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Introduction

Generally speaking, I don't care for desert settings.

Part of that probably stems from living in a climate that, while not desert, gets plenty hot enough to make imagining someplace even hotter unappealing. Part of it has to do with the terrain – I like lots of creepy places for critters to hide. (Well, non-burrowing critters, anyway.)

So why the heck am I reviewing a fantasy game called Promised Sands? That's a fair question, to which I have two answers.

First, the author requested the review and offered a review copy. That alone wouldn't do it, though – I don't review games that flat-out don't interest me, free or not.

What sold me (insofar as that applies to a comped game) were the glimpses the company web site gave me of the setting – glimpses suggesting a fantasy setting overlaying a long-gone technological society, and a desert world that's more than just one big desert.

So, with my biases on the table, here are my thoughts on the game.

Content

Setting

Promised Sands takes place on the world of T'nah – a "desert planet," to be sure, but thankfully not the sort of one-environment planet that Star Wars made famous. Instead, there are also oceans, polar icecaps, grassy plains, sparse and jealously guarded forests, and even some lakes and rivers. It's also technically a post-apocalyptic setting, given the calamity that left the world in its current state; however, that event took place so long ago in the setting's past that one might as well call modern-day Earth "post-apocalyptic" due to the Ice Age. (The difference being that people seldom show up from advanced pre-Ice Age cultures toting high-tech weaponry. See below.)

Before that calamity, the book strongly suggests that the setting had some connection to Earth. Whether T'nah is Earth is difficult to say, given the radically different geography and (especially) the presence of multiple moons.

For the races, the book offers a selection heavily (but not exclusively) reliant upon renamed fantasy standards:

• Andw'ahr: Basically dwarves, albeit with small tusks – a result of being an offshoot of the Suv'ik.
• Suv'ik: Orcs.
• Syl: Elves, but with small, pointed ears high on their heads.
• Ebon Syl: Essentially drow, although contrary to the name, their skin is pure white.
• Troog: Pacifistic relatives of the Syl with gazelle-like features and long, swiveling ears.
• Human: Pure-breed humans, to be specific.
• Rolen: The closest thing to normal humans native to T'nah's surface, stronger and tougher than their ancestors.
• Numid: A race highly adapted to desert life, with water-storing abdominal bladders and multiple heat-venting plates in their skulls.
• Halfbreeds: Most of these races can interbreed, and the chapter provides stats for five of these crosses:
• Bh'ir: Suv'ik/Troog
• Druhn: Rolen/Andw'ahr
• Mehti: Syl/Andw'ahr
• Sunna: Rolen/Syl
• Talik: Numid/Syl
• Loshad: Bipedal horse people apparently alien to T'nah, with four races roughly corresponding to horse breeds.
• Myrlihk: Matriarchal feline humanoids, with lion-, tiger-, and leopard-like breeds.

Note that all of the races other than the Loshad and the Myrlihk are offshoots of humanity that adapted to survive the world left by the ancient apocalypse. The only true humans left on the planet are those who fled that catastrophe to undersea cities, where they remained out of the evolutionary loop for time out of mind. I like this Gamma World-like explanation for fantasy races.

Speaking of which, those humans now returning to the surface world – known as either "Wet Denizens," for those just showing up, or "Dry Denizens," for those who've been around for a bit – bring with them modern technology, further distinguishing T'nah from more conventional fantasy settings. Unfortunately, the full extent of that technology isn't clear, as these underwater cities only get passing mention. It's never even explained what sorts of vessels bring them back to dry land. Did they show up in giant submarines? Aircraft? Amphibious tanks? If so, what happened to them? Why can't they still use them? To these questions, both the GM and players of Denizens are left to answer "Umm....", or perhaps "Uhhh..."

Of particular interest to me was the manner in which the book treats races and cultures. In so many fantasy games I've read, race and culture are almost synonymous. Promised Sands doesn't ignore the effect of race on personality – we are, after all, talking about something closer to species than race – but rather gives equal weight to the effect of culture. Sure, a Suv'ik from just about anywhere will be a somewhat brutish fellow, but a Suv'ik from the Aij'ak culture will have far more in common with a Rolen sharing that culture than he will with a Suv'ik from the Ch'ak culture. I admire the game for taking a route neither politically correct nor clichéd.

The book excels at literally gritty detail, and lots of it: religion, customs, history, weather, food, drinks (mmmm, kamel urine...), etc. There's even a section on the various fragrances used to cover body odor in this water-deprived environment, along with what fragrance choice says about the person. I particularly appreciate the sizable bestiary featuring creatures from many different environments, not just desert.

And at this point, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the semen-blooded rape ogres.

You heard me.

Ogres in the setting – called Uzmeks – are mostly male, and they breed by raping females of other species. And their semen is in their blood, so while they prefer the "old fashioned" method, they're capable of impregnating a woman with an ogre baby just by bleeding on her. (A sidebar story has a newlywed couple attacked by an ogre. The husband kills the ogre before he can rape his wife, but the ogre bleeds on the wife in the process. So the husband beheads her – an act to which she humbly submits.)

Now, I don't offer this up as an indication of the overall quality of the bestiary. On the contrary, I liked many of the entries, such as the animated conglomerations of rusted metal, stone, plants, or ooze known as Iphs, and the setting's creepy, crustacean-like take on the Sand Worms that seem to infest any desert world worth its dunes. And, ironically enough, some of the most interesting entries are aquatic, such as the titanic armored mouth-with-fins known as the Rockmaw and the tentacular horror of the Sailor's Grief. At their worst, other entries are just of questionable value – do we really need stats for beavers and chickens? – or somewhat silly, like the omnivorous Desert Hare and the goofily-named Wait-A-Minute Vine.

No, I single out the Uzmeks because, frankly, they're disturbing enough to turn off potential buyers. Now, to be fair, the Broo of Glorantha also breed by rape, and even D&D makes it clear that orcs do their share of raping along with the pillaging (hence, half-orcs). But there's just something about how the book describes the subject that makes it a little more unsettling. Is this enough to damn the entire book? Probably not for most people. But those who would take great offense at this may now consider themselves forewarned.

However good the specifics are, though, the book still commits the cardinal sin of keeping secrets from the GM – and rather fundamental secrets, at that.

Namely, on a fundamental level, I have no idea what sort of setting this is supposed to be.

Is it fantasy? Sci-fi? Both? The world includes both what could be considered magic and psionics, which seem related in some fundamental way. But are they truly supernatural in origin, or products of pseudoscience? Powers of the mind, or of the spirit? Gonzo mutations, perhaps? Were they around pre-apocalypse, or are they a source of amazement to the Denizens newly-arrived from their undersea cities? The story hooks include hints of mystical activity without explanation, but there aren't any purely supernatural entries in the bestiary, such as demons. And ghosts get a very clever "natural" (for T'nah) explanation, so does the same sort of explanation apply to other supernatural beings? I haven't a clue. And that, in turn, means that I have no clue how – or whether – to expand upon the supernatural without potentially contradicting as-yet-unwritten supplements.

Rules

Basic Mechanic

Promised Sands utilizes the Trinary System, in which the player rolls three 10-sided dice. The first two serve as standard percentile dice – roll equal to or lower than the attribute + skill value (the Success Value, or SV), and you succeed, with a roll less than or equal to 10% of the SV indicating a critical success. So far, nothing particularly unusual.

But that third d10 is the Effect Die (ED), which indicates the degree of success if the attempt did, in fact, succeed. (As I understand it, this bears a strong resemblance to the core mechanic of In Nomine.)

I initially reacted negatively to this mechanic – does the character's ability bear no relation to the degree of success, I wanted to know? The answer, thankfully, is that it does, and in two ways. First, a critical success results in whatever the GM deems to be the best possible outcome for the attempt, regardless of the EV roll. And second, the mechanic includes a welcome option allowing players to trade off SV for EV – and vice versa – prior to a roll. This gives extremely competent characters the ability to capitalize on their skill and less competent characters the chance to make desperate all-out attempts.

Even so, I'm not thrilled with the game's use of EV requirements as part of action difficulty ratings. If a roll has already determined an action's success, why should the degree of success counter that result? I'd rather that all actions make use of the rule for cumulative rolls, which lets characters build up an EV total over multiple rolls in order to reach the required EV total.

Overall, though, I like this core mechanic a lot. It combines the transparency of success inherent in a roll-under percentile mechanic with an equally transparent success level mechanic, largely eliminating the need to figure anything more complicated than 10% of ability on the fly.

Dissonance (DIS)

All characters get at least one point of Dissonance, or "DIS", which they can spend once per scene to either interrupt actions in progress, assist allies (by making an appropriate skill roll and adding ½ the ED to the ally's ED), or hinder enemies (as with assisting allies, but with the ED as a negative modifier to the enemy's ED) – actions collectively known as "dissing" the GM, fellow player, or NPC. ("DISsing". Get it?) In a gritty game like Promises Sands, this seems like the right power level for a "Fate Point" mechanic; still, given the laborious nature of character creation (see below), I think the game needs some manner of last-ditch lifesaving mechanic.

Combat

The core combat mechanic uses the basic resolution mechanic described above, with the ED serving as the base damage added to strength and weapon modifiers. An initiative roll using the Reflexes attribute determines who goes first, and Reflexes/5 determines how many actions each character gets in a round. Because active defense counts as an action – and because "passive defense" amounts to hoping your armor absorbs the damage – a speedy combatant can force his opponent onto the defensive and keep him there. I definitely prefer that to the more common turn-taking method.

The game offers both basic and advanced damage resolution systems. The former is a little too complex for my tastes, and the latter is too complex for me to even consider. The basic system factors in shock and flesh damage, head trauma, and critical wounds. The advanced system includes rules for hit locations, bone damage, nerve damage, penalties from both damage and from the pain it causes, and the special ways specific types of attacks – impaling, burning, freezing, electrocution, etc. – affect all of these factors. Again, this is way too much for me; however, there's a definite logic to the system, so it may appeal to fans of heavy mechanics.

Skills

Okay, here's all you need to know about skills in Promised Sands: there's a specific skill for swabbing the deck.

Well, maybe that's not all you need to know. But it does say an awful lot about the specificity of skills in this game. I mean, how many games would have a skill not for general tidying up, nor for general-purpose mopping, but specifically for cleaning a ship?

"Ahoy, matey! When you're done scrubbing the deck, how about cleaning up the dock?"

"Sorry, cap'n! I just can't handle floors that aren't ship-shaped."

Thankfully, there's more to it than that. While the individual skills are quite specific, most of them fall under general groups called "cascades" – if you have one skill under the cascade, you can default to the governing attribute without penalty. What's more, the total number of points applied to a given cascade divided by four acts as a bonus to any skill under that cascade, up to a limit of 50. This didn't really sink in until a couple of re-readings, but now that I understand it, I like it.

Unfortunately, things grow murkier from there. Many skills don't appear on any of the cascades, but have prerequisites that do – and multiple prerequisites may fall under more than one cascade. So, do such skills benefit from the cascade bonus points from all of their prerequisite skills, or just one, or none? And what about skills that neither have prerequisites nor appear in the cascade listings – like the aforementioned Swabbing skill, for example? Do they not gain the benefits of cascade bonuses and defaulting? If so, does that mean that Swabbing is a more specialized and complicated field than, say, Electronics?

Basically, what started out as a system that seemed absurdly specific eventually won me over – at least, conceptually – then mostly lost me again for failing to clearly follow through.

Character Creation

In a throwback to D&D, players roll three dice to randomly generate their characters' attributes: Strength, Dexterity, Stamina, Intellect, Perception, Sanity, Charisma, Insight, and Resolve. (These, in turn, are used to generate certain derived attributes, like the aforementioned Reflexes – the average of Dexterity, Perception, and Insight.)

That's where the similarity ends, though, and in a big way.

Three aspects form the cornerstones of the character: race, culture, and first apprenticeship. Each determines the die type for one of the three dice rolled to determine attributes. So, for example, a Suv'ik Kril (a.k.a. orc warrior) of the Ch'ak culture will get 1d6 for Intellect for being Suv'ik, 1d4 for being Ch'ak, and 1d4 for Kril being his first career, rolling 1d6+1d4+1d4 total. I love the symmetry here – the equal weight given to what you are, where you're from, and what you do.

From there, characters progress through a career path procedure that, frankly, removed any desire I had to create a character from scratch. Like so much of the system, the general concept sounds good: players choose primary, secondary, and hobby occupations. A bit like Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay careers, each career has its own entry requirements, and each one offers a group of perks – skill bonuses, income, etc. – the value of which depend upon the priority level assigned to the career. The tricky part stems from the roll to determine wealth earned, which includes a chance for a work-related mishap: a character might do well one year in his primary and tertiary careers but be forced out of all non-adventuring careers by a mishap in his secondary career. That, combined with the roll required to move on to advanced careers, makes crafting the character you want in this already highly randomized process even more potentially frustrating. On the bright side, unlike WFRP, Promised Sands allows this process to take place before play begins rather than during play; so, if the player can deal with the increasing effects of aging and chances for mishaps, he can keep his character moving through pre-adventuring careers as long as he likes.

All of this makes me very grateful for the 23 ready-to-play PCs at the end of the character creation section. It's a solid sampling of races and occupations, which is good – given the complexity of character creation, I suspect they'll see a lot of use.

Qualities

One of the more interesting aspects of character creation is the use of Qualities – essentially, a mixture of advantages and disadvantages. The latter don't add any points for character creation, however, nor do the former cost any points, exactly; instead, the various stages of character creation provide "Quality Dice" that players can choose to roll on a selection of Quality tables. So, a player doesn't just determine that his character is attractive; instead, he decides to spend a certain number of dice to roll on the Appearance table in the hopes of ending up with a more valuable Appearance-related Quality. This is a nice compromise between random character creation and the point-buy selection of ads/disads – the player can't determine precisely what the character gets, but he can choose the general categories of ads/disads and their likely values.

Ido and Qai (a.ka. Magic & Psionics)

I also like the setting's take on supernatural powers, which codifies magic and psionics into a kind of mystical yin and yang. The magic in question is Ido – external, elemental, chaotic, freeform. The psionics are the Force-like Qai – internal, spiritual, structured, specific. Practitioners of Ido – known as Marocs – power their freeform spells through gems called Maroc stones embedded in their flesh. Practitioners of Qai – known as Rusahni – can use crystals to focus their psi-like powers and harvest crystalline blades to use as Qai-powered weapons. Marocs build up power to activate their abilities, but the more power they use, the greater the risk of taking physical damage. Rushani who abuse their powers may take spiritual damage in the form of "taint". And the latter leads to the most obvious clue that the two powers are linked in some fundamental way: if a Rusahn becomes sufficiently tainted, he may eventually produce a Maroc stone out of his own body. (And you thought passing a kidney stone was bad...)

I really like the thematic interplay between these two abilities. I also appreciate the game's bucking of fantasy roleplaying tradition in making Ido, the power of nature, fearful and seductive rather than nurturing.

Unfortunately, the mechanics for both of these intriguing powers have "taint" of their own. The Ido mechanics refer to a table that doesn't exist as a key part of the process, and there's no clear explanation for just how Rusahn pick up taint in the first place – nor for what effects taint should have.

The text of this 8-1/2" x 11" softcover is at its best when lovingly describing the setting. Unfortunately, that's also when its at its worst. Why? Because the author determines from the first chapter to teach the setting through immersion. Words and concepts appear long before they're ever defined, resulting in sentences like this:

"They usually wear a simple, loose fitting gomlek with a pair of sirwahl and a sturdy kusak for hanging scabbards. A durable set of thick, leather siz'me are typical. A bisht is too restrictive for Kril, who tend to opt for a pelerin."

Note that gomlek, sirwahl, kusak, siz'me, bisht, and pelerin do not appear in the index, nor is there a glossary. Obviously, these are articles of clothing, but there's no listing for "clothing" in the index, either. I finally found these terms defined in an equipment list, buried mere pages away from the end of the book. (And on the opposite end of the book from the quote in question.)

First of all, a helpful tip: If you think your game is so compelling that people will be willing to overcome obstacles you deliberately place in their way – like, say, the need to learn a new language by immersion – you're wrong.

Secondly, even if exotic, undefined terms may be excused for the sake of setting atmosphere, that excuse falls apart in the face of their completely inconsistent use. Why are boots "siz'me," while swords are just "swords," for example? If immersion is so important, why are the Uzmek identified as "Ogre" in parenthesis – especially given that the Andw'ahr, Suv'ik, and Syl aren't similarly identified as "Dwarves", "Orcs", and "Elves"? Why is a beaver a beaver, while a chicken is a "bruckbird"? (The text even says "Ah, c'mon, it's a chicken!" And "bruckbird" doesn't even pass muster as thematically exotic.) Worst of all, why is a horse a horse, but a camel is a kamel? Another helpful tip: pointless re-spelling kannot be kharacterized as a kool koncept.

The fiction pieces are generally pretty good, unpleasant rape ogre segment notwithstanding. The text overall tends toward the wordy, however. When combined with organization I can only describe as chaotic – which, by the way, is the reason I'm not following my usual chapter breakdown format for this review – the result is a book that's very difficult to use, the substantial index notwithstanding.

In general, the book reads as though it was either never really proofread, or else proofread and playtested by people already familiar with the game.

The art, by contrast, stays consistently above average throughout. There are some silly bits, to be sure, but most of the work conveys the exotic nature of the setting in a no-nonsense manner. Particularly striking are some of the full-page images and (especially) the line art cityscapes serving as borders in the locations section. I also like the relatively simple sandy cover with its two-tailed scorpion.

As I said before, I don't usually like desert settings.

I like this one. I like the heavy emphasis on cultures, the mysticism, the post-apocalyptic aspects, and the details of everyday life. I'd like to use this game.

But I won't.

I won't, because the game asks far too much of me. It asks me to muddle through deliberately obscure language, exhaustively complex character generation, and flawed, disorganized, and/or missing rules in order to use a setting that, in the end, the author refuses to fully explain.

That said, I sincerely hope that the author gives it another go with a second edition. I like the ideas. Now I just need a better execution.