THE ENEMY WITHIN: THE DIRECTOR’S CUT

I have tried in a couple of previous posts to piece together the clues given to us about The Enemy Within Director’s Cut. In the first of those I made some guesses based on the page count of the various volumes. They were tentative guesses, however, as I acknowledged that formatting differences could affect the outcome.

Since then I have tried to carry out the same analysis with greater precision. I have compared the formatting of GW in the 1980s with that of Cubicle 7 today and used it to draw some firmer conclusions about the possible content of the new edition of the campaign. I based the analysis on the original (boxed set) edition of Death on the Reik and the WFRP4 rulebook. It may be that they are not perfectly representative of the formatting differences, but I believe they are good approximations.

Death on the Reik and WFRP4 have similar densities of illustration. Both are around the standard 20% mark (excluding maps and handouts). However, text pages in Death on the Reik have roughly 1.3 times as many words as those in a WFRP4. If we extrapolate this information, we can come up with approximate like-for-like page counts. By comparing these with the target page counts of 160 per volume, we can make some estimates about the likely content of the new editions.

PART ONE

The first volume of the Director’s Cut (which may or may not be called Enemy in Shadows) will update the material first published in The Enemy Within and Shadows Over Bögenhafen (and subsequently republished under various other titles). This material comprises both adventure and background content. The adventure material and campaign guidance are on my calculation enough to fill 124 of the 160 pages of the new edition. Graeme Davis has stated that the Director’s Cut will include some new background information on road life in the Empire, like the ‘River Life of the Empire’ section in Death on the Reik. This volume seems like the natural home for that material. If we assume it is of a similar length to that on river life, it will add a further 22 pages. That leaves another 14 pages to fill. Those pages could be plundered from the original editions’ background information on the Empire, but that seems better reserved for a separate guide to the Empire. In any case, much of the background material would have to be excised, as in its entirety it would fill 46 pages. I would like to think the remaining 14 pages would be filled with some new adventure material.

PART TWO

The arithmetic of the page count is straightforward in this case. The original adventure material in Death on the Reik would account for 138 pages of the new volume, and the background on river life 22 more. That neatly and exactly hits the target total page count of 160.

PART THREE

The original GW edition of Power Behind the Throne is sufficient to fill 145 pages of the new volume. The remaining 15 pages are not enough to fit in the ‘Carrion Up the Reik’ adventure added in the Hogshead edition of Power Behind the Throne, which might instead appear in a companion volume. I personally hope, therefore, the additional pages are dedicated to material to assist the GM in running this challenging scenario.

PARTS FOUR AND FIVE

Since these volumes will be new compositions, comparison with the GW editions tells us nothing.

COMPANION VOLUMES

We now know that the five campaign books will be accompanied by five companions. We do not know the page count for the companions, so cannot draw as firm conclusions about these as for the main volumes.

Graeme Davis has said that 50-70% of the content of these volumes would come from existing material. At the time he said it, however, it was not made public how many companion books were under consideration. The percentages he gave might no longer be accurate if the scope of the companion volumes has increased since they were given. Nonetheless, it is clear that a lot of the companion material will be recycled.

So where will this recycled material come from?

The first obvious source is the Middenheim city guide first published as Warhammer City. This would equate to around 129 pages of content in the new formatting.

Another possible piece to be reused is ‘Carrion Up the Reik’, as mentioned above, which would supply another 20 pages.

Graeme Davis has explicitly mentioned White Dwarf adventures will be included. Although White Dwarf carried many WFRP adventures, only four were ever linked to The Enemy Within in its pages. ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ (WD98) is explicitly described as part of the campaign, and would amount to roughly 22 pages of content. ‘The Ritual’ (WD99) is described as a possible introductory scenario to precede the campaign, and is equivalent to 13 pages. The other two scenarios are ‘Night of Blood’ (WD87) and ‘A Rough Night at the Three Feathers’ (WD94), but they seem unsuitable for inclusion. The former has been made available as a free download for WFRP4, and the latter is included in Rough Nights & Hard Days.

In aggregate these sources amount to 184 pages of material in the new formatting. Applying Davis’ ratio of 30-50% new material would mean a total page count for all five companions of between 263 and 368 pages. This is far short of what is required. It would mean one companion book of 129 pages (with the Middenheim guide) and four of 34-60 pages each. Another 466 pages of content are needed to produce five volumes of 130 pages, and if the 160 pages of the main campaign books are to be matched, no fewer than 616 pages of additional content are required.

So where else might the material come from?

There are some other existing sources that could be mined. The Restless Dead contains more short adventures, along with notes on including them in the Enemy Within campaign. The scenarios are ‘Eureka!’, ‘The Affair of the Hidden Jewel’, ‘The Haunting Horror’ and ‘On the Road’. In total, though, they would add only another 27 pages.

Hundreds of pages could be contributed if parts of Something Rotten in Kislev, Empire in Flames or the WFRP3 Enemy Within campaign were included. But if the first two adventures are deemed unsuitable for the main campaign, their inclusion in the companions seems odd. And The Enemy Within for WFRP3 was an entirely separate campaign, with no connection with the classic campaign other than its title. If these adventures are to be included, it starts to seem like the companion volumes might be dustbins of any material that has ever been connected with the Enemy Within campaign, no matter how low the quality or tenuous the link.

The alternative is a large amount of new material. This would mean far more than 50% of the content would be new. This would be to me a far preferable outcome, but requires a huge amount of work on the part of the developers. Graeme Davis has already suggested some of the new material will be notes and commentaries from those involved in the original campaign. We could also see neglected elements like the Kastor Lieberung and Gotthard von Wittgenstein threads receive the attention they deserve. With so much new material, though, there would seem to be very little prospect of the companion volumes appearing in 2019.

I have set out below a table summarising my guesswork. It assumes each companion volume matches the main books’ page count, though we do not know this will be the case. New material is in italics and shaded dark grey. The more uncertain components are shaded light grey. It will probably all turn out to be completely wrong, though!

I have written on The Enemy Within Director’s Cut before here, here and here.

Title art by Ian Miller. Used without permission. No challenge intended to the rights holders.