Shadow World Master Atlas 4th Edition
Review by
Brent Knorr
The Shadow World Master Atlas 4th Edition is the
first Shadow World product to be released by ICE in their new incarnation.
(If
you aren't familiar with the history of what happened with ICE,
you can find a write up on it at http://www.ironcrown.com/welcomewagon/ICEhistory.htm)
The Master Atlas is a 224 page soft cover book that describes the
planet of Kulthea, the Shadow World. It includes sections on the Races
and Peoples and how to play them, the history of the world, an overview
of the geography and politics of the Western Hemisphere, including
a pullout color map. There are also stats on some of the major NPC's
in the setting. It includes stats for both Second Edition Rolemaster
(RM2) and the newer Rolemaster Fantasy Role Playing (RMFRP). There
are also plans for the Guild Companion to release a D20 version of
the this book. Details on this can be found in the Editorial in the
September 2003 issue of the Guild Companion website: http://www.guildcompanion.com/
Chapter One is the Introduction, it gives a brief intro to Shadow
World, lists some of the other upcoming products in the Shadow World
line, and lists and explains the Abbreviations and other Codes that
used in the book. There's about four pages of these, mostly abbreviations
for skills.
Chapter Two is History & Civilization Notes. The Kulthean Calendar
is explained and methods that the inhabitants of Shadow World us for
telling time are explained. Then comes the Timeline. This starts on
page 12
and
goes
to page 42.
If
you aren't
already familiar with Shadow World, this section can be a tough slog.
My recommendation is to read the first five or six pages, then skip
to about page 40 and read the last couple of pages. Once you've read
the
rest
of the Atlas (and possibly the Powers of Light & Darkness book)
and are more familiar with some of the Characters and Groups on Shadow
World, then come back and read the rest of the timeline. It will make
more sense that way. It's very detailed and covers 200,000 years, the
most recent 13,000 getting most of the coverage.
Chapter Three is the Peoples of Kulthea. The various races are described,
the mortal races first then the immortal races. There are Men of many
varieties, Centaurs, Dwarves, and Elves as well as several races unique
to Shadow World. Approximately 75 races are described in all, with
several charts at the end of the chapter summarizing the various statistics
for the races. There's not a lot of detail on each race, but what's
there does give a good feel for what each race is like.
Chapter Four is Character Creation, this is three pages long and covers
the Shadow World specific items that apply to the Character Creation
process that is described in the Rolemaster rulebooks. This covers
both RM2 and RMFRP. There are a couple of references to the Astrologer
profession having a RMFRP update at the end of the section, but it's
not actually there. The profession was removed from the Atlas when
it was realized that it was already in the Mentalism Companion that
was released as a reprint at roughly the same time. Unfortunately,
a couple of references to that section were missed
Chapter Five is The Lands - An Atlas of Kulthea. This is another fairly
lengthy section, 30 pages long. It describes the major realms and places
of interest in the western hemisphere of Kulthea, which is the area
covered on the map. Four pages are devoted to explaining the various
terms that are used in the text that describes the areas on the map.
These are things such as Technology Levels, Political Structures,
and Subsistence Patterns. There are then a couple of pages devoted
to some of the Special features on Kulthea, Isles, Volcanic and Seismic
activity, underground areas and Under Sea features. The rest of the
chapter is devoted to describing individual areas. Smaller black and
white subsets of the big color map are included in the book in the
sections that describe that area.
On the back of the large color map is a black and white detail map
of an area called the Bay of Izar. Chapter Six describes this area.
It is designed to give GM's new to Shadow World a starting place for
a campaign. It is described in detail rather than in the general manner
of the other areas. This chapter is fifteen pages long and contains
several hooks that can be used as a jump start to an adventure. There
isn't actually a starting adventure included, but it is mentioned in
several spots that addition Shadow World products will make use of
this location.
Chapter Seven is Essænce and Spells. The first paragraph of
the chapter explains the difference between Essænce and Essence.
Essænce refers to the arcane term for primal magical power, and
is the source of what later became the three realms of magic, Channeling,
Mentalism, and Essence. There is then a description of Essænce
Barriers, which includes Physical Walls which physically prevent people
from passing and Mental Walls which divert by misleading and misdirecting,
sending the unwanted wandering away without realizing what has happened.
Foci are described next, which are concentrations of pure primal Essænce.
These can come in many forms and have a variety of effects.
Flow Storms are an important feature of Shadow World and they are
also described in chapter seven. The storms act in a manner simi liar
to hurricanes and thunderstorms and cause great fluxes in energy levels,
making it very dangerous to use magic, particularly Essence based magic.
They can also have strange effects such as opening portals to unknown
locations and dimensions. There are three pages devoted to describing
Flow storms and their effects. The rest of the chapter is devoted to
describing Spells and Spell Lists and the Shadow World specific modifications
and elaborations on the basic Rolemaster Spells and Spell Lists.
Chapter Eight covers Kulthean Gods and Immortal Spirits. A brief explanation
on how users of Channeling get their powers from the Gods is given,
how much the Gods are involved in what goes on in Shadow World is covered,
the major group of Gods, the Lords of Orhan are discussed including
some information on their home, the Moon of Orhan and their interactions
with each other. A brief description is then given for each of the
Gods. The Greater Spirits are covered next, which are beings that serve
the Lords of Orhan. Their general powers are discussed along with examples
of several of the Spirits. Nymphs are given a three quarter page treatment
next, followed by a short quarter page section on Children of Gods.
The Dark Gods are covered next, they are less powerful than the benign
Lords of Orhan, but are more active in the events on Kulthea. They
reside on the third largest moon, Charon. They have no real leader,
but coexist in an uneasy alliance. Again, the general powers of these
Gods are reviewed, then several examples of the Gods and their servants,
the Dark Spirits, are given. Finally, there is a short half page section
that discusses Local Gods and the Lords attitude towards them.
There's a total of fifteen pages in this chapter, the same material
gets covered in more detail (double the number of pages) in the Powers
of Light and Darkness book, but the Atlas gives a good summary, more
than enough for a Player in Shadow World.
Chapter Nine is Good & Evil, Order & Chaos. It's a three page
chapter that discusses the major force for Evil on Shadow World, the
Unlife which is a "Anti-Essænce" as well as other forces
of Evil such as the Dragonlords and the Dark Gods. There's also a discussion
of the "Evil" Spell Lists that are found in the Rolemaster
book Spell
Law and how to handle characters that wish to delve into these
spells.
Chapter Ten: Groups of Note gives an overview of some of the powerful
Groups that exist on Shadow World, including Loremasters, Navigators,
The Jerak Ahrenreth, Dragonlords, Heralds of Night and Individuals
of Note. Some members of each of these groups are described with game
statistics. This chapter is fifteen pages long and is really a summary
of information that makes up the majority of the Powers of Light and
Darkness book. Again, a good overview for players. If you are interested
in more details on what these groups are, you can check out my review
for Powers of Light and Darkness,
I won't repeat it all here. It is a little surprising that the equipment
lists for the example characters was repeated for the RM2 and RMFRP
Stats when there are little or no changes for equipment between the
two systems. They could have easily saved a few pages by not repeating
it.
Chapter Eleven covers Creatures. It's nine pages and covers some of
the animals and other beasts that are unique to Shadow World. This
followed by Chapter Twelve The Undead, which is three pages, with a
few notes on Undead, referring the reader to Rolemaster's Creatures
and Monsters for additional details. Several Special Undead are
mentioned, again just a short summary and referencing Creatures
and Monsters for additional details.
Chapter Thirteen: Artificial Beings is more detailed than the previous
two chapters and discuses seven different types of artificial beings
in detail. These are the Kæden, insect-like creations from the
First Era that may still have survived. Next are Sentinels, constructs
similiar in nature to Golems but with more intelligence. They are always
set in pairs and guard the entrances to palaces and holds.
Gogors are another creation from the First Era. They are resemble
seven foot tall bat-like gargoyles.
Shards the next Beings described, they are given more text than the
other Beings, but in something of an oversight, a physical description
is missing. There is a reference to Creatures and Monsters for additional
information on shards, and there is some artwork that presumably depicts
a Shard (looks sort of like a Ninja Turtle sans shell). There is also
some text under I-Lat Norg (High Shards) that describes how they differ
in appearance
from
the
lesser
Shards,
so
you do still end up with a pretty good idea of what they look like.
Neng are a human looking creations mixed with demon elements. They
can turn movable objects invisible, are very intelligent and can spit
acid with great accuracy. Elementals and Golems are described next,
and the last page of the chapter has a table with game statistics for
the Beings presented in the chapter.
There are two varieties of Demons that can plague the inhabitants
of Shadow World. Chapter Fourteen describes the Demons of the Essence.
These include Elemental Demons, Thematic Demons and Singular Demons.
Elemental Demons live in environments of pure energy, i.e. Fire, Light,
Air, ect. Thematic Demons inhabit the world of dreams and nightmares,
thriving on the spiritual destruction as much as physical destruction.
Singular Demons, as their name implies, are unique beings tied to particular
locations on Shadow World in much the same manner as Nymphs. The powers
of the various demons are discussed and several specific examples are
given.
Chapter Fifteen discusses the second type of demon, the Demons of
the Void. These are rarely summoned by spell users, and are from dimensions
or planes of existence that are alien to Shadow World. The chapter
starts with an overview of the Planes of the Known Void, also known
as the Near Planes or the Six Pales. Demons from here are occasionally
summoned and can be somewhat understood and controlled. This is followed
by the Outer Planes, home of the Demons Beyond the Pale. Not much is
known about these planes as the few individuals that have returned
from here have not been able to recount anything that makes sense.
It's an area completely lacking sanity where the usual laws of order
and logic do not apply. Finally comes the Outer Void, home of the glimmering
lights known as the Aguthu. They predate life on Shadow World and when
they do leave the Void, are the most revolting and disgusting in appearance
of all Demons. They are so alien in their motivations and thoughts
that they often can't even be considered "evil" in the ordinary
sense.
The last chapter consists of the Appendices. This covers Weather &
Climate, with several tables to help determine temperatures, precipitation,
wind and weather.
This is followed by a section on Plantlife, including a very comprehensive
set of charts describing Medicinal Herbs. This is followed by a section
on Poisons and Venoms and a chart with stats for the Special & Fantasy
Weapons that are mentioned throughout the book.
So, what's changed between the Third Edition Master Atlas and Fourth
Edition Master Atlas? One major change is that it has been updated
to include statistics for the newest version of Rolemaster, Rolemaster
Fantasy Roleplaying (RMFRP). The Bay of Izar section is also new as
is the artwork. The Timeline was also moved from being in near the
back of the book to being near the front. Since the two editions are
roughly the same size, a few items had to go to make room for the new
information. The first was the conversion notes for using Shadow World
in game systems other than Rolemaster. These were fairly general in
nature anyway, and since the most likely other system to be used is
D20 and a D20 version of the Atlas is in the works, it's not a big
loss.
Another section that's no longer included is a description of the
Constellations and the Kulthean Solar System and Kulthean Moons. Some
bits from this section are scatter throughout the new book, but it's
too bad this section got cut, especially considering it was only three
pages and there seems to be four blank pages available in the new Atlas.
(I'm guessing the blank pages are there to give a page count of 228).
The Weather and Climate section also lost at least a page worth of
information.
Another section that got removed was a chapter on Minerals, Gems,
and Metals. It was basically Geology 101 plus some additional notes
on Magical Materials & Alloys, handy to have but less important than
the other material, so a good choice for something to cut.
The Third Edition Atlas does have the physical description of the
Shards that is missing from Fourth Edition. To be fair, the description
is virtually identical to that in Creatures and Monsters, but not everyone
may have access to that book.
