(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.)

Session 38

Power Behind the Throne

• Wilhelm [Wizard] – I 55
• Wilfried [Forger] – I 53
• Larry [Mercenary] – I 48
• Gottlieb [Assassin] – I 43
• Othmar [Spy] – I 46
• Brother Nate [Cleric] – I44

Marktag, Day 3 of Carnival

The day begins with Larry defending his title against the dwarven giant slayer who seems to be intent on outdoing him at every turn. Yesterday he was kicked out of the Minotaur fights… completely blood covered and carrying the head of his opponent. Today he wants to take the title of Graf’s Champion and challenged to a battle with two handed axes. Larry counter-requested sword and shield. The guardsman in charge decided quarterstaffs were the appropriate and potentially less lethal choice. The dwarf also appeared to be quite… high.

Larry knocked the blue-haired drug-addled ball of gristle and hate unconscious. He threatened to return the next day to challenge with a basket of berries instead of bloody sticks.

A short stop at the Festival of Fine Ales was followed by an encounter with Rallane and a man in a robe being chased by a gang of angry dwarves en route to the Garden Party.

The group managed to slow down the dwarves long enough to help Rallane and his companion get away – unharmed except for splattered fruit over their clothes. Turns out the man in the robes is the Graf’s Chancellor, Josef Sparsam.

Sparsam thanks the group and heads to his apartments in the palace, and demands that Larry come with him to get properly dressed to stand in as the Champion for the first time.

Sparsam goes to his apartments, but arriving at the palace Larry finds himself spirited away by the Military Commanders – Watch Commander Ulrich Schutzmann, General Johann Schwermutt, and Martial Maximillian von Genscher. While they claim to be uninvolved in the actual politics of the city, they are concerned that the defenses of the city are being compromised. They also caution Larry to not let the position get to his head as no one needs another prat like Knight Eternal Siegfried Prunkvoll – a puffed up noble who struts around spouting military history and being nothing more than a drain on the city coffers and everyone’s intelligence.

The rest of the group hung out with Sparsam as he got changed for the party. He admitted that while he’s in charge of finalizing any laws and implementation, the three new taxes were not his idea and to be frank, he would have tried to have them repealed once the hostile response started coming in from the wizards and dwarves… but he could not… because Frau Kenner demanded that he continue to back the taxes or she would cut him off from his precious drug supply.

Sobbing and obviously broken by his dependency, he gives up his greatest secret… He’s been addicted to a “simple tonic” (a white inhaled powder) for about ten months, and his only supply is one Frau Kenner that he managed to find through the antiquing community. He sees her once a week here in the palace as she’s been granted a pass into the inner palace every Festag night.

He describes Frau Kenner as 30, 5’5” with long blonde hair.

He also indicated that the taxes originated with the three Law Lords (although in confidence he knows that Law Lord Karl-Heinz Wasmeier was firmly against the taxes, but the Law Lords always present a united front when they present materials to the court), and were then supported by many of the Graf’s confidants.

While the group had the chancellor’s attention (and while he was changing), Wilfried pocketed all of the Chancellor’s correspondence in order to learn how to forge his writing as well as that of those of import who have been corresponding with him.

It was a bit of a shock to recognize the handwriting on a letter from the City Commission of Trade and Taxation… It appears that Gotthard Goebbels, chairman of the council as well as head of the Merchant’s Guild is actually Gotthard von Wittgenstein. The last loose thread of the Wittgensteins.