(Being a series of quick game notes trying to account for the events of many sessions of playing through The Enemy Within using the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1e rules – this session has the party off the main storyline and playing through “The Missing Children of Regensdorf” from Warpstone magazine.)

Session 3

The Children of Regensdorf

• Talbberry Grumble [Scribe]
• Larry [Bawd]
• Othmar [Bunko Artist]
• Wilfried [Bawd]
• Gottlieb [Hunter]
• Oscar Jager [Bodyguard]

The sun tries to shine on Regensdorf, but is once again stymied by cloudy skies and drizzling rain. In the night it seems that Clothilda Lankdorf has run off once again to find brave adventurers to rescue her missing child – along the way she met Gottlieb who was following the party having been unsuccessful in finding horses in the woods after the mutant ambush.

Everyone gathers in the common room of the Wayfarer’s Rest Tavern & Stables where they receive word that Baron Ennum von Regensdorf will send a coach to pick them up an hour past sunset tonight so they can meet for dinner.

With a lunch of pickled eggs and hard cheese packed by the lovely Emmanuelle, the group heads towards the church of Taal and into the woods, seeking the murderous goblins. Along the way they are met by Sieger, a farmer, who was cutting weeds and wild growth down around the temple. While he hasn’t seen any goblins, he does believe that something more dangerous has been watching Regensdorf from the forest – not bogeymen or wolves. But he also confides that he believes the bogeymen were summoned here to punish the villagers of Regensdorf for a past wrongdoing.

In the woods proper, it is only a few hours before the party finds what appears to be a two-week old goblin trail. Following the trail they come to an old woodsman’s hut that has been recently broken into and used as as a base of operations by the goblins for up to a week. But something more recent and more troubling was found here also – a pile of bones, recently gnawed upon, that definitely belonged to a human child. The bones were left here no more than four days ago – coinciding with the time of the disappearance of young herr Lankdorf. Also found in the cabin was a double handful of blood-soaked straw, now dry.

The trail continued for a few more hours into the woods until it intersected a game trail made by a local wolf pack. Ignoring this side trail, the group continued following the goblin trail until they realized they were being stalked by the wolves. Suddenly panicked, they aimed through the woods straight back towards town (following Gottlieb’s directions). Their noisy run through the forest (still stalked by the wolves) ran them straight into a local druid – a man by the name of Gronwyn with his pet cat. He claimed to be visiting this part of the forest because the aura of the village has been disturbing him, and the newly arrived goblins’ wanton destruction has upset him as well as the local wolf pack who are hungry and desperate because the goblins chase off their prey. The party makes a deal with him to distract the wolves while they proceed to where he believes the goblins were last.

Following his directions, they found a clearing with a very recently slain deer. The deer had been beaten to death and torn apart, but not butchered. And it is on the goblin path once again.

The path finally lead to the goblins themselves where the group successfully snuck up on and surprised the little blighters… Six goblins were sitting on logs sharpening their weapons, another two were asleep by some barrels of ale, and the last two (the leader and the shaman) were arguing over a child’s shoe. So the party attacked from ambush…

Only to discover that goblins are foul little monsters who fight nearly as well as the better fighters in the group, and immensely better than the weaker members. Two of the party (Gottlieb and Oscar) and are taken out of the fight entirely by the ferocious goblin shaman after he enveloped much of the battlefield in dark green mists. In the end two of the goblins escaped (one missing a forearm) along with the shaman, leaving the rest of their kin bleeding out in the mud as the sun begins to set over the forest.

[This battle was everything I love about low level Warhammer play. The tides shifted quickly, but the battle continued on for over a dozen rounds… people were chasing their wounded foes through the woods to keep them from escaping, far more attacks missed than hit, making each round more terrifying as they watched key members get taken down… They won in the end, but it was a massive clusterfuck the whole way through.]

As the party looked around the small valley and checked out their downed companions, the game ended as they each earn 40 XP.