[ICE] Hard to find RPG book for sale

[Rel]

Hi gang. I have just listed for sale on ebay a copy of The Essence Companion for Iron Crown Enterprises - Rolemaster game. It is very difficult to come by these days because most of the first print run was destroyed.

I have seen several posters on these boards mention having played Rolemaster. The Essence Companion is (to the best of my knowledge) the only one of the three "Realms Companions" to be presently out of print and unavailable.

The url for the auction is:


http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1505154473

If you have any question about the book or the auction, feel free to e-mail me. Thanks.

 

[Rel]

This is the first of d6 randomly scheduled bumps over the next few days.

 

[A2Z]

Hmmm. I never played Rolemaster. What's Essence?

 

[Cabral]

In Rolemaster Standard System, Magic is comprised of four realms: Channeling draws power from a deity,Essence draws power from the surrounding environment, Mentalism draws power from the spellcaster, and Arcane draws power from all three. In D&D terms, Essence is equivelent to Arcane magic, Channeling to Divine magic, and Mentalism to Psionics. There is no D&D 3e equivelent to Arcane magic, except perhaps wish spells. (Arcane magic can clumsily do what the other three realms can do)

In Rolemaster, there were the additonal realms of Prosaic (a realm devoted to cantrips) and the Omni realm (similar to the Arcane realm; The arcane draws power from the source that feeds the sources for other realms while the Omni realm draws power from the sources of the other realms and merges it.)

Good system, in my opinion.

 

[Rel]

Great synopsis of the realms there, Cabral.

For any who might be interested, I'll elaborate on the contents of the book (I wrote it after all):

There is a lot of information about how the different essence users can fit into a campaign including information on the obligations of apprenticeship and how to generate magical colleges. There are also some differing theories about the origins of essence magic and an equipment list with lots of neat toys to play with.

The main meat of the book is devoted to two things: The Schools of Magic and 3 new professions (classes) - The Warrior Mage, The Rune Mage and The Mana Molder.

The schools of magic defines several different unique ways in which essence magic can be done. Among them are Nomenist casters (those who rely on speaking magic words to use their magic), Somaticist casters (those who use gestures and dances to do cast spells) and Component casters (those who use "things" to cast their spells). The Component casters are further divided into Herbalists (using plants as components), Corpists (using body parts of various creatures) and Crystalists (using crystals to store magical power).

The new professions are all quite different from others in the game. The Warrior Mage uses his magic to enhance his fighting abilities. The Rune Mage concentrates on creating runes (scrolls), learning magic "power words" and delving into the "true names" of things. The Mana Molder is the most unique of the three (and my personal favorite). His magic is focused on creating constructs of pure magic including automatons who can fight or perform simple tasks as well as creating normal items such as weapons and tools.

So, there's a brief look at what's in the book. I hope that some of you might find it interesting.

 

[dagger]

http://www.ironcrown.com/rmfrp_page.htm


Have you check the ICE website? They seem to have quite a few magic books for sell.

 

[FullTinCan]

Two different books

http://www.ironcrown.com/rmfrp_page.htm


Have you check the ICE website? They seem to have quite a few magic books for sell.

...Of Essense and Essence Companion are two different books. The authors of Essence Companion had a dispute with ICE after releasing the book. Unless the authors and ICE agree, this book that REL is referring to will not be reprinted.

 

[Rel]

I'm assuming that you are referring to the book entitled, "Of Essence" listed on their site. This is NOT the same book I am talking about.

For those who are familiar with the Rolemaster system, the "Of Essence", "Of Channeling" and "Of Mentalism" books are basically reprints of the respective sections of the original "Spell Law" book. They may contain some new material that updates them to RMSS (Rolemaster Standard System).

To draw a comparison to D&D, imagine if WotC released two seperate books that respectively contained all the arcane spells ("Of Arcane") and all the divine spells ("Of Divine") along with the rules for the spellcasters. That is what the "Of..." series is in Rolemaster.

The Essence Companion (the one I co-wrote) is more analagous to Tome and Blood.


That said however, if you see anywhere on their site that they are selling copies of Essence Companion, they are in direct violation of our copyright and I would appreciate you letting me know. ICE (under their previous ownership) did this once already and we had to sue to get the proceeds.

 

[Rel]

I now officially bump this thread for the second of d6 randomly determined times.