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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2426393" data-attributes="member: 1129">Grim and GrittyDark Legacies Player’s GuideWritten by Yuval KordovPublished by Red Spire PressStock Number: RSP001ISBN: 0-9735654-0-3<a href="http://www.redspirepress.com" target="_blank">www.redspirepress.com</a>144 black and white pages2 page full color map$25.95Dark Legacies Player’s Guide is the first step into a campaign setting that is stepped in the old Warhammer tradition of one part horror, one part fantasy and one part grim perilous adventure. Written by Yuval Kordov, the author has a vision of a dark fantasy world where man is not alone and has been humbled from great times to a near feudal system, following various branches of religion in an effort to bring himself back to that pinnacle of strength that he once had.In this setting, Earth fell into a plane like the Abyss, a demonic realm. During that time, new races assumed domination of the Earth as humankind fell from it’s reach of mastery. When the world returned to its former spot, an event known as the Reversion, those who were on top fell and religion began its meteoric rise, at first only in the name of Deihass. Religions eventually split, the human continued to learn more about their new home, including the introduction of non-human elements, and Empires rose and fell even as major events, like the Cleansing, the Great War, or the Kingdoms Wars. Not a lot of background is included as background, but rather, it often comes in the descriptions of other things, like racial backgrounds or how classes fit into the setting.Dark Legacies includes everything you need to get started. Like some other d20 products that have a unique setting, it does this in part by using different interpretations of the core classes and races, as well as adding its own touches. In doing so, it includes not only the game information, but how that race or class fits into the new setting.In terms of magic, let me quote the introduction, “spells are oriented more toward ritual and non-combat effects, they take longer to cast, and spellcasting in general is extremely difficult.” Every time you want to cast a spell, it requires a skill check and has some dire elements for those who fail that skill check.This low-magic attitude doesn’t stop with just spells though. For example, while there are priests, they use an ability known as voice, as opposed to casting spells. Magic items are here in the form or holy and demonic weapons, but are very rare.Another element that some will love is the lack of alignment. Any spell or ability that relies on alignment as its base, are useless.Chapter one starts with the races. Each race starts off with a quote or how the race is seen, then moves into background, personality, physical description, relations, lands, religion, languages, names, adventurers, favored class, and racial traits. Also included is a size chart that shows where the race falls in terms of size and power.Humans are pretty standard here but are separated by culture and background, no game effects this time around. The assar and eldrin seem to be variants of the good old elf, the former being haughty, tall, and former rulers of the world, the latter shorter, less long lived and hated for their role in unleashing great evil upon the setting. Note these two races are not related to one another, I’m merely musing on the roles they fill.While lacking half-orcs, we do have the briggs, huge brutes without a rising culture who work in human lands and cultures. It should be simple to guess what role that dwerofs are filling as they are often called, yes, you guessed it, dwarves. Novags would be the technological gnomes of the setting, being shorter than the dwarves. A unique race native to the setting, hybrids are the results of breeding demons with eldrin and were made in mass prior to “the Great War”. Also known as demonkin, they are not welcomed in many places and are a little more customizable in some ways than other races. For example, you assign a +2 to one stat outside of Wisdom, and get a –2 to Wisdom.Next up, chapter two introduces us to new classes and how the traditional classes have been changed. Included are the following: Arcanist, barbarian, fighter, lurker, priest, rogue, and soldier.  Classes include a paragraph of how the class is seen, background on the class, adventurers, characteristics, religion, background, other classes, role, and game rule information. This includes the standard hit dice, abilities, class skills, skill points, and table with bab, saves, and abilities.The arcanist faces a dangerous life because magic is seen as the power of demons, or chaos itself. I’ll get to the magic system in a minute.Barbarians are pretty similar to their standard versions with rage, damage reduction and other abilities, but also have other powers like Brute Force, allowing them to use Strength instead of Charisma for Intimidate checks. Fighters are well, fighters.Lurker: So what do you do to replace the ranger in a low-magic setting? Bust out the Lurker, a  fair amount of skill points, (6 per level), fair hit dice (d8), tracking, wilderness survival abilities, and other nifty little abilities like making their own healing salve, or improved sniping ability, or even ‘Combat Acuity’, giving them a bonus to Initiative equal to their Wisdom modifier. A solid class that can probably help replace a spellcasting ranger in any d20 fantasy campaign.Priests take the place of clerics. Not quite as robust (d6 hit dice), and a little smarter (4 skill points a level), priests have Holy Dominions or schools of training, that they start the game with. These dominions provide different abilities depending on what the priest selects. In addition, they can Sermonize, similar to a bard’s ability to inspire or influence people, as well as use the “Voice”, a supernatural power. For example,, say that you have good old War. You get Jump, Ride, and Swim as class skills, a better Fort save, and a higher BAB than a standard priest. You also get more profiencies in weapons and armor. Let’s look at something not to standard. How about Sanctity. You get Knowledge (Magic), and Spellcraft, a bonus language, and abilities like Holy Warding (bonus against spells and spell like abilities), and Disrupt Magic, similar to a Dispel Magic check. The whole idea of different Dominions allows for priests to play many different roles in the game as opposed to the standard band aid they are in D&D, and without taking the war Dominion, most priests aren’t going to be as martial as D&D has portrayed the cleric. A good deal all in all.The rogue is well, the rogue.Soldier: A specialized fighter that lacks the general bonus feats, but gains numerous special abilities that relate to fighting in a unit.To continue customization of characters, chapter three covers skills and feats. Use Magic Device isn’t used here, and Concentration is expanded upon a bit. Others include details for Crafts and Knowledge skills, as well as new skills like Preach, used by Priests and using Charisma to showcase the wide variety of duties that a Priest has in the setting. Feats focus on the new elements like Dominion Focus. You select one of your holy dominions that has a Voice ability, and are treated as one level higher than you normally would be. Battle Preaching gives you a bonus on Concentration checks made in the middle of combat. One variant feat seen in many forms, Improved Dodge, gives you a higher bonus that you can use against one opponent, or split against two. Another one I’ve seen some variants about, Signature Weapon, gives you a bonus on attack and damage rolls with a specific weapon.  It’s a small chapter and the use of skills and feats here are more for tweaks and to make up the differences in the spells and priests than to fill out the ranks of the fighters and rogues.Because it’s a different world, it has different standards. Chapter four, equipment, gives a breakdown of how wealth works. We have random starting gold for all the classes, character wealth by level, how much spells cost by level and rarity, what the currency is, and it varies according to region having Illfernese, paper money, and different racial funds from races whose nations were demolished during the Great War.Weapons are broken up into simple, martial, and exotic, and broken up by light, one-handed, two-handed, and ranged. Weapons include cost, damage for small and medium, critical range and multiplier, range increment, weight, and type. Weapons include some old favorites update to reflect their new cost or revised damage, as well as some that I’ve been curious to see for a while. Take the cleaver. Anyone whose played Warhammer has undoubtedly seen Orcs using weapons that could best be described as cleavers or as they call them “choppas”. It’s a good selection marred by a lack of art showcasing the unique weapons of the setting, slightly offset with the various illustrations thoughout the book of various characters using some of those weapons.Armor is broken up into light, medium, heavy, and shields, and includes many of the standards like chainmal and plate, but also includes a new type, siege plate, a heavy armor usually used only for specific missions as opposed to being found in the field.One of the smart things the author did was augment masterpiece qualities. In a setting with no magic, you have to have something to help players compensate for it.  Similar to what Bad Axe did in their Dwarf book, or Green Ronin in the Black Company, you have new qualities that can be added to weapons. For example, how about a Fierce weapon that’s larger than standard and while it weights more and has more hit points, also has a bonus to damage rolls. How about extra platting that increases the armor class of heavy armor? How about harden shields that have more hardness and hit points? It’s a solid section but could use a small side bar talking about how and when to use them in a standard campaign. Because religion plays a large role in the setting, it takes more than a page or two to address it. Chapter five covers how religion got to where it is today, as well as where it’s currently at. In essence, we have the Fiath, with different factions, and on the other hand, we have demon worshippers, most often of Azrae, the queen, or even lesser demons. The four main denominations for the Faith, includes the Church of Deihass, Beyella Divinity, Despinus Chapter, and Prelacy of the Divine Adjudicator. Each includes background, power center, hierarchy, and relations. The different factions allow the GM to use faith as a tool for the campaign and can showcase a wide variety of types, even within the same denomination, as opposed to more standard d20 fantasy religions where the worshippers pretty much have a set pattern. Remember when I mentioned that I’d get back to magic? Chapter six covers that. Anyone with Speak Language (Abyssal) and at least 1 rank in Spellcraft, with the proper materials, can try to cast spells by making a Spellcraft check.  You have to know the spell, and have the components. Unlike some systems where spellcasting is fairly complex but simple in its results, spellcasting almost always results in accumulating taint and madness. To start, you have to decipher a spell. It requires a Spellcraft check equal to 15 + the spell’s level. The spell must then be learned, assuming your ability score is high enough.  This requires a Spellcraft check equal to 15 + double the spell level. When you learn the spell, you get one point of taint. Even learning the spells leads to taint. To cat a spell, you have to have learned it and either have it memorized or have the formula available for reference. You then have to make any Concentration checks to avoid interruptions. Then the Spellcraft check. This is DC 10 + the spell’s level squared. Yeah, a first level spell is only 11, but a 9th level spell is 91. Mark off the material components, apply spellcasting strain, calculate the results, and then apply taint. For those high level spells, you’re going to need help. If you have fellow casters who know the spell and aid, it’s a +5 bonus to the Spellcraft check for each additional caster after the first. A real reason for spellcasters to join together. For strain, it’s 1d4 points of nonleathal damage per level that is only reduced if you have the arcanist class ability of casting resistances.  Some spells also do temporary of permanent ability point drain. In addition, each time you attempt to cast a spell, it’s one point of taint, successful or not. Failing to cast a spell, also has it’s own side effects ranging from none, to Annihilation where the caster is destroyed along with all his belongings.Common spells of the setting are included, as well as notes on how to incorporate spells from other resources. Spells are broken up by level, and type. This isn’t by school, but rather common, rare, and legendary, and in alphabetical order.So what does a spell look like in this setting? Let’s look at Beatific Veil, a rare 3rd level spell that inflicts 3d4 nonlethal damage, has a casting time of 1 hour, lasts for 4d6 hours, and has a material component of perfume created from the flesh of a beautiful humanoid mixed with various ingredients that grants a +2 bonus to Charisma for the spell’s duration. Yeah, it’s not your typical d20 spellcasting system by any stretch of the imagination. Remember how I talked about Taint making you mad? Those rules aren’t included in the chapter dealing with taint, but come in chapter seven, Grit and Consequence. It provides alternative rules for massive damage threshold (twice your Con score), rules for adding your Consitution modifier to –10 to determine your death point, and some other tweaks to showcase the dangers of the setting.The big issue would be taint. Taint has thresholds. The thresholds are pretty generous. For example, to reach your first Threshold, it’s your Wisdom x2, and your second, it’s Wisdomx5. Thresholds have an effect modifier, which is added to a d0 roll on a taint effect table when you suffer taint. The effects also have a Taint Effect when the effect comes into play. For example, a character may suffer from Carless Disregard and have to make a Will save or cast a spell that inflicts collateral damage. The saves are pretty easy starting at 12 and ending at 17.My least favorite chapter, eight, Adventuring, seemed to me the first time I read it, to be saying, “Yeah, we’ve given you all these ways to smash and destroy everything but it’s a dangerous campaign so don’t be stupid.” I felt that it should’ve included more examples and more methods of playing D&D with a new mentality. Then I played some Grim Tales and Black Company and like those games, realized that it’s not really the setting’s issue, but rather one of the GM. I still don’t see an easy way to move a group into this style of gaming if they’re used to Dungeon Crawls and I don’t see an easy way to keep a spellcaster alive for a long period of time making me wonder if the Arcanist might be better as a GM only class. Sure, it’s always nice to see the underdog struggling against his inner demons but at the same time you have to wonder what the overall utility is.Nonetheless, chapter eight also acts as a quick guide to the types of campaigns you can run. Want to have mercenary companies fighting against the things in the waste? Want to have soldiers of the lord? Want travel to be the made focus or how to mix different races up in the party? That’s all briefly touched on here.The two-page map is solid, but small and lacking in a lot of details. The interior layout is standard two-columns with good use of white-space on a gray background with slightly darker gray borders. The huge boon in the book’s corner, is the astounding artwork of Adrian Smith, long time illustrator of all things Warhammer and Warhamemr 40K. This includes several full page spreads and many smaller illustrations. His art gives the book a dark and gritty feel that is matched only by the Iron Kingdoms and of course, some of the Warhammer works. Unlike many books though, he’s the sole illustrator, giving the book a solid look and feel throughout the whole thing.The only negative I have against his art style, is that almost everything is dark. A more minor complaint, is that either due to his style or the size of the book, important things, like weapons, armor, and equipment, aren’t illustrated. Minor contentions given the vast array of illustrations included here but worth noting.The bad thing about the book, is that it leaves a lot open. For example, want more background details or a bigger map? Want to know how the creation of items of power work? Want to know about the advanced technology hinted at in the book? Want some pregenerated NPCs or maps of cities? That’s all in the Campaign Guide, which has taken some time to come out considering the original release date of the Player’s Guide.If you want a dark and gritty campaign that’s in the d20 vein and found that Black Company and Grim Tales aren’t working for you, give Dark Legacies a whirl. The art alone will make the purchase worth it.</blockquote>

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