What are the sources for Warhammer Fantasy Role Play?

[Doug McCrae]

Dungeons & Dragons is a major one. Michael Moorcock and possibly also RuneQuest for the concept of Chaos. The real world geographic analogues are fairly obvious, I think, but what real world historical period or periods does WFRP draw on?

 

[CapnZapp]

Warhammer Fantasy (setting) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Doug McCrae]

Warhammer is notable for its "dark and gritty" background world, which reference a range of historical cultures, along with other fantasy settings, in particular Tolkien's Middle-earth.

Tolkien -> D&D -> WFRP

Much as most of the undead are:
Hammer Horror -> D&D -> WFRP

 

[pogre]

tldr: the mish-mash of cultures and historical time periods in the WFRP world can trace it's origins to CItadel's extensive miniature line of the early 80s.

Part of the reason for the mish-mash of the original WFRP World was WFB1, which was a combination of Wargame and Roleplaying game, was intended to encompass all of the citadel and Ral Partha models they produced. Citadel had the U.K. rights to produce Ral Partha models at the time. The Wargame worked fairly well - the RPG part was fairly clunky. Notably, chaos and other hallmarks of the WFRP world were absent with the original "Harry the Hammer" game.

Later, as they began producing Regiments and Renown they were creating world spaces for the miniature releases with brief background notes included in the boxed sets. Some of it comes off as quite racists and colonialists by today's standards. For example: I have a couple of boxes of their Pygmy line and their Nipponese.

The truth is each area of the world developed differently and so picking one historical era is difficult. For WFRP, we are talking mostly about the Empire and historically, the Holy Roman Empire - or what is left of it in the Renaissance.

The Warhammer world sort of largely evolved by accident. Initially Battle was largely medieval whereas Role Play was more Renaissance based. The two merged over time.

– Tony Ackland

Even with the publication of true WFRP 1e in 1986 - there were still sizable holes in the geography and pantheons of the world. WFRP 2e did a lot to smooth out some of the rough spots of the geography, although I preferred the time setting of the first edition. I like the looks of what has come out for WFRP 4e, although it has been a bit skimpy and true geography and world background thus far.

 

[CapnZapp]

tldr: the mish-mash of cultures and historical time periods in the WFRP world can trace it's origins to CItadel's extensive miniature line of the early 80s.

Not sure I like "mish-mash". Sure, from a history professor's POV. But compared to comparable games at the time (read "D&D") the Old World as described in the 1st ed rulebook is remarkably coherent in style and atmosphere.

Later on, pressure from GW to include the more non-sensical aspects of the minis game dilutes and weakens that original vision, in my opinion.

Small things, like how the Emperor is transformed from a believably frail and insecure "real" human to a larger-than-life superhero (bringing in the nietzschean notion that your betters are literally better) can be easily ignored.

Medium things, like how there are fantastical towers of magical glass invisible to the peasants richt smack in the middle of the capital, is as atmospheric and cool as the idea to plop down a Dubai in your Rothenburg, that is to say not at all. Still, gritting your teeth you can cut away this rotten carcass of an idea.

But then we come to larger things, like how Bretonnia never got the chance to be a wonderfully decadent France on the verge of glorious revolution, and instead becomes Monthy Python and the Holy Grail: a country based on a time period several centuries earlier. Here, the only recourse is to only ever mention the country, but to never send your adventurers there.

Just saying this because you can have a mish-mash and you can have a MISH-MASH. The Old World as it is today is more of the latter, like perhaps how D&Ds Forgotten Realms is "everything, including the kitchen sink". But the Old World I fell in love with and still base my WFRP adventures in, is the few short pages from the v1 rulebook.

 

[macd21]

The Empire was modeled on the real world Holy Roman Empire, to help sell Citadel’s 30 Years War minis. Since then it’s taken on a life of its own, of course, and is somewhat beholden to the ‘rule of cool.’

 

[Numidius]

Jabberwocky (1977) by Terry Gilliam, starring Michael Palin, indeed inspiration for the dark humour farcical fantasy tone.

 

[TheSword]

As stated Holy Roman Empire is the main source, the 7 years and 100 years war too.

Marienburg is heavily influenced by Dutch Traders

Kislev is Slavic.

They also came up with a lot of their own stuff too which is pretty cool. Middenheim on top of a spire. Averheim set inside a crater etc etc.

 

[Doug McCrae]

The Warhammer world sort of largely evolved by accident. Initially Battle was largely medieval whereas Role Play was more Renaissance based. The two merged over time.

– Tony Ackland

That makes sense. Several of the pre-WFRP Regiments of Renown are based on the Crusades. The Knights of Origo look late C12/early C13 to me, and seem to be analogues of the Knights Templar.

 

[Doug McCrae]

But compared to comparable games at the time (read "D&D") the Old World as described in the 1st ed rulebook is remarkably coherent in style and atmosphere.

D&D might be the outlier here. Compare with RuneQuest, Empire of the Petal Throne, and Tunnels & Trolls, which I think all achieve consistency of tone. RQ, EPT, and WFRP are all world-specific and the writers knew much more about history (or religion in the case of Greg Stafford) than Gygax did.