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I was worried that during the course of this trip that material would be lost, watered down, or jumbled, but my fears were unfounded. The book that has been produced is everything I had hoped it would be. For the Kingdoms of Kalamar player, it is incredibly useful, with culturally-specific notes on practically every item and copious amounts of material on styles, customs, and practices peppered throughout the descriptive text and in huge blocks in the sections on Personal Goods and Food and Drink. It is also full of information useful for any d20 fantasy game, giving pricing for a great number of items that are rarely covered in addition to offering helpful advice on adapting the Kalamar bits to other game worlds. I am not a Hackmaster player, but there is quite a bit of material supporting use of the material in Garweeze World, including separate tables and italicized blocks of flavor text tailored to the setting. All in all, I good effort has been made to keep the information useful to everyone without sacrificing the detail that Kalamar players were looking for.
Chapter 1: In the Marketplace
This chapter covers a number of issues regarding economics including rules for bartering, coinage for the Kingdom of Kalamar setting (which pictures), inflation, degrees of craftsmanship (which adds sovereign, inferior, and shoddy to the existing normal and masterwork), taxation, trade, and merchants guilds. Also, it has a bit on marketplace swindles and scams that will make any shopping expedition more colorful and full of (economic) peril. Despite the limited usefulness of the large coinage section for non-Kalamar players, this chapter is chock full of information and ideas applicable to any D&D or Hackmaster game. I particularly like the bits on the unpleasant realities of economics like inflation and taxation, which are sure to put a crimp into the style of any free-wheeling (or, more accurately, free-spending) adventuring group. I'm a big fan of added complications to keep the lives of my party colorful.
Chapter 2: Weaponry
This chapter is chock full of details on weapons. Other than the hosts of new weapons, there is also a history of weapon-making in Kalamar, details on the construction and terminology of hafted weapons, and rules on non-standard hilts and weapon maintenance. Still, my favorite part was all the new weapons. Although, they aren't new weapons as much as regional variations on the very basic list in the Player's Handbook. Many different styles of throwing sticks, swords, spears, and bows grace these pages with each entry describing regional origin and customs related to the weapon in addition to just describing it. For example, consider the Thakylo, one of 116 new types of knives and daggers. Its entry reads:
Thakylo: This Chors (Dejy) dagger features a curved, double-edged blade. They are worn on a cord around the neck, and are always elaborately decorated and inlaid with precious metals.
This section isn't really going to please min-maxers looking for more effective weapons. Most of these are just slight variations on the basic models. What they will please are those folks who like to know the different styles of weapons used in different regions, who want to know in what ways the knife they buy in Tarisato is different than the one they brought from home in Cosdol. You know, detail-oriented geeks like me. I love this stuff. Also cool are the stats for non-standard weapons, like tankards (full and empty), sewing needles, and rakes. Very cool for those prone to improvisation in combat.
It should also be noted that the section includes seige weapons, special materials (all mundane material like steel, bone, wood, etc), and accessories (like scabbards, which I've never seen prices for elsewhere). There is also quite a bit of Hackmaster material including a page with cultural notes on several weapons for Garweeze World, a page on large-sized weapons, and several pages of unified weapon charts.
Chapter 3: Armor, Shields, and Barding
This chapter offers quite a few more options for armor including different materials (cord, wood), types (lamellar, brigandine), accessories (bracers, greaves), and craftsmanship (painted, masterwork). There are a few notes on donning armor, a large section on special armor materials including tables of the stats of the variations, and barding. Like the weapon section, there is a short bit on armor maintenance and it closes out with a page of notes specific to Garweeze World and unified Hackmaster tables. I found this section to be functional and contained everything I expected to find there, but lacked in the interesting games and notes that filled the weapon section.
Chapter 4: Clothing
Among my favorite sections for its attention to styles in different regions of Kalamar (my prejudice is showing, isn't it?), this section also has a lot of good information on clothing. It introduces a Style Point system that gives a rough bonus to dealing with people prone to being influenced by what you are wearing which is modified by the quality and material of the articles of clothing the character is wearing. I'm not sure how useful it is, but the effort is admirable. It certainly encourages adventurers of means to spend a lot of money to look nice when they are bothering local urban populations. The chapter closes out with a lot of Kalamar specific notes on clerical raiments as well as rules on the effects of consecrated vestements and their maintenance (which offer some really nice advantages which are almost entirely outweighed by the difficulty of maintaining them outside of the temple they were consecrated in). The Tellene material is half material re-printed from the Campaign Sourcebook with a little more elaboration on the details of the raiment and other traditions of dress for each priesthood.
Chapter 5: Games and Entertainment
This section is a lot of fun. It is filled with items useful for entertaining like cards, chess sets, puppets, masks, and juggling balls, along with some rules for simulating popular dice and card games.
Chapter 6: Musical Instruments
An excellent complement to the previous chapter, this one lists dozens of musical instruments with cultural notes for both Tellene and Garweeze World. Also, each instrument has a way in which it modifies the Bardic Music ability when a masterwork. Plenty to make bards happy and good notes to let them choose instruments fitting for the culture they come from and what new variations they come across in their travels. This is the sort of stuff I love, tantalizing bards with the strange new wind instrument they encounter in the distant lands across the mountains. But, as stated previously, I'm a serious nerd.
Chapter 7: Tools, Gear, and Equipment
This chapter is a grab bag of items useful to specific professions and pursuits. From astrolabes to buckets to censers, there is an admirable amount of stuff here. Just the number and type of containers will tickle any adventurer looking for extra places to stuff gold pieces. One of my favorite bits was the Outfitting Bundles, which contain food and supplies for trips of varying lengths (from a couple days to a couple weeks) and destinations (overland or dungeon). The detail is sure to appeal to those who like flavor in their equipment, no "two weeks of iron rations" here, they describe each sausage and hunk of cheese that constitues your two weeks of rations. Overkill for some, ambrosia for others. Hey, you can always ignore it if you like. Also spiffy is the long section on thieves tools that include all the sorts of things that will keep your party rogues spending money like water to improve in their trade, from artificial arms with lockpick attachments to skeleton keys. There is also a page at the end with specific equipment for two of the Kalamar variant classes, Basiran Dancer and Infiltrator. Not much, but neat all the same.
Chapter 8: Food and Drink
I'll admit, this is the part that had me bouncing off walls for a year and a half. I've always felt that food was such a wasted opportunity for color and detail in fantasy games. Food is such a central part of life, deals are made over dinners, marriages arranged, disputes settled, insults levied. Practically every ceremony or occasion involves food and when we travel it is the thing which always stands out to remind us that we aren't home. This place may look a lot like where I came from, but look at what they are eating! At any rate, this chapter is pure fluff that I'm sure many will skip and never use. It's a damn shame.
The chapter goes through for each major geographic region in Kalamar and details the foodstuffs common their, how they are prepared, and the customs surrounding them. Sample poor, common, and good meals are given. While very specific to Kalamar, it is easy to just change names and port it into any campaign using the advice given at the start of the book. We are then presented with page upon page of specific food items with descriptions and costs including alcoholic beverages (with DCs and drunkenness rules), herbs and spices, and even sauces. Plenty to color any campaign. Besides, how cool is it to have your gruff Kalamaran mercenary have a taste for Basiran Gold and stomp around every city they come to trying to find a place where he can get a bottle, or even just a bit of korit'sa, the spicy sausage that reminds him so much of home? But I digress.
Chapter 9: Concoctions
This is another fun chapter, dedicated as it is to alchemical and herbal concoctions, poisons, and drugs. The herbal concoctions, in particular, offer a lot of cool stuff, from herbs that allow waterbreathing (with loads of annoying side-effects and limitations) to remedies targeted at relieving all of the specific diseases so lovingly rendered in the Kalamar Players Guide. There are rules for modifying poisons which allow the preparer to change delivery method, increase potency, or even reduce damage. Only a few drugs are presented and none really recreational, which I found a little disappointing (no comments, please), but what's there has nice specific notes on origin and use on Tellene and rules for overdoses, side effects, and addiction.
Chapter 10: Personal Goods and Services
Orc hairstyles. I'm in heaven. Seriously, I thought I was joking when I told people I was looking forward to this book because I wanted details on orc hairstyles, but here they are. I love this book. Cosmetics, grooming, hair styles, and perfumes grace the first two pages of this section and it is great stuff for weirdos like me. The details are Kalamar-specific but, again, easily portable. I also like that a lot of these details have logical sense, like the section on cosmetics noting that many dye their hair red to emulate the Kalamarans and that Dejy living in the north bleach their hair to fit in better with the pale Fhokki.
The rest of the chapter gives prices for people, from hirelings to slaves. Prices are given for specific services (like getting a tattoo or a massage) as well as for retainers. Stats for every single professional, craftsmen, and mercenary are provided, making the gamemaster's job that much easier. The chapter closes out with the racy stuff, details on brothels and slave pricing. The latter is just a reprint of the same material in the Players Guide, included for completion (which I like). The former has seen a bit of clarification in errata after an extended discussion of the prices seeming too high on the message boards. I would, by the way, like to commend Kenzer on the speed of their response to requests for errata. It gets updated at a fast and furious nearly daily rate.
Chapter 11: Animals
This bit will tickle every weirdo roleplayer who wants his character to have a trained monkey or a war elephant. I love you guys. Stats are provided for each animal or directions are given where to find them. Some details are re-printed from Dangerous Denizens, again, for completion. The array of animals given is vast and, as with the rest of the book, the descriptions are peppered with culturally specific notes. There is also some animal accessories included at the end which I feel should have included the tack and harnassing stuff that was put with barding in the armor section, but it isn't really important since they have a note directing you to it if you didn't notice its inclusion earlier (or forgot). Rodent cages, choke chains, and bear traps are all here. Useful for the druid trying to convince an innkeeper that his boa constrictor or jaguar companion is really harmless. Sometimes a cage or a muzzle makes all the difference.
Chapter 12: Lodging
This section doesn't just cover costs for rooms at inns and apartments (and cover it with a detailed vengeance), it also gives prices for yurts, beds, bedcurtains, stools, tables, tapestries, goblets, pots, and anything else you might need in a home (or to be a home on the road). That's even before we get into the prices for whole buildings (not detailed block-by-stone-block prices, just general ranges based on type of structure and size). It's very inclusive and is sure to have prices for lots of stuff you've always had to pull out of your ass when it came up ("Okay, you strip the moth-eaten bedcurtains from the lich's four-poster. How much are they worth? Err, uhhh.. This is a dungeon crawl, not Dickens!").
Chapter 13: Travel and Transportation
Like the previous chapter, this gives prices whether you wish to rent or own, though I fear the too-wealthy adventurer who thinks it is great fun to pay the 4 cp a mile to have some peasants carry him around in a sedan chair all the time. Of course, a gamemaster's job is to come up with complications to such behavior (to keep the story moving, of course... of course!). At any rate, there are a lot of Tellene-specific notes on travel dangers and complications as well as lots of useful prices for moving about, including the cost of tolls, fees, and tariffs (because your players don't hate you enough yet). A new type of water craft is introduced for those using the rules from Salt & Sea Dogs, the barge. Stats are offered for a number of different crafts, from barges to sloops, along with some ship accessories (to complement the more numerous items in the Seafaring Equipment section of the Tools chapter).
The book closes out with a very good index and that's all she wrote, but it is enough. This book has more utility than practically any supplement I've yet purchased. For players of Kingdoms of Kalamar, it ranks in value very closely to the Players Guide, in my estimation. There is just so much here to add color and life to the setting that it ranks well beside all of the wonderful setting details in the other book.
Playtest
After perusing the book, my wife exclaimed that she thought that it would be impossible to equip a starting character with the meager monies available to them. I decided this was a good excuse to test out this book and see how the numbers crunched and the bonuses balanced. So we decided to make a normal first-level party with four characters and use this book solely to equip them (which is easy, since it includes all the items in the Players Handbook and the Kalamar Players Guide in its lists).
I will note, we spent all night on one character each. It was a ball. She did a thief and I did a cleric. She went to town in the thieves' tools section and I thoroughly enjoyed the religious items and clerical raiment bits. Both of us loved the Outfitting Bundles and had too much fun buying clothes. We did discover that we really need a second copy of the book (at least). In the end, however, we came in on budget, without anything grandly inappropriate (like ornate chess sets and cloth-of-gold cloaks), and without any bonuses that seemed out of line (though her climbing boots and gloves definitely gave her a nice edge). All in all, it was everything I hoped for out of the experience.
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