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Artesia is a series of fantasy-world graphic novels written and illustrated by Mark Smylie. Artesia: Adventures in the Known World is a roleplaying game in the same setting, also written and illustrated by Mark Smylie. The fact that the same author and artist does all the work on both the graphic novels and the RPG makes the two more closely and coherently integrated than many licensed settings. Add to that the fact that Mark Smylie seems to have a pretty good understanding of RPGs, and you have a setup for a very solid product.
Artesia: Adventures in the Known World (AKW, in the game's own text convention) is a very solid game. Based off a very light version of the Fuzion system, harking back very closely to R. Talsorian's earlier Interlock system (basic system = Attribute + Skill + 1d10 vs Target Number), it gives a solid and traditional backbone to gaming in the world of the comics that actually lets you make characters like those in the comics. It nicely avoids the pitfalls of many licensed RPGs, in which you have to work hard for years to be nearly as cool as the characters you love, and sets up a paradigm in which the PCs can start at the same level of coolness and power as the titular character of the comics.
The book itself is hardback, 352 pages, full color on semi-glossy heavy stock paper. It's bindings feel solid, and so far the book has survived multiple bouts of international shipping, being kicked around my livingroom when I was in a bad mood, being passed around a gaming table by half-drunken gamers, and carried about in a backpack full of spinach without showing any signs of spine-cracking or page dropping. Which is nice, as the book is really, really lovely outside and in.
The Good
There are a lot of positive aspects to AKW. First, the art is all done by Mr. Smylie, and so every piece of art in the book is of a consistent look, style, and quality level all of which are at least above average for RPG land. If you want to know what the art looks like, check out either the website for the game or that for the comic -- because they're all by the same hand, and all of the same quality. I, personally, quite like the looks of Mr. Smylie's art. My wife, otoh, complains that everyone in his pictures has Michael Jacksson's nose, and that puts her off. So check out the comics and the website, and you'll know for yourself. The layout of the book is similarly solid, using textboxes, illustrations, and use of colors to make a very readable book.
The world of Artesia is also built into a coherent and fascinating place in this book. There is a lot of Runequest/Glorantha vibe to the world which Mr. Smylie acknowledges in his Foreword with a sense of rich mythic history and a mιlange of cultures and historical periods blended together to give that graphic novel coolness of a world with a Greco-Persian artistic sensibility dressed in the lobster-harness of the hundred years war, and worshiping the gods of every Mediterranean culture put into a peyote shaker. While the world lacks the brillainace of the best moments of older settings like Glorantha, it also lacks their years of detritus buildup, and is all available in one coherent dose. The system also ties into this sensibility well, allowing for PCs that can eventually become gods, gain followers, force themselves to be reborn out of order when they die, and similarly mythic feats. So those of you missing that old Runequest vibe, or who always liked Glorantha's mythic sensibility, but who just couldn't get past the fact that you need 6 out of print books to get deeply into the setting, should probably give this book a look.
AKW also does a couple of very nice things with lifepaths and relationship systems. Character generation is based around a system of lifepath generation that starts everyone off at the same default level and then puts them through generation of ancestry, birth signs and omens, and upbringing. As a result of this system you end up with characters who have backgrounds like being of the lineage of Hannath Hammergreia, the last Carrion Queen, and have the heroic aura of her true blood, and were born under the sign of the scales while a dragon's roar was heard nearby. Sound cool? The even cooler thing is that all of those omens, lineages, and backgrounds are set up so they mechanically detail the character who you are is a result of your lineage, the omens of your birth, and the training of your life.
Possibly even better is the way the game handles relationships. You keep track of your contacts and family members, along with very specific levels of relationship with each one. While this does give a good deal of bite to the social system of the game (and is important in things like gaining worshipers if you want to become a god), the best thing about it is the potential for adventure generation. Multiple characters that my group made up came out with one parent who was their ally, one parent who was their rival, a sibling that was an enemy, and another sibling who was a skeptic. Even before we got to dealing with their temple allies, military compatriots, and romantic lovers we already were looking at these characters and saying "Oh, his mother is a witch and his father a chieftain, and I bet his father doesn't trust him now that he's becoming a priest he thinks he's following the dark ways of his mother and that will make him an unfit chieftain. Once we start playing I bet his brother will try to swing their younger sister against him and try to get their father to disinherit him so that the younger brother can kill their dad and become the new chief!" Screw the old "you all meet in a bar" stuff just make sure that some of that web of lovers, enemies, and allies crosses over between the characters and you've got weeks of game based on who loves and hates who. The game system will help with that, keeping everything straight and on the level. And heck, even if you kill someone it isn't the end as there are also rules for ghosts, spiritual bindings, and rebirths that will keep that trauma rolling.
I love the smell of dysfunctional relationships in the morning. Smells like adventure.
The Bad
Luckily there isn't a lot of bad in AKW. However, there are a few faults which seriously irk me in a product of this quality. There is no index. There is no glossary. These things are problematic in any game, but are especially irksome in a setting-rich and detail heavy game in which the layout and placement of rules and the names of gods, important NPCs and historical places, and current events is not always blindingly obvious or easy to track down. No index means that you can end up spending far to long searching for crap that you should be able to look up. No glossary means no easy reference for those just getting into the setting to remember which sun god is the sun god that is their sun god.
It is especially ironic that the game suffers from this fault because one of the biggest character's in the setting is defined by his major contribution to learning and philosophy because he created a comprehensive set of indexes for ancient lore and learning, while we get left in a book without any such organizational tools. Mr. Smylie clearly knows the value of indexes and organization to learning, and I can only hope that we get a .pdf glossary at some point in the near future.
The Ugly
There isn't a lot of ugly in Artesia, and for many people there won't be any at all. However, I had a few issues with the way that the game was setup as a game. There are a lot of things that this game can be used for, from wandering mercenaries to priests trying to become gods and none of it gets much in the way of either mechanical or game-advice and setup support. We get one paragraph about how PCs may start the game as princes and kings, but that's good because the game isn't about getting power it is about the choices you make with the power. This is an awesome point, and very much in the vein of what the graphic novels do. However, there is next to no advice, mechanics, or game-setup material to actually help you make this work in a game. It really feels like Mr. Smylie shows us a very pretty golden ball, and then drops it on the ground without telling us how to play the magical game he speaks of using it.
Now, I imagine most groups can probably work this stuff around by themselves. However, I still find it a fault in the book that the advice isn't given because a game designer should not require players to have to figure out procedures outside the text in order to play their game in the recommended way. The design of AKW would have been more solid, and more serviceable, if it had gone one more step forward and showed us how to put all these cool elements together in order to use the system to actually make stories like those in Artesia.
This "getting close and then stopping one inch short of the line of brilliance" motif is shown pretty clearly by the setup of the sample adventure in the book. First, the very fact there is a sample adventure included is a big thing, and puts Artesia a step above a lot of its competition. What's more there is a lot of world and background information in the adventure that turns a small corner of the world into a living and breathing community. There are lovely maps, excellent NPCs full of conflict and political powder-kegs that are ready to explode and drag a whole nation into war! And then we get an adventure, in the middle of this brilliance, that comes down to the PCs being hired to take some money somewhere, getting jumped along the way, getting jumped again once they're there, and then probably running away without much of a clue about all the awesomeness going on behind the scenes. The setup of the adventure is ass-kicking, but the way the adventure is suggested to be run is not. It is unfortunately typical and generic, and doesn't use the game advice to live up to the level of the setting material.
Conclusion
Artesia is a solid game. It is a lovely book, full of lovely art, and a solid, fun, and genuinely mythic feeling setting. It has a solid system that builds on Fuzion and adds lifepaths and relationships in ways that really help drive both character and plot creation. It gives you rules for monsters and spirits, multiple types of magic and fighting, a full and detailed world that is still open enough to allow players and GMs freedom to insert their own cool ideas. It's only problems are: no index, no glossary, not enough advice on making the awesome matter in the game, and the fact that everyone has Michael Jackson's nose.
For being lovely and fitting the tone and feel of the graphic novel perfectly, the game gets a 4.5 for style. (It would have been a 5, but now that my wife has pointed it out I see Michael Jackson's nose everywhere too.) For having a solid system with lots of magic, beasts, weapons, and a solid setting full of cool, it gets a 3.75 for substance. These round off at report card time, leaving us with a 5 and a 4.
Final Verdict: If you like the Artesia comics and want to play in this world, buy this game. If you want a setting that has a lot of the vibe of old Runequest and Glorantha, with a more graphic-novel aesthetic, check this game out and buy it if you like the setting. If you want a game whose setting gives a genuinely mythic feel, check out the website and see if you like the setting. If you do, it's fully worth it to get this game.
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