What is this game about? It’s about exploring the ruins of the dying world of Zarth. Fighting off the Others, alien monstrosities from outside of your reality. Making your mark on the world before it dives into the sun Nemesis. In short its a Swords and Sorcery role playing game using the original edition of the world’s favourite role playing game. Base upon the Swords and Wizardy rules. Chapter list Scrolls of Wonderous Revelation (The Players’ Handbook) Creating a character How to play Spell lists The Book of Doom (A Crypt Keeper’s Guide) The Continent of Terror – Gazeeter of the setting. Ill Gotten gains of Dark Desire – Treasure and magic items. A compendium of Fiends – Monsters The Hall of Nizun Thun – A mini-crypt (adventure) Appendices a to M: Notes from the Abyss
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By Simon Fernandes
Feb 25, 2012
This is a rules light yet atmospheric and evocative sword and sorcery RPG based on the Swords and Wizardry OE rules set. The game is complete in 149 pages, covering character creation, equipment and weapons, combat, magic, a comprehensive bestiary, a brief overview of the setting and several appendices full of good advice and optional rules to enhance your game (love the brief but useful chaos mutations section!) and the LULU hardcover looks superb. The interior is crisp black and white with plenty of visually stimulating illustrations. The rules are clearly explained and serve to strengthen the Swords and Sorcery feel. Inside we have a fighter with a variety of combat options which stops them being samey, a flavourful barbarian, a rugged thief who looks quite capable in combat and the Magician, who uses a spell list comprised of combined cleric and magic user spells, along with some new spells, divided into white, grey, and black magic. There are a few rules tweaks as well. The... More > single save doubles as a skill system with everyone able to use each class's skill options but without that class's particular bonus. Nice touch. Magic items in the game are powerful but come with drawbacks. All in all, this is a nice OSR swords and sorcery themed game that offers something different from most other retroclones/OGL derived OSR games. It's simple to learn but looks like it could offer much for those interested in a long term game. Plus, it has a distinctive Conanesque/Lovecraft flavour that I love conveyed in classes; hitpoints are fatigue/Constitution is damage; black magic and weird artifacts and creatures, not to mention the setting itself. The rules are not tied to the setting, if you want to create your own setting or port the rules to another setting, nothing could be simpler. All in all, well worth the price and most elements of the game can be used in other OSR games i.e. Labyrinth Lord, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, OSRIC etc.< Less
