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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2893342" data-attributes="member: 1129">THE BROKEN ISLESWritten By Alexander Freed and Jeffrey J. VisgaitisPublished by Inner Circle product number INCBISLBUND80-page PDF $8.00The 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.</blockquote>

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