Twin Crowns, Age of Exploration Fantasy

Twin Crowns, Age of Exploration Fantasy, designed by John Faugno and Steve Novella, is the first in Living Imagination's line of d20 products. It serves to as the campaign setting for the world of Ptalamanar and is composed in equal parts of rules material and setting material.

The Book
Twin Crowns, a standard, laminated, perfect bound, book, is three hundred and four pages long. The interior covers are blank. The margins depict a stylized pattern skin to a heraldic symbol.
The cover, by John Forish, appears to follow the lead of Wizards of the Coast and Swords and Sorcery Studio by presenting it as a book. This particular illustration has a strong naval and royal theme to it with symbols of crowns, a gun, and a sextant as part of the illustration. The interior artwork, by Matt Clerico, Geoff Davis, Robert Diaz, John Forish, Chris Loots, and Felix Plaza, is largely unexceptional. There are some good illustrations but there are just as many poor ones. Many of the pictures have captions.

The Meat/The Good/The Bad
Twin Crowns presents a lot of material, ranging from races, to feats, to spells, to nations, to DM's advice. The book is divided into a player's section in a gamemaster's section, though there is not that much material in the gamemaster's section that would spoil any real secrets for the players. For some reason, the book decides to follow the model of the Player's Handbook in presenting its new rules material. The first six chapters names and type of content match that of the Player's Handbook almost completely. There are several formatting errors in the book.
The book starts off with an introduction to Ptalamanar, providing an overview of the book and the setting. There is nothing particularly exceptional or unexceptional about this.
Chapter Two introduces the races of Ptalamanar. In addition to standard ones, like dwarves, half-elves, half-orcs, and humans, this chapter presents several new ones and variations on existing ones. The new ones include khesta, which appear to be variations on hobbits, kithraas, asexual amphibious humanoids whose health depends on them producing an egg every year, and shallorians, feline humanoids who serve as a lower class in the Twin Crown Empire. The variant races are all elves, and share their names with elven subraces in the Monster Manual. Wood elves are basically akin to the Player's Handbook elves, high elves are militaristic fanatics who wish to take over the world, and wild elves are essentially honorable savages. This new races appear to be balanced, which makes this book rather unique among those races that have been published by d20 companies so far.
Chapter Three details the role of each of the classes in Ptalamanar and introduces five new prestige classes. The information on the role of each classes is largely, standard stating their roles in society as well as those religions and organizations they are likely to join. The new prestige classes are arcane ritualist, bounty hunter, diplomat, divine ritualist, and privateer. None of them are overly powerful and, save for the two ritualist classes, could be used in most any campaign. The privateer in particular is well developed and fits seamlessly into the new naval rules introduced in the book.
Chapter Four introduces new skills for the setting. The creators of the book avoid creating unnecessary skills, and most of the "new" ones introduced are mostly subsets of the Profession and Speak Languages skills. The other new skills include Arcane Ritual and Divine Ritual, which are used in the casting of ritual magic, and Sea Legs, which is used to perform actions on a ship when the ocean is not calm. The reasoning behind creating an entirely new skill for Sea Legs is unknown, as the Balance skill would have worked just as well in this particular instance.
Chapter Five introduces new feats for the Twin Crowns setting. The vast majority of these are divine feats, but there are also feats related to features unique to the setting such as ritual magic and the need to recharge magical energies. The divine feats are intertwined with the ritual magic system. Each of the feats requires a certain level of devotion to one of the deities, and the appropriate ritual to match. The feats themselves are flavorful and provide intriguing abilities for a religious character to gain. In total there are over one hundred new feats introduced in the book.
Chapter Six details equipment that is unique to the Twin Crowns setting. The majority of this short chapter provides an expansion on the details on firearms provided in the DMG, with some notes on a drug called kruff, the magical powder known as korba, and a disease that kills horses called Hjorguskludr.
Chapter Seven provides information on naval adventuring. A number of topics on that affect naval travel are discussed and the various ship classes, statistics for these classes are, a system for resolving sea voyages, and a system for resolving combat between ships are all introduced. This information appears to be statistically sound and serves to fill a notable gap in the d20 system. If you wish to provide the mechanics for naval adventuring without creating your own, or borrowing from another game's source than this information is valuable.
Chapter Eight discusses magic and religion. It serves to introduce the mythology of Ptalmanar, its deities, the different levels of initiation that a character can hold, the effects of sanctified ground, death and resurrection, magical recharging, and holy sects and orders. The mythology and pantheon are internally consistent and interesting, feeling as if they truly fit the setting rather than having just been thrown together to fill match with certain portfolios. The information on various levels of divine initiation is useful as it relates directly to a character’s rank within a particular church as well as his ability to access divine feats. In Ptalamanar each living sentient being is given five chances at life. Each of these lives is referred to as a Gift. Before the last of his Gifts is gone, it is not too difficult to bring back a dead person as their spirit wanders back to a shrine, temple, or cathedral that matches their faith. In that holy place a simple ritual, known as the Ceremony of Life, can bring any spirits that are waiting in the temple back. After a person has lost his fifth Gift it is impossible to bring him back, even with powerful magic. There are some spells that can prevent a person from losing one of their Gift's if they are cast soon after an individual’s death as well as those that ensure a character loses their Gift. Another feature of magic unique to Ptalamanar is the requirement for casters to recharge. After a number of days equal to their spellcasting level a spellcaster must return to an appropriate location (a nexus for sorcerers, wizards, or bards and a temple, cathedral, or shrine for clerics or paladins) and spend a period of time recharge their magical abilities. Druids and Rangers do not have to do this, but they are unable to regain spells outside of a natural setting. The new sects are interesting and fit the setting well.
Chapter Nine discusses spells new to the Twin Crowns setting. Differences in resurrection magic, how dispelling magic affects rituals, and the role of death magic are all discussed. In addition several new domains, and eighty new spells are introduced. The domains are largely deity-specific. The new spells range from specific ones to round out domains, to deal with unique features of magic in Ptamalanar, to elemental and necromantic-based attack spells.
These are largely useful and balanced.
Chapter Ten introduces a new system for ritual magic. The Twin Crowns system is based around rituals being advanced skill-based spells that create permanent or extremely powerful effects. Each one requires several weeks to prepare and consumes experience points in the process. Each ritual requires the use of a magical item known as a ritual scroll as well as a consumable substance called korba. After the preparation of a ritual the caster may cast the ritual at any time resulting in an effect that varies depending on the ritual. Casting a ritual requires a skill check using the appropriate ritual skill. There are chances for critical success, success, flawed success, failure, and critical failure. Unfortunately neither this chapter nor the section on the appropriate skill explains exactly how one achieves a critical success or failure. The information on flawed successes is also difficult to find, being detailed in the Overreach Ritual feat in Chapter Five. This chapter also leaves out tables for critical successes and failures with divine rituals and repeats the table on arcane critical failures twice. Luckily Appendix E contains the required tables. Beyond these flaws, the ritual system is sound and interesting, and easily transferable to other settings (I plan to steal it for mine once errata telling what is up with critical successes and failures comes out).
Chapters Eleven through Fourteen detail the world of Ptalmanar, including its history, and gazetteers for the Northern Empire, the Southern Empire, and Other lands. These sections are rich in culture, and detail providing more than enough information to properly play a character from each nation and run a campaign set in any of the detailed regions. The major flaw for these chapters is the fact that many of the cultures draw noticeable parallels with existing real-world cultures. The people of Jarlway are very similar to the Vikings (they are even called Vikings), the Highlanders are pretty much Scottish Highlanders, The Ten Nations are basically American Indians, the Calumbrians are similar to the medieval French, the people of Estrados are similar to the Spanish, the people of Krushkov share many traits with the Russians, etc.
Chapter Fifteen discusses adventuring in Ptalmanar. It discusses eight topics that are important to Ptalmanar campaigns, and can be used for adventures.
Chapter Sixteen introduces several new magic items and relics. These are largely interesting, though not as flavorful as those found in other products such as Relics and Rituals, and balanced. Some of the items designated as minor Relics seem to be a bit weak for the designation, but this is hardly a fatal flaw.
Chapter Seventeen introduces new monsters for Ptalamanar and discusses several, such as Dragons and Dark Elves, which have unique roles in the setting. There are not an especially large number of monsters, but those that are present are interesting and useful.
The book finishes off with several Appendices. The first one provides maps for the primary regions detailed in the book, the Empires and the colonies. The map is not that great, especially compared to that of the Kingdoms of Kalamar and the Forgotten Realms, but it serves its purpose. Appendix A provides a calendar for Ptalmanar. Appendix B describes each of the regions’ coats of arms. Appendix C provides a timeline. Appendix D provides a Timeline of Imperial Royalty. Appendix E provides a compilation of all the pertinent tables in the book. There is not index or glossary.


Rating: 4/5
Twin Crowns has a lot to recommend it even if you do not intend to use the settings. The game material is very easily useable in most any setting, and for its cost it provides more than enough material to validate the purchase, especially compared to the amount of material you get in say, one of the WotC class books. The setting itself is interesting and very useable, as long as you do not have a problem with setting cultures that are similar to real cultures.

A New Rules Companion and Campaign Setting for d20

An Age of Exploration
An Innovative, Dominant Pantheon
A Nautical Travel and Combat System
A Divine, Arcane, and Druidic Ritual System
Lots of New Feats
New Spells, Races, and Skills

Balance is everything in the World of Ptalmanar:
Created by gods who coexist in eternal opposition. They stand linked to each other on a heavenly wheel - each one opposite its enemy - holding the wheel in balance. This land's center, the Twin Crowns, two empires tied by history and by blood, both on the battlefields and in the veins of their royalty. Their citizens follow the lead of the gods and strive in opposition to each other. In these two culturally rich empires the gods' influence is so great that a temple can be as important as a fortress.

Twin Crowns: Age of Exploration Fantasy

Twin Crowns, subtitled Age of Exploration Fantasy, is the inaugural offering in the d20 arena by Living Imagination, Inc. Twin Crowns is a campaign setting book for the d20 system. It details the world that the authors name Ptalmanar.

Note that this book is rather large, indeed, the largest d20 system book I have reviewed to date. That being the case, this is likely to be more cursory than most of my reviews, as I don't have the time or patience to go into too exhaustive detail on so much material.

Note: The version of the book I reviewed is not the same version that appeared at GenCon; from my understanding, much of the book has been revised.

A First Look

Twin Crowns is a huge (304 page) perfect-bound softcover book. It is priced at $24.95 US, which is rather cheap for a book of this size. At 8 cents a page, it is the cheapest item on a price-per-page basis that I have seen.

The text density seems to hold up as well. The typeface is dense (similar to WotC classbooks) with small leader spaces. The formatting is a little unpleasant in places. The first "book" is fairly clean, but for some reason the second "book" uses an excessive paragraph indent that looks jarring after having read the first book. In addition, there are tabs with the chapter name and title at the edge of each page. Towards the end of the book, many of these are mislabeled.

The cover is a basic blue, with the "metal-bound tome" look common to d20 system products, in imitation of the D&D 3e core books. The front cover has a design with a somewhat nautical motif, featuring an anchor-like design, a ship's helm wheel, and a design with compass directions.

The interior art is rather lackluster. Though none of the pictures look quite so amateur as those in the Encyclopedia of Demons & Devils or Nightmares and Dreams, they are still pretty uninspiring. Even the better images are somewhat marred by a pixilated look, as if they are poor scans.

Overall, the price per page and text density give the book an exceptional value based on quantity of content alone.

A Deeper Look

After an introductory chapter, the Twin Crowns book is organized into three "books", each book being subsequently sorted into chapters. The three "books" are the Player's Section, the World, and the GM's Section.

Book 1: Player's Section

The second through tenth chapter comprise the Player's Section, and focuses on rules changes and additions required to play the game in the Ptalmanar The second chapter discusses races in the campaign world. Ptalmanar uses all of the standard PHB races except for gnomes and halflings. The standard PHB elves are called "wood elves" here – which may be confusing, since there are wood elves in the d20 SRD / MM too. Ptalmanar's high elves and wild elves also share names with standard elven subraces, but have abilities defined here.

There are three new races presented in Twin Crowns. Khesta are pretty much surrogate halfling/hobbit types; they are short, rotund, and jovial. Kithraas are an amphibious race that can live on land or water. Shallorians are a catlike race. Overall, the races seem rather well balanced.

The third chapter covers classes and describes how they fit into Ptalmanar. The most major rules changes come with clerics, who automatically hold the status of being initiated to a deity, which conveys quite a bit of power to the class. If you had difficulties with the power of clerics before, this may be the straw that breaks the camels back. But we will get to religion and initiation in a second.

There are five prestige classes presented in the class chapter. The arcane ritualist and the divine ritualist are specialty spellcasters who are expert at using the ritual system described later. The bounty hunter in Twin Crowns is an expert at retrieving people and objects. The diplomat is a class specialized in negotiation, including the ability to cast spells that aid them in their diplomatic pursuits. Finally the privateer is a sea captain with a willingness to act on behalf of his country, and has abilities that integrate with the naval adventuring rules described later.

Chapter four introduces new skills. There are four new profession skills that are part of the naval adventuring rules: artillerist, navigation, pilot, and sailor. There are two new skills that are part of the new ritual rules, arcane ritual and divine ritual. Finally, a new skill sea legs is introduced that allow one to maintain their balance on the deck of a ship. This last one I though was redundant since there is already a balance skill in the d20 system rules which is too close to the concept to allow for another similar skill given how general skills are in the d20 system.

Chapter five covers feats. A vast majority of the feats are divine feats. To receive a divine feat, the character must be initiated to one of the twelve deities of the setting. Some of the divine feats are extremely powerful, perhaps too much so. For example there are many feats that raise ability scores. The weapon master feat gives the character proficiency in all weapons and weapon focus in all simple and martial weapons. Dance Macabre automatically reanimates the character as a type of undead when they are slain.

Chapter six covers equipment. The section is brief, and covers firearms and nautical equipment.

The seventh chapter covers naval adventuring. The rules are a simplified version of Living Imaginations upcoming Broadsides book covering naval adventures. The rules outline the various tasks that are involved in nautical travel, and simple methods of how to handle them. Statistics are defined for a variety of ships and rules are provided to handle combat between them. As you might suspect, the treatment is less thorough than the various books dedicated to the topic of seafaring adventure, but the rules are sufficient for general purposes and I saw no obvious flaws.

Chapter eight covers religion and magic in Ptalmanar This chapter is where the real differences between Ptalmanar and the typical D&D setting begin to show.

In the setting, there are 12 deities. The central deities are the maker and the unmaker, the most powerful good and evil deities respectively. Between these two deities, there are 10 other deities that take up various other roles, though the good ones are generally grouped with the maker and the evil ones are generally grouped with the unmaker. The deities are conceptually arranged into the great wheel.

Some deities have multiple aspects of paths that have different alignments and that allow access to different divine feats. For example, the god of war is Bellinger. Bellinger has two paths, the path of the tactician (which is lawful) and the path of the warrior (which is chaotic).

Each deity has an array of domains selected from the standard d20 system domain. Each deity also has a new domain named for the deity. For example, Argon (a deity of civilization and invention) allows access to the knowledge and protection domaims, as well as the Argon domain. Clerics in Ptalmanar must select their deity's named domain and one other domain from those granted by the deity.

Those loyal to deities in Ptalmanar are divided into a various ranks, starting at worshipper. Those devoted to a given deity may become initiated to that deity, an process that requires an expensive ritual. Those that are initiated to a deity gain a divine feat for free, and can pick subsequent feats from the divine feats for that deity. Given the power of some of these feats, that is no mean benefit.

To topic of death is handled totally different in Ptalmanar than any other campaign setting I know of. When a sentient being dies, their body fades – that's right, flat out disappears – after 3 minutes and the spirt is cast adrift. The spirit seeks out consecrated ground. Any initiated character may perform the Ceremony of Life. This ceremony creates new bodies for all spirits at that site, and brings them back to life. As with normal raise dead rules, the character loses a level upon returning to life.

If a character can cast a spirit tether spell on a deceased body before it disappears, the deceased character can be brought back without losing a level if the body is present at a ceremony of life.

There are a few catches, however. First, all sentient creatures are considered to have five gifts. Each time the character dies, they lose a gift. Once all gifts are depleted, the character can never again be brought back from death. Further, if you perform a Ceremony of Life, all spirits at that site are brought back. Spirits wander to sanctified sites, but they can get lost or go to a different site than you might expect (though there are some new spells to address this.)

Spellcasters in Ptalmanar are dependant upon shrines (for divine spellcasters) and nexuses (for arcane spellcasters). These sites are where magical energy flows into the world. Spellcasters must periodically recharge at these sites. Spellcasters can only go for one day per level before they have to return to a site or recharge, or they cannot use their spellcasting abilities.

The last part of the magic and religion chapter describes a number of religious sects and orders. Since there is no rule material there, it seems like this should have been in the world book.

The ninth chapter covers new spells introduced for Ptalmanar and how to change existing spells to fit the assumptions of the setting. Some new spells are straightforward extension of the existing spell repertoire. For example, just as Tome and Blood and Relics and Rituals did, Twin Crowns introduces some ability score enhancers. Others are created to fit the setting assumptions or nautical rules. For example, there are a variety of spells useful in sea combat like founder ship (creates a wave to knock a ship over), and spells dealing with spirits like locate spirits (lets you find the spirit of a deceased companion so you can perform Ceremony of Life on it.)

For the most part, I though the spells were pretty balance. There where minor quibbles, like spells that give the character a dodge bonus (which is not supposed to happen per the d20 system rules, since all dodge effects stack.) Break limb introduces a mechanic for broken bones that seems to work fine in and of itself, but seems a little odd in that the existing combat system, where such things would logically occur, has no rules for broken bones.

The last chapter of the Player's Section covers rituals. Rituals are much like spells in their effects, but are cast by a totally different method. Rituals are not limited by spell slots, but they are limited by time, risk of catastrophic failure, and korba. Korba is a silvery powder that contains a measure of magical power used to provide the energy for rituals.

Each ritual has a difficulty associated with it, requiring an arcane or divine ritual skill roll. Much like combat rolls, critical successes and failures are possible with rituals. Also, if the character just barely succeeds at the ritual, a flaw in the ritual may cause some undesirable effects.

Rituals can do some impressive things, such as raise fortresses, though that is a rather powerful example. Many divine rituals are unique to certain deities and paths. Since rituals are dependant upon the ritual skills, which in turn depends on level, and have a costly component, rituals seem fairly balanced, albeit that you have to stomach a little risk that the ritual will not work.

Book 2: The World

The second section details the history of the world of Ptalmanar and the current state of the world.

The eleventh chapter is the history of the world of Ptalmanar. In a nutshell, there were many primordial wars including a struggle against the unmaker called the Demon wars. After that time, some primitive tribes under the lead of a powerful leader started a campaign of expansion. This eventually lead to an empire that covered most of the continent. A rebellion centered on the claim of a forgotten heir lead to an eventual schism the fragmented the empire. A northern and southern empire formed, and many former provinces spun off of the empires after the rebellion.

The next three chapters describe the nations of the nothern empire, the southern empire, and those that belong to neither. Each nation is an overt derivative or real world nations. It is easy to find parallels to ancient Russia, China, America, Japan, Scotland, Scandanacia, France, and Spain. Each nation writeup has details on the geography, history, government, politics, and society of the nation. My only complaint about the organization of that while they provide a sufficient overview of each nation, it provides little in the way of idea seeds or personalities that you would find in other d20 system settings like Forgotten Realms, Rokugan, and Kingdoms of Kalamar.

Book 3: GM's Section

The final section of the book is the GM's section, providing advice for running a game in Ptalmanar.

Chapter 15 discusses adventuring in the setting. It mentions the three main sources of conflict; establishing these is a good thing, I think, and central to a successful campaign setting. In the case of Ptalmanar, these three elements are religion, exploration, and korba, the component essential to rituals. Of these, I consider religion the most well grounded. The influence of religion is clear, as is the array of deities and religious forces. Further, effects such as the gifts make the influence of religions obvious in the campaign.

However of the, I consider Korba the weakest. While I agree that Korba appears to be a valuable resource, it doesn't seem to be essential to the running of the empire. Rituals, while useful, aren't needed to keep life rolling along. Further, there needs to be more backstory behind what it is to make it compelling. As it stands, it is left to vague. Think of the spice in dune; if korba had a similar backstory that weaved it through the setting, then I would be more liable to agree that it is a useful source of conflict.

In addition to the basic sources of conflict, the chapter also discusses who unique aspects of the setting – like the five gifts, recharging spells, and rituals – affect the campaign and advice for handling these elements.

Chapter 16 and 17 introduce a number of original items and monsters for the game. Many of these arise out of elements of the setting, like rituals. The only major gaffe I saw is the undead servitor. The creature comes in several sizes, and has statistics for each size. But there is no description or combat section to tell me what this creature is all about.

Appendix

The appendix section contains a number of convenient items, including a map of the empires and the new world, a calendar, coats of arms, a glossary, an imperial timeline, and compiled tables from the book.

A final not is the index. Though it does contain a number of terms, while reading through the book, I was unable to find a number of important concepts in the setting referred to in the index, such as spell recharge and the ceremony of life.

Conclusion

This book has a lot of value based on its sheer size alone. Even if you don't intend to use the setting, if any of the concepts appeal to you, it comes at a low enough asking price that cherry picking some of the better concepts like the rituals and seafaring rules shouldn't be that expensive of a proposition.

In the vein of rules, I have few complaints. My primary concern is the divine feats and initiation. It seems like it would lend a lot of power to religious characters, so it will tend to cause players to gravitate away for less pious character types. The ritual and nautical rules seem balanced and usable.

I have to be honest when I say that while I thought the "touches" to the setting like rituals, the gifts, and initiation interesting, I personally didn't find the setting itself all that exciting. Perhaps it is just the fact that I never liked setting with clear historical derivatives to the tune of Warhammer FRP and 7th Sea. Further, I didn't see that many ideas in the setting material that would be convenient to borrow as I did with Forgotten Realms and Kalamar settings.

Perhaps if you would like to run such a setting in the d20 system, however, this setting may work well for you. It certainly is detailed and has a lot of fresh touches.

-Alan D. Kohler

This is not a playtest review.

Price: $24.95
Page Count: 304
Price Per Page: About 8 cents per page, very low for this type of product.

Format: Softcover

Front Cover: Reminiscent of Core Rulebook looks, mainly a watery blue background with an anchor and ships wheel in the centre and gold metal-effect with 'jewels' indented in the metal.

Additional Page Use: A brief introduction and overview on the back cover, inside covers blank. First two pages contents and credits, last page is OGL. Also a two-page index at the back.

Internal Art: Mono art is poor to average, from six different artists.

Maps: The two small scale continental maps are basic, but scaled and with direction. Unfortunately, it does not clearly show the relationship between the two land masses.

Layout Design: Text density is fairly good, margins are average and there is a minimum of white space.

Writing Style: The writing style is very direct. Editing in terms of spelling and typos seems fairly good, though there are some significant mistakes (like a sentence remaining unfinished at the end of a chapter, and a missing description of a monster).

Whats Inside:

Chapter One: Welcome to Ptalamnar, gives a two-page overview of the different chapters and an introduction to the campaign setting of Twin Crowns, encompassing the world of Ptalmanar. At the centre of this world are two empires, their riches desired by foreign powers, and the empires' discovery of a new continent that will bring riches and further danger.

Chapter Two: Races, begins the Players' Section. Races covered are dwarves, half-elves, half-orcs, high elves, humans, the halfling-like Khesta, aquatic gilled Kithraas, feline-headed Shallorians, wild elves and wood elves. The standard races are little changed from the Core Rulebook (wood elves are considered as standard elves, there are no gnomes or halflings).
* High Elves are more combat-orientated than standard elves (proficient with one martial or exotic weapon, favored class is fighter).
* Khesta are very similar to Halflings except they gain the (new) Luck feat automatically and have a narrower focus with savinng throw bonuses.
* Kithraas have +2 Con, -2 Wis, and some water-orientated abilities, but can function fine on land. Favored Class: Any
* Shallorians have +2 Dex, -2 Int, -2 Cha. They have natural weapons (claws), bonuses to movement-skills and penalties on manual dexterity skills and ranged weapon use. Favored Class: Fighter
* Wild Elves have archery and wilderness abilities. Favored Class: Ranger

Chapter Three: Classes, looks at the standard D&D classes in the light of the Twin Crowns setting, making no statistical changes to the standard classes, although clerics gain significant power from becoming initiates of the gods. The take on each class introduces some of the geographical, political, and religious elements of the setting, giving a variety of choices of concept for most classes. Five new Prestige Classes are introduced - the Arcane Ritualist (who practices the new system for Arcane Rituals described in this book), Bounty Hunter, Diplomat, Divine Ritualist (who practices the new system for Divine Rituals described in this book), and Privateer (a legal pirate). The two ritualist Prestige Classes only detail advancement through five extra levels, whilst the others cover 10 levels as standard.

Chapter Four: Skills, introduces seven new skills: Arcane Ritual, Divine Ritual, Profession (Artillerist), Profession (navigation), Profession (Pilot), Profession (Sailor), Sea Legs, and some information on the new languages that exist on Ptalmanar. The first two ritual skills link in with the ritual system described later in the book. Sea Legs is just a variation of Balance, but for ships.

Chapter Five: Feats, describes a number of new feats that link in with the ritual system. They are termed 'Divine Feats'as most tie in with one of the deities of the setting, and can only be used by religious initiates of the specific deity the feat is designed for. Examples include Dance Macabre (if killed you immediately rise as undead), Money Is Power (sacrifice wealth to regain used spells) and Steal Feat (allows the stealing of a feat from another creature). Most of these feats have fairly high pre-requisites - e.g. Dance Macabre has a prerequisite of Character Level 12+, Money Is Power has a prerequisite of Character Level 15+, and Steal Feat has a prerequisite of Character Level 9+. Some less powerful feats have commensurately lower prerequisites.

Chapter Six: Equipment, looks mainly at gunpowder-using firearms but also covers stats for nautical equipment and a poison-holding blade. There is also a brief discussion of a disease that kills horses. This is a very short (4 page) chapter.

Chapter Seven: Naval Adventuring, concentrates on rules to be used whilst sailing. Subjects covered include navigation and piloting, nautical instruments, maps & charts, terrain (ocean, icebergs, rivers, etc.), weather, and ship characteristics (speed, seaworthiness, crew, etc.). A few examples of ship types are given (barque, dreadnaught, frigate, galleon. high elven man-o-war, keelboat, longship, merchantman, orcish dromon, and warship). There follows a section giving advice for running a voyage using the previous rules described in the book. The remainder of the chapter is taken up with a naval combat system detailing initiative, tactical movement, attacking, damage, armaments (including magical ones), and repairs. This seems fairly exhaustive (and a shade too complex for my liking - but my preference is for extremely simple rules, which is not a preference shared by most gamers) but gives advice on hexed maps and scale, details required crew for various combat actions (plus the time required, and DC). The skill check used to hit with a ranged attack by the ship's armaments is modified by the movement rate of the two ships, the target size and the weather conditions. Damage includes specific information on hit points for different areas of the ship (e.g. hull, deck, sails, armament and oars) and gives rules for damage to the crew after a successful attack.

Chapter Eight: Religion And Magic, begins by discussing the role and history of the twelve gods of Ptalmanar. Each of the gods is then given more detailed cover:
* Argon is a Lawful Neutral god with interest in knowledge and science in order to gain power.
* Artifice is a Neutral or Neutral Evil god with aspects of self-sufficiency or selfishness. Some gods offer two paths for followers to choose between and thus have two alignment aspects.
* Bellinger is a Lawful Neutral or Chaotic Neutral god with interest in battle, with a focus on tactics or ferocity.
* Brashtamere is a Chaotic Good or Neutral god, with interest in either joy or vice.
* Grumach is a Chaotic Evil god and is responsible for death and undeath.
* Jaad is a Lawful Neutral god with a focus on either peace or wisdom.
* The Maker is a Neutral Good god and is focussed on creation, and the opposition of evil.
* Mirenae is Neutral Good, a goddess of healing and strongly anti-undead.
* Solaron is a Lawful Good god, dedicated to truth and justice.
* Ullon is a Neutral Evil god, with focus on deception, corruption, and sacrifice.
* The Unmaker is a Neutral Evil god, opposing good and dedicated to destruction.
* The Wylds are twin gods of nature and the elements. They are Neutral in alignment.
The chapter continues with information on the worshippers of the gods and details the difference between worshippers, initiates, chosen, anointed, high priests, and divested (excommunicated). Shrines, temples, and cathedrals are then discussed, with details of how different buildings enable clerics to regain spells. There is also a limit to the number of times you can be brought back to life - five times - on Ptalmanar, and resurrection in this light is discussed - the first four character deaths simply cause the body to fade and the spirit can return to a shrine or similar place; an initiate then causes a new body to reappear and the spirit fills it (curing hp damage, disease, etc. but also losing a level). On the fifth time, if the person is resurrected they rise as undead and this act is considered evil. The chapter continues with a discussion of magical shrines and nexuses and some further information on recharging spells at shrines and temples every few days (except rangers and druids who are just required to be in a natural place) - the number of days between recharging is equal to caster level. The chapter ends with examples of various holy sects and orders, most of which ae dedicated to destruction of a concept (nobility, injustice, destruction, etc.) or a creature (dragons, lycanthropes, undead, etc.).

Chapter Nine: Spells, begins by further discussing the issues around raising the dead and death magic. 82 new spells are detailed, some of which are only available to initiates of one of the deities, through a set of domains dedicated to each one of the twelve deities. Example spells range from Aspect of the Owl (a 1st Level Druid/Ranger spell granting the target low-light vision and a +1 to Search and Spot checks per caster level) through Mend Ship (a 4th Level Wizard/Sorcerer spell that repairs ships) to Undead Horde (a 9th level spell available only to worshippers of Grumach which summons a host of wights, wraiths and spectres).

Chapter Ten: Rituals, introduces a new magic system for the world of Ptalmanar, which can also be used outside the setting. Rituals are more powerful than most spells, but carry some great dangers and severe requirements. A divine or arcane spellcaster requires korba (a magical silvery powder), a magical scroll that describes the ritual process (but does not disappear after use), and some time (anything from a minute up to a few days). The ritual caster must then make a skill check, with the possibility of critical failure (resulting in bad effects ranging from loss of days spells to instant death) or critical success (ranging from casting time decrease to XP gains), or may be flawed in some way (ranging from reduced effects to loss of days spells). A number of modifiers (such as additional help and sacred places) affect the skill check. A number of example rituals are given, such as Air Ship (allows a sailing ship to sail on air currents), Living Fortress (brings together plants and trees to create a fortress), Raise Atoll (creates an island in the ocean), and Ward of Mirenae (which protects large areas from undead incursions). The chapter ends with tables giving various random critical success, failure and flaw results.

Chapter Eleven: History, begins the second of the books sections - The World - and is thankfully fairly short. It gives a historical overview of some of the wars that created the political face of Ptalmanar. The last sections of this chapter look at some magical guilds, and merchant houses and companies.

Chapter Twelve: Northern Empire, covers eight areas (for each area there is a very rough historical equivalent, with mostly a 16th/17th century feel): Falia (think Germany), Novarum (think Italy), Scolia (think England), Stoneheim (amalgamation), Jarlway (think Scandinavia), Highlanders (think Scotland), The Northern Colonies - in the New World (think Canada), and The Ten Nations - set in the Old World (think US). For each area, the section looks at physical geography, history, government and politics, people and society, and major cities and towns. There is a fantasy focus to each of the areas and the rough equivalents given are purely an attempt to give you an idea of the flavour of the settings.

Chapter Thirteen: Southern Empire, covers four more geo-political areas in the same style as the previous chapter: Calumbria (think France), Estrados (think Spain), Krushkov (think Russia), and the Southern Colonies in the New World (think Caribbean).

Chapter Fourteen: Other Lands, covers eight more geo-political areas that lie outside the main Empire that is the focus of the Twin Crowns setting, and are: The Bandesh (think Lapland), Fujion (think Japan), Hallipore (think Mongolia), Juntra (think Indonesia), Magus Island (a magical island of mages), Molam (think Arabia), Tang Su (think China), and Vairo (think Egypt).

Chapter Fifteen: Adventuring In Ptalmanar, looks at the major motivations for adventures in Ptalmanar - religion, exploration, and korba (the magical powder that powers rituals). It also further discusses the unique aspects of the Twin Crowns setting in relation to adventuring: the five lives of the people of Ptalmanar, recharging spells in shrines and temples, and rituals (with some advice on balancing rituals and researching original ones).

Chapter Sixteen: Magic Items, introduces 25 unique magical items ranging from invisible hightblades, to a staff of ritual power, from wondrous items such as a Kithraas Egg Incubator to minor (ring of hopeless bravery) and major (the crown of truth) artifacts. Most of these have specific links to the Twin Crowns setting.

Chapter Seventeen: Monsters, introduces 11 new monsters specific to the setting. These include chaos trolls, dragons and drow of Ptalmanar, Argonite Golems, undead servitors, and a Corps Macabre template (a powerful zombie).

Appendices include maps of the Empires and the New World, a calendar of Ptalmanar, Ptalmanar coats of arms, an Imperial timeline, an Imperial royalty timeline, and a compendium of tables from the book.

The High Points: This is a very cohesive and interesting campaign setting. Religion, races, and places are all well-detailed and integrated with the setting without diverging too much from a standard fantasy campaign world and basic D&D rules. Though the rituals presented in the book are generally more powerful than spells, there are a number of factors that control their use, and these can be manipulated easily by the GM to limit their prevalence. Access to a ritual is much like giving a magic item to a party - the GM needs to be judicious in the control of this aspect, but if this is done, then Rituals can really add flavour to this campaign setting. I also liked the idea of having to recharge spells in a sacred or magical place every few days - this again adds flavour, whilst still allowing a few days adventuring in evil places without interruption. The introduction of the limit of 5 resurrections before irrevocable death seems an interesting idea, which would need full playtesting before a proper assessment of its implications became clear (though an assessment of its implications are discussed in the text). The existence of korba, the tension between the two empires for the riches of the New World, and the opportunities of new lands to explore offer some excellent bases for adventures and campaigns.

The Low Points: There are a few significant editing mistakes, with missing information, which impinge on the quality of the book. The rituals may be subject to misuse by a GM who doesn't understand their power fully - for example, Air Ship (the first ritual in the Rituals section, which causes a normal ship to be able to sail the winds), even though it has a DC of 35, could be cast by two 1st level mages with a lot of luck, korba, and planning. Despite the advice, it seems a little too tempting to give access to several rituals, but this could seriously unbalance a campaign (the advice is to restrict access to korba if this happens). The Sea Legs skill was unnecessary and weak. A number of feats have quite powerful implications and are available at a comparatively low level - Improved Hide (which gives a +10 bonus to Hide skill checks at 6th level and stops tracking by scent) is one example. They would need full playtesting before the consequences of these feats could be properly assessed, but some seem a little unbalanced. It would have been nice to have seen visuals of all the monsters, though generally the art in the book was not up to much. I would have also expected to see a few statted-out NPCs in the geo-political sections but this was missing. I would also have liked to see a lot more information on korba - this was an idea that had a lot of potential but was not explored fully enough to be able to develop adventures from.

Conclusion: The three major new ideas introduced in this book - rituals (and korba), limited but easier resurrections, and spell recharging at divine/magical places could be used in most fantasy campaign settings and are not tied in to the setting so much that they are inextricable. They would need to be playtested by the GM before use in a campaign but could add some great flavour to any campaign. The setting itself is full of adventure possibilities. Unlike some previous campaign settings, it doesn't go overboard on the history. With additional features such as a naval combat system, some new (well-balanced) races, new spells, magical items and monsters, and some interesting new organisations that could be used in another setting with a little tweaking, this is good value for money, despite some of its glaring editing errors. I would hope that some of the potential within will be explored in future releases, particularly the political and magical ramifications of korba.

This review is for Twin Crowns - Age of Exploration Fantasy published by Living Imagination, Inc. I want to thank Inger Henning for shipping me a copy of this robust sourcebook. Twin Crowns is a 304 page softcover book retailing for $24.95.
Twin Crowns is the campaign sourcebook for the world of Ptalmanar, but is useable for any d20 fantasy setting. It is divided into three different books (Player's Section, The World, and GM's Section) that make up all seventeen chapters of the book. The Player's Section outlines the races, classes, skills, feats, equipment, religions, and magic found in Ptalmanar. The World gives an in-depth background history of the entire world and its lands. The GM Section presents information on campaign ideas, new magic items, monsters, and a new monster template.
Most standard races listed in the 3rd. ed. Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook are available for use in Ptalmanar except they exhibit different societal behaviors. An example of this can beseen with the High Elves. In Ptalmanar, they are a militaristic and tyrannical society that tends to be regarded by others as spies, terrorists, or saboteurs. Three races native to the Ptalmanar setting are the Khesta (a race similar to the stereotypical halfling or hobbit), the Kithraas (an aquatic race resembling humans), and the Shallorians (a moderately egocentric feline humanoid race).
All core classes are represented with five different prestige classes available for play. The prestige classes are: Arcane Ritualist (an expert in arcane ritual magic), Bounty Hunter (an interesting class that is exactly what it sounds like), Diplomat (a master negociator capable of limited arcane magic), Divine Ritualist (the cleric/druid equivalent of Arcane Ritualist), and finally, Privateer (the swashbuckling pirate of the high seas).
There are seven new skills presented that are either sea related or ritual related. However, the section on feats is a sight to behold. There are 105 different feats listed! I believe this represents the largest number of feats contained in any single sourcebook to date from any publisher. Although many of these feats are Ptalmanar campaign exclusive, just as many may be used in any setting with little or no alterations.
Equipment includes firearms and gunpowder. Gunpowder weapons are divided into 3 classifications: personal (musket and pistol), grenade-like (bomb and smokebomb), and large siege weapons (cannons). Nautical equipment also has a strong representation in the equipment listings.
Another strength of Twin Crowns is the chapter devoted to naval adventuring. Living Imagination has even gone as far as declaring the naval adventuring system employed in this chapter as Open Content under the Open Gaming License. Contained within this chapter are easy to comprehend and follow sections devoted to the complexities of sailing, naval combat, different classifications of vessels, and other factors present in a seafaring culture.
The authors have also developed a highly detailed pantheon that has been well thought out. There are numerous deities that fill almost every imaginable niche, all of them having a place in the world's history. For those who are searching for a pantheon to use in their home brewed campaign world, this is worth examining.
Magic is prevalent in Ptalmanar with all of the spells listed in the Player's Handbook being available. In addition, there are 82 new spells exclusive to this campaign. The breakdown of these new spells by class is as follows: 9 Bard spells, 30 Cleric spells with 13 Clerical domains, 24 Druid spells, 6 Paladin spells, 10 Ranger spells, and 29 Sorcerer/Wizard spells. Ritual magic is also incorporated into this world. Performing a ritual not only poses an element of risk to the caster, but requires specific amounts of a substance known as Korba. The amount of risk involved does vary dependent upon the type of ritual (there are 84 rituals listed).
Book II (The World) contains an in-depth background history of key events in Ptalmanar along with an extensive compilation of the geographies, peoples, major cities and towns, histories of the lands, and the societal structures of those lands. Various organizations are also detailed including 9 different Magician's Guilds, 7 different Merchant Houses and a couple of adventuring companies.
The GM's Section (Book III) has valuable information for running an adventure in Ptalmanar. Nearly every major event is driven by any single or combination of the following sources: Religion, Exploration, or Korba (a vital commodity, especially for ritual magic). There are also entries for 25 new magic items, 8 new monsters and one new monster template.
Dragons are treated somewhat differently in this setting. They are an even greater force to be reckoned with! There are 26 Great Dragons, who are nearly immortal, that claim sections of Ptamanar as their own. This is a concept that appears to have been influenced by Jean Rabe's Dragonlance Fifth Age setting. It's important to note that the color of the dragon is not necessarily important here. Rather the dragon's distinctive personality, ambitions, and goals take precedence. The Great Dragons have one single shared goal of ultimately "turning the world into a blasted plain of eternal summer where all of the Maker's Children serve them." The Great Dragons increase in power as their wealth and the number of followers increase.
There are dragons other than the twenty-six Great Dragons that typically either oppose or support them. The alignment of each standard dragon type usually applies but there are always exceptions. "It is possible that a red dragon is against the goal of the Great Dragons so he can become more powerful himself, and (it is) equally possible that a silver dragon is willing to work with the Great Dragons so it can be sure of the absolute destruction of the (evil) wendigo." Obviously, this is a circumstance where a dragon's color doesn't reveal everything.
Overall, I have to say that I am extremely impressed with the quality of this book. The authors have gone to a lot of effort to craft a world rich in detail but strong in mechanics. If you are looking for a campaign world that emphasizes the adventures of the high seas with a twist of something different from your "standard" fantasy game, Twin Crowns - Age of Exploration Fantasy is a serious consideration. Heck, the chapter on Naval Adventuring is almost worth the purchase price itself...

To see the graded evaluation of this product, go to The Critic's Corner at www.d20zines.com.

The Twin Crowns Campaign Setting is a $24.95 304 page softcover book. It sets out the world of Ptalmanar and a host of material for almost every aspect of the d20 system from new feats and spells to new rules for ship travel and combat, and a system of high powered ritual magic. The book contains black and white art which is plentiful and topical but suffers from heavy scanning pixilation.

Ptalmanar is a world of high magic with an emphasis on naval power and divine interactions.

The ritual system works off of skill rolls for a pair of new ritual skills (arcane and divine) with set DCs for succeeding at the rituals. There are possibilities for critical successes and critical failures, and if the DC is only passed by a marginal amount the ritual succeeds but has a flaw in its effect. Rituals require no expenditure of xp or gold, but they do require a new type of item, a ritual scroll, a magical alchemical substance known as korba (somewhat similar to spice from the Dune books) and generally a long casting time. There are 84 rituals presented in the book divided into arcane, clerical, deity specific, and druidic. DCs run from 16 to 50. While I do not really care for the ritual scroll requirement which seems like a spell book all over again, I really like the epic feel of many of the rituals such as creating a permanent fortress or wizard's tower in a single day. Among the divine rituals there is an initiation one which can make any character a god's champion giving him a bonus feat and access to a list of significantly powerful divine feats. All clerics and paladins in the game start off automatically initiated to their god but any character can have the ritual performed upon them. There are 96 divine feats presented in the book, many with no save abilities, or ones that offer complete immunity to an attack form. These are more powerful than standard feats in general and show that gods in this setting give tangible power to their champions. This divine favor is not balanced against non-champions but against other champions of the same level of initiation and character level.

There is a set pantheon of 12 gods for the entire world. Each has a position around a divine wheel and is opposed by a balancing god. Many have dual aspects and paths for their followers, such as the war goddess having a chaotic path for individual warriors and a lawful path for commanders. There have been changes in the pantheon, such as the development of the gods' different paths, a deicide, two nature gods merging into one portfolio, and the ascension of two mortals to deity status. Each god has their own named domain and those with paths often have different domains for the different paths.

Some of the gods have surprising aspects to their faiths or church histories. The peace god, for instance, is known for granting his clerics death spells for use after peaceful negotiations have broken down, and the church of the paladin god of justice is responsible for miserable work prisons in one of the countries to handle the lower class. I found the evil deceiver god to be the most interesting gods, his initiates can gain access to divine feats that allow them to mimic another faith’s feats or domains so they can impersonate good priests and cause all sorts of havoc.

Druids are actually a recent phenomena in the world as many followers of the nature gods who were originally antithetical to each other did not accept the merging and developed a magical tradition to tap the residual natural power left over from the change.

Death is handled a little differently from most campaigns. Each sentient creature gets five "gifts." When they die, they generally lose one gift and their bodies fade leaving their equipment. The spirit then travels to the nearest consecrated area. A priest can cast a ritual at these areas and bring back every spirit gathered there. Losing a gift is considered to wipe away all past sins and all secular past crimes. Spells like raise dead bring a character back without losing a gift, but they do not work on a character that loses its fifth gift. There are also new magic spells, feats and a domain for dealing with spirits and gifts.

Another magical setting quirk is recharge. Spellcasters must go to either an arcane nexus or a divine shrine to gain recharge for a few days to be able to prepare spells. This makes spellcasters more place dependent for their powers and adds an extra level of complexity for accessing spell powers, which I do not really like, but which is easy to add or take out of a campaign setting as desired.

There are 82 new spells including such additions as a range of spell deflections and reflections and a set of clerical blessings that grant temporary hit points.

There are five new prestige classes. There are the five level divine and arcane ritualists who only gain two levels of spell advancement but gain major bonuses and advancements in casting rituals, and a 10 level bounty hunter, privateer (which I did not like their powers and empty levels) and diplomat with a select bard-like spell list and casting ability (which I think complements the bard niche well)

Naval power is a big concern of the world. Most cities are based on major rivers or coastal ports, and there are colonies across a 3,000 mile ocean that send vast riches back to the two main empires of the world. One nice way the setting supports the naval emphasis is that there are constant epidemics of a major horse disease so overland travel and trade is not as easy as on most worlds.

The world’s two empires have developed gunpowder, but it is expensive and unstable, so it is mostly reserved for a wealthy captain or general's pistols, and cannons for war ships. If gunpowder is going to be thrown into a standard medieval to renaissance technology level D&D game, this is the level that appeals to me the most. Cannons seem right for heroic ship battles similar to the Hornblower series of books, but prevalent personal guns among an army really change the emphasis away from swords and magic.

The naval rules really impressed me. They use profession sailor, pilot and navigator skills as the basis for running ships and the numbers have meaning. The rules incorporate weather, sail type, speed of the ships, wind direction, etc. They model ship sailing very well in a manner that is useable in game. They have ship stats for ten separate realistic ships and a hex combat system for ship chasing and tactical ship combat and finally for boarding actions. There are different types of cannon shot from standard to heated to sail cutting chain to antipersonnel grapeshot. There is information on getting lost, sailing coasts versus open ocean, and how much food is necessary to keep the crew going and how much cargo space that food will take up. The only thing not covered seemed to be press ganging actions. The system seemed to break down a little for smaller craft such as canoes and it has a weakness in making viking fighters and barbarians the worst sailors of any class due to the cross-class profession skill availability, but overall it is quite a good system. If you want to run a ship based campaign, this is an excellent system to use.

Note that cannons and ballista/catapults use profession artillerist and siege engineer instead of a weapon proficiency, so again fighters lose out on all ship combat except boarding actions. Also there is a new skill called sea legs which handles shipboard balance and avoiding getting seasick. These situations could probably be handled better by use of the balance skill and con checks or profession sailor checks modified by con, but those are easily modified by a DM.

The setting has one historical empire that absorbed almost every culture it came into contact with and then split into two empires due to a civil war. The empires now have trans-oceanic colonies which send over vast wealth to support the old empires. Many of the world’s countries are historical earth culture analogues (Renaissance European, Eqyptian, Japanese, Viking, Arabic, etc.) I feel these allow quick roleplaying and knowledge hooks for portraying them, and it allows the use of outside material to add to the setting. The new world is interesting because besides the two empire colonies there is also an empire of militaristic elves opposed to the humans and an orc federation that is allied to the humans. Much of the world is an unmapped unknown which is almost begging to be explored deliberately or as ships are blown off course going to the colonies.

The world is predominantly human but there are most of the standard player races, only Gnomes and Halflings have been conflated into the fat, prankish, thieving, hairy footed Khestra. There are also two new subraces of elves, a cat-man race, and a hermaphroditic merman race that can go in or out of the water without problems. There are eight new monsters introduced and brief information about the world’s drow and dragons (standard and unstatted epic evil ones).

The writing of the world sections is one area I wish had been more to my taste. I did not like many of the myths or developed history of areas. Most of the ways that countries joined the empires or how they handled internal issues seemed irrational to me and I was hoping for better world consistency support ideas. For instance, why are nearby countries so culturally dissimilar without intervening isolating factors like mountains. Why is the southern Russian country plagued by harsh winters? If all the Egyptian rulers are descended from the creator god's avatar, how does this gibe with the revolt that lead to a change from human to cat-men dynasties? Where are the countries of Tang Su and Vairo?

Overall, there is a lot of very good material in the campaign setting. I feel the rituals and the naval rules particularly stand out, but there is a lot here for people who want to add material to their own campaigns or to try this setting of naval, imperial, and divine power.