landolf doesn't get eaten by a fish, but I've been looking at what it would take for him to reach Seaman, and I think it's something like the following:

5 advances in Agility (he has this already)
5 advances in Dexterity
5 advances in Fellowship (he has this already)
5 advances in eight of his career skills (he has 5 advances in all of them)
1 talent from his current career level (he has that)

So, if I wanted to go straight to Seaman, Landolf would need 125 XP to get the 5 advances in Dexterity that he's missing and 100 XP to go up one career level.

If I'm reading it correctly, the only downsides to progressing to Seaman quickly would be:

1. not spending the 225 XP on somewhere else that might be immediately useful
2. not being able to take the other talents from Landsman unless I go back to Landsman later (not likely)

I'm not seeing a purpose for the trappings listed at career levels higher than 1. Do you need to get the trappings for the next career level before advancing, or do you get them when you do advance?

If I don't focus on advancing to Seaman quickly, the main benefit would probably be being able to put XP into some of the skills Landolf has already advanced without waiting. If I'm reading things right, he can't (easily) put XP into the skills he advanced due to his race at character creation, only the skills and characteristics in his career. I know there are exceptions to that if you hire a tutor or something, but I'll ignore that part for the moment. Also, he'd be able to pick up the Landsman Talents if I want those.

Does all of that sound right?

Sounds right to me. Not sure on trappings.

I'm not sure where to take Alberich...

I'm largely set to go to bronze buuuut I don't necessarily want to stay in the Outlaw career. It's not bad per se buuut not where I want the character to go.

Assuming I survive my current slew of horrible rolls then I'll be seeing what hooks the DM will have in the game for alternative career paths.

Landolf started out with pretty decent bow skill, but with no way to get a bow or advance those skills easily. The BS training and Bow Skill from Outlaw 2 is making me a bit jealous.

Seaman appears to be a melee-centric tree for combat purposes, but not a bad one once you reach Seaman.

Of course I could go to a different career as well, but Landolf's story so far is tied up with his Seaman career, so I shouldn't complain.

Regarding the Gameplay thread: realizing now that I should have used Landolf's dagger instead of a Brawl check. If he hits (definitely not assured), Landolf is both missing out on +2 to his Strength value and wouldn't have the Undamaging trait on his attack that his Brawl check will give. Something to look into next round, I guess.

Trappings in higher ranks are for when you can purchase a higher level out the gate due to exp from retiring a character or dooming death. Also effects your ability to convince people you are whichever career you are.

Oh, I didn't double check, so I'd just assumed it was the old thing where you had to have the trappings to move into the career.

Yeah, that was the second and 3rd editions.

apologize been in a threat seminar all day today will post updates in morning!

Trappings in higher ranks are for when you can purchase a higher level out the gate due to exp from retiring a character or dooming death. Also effects your ability to convince people you are whichever career you are.

I better set up my doom too come to think of it

OK, a bit more on me trying to get my head around this rulebook.

Now that I've had a bit more experience with and reading up on combat, I'm currently pegging Landolf's Seaman career as a solid, second-tier light fighter class. I say that because it has (at Seaman 2) WS, Melee (Basic), Agi and Dodge. That's a good setup to get the rolls you'd need to be a decent combatant. It's a light fighter, however, due to the lack of any Strength or Toughness characteristics, meaning that heavy armor will be outside of a Seaman's likely encumbrance range and its damage results will be less than many of the dedicated fighting classes. I call it second tier as a light fighter because very few of its Talents have anything to do with fighting. It doesn't have stuff like Warrior Born, Combat Aware or Hardy anywhere in its tree, although a few things like Strike Mighty Blow eventually become available.

I'm pretty satisfied with that: the whole game isn't about fighting, but (after some advancement) it means that Landolf will be pretty good in a scrap, so long as he doesn't wade straight into the middle of things, and he will be good at some other areas that dedicated fighters might not be. Does that analysis sound about right?

My current mental model for this is that Landolf is currently a deck swabber, but Seaman 2 will make him become more like a Marine.

Second, I've been looking at some of the talents more since that is one of the decisions I'll need to make earlier on. I think I understand the mechanics a bit more, but I'm not sure about some of the whys. For example, I'll use Strong Back and Strong Swimmer. Strong Back in particular confused me because its text talks all about opposed Strength Tests and Encumbrance points, but the Tests mention Row and Swim. After reading more, I think I understand: Row and Swim both gain +1 SL on Dramatic Tests (I think that's the right terminology?) but I think only if the test succeeds, making it a bit of a win-more mechanic. Opposed Strength tests gain +1 SL per Strong Back rank whether the check succeeds or not and Encumbrance goes up by one per rank of Strong Back (making it a back door into heavier armor if you want to sit around at Landsman for forever, I suppose).

Strong Swimmer confused me similarly since the rules text didn't have anything to do about swimming: it was all about holding your breath instead. Similar to Strong Back, though, it would +1 SL on successful Swim checks in addition to giving bonus Toughness for holding breath purposes.

If you had two ranks in Strong Back and one rank on Strong Swimmer, I imagine that means +3 SL on a successful Swim Dramatic Test?

What I don't know is how to evaluate all of that. It's not immediately clear how often Dramatic Tests would come up for Swim or Row. They don't seem like the sort of skills that would be used for Opposed checks. A bonus on Opposed Strength checks at least has obvious applications, and bonus Encumbrance is pretty straightforward, so I'm not as worried about those parts.

Any thoughts? I think my gut instinct is to go straight for Seaman 2, since that will open up a new & important skill set. I can see the Seaman 1 talents being decent in some situations, but probably not enough so given obvious needs. Talents are kind of spendy....

Due to Shavuot I will not be on till Monday night. Bot as needed.

Sorry for the few posts this weekend had both my daughters recitals very busy weekend! Any ideas on how to make combat a bit more faster/streamlined for pbp?

Not familiar enough with the system to say... so far so good .

Same here. Are we waiting on someone to respond before the next combat round starts? Can Landolf tell if his attacks are hurting the fish at all?

sorry for delay will post updates tonight! Been crazy at work with the whole Iran/US sanction crap.

Spoooky

As you continue to dig the images become more clear. The creatures are brutish to look upon. Savage and gigantic with bodies shaped like barrels. They have triangular heads within which are set large singular eyes. The creatures are shown living in crude towers built around the edge of a large lake.

One of the creatures is much larger than the rest, and seems to feature prominently in the carvings. Judging from the creature’s pendulous breasts she is female. Whilst the other creatures are bald, her own hair hangs in long tatty braids.

One scene depicts some sort of war party, raiding a village of small, round huts and carrying loot and prisoners away with them. To the far right of this image the bloated female is shown brandishing the heads of slain prisoners over the waters of the lake. Above the waters, an indistinct impression of a monstrous horned head can be discerned.

The next row of images depict further raids and profane rites. A great beast — nearly four times the size of the other creatures — accompanies them, resembling a great lizard with four pairs of legs. Jagged, carved patterns like bolts of lightning emanate from its eyes, striking down hapless hut dwellers.

The final row of images depict the death and burial of the bloated female. The one-eyed creatures are gathered about her body, clawing the sky with their outstretched arms. She is then interred in the ground beside a great lake. A tall obelisk is erected to mark the place.

The outer rocks are much easier to topple and the final tall one remains...

VERY well written!