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.
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.