It is the year 2007 of the Imperial Calendar. For eight years, the city of Mordheim has been a burnt out husk, full of precious wyrdstone drawing adventurers to their doom with the promise of riches. But for the last few years, the wyrdstone has dried up- warbands risk their lives for a single shard, or worse a purse of copper coins found in an old ruin. The long established mercenary companies began to disperse, the Elector Counts began to discuss reasserting control over the wayward region, and unreliable madmen babble about mass migrations of rat-men leaving the city. The ShadowLord must have looked on upon all this with a disappointed frown.
That all changed the night a young lad stumbled into Sigmar’s Haven on the outskirts of the city, lacerated with a thousand cuts but grinning with a smile of pleasure. Driven nearly mad, he was carrying a hoard of wyrdstone. Suddenly the city was flush again with wealth which led to two things- senseless slaughter and endless hedonism. Rumors of dark powers swirled- surely this could not be a blessing from some benevolent power. New adventurers band together, reforming warbands for fame, glory, violence, and decadence.
And somewhere, a grin spreads over the face of the ShadowLord…
We just wrapped up a short Mordheim Narrative campaign with one of the local gaming groups here- we had a blast with a more story-driven approach and a few extra mechanics! Our warbands battled each other and the forces of chaos for control of the City of the Damned.
If you want to read through our battle reports and weekly updates, here they all are!
- https://bonespoonminis.io/blades-of-the-damned-a-mordheim-narrative-campaign-intro-and-week-1/
- https://bonespoonminis.io/blades-of-the-damned-a-mordheim-narrative-campaign-week-2/
- https://bonespoonminis.io/blades-of-the-damned-a-mordheim-narrative-campaign-week-3/
- https://bonespoonminis.io/blades-of-the-damned-a-mordheim-narrative-campaign-week-4/
- https://bonespoonminis.io/blades-of-the-damned-a-mordheim-narrative-campaign-week-5/
- https://bonespoonminis.io/blades-of-the-damned-a-mordheim-narrative-campaign-week-6-finale/
We had an absolute blast playing, hope you enjoy reading!
If you’re interested in running this with your group, read on and check out all the files on the Rules and Resources page!
Campaign NPC Showcase
Before diving into the rules though, let me just quickly post up a little showcase of the NPCs I put together for this campaign. Had a lot of fun- had some already but painted up some new ones and these cool portals. The portal effect is printed on a very cool stratasys color printer. And always fun to paint up some old school demons!
The Campaign
This is a short, 6-session narrative campaign format designed to add a little bit of flair and a clear endgame to a casual Mordheim group. A couple key things it uses try to address some of the common problems in Mordheim campaigns- they drag on too long, players lack goals and direction, and things kind of putter out instead of building to a crescendo. This would be great for a group of 6-8 players over a couple months, and doesn’t introduce so many new mechanics that newbies can’t learn. It’s meant to split the difference between a 3-game, 1-day event and an endless campaign. It uses
- The Mordheim map to help localize action and provide some fun bonuses
- A custom Warband Tracker which makes the warband level up and have narrative themed goals
- A fixed set of scenarios to build a narrative over time.
The narrative is inspired by some Marginalia text included in the old Realms of Chaos book introducing Khorne and Slaneesh. It tells the stories of two feuding brothers, Johann and Lothar, seeking to gain power and becoming demon princes. This hook is then set in the City of the Damned 8 years after the comet, in IC 2007. The wellspring of wyrdstone has dried up, leaving warbands picking over the remnants. Suddenly, unknown powers begin to respawn wyrdstone and begin a second gold rush. It is into this maelstrom your players enter.
This campaign could be easily reskined to use any two feuding powers behind the scenes- chaos, elves, wizards, etc etc. You can easily relocate to a new setting or tweak to your needs. In this narrative framework, the warbands are caught up in powers bigger than themselves, but have a chance to influence the future of the city of the damned- aiming for a nice grimdark vibe with the chance for a touch of heroism.
Starting the Campaign
If you’re interested in starting the campaign, you’ll need 1) players, 2) terrain, 3) the files on this website, and 4) a few special scenario gubbins like portals and such.
For the GM, check out the GM Guide, the Warband Tracker, and Warband Upgrades to help orient yourself to the narrative and rules.
Your players will need to make a warband, following some tweaks in the player packet. They will also need to fill out a Warband XP tracker and check out the mordheim map (https://beyondthetabletop.com/mordheim-campaign-map/).
So there is a little bit of paperwork to get going, but for the players only an extra sheet on top of normal warband creation. Even the newbies in our campaign got it pretty fast. But as the GM I’d recommend trying to track things in case folks loose their paperwork (could you imagine).
Running the Campaign
Each session is fairly chill. Pair up players and assign them to boards (and use a 1 v 1 v 1 multiplayer game if needed to include everyone). Give preference to matches that haven’t already happened.
Each session as a specific scenario that builds the narrative over time: Session 1, Session 2, Session 3, Session 4, Session 5, Session 6
If someone can’t make it for a given session, there is a simple catchup mechanic (+1xp to everyone for surviving, 3 heroes can roll for exploration) to keep them in the fight but not overly award not attending.
Keep track of some basic stats as well as cool events (like when a troll slayer single handedly fells not one, but two ogres!) to make up cool awards at the end of the campaign. It’s probably obvious but your players will love little stickers/pins/printed minis/whatever you can give out as freebies to remember the campign.
The final game should be some madcap fun! If you do a big multiplayer game, be sure to schedule an extra hour or two and stay on the ball trying to keep the game moving (including letting things run in parallel if needed) – it can get zany!
So hopefully you find this exciting- maybe something you can adapt or run for your gang! Happy hunting in the City of the Damned
-BS