Grimvember 2017 is here! "A Secret Inheritance" is a must-play!

We return to our regularly scheduled reviewing, this time with "A Secret Inheritance" by Steve Cumiskey. This one's a real treat and no mistake.

I've GM'ed this adventure last year for my Roll20 group. The boys were on a trip from Talabecland to Nuln and, along the way, I wanted to spice things up a bit for their little gang. "A Secret Inheritance" turned out to be exactly what I needed!

Plus it's full of Merchants! Who dosen't like economy themes in his adventures?

The premise is pretty simple. The adventurers need to find a shelter from a storm, in a small town of Eisental and become embroiled in a local guild affair. The town itself, originally located in Ostermark (altough you could place it anywhere. In my case it was in Talabecland) is a quiet community, which recently lost its two priests. Not only that but the merchant guild's building got burned to the ground as well, two weeks before the PC's arrival. Our heroes are hired by the brothers Lang, who are heading the Eisental's guild, to retrieve a certain chain of office. The pay is very good, so it's unlikely that a band of travelling vagabonds will pass on this offer. During the course of their investigation, they will meet (or be approached by) many interesting people, many of whom would like to use the PC's for their own ends. Also the animals living in the woods around Eisental are acting strange, being unnaturally agressive towards the citizens of the town.

Then there's the case of the two, lost priests and their vacant temples. It's never good when the dead can't be buried and need to be put on ice, awaiting the arrival of the new priest of Morr.

A quick word about the NPC's - they're simply great. Steve Cumiskey managed to create a bunch of interesting, unique and varied people for the PC's to interact with. All of them have their own problems. quirks, agendas and dreams and even the more disreputable ones are written really well. For good villains need to have a human side, they need to be relatable in one way or another. In this advenutre, they most definitely are and kudos to the author for writing them in such a way.

"A Secret Inheritance" is a very good example of a "by-the-book" type of scenario. It mixes two things which make for a great WFRP experience - intrigue and combat. Altough it should be mentioned that the intrigue is a much, much bigger part of this adventure. The combat however, when it finally occurs, is brutal and visceral and can take many players off guard, especially the less experienced ones. In the end however, that's what Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is all about - fighting against the impossible odds. Steve Cumiskey really delivers when it comes to desperate and brutal engagements. His enemies are also interesting and many a GM will be surprised to see, that "A secret inheritance" offers much more, than your average beastmen/bandits entourage of baddies, so often seen in adventures and campaigns.

There's really not much left to say about this scenario - it's fun, engaging and challenging. It's a great adventure to run between chapters of a bigger campaign, like "The Enemy Within" or "The Thousand Thrones". I sincerely recommend this module for it'll surely bring much joy to both players and gamemasters.

You can download "A Secret Inheritance" from here, as well as many other, fantastic fan-made supplements. Remember that you can always write me an email and I'll be more than happy to sent you this scenario, as well as any other, legal, fan-made stuff for WFRP and/or Warhammer 40,000 RPG's.

Until next time, when we'll finish the 2017 edition of Grimvember with a bang!

Xathrodox86