Ancient Kingdoms: Mesopotamia

[JoeGKushner]

Reading over Ancient Kingdoms Mesopotamia took me a while. The sourcebook side of it is so weak that I had to force myself to continue reading. Now I’m not saying I’m all crunched out and not looking for new game mechanics, but when a sourcebook on an ancient empire comes out and it has more information of the setting in terms of PrCs, feats and spells, I’m bored.

The book comes in at 176 black and white pages for $23.99. It’s an odd page number and not in hardcover and updates some material to 3.5 standards but seems to be a low price for the page count. Written by Morten Braten and published by Necromancer Games, the back cover proclaims it as a huge sourcebook with new crunch and short adventures.

If you’re doing a ‘themed’ setting like the Relics & Rituals setting, go for it! Provide all the d20 crunch you want with some extra bits on the side to show how to run that type of themed campaign. If you’re doing a magical d20 version of the setting like Hamunaptra or Nyambe with maps and new core classes, go for it! If you’re slapping the name Mesopotamia on a map and throwing a bunch of feats and PrCs at me with a reduced equipment list and no changes in the magic of the setting, mark me down as pass.

When I did move on though, I discovered some great adventures that weren’t linear and could be used in any setting that has a desert. We have the Red Waste proper, a desert with several locations within it. Each location has adventure seeds that the GM can link together to form one long campaign, or not. Want to put an ancient temple into your game? Check. Want to include some ancient tribes in your game? Check. In Chapter Five, The Red Waste, we have the Sons of Saram and the Brotherhood of Kalab.Want cultist who worship a demon-purple worm? Check. You just flip to Chapter Nine, the Pit of Yhath.

Some of these can be used as tools in and of themselves. Do you have areas in your campaign world where massive battles have taken place and the bones of the dead are still around? (Well, we all know that wouldn’t happen in any d20 game as a necromancer would be around sooner of latter…) Check out the table for Looting the Battlefield. This is a collection of three tables, mound size, unit type, and items of interest, that can generate some quick items for those in a hurry.

What about other utilities like the Dream Table? While the characters are at an oasis, the lake water has some effects on the mind of the sleeper and we get a table with different ideas like the character being a foot soldier in a great battle or having the character gain the gift of flight in his dreams. Little things like this make the adventures more than just a wandering monster encounter table.

In long term use, the book also includes some appendixes that have some toys for the GM in the form of new monsters. The first appendix includes creatures like the Denizen of Ong, a humanoid with tentacles spilling form it’s gut to Gallu Demons, shape shifters who use claws and teeth to claim their prey. Perhaps more impressive is appendix two, revised monsters from the Tome of Horrors. These are most of the creatures that are mentioned in the book but not all of them. We have a lot to choose from including monstrous frogs and variant gargoyles, to obsidian minotaurs and lead skeletons.

I like the feel of the adventurers. Either the author is a big fan of the Mythos or he’s accidentally captured the feel of the genre. Ancient empires where men struggle in vain against terrible entities from beyond time and space even as other men gladly sacrifice their humanity in exchange for dark powers.

In terms of utility, some may question my feeling of easy adaptation. Well, Greyhawk has the Sea of Dust and Forgotten Realms has it’s own desert land. Dark Sun is in essence a huge desert while Planescape and Ravenloft can easily have such an area introduced with little muss or fuss. Heck, in the latter it fits easiest as there are elements of horror and madness that would be easy to tweak for those rules.

So why is this a three star product instead of a four star product?

I counted roughly sixteen references to the Tome of Horrors. This doesn’t count the references to Necropolis. Tome of Horrors referenced over and over and over again in bold print instead of just ToH or the page number in the appendix where the 3.5 stats might’ve been found just made me scratch my head.

The use of white space. Most of the chapter endings had huge amounts of white space and the start of each chapter had a fair amount of white space too.

While a minor thing, an easy way to navigate the book is missing. No table of contents and no index is a bad thing. Now I can see the latter, not a lot of use for an index that doesn’t cover a lot of ground but no table of contents? I can understand page constraints but since there’s two pages of advertisements, I think a table of contents could’ve been squeezed somewhere into this book.

The lack of any actual information on Mesopotamia. As an adventure anthology, this book does a great job. It captures a lot of elements that would make it great for Conan or other ‘gritty’ settings but as a sourcebook, it fails completely. Timeline? Bibliography? Important NPC’s? Maps with some level of utility to them of the region? Anything not dealing with game mechanics? Less than 10 pages in the first part and a mediocre section on gods does not a regional sourcebook make.

The art captures the feel of the setting well. It has a ‘dirty’ feeling to it but does show bare breast so it’s not going to be appropriate for all groups. It didn’t bother me, but much like with Mongoose Products, I just don’t see the need for it. It looks like most of the art from Tome of Horrors returns though and some of that brings down the overall feel of the product. Most of the maps are great. My only problem is with the first one, an overland view of Mesopotamia, about a fourth of it is in essence blank . Other maps, especially those in dungeon like environments, are well done and have functionality to them. I hate pretty maps that can’t be used in the game.

Game stats are fair for the most part, but in some cases, they’re incomplete. Many of the creatures from the Monster Manual have a reference to see the MM, short for Monster Manual. Many of the rogues have less than 8 skills and no note on even a generic, (add three skills at x ranks plus stat modifier.) Not a big deal, but something I’d like to see addressed in future NPC blocks.

Ancient Kindgoms Mesopotamia shines when it’s doing when Necromancer does best, adventurers. If you’re looking for a wide range of adventures adaptable for a wide variety of campaign settings, this is your book.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

A city of unspeakable antiquity, buried for centuries beneath the desert sands, has been rediscovered deep in the accursed desert known as the Red Waste. Dare you enter The City That Worshipped a Thousand Gods, seeking the treasures and relics of its Hierophants? Beware the lurking terrors of a bygone age!

Treasures of Darkness
Ancient Kingdoms: Mesopotamia™ is a huge sourcebook with numerous new classes, deities, monsters and magic items, including a series of short adventures. Explore ancient ruins, temples and dungeons of the lost city of Ibnath, and the perilous wilderness areas that surround it. The Ziggurat of the Ghoul-Queen awaits!

New spells, new classes and new environmental challenges! Vast regions to explore and epic quests to complete. Destroy the Cult of the Pit Worm Yhath! The definitive d20 sourcebook for Mesopotamia, the land of the Elamites, Assyrians and Akkadians. Expanded desert rules and source material make this a unique offering for your gaming table. 10 related short adventures make this a single source for adventure in the lands of Babylon and Ur. Dozens of new monsters, spells, magic items and character classes, all found nowhere else.

Sword & Sorcery books are published under the Open Game License and are 100% compatible with v.3.5 rules and the d20 System.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

By Ian Hewitt, d20 Magazine Rack Staff Reviewer

Initiative Round
Ancient Kingdoms: Mesopotamia is a campaign sourcebook from Necromancer Games under the Sword & Sorcery banner and priced at $23.99 US. The cover art by Rick Sardinha is a beautiful introduction to the content and theme of this book as it illustrates a fearsome purple worm breaking through the flagstones of what appears to be a temple floor to confront a lone staff-wielding figure. The only vivid color in this painting is that of the red sand (or blood…) being spilled from a cauldron.

The cover, while gorgeous, encloses 174 pages detailing an ancient Bronze Age campaign setting based in mostly equal parts upon historic and mythic Mesopotamia. The book is written by Morten Braten and further illustrated in largely hit and miss black and white interior artwork by David Day, Tim Truman, Andrew Bates, John Bridges, James Stowe, Leif Jones, Veronica Jones, Richard Thomas, Jim Nelson, Nate Pride and Brian LeBlanc.

The main emphasis of this book is focused upon the adventure locales themselves, which might not be immediately clear from the back page blurb which appears to present the product as a ‘huge sourcebook with numerous new classes, deities, monsters and magic items, including a series of short adventures.’ That said, all elements required to support the Dungeon Master and kickstart his Mesopotamian campaign are present and accounted for and given headlining position in this book.

Chapter One very briefly covers the geography of these sun-baked lands and touches upon such locations as the city of Babylon and Zagros Mountains (where one might find the legendary Ark of Utnapishtim and the twisted offspring of the creatures he saved from the Flood). There is a short discussion of the history of the region and a brief look at the current time of the setting. Society, culture and architecture are each examined, as are appropriate weapons and armor for the period.

The second chapter leaves such fluffy content well alone and delves into the obligatory crunchiness of the six Prestige Classes on offer. This is the usual fare to be expected in any d20 release, but very well done and certainly with the flavor and tone of the setting in mind. These offerings include such beauties as the Baru-Priest, a diviner who specializes in reading your fortune as he spills your entrails into the sand; and the Temple Reaver, a godless barbarian who would like nothing more than to strip your temple of its golden idols, before he massacres the priests and burns the building down. The others, an exorcist-type priest, a polytheistic priest with some wizarding potential, a ranger/rogue of the desert and a paladin-type cover all other bases but are a little less inspired though still well done. There are no actual new classes, but the remainder of the chapter is spiced up with a handful of new spells, feats, and magic items. A quick examination of religion in the setting follows in the third chapter before this book arrives at the main event.

The meat of this book – ten pages and 102 pages – describes just a small portion of the Mesopotomian region known as the Red Waste. The region is described through these chapters essentially as a series of adventure locales of varying length. Each locale is presented with plot hooks to draw in the PC’s, NPC’s, monsters and allies with which to interact and the gradual development of a very loosely based adventure outline that underlies the better part of this book.

Ancient Kingdoms concludes with two chapters of monsters. The first are all new monsters appropriate for the region such as the truly disgusting Living Monolith and it’s Crawling Offspring – essentially a stationary pillar of acidic ooze that begets small mindless mutations that crawl forth to eat; and the shedu-golem – a gorgon-like construct with wings and the power to release holy smite against the enemies of the temple it typically guards.

The second chapter is a chosen selection of monsters previously presented in Necromancer Games’ Tome of Horrors, reproduced here because they clearly belong in the deserts of Mesopotamia and fully revised and updated for the 3.5 Edition rules. This cast of villains includes such should-be-classics as the Ghoul-Stirge, the Obsidian Minotaur, old friends the Piercer and the Rot Grub as well as a versatile template for the Therianthrope (like a lycanthrope, but these creatures are animals first and human hybrids second - like a jackalwere, for example).

Critical Hit
Necromancer Games certainly delivers upon their promise of “First Edition Feel” with this book - largely because the emphasis is upon empowering the DM to run the game. The presentation of this module does not lend itself to a linear (more typical) adventure. Instead we are given a rich environment of hazards populated with various factions each scheming toward their own agendas. This is an adventure that could care less about the players, they might come along and get involved or they might not, instead this is a dynamic environment that could be brought alive by a skilled DM.

The feel and tone of the setting is very gritty and somewhat dark, while maintaining a high fantasy feel. We are introduced to the Banu-Priest, animal and human sacrifice and cannibalism not as tools of the enemy but as accepted realities of religious life which is neither good nor evil. This demonstrates a maturity in the author, Morten Braten’s approach to his topic, and evokes a great atmosphere for anyone who enjoyed Conan better than The Mummy.

Critical Fumble
The description on the back of this book and even the title itself may be somewhat misleading. This is not a great sourcebook on Mesopotamia. In essence, only Chapters One and Three (less than twenty pages and a single map) detail the history, culture and society of this region. For example, the City of Babylon receives only four short sentences. All of the basics are present, but the book focuses just on the desert itself and the DM must fill in the remainder of the blanks.

The interior artwork is typical Necromancer Games style, and although adequate is nothing outstanding. The lack of any Table of Contents or Index may make page-thumbing an inevitable task of navigation. But these last two points are really fairly minor.

Coup de Grace
Given the very brief and basic Mesopotamian content, the adventure locales of this product could easily be placed in just about any DM’s desert regardless of which world his group played. The prestige classes, spells and feats would of course come right along. However, if your current campaign is nowhere near the desert then this book is going to be of extremely limited use to you.

Although somewhat restricted by the tightness of its own theme and scope – and this is in no way a bad thing – this is a well-written book that offers much to the experienced DM and a mature group of players. Don’t buy this book if you are looking to explore Babylon or Nippur, but certainly give it a look if you need a vibrant desert campaign setting with just enough detail that the DM and players need bring only the story.

Final Grade: B-