Realms of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness – One of the Greatest Warhammer Books Ever

In the hallowed history of Warhammer and Citadel Miniatures there are two tomes that stand out head and shoulders above the rest. It is a two-part series of books with the first being

Suffice it to say with these two Games Workshop pulled off a major triumph. From the graphic design to the art to the rules the entire book is nothing short of astounding. The overall cohesive feel of the products is carried between the two as well as the artwork. The color photos within were a source of endless inspiration to me back in the late 80s/early 90s and something I still reference today. Tied into this the 3rd edition rule book (naturally) and the rules for Siege (covered here) form everything that is needed for all aspects of fantasy tabletop gaming, oh yeah along with Warhammer Armies.

Realms of Chaos- Slaves to Darkness covers two of the Chaos Powers of the Warhammer World: Khorne the Blood God, God of Battle, Murder and Death ("Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!") and Slaanesh the God of Lust, Pleasure and Perversion. But more than that, it covers not only the rules for 3rd Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle, but that of Warhammer 40k as well! And if that weren't enough the rule system also allowed it to also work seamlessly with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

Before I go any further I think its also important to note that any material that included d1000 tables and can pull it off successfully is bound to be good. And to pull off multiple tables so well? Masterstroke!

Slaves to Darkness starts with the idea of a warband and most importantly the role of a chaos warrior on his road to his ultimate goal: that of becoming a daemon prince in the service of his patron power. Random rolls determine the character's starting race and characteristics and there can be quite a bit of drift in power here. From there gifts and mutations are determined and not all are entirely beneficial for such is the fickle nature of chaos.

As I alluded to before the most interesting part is the tons of mutations that allow for a nearly infinite amount of variety. So much so that if the tables are adhered to strictly there is little likelihood that any two mutants will be the same.

One of the things that captured my imagination back in the day in regards to this was the color pages of really cool miniatures. I can remember pouring over them particularly the sample warbands over and over again. The other thing that is great about the book aside from the graphic design (which is top notch) are the color shots of the chaos hordes spilling out of the chaos wastes.

In the next post I'll be covering the companion volume: Realms of Chaos - The Lost and the Damned.

How about you? Do you have a copy of Slaves to Darkness? Lost and The Damned? Both???

Death on the Reik: Review and Memories of One of the Best WFRP Modules

The long and winding River Reik has many places to adventure, but none so fearsome as Castle Wittgenstein. Just look at the Ian Miller cover — it is all kinds of awesome. Death on the Reik is a great module and I was fortunate enough to play it just as it was reaching America. We started playing the seminal, masterful series Enemy Within right after (or thereabouts) after THE CAMPAIGN. I do recall us playing a proto-Warhammer campaign where I was playing a bounty hunter with a Strength (S) score of 2! Not much came of that.

As I noted here my second character in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay was a rat catcher who got killed by a bird-winged mutant. Alas poor Wilhelm! I can still remember his corpse being draped across some branches, ahhh good RPG times! Thinking back on it I'm pretty sure when we started the Enemy Within campaign, the ratcatcher was not my original character. I started with the elf from Shadows over Bogehaufen, the minstrel Malmir Giluviel. Whether he died or not I can't recall, but by the time we reached Bogenhaufen I was playing my rat catcher. He is the character I think of when I look back at this module, but he was one of many I played. Funny aside, when we reached the castle many of the original characters had perished, not just mine.

The PCs "ticket to ride."

Since we did participate in Shadows over Bogenhaufen and Dave's character was a Boatman we quickly saw the value of the boat early in the module. Aside from the fatality of my rat catcher we secured the boat and made our way. We didn't really need much prodding as we were quickly discovering that traveling by water was much safer than by road, recent fatalities notwithstanding. Since we were very, very poor we quickly grasped the principles of trading and did a bit to get us better weapons and armor. I think at this point I was playing (temporarily) Johann "Rowlocks" Dassbit a boatman from Shadows over Bogenhaufen (he may have been Pete's character who was showing up less and less) whom we had along as an NPC. Unlike the previous AD&D games my luck was none-too-good in WFRP. On the death of my rat catcher I played a bunch of the NPCs until I got assigned an outlaw (see below). Not sure why I wasn't allowed to roll a new character so I bounced from NPC to NPC.

We made it through all of the early encounters without too much trouble: the Cult of the Purple Hand (I don't recall who looked like Kastor Lieberung), Weissbruck, the signal tower, Kemperbad and the Barren Hills. The signal tower was great fun and it felt very spooky and old as we poked around it. The fight with the skeletons and the skaven in the Barren Hills went too well for us: it made us overconfident going into Castle Wittgenstein proper.

The GM did a great job utilizing the numerous NPCs in the series especially when character deaths happened which was often. As noted above my character was dead for several weeks of real time and I wanted a more combat oriented character. We were discovering that some character classes were better than others in WFRP. So the GM gave me Hild Eysenck, an Outlaw (renamed and gender flipped to male) version of Hilda Eysenck to run from the module. It was a smart move as we needed more warrior types. He was a bit of a wildcard, but helped us get through the brutal exploration of Castle Wittgenstein. Even the lower dungeons were a grind from my recollection and looking over the module. Again, we were not that high in terms of powered up characters and very few of us were actual warrior classes which are a must in WFRP.

The town of Wittgendorf was fun, well at least looking back on it. Fortunately I wasn't the one that looked at the foul spider baby to gain Insanity Points. I think we did start a fight at the Pale Lady encounter and slew some of the guards as Lady Margritte rode off. Additionally, we did find the warp blade in the ruined Temple of Sigmar. I don't recall who carried it, but it did help immensely in the fight(s) in the castle later on. We rummaged around the town only briefly after fighting the guards and did not encounter Jean Rouaeaux or his brew house and horror filled basement.

Playing the part of my new character I led the party to Sigrid the outlaw chief. In short order we agreed to explore the secret way in (Under the castle/ areas #1-11). We did assault the guards at area 8 and secure our boat again. Why we didn't pilot it out and leave I'll never know ;) as it were we took the stairs that ended up in the ruins of the Outer Bailey among the mutated beggars. Since we were fairly stealthy and had not fought any guards other than the ones by the river gate the alarm had not been raised. Carefully picking our way we made it all the way to inner areas where we encountered the chaos warrior Ulfhednar the Destroyer (Jeff also used the mini for his BBEG in THE CAMPAIGN) who put a hurting on us. (he was not in his guest room so we encountered him much closer to the entrance). My memory is hazy, but after fighting him we hightailed it back to the outlaw camp. Somehow we encouraged them enough to assault the castle with us heading back through the secret entrance and creating diversions.

I don't recall us adventuring much after this. I'm not entirely sure we made it to the end to confront Lady Margritte and her monster. Reading through the module many years later as a GM I felt let down by the Frankenstein rip-off of the ending. If I ran it again I'd change the ending to something less clichéd. As it was the only time I GMed it the party never got close to area 61-62.

We did not play much more of The Enemy Within proper as around this time we started to play more Warhammer Fantasy Battle as it took less time, plus we were all starting to drive and serious girlfriends beckoned. I don't recall us playing much of Power Behind the Throne. I know for a fact we did not play Something Rotten in Kislev or the lukewarm at best Empire in Flames (I have it but don't think I'd ever use it as is*). In the end it was fun and I have fond memories of Death on the Reik. Years later I ran my current gaming group through it and had fun but they were much, much more wary than my original group.

Some random thoughts:

• Much like Q1- Queen of the Demonweb Pits at the end of the GDQ series for AD&D, Teh Enemy Within feels stilted by the end, as in not part of the overall flow of the modules. Q1 needed a much better ending and in my opinion was done better and more in character here. So fans banded together and produced Empire at War (I've not read through the whole thing yet so I can't vouch for its quality). But by all accounts it s better ending to the campaign arc than Empire in Flames.
• Death on the Reik is regarded as one of the best RPG modules of any system and I'm not going to disagree. It was fantastic to adventure in and I loved every minute of it, PC death and all, well aside from the in my opinion tepid ending.
• Another thing that I always remember is the spooky weirdness of Castle Von Wittgenstein. The maps were uber-cool and the atmosphere dark and grim with mutants living in the courtyard! The graphic/design cartography was always top notch in WFRP products but Death on the Reik was perhaps at the pinnacle.
• When I've GMed Warhammer the players were curiously reluctant to explore more of the castle or were much more cautious...I wonder why that is????
• The River Life of the Empire section is fantastic. It really is full of very useful information for a campaign set in the Empire. Couple this with pages 4-38 of Shadows over Bogenhaufen and you have more than enough material for an Empire-based campaign.

In closing I give Death on the Reik a 9 out of 10, it's just that good. It's also certainly the best out of the Power Behind the Throne modules with the last two, Something Rotten in Kislev and the lukewarm Empire in Flames were mediocre at best... If you are lucky enough to play it you won't be disappointed.

1st Edition Warhammer Fantasy Role Play - A Small, But Vicious Dog

 

Trollslayers are always cool.

A few years back Fantasy Flight Games released the 3rd edition of Warhammer Fantasy Role-play. At first, I thought about purchasing the latest edition. The problem was, that much like when Wizards of the Coast went to 3rd edition with Dungeons and Dragons the move to 3rd edition WFRP resulted in a vastly different game, and hence no sale for me. 1st and 2nd edition Dungeons and Dragons are pretty much the same game and interchangeable, same for 1st and 2nd edition WFRP. 3rd edition in either case? Not so much.

In thinking about that new version, my mind hearkened back to one of my best friends and the rousing games of Warhammer Fantasy Role-play that we played in his basement. We adventured through the Power Behind the Throne series almost to the very end and had a blast in doing so (I played a rat catcher with a whose name I forget, but I do quite clearly remember his small, but vicious dog(s): Rat Hammer and Rat Hammer II, after the first one bit the dust fighting some Skaven. My rat catcher had uncovered the Skaven tunneling under Bogenhaufen quite by accident while cleaning the cellar of a noble family all on his own. My rat catcher and the dog killed two Skaven and I scored a magical dagger that had a flame attack in the bargain, also made for some interesting trophies to his ratting pole. No, don't ask me how I remember this stuff 20+ years later...

The Enemy Within series for those not in the know, is basically the Games Workshop equivalent for the classic G1-3, D1-3, Q1 series for 1st Edition AD&D in terms of the "defining adventure of the system". It is widely hailed as one the greatest module series of all time in the pen and paper RPG arena and I agree up until Power Behind the Throne. With the next module Something Rotten in Kislev it started to come off the rails and especially Empire in Flames were let downs. Empire in Flames was pretty much non-canonical and even for the inconsistent Games Workshop its fluff and background really didn't mesh. Anyways instead of Empire in Flames, which is pricey despite its meh content there is the fan made Empire at War which replaces Empire in Flames.

Come to think of it I should probably write a review of all of the modules.

As a system I think Warhammer Fantasy Role-play was very good. Character creation was fast and didn't require a major amount of time which was a good thing considering the short shelf-life of characters in the game. The character races were certainly not balanced with elves and dwarfs being particularly unbalanced. The crux of WFRP is that a character engages in a career, and then improves his character with experience points that he gains through (and surviving adventures). From there each basic career has a career exit.

Warhammer Fantasy Role-play starts with all characters in the basic career paths ranging from Agitator to Woodsman with a focus on variety. There are even regular classes like Laborer and apprentices that really reinforce the idea of regular people who set out on adventuring, can't get much grittier than that. Funny because in many corners of the web gritty play is all the rage, Warhammer is far more gritty and less high adventure than any of its contemporaries, yes, including 1st AD&D.

Basic careers run the gamut from some very weak, to some very powerful. The fighting classes are probably the way to go with a few other specialized careers with an eye towards spell casting in the advanced career section. Particularly the pit fighter, protagonist, squire, soldier and mercenary amongst others that are well suited for survival. In fact we remarked that we should have just run a game with all warriors and see what the results would be, but we never did. Of course we came to this observation after a number of our characters met untimely demises and the school copier was ahem "getting a workout".

One of my favorite parts of WFRP was combat! Unlike AD&D (its main competitor at the time) the combat system made logical sense: armor doesn't make a character harder to hit, it absorbs damage. That is not a knock on AD&D as it was the grand daddy of them all, it just didn't make sense. In combat major wounds could happen with messy and amusingly graphic deaths via the critical hit charts. Characters even after several advanced careers were not unstoppable killing machines except for the "naked dwarf syndrome".

Armor comes in three flavors: leather, chain and plate and reduces corresponding damage the better the armor. Not all weapons are created equal and require skills to wield them effectively.

Magic was the wild card in the whole thing and the fabled Realms of Sorcery that was supposed take the place of the "stop gap magic system" in the Core Rulebook. Players and GMs had to make do with what was presented for somewhere around seventeen years, Realms of Sorcery comes out, and then the game moves to 2nd edition! In terms of magic items the game was fairly low powered certainly compared to its main rival D&D. The supplement Apochrapha Now expanded the list. Players of D&D might be disappointed in the magic system which is not as high level as D&D nor as expansive of a list for magical items. But for a grittier or low adventure system you can't get one much better.

Monsters are well thought out and most of the major ones that one would imagine to be there are in the setting. One thing I always wondered was did GW downplay dragons in the Warhammer pantheon of monsters on purpose given the prominent nature of them in D&D, at least in spirit if not in the actual game?

Perhaps the thing that kept bringing players back was the story of the Old World, the setting. The Old World is a near approximation of Europe with the twist of the Old Slann changing the world to suit their creations. One of GWs greatest strengths has been their IP, and fluff, but as mentioned previously not something they always keep straight.

One of the great side benefits of 1st edition Warhammer Fantasy Role-play was the fact that one could use 3rd edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle, The Lost and the Damned and Slaves to Darkness all together. The Lost and the Damned and Slaves to Darkness were great resources and certainly great values for the price (they are outrageously priced on eBay now). While 3rd edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle was unwieldy it still is my favorite edition of the game. GW (in an instance of doing something right) actually gave the purchaser something for his value.

Lastly, to wrap it up the art across the line was consistently great: grim, dark and moody and violent. The art really captured the time in the industry and for the edition quite well. There is a mix of color and black and white throughout and while some of them are reprints that appeared in their line previous they are still cool to look at. Plus anytime John Blanche does art for a game system it's going to be cool.

Be sure to look at my o review Death on the Reik first as it is probably my all time favorite Warhammer Fantasy Role-play module, (rather than start at the beginning of the Power Behind the Throne series: Shadows over Bogenhaufen) and ranks in my Top 3 of any modules, regardless of system.

How about you, thoughts on 1st Edition Warhammer Fantasy Role play?