Folkloric: Sahasra, The Land of 1000 Cities
[imager]http://www.enworld.org/shop/images/engs/product825/dgs366_thumbnail.jpg[/imager]Folkloric: Sahasra, The Land of 1000 Cities is a setting supplement detailing a land inspired by the history and myths of India. The book is written by Donna K. Fitch, and published by Dog Soul Publishing as part of their “Folkloric” series of myth-inspired fantasy supplements.
A First Look
Folkloric: Sahasra, The Land of 1000 Cities is available as a 72-page PDF document. It is available here at the EN World game store for $7.95.
The front cover features an illustration of a woman in exotic garb (apparently a yakshini, a fey spirit that shares some similarities to dryads and nymphs) against a color backdrop of some sort of pattern, possibly architectural patterns.
The interior is largely black-and-white, though a map and a banner across the top are in color. The attributed artists include Reuben C. Dodd, Brad K. McDevitt, Emerson Ward, Benjamin Gonzalez, though the book appears to make some use of some public domain historical art as well. McDevitt seems both the most talented and most familiar artist of the bunch; you may recognize his work from the likes of Goodman Games’ Complete Guide series.
Overall, the editorial quality is high, and Fitch proves an easy to read writer. I did catch a few editorial errors, such as the omission of a to-be-filled in name of a city of rakshasas.
A Deeper Look
In much the same way that many modern fantasy stories (and RPGS) draw inspiration from European folklore, Sahasra draws inspiration from the folklore of India. A main figure in the stories modeled by Sahasra is King Vikramaditya, a legendary just and wise king in the vein of King Arthur or Gilgamesh.
Sahasra starts out with a tale of King Vikramaditya’s struggles with a dark yogi and a tricky demons, which serves to set the tone for the book and the setting. Though this serves as a nicely authentic introduction to the folklore that the book is based on, by chapter 3 the book introduces the fantasy analog of India, Sahasra, and the fantasy analog of King Vikramaditya, King Vikrama.
As with historical India, Sahasra is presented as a land in which there are sharper caste divisions than are usual in fantasy RPG settings. Similar to the 3e Oriental Adventures web setting Mahasarpa, Sahasra ties into the game system here by assigning certain typical classes to each of the four major social castes (which are, roughly, Brahmin, Warrior, Commoner, and Artisan.)
Sahasra does not rely heavily on mechanical tweaks to realize the setting. The typical core classes are used in the book to represent citizens of Sahasra, with the exception of barbarians and druids, who are essentially considered outsiders. Though arguably, better emulation of the setting could be had with a more thorough mechanical makeover, there are some advantages to it. First, it can be easily blended with other India-inspired resources such as WotC’s Oriental Adventures or Green Ronin’s Mindshadows, and stays the deluge of variant mechanics which are arguably all too easily resorted to in other products. And certainly, examining the sorts of events that occur in the folklore, some D&Disms aren’t so far off the mark as-is.
Chapters of the book discuss various details of the land of Sahasra such as people, monsters, geography, and locales. Sahasra, in fact, consists of multiple regions with different kings or otehr forms of authority; a random generation system provides ideas for appropriate governments for minor kingdoms in the area, and other tables provide a bit of appropriate flavor names and details for settlements in Sahasra.
A major underlying theme of the work is the Siddhis, 8 legendary artifacts that are a pursuit of yogis. This theme is a salient fact regarding the detailed cities of Sahasra; each city includes the Siddhi that is hidden there. This creates an immediate campaign hook or legend for those wishing to delve into adventures in Sahasra.
Many d20 setting supplements take a rather mechanical approach to city descriptions, spouting a list of demographic statistics and apply a smattering of potentially useful (but potentially not) details. Sahasra pleasantly forgoes this format at gets right to the flavor and highlight of each city, providing a few interesting salient details about each city, and then rolls on to the next city before it grows dull or longwinded.
A few mechanical details are provided in the book, including NPC statistics, creatures, magic items, and 2 new races. The new races are the monkey like kananauka and the reclusive and intellectual vidyadhara. The latter, it is notable, do not list a level adjustment, but with their package of ability modifiers, spell like abilities, damage reduction, and skill modifiers, probably deserve at least a +2 LA.
Conclusions
Sahasra is a nice compact setting supplement tapping from intriguing real world folklore that has not been tapped near as much as it should. The author obviously has an good knowledge of the subject and does a good job of distilling fantasy elements out for the fantasy RPG audience.
Still, Sahasra comes of as a bit light. It seems like many of the concepts and ideas presented herein could use some deeper exposition. Though I know it might never happen in the current market, a largish (200+ page) hardbound book of the land would not be unwelcome.
Though I am not as critical of the light mechanical touch of the book as some reviewers has been, I do think there are some aspects of the book that would have definitely benefitted from a bit deeper mechanical exploration. For example, one interesting NPC is Kapasila, a creepy dark yogi. The book describes Kapasila and the dark rites an means that he used to gain power in an intriguing manner. This is a great potential NPC, but his NPC stats are merely a core diviner/loremaster, something that somehow falls short of the flavor text provided for him.
To this end, it seems to me that many concepts in other d20 products could well be adapted for use in the setting. Some variation of the spectral loremaster from Mongoose’s Encyclopaedia Arcane: Necromancy would make a good prestige class to realize the dark yogi Kapasila. Other potential resources out there include the yogi class and rakshasa material in Goodman Games’ Complete Guide to Rakshasas and various “legends of India” products from Expeditious Retreat Press and the India inspired setting by Green Ronin in Mindshadows. Though an enterprising and well read d20 fan could do the footwork here themselves, it would also be a boon if Dog Soul could have or would assemble those open materials of this sort themselves and weave them into the setting.
Overall Grade: B
-Alan D. Kohler
