The Enemy Within Campaign

The Enemy Within campaign (commonly abbreviated to TEW) is a series of adventures for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP) and was originally published by Games Workshop in the late 1980s. The campaign has been widely praised by fans of WFRP, including being voted the best RPG campaign of all time by Casus Belli magazine.

History

The Enemy Within (1986-1989) was a set of linked scenarios published by Games Workshop for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay that received notable acclaim as a well-detailed campaign that told a real story.[1]:49 The first adventure in the series was The Enemy Within (1986) by Jim Bambra, Phil Gallagher, and Graeme Davis, followed by: Shadows Over Bögenhafen (1987) by Davis, Bambra, and Gallagher; Death on the Reik (1987) by Gallagher, Bambra, and Davis; Power Behind the Throne (1988) by Carl Sargent, Something Rotten in Kislev (1989) by Ken Rolston with Graeme Davis, and Empire in Flames (1989) by Sargent.[2]

Shadows Over Bögenhafen (1995) from Hogshead Publishing was the first in a series reissuing GW's well-respected "Enemy Within" campaign; the updated Enemy Within campaign (1995-1999) was very well received.[1]:305

Composition

This multi-part role playing adventure was made up of several linked adventures:

Throughout its publication by Games Workshop and, later, Hogshead Publishing, the individual adventures were variously bound and combined. Most often, The Enemy Within was bound together with Shadows Over Bogenhafen in a single volume. Power Behind the Throne was sometimes combined with City of Chaos (originally titled City of the White Wolf), a supplement covering the city of Middenheim in detail.

Something Rotten in Kislev was quite a departure in terms of plot and style from the other parts of the campaign. It works as a side-quest where the characters are sent out of the Empire to take care of business at the Graf Todbringer's request. Its main purpose is to fill the gap between Power Behind the Throne, in which the Empire is threatened but still holding strong, and Empire in Flames, occurring an undertermined amount of time later, in which, as the title suggests, the Empire is about to crumble. Something Rotten in Kislev is thus meant to make this sudden context change more believable, since the characters were away for a while and did not receive news of the Empire during that time.

The first four episodes of The Enemy Within were generally regarded as the most popular and successful. Something Rotten in Kislev departed significantly from the theme and setting of the previous adventures in the series, while Empire in Flames was viewed by many fans as being an unsatisfactory resolution of the plots developed in the earlier episodes, as well as being considerably more linear than the previous volumes.

When Hogshead Publishing held the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay license, a new ending for the campaign, entitled Empire in Chaos, was created to replace the unpopular Empire in Flames. The project was abandoned when Hogshead returned the WFRP license to Games Workshop in 2002, but fan-produced alternatives such as Empire At War continue.

References

  1. 1 2 Shannon Appelcline (2011). Designers & Dragons. Mongoose Publishing. ISBN 978-1-907702-58-7.
  2. ↑ Schick, Lawrence (1991). Heroic Worlds: A History and Guide to Role-Playing Games. Prometheus Books. p. 231-233. ISBN 0-87975-653-5.
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