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To be honest, I almost didn't buy this game, something about it didn't really appeal to me on the shelf. Maybe it was the name: Secret of Zir'an hardly trips from the tongue. The cover is attractive enough, though somewhat busy, but honestly, anyone who judges a book by it's cover... well lets just say that they didn't listen growing up. All kidding aside the game is seriously impenetrable to the casual glance. The cover shows a pulp era pilot with an exotic looking revolver, a mystic looking woman doing weird things with her hands, and a guy in a tuxedo with a ball of black flame in his hands. Meanwhile the back cover shows some guy in exotic, ornate armor holding what appears to be a lance in front of an alien looking cityscape, complete with WWII style planes. The 'blurb' on the back cover isn't really helpful either, talking about 'a setting' and 'a d10 Finesse system'. Look guys, I know it has a setting, most games do. Details would be nice. Game specific buzzwords will not inform the casual shopper.
Flipping through the book in the store wasn't much more helpful. The Art is pretty good, and tends to follow a steady feel overall, but is so exotic looking that you have to scratch your head at most of it. You see plenty of guns, armor and odd looking swords, a few real world analogs that don't match up, and of course, the occasional monster.
Chapter 1 Introduction: Chapter one doesn't clear much up. It's an overview of the system, but a tad unclear. We are told about finesse levels, something I would discover is key to the simplicity of the game, a rather busy looking equation is thrown at us, along with system buzz words like 'practice points' and 'aptitude', none of which are really clear at this point. While the descriptions are fairly complete, you lack a complete enough picture to really use this. Oddly enough, the skill list is in this chapter.
One thing that is made clear is the importance and general use of Finesse levels. There is a good reason this is called the Finesse System, as these four levels of ability appear throughout the game. Essentially, Finesse levels enable you to bypass skill rolls most of the time (except when opposed, or working above your skill), determine the difficulty of skill rolls when you make them, what sort of abilities you can learn, for combat skills primarily, what type of equipment you have, and so on. The designers missed a few tricks in the game on this, but 95% of everything is rated using these levels. Once you master the concept, learning anything else becomes that much easier.
Chapters 2-7 are character creation: These chapters are the Bulk of character creation. I say bulk because you will have to flip back to chapter one to read the skill list, or head to chapter ten, the combat chapter, to work out your wound points and pick up some combat maneuvers, and chapter 11 for magic. Luckily, there is an innovative bit that should be included in just about any game, a section by section description of the character sheet, complete with references pointing you to the right chapters. I've forgotten how many games I've played where I had huge blank spots all over the character sheet, because no one could figure out what went there.
One of the reasons for so many chapters of character creation is the use of skill packages in character creation. Of the games out there that have used this method, Zir'an seems to be the only one with an eye towards keeping the character concepts fun and playable. GDW games, for example, used this (inherited from traveller), and you always wound up with a forty year old who was only really good at one or two skills, and virtually useless at anything else. Okay, I exaggerate just a bit. The point is that Zir'an Characters can be competent at a wide variety of skills (just remeber kids, Indiana Jones was a college professor, a pilot, a whip weilding, gun shooting maniac who could read ancient egyptian AND slug in out with nazi thugs... all in addition to his mastery of disguise) while remaining young enough not to require one of those cool motorized carts the sell on TV.
But before you get too wrapped up in making a character, I'd zip ahead to chapter eight and read about the setting. Picking a country of origin is somewhat important, at least if you plan to use the setting, and knowing what you are getting into could be a good idea. Note to Game designers: Next time try to include a one line summary of each nation in the list of origins for the less expirenced players. Knowing the magic university nation from the highly militarized border nation from the 'ruled by a demigod despot kung fu nation' might be nice for new players. Yes, the national characters are wildly different, and figuring out where you are from could take a while. Your origin gives you a nice cluster of starting skills. It took me two reads to get that you start with Every Skill from your origin (unlike your later skill packages), which is nice. Another, important facet of your origin is the attributes: Each origin as a seperate set of starting attributes. This is rather nice, giving each country more unique feels. The ranges are relatively small, meaning no origin is inherently 'better' than any other, as most players will quickly figure out that all the attributes (there are four) are pretty important.
Part of the reason this 'life path' creation scheme works, is that there is a control mechanism to prevent people from just going hog wild and taking careers until they either die of old age, or master everything. Depending upon the power level of the game (one of the few 'level' things that didn't use the finesse levels...) you have points to spend to buy your packages. For example, most Tyroic players (beginning adventurers) will only be able to afford two skill packages, maybe three if they are incredibly careful. Of course, they could spend their time in a life of debauchery and get seven, but those seven packages won't get them very far as adventurers (fewer skill points, fewer skills to spend points on...). I estimate that the 'average' character at this level will probably be at or even under twenty years of age. Even Legendary characters, with twice as many points, aren't likely to be much over thirty. One major problem: the annoying silver ink used throughout the books is so heavy here as to make the chapter virtually unreadable. It is so bad the designers released the chapter online without the background text. I tried highlighting my text, it only slightly ablated the problem.
The races: fairly typical stereotypes with interesting twists. Big dumb bruiser race, fast viscious animal man race, elves and dwarves. My only real problem is the Elves. Don't get me wrong, I like elves. I have a problem with elves whose fluff makes them godlike immortals. Literally. The Elves, by fluff, made their own little world. Sure, it sucked balls, but they did it. Then the God gods decided to show them how it was done and made the nice real world. In other words, the Elves made a world before the Gods did. How's that for power? To make such all knowing, all powerful immortals playable (or even presentable) they basically cheated. Elves don't answer questions about stuff like that. Entry to the magical elven kingdom is prevented by unknowable and mysterious magics. Elves don't have to learn Kung Fu, their magic swords teach it to them. No, I didn't make that up. Elves get magic swords that teach them kung fu. Did I mention the fact that during the terrible, world shattering war that essentially rest the world, the Elves didn't have to suffer? No, they magically removed their country from the 'real' world for the duration. Hey, and when those pesky immortal demigods showed up and started slapping everyone around, apparently the elves pulled a 'get out of jail free card' and were ignored. After all they already were magical immortal demigods. This is probably the single worst example of how to include elves in a role playing game I have ever read. The only thing that would make it worse is if the PC elves were just as unbalanced as their fluff.
Valdreyr and battle arts: The last thing the players do, creation wise (and we'll ignore equipment), aside from give themselves a name (not joking, in the list of steps to create a character at the start of chapter two, the last step is 'name your character'.), is spend whatever points they have left (and they will have points left) on Valdreyr. Valdreyr are advantages and flaws with a fancy, in-game name. Irritating in-game name, but forgivable. You also buy Kung Fu at this stage.
There are good and bad Valdreyr, and the bad ones do give you points back. One point of confusion: You can not have more points of Valdreyr than your age. Maybe its because I like math, but is this absolute values? As in, I have five points of negative Valdryer, meaning I could not be four years old? Question: Can I inflate my age (took a year off to hang out on the beach and get a tan, no skill packages involved...) for that last point of Valdreyr I want? I don't know and the book don't tell.
Battle arts are kung fu. Nearly literally. There are three groups of Battle arts, melee, ranged, and martial arts. You have to have certain finesse levels to buy certain abilities. In other words, a beginner at unarmed combat doesn't know any Kung Fu. These aren't overpowering uber abilities. I'll discuss how they work in the combat chapter, which is, amazingly enough, where the actual arts are covered in the book.
'Leveling up' is covered in the character creation chapter... sort of. Actually, the character points you start with work nearly identically to xp. A battle art that costs 2 character points during creation will cost 2 xp later on, though you'll need a teacher. Actually spending that XP requires flipping throughout the book like a madman. Poorly organized. If it weren't for the sheer number of things to spend points on, I'd say it was too easy, to cheap to 'level up'. No, there are not actual levels, I'm just to lazy to come up with a better description for improving a character.
Chapter Eight is equipment: There are good and bad things here. The equipment you start with is dependent upon the finesse level of your connection skills. Everyone gets at least one connection skill from your origin, and multiple skills all count. Of course, you can trade an item for a wad of cash. Presumably you can turn around buy things that you normally would have selected, and have money left over. Also, the rarity of items strikes me a slightly wonky. Presumably items should be less rare for people from certain regions, or with certain career paths, or even from certain connections, but this just isn't so. Apparently rarity is based off of utility and coolness factor. The cooler the weapon/item/whatsit, the more rare it's likely to be. Actually, the rarity of items, due to the purchase style (finesse level of contacts) should have been rated by finesse levels as well. Just my opinion, mind you; but it would have tightened up and already pretty tight game just a wee bit more.
You can get permanent magic items as Valdreyr, which is nice. These aren't overpowering objects. Oddly however, mages can only make temporary magic items in the game. Temporary up to a year long so its not all bad. Too bad no mention of the 'Items of Power' was mentioned in the Valdreyr chapter, it might have made it easier to use.
A not entirely unique, though unusual, feature of equipment is Encumbrance. Rather than use strength and weight, all characters can carry 'encumbrance value' equal to twice their mass stat, giving a range from roughly ten to twenty points. All items have an encumbrance value. These numbers are high, folks. Few items have an encumbrance less than three. Five seems about average, with a few exceptional pieces ranging to ten. Armor, naturally enough, tends to mass slightly higher. Now, I don't know about you, but a pistol with an encumbrance of three seems kinda high. If Encumbrance is meant to reflect carrying difficulty (believable) than armor should generally be less encumbering, not more. Physique, the stat that measures strength and endurance has zere effect on how much you can carry. Now... given the general feel of the game (adventure movie pulp style, with magic) this isn't such a bad thing. But: The idea of carrying, say, half a dozen pistols in a bag hasn't occurred to the game designers or playtesters. Obviously, an encumbrance value of 18 seems a bit high for a bag of guns, considering the 'walking tank' armor only has an ENC of 10.
There are several listings in the equipment guide that are obviously cultural items; Things like Bhoonta weed and Tchakka Sticks. Oddly none of these items contain even a single line describing them. I know the cost per dose of Bhoonta weed, but nothing else. I checked the index, re read parts of the setting guide, nothing. But there are a couple of lines telling me what a watch is, what rope is, a great deal of information regarding the gas lantern. I think someone meant to come back and fill these things in. Oops. Here is one particularly odd entry: Schvarzer Bronzbrau (U) 15 Flats per maas. Well, I have the name, I'm guessing it is a beer or something based off the German analog name. I know it's uncommon, I know it costs 15 flats per unit. I know that its unit is a maas. What I don't know is what a maas is, or if in fact it IS a drink, what region it is from, why is it... oh nevermind. The real problem here is there are half a dozen entries like this, but someone felt it necessary to include a paragraph on college tuition. Yay.
Chapter 9 The Setting: When you add up the setting information from chapter one you have a pretty decent little world for Zir'an. This chapter leads in with the 7+1 gods, one page per god. Um... I skipped this. Okay, I skimmed it. I read the +1 God at the end. Each page covers aspects, core beliefs, churches and cults (as 'real, everybody knows them they were active in mortal affairs' sort of gods, they are universal, only the methods of worship change, and holidays. Oh, and for the curious, the Gods left at the end of the Endwar.
Chapter one pretty much covered your timeline. I have my issues with a stable political situation covering 1600 years. Moreso when the nations involved include ones ruled by aggressive, expansionistic, insane demigods. Eh, oh well. Anywho, it's been three thousand plus years since the Endwar. Don't expect any information on what happened before the Endwar, it's real thin. The Endwar was bad, nuclear winter bad, bad enough the Gods left in disgust and the Elves magically transported their nations to another realm for the duration and then some. So bad it pretty much wiped out all technology, most of the magic, and destroyed every culture on the planet.
Zir'an isn't really a world. The map shows a single continent, roughly the size of Europe, and plenty of water. We have no idea where the equator is, though we can guess its somewhere to the south of the map. IF there is an equator. It seems the Gods expanded the world at one point, adding new lands to spread the elves apart. It's sheer conjecture if Zir'an is flat, or round, or whatever.
A problem of sorts is the way the cultures are mismashed into each other. There are analogs to Arabia, Tibet, Eastern Europe, Spain, and France, possibly others. Arabia leads into Tibet which leads into a rough western europe. South of Arabia is an island that I think is European in flavor as well, possibly an evil British Imperialist Analog. Geography is a bit strange too, the continent is so mountainous that it would be hard for most of the nations to provide enough agriculture to feed themselves. There is a cypress swamp that covers five hundred or more square miles, engulfing an entire 'nation'.
Specifically, under that nation we are told that the only solid ground is the roots of the cypress trees. That is a big damn swamp. Actually, it's probably bigger, as we understand the beastman country next to them is largely part of the same swamp.
Socio-economically it isn't quite so bad. Sure, there is a nation that, in addition to being barren, has no industry or agriculture. Specifically, every single citizen is a member of the armed forces. 100%. This same nation split from the big 'Nations of the Treaty' uber alliance. Odd move for a country that couldn't possibly support itself, not even militarily (soldiers still need weapons and food to fight). Still, like the funky timeline this shouldn't interfere with the play of the game. I've already ranted about the Elves, I won't repeat it about the Elf kingdom.
One thing that is good is that there is plenty to do. You have the northlands, technically an empire of unknown size, full of insane, magically warped horrors, ruled by the nastiest of those immortal insane demigods we've been talking about. You have political stress between the default good guys (the Nations of the treaty mentioned above) and the Southern Empire (lands ruled by the British imperialst power mentioned). You have conflicts within the southern empire (say, break away colonies. Possibly an american analog. Based on the map I'd say it is more like scotland...). Tibet has an evil Demigod ruler, and naturally people within (kung fu masters) who are rebelling, same with the Eastern Europe, ruled by Vlad the Impaler... I mean the Voivode, and his rebellious Gypsies. Plus theres all those pre Endwar ruins and artefacts left to be found. What does baffle me is how the most pastoral, peaceful and settled nation of Zir'an could possibly have unexplored regions after 3000 years.
I expect the world to be expanded eventually, should Zir'an be a commercial success. Still, given all that is going on, giving the nations involved a bit more room to breath would have been nice.
One very nice touch to the setting chapter was a detailed look at the level of technology. Most technology is a blend of rune magic and real science. In fact, Rune magic is treated as a science. Of course, it is also a facet of religon, in it's own way. There is very limited radio communications, airplanes, mostly steam engines and a few internal combustion engines. Guns, plenty of those, though melee weapons remain popular (much easier to enchant, for logical enough reasons), as is armor. Medicine is nearly non-existant, due to the presence and power of healing magics. In short, they unify their world very nicely. It Makes Sense. Double Kudos for that. Now, if only we could get the damned Elves straight.
One minor complaint. When reading the setting, and flipping throught the pretty pictures, I came across numerous references to the Tzerte Viazhe, or the Violet Circle. They feature prominently as bad dudes, and probably magical. It took A LOT of searching to find out ANYTHING about these guys. To sum up what I know: They use shadow magic, they are from evil nation X (Eastern Europe analog) and they use insidious techniques. Oh, and if the pictures are to be belived, they tattoo their foreheads with a circle. Hmm, what makes their techniques insidious? Note to game designers: Please don't hype a villianous organization (Several Pictures, including a full page, numerous mentions, one Item of Power, and one of the very few in game fictions in the book) without giving us a bit more details than 'insidious techniques'.
Chapter Ten Combat: Given everything that is stuffed in this chapter it is surprisingly thin. At twenty eight pages it is one of the shorter chapters in the book. To begin with, combat is essentially a contest of skills. Any given action only includes two dice rolls. There is no initative roll, yet initiative is still flexible and uncertain. There is no damage roll, but damage is not static. Remember way back at the beginning of the review when I said this game was simple and elegant? Yeah, here is where you start to really see it.
All actions in Zir'an, combat or no, involve rolling against a skill (or not rolling, if you are good enough). This involves a single ten sided die. Target numbers are generally static. There is some math involved. It's all addition, so you can work on your fingers, and most of it should be done before the game anyway. While I prefer more of a bell curve to my results, with a d10 your results aren't as wild as you see with larger dice. Combat is no different, excepting only that it is a contested roll. The defender can fight defensively, boosting his roll at the cost of potential actions, missing is the 'risky attack', where the attacker sacrifices defense to land a blow. Eh, oh well.
Slightly less realistic is the contested ranged combat. The implication is that in a gunfight the defender is running and dodging like a madman. This may be true, but no real provisions are made for the idiots who stand out in the open blazing away. The defense skill for ranged combat, for the curious at home, is athletics. One can suppose that not every gunslinging idiot has athletics, thus increasing their chances of getting hit significantly; those would be the idiots standing around like dopes.
Interesting innovation: Speed (a derived attribute) is spent. You spend it for a higher initative (bidding it's called, done blind is the intent here), you spend it to take action, you spend it to move. It works, and well. Want to swing from the chandelier? Spend speed and take a dynamic action. Someone smart put together an easy to read list of actions and their speed costs, but I imagine after only a few combats this list becomes superfluous.
Better still: For ever point you succeed by on a roll, you can improve your attack. Remember those Kung Fu moves you can buy during character creation? Here is where they come into play. Every attack skill has certain things they can spend success points on. Universally, you can improve your weapon damage or chose a hit location. Skill specific things include breaking things (weapons and armor), death blows, knockback, grappling. Of course, you have to have a high enough Finesse level to pull it off. Battle arts (kung fu...) may make certain effects cheaper or easier to pull off. They can give you all new effects to pull off. A few Arts do increase your ability to kill, regardless of rolls (Two weapon fighting, reduced speed cost for attacks, things like that). Some are even defensive. They are, in a word, cool.
The only other dice roll involved in combat is the hit location. blech. Too bad really, but it does add some flavor to combat. Oddly, determining your characters wounds is covered immedeatly after hit locations.
My only other potential gripe about combat is the somewhat complex interplay of damage, armor and wounds. Weapons have a damage and an ap value, armor has a damage and an armor value. Armor absorbs damage, AV, if higher blocks lethal wounds (wait for it), but higher ap values divide armor's protection. Okay, not too bad yet, right? So, moving on... you then compare any left over damage to the characters DP. Say you have a DP of four, for every four points of damage you take a wound, which could be stopped by a high AV of armor. You also take the damage as points of vitality, which can knock you down or out. If you lose all your wounds in a location, it's bad. (death, maiming... you get the picture). If by chance you loose all your lethal wounds, but still have vitality points (due to healing magics perhaps) then you don't die. That's pretty complicated for such a simple system. Still, after a read through it makes sense to me. Considering there are games I've played that I STILL don't understand damage, that's not too bad. I'm willing to forgive an oddly complex damage system given how smoothly everything works out.
One last note on 'Kung Fu': Due to the Pulp influences of the game, and the presence of a Tibet analog, obviously Martial Arts had to be present in some fashion. As noted earlier, these are battle arts. There is a difference of sorts between battle arts and martial arts. What exactly that difference is in terms of rules... I didn't really see a rules difference. Depending on the guy running the game, there is no hard and fast reason that your player can't run around with three or four different styles under his belt with no rhyme or reason. Actually, the GM is encouraged to work with players to integrate their kung fu with their charaters history. Most of the time this game seems to treat us all as mature adults who know how to play an RPG. The one exception is the 'name your character' instruction mentioned earlier. There are Martial Arts career paths, lore skills for martial arts and so on, but the only real requirement is the unarmed combat skill (with appropriate finesse level) and a couple of points. From a fiction/setting standpoint, of the dozen martial arts covered fully half raised themselves from the pack by claiming they were no frills dedicated combat techniques. Err... right. Lapse of creativity in writing techniques there guys. On the flip side, one of the most creative martial arts I've ever heard of: Agressive robbery. Punch the guy, take his watch. Funny stuff. I do have to doubt the realism of a style that allows you to remove someone's armor in mid fight, but hey, it's a game.
Chapter 11 Magic: I am not a magic guru. I generally have no more use for magic in an rpg than a cool glowing sword thingy. As a GM, wizardy players constantly baffle me with their fancy tricks and looong spells lists that I don't want to read. Generally, I have to read and reread the magic chapter of a new RPG several times before I 'get it'. Either that or magic is presented as some sort of super power (spend a point, get a one shot trick...). Zir'an is neither horribly long and complex, nor a simple super power. I get it. I really do. I haven't memorized everything a Runemage can do, true enough, but I don't think I'll be shocked either. And it's not because mages can't do a alot, they can. Oh, oh, they seriously can.
To begin with there are two seperate types of magic. I'll repeat that for the slower amoung you: Two seperate types of magic. I know, some of you are saying 'Well, D&D had at least two types of magic', or 'runequest had...' I'll stop you right there thank you. D&D does not have two types of magic. It has two (or more) spell lists, with some cross overs of spells. Runequest may have, though as I recall you can get the same spells and same spell effects from the differning types. Runemagic and Shadowmagic are not merely two different ways to get the same thing. Beyond the simple statement 'they both allow you to do magical stuff' there is no real similarity between them.
But... how do you make a mage? Either kind, it doesn't matter. Well, Virginia, that's easy enough. You take the skill for it. Each type of magic is a seperate skill, and nothing really prevents you from taking both. Your finesse level (imagine that) determines how much magic you can cast, and in the case of rune magic, how you can cast it.
Of the two types, Rune magic is the more prevelant and the more complex. How complex? Well let me list all the variables involved. Hmm... you have lesser and greater runes (two divisions) which can fall under the seven domains (same as the seven gods) and be cast in five forms. Considering each of the domains has a handful of greater runes under them, thats quite a bit of spell casting right there. Okay...now...lets address the complexity a bit.
First of all, lesser runes can be cast by anyone that knows them. They can be purchased by non-mages like resources before the game, or learned like arts during the game by spending XP and time with a teacher. Greater runes are the sole domain of the dedicated mage. Each finesse level grants X amount of spells (lesser runes are half the value of greater runes). The Domains are primarily fluffy divisions, analogous to spell schools from D&D, however, by specializing in a Domain (and only one) you get two bennies. First is a couple of extra runes, the other is that you no longer need a teacher to learn runes from that domain... they just come to you in your dreams. Specializing doesn't penalize you in other domains, so it's worth it. As for the forms: every mage knows all the forms. A given rune can be cast by any of the forms, with vastly different effects. Recall that this is a simple description before any experts try to shoot me down here. Okay, let me give an example of a spell. Lets say I know Banish Light. If I use the charm form, I basically blast a source of light, making it go dark. If I use the talisman form, I create an object the when held will put out the lights, if I use a ward, I prevent light from hitting a single person, and if I use the glyph form I keep lights from working at all in a room, or on a building/ship/football field.
The form used will alter the target number, which is based on the rune being cast. Once you've rolled you can decide what effects, what level of power you want to use. Personally, I think this retroactive effect technique (already seen in combat) is more dynamic and fun than traditional 'raise the difficulty all-or-nothing' that you see in most games. All-or-nothing rolls encourage dull, cautious gaming, where players go for the minimum to increase their success rate.
On to shadow magic. This is much simpler and easier to understand. To begin with there are fewer variables. Once again, you take the shadow magic skill, though in fluff terms being a shadowmage is an innate ability that can be cultivated. In other words, you either have the force, or you don't. If you do, you can opt not to train it, if you don't you have no choice. Got it? There is no rule to enforce this, which is a good thing. Once you buy the skill your (wait for it...) finesse level determines how much you know. That said, there are only nine Cardinals, each one of which has a tiny handful of spells (roughly one per finesse level). Unlike Rune Magic your Cardinals are divided into Finesse levels, though only your initial skill is tracked. You can buy additional spells with XP, though this might be wasteful if you haven't maxed out your finesse level. Interestingly I did not see that shadow mages could ever learn all nine Cardinals. This may be an ommission, as you earn eight from the finesse levels.
Hmm...let me describe shadow magic. Essentially, shadowmages are masters of the soul, the spirit. Most of their abilities target themselves exclusively. Many of their offensive magics attack the persons soul, rather than their bodies. Literally in the game, their shadows. Metaphysically, in the game the shadow is the reflection of the spirit world. Elite Shadowmages (highest finesse level...) eat their own shadows, and gain power and immunities from this. Shadowmages can cheat death by possessing other's bodies, ejecting or destroying their soul. Nasty stuff. There seems to be much less ritual in Shadow magic, and from what I could tell, it is faster (speed costs... see combat) than rune magic. If there is one real flaw here, it is that unlike rune magic, you either cast the spell or you didn't, no accepting lesser effects. There is some benefit to certain spells with extra success however, so they aren't completely flat effects.
Oh. Damaging magics from both schools can increase their damage rating as if they were weapon attacks. Just so you know.
Chapter 12 Adversaries: Or, as the margin claims, chapter 13. Like chapter four, this chapter is plagued by too much silver ink in the background. Like chapter four you can download it. Unlike chapter four, I didn't really care. Adversaries come in one flavor here. Shadowkin. Virtually all the critters here are mutated magic resistant beasts to be fought if you entered the evil north, or just live on the border. Okay, okay, some are mutant beasts left over from the endwar. Fine, you caught me, there are a couple of non magic critters like horses and chocobos.
So, what have you got? Mounts and mutants. Why call it adversaries? They could have called it 'beastiary', might be more accurate. So, some of the mutant beasties are nominally intelligent, not that you'd want to have a conversation with them, as they are pretty much pure hate. I did really like the flying giant manta ray that drops an acid-spewing zombie. Hot fun. It's small, hard to read, and one dimensional. Besides, for a pulp game, most of your opponents will probably be more human, eh?
Miscellanious: There is an index, always a nice touch. Doubly so given the often scattered layout of the game. There is also a very nice two sided character sheet. It's too close to the margin for a good photocopy, so I'd recommend the online file. Of course, even if it was a pull out perforated sheet or otherwise copier freindly, I'd still recommend the online version. I've grown addicted to them things. The character sheet gets a mite busy at times, but it shouldn't be too problematic. The artwork is good, highly evocative of the setting and helps immerse the reader into the setting. It doesn't always match up stylistically, but in general its pretty close. There are typos, including the mysterious case of the uncommon rope, and some missing tidbits. There in fact are four online pages of errata. Oops. I've mentioned a couple of chapters with annoying silver ink. Trust me, the damn stuff is all over the book, and it is always annoying. Sometimes its more annoying than others.
Summery and overview.
I like this game. I really do. It is well worth the time and energy spent slogging through poor layouts and crappy silver ink (evil nasty silvery inks, we hates it, my precious...). This is one of those games that surprises you. Comprehension grows as you read until BAM, you get it.
Despite the skill packages being tied to the setting, this game easily lends itself to a wide variety of play. See Indiana Jones movie (any), play game. See Mummy (recent ones), play game. Watch Allan Quartermain, play game... okay without a decent africa analog that might be a bit more challenging... See High Road to China, play game. Read Sherlock Holmes, play game.
You can play a shirtless sword weilding barbarian who slays evil sorcerers and steals treasure from ancient temples a la Conan, you can quest for knowledge man was not meant to know (though your GM is likely to kill you for making him think of KMwnMtK). You can be a two fisted adventurer or a scholarly recluse, or a plucky sidekick. I made a skilled 15 year old at the lowest level, who could hold his own just fine, thank you very much. Want to play an armored Paladin, slaying evil? Its in the setting. And unlike many games that allow all that, it all blends into a (nearly) seamless whole. Well, except for the elves...
Okay, for Style, I'm giving this sucker a 10.... what, you say I can't? That the rating scheme only goes to five? grumble, grumble... Okay, Fine I give it a five. The writing and the art go together, the setting fits both, it is evokative and fun, it captures movie and literature magic. Count me in... (okay, I subtracted five points for the lack of ninjas. There, are you happy?)
For Substance I rather reluctantly give it a 4. I have to take points off for all the missing crap, the poor layout, the generally annoying stuff. I also have to take points for the elves. Yeah, they deserve a whole point off all by their lonesome. On the other hand, the system is rock solid. Really rock solid, as solid as any system can look without actually breaking out some dice. Heck, I give bonus points for having a magic system a rock like me can work out, and still be fun for the pointy hat crowd.
And finally the Bonus Rating: The highest Honor I could give any game, The "I'd Play it in a heartbeat... Heck, I'll run it" award. I look forward to building a campaign, putting together a group, and running this game. Failing that I will beg and plead some poor fool into running it for me. Will it shelve every other book I've got? No. But man, had this game existed when I first started gaming, I might never have picked up another game at all. Nah.
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