Mordheim
A city of broken stone and broken people, where the only law is the blade.
Mordheim is the shattered, lawless city that serves as a memorable setting in the Warhammer: Vermintide 2 DLC and the standalone title Mordheim: City of the Damned. Once a thriving mercantile hub in the Old World, it was annihilated by a comet and never fully rebuilt. What remains is a labyrinth of crumbling towers, collapsed bridges, and narrow alleys where outlaws, Chaos cultists, and feral monsters make their homes. In those games, player characters are drawn into this urban hellscape, navigating a conflict that pits them against the city's entrenched factions and the greater horrors lurking beneath its broken streets. The setting stands apart from other environments because of its dense, vertical, city-block layout. Where other campaigns unfold through forests, marshes, or open fields, Mordheim forces close-quarters combat through stairwells, rooftops, and rubble-choked plazas. The tone is grittier, more claustrophobic, and steeped in the desperate survivalism that defines the city's denizens.
Quick Facts
- Setting
- Mordheim, the Old World
- Game
- Warhammer: Vermintide (Fatshark); Mordheim: City of the Damned
- Type
- Story Campaign; Setting
- Environment
- Ruined urban city — narrow streets
- collapsed buildings
- rooftops
- Key factions
- Gangers
- Chaos-aligned forces
- Skaven
- Tone
- Gritty
- claustrophobic
- survivalist
Lore & Background
Mordheim's destruction is one of the Old World's great tragedies. A comet — known as the Twin-Tailed Comet — struck the city, reducing it to a smoking ruin. The survivors who returned found a place beyond the reach of any authority: no Empire garrison, no temple, no guild hall. What grew in the absence of law was a feral ecosystem of gangers, cultists, and monster-hunters who survived by taking what they could and killing what threatened them. In the Vermintide narrative, Mordheim functions as a pressure valve for the world's escalating chaos. The city is a magnet for those the Empire has cast out and for the unnatural forces that seek to exploit its ruins. The Gangers, Mordheim's most iconic denizens, operate small war-bands that raid, trade, and fight for territory across the ruined blocks. They are not mindless savages; they are survivors with codes, grudges, and a desperate pragmatism born of a place where the ground itself may collapse into a Skaven tunnel at any moment. The campaign positions the player characters as outsiders thrust into this ecosystem. They are not Mordheimers, and the city's inhabitants do not trust them. The conflict is layered: a factional struggle over resources and territory within the city, a larger supernatural threat that the factions are either exploiting or trying to contain, and the ever-present danger of the city's infrastructure itself — bridges that will not hold, floors that give way, and the ever-present possibility that the ruins are hiding something far older and more dangerous than the current squabbling.
Reader's Guide
SPOILERS AHEAD for the Mordheim campaign in Warhammer: Vermintide 2. The campaign opens with the player characters arriving in Mordheim, drawn by a threat that has the city's factions on edge. The first act establishes the urban environment: narrow streets, collapsing structures, and close-quarters combat against Gangers and their allies. The conflict is driven by a local power struggle — a faction within the city is pursuing an objective that threatens to destabilize the already fragile balance, and the players are caught in the crossfire. As the campaign progresses, the scope widens. What began as a local dispute reveals a larger supernatural or Chaos-aligned threat operating beneath the city. The player characters must navigate vertical environments — rooftops, stairwells, and underground tunnels — while the Gangers shift from adversaries to reluctant allies (or vice versa, depending on their choices). The stakes escalate from territorial control to the survival of the city's remaining population. The final act culminates in a confrontation with the primary antagonist, a boss encounter set within the ruined heart of Mordheim. The resolution does not restore the city to what it was — Mordheim is not meant to be saved, only endured. The characters leave with the knowledge that the ruins will keep producing monsters, and the next time they pass through, the balance will have shifted again. Note: Vermintide 2's Mordheim campaign is a fan-facing expansion of the broader Warhammer Fantasy setting. The city's core identity — ruined, lawless, monster-infested — is consistent with established canon, but the specific plot, characters, and events are original to the game and do not correspond to a particular novel or rulebook entry.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Mordheim campaign in Warhammer: Vermintide 2?
Mordheim is a story campaign set in the ruined, lawless city of the same name in the Old World. Once a functioning settlement, it was destroyed in a catastrophic battle and never rebuilt, leaving behind a maze of collapsed towers and broken streets. In the campaign, the player heroes are pulled into this urban wasteland and must fight through its entrenched factions.
What enemies do you face in the Mordheim campaign?
The campaign pits the heroes against Gangers, Chaos-aligned forces, and Skaven who have claimed the ruins as their territory. Fights take place in tight alleys, crumbling interiors, and on precarious rooftops, giving the whole campaign a claustrophobic, survivalist feel.
How does the Mordheim campaign differ from other Vermintide 2 story campaigns?
Unlike the more open or wilderness-based settings of other campaigns, Mordheim is an entirely urban, tightly packed environment focused on close-quarters combat. The tone is grittier and more desperate, emphasizing a 'broken city, broken people' atmosphere where the only rule is the blade.
What happened to Mordheim before the events of Vermintide 2?
The city was a thriving settlement in the Old World until a devastating battle shattered it beyond repair. It was never rebuilt, and over time outlaws, Chaos cultists, and feral creatures moved into the ruins, turning it into a lawless hellscape.
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