TheSword
Warhammer Fantasy Imperial Plenipotentiary
Introduction/background
The Enemy Within stands as a monolith in the TTRPG scene, alongside epics like Masks of Nyarlathotep, and the Night Below. After 3 1/2 years of fortnightly/weekly sessions my online WFRP group should finish it in a few weeks. It’s been a blast.
This is the third time I’ve ran the campaign. The first time as a fresh-faced 17 year old with the Hogshead print. The second time an adaption of the same with an Epic6 version of Pathfinder 1e. And most recently, Cubicle 7’s re-written and re-mastered Directors Cut.
It’s a campaign I’ve often mentioned in these threads but as a memoriam to the campaign I thought I could share more information, some of the reasons I love it, and some of the watch out. Along with a brief synopsis of the books to follow. Buckle up it’s a long campaign and a long post!
Format
The campaign is broken down into five sections:
There are a wide range of really nice maps. They can be used as battle maps for online play. The highlight of which is the beautifully detailed Wittgenstein Castle - the most forbidding fortress I’ve ever seen in an RPG product. but it’s worth noting that the game has hundreds of possible locations so some theatre of the mind is inevitable.
The Companions are an interesting mix of articles that support the campaign but also the wider game and world and most have applications for any campaign. They’re Anthologies really, that are somewhat similar to the old Apocrypha Now books (or in D&D terms Xanathar’s Guide) featuring deleted scenes, NPCs, sub-systems, side-quest adventures, themed player character options like new careers, talents, spells and miracles and many DM options. They’re not essential, but they add a little something and in some cases a lot. They are a great way of customizing the campaign to make it different every time by adding or swapping out NPCs and scenes from the companion to the main quest.
The special edition sets are really beautiful: finished in silver foil and spot UV finish, unique cover art, high quality card stock handouts, and full colour book sleeve. These sit in pride of place on my shelf, and are likely to be one of the few products I won’t resell. In all the production values of the books are as epic as the story lines. Hopefully you will see that from the original art here. I was lucky enough to get them when they first came out so the cost was spread across several years and I haven’t regretted it.
What Makes It Great?
There are a few reasons I think the campaign stands out, and has stood the test of time, to become one of the most loved campaigns of all time.
Epic Scale
This campaign is huge both in volume and in scope. You go from zero to hero… if you want. From entry level adventurers unable to afford a coach trip, to Imperial Elite, advisors to crowns and saviors of the Empire. This is done in a thoughtful, measured and plausible way - detailling the full breadth of Imperial society along the way. For players that want to see their characters progress to be high status masters of their careers this campaign comes through. Actually offering plausible interactions and challenges for high status PCs.
Knows its Roots
The series has been re-written but for the most part it is seriously faithful to the 1e original. The Warhammer World has enjoyed some radical shifts between 1e and 2e, particularly around magic, technology, and some of the tone. Overall becoming more fantastical. This edition maintains the gritty grimdark feel while still allowing space for the more fantastical elements. There are war wizards, airships, and steam tanks, without sacrificing the grubbing merchants, carnival tricksters and filthy sewers. But these could be amended or omitted without challenge if someone wanted a more traditional tone. The series (and the edition) bridges the gap between historical and fantastical quite effectively.
Replayability
There is a nifty device added into the remastered version. They’re called Grognard boxes and are little tips and suggestions that could mix things up for those who have played before. Much of the campaign is investigative and if you know the secrets already that could get dull quickly. Ironically you only have to change a few salient facts to keep the players unsure about everything. Particularly if stakes are high.
Variety
One thing that has made the campaign so interesting to run, is the huge variety of types of adventures it includes. It features…
NPCs
Along the way you meet a truly staggering number of NPCs I did a count up of just the named PCs with their own personal portrait and stat block. There are circa 400+. Note these aren’t quick sketches, they are beautiful detailed portraits. The characters are iteresting and evocative too. My personal favorite is Etelka Herzen the traveling dark wizard who uses lavender perfume to cover the stench of her corruption. Or Ludwig von Wittgenstein, cultured and refined but cursed with the body of a human sized cockroach.
Agency
The campaign has relatively few expectations and while there is a suggested order it is really easy to divert from that. Take longer or skip parts entirely. The approach taken by the writers is very much to create some interesting situations and throw the PCs into the mix, rather than force outcomes. What they do is largely up to them. There are two sections which are pretty strictly time bound - The Schaffenfest and the Middenheim Carnival. But outside these events, time progresses as quickly or slowly as the group wants. It’s also worth noting that the party absolutely can mess up. Catastrophic events can take place and the campaign accounts for this as an option, still allowing for progress forward. The one caveat to this is part 5. The campaign becomes far more linear at this point as momentum from events from the previous books progresses to the end point. Your players need to be on board with this and the final book takes some heat precisely because it’s so different to the other chapters.
Detail
Lastly, I’ve mentioned it a few times but the level of detail is frankly out of this world. From showing a front-on picture of a location, to adding a subsystem for all the kinds of herbs a character might find in the wilds, to detailed NPC motivations and hooks for involving them. Almost every NPC has a name and the book adds something interesting about almost every village and town the party might travel through. There is enough in this book to keep you occupied for years. This sustained level of detail is rare, I’d go so far as to say unmatched in TTRPG.
What you might struggle with
It’s worth saying the campaign isn’t without flaws. Nothing is perfect and sometimes positive sides of the coin come with a flip side that needs to be taken into considerarion.
Investment
First off, a campaign of this size comes with a cost. £285 if you bought the hardback versions with the free pdf of adventure and companion. More if you want Foundry Modules. The cheaper option would be to go pdf only for just the adventure books but that would still be just under £100. Added to that is the time cost, 3 years to run a campaign, isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Though of course you don’t need to opt for the whole thing. You could easily break the thing up into chunks and have enough adventures to last you a long time. At the end of the day for that price you get circa 1648 of pages of campaign to play with.
DM Challenge
As you can imagine from the scale this is a lot to take on. I see a lot of new DMs fail to get past Death on the Reik (part 2) because of fatigue or groups falling apart. The wide variety of challenges and open endedness can also require some pivoting and preparation on the part of the DM. To make this easier, every book is broken into chapters that are largely self contained. I would usually read the whole book in brief, then seriously prepare each chapter before each session. I found this struck the right balance. The hardest part to DM - the Middenheim Carnival - because of the scale, is also for many people the highlight of the campaign, because the payoff is big. It’s not for the faint hearted though.
NPC stats
So in books 4 and 5 NPCs are seriously underpowered. Parties in WFRP can be knights and war priests, but they can also be herbalists and merchants. They definitely played it safe with NPC stats meaning combat characters could rightly call books 4 and 5 a cakewalk as written. This is compounded if you have added any extra adventures like Ubersreik Adventures or Rough Nights and Hard Days because of the extra Xp that inserts. The good thing is that you can boost NPCs simply by adding WS, S and T, until they match the party. You can also add traits and talents if you want but adding 10-20 extra points of WS may well do the job.
Resolution
For a product this size there are definitely some plot lines that are left unresolved or tied up very loosely. I think a big part of this depends on your expectations. Though there was long criticism that the key protagonists of the campaign had little or no involvement in the last two fifths of the book. This has been partly corrected in the remaster, but not everyone is happy how. I started the campaign before the final chapter was released and in hindsight I would have added more from that later book into the earlier chapters. Particularly around the Purple Hand. There is a BBEG but the players won’t have come across him until the very last scene. However in truth their machinations could have been seeded from pretty much the first encounter. Hindsight is a wonderful thing! The producer for WFRP 4e left C7, a year into the project and so some of their plans didn’t come to fruition. I still think they did a great job
capping the campaign but is part 5 the strongest section… almost certainly not.
Conclusion
In summary, as a campaign The Enemy Within is a titan in the industry and probably the pinnacle of my DMing experience. It’s not a campaign to be undertaken lightly. But it’s one that could hugely rewarding in the right hands. Probably more than any other pre-written campaign I’ve seen, it can be shaped around your players in a truly memorable way. It’s one I will keep going back to again and again.
I’d love to hear your thoughts, particularly if you have ran any of it before, or plan to. I’m happy to answer any specific questions or give advice on any challenges people have. Of course you are also free completely disagree with me. I would also like in some later posts to review the individual books and give some highlights and interesting elements. Probably with some spoilers but I wanted to keep this initial post spoiler free. Hope you enjoyed reading. More to come.
The Enemy Within stands as a monolith in the TTRPG scene, alongside epics like Masks of Nyarlathotep, and the Night Below. After 3 1/2 years of fortnightly/weekly sessions my online WFRP group should finish it in a few weeks. It’s been a blast.
This is the third time I’ve ran the campaign. The first time as a fresh-faced 17 year old with the Hogshead print. The second time an adaption of the same with an Epic6 version of Pathfinder 1e. And most recently, Cubicle 7’s re-written and re-mastered Directors Cut.
It’s a campaign I’ve often mentioned in these threads but as a memoriam to the campaign I thought I could share more information, some of the reasons I love it, and some of the watch out. Along with a brief synopsis of the books to follow. Buckle up it’s a long campaign and a long post!
Format
The campaign is broken down into five sections:
- Enemy in Shadows
- Death on the Reik
- Power Behind the Throne
- The Honed Rat
- The Empire in Ruins
- 160 page Adventure £29.99 (pdf £19.19)
- 160 page Companion £26.99 (pdf £16.79)
- The special edition hardback sleeved set which contains both books and a set of printed handouts. £119.99 (no pdf only option). Though it is worth noting that all hardback Cubicle 7 books come with the pdf for free.
- Foundry Modules £24.99 contain both adventure and companion information and are set up for VTT. It’s worth keeping an eye out for offers as C7 regularly do 20% discounts on their webstore. Which would save a lot over several products.
There are a wide range of really nice maps. They can be used as battle maps for online play. The highlight of which is the beautifully detailed Wittgenstein Castle - the most forbidding fortress I’ve ever seen in an RPG product. but it’s worth noting that the game has hundreds of possible locations so some theatre of the mind is inevitable.
The Companions are an interesting mix of articles that support the campaign but also the wider game and world and most have applications for any campaign. They’re Anthologies really, that are somewhat similar to the old Apocrypha Now books (or in D&D terms Xanathar’s Guide) featuring deleted scenes, NPCs, sub-systems, side-quest adventures, themed player character options like new careers, talents, spells and miracles and many DM options. They’re not essential, but they add a little something and in some cases a lot. They are a great way of customizing the campaign to make it different every time by adding or swapping out NPCs and scenes from the companion to the main quest.
The special edition sets are really beautiful: finished in silver foil and spot UV finish, unique cover art, high quality card stock handouts, and full colour book sleeve. These sit in pride of place on my shelf, and are likely to be one of the few products I won’t resell. In all the production values of the books are as epic as the story lines. Hopefully you will see that from the original art here. I was lucky enough to get them when they first came out so the cost was spread across several years and I haven’t regretted it.
What Makes It Great?
There are a few reasons I think the campaign stands out, and has stood the test of time, to become one of the most loved campaigns of all time.
Epic Scale
This campaign is huge both in volume and in scope. You go from zero to hero… if you want. From entry level adventurers unable to afford a coach trip, to Imperial Elite, advisors to crowns and saviors of the Empire. This is done in a thoughtful, measured and plausible way - detailling the full breadth of Imperial society along the way. For players that want to see their characters progress to be high status masters of their careers this campaign comes through. Actually offering plausible interactions and challenges for high status PCs.
Knows its Roots
The series has been re-written but for the most part it is seriously faithful to the 1e original. The Warhammer World has enjoyed some radical shifts between 1e and 2e, particularly around magic, technology, and some of the tone. Overall becoming more fantastical. This edition maintains the gritty grimdark feel while still allowing space for the more fantastical elements. There are war wizards, airships, and steam tanks, without sacrificing the grubbing merchants, carnival tricksters and filthy sewers. But these could be amended or omitted without challenge if someone wanted a more traditional tone. The series (and the edition) bridges the gap between historical and fantastical quite effectively.
Replayability
There is a nifty device added into the remastered version. They’re called Grognard boxes and are little tips and suggestions that could mix things up for those who have played before. Much of the campaign is investigative and if you know the secrets already that could get dull quickly. Ironically you only have to change a few salient facts to keep the players unsure about everything. Particularly if stakes are high.
Variety
One thing that has made the campaign so interesting to run, is the huge variety of types of adventures it includes. It features…
- Detailed city investigation,
- River tour around the Reikland
- A corrupted castle siege and the oppressed barony around it
- High political drama in carnival week
- Unraveling an empire wide conspiracy of diabolical rat men.
- Exploring a dwarven Fortress overrun by rat men
- Intrigue in the Imperial court
- The last steps of Sigmar Heldenhammer
NPCs
Along the way you meet a truly staggering number of NPCs I did a count up of just the named PCs with their own personal portrait and stat block. There are circa 400+. Note these aren’t quick sketches, they are beautiful detailed portraits. The characters are iteresting and evocative too. My personal favorite is Etelka Herzen the traveling dark wizard who uses lavender perfume to cover the stench of her corruption. Or Ludwig von Wittgenstein, cultured and refined but cursed with the body of a human sized cockroach.
Agency
The campaign has relatively few expectations and while there is a suggested order it is really easy to divert from that. Take longer or skip parts entirely. The approach taken by the writers is very much to create some interesting situations and throw the PCs into the mix, rather than force outcomes. What they do is largely up to them. There are two sections which are pretty strictly time bound - The Schaffenfest and the Middenheim Carnival. But outside these events, time progresses as quickly or slowly as the group wants. It’s also worth noting that the party absolutely can mess up. Catastrophic events can take place and the campaign accounts for this as an option, still allowing for progress forward. The one caveat to this is part 5. The campaign becomes far more linear at this point as momentum from events from the previous books progresses to the end point. Your players need to be on board with this and the final book takes some heat precisely because it’s so different to the other chapters.
Detail
Lastly, I’ve mentioned it a few times but the level of detail is frankly out of this world. From showing a front-on picture of a location, to adding a subsystem for all the kinds of herbs a character might find in the wilds, to detailed NPC motivations and hooks for involving them. Almost every NPC has a name and the book adds something interesting about almost every village and town the party might travel through. There is enough in this book to keep you occupied for years. This sustained level of detail is rare, I’d go so far as to say unmatched in TTRPG.
What you might struggle with
It’s worth saying the campaign isn’t without flaws. Nothing is perfect and sometimes positive sides of the coin come with a flip side that needs to be taken into considerarion.
Investment
First off, a campaign of this size comes with a cost. £285 if you bought the hardback versions with the free pdf of adventure and companion. More if you want Foundry Modules. The cheaper option would be to go pdf only for just the adventure books but that would still be just under £100. Added to that is the time cost, 3 years to run a campaign, isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Though of course you don’t need to opt for the whole thing. You could easily break the thing up into chunks and have enough adventures to last you a long time. At the end of the day for that price you get circa 1648 of pages of campaign to play with.
DM Challenge
As you can imagine from the scale this is a lot to take on. I see a lot of new DMs fail to get past Death on the Reik (part 2) because of fatigue or groups falling apart. The wide variety of challenges and open endedness can also require some pivoting and preparation on the part of the DM. To make this easier, every book is broken into chapters that are largely self contained. I would usually read the whole book in brief, then seriously prepare each chapter before each session. I found this struck the right balance. The hardest part to DM - the Middenheim Carnival - because of the scale, is also for many people the highlight of the campaign, because the payoff is big. It’s not for the faint hearted though.
NPC stats
So in books 4 and 5 NPCs are seriously underpowered. Parties in WFRP can be knights and war priests, but they can also be herbalists and merchants. They definitely played it safe with NPC stats meaning combat characters could rightly call books 4 and 5 a cakewalk as written. This is compounded if you have added any extra adventures like Ubersreik Adventures or Rough Nights and Hard Days because of the extra Xp that inserts. The good thing is that you can boost NPCs simply by adding WS, S and T, until they match the party. You can also add traits and talents if you want but adding 10-20 extra points of WS may well do the job.
Resolution
For a product this size there are definitely some plot lines that are left unresolved or tied up very loosely. I think a big part of this depends on your expectations. Though there was long criticism that the key protagonists of the campaign had little or no involvement in the last two fifths of the book. This has been partly corrected in the remaster, but not everyone is happy how. I started the campaign before the final chapter was released and in hindsight I would have added more from that later book into the earlier chapters. Particularly around the Purple Hand. There is a BBEG but the players won’t have come across him until the very last scene. However in truth their machinations could have been seeded from pretty much the first encounter. Hindsight is a wonderful thing! The producer for WFRP 4e left C7, a year into the project and so some of their plans didn’t come to fruition. I still think they did a great job
capping the campaign but is part 5 the strongest section… almost certainly not.Conclusion
In summary, as a campaign The Enemy Within is a titan in the industry and probably the pinnacle of my DMing experience. It’s not a campaign to be undertaken lightly. But it’s one that could hugely rewarding in the right hands. Probably more than any other pre-written campaign I’ve seen, it can be shaped around your players in a truly memorable way. It’s one I will keep going back to again and again.
I’d love to hear your thoughts, particularly if you have ran any of it before, or plan to. I’m happy to answer any specific questions or give advice on any challenges people have. Of course you are also free completely disagree with me. I would also like in some later posts to review the individual books and give some highlights and interesting elements. Probably with some spoilers but I wanted to keep this initial post spoiler free. Hope you enjoyed reading. More to come.
Last edited:
