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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 2011129" data-attributes="member: 172">When the Sky Falls When the Sky Falls is an "event book" for d20 System fantasy games. For those not familiar with event books, the basic idea is to provide mechanics, plot seeds, and game elements behind a major game-altering event as a resource for GMs who wish to integrate such a major event into their game without forcing the GM into a pre-written (and often confining) super-module to accomplish the same thing. In the case of this event book, the event is the fall of a meteor to the campaign world.When the Sky Falls is published by Malhavoc Press and written by WotC staffer and frequent Malhavoc contributor Bruce Cordell.A First LookWhen the Sky Falls is a 66 page PDF (including covers and ad page) currently priced at the seemingly permanent "sale price" of $7.00.The cover of the book is illustrated by Alan Pollack. The illustration depicts a purplish-black rocky creature in the midst of a fiery crater, with a soon-to-be-dead warrior raising his sword to it.The interior is black and white. Kieran Yanner handles the interior illustrations. His art is rather stylish and evocative, and this book is no exception.The interior format is dense, with the standard two column layout. As is the case with Malhavoc, sidebars are used in various places. As with the prior event book Requiem for a God, some of these sidebars are occupied by checklists for incorporating elements of the book with the game, a neat and useful feature.A Deeper LookWhen the Sky Falls takes what is essentially a modern SF yarn and tries to inject it into a fantasy setting. But make no mistake; this outcome of this book is not simply a tale featuring Tea Leoni as an embattled bard trying to fight the system while she contemplates the mortality of humanity. No, this book revs up the fantasy, and has more in common with War of the Worlds and It Came from Outer Space than modern meteor disaster survival yarns.The book is organized into eight chapters. The first two introduce options and discuss choices when integrating the event into a game. The third through seventh chapters introduce new game elements. The last chapter provides a number of plot hooks and adventure ideas.The first chapter, The Impact Site really provides options and advice for the biggest picture decisions when integrating a meteor impact into the game. The author provides variations in where the impact might occur, as well as physical effects of such an impact.But here is where the author stirs in the fantasy elements. Sure, you could just throw in a meteor impact and it could have some telling influence in the world. But this is fantasy; a big bang is insufficient when you can do so much more with a meteor.To this end, the book provides you with three options for objects that might impact on your game world. The first is a "mundane meteorite." This is pretty much the same thing as a real world meteorite: a sizable chunk of rock that, when it strikes, inflicts significant damage. This section provides mechanical details for resolving impact damage and (if it impacts on water) Tsumanis, as well as follow on effects like forest fires, cold weather, and acid rain.This section isn't totally bereft of fantasy elements. In a fantasy world, an event like this can have a significant effect. For example, the torrent of heat and earth may unleash molten elementals, and the remnants of the meteorite may have special properties when used as components for items or spells.The second type of meteorite discussed is the thaumaturgic meteorite or thaumeteorite. These are fragments of celestial objects charged with magical energy, such as the body of a deity or the heart of a dying planet. Whatever the origin, the thaumeteorite has a number of magical effects in addition to the properties of mundane meteorites. The most immediate effects are a "ethereal-material pulse" (or EMP; yes, I winced, too) which acts like a massive area dispel, and changestorms which affects each creature in the area much like a rod of wonder.The thaumeteorite also has some follow on residual effects of note. First, another new material starmilk can also be used to create exceptional arms and armor (reducing spell failure and dispelling magic, respectively), and the region is charged by energy that can be exploited by taking the Astromancy feat. This allows access to new astromancy spells as well as providing the occasional boost in magical power by exploiting power associated with the heavens.The third major type of meteorite presented here is the engram ark. Engram arks have most of the effects of mundane and thaumaturgic meteorites upon impact. To make matters worse, they are usually accompanied by a number of thaumaturgic and mundane meteorite impacts.The engram arks are basically interplanetary refugee ships. Fleeing from a malignant power called the Dark Plea (a concept introduced briefly in Mindscapes: Beasts of the Id) which is destroying their planet, engram arks carry the last remnants of a far off world. Engram arks contain remnants of the minds of the refugees in the form of "engrams", rune-like entities that exist in a vast pool at the center of an ark. There, a sort of magical guardian watches over them, but having been damaged by the dark plea, is incapable of reintegrating the engrams into beings. It's also a little psychotic.Engrams can grant PCs a measure of power. By diving into the pool (called the rune sea), an engram will bond to the character, which gives the character access to some of the memory and skills of the engram. Of course this is not a give-away. There are hazards and guardians associated with getting to the engram ark and in using the engrams.Cordell does not exhaust the possibilities there, though. He closes the chapter with a list of other things a meteorite (most likely, a thaumeteorite) might be to give you ideas, such as a fallen angel, a marauding spaceborne beast, a piece of a celestial machine, etc. Some of these ideas are expanded upon later in the book.While the first chapter covers the most immediate decisions and effects associated with the meteorite, the second chapter deals with more long-term effects and campaign possibilities. This includes three major categories of material: adventure ideas, physical and magical changes, and new organizations.The physical changes could involve climate and landscape changes, and the chapter introduces (briefly) a variety of such changes that might be caused by a meteorite. This could make for some interesting variations for characters.More in the fantasy realm, the widespread magical changes could come about due to a thaumeteorite or engram ark's introduction of magical energy into the world. This can create positive or negative effects to one of the various schools of magic, of a temporary or permanent nature. The temporary effects are more pronounced than the permanent effects. This effects are similar to effects that occur depending on a deity's domain when a deity dies discussed in the prior event book, Requiem for a God.Also similar to Requiem for a God, When the Sky Falls introduces two mostly campaign neutral organizations that would arise because of or concerned with a meteorite impact: the Sky Callers and the League of Astronomers. The Sky Callers are a spin on the old "nihilistic cult"; they believe that the sky is a destructive entity and engage in rites to call down more destruction from the sky. The League of Astronomers is a generally more benign academic group interested in studying the stars and fallen objects.Though there are more developed plot ideas in the last chapter, this chapter provides some ideas for campaigns and a few basic plot seeds.The third chapter features four new prestige classes, all intricately tied to the material in the first two chapters. The classes are as follows: -Astroengineer: Primarily drawn from the ranks of the League of Astronomers, astroengineers are spellcasters who specialize in the study of thaumameteorites and learn how to exploit their power. The get the astromancy feat (already mentioned) and learn other astromancy feats as they advance. Their final class abilities at 10th level include an ability to randomly "wish upon a star." Cheesy or a clever way to add substance to a common myth? You make the call. -Engram adept: These are experts in the use of engrams. They have a greater synergy with engrams, allowing them to bear more, in addition to learning to use engrams for different applications. -Lord of Silence: Perhaps the most "out there" of these classes, the Lord of Silence learns of the silence of the void of space that engram arks travel through, and learn to apply it. Most likely starting their career as rogues, they continue to gain rogue like abilities, in addition to magical abilities related to silence and darkness… because space is dark too, you see. Well, what can I say but I wasn't jazzed by the concept. The other three classes work in nicely to their concept; this one just sort of seems casually handwaved in. What, did Cordell feel the need to match the number of PrCs in Requiem? -Ruin Priest: As astroengineers are primarily associated with the League of Astronomers, so are ruin priests primarily from the Sky Callers. Ruin priests are spellcasters, with a destructive array of abilities, of which the most interesting is perhaps the ruinous cleave ability (much like a cleave, but upon reducing the creature to zero hp, the character gets a free spell instead of attack). At 10th level, they can lead a ritual of the fall, though unless the ritual is allowed to persist for a long time, the effects are much less devastating than the real thing.The feats chapter has two feat chains - the astromancy feat chain, and the star emblem feat chain. Both revolve around the use of focuses made of "starmilk" created during the fall of a thaumeteorite. Astromancy is for spellcasters, various feats allow the caster to focus or enhance spells with this energy. The star emblem feat chain is the same, but is focused on physical combat effects.The one thing that bugs me (and this crops up later in the spells) is the invocation of "plasma" as an energy type. Plasma energy type works against the weakest of a target's defenses against electricity or fire. Now, that's a decent mechanic, but flavor-wise, invoking the term "plasma" seems too SF and I find it a bit jarring for use in a fantasy setting. Even one in which meteors fall instead of just being portents.The spells chapter introduces spells in three general categories: Astromancy, dream spells, and engram related spells.Astromancy spells require the astromancy feat to use, and have astronomy or meteor related themes or effects, like meteorite (an offensive spell that calls down a small meteor strike) or veil of meteors (which surrounds the caster and provides protection from physical attacks.)The dream spells (whose presence here is mostly due to the nightmare domain, part of the domains of the Dark Plea) are a selection of spells with some frightening sleep and dream related effects. For example, dream resurrection makes a dream version of the caster that can attempt to return her to life if slain, while nightseed infects a target with a monstrous entity that awakes when they slumber.The engram spells either affect or manipulate engrams or use an engram as a focus to create powerful effects.The sixth chapter features items associated with the concepts discussed herein; mostly these are items imbued with spells or other features introduced in the book (like plasma damage).The monsters herein are, again, mostly associated with engram arks or the dark plea. The mighty ark guardians are dragons (plasma-breathing, naturally) that break off of an engram ark as it falls and protect it, and hungry dreamers are devolved humanoids corrupted by the dark plea, with a mane of mind-feeding tendrils. There are six new monsters in all.The final chapter, I Found it in the Crater, is, in essence, a selection of plot seeds from chapter 1, with some additional details added to serve as the basis for adventure. Each takes from 1/2 to one page, and has possible events and history, as well as a creature or character featured in each. The adventures include variations on meteorite-borne threats that have not been discussed yet, such as a killer fungus that comes from a meteorite.ConclusionOverall, I like the event book format, in that it gives the DM a free hand without forcing him to do some of the more difficult mechanical and conceptual work himself.I wasn't as taken by the ideas in When the Sky Falls as I was in Requiem for a God, but it certainly is a daring concept, and Cordell caries it off well.Overall Grade: B+ -Alan D. Kohler</blockquote>

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