ZWEIHÄNDER Session #1: Night of Blood

We had our first ZWEIHÄNDER session on the 16th of September. I ran the classic module from White Dwarf and Apocrypha Now called Night of Blood for six players. Our protagonists were:

• Agonia Gimdinasdotr, a dwarf adherent of Valaya with a troubled past.
• Blitzkrieg, a dwarf slayer, and sworn enemy of skaven.
• Odger Tobold, a halfing pugilist armed with a stool, a tabletop, and no testicles.
• Johann von Immelscheld, a human squire who hates Chaos with a passion.
• Päther von Sternwart, a human astrologer who wants to join the Colleges of Magic.
• Sternchen, an ogre hedgewise who has a living stump in place of his right leg.

Things that go bump in the night.

This unlikely group left Wittgendorf for Nuln on the Geheimnisnacht of 2502, thinking they can reach the next inn before nightfall. Thanks to the pouring rain, the ogre's slowness, and bad directions from locals they didn't succeed. Their advance on the muddy roads of the Nattern-forest was suddenly halted when a wounded deer burst out of the woods and stumbled. Their hopes for free meat were crushed when the hunters followed: a hound-like beastmen, a mutant with snail-like eyes, another with tentacles, and a pair of furries. Johann and Blitzkrieg charged without hesitation. After the first furry beast fell the leader, a scaly bovine beastman emerged from the wood to start a lengthy melée with Blitzkrieg. The battle only ended when Päther cast Subdue on the gor. He also saved Johann's hide with the spell, who held the ground against the other furry, and the canine beastman. Sternchen called forth the winds of magick to disarm and blast his foes, crapping himself in the process thanks to a Chaos Manifestation. Agonia took her splitting hammer and tried to help wherever she could. Odger pursued the snail-eyed freak into the forest, and took him down with a chokehold. A bit later the ogre attived, and took some of the mutant's meat with him for tasting.

Blitzkrieg got an infected wound, so finding a clean inn became even more important. After a while lightning illuminated an inn the distance. The gate was closed, but light came out of the windows, so Johann and Blitzkrieg climbed in through the wall. Odger meanwhile visited the ferry, where he found bloodstains, broken furniture, and some crowns in a bag. The ogre saw him, so they split the loot. From the stables disturbed neighs could be heard, so while the angry Johann kept banging on the door, Agonia, Odger, and Sternchen examined it. Opening the gate the horses ran out, nearly knocking the ogre down. Within the corpse of a boy was found, with a huge bitemark on his arm.

After a while the grossly fat innkeeper opened the bar room's door. His sole guest was a roadwarden, and a boy with bulbous eyes was washing up the floor behind the bar. The roadwarden  Hans Jinkerst was distrustful towards the new guests, just as the innkeeper Otto. They told there was a bandit attack recently, and accused the party with being criminals too. Otto said the house was full, but in the end Hans convinced him to rent the common rooms to the new guests. Odger also tried to cook the venison he cut from the deer, but without any skills in cooking he only burned it. In the meantime Agonia cleaned Blitzkrieg's wound. Otto was shocked to learn the doom of his stablehand, but Hans said that's another good reason to keep the inn closed for the night.

After getting their room our heroes realized that Otto locked their door, and their food was spiked, which wore them down a bit. Looking out the window Johann saw Otto leading a three legged monster into the building. The party hacked the door down, while Sternchen started jumping in the room until the floor broke down, and he fell into the kitchen with the ogre. Following a chanting the adventurers arrived in the cellar, where Odger fell and hurt his head thanks to a tripwire. In his anger he retreated to the kitchen.

Might be a joke in the wargame, but here this guy would
have massacred the party with ease.

Under the cellar there was an ancient shrine built from cyclopean stones. Hans was chanting in front of a blasphemous idol of Tzeentch. Without his clothes the many eyes growing on his shoulder and breast were visible. He was with the fake innkeeper Otto, the kid with the huge eyes, the three legged freak, and an elegant noble with a skullface. In one corner the murdered staff and guests were thrown, in the other those who were only asleep from drugs.  Hans asked whether his visitors are willing to talk, but Johann and Blitzkrieg charged, so the sorcerer answered by summoning the Flames of Tzeentch. Agonia silenced him by casting Hush, so for the rest of the battle he had to rely on his pistol. Blitzkrieg was knocked out when Otto released all the gas in his body through a huge fart unto the him, while the skullface wounded Agonia with his sword. Agonia cast Aeagis to protect herself, but her Channeling produced a Chaos Manifestation that made her hair stand up. Päther used Subdue again to great effect. During the battle Odger returned drugged, and after a charge he beat Hans to death with his stool. When all the cultists were slaughtered the party started knocking down an idol. After the first hit a Daemon started manifesting above it. The process was hindered by Johann feinting because of all the Peril he suffered, and the statue barely taking any damage from the weapons, but luckily they managed to break it into pieces before the Daemon could materialize.

After the battle the hostages were woken up. There was a lengthy argument about what should be the fate of the whole place. In the end they didn't burn it down, and Agonia consecrated it with a ritual. In the morning a group of roadwardens arrived who asked the adventurers to follow them to Nuln, where they will have to help them write a report about what happened.

I ran the adventure mostly as written, but I spiced the mutants up a bit because originally most of them was too generic for my taste. The session was rough and bumpy. Not only did we have to get used to a new ruleset, we also had players without any former WFRP experience, and there plenty of arguments about who does what. Having two arcane spellcasters and a trigger-happy Witch Hunter-wannabe didn't help either. The first battle was tedious (mostly because of using too tough monsters), but by the end the game ran much smoother. Still, I ended up implementing some house rules starting the second session to speed things up. They helped a lot, but I'll leave the details to my next report.