Whitehack is a retroclone, a hack, a rough cut of Dungeons & Dragons which sets out to bring a higher degree of flexibility and design than most other roleplaying games of the Old School Renaissance. It bears some mechanical similarities to The Black Hack, but there are more differences than similarities. The Black Hack focuses on dungeon delving and traditional Dungeons & Dragons-style of play with traditional elements such as the Races and Classes found in Dungeons & Dragons, but with mechanics similar to that of Numenera to support player-focused play. Whitehack can do that, but is designed to do Races, Classes, and magic of the players’ and Referee’s choice combined with a simple mechanic, and as much as this provides player and Referee alike with a huge amount of creative freedom, it also comes with a certain degree of conceptual complexity.

A character in Whitehack looks much like a Dungeons & Dragons character, but not. A character has six characteristics—Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma, plus a Class and Level, Armour Class, Hit Points, and so on. Value for various factors, including Hit Points, along with Attack Value—representing a character’s martial prowess, Saving Throw—rolled to avoid dangers and hazards, Slots—special abilities, and Groups—origins/links/professions, are provided by a character’s Class. Instead of traditional fantasy Classes like Fighter, Cleric, Thief, and Wizard, Whitehack has three, all with just ten Levels—Deft, Strong, and Wise. Each Class has some core abilities. Thus Deft characters can roll for double damage when attacking from a dexterously advantageous position, attune themselves to certain objects or animals to do amazing things with them; Strong characters are good in melee and get better such as being able to climb and fight huge opponents or attack with two weapons, and can even learn attack moves from opponents they kill; and Wise characters can do magic, whether that is prayers, spells, rituals, and so forth.

So far, so simple, and so far, not that interesting, but exactly what the Classes, the Slots, and the Groups represent is where Whitehack begins to get interesting. This is because it is entirely up to each player to decide what they are. So a Deft character might be a swashbuckling duellist, a wandering monk from faraway, an agile thief; a Strong character could be a mighty-thewed barbarian, a gigantic prehistoric hominid named Joe Miller, a loyal knight; and a Wise could be a wizard, a priest, a druid, or even a mad scientist. Slots are both special abilities and the number of times that a character can use a special per day, so it is possible to know more than one special ability, but be limited in the number of uses. The player of course tailors the Slots to the character, a Deft archer might know trick shots or jungle acrobat be accompanied by a loyal panther; a charismatic Strong character might boost morale or instil fear, whilst a loyal Strong character could protect others; and a Wise summoner might call things from the netherworld or a Wise steampunk tinkerer might fiddle with a Universal Engine to get any number of effects. 

Then a character has Groups. Every character starts with two of these, representing his Species—if other human, his vocation, or an affiliation with a guild or tribe or school or whatever. An affiliation might even be a strong personality trait or belief, such as Lawful, Evil, or Hesta will always guide me. Whatever the Group, it is always associated with an attribute and whenever the player has to make a check against an attribute when its associated group comes into play, it is always with a bonus. 

Thurston Smith
Level 1 Deft Hero
Hit Dice 1 Attack Value 10 
Move Value 25 Saving Throw 7 
Armour Class 3 Hit Points 5 

Strength 08 
Dexterity 15 (+1 to Initiative) [Treasure Hunter]
Constitution 13 
Intelligence 17 [The Last University]
Wisdom 07 
Charisma 14

Languages: Draconic, Underearth, Common

Special Abilities
Master of the Whip

Whilst Hit Points and weapon damage in Whitehack is rolled on six-sided dice, the roleplaying game’s mechanic uses a twenty-sided die—or two. For his hero to undertake an action, a player rolls a twenty-sided die and attempts to roll equal to or under the appropriate attribute. A roll of twenty is a fumble, but a roll equal to the value of the attribute is a critical success. The Referee can make this task easier or harder by increasing or decreasing the value of the attribute for the purposes of the task. If a character has an appropriate group next to the attribute being rolled against, then the player can make a ‘positive double roll’ and roll two twenty-sided dice with only one needing to be equal to or under the attribute for the character to succeed. (Other roleplaying games would call this ‘rolling with advantage’.) If though,  pairs are rolled on ‘positive double roll’ equal to or under the attribute then the character gains an extra bonus of some kind, but if the pairs are over the attribute, he suffers an extra detrimental effect in addition to his failure.
For example, Thurston Smith is on an archaeological expedition and is exploring a necropolis in search of the tomb of Naranda, Lord of the White Scales, an infamous White Dragon cultist. Searching a catacomb complex he comes across the sarcophagus of another potentially important cultist. The stone coffin is carved as if the occupant was wrapped in the wings of a dragon and engraved in the Draconic tongue. Thurston speaks Draconic, but the engravings are faded and the Draconic an ancient variant. To read what it says, Thurston’s player will need to make an Intelligence check. Which for Thurston will be seventeen. Thurston also has an appropriate Group attached to his Intelligence—The Last University—so his player gets to make a ‘double positive roll’. The Referee states that the condition of the engravings makes it harder to read them and levies a penalty. So now Thurston’s player much make a ‘Double Positive Roll’ against a target of fifteen. He rolls six and six—a positive, but not critical success. The Referee identifies the tomb as belonging to Oshun the Minor, another cultist, but one who was part the schism that killed Naranda, Lord of the White Scales and was said to have gone to the grave with some of his enemy’s secrets.Whitehack uses the same mechanic for attacking in combat, but with an adjustment to how Armour Class is handled. The Armour Class scale in Whitehack is ascending, but ascends from zero, indicating no armour, then two for Cloth, three for Leather, and so on. Shields increase Armour Class by one. (A table provides a means of conversion from traditional ascending and descending Armour Class scales found in other fantasy roleplaying games.) When a character attacks an opponent wearing armour or with an Armour Class value, his player is rolling against both the character’s attribute and the opponent’s Armour Class. If the player rolls equal to or under his character’s attribute, but above the Armour Class value, then the attack is successful, but if the roll is under both the attribute and the Armour Class value, then the attack fails.
For example, Thurston, having opened up the sarcophagus of Oshun the Minor, is confronted with the corpse of the long dead priest, reanimated as an Ice Zombie. Thurston quickly draws his flintlock pistol and fires at the looming desiccated ice figure. Thurston’s attack will go first because he is using a firearm and the player will be rolling against Thurston’s Dexterity. However, the Oshun the Minor is flesh and bone hardened by ice, which gives him an Armour Class of three. Any roll of four to sixteen will mean that Thurston’s shot has hit, but a roll of seventeen or more means a miss, and a roll of three or lower means that he has hit Oshun the Minor, but the Ice Zombie’s frozen skin has stopped the ball from Thurston’s handgun.Contests between characters or NPCs can be handled via the simple comparison of attribute rolls, but for longer contests an Auction mechanic can be used. Each participant rolls a six-sided die and keeping the result a secret, bids the value of the number rolled or less as a qualifier much like Armour Class. For example, if Thurston wanted to escape the cold clutches of Oshun the Minor, his player might roll a four on the six-sided die, and bid a three to escape, meaning that he has to roll under Thurston’s Dexterity of seventeen, but over the bid of three to succeed. If he fails, then the Referee gets to bid for Oshun the Minor to catch him… 

Having given the players the freedom to imagine and design their characters how they like just using the three Classes, Whitehack gives the Wise Class and thus spellcasters the freedom to create almost any magic that they like. The downside is that casting spells, doing prayers, performing rituals, and so on costs the caster Hit Points—and the more complex the spell and its effects, the more Hit Points it costs. Now the Wise character does get these Hit Points back faster than any other Class—though not from his own magic—and he can mitigate the Hit Point loss. This might be through the use of the right equipment or tools, ingredients, place, gestures, and so on.
For example, Darius the Spider Mage wants to sneak past some guards in a torchlit cavern. He decides to cast Move Like an Arachnid and climb up the walls and along the ceiling. The Referee states that this will cost Darius 1d6+2 in Hit Points to cast. Darius’ player says that the Spider Mage will make it appear that he has eight legs as part of the casting and rub crushed spiders into his hands and feet. For the first, the Referee agrees to reduce the cost to 1d6+1 and then to 1d6 for the second. Darius’ player rolls the die and loses three Hit Points, but successfully casts the spell...Essentially, spellcasting in Whitehack is a negotiation between the player and the Referee, the player aiming to cast a spell closest to the desired effect, whilst losing as few Hit Points as possible, whereas the Referee is aiming to have the Wise character cast something plausible taking into account the character’s concept, Level, and Groups. This works whatever type of spell or effect the Wise character is aiming for, including the creation of artefacts, although this costs the caster permanent Hit Points rather than temporary ones. For those who like the traditional spells of Dungeons & Dragons and other retroclones, Whitehack includes a list for the players and Referee as a reference to aid them in a more traditional style of fantasy roleplaying game.

Beyond these core rules, Whitehack provides rules for corruption and then four new Classes. The first two are the Brave and the Fortunate, whilst the Dagonite and the Marionette are given as two examples of Race of Class. All four are slightly more complex Classes, the first two designed to be used as replacements should a player character die during the game, the second two to fit the campaign setting given at the end of the Whitehack. All four though, work as examples for the Referee to design her own. Whitehack also provides the Referee on advice when running the game, covering designing or adapting settings, creating adventures and constructing dungeons, and handling campaigns.

Although a full list of monsters is included in Whitehack, it is very much a list and a list a traditional monsters, and given that they are traditional monsters, they do not really anything in the way of an explanation. Instead, Whitehack focuses on building monsters, including ‘Boss’ monsters which have to be taken down stage by stage. The monsters given as an example include Mountain Orcs—stealthy cannibals who are rumoured to be lycanthropes, Rock Snails—beasts of burden whose shells are used as shelter by the travellers they carry; and Whitecloaks, a lawful religious cult dedicated to fighting and curing the corrupted and the cursed. These monsters, much like the artefacts given in Whitehack such as the Dagonite Needle Gun and the Ghost Box—a device for speaking to the undead spirits trapped within, are part of ‘The White Curse’, the campaign setting included in Whitehack.

‘The White Curse’ is a post-apocalypse fantasy setting in which the blood of an evil Witch King seeped into the ground, causing a terrible cold to spread and many of its inhabitants to suffer from a curse that turns them into the Twisted. As the Witch King works to return to the mortal world, one cult known as the Watchers attempts to stop it whilst the Witch Cult works for its master. The world is one of shattered cities buried under ice and freezing seas forcing the amphibious Dagonites to seek refuge on the land, as the Witch Cult searches the ruins for ancient artefacts and the Watchers attempt to stop them. The set-up suggests that the player character party could be part of either organisation which lends itself to some interesting roleplaying possibilities.

Whitehack comes with a scenario, ‘The Chapterhouse Murders’, set within the enclosed chapterhouse of the Whitecloaks. The player characters will need to conduct their investigations outside the chapterhouse in the gorge city of Ode and then find their way inside to continue. Much of the scenario is built around a mindmap of relationships that the Referee will need to work from, with the investigation inside the chapterhouse combining a dungeon crawl and a murder mystery, but playd out with stealth. Clues learned in ‘The Chapterhouse Murders’ will lead the player characters out of the city of Ode and after a murderous MacGuffin, the significance of which will vary according to which side the player characters are working for. ‘The White Curse’ provides impressive support for Whitehack, solid playable fantasy content with both steampunk-esque and Lovecraftian elements.

Whitehack is available in a variety of formats, but the simplest and handiest is a sixty-four page digest-sized book. All versions are illustrated, but the layout is clean and tidy and whilst it needs an edit here and there, the writing is engaging. One issue is with the organisation which puts all of the play examples together in one place and not with the rules they illustrate. This means that grasping the rules is not as immediately as easy as it should be and that is at odds with the simplicity and intent of Whitehack.

As much as many retroclones are designed to emulate particular iterations of Dungeons & Dragons and in many cases, it is claimed that they can do a variety of different types and styles of fantasy too. Now Whitehack can do the traditional fantasy of Dungeons & Dragons and the support and scenarios for traditional Dungeons & Dragons and other retroclones can be adapted to Whitehack—a matter of the Referee making the adjustment of the mechanics and numbers from the other to Whitehack, which can be done on the fly once she is used to it—what Whitehack offers is the flexibility and freedom to do more. Not just for the Referee, but the players who have the freedom to create the characters they want without the constraints of traditional fantasy. On the downside though, the freedom means a lack of options to choose from and for some players and Referees this can be paralysing. (In which case, Whitehack may not be for such players and Referees and perhaps The Black Hack would be a more suitable choice as it is more traditional in the options and fantasy it offers.)

Whitehack is a retroclone package in two parts. The first the rules, simple and easy, but unconstrained in terms of what each player wants in his character and the Referee wants in the design of her fantasy world. The second is an example setting and scenario combination showcase with enough content to get a game of Whitehack going, yet with room enough for the Referee to expand and develop as is her wont. Overall, Whitehack is a great retroclone for giving player and Referee design freedom alike—and then showcasing how it can be done.

There is no denying the continued and growing popularity of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, with it having appeared on the television series Stranger Things and it no longer being seen as a hobby solely the preserve of typically male, nerdy teenagers and young adults. Yet as acceptable a hobby as roleplaying and in particular, playing Dungeons & Dragons has become, getting into the hobby is still a daunting prospect. Imagine if you will, being faced with making your first character for your first game of Dungeons & Dragons? For nearly all of us, this is not very far from being a challenge, for we all started somewhere and we all had to make that first step—however many years ago it was. What do you play? What choices do you make? As well written as both Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set and the Player’s Handbook are, both still present the prospective reader and player with a lot of choices, but without really answering that first question after deciding that you want to play, and that is, “What do I want to play?”

Step forward Warriors & Weapons, part of the ‘Dungeons & Dragons Young Adventurer’s Guides Series’ published by Ten Speed Press. It is an introductory guide to Dungeons & Dragons, designed as a primer to many of the types of characters that can be played in the game, plus the arms and armour they will equip themselves with and the various tools they will carry when go adventuring. Notably, it is profusely illustrated, no page consisting entirely of text. The artwork is all drawn from and matches the style of Dungeon & Dragons, Fifth Edition, so as much as it provides an introduction to characters in the roleplaying game, it provides an introduction to the look of the roleplaying game, so providing continuity between the other books in the ‘Dungeons & Dragons Young Adventurer’s Guides Series’ and the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set and the core rulebooks. This use of art and the digest size of the book means that from the start, Warriors & Weapons is an attractive little package.

As to the content, it can really be divided into three sections—‘Fantasy Races’, ‘Character Classes’, and ‘Equipment’. The first covers nine Races found in Dungeons & Dragons. These are Human, Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Half-Elf, Half-Orc, Halfling, Dragonborn, Kenku, Tabaxi, Tiefling, and Tortle, with each being accorded a double-page spread. Along with an illustration, this opens with a simple set of questions and a suggestion, such as, “Are you fascinated by how the world works?”, “Do you sometimes talk too much?”, and “Do you long to see the world and make new friends along the way?”, which the book answers with, “You might be a Gnome!”. This is accompanied by more information about the Race, some ideas of their typical names, and typical attributes, so Intellect, Industrious, Dexterity, and Tricky for Gnomes.

The six Character Classes in Warriors & Weapons, all of a martial bent, are given a similar treatment. They are Barbarian, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, and Rogue, each entry asking questions similar to those of the Races, detailing their archetypes, their equipment and attributes, and so on. Thus the Martial Archetypes of Battle Master, Champion, and Eldritch Knight for the Fighter Class, that they can use all arms and armour, and gain from Second Wind, which gives them greater resolve. Further each Class is accompanied by an exemplar or legendary member of that Class. So there is Wulfgar the Warhammer for the Barbarian and Shandie Freefoot for the Rogue, with descriptions of what they can do and what it would be like to play them. All six are notables from the Forgotten Realms, veteran fans likely to enjoy the inclusion of Minsc the Mighty along with Boo the Hamster. 

The Class section ends with two things. The first is a ‘Class Flowchart’ which asks a few questions and quickly guides the prospective player to the Class that he might like to play. It does seem odd to have this placed after the descriptions of the Classes rather than before and it seems even odder not have a ‘Race Flowchart’ in the previous section. The other is a look at ‘Character Background & Inspiration’, basically introducing some of the Backgrounds from the Player’s Handbook. Lastly, it asks what makes your character special beyond Race and Class, including flaws.

The first two sections have been all about who are you and what do you do. The third and final section, deals with equipment, detailing not just clothes, but arms, armour—the latter with a special warning about the dangers of encountering a Rust Monster, and kits and packs. Packs in particular get some attention, a full page illustration and a description each, all handily presented. If there is a single niggle with the whole of this useful reference section, it is that the Pike is included in the description of polearms rather than the humble spear.

Rounding out Warriors & Weapons is some last words about building a hero, telling the reader that he is on his first steps composing his adventurer’s story. It opens up a little to ask the player to wonder about the other heroes his character will adventure alongside, what and where his adventures take place, and of course, why? It explains a bit more about the play of Dungeons & Dragons, so serving as a light primer before the player gets to the table.  

There are just two issues with Warriors & Weapons. The first is that as an introduction to the types of characters you can play in Dungeons & Dragons, as its title suggests, it only gets half of the job done. It does not cover Clerics, Sorcerers, and Wizards, or indeed any of the other spellcasting character types in Dungeons & Dragons. All that is covered in Wizards & Spells, the companion to Warriors & Weapons. So to learn about those character types—and thus all of the character types in Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition—the prospective player as yet unsure as  to which to play will need to buy the two books. That said, neither book is expensive. Unfortunately, Wizards & Spells is not available until March of 2020, so the prospective Wizard-playing player wanting to know more will still have to consult the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set or the Player’s Handbook.

The other issue is that Warriors & Weapons includes some non-standard Races. These are the Kenku, the Tabaxi, and the Tortle. None of these three are in the Player’s Handbook and so any prospective looking to play a member of these Races is going to be disappointed. Further, there are no pointers as where the details of these Races can be found. Obviously, the next step from Warriors & Weapons is the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set or the Player’s Handbook, but not for those Races. For a book so obviously intended to be helpful, their inclusion and their lack of pointers is odd to say the least, if not simply just unhelpful.

Physically, Warriors & Weapons is an attractive little hardback. It is bright, it is breezy, and it shows a prospective player what he can play, both in the art and the writing. Further, the art shows lots of adventuring scenes which can only spur the prospective player’s imagination.

Now obviously, Warriors & Weapons is designed to showcase Dungeons & Dragons and introduce the prospective player to what he can roleplay. And this it does well enough, given that another book is needed to cover all of the choices available. It should be noted that given the lack of statistics and other values, Warriors & Weapons would also work as an introduction to Dungeons & Dragons-style retroclones, though in its look, it is brighter and breezier than the style and tone of the typical fantasy roleplaying game from the Old School Renaissance.

As an introduction to some of the character types you can play in Dungeons & Dragons and a little of the types of adventures such characters can have, Warriors & Weapons very nicely works as a book to give as a gift for the prospective or curious player. Especially if he has played any of the Endless Quest solo adventure books published by Wizards of the Coast. Warriors & Weapons though, is also a book to have at the table as a reference guide. Of course the Player’s Handbook does that too, but Warriors & Weapons, by virtue of its size, its brevity, and its lack of gaming stats, is handier and easier to use. So questions like, “How does a Fighter fight?” or “What does a Dragonborn look like?” or “What is scale mail?” or “What is in an Explorer’s Pack?” can all be answered by flipping through the pages of this smaller, much shorter tome.

Warriors & Weapons is not perfect by any means, but it is a bright and easy read, the first part of what should serve as a light introduction to Dungeons & Dragons. One that nicely works as a gift as much as it does a reference work.

The publication of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition by Cubicle Seven Entertainment is a reminder that once upon a time, Games Workshop published roleplaying games. Chief amongst these was of course Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, which even thirty years on, remains the definitive British roleplaying game. Its mix of fantasy, European history, Moorcockian cosmology, humour, grim and perilous feel, disease and damnation, and mud and shit underfoot, very much set it apart from the fantasy found in other roleplaying games of the time—and arguably since. Perhaps the best expression of those elements is not in the roleplaying game itself, but in what is arguably the greatest British roleplaying campaign ever published—The Enemy Within. Published in six parts—The Enemy Within, Shadows Over Bögenhafen, Death on the Reik, Power Behind the Throne, Something Rotten in Kislev, and Empire in Flames—between 1986 and 1989, it thrust a band of lowly adventurers into a conspiracy that threatened the Empire not from without, but within, pushing them onto a larger stage which will bring them to the attention of the great, the good, and the bad and ultimately place the fate of the Empire in their hands. Mostly.

The Enemy Within as a campaign has been much discussed and examined over the years, the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay fanzine, Warpstone, which ran for thirty issues from 1996, paying particular to the campaign through histories and interviews with the authors and designers. My own history with the campaign begins in 1986 as a fan of  Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, playing through much of it three times—playing different characters each time—as published and then with different groups in the 1990s, before reading through the campaign as whole twice as a Hogshead Publishing employee. In the twenty years since, there has been discussion of revisiting The Enemy Within campaign, whether the original campaign using Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Second Edition, or the version of the campaign published by Fantasy Flight Games for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Third Edition. With the publication of the campaign again by Cubicle Seven Entertainment there may well be a chance that I will revisit it at the gaming table again, but in the meantime, it is worth looking again at the constituent parts of The Enemy Within campaign.

The first part of The Enemy Within is of course, The Enemy Within. Later reprints amalgamated this with Shadows Over Bögenhafen and Death on the Reik as Games Workshop’s Warhammer Adventure and Warhammer Campaign, or with Shadows over Bögenhafen as Hogshead Publishing’s Shadows Over Bögenhafen. The original came as a folio, much like the scenarios for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons from TSR, Inc., thick with content—a fifty-six page campaign booklet, a full colour poster of The Empire, and eight pages of handouts, the latter including letters and other clues for scenario included in the booklet, as well as six pre-generated player characters, and a map and calendar of The Empire for the players.

From the off, The Enemy Within clearly states what it is about and what the player characters will be facing. The Empire—described as the greatest land in the Old World—is under attack, but not from the many mutants, Beastmen, and Chaos Warriors that lurk in the all-too thick forests on the edge of civilisation, but from within the mighty civilisation itself. Whilst they do attack and maraud the lands and peoples near to their forest lairs, the true threat comes the members of the guild, merchant, burgermeister, and noble classes who have turned to the worship in secret of the Chaos Gods in return for promises of power, pleasure, and worse. Whether they understand the true perfidy they will unleash on The Empire or not with vile devotions, they are the true enemy, which will only be revealed as campaign progresses and the adventurers are pulled deeper into the horrors hidden behind façades of nobility and civility…

Having set out its remit, The Enemy Within booklet gives good advice for the Game Master in running both the campaign and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Notable amongst this advice is being flexible, being dramatic, and being humorous in presenting the Old World and the campaign. Certainly the humorous aspect to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is one that sets it apart from other roleplaying games, though as the campaign progresses, the authors’ predilection for puns and bad German word play becomes more groan worthy than actually funny. Then as well as covering travel in the Empire—primarily via its canal network and its coaching companies—more than half of the booklet expands upon the background of The Empire and the Old World given in the core rulebook, which was not really as extensive as it could have been. This covers the history of the Empire, from its founding with the unification of the tribes by Sigmar Heldenhammer and defeat of the Goblin armies, right up to the present day, its accompanying list of Emperors including a sly dig at eighties politics with the election of Empress Magraritha in 1979. (The inclusion of Boris the Incompetent on the timeline is just coincidence. Hopefully.)

The background covers not just the Empire’s history and emperors, but the current figurehead of an emperor, his advisors, and the Electors, the latter the members of the nobility who elect the Emperor. Below this, it examines the political and economic structure of the Empire; its guilds, nobility, and ordinary folk; its religion—primarily the Cult of Sigmar, the Empire’s state religion, but also prescribed cults like those devoted to Kháine and the Chaos gods; and its geography and means of communication over long distances, plus a short gazetteer. This is followed by stats for Soldiers of the Empire and Standard NPCs for The Enemy Within campaign. These are accompanied by illustrations of the typical dress worn in the Empire, a guide to herbs found in the Empire, and Mutants in the Empire.

All of which is useful material for the Game Master. A lot of this will come into play during a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay campaign, not just The Enemy Within campaign, though that will involve mutants, it will involve the Empire’s Electors, and one of the pre-generated player characters is a herbalist. Much of this and The Empire is inspired by the history of the Germanic principalities, duchies, and other states of the Holy Roman Empire, which gives Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay its mittel-European sensibility and thus much of its identity which sets it apart from other fantasy roleplaying games. 

The scenario in The Enemy Within is ‘Mistaken Identity’. This begins with a cliché—the player characters answering a call for adventurers wanted in the Imperial capital, Altdorf—but is it? Perhaps in any other fantasy roleplaying game, but here it works because the player characters are at the bottom of the heap and cannot really expect to improve themselves except by answering this call. Some players may grumble at the admonishment that no Dwarves apply, but since no Dwarves are included in the six pre-generated characters, this is not really an issue. Of course, by the time the adventurers get to Altdorf to sign up, the potential employer will have already departed having hired everyone he needed. And by then, the adventurers will also have been distracted by other events…

‘Mistaken Identity’ is a travel adventure. The need for the player characters to get from Delberz to Altdorf more or less hides the linear nature of the scenario’s storyline, which is really designed to get the player characters from one plot point to the next. These plot points are twofold. The first is to get the player characters to discover the dead body of one Kastor Lieberung, a man who is the spitting image of one of their number and who happens to have a letter informing him of an inheritance in the town of Bögenhafen. The possibility of riches and elevation to the nobility is the real hook here, the fact that only one or two of the player characters is literate is a further reason to keep everyone together, since it is unlikely that doppelganger will be able to read the letter. The second is to wonder why certain men are taking a desperate interest in the player character—or rather Kastor Lieberung who the player character is impersonating—and third, why someone else wants those men and then Kastor Lieberung, dead. Of course, Kastor Lieberung is actually a dead Chaos cultist, and understandably, this will have repercussions throughout the rest of The Enemy Within campaign as death and murder follows in the adventurers’ wake (and not just at the end of their swords and axes, The Enemy Within campaign involving a fair bit of combat)...

Along the way, the Game Master has some fun scenes to portray. These begin with a night at the Coach and Horses Inn, populated with a range of characters ready to set out aboard the coach the next day. Here the player characters get to rub up against and probably rub up the wrong way various members of society, including a cardsharp on the make, an imperious noble who will employ her bodyguards to keep the player characters away, a cultist (from another cult!), and two very drunk coachmen. The player characters are free to do what they want here and roleplay their characters in the inn and on the road, before throwing them into the plot proper following a combat with Mutants on the road. This will have nasty consequences for one of the player characters as it turns out one of the Mutants was a friend. After this, there is the famous ear-scratching scene by cultists in Altdorf, a run-in with Hooray Heinrichs spoiling for a fight between their bodyguards and the oiks, and meet-up with an old friend, circumstances around these pushing the player characters to scarper from Altdorf—and on to Shadows Over Bögenhafen, the next part of The Enemy Within…

The Enemy Within comes with six pre-generated player characters, all in their first Career, and all ready to play except for each player needing to select his character’s first Advance. They are all complete with an illustration, background, and personality description. They include an Elf Minstrel, a Halfling Herbalist, and Human Boatman, Labourer, Thief, and Wizard’s Apprentice, and despite this range, they are a fairly ordinary lot. This though nicely plays off against the extraordinary series of events that they will find themselves thrust into as The Enemy Within progresses. The first part of the campaign also includes six player handouts, all nicely done on heavy stock.

Physically, The Enemy Within is an engaging product. The writing is excellent, the advice solid, and the new background useful. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay has always been renowned for its artwork, but in coming back to The Enemy Within, it is artistically disappointing. Much of it is cartoonish even as it tries to evoke the Old World’s ‘grim and perilous’ feel. This is not to say that some of it is not good, but on the strength of this first part of the campaign, it needs work. Conversely, the maps are all well done.

Both Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and The Enemy Within were reviewed in Dragon #124 (August 1987) by Ken Rolston, who would go on to write Something Rotten in Kislev, the fifth part of The Enemy Within campaign. He commented that, “...The Enemy Within makes a very good first impression. Though that first impression weakens slightly on careful examination, it’s nonetheless a stand-out product, highly recommended, and a promising initial release for WFR’s line of campaign and adventure supplements.” Of the adventure structure, he said, “The adventure also depends on an unusually egregious use of plot manipulation to get the PCs from one encounter to the next. The encounters are excellent – elaborately staged, with detailed NPCs, GM presentation tips, and fine role-playing opportunities. The adventure materials are complete to current industry standards – prepared character sheets, with character personality and background notes, player handout props, GM reference summary sheets, attractive, functional maps and diagrams. But the creaking of the plot mechanisms for shuttling the PCs from encounter to encounter is a bit distracting. The adventure could be run without all the dubious coincidences – but the best parts of the adventure depend on those coincidences. If I ran this adventure, I would earnestly and shamelessly steer the PCs right into them. But I’d be a lot more careful about eroding my players’ trust in the plot devices. “Say, what a coincidence – again…”” Nevertheless, he was ultimately positive about the adventure. Similarly, Space Gamer/Fantasy Gamer Number 82 (July/Aug 1988) reviewed not just The Enemy Within, but also its sequels, Shadows Over Bögenhafen and Death on the Reik. Of The Enemy Within, reviewer Richard A. Edwards said that, “If you want to bring your roleplaying group a new experience in roleplaying and introduce them to new complexities of plot then run, do not walk, to your game store and purchase a copy.” The late Stewart Wieck reviewed both Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, The Enemy Within, Shadows Over Bögenhafen, and Death on the Reik in White Wolf Magazine #9 (February, 1988), focussing in the main on the roleplaying game itself. He said, “The Enemy Within, Shadows Over Bögenhafen, and Death on the Reik are all very attractive and worthwhile supplements. The Enemy Within forms the basis for all of the WFRP adventures that follow. It begins an entire campaign for WFRP.” before awarding The Enemy Within a score out of eight out of ten.

The Enemy Within consists of two parts. In the first, it gives the Game Master the background—political, legal, travel, geographical, religious, and more—to The Empire, providing the background against which the events of The Enemy Within campaign as a whole will play out. At this initial stage, this is not obvious, but as the campaign progresses, it will become so, for one of the things that the authors do not do is lay out the whole plot. That will only come when it is complete. As to ‘Mistaken Identity’, it is easy to complain that the scenario is linear and too much of a railroad, but if so, it does what it is designed to do—pull them into the adventure before waylaying them with a completely different plot and shoving them into the campaign proper. As a set-up, it takes a session or two, and perhaps its plot is heavy-handed in places (though it hides it well), but The Enemy Within is a solid start to the definitive British fantasy roleplaying campaign.


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With thanks to Shannon Appelcline for arranging access to White Wolf Magazine #9.