JoeGKushner
Adventurer
Book of Hallowed Might II, Portents and Visions, follows more along the lines of the third book of Eldritch Might than its predecessor. In this case, a small pantheon of five gods is introduced, each one with its own location and game mechanics to back it up.
Each section starts with the name of the place and then follows with background information. Some details about the typical worshipper or denizen of the land are then detailed. The god, or gods, as the case of the twins, are detailed with portfolio information, including title, symbol, alignment, domains, favored weapon, ethos, and then, the description, which is part background, part role playing, and part current events.
Characters, feats, magic items, spells, and prestige classes litter the book. One interesting twist though, is that not all of these game mechanics are magical in nature. Take the section on the god Urgan for example. The most skilled workers of this god of the forge are capable of making weapons and armor that go beyond masterwork. While Bad Axe Games covered some of this territory in their Heroes of High Favor Dwarves book, the abilities here are almost magical in nature. Take the ability durable that increases the hardness while doubling its hit points, or the balanced ability, providing enhancement to hit all the way up to +3. Good material that GMs who want their characters to have some favored weapons that aren’t always magic, stack up against those who do.
Other interesting bits were magic, but handled it in different ways. Take the concept of Admixtures for example. These are potions or oils that have combined effects. They have a cost equal to the sum of the individual potions plus 50% of the total cost and only three potions can be placed into a single admixture. Little gems like this make the game more interesting, but can also threaten game balance. In another system I play, SLA, a far future horror-high action game, combat drugs are a common element. They have a device that can have different codes that the character speaks to pump him up with different drugs at one time. This reminds me of that setup and as that GM discovered, a character who can down multiple augmentations at once, is a dangerous character.
Overall, the material lends itself well to almost any campaign setting. For example, the city Enderfel fell to a god’s treachery. Its background and current existence, one where clerics allow adventurers in but not necessarily out, at least in one piece, makes it almost a perfect fit for the Midnight setting. The details on the city are far from complete, but another darkened city in that setting with its own strange devils, can add some variety to the setting. Perhaps the GM could take it a step further with Mallock, the Prince of Lies who took Enderfel, be not a god, but rather, a powerful minion of the Shadow that actually keeps his word, but insuring that the contracts written mean what the user thinks may be another issue altogether.
This book isn’t packed with prestige classes. We have three, Hammer of Urgan, Lightning Bearer and Speaker of the Divine. I can see the prerequisites being a problem for some. Take the Lightning Bearer, a master of a two bladed sword that resembles a double blade, but instead of standard blades, the blades look like lightning bolts. With 8 ranks required in religion, the character will either have to multi-class, or be a paladin. Some elements didn’t strike me as sound. At 2nd level, the Lightning Bearer gains Empower Lightning Blade. Now remember, this is a chaotic neutral goddess. Why then, does this ability grant the ‘good’ alignment aura? Perhaps because most players require the good ability to bypass an evil outsider’s DR?
Game balance is always a problem for some. On one hand, the Speak of the Divine gains many powerful abilities. These individuals can create spell like effects or destroy another with a word. The rational is that usually those who take the class are spellcasters and they give up their spellcasting ability. Well, as it doesn’t require high-level spellcasting ability, that’s not always true. To counter that though, some of the most destructive abilities are only useable to their full extent by a spellcaster.
Another benefit to this book, as I suspect most Malhavoc books boast, is conversions to Arcana Unearthed. These include suggested spell levels, diminished effects, heightened effects, magic item creation modifiers, and if feats require the user to have a Truename or not. For those hungering for more material for AU, it’s fantastic. Thankfully, not all of the spells are complex or exotic so almost every spellcaster can gain something new from this book.
The gods feel disjointed. While some background is provided, in their birth order for instance, I get no real sense of how they operate as a family, just how they work as individuals. Neither Pantheons and Pagans from MEG nor the Book of the Righteous by Green Ronin, suffer this issue. Each has a lot of information on individual gods, but also how they work as a pantheon. Do these gods have a unified church? Does the youngest hunger to usurp all domains and all time? Are they aware of other gods or are they completely alone?
In one sense, the authors provide the damage one of the gods, Urgan, a smith, can inflict, but not actual game stats for the GM to run any other combat. If you’re not going to go the route of putting the gods in mechanical form, they should be kept less physical and more spiritual. Some of those elements elsewhere strike here as well. Urgan for example, wants his followers to “hold back the encroaching forces of evil” but he is neutral, not good.
In the beginning, the book talks about sidebars that offer advice and information and guidelines, but these are scarce. The use of white space is fair for the most part, but because the book is broken into five chapters with game mechanics in each chapter, every time a game mechanic is used, it’s introduced first with a large header. The same is true for the spells in the conversion. Each section has it’s own conversion section. If all mechanics were in one spot, the repetition would be eliminated. In some ways, the book shares this feeling of repetition that could’ve been eliminated. Look at the Oracle of Jezer-At. It has a section, Intrigues At the Oracle, that spends three paragraphs talking about some of the dangers present in the area, and then sums it up “Thus, the Oracle of Jezer-At is a place full of potential adventures involving politics, spies, assassins, betrayals, and Byzantine workings of all kinds.” Uh, yeah, I just read that in the paragraphs preceding that section.
The layout is simple two columns typed text. No borders hem in the work. Eric Lofgren and Jennifer Meyeer provide the art. Both do a fantastic job with the interior work. Some may note that the art is very large in some spaces. Take the human with the club on page 17. Is there a reason he’s larger than half a page? For me, the quality allows me to overlook that. The cover, by RK Post, isn’t his best work in my opinion though. It’s a very cluttered piece with too much going on.
For their entire run, I thought each new book in the Book of Eldritch Might series, was better than the one before it. I don’t have that feeling here. The information is solid, but suffers from its size, at only 64 pages, it can’t pull off completely what Book of Eldritch Might III did.
Those looking for adventure locals with game mechanics native to those areas will enjoy the book, but those looking for more of the same from the first book, may be put off.
Each section starts with the name of the place and then follows with background information. Some details about the typical worshipper or denizen of the land are then detailed. The god, or gods, as the case of the twins, are detailed with portfolio information, including title, symbol, alignment, domains, favored weapon, ethos, and then, the description, which is part background, part role playing, and part current events.
Characters, feats, magic items, spells, and prestige classes litter the book. One interesting twist though, is that not all of these game mechanics are magical in nature. Take the section on the god Urgan for example. The most skilled workers of this god of the forge are capable of making weapons and armor that go beyond masterwork. While Bad Axe Games covered some of this territory in their Heroes of High Favor Dwarves book, the abilities here are almost magical in nature. Take the ability durable that increases the hardness while doubling its hit points, or the balanced ability, providing enhancement to hit all the way up to +3. Good material that GMs who want their characters to have some favored weapons that aren’t always magic, stack up against those who do.
Other interesting bits were magic, but handled it in different ways. Take the concept of Admixtures for example. These are potions or oils that have combined effects. They have a cost equal to the sum of the individual potions plus 50% of the total cost and only three potions can be placed into a single admixture. Little gems like this make the game more interesting, but can also threaten game balance. In another system I play, SLA, a far future horror-high action game, combat drugs are a common element. They have a device that can have different codes that the character speaks to pump him up with different drugs at one time. This reminds me of that setup and as that GM discovered, a character who can down multiple augmentations at once, is a dangerous character.
Overall, the material lends itself well to almost any campaign setting. For example, the city Enderfel fell to a god’s treachery. Its background and current existence, one where clerics allow adventurers in but not necessarily out, at least in one piece, makes it almost a perfect fit for the Midnight setting. The details on the city are far from complete, but another darkened city in that setting with its own strange devils, can add some variety to the setting. Perhaps the GM could take it a step further with Mallock, the Prince of Lies who took Enderfel, be not a god, but rather, a powerful minion of the Shadow that actually keeps his word, but insuring that the contracts written mean what the user thinks may be another issue altogether.
This book isn’t packed with prestige classes. We have three, Hammer of Urgan, Lightning Bearer and Speaker of the Divine. I can see the prerequisites being a problem for some. Take the Lightning Bearer, a master of a two bladed sword that resembles a double blade, but instead of standard blades, the blades look like lightning bolts. With 8 ranks required in religion, the character will either have to multi-class, or be a paladin. Some elements didn’t strike me as sound. At 2nd level, the Lightning Bearer gains Empower Lightning Blade. Now remember, this is a chaotic neutral goddess. Why then, does this ability grant the ‘good’ alignment aura? Perhaps because most players require the good ability to bypass an evil outsider’s DR?
Game balance is always a problem for some. On one hand, the Speak of the Divine gains many powerful abilities. These individuals can create spell like effects or destroy another with a word. The rational is that usually those who take the class are spellcasters and they give up their spellcasting ability. Well, as it doesn’t require high-level spellcasting ability, that’s not always true. To counter that though, some of the most destructive abilities are only useable to their full extent by a spellcaster.
Another benefit to this book, as I suspect most Malhavoc books boast, is conversions to Arcana Unearthed. These include suggested spell levels, diminished effects, heightened effects, magic item creation modifiers, and if feats require the user to have a Truename or not. For those hungering for more material for AU, it’s fantastic. Thankfully, not all of the spells are complex or exotic so almost every spellcaster can gain something new from this book.
The gods feel disjointed. While some background is provided, in their birth order for instance, I get no real sense of how they operate as a family, just how they work as individuals. Neither Pantheons and Pagans from MEG nor the Book of the Righteous by Green Ronin, suffer this issue. Each has a lot of information on individual gods, but also how they work as a pantheon. Do these gods have a unified church? Does the youngest hunger to usurp all domains and all time? Are they aware of other gods or are they completely alone?
In one sense, the authors provide the damage one of the gods, Urgan, a smith, can inflict, but not actual game stats for the GM to run any other combat. If you’re not going to go the route of putting the gods in mechanical form, they should be kept less physical and more spiritual. Some of those elements elsewhere strike here as well. Urgan for example, wants his followers to “hold back the encroaching forces of evil” but he is neutral, not good.
In the beginning, the book talks about sidebars that offer advice and information and guidelines, but these are scarce. The use of white space is fair for the most part, but because the book is broken into five chapters with game mechanics in each chapter, every time a game mechanic is used, it’s introduced first with a large header. The same is true for the spells in the conversion. Each section has it’s own conversion section. If all mechanics were in one spot, the repetition would be eliminated. In some ways, the book shares this feeling of repetition that could’ve been eliminated. Look at the Oracle of Jezer-At. It has a section, Intrigues At the Oracle, that spends three paragraphs talking about some of the dangers present in the area, and then sums it up “Thus, the Oracle of Jezer-At is a place full of potential adventures involving politics, spies, assassins, betrayals, and Byzantine workings of all kinds.” Uh, yeah, I just read that in the paragraphs preceding that section.
The layout is simple two columns typed text. No borders hem in the work. Eric Lofgren and Jennifer Meyeer provide the art. Both do a fantastic job with the interior work. Some may note that the art is very large in some spaces. Take the human with the club on page 17. Is there a reason he’s larger than half a page? For me, the quality allows me to overlook that. The cover, by RK Post, isn’t his best work in my opinion though. It’s a very cluttered piece with too much going on.
For their entire run, I thought each new book in the Book of Eldritch Might series, was better than the one before it. I don’t have that feeling here. The information is solid, but suffers from its size, at only 64 pages, it can’t pull off completely what Book of Eldritch Might III did.
Those looking for adventure locals with game mechanics native to those areas will enjoy the book, but those looking for more of the same from the first book, may be put off.
