The setting set up within the Creature Collection, Relics and Rituals, Divine and the Defeated and a number of other of Sword and Sorcery Studios books sees itself realized and fully born at the last in the Scarred Lands Campaign Setting: Ghelspad.
Many of the places and history which the Scarred Lands books previously teased us with finally find themselves fleshed out in this book, given more detail than its predecessor, the Ghelspad Gazetteer, gave us. For myself, I'd been waiting for a book like this for some time, having picked up the original Creature Collection when it first came out. For all that monster books bugs and problems, I really enjoyed reading about the little tidbits of setting strewn throughout it.
So, with that said, what do I think of the Ghelspad hardcover?
Well, it had very few disappointments to trouble me with, and I enjoyed the vast majority of it. It's all I could have expected out of the book, and a little bit more.
The primary thrust of the Ghelspad hardcover is to describe the various nations and city-states of the continent of Ghelspad, as well as the geography. It does this in excessive detail, taking up over 180 pages of this 250 or so page book. For those looking for new feats, prestige classes, monsters and npc's, this book is not the place to look. The vast majority of this book sets up the flavor of the setting, with very little in the way of new rules or mechanics. Unlike with the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, this book is nearly completely flavor text. So unless you plan on actually playing in the Scarred Lands, this book may not be to your liking. As someone who had been interested in this setting from the beginning, however, this was all I could have hoped for out of their primary setting book - the setting itself, with very little mechanics to get in the way.
It has the almost standard introduction from the developer, and from there, it progresses into chapter one, the history of Ghelspad. Like with any book, I look for something new or different that it adds, and this book starts right into something just like that. It first starts into the prehistory of the Scarred Lands, as told from the perspective of a druid. While the source is a biased, not necessarily correct one, the druid purports that Scarn (the planet upon which Ghelspad rests) once existed in a constant cycle of epochs that were defined by the dominant titan of the time. The titans were deific creatures who were bound to the essence of Scarns soul, gods not empowered by prayer as gods in the traditional D&D sense normally are, but instead, by the very strength of the earth. Bound and representative of the earth that the titans were, the druid claims that when one titan grew more powerful than the rest of its brethren, the world would grow to reflect this. When the titan of disease reigned, the world was blighted with pestilence and plague, whereas when the titan of hunger ruled, many starved and the land was turned into lifeless desert and tundra, bereft of life. This was the way it was for time immemorial, as natural as the changing of the seasons. However, according to the druid, the settings premise - that of the gods overthrowing the titans - has destroyed this cycle, and doomed the world in the process. So long as the titans are held by chains and magic, the Scarred Lands will remain the Scarred Lands, the world's wounds unhealable while those creatures of nature, the titans, are incapacitated.
So already, the book is off to a good start in my opinion.
From there, chapter one continues into the current calendar Ghelspad uses, as well as a few olds ones, and holidays that are currently celebrated. It flows into ancient empires that previously existed upon Ghelspad and what became of them, or how they evolved into the nations that exist now. The writing is interesting and well done, with a mix of relatively standard empires, such as that of Lede - Romanesque, with most of Ghelspad having been underneath its rule before finally falling apart - to the more fantastical nations, such as the sorcerous, fire-wielding Empire of Flame and the empire of the settings warrior/wizard snakemen, the asaatthi, and more besides. After describing the fall of the empire of Lede and the events that transpired around it, it goes into the one event that defines the setting, the Titanswar, or the Divine War, whichever term one prefers to use. It describes the major events of the war that changed the very nature of Scarn itself, that saw the overthrow of the titans and the ascension of their children, the gods. It goes into this only briefly, but satisfactorily, drawing us past the Titanswar, into the wars and cataclysms that followed, and finally, into the events of the present day. Chapter one ends on a few plot hooks for players or the DM to follow up on, and a couple of pages on language which help to further give detail and depth to the Scarred Lands.
With the history out of the way, chapter two takes us into the deities of the Scarred Lands. It's all fairly basic stuff. A little bit of background on each of the major gods who represent each alignment (except True Neutral) and titans, as well as all the pertinent statistics a PC would need to know if they're going to worship one of the gods (though not the titans; these are worshipped by druids, not clerics, and as such, are only detailed with background information). Gods alignment, their holy symbol (with a picture of each, which I thought was nice), favored weapon and their domains. Furthermore, it also adds godly invocations into the information presented. These are prayers that one can make to the gods for varying effects, such as bonuses to skills or saving throws. A few are rather powerful, such as Vangal's, who allows those who pray to him to better penetrate damage reduction, but for the most part, as invocations take one full round to enact, they're not too unbalancing, and add some flavor to the game.
Chapter three starts into the meat of the book, the nations. 17 total, unless I missed my count, with about 4-5 pages devoted to each, along with a piece of artwork to give one a sense of what the people typically look like. Some of them draw directly upon cultures that existed at one point in our own world, such as the very British Isles-like Darakeene, which goes so far as to have a red-haired ethnic group known as the Keltai, to those with no particular analog, like the country of the Gleaming Valley, which is nearly completely populated by Hollow Knights, which are suits of armor imbued with and animated by the souls of warriors. While I personally wasn't overly enthused by the entry on the Gleaming Valley, I was otherwise quite pleased with this chapter. While some might claim they want their fantasy to step aside from the real world, I find that many people, myself included, find inspiration from tales of Nordic warriors, or Celtic bards, and this chapter provides an ample number of places that just such a character could come from, while still maintaining enough distance from the real world that neither the DM nor players needs to stick strictly to it. It was both familiar and different at the same time.
Each nation begins with its full name, the population and percentage each race makes up of it, the government (monarchy, council of elders, etc), its current ruler or rulers (along with the rulers race, class, level, and alignment), the capital and its population, the major cities and their population, the major languages spoken there, the official religion or religions, the currency (if any; some rely on the barter system), the resources of the nation (lumber, grains, that sort of thing), the countries allies, and the countries enemies. Minor little things that help set one country apart from another, each taking up all of about one line each. Longer descriptions are then provided for the nations history, its geography, the flora and fauna, people, potentially most important to the PC's - the crimes and punishments for each land, the religion, armed forces, and usually a brief description of the capital city and a few of the other major cities. All the things that keep one place from looking just like the last one the party visited. While reading through all of the entries in one sitting may be a bit much, the information is immensely helpful in establishing the mindset and mood of each region, or just what one might find there. I did take some issue with the stats on each ruler, brief though they may have been, as other than that, this is a very player friendly book, that doesn't reveal much that a character wouldn't conceivably know (or be able to find out without too much difficulty).
Chapter four brings us to the city-states of Ghelspad, and where the nations were often influenced by the real world, the city-states take a different approach. From the dwarven citadel of Burok Torn and the moving city of dark elves and golems it wars with, Dier Drendal, to the rival cities of necromancers, Hollowfaust and Glivid Autel, the city-states are of a decidly more fantastical nature. They seem to exist as city-states for the simple fact that they were too unique and had too much personality to exist within the confines of any country. Even some of the more "mundane" cities, such as the holy city of Hedrad, are entities all their own, each easily worth their own entry in the book. The only entry that drew my ire was the write-up on Lokil, but other than that, the city-states proved to be engaging, rife with plot points just waiting to be let loose into a game, or to provide motivation for a character. Whether a player wants a home for their paladin in the city of Mithril, or a DM wants to take the party on an Indiana Jones like adventure in a place such as the Lost City of the Asaatthi, there's bound to be something to catch your interest.
Just like with the nations, each city-state is organized with the name, population, ruler, and so on, as well as a few paragraphs on the history, people, culture and everything else.
Chapter five is all about the uncivilized, the unsettled, the wilder parts of Ghelspad, taking a step away from the cities and countries and taking us into the actual geography of the place. It's a collection of lakes and savannah's, forests and seas. The organization of each locale isn't quite so uniform as the past two chapters, but this is because, in part, there are only varying degrees of living things in each. Some locations list the population, languages, religions and resources, others do not. Most, at the least though, describe the history, geography and flora and fauna of each place, all those untamed things that have little to do with whether or not people actually live there. Not all are as inhospitable as the Hornsaw Forest, where the titan, Mormo, was taken down and her blood spilled upon the once pure Broadreach forest, or the festering, disease-ridden Mourning Marshes under which the titan Chern is supposedly buried, but there's very little in the way of centralized government in any of these places. These are the homes of barbarians and orcs, druids and outcasts.
Chapter six is rather an extension of chapter five, continuing in the geographical bent of things. However, unlike chapter five, the descriptions are very short, usually little more than half a page at most, some no more than a paragraph. Not quite as varied in their geography or people as other places, these fill in all the little holes leftover from the previous chapters, the geographic oddities that were worth an entry, but not quite a page or two all on their own. Some are also left fairly short to continue in the more or less player friendly vein the book mostly stuck to, giving a DM a plot hook to work with and detail on their own without the players knowing too much about it. Some of the more notable entries would be the Godsface Cliffs, an outcropping overlooking the Blood Sea that bears a likeness to the face of each of the eight major gods, and the Wall of Bones, a manmade barrier made completely out of bone surrounding the nation of Dunahnae's eastern front.
The book ends in its appendix with that almost required addition to any d20 book, the prestige classes. Eight in total, a few detail organizations mentioned in previous Scarred Lands products or in the Ghelspad hardcover itself, whereas a few more introduce a new group along with the prestige class. While most are fairly interesting and flavorful, only two of them had nothing to do with the gods Corean or Madriel. Furthermore, of those six related to Corean or Madriel, three of them were strongly oriented towards paladins. I would have appreciated a bit more diversity. While it is one of the Corean related prestige classes, I particularly liked the Forgemaster. It's not the sort of thing any players are likely to take, or that many DM's might use, but I found the idea of a Commoner or Expert-based prestige class centering around being a devout blacksmith of the forge god, Corean, to be an appealing one. The requirements are simply to be Lawful Good and have Craft (Weaponsmith) at 8 ranks, but the abilities aren't particularly grand, unless you're coming from the likes of level 5 Commoners and Experts. The rest of the prestige classes are more PC friendly, and as I said, all fairly interesting (I could do without the Brother of the Scarred Hand, but I don't like monks outside of specifically Oriental-themed settings, anyway).
That's just from the perspective of flavor, however. Rules-wise, Sword and Sorcery Studios suffers from an ability to balance out their mechanics. The Keeper of the Eternal Flame, for example, has relatively minimal requirements (Concentration 5 ranks, Heal 5 ranks, Knowledge (Religion) 8 ranks, and a few other minor details) yet takes away nothing from the cleric class that naturally progresses out from it. No hitpoint loss, same base attack bonus progression, good Fortitude and Will saves, full spellcasting progression and even full turning progression. Plus all the special abilities that it adds onto the class. The rest of the prestige classes aren't quite so clear-cut in how balanced or imbalanced they are, but it's something to keep in mind before using one.
Over-all, as I said, I found the Scarred Lands Campaign Setting: Ghelspad, to be a very player friendly book. Anyone actually running a game in the Scarred Lands setting will almost certainly need this book (though with the recent release of the Scarred Lands Campaign Setting: Termana, that need is diminished, and the Ghelspad Gazetteer has enough for a DM as well), but there's very little in it that a DM needs to worry about the players reading. The only stats given are minimal at best, and the book gives away very few secrets or details that most characters in the setting wouldn't or couldn't know (with the notable exception of details on the forgotten titan, Gulaben - but almost every Scarred Lands book does that).
The artwork itself is very satisfactory, and the cover is just beautiful. Sure, it's just the map of Ghelspad, but it really does look gorgeous. I don't believe there was an piece of artwork inside it that I didn't like, either (the picture of the giant druid casting frog tongue didn't exactly enthuse me, however). Even some of the artists whose work I generally find can be rather weak, such as Nate Pride or Tim Truman, really did a good job of what they had in here. It's all in black and white, mind you, but Josh Timbrook's picture for Lageni and the pieces Mark Smylie did for the prestige classes really are wonderful (I've always been a fan of Josh Timbrook's, and I've said this before, but damn can Mark Smylie draw plate mail!).
Price-wise, well, let me say, I think you'll find few hardcover books this good, with this many pages, with this quality artwork, for this price these days. Unless it's been hiked up since I first bought it, it goes for all of $25, for a 250 page hardcover book (Note: Just realized that this site says it's 224. Being that I'm looking at it now, the site is wrong - even discounting the two page map, introduction, table of contents, index and the like, it still runs about 240 pages). No, the artwork isn't in color, but it's also of greater length than the slightly more expensive, still in black and white Ravenloft Campaign Setting, and vastly less expensive than either the Dragonlance Campaign Setting or the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. While picking up the Creature Collection Revised is suggested for running a Scarred Lands game, as many of the monsters mentioned within the Ghelspad hardcover are described there, thus diminishing some of the value one gets out of this books price, one could still run a Scarred Lands game based on this book alone and get across the proper feel of the setting.
While the setting itself isn't quite as different or out there as, say, Planescape or Midnight, I will say that of relatively mainstream settings, the Scarred Lands is possibly the most unique, and furthermore, best developed for third edition. The Ghelspad hardcover offers up a pantheon and continent that work together, that blend and meld into one another, that aren't just a patchwork of gods and countries. As a setting made for third edition Dungeons and Dragons, as opposed to second or first such as with the Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk, the Scarred Lands also better integrates many of the edition changes made between second and third edition, instead of backtracking like other settings have. The book does have a few small minor issues; it fails to detail a few new Clerical domains shown in it, and doesn't describe the Arcane Heat effect which is referred to frequently in other Scarred Lands books (this one included, though it does offer up a page reference to Relics and Rituals), amongst a few other things, but, for the most part, the Ghelspad hardcover is a well-written, well-organized, interesting book, the setting easily the rival of any out there, and both better priced and supported to boot.
