Week 1: Welcome to Mordheim
Ruben 'Silky' Steiner combed his distinguished beard. It required constant attention to keep it in a condition that would pass an Averland captain's standards but also impress the ladies. There were no ladies to be found here however. That much was clear from smell of the ruins at the gate. His men were alert, fanned out along the road. Their bright uniforms were in stark contrast to the devastation around them. This city had truly been forsaken by Sigmar.
Dirty Dirk, the Bergjaeger, spotted figures in the distance coming towards them. He signaled to Steiner. From the shuffle of these figures, it was clear that the Bailiffs of Streissen were going to have a hostile welcome to the city of the damned.
Your warband has arrived at the gates of Mordheim. However upon entering the city you run into another warband also trying to make their way. Challenge an opponent to one of the Gates of Mordheim on the online map and play the Street Fight on page 88 of the Mordheim Living Rulebook or page 12 of the campaign pack.
Should you play more than once in week 1, use the scenario table on page 8 of the campaign pack and continue to explore the map. After each battle you are also free to unwind by watching or even taking part in the Pit Fights.
The carnival tents appeared over night on the road towards the South Gate of Mordheim. Inside the city there was already whispers of arrivals from Black Pit Settlement dwindling to almost zero and the ones that did show up did so looking for the local apothecary in a panic.
ReplyDeleteOne such woman, Lor’ Von Pelt, laid sick and presumably dying in a bed there now. She arrived in the middle of the night, crawling in from the South Gate and onto the doorstep of the doctors office.
She drooled black and giggled to herself as the doctor examined her. He stopped at her left hand, noticing that the ring finger was missing. Cleanly ripped from its knuckle; there instead of a wound was a festering black mess.
As the doctor leaned closer in to examine the wound the smell hit him hard and he reeled back, heat in his guts rising into his mouth.
“Good lord...”
The woman’s head twisted unnaturally towards him and she screamed in pain as if the action was not her own. Her mouth slowly twisting into a smile to silence the noise as her eyes went dim.
“He’ll come for me! I’m his now. Forever!” Lor laughed as her body stiffened again in the bed.
The doctor, with his back against the window of the room, was about to ask Lor what she was talking about but then he heard the creaking of the South Gates iron opening. Then he heard the tapping of a cane against the cobblestone streets followed by whistling. The sound of that whistle turned the doctors guts again and he felt the bile rise for a second time. He was also compelled to turn and look out onto the street, and did so to see a very tall and very thin man standing there. A hood covered his face but the moonlight gleamed off a huge toothy smile that the doctor could see clearly from the second story window.
The hooded face and smile turned up towards him and slowly opened. “I’ve come to retrieve my bride, good Doctor! A job well done, I believe she is now and forever will be..in perfect health!”
The figure began to laugh and that laugh made the doctor feel sick again. This time the vomit did come and he leaned into the corner of the room where there was a chamber pot. His sick hit the pot with a wet pack sound as if it was hitting something not made of the metal of the pot and when the doctor leaned back to look it was in horror.
He stumbled back, eyes fixed on the chamber pot as two small hands came up over the lip. Then a small horned head rose over the edge of the pot to show two little, red, glowing eyes and a mouth of sharp, violent teeth. The thing giggled and let out a tongue as long as it’s whole head and proceeded to clean the sick from his body, eyes never leaving the doctor.
As the doctor went to rise from the floor and flee a heavy hand pushed onto his shoulder to hold him down. The hand was missing its ring finger and the doctors gaze followed it up to a bloated and deformed body. A face behind oily, wet hair let a smile cross its lips. Black dripping from the corner of its mouth.
As the Circus Master and his Bride reunited in the street more figures came from the shadows. Two large disfigured forms carrying weights and hammers flanked the master, nodding the the Bride as a jester tumbles in from behind the gate and perched along its fence. Three figures of human shape and from kept a wide berth from the rest of the troupe as they went along the buildings of the south street, posting forms on each that read of the circus coming to town.
“Good people of Mordheim!” Shouted the Master down the street. “We’ve come to relieve you of your sad and tortured lives! We bring gifts of joy and entertainment!” The troupe began down the street into the city as the Master went on. “And most importantly we bring the gifts of Papa Noig—“
The Master was interrupted by the sounds of groans and dragging feet from ahead on the street. Undead things coming into view ahead, blocking their advance. Being a servant of renewed life and the gifts of growth the master spat in disgust at the sight of these things and drew his bow.