Image: JMW Turner, Barge on the River, Sunset, 1806-1807.

Recently my weekly in person RPG group has been taking a hiatus from our regularly scheduled PF2e game while one of our members is out of town. In the meantime, I've been running WFRP and (not-so) stealthily funneling the players towards The Enemy Within - a grand, but flawed, campaign that dates back to 1e. These will be regular session reports. I'll strive not to spoil anything in advance of the action, but expect spoilers for whatever module is in the title.

Barging In

Our party consists of two characters:

• Cucino, a Tilean wrecker in search of fine food and drink.
• Sebastien, a wizard's apprentice from Altdorf looking for materials for his wizarding thesis.

Cucino and Sebastien found themselves on a dingy barge making its way down a tributary of the River Teufel. They had been hired by Rutger Reuter, an enthusiastic young noble who was quick with a compliment and with promises of pay. They had signed on for 10 shillings each to inspect the site of a new textile mill on the shore of the Grausee, a small lake in the vicinity of Ubersreik.

The journey was an eerie one. Cold gray fog pressed in around the barge limiting visibility, and Vedoma, the mother of the barge's captain, spent the trip muttering strange prophecies about a great eye peering over the mist.

Their barge journey was interrupted when the inexperienced bargemaster, Reiko, ran aground on a submerged tree causing Vedoma to rocket out into the water. The party sprung to the rescue, helping her to her feet before a giant fish came and gobbled her up. Cucino took a nasty bite on the arm before Sebastien managed to clobber the fish senseless with his staff.

They dragged the fish ashore and Cucino excitedly pieced it out into fillets for dinner. The experienced wrecker was also able to guide the crew through the laborious process of floating the barge over the debris - removing all the cargo to lift the vessel up, maneuvering it over the barrier, then reloading. The process took hours, but was better than hauling paving stones and tools through the swamp on foot.

In the last leg of their journey, Cucino and Sebastien pressed Rutger for details about their job. Impressed with their handiness, their employer shared that he wanted them to investigate an old ring of standing stones that he was hoping to remove as part of the mill construction process. None of the other workers were willing to go near the site.

At Camp

Arriving at the construction site, the party met the two other major personalities of the expedition: Thulgrim, the dwarven engineer, and Johanne Teugen, Rutger's partner.

Thulgrim gave the party a whirlwind introduction to the dig site - the pit where the foundation was being dug, the standing stones, and most of all the nightmares. Everyone sleeping in the camp had been having terrible nightmares and morale was starting to collapse as folks grew restless and exhausted.

Johanne had been suffering more than most from the nightmares, hardly sleeping at all. Nonetheless, she kept an accurate log of the dreams that the party was able to peruse. She was quite candid about how miserable this expedition had become, how Rutger kept promising people (the party included) money the venture didn't have, and how the construction seemed to be going nowhere despite months of effort. She did agree that if the party investigated the standing stones, she would make sure they were compensated per Rutger's offer, generous as it was.

In the meantime, Reiko and the work crew had fried up the giant fish the player's had caught and were throwing a party to celebrate Vedoma's safety. Folks enjoyed a raucous dinner with wine and spirits before turning in for bed. The party decided to make camp on the barge, where a small tent was erected.

In the night, Cucino had the nightmare - a giant pale moon looms over the standing stone site, figures with tales dance and chant around the structure as they lower a central stone into place. He woke with a start around 2am, fatigued.

Intrigue in the Night

Cucino happened to wake to the sound of three people prowling through the muck. Cucino and Sebastien tailed them over to Johanne's tent where they barged in unannounced. At that point, the party rose the alarm. Thulgrim and the workmen emerged brandishing improvised clubs and crossbows and the intruders were quickly accosted.

They turned out to be three eel fisherman from the nearby village of Grausee. They refused to share anything about why they were here, but took the opportunity to insult the dwarves and foreigners in the expedition. Sebastien suggested tying them up and throwing them in the pit at the worksite until morning.

Sebastien also noticed that Johanne seemed alarmed to see them, but not particularly surprised. A quick interrogation revealed that Johanne had hired the men to sabotage the site so she could back out of the project without disgrace. She wasn't sure why they were here now, but she imagined it was to blackmail or extort her. The party successfully argued that the standing stones they were being paid to investigate were almost certainly cursed, which should be more than enough reason to pull up stakes.

With the prospect of sleep seeming far off, the party decided to go investigate the standing stones, borrowing a lantern and sloshing down to the site. Six small stones ringed a central larger one. Each looks like it was once engraved but had long been eroded by time. A little bit of digging next to the central stone revealed a scene with tailed, one-eyed figures dancing around a central figuring, lying down and positioned beneath the ring.

Sebastien concluded that the dreams were a warning - that something evil was buried underneath the ring and that the dreams were intended as a signal to stay away. He tried to channel some magickal energy and found that a significant amount of dhar - tangled winds of magick associated with chaos was being concentrated here. He noted that it was being channeled but wasn't boiling over, so it must be being used or grounded into some kind of magical effect.

There investigation concluded the party decided to try to get some sleep and report their findings in the morning. Unfortunately, they returned to discover that the boat (and thus their tent) was missing. A quick check around camp revealed that Thulgrim had made off with the boat and the paychest in the night. Johanne declares that she'll give 10 gold crowns to whoever brings her the dwarf's head, and the hunt is on.

GM Notes

If Looks Could Kill, like most WFRP scenarios, is fundamentally a railroad. Also like most WFRP scenarios, its full of fun characters with clear motivations that are fun to roleplay at the table. The tension between startup-bro Rutger, dead-tired Johanne, and business-like Thulgrim is great. I more or less lifted those personas and the terrain, then discarded the rest. Those familiar with the source adventure will recognize several points of divergence as a result.

I figured in my prep it was reasonably likely that the party might side with any of the three major players. Rutger was their initial employer and is quite likable in his way. Thulgrim seems to just be trying to do his job and generally has the respect of Reiko and the other workers. Johanne is in some ways the most alienated from the expedition and thus the most likely to treat outsiders with respect and some measure of comradery. I had prep for any of these directions and more or less just waited to see which way the wind blew in play.

Most of this session was taken up by character creation. WFRP characters are really fiddly to create - lots of dice rolls to index against tables AND lots of choices to make based on the results. That said, I think the game is still unparalleled for the nuance of the resulting characters. Both Cucino and Sebastien are optimized for traditional party rolls to some degree. Cucino is going deep into Melee (Basic) and Sebastien is picking up the usual host of wizarding skills. Nonetheless, characters have all sorts of juicy secondary abilities like swimming and various lores that end up being way more relevant to most sessions.