The Northern Junction Bad Medicine Scatter Terrain

Neil Henry just wants to finish A new TTB adventure Learn how to build all

30
laying the line, but there are about Black Blood sorts of small terrain for
those who'd do anything to and Nephilim giving cover Vol.
stop him

Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)

 CONTENTS

Cli
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na v igate! WYRD
CHRONICLES 30
FOREWORD............................................................................ 1
Broken Promises............................................................... 3
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Storied Soundtracks: In the Flesh ������������������������������ 7
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Scatter Terrain.............................................................. 15
The Northern Junction................................................. 26
Bad Medicine.................................................................... 35
Nemesis.............................................................................47

content guide

stories terrain game sessions mechanics fun & tactics painting battle-reports gallery

Creative Director Graphic Artist Contributing Authors

Credits Nathan Caroland

Layout
John Cason
Jorge Gomez
John Cason

Art
Mason Crawford
Aaron Darland
Chris Parson
Bob Kuzmeski
Aaron Darland Alyssa Menold Marko Paunovic
Hardy Fowler Adam Rogers
Editor Jorge Gomez
Kyle Rowan
Mason Crawford

Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)

 FOREWORD
Howdy, everyone!

I’m Kyle, the newest game designer on the team, and if you’re reading this, it means
I’ve succeeded in rethreading the fabrics of time and space. As you may or may
not already know (depending on which timeline we’re currently in), I’m also the
company time traveler. When I’m not inventing dinosaurs (you’re welcome), destroying
dinosaurs (I’m sorry), or spoiling television shows that haven’t even been released
yet (whoops!), I’m making board games here at Wyrd.

I’ll also be your resident Chronicler, so long as this dimension isn’t obliterated by
Grebulons (if you don’t know what they are, then that means we still have a fighting
chance). In this issue, we’ve got some great stories, an adventure riddled with Black
Blood, and our Storied Soundtracks contest winner!

Being that it’s summer time (or is it?), we’re doing our part in the yearly scramble in
preparation for GenCon. We’re pretty tight-lipped on what we’ll be bringing to the big
event, but let’s just say that we have a few cards up our sleeves.

In the office, we’ve been busy cranking out the final touches for Malifaux’s latest
book, Broken Promises, preparing the last flourishes for the Other Side, catching our
breath after releasing Through the Breach 2.0 Core Rules, ramming more mayhem into
Bayou Bash, and fending off evil spirits in the Darkness Comes Rattling expansion.
And that’s just the beginning. Trust me, I’ve seen the future.

Speaking of the future, we’ve got a ton of other great stuff in store, but aren’t quite
ready to reveal just yet. Keep an eye out on our forums, website, and social media for
our latest announcements, or do what I do and look beyond and through the veil of
time to reveal all secrets of what has been and what will be.

See you last Thursday!

Kyle

Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)

Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
 Broken Promises Designing a Malifaux Book
Hello there!
I'm Aaron Darland, the head of the Design Team here
at Wyrd Miniatures. I've been playing Malifaux for
seven and a half years, playtesting for almost the
same amount of time, and designing models and
upgrades since we shifted to Second Edition. Broken
Promises, however, was my first time acting as the
lead designer of Malifaux, and stepping into Justin's
shoes was not easy.
From about midway through Ripples of Fate, we knew
that we wanted the next book to contain new Master
Upgrades in addition to the usual selection
of new models. Before we started
designing the models, however, the
Design Team sat down and planned
out the different stories in the
book and how we wanted to move
the story of Malifaux forward.
3
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
Aaron Darland
Telling Stories
Caution: Spoilers from previous books lie ahead!
In my opinion, the stories are one of the most exciting
things in Broken Promises. As the Design Team
debated the various ways that we could progress the
story of each Faction, we realized that every story
kept coming back to one important man: Franco
Marlow, the new Governor-General, who was selected
for the position by the Through the Breach players of
the Nythera Worldwide Event.
While Marlow didn't feature in every story, the
changes he was making to how the Guild operates
in Malifaux were trickling down to every Faction.
Having a new power-player like Marlow on the scene
is really exciting for the narrative. Governor-General
Kitchener's Guild operated in the same way for so
long that everything sank into this nice groove.
Governor-General Marlow is having none of that.
He's a powerful mage who is accustomed to order,
and as anyone who read through Ripples of Fate can
attest, he thinks and acts in a way that is completely
different from his predecessor.
 Once we had the stories outlined, we shared our ideas
with our writers. They were excited for the opportunity
to tell such large and influential stories, and every
one of them brought their own unique twist to how
things played out. I'm really looking forward to seeing
how the community reacts to the stories, as we're not
pulling any punches this time around.
Making Upgrades
Once the stories were locked down, we moved on
to designing Upgrades for the Masters. We started
with three Upgrades per Master, each one testing out
different playstyles, boosts to existing playstyles, and
stuff that we joked about and then wrote down for own
own personal amusement. At one point, for instance,
there was an Upgrade that letter Molly summon Kirai
into battle that we knew wasn't never going to see
print... but it sure was fun to try out for a week or two!
Once we had our three Upgrades per Master, we
gave them to a small group of testers and, over the
course of a few weeks, whittled each Master down to
two Upgrades. In many cases, we shuffled abilities
from one Upgrade to the next, turning three alright
Upgrades into two very good Upgrades.
This turned out to be a great way for us to inject new
life into the playstyles of some Masters. Lady Justice,
for example, has not been seeing a lot of table time,
so we looked for ways that we could expand her
options and make her a more interesting choice on
the table.This led to the Swordfighter Upgrade.
4
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
In the column of her enemies, you have Seamus' "Do
You Know Who I Am?" Upgrade, which lets him go
down the road of Horror that players remember fondly
from first edition. Both of these Upgrades give Lady
Justice and Seamus new ways of dealing with enemy
models that, we hope, will lead to them being played
in more games and in new ways.
Time for Models
With the Upgrades in testing, the Design Team began
to plan out models. We knew that we wanted to include
six models per Faction, so we went through a list of
keyword Characteristics to determine which themes
could use a bit of love. Once we had determined what
holes needed to be filled, we fleshed out the rest of
the model list with some fun ideas and picked the
best of the lot.
If there's one thing that's true about model design,
it's that you never quite know just what the players
want. Our closed playtesters were, as always, a huge
help in dialing the models in and ensuring that every
model had a role to fill. Most of the models stayed
largely as they were written, while others saw big
changes (and a few were even deleted completely).
Once we felt like the models were in a good place,
we rolled them out into open playtesting. In a wider
group, of course, there are brand new perspectives
that caused things to change even further.
 Playtesting
With the model stats out there for everyone to see and
the stories being written by our great writers, finishing
up Broken Promises came down to playtesting.
Playtesting is always an interesting experience,
and it's one that I had largely been able to leave in
Justin's hands in the past... and let me just say that
it's not an easy process!
For me, the most challenging part of the playtest
process is managing power creep and baises (whether
that bias be on the part of playtesters or designers).
Malifaux is a complex game with a lot of moving
pieces, and players tend to become comfortable with
a particular way of playing, especially when it leads
to victory.
When overseeing a playtest, a designer has to be
mindful of those biases, as well as the strengths of
each player. Some players are very good at pushing
models to the breaking point to see if their more
extreme abilities will ruin the game, while others
have an in-depth knowledge of their entire Faction
(while being somewhat in the dark about how other
Factions work).
In some places, bias appears when players want the
models belonging to their Faction to be better than
the models of another Faction. That is a concern, of
course, but in my experience, the most troublesome
form of bias isn't bias toward a Faction but rather
toward individual models.
For example, we often see feedback along the lines
of "why would I take model X when I already have
model Y." This type of comment is often indicative
of either model Y being too good for its cost or the
player having some sort of bias toward model Y. This
is perfectly understandable, of course; after all, why
try to make model X work in a crew when you already
know how to make the most of model Y?
The easiest way to bypass this bias is to make sure
that every models has a distinct role in the game.
Unfortunately, as a miniatures game expands,
there are only so many roles to fill. A Faction can
only have so many 5 point scheme runners before
5
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
any more start to feel redundant. Complicated and
unique mechanics can often create new niches for
models, but then the game gets pushed further into
complexity creep rather than power creep.
The Design Team tries to take all this into account, as
well as our own experiences, when it comes balancing
models for general release. As it stands, we're very
happy with where the models and Upgrades ended up
for Broken Promises, and we feel that we've managed
to give players plenty of new options without going
down the road of power creep. We want Malifaux to
be a fun, balanced game for years to come.
When you get your copy of Broken Promises, hop onto
our forums and let us know what you think! What's
your favorite Upgrade? Which story did you like the
best?
What's to Come?
Malifaux is continuing to grow and expand, so I
wanted to take a minute to let you know what's
coming up in the next couple of months:
• New releases - We are continuing to release
models from Ripples of Fate, and we'll
have some content from Broken Promises
available at GenCon this year.
• A new Nightmare and new Miss model -
Teasers of these models can be found in this
very edition of Chronicles!
• Malifaux Errata - We're currently playtesting
a very small set of errata to address
significant game imbalances (4 cards to be
precise).
• Gaining Grounds 2018 - We are planning
to put Gaining Grounds 2018 into open
playtesting shortly after GenCon this year.
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
 Storied Soundtracks:
In the Flesh
The tap-tap-tapping of the stone mallet on the blunt
end of the bamboo needle hummed sharply against
the still air of Tan Tao’s Tattoos, a small shop tucked
in a corner of Malifaux’s slums. The aftertaste of
stale smoke gave an edge to the stench of old blood
that filled the room.
Reclining in a threadbare padded seat, Alan O’Neil
dragged deeply on the cigarette dangling from his
lower lip. The warmth surging through his lungs
was a welcomed distraction from the rhythmic
hammering against his thigh. He forced his eyes
wide, tracing the streamer from his cigarette as it
rose like tendrils of aether through the still air.
Alan cleared his throat and looked to Tan Tao, his
tattoo artist, but quickly realized that no conversation
would be welcomed. The artist’s full attention was
on his work, and as the man traced the lines that
only his own mind’s eye could see, Alan’s thoughts
drifted along the path that brought him here.
Ducking under a looping haymaker, Alan responded
with a left hook into his opponent’s ribs. His
competitor’s arm retracted down instinctively to
protect his body, but Alan came at him with an
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
Chris Parson
overhand right that was driven by the entirety of his
own weight.
The punch connected with the larger man’s lantern
jaw, snapping his head to the side like a sharply
tolled bell. He stumbled back against the wall of the
fighting pit and slid down its sweat-slicked surface.
As Alan was about to raise his hands in victory, his
opponent regained his balance with a bellowing roar
that sent the crowd into a frenzy.
“No, no, no,” Alan muttered as his opponent
lumbered towards him. He was supposed to stay
down. That was the deal.
The Dane had never been beaten during his time
in the fighting pits. Although Alan had done well
for himself, the odds were definitely against him:
ten to one, in fact. He saw this not as a deterrent,
though, but as an opportunity. The accumulation of
Alan’s previous winnings was large enough that he
would still come out ahead by betting on himself and
offering half of it to the Dane. All the big man had to
do was stay down when Alan delivered his signature
overhand right. Alan put everything into that punch,
but they had agreed upon that beforehand; if it looked
like he pulled the punch at all, both men knew their
lives could very well be forfeit. As the Dane grabbed
Alan in a crushing bear hug, he began to suspect that
the man had decided to go another route.
 “What… doing?” Alan gasped, his legs kicking
feebly as he tried - in vain - to wriggle free.
“Got a better offer,” the Dane grunted. He lifted Alan
and slammed him to the ground. “No hard feelings.”
With a grimace, the Dane lifted himself up and
dropped an enormous fist across Alan’s left temple.
Stars filled Alan’s vision with loose constellations
as he fell into unconsciousness.
Tan Tao pulled a steaming cloth from a bamboo
basket carried by his apprentice and turned to Alan.
“This will hurt,” the tattooist warned. Before Alan
could respond, he ran the cloth over Alan’s swollen
thigh.
The heat burned through the ache that was left
behind by the prodding of the tattooing process,
but as Tan Tao pulled the cloth away to reveal the
finished work, Alan’s grimace turned to a satisfied
grin.
Two Razorspine Rattlers rose from his leg, one on
either side of his knee, slithering up towards his
hip. Their scales shimmered and shifted as though
they were alive.
“Eh?” Tan Tao’s near-constant look of concentration
was replaced with a self-satisfied grin.
“Worth every penny,” Alan replied as he pulled out
what remained of his savings.
“How’s your other one? The flower?” Tan Tao asked
as he gestured to the rose he had tattooed onto
Alan’s left forearm.
“It’s… ah… healing up fine,” Alan stammered. He
self-consciously pulled his arm close.
Tan Tao gave him a hooded look as he took Alan’s
handful of scrip. The motion pulled slightly at the
artist’s rolled-up shirt sleeve, revealing a glimpse of
his own tattoos. The ink was an odd, brownish-red
color that he hadn’t seen before.
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
“Now that’s unusual,” Alan commented.
“My master’s formula.” The artist pulled his sleeve
up further to show more of the tiger tattoo that
climbed up his shoulder and onto his back. “He
always said that the color comes from the blood
of a tiger and that it would give me the animal’s
strength. I rarely feel strong as a tiger though,” Tan
Tao laughed. “Unfortunately, he met an… untimely
death,” he added, casting his gaze to the ground.
“People would go to great lengths for his work.
I hope only to be half as sought-after as he was
someday.”
“Well, I’d say you’re off to a good start,” Alan said as
he stood and left the shop.
When he was in the street, Alan lit a cigarette and
started heading off into the dark of the night. “It’s
a shame that this one won’t last very long,” he
murmured.
Alan waited in the shadowy overhang of a rundown
two-story building that leaned out across the alley
at such an angle that its roof almost touched the
wall of the adjacent Quarantine Zone barricade. The
occasional heavy skittering sounds that came from
the opposite side of the wall did little to deter Alan
from his mission. Indeed, the proximity of his chosen
ambush site to the edge of safety was what made it
ideal. Most people, even those hardy enough to eke
out a living in the slums of Malifaux, gave the edges
of the Quarantine Zone a wide berth.
The Dane, however, was strong as an ox and only
marginally less intelligent. Alan wasn’t sure which of
those traits made the man so willing to live near the
barricade, but he was sure that the combination of
the two was what compelled him to take the same
route home, night after night.
As for Alan, he trusted his physical prowess enough
to protect himself from harm. After all, one didn’t
willingly enter the fighting pits without knowing a
thing or two about how to scrap. Sure, there were
poor souls who found themselves there without the
 notion of how to make a proper fist, but Alan had
entered the matches by choice. Truth be told, he’d
fought far more men for fun than he had for profit.
As for any problems his fists couldn’t handle…
The raw tattoo on Alan’s thigh writhed in anticipation
at the coming battle, and he thumbed the raw
Soulstone held deep in his pocket as he waited
for the Dane. For all their dangers, Alan thought,
Malifaux could be equally wondrous. His own recently
discovered powers stood as a perfect example.
A Month Earlier…
After sliding the false brick panel from its tight-
fitting spot on the wall, Alan reached into the dark
recess of the hidden cubby to retrieve the tattered
notebook. He placed it on the small table next to
his bed and replaced the panel, leaving only the
Soulstone hidden within. Sitting down on his bed,
with his back against the wall for support, he leafed
through the book’s familiar pages. Although it was
not his, since reading it, he had felt compelled to
add his own notes beside the original owner’s,
presumably a former tenant of the boardinghouse.
The notebook claimed that it was a transcription of
an ancient tome the owner had discovered in the
ruins of the Quarantine Zone, and that by following
the process laid out within its scrawled pages, one
could summon objects into existence from a simple
drawing.
Alan had dismissed the book as the crazed ramblings
of a lunatic. The power that suffused the notebook
wore away at his skepticism, though, as did the
drawings in the book: they were exact duplicates of
the very furnishings of his room.
Lacking any artistic ability himself, Alan wondered
at the magic’s limitations. Following the formula laid
out in the scratched notes, with the Soulstone he
found alongside the book in hand, he attempted to
bring a second chair into being, and then another
table. He then tried to conjure into existence a small
mirror like the one that hung above his washbasin.
Nothing seemed to work. Perhaps, he reasoned,
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
there was a limit to the summoning power. Perhaps
the magic in those pictures had already been drawn
out.
Desperate to prove the author right or wrong - he was
no longer sure which - Alan looked to the fading ink
scratched into his upper left arm. The poorly-drawn
bulldog there regarded him indifferently, a reminder
of a night of raucous victory, heavy drinking, and
poor decisions. Feeling that he had nothing to lose,
Alan took up the Soulstone and tried to give life to
the tattoo.
The poor creature had not lived long. Given flesh,
its cartoonish jowls pulled at empty black eyes, and
its breath came in weak gasps. Undersized legs
buckled under its weight. Alan’s elation at what
he accomplished was soon replaced with pity and
disgust at the tortured life he created. He ended its
life quickly and cried himself to sleep.
When he woke the next morning, Alan disposed of
the malformed body. He hoped it would disappear
back into the aether from which he had summoned
it, but that was not the case. Returning to his room,
a half-emptied bottle of swill in hand, he sat and
stared at the notebook with an uneasy mixture of
reverence and repulsion. The claims it made were
all too real. Alan put the book away and tried to
forget it ever existed.
Three days later, Alan looked at his arm for the first
time since the ritual. The tattoo, faded to begin
with, had all but disappeared. The faint lines that
remained were a perfect representation of the
thing he had summoned. Could it be that the fault
was not in its execution, but the source material?
Would a better drawing yield a better result? As he
retrieved the book from its hidden niche and flipped
through the notes and drawings, the question of why
the tattoo disappeared, while the drawings in the
book had remained, nagged at the back of his mind.
He pored over everything he had read, searching for
answers, but there were none to be found.
The only way to find out was to try again.
 Two Nights Ago
“For you, my dear,” Alan said as he handed the
single rose to Lily, his favorite serving girl at the
front of the house. He had summoned the flower
the night before and kept it fresh in his washbasin.
He already thought he could feel his forearm tingling
with the after-effects of the magic, but the rose
tattoo had not yet faded.
Taking it, Lily let out a sharp cry as a thorn caught
her finger, drawing a bead of blood.
“Aye, beautiful but dangerous,” he smirked. “Just
like yours truly!” He dismissed her playful scowl
with a wink as he pressed his back to the door and
pushed it open.
He would make it up her, Alan thought. With the
money he’d make from fixing his next fight, he’d be
able to buy a place downtown. Maybe even take her
with him.
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
The Present
Tan Tao crouched atop the wall, within the shadows
of an overhanging roof. He disregarded what might
lurk on the Quarantine side of the wall; the two
archers that had joined him were watching the
shuffling things in the forbidden darkness on that
side of the wall as much as they were watching Alan
O’Neil, who stood half concealed and fully oblivious
below. If he was trying to hide, he was doing a poor
job. Tan Tao had encountered no difficulty in tracking
Alan’s every move.
Rumor was that the fighter had given an undying
rose to a servant woman. It was a minor curiosity,
but something about the story had stuck with the
tattoo artist. When Alan had grown reluctant to
show him the rose, Tan Tao began to suspect that
the man had discovered the means to make the
tattoo come to life. At the bidding of his masters,
he had followed Alan to confirm whether or not his
suspicions were correct.
The archers waited, crouching upon the shadowed
rooftops, their arrows tipped with blackened steel
nocked on the strings of their longbows. Two Ten
Thunder Brothers were concealed at the end of the
alley to Alan’s back, blocking his most likely escape
route.
A deep, rumbling song, thick with consonants,
brought every eye in the alley toward the Dane has
he came into view. He carried on without concern,
only turning toward the smaller shape that came out
of the shadows as it closed to within a few feet of
him. As he recognized the threatening figure in the
shadows, familiarity flashed across the Dane’s face,
followed by a guttural laugh.
“Not had enough, O’Neil?” the Dane chuckled. “Or
are ya pickin’ through the garbage fer scraps?”
“You cost me everything, you thievin’ bugger,” Alan
cursed. He pulled his hands from his pockets and
muttered something unintelligible as he closed in
on the larger man.
 Tan Tao expected Alan to draw a weapon, and the
dull glow that seeped through the fingers of Alan’s
fist caught him by surprise.
Immediately picking up on the threat, the archers let
loose their arrows. Both arrows caught Alan high in
the shoulder, but not before he triggered his spell.
As he stumbled back, his thigh writhed, and the
serpentine forms of two Razorspine Rattlers tore
through the leg of his pants. The spiked snakes
doubled in size as they twisted and writhed in the
darkened street.
Alan slumped to the ground in pain. The archers
opened fire on the huge snakes as they darted
towards the Dane, but their black-fletched shafts
only grazed the bristling hides of the serpents.
The soft patter of sandals on cobblestone came
from the far end of the alley as the Ten Thunder
Brothers hurried to join the battle. Tan Tao leapt
from his perch and landed in a roll, coming up with
a fistful of shuriken. He threw them at the closest
creature and riddled the back of its neck. Without
missing a step, he slipped two bladed weapons -
each shaped like the claws of a tiger – onto his
hands and charged after the snakes, his archers
close behind him.
Staggering back on his heels, the Dane steeled
himself against the approaching snakes. Too
drunk to be suitably terrified, his fighter’s instincts
naturally took over. As a Razorspine feinted a strike,
the he launched an uppercut at its wide, fanged jaw.
The Rattler twisted out of range before the punch
connected, redirecting to the side, and clamped
its fangs into the Dane’s left arm. With a scream,
the brawler ripped himself loose. Gobbets of flesh
tore away from his arm and clung to the creature’s
curved incisors. With a howl, he attacked again, and
the thundering right hook unhinged the Rattler’s jaw,
leaving it limp and useless. Drawing itself up to its
full height, the injured creature shook out its cowl
and hissed at the Dane as he back-pedaled further.
Tan Tao closed with the second Razorspine Rattler
just before it reached the fight. Launching himself
at the creature’s back, he grabbed the spines on
the sides of the creature’s wide neck, throwing it off
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balance as he rode it to the ground and drove its
head hard into the grimy cobblestone. Springing up
in a front flip, he narrowly avoided the spiked snake’s
retaliatory tail swipe. The creature quickly recovered,
and as Tan Tao landed, the snake dove at his exposed
back. The tattoo artist recovered just as quickly,
however, and met the attack with a backhand swipe
from his claw. The serpent reeled back, its skull laid
bare and glistening in blood where the weapon had
carved through its skin.
The tip of a yari, held by one of the Thunder Brothers,
punched through the snake’s throat before it could
strike again. The Razorspine writhed, pulling the man
off balance and yanking the spear from his hands.
The yari’s staff caught the warrior in his jaws and
pulled him close, crushing bone and armor alike as
it wound its serpentine body around him. As it dealt
with the first Thunder Brother, the other joined the
fray, skewering the engaged beast through the neck
and driving it to the ground, where its thrashing only
served to inflict further injury on itself.
Turning, Tan Tao found the Dane beset by the
remaining Razorspine. Its broken jaw useless, the
huge snake had wrapped its long body around the
fighter, goring him with the spines that lined its body
as he tried to pry himself free. The archers were pin-
cushioning the creature’s body with arrows, but it
continued to fight.
Closing in on the entwined combatants, Tan Tao
ripped furrows along the length of the Razorspine’s
serpentine body with his claws. It twisted in silent
agony as it attempted to escape the new threat, but
the Dane hooked the creature by the remains of its
dangling lower jaw. As it pulled away in an attempt to
free itself, the snake exposed its open throat. Seeing
the opportunity, the archers fired, driving arrows
through the soft pallet of the creature’s open mouth
and embedding themselves in its reptilian brain. At
once, the snake went limp, leaving a lacerated and
barely conscious Dane clutched in its slackening coils.
As the surviving Thunder Brother moved to stand
over the prone Alan O’Neil, Tan Tao approached the
Dane. The archers came up behind him, and one of
them tore a strip from his robe to use as a tourniquet
for the Dane’s ravaged arm.
 “Leave it,” Tan Tao ordered while examining the
incisions covering the Dane’s body. The edges were
blackening as the tissue died and rotted; the snake's
poison had already taken its toll. The snakes that
Alan had summoned into existence were identical to
those found in the wild, right down to their venom.
“Relieve him of his misery,” Tan Tao ordered. “Then
send word to Mr. Samuels explaining what happened
here. I would not have him blame us for this man’s
death.”
Turning towards Alan, Tan Tao saw that the fighter
was also close to death. Through the rip in his
pants, he could see that the man’s snake tattoo
– the one he had given Alan mere hours ago – was
already starting to fade away. Tan Tao knelt down
and slapped Alan’s face. “Tell me, how did you give
life to the tattoo?”
Not so much as a moan escaped Alan’s lips in protest.
“I’ve no time for this,” the artist muttered. “I'll have your
secrets, dead or alive. Bring him back to the shop.”
As the archers helped the Thunder Brother pulled
Alan to his feet, Tan Tao returned to the dead
snakes. Despite being only drawings, they were
identical to the real thing. He reached down and
pressed a hand against the body of the closest
snake. Even its blood felt real.
With a shake of his head, Tan Tao stood and
disappeared back into the shadows between
civilization and the horrors of the night.
Days Later
Hunched forward in the poorly padded chair in the
middle of his shop, Tan Tao leafed through the
dog-eared notebook while his apprentice pricked a
tattoo onto his back. Finding Alan’s rented room had
been easy, and a small bribe, with reassurance that
the room could be rented out effective immediately,
had convinced the landlord to turn a blind eye to a
quick search.
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
In Alan’s eagerness for revenge, he hadn’t bothered
to tuck the notebook back into its cubby before
leaving to seek out the vengeance that drove him.
Near the end of the notebook, the author’s
handwriting changed. Where the first, larger section
was the original scribe’s account of finding the
grimoire he pulled his knowledge from, the second
was Alan O’Neil’s tortured diary. It detailed his plan
to fix the fight with the Dane and his furor at the
subsequent betrayal, as well as the shame and
elation that followed his attempt at summoning a
passable rose. Without needing to read the words,
Tan Tao surmised that it was his lack of artistic
ability that had first brought Alan in his tattoo parlor.
For a moment, he pitied the man. He had stumbled
upon a great power, but his ignorance had proven to
be his undoing.
Sensing that his apprentice’s work was nearly done,
Tan Tao looked back over his shoulder. Two angled
mirrors revealed a full view of his back. Amidst a
swirling melee of dragons and tigers sat a calm
blue pool. Two lotus flowers lined in dark red ink,
the same dried-blood tone as the tigers in the outer
ring, sat serenely on the water. A third faint outline
gave the appearance of a flower sinking beneath the
surface, and a fourth flower dripped red. Soon, he
would try his hand at creating his own flowers.
“You’ll be glad to know you got your revenge,” Tan
Tao said, his mind still lingering on Alan O’Neil as
he closed the notebook. “I doubt that it is much
consolation, considering how things turned out.”
Pushing the thought out of his head, he glanced
back to the mirror. “Your lotuses are coming along
well, Ichiro. If they meet our needs, we shall try your
hand at a tiger.”
Storied Soundtracks
This story was the winner of the Storied
Soundtracks contest on the Wyrd forum and has
been published as part of the prize for winning.
Make sure to visit our forum to check out the
various contests we run throughout the year!
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
breachsidebroadcast.com
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
 Scatter Terrain for a Wild West gaming board

MARKO PAUNOVIC

Having built a decent number of bigger, “feature”
gaming terrain for the Wild West gaming board, I've
decided that I need a lot of smaller terrain to add
some variance. Bigger terrain creates the atmosphere
while the smaller ones provide different options.
Next, I will build several smaller pieces of terrain: an
outhouse (because what is a western town without
at least one outhouse?) and a wooden well. These
pieces will provide hard cover and will act as a
hinderance in both movement and line of sight.

Idea and Planning
As you may already know, planning is crucial in any
project and this one is no exception. The basic
outline of each of these is pretty straightforward;
after a couple of days brainstorming, I've decided
what terrain I'll need to have a versatile board that
will provide players with atmosphere and challenge
during their games.
To finish this build, I'll add some containers. One will
be a metal container for coal and the other will be
simple wooden crate. Both will be slightly bigger than
one might expect, but I've decided to make them big
enough for players to place their models on top of
them if they'd like.

In this article, I will be covering the following terrain:

forests, an outhouse, a well, a town entrance, fences,
rough terrain, a wooden crate, and a metal coal container.

I will build four pine forests roughly 15 x 15 cm in

size. I've chosen pine to tie them in with the rest of
the scenery that I previously built.. I'll also build four
pieces of rough terrain that vary in size from really
small (5x5cm) to slightly larger (10x15cm). The idea
behind these terrain pieces is that, although they
hinder movement, they do not allow for any cover,
making them a nuisance on the battlefield.

I will also make four 1.5x10cm fences and a 20x5cm

western town entrance. Fences will provide soft cover
and impede movement a bit.

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 Materials and Tools Building the Bases
After preparing most of the designs, I could finally After drawing the outlines of my bases on the MDF
make a list of tools and materials needed. For this board with a marker, I proceeded to cut out those
project, I will need the following materials: shapes with my jigsaw. When the rough square
shapes were cut, I drew the exact shapes of my
• one 5x5mm linden slat (it comes in 1 m length) terrain pieces on the MDF bases and, again, using
• roughly one plank of 2mm balsa wood (they the jigsaw, I cut them down to size. Once that was
come in 10 x 100 cm planks) done, I chamfered the base edges with my disc
• roughly half a plank of 5mm balsa wood sander. This ensured a nice transition between the
• a small piece of 5cm thick HD styrofoam table and the base of the terrain.
• about 50x30cm piece of 4mm thick MDF board
• superglue
• PVA glue
• gravel (at least three sizes)
• static grass/tufts
• sanding paper (1 sheet)
• plasticard (0.75 mm thick, one sheet 20x30cm)
• masking tape
• office pins
• slate
• roots and twigs
• pine/fir trees
• Siligum (one package)
• plaster

The tools needed are:

• scalpel blade
• marker pen
• modeling saw
• pin vice (or an electric mini-drill)
• brushes of various sizes (for painting/washing/
drybrushing)
• pliers and pincers
• icepick
• plastic glue, PVA glue and superglue
• black primer spray
• electric jigsaw*
• electric disc sander*

*I will be using my Proxxon disc sander and jigsaw on

the MDF to make the bases. However, the bases can
be cut with handheld tools such as modeler's saw
and can then be sanded down with sanding paper.
That would only require a bit more time and strength.

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Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
 After the basic shapes of my terrain were finished,
I now had to distribute various scenic elements
to the bases. This meant getting out my stash of
fir/pine trees and pieces of slate I regularly use
for my terrain. Slate is an incredible type of stone
that allows you to shape it without any effort (or at
least with only minimum effort). It's built from many
layers that can be peeled off and, when the stone's
thickness is reduced enough, it can even be broken
with hands. This is especially useful in smaller
scenic pieces, such as bases for the miniatures
themselves. If you're careful enough, you can drill
through the stone so you can even pin your models to
it and, subsequently, to their bases as well.

One thing I discovered while hiking while looking

for slate stone is that the forest usually has some
upturned trees. Once cut, the revealed roots look
great as dried trees on your bases and terrain, which
I'll demonstrate later on in this article. But for now,
we'll return to the slate.

Before you use the slate pieces(and roots, for that

matter), I suggest washing them down and dry them
in the sun. If you have them available, use protective
gloves. It's important to wash the dust and grime off
the stones so that you don't have issues with painting
or gluing them later. More importantly, washing them
will help prevent transmitting any potential germs
that might cause harm. Remember to always wash
your hands thouroughly after handling the unwashed
slate and roots!

With the slate dried, I could place both them and

the pine trees on my bases and dry-fit them to find a
suitable size and pattern. Once I was satisfied with
the placementI glued (using PVA glue) the slate to
the bases in appropriate places. In order to prevent
confusion later, the trees were grouped and marked
according to the bases they would eventually be
placed on. Before placing them, I removed the top
portion of the trees and glued the bottoms to the
bases so that it will be easier to paint the terrain.
Once the painting is done, I will glue the tops back
on to their trunks.

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Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
 Town Entrance
Once the glue on the trees and slate was dry, I
started building the town entrance. I used a few twigs
that were perfect for the Old West look I was after.
Using my pin-vice, I drilled two holes into the base. I
used a small drillbit to make an insertion big enough
to house the entire pinhead. Using superglue, I glued
the two Y-shaped twigs in place and connected them
with another twig. Then, I cut several balsa pieces
(about 5mm wide and 7cm long) for the town sign.
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Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
Fences
Using the same technique as the town entrance, I
drilled two holes per fence base so that I could pin
the fence posts. Using 5x5mm linden slat, I made
8 fence posts (2 per base) total, which I chamfered
along each edge to achieve a worn look. I then pinned
and glued the fence posts with superglue. Then, I
cut eight strips of 2mm thick balsa roughly 12cm
in length and chamfered their edges with a scalpel
blade. I then glued them into place, using two per
fence. To achieve the worn look, I intentionally did not
perfectly align them.
 Outhouse Well
Next was the outhouse. Using 2mm thick balsa wood, I decided not to make the well out of individual planks
I cut four walls and a roof in desired sizes. I glued the like I did with the outhouse. Instead, I used engraved
wall pieces on the appropriate base with superglue. balsa wood to mimic the wooden walls. The vertical
While the wooden bits could be glued with PVA glue, it beams were made from linden slats to provide the
takes longer to set so I opted for superglue instead. well with some structural integrity. The roof was
Once the structure was in place, I added individual made from 2mm thick balsa wood.
planks to the outer walls in an attempt to highlight
the worn effect even more. I cut individual planks at
about 3 to 4mm wide. When the walls were done,
I sprayed the black primer inside because the door
would be slightly ajar when finished. After the primer
was dry, I glued the roof in place and cut a small hole
in the door.

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Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)

Crate
I used engraved balsa wood to make the sides of the
crate, just like I had previously done with the well. I
glued the sides using superglue, as well. The frame
of the crate was done with balsa that I cut to size
after adding rivets using office pins. I didn't cut them
because the crate was big enough to fit entire office
pins. If you decide to build smaller crates, you might
want to consider cutting the pins down to size before
sticking them in to the sides.
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Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
Making multiple crates
Once the crate was done, I decided to make a mold
out of it. To make molds, I generally use Siligum.
Siligum is a mix of two components that, once
combined, sets in 10 minutes and forms a rubbery
supstance that is great for making molds. Once the
mold was done, I mixed some plaster and poured it
into my mold. I had my first cast after waiting about
a half an hour.
 Coal Container
The coal container was made from 0.75mm thick
plasticard. At this thickness, plasticard is really
easy to cut, but lacks some structural strength. For
that reason, I cut some HD styrofoam to fit inside
the plasticard frame and hold it in place. To glue the
plasticard, I used plastic cement. When the frame
was dry, I used the same thickness plasticard to add
detailing to the sides. The rivets were made from blobs
of PVA glue. The inside of the container was covered
with PVA glue, and the largest pebbles were placed
inside to represent coal once it was all painted.
21
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
Adding Texture
The next task was to add texture to the bases. I
covered everything with diluted PVA glue and started
adding gravel. Start with the biggest granulate and
end with the smallest. I used three different sizes,
ranging from small pebbles to chinchilla sand. I
placed the larger pebbles and gravel strategically
around the bases to form some clutter. To make sure
that I covered them thoroughly, I disperesed the two
smallest granulates freely across the terrain. I also
used chinchilla sand to mark the road (on the town
entrance piece) and the paths (on the outhouse and
through the forests) to add some variance. When the
texture was dry, I undercoated everything in black
matte primer.
 The slate was painted by drybrushing a 50:50 mixture
Painting of Black and Grey And the next layer was pure Gray.
The finishing highlight was pure White.
After the undercoat was dry, it was time to paint! I
started with the bases first. I wanted the terrain to
fit one theme (and one tabletop), so I used the same
color scheme as I had done with earlier pieces: the
Pebeo Deco color range. I used Brown for the basecoat
and continued drybrushing with Ocre. Lighter shades
were done with a 50:50 mixture of Ocre and White.
The final highlight was done with Antique White. The
road and paths were first basecoated with Brown,
then heavily drybrushed with Ocre and a 50:50
mixture of Ocre and White. The last two highlights The buildings and structures have two different
were Antique White and pure White. This way, I had surfaces and textures: the rooves and the wooden
a visual difference between the normal groundwork walls. I proceeded to paint the walls by drybrushing
and the worn-out road. using a 50:50 mixture of Black and Gray. The next
layer was pure Gray, and the finishing highlight was
Ash Brown. I wasn't satisfied with the result, so I
added another highlight of pure White. The roof was
first painted with a mixture of Black and Gray, and
then a mixture of Gray and Antique White. I then
finsished with almost a pure coat of Antique White.

The wooden parts of the town entrance were covered

with masking tape to prevent any paint from reaching
it as the dried wood provided a nice effect. Once the
rest of the base was painted, I removed the masking

22
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
 tape and washed the balsa sign with a diluted mixture
of black wash just to stain it a bit. When the wash
was dry, I wrote “Malifaux” on the sign.

The coal containter was painted a pure (old Citadel)

Boltgun Metal. When the paint was dry, I then
generously covered the container with black wash
(Nuln Oil, in this case). After the wash was dry, I used
Model Mates' Rust Effect in some sections. Then
I put Model Mates' Soot Black to mimic the coal
residue. The coal inside was painted black with some
dark gray highlights.

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Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
 Vegetation
After the painting was finished, it was time to add
the vegetation to the bases. I first decided to re-plant
some of the pine trees. Using superglue to fix the
trees in place, I guided the wire on the bottom of the
trees into the small hole of the tree trunk. Before
gluing, I made sure that the trees fit their trunks by
doing a quick mock-up of the assembly.

With the trees in place, I started adding the static

grass. I made a mixture using several green, brown,
yellow, and black shades of static grass, and when
I was satisfied with the end product, I glued it in
random patches throughout the bases. I made
sure to put the grass over any remaining holes
where the structures met the bases in order to hide
unintentional mistakes. Once the static grass was in
place, I applied several shades of different tufts.

For the forest and the rough terrain, I added some

longer static grass and wood pieces (twigs and
roots from my forest hike). This provided sufficient
semblance of the rough terrain or forest floor without
unnecessary hindrance of movement during gaming.

That is the end of the building and painting process.

Here you can see some images of the finished terrain.

24
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
 The Northern Junction
Neil Henry swung his sledgehammer in a graceful
arc, pounding a rail spike into the ground with violent
efficiency. With his height, strength, and speed,
he drew a lot of attention in the rail yard. Rumors
swirled that Grumman Rail Lines was on its last leg;
a representative for Condor Rails had been seen
speaking with the owner, which usually meant that
the larger company was looking to make a buy-out.
If the narrow gauge extension between Ridley and a
new mining outpost north of the town, the company
wouldn’t have much of a choice in the matter.
Fortunately, Neil Henry was single-handedly getting
the project back on track.
Neil took a break to dab at the sweat running down
his bald head. He and his wife Paula had taken a
big chance uprooting their lives and crossing over to
Malifaux. Luckily, it didn’t take long for him to find a
better paying job than the one he’d held back on Earth.
“Got us some water,” Dexter said as he approached
with two big buckets. Though much smaller than
Neil, the old man still managed to keep up with him.
Usually, Dexter hauled track pieces back and forth,
allowing Neil to focus on setting them and hammering
them down.
“Obliged,” Neil said, taking a bucket to his mouth
and drinking half of it in large gulps. The older man
sipped more slowly, drinking out of a ladle he carried
with him in place of a proper mug.
26
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
Bob Kuzmeski
“Don’t know how you’re still working,” Dexter said.
He pointed his chin back towards the base camp.
“The rest of the workers broke for lunch half an hour
ago. Even in my prime, I couldn’t have kept going as
long as you do.”
“Sure you could’ve,” Neil said. He picked up his
hammer and balanced it on one hand, its shaft
parallel to the ground. “See how she balances? It’s
like I’ve been telling you, it’s a combination of hard
work and quality tools. Nothing more to it than that.”
Dexter waved away his attempt to be inspiring. “It
don’t matter. We’ll probably be replaced by rail-driving
machines soon, especially if we miss that deadline.”
Neil doubted Dexter’s assumption, but he kept those
doubts to himself. Their boss, Walter Grumman,
prided himself on relying on humans to get the job
done. The company didn’t own any constructs, and
though the decision had no doubt caused them to
lose contracts to larger, more automated companies,
Grumman was adamant about not shifting his work
force over to machines. It was the reason Neil took
the job at Grumman Rail Lines: he wanted to work
for a man that cared about people. If Grumman
thought he could keep his company afloat while his
competitors turned to cheaper machine labor, who
was Neil to argue?
 “Not much to worry about,” Neil said. “We’re gonna
make it. ‘Sides, you’re safe. You’ve worked hard,
you’re loyal, and you’ve got experience. Grumman’s
not going to let you go.”
Dexter scoffed. “Loyalty doesn’t mean anything
when money’s tight. Eventually, Grumman’s gonna
do what’s best for him, and that means bringing in
machines. It’s that or risk going under and seeing his
company sucked up Condor Rails.”
“Then I suggest we get back to work so it doesn’t
come to that,” Neil answered. He grabbed his
hammer and started swinging, hammering the rails
into place as Dexter placed the wooden ties and
steel lines ahead of him.
An hour later, the foreman whistled, pulling Neil out
of his work-trance. “Henry! Boss wants to see you.”
The man hooked his thumb over his shoulder for
additional emphasis.
Neil lowered his hammer and wiped the sweat from
his brow. “What do you suppose he wants?”
“Bossman’s probably gonna give you a handshake
and a pat on the back,” Dexter snorted. “He thinks
that’s good for morale. Probably gonna give you a
bonus, too.”
The bitter edge in the old man’s voice caught Neil by
surprise and made him uneasy. He considered saying
something but eventually decided that it was best
not to keep the boss waiting.
“Mr. Henry!” Walter Grumman came out from behind
his desk to shake the big man’s hand. “Glad to meet
you. Have a seat, son.”
Neil felt anxious. He’d never met Grumman in person,
and Dexter’s sour mood had left him unsettled. Neil
enjoyed routine; sleep, work, go home to his family.
Anything that happened out of that cycle was like a
wrench thrown in his gears.
Once Neil had seated himself, Grumman walked
27
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
around to the other side of his desk and lowered
himself into a large chair. “Don’t worry, son, you’re
not in trouble. Quite the contrary! I called you in here
to thank you in person.”
“Sir?” Neil couldn’t imagine what he did to deserve
gratitude beyond his salary.
Grumman leaned forward and clasped his hands
together atop his desk. “My company has a history
of making deadlines. Before you came on board, it
was starting to look like we weren’t going to make
this one. That bastard Aucaman had been breathing
down our necks, and the penalties we’d have to pay
out if we messed the deadline...” He shook his head.
“Well, let’s just say that figuring out how to get us
caught up was keeping me up at night. Turns out, all
I needed was you.”
Neil’s nervousness gave way to the awkwardness
he felt whenever complimented. “I can’t take all of
the credit, sir. I’ve got a good man working with me.
Dexter keeps our supplies stocked so we always
have what we need, and he’s good at -“
Grumman waved a hand dismissively. “No need to be
humble. I built this company from the ground up, and
I know the value of a man. As good as Dexter is, he’s
getting a bit long in the tooth; he just can’t lay rail
with the speed we need of him. That’s why I moved
him to driving rail to setting it when we brought you
on.”
Neil felt sick. Dexter never mentioned that he’d been
demoted so they could give his job to Neil. Suddenly,
some of the bitterness from earlier was starting to
make sense.
“You’re a rare breed,” Grumman continued. “Most of
the men out there aren’t half as motivated as you.
That’s why you’re getting a raise and they aren’t.”
“Sir, you don’t have to -“
Grumman waved him off again. “No, but I am. I reward
a man for the work he does. When a man works hard,
get deserves better pay. Simple as that.”
“Thank you sir,” Neil said. “I know my wife and son
will be happy to have a little more food on the table.”
 “You’ve earned it!” Grumman chuckled as he leaned
back in his chair. “Keep it quiet, though. Plenty of the
men out there work like slugs and still expect a big
payout each week. They wouldn’t like knowing that
a newcomer is already making more than them, you Neil wasn’t sure what to tell Dexter when he got
see?” back. He didn’t like knowing that he had taken the
man’s job. He also didn’t like knowing that his peers
Neil nodded in agreement before leaving the office. chose to drag their feet, even with a major deadline
looming.

He’d seen his share of laziness when he worked

the rails outside of Atlanta, but the rail workers in
Malifaux had much more at stake. Rail workers in
Georgia didn’t face the imminent threat of being
replaced by machines. Technology moved faster
on this side of the Breach… how could these men
not realize that their actions were inviting their own
replacement?

When he didn’t see Dexter at the worksite, Neil

initially felt some relief. When he realized that his
rail hammer – no, all the rail hammers – had
disappeared as well, it evaporated in a
growing panic.

“Hey!” Neil shouted to some of the

rail workers sitting down alongside
the track. “You guys know where
Dexter or the tools went?”

One of the men shrugged.

“Said somethin’ about them
being broken and took them off to the
blacksmith.” One of his companions snickered
and earned an elbow to the ribs from the man who
had spoken.

Neil’s brow furrowed in confusion. It didn’t add up;

the tools had been fine when he had left, and for all
of them to break at once – even the spares – was
unprecedented.

The rest of the day was lost. Without a hammer, Neil

couldn’t drive the ties into the ground, and the other
workers were in a similar situation. After his search
for a replacement turned up nothing, he rallied a few
of the workers and started laying out ties and rails.
It wasn’t the work he wanted to be doing, but he
refused to sit down and give up hope.

28
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)

At quitting time, Neil marched down the rails to the
base camp, a small Contract Town with a number
instead of a name. There had been buildings
surrounding a half-dug mine when the first settlers
arrived and the miners had moved into them without
a second thought. Even with the rail workers making
their temporary stay in the town, there were more
than enough of the abandoned buildings to house
them all.
Neil went straight to Dexter’s house. It was a bit
ramshackle, with a door that had clearly much newer
than the rest of the weathered and faded structure.
He knocked on the door, politely at first, but then with
increasing annoyance when the old man refused to
answer.
Eventually, he sighed and glanced at the rail line that
connected the town to Ridley. He and Dexter had
put those rails down just last month, and already
the town seemed larger and more prosperous. He
debated swinging by the tavern to see if Dexter was
there, but the sun was almost completely set. He
could always ask the old man about the tools in the
morning, he decided.
As he started down the street toward his own
borrowed home, he glanced back at Dexter’s house.
A curtain in the window seemed to move, but Neil
couldn’t tell if it was a trick of the light or if the old
man was actually home and hiding from him.
Timmy didn’t hug Neil at the door. The smell of Paula’s
cooking didn’t fill the air.
Instead of his family, silence and chaos greeted Neil
when he arrived at his home. Furniture lay upended
and scattered. An upturned lantern smoldered on a
singed patch of the wooden floor, its oil nearly spent.
Neil moved through the house and found it in a
similar state. In the kitchen, flour covered nearly
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Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
every surface of the room. An iron skillet lay on the
ground next to a small smattering of blood. Crimson
streaks trailed through the white powder, alongside
some footprints and drag marks.
He also found a note in the kitchen, impaled on the
wall with a carving knife.
“The tracks miss their deadline or you never see
them again.”
Neil tore the note free from the knife, read it again,
and threw it to the ground. He braced himself against
a wall with one hand and fought back the bile rising in
his throat. Kidnappers had taken his family.
His mind raced as he tried to decide what to do.
The Contract Town only had the one sheriff, and he
was older than even Dexter. Even if the kidnappers
didn’t kill his family for speaking with the sheriff, he
doubted what the man could even do to help them.
He could damage the rail or work slower, give in to
their demands, but that certainly didn’t guarantee
that they wouldn’t just kill his family anyways. What if
his family could identify them?
His panic and fear gradually gave way to anger. He
wanted to hurt whoever took his family from him. He
wanted to throw them to the ground, place a boot
right between their shoulder blades, and show them
just what he could do with his hammer.
Neil’s hands curled into fists as he glanced toward
the door. He might not know who the kidnappers
were, but he was pretty sure that he wasn’t the only
one being blackmailed.
Neil hammered at Dexter’s door until the wood was
starting to splinter beneath his fist. “Dexter! I know
you’re in there! Open up!”
Just as Neil was debating whether or not to kick
the door down, Dexter cracked it open and peered
out at him. “Just… just do what they tell you,” he
stammered. “If you slow down, it’ll… work itself out.”
 Neil forced the door open and stormed into Dexter’s
home. “They took my family!” He wheeled around to
face the smaller man. “What do you know?”
“Two days,” Dexter cried as he stumbled away from
Neil. “Just… two days. That’s the deadline, see?” He
raised his hands defensively. “You just need to slow
down a bit. Don’t work so hard. You just take a load
off and then when the deadline passes, they’ll let
your family go.”
Neil ran a hand over his bald head. “How did they
get you?”
Dexter lowered his eyes in shame as he rubbed the
back of his neck. “Money. More than I make in half
a year. More than that cheap bastard ever paid us,
but it was only supposed to be missing tools, slow
work… I didn’t think they’d bring your family into this.”
Neil tried to spit, but his throat was so raw that he
couldn’t produce the saliva. “How could you…?”
“I didn’t know it would come to this!” Dexter was
exasperated. “Besides, you brought this on yourself!
Condor Rails was hovering over the company like a
vulture, just waiting for us to go under. We all know
how Aucaman does business. Did you think they
wouldn’t notice when you showed up out of nowhere
and started getting us back on schedule?”
Neil kicked a nearby chair, collapsing it into a pile of
wood, springs, and padding. Dexter let out a sudden
yelp, fear instantly gleaming in his eyes. When he
spoke, his voice was slow and hard, like steel. “If you
want to live, you’ll help me find my family.”
Neil stayed within arm’s reach of Dexter as he guided
the old man to Grumman’s office. Their boss was
hunched over his desk when they entered, filling out
paperwork by lantern light. One hand on Dexter’s
shoulder, Neil forced the older man down into a chair.
Aside from the kidnapping, Grumman expressed little
surprise that his employees were being blackmailed.
“A cutthroat business attracts cutthroats,” he
30
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
wearily explained. “Transportation is the lifeblood
of progress and, therefore, it is a very lucrative
business. Unscrupulous men like Aucaman have no
problem stooping to questionable tactics to put their
competitors out of business. This wouldn’t be the
first time I’ve faced a scheme like this.”
“You’re not concerned?” Neil asked, shocked.
“About you and your family? Yes, I am absolutely
concerned. I’m just not surprised.” He motioned to a
map of the rail line hanging on one wall of his office.
Dates were scratched onto the map in red and black
ink next to each stretch of track, marking when it was
completed. “Once we reached this town, problems
emerged. Broken gear, mysterious illnesses during
pivotal moments, all right when Aucaman’s people
came into town.” He casted an accusing glare at
Dexter, who slunk down into his chair in shame.
“So what do we do?” Neil asked, ignoring his guilty
coworker.
“They have to be somewhere here in town,” Grumman
replied. “There haven’t been any trains from Ridley
since two nights ago, and someone would have
noticed them being marched out into the surrounding
hills during the day.”
Dexter frowned. “They would have needed multiple
people to grab your wife and kid,” he mumbled. “They
couldn’t risk trying it with just one person.”
Neil lowered his head and pressed the palms of
his hands against his eyes. “While I was laying
track today, after the tools went missing, some of
the workers left. I thought they were just cutting out
early…”
Dexter sat up a bit in his chair. “Maybe not. Who was
it?”
“Gary Dowd, John Neiman, Francis Baird…” Neil
strained to remember the last man’s name. “The
French one with the mustache…”
“Marty DuPont. “Grumman nodded in understanding.
“I’ve had my suspicions about all of them. Aucaman
must have them in his pocket. That gives us the who,
but not the where.”
 Neil raised his head and looked to Grumman in
desperation. “How do we find out where they’re being
held?”
Grumman leaned back in his chair and shrugged.
“You ask.”
Before the morning shift, Grumman gathered the
men for a rousing speech. He proclaimed the tools
had been repaired, and that today marked start of
a massive, final push to the end. Dowd, Baird, and
Neiman stood near the back of the group, smirking
in private amusement as they listened to their boss’
speech. Neil couldn’t help but notice that DuPont
wasn’t present.
When the group broke, Neil followed John Neiman
down the rails. Grumman had assigned them both to
the far end of the track while he went over some new
safety procedures with the other workers. Neiman
walked with his hands crossed beneath his head,
like a man with no cares in the world. He hadn’t even
brought a hammer with him.
Neil had intended to lull the wiry man into a false
sense of security with some casual conversation, but
as soon as Neiman started complaining about the
job, it was like a switch flipped in Neil’s brain. His
anger boiled to the surface, and he rushed Neiman
like an enraged bull. The unexpected attack caught
Neiman unaware and shouldered the mousey man
down to the ground.
Neil stood over Neiman with his hammer in hand.
“Don’t kill me!” Neiman begged, with raised hands
futilely attempting to protect himself.
“Where’s my family?!”
“Derby’s Billiard Hall,” Neiman quivered as he soiled
himself. “West side of town.”
“Thanks.” Neil brought his hammer down so quickly
that Neiman barely had time to scream.
31
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
Neil peered through the window of the billiard hall
and saw his family. Paula sat stiffly in a wooden chair.
Timmy was next to her, but his head rested in his
hands as he cried through his exhaustion. DuPont
sat close to them, with a cigarette hanging from his
lip and a shotgun resting on his lap.
He wasn’t alone. Two rail-driving constructs
accompanied him, each of them positioned near one
of the entrances. Each was boxy and only vaguely
humanoid, with wide, gripping feet designed to let
it safely lumber across the uneven terrain of the
Northern Hills. One of their hands was a simple,
clamp-like pincer, while the other was a large,
actuated driving hammer more than twice the size
of Neil’s own weapon. Their boilers were simmering
in an idle state, and he could see wisps of steam
playing along the dirty ceiling.
Neil didn’t have much of a plan; it was hard to think
with his family right there in front of him. DuPont
didn’t seem as anxious as he had expected, but Neil
still had the element of surprise. He desperately
hoped that it would provide enough of an advantage
to get his family out safely.
Hammer in hand, Neil moved to the door and stood
there, eyes closed, as he took a deep breath and
prepared himself for the battle to come. He had
never been a fighter, and the idea of facing down a
man with a shotgun – let alone two constructs – was
terrifying. Nevertheless, his family was in danger.
Neil raised his foot and kicked the door with all his
might. It splintered and broke around the knob, and
by the time that DuPont was turning toward him in
surprise, Neil was already in motion. He pushed
through the shattered remains of the door and
shouldered the rail construct in front of him to the
side, briefly knocking it off balance and forcing it to
step backwards to remain upright. DuPont brought up
his shotgun, but it was pointed the wrong way, and he
lost precious seconds turning it around.
Neil’s strike was rewarded with the sound of
bones snapping. His hammer came down on the
 Frenchman’s wrist, shattering it into jagged shards
of pain and knocking the weapon to the floor. DuPont
howled in shock and pain as he tumbled forward,
pulled out of his chair by momentum.
Paula and Timmy made a break for it as soon as
the action started. She grabbed her son and dragged
him behind a billiards table, which she shouldered
over onto its side with surprising strength. “Neil! Be
careful!” she shouted as they took cover.
The rail construct that Neil hadn’t shouldered
aside clomped toward him, its every step causing
the floorboards beneath it to groan in protest. Neil
grabbed DuPont by the collar and hurled him into the
machine, knocking both of them to the floor.
A train hit Neil right between the shoulder blades.
He staggered forward and slammed into the wall
as pain blistered up his back. Ribs cracked. His
body screaming in protest, he turned to see what
had slammed into him: the first rail construct, now
recovered from its brief vertigo and stomping toward
him, pneumatic hammer raised above its head.
32
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
With incredible force, Neil stepped forward and
swung his hammer into the machine’s chest. Steel
shattered as the hammer struck, and the construct
tumbled backwards into a heap of misshapen limbs
and warped metal. Steam billowed from the fallen
machine and filled the room as its cracked boiler
started to emit a shrill, piercing shriek.
Neil stumbled toward it, ignored the pain lancing up
his spine as he raised his hammer, and brought it
down once again on the machine’s chest. The piercing
whine ended in a loud crunch of collapsing steel.
“Dad, look out!” Neil turned at the sound of his son’s
voice to see DuPont standing up. His right hand was
a bloody mess, but he had still managed to retrieve
the shotgun.
“You son of a…” DuPont used the gun to motion for
Neil to drop his hammer, oblivious to Paula quietly
peeling away from the pool table. She grabbed
a stuck a pool cue and stuck it between his legs,
tumbling him to the ground in front of Neil. He wasted
no time in finishing the man off.
Aside from the futile struggles of the fallen construct
to right itself, the room fell silent. Neil leaned forward,
lowering his hammer and using it to keep himself
upright. He knew the fight was over, but he was still
tense, and the pain was growing worse with each
breath.
“Neil, it’s okay. We’re okay,” Paula’s voice was the
only thing that could have possibly lessened in that
moment. She stepped forward and pressed a hand
against his arm. When he looked down at her, her
grateful smile reminded him of everything he cared
about in the world.
“Daddy!” Timmy exclaimed behind the pool table. He
bolted up and rushed forward, nearly knocking Neil
over as he slammed into his father’s leg and hugged
it tightly.
“Come on,” Paula said. “Let’s get you home.” She
took Neil’s arm and wrapped it around her shoulders,
and with Timmy close behind, the Henry family
headed home.
 Neil rested until noon, then he was back on the job,
hammering rail and ignoring the pain lancing up his
back with each swing of his hammer. Dexter was
at his side, laying down ties and rails with renewed
vigor. He barely spoke a word to Neil.
Near the end of the work day, the sheriff arrived
with Paula to arrest Baird and Dowd, who quickly
confessed to their part in the kidnapping once they
learned about Neiman’s and DuPont’s deaths.
When the shift ended, Neil kept working. Grumman
set up lanterns along the way, and Neil worked
tirelessly through the night, pushing the rail line
steadily northward. When Dexter tried to keep up but
was forced to return home, Neil laid his own rail and
ties. It slowed his progress, but the line continued to
steadily stretch onward.
When noon came the next day, Neil was still working.
Sweat was pouring down his body, every muscle in
his body ached, but he refused to stop. The other
workers, surprised at how much work Neil had done
since the night before, rallied to the cause and
worked alongside him, clapping him on the back or
offering him words of admiration as he worked. Even
Paula and Timmy came out to visit him during his one
and only break.
At the end of the day, Grumman stood at the end of the
line and looked northward, where the low silhouette
of the next mining town was outlined from the west
by the setting sun. “We did it,” he said, shaking his
head in disbelief. “Damnedest thing I ever saw.”
Neil finally lowered the head of his hammer to the
ground and leaned onto it, both hands resting on the
end of the handle. “Think I’m going to take a rest,
boss.”
Grumman turned just in time to see Neil collapse to
the ground.
33
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
Paula dabbed at Neil’s forehead with a cool rag as
his eyes fluttered open. He was in his home, in his
bed, but something was squeezing his chest. A hand
reached up and felt gauze. His chest was wrapped.
“You have a visitor,” Paula whispered in his ear before
backing away.
Neil sat up to see a Chinese woman standing at the
foot of his bed. Her arms were crossed in front of her,
and her long, black hair was pulled back in a severe
ponytail. “Impressive work, Mr. Henry. The stories
were so unbelievable that I had to come see your
work for myself.”
“Wasn’t nothing,” he murmured, still a bit delirious.
His mouth felt dry, and he looked around for a cup
of water.
“On the contrary.” A thin ghost of a smile appeared
on Mei Feng’s face. “I’ve spoken with Mr. Grumman.
We both agree that your talents could be put to better
use working directly for the Foundry.”
Neil frowned, not entirely certain what she was
offering. “I just want to work,” he murmured, smiling
in appreciation as his wife handed him a glass of
water. “Mr. Grumman treats us right. Things will be
tough for him without me.”
Mei Feng’s smile widened. “I can appreciate that sort
of loyalty. Do not concern yourself with Mr. Grumman.
In light of his issues with Condor Rails, he has
decided to contract all his future rail work out to the
Foundry. You will still be working on his rail lines, just
with a more reliable crew. A crew that treats you like
a part of the family, instead of a liability.”
“That…” Neil cast a glance at his wife, who offered
a small nod of approval. “That sounds good to me.”
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
 Bad Medicine
A ONE-SHOT ADVENTURE FOR THROUGH THE BREACH
In this adventure, the Fated are tasked with helping
a man who has contracted Blood Sickness, the
supernatural disease that gradually transforms the
infected into a Nephilim hybrid.
Tarot Tie-Ins
CRSC 8R: “And he will be paid his price” could refer
to Oxohuatl’s demanded payment.
ALAC 2t: “When you reach the tree of knowledge”
could refer to Oxohuatl’s home in the forest.
Prologue
This adventure begins on the train from Malifaux City
to the town of Fortune Falls. The Fated have been
hired by an old employer to help out of friend of
his/hers, Llewelyn Holdredge, whose husband has
come down with some sort of unfortunate affliction.
They were contacted, given train tickets, and paid in
advance (5 scrip each) with the promise of twice that
once the job is finished.
Read the text on the following column.
35
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
Adam Rogers & MAson crawford
The train whistle rings in your ears as the
locomotive pulls into Fortune Falls. A glance
out the window reveals a forlorn lumber town
nestled deep within a hostile forest. Tall wooden
palisades rise up from every direction, and
behind you, the townsfolk are already lowering
a wooden portcullis into place to seal off the
train’s entrance gate.
As you disembark, you see a blonde woman
in workman’s clothes waiting on the platform
beside a similarly dressed man. The man has his
arm in a sling, and the woman is holding a sign
with your names on it as she waits expectantly
for someone to approach her.
When the Fated reveal themselves to the couple,
the woman introduces themselves as Llewelyn
and Hayward Holdredge. She explains that they are
archaeologists of some renown who are specialized in
the exploration of Neverborn ruins; the Fated may have
seen one of their expeditions in the Malifaux Museum
of Natural History or read about it in the newspaper.
According to Llewelyn, their team had previously
maintained civil, if not friendly, relations with some
of the local tribes of Nephilim in the area of their
dig site. A few weeks ago, however, they uncovered
a sealed tomb that had been hidden away for some
time. Their Nephilim guides grew disturbed and
 agitated, and when one of the workers attempted to
open the tomb, the Nephilim attacked. Most of their
crew – a full twenty men and women – were killed in
the attack, with only the Holdredges and a pair of
porters escaping. Unfortunately, Hayward’s arm was
badly mauled in the confusion.
Worse yet, Llewelyn explains, Hayward was splashed
with the Black Blood of the Nephilim while defending
her, and he seems to have become infected with
some sort of spreading malady. When they returned
to Fortune Falls, some of her contacts identified the
infection as Blood Sickness, an insidious disease that
gradually transforms humans into Nephilim hybrids.
Read the following text:
Llewelyn is visibly distressed as she glances at her
husband. “My contacts suggested that my husband
do the honorable thing and end his life before the
infection took hold of him, but I was unwilling to
let him go that easily. I spent the better part of a
week spending what little money we had left after
the failed expedition to search for another option,
and three days ago I found it. A year ago, one of the
lumberjacks here was attacked by Nephilim and
contracted the same condition as my husband.”
Hayward finally speaks up, his voice gruff. “Bastard
tracked down a healer that lives in the forest
and got the corrupted blood drained out of him.
Llewelyn’s convinced that this healer can do the
same for me.”
“Yes,” she agrees, clutching his arm possessively.
“We’ve hired this man to guide us to the healer,
but he is… somewhat untrustworthy, and we need
protection in any case. My husband’s condition
is growing worse, and there is little time to lose.
Please, won’t you help us?”
If the Fated accept, Llewelyn and Hayward thank
them profusely.
If the Fated decline to assist the Holdredges, the
couple is noticeably upset but thank them for their
time. The Fated’s former employer will, of course,
want their advance pay returned and may even hold
a grudge against the Fated for refusing to help his/
her friends.
36
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
Scene 1: The Reluctant Guide
Once the Fated agree to help the couple, Llewelyn
hastily excuses herself to go prepare the supplies.
As soon as she’s out of sight, Hayward speaks up.
Read the following text:
Hayward steps closer and lowers his voice to a
confidential murmur. “Look, I’ve seen what these
Nephilim are capable of doing. Llewelyn is clinging
to the hope of a cure, and I’m willing to go along
with it for her sake, no matter the odds. This
infection, though… it turns you into one of those
things. If something happens and the cure doesn’t
look possible, well… I want you to do what you
have to do in order to keep my wife safe.”
Hayward loves his wife, and while he is hoping that
the cure will restore him to his former self, he’d
rather die than allow any harm to come to Llewelyn
(especially at his own hands).
It only takes an hour for Llewelyn to return to the
group and lead them to the Weighs and Means trading
house, where their supplies are being prepared. Read
the following text:
The Weighs and Means trading house is a large
building perched on the end of a slow, shallow
stream that winds its way through town. A simple
wooden bridge crosses the water, and on the other
side, a Hispanic man with pinched, narrow eyes is
loading supplies into a number of backpacks.
Llewelyn steps forward and introduces you. “This is
Oscar Mendoza,” she says. “He will be our guide for
this expedition.”
Oscar looks you up and down suspiciously, then
returns to packing without so much as a word of
greeting.
Hayward raises his hand to shield his mouth as
he stage-whispers to you. “He doesn’t talk all that
much.”
 Oscar is a former lumberjack who was caught up in
a battle with the Nephilim around ten months ago.
He survived the battle but soon realized that he
had been infected by their Black Blood. The disease
progressed for weeks before a Terror Tot darted up
to him in the forest and delivered a message: the
Nephilim Shaman Oxohuatl claimed that he could
remove the infection in exchange for his services
as a spy in Fortune Falls. Oscar readily agreed to
the process and has been keeping up his end of the
bargain ever since.
If the Fated ask Oscar about what happened to him,
they must succeed on a TN 10 Bewitch Challenge to
get him to say anything more than a few grunts about
how he already told his story to the Holdredges. On
a success, he goes into the very basics, about how
he was injured and found a shaman to heal him. He’s
vague on the specifics, and a TN 8 Scrutiny Challenge
reveals that he’s leaving out some important details.
If the Fated press the matter (with a TN 8 Intimidate
Challenge), he reluctantly admits that the healer was
a Nephilim and lifts his shirt to reveal a series of
scars from where the Nephilim cut him and cured
his condition. In no circumstances does Oscar reveal
that he is working as a spy; he knows that doing so
would get him killed.
Once the Fated are ready to depart, Oscar leads
them into the forest. His directions are a bit suspect,
and while he manages to generally keep them on
track, he does tend to wander off course and require
correction from time to time. Oscar claims that it is
a three day trip, so the Holdredges have packed ten
days’ worth of food, just to be on the safe side.
The journey is handled with an Ongoing Challenge:
To the Shaman’s Hut We Go
• Skills Allowed: Track, Wilderness
• Target Number: 10
• Duration: 1 day
• Success Requirement: (see below)
• Failure Requirement: (see below)
The Track Skill allows the characters to follow game
trails and Nephilim footprints toward their goal (which
might raise suspicion the first time the Fated try to
assist Oscar in doing so), while the Wilderness Skill
is used for following Oscar’s directions even when he
gets confused or turned around.
37
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
It takes three days to reach the shaman. At the end of
each Duration (i.e., after each day of travel), compare
the number of accumulated Success Requirements
made on this Ongoing Challenge to the number of
Failure Requirements. If the number of accumulated
Success Requirements is greater than the number
of Failure Requirements, then the characters have
managed to travel in the right direction and lower the
remaining time it will take to reach their destination
by 1 day.
If the number of Success and Failure Requirements
are tied, the characters spend the day disagreeing
over which direction is correct and make no
progress towards their destination. If the number of
accumulated Failure Requirements is greater than
the number of Success Requirements, then the
characters have wandered off course and become
lost; the remaining time it will take to reach their
destination increases by 1 day.
After each Duration, the Fated encounter a certain
hazard, as described below:
Day 1: Have the Fated make TN 9 Notice Challenges.
Those who succeed notice the winged, blue-
skinned forms of Young Nephilim, one per Fated,
watching them from the treetops from eight to ten
yards away. If the Fated attack the Nephilim, they
screech and fly into combat, fighting until they’re
reduced to 2 Wounds or less, at which point they
attempt to retreat. Because of the heavy trees
and underbrush, the forest is considered to be
composed entirely of Severe Terrain. Stats for the
Young Nephilim can be found on page @@. During
the fight, any of the Fated can treat the Holdredges
as if they were subordinate characters; they use
the Archaeologist stats found on page @@. Oscar
does not participate in the fight and is not attacked
by the Nephilim (they do not wish to kill their spy).
If the Fated do not attack the Nephilim, they watch
the group for a few minutes and then take fly away
to report back to their older kin.
Day 2: As the group is traveling, Llewelyn asks for
a short break to answer the call of nature. She
wanders away from the trail to relieve herself, only
to trip over an exposed root and tumble down into
a short gully filled with some resting snakes. The
Fated can hear her shout of surprise, followed by
 the sounds of something (i.e., Llewelyn) crashing
through the underbrush.
The snakes bite Llewelyn before she can get away.
If the Fated succeed on a TN 10 Doctor Challenge,
they are able to properly treat the bites and remove
most of the venom. On a failure, however, her leg
swells up and becomes painful to walk upon,
granting her the Useless Limb Condition and
increasing the TNs of this Ongoing Challenge by +1
as the group is forced to compensate for her injury.
Day 3: The Fated come across a large tree that’s
been carved with deep runes. Trinkets of bone and
woven grass hang from the branches. Llewelyn
points out that this is how the Nephilim mark their
territory, and that they’re moving into the territory of
a particularly violent tribe. If the Fated succeed on
TN 8 Scrutiny Challenges, they realize that despite
the seriousness of the situation, Oscar doesn’t
appear to be all that concerned (as he knows that
the Neverborn aren’t a threat to him).
Day 4: The Fated are ambushed by Nephilim midway
through the day. The Fated can make a TN 9 Notice
Challenge. Those who fail are surprised and are
considered to be Slow during the first round of
Dramatic Time. The ambush force consists of
two Young Nephilim plus one Terror Tot per Fated.
As with Day 1, the Fated treat the Holdredges as
subordinate characters during this battle, and
Oscar slinks back, not attacking or being attacked.
Day 5: The Fated have tarried too long in the forest
and drawn the attention of the tribe’s leaders. The
Fated are ambushed (and have to make a TN 9
Notice Challenge to avoid being Slow on the first
round of Dramatic Time) by one Mature Nephilim,
one Young Nephilim, and two Terror Tots.
Day 6+: With each subsequent day the Fated spend
in the forest, they are attacked by increasingly
greater numbers of Nephilim.
If the Fated succeed at this Ongoing Challenge, they
reach the Shaman’s dwelling; see Scene 2: Ancient
Medicine.
38
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
Scene 2: Ancient Medicine
When the Fated arrive at the shaman’s residence,
read the following text:
The game trail you are following expands out into a
full path, eventually coming to an end at the base
of an ancient knotwood tree. Easily thirty feet wide,
its tangled roots reach up into the air, forming a
sort of damp, wooden crown.
Near the ground, a large knot has been widened
into a human-sized doorway, and within the
hollowed chamber, you can see a hunched figure
standing over a small campfire, stirring a cast-
iron pot with a well-worn stick. It looks up, its
face hidden behind a long-beaked mask. A pair of
leathery wings protrude from its back.
Seemingly unthreatened by your presence, the
creature pulls the stick from its cooking pot and
points the still-dripping end toward you group. “Why
have you come to me, children of distant worlds?”
Its English is heavily accented, and its voice is like
snakeskin dragged across sand.
The figure is Oxohuatl the Aged, a venerable Black
Blood Shaman. He doesn’t care for humanity very
much, but instead of violence, he simply resorts
to being very short and impatient with them Fated.
If any of the Fated are Invested or Kin, Oxohuatl is
more tolerant and patient when dealing with those
characters, but he flat-out refuses to have anything
to do with Stitched characters. The Neverborn have
an intense hatred for the undead, and Oxohuatl is not
an exception.
If the Fated do not inform the shaman of why they
have come to it, then Lewellyn steps forward and
tells him about her husband being infected with
Black Blood. She gestures to Oscar and asks that
Oxohuatl remove her husband’s affliction as she did
with Oscar’s own infection.
 Once she does so, read the following text: If the Fated attack the shaman, its stats can be
found on page 43. At the start of the third round
of combat, three Young Nephilim burst in from the
The gnarled fingers of the old shaman reach up
surrounding forest and join the battle. No matter
under his mask, stroking his chin as he stares at
what, the shaman refuses to perform the ritual if the
Oscar, who had been trying very hard to avoid being
noticed. “What you ask is rarely done. When one is Fated attack it, even when threatened with death.
given the blessings of the blood, only a fool would He’s old and spiteful.
reject it. Some have been flayed for asking such
things.”

The shaman turns his gaze toward Hayward.

“However, perhaps it can be done, if you perform a
service for my people. Months ago, your kind began
meddling in our sacred ruins, bribing the weaker
tribes with firearms and human luxuries. Since then,
more have come to our lands, robbing our tombs
and stealing our relics.” He turns to face you. “One
group, in particular, has been a problem. They wear
the brand of the horned skull, the brand of your
kind. Kill these humans and return the artifacts
they have unearthed to me. In return, I will withdraw
our blessings from this one’s body.”

The creature reaches out with one clawed hand.

“Do we have an accord?”

If the Fated succeed on a TN 11 Scrutiny Challenge,

they are able to tell that Oxohuatl is being sincere in
his bargain. He fully intends to carry through with his
end of the deal, provided the Fated do as they are
asked.

Oxohuatl insists that Hayward remain with him, as

there is a period of purification and special herbs
that Hayward must consume prior to the ritual.
Llewelyn refuses to leave her husband’s side, which
leaves matters in the hands of the Fated. Oscar will
accompany them, but will continue to be as useless
in combat as before.

The human camp is only a day’s travel away from

Oxohuatl’s dwelling. If the Fated agree to deal with
the humans, he arranges for some Young Nephilim
(possibly the same ones that were watching the
Fated earlier) to show them the way. See Scene 3:
The Dig Site on page 40.

39
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)

Scene 3: The Dig Site
The expedition that Oxohuatl wants the Fated to
destroy is from the Malifaux Museum of Natural
History. The researchers are working under a Guild
charter, and as a result, they have a contingent of
Guild guardsmen accompanying them as protection
from the Neverborn. The camp is a day’s travel from
the shaman’s tree, but as long as the Fated are
working for Oxohuatl, the Nephilim will begrudgingly
allow the Fated to pass unmolested.
When the Fated arrive at the camp, read the following
text:
A wiry young Nephilim guides you through the
forest, scurrying from one shadow to the next as
she keeps a look out for more dangerous prey… or
perhaps members of other tribes. “Much fighting
between tribes,” she tells you before you rest for
the night. She motions to the deep brands burned
into her purple-blue flesh. “I am Izel, of Oxohuatl’s
brood. We fight strong against brood-mother. Fight
for Nekima, for dead queen of blood. Soon, you
humans will be bones in our teeth.”
In the morning, Izel guides you to a clearing in a
sunken area of the forest. An ancient, moss-covered
stone stands at the center of the clearing, depicting
a humanoid shape so worn by time that it is all but
impossible to make anything more than its general
shape. A group of tents surround the statue in a
lose ring, and they’re patrolled by men and women
wearing the bright red coats of the Guild. The long
beams of sunlight streaming down from overhead
gleam off rifle barrels and ram’s head badges. Near
the center of the camp, the upturned dirt has been
divided into a grid of twine and small paper slips.
Izel wishes the Fated good luck and retreats into the
woods.
The camp is organized into a roughly thirty yard
wide circle surrounding the dig site, which a TN 10
History Challenge can identify as a Nephilim burial
site. One Guild Guardsman per Fated is patrolling
the perimeter of the camp at all times, with an equal
number sleeping in the tents within. During the day, a
40
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
group of five archaeologists dig through the marked
area, carefully gathering up whatever Nephilim
artifacts they find and stowing them in straw-filled
wooden boxes.
There are two main ways of getting rid of the
humans and returning the uncovered artifacts to
Oxohuatl. The first and more obvious would be an
armed attack. The guards are alert and paying full
attention to their surroundings, so it takes a TN 6
Stealth Challenge (with a - modifier) to sneak up on
them. On a success, the guardsmen are surprised
(and thus, are Slow on the first round of Dramatic
Time). The sleeping guardsmen wake up when they
hear gunshots and join the battle six rounds later, at
the top of the round. If the Fated fail, the guardsmen
catch them sneaking up on the camp and open fire
(they are paranoid about Dopplegangers and are
under orders to shoot anyone that approaches the
camp).
If at least half the guardsmen are killed or disabled and
the Fated are human, the rest will attempt to surrender.
Their stats can be found on page 44. The archaeologists
take cover and avoid combat, but if pressed into battle,
their stats can be found on page 44.
Alternatively, the Fated could try to talk to the
archaeologists. So long as the Fated aren’t sneaking
up or acting suspicious, they can attempt TN 4
Bewitch or Deceive Challenges (with a - modifier)
to convince the guards to let them speak with the
archaeologists. On a failure, the guardsmen open
fire on the Fated as noted above. On a success,
the Fated can speak with Ethel Oren, the expedition
head. She’s unwilling to simply drop everything and
return to the city, but a successful TN 11 Deceive
or Intimidate Challenge is enough to convince her
that it’s time to leave the forest behind her. If the
Fated also attempt to convince her to turn over the
artifacts that she has uncovered, they suffer a - to
this Challenge.
Once the Fated have dealt with the camp and retrieved
the artifacts, they can return to Oxohuatl to complete
their end of the bargain. Izel reappears when they are
finished and leads them back to the camp.
 Conclusion
If the Fated managed to return the artifacts to
Oxohuatl, he holds up his end of the bargain and
begins the ritual that will remove the Black Blood
from Hayward’s body. He leads the group to a circle
of standing stones near his home and begins the
ritual at sundown. By the time the dawn comes, both
Oxohuatl and Hayward are exhausted and sweating,
though the latter has been purged of his infection.
With the ritual finished, the shaman speaks with Izel
and has her safely guide the Fated out of the forest.
It’s possible that Oxohuatl might help the Fated in
the future, either with removing the Blood Sickness
disease in other characters or with completely
unrelated tasks. Each time, however, the
shaman requires the Fated
to come into greater conflict
with the Guild and humanity
as a whole.
If the Fated fail to retrieve the artifacts and cure
Hayward, then he impresses upon them the need to
be put out of his misery before he hurt someone.
Lewellyn objects to anything of the sort, and if the
Fated side with her husband, she vows to see her
“murdered” husband avenged. On the other hand, if
the Fated spare Hayward’s life, he remains with his
wife for a few months longer, chasing one hopeless
cure after another. Eventually, the change takes him
and he kills his wife before fleeing into the forest.
Gifted with Nephilim traits but with a human’s
understanding of technology (not to mention a grudge
against the Fated), he could make for an interesting
antagonist for the Fated in future adventures.

Blood Sickness
Characters who become exposed to the
Black Blood of the Nephilim may contract
Blood Sickness, a supernatural disease that
slowly transforms the infected character into
a Nephilim.

Blood Sickness is described in more detail

in Under Quarantine, on page 152.

41
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
 Young Nephilim
Minion (6), Living, Nephilim

Might Grace Speed Resilience

3 2 2 2
Charm Intellect Cunning Tenacity
-3 -1 2 3
Defense Walk Height Initiative
Terror Tot 5 (11) 5 2 4 (10)
Minion (5), Living, Nephilim
Willpower Charge Wounds
5 (11) 6 7
Might Grace Speed Resilience
1 3 4 0
Skills: Acrobatics 1, Athletics 2, Evade 3, Notice 2,
Charm Intellect Cunning Tenacity Pugilism 3M, Stealth 1, Toughness 2, Track 2,
-2 0 2 3 Wilderness 2.
Defense Walk Height Initiative
Black Blood: All characters without Black Blood within 1
6 (11) 6 1 5 (10)
yard suffer 1 damage when this character suffers damage.
Willpower Charge Wounds
Flight: This character is immune to falling damage and may
5 (10) 8 4 ignore any terrain or other characters when moving.
Thirst for Blood: This character gains the Fast Condition
Skills: Acrobatics 1, Athletics 2, Martial Arts 1, Notice 1, when a Living character within 3 yards is killed by
Stealth 2, Track 1, Wilderness 1. another friendly character.

Black Blood: All characters without Black Blood within 1
yard suffer 1 damage when this character suffers damage.
Pounce: When an enemy character ends a push or move
within this character's engagement range that is not
part of a Walk or Charge Action, this character may
immediately take a (1) AP Close Combat attack against
the enemy character.
Grow: If this character kills a Living non-Nephilim character
with a y attack, it may feast upon the character's
remains to become a Young Nephilim. All damage and
Conditions on this character are removed.
(1) Blackened Claws (Martial Arts)
AV: 5 (10) ========= Rg: y1 ======= Resist: Df
Target suffers 1/2/4 damage.
(0) Sprint (Athletics)
This character may discard a card to take a Walk Action.
Mature: If this character kills a Living non-Nephilim
character of Enforcer, Henchman, or Master rank, or a
character with the Fated Characteristic, with a y attack,
it may feast upon the character's remains to become a
Mature Nephilim. All damage and Conditions on this
character are removed.
(1) Talons (Pugilism)
AV: 6M (12M) ====== Rg: y1 ======= Resist: Df
Target suffers 2/4/5 damage.
R Blood Frenzy: After damaging, take this Action again
against the same target.
M Toss Away: After damaging, push the target up to 4
yards in any direction.
M Feed the Brood: After killing the target, push the target's
corpse up to 4 yards in any direction. If the corpse
ends within the engagement range of a friendly Terror
Tot, that Terror Tot may count as having killed the
target for the purposes of its Grow ability.

42
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
 Black Blood Shaman
Enforcer (8), Living, Nephilim
Mature Nephilim
Enforcer (8), Living, Nephilim Might Grace Speed Resilience
2 2 3 2
Might Grace Speed Resilience Charm Intellect Cunning Tenacity
4 3 3 4 -2 3 3 3
Charm Intellect Cunning Tenacity Defense Walk Height Initiative
-2 3 2 3 5 (13) 6 2 5 (13)
Defense Walk Height Initiative Willpower Charge Wounds
4 (12) 6 3 5 (13) 5 (13) 7 7
Willpower Charge Wounds
5 (13) 7 10 Skills: Alchemistry 1, Enchanting 3R, History 3, Melee 3,
Navigation 2, Notice 2, Prestidigitation 3M, Pugilism 2,
Toughness 2, Track 2, Wilderness 2.
Skills: Athletics 3, Evade 3, Melee 2, Notice 2, Pugilism 3M,
Toughness 4, Track 2, Wilderness 3.
Black Blood: All characters without Black Blood within 1
yard suffer 1 damage when this character suffers damage.
Armor +1: Reduce all damage suffered by this character by
+1, to a minimum of 1. Flight: This character is immune to falling damage and may
ignore any terrain or other characters when moving.
Black Blood: All characters without Black Blood within 1
yard suffer 1 damage when this character suffers damage.
(1) Talons (Pugilism)
Flight: This character is immune to falling damage and may
AV: 4 (12) ========= Rg: y1 ======= Resist: Df
ignore any terrain or other characters when moving.
Target suffers 2/4/5 damage.
Terrifying (Living) (12): Enemy Living characters must
(1) Sacrifical Blade (Melee)
pass a TN 12 Horror Duel when they end their turn
AV: 5 (13) ========= Rg: y1 ======= Resist: Df
within this character's engagement range or target this
Target suffers 1/3/4 damage.
character with a harmful action.
R Blood's Favor: After succeeding, a character within 3
yards heals an amount of damage equal to the damage
(1) Monstrous Talons (Pugilism)
inflicted by this attack.
AV: 7M (15M) ====== Rg: y2 ======= Resist: Df
Target suffers 4/5/6 damage. (1) Burn the Blood (Enchanting/Cunning)
mt Charge Through: After succeeding against an enemy AV: 6R (14R) === TN: 10R == Range: 2 yards === Resist: Df
character, instead of dealing damage, push the target Target Living character suffers 1/2/3 damage and gains
4 yards away from this character. If this character is the following Condition for 1 minute: "Excrutiating
not engaged, it may take a Charge Action against a Pain: At the start of this character's turn, it must pass
different target. a TN 10 Toughness Challenge or suffer 1 damage." If
MC Rip in Half: After killing the target, all enemy the target has Black Blood, it instead gains the following
characters within p6 must immediately perform a TN Condition for one minute: "Regeneration +1: This
12 Horror Duel. character heals 1 damage at the start of its turn during
Dramatic Time."

43
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
 Guild Guardsman
Minion (5), Living, Guardsman

Might Grace Speed Resilience

1 2 0 0
Charm Intellect Cunning Tenacity
-1 -1 -1 3
Archaeologist Defense Walk Height Initiative
Peon (4), Living 4 (9) 4 2 2 (7)
Willpower Charge Wounds
Might Grace Speed Resilience 5 (10) 4 5
0 1 0 0
Charm Intellect Cunning Tenacity Skills: Athletics 1, Bureaucracy 1, Evade 3, Melee 3,
0 2 0 -1 Notice 2, Pistol 2M, Stealth 1, Toughness 1.

Defense Walk Height Initiative

2 (6) 6 2 2 (6) Armor +1: Reduce all damage suffered by this character by
Willpower Charge Wounds +1, to a minimum of 1.
3 (7) - 4
(1) Standard Issue Sword (Melee)
Skills: Art 1, Barter 1, Bureaucracy 2, Centering 1, AV: 4 (9) ========== Rg: y2 ======= Resist: Df
Convince 1, History 3, Melee 1, Notice 2. Target suffers 2/3/4 damage.
R Critical Strike: When damaging the target, this attack
deals +1 damage for each R in the final duel total.
The Better Part of Valor: This character's Walk has been (1) Collier Navy (Pistol)
increased by +2, but it has no Charge Aspect. AV: 4M (9M) ======= Rg: z12 ======= Resist: Df
Target suffers 2/3/4 damage. Capacity 6, Reload 2.
M Arrest: After succeeding, the target gains the
(1) Small Digging Pick (Melee) following Condition until the end of its next turn:
AV: 1 (5) ========== Rg: y1 ======= Resist: Df "Arrest: This character must discard a card to
Target suffers 1/2/3 damage. perform a movement action."

44
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
 Nemesis
Part One
Lady Justice flicked her blade, cleaning the ichor
from it as the ghoulish, three-headed beast slumped
to the ground. Even without sight, she could tell that
it was a nightmarish abomination that had been
stitched together from multiple creatures.
“One thing you can say about the Ressers, they
don’t lack an imagination.” The Judge knelt down
beside the creature’s master, a woman dressed
in a dirty green ballroom gown. Its hem was torn,
tattered, and dirty, and its sleeves were stained
dark with dried blood around the wrists. Her head
was partially missing, blown half apart by the bullet
that took her life.
“It wasn’t hers.” Justice carefully stepped around
the necromancer’s body, her attention upon the
makeshift laboratory behind her. They had tracked
the woman to a factory basement in the Industrial
Zone. At first, Justice had suspected that the
necromancer was just using the basement as a
temporary shelter, but when they arrived, they had
found what could only be described as an undead
assembly line. The strange thing, to her mind, was
that the factory above them was still operational.
“The necromancer, is she attractive?”
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
Mason Crawford
The Judge looked down at the woman’s exploded
face. He turned his head one way, then the other,
trying to imagine what she might have looked like
while still alive. “I suppose so. Not a redhead, so I
can’t say that I’m all that interested, but someone
else might find her so.”
Justice smirked as she lifted a beaker of some
unidentifiable substance and used her other hand
to waft the vapors toward her. Her nose wrinkled
at the unmistakable scent of embalming fluid, and
her smile disappeared in an instant. “The foreman’s
complicit with her presence here, then. Possibly the
owner.” She gestured to the two Death Marshals
who were reloading their pistols near the door. “I
want the male employees rounded up and held for
questioning. Anyone who spends time on the factory
floor.”
The Judge stood up and brushed the dirt from his
knees with gloved hands. “Just the men?” he asked,
his voice questioning.
She set the beaker down and sighed. “All the
employees, then. Just in case.”
 The Death Marshals gave her lazy salutes, secured
the pine boxes strapped to their backs into place,
and started off toward the stairs. Once they were
out of earshot, the Judge joined Justice at the
laboratory. “That chimera, you said it wasn’t made
here…?”
“It doesn’t fit.” She turned toward him and gestured
to the room around them. “She has easy access
to machine parts. Papers attached to the wall, not
using surgical tape, but with glue, which means that
she had limited access to medical supplies.”
The Judge nodded in understanding. “The papers
are all medical diagrams, but they’re hand-drawn. All
human.” He caught sight of something on the other
side of the room, crossed over to it, and patted the
top of its case with his hand. “Guess what we have
here?”
“Aethervox,” she replied, knowing the answer.
He flicked the power on, filling the room with a
rambling monologue on the proper bolts to use when
affixing steel to bone. He listened for a moment,
rolled his eyes, and then turned the radio-like device
back off. “Looks like another of Von Schtook’s
students.”
“Not the chimera, though.” Lady Justice went back
to the abomination’s side and knelt down beside
its bisected corpse. She ran her fingers over its
decaying flesh until she found the stitches, then
followed them for a few inches. “Tight stitching, all
flesh to flesh. None of the metal substructures or
replacement limbs that Von Schtook’s people use
to join pieces.”
“Someone else, then?” The Judge returned to her
side and toed the other half of the chimera with his
boot. “Seamus, maybe?”
She smiled at the familiar joke. “It’s not wearing a
dress.” Justice stood, head still turned down toward
the creature as she sorted through her thoughts.
The Judge took the opportunity to reload his pistol.
When she still hadn’t said anything further, he took
a guess at what she was thinking. “Him again?”
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
“It has to be.” Lady Justice sighed and ran a hand
through her hair. It had recently been cut and was
only a few short inches of bright red, instead of the
long mane she normally preferred. “It just doesn’t
make any sense. First he murders half the city’s
Resurrectionists and seizes control of their undead,
now he’s loaning them out to people?”
“She might have found it wandering around,” he
suggested. “We know that Squidpiddge tends to
attract all of the really messed up stuff. This one
could have been doing the same thing.”
“Maybe…” Justice wasn’t convinced, and that
carried into her voice. After a moment, she shook
her head. “In any case, let’s go speak with the
workers. I don’t think we’re going to learn anything
else down here.”
The Judge nodded in agreement and followed her
up the stairs, leaving the severed and mutilated
corpses of the dead behind them, for now.
“You spend my time carelessly, like a beggar
with coins.” Yan Lo’s staff tapped against the
cobblestones, the iron rings dangling from its end
clanked together with each step. His robes were
dark green with gold trim, adorned with sashes of
blood-red cloth. His long hair was pulled back into a
ponytail that swayed slowly in an unfelt breeze.
“My apologies, elder one.” In contrast to Yan
Lo’s mystical appearance, Nicodem’s was almost
mundane. He was dressed, as always, in a formal
suit with a duster pulled over top of it, a concession
toward the cool night. The moonlight gleamed off
the steel of his prosthetic leg and was reflected
in the round lenses of his glasses. “It was my
understanding that the Nipponese considered it
rude to speak of business without first engaging in
harmless small talk.”
The ancient sorcerer cast a sharp glance at
Nicodem. “That the Three Kingdoms are united in
this time does not mean it was always so, nor that
 it will be. First my time is wasted with idle chatter,
now with ignorance.”
Nicodem resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of
his nose in frustration. He hated dealing with the
elderly. When he was a proper undertaker, before his
time in Malifaux, it had been the worst part of his
job. Now, here he was, forced into a position where
he had to deal with not only a crotchety old man, but
one who was arguably one of the few necromancers
in the world as powerful as himself. Perhaps even
stronger. “It was improper for me to assume. I can
only profess ignorance as to your customs.”
That was not, strictly speaking, true. Nicodem had
learned quite a bit about the history and customs of
the Japanese, or Nipponese, as they preferred to be
called. In his own mind, he considered himself to be
something of an expert.
More than anything, he wished that Kirai Ankoku
hadn’t returned to Earth. Even though she was
stubborn and prone to deep depression, she at least
understood the proper value of polite conversation.
He would have much preferred to be dealing with
her right now.
“Perhaps we could proceed directly to the matter
at hand, elder one?” He waited until Yan Lo made
a ‘get on with it’ gesture before continuing. “It has
recently come to my attention that a certain element
of the Little Kingdom has interfered in my ambitions.
Given your importance within the community and
our shared interests in the necromantic arts, I
thought that you might have some influence over
this element.”
Yan Lo stroked his beard in contemplation. “You
speak of the Ten Thunders.” Using his staff, he
motioned to a side street, and they turned toward it,
taking them past tall buildings adorned with Chinese,
Japanese, and Vietnamese letters. Red and yellow
paper lanterns hung from ropes crisscrossing the
street. All of the windows were closed and boarded,
and, like the last street, there wasn’t another soul
anywhere in sight.
Nicodem ignored his growing sense of unease
and turned down the street with the old sorcerer
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
as bidden. “Yes.” He couldn’t feel any corpses –
animated or otherwise – in the area, but that didn’t
mean that he wasn’t walking into an ambush. The
necromancers of the Three Kingdoms favored calling
upon ghosts and spirits over corporeal undead, and
he had no talent for sensing them. “The leaders of
that organization took up arms against my undead
and ruined a great deal of work. It would not be
unexpected for me to turn my aggression toward
them in revenge.”
“It would be expected.” Yan Lo stopped walking,
prompting Nicodem to do the same. The ancient
sorcerer leaned forward onto his staff, his beady eyes
glowing faintly in the moonlight. “It is expected. Yet
you come to me without from the enslaved corpses
you press into service.” Yan Lo lifted his staff and
pressed it against Nicodem’s chest as the iron rings
jingled in an unfelt breeze. “Foolish, perhaps. Why
should I not flay the soul from your body and end the
threat you pose to my descendants?”
Nicodem’s expression conveyed boredom, not fear.
“I have crossed the veil of death before, old man.
There is nothing in that world of corpses that I fear.”
Yan Lo stared at him for a long time. “Perhaps not,”
he finally said, withdrawing his staff. “In its sleep,
the claws of the Dragon sometimes twitch. The
mouse that finds itself caught beneath these claws
might believe that the Dragon had cruelly decided
to end its life, but the Dragon did not even know it
was there. It is without dispute, however, that the
Dragon’s claws still led to the death of the mouse.”
The sorcerer’s bushy eyebrows raised meaningfully.
Nicodem’s knuckles turned white as his fingers
tightened around the head of his cane. The old man
was being deliberately obtuse. “If the attack upon
my property was the result of a lone agent, give me
his name. There is no reason for this enmity to spill
out across the entirety Little Kingdom.”
Yan Lo chuckled and continued walking, this time at
a quicker pace. “Leave this place, Mr. Nicodem. You
will find no answers here.”
 Rather than let the old man escape, Nicodem hurried
after him, ignoring the pain where his pneumatic leg
met the flesh of his hip. “No! I demand a name!”
He reached out to grab Yan Lo, but his hand passed
right through the sorcerer, as if he was no more
substantial than the moonlight. Nicodem recoiled
in surprise, and as he watched, the old man faded
away with another chuckle.
Nicodem stood in the empty street, staring at the
place Yan Lo once stood. The meeting had not gone
as he had planned, though he had at least confirmed
his suspicions that the Ten Thunders had been the
ones to ruin his plans the year before. He regretted
his outburst; it was unbefitting of someone such as
himself.
After a few more moments of quiet self-chastisement,
Nicodem straightened his coat and continued down
the street, intending to return to his dreary mansion
in the Quarantine Zone to give the matter more
thought. As he passed a small curio shop, he gave
in to temptation and shattered the window with his
cane, sending glass shards tumbling down into the
street behind him.
It didn’t do anything to improve his mood.
One entire wall of Lady Justice’s office had been
plastered with a large map of the city. The different
districts of the city were denoted by raised lines,
as were the outer walls and the boundaries of the
river. There were pins of varying colors and shapes
pushed into various places around the map, and
many of them were connected by thin lengths of
colored string.
When the Jury entered the room, Justice was
standing in front of the map, her arms crossed over
her chest. Had it been anyone but Justice, the Jury
might have thought that she was staring at it in
thought.
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
“Does that help?” The Jury pulled a chair over from
the side of the room, turned it around, and slumped
down onto it, her arms crossed over the back.
“Not really.” With a sigh, Justice turned toward the
other woman and gestured toward the map. “One
of the accountants put it up in an attempt to help
out. It keeps things organized for everyone else,
though.”
“We all want to help,” the Jury reminded her in a
somewhat chastising tone. “The pins are… sites of
attacks, or Resurrectionist lairs?”
“Both.” She gestured toward the eastern portion of
the map. “The red ones are the sites of attacks, the
greens are discovered Resurrectionist lairs, and the
blues are alchemistry shops and pharmacies that
we suspect of selling embalming fluid.”
The Jury rested her head on her arms as she looked
at the map. It was all but covered in pins. “If nothing
else, you’ve managed to turn the city
into a delightful little rainbow. How
far back are these going?”
“To the very beginning.” She
reached up and tapped
two pins near the
Governor’s Mansion.
One was red and the
other was yellow. “This
is the first documented
 attack. Nine years ago, Governor-General Kitchener
and his entourage are attacked by an unknown
necromancer. He kills everyone but the Governor
and animates their corpses, only to flee when the
Guild Guard arrive in the nick of time.”
“Prompting the creation of the Death Marshals,” the
Jury finished, her head nodding in memory. “Slimy
bastard. What’s the yellow pin for?”
Lady Justice moved back and forth, touching one
yellow pin and then another, mentally following
the attacks through the years. “Most of the
necromancers we deal with are sloppy or still
learning their craft. We only have a few exceptions.
Von Schtook hides in the sewers and blasts those
damnable seminars across the aethervox. Seamus
cleans out brothels almost as fast as the slumlords
can set them up. The Surgeon just releases undead
out into the world without much care as to what sort
of trouble they get into.”
The Jury ticked off more names on her fingers.
“Then you’ve got Squidpiddge and her menagerie
of weirdness, Kirai and her murder ghosts, and this
new Reaper lady.”
Justice nodded. “Exactly. All of the strongest
Resurrectionists have patterns that they follow.
Every time they animate a corpse or bring a ghost
through the veil, they might as well be pressing their
fingerprints into wet clay.”
“Except for Mr. Yellow.” The Jury was starting to perk
up in interest.
“Except for Mr. Yellow,” Justice agreed. Her fingers
reached out and brushed across a yellow pin in the
southern Quarantine Zone. “He’s been careful. For
eight years, he avoided our attention and built up his
power, probably squirreling bodies away wherever he
could find them in preparation for last year’s attack.
It almost worked, too.” She tapped a string of yellow
pins in the Eastern Slums in rapid succession. “I
just haven’t figured out how he managed to hide that
many corpses right under our nose. We’ve found a
few of them in the hands of other necromancers,
but…”
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
The Jury’s brow was furrowed in thought. “What if
that’s exactly how he did it?”
“Hmm?” Justice turned toward the other woman,
her eyebrows raised beneath her blindfold.
Things were starting to fall into place for the Jury.
She had always had a way of seeing the truth
about things, and something Justice said had felt
meaningful to her. “What if he hid them right under
our noses? Right under our feet?”
The two women were silent for a moment. Lady
Justice held her hand out towards the Jury, as if
trying to slow her down, though her voice was
hopeful. “Are you guessing, or are you doing your
thing?”
“The latter, I think.” The Jury hopped to her feet and
started toward the door. “I’ll start pulling undertaker
licenses!”
Justice was right behind her. “Crematoriums, too!
Have Hoffman send one of his Watchers to find me
when you have something. I’ll be in the field!”
Nicodem’s fingers drummed carefully against the
head of his cane as he watched the Death Marshal
poke around his funeral home. “I can assure you,
ma’am, everything is in order. I pride myself on
following the Guild’s guidelines concerning corpse
disposal to the very letter.”
“No doubt about that, Mr. Nicodem.” The Death
Marshal was bundled up beneath a heavy duster
and a wide-brimmed hat, but even from a dozen feet
away, Nicodem could feel the necromantic energy
infusing her body. She already had one foot in the
grave, and he suspected that if she were to disrobe
– his lips quivered in distaste at the thought – her
body would be as emaciated and withered as a
corpse.
He watched as she opened the door to one of his
crematorium furnaces and ran a gloved finger along
 the inside. “You use these much?” she asked.
“They seem pretty clean.”
“If you do not clean them after each burning,
the ashes from previous corpses ends up mixed
in with the current.” He managed to mask his
uncomfortableness at the question as slighted
pride. “I believe that the deceased – and their
beloved – deserve better than that.”
The ploy worked, and he could sense the Death
Marshal relax as she shut the furnace door. “Seems
like you run a pretty up-and-up business here. How
many bodies would you say you typically dispose of
in a year?”
He smiled, the same smile he used when trying to
comfort his insipid clients. “Oh, it’s hard to say off
the top of my head. Perhaps two to three a week?”
He made a vague gesture towards the door and
lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “As
much as I hate to admit it, they tend to run together
in my mind. I have been doing this for quite some
time, after all.”
The Death Marshal nodded in understanding. “Nine
years, right?”
Nicodem was instantly on guard. The only way that
the Death Marshal would know that would be if she
had looked up his license prior to her arrival. And
that meant that this wasn’t one of the Guild’s typical
inspections. “That sounds correct,” he replied, his
smile like carved wood. “Here in Malifaux, at least.
I also had a practice back on Earth.”
She nodded and moved toward the rows of caskets
on display in the showroom. They ranged from the
fancy to the mundane, but each of them was nicer
than her own pine box, which was propped up near
the door. The door that she was slowly making her
way back towards. “Where was that, exactly?”
“Massachusetts.” He followed behind her, his
prosthetic limb clomping loudly against the floor
with each step.
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
“American, eh?” She ran her fingers along the inner
edge of a white coffin as she walked, growing ever
closer to the pine box she had brought with her.
“Why’d you decide to leave? Thought you could
make a killing here in Malifaux?”
He didn’t laugh at the joke. “The politics.” As she
reached toward another coffin, he stopped her
hand with his cane. “Please mind the merchandise,
ma’am.”
The Death Marshal looked back at him, and in that
moment, Nicodem knew that she knew. Perhaps she
was just enough of a corpse for his senses to pick
up on and interpret her body language. Perhaps it
was a premonition.
Perhaps he was just being paranoid.
“Sorry,” she said, withdrawing her hand. “Just
admiring the craftsma…”
Her words were cut off by the head of Nicodem’s
cane, which connected solidly with the side of her
head. It shattered her jaw and sent her staggering
into one of the display coffins, which tumbled to the
ground in a loud crash.
The Death Marshal’s heavy Peacebringer pistol was
in her hand in a moment. She was still off balance,
however, and Nicodem was faster. His hand glowed
with eldritch green light as he raised it, seizing
her body’s muscles and locking them tight in rigor
mortis. Her finger tightened on the trigger and sent
the bullet ricocheting off his steel leg.
Nicodem winced at the impact. “That’s how I lost
the first one,” he mused, his hand still glowing with
power. “I never could figure out quite how to keep a
corpse’s reflexes intact after their lapse into death.
It’s frustrating, to see you all prancing about, acting
like normal people. You’re no different from my own
zombies.” He reached forward and pushed her hat
back, revealing a forehead plastered with flaking,
dried skin. “I suppose that Lady Justice is a better
necromancer than I originally suspected. It’s a pity
that she’s chosen to hunt her own kind, but then, I
suppose I’m not in a place to judge.”
 The Death Marshal’s arm quivered as she tried to
raise her pistol and point it toward him. Nicodem
politely stepped past her, made his way to the door,
and threw the bolt, locking them in. Then he turned
to her pine box, pushed it down onto the floor, and
kicked it across the floor so that it came to a rest
behind her.
His lips pulled back in a thin smile as he returned
to her side. She tried to say something, but without
the ability to move her mouth, it came out as a
mumbled growl.
“Such language.” Using his foot, he pushed open
the lid of her pine box, revealing the swirling
netherspace contained within. “Let’s go find you a
nice plot.”
The Judge was squatting in the entryway, examining
the faint footprints left in the dirt on the wooden
floor. “Someone was here,” he said, motioning
toward the floor. “I’m not seeing any blood, so it
doesn’t look like a fight broke out, but something
was dropped over there. I’m guessing one of the
coffins fell over.”
As he straightened up, the door opened, revealing
a Death Marshal in a short top and a wide hat. She
was one of the few who had avoided the corrupting
influence of the necromantic magic they drew upon,
though neither she, Lady Justice, or any of the
others who had managed to remain fully intact had
quite figured out why they were spared when others
were not. “It’s the Commander, sir. She’s asking for
you.”
He started toward the door. “Did she find anything?”
She shook her head. “No, sir. Not a damned thing.”
The funeral home was a small little building perched
in the Central Slums. It had the sort of quiet,
somber quality that he had always associated with
churches, though the owner had clearly taken his
business down a nondenominational route. The
mortician’s license claimed that it was owned by an
Aloysius Nicodem, but the Judge suspected it might
be an alias.
Behind the building was a large cemetery, ringed by
a tall iron fence and lorded over by a sulking willow
tree. Once, it might have been a picturesque and
peaceful sight. Now, it was torn up and defiled. Lady
Justice had taken the bulk of their Death Marshals

There were two Death Marshals in the showroom

of the funeral home and another three in the back,
combing through the embalming room and the
crematory furnaces. Thus far, nobody had found
anything suspicious, which was suspicious in and
of itself. Most funeral homes cut corners where
they could, even in small ways: cardboard caskets,
cheap embalming fluid, artificial flowers.

“Found a bullet hole,” one of the Death Marshals

called out.

The Judge went to investigate and knelt down beside

the small hole, which was buried in the wall near a
window, just below the sill. “Probably a ricochet,”
he murmured. “The angle’s too weird for anything
else.”

Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)

 out back when they arrived, and they had already
managed to dig up eight of the graves.
“Empty,” Lady Justice called out to him as she
tossed her shovel to the ground. “Eight graves,
picked at random, all of them empty.”
“Buried that way?” The Judge joined her at the edge
of one of the opened graves.
She shook her head. “No, these were dug up within
the last year and then carefully replaced. He wasn’t
burying the dead. He was stockpiling an army.”
“I’ve got worse news.” He hooked a thumb toward
the funeral home. “We’ve got papers back there
for graveyards all across the city, all registered to
different names. I’m not sure how many of them
he dug up for his assault last year, but if even a
quarter of those graves are still filled with bodies,
we’re in a bad place. I’m guessing that most of the
undertakers on the Jury’s list are going to end up
being this guy.”
“Any sign of Hadley?”
The Judge shook his head. “Looks like there was
a fight, but she must have been taken down pretty
quickly. No blood, nothing more than a few scuff
marks and a single bullet hole. Doubt she got off
more than one shot before she went down.”
“That means we’re on the right track, at least.”
She looked up and ran a hand through her hair.
“We’ll have to send people to go investigate those
other graveyards. Full combat patrols, in case they
encounter him while searching. Hopefully we can
find something before we have to pull everyone back
to guard those Spanish…”
“Civilian,” the Judge warned, cutting her off. A
young woman had come around to the back of the
building and was peeking curiously past the open
gate. Despite her Asian features, she was dressed
in a simple worker’s shirt and pants, though her
long hair was woven together into twin braids in a
decidedly Eastern fashion. “Excuse me, ma’am,” he
said, stepping toward her. ‘This is a restricted area.
You’ll have to move along.”
54
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
“Oh, my apologies.” Flustered, she held up the
bouquet of flowers in her hands and looked around
the graveyard in surprise. “I was just bringing some
flowers to my grandmother’s grave. She just passed a
few weeks ago…” She took a cautious step forward.
“You’re not… digging up graves, are you…?”
Lady Justice adopted a sympathetic look and
motioned toward the grave at her feet. “I don’t wish
to alarm you, but some of the corpses appear to
have gone missing. Do you know anything about the
man who owns this place?”
The woman gasped in horror. “Missing? You mean
turned into zombies?!”
“We don’t know that for sure,” the Judge said. “If
you can remember anything about the owner, it
would really help us out, though.”
“Umm…” The woman bit her lip as she tried
to remember something. “He was tall, very
compassionate… one of his legs was a prosthetic,
I remember that. Oh!” She snapped her fingers.
“That’s right! I had some trouble finding a coffin that
I liked, and he offered to take me to a warehouse in
the Riverfront Slums to look at some other options.”
Her cheeks flushed with color. “It… wouldn’t have
been appropriate for me to accompany him to such
a place, though, so I ended up just choosing a
cheaper coffin…”
The Judge glanced back at Justice, who nodded.
“Well,” he said, looking back to the woman. “Thank
you for the information. Grab one of the Marshals
inside the funeral home and give them your
information, in case we have any more questions.”
“Of course.” The woman bowed, a strange gesture
given her garb, and left to go speak with the
indicated marshals.
The Judge waited a few moments. “Want me to post
a watch?”
Lady Justice thought about it for a moment and then
shook her head. “No, he’ll be too careful for that.
Let’s talk to Lucius and have him put one of his
people on it. They’re better at this sort of thing.”
 “Fine,” the Judge sighed, “but I’m not going to ask him.”
She smirked and motioned for the Death Marshals
to start filling in graves. “What’s the matter? Afraid?”
Despite his duster, the Judge shivered. “Of
Mattheson? Yeah, I am, actually.”
Mortimer carefully patted the earth into place with
the flat of his shovel. “There ya go, she’s as good as
rain, boss. Surprised you hung around.”
The afternoon had segued into evening. Nicodem
had been going over his brief conversation with
the Death Marshal as he waited, and it took him
a moment to realize that his assistant had spoken
directly to him. “One can never be too cautious
when it comes to Death Marshals.”
“Shoulda just killed ‘er and made ‘er a zombie.”
Light flared as Mortimer lit a match and held it to
his cigar, puffing on it a few times until the end
glowed a dull orange.
“Would that I could.” He stared down at the grave.
“They do something that prevents their bodies from
being animated after death. Even Kirai found it
impossible to shackle their spirits, though not for
lack of trying.”
Mortimer gestured with his cigar. “What about the
bird with the ‘ole in ‘er chest? Tamarice? She’s got
a crew of dead Marshals, don’t she?”
“Tara.” Nicodem’s lips pulled back in a scowl. “It’s
not her, it’s that brain-dead woman that she drags
along with her. She’s the idiot-savant of necromancy.”
Mortimer shrugged and puffed on his cigar. “Seemed
nice enough to me. We had a good chat at the last
Resurrectionist’s Ball.” He thought about that for a
moment. “Probably was the last Resurrectionist’s
Ball, wasn’t it? I mean, you killed most of them.”
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
“Sacrifices had to be made.” He motioned
for Mortimer to follow him as he rejoined the
cobblestone path that would lead them out of
the graveyard. “Have you managed to procure the
corpses I require for this affair at the Enclave?”
“I did, I did.” He exhaled a cloud of smoke, and
Nicodem paused as the wind blew it right into his
face. Mortimer blanched and immediately scurried
over to the downwind side of the taller necromancer.
“Sorry, boss. But yeah, I got ‘em all ready and
waiting. Where should I be takin’ ‘em?”
Nicodem resumed his walk, his cane marking out
a steady staccato on the cobblestones. “No doubt
Seamus will contact us before too long with the
details. When he does…”
They both slowed to a stop as they noticed a woman
waiting on the edge of the graveyard. Her deep purple
kimono did a good job of helping her blend into the
darkness, and her hair was pulled back into two twin
braids. For a moment, Nicodem almost thought that
Kirai had returned to them, but as they drew closer,
he realized that the woman was unknown to him.
“Good evening, madam. Here to visit the dead?”
The woman smiled disturbingly and tucked her
hands into her sleeves. “I need not visit a graveyard
to speak with my ancestors, Mr. Nicodem. Their
advice guides my every action, and it is their word
that has brought me to you.”
Mortimer started to circle around toward the woman,
but Nicodem raised a hand to stop him. “You speak
of Yan Lo,” he said, addressing her.
She inclined her head. “Yes. I am his niece,
Katanaka Chiaki.”
“Well,” Mortimer said, stepping forward and
extending a meaty hand in her direction. “From the
lackey of one necromancer to ‘nother, it’s a pleasure
to meet you. Name’s Mortimer, that’s Morty to my
friends, which you certainly count as, Kate.”
Chiaki stared down at his extended, sweaty hand
and then looked up, smiled politely, and bowed.
 “Oh, right! Eastern types.” He winked at her, ran his
hands down his dirt-stained shirt, and then returned
her bow with an awkward one of his own. “Always
enjoyed the customs of the Far East, though you do
make a man’s job difficult with all them cremations.
Kinda creepy to be keepin’ shrines to the dead all
over, too, and I’m sayin’ that as a Resser, so you
gotta…”
Nicodem pinched the bridge of his nose. “Mortimer.”
“Eh? Oh, right, time for business talks and all.”
He waggled his eyebrows at Chiaki, motioned
between them with one finger, and nodded in silently
confirmation as he backed away. “We’ll chat it up
later.”
Chiaki just stared at him, confused, until Nicodem
cleared his throat. “Yes…” She stared at Mortimer
for a moment longer and then turned back to
Nicodem. “My uncle has reconsidered his earlier
position and now wishes to help you resolve your
enmity with the Ten Thunders before it can turn into
further loss for either of us. I assume that this is an
acceptable resolution for yourself as well?”
Nicodem nodded. “That is why I approached him in
the first place. I only wish to see those who ruined
my plans punished for their presumption. Once that
has happened, I have no further grudge against your
organization.”
She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Then
revenge you shall have. There is a warehouse in the
Riverside District that has been marked with the
symbol of the crow. In one week’s time, the woman
responsible for the ruination of your plans will be
there to stow a small curio. My uncle is of the belief
that if something were to happen to her while she
is at the warehouse, the Ten Thunders would be too
preoccupied with other matters to investigate too
closely.”
“I understand.” He reached up and tipped his hat
to her. “Please send my regards to your uncle. I
knew that we could come to a mutually beneficial
agreement.”
Chiaki’s only response was another smile.
Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)
When she returned to her small apartment, Chiaki
found her uncle waiting for her. “All went as planned,”
she explained as she carefully seated herself at the
low table in the room’s center. “In one week, the
ram and the crow will meet.”
Yan Lo was seated across from her. In the faint
gloom of her apartment, he glowed like a dim
candle. “As was foretold long ago. They have both
seen the signs, which they have chosen to ignore.
Only one will survive this conflict.”
Chiaki tilted her head in curiosity. “Which will it be,
uncle? The ram or the crow?”
He lifted his fist, then opened it, splaying his hand
wide as he waved it in front of him. “It is up to fate.
One will perish, the other will weaken. Either way,
the result is not our concern. Either way, we become
stronger.”
She inclined her head in understanding. “Yes,
uncle.” Looking back up to him, she motioned to her
flute, which rested on a stand atop a small shelf.
“Shall I play for you, uncle?”
Yan Lo’s lips pulled back in an affectionate smile. “I
would enjoy that, child. Play a song of death. A dirge
for the fallen. Let your music guide them to the next
life and wash away the sins of this world.”
Chiaki stood, retrieved her flute, and once again
seated herself at the table. Her eyes met those of
her ancient ancestor, and then she began to play
a slow, haunting melody. It was a song of loss and
pain, and of remembering the past even as the
future crumbled into ruin.
 The Duel of Fate
At GenCon this year, you, the players, will be able
to decide who will win the epic battle between
Lady Justice and Nicodem! Each time a player
makes a purchase at GenCon (or in our online
store during GenCon), that player will receive one
vote that they can put towards either Lady Justice
or Nicodem.

When the Wyrd crew returns from GenCon, the

votes will be tallied up and the character with the
most votes will win the duel and defeat the loser.

The Fate of a Master is in your hands! Choose

wisely!

Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)

Adam Kulhavy (Order #11901281)