A Free Lunch- The Story So Far

[Ross]

Episode 1 - The mark of Chaos

The characters start in the fortress city of Middenheim, recently besieged by the armies of the ruinous powers. As the city tries to rebuild its society and shake off the damage inflicted upon it the characters are desparately trying to scratch a living among the refugees and residents of the city.

By one means or another they have all come to know Johann Grosser, a local cloth merchant, and a mountain of a man, corpulant beyond belief in these lean times. On a dreary, wet day they find themselves in a local inn when Grosser enters in an exceptional mood. He offers to buy them all lunch- a very generous act!

As the party sit down to dinner, together with an interloping Elven stranger, Grosser tells them of his incredible good fortune and the growth of his business- a growth fueled by his membership of a secret society for local business people. Intrigued, the starving characters listen eagerly as they gorge themselves. Before long the amiable merchant is offering to sponsor their application to join the society.

On the appointed day the party met Johann outside an apparently shut inn situated in the merchant's quarter. They are ushered in and led to table to await their audience with the society's interview panel. Eventually their turn comes and they are led, blindfolded, down a number of storeys undergrund to a small room.

With their blindfolds removed they find themselves sitting in front of a panel of three men, one is dressed in purple robes and those to each side are in crimson robes. Following a period of questions enquiring what skills the players can bring to the the society and probing their understanding of loyalty, there is a vote by the three involving coloured pebbles in a pouch.

And so the party become members of the Society for Mutual Gain!

Before joining the feast in the member's hall they each recieve a set robes and a small ring with the circular seal of the society upon it. Aduran, being somewhat suspicious in nature, is the only one of the party not to wear his new ring, but pockets it instead.

After the feast the party all start to recieve lucrative new jobs or contacts, and their respective businesses begin to flourish. In addition, other members, each of whom bears the Society's ring, ask them to perform small favours.

A couple of weeks pass before the next meeting, and upon attendance the characters again don their robes and are asked to provide a small donation- one copper for each gold crown they have earned. As the evening progresses they each eat and drink their fill whilst discussing business with other members. Toward the end of the evening the Purpen Vater stands to address the membership. All sit in hushed silence as he raises his arms...

He starts by stating that the society has enemies, and work has been started to thwart them- work in which it turns out that the party have unwittingly been involved in assisting. Purpen Vater builds to a fever pitch as he states that this very night they will undertake a prominant act to rid themselves of one who would seek to harm them.

With this he moves around the room, revealing an alcove which had previously been hidden by a wall hanging. Within the alcove is a large stone table with a cloth covering. Two more crimson robed members appear leading out a bound and heavily subdued man- a man who some of the party recognise as the city's Priest of Sigmar!

As Reinhart begins to protest, Purpen Vater and orders his attendants to hold down the preist onto the table, and he draws a short curved blade. The membership are generally entranced by the mesmorising acts which are unfolding before them, although some stampede for the bolted door and some few, including most of the characters, dissent and start to fight with the crimson robed individuals, who it is now clear are armed and must be cultists from an inner circle.

Amidst this tumultuous range of reactions a hideous moment of silence seems to pervade the hall as the priest's chest is torn assunder by Purpen Vater, the closer parts of the crowd are hosed in blood as Purpen Vater enthusiastically tears the still beating heart from the wreck of a body before him. As he holds it aloft in his hand all of the members who wear the ring of the society (everyone except Aduron) feels the white hot searing pain as the true nature of the cursed and despoiled symbol of the dark gods upon it reveals itself and the ring becomes fused to their flesh!

Purpen Vater calls out in agony as his body convulses and he drops to the ground, writhing in agony as his 'reward' is visited upon him by the Lord of Change. As he stands, some of the party notice slender, fleshy tentacles sprouting from Purpen Vater's torso, as they quickly withdraw into his robes.

As the melee resumes there is a crashing noise as the door is broken in by the city watch who storm in, halberds lowered, followed closely by a large man in black leather and a wide brimmed hat, who explodes into action, firing silver tipped bolts from his two crossbow pistols at the raised alter of Chaos.

In due course the characters are rounded up, after demonstrating their 'innocence' by continuing to fight the guards. Auntie Lu and Ohm try to go for the back door, but only Auntie Lu's rat terrier is successful in escaping as more watch appear by that route to close the trap. As they are taken to the city gaol and thrown into a mouldering cell with other cultists, Janus fights his way to the small barred window overlooking a yard outside. Through this small and ancient opening he can see the pyres being built to cleanse the heretics. Heretics which the party are numbered as!

At last they are brought before the Magistrate and the distinctive man who led the raid- a Witch Hunter named Dieter Von Pilsig. The group plead their innocence, and although the Magistrate wishes to see them burn to exponge their bodies of the foul taint they bear, Von Pilsig sees something in them which he can use to follow and kill the Purpen Vater, who escaped from the heinous act of murder he had perpitrated.

The session ends with the players oweing their lives to Von Pilsig, and bound to his service, to hunt down Purpen Vater and purge him in order to free themselves from the fused marks of evil they now bear!

To be continued as time allows... feel free to add your own comments, thoughts or interpretations below this text!

[John R]

Hi

So, now we have to chase this Purple-Farter bloke through the woods? Do we just follow his scent or track the occasional lingering cloud of purplish gas?

It's like something from the Two Ronnies (the comedians (?), not the Krays).

J

[Zardoz]

Would that be...... "The Phantom Rasberry-blower of old London Town" ?

[Ross]

Episode 2 - Through the Forests of the Old World - On Purpen Vater's Trail

As the party leave Middenheim it is not long before they are deep into the dark and tangled forests which cover much of the Empire. As the open land and farmsteads which surround the city of the White Wolf tail away those members who are not used to such severely rural locations begin to feel ill at ease.

Their first night is spent in a partially ruined trapper's lodge. Ohm tries to settle their minds with reassurance that all is well, but Reinhart can hear noises- noises which he interprets as the call of the foul beasts of Chaos, with their corrupt and filthy bodies mutated to part man, part beast. His memories of what he saw during the Storm of Chaos are rekindled and he does not have a restful evening despite the best efforts of Auntie Lu and Ohm.

With the coming of dawn the group move off along the road, making good time with Ron's cart carrying the heavy load of stores and baggage. Some miles on they begin to smell the wafting of smoke as the wind shifts, so Ohm dismounts and scouts ahead through the brush to the side of the road.

What he eventually discovers, apparently awaiting the groups arrival to join him, is an abomination. The corruption of Chaos made manifest in the form of a beast-man. The creature calls out in its gutteral tongue, exclaiming that its dark Lord had promised the party, ripe with corruption themselves, into his service!

Ohm lets fly from his elven bow, striking the evil spawn with a good shot, but it merely begins to call out and bray. Eventually the party re-group and Ohm, together with Reinhart move up again to slay the beast.

Meanwhile Auntie Lu tries to rouse Janus, who unbeknown to the others had been partaking of the beer on the wagon since dawn and was by now stinking drunk. He awakens noisily and with his usual mix of disgust and aggression toward his fellows. As he tries to move toward the beast, omitting a constant bable of slurred profanity he continually falls as his stupified muscles defy him.

Before his arrival, or that of the slow moving dwarf, Ron, the others have reached the creature. Ohm spots it reaching for a horn to summon its allies, and lets fly more arrows from his bow. Eventually the thing is brought down and he and Reinhart move forward to sever its hideous head and destroy the symbols of Chaos it carried about its neck. They leave its mutilated head on a pole at the side of the road as a warning to others of its kind.

It is not long after the destruction of the beast-man that the party discover its purpose, and its war-herd. Alerted by the screams of human women and children the party again scout ahead of the wagon, only to find a truly horrifying scene unfolding before them. A small fortified settlement has apparently partially fallen to the raiding of these mutant creatures, and the women and children are being taken, bound, from its safety into the forest by more of the beast-men.

Thinking quickly, Auntie Lu picks up the horn which the party stole from the corpse of the first creature and moves into the wood blowing it to draw them off. Meanwhile Ohm and Reinhart surge forward to rescue the captive peasants.

As they charge they see the foul nature of their enemies- a twisted parody of a swine and a man confronts them, with a canine- headed ally at its side. The ensuing combat tests Reinhart's somewhat basic martial prowess, but together, and with the awakening of Janus to a more sober state, they slay the creatures and lead the women and children back into the partially sacked village of Galterweiss.

Inside the party discover half the village holding out on the other side of the river which runs through the settlement. With the bridge destroyed, the party are slow to get Ron's wagon to the far side. They spend the evening there, repairing the broken section of the pallisade with the villagers and keeping watch through the night.

Janus decides to search the vacant houses for anything of value, and even starts to defame the name of Sigmar in his unending bouts of bad temper. He is eventually taken into the small temple, wherein his ring begins to burn and he suffers a terrible feeling of pain and nausia. Eventually he passes out from the pain, gaining the unsettling realisation that his body is now truly in the throws of corruption.

When morning comes, the group decide that they cannot waste time any longer while Purpen Vater is doubtless gaining ground on them, so they move on.

Around noon the group catch up with a party of imperial soldiers from Ostermark, heading away from Middenheim. As Janus relates the plight of the village and 'orders' the Captain to send back some men to help, he discovers that the text on the party's warrant from Von Pilsig has become heavily wetted by beer spillage and rainfall whilst in Janus' care- it is now illegible!

The Captain reluctantly agrees to send back some outriders to check on the village, if it still stands, but otherwise refuses further assistance. He questions the party's legitimacy, especially as Janus has thoroughly succeded in alienating any goodwill he may have had, but also becomes somewhat concerned as he describes a man who appeared to be a noble in purple robes who had passed his force the day before.

The episode draws to a close with the party spending the night in Meindelhoff, a ruin of a fortified tower house, now lived in by the former steward, Franz-Joseph. The only other occupant is a Kislevite who was passing through on his way home after the war, and who had also stopped for the night.

But it was not need of shelter that brought the party to the tumble-down former noble's house, it was the feeling of evil that they all felt, drawing them there. Evil which brought out ill-feeling and symptoms in many of the party. At the closing of the night, the source was revealed to Janus- the still animated and sensory severed head of a chaos warrior, borne unknowingly by the Kislevite as a war trophy...