The Enemy Within is a series of six Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying (hereon abbreviated as WFRPG) adventures and source material published from 1986-1989. They are highly regarded and considered the definitive WFRPG campaign. The Greyhawk connection is that Carl Sargent wrote two of them: Power Behind the Throne (the fourth book) and Empire in Flames (the sixth book).
The current version of WFRPG by Cubicle 7 is doing a (slightly) modified version called The Enemy in Shadows. There will be spoilers in this thread for the adventures; if you are going to play them then stop reading this! I am using the original numbering on the adventures, though modern versions (both Cubicle 7's and Hogshead's republishing in the mid 90s) combine the first two (The Enemy Within and Shadows Over Bogenhafen) into Shadows Over Bogenhafen.
There is usually considered to be a steep drop off in quality after Power Behind the Throne. Something Rotten in Kislev (the fifth book) was not originally slated to be part of the series. Cubicle 7 is going to replace it with the Horned Rat which was the name of the original adventure slotted for it.
Within the last year, and I ran the adventures, and I stopped after Power Behind the Throne. I am not well suited to running published adventures, WFRPG 1st edition is a clunky system, and I didn't like the way the GM is expected to treat the party. While the Enemy Within has a good claim to being one of the first narrative adventure paths (I believe that Dragonlance is the first narrative adventure path and while GDQ might be the first adventure path, it is not a narrative one), it being the first meant that it had poor ways to move the players from adventure to adventure. I had to keep reminding myself that the entire series was published before White Wolf came about and focused more heavily on narrative/storytelling where previously it was expected that the GM and players would manage that themselves.
Before we get into any of the specific events, it should be noted that the Enemy Within introduced the Chaos God Tzeentch into the setting. He's the Chaos god of magic and change. The original first edition WFRPG book had three gods of Chaos: Khorne, Nurgle, and Malal. Malal was dropped out over rights concerns, so this series introduces one of the four main Chaos gods (Slaanesh was introduced later; I'm not sure when). This sort of thing has precedence in Greyhawk, with the GDQ series introducing Lolth, the Temple of Elemental Evil introducing Zuggtmoy, and the Forgotten Temple of Tharzidun introducing, well, Tharzidun. My point being, if you want to introduce a completely new evil deity/outer planar entity as having cults involved, you can. Tzeentch is also very easily substituted with an existing evil power, my preference would to be go with an obscure or original one and leave the name "Tzeentch" out of it. Greyhawk has the advantage of having an entire Outer Planes to draw from, so making the extraplanar entity involved a deity, demon, devil, daemon, or demodand is up to the DM. The events are probably a good opportunity for a quasi- or hero-deity make the jump to the next level of divinity, so that is also an option.
For the original adventure, the extraplanar power isn't that important, but the D&D system involves more powerful characters than the WFRPG system. WFRPG characters can't defeat a Chaos god, but high level D&D characters could defeat an enemy on the level of an archdevil or demon prince. Consider the events of the Enemy Within as simply one plot by assorted minions of the power, rather than a plot directly involving the power itself.
While Paizo's adventure paths are designed to take a character from level 1 to 20, the Enemy Within is not going to do that. The bulk of any experience awarded is going to come from story awards, not combat; it isn't a combat-heavy adventure.
It is suitable for starting with a level 1 party. I would estimate that they might end up at level 10-12 by the end of the whole thing. I'll put what levels I think a party would be at for each of the pieces of the adventure.
A lot of the combat portions will need tweaking. The WFRPG system has combat where any character who gets an unlucky roll can be one-shot. Casting spells in combat also makes the spellcaster completely vulnerable (I believe they are automatically hit), so doing so can be deadly. It's a low magic setting.
In contrast, Greyhawk is a high magic setting where combat is not so lethal to the PCs. It's best to think of the original adventures as outlines to be sketched in, rather than a specific adventure to rigorously adapt.
Greyhawk has the advantage of having an entire Outer Planes to draw from, so making the extraplanar entity involved a deity, demon, devil, daemon, or demodand is up to the DM.
I think Graz'zt would actually make a pretty decent substitute for Tzeentch. Failing that, possibly Abraxas, Arzial, Gresil, or Marbas (from Green Ronin's Book of Fiends).
Graz'zt works. I'm not even sure whether it needs to be someone on the level of a demon prince/archdevil; a duke of Hell or the Abyssal equivalent would work just fine.
The Enemy Within is the first part of the Enemy Within campaign. The original release involved mostly source material for the Empire and an introductory adventure which is called "Mistaken Identities" in the current releases and combined with Shadows Over Bogenhafen. This portion of the adventure is very short.
This was set as an introductory adventure, so PCs should be level 1-2 and should number somewhere between 4 and 6. There are times in the series that the party should split up to cover more ground (as these are urban adventures with a low amount of combat, the old maxim "don't split the party" can be ignored), and having a slightly larger group helps with that. There's quite a bit of investigation and role-playing in the series (not so much in this portion), so if that doesn't work with your players, I'd recommend just picking out a piece here or there rather than trying to do the whole series.
Placing the adventure in Greyhawk can be tricky. We have a nominally benevolent empire, so evil nations are inappropriate. The royal family is inbred and incompetent, and the Empire is also strongly associated with at least two good deities. No nation fully meets the guidelines, so it becomes a question of what parts to remove.
The things to keep in mind are that, if you follow the outline of the original, the emperor dies without a suitable heir, and a civil war between the two religious factions is stopped by a divine sign by the two good deities.
Furyondy, Keoland, and Nyrond can all fit the bill. Both Furyondy and Nyrond have threats on their border (the Horned Lands and Iuz or the Great Kingdom). Despite that, I would personally go with Keoland. It's always seemed a little less martial to me, and the lack of an external threat makes it all the more vulnerable to, sorry I can't resist, an enemy within. It is also less detailed due to there not being an equivalent book to the Marklands for Keoland.
The initial adventure involves the PCs going to Altdorf to join the Crown Prince on a crusade. On the way there, they come across chaos mutants and their recent victims, one of whom is a dead ringer for one of the PCs. Said person has personal identification as one Kastor Lieberung and a letter on them, indicating that he is the heir to a title and considerable fortune that can be collected at the law offices in Bogenhafen. The PCs don't make it to Altdorf in time, and decide to make their way to Bogenhafen to collect this fortune. On the way, the PCs are attacked by a bounty hunter. Kastor Lieberung is a chaos cultist, and the bounty hunter set up the whole fake inheritence to trap him.
Unpacking this, it is unsuitable for a party with Good aligned members. Could you imagine a paladin trying to steal the inheritence of someone else who looked like him? That would result in an ex-paladin very quickly. The players may also feel that they are being led around by the nose, and the whole adventure series has a bad habit of making promises to the PCs and then reneging on those promises after the PCs fulfill their part. In the WFRPG system, where all combat can go incredibly wrong for the PCs, they have to suck it up. In Greyhawk where the PCs are significantly more powerful than most of the NPCs, I feel that this would results in the NPCs getting a well deserved beatdown. I would suggest giving the PCs the reward, but toning them down to make them reasonable. If you have a group of players where this won't work, let's look at what can be changed.
Removing the whole "this PC looks like Kastor" isn't recommended because there are more than a few instances where the chaos cult thinks that Kastor has betrayed them and sends cultists to capture or kill him. Instead, consider having documents that transfer the money to a temple or charity that fits your PCs. If the cleric of Heironeous comes into a document that puts a few thousand GP from probate into a temple of Heironeous's coffers, they will go to Bogenhafen. You could also change things around to Kastor investigating the cult rather than being a member, so that would explain why he is on this duty to help a good temple; the bounty hunter can be hired by the cult. The important thing is to move them to Bogenhafen.
There are also a few NPCs that the party will meet. Most go away at the end of the adventure, but two of them are of note: Ernest Heidlemann poses as a student physician, but is really a chaos cultist that will be more important in Death on the Reik (adventure 3), and Josef Quartjin is a friendly boatman who ferries the party to Bogenhafen and will help them get started out in Death on the Reik. Replacing Josef with a friendly Rhenee makes sense.
The things to keep in mind are that, if you follow the outline of the original, the emperor dies without a suitable heir, and a civil war between the two religious factions is stopped by a divine sign by the two good deities.
What if this was the Iron Schism in the Church of Hextor described in Ivid the Undying, with the followers of Patriarch-General Pyrannden going to war with followers of Krennden, Patriarch of Hextor in Rel Astra? And then a sign from Hextor makes them decide to unite?
A DM could set the campaign in the Great Kingdom prior to the Turmoil Between the Crowns. The House of Rax got inbred and incompetent before it was deposed. So that period would fit before the GK truly went bad.
It could also be an NPC or patron that has the inheritance and needs help to go claim it. Maybe an apparent attempt by another bounty hunter on him to cause him or her to need adventurers as body guards.
Those are reasonable suggestions, but I am not sure if the adventure series is worth the effort of adapting everything to an earlier time period. I guess it depends on how much extra work you want to do for it, and I may be overestimating the work needed.
Sorry for the delay on this. I started writing it and then got distracted by other things. You know how it is.
The first main adventure is Shadows Over Bogenhafen (adventure 2). Naturally, it takes place in Bogenhafen, a mercantile city of the Empire. Dyvers could work as a suitable replacement if you haven't locked down a particular nation you want to play with your campaign.
The law offices are of (sigh) Locke, Stocke, and Barel. WFRPG has a grim and dark setting, but the creators can't help but put in references like that. These law offices don't exist in the original and are fake for the recent remake. The remake is set up for an ambush, but the ambusher is killed rather messily by a demon. These leaves the party in the town without any particular task, so they are encouraged to go to the festival. At the festival, they are witness to a goblin mutant who escapes into the sewers and tasked with bringing it back alive, if possible. After traversing the sewers, they come across the remains of the goblin in a secret temple where a guardian demon awaits. The demon is dispatched, and there are runes talking about Ordo Septinarius. This is a secret organization that is planning a ritual that will make Bogenhafen the center of commerce. However, the leader is really planning on using the ritual to sacrifice the souls of his inner circle to reclaim his own soul from a deal he made with a demon. However again, that demon has made the ritual as a way to open a permanent gate to the Chaos realms.
The meat of the adventure is a mystery to find out where Ordo Septinarius is going to perform the ritual now that their secret sewer room has been exposed. This was a very early mystery adventure, so allowances should be made, but there are a lot of really bad things going on in this section. In the secret sewer room, there is a handkerchief in front of a secret door, but the players are not allowed to find the secret door (it says that both in the original and newer version). There is a secret meeting between the members of Ordo Septinarius, but the book says that the players should not be allowed to find out what goes on in it. There is a madman who has some idea about the existence of the demon, but when the PCs go to follow up on it, he's found dead in his hovel, so hopefully his rantings were good enough to figure it out! Ultimately, this ends up with the PCs being led to a warehouse where the ritual will take place. There's a sacrifice involved, and then some chanting. If the PCs take out the main performer of the ritual, everything will be fine. Inexplicably, even though the PCs should get there before the ritual takes place, the adventure has nothing on what happens if they stop the sacrifice. The members of the organization also believe that it's a mercantile one, and the adventure only allows one of them to get cold feet over the impending sacrifice.
Let's unpack this a bit. The organization is going to have to change to being an evil one, as it would take a misreading of neutral alignments to be okay with a human sacrifice. The gate is also problematic, as a permanent gate to the Lower Planes would bring on intervention by the more powerful NPCs in the setting, possibly even divine intervention. The city also needs to be without powerful NPC spellcasters who would put the kibosh on it. We can instead substitute the summoning of a reasonably powerful demon or devil; I'm thinking a horned devil or a Type IV demon. It could corrupt the city, and we can always handwave something about how the ritual put a nondetection enchantment on it. Naturally, it would leave no witnesses so the unwitting organization members are out of luck. A better trail of clues, with perhaps the existing demon being sloppy about covering its tracks. The PCs shouldn't be too high a level here, I'm thinking 1-3, and perhaps an imp or quasit with some added mass so as to polymorph into a human. In the original, when the ritual goes wrong, the demon gets sent back to Chaos to be punished, and something similar can be done here. Though just going with the idea that it's the familiar to the organization's leader works. The leader should probably be a magic user/wizard of level 3 at the most, while the other members are level 0 NPCs (or 1st level NPC classes, if using 3.x) with the exception of the second in command of the organization who should be a magic user/wizard of 1 or 2 levels lower.
The second main adventure is Death on the Reik (adventure 3). This adventure lacks the focus of Shadows Over Bogenhafen. After a brief skirmish with some mutants on a boat, the PCs take the merchant barge and kick off a series of river adventures. It's okay, Mr. Paladin, the owners of the barge are dead and by nautical law, you can take control of it with a clear conscience (and no penalty from your deity).
There are some unconnected adventures that are linked to the pregenerated characters found in the original version (these characters don't exist in the recent Cubicle 7 version). One is that the master of the wizard's apprentice is available for training. A second is that a NPC from Bogenhafen that offered apothecary training to the party has been kidnapped, and tracking the kidnappers and freeing her is a brief outing.
The main adventure revolves around a meteor of warpstone (sent by Tzeentch) that crashed to the earth a number of years ago (at least a couple of generations). There's a tower infested with undead that has one lead to where the meteor landed. Once there, there's a skaven (ratpeople) attack on the PCs, thinking that they have it. There are clues leading to a noble family (the Von Wittgensteins) that took possession of the meteor. Once there, it is a horrible little town where mutations are rampant. The inbred, mutant, insane family has possession of the meteor, and it's up to the PCs to take care of them and some of the horrors in their castle. Some of them are violent, while some of them are not. There are clues about an absent family member that's in Middenheim. When the family is taken care of, apparently one of them is a "lode bearing boss" and the castle begins to crumble.
There is also a rather large section that's devoted to river trading. This is important for WFRPG because it is a way to actually make money, and the adventure has been almost pathological about promising money to the PCs and reneging on the promises. Sure, the PCs can lose money trading, but with the appropriate skills, it's much more likely to work.
So where to begin with this? This is a comparatively combat heavy adventure, and it's also about stringing together the breadcrumbs to lead the party to the castle. The antagonists are Warhammer gross, being an inbred, mutant, insane family.
While replacing skaven with wererats might seem like a good idea, the party is probably in the 3-5 level range for this adventure, and wererats seem to be a little unfair, unless the GM has been generous with magical treasure. I would suggest that flinds would work well; they are a physical challenge and unusual enough that your players might be unfamiliar with them. I am not sure why skaven are considered mythical in Warhammer; there are mutants, goblins, and chaos gods, but ratpeople are too much? Whatever, Games Workshop.
As for the Von Wittgensteins and their domain, it doesn't make sense per se in Greyhawk since villagers would have fled a long time ago. It's probably better to have an isolated manor/castle inhabited by the Von Wittgensteins, since the mutant aspect doesn't really work in Greyhawk. While there isn't an existing notable Greyhawk family that works, I believe that borrowing the D'Ambreville family from Castle Amber (X2) works quite well. They are isolated and insane. More importantly, they do not confront the PCs en masse, and that makes encounters with them survivable. I am not sure if taking any of them wholesale quite works; some were very high level. But the personalities and names are there for a starting point. One of the Von Wittgensteins is creating a Frakenstein's monster, so having a powerful, yet unintelligent undead monster should be there.
The issue with the adventure is making sure that the PCs follow the breadcrumbs, and that said breadcrumbs are intelligible. One of the motivations in the original published adventure was that Bogenhafen offered a reward for dealing with the evil wizardess that gave the ritual to the evil mage in that adventure (Ernest Heidlemann from the first adventure is her current apprentice), which led to the undead infested tower. The meteor itself is probably best replaced by some evil magical item, perhaps on par with the Heart of Light or Ebon Stone from the Twofold Talisman adventures (Dragon Magazine 84 and 85).
Next up is The Power Behind the Throne, written by Carl Sargeant. I know that's the one of particular interest to this group!
The third main adventure is The Power Behind the Throne (adventure 4) written by Carl Sargeant. Like Shadows Over Bogenhafen, it is restricted to one city, but this time it is Middenheim, the center of the Ulric faith. It is a social and political adventure, possibly the first one published for a fantasy setting.
Taxes and corruption are the center of this adventure, with a corrupt mastermind managing to get through unfair taxes (a Scroll Tax on priests and mages, and a Dwarf Tax on, well, dwarves). These taxes are to increase the unrest in the city to weaken it, and this same mastermind is plotting to take over the city. All anybody wants to talk about are the taxes, so hopefully the players take the hint and get involved in them. If not, the adventure is over.
The Graf of Middenheim is old and infirm, and he listens to whatever the majority of the different individuals/groups of the court recommend. However, some of these groups have more influence than others, and some are red herrings with no influence. The adventure comes down to finding which people have influence and convincing them to support the repeal of the taxes. Fortunately, there's a week long carnival going on, and that gives our out-of-town PCs a chance to rub shoulders with the different powers of the court.
Some of the people can be reasoned with. Some have to be convinced other ways (the Graf's daughter can be romanced by an appropriately handsome and noble PC). A number are being blackmailed or manipulated into voting for the taxes, and those can provide the biggest swings. As a quick rundown, the chancellor has become addicted to drugs, the Graf's paramour and the high priest of Ulric are having an affair and being blackmailed about it over the love letters the high priest wrote, one of the three law lords has had their niece kidnapped to ensure his cooperation, another law lord is a doppelganger and was put in place by the mastermind (who plans to use it to replace the graf), the third law lord is the mastermind, and the Graf's champion has been hypnotized into supporting the taxes. Red herrings with no influence include the ladies of the court (except the paramour whose identity is unknown except by a few), the last surviving Von Wittgenstein, the knight eternal, and the master of the hunt.
Anyone who's spent some time reading Carl Sargeant's work in the City of Greyhawk boxed set knows that mechanics are not his strong suit. His versions of Tenser and Bigby cannot cast the 9th level spells that they've created. His NPCs, except for the ones intended to be fought, are ridiculously overpowered essentially with "DO NOT KILL" stickers on them. For example, the Court Minstrel, a slender elf, has 6 toughness. The court physician named *sigh* Luigi Pavarotti has 8 strength. To put that in context, a full grown dragon in the system has 7 strength. The Graf's paramour, who is being blackmailed over the love letters, cannot read or write. Finally, Sargeant also recommends that "do not rely too heavily on Fel[lowship] rolls to determine reaction; let the PCs' actions and words speak for themselves." That translates to "please ignore the system set up in the rules and instead deal with my intricate plotting in a sensible way."
I also want to go over the lack of literacy in the setting. Generally, only the academic classes have the Read/Write skill. There are a number of written notes that can be handed out to the PCs, and there is also no available schedule for the carnival. There's essentially a strict timetable of the events going on at different places, and each of the NPCs attends specific events; otherwise the PCs can't get in touch with them. There is a chart provided for the events and NPCs, but there are also some errors in it with certain NPCs being double-booked. There are also the usual Warhammer stupid joke names (a play called "A Midsummer Knight's Dreams" and an opera called "The Barbarian of Seville") which have always detracted from its claim to be the grim and gritty setting.
When the PCs get the taxes overturned, the evil law lord tries to run and he should get cut down. The doppelganger should probably also meet a grisly end.
Also, on the way to Middenheim, the PCs are supposed to save the Grand Theogonist of Sigmar from a bunch of renegade Ulric cultists. He and one of his guards indicate that one of the PCs (the one who looked like Kastor Lieberung in Mistaken Identity) look like someone they know in Altdorf, but they've never heard of Kastor Lieberung. This is the last time this plot hook will be mentioned in the campaign despite the claim that "this minor mystery, as well as the real reason that the Cult of the Purple Hand is so eager to find Lieberung again, must remain unanswered until later in the campaign."
Let's break this down. The evil law lord was a wizard, so with the PCs in the 5-7 range, he should probably a level 7 or 8 magic user. I feel that many of the NPCs can be taken as is, though toning down their ridiculous mechanics should be easy since they're being converted. The evil law lord has a Chaos cult of followers, so I don't think making him a Scarlet Brotherhood member would work, making him an agent of Iuz or the Great Kingdom might. Ivid the Undying gave us a lot of evil NPCs to use, and having him be, say, an agent of Pyrannden, Grenell, Strychan, or Nightsong, would explain why he doesn't have a lot of resources. It would also connect Sargeant's earlier work to his later work which would be a nice touch.
If you haven't found a particular location for the entire campaign, having this as a one off in Libernen (captial of the Gold County) might be a good idea. Countess Rhavelle can be bostted with her paramour and vulnerable to manipulation.
Much as the Gygax called the Tomb of Horrors a "thinking man's adventure," the Power Behind the Throne is a talking man's adventure. It has little combat, and a whole bunch of social interaction topped off with a mild amount of mystery.
There's a split for the next one. Something Rotten in Kislev is the original fifth adventure, but the latest version of WFRPG came out with the Horned Rat. My plan is to look at both of them, though it is generally accepted that the quality of the adventures go down after the Power Behind the Throne. Empire in Flames (the original sixth and final adventure) is written by Carl Sargeant, but is generally considered to be a bad ending for the series. Hogshead Publishing planned on completely redoing it, but they folded before it came out.
I also forgot to say that if you are running it as a one off and unconnected to the rest of the series, I would suggest placing it in the Duchy of Urnst and having the Seer of Urnst as the secret villain. The PCs can be agents or the unknowing allies of Warnes Starcoat in his ousting of the Seer.
...The second main adventure is Death on the Reik (adventure 3).... I am not sure if taking any of them wholesale quite works; some were very high level. But the personalities and names are there for a starting point. One of the Von Wittgensteins is creating a Frakenstein's monster, so having a powerful, yet unintelligent undead monster should be there...
-How about a flesh golem?
LarethTheBeautiful wrote:
The third main adventure is The Power Behind the Throne (adventure 4) written by Carl Sargeant...
...As a quick rundown, the chancellor has become addicted to drugs, the Graf's paramour and the high priest of Ulric are having an affair and being blackmailed about it over the love letters the high priest wrote...
Red herrings with no influence include the ladies of the court (except the paramour whose identity is unknown except by a few)...
The Graf's paramour, who is being blackmailed over the love letters, cannot read or write...
I also want to go over the lack of literacy in the setting. Generally, only the academic classes have the Read/Write skill...
-For D&D 3.5, the "Illiterate" trait is a major boon for the DM!
In this case, she probably does what illiterates normally do: Have a friend or assistant handle the letters, which does leave open the fact that someone else obviously knows about the affair, although that's already mentioned.
A flesh golem would work thematically, I'm just not sure it would work mechanically. I estimate the PCs would probably be level 4 or 5 by that time, and a golem would seem to be a bit too much for them to fight.
We're going to look at Something Rotten in Kislev, the original adventure 5. In full disclosure, I did not run this one; I ended my group at Power Behind the Throne for various reasons. This is also where the Warhammer Fantasy community considers things to take a sharp downward turn in terms of quality.
Unlike the previous adventures, this adventure takes place in Kislev, outside of the Empire. It's nominally fantasy Russia, but as I am a very poor Russian scholar, I leave the specific comparisons to those who are more familiar with the subject matter. Be warned that Warhammer Fantasy leans towards stereotypes with probably droll British humor in the 1980s.
The scenario consists of three adventures. Before we get to that, there's how the PCs are brought into it. Run as a campaign of the three adventures, the PCs are prisoners of the Graf of Middenheim who induct them as Knights and send them off to Kislev to deal with a request by the Tsar. If run from the larger Enemy Within campaign, the PCs were imprisoned at the end of Power Behind the Throne (because they know too much) and inducted as knights and sent off to Kislev. The Tsar and his nobles are not impressed and send the group off on a task to see whether they are more formidable than their appearance.
The Beast Child is the first scenario. Many peasants have been killed in one of the villages, and they all agree that it's at least a dozen beastmen. After a talk with the lord of the village, the PCs are sent to talk to an elderly couple whose son is a beastman (but a peaceful one). After some communication issues are solved, the son can lead them to the beastmen camp, where the four beastmen are led by a Chaos warrior that summons a demon. Their camp is on a former dwarven temple that's been desecrated by (now undead) goblins, and defeating the undead goblins and sanctifying the temple will do something? It's not really connected to the group that's killing everything. Though I guess sanctifying the temple will stop having it attract Chaos critters.
Death Takes a Holiday is the second scenario. The PCs are sent to a farming colony based on a small island in a river to convey a message to a person there. Said colony was first destroyed by Chaos critters and a second attempt was destroyed by plague. Naturally, a necromancer (who's the person the message is for) went there and raised all the cold-preserved corpses as undead. Dolgans (steppe-folk) are horrified and have attempted to wipe it out, but all that has done is supply the necromancer with more corpses; the Dolgans have established a camp around the colony, laying seige to it. Hobgoblins have come to launch a punitive strike against the Dolgans or to receive reparations from them. It's supposed to be that the hobgoblins will allow them to go to the Dolgans, provided they bring their demands. The Dolgans are insular and don't react well to the PCs approaching them, but if language barriers can be surmounted, they meet with the chief who informs them about the undead colony.
Champions of Death is the third scenario. The PCs are sent to a rebellious colony and asked to find out what happened to the agent of the Tsar and what's going on there. Short answer: it's a sort of evil cult (jointly "worshipping" the Chaos God of Anti-Organized Religon and the Chaos God of Messing Things Up, these Chaos gods don't show up in any other product). If the PCs go get all of the answers, they will run across an incredibly powerful wizard who they either have to serve or die. The adventure specifically says that there is no way for the PCs to win and gives suggestions on how to deceive the players into thinking they had a fair chance.
These adventures are extremely poor Warhammer Fantasy ones, but, ironically, they are more suitable D&D ones. It's going to be a bit of a hack 'n slash with some dungeon tomb exploring for the Beast Child. Combat against a whole bunch of undead critters, and mostly low level ones, fits D&D much better. Make some of the lieutenants of the necromancers animuses for some extra flavor. Finally, the wizard in Champions of Death is a body hopper, so a Suel Lich would be fitting.
Next up will be The Horned Rat, the new adventure that takes the place of Something Rotten in Kislev for Warhammer Fantasy 4th edition.
I am having a really hard time making my way through The Horned Rat because it's pretty stupid.
The idea is that the skaven (the Chaos humanoid rat race that is kept secret from the general population for some reason) has an engineer who is inventing a device that will destroy the Chaos Moon so chunks of warpstone will rain down on the surface.
Quite frankly, there is no real way to adapt a plan this silly to Greyhawk.
If you want to go epic, then I might suggest having sigh the drow or vampires come up with some suitably obscure ritual to blot out the sun so they can inhabit the surface. Yes, I'm stealing this from Quest for Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness. Perhaps managing a total eclipse for a week/month would be more reasonable. Or perhaps it brings down one of those barriers that Lolth used in Geoff. Either way, blowing up one of Oerth's moons is out of the question unless you are running a campaign that holds Puppets and Gargoyles in high esteem.
Either way, blowing up one of Oerth's moons is out of the question unless you are running a campaign that holds Puppets and Gargoyles in high esteem.
I'd suggest downgrading it to a comet or asteroid. In the 2e adventure The Gates of Firestorm Peak, a portal to the Far Realm opens when a comet called the Dragon's Tear appears in the sky, every twenty-seven years. What if a group of Far Realm cultists decided to try to bring the comet crashing into Oerth in order to keep the gate open permanently?
There's some excellent behind-the-scenes peeks at The Enemy Within series' development, lost episodes, manuscripts, etc. as well as related WFRPG content in the blog at https://awesomeliesblog.wordpress.com/
Allan. _________________ Allan Grohe<br />https://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/greyhawk.html<br />https://grodog.blogspot.com/
I hadn't seen either that blog or The Gates of Firestorm Peak before. I am personally not fond of putting too much Mythos-inspired things in my game, but it could work!
The final installment of the original The Enemy Within campaign, Empire in Flames is written by Carl Sargeant and has a reputation of being liked by no one.
The PCs make their way to the Empire's capital, running into minor skirmishes that demonstrate that the Empire is in decline. Once the PCs make their way there, the Emperor is assassinated by an alleged Ulric follower and there are two factions involved in choosing a successor, one following Sigmar, the other Ulric. The Sigmar faction chooses the late Emperor's son, who turns out to be a mutant and is killed, but only after he kills one of the leading Ulric faction members. To prevent civil war, the PCs are sent to retrieve Sigmar's Hammer, stored in a shrine in the mountains. There are some more encounters and the shrine is really a shrine, not a dungeon. But the hammer is not there!
Correctly interpreting the clues left behind, the party is led to the Hidden Valley (where they will get some great salad dressing), a valley inhabited by elves. The hammer isn't there either, and they point the PCs in the direction of Kadar-Khalizd, an abandoned dwarven settlement. Outside, there is a cave with Yodri who makes some comments about how Sigmar's bloodline still exists; he has a direct heir in Baron Heinrich, the illegitimate son of Graf Boris from Power Behind the Throne. I guess Sargeant rewatched the Star Wars trilogy before writing this.
The dwarven settlement is a dungeon with the top layers full of goblins and a lich in the lower levels. Combat in Warhammer is lethal, so even goblins can be scary at this level! The PCs are successful in retrieving the hammer, but the demon it was holding at bay now possesses a dragon who flies off to destroy the Empire. The PCs come back to see Yodri die and that night, Sigmar manifests as an avatar to more directly point at the resemblance between him and Baron Heinrich. Sigmar is nice enough to provide pegasi for the PCs to ride back to the Empire.
The PCs come back to see that civil war is starting! The dragon is dead, but the demon is now possessing the body of the Grand Cleric of Sigmar. The Sigmar and Ulric forces are fighting each other, but when the PCs get there and give the hammer to Baron Heinrich, the fighting stops. The remaining electors choose him to be the Emperor.
But we're not done yet! The demon-possessed dragon is dead, but that just means the demon hopped into the cleric of Sigmar, who's promptly replaced a lot of dead Sigmar clerics with Chaos cultists. The demon tries to kill the Emperor at the corination, but the PCs stop it. There are a number of vacant positions in the Empire that the new Emperor appoints the PCs to, and they finally stop getting promised rewards yanked away from them. Congratulations, you've got positions of power in a declining, Chaos cult-ridden empire!
This is a straightforward, heavily scripted adventure, much like Sargeant's AD&D adventures. There's a lot of combat, and D&D's combat is considerably less lethal to PCs than Warhammer's is. A large part of this would revolve around where to place it. Earlier, I suggested the Great Kingdom, and while that still fits, I am thinking that Keoland might work. The Principality of Ulek is near for the abandoned dwarven colony while the Valley of the Mage is suitable for a valley with elves (and also the dangerous Mage of the Valley). Keoland being ridden with different factions of the Scarlet Brotherhood makes sense since they'll blend in with the Suel population of the area. If you want to take it a completely different route, the particular artifact can be in the Sea of Dust and a Suel Lich can be used instead of the possessing demon.
Empire in Ruins is the 4th edition WFRPG version of this adventure and supposed to be completely new. I'll be wrapping this up with that in another post.
Earlier, I suggested the Great Kingdom, and while that still fits, I am thinking that Keoland might work.
You could replace Sigmar's Hammer with Vilharian, the sword wielded by Tavish the Great, and have the ghost of Tavish the Great endorse Jeon II of the Hold of the Sea Princes as the heir to the Black Lion Throne after the death of Kimbertos Skotti and his heirs.
Besides the Scarlet Brotherhood, there are numerous other factions that might cause trouble in Keoland during a succession crisis: the Silent Ones, Iuz, the houses of Rhola, Neheli, and Lizhal, Archmage Lashton, Lord Kharn and the Oeridian faction, the Lords of the Elder Elements, etc.
There is usually considered to be a steep drop off in quality after Power Behind the Throne. Something Rotten in Kislev (the fifth book) was not originally slated to be part of the series. Cubicle 7 is going to replace it with the Horned Rat which was the name of the original adventure slotted for it.
In addition to the Horned Rat, WFRP fan extraordinaire Tim Eccles published a series of supplements that fill in, expand, and replace the less-good parts of TEW:
- A Private War
- All Quiets in Kislev
- Homeward Bound
- The Wheatland Colonies
Portions of this material were also published in Warpstone, as I understand it, although I am not positive on that front.
The blog I mentioned previously at https://awesomeliesblog.wordpress.com/ details the history of TEW and the various offshoots of it, both from WFRP 1e and up through the current reissues from C7, and why/how they changed up the adventures.
Allan. _________________ Allan Grohe<br />https://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/greyhawk.html<br />https://grodog.blogspot.com/
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