Our final session of the Eye for an Eye adventure brings our heroes together in the library of Lord Aschaffenberg’s hunting lodge in the Reikswald Forest. Brought here by fate, they were enlisted to help the Aschaffenberg uncover what is wrong with the staff of this newly acquired property. They soon discovered some kind of conspiracy involving some of the staff being drugged. Having failed to convince Aschaffenberg of the plot without any evidence, they proceeded to split up and all get into fights with servants, the doctor and beastmen.
Regrouping in the library, arguing amongst each other for a time, they finally form their plan – a frontal assault on the cultists in the cellars below currently mid-ceremony – just as they hear a strange stone-on-stone grinding sound. The group descends the ladder down from the trapdoor in the library floor into a corridor and race around the corner, only to run straight into a blunderbuss blast! The soldier takes the brunt of it, the others managing to dodge in the second before the cultist fired it off.
They surge forward, finding another cultist also waiting in ambush just inside the room where there are a group of robed cultists chanting, an already dead sacrifice (one of the servants the soldier had gotten friendly with) and the manservant Piersson, in full robed glory, horribly mutated eye uncovered and gazing upon them. On the altar, covering the bloody sacrifice, the painting of the eye and another cultist holding open some unholy tome. The whole scene is light by the pale greenish light of Morrslieb, shining in from an opening in the ceiling and bathing it in put evil.
The soldier manages to take down the shooter, but suffers his first insanity, unable to cope with the sight of the horrific painting and the blasphemous scene before him. The dilettante joins him fighting the other cultist while the High Elf performer, unfazed by the scene before him raced forward, just as Piersson cuts himself and bleeds on the painting. The performer tries grabbing the painting, but winds up fighting over possession of it. The burgher also races forward shooting off slingshots at the other cultist, but misses his shots.
The ceremony complete, the painting suddenly shudders and a great winged monstrosity emerges from it, a daemon from beyond, unleashing an unholy wail that shakes the very souls of the group. The soldier snaps and faints from the horror of it all. The performer doesn’t pause and grabbing hold of the painting stabs into it with his dagger and manages to shear it completely in half, breaking the gate. The demon tries grabbing him as it is pulled back, missing, but the performer is nevertheless bathed in Chaos energy and finds his mind twisted by its effects, insanity ensuing.
The dilettante takes out the other cultist, and as the burgher battles with Piersson and the fading daemon, he manages to hit the daemon once and then strike the cult leader in the face, dropping him in a single hit. The rest of the cultists flee the room, the group consider their condition, almost all are badly injured and only the performer decides to chase after one who ran down a passage on his own.
He gives chase finding the cultist has climbed up a ladder to the second story of the hunting lodge. He pursues cautiously, finding his quarry in Lord Aschaffenberg’s room, about to slit his throat as he sleeps. He rushes forward, the floor creaking as he moves, alerting the librarian to his presence and they get into a short fight before the performer slips his knife between the cultist’s ribs and renders a fatal blow. Aschaffenberg meanwhile yawns a little and rolls over, continuing to snore.
The rest of the group, having done some quick first aid and revived the soldier, return upstairs to find the remaining staff of the lodge holding off the beastmen inside the lodge itself and two soldiers facing a couple beastmen trying to get inside.
Before they can move, the beastmen surge forward and cut down the soldiers. The dilettante rushes forward and cuts down one of the beastmen with his blade, the performer having emerged from upstairs also rushes down and joins the fray, putting down the other.
Suddenly another, bigger one surges forth from the kitchen. The soldier already having moved upstairs lifts a sofa over the railing and drops it on the beast, smashing it in the head and dropping it. The others quickly move in and dispatch it.
Dawn finally arrives and the few remaining survivors gather together to piece together what has happened, along with the finally awakened Lord Aschaffenberg. He is amazed at the group’s work and commends them on having saved his home from two attacks – one from within and one from without. Unfortunately, some of the cultists did escape in the fray and he hopes they might find them, but in the meantime he is very grateful for their assistance.
And so ends our first adventure – adapted from the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd edition adventure from the basic game – An Eye for An Eye – one of my all-time favourites!
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.