The lore of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.
The Old World looks like Renaissance Europe, only filthier and far more dangerous. An Empire of rival provinces, forests nobody crosses after dark, a capital where favours are sold by weight, and behind all of it a force that eats people from the inside: Chaos.
Here is enough to find your footing in the lore of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay without reading thirty years of supplements: the world and its era, the places most campaigns happen in, the peoples, the Chaos gods, the threats prowling around, and above all how to use any of it at your table.
The Old World, a setting rather than an epic.
The Old World echoes sixteenth century Europe: merchant cities, trade roads, guilds, priests and badly paid soldiers. The Empire sits at its centre, founded some twenty five centuries ago by Sigmar, who united the human tribes with dwarf help before vanishing. Its provinces, Reikland, Middenland, Talabecland, Stirland and the rest, fight over the throne at every imperial election.
None of this is heroic, and that is the point. Warhammer campaigns are played at street level: a border town, an inn, a guild rigging its weights, a priest looking the other way. The setting is not waiting for saviours, it is waiting for people trying to get by, which is exactly what makes the rare moments of courage stick.
The places of the Old World.
A dozen provinces that politely detest each other, tied together by a river and a bureaucracy. The setting owes more to the Holy Roman Empire than to high fantasy.
A hundred thousand souls, eight colleges of magic and sewers nobody has mapped. Anything is possible there, including vanishing.
A city built on a rock, reachable only by a few viaducts. The cult of Ulric weighs more there than the Emperor does.
A border town small enough to know completely in three sessions. It is the official starting point of the fourth edition.
A province imperial on paper and held by the dead in practice. You play gothic horror there rather than social comedy.
Knights on the Grail quest, and peasants who pay for their armour. A grating mirror held up to idealised chivalry.
The peoples and their grudges.
Humans rule the Old World by numbers, not by quality. Around them live the dwarfs, holed up in the World's Edge Mountains, watching their holds fall one by one and writing every slight into a Book of Grudges. Halflings hold the Moot, a small farming province attached to the Empire, and carry a reputation as good cooks and quiet thieves that nobody quite takes seriously.
Elves are split between two worlds: the high elves of Ulthuan, mostly present as merchants in the ports, and the wood elves of Athel Loren, who rarely leave their forest and have no sympathy for woodcutters. The fourth edition adds gnomes, rare and inventive. These peoples are not an alliance: they live side by side, despise each other politely and trade anyway.
The four Ruinous Powers.
Chaos is not an army camped up north, it is constant pressure on the world. Four great powers share its favours: Khorne, god of blood and battle, who asks only for skulls, Nurgle, lord of disease and decay, who loves his followers with revolting tenderness, Tzeentch, master of change, scheming and magic, and Slaanesh, excess in every form, from refinement to obsession.
At the table, Chaos rarely shows up as a horde. It starts with a notable promising a cure to a sick district, with a book bought for too much money, with a patch of skin that keeps spreading. The rules follow that logic through corruption: an exposed character piles up points, and eventually mutates. The Old World does not fall to an invasion, it rots from within, one small act of cowardice at a time.
The threats prowling around.
They are everywhere below the cities, yet the Empire officially denies they exist. A witness who talks about giant rats is taken for a madman, which is perfect for an investigation.
The Vampire Counts do not launch an invasion every month: they wait. A single opened grave is enough to start an adventure.
They live for a good scrap and gather into a Waaagh when a boss rises. On the marches of the Empire they are a permanent and thoroughly noisy threat.
They are born of corruption and live in the woods nobody crosses at night. A simple journey between two towns is enough to meet them.
The real danger is domestic: an alderman, a priest, a neighbour. Chaos plays better as a secret than as an army.
They come down from Norsca by sea and through the passes, in service to the Powers. They mostly serve as a reminder that the northern border barely holds.
The gods of the Empire and the winds of magic.
People pray to different gods depending on their province and their trade. Sigmar, the man who became a god, dominates the Empire, and his Grand Theogonist weighs heavily on imperial elections. Ulric, god of wolves, winter and war, rules in Middenheim and despises southern manners. Morr takes in the dead, Shallya heals the living, Verena watches over justice and learning, Taal and Rhya over the countryside, and Ranald, god of tricksters, gets far more prayers than his temples would suggest.
Magic comes from the north: the winds of magic blow out of the Chaos Wastes in eight colours, each taught by a college founded in Altdorf with the help of the elf Teclis. An imperial wizard is therefore both tolerated and watched, since the craft draws on the same source as Chaos. Outside those colleges witchcraft is a crime, and witch hunters are not in the business of trials.
Using the Old World at your table.
Rent overdue motivates better than any prophecy. In the Empire, nearly every adventure starts with a need for money.
A market, an inn, a grumpy sergeant: set up the mundane before the abnormal. Horror only works if the town existed before it.
A carved symbol, a deformed birth, a preacher who is too convincing. Chaos glimpsed frightens more than a daemon in the street.
The watch, the guilds and the temples cause more trouble than the monsters. Give them three names and three faces, they will come back all campaign.
The Old World is cruel and ridiculous in equal measure. A rat catcher saving a town is exactly the tone of the game.
The great battles belong to the novels and the miniatures. At the table you steal a cart and try to get out of town.
Bringing the Old World to life online.
The Old World lives on details: a wanted notice nailed to a door, the map of a district, a coat of arms nobody has seen for two centuries. Described out loud, those details are forgotten. Displayed, they land.
Tomeus gathers the backdrop, the music, the sheets and the dice roller in a single window. You prepare your handouts ahead of time, send the link, and your players step into the Empire with nothing to install.
Go further with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.
How to Start Playing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
The Old World, the d100, randomly rolled careers and lethal combat: the complete guide to start playing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and run a first session.
The Basic Rules of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
The d100 and difficulty, the ten characteristics, success levels, the combat round, wounds and fate points: the basic rules of WFRP explained simply.
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Careers
The eight career classes, the four tiers, social status, the random roll and changing careers: how WFRP careers work and how to pick your first one.
The Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Bestiary
WFRP creatures explained: reading a creature profile, the main monster families, the trait system and how to build an encounter that stays lethal.
Go further with tabletop RPGs.
How to Play a Tabletop RPG: the Beginner's Guide
How a session unfolds, what the game master does, dice, character sheets and how to play a tabletop RPG online. A complete guide for beginners.
How to Find Players for a Tabletop RPG
Game shops, clubs, conventions, Discord, online listings: where to find players for your tabletop RPG and how to write an ad people answer.
The Best Tabletop RPGs for Beginners
Dungeons & Dragons, Call of Cthulhu, Alien, Monster of the Week: six easy tabletop RPGs for a first session, and how to pick the right one.
How to Create a Tabletop RPG Character
Concept, class, ability scores, skills, backstory and bonds: the full method to create a tabletop RPG character who will carry a whole campaign.
Frequently asked questions.
What is the difference between Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40K?
They are two separate settings from the same publisher. Warhammer Fantasy takes place in the Old World, a late medieval setting of swords, dwarfs and witchcraft. Warhammer 40K happens in a very distant future, with starships and a galactic Imperium. Both share a grim look and the four Chaos gods, but the places, the peoples and the rules have nothing in common. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is the roleplaying game of the first, Wrath & Glory that of the second.
Do you need to know the lore to play Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay?
No. One sentence is enough for the players: a filthy, superstitious sixteenth century Europe where magic corrupts and monsters are real. The game master benefits from knowing the starting region, usually Reikland, and nothing more. The rest is learned by playing, and players coming from the miniatures or the video games have no real head start.
When is Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay set?
The fourth edition sets its games around the year 2512 of the imperial calendar, under Emperor Karl Franz. The Old World is still intact there: the end of the world told in The End Times and the Age of Sigmar setting that followed have no bearing on your table. The Old World miniatures game explores the same world, a little over two centuries earlier.