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Overview: The Valdorian Age is Hero Games shot at a Hyborian type of world in the vein of classic fantasy literature that includes Conan, Fafhard, and Kull. It is less about magic and gimmicks and more about swinging a sword, cutting the vile necromancer in half. Magic and magic users take a back seat in this type of setting that favors barbarian warriors, sell-swords, and thieves.
So we know what the aim was now how well did Hero do? There are two answers to that question. First, there is the setting and then there are the rules to capture the feel. These two aspects need to be looked at separately.
The setting is less a Hyborian World and more of a Hyborian city the City of Elweir to be exact. That may sound a bit disappointing at first but Elweir is a well-detailed, thoroughly corrupt but still functioning city that is as good as any other city on the market including its cousins Freeport and The Game Mechanics work Thieves Quarters. In fact, those products dovetail nicely with Elweir. Some of the writing on Elweir is brilliant; I was especially fond of the ironic story of its founding and its eventual dissolution. Rough and tumble with isolated nobles, invading kingdoms, internal strife, foreign agents and double agents Elweir has it all hemmed up in a nice (or not so nice) package that fits together and does not defy common sense.
After leaving Elweir we travel the rest of the globe in a whirlwind fashion hitting the highpoints but leaving plenty for industrious game masters.
Overall, the setting misses its intended mark slightly but it does provide a solid city (see Layout for details on the maps).
The second section covers the rules. This is the first book published by Hero in 5th Edition where the rules section just blew me away! There are some major revisions to the way Hero System looks at fantasy within these covers. It is important to note that even though the rules dramatically change the flavor, they do little in the way of pushing dramatically different rule concepts at you.
Changes for Valdorian Age
1. All stats are base 8 this simple change doesnt even affect your pre-built characters but goes a long way to establishing an age of diminishment.
2. Normal Skill Maxima an existing concept applied in a new manner.
3. Fighting Tricks a simple rule to establish a slightly higher bar for entry into Martial Arts (needed) and to allow those cool cinematic stunts as seen on TV. Great implementation.
4. Critical Successes and Critical Misses The system presented is one of those slap yourself on the forehead things. It is so simple and elegant that I have to wonder what is wrong with me that I have not thought of this before now.
5. Sorcery And here is the section that nearly scrapped my own campaign. The sorcery system in the Valdorian Age is original, inventive, and wicked kind of cool. It is easily the high point of the entire book and as mentioned earlier, it is IMO the best piece of Hero rules since Dark Champions came out in the 80s.
The rules section gets an enthusiastic two-thumbs up.
Layout & Design: The cover of the Valdorian Age depicts a monstrous barbarian with the obligatory scantily clad woman. There has been much discussion on this cover over at Hero Games some like it a lot and others do not.
Interior Art interestingly art seems to have gone back to basics to good effect. The B&W art is kept simple and clean. There were a few pieces used elsewhere in Hero products but they fit just fine.
Mapping The bulk of the interior artwork is actually mapping done by Keith Curtis. Elweir is covered in a series of 9 to 10 maps that make adventuring and travel within the city a breeze. In addition to the city maps there are also several maps of the two continents that comprise Il-Ryveras, the world of the Valdorian Age.
Editing and Layout for once the Hero machine slipped a peg. Normally typos and such are so infrequent that I fail to even notice them. Not so with The Valdorian Age. This is not to say that the book falls to the level of many of the most notorious publishers it does not, but it was noticeable. Along with the typos there was a small fonting problem with special characters used in exotic names that use obscure diacritical marks like - diaeresis, breve, and circumflex accents. This rendered names like Thune as Th!ne. Not a biggie but if you did not know what you were looking at it could cause a little confusion.
Chapter by Chapter The City of Elweir This section presents a ton of information (60 pages of it to be exact) ranging from the local climate to a break down of each of the cities 10 or so neighborhoods. A good portion is spent exploring the nature (and the changing nature) of the law in Elweir.
The Known World Relatively short compared to the chapter on Elweir, the known world weighs in at 30 pages to cover 2.5 continents. The world shows lots of promise and my only gripe is that there is way too little of it. Each of the two primary continents supports a large nation state (one being Valdoria) and because of the respective backgrounds neither will ever get along.
Characters in the Valdorian Age As mentioned earlier these forty pages are a solid gold factory of gaming goodness. Did I mention the Sorcery? Let me go into a little detail. Sorcery in the Valdorian Age is based off summoning celestial servants the gods ditched this place sometime back and it does not look like they intend to return but they left some of their potboys around. These powers can all be summoned according to lore and ritual and it is they who are the source of magical powers. Your own powers depend on how powerful a creature you are willing to summon and bind but even this is not without risk. Favors are traded ubiquitously among these semi-divine being and sorcerers who lack the power to force compliance may always bargain future deeds for current needs. It all sounds nifty but it can come tumbling in like a house of cards if you dont watch yourself. These favor chits can add up really quick until you find yourself having to do something terrible to clear the favor backlog and this begins your slide into the abyss.
Game mastering the Valdorian Age The usual GMs vault is here and always entertaining to read but more importantly there is another 6-7 pages that explain what effects the changes in the rules should have on your game.
NPCs There is a small section at the end for NPCs both the supernatural type and then 3 or 4 players within Elweir. Like other sections this could have used some more meat.
Summation The Valdorian Age is money well spent. This is a comp copy but I went out and purchased my own just to have an extra set of rules around.
The Negative The primary one is the editing gaffs and this is really minor in scope. The book also managed to hit one of my pet peeves stupid sounding names. Maybe I have not read enough Conan but names like Lustshine and Rotwell sink my battleship. Luckily, the rest of the book got me over that minor quirk.
The Neutral - The Valdorian Age is not really an age setting like the Turakian Age or The Forgotten Realms, it has more in common with some excellent city settings like Freeport, Gueneve, and Liberty.
The Good The good. I think I have covered that already.
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