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Avoirdupois, a supplement for Ironclaw

This supplement describes the last of the major houses of Calabria, the equine Avoirdupois. I'll just go through the book and list what you get and what you don't.

First off, I'm working off of a pre-release copy, so I can't comment on the binding or covers... mine is just loose-leaf sheets clipped together. But if the binding is the same as the last couple of supplements, it'll be fine.

As before, they open the text with a comic strip that foreshadows the main adventure in the back of the book. It's well drawn and sets up the background nicely.

It's followed by a whopping 14 page summary of the history of the house and its lands... Long and detailed, it's not light reading. It covers several wars and two religions. The Avoirdupois historically worshipped Anu the All-Father (a Sun god), but after one of their kings converted to the worship of S'allumer, the majority of the inhabitants followed suit. Naturally, this conversion didn't happen bloodlessly. If you're interested in setting up feuds and internal conflicts for your campaign, there's material aplenty here. The major players are the followers of Anu (now restricted in their activities and looked down upon, but still the best source of Elemental magic), the nobles of the land, and the church of S'allumer (possibly even more powerful than the Archduke these days). There's also material on the various disenfranchised houses (particularly the rhino Ecocheurs and the equine Marteau) and even a secret society dedicated to the utter destruction of the church of S'allumer.

The historical sections are full of details that just scream "history major at work." A lot of the material was clearly inspired by real-world events, just with a few different twists to them. Personally, I think it lends a lot of realism to the setting. For example, while General Gage (a historical figure considered a national hero by most Avoirdupois) was definitely an Anu-worshipper, the text mentions the existence of a controversial letter that claims that Gage had an encounter with the healing light of S'allumer. Even many priests of S'allumer discount it as a forgery, but there you go- it's the little details like that that really make a setting come to life.

After the history, a section detailing their current holdings and government. This explains the differences between Low Justice (for commoners), High Justice (for nobles), and Clerical Law (for priests of S'allumer). It also describes the major houses of Avoirdupois, as well as some of the minor houses and their roles.

Then it has a "Gazetteer", which describes specific points of interest in their part of Calabria. This includes major abbeys and monasteries, too. There's a one-page map of the capital city (Chalon-sur-Sauldre, meaning "The City on the Sauldre"), and a couple of pages describing interesting locales marked on the map. The numbers of the map are a little hard to read, but that may just be my copy.

Next is the "Religion" section, which they call a "brief discourse on the ways of worship practiced by the people of Calabria." At fifteen pages, it's not exactly brief, but there's a lot of material to cover. It lists the basic information about the church of S'allumer and its primary tenets... then lists five different "Heterodoxies" and shows how their tenets differ. A "Heterodoxy" is a religious tradition whose teachings are not banned by the central church, but which aren't endorsed, either. These are the Palingenesie (who believe that the "Blessed Ways" described in the Doloreaux book are a form of white magic and thus acceptable), the Orchomency (who hold that knowledge and learning are critical to advancing in the eyes of S'allumer), Hyperdulia (who believe that praying to the saints and holy figures rather than S'allumer himself is acceptable), the Anathasia (who seek to discover new powers of White Magic) and the Haimorrous (who believe in self-flaggellation and even more bizarre practices to help them withstand mortal temptations). All five get a brief description and a listing of their primary tenets as well. As you might expect, the Heterodoxies pretty much use the same tenets as the mother church, with only a few variations.

The Heresies, on the other hand, are banned by the church and practicing them too openly can get you killed. They don't like Druidism (from the Phelan book) or Lutarism (from the Doloreaux supplement). They don't approve of Heliodromency (the worshippers of Anu) or the Monophysisme (a cult that believes that the great saints of S'allumer weren't mortals at all, but divine beings). But to really get yourself tortured and executed quickly, you should try proclaiming membership in the Eteignoirs, a secret society that blames the church of S'allumer for pretty much everything that's "wrong" with modern-day Avoirdupois society, and would like to see the whole church wiped out.

But it's the church of S'allumer itself that calls the shots, and there's a large subsection here that details the various branches and orders of the church itself. Of most interest to adventuring types are the Capitular Orders: the Ardentines act as the church's military arm and their inquisition. The Passarelles are basically a nunnery, but they're warrior nuns. It's pretty much the best way for a female Avoirdupois to get military training. The Guerisseurs are accomplished healers, considered the best in Calabria.

This section describes the makeup of the church in really hefty detail. There's a paragraph or two describing every "rank" in the church, from the holy Pontiff down to the Acolytes, Clergy and Laity. The church of S'allumer is strongly based upon the real-world Roman Catholic church... back before there were any "Protestants".

The church is also where outsiders go for training in White Magic... and there's a lot more kinds of White Magic than just the spells in the Ironclaw book. The new magic lists are collectively known as Sacerdotal magic, and are taught by the various orders to their members, or to outsiders who make a suitably large gift to the church. The spells are detailed in a later section.

So, there's a lot of material here. The setting information fills a full third of the book. Then there's a section of stats and skills. It lists suggestions for creating an Avoirdupois character with new careers, gifts, flaws and equipment.

There's even a section listing a new Trait: Charism. This is when someone is so "pure" in their worship of S'allumer that they gain special abilities. All of them require the Gift of Ne Vile Fano, which pretty much means that your character is saintly in behavior. The Charisms are pretty potent and... interestingly designed. I suspect that they're inspired by miracles associated with real-world saints in medieval times, but I couldn't tell you for certain. For example, the Charism of Luminescence means that the character so strongly embraces the light of S'allumer that he literally glows in the dark. They seem powerful, but they're probably too expensive for PCs, especially since you have to maintain that saintly attitude or lose your magical powers.

The equipment list is mostly there for local color. Each item has a description of what it looks like and how it is used... then it tells you what the item counts as in game terms. For instance, a Kite shield gets a very detailed description of what it is, what it looks like, who uses it, and how it's used... then a one line comment that in game terms, a Kite shield is just a "large shield". I like that. They included a lot of material that you don't often see in an RPG, where you can tell the difference between a sword made in one country and one made in another just by looking at it, even if in game terms the two are identical weapons.

Finally there's a page and a half on Avoirdupois names, both male and female, to help you out.

The Sacerdotal magic section takes about 20 pages to describe the various spells taught by the orders. They all share the same 8 acolyte spells, but the advanced spell lists are quite different.

Interestingly, all eight acolyte spells are Delayed, 1 Magic Point spells. All of them work pretty much the same way- the priest invests one magic point into placing the spell on himself or someone else. It lasts until the target chooses to invoke it, whereupon it activates and then fades away. Each one is designed to help you overcome one of the eight deadly sins of the church of S'allumer; for example, "The Prayer for Humility," when used, lets the caster cast a spell without words or gestures. "The Prayer for Love" lets the target (never the caster himself, always someone else) transfer damage or a malign magical effect to the caster, who then sucks it up for them.

There are 11 Sacerdotal spell lists, each one consisting of 8 spells of White Magic associated with a particular order or heterodoxy. There is some overlap between them, but it's still a lot of additional spells for your clerical types. I particularly liked "Stigmata", which enables the caster to use his own wounds to extend the duration of his spells; so long as the wounds don't heal, the spell continues. Naturally, it's most associated with the Haimorrs, who like to beat themselves with whips, anyway.

Then there's a section listing some sample characters. These seemed well done, with a few typos here and there. But I'm told that a lot of typos were corrected after the copy I received was printed, so hopefully these will be fixed in the final version. Most of them aren't very important, anyway. A few horses had "claws" listed for their natural weapon instead of hooves, things like that. Easily corrected.

Then, at last, the adventure itself. This one is... really, REALLY non-linear. In some ways it's more of a plot-summary than a normal adventure. It involves a convoluted plot with betrayals and schemes within schemes and actually suggests three very different ways that the PCs could run through it, depending on what side they wanted to support. Ambitious characters might even follow more than one thread at once. I can't really describe it in any detail without giving away important plot points. It could be run as a sneak & fight combat quest or a purely social interaction & diplomacy quest, or a combination of the two. I think it could really shine with an experienced GM and group, but I wouldn't recommend it for a novice GM... it's just too loosely structured. There are even some important plot points that they leave entirely up the GM... for example, a piece of incriminating evidence could be a forgery or not, depending upon the GM's style.

This is followed up by character write-ups for all of the important NPCs. The only thing notably missing were writeups for the "generic" warrior types, since the adventure could easily involve at least one mass battle. Not a major omission, really, but it would've been nice to have those stats handy in case a fight breaks out during play.

Then the appendices. Yeesh, these guys fit a lot of stuff in these little supplements. The first one lists off some "adventure seeds" of variable quality and detail. The second describes the annual foot-race (well, hoof-race really) which is one of the biggest and most popular events in the land. Then an appendix listing the holy days of S'allumer and their significance.

Finally, there are some additional spell-lists, a glossary and an index. Like the other supplements, the spell-lists in the back are "secret" spells whose mere existence is known to very few. One of them contains some additional Black Magic spells to help make the lives of your clerical types more, um... "interesting," since THESE spells were created in order to better oppose the church of S'allumer.

The glossary and index are really just icing on the cake, but you'll want them with a book this detailed. I know that _I_ would never remember whether a Vicomte outranked a Baron or not.

The book seems well laid out (at least in my unbound copy) and illustrations are apt and well-placed. The quality of art is pretty good overall. There are a bunch of "woodcut" style pictures, particularly in the historical section, which I don't really care for, but I suppose they help set the tone. Overall, a high quality supplement. You could buy it just for the spell-lists and new powers, but the real value is going to be to a GM who wants a really detailed and realistic church of S'allumer.

At 160 pages, this is their biggest supplement yet, and there isn't much "fluff" here. Ooo, one last thing: the book uses the "revised" ruleset, which confused me in a few places, since I only have the original version, but it should be compatible with either version.

Style:4 (pretty well done) Substance: 5 (lots and lots and lots of detail)

Avoirdupois
Avoirdupois Capsule Review by Frank Sronce on 03/08/01 Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 5 (Excellent!) Another impressive supplement for Ironclaw Product: Avoirdupois Author: Lots of people Category: RPG Company/Publisher: Sanguine Productions Line: Ironclaw Cost: probably $13-15 Page count: 160 Year published: 2001 ISBN: SKU: SGP1005 Comp copy?: no Capsule Review by Frank Sronce on 03/08/01 Genre tags: Fantasy Other	Avoirdupois, a supplement for Ironclaw This supplement describes the last of the major houses of Calabria, the equine Avoirdupois. I'll just go through the book and list what you get and what you don't. First off, I'm working off of a pre-release copy, so I can't comment on the binding or covers... mine is just loose-leaf sheets clipped together. But if the binding is the same as the last couple of supplements, it'll be fine. As before, they open the text with a comic strip that foreshadows the main adventure in the back of the book. It's well drawn and sets up the background nicely. It's followed by a whopping 14 page summary of the history of the house and its lands... Long and detailed, it's not light reading. It covers several wars and two religions. The Avoirdupois historically worshipped Anu the All-Father (a Sun god), but after one of their kings converted to the worship of S'allumer, the majority of the inhabitants followed suit. Naturally, this conversion didn't happen bloodlessly. If you're interested in setting up feuds and internal conflicts for your campaign, there's material aplenty here. The major players are the followers of Anu (now restricted in their activities and looked down upon, but still the best source of Elemental magic), the nobles of the land, and the church of S'allumer (possibly even more powerful than the Archduke these days). There's also material on the various disenfranchised houses (particularly the rhino Ecocheurs and the equine Marteau) and even a secret society dedicated to the utter destruction of the church of S'allumer. The historical sections are full of details that just scream "history major at work." A lot of the material was clearly inspired by real-world events, just with a few different twists to them. Personally, I think it lends a lot of realism to the setting. For example, while General Gage (a historical figure considered a national hero by most Avoirdupois) was definitely an Anu-worshipper, the text mentions the existence of a controversial letter that claims that Gage had an encounter with the healing light of S'allumer. Even many priests of S'allumer discount it as a forgery, but there you go- it's the little details like that that really make a setting come to life. After the history, a section detailing their current holdings and government. This explains the differences between Low Justice (for commoners), High Justice (for nobles), and Clerical Law (for priests of S'allumer). It also describes the major houses of Avoirdupois, as well as some of the minor houses and their roles. Then it has a "Gazetteer", which describes specific points of interest in their part of Calabria. This includes major abbeys and monasteries, too. There's a one-page map of the capital city (Chalon-sur-Sauldre, meaning "The City on the Sauldre"), and a couple of pages describing interesting locales marked on the map. The numbers of the map are a little hard to read, but that may just be my copy. Next is the "Religion" section, which they call a "brief discourse on the ways of worship practiced by the people of Calabria." At fifteen pages, it's not exactly brief, but there's a lot of material to cover. It lists the basic information about the church of S'allumer and its primary tenets... then lists five different "Heterodoxies" and shows how their tenets differ. A "Heterodoxy" is a religious tradition whose teachings are not banned by the central church, but which aren't endorsed, either. These are the Palingenesie (who believe that the "Blessed Ways" described in the Doloreaux book are a form of white magic and thus acceptable), the Orchomency (who hold that knowledge and learning are critical to advancing in the eyes of S'allumer), Hyperdulia (who believe that praying to the saints and holy figures rather than S'allumer himself is acceptable), the Anathasia (who seek to discover new powers of White Magic) and the Haimorrous (who believe in self-flaggellation and even more bizarre practices to help them withstand mortal temptations). All five get a brief description and a listing of their primary tenets as well. As you might expect, the Heterodoxies pretty much use the same tenets as the mother church, with only a few variations. The Heresies, on the other hand, are banned by the church and practicing them too openly can get you killed. They don't like Druidism (from the Phelan book) or Lutarism (from the Doloreaux supplement). They don't approve of Heliodromency (the worshippers of Anu) or the Monophysisme (a cult that believes that the great saints of S'allumer weren't mortals at all, but divine beings). But to really get yourself tortured and executed quickly, you should try proclaiming membership in the Eteignoirs, a secret society that blames the church of S'allumer for pretty much everything that's "wrong" with modern-day Avoirdupois society, and would like to see the whole church wiped out. But it's the church of S'allumer itself that calls the shots, and there's a large subsection here that details the various branches and orders of the church itself. Of most interest to adventuring types are the Capitular Orders: the Ardentines act as the church's military arm and their inquisition. The Passarelles are basically a nunnery, but they're warrior nuns. It's pretty much the best way for a female Avoirdupois to get military training. The Guerisseurs are accomplished healers, considered the best in Calabria. This section describes the makeup of the church in really hefty detail. There's a paragraph or two describing every "rank" in the church, from the holy Pontiff down to the Acolytes, Clergy and Laity. The church of S'allumer is strongly based upon the real-world Roman Catholic church... back before there were any "Protestants". The church is also where outsiders go for training in White Magic... and there's a lot more kinds of White Magic than just the spells in the Ironclaw book. The new magic lists are collectively known as Sacerdotal magic, and are taught by the various orders to their members, or to outsiders who make a suitably large gift to the church. The spells are detailed in a later section. So, there's a lot of material here. The setting information fills a full third of the book. Then there's a section of stats and skills. It lists suggestions for creating an Avoirdupois character with new careers, gifts, flaws and equipment. There's even a section listing a new Trait: Charism. This is when someone is so "pure" in their worship of S'allumer that they gain special abilities. All of them require the Gift of Ne Vile Fano, which pretty much means that your character is saintly in behavior. The Charisms are pretty potent and... interestingly designed. I suspect that they're inspired by miracles associated with real-world saints in medieval times, but I couldn't tell you for certain. For example, the Charism of Luminescence means that the character so strongly embraces the light of S'allumer that he literally glows in the dark. They seem powerful, but they're probably too expensive for PCs, especially since you have to maintain that saintly attitude or lose your magical powers. The equipment list is mostly there for local color. Each item has a description of what it looks like and how it is used... then it tells you what the item counts as in game terms. For instance, a Kite shield gets a very detailed description of what it is, what it looks like, who uses it, and how it's used... then a one line comment that in game terms, a Kite shield is just a "large shield". I like that. They included a lot of material that you don't often see in an RPG, where you can tell the difference between a sword made in one country and one made in another just by looking at it, even if in game terms the two are identical weapons. Finally there's a page and a half on Avoirdupois names, both male and female, to help you out. The Sacerdotal magic section takes about 20 pages to describe the various spells taught by the orders. They all share the same 8 acolyte spells, but the advanced spell lists are quite different. Interestingly, all eight acolyte spells are Delayed, 1 Magic Point spells. All of them work pretty much the same way- the priest invests one magic point into placing the spell on himself or someone else. It lasts until the target chooses to invoke it, whereupon it activates and then fades away. Each one is designed to help you overcome one of the eight deadly sins of the church of S'allumer; for example, "The Prayer for Humility," when used, lets the caster cast a spell without words or gestures. "The Prayer for Love" lets the target (never the caster himself, always someone else) transfer damage or a malign magical effect to the caster, who then sucks it up for them. There are 11 Sacerdotal spell lists, each one consisting of 8 spells of White Magic associated with a particular order or heterodoxy. There is some overlap between them, but it's still a lot of additional spells for your clerical types. I particularly liked "Stigmata", which enables the caster to use his own wounds to extend the duration of his spells; so long as the wounds don't heal, the spell continues. Naturally, it's most associated with the Haimorrs, who like to beat themselves with whips, anyway. Then there's a section listing some sample characters. These seemed well done, with a few typos here and there. But I'm told that a lot of typos were corrected after the copy I received was printed, so hopefully these will be fixed in the final version. Most of them aren't very important, anyway. A few horses had "claws" listed for their natural weapon instead of hooves, things like that. Easily corrected. Then, at last, the adventure itself. This one is... really, REALLY non-linear. In some ways it's more of a plot-summary than a normal adventure. It involves a convoluted plot with betrayals and schemes within schemes and actually suggests three very different ways that the PCs could run through it, depending on what side they wanted to support. Ambitious characters might even follow more than one thread at once. I can't really describe it in any detail without giving away important plot points. It could be run as a sneak & fight combat quest or a purely social interaction & diplomacy quest, or a combination of the two. I think it could really shine with an experienced GM and group, but I wouldn't recommend it for a novice GM... it's just too loosely structured. There are even some important plot points that they leave entirely up the GM... for example, a piece of incriminating evidence could be a forgery or not, depending upon the GM's style. This is followed up by character write-ups for all of the important NPCs. The only thing notably missing were writeups for the "generic" warrior types, since the adventure could easily involve at least one mass battle. Not a major omission, really, but it would've been nice to have those stats handy in case a fight breaks out during play. Then the appendices. Yeesh, these guys fit a lot of stuff in these little supplements. The first one lists off some "adventure seeds" of variable quality and detail. The second describes the annual foot-race (well, hoof-race really) which is one of the biggest and most popular events in the land. Then an appendix listing the holy days of S'allumer and their significance. Finally, there are some additional spell-lists, a glossary and an index. Like the other supplements, the spell-lists in the back are "secret" spells whose mere existence is known to very few. One of them contains some additional Black Magic spells to help make the lives of your clerical types more, um... "interesting," since THESE spells were created in order to better oppose the church of S'allumer. The glossary and index are really just icing on the cake, but you'll want them with a book this detailed. I know that _I_ would never remember whether a Vicomte outranked a Baron or not. The book seems well laid out (at least in my unbound copy) and illustrations are apt and well-placed. The quality of art is pretty good overall. There are a bunch of "woodcut" style pictures, particularly in the historical section, which I don't really care for, but I suppose they help set the tone. Overall, a high quality supplement. You could buy it just for the spell-lists and new powers, but the real value is going to be to a GM who wants a really detailed and realistic church of S'allumer. At 160 pages, this is their biggest supplement yet, and there isn't much "fluff" here. Ooo, one last thing: the book uses the "revised" ruleset, which confused me in a few places, since I only have the original version, but it should be compatible with either version. Style:4 (pretty well done) Substance: 5 (lots and lots and lots of detail)