Nagash: 5 Reasons to Use Nagash in your Fantasy Role Playing Game

I'm a big fan of Nagash from way back in the day. Hunt threw some of my ideas to revitalize the Warhammer line and you'll see me talking about a "Summer of Nagash" where the big undead returns and gets to use a variety of unique models as well as those from Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings.

Well boy did that come to pass eh? For those who don't know, Nagash is an undead sorcer from the Warhammer Fantasy setting. At the end of 2014, Games Workshop started the 'End Times' and did a lot of different things to the Warhammer Fantasy setting. The first book of that was with Nagash.

But why is Nagash so awesome? I'm approaching him not only from a miniature appreciation, but because it's Warhammer and I've been a player of the Warhammer setting for years, also as a role playing character.

1. The God That Walks: Dungeons and Dragons has a fat bloated goat headed demon lord known as Orcus. Nagash is a man who pulled himself up into a god like status and fought Sigmar, another former man, now god, in hand to hand combat. Fat goat demon versus man who pulled himself into the higher reaches of possible power?

2. Nagash has magic items. The Books of Nagash or the Liber Mortis, are potent necromantic artifacts in and of themselves that drive others to search them out. These artifacts can make little games in and of themselves as players, if good, must prevent others from finding them, and if evil, take them and master them before others do. His name is also associated with other artifacts of her time like the Black Pyramid of Nagash. This lending of his name to various things, without he himself being there, lends his character power. Take the fat bloated goat headed demon again. What's his wand called? Yup, Wand of Orcus.

3. The First: Nagash has a lot of things attributed directly to him or about him ranging from necromancy and vampires to lichdom. And if not him creating them directly, him being involved either as a counter against his power or early experimentation. This is one of the few times where a setting has a definitive answer. "Where did vampires come from? Where did liches come from? Where did necromancy come from?"

4. Potent Characters: How can you not love Nagash when he has a follower like Arkhan The Black? I have the original model of this character and he's a lich on a skeleton chariot. His never version is even more impressive. When you need a high priest for the undead? Having someone who might be a match for Vecna when Vecan was a lich as opposed to the deity he became? And how about those on the edges of Nagash lore like Krell, a former Chaos Champion who was raised by Nagash and wound up serving Heinrich Kemmler, the Lichemaster? Those names in and of themselves were of powerful entities and they're just entities on the chain of Nagash's influence.

5. Backstory: Because he wasn't overused, Nagash remained a potent character despite having a terrible model in the older edition of the game. This allowed the writers of the Warhammer Fantasy setting to fire with both barrels and deliver a ton of new models, new characters, new scenarios, and new events that could fit in with what we know of Nagash. In Spartacus, there is rumors of "The Shadow of Death" before Spartacus fights the gladiator. Putting bits and pieces of lore about Nagash well before the characters ever meet him? Classic!

When you want to build a monster of your own for your campaign, you could do far worse than look at how Games Workshop handled Nagash.

A Thousand Thrones: Ended

So after many months, we finished the Thousand Thrones.

It broke down to an encounter with an ancient hag trying to use one of our allies as a 'power source' to take over the world.

Half of us attacked the hag, who had a force field around her. The other half attempted to awaken our friend.

It was the ones who awoke our friend who wound up winning the fight.

The biggest problem we had at the end was that the last section was a 'Dungeon Crawl' and well, Warhammer isn't Dungeons and Dragons. One of the traps managed to almost kill everyone. A few random rolls that hit the damage reroll can quickly bypass toughness and armor points to bring down someone who has, say 19 wounds to say 2.

A big part of the 'problem' our group had was just not being prepared for that whole crawl. We lacked a priest and had no healer and no healing potions or poultices or anything of that nature. We also had a lot of bad rolls in some areas.

Overall though, the GM did a great job of keeping us moving through the whole thing. Could the adventure have been far more upfront about what the end goals were? Sure. Was it worth playing in? Yup.

So next up is a quick game called Ninja Burger. I've never played that one before. After that I'm taking my 5th edition Player's Handbook and Monster Manual and doing some on the fly conversions for Emerald Spire and Thornhold as well as some River Kingdoms bits that I have for the Pathfinder setting and see how that goes for a while.

I am disappointed though that the Dungeon Master's Guide has been pushed back. And that WoTC is licensing things off to Gale Force 9. Not that I think that there's anything wrong with the quality of GF9's products. I have a ton of their 4th edition stuff including the big box of Dungeon Master things as well as a lot of their miniatures.

It's just GF9 is not a timely company. I'm hoping we get that DMG screen before 2015 for example.

Anyway, that was many months of campaigning and we bought the GM a cake from Sam's Club with the cover of the product on it. It was great and less than $20 for a half sheet which easily feed like six of us so I'd recommend it to anyone wanting to reward their GM with a quick thank you that's affordable and gives the group some tasty treats.

Anyone else make it through the Thousand Thrones? Any specific quips or memories? Would you recommend it for someone else?

In looking at Pathfinder, any specific things to watch for while doing my on the fly conversions? Mind you I'm reading everything ahead of time and have already started taking notes. The low armor classes and other bits in the Monster Manual have stuck out in their simple stat blocks versus the Pathfinder ones.

Any River Kingdoms resources outside of Thornhold and Emerald Spire I should be aware of? I already have the people and the gazetteer books on the River Folk as well as the old King Maker adventure path so I think I'm pretty well covered.

Warhammer FRPG: Thousand Thrones Slog Continues!

Everything started off in a mix of suck and pleasant. On my way to +Tom Wright house, everyone decided, "Hey, even though this street is closed off, let's ALL take this side street. We're super smart that way!" So there was traffic off his street for four blocks. I parked about two blocks away because that traffic just wasn't going anywhere.

On the other hand, I did stop at Sarpino's and pick up a meatball calzone. While I'm not a huge fan of their pizza, their calzone's are pretty good for fast food.

Even better, one of my other amigos had brought over Justice League War. That carton movie appears to be based off the new origin of the Justice League in the new "52" version of DC. M'eh. There is some good dialog and banter back and forth between the characters. The use of Shazam as opposed to Aquamen was interesting but strange in that you now have Superman and Shazam on the same team.

The movie itself though?  It boils down to one long fight screen between the Justice League and Darkseid. I've seen worse but it just didn't do anything for me. If I want a real long fight scene I'll go turn on Dragonball Z and watch the Cell saga or something.

But the amigo who brought over the movie also brought over Dos Equis and although it was only a twelve pack, it made everything much more... interesting!

So we started off recovering from our fight with the nine vampires. A fight that the GM assured us we couldn't win. So we decide to head back after the 'Child', some weird mutant with the ability to influence those around him and the strength of the influence increases with the time spent with the child.

We wander through a forest, following the trail. Lots of refuse and corpses left in the wake of the wagons of the child's entourage.  As night starts to fall, we come across a way inn. For those who don't know, in the Warhammer setting, way inns are stations where travelers and rest and relax in dangerous places in relative safety.

Turns out the crusade has apparently already been here as its abandoned. We search around for a while looking for some provisions or other treasures that might have been left when a wagon with a priest and his various guards and attendants come up. We and they decide on a mutual "ignore each other" bit and set up shifts to patrol the walls.

The elf and I take one of the later patrols since we both have night vision. Hey, look at that, some critters on the inside of the fort tring to open the gate. They blather about wanting only food and shelter but their on our side of the gate trying to open it to the OUTSIDE where other creatures are already gathered.

Remember when I said that combat in Warhammer can be swingy? One of them hits me with a sling bullet for 18 wounds right off the bat. Unless you're traveling with the right party, especially with the random rolling of starting character careers, getting heavily wounded sucks. Anyway, my dwarf has 14 wounds and a 4 toughness so I'm up but seriously hurt. A few rounds of combat allows us to finish off those on the inside.

Turns out the ones on the outside are also mutants but see, their being chased by Beastmen. So the guards who were firing on the mutants while we fought the ones inside, them help the mutants into the fort.

What follows is almost a narrative combat in which mutant, beastman, and guardsmen suffer horrific damage. I burn through a fate point, one of my other buddies burns through a fate point, the GM is kind and allows another player whose already burned through all his fate points to 'only' be knocked to zero wounds.

At that point the wood elves show up and massacre the Beastmen.

Yeah, I felt that anything we did at that point was pretty much a m'eh opportunity.

And that's the second time that's happened in two sessions.

If the next session involves another ass-whipping with no possibility of victory, can't say I'll be continuing this campaign.

I enjoy a challenge. I enjoy having the potential for death. You get fate points and fortune points so there isn't a real threat from something stupid happening once or twice.

I hate narrative rail roading. Or at least when used too much. I've had my share of players that are like wild chickens and need some structure to get them going onto the adventure proper. But beating the players down in encounters time and time again isn't quite the same thing.

For those who've run through the Thousand Thrones, I've seen some positive and negative comments about it. I'll be curious to see where the next session takes us but may have to bring a 24 pack next time to wade through it.

Warhammer FRPG: Fight or Flight?

+Tom Wright ran his Thousand Thrones last Friday and the car worked and I was able to get to the game. Hell, I even brought 312 in a twelve pack and an old friend who I've been gaming with since high school was there. It was great.

The Warhammer game does have some swing to it. The 'Ulric's Fury' means you can inflict some tremendous damage with a lucky roll, especially if you're using a weapon that lets you roll two dice and keep the better of the two.

Our adventure this week was a little rail road as we approached a town and were captured by the local militia who insisted we were outlaws but would verify our story as long as we did them a favor. Not the worst thing to happen as it wasn't like they took our money or branded us and it could have been handled much worse.

But back to how Warhammer can be a little swingy in combat.

I mention this, because unlike say a standard level based game, such as Dungeons and Dragons, you may know necessarily know when you're outclassed.

Can you see where this is going?

During our investigations, we came across a vampire. It's been a long time for me, so I wasn't sure what the power level of the vampires were, but one of my friends was like, "Yeah, we need to go."

But the rest of us were like, "How tough could it be?"

We soon found out and managed to retreat without too many of us spending fate points to make that escape!

When you're running a game, do you provide any cues for players to let them know that, "Yeah, maybe you don't want to fight this." In some games, you can get the baseline depending on how well you know the game. Dungeons and Dragons is a good example here because if you're first level and start running into hill giants and ancient dragons, yeah, might be time to hall off.

If you're playing a game you've never played before? Or one that doesn't use levels at all but something like Call of Cthulhu where it's all % based and advancement isn't necessarily do anything for durability?

For players, do you have any 'warning' signs you've learned to pick up from the other players or the game master? Do you wait until you're at some point in your abilities or health where you decide, "Yeah, might to be time to head out."