Beyond the Wall is a 128-page supplement from Chaosium for Pendragon 4th edition released in 1995. It is a detailed breakdown of the Picts in the game of Pendragon. The book includes a Pictish character sheet, fold-out map in the back and a new simplified battle system for use with the Pendragon system.
There is a section of player information that is brief but handy. The GM section dominates the book and includes information on different aspects of Pictish society and the land north of Hadrian’s Wall. Included in the book are three different maps of Caledonia (the Pictish lands) which detail major geographic information, political boundaries, and an overall map of the land.
This book could serve as a generic supplement for any campaign running around the time of the setting (about 520AD). An extensive explanation of Pictish, heathen, and related religious concepts are included in the book. Pictish society is explored in a fair amount of detail too. Useful information for any shaman character and plenty of ideas for creative GMs are littered throughout the sections. System specific information is at a minimum, even for the adventure at the back of the book, “The Adventure of the Treacherous Pict”.
The art for the book ranges from passable to good. Black and white ink artwork dominates the pages. Some of the pieces are a little less than that, but nothing atrocious. The cover is distinctive for it’s “naked, leaping man”. You’ll know it when you see it.
The place where this book lacks is in the chapter on running a Pictish campaign. I was expecting something a bit more comprehensive. There’s not a lot of detail on running a Pictish campaign. A fully developed adventure for Pictish non-knight characters would have been nice, but there is a brief adventure to get Pictish characters started on their way. There is plenty to do in the lands of Caledonia and its kingdoms for a Pictish player to never venture south of Hadrian’s Wall.
Rules are included for creating the two major types of Pictish characters, warriors and shamans. The shaman character can be fully utilized with the extensive background information on religion and Pictish culture found earlier in the book.
The maps could have been organized better, especially when they are referring to one of the three maps on a page facing a different map. Copies of these maps for the GM and player would be useful handouts in any campaign involving Caledonia. The detailed breakout of all the major locations in Caledonia included in the book is full of adventure seeds and ideas for GMs to use at their discretion. It’s not necessary to read this section through and through, but is helpful when looking for ideas for adventures.
A few brief fae creature encounters are included as diversions and obstacles for the player characters. These are helpful, but may or may not be useful to the Pendragon GM, depending on how they run their campaign.
“The Adventure of the Treacherous Pict” is a 23-page adventure for knights of Pictish or Arthurian origin. It’s easily customizable to any Pendragon campaign and has plenty of flavor and challenges for most players. Parts of the adventure will require the GM to push beginning players in the right direction, while experienced players should follow along and get the idea of where things are going easily enough. Time and travel may be an issue for the adventures as some of the travel times for certain tasks and the adventure as a whole seem to be skewed a bit long.
There are a few typos that snuck by the editor, but nothing too distracting. There were no missed page references, although more page references in the adventure and kingdom descriptions might have been a good idea.
GMs who are running pseudo-historical Roman conquest campaigns could also make good use of the information. This well written and designed book is worth a purchase for any Pendragon GM.
Review Summary