Psion
Adventurer
[imager]http://www.bastionpress.com/covers/Wildwood%20Cover.jpg[/imager]Wildwood is a setting supplement by Bastion Press. As the name might reveal, Wildwood is principally a tremendous forest. Though Wildwood is a part of Bastion’s Oathbound setting, Bastion states that this book can also be used as a stand-alone setting supplement.
Wildwood is written by Thomas Knauss and Darrin Drader.
A First Look
Wildwood is distributed as a PDF product, and is available here at the ENWorld Game Store, as well as other fine PDF outlets. Bastion has planned a print version of the product for some time now, but a print version is not available at the time of this writing. The PDF version encompasses 254 pages. The PDF is well hyperlinked and bookmarked to take advantage of the PDF format.
The front cover is by Shawn Ye Zhangyi. The cover painting depicts a lone white-haired elven warrior beset by two huge wolf-like creatures, while a winged creature looks on amidst towering trees.
The interior features both black and white artwork and color artwork. Credited interior artists include Bruce Colero, Christopher Pickrell, Jason Engle, Jeff Ward, Terry Pavlet, and Todd Morasch; several pieces by Jeremy Jarvis also appear, but he is not credited in the credits. Colero does a few full page computer rendered color plates. Engle, perhaps best known for his lavish color artwork in the pages of Dungeon and other fantasy products, only has a few line art sketches in this book.
A few maps re-used from Oathbound are by Todd Morasch, but the book features some new attractive sepia-toned maps by Jeff Visgaitis and Jason Rosenstark.
Though the editing is pretty solid, there are a few gaffes that sneak through. One instance was the use of the word “prodigy” where context suggest that the word the author was looking for was “progeny.” Less harmless and more annoying, one of the alluded to prestige races, Focus of the Mind, was excluded entirely.
A Deeper Look
Wildwood is arranged into twelve chapters and four appendices, including background and setting details as well as mechanics for running the setting. The mechanics material is a bit scattered, with the races being concentrated at the front of the book and most of the remaining mechanics collecting in the last few chapters. Rather than follow the book chapter by chapter, I am going to concentrate chiefly on the setting then the mechanics.
The Setting of Wildwood:
As stated, Bastion wrote this book in a manner that it can stand alone as a setting book. But it doesn’t segregate it from the rest of the Forge (the Oathbound world) to do so. The first chapter provides an overview of the Forge.
For those not familiar with the Forge, it is an odd world, a prison for an ancient deity, incarcerated by an alliance of gods that were threatened by him and his creations. The world of the Forge itself was created as his prison. His seven most powerful servants, the so-called Seven Feathered Fowl, were compelled to watch over and defend seven citadels that serve as locks to the prison of their lord. The Feathered Fowl came to dominate seven domains, each with a different flavor.
Wildwood is the third such domain to be thoroughly detailed. The Oathbound core book details the city of Pennance, which stands at the center of a wilderness domain which is further detailed in a supplement. Arena is a desert domain with two supplements covering it.
Wildwood itself is a forested domain teeming with hostile lifeforms and the survivors in it. Though the wooded landscape is a common underpinning, the authors spice it up a bit by providing a bit of variety in that it includes variations both mundane (in that is spans lanscapes from coniferous forests to balmy jungles) and fantastic.
Though many feathered fowl scheme to escape their eternal imprisonment, Haiel (the feathered fowl ruling over Wildwood) is a bit different. Haiel views his position as one of reward, and styles himself a personification of nature. The domain he rules is a ruthlessly oppressive domain of predators in which a few settlements of skilled individuals eke out an existence. This sets a feel for the domain a bit like some planetary romances of old, in which the protagonists stand against a greatly oppressive environment. As an alternative to the more typical “saving civilization” fantasy mold, it’s a bit of a refreshing change.
A brief chapter on ecology helps flesh out a few details about Wildwood. A fantasy forest being deliberately engineered to be a bit hostile might be a bit different from that which you would find at your state park. This chapter tries to spell out some fundamental differences while remaining reasonably self-consistent. Little details like adaptations that potential prey species have help explain how they can persist in such a hostile environment. In addition to the ecological grounding, the chapter provides a few new hazards to throw at hapless PCs who find themselves trapped in Wildwood.
The main exploitable theme of Wildwood as a setting is survivors struggling against a harsh environment. Wildwood spends a fair bit of time discussing various settlements that eke out an existence in the domain. Of course, such a menagerie would be a bit dull if it was just one “village of hardened survivors” after another. In the mix, you’ll find such strangeness as a settlement led by a vengeful vampire, one of hornet-like creatures afforded a rare second chance, and a spiritual center of the dog-like dovers.
The settlement chapter features a few fully detailed NPC stat blocks of leader figures. The leaders typically have a CR of 20 or more. Many of the challenges detailed in the chapters of the challenges and hostile regions of Wildwood are also in the teens to 20s. This cements Wildwood in the same high-powered tradition that is a hallmark of the rest of the Oathbound setting.
A chapter entitled “lost civilizations” sprinkles in some of the classical pulpy jungle adventure feel to the setting. The chapter is principally flavor text and ideas, with little in the way of mechanics. What this essentially provides is a few forest-borne goals and “dungeons” that a GM can expand as the subject of adventures, though this section is less well developed than some others.
A short chapter “the Bounty of the Sea” provides some background information about the main non-forest feature of the setting.
The Mechanics of Wildwood:
New races that originally appeared in other Oathbound products are (re)introduced early in the book, and comprise a mix of animal like creatures and other strange humanoids. They include:
Oathbound fans might be eager to pick this book up just for the 3.5 treatment of the old races. However, there is more than that. As presented here, the race statistics include a 3-level “racial level” advancement. This technique appeared originally in Malhavoc Press’ Arcana Unearthed/Evolved, and was eventually adopted in WotC’s OGL exposé Unearthed Arcana and the Sword and Sorcery tabletop rendition of World of Warcraft. Not only do these provide a way to expand your character in line with the flavor of the race, but it addresses some of my concerns about races that were originally depicted as being more powerful than 1 HD.
A chapter entitled The Thrill of the Hunt provides some new uses of skills in the context of hunting and pursuit in the setting, as well as all the new feats provided in the book. Some of the new feats support the hunting skill uses, though some are related to other mechanics such as the prestige race mechanic (see below.)
A chapter entitled The Breadth of Life provides still more new races as well as a new take on the prestige race mechanic and the Oathbound gift mechanic. Splitting the races into two widely separated chapters seems an odd choice to me. Providing odd PC races is nothing new to Oathbound. The only meaningful distinction that seems to place these races here is that they were not, to my knowledge, previously detailed. The new races include
Prestige races are a mechanic that have existed since the first Oathbound book. They drew something of a mixed reaction. They presented an intriguing concept, that of taking on an entirely different nature, and addressed with a whole new mechanic which helped drive home its strangeness. At the same time, they stepped outside of the normal leveled advancement structure, an approach that met with some hesitation by some critics (ahem) and were made more problematic in the face of the 3.5 advancement scheme, which relies even more heavily on the xp-level marriage.
The prestige race mechanic does change here. Essentially, the authors plug into the 3-level “racial level” mechanic and add a new spin to it. The prestige racial level mechanic works essentially like the racial level or class level mechanic.
On the surface, prestige race levels seem like prestige classes, but the restrictions are a bit different. One must perform an “enchantment of the flesh”, which requires either a feat or access to a special site. There are no level based prerequisites, but there are restrictions on the ways you can combine them or how fast you may take levels in them.
A sizeable chapter is devoted to Symbiotes, a concept similar to the concept of grafts in official 3e books. The Wildwood symbiote rules provide a set of guidelines for attaching parts of different creatures. It’s a somewhat thorough and perhaps complicated treatment of the topic, with skill modifiers and formulae to determine the effects of grafts. Overall, it seems a bit difficult to use, and if I were interested in such a concept, I might tend to prefer the WotC grafts. Well, at least I would if they would assemble them in one place...
The four appendices contain rules material as well. Appendix A contains stat blocks for the adventure. Appendix B contains one new 20 level base class (the feral warrior, sort of a monk class for those with natural weapons) and 3 new prestige classes. Appendix C contains new spells. Appendix D contains new creatures.
Other materials
Wildwood includes an adventure for 11th level characters, The Belly of the Beasts. The adventure seems primarily geared towards a PC party coming into Wildwood as outsiders. In the town of Penumbra on the border of the domain, the players are hired by one of two competing factions to explore a ruined city. Along the way, they face threats from the environment as well as a competing faction of adventures. Overall, the adventure is well written, with a good synopsis and scaling notes.
Conclusions
Wildwood is an interesting setting, both from a mechanical and campaign standpoint.
From a campaign standpoint, it makes a great “savage wilderness” style of campaign. I am uncertain if I would want to feature a full length campaign in the setting. However, a campaign arc confronting the hostile wilderness seems like an enticing possibility, whether as part of an Oathbound campaign or dropped into another setting.
There is a lot to be said about the mechanics of the setting. Some previous Oathbound books have featured some scarily unbalanced material (and worse, material that appears so with only casual inspection). The material here is both interesting and largely balanced. The renewed treatment of Oathbound races with racial levels brings you a nice selection of interesting 3.5 ready races. The prestige race mechanic are also a nice improvement on the original, and tempting inclusion to a campaign (though the Focus of the Mind prestige race is missing in action.)
As mentioned, the symbiote mechanics seem to me like too much work to be worth it, but might be a nice starting point for an enterprising GM.
Overall, if you are an Oathbound fan of the idea of a hostile wilderness setting intrigues you, you might find some good value in the setting.
Overall Grade: B
-Alan D. Kohler
Wildwood is written by Thomas Knauss and Darrin Drader.
A First Look
Wildwood is distributed as a PDF product, and is available here at the ENWorld Game Store, as well as other fine PDF outlets. Bastion has planned a print version of the product for some time now, but a print version is not available at the time of this writing. The PDF version encompasses 254 pages. The PDF is well hyperlinked and bookmarked to take advantage of the PDF format.
The front cover is by Shawn Ye Zhangyi. The cover painting depicts a lone white-haired elven warrior beset by two huge wolf-like creatures, while a winged creature looks on amidst towering trees.
The interior features both black and white artwork and color artwork. Credited interior artists include Bruce Colero, Christopher Pickrell, Jason Engle, Jeff Ward, Terry Pavlet, and Todd Morasch; several pieces by Jeremy Jarvis also appear, but he is not credited in the credits. Colero does a few full page computer rendered color plates. Engle, perhaps best known for his lavish color artwork in the pages of Dungeon and other fantasy products, only has a few line art sketches in this book.
A few maps re-used from Oathbound are by Todd Morasch, but the book features some new attractive sepia-toned maps by Jeff Visgaitis and Jason Rosenstark.
Though the editing is pretty solid, there are a few gaffes that sneak through. One instance was the use of the word “prodigy” where context suggest that the word the author was looking for was “progeny.” Less harmless and more annoying, one of the alluded to prestige races, Focus of the Mind, was excluded entirely.
A Deeper Look
Wildwood is arranged into twelve chapters and four appendices, including background and setting details as well as mechanics for running the setting. The mechanics material is a bit scattered, with the races being concentrated at the front of the book and most of the remaining mechanics collecting in the last few chapters. Rather than follow the book chapter by chapter, I am going to concentrate chiefly on the setting then the mechanics.
The Setting of Wildwood:
As stated, Bastion wrote this book in a manner that it can stand alone as a setting book. But it doesn’t segregate it from the rest of the Forge (the Oathbound world) to do so. The first chapter provides an overview of the Forge.
For those not familiar with the Forge, it is an odd world, a prison for an ancient deity, incarcerated by an alliance of gods that were threatened by him and his creations. The world of the Forge itself was created as his prison. His seven most powerful servants, the so-called Seven Feathered Fowl, were compelled to watch over and defend seven citadels that serve as locks to the prison of their lord. The Feathered Fowl came to dominate seven domains, each with a different flavor.
Wildwood is the third such domain to be thoroughly detailed. The Oathbound core book details the city of Pennance, which stands at the center of a wilderness domain which is further detailed in a supplement. Arena is a desert domain with two supplements covering it.
Wildwood itself is a forested domain teeming with hostile lifeforms and the survivors in it. Though the wooded landscape is a common underpinning, the authors spice it up a bit by providing a bit of variety in that it includes variations both mundane (in that is spans lanscapes from coniferous forests to balmy jungles) and fantastic.
Though many feathered fowl scheme to escape their eternal imprisonment, Haiel (the feathered fowl ruling over Wildwood) is a bit different. Haiel views his position as one of reward, and styles himself a personification of nature. The domain he rules is a ruthlessly oppressive domain of predators in which a few settlements of skilled individuals eke out an existence. This sets a feel for the domain a bit like some planetary romances of old, in which the protagonists stand against a greatly oppressive environment. As an alternative to the more typical “saving civilization” fantasy mold, it’s a bit of a refreshing change.
A brief chapter on ecology helps flesh out a few details about Wildwood. A fantasy forest being deliberately engineered to be a bit hostile might be a bit different from that which you would find at your state park. This chapter tries to spell out some fundamental differences while remaining reasonably self-consistent. Little details like adaptations that potential prey species have help explain how they can persist in such a hostile environment. In addition to the ecological grounding, the chapter provides a few new hazards to throw at hapless PCs who find themselves trapped in Wildwood.
The main exploitable theme of Wildwood as a setting is survivors struggling against a harsh environment. Wildwood spends a fair bit of time discussing various settlements that eke out an existence in the domain. Of course, such a menagerie would be a bit dull if it was just one “village of hardened survivors” after another. In the mix, you’ll find such strangeness as a settlement led by a vengeful vampire, one of hornet-like creatures afforded a rare second chance, and a spiritual center of the dog-like dovers.
The settlement chapter features a few fully detailed NPC stat blocks of leader figures. The leaders typically have a CR of 20 or more. Many of the challenges detailed in the chapters of the challenges and hostile regions of Wildwood are also in the teens to 20s. This cements Wildwood in the same high-powered tradition that is a hallmark of the rest of the Oathbound setting.
A chapter entitled “lost civilizations” sprinkles in some of the classical pulpy jungle adventure feel to the setting. The chapter is principally flavor text and ideas, with little in the way of mechanics. What this essentially provides is a few forest-borne goals and “dungeons” that a GM can expand as the subject of adventures, though this section is less well developed than some others.
A short chapter “the Bounty of the Sea” provides some background information about the main non-forest feature of the setting.
The Mechanics of Wildwood:
New races that originally appeared in other Oathbound products are (re)introduced early in the book, and comprise a mix of animal like creatures and other strange humanoids. They include:
- Asherake - tiger like winged savages.
- Dovers - dog-like humanoids
- Faust - gaunt goblinoids with a reputation for treachery.
- Frey and Wild Frey - catlike humanoids
- Nightlings - gluttonous nocturnal reptilians
- Thorns - sentient plants
- Vogels - as German-speaking readers might summize, vogels are a bird-like race.
Oathbound fans might be eager to pick this book up just for the 3.5 treatment of the old races. However, there is more than that. As presented here, the race statistics include a 3-level “racial level” advancement. This technique appeared originally in Malhavoc Press’ Arcana Unearthed/Evolved, and was eventually adopted in WotC’s OGL exposé Unearthed Arcana and the Sword and Sorcery tabletop rendition of World of Warcraft. Not only do these provide a way to expand your character in line with the flavor of the race, but it addresses some of my concerns about races that were originally depicted as being more powerful than 1 HD.
A chapter entitled The Thrill of the Hunt provides some new uses of skills in the context of hunting and pursuit in the setting, as well as all the new feats provided in the book. Some of the new feats support the hunting skill uses, though some are related to other mechanics such as the prestige race mechanic (see below.)
A chapter entitled The Breadth of Life provides still more new races as well as a new take on the prestige race mechanic and the Oathbound gift mechanic. Splitting the races into two widely separated chapters seems an odd choice to me. Providing odd PC races is nothing new to Oathbound. The only meaningful distinction that seems to place these races here is that they were not, to my knowledge, previously detailed. The new races include
- Armamen - crustaceous creatures with a protective carapace.
- Bern - small hornet like creatures. A problematic choice in the design of the bern is that they are vermin despite being made sentient; monstrous humanoid seems a choice here with more precedent.
- Musai - an otherwise weak near-human race blessed with luck and the ability to portend the future.
- Ologatu - a lanky, hardy race of humanoids.
- Urgoda - a savage race of nomadic hunters. Urgoda have racial HD as well as racial levels.
Prestige races are a mechanic that have existed since the first Oathbound book. They drew something of a mixed reaction. They presented an intriguing concept, that of taking on an entirely different nature, and addressed with a whole new mechanic which helped drive home its strangeness. At the same time, they stepped outside of the normal leveled advancement structure, an approach that met with some hesitation by some critics (ahem) and were made more problematic in the face of the 3.5 advancement scheme, which relies even more heavily on the xp-level marriage.
The prestige race mechanic does change here. Essentially, the authors plug into the 3-level “racial level” mechanic and add a new spin to it. The prestige racial level mechanic works essentially like the racial level or class level mechanic.
On the surface, prestige race levels seem like prestige classes, but the restrictions are a bit different. One must perform an “enchantment of the flesh”, which requires either a feat or access to a special site. There are no level based prerequisites, but there are restrictions on the ways you can combine them or how fast you may take levels in them.
A sizeable chapter is devoted to Symbiotes, a concept similar to the concept of grafts in official 3e books. The Wildwood symbiote rules provide a set of guidelines for attaching parts of different creatures. It’s a somewhat thorough and perhaps complicated treatment of the topic, with skill modifiers and formulae to determine the effects of grafts. Overall, it seems a bit difficult to use, and if I were interested in such a concept, I might tend to prefer the WotC grafts. Well, at least I would if they would assemble them in one place...
The four appendices contain rules material as well. Appendix A contains stat blocks for the adventure. Appendix B contains one new 20 level base class (the feral warrior, sort of a monk class for those with natural weapons) and 3 new prestige classes. Appendix C contains new spells. Appendix D contains new creatures.
Other materials
Wildwood includes an adventure for 11th level characters, The Belly of the Beasts. The adventure seems primarily geared towards a PC party coming into Wildwood as outsiders. In the town of Penumbra on the border of the domain, the players are hired by one of two competing factions to explore a ruined city. Along the way, they face threats from the environment as well as a competing faction of adventures. Overall, the adventure is well written, with a good synopsis and scaling notes.
Conclusions
Wildwood is an interesting setting, both from a mechanical and campaign standpoint.
From a campaign standpoint, it makes a great “savage wilderness” style of campaign. I am uncertain if I would want to feature a full length campaign in the setting. However, a campaign arc confronting the hostile wilderness seems like an enticing possibility, whether as part of an Oathbound campaign or dropped into another setting.
There is a lot to be said about the mechanics of the setting. Some previous Oathbound books have featured some scarily unbalanced material (and worse, material that appears so with only casual inspection). The material here is both interesting and largely balanced. The renewed treatment of Oathbound races with racial levels brings you a nice selection of interesting 3.5 ready races. The prestige race mechanic are also a nice improvement on the original, and tempting inclusion to a campaign (though the Focus of the Mind prestige race is missing in action.)
As mentioned, the symbiote mechanics seem to me like too much work to be worth it, but might be a nice starting point for an enterprising GM.
Overall, if you are an Oathbound fan of the idea of a hostile wilderness setting intrigues you, you might find some good value in the setting.
Overall Grade: B
-Alan D. Kohler
