Is this a hard question? How many pages is Elric?
- Thread starter Dave2
- Start date
tarkhan bey
Mongoose
Hawkmoon RPG,which I thoroughly recommend has 160 pages and retails at the same price. I reckon that 160 pages(at least) is a fair assumption. I wait with baited breath for this one.
It is indeed for public consumption.
168, but the Index says 166, it lied!
The cover is very pretty, with a rather butch Elric in "Look at Me, I'm Hard" stance, holding Stormbringer and standing on a pile of corpses with a cute dragon behind him. Now, I'm all for standing on a pile of corpses, that's proper roleplaying that is, but can people draw dragons that aren't cute? I can't but I'm not an artist. There aren't many illustrations within, but what there are look good, very dark and dismal, as befits Elric. He isn't known as Elric the Cheerful, after all.
So, what's in it? Chapter by chapter ....
Introduction describes what's in the Book, briefly profiles Michael Moorcock and gives a very brief introduction to the main characters.
The Young Kingdoms has a brief history of the lands, with brief descriptions of Society, Culture, Magic & Technology, Language and Religion. It then describes the Northern Continent, Southern Continent, The Western Lands, The Islands of the Young Kingdoms and The Unknown East, which has a predictably short description. These are good, but short, and cover a large number of lands. There are boxed texts throughout that add comments or descriptions and this breaks the text up nicely.
Character Generation gives rules for generating characters. Humans have stats given in D6s, Half-Melniboneans, Melniboneans and Myyrrhin have stats in D8s, although no explanantion is given. The reason is that they are chaotic creatures and 8 is the number of chaos. It doesn't list characteristic dice, but tells you to roll 3D8 and take the best 2 and add 6, rather than 2D8+6, which is a bit irritating as we can work out how to roll up a character, or perhaps it's just me. There are 7 Backgrounds and 31 professions, each described very clearly and are easy to use. This is a definite improvement on the standard RQ rulebook. Seasoned, Veteran, Master and Hero level characters each have different number of points assigned to them and can start with different abilities. There is even a walk-through of how to roll up a character. This all seems a lot simpler than standard RQ. There are insets on Playing Melniboneans and Playing Sorcerers, although the one for Playing Sorcerers looks a bit nannyish.
Skills has rules on using skills, including Opposed Tests, Skills over 100% and Group Tests. They are clear and easy to use. There are 20 Basic Skills and 19 Advanced Skills, although why they continue to split skills into basic and Advanced is beyond me. There is no Torture Skill, although I suppose there could be Craft (Torture) even though it is not included in the list of Crafts. Finally, Wespon Skills and Sorcery Skills are briefly covered.
Equipment covers the kind of equipment normally carried by adventurers. Currency & Trade covers coinage and exchange rates, Close Combat Weapons and Ranged Weapons describe weapons and their stats, Armour describes armour types, with stats, General Items covers general adventurer items, animals and transportation costs. Nothing special here and nothing spectacularly wrong. Bread and butter stuff.
Combat is pretty much standard Mongoose RQ combat. The order of play is defined better in Combat Time, with all characters performing 1st action in descending SR order, then all 2nd actions, all 3rd actions and all 4th actions etc. This is an definite improvement on the standard rules as it is clear and easy to follow. There are a number of different Combat Actions, combats are decided by an Opposed Roll and a set of tables, one for Attck vs Parry and one for Attack vs Dodge. These seem fine, at first glance, and are better than standard RQ. Reactions are codified with trigger Events, Restrictions, Improvisation and results for each Reaction. This is a well thought out way of describing reactions and is better than the standard RQ. Results of Damage are described as well as Mounted Combat, Two Weapon Use, Unarmed Combat and Combat Fumbles.
Adventuring covers standard adventuring fare, such as Movement, Illumination and Darkness, Fatigue, Healing, Encumbrance, Falling, Suffocation, Fire, Heat and Freezing, Poison, Disease and Inanimate Objects. Another bread and butter rulebook chapter.
Lords of the Million Spheres are where things get interesting and specific to the Young Kingdoms setting. It describes the Elemental Lords and their enemies, the Beast Lords, the Plant Lords, sketchily, The Lords of Chaos and The Lords of Law. Cults of the Young Kingdoms are different to those in standard RQ or Glorantha. They are organisations dedicated to the worship of deities, but the games mechanics and magic provided are different. The rules are clear enough and fairly easy to follow, on first reading. Magic is gained by dedicating part of one's soul to the deity, literally selling your soul. Members of cults may receive gifts, at a cost of part of their soul, and receive Compulsions that force them to behave in certain ways or perform certain deeds. The cults are described as sketches, with each cult providing certain gifts, compulsions and secrets. This is probably enough for the Young Kingdoms as cults are not as important as, say, in Glorantha.
The Silver Grimoire covers Sorcery in the Young Kingdoms. Sorcery normally comes in two forms - Summoning and Dreaming. Summoning allows a sorcerer to summon a being from the otherworld, beings described include Elementals, Beast Lords, Demons and specific creatures. The relative strength of the creature summoned depends on the Magic Points expended in the ritual and the creature summoned will obey the summoner if he overcomes it in an Opposed Roll. This seems a very elegant way of handling summoning. Finally, there is a list of Sorcerous Creatures that covers Elementals, Demons and Automata, with descriptions, sample stats and rules. Stealing Dreams - Dreamthieves and Dream Realms covers the other type of Sorcery, that of Dreaming. This describes Dreamthieves, The Seven Dream Realms, Dream Characteristics, Dreamtheft Backlash, DreamQuests, The Dream Bazaar and The Guild of Dreamers and Dreamstaffs. This covers al you need to know about dreaming.
The Seventh Dark covers optional rules for GMs. In it are Improvement Rolls, Improving Characteristics, Hero Points, Legendary Abilities, with 20 Abilities, Crafting a Campaign, From Plane to Shining Plane, moving among the planes, and a Synopsis of the Elric Saga.
Creatures is a bestiary for the Young Kingdoms with 14 creatures. This doesn't seem many, but these are magical creatures and the standard RQ rules could be used for mundane creatures.
Heroes and Villains contains descriptions of 15 main characters of the Young Kingdoms and the swords Stormbringer and Mournblade, of whom 5 have full stats. Stormbringer and Mournblade are as gross as ever, adding 100% to Sword Skill, doing 3D8 damage, being unbreakable, draining 1D100 POW from the creature struck on each successful blow, adding +1 STR and +1 CON per 10 POW drained and having the unfortunate effect of slyly forcing an attack against a friend or companion of the wielder. Nice.
So, all in all, is it any good? Hell, yes. It's very good indeed. The rules capture the flavour of the Young Kingdoms without sacrificing the clarity of Mongoose's RQ. In fact, the rules work better, in my opinion, than standard Mongoose RQ and 1st Edition Stormbringer. The Deities are well described and easily followed, magic is neither weak nor overpowering, there is enough general background to run a campaign.
There are some things missing from the old Stormbringer series. There are no demon weapons or lawful ones for that matter, I know the reasons behind this, but I liked them anyway. There are no rules for fighting Deities - the ones in Stormbringer went along the lines of "PCs get first blow, the Deity parries then kills the PC" which is probably pretty accurate. There is no written Torture Skill, which is a major omission in my opinion. There are no maps which, considering how much I love maps and how much I slate products with no maps, doesn't actually detract from how good this is. Perhaps we could have maps in the Elric Companion. Pretty please.
So, should you buy it? Well, this is a difficult one. If you want to play in the Young Kingdoms and want an Elric-based campaign then definitely yes. If you want rhe Mongoose RQ rules set in a clear, easy to follow and improved way, then yes. If you want a clear, well written and easy to follow supplement then yes. However, if you want a set of adventures or a campaign or anything like a scenario then don't look here.
I'd give it A+, excellent, and a Buy It 99%. Really, it's that good. Well done Mr Whitaker.
The cover is very pretty, with a rather butch Elric in "Look at Me, I'm Hard" stance, holding Stormbringer and standing on a pile of corpses with a cute dragon behind him. Now, I'm all for standing on a pile of corpses, that's proper roleplaying that is, but can people draw dragons that aren't cute? I can't but I'm not an artist. There aren't many illustrations within, but what there are look good, very dark and dismal, as befits Elric. He isn't known as Elric the Cheerful, after all.
So, what's in it? Chapter by chapter ....
Introduction describes what's in the Book, briefly profiles Michael Moorcock and gives a very brief introduction to the main characters.
The Young Kingdoms has a brief history of the lands, with brief descriptions of Society, Culture, Magic & Technology, Language and Religion. It then describes the Northern Continent, Southern Continent, The Western Lands, The Islands of the Young Kingdoms and The Unknown East, which has a predictably short description. These are good, but short, and cover a large number of lands. There are boxed texts throughout that add comments or descriptions and this breaks the text up nicely.
Character Generation gives rules for generating characters. Humans have stats given in D6s, Half-Melniboneans, Melniboneans and Myyrrhin have stats in D8s, although no explanantion is given. The reason is that they are chaotic creatures and 8 is the number of chaos. It doesn't list characteristic dice, but tells you to roll 3D8 and take the best 2 and add 6, rather than 2D8+6, which is a bit irritating as we can work out how to roll up a character, or perhaps it's just me. There are 7 Backgrounds and 31 professions, each described very clearly and are easy to use. This is a definite improvement on the standard RQ rulebook. Seasoned, Veteran, Master and Hero level characters each have different number of points assigned to them and can start with different abilities. There is even a walk-through of how to roll up a character. This all seems a lot simpler than standard RQ. There are insets on Playing Melniboneans and Playing Sorcerers, although the one for Playing Sorcerers looks a bit nannyish.
Skills has rules on using skills, including Opposed Tests, Skills over 100% and Group Tests. They are clear and easy to use. There are 20 Basic Skills and 19 Advanced Skills, although why they continue to split skills into basic and Advanced is beyond me. There is no Torture Skill, although I suppose there could be Craft (Torture) even though it is not included in the list of Crafts. Finally, Wespon Skills and Sorcery Skills are briefly covered.
Equipment covers the kind of equipment normally carried by adventurers. Currency & Trade covers coinage and exchange rates, Close Combat Weapons and Ranged Weapons describe weapons and their stats, Armour describes armour types, with stats, General Items covers general adventurer items, animals and transportation costs. Nothing special here and nothing spectacularly wrong. Bread and butter stuff.
Combat is pretty much standard Mongoose RQ combat. The order of play is defined better in Combat Time, with all characters performing 1st action in descending SR order, then all 2nd actions, all 3rd actions and all 4th actions etc. This is an definite improvement on the standard rules as it is clear and easy to follow. There are a number of different Combat Actions, combats are decided by an Opposed Roll and a set of tables, one for Attck vs Parry and one for Attack vs Dodge. These seem fine, at first glance, and are better than standard RQ. Reactions are codified with trigger Events, Restrictions, Improvisation and results for each Reaction. This is a well thought out way of describing reactions and is better than the standard RQ. Results of Damage are described as well as Mounted Combat, Two Weapon Use, Unarmed Combat and Combat Fumbles.
Adventuring covers standard adventuring fare, such as Movement, Illumination and Darkness, Fatigue, Healing, Encumbrance, Falling, Suffocation, Fire, Heat and Freezing, Poison, Disease and Inanimate Objects. Another bread and butter rulebook chapter.
Lords of the Million Spheres are where things get interesting and specific to the Young Kingdoms setting. It describes the Elemental Lords and their enemies, the Beast Lords, the Plant Lords, sketchily, The Lords of Chaos and The Lords of Law. Cults of the Young Kingdoms are different to those in standard RQ or Glorantha. They are organisations dedicated to the worship of deities, but the games mechanics and magic provided are different. The rules are clear enough and fairly easy to follow, on first reading. Magic is gained by dedicating part of one's soul to the deity, literally selling your soul. Members of cults may receive gifts, at a cost of part of their soul, and receive Compulsions that force them to behave in certain ways or perform certain deeds. The cults are described as sketches, with each cult providing certain gifts, compulsions and secrets. This is probably enough for the Young Kingdoms as cults are not as important as, say, in Glorantha.
The Silver Grimoire covers Sorcery in the Young Kingdoms. Sorcery normally comes in two forms - Summoning and Dreaming. Summoning allows a sorcerer to summon a being from the otherworld, beings described include Elementals, Beast Lords, Demons and specific creatures. The relative strength of the creature summoned depends on the Magic Points expended in the ritual and the creature summoned will obey the summoner if he overcomes it in an Opposed Roll. This seems a very elegant way of handling summoning. Finally, there is a list of Sorcerous Creatures that covers Elementals, Demons and Automata, with descriptions, sample stats and rules. Stealing Dreams - Dreamthieves and Dream Realms covers the other type of Sorcery, that of Dreaming. This describes Dreamthieves, The Seven Dream Realms, Dream Characteristics, Dreamtheft Backlash, DreamQuests, The Dream Bazaar and The Guild of Dreamers and Dreamstaffs. This covers al you need to know about dreaming.
The Seventh Dark covers optional rules for GMs. In it are Improvement Rolls, Improving Characteristics, Hero Points, Legendary Abilities, with 20 Abilities, Crafting a Campaign, From Plane to Shining Plane, moving among the planes, and a Synopsis of the Elric Saga.
Creatures is a bestiary for the Young Kingdoms with 14 creatures. This doesn't seem many, but these are magical creatures and the standard RQ rules could be used for mundane creatures.
Heroes and Villains contains descriptions of 15 main characters of the Young Kingdoms and the swords Stormbringer and Mournblade, of whom 5 have full stats. Stormbringer and Mournblade are as gross as ever, adding 100% to Sword Skill, doing 3D8 damage, being unbreakable, draining 1D100 POW from the creature struck on each successful blow, adding +1 STR and +1 CON per 10 POW drained and having the unfortunate effect of slyly forcing an attack against a friend or companion of the wielder. Nice.
So, all in all, is it any good? Hell, yes. It's very good indeed. The rules capture the flavour of the Young Kingdoms without sacrificing the clarity of Mongoose's RQ. In fact, the rules work better, in my opinion, than standard Mongoose RQ and 1st Edition Stormbringer. The Deities are well described and easily followed, magic is neither weak nor overpowering, there is enough general background to run a campaign.
There are some things missing from the old Stormbringer series. There are no demon weapons or lawful ones for that matter, I know the reasons behind this, but I liked them anyway. There are no rules for fighting Deities - the ones in Stormbringer went along the lines of "PCs get first blow, the Deity parries then kills the PC" which is probably pretty accurate. There is no written Torture Skill, which is a major omission in my opinion. There are no maps which, considering how much I love maps and how much I slate products with no maps, doesn't actually detract from how good this is. Perhaps we could have maps in the Elric Companion. Pretty please.
So, should you buy it? Well, this is a difficult one. If you want to play in the Young Kingdoms and want an Elric-based campaign then definitely yes. If you want rhe Mongoose RQ rules set in a clear, easy to follow and improved way, then yes. If you want a clear, well written and easy to follow supplement then yes. However, if you want a set of adventures or a campaign or anything like a scenario then don't look here.
I'd give it A+, excellent, and a Buy It 99%. Really, it's that good. Well done Mr Whitaker.
weasel_fierce
Mongoose
f**k yeah!
I am so bloody psyched
I am so bloody psyched
weasel_fierce
Mongoose
I believe in Elric!, torture is an art skill, so using Craft works fine
Loz
Mongoose
Thank you very much, Simon. A very nice synopsis.
There's a bunch of stuff that I had excise from the book for space reasons - and I mean something in the region of 60 pages. This will form major parts of the Elric Companion and Magic Books.
Torture Skill? I'd suggest making it an Art OR a Craft; abolsutely no reason why not. I don't consider it a major omission. Torture of the physical kind doesn't figure nearly as much in the saga as you might think, so I didn't feel a compelling need to be overt about it. But given that Art/Craft skills are 100% customisable, that's the logical way to go.
Mongoose Pete
Mongoose
soltakss said:
Wow!!! You must have really liked it.
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