Here is a setting I wish I had developed. Here is a setting I would like to freelance or staff write in. Here is the setting I will become a master of 3e for. This one I like.
In overview: Without giving a lot of the plot away this is the story of a young woman's revenge on the killers of her mother ten years prior to the module. It follows her revenge scheme and gives background material on the perpetrators of the act a decade ago.
There is an Introduction area. This has 9 pages of background on the Iron Kingdoms and the city of Corvis, the setting of the Witchfire Trilogy. The rest of the book is divided into 3 sections, called Acts, with a portion of the adventure in each. There is an appendix at the end with the new monsters, generic NPCs, and the main NPC characters from the first book.
What I like. Wow. Love the setting. Steampunk with magic. This is exactly the sort of setting and game that captures my attention the most. This is a realized world, there are details about a major city, both above and below the ground, and rounded fleshed out villains. Then when you go to the websites,
www.privateerpress.com and
ironkingdoms.com where you get a ton of additional information about the world and the setting. Add in some nice protagonists, who are way too tough at the beginning, making for a nice nemesis arrangement, and you have a wide open new campaign world.
The cover is a gorgeous 4-color spread of the main protagonist and her associates. These are her henchmen in a matter of speaking. The interior art is plentiful, a total of 38 illustrations and maps. The illustrations all depict various scenes, the major NPCs, and also each of the main new monsters introduced. That is a feature that I really like. Not being able to draw even a decent stick figure artwork really makes a product for me. Something I can photocopy and pass around as a part of my description of what is happening. Additionally each of the main sections has a nice piece of banner like artwork. Divides up the elements nicely. The logo for the setting is strong, conveying a lot of what it is and how it feels for adventuring in the lands of the Iron Kingdoms.
There are new skills to cover the steam powered creations. The illustrations of the steamjacks are nice, but not enough of them.
What I don’t like. I am not particularly fond of low-level published scenarios or modules. I can develop something more than challenging for a first to third level character. No list of spells for the NPC spell casters. The firearms are discussed and in the text on page 27 a pistol is discussed. Still it would have been nice to have the information in a table. Also there is no write up on the steamjacks, the magical mechanical laborers. This is easy to rectify since there are the templates available at
www.rpgaction.com. Still this is an inconvenience especially since we have to wait for the next installment of the trilogy. None of these factors makes me regret purchasing the product though.
In conclusion. For the price buy it. A good low level adventure, lots of plot hooks, easy to integrate into a new campaign or new country. Now if you do not want the steampunk like elements in your game then it will be of lesser value to you. I bought this game for the cover art, the write up on back and the cost. I am advocating it for a nice world, already with numerous plot hooks to set up a nice long term , years in real life, campaign.
Keeping that in mind I recommend the following. Plan on your player characters having lots of fights. There is some intrigue and detective work. Mostly in the travels from location to location there is combat. The ending is a large scale battle. In between there are plenty of wilderness and swamp locations where random monsters are a factor. The party should be at least 4 or 5 in number with good access to healing spells or perhaps potions. If there are a lot of encounters they might make 3rd level by the end of the module. If not they should be close to 3rd level. If you want to scale the difficulty down ensure they start at the modules at 2nd level vice 1st. Makes the opening encounters easier as well as more likely access to higher Armor Classes due to bought armor.
Go ahead buy it for the artwork and great setting At only
$9.95 it is cheaper than buying 2 magazines, with a lot more content and focus.
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