Journal of impending doom

So much happind its almost hard for me to put it down in one entree. We had no tim to rest that hole day. We went in to the sellar and shur enuff there was a kaos tempull hidden in a seekrit plase underneath. There was a cupple of mewtants garding it, but thay wer not to much trubble. The reel surprise was that we found a prizzener down there! He was held in a cage but we cudn’t find the kee so I went to look for it upstares. I didn’t find it but I did find a weerd room that was upside down and I also finded a box full of gold coyns. Wich is good cuz hummins make you give them munney for almost everything. You cant have enuff of the stuff.
We had to brake the prizzener out of the cage, but it was fine. He saw the hole combat with the wich hunter aganst the cultists. He wood make a fine witnes, so we took him to the tempull of sigmar. But the trial had alreddy started! We had to go to the trial rite away, and it was hard becuz they were blocking all the entrees. The dorf tride to talk his way in but nobuddy like dorfs so he faled. But then konrad talked his way in becuz people like konrad. But there was a huge crowd and it was verry hard to get too the front were the trial was. Sumbuddy even tride to steel Ulfrads purse, and blame it on me! But I caut the person befor the hummins coud blame me and putt me on trial too.
Even when we got to the front, we cudnt get thru with our witnes, so I had to throw a rok at the preest to get his atenshun. But I missed and hit another person hu didn’t no us, and he got mad and tride to get me in trubble with the gard. But we convinsed him to ask the hi preest about us, and even tho he didn’t beeleeve me, the hi preest sad yes he did no us. So we tolled him about the witness and he was shur that he coud get the wich hunter off with the evidence.
He was verry smart and did a grate job at the trial! He was gonna get the hunter off for shur. But bad evil Leebnits pulled out the Icon that had been stolen by the skavin, and showed it to have a mark of kaos on the bak! We wer like, NO WAY! He must totally be in leeg with the skavin! There was almost a riot, and all of us had to be taken to the pallas for saftee. We thot we wood at leest get a good nites sleep and sum food, but it was not to be. Rannalf came to us that nite and brot us the chest with the skul in it, and sed we shoud take it to the professer to lern how to destroy it. He clamed to be on our side, not Leebnits. But we had to sneek to the colledge, becuz there was a cerfew. I helpt all the noisy peepull to make it there fine, and we found the gard we new, and he let us in. But when we found the professer and opened the chest, the skul wasnt in it. It was our witnesses hed!!! That meens that Leebnits still has the skul and he is going to do verry bad things with it!

Free Game

Just letting everyone know that White Wolf has made their World of Darkness core rulebook available as a free download. I think it's a good rule set, and I'd be happy to bore you to death telling you why if you ask! :)

You can get it here.

Medieval Economy

Since bringing up the question of Income and Costs last night, I started thinking more about how to solve the dilemma. Then I figured, why not check into the real world "equivalent" of the Warhammer economy and see if I can make some comparisons? As it turned out, this was pretty easy to do as I found a web page where someone had already compiled a list of goods and services as well as some wage scales for the medieval western european economy. Even better, the prices can be EXACTLY matched up, as a Pound was equal to 20 shillings, and a shilling was equal to 12 pence, which is the same as the Warhammer Crown-Shilling-Penny conversion.
As I had suspected, the income levels were not NEARLY as out of whack as the price levels. Here is a partial list of what I found:


Real World ... Warhammer Price

Warhorse: up to 80 Pounds... 300-500 GC
High Grade Riding Horse: 10 Pounds... 80 GC (for average level horse)
Draft Horse: 10-20 Shillings ...25+ GC
Cow: 10 shillings... 10 GC
Ox: 13 shillings 1 pence ...30 GC!
Cottage: 2 Pounds... 270 GC!!!
House with Courtyard: 90 Pounds... 2400-21,600 GC. Gasp.
Full mail suit: 5 Pounds ...150 GC
Complete set of knight's armor: 16 Pounds, 6s, 8p... 400 GC
Cheap sword: 6 shillings ...5 GC
PAIR of flintlock pistols: 2 pounds, 5 shillings... 400 GC
Flintlock carbine (firearm): 1 pound, 2 shillings... 300 GC
Ironbound cart: 4 shillings... 50 GC

Now, as to wages...

Man-at-arms, squire (mercenary): 1 shillings/day... 17p/day (about 1.4 shillings)
Laborer: 2 pounds/year ...9 GC/year
Master Craftsman: 3-6 pence/day ...20p/day
Baron (lesser noble): 200-500+ Pounds/year... 250-500 GC/year
Earl (greater noble?): 400-11,000 Pounds/year... 1000+ GC/year

As you can see, the wage scale is closer between RL and WH than the price scale is. The basic peasant-level income is a little less then a third of the warhammer world income level, but the prices are anywhere from 10-100+ TIMES their real world equivalent. And the noble income levels are actually pretty close together.
I don't know what Matt might want to do about this discrepancy, but an easy fix might be just to drop a zero off of every price. I could also print out the full list I have and using it as a guide, Matt could reprice everything according to a guesstimated scale of his own devising. I would also be willing to volunteer to do this, as I think I can figure out a way to scale the various tables in the OWA to make them seem more realistic.
The fact that the Hochland Long Rifle costs 450 GC is particularly outrageous to me, as it is supposed to be a hunter's weapon but no hunter would ever see that much money in his LIFETIME. That's what really got me thinking about this, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the economy of the Old World seemed busted. Especially since it's supposed to be a post-war economy, and historically speaking weapons and other war material have been particularly cheap and readily available in the years directly following a major conflict.

Journal, Continued

So me and dorf goes bak insid too tel everbuddy bowt the toodoo. I figger with al the pannik I mite be in trubble frum hummins, so we deside I wil sta and gard the prizner wile they goes and find owt wats hapening. So they goes, and I wate. I duno zackly wat hapin wile they gon, but latter in prizin they tel me they tride to sav a litel gurl frum a mob. A litel mew tant gurl. Did I menchun they tel me in PRIZIN!!!??? I got rested cose the dorf wuz mad I wusnt rested with them. See the citi gard rested them fore spirin with kayos, wich they wusnt butt anewa they thot so. butt then Leebnits the hi preest and sum nites cam cross them and sed they wood tak cussody. So wut do dorf do? He leeds them rite to or nu SEEKRIT LARE we sed we wood not tel nobuddy bowt. So then they rest me too and tak us all too sells unner the tempull of ullrik and leev us. Leebnits sa: U hav owtlivved yor yusfullness! He gonta kil us, and cuz dorf cant stand that I wood hav livved, he mad shur I was gonta di too. I nu dorfs hayted kin, butt not that much! I cud hav rescewed them, butt I wuz beehin bars. I deesided the dorf wud not git me killed! So I cam up with a plan too excape bi using Volkrad’s majick.
Fore wons, the abillitee of dorfs too piss peepull off cam in handy! The plan worked…sort of. We got the gard down too or sell, butt faled to lur him clos enuf fore Volkrad too tuch and putt him too sleep. He allmos wakked awa, butt then dorf wuz his yooshuall self and sed sumthin too relly piss the gard off. So the gard cam ovver and grabed dorf’s hed and slammed it aganst the sell barrs. Wen he did that, Volkrad used his majick to putt the gard sleep bi tuching his hand. And dorf wuz not hert cuz dorfs have rilly hard heds. I reeched thru and grabed kis and unlokked door. Lukky not enuf tim had past fore them too do sumthing with or stuff and it wuz stil in the gard room so we got it and left.
We went too the tempull of Sigmar wer ther wuz a crowd of peepull otside wantin to hang the wichhunters. We went in thru bak. We tokked to the preest and figgered that Leebnits is tring to deestoi the church of Sigmar and or cawz a civil war. So we think he is cultist, mabe of corn wich is bad cuz he has the scull. Wichhunters wer gonna bee putt on trile fore been kultis, and if they giltee fownd, sigmar dun in Middenhime, possbull civil war follo. So we sa we find proof they not giltee. Preest tel us serch this pub wer won of them fownd a seekrit tempull of kaos under in seller.
We go to pub, butt cant get in to seller. Tender sa no, and barr ful of peepull, citi gards and merks. We tri disstrack tender, but he cach me sneekin bi and tri too bash mi hed with a clubb! I wuz skared so I got mi sord owt and stabed the tender too deth. Then al hek brok loos, and evvrbuddy wuz fiting. Konrad shot peepull, volkrad majiked peepull, olfrad hakked peepull, and I arroed peepull. I think even dorf kilt sumbuddy. Sumhow we won even tho we wuz way owtnummered, tho we got hert and konrad got nokked owt. Too merks gav up and now we hav to figger wat too do with them. The hummins sa I ternd a barr fite into a blud bath bi draring mi sord, butt wat waz I sposed too do? He tride to bash mi hed in! I dont unnerstan hummins and ther rulz sumtims. Wy is a fite in a barr difernt then a fite othir plases? In Loren we dont draw wepins on eech other butt if yu do, yu ar liklee too get kilt.

Who I'm Worshipping

To answer this question for Ulfred, I need to give a little background, so bear with me.

It is my (Nigel's, not Ulfred's) belief that man is made in the image of God, and God is a creator. When we create imaginary worlds, we can only do so because we are of this image (J.R.R. Tolkien would tell you the same). As such, while I do believe that a person can imagine a world in which they don't see Jesus Christ, I don't believe that he is really absent from any world anyone imagines. If I didn't believe this, I would have no reason to play RPGs.

You no doubt believe differently, but that is all by the way as far as Ulfred is concerned. He worships Jesus Christ. He worships Jesus because only in Jesus can he find someone who accounts for both the love in the world (it is His love), and the pain in the world (it is our choice, but He chose to suffer it with us on the cross). Ulfred's knowledge of the deeper questions of theology is a little hard to measure, since I am under the impression that there is no such thing as a Bible in Warhammerland, but prayer and the Holy Spirit have done well for those with no other recourse before.

He does not openly dislike other deities, because they are no competition for Jesus in terms of power. He would obviously not want to support a diety who plotted evil.

If this is not sufficient to earn me the XP mentioned, I would be glad to expand upon it, although I acknowledge that it doesn't give much of a handle for the GM as far as plot, as Ulfred wouldn't fall for a GM created "Jesus", knowing the voice of the Real Thing.

I haven't brought this stuff up before, because I didn't think you guys cared about it, but XP are XP, and you did ask.

Free Beer

Now that I have your attention, remember no Warhammer next week. Shawn and I will be attending the Fun, Sun, and Vomiting LARP in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. I've saved a lot of XP to pump up my Alchohol Tolerance Stat.

Of course, you are all free to indulge in another activity that gaming night, subject to the laws of your state.

Attention

Shawn's wedding has caused him to have to bail for Wednesday. Matt says he will not run. However, Y'all can get together to play other things, as usual.