Review of Shaintar: Immortal Legends

If you're looking for a fantasy setting for Savage Worlds take a good hard look at Shaintar: Immortal Legends. It might just be what you're looking for.

The Details

Shaintar: Immortal Legends is an Epic High Fantasy setting and Plot-Point pdf for Savage Worlds. Published by SW licensees Talisman Studios, created and written by Sean Patrick Fannon, illustrated by Jason Engle, with layout by Aaron and Jeannie Acevdeo. It's 260 pages in length, and costs $24.95 from RPGnow/Drivethru, or $22.46 from Talisman Studios own web page.

In Brief

What you get for your money is a huge pdf that is: well written, well laid out, easy to navigate, with excellent artwork. You get a setting that contains all the well loved high fantasy tropes, but never feels clichéd. You get a solid overview of the Shaintar world, with a detailed look at the part of the world where the Plot-Point adventures take place.

You get eleven new fantasy races, seven new Arcane Backgrounds, (five pc, two npc) a dozen additional Powers, over two dozen new Edges, an elaboration of the Common Knowledge skills and some good examples of Shaintar-specific knowledge skills. All the arms and armour you'd expect from a fantasy setting, including some unique to Shaintar, and a ton of encounters with stats for enemies and allies.

You get a Plot-Point adventure that consists of twelve Legendary Tales, twice as many unrelated Savage Tales to run between the Plot-Points, and The Modular Adventure Creation System (M.A.C.S.) Adventure Generator if you want more Savage Tales. On the down side, you also get a meta-plot that isn't resolved within this release and a slight twist that may or may not be to all tastes.

In Depth

The Look

The download consists of two pdf files: the full art version and the printer friendly version.

The full art version has pages that are colour washed in sepia with feint floral swirls under a crisp easy to read font. There are a few small, iconic full-colour motifs dotted throughout, such as a winged sword and a sword and globe, etc. Almost every other page has a line drawing and the cover and each chapter have lush, full page, colour illustrations.

Jason Engle's artwork is excellent and evocative. It goes a long way to helping you 'get' the whole Shaintar vibe. The cover and the full colour artwork preceding each chapter, features a single archetypal Shaintar hero. The line drawings are all in context and bring the world of Shaintar to life. My only criticism with the art is that they are mainly static single character pieces. But it's a minor gripe, all told. Overall, the artwork is superb and helps develop a consistent vision for Shaintar.

The layout looks fine. Double column text around the artwork and some boxed text. There were one or two pages where I was scratching my head. I wondered why the boxed text split page text that didn't need to be split, but to my design blind eyes it all looked okay. At 260 pages you need good bookmarks and Shaintar's bookmarks are plentiful. The full artwork pdf is the version I read for this review. I read it on my desktop PC over a period of four days and never had any problems.

The printer friendly version retains the same layout but with the under-text colourwash removed. It still, however, retains all the artwork and at 260 pages I'm not sure it really would be printer friendly.

Omnibus

The Shaintar Omnibus gives a detailed overview of some of the setting's key features. It tells you of . . . The Land, The Gods, The Magic, The People, The History, and finally it tells you … Of Now.

For my money there is too much information, too soon. Everything in the omnibus is both interesting and useful. It fleshes out Shaintar, contributes to a feeling of realism, but it's too much. There are too many heroes, villains, races, cultures, customs, creatures, styles of magic, gods, and avatars in a short span of pages. Too many new concepts to get your head around and certainly too many names. It all washes over you. I felt like I was drowning in detail and grounded in none of it. I'd have preferred a one-page summary here. The omnibus, I think, would have made more sense at the end of the section on Shaintar's races and heroes.

Reading the whole pdf I now have a pretty good grasp of Shaintar and its history. After 260 pages most of it sinks in via osmosis. But there are still sections I'll need to reread. I can't truthfully say I know my way around Shaintar as a setting yet.

Anyway, the upshot of all this telling 'Of' is that we a have an ancient and detailed world split unashamedly, this being Epic High Fantasy, between factions, empires, kingdoms, races, heroes, and immortals both good and evil. Now, after a century of uneasy peace, it's all about to kick off again.

Before I continue I'll just comment on a feature of Shaintar that occurs throughout. That is the "GM to GM" box-texts. These serve as a way for Shaintar's creator to address the GM reading his work. They employ a much more conversational tone than the main text. I liked this feature. I found it both novel and useful.

Heroes of Shaintar

Quick note on Rangers. The Plot-Point campaign in Shaintar is for a group of Greyson's Grey Rangers and based in the Wildlands. It assumes that all the characters will be Rangers. The Rangers might look like LotR's Rangers, but, as the author himself says, replace 'Greyson's Grey' with 'Texas' and there are your Wildlands Rangers. Peacekeepers, lawmen, and soldiers when they need to be.

Heroes of Shaintar gives us a series of backgrounds that are class-like, but not defined as Professional Edges in the Savage Worlds sense. These include mundane backgrounds such as: knights, soldiers, rogues, ex-slaves, and commoners. There are also more magical backgrounds such as: priests, paladins, druids, adepts, sorcerers, and alchemists. Being Rangers can be a background, but more commonly a character will have one of the above backgrounds before becoming a Ranger.

What these backgrounds provide are solid outlines for the types of Skills, Edges, Hindrances, and Attribute preferences you might need for each. They also give you a good idea of where in Shaintar your character might have come from before ending up in the Wildlands and a nice bit of flavour.

Races of Shaintar

There are eleven playable races in Shaintar. Each is presented in the standard format you'd expect in any Savage Worlds setting or the Savage Worlds core book: two or three paragraphs of background, then the stat-block detailing the strengths and weakness of the races. Each (apart from the poor humans) has an excellent illustration by Jason Engle.

Alakar are new-blooded Elves. The equivalent to wood or low Elves in other settings. The Aveakar are the aforementioned flying Elves. Very much like the Alakar, but they pay for those wings with a little added frailty. Eldekar are the high elves of the setting and immortal. Then there are the Dwarves in all their standard fantasy Dwarvern goodness. The Korindian's are distant cousins to the humans. Half-elves who are dedicated to the mastery of their martial art Kor-In.

Next up are the Dregordians. Huge brutish lizard-men who are paradoxically peaceful, enigmatic, and brooding. Until that is, they flip out and go berserk. The Brinchie are nomadic cat people. Although there are very few free roaming tribes left. They have more or less been absorbed into Shaintar society. What I like about the Brinchie is that they are not based on one particular type of cat. If you wanted a warrior Brinchie they would most likely be lions or tigers, a Brinchie scout might be a leopard, but a common city thief is likely to be domestic tabby. Which I think is neat.

Then there are the Humans. These are your usual, adaptable and numerous humans in a fantasy setting. In Shaintar they seem even more plain by comparison. All the other Shaintar races have a ton of interesting strengths and weakness. In fact, for the most part, the built in Hindrances of the other races just add to the cool-factor. It's not all bad though. As well as the Standard SW extra Edge for being human Shaintar's humans are also diverse and start with one free skill at d6.

The Goblins are the first of the Goblinesh races which also include the Orcs and Ogres. Here is one of Shaintar's many departures from the fantasy norm. In Shaintar Goblins, Orcs and Ogres are just like humans (and some of the other races), in that they are just as capable of being good guys as they are of being bad guys. In fact, in Shaintar, the Goblinesh are more likely to be fighting on the side of the righteous. As you might imagine the Goblins are small, agile and numerous. Thanks to Jason Engle's picture they're also pretty cool. Finally, there are Ogre's and Orc's. Excellent for players who like that tribal, brute warrior, or noble savage vibe.

The most important thing for me when I look at races in a Savage setting is the 'wanna play factor'. I'm a GM, I nearly always GM, hardly ever play. If a setting's races/backgrounds, etc. has me wanting to roll up a character and play it must be doing something right. Shaintar has this in spades.

The characters from Shaintar I'd love the chance to play are: an Aevakar (flying elf!) archer, a Dregordian warrior (bad-ass pole-arm wielding lizard-men), a Korindian Kor-In Student and Adept of the Way (that would be a half-elf martial artist with psionic powers), a Brinchie fencer (lion-men with Daisho equivalent), or a lowly Goblin rogue. And that's just me with my warrior-centric preferences. There's a whole slew of interesting possibilities for those who prefer magic using characters.

You might be thinking there is nothing new here. It's just the same old fantasy tropes again. But you'd be wrong. They are the standard fantasy, some might say D&D, races, but in my opinion their treatment is such that they never feel clichéd. The writing ties them so firmly into Shaintar as a setting, that to me, they really feel like they truly belong to Shaintar not to a stock fantasy world.

Skills, Edges, Hindrances, and Gear

The skill section is brief. A few skills are tweaked to suit Shaintar, while some are discarded. The main meat is provided in a collection of Shaintar specific Knowledge Skills that will be pretty useful. Knowledge of the two types of enemy the players are most likely to come up against. A section on pushing detailed character backgrounds, so players can benefit from good Common Knowledge rolls, is also included.

There is a bit more in the Hindrances. Again tweaks and descriptions of hindrances not used in Shaintar. There are also cryptic mentions of Hindrances that will only come into play in later releases.

Most of the detail on Hindrances comes in the "GM to GM" boxes. The author defines Good Guy Hindrances and Bad Guy Hindrances. In short, he suggests disallowing the latter and going with the former. Asking all players to give their characters one (or more) of either: Vow, Heroic, or the Loyal Hindrances. Some players and GM's might bristle against such prescribed advice, but to me, it and the philosophy behind it, makes perfect sense for a heroic game like Shaintar. It really isn't the place for mean, greedy, blood-lusting anti-heroes.

There are twenty Edges converted from previous setting books and two-dozen new to Shaintar. That really expands on the players choices in the core SW's rules. Again, there is the usual tweaking of core Edges to suit Shaintar. The main tweak being to Arcane Backgrounds (more on that later). There is also the usual list of Edges not used. There is mention of some tech Edges that might become useful in later books. This kind of irks me. I like my fantasy to be fantasy. I'm not keen on other genre elements being added.

The change to Arcane Backgrounds is simple, but makes a difference. They are no longer Arcane Backgrounds, as in Edges you must pick at chargen, but Professional Edges. Meaning you can learn magic at any time. Of course, you'll need to meet all the requirements and that might entail spending a few level-ups learning the appropriate skills.

The Gear is focused mainly on weapons and armour. There's plenty of both. Some unique to Shaintar and specific to various races or cultures. Such as the Brinchie's dual swords: the Lo-sska and Rrka and the Dregordian pole-arm the Kayakor. There are also goodies for magic users in the form of focus crystals and a selection of potions. There doesn't seem to be a list of more mundane Gear though. There is, however, a neat rule for bypassing armour with a Called Shot penalty included with the write up for the armour.

Shaintar: a Magical World

As mentioned before, Shaintar makes a slight change with Arcane backgrounds. It has five types of magic for the players. Druids channel the Essence (mana) and have the expected nature trappings, Sorcerers weave the patterns of the Essence to cast spells. Priests use the power of Light (faith based miracles), Adepts have The Way (psionics), whilst Alchemists beaver away making all manner of poitions.

There are twenty-four Arcane Powers in my first edition Savage Worlds core rules. I'm not sure if the Explorers Edition expands on this, but Shaintar expands the list out to sixty Powers. That gives those players who like their magic a much bigger palate to paint with. Not all of them are available to every type of magic user and not all of them are completely new. As with the Edges some are taken from previously published settings. This expansion of powers and the change to Arcane Backgrounds gives the SW powers more depth. Like everything else the magic of Shaintar is flavourful and ends up feeling very much part of the world as a whole.

A Land for Legends

Although the pdf has a good overview of Shaintar, the campaign is played in one particular area, the Wildlands, and this gets covered in detail. The basic facts and figures of the Wildlands are laid out. So are the Historical Overview, Society, Common Positions of Authority, Travelling Through the Wildlands, and places and people of Special Interest.

The Wildlands is in the southern part of Shaintar and borders or is near most of the (good guy) Southern Kingdoms. So there are plenty of influences and people from the various races and cultures. It is also near enough the 'Evil North' so plenty of enemies can sneak into the Wildlands. It's a frontier land and therefore has plenty of local challenges and dangers. These range from lawless bandits and wild beasts to over-ambitious barons and more. It's kind of a wild west vibe with a microcosm mix of Shaintar's diversity in one locale. An ideal place for adventure. It's quite an open-ended setting. The map has the main settlements marked, but you're encouraged to invent and add anything you want that isn't on the map. On the subject of maps, a full-page map of the Wildlands would be handy. As this is the main setting area I find the lack a bit of a flaw.

The other main part of the Campaign is the fact that the party will all be members of Greyson's Grey Rangers or the Rangers as they are more commonly known. To this end there is, as you would expect, a good write-up on the history, organisation, and core values of the Rangers. Plenty of material to base your campaign on.

Adventures in Shaintar

Well there's certainly a lot of Adventure to be had in Shaintar. The main Plot-Point Adventure consists of twelve Legendary Tales and there are the twenty-four unrelated Savage Tales. Finally, the Modular Adventure Creation System (M.A.C.S.) Adventure Generator provides a means of developing challenging scenarios with little or no notice.

The twelve Plot-Point adventures run in order, but aren't designed to run one after the other. The characters need some adventures under their belts first. You'll need to intersperse the Plot-Points with stand-alone Savage Tales and M.A.C.S. adventures. Overall, this makes Shaintar a very long campaign. At one session a week it will eat a good chunk out of a year's worth of play.

Shaintar's Adventure Generator or the M.A.C.S. is a bit different. It uses playing cards instead of die rolls on tables. The cards are drawn in tarot like spreads. There's a simple four card spread that gives you a basic Who, What, Where, and Why scenario. There's a full tarot spread of twelve cards for more complex adventures and the Epic spread adds more complications. Each suit also has its own realm of influence. For example, the Clubs suit pertains to all things military and political. Numerical value also adds complexity. So in the quick four card spread drawing a King of clubs in the 'Who' position would indicate that a major military or political npc is involved, whereas, a 2 of Clubs might indicate a low level soldier or bureaucrat.

In the larger spreads more complexity is added with further tables and more ways to interpret each card. All in all, it works well. The four-card spread gives you something vague to riff on and ideas for there and then, off cuff, at the table, situations. The more complex draws benefit from a bit more interpretation and prep from the GM. Another good thing is the way it's set up to make it personal. There are lots of options for people and places from the characters past and background to become involved. This makes Shaintar more personalised and immersive.

It's when we get to the Plot-Point adventure, Raven's Quest, that my only real gripe with Shaintar kicks in. It's two-fold. First, the Plot-Point doesn't resolve in this publication. In fact it will run through a few publications. Now, the author is up front about this right from the start, but I'm not a big fan of meta-plots. Secondly, the Raven of the Raven's Quest is part of the meta-plot and I feel a bit of an obtrusive npc. This is the major problem I always have with meta-plot. By their very nature they tend to take some of the focus away from the player characters. Finally, there is a slight twist in the campaign that takes things in a genre direction that isn't entirely to my taste.

Having said that, those concerns are nothing to do with quality and everything to do with my tastes. Added to that, I like the look of Shaintar so much it might just change my mind. However, I know I'm not alone on the whole meta-plot issue so it's worth mentioning.

The twelve adventures that make up the Raven's Quest are all solid. One is more of an interlude for atmosphere, but the other eleven look interesting and challenging (some very challenging even for Legendary characters). Of course, in a capsule review it's impossible to say how it will really play, but based on my experience with Savage Worlds and role playing in general, I think they should provide good sessions. Murder at Black Eagle Fort and Three Full Moons look particularly strong.

The remaining twenty-four Savage Tales give you plenty to do in Shaintar. There is some slight repetition by the end, but here's plenty to challenge the party. This being Savage Worlds it is quite combat heavy, but there are still Tales that require brain over brawn and a bit of finesse.

Encounters

There are many dangers in Shaintar. Luckily plenty of allies too. Shaintar's bestiary isn't an A-Z list of every monster you've ever heard of. There are monsters in Shaintar. There are the Childer, essentially Beastmen of the Chaos variety, Demons feature, as do The Undead. These form the main monstrous opposition. There are lots of non-monsterous encounters too (ally and enemy). As bestiaries go it's a large and unusually coherent collection. A neat 'crunch' feature is that for most entries (where applicable) stats are included for Normal, Advanced, and Elite versions. Making it particularly easy to scale each encounter to your party as they progress from Novice to Legendary.

Map, Appendices, Character Sheet

The Shaintar map included in the pdf looks pretty enough, but is one of the few letdowns. The writing is tiny and on the whole unreadable. Using the zoom feature doesn't help either. The writing blurs as you zoom in. I know there is a much better map available online, but this is a review of the pdf and the map in the pdf is one of its weak points.

There are also three brief appendices and the obligatory character sheet included. One appendix covers languages, one covers Magic items, and the most interesting one details Extended casting. Basically it's a simple system for extending spell duration from Savage World's usual instant combat magic. Spell casters can use magic to buff in advance of combat by using meditative casting and ritual casting can make magic last even longer (at a cost).

Shaintar: Epic High Fantasy?

Previously, before Shaintar, I was burned out on High Fantasy, Epic or otherwise, in literature and gaming. Instead, the Sword & Sorcery sub-genre was scratching my fantasy itch. Shaintar has managed to turn me back on to High Fantasy (in gaming at least). This setting has been developed over a period of twenty-six years and it shows in a good way. Shaintar: Immortal Legend is obviously a work of love and all the better for it.

For me what makes it work is that it takes all the tired tropes of High Fantasy and breathes fresh life into them. Not with any massive twist or innovation for the sake of inovation, but with a freshness and verisimilitude rarely found in High Fantasy settings.

At 260 pages for under $25 dollars if you wanted to ignore the Plot-Point and setting material, instead just strip mine it for Fantasy crunch for your own game; you'd just about get your money's worth. If you just wanted to use the crunch and Shaintar as a setting and not run the Plot-Point adventure you easily get your money's worth. If you can get use out of it all, crunch, setting, and adventures then it's more than worth the price. You'll get months of play from it. Even if you don't play Savage Worlds, if you like High Fantasy settings, it might be worth a look.

I have my reservations, mainly with the meta-plot, but the quality is there all the way. Shaintar is a great Fantasy setting that has me excited about playing Epic High Fantasy again. Something I haven't been inclined to do in years.

Pinnacle's Savage setting books have a feel and philosophy that's unique and they were never going to release a standard fantasy setting. That's what the Fantasy toolkit is for, but there are plenty of Savages out there without the time, inclination, or just the sheer talent to produce something like Shaintar. Luckily for us Sean Patrick Fannon and Talisman Studios have plenty of all three.

I pondered for a long time over the scores. In the end I felt anything less than 5/5 would be hard to justify. If you're looking for an Epic High Fantasy Savage Worlds setting in pdf form there's nothing out there that can touch Shaintar. I've also compared it to other pdf products I've purchased and consider the quality, cost, and playability ratio to compare very well.

Style: Jason Engle's artwork is excellent, the layout is strong, and the overall look is lush. 5

Substance: There's potentially years worth of great play in this setting, plenty of crunch you can use in your own Savage Worlds fantasy settings, and it's a great take on High Fantasy. 5