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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 2011784" data-attributes="member: 172">Relics & Rituals: OlympusRelics & Rituals: Olympus is the fourth book by Sword & Sorcery Studios to bear the name Relics & Ritals and the second such book to provide material for historical/mythical settings rather than for the Scarred Lands setting. The book provides a variety of character options and ideas for a fantasy campaign inspired by the legends of ancient Greece. Contributors to this volume include W. Jason Peck, Aaron Rosenberg (who, oddly, did Green Ronin's competing product Trojan War), Christina Styles, Christopher Kennedy, and Ethan Skemp.A First LookRelics & Rituals: Olympus is a 208 page hardbound book priced at $34.99.The cover is a red-orange with an color picture of a pegasus-mounted warrior facing off with a chimera-mounted warrior.The interior is black-and-white, with illustrations by John Bridges, Talon Dunning, Jeff Holt, Leif Jones, and Alex Sheikman. Talon Dunning continues to be one of my favorite artists in these sorts of books; here he provides some very nice sketches of the various races. On the other hand, Leif Jones style does not agree with me. While I have seen him do some decent scenes in some Necromancer Games adventures, his single figures seem unappealing to me, and his art is used to depict most of the prestige classes. There are a few topless female figures in the book (appropriate for the setting, but probably tempting the wrath of those divinities that preside over the d20 system trademark license.)A Deeper LookThe first thing to note about this book is the general approach. The book does not start out with a declaration of races or classes to be excluded or a new selection of classes to replace those removed. Much like Relics & Rituals: Excalibur (as well as Green Ronin’s Egyptian Adventures: Hamunaptra, the general approach is not to drastically alter the D20 System fantasy assumptions to fit that of a mythic Grece era game, but rather, extracts concepts from the legends of the era for use with D20 System fantasy games.The book is divided into six chapters. The first four cover various characters options, the fifth covers magic items, and the sixth is GM campaign advice and ideas. An appendix covers Olympian monsters.Each of the character option chapters briefly covers the use of existing options before diving into the variety of new options.The races chapter is fairly straightforward, introducing variants to existing races cast in a more mythic Grecian mold, and introducing a few new races.The traditionally one-size-fits-all human receives a treatment that creates the possibility of assigning them a bit more specialized feel. You may select one of six city state archetypes like "warlike". Each of these archetypes replaces the "any" designation of the human race with a specific class, and the character receives ability score modifier emphasizing this archetype (for example, characters from a warlike city state have fighter as a favored class and receive a bonus to constitution and penalty to wisdom.There are variants of all the standard D&D races. There are minor tweaks to the abilities of these races, as well as some flavor text fitting them in with the Olympian mythos.Two brand new races are presented for PCs: the spartes and the faun. The faun is the classic goat-legged and horned humanoid, essentially a toned down PC version of the satyr. Fauns are good at negotiating rough terrain, and boos the potency of enchantment spells. Fauns have bard as a favored class, but would make decent sorcerers as well.Spartes look essentially human, but are a race descended from the warriors who grew from the sown teeth of a dragon. Spartes are resilient but rash (like the warlike humans cited above.) They lack human traits, but suffer less severe penalties from exhaustion, have low light vision, weapon and shield proficiencies, and bonuses against fear.The second chapter is related to classes. Unlike Relics and Rituals: Excalibur, there are no new core classes to be had here. A short section discusses the role, and some tweaks (mostly flavor, some mechanical) and recommended options for each of the game's core classes. The appropriateness of the core prestige classes is also discussed, though some explanations seem lenient.There are 11 new Olympian-themed prestige classes. Many of these do not specifically depict figures in Greek myth, but extrapolate conventions from it. -Anointed of Styx: Patterned after the idea of the rivers leading to the underworld and the invulnerability they granted to Achilles, the Annointed of Styx is a prestige class with abilities granting resilience in combat (rapid healing, damage reduction, natural AC bonuses, etc.) The drawback: an anointed who ever breaks an oath loses all of their special abilities. -Blessed of Aeolus: This is a character blessed by Aeolus or one of the other four winds. The character is essentially rogue-like, but exchanges skills for a variety of wind and movement related abilities. -Feral Maenad: These characters revere Dionysus in his aspect of the god of wild, drunken violence. The class receive slow continued divine spellcasting advancement (if the character was already a divine spellcaster), and bestial-themed class abilities, such as drunker rage and healing draught. -Hadean Strider: This is a character who has learned dark secrets from traveling the land of the dead. Oddly, though elsewhere in the book, it discusses who undead are less prevalent in the setting, some class abilities of the hadean strider are explicitly useful against undead. -Herald of the Sea: This is an archetypal "specialty priest" type class, with slowed divine casting advancement and several sea related ability, including the bonus domain herald of the sea. -Master Pankratiast: This is a master of the Greek unarmed fighting sport pankration, which combines wrestling and boxing moves. The class has a number of abilities assisting them in unarmed combat (including monk style improved damage). They only have one good save, but have good base attack bonus progression. -Olympic Paragon: This class is heavily athletic, with class abilities highlighting physical activities like swimming, climbing, running, and throwing. -Palladian Defender: Primarily intended for clerics of Athena, it is said to be appropriate to other clerics of civic deities. The class has slowed divine spellcasting advancement and good attack advancement, and combat and defense related abilities. -Promethian Magos: This class represents a sort of knowledgeable hermit. It has full spellcasting advancement and is most appropriate to arcane casters. The concept of the class plays off of the myth of the fire that Prometheus gave to man. This class relies on a primal flame that it must keep near it to use its abilities, which are primarily knowledge related. This flame is vulnerable to being dispelled, robbing the character of its special abilities. -Sacred Huntress: This is another specialty priest type class, the classical chaste huntress follower of Artemis. The sacred huntress has slowed divine casting advancement and only medium attack progression, but has a stacked selection of class abilities related to hunting. -Sun Chosen: A final specialty priest type class, the sun-chosen are followers of Apollo, with light and archery related abilities.There are two all new skills (charioteering and prophecy) and a few new skill categories such as knowledge (philosophy). The charioteering skill provides a number of new tasks for the skill, and the character can use the skill in the place of ride for mounted feats for use with the chariot. The prophecy skill allows the character to interpret omens and reveal the future; the mechanics are passable, but aren't quite as slick as the prophecy rules in the Medieval Player's Manual. However, both new skills commit the cardinal sin of new skills: they do not list which existing classes have the skill as a class skill.There are two new feat types. The Olympian feats are blessings of various Olympian deities; each major Olympian figure has one feat. They have some pretty stuff requirements, but offer some significant boons, usually some sort of bonus coupled with the choice of one ability per day from a list of abilities. The other new feat type is punishment, which usually replaces an Olympian feat if the character offends the gods.As was mentioned in Green Ronin's Trojan War, use of coinage was not widespread. However, the system here tries less to emulate ancient greece, and primarily just provides flavor alternative names for coins. However, it does have one nice feat that does play to the fact of the matter in ancient Greece: in addition to currency, the book provides a list of common trade items and their value, which gives the GM a venue to handle economics in a manner a little more appropriate to the historical setting.In addition to new spells, the spells chapter discusses the spellcasting classes and the role they play in an Olympian campaign. The book does not specifically recommend removing any spells, but it discusses some that you might consider, as well as other options to make characters feel a bit more like classical Greek heroes, such as having effects that appear, instead of springing from the casters hands, spring from the environment.There are eight new domains, each one strongly associated with one or more of the Olympian deities: archery, artifice, beauty, marriage, moon, music, underworld, and wine. These domains are largely composed of new spells introduced in this chapter. To its credit, I feel that many of these domains do a better job realizing the concept than prior attempts and I plan to use some of them for non-Olympian deities. As examples, the moon domain has spells that allow a caster to walk on moonlight, or scry by viewing moonlight rather than a mirror or pool.There are a wide variety of new spells, nearly 24 pages worth. As evocations and similar combat exclusive spells are not a part of Greek myth, there is a dearth of such spells here. Those who complain about the prevalence of combat exclusive spells in the game should find this collection refreshing. What combat effect that are here are primarily buffs and defenses, and many spells are based on effects seen in Greek myth. As a minor nitpick, some of the disguise style illusion spells herein are not identified as glamers.Some spells from this chapter include: -Adoration: This beauty domain spell (also available to bards and clerics) prevents a target from attacking you or taking any action to harm you. -Artemis' Grace: This spell gives an insight bonus to ranged attack rolls and allows the target to ignore concealment miss chances. -Gaean support: Provides stoneskin-like protection while in contact with the ground, transferring damage to the earth. -Honest words: This marriage domain spell is an odd twist on the traditional zone of truth; it prevents two targets from lying, but only to each other. -Know thy Master: Causes an object to twist out of the grasp of anyone but a designated wielder, offering penalties when trying to use it. -Lunar Revelation: This moon domain spell acts like scrying, except it requires the user to be under the night sky instead of use a focus, and the target receives a save penalty if they are under the moon when the spell is cast.Magic items are an aspect that not only a part of Greek myth, but greatly inspired by it. That said, Greek heroes pale next to the typical D&D hero when it comes to magical booty. The chapter discusses a number of approaches that the GM might take in such a game, either more traditional d20, or reserving magic to a few potent items. When they do exist, the book recommends that they have great history, but they give few specific recommendations (you might try Mystic Eye Games' Artificer's Handbook if you are interested in such a method.)The layout of items is pretty typical for a d20 system product. Many of the items and qualities at the low end are things that might not be so overtly magic, such as the illustrated quality of decorated armor that can distract opponents. Of course, there are many items here right out of legends, some in the form of artifacts, such at the golden fleece and dragon's teeth that turn into Spartes.The final chapter is entitled Campaigns, and provides GM advice and rules. The chapter discusses decisions facing a GM of such a campaign, such as if the GM plans to place a campaign amidst the time of legends and put them beside the heroes of myth. A good degree of the chapter is setting considerations, discussing how terrain is depicted, how to handle planes of existence, creating city-states, and possible uses of core monsters. There are some variant rules and options to be had here as well, such as tracking character hubris, divine punishment, incarnations of nature, the Olympian deities, and class/level based defense bonuses (to compensate for the light armor in the setting.) In addition to the normal deity statistics, these deities offer a special ability that may be taken in place of domain abilities. It seems to me if you are playing the convention that there are no undead in the campaign to the hilt, the turn undead ability might be a more appropriate trade off, unless your goal is explicitly to depower the cleric.An appendix offers a variety of creatures drawn from Greek myth such as nymphs, cyclops, and hag-like grey women, as well as unique creatures like Medusa and Cerberus.ConclusionsRelics & Rituals: Olympus is a nice book for those who want to add elements of Greek myth into their game, such as by adding Greek regions to their worlds. The book is a little more Xena than The Illiad; those who are looking for a more authentic mythic Greek experience are well advised to seek out Green Ronin's Trojar War, though there are some aspects of this book that can be integrated into the campaign using Trojan War.The races and spells chapters (in the latter, particularly the domains) strike me as the strongest and most likely to make it into my normal game. The prestige classes are a little weaker mechanically; the abilities are interesting, but the "all-or-half" approach to spellcaster progression tend to make the spellcasting prestige classes feel either a little strong or a little weak.Overall, I am not quite as enamored with this book as Relics & Rituals: Excalibur, but it does have some nice materials for interested GMs.Overall Grade: B -Alan D. Kohler</blockquote>

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