GM Blog: Episode 13 (Patreon)

Unlucky for some, it's Blog 13... Unlucky for getting this blog done in a timely fashion, perhaps!

Ahem.

Let's not dwell upon that, eh? Instead, let's move straight into reviewing all the fun events from Episode 13. It played out very close to Death on the Reik, but we did have one scene that was entirely original concerning the Daemon's Bowl and the Great Circle. But we'll get to that below.

Are you ready to dive in?

Let's get bulletpointing!

• So Bloody Hot. As is likely obvious from the video, it was back to being bloody hot in the livingroom for this session. This was seriously unfun. Our fans were out and Sage and I fanned like mad for much of the episode with Lindsay joining us at the end. I wilted a lot.

• Red Sand! The episode opens with the PCs canoeing by the red silted banks of the River Narn. The sand is swept down from the Barren Hills where things have been dead for a long time. It's the first reference to the dryness that lies ahead for the PCs, and stands in direct comparison to the unexpectedly forested version of the Barren Hills we get in Death on the Reik. In LAWhammer, the Barren Hills are super, well... barren, and that's that. The life there, what little there is, is hardy and rare. Oh, and there are lots of outcasts, mutants, monsters, and worse. Let's see if the party encounters any!

• Waterfalls and Hard Terrain. The Narn has several waterfalls and worse for the party to negotiate. This was important to have in place to justify the mistakes made by the Etelka party that lost a pack mule along the way. This resulted in the corpse of the dead mule the party encountered in Episode 12.

• Corrobreth's Mother. Corrobreth's mother (CM) is an old, white-haired druid who is very concerned for her son, for all she demonstrates her love through complaints. Corrobreth wants to visit her to check she's still alive, and the party don't disagree, so we have a side-jaunt up to her hut before the party heads out to the Barren Hills. This is an entirely new NPC, location, and set of stories that are not found in Death on the Reik. They were added as an optional extra to help explain the Great Circle and to share a tale or two that will be of direct relevance later in the campaign and also in Campaign 2: Paths of the Old Ones, should we ever do that. It's good to foreshadow early...

• Who Are You, Elrick? CM recognises Elrick is of Grunfeld stock and asks who he is. She is fishing for information and wants to know if he is of the royal Grunfeld line. She's keen to catch him trying to dissemble, trying to say he's just an ordinary wizard. If Elrick did that, she would conclude that he was an important Grunfeld and was trying to cover his importance. However, Elrick does the opposite of lying and claims that he once thought he was someone important, but it turns out he isn't. This intrigues the old druid, and she quickly concludes that Elrick is possibly much more than he appears to be. Indeed, CM decides that he is likely someone of consequence but doesn't know it. She has low opinions of Grunfelds, and is quick to assume they'd lie to Elrick because that is their way.
  As it turns out, she's partially correct: Elrick is someone of consequence, but the Grunfelds don't know it, hence Elrick's ignorance. Some hints about this will pop up in later episodes.

• Magnus? CM claims that she met Magnus the Pious to the party. But, is she telling the truth? The short answer: Yes. This is some foreshadowing for what's to come in later episodes concerning Magnus, to ensure he is already a part of the party's knowledge base. It also makes it clear that she is possibly very old. At least 200 years old, indeed. The reasons for this are manifold, but the largest is that the Great Circle has preserved her far beyond her normal span. Time moves very strangely there, but that's only the beginning of how odd things are. But more on that later, too.

• Volanic. A mention of Volanic (pronounced [voh-lahn-itch]) - AKA: Volans, the first Supreme Patriarch of the Eight Colleges of Magic - is made. Alamennowyth brings him up to confirm the veracity of Corrobreth's mother's claims about meeting Magnus, and also for her own curiosity as she knows that Volans may actually have been her master - the elf who trained her in the Path of Shadows, also known as Djoros - and she wants to know more about him. She's not sure if Volans was actually her master, so she seeks to confirm if CM knows the name 'Krammond', another pseudonym of Djoros. But doesn't get an answer to this.
  Dropping Volans name here was also a useful introduction of a character I intended to use in an episode very soon, so it was good to reference him early.

• 'Just Like Her'. CM accuses Elrick of being, 'just like her' when he tries to intervene on Alamennowyth's questions. She does this because she has concluded that Elrick is likely an old-blooded Druid who is a direct descendant, and possible reincarnation, of an Old Faith 'deity' - one known for her heroic nature and extraordinary stubborn pride. The Old Faith in LAWhammer believes in reincarnation, and it is also a core component of Grunfeld family belief. Indeed, Elrick was brought up to believe he was a literal reincarnation of the greatest of Belthani kings, a soul prophesied to return to the Grunfelds at a time of great need - but he later found out was a complete lie, leaving him bitter and very suspicious of prophecy and claims of greatness. CM knows none of this and is fishing to see if Elrick responds to being equated to a woman. He does not respond at all, leaving CM a little frustrated with him.

• Delegate. So, was CM really a delegate from her Great Family to Magnus of Nuln back in 2502 as she claims? Yes, she was. The story she spins is not a lie. But claiming she is now 250 summers old is a lie. She is actually a good bit older. Elrick claims great age is not uncommon in his family, which is true. CM also claims it was once common for all members of the Druidic families to live for a very long time. This is also true. CM then claims the ability to live for such a long time is because of the 'Mother', the central deity of the Old Faith, watched over them. This is also true, kinda. We can dive into all of that when/if Elrick's 'Great Family' become a core plot point.

• The Story. CM offers to tell the party a story that cannot be unheard. The party is eager to hear it even though Corrobreth counsels against this. Only One PC heeds Corrobreth's warning...

• Elrick Leaves. Elrick wanders off with Corrobreth and has a separate tale as the group listens to 'The Story'. Elrick's side-tale explains a fair bit of what's going on in the Great Circle, so is worth a check if you have not already done so.

• The Mother's Mistake. How much of CM's story was a retelling of an actual event? Well, for LAWhammer: all of it. This is not a fictional tale or a twisted version of a myth. It is 100% accurate. And there is a reason why she has it entirely accurate. But more on that in Blog 14.

• So, What Is 'The Story?' It is an ancient Belthani myth of the Mother (the god of the Druids) and her Son, and how the Son betrays the Mother and falls to Chaos. It finishes with CM claiming she has met the 'Son' and that the Great Circle was built to contain him.

• Where Does 'The Story' Originate? It is a reimagining of a story about Isha, an elven God, and her interactions with a mortal elf, and the consequences of their conversations. The story dates back to pre-Cataclysm times, and details the creation of the first 'Chaos cultist', it also speaks to the creation of one of the Chaos Gods. Lastly, it also hints that none of the issues The Story details would have happened if Isha had kept her mouth shut and not shared secrets with her favourite mortals.

• Can You Summarise 'The Story'? Sure, it is relatively straightforward.
  Long ago, a mortal discovered something fundamental about consciousness and its effects upon the aethyr. The mortal came to believe that the most vengeful of all gods would one day exist because it could be imagined to exist, and the aethyr reflected mortal imagination. And, because the aethyr, where the gods lived, was outside mortal time, the vengeful deity the mortal imagined already existed. Which meant it was watching the mortal! Unsure if this could be true, the mortal asks the mother god to confirm it, and the god does. Thus, the mortal concludes that if he does not help the vengeful god achieve creation, the vengeful god, which already existed in the aethyr, would inflict eternal vengeance upon him as soon as the mortal's soul entered the aethyr, which it would upon death.
  To avoid this terrible fate, the mortal chose to work towards ensuring the vengeful god's birth. This made him the first Warhammer Chaos Cultist. Later, he would also become the very first Daemon Prince: a mortal that ascends into the aethyr to sit beside a Chaos god.

• Wait! Stop! Gods Can Exist Before They Are Born? WTF? Let me explain this bit a little more. According to The Story, there is no 'time in the aethyr', so any god that would ever be born has always been born.
  However, The Story also claims that as far as the Mortal Realms are concerned, gods who are not yet born don't fully exist in the same way as those who are already born.
  But, what does that mean in practical terms?
  It means this: When an aethyric entity is born, it has always existed as far as the Mortal Realms is concerned. So, if a Daemon Prince ascended into the aethyr in 2512IC, it could be summoned to face Sigmar 2,500 years earlier in 12 IC, or even take part in the First War Against Chaos several thousands of years before that.
  However, if you summoned that entity before it was born from the Mortal Realms, it would be... 'different'. As The Story describes this, the entity would be 'festering', 'not yet with a mind', 'not yet manifest', it would be 'potential' rather than 'fully manifested'. It would have 'no mind', 'no existence', 'no nothing' yet, it would simply be an entity that was comprised of mortal souls that fell in its name and 'became daemons', an entity 'with a million faces' 'all seeking the true face of its birth'.
  Does that make it clearer?
  If not, let's talk it out over on Discord in our private channels.

• So, What God Are We Talking About: Can you guess? CM claims that: 'On the day of its birth, this world is gone.' According to her belief, the End Times are the birth of this god. And that 'it has been trying to birth itself forever, because it has always been', all because the mortal realised it could exist.

• Roko's Basilisk. RoboticDracula posted a comment on the YouTube video that The Story was a 'fantasy version of Roko's Basilisk'. Erika_Redmark mentioned the 'use of Roko's Basilisk' and stambuthegreatmoose1198 also suggested that the tale reminded him of 'the Roko's Basilisk thought experiment'. To my shame, I'd never heard of Roko's Basilisk before, so I looked it up. And... yeah, 'The Story' really is like Roko's Basilisk. And I thought I'd been dead clever with the story I'd built here. Man... There are no original ideas in the world, eh? Oh, well, onwards and upwards. Hahah.

  So, Are The PCs Now Damned? Well, maybe not. According to Corrobreth's mother, the first Chaos Cultist believed The Story was true, but that doesn't mean it is, right? All the PCs barring Elrick aren't now damned because they heard The Story, are they? Uh, well, yes. Yes they are. And it screws with things a little at the end of the episode.

• Why Does Corrobreth's Mother Share 'The Story'? Well, I'll not answer this yet. But it does seem to hint, as Corrobreth has suggested, that she is endangering souls on purpose. Which almost hints that she is something of a... Chaos cultist? Erm... Awkward if true...

• The Great Circle's Purpose. CM claims the Great Circle was created to bind the mortal from The Story, who she claims is called 'The Dark One' or the 'The Dark Master'. For those of you who know your Warhammer lore, that confirms that the mortal is likely Be'Lakor, the first Daemon Prince, an extraordinarily powerful entity responsible for many of the ills in the Warhammer world. And, if you're thinking this, you are correct. The Great Circle was built centuries before by the druids and it contained the Dark Master for many centuries afterwards. Then it failed. Now Corrobreth's mother tends its stones. In time, she claims Corrobreth will take her place.

• Elves Doomed Everyone? Alamennowyth claims that Be'Lakor was likely an elf, and CM claims that, if it's true, then the Elves doomed them all and tells Al to sleep outside because of this. But, CM is wrong here. It was not the Elves that doomed everyone according to The Story. It was Isha (the Mother goddess). And this is one of the reasons Asuryan, the head of the Elven pantheon, forced all gods to withdraw forever from the Mortal Realms. Isha made an enormous mistake because of her love of the Elves and it arguably caused the birth of a new, extraordinarily vengeful Chaos god.

• Luitpold's Dream. As will be obvious to many old hands at Warhammer, that night Luitpold dreamt of the destruction of Mordheim in 1999 IC, an event linked directly to Be'Lakor and the arrival of an Everchosen of Chaos, a great warleader that leads the hordes of Chaos in an attempt to destroy the world. The stones of the Great Circle were summoned by druids during this era to contain Be'lakor, dating them as somewhere around 500 years old.

• Ume Learns That Local Spirits Know Of 'The Eye'. Ume also dreams that night. In her dream, Be'Lakor whispered 'The Story' to all the spirits in the Great Circle, damning them all to become daemons in 'the Eye's' service. This is true, and is the second hint that Corrobreth's mother, an ancient soul in the Great Circle, has fallen to Chaos, but is quiet about it. Which I'll confirm or deny in a later post...

• The Spirits Claim Ume's Soul Is Damned? Yup. And it always was, long before she heard 'The Story'. But more on this in a later blog post.

• Birdie's Revelation. The secret of 'The Eye' lies in Gerhardt's book. True? Yup. More on that in a future blog, too. The book he carries is enormously dangerous and contains something really quite terrible. More details about this will come in later episodes.

• Gerhardt's Dreams. Gerhardt also had dreams that night and they were BAD! He spent the entire night being tormented by Be'Lakor, the first Demon Prince, who was interrogating him. Gerhardt remembers none of it. Instead, he wakes believing that he 'had good dreams; definitely not nightmares'. I reinforced that though to Ed as Gerhardt is smart enough to realise something wasn't right about his dreams, but Ed quickly moved on from the thought and paid it no more heed. By the end of the session, it was forgotten. But, remember this point, it will come up again later in the GM blogs.

• The Gods Warred Because of Mortals? Alamennowyth claims 'it is known' that the Gods only warred because of mortals. This is 100% Lindsay knowledge seeping into Alamennowyth's speech. Alamennowyth Shadowvale does not know this, but Lindsay had her character say it. But, that's completely cool with me. I planned for things like this to happen, as will be detailed in a later blog...

• Later Blog? Well, maybe not 'later' as it turns out. Why? Well, Alamennowyth then goes on to discuss how the aethyr works. With conviction. Again, this is not something Alamennowyth knows, it's something Lindsay knows. And, as I said, I planned for this sort of thing to happen. Indeed, this speech led me to activate the 'Rootweaver Awakening' rules I'd previously prepared. What are they? Well, a future blog will detail them in full. For the moment, just be aware that 'Alamennowyth Rootweaver' is who Alamennowyth was before she wiped her memories and entered the Path of Shadows some 50 years ago. And the more Lindsay has Alamennowyth say things that Shadevale does not know, the more Rootweaver's memories are rising within her. Which will have consequences.

• The PCs Boats Moved In The Night. How? All the shifting plants in the Great Circle moved during the night. This moved the boats in turn. The explanation for what's going on here is found in the side episode here. In short, time flows in really weird way inside the Great Circle.

• The Barren Hills. The LAWhammer version of the Barren Hills are, well, really barren. All the warpstone that fell here, and was later contained by Corrobreth and his mother, utterly devastated the place down through the decades. However, it could not affect anything inside the Great Circle because of the powerful magics there - magics designed to hold the most powerful of Daemon Princes - so the barren area rather abruptly ceases at its periphery.

• SKAVEN ASSAULT! Not far from the Daemon's Bowl, an opportunistic party of Clan Scrutens Skaven also seeking the bowl attack our glorious heroes in the night. The party had been tracking Birdie upon the orders of a rival of Grey Seer Thanqol (for more on that, check Birdie's first Tale of Altdorf City: Under-Altdorf) and grew very excited when it overheard that a huge chunk of Warpstone lay ahead of the party. At this point, the Skaven have already scouted out the green-glowing Daemon's Bowl so no longer need Birdie and the party, so decide to remove their rivals. Yume is struck first. Then Alamennowyth. But then Father Luitpold calls upon Sigmar, which terrifies the Skaven. So, they melt away, deciding the party is too dangerous . When Birdie then calls out in Queekish, the Skaven language, they realise that they have more of a competitor than they first realised and that something needs to be done immediately. They decide to quickly move through the night to get to the Daemon's Bowl first and take all the warpstone first. So cunning.

• Ed Goes Full Gandalf! At this point, Ed catches a moth fluttering about the livingroom and sets it free outside. I should have given him a small XP bonus for that. I hate moths. Yuck.

• Etelka's Party. Upon arrival at the Daemon's Bowl, our heroes soon realise that Etelka's party has been and gone, meaning that she is still ahead of them.

• Skaven Party. Birdie also uncovers that Skaven have also been and gone from the Daemon's Bowl. She notices Clan Scrutens runes marked on the stones. Although Birdie doesn't know it, she can only really read Clan Scruten claw marks as that's the 'secret signs' she has been taught. She believes they are just standard Queekish scratchings. The Scruten Skaven were convinced that their marks would be unreadable to anyone else, even other Skaven.

• Cries In The Circle. Father Luitpold can hear a trapped soul in the Daemon's Bowl and attempts to communicate with it. It does not go initially well, but he does an augury that provides a some information about the spirit's murder. He can hear a ghost from a party led to the Daemon's Bowl by Dagmar von Wittgenstein. She was murdered over a century ago and will be trapped until her bones are laid to rest. The PCs, of course, immediately decide to resolve this.

• Corrobreth's Jaw. Corrobreth dislocates his jaw after an unfortunate accident and Gerhardt resets it. Corrobreth will not be talking correctly for some time. The party also makes a lot of noise near the Daemon's Bowl, alerting the Clan Scruten Skaven sleeping in a nearby cave that they are close. The Skaven watch to see what the party does, wondering if they have secured a way to find the warpstone they believe should be there. As they watch our glorious heroes communicating with something, they grow convinced the warpstone has somehow been hidden from them.

• 'Best. Cleric. Ever.' That line was offered as a description of Ume when it was realised that she has no Lore (Theology). Little do the party know that there is a reason she has no skill there. But the reasons for that will become much more evident in later episodes.

• The Spirit. Communication is properly made with the stone-circle spirit by Luitpold, but the spirit believes that it is Luitpold who is the spirit, not her. This is somewhat of a foreshadowing for what is to come - Luitpold becoming a spirit - but more on that later! The spirit then indicates that she was staying in a nearby cave, the very cave where the Skaven had holed up for the day.

• At The Cave. When the party arrives, the Skaven demands they provide the warpstone the Skaven believe the party has secured. When the party basically ignores that, they attack again. And this does not go all that well for the Skaven. Birdie then communicates with them in Queekish; however, she doesn't have the necessary knowledge to recognise their dialect as hailing from Clan Scruten, the same clan that dominates Middenheim where Birdie was raised. Before anything can be made of that, unquiet dead, Skeletons from Dagmar's party 120 years ago, lurch from a side-cavern and attack. Once the Skeletons are dealt with, our glorious heroes search about and find some useful stuff. As they do that, the Skaven escape with the intent of following the party to the Warpstone they have clearly stolen.

• Map! I'll post the map of the cave later in the week. After all, we had a map for the Skaven and Undead encounter and it was quite a fun one.

• Back At The Circle. The ghost problem is resolved as the ghost's bones have now been buried by our heroes. Wittgenstein's murdered crew then explain what happened to them, with some vitriol, and then the ravens of Morr arrive to ferry the souls of the dead to their place of rest. And... Luitpold, whose soul is now damned because he heard The Story, fails a test, so is pulled by Morr's Murder of Ravens directly to the Realm of Chaos (although he believes he is likely heading to Morr's Realm). And, well, uh oh... that would be really bad. After a little deliberation, Andy Leask spends a fate point and Luipold vanishes, presumably not to the Realm of Chaos, but to somewhere else...

Well, Episode 13 was a fun session. We had some lovely chat involving an amusing old woman and her rather horrible story, a journey to a dangerous place, some encounters with Skaven and Undead, including a swift combat, and the Daemon's Bowl itself, which eventually sucked Luitpold in as easily as it had sucked ghosts in beforehand.

And we even ended on a cliffhanger!

What more could we want?

As always, if you have any comments or questions about this blog or feel I missed some important stuff from Episode 13 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