I've finished my read-through of the adventures section of The Restless Dead, and thought I'd throw down some brief thoughts on them, and what use I might find for them personally. Not sure if it's useful to anyone, but there you go.
General: As I've already said above, I think Carl Sargent's work in stringing a half-dozen unrelated White Dwarf adventures together into a sort-of-connected narrative is pretty clever. From a historical and pedagogical perspective I also like the fact that we get the unchanged adventure text next to the often-contradictory "campaign notes" - it makes for a very illustrative insight in how a GM might rework an adventure to fit their own campaign. At the same time, I think it might have been a more immediately readable and useful "adventure path" if the Restless Dead mini-campaign notes had been worked directly into the adventures.
The Enemy Within campaign notes, as I commented earlier on, are so perfunctory that I'm a bit confused as to why they were included at all. Unlike the Restless Dead campaign notes, which introduce a fairly clever connecting plot, they contribute nothing any half-competent GM couldn't think up themselves.
Night of Blood: Avoiding creepy things in the woods, the PCs take shelter at a coaching inn but finds out (in time or too late?) it's been taken over by a Chaos band. This looks like a tight, effective little adventure, probably deserving of its classic status. This is an example of the Enemy Within campaign notes dropping a very obvious ball - the obvious connection IMO would be to make Jinkerst's gang Red Crown followers. I might adapt this for an interlude in my own TEW remix - in that case I'll definitely use the Red Crown angle, and try to play it more for horror than for monster-slaying action.
On the Road: In the original version, a pair of simple but potentially interesting encounters: a werecat traveling to bail out her similarly afflicted lover, and a ghost needing to be put to rest. Again, I like how the mini-campaign notes expand them. I'll probably use Emmaretta (though I think I'll make her and her lover werewolves rather than werecats) and perhaps Johann to add interest to future journeys and detours in my campaign.
Eureka: I understand this is sort of the great lost WFRP 1E adventure, not included in any other reprints but this book. The PCs are hired to protect a crazy inventor from thugs who turn out to be corrupt Watchmen. It seems kind of fun, but also pretty railroaded and heavily slanted towards ending with the PCs having to flee the town it's set in as wanted criminals. I don't really see myself finding a use for this, and even its inclusion into the mini-campaign seems a little laboured. Might make for a fun "session 0" backstory-mini-adventure, though ("and that's why I can never go back to Volgen...").
A Rough Night at the Three Feathers: A deserved classic. The PCs seek lodgings at an inn, where half a dozen plots evolve and intermingle in what's been aptly described as "a classic British hotel farce". It looks like a challenge to run, what with all the things happening at once, but also like it might be tremendous fun. (And, if the PCs never have time to notice half of the plots,
they can always be recycled later.) I'll definitely be adapting this for my TEW remix, probably when the PCs are traveling to Middenheim in early Season 3. Incidentally, this is also one of the few adventures where the Enemy Within campaign notes are actually helpful, suggesting how contacts made in this adventure might open some doors in Power Behind the Throne
The Affair of the Hidden Jewel: As I commented above, a light-hearted swashbuckling adventure with no Chaos, magic or monsters. The PCs get involved in the schemes of a ruthless noble to acquire the hidden treasures of an outlaw band. Every NPC is explicitly a stock character from old adventure stories. It looks like it could be quite a bit of fun with a The Princess Bride-meets-Terry Gilliam kind of feel. I'll probably not find a use for it in my TEW, but it would also have made an excellent "session 0" prologue for one or two of my PCs.
The Ritual: In some town, the PCs stumble upon a cult murder and discover an underground lair where Skaven and human cultists are preparing for an evil ritual. This adventure might play much better than it reads, but reading it I couldn't help but feel it seemed a bit generic (and I guess the very generic title doesn't really help here). The twist that the drug-addled Skaven leader actually has no clue what he's doing and is proceeding from a series of misunderstandings is good, but unless I missed something on my read the players have little chance to discover this. Still, it's probably an effective action set piece, and if I need to whip up an underground cultist lair quickly I could do worse than using this.
The Haunting Horror: Following on from
The Ritual, the PCs stumble into a haunted house and have to defeat the titular horror to escape. I wanted to like this adventure better than I did. I like a good haunted-house story, and there are several creepy atmospheric scenes, but far too many of them - almost all, in fact - are combat encounters. It feels like a (good) Fighting Fantasy gamebook (not least with the Russ Nicholson illustrations
). It definitely makes me want to put in a haunted house somewhere in TEW, probably in Middenheim since Power Behind the Throne is otherwise rather light on the horrific and weird elements, but I can't see myself running the adventure straight as written.
The Grapes of Wrath: The PCs are engaged to protect a wine-growing village from a bizarre haunting by flying skulls. Digging deeper into the mystery reveals a grubbily Gothic tale of infidelity, murder, revenge and madness. I really liked this little adventure. It's written in a nicely old-school, open fashion, detailing the setting, the NPCs and their motivations, and giving a timeline for what will happen without the PCs intervening. It's billed as an Enemy Within interlude, bridging Death on the Reik with Power Behind the Throne, but it really doesn't - at best, it introduces a couple of NPCs very tangential to the adventure that might provide contacts in Middenheim. Still, I'm definitely keen on adapting it for my TEW, probably sticking it in whenever we hit the right season (it's set at the time of the grape harvest, so late summer / early autumn). The actual flying skulls - while charming - are a bit too cheesy for the aesthetic I'm going for now, so I might substitute something else - undead or constructed bird-like things, perhaps.