Re: Empire in Chaos (Spoiler!!!)
Jag borde inte posta detta då jag för tillfället spelleder denna kampanj och risken för att mina spelare tar en titt här finns.
Hur som helst; Följande är vad James Wallis postade på WFRP-mailinglistan, det är en sammanfattning av vad han kom ihåg när det gällde händelserna från EiC. Han söker fortfarande efter sina anteckningar för att kunna ge dem på mailing-listan mer detaljer.
SPOILER!
SPOILER!
SPOILER!
In message , MCV <mcvos@galjas.cs.vu.nl> writes
>James Wallis wrote:
>
>[ A short summary of what the EiC plot would be like. ]
>
>Thank you! Together with Garrett's summary, this is exactly
>the sort of thing I want to know. Need to know, even, now
>that I have to write my own ending to TEW.
>
>Care to go into further details? Still big battles and a
>quest to find a hammer? And what are the other ways in which
>the adventure can end? (My guesses are: (un)civil war, Heinrich
>as emperor, and maybe the crown prince doesn't have to get
>killed and might become emperor?)
I don't have much time, but... Something Rotten in Kislev functions like
Act IV Scene II (I think) in Macbeth; it gets the PCs somewhere else while
changes can happen to the Empire.
*** Danger Danger Huge Massive Mother-Buggery Spoilers for the rest of The
Enemy Within campaign are contained herein. Abandon hope all ye etc. ***
The PCs return. A civil war is brewing; much tension between the north and
the south, some of it stirred by the Sons of Ulric. The Graf's daughter is
to be married to the Emperor's son in a political union symbolising the
bond between the two halves of the country. PCs escort Graf and daughter
to Altdorf; collect Clues on way.
In Altdorf, integrate in court. Attempted assassination of the Emperor,
which the PCs learn by devious means was actually successful (KF is dead)
though the word is deliberately being kept back because of fear of
starting the war. PCs discover there is another, more clandestine war
being fought in Altdorf between the Purple Hand and the Red Crown, both of
whom are scheming something bad. This includes all the Kastor Lieberung
look-alike stuff, the details of which were very cunning indeed and which
I have forgotten. Lieberung does not look like the Emperor, but someone
else does. Marriage gets disrupted by what appears to be Northerner
guerrilla activity, but in fact is something else (the PCs can discover
this). The civil war kicks off.
PCs are likely at some time to call in their favour from the Grand
Theogonist, because they're having problems with making progress at court.
He hands them off to one of his advisors, who is sweetness and light. This
is because he's a cultist, and he's manipulating them.
Then PCs make some basic discoveries about what's going on, then they make
a massive and very public faux-pas (they're forced in a no-win situation
and commit an enormous breach of etiquette), and it is suggested they
should "quest for Sigmar's hammer" -- make etiquette roll with huge
negative modifiers to realise this is court-speak for "go and die quietly
somewhere a long way away", the WFRP equivalent of the Long Walk from
Judge Dredd. Head out with Father Marcus (from Carrion), who explains
prophecies, omens, etc., and that nobody in hell expects them to succeed.
Find hammer in a sequence not as bad as the one in EiF. Father Marcus dies
in heart-rending scene that wins him the Best Supporting NPC Oscar.
PCs return. Find town besieged by Kislevite mercenaries. Recruit them,
using contacts and knowledge from SRiK. Head slowly west, gathering
forces. Battle. Lift siege of Altdorf.
From there my memory of the linear plot gets a bit fuzzy, but the crux of
it all is:
The civil war is being provoked by whichever province of the Empire it is
that doesn't appear in the WFB maps. They are providing the Sons of Ulric
with money and equipment, and also hiring mercenaries (e.g. the
Kislevites) while appearing to still be staunch supporters of the south
and the Emperor. They are found guilty, and their entire province and
lineage is erased. They are not cultists or inspired by Chaos; they have
ways of capitalising from the political unrest and the war. Machiavellian
sods, the lot of them.
The court is riddled with cultists. This is because the Untersuchung has
been... no. I'm not going to start posting spoilers for my novel.
The Purple Hand's big plan was to get rid of the Emperor (done) and
replace him with their own man -- a strong leader is needed to take
control and quiet the civil war, and the Electors would agree to that. The
PCs think they're about to hit a happy ending when the Emperor-to-be
summons them on the eve of his coronation, and then he does the touching-
his-nose Purple Hand identification thing to them. Oops. Gotta get rid of
him now.
The Red Crown want to use the Lieberung look-alike to spoil the Purple
Hand's scheme. Offhand I can't remember anything more about the Red Crown
scheme but it was a lot more brutal than the PH one, and many more people
were going to die if it came off. I also can't remember who it is that the
PC reminds the Graf of in "Carrion Up the Reik". The Oldenhaller dynasty
was going to make another appearance and cause trouble, I do remember
that. Lots of sub-plots, side-digressions and incidents along the way,
adding colour and depth to the whole experience. Should the PCs acquire
another barge in the course of the adventure, it gets fucking sunk.
The Grand Theogonist does not explode during the coronation of the new
Emperor, but there is a final climatic and very public fight in which the
PCs' honour is restored, etc. etc. because nobody's happy if they don't
get to kill something big in the final scene.
At no point is the death of the Emperor officially confirmed to the
populace at large, so when Karl-Franz reappears at the head of his army
having had a miraculous recovery on his sick-bed due to the intercession
of the Hammer of Sigmar infusing him with sacred power (it's the
lookalike) everyone goes "Oh thank goodness" rather than "Wasn't he dead
last week?"
Hang on... remembering stuff now... mysterious missing blokey, the one off
in the Grey Mountains, comes back towards the climax, with what he claims
is the Hammer of Sigmar. He's working for the Machiavellians, he thinks,
though it turns out his closest advisor is with the Red Crown.
And the uber-bad-guy... because you need one... and the greatest untied
thread of the whole campaign, is Karl-Heinz Wasmeier, who very nearly did
for the Graf of Middenheim in PBtT. Not only is he behind the whole Purple
Hand plot including the Emperor's assassination, but this time he gets the
Graf as well. Strong hints he was behind the whole Lieberung situation,
and some clarification of his motivations.
The Emperor's son is not a mutant. Can't remember the reason for the
Emperor's leniency on mutants. It's swiftly revoked, anyway.
My notes are still around here somewhere, I think, if we haven't already
chucked them in the tidy-out frenzy of closing down the office. If I find
them I'll see if I can fill in any of the blanks. Overall tone was going
to be half-way between Len Deighton's 60s spy novels, Machiavelli's the
Prince, and some of the nastier bits of Clive Barker. It was going to
retain bits of the structure of EiF but essentially none of its text.
Hope that clarifies stuff.
/James Wallis
(Flyttade "Musik till humorrollspel" också)
