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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="John Cooper" data-source="post: 2886146" data-attributes="member: 24255">THE BROKEN ISLESBy Alexander Freed and Jeffrey J. VisgaitisInner Circle product number INCBISLBUND80-page PDF $8.00The 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 GuideThe 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).LorebookThe 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: <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">p. 22, Hexachela: Jump should be -4, not +2 (1 rank, +1 Str, -6 speed).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">pp. 22-23, Kehtor: Only spent 2 out of 6 skill points; looks like they forgot about the +4 speed bonus to Jump.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">p. 26, Lesser Vylar: Jump should be +10, not +2 (1 rank, +1 Str, +8 speed).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">p. 28, Deep Bat: Bite attacks should be at +6 melee, not +2 (+0 BAB, +4 size, +2 Dex due to Weapon Finesse).</li> </ul>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.</blockquote>

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