Why does he return to this town? thought Geofe, the ex-rogue now servant to the Merchant Hector. Bogenhafen lay in the opposite direction of the rich lands of Cathay, the land where Hector claimed they would become rich beyond belief. "This is it, Geofe," proclaimed Hector from the bow as the barge gently bumped the dock and stevedores rushed to tie it fast. "Selling this load of lead here will get us the capital we need to return to Cathay. Just don't mention the Teugan affair that I was involved in 15 years ago." Hector shuddered at the mere thought of those three dark days as a youth when he and some friends had helped to bring down the Teugan family as demon worshipers. Geofe spots something familiar on the docks, a halfling selling meat pies made a gesture that Geofe returned almost instinctively, the recognition sign of a fellow thief. Before long, another halfling came up and whispered, "Pssst... wanna job? Could use a man from out of town to handle some, ah, business matters. If you know what I mean."

If The WFRP Companion is a travel guide for places outside the Empire, Sigmar's Heirs is the main source book for the happenings within the Empire. Once again, Black Industries releases a hard bound volume of 130 pages that contains wonderful detail regarding the Empire, past and present. Although much of the information in this book is touched on in the Warhammer Fantasy Role Play Core Rules book, the detail to effectively run a series of adventures is fully given in this volume.

The Land and the People

Although the Empire is, in essence, a single united land, it is divided into many different facets. The four races that live here, dwarf, human, elf and halfling, have differing views of things and so political conflict will often erupt. Also, the Empire is composed of different provinces, each once a land of its own, and grand city states, many of which are still independent from the Empire's rule but conform to the Empire due to recent events to the north. How these diverse peoples react to one another is a large part of the game.

The History of the Empire

This is a massive and complex story that starts some 2500 years prior to the current day in the game. The events that took place during this time are what has shaped the Empire into how it is today. The highly detailed and rich history that is given here allows the Game Master to set his adventure in almost any time period within the game. A grand time line that ties everything together with a date is also included. These two items are key for any old time player as about three decades of game history has occurred since the original game was published. Also, this history matches that of the Warhammer Online game, so can be equally useful in that setting.

Government and Law

Although the Companion went into great detail concerning how trials are conducted, this volume gives a different type of insight. The diverse governments of the Empire makes for differing aspects of law and how it is enforced, if at all. The Empire is, technically, a single government and it reacts to foreign relations in the same manner regardless of where in the Empire one might be. However, there are a large number of legal systems at work that can become very confusing as one moves from town to town. Does this city have a political or religious hierarchy? Perhaps the town is effectively ruled by the merchants. If the character gets caught breaking the law, will it be prison, torture or being burned at the stake? It is always a good thing to know exactly how the authorities will react and what is or isn't against the law and to what extreme will the laws be enforced.

More Cults

Religion has a large impact on the way things work. The large number of cults, both legal and illegal, within the Empire are no different than in the real world. Some provinces are followers of the powerful war god, Ulric. But in the slums of the southlands, the kind and merciful Shallya might be called upon more. Warhammer makes no bones about using religious conflict as a source of adventuring and covers the differences here very well.

The Grand Provinces

This is the largest and most important part of the volume. Each and every province is covered in great detail here. The way of the land, to include weather and seasons. How the people react to each other and strangers, what their attitudes are, what they might want out of life. Several key places of interest are covered for each province and an example of the common person is given in character sheet format. Last for each area is a few adventure ideas that can be built upon by the GM to start adventures without having to purchase the volume that focuses on the region.

Adventure Awaits

If the GM is ready to get the game going, but doesn't want to make his/her group wait while an adventure is built around one of the many adventure hooks, a complete adventure is provided for you. This is a follow up to the Shadows Over Bogenhafen adventure that was the start of The Enemy Within campaign from the original rules. It gives a good example of how politics can change the course of a character's path.

And the Rest

There is always some little something new in each volume that catches my eye, but doesn't quite fall into any of the other categories of the book. This time around it is eight new careers for the players. Three are basic and five are advanced, thus players are given even more choices on how to get started.

A word about the new careers: I don't think I have mentioned this before, but I should have and am sorry if it caused any confusion. One of the things that each career has is the Career Entries list. In the old version, only exits were listed with each career, so if one wanted to backtrack a character to see what all his skills were, it was very difficult. The entries list is good because without that, every time a new career was added to the game, someone would have to go back and change the starting career table so that they could become included in the game. Or worse, reprint the core rules book and include them. Now, although the choice to start out as a new career is still between the GM and Player to work out, at least the players know how to get to it by having the entries known.

For the record, I wouldn't even bother buying this volume unless you are a Game Master. Players have no real need of what is contained in this book as it could very well spoil the fun of playing in the game and learning it as you go. Adventurers WILL NOT know how every little detail of the government or law or religion functions outside of their own homeland area. Many won't even be very familiar with their own area, other than how it relates directly to their career. To have a player with this knowledge could undermine the game itself and ruin it for others. That said, this is still a fabulous feature work for all GMs.

Recommended: Yes