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Grave of Heaven Uresia is a setting designed to emulate these series, and the end result is a mixture of humor and drama that makes for a fantasy world that’s more vibrant and alive than most in rpg gaming. It also manages to accomplish this in a small package of 128 pages.
Uresia has been published in a number of forms, ranging from BESM, to D20, to web-based. The version I looked at was done for BESM; since most of the information is general and not all that stat oriented, the book is fairly easily adapted to other game systems. A large amount of additional material is available at the [URL="http://www.io.com/~sjohn/uresia.htm"]Blue Lamp Road website[/URL].
The format for the copy of Uresia I have is a small-size (5”x8”) booklet, of 112 pages. The cover is in color with an anime-style elf doing magical stuff, and the sparse interior illustrations are in black and white, also in an anime/manga style. The artwork is competent, and generally refers to the nearby text. Layout is in a clear and easy to read single-column format, with additional information in highlighted boxes. Overall, the book is very easy to read, and the small size combined with the extensive index makes finding material easy.
Chapter 1: After the introduction, there’s a very short history of Skyfall War: The Gods got into a huge fight, and as a result, about 1300 years ago, the realms of the gods fell. Just about all the gods died (along with a lot of people under the Skyfall), and the main central continent was destroyed, leaving only scattered large islands. The human and near-human survivors in the outer ring of islands were pulled inward to settle those islands, leaving the outermost areas to be settled by the less human “trolls”. Humans eventually formed a large variety of new kingdoms, and after some history, recently finished a major war vs. an expansionist kingdom of classic fantasy villains. That is the unsettled situation that the adventurers live in.
Two major themes are come to the fore in this section: one , the gods are pretty much gone, except for several minor, and more or less neutral deities- the destiny of the world is firmly in the hands of humans, there really isn’t any heavenly (or infernal) host to turn to. Secondly, unlike most fantasy settings, there is no major villain that needs to be opposed; there is the potential for major conflict, but there is no current world-threatening Dark Lord type. At least for now…
Chapter Two: Next comes a description of the various kingdoms, which is written in a breezily witty style that easily makes it the most humorous part of the book. There’s plenty of material for humorous games, as many of the descriptions are either parodies of common fantasy tropes, or at least look at them with a whimsical eye. For some examples, we have the nation of Celar, which is so outrageously macho that it is incapable of winning any war it gets into; Dreed, loosely “ruled” by a lecherous gourmand of a king who started out as a teenager from our world; Koval a former evil empire now sincerely trying to reform itself from it’s “bwaaahahaha” villainous ways. Videogame derived elements are here as well, particularly in the form of the country of Helt; an anarchic place populated by beastmen: minotaurs, centaurs, dog-people, cat-people…particularly cat-people. It’s just not a Japanese fantasy comedy without catgirls.
However, the other, more serious side of Uresia is revealed here too, in Lochiris, which was destroyed by dragons; Birah, where the elvin kingdom is held hostage to a horrific bargain they made during an invasion; or there’s the necromantic kingdom of Yem. Yem, where the nobles drain the vitality of their subjects, where the king is an avatar of death, and even children can make golems out of snow and the spirits of the dead…golems that desperately try to keep their crude bodies from melting away.
This section alone has more plot hooks and ideas for possible games than most supplements a hundred pages longer. And while many of the possible ideas are comical, there’s plenty of material here for serious, even grim or horrific games. One of the advantages of this section is that there is almost no game mechanics here, so it would be easy to adapt to any system (though adapting it to say, Call of Cthulhu or Warhammer Fantasy Role Playing may make one wonder if the GM really gets the point of Uresia).
Chapter Three: This section gets into the mechanics of character creation, and so has quite a few rules that refer to the BESM system.
One of the common questions asked in a game is what a group of adventurers can do. Uresia answers this with both a description of some common character types (including adapting fighters, wizards, and rogues to uresia) and then goes into some common campaign types for those adventurers, such as ruin exploring, heroic quests, warfare, traveling entertainers, very lost teens from Tokyo, etc.. In this respect, Uresia is not dissimilar to most fantasy games, and much of the inspiration for specific campaigns is in the world section in Chapter 2.
There follows a section on specific attributes and skills to Uresia, including the relative usefulness of Organizational ties, and how they might be used. The common types of money and equipment are listed, including the standard adventuring equipment that nearly all fantasy games have, and a few not-so usual, like a portable kitchens, video games, and cameras.
One unique attribute is described: God of Cookery; obviously inspired by Iron Chef,. Each level gives a special ability, such as always having food, spices and cooking gear available, super rapid mass food consumption, and the ability to use food as a weapon. .
We then get a digression on that most important of fantasy game topics, Magic: The game encourages players to specialize on single types of magic, which vary greatly according to nation: the hedonistic nation of Boru specializes in a mix of trickery and sensory magic, Winnow in practical demonology, and then there’s the sinister Yemite necromancy, which comes natural to a land where the spirits of the dead gather. The race packages of Uresia are described, including standards like elves and dwarves, and also centaurs, beastmen, satyrs, trolls, ghosts, and slimes. Yes slimes, complete with different special powers based on their color. So with the BESM system, it is completely possible to be a slime pirate-mage. In fact, that sort of combination is encouraged in Uresia.
Chapter Four Here are described the wonders of Uresia, starting with gear ranging from alchemical potions for adventurer’s benefit, to crystal-powered knight suits for those people who like to combine mecha adventure with fantasy. It also describes some of the wonders of the land, like the occasional flying island, the Troll lands which are attractive for the pre-Skyfall ruins, if not for colonization, and the dark secret of one the elvin kingdoms, which could spark a crisis almost as bad as the Skyfall. I found this section useful, though frankly, I would have liked even more information.
Chapter Five Finally, we have two adventuring settings: the first is Rogans’ Heath, a small hamlet that might make a peaceful place for characters to start out from or journey through. However, it has it’s own conflicts and elements of interest to adventurers, some silly or domestic, others potentially more serious. Lastly, is Shadow River, a large, rather amoral capital city described district by district as a source for a large number of adventures. Each district has various highlights and adventure hooks mentioned, ranging from the satirical such as Madam Ona’s School for Girls (which would be a major plum for thieves and kidnappers…except it’s a school for Magical Girls), to the downright evil in the form of a desperate merchant who uses horrific ingredients for his servitors. Like the rest of Uresia, there’s material here to allow for a range of campaign styles and themes.
Summary: I honestly can’t find much to complain about when it comes to Uresia. The setting both pays attention to the tropes of standard fantasy and also has its own original character. While the game is ostensibly oriented toward silliness, there’s plenty of potentially serious elements in it, which means that in spite of themselves, a group of ne’er do well characters may find themselves to be big damn heroes. In conclusion, I recommend finding a copy of either the BESM or D20 versions of Uresia, whether on E-bay or in the back shelves of your local game store. Whether used as its own campaign, or used piecemeal in other campaigns, this is a very useful addition to a gamers collection.
