Scarred Lands Campaign Setting: Termana is the latest of Sword and Sorcery Studios continent books for the Scarred Lands setting, following up on its predecessor of Ghelspad. It is the land where Chern died and cursed the elves who brought the titan low, home of Chardun's first children, the charduni dwarves, a land both more savage and civilized than Ghelspad.
Just how well does it stack up with Ghelspad, then?
Well, truth be told, it fell short in a few places. I will admit, however, that I find some of the problems I saw to be rather personal ones on my behalf. Let's see if I can't list a few of the personal gripes now, get them out of the way, then go onto the rest of this review:
1) Psionics. This is entirely a matter of personal taste. The book presents it as optional wherever one goes, but for my part, I prefer my games to lack the New Age feel that crystals bring, and the science fiction feel that things such as psychometabolism or telepathy inspire. I found these things particularly jarring amongst the forsaken elves; I twitched when I saw the forsaken elf shaping his weapon into a crystalline formation. Between dragon alliances, killing a titan, being archmages beyond compare, Melnibonean-like characteristics, and so on, and so on, I thought the introduction of psionics into the forsaken elves a bit much, above and beyond my distaste for psionics. As I bought the book - and heck, grew to love the setting - strongly in part due to the forsaken elves, seeing fish liver put into my chocolate didn't make me a happy camper. So it goes.
2) Yuan-Ti. Not being a big fan of the Forgotten Realms, I couldn't help but think about that setting when I saw the Yuan-Ti present here. I think their presence diminished some of the individuality of the Scarred Lands and was a step towards turning Scarn into Toril.
3) The Sisters of the Sun. I found neither the organizations purpose nor its deity adequately explained why this group of paladins would be female only (outside of their name, obviously). All that seemed to explain it is a love of alliteration which is inherent in the name.
Anyway, with those three hopefully out of the way, on I go...
Table of contents, introduction, and then...
Chapter one, the history of Termana. First into the empires and kingdoms that came before, from gnoll-kings to warrior and druid councils, these take up all of a page before going into the jungle lands. After all, much of Termana is supposed to be untamed wildland, so that's only appropriate. From the perspective of one of Termana's cat-people, the terali, we hear something of the creation myth of Scarn told from a different viewpoint than what's come before it, that the land and world was dreamed by the Mother of All, who some know as the titan Denev. From her sprang the other titans, who in turn, brought about even more life. While coming from a mortal and flawed angle, it does give a fresh take on the Scarred Lands, causing those familiar with it to rethink some things about the setting, and those who aren't a good read. It goes into what the world was like when the now deposed titans, deities of the earth and land instead of prayers, still walked freely about Scarn (the world upon which the continent of Termana rests). It moves onto the coming of the Yuan-Ti, and then into that unavoidable, earth-shattering event, the Divine War, and just what effects it had upon Termana and what some of Termana's natives think of the gods. With that, the terali's telling of history ends, and we go onto another scholar, who informs us about that most compelling of races, the forsaken elves.
Once upon a time, there was a race blessed with the patronage of the titan Mesos and the love of a god who favored this race above all others. These were the elves, the high elves of Termana, to be specific, the heirs of the empire of Eldura-tre. They were wizards without par, who, while they were forced into obedience by the Sire of Sorcery, Mesos, had a god to fall back on, who shared in the troubles and joys of the high elves. They were beset by the dark dwarves known as the charduni, their borders under the assault of the titans children - gnolls and ogres and other fell things - but they were allied with dragons, and made leaps and bounds in both magic and the arts. Where most of Termana lived in barbarism, the high elves lived at possibly the pinnacle of achievement. When the Titanswar came at last, the decision of where they stood was an easy one - it was a god, their god, who had stood by them all along, and so they fought on the side of the Divine forces. For this, their fabled Citadel of the Rose was beset by innumerable fiends, and they watched as their god was first betrayed by his herald and then finished by the titan Chern. They took down the titan Chern, the only mortal army to actually cause a titan to fall, but in return, were cursed with pestilence and disease, the high elves now forsaken. Between the loss of their god, the loss of their children (all born deformed or stillborn), the loss of much of their army, and the sinking of their lands beneath the Blood Sea, they were forced to break up the mighty empire of Eldura-tre into a number of small states, no longer able to govern the mighty nation any longer.
I like the forsaken elves, suffice to say, and there's their part of the history section. Next we come to the Land of Chains, detailing their counterparts, the charduni, dwarves created and blessed by the god of Tyrants, Chardun. Interestingly enough, their history is told by Chardun himself, from a heretical holy text that places the charduni in a less than complimentary light. It tells of their glorious history, of their many triumphs and travails, of their rise and their eventual fall. They're shown as having once been on their way to ruling the world, only for the Divine War to have halted that, and eventually led to their borders being pushed far, far back, which now places them as objects of Chardun's displeasure. An interesting take on the charduni, who one might assume enjoyed Chardun's favor, only to find they, too, have been forsaken by their god, after a fashion.
Neither the history of the forsaken elves or charduni are much new to this book, however. Both originally popped up in the first Creature Collection and have been detailed intermittently since then. The history of the Ghoul King, however, is something relatively new. Termana's problems didn't end after the Divine War, as some decade later, undead began waging war on the nations of southwestern Termana. For decades to come western Termana would be beset by legions of creatures coming from the Isle of the Dead, a place so enfused with negative energy that living creatures can scarcely come near to its shores. Paladins of Madriel the Sun-goddess and Corean the Avenger alike joined together to drive the Ghoul King and his minions back to their home, with Madriel herself intervening at one point, and the Jack of Tears, the Momus, having helped as well.
Speaking of which...while already the subject of its own book, even before the Termana gazetteer came out if I recall correctly, from the Ghoul King we turn to the Blood Bayou and the Jack of Tears, before they were quite as well known as they are know to the world of Scarn. It offers a glimpse into the places history, adding to the unique flavor of Termana. On that note, it ends with the Termana timeline, before taking us into...
Chapter Two, the religions of Termana. This is possibly the best section of the book. Then again, the religion and faith of the Scarred Lands has always been its strongpoint, in my opinion. This chapter introduces to us a new religion, that of the Ushada. While one might question just how another faith can be thrown into the mix, when the pantheon of the titans and gods have already been rather well-established as being worshipped world-wide, well, this chapter answers that question quite aptly. Just as the gods were born of the titans, the Ushada faith claims that the titans were not the creators of Scarn, but merely powerful animistic spirits. Moreover, that they are corrupt animistic spirits, who threw the natural order out of whack. Where the Ghelspad campaign setting offers up the idea that the gods have destroyed the natural cycle of Scarn, the Termana hardcover says that the gods put it back on course by incapacitating the titans. That's not to say the Ushadan religion worships the gods - it doesn't. The faith is closer to the settings titan worship, which is to say, they're druids, not clerics. The Ushadan faith is one of shamanism and spirits, veneration of ancestors and totems. To the Ushadan religion, everything natural has a spirit or soul to it, that if properly honored, will benefit those who show it the proper respect. That is what the Ushada are. The spirits of things and places, ancestors and totems. The titans are acknowledged as Ushada as well, but ones who set themselves above the natural, proper order of things. To them, titan-worshippers are delusional, short-sighted individuals who don't see the bigger picture. The Ushadan faith is an interesting new take on the already compelling faith of the Scarred Lands. If there's any selling point on this book, anything that sets it apart, it's this chapter. It places a new spin on the setting that, while not necessarily right, is plausible.
It goes without saying, though, that any Scarred Lands book, particularly one like this, is going to detail the gods and titans in further depth. While not quite as new and interesting as the section on the Ushada, the part on titan-worship goes into the psychology and why's of a titan worshipper. Previous books have often placed the titans in a negative light, and this isn't entirely without purpose. The point always has been that the titans could care less about mortal creatures, after all. However, here it helps to explain why just someone would worship these things, and for that matter, just how gaining druidic magic works, to a degree, seeing as how titans completely lacked the ability to grant spells. It takes it from the perspective that people often worshipped some of the harsher titans in the hopes of averting their presence and keeping them away, and also as a natural extension from emulating the titans in the first place - which is, to a degree, how druids gain their spells. Unlike with a cleric who prays, druids don't ask, they take. By putting themselves into the proper mindset and drawing upon the proper rituals, they draw strength from the land, taking a part of the titans might and making it their own. It shows how even kindly-hearted individuals might offer praise to Chern, titan of sickness and disease, or Mormo, the venomous titan-queen of snakes.
Also, unlike either Divine and the Defeated or the Ghelspad hardcover, when describing the individual titans, this book actually shows an artistic rendition of what each titans symbol looks like, which I found to be a nice little addition.
Last but not least, we get to the gods themselves, champions of the Divine War. Their section in chapter three describes their place in Termana, just how they're worshipped here, what differences exist between Termana and Ghelspad, what type of people worship them and so on. The information is interesting to be sure, but there's not too much new ground here to go over that previous books for the setting hadn't already brought up. It provides the information that clerics of their respective gods need to know, a picture of their holy symbol, and a bit of background for each.
My one complaint about the gods section, however, was that the entry on the forsaken elf god of That Which Abides was left out. It later appears in Chapter Three, under the first forsaken elf nation listed, Ehitovael, but I found this to be a matter of poor organization on the books part. After I had finished reading Chapter Three I immediately began scavenging about through the book to find the entry on That Which Abides which I had been expecting to find listed with the gods. Which is where I should have found it, instead of along with Termana's nations. But so ends chapter two.
Onto Chapter Three. The set up is much the same from the Ghelspad hardcover, with a few exceptions.
First, on top of the listing of the country's name, population, capital, and the like, it also adds in a line on the nations major imports. Nothing too big, but a nice little touch.
Furthermore, it eliminates the section on religion that the Ghelspad hardcover had for each nation. This, I feel, was a mistake, and I noted it immediately after reading the first entry on Azale. As I've said, the settings strongpoint is its religion, and once it begins to stray from that, I feel the setting will slowly fall apart afterwards. In light of the fact that Termana introduces a new religion, that of the Ushada, I thought it to be more, not less, important that each nation have a few paragraphs on just how they worship, as opposed to a few sentences scattered here or there under culture or history or what have you.
Under the geography of each entry, it also adds an EL for the locations listed. This, I also feel, was a mistake. It takes away from some of the player friendliness that the Ghelspad hardcover had, and is also semi-restrictive or just useless to a DM. Either a DM will follow the EL, and try to avoid taking characters of certain level through the area, or a DM will ignore the EL so he can take lower or higher level characters through the area and still give them appropriate challenges without too much over or under-kill. In either case, I found the presence of the EL's to be a bad thing. Just a short little sentence here and there that's easily ignored, but if it's going to be ignored, why bother in the first place? Not to mention, after 100 or so pages of a few extra lines here or there, it's going to add up, and take up some space that could have been better devoted to something else.
One last nit-pick on chapter three before I go full-fledged into it - Ehitovael (again) mentions forsaken elf monks who can freely multiclass as clerics of their lost demigod. While I read this to mean that there are Chaotic monks of That Which Abides, as I place their faith in their god above their monk training, it doesn't specifically say this. Seeing as how being a monk and a cleric of the forsaken elf deity are normally antithetical to one another, it should have stated which side was favored here. The Chaotic or Lawful. Just to finish up with Ehitovael all around, I found, while certainly enjoyable, that it was done rather sloppily in places, such as with the monks, or the placement of That Which Abides details within its entry instead of with the gods, as well as with the section on the underwater docks which magically transported ships to the surface via a series of locks. What kind of locks? Airlocks or some such? Did I just miss something there? Other than the fact that the ships would be better placed on the water as opposed to under?
Again, organization, by the by...chapter three has a few new special materials presented within it, as well as a few feats. These may have been better put into the appendix. For those curious, many of the new materials and feats relate to psionics in some way. As such, they did little to draw my interest.
Now that I've trudged through all that, onto my over-all thoughts on the chapter and its nations.
Over all they're enjoyable. I was particularly looking foreward to reading about the forsaken elf nations in greater detail, and was more or less pleased, but for a few points I already brought up. From the decadent, heretical Pelegaeleans, the noble, seafaring Ehitovaleans, the isolationistic, primal Ganjulaeleans, the stoic, militaristic natives of the Shield Realm, and the dark-natured, demon-dealing, high magi of Kasiavael, there's a little something in each forsaken elf nation to please most everyone, to make each one stand apart, and for each one to still meld and blend into the forsaken elf culture as a whole.
Conversely, the part on the Charduni Empire did little to excite me. Whereas Calastia compels, the Charduni just made me roll my eyes. War goats? Deity level protection? WAR GOATS?!
All right, maybe the reaction to the war goats was a bit much. Really, though. Come on. War goats.
The remainder of the nations, those of the humans (more or less), caught my interest to varying degrees. Of particular note were Virduk's Promise, as any extension of Calastia is going to catch my interest, the Silver Isle, both for the distaste it drew from me and my general enjoyment of paladins and all things holy (making for an odd sort of mix in this case), and, above the rest, the Gray Isle.
Of all the nations described in this book, I believe the one on the Gray Isle was perhaps the best. I read it over and said to myself..."Wow. I want to run a game there. Or have a character come from there." It's good. It's interesting. Formerly known as the jewel of Termana, Taeireon, waypost between Termana and Ghelspad, it was eventually betrayed due to its better nature, and has grown to become a gray and harsh land. Despite all this, though, the land maintains a strong sense of morality and sense of self, embodying, in my mind, an aspect of Chaotic Neutral that transcends the idea of the alignment being little more than evil-lite or the morality of the mad. "My will is my own, as your will is yours." For all the mindless, superficial, almost goofy high fantasy that the Charduni Empire entry spat out at me, the Gray Isle proved a most welcome, thought provoking contrast. It's a gritty, dangerous place, with its own deep seated sense of morality that isn't readily apparent. It really helped to overcome some of the flaws I saw in the book.
Now, no city-states this time around - perhaps intentional, but as this review may have insinuated, I think less thought and love went into this book than did the Ghelspad hardcover (though, in all fairness to the authors, it may just be because Ghelspad's hard to beat). So now we find ourselves in Chapter Four, with the other locations of Termana. This section covers those wild and savage regions of the land, or just those that don't quite follow the standard form of organization of a nation. Such as, say, the Blood Bayou, which is run by a carnival more than it is a government in the standard sense of the word. Outsiders, lepers, undead, krakens and all sorts of other fell beasts make up the Carnival Krewe, the court of the Jack of Tears. Then there's also the Isle of the Dead, which saps the life of all creatures who draw too close and is home to all sorts of undead creatures, amongst them the Ghoul King, who is thought to potentially be the avatar of a god himself, that of Otossal the Bonemaster. Let's not forget that island smack dab in the middle of Termana, the Eternal Isle, where high elven archmages, untouched by the Curse of Chern, not knowing that their god died 150 years ago, wage a war against a massive army of demons, both sides cut off from the world at large due to powerful, epic magics that prevent anyone from leaving or entering the isle by any means. These are just some of the chief, most interesting locations. This chapter also goes into the various, more natural places of Termana, such as the Gamulganjus, home of Scarn's gnomes, as well as the cat-people, the Ushada-worshipping terali. Not to mention the Tepuje cities located in the Gamulganjus, where psions dwell and rule alongside druids and sorcerers. The Titansforge Mountains, where Golthagga the titan of the forge supposedly was smote down by Corean, his godly counterpart, also exist in Termana. As is only appropriate to a land frequented by an individual known as the Shaper, located within these mountains is a place known as the Hills of Change, where those who spend at least a week there have the possibility of warped into another creature as if reincarnated, which could make for an interesting plotline or just story for the heroes to hear around a campfire.
We finally near the end of our journey, and the book, with the appendix. Another change taken from the Ghelspad hardcover would be a slight increase in how many pages are devoted to new rules and mechanics. Whereas the Ghelspad hardcover gave about 20 pages to prestige classes, the Termana hardcover gives about 25, including the various new feats and special materials presented in chapter three. It offers up 7 new prestige classes, 15 new totem feats (first introduced in the Player's Guide to Fighters and Barbarians, I do believe, but quite appropriate to the Ushadan faith), and a few new poisons. One can only possess one totem feat, and a character can only use it a certain number of times per day. Furthermore, each totem has a taboo that the character must follow or lose the patronage of the totem. While some of the totem feats do offer rather attractive benefits, that they require a standard action to activate balances out some of the better ones, and keeps them on par for those that needn't be used during combat (and arguably aren't as useful due to that). As for the poisons, well, they did little to catch my eye, though a few have uses outside of just being poison, which I find to be a plus, and that they were given more than a little thought.
Prestige classes, though? They lacked some of the flavor of those in the Ghelspad hardcover, for one. The only one I really liked was the High Magus, and even then, I'm under the impression it's broken. Not to mention that the way it's written, it leaves a few things unclear. For example, it's dual specialty - what it does is that it allows a High Magus to memorize either an Abjuration or an Illusion spell in the specialty slot of a specialist mage. All right, fair enough. Even those who weren't originally specialists - or who can't be, such as a sorcerer - now can specialize, though in doing so, they have to pick opposition schools. My question is, what about Diviners? Do they have to pick an additional opposition school? I'd assume so, but it should say as such. Also, what happens to spells a magus knows from a school of magic that only just now became an opposing school? Not to mention, does a specialistic Evoker have the option of putting in an Abjuration, Evocation or Illusion spell in the specialty slot, or just an Illusion or Abjuration spell now? The way it's worded, it leaves the answers to all these questions unclear.
Then again, if you're buying Sword and Sorcery books for the solid, well-written mechanics, well...to each their own.
Finishing details...
Artwork: Ho boy...the forsaken elf pictures. The omnipresent half-elf toiling away while the forsaken elves play is all too appropriate. I believe it was Beth Trott who drew most of them up, and I have to say, nice work. I especially liked the Ehitovaelean sailor and his snazzy coat. They were easily the best pieces of artwork in the entire book, followed up by the work John Bridges did for the prestige classes (the High Magus in particular). Whoever did the bear and North Crilosians also deserves a nod. As for the rest, adequate to eh...Nate Pride in particular disappointed, especially when it came to the task of drawing elves.
Maps: There are a few, but only a few, at least when it comes to particularly helpful ones. Most just show a close up of the nation, without much detail beyond that. Not very helpful, in my opinion - those that just show a close up of a region, as opposed to a city, show nothing that the main maps don't. Also, the black and white map in the interior isn't as Xerox friendly as the one from Ghelspad - it lacks the white space around the edges that make the one in Ghelspad easy to make a complete copy of without cutting off or blurring parts in the middle.
The book is also closer in both size and price to what one might expect of a hardcover d20 book. $30 for a 220 page hardcover with black and white artwork. This is about 30 pages less and $5 more than the Ghelspad hardcover. The RPG industry needs to make what money it can, and I'll assume that S&SS didn't just arbitrarily do this, but it's still rather disappointing. More so for the fact that Termana is also a weaker book than Ghelspad.
Now, I realize I may have been particularly harsh in my criticism of this book at times, but I really and truly enjoyed it. I had some obvious biases against it that I addressed, but even with those, I still found it worth my money, a good read, and a definitely solid addition to my Scarred Lands collection. I'll probably be making extensive use of it in games to come, and was left brimming with new character and campaign ideas from it (in particular from the forsaken elf realms and the Gray Isle). For all its various faults and foibles, it's still a worthy book, and as a mechanics-light, setting heavy book, it plays up to Sword and Sorcery Studios strengths, which would be its interesting and excellent writing. I would readily recommend it to anyone who enjoys the Scarred Lands, and in fact, might place it before Ghelspad if I knew you to be a fan of psionics. For those not familiar with the setting, it's also not the worst of places to start looking into it, and has enough information in it that it can almost stand on its own. In fact, with less of an emphasis on ratmen and asaatthi, and more of one on centaurs, gnolls, lamia and yuani-ti, I'd say it stands more on its own then Ghelspad does. While the forsaken elves and charduni do differ from the standard Player's Handbook elves and dwarves, they're not so different that you couldn't just use the standard elves and dwarves in their place.
It may not be quite as good a book as Ghelspad, but it doesn't fall too short, particularly if you're not as biased against psionics as I am.
