(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 48

Power Behind the Throne

• Wilhelm [Wizard] – I 65
• Gottlieb [Assassin] – I 63
• Larry [Mercenary] – I 58
• Brother Nate [Cleric] – I54
• Wilfried [Forger] – I 53
• Othmar [Spy] – I 46

It is Festag, the last hoorah of the Middenheim Carnival. Tomorrow the new taxes come due…

The day begins with festivals and pageantry, water polo at the Square of Marshals, and the snotball finals at Bernabau Stadium (the Eastenders won the cup – betting was even odds).

At the pageants, the children’s parade is running late because of the changes in flute player and the general confusion of getting a few hundred children dressed in costumes and ready to parade through the city. Quite a number of people have prepared handpies and sweets and apples to give to parading children along the route, and some travel alongside handing out these treats to the children as they walk along the route.

Among them is Markolf Ritschel, the ironmonger who’s wife (Leopoldine) has been having a long-term affair with Herr Lieberung. Their maid approaches Othmar indicating that Markolf will be busy with his “D&D group” all evening and it would be a perfect time to see Leopoldine. Curious as to why Markolf’s “D&D group” event seems to involve handing out sweet treats to the children, the group follows the parade along, watching as a number of the children seem to start acting drugged or mildly poisoned. Near the end of the route, just around nine at night (when Frau Kenner is supposed to be buying her drugs from Bruno), the piper slips off into a side alley and nearly fifty of the children wander off with him… into a warehouse.

A warehouse full of revelers in strange half-naked costumes.

It seems that Markolf Ritschel’s D&D group is a cult of Slaanesh. And leading the cult is none other than Gotthard von Wittgenstein!

Suddenly the note to “Nikki” in Gotthard’s home clicked – the previous leader of this cult was none other than the wife of the Graf, Anika-Elise Nikse, daughter of the Baron von Nordland!

Before any further harm can come to the children (and hopefully giving them enough time to catch up with Frau Kenner), Gottlieb jumps down from a second-floor warehouse window on to Gotthard and combat with the cult begins.

Fortunately this cult is mostly comprised of rich decadents instead of wizards and mutants (although there are a couple of wizards in the mix, casting fireballs and zones of silence). Among the cultists are not only Herr Ritschel but also Gudrun Weber, Chancellor Sparsam’s personal secretary!

The largest (but least powerful) of the wizards was quickly cut down, but the melee among the children is a messy affair, trying to reach the cultists before they could escape through an iron hatch into the sewers. In the end only three cultists escaped through the hatch, and since one of them seemed to be their most potent caster, no one volunteered to chase them down through the sewers.

Instead a few members of the watch were dragged out here by Larry as the rest of the group made a mad run across town to the Palace in order to intercept Brunhilde Klaglich in her guise as Frau Kenner. Rapidly disguising himself as the now deceased Gudrun Weber, Othmar helps Sparsam keep his cool as he buys his supply of “tonic” from Frau Kenner. The group then shadows her back through town to an abandoned home in the slums between Sudgarten and Ostwald around 11:30 at night.

A cart is in front of the building, loaded up with some furniture and carpets – giving the appearance that whoever is within the building is planning on leaving soon.

Othmar takes up a position on the cart, watching the revelers on the last night of Carnival to make sure none are secretly watching the building. Meanwhile, the rest of the group enters into the building and directly down into the basement which seems much more lived in than the burned out shell above.

In the tight confines of the basement, they find themselves fighting Klaglich as well as a number of her henchmen, including a wizard!

Fireballs explode, some serious fighting is undertaken, and Brunhilde Klaglich surrenders (but only after drinking a potion which seems to render her nearly instantly drunk).