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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2010706" data-attributes="member: 18387">Oathbound is something completely new. It's a D20 fantasy world that bears only a faint resemblance to the standard imagery of AD&D. It seems to owe less to the works of Tolkein than to the fevered fantasies of Hieronymus Bosch. I like it a lot. There are a million "new" D&D settings out there and most of them are just endless variations on the same old thing. Got to have Elves, got to have Dwarves, got to have orcs and talking dragons or the fans get squirmy. A little Tolkein, without the morality, mixed together with a little Moorcock, without the subversive ideas.Oathbound is different. It's a comprehensive and completely unique world in 350-some pages with a single defining premise, which still provides players with an unlimited number of possible adventures. There is a single "frame story" behind everything else, but it's so huge that the players probably won't be able to derail it with their own actions. The premise is roughly that a nameless god grew so powerful that the other gods feared and imprisoned it. They set up seven angelic guardians (whose names sound oddly familiar to us Judeo-Christian types) to watch over the God for eternity. The Seven resent having to be in effect imprisoned themselves, and have found an interesting loophole in their contract. Any being more powerful than they themselves are can take their place as guardians of the God. Creatures as strong as themselves are rare, so they have created a realm called The Forge in which to test other creatures until one or another of them grows strong enough to take someone's place. They draw likely looking heroes from all across the multiverse into this strange otherworld and test them to destruction, hoping that in time a champion will emerge. This is a very strong premise and one that goes a long way toward explaining away all the puzzling things about most fantasy roleplaying worlds. Why are there so many monsters running around all over the landscape? Why is a typical PC adventuring party made up of such a mishmash of different cultures and species? Who built all those tunnels, stocked them with monsters and treasures? Why does this all feel so much like a game? Here it makes perfect sense!As much sense as it makes, the world of the Forge is also designed to give you as wide a variety of adventures as possible. Each of the seven Oathbound angels rules its own realm within the larger world. They don't seem to do much intriguing against one another, since they all have basically the same goals, but each angel has its own management style, so the seven realms provide very different sorts of challenges. My favorite is the Anvil, where gigantic monsters a hundred feet high rampage across the land like something out of a Kaiju movie. Others include Eclipse, where the light of the sun never ventures, Wiildwood, an endless, trackless forest, the lawless desert called the Arena, a huge volcano called the Kiln and the haunted wasteland called the Vault, where the dead walk.The most heavily detailed area is the city of Penance, so ancient that it stands atop a mountain of its own ruins. Ruled by the nine Bloodlords and divided into nine domains each with its own distinct features, Pennance is like a whole game world in itself. It's great stuff and I can even forgive it for the fact that all the player action seems to revolve around that oldest of D&D adventure hook clichés, a great big tavern.Penance is as carefully and meticulously described as any whole city sourcebook, and its ready for use without your having to buy any new supplements. In fact, one of the great things about this setting is that the core book lays everything out in such depth that you really could just pick it up and start playing immediately, you don't have to buy a hundred bucks or so worth of supplements. This also helps offset the book's price, which at $40 is frankly a little high.There are a number of new races, none of them anything like Dwarves, Gnomes, Hobbits, etc. There are dog-people, goat-men and others. Most seem to be based on talking animals and while some people may think this shows a lack of creativity, I think it's great, and lends a real fairy-tale quality to the atmosphere. My favorites are the cat-people, not n\human-sized cat people but housecats who stand on their hind legs and talk, like Puss in Boots.The last section of the book is a 65 page adventure based in and around the city of Penance. The players undertake a series of errands and missions for a powerful overlord. That sounds simple, but each challenge is different and requires a different approach. It's really more like a stack of short adventures, each one highlighting a separate element of the system. Combat, stealth, diplomacy, etc. The premise is also designed to hold a party tightly together with a single goal and little room for backstabbing. The adventure works on all levels and it's as good an introduction to the setting for the Storyteller as for the Players.I should add that the book itself is handsome and well produced, the illustrations are haunting and atmospheric and there are lots of them. Clearly this is intended to be a high and product and its designers have a lot of respect for it. And they should. This is the best setting (outside of the World of Darkness, of course) that I have ever seen.Katsumi Approves!</blockquote>

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