Dear all,

Has anyone considered implementing the topic's eponymous dichotomy in a Warhammer fantasy setting? Feasible? Enriching?

I'll be restarting my table-top gaming group soon, and I'd like to flesh out a few background witch-hunter characters. As I've been reading through my collected WH40k lore, I noticed there were several ideas easily applicable to the fantasy setting. The divide between Puritans and Radicals is one that I would like to add, but am not entirely sure whether it's a good thing to do.

Pro:

* Makes witch-hunter guys more varied, with more types past the archetypal fire-brand guy.

Con:

* The Old World is not the Galaxy - it is much harder for a Radical to hide their fall from grace. Or?

* I imagine it'd be hard to convincingly implement some of the more blatant radical types. Which ones would work? Which ones would be a straight no?

Istvaanians, Recongregators and Xanthites I find hard to see as doable - unless really toned down (to the point of being indistinguishable from a "regular" default witch hunter who's just causing trouble and sowing fear).

Libricar sound tempting and appear quite easy to transport into Fantasy wholesale. Same goes for Amalthians.

Thorians would be interesting, if a little heretical.

Oblationists also sound interesting, albeit that would ultimately mean a rogue witch-hunter, no longer sanctioned by the Cult of Sigmar.

Thoughts?

I'm not really familiar enough with the Inquisitional factions from the 40K setting to say which would work in WFRP. But as some general advice I'd say by all means take some inspiration from the factionalism in 40K, but remember that you're playing in the Old World. Obviously you and your group will concentrate on what interests you most, but despite that fact that the 'typical' PC group will be fighting chaos to some degree, there are a lot of careers to choose from and most of them are not formally recognised as inquisitors / witch hunters.

My point is that there's a lot more to the WFRP setting than being officially sanctioned agents doing a job (fighting chaos) - even if it is off the record. I personally think the real essence of WFRP is characters, who are often not really heroes, and may not have very noble motivations, and who come from all sorts of unlikely backgrounds, end up at least helping to defeat or slow down chaos. The Gods have chosen them, and gifted them with fate points, because that's the way fate works.

Again, I'm not trying to tell you how to run your game, but I would be wary of getting too caught up in the different factions. For factions to work, each has to be big enough to include a bunch of different people (or they're not really factions, they're just personalities). The Warhammer world is a smaller place than the 40K galaxy and communication is much harder. And how many witch hunters are your group of PCs likely to run in to?

So what I would suggest, if you need to create several different witch hunters, with different agendas, then by all means take inspiration from the 40K factions. Just remember what your end goal is.

Finally, don't overlook all the factionalism that already exists in WFRP. Apart from the Enemy Within (Chaos - specifically cults) and the Enemy Without (Greenskins, Beastmen - kind of, Bretonia, etc) the other huge conflict you have in WFRP is one taken from real life and exagerated: class/social conflict. More dangerous than the chaos cults are the corrupt (if 'loyal') nobles, officials, towns-workers and peasants that create the conditions that allow Chaos to flourish. There's the constant classic battle between attempting to be enlightened and just and improving the lot of people - at the risk of letting criminals and chaos worshipers get away, and of taking decisive action against external and internal enemies, but sweeping up a lot of innocent people in the process, and turning your society into something horrible while you're doing it.

Let us know where your thoughts take you!

Warhammer's witch hunters are already quite varied. WFRP2's Realms of Sorcery mentions three "category" for them: mercenary witch hunters, devout hunters and seekers. They don't need to be necessarily aligned to Sigmar either. If I remember correctly, there were some witch hunters in Beastslayer, who follow Ulric. But if you want to put in something that you think fits the Old World, why not?

Bringing in some 40k flair and factions for a witchhunter-centric rpg is generally a good idea. My 2 cents: Dont let yourself restrict by the "old ways" WFRP was played all the recent decades. I could imagine that the interaction of several witchhunter cults and subcults with their different philosophy leads to really exciting game moments.So if Oblationists exists in your interpretation of the setting then go for it.