John Cooper
Explorer
A MAGICAL SOCIETY: SILK ROAD
By Suzi Lee
Expeditious Retreat Press product number XRP1005
160-page softcover, $27.00 (also available as a $10.00 PDF)
A Magical Society: Silk Road is the first book I've seen in the Magical Society series, but I've heard good things about the series as a whole (I believe the first book in the series is the one that Monte Cook himself gave an unprecedented 10 out of 10 stars), so when a review copy was offered to me by author Suzi Lee, I jumped at the chance. Historically, "the Silk Road" is not something that particularly interested me, but I had enjoyed the only other two Expeditious Retreat Press books I'd seen (the first two entries in their Monster Geographica series), so I figured I'd see what their new book was like.
Despite my marginal interest in the subject - the Silk Road refers to a historical trading route from China across the Middle East and into Europe - A Magical Society: Silk Road really captured and held my attention: it's well-written, well-researched, and can play as important a part in your D&D/d20 Fantasy game as you wish it to. (For that matter, many of the gaming information in this book could easily be extrapolated to be of value if you're playing a non-d20 game as well.)
The cover is a wraparound, full-color map of the part of the world in question. It also serves as the only full-color map in the book; while there are 10 other maps, they're black-and-white and not as easy to distinguish individual features.
The interior artwork is credited to Claudio Pozas, and while I recognize his style in many of the pieces, I think he specifically did the illustrations of the monsters that appear in the book. There are a total of 86 individual black-and-white photos/illustrations in A Magical Society: Silk Road, the majority of them clip art or photos taken from reference sources. That's not to say that that's a bad thing; quite the contrary, the "clip art" in this book ranks as some of the most appropriate I've seen - most often, the drawing or photo is a direct representation of whatever is being discussed on the page in question. My only complaint about the artwork is that not all of the creatures whose game stats appear in the book are illustrated, and while I imagine the majority of them were taken from Monster Geographica books (whose lack of monster artwork is a design choice, to keep the cost down), I also know that Expeditious Retreat Press has an agreement with Fiery Dragon Press, the latter company of which produces game tokens for each of the books in the Monster Geographica line (and which, in turn, are illustrated by the talented Claudio Pozas). In any case, my point is that I'm sure the artwork exists for each (or at least almost each) of the creatures in A Magical Society: Silk Road; it's a shame that not all of them are depicted, especially since a few of them seem rather confusing without a corresponding picture. (The best example here is on pages 68-69, where the undal is described as a quadruped, yet has thumb spike attacks! I've yet to see a quadruped with thumbs, let alone thumb spikes, and I'm having a tough time "getting a visual" on the beast.)
A Magical Society: Silk Road is laid out as follows:
As expected from a company that has a series of monster books of their own, the creature stats in A Magical Society: Silk Road are pretty good. Oh, there are errors, to be sure, but there aren't a great whopping lot of errors for each creature, nor are the errors that are there as significant as the ones in some other books I've reviewed of late. For the record, here's my "unofficial errata" for A Magical Society: Silk Road:
And this, in turn, leads me to my biggest complaint with A Magical Society: Silk Road - the proofreading and editing jobs are both really, really poor. I realize that Expeditious Retreat Press is basically a two-person company, so when Suzi Lee writes a book (like this one), her husband Joseph Browning edits it (and I'll assume he also takes on the proofreading responsibilities); likewise, when Joseph writes a book (like, say, A Magical Society: Beast Builder, which is next up on my list of books to review), Suzi edits it. All I can really say here is that it might not be a bad idea to have somebody else look the material over, because there are a lot of mistakes here. (Either that, or give each book a couple more editing passes than this one apparently had.) A Magical Society: Silk Road has all of the problems that many d20 books have - sentences missing words or with extraneous words, sentences missing the period at the end, misused punctuation, misspelled words and/or the wrong word for a given sentence (I think this latter error is the one that pops up the most in this book) and such - but it has significantly more errors than most books of a similar size that I've seen, and while in most cases it's easy enough to see what was meant, some still throw me for a loop. What do you make of the following passage, for example?
In any case, I've probably harped on this subject enough, and I don't want to make it appear as if the material in A Magical Society: Silk Road is in any way incomprehensible; a couple of sections take a little bit of deciphering in some places (what I like to call the "guess which word is missing here" game), but the book is really very well done once you discount the editing. Suzi has a nice, easygoing writing style, and she managed to turn what was, to me at least, a very dry subject into something I wished to learn more about. (And for those wishing to do further studying about the Silk Road on their own, Suzi thoughtfully includes a 21-entry bibliography at the end of the book.) The game material is top-notch; I particularly like the way she divided up the loads that a beast of burden can carry into "units" of both weight and volume, as that not only shows the limits of the creature's carrying capacity, but also allows potential merchants to maximize their profits, either by placing high-volume, low-weight objects with their high-weight, low-volume counterparts, or by specializing in items whose weight and volume limits hit maximum at the same time. I also appreciate the fact that despite the historical Silk Road taking place predominantly in desert regions, Suzi realizes that anybody purchasing A Magical Society: Silk Road is going to want to be able to use the trade rules therein in other climates and terrains, and she thus ensured that there were rules for trade caravans going through swamps, over mountains, and - perhaps most importantly - in the lightless lands of the Underdark.
A Magical Society: Silk Road is, simply put, the best d20 gaming accessory covering long-distance trade between different cultures that I've ever seen. (Don't read anything into the fact that it's the only such book I've ever seen, either - my point here is that I think it would be difficult to significantly improve upon what's here, in terms of game rules.) Editorial polishing would have been a nice touch, but besides that, I don't think there's a whole lot missing from the book - it's got all kinds of details on both the historical Silk Road (which is not only informative, but makes for excellent examples when she's explaining a concept), a sleek system for determining how much a pack creature can carry (and the 1,000+ examples are very helpful, too, even if "pearls" sneaks in twice, once under "gems, precious" and once under "organic"), and a bevy of new fantasy pack animals to employ on your journeys. A DM/GM of just about any fantasy role-playing game could make excellent use of this book. I give it a rating of "4 (Good)."
By Suzi Lee
Expeditious Retreat Press product number XRP1005
160-page softcover, $27.00 (also available as a $10.00 PDF)
A Magical Society: Silk Road is the first book I've seen in the Magical Society series, but I've heard good things about the series as a whole (I believe the first book in the series is the one that Monte Cook himself gave an unprecedented 10 out of 10 stars), so when a review copy was offered to me by author Suzi Lee, I jumped at the chance. Historically, "the Silk Road" is not something that particularly interested me, but I had enjoyed the only other two Expeditious Retreat Press books I'd seen (the first two entries in their Monster Geographica series), so I figured I'd see what their new book was like.
Despite my marginal interest in the subject - the Silk Road refers to a historical trading route from China across the Middle East and into Europe - A Magical Society: Silk Road really captured and held my attention: it's well-written, well-researched, and can play as important a part in your D&D/d20 Fantasy game as you wish it to. (For that matter, many of the gaming information in this book could easily be extrapolated to be of value if you're playing a non-d20 game as well.)
The cover is a wraparound, full-color map of the part of the world in question. It also serves as the only full-color map in the book; while there are 10 other maps, they're black-and-white and not as easy to distinguish individual features.
The interior artwork is credited to Claudio Pozas, and while I recognize his style in many of the pieces, I think he specifically did the illustrations of the monsters that appear in the book. There are a total of 86 individual black-and-white photos/illustrations in A Magical Society: Silk Road, the majority of them clip art or photos taken from reference sources. That's not to say that that's a bad thing; quite the contrary, the "clip art" in this book ranks as some of the most appropriate I've seen - most often, the drawing or photo is a direct representation of whatever is being discussed on the page in question. My only complaint about the artwork is that not all of the creatures whose game stats appear in the book are illustrated, and while I imagine the majority of them were taken from Monster Geographica books (whose lack of monster artwork is a design choice, to keep the cost down), I also know that Expeditious Retreat Press has an agreement with Fiery Dragon Press, the latter company of which produces game tokens for each of the books in the Monster Geographica line (and which, in turn, are illustrated by the talented Claudio Pozas). In any case, my point is that I'm sure the artwork exists for each (or at least almost each) of the creatures in A Magical Society: Silk Road; it's a shame that not all of them are depicted, especially since a few of them seem rather confusing without a corresponding picture. (The best example here is on pages 68-69, where the undal is described as a quadruped, yet has thumb spike attacks! I've yet to see a quadruped with thumbs, let alone thumb spikes, and I'm having a tough time "getting a visual" on the beast.)
A Magical Society: Silk Road is laid out as follows:
- Introduction: A definition of the term "Silk Road" in this book, encompassing both the historical term and the term as used generically in this book
- Chapter 1 - Components of Silk Roads: Geographical features required to form a Silk Road (including barrier cultures), and various features of a Silk Road (including middlemen, dead cities, and "roadside attractions")
- Chapter 2 - Traveling on Silk Roads: Plotting out a Silk Road in a given campaign, and navigating travel along the Silk Road (incorporating such things as staging posts, appropriate beasts of burden, translators, currency, and differences in culture along the way)
- Chapter 3 - Types of Caravans: Rules for caravans traveling across deserts, up in the high altitudes, through swamps, and underground, with discussions on landscape, geographical hazards, navigating hazards, animals, and procedures for each type of terrain
- Chapter 4 - Money Matters: Micro and macro trade, different types of trade goods, and the trade system
- Chapter 5 - Trade Goods: Over 1,000 (and it's true - I counted!) different types of specific trade goods, from such things as cloth and cosmetics to gems, livestock, and wood
- Chapter 6 - The Historic Silk Road: A brief look at the cultures (and barrier cultures), history, and politics of the historical Silk Road
- Maps, Maps, and More Maps: 4 maps of the historical Silk Road area
- Appendix - Adornment and Craft: A brief discussion on various ways different cultures have added adornment to their clothing and themselves
As expected from a company that has a series of monster books of their own, the creature stats in A Magical Society: Silk Road are pretty good. Oh, there are errors, to be sure, but there aren't a great whopping lot of errors for each creature, nor are the errors that are there as significant as the ones in some other books I've reviewed of late. For the record, here's my "unofficial errata" for A Magical Society: Silk Road:
- p. 32, Aecanopyornis: No Space/Reach is given; it should be "5 ft./5 ft." (I know that many times, Space/Reach is dropped from Humanoid creatures in the abbreviated stats in the encounters in Dungeon, but this is a full stat block, and the creature in question is an avian in build - it's a Magical Beast, as far as creature types go).
- p. 33, Droth'yar: Unless there's some hidden, unspecified racial bonus in play, Survival should be +1, not +9 (the creature has 1 skill point left to spend after taking care of the rest of its skills, and a +0 Wis bonus to apply to Survival).
- p. 53, Diseased Boar: Advancement lists 18 HD as being both Large and Huge; I believe it should be 10-18 HD (Large), 19-27 HD (Huge).
- p. 54, Pumina Snake: "Face/Reach" should be "Space/Reach" as this is a 3.5 product, not 3.0. It looks like the creature spent 18 out of its 20 allotted skill points. Its internal AC (which is in use when it uses its Swallow Whole ability on a PC) should be 14, not 12 (half of the creature's natural armor bonus - which in this case is +9 - rounded down).
- p. 57, Spindleshank: Skills should include Knowledge (nature) +3 (0 ranks, +1 Int, +2 synergy bonus from Survival).
- p. 58, Puddle Stalker: Ref should be +8, not +7 (+5 as a 6-HD magical beast, +3 Dex). It looks like it spent 15 out of a total of 9 skill points, unless there are (unlisted) racial bonuses to Listen and/or Spot. (And, if I want to get really picky, the Treasure" entry should come before the "Alignment" entry, "lowlight" should be hyphenated, and it looks like each numeral "1" in "6d10+12" (under "Hit Dice") is actually a lower-case "L!")
- p. 59, Blight Belcher: HD should be 12d10+36, not 12d8+36 (magical beasts use d10s for Hit Dice). As a result, average hit points should be 102, not 90. The "Amphibious" description states that they can survive indefinitely on land, yet on page 59 it says "blight belcher jaunts on land eventually lead to water, lest their scales dry out." Note that there is no damage formula provided for dried-out scales, so perhaps that entry should have been stricken from the creature's description. (And, in the "picky-even-for-me" column, the "Treasure" entry should come before the "Alignment" entry in the stat block.)
- p. 68, Orphean: It has 6 HD, yet Advancement starts at 6-12 HD; that should be "7-12 HD (Large)." Also - and this may well not be a stat block mistake at all, but rather an oversight in the creature's description - I note that the creature's tail clubs attacks always strike as secondary attacks (that is, at a -5 penalty). There's nothing inherently wrong with that (check out the camel's bite attacks in the Monster Manual), but when such is the case, it's usually spelled out in the combat section, and there's no mention of it here.
- pp. 68-69, Undal: Thumb spike damage should be 1d8+4, not 1d8+5 (1.5 times a +3 Str bonus = +4, as you always round down).
- pp. 69-70, Noja: Skills should include Knowledge (nature) +4 (0 ranks, +2 Int, +2 synergy bonus from Survival).
And this, in turn, leads me to my biggest complaint with A Magical Society: Silk Road - the proofreading and editing jobs are both really, really poor. I realize that Expeditious Retreat Press is basically a two-person company, so when Suzi Lee writes a book (like this one), her husband Joseph Browning edits it (and I'll assume he also takes on the proofreading responsibilities); likewise, when Joseph writes a book (like, say, A Magical Society: Beast Builder, which is next up on my list of books to review), Suzi edits it. All I can really say here is that it might not be a bad idea to have somebody else look the material over, because there are a lot of mistakes here. (Either that, or give each book a couple more editing passes than this one apparently had.) A Magical Society: Silk Road has all of the problems that many d20 books have - sentences missing words or with extraneous words, sentences missing the period at the end, misused punctuation, misspelled words and/or the wrong word for a given sentence (I think this latter error is the one that pops up the most in this book) and such - but it has significantly more errors than most books of a similar size that I've seen, and while in most cases it's easy enough to see what was meant, some still throw me for a loop. What do you make of the following passage, for example?
"A solid stick of incense has no supporting rod and formed when incense powder mixed with a little water forms a hard dough is extrusion through a die."
That one starts off okay - it looks like that should be "is formed" there in the first half of the sentence, but we can easily tell what was meant - but then it becomes almost unintelligible at the end. I'm guessing it should end with "...forms a hard dough and is extruded through a die," but honestly, your guess is as good as mine. Here's my favorite sentence in the whole book, though:"A inkhorn hold 8oz of ink."
As written, it's a six-word sentence, yet it holds three distinct errors! (It should be "An inkhorn" instead of "A inkhorn," "holds" instead of "hold," and "8 oz" (or "8 ounces") instead of "8oz.") That's got to be some kind of a record, don't you think? In any case, while most of the errors in A Magical Society: Silk Road could be attributed to simple carelessness, there are a great deal of them that a simple spellchecking program should have caught, had one been used; how else to explain words like "Filligree152" (which should have had a whole row of periods before the "152" as it was an entry in the Table of Contents), "nonleathal," "pinapples," "riverbeads," "Turquois," "HIckory" (with that exact capitalization), and "scratche," otherwise? Worse yet, though, there are two examples of the classic mistake that proves the editor wasn't paying sufficient attention: "see Table ??" and "see table 4.?" (As a hint for future books, some writers like to use "???" as a placeholder, and others prefer using "$$$" or "XXX" instead, but whatever you use, it's best if you always use the exact same format, and always, always do a search for the "???" or "$$$" or "XXX" or whatever to make sure you've gotten rid of them all before the product goes to the printers.)In any case, I've probably harped on this subject enough, and I don't want to make it appear as if the material in A Magical Society: Silk Road is in any way incomprehensible; a couple of sections take a little bit of deciphering in some places (what I like to call the "guess which word is missing here" game), but the book is really very well done once you discount the editing. Suzi has a nice, easygoing writing style, and she managed to turn what was, to me at least, a very dry subject into something I wished to learn more about. (And for those wishing to do further studying about the Silk Road on their own, Suzi thoughtfully includes a 21-entry bibliography at the end of the book.) The game material is top-notch; I particularly like the way she divided up the loads that a beast of burden can carry into "units" of both weight and volume, as that not only shows the limits of the creature's carrying capacity, but also allows potential merchants to maximize their profits, either by placing high-volume, low-weight objects with their high-weight, low-volume counterparts, or by specializing in items whose weight and volume limits hit maximum at the same time. I also appreciate the fact that despite the historical Silk Road taking place predominantly in desert regions, Suzi realizes that anybody purchasing A Magical Society: Silk Road is going to want to be able to use the trade rules therein in other climates and terrains, and she thus ensured that there were rules for trade caravans going through swamps, over mountains, and - perhaps most importantly - in the lightless lands of the Underdark.
A Magical Society: Silk Road is, simply put, the best d20 gaming accessory covering long-distance trade between different cultures that I've ever seen. (Don't read anything into the fact that it's the only such book I've ever seen, either - my point here is that I think it would be difficult to significantly improve upon what's here, in terms of game rules.) Editorial polishing would have been a nice touch, but besides that, I don't think there's a whole lot missing from the book - it's got all kinds of details on both the historical Silk Road (which is not only informative, but makes for excellent examples when she's explaining a concept), a sleek system for determining how much a pack creature can carry (and the 1,000+ examples are very helpful, too, even if "pearls" sneaks in twice, once under "gems, precious" and once under "organic"), and a bevy of new fantasy pack animals to employ on your journeys. A DM/GM of just about any fantasy role-playing game could make excellent use of this book. I give it a rating of "4 (Good)."
