Misery's Company Part 2:

 

Misery's Company Part 1: Session Zero

Happy Warhammer day! To mark the 40th Anniversary of the game, I'll be starting a brand new solo campaign using the 1983 first edition rules of Warhammer "The Mass Combat Role-Playing Game."

I'll be posting a log of my game here, as well as some behind the scenes rules talk as I go along. What makes this campaign unique is that it is going to be running in "real time." That is, for every day that passes in the real world, so too will a day will pass in the game world. But that's not all–imagine for a second its the Autumn of 1983 and after saving a pretty 5 pounds 95 pence, you've ventured out to your local Games Workshop to buy their newest release. Shuffling into the store, you see for the first time in the world, the game that would one day spawn a veritable entertainment empire. All of that of course, is still a far ways away. Because all you were getting in 1983 was a little white box containing three paper bound rules booklets.

While the lid was excellently decorated with an evocative piece by John Blanche, this humble cardboard box represented the totality of the Warhammer experience. A far cry from the mountains of rulebooks, magazines and novels that you can find today–to say nothing of the dedicated Warhammer miniatures, which I believe had yet to be produced.

Hands shaking with excitement, you slide the money across the counter and run home as fast as you can. Spilling the contents of the box onto the ground, you pore through the rules and try to make sense of 122 pages of material–all the while your imagination racing with dreams of fantastic battles and hard fought victories.

I wanted to paint this picture because this is precisely how I'll be approaching this game. For the real world/campaign world calendar has a third aspect to it. For as time passes and the days of marked off of these calendars, so too will time pass for our hypothetical 1983 war gamer. For despite starting with the absolute basics, as time passes I will be incorporating new rules as they were released in various supplements, zines and ultimately entirely new editions. I reserve the right to pick and choose, but for the most part we'll be running things "Rules as Written," so that we can explore the game and watch it evolve into what it is today.

To spare my sanity, I won't exactly be keeping three separate calendars running at the same time. The game will be starting on October 14th, in the 83rd year of the "Novean era." You can probably see where I'm going with this. Hopefully this makes it easier for the reader to visualize the timeline.

There's a ton more I have to say, but I can get into the nitty gritty of things in a later post. I'm starting things out a bit haphazardly, as the original idea was to do a similar concept but for Original Dungeons and Dragons to coincide with the game's 50th anniversary early next year. While researching that, I discovered that, lo and behold, Warhammer's 40th anniversary was this year. The problem being that I found this out when three days before Games Workshop would be celebrating Warhammer's 40th anniversary*. In any case, I thought it would interesting to pair the upcoming D&D campaign with a separate Warhammer one, so I've put my D&D reading to the side for the moment and have begun reading the original release of Warhammer fantasy battles. I'm still learning the rules, so I'll be starting small and figuring things out as I go. 

Later I'll talk a little bit about the campaign's setting. What's cool is that Warhammer actually began with rules that were "setting agnostic." The real angle was getting you to buy a mountain of Citadel miniatures and field them in mass combat. Instead of buying a couple elves and dwarves, now you were on the hook for entire armies of little leaden warriors. As a result, the original rules were meant to be open enough so that you could buy any number of Citadel's catalogue, which included miniatures for D&D, Lord of the Rings, and even Star Trek. I can appreciate this approach, as I have my own world that I've been working on over the years, and it cleaves close enough to generic fantasy that the original Warhammer rules can work with only a little modification.

But that will have to wait, because today we are starting small. Instead of warring kingdoms and armies on the march, we'll be using the game's rules to hone in on a single human being. Emidio is an Arquebusier in the employ of Misery's Company, a vicious mercenary band comprised of prisoners and exiles.

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Note: This narrative deals with dark themes, including violence. Viewer discretion is advised.

OCTOBER 14th, THE 83rd YEAR OF THE NOVEAN ERA

AN ISLAND IN THE SOUTHERN SEAS

The day has been long. The closing shots fired in the culmination of a brutal yet short campaign on a nondescript island that Emidio never did get the name of. His brothers in arms have the run of a deserted hamlet they won after driving the inhabitants running off into the forest. Those that did not run had not been moved from where they had been shot.

The mercenaries enjoyed a night of revelry, as was their tendency after every victory. The hamlet's few valuables were quickly ferreted out and either stuffed into knapsacks or saddlebags, stashed under pillows or even buried. The beer however, was always shared. After draining the local stores of ale, Emidio and the boys played a game at firing pot shots at the church's bell to see if they could crack it. He finally decided to call it quits for the night after one of his compatriots, a man hailing from Taured by the name of Bisclavret, ended up blowing his hand off and bled to death soon after. Emdio left him there, and after retrieving his gun from the ground, he made way for the local tavern while the others ran to the body so they could rifle through the dead man's pockets.

The tavern was nearly leveled by now, but Emidio had squirreled away a bottle of mead under one of the broken floorboards. Taking the bottle, he sat down at the nearest table, really nothing more than a roughly cut cross section taken from a large oak log. He rested his Arquebus awkwardly across his lap as he uncorked the bottle and set into his night cap. He got about a quarter of way through the bottle before he slumped over headfirst into the oaken table, instantly lodging a number of splinters into his forehead. It did nothing to wake him however, nor did the sound of his arquebus as it fell from his lap and hit the ground with a dreadful clattering, but–mercifully–did not go off.

While Emidio rests, let's take a step back and see what kind of man he is. Taking cues from Dungeons & Dragons, the first edition of Warhammer was a roleplaying game as well as a tactical war game. The third booklet "Vol 3: Characters" has rules for player character generation and advancement.

Character Creation:

In Warhammer 1e, a Character's profile is comprised of three characteristics: Personal Characteristics, Fighting Characteristics, and Skills. First we begin by choosing a race, in this case I already know that Emdio is human.

Afterwards we're going to start building some of Emidio's Personal Characteristics: Social Status and Age. The remaining Personal Characteristics, Intelligence, "Cool," Will Power, and Leadership, are all rolled on later but they're jumbled in with other determinations for Fighting Characteristics and Skills.

Social Status:

Social Status is a roll of a d100. I got a 35 which means Emidio is a freeman, which is the second lowest class on the chart. Of course he is considered the lowest of the low now, as Misery's Company is comprised entirely of exiles and condemned criminals.

Age:

For age, we roll 6d6+6. I got 22, so plus six we end up with 28. A year older than me! The rules state that humans reach maturity at 18, with the average life expectancy at 60. So it shouldn't be a problem for the foreseeable future...

Wounds:

All humans start with one 1 Wound to kill.

Initiative:

For initiative we roll a d4 and add 1. I got a 3 so that makes 4 total. Pretty good.

Weaponskills:

Next we decide if Emidio is a swordsman or a bowman. We know that Emidio uses a heavy arquebus, but Warhammer 1e doesn't have rules for firearms. I'll just go with the bowman rules for now and save making a determination on how to use the arquebus for later. The roll for Emidio's primary skill (shooting) will be 2d6. I got a 7.

Now for Emidio's secondary skill. This will be 2d6-2. If the score is higher than the primary skill, the rules say it is to be "disregarded" which I assume means re rolling. I got a 7, so minus 2 makes it a 5.

Strength:

Strength is a d6 table. I rolled a 1, so my Emidio's strength is 1.

Toughness:

Toughness is another d6 table. I got a 6, which means Emidio has a toughness score of "C." Well that makes up for the lackluster strength.

Movement Rate:

Emidio's movement rate will be what is typical for a human as outlined in the Creature Lists.

Skills:

Now it's time to roll on the skills table. Now, I'll take a moment to discuss something which is going to occasionally come up when playing with these old rules. Some material from this era has not aged very well, and indeed there are some things that would not have been acceptable even for the time it was written. The aim of this campaign is to explore these systems and to see how they facilitated creativity, for everyone. When I come across rules or descriptions that are insensitive or otherwise in bad taste, I'll either be ignoring the rule and moving along, or replacing it with something else as I'll be doing here. For the purposes of this game, a roll of 76 to 81 on the skills table will give the result of "Jeweller."

For skills, I roll 1d4-1 to determine the amount of skills my character will have. I got a 2, so we're left with a single skill. Rolling a d100 for the skill table gets me a 63. Emidio was an actor before he was a mercenary. An interesting development! This means he's good at pretending to be other people, and has "limited ability in disguise." Hmm, hopefully the book explains what exactly that means.

Intelligence:

Intelligence is a d10 roll. I got a 4, so a slightly below average.

Cool:

Cool is a roll of 2d6. I got an 11. Super cool.

Willpower:

Willpower is 1d10. I got a 6.

Leadership:

Leadership is next. You roll a d6 and halve it, rounding down. Characters of higher social class get to add to their roles. Emidio is a freeman so he has no such luck. I got a 5, which cut in half and rounded down leaves us with a 2.

Number of Attacks:

All characters start by having 1 attack per turn.

Money:

Money is determined by rolling a d6, which is then multiplied by a factor based on your social status. As a Freeman, Emidio gets no bonuses and the d6 roll will not be multiplied. I rolled a 4.

So in the end we're left with a guy that's a little bit of an airhead. A former actor, good at disguises and impersonation. Has some aptitude for leadership. Approaching thirty. 

All in all pretty interesting rolls. A character is already forming in my head. We'll have to see how he fares tomorrow when he faces the first combat of the campaign. Until then!

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*Note that the actual date that Warhammer released is a little fuzzy, as Warhammer day (along with GW's 40th years of Warhammer celebration) is in October. However, the community site has an article stating that the game was released in the Summer of 1983. It doesn't really matter for this campaign, but it shows that getting an exact date for these early releases can be tricky. In any case, 2023 marks the 40th anniversary and I felt that Warhammer day was a fine day to start.

Pricolici

 

The Pricolici is creature of Romanian origin. It is a kind of hybrid, part Werewolf and part Vampire. There's scant information about the Pricolici online aside from rumor as to its origin. It appears that a Pricolici is created when a Werewolf dies and rises from the dead. This seems a little convoluted, but Werewolves and Vampires actually share some of the same blood.

A Slavic Werewolf is called a Vǎrkolak, which refers to "one that has the hair of a wolf." This term arrived in Greece as the Vrykolakas and confusingly came to be associated with a Vampire-adjacent creature that consumes human livers. Years later, the popularity of Hollywood's Dracula complicated things even more, as the Vrykolakas was conflated with the modern blood-drinking Vampire. It is not hard to see a hybrid arising from a part of the world where two different creatures were commonly referred to by such similar names.

In Romania, the Vârcolac continues to be associated with Werewolves, while Vampir refers to... well you can probably guess. And then there is the Pricolici, occupying the gray zone between the the most famous creatures of the night. Like the Werewolf, the Pricolici sports hair, fangs and claws. Like the Vampire, it is undead, and must hunt at night.

Despite its prestigious horror pedigree, the Pricolici itself has seen little play in film or television. However, the general concept of a Werewolf-Vampire hybrid has been seen some screen time in the Underworld series. All in all, I'm really intrigued. I'd love to dig in a little deeper and see if I can find some Romanian folklore that further fleshes out this rather obscure beast.