LOST WARHAMMER: REALMS OF SORCERY

This is part of a series on unpublished Warhammer supplements. The first post in the series can be read here.

Realms of Sorcery was not lost in the same way as the other supplements discussed in this series of posts. It did eventually reach publication in 2001 in the form of Ken and Jo Walton’s text for Hogshead Publishing. And, of course, a second version was published for WFRP2 in 2005. But before either of these versions reached publication, there were others that fell by the wayside during the development process.

Advert in Warpstone 16

The first version was that planned by the original WFRP1 design team of Jim Bambra, Graeme Davis and Phil Gallagher. It was intended to fix and expand the original magic system:

Overall, the [WFRP rulebook] was done in rather too much of a rush, and I think it shows especially in the magic system. The numerous mentions of Realms of Sorcery really amounted to an admission that we knew the magic system needed some work, but we didn’t have time to do it then, and we really intended that RoS would come out very soon after the rulebook and fix everything.

– Graeme Davis, interview in Warpstone 5 (Spring 1997)

There certainly were “numerous” references to Realms of Sorcery in the WFRP1 rulebook. They mention new rules for manufacturing magic items, inscribing and using runes, exorcising spirits and summoning demons. They also promise descriptions of more magic items. There is little to suggest, though, there was ever much behind these references. They read like little more than a scattered to-do list.

A few isolated parts did start to take shape, such as the Runesinger and Exorcist careers.

Runesinger was an Elf career I was working on – sort of an AD&D style bard with magical songs.

– Graeme Davis, comment on Awesome Lies

Graeme Davis’ work on the Exorcist career can be downloaded from his blog.

Overall, however, work on this version of Realms of Sorcery did not proceed far:

I never got down to detailed planning, but I pictured it as consisting of an improved magic system to replace the rough and hurried one in the rulebook, a lot of background on magical guilds and clerical magic, some new spellcasting professions with tailored spell lists (the Exorcist career was a rough start on this process) – and lots of new spells and magical items. I think – but I can’t swear – that at least some of the new spells and items in the Warhammer Companion were written up from notes and thoughts I had had for Realms of Sorcery.

– Graeme Davis, interview on Awesome Lies

Eventually, though, some progress was made on different version of the supplement:

Realm [sic] of Sorcery – the long-awaited magical supplement now in an advanced stage of preparation.

– Advert in White Dwarf 115

The new version of Realms of Sorcery was written by Ken Rolston, who produced an extensive draft. This document subsequently leaked onto the internet.

The draft contained copious amounts of material. There were many more spells, more elemental creatures, more magical items.

However, more just meant more, not necessarily better. The new magic was not colourful. It was functional and everyday, like that of RuneQuest. Many of the new spells were simply variants of others. Too many were shared across multiple disciplines. There was an abundance of low-powered magical trinkets.

There were some interesting ideas, such as pentagrams, circles and other magic pentacles. But they too suffered from the same faults as the other parts. There were too many similar variants.

There was a lack of exoticism. In a low-magic system, magic should seem rare and mysterious. However, Rolston’s Realms of Sorcery provided matter-of-fact modular explanations of magical effects. It used magical units like Lego bricks. There were no magical orders and little background colour. It just seemed bland.

Of course the accusation of blandness can reasonably be levelled against the original magic system to some extent. But it was the role of Realms of Sorcery to fix that, not exaggerate it.

I don’t think Ken got the support and feedback he needed from GW until it was too late. I guess I’m partly responsible for that myself, since Ken was writing it about the time Flame was set up. Ken’s version, to me, misses the spirit of WFRP in some intangible way, and feels a lot more like RuneQuest.

– Graeme Davis, interview in Warpstone 5 (Spring 1997)

Why did Rolston miss the mark so badly? One reason might be, as Davis suggests, that he received inadequate guidance and support. The WFRP1 team was young and presumably lacking in management experience. GW management more broadly was losing interest in RPGs. And other freelancers, such as Dave Morris, Jamie Thompson and Paul Vernon, had struggled to capture the Warhammer feel.

Yet there is another possible explanation. Rolston was an experienced game designer of some standing in the industry. He may have had clear ideas of his own, and, consciously or not, been reluctant to follow the direction others had taken. Cultural differences might have exacerbated the situation. The “Warhammer feel” was closely tied up with contemporary British cultural references. Derrick Norton’s recollections of Rolston seem to fit with the view that he had his own agenda from the start:

To the best of my recollection, the meeting began with Ken commenting on what he thought was good and not so good about WFRP. Ken’s specific observations now escape me but I remember him being quite confident. Discussion turned naturally to Ken’s views on how WFRP could be developed and improved, and how he could help. This included options for developing RoS: Ken had significant knowledge about the approaches used in other games and I recall discussing (in high-level terms) the merits of using this or that system for WFRP. I don’t remember a decision or consensus on how best to proceed.

… After a few minutes there was a pause and Ken said something like, “Sorry, but I am not used to working like this.” He looked at me directly and continued along the lines of, “I am not used to my ideas not being liked.” There was an awkward silence. I hadn’t formed an opinion but, clearly, we were on different pages regarding the point of the meeting. I said as much and apologised if silence on my part had been seen as criticism.

– Derrick Norton, Awesome Lies

Phil Gallagher expressed a similar view:

I read many drafts [of Realms of Sorcery]. I had many long conversations with Ken “Way-Too-Many-Ideas” Rolston. The basic problem was that Ken was just way-too-creative to be willing to create a rule system that would allow the introduction of a role-playing form of Warhammer magic into WFRP. Ken’s strengths lie in plots and scenarios and story telling and writing, not in rules systems. Oh, and he said “way too” way too often! As a magic system what Ken came up with was great. But it was way too long to be a practical publishing consideration, and it just wasn’t Warhammer enough. All of which could, in theory, have been fixed. But at the time we didn’t have the luxury of devoting that amount of editorial and production resource to something whose commercial success was far from certain.

– Phil Gallagher, interview in Warpstone 10 (Spring/Summer 1999)

What happened was that we commissioned Ken Rolston (the co-author of Something Rotten in Kislev) to write it, and after living in England, he went to the US. At that point, we were looking at a 96-page supplement, and he sent us over 200,000 words!

I don’t think Ken’s system matched ours in England. It wasn’t a technical problem, the rules were good, but a background problem: a lot of work was needed to make the system consistent with what we had done before.

Inevitably when you publish, there is always a compromise between the need to release new products, write and edit them, and the desire to produce the best possible thing. We found ourselves in a situation where we needed to release new products, but the amount of work required to publish Ken’s system was simply too great.

– Idem, interview in Le Grimoire 10 (1994)

Whatever the reasons for Rolston’s failure, it meant that WFRP gamers never got to see the magic system its original designers envisaged. Instead Warhammer acquired its system of colour magic, which has always seemed to me an adjunct that fitted poorly with WFRP‘s gritty, low-magic tone. Had an early version of Realms of Sorcery been published, perhaps Warhammer‘s magic would have headed in a very different direction.

The next ‘Lost Warhammer‘ post is here.

For more on Ken Rolston’s work on WFRP‘s magic system, see my post on Realms of Divine Magic.

Title art by Frank Frazetta. Used without permission. No challenge intended to the rights holders.