Scarred Lands: Ghelspad Worth It?

[godfear]

What they said, and then:

The world is dark and dangerous. The good, the bad, and the "oh-my-god-what-happened-to-your-face" are all thrown in the mix in a very interesting way. All of the support books that I've picked up (that would be all except Wilderness & Wastelands) have been a wealth of useful information (both crunchy and fluffy). And there is even a whole city-state of neutral scientifically-minded necromancers. Too cool. I'm about to start up my first Ghelspad campaign, and my players are all anticipating a good run.

 

[teitan]

It is very worth it for 25 dollrs, and be prepared to spend money on the Creature Collections, Relics & Ritual, and Divine & The Defeated. All the hardbacks are excellent quality and worth the relatively small price of admission. The Ghelspad book refers to these books a lot, NPCs have Prestige Classes from these books and Domains from them as well.

If you want to start with a basic Ghelspad campaign just to test the waters though, without throwing money at the hardbacks, pick up the DM's Screen and Ghelspad Gazeteer. WHite Wolf has a deal on them for 10 bucks plus shipping and it is very worth it. Just add the fiendish Template to creatures to add a little bit of flavor to them for an SL campaign. See how your players like it and take it from there.

The Hardback is great though and definitely worth it.

Jason

 

[Warchild]

I would suggest getting the smaller $10 gazetteer. If you generally are a homebrewer and used to doing your thing, than that book will be perfect. It gives you the low down on the basics of the setting, history, the political players. But its just the basics from which you can create your own Scarred Lands. Thats what worked for me.
Although at the time it was more of a necessity than a choice...it was the only setting book out for SL. After a while of being left to my own devices....i didn't need any other books.

 

[Nightfall]

Chardun smite thee Infidel! *is kidding* Hey War. So what you don't wanna join us in the madness then is that it?

 

[warpmind]

There's a thing that no one has said yet. And it would be hard for you (because of your nickname): There are no GNOMES.



...


¿Still alive? Well, if you can live with that then I strongly recomend you buying the hardcover. It's a very good book decribing a very good world. If I were you I wouldn't buy the paperback Gazetteer, because all the information there is covered and extended in the hardcover.

 

[Nightfall]

Uhm warp there ARE gnomes...but the thing is they aren't NATIVE to Ghelspad. It's like expecting someone in the Dalelands to know who Ubatu is. (BESIDES ELMINSTER!) Gnomes just don't want to leave Termana at this point.

 

[Wolfen Priest]

Trust me, the gnomes thing is no biggie. I have a player playing a gnome (he really loves his character) in the SL. He came from a very small woodland settlement in Darakeene. Most people assume he's a halfling.

You can run the world with gnomes in it; it just helps to make them very rare. (Although I don't really get why they omitted gnomes...)

 

[Nightfall]

Wolfen my friend,

My understanding was they were trying to work up a good treatment for the gnomes and not make them appear like this tinker gnomes that some people confuse them with. Thus they are more...wild and primative in terms of culture and cilvization. But they probably have a higher percentage of natural sorcerers than other PHB races in the SL. At least that's what I THINK they are doing. I don't have Termana so I can't answer that with any great certainty. Just seems to make the most sense since I believe they will be worshipper of "spirits" as well Titans, whom they refer to as "The Great Ones".

 

[warpmind]

The point is that they don't appear in the hardcover. Sure they'll be described in Termana and sure you can play them if you want (as if you want to play a lemming, the DM decides), but there's still no mention of them in the hardcover and you don't know how will them be in this setting.

 

[Nightfall]

True but you'll notice it read SLCS: GHELSPAD, not TERMANA. Thus I'd imagine that the Gaz and/or SLCS: Termana might deal with such issues, warp.

As for how I think they'd react, probably some fear and intimadation. Also others would probably consider them titanspawn. Their culture is pretty Neo-Lithic, and certain far removed from the Neo-Middle Age/Renessance(sp) type of cultures you'd see in Ghelspad and else where.

As for how I know they will act, well I wish Joseph was here BUT he wrote an EXCELLENT opening piece that discusses a Calastian Explorer's account of the encounter between his party and that of some gnomes. I also know that gnomes have a great hatred of Charduni, since they are responsible for much of the slave trade in that part of the world.