This article is part of a series of reviews of non-D&D game books which might nevertheless be of interest to D&D gamers.


As I've mentioned in an earlier review, GURPS genre books tend to be extremely useful as supplements even when you don't actually play GURPS. GURPS Horror is certainly no exception. Indeed, it may be the best of them all.

Written by Kenneth Hite of Suppressed Transmission fame, this books dissects the horror genre for role-playing games, and then stiches it together again as an unholy, animate corpse ready to terrify your players. So, what's actually in it? Let's go through it chapter by chapter.


This chapter discusses the common archetypes of horror protagonists - in other words, typical player characters. Some of them will be obvious (the Academic, Clergyman, Detective, and Occultist), others less so (the Artist, Attorney, Child, or Journalist). This is probably the least useful for D&D gamers, since many of the archetypes don't map well to the D&D classes, and all of them have lengthy GURPS templates.


This chapter is still about the player characters - but instead of the nuts and bolts of the rules, this chapter discusses motivations for getting involved in horror scenarios. Why, after all, should any sane man go into the monster-haunted cellar? One of the answers is of course that said man is no longer sane, but there are plenty of other character hooks which can be used by player and GM alike. Whether a Childhood Curse, an Evil Ancestor, or a period of Missing Time compels the character to seek out things which he better shouldn't have meddled with, there are plenty of personal reasons for going into dark places. Equally important is the ability to work with other party members, something that is discussed here as well.


This is the Bestiarium of the book and thus lists a large range of monsters. But instead of listing the monsters depending on their nature (undead, shapeshifter, fey etc.), they are listed by the kinds of fears they are supposed to invoke, an organization as ingenious as it is effective. Starting with Fear of Taint (such Vampires, Ghouls), it moves on to Fear of Nature (Werewolves, Shaggy Ones, Man-Eaters), Fear of Madness (Serial Killers, Psycho Killers, Evil Clowns), Fear of Mutilation (The Ripper, Disembodied Brains), Fear of the Universe (Things Man Was Not Meant To Know, Cosmic Deities, etc.), Fear of the Unnatural (Ghosts, Malevolent Objects), Fear of Others (The Unseelie), Fear of Disease (Killer Virus, Nosferatu), and Fear of Death (Zombies, Mummies). In an inversion of the 4E Monster Manual, far more space is given over to flavor and discussing variants than to actual rules mechanics, as it is assumed that the GM will want to tailor the creature for his own campaign. And even if the GM doesn't want to use the listed creatures, the various sections will certainly get him thinking in the right direction when he wants to evoke specific fears. Furthermore, boxed texts discuss less common fears, such as Fear of the Foreign and Fear of Sex (!), as well as entities that fit into multiple sections (such as Alien Invaders).


The next chapter is all about horror campaign considerations. It discusses campaign lengths (whether one-shots or extended campaigns), narrative structures for the campaigns, who both the protagonists and the enemies represent, and a vast range of other design parameters. It discusses the scale of the campaign - whether it is supposed to revolve only about a few people, or the fate of the entire world. Next comes scope - how much of the world the PCs are actually able to affect. The next parameter is austerity - how much are the PCs held accountible for their actions, including their mistakes? And finally, what are the boundaries of the campaign - does it all take place in a relatively small locale, or will the PCs travel the world, or the cosmos?


Furthermore, this chapter gives advice for high-powered horror - how can you evoke an atmosphere of horror when the heroes are almost invulnerable? It discusses the various sources of uncanny power - whether magic, psionics, or perverted science. Finally, it examines the various genres that work with horror, from the familiar fantasy all the way to science fiction.


This chapter is all about individual horror adventures and how to create and run them. It discusses the elements of horror (uncertainty, isolation, the unnatural), the possible styles (splatter, cosmic horror, etc.) and themes (betrayal, corruption, and so forth), and symbolic settings (the Bad Place and the Invaded House). It discusses how to run such adventures, and how to design them, starting from the story hook and the first hints to the twists and turns, the villain's motivation, and so forth. While there is little in the way of game mechanics, this chapter will be incredibly useful to set the mood of the game.


The final chapter gives three ready-made example horror campaign settings:

• Seas of Dread, Sails of Daring: Probably the easiest to convert to D&D, this setting looks like the Carribean in the late 17th century... but here, the New World is still newly formed out of the primordial chaos, with all sorts of monsters lurking in the depths that threaten to swallow it all, including the newly arrived Europeans and the pirates that move among them.
• Blood in the Craters: A sequel of sorts to H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, this setting takes place in the aftermath of the failed Martian invasion. London slowly rebuilds - but not all of the Martians are as gone as they seem, and they are slowly plotting their vengeance and sending out their servitors to abduct the unwitting humans who try to rebuild their lives.
• The Madness Dossier: In this setting, much of recorded history is fragile. A cosmic cataclysm set the true rulers of Earth - as well as their servitors, now half-remembered as Sumerian demons - to sleep for the last 15 centuries, and humanity achieved an independence it was never meant to have. Now the servitors awaken again and threaten to restore the timeline to what it once was. Only a secret cabal of humans have gained the powers to fight the demons back - but their powers allow them to wreck and alter the minds of humans nearly at will, all in the name of the "greater good" for humanity. This setting could be adapted to a fantasy world as well, with a few name changes and appropriate bonus powers for the player characters.

The book ends with a large bibliography with all sorts of books related to the horror genre, both fiction and nonfiction, as well as comics, movies, and television series.


To sum it up, this book is an invaluable resource for anyone who wants to run horror campaigns and adventures. Nowhere else in an RPG publication have I found such an intelligent and concise examination of the horror genre in all its forms. And I don't expect that to change until the author writes a new edition of the book...

Jürgen Hubert

This article is part of a series of reviews of non-D&D game books which might nevertheless be of interest to D&D gamers.


When Delta Green was published by Pagan Publishing, it earned entirely justified rave reviews for updating the Cthulhu Mythos to the 1990s by blending UFO lore, government conspiracies, and the tales of H.P. Lovecraft into a seamless whole. A few years later, Pagan Publishing released an even larger (424 pages long!) companion volume entitled Delta Green: Countdown - a book that, in my opinion, transcends the subject matter of its predecessor to become the single best RPG supplement of all time. While still written for the 1990s, the concepts, themes, and ideas in its chapters can easily be lifted for other times and genres - including fantasy games. I should know, for I have done so to create some of the most memorable adventures I have ever run.

To explain why I feel this way, I will unfortunately have to reveal some serious spoilers for several of the chapters. Needless to say, those who do not wish to be spoiled should stop reading now!









In this chapter, we are told of the alien, insectoid Shan, who can pass through organic matter and control humans by "flying" into their brains, and they have used this to infiltrate powerful government and corporate officials. These creatures have a serious weakness, however - they panic in the face of sunlight. This weakness has been used by the so-called "Army of the Third Eye", a group of former victims who try to liberate others under the influence of the Shan - through a process called trepanation, i.e. by drilling a hole into their skulls.

So imagine the following scenario in your fantasy campaign: The PCs learn of an "evil cult" that kidnaps high-ranking guild members and officials of a particular city, drills holes into their heads, and then somehow brainwashes them into joining their cult. The guild masters have offered a high bounty on killing the leaders of the cult. Will the PCs stop to ask questions first, or will they automatically assume that the Army of the Third Eye is as evil as their reputation? And once they figure out the truth, will they be able to stop the demons from enslaving the rest of the town?



This chapter details a throughly disturbing cult of Russian exiles. Their rites of initiation involve castrating themselves and then sacrificing the cut parts to an avatar of the evil fertility deity they worship. In their new home, they now present a wholesome front and have taken to adopting children from orphanages to replenish their numbers.

This cult can be used with few changes in a fantasy setting, and they are so throughly mad and corrupt that most player characters will be so disturbed that they will be extremely motivated to stop this menace once and for all.



A crime ring joins up with a cult to produce the most effective mind-bending drug ever. Unfortunately, the drug has some rather nasty side effects... including a tendency for the drug users to attract extradimensional creatures.

This makes for a great investigative scenario - the PCs can try to figure out just who - or what is behind a strange series of disappearances in a city. Add in some rather shady government connections that no one in power is keen to reveal, and the PCs could end up in all kinds of trouble if they aren't careful - even beyond the prospect of facing some very powerful magic users.


If some good-guy organization ends up with a large number of mysterious artifacts, where do they put them? And will they be tempted to use their obvious power?


Describes a religious conflict between two groups of ghouls - one preaches that ghouls should only feast upon those already dead, while the other is all too willing to kill to get new meat. If the PCs encounter the first group, will they stay their hand, or will they slay the "evil monsters" - thus allowing the second group to gain power and threaten the city?


There is an otherworldly force out there. It preys on the artistic and the alienated, and those who have touched it will find that reality gradually warps around them until they are abducted to the alien city of Carcosa. Can the PCs rescue those in its grasp? Or will they loose touch with reality themselves?



These short summaries are insufficient to convey the brilliance and detail in this volume. Suffice to say, if you can find this book anywhere and a halfway reasonable price, pick it up - you won't be disappointed.

Jürgen Hubert

This article is part of a series of reviews of non-D&D game books which might nevertheless be of interest to D&D gamers.


Thus writes John Tynes in the introduction to Suppressed Transmission: The First Broadcast, and he of all people should know. But what is this book?

A collection of the first 34 essays of Kenneth Hite's long-running Pyramid Online column of the same name. Kenneth Hite, whose GURPS Horror I consider to be one of the best gaming books ever (and which I will review at a later date), is well-known for plumbing the depths of horror, weirdness, and conspiracy, especially as Earth is concerned. And his essays in the Suppressed Transmissions column examine all of these and more, and some genius at Steve Jackson Games had the idea to publish a collection of those in print, get Kenneth Hite to write extended footnotes and references for each essay, and then add some of the sweetest art you have ever seen in a black & white publication (the fact that most of them are period pieces doesn't lessen the effect in the least). The result is a really dense and well-written collection, with zero game stats (though quite a few references to GURPS books, but that shouldn't deter you).

And let me just say from the start that these essays are Adventure Seed Central - including for D&D gamers. You are likely to get at least one idea for an adventure or an entire campaign when reading through a single of these essays, and usually several. I will give you a short sampling - a summary of two essays in each chapter.


Yes, even our own Earth can serve as the setting for a D&D campaign - especially if you add magic to it and let history diverge from the course familiar to us.

"In Honor of Technomancer: Five More Magical Revolutions": From the proliferation of spell-granting divinities after Alexander's reign to the discovery of magic by Roger Bacon in 1268 to the alchemically powered sky gallons of the Spanish who hold the monopoly on the Philosopher's stone, this chapter has all you need for high fantasy right on Earth.
"Clio's Nightmares: Four High Alternate-Historical Horror-Fantasy Settings": Whether you chose to run a campaign in demon-haunted Rome under the mad Emperor Heliogabalus or play the defenders of the last free realms in a Europe overrun by goblins and werewolves, either setting is easily adaptable to D&D.


"Digging Up Weirdness": Every campaign needs a few ancient artifacts left over from the Dawn of Time, and here you will find inspiration for the people who dig them up. I especially like the description of the "Bone Wars" - instead of rival paleontologists you could have rival necromancers competing for dinosaur bones,,,
"A Swiftly Tilting Planet: The Great Pole Shift": How's that for a natural (or unnatural) disaster - the poles of the planet the campaign is set on change, and suddenly everybody has to deal with living in an entirely different climate zone and struggle to survive or leave for greener pastures (if the PCs don't stop the catastrophe from occurring in the first place, of course). A great way to shake up a setting if the PCs thought there were no challenges left...



"Ancient Astronaut Texas Steel Cage Death Match": Every setting needs a precursor race or two that leaves behind mysterious artifacts and threatens the status quo if they return from distant stars, awake from suspended animation, and so forth. In this essay, we get a good sample of all the precursor races some people thought existed on our world.
"Le Comte de Saint-Germain": It's very tempting for the GM to put an immortal NPC into his campaign. There's always the danger that he will overshadow the PCs. But if you decide to put one in anyway, the Count de Saint-Germain makes for a better model than Elminster in my opinion.



"There's More to Faeries Than Their Glamor": The first footnote to this article starts with the sentence: '"The Gentry" is just one of the nice things you will call the faerie so that they don't get mad and come back and blight your calves and kill your baby and rape your wife.' This attitude pervades the essay, which throughly deconstructs and de-Disneyfies the faeries. I throughly approve, and with the greater prominence of the fey in D&D 4E more relevant than ever.
"Stalking the Wild Manticore": This essay gives an old fantasy staple an in-depth look. Use what you learn in here, and the PCs will never again regard the manticore as just another dumb, poisonous monster...


"Illumination in Theory and Practice": How to make everything seem connected to everything else. Do it right, and the players will jump at shadows and suspect conspiracies behind every corner.
"Metro Section Baghdad": How to get adventure ideas from the daily newspaper, demonstrated with the February 10th issue of the Los Angeles Times.

And this last article shows be general idea of the book best: Our own world can be a never-ending source of ideas and inspiration for campaign ideas. I certainly found this to be true for Urbis (the careful reader will notice more than a few references to real world history in there), and it can be true for your campaign as well. This collection makes for an excellent starting point for your own journey through real world weirdness (and the numerous book references in the footnotes will make it easy to continue on that journey).

And if that's not enough, go buy the second collection. Or subscribe to Pyramid, which costs only $20 per year and gives you access to their entire (10+ years) archives - including 300 Suppressed Transmission essays!

Jürgen Hubert

This article is part of a series of reviews of non-D&D game books which might nevertheless be of interest to D&D gamers.


Blue Planet is a science fiction setting/role-playing game that's generally considered to be on the "hard" end of the science fiction setting - which is to say, the vast majority of the science and technology shown within are plausible and don't violate the laws of physics as we know them. While the game system is adequate, Blue Planet has won numerous - and justified - praises for its intricate and fascinating setting. The background can be summarized like this:

Throughout the 21st century, humanity continues to progress scientifically and economically. One of its most noteworthy triumphes is the "uplifting" of dolphins and orcas to something very close to human intelligence. Space exploration also continues, and near the end of the century humanity discovers an apparently stable wormhole on the fringes of the solar system, leading to the Lambda Serpentis system, which is 35 light years away from Earth and has a habitable planet - a water world soon dubbed Poseidon. Suspicions abound about this "coincidence" and many suspect that aliens built this wormhole, but if so, no trace of them can be found.

A scientific mission is quickly sent to Poseidon - and after the planet is pronounced habitable, a second mission is sent there with several thousand scientists and engineers, who are not only supposed to survey this world, but also the first group of a full-scale colonization effort. Unfortunately, the follow-up mission never came - in the meantime, Earth suffers a devastating grain blight virus which wipes out most food staples and causes billions of people to die. Earth struggles through numerous political, economic, and social changes, and only in 2165 do they manage to send a new mission to Poseidon. To their surprise, they learn that the descendants of the original scientists are still alive, but have reverted to a primitive lifestyle after their equipment failed. Most of them seem little inclined to re-embrace technology, and they are called "Natives" by the new arrivals.

Then, in 2185, the explorers discover mysterious xenosilicates in the depths of the oceans which they call "Long John", and which is seemingly perfect for manipulating the DNA of creatures on a large scale. One of the possible manipulations is the retardation or even reversal of aging. Suddenly, a new "gold rush" breaks out, and until 2199 (the "start time" of the setting), a large number of people struggles to make the long journey to Poseidon somehow to make their fortune. Now two million humans live on this pristine world, having escaped the ecological nightmare of Earth.

But not all is well on this new world. Though many have tried, the Earthers are unable to leave the problems of their old home behind. There are questions about the legitimacy of the one-world government that sprang up during the crisis, and many plot against it - including some international corporations, who are often a law upon themselves in the settlements they control. Organized crime has found a foothold. New or reliable equipment is often hard to get, thanks to the expense of importing most things from Earth. Many natives and some ecoterrorists aren't all that happy with the new arrivals, and want to cut off all contact to Earth, with violence if necessary. And in the depths of the oceans swim the Aboriginals, strange creatures which may or may not have a connection with the xenosilicates, and which may or may not be sapient.


"That sounds awesome", you say, "but I only run fantasy games - so how is all this relevant to me?" I'm glad you asked. Done right, this could end up being used for the most memorable D&D campaign you have ever run.

Let's say that some time ago, some wizards figured out how to create permanent teleportation circles to another world. There wasn't that much interesting to find in that other world - apparently, there were no intelligent creatures to trade with/steal from/conquer, but there was no shortage of monsters, and opening up a portal through the other world used up much more expensive components than through a portal to the same world (at least 1,000 gp). So nobody really cared much, except for some bold explorers who had seen everything on their own world, religious fringe cults and other people who wanted to cut off all contact with other people, and the odd refugee who wanted to avoid his enemies. As a result, there were some small human (and demihuman) settlements in that other world, but nothing of importance.

Then one of the explorers found a curious rare substance in that world. He brought it to an alchemist, who after extended experimentation discovered that this substance, when properly treated, would stop the aging process for a time. The rich and powerful of the world immediately started paying attention - old age was the one problem their wealth and power hadn't been able to solve so far.

So everyone in this world who dreamed of making his fortune tried to get into the other world, even if that meant making lots of debt to the wrong people, and even if equipment was scarce. Settlements sprang up around the teleportation circles and became larger overnight. Nations and rulers back home tried to impose their own laws and order on the settlement, but this is hard to enforce - the new world remains a fairly lawless place, and will likely continue to be so until new nations spring up.

But just what lurks out in the wilderness? How can humans and demihumans survive and thrive amidst all those unfamiliar plants and animals? What happened to all those earlier settlements, and are the rumors true that the people in some of these settlements have... changed? Is there anything to the rumors that new cults have sprung up that worship strange, alien deities seemingly at home on this new world? All these questions need to be answered - and who'd better do this than the PCs, all new arrivals to this strange new world?


For this kind of campaign - a "Points of Light" setting on steroids - you could use the physical environment as written, which has the advantage of already having a complex environment and ecosystem written up for it (especially if you buy the Natural Selection supplement). Alternatively, you could create your own ecosystem (read my earlier review of GURPS Space on some pointers). Whatever choice you make, this kind of campaign will certainly unlike any other your players have experienced.

Jürgen Hubert

This article is part of a series of reviews of non-D&D game books which might nevertheless be of interest to D&D gamers.


Steve Jackson Games have always been good at publishing "genre sourcebooks" for their GURPS line - books that cover a specific role-playing genre in exhaustive detail. They have a deservedly excellent reputation for research, accuracy, and playtesting, and given that the rules information in many of their books is either light or easily convertible, many people - including those who absolutely loathe the GURPS gaming system as a whole - nevertheless buy it for the systemless information. They are that good.

And their latest edition of GURPS Space is no exception.

GURPS Space exists as a world and campaign-building tool for science fiction campaigns - to be specific, science fiction campaigns that take place among the vast reaches of space. It doesn't have any equipment lists (for that, see the equally excellent GURPS Ultra-Tech, which should satisfy the wet dreams of any gearhead, as well as the GURPS Spaceship line for spaceships) - instead, it gives the game master of science fiction campaigns a huge list of ideas, suggestions, and advice he will find useful when building his own SF universe.

But how is this book of any use for D&D campaigns, you might ask? After all, D&D is fantasy, not science fiction!

And truthfully, many of the chapters won't be useful for you unless you are playing one of those weird hybrids like Spelljammer or Dragonstar. The possible types of stardrives and their implications for settlement patterns and adventures is irrelevant for fantasy campaigns, as is the chapter on technological assumptions and how they will shape future societies. The lengthy chapters on rolling up entire star systems (or even star sectors...), while impressive, are all throughly grounded in real world astronomical knowledge. The chapters on future and alien societies as well as adventures and campaign styles are more useful - it's possible to get some inspiration for fantasy cultures from them.

However, the single best reason to buy this book is the chapter on creating and rolling up alien creatures. This will allow you to come up with entire ecosystems with a little bit of patience - and certainly with the major predators in it (i.e. the critters that will try to munch on your PCs). And there is plenty of discussion of ecosystems in this chapter, so that you will easily be able to figure out how it all ties together - a welcome relief for game masters who crave verisimilitude but feel let down by the all too brief descriptions in the 4E Monster Manual. This chapter is so completely awesome that the only way I can show just how awesome it is is by rolling up an example creature.

Let's say we want to create some sort of native creature for an "Elemental Plane of Air". We'll go through all the random tables in this chapter.

Alien Creation I: Since this is for a fantasy setting, and not a SF one, we skip the "chemical basis" for our life form and just assume that it has a water-based metabolism like terrestrial life, though we can always come up with a more exotic explanation later on. Though "Plasma Life" or "Silicon/Liquid Rock" life forms might be interesting for creatures from other elemental planes...

Alien Creation II: Since we plan to make the Plane of Air a fairly uniform expanse of air, we don't need to roll for specific habitats. If we wanted to put in some more work, we could conceivably come up with more complex habitats (for example, a vast expanse of floating plants could be the equivalent of a terrestrial woodlands and jungle environment) and use that for later tables, but right now that's too much work.

Now we have to roll up how and on what our creature feeds - and we also have to choose whether we want to create an "ordinary" animal or a sapient creature. Let's roll up something intelligent. I came up with a "Pouncing Carnivore", which implies that it preys on others through swift attacks, often through ambushes.

Alien Creation III: Now we determine its locomotion. The table lists numerous options for specific environments. "Endless Expanse of Air" is not listed, but "Gas Giant Planet" seems like a close fit. We get "buoyant flight".

Alien Creation IV: Next up is the creature's size and mass. The only appropriate modifier for the Size table seems to be a +2 for "gravity of 0.4G or less" - it seems appropriate that creatures get bigger in a plane without gravity (of course, we could ignore that modifier - this is fantasy, after all - but let's see what happens). We end up with a size of approximately 7 yards (and that's actually not all that large for this environment - creatures in low gravity can get huge) and a mass of 4 tons. In GURPS terms, it would end up with a Strength of 40.

Alien Creation V: Now we determine the general build of its body. We get a radial build with four sides, one arm per side with full manual dexterity, no tail, and a combination of an internal skeleton with a hydrostatic skeleton (i.e. parts of its body are supported by bones, while others are supported by a system similar to the limbs of an octopus or the trunk of an elephant).

Alien Creation VI: Some more details: It is covered by scales and has cold-blooded temperature regulation. Presumably, the temperature in the Plane of Air is uniformly warm, but this creature might be especially to cold-based attacks, which would likely slow it down. Furthermore, it grows continually during its life instead of molting or going through a metamorphosis.

Alien Creation VII: Now for its propagation strategy: It has two sexes, has a spawning/pollinating method of gestation, and has about 10 offspring per litter, none of which receive any care.

Alien Creation VIII: Next up are its senses: It's primary sense is hearing, complete with ultrasonic hearing and sonar (like bats), but it also has fairly decent vision complete with heat detection ability, a normal sense of touch, and an excellent sense of smell (similar to bloodhounds). It primarily communicates per sound.

Alien Creation IX: Now we tackle its intelligence and social organization. It ends up with a GURPS IQ of 7 (fairly dumb), and any members of the species which mate don't form any pair bonds. The species is solitary.

Alien Creation X: The last table is for determining the creature's overall personality traits (as typical for its species). We end up with:
- Chauvinism -3 (Undiscriminating - it doesn't really see its own species as anything special)
- Concentration -2 (Short Attention Span - it's easily distractible)
- Curiosity -2 (Incurious - it isn't very interested in new things)
- Egoism -1 (Humble - it doesn't have a strong sense of self-importance)
- Empathy +1 (Responsive - it can care about the feelings of others both within and without its species. It probably tries to make quick kills and might help out non-prey creatures on rare occasions)
Gregariousness
- Gregariousness -3 (Loner - it strongly prefers to live on its own)
- Imagination -3 (Hidebound - it's bad at coming up with new ideas or strategies)
- Suspicion -1 (it doesn't easily get afraid or startled)
- Playfulness -1 (Serious - it doesn't play around much)



All this information, derived from purely random tables, already gives a good overview of a new creature, and the more in-depth explanation in GURPS Space of what these values means make it very easy to flesh out the creature. This should be enough to give a good overview of the system, but if there is enough interest, I might expand on this creature and write up a complete Monster Manual-style entry, complete with a "fluff" description of its (I would have to finish reading the D&D 4e rules before that, of course). But in the meantime, it should be obvious what this book has to offer to anyone who wants to come up with new monsters for their own campaign settings.

Jürgen Hubert

This article is the first of a series of reviews of non-D&D game books which might nevertheless be of interest to D&D gamers.


Imagine a world threatened from all sides. The dead pour out of the Underworld, commanded by the forces of Entrophy to destroy everything. The Fair Folk invade from the borders of the world to return it to the primordial chaos from which it was made. And the demon lords - the imprisoned creators of the world - plot and scheme to retake what was once theirs. And the ruler of the empire at the center of the world, which has stopped the advance of such threats for more than seven centuries, has vanished without a trace, causing her subjects to squabble for power instead of uniting against external threats.

The world seems doomed, and yet this doesn't have to be the case. For you have become a Solar Exalted, a former mortal whose drive, passion, and excellence have attracted the attention of the highest of the gods. He has given you a portion of his power so that you can set the world right. The list of those who seek to destroy or corrupt you is long, but if you survive, you will become powerful enough to shake the pillars of heaven. But will you stay righteous, or succumb to the powerful curse that is hidden at the root of your power?

This is the premise of Exalted by White Wold. So, what does the game have that might interest D&D gamers? Quite a few things, actually:

- Cool Worldbuilding: Essentially, the world is nothing more than a gigantic, artificial construct formed out of the primordial chaos. The "Laws of Nature" are anything but natural - instead, they are something which need to be constantly calculated and reaffirmed by an immense artifact, the so-called "Room of Fate". Without this artifact, the "Laws of Nature" would give way to the "Laws of Story" that already exist in the bordermarches between the world and the chaos beyond it, where those entities with more powerful wills can shape the environment to their whims. The world is also suspended between five "elemental poles" - Earth at the center to stabilize everything, and the Poles of Water, Fire, Wood, and Air at the edges. Move in the direction of a pole, and the environment gradually changes to more resemble that pole - it gets hotter the closer you get to the pole of Fire, more verdant the closer you get to the pole of Wood, and so forth. Then there's the Underworld, a parallel world where the ghosts of the dead outnumber the living in the world above them, and to which the living can get through sites of past battles and tragedies... and vice versa. And there's the celestial city of Yu-Shan, home of the most powerful of the gods... and millions upon millions of divine bureaucrats below them. And the list goes on.

Really, if there is nothing in there you can steal for your next worldbuilding effort, you aren't seriously trying.

- Cool Powers: While the powers of D&D 4E are often better mechanically balanced than those of Exalted, Exalted still serves as useful inspiration. I'm not even talking about the combat powers here (though I should point out that there's a power that allows a character to parry anything physical about to hit him - even entire mountains thrown at him. And that's one of the powers potentially available to starting characters...). What's really interesting about the powers listed in Exalted is that there's a large selection of powers even for noncombat skills. Heck, there's even a Bureaucracy skill - and they make it look cool!

So if you are dissatisfied with the utility powers for your class, maybe you should look through Exalted for inspiration. After all, why should combat be the only occasion when you get to show off?

- Epic Role-Playing: Exalted caused me to completely re-think my approach to game mastering campaigns for powerful characters - something that's just as applicable to high-level D&D games.

In D&D, the default assumption is that the PCs go on some sort of "Quest" - they need to retrieve an item, defeat a bad guy (or a group of them), and so forth. The reward usually includes either money or better equipment. Once they have completed the Quest, they move on to the next one. Often they are given those Quests by some sort of NPC, and sometimes they figure out what to do by themselves (like finding clues to how they can destroy the Evil Artifact). But in general, the reason for the Quest comes from the outside.

I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with that approach - or even that this is the only approach possible in D&D. But it seems to be the most common and the general default assumption.

In the default Exalted campaigns - where the PCs are Solar Exalted - things are very different. Instead of running Quest-based campaigns, the adventures are motivated by the goals and ambitions of the PCs themselves. Basically, the game asks the question:

"You have the power to change the world - so now what are you going to do with it?"

This is a question the players have to answer, since each and every Solar PCs has some sort of motivation for how he plans to change the world in a major way (only people who have such ambitions become Solars in the first place). And thus, adventures don't spring from Quests, but from the choices and goals the PCs set for themselves.

As an example, a goal for a campaign arc might be: "We want to make this province of the Realm to become independent and kick the Dragon-Blooded rulers out." The PCs aren't doing this because someone told them to, but simply because they have seen how the Dragon-Blooded are tyrannizing the locals and want to do something about it. Now they need to figure out how to do this. They could openly conquer the province all by themselves, but that will draw a lot of attention to them and might make them enemies they are not ready for. They could begin a campaign of assassination against the Dragon-Blooded without getting detected as the assassins. They could use social manipulation to get the local Dragon-Blooded to turn upon themselves, and incite the population to revolt. They could try to convince the local spirit courts to side with them and sabotage the Dragon-Blooded.

There's a large number of possibilities on how to approach this, and each has its own advantages and disadvantages - and might lead to future complication and enemies. The PCs must decide for themselves how far they want to go and which of their ideals they want to compromise. Their moral and ethical choices will have consequences, but there is no higher moral authority who is able and willing to punish them for their mistakes - instead, their choices will color their relationships with their peers and inferiors.


In short, the PCs have great freedom to do what they want, and how they want - but there is also no one else whom they can blame for their mistakes. If they make the wrong decisions, a lot of people will die or suffer even worse fates. And sometimes this will happen even if they might the right choices - then, they get to decide who will live, and who gets to die. And they have no one to appeal to to ease their conscience.


And that's also how I will run future epic-level D&D campaigns: The PCs are metaphorical giants striding across the world, able to topple entire nations when they set their minds to it. But with that power also comes grave responsibility, and if the PCs have any morals at all, they need to face that people will suffer for both their mistakes and their inactions - and learn to live with it somehow.



To sum it up, Exalted has a lot to offer to even hard-core D&D gamers. And the same will be true of the other non-D&D books I plan to review in this series. Stay tuned.

Jürgen Hubert