The Night of the Sorowmœn - A Halloween game in The Harrowmark

The last night of Graives, the eleventh month in the Harrowmark calendar, was called the Sorowmœn - a Harrowmark "festival" that commemorated an ancient unremembered cataclysm.

The Harrowmark has its own local moon, but long ago there were two: one was destroyed in some great calamity, the details of which have faded from even the long memory of the undead. The shards of the second moon follow the remaining one - they were called The Moon's Daughters by the locals and there were many sad folk-tales about them.

On one night each year, the night of Sorowmœn, the Moon's Daughters were not visible, and the surviving moon seemed to moan with grief for her loss.

But Sorowmœn also gained new significance because it was on that night the Necroquake first hit the Harrowmark. The locals said Nagash obviously knew what he was doing when he picked that day, of all days, to enact a ritual that was centuries in the planning... The restless dead became even more unquiet on that night, and every anniversary of it. So the mortal populous of the Harrowmark shut themselves up in their rotting hovels in the evening of the Sorowmœn; they doubled the number of fetishes placed on their lintels; fresh paint was daubed on the warding hex-marks protecting their doors, new-made straw poppets hung from every window frame...

But beyond that all they could do was hide, and hope to see the next dawn.

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SCENE I. A tavern at night. In the middle, a boiling cauldron.

Thunder. Enter three orruk pirates.

First Pirate

Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.

Second Pirate

Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.

Third Pirate

Bell rings. 'Tis time, 'tis time.

First Pirate

Round about the cauldron go;

In the season'd entrails throw.

Toad, that under cold stone

Days and nights has thirty-one

Swelter'd venom sleeping got,

Boil thou first i' the warmed pot.

Second Pirate

Fillet of a fenny snake,

In the cauldron boil and bake;

Eye of newt and toe of frog,

Wool of bat and tongue of dog,

Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,

Lizard's leg and owlet's wing,

For a charm of powerful trouble,

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Third Pirate

Well, that sounds disgusting. I ain't eating that.

Enter BORTAGNO to the other three Pirates

BORTAGNO

You'll eat what your given mate, or go hungry.

Music and a song: 'Black spirits,' & c

BORTAGNO retires

Second Pirate

Open, locks,

Whoever knocks!

Thunder. Enter KAPITAN Da LEEVA, wet from the storm.

KAPITAN Da LEEVA

How now, you secret, salty midnight coves!

What is't you do?

ALL

A deed without a name.

Third Pirate

Dinner. Which, its just called dinner ain't it?

Da LEEVA

Howe'er you come to know it, answer me:

Though you untie the winds and let them fight

Against the graves; though the testy waves

Confound and swallow navigation up;

Though castles topple on their warders' heads;

Though inverted pyramids do slope

Their heads to their foundations; though the treasure

Even till Destruction sicken; answer me

To what I ask you.

First Pirate

Speak.

Second Pirate

We'll answer.

Third Pirate

What's he taking about?

Da LEEVA

What will never be

Who can impress the forest, bid the tree

Unfix his earth-bound root? Sweet battles? Good!

Rebellious dead, rise ever fill the wood

Of Kalyustar's art, and his dark-placed crew

Shall shed the lease of nature, pay his due

To time and mortal custom. Yet my heart

Beats to know one thing: tell me, if your art

Can tell so much: shall Rotmoons this night

Leave this damned inn and join the fight?

Exeunt all pirates collecting their scattered weapons and gear, flustered and panicked.

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SCENE II. A forest graveyard by moonlight. In the middle, the necromancer KALYUSTAR at work among pumpkins. The Sorowmœn shines alone, low in the sky.

Enter twelve orruk pirates, whispering loudly.

DRAGANTE

Seize upon the dog; give to the edge o' the sword

His skeletons, his gheists, and all the unfortunate souls

That he play like puppets. No boasting like a fool;

This deed I'll do before this purpose cool.

AWKWARDO

Stab his eyes, and grieve his heart;

Come like shadows, so depart!

KALYUSTAR

By the pricking of my thumbs,

Some stinking orruk this way comes.

DRAGANTE

To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done:

The rituals and schemes of Kalyustar I will surprise.

Da LEEVA

This time, thou anticipate not my dread exploits:

My purpose never is o'ertook

Where is he? Gone? Let this pernicious hour

Stand aye accursed in the calendar!

Go on Ladz, advance without fear!

EL DOCTORO

I conjure you, by that which I profess,

Oh well done I! I commend you; pain!

Thunder and lightning.

Much running about by the pirates.

Enter Skeletons and Gheists, from below the ground.

KEINRICH (A Skeleton)

I thought to fright you thus, methinks, you are too savage;

I'll do worse with fell blade and cruelty!

He stabs.

DE LEEVA

Hold fast the mortal sword, and like good crew!

Gheists be gone, let flee to wail of sorrows new.

BORTAGNO

That Kalyustar, whose name blisters my tongue,

Was once thought honest: you'd have liked him well.

He hath not touch'd Shyish when he was young;

But by my blade tonight, he'll go to hell.

AWKWARDO

Thy traitor's blade has cut me deep!

To recover whence, I think I'll sleep.

He falls to the ground.

Drum rolls and battle-cries echo in the darkness.

EL DOCTORO

I'd conjure more but Parche; the blast would catch,

That fool pirate, with hook and patch.

KALYUSTAR

Let me seek out some desolate shade, and there

Draw out sad graves to empty.

KALYUSTAR runs from the pirates.

KALYUSTAR

What now to believe, and what I can redress,

As I shall consult my Shadeglass friend, I will:

What you have spoke, it may be so perchance.

The Shadeglass Skull

(You have no chance.)

First Gheist

He has kill'd me, again I'm free:

Whither should I fly?

I have done no harm. But I remember now

I am in this earthly world; where to do harm

Is often laudable, to do good sometime

I'll run away, to where Nagash won't see!

The First Gheist fades from sight.

KEINRICH

I bleed, bleed, poor country!

Great tyranny! lay thou thy basis sure.

DRAGANTE

You ain't what I call bleeding mate.

But that serves you right, poor Awkwardo, the late.

EL DOCTORO

Now Parche is clear, I can again,

Use my sorcery to bring your end.

Thunder and green lightning.

Second Gheist

You thought me gone Bortagno? Your blade bit deep.

It will be you that ends this day.

And I return once more to reap,

I see thee still, And from my blade your blood does seep.

FRANCOT

In my most ill-composed affection much curtailed.

My stanchless avarice fulfilled, that is, were I not impaled.

He dies.

Da LEEVA

These crimes of yours,

Stick deeper, grow with more than pernicious root,

Yet this sword of mine, I stole as loot,

Has slay'd kings and great beasts: so do not fear;

Of your own mere soul: will disappear,

With other graces weigh'd,

You'll not remember that you, I also slay'd.

TAMBOR

This drumming rhythm I will beat steady.

Come, go we to the Necromancer; our power is ready;

Our lack is nothing but Kalyustar, by our flanking,

Has proved to be just ripe for shanking,

And by the powers of Gork (or Mork),

Put up your club and hook, Parche. Receive what cheer you may:

The night is long that never finds the day.

They set upon the fallen Necromancer KALYUSTAR, and beat him.

Exeunt the pirates, joyous in victory.

ALL (singing)

Full fathom five the wizard lies;

Of his bones is worm-food made;

Those are stones that were his eyes:

Nothing of him that doth fade,

But doth suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange.

aethersea-beasts ring his knell:

Ding-dong.

Hark! now I hear them, ding-dong, bell.

Their singing fades into the darkness.

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(Apologies to Shakespeare fans for the mangling I have committed!)

We used "A Grave Mistake" Battleplan from Bringers of Death for our special Halloween game, a Warcry 1st edition book, but we played it with 2nd edition rules. It still worked perfectly well and proved that the old books are not to be thrown out! And 1500 points of Bonesplitterz is a LOT of orruks.

After the game finished we discussed things that might have balanced it better - our best idea was simply to add that all objectives should be controlled by the Death player at the start of Round 1. That way they would have at least a chance to summon a reasonable warband during the game.

It was still loads of fun though, Kalyustar nearly died so many times but managed to pull off some incredibly narrow-escapes.

Viktor's version of this tale is here.

The Harrowmark Twisted Oak - part 12, game 10 - The Blood Moon

The Harrowmark's moon and her daughters hung low in the sky, a thin crescent and a scattering of shards following her - all of them glowing a soft and pale silver. 

But another moon encroached on their sky - an ominous red moon casting a ruddy light over the forests. An ill omen at the best of times, but especially portentous now that Kalyustar had almost achieved his goal.

The Rotmoons knew this was it - their last chance. The Cursed Company had found the Twisted Oak first and they were going to enact a ritual to extract the magical energies from it. Without that magic the tree was just mundane timber: useless for repairing the rent hull of their skyship. The pirates had to stop the Soulchemist from completing his foul rite or they would be back to square-one; searching for more magical raw materials and still marooned in Wortbad.

“Aethermatic-disruption inducing, thaumaturgically infused metal has always proven effective in altering the flows and counter-flows of realm-defining energies” said El Doctoro as he handed out large rusted ship's nails to each of the crew. 

Blank expressions met this explanation. Each crew member looked at the nail they had been given as if they were poisoned.

"If we can get as many of these into the Soulchemist's lodestone as possible, as quickly as possible, we may be able to save the Oak and harvest it for our own use!" he said, still rowing hard against the tide of understanding.

"We need to stop Kalyustar stealing the magical energies from the wood, or it is useless! We can't make repairs to the Rotmoon with non-magical wood, you see?"

"So... hammer-in the nails to break the rock, to get the wood?" said the Kapitan.

El Doctoro sighed and rubbed his temples. "Yes."

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The Twisted Oak has been found. The ritual to shackle its power is underway and Lunaghast turns an ominous red. Untold power and riches can be gained, if the interlopers are kept at bay.

Terrain: The Twisted Oak in the centre of the southern half of the board.

Deployment: Defiant Stand. The winner of ‘Pierce the Veil’ uses the blue deployment points.

Victory: The Ritual. The winner of the ‘Pierce the Veil’ is the defender.

Twist: The Goremoon Rises.

Reward: the winner of this battle wins the campaign and receives an Escalation Artefact of Power (Tome of Champions 2020, page 103).

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The Soulchemist had set up an altar near the Oak - his books and candles laid out upon it. The Rotmoons surrounded the position and closed in from three sides.

Kapitan da Leeva, Bortagno and El Doctoro from the north.

Dragante, Bold Rikk and Percy Percy from the east.

Kalyustar began his ritual.

He started to syphon off the magical energy from the Twisted Oak.

Kapitan da Leeva and El Doctoro did their best to get to the lodestone that had been driven into the roots of the Oak - they hoped to damage it enough to slow or halt the ritual.

The Deathrattle skeletons threw themselves at the orruk pirates to prevent them from interfering.

The orruks tried to sidestep them and get to the lodestone.

The Rotmoons made their way through the trees.

The fallen Deathrattle reformed under the fell effects of Kalyustar's necromancy.

The rite was working - the Twisted Oak's power was coalescing into Kalyustar's control.

Percy Percy was brought down by a skeleton champion.

Bold Rikk roared with rage and tried to get his revenge.

The fighting intensified and the Rotmoons struggled to close-in on the lodestone.

El Doctoro and Kalyustar exchanged sorcerous blasts.

But the ritual continued, at a greater pace than before. El Doctoro could almost see the power slipping from the tree, through the lodestone and into Kalyustar's grasp.

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The Lunaghast climbed slowly into the sky overhead, it's leering red glow foretelling the doom of one below...

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The Kapitan roared orders - the crew rushed to gather around the lodestone.

Dragante was attacked from behind and he spun round to face his assailant - he and the skeleton hacked at each other. 

The Rotmoons crowded round the lodestone, each trying to hammer their rusted ships' nails in faster than their crewmates. El Doctoro used his weird-powers to heal the crew around him - fortifying them against the harder fight to come.

Bortagno, far away from the lodestone, concentrated on the job he knew best. Then, when he had space to breath he took a moment to gather his strength again. As soon as he recovered he charged forward toward the Oak.

Kalyustar was becoming increasingly enraged that his ritual was being disrupted. Awkwardo took the brunt of his fury.

The Cursed Company's skeleton champions started to pick-off the pirate orruk stragglers.

The ritual continued, but the rate of the magical flow out of the Oak slowed down significantly. The gathered orruks around the poisoned stone were enough to interfere with the connection.

The Cursed Company closed in on the orruks at the lodestone. They needed to drive-off enough of them to allow the magic of the Oak to flow unimpeded.

Bortagno finally made it to the Twisted Oak.

Kalyustar struggled against the rising tide of orruk Waaagh! energy, disrupting the ritual.

But it was too late. The energies draining from the tree destabilised - the ritual was stopped just in time and the magic of the tree coalesced back into the ground.

The orruks drove-off the Cursed Company. When Kalyustar, stunned by the sorcerous backlash of the collapsing ritual, fled into the dark forests.

Kapitan da Leeva ordered the pirate crew to sharpen their axes.

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So, the Twisted Oak campaign draws to a close (and just in time! Animosity IV is right around the corner). We started this campaign way back in January 2020, but inn March 2020 it had to go on a two-year Corona Virus hiatus! We had no idea at that time how long it would be paused.

But then in March 2022 we were able to restart it (with a mechanical restructure based on all the great Warcry content that had been published during lockdown). And here we are, in May 2022, finally at the end of this particular tale.

There will be more action from both these warbands, and more Warcry campaigns set in the Harrowmark. But before that we look to travel to Chamon and Ghur for the summer, for the aforementioned Animosity Campaign.

The Harrowmark Twisted Oak - part 11, game 9 - Interlude

The anchor-watch of the Rotmoon were getting bored and there was a real risk that they would start killing each-other. So Bosun Red Bull picked a shore-party of the most bad-tempered bunch of Morboyz in the crew and made a run into Wortbad for supplies. He pitched it as a raid, but he expected it was going to be more like a shopping trip. He had assumed it would be an easy job; they would walk into town, take what they needed, and run away with it. Everyone would fill their bellies and get blind drunk that night and the ship would be ready to make repairs for when the Kapitan and the rest of the crew came back with the magic timber.

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Terrain: A graveyard at the edge of Wortbad.

Deployment: No Escape (I won priority and chose the blue deployment points).

Victory: Drawn and Quartered (I placed my to objectives between my deployment points).

Twist: Bitter Rivals.

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Bosun Red Bull knocked on the barrels to check they were full. He pulled out a stopper on the top one and gave it a sniff.

"It's booze ladz!" he announced happily and jammed the stopper back in. The orruk pirates all grinned and slapped each other on the back.

"Garfio, Dudoso, go and check out that stuff over there in the barn." he ordered. "Parche, Anzuelo and Bondon , you stay here and keep an eye on this lot. Walta and Pata come with me - I want to have a poke about on that desk over there."

As Garfio and Dudoso advanced they spotted a couple of figures ahead and Garfio called back to Red Bull.

"Boss! Looks we got company. Might be sylvaneth tree-gits? Or maybe aelfs? Oh, looks like they're kinda both!"

Red Bull looked up from the barrels, slightly annoyed at the interruption.

"Well? Don't just stand there a-talking about them. Go and get killing 'em!"

Keeping an eye on the big one, a Nomad Prince, as he had started shooting at them and Garfio had been hit twice already, the orruks raced forward into the barn - there was a smaller tree-aelf in there as well as a load of barrels.

Dudoso dodged behind the barrels as the tree-aelf tried to get him with the sharp-end of a spear.

Red Bull started yelling and at the crew and sent Walta and Pata forward to help Garfio and Dudoso.

Parche was left on his own to look after the barrels at the rear. He hid behind a mausoleum, "Which I was just biding my time..." he said later.

Dudoso went on an absolute Rampage as more Wanderers arrived. He killed the Eternal Guard, who had tried to impale him with a spear, and the Wildwood Ranger, who was hitting Garfio with his axe, in his fury! Garfio was much relieved as he was pretty badly wounded by that point.

Walta strode forward and planted his banner in the ground dramatically. Pata hobbled along on his wooden leg, toward the Nomad Prince, with murder in his eyes.

The Bosun went back to "check da grog wasn't leaking" or something, and cautiously eyed the Sisters of the Thorn that were pounding through the trees towards them.

But the Sisters of the Thorn headed for the Nomad Prince to protect him and rode-down Pata - that affront was met with an outburst of swearing and threats from the Rotmoons nearby.

Parche suddenly made a mad run toward the Sisters of the Thorn but they were long-gone before he got near. He later claimed he chased them off and they fled in terror of his grizzly visage.

Satisfied that the fight was done Red Bull re-joined Bondon at the desk and grabbed a handful of papers and log books that were left there. And the bottles of wine.

"Right, that'll do." he said to the rest of the party, "Let's be getting back to the ship with this here loot."

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This game wasn't part of the campaign as such, but we tied it into the narrative anyway.

Viktor and I got half way through a 4 turn game last week and ran out of time, so our models were still set up in his gaming room. David came for a game and rather than make him watch me and Viktor play, Viktor suggested I used models from the Rotmoons that aren't on my campaign roster and we played a "side quest" on another board. So my warband were:

Bosun Red Bull - Morboy Boss
Walta Rally - Morboy with Totem
Pata - Morboy
Garfio - Morboy
Dudoso - Morboy
Anzuelo - Morboy
Parche - Morboy
Bondon - Morboy

The  Battleplan cards were very much in my favour and really against David! 

I won the priority roll and chose the blue deployment points. I placed my 2 objectives between my three deployment points, and I had everyone on the board in turn 1, so I rushed one of his objectives. 

David started with just 3 models of his Shield and only got his Dagger at the start of Turn 2 and Hammer at the start of Turn 3. By the end of Turn 1, I had 3vp to his 1vp. 

At the end of Turn 2 I held all 4 objectives (which took us to 7:1, to me) and at that point he couldn't win, even if he retook all 4 in turn 3. We played on to see if David could earn a pyrrhic victory and he reclaimed two objectives and killed an orruk (who actually died in the after-battle sequence as I rolled badly). The final Victory Points score was 9:3 to me.

It was a cracking game though - there were lots of very funny moments and I finally felt like I knew exactly what Abilities to use and when to use them! I like this game a lot.