Into The Blue
"We've done four
already, but now we're steady, and then they went, one, two,
three, four"
Into the
Blue is the 3rd book in Bastion Press's
"Into the ..." series, which are basically d20
sourcebooks devoted to a specific environment. While going the
title, it could conceivably be about the sky, this book is
actually about the ocean. If you've read or seen Into the Green or Into the Black, then this is pretty
much exactly like them, only devoted to the sea.
This book was good timing for me, because I just read Tanith
Lee's "Venus Preserved", which is about a city under
water in the future (in an alternate history, where Venice was
called "Venus" for some reason). So it got me thinking
about putting a similar underwater city in my campaign. This book
should help quite a bit in fleshing out the neighborhood, so to
speak.
There are 6 chapters. The first is sort of an introduction to
oceanic living (that is, assorted info about oceans in general),
then comes one chapter on each main sort of ocean environment
(coastal waters, open sea, and deep water), a shortish chapter on
equipment, and a shortish chapter on new spells.
RPG books often talk about "En Media Res", that is,
starting a session in the thick of the action. Well, that
somewhat applies to how this book starts. Right away, you're
presented with a discussion of algae blooms. Definitely not your
typical d20 sourcebook.
Much of the first chapter will probably be known to those that
have actually lived around an ocean. I used to live in Florida,
so I knew most of this. It generally discusses basic facts of the
sea, things like tides and such, plus types of animals and plants
that appear in all areas of the ocean. You learn about sea
cucumbers and octopii and that sea water ruins books, and some
lesser known facts.
"Under the sea,
Under the sea,
There'll be no accusations,
Just friendly crustaceans
Under the Seeeeeeeeeeeeea!"
The meat of the book are the 3 chapters which describe specific
regions. Much like the two previous books in the series, it
starts off with an overview of the region, along with specific
terrain highlights and hazards. Then it discusses some common
plants and normal (non-statted) animals, and finishes off with
several monsters and their stats, and adventure hooks involving
those critters.
The Coastal Waters chapter describes
the ecology of the region where the land meets the ocean.
Beaches, coral, kelp, reefs, salt marshes are all described. I
also learned what a maelstrom is.
It also describes coastal sea animals like the deadly manatee.
Well, actually, as this book correctly points out, they're about
as harmless as animals get. I used to watch them while I was in
Florida, and I would often puzzle that they aren't extinct yet. I
mean, they basically float there and splash a little. They're
sitting ducks for anything that would want to eat them. I mean,
they really are like sea cows, but cows are cow like because
they've been domesticated. I guess no one but man wants to, for
some reason. I always thought they looked fairly tastey. It does
mention crocodiles, but no gators or chocodiles or caimans.
The monster section for the coast has a couple of dolphins, who
are of course portrayed as nice, charming animals. This irked me,
as in reality, nothing could be further from the
truth, though that is the common perception of them. Probably
the most interesting in the coastal section is the "Kelp
Stalker", which is basically a shambling mound, only derived
from kelp.
The Open Sea chapter largely deals
with ocean life near the top of the ocean, away from the coast,
though there's a brief mention of floating sea cities. There's
actually not much plant/animal life here worth mentioning,
apparently. Barnacles. Sargasso seas. There's also a line of
sight chart (though presumably only valuable on an earth sized
planet) which determines how far you can see on the sea.
The monsters here tend to be a bit dull. 2 giant jellyfish (1
actually more a man of war), an undead sailor, an electric manta
ray, the narwhal, another whale, and a mutated octopus.
The Deep Water chapter is basically
under the sea, and away from the coast. Things are a bit more
interesting here, terrain wise, with Abyssal Plains (flatter than
Kansas) and Brine Lakes (will pickle you if you enter. ).
Monsters here include an evil octopus, a blood sucking worm, and
a tricky, fast-talking fish (not a laywer-fish, but close). And
what look like a couple of deep sea variations of standard
D&D monsters.
"Look at me, living free
Free and clean amongst the Sea People"
Although shoved into the monster section of the various chapters,
there are 5 new races in the book that are suitable for players
or NPCs. The most interesting race in the book, I thought, is the
"Orcam". Basically, they are ocean travelling orcs,
sort of playing off the name "Orc" and
"Orca". Oddly enough, the Sovereign Stone campaign
setting does the same basic thing, having Orcs being related to
Orca, but in that, they are just Sailors (and fairly human
looking, if a bit tusky), in this, they are more like nomadic
plainsmen of Earth, only on the ocean.
2 of the new races in the book are basically anthromorphic
animals. For instance, Otterkin, which are basically intelligent
otters. And Turtle Folk are basically intelligent, upright
walking turtles. Actually, it's about half the main characters of
Spellsinger. Except the Turtles explode if they come to the
surface (it seems they are high pressure creatures, despite their
shells).
There's also the "Trench Elf", who besides wearing
trench coats, also have a thing for black clothing and katanas.
Seriously, while they are kind of angsty and have pale skin, they
actually get their name from where they live, in the deep water
trenches of the ocean. Because they cannot stand low pressure,
they cannot go above 1000 feet of water. Because of this, they
feel isolated.
And I almost forgot, there is the "Reef Scapper", which
seem to be poor Tritons, who have been forced to live on the
scraps of the sea. I found this race to be a bit distasteful, if
not a bit offensive, actually, as it seems to stereotype poor
people. (As I happen to be one, I find this irksome). I was
surprised the picture of one wasn't entitled "Cletus".
"Come Aboard. We're
expecting you."
The equipment chapter is pretty short, and is largely stuff only
used underwater. All sorts of kelp and bone/shell armor.
Sharkskin armor. Also crocodile and seal skin stuff (no dolphin
skin, sadly).
Similarly, most of the spells in the spell section (which is 6
pages) are mostly useful underwater, or in some cases, on top of
them. Bubble of Air. Buoyancy. Animate Kelp. Waterproof.
Desalinate. Ink cloud.
Rounding out the book is a series of encounter tables. Which
can be useful, but generally only if you are a playing in a
default D&D world and plan on using all the critters in this
book.
"Clear Blue
Water"
The book is pretty nice looking. Doom
Striders was a bit uglier than most Bastion books, but this
is more in line with what you expect from them. Though in a nice
touch, they've also added titles to the illustrations in addition
to the artist's name. While generally speaking, the text of a
book is the most important thing, I do appreciate art, and it's
nice to know who did illustrations I like and what they are
supposed to be.
My favorite piece is something of a landscape called "A sea
maiden calls out to an approaching vessel." by Jesse Mohn.
It's mostly a landscape, you can see the ghostly maiden, and a
ship way out on the ocean, but it's mostly sky and sea
illuminated by a full moon, all of which are very well done.
(Though the ship actually seems to be headed in the other
direction, and the critter is technically called a "Sea
Scorned". But it's very nice and evocative.)
Actually, many of the labels for monsters are slightly off. I
think artists usually get very early versions of the manuscript
or just outlines to work from, so this is to be expected, but
better coordination between the names of the monsters and the
names of the illustrations would have been nice..
"As I looked across the
still waters,
A voice spoke to me in the darkness"
While this book contains some pro-Dolphin propaganda, it's a good
look at the ecosystem of the ocean in a d20 gaming context.
Probably the best look at the ecosystem of the ocean in a d20
gaming context. (As I think it's the only one, but still pretty
decent). As mentioned, it happened to come out just when I was
thinking about placing some domed cities on the bottom of my
campaign setting's seas. So I plan on getting a lot of use out of
it. Should also be invaluable if you are running a pirate or ship
based game, like say one based in Freeport. Or if you wanted to
run a d20 Modern game set "The Day After Tomorrow" with
Al Gore. (Though not being based on the writings of Art Bell and
a guy who was played by Christopher Walken, the science in this
book is actually sound.)
It's not perfect, though. As previous books in the series, it
doesn't mention if an animal/plant/whatzit is real or
fictional/magical, which wouldn't have taken much, and would have
greatly added to this book's value for non-fantasy games. It
omits some things, like what a lagoon is. And no alligators. Or
insects like mosquitos, which are generally problems in
saltmarshes. Or Lobsters (also disappointing there were no Dr.
Zoidberg like lobster people, which would have also made this
review much funnier). While kelp is discussed, just what exactly
kelp is isn't mentioned. I mean, clearly it's a plant, presumably
seaweed. But not being a diver, I don't think I've ever really
seen what it looks like. And I really didn't like the Reef
Scapper race, finding it somewhat stereotypes poor people. The
monster variety isn't great, either - there are 4 variations on
dead sailors (or their wives), several octopii and jellyfish,
etc.
Personally, I think it's the weakest of the three "Into
the ...." books (and the prose is much less vivid and
picturesque than the first two, particularly Into the Green, where some of the
descriptions of plants and animals made my mouth water), but
still pretty good at what it meant to do.
B-, a 3.5 for substance and a 4.5 for style (though both rounded down)
"I'm sailing
away..."
To a certain extent, the oceanic environment is vastly different
than "normal" D&D style adventuring. Into the Green was simply about travelling
in green areas (woods, forests, etc), while Into
the Black was about underground areas, both places that
are supported by the default D&D rules and are fairly normal
environments and fit into any campaign pretty well. But this,
well, it's vastly different, it doesn't have much info on
actually adventuring under water, for that you need something
like Mystic Eye Games
"The Deep" (which in fact is recommended by this book,
but something I don't have, and actually can't even find on their
web page. Wait, here
it is, in the Bluffside section.). So it's not quite as
useful to the default D&D game, at least the chapters on the
open sea and deep sea.
It's a great supplement for "The
Deep" or the various seafaring books (and Freeport), but you would
have trouble running a sea based game (either on ships or down
below) with just this book. It wasn't meant to be a stand alone
sea book, it was just an ecology sort of book, but the back blurb
makes it sound more useful than it is. When I review game books,
I judge them on how well they do what they were meant to do, and
what they were advertised to do or to be. Sometimes those two
things can be at odds a bit. In this case, it's pretty minor, it
just says "Essential Knowledge for Players & GMs",
which is just perhaps overstating things a bit (or a lot). It's
useful, but hardly essential, essential knowledge would be rules
for actually adventuring underwater or how to get the core
rulebooks for free.
(The song quotations are from
(in order): Led Zeppelin's "The Ocean"; The Simpsons,
the episode where Homer is accused of sexual harassment; South
Park "The Simpsons Did It"; The Love Boat Theme Song
written by Paul Williams; Oceanlab "Clear Blue Water";
Solar Stone "The Calling"; and Styx "Come Sail
Away".)
