Overview of the Old World

[Davane]

I'm not the one to make this, I'm saying you guys who are already experts, should do it. If you care to, that is! Share it all over the web, print it out... it would be a fan supplement, a booklet, a condensed guide in and of itself. We already have wikis for warhammer fans. This would specifically be for HQ fans who are not trying to become WH experts.

Let me share my expertise with you, Kurgan. This is NOT an easy project you propose. I did something similar for the Legend of Zelda with a team of around ten people almost two decades ago, and it easily rivalled the size of the core rulebooks for D&D. I know, because I was the one that put it all together and did the layout work for it, and 350+ pages is nothing to be sneezed at. The project took about four years to complete, and that was BEFORE all the new content that was still to be added.

You are essentially asking to form a "story bible" or a "campaign guide" for HQ set in the Warhammer World, and these aren't short things to do. They take time, and effort, and a certain degree of organisation to pull off. Normally, these are developed alongside the content, and evolve somewhat organically as more information is added, as a reference guide for all writers on a project to share. It's even harder when you try to do it for existing material, as you then need to do actual research and referencing, and that takes even more time.

It's generally easier to answer questions than to try and pull together some sort of guide to cover the types of questions you think people might ask. Plus, there's nothing more annoying than reading 10 pages on Lizardmen when all you want to know is what Skaven are.

Ultimately, any such task could easily dominate these forums, so a single thread really isn't going to cover it. Dedicating a subforum to such a project is probably an idea, but it still takes dedication and commitment, and ultimately, you have to ask yourself how much use is such a product going to recieve?

Besides, Kurgan, I am guessing that you would be the ideal consumer, since you are a Warhammer novice, so really, what sort of questions would you want answered in order to make the most out of Warhammer in HQ, and at what sort of level of detail would be useful to you?

[Cael Darkhollow]

Alas, Kurgan you are looking at it all wrong, so your line of questioning for information doesn't make much sense.

HeroQuest is already a part of the Warhammer setting, it always was;
but the setting references and need to know story materials have been very simplified because HQ is a board game as that was all that was needed to play it.

HQ is a keyhole looking into a larger Warhammer universe, a limited perspective or simplified view, on purpose.
Same with Battlemasters or even Advanced HeroQuest or Warhammer Quest ( even though the latter two have more setting info than the former two.)
HeroQuest is a simplified basic "glossary" of terms, monsters and locations of WH but is far from the "encyclopedia" of information that is Warhammer itself.

No one can give you a primer on Warhammer much the same as no one could give you a primer on an encyclopedia set. HeroQuest IS the primer; a small taste of the larger more rich fantasy setting that explores the created fantasy world in aspects that a boardgame simply didn't need or couldn't cover in it's much greater depth and complexity.
That world was originally designed by GamesWorkshop as a setting for large conflicts between armies so much more basic world info was needed to determine who fights who and why; much more information needed than for a board game with up to 5 players like HeroQuest. All the boardgame (or simplified tabletop player vs. player battle game Battlemasters) really needed to play was the broadest stroke of an impression of the setting itself to begin with: Chaos versus good (Empire), a taste of backstory, and a dash of geography.
But to have whole races at war, you need to invent and develop a setting, fill out a world map, detail a backstory...

And thus the Warhammer Old World was born, a fantasy setting largely based on medieval Europe and folklore pseudohistory with Tolkien, Moorcock, Howard, and Dungeons & Dragons fantasy elements enmeshed in to create the ultimate generic fantasy setting where dungeons could be explored by small groups of adventuring heroes, huge armies could clash in open battle, cultures, towns, hamlets, trade routes, or virgin wilderness explored, political intrigue delved into, fantasy races of beings populated in their own territories or trying to usurp the realms of others etc.
It became a gaming and roleplay universe and was fleshed out for decades by GW in games, novels, RPGs, videogames and merchandise. In this sense, the Warhammer old world is very similar to any Dungeons & Dragons setting or self contained videogame world such as Zelda; the races, magic, geography can be explored or learned about in a myriad of ways through dozens of products spanning decades of such releases.

HeroQuest, Advanced HeroQuest, Warhammer Quest, Mordheim and some aspects Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay games are the answer for Dungeon or Ruins exploration and treasure hunt style games in the Old World setting.

Battlemasters, Warhammer Fantasy Battle, Man O' War, and Warmaster all were board, RPG or Tabletop games designed to be large scale battles on land or sea in the Old World Setting.

Mighty Empires was a strategy boardgame for whole campaigns of war that could be used as a meta larger scale campaign for the individual Warhammer army battles or played on its own.

Warhammer Fantasy Role Playing game could cover any aspect of the old world from trading with merchants, renting a room at the inn, protecting a caravan, exploring a tomb for a magical artifact, stopping the insidious plot of villains or attempting to assassinate a ruler.

Warhammer historical added real world ancient armies to use for battle such as romans, greeks, etc.

Spoof game derivatives such as Bloodbowl, a comedy fantasy football/rugby style game using the Warhammer Old World fantasy races were made.

Warhammer 40,000 was a space themed spinoff of Warhammer fantasy using the Warhammer Fantasy races of elf, dwarf, orc, goblin, fimir, ogre, Chaos Warrior, zoats, dark elves,etc. but in a futuristic space setting with dashes of Star Wars, ALIENS, Dune, Terminator, Predator, and Star Trek thrown in and influence from countless Sci-Fi novels. it started out very campy and comedic but became mpre serious and "Grim Dark" becoming a legitimate setting in its own right with its own many spin off board games, video games, novels etc.
Warhammer 40k eventually became larger and more popular than the fantasy old world setting that it derived from and became Games Workshop's best selling game and sole focus eventually causing the demise of the fantasy setting itself.

Layer after layer of "fluff" (history and details of the gaming world invented) were set down over the years, while the "crunch" (basic game mechanics) of each particular game allowed the players to explore it in different fashions.

You seek to learn more "fluff" to enrich your HeroQuest setting or more precisely learn more about HQ's actual place in the larger Warhammer Fantasy Old World Setting.
That could be easily gleaned from reading WarHammer Fantasy Battle books, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay books or Warhammer Fantasy novels as those are the richest sources of such "fluff" world building information, but without purchasing large amounts of out of print second hand materials that would cost a fortune (I know first-hand, I have been collecting Warhammer related products for many many years) you will simply have to make do with your fluff research online.

Many Warhammer fansites, Wiki pages and communities and other resources are already online and can give you the Old World setting or Warhammer primer or synopsis you seek. It certainly would be impractical to attempt such a condensed introduction here on a forum thread. Just google a Warhammer topic such as "Fimir", read everything you can find, then move on to the next Warhammer topic: Warhammer magic or Skaven or Bretonnians or... and continue from there. Good luck on your quest, there literally is a whole world to learn about.

Once you are asking detailed questions about specific aspects of the Warhammer world setting instead of questions about the whole world itself, then the "experts" those with access to out of print materials, veteran Warhammer gamers or those with years of old world fantasy lore can answer them.

[Kurgan]

Thanks for explaining. So I won't worry about it then. When I need some fluff, I just make it up, or borrow someone else's idea if it sounds cool, I don't particularly care (no offense) if it's canon or not, though it's always interesting to hear that stuff too.

The whole point of a thread like this was to discuss the bits that were useful for those who wanted it. Rather than insist everyone become an expert, or have an expert on speed dial to ask, why not have a compendium of relevant bits? If we can put it in a thread, someone could crush those posts into a PDF was all I was trying to say, I didn't think that was an impossible request. But even so, I'm not too concerned personally, as everyone knows.

Otherwise I think it sounds like you're admitting knowledge of Warhammer is not actually necessary to HeroQuest which is kind of what I have been assuming all along. What you need is already in the box, so to speak.

[Cael Darkhollow]

Thanks for explaining. So I won't worry about it then. When I need some fluff, I just make it up, or borrow someone else's idea if it sounds cool, I don't particularly care (no offense) if it's canon or not, though it's always interesting to hear that stuff too.

The whole point of a thread like this was to discuss the bits that were useful for those who wanted it. Rather than insist everyone become an expert, or have an expert on speed dial to ask, why not have a compendium of relevant bits? If we can put it in a thread, someone could crush those posts into a PDF was all I was trying to say, I didn't think that was an impossible request. But even so, I'm not too concerned personally, as everyone knows.

Otherwise I think it sounds like you're admitting knowledge of Warhammer is not actually necessary to HeroQuest which is kind of what I have been assuming all along. What you need is already in the box, so to speak.

The whole point of a thread like this was to discuss the bits that were useful for those who wanted it. Rather than insist everyone become an expert, or have an expert on speed dial to ask, why not have a compendium of relevant bits? If we can put it in a thread, someone could crush those posts into a PDF was all I was trying to say, I didn't think that was an impossible request. But even so, I'm not too concerned personally, as everyone knows.

Otherwise I think it sounds like you're admitting knowledge of Warhammer is not actually necessary to HeroQuest which is kind of what I have been assuming all along. What you need is already in the box, so to speak.

Quite right, quite right. All you need to play HeroQuest is in the box(es), but if you seek to augment it with Warhammer lore by adding "relevant bits", you need to understand that it all is relevant.
As HeroQuest is a boardgame designed to be played in the Warhammer Old World setting, then all of that setting is relevant. You can take whatever bits interest you to use in HQ, and they all are canon. Nothing doesn't fit into HeroQuest and vice versa with Warhammer, they coexist in the same make believe world, just are different style games to represent different style play in that world.

Asking someone to sum it all up for you, is akin to asking someone to sum up Star Wars for you. All the movies, games, videogames, books, and stories told in that universe. For decades. Can someone tell me what it is all about? Preferably in pdf form?
An unreasonable request and likely to get you the same sort of "look it up on Wikipedia or some fan forum" type of response.

Now this is a forum, designed to literally discuss games and the imaginary worlds they occur in but you have to be more specific to get any sort of reasonable response.

This thread is for discussion about the Old World setting that HeroQuest shares with Warhammer, and I and many others would be happy to discuss it with you and each other but we cannot give you a book report or cliff notes on hundreds of books spanning decades, why would we? Do your own research.
But if you really honestly want to learn about it, ask something specific on a particular topic or aspect of the Warhammer world. Don't pout or give up, throwing your hands up in exasperation claiming the elitists wont share like your last post. When the original poster of this thread Jdean80 asked about Bretonnians, he garnered more detailed information of the type of old world "fluff" I suspect you seek.
Ask questions, start or contribute to discussions, then condense the facts pertinent to you if you like, in pdf form. Ironically several have already posted links to overviews of the type you seek. I would actually prefer to discuss the "fluff" of the old world and how it pertains to HeroQuest here, but those links might be a good place to start if you need a general background to start with.

[Cael Darkhollow]

I'm not the one to make this, I'm saying you guys who are already experts, should do it. If you care to, that is! Share it all over the web, print it out... it would be a fan supplement, a booklet, a condensed guide in and of itself. We already have wikis for warhammer fans. This would specifically be for HQ fans who are not trying to become WH experts.

Let me share my expertise with you, Kurgan. This is NOT an easy project you propose. I did something similar for the Legend of Zelda with a team of around ten people almost two decades ago, and it easily rivalled the size of the core rulebooks for D&D. I know, because I was the one that put it all together and did the layout work for it, and 350+ pages is nothing to be sneezed at. The project took about four years to complete, and that was BEFORE all the new content that was still to be added.

You are essentially asking to form a "story bible" or a "campaign guide" for HQ set in the Warhammer World, and these aren't short things to do. They take time, and effort, and a certain degree of organisation to pull off. Normally, these are developed alongside the content, and evolve somewhat organically as more information is added, as a reference guide for all writers on a project to share. It's even harder when you try to do it for existing material, as you then need to do actual research and referencing, and that takes even more time.

It's generally easier to answer questions than to try and pull together some sort of guide to cover the types of questions you think people might ask. Plus, there's nothing more annoying than reading 10 pages on Lizardmen when all you want to know is what Skaven are.

Ultimately, any such task could easily dominate these forums, so a single thread really isn't going to cover it. Dedicating a subforum to such a project is probably an idea, but it still takes dedication and commitment, and ultimately, you have to ask yourself how much use is such a product going to recieve?

Besides, Kurgan, I am guessing that you would be the ideal consumer, since you are a Warhammer novice, so really, what sort of questions would you want answered in order to make the most out of Warhammer in HQ, and at what sort of level of detail would be useful to you?

perhaps I shouldn't have posted, Davane gave a similar answer and made inquiries you should have responded to instead. Then we would know what you meant or a better idea what you are looking for.

[Kurgan]

I didn't see Davane's post until now, my apologies.

I don't have any questions about Warhammer, as its not really a game I'm interested in here, only Hero Quest, which as already admitted above, doesn't require knowledge of the former.

I certainly wouldn't want to spend 4 years writing a novel on something like this, but that's just me. So I leave that to you.

There's no need to throw out accusations or get upset. This isn't a case of needing to "do my own research" I made a very specific request and explained what I meant by it, and made no demands on anyone. I phrased it very politely I thought. The idea would be something for the community not for me specifically.

So, I tried to contribute to the thread! Oh well.

[Kurgan]

When I first started to play HeroQuest back around Xmas 1989 and the 2-3 years that followed it, our group was fully immersed in the GW Warhammer world as it was then (and had a copy of WFRP with all that background material to mine for info)

However having now introduced HeroQuest to a new generation or two, they don't know or particularly want to know about this rich background so my question is, if you don't want to position HeroQuest in a Warhammer world, does anyone have any suggestions about a simpler setting to immerse it in?

Two or three years ago I removed overt references to GW stuff for my house rules (ironically a similar process to the "new" HQ version that is coming out / is out shortly and I fully expect to get the same less than positive response) when introducing it to the next generation - so Fimir became Troll, Chaos Warriors became Dark Warriors but were rapidly nicknamed 'Slayers' which I liked, Chaos Magic = Dark Magic etc.

Not to derail, but there I think to ask what do you need it for? If you want to create a world to give the illusion of a bigger, grander setting, go for it. I don't draw world maps, I just lay out the quests. The needs of the particular adventure are what dictate what goes where and if there's continuity between them, great. You could pick a setting, modify an existing one, or just make one up. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, Hasbro does with that setting in the Remake. Nobody here really knows, yet...

Just knowing the basic level of technology, the factions, and the capabilities of the characters is enough for most games, I would think. If your players are demanding more, then kick it up a notch and start researching and/or using your imagination. I did a bunch of research on Alchemy when creating my de-magicified mod, even though I gave myself the freedom to do whatever. If you impose limitations it may save you time though. In the Japanese game they were Dark (or Evil) Warriors and Monolizards and Zargon was known as the Demon King Grimdead (also the name of the "evil chaos god" the bad guy who replaced the Witch Lord... and wasn't just a name change the whole thing was rather different and had a brand new map).

Someday I'd like to play the Star Wars RPG and ignore all of the lore/changes created after 1987. I think that would be pretty cool to try out, but it wouldn't be to everyone's liking.

[Davane]

Thanks for explaining. So I won't worry about it then. When I need some fluff, I just make it up, or borrow someone else's idea if it sounds cool, I don't particularly care (no offense) if it's canon or not, though it's always interesting to hear that stuff too.

The whole point of a thread like this was to discuss the bits that were useful for those who wanted it. Rather than insist everyone become an expert, or have an expert on speed dial to ask, why not have a compendium of relevant bits? If we can put it in a thread, someone could crush those posts into a PDF was all I was trying to say, I didn't think that was an impossible request. But even so, I'm not too concerned personally, as everyone knows.

Otherwise I think it sounds like you're admitting knowledge of Warhammer is not actually necessary to HeroQuest which is kind of what I have been assuming all along. What you need is already in the box, so to speak.

Kurgan, everything you NEED to know about HQ is in HQ. It's a complete game. The Warhammer World is there to provide some sort of context to WHY the Heroes are in a dungeon, but the game itself is in a dungeon.

It's not an IMPOSSIBLE task to put together a primer for the Warhammer World, but it is a task that will take an incredible amount of time and effort, to be of any sort of use to any EW looking for inspiration, most of which has already been covered numerous times in numerous publications. After all, there's a number of overviews of the Old World and the wider Warhammer World in various versions of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

In fact, what you are asking for seems a lot like simply summarising the setting material from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Do you want a calendar? How about a list of herbs to be found in the Empire? What about a guide to river travel throughout the Empire? It's all available somewhere, so you need to have some sort of focus or scope for any sort of primer, as well as asking yourself whether it is actually worth compiling this piece or that piece of information into a primer. I mean, how much of this is going to actually help anyone in their games of HQ?

Background is good for quest design, or if you prefer more background and roleplay in your games. It could be interesting to explore the plots of the four Chaos Gods, or deal with hidden cults in the heart of the Empire. How about seeking the lost tombs of Khemri or looting the ancient treasures of Lustria? These are all options, if that's where you want to take your games, but ultimately, if you are playing HQ, you are going to want some complex to explore and the chance to roll some dice, and anything useful for HQ needs to come back to this reality - the reality of HQ. That Mentor gives you a quest and you enter a dungeon (or similar complex) to achieve an objective and kill some monsters.

Given the shared world of Warhammer and it's scope, you really need to nail down the design brief, and look at how that interacts with the HQ game rules. What's the point of talking about the winds of magic, when HQ magic comes down to four elemental schools, chaos spells, and the various other spell schools? You could crib information from AHQ, WHQ, WFB, and WFRP to flesh out your world and your game, but at what point do you stop playing HQ and end up playing something else? Key to nailing down the brief is to ask what the primer is supposed to do and what questions is it supposed to answer? Then you need to ask yourself, how much of what you want the primer to do has already been done, and how much of it can you use for your needs? You have to ask yourself whether it's worth writing yet another primer to the geography of the Old World, when it's been done so many times before?

I have three versions of WFRP handy (1st (Hogshead reprint), 2nd (Black Library), and 4th (Cubicle 7)) - The 1st Edition Rulebook is 368 pages long, the 2nd Edition is 256 pages long, and the 4th is 354 pages long. The World Guide section of 1st Ed. WFRP is 40 pages long, and that just covers the history and geography of the Old World. In fact, the actual overview of the geography of the Warhammer World as it was is 2 pages long, and the section for the Old World states:

WFRP Rulebook (1st Edition), pg 261:
The Old World
The Old World is analogous to Europe during the Middle-Ages, consisting of a number of small, independent states sharing a similar cultural heritage and a common language - Old Worlder. New Player Characters should come from this are, which is explained in more detail below.

The detailed explanation covered later is 16 pages, and that's just the geopolitical breakdown of the Old World.

WFRP 2nd Ed rulebook limits itself to the Empire, and briefly mentions it's neighbours and allies, in a section that is 16 pages long. From the 2nd Ed Rulebook:

WFRP Rulebook (2nd Edition), pg 213:
Overview
The Empire is the largest and oldest nation of the Old World, and the greatest human bastion against the ever-present threat of Chaos.

WFRP Rulebook (2nd Edition), pg 223:
Neighbours and Allies
While the Empire is the greatest nation in the Old World, it is not the only one. The Empire has many neighbours and sometime allies. Conflict with these nations are not unknown, though trade and mutual-assistance are much more common.

The WFRP 4th Edition limits us even further, detailing the Reikland, a single province within the Empire, but does so over 22 pages.

WFRP Rulebook (4th Edition), pg 266:
Glorious Reikland
Standing proud in the heart of the Old World, the Reikland is the richest and most powerful of the Empire's grand provinces.

4th Edition doesn't even cover the Old World at this point, or even the whole Empire, but is at the sort of detail where you could easily start picking out interesting features to place your quests, including settlements, natural features like forests and mountains, and several known ancient sites and terrible ruins.

My point is that you could do a two-page primer of the Old World, but exactly how much use would that be in HQ? On the other hand, you can deep-dive into the Reikland, ending up with more detail, but you also get the issue of how much of it is relevant to HQ. This is just the content from the WFRP Rulebooks (I skipped FFG's 3rd edition, but I believe they did an entire booklet about the Empire and the Old World), each of these editions having supplements that flesh out the material significantly. Then you have the stuff from the other Warhammer products, including the Warhammer Armies Books.

Not to mention that technically, you COULD incorporate the Age of Sigmar lore, since the Warhammer World still exists in a ruined state in the realm of Sigmar, and you could explore the connections to WH40K which, although the link is unclear, is technically in a shared universe with Warhammer. The biggest proof of this is the shared names of deities, be it the four Chaos Gods, the Eldar god Khaine (the Elven God of Murder), and the Orc God Gorkamorka (AKA Gork and Mork)... so, if you want Necrons or Genestealers in your HQ games, go right ahead! It all really comes down to what you want in your game, and what you are actually going to use...

[Kurgan]

So I don't need it, it's difficult (not impossible), and it's already done and easy to find for all who wish. Great to hear, I guess? If nothing in Warhammer contradicts HeroQuest, then I guess there's no need. That's all you had to say!

So I don't need to know WH for HQ. But if I really want to, I can go read a wiki and get the info. Sounds good.

The project is cancelled.

[Davane]

There's no need to throw out accusations or get upset. This isn't a case of needing to "do my own research" I made a very specific request and explained what I meant by it, and made no demands on anyone. I phrased it very politely I thought. The idea would be something for the community not for me specifically.

The problem is that it was Dunning-Kruger specific. By this, your lack of knowledge of the scope of the Warhammer World led you to suggest something which seems very specific, but really isn't. It's like suggesting that we just "stop the rain" as a solution to solve rural flooding - a solution that sounds simple, but has little comprehension of just how much work that would take to implement.

Do your own research isn't meant to be dismissive or insulting, but rather is advice because only you know what questions you want answered and what you want to know, because you know what's going to be useful for your game. People can help you with that research, but only if you tell them what you are looking for in the first place.

Also, as much as we appreciate your input on these forums, Kurgan, throwing up ideas that aren't for you doesn't really help anyone. If you don't need something or aren't interested in it, you aren't really going to know what sort of questions you need to be answered to get to that design brief require to make any such project a success.

Plus, if anyone did want to do this, they would have to be committed to it, and I am just not committed enough to take on such a project at this time. I could advise anyone wanting to do a project like this, and might even be willing to help out, but I just don't have the dedication to it right now. Until that point, I can recommend people where to go to "do their own research," and if anyone does take the time to write up some notes, sharing them might be nice.

Finally, this is just the Warhammer side of this question, and could be used for pretty much any game set in the Warhammer World. You would need an idea of what makes HQ unique, and factor those features in to the design brief. Some of the issues with HQ as it stands comes down to not having a solid enough design brief for the products during development, leading to rules inconsistencies, unclear rules interpretations, and conflicting mechanics - as well as aspects that are sub-par, simply because HQ is a game about dungeon exploration with very limited roleplaying and character advancement concepts, and it sometimes shows.