Atlas does for North America what it did for Africa
Northern Crown
New World Adventures
Stock Number AG3710
ISBN 1-58978-0077-9
Written by Doug Anderson
Published by Atlas Games
160 b & w pages
$29.99
New World Adventures takes North America in it’s earlier incarnations and adds a lot of mythology, folk lore, and ‘what if’ scenarios, making it a unique pseudo-fantasy setting. With minimum ties to Atlas’ other setting, Nyambe, Northern Crown poses itself as a viable alternative for those who want fantasy in their history. New World Adventures is the ‘Player’s Handbook’ while the Gazetteer would be the campaign resource.
Laid out in three-column format, the book uses minimal amounts of art, packing text in. At it’s price, competitively, it’s overpriced as even with Wizard’s recent page reduction, their 160 page books are still full color and most other companies haven’t went to a 160 page format for $29.99 yet. Most stick with a 224-page book for $34.95. As time goes on, this may change. The art is fair but not up to the standards set by Malhavoc and Green Ronin.
Looking at Northern Crown, it does not cover all of historical America, rather having an Unknown West, it focuses on the majority of the eastern lands, which are vastly changed from their historical counterparts.
In terms of races, the land offers several options. The First Ones are the original inhabitants of the land with their own clans such as the Cherokee, Mohawk, Ojibwa and Shawnee. The Nyambans have suffered the effects of Uropan slaveryand those descendants are found in the Cimarrons. The Uropans have their own nationalities including the Albians, former inhabitants of the land once known as England, now known as Albion, Buccaneers, the pirates and exiles, Carolingians, the servants of the former English king now in exile, Charles II, who rules over the lands of Carolingia in Northern Crown, and the Commonwealthers, Puritan soldiers who “rely upon their faith and conviction” to survive the wilderness.
After a brief introduction and a lesson in history, ranging from the Uncounted Time, through the Flood, to the Modern Era, we are introduced to the Cultures of the setting in more detail. Like other d20 products, Black Company and Grim Tales among others, Northern Crown character’s culture does more than just provide background, it provides game benefits.
Now humans still have their usual benefits, like the bonus feat, skill points, and favored class, but they get other benefits depending on their culture. Each culture has ‘Culture Bonuses’ and ‘Traditional Weapons’. For the latter, you are treated as if proficient with the weapons and get a +1 attack bonus when using them. This makes human characters more powerful than standard fantasy d20 characters in many ways so check your game balance when mixing options. In addition, there are class bonuses from some cultures, and an initial social rank for the different classes.
Those looking for options will be pleased with the wide variety here. It starts off with the Albians, the servants of the Faerie Queen, who may be aboard for fame and fortune, or on their own mysterous missions. They gain a bonus to bluff and diplomacy, as well as fey-touched, allowing them to cast one 0-level spell from the sorcerer/wizard list per day, gaining another one at 4th, 7th, and 10th level with proficiency in the broadsword and longbow. When looking at the classes, they provide details beyond merely listing appropriate material. For example, looking at a Rake, they have the ability, “Knee in the Coddes”, which allow gives them Improved Unarmed Strike feat at 1st level. A nice bonus.
The background details provided here should hold players and GMs who don’t have the Gazetteer as each includes background, culture group, attitude, relations with others, lands, authority, law, magic, religion, food, language, names, both for male and female, appearance, and why these cultures spawn adventurers. Add in the background notes for each class, and the GM and players have numerous options for playing and engaging these characters in high adventure.
Those looking to play a Solomen Kane style character, as written by Robert E. Howard, will enjoy the Commonwealthers. They fight against the Witchlings, those who fled persecution to practice their magic, as well as in essence, everyone else, self-sure in their righteousness. That translates to a bonus against chaotic enemies, as well as the Pole Arm feat, described latter in the book.
Those looking for something more medieval on the other hand, might want to investigate the section on Kelts, people of the fey. This isn’t merely one culture, but includes individuals from the lands of Eire, Scotia, Cymru, and Bretayne, each with it’s own languages and traditions, but each sharing the common Kelt heritage. Others might be looking for more native style cultures, and they have options like the Mohawk, known among themselves as the Kaniengehawa, “People of the Place of Flint”.
It’s hard to describe the width and breadth of the options here without rattling off culture after culture. Suffice it to say, if the author thought it would make a good story, like having the Vinlanders, an old outcropping of Norse warriors who survived their initial landing seven hundred years ago, then they’re here. Lots of options that can overwhelm even an experienced player. In some ways, I can agree with the author’s comment that the GM should read ahead and pick three or so cultures to initially focus on.
Chapter three brings more information about the Uropans. Starting off with social rank and it’s meaning, we see that social rank is broken into courtly and common social rank and starts off at marginal and goes to royal, from 0 to 41. Each of these ranks is then detailed with a few paragraphs about what exactly that social level is and what’s expected of it and several titles are included, for both male and female, as well as the expected land holdings.
Thankfully characters are not trapped by their starting social rank. They gain it through level advancement, gaining one per level, but there are still limits. For example, a common class cannot rise about burgess (Social 15), unless given knighthood or another title. Those of the courtly class cannot rise above the highest social of their initial social class unless given a title. This provides good role playing opportunities as players can seek to vie for social position and ranking or even purchase ranks, although the rank of royal cannot be purchased. An interesting section, but it should be expanded just a tad to explain what happens when say, an ambitious player marries into royalty, perhaps due to an excessive amount of funds that the royalty needs.
To help showcase the game style of Northern Crown, a section of ideas, those for the Uropans, is listed, including bits of honor and courtesy, as well as rules for providing experience points for following those guidelines, especially at personal risk.
In terms of daily life, we’re given a look at what type of medicines are used, as well as how they handle travel and leisure. This includes the ever popular ale-house, but also the coffeehouse, “a recent innovation” to enjoy the beverage of the “Near East”. These little details provide the reader with enough material to get an idea of what the character might be doing when not adventuring and makes a nice change of pace from other books that might focus solely on the weapons and armors of said peoples.
While the section on magic provides some interesting bits, including how common people see the separation of magic as a discipline when used by wizards, to sorcerers, who gain their power inherently but from a ‘infernal bloodline’ to black magic and white magic, the former to harm, the latter aid, it doesn’t really go into any detail as to why magic and magic using characters, don’t have a much higher prominence in the setting. If wizards are excepted, save when practicing the art of necromancy, then why aren’t they always in charge? It seems to follow the traditional settings of Greyhawk and others in that it’s just assumed there are spellcasters out there and don’t let it get in the way of the setting.
To showcase how the other side lives, chapter four provides details about the First Ones. This includes the differences in their social ranks, going from marginal to great sachem, to their ideals, like generosity and humility. Daily life is covered, as well as the essentials of food, shelter, clothing and non-essentials like leisure games and sports.
For a new setting with a specific feel, often times the core classes are not enough and need to either be changed or replaced. Here they’ve eliminated barbarians, fighters, monks, rangers, and rogues, but kept the other classes. A strange fate as removing the spell users would’ve allowed for some more natural ‘flow’ to the authenticity of the setting.
Each of the remaining core classes, including the NPC classes like Adept and Commoner, are then detailed with how that class fits into this new setting. Druids for example, are really only at home and safe among the people from the Kelt lands or Albion. The other parts of the country, mainly those of the Roman Church, consider Druids as mere heretics and have open orders to arrest and execute them.
For new classes, we start off with the agent. Similar in may ways to a rogue, the agent shares many of those abilities, including sneak attack, medium bab, and wide skill list. However, they don’t have as many skill points, have a ‘medium’ Ref save and good Will save, and have access to bonus feats and gain an insight bonus to their armor class as they anticipate where their enemy will strike.
To fill out some of the other missing classes, we have the raider, a hearty (d12 hit dice) warrior with the ability to rage, the rake, a master of either guns or fencing, a specialist lightly armored fighter, the scout, a hearty version of the ranger with d10 hit die and some sneak attack abilities, as well as greater range on those sneak attack abilities, the soldier, replacing the fighter and almost exactly like the fighter, gaining bonus feats frequently. The difference is that the soldier is initially trained to follow a specific type of military training, which grants him a bonus feat at first level, a special ability, and gear. The limit on that is that while there are all purpose soldier bonus feats, most of the bonus feats are grouped by the military training. Those who are members of the royal guard for example, don’t get cleave or diehard but those who follow the greatsword do.
The witch of this setting uses an imp to gain her spells. The imp acts as her spellbook. The witch has a unique spell list, with spells drawn from pretty much all the core classes in the standard d20 system. However, that doesn’t mean they have access to all of them, merely that their list has elements from all of them. For example, they don’t get fireball as a third level spell, but they do have command undead and cure moderate wounds.
One of the stranger classes is the natural philosopher. They are wizards of science. They have a fairly small skill list, but have more skill points than a wizard, but also suffer the wizard’s dread 1d4 hit die type. Their power of reason gives them Spell Resistance equal to their class level. Their use of ‘spells’ is phenomena, a extraordinary ability equal to standard spells, but these are not magical and interact with psionics differently. They use phenomena as if they were clerics of equivalent level, but not bonus domain spells, using their Intelligence instead of Wisdom to determine save DCs and bonus castings. They can only create phenomena based on the sciences they have a degree in. At first level, they start with two, and gain further degrees as they advance in level.
Much like wizard schools, the phenomena they use are broken up by level, and then by phenomena. We see that they have schools ranging from antimagic and magnetism, to matter and mentalism, with others expanding the schools. Phenomena range from 0 to 9th level.
For prestige classes, it starts with how each of the existing PrCs from the DMG fit into the setting, including where appropriate, name changes. For example, the shadowdancers are limited to female characters with the Witchling culture and are called furies.
The new PrCs here expand upon some of the concepts common to the era, such as fencing masters for rakes, or firebrands, a fighter style class whose leadership abilities make them symbols of their cause. Others fit into the American mythology like the Sower or the Tall Tale Hero, fit for those looking to be the next Johny Appleseed or Paul Bunyan.
Because it’s a new setting, new uses for skills, including different craft, knowledge, and profession skills, are listed, as well as the languages of Northern Crown. Feats include the standard general and item creation, but also introduced are invention, metascience and psionic feats. The GM should read over each carefully to make sure that they fit his vision of what a Northern Crown game should be about.
Some of these are simple in purpose. For example, Cheap Invention lets you built something at only 75% of the listed price. Many feats represent an Ancestry of the character. For example, Bear Ancestry, and its tree, including Advanced Bear Ancestry, work on the assumption that the character is becoming more like his ancestor. In this case, it starts off with a bonus to Fortitude saves and a bonus to damage when making an unarmed attack, and goes to gaining Scent as an extraordinary ability along with other perks.
An interesting variant on weapon skills, are the various feats for things like Greasword. Here you can use your weapon to add to your armor class, use it as a double weapon, or use the weapon for intimidation effect. Some of the item creation feats are designed for the replacement of standard feats for the First Ones as they don’t have access to the same materials or training.
Northern Crown uses a wide variety of currencies. These include First Ones, English, Espaniard, Francais, and Nederlander. Each one has their own currency, but the author has also provided us with gp, sp, and cp equivalencies. Equipment is separated by culture, starting with First Ones. This includes things like Turtle Plate, a heavy armor that provides a +5 to AC with a max dex of +2 and –4 Check penalty, to waterskins and tattoo kits. More lengthy is the Uropan equipment. This includes a wide variety of guns, including wheelock and matchlock guns, as well as various types of armor, many of them matching their standard d20 coutner parts, just with different names.
Chapter nine covers magic in the setting. It includes some rules for handling natural power levels and effects, granting either bonuses of penalties to the caster’s class level and certain skill checks, as well as how those power levels are changed. In addition, the First Ones and Uropan casters, each have their own spells, broken down by class and level. While not a massive listing, it does allow the GM to showcase the difference between the two cultures even further.
One variant included that may be too powerful, are psionic knacks. By taking a psionic knack feat, the character gains power points per day, with a small power level, as he gains levels, that can be used to trigger certain psionic powers, related to the knack taken. Knacks include evil eye, firebug, and second sight. As an example, the firebug, at 9th level, with have 15 power points and can access his 3rd level ability, in this case, Whitefire, dealing 5d4 fire damage to a 20-ft. radius.
Unlike standard d20 games, Northern Crown does have some science to it, and chapter eleven goes over item creation. Inventions are assigned a science, similar to the phenomena earlier listed. The material includes rules for creating automata, unique devices, power sources, substances, vehicles, and weapons. Numerous tables are included to help break down the information into more digestible chunks.
The book winds up with a few appendices, including a lengthy bibliography, the dreaded open game license, and one thing I love to see in an RPG book, a two page index.
Northern Crown isn’t the standard fantasy campaign. It has many elements of it, with references to many familiar icons like raiders and fey queens, but it has many elements not covered by RPGs despite the width of historical lore and mythology behind them. Not quite a book of American tall tales nor one of Native American lore, Northern Crown has it’s own twist on these elements that looks to bring a wide variety of game mechanics to almost any setting.
