Warhammer adventure help

[caden_varn]

First of all, on the off-chance any of you read this forum, Dave, Sarah, Steve, Jim, Dan - read no further lest ye attract the notice of the lords of Chaos!

I am starting out a Warhammer 2nd ed game in a week or so, and could use some suggestions for fleshing out the adventure I am writing, as I am old and my brain does not work very well any more.

It will start with the characters all imprisoned somewhere in the Empire (the group will know this before character generation, and will have the choice to choose careers rather than roll for them), and put to work clearing blockages in the sewers (these will be at least part a natural cave system beneath the city). The main thrust of the adventure will be a clash with a chaos cult that has a base deeper down in the caves.

The first part will be a few days of encounters in the sewers when they are all chained together as a work gang, with evenings in a communal jail cell when they can interact with other work gangs, trading scavenged finds etc.

Then a large group of mutants attack. They want to capture the group to sacrifice/convert later. The group will probably be captured, in which case they will led deep into the caves, completely lost, and stuck in a stockade. There is lots of trash here that the group can use to break out of their chains and arm themselves with at least crude weaponry, break out and try to find their way out when most of the cult are away. En route thay stumble across a witch-hunter who recruits them to lead him to & help deal with the resst of the mutants (properly equipped).
If they don't get captured, the story gets back to the witchhunter who recruits them from the jail.

I am mostly after ideas for encounters in the first part (non-combat mostly), and things they can do in the evening - gossip (true or false) from the other slaves or jailors, what sort of useful stuff they might scavenge in their job, like rusty spearheads etc. that they could use to make crude weapons or lockpicks for example).

The only non-combat encounter I have thought of so far is a sighting of the rat-headed humanoids in the distance (actually human thieves using crude rat masks to discourage people from approaching). I'd like some other encounters, especially if they give a few clues.

Any thoughts on issues/improvements in the adventure outline would also be appreciated.

[Incorrect]

The group will probably be captured,
At this point the group will likely either fight to the death believing that they can win, or run away.
Unless you have some fool proof way of capturing them, dont spend a lot of time preparing the captured sequence.


Encounters:
A sewer hermit, hungry but with info. A potential ally if you can give him some of the lovely cheese he insanely keeps singing about.

Another group has gotten into a fight over a small silver locket they found. One of them is dead, another is panicking.

A kitten has got itself lost in the sewer. Its very cute, but also delicious.

Sewer gas has build up in an area. Our heroes start hallucinating.


Loot:
Rusty pipes
Rusty tools from earlier workers
A big skull, probably from an alligator.
A dagger, no thats just a wierd poop
A map showing some of the existing sewer, maybe an old plan for expansion.
Crude rat mask. Hinting at the thieves. Maybe this functions as a gas mask?


Good luck, remember to come back and tell the story

[comicshorse]

Re: being captured. Incorrect makes a good point. Have the mutants/ cultist armed with clubs and all have the Strike To Stun skill ( capturing people is their job and they've been trained in it).
Knocking out people in Warhammer is less efficient than just killing them but if the mutants outnumber the PCs sufficiently they should win anyway but they'll probably lose a couple of men. Which is probably a good thing as it means the P.C.s will rightly feel they went down fighting rather than they were just cut scene'd on to the next encounter

LOOT : Skaven love sewers but starting P.C.s aren't ready for them. Still a subtle sign they've been there just to get the P.C.'s paranoid : a shattered glass globe, strange runes carved into the tunnel walls at junctions. a dagger too small for any but the smallest man or child to use

[caden_varn]

The plan on the capture was strike to stun/grapple if they stand and fight, but mostly to try to drive them ahead to a group with a heavy net. The PCs will only have improvised weapons and are chained together, so they have disadvantages.

Buuut I am thinking whether they will find that fun. I might have a smaller group attack, that they have a chance against. They'll kill the NPC jailer first from surprise, then try to take the group as above. If it fails, they retreat taking their dead with them, leaving the other jailors thinking the group murdered him.

Thanks both for your replies - it has given me something to think about!

[hamlet]

Instead of having them captured, have their task master be corrupted quietly behind the scenes and, one day on their way into the sewer for just another day's nasty labor, the task master sells them off to the cultists for a profit and possible conversion or whatever. It dispenses with the "must be captured" melodrama which I've always hated in RPG's and lets you cut scene the thing if you need to, but also gives the PC's the chance to put up a fight if they feel the need to and be over powered more rationally. It also leads the way to further adventure as the PC's will want to track the traitorous bastard down and take revenge and probably stumble upon the extent of the cultists' infiltration into the power structure of the city.

[caden_varn]

Instead of having them captured, have their task master be corrupted quietly behind the scenes and, one day on their way into the sewer for just another day's nasty labor, the task master sells them off to the cultists for a profit and possible conversion or whatever. It dispenses with the "must be captured" melodrama which I've always hated in RPG's and lets you cut scene the thing if you need to, but also gives the PC's the chance to put up a fight if they feel the need to and be over powered more rationally. It also leads the way to further adventure as the PC's will want to track the traitorous bastard down and take revenge and probably stumble upon the extent of the cultists' infiltration into the power structure of the city.

Now that's an interesting thought.... Yes, I might go with that. Also gives them a bit more of a lead for the next part.