It started with an invitation…
Fhil held it in his hands and regarded it. The words, written on thick paper, edged in gold leaf stared back at him:
“Her Royal Highness the Princess of New New Bretonnia cordially requests your participation in a weekend of music and revelry. Your musical group will headline the first day of this inaugural event called “Bludstock”.
Acts and guests from all over the Border Princes will be attendance and you should not miss this opportunity.
Please confirm your attendance with my Equerry as soon as possible
Princess Collette de Vauru”
The wagon train came to an abrupt halt.
“We’re here!” Dave, one of the band’s roadies’ called from outside.
Fhil’s band, The Badland Beasts, had been travelling for 3 days, but the long road to New New Bretonnia in the Border Princes had finally ended. Fhil could see the spires of the castle tower through the right window and the huge stadium built especially for Bludstock, to his left. They pulled up the wagon train and unloaded the band’s equipment, including Fhil’s huge drum kit specially adapted for his preposterous hooves. All around them other bands were unloading and setting up: Rat Bastard were tuning up their guitars, the bassist from Witchcraft was fighting with one of the dwarven Roadies, and a group of Orcs were setting up a Krushem’s beer-tent.
It was halfway through Witchcraft’s set when the assault began. Backstage, the musicians thought that Ellie Slaughter’s amp had blown out during her third 45-minute guitar solo, but when the Krushem’s tent exploded spewing ice-cold beer all over the audience they knew something was wrong. They came down from the mountains into the valley, a horde of disease and petulance, charging into the crowd with clubs and spears drawn, vomiting bile as they ran. The mortals came first, and then the Daemons. Destruction rained down upon the stadium.
Backstage, Edge of Titan, the Ogre Keyboard player from Draconian Remains, began to instruct one of his roadies to draw a circle on the floor. He began a deep chanting, lifted the roadie up and slit his throat pouring his blood into the circle. Before the musician’s eyes, daemons of red hue emerged from the circle, now a fiery portal, ran out onto the stage and leapt into the crowd to join the melee. The tide of red slaughtered the tainted mortals and forced back the Nurgle advance, and then vanished as quickly as they had appeared, back into the earth. They were saved, but it came at a cost. The Edge explained that he had made a pact with Khorne and that to repay the Blood God the surviving musicians would need to collect 800 skulls. Vengeful Slayer, the Rat Bastards guitarist, darted off towards the crowd hoping to collect the skull from the slain, but The Edge explained that they would have to take them from the living with their own hands.
At that moment, they noticed a roadie trying to clean the slime of fallen nurgle daemons from the stage using a stack of large flyers.
“Hey, you! What’s it say on those?” Fhill called out to her.
“These? I was going to put them up around the place, some Fimir guy dropped them off this morning” as she was answering Fhil she lost her footing and fell forward into the slime. It began to change her slowly, pustules formed on her face and growths sprouted from her arms. She got up groggy.
“Shit, what was that? Don’t worry, I think I feel okay.” She vomited a lung. “Yep, much better now” She went back to cleaning up the slime.
Fhil bent down and picked up one of the flyers in his hoof.
It started with an invitation…
“Join the bloodiest Blood Bowl League in all the land: The Dragon Bowl League”
“Hey, Edge!” Fhil called out. “I’ve got an idea how we’re going to get those skulls”