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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TheSword" data-source="post: 9022716" data-attributes="member: 6879661">[ATTACH=full]285129[/ATTACH]Death on Reik (which my own group is part way through) is the second part of the excellent Enemy Within campaign and expands the campaign considerable featuring some of the best set pieces I’ve seen. No spoilers here however. I’m just going to focus on the companion book that you can buy with or separate to the main adventure.Another page of Easter eggs and naming conventions forms the first chapter. My favourite being the dwarf engineer Isembeard… if you get it you get it.Chapter Two brings back a much loved part from 1st edition… extensive rules for herbs. Finding them, preparing them and 21 different varieties in some cases with multiple uses. This is some serious Athalas shiz here and give herbalist characters, druids, rangers et al, a very useful and lucrative use of their skills. It’s areas like this —- skills and crafting that WFRP really takes strides ahead of 5e. It’s worth saying the pictures are full colour illustrations and just beautiful.Chapter Three includes some deleted scenes that wouldn’t fit in the main book, including a mysterious cargo and a VIP NPC the party might meet.Chapter Four looks at the Empire’s rivers in much the same way the previous companion looked at its roads. This includes descriptions and maps for toll houses and locks along with random encounters you could use.Chapter Five has rules for river navigation, using the Boat Handling skill. Damage to boats including critical hits, repairing them, and various hazards of sailing a river barge. 5 sample river boats with illustrations and stats are also given.Chapter six looks at the River Wardens that patrol the rivers. Their operations, HQs, sample NPCs with illustrations and backgrounds. Not to forget ideas for encounters with patrol boards.Chapter Seven expands the list of NPCs you meet on the road. This time including Charlatans, Grave Robbers, Hunters, Nobles, Pit Fighters, Stevedores, Cooks, Wizards and Physicians. As before, each has a page or so of hooks, ideas for integrating in the campaign, an interesting story and full illustration and stat block.Chapter Eight looks in more details at the folk that make their living on the river. Each covers a different type of boat you might come across, who might crew it and what their story might be. Hopefully by now you’ll have spotted there are at least 20+ full NPCs that can be dropped into any campaign in this book.Chapter Nine covers the Imperial Semaphore service. Which may or may not feature into Death in the Reik. How the towers are built, how they work and four adventure seeds based on the theme including a tower besieged and a group opposed to the towers on principle.Chapter Ten has rules for pimping your barge with a wide range of customization from iron plating and luxury cabin to steam propulsion and volley guns. Some players will go wild with this.Chapter Eleven has extensive trading rules with a lot of lore behind it as well. Community trading modifier as well as a setting specific guide to supply and demand for every town and city on the Reik and plenty not on it.Chapter Twelve covers wreckers, smugglers and pirates with another five NPCs and lots of plot ideas. You might have noticed by now that these books don’t include standard NPCs stat blocks. Instead you get a fully worked up character with hopes dreams ambitions and plot hooks, an illustration and a stat block you can use as a template. There is so much value in that.Chapter Thirteen includes river monsters, river trolls, sirens, naiads, Reik eels, stir pike and amoeba along with a host of new creature traitsChapter Fourteen covers waterborne diseases like The Gripe and Cavity Worms. Yes they are as bad as you would expect.Chapter Fifteen covers a second chaos cult very different to the one covered in the first companion book. It still includes new spells, NPCs and a new Career - The Warrior of Tzeentch.Chapter Sixteen returns to an old favourite - the cruise ship Emperor Luitpold. Detailing the ship, it’s routes, the crew (as full NPCs) maps of its main areas and three adventure outlines.Lastly chapter Seventeen features another reprint - Vengeance of the Gravelord. A revised and re-written adventure formed from part of the original module, Carrion up the Reik. It’s very ouch expanded and gets continued in the next companion forming a multi part set of side quests that can continue through the campaign or be spun off into another adventure entirely.Endpapers include another pre-gen character leveled to be appropriate for this part in the campaignIn essence this is a sourcebook to the rivers of the Empire as well as supplementing the main adventure book. Hopefully now you can see what C7 have tried to do with these companions. Other publishers could learn a lot from this I think because these books are golden! Incidentally the castle in that beautiful piece of art is Castle Wittgenstein… one of the best details and most evocative places I’ve had the pleasure of running. No spoilers but it was an absolute blast running that!</blockquote>

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