Psion
Adventurer
[imager]http://enworld.rpgnow.com/products/product_15164.jpg[/imager]Lines of Legend: Winter Elves is the third PDF release by Brazilian publisher Secular Games, following their Advanced Character Guide - Arcane Archer (which featured a combat style and prestige class related to winter elves) and Shadows of Shinobi. Lines of Legend: Winter Elves presents a branch of elvenkind with background material and character options. The book cites Giltônio Santos and Tiago Marinho as designers.
A First Look
Lines of Legend: Winter Elves is distributed as a zipped file with a full color screen PDF and a black and white print version. The screen version runs 45 pages and the print version runs 28 pages. The product is available at RPGnow for $6.00.
(It appears the publisher and RPGnow links on this product are broken. The product can be found here.)
The screen version has a nice full color cover of wolf-mounted elves locked in combat with a demonic creature. The interior of the screen version has a mixture of full color and line art drawings of high quality.
The print version has no artwork. While it might be appropriate to exclude the color artwork for a print version, it looks rather plain with no art and lack of visual anchors could make it a difficult read. I think it would have been appropriate to put some of the line art in the print version.
There were some editorial errors, such as a class advancement table citing continuing divine advancement in a class that is clearly meant for arcane casters.
A Deeper Look
Lines of Legend: Winter Elves presents a new elven sub-race, the winter elf. The winter elf is an outcast race with a shady past, much like the drow elf.
Winter elves are the descendants of a group of gray elves called the Wayjik clan. The clan started as a lone elven lord given a feif in the cold northern lands. Heroic acts during wartime drew more elves to his academy. They were noble and regimented, but soon met their fall at the hands of a manipulative ice demon who enslaved them. However, though the manipulations of a devil, they were freed, after a manner of speaking, but now thralls to their new devil master.
Mechanically, winter elves are fundamentally similar to gray elves, with a few special ability changes. It surprised me that their statistics were not changed from gray elves. Usually, elven subraces retooled for harsh environments have their constitution penalty traded out for a penalty in another statistic. Also unusual for these statistics, if not the background, is that their favored class becomes ranger.
To bring the legacy of these corrupted elves to life, the book presents a variety of new prestige classes, clerical domains, cold related spells, feats, magic items, and equipment. Prestige classes include:
As this is a book principally for DMs, it is good that they do more than give you the tools to make some of these villains; they give you a few sample encounters. The encounter includes one psionic character.
Conclusions
You may like this book...
You may like this book if you are intrigued by the idea of a new evil subrace of elf, or are running a campaign in a cold region and want additional races.
You might not like this book...
You might not like this book if you have no interest in a new elven subrace or new character options.
My Take
(This section is the application of my personal values and my desire to represent my tastes. I recognize that not everyone has the same values in gaming books, from which I derive my rating. If you disagree with my rating, I suggest you read the rest of my review and draw your own conclusions.)
I am a fan of elves (and more particularly, I liked the idea of evil surface elf variants like the Warhammer dark elves) and am always delighted when publishers take advantage of psionics, the book seems useful to me. The classes and other character options aren’t the sort that enthuse me to play them, but they do support the background content of the book and should provide useful material for a GM interested in implementing winter elves. The inclusion of pre-generated encounters seems almost compulsory in this sort of book, and it’s nice to see they live up to that standard.
Overall Grade: B
-Alan D. Kohler
A First Look
Lines of Legend: Winter Elves is distributed as a zipped file with a full color screen PDF and a black and white print version. The screen version runs 45 pages and the print version runs 28 pages. The product is available at RPGnow for $6.00.
(It appears the publisher and RPGnow links on this product are broken. The product can be found here.)
The screen version has a nice full color cover of wolf-mounted elves locked in combat with a demonic creature. The interior of the screen version has a mixture of full color and line art drawings of high quality.
The print version has no artwork. While it might be appropriate to exclude the color artwork for a print version, it looks rather plain with no art and lack of visual anchors could make it a difficult read. I think it would have been appropriate to put some of the line art in the print version.
There were some editorial errors, such as a class advancement table citing continuing divine advancement in a class that is clearly meant for arcane casters.
A Deeper Look
Lines of Legend: Winter Elves presents a new elven sub-race, the winter elf. The winter elf is an outcast race with a shady past, much like the drow elf.
Winter elves are the descendants of a group of gray elves called the Wayjik clan. The clan started as a lone elven lord given a feif in the cold northern lands. Heroic acts during wartime drew more elves to his academy. They were noble and regimented, but soon met their fall at the hands of a manipulative ice demon who enslaved them. However, though the manipulations of a devil, they were freed, after a manner of speaking, but now thralls to their new devil master.
Mechanically, winter elves are fundamentally similar to gray elves, with a few special ability changes. It surprised me that their statistics were not changed from gray elves. Usually, elven subraces retooled for harsh environments have their constitution penalty traded out for a penalty in another statistic. Also unusual for these statistics, if not the background, is that their favored class becomes ranger.
To bring the legacy of these corrupted elves to life, the book presents a variety of new prestige classes, clerical domains, cold related spells, feats, magic items, and equipment. Prestige classes include:
- Heir of Balyk - a senior priest indoctrinated to the mysteries of their devil-lord, Baazberark.
- Keeper of Ice - an arcane casting PrC with an emphasis on cold spells. This one could have been designed better. In the early going, I’m not sure that the first spell casting advancement it loses (at 3rd), is worth what it gets by then, and the class loses a second level of spell casting at 9th level when it gets no other ability. The class could be shored up by adding an ability that adds caster levels to cold spells, and moving the second lost casting level to 10th.
- Knight of the Frostfang - a short (5-level) class that forms a bond with a winter wolf.
- Thrall of Gaulgardos - though most winter elves hate demons, some pine for their lost power. The thrall takes a heavy hit (5/10) in caster levels, but gains the service of demons.
- Wayjik Demon Hunter - Just what the name suggests, this is a specialized demon hunters. They are good fighters, have their own 4-level spell list, and gain abilities that help them slay demons.
As this is a book principally for DMs, it is good that they do more than give you the tools to make some of these villains; they give you a few sample encounters. The encounter includes one psionic character.
Conclusions
You may like this book...
You may like this book if you are intrigued by the idea of a new evil subrace of elf, or are running a campaign in a cold region and want additional races.
You might not like this book...
You might not like this book if you have no interest in a new elven subrace or new character options.
My Take
(This section is the application of my personal values and my desire to represent my tastes. I recognize that not everyone has the same values in gaming books, from which I derive my rating. If you disagree with my rating, I suggest you read the rest of my review and draw your own conclusions.)
I am a fan of elves (and more particularly, I liked the idea of evil surface elf variants like the Warhammer dark elves) and am always delighted when publishers take advantage of psionics, the book seems useful to me. The classes and other character options aren’t the sort that enthuse me to play them, but they do support the background content of the book and should provide useful material for a GM interested in implementing winter elves. The inclusion of pre-generated encounters seems almost compulsory in this sort of book, and it’s nice to see they live up to that standard.
Overall Grade: B
-Alan D. Kohler
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