Magic World and the Warhammer Old World (21.05.24)

At the end of the last session, the party was split, with some inside the caves the others hidden outside. Due to player absence, and after discussion with the player, I ruled that the missing character had run through the woods as a distraction, leading the Orcs on a chase, so the rest of the party could deal with the Ogre threat.

So how did this pan out?

The characters holed-up in the caves spent some time searching the Ogres' loot and came away with some useful items.

Alone in the tunnels, another PC, Eckbert, heard chanting coming from another cave. Upon investigation, he saw an Ogre performing some sort of summoning ritual. Some good stealth rolls allowed him to retreat and alert the rest of the team.

After some negotiation, the party attacked and killed the Ogre sorcerer. Were the problems over? Of course not!

Three more bad-guys, hench-ogres of the sorcerer, were asleep in a nearby cave. Attempted stealth rolls, to explore deeper into the cave complex, were failed and the Ogres woke up. A large melee broke out and the party were eventually victorious, though somewhat beaten up.

After more looting and negotiation, the players decided go back to their start point, the town of Zvorak, to rest, recuperate and spend some of their loot.

 Magic World and Warhammer Old World

Here's a brief rundown of the characters involved:

• Steve the Cobbler: A skilled craftsman and respected local businessman, known for producing footwear of excellent quality.
• Lady True: A hero of old tales, missing and presumed dead for years, who reappeared in the Border Princes. Modelled on Brienne of Tarth in Game of Thrones. Reputed to be "a bit strange".
• Warrick the War-drummer: A Dwarf bard, who specialises in loud drums and raucous songs. He uses drumsticks topped with Orc heads and a beer barrel as a drum.
• Eckbert Almudsen: An ageing and somewhat absent-minded astrologer who was "directed by the stars" to come to the Border Princes. Has some magical talent and a few spells.
• Aeryn, Keeper of the Light: An Elven sorceress of some skill and lots of ambition.
• Remi the thief: An Estalian rogue, master of the glib tongue, scouting and bargaining.
• Raynor the Barbarian: A Norscan (fantasy Viking) warrior, the sole survivor of a mercenary unit who holds a grudge against Orcs.

Where these characters will end up is beyond me as a GM to predict.

Magic World and Warhammer Old World

OK, here's a brief rundown of the campaign setting and the characters involved.

The Old World of GW's Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is a pseudo-medieval/renaissance fantasy setting where we have analogues of Europe, among which are:

• The Empire: Late Renaissance Germany
• Bretonnia: High Middle Ages France
• Tilea: Renaissance Italy
• Estalia: Spain in the time of el Cid (and, for giggles, the Inquisition)

Other lands - Kislev, Lustria, Araby, Nihon and Cathay among others - are much further afield but could come into play.

The campaign starts in The Border Princes, a land of largely-lawless petty kingdoms, independent city-states, ruined towns and lots of Orcs and worse creatures. You can find out more here: 

https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Border_Princes

As a personal note, I'd suggest bookmarking https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/ because it's absolutely fascinating.

In the next post, I'll be adding a few details about the characters.

 Magic World meets the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Old World

Yep, you read it right. I'm running a campaign set in GW's WFRP Old World using Magic World as the rules. I'll be adding later versions of Warhammer, Stormbringer and Magic World lore and rules as we go along. I have 7 players and we've had two sessions so far.

The first was chaotic as the characters got to know each other, learned of a "legendary hero" who might be able to help with the situation and travelled to the hero's village to ask for her assistance.

Things settled down a bit in session two as the party concentrated on "the mission". It helps that most of the players are experienced wargamers and roleplayers; one has real-life military experience. Between them, they were able to formulate a plan.

It's a military truism that "no plan survives first contact with the enemy." And this proved accurate. They're now holed up in a cave complex, the lair of the Orcs and Ogres who have been causing the local problems, and the party is split, with some inside the caves and some outside.

Would you like to know more? If so, stay tuned and check back here when I update the thread on Reddit.

THE SCHOONER PART 1

THE SCHOONER PART 1

Based upon a story suggestion from Harris Burdick

Written for Tim Wilson's online class in summer 2021

*

He swung his lantern three times and slowly the schooner appeared.

The smell of brine and the stink of pitch were cloying in Lucy's nostrils. Wide-eyed, she watched the schooner ease alongside the rain-slicked quay.  The girl took in the smooth, graceful lines of the ship. The planks of its hull and the deck railings were carved with sea creatures, ancient, modern and legendary. The sails were drawn up the masts, though no crew worked on the deck.

"What is this?" she asked.

Captain Troy smiled down at her. "This, Miss, is your new home."

*

Lucy hefted her valise, a battered, brown leather bag, its brass lock engraved with the initials RC, and struggled to maintain her balance against the weight. All her worldly possessions had been packed, at great speed and with little care, into the case before she had left her home under the guardianship of Captain Troy. She remembered waving goodbye to the family home, blinking back unladylike tears, as the Hansom cab rattled over the cobblestone streets. No-one had been standing on the steps to return her farewell.

"I can take that, if you like," offered Troy.

"That would be very kind of you, Captain," replied Lucy. Her eyes widened as Troy took the valise in a hand the size of a frying pan and she looked up at this giant of a man. Head and shoulders taller than she, the breadth of his chest and shoulders magnified by the heavy, woollen, brass-buttoned coat. Sitting squarely on his head was a matching cap, the brass badge of HMS Cornelius shining like gold, even in the gloom of the evening.

"We can dispense with the pleasantries, if you like." Troy's voice rumbled from his broad chest, like a storm rehearsing its opening cacophony of thunder.

Manners, etiquette, decorum and deportment had been drummed into Lucy from a very early age. Her mother's and governesses' lessons, reinforced with a wooden ruler rapped across her knuckles or legs, were as natural to her as breathing. She could not turn her back on a decade of training. 

"I think that would be unseemly, Captain. Do you not?"

"As you wish, Miss Collingwood. If you will follow me, I'll show you to your cabin."

*

The gangplank swayed as they walked from the quay, across the dark water, to the deck of the ship. Lucy, despite her memories of stinging calves, handled the precarious walk with confident steps and a straight back. 

She caught a strange expression on the Captain's bearded face. It was somewhere between pride and contentment. He raised his arm and Lucy grasped it as she took the last step down to the deck.

"Your cabin is in the fo'c'sle. That's the front of the ship, Miss," he added as Lucy began to walk towards the rear.

"Oh," Lucy said. "I suppose I shall have to learn all this maritime terminology if this is to be my home." She walked towards the forecastle of the ship. "Tell me, Captain, what is her name? I assume you refer to the ship as a female."

"You're learning already," said Troy with a smile. "Indeed, I do call the ship 'her' or 'she'."

He fumbled under his heavy coat for a key and went to the door of the central cabin of the three built under the fo'c'sle. The lock clicked and he pushed open the heavy oak door. "Welcome, Miss, to The Lady Catherine."

Lucy had a glimpse of the room beyond before the Captain, with the slow, dangerous grace of an iceberg, drifted inside and dropped her valise onto the bunk. Then he turned and handed her the key.

"I would most strongly suggest, Miss, that you get into the habit of locking your door every night."

Lucy stared up at the hulking Captain, her brow furrowed with the unspoken question of "Why?"

Troy noticed the girl's quizzical expression but the time for answers would come later. He changed the subject. "You'll find water, soap and towels in your cabin. Feel free to refresh yourself and change if you wish. Dinner will be at eight bells. That's about an hour from now. My cabin is in the sterncastle." He smiled down at the girl and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "You can't miss it."

*

The door clicked shut and Lucy could hear the Captain's footsteps recede as he strode across the deck.

She leaned with her back against the door and examined the key. About three inches long and made of blackened iron, the bow was circular and modelled the Moon, cast with pits and ridges, representing the lunar seas, mountains and those supposed cities the scientists of the age had identified. She wondered if mankind would ever visit those cities. Lucy traced the stem of the key with her fingertip and reached the bit. Chillingly, this was shaped like a skull, with hollow orbits and uneven teeth.

Lucy stared into the skull's eyes, lost in thought as she considered the Captain's advice. Why? she wondered. What was so dangerous on the ship that necessitated such precautions? Tapping the key against the palm of her hand, Lucy began pacing the length of her cabin.

There was little room and an uncomfortable lack of headspace. She narrowly missed her head striking a ceiling beam and had to deftly dodge the lantern hanging there. Lucy sat down on her bunk - a far cry from the four-poster she was used to - and stared at the bare wooden walls. Aside from the cot, there was a small table which was hinged to fold up flat against the wall, a dresser with a curious lip around the edge, and a chest of dark wood, banded with iron.

Her vision blurred as tears pricked the corners of her eyes. Lucy drew a shuddering breath, her chin trembling as a wave of helplessness washed over her. The enormity of her situation hit Lucy as she struggled against the sobs building in her throat.

Her life - comfortable, sociable and genteel - was gone. She was an orphan, now, left in the care of an enigmatic, and frankly frightening, sea captain whose motives she could not fathom. Home was a ship that had likely been built before the turn of the century, cramped, unsanitary and reeking of brine and tar. And her possible destination? Unknown.

A single tear rolled down Lucy's cheek.

BANG! 

CATHERINE PART 1

 CATHERINE PART 1

Lady Catherine Fox, the daughter of the Duke and Duchess of a small, independent nation, is one of my favourite role-playing game characters ever. I played her in a Vampire: Dark Ages campaign many years ago. She strives towards good behaviour but often fails due to her own temperament, temptation and the actions of others. Catherine learns her lessons, however, sometimes the hard way.

***

The bedchamber door, as ever, creaked as it opened.

Lady Catherine Fox stared at the brocaded, heavy velvet canopy of her four-poster bed. The curtains surrounding the bed were drawn and prevented her seeing her visitor but Catherine knew who was there. Her lady in waiting, Dame Mella Kalsten. Catherine heard a silver tray being placed on the low table at the foot of her bed. The delicate chink of fine china and the rattle of obscenely expensive silverware were as familiar to Catherine as her own heartbeat.

Soft footsteps padded around the room and Catherine could follow, almost predict, their path from the door, to the table, to the window. The next sound was the metallic screech as the brass-ringed curtains covering the window – correction, arrow slit, Catherine reminded herself – slid along the wrought iron rail as the curtains were opened. There was a polite cough, followed by “Good morning, milady.” The young woman sighed inwardly as her day began in the same way as it had for the last ten years of her life.

“Good morning to you, Dame Mella,” Catherine answered, as politely as she could manage. Which, the young woman conceded, was not very polite. Her head ached and something else, a feeling of guilt, gnawed in her heart.

She had pushed herself too hard the previous night, reading by candlelight until the late moonrise had peeked through the arrow slit and brought a silvery glow to her work. Catherine had dusted her vanity table with salt and drawn a stylised picture of a fractured heart in the pure white crystals. Into one half of the heart she had written “E”, for Erik, while in the other half she had scattered shredded rose petals, representing, of course, herself. The petals had been insanely expensive as roses were not flowering at this time of year and she had had them secretly imported from the southern lands where Summer still blossomed.

Catherine remembered reading and rereading the book she had borrowed from her mother's collection. It had called for the blood of the unrequited lover to be spilled onto the petals. She tested the edge of the knife against her thumb and balked as the steel scraped against her skin. Catherine had gasped as she pressed the blade harder but could not bring herself to draw her own blood. Instead, she had spat in a most unladylike fashion and mixed her spittle into the petals. She had tried to clear her mind and meditate on the thought of Erik, the tall, strong, red-haired Kal-Pyrran trader who frequently visited the market. Meditate was a rather flattering term, Catherine realised. Brooded would be more accurate, particularly when her thought strayed to the sight of Erik with one of the town's more costly doxies. She forced the dark thoughts of vengance from her mind and sprinkled more salt over the crack between the two halves of the fractured heart. With the tip of her finger, Catherine traced a spiral out from the centre of the heart, mixing the petals and spit with Erik's rune.

“Make us one,” she had whispered but in the back of her mind the thought had risen unbidden: and poison his whore's heart.

When the spell was complete, Catherine had cleaned her vanity table and retired to bed, perhaps only two hours before cock-crow. She had slept fitfully and nightmares had haunted what little sleep she had.

Now Catherine could hear Dame Mella bustling about her room. She heard her wardrobe being opened and the rustle of silks and velvet as the older woman sorted out clothing for her day. Catherine knew she had the right to order her lady in waiting from her rooms and to take her breakfast, ablutions and dressing in solitude. She had exercised this right just once, three years ago on the day of her sixteenth birthday, and the scolding her father had given her scared Catherine even now.

Lady Catherine Fox swallowed her pride, her fear and her guilt, opened the curtains and swung herself out of bed.

CAREER CHANGE PART 1

 CAREER CHANGE PART 1

A piece on the theme of work

From Tim Wilson's Wednesday class in 2021

 

The train rattled, squeaked and juddered, metal wheels on steel rails, through the oldest part of the already ancient underground network, racing along the tunnels as if being hunted by some ravenous predator. Only two passengers were in this car, unsurprising given the lateness of the hour, and one of those was unconscious in a puddle of vomit

It had been a tough week and Max was glad it was Friday. Not that the weekend meant much in this day and age: he still had a metric fuck-tonne of out of hours work to do by Monday or his boss would go batshit crazy. While Max's degrees in Data Science and Machine Learning were first class in all ways, his boss was a Taskmaster, a limited-function Artificial Intelligence program, that generated projects and work-orders. Max half-smiled, half-grimaced at the irony. He had considered hacking the Taskmaster and giving it a nicer personality but decided that would be noticed too easily by other staffers who took their orders from the machine. 

"Hi, Max," said the advertising plasma-screen in front of him. Something, probably his phone, had pinged the advert his location and recent CyberNet search history. "What can I do for you this evening?" the advert burbled. "Maybe a nice bottle of wine? Or I could send you a masseuse. It would be very discreet." Pictures of merlot, chianti and smiling Thai girls in skimpy white towels scrolled across the screen.

"Off," said Max.

"Well, if you're sure," replied the advertising screen in hurt tones. "Or maybe, I can arrange a test drive of this." The image of a Ferrari 900, one of the last petrol-driven supercars on the streets today, and the subject of one of Max's Virtual Reality games, roared into view.

"Off," Max repeated, growing testy with the smart-system behind the screen.

The advert blitzed static for an instant then faded to a little white dot before powering off. Its red standby LED indicated it was waiting for Max to change his mind and order something, literally anything was available for delivery, from one of the thousands of online shopping portals connected to the CyberNet. Max was left with a strange feeling that he'd upset the AI. If so, that was a new feature, one he might have to replicate in his own projects.

Garish neon displays - advertising girls, drink, semi-legal drugs and dubious Virtual Reality experiences - greeted Max as he left the station. He dashed through the rain and neon to the taxi rank, picked a pale blue, driverless ride, paid by thumbprint linked to his bank account, and settled in for the drive to his single-room apartment.

"Off," he grunted at the advertising screen set in the dashboard. The words 'Suit Yourself' flashed onto the screen then faded away.

***

"You could make a living doing that kind of thing," said Bo. 

Max thought about it. "I suppose I could," he replied, "but it would be illegal."

"There's a lot of illegal stuff going on in the world right now. It's not as if you'd be making things worse." Bo paused a moment. "You might even make things a bit better."

Max finished the last of his beer, grimaced - it was warm and flat - then went to the fridge to retrieve a couple more bottles. He handed one to Bo and thumped down in front of his computer. Three more headlines scrolled across his newsfeed, like an old-style ticker tape:

 ++ A joint project between NASA Inc and ESA GmbH revealed plans to colonise Mars. ++ Amazon rainforest has been depleted by 10% area since the start of the millennium. ++ Apex Sciences report trials of three new anti-cancer and anti-viral treatments to begin in 2035. ++

While Max liked to stay informed, he knew that those three reports had been sanitised by the news outlets and, statistically, contained only about 33% truth.

Bo downed half of her beer and peered over Max's shoulder. "See," she said. "Run your algorithm over the Apex and Amazon stories."

Max clicked a few links and typed

./connect --source="Apex" --source="Amazon" --scan --collate

in a window made to look like an old-school green-on-black computer terminal. Max liked the old stuff. He whistled at the screen as the download time started ticking down from an estimated eight hours. "This is gonna take a while," he said. "What do you want to do for eight hours?"

Bo wrapped her arms around Max, popped a couple of buttons on his shirt, and let her hands wander into interesting places.

Max felt giddy as Bo's genetically tailored perfume, keyed to her oestrogen level, boosted his testosterone. There was nothing he could do to stop it.

"Hook us up, lover," Bo whispered into Max's ear.

***

Seven hours later, Max stood in the kitchen area of his cramped apartment, inhaling the brewing coffee and trying to stifle the erection in his shorts. Theoretically and technically, Scions of Sorcery was a massively-multiplayer online roleplaying game. With the advent of virtual reality, cranial electrodes and full-body haptic suits, the game had become - with specific and largely illegal mods and patches - an online sex extravaganza. Yes, it was possible to slay the dragon, butcher the orcs and rescue the princess, but the 'quest' was now a sideline compared to online pimps and virtual hookers.

Bo stalked from the bed, clad only in the thong she had been wearing. She slipped her arms around Max's chest and snuggled close. "Coffee smells good," she rasped. "Don't suppose you could add something a little stronger?"

"You'll find a bottle of Bushmills in the back of the TV cabinet. That's the real stuff, not some cheap knock-off." Max watched as Bo bent to retrieve the bottle, unsurprised at her flexibility and grace.

As she straightened, Bo blew the dust off the bottle. "You've had this for how long and never told me? And we spent all last night drinking that yellow water you called beer!"

"Not all of last night," Max defended himself as he poured the coffee into china mugs. "Besides, you know the prohibition rules. Anything imported is strictly off limits."

Bo splashed generous measures of the golden liquid into the mugs and corked the bottle. They clinked mugs and Bo raised hers to her lips. She paused, inhaling the whiskey-enriched coffee scent. "You keep a fifty-year-old bottle of illegal whiskey hidden where any agent could find it even if they were asleep," she murmured, "yet you won't publish what you find with that program of yours."

Max gazed at Bo with the same longing he had when he first saw her, up on stage, rivulets of perspiration glistening on her body, deft fingers flying along the fret-board of her guitar, an angel given voice as she sang the songs she had been writing since her teens. Two years into their relationship, Max still couldn't fathom what she saw in him, a lowly data analyst for Frontier Technology. "Five years for possession of contraband liquor versus twenty-to-life for sedition? You know how they'll inflate the charges. It's a no-brainer, babe."

Bo sipped her drink, silky smooth coffee with a kick, before replying. "Sometimes you have to take a stand."

Max was about to answer when his computer pinged. "That'll be the connect finished."

***

The connect program had sifted through nearly three terabytes of data on Apex Sciences, deforestation of the Amazon jungle, and the overlap between the two, presented on screen as a Venn diagram with clickable links to view more information. Half a dozen incidents and coincidences had gone unreported by the official news outlets.

Two indigenous Amazonian tribes had been forcibly relocated from their homelands to other tracts of land. Other data suggested they had been moved across the borders to Bolivia and Peru or eliminated entirely. The genocide data was strengthened by the presence 'in country' of a security team from Moscow Heavy Engineering, widely known to be hired out as private military contractors to other companies. Comprised of ex-Spetznas commandos, this particular team had been implicated in a number of sweep and clear operations in the former Soviet republics and acquitted in two courts martial on charges of brutality and murder.

Connect had found a link. Through a series of fronts, blinds and shell corporations, a small Brazilian company, Dynologistics, had been contracted to arrange security for an Apex Sciences research expedition. Dynologistics hired the Russian commando team and Apex footed the bill.

Three weeks after the tribes had disappeared, literally or figuratively, Apex Sciences had announced the discovery of new plant and animal species in the former tribal areas, which would be instrumental in the production of new drugs. The Apex stock price sky-rocketed.

Max's results were close to 85% accurate.

***

The coffee was long gone. The whiskey, however, was flowing freely and fuelling Max's fulmination. "Apex paid to have over two hundred people displaced or disappeared," he ranted, "then stood back and raked in the profits!"

Bo, from where she was lounging on the sofa, watched as Max paced the apartment. She had never seen him so agitated. Maybe it was the drink, she thought, or, like millions around the world, life in the 2030's was starting to grate on his nerves. "It's been like that for decades. Centuries, even."

"But it's wrong!" Max stopped pacing and drained his glass. "You said I might be able to make things better. I'm just a tiny cog in a huge machine, bossed by a bloody AI. Nobody'll listen to the little guy."

"Hey!" Bo snapped. "I don't like it when you run yourself down." She got to her feet and slinked across to where Max stood with a look of bewilderment and frustration on his face. Stroking his cheek, she leaned in close. "The truth will come out."

Max savoured her body heat and the warmth and whiskey-scent of her breath on his face. He snaked one arm around her waist.

Bo began to move, a slow, sinuous motion tight up against him. Her right hand moved down. "And you're not a little guy to me."

***

Max rolled over and made to get out of bed. Bo had other ideas. She moulded herself to him and began kissing the scratches she had left on his back. Punctuated by warm, wet smooches, Bo murmured, "What if ... I ... could find you ... a voice?"

A shiver ran down Max's spine. He squirmed around and turned to face Bo. "What do you mean?"

"My job is to send a message through my songs. Yours could be to connect an audience to the real story."

"I already have a job, baby." Max nuzzled against the side of Bo's neck. "I can't risk that. There are close to seven million unemployed right now and jobs are disappearing like mist in the morning."

"Your job makes you hit the bottle as soon as you're off duty. And you're rarely off duty because you work unpaid overtime for a bloody robot. We should be having times like this every weekend, not once every other month."

"It's not a ro ..." Max shut his mouth at Bo's glare.

"Don't start that techno-babble with me," she hissed. "I'm talking about taking a stand against a system that has you working like a slave for a machine." Her voice softened, the same tone she used in her love songs. "It's a system that'll have you in an early grave."

Max kissed the tip of her nose, a gesture that elicited her girlish grin. "I'll give it some thought, I promise. But I have to get busy, honey." He got out of bed and slipped into his shorts.