The Old World

Art by Anthony Boursier

Your adventures in Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game begin with your exposure to horror. You may barely escape a Beastmen ritual, discover a cabal of fanatical Sigmarites, or learn a secret that’s dangerous merely to know. You’ve seen too much, but worse than that — they have seen you. There is nowhere to run, and no one to save you. Your only option is to band together and defeat your collective enemy… or perish.

This inciting event is known as your Grim Portents, and it gives every player character a direct route into the story prepared by your Gamemaster. From there, it’s on you to follow the trail of your enemy, wherever it leads.

Many adventures start with investigation, as the characters unravel their enemy’s schemes. Your characters might search for a Minotaur’s tracks, interpret the occult significance of a Chaos rune, or theorise how one faction of NPCs connects to another.

Your Lores are key to these investigations, as they detail what subjects your characters are knowledgeable about. Lores provide basic information without requiring a test, though you might pair a Lore with a Skill Test to discover extra details. Every character is learned in one subject or another. A simple Labourer might have little use for Academic Lores like Literacy or Anatomy, but they could still specialise in Trade Lores like Farming, Environment Lores like Woodcraft, or Cultural Lores that correspond to their home.

Art by Andreas von Cotta-Schønberg

Another source of information is interrogation of witnesses or suspects, which is where a character’s social skills come in. Social encounters are framed by the impression you make on NPCs, and their expectations about how you will behave. Perhaps the most crucial factor is Status, the role you have in society. There are three Status tiers: Gold for nobles, Silver for monied professionals, and Brass for the common folk. Gold Status affords significantly more resources — most expenses are so trivial they won’t need to be tracked at all — but even Brass characters may leverage Status to their advantage. There are some places a Gold Status character simply cannot go without drawing the wrong sort of attention.

This blog is part of our series on Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game. Missed one? Head HERE to catch up!

Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game, available HERE!