 Goto [ Index ] |
Solomon Kane is a Puritan Swordsman who can best be described as the vengeful hand of God. Kane moves like a force of nature, always moving in unpredictable ways but having very lasting effects on everything he touches. Several sources say it feels like an Indiana Jones/Lovecraft story, full of ancient and foul things from the depths of Hell meeting his righteous anger and furious blade. There is a collection of his tales available, if you want the real skinny go buy it and get a feel for his world.
The Book
The physical thing is hefty and it feels like a good value. A little more costly then I normally like my books; this one is chunky without being clunky. Nice binding, the pages are full color with fantastic and relevant art with only a few typos. The game is run using the Savage Worlds system and contains a complete set of the rules as it relates to the era and style of play. Veterans who own the Explorers edition of Savage Worlds will note that all the gadgetry and futuristic weapons are gone, as are a few rules that serve no real purpose to the Kane genre, but aside from this and some renaming of edges its all here. Personally I like this move, I like having all the rules in one book if I can help it even though I own the Explorers guide to Savage Worlds. The second part looks at the world of Savage Kane and details the systems needed to bring it to life. The last part looks at the world and breaks down both key locations and offers up some sample adventures. The monsters bring up the tail of the book giving a fairly comprehensive list of beasts. This book alone is enough that you will never need another book, you really do have it all here. Let’s approach the sections one at a time.
The first part is the rules of the game with the character creation, combat, and a short explanation of the Solomon Kane stories. If you have not read them before, do it now. Then take a look at these summaries to get the key points when you need them, if you read them first you will ruin the stories.
Savage Worlds is all about speed and fun and Kane benefits from these simple but elegant rules style. Character Creation is very quick, you can expect a concept to be done in about 20 minutes and most of that time will be a player agonizing about what Edges he will be taking. Once equipment is out of the way you get into the Combat section. The rules are nicely structured and the reading flows well, in play you might have some fitful starts but it’s all nicely described so any mistakes should be easy to correct.
After the rules come systems for the world. Environmental and social issues are outlined with mechanical effects entered when needed. This section is really the GMs expanded rules section but it does warrant note. The GM section has nice reviews of how to structure groups, introducing minor conflicts to keep things exciting between players and a discussion on what the setting should feel like. The last bit of this chapter discusses the Plot point story for Savage Kane and how to structure it.
For those who don’t know, the Plot Point idea is to give the Storyteller a professional campaign by using key plot points to develop the game. Each point is a small adventure outline that can be used as is or adjusted to fit a particular villain or location by the Storyteller. The Plot Point campaigns presented by Pinnacle usually offer tow kinds, key events that move the Meta story forward and smaller points that are distractions, red herrings or stuff to do when the Storyteller decides to step off the beaten path. There is also a quick Adventure Generator, it gives you the basics for an adventure and then you flesh out the meat of what is given. This is great if you’re stalling for ideas.
Following this part is the World Chapters. Each one approaches a different part of the world, the key locations and gives some of the Path of Kane adventures for the continent/area. Personally I have always liked having the adventures separate from the world details, if I like what is written in the description you can look up the adventure, but this one has both side by side. This makes the World information a huge part of the book and sometimes difficult to navigate as you are flipping past adventure outlines to get to a regional write-up.
The last section talks about monsters common to the Kane stories and a few originals that were clearly inspired by the tales.
Overall the book is a great value and tremendously well written. After reviewing our options we, as a group, pulled the template characters from the Pinnacle site (www.peginc.com) and the One Sheet adventure The Lincoln Imp.
The Adventure
(This contains minor spoilers for the One Sheet sample adventure, The Lincoln Imp.)
The players assembled in London to recover from some unnamed adventure in France that resulted in some tight business with French Brigands. As no one had ever read any Solomon Kane stories they had no pre-conceptions of the setting or how it worked so I down played the Supernatural elements quite a bit.
The Priest was having a nice chat with a friend who he used to minister too and she brought up her missing son. As an added twist Joseph had joined the church to follow in the players footsteps, she expressed how distressed she was that he had renounced the cloth and taken up with a woman. She asked her priest friend to look into the matter.
A short time later found the players entering Lincoln. The interrogated the bishop at the cathedral and asked around the church to find everyone’s story matched up. Finally, as they were leaving they were approached by Joseph’s friend and he told the players that he had been slashed to ribbons on the main pulpit. The bishop had covered the events up in an attempt to keep the church goers from panicking. Now the best part here is that I had played down the supernatural so well that the players were convinced that it was a gang of cultist trying to scare away the Catholic Church!
There were a few rolls to be made, persuasion and notice checks for clues and to pump for information. After discussing the rolling rules and a few false starts it actually became very intuitive, everyone found the rolls to be very simple and easy to understand.
At this point the players take some time to talk in a tavern and hear of the tale of an imp, sent by the Devil to ruin the church here that offended an Angel with its blasphemy and was turned to stone. As the tellers were terribly drunk the story rambled and wove in and out but they implied that whenever the moon is dark the imp can go free. Once again my players just thought this was background fluff until one asked how long it was when Joseph disappeared and then realized that if it was connected to the story then another murder was about to happen! After talking to the other patrons they realized that out of town drifters and such have been dying around the church regularly for about 50 years. At this point the consensus was that this was a cult sacrificing to some strange god and now they were going to get what was coming to them.
Once again I was stunned; my players were not buying the Supernatural elements and were actually buying into the whole cult angle. For a moment I even considered making it a cult, but then decided against it. The monsters would be more fun.
The convinced the Priests to let them stay inside the church the night of the full moon. Two were watching the front door, two were watching the Pulpit. Playing up the mood I banged my hand on the table and two folks jumped. I announced the noise came from the back of the church and off the lookouts went, the Pulpit folks stayed put. As two were checking the back I started making ominous clicking noises on the glass, like the Raptors in Jurassic Park. Watching the darkness, the priest saw a shape moving in the darkness and panicked a little. He rushed to his some times pirate friend and let him know they were not alone. While discussing this he saw the statue behind his friend turn to look at him a little. They ran over to where some holy water was in a basin, turned back to the creepy statue and it was gone.
At this point we went into combat. Cards were dealt, each player gets one to determine when they go in addition to the one for the bad guy (multiple bad guys can have one card or group around one card. It’s up to the Storyteller as to how they do it) and they go in order of Aces to Douses. As it was they could not immediately see their attackers (they were surprised the statue was attacking, they had not yet realized it had a brother yet) and it was not a good day for the priest. He got flattened and took a wound by old stony. The sailor jumped it and shanked it with their dagger. I ruled that the blade broke off on the hide but dealt serious damage (her dice were on fire). The priest shook off his stunning and kicked the basin over hoping that holy would hurt it to no effect. Next round came (I ruled that the others would show in the main room in 2 more rounds) and with it more cards. Unfortunately it was my day, so I went first. I attacked the sailor and it was their day too, no effect aside from scaring him. More rolls, the priest got jumped again but not seriously hurt and the sailor broke her second dagger in the eye of the statue killing it. The imps are linked, if the non-stone one dies then the other can no longer be freed, it bolted.
At that moment the door opened to a fleeing beast from hell, Fear check times and it almost crashes into them. One fails, dropping their gun and running in terror. The other pulls up his readied Wheelock and shoots it in its face. The beast takes a terrible blow and staggers back. More cards, this time the new comer goes first; he grabs the gun from the ground and finishes the beast.
The players found the combat to be quick and efficient, while the rules are more cinematic this fits with the overall feel of the game. The rules are a little odd but once you use them for a few games it really comes together.
The future looks bright for Kane.
Help support RPGnet by purchasing this item through DriveThruRPG.
