There's something missing about the Fimir that keeps them from being as lovebly hate-able as the Skaven. I can't put my finger on it, but I think it's because they don't use warpstone and don't have fur. So, I'm wondering how to make Fimir the same, nasty enemy as the skaven.

My campaign is currently in the Wastelands. The party just finished Ravager of Time. Spoilers: In the final chapter, rather than having them try to retake the town, I had the elder wizards of Eleyea transfer their dying spirits into the guardians from the first chapter and have them raid the Witch and her Fimir army.

Anyways, the Fimir seem boring and ugly to me. First of all, they look like ugly, hairless baby birds devoid of individuality. Second of all, daemonology isn't really covered much in WFRP3e (and hasn't been since 1e). The Fimir are supposed to have rivaled and warred with the skaven and have created the Wastelands around Marienburg. They now again appear in the Fantasy Battles Game as a playable figure (shaman). They have potential.

Anyways, any advice on running this scenario would be highly welcome. My group will just be entering their second careers and I want something to tide them over until the "promised-better-than-the-original" THE ENEMY WITHIN makes it's return for the 3rd edition.

I read one amazon review that stated that the GM re-wrote or added a whole lot, but I don't know where to find notes on that sort of thing. A second review, is just an overview.

Thoughts on this scenario?

jh

Do you have the fimir issue of Warpstone? It says the fimir in DotL are corrupted by chaos an d of limited general use as a guide. There are some very 1st edition aspects to them thoug they can fit into 3rd as long as you keep quiet Heresey about non-chaos daemons.

It appropriately cautions over the sensitive aspects of this race, the reason in Dying of the Light that a woman kills herself rather than be taken. That said, this and their habit or torturing sacrifices makes them in some ways the most humanly-evil of the grim world's threats. The fact their cruelty is similar to what you may read in reports of war crime trials may be one reason they ended up officially avoided by publishers. If you thought beastmen or chaos warriors would amuse themselves cruelly, this is nothing compared to the fimir.

You can borrow from culturally-inappropriate tropes of old westerns. The steading,, caravan etc was raided, the lucky ones died, the survivors will meet a cruel fate if not rescued. In 3rd edition terms, even thinking of such a fate may be a source of stress, particularly if you know the missing person.

The marsh folk would have attitudes such as these movies give settlers, think the John Wayne movie The Searchers.

In DofL a fimir meargh, being ancient, might know any number of things about what is going on and have an interest in it, and the solitary me argh are an interesting twist in the typical hedge witch. They hate chaos would could make for strange alliances.

Yea, there is the Warpstone issue 25… It didn't really draw me in, but it certainly was researched and filled-in. The article wasn't terrible, but reminds me of being stuck at home on a rainy day. Too wordy, and not enough heat. What it needed was "it's almost plausable that they still exist outside the wasteland and there were many strange events in which they could have been involved..especially against their old enemy, the Skaven." That was missing.

I think what I'm looking for, and will likely create, are leaders and clans of Fimir. See, the Skaven have clans, and depth. The Fimir have: a bunch of generic caste-system breakdowns, daemon summoning (you're right, we need non-chaos daemons), torture, the need to breed with human women (which isn't official, and not something I'm going to use), and what else?

Here's the deal: Skaven are interlaced and under human cities. Fimir sit in a swamp in the wasteland. I think what's missing, especially from WS#25, is their integration into how they manipulate or still involve themselves in human society. Otherwise, they're just boring, ugly, cyclopic lizard men..there to be killed and slaughtered 'just cuz' they evil' and kidmap women. What is this? A 1950's nuclear fallout movie with guys in rubber-masks, coming out of spaceships? No wait, that's the Slann

Anyways, looks like I've got a little work to do on the subject to make myself happy.

jh

Metagame, the points you make may be in part why fimir have been left aside in WRFP - if they have no reason to get involved with humanity beyond an occassional raid they aren't very useful to plots (not like skaven conspiracies or greenskin waggghs etc.).

In game, the fact they do not have much reason to deal with humans other than an occassional kidnapping is one reason they can remain mysterious bog daemons not much thought about officially. Returning to my "1940's/50's western theme", perhaps make them interesting by needing to enter their territory for some reason - echoes of having to travel through the sacred burial ground thus arousing retaliation, perhaps needing to face one of their "ordeals" to prove oneself worthy (Resilience checks to bear up well enough, voluntarily take on a low severity critical wound reflecting the physical torment) - part of the travel of the adventure takes one into their territory and embroils one in a band of would-be rescuers that look pretty hopeless if not helped, coming upon the dreadful scene of fimir shenigans (there's a terror check).

If you go with the non-Chaos daemons etc., mix this all in with their strange practices which look "daemonic" to "official wizard and cult" eyes and if understood as non-daemonic then threaten the truths held by such characters (a major stress test there to realize there is more than dreamt of in your philosophy). That sort of blends into DotL's bizarreness of the daemon who can't kill people (which is less heretical if understood, though superficially might lead to thinking there are "neutral daemons" when really it's just a "neutered daemon").

Just my idle thoughts.

In terms of DotL generally, I quite like the motifs of the adventure "dance, dance wherever you may be" but the mechanics of some of it is a bit wonky (the can't be responsible for killing people thing seems hard for him to carry off at times with his conduct). You would have to decide if Sister Astrid actually can use the Cure Mutation blessing from Hero's Call (a blessing I don't regard as "official" but only a very rare Shallyan would have, as many would believe it impossible).

It's true. They do seem to live in evil, secret parallel with human society, with probably but three goals: Screw with Skaven, summon daemons, and continue their secret existence.

I would think they would screw with human society in 2 ways: 1) to gain humans as sacrifices/fodder/breed/etc., and 2) If a human has allied with a Skaven. Of course if people were getting past their nasssty barriers in the swamps, yes, they'll be unwitting victims as well.

As their society is in complete desolation-wane compared to 5000 years ago, they seem more akin to the Snakemen of Stygia, from the Conan/Hyboria setting.

As an aside I wonder if they need this effect to make them more scary:

jh

You might want to take a look at Call of Cthulhu material on Deep Ones, and, of course, HPL's The Shadow Over Innsmouth for some inspiration. And "warhammerizing" Dagon and Mother Hydra could give you daemons that are a bit different from your typical Chaos Daemons.

This probably will not help you with any clans, except maybe have some Fimir come in different human-fimir hybrids.

Those are The Great ideas I was looking for. The Old information about Ones like that just didn't have the time to evolve. I Will use those suggestions. The Rise of the Fimir and Zoats to make WFRP a seperate entity from D&D was unfortunately abandoned, I would argue Again, in a weak-willed moment by GW.

jh

“ I cannot think of the deep sea without shuddering at the nameless things that may at this very moment be crawling and floundering on its slimy bed, worshipping their ancient stone idols and carving their own detestable likenesses on submarine obelisks of water-soaked granite. I dream of a day when they may rise above the billows to drag down in their reeking talons the remnants of puny, war-exhausted mankind—of a day when the land shall sink, and the dark ocean floor shall ascend amidst universal pandemonium.”
? H.P. Lovecraft 'Dagon'

Emirikol said:

No, it wasn't missing. There's a section discussing all the places in the Old World were Fimir might crop-up and background potentially placing them as far away as Nehekara and Ind, a section on the Fimir of Albion, suggestions regarding Death Quests and how they can end up all over them place, as well as examples of Meargh and Dirach operating in isolation beyond their usual haunts. Their conflict with the Skaven is also discussed, but not too much - Skaven are hideously overused in WFRP, virtually a cliche. And there really are quite a lot of hooks and suggestions regarding how to bring them in contact with PCs, often in a non-violent manner.Yes, they are predominantly creatures of marsh and coast, but that's one of the core elements of their original design and directly related to part of their origin in Irish myth. One thing the Fimir article doesn't do is change the Fimir into something that they never were to begin with - they remain true to their original description and essential nature.

You recently posted about the Warhammer Armies fan publication that ripped-off and clumsily reoganised the stuff from Warpstone 25 - I'm wondering whether or not you've seen the original, as your comments don't seem to connect to the version I'm looking at now. You may be onto something with the 'wordy' criticism, but then that's part of what I look for in a sourcebook.

I should also mention that the need to breed with human women is most definitely official, or as least official as the core WFRP1 rulebook. Ignore that and not only do you miss their defining characteristic and the single most simple way to being them into conflict with humans, you miss the folklore that Graeme Davis drew on when creating them in the first place. To be honest, the general impression I get is that the Fimir don't interest you in the slightest, which makes me wonder why you want to use them.

You recently posted about the Warhammer Armies fan publication that ripped-off and clumsily reorganised the stuff from Warpstone 25 - I'm wondering whether or not you've seen the original?

Cheers

Sparrow

The 1e rulebook does have good, specific info on them to be sure

Check out my highlighted words in my previous post.

jh

Emirikol said:

Indeed, as hinted at in Warpstone 25, p.16:

“I think their predominant colour was a dark green, though they had bronzed bellies. They were mostly smooth and leathery, but their tails were ridged and spiny at the ends. Their forms vaguely suggested the anthropoid, while their heads were oval and drawn into a snout, with a single prodigious white eye, gleaming malevolently. There were no ears on the sides of their heads and their three-fingered paws were clawed. They loped along the marsh, their tails high and swaying, sometimes dropping onto all fours to taste the ground… their deep, hissing voices… held all the dark shades of cruelty which their staring faces already suggested.”

From ‘The Shadow over Gasthaustmund’, by H.P. Liebewerk

Cheers

Sparrow

I think I still have my Fimir models up in my attic, from my Fantasy Battles.

Meargh, witch hag, only females, sterile

the Dirach, daemon fiend, daemon summoners

Warriors, and the elites = breeders

Shearl - Fimir Slaves = weak fimir

Human slaves - woman are used for breeding, rest mostly used for sacrifices to the demons

Bog beasts

Fen Beasts - not sure if these are the same as the bog beasts as they are magically created from the souls od the dead

Boglars - Allies - sub-species of gnoblar that live in marshes

You need to think of them from the point of view of villagers, Think the film The Fog.

A mist rolls into the village, there are screams in the night, the panic, cant see where your going. When the sun rises, the survivors speak of demons of the mists, one eyed beasts. Armies that enter the mists or bogs are never seen again. Once they are removed from the cover of darkness and mist, they are easily dispatched.

The whole Fimir history in Warhammer is so very confusing, even the books seems to have different views on them.

From what I been reading, the Fimir were either created in Albion during the destruction of the chaos gates, or if you read the Albion book (page 20) it also mentions them being the first born race. It a very confusing read. It also mentions a Horned God, the father of the Fir Bolg, as they call the Fimir. It also calls them Lochlann and Fomorians. The whole book seems to be an attempt to convert Irish folktales into Warhammer history. Also White Dwarf 102 has some info on Fimir and an wfrp adventure called "Theres a One-eyed fellow hiding to the south of Kammendun". (Wierdest adventure name I ever seen so far).

Below is an idea I had while researching the Fimir, since the Albion book came out.

Since there is so little information on the Fimir, maybe after the destruction of the chaos gates, it took 2 years for the high elves and the truthsayers to contain the corruption via the magic circles, on the isle of Albion the storms of chaos created this Horned god who created the Fimir. But he didnt like what he created, and left. Then sometime in the future he created the skaven. So the Fimir are jealous of the Skaven. Only basing the Skaven part on your info on their hatred of the Skaven, I didnt read this in stuff I had read.

This is all based on stories though and two gods having the name Horned in their titles.

Before the Albion book, I just thought the Fimir were one of the Old Ones slave races giving the duty to use the mists to hide their research stations, who during the chaos storms got corrupted to sacrificing other races so they could survive. The stories mentioned an Isle of Mists they came from. Since back then we had the Slann of the temples, Zoats of the forests, Fimir of the bogs, Dragon-Ogres of the mountains. It sort of made sense.

Wasnt there a collection of demons in 1st edition that were just evil and not connected to the chaos gods? Imps etc. Wish I could find my 1st editon books, I know i sold the 2 books of chaos, but I am sure the summoning spells mentioned other demons for law/Good/evil etc

Oh, our Fimir were nasty throughout this scenario. At the place of Testing, 75% of the party was wiped. The witch ran and hid under dead bodies and waited for the fimir daemon to leave.

There were 3 major occasions when I had the Fimir appear and ravage the party. Mostly, I had them encounter raving madmen and ruined caravans to build up the tension.

jh

I was hoping to be able to drop some files i have been working on in here, as I had previously mentioned in my Dark Magic and Necromancy thread I have been putting together my take on the Fimir for the current back ground as part of a pet project of mine Hostile Enviroments of the empire and its Denizens - which was a guide to monsters and encounters in different parts of the Empire - Marshland, Forrest, Grasslands, and Slyvania the majority of the Fimir section was done, just a matter of putting it together in one document and attempting to make it look presentable, but i have had a major setback as someone hacked my PC via DC++ I am not sure of the details but they were able to steal around 30gigs worth of data that has disappeared from my pc before I noticed something was up and severed the link. I should have backups that were in my strange eons v2, but I cant find those old files/projects - any pointers here would be appreciated actually, I also think its backed up on my portable harddrive but thats playing up since the hack attempt.

I have taken the Fimir in a route I feel is more appropriate for the current warhammer roleplay background and thus changed alot from how they are presented in Warpstone, I have based there Religion upon worshiping The Shadow Lord, they were his chosen race but when he fell from power failing in his conquest so did they. The chaos gods cursed them for there failure making them infertile to further punish the failures of the shadow lord. Further distaster struck, the rise of the Rat like skaven who invaded and attacked many Fimir Strongholds across the oldworld to raid there sacred sites for warpstone, thus started the great Warp War that left the land scared and the Fimir broken.

Recently though the Fimir are on the rise, with the return of the shadow lord and his Daemons - Dark Emersaries, they have had a boon unseen since there fall, and have such started increasing there forays into the lands of man once more, while calling in old allinances and hunting for revenge against those who cursed them.

Anyway hopefully I can find the files and cobble something together, which I will post if I can.

Crimsonsun

Sorry to hear about that! A good place to put actual files is on RPGGeek. It's good to post them here, but they tend to get lost in the stacks (and FFG rearranges their forums so you can't link to old stuff periodically.

Best of luck,

jh