The Many Faces of Joseph Morranion

[Cicuit]

I feel really sad for Ryker

Sometimes the best stories write themselves...

[Cicuit]

-So, Mister Morranion, you made it to the play-off. You were finally back in the Old World. You reached the goal. How did it feel? Were you satisfied?

-Yes. But not really. I wanted more. I knew I did what I had to. I knew the team would be disbanded after the end of the season. I knew that slaves would be back to their mines, that ogres would be traded to new owners far away from home. I knew that for the clan, this play-off, this game was meaningless.

-But it wasn’t meaningless for you.

-It wasn’t. If only you could see my lads. Their curious little snouts were sniffing the fresh Bretonnian air, their ears would pick up any noize, they were smiling and even singing... Have you ever heard a skaven sing? It’s unusual, but very charming. Probably because it came from the heart. Right at this moment, I thought to myself: what if we win the trophy, maybe the owners, the clan, the Horned Rat itself would be pleased and let my people free? Do you believe in miracles? I wanted to believe. I grabbed a bunch of flyers, and found an ad for a wandering wizard. I paid my salary for the last month to the little gnome I saw for the first time in my life. And prayed for a miracle.

-Did the miracle happen?

-It did. We played the Realm Riders, a popular team that had the whole entourage of bards accompanying them. Their songs were pretty popular at the time, you must have heard them. “Knights rode forth on beaten field; in noble quest, their fate unsealed”.

-Oh, yes! I remember this one! I was a student at Nuln back then, we used to listen to those songs and drink with the college team all the time! The nights we spent with that muscular steam tank driver...Excuse me, mister Morranion, this song just brings so many memories...Please, continue.

-Our rookie ogre, Ken, was very nervous before the game and had terrible insomnia. At the critical moment, he fell asleep, and the knights broke through. We couldn’t regroup in time, I knew we needed something extraordinary to stop them. I screamed at the gnome wizard to cast his strongest spell. A little gnome shrieked like an eagle, and the skies gone dark. A giant boulder fell from above, crushing Sir Gillet’s bones. We had an opening. The ball carrier was within reach. Izglitch rushed towards the squire, and knocked him down. And thus, the great battle has begun. Blood, guts, death everywhere! Knights suffered heavy losses, but so did the skaven. We lost the ball, the knights were about to score. The fearless Lord Bigos was in several yards from hte touchzone, and only Damien was in a way of Lord Bigos and his holy grail. The whole stadium was looking at two warriors. The match could be decided by this duel. i don’t know what happened, but the nerves got better of Bigos. He charged at Damien, but the terrifying rat ogre stood tall. There was no goal. Referee called extra time, the game was not over yet. But something broke inside of the fearless knights. There were 5 athletes remaining on each side. Five famed noble knights, against two rat monsters, two slaves and a failed experiment. Rat ogres fought well, but the knights were pushing through. The fate of the match was on the brittle shoulders of two skaven slaves, too tiny and insignificant to even earn names in clan Moulder registry. Commentators would never even introduce them to the audience. So I yelled loud and clear: “Manuel, hold tight and move to the southeast. Ray, protect Manuel at all costs. You are strong, you can do it!” Nobody ever called the ratligs by their names, let alone call them strong. they believed in themselves. They would dodge every punch and kick. Lord Bigos took a desperate attempt to sweep the ball away. Manuel ducked, and the tall knight would fall under his own weight. But there was the last hurdle remaining: Sir Jean-Claude. The last defender of the Realm, he yelled: “You will not dodge away, you little rascal!” Sir Jean-Claude laughed ferociously. “I won’t dodge away,” said Manuel quietly. “Because I will pow you!” - Ray’s high -pitched voice proclaimed. Before Jean-Claude realized it, Ray lunged at him and pinned the nobleman down. The endzone was clear! Manuel rushed towards the goal, and scored. We won! We are through to the semis.

Psychologist smiled

-Mister Morranion, it is the first time I see you so full of energy. You came to me as a tired man full of guilt, but as soon as you started talking about Blood Bowl, you changed. You speak with confidence and excitement. Do you know why?

-Why?
-Because you know your craft better than anyone else. And you love it more than you love anything else in life. You say you are not collected enough, but your results show that you manage to navigate even in te most difficult circumstances. Not everyone would be able to bring a team full of scarred and distressed individuals who gave up on themselves to the play-offs of a major Blood Bowl tournament. I do not know anyone else who would go against the odds in such spectacular fashion. You are not a specialist in failure, Joseph Morranion. You are the special one.

[Cicuit]

-How did the next game go? Did you win?

-Semifinal game went very well for us. Too well. We played Albion Wanderers, the team with a prominent star: Aaliyah Nura, the terrifying White Knight. A true freak of nature, strong and heavy, nobody in the whole league could stop him. I prepared for the worst, paid the gnome wizard again, maybe the little old man will turn Aaliyah into a frog or something. But apparently, my players were good enough to deal with the white knight themselves. A couple of false swipes from Ken, and Damien delivers a crucial blow. The White Knight has fallen. The Albion’s will has shattered, while we were on the roll. The little rats dodged every tackle, the big rats hit precisely, not letting the knights back into the game. The wizard casted another phenomenal fireball, we were winning against a team that was unbeatable.

-Yet, you remained concerned. Why is that, mister Morranion?

-You see, my whole career I was an underdog. First with that local Estalian team, then with clan Moulder. Nobody expected us to perform well, and it was relieving. But during this game, I realized I am no longer an underdog. This squad, the team that we’ve built, it was a title-winning team. Whoever we are facing in the final, people expect us to win. People expect us to play great Blood Bowl, but what if we can’t deliver? After all, it was only my second season as a head coach, I was about to play on the biggest arena I’ve ever been to, broadcasted over the whole world. I’m just a typical normal guy, I’m not meant to be there! I obviously kept it cool during the press conferences and in front of my players, but in reality, my head was about to explode! How long can I hold to this mask, Dr. Malbec, how long can I fool the world?

[Cicuit]

-I assume you were very nervous before the game. Am I right, mister Morranion?

-Oh, you can’t imagine. I was calculating every possible outcome, I was contemplating every choice I made as a head coach so far. What if I was wrong completely ignoring the passing exercises for my rat ogres? Surely, I could give them some basic lessons, you never know. What if I should have taught them more defensive skills? They rely on their strength so heavily, they probably don’t even think that they can be punched back. Clan Moulder take pride in their innovations, on and off the field, but what if human engineering is superior? The greatest minds from all across the Empire are gathered in Nuln, their statistician crew alone is bigger than my home village!

-But when the game started, the nerves must have settled? You mentioned, that you were the favorites to win. You saw your players perform well, and you knew you were prepared just well enough to win the final. Right?

-I wish. My worst fears proved right. When Nuln bombardiers propelled their bombs into a crowd of skaven players, my guys had zero ideas of what to do! The little ones couldn’t reach the cloud-bursting trajectory of the bombs, and the ogres were just helplessly flailing their hands in the air. And in the rare occasions when they managed to catch the bomb, they simply couldn’t figure out to toss it as far as possible. If only I had given them that extra passing lesson, just one! We were in absolute shambles! And boy, this referee! I have never seen a ref so biased in my whole career! What do you mean: “Give me an extra minute, I am not sure if this mechanism complies with the rules”? Yeah, a gargantuan metal monstrosity that weighs a ton and has a cannon attached is a wheelchair, of course. Nuln coach and the referee have spent the whole remainder of the half arguing if a FREAKING STEAM TANK is a device required for the partially disabled player to play and if sending him off would be a discriminatory act. Referee only whistled the half time when the fans started booing. Nuln students were so engulfed in this discussion, they forgot to score in time. Serves you right, you cheating bastards!

-Calm down, mister Morranion. I see, that was a very stressful game. But if I understand correctly, the score is still 0-0. You win your attack, you win the game. All you had to do is to make the plan and explain it to your team. I am certain that 10 minutes of break are more than enough for the Special One.

-Except I didn’t have 10 minutes! This goddamn referee decided that since he spent so much time talking and reviewing the rules, the players already had enough break, so he can call the second half in 2 minutes. I got 11 players in the dugout, and this snot-eating goblin says I got two minutes. Great. Just wonderful. Our medics simply can’t wake up so many players in time.

-What did you do then? Surely you had an ace in your sleeve, figuratively speaking.

-I did. His name was Angelo, the gnome wandering wizard. I asked him, what other magical tricks he knows. He answered that besides casting fireballs and levitating frogs, he couldn’t do much else. Only some simple culinary magic, like adding spices or cleaning utensils. That’s when it struck me. Black pepper is a spice. Skaven are extremely sensitive to smells. I ordered Angelo to spray some pepper in the air. I heard a sneeze. Many sneezes. My players are awake! Referee blew the whistle, and the second half has begun. Unfortunately, my plan had a significant drawback. Sure, the players are awake and back on the field. Problem is, they are still sneezing! We had a perfect opportunity to take down the tank, Ken and Damien had to clear out the path, and Izglitch was ready to deliver a devastating punch. But at the crucial moment, Damien sneezed, missed the target and flopped on his tail. As a result, the plan has foiled and Nuln Engineers were on the counterattack. They pinned down Manuel, the ball-carrier, and he dropped the ball on the ground. Only Ray was left to contest the ball; all the Engineers had to do was to pick up the ball.

-Did they?

-They did not. How, is a mystery to me. But hey, they call him Mysterious Ray for a reason! I have no clue what kind of magic Ray pulled off, but he denied the pickup and grabbed the ball himself. And then he did what rats do best: he ran. He ran away, and gave the ball to the throtling that was standing in the opposition half, forgotten and not covered by anyone. The throtling got the ball and scored. Do you even know who throtlings are? One of billions of failed experiments carried out by Throt the Unclean, creatures so ungodly the only sort of identity they are given are entries in Troth’s lab journal. This one was just an “Experiment #942-something, goal not met.” Well, it seems like they met one goal after all. The championship-winning goal. The goal that crowned the “5th Clan Moulder Blood Bowl Team”, often labeled as a “Sewerside Squad”, the champions. We did it. Ken, Izglitch, Damien, Ryker, Manuel, Ray, #942-something and the rest, we did it. We won.