Life (and Death) on the River Teufel (WFRP)

River Teufel (Lower) map circa IC 2500
(excerpt from Death on the Reik)

So despite being intrigued for years based on its reputation, I've only just picked up a DriveThruRPG PDF copy of Death on the Reik (DotR), the classic second part of "The Enemy Within" WFRP 1e campaign. Hailed by many as one of the best RPG adventures for WFRP (if not of all time), it's not only a decent adventure, but also a resource for a potential riverine campaign set on and around the Empire's largest navigable river, the mighty Reik.

I'm still working my way through reading the actual main adventure, but the major appeal is the 16-page booklet "River Life of the Empire" - a resource that contains various travel guidelines and details of possible encounters and characters.

Although there's some distillation of the concepts within this slim booklet in the later WFRP editions (Chapter 2 of the Hogshead 2e corebook, "Life and Death on the Reik" and a brief few pages of the Cubicle 7 4e corebook), this really seems to be the definitive treatment of RPG river travel and a great sandbox resource.

Despite the "sandbox" elements, the majority of the gazetteer detail contained within the supplement is focussed on first the lower River Bogen to Weissbruck and then to Altdorf via the Weissbruck Canal and on to the main channel of the Reik. There are details of a minor excursion up the gorge of the River Stir and the River Narn into the Barren Hills, but otherwise the adventure sticks to the main channel.

The other main tributaries, the Talabac and the Teufel, are left undetailed - the former could easily come into play through the details in the 2e supplement Terror in Talabheim, but the southern tributary (see the inset map to the left, 5 miles per hex scale, excerpted from the main DotR map) seems somewhat neglected in the supplements to date.

Death on the Teufel?

Although I've managed to code a Google Docs Spreadsheet that generates the random encounters and first sentence of the corresponding text from the "River Life in the Empire" booklet, I think there's an opportunity to explore some implied set encounters. In particular, apart from the treacherous Reiker Marshes, there is a long stretch of river from Grünsburg to Auerswald that passes through the Reikwald Forest beneath the Hagercrybs that is far less populated than other stretches upriver and downriver. This would make the region rich in potential for adventures either on the waterway or in the forested riparian hinterland of the Reikland...

Looking at the included DotR map, there are several river "stretches" of the Teufel to be considered:

The Lower Teufel

• The Reik to Grünsburg
• Prieze & the Grünsburg Canal* 

• Grünsburg

• Grünsburg to Auerswald

*Note: although commissioned originally by Luitpold I, the father of the current Emperor, Karl Franz, the canal was only finished after his death in 2506. This stretch is not complete at the time of the original "The Enemy Within" campaign adventures (circa IC 2500, as opposed to the IC ~2520 starting date of later editions), although much of the channel accompanying the first part of the Great Northern Road has been dug and the locks partially built. 

River Teufel (Upper) map circa IC 2500

(excerpt from Death on the Reik)

The Upper Teufel

• Auerswald

• Beyond Auerswald
• Auerswald to Ubersreik
• Auerswald to Stimmigen

Note: the Cubicle 7 website teases that Ubersreik, the main setting of the first Vermintide computer game, will be detailed in the WFRP 4e Starter Kit boxed set (supposedly available October 2018).

Reikland Map by Andy Law
(Gitzman's Gallery)