RAIDER OF THE LOST ARK
Earlier this year I wrapped up my series reviewing the Gazetteers of Mystara. It ended on a somewhat down note, with the fairly weak entry, GAZ14: AtruaghinClans. But another supplement exists which could be considered a
GAZ, if you look at it right. I’m not talking about Red Steel or
the other AD&D Mystara products, but Champions of Mystara: Heroes of the
Princess Ark, a boxed set which appeared in 1993, two years after the last
GAZ. This supplement was oddly slotted into the Basic Dungeons & Dragons
“Challenger”
series. My impression had always been that those were intended for quick play
and easy access. This (and the earlier Wrath of
the Immortals) feels like a sore thumb.
Champions of Mystara comes out of a fiction series Bruce Heard published
in DRAGON Magazine at the time. That brings up three problems for me as a
reviewer: I don’t run D&D, I didn’t read DRAGON after 1983, and I’m not a
big fan of game fiction. It just isn’t my thing- though I know many people
really dig it. Usually I’ll read it if it appears in moderation in a supplement
or rulebook, but more often than not, I’ll skip it. I’ve read some solid game
novels, but I’ve also been burned by some. So my review will approach this
primarily from the perspective of a GM looking for Mystara material for their
campaign and secondarily of a GM looking for general material.
PRESENTATION
Champions of Mystara is half world background and half fleshing out the
story of the Princess Ark and their adventures in Mystara. This comes in one of
those classic boxed sets that makes you oh and ah when you open it up. There’s
a lot of chrome on offer here. You get two single-sided poster maps in the
hex-style of the earlier gazetteers and the Trail Maps series. These cover
the Serpent Peninsula and The Great Waste. There’s also a massive two part
diagram of the Princess Ark ship- with a playable grid. This is an awesome
resource- and one I used for a great sky-ship boarding action in a game.
Finally there are eight cardboard full-page reference cards. Each has an
illustration of a sky-ship on one side with vital stats and layout and extended
information on the other. Artist David Miller does a great job here.
The gaming material arrives in three saddle stapled booklets, each with a color
cardstock cover. The cover art’s solid and evocative. The layout inside is
clean but a little dense. It uses the tight three-column design of TSR products
of the period. The design is consistent throughout, with simple page ornamentations
that don’t distract. The writing’s clear, but has a lot of material to get
through. I found myself putting it down from chapter to chapter because it has
so much to take in. Bruce Heard provides the Princess Arc narrative, but
everything else is credited to Ann Dupuis. All of that’s skillfully executed,
which makes the interior art the more disappointing. Terry Dykstra provides all
of the many interior illustrations. They don’t really work for me- looking too
cartoony and inconsistent. That simplicity may be the intent of this series,
aimed at getting new players in. But when I look at the great art in the
earlier GAZ volumes and parallel releases, it bugs me. Dykstra’s one of those
artists- like Dan Smith, Larry Elmore, and James Holloway- that just feel off
to me.
HEROES OF THE PRINCESS ARK
The largest of the three books, HotPA clocks in at 96 pages. This focuses on
the game fiction of the Princess Ark- expanding it and offering game materials
drawn from the text. As noted here, those stories appeared in DRAGON Magazine
#153-168. The book opens with a complicated and dense two page summary of those
tales. It follows that with 64 pages of other reprinted adventures from Issues
169-188, mostly in the form of various logbook entries. That’s an odd split and
I’m not sure why the handled it that way. The story generally follows the
adventures of the crew of the Princess Ark, led by Prince Haldemar of Haaken, a
member of the Alphatian Nobility. They crisscross the lands meeting exciting
new people and often killing or being killed by them. It is epic, confusing,
and full tilt.
It is also not my favorite way of conveying game information. I appreciate the
occasional first person journal and perspective. That format has a long and
rich history- Dracula’s a great read and it uses that pattern. I like
tools like Runequest's “What
My Father Told Me”- which really help get inside the setting. However the
material here is caught between being a narrative and explicating the setting.
I think it would be better for my purposes if it went further to one side or
another. Heard’s trapped a little in his writing by those needs and the
established details. As a an example we have Haldemar of Haaken. He has
hostilities with Herr Rolf of the Heldannic League. That repetition of initial
sounds, especially in the summary lost me. I read game materials fast, which
makes this a problem. But if you like game fiction or enjoyed the original
Princess Ark stories, then you’ll love the material here.
A side note- I’m a big fan of the Red Steel and Savage Baronies
supplements which came out a year after. They’re some of the few AD&D
Mystara products I actually like. I love the society set up there and the races
presented. We can see the first bits and details of that in the stories
presented here.
Pages 69-75 provide a look at the details of the ship itself, beginning with
design statistics. While supplement offers rules for ship building the PA
doesn’t necessarily adhere to those. In that way it makes an excellent model
for a unique PC skyship. There’s a great and highly detailed key to the ship
deck plans. Seven pages follow this with the stats for the various characters
from the stories. A solid section comes next talking about daily life on the
ship and ideas for campaigns involving it: paralleling or taking completely
different courses. The book wraps with some adversary stat blocks and details.
DESIGNER’S MANUAL
This 64-page volume has my favorite cover of the three, a stately skyship with
the magical flying effect creating a wake on the sea below. The Designer’s
Manual covers many of the mechanical elements of the setting- introducing a
number of wild and interesting concepts. It begins with 18 pages on designing
and building Skyships of all kinds. This system doesn’t use point values but
rather gp costs and engineering rolls. Choices of hull and frame affect other
decisions down the line. This isn’t a light system. Putting together a skyship
will take some serious calculation- and the book offers some record and
worksheets at the end. Another nine pages cover the mechanics of sailing such
ships and doing battle with them. The mechanics here echo earlier systems
presented in Dawnof the Emperors and Rules
Cyclopedia. This expands and extends those.
For GMs looking for setting material and ideas rather than mechanics, the book
finally gets to some of the good stuff. There’s a nice section on the perils
and challenges of far travels, especially close to the Skyshield of Mystara.
There’s all manner of weirdness here- almost Spelljammer in its nature.
Next the book switches gears from the idea of the skies and beyond. Pages 36-50
offer a World Maker’s Guide to Mystara. This includes ideas on how to develop
new lands, come up with new cultures, craft societies, and develop campaigns
which come into contact with these. It is pretty awesome and useful stuff- the
kinds of thing you want in a Mystara “summation.” Five pages of Skyship magic
follow, a two-page spread on migrations across the world, and then a half dozen
pages of sheets and appendices (including conversion notes for use with Spelljammer).
EXPLORER’S MANUAL
The third booklet comes closest to the classic Gazetteer model. It breaks into
three major sections: The Great Waste; The Serpent Peninsula; and other
miscellaneous materials. There’s an interesting introduction which tries to
reconcile this material with that from earlier publications. Part of the
problem comes from the timing of the events of the Princess Ark. In the
Gazetteer series, we have a classic present age. However, the events of Wrath
of the Immortals act as a meta-story event moving things forward and
changing some things drastically. Add to the time travel of the PA’s stories
which launches the ship and crew 30+ years into the future. The book mentions
several supplements as in error- including the Poor
Wizard’s Almanac and X6 Quagmire!. It
also addresses the problem of the Desert Nomad series and continuity. Oddly
after going through that it also notes that all of these products are out of
print.
The Great Waste offers a vast and dangerous expanse- a mixture of arid plains,
mountains, and deserts. After establishing the geography and general history,
it covers the two major empires, Sind and Graakhalia. Pages 7-24 cover Sind, an
analogue for Ancient India which includes mystic monks and martial arts. I like
the Sind material here- but it feels super-compacted. There’s a focus on the
expected stuff- timeline, geography, laws, etc. It touches on a few oddities
like the caste system and the orders. But none of it has any time to breathe. I
wondered what a full 64 or 96 page Sind GAZ would look like. It echoes some of
my disappointment with Dawn of the Emperors- trying to do too much too quickly
and ignoring what made the earlier parts of this series awesome. I love the
material here and want to see more. Graakhalia, on the other hand, is a
gnoll-elvish hybrid kingdom. The idea could work, but once again because we
only get eight pages, it falls short.
The Serpent Peninsula offers more juggles and savannah bordering the Sea of
Dread. This section covers two Empires as well. The first, The Most Serene
Divinarchy of Yavdlom, seems to mix African ancient kingdoms with elvish
heritage. There are a couple of interesting details, but mostly it comes off
colorless. On the other hand, Ulimwengu: The Land of the Marimari mixed
Aboriginal and African themes. An empire of short, dark-skinned people with
dinosaurs. These might come off less clichéd with a longer treatment, but I’m
not sure.
The last part of this book covers many topics, including relations between
these lands and their neighbors- some presented in the earlier books and some
not. There’s a two-page future history, trying to bring this in line with the
other layers of Mystara presented elsewhere. Monsters and army details follow.
Allow me to say that the Mugumba Mud-Dwellers, humanoid beaver-people, don’t
work for me. (Shakes head). A few important people get a brief write-up on two
pages. That’s seems a little too little and oddly placed. NPCs are the
lifeblood of a setting and they appear here as an afterthought. So what’s
missing? The Heldannic Freeholds which appear as a major adversary in the
stories barely gets any treatment. For what appear to be a major and
interesting Teutonic Knights-analogue, they’re written off. Other places and
adversaries such as Myoshima are also absent.
OVERALL
Champions of Mystara mixes great and cool stuff with other bits that
merely show potential. Several pieces fell half-baked and just goofy. In the
hands of a skilled writer with enough page space, they could work. But here the
page count works against Dupuis’ talent. There’s good stuff, but volume wins
out over quality. If you’re an OSR follower, play Mystara using another system
(like AGE),
or run with a retro-clone like Dark
Dungeon, you’ll find some interesting mechanical bits. If you like game
fiction or are simply a fan of the Princess Ark from DRAGON Magazine, this is
worth hunting down.
If you’re not a big fan of the tone and approach of earlier Gazetteer products,
you probably won’t care for this. It has some of the worst of those excesses and
indulgences. Here that isn’t mitigated by depth and wealth of rich ideas.
Instead everything feels more than a little glossed over.
But I still like it. I like Mystara and I like seeing other pieces and bits,
even if they don’t fully fit with my conception. Both empires of the Great
Waste feel like opportunities...wasted. They could have been full books. I love
the ship plans and all of the bits about sky-ships. The sections on world
design are pretty awesome. So there’s real treasure to be found here. So a
thumbs up for the Mystaran GM, but much less so for the general GM.
I have said it before and I’ll say it again. Please WotC, republish legally
available pdfs of this material. SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY*.
Now that I've finally finished my review of the Gazetteer series, I have a few final thoughts. I pull links to all of those reviews in my previous post: Gazetteers of Mystara: the Review List.
1. TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY GAMING
I’ve said it before, but the volume of rich material in these books means that WotC really ought to be offering some kind of reprint or electronic version. I understand some of the logic for avoiding that: piracy, driving players towards new editions, production costs. Of these only the last seems to hold any merit. But illegal electronic versions exist already and I would love to be able to purchase clean, well-done and legal editions. The OSR movement has peeled off players- better to gain some market share within that rather than ignoring it. I doubt the existence of these materials with significantly impact sales of a present edition.
During the brief time WotC did sell electronic versions, I picked several up. Some of them had been scanned well- pages aligned, clean up done, contrast balanced. However many sucked. They were nearly useless because whoever’d done the scanning job had been asleep at the switch. Producing good quality materials will obviously take some time, effort, and therefor expense. I’m not saying I want Original Electronic Version quality, just something relatively clean. If WotC's serious about drawing back fans across all of the editions, then reprinting- electronic or otherwise- ought to be an arrow in their quiver.
I’m saying this because I really want a PoD copy of The Rules Cyclopedia.
2. OPEN GAMING
In going back to reread these gazetteers, I once again had to reconfigure my vision of the Known World and Mystara. I’d forgotten the scale of Ylaruam or that Thyatis had a mainland presence, the westernmost segment of the Empire. I’d forgotten how important Minrothad was- I’d recalled it as a kind of throwaway place but it has a significantly larger impact. I’d even forgotten that Alfheim was completely surrounded by another country. I’d never seen a solid “overview” of the world, so I had to put the pieces together myself. What’s interesting for me- especially given the way I picked up and put together a vision of Mystara exclusively from the gazetteers over the year- are the relatively rare invalidations.
Rebecca Borgstrom in her essay “Structure and Meaning in Role-Playing Game Design”
(Second Person, MIT Press 2007) talks about the way rpg supplements can actually close down a world. Gamers begin with base material, usually a core or setting book which lays out the essential elements. Places or concepts might get a fly-over pass in that product. GM’s can start running from just that material- filling things in as they go along. When later products appear, coloring those previously blank areas they contradict material the GM’s established. That’s usually a given, but some products may present themselves in such depth, with such a distinct reading that they don’t recast the GM’s read but act as a completely exclusive read on the material. This makes it more difficult for the GM to usefully adapt that material. It becomes worse if the architecture of further supplements depends on that. Borgstorm points out how some of the first edition Exalted materials do this. The Mystara Gazetteers, for the most part, never felt like they offered a closed interpretation.
3. SOME GAMERS JUST WANT TO SEE THE WORLD BURN
Outside the gazetteers, Mystara does have an invalidation problem. In 1992, TSR began to introduce metaplot elements to the setting. Previous to this, events appearing in modules and supplements didn’t really impact the setting material. Most of the gazetteers mentioned the modules affiliated with their areas. The only mention of a module event potentially affecting a setting came for Elves of Alfheim where success or failure of an outside adventure could impact Elven life. Now TSR “blew up” the setting with the adventure presented in Wrath of the Immortals. That moved the timeline forward and drastically changed several areas including Glantri. A series of Poor Wizard's Almanacs then continued to push the history forward. The later AD&D revisions of Karameikos and Glantri assumed those events as canon, as did Champions of Mystara. GMs who didn’t move their campaigns forward ended up with supplements with useless material or material requiring more work to whip into shape. Plus, as I did, they might cringe at some of the choices.
White Wolf’s legendary for problems with metaplot in their games. Paranoia alienated some gamers with their Post-Whoops line of products. Legend of the Five Rings most parallels Mystara’s problems. I enjoyed the first edition of L5R and I bought every supplement for it. However at a certain point, they needed to advance the game setting to parallel the story happening in the CCG it was based on. It happened slowly at first, but then accelerated. Incidents and ideas began to appear in supplements based on those world changes. By the midpoint of the L5R 2e life cycle, we’d jumped forward significantly. The Secrets of... clan books were essentially incompatible with the Way of... books for setting and characters. Of course both offered different mechanical options. It became a mess. Third Edition L5R tried to clean up the mechanical contradictions and establish a new baseline, but the history kept rolling forward, rendering interesting past material more difficult to use. The newest edition has embraced a broader approach- playable across different eras.
The problem here- as in Mystara is that I liked the world and status quo established by the original materials- I like pre-Clan War Rokugan. And I like the world of the gazetteers. I don’t want another person’s vision of what should happen; I want more ideas to play with inside that setting.
4. PICKING THE BEST
What are my top five gazetteers? GAZ3: The Principalities of Glantri remains #1- I’ve gotten more interesting ideas from that than any other volume. It also has the best cover. GAZ12: The Golden Khan of Ethengar is #2. I’ve used some of those ideas, and it is so well-written, an example of how to actually put together one of these. GAZ1: The Grand Duchy of Karameikos is #3. It has great characters and a smaller scale. I’ve only used a little bit of it in the game, but I appreciate the atmosphere and the adaptation. GAZ2: The Emirates of Ylaruam is #4 which seems a little weird to me. In my review I wrote about some of my reservations with it, but there’s a ton of great detail in it. I’d really like to do some sessions with more of this civilization. It is almost a tie with #5, but I think GAZ5: The Elves of Alfheim just edges out GAZ6: The Dwarves of Rockhome- primarily because I’ve lifted more from the former. Next on my list would be GAZ13: The Shadow Elves, GAZ9: The Minrothad Guilds or GAZ7: The Northern Reaches.
5. AT THE BOTTOM
While each has some interesting ideas I think the three weakest volumes are GAZ11: The Republic of Darokin, GAZ14: Atruaghin Clans and GAZ4: The Kingdom of Ierendi. Ierendi gets last place because it feels like it so missed the boat about what makes the gazetteers great. Atruaghin Clans' weakness lies in the rush job done to produce it. Darokin just bugs me and I’m sure won’t be on others lists of the weakest.
6. NARRATION & STYLE
One of the criticism I’ve seen leveled at the gazetteers is the “narrative” fiction. Generally I’m not a fan of game fiction within supplements. Some game books substitute that for providing setting or clear material. Where the gazetteers use first person voice, it has a purpose. It can an insider perspective or an unreliable narrator. Sometimes it is used to convey tone or cultural style. A few of the books overuse the technique (Ierendi for example). But where it does appear it works more often than not.
7. OUTSIDER PERSPECTIVES
I’m in a strange position reviewing these gazetteers. I never used any of them for their mechanics: I never ran basic D&D and by the times these came out, I’d already moved away from AD&D. Instead I use these materials for Rolemaster, GURPS and homebrew campaigns. I also never ran a “Mystara” campaign. Instead I tore some of these places out and dropped them in to fill out areas of the game world. That’s required quite a bit of tweaking over the 25+ years I’ve run that world. Rereading these threw me a little- having mixed up what I’d adapted and what I’d developed myself. Mystara veterans probably wouldn’t recognize much of it. Still it isn’t the worst- Gloranthan experts would probably do a spit take with my bastardization of that material, patched together as I started to figure out how that cosmology actually worked.
8. MANY WORLDS THEORY
I know this can be said for most established settings, like Forgotten Realms or Cyberpunk’s Night City- but I love the idea that there are multiple different Mystara’s out there. Worlds where the Hollow World is a vital and important part of the setting, worlds where it doesn’t even exist. Campaigns where the players battle against the rampaging awfulness of the Thayatian Dominion and others where they battle magical conspiracies wrought by the Alphatians. Games that perhaps play in only one or two of the regions- the Karameikan or Ethengarian campaign. That an NPC my players have come to love my be completely off-stage in another world…or might actually be a hated enemy.
9. FOR THE FUN OF IT
IMHO Forgotten Realms and some of other recent settings aspire to be Tolkien-esque: historical, detailed, logically consistent, rich and deadly serious. The Gazetteers and Mystara as a whole take another approach. They’re closer in tone to earlier D&D material. I don’t believe that renders the material any less compelling or dramatic. But in some places it does go perhaps a little too far for my taste. As I mentioned in my GAZ10: The Orcs of Thar review, I think humor emerges at the game table and it is harder to actually craft into the material without risking a groaning reaction. But I do believe that lighter tone makes the setting feel more accessible, more friendly. As bizarre as it might sound, given some of the horrors in the setting, I feel like Mystara’s a good and happy place. I feel like my characters would be welcome there- and could make a difference.
10. EMERGENT WORLDS
One of the most interesting things in the current campaign has been watching the players evolving sense of Glantri (which goes by another name in my world). I really love it when a player embraces their background and becomes a kind of ambassador for their people. Lucy d’Ambreville has served to illustrate some of the contradictions of Glantri- and the complexity of their perspective on gods and divine magic. As a GM, embrace what the players come up with about their culture- let them build that from the material. Sherri, Lucy’s player, read through the Glantri material what’s come out is her reading of it. That’s provided great opportunities for world-building with minimal input on my part. It illustrates how useful a “Yes/Yes, but…” approach can be even for these kinds of larger scale details.
LASTLY
My next set of reviews will cover another series I love- one which has major utility today twenty years after the first volume was published. After that I eventually plan to return and review some of the more interesting later Mystara products including Red Steel, Savage Baronies, Champions of Mystara, and Hollow World.
GAZ1: The Grand Duchy of Karameikos
Classic D&D region supplement covering a fantasy nation with an eastern European flavor.
OVERALL
This is a nice, thematic supplement with interesting material. It requires work by the GM to bring it to the table however. DMs wanting an well-detailed setting to run a classic D&D or OSR game will find a lot to love here. The cultural discussion and interesting NPCs make this a great read. Not having played the conventional D&D modules associated with this world, I don't have a nostalgic attachment to the material. Instead, as a GM I'm looking to see what I can borrow for other campaigns. On that count, this supplement works. I've used it as an area in my patchwork fantasy world for many years now. The mechanics on offer are minimal, and the serial numbers on the module could easily be filed off and ported elsewhere.
GAZ2: The Emirates of Ylaruam
Classic D&D region supplement covering a fantasy nation with an Arabian flavor.
OVERALL
I have to say I'm of two-minds about this supplement. I'm at something of a disadvantage based on my background. In high school and college, I took Arabic as my language requirement; I majored in Anthropology with a focus on the Middle East; and I studied for a year in Egypt. I'm a little wary about representations of other cultures- and the fantastic has been used as cover before for some pretty awful depictions. I'm not necessarily a subscriber to Edward Said and his Orientalism approach to all depictions of the foreigner. But I am a little wary when the figure of Mohammed gets rewritten in such a thinly veiled way. I have to wonder if as transparent a version of Jesus in a fantasy setting would be received well? That being said, I think this book is pretty amazing for how it manages to bring together some of the key elements of classical Arab traditions: the split within the faith (essentially the Sunni/Shia division), the division between urban and nomad culture and the values associated with it, the focus on scholarship. It balances the difficult differences and contrasts of the Muslim and pre-Muslim world.
Several of the gazetteers take a whole region and compress it down to a single nation, as here where the tribes/provinces represent the distinct and different facets of the Arab World. I think the Emirates is a pretty great supplement- but I think it stands better as a fantasy treatment of Arabian history than perhaps it does as a living part of the Mystara setting. I think a couple of opportunities get missed here- especially about what faith and religion really look like in a world with Immortals instead of gods. The material here contradicts itself from section to section. Still, I have used The Emirates in my own campaign. Where I've changed and transformed the material from the other gazetteers, I've used this one pretty much whole cloth. In the end, that ought to be my yardstick for judging this material. I've been able to bring it to the table and it has served well as background for many sessions over the years.
GAZ3: The Principalities of Glantri
Region sourcebook covering a Magocracy in the Mystara setting.
OVERALL
I love this book. A DM could easily run a campaign just using the stuff given here. That economy is admirable- a booklet which offers in 96 pages what many books would have needed twice that to do. There's little waste here. There are a few goofy things- like the Scottish Liches and the Apocalypse Now references in the adventure section. But it offers a wealth of ideas, cultures and peoples. Most of all they're fun- even when they're a little sinister. Even the bad guys here have to function in cooperation with the other families, making it both more real and more interesting than the Red Wizards of Thay ever were to me. I've used the ideas, families and characters from this supplement for years. My players know those family names and can remember the distinctive traits of many of those lines. I count that as the mark of great source material- when it creates fun and memorable moments at the table.
GAZ4: The Kingdom of Ierendi
Region sourcebook covering an island confederation dedicated to "adventure" in the Mystara setting.
OVERALL
The weakest of the gazetteers so far, The Kingdom of Ierendi still offers much for a DM. It adds some interesting color to the setting- and some global material in the naval discussion. It does raise the goofiness bar a little- if you like more staid and serious settings, then Ierendi may be well out of your comfort zone. I'm a little surprised at the absence of any West World references in the adventure theme park section. For my own campaign, I took some of the key concepts and changed them up significantly. Ierendi remains a naval power, an island nation, and a former penal colony. I've played up the tensions its existence creates between several different powerful kingdoms who see it as their “property.” I used the Honor Island concept, although that particular chantry was destroyed in an earlier campaign. I also think of Ierendi as a much larger set of island, dozens and dozens of them, some of them with magical micro-climates. Perhaps the biggest change came in my conception of the rulership of the nation. Given that our game world leans more towards fantasy combined with steampunk and swashbuckling, I ported over the concept of Al Amarja from Over the Edge to here. So Ierendi City is a kind of strange crossroads of magic and conspiracy, the 'Casablanca' of my game.
GAZ5: The Elves of Alfheim
Sourcebook for Elves in the classic D&D setting of Mystara.
OVERALL
I think you have two ways of considering The Elves of Alfheim. On the one hand, it works quite well as the sourcebook for Elves in the Mystara setting. You have an interesting, fun and rich take on the culture- without any artificial need to shock, darken or make the Elves eXtreme. They fit with the relatively lighter tone of the whole setting. There's a simplicity there that allows the DM more room than something highly specific or off-the-wall might. These stories and incidents rely on classic story tropes and motivations, which can make for some really excellent campaigns. On the other hand for DMs looking for a new take on the Elves, it may not be as useful. Or it might be if all you've been over-saturated with books offering a new take on Elves as psionic, spike-limbed hermaphrodites. I think there's enough in the way of good ideas to be borrowed (as I have done in my campaigns) to make this another gazetteer worth recommending. And I say that despite my bias against Elves.
GAZ6: The Dwarves of Rockhome
Supplement covering dwarves and their nation within the Mystara setting.
OVERALL
I think you have two potential audiences for this. If you're a Mystaran DM (or a D&D Dwarven player) then you really ought to pick up this book. It is really well-written and a pleasure to read through. On the other hand, if you're a general fantasy rpg GM looking to drop a Dwarven nation into your campaign setting, then this is an excellent choice. There's mechanics here- but far more is giving over to cultural, society and adventure ideas. That's actually the way I ended up using this material in my own campaign. I'd had a place marked on the map as “Dwarven Lands” for several years. While they'd met Dwarves, I'd never really done anything with them. Finally I sat down and decided to, with some easy changes, just drop Rockhome into the game. Ironically, within a few sessions I wiped out the country, but that's another story...
GAZ7: The Northern Reaches
Region supplement covering three Viking-like nations in the north of Mystara.
OVERALL
So I'm not interested in Skyrim, primarily because of the Norse-esque setting. It doesn't grab me. But I had a really good time rereading this supplement. It gave me a number of ideas, and certainly made me think I could do something in that genre. There's a lot to like here- though the Players Book has a lot of mechanics which are less interesting to me. In the DM Book, the adventure section feels a little bloated. I would have liked to see more background and NPCs, especially for the other two major nations. Still I enjoyed and got a lot more out of this than some of the other Viking supplements I've read, like Ivinia and GURPS Vikings. And I suspect I'll be tracking down some more history of the region, to help me put everything in context. Bottom line: a great gazetteer for people who love Mystara and a good gazetteer for GM's looking for Norse-esque fantasy material.
GAZ8: The Five Shires
Sourcebook covering a halfling-dominated nation in the setting.
OVERALL
I'm a little more split on The Five Shires than I've been on others in the series. I think it works great as a Mystara sourcebook, offering an interesting place to travel through and some cool background for halfling PCs. It works to offer a really serious treatment of this race. Really serious. In fact, it feels almost a little too high-strung, making sure readers know that you shouldn't joke about the hin. It's subtle, but that slight tonal difference makes me suspect that the material here might not have begun life as a Mystaran book. It really feels more like something from Forgotten Realms. I may be wrong on that score. Still if you're running a Mystara campaign, this book offers many ideas.
For GMs looking for material to borrow for other campaigns and games, they may find less to like. That's the approach I usually take with these books and in going through each to review, I've been inspired with new story, character or place ideas. Here, not so much. It didn't convince me as much as the other entries in the series. It didn't feel like a solid and unique take on hobbits I wanted to port elsewhere.
GAZ9: The Minrothad Guilds
Sourcebook covering a merchant-centered island kingdom in the classic TSR setting of Mystara.
OVERALL
It's worth mentioning that Bruce Heard, product manager for the Gazetteer series and author of the excellent Glantri book, has started a new blog. He has a great entry on how he came to write that and how the series was seen within the TSR fold (you can see that here). I particularly like the description of these books as “gold bar” products, for the sense of the depth of material they offer. The Minrothad Guilds really lives up to that. The setting is interesting, and one that cuts across the lines. Players who want to run characters from there gain an interesting background, but a tough one to bring into play. DM's may find the limits of the setting and culture to difficult for their group. But they represent a novel challenge. Add to that the dynamite general material the book offers- on pirates, on trade, on sailing. For GM's interested in any of those topics this is a book worth reading. It may not have the depth of later (especially d20) sourcebooks devoted solely to these topics, but what’s here is great and most of all playable.
GAZ10: The Orcs of Thar
Sourcebook covering Thar, land of the Orcs, Goblins, Gnolls, Trolls, etc. (oh my...) in the classic D&D setting of Mystara.
OVERALL
The Orcs of Thar is an interesting design- more of a buffet than a carefully planned meal. And the buffet cuts across several different cuisines (Extensive Mechanics, Serious Background, Cartoons, Narrative Humor, Wargame, Props). It is both more and less serious than you might expect. If you’ve read the gazetteers, then you might come to this with expectations. But when you see the art and supplemental bits includes you might feel let down and assume the book will just be silly. If you press on and ignore that, focusing on the actual background and material given for the Broken Lands and its people, you’ll find a surprisingly rich work. It takes some effort to tease that out- and there’s less of it than one might like (forced out by the inclusion of some other materials). I’ve read over this a couple of times and I’m still not sure what to think. What I like, I like a great deal. What I don’t like, I really dislike. But given the biases I started from and mentioned at the start, I’m inclined to think it will work for others. If you like the silly bits then you’ll definitely find useful material. For DMs running a solidly Mystara campaign, the first choice will be how much of the silliness you want. In some ways what’s presented here really undercuts the Orcs of Thar as a threat. Tone goes a long way to establishing adversaries as interesting and compelling. Regardless of approach this book offers the start of an interesting take on these peoples.
GAZ11: The Republic of Darokin
Sourcebook covering a merchant-centered nation in the classic TSR setting of Mystara.
OVERALL
I probably tipped my hand about my reaction to The Republic of Darokin book at the outset. The setting feels weirdly disconnected from reality, in the sense that the society rings false to me. As much as anything, I’m disappointed by the lack of drama and conflict. There are bits and pieces- rivalries between some of the houses and the like, but they are few and far between. That’s disappointing because all of the other Gazetteers, even those I had problems with, offered those kinds of moments and contrasts. That means that making this region as deep, complex and compelling as the other in the series will require much more effort on the DM’s part. Mystaran DM’s may find this interesting, but GM’s looking for material to adapt would be better advised to look at other Renaissance sourcebooks (The Swashbuckler's Handbook for example).
GAZ12: The Golden Khan of Ethengar
Sourcebook covering dangerous rider-tribes and their supreme Khan in the classic TSR setting of Mystara.
OVERALL
I really enjoyed The Golden Khan of Ethengar. I’ve used material from it in the past and will do so again in the future. Cleanly written and tightly focused, it offers DMs (and players) what they need to actually play these concepts out. Yet at the same time, there’s plenty of room for everyone to craft their own spin. The author manages to balance concrete details with interesting multiple possibilities. The Ethengarians could be a benevolent force, with a Khan moving it towards modernity or it could be a dangerous and subtle force lying in wait for the right opportunity to strike. Or it could be both. Like the best of the gazetteers the material embraces conflict, complications and contradictions. I recommend this to Mystaran DMs and to any GM looking for resources covering a nomadic, horse tribe or historical Mongol peoples.
GAZ13: The Shadow Elves
Supplement covering a race of secretive, underground Elves in the Mystara setting.
OVERALL
I enjoyed reading through The Shadow Elves. I’ll admit I was worried at first that it would just seem like an “evil underground Elves” treatment, but there’s some complexity to the world given here. Players have some options about their path and personality. History and culture have shaped this people, and their responses and attitudes have a logic to them. The Shadow Elves aren’t omniscient spymasters and manipulators behind the scenes of the surface world, but they do have an agenda and plots in motion. The internal contradictions and secrets within Shadow Elf culture present interesting play opportunities. Some elements of the material draw heavily on the ideas of Blackmoor, radiation magics, and the alien spaceship engines. That’s to some people’s taste and not to others. However it would not be particular hard to modify those and keep the essential spirit of the supplement. Mystaran DMs will find ideas to build from here. Other GMs will find material they can easily adapt to another campaign or setting.
GAZ14: Atruaghin Clans
Region/cultural sourcebook covering a Native American style set of peoples in Mystara.
OVERALL
I don’t think I can offer a final say, given that I’m only reviewing about 75% of the supplement's material. The booklet feels half-finished and undeveloped. It has some interesting ideas, but padded out to about twice the space they deserve. I’m even more curious now about what secrets the DM’s Guide offers, I’d hope some NPCs, deeper history and a sense of the Clan interactions. As it stands this is among the weakest of the gazetteers, but less on content and more on presentation & quantity. It isn’t representative of the high marks of the rest of the Gazetteer series. I think the most bothersome thing about the book is that it feels like someone ordered if published before completion- just as this review is fragmentary, so is this supplement.
Dawn of the Emperors: Thyatis and Alphatia
Boxed set covering the two major empires in the Mystara setting: Thyatis- a Roman analogue- and Alphatia- ruled by wizards.
OVERALL
Dawn of the Emperors has something for everyone. Unfortunately, you may only get a taste of what you want. There’s a lot to like here. I especially appreciate the current set up of both Empires. For example, the relatively recent ascent to the throne of Thyatis by a former gladiator presents a crossroads. Wed to the daughter of the late Emperor, how will this figure shape the future of the Empire. Will it shift to become more of a Republic? Will it maintain the middle path between Emperor and Senate? Or will it move to a more absolute despotism? The history of ancient Rome offers many interesting parallels and I can imagine many different Thyatian Empires depending on the DM.
Allston manages to keep either empire from obviously being the Evil with a capital E. Alphatia, at least on the surface, more obviously leans that way, but it remains incredibly subjective. DotE continually complicates easy judgments. As a reader, I want to see more of that. I want to know more about both Empires- but given the space we can’t reasonably get that. Some material could have been cut (the poorly duplicated maps, some of the rules reprints, the record sheets) in favor of more substance. Despite that I really enjoyed reading this. Mystaran DM will find more ideas here than they could possibly bring to the table. Other GM’s will find some great concepts, but not at the level of depth of past entries.
WHAT IS IT?
Boxed set covering the two major empires in the Mystara setting: Thyatis- a Roman analogue- and Alphatia- ruled by wizards.
SWEEP AND SCALE
The largest product in the gazetteer series oddly isn’t given a Gazetteer designation. I don’t know why that bothers me so much, perhaps I hate that it breaks the symmetry of the series. Dawn of the Emperors, or as I will sometimes call it in this review DotE, came out between Ethengar and The Shadow Elves, I think. It represents the apex of the Mystara series. There will be gazetteer-style material in Champions of Mystara: Heroes of the Princess Ark, but that leaves you wishing they’d actually done it in the same form. The Savage Baronies draws from Mystara, but really feels like a vastly different world. And what about the spectacular boxed revisions to Karameikos and Glantri for AD&D 2e, post-Wrath of the Immortals? I’m not going to review those. I own them. I’ve read them, but I they blow up many of my favorite Mystaran elements.
In a recent interview on the Save or Die podcast, Bruce Heard expressed a regret about the gazetteer. He wished that that he’d been able to split up and publish the two parts of Dawn of the Emperors separately. I see some of the logic for putting the two together. They have closely related histories and this approach avoids rules duplication. However you’re dealing with the two largest empires in the setting- each with multiple nations the size of those presented in the earlier gazetteers. So you end up with vast ranges, and then you make them even larger and more diluted by putting them together. That approach risks losing the unique identities of both regions. Dividing those would have made stronger products- giving both room to develop.
It’s even more complicated for me, as purely a reader of the gazetteers. I’ve only seen the two empires in passing, through the lens of the previous volumes. Because I never picked up the other D&D materials, I lacked an overview of the world as a whole. All of my sense of Thyatis and Alphatia came from their interactions with the Known World nations. When I picked this set up it completely threw me. I'd assembled a different sense of these two- picturing them as smaller, less powerful and perhaps even things of the past- decadent and failing. Instead they represent the two most important forces in the world. It's like trying to put together a version of world history by just reading the local histories of Finland, Mali, Peru and Laos.
So how does this set manage? Let’s see…
THE BOOK ITSELF
The Good: The Dawn of the Emperors’ box contains three booklets- two saddle stapled 32-page player’s booklets and one mammoth 128-page DM’s guide. They follow the classic Gazetteer layout- three columns, high on material without feeling overly dense. Clyde Caldwell offers a riff on ancient Rome for the cover, and Stephen Fabian returns to handle the internal art throughout all of the books. The best of those images are amazing, and some of my favorites from the series as whole. The two double-sided poster maps enclosed cover a massive range. We get individual maps of both empires- with several inset images on the Thyatian map. The Isle of Dawn, central battleground of the empires, gets its own map. Players will likely find most interesting the larger-scale map depicting both Empires together, plus the important territories outside their borders. It gives a sense of just how small the nations depicted in the rest of the gazetteers are- they’re marked out on the map but don’t have room for labels identifying them.
Most importantly, Aaron Allston returns to the series with this product. He’s a veteran and skilled writer and he makes the book a pleasure to read. He focuses on playable material- and ideas which the GM can play with. Even when presenting optional or new rules, he strikes an inviting and conversational tone. There’s a little irony in the choice of Allston; he wrote the first gazetteer (GAZ1: The Grand Duchy of Karameikos) which still feels like the smallest scale and most intimate sourcebook. Now he’s handling the largest and most wide-ranging product. Of course he’d set up Thyatian elements in that earlier supplement, so it makes perfect sense. He’s also a contributor to some of the other most significant Mystara-related products: Rules Cyclopedia, Hollow World and Wrath of the Immortals.
The Bad and the Meh: Some strange problems pop up in this set. The box itself is one of those lightweight early TSR contraptions, easily crushed and bent. More seriously, several editorial and production mistakes show up throughout. I usually don’t mention proofreading errors, but they happen enough here to bother me. Beyond the standard dropped or wrong word, there’s page references to maps which don’t exist. The player’s booklets have the wrong watermarks (the Alphatian symbol appears in the Thyatian booklet and vice versa). The joke name of 'Trollhattan' from GAZ10: The Orcs of Thar gets reused as an Alphatian region. Color maps are reproduced in greyscale losing detail and legibility; most of them are useless for reading. The artwork in the DM’s book is printed with a purple ink which washes out the detail and looks faded, a real loss given how great some of it is. However some of the Fabian artwork looks out of place- like it might not be associated with the right culture. With the scale of the material being handled, it is hard to establish a clear visual style for either of the two empires. But at least one double-page image looks like it should have gone in the Ethengar book- it has no connection to the material around it. Finally, the two player’s booklets have loose cardstock covers. This is probably a point of personal preference, but I’d like to have seen the blank interiors used for something. Having covers not actually stapled to their contents feels weird in this case.
PLAYER’S GUIDE TO THYATIS
Though labeled as Books Two and Three, The Player’s Guides should be read before the DM’s Sourcebook. The latter concentrates on fleshing out and expanding the material in the former. Thyatis is a vast empire, build on sword-edge and steel rather than magic. Thyatis borrows heavily from the Roman Empire, but more thematically than some of the other gazetteers. For example GAZ2: The Emirates of Ylaruam and GAZ7: The Northern Reaches lift very directly from the original cultures, adding in a few fantastic details and shaping them to fit with the world. Thyatis, on the other hand, creates a Roman-like Empire and paints it with some of the most interesting features- it feels Roman, without simply being a fantasy version of Ancient Rome. It dispenses with some of the Roman rules on authority and paternalism, the focus on ritual life, and the divine cult of the Emperor. Instead we have Roman cosmopolitanism, the barbarian frontier, the Senate, the arena, adoption of foreign ways, and the sense of classes.
DotE's Thyatis is characterized by efficiency, an interesting trait and one DM’s can easily sell and present to the players. At the same time, they value martial prowess, both mundane and magical. The author adds a few other interesting ideas to mix things up. In particular I like the way it handles women warriors in a patriarchal society. The idea of “Running Away from Home” as a cultural institution first struck me as odd. But the more I read about it, the more interesting it became. I intend to lift that for a future campaign. Gamers with a historical bent may be bothered by some of the details- more modern approaches to economics and rights, the inconsistent of clothing designs.
The booklet opens with four pages of history- necessarily thin given the range of area and time covered. Still it does an excellent job of setting the tone. It has to trace the general outlines of the empire, rather than the individual parts and regions. Since the booklet covers mainland Thyatis as well as the many conquered territories it speeds through, offering simple perspectives for the player. It manages this in twelve pages. That ought to be overly dense, but Allston keeps things snappy. It ought to be overwhelming, but instead it puts together an excellent and clear picture of the Empire as a whole. Individual details and areas will be fuzzy- but it gives a superb sense of how Thyatis is seen.
Page 18 begins the section on character creation. Because of the range of the Thyatian Empire, players can choose almost anything, though some races will come from specific areas. The book doesn’t offer any region specific benefits or skills; that would have been a nice way of creating distinct characters. Instead there’s discussion of the different appearances and attitudes. The skill rules from the earlier gazetteers return here, with only a couple unique to the empire. Given how other supplements have been able to do quite a bit with those ideas, it would have been nice to see more. On the other hand, it does avoid rules and skill bloat. Two new classes are introduced. The first, the Forester essentially has a human playing the “Elf” class. The second, the Rake is simply a thief without pick-pockets or backstab. The idea is to have a “swashbuckler” class who can be trusted by the party. That’s a little weak- and it would have been nice to see at least a modest new ability for giving up those thief aspects.
The booklet ends with a miscellany of new ideas. It introduces the idea of Fighting orders. These have some background and offer modest non-com benefits paired with some requirements and problems. This model could easily be broadened to other areas. Material on flying mounts and fighters complements new rules in the DM book (I’ll get to that). Finally the book offers four pages of optional rules- including a system for discarding armor AC as a target and replacing it with damage reduction. DM’s will have to look carefully at all of these concepts.
PLAYER’S GUIDE TO ALPHATIA
Where the Thyatians focus on muscle and efficiency, Alphatia focuses on magic and independence. Any magocratic empire has to be considered against the earlier wondrous gazetteer GAZ3: The Principalities of Glantri. My worry was that they’d take the same approaches. But Allston’s Alphatia feels unique and coherent. Where Glantri has a diverse cast of families in a confederation of equals, Alphatia definitely has a purpose and direction. Yet at the same time it struggles against the arrogance and desire for independence common among mages. The nobles of Alphatia possess great power and know it- that makes them difficult to unify and direct. Like Thyatian efficiency, this concepts serves as an easily pitchable concept that helps the culture make sense.
The Alphatians have an extensive and convoluted history- apparently dealt with in several modules I haven’t read. It takes seven pages to cover this, but it does an excellent job of setting up the psychology of the empire and its peoples. Four pages detail the various regions of the Empire- both the heartlands and the more recent colonial conquests. Pages 13-20 detail Alphatian culture which is contradictorily more diverse and unified than that of Thyatis. Alphatia’s defined by magic- and how that magic affects lives. If you lack magical talent (or clerical spells) you’re essentially a non-entity there. Even those who have hereditary ties to power can find themselves easily overthrown by an upstart with magical talent. A harsh class system uniquely combines with equality of the sexes in Alphatia. The Alphatians don’t integrate other cultures as the Thyatians do, but individualism of the various wizards means less of a unified cultural ethos across the empire. Overall I wanted to see more- what’s presented here about the culture is fascinating. The iconography and design seem to borrow from Persian or Assyrian designs, but if there’s direct culture lifts I don’t see them. Instead of feeling like an adaptation, Alphatia feels new. It wears its sources lightly
Character creation, as you might imagine, focuses on magic-users. Not that players have to be mages if they come from Alphatia, but they will have a more difficult life. The add-ons for Alphatian MU characters boils down to four pages of new spells (14 in all). Some new skills unique to Alphatia appear, complementing the skill system presented in the Thyatis book. The last six pages of the rules present a system for the creation of magic items. This material appeared earlier in the Glantri and GAZ6: The Dwarves of Rockhome books, but the author’s cleaned it up and made minor changes.
THE DUNGEON MASTER’S SOURCEBOOK
After a brief overview, the perfect-bound 128 page Dungeon Master’s Sourcebook begins with Thyatis. Two pages comment on the history presented in the Player’s Guide, offering a few secrets and revelations. Another two-page timeline consolidates events for both Thyatis and Alphatia. Pages 8-22 provide an Atlas of the Thyatian Empire. Each county, baronry & so on get a brief entry establishing population, description, customs, sites, personalities, etc. Most entries range from a half to full column long, and most have additional city or site entries of the same length. Some longer entries cover important areas such as the capitol of Thyatis City. The entries usually offer one or two interesting details, including some adventure seeds. But they’re necessarily brief. This is a whirlwind overview of the region, dedicated to offering the most essential character. Frankly, it left me wanting more- especially compared to the depth offered in previous supplements. I like what’s here and that’s part of the problem. It could have been even better.
Next, nine pages cover the NPCs of Thyatis City. Since they can’t reasonably cover characters from across the Empire, the book wisely chooses to focus on the largest city. I always appreciate a good NPC section and this one doesn’t disappoint. The backgrounds help flesh out more of the history, current events and plots. The personality and DMing notes add dimension and suggest a number of connections and adventures. Space is given over to combat notes and equipment; those could have been cut or reduced to make way for more characters. Finally seven pages cover ideas for campaigning in Thyatis. Excellent and useful as always, this section includes a discussion of treachery in the campaign. Intrigue and betrayal can be central to Thyatian (or Alphatian) campaigns. This material discusses the perils and pitfalls of handling that- especially how to match that to the player’s expectations- and tolerances.
Alphatia gets covered in much the same way next.. Amusingly, the history offered in the player’s booklet is pretty much exactly what’s gone on. Unlike the Thyatians, the Alphatians are open about the good and bad of their past. Ten pages present the same limited Atlas overviews as in the previous section. Only six pages of NPCs (from the capitol of Sundsvall) appear. That’s followed by three pages on new monsters and two pages on campaigning in Alphatia. Again, the material’s excellent and well-written. It presents many cool hooks for a potential DM, but at the same time feels like just a start.
The next major section (61-82) covers all of the other territories, areas dominated by one of the two empires, but not necessarily the homeland. This includes a number of maps- some of them reproduced from the larger maps (usually badly) and some new. These areas include the Alatians, Bellissaria, The Hinterlands, Norwold, Ochalea, Pearl islands, Qeohdar, and The Yannivey Chain. Each region gets 1-2 pages. The all-important crossroads of the Isle of Dawn has a longer entry. Each presents some background, culture and geography notes. More usefully, it presents ideas for campaign use and a brief write-up of at least one NPC. I enjoyed this section and I wish the earlier regional entries had been done at this level of detail.
Finally the book wraps up with ideas for campaigns and adventures. Almost eight pages cover aerial monsters, maneuvers, and fighting. These present a robust set of options for DMs who want to play with flying ships and the like. A reprint of the "Sea Machine" naval warfare options follows. There’s an interesting optional concept presented as well- removing resurrection magic of any kind from the campaign setting. I would love to have seen more of this kind of discussion. Changing or removing a basic concept could make a whole new world. Alternate Mystaras would be worth exploring, suited to different DM styles. Adventures follow next, with an extensive low-level Thyatian campaign outline and several different adventure seeds. The Alphatian campaign mirrors that one, also followed by a number of unique adventure ideas broken down by level range (Basic, Companion, etc). Two cross-Imperial adventure seeds finish that out. Several appendices appear at the end: additional cost listings; typical spell outlays for NPCs depending on level & situation; more flying monster rules; adapting the gazetteers to 2e AD&D; diagram of a skyship; and various blank and filled in record sheets. These last bits take up ten pages and feel a little bit like filler.
OVERALL
Dawn of the Emperors has something for everyone. Unfortunately, you may only get a taste of what you want. There’s a lot to like here. I especially appreciate the current set up of both Empires. For example, the relatively recent ascent to the throne of Thyatis by a former gladiator presents a crossroads. Wed to the daughter of the late Emperor, how will this figure shape the future of the Empire. Will it shift to become more of a Republic? Will it maintain the middle path between Emperor and Senate? Or will it move to a more absolute despotism? The history of ancient Rome offers many interesting parallels and I can imagine many different Thyatian Empires depending on the DM.
Allston manages to keep either empire from obviously being the Evil with a capital E. Alphatia, at least on the surface, more obviously leans that way, but it remains incredibly subjective. DotE continually complicates easy judgments. As a reader, I want to see more of that. I want to know more about both Empires- but given the space we can’t reasonably get that. The actual workings of the Imperial administrations and how things operate on the ground could have been much more fully developed. Some material could have been cut (the poorly duplicated maps, some of the rules reprints, the record sheets) in favor of more substance. Despite that I really enjoyed reading this. Mystaran DM will find more ideas here than they could possibly bring to the table. Other GM’s will find some great concepts, but not at the level of depth of past entries.
The map of the Empires is taken from the excellent Mystaran map resource at mystara.thorf.co.uk.
GAZ 13: The Shadow Elves
GAZ 14: The Atruaghin Clans
Dawn of the Emperors: Thyatis and Alphatia
WHAT IS IT?
Region/cultural sourcebook covering a Native American-style people in Mystara.
FROM THE FLAMES
Before I head into this review, I need to take a moment to set the boundaries. A few years ago I had a house fire that consumed the basement and most of the first floor. That included our game room, which meant I lost about 80% of my rpg collection. Over time I’ve managed to replace a chunk of that. Immediately after the fire a member of our gaming group gave me a disk with pdfs of some of the books which I had lost. That included GAZ14: Atruaghin Clans, the subject of my review today. However, the pdf in question only had the maps and the 64-page Players Booklet. I’ve hunted around since then and have only found hideously expensive print copies or other pdfs also lacking the GM’s booklet.
So my review will be fragmentary, perhaps a review which gives a sense only of the player’s perspective on this. Some might ask- why do the review of just part of the product? Or I might defensively put that question up to answer myself. Simple: I’ve reviewed every other entry in the line so far, I really don’t want to skip one. Perhaps in the future I can come back and add to the review.
And this result points to a basic problem: WotC still hasn’t figured out how to handle electronic publishing for their archives. I literally can’t legally buy a pdf of this. There was a brief moment when WotC did sell the old classic TSR products, and I bought a bunch of them. They weren’t great scans- in fact many of them were awful, but I liked being able to go back and look through, reread, and lift elements from those products. Then they pulled everything cutting off future players from the opportunity to give them money and be able to read those books. On top of that, I can’t even redownload my legally purchased products- rendering me SooL if my hard-drive crashes. Oh wait, it did crash and I did lose those pdfs like FR16: The Shining South and FR10: Old Empires which I bought. Oh well.
So again, this review is of only the Players' Booklet and the maps from this supplement.
THE BOOK ITSELF
The Atruaghin Clans is technically the last gazetteer in publication order, but I’m reviewing it before the boxed set Dawn of the Emperors: Thyatis and Alphatia because that set oddly lacks a “GAZ” designation. For readers used to the rest of the series, the design of this module will come as something of a shock. Instead of the tight, three column layout of the other books- this one opts for two columns which larger fonts and much more white space. It looks raw and unfinished on the page, as if they decided to get the product out the door as quickly as possible. For example the page header, run along the top edge before, is presented as a large block shifted down to consume space. I taught writing for years; I recognize the tricks used to pad out material.
Clyde Caldwell turns in a decent cover illustration and Stephen Fabian supplies his always excellent interior artwork. Fabian also supplies some great full-body outfits from the different clans for the folio interior. The enclosed map is single sided, showing some of the areas not previously detailed (like the edge of the Kingdom of Sind). The poster maps also includes several cross-sections of important clan artifacts and locations. William W. Connors, author of GAZ11: The Republic of Darokin, returns to present this volume.
THE PLAYERS' BOOKLET
The Atruaghin Clans offers a version of Native Americans within the Mystara setting. Like many of the previous volumes (GAZ7: The Northern Reaches, GAZ12: The Golden Khan of Ethengar) the supplement takes a pretty broad few of that culture including elements drawn from Southwestern, Northeastern, and Central American cultures. I’ll admit that I’m not well informed about these peoples; I’ve read history & anthropology, but this never piqued my interest as much as other regions. That means that I probably miss the seams that others might spot. The author himself notes that material is necessarily an adaptation of Indian and Amerindian cultures. I’m so used to the phrase Native American that those terms threw me when I reread this.
Unlike all of the other Gazetteer supplements, the Players' Booklet is the larger of the two, clocking in at 64 pages while the DM’s Guide is only 32. The Clans themselves have been only hinted at in previous gazetteers and modules. The booklet suggests previous materials- notably the Trail Maps- have errors and this version should be considered correct. This is the first we’ve seen of that kind of retcon in the series; the pseudo-gazetteer Champions of Mystara: Heroes of the Princess Ark would do significantly more.
After the forward, the booklet presents the narrated history of the clans in two pages. From there we immediately jump into character creation. Unusually Clan characters use different dice pick methods for generating ability scores. For example, players roll 4d6 each for INT and WIS and discard the highest die. Clan characters also gain a random “totem.” In a somewhat bizarre approach, the player rolls first for type (Fish, Crustacean, Avian, etc) and then diet (herbivore, carnivore, etc). Players then select the specific animal that fits with that, so if I rolled an Omnivorous Mollusk then I would pick…
…holy cow. I have no idea what I would pick. Apparently a cowrie is one. Thank you Google.
The book suggests not limiting the player with those rolls, but I’m not sure why you wouldn’t just let them pick? In any case, players generate several other details including siblings, status, and age. Next the player may choose skills. Interestingly, Atruaghin Clans clearly was published after the Basic D&D Rules Cyclopedia (here called the “Games Cyclopedia”) and it suggests that the actual rules for skills can be found elsewhere (the RC or the Hollow World or Dawn of the Emperors box sets). That’s a step forward as it means that the gazetteer doesn’t have to reprint that material as most of the other supplements have. Players select a class (including some presented in other supplements) with some restrictions (i.e. no demi-human race/classes). Finally players must select from one of the five clans (Children of the Bear, Children of the Tiger, etc) each of which has some cultural differences and slightly different skills. The rules offer some options here, but overall it feels thin- other books have done a better job distinguishing between characters from a particular nation. It is also a little strange to get the various clan options before being presented with a discussion of those clans or even given a real sense of the history or place.
Next the book introduces the idea of the Shamani. Shaman with an “i” at the end. It seems to me another name could have been picked, especially since we’ve already seen two distinct kinds of shamans in the series, both using that title. The Shamani are lawful pseudo-clerics who act as spiritual advisors for the clans. They’re an independent character class with their own level progression table. Seven pages go over their available spells, some new but most identical or slight variations on existing spells.
After this the book goes through each Clan in turn:
Children of the Horse (26-33): Warrior clan with no spoken language. Living in the valleys, they echo the Plains Indians of North America (complete with tipis). The offer ideas on hunting, counting coup and medicine bundles.
Children of the Bear (34-40): Builders and craftsmen of the Clans, they have the most contact with outside traders. They’re cliff dwellers, requiring some interesting engineering to accomplish.
Children of the Turtle (41-48): Culturally sophisticated fishers and sailors. The culture described seems to borrow from some of the Northwestern/Pacific Native American practices, an interesting approach to wealth and property.
Children of the Tiger (49-55): Most alien of the livings, living in a harsh and violent jungle region. They do not follow the same scriptures as the other Clans and instead war with them. Pyramid builders, they echo Aztec or Mayan traditions. It is unclear from the Players book if there’s any connection with Azca.
Children of the Elk (56-62): Forest-dwelling gardeners. They have the lake-shore villages and a interesting systems of markings.
The page counts there are deceptive given the number and size of the illustrations in each section. It’s unclear in each section how much of the cultural material is exclusive to that clan or applies to all or some of the others. The last two pages of the booklet offer a blank generic character sheet- not one specifically designed for the clans. That’s another instance of filler.
OVERALL
I don’t think I can offer a final say about The Atruaghin Clans, given that I’m only reviewing about 75% of the supplement. The player's booklet feels half-finished and undeveloped. It has some interesting ideas, but padded out to about twice the space they deserve. I’m even more curious now about what secrets the DM’s Guide offers, I’d hope some NPCs, deeper history and a sense of the Clan interactions. As it stands this is among the weakest of the gazetteers, but less on content and more on presentation & quantity. It isn’t representative of the high marks of the rest of the Gazetteer series. I think the most bothersome thing about the book is that it feels like someone ordered if published before completion- just as this review is fragmentary, so is this supplement.
The map of the Atruaghin Clan lands is taken from the excellent Mystaran map resource at mystara.thorf.co.uk.
GAZ 13: The Shadow Elves
GAZ 14: The Atruaghin Clans
Dawn of the Emperors: Thyatis and Alphatia