Cocanha: The Story So Far

A more accurate Cocanha map.

A few of the participants in my Feudal Anarchy (née Medieval Hack) playtest campaign have commented that it is a bit difficult to get one's legs because of the number of NPCs and factions running around, so I've decided to do a recap of events so far in the mini-campaign.  Between my home group and the G+ game I've run nine games set in my fictionalized version of the Languedoc, but this will only cover the exploits of the G+ group.

I'll start with the adventure of the Onachus since the first session was more or less a series of combats in order to test out our wound mechanics.  The Onachus was a terrible monster that laired in a swamp north of Narbona.  Many believed this immense, fire-breathing bull was none other than the creature that sired the infamous Tarrasque.  The party* took it upon themselves to slay this monster, but when they road off with a mere two men-at-arms following they found that they bit off more than they could chew.  The creature was almost 30 feet in length, and managed to slay both the men at arms and all of their horses.

Beaten and badly bloodied, they returned to Narbona and waited out the winter of 1192 healing, purchasing new horses, studying about various saints, and hiring men to operate a ballista.  In the early spring of 1193 they set off to fight the creature once again, this time with the blessing of Archishop Ramon Berengar and with men given to them by Ermengarde herself.  They decided to lure the monster to castle of Gruissan, where they quickly surrounded and defeated it.  For their valor, they were granted a keep on the island of Cocanha.

A map of their keep

There was just one problem - it was currently controlled by the bastard son of Ramon de Calanha.  If the party was going to claim its prize, it would first have to wrest it from this robber knight and his band of Yaon mercenaries.  The sailed for the island and arrived at the port city of Alcazar.  There they met the Bishop of Alcazar, and two of the party members swore a public oath to join his Brotherhood of God in order to fight heresy on the island.  Before proceeding on to their new keep, they decided to stay with a young knight who owned a market in town.

He, it turns out, was Folquet the Younger, son of the lord of the manor of Sangriu.  He was an aspiring troubadour whose clearly autobiographical songs left much to be desired.  Later they would come to believe that he once had an affair with the wife of Baron Bernatz, but I'm getting ahead of myself.  He gave them a good deal, but through their conversation they soon learned that he had some dealings with the Yaones.  After this he grew cold and retired to his chambers.

The next morning they made their way to the Castle d'Ezorre, home of Baron Bernatz the Wolf - their new liege lord. They were greeted by the baron's wormy chaplain and steward, Father Perrin.  This clearly paranoid clergyman led them to Baron Bernatz who fed them a good meal at the expense of one of his peasants, whom Bernatz asserted was the best cook out of all the ones that he owned.  The baron agreed to lend them a number of men to capture the keep and allowed them to stay at his castle and make ready.

That night, they were approached by the baron's wife who desired that they should kill the Bastard of Calanha because he had kidnapped her daughter.  She specifically desired for his head to be brought to her. The party reluctantly agreed and set out in the morning to take the keep.  They planned to have their archers and ballista fire on the keep while the cavalry would dismount and go with the infantry down a secret escape tunnel known to several of the men-at-arms. 

This plan seemed to be going well, with several of the Yaones manning the walls dying under a hail of arrows and ballista bolts; however, once the party arrived at the end of the secret passage they found only a pot of boiling oil waiting for them.  They fought their way into the court yard of the keep only to be hit by a stray ballista bolt, taking them out of the fight and killing one of them.  Luckily, the rest of their men were able to take the keep from the Yaones and to capture the Bastard of Calanha.  They found that all of the Yaones they had killed bore a strange, stylized tattoo of a snake on their left arm.

The siege of the Keep of Ervesa by Peter Robbins

Now the party had a problem before them: should the kill the bastard or ransom him back to his father?  Eventually it was decided that they would send him to Bernatz in hopes of gaining a reward.  Unfortunately, this turned out to be the worst course of action because it allowed Bernatz to gain all the money from the ransom and it served to make the Lady d'Ezorre furious with the party.

While several of the knights who captured the keep were nursing the wounds, a few of the healthier knights and a few mercenaries went to slay the legendary giant Boamundus.  This involved a lot of skulking around as they needed to enter Baron Ramon's land but were afraid at how he might react to the capture of his son. While passing through some of the hills on the southern part of the island they were ambushed by a party of Yaones that they quickly routed.  The few men they were able to kill bore the same snake tattoo as the men from the keep.

Boamundus (deceased) as rendered by Jeremy Duncan

Eventually they were able to find the hut in which the giant lived, but he was away from his home.  They left a number of javelins burried in his straw bedding and when he returned he impaled himself upon them.  Angered and bloody, he arose to try and find them only to be peppered with more javelins and arrows and stampeded by cows.  In this manor the party gained 25 head of cattle and a debate about the size of giants started on G+ that has lasted until the time of this writing.

The party sent the giant's head to Baron Ramon, and both of his hands to Bishop Uc and Baron Bernatz.  Shortly thereafter, they received an invitation from Baron Ramon to join him at a feast in Castel d'Ezorre.  The party was wary of a plot against them and declined, but offered to host the baron themselves in a fortnight.  They then decided it would be good if they "left town for a while" and went off in search of the infamous outlaw Xabier the snake.

This lead them to the land of Folquet the Elder, lord of Sangriu.  In the forest due south of his holdings they found a recently abandoned Yaon village.  They believed that the villagers had fled south into the mountains at the site of their party - which included the PCs and an additional 20 serjeants, footmen, and archers.   In the village they found a wicker hut containing a strange idol in the shape of a snake.  One of the party members who was a Hospitaller and a member of the Brotherhood of God destroyed this idol with a mallet normally reserved for driving tent pegs.  From the idol came a vaporous, curdled luminescence that flew up into the sky and eventually merged with the Sun.  After seeing this, the party burned down the village.

The idol

They turned back north to meet with Folquet the Elder, but were greeted by his steward, whom they quickly surmised was an asshole.  He informed them that the lord was ill and quarted them in one of the nicer peasant houses.  He also played music of his own composition for him, and they quickly learned that he was of the same abysmal school as Folquet the Younger.  Finally, the steward retired and the party went to sleep...

Only to be awoken a few hours later when by a commotion outside.  Several of their men-at-arms had discovered strange, albino vipers in their bedrolls.  These they hacked apart with various bladed instruments. The members of the party still within the peasants' hut soon found that a number of the serpents had burst up from the ashes of the cook fire in the center of the hut.  They immediately fled and burned the house down - much to the dismay of the peasants.

The party decided this must be the work of a warlock angry at them for the destruction of the village.  They immediately suspected Folquet's steward, but decided they should also check in with the parish priest in order to make sure he wasn't saying prayers to Simon Magus or anything weird like that.  He saw one of their badges marking them as members of the Brotherhood of God and asked that they come see him during the night.

He revealed to them that many of the peasants whisper dark things about Folquet the Younger and believe him to have dealings with both the Yaones and the Devil himself.  They asked him if he suspected the steward of anything, but he did not.  He did inform them that the steward was a former clerk - a group well known for producing necromancers - and that Folquet the Elder took ill around the same time the steward arrived.

They contrived to have the steward attend a mass given by the priest and hoped that he would be unable to eat the body of Christ, thus revealing himself to be a warlock.  In what must have been one of the tensest masses in history, the party appeared with five of their armed men and met the steward with five of his armed men in the church.  They all took communion, much to the shock of the local peasants who had assembled themselves in the church.  Unfortunately for the party, the steward seemed capable of eating the Eucharist and now it's back to the drawing board for them.

It is currently the middle of the summer of 1193.

*I should note that the party composition has varied over these sessions, but there are a few core members.  The occasional influx of new people is why I wrote this post.

Cocanha Playtest Campaign

I've obviously stolen the format from Chris Kutalik, but here are the notes for the setting I'll be using for my playtests of our medievalist game.

This map is a rough draft.

Cocanha
This campaign is centered around the Cocanha, a fictional island in the Mediterranean off the coast of France.  Much of the island is covered in a mix of farm and scrubland, though its southern portion is home to both a mountain range and a dense forest.  Cocanha is strongly tied to both Occitania and Catalonia, though it also possesses a Muslim past and a small tribe of Basque-like people known as the Yaones.  The people of Cocanha speak a dialect of Occitan known as Cocanhat.

PCs are likely to be members of the same knightly household.

Local Names
Medieval Nicknames

News
Bishop Uc has formed a militia known as the Brotherhood of God with the express purpose of enforcing the Peace of God and eliminating heresy.  He has asked both of the barons to join him, but neither seems interested in stopping their petty squabbles or rooting out Cathars.

Sangriu has been the site of a number of raids by Xabier the Snake in recent weeks.  Folquet is looking for mercenaries to help reinforce his own forces and for stout men willing to find Xabier’s camp.  The knight believes that the infamous bandit is testing the border for weaknesses.

A man claiming to be the bastard son of Baron Ramon has captured the village of Ervesa with the aid of a band of Yaon mercenaries.  It seems they have slaughtered the manor’s holder and captured the maiden Anor, daughter of Baron Bernatz.  The Wolf has offered a large purse and a small manor to anyone able to rescue his daughter.

Father Perrin, chaplin to Baron Bernatz, seeks pious men to investigate the death of his brother.  Many claim that the man was slain by God on High - or one of His saints - but the priest is convinced that his death is the work of the Devil.

Boamundus, a legendary giant said to live in the mountains on the southern side of the island, has been sighted again for the first time in one hundred years.  He has reportedly been stealing cattle from the villages closest to Castel de Calanha.  Several of the manor lords seek champions to win the cattle back.

NPCs
Baron Bernatz The Wolf is the lord of Ezorre.  It is well known that he has ambitions on the continent, and he has left the island at several points to fight on behalf of his liege lord, the count of Toulouse.  

Baron Ramon is the lord of Calanha.  He is the scion of a cadet branch of the Trencavel family, and like the Trencavels of the continent he is an ally of the King of Aragon.  Ramon fancies himself a troubadour of some skill.

Bishop Uc d’Alcazar is the head of the diocese of Cochana.  He is officious, petty, and fiercely anti-Cathar.

Xabier the Snake is the leader of a small group of Yaones that act as bandits operating out of the forests and mountains in the southern part of the island.

Sir Folquet of Sangriu is a banneret to Baron Bernatz and the man usually tasked with leading any of the baron’s forces left on the island while the Wolf is fighting his wars on the continent.

Father Perrin is Baron Bernatz’s chaplin and also serves as secular ruler of the barony while his lord is away.  

Saints of Cocanha
St. Cecilia
St. Foy
St. Martha
St. Sergius Paulus
St. Sebastian

Places

The Barony of Ezorre
Castel d’Ezorre
The seat of Baron Bernatz and the center of government for the entire barony, Castel d’Ezorre is a stone castle of modest sized on the northernmost tip of the island.  Ezorre was originally a timber castle built in the ruins of an old Roman fort, Bernatz’s father had it rebuilt and incorporate much of the Roman architecture into the new structure.

Banneret Manors
Sangriu
Andaro
Ervesa

The Barony of Calanha
Castel de Calanha
This keep acts as the center of the Barony of Calanha.  It is of fairly recent construction, having been built to protect against raids by Mediterranean pirates.

Banneret Manors
Fabero
Nabiras 







 


The Bishopric of Cocanha

Alcazar

Alcazar was the center of government on the island during its occupation by the Moors.  It still acts as both the commercial and religious center, and is the easiest place to find passage to the continent or to the island monastery of Lampisors.

Monasteries
Egleisia
Lampisors

Sgt. Udo's Howling Kommandos

Recently the party in my weekly Nightwick game has become the head of a small mercenary company.  They've named it after their official leader, played by Jeremy Duncan.  The first group of six bandits was encountered in a refugee camp outside of Lychgate.*  They were originally in the employ of a strong boss known as Big Jean, which the party slew.

Toothless Tom Smiler (deceased) was a younger man with a tangled black hair.  He had all of his teeth and often smiles big, broad smiles.  When asked why he was called "toothless," he produced a small pouch filled with teeth and gets another big grin on his face.  He met is end during an attempted mutiny.

Fingers is a medium built man with a large mole, a scraggly beard, and a scar over his left eye.  He is missing the index and middle fingers on his right hand, and you notice that he often attempts to favor it until he remembers that he's missing his fingers.  He personally strangled Tom Smiler to death during the mutiny.

Dunderheaded Mutch is an enormous man with a greasy mop of curly, red hair.  His face is blunt and imbecilic.  He often moans to himself, and though he seems capable of conversation, Tom Smiler noted that Big Jean always kept him under supervision.

Dwardie the Fool is a short man with a pot belly whose nose has clearly been broken several times.  He occasionally sings strange, nonsensical songs and dances around like an idiot; however, during times when silence is of the essence you note that he grows quiet and still as a mouse.

Brother Odo claims to have at one time been a priest, but he is also the bandit who believed that the Sun is the God of Law and that demons come from the moon.  He is a rough-looking man with salt and pepper hair and pug nose.

Wamba Big-Member is a boastful Karslishman that makes his fellow bandits uncomfortable.

From left to right: Fingers, Wamba Big-member, Nalla the Lad

It turns out these men were members of a group of bandits living in a ruined manor house south of Hommlet. While passing through the ruins of Hommlet** - and desperately trying to avoid pig-men - they found a number of other bandits in the company of a devil-man.  After slaying their diabolic leader, they added the following miscreants to their band:

Mumbling Marion is unintelligible to everyone in the party except for the other Kommandos.  He is a dirty man with a square head and few teeth.  He enjoys hitting things, which he does with a noiseless intensity.

Nalla the Lad lacks a tongue, so it is difficult to know much about his life story.  He is a thin man who carries a banjo, but you have not seen him play it.

Little Jean looks very similar to Big Jean, but is much smaller.  The other bandits assert they were both from some overly inbred village in Averoigne.  He did not seem saddened by the news of Big Jean's death.

Red Bill is a portly man with a mean snarl.  He can be a bit hot headed, but Fingers assures you he has no love for his former masters and will likely be a loyal - if ornery - companion.

Handsome Jack is missing his noise, and has a prominent brand on his face marking him as a heretic.  When asked about his heresy, he says only that he "stood up to a noble."  It is unlikely that he was handsome before his punishment.

Darbus and Dunbar are twins, and they would be identical if their faces were not both hideously scarred in completely different ways.  Darbus has a scar running across his left eye and his chin has a cleft from an old sword wound.  Dunbar's nose seems to have been broken several times, and his ears are both swollen and cauliflowered.  Or perhaps it is the other way around...

*The Dark Country has seen some really rough times lately, with the White Lady's awful pig-men destroying most of the farmland around Lychgate, a peasant revolt in the south, and a looming invasion by Arnawald, the Black Eagle of Waldheim.

**Hommlet, which lay near Lychgate, was destroyed a few weeks ago by pig-men.

In Fair Narbona Where We Lay Our Scene

As Chris mentioned over at the Hill Cantons, he, Mike D., and I have started working on a medieval RPG - with quite a bit of help from the nice folks over on G+.  As he mentions in that post, I'm going to be running a playtest game set in the Languedoc.  Below is the map I made for the region between Toulouse and Montpelier.

Click to Embiggen

I'm currently working on a map that will blow up the 24 mile hex containing Narbonne to serve as the main focus of the playtest mini-campaign.  PCs will be starting in the city of Narbonne (Narbona in Occitan) in the year in 1191.  I plan on doing a full write up like Chris did for his Ulfland game, but for right now here are the hooks I'll be using for my first playtest session:

The Archbishop of Narbonne, Ramon Berengar, is upset by the news that his cousin, who held a manor between Narbonne and Perpignan, has died.  Word on the street is that his cousin was struck down by the Almighty Himself - or at least one of His saints - but Raimon is convinced that he was murdered by heretics.  He seeks honest men to investigate the matter.

A man claiming to be the bastard son of Raimond I Trencavel has seized east of Carcassonne and has begun raiding merchants traveling between that city and the coast.  He has captured the daughter of Roger Trencavel, the current ruler of Carcassonne, and holding her ransome for what he believes to be his inheritance.  Ermengarde, the ruler of Narbonne and faithful friend to Roger, has offered a manor and a large purse for any who can return the maiden.

Baldwin, the lord of Ferrals, has sent an emissary to recruit armed men in Narbonne.  Apparently there has been some trouble with the serfs at his manor.

So far, the players seem to be leaning towards rescuing the princess - an old cliche that I've never actually used before now.

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Now for a general update - I recently moved back to Hattiesburg, and I've started running the Dark Country again on G+.  I'm using WFRP 1e, so my sidebar is still correct.  I'm really liking the way WFRP makes me think about certain aspects of the setting, such as careers, and I may do some posts about that in the future.

Two New Uz Monsters

I've missed Monster Monday for two weeks in a row, so to make up for that, here are two monsters that make Uz a horrible place to live:

Corpse Worms
No. Appearing: 1d6
Armor Class: 14
Hit Dice: 1
Movement: 90’
Attacks: 1 (proboscis)
Morale: 8
Alignment: Neutral

Corpse worms are awful scavengers found in the various caves, ruins, and undercities of the Future-Past.  They appear as worms roughly six feet in length and three inches in width.  The face of a corpse worm is a hard, blunted point ringed with fleshy holes.  Their skin is slimy and incredibly tough, and it is possible that they are a synthetic creation of the Reptoids.

Corpse worms attack by thrusting their face into their opponent’s belly, eyes, or other soft regions like a sickening harpoon.  After a successful hit, a corpse worm deals automatic damage every round thereafter until the worm has slain its victim.  Thereafter, it will stay in the victim’s body digesting its internal organs.  They will only leave the body when finished - which takes several days - or if disturbed in some way.

Grabbing a corpse worm with one’s hands is ill advised.  They secrete a strong acid from their skin that will do one die of damage to anyone with bare hands.  If some sort of gauntlet or armor is worn, it will dissolve in 1d6 rounds, dealing 1 point of damage to the wearer once the process is completed.

Glassy Things
No. Appearing: 1d4
Armor Class: 16
Hit Dice: 4
Movement: 90’
Attacks: 1 (claw, bite or mucous)
Morale: 9
Alignment: Neutral
 
Glassy things haunt the upper levels of the Uz undercity.  It is believed to be a martian predator, and it is possible that these creatures swarm the martian tunnels deep below the city of Uz.  They are large, six-legged creatures whose body is made of a warbly, transparent substance.  The glassy thing’s body is almost in the shape of an onion, while its legs are long and tapered.  Its head is little more than a blunt snout ending in a open maw ringed with glistening, transparent teeth.  Its eyes, while small, are adept at seeing in the dark and pick up a spectrum utterly alien to man.

On either side of the glassy thing’s body are sacks filled with a horrible mucous.  It can propel jets of this mucous up to 120’.  This mucous contains a toxin that forces those hit by it to make a saving throw or be paralyzed for 2d6 turns.  This is the way by which glassy things hunt their prey.

Making Europe into Europa

I've been trying to write this post ever since I first came up with a Fistful of Denars.  You see, I have a problem.  I often desire to run a historical campaign, but I worry over issues of accuracy so much that I never get one off the ground.  This is partially a function of the very thing that makes me want to run the setting in the first place: history is what I have my degree in and, God willing, what I will soon have an advanced degree in.  This gives me a crippling desire to get things right, because I'm "supposed to know that stuff."

So I need something to make me think of the setting in a different way - something like Jeff's Wessex.  He distanced his setting from real world England by using a fictitious map with the names changed.  I kept trying to figure out how to do the same, but the only headway I ever made was by changing the Auvergne to Averoigne, but that comes with certain tonal implications and also the added baggage of trying to represent one of CAS's settings faithfully.

I hit a brick wall, but last night I remembered this:

click to embiggen

That is a map of what would have been the Known World to the Greeks and Romans. Note that Asia is at the top and Jerusalem is roughly in the center as in a Mappa Mundi.  This map contains the parts of the world I'm likely to run a campaign in (Western Europe and the Mediterranean) but is still fantastic enough that I can distance myself from worries about accuracy.

Here is a list of historical games I could see myself running at some point:

Rome c. 150 - 100 BCE

PCs are ex-soldiers or otherwise homeless people who seek to make their fortune in the Eternal City.

Rome c. 400 CE

PCs are a comitatus of Germanic raiders, Roman mercenaries, or whatever else they want to be trampling the Roman Empire under their sandaled feet.

Britain c. 450

PCs are the leaders in a Briton community facing an invasion by some slightly inhuman Anglo-Saxons, weird forest gods, and other British groups.

Ireland c. 850

PCs as Viking settlers in Ireland.  I actually ran this one session or two in college, but the group ended up not being able to meet due to schedule stuff.

Southern France c. 1050

This is a Cthulhu Dark Ages idea I've been kicking around.  PCs work for the bishop of a cathedral town investigating reports of miracles, monsters, and banditry.

Byzantium c. 1050

PCs as mercenaries - Latin, Viking, or otherwise - in Constantinople or a fictitious Byzantine city.  Become emperor or get blinded trying!

Southern France c. 1221

See the above link to the Fistful of Denars Post.

England c. 1215

Can you say "Robin Hood?"  This one is a bit more half-formed than some of the others, but it'd be pretty awesome to run a game about medieval outlaws.

The Holy Roman Empire c. 1390

Robbers, cut-throats, and adventurers in post-plague Germany.  Think Darklands but with maybe a tinsy-winsy bit more fantasy elements.

Looking at that list, I see that I'll need to clean up Northern Europe a bit to make room for Scandinavia so that those vikings can come from somewhere.  The general rule will be that if you're in Western or Northern Europe or the Mediterranean it'd look more or less the same but with monsters and magicians.  The further afield you go, the more it gets like something John Mandeville would write about.

I'd set up each of these campaigns in the following way:

1) History before the start date of the campaign went more or less as it did in the real world - excluding those areas that are cut off on the map.

2) The PCs' actions will constitute the basis of a new, alternate history.

3) Later campaigns set after the events of one that's already been played will make references to events in that campaign.  So if you make your guy Roman Emperor, he'll show up on a list of emperors you find in the HRE game and you'll probably find coins with his face on him.

4) All of them will have way more monsters and dungeons on them than historical Europe did (i.e. they will have some).  This one probably goes without saying, but my wife was quite worried there would be no dungeons when I pitched this to her.  She loves dungeons.

One final note: I'm not getting rid of the Dark Country or anything.  This was more of mental exercise to see how I would run a setting where Romans were Romans and Vikings were Vikings without being filled with crippling doubt.

Lean Times in Middenheim

Yesterday's session got off to a bit of a slow start because I was expecting a few more players to show up than actually did,* but here are the highlights from once it got started.

• The party was composed entirely of people who hadn't played in the Middenheim session, so they decided to take a job from local underworld bigwig Johann Stallart.  He wanted someone to make sure someone working for a rival gang had a little "accident."  They thought they could deal with this quickly and then move on to another one of the hooks I'd thrown out.
• They were correct! They headed down to the Last Drop, where they found their mark.  One of the PCs got in a fight with him, but left as soon as he'd scored a good hit.  The other PCs stepped in to "break it up" and to calm their mark down.  Once they had gotten him good and drunk the took him to a nearby alley where the party's acrobat - a woman named Artemis - picked him up and attempted to take him to the roof.  Realizing he was about to slip, she just tried to direct him so that he fell on his head.  This he dead, perishing instantly.
• That night, there was a riot in Ulricsmund when Sigmarite protesters stood outside the temple of Ulric and demanded that the current Ar-Ulric step down.  The Graf's men opened fire on these men, and several were killed.  The party cowered in their flophouse.
• The next day, one of the party members went to the Drowned Rat to collect their reward.  They got 5 crowns for their trouble, but they were soon to spend it...
• Because two of the party members who had entered the Alchemist's murder-basement in the previous session had come down with a terrible disease.  The physician's student in the party, Wolfram Ambrose Hesselius von Karnstein, was able to determine - with a roll of a natural 01 - that the disease was the legendary Nurglish Rot!  There was no hope of a cure, and so the party purchased a large amount of monkshood to turn into a poison to give them a more dignified death.**
• After that the party debated what to do next.  At first they were terrified of returning to the murder-basement, but after determining what had given the other PCs had gotten it from the bed sheet they used as a rope in the previous session, the were less anxious.
• They did head to the alchemist's house in order to gain entry into his basement.  Artemis distracted the guards outside with a lovely dance, and the other PCs slipped inside.  After this was done, Artemis finished her dance, went around to the back of the house, climbed onto the roof, and entered through a balcony as the party had done in the last session.
• Once in the basement, the party began following the path of the previous group in the last session.  They made sure to destroy all the remaining pickled heads that they believed were connected to the headless bodies that had previously been encountered inside.
• They also explored a lot of new sections, encountered some large dogs that had had their own heads removed and replaced with the heads of women.  These had also had their teeth smashed out and replaced with dogs teeth.  They avoided them without any fighting.
• They found a room that gave off a strange smell that was a mixture of fire and rot.  Not the the smell of a rotten corpse burning, but rather a strange smell that was both and neither at the same time.  Whatever was inside cast out light, and they decided not to look in.
• Finally the found a room with tables designed to fit female bodies.  Each table had strange gemstones set into it, which the party duly plucked out to sell later.  Under these gemstones was a strange pane of glass that had below it something that glowed the color of radiation in a cartoon.  They took this as a sign that they should cut their losses and sell the goods they'd picked up.

It had its starts and stops, but on the whole I think it went well.  There were a few moments where we had to look up something, but I still find WFRP's system fairly intuitive.

*Undoubtedly, this is a karmic reward from the fact that I had missed two sessions I had said I would be in last week.

**I'm not entirely happy with the way that played out.  Originally, one of the infected PCs was scheduled to be in the session, but he had technical problems and couldn't join us on G+.  I had forgotten to account for Fate Points, which I believe can save you, and I'll need to discuss the matter with the parties involved.  However, it's likely that after my move, I'll be using WFRP to run the Dark Country.  This would mean I wouldn't have to worry about it.