[MTE] Ultimate Roman Legions Guide - Legend Edition

[mte-aaron]

Mystical Throne Entertainment is proud to present our first Legend-compatible release.

Mystical Throne Entertainment is an established publisher of Savage Worlds content, and one of our product lines is called Ultimate Guides. These guides are setting agnostic sourcebooks that focus on a particular aspect (whether it be mechanical or historical) and present it for universal use. Our second sourcebook, Ultimate Roman Legions Guide, written by historian Christopher J.N. Banks, was first released for Savage Worlds and is now available for Legend!

This new Legend version contains stats for Roman weapons and armor, Legionary professions, a collection of NPCs, and even a pair of short Legendary Tales.

Many of our Ultimate Guide supplements will be released for Legend, including the upcoming Ultimate Three Kingdoms Guide focusing on the Three Kingdoms period of Ancient China.

Ultimate Roman Legions Guide (Legend) can be used as a standalone supplement to create your own historical Roman campaign setting, incorporated into your fantasy campaigns to create Legionary characters, or used with Gladiators of Legend to get that full Roman feel.

The PDF is currently available at DriveThruRPG and RPGNow and a Print-on-Demand version will be made available later this month. Please note that this book is laid out in the 8 1/2" x 5 1/2" size of the Legend core rulebooks to fit nicely on your shelf (virtual or real).

http://www.rpgnow.com/product/114112/Ultimate-Roman-Legions-Guide-(Legend)

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to post them here or send me a message through my website at mysticalthrone-ent.com

http://mysticalthrone-ent.com/?p=967

Thank you everyone for your time!

 

[Prime_Evil]

Nice work! Glad to see another Legend-cmpatible product on the market

 

[mte-aaron]

Hey thanks! This might be our first Legend release, but it is certainly not the only one. I have lots of plans for creating Legend-compatible releases, including settings.

 

[Prime_Evil]

Hey thanks! This might be our first Legend release, but it is certainly not the only one. I have lots of plans for creating Legend-compatible releases, including settings.

Cool...I picked up this one and it looks nice on a quick read. I'm thinking of using it in conjunction with Paul Elliot's Zenobia setting

Can you provide any further information on what you've got planned for the future. And could you give us some idea why have you decided to branch out from Savage Worlds to Legend?

 

[The Wolf]

Good to see you Aaron

 

[jux]

Ugly cover.

 

[mte-aaron]

Hey Darren!!

I had always planned on developing Legend content, I just happened to start with Savage Worlds and it took a little longer than I originally expected to get a first product for Legend out. I was already a fan of RuneQuest II and was excited when Matt announced Legend would be OGL. I've actually bounced a couple ideas / questions off Matt in the past year.

Other than the above mentioned Ultimate Three Kingdoms Guide, I'm going to keep future projects quiet until I have fully mapped them out.

 

[Fonso]

Hey thanks! This might be our first Legend release, but it is certainly not the only one. I have lots of plans for creating Legend-compatible releases, including settings.

Do you have any intentions of making an "Ancient Word" supplement for Legend?
It has a very good look at Savage Worlds.

 

[mte-aaron]

It is VERY possible, but not in its current state. I've learned quite a lot in my short time of being a publisher and I'm looking toward retooling my settings going forward. This means all of my settings will be relaunched and Ancient World is on the list.

I think dark fantasy settings such as Ancient World are a good fit for systems like Legend that exhibit more dangerous combat than epic fantasy systems.

Another reason to wait is to see what other supplements Mongoose comes out with as Ancient World utilizes alchemy and runic magic. Although I would like to note that the spirit magic in Ancient World was actually inspired by Mongoose Publishing's Spirit Magic supplement.

 

[soltakss]

It is good to see more Alternate Earth material coming through for Legend.

I'll get the PDF in a couple of days and have a look through.

Nice cover, by the way!

 

[mte-aaron]

Thank you!

I'm actually in-process of writing my Shadowed Earth setting guide which serves as a "bible" (I can't really think of a better term) to establish the multi-era canon surrounding my Shadowed Earth setting. Shadowed Earth is a fantasy horror version of Earth's history that takes folklore and mythology and makes it real, but in a horrific way by giving many of its aspects an actual purpose.

The setting guide is system agnostic and can definitely be used to create your own Alternate Earth.

 

[The Wolf]

Aaron does good stuff, definitely does good stuff

 

[mte-aaron]

Thanks for that Darren! Although I don't quite have the writing credits you do...

 

[The Wolf]

You're too kind

 

[Prime_Evil]

Cool...I'm looking forward to seeing more. The Roman Legions Guide is a solid product, but I'm very partial to the time period. My only complaint is that it doesn't cover the late Roman period, when the structure of the legions went through a series of transformations. The focus is very much on the period when the Roman empire was at its height - if you want to tackle Trajan's Dacian campaign it's perfect, but if you want to simulate anything from the period after the 3rd century crisis you might need to do some additional research. (Sorry...I've got a degree in Late Roman history, so it's a period of special interest to me).

 

[mte-aaron]

That particular guide is period specific, just as you stated, but this is done on purpose as these guides are meant to focus on a defined historic period and not just a general era. The writer, Christopher J. N. Banks is a military historian.

 

[soltakss]

I've downloaded the PDF and I like what I see. It probably goes into just about the right level of detail for gaming purposes, without getting caught up in the intricacies.

Some of the professions don't have enough skills/points, at first glance, but I skimmed through them. Also, the professions were linked to the generic Legend Cultural Backgrounds, when a supplement such as this is simply crying out for different backgrounds (Roman Republic/Empire, Greek, all the different tribes at the borders). Maybe they will appear in future works.

Having the legionary equipment was good, as that can be done fairly easily in Legend. It certainly allows more Roman stuff to be built on top of it. I can see other Roman supplements referring to the OGC parts of this.

I'd have liked something about the Cults of the Legions, but that's because I like cults and think that the Roman cults would fit well with Legend. Other people might prefer a purely historical game, which is probably why they weren't included.

All in all, a good first Legend supplement.

Now, to see what else they have that could be converted to Legend.

 

[mte-aaron]

The Ultimate Guides style of design is meant to be short and to-the-point. We want to avoid attempting to create a completely new setting and instead present a focused aspect of military history that can be incorporated in various ways throughout almost anyone's adventures and campaigns. It's meant to be universal enough that you can use it in many different ways.

The use of basic cultures was actually a design decision. When you look at Roman history, from a very high-level standpoint, Roman citizens were considered "civilized" and all others were considered "barbarians." By only using these two cultural backgrounds, it also keeps with that universal usage design so that you can easily slide this sourcebook into your own settings.

 

[mte-aaron]

After starting the conversion of Ultimate Three Kingdoms Guide to Legend, I realized the statement regarding the Professions in Ultimate Roman Legions Guide was very accurate. All of the Professions were way off in terms of bonuses along with any applicable stat blocks using those Professions.

I re-examined the Professions and an updated version has been uploaded with Professions that match the core mechanics design of Legend along with updating any stat blocks that used those Professions.

 

[mte-aaron]

The print-on-demand version is now available.