Sovereign Magic - Mastery of the Land
By Adrian Bott
Mongoose Publishing product number MGP 1022
64 pages, $14.95
Sovereign Magic is the latest in the "Encyclopaedia Arcane" line of books, and it fits in very nicely with another of author Adrian Bott's Mongoose works:
Book of Strongholds and Dynasties. This book looks at a hitherto-unexplored branch of arcane magic, wherein a wizard (or sorcerer) invests part of his soul into the very land itself, gaining all kinds of new powers and magical abilities after having done so. As far as "Encyclopaedia Arcane" volumes go, this one is definitely on the high-level end of the scale.
The cover is by Vincent Hie and depicts two wizards fighting each other with staff and spell, one dressed in green robes and the other in purple. The green-garbed wizard is almost stereotypically "Gandalf-y" or "Elminster-esque" (if I can be excused for making up two words), with the flowing gray/white beard and the floppy-brimmed, pointed hat. The purple-garbled wizard is more "Ming the Merciless-ish," with his evil-looking bald pate and goatee combo. Coloration and detail are both good, with natural-looking body proportions and a nice job on the robe wrinkles.
The inside front cover is also a full-color piece of (unsigned) artwork, this one of a shirtless male wizard in tight, low-cut pants, summoning some bad weather over the mountains. (Apparently this "beefcake" art should help balance out all of the "cheesecake" art in past Mongoose books.) The artist did a nice job on the guy's musculature and the mountains in the background, although the reddish storm clouds all seem a bit too much the same, and the wizard's hair and lightning energy around his hands seem a bit too stylized. Still and all, it's a nice bit of artwork, and I'm glad to see a return to the inner front cover art pieces in "Encyclopaedia Arcanes." (The back inside cover is an ad for
Dragon and
Dungeon magazines.)
Interior art this time around consists of 22 black-and-white illustrations by 5 different artists: Brent Chumley, Anthea Dilly, Tony Parker, Phil Renne, and Alejandro Villen, all of whom I believe have contributed artwork to Mongoose books in the past. Many of these pieces are very nice, although some (like Phil's muscled Aztec facing a couatl on page 40) seem unfinished. I particularly liked the angry treant on page 25 (I think those are Alejandro's initials beside it) and the armored mermaid on page (with the same initials). The scantily-clad woman on page 8 has a distinct "Frank Frazetta" look to it, and is also a nice piece of art. Phil Renne does some really good faces, too -- although I'd like to punch the smug look off of the regal-looking guy on page 16, and the young lady on page 12 looks like she's much too young to be worrying about sovereign magic herself any time soon. (From the worried look on her face, I think she knows it, too!)
Sovereign Magic is broken up into the following chapters:
- Introduction: explaining the "Encyclopaedia Arcane" line and what this book is all about
- Sovereign Magic - An Overview: the different types of sovereign territory and the 20-level Sovereign Mage prestige class (note that this will normally take the wizard or sorcerer into Epic Levels, although the mechanics of this prestige class are different than any other I've ever seen; more on that later)
- Becoming a Sovereign Mage: the sovereign mage's persona, choosing foundation territory (the "heart" of his sovereign land), oppression vs. protection vs. coexistence with those living on the sovereign mage's lands, strongholds, and announcing your sovereign mage status to those on your land
- Establishing & Expanding Territory: the landsoul (the spirit of a given land, existing on its own private sub-plane), territory sizes, land spirits (who live on the landsoul), placing shards (kind of like "planting the flag" to gain territory), anchors (which restrict access to the landsoul), the 11 different land types, sensors, and the two main sovereign magic spells: landsoul gate and create/boost power shard
- The Powers of Sovereign Land: the six different powers each land type provides the sovereign mage
- Allies: roving observers, helpmeets, pawns and ancillaries, servitors, and another spell: full possession
- Sovereign Spell Use: targeting arcane spells over distance and 35 territory spells
- Mage Wars: allegiances, attacking another sovereign mage's territory, and another spell: disrupt power shard
- Help for Games Masters: using sovereign mages as patrons, enemies, or PCs
- Designer's Notes: Adrian's thoughts on how much fun he had writing this book
Editing and proofreading (by Ian Belcher and Ben Hesketh, respectively), weren't too bad this time: there were many different kinds of errors, but few instances of each error type. For instance, there were only two sentences with double periods, one short section that didn't have spell names italicized, one instance of two words being squooshed together ("bewithin"), one major misspelling of a D&D term ("heiracosphinx" should be "hieracosphinx"), and one case of pre-3.5ism (a reference is made to the "beast" creature type). Most of the errors ended up being either a missing word or an extra word that didn't belong there (or occasionally more than one word, as in the case of the phrase "with the target with the target"). There was also a noticeable omission of one of the 11 different land types - mountains - on the "Suggested Chief Spirits" chart on page 14. All in all, it looks like some extra attention should have been paid to this part of the book's production.
The writing and concepts are both strong, and I think Adrian's familiarity with similar concepts (having just finished writing
The Book of Strongholds and Dynasties, which dovetails rather nicely with this book) helped him out a lot here. Sovereign magic is a fascinating concept, and one that is seen over and over again (while not necessarily given that term) in fantasy fiction, in the personas of none less than Merlin and Gandalf. The fact that I've never seen (or heard of) a book dealing with this topic means that Adrian was breaking entirely new ground with
Sovereign Magic, and that's something I'm always glad to see.
The Sovereign Mage prestige class uses an entirely new method of leveling up, one I was both surprised to see and yet pleased that it was done this way. Basically, to become a sovereign mage, you have to already be able to cast 9th-level arcane spells, so that means being a 17th-level wizard (or 18th-level sorcerer) just to be able to
start down the road of sovereign magic! Rather than tying the rules base into Epic Level rules (which not all people like, myself included), Adrian made the 20 levels of the Sovereign Mage prestige class independent of experience points. That's right, once you become a Sovereign Mage, you don't gain new Sovereign Mage levels by gaining experience points, you do so by taking over new sovereign lands. This is a novel, and very welcome, approach. Furthermore, gaining a level of Sovereign Mage does not gain you any skill points, nor are there any class skills for being a Sovereign Mage. To quote straight from the book,
Sovereign mage "levels" are really just a convenient way of keeping track of the mage's fluctuating power as determined by the shifting boundaries of his domain. Yes, that means that you can lose levels in this prestige class as easily as you can gain them, especially if you're caught up in a "mage war" with an enemy sovereign mage! (In many ways, this book reminds me a lot of the "Risk" board game.) In any case, I find this whole "prestige class that breaks all the standard rules of prestige classes" to be a very cool concept, and I'm really glad that Adrian plotted this out this way.
Another paradigm-shattering concept is that territory spells - specific spells gained through having various types of sovereign land (whether it be city, desert, forest, hills, ice waste, jungle, mountains, plains, river/lake, sea, or swamp) - range from 6th-level spells to 9th-level spells. That's right, there's nothing "trivial" about sovereign magic; this is powerful stuff we're dealing with! I particularly like the whole "distance casting" concept, whereby a sovereign mage can cast a normal spell from within his domain and have it affect another part of his domain even if it's miles away! Imagine casting
lightning bolts down upon invading armies when they're still a dozen miles from your stronghold. I particularly like the fact that this distance casting must be done outdoors, or at least in the open air. Adrian has developed a whole "open arc between mage and victim" rule to explain the logic behind this, but what it really does is perfectly capture the mood of many established fantasy scenes (and explains wizards' frequent penchant for living in tall towers, to boot!).
Sovereign Magic probably isn't for everyone; some people just aren't that comfortable playing at the higher levels, and many really don't like the Epic Level rules that "kick in" after level 20, but just about any DM can get something from this book, even if it's just a campaign villain. (Evil sovereign mages make excellent long-term foes, well worth devoting an entire campaign against.) The rules are a fresh way of doing things, different from the norm but not too different from the standard d20 rules (not enough to be confusing, in my opinion). Best of all, the rules set up here are not only internally consistent, but they do much to explain why high-powered wizards in fantasy fiction act the way they do. (Why do evil wizards always want to rule huge swaths of land, anyway? Now we know.) I think it's this kind of "behind the scenes" game explanation that makes
Sovereign Magic work so well for me.
Oh, and Adrian's impressive vocabulary hasn't lessened any: with this book, the word that sent me scurrying to the dictionary was "crepuscular." For those (like me) not in the know, it means "dim" or "obscure."
I think
Sovereign Magic is Adrian's strongest work to date. I give it a "5 (Superb)" despite the somewhat frequent proofreading errors.
