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Message: <blockquote data-quote="John Cooper" data-source="post: 2643772" data-attributes="member: 24255">LEGENDS OF THE DARK AGESBy Charles RiceRPG Objects product number RPO420078-page PDF, $10.95Legends of the Dark Ages is another historical/mythological RPG setting based upon a real-life era on our own good old planet Earth.  I agreed to look at this one because of how much I enjoyed Charles' previous venture, Legends of the Samurai.  The long and short of it:  I didn't enjoy Legends of the Dark Ages as much, but then perhaps a part of that is the fact that I find the Dark Ages nowhere near as interesting as I find ancient Japan.The cover artwork is once again attributed to Jeremy Simmons, and consists of a compilation of images representative of Dark Ages life: a cathedral, fighting knights, and an illuminated manuscript.  It certainly fits the focus of the PDF, so nice job there, Jeremy.The interior artwork also once again comes from the pen of Joseph Wigfield, this time in the form of 9 black-and-white illustrations.  This was also another good call, as I really enjoy Joseph's work.  He does a great job with textures and shading (he renders an excellent chain mail, for example), and over on page 14 he produces one of the most tastefully rendered scenes of a woman about to be raped that I've ever seen (not that I've seen a whole lot of those).  It acknowledges the fact that such things weren't exactly uncommon in the Dark Ages without stepping over the line into overly graphic unwholesomeness.Cartography is credited to Dominique Crouzet, and I wish I could comment on it, but the two pages that were apparently to have her maps on them are - in my copy of the PDF, anyway - blank pages with the captions "Europe 500" and "Europe 814" posted in the middle.  Hopefully this has already been fixed up, as it's the most noteworthy problem with the PDF.  (The second most noteworthy problem being the lack of an OGL section at the end of the PDF; hopefully that's been taken care of as well.) [edit: see comments below for resolution of this problem]Here's the layout of Legends of the Dark Ages: <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Introduction: A one-page description of the Dark Ages</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Chapter One - History of the Dark Ages: An 11-page historical brief of Europe circa 300-814 AD (although the author uses the terms "BCE" and "CE" instead of "BC" and "AD," I'm going to stick to my own preferences)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Chapter Two - Characters: Sections on possible bloodlines (slave, barbarian, serf, lesser nobility/peerage, and nobility/royalty, which take the place of races, since all PCs will be human), Nobility and Allegiance rules (which take the place of alignment), the 12 core classes (charlatan, hermit, marauder, mercenary, monk, noble, nomad, priest, seer, skald, soldier, and thief), changes to existing skills, and 11 new feats</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Chapter Three - Dark Ages Gear: The Dark Ages monetary system, armor, weapons, and some miscellaneous equipment</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Chapter Four - Magic and Religion: A new spell-point system (the same one used in Legends of the Samurai), 13 metamagic feats, brief descriptions of the more prevalent religions (and sects), Fate and Destiny rules, and spell lists with 13 new spells</li> </ul>Proofreading and editing were pretty good; I found virtually no typos at all, so kudos to editor Andy Rau for that.  However, there were quite a few things that got overlooked in the sections on spells.  The spells crusader's zeal and martyr's blood are mentioned in various places, but neither spell actually appears in the PDF.  Furthermore, none of the spells nobility/ignobility shield, nobility/ignobility ward, noble armor, noble mantle, or noble/ignoble weapon actually made it onto the spell listings, which naturally makes the spell listings somewhat less than optimal.  The spell listings also managed to drop a lot of the superscript "M" (for "material component") and "X" (for "experience point cost") entries down into normal font; not as big a problem as far as usability goes, but irritating nonetheless.However, those quibbles aside, Charles has once again managed to distill a historical era into a coherent game system.  While my lack of enthusiasm for the Dark Ages will probably preclude me from ever playing in a Legends of the Dark Ages campaign, I at least feel that if I wanted to, I have pretty much all I need with this product to do so.  (My one request would have been for a sort of "Dark Ages bestiary" chapter, like was done for Legends of the Samurai, allowing for a less-historical, more-mythical style of play.  While it can be argued that the Monster Manual has plenty of such creatures, I would have liked to have seen some of the more historically-accurate - at least insofar as popular belief went - monsters, like maybe a tarrasque more in line with the creature that supposedly terrorized the French countryside and less like the "Japanese monster movie" creature in the Monster Manual.)The historical chapter was pretty interesting to read considering that I tend to find real-world European history somewhat dull.  Charles did a good job making it readable and entertaining.  As for the character classes, I think he did a pretty good job there as well, especially since some of the "logical" Dark Ages classes seem rather dull.  (Poor Charles had to come up with a way to make 20 levels of monk - these are the bald-headed monks that sit in monasteries and copy books all day, mind you, not the martial arts type of monk - interesting.)  It was certainly a good idea making the soldier class as versatile as he did, as opposed to creating separate classes for archers, swordsmen, cavalry, etc.  This way the soldier can pick-and-choose his specialties while still staying in the same class.  For the most part, most of the D&D classes are represented (sorcerers and wizards are seers, clerics are priests, bards are skalds, barbarians are sorta-kinda marauders, and so on), although there's not really a martial artist like the D&D monk, and surprisingly there's not much of a counterpart to the druid.  I did like the fact that for each class he provides some real-world examples.I did kind of wonder about the hermit, however - nowhere in the class writeup is there any mention of the hermit spending time away from the rest of civilization.  As written, there's nothing wrong with a "hermit" living in the middle of the city.  (It brings to mind the Monty Python sketch about the colony of hermits living together in the hills, spending all day gossiping about one another.)One problem I did note is that a few of the class features don't have any game mechanisms behind them.  An example: a noble gains "Land and the Lord Are One" at 20th level, which pretty much just means that if he's been faithful to his deity, his people and lands will prosper.  Okay...so just how does that get implemented in-game?  Likewise, a 13th-level priest gains "Declare Infidel" - he can call a group of people infidels.  Big deal, so can I.  You there, reading this - yes, you, with the red hair parted down the middle, and wearing the jeans with a hole in the left knee.  You're an infidel.  Because I said so, that's why.In addition, I have a bit of a problem believing that a skald can actually blow into a horn and call for help up to 5 miles/level away.  So, a 20th-level skald blowing into a horn can be heard from 100 miles away, huh?  I realize that this is a fantasy version of the Dark Ages, but I just don't buy it.  Neither can I accept that a skald can be heard from 1 mile/level just using his voice.  I think the "Clarion Call" feature of the skald class needs some serious rework.Also - and this is merely an observation, not a critique - I noted that there were no prestige classes at all in Legends of the Dark Ages.  I've gotten so used to seeing prestige classes in every campaign book that it actually seems a little weird not to have them around.The monetary system is a little confusing, given that the term "pound" is used as both a unit of weight and a unit of wealth.  One section refers to burning "100 lbs. of incense" without specifying which "lbs." is being referred to - as you can imagine, there's quite a difference between the two!  Even something as simple as using the "£" symbol to denote "monetary pounds" would go a long way towards making it easier to differentiate.I was a little surprised at the lack of very many new spells this time around.  There are only 13 in the PDF (although, as I mentioned above, there are 2 spells referenced that are currently "missing in action"), and of those, four of them are variations of penance spells - basically, the D&D atonement spell broken between multiple levels.  Perhaps that's a good indicator of my overall lack of enthusiasm with Legends of the Dark Ages: so much of it seems to be very slight tweakings of the core D&D game, with few new innovations (and most of the cool new stuff - like the variant spell-point system - is simply grafted on from other works in their line).I give Legends of the Dark Ages a rating of a high "3 (Average)."  What's here is pretty good, but I don't seem to sense the same level of enthusiasm that went into Legends of the Samurai.  It also seems like the product wasn't quite in finished form when I reviewed it, judging from the missing maps and the lack of an OGL page at the back.  (Those problems, at least, should be easy fixes.) [edit: see comments below for resolution of this problem]  Also, I'm going off the assumption - backed up by the description of the PDF on the RPG Objects home page - that this is a standalone product, and not the first in a series of three like the Bushido Handbook was to the Legends of the Samurai line.  Legends of the Dark Ages is a fair beginning to the subject, but it just doesn't feel entirely complete.</blockquote>

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