Hi, guys

I'm trying to get some new people into WFRP and I want to give them some reading homework to do before the game to get them in the mood for Warhammer roleplaying. Do you know if there is a convenient setting description anywhere (slightly more flavourful than the helpful but academic Wikipedia article)? I'd like my players to know what the world is about before I teach them the rules of the game.

Would appreciate any links that I can share with my players. Ideally I'm looking for a description of the Old World, the Empire, the dangers lurking within and what adventurers can expect as they set out to try their luck.

Thanks a ton!

First thing, that comes to mind is the short story "A Ratcacher's Tale"

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=675

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=693

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=716

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=727

(4 Parts)

Oh, and the first few episodes of "Small But Vicious Podcast" are great, if you want to get to know the world via audio.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=727

This is info I gave my players in posts on our boards:

8 Things About the Warhammer World

The great Twin-Tailed Comet, a portent tied to both Sigmar and the Empire, has been seen in the sky. To some, it is a sign of hope. To others, the harbinger of doom. Tensions rise, a ruthless winter’s effects and poor harvests are felt across the Empire – villages and farms find it harder than ever to scrape by, and supplies for the Empire’s constant war efforts dwindle ever lower.

To many citizens, this means The End Times are at hand. Fear is rife. Another Great War is coming. Beastmen are growing restless, attacking villages with greater frequency and ferocity. Chaos cults are rising up, summoning daemons, fomenting rebellion, and instigating insurrection throughout the Empire’s cities. Bands of Chaos marauders scout further and further south than usual – some even penetrating as far as the Reikland to test the Empire’s defences.

In response to these ominous portents, and fearing the realm’s fate is at stake, Emperor Karl Franz works tirelessly to protect the Empire. He sends envoys to the Phoenix King in Ulthuan, asking the high elves for aid in the coming conflict. Calling on ancient oaths and alliances, Karl Franz beseeches the High King of the dwarfs to rally together with Empire.

Deep in Athel Loren’s ancient forests, Ariel, the Queen in the Woods, senses impending doom. She sends parties of wood elves into the Reikland to protect the ancient cairns secreted deep in the Reikwald Forest, and aid against the forces of Chaos.

In the midst of this bleak, brewing turmoil, the Old World needs beacons of hope. Fate has called for heroes - humans of the Reikland, wood elves from Athel Loren, high elves from distant Ulthuan, and dwarfs of Karak Azgaraz.

Heroic champions are needed. Alas, you will have to do.

1. It’s a grim, muddy, smelly and likely doomed world of mostly illiterate characters accruing nasty critical wounds and mental twitches and finding what satisfaction they can until permanent death finds them ~ so party like it’s 1999 (well 2521 actually). Alas, it's harder to die than you might think and you'll live with your pains more often than die of them.

2. Society is pre-renaissance/post-medieval, with a growing merchant class, arrogant nobility and backward peasants all living in fear of the witch-hunter’s “burn them all and let Sigmar sort it out” philosophy.

3. Magic is linked to Chaos, the taint that corrupts and mutates flesh and mind. Chaos is ultimately Cthulhoid in its uncaring destruction of reality but its servants are manifestations of humanity’s darkest desires and fears. Chaos is like the “zombie virus” in a horror movie - Johanna is sweet and nice and it’s not her fault she was exposed to warpstone, and right now she’s still sweet and nice but some hour, day or year ... Mercy is risky – thus the witch-hunter’s approach and the tightly regulated nature of legal magic.

4. If there is a modern cinema model for a warhammer hero who has been successful it would be Captain Jack Sparrow - your most prized possession is a haunted boat, you’re more than a little addled, and there’s more than one something awful on your trail, and for all that you manage to somehow save the day for others, you’re broke and some other guy gets the girl.

5. Foes are bandits and corrupt burghers, greenskins (goblins, orks), beastmen (a farmer's LSD nightmare), chaos cultists and more fearsome chaos warriors (corrupted mortals serving chaos), undead, trolls, giants, daemons – but pay no need to scurrilous rumours of technologically advanced rat-people underneath the Empire’s cities, that’s a drunk-ratcatcher’s tale. Even less believable are tales of evil elves that look just like the regular ones, that’s some elf’s version of “my evil twin must have done it” (besides the regular ones are scary enough).

6. Thank the dwarfs (not dwarves) for blackpowder weapons - and blame them when the unreliable (weapon quality) things blow up in your face - though really that’s the metaphor for anything more effective than just something well made such as magic - sooner or later there’s a price in more than just the coin for using anything Sigmar didn't.

7. There is no “alignment”. Judgment is in the next life (and no one sends back tips), if you can manage to get your soul there without a chaos demon carrying it off beforehand. That said, the courts secular and clerical will judge you readily for misdeeds you’ve never done and you’ve no doubt you will be judged in the next world for your ma'am told you so.

8. The setting uses dark, mature humour. From puns to elements such as Orks speaking in low-class English slang.

You can use Folklore to see what your ma'am, barracks-buddy or other common source may have passed on to you about different monsters, animals and aother things. If acquired, you can use Education to see what scholars say about the same subjects. Neither tells you the truth, both just tell you what different sources think is true.

Peasants and Scholars both dismiss the other as worth listening to of course.

Things such as momma or barracks buddies, fellow ratcatchers and such would have said to you (not the information below is necessarily true but it's all things lots of people think to be true):

• “Madness and mutation are corruptions - only them 'as have done wicked things or welcomed the Ruinous Powers are so afflicted, though sometimes their children are cursed by whot their folks as done afore they were born. Now that's not the same as Big Neddy of course, he's just simple-minded because his ma was scared by a three-legged dog.

• "I did hear a Shallyan say once as how madness was an illness to be cured but how do you cure someone whose like as not to slit your throat while you try?" [mechanically "insanity" is the mental ticks reflected as cards drawn for stress etc, madness is what happens when you have more of those than your Willpower and is "as good as dead" really]

• “Halflings and Dwarfs are magic-proof you know. Well there ’as to be an upside ter lookin’ like that.” [said by someone who has never met one of either]

• “Them witch hunters were looking for warpstone, and any as handled it, for they like as not were tainted by it. You don't meddle with such things, you hear - you see a black rock casting shadows against the light, you run! Wizards meddle with such things and see what good it does them, all ending up mad or burned at the stake like as not.”

• “You will go cros-eyed if you look at Morsslieb (the smaller greenish moon that appears irregularly).”

• “Magic meddles with Chaos and gives you warts. Warts is the sign of mutation - starts small it does but before you know it there's tentacles and claws and whatnot - that's why witches always have big warts."

• “During the Great War Against Chaos, Magnus the Pious allowed the Colleges of Magic to be formed—fightin’ fire with fire.”

• "Witchhunters protect us from cultists and mutants but you stay clear of them for they can be a might over-zealous at times - they did burn the entire village just south of us."

• "The woods are filled with beastmen and goblins and elves so best stay out of them."

Birth of a Hero

Every child in the Empire, and every dwarf, knows the tale of Sigmar's encounter with King Kurgan Ironbeard of Karaz-a-Karak.

En route to the new dwarf settlements in the Grey Mountains, the King's retinue was attacked by greenskins, most slaughtered but the King and a handful taken captive to suffer for their captor's pleasure and perhaps to be used as bait.

Sigmar of the Unberogen tribe was out with a hunting party and saw the fires of the greenskin camp. Creeping up on the greenskins, Sigmar and his companions saw the dwarfs being tormented. There was no alliance between dwarfs and men then, only trade. There were many greenskins, not just snotlings and goblins but fierce orcs in the camp. But Sigmar was impressed by the courage the dwarfs showed and vowed he would neither turn and leave them to their fate nor watch them suffer, thus there was only one thing he could do.

He lead his hunting band in an assault, despite being severely outnumbered they freed the captives and together killed the orc warleader and scattered the rest.

In gratitude, the dwarf king gave Sigmar a runic weapon of great power, Ghal Maraz, skull splitter, "the warhammer" of Warhammer and the symbol of Sigmar when became a god.

That would be long in the future, for on the night he lead this attack and freed a dwarf king, he was a youth of 15.

This is the iconic tale of Sigmar's first great deed, it is a short story in "Tales of Old World" book.

The gods In everyday sayIngs

“Taal’s teeth!” — A curse for sharp and uncomfortable situations.
“Morr's breath down his/my neck.”—He/I thought he/I was going to die.
“Grinning like old Morr himself.”—To have a skull-like or macabre grin.
“He’s dancing with Morr now.”—He’s dead.
“Like the Wolves of Ulric were after him!”—He ran very quickly indeed.
“As sure as Sigmar’s Sausage.”—An obscure expression of uncertain origin and meaning.
“He’ll pay tuppence and a sword.”—His actions will bring about his death. Two coins and a sword will get you buried in a Garden of Morr.
“He’ll sup with Ranald.”—He’ll take his chances.
“Drink deep, or not at all, of the Myrmidian Spring.”—The Myrmidian Spring is a source of steadfastness and courage that enables folk to carry out impossible orders.

Other sayings:

"Two cultists short of a conspiracy" - mentally unstable (no god mentioned but too good not to include)

"Go out once too often with the daughter and you'll meet her father" (those who are often wounded and need Shallya's care shall soon be under Morr's).

Manann will be feasting soon. (a storm is coming, usually said at sea)

“You” PUNCH “do not” KICK “steal from” STAMP “the temples of Shallya.” — A Talabheim thief, explaining Professional Ethics to a junior colleague

“A good anvil fears no hammer” —Stick to the teachings of Sigmar, and you will be safe

“Kissed by Rhya.” head over heels in love

Adapted to 3e, The Career Song (with apologies to the orignal author in Warpstone many years ago)

I started a Commoner attending the local church,
But I wanted Observation so I could better search,
I stumbled on the poor box, labelled “war relief”
So I took the cash, spent XP, was now a Thief.

I joined a Gang of Thugs, working on the sly,
But I started to feel guilty about the other guy,
So now I am an Agitator, ranting against riches
When I'm not rolling toffs penniless into ditches.

When the lord of the city by posted writ my death decreed,
As I ran, I thought after all this time I should learn to read,
So I became a Student with a change of name,
Still I ended up fighting cults and mutants all the same.

I’m a character in Warhammer, reprobate and rake,
I like to raise my stats up and I don’t care what it takes.
I’m a character in Warhammer, take a look at me,
If it’s got a skill I want to learn, then that’s the job for me.

As a Pit Fighter I learned Resilience, a very useful skill,
Raised up my wounds so I was that much harder to kill,
Resigned to a life of violence, I took Specialist (Strength),
To get a bit of Fortune so my life might have some length.

In this career I found myself oft smacked upon the head,
If it wasn’t for my Fortune Points, I’ld probably be dead.
For safety I donned some chainmail I had managed to acquire,
Then convinced a captain as Mercenary me to hire.

I’m a character in Warhammer, my fortunes rise and fall,
There’s a few trades that I’ve mastered, but I’m jack of almost all.
I’m a character in Warhammer, my stats will someday get maxed,
My weapon skill is specialized and I’ve an extra die on all attacks.

Birth of a Hero

Every child in the Empire, and every dwarf, knows the tale of Sigmar's encounter with King Kurgan Ironbeard of Karaz-a-Karak.

En route to the new dwarf settlements in the Grey Mountains, King Ironbeard's retinue was attacked by greenskins, most slaughtered but the King and a handful taken captive to suffer for their captor's pleasure and perhaps to be used as bait.

Sigmar of the Unberogen tribe was out with a hunting party and saw the fires of the greenskin camp. Creeping up on the greenskins, Sigmar and his companions saw the dwarfs being tormented. There was no alliance between dwarfs and men then, only trade. There were many greenskins, not just snotlings and goblins but fierce orcs in the camp. But Sigmar was impressed by the courage the dwarfs showed in the face of their tormentors and vowed he would neither turn and leave them to their fate nor watch them suffer, thus there was only one thing he could do.

He lead his hunting band in an assault, despite being severely outnumbered they freed the captives and together killed the orc warleader and scattered the rest.

In gratitude, the dwarf king gave Sigmar a runic weapon of great power, Ghal Maraz, skull splitter, "the warhammer" of Warhammer and the symbol of Sigmar when became a god.

That would be long in the future, for on the night he lead this attack and freed a dwarf king, he was a youth of 15.

This is the iconic tale of Sigmar's first great deed, it is a short story in "Tales of Old World" book of short stories.

Honestly, I can't get players to update their character sheets much less read fluff outside the game.

You're best just verbally going over the list that the above poster made and talk about how things are.

jh

Another thought sparked by the thread about point of careers.

Have them read aloud to each other the setting info on back of career cards they chose. Three or four of those will get people the feel of setting and how their pc fits.

Ignorance is bliss. Maybe this is true in your case as well. How about just give them as much info as a peasant would know? Incase you got an educated career in your group this one should be given more information depending on expertise.

This way your players have the chance to discover the Old World on their own and your game won't be influenced by "meta-knowledge".

Treehorn said:

I half agree with this. Particularly with regard to things like chaos, the way magic works etc.

However if your players have played other fantasy roleplaying games it might be worth identifying differences between the Old World and the setting they are used to. A simple list of

Some of the things I have experienced with players with no knowledge of the setting include:-

Walking into a temple of Morr and demanding healing (after all cant all clerics cast Cure Light Wounds?)

Expecting the laws of the land to stop at the town walls (and getting upset when lots of causal theft lead to them having a price on their heads).

Thinking a black orc is an easy opponent for a rank one character.

Openly accusing an innocent priest of sigma of being a chaos follower because he would not do what the characters wanted him to (and then getting upset because of the inevitable fall out)

Expecting to be able to find loot and magic items on fallen foes (equally getting upset that the 'magic' items they have found only seem to act to send them mad or to slowly provide them with a mutation)

Verbally abusing powerful nobles and expecting no payback.

Thinking each character is defined by their career.

As a final note if your group includes people who have played the warhammer battle game then they will need reminding that the roleplaying game generally involves a lot less magic and powerful characters than the battle game. Whilst 3rd Edition has moved the RPG closer to the miniature game than previous additions there is still a big gap between the two.

Thanks a ton for everyone's responses, much appreciated.

Reading session-specific short stories is probably too much for my players' intro purposes, but I myself enjoyed it thoroughly, thanks for pointing me to it, Socratim! I won't have that much time for a game so I'm trying to limit the amount of stuff that I'll need to go over by making the players do pre-reading of the basic setting info. The players are conscientious enough to read it I think .

Valvorik's list is the closest to what I was looking for, so I'm probably going to use that, thank you for sharing that.

Captain Fluffy, these players are new to role-playing altogether so I don't expect to be fighting these kinds of expectations.

I do like the idea of "ignorance is bliss" - I'll definitely limit the info I give them to curb the "meta-knowledge", that's an excellent point. Reading the fluff from the back of the career fluff is also good.

I think my final approach will be to use parts of valvorik's bullet points and supplement it with an intro story for the group of pre-generated characters I am going to make for them (to speed things up). That plus the fluff on the career cards should be enough.

Thanks again, cheers!

..and don't forget to reveal some of The Old World's darkest secrets.....

DANGER AHEAD -- SPOILERS -- DANGER --- YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!!!!

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Greenskins progenate from sporing (yes, little buds form and then POP off and grow in dark places in the ground)..and supposedly the longer the greenskin grows, the bigger he gets (like a pig)

The wood elf realm is in the region of Bretonnia..and Bretonnians speak with a French accent..hence wood elves probably have..a French accent.

Marienberg is a major player in the politics of the Empire (and they're like Belgium) and the Empire has always been looking for just the right opportunity to reconquer these secessionist swampies.

Sigmar and Ulric are a bit at odds..in fact wars are fought between nobles over their rivalry...

The gods of LAW haven't been seen around since 1st edition, but you can search them up on the internets

The Zoats and Fimir are creatures that most think are beastmen, but are infact, a distinct race.

The elves are not the masters of magic. They were taught by the lizard creatures of old.

Halflings must not taste very good because even the ogres don't eat them...

All halflings are little thieves...

The LAURELORN forest, not the Athel Loren is where the Wood elves of Empire live.

..and lastly...WFRP is a direct spin-off of 1st edition AD&D, but with the British twist...

jh

socratim said:

Can't find that "Small But Vicious Podcast", under that link...

Gallows said:

www.d20radio.com/sbv/