Maidenheim/Amazon Adventures
- Thread starter Tuerny
- Start date
Hard and Softcover
I would love for nothing more to be able to release Maidenheim as either hard or softcover products. Unfortunately for me, I do not yet have the funds to engage in such a venture, although I am certainly considering the possibility of actual, real, hold-in-your-hands book publication in addition to downloadable PDFs. Don't ask me for a date, however... I don't have one.
Licensing Maidenheim to a larger publisher that already has such printing methods available is an option I would also consider, but from what I see so far the majority of the publishers out there are looking to purchase copyrights to submitted material, something that I don't feel would be good for Maidenheim. This would certainly provide access to more writers that could speed up the release schedules and variety of supplements in the line, but then we also take on the risks of variable consistency and quality. Not that I'm a control freak, but I do want this story and setting presented in a specific way, and from the manners in which I've seen these types of women portrayed in other formats I really don't trust anyone other than myself to maintain the direction and vision of Maidenheim.
And that's only considering the writing. Artwork is another issue entirely, and I'm working with artists to create completely original pieces since there really are no others out there that capture what Maidenheim should look like.
Someday, I do see Maidenheim as a product you can purchase off the shelves of your local hobby and game store. Just when that day comes... we'll see.
I would love for nothing more to be able to release Maidenheim as either hard or softcover products. Unfortunately for me, I do not yet have the funds to engage in such a venture, although I am certainly considering the possibility of actual, real, hold-in-your-hands book publication in addition to downloadable PDFs. Don't ask me for a date, however... I don't have one.
Licensing Maidenheim to a larger publisher that already has such printing methods available is an option I would also consider, but from what I see so far the majority of the publishers out there are looking to purchase copyrights to submitted material, something that I don't feel would be good for Maidenheim. This would certainly provide access to more writers that could speed up the release schedules and variety of supplements in the line, but then we also take on the risks of variable consistency and quality. Not that I'm a control freak, but I do want this story and setting presented in a specific way, and from the manners in which I've seen these types of women portrayed in other formats I really don't trust anyone other than myself to maintain the direction and vision of Maidenheim.
And that's only considering the writing. Artwork is another issue entirely, and I'm working with artists to create completely original pieces since there really are no others out there that capture what Maidenheim should look like.
Someday, I do see Maidenheim as a product you can purchase off the shelves of your local hobby and game store. Just when that day comes... we'll see.
Psion
Adventurer
Re: EN World Review
Just so you know, if you want to send review copies to me, use reviews@d20reviews.com.
Sorry, I don't have Simon's email and I keep it on my laptop. It is probably connected to his profile on the enworld review page.
Skald said:
Just so you know, if you want to send review copies to me, use reviews@d20reviews.com.
Sorry, I don't have Simon's email and I keep it on my laptop. It is probably connected to his profile on the enworld review page.
Maidenheim Copies
Well, the combined size of the PDF files are 40+Mb... my email servers can't handle that much data, and I can't send them in to you this way.
A few weeks ago I did use an FTP program to send the files to another site's FTP server. I may be able to convince them to set up a folder on their server that will allow you to download it from them.
I'll get back to you on this.
Well, the combined size of the PDF files are 40+Mb... my email servers can't handle that much data, and I can't send them in to you this way.
A few weeks ago I did use an FTP program to send the files to another site's FTP server. I may be able to convince them to set up a folder on their server that will allow you to download it from them.
I'll get back to you on this.
Maidenheim Review in the Wrong Place?
I was posting a review for Maidenheim on the d20 Reviews section, but for a bizzare reason or glitch it wound up under Maiden Voyage in the sidebar on the main page. Can someone please erase that?
Anyway, here is my review for Maidenheim (NOT Maiden Voyage):
Product Title: Maidenheim: The Age of Scorn Amazon Campaign Setting
Publisher: Skald Books
Product Format: PDF (41Mb)
Product Type: Campaign Setting
Page Count: 220
This was a much better product than I initially thought it would be. After reading the first comments on RPGNow and visiting the Skald Books website, I thought for a moment just how a world such as this could be done. Sure it is possible for a household run by women to raise their sons into submission, but an entire community of women doing the same? An entire country? Entire continents?
Yikes. Maidenheim does all this and more.
The premise behind Maidenheim is a rather unsettling one. I mean, we're talking about the worst forms of emasculation and outright child abuse on an emotional and physical level, presented to us as the backdrop of a role-playing game that a large number of teenagers endulge themselves in. Perhaps this is why no major publisher like Wizards of the Coast has published such a setting on the Amazons before, at least not in such an honest and accurate manner as Skald Books has. A lot of what defines Maidenheim (and these Amazons) comes right from the Greek myths and would definitely alert the censors and any number of politically-correct parties. These same parties may be offended by this portrayal of Amazons after several years of Xena being held up to us as the ideal role-model for Amazons and Womanhood. Maidenheim is without question geared for a mature audience rather than the large numbers of teenagers who play RPGs.
At the same time, Maidenheim is quite an impressive accomplishment in her own right. This is not an adventure module that you play in one sitting or two, nor is she a mere sourcebook on a particular type of Amazon. Maidenheim is a pretty well defined and consistently portrayed vision of a world largely, if not solely under the influence of Amazon power. The scale of achievements the women portrayed in this campaign setting has never been done before as far as I know, and the author certainly researched the subject matter quite thoroughly. Skald Books seems to be presenting a new standard for Amazons with Maidenheim.
And it is a superb one.
Writing: As far as the writing goes, the author does a fantastic job at being able to tell you with no lack of clarity just how Maidenheim could be a reality. The author's style is flowing and at times poetic and descriptive. The origins of these Amazons, their beliefs, and their ideology is well conceived if morally skewed, and certainly becomes understandable if not agreeable. Everything seems to be logical, presented in a way that makes sense. I actually can see these women doing the things they do here and making it happen, and the quality of the writing makes this easy to comprehend. There were a few editing errors, likely ones that slipped passed the spell-checker, but nothing that I would really harp on.
Format: The formatting of the books is somewhat attractive for an amateur level PDF, even if there is no artwork or images of these women inside. There is a nice border around the pages, and the text is arranged in two-column format with a questionable line dividing them. This line isn't really necessary, but it doesn't really get in the way either. The organization of the three Core Books for Maidenheim are easy to follow, and an Index in the back of Amazon Adventures makes the game related material in that book easy to find. The other two books don't have Indexes, but they do have bookmarks in the PDF file that allow various topics and sections to be easily located.
Book 3 (Nations and Empires) outlines in full detail the inner workings of 16 different nations, each averaging about 8-10 pages each. Almost no detail is overlooked; geography and climate, history, social customs, populations (including the approximate numbers of men remaining within each nation), military and defensive information, langauges spoken, popular religions, currencies and commerce (even as detailed as the different names for coins in different countries), and notes on the reigning Queens and some cities, both of which give hints and ideas for adventures. At the end of each nation's section is a small map image that shows good enough detail, but in order to see this map best one must go to the Skald Books website and download a third-party software named AutoREALM, which was used to generate the maps. The map file is also available at Skald Book's website, and I have found that AutoREALM is a pretty simple program to learn. This book alone comes in about 165 pages, and is certainly a thorough and comprehensive gazeteer.
New Feats: The new feats introduced in Amazon Adventures were particularly well done, and it is good that the author suggests that only Amazons should have them, not just any other woman character in the game who happens to also be an adventurer. Feats like Amazon Strike and Amazon Initiative are designed to give the Amazon a lethal edge over those men who would underestimate her, reminding me of the Amazon kit from the 2nd Edition AD&D game. Other feats such as Amazon Archery, Amazon Riding, and Amazon Fighting are based upon the legendary prowess of the Amazons, further adding credibility to the myths and giving the Amazon skills worthy of her reputation.
New Prestige Classes: Several new prestige classes are also presented, although they seem to be more generic in nature than campaign specific. The Amazon Defender is somewhat based upon the Dwarven Defender, although she has modified class abilities that make her quite a deadly opponent. A nice surprise was the Horse Whisperer, a prestige class based upon the myths that Amazons were the first people to domesticate and train horses for war. The Archer was also included, even though other d20 products have introduced their own versions of this particular class. Amazons were renowned for their skill with the bow, and this prestige class accomplishes that quite well. The Scout proves quite useful as a hunter and tracker, serving well in remote wilderness locations that Amazons are sometimes associated with. The last is the Amabassador, an Amazon that takes the fight against the enemy into the courts of rival nations. Now Amazons can deal with their enemies on both battlefields...
New Spells: No new arcane spells were included with Maidenheim, although the presence and attitudes on magic were discussed, giving enough basic information on how to incorporate it into the campaign. I did like the fertility spells for priestesses that were included, since they are very important within the setting's context. It was rather refreshing to note that the author included spells that were needed and respected by these women, rather than players who most often look for new ways to blast their opponents to ashes. Bless Womb, Conceive... in this particular setting these are far more desirable and respected spells than Flame Strike, at least as far as the NPC population would be concerned.
Options for Use: Since Maidenheim is really the first attempt at creating a female-dominated setting, some men who enjoy fantasy RPGs may shy away from using a campaign such as this to its fullest potential. I wouldn't blame them really, since after you put everything together this really is quite an intimidating environment for men. This alone holds true to what the Amazons were supposed to have represented, and it is good to see that the author has accomplished this. Never fear, since the author does present several options for using men as adventurers in an otherwise Amazon-ruled world. If the players don't want to travel into these lands or take on the roles of men native to them, then the DM can certainly bring these women to the players in an existing campaign.
Stereotypes?: Maidenheim actually does not stereotype the Amazons as one may first expect, although nearly all of the myths that may have given birth to some of them are represented in one way or another, some of which are not nice at all and deserving of the "mature content" label. Amazon Adventures does much to alleviate this stereotyping, although the descriptions of the Amazons from various nations also backs up and expands the possibilities of using different Amazon beliefs, attitudes, and ideologies. Some Amazons want no men at all within their borders, such as the the women in Lanthia and Thentyr, but both of these nations use different means to achieve that end. The half-orcs in Tyyrhan and the slavers in Mesonia are presented as quite brutal cultures, and not just when it comes to men either. The halflings in Cannoria are very compassionate and gentle, the Gambdallans distrust and fear magic based on old tribal superstitions, the women from Aegonia and Lycaeon want to conquer each other and carve empires across the world, pirate queens and brigands prey upon merchants and travelers; by taking away the idea of a single "Amazon Nation" and giving each nation and even individual woman their own interpretations on the "Amazon Code," Maidenheim does a fantastic job at removing the stereotypes we would normally associate with all of them. Overall, Maidenheim turns the Amazons into the major source of their own conflicts, and by doing so provides us with as richly detailed a setting as many professional RPG campaign books.
Other than the covers there is no internal artwork, so there are no stereotyped portrayals of these women as cheescake anywhere to be found either. The covers are well done, however, and I particularly like the way Les Evans has drawn the women on the covers of Book 1 (Amazon Adventures) and Book 2 (The History of Scythae and The Fate of Man) dressed as warriors, not as cheesecake. It's good for once to see women warriors dressed in a manner fitting their profession, not as if they are showing off the latest fashions of armored underwear. Although I'm not complaining about the lack of interior artwork, I now find myself wanting to see a lot more images of these women in future supplements, or at least on the Skald Books website. They would certainly help to give us a better view of these women and their world.
What Was Missing: I have a hard time thinking of what was left out Maidenheim, but I would have to say this... a hard or soft cover? A table-top or poster-sized map that we can use? Maidenheim should be a campaign setting that we could buy at our local game and hobby stores, since the PDFs are large and not everyone may have access to a fast Internet connection and a credit card to purchase it at RPGNow. If this was an actual book the price would certainly go up, but at $10 for this amount of material at its current level of quality I am not going to complain here at all. As a hardcover book I'd gladly pay $20 more. Keeping Maidenheim as a PDF product will only hurt its sales volume, marketability, and overall success.
Conclusion: For those of you who may be concerned, Maidenheim does not promote violence against women, no more or less than it does not promote violence against men or children. It does ring very closely to the perceptions the Greeks had about the Amazons, and certainly provides believable examples as to why they were considered very dangerous enemies worthy of being feared. If you want to use Amazons in your own games, Maidenheim is the best example I have ever seen that shows how it could be done, although many if not most DMs may want to consider reducing the scale and scope of power that these women collectively have if their players would feel too intimidated. If you always wanted to run a campaign based entirely around the exploits of Amazons, then Maidenheim will allow you to do this in a very entertaining and enjoyable manner.
Overall Rating: Maidenheim is a PDF file, so I am not going to rate it as compared to a hardcover or softcover product. I am rating it in comparison to other PDF downloads that I have purchased. My rating for Maidenheim is a 5 of 5 stars as a PDF file. I will pass judgement as if it were an actual book, but I can only imagine that it would be nearly the same quality if it were.
I was posting a review for Maidenheim on the d20 Reviews section, but for a bizzare reason or glitch it wound up under Maiden Voyage in the sidebar on the main page. Can someone please erase that?
Anyway, here is my review for Maidenheim (NOT Maiden Voyage):
Product Title: Maidenheim: The Age of Scorn Amazon Campaign Setting
Publisher: Skald Books
Product Format: PDF (41Mb)
Product Type: Campaign Setting
Page Count: 220
This was a much better product than I initially thought it would be. After reading the first comments on RPGNow and visiting the Skald Books website, I thought for a moment just how a world such as this could be done. Sure it is possible for a household run by women to raise their sons into submission, but an entire community of women doing the same? An entire country? Entire continents?
Yikes. Maidenheim does all this and more.
The premise behind Maidenheim is a rather unsettling one. I mean, we're talking about the worst forms of emasculation and outright child abuse on an emotional and physical level, presented to us as the backdrop of a role-playing game that a large number of teenagers endulge themselves in. Perhaps this is why no major publisher like Wizards of the Coast has published such a setting on the Amazons before, at least not in such an honest and accurate manner as Skald Books has. A lot of what defines Maidenheim (and these Amazons) comes right from the Greek myths and would definitely alert the censors and any number of politically-correct parties. These same parties may be offended by this portrayal of Amazons after several years of Xena being held up to us as the ideal role-model for Amazons and Womanhood. Maidenheim is without question geared for a mature audience rather than the large numbers of teenagers who play RPGs.
At the same time, Maidenheim is quite an impressive accomplishment in her own right. This is not an adventure module that you play in one sitting or two, nor is she a mere sourcebook on a particular type of Amazon. Maidenheim is a pretty well defined and consistently portrayed vision of a world largely, if not solely under the influence of Amazon power. The scale of achievements the women portrayed in this campaign setting has never been done before as far as I know, and the author certainly researched the subject matter quite thoroughly. Skald Books seems to be presenting a new standard for Amazons with Maidenheim.
And it is a superb one.
Writing: As far as the writing goes, the author does a fantastic job at being able to tell you with no lack of clarity just how Maidenheim could be a reality. The author's style is flowing and at times poetic and descriptive. The origins of these Amazons, their beliefs, and their ideology is well conceived if morally skewed, and certainly becomes understandable if not agreeable. Everything seems to be logical, presented in a way that makes sense. I actually can see these women doing the things they do here and making it happen, and the quality of the writing makes this easy to comprehend. There were a few editing errors, likely ones that slipped passed the spell-checker, but nothing that I would really harp on.
Format: The formatting of the books is somewhat attractive for an amateur level PDF, even if there is no artwork or images of these women inside. There is a nice border around the pages, and the text is arranged in two-column format with a questionable line dividing them. This line isn't really necessary, but it doesn't really get in the way either. The organization of the three Core Books for Maidenheim are easy to follow, and an Index in the back of Amazon Adventures makes the game related material in that book easy to find. The other two books don't have Indexes, but they do have bookmarks in the PDF file that allow various topics and sections to be easily located.
Book 3 (Nations and Empires) outlines in full detail the inner workings of 16 different nations, each averaging about 8-10 pages each. Almost no detail is overlooked; geography and climate, history, social customs, populations (including the approximate numbers of men remaining within each nation), military and defensive information, langauges spoken, popular religions, currencies and commerce (even as detailed as the different names for coins in different countries), and notes on the reigning Queens and some cities, both of which give hints and ideas for adventures. At the end of each nation's section is a small map image that shows good enough detail, but in order to see this map best one must go to the Skald Books website and download a third-party software named AutoREALM, which was used to generate the maps. The map file is also available at Skald Book's website, and I have found that AutoREALM is a pretty simple program to learn. This book alone comes in about 165 pages, and is certainly a thorough and comprehensive gazeteer.
New Feats: The new feats introduced in Amazon Adventures were particularly well done, and it is good that the author suggests that only Amazons should have them, not just any other woman character in the game who happens to also be an adventurer. Feats like Amazon Strike and Amazon Initiative are designed to give the Amazon a lethal edge over those men who would underestimate her, reminding me of the Amazon kit from the 2nd Edition AD&D game. Other feats such as Amazon Archery, Amazon Riding, and Amazon Fighting are based upon the legendary prowess of the Amazons, further adding credibility to the myths and giving the Amazon skills worthy of her reputation.
New Prestige Classes: Several new prestige classes are also presented, although they seem to be more generic in nature than campaign specific. The Amazon Defender is somewhat based upon the Dwarven Defender, although she has modified class abilities that make her quite a deadly opponent. A nice surprise was the Horse Whisperer, a prestige class based upon the myths that Amazons were the first people to domesticate and train horses for war. The Archer was also included, even though other d20 products have introduced their own versions of this particular class. Amazons were renowned for their skill with the bow, and this prestige class accomplishes that quite well. The Scout proves quite useful as a hunter and tracker, serving well in remote wilderness locations that Amazons are sometimes associated with. The last is the Amabassador, an Amazon that takes the fight against the enemy into the courts of rival nations. Now Amazons can deal with their enemies on both battlefields...
New Spells: No new arcane spells were included with Maidenheim, although the presence and attitudes on magic were discussed, giving enough basic information on how to incorporate it into the campaign. I did like the fertility spells for priestesses that were included, since they are very important within the setting's context. It was rather refreshing to note that the author included spells that were needed and respected by these women, rather than players who most often look for new ways to blast their opponents to ashes. Bless Womb, Conceive... in this particular setting these are far more desirable and respected spells than Flame Strike, at least as far as the NPC population would be concerned.
Options for Use: Since Maidenheim is really the first attempt at creating a female-dominated setting, some men who enjoy fantasy RPGs may shy away from using a campaign such as this to its fullest potential. I wouldn't blame them really, since after you put everything together this really is quite an intimidating environment for men. This alone holds true to what the Amazons were supposed to have represented, and it is good to see that the author has accomplished this. Never fear, since the author does present several options for using men as adventurers in an otherwise Amazon-ruled world. If the players don't want to travel into these lands or take on the roles of men native to them, then the DM can certainly bring these women to the players in an existing campaign.
Stereotypes?: Maidenheim actually does not stereotype the Amazons as one may first expect, although nearly all of the myths that may have given birth to some of them are represented in one way or another, some of which are not nice at all and deserving of the "mature content" label. Amazon Adventures does much to alleviate this stereotyping, although the descriptions of the Amazons from various nations also backs up and expands the possibilities of using different Amazon beliefs, attitudes, and ideologies. Some Amazons want no men at all within their borders, such as the the women in Lanthia and Thentyr, but both of these nations use different means to achieve that end. The half-orcs in Tyyrhan and the slavers in Mesonia are presented as quite brutal cultures, and not just when it comes to men either. The halflings in Cannoria are very compassionate and gentle, the Gambdallans distrust and fear magic based on old tribal superstitions, the women from Aegonia and Lycaeon want to conquer each other and carve empires across the world, pirate queens and brigands prey upon merchants and travelers; by taking away the idea of a single "Amazon Nation" and giving each nation and even individual woman their own interpretations on the "Amazon Code," Maidenheim does a fantastic job at removing the stereotypes we would normally associate with all of them. Overall, Maidenheim turns the Amazons into the major source of their own conflicts, and by doing so provides us with as richly detailed a setting as many professional RPG campaign books.
Other than the covers there is no internal artwork, so there are no stereotyped portrayals of these women as cheescake anywhere to be found either. The covers are well done, however, and I particularly like the way Les Evans has drawn the women on the covers of Book 1 (Amazon Adventures) and Book 2 (The History of Scythae and The Fate of Man) dressed as warriors, not as cheesecake. It's good for once to see women warriors dressed in a manner fitting their profession, not as if they are showing off the latest fashions of armored underwear. Although I'm not complaining about the lack of interior artwork, I now find myself wanting to see a lot more images of these women in future supplements, or at least on the Skald Books website. They would certainly help to give us a better view of these women and their world.
What Was Missing: I have a hard time thinking of what was left out Maidenheim, but I would have to say this... a hard or soft cover? A table-top or poster-sized map that we can use? Maidenheim should be a campaign setting that we could buy at our local game and hobby stores, since the PDFs are large and not everyone may have access to a fast Internet connection and a credit card to purchase it at RPGNow. If this was an actual book the price would certainly go up, but at $10 for this amount of material at its current level of quality I am not going to complain here at all. As a hardcover book I'd gladly pay $20 more. Keeping Maidenheim as a PDF product will only hurt its sales volume, marketability, and overall success.
Conclusion: For those of you who may be concerned, Maidenheim does not promote violence against women, no more or less than it does not promote violence against men or children. It does ring very closely to the perceptions the Greeks had about the Amazons, and certainly provides believable examples as to why they were considered very dangerous enemies worthy of being feared. If you want to use Amazons in your own games, Maidenheim is the best example I have ever seen that shows how it could be done, although many if not most DMs may want to consider reducing the scale and scope of power that these women collectively have if their players would feel too intimidated. If you always wanted to run a campaign based entirely around the exploits of Amazons, then Maidenheim will allow you to do this in a very entertaining and enjoyable manner.
Overall Rating: Maidenheim is a PDF file, so I am not going to rate it as compared to a hardcover or softcover product. I am rating it in comparison to other PDF downloads that I have purchased. My rating for Maidenheim is a 5 of 5 stars as a PDF file. I will pass judgement as if it were an actual book, but I can only imagine that it would be nearly the same quality if it were.
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