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AEternal Legends is a game of modern fantasy. The characters are Legends; heroes gifted by Magic to do great things. I say 'gifted by Magic' because in this world Magic is a living, dynamic power that strives to pull all of Existence to its ultimate, glorious destiny. Unfortunately the gods of old, Magic's stewards, were struck down for their greed and this plunged the world into an metaphysical slumber which obscured the mystic nature of the Universe from the everyday lives of most souls. A few aware souls remained to one day reunite Creation with the majesty it had lost.
The setting of AEternal Legends is a lot of fun. I feel that this backdrop gives me the urban fantasy I want; one without the 'IN YOUR FACE EXTREME' mood of some games or 'the world is a cesspool' angst of others. During our first play session I had the characters trick their way past a Behemoth who was a card-carrying member of the minion union, flee from a fast spinning murder of spiritual crows (a 'crownado') in a beat-up pickup truck, fight a horde of pistol-packing mine-laying goblins in an abandoned amusement park and much, much more.
However, I would have liked to have seen more of the background; specifically a cosmology of the world indicating which gods caused the calamity that closed the world's eyes to Magic and also some details on how it specifically happened. Without this I found that there were some holes I needed to fill in on my own. Not that I minded but I could see how a GM with less free time might find this troublesome.
Secondly the races of the world, the Clades, are named after standard fantasy fare; Elf, Orc, Gnome, Goblin, Dwarf, Troll. Whenever I hear these terms I think of contemporary gamer fantasy with +5 magic swords and fireballs. That's all fine and good but with this game I'd want to run something that felt more like it came out of a Neil Gaiman novel or was a continuation of the Mage 'the Hero Defined' comic. Now granted you don't have to play a 'standard' member of any of these races. The kind of elf, dwarf or whatever your character is depends on his background (an Elf that grew up with a heavy religious background might seem angelic, one brought up with nerds could look like something out of an R.A. Salvatore novel, another that grew up in Japan might seem like an Anime elf). It would have been useful for each Clade to come with examples to help players get a grasp on what they can do.
As for the rules, Ready2Run is a simple and consistent system and the Author manages to blend it into his world successfully. I found that I could easily make up NPCs on the fly and in our first adventure we were able to create the PCs while playing the game, it was pretty awesome.
The crown jewel of the rules for me has to be the magic system. It's a free-form rules set that allows you to make up spells on the fly but has a solid structure that allows you to determine exactly what a specific magical effect will do. This makes spell casting a very creative process without having the spells take over the game. The inherent costs of very powerful magic keeps the magic users from bowling over any other character type.
The spheres in the game however could have used some work. Spheres are heroic Archetypes that Legends can personify. They grant special powers and bonuses to a broad range of skills. Spheres have a rating but there is really no information on what each rating does. From the way the game is written it would seem they are a central piece to the background and yet I see no mechanical reason to ever raise them beyond their starting levels. The powers they grant are not linked to their level and neither are the skill bonuses.
All in all I think AEternal Legends is a solid first edition game. It does need some polish around the edges (specifically the history and sphere department) but even so playing it is a blast. I'd recommend it to any group that yearns to experience a light hearted urban fantasy.
Chris Challice
