Overview

Warpstone is an independent fanzine for the Games Workshop game Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP), a game wich was published under license by Hogshead Publishing until recently. Warpstone was started by brits John Keane and John Foody in 1996. Hogshead started distributing the magazine after about ten issues, increasing it’s availability and circulation dramatically. It still retained it’s independence and non-profit organization, tough. When Hogshead threw in the towel earlier this year the Warpstone editors decided to act as their own distributors, but for how long they have the time and energy to keep doing that remains to be seen. Warpstone might have to go back to a smaller circulation and become subscription only in order to survive.

The magazine is in black and white, with almost-professional layout and looks that keeps on improving every issue. The illustrations are by a mixed bunch of contributors, and ranges from the average to the excellent. Worth noting especially is Ralph Horsley, a professional artist (with official WFRP products on his CV) who regularly contributes amazingly good maps and illustrations. The articles are also by a large group of people, including ”official” writers such as Alfred Nunez and Anthony Ragan as regular contributors. Page count is 64 for the latest issue, #20, and 48 pages for the older issues.

Regular Features

Every issue have certain regular features. Besides he obvious ones - an editorial and a table of contens - these include ”Fragments”, a collection of relevant news and small reviews of interest to the WFRP community. Also included regularly are more in-depth reviews of WFRP products and other roleplaying games and supplements that the editors considers to be of potential interest to WFRP players and GMs. These reviews tend to be a bit overlong and detailed at times, but are luckily not numerous enough to make up a significant pagecount. A letter column seems to come and go every other issue, perhaps due to lack of printable responses? Also a regular is Tim Eccle’s column ”The Correspondent”, where Mr. Eccles (a friend of the editors, I presume) writes about a wide variety of topics in the Warhammer universe. This column is one of the weaker parts of the magazine, since Mr. Eccles has a tendency to preach, often mixing interesting and original background information with evangelizing his particular view of the warhammer universe and how he thinks it should work. I think this column would be stronger if there was a clearer separation of opinion and ”facts” – if the latter is an appropriate word for information on a fictional world. Eccles regularly writes good articles in other parts of the magazine, so I know it’s not from a lack of talent that his regular column often leaves my wondering what the point really was. The rest of the magazine is made up of different articles and scenarios and usually a short story. I admit to having a strong distaste for fanfic, so I almost never read these (and the few I have read certainly haven’t given me a taste for more), and won’t comment on any of them in the following. Issue twenty comes without such a story, and we can only hope future issues will follow this lead.

Individual Issues

Issue 16 This issue sees the beginning of the large background project on Talabheim, a large collaborative effort with about a dozen contributors. A full sixteen pages of the issue is devoted to this background material, with an additonal ten pages devoted to a scenario set in the same location. Luckily thing then, that the Talabehim-articles are among the strongest pieces of writing Warpstone has ever published, indeed, it’s easily the rival of such offical material as ”Middenheim: City of the White Wolf”. This is part of an ongoing series wich is due to be finished in issue #21. We also get a very interesting article on the background of the (much maligned) Doomstones campaign. Also included is an article ”A Touch of Evil”, where a morally ambiguos situation from the editors own campaign is discussed in some detail. Personally I didn’t care too much for this article, but judging from the responses it got in later issues a lot of people liked it. Worth buying for the Talabheim-article alone, and rounded out with very strong material.

Issue 17 Continues with Talabheim, twelve pages this time, and maintains the high standard set by the first part of the article. A long historical article on the Nine Tribes of Sigmar is well written and interesting, but highlights a common weakness with Warpstone articles – much time and space is devoted to history, too often becoming bogged down in details, and at the same time wasting energy trying to make everything they write fit in with everything ever published by Games Workshop on the Warhammer world – a task wich GW can’t even be bothered to try themselves. Still, a strong article with some very nice adventure hooks. A couple of articles on nobility are included, one on ”Forms of Address”, wich I found very useful, and a longer one on nobility in the Empire, with extensive background on the house of the Bildhofens. A very detailed article on coins and coinage is next. Well written and researched, but again too much time is spent on details and too little on practical use in my opinion. A (very) short scenario of decent quality rounds of the issue. A good issue, again worth buying if just for the Talabheim-material.

Issue 18 Gives us an article on ”Guilds in WFRP”, intended as the first part of a series. Nice background info on this imprtant part of daily life in the Old World. This is followed by a hideously bad article called ”The Real Enemy Within”, a collection of incredibly weak links to make all of the officially published scenarios into one ”epic campaign”. Absolute drivel that seems like it took all of ten minutes to think up. Thankfully, only a single page is wasted on this. A real saving grace comes next, an article by Robin Low called ”The Trust”, on a secret organization that work for the betterment of humankind, but of course has several sinister secrets – ten pages of pure WFRP goodness dripping with great plot-hooks and well thought-out NPCs. The Talabheim-series continues in the same high-quality vein as well. The scenario that comes next seems slightly weak, but that may just be in comparision with the excellence that preceeds it in the magazine. A full three pages of letters rounds out this issue, mostly devoted to discussion of the ”Touch of Evil” article from issue 16. As I said, this one seems to have struck a cord with a lot of people. A very good issue.

Issue 19 An article by Dwarf sourcebook writer Alfred Nunez on the Dawikoni, humans who live within or nearby dwarven settlements starts of this issue with a bang. Very good article with nice plothooks. The senterpiece this time is a long aricle on ”The Sea of Claws”, twelve pages of excellent background on this northern part of the Empire, altough, again, I personally think a bit too much time is spent on history wich will see little or no use in actual play. A short article on ”The Order of the Rams”, a dwarven society follows, without being more than average at best. Talabheim continues, this time with a look on the Kislevite population of the city. I’ll say it again, this background material is easily the rival of much officially published stuff. A nice little article on the Physicians guild and a very good scenario set in Talabheim rounds of this issue. Another winner from the Warpstone team.

Issue 20 This issue is more packed with Warpstone goodness than ever, 64 pages to be exact. A brilliant article on the neglected Lizardmen starts the issue, dripping with plothooks. A nice little article on the Engineers Guild acts as a breather, before we get another three incredibly good articles in a row. One on Half-Orcs (including rules on playing them as PCs), done with intelligence and subtelty. The next article is on the ”Manniocs-Quinsh”, the elven ”police” in Marienburg. Damn, I have to get my players up there soon so they can get tangled up in some of this goodness. And thirdly, a great article on ”Roads and Roadwardens”, giving some much needed background on this important part of daily life in the Empire. Here the article writer strikes the balance between detail and practical application perfectly. And as if this wasn’t enough, we get the fifth installment on Talabheim and a two strong scenarios as well, one set after the end of The Enemy Within Campaign and a short subplot to be inserted in another adventure. This is probably the best issue of Warpstone…yet!

Conclusion

Overall, Warpstone is a good magazine that only seems to get better as time goes by. The best articles are easily among the best stuff written for WFRP, period, and the occasional duds are few and far between. The Warpstone staff seems to have found it’s strength in well researched articles on seemingly mundane topics, always finding creative ways to include them in an ongoing campaign. They also tend to consentrate on the gritty and dark side of WFRP, somewhat to the neglect of the more light-hearted, high-fantasy stuff that can often be found in official material. This seems to be the way a lot of groups play the game, but even for those that don’t I think Warpstone will be of interest. I’ve certainly never regretted spending the money I’ve put down for this magazine as every issue seems to hold at least a couple of articles of high quality. If you’re a WFRP GM or player I don’t think you would either.