The Enemy Within Campaign

The Enemy Within

On the surface, the Empire is all but invincible. It is the greatest of the Old World’s realms, both in extent and in military might.
Founded two and a half millennia ago, it has withstood countless assaults by Greenskins, Skaven, Chaos, and its many neighbours. Beneath the banner of the twin-tailed comet, emblem of its founder-god Sigmar Heldenhammer, the State Armies of the Empire take to the field behind their mighty Griffon-riding Emperor, confident of victory.
However, scratch the surface and peer just beneath, and things take on a different aspect. There are worrying rumours concerning the Emperor’s health, and he hasn’t been near his Griffon for months. Deep in the remote forests of this vast realm, Beastmen and worse still lurk, even though the forces of Chaos were expelled from the land two centuries ago. The taint of Chaos touches everywhere, inflicting strange mutations that force good folk to hide from their neighbours or face the flames of the witch hunters. Strange and secretive cults worship blasphemous gods with titles like ‘the Changer of the Ways’, ‘the Prince of Pleasure’ and ‘the Father of Decay’. Beyond the Empire’s borders, past the icy fringes of Kislev and Norsca, the swelling forces of Chaos inhabit the twisted and unnatural Northern Chaos Wastes. Leaders rise and fall, amassing armies to raid and plunder, only to have them disperse again.
It has been two centuries since any Champion of Chaos has arisen with the strength to unite the Enemy Without. But rumour suggests a new Chosen of the Ruinous Powers walks the north, and is binding the warlike tribes together. So, the rulers of the Old World do not relax their vigilance. They keep their eyes steadily on this terrible external threat. And, in doing so, they overlook the Enemy Within.

Campaign Themes

Ever since it was first published, gamers and reviewers have commented on the unique tone of the Enemy Within campaign. Much of this unique tone comes from the campaign’s underlying themes. At the time, all fantasy games were inspired by literature of heroic fantasy or the legends of King Arthur. Low fantasy and dark fantasy were relatively unknown, even as terms — at the time, we described WFRP as ‘grubby fantasy’ for want of something better to call it.

The Enemy Within

The Enemy Within wears a human face, and walks among the everyday folk. While all eyes are on the enemy without, the enemy within walks freely, exchanging cheery greetings with friends and neighbours even as it plots the destruction of the world.
Using the distraction of the enemy without to their advantage — the vast and twisted hordes of Chaos that lurk beyond the Empire and Kislev to the north, ready to pour across the border and into the Old World without warning — the enemy within is closer and arguably much more dangerous.
The society of the Empire is riddled with Chaos cults, great and small. Some are widespread, their plans vast and unguessable; others are small and local, and may not even know that they serve the Ruinous Powers. As the Characters progress through the campaign, they become more and more aware that anyone they meet could be an agent of Chaos in disguise.

Human Frailty

Everyone in the Old World is struggling to get along. Everyone wants something: wealth (or at least, enough to eat), safety for themselves and their loved ones, social advancement and the respect of their neighbours, revenge against those who have wronged them, justice (or at least the promise of fair treatment), and happiness (whatever it may mean to each individual). They have similar desires and worries to anyone else, and they will do what they can to satisfy the one and assuage the other.
Chaos takes advantage of these mortal desires and worries, slipping unnoticed through the gaps into unsuspecting mortal lives. To be avenged, to be feared and respected, and to be strong enough to withstand all manner of threats — these are the promises of Khorne, the Blood God. Wealth, knowledge, power, and advancement are the lures dangled before mortals by Tzeentch, the Great Mutator. Pleasure, comfort, and escape are the temptations offered by Slaanesh, the Prince of Pleasure. Meanwhile sloth, surrender, and fear of mortality attract others to Nurgle, the Father of Decay and Disease.
It always begins in a small, seemingly innocent way: a means to indulge one’s predilections, a shortcut to a small desire, a dodge to avoid a minor threat or worry. A friend, or the friend of a friend, who knows how to get something done, in exchange for a favour later on. Each time, it becomes easier to give in to the temptation. Each time, one more step is taken away from the mainstream of society, until it is no longer possible to ignore the growing deviancy of one’s tastes and actions. At last, a terrible name is spoken and a soul is damned.
Witch hunters burn them and society fears them, but whenever a Chaos cult is exposed and its members questioned, one thought runs through countless minds: ‘That could have been me.’

Choices of Evils

Many fantasy games and stories have a very simplistic morality: heroes are heroes, villains are villains, and never the twain shall meet. Just as WFRP eschews the unsullied palaces and consequence-free magic of heroic fantasy for a grubbier and more authentic setting, so too its adventures are at their best when they present players with moral ambiguity. Mutants, for example, are a threat to the Empire and the rest of the Old World, and they must be destroyed. But most Mutants are victims themselves: simple farmers, burghers, and normal folk whose bodies started to change for no reason that they understand. Cast out or forced to run for their lives, they do their best to survive in a hostile world, hiding and stealing to get by. Spurned, feared and rejected by everyone else, these Mutants slowly gravitate toward the Ruinous Power of Chaos. How heroic can an adventurer be when faced with a young woman who is pleading for her life with tears pouring from three wide, blue eyes instead of two?

Grim Fantasy

The Enemy Within is a low, dark fantasy; or ‘grubby fantasy’ as we used to call it before such terms were coined. WFRP Characters are often not especially heroic compared to their lethal counterparts in other fantasy games. Instead of gleaming towers of enchanted stone, the buildings of the Empire are half-timbered, huddled tight like the cities of medieval Europe. Magic is known in the world, but it is not widespread, and it’s dangerous to use. Monsters are known to live in the wildernesses between the islands of civilisation, but the most dangerous enemies are often close neighbours, most of whom are all too human. Where other fantasy adventures often take place in perfect weather amid park-like surroundings, the Empire is a place where it often rains — sometimes for hours or days, and usually at the least convenient times. Roads become impassable quagmires, mud sucks at boots, and the cold and damp seeps depressingly into the bones of the hardiest adventurer.

Humour vs Horror

An essential part of grubby fantasy — and one which is often absent from other games that claim to be low or dark fantasy — is humour. Before WFRP, Games Workshop’s Warhammer miniatures game included a great deal of humour, often in the form of silly names and thinly-veiled references to pop culture and contemporary events. WFRP continued this tradition, and found that elements of farce and low comedy provided a unique and welcome counterpoint to the gritty despair of the world and the cosmic horror of the struggle against Chaos.
Like the grim gags exchanged by troopers in the trenches of the First World War, each of these jokes represented a small triumph of the human spirit against the overwhelming doom that threatens from within and without. A moment of farce can break the tension of a seemingly hopeless quest; a wry observation can serve as a reminder that life goes on in all its glory and ridiculousness; and the ability to laugh can show that not everything is lost. Used well, humour can make a game far more enjoyable than an endless diet of doom and gloom; used brilliantly, humour can be as poignant as any tragedy.

Thinking Enemies

The enemies in The Enemy Within are not moustache-twirling villains bent on doing evil for evil’s sake. Even the non-Human opponents have goals, desires, and weaknesses that drive them. They do not simply wait in their lairs for heroes to burst in and kill them; they react intelligently, adjust their plans, and provide a shifting, challenging target. In their minds, it is they, and not the Characters, who are the heroes of their own stories and they act accordingly.

If It Can Go Wrong…

Overconfidence is the greatest enemy of the WFRP adventurer. If things seem to be going well, most experienced players will start to worry. Without torturing the players, a WFRP campaign features a plentiful supply of accidents and happenstances that are frustrating in the moment, but can be amusing in hindsight. More tales are told over Bugman’s ale about mishaps than about glorious triumphs, and nearly all are accompanied by gales of laughter.

Brains Over Brawn

Fighting is usually the worst possible option for WFRP adventurers. Combat is brutal, gory, and often short. Players proceed much farther by using their brains and their non-combat skills — and most Players enjoy this challenge much more than the simple, repetitive process of rolling dice to hit and cause damage.

A Wider World

As the Characters battle the enemy across the Empire, they will hear news and rumours from the wider world. It is not simply a static backdrop for their adventures, it is a vital and active realm with millions of inhabitants, where things are always happening. Some of these events simply give the impression of a wider world, some strengthen the atmosphere of the setting and reinforce the themes of the campaign, and still others turn into leads and encounters that develop the campaign as a whole.

Reviews

The best way for me to convey that history is through the word of others
[Blog Extract] 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.
[Reddit Extract] It was a game changer. A fantasy RPG campaign where the protagonists aren't heroes, there are no dungeons, the world turns without you and the forces at work are bigger than the heroes and villains. The first scenario pack consists of about a dozen pages of scenario and twice that of fluff about the empire. The second gives you a town, a festival and mystery. The third a river network and eventually a Castle with a mad or very sane man. Eventually you get a whole city in amazing detail.
I've started running it again for a new group and its still great but it is also showing its age. The problems at Games Workshop in this period are showing through. The production values are variable and it moves from rail roading to free form investigation and back again. It leaves more threads dangling than a poorly knitted sweater. Which means a group of modern RPGers are likely to wander away from the "plot" quite a lot. However the richness of the source material means that you can just go with the flow and let them chase real and imaginary chaos cultists across the empire to their and your hearts content then drag them back to the main thread. It was ground breaking but that ground was broken a long time ago and was used to build the foundations of modern works.
[Blog Extract] The Enemy Within Campaign is roleplaying. I played it over a number of years as a teenager and it captivated me and made me appreciate just how great it is to weave stories for others to follow. The opening two parts came together in a slipcase. The Enemy Within was a brief preamble, with information about the setting, a map (oh what a map!), and the start of a very long journey. Part 2, Shadows over Bogenhafen was a proper adventure, with a race against the clock that pitted the characters against shadowy chaos cultists. In many ways, these two adventures defined my Warhammer experience for all-time. The Enemy Within campaign is a fabulous way to immerse yourself in Warhammer’s “Old World.” It’s one of the finest campaigns I’ve ever played and this new incarnation (WFRP4) takes things to a whole new level. Huge attention to detail, lots of alternative routes through the adventures, with options for both novices and veterans.
[Reddit Extract] There was also a sort of progression and learning curve to the campaign. Mistaken Identity is very linear and simple but prepares a lot of the gamemaster's work, and it introduces the social classes of Warhammer and the mutant peril. Shadows over Bögenhafen is still very linear (like mystery scenarios often are: clue A sends you where you'll find clue B, which will send you to clue C, etc; plus events that happen at a set date), but it introduces the PCs and gamemaster to city adventures and mysteries.
Death on the Reik is supposedly a sandbox with a main plot. While the main plot is still very linear, the PCs can travel around a lot and the game gives the GM ideas about that. Power behind the Throne uses every skill the players and GM have learned, with a very open city storyline So all in all, it followed a pretty good crescendo in complexity and taught pretty well how to handle a game.
[Reddit Extract] When you do the 'first' of something in a hobby it has a special place, The Enemy Within was a groundbreaker in that it did away with dungeon dives of the D&D adventures and focused on the world around instead as the adventure. It was a long arc, not a short shot book and it really set up how we currently see games as not just a dungeon run, but interactions with NPCs and the world at large.