My RPG reading this weekend was Spears of the Dawn.
My RPG reading this weekend was Spears of the Dawn. I bought it soon after it was available in PDF, but hadn't done more than glance through it. If you're into OSR RPGs, Africa, or just looking for something new, I think you'll like it.
I already knew I liked the basic mechanics from Stars Without Number and they're just as good here, even with spellcasting added in. But the real draw here is the setting, a detailed fantasy pastiche of Medieval Africa, with the PCs being locals instead of outsiders from a European fantasy pastiche just visiting an exotic location.
Kevin Crawford has done several things to make it really easy for someone who doesn't know a lot about the history of Africa (me, most other people) to get into it without feeling lost:
1. The PCs are expected to be adventurers. They are the Spears of the Dawn, classic adventurers in the D&D sense. They are expected to wander around plundering tombs. That’s their job.
2. The PCs are expected to be outsiders. Don’t worry if you don’t know anything about medieval African culture. Spears of the Dawn exist outside the boundaries of everyday people in the world. Everyone knows this, and everyone cuts them a little social and legal slack.
3. Classic big bads. The Eternal are undead, which you might think is cliche, but are so flavorful, pulpy, and well done, you won’t care that you’ve fought a zillion undead in other games. It will be fun and new.
4. Classic dungeons. The Eternal, of course, live in tombs, and the Spears are, of course, supposed to go into them, defeat the monsters, and take the treasure.
Other stuff: It’s full of awesome random tables. There’s advice for adapting the material to your favorite D&Dish system. Tons of new monsters. Great advice on running a sandbox campaign.
There are lots of games I really want to run, and I would gladly run it, but I really want to play.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/110293/Spears-of-the-Dawn
I already knew I liked the basic mechanics from Stars Without Number and they're just as good here, even with spellcasting added in. But the real draw here is the setting, a detailed fantasy pastiche of Medieval Africa, with the PCs being locals instead of outsiders from a European fantasy pastiche just visiting an exotic location.
Kevin Crawford has done several things to make it really easy for someone who doesn't know a lot about the history of Africa (me, most other people) to get into it without feeling lost:
1. The PCs are expected to be adventurers. They are the Spears of the Dawn, classic adventurers in the D&D sense. They are expected to wander around plundering tombs. That’s their job.
2. The PCs are expected to be outsiders. Don’t worry if you don’t know anything about medieval African culture. Spears of the Dawn exist outside the boundaries of everyday people in the world. Everyone knows this, and everyone cuts them a little social and legal slack.
3. Classic big bads. The Eternal are undead, which you might think is cliche, but are so flavorful, pulpy, and well done, you won’t care that you’ve fought a zillion undead in other games. It will be fun and new.
4. Classic dungeons. The Eternal, of course, live in tombs, and the Spears are, of course, supposed to go into them, defeat the monsters, and take the treasure.
Other stuff: It’s full of awesome random tables. There’s advice for adapting the material to your favorite D&Dish system. Tons of new monsters. Great advice on running a sandbox campaign.
There are lots of games I really want to run, and I would gladly run it, but I really want to play.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/110293/Spears-of-the-Dawn
I've bought this in PDF some time back and yet to print and bind it for easy reading.
ReplyDeleteI appreciated some of the social notes to add to my own version of Africa. Then again I have made a point of purchasing every African themed source book, rules, adventure I can find through the years to help convince people there needs to be diversity in gaming.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dragonslayers-society.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.Kapirimtiya