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<blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 2011767" data-attributes="member: 172"><p><strong>Valus</strong></p><p></p><p><em>Valus</em> is a <em>D20 System</em> fantasy campaign setting written by Ryan Smalley (aka <em>Destan</em> on the ENWorld forums) and published by Different Worlds Publications. The setting was that described in Destan’s story hour on the boards, which was the vehicle that drew the publisher’s attention.</p><p></p><p><strong>A First Look</strong></p><p></p><p><em>Valus</em> is a 176 page perfect-bound softcover book priced at $29.99 US.</p><p></p><p>The cover of the book has a sky blue background. The front cover features an attractive, detailed colored map of the subcontinent of Valus, created by Chuck McCann. Unfortunately, there is not a larger version of this map to be had in the interior, though the publisher has distributed some flyers regarding the book with a two-page fold out of the map, that you may be able to ask your FLGS to get.</p><p></p><p>The interior is black-and-white, and features art by Clayton Bunce, Scott ruggels, Alan McFarlane, and Stefan Poeg. The art is competant and evocative, though the interior maps seem simple compared to the cover map. A few included city maps appear hand-drawn.</p><p></p><p>The book does not use any sort of graphic in the margins. The margins are very thin and the text is very dense, offsetting the at first glance expensive per-page price. A number of text boxes and tables in the book used stylized borders.</p><p></p><p>The editing is for the most part good, but I did catch a few common editing gaffes (for example, using <em>affect</em> as a noun and not meaning <em>emotion</em>.)</p><p></p><p><strong>A Deeper Look</strong></p><p></p><p>Valus itself is a large island (600 miles long) off the shores of a continent to the south. The world that Valus is part of is called Ostia Prim. The first chapter takes a look at the known world, and spends some time discussing the landscape and empires of the mainland. Valus attempts to provide a more realistic take on people and cultures, a bit like <em>Kingdoms of Kalamar</em>. However in stark contrast to this, the geography is intentionally less realistic. The continents are supposed to be the bodies of the creator-god’s children, and the oceans the briny tears of that god, the Father-Mother. </p><p></p><p>In this first chapter, the author immediately starts painting a picture of a variety of cultures in stark contrast. Each of the various sections of the descriptions of the cultural regions of the mainland relate a few of the more hostile reactions of travelers to the given society, such as the illness of one traveler upon hearing that some stains on a wall are bloodstains from the slashed hands of wives and concubines of powerful men who passed, and who were to join their deceased husband (a practice that uncomfortably parallels a similar controversial practice once practiced in India.)</p><p></p><p>This first chapter covers each of the different major cultures in the region, including such details as calendars and reckoning of years and languages. The details in this chapter even discuss the disquiet between peoples, and even includes a list of common epithets leveled against various races (note here that races doesn’t necessarily mean races in the D&D sense; many of these races listed are simply different human ethnicities.) The chapter ends with a table describing perceptions and relations between the different ethnic/racial groups, similar to the one for races in the <em>1e D&D Player’s Handbook</em>.</p><p></p><p>The second chapter actually turns to making characters. If the first chapter didn’t convince you that this book is a bit off the beaten track for D&D settings, the second one should. Though most races are similar to core races, there are a few minor differences (including names). Appearances and attitudes are discussed at some length. Non-human races have some variations in their abilities from core versions of the same. Humans have the same basic statistics as core humans, but a great deal of attention is paid to spelling out differences in their physical characteristics and attitudes.</p><p></p><p>An optional rule called <em>heritage levels</em> allows a player to chose to have their character had grown up primarily in a singular culture. There is no level modifier, but the character replaces their favored class of <em>any</em> with a specific class, and gives them a penalty to gather information and diplomacy, but gives them a bonus feat, a save modifier, and a permanent class skill. The text is not clear whether this is supposed to be an additional bonus feat or a selection for their existing feat. If the former, these options seem strong, otherwise they seem weak.</p><p></p><p>In addition to variants of the traditional core classes, <em>Valus</em> includes two new races, <em>Roven</em> (bestial humanoids) and <em>Trulls</em> (sort of a weak troll or giant).</p><p></p><p>The character chapter also introduces some significant changes in classes, primarily stemming from changes in the cosmological assumptions about religion and deities. Bards can select mroe specialized variants, <em>skald, troubadour,</em> and <em>minstrel</em>. Clerics (for reasons discussed below) need not match their deity’s alignment (as they don’t have one) and many aspect of their magic are altered (see below.) Paladins receive additional abilities related to their position. All sorcerers gain eschew materials as a bonus feat (a choice <em>Egyptian Adventures: Hamunaptara</em> makes as well) and all wizards can spontaneously cast cantrips.</p><p></p><p>There is one new prestige class, the <em>covenguard</em>. The covenguard has abilities designed to fight and banish outsiders from the world of Osta Prim; outsiders are considered to be especially offensive to them. The covernguard has their own spellcasting progression and spells, and are good fighters.</p><p></p><p>Most of the feats are divine in nature, dealing with additional restrictions placed upon divine spellcasters in the setting. For example, the <em>devoted</em> feat allows a cleric to freely apply a metamagic feat to one of their spells during their patron’s ascendancy (see below.)</p><p></p><p>Religion plays and important part of the makeup of the <em>Valus</em> setting, and some aspects of it are very deep; this summation barely scratches the surface. Most aspects of the cosmology and "divine history" are viewed similarly by different divine casters, but different divine casters draw power from and revere different aspects of divinity. For example, covenguard revere Saficea itself, druids revere the child-gods, clerics revere the risen gods (divine brothers of beings that would become demons and devils), and paladins revere the angelic host. </p><p></p><p>The setting assumes that there was a creator being, Saficea, the Mother-Father. There could only be one creation, so she was forced to slay her children, the child-gods, who became the continents, and her tears formed the oceans. Being sprung from the corpses that held a spark of the divinity of the child gods called the Drimm. The drimm were forbidden to kill one another, but two factions of these did, and created progeny. When Saficea awoke to their warring, she cast them out. These groups became demons and devils. A third group of Drimm did not war against one another, but Saficea knew that one day they would, so she locked them into a cycle of eternal battle and locked them away from the world in a place to which the sun is the impassible portal. These last group of drimm were then the risen gods, from whom clerics derive their power.</p><p></p><p>A consequence of the eternal cycle that the risen gods are locked into is that their clerics’ powers wax and wane as the gods do. As a god becomes more powerful in this cycle, a nimbus around the sun shows their color.</p><p></p><p>The result is, in addition to all the traditional characteristics of deities (aside from alignment), all of the deities have a period of ascendancy and a period of suppression. The period of ascendancy is one month a year and one hek (short 5-day week) a month when they are in ascendancy; the period of suppression is also a month and hek. </p><p></p><p>Many spells can only be prepared during the time of ascendancy of a cleric’s deity, and the cleric gains other benefits, such as the ability to spontaneously add metamagic effects, cast spells that are normally beyond their abilities, cast orisons spontaneously, and reduced XP cost for spells and item creation.</p><p></p><p>On the other hand, during the period of suppression, clerics lose access to their highest level non-domain slot, requires double the amount of daily preparation time, suffers a failure chance on high levels spells, and must pay an XP surcharge to item costs and any spell XP costs. </p><p></p><p>Specific deities also have specific ascendency powers and suppression effects.</p><p></p><p>Another difference is divinity in Valus is that the risen gods do not have alignments defined. Clerics may be any alignment, and many deities have multiple alignment domains (<em>good</em> and <em>evil</em> on their lists. Clerics may not select domains opposing their own alignment, but a neutral cleric could take both good and evil domains.)</p><p></p><p>There are a few other rules governing magic. First, the risen gods resent the introduction of the banished drimm back into the world. Summoning spells may draw attention of the gods, which incurs a debt of forgiveness that the character must pay. Second, resurrection or raise dead spells are more limited. In addition to only being allowed during ascendancy, a risen god will often demand an additional cost if it is not in their interests to raise a character from the dead, or outright refuse to grant it. Even if they do grant it, they may somehow mark the character than they raise.</p><p></p><p>The four remaining chapters discuss the geographical regions of Valus. An exhaustive recounting of the contents of these regions is beyond the scope of this review. The geography is covered in some details, as are the political units and cities, complete with recent history, thumbnails of significant characters, and plot hooks (listed by EL). These plot hooks are more about intelligent races and society than monsters and dungeons.</p><p></p><p>There are two appendices. The first is a short adventure for 1st level characters, which has them pursuing a kidnapper, and facing a variety of obstacles (many of them noncombat) along the trail. The second appendix features items unique to Valus, including weapons, furs, narcotics, and flora.</p><p></p><p><strong>Conclusions</strong></p><p></p><p><em>Valus</em> is somewhat different than most settings I have read to date. It seems to concentrate on portraying deeper and more believable sociology, more focus on people and societies than dungeons and monsters. That the background and the geography of the setting is so mythic is an odd contrast, making Valus an odd mixture of the methodology of <em>Kingdoms of Kalamar</em> and <em>The Scarred Lands</em>.</p><p></p><p>I found it refreshing that the setting didn’t feel a need to whitewash some of the uglier aspects of human nature, particularly racism. This adds a strain of believability to the setting. Some groups, however, may be a bit uncomfortable with this aspect of the setting. It does seem like it goes to the opposite extreme with respect to recognizing racism, with rules, situations, and narratives that highlight it at several turns.</p><p></p><p>Islands seem to be a good candidate to import into an existing world. I’m not sure that this is true of Valus. Most of the setting’s value seems to be had in the context of it’s religion and cosmology assumptions, so unless you are resolved to use the Valus cosmology or adapt it somehow, it seems that you would get less use out it this way.</p><p></p><p><em>Overall Grade: B</em></p><p></p><p><em> -Alan D. Kohler</em></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Psion, post: 2011767, member: 172"] [b]Valus[/b] [i]Valus[/i] is a [i]D20 System[/i] fantasy campaign setting written by Ryan Smalley (aka [i]Destan[/i] on the ENWorld forums) and published by Different Worlds Publications. The setting was that described in Destan’s story hour on the boards, which was the vehicle that drew the publisher’s attention. [b]A First Look[/b] [i]Valus[/i] is a 176 page perfect-bound softcover book priced at $29.99 US. The cover of the book has a sky blue background. The front cover features an attractive, detailed colored map of the subcontinent of Valus, created by Chuck McCann. Unfortunately, there is not a larger version of this map to be had in the interior, though the publisher has distributed some flyers regarding the book with a two-page fold out of the map, that you may be able to ask your FLGS to get. The interior is black-and-white, and features art by Clayton Bunce, Scott ruggels, Alan McFarlane, and Stefan Poeg. The art is competant and evocative, though the interior maps seem simple compared to the cover map. A few included city maps appear hand-drawn. The book does not use any sort of graphic in the margins. The margins are very thin and the text is very dense, offsetting the at first glance expensive per-page price. A number of text boxes and tables in the book used stylized borders. The editing is for the most part good, but I did catch a few common editing gaffes (for example, using [i]affect[/i] as a noun and not meaning [i]emotion[/i].) [b]A Deeper Look[/b] Valus itself is a large island (600 miles long) off the shores of a continent to the south. The world that Valus is part of is called Ostia Prim. The first chapter takes a look at the known world, and spends some time discussing the landscape and empires of the mainland. Valus attempts to provide a more realistic take on people and cultures, a bit like [i]Kingdoms of Kalamar[/i]. However in stark contrast to this, the geography is intentionally less realistic. The continents are supposed to be the bodies of the creator-god’s children, and the oceans the briny tears of that god, the Father-Mother. In this first chapter, the author immediately starts painting a picture of a variety of cultures in stark contrast. Each of the various sections of the descriptions of the cultural regions of the mainland relate a few of the more hostile reactions of travelers to the given society, such as the illness of one traveler upon hearing that some stains on a wall are bloodstains from the slashed hands of wives and concubines of powerful men who passed, and who were to join their deceased husband (a practice that uncomfortably parallels a similar controversial practice once practiced in India.) This first chapter covers each of the different major cultures in the region, including such details as calendars and reckoning of years and languages. The details in this chapter even discuss the disquiet between peoples, and even includes a list of common epithets leveled against various races (note here that races doesn’t necessarily mean races in the D&D sense; many of these races listed are simply different human ethnicities.) The chapter ends with a table describing perceptions and relations between the different ethnic/racial groups, similar to the one for races in the [i]1e D&D Player’s Handbook[/i]. The second chapter actually turns to making characters. If the first chapter didn’t convince you that this book is a bit off the beaten track for D&D settings, the second one should. Though most races are similar to core races, there are a few minor differences (including names). Appearances and attitudes are discussed at some length. Non-human races have some variations in their abilities from core versions of the same. Humans have the same basic statistics as core humans, but a great deal of attention is paid to spelling out differences in their physical characteristics and attitudes. An optional rule called [i]heritage levels[/i] allows a player to chose to have their character had grown up primarily in a singular culture. There is no level modifier, but the character replaces their favored class of [i]any[/i] with a specific class, and gives them a penalty to gather information and diplomacy, but gives them a bonus feat, a save modifier, and a permanent class skill. The text is not clear whether this is supposed to be an additional bonus feat or a selection for their existing feat. If the former, these options seem strong, otherwise they seem weak. In addition to variants of the traditional core classes, [i]Valus[/i] includes two new races, [i]Roven[/i] (bestial humanoids) and [i]Trulls[/i] (sort of a weak troll or giant). The character chapter also introduces some significant changes in classes, primarily stemming from changes in the cosmological assumptions about religion and deities. Bards can select mroe specialized variants, [i]skald, troubadour,[/i] and [i]minstrel[/i]. Clerics (for reasons discussed below) need not match their deity’s alignment (as they don’t have one) and many aspect of their magic are altered (see below.) Paladins receive additional abilities related to their position. All sorcerers gain eschew materials as a bonus feat (a choice [i]Egyptian Adventures: Hamunaptara[/i] makes as well) and all wizards can spontaneously cast cantrips. There is one new prestige class, the [i]covenguard[/i]. The covenguard has abilities designed to fight and banish outsiders from the world of Osta Prim; outsiders are considered to be especially offensive to them. The covernguard has their own spellcasting progression and spells, and are good fighters. Most of the feats are divine in nature, dealing with additional restrictions placed upon divine spellcasters in the setting. For example, the [i]devoted[/i] feat allows a cleric to freely apply a metamagic feat to one of their spells during their patron’s ascendancy (see below.) Religion plays and important part of the makeup of the [i]Valus[/i] setting, and some aspects of it are very deep; this summation barely scratches the surface. Most aspects of the cosmology and "divine history" are viewed similarly by different divine casters, but different divine casters draw power from and revere different aspects of divinity. For example, covenguard revere Saficea itself, druids revere the child-gods, clerics revere the risen gods (divine brothers of beings that would become demons and devils), and paladins revere the angelic host. The setting assumes that there was a creator being, Saficea, the Mother-Father. There could only be one creation, so she was forced to slay her children, the child-gods, who became the continents, and her tears formed the oceans. Being sprung from the corpses that held a spark of the divinity of the child gods called the Drimm. The drimm were forbidden to kill one another, but two factions of these did, and created progeny. When Saficea awoke to their warring, she cast them out. These groups became demons and devils. A third group of Drimm did not war against one another, but Saficea knew that one day they would, so she locked them into a cycle of eternal battle and locked them away from the world in a place to which the sun is the impassible portal. These last group of drimm were then the risen gods, from whom clerics derive their power. A consequence of the eternal cycle that the risen gods are locked into is that their clerics’ powers wax and wane as the gods do. As a god becomes more powerful in this cycle, a nimbus around the sun shows their color. The result is, in addition to all the traditional characteristics of deities (aside from alignment), all of the deities have a period of ascendancy and a period of suppression. The period of ascendancy is one month a year and one hek (short 5-day week) a month when they are in ascendancy; the period of suppression is also a month and hek. Many spells can only be prepared during the time of ascendancy of a cleric’s deity, and the cleric gains other benefits, such as the ability to spontaneously add metamagic effects, cast spells that are normally beyond their abilities, cast orisons spontaneously, and reduced XP cost for spells and item creation. On the other hand, during the period of suppression, clerics lose access to their highest level non-domain slot, requires double the amount of daily preparation time, suffers a failure chance on high levels spells, and must pay an XP surcharge to item costs and any spell XP costs. Specific deities also have specific ascendency powers and suppression effects. Another difference is divinity in Valus is that the risen gods do not have alignments defined. Clerics may be any alignment, and many deities have multiple alignment domains ([i]good[/i] and [i]evil[/i] on their lists. Clerics may not select domains opposing their own alignment, but a neutral cleric could take both good and evil domains.) There are a few other rules governing magic. First, the risen gods resent the introduction of the banished drimm back into the world. Summoning spells may draw attention of the gods, which incurs a debt of forgiveness that the character must pay. Second, resurrection or raise dead spells are more limited. In addition to only being allowed during ascendancy, a risen god will often demand an additional cost if it is not in their interests to raise a character from the dead, or outright refuse to grant it. Even if they do grant it, they may somehow mark the character than they raise. The four remaining chapters discuss the geographical regions of Valus. An exhaustive recounting of the contents of these regions is beyond the scope of this review. The geography is covered in some details, as are the political units and cities, complete with recent history, thumbnails of significant characters, and plot hooks (listed by EL). These plot hooks are more about intelligent races and society than monsters and dungeons. There are two appendices. The first is a short adventure for 1st level characters, which has them pursuing a kidnapper, and facing a variety of obstacles (many of them noncombat) along the trail. The second appendix features items unique to Valus, including weapons, furs, narcotics, and flora. [b]Conclusions[/b] [i]Valus[/i] is somewhat different than most settings I have read to date. It seems to concentrate on portraying deeper and more believable sociology, more focus on people and societies than dungeons and monsters. That the background and the geography of the setting is so mythic is an odd contrast, making Valus an odd mixture of the methodology of [i]Kingdoms of Kalamar[/i] and [i]The Scarred Lands[/i]. I found it refreshing that the setting didn’t feel a need to whitewash some of the uglier aspects of human nature, particularly racism. This adds a strain of believability to the setting. Some groups, however, may be a bit uncomfortable with this aspect of the setting. It does seem like it goes to the opposite extreme with respect to recognizing racism, with rules, situations, and narratives that highlight it at several turns. Islands seem to be a good candidate to import into an existing world. I’m not sure that this is true of Valus. Most of the setting’s value seems to be had in the context of it’s religion and cosmology assumptions, so unless you are resolved to use the Valus cosmology or adapt it somehow, it seems that you would get less use out it this way. [i]Overall Grade: B[/i] [i] -Alan D. Kohler[/i] [/QUOTE]
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