You’ve heard of that biggest dungeon thing? How about the biggest damned
book? I have in my hands, and it’s a struggle to lift it, the “World Book of Khaas: Legendary Lands of Arduin” adapted from the writings of David A. Hargrave, written by Monty K. St. John and published by
Emperors Choice Games and Miniatures Corp. copyright 2004, second printing 2004. Let’s get the nitty-gritty out of the way first. It’s a soft-cover perfect-bound presentation; color cover, gray-scale, minimally bordered interior. This phone book-sized tome is 821 pages in 11 point font, not too big, but highly readable. It also has a hefty price of $69.95. The title page and editorial introductory material are not included in the page count. The Table of Contents, which can be viewed
online here in .pdf format, takes up five pages. There are 12 pages of a highly complete index. The World Book itself is text and maps. The maps comprise 10% of the content; there are 79 of them including one double-paged map of Viruelandia (a country). There are eight full-page art plates taking up a mere 1% of the available space. Other, smaller art graces the pages throughout in appropriate places and not over abundantly. A tiny bit of the art is a little amateurish in my opinion, but most is well-executed and some is helpful, especially in the race descriptions and the art serves to evoke an aura of “otherworldliness” about Arduin. However, this is a book to
read.
Since the
Table of Contents is available for perusal, I won’t reiterate. The text of the World Book falls naturally into three segments: an overview and general information on the world of Khaas and the continent of Khaora, descriptions of the countries and political entities extant on Khaora and thirdly, detail on the country of Arduin itself. Finally, there are numerous useful appendices. In reading through this book, two niggling gripes become apparent. First, though this second printing is apparently cleaned up from the first, there are still numerous typographical errors and lapses in proofreading and editing. Every page seems to have some mistake on it, but most are simply an assault to my perfectionism. Any GM could easily “fill in the blank” on almost all of them. The second item is the lack of section breaks. It was initially disconcerting to me to see the bold title for a section at the head of a page, but the beginning text appearing on the previous page! I suspect it was done to minimize the page count and I became accustomed to it after a bit.
The overview segment is a bit hit-and-miss as far as utility, depending on your style of campaign. Dave Hargrave ran a wide-open, “anything is possible” type of campaign and his world reflects it. He invented “nexus gates” to account for the interstellar and planar connections, contacts and artifacts in Arduin. As a GM, nexus gates may not apply in your world. The Khai-Zirin, a once star-faring race, might not be present, or Phraints, an insectoid race, or techno magik [sic], artifacts from technological societies, but Dave’s Arduin has always been modular. I stole from it 20 years ago and Monty St. John continues the tradition admirably. Some of the entries in this segment simply leave the reader to look for more information. For instance, the text on ships in the Science and Engineering section is two paragraphs long. Unless you know something of ships and sailing, these paragraphs are not much help to your gaming without some additional research. Most of the sections, however, are ready to lift wholesale and incorporate directly into your milieu. Races, Metals and Minerals, and Poisons and Dire Substances are just a few. For instance, Thunder Tongue’s Ale from Potables of Khaas: “Another Dwarven made drink, this dark brown (almost black) ale is aged in genuine lightning struck wormwood casks for 22 years before it is ‘lit to drink.’… The history section and religion section towards the end of the general information are particularly interesting and highly playable, even with modification to suit your style.
The next segment focuses on Arduin’s continent of Khaora. Major geographic regions of the continent are described along with the peoples inhabiting them. Each of the 75 countries sharing the continent is detailed next, generally three pages devoted to each. The maps are quite plain, but highly readable as a result. Each indicates major topographical features, bordering countries and features, principal cities and settlements and other places of interest. Each description begins with a list of vitals for the country, including map Location (Khoara political divisions map, p. 238), Capitol, Population, Demographics, Government, Technology, Magik [sic], Religion, Symbol or Heraldry, Allies, and Enemies. This is followed by a general statement on the character of the country, for example, “Hyrkhalla is a bloody, vibrant nation with a checkered history of broken promises and aggression. Its people are well known for their savagery in battle and ruthless diplomacy.” Sub-sections follow on Society, Customs, Education & the Arts, Military, Commerce, Landmarks and Regional History. These sub-sections give sufficient detail for a GM to flesh out any particular one on a solid foundation. If an adventuring party surprises you (they’d
never do that, right?) and ends up in Chrysolia, you have enough information to wing it.
Finally, we have the country of Arduin, Dave’s “baby”. He often referred to his world of Khass as “Arduin” and the word is used interchangebly with the game system he conceived. However, Arduin was properly the country that Dave’s campaigns were based in. There are just over 200 pages detailing this one country in the World Book! The depth of detail in this segment can be glimpsed in the Table of Contents. And far from being a useless quarter of the book if you don’t run Arduin, the information contained herein is just as modular as the rest. You want a topographical feature? Lift Dragon Throne Mountain: “Located south of the Forest of Dragons… the top slopes are barren… but the lower slopes are thick with huge, old cedars… large orchards along the lower slopes of the east and south sides… many springs… the Blood Water is somewhat famed due to its sanguine hue and semi-mythical powers." Incidentally, each of the terrain features is keyed to a color, “parchment”, poster-sized map of Arduin available from
Emperors Choice. How about houses of nobility? Vital stats are given for each (Ruler, House Sigel, Lands, Domicile, Political Faction, Voting Power, Family) along with a description of the character of each and a short history, a recount of the origins and detailing of its family and political ties to other houses. If you need a quick-and-dirty legal system, it’s here, a secret society, a city description (no maps), a calendar; these are all available for your use and more. And if you decide to
run a campaign centered in Arduin or on the world of Khass, no matter the game engine, you’ll feel as if you’ve hit the mother lode if you pick up this book!
And now a word about the appendices; generally simply listings of things. These are
almost worth the price of admission in themselves! Now, that’s a bit of exaggeration, but the NPCs appendix is system-neutral and eminently plunderable, likewise, the rumors appendix. Weather tables, inn ratings, random events and item and price listings are useful to
any RPG campaign.
Do you want to spend $70 on yet another campaign setting? I say yes. You could plop down 30, 40 or 50 bucks for other settings that might give you color, stitched binding, a fine world history or quality religions. They won’t give you the detail of
this book. The others may give you long-term playing pleasure, but even the most popular seem to grow stale. The World Book of Khaas has so many plot hooks and so much variation is possible that this setting won’t curdle for a lifetime! And unlike many other settings, in the words of Monty St. John, “…the approach of the world guide was to present the information in a system neutral way. This was done to allow players and GMs to use the fantastic world of Khaas with whatever game system they prefer. No specific rulebooks or guides are necessary to fully enjoy the benefits of this volume, other than the ones you already own.”
The World Book of Khaas, the three trilogies of the Arduin Grimoire (the original writings of David A. Hargrave), the Arduin map (a world map is in the works), the Compleat Arduin (a unified game system based on the Grimoire, also written by Dave Hargrave) and the Arduin Adventure (an introductory FRPG system) along with other games and miniatures are all available from
Emperors Choice. More information on the world of Khaas can be had on Emperors’
World of Khaas website and is an indication of this small company’s devotion to customer service. And speaking of customer service, Dave Bukata and George DeRosa, Emperors Choice,
guarantee this book! There is also an
Arduin fansite containing further information, resources and links on Arduin and the world of Khaas and an
Arduin Yahoo Group.
Disclamer: The author of this review is not affiliated with Emperors Choice Games and Miniatures Corp. or any of its business concerns. The volume reviewed was received in compensation, but the opinions expressed in this review are wholly the author’s own and the writings were neither reviewed nor approved by Emperors Choice prior to publishing.
The World Book of Khaas: Legendary Lands of Ardiun and Arduin copyright by 2004 Emperors Choice Games and Miniatures Corp.
This review copyright 2004 by Steve “bloodymage” Willett