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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 2688367" data-attributes="member: 172">[imager]http://www.badaxegames.com/mm/images/products/slavelords_of_cydonia/photo_slave_lords.jpg[/imager]Slavelords of Cydonia is an adventure sourcebook, principally written for Grim Tales, but with adaptation notes allowing it to be used in other games. The adventure concerns the players struggling against the lethid, Grim Tales’ take on the aboleth and related psionic creatures, against the backdrop of a Barsoom-like fantasized version of Mars. The book is written by Benjamin Durbin and published by Bad Axe Games.A First LookSlavelords of Cydonia is a 240 page hardcover book available with an MSRP of $34.95.The cover of the book, by Ken Kelly, has a somewhat Frazatta-like style to it, and features a warrior amongst a trio of panthers with a reddish-orange backdrop.The interior is black-and-white, and features artwork by Andrew Hale, Peter Johnston, John Moriarty, Claudio Muniz, Scott Purdy, and Chad Sergesketter. The artwork is a mixture of line art and detailed shaded grayscale art. The work is competent, and I particularly like Purdy’s exotic style. The book as a whole is a little light on artwork and comes across a bit dry in presentation.A Deeper Look(Spoiler warning: this section reveals some content of the adventures within the book. Potential players read at the peril of their own fun.)Slavelords of Cydonia is nominally separated into two major sections, the campaign (the first five “books” containing the various adventures in the game, as a whole designed to take characters from levels 1-20) and the sourcebook (the appendices, describing world elements of Cydonia, such the reptilian sli’ess, the horrifying lethid, a mass combat system, Cydonian creatures, stat blocks, and technology.)Some may recognize the term Cydonia as referring to a region of Mars that is accorded much attention in UFO lore, so the reference to Mars may be obvious. But the world of Cydonia is made to resemble a much different Mars, that of the pulp era Mars popularized by Burroughs’ John Carter series of books. For those not familiar, these books are a classic in the “planetary romance” genre, wherein transporting a hero from the mundane world to the fantastic is pretty much the norm.This technique sees immediate use in the book. As fans should know, Grim Tales is not anchored to a specific time period, but allows the GM to run games from a variety of eras. Which era the characters hail from is sort of irrelevant, however, as they will soon be transplanted to the pulp-like majesty of the world of Cydonia. The introduction section provides a variety of introduction sequences for the campaign depending on the major choices available in Grim Tales (and easily adaptable to other d20 games as well.)The progress of the campaign as presented has the PCs being captured and enslaved by the reptilian Sli’ess, where they enjoy some gladiatorial action. In the meantime, when the lethid discover that the “gateway” network that transported the PCs there is now open, they take steps to enslave or eliminate the sli’ess. It’s a rollicking planetary romance ride, with the players struggling against the lethid as well as getting embroiled in sli’ess politics (and becoming the target of it.)The style and presentation of the campaign is somewhat of a departure from the norm. Instead of being thoroughly scripted and every event laid out for you, each section and adventure is written in more of an outline format. The format specifies such things as major players, events, and facts pertinent to the situation, as well as conditions that the adventure depends on.This does present a challenge for those who would use the product. It requires a lot of design thought and management on the part of the GM. That said, not only does this not daunt me, I find the approach rather appealing. I find that adventures often go off the beaten path anyways, and it seems better to me to minimize the amount of material that is easily invalidated by the sheer randomness of player actions. All that you really need to do is try to manage around the key points of the adventures, and unlike so many more verbose adventure products, those are laid out clearly for you.Another inclusion that makes Slavelords of Cydonia very flexible is the adaptation section at the end of each book. These provide guidelines for those who wish to adapt the various bookThe mass combat system in the appendices is interesting as well. It is lightweight and abstract. It is built on the CR/EL system, making it possible to pull in troops from a variety of core sources. The system takes into account terrain and strategic conditions, pulling in terms that sound like they were out of Sun Tzu’s Art of War. It is an interesting, easy to use, and compelling take on strategic combat. Incidentally, the author has made the mass combat system available as a download at rpgnow. (<a href="http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=624&products_id=4037&" target="_blank">link</a>)ConclusionsAs mentioned, the biggest hurdle to using this adventure sourcebook is that it puts the onus on the GM to handle the details of the various adventure and make sure everything flows right. Also as mentioned, I don’t consider this a big problem, as I find that you have to rewrite or work around parts of event driven adventures anyways. I see Slavelords of Cydonia as a very lean, meaty product for that.Another obstacle to using the campaign as a whole is that it is a campaign setting spanning 20 levels, and it spans those levels in an alien world, which could make “doing your own thing” difficult. However, the adaptation notes are very friendly making it very practical to use some sections piecemeal.The status of PCs as slaves during much of the adventure can be a boon of a curse. It lends a unique feel to the campaign, but many players would not be tolerant of such a condition. Though the author provides some troubleshooting notes for dealing with this, I still think that a GM should carefully consider whether his group can handle being in such a condition.Though the book was principally written for Grim Tales, I see it as eminently adaptable. Though there are some differences between d20 modern and Grim Tales, I don’t see that you would notice much difference if you used the stat blocks as-is and dropped this book in as a d20 modern/future campaign. It’s a shame that the various d20 Modern product publishers have yet to put out a large adventure arc for the game and that it seems better served by a publisher who was targeting a modestly different audience.It’d be a bit more of a task to run this adventure for D&D or another d20 game, and would require your tolerance for massaging away differences in the way statistics blocks are handled.Overall, Slavelords of Cydonia is a nicely written flexible campaign product with a classic SF feel to it. Grim Tales fans should naturally be on top of the book, but those playing other d20 games who are interested in the classic concept of a habitable mars-like world would do well to consider it as well. I could easily see the campaign starting in book 2 with the crashlanding of a starship (say from Traveller d20 or Dawning Star) on the world, or could see martial arts masters from Blood & Fists competing in the alien arena. Further, the lean, transparent, and adaptable presentation of the adventure should be something that other adventure writers should take note of.Overall Grade: B+ -Alan D. Kohler</blockquote>

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