JoeGKushner
Adventurer
Wilderlands of High Fantasy
Developed by Bill Webb and Clark Peterson
Published by Necromancer Games
www.necromancergames.com
448 black and white pages
18 black and white poster maps
ISBN: 1-58846-948-4
WW 8394
$69.99
The Wilderlands of High Fantasy is a classic campaign setting. Many of the books I have by the then developers, Judges Guild, have a notice proclaiming “Approved For Use with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons” “Official Adventure Aid Approved for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons”. Good, classic stuff. While I don’t have the whole Wilderlands setting, I did use many of the all purpose resource books like the Portals series (Torsh, Irontooth, and Twilight), as well as books like Unknown Gods. That’s in addition to having some of the classic material like Tarantis, Wraith Overlord, Fantastic Personalities, Wondrous Relics and others.
The new-boxed set by Necromancer games is very sturdy. It boosts a cover by one of the masters of the fantasy art genre, especially of the old sword and sorcery style that the Wilderlands embodies, Frank Fazetta. As impressive as it is, it’s a very dark piece and might not give the reader any idea as to what the internal context of the books are. When Fazetta’s art was on the cover of Conan published by Ace at the time, it was clear that it was barbarian action. Here… not quite so sure.
Opening it up, I’m disappointing that like the original maps; these are double sided so that you can never lay all eighteen maps together. The maps are four portrait pages across when opened. The maps are in heavy gray scale.
I don’t have all the old maps or books for the Wilderlands. I do have Tarantis campaign map four, the player map and the DM map, among others. One of the first things I notice that there are no player maps in the set. This is disappointing because the player’s maps had very few details and could in essence, be handed to the players for them to figure out where they were going.
Another disappointment is that the new maps don’t feel as sturdy as the old ones. Because they’re printed in grayscale, some of the bodies of water look like the forests. On the old maps, they had a different system of illustration where forests looked like collections of trees. Another thing that surprises me is that the old maps are easier to read the hexes. I don’t know if this is because of the grayscale background on the maps with grayscale numbering or that I’ve kept my original maps in near mint condition. In addition, the pages are glossy. This leaves fingerprints while the older, heavier brown paper of the originals, is flat, and does not leave fingerprints.
In terms of detail, it looks like everything is there. This includes even a few “classic” errors on the maps. Nothing too distracting but for an expensive boxed set, a little disappointing. On my Tarantis Campaign Map Four, comparing it to the boxed set’s Map Six; Tarantis and the Jarmeer Plain, I notice that the Necromancer maps is more detailed in that there is more use of color to showcase the different terrains. For example, the hills, such as the Foothills of Cragsen, no longer rely just on bumps on the map but also have some grayscale to them.
In looking at the maps, one will notice that the maps are broken up into hexes. Each hex is a five-mile radius hex. Each hex is numbered. This is important when looking at the books.
The other contents of the box are two perfect bound books. I’m a little surprised that Necromancer went with a boxed set format for this. While it screams out of earlier editions, most boxed sets that I remember came along in the 2nd edition of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons and aren’t necessarily that old. I can’t help but wonder if this could’ve been in hardcover format like World’s Largest Dungeon, which also had numerous maps, and had the maps wrapped separately. No point in a boxed set if there are no player’s handouts or other things that need to be in a box to keep them collected outside of style which in turn may effect the final cost of the product.
The production values of this boxed set are leagues above the original material. The layout is far easier to read and understand. Boxed text for important things, like new monsters or items, is in grayscale to make it stand out from the rest. Tables and other elements are cleanly separated from the main text. The art is also leagues above much of the original material although there is not much of it. The paper the books are made of is also far advanced of the original material. Where the maps left me unimpressed, the simple design and utility of the books helps make up for it.
The covers of each product are the same as the cover of the boxed set. What’s worse is that there’s no way to tell the covers apart unless you flip to the back and note in the right corner “Book One of Two” or “Book Two of Two.” The books are very text heavy. Like many Necromancer products, the outer margins are a little wide, over an inch. In addition, the ends of the chapters generally have a lot of white space.
The book uses a two-column layout. Art includes one of my favorites, Mark Smylie, as well as David Day, among others. I particularly enjoyed Mark’s art as he’s done a fantasy comic that I’ve been following in graphic novel form, Artesia. Editing could be better in a few places. There are some minor errors on the maps. There are some things in the text itself that could’ve been better written. There are numerous mistakes in the monster blocks. To be honest, I didn’t notice that many until looking at the errata on Necromancer Game’s own message board where they’ve provided the errata for most of those errors.
Opening up book one, it has a table of contents that breaks the book down into sections that match the maps. Before that though, it goes into a fairly lengthy introduction. This introduction isn’t concerned with game mechanics. Those are left for the Player’s Guide to the Wilderlands. This means that you won’t find any game mechanics on any of the new races here, although there are some downloads available that provide details on some of the lesser races of the Wilderlands. Instead, it’s a quick tour of the setting.
One thing I was very surprised as missing was an index. Now when Wizards of the Coast fails to put an index in a 160-page book, screams of murder are heard throughout the internet. I’m not screaming murder. An index would’ve been nice if it broke down each section and provided a breakdown by city, citadel, village, and another breakdown of potential encounters per region or a CR listing of the new monsters and items included here with page reference. Not providing one makes it a little harder to flip through a second in order to find some tidbit that sounded interesting upon a casual reading. For example, when thinking of the Stone Man, what chapter was he in? If you start with book two, you’re going to be frustrated because this bad boy who clocks in at a CR of 35 is in chapter four in book one.
Reading it, one gets the feel of ancient empires that have risen and fallen with a lot of history lost to the modern inhabitant of the setting. It has a very “Conan” feel in that there are numerous ancient empires about and technology hasn’t progressed in a standard fashion across the setting and only a very few places are bastions of civilization. Worse still for characters used to buying magic items off the corner, while magic is present, it’s not in force or known in the same way that it would be in say the Forgotten Realms or Eberron. Even worse for characters, is that many of the major powers of the setting are not fighting on the sides of angels, but rather for themselves. Many are evil. Slavery is not something limited to a few backward countries. Evil is not necessarily an orc horde as much as it is the guy sitting next to you in the tavern of the ruler of the independent city-state you’re hiding in.
One thing that’s a little disappointing to me, is that there are a lot of references to other materials. While I understand that it’s impossible to get everything in one book, not having more than a handful of details for some of the places that characters may spend several adventurers like Tarantis of the City State of the World Emperor is out of place when we have so many potential random encounters that could’ve been trimmed or that we have white space between each chapter. It’s interesting how some things aren’t detailed and are referred to other products such as the city state of Tarantis which doesn’t even get a full page of detail but the reader is referred to DriveThruRPG.com for more details.
Another thing that’s disappointing is that there are no internal maps. By that, I mean maps of citadels, cities, ruins, or of individual hexes. For example, looking at my old 32 page Wilderlands of High Fantasy from long ago, the back cover is an up close view of a hex with things like the Twilight Road, or the Deathwood or the Old South Road. Or how about the interior with Huberic of Haghill with its map of the castle and town and a map key?
In terms of feel, it would be a perfect setting for a low powered D&D campaign using rules from such d20 products as Thieves World, Black Company, Grim Tales, or Dark Legacies. An ambitious GM who wants to move past magic even more might embrace Iron Heroes while one who wants a semi-classic engine, one that tries to capture the “good” old days, might want to run Castles and Crusades in the setting. It has that type of earthy feel to it.
In terms of tools to help you capture this feeling, the book includes tables for randomly generating ruins of ancient empires. It also notes how travel in the Wilderlands is often an adventure in and of itself as there are few roads. It provides daily travel movements for characters. Useful in this customized setting.
After that, the book provides details on how to use the map booklets. Remember how I mentioned that the hexes are numbered? Those numbers mean something. Each section starts off with an overview and includes things like general climates, geographic features, terrain types, and specific locations.
For example, turning to chapter twelve, Isles of the Dawn, on page 340 of the second book (yes, the page numbering continues between books), we get a quick rundown that the worship of Apollo is the reason for the isles names. Some of the geographic features include things like Rastal Cay, a rocky islet with a small fortress that looks out for pirates and upholds the navigation beacon fire. In terms of specific locations, we have hexes that are rich in monster encounters as well as towns. For example, 3505 is a giant sea turtle. It doesn’t have the full stats of the monster, just the name and EL with some game notes to make things interesting. Others like 1514 would be a merchant vessel that lies sunk and waits to be scavenged. Others are keeps or citadels like Nitefire Keep. Some of the names strike me as a little silly but it’s a fantasy product that stretches back to the seventies so things like Slayer’s Citadel shouldn’t be too out of place in this environment.
There isn’t a lot of depth to the material. Instead, the product relies on its breadth. There are links between various parts of the campaign world, but they might not be obvious upon a first reading. There are events going on, but the world has very hands off approach. If you’re comfortable with using the structure of the Wilderlands and enjoy building on the backs of giants, the Wilderlands of High Fantasy is for you.
Developed by Bill Webb and Clark Peterson
Published by Necromancer Games
www.necromancergames.com
448 black and white pages
18 black and white poster maps
ISBN: 1-58846-948-4
WW 8394
$69.99
The Wilderlands of High Fantasy is a classic campaign setting. Many of the books I have by the then developers, Judges Guild, have a notice proclaiming “Approved For Use with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons” “Official Adventure Aid Approved for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons”. Good, classic stuff. While I don’t have the whole Wilderlands setting, I did use many of the all purpose resource books like the Portals series (Torsh, Irontooth, and Twilight), as well as books like Unknown Gods. That’s in addition to having some of the classic material like Tarantis, Wraith Overlord, Fantastic Personalities, Wondrous Relics and others.
The new-boxed set by Necromancer games is very sturdy. It boosts a cover by one of the masters of the fantasy art genre, especially of the old sword and sorcery style that the Wilderlands embodies, Frank Fazetta. As impressive as it is, it’s a very dark piece and might not give the reader any idea as to what the internal context of the books are. When Fazetta’s art was on the cover of Conan published by Ace at the time, it was clear that it was barbarian action. Here… not quite so sure.
Opening it up, I’m disappointing that like the original maps; these are double sided so that you can never lay all eighteen maps together. The maps are four portrait pages across when opened. The maps are in heavy gray scale.
I don’t have all the old maps or books for the Wilderlands. I do have Tarantis campaign map four, the player map and the DM map, among others. One of the first things I notice that there are no player maps in the set. This is disappointing because the player’s maps had very few details and could in essence, be handed to the players for them to figure out where they were going.
Another disappointment is that the new maps don’t feel as sturdy as the old ones. Because they’re printed in grayscale, some of the bodies of water look like the forests. On the old maps, they had a different system of illustration where forests looked like collections of trees. Another thing that surprises me is that the old maps are easier to read the hexes. I don’t know if this is because of the grayscale background on the maps with grayscale numbering or that I’ve kept my original maps in near mint condition. In addition, the pages are glossy. This leaves fingerprints while the older, heavier brown paper of the originals, is flat, and does not leave fingerprints.
In terms of detail, it looks like everything is there. This includes even a few “classic” errors on the maps. Nothing too distracting but for an expensive boxed set, a little disappointing. On my Tarantis Campaign Map Four, comparing it to the boxed set’s Map Six; Tarantis and the Jarmeer Plain, I notice that the Necromancer maps is more detailed in that there is more use of color to showcase the different terrains. For example, the hills, such as the Foothills of Cragsen, no longer rely just on bumps on the map but also have some grayscale to them.
In looking at the maps, one will notice that the maps are broken up into hexes. Each hex is a five-mile radius hex. Each hex is numbered. This is important when looking at the books.
The other contents of the box are two perfect bound books. I’m a little surprised that Necromancer went with a boxed set format for this. While it screams out of earlier editions, most boxed sets that I remember came along in the 2nd edition of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons and aren’t necessarily that old. I can’t help but wonder if this could’ve been in hardcover format like World’s Largest Dungeon, which also had numerous maps, and had the maps wrapped separately. No point in a boxed set if there are no player’s handouts or other things that need to be in a box to keep them collected outside of style which in turn may effect the final cost of the product.
The production values of this boxed set are leagues above the original material. The layout is far easier to read and understand. Boxed text for important things, like new monsters or items, is in grayscale to make it stand out from the rest. Tables and other elements are cleanly separated from the main text. The art is also leagues above much of the original material although there is not much of it. The paper the books are made of is also far advanced of the original material. Where the maps left me unimpressed, the simple design and utility of the books helps make up for it.
The covers of each product are the same as the cover of the boxed set. What’s worse is that there’s no way to tell the covers apart unless you flip to the back and note in the right corner “Book One of Two” or “Book Two of Two.” The books are very text heavy. Like many Necromancer products, the outer margins are a little wide, over an inch. In addition, the ends of the chapters generally have a lot of white space.
The book uses a two-column layout. Art includes one of my favorites, Mark Smylie, as well as David Day, among others. I particularly enjoyed Mark’s art as he’s done a fantasy comic that I’ve been following in graphic novel form, Artesia. Editing could be better in a few places. There are some minor errors on the maps. There are some things in the text itself that could’ve been better written. There are numerous mistakes in the monster blocks. To be honest, I didn’t notice that many until looking at the errata on Necromancer Game’s own message board where they’ve provided the errata for most of those errors.
Opening up book one, it has a table of contents that breaks the book down into sections that match the maps. Before that though, it goes into a fairly lengthy introduction. This introduction isn’t concerned with game mechanics. Those are left for the Player’s Guide to the Wilderlands. This means that you won’t find any game mechanics on any of the new races here, although there are some downloads available that provide details on some of the lesser races of the Wilderlands. Instead, it’s a quick tour of the setting.
One thing I was very surprised as missing was an index. Now when Wizards of the Coast fails to put an index in a 160-page book, screams of murder are heard throughout the internet. I’m not screaming murder. An index would’ve been nice if it broke down each section and provided a breakdown by city, citadel, village, and another breakdown of potential encounters per region or a CR listing of the new monsters and items included here with page reference. Not providing one makes it a little harder to flip through a second in order to find some tidbit that sounded interesting upon a casual reading. For example, when thinking of the Stone Man, what chapter was he in? If you start with book two, you’re going to be frustrated because this bad boy who clocks in at a CR of 35 is in chapter four in book one.
Reading it, one gets the feel of ancient empires that have risen and fallen with a lot of history lost to the modern inhabitant of the setting. It has a very “Conan” feel in that there are numerous ancient empires about and technology hasn’t progressed in a standard fashion across the setting and only a very few places are bastions of civilization. Worse still for characters used to buying magic items off the corner, while magic is present, it’s not in force or known in the same way that it would be in say the Forgotten Realms or Eberron. Even worse for characters, is that many of the major powers of the setting are not fighting on the sides of angels, but rather for themselves. Many are evil. Slavery is not something limited to a few backward countries. Evil is not necessarily an orc horde as much as it is the guy sitting next to you in the tavern of the ruler of the independent city-state you’re hiding in.
One thing that’s a little disappointing to me, is that there are a lot of references to other materials. While I understand that it’s impossible to get everything in one book, not having more than a handful of details for some of the places that characters may spend several adventurers like Tarantis of the City State of the World Emperor is out of place when we have so many potential random encounters that could’ve been trimmed or that we have white space between each chapter. It’s interesting how some things aren’t detailed and are referred to other products such as the city state of Tarantis which doesn’t even get a full page of detail but the reader is referred to DriveThruRPG.com for more details.
Another thing that’s disappointing is that there are no internal maps. By that, I mean maps of citadels, cities, ruins, or of individual hexes. For example, looking at my old 32 page Wilderlands of High Fantasy from long ago, the back cover is an up close view of a hex with things like the Twilight Road, or the Deathwood or the Old South Road. Or how about the interior with Huberic of Haghill with its map of the castle and town and a map key?
In terms of feel, it would be a perfect setting for a low powered D&D campaign using rules from such d20 products as Thieves World, Black Company, Grim Tales, or Dark Legacies. An ambitious GM who wants to move past magic even more might embrace Iron Heroes while one who wants a semi-classic engine, one that tries to capture the “good” old days, might want to run Castles and Crusades in the setting. It has that type of earthy feel to it.
In terms of tools to help you capture this feeling, the book includes tables for randomly generating ruins of ancient empires. It also notes how travel in the Wilderlands is often an adventure in and of itself as there are few roads. It provides daily travel movements for characters. Useful in this customized setting.
After that, the book provides details on how to use the map booklets. Remember how I mentioned that the hexes are numbered? Those numbers mean something. Each section starts off with an overview and includes things like general climates, geographic features, terrain types, and specific locations.
For example, turning to chapter twelve, Isles of the Dawn, on page 340 of the second book (yes, the page numbering continues between books), we get a quick rundown that the worship of Apollo is the reason for the isles names. Some of the geographic features include things like Rastal Cay, a rocky islet with a small fortress that looks out for pirates and upholds the navigation beacon fire. In terms of specific locations, we have hexes that are rich in monster encounters as well as towns. For example, 3505 is a giant sea turtle. It doesn’t have the full stats of the monster, just the name and EL with some game notes to make things interesting. Others like 1514 would be a merchant vessel that lies sunk and waits to be scavenged. Others are keeps or citadels like Nitefire Keep. Some of the names strike me as a little silly but it’s a fantasy product that stretches back to the seventies so things like Slayer’s Citadel shouldn’t be too out of place in this environment.
There isn’t a lot of depth to the material. Instead, the product relies on its breadth. There are links between various parts of the campaign world, but they might not be obvious upon a first reading. There are events going on, but the world has very hands off approach. If you’re comfortable with using the structure of the Wilderlands and enjoy building on the backs of giants, the Wilderlands of High Fantasy is for you.
