Fantasy Rehammered is a shared homebrew project for the 4th Ed. Warhammer Fantasy RPG, rewriting and reworking some aspects and themes of the Warhammer Fantasy setting, and the mechanics thereof. This is an unofficial project, and the authors are not affiliated with or representative of Games Workshop or Cubicle7 Games in any way.
the Skaven in our version of Warhammer are a frightening shadow to civilization--they are not just rat-people, they are all rats. every rat is Skaven. every rat becomes Skaven when the swarm is assembling. sometimes the rats become bigger, smarter, and this is usually a sign that the swarm is forming goals. but they are always Skaven.
the thing is, skaven lapse in and out of "personhood" depending on how many other skaven are around building up a swarm. you might meet a Skaven on the first night, and it's a big rat with a knife and a silly helmet. then the next night you meet it, and now it is a fully anthropomorphic ratgirl with goals and desires of her own.
and then the third night? the third night, she is but a scurrying little rat, a beast with no tools at all, because the river is flooding. the swarm is seeking high ground. the rats are rising. there is no more room for I, only We. the rats are rising.
are there "good" Skaven? the swarm is not good. the swarm is aligned to neither Humanity nor Chaos--it feeds on Humanity, and so desires for Chaos to lose, but also requires the unjust hierarchies of Humanity to continue, for it is the squalor and filth that gives the Skaven power. Chaos and Humanity alike have been bitten and torn and bled by the Skaven. the swarm does not care.
but individual Skaven?
a family might learn to treat the rats in their walls well, and the rats might do them small favors in turn. in this way, rats become like house fairies. these families might even be spared the next time the Skaven lay waste to the city. Of course, a family or ratcatcher caught 'appeasing' the Skaven might be accused of Chaos worship and bound for a stake of hazel.
it can go farther, even. far enough from the swarm, a member of the Skaven might form its own personality, its own agenda. it might even question the very goals of the swarm. it might even choose a name that is not Skaven.
but when the rats rise, it can no longer be a person. its mind and form will shift, and once again it is Skaven, and the Skaven are not kind. life for an individual Skaven is measured not in years but in stolen moments.
Needless to say, the wer-rat is in a tragic state indeed! she will be lured every full moon to join a swarm that will, if given the chance, unmake her individuality completely. it is said to be a common curse for ratcatchers who run afoul of a barghest.
one of the more unique careers tied to the Caregiver class is the sin-eater. sin-eaters are held in little esteem by society, respected at a distance by those they help. this is because they possess the ability to heal wounds which most prefer to pretend do not exist! a sin-eater learns the art of taking on the corruption of others.
Sin-Eater (WIP)
Great Spider, Halfling, Human
In humble service of your fellow man do you lift the guilt from his weary brow and place it upon your own.
though stigmatized, the sin-eater is sacred to Shallya. actually, a sin-eater who is quite good at her job may find himself welcomed into her esteemed service, lending some scraps of respectability to their profession. even a Bleeding Heart is unlikely to be a welcome guest, but certainly she will be treated well when she comes knocking.
humans make wonderful sin-eaters, thanks to their talent for corruption. a mutation is less harmful than a depravity, even if your average elf or witch hunter is unlikely to admit it. halfling sin-eaters are rarer, though their regard for Shallya does allow the odd receiver to surface among them. elven society sees sin-eating as barbaric, but it also prefers to pretend elves are immune to corruption, and that is certainly not true!
a note may also be made of great spiders, who take on roles very alike sin-eaters among some remote villages. it is not unheard of for a village of goblins or humans to allow a great spider to make its nest near their settlement. some great spiders are capable of feeding on corruption and channeling it purely into their bulk, sparing them the majority of ill effects--at least on the surface.
these spiders will grow fat and glutted on wickedness, and can be vast, terrifying things, while taking not very much hurt to their actual virtue! in fact, sin-eater spiders tend to be especially easy to get along with, thanks to their extended stays among the non-people-eating ancestries.
of course, corruption is never harmless. over time it is likely to splinter into the eater's mind in subtle ways, ways the spider may not notice until it is too late. sin-eater spiders should be cautious of underestimating the danger they so greedily devour.
for that matter, so should sin-eaters of all kinds. there is a story of a Bleeding Heart who learned to burn corruption away completely, without having to take it on their own shoulders. hubris. the story does not end happily for them--nor for those they tried to help.
something that draws me to the corruption of this world is that. it is not fair. the cosmology is inherently callous, cruel, and bent towards authoritarianism. merely attempting to change your lot in life is a potential source of corruption. witches die in flames for magic they did not choose, and this the world regards as, if not just, necessary.
there is power to that, I think! the idea of a world in which deviating from the norm makes you easy prey for Chaos might appeal to those who see deviance as evil, but for those who do not, it's a tragedy. cosmic injustice. the story becomes about fighting on the fringes, with neither the churches and knights nor the shadows and monsters on your side. all you have is that which you hold. and those in your chosen family whom you hold most dear become more potential victims of the corruption.
perhaps alongside them, though, you may find some sort of peace or justice in the forests you've fled to.
a girl sits alone in her bedroom. her window is open, as it always is at this time of the month, and she is breathing in the scents of springtime. She smells the flowers down in the meadow. she can almost taste the nectar on her tongue. She watches the moonlight trickling out from behind the clouds.
dread roils in her gut. and worse than that, anticipation.
it's difficult to explain the werbeasts without explaining the barghests. It's difficult to explain the barghests without explaining the elves. it's difficult to explain the elves without explaining the Old Forest. it's difficult to explain the Old Forest without explaining the Verdant.
but let's see how far we get!
the elves were once primordial spirits, flitting from acorn to leaf to fox to falcon with all the ease of wind. but in the same incident in which the Verdant were born, many spirits chose to take physical forms in order to fend off the encroaching corruption. these forms were pristine and beautiful (to their fae whims, at least, which, as legend has it, had been a little preoccupied at the time with the slenderness of dandelion seeds). they were untouchable to the powers of Chaos.
physically incorruptible, but not indestructible. the Verdant drove the hostile elves from the Old Forest, and the Old Forest grew dark and twisted, dangerous to any who lived at war with Chaos. ever since that day, the elves say, no woodland has been safe from the depredations of the Ruinous Powers without their direct, exclusive stewardship.
the elves had escaped their doom, and they had ensured their forms should never twist, mutate or age as their beloved forest had. they could see nothing beautiful in the contorting trees, nor in the Verdant themselves.
but solid forms didn't come easy to those elves.
elves are still spirits at heart, and some spirits among them found their new prisons unbearable. they thrashed and strained, longing to be anything that they were not--a corruptive desire, to be sure, but not an evil one. they clawed and tore, desperate, hungry. wind cannot survive in a bottle.
so, sensing the danger of corruption, these elves' untouchable vessels did what they were created to do: they pushed these desires down, tried to quash the rebellions.
it was like driving a hammer upon a bed of embers. Cinders flew. and the elves burned.
what emerged from their eyes, when they at last opened once more, were the barghests.
at least, so the story goes.
she was just so tired of being alone.
loneliness led her to the elf in the woods, the pretty elf in the red wolf pelt who everyone had told her did not exist. loneliness made her listen to the woman's sweet words, made her cling to those promises, made her follow the elf all the way to the stream. she hates that a part of her misses that monster still, the thing that laughed at her even as the witched water had trickled down her throat and cursed her forever. at least her corrupter had bothered to take notice.
It wasn't fucking fair.
the barghests are the progenitors of all werbeasts, spreading their deadly curse any number of ways. A bite is only the most famous method. for one barghest, it might be meeting his gaze. for another, it might be allowing her to kiss you, or to convince you to defy your elders. corruption punishes the free spirit. corruption isn't fair at all.
the change begins. she knows it must, knew in her heart that there was no way the pendant of Shallya would save her. still she clutches it in rising panic. her heart begins to beat faster.
too fast.
too many heartbeats.
everything dissolving.
the hum. the hum is back. the hum is rising, getting louder and louder and louder...
a barghest's true form is that of a hulking black wolf or mastiff, but all barghests possess powers of shapeshifting. the barghest keeps to the woods, its honey words filtering from the shadows as it stalks soldiers around their campfire, or persuades a traveler they should tarry on their journey to pick some flowers for their grandmother.
notably, a barghest's curse does not always make the victim a wolf (although a werbeast's own bite will always 'curse true'). animal forms vary widely, always appearing to bestow some sort of ironic punishment on the victim--or, rarely a "reward", a corruptive version of their deepest longings to tempt them to succumb.
her mind dissolves once again, as it always will beneath the full moon, into a chorus of scents and colors and motions. there is nectar on the wind. an open window. tomorrow, those flowers in the meadow will drip with an oily, corruptive ichor. the townsfolk will probably blame it on the wise woman, or the stranger at the inn, or maybe even that queer friendless beekeeper who wouldn't stop talking about her phantom elf two months ago.
the girl, not a girl anymore, takes off into the air on thousands of wingbeats.
and the little part of the girl that can find itself in the clamor at once hates and clings to what a relief it is to no longer be alone.
There is no cure for the curse. men who succumb fully will become wolves that act like men, cunning and cruel, calling out in human tongues to lure even their own loved ones to their deaths. men who seek to smother the curse in charms and herbs will become men that act like wolves, wild and hungry, hiding their corruption as they treat their fellow man like prey.
either one is less than what they were. in truth, only by accepting both human and beast can they be truly whole again.
of course, the societies of Reikland tend to take an ill eye to people suddenly showing up with wolf ears or bee antennae. What a shame!
hello there! I am the aforementioned friend--I will be going by Ariadne on here as we work on getting the details of this alt-Warhammer nailed down. I am very excited to share more of the extremely self-indulgent changes we're making to this TTRPG!
For now, I want to talk a little bit about the Great Spiders. they are one of the more especially and flagrantly "we just wanted this in the setting" elements. Is there existing precedent in Warhammer Fantasy for the spiders the forest goblins ride being intelligent? Yes! the books foreshadow a great deal about this. Is there existing precedent for the spiders being able to talk, having weird gobliny faces, or occasionally possessing the power to weave special magic cloaks and shapeshift into humans like they're selkies?
I am sure it was cut for lack of space!
anyhoo! There are many theories about how the Great Spiders got to be so big and so clever. wizards propose that they are werbeasts or shapeshifting magic-users who embraced the spider more than the man. campfire tales tell of a spider winning a bet against the Ruinous Powers, or perhaps making a bet that is still ongoing. others speculate that they are just another cruel creation of Chaos sent to torment the good, civilized people of Reikland, because of course everything must be about them.
the Great Spiders are not always very helpful to historians. historians often forget to bring live meat. historians often forget to show up by day and stay on the path. most seriously, historians often forget that the Great Spiders who want to talk to them, who assume pleasing human forms and happily invite the historians into their parlors to discuss the matter further, are the exact kind they should never, ever listen to.
I feel as though we are getting off on the wrong sticky strand of webbing, though! all of it is sticky. that's the problem. The Great Spiders aren't wicked, exactly.
They're spiders. That's what they keep telling people. they are not werbeasts, not Chaotic creations. nobody ever believes them. "But then how have you grown to such size?" the philosopher asks. "Why are your faces so humanlike? And what kind of quirk of fate could give the gift of speech to a humble arachnid?"
why give the philosopher a tongue, the Great Spider replies sweetly, if she never uses it to string together intelligent questions?
Here is a list of Great Spider facts!
Great Spiders are dangerous. They aren't wicked. Their minds are alien, and they are only people, in the sense of basic ethical responsibility, when they consciously choose to make the attempt. They're spiders. Be patient. Don't be stupid.
Great Spiders aren't sociable and don't hunt in packs. They do communicate with one another and avoid feuding. Spiders just don't do communities the way other species do. It seems nice to them in theory. They can certainly form friendships. But they don't really like having to share space. It's not a thing spiders do.
Great Spider sorceresses learn the art of weaving beautiful silver cloaks which allow them to take human form. They are well-respected among Great Spiders, as long as they don't get weird about it.
A Great Spider who is more socialized around humans or goblins is generally a lot easier to talk to than a Great Spider who has never before met a human outside of the context of a hunt.
They're spiders.
Stay on the path.
It is customary for a guest to bring a source of live meat that is at least their own weight when visiting a Great Spider's parlor. bringing a bound animal that is too big is seen as a little tacky, showing off. bringing a bound animal that is too small is liable to only wet the spider's appetite.
If you meet a well-dressed woman in the forests and catch yourself agreeing with everything she says, catch yourself drifting off as her words spill over you like heavy water, catch yourself following her off the path, try asking her if her mother knows where she is. using sorcery to hunt is seen by the Great Spiders as being in extremely poor taste. whisperweaving, they call it, a taboo on par with hitting on service workers or playing with your food. It probably won't stop her, but neither will running at this point. anyways, it might at least kill the mood for her a little.
Hi all! This is the blog for Fantasy Rehammered, my friend and I's little homebrew project tackling our own interpretations and ideas and thoughts regarding the Warhammer Fantasy setting. I don't know what to post yet (we're still figuring out what it is we're doing!) so I'll just give a look into some of the ideas we're working on/exploring/etc as we go.
Greenskins are now known primarily as "Verdants", for their floral nature (although the term Greenskin is still used derogatorily within the Empire). Verdants occupy an awkward position in the ecology of the Old World; because they were originally forged by the Ruinous Powers, they are resistant to the effects of corruption themselves, as the Chaos slides off their back like water off a duck...Right into the world around them. Despite this, Verdants rarely serve Chaos directly, and there are areas on the border provinces of the Empire where they maintain an uneasy peace with Men and the other Imperial Species.
Werbeasts, or beastmen, are shapeshifters cursed to live between the world of Men and the world of Beasts. Small communities of werbeasts who find balance and peace in their place are the source of many legends and stories of strange creatures lurking in the forests...
The Great Spiders of the deep forests of Reikland and beyond are fiercely intelligent, spiritual beings. Rumored to have originally been a kind of werbeast, in the modern era they host little to no traces of humanity within them, though they are friendly enough if one knows the proper courtesies. Many cohabitate with tribes of Forest Goblins, and some even deign to venture out into the wider world, traveling with the humanoid creatures for a time.
The Caregiver Class are those folk who tend to the intimate needs of others, from homemaking and pyschological comfort to sex work. Caregivers are often overlooked and hidden away, but they are foundational to society in most of the Old World.
Mutations and corruption may occur as part of the depredations of Chaos, but their victims aren't monsters--nor, truly, are they victims, without agency. Physical changes wrought by magic and Chaos in general have little power to warp a creature's soul or mind, beyond the trauma they may cause. Meanwhile, spiritual corruption hooks onto Man's pre-existing flaws, taking advantage of unchecked ego or unmet needs to begin twisting mortals towards the inescapable service of Chaos.
Overall, Rehammered attempts to make WFRP a little kinder and more optimistic, without negating the gritty and often hopeless universe that its characters find themselves in. We want to lean more on strange, fey forces and the moral necessity of acknowledging the Tyranny of God. Also, it's going to be a lot hornier, because we're both in agreement that hornier fantasy is usually better fantasy.
We're both pretty new to Warhammer Fantasy, and enthralled by what we've found, but we have our own thoughts and feelings on fantasy as a genre and love to make games our own. So this is that! Enjoy, or not, as you like :)
