Season 3: Power Behind the Throne – Recap

On By theoaxner

Swedish version

PBtT-collage
Art by Les Edwards (inset) and Ian Miller (background)

A short(ish) summary of the  third season of The Enemy Within: Remixed. 

This new version of the post has been updated with a full recap of the third act. The first two acts largely consist of added material.

Prologue: Where We Left Off

800px_COLOURBOX1503183
The sign of the Hand

After the adventures in Castle Wittgenstein, the adventurers found most of the clues they had found pointing to Middenheim: this was where both Marike’s double Esther Lieberung and her mysterious patron the Magister Magistri of the Hand were apparently based, and the Magister seemed to have a major, no doubt evil, scheme going. Esther and Etelka Herzen had been working on a project called “The Work”, apparently to create a shape-shifting homunculus. In the castle they had seen Margrethe von Wittgenstein successfully creating just such a creature.) Gotthard von Wittgenstein, Margrethe’s older brother, also seemed to live in Middenheim and have some, probably unpleasant, plan for the carnival this autumn.

However, there were some other matters to settle first. The adventurers split up; Zima and Dmitri tracked Nanker‘s Chaos warband, who had captured Etelka Herzen, north while the rest of the party sailed south to do some errands they undertook – most importantly, arranging a delivery of food to Wittgendorf – and then visiting Marike’s family in Wissenland, before they too would go north.

The visit to Marike’s family was not only for social reasons; in Castle Wittgenstein, Marike had had some hints about her hitherto completely unknown father. He seemed to be identical to one Samuel Heintz who had served House Wittgenstein, led some sort of cult in their house chapel and was also the father of Esther Lieberung – if this was true, the doubles were half-sisters. What, if anything, did Marike’s family know about this?

Act 1: On the Road

4 July-23 August 2512

Player characters: Aenlinn Sattler, Marike Havenblast, Wernhart Bader, Katharina “Kethe” von Hollinger

NPCs with the party: Said de Labyourteaux (E1-6), Courage

A Family Secret

After the food run to Wittgendorf, the adventurers sailed south, to Nuln and on to Marie’s uncle Ser Warmund von Hollinger‘s estate Havenblast in northwestern Wissenland, where they were received as guests. Marike asked about the past and actually got to know quite a bit: Samuel Heintz was indeed her father and had served as physician at Havenblast, but secretly he had drawn local youths into the Dark Arts, gathering a coven in the woods. After such an episode, ending with several youths  being badly shaken and one young woman drowning, he fled and left Beate von Hollinger, Warmund’s younger sister, pregnant (with Marike) and severely mentally disturbed.

haxjakt

Marike and her cousin Kethe undertook to find Samuel, if he were alive, and hold him accountable. Before that, however, Kethe had been called upon to go to the village of Kröte and, as her father’s representative, investigate a case of suspected witchcraft. She persuaded Marike and the others to come along.

They solved the mystery in Kröte and freed the innocently accused “witch”; on the way, they also found Samuel’s old cult site in the forest, with several symbols they recognized from the chapel in Wittgenstein, and fought a pig horribly mutated by a piece of warpstone it had devoured.

Detailed recaps:

Altdorf and the Signal Tower

After a brief rest, they sailed north again. Their journey first took them to Altdorf, the capital of the Empire, which they found in a strangely anxious, restless mood. From there they went to the signal tower built on top of Freifrau Dagmar von Wittgenstein‘s old underground observatory, but they found that Nanker’s crew, with their prisoner (or ally?) Etelka Herzen, had beaten them there and looted the secret library underneath the tower cellars.

dotr4e-p27-signal-tower

However, Etelka had left a letter to “Esther” urging her to come to Middenheim and help with “The Work”. It turned out to contain a second message in invisible ink, in which she claimed to be a prisoner of the Hand and forced to help them, and asked Marike for help in stopping the Master’s plans.

Back in Altdorf, Said declared that he had to prioritize trading to pay off his debts, and they agreed to dissolve their trading company and share the profits. Said still had a cargo to take north and offered them a ride to Delberz (halfway to Middenheim). He had also obtained a letter from Zima: she and Dmitri had tracked a mysterious stagecoach that apparently led Nanker et consortes to Middenheim.

It turned out that people in Altdorf were looking for Esther Lieberung, and the adventurers hurried to leave.

Detailed recaps:

The Road North

190220070220lc1744gHo-l
Mother Addi (Photo source: Les Artisans d’Azure)

They first sailed to Steinbrück to visit Professor Bletzen, but found that she was not home: she had traveled to Middenheim (and taken Renate) to consult with the Chancellor of the university there.

On the way further north, they visited the Chapel of the Sacred Spring and ended up rescuing a Curian priest from Altdorf, one Mother Addi of the Order of St. Sigmar, from an attack by the Righteous Soldiers, a radical Ulrican / Purist terrorist group. Mother Addi asked them to bring a letter to the Ulrican High Shepherd Jarrick Valgeir in Middenheim and promised to help them in the future if it was in her power; they could look for her at the Cathedral in Altdorf.

In Delberz, they disbanded the trading company and separated from Said; the remaining adventurers procured horses and a cart and continued the country road north towards Middenheim. On the way, they met and joined Emmelinde, a young hunter who was about to release her fiancé who was imprisoned. She turned out to have a strangely good hand with wild animals; a couple of wolves who were apparently her “friends” helped chase away a band of highwaymen the adventurers encountered not long after.

Detailed recaps:

A Rough Night at The Three Feathers

rough-night-three-feathers
The Gräfin’s retinue arrives at the Three Feathers (Art by J. G. O’Donohue)

One rainy evening they entered The Three Feathers inn, which was having a busy night indeed: Gräfin Marie-Ulrike von Ambosstein was visiting with her entourage. She was on her way to Middenheim for a trial, accused of murdering Baron Otto von Dammenblatz by poison or sorcery. The matter was to be settled by trial by combat, and Aenlinn’s old soldier buddy Bruno Franke turned out to be the Gräfin’s champion.

It was a rough night, to say the least. There was a great uproar and full-on brawl when a drunken and furious merchant, Thomas Goldwasser, came charging in with a few thugs to drag home his escaped wife Hanna and beat her lover, the nobleman Friedrich von Helstein, half to death; however, Aenlinn and Kethe intervened and managed to stop them without bloodshed. Goldwasser and his followers left, but his young wife Hanna stayed with Kethe.

A moment later a tumult arose among some brothers of the Order of the Stranger, who had brought a coffin with them to their room; there briefly seemed to be four monks around and not three! The next morning, the monks were found, apparently dead, in their room and with a headless corpse in the coffin. Wernhart managed to save one of the “monks” and was told that they were smugglers who were hired to bring one “Josef” to safety south of Middenheim. The bounty hunter Ursula Kleipzig had attacked them during the night, beheaded “Josef” and taken his head with her.

During the night, Bruno, the Gräfin’s champion, was also found lifeless with a dagger in her back. Marike and Wernhart managed to save his life – though he’d be far too weak to fight in the duel – and the countess dragooned the adventurers into luring the killer into a trap with Aenlinn, as a new champion, as bait. They did successfully capture the killer, one Dominique Hervaux who had infiltrated the Gräfin’s retinue as the maid Elina. The Gräfin was very pleased and offered them continued service during her time in Middenheim, at least until the trial by combat, in which Aenlinn now agreed in earnest to fight for her.

rnhd_p5
Dawn breaks on the Three Feathers (Art from RN&HD)

The day after they left the Three Feathers, the adventurers, the Gräfin’s entourage, Hanna (who traveled with them) and Emmelinde finally arrived at Middenheim. They were let in through the toll gates, but were told that the new laws that had recently come into force (which they’d heard some rumors about along the way already) meant that expensive licenses were required to, for example, practice alchemy. The laws seemed to have aroused a great deal of dissatisfaction.

Detailed recaps:

Act 2: City of the White Wolf

August 23 – September 7, 2512

Player characters: Aenlinn Sattler, Marike Havenblast, Wernhart Bader, Katharina “Kethe” von Hollinger

NPCs with the party: Courage, Emmelinde (E10, 18-20, 24-27), Klaus (19-20, 25-27), Zima (25-27), Dmitri (25-27)

jaime-jasso-sg0030gen-concept-1001
Middenheim (Art by Jaime Jasso)

Initial Endeavours

The Gräfin’s entourage – now including the adventurers – was quartered at the Baumgarten Haus, a house in the Westtor district the Gräfin had borrowed from her cousin the Kurfürstin of Middenheim. The adventurers had a couple of days off before the duel that was to take place on Monday and began to work on their various errands:

  • They found that Zima and Dmitri had taken rooms at The Templar’s Arms inn but then disappeared from there. They also visited the Windhund Haulage Company, whose coach Z & D had tracked from Kemperbad, but its owner Glückstein denied having sent any coaches so far south.
  • They managed to get a short audience with High Shepherd Valgeir to hand over Mother Addi’s letter. The prelate seemed stressed and distracted.
  • Kethe and Wernhart accompanied Hanna to talk to her parents, who had been told she was abducted. The situation was delicate, as they owed their son-in-law Thomas Goldwasser a lot of money. Hanna was allowed to stay under the protection of the adventurers (and of the Gräfin) for now.
  • At the university, they met Professor Bletzen, who invited them as guests to the next meeting of the Noctua Society – a society of scholars with an interest in esoteric sciences – on Tuesday.
  • They sorted out the formalities for Marike’s (outrageously expensive) license for alchemy.
  • They visited the two addresses they had to Esther Lieberung in Middenheim via Etelka Herzen’s letters.
    • The secret address led to a locksmith’s shop with a rental apartment on top. This was the address that the real Esther had asked Etelka to use; the adventurers had not yet gained access to the apartment (and, in the event, never got around to it).
    • The “official” address led to what was apparently Esther’s residence and surgery. A secret passage under the house led to the basement of a boarded-up neighboring house, where they found Esther’s old laboratory.
    • The second house was thoroughly searched and mostly emptied, but they found a cryptic letter from Gotthard von Wittgenstein that seemed to allude to some sort of agreement between different secret societies. Marike also had a brief vision that suggested that the artist Gustav Klöcker, who lived in the garret, painted magical or alchemical paintings.
  • This weekend was Geheimnisnacht – the haunted night when the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead was said to be thinner than usual – and the adventurers all had eerie nightmares.

Detailed recaps:

jerome-huguenin-middenheim-2
Hoffenstrasse XII (Art by Jerome Huguenin)

Trial by Combat

On Monday, it was time for the trial by combat between Gräfin Marie-Ulrike von Ambosstein and Baron Eberhard von Dammenblatz, who accused her of being behind his father’s death. Eberhard’s champion turned out to be Aenlinn’s old antagonist Bernadette de Capricorne.

forkamparna
The champions (Art by Theo Axner)

At the same time, a group of criminals rescued an imprisoned accomplice by blowing up part of the prison walls (apparently the artist Gustav Klöcker, who was imprisoned for witchcraft, seized the opportunity to escape at the same time), which led to the duel being interrupted several times, but in the end it went through. After a hard and even fight, Aenlinn wounded Bernadette and won the trial by combat. The highly-pleased Gräfin offered the adventurers continued service. They were also introduced to her cousin Fürstin Annika-Elise, the young wife of Kurfurst Boris Todbringer of Middenheim, who had come to see the duel incognito with her ladies-in-waiting and celebrated the victory with them that evening.

Kethe and Wernhart met Emmelinde again; confronted with their suspicions, she admitted that both she and her fiancé Klaus, whom she still has not found, were werewolves. She asked the adventurers for help finding him and / or the bounty hunter who arrested him.

Detailed recaps:

Friends in Need

The night after the trial by combat, the adventurers met a ghost in the city; a man who had just been murdered but couldn’t remember who he was, and asked for help finding his remains so they could be buried. They found his severed hand, which still seemed to have some kind of life in it, and were eventually able to identify the dead man as the bounty hunter Johann Niederwald – who eventually turned out to be the man who arrested Klaus, Emmelinde’s fiancé. His severed hand sprung to “life” and seemed to point to a place beneath the Windhund Company.

valnaden

On Tuesday evening, Marike and Wernhart visited the learned Noctua Society with Professor Bletzen. They got to know several scholars and understood there was much dissatisfaction and concern about the new laws.

  • Two of the judges from the duel, Dean Edel Müller from the Chapel of the Arbiter and Law Lord Karl-Heinz Wasmeier, turned out to be members.
  • Wasmeier was an old friend of University Chancellor Albrecht Helreuther and seemed sympathetic to critics of the laws; apparently he had been outvoted by the other two Law Lords.
  • The party was disrupted for a while by the witch-hunter Adele Ketzenblum paying an unannounced visit, asking some ominously insinuating questions.
  • Marike and Wernhart found a painting by Klöcker depicting the missing alchemist Josef Spitz, who they suspected may have been the headless man on The Three Feathers.

That same evening, Aenlinn met another old enemy: Hans Jinkerst, a cultist of the Seeing Circle. He was surprisingly friendly now, proposing an alliance to attack the underground laboratory of the Hand, free their captured friends and sabotage their experiments. He claimed that Zima and Dmitri had been involved in an earlier attempt with them but were captured. Aenlinn answered evasively that she would think about it, but in the end they decided to make the attempt without the help of the Circle.

A visit to the Merchants’ Guild revealed that Samuel Heintz had apparently made a career as a merchant and councillor in Middenheim under the name Samuel Kepler, and that his son, Councillor Gotthard Kepler, seemed identical to Gotthard von Wittgenstein.

There was some continued trouble between Hanna Kohl-Goldwasser, whom the adventurers rescued from The Three Feathers and persuaded the Gräfin to temporarily take into her service, and her husband Thomas Goldwasser. After some back and forth, Thomas agreed to a quiet divorce, but Hanna’s family still owed him a lot of money. Eventually, the Gräfin would become satisfied enough with the adventurers’ work to agree to lend Hanna’s parents enough money to pay off their debts to Thomas and instead tie them to her.

Musgrave-Pond-Centennial-Park
The Black Pool in the Great Park

On Wednesday evening, they had dinner with the Jung family, the lady-in-waiting Kirsten and the master-at-arms Ser Elke Wensmann at the Showboat. It was a pleasant event and they heard some gossip about the prince’s family, the carnival, the Dammenblatz family and who has an influence on the prince. Elke behaved a little strangely and surprisingly expressed support for the tax on the Engineers’ Guild, even though she was also a great admirer of the city’s engineers.

Detailed recaps:

The Laboratory of the Hand

samice-doctor-lab-concept-a-1-3666f4fe-nqmh
(Art by Sergey Musin)

The night before Thursday, armed with a map of the sewer system, the adventurers went into the sewers and managed to find their way underneath the Windhund Haulage Company. There they found a two-level basement vault with two laboratories. Downstairs, they found a machine similar to the one in Margrethe von Wittgenstein‘s laboratory, Zima and Klaus in cages, and Dmitri on an operating table where Professor Alkazan – a famous scientist and alchemist who had been missing for some time – was about to start operating on him. Alkazan welcomed Marike (as Esther Lieberung) and her company, told them that “The Work” had recently been completed, and apparently agreed to release Dmitri and Zima.

The mood quickly soured when Marike insisted on taking her friends from there and Alkazan called in a horde of wandering dead. After a fight in the laboratory, the adventurers managed to take down Alkazan and his slaves and free Klaus; Zima and Dmitri, already behaving strangely, fled as soon as Alkazan died and disappeared through a secret passage.

In Alkazan’s bedroom, they found the severed head of Josef Spitz, which to their horror turned out to be “alive”. With the help of the air pump device in the laboratory, the head could speak and offered to tell the adventurers everything they wanted to know if they would free it from its suffering.

Spitz’s head supplied and confirmed a good deal of information, including the fact that the Magister took custody of the finished Faceless and sent Etelka Herzen and Gustav Klöcker on a mission outside the city, and that “Zima” and “Dmitri” were in fact copies created in the laboratory . The real Zima and Dmitri had been taken on the same expedition as Etelka. Emmelinde and Klaus undertook to track them down.

The adventurers gathered what they could easily get from the laboratory and rigged an explosive charge with gunpowder they found in a storage room to destroy the rest. They brought with them some elixirs and mixtures as well as Alkazan’s journal notes, which were unfortunately written in a foreign script.

They also found and rescued the rest of Johann Niederwald’s body, which they had buried the next day to finally let him rest in peace. His ghost appeared one last time, thanked them and asked them to give his regards to his sister and ask her for a gift to them on his behalf.

Detailed recaps:

The Continued Ambosstein / Dammenblatz Affair

rnhd-p36-37_opera
The opera (Art from Rough Nights and Hard Days)

The adventurers’ next assignment for Gräfin Marie-Ulrike was to be part of her and the Kurfürstin’s escort to the opera on Friday night. There were some incidents during the evening, first and foremost:

  • Aenlinn received a “we’re waiting” note from the Seeing Circle with some cursed runes; her suppressed hidden power flared up and she burned the letter with just her mind. Wibeke, one of the guards who had already read the letter, had “gotten ill” and fled; in fact she had started growing gray scales on her face and parts of her body. Kethe managed to hide her from the witch-hunter Matthäus Hübkind and his followers, who were spying on the Gräfin’s people; Wernhart smuggled her to Professor Bletzen, who in turn intended to smuggle her on to the discreet surgeon Hochen.
  • During the intermission, Aenlinn discovered and neutralized a steaming herbal concoction that someone had hidden in a potted plant in the atrium of the stall. Someone trying to drug them?
  • In the second act, a couple of apprentice engineers, who had been thrown out earlier, threw a fake bomb at the unpopular Lord Chancellor Josef Speermann‘s booth, causing a brief panic in the theater until the Kurfürstin managed to calm the audience.
  • After the performance, the witch-hunter Hübkind confronted the Gräfin and the Kurfürstin and wanted to ask questions, but was turned away.

The Countess had more work for the adventurers: she asked them to gather all the compromising material they could find about her enemy Baron Eberhard von Dammenblatz; she wanted to bring him to justice for all his suspected foul play, but needed proof. The adventurers began delving into the matter and found some leads: the baron had several enemies willing to speak out against him, including his disgruntled former champion Bernadette, who was keen to bring him down. She eventually helped dig up some juicy gossip about Herr Eberhard’s father, the late Baron Otto.

Gräfin Marie-Ulrike von Ambosstein (Art by Theo Axner)
Freiherr Eberhard von Dammenblatz (Art from Rough Nights & Hard Days)

The night before Sunday, a burglar broke into the adventurers’ room; apparently looking for their loot from the laboratory. They stopped the burglary but failed to take him alive.

At this time, Aenlinn disappeared for a few days; she left a short note saying that her brother Wenzel was in trouble and that she had to help him. So far she hadn’t been forthcoming about what happened, but the others hadn’t pressed her on the point either.

On Sunday night, Marike enjoyed a nice dinner at the Showboat with Dammenblatz’s steward Werner Markheim, who leaked a number of tidbits about his master. However, the evening ended less pleasantly when a coachman and Markheim’s treacherous valet Tilmann tried to kidnap them, but they managed to save themselves.

Meanwhile, Emmelinde had returned and told the others that she and Klaus had tracked down the expedition.

Detailed recaps:

The Expedition to Oberholzbek

The adventurers had a few days off and rode – except for Aenlinn, who was still missing – east with Emmelinde to the mining village Oberholzbek, where the Hand’s expedition seemed to be investigating something in the mine. There they discovered that Zima and Dmitri had been bewitched with the help of Klöcker’s alchemical portraits, but they managed to dispel the effect and free them (although they were left badly drained).

cirkel-symbol
The sign of the Seeing Circle

They also discovered a large warband of beastmen and mutants, carrying the mark of the Seeing Circle, heading to Oberholzbek. While the Hand expedition was down in the mine finding what they were looking for – apparently a bounty of warpstone – the adventurers warned the villagers and snooped through Klöcker’s and Etelka Herzen’s alchemical field laboratory. Among Klöcker’s papers, they found some ominous sketches and notes, a couple of which seemed to allude to the demon Gideon.

The adventurers retreated westwards and ambushed the Hand’s expedition. After an inconclusive fight where the adventurers seemed to be gaining the upper hand, a flock of beastmen appeared, lured there by the noise of battle. The adventurers retreated, leaving the two enemy groups to each other.

On the way back to Middenheim, they were attacked by a group of armed men and women led by Theodor Glückstein, the manager of the Windhund Haulage Company. He wanted back what they had stolen from the laboratory. It was a tough fight; the adventurers were hard pressed at first but eventually repulsed the attack. Glückstein was killed in the fight.

Emmelinde and Klaus did not accompany them back to Middenheim, but said goodbye and returned to their home.

pbtt-4e-p15-travelers
Other travellers on the road (Art from Power Behind the Throne 4E)

Back in Middenheim, they learned that Professor Bletzen had been imprisoned on suspicion of black magic in connection with a raid on the Noctua Society’s latest meeting, and when the university’s vice chancellor, Dr. Janna Eberhauer, went to Lord Chancellor Speermann to complain, he made unwelcome approaches to her – which was usually very out of character for him. Aenlinn also came back around this time.

Detailed recaps:

The Kurfürstin’s Grand Masquerade Ball

rnhd_p68-69_masquerade-ball-beskuren
The masquerade (Art from Rough Nights & Hard Days)

Finally, it was time for the Kurfürstin Annika-Elise’s grand masquerade ball at Nikse House. At the entrance dance, the adventurers got their first glimpse of Kurfurst Boris Todbringer – the Kurfurst, however, seemed frail and withdrew shortly afterwards.

During a mostly enjoyable evening at the masquerade ball, the adventurers observed and experienced, among other things:

  • The singer Eva Dietrich turned out to have had an affair with Baron Otto von Dammenblatz and to be a former member of the very exclusive “Society” around the Kurfurstin where he spent his last night alive.
  • Marike was charmed by the court minstrel Ranveer Lafari (and vice versa).
  • Ser Elke Wensmann once more behaved strangely when the new taxes came up, and by now more people had started noticing.
  • Not only Hanna but also her husband, Thomas Goldwasser, were at the ball! Both were puzzled as to why they had been invited.
  • Wernhart was called in to discreetly help a young man – apparently one of a group of sex workers – who overdosed on something inappropriate. Councillor Gotthard Kepler seemed to be involved somehow.

At the stroke of eleven, the Kurfürstin announced a general hide-and-seek game and the lights were out throughout the house until midnight. During the game, Marike suffered a vision of the murder of Otto von Dammenblatz.

masquerade_by_sebastiankowoll_d72s7ic
Lights out! (Art by Sebastian Kowoll)

The hide-and-seek game was followed by a midnight supper. Hanna Kohl-Goldwasser had disappeared; in the basement, the adventurers found a secret ritual room, reminiscent of Samuel’s cult sites, and rescued Hanna and her husband, whom they found trapped in their respective cells near the hall, drugged and half-conscious.

Gräfin Marie-Ulrike told them she had attended a meeting of the Kurfürstin’s “Society” and had been offered initiation but declined. She hadn’t thought it was anything serious, but after the adventurers’ discoveries she was beginning to wonder.

The Gräfin went to confront her cousin the Fürstin, but they were interrupted by a raving Baron Eberhard von Dammenblatz, who again blamed the Gräfin for his father’s death (apparently he had received new information during the evening). The Fürstin dismissed him and he instead accused her, whereupon he suddenly pulled out a concealed pistol and shot her dead, putting a very definitive end to the ball.

Afterwards, the Gräfin explained that she intended to leave Middenheim the very next day, but offered the adventurers a salary to stay in the city over the carnival and report to her about any political developments.

And thus, we segue into Carnival week and the eponymous third act of Power Behind the Throne…

Detailed recaps:

Act 3: The Power Behind the Throne

September 8th – 16th, 2512

Player characters: Aenlinn Sattler, Marike Havenblast, Wernhart Bader, Katharina “Kethe” von Hollinger

NPCs with the party: Courage (E31-36, 49)

market-festival
Market stalls had been raised most everywhere (Art by Daniel Kontur)

The Carnival Begins

The Gräfin’s entourage indeed left the next day – Hanna went with them – and the adventurers, having undertaken to keep an eye on developments, found new lodgings at the Templar’s Arms inn.

On Sunday the Carnival began and the adventurers started visiting events and making enquiries. They got acquainted with the streetwise urchin Claudia and employed her and her friends as lookouts and messengers.

It turned out, unpleasantly, that two of the sex workers from the masquerade had been found murdered, probably having been sacrificed instead of Hanna and her husband. Werner Markheim, too, was found murdered at his office by the adventurers. They also found a hidden shrine with bloody handprints on the walls, letters from the assassin Dominique and some coded letters from two higher dignitaries of the Hand. The letters implied that Markheim had secretly been driving the Ambosstein-Dammenblatz conflict on, and also referred to the Magister Magistri being busy with something very important right now. It all seemed to have something to do with the controversies around the new laws, but the exact nature of the connection was highly unclear.

pend1_361x500Doctor Luigi Gambetti, the Kurfurst’s flamboyant physician, helped the adventurers dehypnotise Ser Elke. Put into a trance, Elke remembered some things she’d otherwise forgotten: she had been hypnotised by one Charlotte, a red-headed young lady with a Bretonnian accent, into speaking in favour of the new laws. Was someone trying to influence the Kurfurst by way of Elke, or was there something else going on here?

Detailed recaps:

In Palace Gardens and Back Alleys

On Tuesday, the adventurers attended the Kurfurst’s Garden Party in the Palace Gardens, mingling, eavesdropping and picking up various pieces of news and gossip.

pbttc-p7-hedge-maze
The hedge maze, a centrepiece at the Garden Party
278240146_orig
The newcomers (Art by Dmitry Burmak)

In the evening, Marike and Ranveer Lafari went to the opera and spent a pleasant night. During some late-night talk the court minstrel let slip that he suspected High Shepherd Valgeir and the lady-in-waiting Manuela Baader (also the Kurfurst’s mistress, as it turned out) of a secret affair.

The same night, the rest of the party was ambushed by Hand cultists but rescued by members of the Seeing Circle led by Hans Jinkerst. The Circle proposed an alliance against the Hand, which was their enemy as well; the adventurers kept their distance but agreed to exchange some information.

Detailed recaps:

Gotthard Kepler’s Party

With some help from Claudia and her friends, the adventurers found the Three Dice tavern/gaming house/brothel where the sex workers from the masquerade ball (where two of them were murdered) were working, and found out the whole workforce had been booked for a private party at the residence of Councillor Gotthard Kepler that same night (Wednesday). The adventurers, who had grown convinced that Kepler was a central figure of the Society, which had been led by the Kurfurstin until her death and conducted the dark ritual underneath the masquerade, decided to investigate further and managed to infiltrate his villa during the evening, while a pair of agitators held a rally outside that nearly turned into a riot.

demonett
The thing that was Fiona (Art by Tony Ackland)

At the villa they witnessed a ritual orgy, saw a servant girl turn into a daemon and looted a bunch of documents from Kepler’s study, the latter apparently about a planned ritual; they fled the villa just as it was stormed by a troop of watchmen and the witch-hunter Matthäus Hübkind. Ser Lucius von Harwitz, one of the most dangerous cultists (also a Knight Panther and former bodyguard of the Kurfurstin) hunted Kethe down, but at the last minute Aenlinn came to her relief and they managed to put him down. On their way back the adventurers walked right into a Watch patrol and spent the night in a cell.

Detailed recaps:

New Allies and Old Enemies

rita
Rita (Art from the Power Behind the Throne Companion)

The adventurers got unexpected help from one ‘Sister Rita’ who got them set free. In exchange, she wanted all the information they had on Gotthard and the Kurfurstin’s Society, which she had been on to for a while – she eventually turned out to be an intelligence agent working for the Kurfurst’s bastard Heinrich Hohenfels. They compared notes and found out the Society had been scattered and Kepler had fled the city. The adventurers told Rita about their suspicions of another conspiracy around the new laws. Rita encouraged them to look further into that while she mopped up the remains of the Society. She had made some disturbing discoveries already, such as Lord Chancellor Josef Speermann being addicted to an illegal drug, which might open him up to blackmail. She had also managed to arrange for Professor Bletzen to be released.

One dangerous member of the Society that did escape was the double-life-leading witch-hunter Adele Ketzenblum. The adventurers trailed her to Koch’s Tavern and found out she and her companions had abducted Eva Dietrich and were going to murder her in the tavern’s cellar. They freed Eva and defeated Ketzenblum et consortes.

D7490df158c4bbee79f2fb8029d38848
Koch’s tavern (by unknown artist)
nanker
Nanker (Art by Theo Axner)

The same night – the night before Friday – Nanker’s warband entered the inn to attack the adventurers, who managed to kill them all after a tough fight. Among their things were found a map of the city sewer system with a few X-es marked, and a rag doll that turned out to contain a hidden note saying “Help! I’m a prisner of beestmen.”

Detailed recaps:

A Conspiracy Unravelling

The adventurers decided to prioritise finding and rescuing the supposedly abducted child, and after hitting some dead ends managed to track the kidnappers to the cellars underneath an abandoned house in the Ostwald and rescue their victim – none other than Reya Ehrlinger, the granddaughter of Law Lord Regina Ehrlinger. The kidnappers’ leader Brünhilde, who was killed in the fight, also turned out to be identical to Charlotte, who had hypnotised Ser Elke, as well as the bounty hunter Ursula Kleipzig, who had brought Josef Spitz’ head back to the Laboratorium Terribilis – and she had more disguises in use. Among Brünhilde’s things they also found some juicy blackmail material: love letters from High Shepherd Valgeir to Manuela Baader, as well as letters signed by Manuela implying she’d been working for the Society to wicked ends – however, the adventurers figured out the latter letters were forged. Brünhilde also turned out to have been providing Lord Chancellor Speermann with drugs using another disguise.

pbtt-4e_p5_brunhilde
Brünhilde and her disguises (Art from the 4E Power Behind the Throne, detail)

Law Lord Ehrlinger was overjoyed at getting her granddaughter back and revealed that her colleague, Joachim Hoffmann, had Reya kidnapped to pressure her into supporting his law proposals. To bring him to justice they’d have to go before the Kurfust and accuse him, but that would in turn require both more evidence and, preferably, support from more people with influence on the Kurfurst. The adventurers strongly suspected Hoffmann was not the mastermind behind the conspiracy himself, but merely an accomplice.

Returning the blackmail material won the adventurers the gratitude of support of Manuela and High Shepherd Valgeir; in return, Manuela convinced the Kurfurst to grant them an audience on Sunday. They also convinced Professor Albrecht Helreuther, the Chancellor the University, that there was foul play behind the new laws and he promised them his support to have the laws overturned and the conspirators brought to justice.

They were less successful with Lord Chancellor Josef Speermann and the third Law Lord, Karl-Heinz Wasmeier. They confronted Speermann, who broke down and confessed to his drug problem; he reluctantly promised to put a testimony in writing, but mainly seemed keen to get rid of them. Wasmeier, for his part, listened to the adventurers with interest, but kept neutral and looked forward to hearing their full account at the audience next day.

Detailed recaps:

The Traitor Unmasked

pbtt-4e-coverOn Saturday night, the party gathered at Ranveer’s place in the Outer Palace to prepare their friends and allies for the audience. Ser Elke disappeared and was found stabbed in her room; she might have bled to death if the adventurers’ hadn’t found and saved her in time. Her attacker was none other than Law Lord Hoffmann, and when the guard was alerted they found he had just gone on to a private audience with Kurfurst Boris Todbringer!

The adventurers and guards rushed to the Kurfurst’s suite, where they found two men fighting for their lives – both of them identical copies of the Kurfurst! The adventurers intervened and saved the real Kurfurst from the imposter, a shapeshifter – the Magister’s Faceless, apparently! – who had until recently assumed Hoffmann’s form. In Hoffmann’s office they found indices that the fake Hoffmann had received instructions from Law Lord Wasmeier, who was apparently the Magister Magistri of the Hand. The Kurfurst tasked them to arrest Wasmeier, who had already fled the palace.

At the head of a small posse, the adventurers chased Wasmeier, fleeing his townhouse in a house-drawn carriage, to the city gate and the bridge outside. After a fight where he summoned daemons and other dark forces to his aid, the Magister fell to his apparent death from the bridge. Julius Hauer, the cultist who had been impersonating Hoffmann before the Faceless took over, on the other hand surrendered and cooperated.

pbtt-4e-p111-magister-escape
The Magister’s flight (Art from the 4E Power Behind the Throne)

After a couple of days as his guests (or in a comfortable house arrest) the adventurers were summoned to a new audience with the Kurfurst, who thanked them for their achievements and offered them to stay in his service as problem-solvers extraordinaire. They took the offer and were instructed to travel east to Wolfenburg to report to Heinrich Hohenfels, the Kurfurst’s bastard son and unofficial spymaster, who was sure to find a use for them.

After finishing their business in Middenheim and throwing a farewell party with their friends, the adventurers were ready to once more ride forth to new adventures.

Detailed recaps:

3 thoughts on “Season 3: Power Behind the Throne – Recap”

    1. theoaxner

      Glad to hear it!

      I’m sorry to disappoint, though: I won’t be running The Horned Rat as part of my TEW. As the end of Season 3 set up, in my Season 4 I’ll be sending the PCs on a longer trip – eventually outside the Empire – and string together a number of favourite shorter adventures of mine that I’m more keen to run than either THR or Something Rotten in Kislev. Season 5 will be a mashup of the bits I like best from Empire in Flames, Empire in Ruins and various other fan treatments of the finale.

      If you’re interested in my thoughts on The Horned Rat, they’re here: https://theenemywithinremixed.wordpress.com/2022/12/20/thoughts-on-the-horned-rat/

      Like

      Reply

  2. Pingback: Houskeeping Post: Some Notes on My Plans for Seasons 4 and 5 – The Enemy Within: Remixed

Leave a comment