Been a while since I've reviewed a setting book...
Cinderheim is a system neutral(ish) setting book describing a demon haunted desert and the seven oasises that comprise it's livable space. It's by Jack Shear of Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque, which also has notes on the city of Umberwell, which is one of the better fleshed out third party cities for 5e and is also worth checking out. The reason for the (ish) above is because there does seem to be a general assertation players will be playing this in 5e, although any system where one can stat out half orcs and aasimar works.
The central conceit of Cinderheim is that deep under the desert, there lie imprisoned seven abyssal kings. Atop their bodies, the only arable land is an oasis for each demon lord. And each Oasis is ruled by some individual whose own vices matches the demon in question. They control life in the desert. Each one is it's own sort of wretched hive.
This set up is pretty fascinating, but in the hands of a sufficiently cynical DM there is a good chance this could become misery porn.
We get a quick overview of the various warlords, their respective oasis, and the demon below, before the rest of the book begins covering each in more detail, with plot hooks and other important NPCs in the various camps. For example, Andrastos Qualenethi is an elven general with the moniker "The Butcher". Allegedly, his oasis is a democracy, but as the only people allowed to vote are the soldiers that followed him into exile, that's kind of fake. The camp gives a psuedo-roman feel, and there is actual free trade going on, with one of the best marketplaces in the desert forming here. The book gives a two page spread per site, with the first page detailing the personality and special lieutenants of the given warlord, and the second detailing locations of note in the camp.
The book then moves through a number of character concepts and possible reasons for an adventuring party to be here. If I have a criticism here, it's that the book half asses it's system neutralness here. Firbolgs and tieflings are mentioned by name, while Kenku, Thri-keen, and Yuan-ti are also mentioned by more generic titles. It just kind of bugs me, as it puts the onus on the DM to put together stat blocks for every Warlord and Lieutenant. If I were writing it, I'd have general stat blocks for parties within certain level ranges.
Page 27 moves on to the demon lords. We are given how each demon lord is depicted, generally in a delightfully creepy way, what they want, how they are worshipped, how they respond to worship, and what happens if they were to rise. As an example: Raaz, Andrastos's patron, appears as an axe wielding beastman, wants eternal war across the continent and eventually the world, is worshipped through sacrifice of defeated opponents, communicates to his cultists through sigils of dripping blood, and will turn the sun blood red if his forces ever successfully dominate the desert.
We get a couple pages of tables, quick generating a plot hook and a wilderness encounter table. We then get an inspiration page, Dying Earth fanfiction like... Dying Earth, Heavy Metal music, Dark Fantasy like Diablo, and Weird West stuff like the Dark Tower. Some advice on how to run the game, whether or not firearms should be allowed. There's a short table on mutations (from Demonic corruption), but it's short and your much better off pulling out a mutation table from another game. God knows there are plenty of them out there. We then get a handful of 5e backgrounds, mostly for playing the kind of scum that would show up here. Then trinket tables.
That's... pretty much it. I think this is the last time I buy a statless setting book, there's not enough bang for the amount of bucks I spent. There's some good ideas here, but the detail given in sparcer then even Embers, and there is very little art, all of which appears to be stock. It's a shame, because I actually like Umberwell quite a bit, and was hoping a similar level of detail on a smaller scale.
My my, it has been a while since I posted here. Over a year in fact. In that time, I've picked up... every OSR book. Maybe not every one of them, but the list is pretty big. Nightmare Underneath, Advanced Labyrinth Lord, Castles & Crusades, Solar Blades and Cosmic Spells, Beyond the Wall, Ultraviolet Grasslands, Five Torches Deep. I started running WFRP 4e, began playing in my second Monster of the Week campaign, have been plotting hacking Stonehell Dungeon to work in 5e, gone to GenCon, lots of lots of stuff.
So without further ado
MASKED REVIEWS: MOTHERSHIP
"MOTHERSHIP: Scifi Horror RPG" is exactly what it seems like from that cover page. Written by Sean McCoy with Donn Stroud, Nick Reed, Tyler Kimball, Fiona Maeve Geist and Jarrett Crader, MOTHERSHIP has been the indy darling of 2019, elevating Tuesday Knight Games to four Ennie nominations for their first project. Thus far, it has the Players Survival Guide, along with two adventures (Dead Planet and A Pound of Flesh) with a third on the way. McCoy has promised that a Monster Manual and Warden's Guide are on the way, but it feels important to inform you before getting into this that the game requires a DIY attitude at the time of writing. That being said, the rulebook is PWYW on DriveThru, and the two adventures are $7.99 for the same.
The cover of the Player's Survival Guide, seen above, depicts an astronaut's corpse lying with their guts spilling out. The art style is consistent with the rest of the book, a sketchy art style Sean McCoy himself provided. It has the same effect as the art of Scrap Princess, conveying a moody panicked sketch. If the art turns you off, by A Pound of Flesh it's been swapped for something more Blame! inspired done by Jan Buragay. Don't worry, guys, I swear the art is fine.
The PHB is short, only 36 pages not counting character sheets. To get ahead of myself, the "setting" of Mothership is almost entirely pulled from its art, character classes, and equipment list. There is no bestiary, no timeline or list of planets. It's expectation is for the GM to have seen Alien, Solaris, the Thing, that moody edge of science fiction where dark and spooky stuff happens to our protagonists and there is not a plucky space wizard pilot or captain with a bad toupe and easily torn shirt in sight.
The game itself is a Percentile system, roll under stat, doubles are crit successes/failures (in this instance 00 means a crit success). Characters roll 6d10 in order for each stat. The book gives a quick reveal on the four classes: The Teamster (ie a space trucker like Ripley), The Scientist (like the cast of the Thing), the Android (Ash, Bishop, Roy Batty), and the Marine (Hudson, considering the massive morale penalty they give when they panic). Yes, everything thusfar makes this essentially an unlicensed Alien game, but lets be honest so were Metroid and Halo.
The mechanics make up the meat of this book, so I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on them. The basics you'll need to know are:
Skills come in three tiers - Trained (+10), Expert (+15), and Master (+20). Often times Master skills require multiple expert tier skills to be able to buy, like Xenobiology requiring Genetics, Pathology, and Botany. It's all logical, and layed out in a flowchart style thats easy to parse.
Saves work just like in a TSR game. They are Sanity, Fear, Body, and Armor. Fail a save, and you gain Stress, which makes it easier to fail a Panic check. Crit fail a Save and you make a Panic check. Panic at a bad time (there's never a good time to panic) and it's Game Over Man, Game Over. In practice, this mechanic is similar to the effect from Darkest Dungeon.
You can also die from missing resources. Your ship can run out of food, oxygen is a problem in space, all that good stuff.
Now for inventory. As is expected from a game with it's love for the Alien franchise on it's sleeve, you probably can guess the arsenal. Smartguns, incinerators, the usual. It also has some more improvised tools like a foam gun right out of Prey and a Hand welder. As for staying fashionably dressed, you have the standard crew attire (tissue paper), the vacc suit (bulky but protective and can have it's own oxygen supply), hazard suit (no long jump module, unfortunately), and the marine battle armor (bulky like the vacc suit, more protective, and gives you a bonus vs weight). That's... it. The game doesn't really care about the more minor variations. It's not like a bullet proof vest is going to help you vs the psychic brain slugs or whatever.
I'm skipping over a lot of character adding details, but I should talk about the Mercs section, or rather the Scum section. You see, if you can't afford the full price hirelings (and why would you, a marine costs 600 units a month), you can spend that money on Scum. Scum cost 200 a month, have shitty stats, and they are all delightful weird dead weight. Samurai cosplayers, hitchhikers, reprogrammed sex bots, they are all wonderful bits of flavor.
The books final section goes into ship design, and to be honest I find this the weakest section. It's presented poorly, and I'll be honest I went a little cross eyed reading it. I'm told it gets easier. I hope so. It's a shame the book goes out like this, it was doing so well.
IN CONCLUSION
MOTHERSHIP is a horror rpg done right. The Stress mechanic ticks the tension up and up and up. The game is just deep enough to be interesting, while staying simple enough so that rolling up a new character quickly isn't a problem, which is good because this is a game that expects you to die. There are a couple rough patches, but the game is brilliant.
The reason I picked Mothership to review for coming out of my review coma is because the recent release of the Alien RPG (with the price bump that that licenses presence implies) made me look for alternatives. I'm very glad I found this. You should get it too.
Background: About a year ago, I was trawling through kickstarter RPGs (as one does) when I came across Odyssey of the Dragonlords. It attracted me with a free PDF with some Greek themed race and class options, and very high art production values, I'd say even higher then the core rulebooks. It also had a neat hook, namely writing by James Ohlen and Jesse Sky, former developers on classic isometric D&D games like Baldur's Gate. The same group of writers had recently released a Baldur's Gate themed adventure for 5e, so I thought, why the hell not? I like Greek Myth, I like Bioware writing, lets do this.
Which brings us to now, with the book on my lap. How was this book that I had helped fund?
Lets find out.
Odyssey of the Dragonlords is a 466 page hardcover 5e campaign and setting book published by Modipheus, the kings of RPGs. Credits include James Ohlen, Jesse Sky, and Drew Karpyshyn for writing. Illustrations by Chris J Anderson, Michal E Cross, Wadim Kashin, Sebastian Kowoll, Lius Lasahido, Roman Likkholob, Grzegorz Pedrycz, and Erikas Perl. Cover art by Marc Simonetti. Dungeon Maps by Nicholas Spinelli.
The book begins with a Preface on why the game decided to use Greek Mythology as a basis. It's the usual stuff. Mythic heroics arguably work better in the context of 5e then previous editions, where adventurers can definitely fight like the heroes of myth and legend, so it's a good fit. It's fine as theming.
SETTING INTRODUCTION
This book's focus is the world of Thylea. Ancient war, an order of dragonriding knights fighting the Titans, the appearance of the Five Gods, blah de blah. It also introduces the three main villains of the adventure: two titans and their catspaw amongst mortals. The game also gives explanation for how a character that doesn't fit the greek theme could end up here, as Thylea can be found by those who get lost at sea after being swallowed by the Maelstrom. So if your player absolutely wants that Githzerai Mystic or Warforged Gunslinger in your greek game, that's how they ended up here. In fact, later on the book explains that the races of Tolkien (humans, orcs, elves, dwarves, halflings) in the setting either came here this way or are descended from those who did, they aren't native.
The Five Gods borrow heavily from the familiar Greek pantheon. Mytros is a mix of Hera and Zeus, the all powerful leader of the five and mother of all. Volkan is pretty much a one-to-one Hephaestus, Pythor borrows more heavily from the roman Mars then the greek version of Ares (being more benevolent and friendly), Vallus is a mix of Athena and Aphrodite as a goddess of beauty and wisdom, and Kyrah is a genderflipped Hermes. The three kingdoms of the land each have their own patronages, as do the barbarian tribes that dot the islands. It gives a list of factions the players can be a part of or deal with, although at this point it doesn't give a relationship guide between these factions which would be helpful. The book then gives a list of laws the players would know: Guest rights, magically binding oaths, and the curses that accompany breaking those oath, which generally involve the cursed individual having 4-5 weeks to find a person willing to cast Greater Restoration three times (once per day), or become a feral npc greek monster like a medusae or harpy. Basically, a werewolf transformation but permanent.
Finally, the book gives an overview of the adventure. The adventure is in five acts, and takes a character from level 1 to level 20 (although to discover this I had to find the experience distribution guide on page 28. Game designers, put your adventure level range on the cover, we've known to do this since 1977). Characters are encouraged to take some of the book's Epic Paths (basically that character's destiny, a very greek idea that I'm a little suspicious of in a roleplaying game), due to a visit to the oracle early on in the adventure. On the plus side, it also gives advice for a GM who wants to write their own epic path for a player. This might be a thing where you work with a player for how they want their character to turn out.
THE ADVENTURE
SPOILERS TO FOLLOW
I'm only gonna sum up the most important points of the adventure, and my thoughts on it. I'll try to keep this to how easy the story is to apply to the table, and mechanically. That being said, some story stuff will be Spoiled. You have been warned.
The adventure starts, as any good one does, in an inn. The party is hired by a humble bard (hah) to hunt down a monstrous boar. This section gave me bad flashbacks to a railroady GM, as the bard both hires to NPCs to accompany the party AND will use a Raise Dead scroll the rez one of them if they get killed. The book does not put the statblock of the creature in this section, relegating it to the NPC section at the back of the book. Once again, best practices are to make the DM do as little page flipping as possible, because it slows down the game. This may be a recurring problem.
After this intro, the heroes are told to sacrifice the beast to the gods, and then travel to the Oracle to get their REAL quest.
From here, Act 1 goes through several beats. After a brief encounter with another boss monster, this time with the training wheels off, the group is sent to complete Three Labors and meet with the King of Estoria.
Chapter II is concerned with the Labors. As one of the objectives is in Estoria, you'll probably start there, but they can be accomplished in any order. This reminds me, structure wise, of the Zelda formula: railroady front in, the three quests that can be completed in any order. The book gives a small city guide. It's passable, about the same level as Waterdeep Dragonheist, but I feel it could have been organised better.
MASKED's GUIDE TO WRITING CITIES
Start with a table: Name of the place, who greets you, who owns it, and what page the longer explanation is on. Near the top should be the inn, the stores, church, and the mayor/governor/king's home/meeting hall. Those are where your players will visit most. If the town has factions, have a relationship chart. In this book, the beastmen outside of town are kidnapping children, but the players will only find this out if they visit a vineyard outside of town to talk to a victim's father RAW. That is a perfect example of something that belongs in the faction chart.
Reading, there is a recurring issue that I see as a holdover from the lead writers video game days: false non-violent options. In this instance, as part of one of the main quests the players are trying to rescue a fair maiden from being sacrificed by the cult of the storm titan. Their options given are to challenge the cult leader (a centaur variant with maximum hitpoints and his ensemble) in ritual combat, offer themselves as replacement sacrifices (in which case, they end up in a fight with basilisks while chained to the rocks), or two different ways of letting the girl die (don't intervene or kill her before the ritual). There is a way of evening the odds, but there is no social combat solution, even though it presents there being one. This feels like a video game-ism that while it technically gives more options then most WoTC adventures feels limited in an artificial way. Part of it is that the game does not give an idea the size of the cult. Most players I know are more inclined towards either storming the sacrifice to fight all the cultists OR sneak into their camp and free the girl through subterfuge.
The three Labors depicted in the book are each ended with a dungeon crawl. The first is a two floor dungeon crawl through a dwarven hold. The beginning has a bit of non-linearity thanks to a simple left or right choice while the second floor is a funnel. The second Labor leads through a corrupted temple, this one much more linear. Finally the group must venture through a minotaur's maze for the final Labor.
Chapter III sees the party venturing to the City of Mytros, which is beseiged by storms. The King of Mytros requires the group to choose between four solutions for the problem, which include destroying the temple to the Five and bribe the Titan with a sacrifice of 100 bulls (10,000gp). After this decision, the story once again gives several options where to go next. Another city primer, a sidequest to go thumb it to one of the titan cults, and two leads on the next bit of their adventure.
The Colossus is another dungeon crawl, this one through a giant statue and culminating with a nasty fight with the head of the thieves guild. The Great Games is a series of ability checks vs a group of NPCs. The Ghost Ship Ultros has the party venturing after a haunted boat in order to bring the ship back to Mytros. They are all fairly linear experiences.
Chapter IV and Chapter V sees you reuniting with several NPCs met along the way for a sea voyage on a time limit. The players have sixty days to find the plot coupons before the storm titan and the dream titan's armies arrive. IV has NPC interactions and lore for the sea voyage, while V details the individual islands. The islands are plays on adventures from the Odyssey. Hags. Murder mystery. If you wanted to insert an additional adventure from Saltmarsh or another source, here's where you would. Only one of the islands is absolutely necessary, because it has a plot coupon that lets you sail further to the Forgotten Sea.
The next several chapters sea you venture further afield. I will list off no longer, because to be honest I'm having trouble following the story at this point, but it still takes place as part of your 60 days. However, when the countdown ends, Chapter IX begins and the players will have to have either defeated the Big Bads or returned to Mytros with whatever weapons, experience, and allies they have gathered. It's a true climax, battling titans and scrapping up against the ultimate evil.
Chapters X-XII remind me a lot Throne of Baal, an epilogue. At this point, your heroes are given a break in the adventure. Maybe months, maybe a year, the point is to let the new status quo step in before introducing the final chapter of their lives as adventurers. I won't spoil too much, but the final chapter includes a melee with a Tarrasque and a battle atop the Olympus equivalent. The time has come.
The reason I brought up the DNA of Baldur's Gate for this adventure, the writing credits, et cetera, is because storywise this is a spiritual successor to that. The choice of Greek set dressing is to frame the adventure is such a way that the heroes can be similarly destined. In some ways that is a weakness: espeically early on the game is hesitant to kill off characters. It wants your characters to be significant, it wants those characters to last all the way to at least the "Final Battle" of Chapter IX. On the other hand, if you like that, if you're a fan of the 5e as a storytelling mechanism, this game could last you for a long time. It's got flaws consistent with WoTC productions, and the last act of what I consider the main adventure could use a chart to help navigate it. But there is a spark here, a great storyline. It's not an old school storyline, one built with the assistance of the player, it is very much a product of video game writing, where destiny was going to put you face to face with the queen of darkness the second your character sat down at that inn where a mischievous bard was awaiting the chosen few to all be in one place. However, it's the highest quality version of that product. Great art values, well thought out adventures. The dungeons are a bit small, but there are a lot of them in the early acts and the ones in the later acts are bizarre and interesting challenges and supplemented by a massive amount of wilderness travel.
From here, the book switches to clerical work: Epic Destinies, New Player Races, New Subclasses, New Monsters and monster variants.
The Epic Paths all fit into various archetypical greek heroes. For example, the Demi-God path has you as a child of Pythor. It gives you three quests: to find your mother, to defeat Pythor's greatest foe, and to build a weapon of Pythor's. Completing all three quests gives you a permanent +2 Constitution bonus. All of the Paths are like this, giving a backstory to your character beyond the usual background, three quests, and a permanent stat boost or immunity to certain damage types once those quests are fulfilled.
The New Races consists of Thylean Centaur (different from the WoTC version), Thylean Medusa (gives Petrifying Gaze as an action at 5th level, but it's not worth it), Thylean Minotaur (which is similar to a werewolf, getting the ability to become a Bull as if polymorphed at 5th level), Thylean Nymph (with subraces Naiad, Dryad, Nereid, and Oread; very similar to Eladrin), Thylean Satyr (which the game seems to expect you to use as a tiefling replacement, as tieflings are double plus untrusted in Thylea), and Thylean Siren (Long rest choice between flight in light armor or a once per rest charm person/enthrall/hold person),
The New Subclasses are
Herculean Path (Barbarian) - Attack with two handed weapons while grappling, use longbows while you rage, shake the earth
College of Epic Poetry (Bard) - Compose a poem based on whenever a battle involves a Nat 1, a Nat 20, a failed saving throw, or a character drops to zero hitpoints. As your poem lengthens, your Bardic Inspiration improves.
Prophecy Domain (Cleric) - Did you like Xenoblade Chronicles?
Circle of Sacrifice (Druid) - Burn enemy corpses to give Bless to all allies, Use mistletoe to bolster your healing, mark enemies for additional damage
Hoplite (Fighter) - Become Unstoppable. Also intercept enemy attacks on nearby allies and make spears stronger.
Way of the Shield (Monk) - Use shields while doing martial arts, be a character from 300
Oath of the Dragonlord (Paladin) - Eragon the Subclass
Amazonian Conclave (Ranger)* - Shout like Xena, Reflect Bullets off your Bracers, Richochet Chakram, sic your Mecha Hawk on enemies, vulkan nerve pinch
Odyssean (Rogue) - Give allies advantage, become immune to opportunity attacks, add Cha to init, sneak attack enemies when your allies have opportunity attacks
Demigod Bloodline (Sorcerer) - cast domain spells, get Str saving throws and add cha to melee atk rolls, spend sorcery points to increase spell levels, get legendary resistance
Fates Patron (Warlock) - Do you think divination wizards should be able to cast Eldritch Blast?
Academy Philosopher (Wizard) - Study philosophy to get a penny bonus
*this is the best one
The Monsters in here are all suitably Greek. It's split between Characters in the adventure, including Gods and Titans, and creatures. Since D&D already has a lot of the monsters of mythology, the game adds variants. Centaurs are now joined by Druid, Hero, and Lord variants. There's also new beasts like Gygans, six armed cyclopes that resemble FF's Gilgamesh but are a lot more downers, and the Ichthys, a crab centaur man that reminds me of the one Dark Souls II boss in their backstory.
The book ends with some odds and ends. Sea encounters, new magical items that can be craft, how to become a Dragonlord, GM only versions of the history, handouts, and a Printer Murdering version of the character sheet that is less functional then pretty.
That wraps up the book.
Honestly, I enjoyed the read through. The setting is interesting, the adventure is solid once you leave the obvious tutorial, and the new class options are all able to brought over to other settings with only minor integration struggles. If you aren't interested in the adventure, the Players Guide has all the player facing stuff (classes and races) and is available for $0 on drivethru currently. That's right, Free. That being said, if the adventure DOES sound your speed, the PDF and hardcover will be available early in February 2020. Consider this a sneak peak, I'll update this when I have a link for you to follow. (Preorder of hardcover here from Miniature Market)
Pick up this book if you want a non-FR adventure that will take your players all the way from rookies to godslayers, level 1-20. Avoid if you have trouble with official modules that have a set defined course for how the adventure goes, don't want to learn a new setting, or don't like boat adventures where you spend a minute on an island, solve their problem, grab the plot coupon, and leave never to see that place again.
Kobold Press. If you play D&D and haven't heard of them, you're in for something. Kobold Press has been making supplements since the 4e/PF days, and their 5e lineup has been excellent. Tome of Beasts and Creature Codex are must have Monster Manuals, and while I've never played Court of the Shadow Fey, I've heard it's a better follow up to Waterdeep Dragon Heist then it's actual follow up (mostly because it's an intrigue based adventure like WDH instead of a megadungeon).
Warlock is Kobold Press's zine. If you join their patreon, you get access to it. They have invited some pretty amazing guest writers, I've got their zine on the Hells with writing by Zeb Cook (D&D Expert Set, Isle of Dread, Fallout II, Elder Scrolls Online). Lots of well written modules, monsters, whatever. And, as a treat, they collected a bunch of their back issues into a handy dandy book, purchasable from their website here for 11.99 as pdf. So without further ado.
MASKED REVIEWS: WARLOCK GRIMOIRE
The book has an B&W interior, so make no mistake, this is essentially the same as the zine, only instead of spending a dollar a month you're buying a bunch at once. Two column layout, decent B&W art.
The articles are about KP's proprietary Midgard Campaign setting for the most part, although nothing there is SO specific that it won't fit into your own campaign setting. The first article, as an example, talks about festivals in the Ironcrag Mountains. Dwarves really like cheese, apparently, with a bi-annual festival celebrating the cheese mongers. This first section is mostly villages, locations, plot hooks, descriptions of places. Most of them are pretty creative, like investigating time displaced refugees from the distant past and what they are running away from or going on a magic motorboat to guard some archmagus investigating some dark presence who is stealing power from a city's leyline. The occasional relevant spell or item is thrown in, such as one that causes the victim to start making gibbering mouther noises and spread it to adjacent allies (Infectious Gibbering, 4th level enchantment, VSM)
It's section on the City of Brass is very thorough, four articles that add locations and factions, along with a flunky genie called a Jann that is only CR8 as opposed to Djinn's CR11. If you're planning an extra-planar visit to the Fire Plane's most famous city, this is the shit, right here.
The second section of the book is all about modules. The first is a bit of a railroad, as the group is forced to antagonize the Wild Hunt at the whims of the elve's River King. Most of them are about at this quality, maybe a little better. It's about what one expects from short modules, with a side order of "Buy our other books" as the modules often reference Tome of Beasts or other KP books. It's okay.
The third section is monster based. It kicks things off with a named fire dragon with the ability to summon a fiend every time it drops one of your boys. The next article is about the habits and lives of dragon turtles, the one after that has Undyne variants. Next is the Dragon Empire's Legion structure, the perfect source for Tucker's Kobolds. And So On And So Forth. The lesser golem article is great because it gives players the tools to make small/medium constructs, much better then just a stat block.
The fourth section is NPCs. It starts off strong with a mercenary band of Lycanthropes who each have their own specialities. It's like an evil A-team, perfect way to kick the asses of a cocky party. There's one article dedicated to generating rogues, another to a spelljammer run by an incubus trying to avoid making a report home, one on the matriarchal amazonian armies, mages on horses, a wizard smith, the list goes on and one.
The fifth section is magic. While other sections have had spells and unique items, that's the focus of this section. Including a magic fountain with a wild magic surge effect after drinking from it. This section is pretty short, it's basically just magic.
The sixth and final section is Player facing stuff. We start with items, then go on to a new player race (the Shade, their take on undead), a background that gives your PC amnesia, a bard college, an article with backgrounds (Fugitive and Raid Survivor) and subclasses themed around the Bounty Hunter concept (College of Criminology, Oath of Justice), a vampire hunter rogue, a divine caster rogue and phalanx fighter, and some anti vampire weapons. There are interesting ideas here, and the bard college would be a first pick of mine if I ever found myself doing another city campaign after Waterdeep Dragonheist. Isn't Ptolus on kickstarter now?
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The main thing I can say about the Warlock Grimoire is that it's very much a throwback to Dragon magazine and the like. Just a smattering of content of all different types thrown out in all directions. I'm not going to give my usual number rating, because there is some very good stuff in here and some bad stuff in here, all written by different people. I will say that buy this in PDF, the hardcover ain't worth it. But, if you're the sort who likes more player options, this ain't a bad place to start. Zines in general are pretty great.
I'm currently waiting on the fulfillment of another 5e kickstarter. If they manage to keep their promise, expect a review of that sometime in the next few weeks.
For my audience, is there any RPG books that you would like to see reviewed? I don't do Pathfinder stuff, and it's easier when it's a system I have some familiarity with, but I am willing to take respects as long as I can get my hands on a PDF for relatively cheap.
I wouldn't mind seeing your opinions on 5e modules, or even better 3rd party materials. I wasn't aware that KP had such a catalog for 5e that I can now raid, and I've already bought Shadow of the Demon Lord to mine for ideas based off your recommendation.
Astrolago Press is a relatively small company, only two credits to their name, both 5e supplements funded through Kickstarter (that I backed, full disclosure). The second, Witch+Craft, is fulfilling right now and I await it eagerly, so while I do let's talk about the first.
MASKED REVIEWS: FAERIE FIRE
Faerie Fire was the debut release of Astrolago Press, coming out in 2018. It was designed by Dillon MacPherson and Malcolm Wilson, with art from LOTS of artists. So many.
As the name implies, the book's themes are The Fey and queerness. It does a decent job with the aesthetic, and there are no straight characters amongst the NPCs, but as with any D&D product it's ability to convey queerness is limited by the media. More on that later.
In general, the book is well polished. Chapters are divided into Creatures, Character Options, Items, and the book's module, "The Palace of Shade".
"The Wilds" are quite obviously a Stand In for the Feywilds, it's not subtle. The main conflict is a battle between the Fey and the tendrils of the Plane of the Living Light, a violent demiplane that is like antimatter to the chaotic energies of the Fey. It's a suitable antagonist, albeit one that's a bit nondescript and lacking thematic pop.
The Creatures section begins with the Fey Court, more NPCs then actual antagonists although the Lord British Postulate applies. The Monarch, the painterly ruler of the wilds, is amusing and terrifying thanks to their Fey moods. Quickly, the book shows a possible slight, as art style changes constantly. The flaw of so many artist and no "house style", although this is a YMMV thing not a real thing.
The court is well fleshed out, with factions and characters for parties of any alignment. The reason they are so fleshed out is because of the module at the end, but it's appreciated for reuse.
Next are the Servants to the Court, more generic NPCs such as the Emerald Knights, the royal guard of the Fey court or the Splatterbeast Masterpiece, a construct of paint that behaves like a nasty ooze.
Primal Beasts run next, pure Fey creatures that will get you cursed if you harm them. They are weird beings fusions of plants and beast, or bones and life, or whatever else. Very dangerous, avoid.
Wanderers are probably the most applicable to games not using the rest of these situations, Fey Creatures unaligned with politics and warped by the Wilds. The book starts with the Body Swapper, a Fey shapechanger with 157 HP and four attacks per round, and that is the least nasty bit of it. The character that kills the Body Swapper needs to worry about the Fey pulling a Lucius the Eternal on them, nasty. There is also The Illuminated, a former adventurer who picked up a cursed sword in the Feywild and ended up a slave to it, and Queen Cosmet, a Fey lich bard, and the witchlight, a warlock with the living Light Patron, among others.
Next are creatures of the wilds. Love stealers, living light aberrations, the Conglomedog (a good boys), Dandylions, Gutterkin, honeysuckle hag (it's like Umbrage was a drider), skelekron (a living light infected corpse with changing elemental attunement), Verloren (literally Trolls from Dreamwork's Trolls), and all the rest. These are all flavorful and fun.
Character Options has three new races and three new subclasses.
Spriggenfolk are intelligent faerie bugmen, with natural spellcasting, four arms, and two bonus proficiencies in certain intelligence based skills. Uplifted Gutterkin are vermin granted intelligence, with the Littlepaws (raccoons, weasels, et cetera), Canopid (Owls, pigeons, et cetera), and Scuttlers (geckos, crabs, et cetera) as subraces; they are dexterous and good rangers or druids. Wildkin are eternal children, young ones whisked away to the Wilds where they never grow up, they have subraces Lost Ones (Bangarang) and Luxlings (who have Living Light corruption).
The Circle of Rue is a part of a specific type of third party Druid I call "monster druids". There is a tendency for third parties to give a buff to Wild Shape, which Rue does by giving frightening mutations to your wild shape form. That squirrel with human teeth is very scary. They can also take a negative mutation in exchange for the ability to boost spell slots.
The Way of the Trickster Monk is a bard monk the way the Four Elements monk is a wizard. You gain a selection of minor tricks to use your ki for, like summoning a whoopie cushion or replacing an unarmed strike with Vicious Mockery. It's a decent thematic style, but you only learn 4 tricks total and most are cantrips or first level spells. They do have a gnarly 6th level ability giving disadvantage vs the saving throw on stunning strike, already a powerful save or suck ability.
The Living Light Patron mixes it's focus on illusions and "x-beam" spells like color spray and moonbeam. They gain a resource called "Light Dice" which can be used in various ways, including buffing force or radiant damage with them. They might make a decent Bladelock or Tomelock.
The Items section has a number of playful and entertaining weapons and armor. Most have interesting effects, like the Frog Plate, a +1 plate armor that gives water breathing, jump, and the ability to cast polymorph on yourself into the shape of a Giant Frog. There also is the single best potion ever, the Pickled Pixie Potion, an alcoholic beverage filled to the brim with tiny Fey. You throw the "potion", they spill out, and begin casting randomly at anyone within 20 feet of them. Glorious. There's also a sentient blade that will try to control you (or at least influence you like a toxic teacher would), an elegant rapier that can restrain a foe or light them the fuck up, or a shield that can be used to heal but eats the soul of those nearby who die, and DOUBLE eats the soul of a wielder who dies while using it. Groovy stuff.
The final section of the book is a module designed for 3rd to 5th parties, the Palace of Shade. If you remember The Adventure Zone's Groundhog Day arc, this will sound familiar. The adventurers are spirited away to a masquerade ball by the Tallison Vos, the eldest Fey in the court. As it happens, someone has planted a bomb in the party, and at midnight it will explode, blasting the adventurers back to 8pm, walking through the doors to the party. The plot is a closed circle, but unlike a lot of timeloop adventures it throws in a wrinkle with multiple possible identities for the villain (a shapeshifter impersonating one of six court members, with the suggestion that in any given loop they impersonate from a group of three of those). Essentially, this is a murder mystery mixed with Groundhog Day. It requires the type of GM who can navigate A Rough Night at Three Feathers with panache and style, but if you like Timeloops this is a good adventure for that.
In conclusion, Faerie Fire is what I would call the platonic ideal of a general supplement. It doesn't reinvent the wheel, no new mechanics, but does add some interesting NPCs, Nasty Beasties, and powerful Items that will fit into your average D&D campaign without much need for adjustments.
This is a 5/5 for me. This is one of the best third party supplements, doing exactly what it promises to do and gives GM's a resource for a Fey court that feels more weird and wonderful then just more Tolkien elves but more dickish. Buy it.
I often in casual conversation say that 5e Dungeons and Dragons is the closest the game has gotten to 2e Advanced Dungeons and Dragons under WoTC. The systems aren't compatible or anything, but stylistically.
That being said, for true AD&D flavor, one look no further then Castles & Crusades. It was one of the last systems worked on by Gary Gygax, and it feels like the AD&D ruleset.
I am not going to be talking about Castles & Crusades today, but rather, the 5e Players Guide to Aihrde. Produced by Troll Lord Games, PGA is an attempt to bring over Aihrde's flavor to 5e.
MASKED REVIEWS:PLAYERS GUIDE TO AIHRDE
5e Players Guide to Aihrde was a 2019 release. Cover art was drafted by Jason Walton, interior art is Jason Walton and Peter Bradley. The book was written by Stephen Chenault and Jason Vey, with 5e conversion done by Jason Vey and "Big" Tom Smith, edited by Rus Wornum.
First off, this book is a conversion book, which means the product it has the most in common with is Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron. There is recycled art, there are concepts from C&C that don't perfectly align with 5e that are imported, there are lore changes (most notably, equating 5e's Dragonborn with C&C's Dragonmen) trying to fit square pegs in round holes. Conversions have to make decisions, even when converting things that have the same ancestor, sometimes the result is a mule.
Secondly, when it says Players Guide, it means Players Guide. No new monsters. There's a handful of new weapons (The Khopesh, blackpowder weapons), rules for psionics and rune magic, and some new ways of using inspiration points. Other then that, this book has lore and it has archetypes.
Chapter 1: The Races of Aihrde
The first thing this book tells us is to ignore the setting assumptions in the PHB, but expect stats and bonus to be the same. It says that Drow don't exist in Aihrde, or if they do they've never been seen. Tieflings may or may not exist, but they won't have a real culture in Aihrde. Half-elves are untouched from the PHB version.
Dwarves are the eldest race in this setting. We're given an oral history, a list of the existing and destroyed dwarf kingdoms, and a new subrace, the Heisen Fodt, who gain arcane magic resistance.
Elves get a similar write up, and four new subraces because that what elves do. Blood Elves get the CHA bonus and vampiric draining for temp HP; Mist Elves get INT and stealth prof and Natural Explorer for woods; Twilight Elves get WIS and two weapon fighting and some illusion magic; and Wild Elves get STR and prof in Survival and Nature and Mounted Combatant.
Gnomes get a shorter write up, although they still get a new subclass. Hugrin Dun get Animal Empathy, +1 on melee atk rolls vs Goblins and Kobolds, and advantage on Perception checks using hearing.
Dragonborn have been entirely replaced with the Dragonmen of Kaath, trading their STR bonus for a CHA. Dragonmen are obviously expies of the bad guys from Dragonlance. They have wings and limited flight, remaining airborne equal to a number of minutes equal to their CON bonus.
Goblins are a PC race here, original and not based on the version from Volos. They have two subraces, common and eldritch. They're treated Always Chaotic Evil. Goblins have Dex +2, Darkvision, Nature Survival mason/carpenter tool profs, scimitar and shortbow prof, and Nimble Escape. Common Goblins get Wis +1 and Stealth. Eldritch Goblins get Cha +1, regen 1 hp per hour and cannot permanently die under normal circumstance (but can't be healed except by druids), and gain a unique DM granted bonus and weakness (examples include ability to warp wood, but will instantly die if killed via crit by a bow; or can cast inflict wounds a number of times equal to Charisma mod but can be hurt or killed by healing magic). Basically, Eldritch Goblins are a joke race.
Halflings are a dying race. They live as nomads in dangerous lands. Adventurer Halflings are probably the sole survivors of their kith or group. Their new subrace, Nomad Halfling, gets a WIS increase, stealth prof, and replace Lucky with advantage on CON saves.
Half Orcs are noted to be rare, only existing in the borderlands and in such small numbers they don't really have their own culture. Typical.
Next up is Men. Humans have a diverse set of groups, none of which have any statistical differences. There are five main tribes, and eight smaller tribes, including some with unusual colors like the Oanthul, blue skinned and hairless humans.
Chapter Two: Aihrdian Class Options
Felon Noch Barbarians are a halfling specific class. They are a stealthy barbarian, with abilities to mimic animal noises and can pick a ranged weapon to get advantage on attack rolls with. Honestly it feels more appropriate as a ranger, all things considered.
Crna Ruk Bards are assassin bards. They get prof in alchemist tools, herbalism kit, and poisoners kit and use bardic inspiration to get spell slots back. They can also become a shadow, slipping under door slits, which is fucking metal.
Warrior Poet Bards are similar to other melee combat bards. They can use Bardic Inspiration to give allies immunity to Fear and later Frighten their enemies.
Creation Domain Clerics get a bunch of bonus while using Conjuration spells. Lame.
Dream Domain Clerics seem like a Face. They get prof in Insight and Persuasion, and can frighten enemies with their channel divinity. They also get access to the entirety of either the divination, enchantment, or illusion school at 8th level.
Ice Domain Clerics have a neat trick, where their domain spells that would normally do fire damage instead do ice damage. They're a pretty one trick pony, but Ice resistance is relatively rare.
Justice Domain Clerics are an "almost paladin" cleric, even gaining access to the entire line of Smite spells eventually. They also eventually get a permanent Zone of Truth effect they can choose to turn on/off at will.
Soul Domain Clerics are evil Clerics that drain souls. They shut down targets by draining their Constitutions in exchange for fuel for their spells. You can also do this to your allies, and they even roll at disadvantage because you have a closer personal connection. Evil classes suck.
Hugrin Dun Circle Druids are a throwback to old school druids. They can craft poisons and anti-toxins, and gain the ability to wild shape into Elementals as 6th level, and an elemental immunity at 10th.
Cult of the Sword Fighters are about helping allies. They get a bunch of skills at 3rd. 7th gives them an ability to boost an allies combat ability for a round. Their actually kinda weak, all things considered.
Heisen Fodt are a dwarf specific fighter class. They get +1 to AC and a CON boost, resist conventional damage, can choose to take disadvantage on the first round of combat against a foe to gain advantage and extra damage for the rest of combat, and shield attacks.
High Elf Blade Mages are an alternate Eldritch Knight.
Vale Knights are anti-magic fighters. Honestly, they feel like they should have been translated as a paladin or ranger. They get favored enemies and access to smite.
Lothian Monks gain healing and the ability to defend allies. It's final ability is a "Why Are You Hitting Yourself" that allows you to redirect an attackers strike on an ally back on themselves.
Oath of the Confessor Knight strikes fear into the hearts of evil, and can also turn non-Crits into Crits once a day.
Oath of the Goblin Reavers feel like a certain anime character who shall remain nameless. They can Channel Divinity to make goblinoids fear or Slayers Prey them.
Oath of the Holy Defenders of the Flame give purging flames and an aura of Protection from Good and Evil. They also can choose to ignore a killing blow and turn it back on the creature that did it, meaning this paladin might actually be okay to skimp on CON to get some usage out of it.
Oath of the Knights of Haven protect the weak. They can grant additional AC to injured allies and get advantage vs evil enemies with channel divinity.
Watcher in the Woods Rangers are essentially Druid Rangers, they get the Druid spell list and Wildshape.
Crna Ruk Assassin Rogues are the midpoint between Assassins and Arcane Tricksters. They pull from the Warlock spell list and cast with Charisma. Like the bard Crna Ruk, these are nasty boys.
Fiendish Bloodline Sorcerers can command fiends at higher levels.
Ornduhl Bloodline Sorcerers are tied to the previously mentioned Eldritch Goblin. They get additional spells and force undead to fail saving throws against your spells.
Deeper Dark Sorcerers are soul mages, just like Soul Domain clerics. It honestly fits here better.
Deeper Dark Warlocks also get the Soul magic power. It's much the same in what is special.
Rune Mark Warlocks are greatly altered from the base, almost being a unique class. They get access to Rune Magic, replacing Pact Boons and expanded spells. Warlocks gain new Runes when they would normally get an eldritch invocation or by finding new ones while adventuring. Focus on Cha and Int for them.
Nebian Magi are alternate Conjuration Wizards. They get shadow walking and gain temp HP from teleporting
Umbra Path Wizards are basically the Wizard equivalent for an Ice Domain cleric. They get to choose a damage type and convert any spell using that damage type to ice.
Soul Magi get Soul Magic. Again, the rules are similar to all the previous times Soul Magic has shown up: Recover Spell Slots and Increase Spell Power via draining Con.
Chapter Three: New & Alternate Rules
Most of the rules here are adding rules from C&C. Intelligence score grants bonus languages, for example, just like the old days. The Khopesh is added here, a 1d8 slashing/bludgeoning weapon with the Finesse property. Crit misses cause the weapon to drop from the character's hand. Crits with bludgeoning weapons break bones if the character ain't wearing plate. A long list of bar brawl rules. Inspiration Points as a Fate Point like resource. Some of these might be useful, others, not so much.
Chapter Four: Magic of Aihrde
Soul Magic gets an in-depth write up. It shows the differences between the different caster classes' versions of Soul Mage. Not the biggest fan, especially since the cost of Soul Magic is 1d4 levels of exhaustion for the Soul Mage and any of their victims.
Rune Magic has a much longer write up, because it's essentially an entirely new magic system. Runes are divided into various subcategories, like how magic goes to Divination or Enchantment or whatever. Most runes are utility, become invisible, learn the composition of an object. Then there are combat ones like the Rune of Unmaking, which at 1st level deals 1d8 damage to a 5'x5' sq within 10' of the caster, and deals 6d8 to a 60'x60' sq within 120' by 12th.
New spells are brough over from C&C. Some, like Shock Bolt, are just elemental changes to existing spells. Others add some boosts, like Counter-Magic shutting down spells like Shield and Enchant Weapon or reduce enemy stats like Worm's Grace which reduces enemy's Dex.
Chapter Five: Of the Orders
This chapter focuses on the divinities of Aihrde. It's an entire creation myth, with gods and demigods who can function as the force behind a cleric or paladin. It also describes the relationship that the races have with their respective gods. As a deities book, it's not bad. Lots of domains, specific ceremonies for calling their aid, things they disdain. It's more specific then some of the first party stuff, but ultimately ancillary when one considers how little gods matter in 5e.
Chapter 6: The World of Aihrde
This has geography and the major polities. We're given the 12 months, the names of major rivers and the like, and a conversion chart between the various races calendars. This chapter doesn't have a world map, which is slightly disappointing since it's otherwise very thorough
Chapter 7: Guilds & Orders
The factions of Aihrde. The book kinda did the same thing as SCAG, making several classes tied to these factions.
Appendixes
Appendix A has the economy, names for various coins, et cetera. It also explains the rating system from Chapter 6 which determines how advanced the civilization is.
Appendix B has the days of the week, and what gods they were named for.
Appendix C has the proper names for languages and which ones are similar. Vulgate is common, a sort of trade tongue that few people write in. Dwarvish has several descendant languages, being the Latin to the various Romance languages like Goblin, Gnomish, Halfling and Giant. And so on and so forth.
Appendix D talks of Gunpowder weapons: Firearms, grenades, cannons. Gunpowder weapons jam on a 1, and have a chance of exploding if the player rolls a 12 while rolling how many rounds they will take to clear on 2d6. They have +3 versus halfplate, breastplate, and full plate. Players are given a list of them to choose from.
Appendix E is about Psionics. It adds a Feat to give psionics to randos, and the book's only new class, the Mentalist. Honestly, the Mentalist makes me want to pull my hair out. They don't really have a set stat, rather pulling from Int, Wis, or Cha depending on the skill you want to use.
Appendix F is converting 5e to C&C. This is basically doing the opposite of the rest of the book, inserting 5e stats, tool proficiencies, backgrounds, ASEs, Feats, etc into Castles & Crusades. C&C's system is a lot less complex then 5e, more based around prime requisites gained from your race and class then building elaborate skill lists, a direct rebuke to the excess of 3e. But it's been two editions since then, and a little complication can be fine.
In Conclusion
Players Guide to Aihrde is a very competently made, well illustrated, very thick tome for 5e. At the same time, it has all the flaws that comes from conversion. This is the best version of those fan works you find online that let you play a Witcher or a Jedi or whatever. Some things get lost in the mix, or in retrospect you should have tried the conversion this way instead of that. I won't say it's bad, it's just rocky in places.
If you're a C&C fan who can't get your friends to play it because they like 5e, this is a pretty good resource. If you're looking for more subclasses and spells, this is a pretty good resource. If you're looking for a product that was made out of love for 5e, this ain't it. It's a love letter to Castle & Crusades, and playing that game without playing that game. There are certain classes that require Aihrde to function, others that lack flavor or a unique hook.
As an example, compare the Felon Noch barbarian from this book to the Herculean Barbarian from Odyssey of the Dragonlords. Both feature archery class skills. But while the Herculean Barbarian gets super archery while raging, and a general thematic focus based on the feats of Hercules, the Felon Noch gets a host of abilities a ranger could also do and some skill proficiencies. It does this to match the Felon Noch kit in C&C, rather then taking the general thematic focus, a hardscrabble barbarian who uses stealth and cunning, and writing around that to the general skill. Not all the kits are bad, I love the assassin bard who can transform into a Shadow and slip under cracks. But there are a lot that seem to be made without thinking what changes in translation. And for a book that is ALL ABOUT those subclasses, that devotes a sizable amount of it's page count to those subclasses, it dings the score when there is a lot of flavor that is devoted to adding skill proficiencies and nickel bonuses.
This book is a sale pickup in my opinion.
3/5 Castles and Crusades. Good art, good lore, some good rules, a mixed bag on the meat of the book.
Continuing my trend of third party 5e products (I'm currently running a 5e game and have been consulting a lot of these for unusual monsters and spells to throw at my players), lets contrast last week's book, which was converting existing material into 5e, with a book that was written for 5e. I make the comparison because the book I'm about to review is also mostly subclasses, spells, and various other player facing things.
MASKED REVIEWS: COMPENDIUM OF FORGOTTEN SECRETS AWAKENING
The Compendium of Forgotten Secrets is written by William Hudson King, founder of Genuine Fantasy Press. Art is by Julijana Mijailovic, Nicholas Espinzoa, Vincent Van Hoof, Alejandro Arevalo, Ben Jan, Simon Tjong, Lidija Raletic, and William H. King. This book can be bought as a hardback or pdf from the Genuine Fantasy Press webstore, and a free pdf version.
First off, were it not for the third party 5e stamp on the cover, I would not cotton this as a third party product. It is extremely professionally made, the art is of a similar quality to the WotC books. The presentation is VERY good. The in-character blurbs are from two adventures who found the Compendium itself, reminding me of Volo and Elminster's back in forth in Volo's Guide. Sylvette is educated and proper, while X seems more rough around the edges. They're actually pretty funny with their short digressions.
So what is the Compendium Forgotten Secrets? It's a book of Warlock patrons. The book presents 17 new Patrons, with each also having a second subclass for one of the other classes, and a familiar. Some also have a template that can be used as a subrace. As an example, The Gelatinous Convication Patron is the extradimensional origin of oozes. It's secondary subclass is for wizards, the Esoteric Plasmology, and it's specialized familiar is the Wiggly Cube. Players can become oozians, beings of pure joy.
There is also the usual array of new spells here, and piles of lore for these new patrons. This is the biggest difference from WotC, as WotC generally is fairly barebones with it's patrons to allow player creativity. Most of these patrons have more in common with the official Raven Queen patron, a specific pact with a specific being that you'll have to share with your GM.
Lets get into Specifics. Note, because there is a free version of this, I can get into more specifics then I normally do.
The Accursed Archive is a massive, malevolent, extradimensional library. It is filled with ancient and terrible lores, and it's fair share of tentacled horrors lurk deeper in.
A Warlock of the Accursed Archive gets access to an expanded spell list which includes some of the book's original spells, including one which allows you to replicate any spell from a lower spell slot for the price of a 1-in-20 chance of being struck dead, and the ability to create a pillar covered in eldritch knowledge that will cause whichever creatures look upon it to be struck blind for a minute if they fail their save. They gain the ability to instantly travel to the Accursed Archive at 1st level, although time stops outside of it until you return and you can't rest or heal there. At 6th, they can pull a Heaven's Door on a creature they can touch, paralyzing them and revealing their darkest secrets by pealing back their skin to reveal pages in their book. At 10th, they can pick a new spell that's not a cantrip and under 4th level and cast it as a Warlock spell. And at 14th, you can reveal the true nature of the Accursed Archive, forcing any enemy in earshot that fails it's save to confusion while giving four of your allies access to one of your damaging spells to cast as a reaction, right then. Four simultaneous eldritch blasts, imagine it. There are five new Eldritch Invocations, one for each pact boon, plus an AC bonus one and an Eldritch Blast modifier that seems kinda bad. I guess they all can't be winners.
The Path of the Accursed is a Barbarian path for the Archive. It's someone who has gone berserk from their exposure to the archive. Their Rage modifier requires Charisma for it's special feature (making creatures nearby make fear tests), but tries to make up for it by allowing you to sub in your Cha for Intelligence rolls. Eh. The real treat is at higher levels, as they can drag a number of creatures equal to their CHA modifier towards them when they enter a rage, meaning they are perfect for battlefield control. By the end, they are transforming into one of the tentacle monsters of the Archive I mentioned earlier, able to use their tentacles whenever they drop an enemy to 0.
The book gives some RP advice for the Archive, including how to reflavor it's mechanics for a less malevolent library patron. It also gives a quick 3d8 table for random book titles your character finds while exploring the shelves, and some Archive magical items like the Ink Razor, a magical dagger that gives disadvantage on saves vs spells. I should note here I am planning on playing an Archive Patron warlock in a future Ghosts of Saltmarsh game, so I'll write my thoughts on that then.
The Ashen Wolf is a primal spirit of fire and the hunt. It's more ambiguously evil compared to the Archive, but still a creature of ruin.
Ashen Wolf Patron warlocks get access to a concentration spell that gives you advantage on Athletics checks and saving throws vs exhaustion and difficult terrain (1st), another that summons fire elementals in the shape of wolves (4th), and a spell that turns an enemy into the centerpoint of a flaming wave that damages them and anyone around them (or you can cast it on an ally, and if they attack they aren't subject to the damage) (5th). At 1st level, they get a fire breath attack like a red dragonborn. 6th, they mark an enemy to remove fire resistance, and at 10 fire immunity. 14th, you can choose to take on the appearance of your patron for one minute and get escorted by hell hounds which obey your commands and defend you if you're dropped. Once more, they get five new Eldritch Invocations, one for each pact boon, one that gives you the ability to cast a damaging cantrip as a bonus action if you crit or drop an enemy, and another that gives you temp HP if you spend a reaction absorbing incoming fire damage.
Ashen Lineage Sorcerers get an array of fire spells for their origin spells. You know the ones. At 1st level, when they are below max HP they grow claws and fangs that deal 1d8+CHA MOD damage in a melee spell attack (this goes up to 2d8 at 11th). They also can get resistance (later immunity) to fire damage if they drop below half health, and learn Primordial. At 6th level, if they kill an enemy with their 1st level ability, they gain temp hp and can spend a sorcery point to boost AC to 17. This class is a melee sorcerer, a real nasty one. Their 18th level ability I can only describe as a Dragoon's Jump, launching themselves into the air and landing somewhere within 60 ft. If they kill an enemy on the drop, the enemy's ashes become an obedient hell hound who spends the next three days being a good doggy before disappearing.
Both Ashen Wolf classes fill roles that are sorely missing from the PHB. Between the summoning the Warlock does and the Sorcerer going full "RIP AND TEAR" with their bare hands, they seem like a fun take on close range spell casting.
The Blackthorn Grove is a hidden at the center of a maze that summons the lost, the dying, the broken. Those who make it past the maze and the fields, may replace their rotting heart with that of the Blackthorn.
Blackthorn Patron Warlocks have access to a bunch of original spells, along with a couple druid spells. At 1st level, when they fail a death save they gain the ability to attempt to drain life from nearby hostile creatures, allowing them to get back up. At 6th, they get a reaction boost to Int, Wis, or Cha saving throws. At 10th, they gain an ability version of Warding Bond that is based on who is close to you. Finally, at 14th level, if your 1st level ability fails, you create a hedge maze in a 30 ft radius around you which drinks the blood of anyone caught in it. This is a sin-eater type subclass, based entirely around taking damage for your allies and using powerful attacks when you should be out of the fight. At the same time, this kind of class has a bad habit of dying from their own abilities.
Blackthorn Lineage for Sorcerers also have access to Druidic spell lists, greatly expanding options for the sorcerer. When they cast with a spell slot, they roll xd10 (with x as the level of the spell) and if a creature within 30 ft has less HP then the result, they get hit with Sleep. At 6th level, they can spend sorcery points to gain temp hp equal to half the damage they deal with a druid spell. At 14th, they ignore difficult terrain and the effects of spells like Entangle, and can use their bonus action to do additional damage to targets that don't fall asleep from their ability. At 18th, they make 30 ft of difficult terrain around them when using a concentration spell. This sorcerer subclass is all about putting up barriers around them, from their spell list to their ability to knock out weakened enemies while casting. Pretty much the opposite of their Warlock counterpart, it's incredibly survivable a great for slowing down swarms.
The Currency Conspiracy is Capitalism. They are an extra planar faction that wishes to bring the concept of trading and currency to every plane in the multiverse. These are the money boys.
Conspiracy Warlocks have a mixture of spells for controlling people and creating areas people cannot enter. At 1st level, they gain the ability to exchange any type of currency for an equal amount of any other type. When they kill an enemy with a warlock spell or get a creature to swear an oath of loyalty to them, they gain Gilt, a sort of soul currency, equal to the creature's max HP, which they can use instead of material components of equal value. At 6th, they can spend Gilt to become invisible to creatures that are more then 10 ft away when using the Hide action. At 10th, you can manipulate someone using your Gilded Coin. At 14th, you can spend Gilt to erase the memories of any number of creatures within 60 ft of you, basically neuralizing them. This type of Warlock is a Face. They're manipulators with a bunch of great abilities for characters leaning away from Lawful Good.
Oath of Avarice Paladins are about two steps away from swearing the Orange Lantern oath. As a channel divinity, they can coat themselves in Gold, giving temp HP and giving enemies that hit them while they're golden disadvantage as the gold sprays them. They also can summon a construct that doesn't do much. At 7th level, they get an aura that essentially gives everybody under it's umbrella temp hit points whenever one person gets temp hp, meaning Heroism or False Life might be a good pick for a spell in the party. At 15th level, the paladin can steal an item/weapon from a foe during an unarmed strike (a bunch of odd choices there, but okay), save vs spell save DC. As a capstone, the Avarice paladin calls in all the debts they are owed and for one minute: gain 20 temp HP every round, can make weapon attacks with weapons they steal, and blind foes with how much bling they have. For an "It's All About Me" Paladin, they are surprisingly group friendly, Aura of Investment is nice for keeping allies up on temp hp.
The Eternal Citadel is a plane hopping Bastion that is kind of the equal and opposite of the Archive. It seeks to preserve the planes, and kidnaps people to force them to swear an oath to assist it in it's endeavor. Like if Doctor Who was just the TARDIS.
Citadel Warlocks have a spell list that consists of defensive abilities such as stoneskin and tiny hut. At 1st level, they use their reaction to reduce damage on allies. At 6th level, after taking a hit they can make themselves immune to that damage type. At 10th level, they learn 2 spells with the word "Wall" in them that aren't Wall of Force. At 14th level, they stop aging and don't require sustenance, and can create what I can only describe as an orbital laser that only hits creatures, not structures. This is for the most part a support Warlock, building walls around allies. That last ability hits like a truck though, and their Blade specific Invocations turn them more into a melee tank, gaining shields and adding their CHA mod to attack and damage rolls.
Timeless Monumental is a Fighter archetype that essentially gradually transforms you into an animate marble statue as you level up. At 3rd, your character loses any scars or deformities and becomes Adonis like in appearance for permanent advantage on Persuasion and Performance, while also stopping enemies that enter a 10 ft radius unable to move past you unless they make a wis save vs 8+Prof+Cha. At 7th level, you stop needing air or food or water or sleep (although you can't do more then light activity during a short or long rest). At 10th level, you are immune to aging and autostabilize when dropped. At 15th, enemies you hit can't move further then 10 ft from you on their turn unless you move, screwing over more mobile creatures a lot. At 18th level, you use a reaction to teleport to an ally to intercept an attack on them from another creature. If you're using the alternate rules that give all fighters maneuvers, they get a couple. All in all, this is a mixture of face and fighter, with some defender abilities late.
The Fallen Exile is a tragic figure, a star passed between planes seeking it's true love, not knowing that finding that love would destroy it. Now, it seeks revenge on those that killed it's love.
Fallen Exile Warlocks have a star themed menagerie of spells, like Color Spray and Daylight. At 1st level, they can choose to shoot their 1+ spells from an ally or enemy. At 6th, the Warlock picks two Arcana, gaining some nickel bonuses (Dash as a bonus action after attacking, Add Prof to Death Saves, et cetera). At 10th, they can exchange those Arcana on a long rest. At 14th, they get to pick two dime bonuses and can exchange them. I should note, they have Wish as a 20th Level invocation. I'm not the biggest fan of this type of subclass, but it does have WONDERFUL flavor.
Way of the Black Star is a monk tradition in the vein of Starfinder's Solarian. They gain the ability to turn their ki into a weapon made from Void, and gain access to a crapton of original spells over the course of their levels. They also eventually get advantage on checks and saves after reducing an enemy's HP to zero. Honestly, the utility of this one is dependent on whether your DM lets you make Unarmed Strikes while also wielding a lightsaber.
The Forbidden Graveyard is the obligatory Undead adjacent patron. Not much else to say, this is actually one of the more common archetypes in fan works.
Graveyard Warlocks get a original healing spell (Mend Flesh) that lets you stitch back on limbs that get cut off right off the back, and the rest of their spells have a spooky feel like phantasmal killer. At 1st, they add their CHA mod to Death Saves and are immune to abilities that drop their HP max. At 6th, as a reaction they can deal cold damage to an attacker, and if that kills the attacker they get temp HP. At 10th, they get temp HP when a hostile undead drops in their presence, and immunity to Save or Die effects (what few there are in 5e). At 14th, they get immunity to aging, charmed and frightened statuses, and the ability to use their reaction to store damage an enemy creature takes for a minute, at which point double that damage hits the creature all at once. I don't know how often that will come up since most fights end before 10 rounds have passed. Graveyard Warlocks are all about self buffs and defense. It's a very survival oriented class.
Graverobbers are a rogue archetype. At 3rd level, they can heal adjacent allies and seal enemy creature's souls into objects, which they can then unbind to attack enemies or teleport. At 9th, they can use Speak With Dead on bound souls. At 13th, the rogue gets Animate Dead, and use their bonus action to give their minions 30 ft of movement, no opportunity attacks. At 17th level, they can bind a soul from the Graveyard every time they hit an enemy they mark. Necromancer Rogue is a strange combo, and it doesn't do anything with Sneak Attack, but a Rogue's high damage output mixed with how it works means you'll be dropping foes one round and gutting their buddies with a sword animated by their soul the next, which is definitely a fun idea.
The Gelatinous Convention, as I previously noted, is where all those slimes come from. They seek memories, experiences, and most of all to spread contentment and cheer.
Gelatinous Warlocks start with Grease and Hideous Laughter, and that pretty much defines their line up. At 1st level, they gain the ability to access a corpse's last 48 hours memories by dissolving them into slime and then reabsorb them, along with the ability to speak with oozes and don't take acid damage from friendly oozes. At 6th level, they can break apart into a swarm of Tiny Oozes, gaining resistances to normal damage types and the ability to squeeze through 1 inch cracks but being unable to attack. At 10th level, creatures trying to grapple you can take acid damage. At 14th level, you gain Charm Immunity and the ability to polymorph creatures into oozes. This seems like a hilarious class to play as, with a lot of fun abilities. SLIME-LOCK is real. It also gives this chant to say while consuming a corpse for knowledge:
Oloo! Oloo! Cubed Ones, take this body!
Oloo! Oloo! Find the eternal joy!
Oloo! Oloo! Seek the freedom from sorrow!
Oloo! Oloo! Take this discarded vessel!
Oloo! Oloo! Unite this broken shell!
Oloo! Oloo! Let us know! Let us see! Grant us this enlightenment!
Oloo! Oloo!
Esoteric Plasmology is a wizard tradition. You can become vaguely luminous, and gain an ooze form that gives you advantage on Charisma and disadvantage on Wisdom. At 6th level, whenever you cast a spell, a 5 ft slime cube in front of you can form, granting half cover with HP equal to your wizard level and AC 6. The cube can grapple adjacent creatures. At 10th level, any Instantaneous area effect spells can be granted ooze, making the terrain they affect difficult and deal 1d6 acid damage to any critter that ends their turn there. At 14th level, you can add your proficiency bonus to any skill or ability check. A Nickelodeon wizard is actually pretty fun, albeit they will make a mess of any area you fight, so hopefully it isn't in a king's chamber.
The Gray PortraitPatron is like the Hexblade, a font of power taking the form of a perfect portrait. It's essentially a Picture of Dorian Gray reference.
The Gray Portrait Warlock gets a decent array of expanded spells, color spray, sanctuary. At 1st level, they get their portrait. The portrait has HP and all that, and can be used as a conduit for spells like Revivify and Raise Dead AND take status effects for them, but if it is destroyed and they are killed they can only be revived with wish. At 6th level, if a target succeeds a saving throw vs one of their warlock spells, the warlock learns their Ability Scores and gains advantage on ability checks and saving throws associated with the highest of those scores. At 10th level, the warlock can create a Mario style portrait portal, creating a static diorama that makes an excellent hiding place if people are searching for them. At 14th, they can reshape non-magical objects whenever they cast a warlock spell, like turning a diamond into a ruby or crates into chairs. As a side note, Bladelocks can make pact weapons out of paper.
The College of Portraiture is a bard college. 3rd level, they no longer need to sleep and can create materials for art supplies. Any art that you make during your short/long rest you can breath life into. That's right, we're going full Relm. Most of the upgrades increase the utility of your "portrait-soldiers". At 6th, you gain the ability to use your reaction to give them Opportunity attacks. At 14th, you double the amount you can bring to life and gain the ability to sacrifice your HP to give them temp HP or sacrifice their lives to give yourself temp HP. 5e doesn't have that much in the way of pet classes (Beastmaster Ranger and Circle of Shepherd Druid), so it's good for another class to fill the slot.
The Keeper Of The Depths feels like an alternate take on the Great Old One Patron. It could also work as a patron for a servant of Umberlee or Uka'toa (uka'toaaaaa), as it's all about the depths.
Keeper Warlock spells are take it or leave it early on, sleep and identify, but it gets some nasty original spells that are save or suck later on. At 1st level, they get two flexible proficiencies that you can change on a long rest and a swim speed. At 6th level, they can cause a flying or swimming enemy to sink like a stone. At 10th, you get a panic button that cause enemies close by to save vs frightened. At 14th, you summon your patron to attempt to swallow enemies whole in a nasty save or suck attack. Invocations are pretty normal for this kind of thing, the best one causes disadvantage on concentration checks.
Dream Cartography is a wizard tradition that is based on dreams, with the ADDED bonus that they can cast in pitch darkness. Their 2nd level bonus adds an effect to a spell based on the type of spell it was (number of uses equal to your Int mod). 6th level, if they are casting in darkness they can teleport using their dreamscape. At 10th, they can access their dream spellbook in dim light too, and cast from any point that is in dim light or darkness. At 14th, whenever they cast a non-cantrip, they can have an eldritch monster eat the dreams of a nearby humanoid creature (it could be you if you don't have any other possible targets). It's a wizard, the 14th level thing is only useful if you're fighting humanoids, not dragons or giants or whatever.
The Perfect Chord is the sound of creation. Whether it's Ao or Aslan or whatever, it's the remnants of the music of the universe.
Chordlocks are filled with thunder spells and sound effecting ones. At 1st level they get prof in Performance and all instruments, and they ignore somatic components when there is a verbal component and no material component involved. If a 1+ spell ONLY has a verbal component, they get temp HP from casting it. At 6th level, they can either give an ally double movement speed or make an enemy save vs being knocked prone by harmonizing. At 10th level, they gain thunder resist and the ability to mimic speech and vocalizations. At 14th, they get to pick an effect (it's a long rest ability, they get to pick again tomorrow): Every friendly creature in a mile gets advantage on CHA checks and the ability to summon food/drink and cast your cantrips; Creatures of your choosing within 120 ft can either spend their reaction to drop what they're holding to take hold their ears or take 8d10 thunder damage and deafness; Every hostile creature within 60 ft make a CHA save or be frightened of you and your allies; Each creature within 60 ft of you can use their reaction to cheer, giving you temp HP equal to 10x the number of creatures cheering for 10 minutes; or each friendly creature within 60 ft can use their reaction to move up to 30 ft and make one weapon attack. They get an invocation that lets them ignore silence, one of my favorite caster blaster spells, and another that gives Irresistible Dance as a spell. This is a relatively complex warlock, but it's very flavorful and can work as support or as a mage killer.
Discordant fighters are all about turning themselves into a tuning fork. As their 3rd level ability, they can make their weapon deal thunder damage instead of it's native type, and do a spin attack hitting every creature in a 15 feet radius, and the damage for this goes up as you level up. They also get to cast Silence centered on themselves using their own heartbeat. At 7th level, they gain Intimidation proficiency and ignore disadvantage cause by a target being obscured. At 10th, you give your nearby allies resistance to thunder, and can interfere with enemy spellcasting if it has verbal components (and by interfere I mean hit them with thunder damage from your tuning fork sword). At 15th level, you can bonus action Dash and deal damage to creatures and objects adjacent when you do. At 18th, you can use your spin attack for free if your below half health and survive blows that would drop you with 1 hp. Once again, class specific maneuvers if you're using that rule swap. This Fighter is dangerous to their own allies, they want to be all on their own surrounded by enemies so they can use that spin attack. They might make a decent mage slayer with that free Silence, but mostly they are crowd control.
The Serpent Empress is like an old school Conan villain. Snakes, scantily clad pale lady, all that stuff. Perfect patron for your Yuan-Ti OC.
Serpent Warlocks have a mix of Command style spells and poison. At 1st level, they get advantage vs poison, parseltongue, and the ability to cast spells with verbal components without a nearby creature hearing. At 6th level, your hair turns into snakes, giving you advantage on perception plus darkvision and immunity to being blinded, plus the ability to charm a target for a combat round. At 10th level, you are immune to being poisoned and resistance to poison damage, and your poison attacks reduce poison immunity to poison resistance. At 14th, you paralyze with a glance (or give 3d10 psychic damage if they're immune to that). This seems to be another asshole face, mind controlling and intimidating to get their way.
Way of the Noble Serpent is a monk tradition of the Serpent Empress's royal guard. At 3rd, you can use your Dex mod for Athletics checks, and use your Flurry of Blows to grapple a creature. You can then spend a ki point to crush them in your arms as a bonus action. At 6th level, you can move your full speed while prone and are considered disengaging while prone, and can stand up as a free action and drop prone/stand using ki as a reaction. At 11th level, you get darkvision that ignores magical darkness, and can make an enemy "Trust in Meeee". At 17th, while using Stunning strike you can spend additional ki to paralyze a target (rather then "just" stun them). You also can petrify a creature by spending ki after a crit, with it being permanent if you concentrate for a minute. Grapple monk is an awesome concept, and that last ability is almost as nasty as the Open Palm's as petrification is one of those status effects that can really fuck over even powerful foes.
The Shadowcat is creature of fate and punishment, an extradimensional creature that has it's own demiplane called the Inverse.
Shadowcat Warlocks are stealthy boys, with a spell list that is all about not being seen (and yet doesn't have Pass Without A Trace, weird). It's 1st level ability gives you advantage on Stealth checks and the ability to teleport to within 10 ft of a creature within 60 ft you can see, and if you hurt that creature during the first round of combat they get hit with extra damage and lose the ability to speak. At 6th level, you can curse an enemy to have a 1-in-6 chance of their roll turning into a 1. 10th, you can use a reaction to just not have to make a Dex save (1 per short rest, natch). 14th, you can no longer be surprised, your first level ability can be used no cost, and anything that gets within 10 ft of you has to make a save vs Fear. This is a warlock version of a rogue, you ARE the night, you ARE batman.
Path of the Mercurial Barbarians are real sons of bitches. You get a rictus grin while raging, and can use your reaction to move and turn invisible while raging. When your rage ends, you can force an enemy to grin like you were, breaking concentration on spell casters. At 6th level, you can teleport while raging every time you drop a creature. At 10th level, you get Enlarge/Reduce, even while raging. At 14th, your grin stays visible while you are invisible, forcing WIS saves or be forced to attack you. It's a charm effect though, so if they have immunity.... Anyways, in case you didn't notice, this Barbarian is based on the Cheshire Cat, which is amazing. Also, tell me "The Barbarian is Invisible" isn't a pants rending statement.
The Storm Lord is an eastern style dragon, like the one from Dragon Ball. It is not to be confused with Kord, who ALSO is called the Storm Lord in Exandria.
Storm Warlocks have weather themed spells like Fog Cloud and Call Lightning, with some original spells filling out the roster. At 1st level, they can call on their patron's majesty, forcing nearby creatures to bow (read: fall prone) in front of you. At 6th level, you ignore fog, mist, smoke, rain or anything else that causes obscured sight, and gain advantage vs gases or winds or other phenomena of that sort. They also give disadvantage on non-magical ranged attacks while dashing. At 10th level, when dealing lightning or thunder damage, they can use their bonus action to teleport next to their target. At 14th level, you get the ability to make a line attack with a 300 ft range, dex save. It hits pretty hard, 3x your warlock level on a failed save. Invocations include Fly for free at 15th level and the ability to strike 0 hp creatures with lightning to hit whoevers around them. This is a bit of a gish build, 1st level gives control, 6th defense, 10th mobility, 14th blaster. It's all thematically correct, but doesn't really focus on one thing.
The College of Harbingers is a martial bard, like Valor and Blade bards before them. 3rd level, they get proficiency in martial weapons and history. Also, use your Bardic Inspiration to make enemies go prone if hit with an attack before your next turn. 6th level, THUNDERSTRUCK. It's all right. Resist Thunder/Lightning damage, permanent Feather Fall, jump increased, if you attack an enemy after jumping it deals 1d10 extra thunder damage and pushes the target. 14th, immunity to Fear, drop to 1 HP instead of 0, gain advantage on attack rolls/ability checks/saving throws til end of next turn, allies can spend their reaction to also get the boost. Harbingers won't win a straight fight with a Blade bard, but I could see them being very useful in an airship campaign, able to jump from ship to ship before casting thunderwave.
The Warrior-Saint is a rare Lawful Good Patron, a powerful force for justice in the multiverse.
Warrior Saint Warlocks get a couple smites and basically become psuedo-paladins. At 1st level, they can replace advantage rolls with 3d12 drop lowest. At 6th, your pact boon gives you a boost, all three boosts are based around disrupting spellcasting in someway. At 10th level, you get extra, ethereal arms like you're Asura. The extra arms can do somatic components and let you use your 1st level skill on strength saves if you don't have disadvantage. At 14th, more pact boon specific boosts. At this point, a Pact of the Blade warlock can wear heavy armor, make a second attack with a bonus action after casting cantrip, and make an enemy spell caster point their single target spells at someone else. The invocations all aim for either the Warrior or the Saint bit.
Oath of Judgement Paladins are the sworn servants of the Warrior-Saint. They fight extradimensional threats and maintain balance in the planes. Their Channel Divinities, As Above and So Below, summon energies from the higher and lower planes respectively. At 7th level, you get an aura that makes spell attacks on your allies get disadvantage. At 15th level, when you divine smite, you can also push a creature up to 15 feet back. At 20th level, you gain the standard paladin supermode, resist all damage, ignore resistances and immunity, use your reaction to cast a spell that hit you right back at the soft mage that just made a huge mistake, and teleport instead of move. This subclass likes to flip off mages before beating them up for their lunch money.
The Weaver of Lies really explains it all with the name. It's a spider freak, maybe even THE spider freak if you want to give Lolth warlocks.
The Weaver Warlock gets a spider themed expanded spell list. 1st level, prof in Deception, and you can get Temp hit points by deceiving out of combat. 6th level, use your reaction to cover a foe that hit you with poisonous spiders. 10th level, you can't suffer disadvantage on saving throws. 14th level, take "total and precise control of the ensnared creature." This ain't a charm effect, it's a dominate effect AND seeing through their eyes. The invocation include making your allies immune to webs, bind targets hit by your area effect spells, make a silver finesse weapon for your pact weapon. I wouldn't exactly call this a face, but it can act as one. Really, it's battlefield control
Spidertouched are a rogue archetype all around being spiders. 3rd level, Deception proficiency and net proficiency, create webs with your fingers that can make a Mission Impossible mask or a 50 ft rope or a net. Also, change sneak attack damage to poison. 9th level, get a climbing speed, immune to webs. 13th level, use your bonus action to throw your net and suspend them in the air. 17th level, immune to being knocked prone, while you are prone you can move full speed and don't have disadvantage on attack rolls while prone, and attackers don't gain advantage while you are prone. For some reason when I read this class's gimmick, I keep hearing this theme. Spider something. Does whatever a spider can.
And finally, The Wild Huntsman is an incarnation of the predatory nature of man. He demands domination of the sapient races over beasts, and sends his followers on suicidal hunts to prove it.
Huntsmen Warlocks get ranger spell list spells like Hunters Mark and Pass Without a Trace, along with a few originals. At 1st level, they get Survival proficiency, and can summon a hound to give advantage on tracking before disappearing when combat begins. They also get Bonus Action movement as long as it's toward the enemy, and if you reach the enemy they make the terrain under their quarry difficult. At 6th, they get Find Steed without expending a spell slot and the equivalent of mounted combatant. At 10th, resist cold damage (including cold weather), and SUMMON THE HOUNDS (complete with custom stat block for a swarm). At 14th, your pets also get cold resist and emit a aura that makes icy terrain around them. You can make any terrain covered in blizzard by performing a ritual after long rest (although it might take a couple tries in more temperate climates). Another pet class, this one all about a blob of hounds, counting as a large swarm. It has the same problem most pet classes do of not being great on scalability, having at most 46 hitpoints, even as a swarm. The invocations all add ice effects to one thing or another.
Hound of the Huntseman Rangers have an almost entirely original spell list. Rimesworn Blade gives a round of ice damage which then shatters and makes creatures other then you make a dex save or take piercing damage too. The spells seem decent, all in all. At 3rd level, they can choose to rip in tear with spiritual beast claws. Kill a creature with these and you gain temp hitpoints at the cost of your next action. Kind of a mixed bag. 3rd level also gives some nickel bonuses, but you don't have to pick and choose them and one lets you use Str instead of Dex for your AC, which is great since that is what your claw attack uses. 7th level, your bonus action feral attacks (a 1d12+Str attack) do max damage if they hit or give disadvantage on attacks against any foe but the one you're going after if they miss. 11th level, use your bonus action to give a creature you're attacking Fear. 15th level, you now can cannibalize your targets as a bonus action instead of wasting an action. All in all, I got mixed feelings on this one. Strength Rangers are such a rare beast, but I'm not the biggest fan of "HEY! WASTE YOUR TURN STUFFING YOUR FACE ON THE DUMBSHIT YOU SPLATTERED". Most combats only last three rounds, and if you kill a creature you either have to have movement to keep it out or accept your stuck snacking. Flavor sometimes outweighs practicality.
That puts an end to the classes, next up are the Alrisen, essentially what happens when a warlock of certain patrons BREED. They essentially act as a subrace of whatever race you pick, like instead of picking High Elf, you pick Maledicti Elf.
Maledicti are Archive touched. Str/Int boost. They have double the lifespan of their source race, resistance to necrotic damage, give disadvantage on insight checks, and have claws that deal necrotic damage.
Ashenspawn come from the Ashen Wolf. Str/Cha boost. Darkvision 30 ft. Resist Fire. Can live off of wood, metal, and raw meat.
Groveborn. Str/Wis boost. Resist Psy. Hide Action while Lightly Obscured. Nature Prof. Subsist off sunlight and blood.
Statuesque. Con/Wis/Cha Boost. Resist Radiant. History Prof. -1 to damage taken (after resist).
Luminari, startouched. Int/Wis/Cha Boost. Resist Radiant. Constellation bonus base on source race. Free Cantrip.
Oozian. Con/Dex. Talk to oozes. Resist Acid, Falling Damage. Add Cha mod to saving throws vs Fear.
Imperial, servant of the Endless Empire. Dex/Wis. Darkvision 60 ft. Add Wis to Deception checks instead of Charisma. Conceal serpent traits using concentration. Unnarmed strikes deal poison. Resist Poison.
Nocturne, Shadowcat touched. (The second Furry option). Dex/Wis. Darkvision 60 ft. Resist Psy. Prof Perception. On Long Rest, Choose Between Staying Awake (Advantage on Cha saves) or Falling Asleep (Movement Speed and Jump increase by 5, disadvantage saving against Fear), Advantage on Death Saves while not being observed.
Heraldric, reincarnations of the Storm Lord's chosen. Wis/Cha. Resist Lightning. Bonus action wings (damage to use).
Arachi, Weaver pacts. Dex/Cha. Thieves Cant. Resist Poison. Darkvision 30 ft. False Form and True Form. Cast Forget on yourself.
Most of these are pretty neat, although a couple feel like rehashes of existing races. They all make thematic sense at least, the Pacts that have Alrisen seem like the ones that WOULD create new variant races.
Optional Rules has a bunch of house rules. Long Days buff short rest classes like Warlocks or Fighters, doubling their ability uses. A lot of groups with Long Rest classes will have the wizards and clerics blow their wad then go back to bed, never getting the three short rests of an adventuring day. A Long Day assumes this, so the warlocks, fighters, and monks get double their resources. Next it gives Int and Wis based Warlock.
New Feats are mostly just minor pacts with the patrons. They give a spell and a minor effect.
New Invocations has non-Patron specific invocations. There are... a lot of them. Lots of Blade features, only a couple of Eldritch Blast modifications which is good since that gets a lot of focus already.
We now move into Lore. The different Patrons are all given relationships with one another. Most of them make sense, of course the Archive and Weaver of Lies despise each other, ones about uncomfortable truths and the other about lying. There are some starter plot lines involving the various factions, either the patrons themselves or a servant thereof.
Warlock Familiars is a list of familiars. Most already got a mention in their respective Pact of the Chain section, but here are statblocks and the like.
Next up are new spells. They are new, they are spells. Most are specific to certain patrons, some are shared like the Athletics boosting one.
Finally, the paid version has soulforged artifacts, subclasses for playing as magical weapons. It's described as being similar to a halfling being used as a baseball bat by the barbarian, while still being able to stab.
Relic Domain is a cleric domain, where you are a holy artifact. At 1st level, you are any wearable object. Any somatic component is replaced with a visual component and theres a bunch of blah de blah. Your Channel Divinity can be used as a reaction to grant your bearer AC. 6th level, after spell casting you can use a bonus action to give your bearer a fly speed. 8th level, the phantom form you project gets radiant damage. 17th level, you can spike an enemy critical hit, and if you hit the enemy that made it your attack counts as a critical hit.
Bladebound Sorcerer goes through most of the same blah. 6th level, grant bearer advantage on perception, change what weapon you are over a long rest. 14th level, give bearer advantage on Wis or Cha checks. 18th level, regain your true form, your weapon form gains fly speed.
Gunsmith Warlock Pact. Your soul is imbued in a gun. You get compelled duel which is the best spell ever for a gun. 6th level, you can shoot down incoming projectiles. 10th level, resist radiant damage, get temp HP when you kill a creature. 14th level, Weekend at Bernies a body until the next dawn.
All of these are limited, but sound like they'd be fun.
IN CONCLUSION
The Compendium of Forgotten Secrets is the good shit. Not every class within is a winner, but they are all interesting, and each picks a thematic niche and carves it right out. You probably don't need every faction for your home game, but any of the factions would fit right in, especially if you're running a more planar game, bringing back Sigil or whatever. The Alrisen are slightly unwieldy, but they too have their place. Still, the sheer amount of content here, especially since most of the player facing stuff is free, makes this a no brainer pick up.
Hey guys. Ready to continue rapidly draining my supply of 5e sourcebooks which I have something to say about? Good.
Masked Reviews: Ultimate Bestiary - Revenge of the Horde
Monster books come, monster books go. A cool bit of art and a stat block isn't exactly rocket science. That being said, occasionally, you come across something that's a little more then that.
Nord Games is what I like to think of as a bread and butter publisher. They aren't attempting to reinvent the wheel, cram a new magic system or class into 5e. Their output has consistently been high quality GM toolboxes, mostly consisting of Print-And-Play monster reference cards. Ultimate Bestiary: Revenge of the Hordeis definitely an extension of the philosophy, being a monster book designed to vary and stretch the life span of an adventurer's dearest foes: Goblins, Orcs, Kobolds, Gnolls.
This isn't unique, of course. Almost every monster book I own adds one or multiple variations on these sorts of beasties. The difference here is focusing on that, as well as offering encounter tables, sub-races, all that good stuff. The goal here is to make encounters against these fan favorite type of enemies viable throughout a campaign, as well as add variety to those type of encounters with specialist monsters.
The book is written by Ralph Stickly and Chris Haskins, with art by Konrad Krogull and Takashi Tan. It was published in 2017. The forward begins with the author's first experience DMing, and how despite best efforts he had difficulty giving his group of orcs character. Thus this book.
Going alphabetically, this book begins with Bugbears. It gives a small picture of Bugbear culture, both alone and within greater Goblinoid society. It almost feels like a PHB blurb for a player race here (foreshadowing?), with details like how Bugbear's dialect of Goblinoid is softer. Then, it gives a series of random encounter tables for various Challenge Ratings, a short foreshadow of the actual monster part of this monster book. The actual monster book part slowly ramps up the CR of the individual monsters, from a lowly CR 1/2 Bugbear Archer to the powerful CR 6 Bugbear Headman and Bugbear Shaman. Every other creature is given a short fiction in a pseudo-handwritten font, and every one of them has a d12 table that determines what ancillary tools they are carrying, a talisman here, goblin alcohol there. There's generally a couple variants of bugbear for each represented CR, so it doesn't feel like a straight buff. The Bugbear Brute might have a bugbear's stealth, but their spiked club and shield make them hardier then the similarly leveled Bugbear Hunter. Variants on the theme. After that, we get a d12 trinket table, d12 bugbear den details, and some fluff for potential bugbear tribes to use as antagonists or factions.
From here, the book continues this pattern with each of it's chosen subjects, with some variation. Gnolls are given three subraces, each treated as a separate subject. Plains Gnolls are tough and rowdy, gutter gnolls are an entire race of Trusty Patches, and Rock Gnolls are stealthy. The book ignores WotC's decision in 5e to make Gnolls essentially chaotic servitors of a Demon God, giving a similar characterization to their 4e selves. It gives that susceptibility to demonic influence to the Rock Gnolls, and even then it's a personal choice, not a matter of existence. Sapient hyenas that you can bribe, negotiate with, and have a degree of randomness on whether an encounter is a fight or a discussion are much more interesting from a play perspective then a rabid dog where the only option is to kill them. The fiction at the end even gives an example of demon possessed Gnolls that is interesting, as the clan has one demon that leaps from Gnoll to Gnoll, and even makes sure that it spends time outside of it's favorite host so that said host can maintain. Good world building.
Next up is Goblins, the first enemies of a million RPG characters. Like the gnolls, they are given subraces. Forest Goblins are cowardly trapmakers with a grudge against elves, Hill Goblins are militant blowhards who create fortified tunnels (and often recruited by Hobgoblins as cannon fodder due to their better discipline), while Cave Goblins are pale bestial creatures whose aesthetic seems inspired by Gollum and the cannibals from Bone Tomahawk. They pretty much split the stereotypes of goblins into their own little niche.
Hobgoblins don't get a split, although that makes sense as a people who are all about creating and following hierarchies, preferably with themselves at the top. The model here is the Roman Legions, which is similar to what Volo's Guide did. This book doubles down by giving most of the Hobgoblins some ability which either gives them a boost while close to allies, or boosts said allies. Compare the DMG Hobgoblin, who get a flat 2d6 to damage while near an ally, the lowly Hobgoblin Scout here get +1d4 for each ally in close proximity. Math wise it's similar, but the result is that melee Hobgoblins will group up, especially since the Grunt and Warrior Hobgoblins add in +1 AC to adjacent allies. The high level versions have damage boosting auras. It encourages the DM to treat the Hobgoblins like a professional military force who don't break ranks in the face of the party. One of the two examples at the end even shows Hobgoblins as a pure force of Law, showing a hobgoblin mercenary company hired as town guards in a wretched hive doing their job amongst the poor and the rich alike.
Kobolds, the loveable pranksters, get two variants: The Warren Kobolds and the Dragon Kobolds. The Warren Kobolds are independent but weak, following the strongest amongst their "Kings", a CR1 Kobold with 28 whole HP and multi-attack. Dragon Kobolds are tougher, but are basically a cult and likely to be crushed under the object of their devotion when the Dragon grows bored of them. The strongest of the Dragon Kobolds, the Kobold Prophet, is actually very dangerous because they raised the dragon that the Kobolds are worshipping, and have the ability to polymorph into a facade of that dragon if they feel that would be advantageous.
Ogres are a fairly common mid-level enemy, and of the groups shown here I feel have the least variety. "Ogre smash" is given variety with younger ogres and bowling ogres, but for the most part these are the type of variations on a theme that previous monster types avoided by fulfilling different roles. I did snort at the Ogre Collector, credited as the smartest Ogre because it actually wears armor, the lashed together shields and plate of it's meals.
The next chapter depicts the Okiti, a rare creature here that doesn't have a basis in 5e, instead looking over to other roleplaying games. The Okiti are ratmen, shortlived but egalitarian. They take on the usual "assassin" archetype a lot of Ratmen in fiction have, but with a kind of pirate-y flare. Maybe a reference to Reepicheep?
Next is what we've all been waiting for. Orcs. If there is an iconic creature born from the writings of Tolkien who came into their own due to roleplaying games, the Orc is it. This book was written for Orcs, it's literally called Revenge of the Horde, a term associated with Orcs. Orcs as survivalists, as berserkers, as just some rowdy boys. The orc variants here are all fun, including one that's armed with a ball in chain that can wack 2 Medium creatures in a round. Good chapter. Fun times.
Trolls is another odd fit, and this chapter is similar to the Ogre one while going in the opposite direction. Trolls are, by nature, solitary creatures, and every troll type shown is labeled Forest Troll or Mountain Troll, rather then being a stronger or specialized version of a creature type. It stands out to me BECAUSE most of the book feels like the monsters are going through an unseen version of what players do, picking a class and leveling up in ability. The Troll chapter is the only one that doesn't feel like this is what happened, instead feeling a lot like I wandered into the Troll, XXX section of any other monster book. Luckily, it's the last.
Appendix A of the book is "domesticated" creatures that the various members of the Horde might use. Trained hyenas for the Gnolls, lizard hounds for hunting and tremor crocs for burrowing new Kobold dens, war boars (or "Scrofa") that orcs use for meat and for the meat grinder, worgs (in their various life stages) for goblins and anyone else.
Appendix B is new items. Most appeared one place or another in the random tables each monster had. None are gamebreaking, a firebreath potion here, goblin liquor there, berserker brew. Stuff you'd expect in the hands of the creatures shown.
Appendix C has player race statlines for the Bugbear, Gnoll (Plains, Gutter, and Rock), Goblin (Forest and Hill), Hobgoblin, Kobolds, Okiti, and Orcs. None of these statlines reference the version Volo's Guide published. Negative stats are out, original bonuses are in. Some aren't great, the Orc's "Pain Driven" (If dropped below 1/2 HP, use a reaction for a melee attack ONCE) is underwhelming when compared with the PHB Half-Orc's Relentless Endurance (If dropped to 0 HP and not killed outright, drop to 1 instead), but not having negative Ability Score modifiers on so-called Monstrous Races is definitely a plus.
That's about it for Revenge of the Horde. So... what did we learn?
I think the first lesson is that even a monster book can have more inspiration then just the pretty pictures. That variation isn't just slapping blue paint on a monster and calling it an "Ice Orc", but maybe putting similar statblocks in different combat roles. Also, having random encounter tables that put those variants together in logical ways is also a plus. The second is that humanoid enemies can be more interesting then monsters that are further afield if they are tactically interesting.
I use this book a lot, and it raises it's score in my eyes. There are minor flaws, separating out the animals from the Horde means that you will be doing a lot of flipping, and this is basically an excuse to roll out the same creatures PCs fought at lower levels at higher levels, which could get repetitive.
4.5/5 OGRE SMASHES. Also keep an eye out for the second Ultimate Bestiary, The Dreaded Accursed, which is currently on pre-order. It focuses on horror monsters, werewolves, ghosts, ghouls.
Astrolago Press is a relatively small company, only two credits to their name, both 5e supplements funded through Kickstarter (that I backed, full disclosure). The second, Witch+Craft, is fulfilling right now
Well, that only took a little more then a month. S'all good, s'all good, there's a literally plague on. Let's talk about Witch+Craft.
MASKED REVIEWS: WITCH+CRAFT
As I mentioned in my Faerie Fire review, Witch+Craft is the second release from Canadian publishing company Astrolago Press. Like Faerie Fire, it's a combination of setting book, this time for the pastoral Cape Verdigris, and something else. The something else here is a new system to bolt onto your 5e game which can give any character the ability to make items. The reference point is Ghibli, especially Kiki's Delivery Service, where crafting magical items is more a matter of love then casting the runes as it were. The book calls this "domestic magic".
Chapter I, Domestic Magic
The book lays out it's system for crafting, which has 6 parts.
Blueprint - Determine what item you wish to create
Challenges - GM determines difficulty, ranging from Basic to Legendary
Preparation - Find knowledge, materials, assistance or other ways of making your roll easier
Craft Action - Roll the dice, using a d6 (plus more d6s for each bit of prep you did) + toolkit prof vs Difficulty set at 2
Fine Tuning - Every 1 you rolled (representing a flaw) is compared vs every 6 you rolled (boons). You can make flaws disappear by spending boons.
Appraising - GM grants the bonuses the weapon will have.
The book gives rules here for if that's all you need, Crafting Generalist. This gives you 1/2 your proficiency bonus in extra dice when making the roll. However, from here we get into the systems real meat.
Trade Classes are a second class separate from the main one. They gain a level whenever you get a proficiency bonus improvement. You pick your media first; metals, textiles, et cetera. As you level up as a crafter, you get crafting feats related to your media, and the ability to more and more 1s as you level up. This is a flexible system that allows you to simulate various careers even within the same speciality, like tailor or leatherworker or weaver all from the Textile media.
Chapter II, Cape Verdigris
Cape Verdigris is a small sandbox designed to introduce crafting to players. It has two towns (Cascade and Silverstruck), a village on Tapestry Hills, a magic school built atop a dormant volcano, and a manor house that is the subject of a longform adventure that will take characters from Level 5 to Level 9.
Chapter III, House of Plenty
House of Plenty is not a combat gauntlet or a mystery. It's a community building exercise, where the players are hired by a pair of heirs to help save their home from a robber baron. You're playing a Stardew Valley adventure or perhaps an early Atelier depending on how the GM plays it.
If there is a flaw with the adventure's opening, it's the (thankfully brief) read aloud text. Generally, read aloud text is placed in a box with a different background color to make it both stand out and make it easier to read. This is common practice, and has been since the 1990s. This book decided instead to put it's read aloud in the main paragraph, with the text itself italicized, making it harder to read as a result. The Brass siblings are dealing with their inheritance, including a wealthy investor who demands their share of what was owed by their father. The siblings, and the party, are given a year to pay off a 30,000 gp debt and repair the Brass Manor house before the debtor returns.
The adventure is broken into four parts: Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring. Summer is mostly about establishing the various characters, introducing the manor house, and solving the mystery of the earthquakes that rock the manor house. Fall is a series of small vignettes which gets the players invested in the surrounding areas. Winter features a house ghost making itself known as the party is kept indoors by heavy storms. Finally, Spring brings a confrontation with the Brass's debtor.
This adventure is loose, more about hard work and spending time with characters then swashbuckling adventure. I can't even call it a Domain campaign since like Waterdeep Dragon Heist it's about fixing the house more then getting into fights. Not exactly my cup of tea, but if you're in the mood for a domestic, fluffy campaign it might be fun.
Chapter IV, Spells
This chapter is pretty short, with a series of utility spells including a buffed prestidigitation called "Mise-En-Scene" that lets you use multiple effects at once at the cost of being a second level spell, and Find Greater Familiar, which gives a couple new familiar options like Giant Rat or Pony
Chapter V, Familiars
All the familiars here are adorable. No question. Some, like the pagefinder (a moth that can copy book pages) or the piggy bank (a pig that also can hold 500 gp of coins and freely transfer their denomination), are extremely useful on top of that.
Chapter VI, Items
Like the spells, most of the items here are to assist with crafting, whether it's the Wonderswap Chest (which can exchange one high quality material for another) or the Masterwork Toolkit (+1, +2, or +3 variants). Others, like the Goblin-Watching-Your-Six (a goblin shaped backpack that gives you immunity to being surprised but could give you goblin eyes and teeth) are amusing and useful.
The chapter then has several blueprints for potential great projects that will require the whole party crafting to build.
Appendices
Appendix I is NPCs from the adventure. As I've said before, I don't like flipping back and forward like this for these kinds of things, but with how loose the main adventure is written, it can be forgiven.
Appendix II has some examples of trades that don't easily fit into the craftsman rolls presented, and how they can still work using this system. The most interesting of these is the Unliving Arts, crafting for Necromancers
Appendix III is tables for Boons and Flaws
Appendix IV has potential obstacles to a project, stuff that might require a little adventuring to solve.
Appendix V is tables for setting prices for the party's projects, if they are more merchant minded
Appendix VI is how to generate Awakened Objects, their AC and HP, et cetera, along with some examples like an Awakened Watch
Appendix VII is for determining how much HP and AC more mundane objects like rope or instruments have.
Finally, the last pages have thank yous for the artists, writers, and kickstarter backers. Mine's on page 210.
In Conclusion Witch+Craft is a different sort of book then I've reviewed thus far. Artwise it's beautiful, and the book is well written and homey. It's a book about the DIY spirit that 5e has moved away from. Of course, not every player is playing D&D to spend a year simulating rebuilding a mansion with gumption and a can-do attitude. If you're looking for a challenging combat gauntlet or complex intrigue, this is not the adventure for you. But it is sweet and wholesome, a rare place for D&D adventures to go. Like a Hallmark movie with a dragon in it.
4/5 Ghibli Hills, small blemishes on the smells of nostalgia.
Question to those following this:
If I were to do a live review on the SV discord, would you be interested in that and what would you like me to review?
Alien the RPG Core Rulebook - Horror RPG set in the Alien Universe, by Modipheous
Tales From Old Margrave (5e) - Kobold Press's series of adventures in a Slavic inspired forest, part of their Midgard Campaign setting
Five Torches Deep, plus Duels and Homestead expansions - Hack of 5e for Old School style play, plus expansions for 1v1 battles and running a small town.
Dark Streets and Darker Secrets - Old Skull Publishing's Urban Fantasy rules, based on their Sharp Swords and Sinister Spells ruleset (d20 roll under system with 4 stats)
Question to those following this:
If I were to do a live review on the SV discord, would you be interested in that and what would you like me to review?
Alien the RPG Core Rulebook
Tales From Old Margrave (5e)
Five Torches Deep, plus Duels and Homestead expansions
The only one of those that I've even a passing knowledge of is the Alien RPG, any chance at a back of the book blurb for the rest? As for the live review maybe, kind of depending on the time.
The only one of those that I've even a passing knowledge of is the Alien RPG, any chance at a back of the book blurb for the rest? As for the live review maybe, kind of depending on the time.
I'm gonna hold off doing a live streamed one of these. It's a holiday weekend. AND my mom's birthday. Still, I've been trying to keep to one of these every week or so.
So let's talk about the OSR mindset.
MASKED REVIEWS: FIVE TORCHES DEEP
Old School Renaissance play is a number of different movements that all crowd under the OSR banner thanks to a couple commonalities. A desire to go back to the play style of TSR D&D, whatever that means to them. Perilous combat with low HP totals on both sides for some, open sandboxes of play for others. It's a big banner. And the biggest part of that banner is Frankensteining together their perfect pasta sauce.
Five Torches Deep is a perfect pasta sauce, if your in the mood for a toolbox of 5e rules in OSR style. I backed this on Kickstarter and purchased three copies so I could distribute it with my group. That's how excited I was for it, and for the most part I've been right.
So what is Five Torches Deep? At it's core, 5e. Stripped down, made leaner and meaner, rebalanced. But still recognizably 5e. More importantly, about 95% of the book's rules can be used in a 5e game.
We start with the PC Races. Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling. The game doesn't give any racial bonuses, just stat leanings. Humans roll 3d6 in order and can swap one pair, and the other races get two stats that default to 13 and roll 2d6+3 for the rest. This means a human will have a higher high statistically but will be lower on average.
The set up for classes will be familiar to 5e players. There are four classes: Warrior, Thief, Zealot, and Mage. At third level, they choose a subclass (Warriors have Barbarian, Fighter, and Ranger, as an example) and pick one of that subclass's bonuses (each have seven). At fourth and sixth they get an Ability Score Increase. At seventh they pick another subclass bonus. Levels cap at 9. In general, characters are a lot weaker then their 5e equivalents. After all, this is trying to emulate B/X (the selection of classes mirroring B/X's classes gives that away). Two ASI, two subclass abilities, three class abilities.
Equipment is next. Armor is about the same, although max AC is 17, 15 from Heavy Armor and +2 from Shields. Weapons are similarly grouped into the Melee/Ranged + Simple/Martial dynamic. This is mostly the same as 5e. Attunement is attached to Charisma Mod in this game. And here is where the book gives it's first nod to it's most brilliant rules addition: Encumbrance and Supply.
Encumbrance is related to your Strength score. A character with 15 Str can carry 15 load. Supply is similarly related to your intelligence score, and is an abstraction of extras. 1 supply can represent 1 battle's worth of arrows, 1 hour's duration of torches. You can't make something from nothing, you still have to have a rope or arrows or holy water in your inventory before you use supply to replenish. And you need to be carrying the supply, 5 supply is one load. Being based Intelligence means that Intelligence is suddenly a useful stat for character that aren't wizards, just as Encumbrance means STR effects more then just martial classes. Steal this system, if you use nothing else from this book.
Skills are gone. Classes now grant proficiency in certain things (Zealots start with Spellcasting, history, and insight; while their Cleric archetype gives Healing, politics, and divine magic proficiency), which work just like skills in that you make a d20 roll with your proficiency bonus. Crits double damage and deal sundering damage to the relevant equipment (like a shield). Most of this section is very similar to the 5e ruleset, although healing from rest is a lot slower, you need someone actually doing medical checks, can't walk off your bleeding arm. Since Darkvision is a class option and the Illumination cantrip is concentration in FTD, darkness is a lot more of a threat, and boy is it here, although it's not an "I Win" button for the monsters because they treat Light in reverse, with Well Lit areas being equal to Dim Light and Darkness being equal to Brilliant light.
The spell list is sparse but has the old favorites, although generally balanced down from their 5e counterparts. Illuminate is like Light, but requires concentration (thank god). Furyfire is Fireball Adjacent, but you roll dice equal to the level cast at. The entire spell list for Arcane and Divine casters is on a two page spread, which is incredible considering how large 5e's PHB spell list is. The name of the game is Lean and Mean.
The NPC and monster section of the book is similarly lean. Retainer rules are identical to most OSR stuff. You can have henchmen equal to your (CHA mod + level) - 5. There are tables for generating monsters based on their battlefield role (Brute, Leader, Predator, Shaper, Sniper, and Soldier) and Hit Die. There's also a page with some example monsters, just to give a feel for it.
The GM section is most of the normal stuff, but it does have a cool thing. Random Maps... VIA RUBIKS CUBE. Just scramble a rubik's cube, roll it, and make the monster lair based off what you roll. It's like rolling a 9d6 dungeon, and multiple cubes can be used to make bigger dungeons. It's... neat.
The last page is a quick reference sheet for all the important rules, something more games need to include because not every DM is going to buy multiple books.
Five Torches Deep is a toolbox of small systems you can adapt to 5e, OR a complete game on it's own. It's whatever you need it to be. The rebalancing of ability scores the game does is it's biggest plus, as 5e is dominated by Dex, Con, and Wis as the all important skills, and buffing up Str through a working Encumbrance system, Int with supply tracking, and charisma with henchmen and attunement makes a well balanced party more important.
Now to talk about the expansions. Since the release, there have been two. Duels is an odd beast, designed to give procedures for one-on-one battles between PCs and GMs. These rules are complicated, with maneuvers, weapon length, armor type all factoring in. It's a ritual dance, arming sword swung two handed to sunder the enemy's bardiche as he moves to hurt.
Homesteads is the second expansion. It's about building out a... homestead. It's rules for farming, but also introducing Gold for XP into a 5e style system. 1 gp spent to improve the Homestead is 1 XP for the character. There's a number of businesses you can build, such as a smithy, a hunting lodge, a tavern, or a market. Each gives a nice little bonus that gets better with time, such as a Tier 3 hunting lodge allowing access to rare ingredients and spell components. There's a FTD specific carousing table with some useful and humorous effects, and another Rubik's Cube based generator, this one for farms and small towns. Once again, very clever stuff. This expansion is more broadly applicable to the average party, if your group is the type to go all Stardew Valley.
That's all I got really. I know that OSR play isn't for everyone, but for those who enjoy a throwback to bringing multiple character sheets to a session, or feel 5e is needs to be a little more hardcore. Not only that, but this book is immaculate in it's presentation, using an unusual landscape style which makes it very convenient for a DM trying to keep room for their notes behind a screen. Each spread is exactly as long as it needs to be, no guff. The fact that there are so many books out there that spend dozens of pages on spells and this book takes 2 tells you how efficient the writing is for these rules, and all of them are clear and well laid out. I wish WotC's editors were this good.
4.5/5. This won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I personally enjoyed it a lot. Steal everything you like, leave behind what you don't, it's quite easy to do.
Have I ever mentioned that I really really really enjoyed The Princess & the Pilot? It's not a Ghibli movie, but it is filled with that love of airplanes and the skies. It follows a mercenary pilot from a racial group that's hated who has to escort a princess through enemy territory to get to her wedding.
A cute movie and a great segway into our topic of today.
MASKED REVIEWS: FLYING CIRCUS
Flying Circus, as you no doubt saw from the banner if you're reading this review in April of 2020, is written by our very own Open_Sketch. It follows a ragtag group of flying aces in a vaguely european setting. The book's opening words are very germanic, and cites 1900s rural Germany and European fairy tales as part of it's opening.
I'm reviewing this one with a friend, who from this point I will call Hob.
The book's setting is a kind of Balkanised 1910s Germany. The empires all wiped each other out in their version of the war to end all wars.
The book begins with saying it hopes you know what RPGs are. Hob kinda dislike that it makes you skip ahead to get that definition. The game requires D10s and D20s, as well as some printable cards.
I do like that the game does call out people who might use it's germanic setting to play out their fantasies of the next war's bad guys. Don't do that.
It also gives a nice little bit about crossing out any Vices that might be taboo at your table. I don't know what Vices are yet, but they seem to tie into a stress mechanic. All in all, the safety tools are quite well explained.
BASICS OF PLAY
This game is based on PbtA. If you haven't played a PbtA game, the basics are that players have access to a number of skills that are situational.
Advantage/Disadvantage is nasty here, as rolling certain numbers will give the GM access to a hard move against the player.
Stress accumulates during flying, but doesn't show up until afterward. Dealing with stress is how you gain XP.
Death is optional in this game, which does make sense. It's a genre game, not a resource game.
Trust is a player to player resource that asks the question: Who would you die for in a fire fight?
SESSION ZERO
This section is all about getting started. I've read these kinds of segments before many times, and this one's pretty standard. What kind of adventures will we be having? How dark is the tone allowed to go. That sort of thing.
The backgrounds are
The Farmer: A living Star Wars meme, the naive bush pilot thrust into a war without knowing the whole score
The Soldier: A trained fighter who keeps cool and Stays On Target
The Fisher: a fundamentalist, or at least faithful pilot who worships the Deep Ones
The Skyborn: One part rromani, one part balloonist, three parts tied to the setting. You can play them as a charming swashbuckler too, as a treat
The Student: The one that automatically start with Crippling Debt as one of it's baggages.
The Believer: Another kind of fundie, this one more Luddite in nature. They don't trust anyone to start, and their convictions take a hit with their stress.
The Scion: An impoverished (for the value of impoverished) Aristocrat. They have to spend more money to keep their stress low then everyone else.
The Survivor: Do you like Mad Max? The Survivor has improvised tools, and they cling hard to whatever they have, friends included.
The Witch: Spell caster and female warrior. Wise, but definitely not great with technology.
The Worker: An everyman type, with the ability to take moves from other playbooks as what they were before becoming a laborer.
Most of these playbooks have the ability to bring along NPCs with them, each get access to different personal skills and have access to different planes. By the time it's time to create a company roster, there's a lot to handle here.
The next that comes up is creating the world. The book does a nice job of theming, like the fact major areas should be named after aircraft companies. It gives some sample locations to also add to the map as places of interest. This is very DIY in nature.
THE ROUTINE
The Routine is a very Blades in the Dark structure that shows the loop of mission to after mission back to mission. We finally get the move list here. There are many of them. It goes into some detail here about the Intimacy, which is a factor of genre. Hob's not the keenest on this, and wasn't the keenest on it in Apocalypse World either.
PREFLIGHT CHECKS
Hob's getting nervous as we introduce Character Sheet number three, The Instrument Panel.
Me and Hob had a conversation here, and agree on one thing. It's an odd mixture of super crunchiness, literally having a read out of your plane's dashboard, with PbtA simplicity. It has it's moments, like the Kill Counter and the Picture, but there is a lot of crunch to get there too.
Something something battle between Simulationist and Narrativist.
Planes are kind of a Frankenstein, using various cards to indicate engine, radiator, and of course weapons.
AIR COMBAT
Combat does not use a map, but rather theater of the mind.
Here, the Altitude and Speed stats become exchanged. Going high gives you potential energy for a bounce, speed is kinetic energy. Pick up G-Force and it will hurt you, fly too high and it will hurt you. Et cetera et cetera.
NPC crew are controlled by their pilot, but they roll flat.
We go into weapons here. It's pretty standard. Hob is wondering why the weapons are directional if the game is Theatre of the Mind.
Damage is standard, while Crits are especially nasty as they mean the plane is likely to go up in smoke.
HEADING INTO BATTLE
Battle moves are introduced here, as well as Fuel Check (a GM's move that check how much fuel you have).
Next up are Ranged moves, as well as the four range bands. The moves depicted in this chapter array all the fun stuff you see in flying ace movies, the kind of stuff that would make my afraid of falling ass faint.
Hob and my consensus here is that maybe some of these systems would make more sense on a grid. Especially since the game puts a lot of emphasis on Altitude and speed. We also spent a good five minutes looking for the rules for Critting (it's rolling a 20+ on an Open Fire roll).
On Foot moves are also here, although they feel a little less crunchy then I've come to expect.
LANDING
This section of the book covers what happens while you're on the ground. Characters gain stress, both from flying and from whatever shit they encountered up there.
After marking stress, it gets into Reputation. This seems similar to the questions at the end of Monster of the Week. Gaining Fame gives you bonuses, gaining Infamy gives you demerits.
STRESS RELIEF
The header for this chapter is the aftermath of a threesome.
We once again see that Stress sucks. Hitting Burnt Out is worse, because it means the whole group can't fly until that person gets back out of Stressed. AND, they get to use their Vent moves which stresses the rest of the group out. If not handled correctly, this could bring the game to a halt. A little worrying.
Vice is essentially Carousing as a healing mechanic. It's a lot more streamlined compared to the air combat.
Confidantes are NPCs who have a couple notable features, and standards, things that if broken will cause the character to dump you. We've moved out of combat and into dating sim stuff PbtA occasionally dabbles in.
Move Exchange is a mechanically relevant move, that lets you learn moves from your fellow pilots. It's a little costly XPwise, but it's genre appropriate while also being simple to grok.
There's a couple more stress relievers in here, but I think it's time to move on.
FINANCES
There's rules here for using the stress relief rules to get money out of stingey clients.
It gives a nice little breakdown of what cost Scrip (local money) and what costs Thaler (a real resource the group manages).
Medical Treatment is expensive. 1 Thaler removes 1 injury, so if you get hurt a lot you're gonna be spending a lot, and 1 Thaler alone would also be enough to get you a year's rent.
Employees include NPC pilots, navigators, guards, lawyers, et cetera. They cost upkeep... although this is not explained here. If they're mistreated, that starts a clock that could end in them striking, or just leaving.
Planes are generally found used, and then have to be repaired. Makes sense.
Expense List is where we finally find what all this stuff costs. Most things cost 1 thaler, although planes and doctors are more expensive. If you aren't able to pay the expenditures, then things get nasty.
FINDING WORK
This section has some tables for generating jobs, as well as some new moves. Short and sweet.
REFLECTION
Quiet Moments tells you how to level up. Costs are either 4 or 8 XP. There's also Masteries, which you can upgrade one of the four disciplines of piloting and pick up new skills from it.
CHARACTERS
This section goes more in depth in something I covered earlier, talking about each of the playbooks. Skip.
WEAPONS
Deals in personal weapons, armor, and gear; then ship weapons, from the humble light machine gun to the regal Fliegerflammenwerfer
ADVANCED RULES
Concerned with Weather, bombing runs, a bunch of other rules that didn't belong else where.
Of note are Airship combat rules (as in fighting against Airships), Freelancer mode, and Specialty Ammo.
RUNNING THE GAME
This starts with basic how to GM stuff. Pretty standard.
GM Moves gets into more specifics of what a GM can do. PbtA games have a dilineation between Hard Moves (which are circumstantial moves that really hurt or threaten the players) and Soft Moves (which are a warning that a Hard Move is coming). This books splits between Moves In the Air (stuff like a rattle that signifies something came loose) and Moves for Enemies (Filling the air with bullets).
THREATS
Whether it's regular pilots or enemy aces, a campaign is only as good as it's baddies. The rules for building bad guys here are pretty simple, basically pick a stat line up, whether or not they have an ace, and their affiliation (Bandit, Pirate, Warlord, et cetera). It gets a little more pulp here, introducing the Gotha remnant, the clockwerks, and dragons to fight. Your game, your rules here comes to mind.
SETTING
Himmelgard is hemmed in on all sides with mountains. We're given some basics of the culture, very indicative of 1900s Germany if it went through Balkanization.
Were given more depth on groups the playbooks belong to, like the Skyborn, here. There's also some nice nose art and paint schemes.
The Everything is Political section goes through a basic rundown of how to be inclusive. It's fine.
IN CONCLUSION
I found this book to be mixed. It's pretty. It's got a theme that it sticks to like glue. But it is definitely not my cup of tea. As I've said before many times, I like simple systems that facilitate quick learning and quick play. This... doesn't. Organization is shoddy at times, and the book requires a lot of work on the part of the GM. As much as I enjoy being invested in a setting by helping create it, here there's not so much.
Masked's rating is 3/5. Maybe some errata or tools, and a setting book could clean up some of my flaws here. Consolidating the moves would be great, same with the sheets.
Hob's rating 2/5. He felt good ideas were there (such as learning moves from other players), but buried under a lot of guff. He feels it requires more investment to fix then it's worth. 4 character sheets plus the communal sheet is too much to keep track of. "Reminds me of Rifts"
Really happy you've taken a look at this, I checked out the thread earlier and had put Flying Circus on the list of books to buy in the future, but no real commitment towards the purchase beyond wanting to support a fellow SVer. But this has definitely piqued my interest, even if I may not get to use the system til the world goes back to normal.
When someone says "Old RPG", there's a couple responses. D&D is the oldest, of course. Somebody might mention one of it's knockoffs that are only sort of still there, Tunnels & Trolls, Bunnies and Burrows, that kind of thing.
Then there's Traveller. Despite several publishers crashing, despite universally hated editions and a weird obsession with doing for tabletop games which years later No Man Sky would do for games in generating an entire universe, one supplement at a time, for literal decades.
Once More Into The Breach
MASKED REVIEWS: MONGOOSE TRAVELLER 2e
Okay, a clarification here. There are as many editions of Traveller as any other roleplaying game that's been around for as long as it has. The order goes Classic Traveller (the original, that Traveller Grognards love), Megatraveller (the contested sequel accursed of ruining the setting chasing Star Wars fans), Traveller the New Era (the one that killed the original company, as well as the latest the original setting ever got), Traveller4 (which rolled back the clock to the beginning of the setting in order to escape TNE's cliffhanger), GURPS Traveller (A fix fic for the classic timeline with a bunch of returning original writers), Traveller20 (ignore), and finally the two concurrent ways to play Traveller today: Mongoose Traveller (written by Mongoose Publishing) and Traveller5 (written by Marc Miller, the original writer). Side note, Mongoose Traveller 1e has a free SRD that has been used to publish the Cepheus Engine.
Mongoose Traveller, which is now in it's second edition, is generally called the easier place to start, so that is what I will be doing. Expect my suicidal ramblings on the encyclopedic Traveller5 as it makes me want to shoot myself sometime in the near future.
MgT 2e was published in 2016, written by Matthew Sprange. The book is in full color, with infrequent art pieces.
The book begins by saying that Traveller can simulate any science fiction universe. This is a lie, but the system is very versatile. It then brings up the game's baby, the Third Imperium. What the Third Imperium is isn't explained here, but perhaps deeper in. It then immediately brings up other books Mongoose publishes for Traveller.
...
Moving on, we get some quick terminology the book uses a lot. Traveller is a 2d6 + Mod system. It then gets into Tech Levels. You know how it is, when you're travelling around the galaxy sometimes you'll come across primitive civilizations, and next week you run into creatures so far beyond your puny human comprehension they appear to be floating ghost shoes.
Character Creation
Welcome to the thing Traveller is famous for. While life path systems are relatively common now, Traveller invented it, and still uses it to this day. The system is... complicated, but here's the basics.
Characters roll 2d6 for their six stats: Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Intellect, Education, and Social Standing. You can distribute those scores in any order. Derived from these are modifiers. Pretty standard.
You start with certain background skills, 3+EDU Mod. These skills represent stuff a teenager would know. Then we move on to the life path.
Life Path is a minigame within the game, essentially a gambling game that gives you the chance to accumulate skills, wealth, ability score improvements, and contacts in exchange for chances to accumulate debt, ability score downgrades, and enemies. As Traveller doesn't have an experience system, characters can only improve significantly during this game. In Classic Traveller, it was possible to die during character creation. Here in MgT 2e, that's optional, as it's far more likely to get driven into crippling debt from your medical bills, which to be fair is a much better story generator.
A Term in Life Path represents 4 years of a PC's life. Each Term goes basically the same: You either choose to remain in the career you're in, or attempt to join a new one (failing to join a career means you spend those 4 years either drafted by the military or as a space hobo). Then you roll to see whether you remain in that career or are driven out, and if you do remain if your character gets a promotion. All the while, you are picking up skills. Finally, after hitting the ripe old age of 34, you beginning rolling to see if aging damages one of your physical stats. All the while, random events are occuring. In my test character, my character had a romantic engagement, moved to a new planet, and became a detective after dropping out of university.
There are 12 careers, each with three subcareers: Agent, Army, Citizen, Drifter, Entertainer, Marine, Merchant, Navy, Noble, Rogue, Scholar, and Scout. There's also two "secret" careers in the book: the Psion, someone with psychic powers, and the Prisoner, which is only accessible via the Mishap table. There are also rules (later on) for playing as two of the iconic Traveller aliens: the leonid Aslanti, and the uplifted wolves the Vargr.
Skills, by default, start unmarked, with a -3 to rolls. One point in a skill gets it to 0, unmodified, and also unlocks every subskill at 0. There is a rare ability called Jack of All Trades which cuts down the penalty on unskilled roll checks. The list covers pretty much everything a space explorer might need.
Combat
Battles in Traveller have always been fast and lethal, and MgT is no exception. Everyone gets 1 Significant Action and 1 Minor Action OR 3 Minor Actions, as well as infinite Reactions (that give -1 to your turn's roll for each reaction taken). Endurance is equal to your health, and if that reaches 0 damage then starts going into Strength or Dexterity. If one of those goes to 0, you go unconscious. As max Endurance is 15 (and average endurance is 7), and a rifle deals 3d6 damage, combat moves very quickly. PCs are generally considered some of the best fighters in the sector if they have a 0 in Ranged or Melee, and they will still die if they walk into an ambush.
Environmental Dangers
A wise man once said "Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence", and this book reflects that. There's rules in this section for everything from the slowly ticking up danger of radiation, to diseases such as anthrax and pneumonia, to more regular dangers like gravity and vacuum.
And that's before the space monkeys, which is where the bestiary starts. It's pretty short, but gives some animals to deal with. Most Traveller enemies will be human opponents anyway, who can be summed up with SDEIEdSs, plus maybe some flavor from a random table provided.
Equipment
If Mongoose Traveller has one brilliant idea that other systems should steal, it's the equipment chapter. Equipment is presented as an in-universe magazine, with a generic model posing with each bit of gear. This is a nice little chef's kiss for a section that could have been a couple short tables. It feels like leafing through an actual in-universe document, especially the augments section which looks like the ad section of a newspaper.
Vehicles
This is a light section on various planetside vehicles. It's short and serviceable, although bringing up horse drawn carriages and not having them feels like an oversight.
Spacecraft Operations
This section is probably the most important of the book, along with the chapters that follow, going in great detail on just about every aspect of space travel. The difference between High Passage and Low Passage, both credits wise and danger. Shape systems, and how they can be damaged in combat. Drones, sensors, security, et cetera.
Space Combat
Combat is broken into three phases here: Maneuver, Attack, and Actions. Each Ship does each there moves on the respective phase before moving on to the next one. Tables, special reactions, missiles. This section of the book is pretty thick, and if there is a crunchy section to Traveller's mostly light mechanics, this is it. Space combat is involved, and has roles for every player character to do. The end also has rules for Boarding Actions, a critical part of the fight where you switch over to stabbing them with your laser rapier.
Common Spacecraft
There are deckplans here for classic ships of the Traveller universe, such as the Free Trader A, or "Beowulf" class or the Type S Scour ship. More importantly, it has a handful of tables for what is precisely wrong with your janky ass ship. Can't be living that Han Solo/Malcolm Reynolds fantasy without a janky ass ship that's breaking down.
Psionics
In the default setting of the Third Imperium, Psionics are illegal. That being said, there is an entire chapter dedicated to abilities.
Trade
This chapter starts off with information on passengers and freight, before moving on to... less legal measures such as smuggling. The fact there is an "Exciting Passengers" table makes me laugh.
World & Universe Creation
Now, there is a lot of prewritten subsectors out there. HOWEVER, it's Traveller. Make your own. Tables for creation are here, as are explaining the various Planet Codes, the number sequences the various editions of Traveller have used to show at a glance all the adventure relevant statistics, what kind of planet it is, how much Law is there to get in the way of things like smuggling and being strapped. Stuff like that. It's not the deepest explanation.
The Sindal Subsector
Right after world generation, we get a little example of a subsector (an 8x10 hex grid that is the initial sandbox). Sindal is right at the edge of Imperial space, with the Aslan Hierate just beyond the sector's borders and a little corporate oligarchy aiming for some domination. The usual. Each planet in the subsector is given a detailed enough write up for a GM to have a few plot hooks. Adventure Seeds, as it were.
In Conclusion
Mongoose Traveller 2e feels like the refined version of a game that it is. The writers have a handle on what works and what doesn't, have slimmed down the rules without cutting all the good fat that gives the game flavor. The art is good, and while it's not the whole universe it's a big enough piece of it to get started. Plus, there's also the Traveller's Companion as basically the equivalent of the DMG if you want some more info (more on that later). 4/5 Maydays sent.
Still, I wish that there was more information and player options available, maybe even in some sort multibook format so you could reach for the proper one when you needed it.
MASKED REVIEWS:TRAVELLER5 Book 1: Characters & Combat
There is a term in game design called Flow. Good game design will have good Flow, which in the context of a rulebook means teaching concepts in such an order that the player feels like they are teaching themselves. In a D&D context, the race and class sections are before the equipment and spell sections.
When Traveller5 first came out, one of the major complaints was a complete lack of Flow. The book was some 900 pages of encyclopedic knowledge of the Traveller Universe.
The 5.10 edition, which I will be reviewing, does mostly the same thing, but in smaller books. Not digest size, this thing is still thicker then the PHB or the Mongoose Core rules, but smaller.
Traveller5 is written by Marc Miller, Traveller's original creator, although the man himself still uses Classic Traveller. Far Future Enterprises is a much smaller operation then Mongoose Publishing, so the aesthetic of the book is deliberately paired back to an 80s style black and white. Very pretty.
I should note that Marc Miller has stated in interviews he still plays Classic Traveller. This book isn't for him. Or me for that matter.
The Inner cover is a brief showing of the Universal Personality Profile, this games stats. Something this book explains better then MgTraveller is that this string of 6 numbers is all the character sheet a GM needs to write for any NPC you make. Strength, Dexterity (Agility or Grace), Endurance (Vigor or Stamina), Intelligence, Education (Training or Instinct), and Social Standing (Charisma or Caste). The characteristics in parenthesis are alternatives to the main ones humans from the Imperium have, in case your allowing a PC from a race that has a hive mind, or a caste system, or whatever.
The table of contents covers all three books, with a second table of contents covering the various tables in the book. We then get a "quick" prologue to any rules, discussing Traveller, roleplaying games, and the basic concepts. We are introduced to how this book will do examples, via a text log between Referee and three Players. The characters they are playing will change from chapter to chapter, but there are worse ways to demonstrate the rules. We then move on to a section on the Galaxy. This book does the Star Trek thing of three real things and a fake thing, such as giving one of the names of the Galaxy as Dakhaseri, which is apparently the Vilani word for galaxy.
The writing in this section reminds me of a bygone era. I've read a lot of classic RPGs, and they often are heavy on definition because they were written in a pre-Internet era. This has the added bonus of a lot of words being used that are Scifi lingo the book uses, such as Sophont as a race neutral word for sentient life.
A Brief History of the Universe gives a breakdown of the entire Traveller setting, with race notes for playing during this era. The Ancients of 300,000 BCE all the way to Marc Miller's unwritten Galaxiad, post The New Era Empress Wave adventures described as "The Illiad in Space". Foundations of the Traveller Universe gives the default setting assumptions of the Traveller Universe. Any of these rules can be broken, but they are the average: Space Travel between systems takes around a week, artificial gravity exists, as do artificial people. It very clearly spells out this is not Star Trek, there is no universal law interacting with less advanced peoples. If your characters want to sell machine guns to alien cavemen, that is their perogative, and if that results in problems down the line that's your fault. This section basically is a primer to a Referee wanting to run Traveller. It is succinctly written, easy to parse, and a useful set of aphorisms. Enjoy it, because from here on out we live in the abyss of deep dives. A more apt description of Traveller5 would be the Traveller Encyclopedia, if that wasn't already a thing.
Traveller Uses Dice is a very thorough explanation of what you will need for the game. It gives the high end of what you will need dice was, 10 d6s and a light and dark pair of dice used for Flux, which is used to generate modifiers in various tables. It basically means Light Die - Dark Die.
Money is abstracted into three resources. Credits are what PCs generally use. MegaCredits is 1 million Credits, used to calculate one day's operating cost for a corporation. Resource Units deal in government resources, so you can compare a low tech world with a large amount of unrefined dihydrogen oxide and a high tech world that produces services. Honestly, the only one PCs will be using 99% of the time will be Credits. Mega Credits will only show up if there is a player who wants to get super corporate or buy a dreadnought, and resource units are a GM thing.
Humanity gives a brief overview of the various strains of Humanity out there. This was touched on in the History section but it's nice to have a refresher after... ten pages (kill me). Basically, Solomani are genetic stock from Earth, the Vilani were the first humans with Interstellar drives (and the other half of the Third Imperium's population), and the Zhodani are psionic tall boys with their own empire lurking Spinward from the Third Imperium.
EHex explains Hexcode. Basically, any number above 9 will be replaced with a letter from the alphabet. 10 becomes A, 11 B, so on and so forth. Because Traveller5 uses strings of numbers for everything, replacing those multidigit numbers with letters provides a solution to prevent confusion.
Now comes the part that turns my hair grey before I'm 30 (besides the whole, you know, apocalypse happening outside).
Most of the following sections are detailed looks at various measurements of weight and distance, from the size of eye to range bands between stars. It's like reading a science textbook, which I suppose I am. Next we turn to the Benchmarks, which switches over to accounting. What the salary of an average citizen in the Imperium is, versus the salaries of ship crew.
We are 46 pages in and only now talking character creation in the Character book.
The book finally explains those numbers on the inside Cover, along with the bonus codes Sanity (for Space Horror games) and Psionics. I'm skipping through this because you know what a character sheet is, but needless to say there is a LOT of detail here, including how the alternate character stats like Instinct for Education can sub in during situations where they don't match up.
Characters And Careers gets to character creation. It is similar to Mongoose Traveller, in that you roll stats, determine background skills (this time determined by Birthworld), try to get Educated, pick a Career, and then Muster out. Unlike optional Education in Mongoose Traveller, which treats it as any other four year Term, here, Education is tracked over the four years individually and doesn't count towards the time before character's careers. The Careers themselves have a new dynamic called Caution Vs Bravery. These are equal and opposite modifiers to various career rolls, a character acting Bravely gets a positive when the situation calls for Bravery and a negative when the situation calls for Caution. It a nice risk/reward bonus to the mechanic.
My eyes started shooting back into my eyes reading this, is that normal? Is there a doctor in the audience to tell me if that is normal?
Each career has it's own little minigame INSIDE the character creation minigame. A craftsman can go for making a masterpiece, while scouts take Sanity hits for every two terms (8 years) in the career because being a scout is stressful. Unlike MgT, T5 does not have subcategories for each career, so careers are generally a little more stratified. The thirteenth career here is functionary, basically a clerk.
Next are rules for Land Grants. Basically, a secondary source of income for Travellers with a high Soc stat or who have earned merits of service for exploration. Similarly, Ship Shares are acquired at character creation, and can be used to acquire a ship, with 1 ship share equal 50 tons of of ship. A nice bit of abstraction for player characters getting a ship.
Background Information for Characters is useful for PCs, but more useful for NPCs. It has D6 tables for schools, missions, souvenirs, any little thing for fleshing out a character.
We get our first look at a character sheet, a small thing that could fit on an index card. For all the massive piles of word words words and more words, Traveller's a light system. It just has a heavy book for the GM (help)
Life Pursuits are skill focuses, basically saying "Hey, this character's a neurosurgeon," or "this character is a bounty hunter". Your relevant stat and skill added together must equal 12 to have this, and your character can even get a certification. Useful for things that require titles, but it seems a bit redundant as a character with Medicine 3 is ALREADY going to be able to do this kinda stuff. Still go for it.
Genetics is a chapter on DNA. If you want to determine what your character's offspring are like, create a genetic chimera, or some other freak of nature WHY IS THERE A SECTION FOR DETERMINING DOMINANT AND RECESSIVE GENES IN A GAME ABOUT EXPLORING SPACE?!
...
i'm only one hundred and ten pages into this book please make it stop
Chimeras are the result of interspecies breeding. The most successful Chimera in the Third Imperium are the Vargr, the result of Ancient gene editing of Canids and some... unidentified... sophont species... with bilateral symmetry and DNA. Wonder what that could be.
Synthetics is a chapter for all your blade runner needs. It gives variations from non-humanoid robots that are basic roombas all the way to Sophontoids almost indistinguishable from the species they are imitating. Similarly, Clones deal in everything from grown organ donors to specially created workers (such as the Clone Troopers from Star Wars). PC Clones count as 1 Term older when it comes to calculating Aging.
Tasks explain how rolling work in this game. Unlike Mongoose Traveller, which uses a 2d6 resolution for everything, this game uses a roll under system for task resolution with Test difficulty determining how many dice are rolled, 1 die (rolled by the DM) determining whether it's obvious or not that task was successful, and the player's Stat+Skill determining the roll under.
The next 40 pages are dedicated to Skills. This list is a lot beefier then Mongoose. No I will not give specifics. I think my nose started bleeding when I saw the skill list. Granted, a lot of the skills aren't going to show up, and they are a lot more... optional, kind of. I dunno. Maybe I'm just telling myself this to get out of reading 40 pages of this book in detail.
QREBS is a chapter all about equipment. It's title comes from the acronym Quality Reliability Ease-Of-Use Burden Safety. Quality determines how quickly Reliability goes down, Ease of Use gives a mod when actually using the device, Burden determines how easy something is to walk around with (the example given is a -5 pistol which is quick in the hand and light in it's holster, while a +5 revolver is bulky and badly balanced). Safety determines if it damages you if it fails, or destroys itself.
Intuition is a player resource rolled at the beginning of the session. The three intuitions are Insight (which goes to the highest rolling player), Curiosity (which goes to the second highest), and Luck (which goes to the lowest). It's an okay mechanic, but seems too limited for bigger parties.
Personals turns RP moments that might drag, such as interacting with a contact, into a single roll. Efficient at the table, but it's a sometimes mechanic more for when the party has a lot of things to do before starting.
Next chapter is Senses, and we're back to range band talk. This one is so self explanatory, and yet they wrote a not small section just on how sound travels.
Page 200 and we've hit the second of the two things in the title: Combat.
Combat, when broken down to it's simplest bits, boils down to three actions: Melee (hit something with a weapon), Impact (Slam one thing into another thing), and Ranged. If only it stayed this easy. I've never seen a system rival Pathfinder RAW's complexity. I can parse the combat charts, barely. It can get to Reciever levels of detail if you let it. Different types of Armor protecting against different types of damage.
I can't help but feel this much detail would be great in a Traveller video game, with a system to track all of this nonsense.
Weapons go from pistols and knives to Nukes and WMDs. It's honestly impressive, especially having rules for being point blank when a nuke goes off (200d6 damage).
After several pages of combat tables, we get to the Armory. It is literally strings of numbers. I feel like I'm looking at Matrix Code. Just gotta power through. Next is an Imperial Calendar and a table for generating character's birth date.
Next are Flux Tables. These are everything from where a weapon got damaged when you shot it out of someone's hands to NPC generators to fueling complications. Decent.
And with that, we end.
Conclusion
If there is a word to describe Traveller5, it's thorough. Everything is in here, even stuff the average player won't need explanation. I... would not want to run this version of the game. It's a bloated set of systems that turns the simple RPG systems of Traveller into a labyrinthine array of tables and subsystems. Luckily, it over.
Shit, it's been a month and I haven't followed up on my cliffhanger.
MASKED REVIEWS: TRAVELLER5 Book 2: Starships
This book's interior cover has the starship version of the hexcode. Q.uick S.hip C.ode plus V.ehicle e.X.tension and Crew e.X.tension. Mongoose Traveller has similar rules, but not in the corebook, which just has the most iconic ships.
Let's dig in.
We begin with a diagram of a typical stellar march. The book uses a mixture of diagrams and text to explain Inner, Outer, and Remote orbits, which I feel would be more useful in a game of Traveller without jump drive (it could happen). It then explains satellites, in the astronomical sense of the word rather then the radio sense of the word. Next up is a layout of a typical starport, even breaking down the variety of places a starship can end up, from a retractable premium bay to a grass landing strip. It goes through the general locations a starport can have, what's essential, what's only available at fancier ones. It's a good tool that gives that dilineation between JFK and Bubba's Landing Strip.
About Starships is about starships. It gives an overview, what a ship needs. Power, sensors, control, weapons, et cetera. It gives three general, out of universe, categories of ships: Adventure, Battle, and Fleet.
Adventure Class Ships covers vehicles appropriate for player characters. I know a lot of players one day dream of getting their hands on a ship of the line or bigger, but those are expensive, require massive crews, and probably won't be sated by ringding rim worlds where adventure lies. The book acknowledges that one can have adventures without a ship. "An ATV can support explorations on a wilderness world in search of abandoned military bases... A small craft, fitted with life support and sensors, can carry several characters to the remote reaches of a system in search of derelict ships or marooned explorers. But ultimately, characters want a ship."
We get a bestiary of ships, starting with the old standbys, the Type S Scout Courier and the Type A Free Trader. Then we get a more detailed write up with specific types of those classes, such as the Beowulf. From here, we move on to Starship Design and Construction, which explains the QSP from the outer cover. It gives a bunch of smaller benefits one can pick up, like Self-Healing Armor. It also explains the difference between In-System Drives and Interstellar Drives. Skipping ahead, there is a brief look at the typical command hierarchies of various groups that PCs might encounter: navy, merchant, scouts. The chapter ends with a character sheet for a ship.
Starship Missions is dedicated to tables for generating adventures, specifically what sort of adventures the ship you are creating is for. Starships were meant to fly, after all. It is remarkably short, as we are sucked back into nitty gritty starship design. One of the flaws of Traveller5, in my opinion, is the fact it has these wonderful shorthands designed for table use that it immediately abandons the second it is able to in favor of systems that require an automated spreadsheet to use. The simplist versions are nice. The rest hurts me.
We are now introduced to the Ship Combat Card, the version of the ship's character sheet for use in combat. I'd call it more streamlined, but you've already filled out three pages of ancillary equipment and crew rosters by the time you've gotten here.
Maneuver explains how ship movement works. I'm not exactly sure how these tables could be usable in any combat, but I'm sure there is an astrophysicist out there who enjoys their commitment to detail. Jump is much the same, only it'll piss off the astrophysicist too. The fact that the tables cover Hop and Skip drives, which are TL17 and TL20 equipment respectively that no PC is going to have access to in an average campaign don;t help.
From there we move to Power Systems, and then Sensors. Both of these are common sense in the text, they explain the limitations of these, which is good, before burying you in tables. While I appreciate learning the difference between the neutrino detector and the radiation sensor, just knowing they exist is enough for me to generate a plothook, I don't need all of this detail.
Weapons are just as crunchy as previous chapters, but unlike some of the stuff before it's something players will want to grok. You got an array from slugthrowers, missiles, to the more mad science weapons like the Jump Inducer, which sends half of the enemy ship into hyperspace, as well as the Disintegrator and Z, for weapons more exotic then those shown. Defenses similarly go over shields and jammers to prevent you from getting nuked or otherwise disincorporated. Then we get some weapons mounted on tanks and shuttle craft.
Fuel is surprisingly small, presumably because even they couldn't find a way to make "Hydrogen goes in, explosion goes out" complicated, and the stuff that was complicated was covered in Maneuver.
How Space Combat Works goes over turn order, attacks, countermeasures. After all, it takes minutes for mass driven ammunition to travel across space, and you can shoot that shit down. Range bands come into play here, just like in ground combat but at much bigger ranges. I feel like they needed another example of play here, the one given isn't the most helpful in explaining how this is all supposed to work.
Moving on from combat, we go onto the second focus of Traveller, trade. Trade Classifications determine what's worth visiting on the planet. Maybe it has a data repository, or it's a farming world. Maybe it has a large population, or maybe a small one. So on and so forth.
We get our first lesson in Space Capitalism, Buy Low and Sell High. You want to find cheap cargo that you can unload for a song.
Technology as a chapter here goes over not only Tech Levels, but also variations within the tech level. A TL 7 planet might have the capability to make a TL 10 laser, it'll just be classified Experimental, be ridiculously expensive to acquire from them, won't be very efficient, et cetera et cetera. The book pegs the Singularity as TL 33, where tools are omnicient and self-replicating. Traveller cannot simulate a system beyond that Technology Level. We are given an extensive table on measuring Tech Levels vs real world societies and eventually beyond. Apparently, we're only 100 years from getting artificial gravity.
Lifespans of Intelligent Species is an odd fit for the starships book, but I suppose it didn't fit in book 1. It's about how quickly sapients advance rather then how age effects individual members. It basically tracks how long it takes a species to move from one TL to another, with rules how it can stall or regress. If you're running a generational game, this might be interesting to adapt.
Intersteller Communities talks about systems of unified planetary governments, from a federation to an Imperium. Due to the communication lag, the larger a community is, the less powerful a centralized authority will be.
Computers fall into a sort of Zeerust place for Traveller5. When the original Traveller books were written, it was 1977, and the computer revolution was barely a sapling, rather then the massive forest it is today. Traveller5 kinda sticks in that throwback computer aesthetic one also can find in Star Wars and Alien Isolation. What's a computer if it's not bulky, or doesn't have a clone human brain stuck on top of a console? The Personality section is about AIs for just such an occasion. It even gets into brain uploading, and why that is not recommended (personalities degrade). We get into robotic bodies in much more detail then the first book, including how positronic brains work.
MegaCorporations of the Imperium basically just gives you names and logos to plaster over every bit of tech your players get their hands on. It's basically a one page spread.
Finally, we have some quick starship tables, an index, and a diagram of a Free Trader's interior.
As much as a griped, this book was a lot more usable then Book 1, mostly because of how little setting was here in comparison to things players will touch and use. Of course they'll want to design their own ship eventually, and there are tools here to do that. That being said, that still leaves one last portion to my review.
May as well get this over with. I got nothing else to do.
MASKED REVIEWS:TRAVELLER5 Book 3: Worlds & Adventures
The inside cover here covers the Universal World Profile, which shows at a glance the general statistics of the planet, whether it has a starport, how many people live there, what the government is, and how strapped you can be on this planet before getting arrested.
After the usual fake Villani equivalent to the word that is this book's theme, we get a hilarious demonstration of why Traveller has had creation tables since day one, in the form of two unnamed individuals trying to come up with forty planets and rapidly running out of steam as they start referencing other media properties in desperation to come up with one more idea.
Fair enough.
We get a quick spread on Traveller's pet setting. It's nice. Next we see the Sector, which is made up of 16 Subsectors, which in turn are made up of 80 systems. (As a sidenote, don't make an entire Sector. A Subsector will keep your game going for months, and if the party gets dangerously close to the edge of the subsector, you can make the next subsector then.). We then explain Universal World Profiles, before immediately throwing away the simplicity of the UWP with additional classifications to staple on to the bottom of it.
I can keep a certain amount of number meanings in my head, but I tell you this adding more numbers isn't going to help me. Please, I beg you, stop.
We then get a nice little table that helps you interpret the UWP, giving what ranges of numbers mean. A world with low Hydro and High Atmo might be a Hellworld, extremely hot and blasted. Most useful table yet.
We move onto world mapping. Sometimes, what a planet looks like will actually matter. I know, shocking. The way worlds are constructed is kind of like a d20 that has been unrolled flat. It's not a perfect representation, but it works better then a perfectly square map because worlds aren't tubes. We then get to fill in small areas within those, down to a tactical level when fighting people in a wilderness. It's one of the few times big to small actually works here, because we get understand an image moving in. This section then explains different sized planets.
Next section explains various symbols for maps. You know what a legend is, moving on.
GunMaker. Far from being the bad guy in the next Doom game, that's just Khan Makyr with a gun, GunMaker just breaks down all the gun statistics and how they all go together and how make new guns. ArmorMaker is pretty much identical, but for everything from second chance armor to power armor. VehicleMaker continues the trend, but for cars, planes, and other stuff. Equipment happens.
Psionic rules show up here. I totally forgot about them. You have to go to school to make the psionics your character naturally has stronger. Robots don't get psychic powers.
Sophonts is essentially AlienMaker. Can't be travelling the galaxy if you don't have wild amounts of aliens to have sex with. It means that they get to break in all those alternate versions of the PC hexcode. After that, BeastMaker, for wild animals that you can't fuck because you're a coward. We then have a bestiary of existing creatures in the setting.
Adventures is a section. I just reread that and cracked up laughing, should I leave that there? Adventures is a section that has the same sort of advise every game ever has on GMing and stuff. I do appreciate the acronym though. EPIC. Easy Playable Interactive Checklist. It's essentially explaining RPGs as a play, something that I agree with... with reservations. RPGs are plays, just one where most of the players have no script. The GM should set up an act structure in how they introduce the plot. (Just make sure that player agency matters, please please please don't take away player agency, their actions should matter in the plot, the play doesn't have a planned ending).
Crimes and Punishment is about how laws work. You should know this and its not specific enough to be a useful resource to anyone who has seen a movie with a trial in it.
Finally, there's a short glossary. This is good to have, especially for the made up language acronyms that show up from time to time.
And that is it. The evil is vanquished.
This book was a simultaneously less focused then other books, at the same time because it changed what it was about every couple of pages it was a lot easier to make my way through.
Now let's talk about them as a whole.
Conclusion
Traveller5 is the biggest pile of rules I've ever tried to make my way through. It hurt me. My eyes hurt. My brain hurts. Everything hurts. I would not recommend this book for people like me, champions of light rule systems. Those rules exist for Traveller, but not in this edition. The various editions of Traveller are kind of like Star Trek The Original Series. They run on adventure rather then hard science, even if both give more of a nod to science then a certain fairy tale in space. If you want to run your players through A Piece of the Action or Blade Runner, you can. If you don't like this little world, you can move on.
Traveller5 has that, the vestiges are there. But there is so much detail that's been slathered on and it turns what I know is a light system into accounting. Boring accounting. In an era where RPGs have been edging there way towards lightweight systems like PbtA, it's a strange choice, and I know this is a re-organization of the edition and meant to contrast with Mongoose Traveller which follows those design trends. It's still a lot.
Maybe there's something I'm missing. But it's just not my cup of tea. Sorry. Also, how utterly setting agnostic the book is means that new players who get Traveller5 and Mongoose Traveller will be utterly lost. This book is for a very specific type of grognard, one whose been playing Traveller for a long time or is really simulationist.
Assigning a rating feels really unfair because I wasn't going to like this no matter what I did. But for my objective opinion, this is either a low 2/5 or a high 1/5. It's not upsetting to my morality and no typos so does it deserve the lowest score? I dunno. But I will say avoid this unless you're a masochist. Or a sadist.
(also, Traveller's various editions have a lot of cross compatible resources online, including the entire galaxy and sector generators. You're welcome)
In this instance, it's because quarantine has paradoxically eaten away at free time, since I find myself throwing into various online games rather then spending that free time writing.
Still, let's see what we got here.
MASKED REVIEWS:GRIM HOLLOW CAMPAIGN GUIDE(5e)
If you have spent any time on tabletop gaming Youtube, you've probably heard of this one. A lot of sponsorships from youtubers combined with a successful youtube has made it about as prominent as third party 5e Kickstarters can be. Full disclosure, I did back this on Kickstarter.
So, Grim Hollow. Published by Ghostfire Gaming, Grim Hollow is what I would call "Ravenloft Adjacent". It's world, Etharis, is a dark fantasy setting with all sorts of nasties about, and most of the art would not feel out of place in Shadow of the Demon Lord (although maybe not WFRP, it's not super Germanic).
The summation of the world definitely gives the feel. It describes the northern kingdoms being shrouded in darkness half the year due to it's closeness to the pole, while other kingdoms are merely under a dark spell. Civilization is points of light in a fallen world, the gods themselves have abandoned the world, leaving only their servitors the Arch-Seraphs to attempt to keep the battle going. Plague and witchburnings dot the land.
See what I mean by Ravenloft-esque?
The next chapter goes over the various core races of D&D and their place in Etharis. They go like this
Humans: Colonizers
Elves: Gaelic, with humans as the Britains
Dwarves: Traded cultural independence for client status
Orcs: Extinct
Half Orcs: Vikings, driven to the edge of the world
Half Elves: Rromani
Dragonborn: Have their own religious state
Gnomes: Cousins to Dwarves, did what they did
Halflings: Kept their heads down while the Humans were slaughtering everyone else, and now are lore keepers.
It's not completely unoriginal, but Eberron this is not. The only thing that really separates it from a lot of D&D settings is exactly how evil Humans come out looking once you piece together every other race's backstory.
Next up, advanced weapons. I always enjoy having new toys to play with, and this book does have some good options. Some are common sense, adding a bludgeoning equivalent to the lance with the Cavalry Hammer and a slashing equivalent to the Rapier with the Sabre. There are also some blackpowder weapons, as well as options for blessing, silvering, or flaming ammunition. There's also a flame bellows, a primitive flamethrower that hands multitarget options to your martial characters thanks to it's "Scatter" trait.
New Feats also show up, with a few related to the new blackpowder weapons, another that allows you to hit a second target with single target cantrips, some more that give ribbon abilities to anyone like Iron Gut (+1 Con, advantage vs poison saving throws, 1 additional HD recovered on long rest). Of them, Witch Hunter seemed like the most abusable, as a high wisdom character could use it to build a real nasty anti-mage.
Spells, always a good time. Assisted Aim gives +1 to hit for ally's ranged weapon attacks, which might be useful if a lot of characters are using the new Firearms. Holy Word is essentially a cleric's turn undead variant, dropping their speed, which is useful both against low speed creatures like Zombies and high speed Vampires. A lot of these are congruent with the setting, with some good Necromancy spells you might want if you feel Necromancy Wizards don't have enough to do in Core.
Curses are their own thing, although they are treated like spells. What is nice is that Remove Curse isn't always enough to remove a curse, depending on how strong it is. You also might need some paradoxical ingredients, like a book never read or a raven murdered twice. The lowest level Curse is 4th level. I'm not the biggest fan of the curses themselves. Like, a cough that won't heal or go away is workable at the table, but a character being forced to steal from their comrades is less so. Maybe other character's valued items end up in their pack, but a compulsion to steal takes away player agency.
Variant Rules is a short section with some new rules and conditions. It gives a harsher punishment to failing concentration checks (which removes your ability to perform concentration spells for the combat turn), adds a bleeding condition which removes the ability to heal using anything other then HD, and gives some new racial proficiencies to Dwarves and Gnomes to reflect blackpowder being a Thing.
The Transformations rules are probably where the most effort of adding unique mechanics was made, and was a selling point in the kickstarter. After all, who hasn't wanted to play as a Vampire or a Werewolf, and then run into the game balance issues of throwing in a whole bunch of new abilities in exchange for a license for the GM to screw you over? This book adds a separate leveling process for the status of your curse, rather then *poof*, you got fangs. The Transformations are thus:
Aberrant Horror: You're an Innsmouther. Negative: Roll on a d100 table every time you take a nap and despair at what you've become. Positive: You are now a tentacle monster and therefore (THIS COMMENT HAS BEEN CENSORED FOR THE GOOD OF THE PUBLIC)
Fiend: You might have noticed no Tiefling in this setting. This is why. Negative: You have disadvantage on death saves as your new home plane tries to drag you there. Positive: Hanging out at Crossroads is a new hobby for you.
Lich: Finally, rules for every wizard's ultimate goal: becoming a xylophone for the fighter. Negative: You have a really obvious weakness and a hunger for souls. Positive: You're a fucking lich
Lycanthrope: The classic movie monster that 5e struggles to make threatening. Negative: If you wolf out (or tiger or bear), you are surrendering some character control like you're a cavalier in 1e, being forced to tear apart foes even if they're helpless on the ground. Positive: Furry Points
Seraph: Basically the equal and opposite of the Fiend. All of the issues the fiend has, this one has too, only for the good guys.
Vampire: *Castlevania theme blares at max volume*. Negative: Suck blood once a week and make sure you get invites into residences. Positive: You're a fuck mothering vampire, you know how this works
Advanced Backgrounds doesn't really have much to do with the Gothic Themes of Grim Hollow, but they're here so.... Essentially, these flesh out character backgrounds. Each of the PHB backgrounds gets a handful of specialized versions, making them almost function like a second subclass, or perhaps attaching WFRP's career system. As an example, the Academic; which gives one proficiency, an exotic language, and some equipment; has the Antiquarian and the Archivist, which give the second proficiency and some more equipment, along with a ribbon ability that upgrade as you level up. It feels like a nice revisit to the concept of Backgrounds, which can become irrelevant in Core D&D once the game starts, except as a way to avoid paying inn fees.
This continues with Background Talents, essentially feats for backgrounds. Most of these add circumstances you can add an additional die, called a profession die, to a roll. Some are better then others. Biologist and Botanist give you profession die for using survival to identify animals and plants respectively, while Dilligent Researcher gives you profession die... anytime you make an Int check to research something.
We move from Mechanics to Story with The Realms of Etharis.
The Burach Empire is the main power of the campaign setting, although it is falling apart as we speak. The gods falling silent was pretty much entirely their fault, and their high level priests are losing their powers as time passes. It has four provinces, and they all hate each other.
The Ostoyan Empire is Transylvania. The people have never seen the sun as the skies blackened generations ago. The only religion is to the Lady of Vengeance, and the people toil under the rule of Immortal Vampires. Not the most pleasant place.
The Charneault Kingdom is the last elven stronghold. It protected by a mystic maze. They are also dealing with a curse and factionalism.
Valikan is clan territory. Very viking inspired. It has a secret war between Druids, making blood sacrifices using slaves, and Lycanthropes, made up of a bunch of former slaves. Very cool.
Castinellan Provinces are semi-independent city states. The Dragonborn are trying to rebuild here. There's a wizard resistance to the growing power of a religious Inquisition. It also has a pretty strict caste system.
Morencia is a naval power to the south of Burach, home to exiles and outcasts who fled ethnic persecution. Naturally, it's horribly decandant, and has a Purge night in midsummer.
Liessech is a city state with several players all vying for control, the perfect location for an intrigue game. Between the Burach empire, the vampire lord, the cthulhu monster, there's a lot wrong here to put right.
The Factions List retreads some of the ground covered in the individual sections to talk about groups that don't exist solely in one nation. It's a nice replacement for the usual goody-two shoes factions that Forgotten Realms gives you access to, I guess.
The Pantheon section is quick to point out that the Gods are dead, or mad. All thats left for divine characters are the Arch Seraphs, who are trying their best but don't have the power or knowledge to help with the bleakness of the current situation. Their opposite numbers are just as active, which normally would mean stalemate if it weren't for the fact the Primordials and the Aether Kindred are ALSO making things worse. Basically, shit's fucked, yo.
Renown Characters of Etharis give important NPCs a player can insert, although no stat blocks are given so it does reduce it's utility. Still, having NPCs does reduce the prepwork, and writing up stats isn't that hard, right?
The GM's Guide To Dark Fantasy gives some pointers are genre, and how to utilize the book within the wider genre of Dark Fantasy and it's subgenres. It gives some advice on running the game: How does progression work? Resting? Combat? It also gives some nice Legendary Actions for various MM monster templates. It also adds WFRP style wounds. Then it gives some weapons that are definitely banned if the Law finds out PCs have them, like the Arc Rifle, a gnomish lightning gun that allegedly destroys souls and does hit like a truck.
Fables of Etharis is a collection of short adventures. They're okay, kind of linear with a lot of read aloud but I cannot say how they play at the table. Skip.
Curse Monsters is a short bestiary featuring the creatures that result if characters don't get their curses handled. They are uniformly nasty, ranging from CR 7 to CR 14, and all have middle fingers to a party that tries to take them down.
In Conclusion:
For people disappointed that Curse of Strahd was so limited compared to previous edition's take on Ravenloft, this book is for you. For people who like Gothic Horror tropes, this book is for you. For people who want a little Warhammer in their 5e game, this book is for you.
If you are bored with vampires, werewolves, cultists, and the rest of the Halloween crowd, this book's gonna disappoint. It also is lacking any race or class content, and only has a minor amount of items for PCs and monsters for GMs. Game Masters looking for gear or monsters to sprinkle into their campaign and players looking for new options will be disappointed. As a counterpoint, the transformations section would fit right in for a DM running Curse of Strahd or KP's Empire of Ghouls, and because it is only semi-dependent on level can be integrated during the game. The lore is appropriately bleak for a horror game, so if you're buying this for the setting it works. I hope that if this setting gets any further writing, it's WFRP style city write ups, as the province write ups were well written but could use some finer details. Also, NPCs not having stat blocks drives me up a wall. If you are worried about the NPCs being overrated and underleveled, or overleveled for the GM's purposes, make versions of the character at multiple levels, like Ravenloft fans did for Van Richten in 2e.
All in all, I'm going to give this 3.5 Skellingtons Out Of 5. The content of the book is all well written, well depicted, and well made. I just feel that it's utility is hampered by tone and a hesitancy to add player facing content.
Fifteen men on the deadman's chest
...Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum. Drink and the devil had done for the rest.
...Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.
MASKED REVIEWS: WEIRD ON THE WAVES
There is a very specific kind of product out there. It is system neutral, but not really, since it's designed for D&D retroclones, generally Basic/Expert, with some aspects of 5e referenced so that it technically can be considered compatible with that too. Monster stats are referenced as "AC: As Leather" to maintain cross compatibility between the various OSR systems. There will be an emphasis on magical items that have strange effects rather then basic bonuses.
Weird on the Waves is a toolkit for running your own Pirates of the Carribean style campaign in D&D. Written by Kiel "I Wrote A Vore Fetish Infused Willy Wonka Adventure" Chenner, and sold on itch.io here, this throws you back to 1666 in the West Indies, where a recent earthquake has caused all sorts of weird shit to spread on top of the colonial powers doing their pillaging, slaving, all that stuff. Now the Carribean has been teleported to an alternate dimension, where things have gotten really strange.
Fun.
The Caribbean covers Cuba, Puerta Rico, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and a couple other islands. It's a hexcrawl with enough space to make a good campaign, although I can simultaneously praise the focus of such a colorful time and place, and lament the fact no Spanish main or path across the Atlantic. The intro begins with explaining the stakes, different points of entry (including the two included adventures), a ship to start players out with, and a short "How to Structure Adventures" set up.
Chapter 2 has character creation rules and general "Pirate" rules. This is based in OSR (and began as a LotFP supplement before Kiel broke off with the company), so the rules make references that wouldn't make sense in 5e. 5e always gives max hp, so it wouldn't need to specify. At the same time, every character is given a Maritime skill, which doesn't make super sense in B/X which uses either a 1+Stat-in-6 skill roll or a d100 roll if you're a thief. There are Firearms rules, naturally, that are pretty standard for this kinda of game: hit moderately hard but have a long reload and are likely to misfire if made wet, something very unlikely to happen in the wettest place on Earth. The Death rules have been tweaked to make reaching 0 hp a chance to get a cool hook or peg leg instead of dying, or perhaps being resurrected as a Mermaid. More on that later.
Chapter 3 details The Mermaid. The Mermaid is essentially a person resurrected by the sea, amnesiac and made part fish. The chapter splits into old school version, for games like B/X where race is class, and new school version, where the Mermaid is a race. Either way, there's a random level up bonus table they get to roll on on top of the normal bonuses. It might have some issues in actual play, as they're very fast in water and comically slow out of it. No land legs for Mermaids.
Chapter 4 is Goods and Equipment. We start with a nice little list of different currency, which thankfully is left as equivalents to the usual fantasy GP set up rather then more realistic exchange rates like you would find in Warhammer. No one wants to deal with that nonsense. Next is armor, which handily explains why this toolkit hands your characters more HP as the more protective armors are rarer in a setting where wearing plate mail is likely to drop the character into Davy Jones Locker. Weapons are the usual array of piratical tools. Rules for cannibalism (Kiel, I beg you no), rules for pets that have nice little minor bonuses for their presence (like extra HP or bonuses to sailing checks). Cannons in all their various forms. Don't get hit with one. Services, including what's needed to cure various diseases. That's right, Dysentery and Scurvy are here and lethal.
Chapter 5: Ships. Can't be a pirate without a boat, and there are stats here from a dinky raft to a Man O' War. Ships can have Perks, which are like feats for boats. Some are amusing, all are useful.
Chapter 6 is Sailing. It starts with rules for recruiting and maintaining a crew. It's mostly the same as managing hirelings in OSR titles. If Morale dips too low, the crew could mutiny, which could be fun or traumatic, who knows. Next is Weather, which is functional, but because it relies on a d8 roll you will run into Hurricanes way to often for my test. When dealing with something like that, I personally would have made it a 2d6 roll, that naturally weights the results toward the center. Still, you do you.
Random Encounters are divided into two types: Typical, and Weird. You can probably parse that without me explaining it. Honestly, about half the Weird encounters are things that Just Happened in Pirates of the Caribbean. Next are various other things to do, including Parlay.
Chapter 7 is Ship Combat. Cue the Music. Combat is logically broken down into Big Actions and Small Actions. It does mean larger parties will get more turns, but that's always been the push and pull when you have PCs on a boat. There's depth in this system, but to see how it works I'd need to run it and that's hard right now.
Chapter 8 is all about the in-betweens of anything interesting happening. Repairing ships, ransoming prisoners, plundering your foes' ships, the works. Repairs can be costly, and breaking even might require being a clever pirate and taking every advantage. Perfect.
Chapter 9 is Wave Master Rules, which despite the name doesn't start with rules but with a general history lesson. Who the power players of the Caribbean are. What your ports of call are. Basically, a more indepth version of the stuff from chapter 1, with some calls forward to the adventures at the end of the book. The most lush description, naturally, is given to Tortuga, home of the pirate brethren.
New Mechanics include three new dice resources for the GM. Wave Dice represent the sea, and can be added by the DM to any roll that involves the sea itself. Weal Dice are essentially inspiration, gained whenever a player rolls a Nat 20. Woe Dice are the opposite, being given to the DM whenever the players roll a 1. As a rule, I'm not the biggest fan of putting tools for screwing over players into the hands of a GM, I think they are already very powerful, especially in an OSR based system, so YMMV. Especially the Woe dice, which have a 1-in-10 chance of spontaneously mutating a player. This isn't Gamma World. The rest of the Chapter is Table Land, where Tables appear to help generate things for Dungeon Masters with writers block.
Chapter 10: Adversaries and Monsters is relatively short, with everything you'd need to start but ready to be supplemented by other monster manuals. Kiel Chenner's food fetish is on display with the introduction of lemons that eat you and sentient coconuts who communicate by clapping together. More importantly, there are stats for important NPCs such as Captain Morgan. The famed pirate captains have high HP for a B/X character (a system where a dragon has less HP then these apparently regular human beings) and low for 5e (where having 27-50 HP means it takes one ganging up for a third level party to end them). I'd adjust these at my table.
With that, we end the Weird on the Waves rules portion and venture into the adventures, but before that, I'd like to talk about the book aesthetic. The art here is mostly faded woodcuts and famous paintings on a white background, however good placement and just the right level of fading keeps it from being obnoxious. I'd call this book an example of Good Budget Design. Good Job Kiel.
Now for the Adventure
The Horrors of Pig Island is the first module of the book. An extended reference to Classical Mythology, it features an island crawl with a simple goal: Escape or be Pork.
Goddamn it Kiel.
Yes, the central gimmick of this adventure is that your characters are slowly transforming into pigs. Gotta admire the consistency. The players have to make their way from the west end of the island to one of the three main ways to escape the island, while avoiding the half transformed suitors of a sea witch who is the only one immune to the island's curse and quite mad from years of only having oinking to talk to. There is a sidequest of recovering five chests that other sailors made off with before inevitably biting the dust or becoming pork. It'll do, pig.
Nah, but seriously, I feel like the Odyssey references are a might too heavy handed for a setting that's aiming for the 1600s and not antiquity. The extreme time crunch means players lucking into doing the shortest possible way of solving the problem are still going to be doing two of the three saving throws, and if they want to do everything they will be making 8 saving throws, which only three need to be failed to brick a character. That's fine if you are running a OSR game, those are designed to murder characters anyway, low level adventures are meant to be Nietzschean wheels of pain and characters being transformed into pigs is merciful in comparison to the poor would-be heroes who got eaten by frogs on the ride up to the moathouse, albeit equally undignified. But 5e wants you to love your character, so that sort of time pressure is basically asking for a player to storm off, their self-insert made into lunch which the book won't stop giving advice on how to eat.
The Race To Mondo Island is the second adventure, and leads off directly from Pig Island. With knowledge of the hidden treasure of legendary pirate Pierre Le Grande, the characters must venture into the magic barrier that surrounds the main Hex Crawl to reach a mysterious island.
That's... it. Like, there's an island crawl at the end, and the book emphasizes that the characters need to get stronger before going for the treasure, getting a better ship then what you start with and leveling up. But the adventure starts you on the island closest to the barrier, gives you a place to retreat to to reup your crew, and puts just this big old ocean between you and your goal. It's like reverse One Piece. Getting back has a boss fight against another pirate ship, but for an adventure called The RACE To Mondo Island there is no race here.
I could fix this adventure, make it a multistage journey based out of Tortuga instead of starting you as close to the end as possible, starting you off with only a piece of the map instead of the whole thing, and letting the players bargain, steal, and subvert for the rest of the plot coupons while travelling the Caribbean. As it is, theres just not that much going on here.
And that's Weird on the Waves.
It's... an uneven product. There's definitely a lot to mine here in terms of mechanics and information about the Caribbean is cool for historical games. But the adventures are kinda slapdash compared to Kiel's other works, and I just feel like something is missing. I don't know what, but something is.
Fly me to the moon
and be chased cross all the stars
Hope I get that super strength
Like John Carter of Mars
Special thanks to my buddy Hob, who is lending me his copy of this book
MASKED REVIEWS: PERILS ON THE PURPLE PLANET
PLANETARY ROMANCE. That is an amazing title for a genre. Planetary: Out among the stars, dealing with alien worlds and alien peoples. Romance: Referring not to stories about love, but rather Chivalric Romance, where our protagonist goes on a quest to save a kingdom or a princess or both. Since Edgar Rice Burroughs first wrote The Princess of Mars, the genre has lived in this strange land between Science fiction and fantasy, although the most successful recent Planetary Romance story would have to be Thor: Ragnarok.
It's also D&D as fuck. Whether it's OD&D's Wilderness tables featuring Mars as a possible location and an array of John Carter baddies, to the Spelljammer setting, D&D borrows liberally from the genre. Or did. Recent years have seen a lot of the elements disappear as Forgotten Realms slowly scooches out the other settings.
Onto the meat of the review. Perils of the Purple Planet is a Dungeon Crawl Classics box set that finds our protagonists stranded on the Purple Planet. Honestly, no more lethal then the Blue planet on average. DCC world is a land of murder.
The box set consists of a level 0 character funnel (Escape From The Purple Planet), a level 4 hexcrawl (Perils on the Purple Planet), a GM's book (Purple Planet Companion), a dungeon compilation (Lost Tombs of the Ancients), a critical hit die drop table, a book of handouts, and a laminated GM screen. Lot of things to cover.
For those who don't know about DCC, it is a D&D derived game that places the players in extremely lethal adventures with the intention of separating the lucky from the dead. I would call it the eldest sibling of games such as Lamentations of the Flame Princess and Mjork Borg. As I mentioned before, the game uses a Character Funnel system to accomplish this. Honestly, the highest level character I've ever heard about in DCC is four, mostly it's used as a one shot game, because the 0th level games are the most interesting thing about it.
Escape from the Purple Planet
This module begins with your characters bound in irons and stripped down to their underwear. Good start. You're handed wooden blades and the promise if you kill your fellow players, the aliens will give you the key to the room. From there, the PCs have to make their way through the guts of an arena, avoiding death traps and the aliens who want a show. There are two possible endings to this module, one leading into the main adventure, and one ending where with the assistance of an insane navigator you pilot a Spelljammer off to other worlds. I've played through this module (as an Elven falconer who used the wooden replacement of his bird to attack random creatures) and it can be pretty fun, as DCC modules tend to be. Expect for the majority of the party to die to random bullshit, but in a fun way.
4/5 Fun Death Module
Perils of the Purple Planet
This module is a hexcrawl with a simple goal: find a battery for the teleporter and get home. Like Escape, there are multiple ways to accomplish this. Your opposition are the Kith, mutated demi-humans constantly at war with one another and more then willing to use outsiders as target practice; the ascended masters, the immortal godkings of the kith; and of course the environs of the Purple Planet itself.
The adventure starts with the players teleporting into a sealed chamber where the only oxygen is what you brought with you. Escape or die. You'll want to remember this pyramid, because it will be important for getting home.
After some notes on getting lost, we start with the crawl. The map is visually interesting, but I will say it is somewhat hard to parse. Not the hardest, but if this were my book I'd be going at it with a highlighter to assist my GMing. There are three areas of interest beyond the pyramid at the start, each of which are nasty little dungeons to conquer. One is a camp of one of the main Kith factions. One is an ancient tomb of a Kith warrior with all the good shit. And one is a sapient city that wants you to stay forever and ever.
All in all, I'd say that this is definitely an example of cool hexcrawl on a time crunch. There isn't that much in the way of opportunity to negotiate here, but that's pretty standard for DCC. And hey, you can occasionally find some laser guns and shit. And get to murder a sapient city.
4/5 You can murder a fucking evil city.
Lost Tombs of the Ancients
These are additional modules for Perils, able to be placed pretty much anywhere in the purple desert. These are essentially more in-depth versions of the Kith warrior tomb, each with their own gimmick and potential bonus or negative. They definitely are a "...and then" to the main adventure. They're fun.
3/5
In General
The Perils of the Purple Planet is a violent, cruel, lethal module and I loved every second I was reading it. These books know what they want to be and they accomplish exactly that. Stylistically the book nails the Dirtbag Pulp Adventure that DCC likes. Belissimo!
Heyyyy Kids. Do you like Baldur's Gate. Like... really like Baldurs Gate. Is your thought process that Descent into Avernus wasn't enough like Baldur's Gate?
Well have I got the game for you.
Masked Reviews:Heroes of Baldur's Gate (You must gather your party before venturing forth)
Heroes of Baldur's Gate is a starter campaign for the Forgotten Realms, written by Baldur's Gate franchise writers James Ohlen and Jesse Skye, pretty much as a warm up for Odyssey of the Dragonlords. You can kind of think of it as a Baldur's Gate AU. It's set during a year after the events of Baldur's Gate I, and a lot of familiar faces appear, both good and evil. There is a quick sidebar for setting the game during 5e's Forgotten Realms, changing names around for characters who aren't long lived enough to make it through the ~200 year gap, but if you bought this, you probably did so due to excitement for the upcoming BGIII or nostalgia for the original game.
Onward.
The game is designed to take a party from level 1 to 6, which is respectable enough. There is a table on changes to make if the players are in modern day, OR for how to replace characters if the PCs decide they want to play as classic Baldur's Gate characters such as Minsc.
Chapter 1: The Coast Way
This bit should be very familiar to fans of BG. You begin in the Friendly Arms Inn, being recruited by Khalid to rescue his wife Jaheira from gibberlings. Pretty nice setup which is immediately ruined as the book begins it's love affair with long paragraphs of Box Text. The book highlights box text in green, and dread forms whenever I see it.
Still, the first chapter is a short collection of encounters. I feel this could have been made into a point crawl, considering it's a rescue mission that should have a time crunch. As it is, the only time crunch you have is a leisurely one where you have a month to realize Khalid is poisoned and dying. These linear encounters shouldn't take more then a day in-game time, and a session or two depending on how quickly you can nail those Survival checks to track the monsters. From there, the party is herded to Baldur's Gate.
I actually do understand making the first chapter linear and simple. Characters can't do much, and having a simple goal and a simple quest feeds them the XP needed to get to level 2 and that much needed buffer of HP for what comes next. Still, as a prologue it gives very little player agency. You are told where to go, what to do, even the DM has paragraphs of script to read. There isn't that much room for the improvisational nature of D&D that we play the game for. It is a video game script.
Hopefully that's not a sign of things to come...
Chapter 2: Baldur's Gate, Southern District.
The chapter begins exactly where the last one left off. You've been recruited to help the Harpers with some mysterious mission. You meet with Imoen in the Elfsong Tavern, who immediately tells you she's apart of the Harpers, a supposedly secret organization. From there, you're given a quest to figure out what the no good Zhentarim are up to.
Fucking Zhents
There is a sidenote in this section for special quests involving the unique backgrounds given by this module, such as Bhaalspawn. From there the leash is off. You're given a map of the city, a list of locations, and the goal of discovering the Zhent's plan. The order things are written is off, and there isn't a master list of characters for DM ease of use, but the idea is correct. The video game scripting is still there, characters have a very simple If/Then description instead of personality, but it's loose enough to give players the ability to make choices that a GM can react to. Most of the NPCs know something the PCs can put together, a couple are Zhents or have beef with the Zhents and it's a goddamn adventure instead of a series of linear encounters. There's a family of halfling Barbers who are actually doppelgangers who act as assassins for the villains and Sweeny Todd their victims before replacing them for a week or so before the person "decides to leave". There's a gay couple who run a funeral home and an orphanage who are trying to raise money to pay for one of their orphans who was kidnapped. There's stories here to dig into and its so good.
As an aside, there are small in-character blurbs from various BG party members on several pages, which almost feel like party banter from the game.
Chapter 3: Below Baldur's Gate
Really, this should be chapter 2B. Your goal is the same, there's nothing stopping you from doing a quest in the basements and boilers below Baldur's Gate before heading back up to Chapter 2's content. The only reason they are divided is because there are two maps. The underground is more divided then above ground, into about a half dozen groupings of basements that are connected to one another. The goal is to get into the Zhent lair, but there are other sidequests. Another classic BG cameo can occur if you find Edwin's basement. That sort of thing. Storywise, you're looking for the next link in the chain, which means tracking down the local leader of the Zhentarim and getting his plot coupons, two letters from his boss with two leads for the party to follow further: The Necromancer Xzar's research into the Bhaalspawn, and a coven of Hags that recently gained a ritual that could rip a hole into the Feywild and cause Cloakwood Forest to devour the area.
Chapter 4: Cloakwood Forest
This chapter is a point crawl through the titular forest. This is a hub for a number of adventures to follow, which can be stumbled upon or tracked down depending on how well the characters have been following the clues given in Chapters 2 & 3. There's a nice "friendly character is actually a monster trying to eat you" encounter here, but it's pretty short.
Chapter 5: Cloakwood Iron Mines
Yet another callback to BG1 locations. The Zhents have taken over the mines after the events of BG1, and are researching Bhaalspawn here. The mines have a spokes on a wheel design, venturing out from a central chamber, however the path forward pulls a nasty trick when the elevator down makes enough noise to wake the dead. Sorry folks, doesn't matter how careful you were to this point, it's combat time. Not only that, but the big bad, the necromancer Xzar, will disable the elevator and wait for the players to go through every other encounter before showing himself in a double bluff with a ghoul seeming'd to look like him. It's theatrical, and you find several notes with letters from Viconia, but it does lock the players in with no way to retreat. It's... gamey.
Still, I suppose it's a change of pace after two chapters of free exploration.
Chapter 6: The Shadow Druids
This is essentially a tower dungeon. You can go up, into the Shadow Tree's branches, or you can go down, beneath the Shadow Tree's routes. It's linear, but there is an upside: MINSC. He's been trussed up like a turkey by the hags, but like a bootleg Ron Stoppable he does have a ace up his sleeve to help the party if they're getting their asses kicked. The other route leads to a boss fight with a psychotic druid. The imagery's good, and the ritual has a noticeable effect on the surrounding area if it is stopped or allowed to succeed. Still, the dungeon itself is fairly linear.
Chapter 7: The Nest
After two mini-adventures that are about as black and white morally as possible, The Nest is much more morally ambiguous. The Nest is a spider's den, and at the center of it all is the Drow priestess of Shar, Viconia. However, rather then being the lair of evil it presents itself as, the Nest is a refugee camp for Driders. Hope you feel good about that hack and slashing, you killed misunderstood spider monsters. Well done hero.
It's not quite that bad. Viconia is still helping the Zhents, and has a hostage that the players may or may not need depending on if their following their background quests, and they are planning on raiding a nearby Elven city for artifacts (to undo the Drider curse... so...). Still, this is another linear set of encounters, albeit one that is not just combat fests like the previous adventures.
Chapter 8: Return to Baldur's Gate
When the players are done in Cloakwood, the book then asks the question: How much did you solve?
There are three attacks on the city, simultaneously. If you killed their instigator before making the return trip, congrats, mischief managed, deal with the other ones. If you haven't, welcome to the big battle. It's a shame the easiest one to make not happen is also the coolest.
1. Xzar's ritual if you didn't find his lair and kill him causes him to botch an Ascension ritual (sorry, that's for CHARNAME only) and become The Slayer instead.
2. Faldorn, the evil druid, will essentially have the same boss battle as earlier, only now you're battling her after another hard fight.
3. Edwin, if the little spud wasn't killed during the first jaunt through Baldur's Gate (unlikely, he's pretty well hidden), will make his move here. Some of your potential NPC allies were actually his stooges the whole time.
These are decent finales, but I feel the book could have done a lot to make them more exciting. As it stands, either you did the whole adventure, in which case the ending is fighting Edwin and then getting a parade, or you didn't, in which case you get a lot more climactic fights at the end of the campaign but a lot less reward and a reminder that people died because you didn't stop the baddies the first time around.
How to Fix It
Add another Bhaalspawn. It's part of the setting that they seek out each other. As it currently stands, the best final boss fight of the main campaign is only accessible if the party messes up. Still, YMMV.
Regardless, the city throws a parade for the new Heroes of Baldur's Gate, and the adventure concludes.
I liked this main quest more then I thought I would. I was worried at the start it would be a straight line rail road, like the Acquisitions Inc book is. There's elements of that, but the two main sections of the adventure are very player driven. The early read aloud heavy section was just to set up for a more player driven adventure. And I appreciate that.
But, we're not done yet. There are several more chapters of this book after the main story.
Chapter 9: The City of Baldur's Gate
A Gazetteer of the city, this gives plothooks, sidequests, things for the DM to flesh out if the group wants to move outside what the main adventure call for, or use the city in another Faerun campaign.
Chapter 10: The Sword Coast
Another Gazetteer. Lots of wilderness and small towns to explore here, from the routes up to Waterdeep. This is looser, but still fertile ground for a DM to mine for ideas, especially if the DM wants to translate Durlag's Tower from the video game. Some of the areas covered here have been covered in other modules, like Candlekeep which showed up in Descent and Acq Inc's adventures.
Appendixes
Backgrounds give some unique, main quest related backgrounds. All would be fun to do, but only occasionally are useful. Bhaalspawn is the most relevant to the main plot.
Magic Items has some new toys to play with, magic weapons and armor.
Creatures is a monster manual that is mostly filled with more or less powerful variants of existing MM monsters. Dread Doppelgangers, bigger and badder dopplers. Hamadryad, nastier dryads. Skeleton Lord, a Death Knight that has been scaled down to threatening but beatable by a 5th level party. And so on and so forth.
Characters is cameo land. Most of the characters are set up at CR7, including major villains,meaning they'll be a nasty fight early on and merely a obnoxious fight near the end of the story.
In Conclusion:
This adventure actually is a pretty good 5e product. It holds up to a lot of 1st party modules, although the dungeons are very simplistic and the adventure itself is a short loop. If it does have a major flaw, it's something entirely outside of the pages of the book...
the price.
$20 for a PDF? $55 for PDF + Book? Really? You are paying a premium price for a mid tier adventure, with most of the cast being pre-existing characters and that goes out of it's way to be difficult to unite with other sword coast adjacent adventures by setting itself 200 years in the past compared to the edition. I understand the reasons why, but its still a fly in the oil. Especially since the same writing crew sells a 1-20 adventure for about the same price.
I won't say it's not worth buying. Just... might skip if you don't love love Baldurs Gate. Or maybe pick it up if there is a sale.
