WFRP'd: Eureka!

We return, after a fairly long absence, to the world of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, to once again tred the dangerous paths of the Old World. This adventure was originally published in White Dwarf 93 (alongside a little game called Rogue Trader) and doesn't come chronologically (publication-wise) after my last post in the series, The Night of Blood, for reasons I will explain.

Between issue 88 and 92, Games Workshop pumped out a plethora of random articles in support of their new fangled roleplaying game; 'Hand of Destiny' concerned itself with fate points; 'Onwards and Upwards' chronicled character advancement; 'Practice Makes Perfect' dealt with careers in more detail; 'Ooops' combat fumbles; 'Nobelese' explained how to roleplay noble and royal characters; 'No Psychos Needed' proved rules for racial psychology and a 'Fistful of Misprints' cleared up the clutter from the rulebook itself. 

Quite a jumble of ideas and themes that I guess just couldn't fit inside the main rulebook. I have decided to bypass this little collection of articles as the nitty gritty and fine tuning of rules just doesn't interest your author. For me, WFRP was (and is) all about the narrative and the opportunities the story provides for good, old fashioned roleplaying. Hence our sudden skip to this adventure, that doesn't mean I won't one day return to these articles, as long time readers will no doubt know. 

During my Games Mastering days, this adventure passed me by as I never managed to get a copy of it. Apart from its original publication, it also saw the light of day as part of the Restless Dead campaign - and incidentally Graeme Davis has written a short piece about this book on his blog here - and getting your hands on a copy in the pre-eBay days was practically impossible. In fact, even when I re-collected my White Dwarf stash back in the early 2000s, I never actually read through this adventure and it resided in my mind as the 'one with the funny inventions'. 

So today, I will be reading through the adventure for the first time and sharing my thoughts with you lot. How lucky you are, eh? Now before I do that I will point out that the material that follows WILL contain a large number of spoilers, so if you are a WFRP fan or player and want to do justice to this rarer adventure - stop reading now! 

Have you stopped? 

Good. Now I imagine that if you are reading these words you are already familar with the adventure or never plan to play in through as a PC. Or you are a power-roleplayer (do these people even exist?) drunk on victory and the need to feel superior over your fellow players. I'll leave it up to you to assign exactly who you are. Thanks to the singular Matt Kay (whoever he is) we have the entire adventure published on scribd in a handy article. Here it is for your reading pleasure... oh and there is a second edition version available also, if you are unfortunate enough to use second edition - poor souls. 

WFRP1 - White Dwarf 93 - Eureka - An Inventive Adventure for WFRP by Matt Kay on Scribd

The adventure kicks off, like a great number before or since, under the boughs of the Deutz Elm in Nuln. The beginning of the adventure suggests we see our PCs in their natural state - unemployed and lacking in cash and lingering around looking for adventuring work. As always, the GM needs do no more than give them a gentle push towards an advertisment among many nailed to its trunk. It reads 'Capable persons needed to protect valuables. Well paid, food and board supplied. Contact Uwe the Barman at the Misthaufen Tavern.'

Anyone with a smattering of German will no doubt blanch at the chance of visiting a inn named after a dung heap, but our PCs are no doubt desperate and will have no qualms at all about lowering their standards to such a degree. A fairly swift session of roleplaying will see our players standing at the threshold of the establishment (a shabby little beershop located down one of the city's many insalubrious back streets) asking to be introduced to Uwe. This fat, good natured man could be played several ways by the GM. Over generous and genuflecting (he does, after all, offer them free beers) or a shady and underhand individual - the choice is most definitely yours, depending on how you want the players to feel. It won't be long until they discover that Uwe is just a go-between for another client, and it will be this individual who is after the capable persons and will have their mits on the purse strings. 

Depending on how you want to play the interaction between the contact and the PCs, our players will soon be wandering down Gummisteifelstrasse (Rubber Boots Street?) looking for a house named Der Gerflugesalat (Chicken Salad? Oh, those WFRP witticisms!) under instructions to tell whoever they meet that 'Uwe sent them'. Soon our players will have the pleasure of Fatboy's company (the proprietor of the house's cook and general housekeeper) and the chance for more amusing roleplaying. After a little kerfuffle, depending on how the PCs play it, they will be standing before their mysterious would-be benefactor, Wolfgang Kugelschreiber (ballpoint-pen?), undoubted genius and inventor. I would imagine that this part of the scenario would be great fun to GM, as the PCs learn that the valuable objects are not infact precious metals, arcane magical items or sacks full of cash, but the rather shabby looking Fatboy and his erstwhile master. They are to be hired as mere bodyguards, as a gang of roughs have been hassling Kugelschreiber recently over whether or not he is willing to be part of a protection racket. Clearly not it seems by our players sudden employment and promise of 100GCs each. 

This entire scene is set in one of those cliched 'mad professor' laboratory stroke dungeon rooms and can be played for laughs if you so wish. Hargreaves' text plays with a cod-German accent reminisce of nearly every episode of 'Allo 'Allo, that seminal 1980s favourite. Alas, there is no 'Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies' here, just a dramatic unveiling of his new invention; the Old World's first submersible, only Kugelschreiber hasn't considered how he will be able to remove it from his workshop! 

So far so good. We have seen plenty of scope for humourous character interaction between the players and the GM. At this point, they will have little choice but to carry out whatever bizarre and perculiar orders Kugelschreiber may have, and the sadist GM might well use this opportunity to have some fun, setting up the PCs for long, fruitful nights guarding the house as Fatboy and Kugelschreiber snooze with impunity until launching the 'storm episode'. As you see, once the thunder and lightning begins to strike, Kugelschreiber declares the perfect opportunity has arisen to experiment with the elements in the perfect pastiche to Mary Shelley's famous novel. He will disappear into his laboratory and the PCs can either give up for the night, observe or patrol the house. At some point, Helmut Weishund the government spy will arrive to carry out a fruitless, and ultimately fatal, attempt to steal secrets from the inventor. 

Hargreaves provides a lovely little scenario where the PCs need to pursue the spy onto the gothic roof of Der Gerflugesalat, amid the lashing rain, lightning strikes and rolling peals of thunder. With a 50% chance of slipping from the roof it is almost certain that a PC will fall off and injure themselves, especially considering there is a 15% chance of being hit by lightning too. For Helmut, alas, the fates are much, much unkinder, as we see him falling to his death at the GMs discretion, no doubt at the most dramatic point. 

This is a wonderful little loop-plot scene, and could be used as a hook for further homebrew adventures if the GM is creative enough. Whatever, this episode is merely a false alarm of the red herring variety, though it serves well to keep the players on their toes. Searching Helmut's body could be a risky business, what with him dying of a lighning strike and his body will electrocute anyone foolish enough to handle it. A rummage of his pockets will reveal next to nothing of course, and leave our players wondering. I was always a fan of unexplained loose ends when I was GMing, as I found that explaining every detail never fed that sense of awe and wonder essential to any roleplaying game.

More opportunities for roleplaying will present themselves in the morning, as the PCs are gently lifted from their slumbers by the delicious smells of bacon and eggs frying. Fatboy will provide them with a hearty break to their fast and Kugelschreiber will offer to stitch, bind and generally tend to anyone's wounds. The rest of the day can be spent indulging in the highlight of this adventure - Kugelschreiber's zany inventions.

Take a look...

With the whole day empty of incident, the GM can give their players a little time to explore the  Kugelschreiber's bizarre inventions or head out into the city for a little shopping. Whatever they choose to do shouldn't be too dramatic in my opinion, as the real fun will begin as soon as it grows dark. At an opportune moment (perhaps as the PCs settle down for their evening fare) an aggressive banging will be heard from the front door. Reminded of the importance for not fighting inside the property, the PCs watch as Fatboy gingerly opens the front door to admit a brace of rather perculiar looking rogues, brandishing a motley array of weapondry.

With the players able to do little beyond posture in a (hopefully) nonchalant way,  Kugelschreiber will hand over a pouch containing 75GCs and forbid any violence in his home. Such restrictions are essential to the plot of the adventure, though encouraging the PCs out into the night to follow them should be easy enough. And so starts the 'main 'event' of this scenario; a long, tensioned filled exerice in tracking the evildoers through the streets, and if I was GMing the game, practical use of the cardstock buildings from my beloved Warhammer Townscape would help manage and set this scene wonderfully. 

I am sure that creative players will devise all manner of cunning plans to keep on the trail of the local thugs, though whether or not these turn out to be fruitful should be down to the GMs discretion, and I am thinking that Baldrick would be a better template for the player's successes than Hannibal Barca. However the GM runs this episode, or indeed the players too, the eventual discovery that our villains are no more than a group of corrupt City Watchmen on the take will come as a shock, and will probably prevent sensible players from launching a full scale assault. 

Whatever they decide, the adventure suggests the result of any actions against the ne'er-do-wells should result in a chase. Preferably a high octane and dramatic one, and having the Watch in hot pursuit was a regular and popular occurance for my adventurers when I ran WFRP campaigns. This would make a perfect companion piece to the slower paced stalk through the night's streets, and again would be an excellent opportunity to field those lovely card buildings. Sadly, this is where 'Eureka' begins to suffer, especially if run straight off the page, as the ending of the adventure is more than a little week. 

Kugelschreiber and Fatboy will seek to escape the Watch in the submersible, despite it being constructed in a laboratory well away from the river. There is a suggestion that they would use gunpowder to blast through the laboratory's walls, but Hargreaves gives us little in terms of action. And quite why would they wish to escape anyway - they didn't commit any crime against the Watch, beyond employing the PCs! Perhaps we should just accept guilty by association, but then again, these are corrupt City Watchmen! 

Instead 'Eureka' leads the adventurers to succeed where Daedalus failed, and encourages them to escape from the highest point of Der Gerflugesalat on homemade handgliders, providing a quick and neat ending to the adventure but one that just doesn't satisfy. Personally, if I were running this adventure I'd have tweaked the submersible description and allowed the PCs to enter it, using Kugelschreiber as the captain of the vessel, fatboy as the first mate and the adventuerers as the hapless able (or not so able) seamen, busting their guts out keeping the ramshackle device afloat. Only after the mad, yet dramatic, plan of blowing up the walls and launching the submersible into the depths of Nuln's sewers had come into play, of course. And who knows what dangers lurk in the nether-regions of Nuln? 

They would certainly be safe from the Watch down there. 

To conclude, Paul Hargreaves' adventure (did he do anything else?) has a great deal going for it. Amusing characters, silly inventions and lots of opportunities for narrative roleplaying. Of course, it is dreadfully linear and is perhaps suited to entry level PCs and inexperienced GMs if used in its published form. For the more ambitious and creative GMs however, there is a great deal of useful material here to help craft a memorable and rewarding adventure for any group. 

Oldhammer Weekend 2017: Tony Ackland's Sketchbook: Unpublished Advanced Heroquest, WFRP and Confrontation

One of my personal highlights of the Oldhammer Weekend, as I suspect it is for many, is speaking with the Grand Master of Chaos himself, Tony Ackland. As in previous years, Tony had brought with him a new batch of illustrations from his long GW career, including quite a few pieces he had recently uncovered. 

One of these pieces was the illustration above: another one of those evocative landscapes that Mr.Ackland produced for the Warhammer mythos that conjures up imaginative thoughts of unlimited adventure. Well, dear reader - do you notice anything familar about the unpublished (as far as we can tell) illustration above?

Have a closer look at the four figures contemplating the ramshackle conurbation below them. Do they ring an adventurous bell?

Of course, they are the four player characters from Advanced Heroquest. Tony couldn't remember anything about this particular sketch so I spoke to Oldhammer's authority on all things Heroquest, Geoff Sims. He instantly confirmed these were the characters from the game before checking through his leatherbound edition of the AHQ publications. We couldn't find any sign of this illustration so it's pretty safe to say this is its first public airing. 

Isn't it fascinating?

We are pretty sure this illustration is also previously unpublished, though with the sheer amount of WFRP material out there we could well be wrong. Please correct me if this is the case. Tony could remember more about this illustration: it is a pirate player character from WFRP's career section. For whatever reason, this character (and a number of others, apparently) didn't make the final cut of the game and wasn't included in the rulebook. 

I wonder if anything else has survived like this waiting to be discovered, eh?

This famous illustration certainly made the grade and appeared a number of times in print, most notably in the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay rulebook. I always loved this picture, and after recent events in my life really strikes a chord. I really know how that guy is feeling! 

These illustrations also caught my eye and I am pretty sure I have seen them before in print. Anyone recognise them? The two illustrations are separate peices, with the first depicting some kind of beastman while the second is a rather swarthy looking hobbit, probably sneaking into someone's kitchen for a quick second breakfast. 

The remaining images from this post are all from Tony's six month sojourn to Necromunda. I am not enough of an authority of these materials to state if they have been been previously published, but I certainly cannot recall seeing any of them before. 

All of the images represent the different denizens of the underhive and I know little more about them than that. Enjoy them and wonder what might have been if this project had ever seen completion. 

As always big BIG BIG BIG thank you to Tony Ackland for unearthing this artwork and bringing it to Newark for fans to appreciate, and for spending many, many hours with curious collectors and their questions. 

If you want to know about Tony and his artwork, why not have a look at the two interviews I did with him in years past, both of which are packed with loads of his recollections and artworks. 

http://realmofchaos80s.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/an-interview-with-tony-ackland-grand.html

http://realmofchaos80s.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/the-grandmaster-returns-second.html

More interesting artwork in my next post. 

Speak soon.

Orlygg

WFRP'd: The Night of Blood

The Night of Blood was Jim Bambra's first solo effort (as far as I can tell) for WFRP. As we have previously seen, the other authors of this exquisite game (namely, Phil Gallagher and Graeme Davis) had already had a crack at crafting articles for the system and issue 87 of White Dwarf saw Bambra join the club. 

Years ago, when I was an avid roleplay supplement reader, I always took the moniker 'Bambra' to be a sign of quality and as we have learnt over the years Jim was part of the TSR crowd that jumped from a sinking ship to join the GW Design Studio in the mid part of the 1980s. This scenario bears all of the hallmarks of Jim Bambra's reliable workmanship for here we have a solid, well written adventure that provides plenty of opportunities for roleplaying, action and PC death and dismemberment. It is also noteworthy for having been illustrated by the great Russ Nicholson of Warlock of Firetop Mountain fame. 

The introductory paragraph describes this adventure as being set within the Empire (and the republication of the scenario in The Restless Dead decreed the adventure as being perfect for players in the early part of their careers) and takes place on one of the many desolate roadways (or rivers) of that gigantic nation. Though I have never run this scenario myself, I would consider it to be a pretty tough situation for any PC to be in, and the fact that Night of Blood was later advertised as being for players just starting off, reminds me how WFRP (or Jim Bambra himself) was very, very tough on players at times. 

Now before I continue I really must warn about SPOILERS. I shall be discussing the characters, narrative and outcomes of this scenario in some detail and I wouldn't want to spoil the enjoyment of this adventure for others, so if you would prefer to remain in the dark over the events at the Hooded Man Inn then simply stop reading now. 

The scenario starts like many a classic Warhammer tale - along a forest road as night falls. There is, of course, a strong sense of Lord of the Rings in these episodes, with the terrified hobbits (and Bill) being replaced with our grubby adventurers, while beastmen step in to play the fell Ringwraiths of Sauron's legion. Classic fantasy fodder. 

The poor weather and rumbling thunder adds to the natural foreboding of the adventurer's plight. Strange noises and unnatural cries can be heard from the undergrowth as the two beastmen and four mutants hunt an unfortunate stag. Looking at the scenario afresh, and thinking about the players I had under my auspices, this little group of blighters would have made a dangerous situation far worse and character deaths (or at least hideous injury) could have been likely. The Hammer House of Horroresque flash of lightening, with all of its distant illumination of possible safety, would have sent my players scurrying towards the Hooded Man with haste. 

Knowing my PCs, they would have headed straight for the main gates and would have been somewhat thwarted by the fact that doors were securely locked. If they had been adventurous enough to resist the urge to bunk over the wall (my players always had a tendency to thieve, rather than being stalwart citizens of the Empire) and went on to discover the ferry, even their suspicions would have been aroused. 

This whole sequence builds up superb atmosphere. The driving rain, the thunder and lightening and the mysterious nature of the coaching inn's entranceways would no doubt raise many questions and possible theories. I would have encouraged this immensely and putting on my best Tregard from Knightmare voice would made several 'Ooo nasty' like remarks. With paddling across the river in the ferryboat the only option for dignified PCs, the slight of the lights in the inn's windows would have been welcome indeed. 

More seasoned adventurers would perhaps make a recce of the inn's environs before approaching the inn's doorway. Again, this sequence would be wonderfully atmospheric if handled with care. Desolate outbuildings, the bric-a-brac of living in a coaching inn dotted here and there, the ubiquitous rain and the odd squeaking gate flapping in the wind all adding to the tension. Horror, like chaos, is the spice of such adventures and game systems and one of the biggest mistakes of GW post Ansell, was overegging the pudding when it came to the Ruinous Powers. They became so common place as to lose their impact. The scene involving Grat and the stable boy is horrific and so well designed by Bambra as to invoke that dramatic sense of dread classic slasher films produce. To save you reading through the scenario yourself, I will run through the situation as perhaps my PCs would have proceeded. 

They would have heard the unsettled noises of the horses long before they reached the doorway, though I doubt they'd have been careful enough not to prevent the horses stampeding out into the pouring rain without a bump or bruise or two. Their almost ritualistic need to pilfer and loot would have overcome them even inside a stable and the inevitable 'searching for traps' swiftly followed by 'searching from treasure' would have burst forth in quick succession. They would have found neither, though the sound of something moving above them may have been heard. Exploring the upper hayloft would have caused them to discovered the mutilated form of the stable boy, his stomach no doubt torn open and his entrails half consumed. 

Gruesome stuff, and the sort of macabre horror the more child friendly version of Warhammer would swerve swiftly away from post '92. My players would have explored the hatch leading to the roof and found the blood leading into the thatch. I would have made a great deal out of the fact that 'something' had been eating the lad, but their natural cowardice would have prevented them going any further I suspect. I would have suggested visiting the inn itself to report the grisly find, though explaining the loss of the horses and the fact they'd been lurking around in someone else's property would have unsettled them further. 

The tone of the adventure switches as soon as the PCs enter the inn proper, and this again provides evidence about just how good a scenario writer Bambra is. After the horrors of the night, the situation now shifts to the charade of the inn's company. Otto the enormously fat landlord stand in (the occupants of the inn are in fact Tzeentch cultists in disguise), would fuss about anxiously while Hans, the would-be roadwarden, would eye the PCs suspiciously. Good roleplaying would really come to the fore here, with the GM acting out the roles of Otto and Hans with suitable gusto. As the players talked over their plans, I would have dropped in various red herrings about not wanting to mention the fact that you've found the body of a dead boy to the powers that be. 

Looking over the sequence of events so far only furthers the fact that this is an outstanding adventure that could easily provide everything that makes WFRP wonderful in an evening's play. Combat outside in the forest, stealth and mystery as the PCs explore the inn's compound and the unusual roleplaying inside the coaching inn proper. As a GM, I would have particularly enjoyed bringing these two characters to life, and confusing my players in the process. Knowing them, they would have played along with the act for a while as they thrashed out what to do next. 

At some point the GM needs to have Hans accuse the players of being bandits and the threat of exposure due to the death of the stable boy would have wound them up further. I would have made them work hard to prove their innocence and then set up the situation for the PCs to expose the skullduggery going on. 

By now, even the most inept PCs would have fathomed that something was wrong at the Hooded Man Inn, though whether or not they would have discovered the threat of Kurts or not is best left to the imagination. As with all of the best scenarios for WFRP, The Night of Blood adds additional background to the game - and kurts is a powerful sedative drug useful for further adventures. The cultists plan to use the stuff to knock out the adventurers and add their sleeping forms to the sacrifices-to-be currently locked in the cellar. 

Fagor, the bulging eyed mutant, would make the perfect waiter to bring out the drugged food Julie Walter's style and this scene could be played for sinister laughs  ( I think it would be a cruel GM who wouldn't allow their players to cotton on to the fact that the inn's occupants are trying to do them in here). Whatever happens, and Bambra is careful to let toughness tests give the PCs a chance to overcome the drug if they are foolish enough to consume it, everyone retires to bed as the evening draws to a close. The sound of the lock trapping the PCs into their filthy room as Otto bids them goodnight would no doubt set forth another bout of player discussion. Here, Bambra gives the GM so many options with the narrative - if your players know nothing of the kurts in their food you could opt to tell them that they feel a strong pull of sleep as they talk. Perhaps several players should suddenly doze off, leaving the others bewildered and frightened of what to do next. 

Wonderful stuff. 

Bambra's climax is as excellent as the rest of the adventure and provides so many possibilities for players and GMs I am now regretting never running this scenario. As night falls proper, the cultists descend to the hidden shrine beneath the coaching inn to begin their ritual. What the PCs might do at this point is full of possibility. Do they remain in their rooms all night weapons drawn? Have they fallen foul of the kurts? Will they break free of their entrapment? Will they explore the inn during the dark hours? 

The sound of the ritual chanting would have no doubt brought my PCs out of their room if they opted to remain. Even they would have noticed the splashes of blood across the inn and discover the bloodstained beds. Again, Bambra provides us with a second session of atmospheric stealth as the PCs roam around the property discovering the horror of the place. This gives canny GMs an opportunity to allow the players to put the pieces together. Descending into the cellar provides myriad possibilities for the narrative to end spectacularly. Will the PCs disturb the ritual and prevent the summoning? Will they smash the statue or become transfixed by it? What about the surviving occupants of the inn? Do they live or die?

All of these questions just go to show how each different group's journey through this scenario would vary. I doubt no two run-throughs would ever be alike. Again, this is testament to Bambra's design. What strikes me about the scenario here and Bambra's concept is that the PCs just cannot avoid avoiding the daemon once it is summoned. Poor old Hans, though he has the wit to bring the daemon from the warp, he cannot control it once it has arrived. The entity goes on an immediate rampage upon arrival (though it grows weaker every 100 metres from the shrine) and will stalk the rooms of the coaching inn until it is destroyed or fails its instability test, killing all who it finds. Looking back, those PCs who have chosen to remain inside their room, weapons drawn, would overhear this process until the daemon either breaks loose or return to the ether.

Imagine trying to understand what went on after they emerge at dawn? 

So many possibilities. Truly a superb scenario. 

Even after the 'Night of Blood' and however the players choose to proceed, Bambra leaves a neat little postscript to the adventure. As dawn breaks, a group of roadwardens make their way into the inn and will have some difficult questions for the players, especially if the mutilated bodies of the previous occupants are found. Adventure hooks lie here aplenty and will take the PCs onwards to other places and other dangers. The ramifications of the 'Night of Blood' may well have a long shelf life and could haunt the players long into their careers. 

6 Iron Spikes: The Enemy Within Campaign Podcasts!

From time to time I like to promote great old school blogs and websites. Today I want to talk about 6 Iron Spikes by Rob S. Though only updated once a month or so, there is plenty to interest the follower of Realms of Chaos 80s. Perhaps the item of most interest will be the audio recordings of the Enemy Within Campaign. Rob has gone about capturing his group's gaming sessions in such as way as to make you feel like a silent observer in a remarkable story. I really do recommend a listen and the audio can be downloaded at this link.

http://6ironspikes.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/the-enemy-within-shadows-over-bogenhafen.html

Rob also occasionally paints up some Citadel lead. Here are a few examples of his work and I am sure that you agree that his style fits these old classics perfectly. 

There is loads more on offer over on his blog. WFB3 battle reports, D&D sessions and much much more.

Pay it a visit.

http://6ironspikes.blogspot.com.au/

Orlygg

Where are they now? Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Cover Painting Discovered in Canada!

Pat has framed the piece beautifully. Imagine having this hanging on one of your walls?

A glorious sight is it not? Beautifully, and dare I say tastefully, framed and presented yet safe in the collection of a enthusiast. No tragic skipping for John Sibbick's seminal Warhammer artwork, as we have learnt to our great misfortune, happened with much of Gary Chalk's GW art. You may remember some months back I set out on a quest to track down the whereabouts of key pieces of art from GW dim and distant past. If your memory needs a jog, or you never read the original post, it can be found here. The search has proved successful so far, with Realm of Chaos 80s uncovering Tony Hough's Eldar and Tim Pollard's Collection and all the old school goodness that follows in their wake. 

As I said, this post is dedicated to the cover of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, published in 1986, and is, for me anyway, the defining resource for what the Warhammer World should actually look like. The forests, towns, mountain ranges, people and creatures that dwell amongst it all. Sibbick's front cover is perhaps the most iconic of them all when it come to the 80's Warhammer Mythos. The crumbling underground tomb, the band of heroes (including the troll slayer, who I always assumed to be Gotrek), the Ogre Face banner with squiggles radiating out of it, the mohican with black and white chequers, the green, bandy goblins and the deep sense of inevitable doom for all of the characters involved.

Just looking an the picture above sends me back to the glory days of Warhammer gaming. I can smell the Christmas pine needles, hear the wrapping being torn from gifts and feel the rough sensation of the Rudolph jumper I was wearing when I first laid eyes on the WFRP book during a long ago '80s Christmas Day. I can recall the wild adventures I made up for my friends, The Oldenhallen Contract, The Enemy Within and all the rest. I hope it triggers similar memories for you too. 

But how did the famous painting come to be framed and enjoyed in distant Canada? Well, I was contacted yesterday by one Pat Robinson, a collector of fantasy art who resides somewhere nearby Naggaroth. let's ask him...

RoC80s: How did you come to own this incredible piece of 1980s Warhammer artwork?

PR: I bought this directly from John a while back, and it took a great deal of convincing, as I think it was his last Warhammer piece, and he really wanted it... But, eventually I won him over.   This book was special to me, as I received it for Christmas in 1986 and it took over my life for a number of years.  To this day, I will still open it and flip through to look at the amazing art within when I walk by it on my shelf.  I have about 60 Warhammer RPG books, but this was always my favourite.  

I framed it with a dark green suede matting as I like the organic moss look that I think works well with the scene.  It is stunning in real life, and John kept it in immaculate shape.  The gold trim is a scale pattern which I think plays with the orc skin pretty well. 

RoC80s: You also own a preliminary sketch by Sibbick, which to my knowledge has never before been published, does the early drawing contain anything different to the finished piece?

The original concept sketch. I believe that this is the first time this has been published. So enjoy it!

PR: On the right of the sketch, there is a different character than in the final, and John has a note "Should there be a magician in the here somewhere?"   Ultimately, there was, and the outlaw (who an be identified as such from the career sketch of the outlaw at pg. 32 of the WFRP book, despite John calling him a "thief") was replaced forever.  I guess that outlaw should have saved one more fate point! 

What I found interesting is there are 3 bats in different spots in the painting, (can you spot them all?)  which surprised me, as there was only one on the book... Or so I thought, from many years of use and long car rides.  It turns out, by coincidence, 2 of the bats were under the text of the book, so could not be seen.  A nice little surprise. 

A close up on the right hand side. The large square is a text box, indicating where the blurb would go. 

PR: Also, the sacrificial altar, which looks great in the painting is not on the spine of the book (which did not have art) so that was another nice reveal in the final painting.  

John had written at the top of the preliminary sketch "Temple to the Worship of Khorne - God of Chaos", so now we know where this band of adventurers was heading. On  the bottom, John identifies that the first sketch of this was accepted by Games Workshop - with good reason, I should think.

Can you spot the difference? Hint! Have a look to the right of the ogre.

PR: Anyhow, this piece now hangs in one of my art rooms, along with my other game book covers.  There are 2 Endless Quest book covers and 4 Fighting Fantasy covers, so it is with some good 1980s friends.  

I would probably collected more game book covers if I had not read a book called Game of Thrones in 1996 and started buying all of its bookcovers, and a bunch of other book covers from some guy named George R.R. Martin... 

Speaking of magicians... 

Keep up the great work on the blog.

Cheers, 

Pat from Calgary

The image was used elsewhere too. Here, after a flip, it forms the cover for Magia i Miecz, the Polish language edition of Talisman City. Isn't strange to see such a similar image the other way around?

As always, a huge thank you needs to go out to Pat for contributing to this blog. I am sure that many of you will want to do the same below in the comments section. What is your opinion about this picture? Does it summon similar memories for you as it does for Pat and myself? Or do you dislike the image, and if you do, why?

Additionally, if YOU own any old school GW artwork? If the answer is yes, please, please share it with us here. You will find a very captive audience just waiting to froth over your artwork!

Orlygg

D&D, WFRP and the birth of a fictional God: A (short) Interview with Phil Gallagher

Eye of the Beholder, and games like it, were my first contact with TSR and Dungeons and Dragons. Sadly, by this time the UK division was no more. 

Some months ago I began a very interesting dialogue with Phil Gallagher, one of the authors of the immortal first part of the Enemy Within campaign among many other notable works and roles. I found Phil to be an incredibly articulate man, full of stories and with the skill to tell them. No wonder that Mistaken Identity, Shadows over Bogenhafen and Death on the Reik were the milestones that they were! Now our conversations steered wildly all over the place before other commitments put the discussion on hold. 

His thoughts on his early days at TSR UK remained safely stored in my draft folder for quite sometime until I became interested in researching '80s British Fantasy gaming on a wider scale, inspired largely by the recollections of Paul Cockburn. As we have learnt, there was quite the influx of staff from TSR UK to Games Workshop after Dungeon and Dragons module writing company was dissolved. Many a name that would later be tied to WFRP and other GW products can be seen in the credits of the British D&D modules. But there wasn't much actual information on the company itself, or at least, I couldn't find any. 

Then I stumbled across a fantastic blog called Random Wizard, which published an interesting little article about TSR UK and I have quoted it in full below. It serves as a far superior introduction to Phil's recollection than anything I could write.

"The UK branch of TSR had an even shorter history than the parent company of TSR (and nearly as troubled in its ups and downs). There is a dearth of information regarding TSR UK Ltd but hints of what happened across the pond can be gleaned from interviews and other sources scattered around the Internet.

The excellent interview by Ciro Alessandro Sacco teased some information out of Gary concerning the European operations.

http://www.thekyngdoms.com/interviews/garygygax.php

It seems that Gary had a different vision of how to expand operations than what eventually occurred. Gygax seemed keen on working with local hobby shops, established residents of the area to give each TSR division its own local flavour. TSR's original presence in the British market was through Games Workshop (Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson). When TSR's proposal for a merger with Games Workshop fell through, TSR UK was born. March, 31 1980          Not merely an outlet for distributing material made by TSR in the states, the UK division of the company was tasked with making their own brand of modules and accessories. And what an impressive line up they made...

Fiend Folio, 1981
U1 Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh by Dave Browne with Don Turnbull
U2 Danger at Dunwater by Dave Browne with Don Turnbull
U3 Final Enemy by Dave Browne with Don Turnbull
UK1 Beyond the Crystal Cave by Dave Brown, Tom Kirby, and Graeme Morris
UK2 Sentinel by Graeme Morris
UK3 Gauntlet by Graeme Morris
UK4 When a Star Falls by Graeme Morris
UK5 Eye of the Serpent by Graeme Morris
UK6 All That Glitters... by Jim Bambra, 1984
UK7 Dark Clouds Gather by Jim Bambra and Phil Gallagher
B10 Night's Dark Terror by Jim Bambra, Graeme Morris, and Phil Gallagher
O2 Blade of Vegeance by Jim Bambra, 1986
X8 Drums on Fire Mountain by Graeme Morris and Tom Kirby
CM6 Where Chaos Reigns by Graeme Morris, Jim Bambra, and Phil Gallagher
I8 Ravager of Time by Graeme Morris and Jim Bambra
AC9 Creature Catalogue, 1986

So what would have happened if this format for expansion had continued? A really telling response that Gary gave, outlines how he expected to make a TSR France division to be headed by Francois Marcela Froideval (who later went on to write the Black Moon Chronicles). I rather like the idea of TSR expanding out on a country by country basis, with each division having its own particular flavour (much like the TSR UK modules were unique onto themselves). What would have been the next step? TSR Japan-- imagine anime infused modules and a more detailed version of Oriental Adventures. Then TSR Germany-- dark forest, witcher style flair.       Sadly, it was not to be. Shannon Appelcline wrote an insightful commentary for the recent product description of UK7 Dark Clouds Gather.The Final Fate of UK. So why did the UK series end? It certainly wasn't due to sales. Imagine #30 (September 1985), published shortly before the release of "Dark Clouds," claimed that "after the Dragonlance epic, the UK modules are the best-selling series both here and in the USA."
       Ultimately, the UK series was probably doomed by TSR's financial problems of the mid-80s and the changing tides at the company - as Gary Gygax left in 1985 and Lorraine Williams took over. There were many changes in the surrounding years, with the upset in the UK offices being just part of that larger turmoil. TSR UK's Imagine magazine died first, after issue #30 (September 1985). Following that, the shutdown of TSR UK's creative division was just a small step."

Random Wizard Blog

Now we get on to Phil himself, as I said earlier, the interview was quite short, but was fascinating. I felt that rather than sitting on the text for any longer, I would share it. Hopefully, some time in the future we can complete 'Part Two' and really get to grips with the development and writing of the Enemy Within Campaign but this will have to serve for now. Can I just say a HUGE thank you to Phil for taking the time out to contribute to this blog and to the wider Oldhammer Community as a whole. I really do find it startling that we are barely two years into this little 'movement' as we have connected to some many of the authors of 80s Warhammer (and beyond).

Over to Phil....

RoC80s: If memory serves, you were on the TSR UK team by the mid 80s. Describe the journey from your young gaming self to a fully fledged member of a design studio, your influences at this point etc.

PG: I didn't get involved with fantasy gaming until my 3rd year at Cambridge in 1981 or so. I'd heard about D&D but didn't really know what it was, and I'd never done any miniature wargaming beyond playing with WW2 Airfix models as a kid. I was a huge Tolkein nerd - had read everything in print at that time, including the Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales, learnt the Tengwar, and Dwarfish runes - the whole nine yards. But outside of that, apart from a little Harry Harrison, the occasional Larry Niven (and Ursula Leguin, of course) I was not a huge fantasy or sci-fi fan. I thought Lovecraft was tedious in the extreme, I found Howard and Moorcock two-dimensional, and I hadn't even heard of Dune at that time! (I know, I know, how did I ever get a job at GW!?) I bought a copy of Basic D&D but couldn't quite get my head round how to run the module that came with it at that time (I think it was probably "The Keep on the Borderlands") - there were no real instructions about "how to be a DM", and I couldn't find enough saddoes to play with, anyway! Then I ran into a group of people who all wanted to play, an experienced DM, called Chris Moore, and that, as they say, was that. Chris was a great DM, we had fantastic fun, playing hours and hours at a time, and my starred first (that's the UK equivalent of a 4.0 GPA) was sacrificed on the altar of the great Gygax...   After graduation, I was struggling to make ends meet when I saw a job ad in White Dwarf for someone to join the design team at TSR UK. By luck, they were based a few miles way in Cambridge, and I thought "what the hell - might as well apply!" I was amazed to get an interview - with Tom Kirby and Graeme Morris - and even more surprised to be offered the job. Faced with a choice between being a starving, mostly out-of-work actor, or a paid lackey of TSR, I took the money! 
The early days were a fantastic time. When I joined the business, UK2 was just being put to bed - it was a case of final proof-reading, sticking in the pictures and then shipping everything off to the US for printing.
It was my first "proper" job after university and I enjoyed it immensely. The people were all very friendly and welcoming, the offices pleasant, and I had money in the bank. I learned about word processing (we used WordStar on some kind of IBM terminals, I think, with 12" floppy disks!), and DOS, and photo-electronic typesetting, and page design, and paste-up - state of the art, technology it was! 
Jim Bambra joined the team shortly afterwards and he has to take responsibility for introducing me to miniature wargaming. Outside of work we played a lot of Traveler, including 15mm Striker, and later moved onto Command Decision - at 6mm scale.
Jim and Graeme were the main writer/designers at TSR UK - I was principally editor, proof-reader, production guy, liaising with artists, and preparing materials for printing in the US. Jim always wanted input and suggestions and, over time, we developed a very collaborative way of working. He tended to be happiest starting with a blank sheet of paper, and I liked to fill in gaps and hone and polish. 
We all felt that we had a ridiculous number of hoops to jump through to please our US masters who had the final word on what we could and could not do. That would not have been so bad, had we not constantly encountered material from the US that clearly broke all the rules we were told were sacrosanct. One of Tom Kirby's roles at this time was soothing the outraged indignation of the UK design staff!

It was this omnibus edition of the first half of the Enemy Within Campaign that I recall playing with great affection. The journey through the von Wittengenstien castle was particularly terrifying, and I was the GM!

RoC80s: Were you part of Paul Cockburn's poaching of Imagine staff or did you join GW by some other route?

PG: The sequence of events - over a period of a few months - was:

1. TSR Inc closed down Imagine magazine and a half-dozen people lose their jobs. Graeme, Jim, and I were shocked when we heard the news. We had no idea it was even being considered. It was very unsettling, and left a big hole in the place.

2. Paul tried free-lancing for a bit and then landed a job at GW, just as Bryan Ansell was in the process of moving the publishing from London to Nottingham.

3. Tom Kirby left TSR UK to go work for GW. Jim and I, in particular, felt very exposed by his departure - he was one of the good guys on the management side, and it seemed that the writing was on the wall for TSR UK as a whole.

4. I called Paul in Nottingham to see if there were any jobs going. Graeme, Mike, Jim, and I were all interviewed by Bryan - pretty much en masse - and he offered us all jobs. It felt like there was a future at GW, a much flatter hierarchy, less politics, and the opportunity to be in "on the ground floor" as WFRP was created, so it was a pretty easy decision. Only Graeme decided he wanted to stay in Cambridge, but there were no more UK D&D modules.

Find Sigmar's Hammer? Who was this Sigmar bloke anyway?

RoC80s: One of your first roles was the further development of WFRP. How did you find the game when you began work and what input did you put into the finished product?

PG: How did I find the game? I just switched on my Amstrad word processor, and there it was - disk after three-inch full of files! I was little disappointed, and definitely surprised, at how much of WFRP had already been created when I arrived at the Design Studio in Nottingham. 
"Design Studio". It's a term that conjures images of stylish open plan rooms with lots of natural light, minimalist furnishings, and lots creative people with pony tails, sitting at drafting tables. Well, Enfield chambers wasn't nothing like that! True, the top floor had lost of drafting tables where the "paste-up"artists and graphic designers beavered away at page design and logos ("it needs another black keyline," was the standard comment from Bryan), while the typesetters turned the word processed documents from the writers into long 'galleys' of text. But then there were the miniature designers, mostly crammed together in one room on the second floor (although Kev "Goblinmaster" Adams had to be kept separate for some reason). I see them, through the distorting lens of memory, at high stools in front of customised wooden "desks" with a big curve to them, bent over green stuff, which they somehow manipulated onto wire armatures with dental tools (or at least that what it looked like to me!). Their tables were covered with bits of cork, castings of heads, weapons, brass rods, and so on. Finished pieces were "cured" under the heat from an angle-poise lamp. Us newbies from TSR were in a large office with Graeme Davis and I'm not sure who else! Marc Gascoigne (now of Angry Robot books), for sure was there. Richard Halliwell (Hal) was always wandering in to banter with us, but I think he and Jervis Johnson, and Paul Cockburn all had separate offices. Rick seemed to be mostly closeted in his little office pecking away at the computer, writing. Nothing if not prolific, Rick (perhaps because he didn't get constant interruptions from Hal!). There was an old dining table in the middle of the room - for conferences and bits of play-testing - its surface pock-marked by the tip of Chaz Elliott's big knife which he liked to hammer between the outspread fingers of his left hand with scary rapidity. And there was a battered old sofa (on which the same Chaz Elliott was supposed to have spent the night, when he left it too late to go home!) There were a lot of smokers back then, too, so the atmosphere was pretty fuggy, and the whole place was closer to a warren, than a "Design Studio"!
Anyway, I'd arrived thinking I was going to be part of creating "a better D&D", only to discover the rules were mostly written, and it was basically a more detailed version of Warhammer Battle. I wasn't a fan of percentile-based systems, and found the combat system a bit clunky for the kind of fast-paced roleplaying games I was used to. The magic system, in particular, seemed to me to be much more about mass battles than for small parties of adventurers, and I worried that, in the draft we were faced with, wizards would have too much power too easily. I felt like the Irishman in that joke where he gets asked by the tourist how to get to Dublin. "Well, I wouldn't start from here," he replies. If the idea was to create a roleplaying game to supercede D&D, I wouldn't have started with much of the material we were presented with. But it was too late to start again. And what did I know, anyway? I'd worked on a handful of D&D modules, and played a lot of Traveler. So, faced with the tons of stuff already written, and under pressure to get the thing finished and published, Jim and I focused more on giving the rulebook some structure, fleshing out the guidance for new or inexperienced GMs, and making the more powerful magics as hard for player characters to get as we could. 
As I recall now, the bulk of my work was editing and tweaking, rather than generating new material. I worked hard to make the rules as clear and unambiguous as I could - but feared the thing was going to be, basically, impenetrable! The thing, all these years later, I'm most proud of, was coming up with the idea of a hero who, in the distant past, was credited with uniting a bunch of warring tribes to found the Empire. Since that part of the Old World was kind of a parallel of the Holy Roman Empire, with a strong Germanic feel, I was originally going to call him Siegfried - after Wagner's hero from the Ring Cycle. In the end, I think I thought the link would be too obvious, so I opted for Sigmar. 
Jim and I had already decided to develop The Empire as the setting for the campaign we wanted to publish, so I expanded the description and background of the Empire in the rulebook, and tried to sow some seeds that we could use in what became The Enemy Within. 
I desperately wanted the rulebook to have a usable index and helpful cross-references (all my manuscripts were always littered with "(see page XX)"). However, the printing process we used in those days meant we had no way of knowing what the page count would be and what would be where, until the thing was well into production. So the index was dropped, many of the "(see page xx)" were excised, and some of those that remained never got an actual page number inserted instead of the xx!

To be continued....

Hopefully!

Orlygg