Gamesworld 2003 was coming up and the Golden Goblins and other clubs prepared for another hectic weekend of intense wargaming because this year Privateer Press would be present and they would be promoting their Warmachine game. Privateer Press also released a roleplaying game called Iron Kingdoms which is set in the same universe as the Warmachine game. Our Gnome leader asked me if I was interested in hosting a roleplay demo and after three failed bribe attempts, I accepted his final offer and did it for free.

The setting

The game was set in Rannigh's Cliff Fortress which is located in the south-west of Cygnar, somewhere north of Highgate and close to the Cryx Isles. The Fortress is of very low strategic use for the Cygnaran army and they use it mainly to store old stuff. The soldiers who are transferred to this fortress all have done something wrong, one way or another. The fortress is led by two officers, Captain Williams (who had a promising military career until he had the bad luck of being chosen to command this keep and is pretty bitter about it) and Sergeant Thorpe (a veteran of many battles who disobeyed a direct order and ended up here). Also present in the warehouse of the fortress are two old, broken steamjacks.

The characters

• Pjotr Burkov (Human male fighter level 5 - Khador)

Pjotr is the best soldier the fortress has to offer. Originally he belonged to an elite unit in the Khador army but he ended up here due to an exchange program of Cygnaran and Khadoran soldiers. His mission was to prove to the Cygnarans that Khador military is far superior and to bring back as much technological and tactical information as he could muster. The Cygnarans expected as much and thus transferred him to Rannigh's Cliff.

• Cassey O'Bannon (Human female gunmage level 5 - Cygnar)

Cassey O'Bannon is a gunmage who ended up in The Fortress after setting her officer's quarters on fire. She's also suspect of having stolen 2 guns from a senior officer. Although no proof was found of her guilt at that time, she currently carries two beautiful pistols of dwarven make.

• Magnus Kildair (Human male fighter/warbard level 4/1 - Cygnar)

Magnus Kildair used to lead commando style missions against the Cryx until he met with a warbard. He decided to leave his unit and started his training as a warbard. Since then he has been travelling the country and carries messages and information from fortress to fortress. Two weeks ago he arrived at Rannigh's Cliff and seems very interested to learn more about Pjotr.

• Gort (Gobber male rogue/engineer level 2/3)

Gortralokanomok is an engineer who spent most of his time working on warjacks. Gort was sent to the fortress when a gun he had recently worked on, blew up in the sergeant's face. The fact that Gort voiced his opinion about his innocence and the real reason of the blast being the sergeant's clumsiness, only sped up his transfer. He's having the time of his life now as he's in charge of a warehouse full of old metal parts, tubes, bolts, . and two steamjacks.

The adventure

At the beginning of the adventure Magnus and Pjotr are just outside the barracks smoking a pipe and sharing heroic stories of the past. Gort and Cassey are in the warehouse inventorying a load of metal parts which arrived last week. Suddenly captain Williams leaves the officer's quarters and orders Pjotr and Magnus "to fetch the chick and that small bugger" and have them report in his office immediately.

<EDIT> This RPG session report has been smouldering for more than 6 months now, waiting to finally get published online. The author originally goes on here, spilling all the beans on the events and story of this adventure. The exact same adventure we fleshed out since then, and that's now available for download under . Adventures . in the Our Material section. Not willing to spoil someone's experience, I've removed the DM-only content. It was not really important for this article. Honest. If you still want to read up on the gritty details, head over . here . -- TT

The demo sessions

• The first group consisted of 4 players who turned the scenario into a B-movie gone haywire (maybe they played Mark Kaminski's B-movie Cthulhu scenario previously and got confused or something). There were 2 guys trying to solve the adventure, 1 guy tagging along, doing what the others did and then there was a Japanese fellow raising hell. The two serious players told me the Japanese wasn't allowed to play in their campaign. Hmm ... I wonder why (please see the memorable events section for details). Anyway, this session was ready for "De nacht van de wansmaak" ("The night of bad taste" - Belgian traditional, a yearly movie night where excerpts of the worst flicks ever are shown).
  
• The second group were 2 people from the Warmachine demo team (Tom and Stijn). Nothing much to say here. Tom seemed to find all the clues really fast and Stijn kept trying to accomplish something but Tom was all over the place. He hardly gave me the time to describe things. Anyway, this session was primarily to introduce them to the D20 system as they had never played before.
  
• The third group was heaven come true. 3 guys and a girl who actually read the background of the characters (a rare feat among players that day) and who used it for a lot of fun roleplaying. This was definitely the best group I encountered and I wouldn't mind starting up a campaign with them. Kudos to you people. Great job.

Memorable moments of roleplay at Gamesworld 2003 :

• During the first demo I did, I had the Japanese guy (who played the warbard) kill a bogger. He then continued to skin the bogger, asked me if the meat was poisonous and after my negative response, started cutting chunks of meat from the bogger corpse. Eventually he managed to make a backpack from the empty skin of the bogger after removing all the organs. (Ehrm, and I used to get accused of being a difficult dungeon master ??? Common, be serious. Who else would allow such a thing ??)
  
• During that same session, our gobber engineer was getting tired of being pestered by the backpack guy so he took a poisonous dart and shot him to sleep. When the warbard finally started waking up, the gobber took another dart and whacked it into the bard, sending him to sleep for another few rounds. (By the way, thanks for that, you made my role as a dungeon master a whole lot easier.)
  
• And yes, the horror continues!! Same session. After the main events, the characters spot the enemy trying to make a getaway. Everybody storms towards the beach. Everybody . except for our warbard, who decides a shower is in order at that moment cause he's still covered in bogger guts. And to make the story complete, he then goes on to fire up the barbecue and roast some bogger meat (and I thought Japanese guys were into manga, schoolgirls and tentacles. It seems I'll have to revise that opinion ;o) - Oh and to any Privateer Press guys, in the event you might be reading this: if you ever release some kind of equipment guide, please include a boggerskin backpack. It exists. Really.
  
• During the roleplay demo I did for the two Warmachine folks (Tom and Stijn), Tom turned out to be an extremely intelligent guy who raged through my adventure like a wildfire, leaving Stijn to hobble along in his wake. Did this have anything to do with the fact that I emailed you the script of the adventure like two days earlier, Tom?
  
• The funniest scene of the day was no doubt during the third session and is entitled "Bogger intimidation for dummies". During a battle in the warehouse, the party manages to get a bogger alive and the two most charismatic characters (Warbard and Gunmage - both with Charisma 18) decide to intimidate the creature. The warbard goes first, grabs the bogger, lifts him in the air, starts threatening it and rolls an amazing 4 with his D20. So the bogger is just staring at him blankly. Then our gunmage decides to give it a try by shoving her gun into the creatures' mouth and then threatening it. The player then fumbles his Intimidation roll and the gun goes off, blowing bits of skull, blood and brains all over the party. Or how to kill off NPCs in two rolls.

Conclusion

All the groups managed to accomplish the main goal of the story and overall all the players seemed to have had a lot of fun. I had a great time so I'll be back for more roleplaying mayhem next year.

Special thanks :

• to Brian "You're calling me a pussy?? Well, I am what I eat." Snoddy for grabbing all the roleplayers he could find and showing them my demo table; for the primer and for signing all my L5R books.
• to Jason "I was so hung over, I could barely stand straight" Soles for the good advice he gave me ("Oh, you're in trouble") when my brilliant tactics left me with only Commander Stryker on the table, facing the complete Menoth battle box; for the primer and for the DVD.
• to Steven "Euhm, I'm not registering what you're telling me. I'm just nodding." Kees for the awesome character and monster sheets, fortress map and Hero certificates.
• to Koen "I'm going to be so drunk tonight. Oh man , so drunk." Goorickx for letting me use his books .
• to the Japanese "Euhm, is bogger meat poisonous ?" guy for euhm . well, for filling the memorable moments of roleplay section.

Until we meet again,

Ganralph the Grey a.k.a. RK