I would like to run some Zweihänder, which invariably means an online session, as that is where I play. Zweihänder has its roots in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd edition, often regarded as a clone of that game. Recently a ‘Reforged’ version of the game has been Kickstarted, with copies emerging from printers sometime during 2026. This version of the game simplifies some of the core mechanics and streamlines play, diverging from its roots and making it a little more of its own thing.
There will be a Foundry VTT module for the Reforged version of the game at some point. From the dialogue on the Zweihänder RPG Discord, my confidence is extremely low that this will be any time soon. In fact a request for a date has effectively been met with silence. In a way, this is helpful. This means that I am going to have to find another way to get the game to a place that I feel comfortable running online with friends.
As it happens, Foundry already has a module for the 1st edition of the game. I took a good look at the module to see if I could play a Reforged game using it. It turns out that the answer is a resounding yes, allowing for just a few work arounds for new elements in Reforged that don’t exist in 1st edition. With some data entry work you can get a Reforged game up and running quite quickly. This blog post will outline my approach for anyone else that wishes to get a game going on Foundry.
The ease to set things up is thanks to the developer’s desire for their module to flexibly allow bespoke compendium to change or add to elements of the game. The first one I created was for the simpler skill list in the Reforged version. Once each skill item was added into the compendium, and the settings pointed to it, the character sheet displayed the right skills for the game.
In 1st edition, characters have both ‘Traits’ and ‘Talents’, with Reforged simplifying to just Talents from different sources. Working with the 1st edition character sheet in Foundry persuaded me to keep Ancestral Traits and Reforged Profession core Talents as ‘Traits’, largely because they sit better on the sheet display. The rest are General Talents with their own separate compendium.
With those in place, I thought I’d have a go at Professions and Ancestries to round out the drag and drop for a Reforged character. Professions, of which Zweihänder has a ton, are a breeze to create. Give it a name, drag in the professional trait, drag in the general talents, drag in the skills that can be developed and note the attribute bonuses. The only profession element not covered is the Attribute 5% increase, which I have put in text form in the Notes tab of the Profession template. I started a similar process with Ancestries, though in Reforged they provide some flavour text and a few ancestry talents, gained over a the hero’s lifetime. The 1st edition has an automated lookup of ancestry traits that I couldn’t find (that could just be me), so I simply use my ancestry compendium as something I can drag onto a character sheet, and then manually drag across an ancestry trait from my compendium. Works fine.
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| Reforged attributes skills and other values |
You can probably, just about, use the existing Trappings, Weapons and Armour compendium, though I have started to create my own as a backup. I suppose the obvious thing to say here is that you often only need to create compendium items that are usefully going to appear in your game! I won’t be bothering populating talent lists for every ancestry, and arguably only those that a player has actually rolled for as part of their advancement. Build these up as you go. In a fit of enthusiasm I have fully populated the talents for humans. I recorded Tragic Flaw and Inner Strength as text in the Background tab.
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| A character with a Profession, Traits and Talent available |
There are some other minor tweaks to sort out. Initiative needs to be set to 2D10 instead of 1D10 in the Zweihänder settings, with the rest identical between the two editions: 2D10 + @stats.secondaryAttributes.initiative.current. Default skills are also updated in the settings to match the ones we have created in our skill compendium.
The module doesn’t support Hindrance on tests, as that isn’t in the 1st edition. You’d need to simply roll another D10 after the fact to see how it impacts the roll. It looks to me that pretty much everything else should work smoothly once you have overlaid the Reforged lists of skills. Talents (and traits if you decide to use them) are largely text prompts, so are great to have on your sheet, but don’t mechanically affect the workings of the sheet.
My thanks to ‘Rex’ for creating a very nice Zweihänder module for Foundry. They continue to update the module, with the last release only yesterday to squash some bugs. The module runs fine on Foundry v13.
I’m planning to run some Reforged games in Foundry this year. There is nothing to stop you doing the same should you wish. Depending on the plan for the official Reforged module, I’d strongly advocate for a series of simple Zweihänder Reforged compendium, made available to Foundry GMs that can be dropped into the existing module. It would make the game start-up super quick, and save all the GMs having to hand crank the data. In theory, just adding Hindrance die mechanics to the current module, you are pretty much there for Reforged right now.
I’ve yet to run the game in Foundry, so look forward to seeing how everything fits together later in the year. I’ll be back with a summary at that time.