LINKS
     Join, or read about, the Goe Orthord, Kaer of Terror campaign begun in March, 2003!  Yes, it's still going, though we'll take a hiatus from time-to-time.  Hiatus' times have been November 2003 to April 2004, November 2006 to May 2007, August 2007 to present, and we're looking to restart the game no later than the end of July 2008.

WARHAMMER BASIC HISTORY
(From "The Ambassador" by Graham McNeill)
This is a dark age, a bloody age, an age of demons and of sorcery.  It is an age of battle and death, and of the world's ending.  Amidst all of the fire, flame and fury it is a time, too, of mighty heroes, of bold deeds and great courage.
      At the heart of the Old World sprawls the Empire, the largest and most powerful of the human realms.  Known for its engineers, sorcerers, traders and soldiers, it is a land of great mountains, mighty rivers, dark forests and vast cities.  And from his throne in Altdorf reigns the Emperor Karl-Franz, sacred descendent of the founder of these lands, Sigmar, and wielder of his magical warhammer.
      But these are far from civilized times.  Across the length and breadth of the Old World, from the knightly palaces of Bretonnia to ice-bound Kislev in the far north, come rumblings of war.  In the towering World's Edge Mountains, the orc tribes are gathering for another assault.  Bandits and renegades harry the wild southern lands of the Border Princes.  There are rumors of rat-things, the Skaven, emerging from the sewers and swamps across the land.  And, from the northern wildernesses, there is the ever-present threat of Chaos, of demons and beastmen corrupted by the foul powers of the Dark Gods.  As the time of battle draws ever near, the Empire needs heroes like never before.
      NOTE: This introduction was written for a time set twenty years in the future of when Goe Orthrond, our current campaign, is set.  However, it is no less accurate.

TITHENON'S WARHAMMER

      Playing the Game:  This game is designed to be fast.  Obviously, with real life come problems with being able to do this game real fast, and that's understandable.  Regardless, do your best to check your email every single day, and respond when you feel the need to respond.  If you don't respond, you are considered to be going along with what the group is doing; if you don't respond for a whole week, I will ask you if you want to remain in the game.  If I don't receive a reply within 24 hours, you're out.  I'll get someone else in here who wants to play.  Have the common courtesy and decency and self-respect to email me, at least, ahead of time if possible, to establish vacations and emergencies, problems you are having.  If you are removed from the game and have a real desire to come back, make your case known and I'll see what I can do.  However, if I have a full group, it may be some time before I will let you back into the game.
      Style of Play:  This is a free-form style of play, as free-form as we can make it without it becoming confusing.  When you are speaking to someone, indicate whom you are speaking to, and then put your dialogue in "quotes".  Proper punctuation MAY be important to any point you're trying to get across.  If you're asking a question, put a ?(question mark) at the end of your question, whether in dialogue or just in character.  If you're expressing surprise, put a !(exclamation mark) at the end of your question.  If you're just speaking, you may either put a .(period) or nothing at the end of your sentence.  If your character is thinking something, put the thought in 'single quotes/closed apostrophes'.  If you use another language, such as Tolkien's Elvish Quenya dialect, make sure you also have the best English translation you can give.  When taking actions, describe your action and the effect you intend for it to have, such as I dive in front of Mike's character to keep her from taking the spear to the chest.  You may work actions for some NPCs, such as having minor discussions with them and ordering them to do things.  Dependent on the NPC, they may act/react the way you want them to; however, do not kill off NPCs, that's my job, you simply describe what you would like to see them do.  Do NOT handle other player's characters unless they give you permission to do so, which means you write from the I persepective, writing for whatever your character is doing and no one else's.  If you have any questions or need clarification, make sure you send me an email immediately.

      Character Generation:  I use a somewhat less restricting set of house rules when it comes to generating your character.  However, for those of you who are veterans of the game looking for a much looser set of rules, you're not likely to find them here.  And, I'm not telling you anything about my rules; you'll simply have to generate a character to see what I do, then ask questions later.  Certain careers may be restricted, dependent upon their usefulness/uselessness in my game, and whether they affect my faith (Christian, or at least giving my all to be) or not.  For instance, there will be no Necromancers or Demonologists, and MAY be no Druids; Druidism is far older than Christianity and I'll give no argument there.  However, just because it is older does NOT mean it is better.  I am including High Elves in the game as well, and they have statistics adjusted even from the Wood Elves which are already part of the game.

      Game Mechanics:  Most of the original game mechanics for Warhammer FRP, 2nd Edition, will remain in place as they are.  Notable exceptions are in Magic Spells and items and Mage Restrictions in Armor and Equipment; Magic Spells MAY be extended in several areas, above and beyond those spells which are designed to be extended, although they will cost a great deal to cast and maintain.  As well, some spells may be multi-use spells, meaning that the spell is NOT automatically canceled once the mage casts another spell; spells such as Zone spells may be made to move with the caster, etc.  Equipment will be expanded with full statistics as soon as I can get them programmed into one of these pages.  Critical hits, hit dice and locations, damage, etc., except where I put in GM Fiat(listed below), will all work according to the regular rules.

      GameMaster Fiat and Mechanics of My Game:  I have read, played in, run, and/or written over forty-five RPGs, including Warhammer FRP, in nearly twenty-five years of gaming, and I have included elements of some of those other games here as well.  One of those 'mechanics' happens to be what is known as GameMaster Fiat, which is my right to fudge in behalf of your character -OR- on behalf of continuing the story by keeping certain villains alive when you roll amazingly well and you weren't supposed to.  If I have to fudge in either direction, I've mis-matched the adventure with the group of PCs, and I have to cover from that point on so if one of your PCs are killed, it actually has a very dramatic effect on the story.  The idea behind role-playing is to tell an interactive story in which the GM, that's me, sets up locations, times, weather, opposition(NPCs and inanimates), and whatever helps/clues your party needs to succeed.  However, my job is NOT to make that too easy OR too difficult for your party, but just sufficiently difficult enough to make you wipe the sweat from your brow at the end of the night, or at the end of the adventure, and then wont for much more.
      Magic:  As I explained above, Magic Spells may be able to be increased/improved.  I have not completely worked out the system, yet, so it will come in time.  However, certain criteria will have to be met in order to make the spell work right with these extensions.
      Five things need to be satisfied to learn a spell: 1) Have access to a copy of the spell, 2) Spend a sufficient time to learn the spell, at a rate of eight hours per Casting Number -yes, you and/or the GM tracks how many hours your character has had to study-, 3) Purchase the Extra Spell Talent, listed in Realms of Sorcery, with the title of your learned spell, at 100xp as for a normal Talent, and 4) Have your GMs approval to own and/or use the spell.  Rules for modifying spells will be forthcoming.
      Magic Items:  These will be rare, very few and very far between in my game, although they will also be very very special, above and beyond the regular Warhammer FRP rules.  So, when you take on a magic item you'll know two things: 1) You've done something very special and/or 2) All hell's about to break loose.  Before you can properly use a magic item you have to learn about the item, who forged it and why, and then make a Willpower test to control, or be able to use properly, the item.  That is not to say items will not work on their own, although it would be to facilitate their own survival or as a matter of GameMaster Fiat.

      Character Interactions:  I'm afraid I've never been very good at role-playing things such as animosity and hatred where interaction goes, and so I will rely on you, the players, for that mostly.  I may call for dice rolls from time to time, and I will work to be mindful of the races, but don't count on much there.  I love to role-play, and I can do it character to character easily; however, when it comes to GM to character, I have a difficult time.  Don't ask why, it's just how I am.
      Religion & Belief:  You already know my personal feelings on certain things, how they are colored by my Christian beliefs.  However, I will NOT stop you from role-playing according to the beliefs of whatever deity you choose.  Don't count on me to support anything beyond the basic rules, and not even those if they upset my game's balance.  I will not ask your forgiveness for being such a stickler on this point; that's how my game is and, like any other GameMaster in the universe, the game is colored by the beliefs.  Stick with me and I'll give you a very good game; expect me to get into extraneous and foolish beliefs, even through the game, and I won't give you anything but what your deity demands according to the rules.  That being said, I will be including some of the religious setup and beliefs of the time in the game, but not as much more than window dressing.

      The World:  My world is not going to be 100% in-line with GWs Warhammer world, simply because some of it doesn't make sense.  Dark fantasy I can do, but not as dark, perhaps, as it is laid out in their rules.  For one thing, Wood Elves are not as reclusive and boxed in as they would have you believe; oh, there is still distrust of Elves among other races, but it is not a wide spread "you're plagued, stay away from me" mentality, but rather that Elves are a curiosity in the world.  Likewise with Dwarves.  Also, Chaos is not restricted to the Northlands, but have enclaves throughout the Old World, though Chaos is not stupid, so it tends to lie low until the right time(hence adventures concerning Chaos).  Finally, my back story for how Chaos came into being is somewhat different from GWs, as will be witnessed in the Goe Orthrond campaign.  Most adventures will take place all over the map provided with the game, bits and pieces of which you will get to view as it becomes necessary for the development of the world, campaign or adventure.  Much of the history, time-line and world description will come to you pieces at a time, as it becomes necessary.  If you would like to know something, simply ask about it; however, if my answer does not agree 100% with what you know already, suck it up because you're in my world, now.

      Watching Your Stats:  The character sheets I do on the web are done in PHP and HTML and, although you can make a complete hard-copy of your character for off-line viewing, it is not going to be a well-done copy.  My recommendation is for you to download and print off a copy of the Character Record Sheet from a Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play affiliated web site and copy your statistics over to that for your own records.  What shows on-line is for your edification, and that of your peers; I will be maintaining these pages.  If you take damage, gain an insanity point, etc., it will be listed; I am not perfect, so don't expect an absolutely perfect update all the time, or even a timely one.  It is up to you to monitor how your character is doing and to take actions to remedy anything you see is wrong.  If you see your character is very badly wounded and you don't work to take care of it quickly, your character will die from your neglect.
      If I have to spend hours editing character sheets, you should spend minutes checking your character as necessary for you to mark stats, skills, damages, armor, etc. for the sake of keeping the game moving as seamlessly as possible.  Feel free to bookmark your character's page; indeed, I insist.  I will post rules for Experience Points and Advancement below for your edification, but you have to tell me whether you want to spend your character's XP or not.  A running total of all the XP your character has earned will be listed as well, and you should concentrate on the Available/Current XP, not the Total.
      Experience Points and Advancement:  First, allow me to explain this - If you earn, individually, between 50 and 100 XP in a single evening, you're running just below par.  100-150 means you're playing in something challenging and doing pretty well, about average.  Anything more than 150 means you're playing a hard adventure and doing very well, way above average.  Anything between 150 and 300 is possible for a single role-playing session, although it is likely to be the final act of an adventure or the final adventure of a campaign before that will happen, or you've faced something so deadly and so hard your entire group did so well in that you actually earned the experience.
      Characteristics:  Your primary attributes run 01-99 and your secondary attributes run 1-10, and nearly half of your secondary attributes are derivative from primary attributes.  To increase a 1-10 secondary attribute by +1 -OR- 01-99 primary attribute by +5, respectively, you spend 100xp on it; although you may expend all of your experience points on receiving them, you may only spend them at the beginning of each new thread, which is akin to a new gaming session.  I will tell you when your character sheet has been updated with Experience Points, in the very beginning of each new thread, and you may spend those points if you like.
      Characteristics are NOT cumulative in your Advance Schemes when moving from an old career to a new one, but rather the higher Advance goes into play; ie - A Field Warden basic career gets a +10% Advance Scheme for their Ballistic Skill (BS), which means the player of that character must spend 200xp to increase the ability to +10%.  When the player chooses their career exit for the character, they choose Scout, which allows for a +20% Ballistic Skill; this does not mean the bonus for BS, that the player must purchase for their character, moves to +30%, but only to the +20%, and the player is only required to make two more purchases of +5% each, or 200xp, to increase to the +20% level.  The player then decides to move to the Sergeant career on their next transition, although the bonus for BS is only +15%.  In this case, the player is not allowed to make any more increases, as the +15% does NOT add to the already extant +20%, and that +20% is also NOT replaced by the +15%.
      Your Advance Scheme are the attributes you MAY be able to improve with experience points.  If you have an asterisk(*), or some other mark, next to one of your advance scheme numbers, that means points have already been spent to increase that by +1(1-10 attributes) or +5(percentile attributes).  If you have a +20, +30, or more in an Advance Scheme box for an attribute and you only have one asterisk for +20 or two asterisks for +30, that means you are still able to spend XP on it to increase it by another +1 or +5.  If, however, you have, say, a +20 in that space, and four asterisks, you may NOT spend experience points to increase it further until you get into a career which takes that Advance Scheme attribute higher.  Each asterisk, or other mark, represents a bonus of +5 for primary attributes or +1 for secondary attributes, and these are marks you should track yourself; I will also track them for each of your character sheets.
      Before you may advance to a new career, you must buy all characteristic bonuses, all available skills your character does not already possess, although you may also perform Skill Master for skills already possessed, and all available talents your character does not already possess.  Skill Mastery comes when your character already possesses a skill from their current career, but also may purchase it for their next career, if they wish.  Each level of Skill Mastery grants +10%, and there are only two level of Mastery, when you use that Mastered skill.
      Skills:  In your character's first career, their Basic Career, you were allowed to have all the skills from that career your character would need to succeed in the game; so, there are no skills to buy for your first career, only attribute improvements.  However, before advancing to a new career you have to possess the trappings for that career, and when you advance you are responsible for purchasing all of the new skills, talents, and attribute improvements, as well as collecting the trappings for the new career again before you advance.  Skills cost 100xp per skill you purchase, and 100xp for each new level of Skill Mastery. Talents also cost 100xp each.
      You may also purchase skills outside your career at a rate of 1 week of training, or 40 hours, and 100xp acquired.  These numbers may be modified based on your GMs perception of difficulty for the skill you're attempting to purchase for your character.  The training requirement is not waiverable; learning from another player character in the party is acceptable, though both characters are required to expend the 40 hours.  This time may be extended beyond a single week, and players and/or the GM should keep track of the number of hours the skill is practiced.
      Careers:  Once you have met all of the above enumerated advancement requirements, you may then start looking at going into a new career.  There are two ways of doing this:
      1) You may choose to move directly into one of the Career Exits for your current career, paying 100xp to begin that career, or...
      2) You may move into any of the Basic Careers not restricted by your GM or other in-game rules, paying 100xp to begin that career.
      You may only move into Advanced Careers listed as a Career Exit for your character.

      Some of these rules are from 1st Edition, but still relevant, and in order to see the most up-to-date rules and available house rules you should read the forums and/or purchase your own copy of the books for Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play 2nd Edition.