Warhammer: The Old World Draws New Adventurers to Gritty Fantasy Setting

If you’re a nerd like me, Warhammer Fantasy has sat upon your radar as both a game that is a bit scary at first glance, but also very niche in focus. The TTRPG is a supplement for the Warhammer fantasy miniature game, where players will build and paint fantasy armies in the Warhammer setting and fight each other. While the TTRPG was initially launched in 1986, it has remained a constant option for players who want to move away from the heroic flavor of D&D and focus more on the gritty and deadly setting instead. It’s a setting where orcs wander the land in massive hordes, demons threaten to breach into the world at every inch, and vampires lead massive armies of undead against the crumbling human Empire and its allies. Meanwhile, you’re just a humble rat-catcher or hedge mage who has to make your way through this ever-dangerous world, deal with corruption and maybe even become a hero. It was always a very distinctive take on fantasy that differentiated itself from Dungeons and Dragons’ more heroically oriented adventuring part.

Warhammer Fantasy is particularly notable in TTRPG histoy due to The Enemy Within, one of the earliest adventures from Games Workshop that changed how adventures were written. The Enemy Within is considered an iconic TTRPG campaign in the 1980s for its shift away from dungeon crawls toward mysteries, politics, and a wider berth of storytelling. 

The game has gone through several updates, but remains a very crunchy and number-heavy game that many old-school players pick up and enjoy.

That’s why the launch of Warhammer: The Old World caught me off guard. This new system, which British publisher Cubicle 7 released in 2025, resembled Warhammer Fantasy’s unique flavor of fantasy but abandoned the percentage dice system for d10 dice pools, simplified a lot of mechanics and seemed very similar to its predecessor.

It’s also the second Warhammer Fantasy TTRPG released by Cubicle 7 in the last few years. Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Soulbound, a more adventure-oriented game set in a ‘reboot’ of the Warhammer fantasy universe, was released in 2020. So what was The Old World adding to the table, and why might people pick it up over Cubicle 7’s other properties?

TTRPG Insider got to sit down with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay producer Padraig Murphy to talk about this new game, how it differentiates from Warhammer Fantasy and what Cubicle 7 has planned for the setting.

TTRPG Insider: So what's kind of the story behind The Old World?

Padraig Murphy: Cubicle 7 has had Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Fourth Edition for a long time, and it has a very active fanbase playing it. However, the wargame that is the setting for those books was retired by Games Workshop, with the company placing more focus on The Old World miniature-based wargame and on Age of Sigmar. We initially considered doing a Fourth Edition supplement that would operate following the timeline set in the world, but decided that this would lead to confusion for established players. 

We took this as an opportunity to make a different system for Warhammer Fantasy, which is where The Old World comes from.

TTRPG Insider: How does Warhammer Fantasy Fourth Edition and Warhammer: The Old World compare and contrast?

Murphy:  Mechanically, The Old World is a d10 system that we also designed to be a bit more accessible and a bit snappier, but lacking the nuance of the original Warhammer Fantasy’s d100 system or the heroics of Age of Sigmar: Soulbound. The mechanics play a lot easier and may feel similar to other games we’ve got out right now.

Concerning lore, my team and I knew that we wanted The Old World to be a little more “grim and glorious.” We say that Warhammer Fantasy Fourth Edition is “grim and perilous,” but The Old World is an era before hope has eroded as much as it does in Warhammer Fantasy Fourth Edition. It’s set about 200 years before Warhammer Fantasy Fourth Edition. During this period, some significant events that allude to the End-Times haven’t happened yet. It’s a period where people have the “luxury” of having a civil war in the Empire and don’t have to worry about the encroaching corruption and darkness that would eventually consume the world. It's still a moment where most people believe that humanity or the other races of the world (elves, dwarves, halflings, etc.) can be the masters of the Warhammer world.

TTRPG Insider: That doesn’t mean that the villainous factions are gone, however. Will players still have to deal with Orcs, Vampires, Skaven or Beastmen?

Murphy: All of those threats are still around. Most people have convinced themselves that orcs and other “greenskins” have been pushed to the edges of the human empire. Beastmen are the most apparent expression of Chaos and wander the woods, but they live in the depths of the forest. Vampires exist, but they’re very rare. It’s an era where people can believe that all of these problems are “containable trash,” if you will. But they may have to deal with political assassins or get involved in interpersonal spats between wizards and witches. There are plenty of problems to face.

TTRPG Insider: What are the sorts of stories that people should expect to tell in The Old World as compared to Warhammer Fantasy Fourth Edition? 

Murphy: We've done an awful lot in the GM's book to give this idea of a Grim Portent, which is the starting point of any setting. This could be a moment where players see something happening in the shadows, whether it is a vampire skulking about, witches and wizards going to war, and destroying large amounts of property. You and the other players have seen something awful, and it’s way worse than everyone is saying. The idea is that these conflicts are the thing that pulls you together as a group, since it’s going to be hard to get anyone to take this as seriously as you will.

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Making The Old World Accessible

TTRPG Insider: What did you do to make the game more accessible to new fans or RPG players who may not be as familiar with Warhammer Fantasy’s long history of lore?

Murphy: Accessibility was a key goal for us, not just with the system, but with the world in general. The team at Cubicle 7 are fans first in almost everything we do. We want new people to come in and try Warhammer because we love it and think you'll love it too, if you give it a shot. 

We also know that the Warhammer setting is among the densest in terms of lore that you can come across. What we tried to do was create mechanics and systems within The Old World that will let you have some things in front of you on your character sheet that are going to tie you to the world straight away and give you some of those answers that you might not have if you haven't been following along. These include things like having established contacts in the city of Talagaad (where the Player’s Guide and Gamemaster’s Guide starts players off.) These are contacts that are fully developed with art. But they’re designed so players don’t have to know all the particulars of how the Empire works or how Bretonnian society operates.

Players may not see iconic names from games like Total War: Warhammer or Vermintide, but they will get to see a relatively familiar world as well as many city names, governmental factions, or city units.

TTRPG Insider: While the game does offer options for the various humanoid races, The Old World is focused primarily on the Empire to start, correct?

Murphy: We’re focusing a lot on the town of Talagaad. What we wanted to do is show people like here's one really good setting, and here's our cast of characters who make their home there, here's all their rivalries and agendas and here's like this dark treads of enemy forces around it. Gamemasters can move beyond the city or set it wherever they want, but we use Talagaad as an opportunity to set a sample location for how they can use it. We hope to release more supplements and guides for those other settings and cities in The Old World, but I can’t say much more at this time..

TTRPG Insider: What are Cubicle 7’s plan for Warhammer Fantasy Fourth Edition, since you’re also creating Age of Sigmar: Soulbound and The Old World now?

Murphy: I've been privileged to work on like all of these titles at different times and I keep my ear open to what everyone on the team is doing. Warhammer Fantasy Fourth Edition is excellent and we love it and it’s not going anywhere. We have plans for that book stretching out several years. We’re currently working on a book for Soulbound that’s focused on the Champions of Chaos.

As for The Old World, we plan to release a game-master’s screen for The Old World. We also want to create collections of adventures, ideally based within Talagaad, followed by a campaign within the setting. Then we’re probably moving away from Talagaad and the grand duchy it’s based in, so that we can tell stories outside of the Empire. We also want to do a book expanding on how magic works in this ruleset.

At the end of the day, there’s room for all these games, and we intend to continue to support them for years to come.

Warhammer: The Old World’s Player Guide and Gamemaster’s Guide are both available on DrivethruRPG and on Cubicle 7’s store. The physical releases are planned for the future.

What are your thoughts? Send any scoops, tips or press releases to [email protected].