Big, loud, brutish, and extremely violent, Ogres are driven by the need to fill their prodigious, muscled bellies. They lack the wit or intelligence to do this cleverly, defaulting to might is right in most situations. Hailing from lands far to the east, Ogres are a common sight in the Old World for they love to wander, always on the hunt for new meats over the horizon. As they pass through on decades-long food excursions, they work hard to integrate, wearing local clothing and following the local customs they understand, as that’s more likely to attract the next meal.

– WFRP 4th Edition Rulebook, p. 312

Continuing recaps of our long drawn-out Enemy Within campaign. Game summaries and narrative interludes in black text; behind-the-GM-screen commentary and context in the green boxes.

These game summaries reference a variety of published rpg products, including official WFRP scenarios, supplements, and guides. Links provided at the bottom.

Link to Session 2 – “Making the Rounds”

Before heading out for the morning beat, the Crew is met at the Red Moon Inn by Rudi and Sergeant Lief Mair, a Watch investigator. An apprentice carpenter was murdered and left dis-armed outside the Crooked Hammer last night. Franz isn’t happy that the party is working for “Klumpencunt,” but as long as they keep him out of his bar, he’s okay.

The PC’s head over to the Hammer, with Rudi, to continue the investigation. This apprentice, name of Klauson, was murdered at the dock, had his arm ripped off, and then was dragged into the alleyway behind the bar. No sign of the arm as of yet.

The bartender Gert, who is a friend to the party after the events of the previous night, tells them that Klauson had a gambling problem, but he hadn’t been here in a while. When he did surface, he was brandishing a lot of Bretonnian silver.

This was not the Crosses. Not their style, and, like Gert said, Klauson hadn’t been in there recently enough to incur any serious debts. On Godabert’s suggestion, Gert puts “a little something” into Rudi’s breakfast brew allowing the party time to do their own shit. Rudi tells them to report back on the morning’s rounds later, at The Raspy Raven.

The Crew heads over to the Carpenter’s Guild to interview the guildmaster Ernst Zimmerman. The conscripted constables lay on the charm and Ernst is quite forthcoming.

Admits that Klauson was working on a special project, and if the plans (designed by Zimmerman) could be recovered, he would be extremely grateful. His employment contact (Sturgill) and apprentice (Klauson) have both been killed, so he’s naturally concerned. The party tells him they want to protect him, but he needs to be open and honest. Josef Schuptmann, who is a masterful carver and perhaps the most talented member of the guild, is currently appraising wood for reclamation in Morganseite. Wood is harder and harder to come by in Ubersreik (as much of the supply is being burned to offset the coal shortage), so they’re taking work (and wood) where and when they can get it.

At this point in our campaign, the “save Lena” plot was still on the front-burner. I took advantage of the PC’s status as members of the watch to intertwine elements of Ubersreik’s criminal underworld with clues regarding the search for Lena and allow for a juicy, albeit convoluted, investigation.

The Sturgill/Klauson/Zimmerman leads were meant to connect to the whereabouts of Lena. The Schuptmann bit was more of a red herring, but it helped reinforce the point that Ubersreik was in the midst of a crisis.

The party reconvenes at The Red Moon before heading out to the Dawihafen. In the taproom, they are taunted by a quartet of foppish nobles. Two gentlemen, a Conrad von Bruner and his cousin Engelbrecht Brandt are trying to impress their compatriots Erasmus and Seidel.

Conrad is an invented member of the infamous von Bruner family, and I even worked out a family tree that would be developed over the next few months, tying in characters from “Lord of Ubersreik” while sowing seeds for the third-edition “An Eye for an Eye” (the scenario we attempted during that ill-fated 3° foray). Engelbrecht is an invented minor noble. This early in the campaign, I knew I needed some connections to Ubersreik nobility, particular as they might relate to the foiled assassination of the Karstadt-Stampf girl, but didn’t have enough in the toolbox to flesh them out.

Our heroes respond to the needling with their signature charm and offer a round of beer.

At this point in the campaign it is already clear that this group will always react — either with charm or violence — to harassment. But ignoring instigators and walking away from a confrontation is just not going to happen.

During a particularly rousing exchange of exploits and adventures, the party christen themselves “The World Class Wrecking Crew,” and offer honorary membership to the thoroughly impressed Conrad and Engelbrecht. The charm is never in short supply with these four. All Conrad and Engel need to do is steal a book from the library of Christophe the Wizard. Erasmus and Seidel are less impressed by the party, but they do enjoy the free drinks.

For several months of sessions (perhaps all of the in-person sessions prior to pandemic-forced virtual tabletop games), the four heroes gleefully announced themselves to clients, antagonists, and really anyone who would listen, by loudly alternating “WORLD,” “CLASS,” “WRECKING,” “CREW!” Except that final word, whenever offered by the Godabert player, inexplicably replaced the exclamation point with a question mark. Regardless, great enthusiasm.

The Crew then heads back to the Axe & Hammer to see about those bombs they commissioned. At the dwarven bar they meet an engineer who speaks for Grodni: 2GC now, 3GC upon delivery, for two devices designed to level the Red Moon Inn.

Additionally, the party party will be called upon to perform a service in the future involving some goings-on in the Khazalgirt (the Dawihafen under-city).

They are advised to acquire a time-keeper candle from the Chandler’s Guild to regulate the delayed explosion of the bombs.

Karl, posing as a brandy merchant, heads to the Boatsman’s Guild, led inside by his “operations manager,” the ever-able landsman, Kris Krowe. Once again, charm paves the way to intel and favors.

The duo learns that there just might be a “special” boat that needs to head upriver, just outside of town, under cover of night, to take out some cargo and take on some smuggle-friendly brandy. The brandy is all theirs if they help build the final retrofits and sail it out to the rendezvous… pending agreement from the financier of this operation (who is unnamed).

This mysterious “employer” will end up being Christophe, and all of this subterfuge will end up relating to the Lena plot. I was still thinking the Lena player would join us at some point, but, if not, I had the makings of an incredible cast of support NPCs.

Regrouping with God and Beau, the Crew tasks their hired urchin Dimzad with leading them to Klauson’s hovel.

Fun note: when a teenage-me GM’d first-edition WFRP in the 80’s, my buddy Matt played a dwarf named Dimzad Narbe. The rulebook had suggestions for dwarven names and Matt, whether intentionally or accidentally, turned “Dizmad” into “Dimzad.” Hence the inspiration for this little shoeless NPC. I’m still looking for an opportunity to revive Adam’s trollslayer, “Havoc Wolfaxe.”

The Crew enters Klauson’s run-down little room in a tenement building in the Rookery district, only to discover that another group has beaten them there. Two halfling gangsters are ransacking the apartment while being guarded by a large, menacing ogre named Gore Cattlebelly.

A spirited fight ensues, and through a daring combination of surprise and well-struck blows, Gore is murdered almost instantly. One of the halflings, a member of the Lowhaven gang ironically named Johnnycake Springstep, meets his maker after falling out the second-story window.

This is when we all discovered how punishing falling damage can be in fourth-editon WFRP.

The other halfling is restrained and, after discovering a false bottom in a desk drawer belonging to the late carpenter apprentice, some important clues are discovered: plans for retrofitting a river barge, along with some intricate custom-made hinges.

While Kris and Beau stand over the putrid, leaking carcass of the ogre, marveling at the speed in which they dispatched the menacing mercenary, Karl and Godabert restrain the surviving halfling, who is growling, thrashing, and spitting. 

They work on dragging the struggling prisoner back to the open window, as he snarls: “You stupid fucks! You stupid rotten manling fucks! You don’t know who you’re dealing with! Do you have any idea…” 

Meanwhile Kris works on sawing off the ogre’s head, and Beau starts untying the massive cudgel from its left hand.

Karl and God shove the halfling’s miniature body out the window to show him what has become of his compatriot just in time to see numerous shadowed denizens of the Rookery swarm away from the now naked corpse. “Johnnycake… no.”

The sobering sight of his cousin smashed on the cobblestones below, coupled with Kris’s impressive restraining knot, moves the interrogation through rage, anxiety, and into supplication.

“Fucking ogres! Can’t resist chowing down on every Phineas-damned scrap of meat in front of their flabby fucking faces! This is bad… this looks bad… hey, friends…”

The halfling is Tun Lowhaven, a low-ranking cousin in the notorious Lowhaven clan. He claims not to know anything about the nature of the plans that they were sent here to steal (and you believe him), only that they needed to be brought back to Mercy Lowhaven that night. 

I remind the Karl player: you have some ties to the Lowhavens of Auerswald. You once gathered information on local noble Ferdinand von Wallenstein at the behest of Aloysius the Butcher, who paid you handsomely for the intel, if memory serves.

Those plans, and Tun’s safe return (along with the body of Johnnycake; “We’ll all say it was an accident”), are worth a LOT of money from Mercy. Surely we can work something out, right…?

The party is an hour late making the rounds on their Teubrucke night beat, but they’ve got a bit of a situation to deal with here first. Good thing they’re an able and charming crew of quick-thinkers.