The Ambassador Chronicles is a gathering of two books on the Imperial ambassador in Kislev called General Caspar von Velten; The Ambassador and Ursun’s Teeth.
Von Velten is an elderly man believed to have served the Empire to a level where he deserves his retirement in the form of an ambassador position. Unfortunately, it was the cold Kislev he was sent to, and the task becomes significantly more demanding than expected.
During the first chapter, it is feared to be dragged through the 464 pages with stories about an old and worn man, but as you burn through the pages you will be constantly impressed by the enormous complexity of plot and the fantastic portrayal of the book’s characters. Von Velten is not as unsuitable as first thought and his lively temper only makes the book even more funny and captivating. There are passages where you think the plot is a little too obviously, but then you turn a page and become shocked at how much they were mistaken.
That the book is made up of two books is definitely an advantage. It is nice to be able to continue with the same story for a long time and I could not imagine reading the first it first and then having a pause before reading the next.
There are several small situations which could easily be transferred to role play, and I have already scheduled several of them with my group of players. There is no need for much modification in order to transfer sections of the book to small plot detours from the main campaign.
All in all a good book with many surprises and an amazing plot.
Archive for October, 2009
The Ambasador Chronicles
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009The Vampire Genevieve
Monday, October 19th, 2009
Genevieve is a young girl turned vampire many yeas ago. We follow her through different periods of time in the Empire, and experience her relations wither different prominent characters as they progress through a lifetime for men, but a single night for a vampire. When you read the book you will have to abstract from the fact, that vampires live side by side with humans in the Empire, which threw me off a bit. I know of a group of adventures, that would have attacked the bloodsucker right on the spot, and have thier butts kicked, if they met a vampire during night in Altdorf.
The book has an exciting mix of plots, an quite a few very good ideas. Disappointingly, though, it is quite poorly written. It took me many long nights to get through this book (but what matters time for a vampire, right?), which actually had the potential to be something special, but just did not do it for me. It was like the stories never came to life (yet another vampire joke, sorry), and I repeatedly lost interest in it. More than once I considered giving up and start reading another book.
Overall a disappointment, in my opinion, despite the brilliant and intriguing composition and some hint of reference to Anne Rice’s narrative style. I have seen af other reviews, that disapproves of the novel, but somehow it is still quite popular. My guess for the reason behind this, it the facts that it features a young, blond and lusty vampire girl as its main character.
Magestorm
Sunday, October 18th, 2009
Times are tough for the Empire and Chaos threatens with another incursion that will change the entire world. The book follows the pyromancer Gerhart Brennend, the Sigmarit Lector Wilhelm Faustus and in parts also the witch hunter Gottfried Verdammen, which all have their role to play.All in all a slightly disappointing book, which otherwise had good reviews elsewhere though.
The Dead and the Damned
Sunday, October 18th, 2009
Badenov’s Band is a group of hard-boiled mercenaries led by Torben Badenov. Together they undertake one task after another in hopes of wealth and fame. It is rarely results in either, and instad the group is repeatedly subjected into one horrible adventure after another.
The book is put together by a series of chapters which each contain one or two assignments for the mercenaries. The chapters’ headings are the four seasons, which is a chronological description of what time of year the story takes place. It gives a good effect to the book, because it helps to describe how the Warhammer world change during the year.
The group of mercenaries are put together from a motley bunch of people whom together create a well functioning group. It resembles the composition of an ordinary party into Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay a great deal, which also applies to the missions and the whole purpose behind the group’s undertakings. This makes the book extremely inspiring for your own campaigns, and it does not not take a great amount of creativity and technical skill to convert the stories into useful and extremely exciting short scenarios!
The book is in my opinion, incredibly faithful to the Warhammer world. However, there is a simple but highly embarrassing mistake; Sigmar’s symbol is a “twin tailed comet” and not a “twin comet with a single tail. Shame on you!
With Jonathan Green as the author of this book, I were not expecting the usage of the language to be anything special. He somehow, in my opinion, does not manage to get the otherwise highly amazing stories to come alive, and this results in the reader not getting gripped by the stories the same way, as it certainly would have if it had been written better. The potential is difinately there, but he lacks the strength and life in his language, that you might find with some of the other authors.
Having this said, I still think that it is a great book that belongs on my top list of Warhammer novels. Exciting action, good and very wide characterization of a truly evil Warhammer world.
Way of the Dead
Friday, October 16th, 2009
Way of the Dead is one of the couple of anthologies of Warhammer novels edited by Marc Gascoigne and Christian Dunn. It consists of nine short stories featuring the following writers: Simon Spurrier, Robin D. Laws, Graham McNeill, Brian Craig, Jonathan Green, Matt Farrer, Simon Jowett and C. L. Werner. I will just very briefly go through each of them.
Simon Spurrier’s novel Glow is a short story about the Witch Hunter Richt Karver’s work to unravel the mysteries of a new and highly toxic drug called “Glow”, which is supposed to make everyone happy. Instead it drives people crazy and warps their bodies into terrifying mutants. It is a great detective story and the Witch Hunter Captain is not one to be taken lightly.
Head Hunting by Robin D. Laws is a short story in the series about Angelika Fleischer. She and her companion Franziskus meet with the very curious philosopher Dr. Schreber who offers them a job getting the head a local villain for his collection of skulls. The task proves a bit more difficult than first expected. This short story could easily be reconstructed into a Warhamme adventure, and it has all the nasty little twists and grim surprises that make it perfect for the Warhammer world.
The Small Ones is the first of two short stories by C. L. Werner. It is an extremely creepy and very Lovecraftian story about an evil sorcerer that exploit the complex hierarchy among the children in a small outback village to regain his youth. The way C. L. Werner describes how these innocent children are turned into coldhearted killers is all the way through a hair-raising experience! It is scary how any human can spawn such a disturbing story and still be allowed to walk free after dark.
Graham McNeill’s story Three Nights is about three Bretonian brothers fearlessly setting out to slay a breed of vampires from the Dragon Warrior clan. They are highly confident that they will be able pull of this feat all by themselves, and their believe in their abilities are what keeps them going on in their quest. At first it seems like a typical heroic hack and slash story, but as you read on it has all sorts of themes to it. The ties and battles amongst brothers, the believe in a common course and ones abilities, and quite a few more.
The Road to Damnation by Brian Craig is a story about an Estalian sea captain and an Arabian pirate’s venture into the Wastes in search for a hidden city supposedly filled with all sorts of valuables. On their travels through the desert they have a few fights with a gang of orcs and goblins. When they, in a highly unlikely manner, find their goal it turns out that something must have been left out in the tales about treasure. The story is quite good and displays the very special relationship between the sea captain and the pirate very well. It shows how manipulative the forces of Chaos that are at large in the Old World really are.
Mark of the Beast is what I suspect to be the first in the series of Torben Badenov and his band of mercenaries by Jonathan Green. It tells us how the company of soldiers under Captain Torben Badenov is left for dead by their incompetent general and picks up the trade as a gang of mercenaries instead. It is about how a small army of the Empire tries to hunt down a herd of Beastmen that have been ravaging the surrounding area. It turns out to be more than just a simple pillaging herd of Beastmen and Badenov’s Band will get more than their hands full with this one. The Badenov stories are always interesting and very well though through. I think that I will be using this story as a one-off story with one of my Warhammer Fantasy roleplay groups.
Matt Farrer’s short story Jahamma’s Lesson is a brilliant story about a Dark Elf invasion on one of the Bretonian duchies. Jahmamma is an extremely highly skilled assassin that is to sneak through the land and into the Duke’s castle and end the lives of all the Knights in their beds before the Dark Elf army starts the invasion. But as always with the Dark Elves everyone has their own agendas. It is quite interesting to read about the Dark Elf culture as there is so very little about them, and I really find their whole complex and intriguing social structure very exciting.
A Good Thief by Simon Jowett is about a poet and thief that can’t read. His poetic skills provides him jobs at the finest socials levels, but his lack of etiquette and love for the drink often result in him being on the run from the law. A certain magister, who has no time for poetry by the way, is willing to set him free provided that he does a job for him stealing something very special. Not knowing anything more than he will be certain when he sees the object, he is sent off to retrieve it from a bandit king who has taken control of an outback village. The object turns out to be of high interest, and yet not, for the thieving poet. This is a quite simple story, but none the less it fits quite well into the Old World and would make a quite nice scenario. My players in one of my Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay groups will definitely be looking for an object they will know is the right one when they see it in the near future…
Lastly the book finishes with a classic; A Brunner novel by C. L. Werner called What Price Vengeance. Not knowing the true chronological order in which C. L. Werner wrote all the Brunner novels I still suspects this one to be the first one, as it starts very differently than the others. The reason for my suspicion on this is that this is not a story written by the scribe Erhard Stoecker, which is the normal introduction to the Brunner novels. It starts out with the story about a group of mercenaries returning to claim vengeance for being sent to death by Viscount de Chegney. By killing the son of the viscount and kidnapping his infant grandson they intent to blackmail him to paying twice the amount they were given for their job. This is where Brunner comes in, as he is hired to retrieve the grandson and now only heir of count hood of the de Chegneys. The rest of the story is dealt with in typical coldhearted and effective Brunner style, with a little moral twist in the end. This is yet another great Brunner story in this brilliant series.
All in all the book is very good, and full of very different stories in terms of writing style and themes. It is defiantly worth the read!