This post continues my history of WFRP1, which started here.

In August 1985 Citadel released the first of a series of WFB2 scenario packs, Blood Bath at Orc’s Drift. It was produced by Ian Page, Gary Chalk and Joe Dever, and came as a boxed set with a 24-page scenario book, command sheets, eight pages of card buildings and counters, a colour poster map and a badge.

The story is that Workshop asked us to write a scenario for them. We were putting on some of the first really big fantasy wargames at Dragonmeet and Games Day. (Sometimes we used Warhammer and sometimes we put Warhammer rules on the table, but were secretly playing Reaper, ‘cos it was quicker. Weren’t we naughty! Anyway Bryan Ansell asked us to write a scenario and I came up with Orc’s Drift and Joe expanded it a bit so that it would use a lot of the latest releases in the Citadel figures range. – Gary Chalk, Realm of Chaos 80s

The scenario is set in the land of Ramalia. Ramalia encompasses many named locations: the capital city Palesandre; settlements at Drillion, Meledir, Merlinas, Mevion and Ortar; a trading post at Linden Way; the titular outpost at Orc’s Drift; the rivers Canis, Mer, Shea and Ort; Ashak Rise, Fendal Forest, Fendal Plain, Kachas Pass, Kachas Trail, Kol Fields and Kol Hills. None of these places had been mentioned previously in Warhammer, and none would recur.

Ramalia is described as lying in the north west of the New World, but its presence there is quite anomalous. It is a quasi-mediaeval kingdom populated by humans, dwarfs, wood elves and goblins. It resembles more closely the Old World than the continent described in WFB2 as populated by hunter-gatherer humans and dark and sea elves.

Map from Blood Bath at Orc’s Drift

Far in the north west of the New World, beyond the lands of the Dark Elves but standing before the borders of the Northern Chaos Wastes, the Goblin Wars of Ramalia had come to their bitter end at last. An uneasy alliance between the colonial principalities of Elves, Dwarves and Men had united under the banner of the Half-Elf Laeron. This mighty warlord from the Old World had led them to victory against the invading Orc and Goblin hordes that came swarming from their nests beneath the Ramalian mountains of the Northern Wastes. It was Laeron’s winter campaign in the Kol Hills that finally brought the Goblin Wars to a decisive close. The Battle of Kol Fields was the last stand of the fleeing Goblin army. There, the Kwae Karr Orcs, led by King F’yar, were sent in rout from the field. Outmanoeuvred and out-foxed, the Kwae Karr were beaten into humiliating defeat, and it was only King F’yar’s wyvern mount that saved him in the end. Taking flight into the mountains of the Northern Wastes, he went to ground and passed from memory. And so it was, by unanimous consent, that the free peoples crowned King Laeron, Knight Commander of the Grand League of Ramalia. Strong in their unity, the independent nations were able to grow and extend their frontiers. Law-giver and guardian, King Laeron ruled wisely and a great peace endured for five years. During that time, F’yar the exiled Orc King remained hidden in the mountains. Scorned by his own tribe and rejected by all other Orc and Goblin tribes of Ramalia, he schemed alone, waiting on the day that could restore his former glory. – Ian Page, Gary Chalk and Joe Dever, Blood Bath at Orc’s Drift, p5

The in-game explanation given for the presence of Old Worlders in the New World is colonisation. However, the presence of Old Worlder colonies is not mentioned in WFB2‘s (admittedly brief) account of the New World. Moreover, the location of the colonies makes little sense. They are on the opposite side of the continent to that which would be natural for explorers from the Old World. Their settlement would involve massive overland treks through territory controlled by dark and sea elves.

It seems more likely that there is a real-world explanation for this situation. Blood Bath at Orc’s Drift was not written by Citadel staff, and its authors had not written about the Warhammer world before. Ramalia was a new creation that had no existing place in the setting.* A decision was perhaps taken to locate it in one of the blank spaces on the map and the New World seemed the best candidate.

Blood Bath at Orc’s Drift describes a series of four battles against a new orc invasion led by King F’yar. In ‘Kachas Pass’ a band of wood elves try to hold off the orc hordes. In ‘Ashak Rise’ dwarf miners try to escape the invasion with the gold from their mine. ‘Linden Way’ describes how a human militia tries to delay the orc advance. Finally, ‘Orc’s Drift’ is a last stand and fight to the death.

Some of the battles contain historical and allusions. The ‘Linden Way’ battle features a banner bearing the slogan “They shall not pass” and a sickle and star design.

In a fantasy context the slogan perhaps evokes connections with Gandalf’s exhortation “You cannot pass!” in The Lord of the Rings (book II, chapter 5), but, as noted by Rattlebones Bowlegs, the context here is almost certainly historical. “They shall not pass” has a long history, but its first use in a British context was at the Battle of Cable Street in 1936. Then 300,000 protesters blocked a march by the British Union of Fascists through London’s East End. The historical situation seems apposite to the scenario. The connotation is reinforced by the star and sickle; socialist groups were prominent in the Battle of Cable Street and the slogan is often associated with the left.

The most obvious historical reference is in the final battle, ‘Orc’s Drift’. The name is a pun on Rorke’s Drift, which was the site of a battle in the Anglo-Zulu war of 1879. The battle was famously the subject of the film Zulu (1964), which was for a long time a regular fixture in British TV schedules.

I wrote a scenario called the Bloodbath [sic] at Orc’s Drift. Dwarvan [sic] militia with scythes and pitchforks based on the Zulu film. The principle [sic] characters were turned into a slightly deaf elf and a dwarf. Had an alcoholic druid – none of it is possible any more. – Gary Chalk, interview with Samira Ahmed

The scenario mingles elements of the historical battle and the partly fictionalised film version. The dwarf engineer Osrim Chardz is based on Lt Chard of the Royal Engineers (played by Stanley Baxter in Zulu). The elf Brommedir is Lt Bromhead (played by Michael Caine). Brommedir’s deafness comes from the historical Bromhead.

The alcoholic druid, Ferndale Snart, is inspired by the missionary Otto Witt, who is portrayed in the film as drunken. This is the first appearance of a druid in Warhammer. Curiously a druid is described not as a type of priest, but as “a form of specialised wizard… who draws power from a profound, religious worship of the forces of nature”. This is consistent with WFB2, which appears not to distinguish between sorcerous and divine magic (see part XXII).

Druids are granted access to Battle and Elemental spells, plus three new Druidic spells: Animal Mastery, Create Bog and Dispel Magic. The first pair would survive into the Druidic magic of WFRP1.

The scenario also embraces Warhammer’s enthusiasm for puns, featuring, for example, Kwae Karr orcs (Quaker Oats), the F’yar Guard (fireguard) and the dwarfs Borrin and Snorrin (boring and snoring). It certainly effectively captures Warhammer‘s already established whimsy.

Badge from Blood Bath at Orc’s Drift

Blood Bath at Orc’s Drift was reviewed by Jon Sutherland in WD68 (August 1985), considerably more promptly and favourably than other Warhammer releases. The review coincides with Bryan Ansell’s appointment as Managing Director of GW, and it is tempting to see the greater enthusiasm for Warhammer as an early sign of White Dwarf‘s reduced editorial independence.

Review of Blood Bath at Orc’s Drift in White Dwarf 68 (August 1985)

The card buildings in Blood Bath at Orc’s Drift were, like all those in WFB2 scenario packs, later reprinted in Warhammer Townscape (1988), though without the accompanying scenario.

FOOTNOTE

* The Vile Rune orcs of Blood Bath at Orc’s Drift also feature in Joe Dever’s ‘Thistlewood’ scenario for WFB1 in WD45 (September 1983).

The next part of ‘The WFRP Story’ looks at Blood on the Streets.

Title art by Gary Chalk. Used without permission. No challenge intended to the rights holders.