JoeGKushner
First Post
Families of the Core for Ravenloft setting.
Legacy of Blood: Great Families of the Core
JoeGKushner
First Post
Game aid for players and GMs
Legacy of the Blood is a source book for the ‘Great families of the Core’ in the Ravenloft setting. Steve Miller, Anthony Pryor, Penny Williams and Skip Williams handle the writing while Talon Dunning, Brian LeBlanc (of Necromancer Games fame), Jeremy McHugh and Claudio Pozas (of Fiery Dragon fame), handle the art. Legacy is $22.99 for 152 black and white pages.
The layout and font style is familiar to anyone whose picked up a Ravenloft book in the past in that it uses many of the familiar page setting elements. This is a good thing and bad thing. While it looks good, it takes up a lot of space. One page for the credits, another for the table of contents, and one page for each chapter. Layout is two columns with ravens bordering the top of the page with the chapter number on one side and the family name on the other. The book makes several references to various Ravenloft books including the Ravenloft Player’s Handbook to Van Richten’s Arsenal.
Use of white space is fair but could be better. On the big plus side, there is no internal advertising and since this is an official D&D product, no OGL or SRD license so more pages devoted to the goods as opposed to the legal issues. The table of contents is minimal and there is no index, so if you wanted to flip to a PrC, you’d have to memorize which family it belonged to.
Families included are as follow: Boritsi, d’Honaire, Dilisnya, Drakov, Godefroy, Hiregaard, Mordenheim, Renier, and Von Zarovich. Each family starts off with fiction and moves into the following sections; family background, fitting in, claiming membership, family feats, family prestige class, family magic, story hook and sample characters.
This allows a player or GM to read over a single family and see how they fit not only into a standard Ravenloft game, but how players might join them. For example, if you were interested in getting in good with the Boritsi, you’d have to respect that if you do them wrong, they are known for “evening the score” or that they were some of the main supporters of Strahd von Zarovich.
If you wanted to actually play a member of one of the races, under the section, Claiming Membership, you’d see what changes are necessary for your character. In almost every case, there are several branches or slots in the family tree left blank for either the GM to insert his own characters or for the players to add their own touches to the family tree.
For example, if you want to be part of the sly and murderous Dilisnya family, the player has many options. Some of the family members aren’t even aware of the more notorious events in their past and may not be contacted till after the character’s been created and has been in play. Others known exactly what they are. Family members can only spent their extra human points on Knowledge (history) and/or Knowledge (local), but those skills are always class skills. In addition, they can locate other family members who may have information of missions for their brother.
The section on family feats includes those commonly found in the family, and it’s here where we see a lot of references made to the other books in the Ravenloft library. Unique feats to the family are featured after the general run down. For the Dilisnya for example, they has Case the Joint, Find Weakness, and Stealthy Blade. The first allows them to study a location and determine how best to work within it, getting a bonus to many stealth based skills. The second, Find weakness, allows you to study your foes style and if you beat your enemy in an Intelligence check, your weapon’s critical multiplier is increased. Stealthy Blade allows you to deal extra sneak attack damage.
In terms of Family Classes, it mentions the basic core classes common to each family, and then makes references to various other Ravenloft books, and often includes a new PrC or two for that family. Following the Dilisnya example, we have the Deceiver, an individual that reminds me a little of the Batman in that their ‘normal’ identity is one that people would consider unthreatening, perhaps even foppish, but in truth, they are dangerous spies and masters of poison.
When looking at Family Magic, new spells and magic items are included. For example, the Godefroys have Dirge, a bard spell, that allows the mind affecting abilities of their bardic music to be necromantic and can affect undead while Eternal Rest, a 6th level cleric spell, destroys an undead creature’s material body. They also have several magic items like the Ghost Trap, a pear-shaped crystal flask that can capture incorporeal undead and Amulets of Life Protection to save their souls.
Story hooks range in length. For example, the Drakov family has two hooks, Enemies of the State, where characters may have to fight against some of the unique soldiers of this realm, the raptor knights, or Scion of Drakov, where a character learns that their blood is that of Drakov due to that families rights of the nobles where a ruler takes a new bride’s virtue.
One of the nice things about many of the PrCs here is that they capture the feel of the setting in terms of role-playing potential as opposed to overall combat potential. We have a wide range of options that would be perfect for a group not interested in the ‘min-max’ aspect of PrCs like the Courtier, a master of social class movement, the Analyst, a ‘scientist’ of the misty realm, Accomplished Medium, a speaker of the dead, and the Divine Exorcist, a master of banishing the dead.
This isn’t to say that all the PrCs are so focused. One of my favorites is the Crimson Hound, belonging to the Von Zaroviches. This is a 5 level PrC with a warrior’s bab and saves and gains abilities relating to overcoming his enemies not only through swordplay, but also through sheer will such as demoralize, where they dishearten their enemies or fearsome presence, where they can cause fear in their enemies.
The book finishes with a rogues’ gallery appendix that includes game stats, description background, current sketch, combat, and illustration, for many of those individuals referred to either in the background text of each family or in the fiction introduction of each family. The abilities and feats are not explained in the game stats but if appropriate for background, notes are included. The nice thing about the section is that not all of these characters are meant to go toe to toe with the players. Take Celeste d’Honaire-Loverde, a Aristocrat 1 Expert 1. She’s not putting the sword to anyone. However, she does have some contacts and can use diplomacy to end any non-immediate threats.
By leaving numerous slots open for player and GM use, the authors have insured that the book’s use doesn’t have to end with just the material presented. Indeed, the new PrCs, feats, spells, and magic items, encourage the GM to come up with stories in order to fully use them. Any GM looking to add some more culture that goes beyond hack and slash to his campaign, might enjoy this book as an example of how families can be done and any Ravenloft GM looking to flesh out the official families of the core, should be able to get months worth of entertainment out of this book.
Legacy of the Blood is a source book for the ‘Great families of the Core’ in the Ravenloft setting. Steve Miller, Anthony Pryor, Penny Williams and Skip Williams handle the writing while Talon Dunning, Brian LeBlanc (of Necromancer Games fame), Jeremy McHugh and Claudio Pozas (of Fiery Dragon fame), handle the art. Legacy is $22.99 for 152 black and white pages.
The layout and font style is familiar to anyone whose picked up a Ravenloft book in the past in that it uses many of the familiar page setting elements. This is a good thing and bad thing. While it looks good, it takes up a lot of space. One page for the credits, another for the table of contents, and one page for each chapter. Layout is two columns with ravens bordering the top of the page with the chapter number on one side and the family name on the other. The book makes several references to various Ravenloft books including the Ravenloft Player’s Handbook to Van Richten’s Arsenal.
Use of white space is fair but could be better. On the big plus side, there is no internal advertising and since this is an official D&D product, no OGL or SRD license so more pages devoted to the goods as opposed to the legal issues. The table of contents is minimal and there is no index, so if you wanted to flip to a PrC, you’d have to memorize which family it belonged to.
Families included are as follow: Boritsi, d’Honaire, Dilisnya, Drakov, Godefroy, Hiregaard, Mordenheim, Renier, and Von Zarovich. Each family starts off with fiction and moves into the following sections; family background, fitting in, claiming membership, family feats, family prestige class, family magic, story hook and sample characters.
This allows a player or GM to read over a single family and see how they fit not only into a standard Ravenloft game, but how players might join them. For example, if you were interested in getting in good with the Boritsi, you’d have to respect that if you do them wrong, they are known for “evening the score” or that they were some of the main supporters of Strahd von Zarovich.
If you wanted to actually play a member of one of the races, under the section, Claiming Membership, you’d see what changes are necessary for your character. In almost every case, there are several branches or slots in the family tree left blank for either the GM to insert his own characters or for the players to add their own touches to the family tree.
For example, if you want to be part of the sly and murderous Dilisnya family, the player has many options. Some of the family members aren’t even aware of the more notorious events in their past and may not be contacted till after the character’s been created and has been in play. Others known exactly what they are. Family members can only spent their extra human points on Knowledge (history) and/or Knowledge (local), but those skills are always class skills. In addition, they can locate other family members who may have information of missions for their brother.
The section on family feats includes those commonly found in the family, and it’s here where we see a lot of references made to the other books in the Ravenloft library. Unique feats to the family are featured after the general run down. For the Dilisnya for example, they has Case the Joint, Find Weakness, and Stealthy Blade. The first allows them to study a location and determine how best to work within it, getting a bonus to many stealth based skills. The second, Find weakness, allows you to study your foes style and if you beat your enemy in an Intelligence check, your weapon’s critical multiplier is increased. Stealthy Blade allows you to deal extra sneak attack damage.
In terms of Family Classes, it mentions the basic core classes common to each family, and then makes references to various other Ravenloft books, and often includes a new PrC or two for that family. Following the Dilisnya example, we have the Deceiver, an individual that reminds me a little of the Batman in that their ‘normal’ identity is one that people would consider unthreatening, perhaps even foppish, but in truth, they are dangerous spies and masters of poison.
When looking at Family Magic, new spells and magic items are included. For example, the Godefroys have Dirge, a bard spell, that allows the mind affecting abilities of their bardic music to be necromantic and can affect undead while Eternal Rest, a 6th level cleric spell, destroys an undead creature’s material body. They also have several magic items like the Ghost Trap, a pear-shaped crystal flask that can capture incorporeal undead and Amulets of Life Protection to save their souls.
Story hooks range in length. For example, the Drakov family has two hooks, Enemies of the State, where characters may have to fight against some of the unique soldiers of this realm, the raptor knights, or Scion of Drakov, where a character learns that their blood is that of Drakov due to that families rights of the nobles where a ruler takes a new bride’s virtue.
One of the nice things about many of the PrCs here is that they capture the feel of the setting in terms of role-playing potential as opposed to overall combat potential. We have a wide range of options that would be perfect for a group not interested in the ‘min-max’ aspect of PrCs like the Courtier, a master of social class movement, the Analyst, a ‘scientist’ of the misty realm, Accomplished Medium, a speaker of the dead, and the Divine Exorcist, a master of banishing the dead.
This isn’t to say that all the PrCs are so focused. One of my favorites is the Crimson Hound, belonging to the Von Zaroviches. This is a 5 level PrC with a warrior’s bab and saves and gains abilities relating to overcoming his enemies not only through swordplay, but also through sheer will such as demoralize, where they dishearten their enemies or fearsome presence, where they can cause fear in their enemies.
The book finishes with a rogues’ gallery appendix that includes game stats, description background, current sketch, combat, and illustration, for many of those individuals referred to either in the background text of each family or in the fiction introduction of each family. The abilities and feats are not explained in the game stats but if appropriate for background, notes are included. The nice thing about the section is that not all of these characters are meant to go toe to toe with the players. Take Celeste d’Honaire-Loverde, a Aristocrat 1 Expert 1. She’s not putting the sword to anyone. However, she does have some contacts and can use diplomacy to end any non-immediate threats.
By leaving numerous slots open for player and GM use, the authors have insured that the book’s use doesn’t have to end with just the material presented. Indeed, the new PrCs, feats, spells, and magic items, encourage the GM to come up with stories in order to fully use them. Any GM looking to add some more culture that goes beyond hack and slash to his campaign, might enjoy this book as an example of how families can be done and any Ravenloft GM looking to flesh out the official families of the core, should be able to get months worth of entertainment out of this book.
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