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GRAEME DAVIS Writer – Worldbuilder – Game Designer – Myth and Folklore Geek * Home * My Games * My Books * Freebies * Leave a Tip * Friends * CASTLE DRACHENFELS: WFRP’S TOMB OF HORRORS October 26, 2024 graemedavis 1 comment i 2 Votes The excellent Jordan Sorcery just posted an in-depth look at Flame’s last publication for WFRP 1st edition, Castle Drachenfels, and that’s brought a few memories to mind so I thought I’d drop them here for anyone who might be interested. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It all began, of course, with the very first Warhammer novel. Drachenfels was written by Kim Newman under the pseudonym Jack Yeovil, like all his Games Workshop tie-in fiction. Constant Drachenfels and his castle were Newman’s original creations, so this was their first appearance in Warhammer lore. I don’t know whether this was the first story to feature the vampire Genevieve (was her name a slightly clumsy pun on the French for “I do not live”?), but it was certainly her first appearance in the Old World. I recognized the name Drachenfels (“Dragon Rock”) from an earlier holiday in Germany, having sailed past it on a Rhine river tour. According to legend, it was where Siegfried slew the dragon Fafnir – hence the name. There is a ruined 12th-century castle on the summit, named Burg Drachenfels. (More at Wikipedia) I can’t say for sure that this is where Newman got the name, but it does seem likely. White Dwarf 117 featured profiles and WFRP game stats for the major characters, just as other issues did for Felix and Gotrek and others, and when we had a few pages to fill in the Warhammer Companion, Mike Brunton reprinted the White Dwarf material under the title “Dramatis Personae.” But things didn’t end there, of course. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bryan Ansell had long been frustrated by the lack of dungeon bashes in early WFRP, and almost as soon as he had finished reading the novel, he let it be known that he wanted Castle Drachenfels treated for WFRP. His intention, as he stated it to me, was that it would give WFRP a killer dungeon comparable to D&D‘s infamous module S1: The Tomb of Horrors. As a WFRP product, it fell to Flame to fulfil the requirement, and as the most prolific WFRP freelancer at the time, Carl Sargent was commissioned to write it. Carl’s enthusiasm for the project shows through every word of his writing, and although Power Behind the Throne is undoubtedly his best for for WFRP – perhaps for any game – I rate Castle Drachenfels as a close second. His love of the macabre and outrageous is perfectly matched to the subject matter, and he adds a number of memorably horrific vignettes to the material from the novel. With all due respect to his memory, Carl was easily bored by certain projects, and his first drafts could veer into the parodic or the ridiculous from time to time. Not so here; he was having the time of his life and you can tell. Yes, there are a few gags and digs here and there, Carl being Carl, but nothing that threatens the tone or integrity of the final work. I had recently left Games Workshop when Carl completed the manuscript, and along with Robin Dews, Carl stepped into the gaps at Flame left by my departure and Mike Brunton’s – which, of course, meant that there was no one to edit and develop Castle Drachenfels. So, to use the movie cliché, I was called back for one last mission, this time on a freelance contract. I found surprisingly little to do, and was able to turn the job around quickly before snailmailing the finished text back to GW on a floppy disk, this being 1992. It wasn’t my last job for Flame or GW (that was the Advanced Heroquest supplement Terror in the Darkness, of which more another time), but it was my last work for WFRP until James Wallis got in touch to tell me that Hogshead had acquired the WFRP license, a couple of years later. What else is there to say? Well, in keeping with company policy at the time the interior art was largely re-used from elsewhere, apart from bespoke pieces by Tony Ackland. The cover art was also re-used: John Blanche’s Hrothyogg’s Tower had been used in the WFRP 1st edition rulebook (opposite p. 144) and went on to inspire the tower in Josh Kirby’s art for the never-published Tower of Screaming Death (covered by Gideon in the Awesome Lies “Lost Warhammer” series), which ended up on the covers of both Flame’s Warhammer Companion and Hogshead’s Apocrypha Now. > Aside: As far as I know, Hrothyogg’s Tower has never been a canonical location > in Warhammer (but if I’m wrong, let me know in the comments). I have no idea > why John chose that title for his painting: Hrothyogg was a name I made up for > an Ogre mercenary figure and wove into a short piece of fiction where he > defeats the more famous Golgfag in an eating contest and wins the prestigious > Belt of the Eater, which is visible in the miniatures for both characters. And > that’s it. As far as I know, Hrothyogg did not appear in anything else > published for WFRP or Warhammer at that time. But okay… Oh, one last thing: the hand-written player handouts were indeed written by hand. We had no access to handwriting fonts, if they even existed back then. I suspect they were all done by Phil Gallagher, who was a handy calligrapher in addition to his other talents and had done all of the handwriting in the Enemy Within campaign (but not the Doomstones: the handwriting there was the work of cartographer and former GW assistant art director Ian Cooke). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So, there you have it: I hope it’s been interesting. Let me know in the comments, and if you’re curious about anything else from my career, drop me a comment about that, too. Maybe I’ll remember enough to make a post about it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AFFILIATE LINKS If you use these links, I get a digital penny in my virtual tin mug for everything you buy – and it doesn’t cost you anything! Thanks in advance! Castle Drachenfels on DriveThruRPG Warhammer Companion on DriveThruRPG Apocrypha Now on DriveThruRPG The original Tomb of Horrors on DriveThruRPG My Complete and Utter Warhammer Bibliography (includes affiliate links) I wasn’t able to find any good links for Drachenfels the novel, but I believe it is still in print in various languages. Happy hunting! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Categories: Bibliography, games, WFRP Tags: Carl Sargent, Constant Drachenfels, Drachenfels, fantasy, flame publications, games, games workshop, gaming, Jack Yeovil, Kim Newman, roleplaying, roleplaying games, rpg, rpgs, warhammer, Warhammer 40K, warhammer fantasy roleplay, Warhammer novels, WFRP READ THIS BLOG October 23, 2024 graemedavis 1 comment i 1 Vote If you like WFRP, you’ll love “It Always Rains in Nuln.” I’ve long said that Polish WFRP fans are remarkable for their passion and devotion, and Xathrodox86 (named for a WFRP 3 Chaos Warrior I wrote and the year WFRP 1 was published) is among the best. I’m serious! What are you doing still here? Go! Go! > “It always rains in Nuln” is 10 years old! Categories: games Tags: blog, games, poland, roleplaying, roleplaying blog, roleplaying games, rpg, rpg blog, rpgs, ttrpg, warhammer, warhammer blog, warhammer fantasy roleplay, WFRP, wfrp blog STAR TURNS IN DARK FUTURE October 9, 2024 graemedavis Leave a comment i 2 Votes Remember Dark Future, “The Game of Highway Warriors”? Gideon just posted about some guest appearances by GW staffers in the supplement White Line Fever, with a little help from me. Check out some great Martin McKenna art and indulge in 80s retro-futuristic nostalgia! #games #gamesworkshop #darkfuture #cyberpunk #carbattle #SF #80s #toycars https://awesomeliesblog.wordpress.com/2024/10/09/fever-dreams/ > FEVER DREAMS Categories: Uncategorized Tags: 1980s, car battles, car wars, cyberpunk, Dark Future, games, games workshop, gaslands, mad max, Martin McKenna THE PHANTOM CHICKEN OF HIGHGATE: A LONDON GHOST STORY October 5, 2024 graemedavis 2 comments i Rate This Image stolen from Redbubble. Used without permission. This is a repost of something from a long time ago, but I just came across it again and I think it’s worth retelling. It may be my very favorite English ghost story, simply for its pure ridiculousness. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I love history and folklore, in part because they are full of things that fiction writers could never get away with. Here’s an example, taken from J. A. Cuddon’s excellent introduction to The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories. I was previously aware of Bacon’s experiment in early refrigeration techniques and its fatal outcome for him, but I must admit I had never considered the poor chicken. > “My personal favourite non-human ghost is ‘The Phantom Chicken of Highgate’, > the victim of an experiment in the theory of refrigeration conducted by Sir > Francis Bacon in the winter of 1626. During a blizzard Sir Francis went out to > the duckpond on top of Highgate Hill and stuffed frozen snow into the carcass > of a freshly plucked chicken. The enterprise was too much for Bacon, then in > his sixtieth year. He caught a cold, developed bronchitis, and died. The > spectre of the luckless fowl, featherless, squawking, and agitating the stubs > of its wings, has ever since sporadically haunted Pond Square. Observers > remark that it disappears through a brick wall.” I hope that brings a smile to your week. For readers who demand corroboration, here are some other tellings of the story: > The Ghost Chicken of Pond Square, London > Francis Bacon’s Ghost Chicken -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- More about English philosopher, scientist, and statesman Sir Francis Bacon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gl1MJIv724 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Bacon Sadly, no biographical details are available for the chicken. Categories: Monsters, Myth and Folklore, Uncategorized Tags: Alchemy, Bestiary, Chicken, Chicken ghost, early science, england, food, Ghost, ghost story, ghosts, haunting, Highgate, highgate-cemetery, London, Monsters, poultygeist, refrigeration, science, Sir Francis Bacon UNVEILING THE MYSTERY OF THE WELSH WATER LEAPER September 28, 2024 graemedavis Leave a comment i Rate This What lurks in the depths of the dark mountain lake? You may have heard of the Welsh water leaper (Llamhigyn y Dŵr), and you may even have seen a version of the beast for D&D and other tabletop roleplaying games. But did you know that almost everything about the legend can be traced back to one interview with a Caernarfon fisherman named Ifan Owen which was published in 1901? Find out more about the beast in the #playtesters channel of the Monster of the Month Club Discord server, including system-agnostic game stats, basic and optional traits, and adventure seeds for fantasy, historical, and modern settings! I’m always looking for playtesters and beta readers! Watch this space for the formal announcement of the Monster of the Month Club’s Patreon launch. If you’re a GM who loves monsters from worldwide myth and folklore, you won’t want to miss it! Note: This link will only be good for about a week after the posting date. https://discord.gg/JAWHTrrS Categories: games, Monsters, Myth and Folklore, Uncategorized Tags: fantasy, folklore, game writing, games, llamhigyn y dwr, Monster of the Month Club, Monster stats, mythology, Patreon, roleplaying, roleplaying games, rpg, rpgs, Wales KNIGHTS PANTHER – THE SHOCKING TRUTH! September 23, 2024 graemedavis 4 comments i 5 Votes My YouTube feed just showed me a short from the excellent Jordan Sorcery about this iconic John Blanche painting (https://www.youtube.com/shorts/e_ikxddXWBc), and it shook loose a couple of memories from the early, early days of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. I sometimes describe the atmosphere in the writers’ room at the Games Workshop Design Studio as a gaming version of the anarchic contemporary sitcom The Young Ones,* and here’s a fairly standard example. Would you trust this crew with your game setting? The name “Knights Panther” was born in the early days of writing The Enemy Within supplement and fleshing out the Empire from the bare bones in the rulebook. I can’t remember whether it was Jim or Phil, but since the Empire had a Germanic tone, someone thought a panther-panzer pun was a good idea. Then the painting appeared and I was tasked with giving it a title, perhaps because it was going on a WD cover. I saw the leopard-skin saddle blanket and decided to make the guy a Knight Panther. I came up with the name von Torlichhelm from my schoolboy German – “of the foolish helmet” – because I thought the helmet was quite the most ridiculously impractical thing I’d ever seen (possibly forgetting the tall helmets of H.M. Household Cavalry). I mean, a near miss could still hit the crest and snap the wearer’s neck, but hey – it’s art. It was during the development of Warhammer City and Power Behind the Throne that the Knights Panther became attached to the Todbringer family, and illustrators Russ Nicholson and Martin McKenna copied the painting faithfully – right down to the battleaxe that the figure in the painting was holding. So there you have it. As so often happened in those days, one person’s silliness piled on another’s created Warhammer lore. Games Workshop takes things a little more seriously now – or to be more accurate, management probably learned vigilance from our early shenanigans. If you’re interested in the history of Warhammer from the earliest times, there are two sources I recommend very highly. I’ve contributed some of my memories to both. One is the aforementioned Jordan Sorcery, whose YouTube channel is at https://www.youtube.com/@jordansorcery The other is Gideon’s Awesome Lies blog (named after White Dwarf’s notoriously inaccurate news column from the 80s), in which he has traced the history of Warhammer from the very first published works by Messrs. Ansell, Priestley, and Halliwell, including tracking down every crumb of information on the myriad products that were announced but never published. You can find it at https://awesomeliesblog.wordpress.com/ Before you dip into either of these wonderful sources, though, a word of caution: don’t do it if you have any commitments for the rest of the day, or possibly the rest of the week. You’ll be sucked in for hours before you know it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *but not quite so gratuitously violent. Categories: WFRP Tags: fantasy art, games workshop, john blanche, knights panther, warhammer, warhammer fantasy roleplay, WFRP UPDATED! MY COMPLETE AND UTTER GAMING BIBLIOGRAPHY August 11, 2024 graemedavis 3 comments i 2 Votes If you’ve ever wanted to know about every single thing I’ve ever written for roleplaying and tabletop games, click on the My Games tab at the top of the page. It took me a while, but I’ve tracked down everything (I think) and added links to everything that is still available for sale. Even I don’t have everything, but now, at least, it’s possible! AFFILIATE LINKS For full disclosure (and a subtle hint…) I should say that links to Amazon.com, DriveThruRPG, and DriveThruFiction are affiliate links. Every time anyone buys through one of those links, I get a digital penny in my virtual tin mug – and it doesn’t cost you any extra! So enjoy, and I hope you find some stuff that you didn’t know about. If there’s anything you’d like to know more about, drop a comment here. If I get enough inquiries about something in particular, I’ll dredge through my memory and write a post about it! Categories: Uncategorized MY COMPLETE AND UTTER VAESEN BIBLIOGRAPHY August 4, 2024 graemedavis 1 comment i Rate This > NOTICE: AFFILIATE LINKS > > This page includes affiliate links to Amazon and DriveThruRPG. That means that > every time you follow my link to one of those vendors and buy the product, > they drop a digital penny in my virtual tin mug. So, thanks! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When I first discovered Vaesen, I got a big smile on my face. It was a game that I had wanted to write for a couple of decades, but the closest I had ever come was writing GURPS Faerie in 2003. Best of all, the core book setting was the Mythic North, which left Britain and Ireland wide open. I was very happy when Free League agreed to let me write a supplement for it. And that art! Check out the art book from Johan Egerkrans that started it all. I don’t know whether I’ll ever get to write another official product for Vaesen, but I’m a huge monster geek (blame Ray Harryhausen and those skeletons from Jason and the Argonauts) so I can’t resist putting out new vaesen through the Free League Workshop from time to time. PRODUCTS Mythic Britain and Ireland (2022: Cubicle 7) – Editor and contributor Buy from DriveThru Poster Map from Amazon FREE LEAGUE WORKSHOP VIA DRIVETHRURPG A Scandinavian Bibliography The Brunnmigi The Draug The Fachan Fairy Hounds The Ganconer The Helhest The Leannan Sidhe The Skoffin The Water Leaper ARTICLES “From the Bestiary: Part 2,” Nowa Fantastyka 10/2021 (in Polish) “From the Bestiary: for Vaesen and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay,” Nowa Fantastyka 07/2021 (in Polish). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WANT MORE? Games bibliography index page Non-Games Writing Categories: Bibliography, games, Monsters, Myth and Folklore, Uncategorized, Vaesen Tags: fantasy, folklore, Free League, game writing, games, Johan Egerkrans, Mythic Britain and Ireland, mythology, roleplaying, roleplaying games, rpg, rpgs, Vaesen XATHRODOX86 REVIEWS: “TERROR IN THE DARKNESS” BY CARL SARGENT April 10, 2024 graemedavis 3 comments i 2 Votes > Found out about this gem of a scenario relatively lately. Already GMed it and > so I decided to share my opinions about it with y’all. Originally written by > the late Carl Sargent, one of the legends of Warhammer, this advenutre was > updated for the second edition of the game by Alexander J Bateman. You might > […] > > Xathrodox86 reviews: “Terror in the Darkness” by Carl Sargent Categories: Uncategorized WFRP 4 MONSTERS: THE INDEX February 28, 2024 graemedavis 28 comments i 14 Votes -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A couple of years ago, I started a project to create unofficial WFRP 4th edition stats for a lot of old Citadel Miniatures. There are quite a few of them now, so I’m posting this index for easy reference. If you like this kind of content, please leave a rating so I’ll know to do more (as everyone says online, like and subscribe!). If not, please leave a comment to let me know what you’d rather see. For example, I’m thinking of doing WFRP 1 stats for those creatures that don’t already have them. Zoats Ambull Viydagg Mardagg Mabrothrax Jabberwock Gargoyle Toad Dragon The Spectral Claw The Mud Elemental Ngaaranh Spawn of Chaos Leaping Slomm Two-Face Zygor Snake-Arms Independent Daemons Chaos Snakemen Menfish Golems Giant Bats and Fell Bats Lesser Daemon of Malal Greater Daemon of Malal Medusas Daemons of Law The Cook: A Mutant More Mutants Great Cats and Elven Beastfriends -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monsters are one of my favorite elements of fantasy, myth, and folklore, so I hope you enjoy these. Also, watch this blog for news as my #cunningplan develops and the #secretproject takes shape! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Categories: games, Index, Monsters, Myth and Folklore, WFRP Tags: Ambull, Chaos Snakemen, Daemons, Death Elemental, Fell Bats, games, games workshop, Giant Bats, Golems, Greater Daemon, Jabberwock, Leaping Slomm Two-Face, Lesser Daemon, Life Elemental, Mabrothrax, Malal, Mardagg, medusa, Menfish, miniatures, Monsters, mud elemental, Ngaaranh Spawn of Chaos, Old Citadel Miniatures, Plague Elemental, roleplaying, roleplaying games, rpg, rpgs, Spectral Claw, Toad Dragon, Viydagg, warhammer, warhammer fantasy roleplay, Warhammer Monsters, WFRP, WFRP4, Zoat, Zygor Snake-Arms Older Entries RSS feed * Google * Youdao * Xian Guo * Zhua Xia * My Yahoo! * newsgator * Bloglines * iNezha EMAIL SUBSCRIPTION Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. 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