#middenheim

Hochland

Ostland

Talabheim

Nuln

Stirland

Middenheim

Altdorf

Nordland

Middenland

Reikland

Averland

Talabecland

Random Tilean

Carroburg

Wissenland

Warhammer City (1987) is a sourcebook for Middenheim, the city in which the next installment of the Enemy Within is set. As a city sourcebook…I dunno, it tries hard. Much space is given over to history and factions. Because none of it is required for Power Behind the Throne, this feels like the first instance of lore bloat in my WFRP experience. It isn’t bad. It just is largely besides the point in terms of the campaign and not super usable.

What is usable is the intricately detailed city gazetteer, broken down district by district (and, really, tavern by tavern). There’s a good deal of ideas to mine here (I particularly love the fact that space is given to illustrate the various tavern signs). There is also a fair amount of material on the Undercity, where dwarves and Chaos clash. That stuff is good, and includes a good number of adventure seeds, but it really feels like it ought to be another book entirely.

What bothers me most is that the connective thread from Death on the Reik leads to this book, rather than Power Behind the Thone. That thread is the last wayward son of the Wittgenstein family, who runs Middenheim’s Slaneesh cult. The tone is all off and is basically an elaborate joke at the expense of Dungeons and Dragons. The rank and file of the cult, basically a sex club, are referred to as Deviants and Decadents (“D&Ders”) and are presided over by a Deviant Master (DM). Ha. Get it?

Their plot is a bit more interesting. While discussing WFRP in our Discord, one patron said that Enemy Within is basically Satanic Panic: The Campaign. Warhammer City makes that explicit, with Wittgenstein acting as the Pied Piper to abduct the city’s children for a mass demonic sacrifice during the in-world version of Halloween.