WFRP: Embrace change, or seek solace in familiarity?

Now that WFRPv3 has been going for well over a year, I have come to the time and place to figure out how to take this edition into account when writing for The Altdorf Correspondent. Embrace the new edition whole-heartedly or put on the grognard cape and grouse about the good old times?

Traditionally, I embrace change. I try new things, I look at them to see the old things in a different light. I look to the new to help me avoid a sense of "I've been doing this same thing for 30 years now" and to keep things fresh. I also have had the ambition of supporting the current edition of all the games I write for, be it D&D, WFRP, Kult, Cyberpunk or any other game I feel strongly about.

But I'm not as young as I used to be. I've played so many games, tried so many rules, seen so many plots, that I've grown confused. Rules have never been my forte, and with WFRPv3, I've hit a brick wall. The rules are clearly written, the components are beautiful, everything is top notch. But I can't connect to the rules. When reading them, I don't see stories in my head. I see rules, cards, components. I lose track of what WFRP is to me.

And as you can imagine, that is not where I want to be when sitting down to write about Altdorf and WFRP!

It's not that I think the rules are horrible, it's not that I think FFG are insulting WFRP gamers all over the world, it's not the prices or the boxes or the bits. It's simply the fact that this is very different from what I am used to, and that is enough to throw me.

So what to do? There are two basic aspects I need to consider; rules and setting. And here's the lowdown ...

For rules, I'm staying with WFRPv2. As I look more into WFRPv3, I might start to dual-stat things,if I feel I can get comfortable with the rules. But for the foreseeable future, WFRPv2 is my edition of choice for rules. I will bring in things I like from WFRPv3, and mine WFRPv1 as well. And fan material of course.

As for the setting, it's more difficult. Or maybe more simple ... I don't really know for sure. I will go with WFRPv3 and mix in elements from WFRPv1, WFRPv2 and Warpstone. It seems to me that WFRPv1 and WFRPv3 are closer to each other in tone and atmosphere than they are with WFRPv2. And Warpstone is superb, and has a lot of the grittiness that I enjoy in the setting material published. So I'll roll back to before the Storm of Chaos, and go from there.

This is not a big change for me. As many have noticed I am fairly loose with canon anyways, and the things I don't like are simply toned down (the Emperor riding a griffon, for example). It's easy to just discard a piece of setting I don't agree with, and so the WFRP world I present is a curious mix of canon and heresy. Which is what I'm aiming for; my own take on the Old World, my own interpretation informed by my own tastes and sensibilities.

This is influenced greatly by the writings of others, primarily the official WFRP lines, but to an almost greater extent the writings found in Warpstone and historical records.

So there you have it. I will continue much as I have done so far, which will delight quite a few of my readers, I suspect. But there will still be a place for WFRPv3, mostly in commentaries on the products, and reviews. I want to embrace WFRP as a whole, not get bogged down with fruitless internal debates on the merits of one edition over the other.

Hope you'll stay on and thanks for readin!

/Magnus

FAL Commentary: Moving out of the comfort zone

Over the last year or so, we've been running a lot of Dungeons & Dragons 4. A lot. This means even Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay has taken a back seat to the behemoth the is D&D4, and the most startling thing to me is that I am the DM.

Why is this so startling? My perspective is one based on conflicting experiences.

My favourite RPGs are Call of Cthulhu (any edition) and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (v1 and v2, we haven't tried v3). It's all great fun.

I primarily run these games for my group, and have a somewhat similar style when doing so. Lots of social interaction, investigation, few combats, abstract battles not using minis, event based plot progression and so on.

The kind of adventures where my group chose not to play D&D. That's what I do best. I ran Tomb of Horrors, and it sucked. I ran Iron Kingdoms, and it turned into WFRP.

But the allure of D&D is always there. I've played D&D since 1984, and have fond memories of the Dungeons & Dragons Expert Set opening up outdoor adventuring and exploration on a scale I hadn't seen before. So I was a player in D&D BECM up to level 26, then in Dragonlance and Ravenloft and other classic stuff. Good stuff and bad stuff.

When D&D4 was released, we decided we wanted to try it. One DM bravely took Keep on the Shadowfell and ran us through it. The resulting experience nearly tore our group apart. We couldn't agree on how to play the game, I hated it, and the tactical parts of it were uninteresting to me. Counting squares ... argh! So I said that I would never play D&D4 again. And some said they'd never play any previous edition again, because they loved the elements I hated in D&D4. So no D&D for us.

It was a strange experience. So we went on to Dark Heresy, with another GM. Then there was a shakeup due to working schedules, and we lost our  GM. So what to do ...

I stepped up and ran a WFRP arc that was nigh on perfectly executed both by me and the players. It was loads of fun, and it had everything I love about playing roleplaying games. But it took its toll on me, and when we wrapped up the seven sessions, I was a bit burned out on deep and complex plots. And I wanted to try something different, move out of my comfort zone, to see if I could learn something that made my WFRP games a lot better. Things can always be approved, is my belief.

So I bought Dungeon Delve. We created new PCs. I concocted a flimsy campaign premise, and then we dived into it. Very much focused on tactical combat and character advancement. I was planning on running a few of the delves while we were deciding on what to do next.

Sitting on the DM side of the screen totally changed my opinion of the game. I loved it. And the players loved it. We had had our internal flame war on play styles, expectations and pros and cons and all that, and we emerged with a greater understanding of what we wanted from the game.

The delves segued into Scales of War, and then into Revenge of the Giants. Even though I'm still having trouble adapting my style to that which fits D&D4 best, the players are psyched, and we are chugging along. Before, we would change games every 7 or 8 sessions (we play once a week), but now we soldier on. D&D4 scratches a lot of itches that my players like to have scratched, while still being fun for me to run.

It doesn't play like CoC or WFRP. And for me it shouldn't. I just need to learn or even relearn how to make the game more D&D:ish, and drop some conceits I've adopted from running other games. To make the experience more like what my group thinks of as D&D. It's all possible within the rules, I just have to work a bit harder to bring it to the surface, since I'm entrenched in my primary style of game mastering.

So the short of it. I understand and respect the opinions of those who feel D&D4 is not a game for them. I've been there myself, and I hated the game. At the same time I think I understand the opinions of those who feel D&D4 is their kind of game. That's where I am now. At the same time, if someone said "show me your best game running skills" I wouldn't pick D&D4, instead opting for WFRP.

Strange that, to find conflicting views on the game, all wrapped up in one single gamer.

/Magnus

WFRP: Requests for translation

I have over the years received quite a few requests for translation of the iAltdorf map into other languages. French is the most requested language, and I have been in contact with some chaps who had a plan to do the translation, but I lost their e-mails.

So I'm posting this to make a general call out to anyone who wants to translate the iAltdorf map into their own native language. Drop me an e-mail, and I'll send you the files.

What you need is basically Illustrator CS3 or later, or a vector based illustration tool that is compatible with the Illustrator CS3 file format. And a freaking lot of time on your hands ...

Don't underestimate the endeavour, it's a lot of tedious work. Using Find and Replace will get you a long way, but then you will have to manually adjust every single name plaque in there. And there's a lot of them, maybe as many as a thousand ... since all locations are repeated twice.

If you want to give it a shot, you're welcome. Drop me an e-mail, and I'll make the files available to you.

/Magnus

FAL General: Happy New Year!

Well, a new year is approaching and I am starting to find time when I'm not working. This means I'm looking forward to another year of gaming, which I have been most fortunate too get done in spades that last couple of years.

This years it's been mostly the latest edition of Dungeons & Dragons, with mixed success from my part but a hell of a ride for the group. We're picking it up again sometime in January, tackling paragon levels and Revenge of the Giants.

I have also played several games of Citadels over the year. It is a brilliant game, quick to learn and with engaging gameplay. Look forward to an in depth review of this game and Fury of Dracula which I picked up yesterday, sometime soon.

Apart from that the big thing waiting to be tried is of course the third edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. We're planning on giving it a whirl in January, and with the arrival of The Adventurer's Toolkit the option of playing a Rat Catcher is once again open ... but the players have said they'd rather play a career that does not give me extra incentives to have sewer based adventuring, so we'll see what they'll go for in The Ongoing and Spectacular Adventures of the Wilhelms.

And of course, the iAltdorf map will be updated in January.

But until then, have a happy new year!

/Magnus

WFRP: WFRPv3 has arrived!

So WFRPv3 has arrived. At my FLGS at least. Got an email notice just now and I can pick it up tomorrow, if my work schedule allows it. After that I will start posting my impressions, probably in a series of posts, with plenty of pictures. It'll take some time, but I want to give it a fair shake before burning it at the stake ... erm ... extolling its virtues ... or something inbetween, most probably.

Interesting times.

/Magnus

FAL General: Whither WFRP?

As the winter is approaching, and my working hours are loosing their cloying grip of me, I begin to ponder the future of WFRP once again. The most interesting and terrifying event is of course the release of third edition WFRP. But in its shadow there are many other developments, both alarming and comforting.

Alarming, although no longer news, is of course the closure of Warpstone magazine. John Foody has done a remarkable job at the helm of a publication that I rank as one of the best efforts in the history of roleplaying games. If there were a WFRP Hall of Fame, John Foody should be inducted, only shortly after Graeme Davis, Jim Bambra, Phil Gallagher and James Wallis.

Although John has denied it, I will play the unusual role of conspiracy herald; Warpstone closes at issue 30. The last issue will be published after Fantasy Flight Games published edition 3 of WFRP. Coincidence? John says so, and who am I to contradict a future WFRP Hall of Fame inductee?

After Warpstone, the shining star of fan publications have been Liber Fanatica. I'm not sure what that gang is up to, but I've got some e-mails to send out to find out. Stay tuned! I'm sure they have some splendid news, or maybe apocalyptic tidings, to dole out. All in all it should be interesting.

And the latest news regarding the frolics of the Games Workshop legal department don't bode well for fan sites and said fans' relations with and attitude towards GW and by extension FFG. Grim news of the potential closure of the Dark Reign web site reached me last week, but those fans are rallying and complying with the "Cease and Desist" letter sent from GW legal. I can't be alone in thinking that GW have picked up too much inspiration from their admittedly splendid Judge Dredd RPG from 1985. Maybe a new motto would be pertinent:

"Games Workshop. We are the law!"

Truth be told, I'm not too worried about that. Apparently GW are going after sites that use their own texts and images, and if for example I myself do refrain from cribbing from GW I should be ok. We'll see ... until a C&D explodes in my mailbox, The Altdorf Correspondent is here to stay ... albeit intermittently, I must admit.

Well, you might be thinking about what on Earth I find comforting with the current situation for WFRP.

Well, one comforting thing that has happened is that fans of WFRPv1 and WFRPv2 have now found more common ground than ever before. What seemed like gargantuan issues of rules incompatibilities only a year ago, now seems like trifles that a smattering of house rules will set right, at least when compared to the new enemy: WFRPv3.

And even WFRPv3 makes concessions to the demands of the fan base: apparently the campaign date is set before the Storm of Chaos. Which would have pleased a lot of WFRP players if that had been the case for WFRPv2 as well. I'm happy about it, although to be frank I mostly ignored the SoC in my own writings and my own campaign. I even figured that it could be used creatively and in the spirit of WFRP, something a few fans were adamant in telling me I was wrong about. Well, it seems GW and FFG thought the same thing (that I was wrong) and now WFRP is pre-SoC. Whether SoC ever happened ... or "happens", actually ... is still up for discussion.

"Games Workshop. Retconning For The Greater Good!"

Yeah, well it does pose a little dilemma for me, since my writings so far have factored in SoC ... ah, what the hell. I'll just roll back the whole thing and go with the current timeline. It's not like angry fans of SoC in WFRP are going to storm my front door demanding I stay with the WFRPv2 timeline.

And finally, one comforting thing is the fact that WFRPv3 finally comes out. And it's in a box, which I've been clamouring for for ages and ages. RPG's came in boxes when I was a lad, so that's clearly the best way to publish an RPG! If WFRPv1 had been packaged in a box, I would have loved it even more ... if such a thing is possible.

/Magnus

WFRP General: Is there a place for dungeon crawls in WFRP?

One thing that many of the most outspoken hardcore WFRP fans have in common is a disdain for the classic dungeon crawl, as popularised by the world's most played role-playing game; Dungeons & Dragons. I came to think about this the other day when I was preparing for Tuesday game night, where I'm going to run something called Dungeon Delve for the current edition of D&D. I was also reading some old posts from the FFG forums, and one of them concerned the dungeon crawl as a viable adventure experience for WFRP. Or rather, the non viability of the dungeon crawl in the game.

My stance on topic in relation to WFRP is this:

People should not apply a straight jacket to their creativity. I enjoy playing D&D, and have seen a lot of top notch dungeon crawl products, both from WotC and from third parties using the d20 system. A dungeon crawl is merely a format for an adventure. What an author puts into the crawl determines the quality of the product. The format itself is no guarantee for lack of quality, or the opposite. So it is possible to do a good dungeon crawl, even in WFRP, and for it to have the right tone and content.

But then again, we run dungeon crawls using D&D, not WFRP. Why's that? I hear you ask. If a dungeon crawl is a viable adventure format for WFRP, why not play dungeon crawls in WFRP? I guess it's down to playing to each game's strengths. D&D is best at dungeons crawls, WFRP is best at ... whatever it is I'm doing with it. Right now it seems to be some sort of social intrigue and backstabbing spy novel kinda thing going on.

But I maintain the notion that there is a place for a dungeon crawl in WFRP, even in a city like Altdorf. Or rather, particularly in a city like Altdorf. If the tone is right, if the proper design takes into account the good parts of WFRP, if the NPCs are good, and if the motivation for the expedition and the dungeon itself are good and proper, there is no reason why a dungeon crawl couldn't work.

Sure, write a standard dungeon crawl and it will be horrid for WFRP. But then again, a boring crawl is a boring crawl, be it D&D or WFRP. My benchmark for crawls that I can't work with at all is Tomb of Horrors, an adventure deemed to be one of the best ever by lots of people. I hate it.

And if we look at the adventures available for any edition of WFRP, we find quite a lot of dungeon crawls, good and bad. These are conveniently overlooked and forgotten when talking about the marvelous The Enemy Within campaign (sans Something Rotten in Kislev and Empire in Flames, usually). We also find a strong D&D influences in many adventures, mostly in the Doomstones series (it being an AD&D compatible adventure with the serial numbers filed off from the start), but also the maligned Castle Drachenfels. Not the proudest moments in the history of WFRP, in my opinion.

But the two adventures that have taken the most flack online are of course two WFRPv2 entries; Karak Azgal and Lure of the Lich Lord. Not because they are any worse than the Doomstones series or Castle Drachenfels, but mostly because they defy the common conception of WFRP as a game focused heavily on social interaction, a conception which conveniently leaves out earlier v1 forays into the dungeon.

So WFRP2 is just following in the footsteps of WFRPv1 in the quest of finding out what is good for WFRP; both as a commercial venture and as a game with a distinct personality and compelling adventures. I believe the game is better served with a mix of adventures, or rather a mix of different formats in the adventures, like in the seminal Shadows over Bogenhafen, one of the best adventures for any role-playing game and genre. And there was a dungeon crawl in there.

As Shadows over Bogenhafen shows us, good design is good design, and I think that it would be very possible to create a Ravenloft for WFRP; a dungeon crawl so good it transcends the format, and becomes something even greater. Come to think of it, WFRP is ideally suited to create the most challenging dungeon crawl the world has ever seen. But the question is, who would want to create it, when even the thought of dungeons in WFRP send shivers down quite a few of the fans?

Who would be brave enough to go all out and deliver the ultimate WFRP dungeon crawl? And more importantly, what should such an adventure look like?

/Magnus

FAL News: Cover for next WFRP supplement revealed!

Just noticed that Steve Darlington posted the cover of the next WFRP supplement coming down the Reik:

The cover!

I'm of two ways about this: it's cool to see a cover because it means there's a book coming, but I also feel that this is not the strongest of the WFRPv2 covers. I think maybe a sinister merchant, a degenerate noble or a pious priest would have been my choice rather than the "pirate" which was chosen to pose for the painter's leisure.

Still, way to go FFG! Now get that thing to the printers!

On a related note, I have had two people ask me if I've abandoned the blog in the last couple of days. Just to let everyone know, I'm continuing the Altdorf Correspondent, I am not starting a new WH40kRP campaign as was the plan, and I'm still too overworked to focus on the blog.

Still, I've done some Warhammer-related writing for PC Gamer in Sweden, and I'm script doctoring a new computer game about to be released. So it's not all work and no play, because that would make me a dull boy. So it's not all work and no play, because that would make me a dull boy. So it's not all work and no play, because that would make me a dull boy. So it's not all work and no play, because that would make me a dull boy. So it's not all work and no play, because that would make me a dull boy. So it's not all work and no play, because that would make me a dull boy.

Erm ... well, be seeing you!

/Magnus

General: Thanks to Jadrax

Today I just want to post a public thank you to Altdorf Correspondent reader Jadrax, who has alterted me to some erroneous links in the older material.

So ... eh ... thank you, Jadrax! I hope the links are fixed now, and if any of my other readers stumble upon any more errors, just post a comment and I'll be alerted.

/Magnus

General: Ooops!

Today I was trying to export my template for the blog, but I managed to replace my template with an older version instead. Go figure.

So until I manage to redo my changes to the template, my blog will look unfamiliar and not at all the way I want it to look.

Oh well.

UPDATE: Well, now it looks sort of normal. I'll have to fiddle with the margins and stuff like that, but mostly it's back to normal.

/Magnus

FAL General: Dungeon of Doom II (UPDATED)

At this very moment I am running the popular dungeon delve Dungeon of Doom at the Stockholm Spelkonvent, in Stockholm, Sweden, together with my friends. We've printed a map 2 meters by 2,40 meters, created by the talented Dante Algstrand and based on WotC dungeon tiles. You can catch a glimpse of it in the pictures below!

We're using the D&D 4e rules, and the players get to pick a PC at random, and then go into our dungeon facing overwhelming odds. PCs are killed left to right, and the players love it!

UPDATE: The Dungeon of Doom is a simple and very popular concept. I had the idea several years ago and together a group of friends put together a killer dungeon for D&D 3e. We had maps, kill markers, overwhelming monsters, adversarial dungeon mastering, and low level PCs. And dropin. Anyone could play, and it took about 15 minutes for their PC to get whacked. And people lined up in droves and droves.

The freewheeling manner of play, one of the basic philosophies behind my own gaming style, is a real draw. And it seems to work equally well for D&D 4e. We're running into some things that slow down play, such as Analysis Paralysis, but a firm DM hand brings things up to speed when things get bogged down.

We have one DM, one rules assistant and one player coach. One huge map, minis for the PCs and minis for the monsters. Dice, rulebooks and stuff like that. We've laminated the character sheets, so players can write on them with dry erase markers.

Works like a charm!

/Magnus

WFRP: Where the fog is the thickest, the Ruinous powers hide

My shameless mining of the works of Charles Dickens continues. This time, the writing comes from Bleak House.

/Magnus

Altdorf. The Chill Month lately over, and our Lord Chancellor sitting in his gilded courts of law. Implacable Ulriczeit weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Jabberwock, forty feet long or so, waddling like a humongous lizard up Imperial Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snowflakes—gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another in a general infection of ill temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if this day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest.

Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls deified among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Reikland marshes, fog on the Hagercrybs heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Drecksack pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering little 'prentice boy on deck. Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a dwarfish balloon and hanging in the misty clouds.

Gas looming through the fog in divers places in the streets, much as the sun may, from the spongey fields, be seen to loom by husbandman and ploughboy. Most of the shops lighted two hours before their time—as the gas seems to know, for it has a haggard and unwilling look.

The raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the muddy streets are muddiest near that leaden-headed old obstruction, appropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed old corporation, Temple Bar. And hard by Temple Bar, in the Courts of Justice, at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery.

Never can there come fog too thick, never can there come mud and mire too deep, to assort with the groping and floundering condition which this High Court of Chancery, most pestilent of hoary sinners, holds this day in the sight of heaven and earth.

Adolphus Altdorfer
Angestag, Kaldezeit 2, 2523 IC

WFRP: To dream of a garden of green, a sky so blue

And now for the next reworking of the writings of Charles Dickens. I turn again to a short paragraph from Nicholas Nickleby.

/Magnus

I was working late at the coaching house. I closed an account-book which lay on my desk, and, throwing myself back in my chair, gazed with an air of abstraction through the dirty window.

Some Altdorf houses have a melancholy little plot of ground behind them, usually fenced in by four high whitewashed walls, and frowned upon by stacks of chimneys: in which there withers on, from year to year, a crippled tree, that makes a show of putting forth a few leaves late in autumn when other trees shed theirs, and, drooping in the effort, lingers on, all crackled and smoke-dried, till the following season, when it repeats the same process, and perhaps, if the weather be particularly genial, even tempts some rheumatic sparrow to chirrup in its branches.

People sometimes call these dark yards 'gardens'; it is not supposed that they were ever planted, but rather that they are pieces of unreclaimed land, with the withered vegetation of the original brick-field. No man thinks of walking in this desolate place, or of turning it to any account. A few hampers, half-a-dozen broken bottles, and such-like rubbish, may be thrown there, when the tenant first moves in, but nothing more; and there they remain until he goes away again: the damp straw taking just as long to moulder as it thinks proper: and mingling with the scanty box, and stunted everbrowns, and broken flower-pots, that are scattered mournfully about — a prey to 'blacks' and dirt.

Adolphus Altdorfer
Backertag, Brauzeit 14, 2523 IC

WFRP: iAltdorf service now resumed

After being contacted by fellow WFRP gamer Hans, I discovered that the download links to the iAltdorf map were still pointing at the website of my company Houdini, instead of my own private domain.

So for at least a month or so, the links have been dead (that's when we did the server reorganistion at work, and I moved my blog material to my own domain ... or so I thought).

Anyways, the map is now available again! Nothing has changed since version 1.10, but it's still a damn good map.

Thanks for the help, Hans!

/Magnus

WFRP: The friendless tides, the empty faces

This installment of my reworkings of the writings of Charles Dickens turns to a short paragraph from Nicholas Nickleby. It neatly illustrates the bleak aspect of Altdorf that is present in many texts covering the city.

/Magnus

There are people enough in the world, Heaven knows! and even in Altdorf, but few complaints prevail, of the population being scanty. It is extraordinary how long a man may look among the crowd without discovering the face of a friend, but it is no less true. Everyday I look, and look, till my eyes become sore as my heart, but no friend appears; and when, growing tired of the search, I turn my eyes homeward, I see very little there to relieve my weary vision. A painter who has gazed too long upon some glaring colour, refreshes his dazzled sight by looking upon a darker and more sombre tint; but everything that meet my gaze wear so black and gloomy a hue, that I will be beyond description refreshed by the very reverse of the contrast. Some colour, some freshness, some vitality to lend succor to my troubled mind.

Adolphus Altdorfer
Backertag, Erntezeit 12, 2523 IC

WFRP: Walking, looking, listening

Note that this text is an adaption of a section of the Charles Dickens story The Old Curiosity Shop. I retreived the text from the Project Gutenberg site, and made some minor alterations to fit it within a WFRP framework. I make no claim as to possess a literary talent such as Dickens did, and I am merely using his prose to experiment with finding ways to describe the city of Altdorf and enrich my game. So without further ado, here's the experiment.

/Magnus

Night is generally my time for walking. In the summer I often leave my room at the University as the sun settles, and roam about streets, the docks and the plazas until hunger or thirst gets the best of me. I walk, I look, I listen, to learn how the pulse of our great capital beats.

I have fallen insensibly into this habit, because it affords me the greatest opportunity of speculating on the characters and occupations of those who fill the streets. The glare and hurry of broad noon are not adapted to philosophical pursuits like mine; a glimpse of passing faces caught by the light of a street-lamp or a shop window is often better for my purpose than their full revelation in the daylight; and, if I must add the truth, night is kinder in this respect than day, which too often destroys an air-built castle at the moment of its completion, without the least ceremony or remorse.

That constant pacing to and fro, that never-ending restlessness, that incessant tread of feet wearing the rough stones smooth and glossy— is it not a wonder how the dwellers in narrow ways can bear to hear it! Think of a sick man resting in a white-washed room with an open window at the Königplatz, listening to the footsteps of the passers-by, and in the midst of pain and weariness obliged, despite himself (as though it were a task he must perform) to detect the child's step from the man's, the slipshod beggar from the booted exquisite, the lounging from the busy, the dull heel of the sauntering outcast from the quick tread of an expectant pleasure-seeker— think of the hum and noise always being present to his sense, and of the stream of life that will not stop, pouring on, on, on, through all his restless dreams, as if he were condemned to lie, dead but conscious, in a noisy churchyard, and had no hope of rest for centuries to come.

Then, the crowds for ever passing and repassing on the bridges (on those which are free of toil at last), where many stop on fine evenings looking listlessly down upon the water with some vague idea that by and by it runs between green banks which grow wider and wider until at last it turns into swamps, and then joins the broad vast sea — where some halt to rest from heavy loads and think as they look over the parapet that to smoke and lounge away one's life, and lie sleeping in the sun upon a hot tarpaulin, in a dull, slow, sluggish barge, must be happiness unalloyed — and where some, and a very different class, pause with heavier loads than they, remembering to have heard or read in old time that drowning was not a hard death, but of all means of suicide the easiest and best.

The Reikmarkt at sunrise too, in the spring or summer, when the fragrance of sweet flowers is in the air, over-powering even the unwholesome streams of last night's debauchery, and driving the dusky thrust, whose cage has hung outside a garret window all night long, half mad with joy! Poor bird! the only neighbouring thing at all akin to the other little captives, some of whom, shrinking from the hot hands of drunken purchasers, lie drooping on the path already, while others, soddened by close contact, await the time when they shall be watered and freshened up to please more sober company, and make old clerks who pass them on their road to business, wonder what has filled their breasts with visions of the country.

Adolphus Altdorfer
Wellentag, Nachgeheim 4, 2523 IC

What's going on?

Sometimes I feel as if I'm being watched. As if everything I say and write is being read by distant spirits, far away ghosts ... or even Deamons from the Void. I feel the urge to burn every single word that is wrong, every thought that goes astray. But even when the flame from my candle consumes the bluish ink, I have a feeling that someone, somewhere, has read the words already.

Adolphus Altdorfer
Backtertag, Vorgeheim 5, 2522 IC

Just a short post to explain some strange posts on my blog the last couple of days. Even though I've been doing this since January, I haven't really learned everything about blogging with this tool that I need to know.

So ... when I've been wanting to preview a post, I have cleverly posted it so that it was published one year ago. And that means it didn't show up on the front page. That way I figured no one would find it, and I could look at it at my leisure and then take it down and redo it. Basically this is because I'm not at all happy with the preview function, and I really prefer to actually publish my posts to preview them. Gives me greater control and accuracy.

This weekend I realised that quite a few of my faithful readers ... well, at least two of them, thanks Gitta and Dante, are subscribing to changes on my blog. A great way to keep track of new posts ... which also meant that they can see every post I make, even if I try to hide them away.

So ... not so clever of me, after all.

So, one of my strange experiment posts were up for a few days, confusing at least one reader. I didn't count on anyone finding it, so for those of you that did, the basic explanation is that I'm looking for a house, and wanted to check some houses with a good friend. Hence the mysterious page with links to houses for sale ... but now that page is removed, so look for it no more!

I really don't know what happens when I publish a post, and then remove it. Do those of you who subscribe still get a notification, or is the notification removed when I take the post down?

Magnus

Burning the midnight oil

Although my adventure in the archives under the University ended badly, I have managed to procure a number of books about Altdorf from a book shop close to here.


I don't believe they will reveal any hidden knowledge about the heart of the Empire, for they were all to easy to find. But still, I need to add to my library and I believe that I have to aquire more gold before I start looking for the forgotten tomes, for they will undoubtedly carry a heftier price tag.

Adolphus Altdorfer
Wellentag, Vorgeheim 2, 2522 IC

The great masters of painting didn't always paint people and religious allegories. They also did a lot of stillebens (still-life), which make perfect handouts for your gaming sessions! Instead of describing the desk the adventurers find, you can actually show it to them!

Magnus

Lost

I don't know where I've been, I don't know how I came back. Everything is a blank, a hole in my mind. Only at the edges of memory can I hear scuttling feet and hissing voices. They tell me I've been gone a week, but that no one missed me. No one knew I was gone, and no one at the University cared. It was foolish of me to descend those stairs, to venture down in the most forgotten parts of the archive. But I was hoping to find something, anything that can help me understand Altdorf and it's inhabitants. Old records, legends, religious pamphlets. I know there are books down there that scholars would kill to get their hands on. So down I went, into the musty and ill lit corridors - dare I even call them dark dungeons - to unearth the treasures of the bulging book shelves. I didn't tell anyone, cetrainly not Emeritus Gutbelesen. I feel that he would try to stop me, did he know my plans. But as I walked among the wooden shelves I got the feeling I was not alone. Someone was watching me, someone was making plans. As I found a section that seemed particularly interesting, I caught a whiff of lilacs. For a second I thought it odd that lilacs would grown in such a dark abode, and then I don't remember anything else, until a student found me wandering in the great library, dusty and generously adorned with cobwebs.

Adolphus Altdorfer
Angestag, Sommerzeit 26, 2522 IC

Disciplinary measures

It is with growing frustration that I look upon the situation of my position here at the University. Gutbelesen is keeping himself distant from me and my enquiries on when I can get access to the records he has control over, and which were the reason for my scholarship here in the first place. I don't want to entertain thoughts on conspiracies to keep me away from the archives, but at times I wonder. I have not managed to get a proper office yet, and I still stay in the dismal tower, where I sleep and write and read. The other day I managed to corner Gutbelesen in his own opulent office, but he waved my questions to the side, claiming that he was working on finding the time to properly introduce me to the records. He then promptly turned me out, as he had urgent business administering disciplinary measures to a couple of students caught cheating during a test. I could tell from his face that he was very much looking forward to the incident, and as I passed the students in the doorway, I thought I heard a grunt of satisfaction from Gutbelesen as he welcomed them inside his office. I shudder to think of what measures were administered.

Adolphus Altdorfer
Angestag, Sommerzeit 18, 2522 IC