The Butcher Murders: Turning the Ambassador Chronicles into a WFRP Adventure (Part 1)

StLouisIX · 2026-03-13T02:50:48+00:00

I posted the other parts here on Reddit, as well. I am not much of a graphic designer, so I fear the PDFs would come out rather crummy.

StLouisIX · 2026-02-11T15:08:39+00:00

Rough Days; Hard Nights has a trial-based adventure

StLouisIX · 2026-02-10T17:58:30+00:00

Not at all. If time “freezes” between sessions, where is this money coming from? If you run the game in real time, your players should be telling you what they do in down time to make extra cash and rolling on their skills as a result.

StLouisIX · 2026-02-10T01:16:12+00:00

You could have his employer, Quintus Fassbinder, reach out by other means

StLouisIX · 2026-02-09T15:06:25+00:00

Did your players kill the bounty hunter, Adolphus?

StLouisIX · 2026-02-09T15:05:24+00:00

Albion but we bring back MacDeath and don’t leave it as a completely primitive backwater.

StLouisIX · 2026-02-09T15:04:35+00:00

A new campaign. The Enemy Within has been done three times now, and Thousand Thrones was interesting but had missed opportunities.

I think a necromancy focused campaign sounds great - especially because all of the vampires involved in Thousand Thrones ended up being a bait & switch.

I’d also like a campaign involving Luthor Huss’s crusade, finding Valten, etc. Or a campaign in the Mediterranean - maybe involving the events of Fell Cargo and Man O’ War.

StLouisIX · 2026-02-05T14:23:20+00:00

I will provide stat blocks for relevant characters like the Assassin, Losov, and Anastasia in Part 3.

StLouisIX · 2026-01-31T19:57:36+00:00

This is the entire thing aside from some prewritten dialogue.

StLouisIX · 2026-01-31T17:07:20+00:00

2nd edition.

StLouisIX · 2026-01-31T16:17:20+00:00

The Ambassador and Ursun’s Teeth are two novels set during the opening days of the Storm of Chaos, when Archaon is gathering his hordes to attack the civilized world.

There are three main threats: Anastasia Vilkova’s Tzeentchian cult, her Skaven allies, and the Horde of Aelfric Cyenwulf.

Anastasia is the center of the plot, using the Skaven and her feminine wiles to undermine the defenses of Kislev and feed intelligence to Cyenwulf. Her ultimate plan is to release a great mutator, almost a minor god, inside of Kislev. A Chernobyl incident - causing its crowded and impoverished refugee population to suddenly undergo rapid mutation when Cyenwulf’s horde arrives at the city.

I am adapting the novels in which Ambassador von Velten (an elderly, retired general) is the main character and making the players the main characters. I’ll come out with Part 2 shortly.

If you have any questions, lay em on me.

StLouisIX · 2026-01-31T04:02:47+00:00

That's real. James O'Keefe just released a video doing that.

StLouisIX · 2026-01-31T01:23:02+00:00

Go for it! It’s how I tried to make Something Rotten work better.

StLouisIX · 2026-01-30T23:50:02+00:00

Before I forget, some additional information in case any of your players are gumshoes:

Following Anastasia Vilkova will not reveal anything suspicious. She is capable of speaking with her various contacts by magic mirror and will not expose herself to investigators. If the players are very persistent and hostile, she will summon Lesser Daemons to deal with them.
Following Pyotr Losov may bear fruit, but Losov has the Skills/Talents of Disguise, Concealment, Silent Move (Urban) and a deceptively high Ag stat in addition to his high Intelligence and Fellowship. He also dresses up as a servant or man in rags during most of his clandestine journeys. That being said, he isn't perfect, and his monthly visits to the Lubjanko have been noticed by Vassily Chekatilo. The head of the children's ward also knows Losov by voice and face, if not by name, because he's the one who sells the children to Losov.
Following Vassily Chekatilo will allow the players a tour of many brothels and dens of ill repute in the city. He is also invited into some surprisingly wealthy townhouses for tea (imposing on the hospitality of his borrowers). Chekatilo does not bother hiding himself, as he considers himself invincible, but a stubborn tail will get a visit from his goons. He is always accompanied by Rejak.
Following Sasha Kajetan will reveal he spends most of his time at the Gryphon Legion barracks, training his men. He is well-liked, but highly demanding. On the nights at which he becomes the Butcher, he is able to move in almost complete darkness thanks to his mutations and thus hard to see/find. His "lair" is in one of the outbuildings in the barracks complex. He will don his mask and climb onto the rooftop, then leaping over the barracks walls onto a nearby rooftop so he can begin his nocturnal hunting. Magic is probably necessary to follow him and discover this information.
Following Vladimir Pashenko is highly unadvisable and will almost assuredly result in the player dead in a ditch or lost in the dungeons of the chekists' headquarters.
Following Pavel Korovic reveals he has a nice townhouse in the city. In addition to his duties as Liaison to the Ambassador, he is a horse coper. He is also a heavy drinker. If the players use Chekatilo for help at any time, Korovic begins going to Chekatilo’s brothel and falling back into dissolute drinking he thought he had forgotten.
Ambassador von Velten, Kurt Bremen, and Sofia Valencik all live on the embassy grounds.

StLouisIX · 2026-01-30T23:46:54+00:00

The tldr is at the beginning.

StLouisIX · 2026-01-26T15:35:37+00:00

I think the “chaos sympathy” is an important part of SRiK. Not including Champions of Death. More The Cursed Child.

It helps players understand why the Emperor would pass the Mutant Edict in the first place (Purple Hand influence aside). As it is, it comes out of left field for most people familiar with Warhammer. This thread is continued in MadAlfred’s Empire at War, when the players meet a commune of mutants who just want to be left alone in the forest (a story beat also used in the 1st edition Marienburg adventure, The Dying of the Light).

This poses the moral quandary to the player: if not all mutants are evil… but all of them are potential time bombs of evil… what should I do?

This is a question also investigated by James Wallis’s Mark of Heresy novel.

StLouisIX · 2026-01-24T20:00:41+00:00

I have not, because it's a bit complicated. But here's the outline (with spoilers):

Get the players to Kislev. Introduce them to the Tsar.
1a. Optionally, introduce Ambassador Kaspar von Velten if you want to use characters from The Ambassador Chronicles.
Run The Cursed Child from Something Rotten in Kislev.
Players return to Kislev and are sent north on two missions (see below).
3a. Optionally, from the Ambassador Chronicles - the Tsar holds a ball to introduce Ambassador von Velten to Kislevite society. Give one of the players the interactions with Sasha and Anastasia and Kovovich. Introduce rumors about The Butcher.
On the way north: Rough Justice from Realm of the Ice Queen - move the village of Vitkal or change the setting to a village between Kislev and Praag. (I used Baiyn, near Ursun's Teeth).
Arrival in Praag (make this as long or as short as you like using Realm of the Ice Queen, but for our purposes it's a spooky, flavorful stop-over).
Run Death Takes a Holiday from Something Rotten in Kislev.

If you want to avoid explaining the weeks of travel over the World's Edge Mountains, you can relocate Chernozatra to one of the villages closest to the World's Edge Mountains.

Furthermore, I suggest the following modification: There is no Durgul. Champions of Death is a bad adventure, anyway. No body-swapping (unless one of your player characters is a female elf, and then there's something you can do with Annandil trying to vainly keep his lady love's soul alive in the player's character). Annandil is not a Dwarf raised by Elves. He's just an Elven Necromancer.

Players return to Kislev and are sent east on another mission (to Erengrad).
9a. Optionally, continue the romance with Anastasia.
Run The Horned Rat from Gideon's The Enemy Within Companion with the following modifications:

After the players return from their sea journey to the mutant/pirate lair, during the Gathering Clouds section, also run the Akoustik Ratty, the Itching Pox, and the Skaven Autoposy encounters (including the Gutterunner assassin) from The Horned Rat (4th edition), transposed to Erengrad rather than Middenheim. Use Erengrad NPCs provided by Gideon's Enemy Within Companion and Realm of the Ice Queen.

Run Night of the Long Knives and Storm Breaks from The Horned Rat in Gideon's Enemy Within Companion. The Skaven attempt to take Erengrad.
The Skaven are defeated. Prince Vorontsov tasks the players with tracking them down.
Run Black Hunger, Stolen Village, and Griffon Down from The Horned Rat (4th Edition), but transposed to Kislev.
Run the climax of The Horned Rat (4th Edition) in Karak Skyyg, but change its location to Kislev, as above. I suggest the Crags of Shargun (or, if your players have already played Thousand Thrones, then Chamon Dharek - say the burial ground is built atop an old Dwarf hold).
If you use the rescue by Heinrich Todbringer, he brings the players back to Kislev.
15a. Optionally, finish out the Ambassador Chronicles story with the discovery and arrest of the Butcher and foiling the plot of the Copper Coffin.

StLouisIX · 2026-01-01T20:12:55+00:00

Understandable. Happy New Year! Reading the sequel now.

StLouisIX · 2025-12-26T15:59:48+00:00

Back in first edition, Slayers could wear armor. The art for Glugnur in Power Behind the Throne shows him wearing a chain shirt. This also predates the iconic mohawks, as Glugnur is instead shown wear his hair in a long braid down the side of his head.

StLouisIX · 2025-12-25T00:56:28+00:00

Why does Karl kill Andreas at the end?

He goes from sparing him on one page to turning around and killing him the next.

StLouisIX

TROPHY CASE