The Final Installment of The Enemy Within is out!

[TheSword]

Three years ago Cubicle 7 announced the re-release of the 30 year old classic campaign for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, The Enemy Within. One of the most lauded campaigns in TTRPG.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Enemy Within Collector's Edition - Volume 5: The Empire in Ruins

This beautifully finished, exclusive Collector’s Edition set includes The Empire in Ruins and the Companion presented in a slipcase featuring the artwork from the standard editions.

www.cubicle7games.com

The recent fourth installment, The Horned Rat, was a completely new adventure and a very good one too. The final chapter, Empire in Ruins, is a re-write again, but a substantial one, bringing together all the lose ends for the campaign and linking back in a satisfying way to its roots at the beginning of the campaign. It feels as epic as the series is and convincingly has the PCs rubbing shoulders with revolutionary partisans, secret societies, mount prospectors and even the Emperor himself.

What I like particularly about this series is how well it’s stood the test of time. It doesn’t feel dated or stale. It’s packed full of great locations and fun NPCs largely without the awkwardness subjects Masks of Nyarlathotep. It also manages to do a great jobs of walking a fine line between being epic but also personal. I love the skill involved in making that convincing.

One of the criticisms was that it could be a bit linear, though now we see the full picture finally it’s clear that there are multiple ways a DM could run the PCs though the campaign and multiple endings are possible. Success in WFRP is never guaranteed but the game keeps adjusting and going.

The game would not be a great chore to adapt to D&D rules I think with a set of players interested in sticking to a theme. I’m myself ran the 1st episode in Pathfinder 1e and 5e would be an easier conversion I think.

Anyway, if you want to see the WFRP equivalent of Masks of Nyarlathotep, Rappan Athuk, or Rise of the Runelords/Curse of the Crimson Throne, check it out.

 

[Retreater]

Looking forward to completing the collection (and also getting the Companion). Don't know if I'll ever get a chance to run it, but it's good reading for inspiration and the art is amazing.

 

[TheSword]

Looking forward to completing the collection (and also getting the Companion). Don't know if I'll ever get a chance to run it, but it's good reading for inspiration and the art is amazing.

Based on our previous conversations I definitely recommend you convert to 5e. I think you’d easily find a group of willing players for it. Run it for levels 1-13.

 

[Retreater]

Based on our previous conversations I definitely recommend you convert to 5e. I think you’d easily find a group of willing players for it. Run it for levels 1-13.

I have saved the conversion guidelines and have them on my computer, ready to start the process if I can ever get a group together who would be interested. It's been very helpful.

 

[GuyBoy]

Based on our previous conversations I definitely recommend you convert to 5e. I think you’d easily find a group of willing players for it. Run it for levels 1-13.

Hey, @TheSword , go convert to 5e. I’m in for this campaign.

 

[Retreater]

Hey, @TheSword , go convert to 5e. I’m in for this campaign.

Count me in too (assuming I don't put it together myself).

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Hi everyone! I'm curious if anyone has an actual review of this? I've seen extensive reviews for the previous 4 parts, but nothing really for this part... been an absence of any talk really about it at all.

Anyway, I'd appreciate any comments on it, as I know this campaign has gone through several iterations over the years, and I'm very curious how this adventure ties it all up. Especially as Part 4 is nearly completely original now.

 

[Retreater]

Hi everyone! I'm curious if anyone has an actual review of this? I've seen extensive reviews for the previous 4 parts, but nothing really for this part... been an absence of any talk really about it at all.

Anyway, I'd appreciate any comments on it, as I know this campaign has gone through several iterations over the years, and I'm very curious how this adventure ties it all up. Especially as Part 4 is nearly completely original now.

I have the PDFs of this and the companion if you have specific questions I can answer. Sadly I'm new to this campaign and can't compare/contrast with previous editions. And thus far have only GMed the first two chapters of Book 1.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I have the PDFs of this and the companion if you have specific questions I can answer. Sadly I'm new to this campaign and can't compare/contrast with previous editions. And thus far have only GMed the first two chapters of Book 1.

Ok, so this newest version of the campaign is to my knowledge trying to redo the original adventure's conception as close as possible, while also updating it so that it still fits in with the most recent edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battle.

So the first three parts are nearly the same, though updated to be better organized. Part 4 is almost completely original, as the 1st edition's part 4 "Something Rotten in Kislev" wasn't originally written with the campaign in mind. "The Horned Rat" is written to be an expansion of the original planned module, which involved Skaven trying to blow up or teleport to the moon, and this new module does a good job of exploring that.

However, the last part is the most interesting, as the original "Empire in Flames" would end the Empire in a very different place as to how Warhammer Fantasy Battle starts (this campaign is supposed to prelude it). The general timeline;

• The Emperor Karl Franz, and his wife to be (Princess of Middenheim) are killed in an assassination attempt.
• The Crown Prince fails to be elected the new Emperor, is revealed as a mutant, and kills Boris Todbringer (before being killed himself).
• The PC are recruited to find the mythical hammer Ghal Maraz before the Empire descends into civil war.
• PCs go on a series of missions through the mountains before finding and returning the hammer, as the Empire's civil war begins.
• The PCs return the hammer on the eve of a climactic battle, and civil war is averted.
• When the new emperor is about to be crowned (I forget this fellow's name), Ghal Maraz attacks the Grand Theologist, revealed to be possessed by a demon.
• PCs fight demon, save the day and the campaign concludes.

Now, as fun as that all is, I highly doubt that the new Empire in Ruins goes about the events like that! There is of course the entirely new plotline of the Skaven to resolve, a new mastermind behind these events, how Karl Franz probably needs to survive all of this (and Boris Todbringer too), plus rumors of a Greenskin invasion to the south.

So I'm very curious how the new campaign compares to the old, whether it hews very close, goes in a completely new direction, or something in-between.

 

[Retreater]

Ok, so this newest version of the campaign is to my knowledge trying to redo the original adventure's conception as close as possible, while also updating it so that it still fits in with the most recent edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battle.

Warhammer Fantasy Battle is dead, right? It was replaced by Age of Sigmar, which now has its own RPG. I don't think there is any connection between WFRP and AoS - two separate lines, from what I can tell.

Now, as fun as that all is, I highly doubt that the new Empire in Ruins goes about the events like that!

Nope. That's all laid out as a possibility in the new revision, depending on player action.

Again, I haven't run it yet and have no knowledge of the previous edition, but everything you described sounds like possibilities of how it could end.