Hi Ladies and Gents,

I have finally converted a few of my fellow gamers to WFRP. All are DD3.5 & Pathfinder fanatics and that is the only rule set we have played. I am looking to see if anyone has a short primer document for new players. This would be something that would give them a general idea of the setting and hint at some of the dangers, the enemy within, chaos, etc.. without giving away too much. Has anyone produced such a document or know where it can be downloaded?

The answer is yes, but for the love of Sigmar, I can't recall who wrote it and I couldn't find the author with a forum search either. One of the regulars on this forum had written a primer for his players to prep them for his new campaign and he had shared it somewhere. It was called "What your characters know: Guide to the Empire" and it was around 10 pages in MS Word. The first paragraph was:

• The campaign starts on the 17th Nachexen, the first day of spring, in the year 2512. Remember that WFRP is a dark, gothic "low fantasy" game. Do not expect excessive rewards, magic or glory! The following text assumes that your PC is a human from Middenheim, which is the default player selection.

• The Facts of Life
  The scenario will try and bring the Old World alive for your characters. This means that you need to be aware that not everything revolves around you or your adventure. NPCs have lives too. Your character "knows" a variety of "facts". Most of these will have nothing to do with the adventure - probably. Much of this is folklore passed down by your family. This consists of a variety of notions about how things work, such as that cats' eyes are so sharp that they pierce the darkness with beams of light. It also includes guides on how to solve problems, such as that at birth, a part of the foal's placenta makes a love charm. In these cases, knowledge is based upon a mixture of experience and observation. In other cases, it is drawn more from need. For example, rabies is a major problem. This means you should be wary of stray animals, especially those acting strangely. If infected, however, folklore can also offer a cure to those unable to pay Physician Guild fees or find a cleric; you may be cured by killing the infected animal, cutting a slice of meat from it, and eating this between two slices of bread.
  Remember that in The Empire you should act as an Old Worlder. This means that, in general, you believe in the existing nature of things. Strict social classifications, bowing to one's natural superiors and belief in a polytheistic godhood are normal modes of behaviour. This does not preclude you rejecting such norms, but you should have valid reasons for doing so - such as playing an agitator career. In general, the class system is natural and the divine will of Sigmar, and no comments to the opposite will be appreciated or expressed. (…)
  

With a bit of luck the author will see this and post here. I don't like to quote someone else's work at length without proper citation.

That sounds really good. I just tried googling it, and found this: http://www.thing.demon.co.uk/TROS/0.Players_Guide.pdf I've only skimmed it, but you might find it useful.

Ah, and here is the document mentioned by Johannes: http://www.shadow-warriors.co.uk/Players%20Info.htm I think that this document and site are by a guy called Tim Eccles… I'm fairly sure about the Tim. Not so sure about the last name. I remember the 'Shadow Warriors' name from articles in Warpstone years ago. If he's the guy I'm thinking of, he's written (and thought) a lot about the setting for WFRP, and come up with some really good stuff.

I've just had a quick read though it now, and although it's good, it is in some parts quite specific. It's obviously been written for a particular campaign in mind - so it describes a part of the Empire that was much more commonly used in 2nd edition than in 3rd. It also, I believe, incorporates some of Tim's own material. e.g. If I remember correctly, the information on women's rights formed the basis for an article in Warpstone magazine, and is not 'official'. I'm not saying that should bother you, and as far as I know it doesn't contradict anything official: it explores a part of the setting that has been overlooked by WFRP writers generally. You may want to copy it and just replace the material on Middenheim with your own notes on Ubersreik (or wherever you're setting your game).

I'm working on something like this for my players, but it's not much more than a bunch of scribbled ideas at the moment.

Hope this helps.

Here are various things I gave my players as introduction, often stolen and adapted from others.

I should also say, just having them read the text on back of career card and digest it informs them quite a bit and remind them they are more than numbers.

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).

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 taint 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 of "burn themall and let Morr sort it out", 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’re broke and some other guy gets the girl.

5. Foes are bandits and corrupt burghers, greenskins (goblins, orks), beastmen (monstrous humanoids with hunter-pack mentalities), 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 steamworks and 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.

7. There is no “alignment”. Judgment is in the next life, 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.

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

9. Dungeons are where you wait for for your trial. Adventures are about plots, people and monsters' cravings, not maps and loot, though both are to be found.

Reiklander Folk Song

I says a prayer to Old Man Morr
That me father’s restin’ fine
In his repose, while ‘bove him grows
The fields that now are mine

I says a prayer to Mother Rhya
That me oats will grow up well
So come Sonnestill we’ll have our fill
And plenty more to sell

I says a prayer so bearded Taal
Keeps the wolves in their lair
As oats are towed in wagon-load
Down to the market square

I sends a prayer to valiant Sigmar
Thanking him for the just law
And that the Empire be ever strong
So that the Old Dark is kept afar

I says a prayer that Shallya’s hands
Will hold me young lad fast
As plague and war took me other four
And this one be me last

I says a prayer to Verena
As the market deals are turnin’
That all declare me prices fair
And I makes a tidy earnin’

I says a prayer that Manann’s grace
Has sent ships in from’out sea
And captains come with tidy sums
For each delivery

At last I pray to sly Ranald
For the tricks he has supplied
So farming men, who know of them,
Can make a little on the side

Momma Said

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.

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

Things such as momma or peasants would have said to you:

• “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]

• “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).”

• “Magic meddles with Chaos and gives you warts - that's how you can tell witches.”

• “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 he 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.

I've found that it is useful to verbally tell them about the world. Start with the good stuff (always lead with benefits) and then tell them about all the dark and grim bits.

jh

Great stuff guys! We've already had some excellent ideas here, keep it coming! I'm certainly taking notes.

Thanks for all of the replies. This is exactly what I was looking for. I will use these ideas for a handout to give to my new players.

I like the old history of the Empire pdf. It has some interesting ideas and info that is outdated but shows what the original developers were thinking.