The Rilasciare are anarchists, philosophers, and witch-hunters, all united by the principle that humanity is best when free. They are a secret society devoted to bringing down authority, whether it be supernatural, political, or financial. They also like to blow things up.
What's not to like?
Warning: I will reveal some secrets from this book.
This book begins with a story about a corrupt judge and his execution at the hands of the Rilasciare. It is surprisingly good and helps develop a tone for the society.
Chapter 1: The Midnight Crusade
This chapter details the history, organization, practices, and factions in the Rilasciare. All of these sections are enjoyable and very useful. It also brings forward the first major flaw in the book, Sorcerer's are banned from the Rilasciare. This in itself is not the problem, the difficulty arises from the fact that this restriction is not mentioned until now, making it possible for a GM to have a Rilasciare sorcerer in his or her game. Admittedly this should be a rare occurrence, as few Sorcerers will join a society dedicated to wiping out sorcery, but is is a possibility the author should have considered less lightly. All in all this could have been repaired simply by suggesting how such a gamemaster may handle this problem. Unfortunately no consideration is made.
I consider this mistake as relatively minor, as it does not hamper the remainder of the book.
Chapter 2: Hero
This chapter contains a collection of NPC's all of whom are members of the Free Thinkers. For the most part they represent a solid and varied collection of the Rilasciare membership.
Chapter 3: Drama
This chapter contains the advantages, backgrounds and skills often used by the Free Thinkers. This includes coats with concealed equipment, a background for deep cover spies, and skills for Arson and Bomb-making. Nearly all of these are well developed and useful.
In addition an ancient form of Sorcery is offered for "historical interest" as the Free Thinkers supposedly wiped it out centuries ago. This sorcery is called Zerstorung and uses entropy to decay wood, metal and human flesh. This is a useful, but not overpowered ability, and a welcome addition to the world of 7th Sea.
This section also contains rules for grenades and blowing up buildings. These are both simple and reasonable (if not realistic, this is a swashbuckling game after all).
There is also a new swordsmen school, Vipera Ex Morsi, supposedly developed to assassinate enemies of the Rilasciare. At the apprentice level it allows called shots (which do not increase damage) and off-hand use of a knife. At journeyman it allows blows to deal lesser wounds if they miss. At master you increase the likelihood of dealing a significant wound. These abilities are very useful, for standard knife fighting, but they do not take into account surprise nor do they deal more damage than an untrained knife user can do. In short this school is almost useless for sneaking up and killing a target, the avowed purpose of the combat form.
Chapter 4: Freemen
This section contains a somewhat useful discussion of role-playing a revolutionary. This includes some reasonable advice about party unity which is especially appropriate given the possibilities for inter-party strain.
Then the secrets for the NPC's in chapter 2 are given. For the most part this section is uninteresting, after all the most intriguing part of many of these characters is their membership and activities in the society. There is however one oddity, only one character in the society is a villian, and all of them are exceedingly loyal to the society. There are not turncoats or infiltrators at all. At least one character who is using the Free Thinkers for some villainous purpose would have been a welcome and useful addition.
Lastly there is a detailed prison, where one of the NPC's is held. This is a very interesting location, being an old mine set in a sea cliff and can easily be the setting of much skullduggery.
All in all the Rilasciare is a well written book, marred by several major flaws.
Go to forum!
(Due to spamming, old forum discussions are no linked.)