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Nutshell-
The Day After Ragnarok (DAR) is a Savage Worlds setting by Kenneth Hite that is available in print for $19.99. Casually referred to as Conan: 1948, DAR paints a world that is struggling in the wake of a near-apocalypse caused by the Nazis. This isn’t any old atomic apocalypse, either. This is a world that may have just dodged Ragnarok. The poisonous body of the Midguard Serpent lies prostrate over much of Europe and North Africa, America east of the Rockies is a poisoned wasteland filled with mutated monstrosities born of serpent venom and Josef Stalin is spreading Communism with an army of duped Frost Giants.
DAR blends classic pulp adventure with sword, sorcery and super-science. Suggested campaign types include:
• Wolves Across the Border- Classic wandering adventurer stuff. Treasure hunting in the poisoned ruins of the Eastern Seaboard, for example.
• Servants of the Crown- Providing mission-based aid to a polity. Fighting communist Frost Giants for the British Crown would be about right.
• The Phoenix and the Sword- A locale based campaign to help a shattered settlement rebuild. Fending off serpent cultists from the New Konfederacy and monsters would be a typical occurrence.
The Thing Itself-
The Day After Ragnarok (DAR) is a wee black and white tome running 128 pages. It is one of the few RPG books I know that is actually smaller than the Savage Worlds Explorers Edition, so don’t plan on using it as a weapon. There isn’t much in the way of art and the text is dense but well laid-out. No space feels wasted, which is important in a book this size.
DAR is divided into a Players section which is subdivided into 9 chapters and a GM’s section with 3 chapters and an appendix. The GM’s section includes the bulk of the fluff for the setting and I’m unsure why it is separated from the players section. Perhaps the idea of a GM’s section containing only two chapters felt a little silly.
Crunch-
There are the usual custom and customized edges and hindrances in DAR, with a sprinkling of background, combat, and professional edges adapted to the setting. As a Canuck, I appreciated the inclusion of a ‘Mountie’ professional edge that makes sense in terms of the setting’s logic and the pulp genres it emulates. DAR also tweaks the Arcane Backgrounds, effectively making miracles, psionics, sorcery and super-science available, but at a serious price.
In terms of crunch, the other highlight of DAR is the ‘Ophi-tech’ chapter. This chapter is basically five pages of pulp-inspired gadgets fuelled by or culled from the carcass of the Midguard Serpent. Usually, sections on gear put me straight to sleep, however, Hite’s flavour text and each item’s unique mechanical problems kept me reading. While the gadgets are somewhat specific to the world of DAR, they are generic enough that I wouldn’t hesitate to strip out the flavour text and drop these gadgets into any pulp setting.
Fluff-
I find the world of DAR extremely compelling. Its retropocalypse provides nugget after nugget of unique, gameable, ideas. Hite does a great job sketching various hot-spots around the globe that could provide no end of fun for Players. Want Air-Pirates? Go to North Africa or China. Looking for barbarians fighting giant Gila Monsters in the ruins of a five and dime? I hear Chicago is nice this time of year.
Moreover, Hite manages to give many locations a quick brushstroke or two that is evocative without it feeling like he is hemming GMs in. Hite also provides a number of tools to help GM’s generate adventures on the fly or get over writers block. There are the ‘Savage Shortlists’ sprinkled throughout the GM’s section that detail things like the ‘Top 5 Places to Stomp Nazis.’ And of course there are the usual random adventure and event tables which are common to Savage Worlds games but are exceptionally well executed in DAR.
I should also note that DAR does not provide a plot-point campaign, per se. Instead it offers three bullet-point lists of possible campaigns for GM’s to cherry-pick from. Personally, I didn’t really miss the plot-point campaign and only wish Hite had space to throw out more concepts for DAR games.
If I have one complaint about DAR’s fluff, it’s that there isn’t enough of it. Don’t get me wrong, Hite gives us a global tour that sets this GM’s mind spinning with ideas, but there are definitely gaps. The New Konfederacy, for instance, is mentioned throughout the book as a major adversary and yet no details are given about the organization. From what I’ve gleaned it is envisioned as a Serpent-worshiping KKK army bent on conquering the Poisoned Lands, but I would have appreciated a sentence or two more on them.
That said, this certainly isn’t a setting where a GM is going to feel like they are playing in someone else’s sandbox. Instead, DAR evokes and teases ideas for a more detailed setting and leaves a lot of room for GM’s to customize the world. On the whole, this is a great thing.
Conclusion-
The Day After Ragnarok is probably my favorite Savage Worlds setting at present. Maybe it just has its finger on the pulse, but I find the notion of Sword and Sorcery adventuring in the ruins of a retropocalpyse pretty appealing at the moment. My only complaint is that I want more…which is a pretty great complaint to have!
The Good- An extremely evocative setting, a great, if small, crunch section that is easily adaptable to other settings, a low price point and a lot of room for GMs to build.
The Bad- A few setting details could have been–well–detailed. I only wish it had been in color.
Substance: 4.5 out of 5
Style: 4 out of 5
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