Call of Cthulhu rpg adventure 'Amongst the Ancient Trees' using WFRP 2e

[Bitsa]

The adventure named in the title ("AAT") is in the CoC 7e core rulebook.
It sounds great, but I want to introduce my players to wfrp, not CoC, so I'm converting it to wfrp 2e.

The big bad is an alien/god that crashed to earth in a metorite prison millenia ago, and has been trapped in a lake/group of lakes in the mountains. It can influence people who come close to the lakes, and persuade them to come to the lake and then convert them into undead minions (intelligent, not mindless).

It's had a particular group of minions for a 100 or 200 years, and uses them to find parts of the meteorite (which broke up and scattered). It has located the final and largest part of the meteorite. It's underground and they're digging it up. Once this piece is delivered to the lake the god will have enough power to be free of the lake.

The players come into the area for an unrelated mission, and during the adventure another group of npcs gets captured by the minions and brought to the lake side, where they are tied/impaled to stakes ready for conversion to undead minions by the god in the lake.

The PCs probably will encounter this group during conversion. The partly converted npcs will beg the pcs to kill them.


The conversion to wfrp:

The meteorite can be warpstone, obviously.

I immediately thought the bad guy and minions would be chaos of some sort, and the conversion process would be converting the npcs to chaos spawn. Everything fits nicely, except perhaps the 100+ years that the first group of minions has been around, but that's not hugely important.

However, I plan to run The Enemy Within after this, and don't want to drown my players in nothing but chaos. So I am trying to make another race/faction fit this adventure, to give them a taste of something different before TEW.

Any suggestions?
Could I do it with Skaven? The conversion process being Clan Moulder doing some funky mutation/surgery/etc? What would the god be?
Could I have Skaven trying to resurrect a necromancer thrown into the lake by angry villagers with pitchforks? Could I have a Skaven who is a necromancer?
Some other variation of Skaven?
Something else entirely?

Any creative ideas? Because this is introducing wfrp to players for the first time (and some of them to the WH world for the first time) I want to make it more or less "canon", not create something that doesn't fit WH lore...

[Hyarion]

Clan Moulder is a great idea. You could use the Skaven god, The Horned Rat, -OR- you could just have the "unseen evil force" be the commands of a grey seer who works through his minions and finally makes an appearance at the end of the adventure.

A Vampire Count who is creating "greater undead" like Blood Knights or a Varghulf could also work.

If you've ever seen the movie The Mummy, it could be an ancient Tomb King burial site from one of their colonies in the Border Princes which was only recently exposed via a rockslide.

[Jadrax]

"A rare few Skaven dabble in Necromancy and fewer still abandon the ways of their people to embrace another Chaos God." - Children of the Horned Rat

So there is no reason you can't have a Skaven Necromancer, but he would probably be hunted by the Grey Seers.

[Theo]

On the other hand, keeping it as some kind of ancient space alien could make for some neat foreshadowing of, or even connect to, the plot of the Wittgenstein meteorite in Death on the Reik.

[Totsuzenheni Yukimi]

I don't know if they are ever mentioned in WFRP second edition books, but you could use the Slann from WFRP first edition.

[Paco]

You can use Fimir (even if they are not in the 2nd edition rulebook) or a Fimir bound demon.

Check the 4thedition official & free aventure "If looks could kill" in drivetru rpg. It contains some info about past Fimir stuff.

[Knight of the Lady]

If you don't want to overflow the players with Chaos then I would perhaps suggest that it was an ordinary metorite which brought with it a rare metal or mineral, perhaps gromlim or something like it, and that either a band of humans, or even a depending on where you are an expedition of Dwarfs, have snuck there in order to get their hands on the metal and make a big profit from it.

In my opinion the enemy don't need to be magical or none-human to be scary.

Warhammer is a grim place and I think that "good" races like humans and Dwarfs overtaken by selfish or lower urges can make vile villains as much as crazy Chaos cultist or non-human critters bent on bloodshed. And it should also highlight that being good or bad has precious little to do with what race you come from.

[Bitsa]

This is encouraging.

I'm aware of Slann but not familiar with them.
I haven't heard of Fimir previously.
I'm not opposed to using humans or dwarfs as antagonists, but in this case is like to introduce the players to something that is unique to wh.

I did also consider a vampire count, but couldn't think why he would be trapped in the lake until the warp stone is recovered...
I thought about instead having him trapped under the meteor instead of on the lake, until he could influence some minions and have them dig him out.

I'm keen to have some mutation in the story. I'm not sure if undead/vampires are susceptible?

Ideally the power that causes conversion/mutation would be in the lake. If using skaven I'm not sure I could get away with putting the horned rat in the lake (or maybe I could... That would be very epic) does he have any second tier gods/demi gods/demons serving him at a tier below his own?

A powerful ancient skaven lich/necromancer in the lake could work, but what would it be converting unwilling specimens into that would afterwards intelligently and loyally carry out his wishes?

The PCs will be quite experienced: on the cusp between second and third career.

Edit: apologies for any typos, doing this on a phone

[Mackbraten]

You could exchange the lake with a mountain or a hill which would make the idea work that they shift rare material into it. This also would make dwarf possible:
A dwarfen mining settlement digged out an earth elemental that got addicted or warped by the taste of the meterorite material and now steers/possesses the dwarf to collect it all and bring it to him.

[Whymme]

If you want to introduce the players to something uniquely Warhammer, then pick something that will occur in later scenarios as well. That makes it unique and useful. What use is showing something unique, only to not have it appear for the rest of the campaign? "Look, this world has Fimir! And we won't encounter them again!"


Since you want to run The Enemy Within next, look for adversaries from that campaign. We have (spoilers follow):
- Cultists - they might be working to free someone or something. In combination with one of the other enemies, perhaps
- Demons. There are enough of them in TEW. See also the ritual to summon a horror at the end of TEW proper; perhaps the creature trapped in the lake was the result of a summoning gone partly wrong. Stars are about to align again, so the creature is influencing people go gather the necessary equipment to do the proper summoning now.
- Mutants .. hmm, don't see how you could use that.
- Beastmen, goblins, a mighty wizard - all in Kislev, in SRIK. Do you need to introduce them now already?
- Dopplegangers - but that would be spoiling too much for a future adventure
- Skaven, all the more if you run that in-between scenario with the flying skulls

I would go with the demon trapped because an incorrectly performed summoning ritual some hundreds of years ago. Perhaps you can even couple it with one of your favourite WFRP cults.

[Bitsa]

Well, I think I'll go with clan moulder, and go beyond canon and make this super epic and put The Horned Rat himself in the lake (!).

It's only a one-shot, and it will give an exciting climax, and all the mechanics in the text will be satisfied.
The players will either keep THR contained or fail and allow him to be realeased on the world...