Ulfenkarn is a highly-anticipated expansion for Soulbound, the Age of Sigmar Roleplaying game by Cubicle 7, and boy was it worth the wait. First off, this book is massive at 238 pages and is chock full of details. New and alternate rules, tons of plot hooks, history of the Mournhold/Ulfenkarn, a terrifying bestiary, locations, and more. After playing through Vossheim’s Holdouts, I have been looking forward to this book to flesh out the city, and now I wish I hadn’t just started another Soulbound campaign, because I want to play in Ulfenkarn!

What’s in the Box?

The book is split into ten chapters covering lore, rules, locations, even a handful of one-page adventures. You can easily set up a campaign in Ulfenkarn with just this and the core book. I’m going to dive into each chapter quick here to discuss just what you can get out of this tome.

Chapter 1: Welcome to Ulfenkarn

This first chapter is perfect to get those unfamiliar with the city up to speed. If you’ve played the Cursed City (use code PCME10 for 10% off or Professionalcasual for free US shipping) miniatures game or followed the story through Age of Sigmar, you’ll be right at home. This chapter gives the rundown of the history of the city and the takeover by Radukar the Wolf, the main antagonist for campaigns set in Ulfenkarn. I love how they break down the lore into major moments from Age of Sigmar with the “Night Unending” and “Radukar’s Legacy” sidebars. As you play through a campaign in Ulfenkarn, the events of Cursed City can happen and change the city greatly. The party can be the ones responsible or just have to deal with the after effects.

This chapter brings the city to life (as much as it is) and makes it a as real of a place as it can be. Understanding how everyday Ulfenkarni live their lives is tragic and terrifying. There is much to mine in this chapter to help players understand the city they’re in.

Chapter 2: Light in the Dark

Here are the rules! Making characters for games in Ulfenkarn is a bit different than usual. First off, this chapter gives us updated and expanded Grim and Perilous rules to play non-Soulbound characters in Soulbound. If you’d rather play a grittier, lower-fantasy game than the usual superhero-level characters in Soulbound, this is for you. A new species is added as well, the ogor, to make up for not being able to play Stormcast, Sylvaneth, Seraphon, or Draconith in Ulfenkarn. There are eight new archtypes as well, to give more options for the grubs that these player characters will be. Four new Subfactions add a little as well, to give more detail to your characters and to help make those of the same species a bit different from each other.

This chapter is awesome for players especially, but GMs can also make use of a lot of the information here to help create NPCs, groups of NPCs, and events based on the factions. Not to mention the new Talents and Ulfenkarn Endeavors give the city even more of its own flavor and separates games in Ulfenkarn from a typical Soulbound game of insane heroics.

Chapter 3: The Cursed City

Here is the meat and potatoes of the book. You wanna know about a corner of the city, this chapter will almost certainly have it covered. From the Bloodways to the Ebon Citadel, from the Ruwenlant cemetary to the Keening Harbor, from the Sprawl to Mortifus Heights, there is so much here. Ulfenkarn is a big place and has quite a few different districts to populate with NPCs, monsters, and hazards. There are so many plot hooks in this chapter that a GM will have to make up very little to have a bustling campaign and a city that feels ‘lived in.’

Each district of the city has locations, plot hooks, and an encounter table. The encounters range from monsters that could be engaged in combat (or fled from) to little events that will make players’ skin crawl. Additional plot hooks are added for the Night Unending and Radukar’s Legacy periods of time, to add more details if your campaign covers these events.

Chapter 4: Ulfenkarn in Peril

Players stay away! This chapter is really for the GMs and gives more guidance on building Grim and Perilous Encounters (the guidelines in the Corebook will wreck PCs here), Exploration rules (to take advantage of the Encounter tables from the last chapter), Suffocating Gravetides to TPK or really scare the PCs, and the eight one-page adventures. The adventures are a great way to start an Ulfenkarn campaign and they focus on using the locations that get more detail in the next set of chapters. These adventures give plenty of information in one page that a GM can expand into a typical gaming session. They don’t exactly string together to form a campaign, but are more meant to sprinkle in while your party is trying to survive in the Cursed City. These adventures give a fantastic look into the goings-on in Ulfenkarn and can help GMs connect plot hooks from around the book.

Chapters 5-9: Locations In Depth

About 50 pages of the book are dedicated to giving even more details to some of the most prominent locations in the city. Chapter 5: The Corpse Gardens, Chapter 6: The Van Alten Estate, Chapter 7: Barrowmark, Chapter 8: The Screaming Spires, and Chapter 9: The Ebon Citadel, the seat of Radukar himself. Like Chapter 4, each location has many points of interest, plot hooks, and an Encounter Table. Many of these locations also detail major NPCs, like Gorslav the Gravekeeper in the Corpse Gardens, the Patricians in Barrowmark, and of course Radukar the Wolf in the Ebon Citadel.

Each of these locations comes with at least one map, or in the case of The Ebon Citadel, several! Some specific places in each location have their own Encounter table to keep players on their toes, as who knows when a jump scare or undead monstrosity will show up!

Chapter 10: Denizens of Darkness

Speaking of undead monstrosities, Chapter 10 is a harrowing bestiary of the worst Ulfenkarn has to offer for PCs. Starting with Radukar himself, both in ‘normal’ form and later as Radukar the Beast, he’s an enemy that would be trouble for a regular Soulbound party. The major NPCs like Radukar have more than just a stat block, but information about how to roleplay them, their combat tactics, and sweet artwork. After Radukar comes Torgillius the Chamberlain, Gorslav the Gravekeeper, Watch Captain Halgrim, Lany Annika the Thirsting Blade, Kritza the Rat Prince, and Carmilla Dusang. Following them come the nameless masses of undead that want nothing but to tear flesh from bone and consume the living. Bats of Ulfenkarn, like bat swarms and fell bats, corpse rats, deadwalker zombies, dire wolves, diregoyles, gnawbone strays, grave guard, Kosargi Nightguard, necromancers, shyishan crows, Ulfenkarn vampires, Ulfenwatch, vargskyr, vargheist, Vyrkos Blood-born, and wight kings will challenge the party in many ways.

Adventuring in the City at the Edge of Death

After reading through this book, I can confidently say it’s a grand addition to the Soulbound library. Whether you plan on playing an entire campaign set in Ulfenkarn using the Grim and Perilous ruleset, or use it as a mine for plot hooks and ideas to fit into your own campaign, this book is a must for Soulbound GMs. My only gripe is that I’d rather there be a longer adventure to get a party started than the eight one-shots, but there is so much info for GM to use to create a campaign, it would really not be a lot of work (not more than usual, at least). If you want to play a game where not every battle is a forgone conclusion and character death will be a very real thing (and might even come back as a deadwalker zombie against the party), where the party has to keep a low profile and not get the attention of the Ulfenwatch, where blood is more valuable than gold and the PCs are unsung heroes in the back alleys, then Ulfenkarn: City at the Edge of Death, is perfect for your table.