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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Voadam" data-source="post: 2011176" data-attributes="member: 2209">Wrack and Ruin is sourcebook detailing the ruins and undercity of the Oathbound d20 campaign setting's city of Penance. Penance itself is described in the campaign setting book and is currently also supported by the Oathbound product Plains of Penance.Oathbound is a high powered, high fantasy campaign setting with mechanisms for drawing in creatures from various worlds. There are populations of normal D&D PH races, monster manual races, races from Bastion's Minions: Fearsome Foes book, and the Oathbound campaign setting with easy opportunities to add in more from other sources.Penance is sixty three miles across, a huge area with most of the surface uninhabited and not subject to legal rule. These lawless regions of the surface are called the wrack. The inhabited regions are ruled by individual bloodlords who essentially set up their own nation states within their territory with culture and laws varying wildly from one region to the next, some being incredibly evil. The whole of the city is ultimately ruled by a semi-divine figure, the Queen Israfel of Penance. She magically draws in non-natives for her own purposes. She sets up and enforces the rules governing bloodlords but does not directly take a part in the city's life or direct governance.The city is also half a mile high. Levels and buildings were continually added above existing ones throughout its multiple thousands of years of history. Occasionally these buildings collapse and sink lower into the undercity known as the maze. Since sunken buildings fall until they reach a stable position there are gaps and incongruities such as a building's front door leading to the third story window of a neighboring building instead of into a street. The city is continually shifting and settling as more material is placed on top and different portions below collapse. Sections underground and on the surface can sink at any time and make life subject to catastrophic change. When a building sinks into the maze, the former inhabitants usually find it easiest to rebuild anew so most sunken buildings are abandoned, sometimes with valuables still inside.The maze has some bloodhold city states itself (one with a population of 65,000) and a thriving ecology of monsters. There are also a number of random magical phenomena due to the high concentrations of magic over several tens of thousands of years in the city. These range from time and gravity manipulations to magical interference zones. The city has an entire guild, the rafters, dedicated to exploring and guiding people through the maze.The setting requires major suspension of disbelief, the building upon layers idea is physically infeasible, the logistics of getting materials up to the city is more than daunting, and the underground populations seem ecologically iffy (as all underdark ones do). The reward for engaging in the suspension however is a great set up for D&D adventuring. There are reasons for a huge dungeon, random monsters, multiple PC races, weird magical effects, unexplored areas and abundant loot. Also there are plenty of clear bad guys and solid home bases for adventurers in various bloodholds. At any point everything is subject to change as buildings collapse shifting the balance of power on the surface and possibly opening up new opportunities in delving.As far as solid game material, Wrack and Ruin provides a lot of d20 mechanical bits. There are three new PC suitable races (disfigured almost humans, a serpent race, and a more spider-like type of drow) and a PC suitable template for natives of the maze. There are five new prestige races, (an xp for levels of power concept introduced in Oathbound) nine new arrival gifts (special magical powers roughly equivalent to a feat that the magic of the world bestows on new arrivals), and seven "earned" gifts. The prestige races are foci of the arachnid, chameleon, cockroach, exile, and mole. There are two prestige classes, one is a five level extension of the ten-level rafter prestige class from the setting book, and one is a ten level channeling class. Channeling was a type of spell point magic introduced in Plains of Penance and sufficient material is presented here to use the new spellwarden class which can bind up spells for long periods of time.There are two new guild organizations. One, the Band of the Red Sun, is criminal based and one, The Rage Maidens, is dedicated to helping abused women. The Rage Maidens are presented mechanically using the rules from Bastion's Guildcraft including six levels of guild benefits and three rage maiden only feats.Six spells, six monsters, six new pieces of equipment and four magic items round out the new d20 rules materials.As for setting material there is information on the various bloodhold relationships to both the wrack and the maze. These range from Lord Abyddon's attempts to find routes through the maze to conquer the Alliance to why there are so many monster attacks on Divinia.New secret bloodholds in the maze are introduced as well as a mobile secret bloodhold of exiles in the wrack. There are weird fantasy animals and plants native to the maze, lots of little organizations, places of interest and rumors. The maze has legendary lost bloodholds that sank hundreds or thousands of years ago with rich stories about their significance and the lost treasures they contained.Finally there is a forty page epic style adventure that continues from the events in the adventure contained in Plains of Penance (although starting here would not be a problem). It is designed for five eighth level characters but has notes for scaling the adventure up for higher powered parties. The events involve bloodlords, Israfel, the Rafters, and other major power players of the setting. There is a high level of brinkmanship with disaster ready to overcome the land (or the PCs) if the party makes missteps or tarries too long. One part where the party must submit to capture should probably be rewritten as most PCs will predictably balk at the situation.As a sourcebook expansion for the Oathbound city of Penance, Wrack and Ruin does its job providing numerous options for adventuring in the lost portions of the massive city and expanding the rich, high powered, high fantasy milieu that is Penance.</blockquote>

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