Introduction
I had my eyes on Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Wrath and Glory for some time. With my gaming nights reduced to a minimum thanks to the COVID-19 self isolation protocols, I decided to dive in with an online session. I assembled a crew of loyal Imperial citizens, created an account on Roll20, and bought a short published adventure: Blessings Unheralded.
This was my first contact with this online platform. It does have its ups and downs. Now, I won't refer to face-to-face versus online - this is not an issue right now. Connectivity was pretty bad, with everyone dropping at least once, including myself. We also had sound quality issues. The gaming aids were neat. I did not use a battle map, just some pre-defined screens to roll through while roleplaying, and a whiteboard with abstract distances for combat. Character tokens tracked health and resources, with the same for enemies. We also rolled the dice here - and it would have been hell to explain the icon system if the dice weren't visible to all. Overall a success, though I want to try the integration of external VoIP, or just ignoring it altogether and talk through Skype.
Rules
The adventure includes a simplified starter rule set, and I told my players not to worry about it. They chose characters based on short descriptions I gave, and I explained the rules on the go. Not a bad approach thanks to the simplified rule set. Although the rules themselves are very hard to wrap my head around. Also the printed rules contradicted each other frequently, so a good thing I read it three times, and I had previously watched a Wrath and Glory show on YouTube, so I could make judgement calls.
The adventure
The adventure itself is pretty basic. No sandbox, no decision tree. One situation comes after another. That being said, the group took it like champs. They saw 90% of the available content, and blazed through combat. But enough introductory text! Let's get to the action.
Blessings Unheralded
After a short intro, the characters landed on the shrine world of Enoch to retrieve a former party member from St. Deploratus' Sanitarium. They quickly bypassed the Administratum adept at the landing pad, and made their way to the hospital. Upon entry, they chanced upon a bunch of Poxwalkers murdering their way through the visitors and staff. The group quickly eliminated the threat, with the Space Marine then going full-on berzerk on the corpses, stomping them into the ground in an effort to contain the infection.
Moments later, the hospital security also made their appearance. Sergeant Artemis was not impressed by the Commissar's intimidation attempt, but she did fall in love with the Inquisitorial Acolyte.[1] In the meantime, the Space Marine cajoled the guards into lending a flamer to cleanse the remains, while the Priest blessed the survivors and accepted their humble gifts.
The party seemed to have forgot their initial goal of coming to the hospital, but after realizing that the sergeant does not know what to do about the plague zombies, the finally asked about their target. On to the exotic diseases ward!
Their techpriest ally was interred at the exotic diseases ward, along with a host of other patients. After making friends with the Sister Hospitaller, the characters investigated the strange disease. Everybody was lying on their backs, looking at the ceiling, chanting numbers. The staff were clueless, including the resident techpriest and Chirurgeon Konig, head of the ward.
Being unable to get anything out of the staff at the ward, the characters decided on investigating the morgue. They discovered a hint of missing corpses, and a superior awareness test made the connection between patients sent to be cremated and the Poxwalkers at the entrance.
Patient zero was a psyker - a local Astropath. He was interred with a physical injury[2], and caught the disease in the hospital. Just like all the other patients, actually.
The last lead to pursue were the numbers being chanted.[3] Hours later, they had compiled enough of a list to analyze. The Acolyte noticed the dialect of Lingua Technis, and they alerted the local techpriest. He pointed out that the numbers form a high level access code, like the one needed to enter the nearby food processing factorum. At this point, the patients stopped chanting, and a quick check showed several of them missing, including the former party member.
The party advanced on the facility, only to discover the gates ajar and security offline. They missed the subtle clue at the entrance - a barely visible trail of slime - so I started the doomsday countdown, but a superior tech test revealed to the Acolyte the best possible location of their target.
They went in guns blazing, and no amount of Poxwalkers could stand in their way. However, they could not achieve the best possible ending. The corrupted Chirurgeon - the source of the infection - managed to throw a Poxwalker arm into the processed food! But, given the speed with which the characters dispatched all the threats[4], and the successful tech test after that, they did achieve second best. They managed to stop the food processor, and so the entire population was not infected. Only the pipes had to be scrubbed clean, which took a couple weeks. Barely 900,000 imperial citizens died of starvation and dehydration. Also the entire exotic diseases ward staff, when the remaining patients all turned into Poxwalkers. That was also quickly contained, as the security was put to high alert before leaving.
Aftermath
The one-shot adventure was a success, with positive feedback received from everybody.
I was a little disappointed with how easy combat went. The book gave no indication of layout, so I placed the Poxwalkers too far away at the start. I had no experience, and I could not tell how fast they or the party would die at close range. But the grim darkness prevailed in the ending, and so I was satisfied!
[1] A complication when attempting to persuade her of something. I should have made more of that, as they way it played out, it wasn't really a complication. Oh well.
[2] 'And what was that, exactly?' 'Ah, he fell in his space bathroom and broke the space toilet, cutting himself.'
[3] This was also the moment for a forced objective play by the Acolyte, who made a comparison with the importance of numerology in the Eldar culture.
[4] Which was well, as it was getting late.
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