GM Blog: Episode 14 (Patreon)

Episode 14 is an annoying episode for me. Why? Because we recorded a slew of fun aside episodes around this one, but most were lost when our production PC died in the late summer heat.

And, yes, the livingroom was really that hot. It may be Scotland, but lots of bodies, PCs, lights and other tech in a closed room gets unbearably warm in the hotter months, especially when all the doors and windows have to be closed to minimise external sound.

In short, we really need to install air-conditioning.

Sadly, that's not cheap - at least £2.5K for what we need and the difficulty of the installation. But, I suppose, that's why we run this Patreon - the ongoing costs of running our 'livingroom'. Realistically, we have to install aircon soon to survive this year, so we're pressing ahead with it - at the very least, not losing another production PC is a must.

Because of the previous PC loss, at the time of writing, there are still several lost Tales that we have never replaced. Most have been rerecorded or the lost content mixed in elsewhere - and in one case a Tales episode has been replaced by a story I posted (and may also record an audio version so it can be listened to for those that prefer that). So, we have sorted a chunk of the missing episodes, but far from all of them. And that still upsets me.

On that, I'll cover what is still missing as I bullet-point my way through the events of Episode 14.

• PRE-STREAM: Lindsay Assaulted by Nurgle. As mentioned in the intro, Lindsay contracted an eye infection between episodes 13 and 14, and it was a nasty one. The less said about this the better. Just know that it was utterly horrible and that I now have a lot of inspiration for truly awful pestilential daemons.

• PRE-STREAM: So Bloody Hot. Gods, it was still so bloody hot in our livingroom on the day of Episode 14. Sure, not as hot as some previous weeks, so it was all quite bearable, but nonetheless really humid and warm. Little did I know that it was about to get so hot my production PC would completely die on us!

• Luitpold Vanishes! Yup, at the start of the episode, he's gone (and more gone than the party realises). The warpstone in the centre of the crater had weakened the divisions between the Mortal Realms and elsewhere and Luitpold unwisely stepped in with the ghosts as they moved on.

• So, What Happened? Luitpold, now 'damned' because he heard The Story (see Blog 13), was being drawn into the Realm of Chaos by the God of Death's divine messengers (the Death Ravens heard by Ume). Andy spent a Fate point to avoid this and Luitpold's soul instead fell into one of the 'other places' lying outside the Mortal Realms. Because of the unique circumstances of his birth (more about that in a future blog), he landed in a broken fragmented part of the Shadowlands, the Realm of Ulgu, the Grey Realm, or the 'Ainkern' as some factions of the Elves call it. The 'realm' he landed in was a shattered extra-dimensional plane where starving spirits from beyond the End Times haunt, desperately craving what they once had when the Mortal Realms still existed. The shyish gathered in the circle allows these spirits to hungrily look back at the past through the Daemon's Bowl, their primary hunting ground, where they tempt in lost souls, passing mutants, and anything else stupid enough to approach the glowing stone-rimmed crater. Details on what happens when Luitpol arrives are covered in Episode 13.1: Beyond the Bowl and further resolved in Episode 22: The Traitor as all is not quite as it appears. But more on that when we get to Episode 22.

• That Story Is Really Suss! Why Did Corrobreth's Mother Share It? Why indeed. Something is definitely going on there. But we can cover that another day, eh? Only Elrick was wise enough to resist that temptation (but, if I'm being honest, Alamennowyth, as an Elf, is already damned, so she had nothing to lose there, I suppose).

• 'The Good Father'. Yes, I call Luitpold that repeatedly and on purpose. Largely because, as will become clear over the next set of episodes, he's not exactly 'good' in origin. More on that as we progress through the episodes...

• Unaligned Stars. So, what's going on with the stars in the Daemon's Bowl? The perceptions within the stone circle are twisted by an enormous gathering of shyish, the purple wind of magic, the wind of time, death, and passing. This affects the perceptions of the PCs who enter the circle, letting them see the sky on the night the warpstone struck the area. If any of our Glorious Heroes had Lore (Astronomy) they would have been able to date the stars, and the crater's creation, with half an hour or so of calculation. Similarly, the spirits in the Grey Realm hungrily watching the crater can see back to when the PCs are messing around by the circle because of Luitpold's connection to them.

• MISSING EPISODE: 'Alamennowyth and Greta Saw The Stars.' At one point, Lindsay mentions that Alamennowyth and Greta 'saw the stars', which they did indeed do . Not that you'll know this, though. The episode Lindsay was referencing was lost in the heat-based hard drive crash and has not been rerecorded yet as we intend to resolve that close to the end of the Power Behind the Throne. So, that one will be coming soon, I hope. It explains how the Greta/Alamennowyth relationship started and developed. It's all very... elf bullshit.

• Gerhardt's Reaction to Luitpold Vanishing. I loved this. Gerhardt spirals fast as his childish delusions are confronted with the reality of the harshness of life. The loss of his friend hits Gerhardt much harder than he expected. That does not bode well for when true losses will come later. War is coming and war is horrific.

• 'The Gods Are Capricious. The Gods Are Big. The Gods Are Hungry'. Well, yes, this seems fair as commentary from the party. But, they are not entirely correct in all their assumptions here. Some gods are not capricious. Some are not so big. And some are not hungry. But, in general, they are not far from the mark with their description.

• Receiving Sigmar. Is Luitpold effectively just a reception mast for Sigmar's will as some of the PCs theorise in this episode? Absolutely not. 'Sigmar's Will' is almost all directed by Luitpold, contrary to their suppositions. Andy chooses what talents and miracles to activate for Luitpold and when it should happen. He also chooses which talents and miracles Luitpold has. Very occasionally, outside things are imposed upon Luitpold. But rarely, and usually because of mitigating circumstances. Indeed, let's track that from this point on just so we can note when there are external influences upon Luitpold that he does not specifically request. Let's mark it as SIGMARWATCH! in future blogs! Just how many will there be?

• Gerhardt Reads His Book And Dreams. The dream Gerhardt has after reading his 'book' is a warning that the 'Luitpold' about to emerge from the Daemon's Bowl is not Luitpold. But dreams, especially nightmares, are hard to interpret. Note that this means Gerhardt's dream is prophetic, showing the first of Gerhardt's potential innate magical winds (azyr - the blue wind of magic). But we can discuss that more later; the 'book' is doing things to him the more he reads it, and that will come to light later.

• The Return Of Luitpold. So, let's be blunt: it isn't Luitpold that returns. I'll go into more detail about what's going on here in the Episode 22 blog. For now, all you need to know is that Andy thinks he's playing Luitpold, which makes him super convincing at playing the shadowy creature that has actually taken Luitpold's place. Unlike all the gods, this entity is capricious, is big, and is hungry. Like, really hungry. And it lies, lies, and lies to get its scheming way. Like, a lot. Never trust a single word mentioned by the thing once it is free of the Grey Realm. You've been warned.

• Broken Body And Armour. I didn't take Andy's plate armour and totally screw with his character as will be clear in a later episode, but Andy doesn't know this yet. Hence his abject horror. Indeed, the fact that things were far worse for Luitpold than Andy initially expected was the first clue that something was very wrong.

• Luitpold's Face Is Stitched Up. The lacerations suffered by Luitpold are important to note as this version of the character looks very different from the unlacerated version. This is useful for identification at a later date (and it will be a much later date). Just be aware that a stitched-up Luitpold is never the real Luitpold.

• Narn Attack. The party is attacked by mutants while travelling down the River Narn. It's a thing that happens in the Barren Hills. I could have gone with some other form of nasty for the party to encounter, but I figured reinforcing the core plot point that the mutation is spreading and the world is growing worse was better than having river trolls or some other gribbly. Let's keep to the core messaging.

• Corrobreth Dies. But he doesn't as we'll see. So, what's going on? Well...

• The Great Circle. When you strip away the legends, the Great Circle is a giant prison designed to hold the power of a manifested Chaos God -- in this case, an entity called Be'Lakor. This is the same entity that was introduced by Corrobreth's Mother (CM) in The Story from Episode 12, and it's one of the core special characters of modern Warhammer.

• So, Just Who Is Be'Lakor Then? I suppose that's worth a little more explanation given the situation.
  Be'Lakor is the first daemon prince of Warhammer - the first ever mortal that ascended to immortality in the aethyr as a godlike entity. He is a central figure in the End Times as it will unfold if the PCs do not do enough to interrupt it (i.e., the official End Times, such as they are -- and if you follow Lorebeards, you'll know my opinions on that!). Be'Lakor is also the father of the Everchosen (the Chaos Lords who lead armies of Chaos to destroy the world), and is largely responsible for driving the world to its end through a mixture of prophesy, manipulation, and shadowy conspiracy. And was once supremely powerful. During the First War Against Chaos, he was effectively a god in the material realm that ruled all of what's now called the Northern Chaos Wastes with thousands of other daemon princes swearing to his service.
  Basically, he's a big bad that's been a core part of the Warhammer setting for about 25 years. He was first introduced in the old Mordheim game, where he was the shadowy instigator of... well... everything. For more on that, I suggest checking out the 14th Gotrek and Felix novel: City of the Damned; it shows just how time-screwy Be'Lakor can be. Indeed, novels and stories like that one influenced my decision to dial LAWhammer up to 11 from the start instead of going with my normal preferences for The Enemy Within, which is more of a sedate 6 that slowly ramps up to a 9. But I've played the campaign that way so many times that it's fun to do things a little differently. Besides, all the other WFRP streams do it the 'normal' way -- I like to be different.
  For those interested, you can learn more about the official version of Be'Lakor here.

• Does Be'Lakor Matter To The Enemy Within? Not really. A minor influence and a useful foreshadow of things to come in our Power Behind the Throne, sure, but nothing more. That said, in LAWhammer, Be'Lakor may one day be a primary NPC. His activities are a core component of Paths of The Old Ones (PotOO), a campaign that Gav Thorpe and I planning as a sequel to The Enemy Within. PotOO will be used for LAWhammer's second campaign if we get there. But, that's for the far-flung future. For the moment, all that matters is that the Great Circle was constructed to trap and hold Be'Lakor, who is effectively a god, and that makes it a very powerful place indeed.

• To Be Clear, The Great Circle Is A God Trap? Pretty much, but only for gods that walk the Mortal Realms, which is a super short list (more on this when I get to the background behind the Elven Paths). The powerful rituals cast on the Great Circle were enacted by followers of the Old Faith, a group most commonly known as Druids. The Druids are sworn enemies of Be'Lakor since, well, the First War Against Chaos. Their religious rites also formed the 'Great Ogham' in Albion, which was also built to imprison Be'Lakor in conjunction with the 'Citadel of Lead'. In short, the Great Circle is a special location, and this episode investigates that to a small degree.

• What Does The Great Circle Actually Do? Well, I could write entire posts on the LAWhammer version! For the moment, all that matters is that, amongst other things, it influences time and the cycle of life, all to ensure a material god cannot escape its confines. This impacts the surrounding area in specific ways, such as 'resetting' all life within it every dawn. Although it's perhaps not immediately obvious, this is part of the process that was once used to hold Be'Lakor in the prison. The 'resetting' ensured the first daemon prince could not properly 'die', which would allow his immortal soul to escape into the aethyr, allowing him to re-manifest elsewhere. Instead, every dawn, Be'Lakor would re-manifest within the Great Circle again, physically reset within his prison. But, of course, Be'Lakor eventually escaped, leaving the 'prison' empty, but the processes the Great Circle used are still in place.

• So, That's A Long Way Of Saying Corrobreth Is Reborn By Ancient Druidic Magic? Basically, yes. No fate points are required. The Great Circle is that powerful. Corrobreth dies and he returns later in this episode. This would happen for anyone killed in the Great Circle.

• But, Corrobreth's A Liar! Luitpold claims Corrobreth is a liar because Luitpold knows Corrobreth helped consecrate the Daemon's Bowl, but Corrobreth claims he did not. This is only partially true. Corrobreth doesn't remember chunks of his life, a side-effect of being reincarnated several times within the Great Circle. Corrobreth's Mother (CM) kinda explains this to Elrick in Episode 14.2, where she also glosses over exactly how she brought Corrobreth back to life after he died outside the Great Circle. And there is a reason for that...

• Wait! Isn't This... Necromancy? In essence: yes. What CM is doing to ensure Corrobreth lives is effectively necromancy, thus deeply illegal. Sure, it's not really necromancy, but it's close enough. It's similar in form to life and death magic used in our version of Nippon or to vampirism, but it's not the same as either. Importantly, it doesn't use dhar, tainted black magic, but it does allow life to continue after death by reversing the death. In game, there are many who would like to know more about this for obvious reasons, but the Druids don't share their secrets or advertise their capabilities.

• But Surely Folk Would Notice This Magical Place? Yes, you're correct. But that's another story. We may get to that in a future blog at a muuuuuuuuch later date. But likely not until we're deep into Empire in Ruins, as the Great Circle is potentially a core location for our version of that adventure. There is a reason it's introduced early in Death on the Reik.

• Etelka's Passage. Once back at Corrobreth's village, the PCs find out that Etelka Hertzen's party did not return from the Daemon's Bowl. This is because she decided to hike straight over to Dagmar Wittgenstein's observatory rather than return the way she came. This means the PCs miss her completely because they return to their barge. This gives her a large head-start, as our Glorious Heroes learn later in the episode.

• MISSING EPISODE: Barge Upgrades! The barge was upgraded by Greta when the PCs were away. The upgrades were organised by Lindsay and Cath in a lost stream that I may be able to recover. I'll know when an old hard drive returns to me from storage.

• Elf Details. I detail some of how LAWhammer's Elves are different as Gerhardt learns it from Dr Pflaster. Expanding on this, all of our non-Humans are also distinctly, well, not Human. I'll do a blog post about that at some point as I know we've had a lot of questions about it. But I will note that Pflaster has some things wrong about Elves, and Alamennowyth does not correct her (which is not a surprise).

• Dr Pflaster Knows What Appears To Be Modern Medicine. Dr Pflaster knows a little about what some might call 'modern medicine', particularly when it comes to infections and temperature. Some of the reasons for this are covered directly in the stream. After Luitpold is restitched up, there is a discussion about received medical knowledge and revelation, amongst other things, and how some branches of medicine accept this. It's a nice way to remind everyone that the Warhammer world is not the same as the real world when it comes to knowledge.

• Skaven Poison. Birdie has it correct when she guesses that the poison used by the Skaven on their weapons is not fatal and is instead used to debilitate. That's because the Skaven following them were ordered to shadow and report on Birdie and her party, not to kill it, so were armed for this (both to debilitate the PCs if they should be too fast for the Skaven to track and to slow the PCs if they discovered they were being followed and gave pursuit). However, the promise of an enormous quantity of warpstone overrode their orders and they decided to directly attack the party -- which, as Episode 13 demonstrated, did not go very well for them, so the survivors retreated.

• 'We, As Surgeons...' Dr Plaster outs herself as a surgeon, both by word and deed, in this episode. In the past, this caused Pflaster significant problems with the Physicians' Guild in Altdorf. Surgery, the cutting of flesh, is a lesser form of medicine in that guild's eyes, left to butchers and barbers and the like, and is absolutely not the province of doktors. Indeed, surgery is legally handled by the Barbers' Guild in Altdorf, who are definitely not medical practitioners as far as the Physicians' Guild is concerned. Pflaster considers this to be a nonsensical position, and said so when she was in Altdorf, which did not do down well. Of course, our Glorious Heroes don't realise the importance of this - after all, none are guilders with knowledge of such matters. But it's worth pointing out that some of Plaster's backstory is kinda dropped here: she is somewhat of an intellectual rebel.

• Purple Bones. Yup, the 'Purple Palm' given to Gerhardt as a warning goes right down to his bone. Heh!

• 'Fuck The Gods.' Gerhardt claims the most recent events have significantly changed his views of what the gods are and what they mean. However, his primary motivation for his 'fuck the gods!' position is what he perceives as Sigmar's terrible influence upon his best friend, Luitpold, who he feels he is losing. Alamennowyth tries to bring balance to this view but makes little impact.

• Sidey Streams and a MISSING EPISODE! So, we have a few side episodes that occur during the events covered in this episode as the PCs head from the Great Circle to Dagmar's Observatory, all of which take place in Kemperbad. Check out Episode 14.4: Girls Go Wild in Kemperbad here. Then a summary of the MISSING EPISODE that is Episode 14.5: Lads, Lads, Lads, here. Then, finally, Episode 14.6: The Kemperbad Conumdrum, here.

• Kemperbad Politics. Elves and Trotts and Ulricans and Sigmarites and Wizards and Wolf Ships and Prostitutes and more, all of which our Glorious Heroes hear about and consider. The events they describe represent the difficulties Kemperbad faces to maintain its independence if a civil war should break (which it will - we are heading towards an Empire in Ruins, after all), and also the measures Altdorf is already putting in place to bring the city to heel. The stream covers most of this adequately but doesn't mention (for obvious reasons) that many of the issues are being strongly influenced by the Purple Hand, which is moving towards its endgame of civil war for Reikland.

• The Signal Tower. Time for some plot progression! The party finally arrives at Dagmar's observatory, and here we have a few differences from the printed version in Death on the Reik, but mostly because I replaced all the NPCs. Beside that, the core of the physical place remains the same, for all little time is spent with this section.

• Etelka's Been And Gone. Perhaps the biggest surprise for long-term fans of The Enemy Within may be that Etelka beat the PCs to the location and has already resolved many of the plot beats here, leaving our Glorious Heroes with fewer obstacles to tackle as Etelka handled them. More on that in a mo'.

• NPCs. The primary difference between the printed version and the one we played was the NPCs. I replaced them all in this section, removing the Dwarfs (who were somewhat unDwarflike in comparison to modern Warhammer Dwarfs) and replaced them with Humans from Altdorf's Engineers' Guild, which would have been far more likely to have completed the work anyway(have you looked at those Umgi towers? They are not of Dwarf manufacture!). Personifying this faction, I added Theodora Holzenauer, a character I dropped into WFRP4 already in a few places, one that was originally created for a WFRP3 game I ran in Ubersreik almost a decade ago.

• Who's this Theodora, then? She's the character on the card for the episode. This one (I've removed the titles so you can see her more clearly):
  
  As I mentioned, Theo was first created for a WFRP3 game I ran a few years ago. Back then, she looked like this:

  
  Similar, but in a very different style.

• I Recognise Her Name. She's mentioned on the 'Glorious Reikland' map in WFRP4 (inside leaves) as the Chartered Surveyor responsible for the map, and included on p54 in the Engineer career with a quotation. So she has a wee history in WFRP already and felt like a natural inclusion here.

• But Anjulls! Yeah nah. She replaced the craply named WFRP1 'Anjulls Isembard' (male) and even more craply named 'Anjulls Isembeard' (female) because, bluntly, I never liked the NPC name - it's super oldskool and not what Warhammer developed into during the 90s and later, so it was an easy drop. Plus, it matched the politics I was creating better for Humans to be handling the Altdorf-led signal devices. It also introduced Altdorf's Engineers' Guild to the game nice and early, a group that could become very important later during Empire in Ruins, something these random Dwarfs, by comparison, will never be. And I'm not one to waste a planned encounter. Now we have a more useful NPC for later in the campaign.

• Holzenauer Connections. If you didn't notice, the PCs already have some loose connections to Theo. It was her father who hosted the party in Ubersreik that was attended by Ume and Elrick in Episode 9.2: Ambassador's Reception and Episode 9.5: The Wizard's Way. Further, Gerhardt has also met her about a decade ago when she was an early teen and he was 11, but she went under a different name at the time and appeared very different, so he does not recognise her. However, he does know her father and does not approve of him, as the episode makes clear.

• So, What's Going On? Pretty much the same as described in Death on the Reik, pages 27-33, but with engineering Humans, not Dwarfs. However, we have some added story here that is worth mentioning: the signal tower atop Dagmar's crumbling observatory was supposed to be finished at the start of the year so it could be used to signal General von Dabernick that he could seize Ubersreik (for more on this, see the WFRP Starter Set, which examines the consequences of Episode 26: The Fall of Ubersreik - more on that later). However, the signal tower wasn't finished for the reasons explained in Death on the Reik, so a Luminark of Hysh was sent by the emperor from the Light College down the Reik so its lenses could instead be used to message the next signal tower, bridging the gap created by the unfinished signal tower. The Luminark was successfully deployed and messages were sent to seize Ubersreik on Hexennacht, 2512, kickstarting everything this campaign explores and sending Gerhardt and Ume into hiding.

• Signal Tower Lenses. The success of the Luminark inspired Lady Holzenauer, who now plans to upgrade the newly built signal towers using specially crafted lenses allowing for beams of light to be used in addition to the flag signals, potentially making the massaging system far faster. Her plans are ambitious, expensive, and wholly better than the flags she intends to replace. Gerhardt examines those plans during the episode and the engineers are in the process of installing her prototypes.

• INSIDER ASIDE: One of Our Luminarks Is Missing! As an aside, there is more to this story than may be apparent, and it was hinted at in the Ubersreik Adventures I commissioned for WFRP4.
  The luminark used at the unfinished signal tower was then sent to Ubersreik where it was 'stolen'. This set-up was going to be the central plot point of an adventure I commissioned called One of Our Luminarks Is Missing, a multi-plotted farce that romped through Ubersreik but was never completed after I left as WFRP Producer. However, the sequel to that adventure, Bee Scerri's Heart of Glass, was completed, and still included the Luminark lenses as a core plot point without properly explaining where they came from. There was also to be a third part to that adventure set, but it seems it was never completed either. Anyway, back to the remaining bullet points...

• What Etelka Did. Before the PCs arrived, Etelka arrived at the signal tower and cleared the place out as much as she could before heading upriver to Wittgendorf in hunt of the missing warpstone. As she didn't have the key the PCs found near the Daemon's Bowl, she couldn't open the secret libraries, so they remained untouched. So, even though the PCs arrived second, they ended up in a better place because of this: only a single pre-mangled bad guy remained that was in the process of re-incorporating (it is effectively immortal and will re-incorporate over time like a crappy version of Corrobreth - indeed, Dagmar studied the Great Circle and its revivifying powers, which, in turn, inspired much of his studies into necromancy and its first practitioner, Nagash), and that was simple to avoid. So the PCs had easy access to the undisturbed library. Nice!

• Luitpold Uses Blather Correctly on Lady Holzenauer. Oh, how I laughed as Ed shook his head in dismay at that!

• NAGASH! Prophesies are found in the library, including some snippets that suggest the owner of the warpstone that fell into the Barren Hills will become the 'Heir of Nagash', gathering magic powers over life and death that are unparalleled. This lore was an essential addition to tie the wider Warhammer world into the specific events of The Enemy Within. Dagmar was studying Necromancy deeply. That means, as anyone who has read Warhammer lore post-1995 already knows, that he was studying Nagash. So, I made that clear and I also wrapped it into the plot.

• Heir to Nagash? What does it mean? Well, more on that later...

• Modified Handouts. The Nagash additions and an extra about the Great War Against Chaos and the involvement of the Eonir Elves (and Alamennowyth) were combined with the handouts offered by Death on the Reik. These were sorted to support the ongoing Alamennowyth-was-doing-stuff-back-in-the-Laurelorn plotline and to properly foreshadow the immense amount of Necromancy that Dagmar von Wittgenstein had at his disposal. This will be core to our version of part three of the campaign, Power Behind the Throne, as will become clear much later. Let's take each handout in turn:

  The above reinforces the core End Times plot, introduces Alamennowyth's long involvement with it, and offers some intriguing avenues of thought concerning Nagash. It also includes Allavandrel from Power Behind the Throne. In LAWhammer he is a spy on the Path of Shadows, but more on that later.
  
  The above is pretty much the same as the handout 6 offered in Death on the Reik, p148, with the grammar fixed in places.
  
  Again, the above is an adaption of an existing handout - in this case, handout 8 found in Death on the Reik, p148 - but significantly updated to better ground it into the modern Warhammer setting, including details like Mordheim, removing Skavenblight as a reference (just no!), adding Nagash, and so on. So, the same core information leading to Castle Wittgenstein, but rewritten to be a bit more Warhammery.

And we're done!

Phew!

As always, if you have any comments or questions about this blog or feel I missed some important stuff from Episode 14 that needs to be discussed, post here on Patreon, where the PCs can't see, or in the #all-access-lawhammer channel in LAWhammer, where, it's worth again noting, the PCs can't see!

Until next time!

Andy