Part Five: Empire in Ruins
Intro
This is it. The Finale. You made it to the final chapter, one way or another. Take a breath, take your armour to a blacksmith for a polish because the last part is going to get epic. Maybe too epic for some people’s tastes. How on earth is a lowly ratcatcher going to hob-knob with the Imperial court? How do we wrap up events taking place the length and breadth of the Empire? How can we end this crazy campaign in any semblance of sense? Read on...
A Very Brief Synopsis.
The explosion of the Moonbreaker Cannon can be seen for miles and you are rescued from the slopes of Karak Skygg by a Zepplin gifted to the city of Middenheim. Along the return you are attacked by Nordland Separatists who seek to secede from Middenheim. In the city, the fanatical Sons of Ulric hate the south and are in the streets fermenting discord. A prestigious Sigmarite embassy proposes marrying together the Todbringer line and Imperial family and so the Middenheim court travels south to Altdorf for the wedding. Along the way the party has the chance to save the Grand Theogenist of Sigmar from the Sons of Ulric in a mass combat scene and also travel to Castle Reiksguard to inspect the Crown Prince on behalf of the Graf and report back on his worthiness.
In Altdorf a welcome parade for the northerners is a chance to be introduced to the Imperial court and even save them when a steam tank is sabotaged. In a meeting of Elector Counts the Emperor argues with Todbringer and the Hammer of Sigmar is shattered. Though is revealed this is not the true hammer when a chaos hunting scholar shares his notes on Sigmar’s last journey and proposes an expedition to recover the true hammer from Blackfire pass. For astute players they also can discover that the Emperor is actually a body double and Karl Franz is deathly sick with purple brain fever. Some careful and drastic action might be able to solve this problem and at least stop him getting worse.
Assuming the players accept the quest for the hammer, they travel south to find Nuln is at odds with Wissenland. While Averland is in the throes of civil war. They can help or hinder factions along the way and it is suggest that daemons of tzeentch will try to help or hinder the PCs depending on how they are making progress to ensure they return at a destined hour. In Blackfire pass they find a secret ravine occupied by a strange clan of goblins and the Caves of Chaos – each of which corresponds to a different wind of magic. At the deepest point the Hammer of Sigmar rests, though taking it frees the spirit of the Greater Daemon of Tzeentch that battled Sigmar before he became a god. The return to Altdorf is even more fraught as various nobles want the hammer for themselves. A secret society of dwarves can speed them on their way and a horde of Beastmen tries to stop them reigniting the power within the hammer.
The finale takes place during a ceremony to officially hand the hammer to the emperor where the Greater Daemon reappears, and the players either banish it watch the imperial line be broken for ever and the Empire fall to chaos.
Highlights
There are many. Though it’s worth noting after the complexity of books three and four I really enjoyed the largely linear nature of this part. It’s a book about wrapping things up, not opening up new channels so by nature it needs to be a bit more prescriptive. I saw this as a highlight though others might see it as a negative.
It features politics at the highest level – the Emperor, the Elector Counts, the heads of major religions – in a convincing and reasonable way. It feels right that the party work with these folks because they can be brought to the table as part of Todbringer’s court. I think the grand scale of Imperial politics plays a significant part and it feels like whole dynasties are on the line. This is serious Tier 4 stuff.
I liked the tensions between Sigmarites and Ulricans. The book references the party’s actions previously in the campaign to inform how the two factions view the party. The chance to try and help heal the rift in the battle of Shining Rock was powerful and I thought the narrative mass combat system that encounter used was elegant and effective. It could definitely be expanded and have been used at other points in the campaign.
The Caves of Chaos, in fact the idea of the quest for the Hammer was a pretty epic conclusion to the campaign for Tier 4 characters. I think the idea of tracing Sigmar’s steps really gave them a kick and getting to hold the weapon which the whole Warhammer universe is named after is a pretty cool way to end things. The Streisen encounters were also pretty darn fun, trying to keep the hammer out of the hands of the Mad Count Marius Leitdorf.
Downsides
Did I mention its linear? If you players want to stay in Middenheim and raise cattle then you’re going to have to do a lot of work to get them to Black Fire pass and back to Altdorf. Though in theory you don’t have to end the campaign the way the book intends. The book proceeds along a series of scenarios. Though I think many of these could be skipped without problem or dramatically expanded to give the PCs chance to explore some areas more if they wanted to do – Nuln vs Wissenland conflicts for instance, the Purple Hand’s operations in Altdorf or the Averland Civil War.
While the quest of the hammer was great, I think the Blackfire Pass section of the book was the weakest element in the book. It was badly hampered by the fact that NPC stats are woefully under-tuned and it just wasn’t challenging enough. I wanted the pass to be overran with orcs ready to fall upon a weakened empire. Confronting the PCs with a single tribe of goblins at the pinnacle of their careers was a strange decision. They had potential but they were the equivalent of a sparrow hitting your car windshield. I’ve said it before… boost your stats… a lot. Don’t play it as written. This is the point you should be stripping fate points away ready for the finale.
Politics is rife in this book. There are large sections – the proposal, the Reikland parade, and the Elector’s council - which feature large sections of political negotiation. If you have characters like mine that are engaged with that and have agendas, they want to advance that is awesome. If you don’t then it’s a complete waste of time and you would be much better placed giving them something else to do. The book doesn’t really prepare for this so be warned. There are plenty of side quests you could substitute though in many of the companions.
Favorite NPC
I really enjoyed Crown Prince Wolfgang as the perfect beneficent noble. Erudite, kind hearted, generous and graceful. One of my players was courting princess Katarina before the proposal was made so the irony of having him report back on this paragon of princes was really good fun. They wanted to find some dirt on him so bad. Given that it is the Warhammer world the fact that he was a thoroughly nice fellow made them doubly suspicious of him. The look on my players faces when he was sacrificed by the Purple Hand was priceless.
Honourable mention to the 'colourful' Count Marius Leitdorf who made his horse, Daisy, a baron and trusted advisor. I spent a lot of time working on his pretty deranged insults. The trick was to play him as dangerously unpredicatable but with a touch of tactical genious and insight.
Most Memorable Moment.
Probably fighting the Greater Daemon of Tzeentch in the Volkshalle surrounded by the imperial court. This will remain in my mind a most epic end to any campaign. It was an absolute beast that stripped almost all the remaining Resilience and Fate points from my party. We actually got our group face to face for the first time and I printed out the Volkshalle map and used my selection of Tzeentch miniatures for the fight.
The Companion
This book is mainly filled with reflections on elements of the campaign and ways of expanding the final book. More so than the other companion books It feels like all the stuff that ended up on the cutting room floor because it wouldn’t fit in the main book. This isn’t a bad thing and as usual most of it can be repurposed for other campaigns.
- A full description of the Shining Rock and other hooks and encounters that could be held there.
- A section on madness in Altdorf. A way of expanding and bringing to life the rising chaos magic taking place in the capital.
- An expansion on the Madcraw goblin clan of Blackfire Pass so they can be used standalone.
- Details of the Imperial Ostlanders regiment, with history, NPCs and potential hooks for using them.
- A consideration of the Nordland Separatist movement. Who was involved and how it could be used in this and other adventures.
- A consideration of the different Purple Hand cults and what would happen if each of them succeeds in the finale.
- Using the Changeling NPC as a replacement for Gideon and several other shape changers. Something that is well worth considering.
- Some epic foes including the Mourngul, the Curs’d Ettin, the Colossal Squig, and the Necrofex Colossus.
- Two extra encounters for the road to Black Fire Pass.
- Sidequest adventures
- The Bigger They Are – featuring an unstoppable ogre judicial champion.
- The Siege of Diesdorf – that could feature anywhere in the empire.
- Triumph of the Gravelord. Part four of the Gravelord series of sidequests.
There is lots of fun stuff in here. I never ran the side quests but now it is all done I wish I had lingered a little more. I’ll use them elsewhere though.
Summary
There is a strand of opinion that can’t abide Empire in Ruins. They say airships aren’t real Warhammer, the politics is dull and the purple hand is a wasted opportunity. They have an idea of what their perfect end to the Enemy Within looks like and this isn’t it. The problem is that across several years and thousands of pages of adventure the end point was never going to be the same for everyone and no ending was going to please us all. I think people are better of not trying to make it perfect and just enjoy it being good. Tailoring it to your party as we have to do with all published adventures eventually.
Some of my favourite parts of the campaign were in Empire in Ruins and having a group of pretty gonzo PCs by this point every encounter seemed like a tribute to the earlier campaign. That does mean unlike the other parts this isn’t one that could easily stand on its own. While it could be mined for lots of interesting elements, the imperial politics wouldn’t carry weight without what came before.
With that weight and history behind it, this feels like a suitable and fitting end for the greatest campaign of all time and a chance for characters to interact at the highest levels of society and do some pretty empire-shaking things. Read it for yourself and don’t just listen to the reviews – including this one. If you made it this far then you owe to yourself and the players to finish the deed!
I hope you have found this set of thoughts and memories entertaining. If it gives one more person a spur to give the campaign a go, or makes someone who played it smile then I will rest easy.
Big thanks to Guy, Ryan and Steven who have been on this 4 1/2 year journey with me and given many hundreds of hours of fun along the way. Its been a blast and I couldn't have done it without you.
Which it isn't.
