Review: Altdorf – Crown of the Empire (part 2)

My review of Cubicle 7’s expansive guide to the capital of the Empire concludes. Last time I went through the introductory material and the districts of the South Bank and the East End. Let’s get on with seeing what the City North has to offer.

Wizards, Merchants, High Elves and Halflings

The City North is probably my favourite part of Altdorf, being the middle-class district. It contains lots of merchants and market areas, including an honest-to-goodness stock market. However before we get to that, we get the Wizards’ Quarter. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not wild about an abundance of magic in my WFRP – and when it is present, I’d prefer it to be mysterious and menacing, rather than a part of everyday life. Nevertheless, the Colleges of Magic are a central part of the lore of the Empire (and have been for decades of the game’s history by this point) so I do my best to accept them!

So the Hexxerbezik is where all the colleges of magic are located (save for the Amber College, which doesn’t have a presence within the city, given that this many buildings in one place actively repels the amber wind). This is a departure from the 2nd Edition version of Altdorf (in Spires of Altdorf), where the colleges were scattered around the city. I prefer this version – I think having all the colleges in one area makes it easier to ignore the presence of them if you prefer a lower-magic version of WFRP. In any case the colleges’ treatment is reasonable but not especially detailed; much more detail is provided in Winds of Magic (reviewed here). Moving on!

Old Weirde, classic academic (and potential patron). Copyright Cubicle 7

The Schulegeund is dominated by the University of Altdorf, one of the locations I was most looking forward to reading about. A university feels extremely in keeping with the early Renaissance conception of the Empire which I personally favour. We get a list of the subjects taught at the University (and which ones it is considered to be better at than the rival University of Nuln) and there’s a tantalising reference to the classical god Clio (any ideas where you can find more info about him?). There’s a bit of information on the League of Karl-Franz (the Warhammer version of the Bullingdon Club) and the Temple-Library of Verena. Two prominent academics are detailed – the Chancellor (who is basically an example of an uber-scholar; his academic skills are prodigious) and Professor ‘Old’ Weirde, a “historian and scholar of warfare” who is obviously designed as a potential patron to send adventurers off to explore far-off civilisations and report back to him. I’m a little disappointed by how brief the section on the University is – I could imagine a whole campaign based on students getting up to high-jinks and investigating burgeoning Chaos cults within its hallowed halls, and I don’t think there’s enough material in here to give more than a taste of what student life is like in Altdorf.

Großvaters’ Zuhause is a possibly-haunted fortress on an island in the river. It’s got a sensible reason to exist (it’s the Emperor’s bolt holt if the city walls should be breached) but also never gets used (since Altdorf hasn’t fallen to enemies for centuries) which justifies why there is a mostly-empty giant fortress in the heart of the capital of the Empire, with a dire reputation. It is obviously intended as a potential dungeon crawl (delve into the catacombs beneath the fortress) but I think you could also run it as a sort of atmospheric haunted house, perhaps with the PCs engaged to protect an exorcist sent to cleanse the fortress.

Ominous-looking castle in the heart of Altdorf. Copyright Cubicle 7

There’s a neat little section the Konigplatz, the great open square where many coaching lines terminate. Along with the depots for Four Seasons and Cartek, the square features statues commemorating all the past Emperors – all the way back to Sigmar. A number of these statues are detailed, including Magnus the Pious, Magritta of Westerland and the marvellously-named Bloody Beatrice the Monumentally Cruel.

The Dockland is absolutely stuffed with references to Kim Newman’s works, featuring Luitpoldstrasse Watch Station (the setting for one of my favourite fan-made adventures, Luitpoldstrasse Blues by Dave Allen, and more relevantly for this book, the place of work for one “Filthy” Harald Kleindeinst… who is bizarrely detailed in a completely different chapter); the Vargr Bruegel Playhouse, home to Detlef Sierck’s Players (plus a Phantom of the Opera reference); and the Street of a Hundred Taverns. This street actually gets detailed as if it were a separate district, even though its technically part of the Dockland. We only actually get proper details of five taverns (all names familiar from Kim Newman books, surprise!) but there is a table of 22 taverns (which includes those five) providing brief details of their typical clientele and costs for lodgings (where available).¹ The section also provides rules for Dreamwine (featured in another old Warhammer novel which I haven’t read). This is a nice little chapter which could be a great source of local colour, and you can easily slot in an additional tavern (perhaps generated from Taverns of the Old World).

Beatrice the Monumentally Bloody

Filthy Harald

Other districts include what is basically a High Elven quarter, providing some tantalising hints at High Elf culture and politics, and a couple of nice Elf NPCs (one of whom is a Wood Elf spy who has basically gone mad due to living in a city for the last 200 years). There’s also the Haffenstadt, the unofficial Halfling district, where all the buildings are smaller (nicely, this is visibly the case on the main city map!) and the Halfling leaders are agitating to have their area officially recognised as its own district. (This includes a profile for a populist Halfling agitator who might possibly be a veiled reference to Nigel Farage or Donald Trump.)

The above paragraphs are just a brief dip into a few of the locations detailed in the citybook – the breadth of information is absolutely staggering. 

Beneath the Streets and Outside the Walls

But we haven’t finished yet! There’s a chapter on The Undercity. This includes details of both the Neiderwind – the underground city of the Dwarfs, some individual locations such as the catacombs used by priests of Morr to deal with excess cadavres during times of war and plague, and of course the Skaven lair of Under-Altdorf. Sadly, we don’t get maps for any of the underground areas (hopefully I’ve made my position on the importance of maps clear by now) and there isn’t a huge amount of detail here. In fact, the Under-City section is just 2 pages long, of which one page is a couple of NPC profiles, and another half-page is taken up detailing the various opinions of the members of the Skaven Council of Thirteen on whether Under-Altdorf should be seeking to destroy the human capital above or not; an interesting read, to be sure, but I’m not quite sure how useful it would be in practice! So I would suggest this chapter is at best an inspiration for adventures rather than being of great practical use to a GM.

I do want to just point out that I’m not convinced that the sprawling undercity of Altdorf is terribly believable. This is a city famously built on the junction of two enormous rivers and surrounded by mudflats, so I’m not quite certain how all these tunnels keep from flooding. At least there’s a nice detail that the Dwarfs use a giant pump to keep the Neiderwind dry, and even then the Big Altdorf Dwarf Secret is that sections of it keep flooding to their shame.

Better is the chapter of locations “Outside the Walls”, which includes the infamous Mundsen Keep (a debtors prison), the Reiksport (where the Imperial Navy’s First Fleet is berthed), the Black Isle (headquarters of the dreaded Imperial spy network) and Crackle Hill (where witches are burned – sensibly outside the city walls, in case their demise leads to “malefic phenomena”). It’s good stuff, but once again its usefulness is somewhat impaired by the fact that few of these locations are shown on a map.

Classic Warhammer weird old clock tower. Copyright Cubicle 7

Finally we get a chapters on Espionage in Altdorf, the now-expected chapter on Proscribed Cults, and a short appendix of Altdorf Endeavours².  The Espionage chapter is great – providing brief but helpful details on a bewildering array of spy networks operating in Altdorf. This includes the Black Chamber (the official spy network of the Reikland), a clandestine arm of the Reiksguard, the Emperor’s personal spy ring, the Grey Guardians (aka the Grey Wizards) and espionage operations belonging to Middenheim, Marienburg, Bretonnia, Kislev, Ulthuan and even Naggarond! In each case you get a brief description of the spy network, its goals, current preoccupations and one or two key personalities. There’s also half a page of advice on running an espionage-themed adventure (e.g. “a web can never be too tangled” or “deep plots make strange bedfellows”) and an example adventure outline (a single paragraph). This is all absolutely fantastic stuff and is making my mind whirr with possibilities.

The Proscribed Cults chapter is great. (Although I’m sorry to say it features a few instances of the dreaded “see page @@”.) As expected we get bits on the Altdorf branches of the Purple Hand and Red Crown (both from the Enemy Within campaign), neither of which is terribly exciting. Better are the Tinean Fellowship, a group of physicians radical enough to consider deliberately infected people to study the effects of disease (they turned up in the Starter Set’s Guide to Ubersreik as well); it sounds like most of them are genuinely altruistic and only an inner coterie are actually devotees of the Plague Lord. Another great addition is the “Dice Men” who use random chance to decide on their actions, and are accidentally worshipping Tzeentch by so doing. The Cult of Illumination turn up (they’re from the 2nd Edition WFRP Companion; I’m fond of them since they unusually are dedicated to two Chaos Gods, specifically Slaanesh and Tzeentch). What’s really nice is that we also get a couple of non-Chaos cults – one devoted to Ranald the Night Prowler (a group of non-violent cat burglars) and one to the Law god Solkan who are keen on purifying the Empire through eliminating the Colleges of Magic, revolutionary groups, Chaos cults and the worship “weak” deities (which includes Sigmar). I really appreciate the potential for investigation and/or conflict with cults who aren’t devotees of the Chaos gods since it keeps players guessing a bit more.

Conclusion

So what do I think after that epic review? As I said in the beginning of this review, I’ve been awaiting a proper Altdorf city book for a long time, and this one has not disappointed me. Yes, I wish there was more on the University. Yes, I wish there were a few more maps (particularly of the Undercity). Yes, an index would be really helpful³. Yes – most of all – I feel that including a proper key,  and main road names, for the district maps would add a large amount of value.

But at the end of the day I still think this is a fantastic book. Appropriately for the capital of the Empire, there is an overwhelming amount of content in here, with literally hundreds of locations, dozens of detailed NPCs, and an enormous number of adventure hooks – along with plenty of information on what makes Altdorf tick. You could happily run a whole campaign just in the City North with the information presented here; in fact, I feel like just about every one of Altdorf’s 36 districts has enough locations to set a whole adventure there. 

Halfling agitator. Copyright Cubicle 7

One thing I really appreciate is that a large portion of the detailed locations are really quite mundane. Sure, there are the Colleges of Magic, a couple of haunted mansions, and the weird beasties of the Imperial Zoo. But for every such location there are dozens of locations that might be at home in the real world, like a chapterhouse of a knightly order, a cheesemonger’s, a coaching depot, or the estate of a noble family. For me, WFRP works best when supernatural elements are limited, and where the regular life of the Empire is more-or-less entirely unmagical. There’s plenty of that in this book. And many of the potential adventure hooks hinge on mundane mechanics of Empire life, like a daring heist on the Imperial Counting House, the rivalries between the Inkies and the League of Karl-Franz, or the ambitions of a turnip-seller (with designs to usurp the unofficial leader of the market stallholders, in an amusing parody of Macbeth).

Indeed, there is so much material in Altdorf: Crown of the Empire that it can be hard to know where to start. There is plenty of material in here to support adventures set amongst the nobility, the dregs of society, religious orders, knightly orders, criminal elements, merchants, revolutionaries, cults, spies, Halfling, Dwarfs or High Elves. It’s an embarrassment of riches.

After three-and-a-half decades, I feel like WFRP has finally got an official book on Altdorf on a scale appropriate to the capital of the Empire. I heartily recommend it.

Buy Altdorf: Crown of the Empire from DriveThruRPG. This is an affiliate link so I receive a small payment for purchases made using it. 

1. Fans of the Enemy Within campaign will be glad to know that one of the taverns is The Boatman, featured briefly in Mistaken Identity. ↩︎
2. Notably missing are rules on playing Altdorf characters – as I believe was provided in the Middenheim city book. I presume the logic was that characters Altdorf, as part of the Reikland, should just use the default Reiklander profile from the core book, but Cubicle 7 evidently saw the error of their ways since Archives of the Empire III gives rules for Altdorf characters. (It’s a shame they didn’t see fit to include this information in an update of the Altdorf pdf too, though I suppose that would seriously irritate people who bought the physical version!) ↩︎
3. Cubicle 7 have recently released updated versions of several WFRP pdfs adding indexes, but sadly Altdorf wasn’t one of them ↩︎