I’ve preordered my core set and want to have something to immerse myself in while I pass the time. I would like a novel that has 2 things:
1. A lot of history and background information on the warhammer setting.
2. Can be adapted as an adventure to start off my WFR campaign.

I would recommend 'Troll Slayer'. It's an anthology of short stories based around Felix and Gotrek. I've created several games around these stories. I've also created two campaigns. One based on the story "Dark Beneath the World", which ran for 2 years, and one from "Wolf Riders" which is centered in the Borderlands and it ran for nearly 3 years.

In fact, any of the early anthologies are packed with inspirational source material that embodies the spirit of (because they helped shape) the Warhammer world.

Some of the best ones are:

• Ignorant Armies
• Wolf Riders
• Red Thirst

Avoid most of the newer histories books as there abit...well boring is probably the best word plus they dont exactly fit the dark fantasy niche very well.

Cant go wrong with the Trollslayer series though.

Beasts in Velvet by Jack Yeovil.

It's a thriller set in Altdorf...

You can't go wrong by going back to the source material; the Conan and Solomon Kane anthologies by Robert E. Howard are an *incredible* source of adventure ideas - I just ran a scenario based off of the Conan story; The Pool of the Black One. It involves an ancient, alien ruin and a crew of pirates; easily portable to the Warhammer world (as it's an original inspiration - replace "alien" with "Old Slann" and there you go). As an added bonus, Howard's writing tends to be very descriptive and evocative; great stuff to get you prepared to run a characterful game.

As for Warhammer books, I find that Dan Abnett, C.L. Werner, Bill King, Sandy Mitchell, Jack Yeovil, and a smattering of others tend to hit the pulpy inspirations for the world pretty spot on. Not fine literature by any means, but often engaging and entertaining - in the same way as a better tentpole summer flick.

As my Howard-inspired one-off has developed into a full campaign (where the party is nearly stranded in a small caravel off the coast of the Southlands), I'm re-reading Dan Abnett's Fell Cargo , which draws heavily off of nautical history of the 16th and 17th centuries with good, solid dose of pulpy zombies and evil artefacts.

R. E. Howard's short stories are brilliant, and are really good sources for adventure ideas. Solomon Kane fits to the Warhammer world very well, since WH's witch hunters are clearly based on Solomon Kane - except that Kane was a hero, not a maniac. Conan stories are full of alien horrors and monstrosities, with a little tinkering they can fit into Warhammer.

From Warhammer authors I only met Bill King and Nathan Long - their Slayer books are very good, exciting and entertaining pieces. If you want to write short adventures based on them, Troll Slayer would be the best source.

Can somebody maybe post a link to AMAZON (not from the US) regarding the recomended reading material ?

Thanks.

The Time of Legend series for those who want a view of history Very good

Would second Beasts In Velvet. Drachenfels is also a **** good read, and is good for inspiration on backstabbing, deceiving bad guys, but I'm not sure would work all that well as an adventure (as if anyone works out what's going on too early it kinda ruins the rest of the story, and we all know what PCs are like)

Try the comic books.

Jay H

HP Lovecraft Shadows over Innsmouth. I can see that as a warhammer adventure.

While really too high-powered for starting characters, the Matthias Thuleman Omnibus is a great source of both setting feel, background, and adventure ideas. It's really trivial to scale it down to a starting-adventurer level, and it's a smashing read.

Some great suggestions here guys - thanks!!

AJC

Here's something I wrote up some time ago that may be of help (geared as an introduction for Warhammer Online players):

http://warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=70649

A bit dated at this point; perhaps this forum could use an updated one...

I went to Border's today and bought Gortrek & Felix First Omnibus which starts with Trollslayer. 55 pages in and so far so good. That Slaanesh cult was very creepy. Impossible not to love a suicidal dwarf.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

Anyone know what happened to Boom! Studios and the graphic novels they were producing? Best I could find was a cryptic reference on a wiki page indicating the "apparanently" they lost the license earlier this year as everything was removed from their online store.

Thanks in advance,

AJC

NezziR said:

You know what Your talking about, those are great. I could only add some more like:

• Drachenfels
• Skaven Slayer (the 2nd book about Gotrek & Felix, my favoured)
• Laught of The Dark Gods (I don't remember that title so I could switch some words, it was from the 1st antology)

I would say read some old books those were one of the best. I would also recommend Malus Darkblade chronicle.

AJCarrington said:

That's too bad; I have a number of those, and they're fairly enjoyable reads. Not on par with the better Black Library novels, unfortunately, but comics tend to be a bit more forgiving.

ffgfan said:

Oooo - excellent additions, especially the Drachenfels. The Genevieve one might be a good addition too. I completely forgot about that one. Hey, anyone remember the Konrad series? It was about a guys slow de-evolution (over the course of the 3 novels) into chaos if I remember correctly. I remember they printed two of the novels in the series, but didn't finish it up for decades.

I have the whole series of original paperbacks that comprised the initial offerings of novel fiction from GW. The set is from GW England and is printed in large format (the books stand higher and wider than my other paperbacks on the shelf). There's like 12 or 15 of them. I'm pretty liberal about lending out paperbacks to friends, but I don't let anyone touch that set. They are old and a bit brittle after all these years.