Cursed Empire (AKA Crimson Empire) is in its second print version. This review (and further reviews) will attempt to cover the complete range that I already have (six books) and use with my gaming group starting with the corebook. Comments and review items are more a synopsis of feedback from my group rather than purely my own opinion. This version is a great revision to the last and covers a number of items that were looked over previously and commented on.
Cursed Empire is a Dark Age European inspired (with a hint on ancient history), dark fantasy role playing game that utilizes a percentile system. C.E. 2nd Edition is a 497 page hard back with gritty, dark feeling, black & white interior illustrations from Rik Martin (White Wolf Vampire and original Warhammer as well as Warpstone Magazine), Rob Larson (all CE covers) and Amandine Labarre. A few glitches did appear with dpi’s on some art (three I can think of) and it’s a shame that these slipped through the net.
From the Back Cover:
“Crimson Empire Dark Fantasy Role Playing Game: Crimson Empire is a gritty dark medieval fantasy roleplaying game set in the world of Thargos. Its lands are torn apart by civil war and are in desperate need of heroes. Players have unlimited spell creation possibilities, skills, and combat are percentile. Evil factions are at war with the remnants of the Old Empire. Players can play on both sides or find their own path. Each character has the choice to gain personal renown or progress the status of their Order or Faction. Players progress a faction or an individual through the Points of Renown ™ system. This edition builds on the strengths of the 1st, which has virtually sold out. This book contains two starter scenarios and superb artwork by Rik Martin, Rob Larson, and Amandine Labarre”.
Presentation: The cover, which is mostly flat black with a matt laminate cover and spot UV glaze, features two primary images. The first and most stunning is half of a woman’s face (possibly a priestess), which is a very stark white with odd skin accents, tattoos (possibly some form of elaborate scarification) and a helm that blends into the black background where the second character is illustrated. The other figure by contrast is a young man (possibly an imperial knight after having read up on things in the knight supplement) who is wearing a sparse amount of red Spartan warrior armor. All of this is offset by the flat red nice font text on the top and bottom of the cover. This cover image is by Rob Larson as are all the covers in the range.
All of the pages have a light greyscale background instead of the usual white which I really liked as it reinforces the whole dark theme. All of the text within the interior of the title is in the same font that is used for the cover text and is clearly laid out. As was mentioned above, the interior illustrations are all in a very dark and gritty style. This seems fairly fitting being as that this is a dark fantasy roleplaying game.
Content: Characters are complex creations in most games that we play in our gaming group. This is no exception with Cursed Empire. Characters can be created in twenty minutes when players have done this a few times. Up to an hour is required for a fully fledged, full background character (the extended background character has 6 pages for the character sheet). Yes, there is that much to a character. Ten different attributes are rolled for (or points based character build is also available), race chosen (a limited choice but still an important one and there are more in the supplements we have: Darkun and Knight), class and subclasses are chosen (there are over 50 in the corebook and around another 20 throughout the other supplements), and calculate a number of different point values (energy, magic, sanity, and aptitudes).
This is just the beginning of character generation. I will take an example that illustrates in our opinion the versatility and combinations of character. Say as a player we are interested on developing a “knight type” character, well we have a pool of Background Points (BP) that are used to purchase various attributes, classes and aptitudes (horse riding, mastered weapons etc.). A player can choose to go for a fully fledged knight and by doing so will spend most of the BP to access that class. The Aptitudes you would have are well developed for a knight in all the areas you expect them to be: horse riding, heraldry, mastered weapons etc. (although we have beefed up some of them a little further as they were a little weak in some areas in our opinion and required that the character progress a little to really see the benefit). However we find that most of us go for the lower subclasses, in this case a shield-bearer. Now they give you some knight attributes (heraldry for example) but leave a higher balance of BP to buy player chosen aptitudes. In one player’s case: chariot driving, gambling and intimidation. The player wanted the scope to start off in the knight core development class in the service of a knight lord but then potentially develop a really interesting character that was more interested in cash and gambling, often betting against their lord! Once you get the hang of it, it is a very flexible system even though the aptitude list coming in at hundred and forty items is a little daunting to begin with.
The classes are also fairly typical of fantasy roleplaying games apart from a few really fun ones like the Darkun (see Darkun book caption review), Black Marketeer etc. Included here as core classes are Darkun (they are really as evil as they get), Druid, Knight, Mage / Sorcerer, Thief / Assassin, Tracker / Ranger, Warrior-Priest and Warrior. One thing that is not common in most games is the fact that each class here has a number of sub-classes (over seventy across the range as mentioned previously).
These are more specialized or focused forms of the core classes. Skills, or aptitudes, are actually somewhat similar to classes. They are divided into major skills and specialized uses of the skills. This is the reason the character sheet is quite long and a little cluttered – all of the specialized skills are given space. To increase a skill, one must use that skill. The more once uses a skill, the greater the chance of increasing its rating, come that time. Combat is just like skill usage – it is all percentage based. Each character has a percentage to hit something with a weapon and a more narrow percentage to hit a specific location on a target with that weapon. Of course, the higher the %, the more likely a critical success is. The lower the %, the more likely a critical failure. Tables are provided for brutal failure results, which are real player pleasers and have me smiling as a GM. I often take the description as a guideline and give my own slant on the text. We are still waiting for the release on the 2nd Ed screen as these tables are hidden somewhere in the book and we have copies on scrap bits of paper. We are also considering developing even more detailed tables as these would be easy to insert into our home game (apologies but we are former Rolemaster players!).
The mechanics for handling armor are a really strong point of the game in our opinion. You can customise the armor you wear in each of the six body locations (head, torso, left arm, right arm, left leg, right leg). There are armor rolls if a hit is successful and armor reacts differently depending on the type of weapon used: slashing, piercing, crushing, impact, projectile etc. Basically if the roll is successful an offset die is used against the damage caused. Believe me that combat is brutal in this game. A good thing that we cut it down a little but up-the-ante when it happens. This took a fair amount of trial and error and a few dead characters to get the hang of this. The book would have benefited from some more detailed sample encounters to give GM’s a feel for what they should confront the players with. A part from that the combat chapter is well laid out and well explained.
Next we choose character traits (which is kind of like alignment but described by sush things as “bloodthirsty”, “cruel” and “sociable”) and calculate (yes, back to calculating once again) the parry/dodge rating. All of this is not as simple as it sounds. Aptitudes, which are like skills in some regards, are determined from class, race, childhood, background selections, and the base rating in each one. This allows us a huge combination of characters although this can be time consuming, especially for newbies. Each of the races has a number of sub-sets. The majority of the races are typical of fantasy roleplaying games – elves, dwarves, and humans. This game introduces Dergs, an elf / dwarf mutated crossbreed. The supplements add Centaurs, Rlisha (CE dark elves) and others as player races.
Character generation layout is a little confusing at times, diabolical at others and could have been put together with the new player more in mind. It’s all there but one tends to spend time jumping from one section to another. I have since seen some good downloads that address this issue as the layout of this section is the weakest part of the book but the content one of the strongest by contrast for it’s detail. We are waiting for the GM screen to be released as it apparently has an improved chargen booklet included. Obviously the writers realised that this was a weak part of the game.
Magic, in my opinion, is this games greatest aspect. Even though there are only a couple of spell casting classes, magic is well detailed. Each spell is broken into a least three (3) parts – the basic idea/concept behind the spell + the target of the spell + the effect/aim of the spell. Having this breakdown, new spells are easy for players and GM’s to create. This is actually the idea here. There is only a (if one considers the page count) very small list of spells given here. This is not to say that there are not a good number of spells presented. In fact there are quite a few to get started. The guidelines are given for creation of new spells before the descriptions are even presented. Many of the new books add new spells and will apparently continue to do so.
There is far more to this book than character basics, as there should be with a book that weighs in at almost 500 pages! Also included here are two sample scenarios, which were fun to run and play but in our opinion are not basic and intermediate as they are described but more like intermediate and brutal as we lost half the party on the second one! There are plenty of arms / armor for the characters (great illustrations by Amandine Labarre), a full monster guide, and plenty of fiction to help get into the setting.
Conclusion: This is an interesting title that uses a solid system for mechanics. As is common in many RPG’s, there are a few too many tables for reference (although we are not phased by this being former Rolemaster players) while there are not enough descriptions of other things (races) although these are fleshed out in the range supplements of which we have five. This games greatest asset is easily the magic system and setting. We love the open style of this system! It has, almost an Ars Magica kind of feel and was developed many years before it….
The biggest drawback is the price barrier of $50 for the corebook from an indie publisher. This may seem way too steep for most roleplayers, but as one of my gaming group pointed out, you are getting three books in one for the price of two. I really can’t see some people taking a chance on this game due to the cost, which is a shame because I think a lot of gaming groups would find this to be an excellent alternative to Dungeons and Dragons, WW and Warhammer for fantasy roleplaying and setting alone. If you have that kind cash to spare I recommend trying this out. If you don’t however, there are plenty of cheaper alternatives out there. You are missing a good game according to our gaming group who have been running a campaign on this for 2 years now ever since we picked this up at Origins.
The corebook tries to do a lot, too much at times but still kicks the game off and gets people started with a new system and setting. Where the whole game really comes into its own is throughout the range itself. Many of the weaknesses of the corebook such as clarity and some layout issues and editing are addressed in the supplements. I will cover these shortly.
Cursed Empire will appeal to Runequest/Stormbringer, WW, Warhammer and some D&D players who want an alternative to their usual setting and d20 game.
Please note: the score of 4 for style has to be explained:
layout, editing and navigability: 3 (this really could be better) Art and design: 5 (one of the best indie titles we have seen)
James Holden
