Highmoon's Ponderings

My friend Judd Karlman has been talking both on Twitter and his blog about a new Burning Wheel game he’s started set in the city of Waterdeep, in the Forgotten Realms (FR), arguably the most detailed campaign setting for Dungeons & Dragons. This, of course, has gotten me thinking about FR as well, and has brought a flood of nostalgia washing upon me, causing me to write this post where I can wax poetic about my love for this world.

Let us travel back to the last years of the Rubik’s-Cube-and-leg-warmers era and to the little island of Puerto Rico. In 1986 I was introduced to Dungeons & Dragons, or more precisely to Basic D&D. To say that I fell head-over-heels for this game of the imagination would be an understatement. We played the game as much as we could, as much as 8th-graders can manage, as much as was humanly possible at our age. And given we were playing Basic D&D, all our adventures were in the Known World (later to be known as Mystara): we played through B1-9: In Search of Adventure straight through, once, twice, more. The Known World as our world far more than the real world was. But this isn’t a post about the Known World (though I certainly think one will eventually have to be written as well).

A couple years later, we finally got our hands on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) books. Getting RPG books in Puerto Rico during this time was about as difficult and exiting as Indiana Jones finding the lost ark (sans snooty French nemesis), so these were great treasures and the literal keys to even more adventures than before. Problem was, AD&D didn’t come with a built-in setting. There were a couple to choose from: my friend Braulio wandered down the road to Greyhawk, and me, I took the road leading to a brand new land just recently discovered, a placed called the Forgotten Realms.

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Welcome to Ronin: Oriental Adventures in Tokugawa Japan, a world of honor and steel at the edge of the modern age.

Ronin brings you to Japan during the Edo Period, characterized by the rule of the Tokugawa Shogunate (1600-1868). This is the height of samurai culture, when feudal lords commanded fearsome warriors and ruled vast lands, when the mysticism of the past clashed blades with the coming of the modern age. Will you be a samurai beholden to a master or a free-ranging ronin? Will you follow the way of the sword or call upon the arcane spirits? Will you explore high society or delve into the commoner’s world? A world on the edge of turmoil awaits you.

Ronin gives players and Game Masters will find invaluable information to bring the rich historical era of the Edo Period to their games, including:

• An introduction to Tokugawa Japan, covering topics such as geography, culture, daily life, nobility, commoners, outsiders and outcasts, magic and mysticism.
• A primer on samurai culture.
• New Rules systems, such as the all-important Honor, as well as Flaws.
• New Basic Classes, such as the courtier, shudoshi (Zen seekers), and vagabond.
• New Prestige Classes, such as the blade saint, blind swordman, hedge witch, medium, merchant, and shinobi.
• New Feats, 16 in total.
• New Magic, including 12 new spells.
• A Bestiary of menaces from the natural, magical and ghostly realms.

Ronin: Oriental Adventures in Tokugawa Japan is a sourcebook in the 3rd Fantasy line, compatible with the 3.5 edition of the world’s most popular fantasy roleplaying game.

Written by: Jeremy Puckett
Art by: Zach Ashmore (Cover), public domain Japanese artwork.
Layout by: Mark Reed
Developed by: Daniel M. Perez

Now Available from RPGNow.com!

Highmoon Media Productions and MonkeyGod Enterprises present At the Edge of Dreams.

The body of a Faean lord is found skewered by an iron lance, one of his retinue surviving long enough to whisper, “Mortals” An entire human family is found ruthlessly slaughtered in their sleep, traces of Faean magic still lingering in the air. Ancient pacts between the Faean and the village of Graymeer have ensured a lasting peace over the centuries. Now, however, with ever increasing atrocities occurring to both sides, the pact is strained to the point of breaking. And if they break, there will be a war between the Mortals and Faean, a war that will escalate to throw all of the Shield Islands into chaos.

Something, or someone, has been purposefully trying to drive the Faean and Mortals into direct conflict. The heroes have one chance - they must find the true culprit behind these incidents, and then travel to the mysterious Faean Realm, At the Edge of Dreams, to convince the Faean Court to halt their attacks, before it is too late.

At the Edge of Dreams is a d20 fantasy adventure for 6th- & 7th-level characters.

Written by: Christopher Coyle
Cover by: Scott Fischer
Artwork by: Theodor Black
Fully Bookmarked

NOW AVAILABLE from RPGNow.com!

To celebrate Gen Con, the Best Four Days in Gaming, we are putting all our MonkeyGod d20 adventures on sale for only $1.00!

Click here to see the MonkeyGod d20 adventures. 

Sale is in effect from August 13 - 31, 2008 at RPGnow and DriveThruRPG.

Grab some good d20 fun and head off to the dungeon in style. After all, who knows if these adventures will be seen again after the end of the year, once the d20 System license and logo have expired.

We got this product for review on The Digital Front some time back, but unfortunately Mark’s time has been taken up by real life stuff, so it ended up lingering in the electronic closet of gaming books. I had taken a look at it a couple of times since getting the download, and when Richard Leon (of Dark Skull Studios, the publisher) emailed me if I had had a chance to look it over, I took the opportunity to give it one more look and write up some feedback for him, which I now share with you.

Overall I think they have a very intriguing game in New Gods of Mankind. The premise is that you play a new deity as it begins to make its mark on the world and gather followers to create a cult, and thus power. At first I thought that this was along the lines of Godsend Agenda or Scion, but the fact that you actually get to play an actual deity at a period of time when such a paradigm makes sense (the game is set in this world’s early bronze age, when the elder races are still strong, but humanity is starting to become a major force in the world’s dynamics – in short, the perfect time for the titutlar new gods of manking to be making their power plays in order to raise their protected race, and themselves, up in influence and power) is a lot more compeling. I have a soft spot for ancient/bronze age settings, so they hooked me here, and the world they have described seems very appealing, very Hyborea-like, with all the cool pulp fantasy elements that entails. I think, actually, it’s one of the books strongest points.

Playing a deity is not something that calls too me as a gamer, I do have to admit, but I must say that the character creation chapter could very well stand alone as the centerpiece of a great supplement on the creation of deities for a homebrewed campaign. It covers all the right elements to leave you with a well-rounded, complex deity to drop into your world; no cookie-cutter gods here, I assure you. Dark Skull would do well to grab this chapter out and make the supplement I suggest, because it would be of great use to a wide variety of gamers, and would help expose others to their game.

To up the cool factor once more, the book includes a chapter on playing New Gods of Mankind as a board game, effectively giving you two games in one. At $9.95 for the PDF, I think this is a great buy, even if only for the setting and deity creation material in case you’re not looking for another game.

Fans of Scion and Godsend Agenda would do well to take a look at New Gods of Mankind. You’re already familiar with playing a character at this level of power, and hey, why not play an actual deity instead of an avatar?

Teh Intrawebs has decided the new d20 logo (see previous post) looks way too retro, too 70’s (I agree). So, if it’s gonna look 70’s, then why not make it REALLY 70’s! I present to you the new d20 logo:

Frankly, I feel it’s an improvement.