The Ubiquitous Journal Rule – 8/27/08
Players in any and every campaign I run are all encouraged to write fiction based upon the events that transpire within the game. Character journals – written from the point-of-view of your character, are wonderful side-notes for people to read and get entertaining insights into your character’s persona and views on what is happening within the game. All players will be rewarded with experience for submitting character journals of the gaming sessions – these experience awards will vary depending upon the size and depth of the journal and the level of your character when you submit them – but a good rule of thumb would be roughly 50-100xp per page per level.
Rockhound's Diary (sample)
My name is Mordrim Stormhammer.
People call me Rockhound.
I’ve never been sure why they do that.
Call me that I mean.
I can’t remember who called me that the first time – but I am sure it wasn’t me.
Maybe it was Gornk Heavyfoot.
Gornk was my friend.
Maybe I should start at the beginning. I do not want to confuse you.
Or get confused myself too.
That is called cronile chronilagicle chronological order. That means I tell the story from beginning to end as it happened, not back and forth and to and fro like the Epic of Crom or the Way of the Hammer.
I am still learning to read and write. And my hands are big.
And the pen is very very very small.
And I am writing on the dirt.
Now I am writing on my greave on my leg – it is much easier.
Grrrr. The candle blew out by the wind and I had to light it again from the cookfire. Maybe it was made by goblins.
The candle…not the wind.
Or the cookfire. Just the candle made by goblins.
It wasn’t really made by goblins, it was made by one of the Acolits Acolytes at the temple of the 5th House (that’s a fancy word for the temple of SIGMAR in Bogenhaven) so I shouldn’t call him a goblin because he was nice enough even though he was tall and lanky and pretty wimpy.
And he had a funny voice.
But I was going to start from the beginning, and the beginning is where I’ll start.
I was born a few years back in Karak Hirn in the Black Mountains. My pa was a weaponsmith and my ma taught children how to bang rocks. I banged rocks when I was young and then learned how to fight. Gornk and I were friends and we guarded the place from goblins and orcs and that icky black smart-ooze that comes out of rocks sometimes.
Gornk called me Rockhound. Probably because I banged rocks and banged miner’s daughters too. Har Har. Hound…do you get it?
Anyway, when I was full grown and my ma and pa were trying to make me marry the governor’s girl (who looked like she got hit in the face with a pickaxe when she was a baby), Gornk and I heard about the army moving to some kind of huge battle and the odds did not look good. So we got some friend together and set off to where the battle was going to be near Karak Varn and the place where the small hungry people lived.
Even though it was summertime on the outside, there was horrible snow and we didn’t make it to the place till after the fighting was over. There were thousands upon thousands dead, including the King Under the Mountain and the Prince of the Treefuckers. Even though the Treefuckers are stupid, they helped out lot so we let them bury their Prince near the King Under the Mountain. There was a Dwarf there named Crom (like the god Crom) and he seemed to be in charge sort of.
After that Gornk and I did not go home (because I did not want to marry the governor’s girl, who looked like she was hit in the head with a sledgehammer at a very young age and her titties went down to her knees and she smelled like trout). We went to Karak a Karak with the army and I met General Kerg who was a Dwarf’s Dwarf and he made me a Sergeant and Gronk a Corporal and we got to guard the capital city.
Later the Crom person (like the god Crom) was made King Under the Mountain and he was a good King and made fun of the smart-Dwarfs who tried to make him do things their way.
Later at a party after finding a new vein of gold I met the General’s daughter Helga (who was very pretty and had titties that stuck out like pickaxes and could cook like my ma and smelled like a gold mine and honey) and after I banged her I found out she was pretty nice too. We got married a few years later and she made lots of babies. The General was mad at first until the babies started coming (I told him all the time that I wasn’t doing all that banging just for fun) and we had a lot of parties because most of the women don’t make so many babies nowadays.
My oldest son was about nine years old and I was teaching him how to play snotball without getting hurt by the big ones when Gornk came with the message. See, Crom (like the god Crom) wanted to find all the old cities from way back before the war with the Treefuckers and there was a lot of deep mining going on to find the old tunnels. Well, some people up north found one of the ancient cities and found it was full of goblin-fucking orc-cum-sucking chaos dwarves. GRRRRR!!!!!
We got some armies together and went north down the Great Way, but not before Karak Ungor got smashed by the goblin-fucking orc-cum-sucking chaos dwarves. They were coming down the Great Way too killing everyone and heading to the capital. For five years the fighting went on until both major forces made it to the Hive. Crom (like the god Crom) and his army got the tunnels to the Great Way collapsed so they couldn’t go on and the goblin-fucking orc-cum-sucking chaos dwarves went to the surface to go around, so that’s where General Kerg and us went. There was a lot of fighting outside in the cold and snow, and my platoon was guarding an air-bridge between the Twins when the main force of the goblin-fucking orc-cum-sucking chaos dwarves showed up. It was then that I found that Sigmar really was watching the Dwarves. You see, the unit had been pushed back all the way to the far side of the bridge, and the whole thing was creaking under the weight of all those goblin-fucking orc-cum-sucking chaos dwarves when I noticed
GODDAMINEDMOTHERFUCKINGGOBLINFORGEDCANDLE!!!!!
Okay, I have a new candle now, where was I?
Ahh, I remember. We couldn’t see anything, it was snowing and blizzarding and blowing and raining and even some mountain lightninging and everything was going badly because we weren’t a very strong force because it was a remote bridge. Well, the clouds parted for just a second and the moonlight shone down on the tertiary support pins on our side of the bridge. With all the weight of the goblin-fucking orc-cum-sucking chaos dwarves they were about the only things holding the old girl up. So I ran through the fighting to the bridge and with a prayer and a cry I smashed the stone pins with my hammer. I got to see a bridge full of goblin-fucking orc-cum-sucking chaos dwarves fall into the darkness before one of the goblin-fucking orc-cum-sucking chaos dwarves that was left on land thunked me in the head and I went out.
I woke up in the middle of a party, it seemed our bridge was the last to go down and the goblin-fucking orc-cum-sucking chaos dwarves were halted for a while at least. Kerg was there and he gave me the name Stormhammer. Crom (like the god Crom) was missing after the all the dust settled. I felt stronger somehow, like maybe Sigmar was watching me kinda close for helping the people out. That feeling sticks with me to this very day.
About 4 years passed with nothing more than skirmishes. My kids were growin up and the banging with Helga was getting better every day. Then they broke through. It seems the goblin-fucking orc-cum-sucking chaos dwarves started building tunnels under the Great Way, and just kept building till they go to Karak a Karak where they broke through and killed everyone. I was hit hard in the fighting. I was trying to find my family and when I got home I ran into a bunch of goblin-fucking orc-cum-sucking chaos dwarves who had killed my boys and were violating Helga and the two girls.
Okay, I’ve knocked down a tree and I feel better now. Anyway, I killed them all real slow-like but then the main force got into the city and I was knocked down hard. All I remember is those eyes in the fires above the palace at Karak a Karak.
When I woke I think I had a bad head wound and was feverish. The goblin-fucking orc-cum-sucking chaos dwarves were having an orgy in our town with the women, but I couldn’t think and just wandered out of the mountains down into the deep tunnels. I stayed there for weeks I think until the fever broke and my head cleared and then I went in shame to Karak Drazh.
When I got there I met the General who was overjoyed to see me, even though his daughters and grandkids were dead and he wanted me to come and go back and fight some more – but I was broken. I had shamed myself terribly and then they just asked me to come back. I felt so bad I just wanted to die, so I cut off my hair and gave myself some tattoos and I left in shame to go die.
I traveled for a while and when I got to Altdorf I found out about a festivel in which they let people fight trolls. Having not been able to find any trolls to kill me I figured I’d go. And I did. Then I met a nut in Bogenhaven who didn’t know there was a war and after I beat him up a bit he became a troll-slayer too and we signed up to fight two trolls and two minotaurs at the same time the next day. We were wined and whored a whole lot for free that night and it was fun if I didn’t feel so bad. And human chickies are all tight and weird and smell like flowers and don’t like a good spanking.
So the next day we bet everything we own on ourselves just in case we win and we went to fight. Those GODDAMED BOOKIES!!!! They didn’t want to pay us or anyone else so they pumped the beasties up on something nasty. I didn’t’ mind at the time because I wanted em to kill me anyway. So we fight and I got a reaaaaaaaalllllllyyyyy good scar on my leg from troll blood and I killed em all while they whacked on the nut.
About the time we were cleaning up the last two of them, these things came out of the ground. They were black and in the center of the coliseum and it was all bad. And I tried to hit one because it made me mad but it threw me away from it really hard and I felt Sigmar frown at me for being a dumbass. So then we killed the beasties and turned around because all the screaming had stopped and the stands were empty of everyone and the bookies. About then the chaos moon covered up the sun and the whole town blew up. But I got some of the money we were owed by some bookies who were running out of the town. And when we got out of the town and it was blowing up I saw the eyes in the fire again laughing at me.
I was mad let me tell you what.
So I waited at the gates until the place cooled down enough to go back inside because the temple of Sigmar had been blown up and I had to fix it because all of the chickenshit humans ran away. Except for two who stood around asking me if I wanted help and being stupid.
While I was waiting a fancy cart showed up with some big star-watcher guy from Altdorf who worked for the Emperor Karl Franz II True Image of Sigmar and asked the two stupid ones if they wanted to go to Marienberg to find some stupid book and they said yes and they tried to get me to go but I said “No, you’re stupid.” So I sat on my horse (who I stole from a bookie) and waited for the town to cool while the stupid people made stew out of rabbit.
The next day the town was cool and I went in and cleaned the temple and made it all good again. A few days later some Knights Leopold showed up all shiny and spooky and guarded the coliseum. That took a few weeks of me cleanin, but I got it to be all shiny again and nice and then I was gonna try to make it holy again and it WORKED!
So I got on my knees and prayed to Sigmar and I tried to put the hammer in the altar and it WORKED! And Sigmar shone a light on me and burned little hammers into my palms and then I decided I was going to avenge Bogenhavin and kill the eyes in the fire because they were evil.
The next day a whole bunch of Sigmar people showed up including the Grand Theologian himself and he was impressed and thought I was the shit and he said that Sigmar forgave me of my crimes if I would but I wasn’t sure because of Helga and the children so I said I’d think about it. I started my suit of armor and new hammer as my new masterpiece. It felt right to make and it built quick with prayers and blood in the metal to make it all black and swirly. That took some time too.
When I was done with the armor I felt good about myself and I told the Grand Theologian and he made me a templar of Sigmar right then and there and told me to avenge Bogenhaven so I left. While I was leaving a Treefucker sohwed up and said the Emperor was dead and I asked the Theologian and he said he was and the Treefucker was “sensitive” because she knew and I had to take her with me north to the wasteland to stop some huge ancient evil before something terribly happened. Then I realized that Karl Franz II True Image of Sigmar was dead and I felt bad. And they started teaching me how to read and write which is why I’m writing all this to practice and tell my story like Crom did to the smart-dwarves. Maybe I’ll be a smart dwarf someday if Sigmar wants me too but I doubt it.
So I left with the Treefucker and we went to the Wastelands and found some dead walking things we couldn’t kill so I prayed for them and we went on till we found a small town and a dwarf. I gave him some Gutbuster and he gave me some boomers and told me about the two stupid people had been through trying to stop some ancient evil from doing something evil so I went.
We met them later and they were lazy so we rode to a village in a chaos wood and they said there’s a farm with some chaos in it that is making everything bad so we’re about to go kill it now bye.
So we bed down for the night in shitsville and head off the next morning after a loooooong little treefucking fest by robed people. As we moved up the road it seemed that shitsville had moved several times. We came across two other abandoned shitsvilles on our way to this farm place.
As we approached the farm we noticed a hole in a hill – I didn’t think much of it and now I’m pissed. Anyway, we get to the farm and see the little girl and she goes inside to get her parents, which turn out to be beastmen. I got all itchy but I didn’t kill em cuz they seemed like nice enough folk I suppose. So we talked to them and got the skinny.
Seems a long time ago a big-assed piece of warpstone fell into their back yard and it had this baby girl inside. They were told in dreams to take care of her and that people would be coming for her eventually. Well, we played at being those people and we went. I asked about the warpstone and they went downstairs and found it was gone. It seemed a bunch of shitsucking skaven actually lifted the thing out of the place while we were there having tea – THROUGH THE GODDAMNED HOLE IN THE HILL!!!! I collapsed the tunnel and marked their direction through the woods so I could come back later and smoosh em but good this time. Goddamned Skaven.
So we take the Egg who we call Egg who is pretty much just like any other 7-year-old girl in the whole world and head back hard towards Altdorf. It feels real funny to have a little girl around and sometimes I see little Gretta in her and that makes me sad. And I taught her how to play Kal’Thagh and she’s really good probably because she’s the egg of Zahnart the Bodiless and it makes me happy for a bit. I almost called her Gretta the other night though and I was sad again and had to knock down a tree in the woods but no one saw.
So we ride for a while and get to this other village and get some supplies. I went to the temple of Ulrich in the town and told the guy we were trying to save the world and needed some horses and he believed me so we took some horses and I promised to give them back when we didn’t need em any more.
Then we ride for a while longer and get back into the scum-sucking swamps and meet up with some Fimir and kill em but it’s really hard and Ponder gets gutted pretty bad. But luckily enough this bloke named Heinrich shows up and heals Ponder a bit and tells us about this big bad bitch-queen who lives in the swamps and makes Fimir and wants Zahnart to come back too and he wants to kill the Egg but I wont let him because that would make Zahnart come back and she reminds me of Gretta and that makes me sad.
So we head to the big-bad’s hill so I can bend her over and it’s a nasty, nasty place full of chaos and stuff and the others get all weird and try to fight fimir while I kill the big bad and then I kill the famir because these people can’t fight worth a goblin’s dick. Then Heinrich shows up and we kill him because he’s trying to kill little Egg and that makes me mad. We stay there for a day and more while I pray over everything. Maybe now that the big bad’s gone the place will heal over a bit. That and I was beaten up pretty bad by some fimir but I don’t tell anyone that because they’re pussies and I’m the only one who can fight in this whole damn unit.
The next day we come across more good beast-men and it makes me weird but they’re nice enough folk and they live with a priestess of Shallya named Asterid who’s quite thoroughly fuckable if she wasn’t such a hippie. And it’s a whole town of beast men who live together and make a good life and try to be better people and I can’t blame them for that because I’m like that too without the animal shit on my head and whatnot.
So anyway we rest in the town and get some food – though I had to kill it because they’re hippies and won’t eat food, just the shit that food eats but it’s a good time anyway. Then Otto shows up without the dwarf – Otto’s the guy who the dwarf worked for. And he had a mob of people and they were going to burn the town out. That made me real mad. They tried to listen to me when I told them to go away but Otto had their hearts and minds and it didn’t work. Then one of the beastmen in town named Will turned traitor and told Otto how to raid the town so they did. There was some fighting and I organized the folk in the town into a split-tier rush so it would scare the shit out of the mob but not kill a lot of em. The split-tier worked pretty well, though the left picket took some damage when a few farmboys decided to form a half-assed pike press with pitchforks, but all in all considering the lack of training and the fact it was two mobs, both groups came off relatively unscathed. The rear attack didn’t go so well because I didn’t send enough of a force back there Otto was there. I felt kind of bad – I had just assumed they’d be able to pick the people off when they came out of the water. Treefucker actually did some pretty good work until she forgot she was riding an animal with a mind of its own. She did good work in general all night sending up alarms and whatnot – so maybe if she keeps her mouth shut about the emperor I might actually not terribly mind her scrawny ass being around. I don’t’ hate elves really, I just don’t understand em too good because they’re all fucking weird in the head and their eyes are creepy. If she gets better at that bow and starts following orders I think she’d be a right-proper lass to have around. Maybe. If she’d just shut the fuck up. I think every time she opens her mouth I’ll put Thick Willie in there – that’ll quiet her down I think. Har Har.
So anyway, when the front looked like it would hold I put the chap who was playing Sergeant in charge and moved back. I found Otto and knocked his head off his shoulders but he shot me with his flintlock and it hurt like fucking hell. But anyway I buried him proper because he meant well kind of and gave all his shit to the town except for his horse, which was a good horse, and his weapon and armor, which I gave to Ponder because I’m tired of dragging his limpwristed ass around every time he gets the tar beaten out of him by a snotling.
I spent the rest of the morning trying to fix up Marta – who was a little ticktok kind of by chaos and couldn’t be bandaged. I think she’ll be okay. She wanted to do me the night before – which was intriguing because she was a mechanical marvel really – but it would probably chafe and I was depressed because Egg freaked out – she was probably hurt when she was little – and it reminded me of the time the boys roughed up Gretta for ruining a good pickaxe and I was sad so I didn’t ride the ticktok.
After all was done I pulled the bullet out of my chest and kept that around and then there was drinking and song and stuff. And I talked to the farmboys who were laid up by wounds and convinced them the beastmen were nice folk and they should trade and then sent some of them off to nip bad rumors n the bud while the remainder rested and ate.
At the end of the day I took off my armor and got all cleaned up and prettied up and ate with a knife and spoon and didn’t get very drunk. Part of me wanted to be all prettied up to maybe get Asterid in the sack for a good roll and cuddle but the other part just wanted to enjoy the peace of the place. For the first time in decades I wasn’t a soldier for a little while and I played Tonk with Egg and a few others and it was good. I also learned stuff from Asterid and got a book and some ideas about doing the smart-stuff I know I’ll have to learn before I can be a real priest and get closer to Sigmar. Though I didn’t get her in the sack, which was a shame – it’s been weeks since I got a good snogging – but I didn’t bring it up because it didn’t feel quite right. I can roll whores all night but if I’m not paying for it I keep thinking of Helga and I get sad and that throws a big-assed-honkin block of ice on Thick Willie.
I’m about to go to bed now. I’ve got a room tonight with a soft bed. My armor is hanging on the wall looking all empty and stuff. My hammer is out of arm’s-reach from the bed. I’m all naked cuz the sheets are softer than my calloused ass and they feel good. I’ve got a steaming mug of some relaxing tea that Asterid made to help me think on Sigmar and not get distracted by my britches riding up my asscrack and whatnot. I haven’t been at ease in a long time, not since Karak a Karak at the very least. I’m at ease. I think I did good work today and I’m allowing myself just a little bit of pride. I’m allowed that now aren’t I? If I do good work can I be proud of it? Just a little bit?
I’m going to read some prayers now and go to sleep. The town is still awake, bursting with a good tingle. I can hear people laughing downstairs. They’re making plans for a future that they may not have had if I hadn’t help them purchase it. Right now I truly feel like a Templar of Sigmar – a holy warrior who leads good men to battle to save the lives of other good men and uses words to make others see the right path. I never felt worthy of it until now.
And I can’t stop smiling.
Good night.
So anyway, the next day we up and left for Marienburg. The trip was pretty boring and we got to the city a few days later. I went and spoke to the Theologian of the Temple of Sigmar there and we did some word-dancing trying to figure out what the best thing was to do with Egg. I finally left and said I’d have to think about it and we went to this Goffman’s place and he turned out to be a right proper chap. So I left everyone there and went back to tell the Theologian hat we were going to take care of Egg without his help and he freaked and we did some more word-dancing. Finally, he agreed that if he could send some Templars up to the town to review it we’d be able to take Egg back there after the Big Bad was over and done with. So we all moved in to the temple and Kate went with the Templars to show them the town. They got back a few days later and the Theologian said that he would build a garrison outside the town but it was okay for Egg to go back there once the Big Bad was done. Phew. I was afraid he was gonna make me do something I’d regret.
So we study and work out for a few days in relative peace and quit and learn about all the hell the world has fallen into. It seems that the High Theologian was almost killed and also with the Emperor dead a lot of people have risen to try to take his spot, including the guy in Nuln and the guy in Middenheim and both were marching armies at the beginning of winter to Altdorf to tell the folk there who they thought should be in charge. The Theologian also tells me that I need to go back to the World’s Edge and figure out what’s up with all the chaos so I asked the people with me if they wanted to go and they said yes.
A few days later, some idiot broke in with magic and stole Egg. We hunted them down and killed them at some little temple on an island and got Egg back. They were Solkanites and they were going to kill her. That made me right and proper mad.
Another day went by and then the day of the eclipse arrived. We all got outside in the courtyard to watch Morsleib eclipse the sun and then a bunch of people attacked including four warriors of chaos. The Theologian was killed just as I was starting to like the guy so Kate did the nasty deed with the demon tooth and made all of Egg’s evil go away. I killed a warrior of chaos. Then after the eclipse, the last warrior of chaos just up and walked off cuz there was nothing more he could do to get Zahnart to come back. We spent the next few days resting and they made me a real Priest of Sigmar for all the stuff I’d done. I feel pretty close to the big guy now and it makes me feel really good. We’re going to tae Egg back to the town tomorrow and then we’ll set off for the World’s Edge to find the Big Bad.