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So you’ve just bought the Warhammer FRPG 2nd edition book and instead of getting Plundered Vaults, a collection of adventurers, you want something meatier. Something that you can run directly after the adventure, Through the Drakwald. Well my friend, Ashes of Middenheim is for you. This is designed for characters in their first or second careers and includes four pregenerated characters in their first careers with their first advancement indicated by a check mark.
In terms of art, there are some strong showings from industry favorites like Adrian Smith and Tony Parker. If you like the cover by Christer Sveen, then you’ll enjoy the interior work he does as well. There are several handouts, some of them more useful than others, but they do add a nice touch to the game. The cartography by Shawn Brown is adequate but compared to Ed from Skeleton Key Games or Todd Gamble whose work is almost like art, it looks lacking.
Now even though Wizards of the Coast has recently reduced their page count on their hard covers from 192 to 160 pages, they are still in full color and have 54 pages more than this book for $5.00 more. On the other hand, White Wolf’s smaller books tend to be 128 black and white pages in hardcover for the same price.
On the other hand, Bastion Press books were in softcover and for the same page count, almost the same price. Same with AEG and their dual statted books for Swashbuckling Adventurers and L5R books. Competitively wise, Some may feel that the book is over priced for those that play multiple game engines but for those fans of Warhammer material, outside of Warpstone and the net, this is the extend of your material and this is the only ‘official’ published material.
Now for those who may be players in a Warhammer game, you need to stop reading and go away. This is an adventure review after all and only GMs should be reading at this point onward.
Ashes starts off with a quick introduction that breaks down what the Storm of Chaos did to the city, and how the city is currently getting on. It’s then broken up into eight chapters that are interconnected that will pit the players against many cults of chaos and against the dreaded rats that walk like men, the Skaven.
The section, After the Storm, the non-chapter sourcebook, includes details on the history of the city, as well as details on what’s currently going on in the city in terms of standing power and day-to-day effects of the storm. The set up is a good one here, as many of the most powerful entities in the city are out hunting down the remains of the chaos cults that tried to sack the city. This allows the players to step in and effectively be heroes without straining the credibility of the world too much.
The city is broken up into various districts and the districts each have a location or three that tries to give it some life. It’s been a while since I’ve played through the old Enemy Within so I can’t speak for what’s changed and what may be referenced but a few things look familiar to me. All told, we get forty-four locations marked out. The bad news is that they come with no maps and no gaming statistics for those GMs who may be more interested in the city as opposed to the adventure. In all fairness though, as this is primarily an adventure, I can’t hold that against the book.
In terms of adventure, the book has good and bad things going for it. It all starts when the players get to the city. Either after following the introduction adventure in the core book or just starting off, the players are assumed to have dropped off a valuable icon of Sigmar to the church. This is important for a number of elements, the first of which is the huge rivalry between the gods Sigmar and Ulric, especially in this city as it’s supposed to be founded by Ulric’s blessings.
After the players drop off the icon, things start happening with incredible quickness. Turns out that an hour after the icon was dropped off, the priest it was given to turns up dead and the players, as the last to have seen him, apparently because there are no other members of the Sigmar church in house at the time, are brought in for questioning. The book relies on the players doing investigation, some of the skill checks called for belonging to only a handful of starting careers, so it should be interesting to see what happens to groups that are lacking the skills to move on. Looking at the pregenerated characters, none of them have several of the skills/talents asked for like Prepare Poison or Follow Trail.
After learning of other recent deaths that turn out to be linked, the players have to go into the sewers and fight the Skaven. Now for me, the Skaven are supposed to be one of the biggest mysteries in the Empire. A race of barely known creatures. The fact that the company is using them so quickly here and in adventurers in Plundered Vaults quickly makes you wonder how they can continue to keep their existence a secret. Instead of being a secret it should be a “No One Cares because we’ve killed so many of ‘em.” I mean it works for the beastmen who are at the base of the city, why not the Skaven, who are known to be in the sewers?
After fighting the Skaven, the players are summoned by priests of Ulric to retrieve a demonic brass skull that has appeared in a vision to a blind priest. Well, here’s where the fun of the setting comes in because one of the higher-ranking priest is actually a member of a cult of Khorne.
The adventurers continue on this way with the party being pretty much directed to or commanded to do X, Y, and Z. In some instances, it comes across as heavy handed as when the party retrieves the brass skull and are surrounded by an overwhelming amount of beastmen. Who should happen to come in but two very experienced Witch Hunters along with a third member who’s not quite as skilled with the sword, but has other talents that the Witch Hunters use.
Back in the day, we called this NPC Theater where the party was pretty much there to be saved and commanded by those more powerful than them. In some ways it doesn’t smack so much of control here because the party members actually get to return the favor latter on, which lessens the blow of having to be saved by the characters.
Some of the sections may not be to everyone’s taste, but provide some interesting role-playing opportunities. For example, when a member of the Witch Hunters is accused of heresy and the party has to find the proof that he’s not, the actual trial itself can be done with the players assuming different roles in the trial with pregenerated handouts.
In the end, the players will have crossed swords with numerous chaos cults, have found potential heresy in both churches and will have discovered that the brass skull is merely the first part of a three part puzzle that allows the adventure to continue.
In terms of assistance for a new GM, the book offers a few hints here and there, but several scenes are left for the players to decide what actions they want to take to complete these missions they’ve been sent on, but doesn’t provide a lot of help, sometimes assuming that the players have resources that starting players wouldn’t have.
In terms of granting experience points, for those who aren’t going to use the baseline rules, they provide an experience point breakdown per chapter for various events, with a note that players should be awarded an average of 30 for role playing, up to 50 for very good role playing.
In terms of space use, some things should’ve just been left out. I’m not talking about side bars on Chaos Cults like the Purple Hand. Those can be useful latter. I’m talking about stuff that provides background details on things like Hellcannons, without game statistics. Why bother mentioning it unless it’s going to be detailed? On the other hand, the detailing of the NPC’s varies. Some are not given statistics as they have a walk-on role only. Others however, like Professor Albrecht Zweistein, have details and career profiles and are only there for a moment or two. Some of the hand outs, like a clue the players find, have the handwritten version, which is so small you can’t read it, are followed by the part that you do read aloud.
In terms of utility, I’d rate it fair. The pushing of the players allows the plot to move forward, but where some ideas should be used, such as getting players through a crowd in the middle of a mob scene or advancing silently into the Ulric temple, it’s left to the GM and players how to handle it. A sidebar on how to use the rules to do these things would be great.
More experienced GM’s who want the players to move about on their own, or those with characters already in their late second careers, may find this too easy. A time pressed GM or one who is looking for prewritten adventures longer than those in Plundered Vaults will find this useful and time saving.
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