I have an idea for something new and fun. Let’s throw this up to the players!
Eternal Tablet English, by unkown author found in 1926
This tablet was found in a mine in 1926. the author is unknow, but the most remarkable fact is this two sided stone tablet never shows the same text. Each time the tablet is turned over, a new page of text is seen on the tablet reveling more debauchery and horrible knowledge with each revolution of the tablet. France. Only one copy is known to exist and it has been lost since 1933. Sanity Loss: 1D10 Cthulhu Mythos: +4/+8 percentiles Mythos Rating: 30 Study: 20 weeks Suggested Spells: create zombie, Contact Ghoul, fist of Fist of Yog-Sothoth, Shriveling, Enchant Sacrificial Dagger, evolve ghoul, contact Yog-Sothoth, return to life
Cost: 6 magic points; 2D6 Sanity points Casting time: one hour A zombie must have first created through a separate ritual and feed a freshly killed human within a day. Once the spell is complete and the zombie feed, the zombie will enter a torpor where it will begin to violently shake, distend, and tearing flesh as it elongates and transforms into a ghoul with the whole process closely related to a the process of becoming a werewolf. It will gain all statistics of a ghoul and retain more memories of its past life. Watching this transformation requires a sanity check (2/1d10) by anyone who did not cast the spell. Alternative names: Ritual of the Awakening Mind, Undead Communion, Food of the Undead Gods
Sometimes, when you stick them, you can really make it hurt! Once per turn, when you deal sneak attack damage two of your sneak attack dice have the same value, roll an additional sneak attack die of that value and add it to the damage.
Basics– Let’s go old school OLD SCHOOL! The Golden Age of Khares is a bronze age gaming supplement for Low Fantasy Gaming, a hybrid system midway between DnD 5e and OSR games like DCCRPG. This focuses on much older tech and sword and sorcery in a long lost era.
Mechanics or Crunch– How much you like this game depends on how much you like Low Fantasy Gaming. I love DCC and DnD, so this is a solid addition to that niche! You have new classes that fit the Conan-esc mold with bizarre monsters to make the world feel like an old 70s sword and sorcery movie or book. There are also well done tables to help you randomly get treasure to players, to help you move the game along swiftly, and new areas to expand into like boxing and melee tournaments. Lastly there are rules for massive dungeon creation for all kinds of fun dungeon crawling shenanigans. That is decidedly old school. Solid new crunch here for your Low Fantasy Game! 5/5
Theme or Fluff– How much you like this book again depends on something else-do you like the bronze age? Not standard European fantasy, but more people long ago dealing with horrible monsters of antiquity and vast empires of slaves where it was just the might of your blade or the strength of your spells to uphold right? Me? I’m down for this. I’m looking forward to making a random dungeon and throwing players into it. I do want to know more about this world, but the creatures next goal is to make a world book to help fill in the fluff of the world. 4.5/5
Execution– My kickstarter preview edition is well done. Solid art, solid layout, and solid tables all lead me to be able to read this quickly and move forward fast. The simple book is free, so I love that. The good book is $15 for google drive access, and the better book is $20. Those are not bad prices for a supplement. I would like to know if it’s hyperlinked, but as of now, I like everything I see here. 4.5/5
Summary– The best part of doing these reviews is learning new things. I had no idea that Low Fantasy Gaming existed before this project. It’s honestly a great system that will get its own review one day. And then I learned about this project. It has solid mechanics to add to Low Fantasy gaming. It’s got solid new art, and it’s laid out well and starts to build a world that I can sink my teeth into. I do want a bit more, but that problem comes because this is a small team. And, it’s a good problem because when your project is solid enough to interest me I want more of it, that indicates that you got quality work here! 93%
Benefit: If you make a weapon damage roll with multiple dice and at least two of those dice match, roll an additional damage die of the same type of the matching dice and add it to the damage.
Had a blast playing with the family and this idea come up.
Fortuitous Harm Feat 7
General
When you roll damage for a weapon attack using a rune to add damage dice and at least two dice show the same number, roll an additional damage die and add it to the total.
TL; DR– DnD, Pathfinder, and Poker all mixed together! 87%
Basics– And now for something completely different! Today I have an upcoming Alarian RPG. It’s on the horizon, but not completely finished yet. Let’s look at the basics, and tell you what I think of the sneak peek I got.
Stats, skills and character building- Like most other RPGs, this one has a solid foundation for a few basic stats and skills based on each stat. When you build a character you choose which stats advance faster than others with some having fast progression, advancing every other level, and some advancing every three levels. Skills are a simple point investment as you level as well. What is interesting are the traits. Traits are similar to feats in DnD but they have stat requirements. These traits look like the main way you build a character. The basic builds so far either give you lots of stats and fewer skills and traits, while the other build lets you have more skills, slow stat gain, but lets you ignore some trait requirements. This lets you build a character that is not bound by a class but can dip into anything you think might be fun.
Using your skills and cards-Here is where this RPG takes a big leap. The game DOES NOT USE DICE! Instead players draw from a 54 card deck with jokers being wild. Players get 1 free card per test, then cards equal to their skill and half the associated statistic. The goal is to draw a particular suit either determined by the DM, the situation, or the player deciding before getting cards. Players attempt to get 1, 2, or 3 cards of the suit for a degree of success.
Combat- Combat is a mix of theater of the mind and tiles. Characters get a move and a standard action, but a stat called focus allowes players extra attacks, moves, or even determines how many attacks of opportunity a character can get. Weapons have three interesting features. First is simple damage to a character. Second it costs a character focus as they get smacked around and cant focus as much to do extra things. Lastly they cause poise loss meaning the defender’s armor won’t work as well as more attacks beat on that character. These are all amazingly technical things, but the game takes a bit of a departure as the game then moves to side based combat as one side and all its players go then the other side goes.
Ok, on to my thoughts..
Mechanics or Crunch– This is a new system, and I am intrigued. What I see is interesting enough to get me to kickstart it. I love some things, such as the novel card mechanic. Some things I don’t like as much. I would either lean more technical with movement and combat or less and have just sides smash into each other. The mix feels a bit off. That might be a preference thing from years of DnD 5e as well as years of PF1. Will it work? I think so, but it’s a new mix that’s interesting to me. 4.5/5
Theme or Fluff– I like what’s here, but I will need more. “Yeah, Ed this is a preview!”, so the traits are not a complete list yet nor is the world fully built. That said, what we have is an interesting mix. I’m intrigued enough to want to see the full list. And for a preliminary copy, the world guide is interesting enough to get me to bite. Perfect? No, but the hook is set. 4.5/5
Execution– More grading on a curve this week. This is a prepublish, not complete book. There is not fancy art on every other page, nor is there a PDF. What is here is a few books and art assets. Those honestly are impressive. The words need another pass of polish as a few things are pretty redundant in the verbiage. Also, some explanations seem a bit deep for how to play. None of that is a game breaker by any means, but all are to be expected in a preview. 4/5
Summary– The most annoying thing for me as the alpha geek at my gaming store is other geeks who don’t want to try something new simply because they have not tried it before. This is something new. It’s solid-new that is well done. It’s not perfect-new, but then again, I’m getting a sneak peek behind the curtain before it’s ready for prime time. And what I’ve seen means I’ll come back at prime time when things are finalized. There are small things at the core that are not my favorite, like group initiative and map combat at the same time, but possibly seeing the full suite of things will make me forget any misgivings. As things stand, I wholeheartedly recommend you also check this out when the public gets a look at this. 87%
Throat Punch Games 