Twilight of Atlantis

[Messageboard Golem]

From the author that brought you Jade & Steel: Role-Playing In Mythic Imperial China, comes a sourcebook full of role-playing adventure in the final days of history's greatest & most mysterious disappearance. Cover art by noted Heavy Metal magazine artist, Lorenzo Sperlunga. d20 System compatible. For use with Dungeons & Dragons, 3rd Edition.

 

[Psion]

Twilight of Atlantis

Avalanche Press LTD is known primarily for their historical wargames. They hoped to leverage their historical emphasis with d20 system products by offering products that were oriented around historical and mythological themes. However, many have come to associate them with the covers that they have chosen to apply to most of their d20 system books; most of their d20 system product covers feature a scantily clad woman with details that are often entirely wrong for the setting that the book treated. This has earned Avalanche no small degree of criticism.

However, I must say that at least one author in Avalanche has earned my respect. Despite being held back by a somewhat costly cover price, weak presentation, and gratuitously cheesecake cover, I found Jade & Steel (authored by Jim Lai) to have some very strong content. It had very good background material, good rules material, and one of the better event driven adventures I have seen in a d20 system product. I saw Jade & Steel as something of a diamond in the rough.

I was a fan of the old Bard Games Atlantis setting (written my Talislanta creator Stephan Michael Sechi) in my gaming youth, which was based largely around myths of Atlantis and similar myths of prehistoric civilization. So, when I got a chance to see another effort by an author demonstrated some talent about a topic I found interesting, I jumped at the chance.

A First Look

Twilight of Atlantis is a 48-page staple-bound softcover book priced at $12.95 US. This gives it a rather high cost per page, similar to other Avalanche d20 books.

The cover of Twilight of Atlantis, as with many of its d20 system books, is illustrated by Heavy Metal artist Lorenzo Sperlonga, a fact that Avalanche likes to point out often. And as with other such covers, it depicts a chesty woman in skimpy attire. In this case, the woman seems to be wearing a bronze chainmail bikini and matching bronze chainmail stockings. She is holding a trident and has some vegetation and an exotic looking structure in the backdrop.

The interior is black-and-white. The interior artwork is a mediocre quality, and a few snapshots of ancient artifacts are thrown in here and there. There is a two-page map of the Atlantean world in the back, but it is rather abstract and unappealing. Overall, the interior looks rather bland.

The typeface used in the book is somewhat large with the exception of the content of numerous sidebars, which seem to use a denser typeface. The book does use slender margins, which should deliver more content. There are some column formatting problems in some of the sidebars; this makes some of the stat blocks difficult to read.

Like many other Avalanche Press D20 books, the sparse content for the price and weak presentation are detractions to the delivered value of the product.

A Deeper Look

Twilight of Atlantis is organized into three parts: Atlantis and the Ancient World, Characters and Equipment, and Atlantean Campaign.

Part I: Atlantis and the Ancient World, describes the background, history, geography, and society of Atlantis and other European and African nations at the time of the purported existence of Altantis. For the most part, the authors build off of Plato's description of Atlantis and some suppositions other have made about his tale (e.g., it is assumed that Plato got the idea from Atlantis from Egyptian folklore; there are many Egyptian references in the book) but extrapolates a bit to make it into a fantasy setting.

For those not familiar with the legend of Atlantis, the basic concept is this: The Greek god Poseiden raised a land from the depths of the ocean. He takes a mortal wife Cleito and by her she had 10 children, 5 sets of twins. His progeny multiplied and expanded to overtake the continent. They eventually forge a prosperous and powerful empire that extended into Europe and Africa. However, the Athenians were eventually able to throw repel Atlantean invaders, and the Greek gods eventually grew jealous and/or worried about the Atlanteans and sank the continent.

As with Plato's version, Twilight of Atlantis pictures a landscape with ring-shaped canals. However, the end of Atlantis in this version is not due to the Greek gods, but Poseiden himself. Amidst a war in which a number of nations under Atlantis' dominion rose up in rebellion, a quarrel arose between Poseiden's wife Cleito and Gaderius, one of his sons. Gaderius slew Cleito with Poseiden's trident, the very artifact that was responsible for keeping Atlantis above the waves. In his rage, Poseiden breaks the trident, dooming Atlantis.

The version of Atlantis – and the ancient world – is one befitting the sorts of ancient myths that where the source of inspiration for the fantasy genre. Accordingly, there are wizards of great power in the ancient world, and the Atlanteans are foremost among them. The first part details the rise and fall of Atlantis as well as cultural details such as the Atlantean worldview, views and death, agriculture, art, magic, and so forth. Atlantis is depicted as an empire built on magic, a vision that is consistent with many visions that have grown up around Plato's image of Atlantis.

In addition to the main text, there are a number of other details about the ancient world surrounding Atlantis, detailed in sidebars. This includes a detailing of Egypt, as well as the Lemurians and Mue, dwellers in other fabled lands.

Part 2 launches into the details you need to make player characters in the Twilight of Atlantis setting. There are five races available for PCs in the setting. Humans use the normal d20 system rules. The four remaining races are new: Atlanteans, Noble Atlanteans, Half-Altanteans, and Bastai.

Common Atlanteans are pictured as intellectually powerful but physically frail. Spinning off of the theme that the empire is built around magic, Atlanteans can detect magic and always treat use magic device and knowledge (arcana) as class skills.

Noble Atlanteans are closer to the true bloodline of Poseiden. They are tougher and more charismatic that common Atlanteans, and have bonuses to several skills and all saving throws, as well as acid, cold, and electricity resistance. The note on Atlanteans state that they add one to their class levels due to the benefits that it provides, which would be normal for a powerful race. However, it also states that they get an additional hit dice for this one level, which is not the way that races with level modifiers are normally handled. A final glitch is that (according to the author), the noble Atlantean description is supposed to be applied to the common Atlantean stats as a template, but this is not stated anywhere.

Half-Atlanteans are merely crossbreeds between humans and Atlanteans. This is handled in much the same way half-elves are handled in the d20 system rules. Half-Atlanteans have Atlantean racial traits at a reduced level, but have human flexibility with classes.

The Bastai are a race of evolved cats that the Atlanteans magically engineered for use against the Egyptians. Bastai are have penalties to constitution and intelligence, but bonuses to their dexterity and wisdom. Bastai have bonuses to a variety of motion-related skills. They are experts at unarmed combat, and thus have monk as a favored class.

Twilight of Atlantis presents four new prestige classes for Atlantean characters: Artificer, Orphean, Resonant, and Spellbane.

The Artificer is a spellcaster who specializes in the creation of magic items. They receive numerous bonus item creation feats, and some useful class abilities, such as the ability to use the recipient's XP towards item creation. They amount of item creation feats they get seems gross, but considering how specialized they are and the inherent limits on magic items, I don't think it would work out badly.

Orpheans are loosely based on the legend of Orpheus, who traveled to Hades to recover his beloved Euridice. Orpheans are magically sustained warriors who have returned from death. The magic that sustains them give them great resilience, including natural armor bonuses and resistance to critical hits.

The Resonant appears to be an outgrowth of the idea as "magic as a science" that has been touched on in the authors' description of Atlantis. The resonant's key class ability is the ability to create prisms that let them use metamagic more effectively. While this is a novel idea, I am not so sure I like the execution. The metaprisms are created like a one-shot magic item with a spell level equal to the total adjustment of the metamagic feat to the level of the spell. This seriously underestimates the power of the prism; other items in WotC books suggest that the cost should be based on the total level of the spell after adjustment.

Spellbane is probably the shakiest concept of the lot. They are basically warriors who have leared martial techniques that allow them to fight spellcasters, which sounds like a decent enough concept, and the class abilities seem fairly well thought out as well. What struck me was the available races: Bastai and Half-Atlantean. I can get the Bastai part if they were specifically trained in overcoming Egyptian sorcerers. But I totally don't get why Half-Atlanteans would be included in the races for this class.

Twilight of Atlantis introduces one new skill and several new feats. The new skill is charioteering. As should be apparent, this skill allows the character to maneuver chariots.

The new feats include a few combat oriented ones appropriate to the period, but most are targeted at achieving the "magic as a part of the culture" thing that the authors are driving at. Example are imbue tattoos (which creates magic tattoos), elemental independence (metamagic feat that lets the caster cast an attack spell as raw magical energy vice an elemental effect), and resonant spellcasting (once per day allows the caster to try to cast a spell without using a slot.)

The equipment section provides rules for handling weapons and items in the classical era represented by the book. This includes statistics for the trident and establishes weapon equivalents for the falcata, kopesh, and pike. A short list is also provided detailing which items from the d20 system rules are not available in the era.

Rules are provided for bronze weapons and armor. The combat statistics of bronze items aren't impugned as in many D&D/d20 books covering such items. However, the item's resilience to damage is reduced.

New items and spells are also introduced. In addition to cat's eye bracelets (which assist in unarmed combat) and the already mentioned metaprisms, the magic metal Orichalcum is introduced. For the purposes of item creation, Orichalcum is effectively a universal power component per the DMG.

The new spells are largely themed around the notion of Altantean's civilized magic and other themes associated with the legends and purported period associated with Atlantis. Chariot of Poseiden creates a chariot that rises out of the waves. Curse of Helios amplifies light causing a fireball like effect that can also blind targets (though considering the usefulness of blinding opponents, the spells level -- 3rd -- is probably too low.)

The final section, Altantean Campaigns, includes ideas and guidelines for running a game set in the Atlantean era. This includes some notes on party makeup, types of adventures, and placing monsters according to their cultural origin. The chapter also includes three rather detailed and interesting adventure seeds – really more adventure outlines – for running a game in the Atlantean era.

Conclusion

As was the case with Jade & Steel, Twilight of Atlantis is an assembly of good ideas and material hampered by the price and presentation. I think that a game set in Atlantis could be a wonderful break from the normal fantasy game, yet it relies strongly enough on existing myths and legends that most players will not be baffled by the alieness of the world. Still, though I find the concepts interesting, I didn't think this book was quite as mechanically as sound as Jade & Steel was.

-Alan D. Kohler

 

[trancejeremy]

Twilight of Atlantis is a sourcebook from Avalanche press about the fabled lost continent of Atlantis. It's fairly small at 48 pages, and priced at $12.95, which is a bit high, but unfortunately not unusual. Like most d20 products from Avalanche, this features a cover by some semi-famous artist that I've never heard of outside of his work for Avalanche Press. And like all his covers, it features a pneumatic, scantily clad woman. Though personally she seems a bit on the skanky side. (Ironically, the back cover has a much nicer looking picture, sort of a seascape with horses that has an ancient greek feel to it, and it looks like it was done in oil). Inside, the text is a bit large, but the margins are very small indeed, so the text per page is pretty decent. There's also more interior artwork than I've seen in previous Avalanche Press products - looks like colored pencils (then made B&W), so it's not realistic, but well done and fits the setting well.

Anyway, unlike other Avalanche products I own, this one is strictly a soucebook. The first 18 pages or so are a history of Atlantis, and Atlantean customs and life. This is largely based on the real Atlantis story from Plato, as told in parts of Timeas and Criteas. Some is borrowed from later sources, most notably the inclusion of the civlizations of Lemuria and Mu. Both of those are relatively recently inventions (a few hundred years old). Lemuria comes from theosophy, and again, is fairly true to what it was purportly like, at least superficially (Lemurians being smart lizards). The Mu in this book on the other hand, seems to be from a source I'm not familiar with.

At any rate, the book gives an overview of Atlantean history, from it's founding, to it's rise, and finally it's destruction. The latter is not from Plato, but apparently later source. But it is very plausible, and ties in with what Plato did say. After this, various aspects of Atlantean life and culture are given a paragraph or three each. Topics covered are Law, Religion, Clothing, Art, Food, etc.

The 2nd part of this book is on making Atlantean characters. (This section is also apparently open content). This is also a big chapter, about 20 pages. There are new races, new pestige classes, new equipment, and new magic spells.

The new races are Atlantean (who are descended from Poseiden, albeit distantly), Noble Atlantean (closer to Poseiden), Half-Atlantean (really distant) and the Bastai, who are a race of feline humanoids created to help subjugate the Egyptians. All of the races seem fairly well designed and defined, and the author understood the d20 rules. For instance, because the Noble Atlanteans are a bit powerful, it has an effective class level of +1 (but it writes it in different terms, because the actual ECL rules apparently aren't open content).

The new prestige classes are:

Artificer - arcane spellcaster who specializes in creating magic items.

Orphean - fighter who has come back from the dead, by the use of magical energy. They're not quite alive, but not quite dead, either. Kinda like Kai from Lexx ("The dead do not sho-bop-ba-lu-la")

Resonant - arcane spellcaster who specializes in using the Resonance, which is sort of a magic art using crystals to power spells.

Spellbane - this is a monk prestige class. It mostly has special powers that allow the character to disrupt a spellcaster in combat, or dispel spells.

There's also a new skill (Charioteering, and includes sample DCs) and 6 new feats: Close Quarters Fighting, Imbue Tatoo (like making a magic item only on a person), Elemental Independence (hard to describe), Phalanx Formation, and Resonant Spellcasting (basically gives a bonus spell with some risk).

Then there's some equipment, and 10 new Atlantean spells, mostly arcane. One of the spells is depicted by the artwork on the back cover (another reason it should have been the cover, not the sleazy picture of the skanky woman). The spells fit the theme pretty well, though one seems a bit too powerful. Also introduced is the magical metal of Orachulum, which can be substituted in magic items in the place of xp points. This might be a bit unbalancing, but does fit the legends pretty well.

Lastly, there is 3 pages devoted to campaign ideas and adventure seeds. Since it's so short, there's not much to say about this part. Except that it covers a couple different styles, which is nice.

All in all, I thought this was a surprisingly good product. The only downside is the short length, though it does cover the basics of running an Atlantean campaign pretty well. I would also have liked an actual map of Atlantis, and the capital city. It's got a somewhat artsy map of the Mediterreanean region, but doesn't include the whole isle of Atlantis (and Iberia looks odd). It also uses modern labels on the regional map.

That's the downside of trying to run an Atlantean campaign with this - the DM will have to do a fair amount of work both fleshing out Atlantis and mapping Atlantis. Though there are a number of decent books on it, it probably wouldn't have taken much effort for Avlanche to include a decent map or schematic of the isle of Atlantis itself. Still, it's a very good product. I'd give it a 4 1/2, but since it's not really worth a 5, I'm rounding down.