The Broken Isles

[John Cooper]

From the creators of the award-nominated Denizens of Avadnu comes the first in-depth look at the world of Violet Dawn. On a group of mysterious islands isolated from the mainland of Kaelandar, primitive humans struggle for survival. They count among their enemies a dangerous and bizarre environment, inhuman slavers from beyond the sea, horrid monsters, buried magic, and–of course–one another. Together with barbarous skarren, moon-blessed zeidians, and adaptive ngakoi, these humans desperately contend with the secrets of their strange land.

The Lorebook of the Broken Isles contains everything a DM needs to begin a Broken Isles campaign. The Lorebook is illustrated in full color and is 39 pages inlength. The PDF is extensively bookmarked for ease of use, and a printer-friendly version is also included. The Lorebook contains the complete history and geography of the Broken Isles, a full-color map, 8 never-before-seen monsters (along withover a dozen monsters adapted from Denizens of Avadnu), and a chapter dedicated to capturing the mood of the isles and ideas on starting a campaign.

The Player's Guide to the Broken Isles contains everything you need to create a character and learn about the various races, tribes, and classes of The Broken Isles. The Player’s Guide is illustrated in full color and is 39 pages in length. The PDF is extensively bookmarked for ease of use, and a printer-friendly version is also included. The Player's Guide contains 3 exciting new PC races, variant rules for the core classes, more then 25 new feats, 20 new pieces of equipment, and new rules for weapons made of inferior materials such as bone, wood, and stone.

The Broken Isles product line is a standalone mini-campaign setting designed to ease players and DMs into the world of Violet Dawn. The Broken Isles is focused on play from 1st to 5th level, building PCs' knowledge and experience until they're prepared to face the wider world of Avadnu (as described in the upcoming Avadnu Primer).

A dedicated website at www.thebrokenisles.com offers additional content such as design notes from the creators, an artwork gallery, pregenerated characters, adventure hooks, maps, and more!

 

[John Cooper]

THE BROKEN ISLES
By Alexander Freed and Jeffrey J. Visgaitis
Inner Circle product number INCBISLBUND
80-page PDF $8.00

The Broken Isles is actually two products in one: a Player's Guide and a Lorebook, each filling in about 39 pages the role of the Player's Handbook and the Dungeon Master's Guide, respectively, for the Violent Dawn campaign world. (This is the campaign world of the excellent Denizens of Avadnu monster book.) Of course, as you might expect given its title, The Broken Isles details only a small chunk of the overall world of Avadnu - specifically, a chain of islands. This product further hones in on character levels of 1-5, so it's intended for low-level play in a Violet Dawn campaign. Since the two PDFs are separate - each with a distinct cover, table of contents, and so on - it only makes sense for me to split my review up into two sections. (Actually, there's also a printer-friendly version of each PDF, without the shaded pages or the interior artwork, so you're really getting two versions of two different PDFs for the same price, plus a player's map and a GM's map as standalone files.)

Player's Guide

The cover depicts a bald, tattooed warrior with a sword in one hand and a dual-bladed forearm shield (called a silithan, as we'll learn in the weapons section) in the other attacking a long-haired enemy. With the yellow, orange, and brown color scheme in the background, and the primitive weapons and armor being used by the figures, this piece has a very strong "Dark Sun" vibe (as does the whole Violet Dawn campaign, from what I've seen of it so far). The painting was done by either Khang Le or Jason Rosenstock; each is listed on both of the credits pages (actually, the credits pages of both PDFs are identical), so it's hard to know who did which piece, or if they collaborated on each. In any case, it's a striking cover.

The interior artwork consists of 13 pieces by any of 12 different artists - again, I'm not sure which artists did which paintings in which of the two PDFs. These are all pretty good, but the illustrations of the new weapons on page 34 and the new armor on page 37 really stuck out in my mind as excellent pieces.

The Player's Guide provides everything you need to run a PC in a Broken Isles campaign. In the first section, four races are detailed: humans (which are further broken down into four distinct tribes), ngakoi (small, three-eyed humanoids who adapt easily to their environment), skarren (savage warriors), and zeidians (somber guardians of humanity). Each race write-up contains details on the physiology, society, religion, race relations, lands, language, and adventurers of the race in question, and the nonhuman races have a racial traits list just like the dwarves and elves have over in the pages of the Player's Handbook. Tables of Random Starting Ages, Aging Effects, and Random Height and Weight round off this section.

The Tribes section covers personality, lands and resources, tribal structure, customs, relations, and typical male and female names of the tribe in question. Each of the four tribes has a different role to play in the game world, which makes for some nice variety.

The Classes chapter gives details about how the standard 11 player character classes work in a Violet Dawn campaign (even if one of them, the cleric, is singled out as not existing on Avadnu!). Since Avadnu has a widely different monster selection than most campaign worlds, there are replacement summon nature's ally spell lists provided.

The Feats chapter provides 5 new general feats, and 3 new feats for each of the nonhuman races and each of the human tribes, for a total of 26. These are perfectly fitting with the generally "savage" game world, and none seemed to stand out as being too overpowered.

The Equipment chapter details the monetary system; details on weapons made of bone, bronze, crystal, steel, stone, and wood; 11 new weapons; 6 new types of armor; 4 new mundane items; and 8 new special/superior items.

The Player's Guide does a good job of giving the players the basic information they need to start up a Violet Dawn PC hailing from the Broken Isles. Proofreading and editing was pretty good, with a couple of points where something got past the editor (Alexander Freed, one of the authors, pulling double duty). Specifically, there was a superfluous dash showing up in a sentence, a missing period from the end of a sentence, an instance of "under" being used when "over" was appropriate, and an awkwardly-worded phrase ("sought out you" instead of "sought you out"). Also, there's an instance where "ability burn" is referred to, but I didn't see an explanation for the term anywhere (in either PDF).

Lorebook

The cover depicts a scimitar-wielding human riding upon a blue-white, saber-toothed jungle cat (called a kehtor). The background is rather reminiscent of a Frazetta painting, very appropriate to the feel of the campaign world.

The interior artwork consists of 22 full-color paintings, up from the 13 of the Player's Guide mostly due to the monster section, where almost every new monster gets an accompanying picture (but not every one - I missed the illustrations of the dharcanen, glamwing, and painted sentry, among others), even if some of them were reprints from Denizens of Avadnu. Some of the best artwork in this PDF consists of landscapes of places in the Broken Isles; the one on page 17 is particularly evocative.

The first chapter, History, gives the GM a breakdown of the Four Ages recognized by each of the four tribes of the Broken Isles. Of course, since most of the islanders have an oral history only (many of them have no formal system of writing), there are differences between each tribes' interpretations, which gives the GM some wiggle room when he decides which way he wants his campaign to go.

Chapter two, Geography, gives details about various places on the islands and the waters that separate them. Many of these details are intriguing, and filled with all kinds of adventure fodder, like the Gray Forest, a constantly-burning, yet never tree-consuming, blaze of what seems to be petrified wood.

The next chapter, Monsters, gives game stats for 20 different creatures of Challenge Ratings ranging from 1/8 to 6, as befits a game product focused on levels 1-5. After that, there were details of six different creatures that are just "tweaked" from existing animals from the Monster Manual. There were a few problems with a couple of the stat blocks, but nothing too bad - mostly size bonuses being forgotten and failing to take speed into account when determining Jump modifiers. For the record, here's my "unofficial errata" section:

• p. 17, Braershoot: Tentacle attacks should be at +1 melee, not +0 (+0 BAB, +1 size, +0 Str). Thorn attacks should be at +3 ranged, not +2 (+0 BAB, +1 size, +2 Dex). Fort should be +4, not +3 (+3 as a 1-HD plant, +1 Con).
• p. 22, Hexachela: Jump should be -4, not +2 (1 rank, +1 Str, -6 speed).
• pp. 22-23, Kehtor: Only spent 2 out of 6 skill points; looks like they forgot about the +4 speed bonus to Jump.
• p. 26, Lesser Vylar: Jump should be +10, not +2 (1 rank, +1 Str, +8 speed).
• p. 28, Deep Bat: Bite attacks should be at +6 melee, not +2 (+0 BAB, +4 size, +2 Dex due to Weapon Finesse).

It was nice seeing the six animals at the end being just modified from things like badgers and mules; it saves a bunch of stat block space and allows more room for more material. The chapter finishes off with slight changes to 6 different Monster Manual creatures (or groups of creatures, like "oozes" and "elementals"), explaining the slight differences in the versions of these creatures that inhabit Avadnu. (For example, "purple worms" are light beige, segmented like earthworms, and can be held at bay with music.)

The last chapter is two pages devoted to Campaigns, stressing the concept that home life and rituals play an important part in the Broken Isles. It also provides a short list of threats to the Broken Isles, any of which the GM can incorporate into plot elements for his campaign.

Proofreading and editing problems I noted in this PDF include a missing period at the end of a sentence (of course, the sentence ended in an ellipsis - "..." - and many people forget about that fourth period in such instances), what looks to be an extraneous carriage return bumping part of a stat block to a lower line, another stat block where "(perfect)" and "(8 squares)" are swapped, and a missing comma from an entry in a table. Not too bad - I've always been pretty impressed with the Inner Circle Games guys when it comes to proofreading.

Taken as a whole, The Broken Isles is quite a value for only $8.00. It provides everything the players and GM should need to start off a Violet Dawn campaign set in (or at least starting in) the Broken Isles. I understand there's an introductory adventure coming out soon, and no doubt future Violet Dawn products will add information for higher-level play. The Broken Isles gets a high "4 (Good)" rating from me, and I look forward to seeing future releases in the Violet Dawn product line.

 

[JoeGKushner]

THE BROKEN ISLES
Written By Alexander Freed and Jeffrey J. Visgaitis
Published by Inner Circle
product number INCBISLBUND
80-page PDF $8.00

The Broken Isles is a mini-campaign by Inner Circle, the same folks who brought us the high quality Denizens of Avandu. This is a bit of a strange setting and reading through it, I’m reminded of old books that focused Planetary Romance (John Carpenter of Mars) style books with low-tech trappings and odd races. Talislanta is another setting that comes to mind. The main difference is that while three of the races here are not human, the main stays on the islands are indeed humans.

One of the things I didn’t like about the book as I read it, was the low powered focus. I’m reminded a little too much of the old TSR trilogy of sourcebooks where savage barbarians fought decadent necromancers. Well, that and I’m tired of low level play. Making it ‘savage’ low level play didn’t bring out my inner Conan as well, I’ve got the Conan game for that.

There are several things I like about The Broken isles.

First is the separation of product into the Lore book and the Player’s Guide. The Lore Book is the gazetteer of the land and contains monsters and game mastering tips. The Player’s Guide contains the rules for races, class changes, feats and other bits. I also like how you get two versions of each book, one printer friendly and one full color.

The art is also solid. All too often, I see PDF booklets with little to no art and similar prices for less page count with the reasoning that people don’t want to print out all the ink eating art. Bookmarks are well done with sub-book marks allowing navigation in areas like monsters and class features depending on the book one is looking at.

In the player’s book, we’re introduced to various new game mechanics. For races, we have humans, and they hail from four different tribes. The notes here focus on role playing information and include what types of languages that the humans speak. It’s nice to see that humans are included in the break down without giving them different racial abilities. Too often I’ve seen humans broken out into different tribes as an excuse to make them more powerful or break the mold of the human racial traits from the Player’s Handbook.

Human tribes include the following four major tribes. The Azghar are primarily warriors but also herdsmen that live on the coast and have allied themselves with slavers. The Inul hold knowledge of agriculture and metallurgy. The Kur are sly and masters of sailing, while the Naruk are hunter-gatherers. Each tribe has further details so that the GM gets some information that can lead to numerous adventuring opportunities.

For example, not all members of the Azghar are pleased that they’re dealing with slavers. The Inuls, while more advanced, also practice sacrifice and are considered barbarians by the other tribes. What secrets are the Kur hiding and why do they not speak their language among outsiders? Little bits to be sure but enough to get the brain flowing.

The other races include the Ngakoi, Skarren, and Zeidian. The Ngakoi are a shorter race that have an innate mystical nature. As they grow to adult hood, they gain a third eye. One of the interesting things about this race is that as a game mechanic, they have the option to use all three eyes, resulting in a bonus to the spot check, or to bind their two eyes and gain a bonus to their listen check. An interesting bit of background role playing as well as a game mechanic to back it up. Fitting this ancient race, their favored class is diviner.

The Skarren will probably become players’ favorite race . These rust red skinned humanoids are the hulking brutes of the campaign. Orcs who aren’t necessarily chaotic evil and live not for the joy of murder, but for the joy of combat itself. A race that’s not in any manner civilized compared to others as they’re flesh eaters and aren’t afraid of eating humanoids, but a race that respects strength and the lessons war can teach. Favored class here? Why the barbarian of course.

The Zeidian are another odd race that I can see becoming a favorite. They’re ancient guardians who help others. I get a Minbari (Babylon 5 race) feeling reading them. A dexterous race that gain not only a bonus to dexterity and initiative, but gain bonuses to sense motive and survival checks as they must learn not only to read people, but to survive in the wilderness. With that in mind, it makes perfect sense that they’re favored class is the ranger.

In terms of starting age, I found it interesting that they use a variant similar to those found in recent WoTC products where they break down the starting ages into class types. Innate or born abilities, like barbarian or sorcerer, start out youngest, while those of a studious nature, such as monk’s and druids, start off oldest, with those requiring some training in the middle. In terms of age, most of these are similar to humanity in that they tend to die before reaching the hundred year mark, save for the ancient Zeidian who can live past two-hundred years old.

Each race includes background information, details on personality, physiology, attire (most dress in little since it’s a savage style area), society, religion, race relations, lands, alignment, language, and names, for both male and female. It’s a good chunk of information for each and some of the races should be useable in any setting if background material is adjusted appropriately or explained as part of the character’s home lands.

The classes from the PHB, save for the Cleric, are all represented here. The role playing notes are appropriate in determining what a shaman is for example, and details on the lack of clerics is low. Part of the problem in this being an introductory product in that the reader is referred to the Avadnu Primer more than once. One of the nice things though, is that there are some rule changes for certain classes to give them more feel and to often to reduce magic. For example, monks may forgo their mystical nature and focus on their martial nature. Instead of a Ki strike, they can gain sneak attack. Instead of abundant step, they gain bonus feats. Rangers can sacrifice spells and gain bonus feats.

It’s a good section and shows how a few little tweaks can customize the material enough to give it an entirely different feel.

The new feats range from general ones like Named Weapon. You bond with a specific weapon and gain a bonus to hit with it and a penalty to hit with all other weapons, including weapons of the same type as your specific weapon.
Others are race specific feats. For example, the Azghar have different rage options open to them or the Skarren who can strike back at those who render them unconscious with the feat, Final Strike.

For equipment, while the natives generally use barter, with strangers, they need coin or other valuable items. They use different naming conventions than the standard PHB, which is good in that it adds flavor and annoying in that it adds another level of memorization to the game. Due to the low-technology of the natives, much of their materials are not the standard from the PHB so some weapons are not going to be the same and rules for using bronze weapons, among material types, is included. Materials are summarized in a table that provides attack, damage, break, and abuse numbers for the GM.

New weapons are included, and the artists managed to capture the look of primitive weapons and make them look cool at the same time. Armors are of a limited nature and are often different than those in a standard campaign being made of ceramic or even corded.

A few other types of mundane items, including healing salves and cloaks designed to camoflauge the user’s whereabouts in the forest, round out the player’s section.

The other file, the Lorebook, is in essence two parts. The first part is the background and details of the various islands that make up the Broken Islands. These little descriptions remind me of the Wilderlands boxed set from necromancer in that they’re not heavily detailed. You’ll find no maps of villages here and you’ll find no gaming statistics for the NPCs.

Instead you’ll find plot seeds and ideas to build your own campaign on. For example, in the Gray Forest, the Skarren believe that a great beast lies mortally wounded but never dies and when it rises, it must be put down again. Sound like a certain monster in D&D perhaps? On the cursed island of Anu’kraan, some say it’s despoiled nature results from a black sword being bound and trapped on the island. A theme familiar to anyone whose tasted rune blades in Palladium, or read the old High Elf legends in Warhammer or knows a touch about the Eternal Champion and it’s most famous member, Elric. Little bits like that are strewn throughout the background.

The big winners here though are the odd monsters. These are very much in the vein of Talislantia beasts and while not every creature is illustrated, those that are, are top notch. Creatures range from CR 1/8th to 6. While that might seem like a low number, this is designed for 1st through 5th level characters. Notes on standard D&D monsters that are appropriate to the campaign are also included. Indeed, some of the ‘monsters’ are different races such as the Vulnar, humanoids with more in common with insects then men, who are traders and merchants new to these lands. For those brave GMs or those poor ones who can’t save no, racial traits are also included for them.

This book rounds up with a few general notes on how to use the Broken Islands.

Overall it’s a good set of material. Breaking it up into two books allows the GM to keep some secrets from the players while at the same time keeps some of the files smaller. Providing it in different formats, printer friendly and screen version, provides added value to buyers. The solid artwork goes well with the different materials and is perfect for those looking for a low-level campaign.