Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea

[ghul]

ASTONISHING SWORDSMEN & SORCERERS of HYPERBOREA

A Role-Playing Game of Swords, Sorcery, and Weird Fantasy

ASTONISHING SWORDSMEN & SORCERERS of HYPERBOREA™ is sword-and-sorcery role-playing at its pinnacle. Play an Amazon fighter, Atlantean magician, Esquimaux shaman, Hyperborean warlock, Ixian necromancer, Keltic barbarian, Kimmerian cataphract, Pictish thief, Viking berserker, or one of many other possibilities.

The heroes of a HYPERBOREA campaign delve the mazes and labyrinths of vast dungeons filled with horrifying monsters, lethal traps, and bewildering puzzles. They explore savage frontiers, breach hostile borderlands, probe ancient ruins, and investigate cursed tombs. They plunder for treasure and magic in a decaying world inhabited by bloodthirsty beasts and weird, otherworldly beings.

Explore endless challenges and infinite realms of imagination with this complete sword-and-sorcery role-playing game!

Text: Jeffrey Talanian
Illustrations: Ian Baggley
Editing: David Prata
Cartography: Andreas Claren
Box Cover Art: Charles Lang
Box Cover Design: James Kramer
Foreword by Stuart Marshall

Rules: An OGL-based game informed by the original 1974 fantasy wargame and miniatures campaign rules as conceived by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.
Milieux: Sword-and-sorcery setting inspired by the fantastic literature of Robert Ervin Howard, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, and Clark Ashton Smith.
Product Type: Complete role-playing game designed for 2 or more players.
Product Format: 8 x 10 x 2.5-inch boxed set that includes a 252-page, 7 x 8.5-inch, spiral-bound Players' Manual; 236-page, 7 x 8.5-inch, spiral-bound Referee's Manual; a 22 x 28-inch poster map of Hyperborea, 6 character sheets, and 6 polyhedral dice.
Product Code: NWA101
Product Price: $50.00
Product Availability: Available Now!(*) Order at our Online Store. Also available in PDF, for $10.00, exclusively at RPGNow.

(*)Please note the following: Although the AS&SH game is now shipping to pre-order customers, we do not expect general sales orders to begin shipping until early October 2012.

 

[Asha'man]

All right, I'll bite: What elevates AS&SH above the level of sheer pastiche? Why do you think there is a market for yet another swords and sorcery-styled d20 fantasy RPG?

 

[Odhanan]

All right, I'll bite: What elevates AS&SH above the level of sheer pastiche? Why do you think there is a market for yet another swords and sorcery-styled d20 fantasy RPG?

Well first AS&SH isn't so much "d20" as it is a game in the tradition of OD&D (1974) and AD&D First Edition. If you like this style of gaming, chances are, you will be very pleased with the results (as I am), but if you just can't stand TSR era D&D, then you will be disappointed.

A friend of mine asked about the game at the RPG Site and I wrote a bunch of lengthy posts about it. You can find the thread there. I'll just repost the basic information about the game I posted then:

Okay first, we've had an enormous thread where we took AS&SH apart for quite a while. If you want some in-depth information about the game, including input from the author, art, pictures of the final product and all that, this is the place to go:

http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=18668

What do you think about it?

I think it's the best game to come out of the old school revival scene. It is now my game of choice, along with the classics, AD&D First Edition and Original D&D (1974). It is a game that is clearly in that tradition, and yet differs in a number of ways on a technical level, while adding a completely original setting, Hyperborea, inspired primarily by the fiction of authors like Clark Ashton Smith, Lovecraft, Howard and the like, into the mix. It represents that game that combines the forces of two of the absolute best role playing games of all time, to me, O/AD&D on one hand, and Call of Cthulhu on the other, and manages to craft a world of weird and dark swords and sorcery that is its own thing, as opposed to just a copy of one or the other of those games.

What is cool about it?

First, it is a game that is true to the tradition of O/AD&D. It uses these games' premise and basic rules, and doesn't screw around with them to create something completely different and unrecognizable from these sources.

It adds a lot of side rules and optional treatments that create its own take on this original game paradigm. From chances-in-6 to succeed at various tasks with your attributes that are taken from OD&D and normalized to the whole game, to extraordinary feats (think the bend bars percentiles of AD&D) that you can attempt with your other physical stats, to a Vancian casting system that allows you to cast your spells directly from your spellbook while running the risk to see it all burn to ash, to different takes on the concept of classes with options like the Shaman, Witch, Warlock or Necromancer, to ... you get the gist of it.

It's entirely rewritten and redesigned, and yet true to the underlying logic of the OD&D and AD&D games on which it builds.

Second, it is Hyperborea, an entire setting described in depth including cultures of men, history, gazetteer, map and so on which can be pretty much whatever you want it to be in your home campaign: it can be a Realm in the Ether like the Ravenloft domains, or a pocket plane apart of the Prime, "just beyond the North Wind" of your world. It could be in the same world, and yet isolated by some forces, like the winds that surround the continent themselves and/or some other devices of your own making. Or it could be its own self-contained setting that isn't attached to anything you previously made or played with.

I will be running AS&SH and Hyperborea soon as its own game and setting (I'm thinking of running an open online game table using google plus, at the moment). I also would like to use Hyperborea as an extension of the Dreamlands to use in conjunction with a 1920s Call of Cthulhu game as well, some time in the future.

Hyperborea is a realm that is surrounded by the North Wind of legend. The basic premise is that it was once part of the ancient world, back in time where Atlantis, Mu and Lemuria were the lieges of the Hyperboreans. And then something happened that cut Hyperborea from the rest of the world, while still occasionally welcoming new comers and lost travellers to its shores. It's a setting where you can play men of Kelt, Kimmerian, Pict, Viking, Amazon, Atlantean, Hyperborean heritage, and others besides (if you want to play a Roman or a Saxon or whatever else comes to mind, that's also possible and workable without problem as the origins of your character are mostly there for color and role playing, and aren't super hard to come up with from a mechanical standpoint). It's a hodge podge that mixes all these elements from the real world with elements from the fiction of CAS and others with the Mythos elements you are accustomed to as a gamer like the existence of the Great Race and Elder Things and Serpent Men that ruled the world in the past and the legends of R'lyeh being somewhere deep under the seas, and manages to make sense of it all, with an identity and feel of its own.

Third, AS&SH is a vibe and feel that combines these elements with the art of Ian Baggley which is all over the game. It is absolutely stunning, and really inspires me to visualize the setting and get to see it in my mind's eye. Stuff like this:

Or this:

That's Hyperborea. That's the feel of the game.

How do the mechanics work/differ from other OSR/Retroclone type games?

I guess I covered that above: the basic conceits of the rules are similar to O/AD&D. There are D&D attributes. And classes, and experience, and Vancian magic and descending AC and all these sorts of things. But each of these things has some particular tweaks and/or options tacked on to it that make it really its own thing. Some parts are standardized and streamlined (the d6 rolls for this or that), others are tweaked (like say the way the thief's skills work with d12 and how that meshes with more standardized tests of skills for all characters), others are added (like standard moves and options in combat, the weapon skills, the structure of the round in phases, the fact the combat round is 10 seconds, not one minute as in 1e, etc).

You recognize the system clearly as part of the O/AD&D paradigm, and yet, once you start skimming through the details, it really shines as its own game.

How is the magic system?

Vancian magic, but with a lot of tweaks to it. Like the Chances to Learn spells that are more forgiving than in AD&D, various options like the one I talked about that allows you to cast spells from your spellbook running the change to see it all turn to ash, those kinds of things. If you like traditional Vancian magic, you'll like it, as well as the numerous tweaks it proposes around that concept. If you don't like Vancian magic, chances are you won't be satisfied by the game's take, which embraces it fully.

What doesn't quite work for you?

I honestly can't think of a thing right now.

Boxed set or PDF? (I'm poor.)

The Boxed set is available for order from the AS&SH/North Wind Adventures website for $50 plus shipping. The shipping can be quite expensive depending on the part of the world you are in, in part due to the hefty weight of the game. I LOVE my boxed set. I love the way the books were put together with spirals to lie flat on a table, I love the map, I love the dice that include the d20 numbered 0 to 9 twice, I love everything about it. It is beautiful and practical and usable. It's awesome. It's worth every cent I spent on the kickstarter, to me.

Now, the PDF is available for $10 from DriveThru/RPGnow. At this price the PDF is a STEAL. If anything I've said about the game caught your attention and you are still on the fence for the print product you should DEFINITELY check out the PDF, which is high quality and really, at worse, will inspire your games in some way, shape or form, whether you like the rules, the systems and subsystems, the setting, maps, art, or all of the above. At best, you'll fall in love as I did and get the boxed set when you can.

Pictures I took of the physical product.

Contents of the boxed set.

Map of Hyperborea unfolded.

Detail of the map of Hyperborea.

 

[Odhanan]

I also have an AS&SH game going now, and an actual play thread based on that. You can find it on the AS&SH forum of the OD&D Discussion boards. It just started two weeks ago, and you can expect regular updates. I hope it helps you get a feel of what the game plays like. Cheers - BP.

 

[howandwhy99]

Wow! That looks pretty awesome. I like the map and the box looks huge. Good price for all you're getting.

 

[Odhanan]

There's definitely a lot of content in the game. The Player's Manual and Referee's Manual are about as tall as LBBs, and a bit more than an inch-and-a-hald wider. The Player's Manual is about 250 pages thick, and the Referee's Manual about 235 pages.

I took a pic of a manual next to a LBB:

What I can say for sure is that I am having a blast with this game right now. I am using the ideas developed in my guidelines to build a mega-dungeon and the set up, feel of Hyperborea just works seemlessly with it.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Nice carpet

I have enjoyed reading this, was a KS backer. I agree with what has been said above and am stuck between playing this and Dragon Age with my young boys.

 

[Odhanan]

Nice carpet

LOL Forgive the occasional strand of hair you might spot on there.

I have two dogs so vacuuming is a b*tch.

I have enjoyed reading this, was a KS backer. I agree with what has been said above and am stuck between playing this and Dragon Age with my young boys.

Whatever game you end up playing, I hope you guys will have loads of fun. How old are they?

 

[mach1.9pants]

7 and 8, we have had a go with PF Beginner Box, cos of the shiny, and that was OK but too many rules for me to keep an eye on. Also played a fair bit of the Wrath of Ashardalon board game.

 

[Libramarian]

What I can say for sure is that I am having a blast with this game right now. I am using the ideas developed in my guidelines to build a mega-dungeon and the set up, feel of Hyperborea just works seemlessly with it.

This is a very interesting series of posts.