(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 50

Something Rotten in Kislev & Fimir! A Brief Encounter

• Wilhelm [Wizard] – I 65
• Gottlieb [Assassin] – I 63
• Larry [Mercenary] – I 58
• Othmar [Spy] – I 56
• Brother Nate [Cleric] – I54
• Wilfried [Forger] – I 53

In the aftermath of dismantling two different chaos cults in a single day and saving the Graf (as well as uncovering the affair between the Ar-Ulric and the Graf’s paramour… and that the Graf’s beloved wife was a chaos cultist prior to her untimely death), the party is obviously too knowledgeable about local politics and power plays to be allowed to remain in Middenheim.

Thus the Graf and his advisors have come upon a quite clever plan to both reward the party for their help, and get rid of them. They are one and all knighted into the order of Templars of the Knights Panther – even Brother Nathander who already serves Morr.

The Knights Panther serve three masters. They are an order of templars dedicated to both Ulric and Sigmar, but above all they serve the Graf of Middenheim. The higher ranked members of the order (including the party who were knighted into the order) are unlanded nobles who serve as cavalry units, while the lesser members of the order serve as the Graf’s personal men-at-arms and mercenaries – guarding the Graf and those close to him as well as handling lesser duties required by the Graf around the Palace and the city.

A week of quiet meditation (and healing) is required before the new templars are presented before the order, the Graf, and both Ulric and Sigmar to be knighted. The order also offers the new knights horses and basic equipment (albeit of excellent manufacture).

Being knighted after the Carnival means that there are few in attendance beyond the Midden Marshals and the Graf’s entourage – at the ceremony they are knighted and presented with a heavy gold medallion indicating that they are now members of the templar order of the Knights Panther.

And of course, the first order of business is to fulfill some treaty obligations that the Graf has. It seems that the Tsar of Kislev is demanding that the Graf send military aid forthwith – and in the opinion of Joseph Sparsam, a unit of Knights Panther will fulfill these obligations quite nicely.

Arrangements are made (and promptly ignored) for them to travel by road the 250 or so miles to Talabheim, and there to take a boat some 550 miles upriver along the Talabec and the Urskoy to Kislev itself – the capital of the lands of the same name. They are provided with papers indicating that they are on a diplomatic mission for the Graf that will both serve as letters of introduction to the Tsar as well as prevent any problems with road and river wardens (as well as any taxes and tolls along the way within the Empire at least). The trip, if following this itinerary, will take 3 to 4 weeks.

But also, if they could wrap up a few loose ends… two of the Jade Scepter cultists escaped from the warehouse (and probably know that Anika-Elise Nikse was both the Graf’s wife and a member of the cult) and need to be hunted down. Also the Graf is quite put out that his paramour, the Lady Emmanuelle Schlagen, has disappeared from the city. The cultists are believed to have escaped to the west – heading towards Marienburg perhaps. Emmanuelle appears to have headed south or east – perhaps towards Altdorf or Nuln.

Travelling with their new war wagon as well as a full complement of horses, they attempt to follow the last sorcerer of the Jade Scepter and his wife – Lamprecht & Talunda Kaltenback. Talunda is a skilled huntress and knows her way through the Drakwald around Middenheim – but her husband Lamprecht is not. Unfortunately for her, her fame as a local huntress makes her fairly easy to track as the couple travel through small towns to acquire the goods they need to make the trip to Marienburg. Word from a few locals who have hunted with her before is that she has stores and friends who can assist her in the small swamp village of Kammendum in the Schaumfluss.

As they leave the main road to follow the track to Kammendun, the battle wagon bogs down in the swampy dirt road. While trying to pull it free, a heavy fog settles over the area – descending to incredible thickness and reducing visibility to a mere yard or two.

And the fimir step out of the fog, surrounding the wagon. A dozen at least – massive cyclopean creatures with bronze weaponry and green skin.

Two fimir approach and commence to speak in a hissing Reikspiel. They are seeking to missing members of their clan and ask if the humansssss have sssseen a smoothtailed Fimir in their travels. They then suggest that perhaps the human village nearby would know where the missing fimir are, and if they don’t at least there will be a good snack for the fimir for their troubles.

Then they slide back into the mist. Monstrous pre-human creatures larger than Golthog, the mercenary ogre.

Leaving the mercenaries with the battle wagon, the rest of the group made haste to Kammendum both to hopefully find their prey as well as to warn the village of the approaching fimir.

In the village there is little help except for a few who recognize the huntress Talunda and who say she is close with Johann Sumpfer, a hunter and miner who keeps tabs on the local mines. But he isn’t in the village at the moment – he took his boat out a few days ago. Maybe to meet the Kaltenbacks at one of the mines he uses as hunting camps?

It seems that a dwarven clan set up a few mines in the region a few decades ago to extract bog iron more efficiently than the local humans do. But the mines were quickly exhausted, and the cost per mine barely covered the revenue, so they were abandoned. Johann Sumpfer worked these mines back in the day and is the villager most knowledgeable about them today.

Once word slips that there is an irritable war party of fimir approaching, there is a general panic and the entire population of the town loads into their boats and heads to the middle of the lake where they hope the fimir cannot get to them. While in the lake they come across Sumpfer’s boat… with a horribly injured Sumpfer laying in a puddle of blood and water in the bottom!

Discovering that they lack any first aid skills without Emmanuelle (who parted ways with the group when they were given the Kislev assignment), all they were able to get out of Johannes is that he was attacked by a one-eyed monster in the mine due north of town across the lake.