I SMELL A RAT

Warning. This review contains spoilers for The Horned Rat and other parts of the Enemy Within campaign.

It has been thirty-five years in the making. Now that The Horned Rat is finally with us, has it been worth the wait?

BACKGROUND

When the Enemy Within campaign was first planned in 1986, the penultimate instalment was intended to be The Horned Rat. However, the adventure was never written. It was cancelled and replaced in 1988 with Something Rotten in Kislev, which has widely been recognised as a poor fit with the rest of the campaign. For its new Director’s Cut edition Cubicle 7 decided to return to the original plan for the campaign, and thus The Horned Rat now follows Power Behind the Throne.

Whether the released adventure resembles the original plan is a moot point. Very little is known about the original intentions for the scenario, and what is known only loosely resembles the published material. In my opinion it seems most likely that The Horned Rat is essentially a new adventure that explores similar themes to those planned for the original.

Covers then and now (1988 left, 2021 right)

PRESENTATION

The Horned Rat contains 159 pages of adventure content, divided into twenty chapters. Much of it is clearly and logically structured, but there are some sections where organisation is a problem; I shall return to these areas later. The overviews of the material are solid. There is a one-page adventure synopsis, though somewhat confusingly its subheadings do not accurately correspond with the chapters in name, number or order. There is a summary of the various villainous factions involved in the adventure. There is also a mind map of NPC relationships. This illustrates well their complex connections, but as most of the relationships remain behind the scenes, it is of surprisingly limited practical help in running the adventure. The lack of an index is by now no surprise.

One notable difference from previous parts of the campaign is the absence of “grognard boxes”. In light of the stated objective of the grognard boxes, to offer variations for players familiar with the original Enemy Within adventures, this is inevitable. The Horned Rat is, after all, new even to grognards. However, the variations contained in the grognard boxes were not only, and I would argue not even primarily, of use to grognards. Alternative options are of value to all GMs, and some variants would have been welcome here.

Graphical presentation is similar to previous instalments of the Enemy Within campaign, and the strengths and weaknesses will be familiar. The general points I have made in previous reviews for the most part also apply to The Horned Rat, and I will not repeat them here. There are, however, a small number of matters specific to The Horned Rat that are worthy of comment.

There are a few niggles regarding maps. Some significant locations, such as the undercity “staging post” (pp33 and 55) and meeting place of the Yellow Fang (p73), are not mapped. It is not an onerous task for the GM to improvise maps in these cases, but the locations are important enough that this burden should not fall to the GM in a commercial scenario. More problematic is the region map. It covers well the area from Middenheim to Brass Keep (though it would be better if it were presented when it is first needed, around p85, rather than delayed until p107), but lacks detail of the Middle Mountains, which the PCs visit in the adventure’s later stages. It leaves GMs who don’t wish to handwave travel and exploration with a lot of work to do.

The adventure also refers to two locations in the Middenpalaz (a counting house, p37, and basement chapel, p103), which do not exist in the map in Power Behind the Throne (p103). This anomaly has no practical consequences, as the adventurers are not likely to explore the Middenpalaz room by room, but it increases my conviction that its map in Power Behind the Throne is neither very useful nor palatial.

Finally, the map of the dwarfhold where the climax takes place lacks a scale, and its location numbers are not replicated in the text descriptions, making it harder than it should be to go from the text to the map.

I have a couple of grumbles about the handouts. The map drawn on the inside of a rat hide (p76) does not match the text description very accurately. This is not merely a pedantic point. The map is a critical clue, and it is hard to see how the players are supposed to derive the required information from it in its current form. It would also have been nice to have a handout of the map to Karak Skygg (p130), though one is certainly not essential.

THE PLOT

In an abandoned dwarfhold deep in the Middle Mountains warlock-engineer Maliss Manwrack of Clan Skryre is embarked on an ambitious project. He is constructing a vast warp lightning cannon to strike the Chaos moon Morrslieb, cause it to break apart and rain warpstone down on the Empire.

Obtaining the research and resources required for this plan has required multifarious schemes across the Empire. Manwrack has obtained Dagmar von Wittgenstein’s notes on the Chaos moon; stolen treatises on astronomy and ballistics from the Collegium Theologica and Temple of Ulric in Middenheim; kidnapped an astromancer; and conspired with the cult of the Yellow Fang to procure gunpowder and slaves to carry out his plan.

THE SCENARIO

Let’s be careful out there.

– Watch Commander Schutzmann*

A skaven supergun is certainly one of the more gonzo WFRP plots, but the beginning of the adventure is more down to earth. In Middenheim the characters are recruited by Watch Commander Schutzmann to serve as agents of a special commission investigating threats to the city that were uncovered during Power Behind the Throne. This arrangement sets up the classic structures of police procedural dramas. The characters receive briefings and are sent on various missions in and around Middenheim. It’s Hügelstrasse Blues. What the conceit lacks in subtlety, it makes up for in efficacy; there are none of the problems with hooks or motivation that have affected previous instalments of the campaign.

Helpfully the text considers how to entangle the PCs in this undertaking both in the situation where The Horned Rat is played as part of the Enemy Within campaign and also in the (admittedly less likely) circumstance where it is run as a standalone adventure. Unhelpfully the layout of this material is garbled. GMs of the Enemy Within campaign need to look to Power Behind the Throne for the initial meeting with Schutzmann, while those running a standalone adventure will find the corresponding information in The Horned Rat. Subsequent meetings with Schutzmann are dealt with in The Horned Rat, though the text (p13) misdirects GMs of the campaign by seeming to imply that these meetings are only relevant to the standalone adventure. The meetings with Schutzmann (pp32-35) are introduced after events that take place in those meetings (pp28-31) and long after the timeline of events that results from them (p14). To illustrate the problem, if the adventure is to be played as part of the Enemy Within campaign, the reading order that I believe provides the best sense is: Power Behind the Throne, p112, The Horned Rat, pp34-35, p14, pp28-31, then pp36ff. The text is not indecipherable, but it really could have been laid out more clearly.

The adventure then breaks down into three phases. In the first, the characters are faced with eight short episodes of between four and eight pages each. They can be run independently, but are designed to overlap, and a timeline is presented for coordinating the different components. This part of the adventure is essentially ‘A Rough Night at the Three Feathers’ writ large.

Four of the episodes wrap up loose ends from Power Behind the Throne. There are missions to track down the other senior members of the of the Purple Hand in Middenheim. Erich Kalzbad tries to cover his tracks with a series of arson attacks and flee the city. Gottfried Jarmund tries to broker a deal to turn informer, but his plans are scuppered when the criminal gang with whom he is sheltering holds him for ransom. Vizier Bahr assumes leadership of the cult and tries to continue his necromantic experiments. The PCs also learn the fate of Gotthard von Wittgenstein, who has been kidnapped by skaven seeking to learn more about his family’s researches into warpstone.

The original Enemy Within campaign has often been criticised for its large number of loose ends, so it is gratifying to see many of them tidied up here. The story of the Purple Hand in Middenheim reaches a fuller conclusion and forms a satisfying coda to Power Behind the Throne. The resolution of the Gotthard von Wittgenstein storyline, however, is less successful. It is brief and bathetic. It does not address his activities with the Jade Sceptre cult or fit well with the ‘Wine of Madness’ scenario in the Power Behind the Throne Companion (pp21-25). Perhaps this storyline matters less to players than it does to grognard GMs who have waited more than three decades for a conclusion, but its dénouement is disappointingly perfunctory.

The Purple Hand material provides the first detailed insight into the day-to-day operations of the cult. It is welcome, and perhaps overdue, that this pivotal organisation finally becomes more substantial. The cult’s activities reveal a notable and apparently new-found interest in cryptography. The characters find many coded messages between cultists, but the players are not required to exercise their puzzle-solving skills in deciphering them. Code keys are to be found left in convenient places, even when it makes little sense. Erich Kalzbad, who is otherwise assiduously destroying documents around the city, somehow contrives to leave a partially encoded message lying on his desk (pp37-38). Whether you find solving codes fun roleplaying is a matter of taste, but solving them when the solution is handed to you strikes me as pointless. If messages are to be encrypted, it would seem to me preferable either to allow players to use their own skills to decode them, or to make obtaining the code sheets more meaningful. The adventurers could be given the opportunity to intercept a new decryption sheet when a periodic code change takes place, or the key to a code could be found in the possession of Purple Hand contacts earlier in the campaign (from Kastor Lieberung to Brunhide Klaglich).

The remaining four episodes in the adventure’s first phase entangle the adventurers in the schemes of the skaven. There have been several thefts of objects important to Manwrack’s plan. A Clan Eshin assassin is murdering enemies of the skaven. Cultists are seeking to prevent the skaven’s exposure by disrupting the dissection of skaven corpses at the Collegium Theologica. Manwrack has even planted a spying device in Ulrich Schutzmann’s office (Akoustikk Ratty, a magical mechanical rat inspired by the CIA’s Acoustic Kitty experiment**).

These episodes have some points of intersection with those that concern the Purple Hand and Gotthard von Wittgenstein, though they are few in number and in a couple of cases their sense is questionable. The surprising alliance between the skaven and the Purple Hand mentioned in Power Behind the Throne reappears, but lacks any explanation or rationale. Since its role in either adventure is almost negligible, it would seem better to remove it, if it cannot be explained. In Power Behind the Throne Snikkit’s warband can be replaced with another Chaos warband or Purple Hand agents. In The Horned Rat, it can perform a different raid (such as the one proposed on p32).

The connection between Gotthard von Wittgenstein and the skaven also does not stand up well to scrutiny. While the idea that the skaven are interested in Dagmar von Wittgenstein’s research into Morrslieb is promising, there is no evidence of this in Death on the Reik. There the skaven seem solely focused on the warpstone meteorite. It would perhaps make sense for GMs to add to Death on the Reik scenes where the skaven attempt to recover documents from the signalling tower and Castle Wittgenstein.

These episodes embrace the no-such-things-as-skaven trope with gusto. In the face of widespread scepticism the adventurers must uncover persuasive evidence of the skaven’s existence and alert the city’s authorities to their threat. This lends the adventure quite a contemporary feel. The PCs are immersed in a world of fake news, media manipulation and conspiracy theories (though, of course, in this case the conspiracy theory is true).

The characters’ success in exposing the skaven is tracked with an evidence score, which has ramifications later in the adventure. It is a clever arrangement, though it introduces a level of abstraction. Successes and failures do not lead to specific sequences of events. Instead they cause a general reduction or increase in the threat faced. For example, a high evidence score leads to greater support from the authorities, fewer hostile encounters and bonuses to tests.

As befits the context, Middenheim’s criminal underworld plays an important role in this phase. The PCs need to cultivate and make use of criminal contacts to obtain information for their investigations. Familiar faces like Josef and Karl Matthaus reappear from Power Behind the Throne alongside new ones, such as Sister Anais. However, all these connections serve merely as gateways ultimately to one figure: Alfric Half-Nose. Half-Nose functions in the adventure as a sort of underworld search engine, always on hand to dispense critical clues. He’s Middenheim’s very own Huggy Bear. Dependent on your perspective, that makes him a conveniently important contact or a clumsily omnipresent deus ex machina. GMs who dislike the arrangement, though, can easily redistribute his information to other NPCs. Half-Nose, of course, also appears in the Power Behind the Throne Companion, though the information in that volume is neither necessary nor even useful for GMs of The Horned Rat.

Half-Nose has the answer

The adventurers’ activities inevitably bring them to the attention of the Low Kings, the leaders of Middenheim’s principal criminal gangs. It is a nice touch that the party has to manage its relationships with them carefully, respecting their turf, striking deals or even playing them off against one another. Missteps in these dealings have real consequences and antagonise powerful foes. One complaint, however, is that nowhere in the scenario is there background information on the Low Kings. GMs are expected to refer instead to Middenheim: City of the White Wolf (pp130-134). Those without that supplement are left somewhat in the dark. Given their importance, there really should be a short background paragraph on Middenheim’s gangs in The Horned Rat.

In isolation the episodes in the first phase are quite straightforward scenarios. They are brief, and investigations tend to hinge on a single critical clue (a receipt, p37; a list of donations, p44; an underworld tip-off, p51; a flagstone that has been moved, p60; etc). However, the overlapping and interconnecting storylines present in combination a more complex whole. This makes the adventure potentially more satisfying and engaging, but also poses a greater challenge for the GM.

The situation is not helped by some aspects of the content’s organisation, which make the scenario even harder to follow than it needs to be. There are problems with the sequencing of information, where prior knowledge is assumed of what comes later. For example, Herr Gelb’s letter is referred to on p57 before it is described on p59; on p60 the torture chamber is detailed before it is explained how the PCs get there; on p69 Bors Sirk is discussed before he is introduced; on p69 again events at the Middenpalaz follow their aftermath. There is also a lack of cross references: a connection from Gottfried Jarmund to Vogel on p48 is not picked up in pp50ff; one from Asbjorn Thaler to Bors Sirk on p38 is ignored in pp69ff; the Ansten Krohn connection between p73 and p75 is not highlighted. A diligent GM can pick up all these details, but more re-reading is required than should really be necessary.

The complexity of this phase of the scenario seems at times to have confused even the developers and led to a small number of continuity errors. For example, we hear on p38 that “someone called Englebrecht”, despite having just been told that “he doesn’t exist”, and on p50 the text muddles different cryptographic codes (it should refer to the code sheet on p48, not pp37-38).

More careful editing would have improved the material’s usability. Even better would have been flowcharts documenting the adventure’s sense. Cubicle 7 are not the only games publisher to prioritise text descriptions over diagrammatic ones, but it is a bad habit in the industry. Diagrams can often convey information more effectively. I have myself prepared a set of flowcharts for The Horned Rat, which can be dowloaded from here.

The first phase culminates in an audience with the Graf and the Knight Eternal, in which the adventurers can present their evidence. This resembles the audience that formed the conclusion of early drafts of Power Behind the Throne, but which was rejected as being anticlimactic and perhaps even unplayable. In this situation, however, it appears to work well. The context does not require a dramatic climax, and the GM is well prepared with extensive notes on the important questions, covering both the ground the characters must cover and the reactions of the NPCs.

The PCs’ success in persuading the Graf is determined by a Charm test with specific modifiers based on the evidence score and their conduct in the audience. This approach is characteristic of The Horned Rat, which tends to resort to quantitative mechanics rather than GM judgement to determine the course of events at critical junctures.

Overall, the adventure’s first phase is excellent. It offers a good variety of investigation, exploration and combat. The PCs find themselves searching for documents, questioning witnesses, even chasing pigeons. They need to venture into the undercity and to battle the undead and demonic guardians of a Purple Hand hideout. Although many of the episodes culminate in confrontations, not all end this way, and at times the characters have to negotiate and win over their targets.

One of the best features of this phase of the adventure is that the PCs are free to fail. The adventure is not derailed if members of the Purple Hand escape, or the skaven’s plans are not foiled. There is no need for heavy-handed intervention to keep the plot on track.

The second phase of the adventure repeats the basic structure of the first. Ulrich Schutzmann sends the adventurers on a further three missions to investigate the skaven threat in and around Middenheim. A band of starving, cannibal skaven has been trapped in the undercity by a rival clan. The population of the village of Unterfraus has been abducted or murdered by skaven in order to preserve their secrecy. A wounded mutating griffon, struck by a test fire of Manwrack’s warp lightning cannon, threatens the village of Gladbeich. At the end of these missions the PCs can present any additional evidence they amass in another audience with the Graf.

Unlike those in the first phase, these episodes are discrete and linear. There is no interaction between their plots, and opportunities for the PCs to influence events are quite limited. Moreover, the additional evidence the party can obtain is meagre. The result is that this section seems something of a lull. The PCs mark time until they are dispatched to take on the adventure’s final section.

I presume the designers’ intentions in this phase were to ensure that enough evidence of the skaven threat had been accumulated to make the transition to the final stage plausible. However, it is possible for the adventurers to gather sufficient information in the first phase, and in such a situation there seems to be no reason to delay triggering the finale with these additional episodes (contra p84 of the adventure).

The transition to the final phase is occasioned by a request from the Graf’s daughter to investigate various leads to Brass Keep, a fortress in the Middle Mountains occupied by forces of Chaos. If the PCs have not successfully put the pieces of evidence together, the GM may have to adapt this section to make it clear that she has other sources of information that complete the picture.

Curiously The Graf’s daughter is presented in The Horned Rat as a serious and steely political figure. This is very much at odds with her character in Power Behind the Throne. Although she is no longer described there as a “truly dumb blonde”, as she was in the first-edition campaign (p42), she is still depicted as naive and more interested in romance than politics. She finds politics “sordid”, “getting a ‘fine, upstanding husband’ is a major goal”, she “longs to be wooed, like a princess in a fairy tale”, etc (Power Behind the Throne, p121). The Horned Rat attempts to justify the discrepancy by claiming that “recent events have brought to the fore previously hidden reserves of Todbringer steel”, but this is a flimsy excuse, and her sudden transformation is implausible. If Katarina Todbringer is to occupy this role in The Horned Rat, it would be better to alter her character in Power Behind the Throne. A simpler solution, however, is to use a different court figure in The Horned Rat; the Graf is most suitable, but the Midden Marshals would also suffice.

The third and final phase of the adventure is more conventional in its style. There is a single plot, which largely revolves around exploration and combat. The characters are first sent to the palisade that stands guard against Brass Keep. After a brief investigation into gunpowder being stolen for the skaven, they witness at close quarters a failed skaven assault on the keep. Crucially they also hear reports of Manwrack’s warp lightning cannon firing from afar, and identify its site as a lost dwarfhold called Karak Skygg.

This part of the adventure is tense and evocative. The palisade is a fragile bulwark against the forces of Chaos, Brass Keep a dark and brooding presence, the skaven attack a dramatic set piece. Together they provide a very good change of style and pace after the urban investigative play that precedes this sequence.

More variation comes from the ensuing trek into the mountains towards Karak Skygg. This is accompanied by useful information on handling mountain hazards and weather, and some encounters for the journey. I note, however, that the hook to encourage the adventurers to head for Karak Skygg is a little weak. The scenario assumes reports of green lightning weapons will suffice.

The adventure reaches its climax at Karak Skygg. Much of The Horned Rat has the feel of a spy thriller, and the finale is no exception. Manwrack’s lair is worthy of a Bond villain. It is a five-level complex, filled with skaven, cultists and slaves.

The structure manages to be both interesting and plausible. It makes sense as a functioning base for the skaven, and contains vestiges of its past as a dwarfhold. All five levels are fully mapped, though only a selection of locations are described, and those that are would occasionally benefit from a little more detail. For example, the written account of the slave pits mentions exiting via an equipment store (p144), but the map does not specify which room that is. Those parts of the fortress that are not described can be populated with random encounter tables.

Manwrack’s lair (well, almost)

Navigating the lair is not an exercise in clear-the-room dungeoneering. It calls for a thoughtful approach. The characters will need to use stealth or subterfuge even to gain entrance. To foil Manwrack’s moonshot, a careful scheme or clever improvisation is required. The adventure outlines several approaches the characters could take, such as assassinating Manwrack, sabotaging the cannon, provoking a slave revolt or simply blowing Karak Skygg sky high with the dwarfhold’s ancient self-destruct mechanism. There are also several potential allies for the mission, including rival skaven factions, mutinous slaves and a quisling engineer. The PCs may even find a familiar face among the slaves: Janna Eberhauer, Deputy High Wizard of Middenheim, has been kidnapped to assist Manwrack in tracking Morrslieb. It all makes for a rip-roaring finale. Should the PCs fail, there is once again the possibility of an apocalyptic outcome, laconically described in the text: “It’s carnage. The party needs to get out of there.” (p151).

This section packs a lot into its fifteen pages. It could be improved if there were a detailed description of Manwrack’s weapon of mass corruption and specifically how it can be sabotaged; this is left disappointingly vague. Eberhauer’s kidnap seems like a missed opportunity to connect the investigation in Middenheim with Manwrack’s plot. GMs will also have to manage a small risk of a total party kill: particularly clumsy groups might find themselves captured and dropped into vats in a warpstone refinery (p149). Nonetheless, these should be relatively minor issues for the GM to deal with.

The final scene of the adventure sets up the campaign’s concluding episode, Empire in Ruins. The PCs are rescued from the mountainside by Heinrich Todbringer’s airship. No indication is given of future events, but there is some brief guidance for the GM on how to continue the adventure in the interim, so the campaign is not entirely left hanging.

The book contains a small amount of background information on skaven. A three-page bestiary provides profiles for eight types of skaven and rules for firearms and poisoned wind globes. Although short, it concisely covers what is required, and further information can be found in The Horned Rat Companion. However, the background on the different skaven factions in Middenheim (pp16-17) is not as clear as it could be. For example, Gnawretch Skrray seems to be part of Clan Scrutens, but the only explicit indication of this in either The Horned Rat or Middenheim: City of the White Wolf is an unlabelled line on the former’s diagram of relationships. It is at times a little difficult to follow the relationships of the different skaven clans in the adventure.

The skaven in The Horned Rat have a steampunk air, evident in everything from clockwork spy rats to Manwrack’s warpstone-powered prosthetics. Heinrich Todbringer’s airship continues the theme. This is consistent with the tone in later editions of WFB, but is different from WFRP1 and the original version of The Enemy Within. Most of these elements can easily be modified or removed, if GMs want a setting with technology closer to the levels of Renaissance Europe. The only exceptions are the warp lightning cannon and the airship. The former is central to the plot and indispensible. The latter could be replaced with an overland journey back to Middenheim (though this would entail altering the opening of Empire in Ruins).

Full steam ahead

Since some of the adventure takes place in Middenheim’s undercity, there is also a nine-page guide to this environment. This material expands on the somewhat disappointing coverage of the undercity in Middenheim: City of the White Wolf. As in that volume, the focus is not on describing the undercity in specific detail. There are no maps; travel is instead handled abstractly via Navigation and Track tests. The content mainly comprises an extensive table of random hazards and encounters. The approach for the most part works well.

The treatment of overland travel and geography in Cubicle 7’s reissue of The Enemy Within has hitherto been patchy. The Horned Rat avoids the worst of the campaign’s problems in this area, but is still a little uneven. There is a detailed timeline and description of the journey from Middenheim to Brass Keep in phase three, but oddly no equivalent routes and timelines for the other journeys in the adventure (to Unterfraus and Gladbeich in phase two and from Brass Keep to Karak Skygg in phase three). It is not clear why a detailed account is considered necessary for one journey, but not the others, particularly in light of the weaknesses of the region map in the Middle Mountains.

Analysis of the region map shows that distances have again been extended from those in the first edition maps. The distance from Middenheim to Lindenheim has increased from around 15 miles to 45. However, the maps of the area in the first edition are vague and settlements and other geographical features have changed, so it is hard to make meaningful comparisons. Where a timeline is supplied, implied travelling speeds are quite slow. The daily distance covered by road on horseback is 27.5 miles per day, which is substantially lower than the 40 miles per day assumed in the first edition campaign (The Enemy Within, p6) and at least 42 miles per day in WFRP4 (p262) and the Enemy in Shadows Companion (p25).

OVERALL

Thirty-five years of expectation is a heavy burden to shoulder, but The Horned Rat does an admirable job. It has a strong plot, is full of atmospheric and exciting scenes and brings new themes, locations and styles of play to the campaign. My only substantial reservation is that its presentation, especially in the earlier parts, could have been much clearer for the GM. Notwithstanding that criticism, it is a very good adventure and a worthy addition to the Enemy Within campaign.

To buy The Horned Rat from DriveThruRPG, click here.

My review of The Horned Rat Companion is here.

For my other WFRP4 reviews, see this link.

I would like to thank Cubicle 7 for providing a copy of The Horned Rat for review.

FOOTNOTEs

* This isn’t part of Schutzmann’s script in the adventure, but should be.

** Thanks to Faster Than Jesus on the Winds of Chaos forum for pointing this out.

Artwork used without permission. Still image taken from You Only Live Twice (1967). No challenge intended to the rights holders. Links to DriveThruRPG are affiliate links. I receive a small payment for purchases made through them. This does not change the cost paid by the purchaser. I have received no inducements in connection with this review.