Ships of the Elves
The second follow on book to Mongoose Publishing's Seas of Blood sourcebook, Ships of the Elves details the vessels made by elves, as well as the history and organization of elven seafarers and new equipment and rules for elven ships.
A First Look
Ships of the Elves is a slender (32-page) staple-bound softcover book, priced at $9.95 US. The cover depicts an elven ship with a giant eagle landing on the deck.
The interior is black-and-white. The art is very good throughout, probably the highest standard I have seen in a Mongoose product to date. The ships are well illustrated and there are also some excellent depictions of seafaring elves by Danilo Moretti (who also does the ships).
The text density is fairly good, with a nice dense typeface, though some of the inline header fonts are a little large. However, the price per page is somewhat high for a product of this size. This may be in part due to the fact that it is imported, but Mongoose’s prices have been fairly efficient with its recent larger books like Seas of Blood.
A Deeper Look
Ships of the Elves is sorted into five sections plus an introductory section. As with many Mongoose books, there are short stories and flavor text interspersed throughout in shaded boxes.
The first real section is entitled elves at sea. The section is mostly exposition and describes the nature of elven sailors as they might exist in a fairly typical fantasy campaign. The section purports that elven sailors might be divided into three distinct groups: merchants, warriors, and explorers. It discusses at length what life might be like in each group. Some of this material is quite fanciful. For example, one explorer group called Vanwanor are said to rarely live in port and make their home on gigantic ships at sea.
The section also discusses the role of giant eagles that it theorizes are allied with elves, and discusses elven magic and weaponry which appear later in the book.
The second section is entitled crew. It briefly discusses the nature of the crew of elven ships, and provides a roster of stock elven crewman similar to the one provided in the Seas of Blood book. The elven sailors are all fairly talented, being at least 2nd level rogues, which I appreciated as it affirms the tone set earlier in the book depicting elves as long-lived and talented sailors. It drives me nuts when a book brags up a race or organization in the exposition and then doesn't back it up in the rules material.
Unfortunately, I consider the elven characters less than optimal, in part stemming from a decision in the Seas of Blood book to make seamanship a knowledge skill, and in part because the author failed to take the "out" that would have made the characters much better at their purpose. Since seamanship is a knowledge skill in Seas of Blood, all the elven rogues have it as a cross class skill, resulting in a rather meager rating in the skill. However, Seas of Blood states that the skill should be treated interchangeable with profession (sailor). Profession is a class skill for rogues. Had the author thought to take the skill level in profession (sailor) instead, they would actually be good at what they do, and their skill levels in sailing/seamanship would be doubled (more than double if you consider that the characters as depicted also have better ability score modifiers for profession than for knowledge.)
The third section is entitled weaponry and introduces new shipboard weapons for elven ships, including the heavy ballista, the fire tower, bound bolts, and naphtha. Bound bolts are magical ballista bolts that can carry an enchantment. Fire towers are basically flamethrowers, which use naphtha. This is very effective in seaborne combat by the rules set out in Seas of Blood, as fire is very hazardous on wooden ships.
The final section is entitled ships of the elves. It leads off with a few new subtypes that apply to elven ships per the Seas of Blood rules. These new enhancements allow such things as magically reinforcing the hull or magical propulsion, achieved by using bound air or water elementals.
The bulk of the book is taken up by the descriptions of the ships themselves. Each ship has Seas of Blood statistic blocks, as well nicely illustrated side views similar to those in Seas of Blood. Most of the vessels have deck plans, save for the largest, the colossal Sea Haven (which I was actually hoping to see… ah well.) The deckplans are all gridded in the standard 1 square = 5 feet scale, but will need to be enlarged if you intend to use minis on a photocopy.
Conclusion
Ships of the Elves has a very tight focus. What it does, it does well, and it is well written and illustrated. However, owing to its tight focus, it is the type of book you will only use once or twice unless your campaign revolves around “tales of the elven armada” or somesuch. The book might have delivered a better value if it were better rounded, perhaps with material like spells, feats, or classes specific to elven seafarers, or perhaps some adventure or campaign ideas to ensure that if you have need for this book, you get a lot out of it. Or perhaps it would have been best to put out a single book to replace the three ship books Mongoose is putting out (this one, Ships of the Goblinoids, and Ships of War), giving seafaring gamers a more economical choice and a product that gamers might get more use out of.
-Alan D. Kohler
