This week, Tim Brannan over at
The Other Side has been posting about
Castles and Crusades. You can check out his C&C posts
here. As usual, Tim got me excited about a game so I decided to make a couple of purchases this week.
Castles and Crusades Player's Handbook - I'm not going to
review the book. Tim already did an excellent job of that. This review was honestly the reason I decided to pick up the books. The clarification about the game only having one edition was what settled it for me.You can pick up copies of earlier printings on Amazon rather cheap. I grabbed a copy of the 2nd printing for 13 bucks (and free shipping through Amazon Prime).
Dragons of Aihrde: Leech Wyrms - I've actually had this book for about a year now. I picked it up for a few dollars at a used book store in Nashville. The book contains 8 new lesser dragons (with an mini adventure for each), a new human subrace (with a racial dragon rider class), a slightly longer adventure (three pages), and two new magic items. While the book is nominally set in the Airhde setting, these wyrms can be used in any game. I really like that the adventure seeds are lower level. My only complaint is that the racial class doesn't contain an experience table. This is the only racial class I've seen (and I"m extremely new to the game), but that seems like something that's needed. Then again maybe not if the class is only for npcs.
Black Libram of Nartarus - I've read that the Black Libram of Nartarus is the closest thing C&C has to a Book of Vile Darkness. That's why I had to pick it up. The major addition this book brings to the game is necromancy. Any spellcaster can learn necromancy, they just have to declare that they want to learn it at the beginning of a level. This access to new spells comes at a greater experience point cost to level up and eventually negative charisma modifiers. The spells (which have wonderful swords and sorcery names) gained are truly gruesome though. For example, one of the spells magically disembowels its victim, leaving them with only 4 HP. They can only recover with the aid of powerful magic. Two eldritch tomes are also mentioned. One is dark fey-centric and the other dragon-centric. Any caster in possession of the tomes can use the spells. The book also contains rules for sacrificial magic and includes dark magic items. Finally it gives us more than 20 new undead monsters (including classics like the demilich and new creatures like the frightening Red Jester). That chapter also contains rules for more powerful vampires, liches, and mummies.
This book was well worth the ten dollars I payed for it. The book is nominally setting specific (mentioning gods from the Haunted Highland setting). This isn't a problem though because Troll Lord has released a
free pdf detailing those gods.
Castles and Crusades Freeport Companion - I have mentioned a few times in the past that I love the Freeport setting. Recently Green Ronin had a Kickstarter to fund a new version of The Pirates Guide to Freeport for Pathfinder. I pledged a hundred dollars (like I said, I LOVE Freeport) and will receive some cool swag for it. One of the things I got was Freeport Companions for other systems in PDF form. This past week I got codes for the existing Pathfinder, 3rd Era, Savage Worlds, True20, and Castles and Crusades companions. Strangely enough while they all have some common ground, each mentioned different npics and monsters.
The book is full of new C&C stats and rules. Here's what's in the book:
- Racial stats for goblins, orcs, and hobgoblins, plus the Freeport gnome variant (crag gnomes) and azhar (basically fire genasi that are excellent sailors)
- 2 new classes: Noble and Pirate
- Insanity and Madness Rules: Freeport has always had a eldritch horror/Call of Cthulhu element
- Equipment: new weapons (including firearms), armor, poisons, and drugs
- 12 new spells, several magic items
- Numerous stats for specific Freeport persona and typical extras (cultists, pirates, beggars, etc)
- 20+ new monsters of all challenge levels
- A detailed introductory Freeport adventure which is the perfect way to kick off a campaign
Obviously this book is Freeport (and therefore pirate) oriented, however it's still quite useful even if you're not calling the City of Adventure your home.
My next (must-have) purchase is Monsters and Treasure. I hope to pick it up this coming week.
As most of you know, this past Saturday was Free RPG Day. A really cool game shop in Columbus, Ravenstone Games, was a participant. One fine gentleman ran the DCC adventure, Elzemon and the Blood Drinking Box. You can read his report over at Random Encounters (in Ohio). Unfortunately for me I was unable to play because of work. However, I did stop by Ravenstone Games after work. One of the gents and the owner (two of the three picture in the REiO post) were still there and we chatted for a while. I had a really good time talking with them and it has inspired me to fight my normal anxiety and join up with some of the gaming groups there (though it will have to wait until after my son goes back to stay with his mom). If you want to hear more about Ravenstone Games, you can check out with Tim Snider over at The Savage AfterWorld thought of it, here.
Okay, on to the swag. Because it was the end of the day I was able to pick up a couple of books. I grabbed A Druid's Lament and Make Your Own Luck. Make Your Own Luck looks like a lot of fun. The characters (who are only 2nd level) are involved in defending a town from siege trolls and protecting an important item. While I think it looks great, it also looks like something that a lot of OSR people would hate. I say this because much like 4th Edition, your characters a big deal. They may not be the most powerful characters in the world (the Icons they serve are), but they are superstars. 13th Age is a game I want to pick up, I just haven't pushed myself to do so. I will eventually though. A Druid's Lament is a mid level C&C adventure. I haven't fully read through it, but it looks nice. I like the adventure location. There's a cool story involving a druid getting help from the old gods (which isn't quite what she expected) and a few new magic items and interesting encounters.
While I don't have them yet, a friend of mine at Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs held a copy of The Doom-Cave of the Crystal Headed Children and the Goodman Games offering. I looked through both at Ravenstone and they look cool. I don't know how much mileage I will get out of the Doom-Cave. It's original and all, but unless I decide to run it as a one-shot, I don't ever see myself playing it. Don't get me wrong I might take a few of Raggi's monsters/encounters, but this adventure just doesn't seem like something I'd run. The Goodman Games offering looks fantastic. The DCC adventure looks fun. It's a first level endeavor, that again you can read about over at Random Encounters (in Ohio). The second part of the book is a mid level Maximum XCrawl adventure. Maximum XCrawl is the Pathfinder update to XCrawl. If you aren't familiar XCrawl is a modern day fantastical tv gladiatoial games rpg. Think American Gladiators with dwarves, death, swords, goblins, and hip-hop. Oh and the Roman Empire never fell... They currently have a kickstarter for it going on right now. Eventhough I said I need to slow down on my support of kickstarters, I'm most like going to back this one. It just seems like a really fun setting.
I will be starting a few games soon. One will be a cinematic unisystem game set in my own Buffy/Supernatural hybrid setting. The second game will be a "D&D" game. I'm using D&D in the loosest term. While I love Pathfinder, I want something rules light. Dungeon Crawl Classics has been on my mind, but I wouldn't really call it rules lite.
