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In the far future, Earth in known as Urth. Ancient and little understood tech and mind-bending psionics are used alongside sorcery and divine magic. Chaos incursions threaten the land, banditry is on the rise, and the ugly specter of a possible second civil war looms large. The book zooms in on the city of Korudav, part of the Venerable Autocracy of Sakara, a great empire run by a divinely appointed Avatar.
I’m completely new to Basic Roleplaying (BRP). Even though I enjoy the stories of HP Lovecraft I’ve never played Call of Cthulthu (CoC). While I was searching for options less complex than Pathfinder, I found the Chronicles of Future Earth and I was immediately sold not only on the setting itself but also on the BRP rules it utilizes.
If you’re looking at this setting and ruleset from a D20 background read on. If you’re looking at it from a BRP, RuneQuest, or CoC background skip to The Book’s Layout to go right into details of the book.
If You Play Pathfinder or D&D Basic Roleplaying is available as a free quick-start version in PDF form: BRP Quick-Start Rules.
This world has much in common with Eberron with a splash of Dark Sun and Gamma World. While BRP doesn’t have classes, the professions of psion, thief, war priest, and glorious paladin will be familiar to D20 players. BRP broadens the field of fantasy archetypes to over forty including assassins, beggars, nobles, and even lawyers.
There are two big differences between D20 and BRP. The first is that the majority of BRP characters will remain vulnerable to a really well placed sword strike or spell for their entire adventuring career. Combat is much less abstract than in D20 and players will see each slash, parry, dodge, and riposte and respond each moment to desperate moment.
The second is that the player of a BRP character has much more control over the abilities of his character. Whatever skills the character uses in the actual game are the skills that might improve. Whatever the player has the character focus on also becomes the focus of character improvement.
I ordered this book directly from Chaosium because no store in my area carries it. Chaosium shipped it the same day and included two nice bookmarks and two postcards relating to Cthulthu free with my order. It was sturdily wrapped in cardboard and sealed with tape and the book was shrink-wrapped. It arrived with no creases, bends, or other damage.
The Book’s Layout The book is 112 pages in black and white with a two page double-sided black and white map folded in half. One side of the map is the city of Korudav and the other the Venerable Autocracy of Sakara and surrounding lands. My copy was shrink-wrapped and the map didn’t have to be removed from glue or from a perforation.
One of the pages is an ad. Three include a title page and dedications. Two are repeated tables of gear. Four are reprints of the included map. One page has a quarter page of text and the rest white space. And two are a well detailed combination of table of contents and index. The table of contents is found in the back with the index which makes it harder to find, but saves on space.
That still leaves 99.25 pages of actual world information. The book was originally scheduled to be 96 pages so the page count seems fair even with the repeated gear and maps.
The cover art completely captures the setting: a trader leads a “trunkless” elephant-like reptile (the beast of burden in the setting) into a large city that I assume is Korudav. Another well done piece similar to the cover is on page 4.
Chapter numbers run down the edge of the page. Whichever chapter you’re in has the number darkened. Background art is also behind the names of chapters.
The majority of the art is decent to great. I particularly like the picture of the Virikki (a humanoid race) looking out over a city on page 10. The maps for the adventure are well rendered, have a square overlay, are easy to read, and are nicely detailed. City streets as well as building interiors are depicted.
Chapter by Chapter The Chronicles of Future Earth does not contain dozens of kingdoms described in one or two pages alongside centuries of world history. Instead, this first book in a proposed series focuses on one city and the closest surrounding areas of possible adventure.
I consider this a great strength of the book. If you bought this book in a game store on a Saturday afternoon you could read it over and play the adventure in the back that night. Everything (except the core BRP rules) needed to create characters, ground them in the setting, and kick off a brand new science-fantasy BRP campaign are there including excellent maps and an interesting adventure.
Here is a chapter by chapter break down of the book.
Introduction In two succinct pages, this chapter explains what the book is about and where to find things depending on what you need out of the setting. There is a guide to where to find character creation info, the adventure to get a session started, important rules, and gamemaster information.
1: Races & Cultures Four detailed race write-ups are included in this section. Hivernians are the default humans and residents of Korudav. The Amadoradi are human and their province has been invaded at the orders of the divinely appointed Avatar of the empire.
Virikki are tall thin humanoids with blue scaly skin and almost insectoid features. They are highly psionic, strange and cold by human standards, and possess a deep love of science and philosophy.
Spider folk are large non-humanoid crab-looking creatures that build much of the fantasy-tech in the world including an important replacement for scarce iron. Their carapaces are brightly colored in reds, blues, or greens.
These four races provide all the information needed to make an adventurer. Over twenty other races are named and briefly described.
2: Creating Characters Characters choose a House and Bloodline. A House is a family group that determines Status in the empire and a Bloodline is one family in that group (like a surname and examples are provided). Adventurers may optionally also have Status in a guild, priesthood, legion, or sorcerous college.
Starting money based on Wealth is provided. There is a list of appropriate Professions to use. An additional dozen professions are provided, either brand new or changed from BRP.
A sidebar of six possible Houses are provided including the House of the Golden Blade for nobles and the House of the Umbran Coil for great warriors and legionnaires.
3: Demons and Divine Powers The setting uses the BRP rules for sorcery. Seven new spells are provided. A Sorcery Spell Summary lists what spells can found in general, at colleges, and at temples.
The chapter also has information on summoning demons and invoking divine powers. Demons are used by all the religions and aren’t defined as always evil. Demons can be summoned directly or have their powers bound into an object using Power Points.
Divine powers are invested in an item, usually a holy symbol, using Power Points. An Optional Rule for Divine Intervention is also included.
Almost twenty divine and demon powers are listed.
4: The Gods of the Great Compact This chapter kicks off with a description of how the world was made as seen by a high priestess of Unthar. It contains detailed write-ups on two gods and their followers. One god is the god of war and the other the god of trade.
Each god lists professions, symbol, colors, High Holy Day and Holy Day, armor, weapons, skills, gear, demons or divine powers, and spells. The Holy Days will need some GM interpretation as no calendar is provided for the world elsewhere in the book.
Eighteen other gods receive capsule descriptions usually including demon or divine powers used.
5: Artifacts and Equipment Quoting from the book: “Urth is rich with weird artifacts, strange interdimensional sorceries, and mighty weapons and armor”.
This chapter does not disappoint after that intro. It delves right into artifacts, which are the magic items of the setting. Artifacts include mindstones (psionic crystals), ancient artifacts, Hsuntach (Spider Folk artifacts), and Helemor artifacts (Helemor are a slave-race of evil fiendish extradimensional beings which wield magic and psionics).
Iron is rare in the world and hsuntach provides alagin, a created substance like bronze. Less powerful than iron, it does less damage and provides less protection but iron weapons and armor cost much more.
Fifteen ancient artifacts and Helemor artifacts are described. Most are not well understood and many have charges with a cost to recharge.
Planing machines provide a means of transportation to the lost worlds of the Great Commonality which died in the Armageddon of the Gods. The empire brings in steel from the world of Labadra, powerful soldiers from the world of Stuyvos, and can access other stranger and deadly worlds using a planing machine.
Prices are included for armor, weapons, shields, animals (including the world specific ones) and transports, travel and living costs, and general equipment.
6: The City of Leaden Walls Korudav is the main setting for this book and five pages are dedicated to it. Its location in the world and how it relates to the empire are described. The night sky is described, including a constellation of stars that resembles writing and a moon no longer white but green and blue and likely life sustaining. Five districts are then explained. What is going on in Korudav today follows and it provides many adventure seeds from a Chaos invasion to possible civil and religious war.
Sidebars include a description of who founded the city, riding beasts and beasts of burden, great cities of Urth, and a description of Korudav that can be read aloud.
7: New Creatures Six new creatures are described, mostly Cthulthu-like beasts of Chaos as well as a war demon. Updates are provided for three creatures from the BRP rules. Two templates are provided, one to turn things into a monster that creates Chaos spawn and one that represents Chaos spawn.
These monsters fit the theme of Chaos encroaching on the world to devour it. They are a variety of different attacks, defenses, and mannerisms and some creatures of the same type will have varying abilities which should surprise adventurers.
8: The Worm Within This scenario is twenty-eight pages long and is divided into three acts. The plethora of maps and described NPCs will make several of those pages useful to GMs that don’t use the provided adventure or who want to return to it later to mine it for useful bits.
The adventure involves the PCs in tracking down a murderer and discovering two secrets, one dark and terrible and the other powerful and politically charged. Clever adventurers can parlay these uncovered secrets into an audience with the powerful leaders of the city.
The GM is provided many tips and options in the adventure. It could be run almost like an urban crawl if most of the NPCs are glossed over and the clues are easily provided. Or it could be presented as a tense mystery investigation and race against time as lynch mobs seek to hang someone, guilty or not.
Without providing spoilers, the adventure contains many NPCs, locations, events, and revealed mysteries that relate directly to Urth and the starting location of Korudav. NPCs include stats for Dafuri Legionnaires and a typical guardsman, both of which would likely be encountered again. The provided maps are part of the city and provide not just building interiors but also neighborhoods that could be reused.
Two really strong adventure hooks can follow from this adventure. The scenario doesn’t specifically point these two options out, but the options are clear from what happens at the end of the adventure.
Glossary This two-page spread defines nearly every unique Urth word used in previous chapters. While its location at the very end means the reader doesn’t always know what a word means without surrounding context, it also prevents possible jargon overload if it was presented first. This glossary hints at the much larger tapestry of myth, history, and grandeur that is Future Earth.
Style Urth is an interesting place, full of interesting beings, many of whom want to kill (and perhaps eat) the adventurers. From the cover art to the fold out map to the art and writing style, everything in the book immerses the GM in the Future Earth and preps him for running a campaign. Nothing unneeded is included; there is no filler except for a single page that is three-fourths blank. The book earns a 5 for style.
Substance The book has very few editing errors and only of the most minor sort. It has a table of contents/index and glossary and it is easy to navigate chapters.
The only thing lacking in this book is a calendar of months and days. I wouldn’t even have noticed it except for the Gods chapter mentioning Holy Days. Some pages and maps are repeated, as I noted above, and I wish one of the three maps of Urth had been replaced with the calendar. Neither of these minor idiosyncrasies truly detracts from the book, however. It provides everything needed to start a Future Earth campaign right away and keep it running. It earns a 5 for substance.
Conclusion If you play fantasy RPGs with a touch of ancient tech you’ll likely want this book. If you want a quick start to a new campaign and a world that will entertain and keep your players coming back, then this is also the book is for you.
If magic-tech has never been your thing, the Chronicles of Future Earth might be the setting that changes your mind. And if you haven’t played BRP, you could always convert the setting easily enough or simply give a new system a try.
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