This slim volume is an overview of the continent of Ghelspad in the Scarred Lands setting for the Dungeons and Dragons (3rd edition) game. I picked it up due to curiosity about D&D settings (I might run it one day!), having read favourable reports of the Scarred Lands online. It looked like a cheap, easy to read introduction. (There’s also a big hardback Ghelspad book covering similar ground in more detail.)
Map
My first move was to open up the map that comes with the book, and I got an “ooh!” because it’s very big and colourful. At 38.5in/98cm by 26.5in/67cm it’s about three times the size of the less striking map that comes with WOTC’s D&D Gazetteer covering the Flanaess in Greyhawk (I reviewed it on RPGnet ages ago). As always with these products, the paper requires careful handling to avoid splits and wrinkles along the fold lines, and the larger size actually makes this harder.
Sadly, the “ooh!” soon wore off when I noticed how little detail is on the map. Most of the nations in the book have a capital city and 1-4 other important ones listed. The map shows a couple of capitals and the independent city-states, and no others. One of the main uses for such a map is to show players the journeys their characters take, and “it’s somewhere in that country” is neither useful nor inspiring. (The WOTC Flanaess map, though smaller, shows loads of settlements.)
The map has heraldic shields for the nations and city-states across the top and bottom. They’re colourful, but some of the designs look over-complex and they give the impression of being assemblies of available clip-art. I might be too harsh. Symbols of the gods would have been a nice addition.
Book
It starts with the Big Premise of the Scarred Lands. A number of hugely powerful beings called titans created, shaped and destroyed the land and its creatures according to their whims. Their offspring, the gods, decided this could not continue and they had a big war, with their struggles devastating the landscape until eventually the titans were dispersed and imprisoned. This was a mere 150 years ago, and the world is still recovering. In particular, beings created to aid in the war are still roaming around. Chapter 1 outlines this, and chapter 2 gives a brief history of what’s happened since, with nations allying, conquering and backstabbing. It’s followed by a 2-page b&w reprint of the map, which is clearer than the colour version.
So that’s set us up with the idea of a setting with Big and Dramatic Things going on. Landscape rent by godlike battles, eh? That should make for some interesting details.
At this point the authors make a tactical error by not giving us any of that. Chapter 3 is the outlines for the nations and city-states, and almost all the information is political. We’re told who’s ruling, allies and enemies, an idea of population breakdown, stuff like that. There’s some info about monsters and threats. There’s very little about economics and what the people tend to spend their time doing. The nations are adequate, but could as easily have been found in another setting. The city-states contain some more interesting entries, a few of which made me want to learn more (a good test), including the Bridged City (with an interesting layout involving a lot of… bridges!) and Hollowfaust, ruled by socially aware necromancers.
Halfway through, and I’m looking for a pick-up. Chapter 4 is Topography – the much–vaunted landscape. The items are arranged alphabetically by type – Forests, Hills, Islands, Lakes, etc – whereas you might expect to start out with the big stuff and then zoom in. I think that would have read better – for instance, some of the entries under “Mountains”, which appears in the middle, are more dramatic than the piddly stuff earlier on. Some of the entries are interesting, and there are hooks in a lot of them, but the overall effect was not the “grab” it might have been.
Chapter 5, ‘Organizations’, did get me going again. Like previous chapters, it’s “written by” a character in the setting – in this case a cynical advisor to the King of Calastia (the setting’s Evil Empire), with a dry and sarcastic tone. These groups are interesting and left me wanting to learn more about them and how one can model them in D&D character generation. It tells us about some of the people one might meet in the Scarred Lands, which is kind of useful. They include religious assassins, mercenary legions, ruthless paladins, wizard-thieves and repositories of lore.
Chapter 6 lists the gods, titans and odd bits about the calendar, moons and planes. This is important information, more than in other settings as the gods were walking around in living memory and have had a huge effect on the pattern of society. One could use this on its own as a pantheon for a generic game, and I’d probably do so rather than use the twee-sounding ones in the Player’s Handbook. The eight gods and one titan cover the range of alignments (not spelled out here, but identified on the website).
There are a few pieces of artwork, mostly thick line drawings in styles reminiscent of the old Mage books. They’re OK, and probably two-thirds connect adequately with nearby text. Layout is simple but attractive, well suited to presenting a lot of information clearly. Editing could stand improvement, with some chapters showing the odd annoying grammar flux. There are references to terms, creatures, people, etc which are not explained in this product, which misses the point a bit. There is no section introducing important wildlife and monsters, which would have helped immensely to give us an idea of what adventurers might meet, and perhaps to distinguish it from other D&D settings.
Conclusion
Overall, it’s a decent product that could have been so much better. It doesn’t make the best use of the available space to live up to the initial promise of the setting concept. The book needed a greater awareness of what would provide usefulness and excitement for the reader, and the map is more a decorative poster than a useful tool.
Go to forum!
(Due to spamming, old forum discussions are no linked.)