Just in time to play, I had the first version of my new Warhammer World game ready to go. The players created their characters using random draws from the career deck and we have a Burgher (merchant), a Dilettante, a Soldier and a High Elf Performer.
The group is travelling from Bögenhafen to Stromdorf in a carriage. The Burgher deals in rare weapons and is travelling for a sale or purchase (haven’t decided yet) with his Soldier friend as protection and the Dilettante studies ancient weapons as a hobby. He’s along for the ride and as an expert. The High Elf is meanwhile travelling with them as he explores the Empire, curious to see the sights.
Several hours into their travels, in the dark Reikswald forest, they come upon a gruesome sight. A carriage ahead of them has been ambushed and a group of Beastmen are toying with the coachman and others attacking the coach, tearing at it.
The scene is chaotic and immediately they fly into action. The soldier leaps off the coach, calling out the beastmen, a couple break off and the three are soon in deep in battle. Two more race past the soldier, launching a spear into one of the horses, the other slicing the horse’s throat, both steeds fall and the coach, propelled by the momentum, but tripped by the fallen horses flips over, throwing the coach driver to his death and crashing the coach into the side of the road.
The performer rolls with the crash, popping out of the coach before it even comes to a stop and dashes across the road and up the hill in the confusion of the moment. He makes it to the tree line without being seen by the foul creatures.
The dilettante and burgher, not so lucky, pull themselves out of the wreckage and shudder at the sight of these beastmen. The burger makes his way up the hill and readies his sling. The dilettante is frozen in shock watching the bloody scene before him.
As the battle between the soldier and the beastmen rages on, the larger beastman delivers a final blow to the coachman before him and the performer deftly sneaks up behind the other one still stabbing at the coach they had come upon. From inside a voice cries out, “Help me! Help me for Sigmar’s sake!”
The performer lodges his knife deep in the beastman’s side, it howls in pain and collapses.
The soldier is being battered by the two beastmen when the dilettante catches his breath and throws a volley of knives at one of the beastmen, one lodging in his throat and with blood spilling out over the soldier, he drops.
The larger beastman blows his mighty horn, the sound echoing around them. At this, the burgher fires off a sling stone at him, inflicting a cut on its face. Then, the burgher races down the hill, crying out a challenge to it. The beastman lets out a terrible roar and the burgher freezes in his steps and turns and runs back up the hill. The beastman calls out something they do not understand and turns to run into the forest. The other follows behind, escaping into the trees.
Our group of heroes regroup and find inside the coach a manservant who introduces himself as Hendrick, servant of Lord Aschaffenberg, whose manor lies not too far away. He says he was on his way back when they were ambushed. The heroes decide it’s safer to head to the manor than continue on this road agree to join him.
He asks their help in carrying his master’s things and soon the group is loaded up with crates trudging down the side road in the rain.
As they make their way, Hendrick explains that he had just travelled to Ubersreik looking for help. His master has just recently taken over this manor, previously held by a cousin of his new wife. The staff seem to be an unruly lot and his master needs someone to uncover evidence of what they are up to. Whether it is rebellion against him or something worse. Hendrick asks if they would help his master and the group readily agrees. They will pose as a group of new servants helping with his master’s things.
Thinking they might be close, the burgher decides to climb a nearby hill to see how much further they have to go when suddenly, without a sound, three beastmen burst from the trees and begin attacking the dilettante and soldier, the third spearing the manservant through the leg. Everyone drops their burdens and begin fighting back.
The burgher spots through the rain the turret of the manor house just around the bend and calls out to his allies that they need to get there now. He runs over to the fallen manservant, strikes down the beastman and starts helping him down the road.
Meanwhile, the rest of the group are caught between fleeing to the safety of the manor and fighting these monstrous things. The soldier holds his ground until a massive beastman, a wargor emerges behind them, flanked by a half dozen more beastman. The better part of valour kicks in and they all flee in terror, the soldier downing one of the beastmen before turning and running.
As they round the bend, guards on the manor’s walls begin unleashing a torrent of crossbow bolts, helping cover their escape. The doors open briefly to let them in and with them safely inside the first session comes to an end.
Afterthoughts
I enjoyed this first session using my custom Warhammer World rules. We were able to test out the combat system a fair bit and as a result I’ll make a few adjustments. Overall though, it worked very well.
We spent the first hour or so completing the character creation process. Although I like how fast Dungeon World character creation goes, my players prefer to have more options for customization of their characters, especially for a longer running series of adventures.
They rolled randomly to see what choices they had for race (two had the option of High Elf, only one chose it) and then picked one of three random careers. After that, it was entirely up to them, though constrained by their career to assign their characteristics and skills and to pick their talents, drives, hindrances and the rest of their characters from a long list of options.
At long last, I’m able to return to the world of Warhammer, and I’m loving it.
Justin Schmid
Justin started tabletop gaming in 1983 with Basic D&D (red box) and never looked back. He runs and plays in a wide variety of games, including Savage Worlds, Dungeon World, Trail of Cthulhu and many, many more.
He also writes professionally for role-playing games, including writing and creating Night's Edge an Alternate Reality Universe for Cyberpunk 2020. He went on to write eight more adventures and sourcebooks in the Night's Edge line, adding vampires and other supernatural perils to the already dangerous world of Cyberpunk.
As a freelance writer, he wrote The Bermuda Triangle for Call of Cthulhu, Shadows of the Mind, and Psi Wars for Conspiracy X and contributed to Last Unicorn's Star Trek RPG, as well as to Cybergeneration sourcebooks, and many other games.
When he's not creating imaginary worlds for his daughter, he's running games for his friends and writing new adventures or designing new game systems. He currently lives in Vancouver, B.C., Canada.