Warhammer World Building: Forsaken and Lost

Warhammer World Building creates campaign settings using Cubicle 7’s Warhammer RPGs: Soulbound (PDF only), Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (PDF), and Wrath & Glory (PDF only). Each RPG features player characters exploring a world of magic and monsters that is threatened by the forces of Chaos. This month explores the Forsaken System for Wrath & Glory and the adventure book Litanies of the Lost. 

This month covers a setting, Wrath & Glory: Forsaken System Player’s Guide (PDF only), and an adventure book, Wrath & Glory: Litanies of The Lost (PDF only). My thanks to Cubicle 7 for providing physical copies of these books to help in my continuing exploration of everything Warhammer RPG related. 

If you want to run a campaign in Warhammer 40K put yourself in the boots of one man of the Imperium, one PC. One human is to be one among the untold billions. Your Emperor is a rotting carcass. Over all the carnage and slaughter are cries of anguish and sorrow nearly drowned out by the laughter of cruel and dark gods. 

There is no comfort or hope. Tech won’t save. Progress and advancement are forgotten. Humanity has no shared compassion. There is no peace. There is only war.

Now, you might be thinking, well, that sucks. Or you might be thinking, that sounds metal sign me up. If you are the latter, you are ready to GM in the Forsaken System.

If life isn’t hard enough in 40K, the Forsaken System is cut off from the Emperor by the Great Rift. Six habitable planets will be the PCs’ whole world. The Player’s Guide starts with these six planets and drills down the details to Factions, then Patrons, then to character options and ends with Endeavours which PCs can do between adventures.

The book is filled with Adventure Hooks, which GMs can use as a seed to build an adventure. For example, a new cult has sprung up dedicated to mining valuable ores in the Endless Grind. While productivity is way up, the cult is also hanging around the space elevators leading to the orbital ring and making their overseer nervous. He may ask the PCs to investigate the cult.

If some of the PCs belong to the faction Machine Cults of Avachrus, the cult in Endless Grind will be of great interest and under suspicion. Followers of the Omnissiah, the PCs will want to investigate the miners to seek out any possible heretics and suppress their work and their ways.

If one of the PCs is a Kroot, a xeno mercenary, he may want to point out that the mining makes the humans weak. The proof that the miner is weak is made plain when the human is eaten, and the Kroot grows in power.

Patrons the PCs have may provide a Framework (a campaign setup) that leads them to investigate a hook like Endless Grind. Certainly, Imperial PCs may want to investigate.

After killing any heretics from the cult, the PCs might be ready for some downtime. The PC from the Machine cults might take an Endeavour to craft equipment. The PC might think it is a good idea to show the Kroot how well-armed a member of Adeptus Mechanics is and that they are NOT prey.

Adventures can flow that easily for GMs with a combination of planet hooks and PC backgrounds and objectives. The book is filled with adventure seeds and background for PCs to build upon and new Frameworks from which to start building a campaign.

However, a GM can find herself short for time. In that case, Litanies of The Lost will come in handy. The book has four adventures that can be played as stand-alone missions or combined into a larger planet-hopping campaign.

Litanies of the Lost includes two new Frameworks, campaigns setups that PCs and GMs can use to narrow the focus of a game. Vakuul’s Venators has the PCs working for the Adeptus Mechanicus and requires all PCs to have the Imperium Keyword. Archeotech Scavengers is wide open, but for PCs to take part in these adventures, at least one of them will need the Imperium Keyword.

Tier 1 PCs can start with Grim Harvest. Ostia is the only Agri-World in the Forsaken reach, and a long-held secret is waiting to be uncovered. Grim Harvest starts with both investigation and political maneuvering and ends in a combat filled dungeon crawl. It is a perfect introduction to Wrath & Glory. It recommends no xenos though, so keep that restriction in mind or come up with additional Framework options.

Vow of Silence is also Tier 1 and can easily follow from Grim Harvest. This one has a lot of investigation and looks like sci-fi horror but ends with a twist. I like how this one has surprises for even experienced 40K players. It can be played in one session.

For Tier 2 PCs, Dark Bidding is a longer adventure for Imperium characters who are not part of the Inquisition (although a sidebar includes ways to include either the Inquisition or Chaos groups). This one takes place in a monastery and is a delicate investigation with plenty of possible political fallout on the line. There is even an auction the PCs might get caught up in. It takes place on the forge world of Avachrus.

Also for Tier 2 PCs, Duty Beyond Death would be a great introduction to Wrath & Glory. It takes place at the Pakthhertius Manufactorum where Servitors are manufactured. It is an adventure of investigation and action-horror with plenty of body horror and loss of control of one’s actions. This one has a long dungeon crawl as well through a factory of horrors. 

There are plenty of NPCs, each with their own agenda, and the PCs will have to decide which ones to work with and which ones they refuse to help. These interactions can easily impact future adventures and relations with various Factions.

For GMs wanting to go their own way, the Forsaken System Player’s Guide is a great resource with enough ideas to get the GM fodder for adventure writing. This book is a great second resource to add to the core rulebook. And for GMs pressed for time, Litanies of The Lost is a great resource with fully fleshed out adventures for Tier 1 or Tier 2 Imperium characters. Both books are well put together and full of support for Wrath & Glory GMs.

Picture credit: Pixabey.