The Player’s Guide to the Wilderlands brings a classic campaign setting to a new generation. It brings with it game mechanics in the forms of new races, feats, and monsters, as well as the original flavor of the Wilderlands.
But what does that mean for someone whose never heard of the Wilderlands? It’s a difficult question for me to answer as I’m familiar with the setting. As I type this, I can turn and casually look over some of the old Judge’s Guild product I have about like Wondrous Weapons and Shield Maidens of Sea Rune.
For those who don’t have my experience with the old products, the Wilderlands are like many Dungeons & Dragon settings in that they don’t shoe horn the setting into the game rules unlike how the Scarred Lands used to operate and how Eberron function. The setting’s charm is that it’s Sword and Sorcery using a high magic rule set (3.5 Dungeons and Dragons) without making any changes to that system.
This is a setting where life is cheap and knowledge rare. People rarely venture out past their homes and only those in the larger cities live past twenty. The people are illiterate unless they are specially trained, like the new Sage core class. Gods for many pantheons rub shoulders with one another. Travel for most is rare and knowledge, especially of the past, is difficult to gauge.
No where is this more true then when thinking about how the use of the ‘Common’ tongue helps party members get along not just with each other, but with the world. By not having a ‘Common’ tongue, the setting forces the players to choose what languages they speak and does encourage players to spend skill points to learn other languages least they be taken advantage of by those who know multiple languages and can use those languages as code against the characters.
This book works in many ways like the older Ghelspad Gazetteer. It presents bits and pieces of the campaign setting but is meant to be used with the boxed set, which at this writing, still isn’t out. In some instances, the detail doesn’t need to be heavy. When looking at historical information for example, the brief description of the previous ages leading to the current time, as well as the timeline, suffice. For details on the regions however, the details fall short to the game mechanics. In that, I mean the book has a focus on material that much like Wizards of the Coast Planar Handbook, should’ve been left out.
In player utility, we have numerous races, especially humans, broken down into different areas or regions. This gives each human it’s own flavor, but doesn’t seem to include enough counters to the benefits. For example, the Gishmesh, the people of Tarantis, gain all of the human racial traits plus Profession (Merchant) and Appraise as class skills, and have the limitation that only Rogue, Fight, and Cleric are Favored Classes. In and of itself, that’s actually a benefit as humans only have one favored class, but it’s any class. A human could just make his highest level one of those classes not presented and use those favored classes for multi-classing purposes.
One of the things that make this setting different from others though is the role of the dark elf. No drow here, but rather, individuals who are pale skinned whose dark heritage is in their hearts and their homeland, not their skin.
One of the things the book does to make it easier to GM, is include notes on how the standard classes and prestige classes from the DMG, fit into the setting. These aren’t vast detailed notes about how each fits into every nook and cranny, but general information.
New classes included are alchemist, amazon, and sage. Unfortunately, despite some interesting game mechanics, the alchemist and sage are probably better off suited for NPC use. Neither has any great combat ability and most of their potential comes off stage. In a game system like say Palladium or Rolemaster where you gain experience points for using your skills, that’s not as much a problem, but in a system where combat is the main form, not the only form mind you, but the main form, it makes the use of crafting potions and poison’s less than stellar against a fighter’s sword arm.
This is especially true of the sage. Because knowledge, real knowledge, is so rare in the setting, having a character who can help unravel some of the older secrets is an interesting option but what does this character do during battle? The same thing the Expert or Commoner does and hide? Still, the extra rules for the Tomes of Knowledge and the rules for madness that come with them, are suitable for any game. The article in En World #4 helps expand upon this.
The amazon on the other hand, is a strange bird. A combination of fighter, ranger, and barbarian, they have d10 hit dice, good fort and ref saves, and numerous special abilities that are limited by their ability to wear only amazon armor and shields.
One thing that’s interesting are the regional feats. Not quite in the same detail or number as found in the Player’s Guide for the Forgotten Realm series, it’s nice to see another publisher use Regional Feats to give characters some unique traits like the ability to selection some Cantrips if they come from Valon. More regional feats for each of the eighteen regions would’ve help push this section a little higher as there are several of the dreaded +2 bonus to two skills like Experienced Merchant, Fast Talker, Forest Affinity, and Streetwise.
Despite the brief information on the world, there is a separate ‘Traveler’s Guide to the City State’. Like many places in the Wilderlands, it’s rules by a ruthless leader who has his own secret police even as he encourages trade and seeks more power for himself. Unlike many standard settings, slavery is legal. This too adds a dark flavor to the setting. The overland map is adequate but since it’s a one page affair, only has the larger areas and streets noted. No maps of individual locations like the Seahawk Tavern are provided.
For those looking for a coherent and detailed section on religion, I’m afraid that the Wilderlands fails to deliver. Compared to Kalamar and other material like the Book of the Righteous where things are more ‘together’ if you will, the material here reads like a 30 year old product including gods from numerous settings and provides details like the deities powers and weapons as opposed to what worshipping the god actually involves. While it’s good to know that Coriptis wears golden chainmail with sword and shield, what does she require from her worshippers? Thankfully, standard information like alignment, domain, symbol, typical worshippers and favored weapon are included. Information that’s much more useful than knowing that Beytnorn’s touch can remove disease.
One thing that shouldn’t be in a Player’s Guide is a section on monsters. It didn’t fit in the Planar Handbook by Wizards and it doesn’t fit here. However, having said that, many of the monsters here are actually suitable for being character creation. This ranges from the desert dwelling Dorin’s and Spider Elves, to the winged Hawk-folk. A few other creatures that probably have official versions somewhere are also included here like the catoblepas, an aberration that kills with it’s gaze and the Smilodon and it’s dire version.
Negative strikes include no table of contents and no index. Want to know what page those new feats or classes are on? Flip through the book. The interior art is handled by David Day. This gives the book a unified feel but I don’t know if David is up to the task of updating this revered setting by himself. Just for comparison, I have the Valus setting next to me and they have Alan McFarlane doing some of the illustrations and his work is a notch above Davids. Not a good thing when a new campaign setting by a company without a lot of products has some better illustrations than a classic.
The pros include price. For 128 pages and a map, the book only runs $23.95. That map goes a long way in utility, as Valus, as a soft cover at $29.99, doesn’t have a fold out map. The map itself is another nice touch. Unlike the Eberron map, this one actually includes useful things like cities. At eight pages, smaller than a standard page mind you, it covers the eighteen regions well enough. There’s also the nostalgia factor. Older players and people like myself who found the setting years latter, enjoy having a new edition of the book.
In the end, the Player’s Guide is a good start to the campaign setting, but needs more detail, much like the Ghelspad Gazetteer did, to help make it come to life.
