Interview: Anthony Ragan

I’m very pleased to offer an interview with Anthony Ragan. Anthony’s contributions to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay go back to 1st Edition, when he was responsible for the very well-received sourcebook Marienburg: Sold Down the River (which I reviewed here). His significant contributions to WFRP continued in 2nd Edition when he was responsible for Sigmar’s Heirs – the sourcebook detailing the Empire. In the current 4th Edition he has contributed to many books including Archives of the Empire volume 1, Up in Arms, Winds of Magic, Lustria, and the final parts of new Enemy Within campaign.

Zekiel: Can you explain how you got into WFRP, and how you came to write for 1st edition?

Anthony: It was 1986. I was part of a group with a long-running AD&D 1E & 2E campaign. It had been a lot of fun, but, to be honest, had grown stale. Character classes felt restrictive, combat was dull and formulaic, and I had come to dislike the internal dynamic of the game that pretty much required one to accumulate more and more magic items Not to bash AD&D: like I said, we had fun. But, I was ready for something different.

Then along came that wonderful multi-page ad in Dragon magazine. I wasn’t just intrigued, I was in love. The setting was everything I was looking for: dark fantasy in a compelling lower-magic setting that resembled my favorite period of history; a careers system that was much more colorful and flexible than a class and level system, allowing for characters who felt like they lived in the setting, rather than just being generic adventurers; a combat system that could be deadly no matter how powerful your character was; cults and conspiracies. Dwarves and Elves who weren’t just short beer-drinking humans or tall, pointy-eared humans. And snotlings. Gotta mention snotlings.

As you can imagine, I could go on and on. But, to talk about how I started writing, it was at GenCon in the late 80s – 1987? – that I played in a demo game run by Ken Rolston, who was then working for GW. We fell to talking after the event, and I mentioned my interest in writing for WFRP. He said they were looking to develop the port of Marienburg and suggested I submit something. So, I did. That material became part of the original series of articles for White Dwarf.

Eventually, Hogshead picked up the license and James Wallis contacted me about writing a full Marienburg book.I couldn’t resist and that cemented my long-term involvement with the game.

Zekiel: How do you think the game has changed since you began playing and writing? Do you have a favourite edition?

Anthony: I don’t have a favorite edition, partly because I never played 2nd or 3rd editions, so I can’t say. First and Fourth editions have their strengths: the first had very simple mechanics… but, at times, too simple. Fourth adds a lot of depth to the setting and, I think, generally better mechanics, but perhaps in need of some streamlining

As for changes since I started writing… Well, there’s all the new material that’s been added through WFB, WFRP 2E and 3E, and the fiction products, of course; Cubicle 7 has done a good job taking that and fitting it to the current edition. (Sometimes not as easy as one would think.)  I’ve been lucky to be a small part of that in the last few years.

In terms of tone, I’ve seen some people say the tone has shifted from 1E. Perhaps that’s inevitable given different artists, writers, and developers, but I don’t wholly agree. It all depends on the style of the GM and players and what they choose to emphasize. To me, it’s still WFRP, it’s still a dark fantasy game.

Zekiel: What do you most enjoy about writing for WFRP?

Anthony: The chance to help develop a compelling and fun setting. I love the quasi-Renaissance feel and how easy it is to make believable NPCs. It has enough depth that I as a writer can choose what to highlight. For example, I like to keep Chaos largely behind the scenes as a corrupting influence, saving its open appearance for the big finale. Others like to bring it front and center and “go gonzo.” Both work. What’s neat about the Old World is that one can write good WFRP adventures without invoking Chaos at all. There’s that much to work with.

Marienburg bridge. Copyright Games Workshop

Zekiel: Your Marienburg sourcebook was a truly fantastic city sourcebook. What got you interested in the city? Can you provide some background on your influences and inspirations for it?

Anthony: Thanks for the kind words. It pleases me to no end that people still think highly of it after 25 years. As for sources… I’m a history buff, and one of my favorite periods is the Age of Exploration, particularly the European 16th century. What got me interested in Marienburg, per se, was Ken Rolston telling me that’s what GW was looking for. But this gave me a chance to create a fantasy version of a port from my favorite historical period. My conception of Marienburg was founded on what I knew of Amsterdam and Venice in their “golden ages.” (In fact, the Marienburg map is made from the maps of those two cities, which I cut into pieces and rearranged.)

Fiction was an inspiration, too. The late 70s and early 80s were the heyday of the shared-world anthology, and I wanted to create a place that could host adventures of the type found in anthologies such as Thieves World, Liavek, or Cherryh’s Merovingen Nights. And of course, other game products. Both Chaosium with its “Pavis” and Flying Buffalo’s Citybook series inspired how I thought about a city setting and what it should have for GMs and players. If you notice a common theme in all that, it’s that I’m more interested in the lives of largely ordinary people in a fantastic setting than I am in borderline superheroes.

Zekiel: One of my only disappointments with the sourcebook was that it didn’t detail some of the more exotic areas of the city, like the Cathay, Ind and Nippon quarters. What was the thinking behind those omissions? 

Anthony: That was born of two factors. The first was simply word count: I’d been contracted for 100,000 or so words, and the book was already pushing the limit. Treating other neighborhoods in the way I’d treated, say, Kruiersmuur would have blown way past that. 

The other factor was my desire to leave room for GMs and players to develop their own parts of Marienburg. Granted, they can add to the existing neighborhoods, too (there’s plenty of “room” in Suiddock, for example), but I wanted to leave some blank spaces a GM could make all his own. 

Zekiel: Can you tell us anything about how you went about updating information on the city for the current 4th edition of WFRP?

Anthony: I can’t say too much, because of NDAs, but right now we’re collecting information on what’s been said in which source and deciding what to include. So, things are still very much in the planning stages. 

Zekiel: Well I’m enormously looking forward to seeing what you & Cubicle 7 do with it!

You wrote the chapter “The Colony” for The Dying of the Light, which details a fascinating settlement of mutants, cared for by a radical Shallyan priestess with the apparently heretical belief that mutants are people. Did you have a specific brief for the chapter or was the idea all your own?

Anthony: I don’t recall a specific brief; we were asked to send in a quick pitch. I had wanted to write something that reversed expectations and featured the servants of a god other than Sigmar or Ulric, so came up with this.

Zekiel: I find the treatment of mutants in WFRP intriguing. Was this a controversial take at the time? Do you see parallels between the treatment of mutants in WFRP and real-world historical treatment of people with physical disabilities?

Anthony: That’s interesting, I had never thought of the physical disabilities angle. I don’t recall anything controversial about it. To my mind, mutants represented the fear of the “monster” within us all taking control (a more graphic version of Jekyll and Hyde?), or a degeneration into madness. Of course, there’s also the body-horror theme. Coming back to “The Colony,” I wanted to add some texture to the presentation of mutants, making them more fun than just slobbering monsters. Now that I think of it, the presentation of the mutants in the Colony may have been inspired by a certain famous NPC in Death on the Reik.

Zekiel: For 2nd Edition you wrote Sigmar’s Heirs – which is still the only full-length official WFRP sourcebook on the Empire. How did you come to write this? Were you primarily basing it on the existing Empire army books? 

Anthony: I was contacted by Green Ronin when they received the license for 2E. To be honest, I don’t recall what I based it on. Probably a mix of material, including the army books, existing WFRP material, and my own ideas.

Zekiel: My understanding is that the Storm of Chaos setting for WFRP 2e was mandated by Games Workshop. Did this feel like a constraint when writing Sigmar’s Heirs?

Anthony: It wasn’t a constraint at all. As a writer, my attitude is that this was what the client wanted, so my job was to make it work.

Zekiel: Do you have any reflections on the differences in writing material for WFRP as a post-war setting, compared to 1st edition where the last big war was 200 years ago?

Anthony: It really wasn’t all that different for me: the Old World is a dark fantasy setting where Bad Things (TM) happen. This was just one more.

Zekiel: Fair enough! What is your favourite Grand Province and why?

Anthony: Ooh, tough question. Probably Reikland, but it also has the advantage of being the most developed. I could see myself running a campaign wholly within its boundaries. Ubersreik and its situation present a lot of neat opportunities, for example. 

Zekiel: You went on to write rather briefer treatments of the Grand Provinces in Archives of the Empire vol 1, reflecting the different point in history at the beginning if the Enemy Within campaign. Was it fun to present a different take on the familiar material? How did you approach this?

Anthony: This was my first assignment from Cubicle 7 and was pretty straightforward. All I had to do was condense the material from Sigmar’s Heirs and work in some of the new material the line developer made me aware of. (By that time, I hadn’t worked on the Old World for many years and was out of touch with a lot.) I enjoyed reacquainting myself with it and incorporating the new material, but a lot had to be “left on the cutting room floor,” too, because of space. To be honest, I became very interested in the Nuln-Sudenland-Wissenland dynamic through working on this.

Zekiel: Tilea is a fascinating region, which has seen relatively scanty coverage in WFRP’s history – most recently expanded with the material you wrote for Up in Arms. What would you say makes Tilea unique compared to other nations in the Old World? Would you like to develop this area more?

Anthony: Tilea was a natural to work on, given my love for Renaissance history – city states and condottieri, with adventure waiting on and across the seas. Then there’s the iconic WFRP bad guys, the Skaven, lurking in the swamps near Miragliano. Done right, it will have a very different feel from the Empire, while still being recognizably of the Old World. The cult of Morr, for example, would be predominant at least in Remas, while Mymidia and Verena would be far more significant than Sigmar and Ulric. I’d love to do a whole regional book for it.

Tilea, as featured in Up in Arms (copyright Cubicle 7)

Zekiel: I would love you to be able to do that too! Fingers crossed…

I’m really looking forward to delving into the Lustria sourcebook – particularly the Vampire Coast material which you’re responsible for. (What can I say, I’m a sucker for undead pirates!) How did you go about writing this, given the limited amount of official sources?

Anthony: I was pretty much given free rein, as long as I incorporated the existing material, which was largely from the WFB army books. Luthor Harkon was a challenge, but, as I worked with him, he became quite a bit of fun. I had to ask myself just what would a megalomaniacal undead necromancer and witch do if he found himself in a new world? Build the kingdom of his dark dreams, of course! Oh, and be a bit nuts.

And, just as the undead are a mockery of life, I decided his realm, New Bechafen and beyond, would work best as a mockery of the Empire he remembered. My intention was that it could serve as a very weird and very dangerous base for adventurers striking deeper into Lustria.

Zekiel: Do you have a favourite WFRP pun?

Anthony: Oh, yeah. “Graf von Saponatheim” from Shadows over Bogenhafen. I’m embarrassed to admit just how many years passed before I got the joke. And, yes, it still makes me laugh.

Zekiel: Great choice! I’m embarrassed myself that I didn’t get that one til I saw it explained years later.

Thank you so much for your answers Anthony! It’s been a pleasure talking to you and getting your insights into some of the key books in WFRP’s past and present.

Anthony can be found on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/anthonyragan