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Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition
Enemy in Shadows
Welcome to the revised and updated Director’s Cut of one of the most highly regarded roleplaying campaigns ever written! Enemy in Shadows presents the first part of the epic Enemy Within campaign, the sequence of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay adventures that inspired a generation of gamers. So, gather your heroes as you take them from humble beginnings as penniless adventurers to the halls of the great and powerful, where every decision can change the fate of the Empire.
Enemy in Shadows Includes:
- The first part of the Enemy Within campaign, revised and updated by Graeme Davis, legendary WFRP author.
- A selection of ‘Grognard Boxes’ that add entirely new ways to play through the adventures, ensuring even those who have played the Enemy Within campaign before will find Enemy in Shadows fresh and new.
- A complete guide to Bögenhafen, one of the most important towns in the Reikland, full of exciting locations to visit and explore.
The Enemy Within is the campaign all roleplayers should play at least once in their lives, making the Enemy in Shadows a must purchase for all gamers
Enemy in Shadows Includes:
- The first part of the Enemy Within campaign, revised and updated by Graeme Davis, legendary WFRP author.
- A selection of ‘Grognard Boxes’ that add entirely new ways to play through the adventures, ensuring even those who have played the Enemy Within campaign before will find Enemy in Shadows fresh and new.
- A complete guide to Bögenhafen, one of the most important towns in the Reikland, full of exciting locations to visit and explore.
The Enemy Within is the campaign all roleplayers should play at least once in their lives, making the Enemy in Shadows a must purchase for all gamers
160 pages, ebook
Published October 16, 2019
About the author
Graeme Davis
118 books77 followersGraeme Davis was born at an early age and has lived ever since.
His enduring fascination with creatures from myth and folklore can probably be blamed equally on Ray Harryhausen and Christopher Lee. He studied archaeology at the University of Durham before joining Games Workshop in 1986, where he co-wrote the acclaimed Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay game among others.
He has worked on over 40 video games, countless tabletop roleplaying game products, and a few more sensible books in the realms of history, mythology, and folklore. Most recently, he has written multiple titles for Osprey Publishing's Dark Osprey and Myths and Legends lines.
He blogs at graemedavis.wordpress.com and tweets as @GraemeJDavis. His Facebook author page is at https://www.facebook.com/Graeme-Davis...
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 10, 2020
This update of the first part of the Enemy Within Campaign is pretty good overall, but occasionally shows its age.
One very nice touch is the number of sidebars describing ways to change things up when running for players who have played this campaign in the past. These are very useful for an update to one of the oldest campaigns in fantasy gaming. They also give some good ideas for customizing things even if your players haven't played The Enemy Within before.
It shows its age in a couple places. While for its time it was good at not railroading players too forcefully, it's still a bit of a railroad. Especially if you're planning on running this before the later chapters are published. The players will travel through Altdorf at some point in the adventure, in fact it's their initial goal to reach the city, but it is only lightly sketched out because the players aren't expected to stay there long. It's been the goal of the players to get there up to this point, it's the capital of the Empire, there are strange things going on there, and you expect the players to just leave?
There are some suggestions as to how to get the players to leave, but some of them I think would have the opposite effect for many players. Particularly the descriptions of odd events that are suggested. Even the ultimate suggestion of framing the players for a murder they didn't commit could easily backfire. Also, that ends up getting used again later in the adventure, which could get annoying to some players. It's probably best to just wait until you have more information on Altdorf in case the players decide to muck about there for longer than the adventure assumes they will.
Another place it shows its age is in the lack of female characters. There are very few female NPCs of note. To be fair, they have inserted some additional female characters into the adventure as part of the update, but they are minor characters at best. All the major NPCs are male characters.
I don't want to focus too much on those issues though. It's overall a good product despite them, and a good GM can fix them relatively easily. I'm looking forward to the rest of the volumes being published!
One very nice touch is the number of sidebars describing ways to change things up when running for players who have played this campaign in the past. These are very useful for an update to one of the oldest campaigns in fantasy gaming. They also give some good ideas for customizing things even if your players haven't played The Enemy Within before.
It shows its age in a couple places. While for its time it was good at not railroading players too forcefully, it's still a bit of a railroad. Especially if you're planning on running this before the later chapters are published. The players will travel through Altdorf at some point in the adventure, in fact it's their initial goal to reach the city, but it is only lightly sketched out because the players aren't expected to stay there long. It's been the goal of the players to get there up to this point, it's the capital of the Empire, there are strange things going on there, and you expect the players to just leave?
There are some suggestions as to how to get the players to leave, but some of them I think would have the opposite effect for many players. Particularly the descriptions of odd events that are suggested. Even the ultimate suggestion of framing the players for a murder they didn't commit could easily backfire. Also, that ends up getting used again later in the adventure, which could get annoying to some players. It's probably best to just wait until you have more information on Altdorf in case the players decide to muck about there for longer than the adventure assumes they will.
Another place it shows its age is in the lack of female characters. There are very few female NPCs of note. To be fair, they have inserted some additional female characters into the adventure as part of the update, but they are minor characters at best. All the major NPCs are male characters.
I don't want to focus too much on those issues though. It's overall a good product despite them, and a good GM can fix them relatively easily. I'm looking forward to the rest of the volumes being published!
March 23, 2022
Let me start by saying that I was really stoked to finally read this adventure and I wanted to like it. I remember hearing great things about it (and most of the rest of the series) when it first came out and this hype continued pretty much until the current times. I never ran or played in the original, but I have played in some of the other old-school Warhammer Fantasy adventures, so I was familiar with the setting, system and the adventure style they shared. When I heard the news that the original was being revised for the newest WFRP edition, I was onboard and purchased the whole series.
Alas, this 160-page book took me nearly three months to slog through. The adventure and story were just not that appealing to me. Perhaps my preferences about what I expect from a pre-made adventure has changed over the years (I think that when this adventure originally came out, the style and progression would have been more to my liking and consistent with how I ran adventures) but with 160 pages to work with, I just can’t see why more sandbox-ish options couldn’t have been included (especially if this was a revision, but perhaps they wanted to keep it true to the original).
In an effort to not give any spoilers, I do not want to provide specific details on things that did not appeal to me, but generally speaking, the adventure is a railroad, and a strict one at that. There is GM advice to penalize or otherwise make like difficult for an adventuring party if they choose not to engage in a certain activity or course of action. There are many times when no alternatives are considered in certain encounters because things have to occur the way they are described to happen because other events depending on this specific outcome. This adventure would have made a good, even great novel, because that’s what it felt like. Like the player characters are just present as a medium to interact with the story since many of their actions were already decided for them in order for the adventure to be successful. I understand that many adventures are linear to some extent (even ones that I personally make are to some degree), but this one left little wiggle room for straying off the predetermined path, offering only minor changes or considerations that might be options.
Having run and created a lot of investigative and cult-themed adventures for various RPG systems I felt there was a lot of missed opportunity here to really make this adventure shine. Different investigative routes that could have been explored, more notable involvement or showcasing of the various NPCs, and less coincidence and happenstance to trigger PC involvement and action. There is a grand and deadly conspiracy here, and for such a great theme, I was hoping for more. I have read, ran and played many similar themed and even shorter page count length adventures that had more appeal and options than this one. Sure, I could convert this and run it for my group, but I could just make an adventure up of my own, which I think is ultimately what I would have if I converted this one because a lot of it, except perhaps the basic premise would need to be changed. Others might like this adventure the way it is, and that is fine as gaming is entertainment for you and your group.
The positive things I did like about this adventure is the setting information for Boganhafen and the surrounding area (great information to have to modify the adventure to be more of a sandbox and/or create adventures of your own in the area) and the attempt, by using the “Grognard” boxes, to suggest changes to the adventure from the original to throw off those who have played the original and for replay value, though many of these changes seem largely superficial (instead of this guy for this role or this encounter, its now this guy) that don’t really change the overall story or sequence of events much. Despite what I’ve said, I am interested to see how the story goes, and since I have the rest of the series, maybe I’ll give them a read.
Alas, this 160-page book took me nearly three months to slog through. The adventure and story were just not that appealing to me. Perhaps my preferences about what I expect from a pre-made adventure has changed over the years (I think that when this adventure originally came out, the style and progression would have been more to my liking and consistent with how I ran adventures) but with 160 pages to work with, I just can’t see why more sandbox-ish options couldn’t have been included (especially if this was a revision, but perhaps they wanted to keep it true to the original).
In an effort to not give any spoilers, I do not want to provide specific details on things that did not appeal to me, but generally speaking, the adventure is a railroad, and a strict one at that. There is GM advice to penalize or otherwise make like difficult for an adventuring party if they choose not to engage in a certain activity or course of action. There are many times when no alternatives are considered in certain encounters because things have to occur the way they are described to happen because other events depending on this specific outcome. This adventure would have made a good, even great novel, because that’s what it felt like. Like the player characters are just present as a medium to interact with the story since many of their actions were already decided for them in order for the adventure to be successful. I understand that many adventures are linear to some extent (even ones that I personally make are to some degree), but this one left little wiggle room for straying off the predetermined path, offering only minor changes or considerations that might be options.
Having run and created a lot of investigative and cult-themed adventures for various RPG systems I felt there was a lot of missed opportunity here to really make this adventure shine. Different investigative routes that could have been explored, more notable involvement or showcasing of the various NPCs, and less coincidence and happenstance to trigger PC involvement and action. There is a grand and deadly conspiracy here, and for such a great theme, I was hoping for more. I have read, ran and played many similar themed and even shorter page count length adventures that had more appeal and options than this one. Sure, I could convert this and run it for my group, but I could just make an adventure up of my own, which I think is ultimately what I would have if I converted this one because a lot of it, except perhaps the basic premise would need to be changed. Others might like this adventure the way it is, and that is fine as gaming is entertainment for you and your group.
The positive things I did like about this adventure is the setting information for Boganhafen and the surrounding area (great information to have to modify the adventure to be more of a sandbox and/or create adventures of your own in the area) and the attempt, by using the “Grognard” boxes, to suggest changes to the adventure from the original to throw off those who have played the original and for replay value, though many of these changes seem largely superficial (instead of this guy for this role or this encounter, its now this guy) that don’t really change the overall story or sequence of events much. Despite what I’ve said, I am interested to see how the story goes, and since I have the rest of the series, maybe I’ll give them a read.
February 24, 2023
Ah, the famous Enemy Within Campaign - generally considered the greatest campaign ever written (it's usually a debate between this and Masks of Nyarlothep), I have been looking forward to finally delving into this supposedly greatest of the greats. Alas, it's...underwhelming.
The book itself is impressive. Filled with local color, great artwork, and exceptional writing, sometimes it goes too far with regards to the details (stats for the raven pet that you see walking into a tavern?). It's biggest issue really though is massive railroading. This is a strange situation considering how open ended a lot of the investigation is and a bizarrely large page count dedicated to exploring even the most extreme red herrings. And yet, specific scenes end up being stuff like, "The PCs can try to do this, but the NPC automatically escapes, can't be detected, etc." A lot of the sections are also just flat out boring.
I've heard from a variety of gamers that this is the worst part of the campaign (there are 5 books so this is just the beginning). Nonetheless, I had sky high expectations and they weren't met. We'll see how Death on the Reik goes.
The book itself is impressive. Filled with local color, great artwork, and exceptional writing, sometimes it goes too far with regards to the details (stats for the raven pet that you see walking into a tavern?). It's biggest issue really though is massive railroading. This is a strange situation considering how open ended a lot of the investigation is and a bizarrely large page count dedicated to exploring even the most extreme red herrings. And yet, specific scenes end up being stuff like, "The PCs can try to do this, but the NPC automatically escapes, can't be detected, etc." A lot of the sections are also just flat out boring.
I've heard from a variety of gamers that this is the worst part of the campaign (there are 5 books so this is just the beginning). Nonetheless, I had sky high expectations and they weren't met. We'll see how Death on the Reik goes.
June 27, 2021
Fresh take on a classic WFRP adventure! Would give 5 stars if not for some editorial decisions (some very useful material for the adventure was moved to companion book along other optional stuff).
April 21, 2022
intriguing storyline. quite exciting and unique for an RPG. the problems with this module are the hard railroading and the overabundance of detail
January 2, 2023
Definitive version of the opening chapters of the Enemy Within campaign. Full review: https://refereeingandreflection.wordp...
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews