for d20 System

by Dr. Mike Bennighof, Ph. D., John R. Phythyon, Jr., and Ree Soesbee

Avalanche Press

ISBN 193209104-1

APL0918

192 pages, berfect bound, digest size

$29.99

Reviewed by Lisa Padol

Celtic Age is a product I like very much. It won the 2003 Origins Award for Best RPG Supplement, and it well deserved it. Yet, I had a great deal of trouble reading this book.

It has the strengths of a textbook on the subject. It is well researched, and I trust it to be as accurate as possible, given how much we do and do not know about the Celts. The book covers a cornucopia of topics from wine and women to fighting techniques to the harsh reality behind the glittering tales of the Celts. The Celtic upper class was brutal to the peasants and slaves who supported it. The Romans were very successful in playing off tribes of Celts against each other and taking advantage of Celtic assumptions and weaknesses. The Celts themselves were largely to blame for many of their defeats, and one could run a fascinating campaign where the PCs tried to change history by uniting the Celts, a task far more formidable than herding cats.

The book never loses sight its target audience, gamers. Popular D&D conventions are examined in the light of Celtic realities, and realities of the ancient and medieval worlds in general. For example, anyone wanting to play in anything resembling our world when Celtic culture was at its height is advised to stay away from electrum and platinum coins!

Avalanche products are often criticized for cheesecake art, especially on the cover. The cover of Celtic Age is a happy exception to this rule, with a Celtic style design. The interior art is also appropriate to the subject matter.

I have already said that Celtic Age has the strengths of a textbook. It has the weaknesses of one as well. It is similar to my ninth grade European History textbook, which discussed its subject first by country and then by time period. This should, in theory, have made the subject matter easier to understand, but I found myself getting confused trying to fit the pieces together. I had the same experience with Celtic Age.

I also found myself encountering several contradictory statements about the Celts. Now, I am sure that what is actually going on is that something that is true of one group of Celts in a particular time and place is not true of another group in another time and / or place, and vice versa. But I cannot tell from the book what the differences are. I only see that I have hit a statement that contradicts something I read a couple of pages earlier.

There is much to like about the book. It is well written and carefully researched. The various aspects of Celtic life are more fascinating than most fantasy worlds. Just bear in mind that it is more of a reference work than a page turner.

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