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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crothian" data-source="post: 3588655" data-attributes="member: 232">It has been a little while since I took a look at a new setting.  I always enjoy seeing what creativity people come up with and how they bring a new world together.  I am pleased to see this one being a lot smaller and simple.  It does not have a dozen continents and countless countries and races.  It is small and confined and with a great history that explains why it is so.  It is also a setting designed for the adventurer.  It has a wide range of adventure ideas running from the typical dungeon crawls to the political problems to unlocking the many mysteries of the world.  It gives the reader the familiar and manages to come up with a few new and interesting concepts along the way.  Castlemourn is a very creative and innovative new setting.    Castlemourn is a new campaign setting by Ed Greenwood.  It is published by Margaret Weis Products.  It is almost two hundred and sixty pages long and full color.  The book could have been longer but does cover everything.  The art and layout are very good and the full color fold out map looks great.  The book though could really use an index.  There is a lot of things covered in it and not all of it is easy to find.      Castlemourn is a post apocalyptic fantasy setting.  The known is world is small and everything about the cataclysm and before has been forgotten.  The people of the setting are geographically trapped.  There are huge mountain ranges to the north east and west.  And to the south they have a safe harbor and some islands but past the islands the sea goes wild with nasty storms.  This confine the area adventures can explore but they still have a good amount of mysterious places to adventure.  The campaign setting is built to adventure into.  There are mysterious and places to explore all over the place.  But it is far more then dungeon crawling.    There are politics and plenty of characters in the many countries.  Life goes on and the people wonder what happened.  Some try to solve that mystery and others.  There are people called Questors and a player character can easily be one.  They have no real requirements except that they pick a mystery and try to solve it.  They are marked with special clothing so people know what they are and occasionally give aid.  There are many mysteries in Castlemourn and I like how the book presents them with these type of characters ready to act upon them.  It is a great source of adventure and NPC ideas.  There are a few mysteries presented though not fully answered.  Some are greater mysteries like “What happened to Castlemourn?”  While others are lesser ones like the Magic Fountains.  Each gives some common knowledge about the mystery and then give some paths the Questor might take in pursuit of the knowledge.  There are geographical clues and secrets listed as well as prizes of interest the Questor should seek out.  This is one of the unique aspects of the setting but if the players prefer a more traditional type of game that can be done as well.    The character races have been a bit redefined for the setting.  They are a little more powerful then standard races but not enough that causes me concern.  Humans for instance have the additional ability of counting all their abilities as two higher for purposes of meeting feat requirements.  Dwarves are as we known them with the highly creative addition of them believing the world is an illusion.  It makes them more susceptible to illusions but also allows them to ignore certain things.  .  It’s a very interesting take on them.  Elves glow which is very different.  Gnomes have a Great Task that is personal to each gnome.  It is a bit like tinker gnomes but not insane and not a comic device.  Half orcs are replaced with the better Golaunts.  They are tough fighters and trace their heritage to the monster races.  Half elves glow as well just not as much.  Halfings are a bit of wonderers but are relatively unchanged.  The other new race is the Thaele.  They are a mystery in themselves as they are secretive and cause uneasiness in people.  The reasons is simple enough, they feed of the blood of other creatures.  But they are also great healers.      The classes are a bit more mundane.  The first is the Buccaneer.  It gets some good jump, tumble, and acrobatic focused abilities.  They make a strong dexterity warrior class.  It is not a power house but the abilities give some good flexibility and fun.It is the only new base class but there are plenty of prestige classes.  The first is the Dusked.  It is a Thaele oriented class.  They get a bit better are healing other characters through blood.  It has a nice divine touch to it as well.  The next is the Faithless one and it is for the dwarves.  They do not just believe in the world being an illusion they also believe they can change it.  Reality is a fluid thing to them and they defy it.   The Rhymesword is a nice blend of song and magic.  They have their own spell list and casts them spontaneously.  They harness power words though the mechanics do not reflect that they do anything more then normal spells.The Servant of the Seven is a divine caster that worships the Sleeping Seven, the gods.  They get bonus domains and mechanically speaking it is one of the more powerful classes like many cleric prestige classes.  The Truesword Knight is of the country of Lyon.  They are characters of prestige and station.  They are of course a martial class with good abilities and skills.The final one is the Waymaster which is previewed in the Players Guide to Castlemourn.  They are merchants who travel the land.  They can fight as well as make a few gold pieces.  Overall the classes really fit the system and the setting very well.  I would say most of them are fairly well balanced with nothing over the top.  All of them make for good and interesting characters.      One of the great features of the setting is the Astrology.  Characters can be born under different signs and have it mean something.  There are feats for the different signs one can take.  It is a great way to develop characters and introduce aspects of the setting that can directly influence characters and the game.  The gods are vaguely defines as not a lot is known about them.  There are teaching and contradictions that go along with them.  The world as the characters know it is very well defined with plenty of places for adventure.  It is a very meaty book with lots of ideas of places and mystery.      Castlemourne is an intriguing new setting.  I like the emphasis it has on adventure and learning things.  The book is well written and really shows off its creativity.  .  I eagerly await seeing support for the setting.</blockquote>

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