[GRIM TALES] Warhammer 'Chronicles of the Witch Hunter'

This calls for foresight. The time shall come when the enemies of Chaos shall relax their guard. Looking out from their fortresses, they shall pay no heed to the shadow within. Then shall the Great Mutator cause the warped moon to awaken, and the beloved of the Mõrrishlich shall clear his throat and spit upon the lands of the Empire. And where his spittle doth land, there shall the weak fear, but the possessor of the spittle shall wield great power.​

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- ancient Prophecy of the Ruinous Powers



Rogue's Gallery is here

Talking the TALK is here

///Prologue Hidden Balcony above the Knights Panther Training grounds, one month ago////

Two men are looking down at the practice field, watching the new recruits practice and go through the motions of training.

“Yer sure about this Hammer? This lot of scum is not worth the time if you ask me, let the hangman take care of them and be done with it. I have other Knights who would better serve you.” Martial von Kreuzzug says to silent stranger standing next to him.

Turning his head toward the Knight, the man’s locks his steel-gray eyes onto the Panther Knight, inviting only death in their depth. Finally he replies “Yes I am quite sure. Get them trained as best as you can in the time you have. I will return in a month if all goes well and we will set out in due haste”

“Why wait a month? We can send them or others in today if you ask me, waiting to fight the ruinous powers is never a good idea” Martial von Kreuzzug says with a scowl.

Looking back at the field, the man referred to as Hammer is silent for a moment and then answers “You are a soldier von Kreuzzug. You understand only attack. There is a time and a place for fighting, but I am not yet ready. I need more information to confirm my suspicions and plan out the best course of action. Besides, those that I pursue have been working on their plans for years, a few more weeks will give them no extra advantage.”

Martial von Kreuzzug shrugs his shoulders “As you wish, Master Witch-Hunter”

///Second Prologue, Private chambers in the back of the Temple of Sigmar, Middenheim, one week ago////

'This year, on the night of the ill-omened Hexenstag, Mõrrishlich did shire with a greene and unnatural lighte and its shape was as if it bore a grinning countenance of most hurryble appearance. The heavens were filled with a greate numbere of shooting stars and some of these did seem to fall upon the earth, which groaned under their assault. Again, during the night of Gebeimnistag, Mõrrishlich was dominant in the sky, and the firmaments was criss-crossed with a tracery of shooting and falling stars. Being forewarned by the earlier events of Hexenstag, I was able to tracke the course of a particularly large shooting star, which did seem to issue from Mõrrishlich itself. According to my calculations, the star must have fallen to earth in the uplands of Grey Oaks, near a place named the Barren Hills.

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Witch-Hunter Schmiedehammer slammed the tomb cover closed with a curse
Damn all wizards to the pit… did that fool Dagmar seek out this 'meteor'? It could only be warp-stone, and it would confirm part of my worst fears. Well then, only one thing to do…

Grimmor raised his axe again.They had wanted him to fight with a sword -- a sword -- but he and the others in the group had proved so uninterested and underskilled in swordplay their weapons had been returned to them. The dwarf was just grateful to get Gnasher back. After all, the point was to kill those vile servants of chaos in the most effective way possible wasn't it? The prisoner with the tulwar who looked like a right fop was skilled with his weapon, and earned the dwarf's grudging respect. They had skirmished several times and the fellow had whacked him all over with the flat of his blade, while Grimmor had managed a few good blows on the human's head with his cloth-covered axe.

The dwarf was just happy to be out of the prison, and hopefully having the chance to meet his doom on a battlefield rather than at a hangman's noose. He didn't care for all that mohawked Trollslayer stuff, but he wanted to go down fighting, with the business end of his axe in the head of an opponent preferably.

Johannes von Tritheim - Smart 4th

Johannes cursed under his breath and mopped the sweat off his face. All his muscles were aching sorely, but it could have been worse if he weren't accustomed to exercise daily. In any case the most intolerable about this situation was the humilation. He Johannes von Tritheim, a respected professor of the Imperial Academy, one of the most brilliant minds of the empire, was toiling like a vulgar legionnaire under the insults of a stinking moron! Unthinkable! Furthermore all of this had happened because of the stupidity of a superstitious chambermaid with less brains than a duck. Incredible... yet the nightmare had come true.

Johannes stopped for a moment, looking briefly at a dwarf by his side, who seemingly was taking pleasure in the absurd activity of repeatidly hitting around with a axe. Johannes prefered not to think about his precious tomes confiscated by the authorities, about his position and respectability forever lost, about all his life gone to nothing just for the inane slanders of... of... Aaaargh!!

The former university professor regained his strength, imagining an imbecile chambermaid in the wooden doll in front of him. And there again he hacked, and hacked, and hacked, under the satisfied look of the sergeant instructor. One day... Yes one day, thought Johannes, launching a devastating attack that would certainly hack to ribbons not only his former domestic, but all of the idiotic judges who had listened to her as well!

Gunther stretched his sore back muscles. Glancing around the training ground, he nodded in appreciation at the mock combat between the dwarf and the exotic man from the South. If I am to be stuck in this, it is good to know we have some solid warriors along.

Lifting his longsword high, he brought it smashing down into the training dummy before him. It feels good to be swinging a blade again, he admitted to himself. All those boring months of caravan duty were dulling my mind and body.

/// Third Prologue, Last Night, somewhere with the Empire///

Alone within the once fine banquette hall, the silent lady sat in the one clean place within the room, the end of a once grand table. Dirty dishes, plates, dinning ware, soiled cloths and clothing, and garbage were in piles around the rest of the room. Strange markings and symbols had been painted onto the walls and carved into portraits still hanging from them. Most of the chairs were smashed or damaged in some way, except the one in which the lady, still untouched and unsoiled.

The lady’s face and arms were buried under thick layers of white powder, hiding the open sores and marks of the Changer that had begun appearing there some twenty years ago. Oh she had hid them for so long now, that it was an automatic response – a part of her daily routine.

Sipping her cold soup now and again the lady hummed to herself some toneless rhyme of old. Her servant stood behind her, picked scabs off of one of his arms and popping them into his mouth too crew on them idly. His neck was far too long for any normal humans –at least two feet to long in fact – and his huge eyes – like those an of owl’s almost – no longer had any eyelids and glowed with a slight pinkish coloring.

Suddenly the door opposite where the lady sat smashed open, as if a powerful wind had slammed into, for no one was there to have pushed it open – until the Chaos Warrior strolled in. His ancient full-plate armor – with green and red ruinous runes glowing slightly – made no sound as the Warrior walked. The thorns, spikes and barbs that pierced the armor may at first have looked like they were a part of it, but closer inspection showed they actually grew from the Warrior’s own body. A daemon-blade, black as night and with cursed symbols etched into it, hung at his side and seemed to sing some lullaby that only hellspawn babies might enjoy.

Behind the Chaos Warrior stood huge Minotaur-Beastman. He had to walk at a crouch much of the time and was not look happy about it. The thing stopped at the door and hissed a bit, sniffing the air like a dog, it licked it lips and grunted. In it hands was a mighty cleaver-like axe that was rushed red with the blood of those that had stood against it.

The Chaos Warrior strode up to the woman and spoke in a voice that seemed both faraway, yet was shouted into one’s ears at the same time “Well Madame, what say you on my proposal? I do not understand your reluctances to join my cause. My master does not like to be keep waiting, and I like it even less.”

The Lady finally looked up from her soup bowl, looking into the mad eyes of the Chaos Warrior without fear “My dear Ulfhednar, I am still considering your – offer. When I have made the decision you will be the first to know. The – time – is not yet here.”

For a moment the Warrior shook with barely contained rage, but then finally he calmed and spoke again “Humph, very well. I will wait, but my patients is not everlasting. Remember that I am not to be toyed with. The North is moving, the signs are right, the time is soon. War is coming to the Empire, blood will flow and the great Changer will rule this land. You can be a part of this new world, or you can be crushed beneath it.”

With that the Chaos Warrior, Ulfhednar the Destroyer, turns on his heels and marched out of the banquette room, the Minotaur-Beastmen following on his heels. Its' tongue still tasting the air, rich with the dust Chaos…

///Today, May 12th, in the 2504 year of the Empire, Middenheim///

How did it all come to this? It has been a month sense your ‘volunteered’ to become members of the Order of the Knights Panther and in that time you have been in training all day long and then expected to help out in the kitchens and cleaning late into the nights and in the early mornings.

Your retinue was set, wake before dawn, go to the kitchens, help the fowl mouthed cook prepare for the morning meal of the other Knights, eat a quick breakfast yourself of gruel and hard bread, go to the training fields, train all day, eat a lunch of black bread and some soup, return to the kitchens to help clean and wash the pots and pans used that day, eat whatever leftovers from the eves dinner, return to your champers, sleep, wake up, repeat…

But today something new to the day… oh sure you had to wake up before the chickens and put up with that drunk Heinrich the cook as normal, but then instead of being marched to the training fields you were taken back to your rooms and told to clean up “Ye’ll be a meetin’ someone special today”

After an hour you where brought to this side audience chamber where Martial von Kreuzzug and another man were sitting at a large table, looking at a map of the Empire stretched out upon it. The second man you have never seen before, but as soon as he glances at you with his steely-gray dead eyes, you know he is someone dangerous.

Martial von Kreuzzug orders you all to take seats around the table, and then says “This is the Lord’s High Witch-Hunter, Sir Maximillion Dieter Schmiedehammer. You have been assigned to assisting him in a most perilous of missions. I expect that each and every one of you will willingly give up their lives to make sure that Herr Hammer succeeds in this endeavor, and that you will follow his orders to the letter no matter what”

Scowling he looks at you all, the Witch-Hunter Schmiedehammer says “Well then, if ye dogs are the lot I am stuck with, then ye will have to do. I was looking for at least ten men, but I got you, so ye will be doing the work of two men each.”

"You may refer to me as either Sir, m'Lord or Witch-Hunter Hammer if you please"

Pointing down at the map, Hammer moves a finger from the city of Middenheim out into the northwestern part of the Empire “This is Dark Ward Forest, in the Duchy of Middenland. The southwester part of this land is called the County of Grey Oak, and bandits, outlaw mutants, Orcish raiders and witches have always plagued it. Those few folk that live there do so for they have nowhere else to go; some fleeing the law, others to poor or stupid to know any different. Lawful men rarely travel there without a large armed escort”

Looking at each of you individually he says “That is where we will be heading, and why you have been assigned to me. I had hoped for a squad of Imperial Cavalry (eleven men) but – circumstances – have made those forces unavailable.”

“We will be leaving in the morning. I suggest ye all get some sleep. Stores will be collected from the Provost Marshal in the morning, one week of Trail Rations for yerselves and the horses ye will be assigned. Armor and weapons will also be issued, there will be a list posted of available equipment there also.”

Sir Hammer then stands “I am afraid there will be little time for questions from ye. Just know that we are hunting down the enemies of the Empire and that through me, ye will be doing the Emperor's bidding.” Without any further ado, he marches out of the chamber.

Martial von Kreuzzug stares at his back, hate dripping in those eyes, and then returns his glare looks the party “Well at least I will be freed of your lot. Get out of my office and return to your rooms. If you survive this… well maybe you really do have what it takes to be a Knights Panther but I don't think I have much to worry about.”




(occ Assuming that you have nothing special you wish to do, for those who have not yet, please describe yourselves. NOTE even if you don't have your character all figured out that's ok. I am not expecting much yet. I am still a day or two before we REALLY start the game but I wanted to give you all some ideas You have been living and training together for a month, so its not an introduction. Maybe some personality trait that the others have learned in that time. Nothing else will really happen until the next morning when you meet up with the Witch-Hunter in the morning. OH and while it looks like an NPC is in charge, don’t worry I have it worked out /occ)

(OPS One more thing - about posting, rolling, etc.

If your character is speaking, please put it in “Quotes” (if you want to use other colors sure), Thoughts in Italic

If your character is doing something your Actions should be in *Asterisks*

You roll all your own rolls – attack, damage, skill, saving throws, etc (unless you ask me to OR there is some secret roll I will make them). Post the roll, modifier and total at the bottom of your post. If you wish to spend an Action Dice include that there.

So for example…

*William charges and attacks the Orc with his longsword*

[OCC – Attacking the Orc, Charging +2 to attack -2 to Defense. Attack roll is 4 +6 +2 =12, I spend an Action Dice for +3 more, total of 15. If I hit, Damage is 1d8+4 =7. I am using my Dodge against this Orc /OCC]

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or

*William will try and Bluff the barman to give him the location*

[OCC – Bluff roll 12 +8 =20 /OCC]

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OCC questions and comments should be marked and put in (Parenthesis) for questions and comments, [Brackets] for rolls, action results, etc.

Any questions? post them over in Talking-the-talk…/OCC)

Grimmor is a stout dwarf, who wields a shiny Great Axe he calls Gnasher. He isn't too particular about his dressing, and his right eye is just a thin slit. Battle scars are all over his body, and his breath stinks of alcohol and tobacco. Ill-mannered, rude, distrustful and foul-mouthed, he's not one to mince his words.

"Orcs to slay? Well lets get right to it Max," he says to the Witch-hunter eagerly. He returns to his room and starts to pack.

Johannes von Tritheim - Smart 4th

Johannes is a healthy, yet rather common human, with a thin moustache and blond hair. He tends to look slightly awkward in military garb, and you can tell from his face that he isn't happy to be there.

Johannes nods at the witch-hunter's orders "I will do as you asks Witch-Hunter Hammer..." pursuing deep in himself "It's absolutely out of question that I call you Sir or m'Lord!". Then, Johannes wonders about his spellbook, thinking it could help him survive the grisly future ahead. And he MUST survive it, for the chambermaid will have to pay for what she did...