The Making of The Horned Rat

— By Graeme Davis
 WA R H A M M E R FA N TA S Y R O L E P L AY
DEVELOPER DIARY XVIII

THE MAKING OF THE HORNED RAT

By Graeme Davis
‘Rats! Nonsense! Only the feeble minded, or the insane would believe the tales of ratmen living under the city. A throne you,
say, what folly. Whoever heard of a regal rat. ’

If it’s complex investigations, assassinations, assignations, double-crossing, and double-dealing you’re after then
look no further. The Horned Rat is an adventure like no other. It’s true what they say, ‘you are never 6 feet away
from a rat’, but in Altdorf and Middenheim, the rats are closer... much closer. Not only will they get under your feet,
they’ll shadow your every move. So lock up your cat, grab your coat and get moving. Let Morrsleib’s light guide you
on your adventure.

Warning: Adventurers with musophobia need not apply! Steel wool, peppermint oil, and a feral cat will not save you
from the encounters with ratmen, or free the place of vermin. Turn back.

The Horned Rat has been a long time coming. It was originally conceived by Phil Gallagher as the next Enemy
Within adventure after Power Behind the Throne. When work on The Enemy Within began in mid-1986, the
Skaven had just been added to the Warhammer canon. The Third Citadel Journal included a detailed article on
the ratmen, a Skaven painting guide by none other than John Blanche, and a tie-in scenario to the Terror of the
Lichemaster boxed campaign for Warhammer 2nd edition by Rick Priestley, which pitted a Skaven force against the
Lichemaster and other foes. The ratmen were a fascinating new faction, and it made sense to use them in WFRP
as well.

Some time in between writing the original Enemy Within sourcebook and adventure (now part of Enemy in
Shadows) and planning Death on the Reik, Jim and Phil put together a multi-page proposal for the campaign,
listing the planned instalments and summarising the contents of each. The last two titles were The Horned Rat
and Empire in Flames. When we came to develop Warhammer City alongside the first edition of Power Behind
the Throne, someone (probably Jim or Phil) reinforced the proposed titles by writing an adventure hook in which
a prophecy name-checks them all:

‘I see darkness gathering around a walled town — Shadows Over Bögenhafen! I see the Lord of
Death astride a great river — Death, on the Reik! I see a hooded evil behind the seat of a once
mighty lord —a Power Behind the Throne!

I see The Empire in Flames! The Horned Rat doth sit on the Imperial throne! It is all written in
the Book of Changes. Yea, Chaos’ most determined enemies shall prove its greatest servants. The
Enemy is Within!’

- Warhammer City, page 83

This six-part campaign proved overly ambitious for the time, however. WFRP was new and had yet to gather the
popularity it would come to enjoy. Rather than pursue this initial seed of an idea for the campaign, the renowned
American RPG writer Ken Rolston was commissioned to create the next part of The Enemy Within. His adventure
Something Rotten in Kislev took the next WFRP slot in the schedule, edging out The Horned Rat.

Reluctant to let go of a good title, a Realm of Chaos supplement for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay was proposed.
There had long been talk of a WFRP adventure to support the two Realm of Chaos volumes, in which the Players
would control a band of Chaos Warriors. The Skaven made a natural foe for them, and The Horned Rat was the
perfect title. Sadly, this never came to fruition.

Fast forward to October 2014. I was invited to an classic Warhammer event in Maryland. I was living just a couple
of hours’ drive away at the time, and decided to go. Phil was also there, having moved to Maryland with Games
Workshop years before. It was the first time we’d met in 24 years! Naturally our talk turned to memories of
Games Workshop and The Enemy Within. A few months later, Phil agreed to be interviewed for my blog, and we
compared what we remembered of The Horned Rat.

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There were Skaven, obviously. And Morrslieb featured prominently. In part, this was because the Skaven are obsessed
with Warpstone ( Jes Goodwin invented it while creating them), and Morrslieb is a colossal chunk of the stuff. There
we inevitable jokes about rats and jovial comparisons between warpstone and green cheese, and the hope of somehow
pulling them off in print.The Skaven were either going to Morrslieb to mine it for Warpstone, or they were planning
to pull it down on top of the Old World. And that was about as far as anyone had got.

A couple more years passed, in the middle of 2017 I heard that Cubicle 7 was planning a fourth edition of WFRP.
When Dom McDowall proposed that I put together a Director’s Cut of the Enemy Within campaign I knew that
The Horned Rat had to be a part of it. There was just one small problem: it didn’t exist.

I quickly gathered everything I could about the Skaven, whose lore has expanded considerably since 1988. There have
been Warhammer army books, campaigns, novels, assorted video games, the deliciously atmospheric The Loathsome
Ratmen and All Their Vile Kin, the WFRP 2nd edition supplement Children of the Horned Rat. . . And miniatures
— so many miniatures. Looking through all that information with Phil’s original idea in mind, a plan quickly came
together. It had been more than a decade since I last created something for WFRP from scratch, but it worked. It
had it all: action, adventure, intrigue, bad jokes, many references to the established Skaven lore and history, and, of
course, the potential for painful and embarrassing death. I’ll say no more than that for fear of spoilers.

Now I knew that I had created a work of genius, it just remained to convince Cubicle 7 and Games Workshop —
thankfully they agreed with my assessment. As I had done for the previous episodes in the Director’s Cut, I planned
a Companion full of extras old and new. There’s updated and expanded information on the Skaven, of course, and
a profile of the nihilistic, Skaven-worshipping Cult of the Yellow Fang. There’s a guide to the Middle Mountains,
where much of the action takes place, and a short bestiary of new monsters that can be encountered there. There is a
re-tooled version of an encounter I wrote for White Dwarf back in 1991; relocated to the Middle Mountains from its
original setting in the vaults. And, of course, I continued the B-plot adventure series that began in the Death on the
Reik Companion. I chuckle as I imagine just how sick the Players will be of a particular NPC by now.

So, 34 years after it was first proposed, The Horned Rat is finally real. The team at Cubicle 7 has done their usual
bang-up job of development and production, polishing my raw text and pairing it with jaw-droppingly beautiful art
and clear, accessible layout to make yet another volume worthy of the name Director’s Cut. If you’re new to WFRP
and The Enemy Within, I hope you’ll enjoy it. If you’re familiar with the original campaign, I hope you’ll agree that
The Horned Rat lives up to the standard of the rest. I know I enjoyed writing it.

Art by JG O'Donoghue

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A FEW EXTRA BITS

The Horned Rat and the Horned Rat Companion include some Skaven spells and items. But as so many have been
published over the years, in various sources, that I had to be rather selective. Here are a few that didn’t make the cut.
I hope you’ll find them useful, or at least interesting.

Skaven Magic
Earth Crack Lance of Pestilence
CN: 10 CN: 8
Range: Willpower Bonus Yards x 3 Range: Willpower Yards
Target: Area of Effect (Special, see below) Target: 1
Duration: Permanent Duration: Instant

The caster stamps his pinkish foot, and the very ground The caster reads from the Book of Woe, directing a bilious
splits asunder. A crack appears in the ground at the emission of pestilence at the foe. This is a magic missile
caster’s feet and runs a straight line 2-yd wide in any with a Damage of +6. In addition, targets struck by
direction the caster chooses. Any creatures in its path this attack must make a successful Challenging (+0)
must make a Challenging (+0) Dodge Test to leap out Endurance Test. If they succeed, there is no further
of the way. Those who fail suffer a 5-yd fall and remain effect. If they fail, consult the table below to determine
in the crack until they climb or are lifted out. the effect.

Buildings (or a single section for larger structures) collapse

on a 1d10 roll of 9+, leaving difficult terrain behind LANCE OF PESTILENCE
(Athletics Test required to move faster than a walk). Any
Negative
creatures inside a collapsing building must pass a Dodge Result
Test or fall, gaining the Prone Condition, and suffering an SLs
additional 10-TB Wounds from falling rubble. 1 Attack is Infected (WFRP, page 340)
2-3 Attack is Diseased (Ratte Fever) (WFRP, page 187)
4+ Attack is Diseased (Black Plague) (WFRP, page 186)

If Lance of Pestilence reduces a target to 0 Wounds, it

leaps to another target within the spell’s initial range
and within Willpower Bonus yards of the previous
target — resolve these hits using the same roll made for
the initial casting of the spell. It may leap a maximum
number of times equal to your Willpower Bonus.

Art by Álvaro Jiménez Hernández

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Aspect of the Horned Rat Fight-Fight

CN: 6 CN: 6
Range: You Range: You
Target: You Target: Willpower Bonus Yards
Duration: Willpower Bonus Rounds Duration: Willpower Bonus Rounds

You seem to increase in stature, and your face twists into You gnash your teeth and shriek in Queekish, inspiring
a vicious snarl as you take on the fearsome aspect of the your Skaven allies with courage and ferocity, and strike
Horned Rat himself. While the spell is active you gain fear into your enemies’ hearts. For every SL on the
the Traits Belligerent, Fear 1, and Hatred of all enemies. casting roll, you may remove one Broken Condition
Add 1 level of Fear for every 2 SLs on the casting roll. from every Skaven ally within range. Also for every SL
on the casting roll, you may give one Broken Condition
When the spell ends, make a successful Challenging to every enemy within range who fails a Challenging
(+0) Endurance Test or gain 1 Fatigued Condition. (+0) Willpower Test.

Skaven Weapons
Warpforged Blade
Warpforged blades are infused with warpstone in the forging process. They can take many forms, including swords,
daggers, and spears. They have the Qualities Hack, Impact, Penetrating, and Unbreakable, and their attacks count as
Magical. However, every day spent carrying a Warpforged weapon counts as Minor exposure to Corruption for non-
Skaven.

Blade of Nurglitch
Nurglitch I was the first of the Plague Lords of Clan Pestilens. He was responsible not only for their ascension as a
clan and their seat on the Council of Thirteen, but also for the corruption that gnarls their bodies and marks their
souls. Following his direction, the Plague Lords of Clan Pestilens enchant blades of this type, whose attacks bear the
Infected trait (see WFRP, page 340).

Horned Rat Talisman

These tokens of devotion to the Horned Rat take many forms. They may be rat skulls, chunks of raw Warpstone,
or any items bearing Skaven runes of power. The wearer gains Armour +1 on all hit locations, but non-Skaven
suffer Minor exposure to Corruption for every day they wear the talisman. Yellow Fang cultists either welcome the
Corruption, or do not care. Openly wearing a Horned Rat talisman will mark a Character as a Skaven cultist if the
talisman is recognised.

For more info on the campaign, ignore the sound of chittering and scurry to our website while the moon is still high.

Cubicle 7 Entertainment Ltd. © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2021

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