Dr Midnight
Explorer
Care to give me the sales pitch? Tell me!
Scarred Lands
- Thread starter johnsemlak
- Start date
Nightfall
Sage of the Scarred Lands
BronzeDragon said:BTW, Nightey, what's your take on Necropolis? I had the chance to buy it in my local store, but my lack of funds ended up forbidding it. I surely was interested...
Still can't seem to find SLCS over here in Brasil.
Sorry to hear that Bronzey. I'll do a campaign to send you a copy of SLCS.
Necropolis is BIG. I mean BIG. While it's not hard to use, it might a tad difficult to just plop in there. It's HUGE adventure and certainly something to plan for later. So overall I LIKE it. It's got some unique flavor and CERTAINLY I'm glad I added to my reporite. Just be warned, you'll have to know it pretty well to run it JUST right.
Dr Midnight
Explorer
Nightfall said:Listen to me and Horiato. GET BOTH!
I'd love to, but financial restraints and all... I'll get it if I become interested enough.
Sell me on it!
Nightfall
Sage of the Scarred Lands
Alright but you ASKED for it!
SLCS:Ghelspad provides you with a GREAT history as well as info on the gods, the Titans AND the various geographic features of the Scarred Lands. It's probably the most comprehensive guide you could want for understanding and indeed RUNNING the Scarred Lands.
Hollowfaust, is probably one of the BEST detialed cities you could as for. While the map isn't THAT great, the level of detail on the laws, it's citizenry, and indeed the inner workings of the Necromancers/Guilds are probably some of the best done. It's a fresh and appealing approach about how to work both a magocracy as well as having undead/necromancers that are NOT evil. Oh and did I mention it's home to one of the more interesting demi-gods, Nemorga, God of the Dead? Yeah this is kind of the "Vacatn"(sp) for his priesthood.
SLCS:Ghelspad provides you with a GREAT history as well as info on the gods, the Titans AND the various geographic features of the Scarred Lands. It's probably the most comprehensive guide you could want for understanding and indeed RUNNING the Scarred Lands.
Hollowfaust, is probably one of the BEST detialed cities you could as for. While the map isn't THAT great, the level of detail on the laws, it's citizenry, and indeed the inner workings of the Necromancers/Guilds are probably some of the best done. It's a fresh and appealing approach about how to work both a magocracy as well as having undead/necromancers that are NOT evil. Oh and did I mention it's home to one of the more interesting demi-gods, Nemorga, God of the Dead? Yeah this is kind of the "Vacatn"(sp) for his priesthood.
Barastrondo
First Post
Nightfall said:Hey Ethan!
You'd have to ask Joe Carriker. Us writers got done with our obligated tasks some time back.
I certainly hope so. When Joe contacted me to work on the book, I said, "But Joe, wizards are far from my favorite class." He said, "I know; that's why I'm getting you to do it. I figure if you produce work on wizards that you're happy with, it'll have to be pretty engaging."
The fellow knows how to get one motivated. I'm happy with what I did; I hope it pleases.
Doc, on Hollowfaust:
Hollowfaust came to be from a variety of inspirations — the necromantic stories of Clark Ashton Smith, the imagery of a sprawling subterranean Gormenghast, the idea of a fantasy world's "Pompeii" being a nexus for death energies, the image of a cross between Puritan and Vampire Hunter D fashion as a "wizard's uniform" rather than robes and pointy hat, the intellectual puzzle of what a LN magocracy might be like, and the ever-gnawing question of why in the world animating skeletons to fight for you instead of conscripting peasants implied "evil", while dissolving away your foes' flesh with acid or charming a barmaid into being your love slave for an evening is often "neutral" at worst. It's kind of Ray Bradbury's Halloween Tree and "Homecoming" meets the Circle of Eight and your own group's Vek Mormont. Joe Carriker describes the apprentices-level game he runs there as sort of a cross between Harry Potter and the Addams Family, if that makes any sense at all.
If some of this stuff rings a bell or makes you think "heck, that's actually cool-sounding," well, that's what Hollowfaust was all about. If you're not convinced, well, go ahead and get the SLCS. (Then read the Hollowfaust section and see if that wins you over... plug, plug.)
Nightfall
Sage of the Scarred Lands
LOL!@ Ethan's attempt to get more Hollowfaustians under his belt. 
Right well anyway Ethan, I'm sure that if it's HALF as good as the work you did on Hollowfaust, I'm SURE it will be good. I definately am looking forward to this book as much as I am anything else.
Right well anyway Ethan, I'm sure that if it's HALF as good as the work you did on Hollowfaust, I'm SURE it will be good.
I definately am looking forward to this book as much as I am anything else.
Graf
Explorer
(edited with forgotten idea)
In order to sell you we have to know what you want. The Scarred Lands is a more flexible and simpler setting in a lot of ways. There are probably fewer places in the Scarred Lands than most other game worlds you hear a lot about here (Kalamar, FR) but they are more intimately twined together by a complex history.
Partially I think acessablity is a big seller.
The books are written with a common theme, quality is consisent and so is the voice and most of the major themes (though they do like to present an occaisional in character essay that's radically different the one by the titanworshiper in the front of the SLCS).
I think Psion put it best (in a prior responce on a similar thread) when he said: "the same but different"
(massive paraprase occured in the line above)
One of my players was talking about why he liked it yesterday night for dinner and he said something like, "I like that you're heroes because you -need- to be. I like that the world is dangerous and that there are old ruins to be explored because whole civilizations have been destroyed."
(ok its not the best line typed but it sounded pretty good last night with him smacking his hands together and talking about it)
Unlike a lot of other settings SL is also notable for what it doesn't have:
It lacks stuff which could be described as cute (except for a few divine creatures like Tanil's fox, which you're supposed to kill and the moon cat).
It lacks weaker stuff. There are no gnomes (termenia is out there for gnome appeasers but its not part of the Gelspad game), kobolds aren't mentioned.
It lacks stronger stuff: there are no dragons anymore, every town doesn't have its own archmage, you can't really buy magic items (and in my game its hard to sell them preceisly because there's no market for it). NPC levels are such that its possible for the party to interact meaningfully with them.
It's also directly contrary to a couple of big trends we've seen in the last few years:
1. Cool bad guys so PCs can play them as characters (drow, shades, etc.). The bad guys in SL are really bad. They have lots of interesting modivations and complecated relationships. But few people want to play a Slitherin or a Fatling. This gives the setting more of an absolute flavor to it.
2. multitudes of gods, with lots of ranges and poorly defined relationships. I like having a finite number of divine actors with a strong set of history and relationships. SL does this. And they they let to eat the cake too by creating Demi-gods (who, for all practical player purposes are gods) and who sort of muck about and get into trouble and get killed and start insaine cults and so on.
3. the planes. I love planar games and SL doesn't ban the planes. But it also doesn't address them at all. SL doesn't have a great wheel or anything like that. You just go to the realms of the gods if you die. Demons and Devils don't come from archeron or the Abyss. they come from hell and that's that.
I think the "good guys in trouble" & "gritty" stuff from the post above is also pretty good. Its been touched upon in a lot of other posts already though. Other good things:
The greek influence in the game
the "greater threat" of the titans & its effects on the divine relationship
the dead gods stories
the S-------------
built-in psionics
environmental stuff (beyond the ho-hum druid-terrorists who seem to live in every wood in most major settings)
weird post-war roleplaying
Dr Midnight said:
In order to sell you we have to know what you want. The Scarred Lands is a more flexible and simpler setting in a lot of ways. There are probably fewer places in the Scarred Lands than most other game worlds you hear a lot about here (Kalamar, FR) but they are more intimately twined together by a complex history.
Partially I think acessablity is a big seller.
The books are written with a common theme, quality is consisent and so is the voice and most of the major themes (though they do like to present an occaisional in character essay that's radically different the one by the titanworshiper in the front of the SLCS).
I think Psion put it best (in a prior responce on a similar thread) when he said: "the same but different"
(massive paraprase occured in the line above)
One of my players was talking about why he liked it yesterday night for dinner and he said something like, "I like that you're heroes because you -need- to be. I like that the world is dangerous and that there are old ruins to be explored because whole civilizations have been destroyed."
(ok its not the best line typed but it sounded pretty good last night with him smacking his hands together and talking about it)
Unlike a lot of other settings SL is also notable for what it doesn't have:
It lacks stuff which could be described as cute (except for a few divine creatures like Tanil's fox, which you're supposed to kill and the moon cat).
It lacks weaker stuff. There are no gnomes (termenia is out there for gnome appeasers but its not part of the Gelspad game), kobolds aren't mentioned.
It lacks stronger stuff: there are no dragons anymore, every town doesn't have its own archmage, you can't really buy magic items (and in my game its hard to sell them preceisly because there's no market for it). NPC levels are such that its possible for the party to interact meaningfully with them.
It's also directly contrary to a couple of big trends we've seen in the last few years:
1. Cool bad guys so PCs can play them as characters (drow, shades, etc.). The bad guys in SL are really bad. They have lots of interesting modivations and complecated relationships. But few people want to play a Slitherin or a Fatling. This gives the setting more of an absolute flavor to it.
2. multitudes of gods, with lots of ranges and poorly defined relationships. I like having a finite number of divine actors with a strong set of history and relationships. SL does this. And they they let to eat the cake too by creating Demi-gods (who, for all practical player purposes are gods) and who sort of muck about and get into trouble and get killed and start insaine cults and so on.
3. the planes. I love planar games and SL doesn't ban the planes. But it also doesn't address them at all. SL doesn't have a great wheel or anything like that. You just go to the realms of the gods if you die. Demons and Devils don't come from archeron or the Abyss. they come from hell and that's that.
I think the "good guys in trouble" & "gritty" stuff from the post above is also pretty good. Its been touched upon in a lot of other posts already though. Other good things:
The greek influence in the game
the "greater threat" of the titans & its effects on the divine relationship
the dead gods stories
the S-------------
built-in psionics
environmental stuff (beyond the ho-hum druid-terrorists who seem to live in every wood in most major settings)
weird post-war roleplaying
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Nightfall
Sage of the Scarred Lands
Graf said:
It has me!
Or at least they have me as their Pr-guy. Btw grraf, read what some ignieous paladin DID to a vampire lord using Sacred Journey. I have to say I'm impressed.
http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=25798
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Ruined
Explorer
Hey Doc, I'll chime in with a small testimonial:
I was a hardcore Planescape devotee. I could appreciate other fantasy settings, but nothing really drew me in. Even though there was a lot of d20 material out there, no settings truly caught my interest.
I picked up Hollowfaust off of the shelf (mostly due to a cool cover art and an intriguing name). Once I saw the premise, I figured 'hey, I can stand the purchase and it should be some good reading'.
The intricate, well-constructed history of the city itself was worth the purchase of the book. It's not like anything you've seen before.
Next thing you know, I've gotten almost every book in the SL repertoire, and I'm running a campaign using the setting. I say its money well-spent (not to mention the prices are competitive, thanks to their distribution).
I was a hardcore Planescape devotee. I could appreciate other fantasy settings, but nothing really drew me in. Even though there was a lot of d20 material out there, no settings truly caught my interest.
I picked up Hollowfaust off of the shelf (mostly due to a cool cover art and an intriguing name). Once I saw the premise, I figured 'hey, I can stand the purchase and it should be some good reading'.
The intricate, well-constructed history of the city itself was worth the purchase of the book. It's not like anything you've seen before.
Next thing you know, I've gotten almost every book in the SL repertoire, and I'm running a campaign using the setting. I say its money well-spent (not to mention the prices are competitive, thanks to their distribution).
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