Goto [ Index ]

Oathbound: Wrack & Ruin

Wrack & Ruin is a location sourcebook for the Oathbound d20 setting from Bastion Press. It details the outlying (wrack) and underneath (ruin) parts of the city of Penance, which is more or less the primary area of Oathbound.

Penance was actually detailed fairly well in the Oathbound campaign book, with around 150 pages devoted to it, but this details the outer and under lying parts. Its an unusual city. Because it's so ancient (tens of thousands of years old) and has a fixed location (around the citadel of Israfel, one of the 7 rulers of the world of Oathbound), people just keep building up and up and up. But when buildings collapse, rather than fixing them, they either build on top of the wreckage, or move to another place in the city.

It sounds weird, but it's not unprecedented. Several old real cities are supposed to have similar underground areas. There was an episode of Scooby Doo that took place in one of them.

After an intro is a chapter on rules related material. There are 3 new PC races introduced. Another reptile race (goodness knows Oathbound doesn't have enough of those), this one fairly snake like, somewhat reminding me of the Sathar from Star Frontiers, only with tentacles instead of arms & legs.

There's also a race that is like the Drow, but not quite like the Drow. They're sort of to the Drow what a Hobgoblin is to a Goblin, or a Flind is to the Gnoll. At least they think so. They have multi-faceted eyes, like a spider or bug. It has odd (-1/+1) stat modifiers, which can be a problem in d20 (it's advantageous during character creation, or can be), but is somewhat unavoidable here (they're supposed to be slightly better or worse than Drow in a stat that they have a -2/+2 in, so it couldn't really be helped).

Lastly there is a near human race, but one that happens to have a symbiote skin covering to protect them from light (without it, they get really really bad sunburn). As if that weren't bad enough, the symbiote gives them the appearance of lepers. A very unique race, all in all.

There are also some new prestige races. Prestige races are essentially a mechanism in which a character can spend xp and get special powers, basically, by evolving. The ones in this book are a bit, er, icky, being taken from various underground critters. For instance, the Focus of the Arachnid, the first step gives a character compound eyes.

Rounding out the section are some new "Gifts", which are rewards given to characters who enter the Forge (some of these are pretty funny, like "Mr. Creepy", which means a character no longer needs to blink, or the "Bladder of Holding", which is perhaps self describing), and some obligatory prestige classes.

The abandoned parts of the city (the Lost City, it's called) get about 20 pages. They're really not abandoned (or lost), because some people do live there, but because of the peculiar laws of penance, unless 1000 people live in an area (a canton, it's called), there can be no laws or ruler. So essentially they are lawless regions.

This is a fairly interesting chapter to me, because it answered a lot of the questions I had about how cantons work, and how to go about developing them (to eventually take them over). There's enough detail in it to let your PCs become real estate agents or land developers.

Fairly detailed info is included on two of the groups that are prominent in the ruins, the Band of the Sun (a criminal group) and the Rage Maidens (a militant feminist organization that works to free female slaves). It uses the guild rules from their previous product "Guildcraft". Basically, you spend xp and get a power. Personally, I don't like that system, I think that is exactly what prestige classes should be for, but it's not too unbalancing.

There's also a description of the many interesting places of the Lost City, including bits on the history of lost cantons. Almost like a travel guide in depth, though with some legendary places mentioned as rumors. There's even an Penance version of Brigadoon, though thankfully minus the singing.

Next is on the "ruin" or the part underneath the city (not surprisingly, called "The Undercity"). It's around 30 pages, and is mostly a detailed description of the place itself, not much rules material. It's a very interesting read, as there are dozens of fascinating locations underground. Again, it's somewhat travel guide-ish, so it can be somewhat dry reading, but enjoyable, if you like that sort of thing (which I do). There are literally dozens of adventure ideas present.

Highlights include a canton run by a vampires and a cannibal cult; just about everything there is to know about the Grinder, a rather curious monster that alternately chats with and eats people, depending on her mood; and a lost, technologically advanced civilization that literally polluted itself to death.

The last 32 pages or so are devoted an adventure. It's apparently a metaplot adventure, there seems to be something of a story arc going on. I'm not sure if it's directly tied into the adventure in the "Plains of Penance" book (which I don't have), but it's pretty much stand alone.

Like most metaplot heavy adventures, this one features a fair amount of rail-roading. The PCs have to recover a magic item from the depths of Penance, then they have to give the magic item away to the guy that hires them. It's a bit straight forward, going from point a to b to c, but there, there is a bit of variety, including opportunities for role-playing. It also reveals some of the mysteries of the world of Oathbound to the PCs, and they get to meet some of the major players, not just in Penance, but the setting itself.

Physically, it's a solid book. It uses the fairly heavy paper that they've used since switching to black & white interiors. The margins are average sized, but the type face is pretty small, so the text quantity of the book is pretty good. Art is somewhat sparse, but is generally good, much better than in the original Oathbound book. There's one really nice full page picture of a Rage Maiden (non sleazy, too). They seem to be going away from frequent small illustrations in past products in favor of few but larger and higher quality ones. (Good move, I think).

This is a must-buy book for Oathbound fans. B+. It answered many of the questions and things I wondered about when reading about Penance in the Oathbound setting book. (Though I still have more things I wonder about, like why technology is so low (that one lost canton excepted). And I still think it needs a supplement featuring mechanics for running a canton/bloodhold, like the old Birthright setting for AD&D 2nd edition).

Help support RPGnet by purchasing this item through DriveThruRPG.