The Steward of Grauwerk Manor A winter tale of gothic tragedy, love lost, treachery, fey forests and vampires. Rob Harper ~ valvorik on message boards All relevant trademarks and copyrights are used without permission and in no way intended to You can contact me at: [email protected] challenge their ownership by Fantasy Flight Games and Games Workshop. Inspired by an entry about Graf Steirlich von Bruner in Lure of Power, page 14, and a story in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay © Games Tales of the Old World collection, "The Hanging Workshop Limited 1986, 2005. This edition © Tree", various "cabin in the woods isolation" Games Workshop Limited 2009. Games tropes and, of course, period piece Hammer Workshop, Warhammer, Warhammer Fantasy Horror films! Roleplay, the foregoing marks’ respective logos and all associated marks, logos, places, names, This is a completely unofficial, fan-written creatures, races and race adventure for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay insignia/devices/logos/symbols, vehicles, 3rd Edition. locations, weapons, units and unit insignia, characters, products and illustrations from the Warhammer World and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay game setting are either ®, TM and/or © Games Workshop Ltd 1986-2009, variably registered in the UK and other countries around the world. This edition published under license to Fantasy Flight Publishing Inc. Fantasy Flight Games and the FFG logo are trademarks of Fantasy Flight Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved to their respective owners. 1 Character Rank Scenario Expectations This adventure is for PC's with 30-40 advances. For groups under 30 advances, I suggest The adventure must take place in late Fall or removing a rank of training from some key NPC early Winter. skills and removing the "Potent" ability - this is a One Player Character has a special role which is homebrew modifier I use for advanced NPC's, best built up in advance. This PC's background based on the modifiers for some official creatures. Also review carefully threats posed drives much of the adventure and ensures it is not just “hack and slash”. This PC is a human by the Tree, Malfi and the Green Ghost/Sylvana. who does not know their true parents. Perhaps Sources they were raised an orphan or in foster care. They know or find out prior to the adventure This adventure uses cards from several that they were left as a foundling by Strigany. publications beyond the core set (sources noted This PC is referred to as “the PC Heir”. through its text). In particular, It is the PC Heir is 18 years old, with an Two creature group cards from the adventure year of 2521, having been born in Creature Guide/Vault are important to 2503. This can be adjusted for a different age representing key antagonist abilities. with attention the dates in the Graf’s personal Reference is made to the herb and Disease history. Dates are referred to as x many years Rules (GM Hardback and Signs of ago, just adjust the actual years referenced. Faith/Liber Infectus) and an item card from Signs of Faith used. If you do not have such a PC, then a PC without a strong family backstory (e.g., you do no Vampires are modified from core rules based on violence to their established character with this WFRP 2nd Edition concepts. Nights Dark discovery) learns that their supposed parents Masters is the source of these ideas, though were actually foster parents – this can be they are reflected in other 2nd edition materials worked into the Prelude Scene if desired. and Warhammer novels. Among other PCs, a wood elf, jade magister or priest of Taal/Rhya will use their connection The background uses the Scion of Nagash with nature. It broadens the focus if such PCs nd concept from the Thousand Thrones 2 edition are not also the PC Heir. A Bright Wizard will WFRP adventure (available as pdf from online find their magic hampered, but in the end will stores). If that is not available it does not create be well-rewarded with lots of chances to burn a problem. If it has been or will be played, the things! A Priest of Morr or Amethyst Wizard adventure makes use of ideas from it and can will find undead-fighting talents useful. Magical be tied in, but it is not critical. Free fan-written sight will be quite useful at some points and the expansions provide some more information: adventure less rich without it. http://www.liberfanatica.net/TTT.html Notes at the end of the adventure and some boxed text addresses dropping the PC Heir. 2 How the Plot Unfolds: Malfi, a Strigoi vampire appears, drawn into the trap set for it long ago by the PC Heir’s The adventure tone is Gothic and Tragic, the appearance. “monsters” and “threats” emerging from past crimes and failures. It is designed to be built up Events conspire to make the Tree of Bones to and is a “situation” for a GM to manage more “seal off the valley” to keep its larder full, than a linear plot. isolating PC’s with their odd host, his fanatically loyal servants and surrounding threats. The adventure takes place when the PC Heir decides to visit their father, Graf Steirlich von To add to gothic flavour, a Green Ghost is Bruner. This can be to claim their birthright, to influencing weak-minded inhabitants of the accuse him of abandoning their mother or if a valley to go into the woods, where they perish push is needed a patron such as Lord von before fulfilling its request. The Graf has a Aschaffenberg or the von Bruner family wants a string of dead women in his past but this one is message delivered. They can go openly or keep the original, undead, one: the transfixed Lahmia their kinship secret. vampire Sylvana seeks to free herself. Some mistake her tormented psychic projection for a Heroes then travel to an isolated manor in ghost or the influence of predatory fey. haunted hills to see a reclusive, mysterious noble. They are encouraged to expect a PC’s may face additional peril due to Graf vampire by the time they arrive. They have that Steirlich’s desire to keep his heir’s existence expectation dispelled and find instead a peculiar secret from vampire spies. ally in a life and death struggle of a different foe When the Graf learns child has found him, he and sort of problem (fey gone wild). will do anything to protect his child – even Then that vampire expectation is fulfilled after arrange the deaths of any or all of his own all – but this not your “so glad you could come servants who learn the truth and any of his to dinner” vampire, this is a nightmarish child’s comrades who seems the least bit monster which has been lured into a trap set untrustworthy (apparent divisions among long before. heroes can prove deadly). Along the way they discover pointless sacrifices, If the Graf needs to kill everyone in the valley so lives ruined by vampire conspiracies, mysterious that only his heir survives, he will do so – poison green spirits, and hopeless situations in which or sending them to their doom in the woods, honourable death is the best outcome available. whatever it takes. Specifically, a crisis is developing when PCs No PC Heir Option: enter the Grauwerk Valley. The corrupted fey If the adventure is played without a PC Heir, the Tree of Bones is growing more dangerous as Graf's threat is different. When the Graf learns his season changes – its appetite sending forest son is dead (see details of this option below), he spirits to find it blood. Animal life is becoming becomes despondent and abandons all in the valley to their fate. Bringing him out of this funk is critical rare as the spirits even get the birds and then to surviving the crisis and should be reflected in squirrels and humans are next on the menu. a progress track where the tragic deaths of loyal servants provide some automatic advances. 3 The adventure is scripted in sequential scenes Setting The Stage Before the covering the journey to Grauwerk and arrival at Adventure Grauwerk manor. Before the adventure, the chosen PC learns, all After that, Player choices drive the sequence of at once or over time that they are an orphan, events, with the GM upping the tension by left with kindly folk by Strigany. Their mother throwing additional scenes at them whenever was a Strigany woman who died in childbirth “play needs a shot in the arm” or Player choices after being abandoned by the mysterious Graf naturally trigger that scene. Steirlich von Bruner. Steirlich is now steward of Two Episodes are given for particular events a remote von Bruner holding in the Hagercrybs that will arise in any event – either Players drive (Reikwald). towards them or the GM throws the hooks for The PC is thus half-noble (though a bastard them at the PC’s. without a claim unless their father recognizes The adventure is intended to allow invoking a them) and half-Strigany for their mother was of number of scenes of pathos, terror and tragedy. that wandering, persecuted and distrusted folk Depending on how play progresses not all of How this information is revealed should be these may come to pass but most should: tailored to your campaign - a revelation from what turns out to have been a foster parent or a The Horrifying Tree of Bones, its victims and letter delivered out of the past. minions. The forest's last pure spirits and their doom The "Prelude Scene - The Kindly Fortune Teller to fall to corruption or fade if the Tree of and Good Luck Charm", should be played Bones is destroyed.