Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="der_kluge" data-source="post: 2540001" data-attributes="member: 945">Ok, bear with me on this one. This will take some 'splaining.Wilderlands of High Fantasy is a boxed set. It contains two softcover books, and 9 maps.The maps are b/w maps with a lot of detail. The maps themselves fold twice to be 8.5x11 inches. Thus, folded out, an individual map is the size of 4 pieces of paper sideways, or 16" tall, and 22" wide (in a landscape format). Each map is two-sided. The maps are also numbered, and named. Map one has map two on the back. Each map covers a specific region of the Wilderlands, and each map is intended to connect to another map. The "grid" of these maps in total are 3 maps wide, and 6 maps tall. So, if a single map is 16" tall, and 22" wide, all 18 maps put together, and laid out as they should be would be 8 feet tall, and 5 and a half feet wide. You couldn't actually do this unless you bought two boxed sets, since the maps are two sided. At best, you could create half of this grid, or just the evens, or just the odds, or some weird arrangement. In other words, both maps 1 and 2 couldn't both be up, since you could display either one or the other, obviously.The entire "world" has a variety of features from mountains to water to deserts, to some arctic regions (or near arctic) to islands, to plains to swamps. Well, you get the idea. The entire area, if viewed on the whole is sort of like a vast archepelago with numerous islands and peninsulas. It's just ripe for a big seafaring game, but there is enough solid land mass to never even make it to the ocean. It's all there.But allow me to back up for a moment. The Wilderlands is a repreint (and update) of the original Judge's Guild products by the same name printed in the early 70s. This boxed set is a collection of numerous Judge's Guild products. There is also a separate product (a book) called City State of the Invincible Overlord, which details a principal city within the Wilderlands environment (map 5). The text indicates that a "vast majority" of information from numerous JG products are included in the boxed set: Wilderlands of High Fantasy, Fantastic Wilderlands Beyonde, Wilderlands of the Magic Realm, and Wilderlands of the Fantastic Reaches, City State of the Invincible Overland (presumably, most of this makes it into the book, not the boxed set, but that's just a guess), Wraith Overlord (again, I think this is mostly in the City State book, not the boxed set; but again; speculation), City State of the World Emperor, Tarantis, Modron (a city, not a box with arms), Tegel Manor, Mines of Custalcon, Spies of Lightelf, Pirates of Hagrost, Shield Maidens of the Sea Rune, Witches' Court Marshes, Treasure Book I, II, and II, and Pegasus Magazine "City State installments".Let me state now that I am not personally familiar with any of the Judge's Guild products. My exposure to Judge's Guild products is this: I have heard of Judge's Guild, and that's about the extent of it. I was about 1 years old when this stuff came out.This gets me back to the product itself. So, it's a bunch of maps, and a couple of books, right? Well, yea, but there's a lot in there. Getting back to the maps for a second, first, though. Each map is comprised of small hexes. Each hex covers an area 5 miles across. Each map is 52 columns wide, and 33 or 34 hexes tall (hexes are staggered, after all). Each map covers an area "170 miles by 260 miles". (273 kilometers by 418 kilometers). Take that in for a second. The entire map is 780 miles wide by 1020 miles tall, approximately the size of the Mediterranean Sea. For comparison, it's 600 miles from Indianpolis, IN to Washington D.C.Each hex is numbered. This is a 4-digit number, and the first two-digits correspond to the column (01-52), and the second two-digits correspond to the row (01 to 33 or 34). So, the hex in the NW corner of every map is 0101. Which gets me to the books. The books are, by and large, descriptions of each map (one chapter per map), and many of the individual hexes are detailed in some way. More on this later. Allow me to back up once again, and talk about the first few chapters in book 1.There are two books. The first book is 216 pages long, and the second is 232 pages long. There are 20 total chapters - 18 official "chapters" and an introduction, and a "using the map booklets" chapter which are chapters 1 and 2. Each numbered chapter corresponds to the map of the same number.Let me state right now that these books are huge. The text is dense, and there is not a large amount of interior art, so there's just a ton of text here. Also, let me state for the record that I have not read most of this product. I'm doing this review mainly to illustrate what the product is. I also believe that if the rest of the product is anything like what I have read, then I don't really need to read all of it to get a good feel for the product in its entirety.The first chapter, "introduction" covers a lot of what I have just covered. It includes a lot of solid, down-to-earth information about the product.  There is also a blank hex map which is like a mini-version of the larger map, except inlaid with one large hex over all the small ones. Permission is given to photocopy this page, and a blank copy can be found online as well. This map is intended to be used to detail one specific hex on the large map, should have have a desire to do so. Furthermore, it can represent a 5-mile hex, or it can represent 0.2 mile hex (where each small hex is 42.24 feet wide) if you want to go down to that level of detail, you can.The world has no overarching metaplot, or theme, per se. If there is a theme, it is travel and adventure (do you really need any more?). There is a hefty "refresher" on the overland movement rules from the PHB which cover how far a person can travel, and different terrain modifiers. It's assumed that, if you're using this product as intended, your players will be doing a fair amount of travel. There's a lot of world to see here, after all. There's also a big section on encounters, and not monster encounters - like random things you can find in the wilderlands. Ruins, castles, temples, just various things, and modifiers for each, like you could roll "corroded and eroded ruins of a city partially covered by vines, guarded by lycanthropes". That's just one example of many.Next up, the chapter covers the power centers, including most of the major cities and other populous areas. Next it covers special materials (things like adamantium, but different), climate and weather, and the currents (in the water).Next, the history of the Wilderlands is covered. This is presented exactly as it was in the original product, and it prefaces the history with some explanation. Essentially, when the product was released, the line between sci-fi and fantasy were blurred. As such, the "history" of the Wilderlands appears somewhat cooky to those of familiar with products nowadays. Suffice it to say, it involves aliens landing, areas affected by some radiation, a lot of turmoil, some magical gates, and cavemen.  Ok, that doesn't really do it justice, but it's obviously an optional history, but it is fairly detailed (it covers 5 pages).The second chapter "Using the Map Booklets" explains the maps as I have done. Each hex and area is defined through some standard types which more or less gives a high level description of the area. For example: Ancients, Valley of the (Sparse Forest, Hot; EL 16+)Not all have an EL, but many do, and most entries have an encounters list at the end of the entry like "Encounters: bugbears, frost giants, mammoths, mountain lions, sheep, snow leopards", for example.Cities and towns have a fairly detailed stat block which includes alignment of the controlling forces, a tech level (1-10) which establishes what kinds of things can be bought, major players, and other pertinent information.This chapter also covers all the various races that are available (just a brief description). The Player's Guide to the Wilderlands has the statistical information on most of these, and obviously they are all optional anyway, since the product encourages you to just do your own thing with the city if you want to. There are no gods detailed in this book, they are covered in the Player's Guide, I believe (I don't own, and really have no intention of owning it), and it also covers the basic player classes - again, just a description, the details are in the player's guide.The rest of the books are the details for each of the region maps. These chapters are broken out into a couple of major sections. The first section covers the area in general, and lays out the basics of the area. Secondly, "Geographic Features" covers the prominent features of the land. These are typically things larger than a single hex, like rivers, or mountain ranges, etc. Each has it's own descriptive block, for example:Giants' bog (Moor/Swamp): A footprint-shaped marsh of terrible reputation. Hill giants from the surrounding area sometimes make their home here, but the main inhabitants are feral humans. Encounters: hill giants, feral humansThe rest of the chapter is devoted to "Specific locations" and covers individual hexes. Some of these descriptions are of very tiny things like a curious hut, or a tree, or even a ruined wall with some treasure, or unusual feature. Others are larger detailing a small lake, or a grove of trees, or the ruins of some ancient thing. Each is evocative, and descriptive - just enough to give you an idea of what's there, and leaves most of the details up to the imagination. As I read them, I'm instantly transported from place to place. Where appropriate some actual monsters are listed if they are present in the area, and in some cases the treasure it might have (or just the treasure, if there is no monster). A lot of the locations have a CR, but many do not. The EL can range quite a bit. I don't know what the highest is, but I have found an EL 24 area, and an EL 1 area. Certainly everything in between can be found, though I suspect there may be areas higher than 24, I just haven't found them yet, but that's part of the joy.Synopsis:I think that should give you an idea of what the product is, and what it is not. It's a mountain of detail and campaign ideas, and even if you didn't use the maps, or the history, or anything about "the Wilderlands", you could still use the specific locations for any game, and mine them for ideas for just about forever. The product sells for $70 - a bargain in my opinion. The quality is superb, and I haven't seen a single error yet in my reading. The art is consistently good, though not overly abundant (it doesn't need to be). It took Necromancer 4+ years to make this product. Clark Peterson stated at Gen Con "If I knew then what I know now, I wouldn't have done it". They put a TON of work into this product, and it shows. It's truly a labor of love.I should also point out that there is a ton of online downloads (the book includes a password for online stuff), and a color map, and tons of other stuff online. This, along with the stuff online is more game than even the most prolific DMs could shake a stick at.I would be remiss if I didn't list negatives about this product. There are not many.First, each book has the same cover art (the same as the box) by Frank Frazetta. While this isn't a bad thing necessarily, it does mean that both books look identical. If you need to refer to book 2, you could easily grab book 1 by mistake and not realize it, since it looks exactly the same. In fact, the only difference is a small "book 1" or "book 2" in the bottom corner of the back cover. I would have preferred to make the cover art smaller, and in big bold letters on the front write "book 1" or "book 2". Secondly, actually having 18 maps would have been awesome. That way, I could display the entire region on my wall, and piss off my wife. Perhaps Necromancer should consider selling a bundle of just the maps so that I could purchase a second set?  The maps themselves would be a great resource in and of themselves, actually.Third, the interior map of the entire region is hazy, and water and land is the same color, so iit's almost impossible to tell where the land ends and the oceans start. So, that could have been better, but there's a color map online, so it's not that big of a deal.Obviously, most of those negatives are fairly minor things. I believe there is a limited number of this boxed set available, so don't delay in getting yours. It's truly a mountain of great game ideas that you'll cherish and use for a long, long time.</blockquote>

Verification