Game: Arcana Unearthed: Way of the Sword
Publisher: Malhavoc Press
Series: Arcana Unearthed: d20
Reviewer: Wyrdmaster
Review Dated: 24th, August 2003
Reviewer’s Rating: 8/10 [ Really good ]
Total Score: 13
Average Score: 6.50
Nightmare. Horror. Disaster. The last thing I saw before my hard disk gave up the ghost was the email Amazon voucher which would have bought me Arcana Unearthed. It’s a big hardback book and unlucky, unemployed, webmasters won’t be the only people in search of affordable access to Monte Cook’s alternative handbook. (An alternative to the alternative?)
There is hope. Malhavoc Press have a PDF solution. You can’t buy Arcana Unearthed in PDF but you can buy three significant chunks of it in the form of Way of the Sword, Way of the Staff and Grimoire. If you’re buying these supplements for Arcana Unearthed, as seems most likely, then it’s best to buy all three at once in the combo value back. It’s madness not to.
So I approach this review as someone who’s not read Arcana Unearthed (but have flicked through a friend’s copy) and who wants to find out more about the book. I hope this is the silver lining in the dire tale of hard disk death; this is an unlikely situation for a busy d20 reviewer to be in but perhaps the best situation for a disinterested review.
The first thing to note is that Way of the Sword benefits from Malhavoc’s PDF experience. It’s an easy document to read on-screen and to print out. A text file (and they’re still not making that Notepad friendly – use WordPad) explains the best way to print the e-book out; in three stages, the title page separately and doubled sided if possible. A printed copy of Way of the Sword won’t kill your ink. There are illustrations, excellent illustrations, but they’re greyscale and there’s no continuous sidebar there to waste ink on. The table of contents is detailed but not hyperlinked. Since the design favours the printed version you’ll need to add one to every page number if you’re reading on screen. There is a complete and collapsible collection of bookmarks.
Way of the Sword begins with a campaign background story from Arcana Unearthed and the Diamond Throne setting. A warlord may have been inspired, even possessed, by a spirit to re-establish the Way of the Sword, the art and science of the warrior. The supplement, er, well it’s not really a supplement, the alternative player’s handbook sample explains some of the new terms and concepts used by these rules.
Racial levels allow characters to mature into their race, not every fantasy race in the setting have racial levels, but all the ones in Way of the Sword do. I’ve seen racial levels, or something similar, before in d20 supplements and they’re so much better than the dangerously clumsy and unsatisfactory Effective Levels. There’s more than just good mechanics here, very quickly we begin to sense some Monte Cook wizardry. The best that Monte Cook produces, in my opinion, is wonderful blending of mechanics and flavour. Rituals seem to be important in Urban Arcana as does the sense of self – at least, this is my impression from Way of the Sword. Racial levels are optional, there are only three and can be taken at any time in lieu of character class advancement. Not every member of the race, not even the elderly, will have all three racial levels. In addition, it’s often the case that there is some sort of ritualism associated with the racial level advancement.
There are talents and ceremonial feats. We see mechanics encouraging flavour and I love this. Ceremonial feats can only be taken in conjunction with successfully completed ceremonies. The gold piece cost of the ritual components will serve as motivation for characters to go out and get money. Talents are feats that can only be taken at first level, they’re not representative of special training but of a strength of personality, a gift, a talent, a character has naturally.
Feats and talents are one of the game mechanics Way of the Sword looks at. The 57-paged PDF begins its detailed run through of feats at page 42. There’s a limit to the number of talents and ceremonial feats a character can start with and in order to have a ceremonial feat at all at first level the character must know his truename. Little else is said on the issue of truename’s but the need-to-know basics are there. A truename is discovered through a ritual. Humans, of course, enjoy that extra feat and Way of the Sword takes the paragraph required to explain which type of feat it could be. In Arcana Unearthed there are two occasions; 10th and 20th level, when a character can perform a ritual and replace one feat (no longer used, a bad choice, unwanted, etc) with a new one. Here we see the game system encouraging game play. Thumbs up.
The importance of truenames isn’t the only Arcana Unearthed shtick or rule set that Way of the Sword talks about but doesn’t delve in to. In fact, there are quite a few character classes mentioned without any sort of backup summary at all. Early on in the accessory we’re warned where these missing links are likely to occur. Quite a few of these ‘holes’ can be plugged by simply having the Way of the Staff PDF. Magic, in particular, is missing from the Way of the Sword. This e-book concentrates on the warriors whereas Way of the Staff focuses on mages. The mage blade character class is the obvious troublemaker here, a warrior with magic.
Way of the Sword’s introduction and the assistance it offers to GMs working only with this supplement or the combo pack is perhaps the most important offering in the whole PDF. This section ensures that Way of the Sword holds its own, can be used as a supplement and is more than just an expensive preview of Arcana Unearthed.
There are four races in Way of the Sword: Faen, Giants, Litorians and Sibeccai.
There are three types of Faen and this accessory gives us character race mechanics for two of them. Quicklings are small, thin, friendly and, yup – quick. Forget the stats, Quicklings discover new gods! Okay. They don’t actually explore the cosmos or look under rocks in order to turn up a new deity; instead they seem (or claim) to be aware of the cosmos in such a way that any new, or previously forgotten, deities may become known to them. The timing of this discovery is always good; typically the deity makes itself known at a portentous time. The example given is of a Quickling making a desperate swing on a rope over a chasm suddenly becoming aware of Derrah – the goddess of ropes. Quicklings evolve into the third type of Faen; the Spryte. Sprytes are small and winged fey. They’re literally fey; their type changes from humanoid to fey.
The Giants call themselves Hu-Charad, the Stewards, and are the rulers of the land. The Hu-Charad freed mankind from the tyranny of the dramojh and if we want to find out any more about that history we’ll need to read about it elsewhere. After this liberation was complete the giants used a powerful ritual to change their nature from warlike and aggressive to contemplative and protective. The Hu-Charad are the rulers of the Diamond Throne but the moniker ‘Stewards’ is a better fit; they’re not power hungry, they want order and peace. They’re tall too. It takes rituals and racial giant levels for a giant to grow to her full size.
Furry fiends will be falling over themselves to play the lion-anthro Litorians. The use of the racial levels is important here; you’d expect a lion race to be strong, fast and tough. Young Litorians are fast since the race comes with the Dex bonus, through the acquisition of racial levels the Litorian will bolster Str and Con too (and more Dex). At the start of the race section Way of the Sword makes the point of noting that individuals are all different but that the descriptions here are for typical members of the race. Good. The racial clone factor is something every aspiring alternative d20 player’s handbook should move away from. This caveat is important for the Litorian. A typical Litorian will be out in the wilds, in territory far away from civilization, and hunting. It’s the exceptional, the unusual, Litorian who’ll be part of an adventuring group.
The Sibeccai are a young, jackal-headed race. They’re very young. They were created by the Giants; transformed from a desert animal into a sentient race. The Sibeccai once served the Giants as warriors but are free now. They see themselves as special, as the Giant’s chosen race, they look up to the Giants (sorry) but many consider themselves superior to the other races. Sibeccai are short lived but mature quickly and have the three racial levels common in Way of the Sword. It can’t be helped, there’s an Egyptian vibe that comes off this jackal-humanoids but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
There are six character classes in the accessory: Champion, Mage Blade, Oathsworn, Totem Warrior, Unfettered and Warmain.
The Mage Blade looks interesting, a character who’s walking the fine line between the Way of the Sword and the Way of the Staff but the class requires the second PDF accessory to use fully.
The Champion is devoted to a cause and this devotion is so strong that it provokes or awakens supernatural powers. Initially Champions devote themselves to some broad cause: goodness, evil, death, or life, etc. More experienced Champions can, if they want, narrow this down to a race, a location or even a person. A city’s champion or the queen’s champion is possible. Way of the Sword gives us a whole series of different power ‘trees’ for each possibility. That is to say the PDF lists the powers a champion of freedom has and they’re different from the powers and abilities a champion of life has. Similarly, once the class qualifies for a more specific cause, you’ll find the power trees for champions of places, races and people. Top quality.
I find the Oathsworns’ inspiration to be similar to the Champions. They’re enhanced by their devotion to their oath as much as they are driven by it. The difference between the Champion and the Oathsworn is that the latter fights unarmed and unarmoured if at all possible. Okay; think D&D monk, now imagine an interesting version of that same class.
Totem Warriors have to be my favourite of these warrior classes. These are those wilderness warriors aware of the presence and importance of animal spirits. They’re animists (if that’s a word; they practise animism) and fight with ferocity and instinct. Totem Warriors have different totems and so, as you’d hope, there are different types of combat styles and abilities. Warriors with the bear totem are massive and strong and snake totem warriors are quick and lithe. It makes sense that some races will find some totem animals more attractive than others and we’re given pointers here. As the champion class included lists of powers and abilities for champions of different causes this class gives us sets of abilities for warriors with different totems. The totems listed are those popular and prestigious ones from the campaign setting. As a bonus, a rather good bonus, there’s a decent sized section of help for GMs designing their own totem.
The Unfettered and Warmain are something of a ying-and-yang, opposite halves of the perfect warrior whole. Unfettered distain heavy armour, strategy and even patience. Unfettered know the best way to win a melee is to avoid being hit entirely, they’re swift, unpredictable and therefore deadly. The class is likely to appeal strongly to Dexterity junkies. Warmain, on the other hand, are robust individuals, strong and determined to win. Warmain protect their body in heavy armour, armour so solid that it’ll probably take someone of Warmain strength simply to wear it. Whereas the Unfettered have no time for strategy and tactics, the Warmain live by the warrior science, plotting and planning carefully to win every battle they face.
This is a good set of classes. We’ve the game mechanics we’d expect from Monte Cook and the rich flavour we’d hope would be blended with them. An important strength of these classes, for me, is there diversity and their believability. Diversity is important for the sake of the players in the game, there needs to be a type of action hero, a warrior, which appeals to everyone. Believability keeps everything together, if there’s no need to come up with excuses for classes (why do rangers have magic? Why do all uncivilised warriors rage?) then there’s a more easy suspension of disbelief and more time for the GM.
Way of the Sword scores thumbs up for the individual content; everything works. Way of the Sword can be used by itself and I think this is important if it’s being sold by itself. The PDF leaves me wanting more of Arcana Unearthed but I could use these races, classes and feat rules without having access to any other of the rules. Put these two together and Way of the Sword offers rules you want to use and rules you can use. That’s a good product.
