Living Kingdoms of Kalamar: Pekal Gazetteer
Written by Daniel S. Donnelly
Published by Kenzer & Company
www.kenzerco.com
64 b & w pages
$12.99
Living Campaigns are perfect for those who go to conventions and are members of the RPGA and get to use those benefits frequently. For those like me who have no interest in the Living Campaign, is a book titled Living Kalamar worth buying? In one word: Yes.
The book is broken up into seven chapters, each with a different focus of the Pekal country. This provides Living Kalamar GMs a common ground to start with, but guess what? Normal GMs get the same benefits. There is information on the various races and classes inside the country allowing GMs and players to customize their characters.
More important perhaps, are the organizations that players can join. There are different guilds for each class and several for all classes. Are you a mage? The College of Magic is for you. Don’t want a standard College? Join Thrin Chor, a school that strives to understand non-Tellene magic or Vr Mindrel, an alchemical school. Are you a warrior? Join the Steel Ribbons a group of heavily armored warriors or the Warriors of the Emerald Wave, they always need more rangers. Each organization is briefly described with a listing of game requirements. In some cases, because this is a Living module, some can only be joined through certificates provided in adventurers.
To me, one of the best chapters that makes Kalamar shine a little more is the one on religion. Now Kalamar is a little like the Scarred Lands in that all the people, including monsters, worship one set of gods. Each religion has it’s own name for said god though and it makes remembering what god is what a little difficult at times. Instead of just the Riftmaster, you get Hokalas. Instead of just the Knight of the Gods, you get Deb’fo. This makes using the god’s cultural names a little easier for those centering a campaign in Pekal.
GMs benefit from Chapter Five, the Honorable and the Law. It provides a quick breakdown of the different types of crimes and what the common punishments are. There’s no reason why this list wouldn’t work well in other medieval fantasy campaigns as well. The only bad thing? The time units that are common to Living campaigns. For example, while Piracy is death and that’s pretty universal, and Civil Disturbance is 10-25 gold pieces and a night in jail, Manslaughter gets you 52-104 time units and loss of all equipment, property and wealth.
Those actually involved with a Living Campaign will have to read and keep Chapter Six, Campaign Rules and Character Creation on hand. It covers the Living rules in the Kalamar setting. The character creation for example, is a point buy and it’s straight from the DMG with 32 points for a “High Powered” campaign. It lists acceptable feats, prestige classes, and other goodies for players interested in a Living Campaign. One thing I’d love to see in the future though are “D20” rules that are acceptable. All the ones listed here are WoTC products or Kenzer products. Those thinking of skipping the book because of this chapter shouldn’t because A. It’s only three pages, and B. If you’re playing in a non-Living setting, you still get a good idea of which Prestige Classes and Feats are common.
For those who want to jump right into the Living setting, or GMs who need a quick adventure, the book comes with Old Honor and The Steel Guard. Both designed for starting characters with notes on how to scale them. The first adventure starts the characters off in the standard tavern where they can interact with locals and find out details about the region. Good starting material for new players and GMs. Well, like all good tavern scenes, the peace is interrupted when a women comes in and looks for help in finding her daughter. Now its up to the character to investigate the goblin haunted lands and find the daughter. There are some different twists here and there to prevent it from being a goblin smash and the GM should enjoy springing some surprises onto the players.
The second adventure, The Steel Guard, gets started with action as the players see a lone warrior battling an ettin over the corpse of several orcs and an ogre. This adventure is design to get the players a taste of combat. They can face foes common to the Pekal area. One of the nice things it provides the GM is an example of how to set up certificates to join the various guilds. In this case, the warrior they assist, Midalita B’Rogupar, provides an invitation to the characters should they prove worthy.
Is the book perfect? Well, despite all the information it provides, there is a lack of city and town maps which means that the GM is still going to have to work some material into the book. Makes it a little difficult for new GMs and players to get a feel for the actual setting they're in. In addition, the ImageQuest device seems confused. For one adventure, there are IQ illustrations, but the other one just has standard illustrations in the adventure. Lastly, while the editing is good, I’m trying to figure out why there needs to be two listings of what Prestige Classes are acceptable for a Living Kalamar setting. Why put it on page 22 and then again on page 35?
The value on this book is high. Use of interior covers, lack of D20 license, and OGC license means that every page is used. If you’re a member of the Living Kalamar, then this is a perfect module for DMs and players. If you’re a Kalamar DM looking to place a campaign in one local, this is a good place to start.
