Tactics & Tales (Part I)

Let us be clear. 13th Age is Dungeons & Dragons. It offers a Dungeons & Dragons style of play. It is a Class and Level roleplaying game. It has the six traditional attributes, the traditional different Races of Dungeons & Dragons, and the various Classes of Dungeons & Dragons. It is even designed by the designers of Dungeons & Dragons. Not one edition of Dungeons & Dragons, but two editions of Dungeons & Dragons. It might even be called ‘Dungeons & Dragons 4.5’. What it calls itself is an ‘F20’ or ‘Fantasy 20’ roleplaying game, a roleplaying game derived from the family of Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying games. Yet it is also very much its own thing and has been from the start. When 13th Age was published in 2013, the hobby was in an uncertain place as it always is when it is between editions of Dungeons & Dragons. In 2013, Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition was done, never having been as well received as its predecessors, and Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition had yet to appear, yet to make the splash that it did on Dungeons & Dragons’ fortieth anniversary in 2014, and yet to make its glorious ascent into the mainstream and acceptance as legitimate pastime. What was available then, was D&D Next, the playtest version of the next edition. It was into this liminal space that 13th Age slipped in 2013. Published by Pelgrane Press, 13th Age did what Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition also did. Which was to take the best features of the previous editions of Dungeons & Dragons and rework them. In the case of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, that would be to create the next edition of the venerable roleplaying game. In the case of 13th Age, that would be to combine its style of play with a style of play that had come from another wing of the hobby, one that was radical and all but anathema to Dungeons & Dragons—storytelling games. Certainly, not a direction that Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition was ever going to go in. The aim with 13th Age was to provide story and crunch, and so it is with 13th Age, Second Edition.

13th Age, Second Edition comes in two books, one a direct continuation of the other. The first is the 13th Age Second Edition Heroes’ Handbook, which provides everything necessary for the players, including rules for character creation, the place of the characters in the world and their relationships with the Icons, the great powers of the age, the core mechanics, and combat, whilst the 13th Age Second Edition Gamemaster’s Guide contains a description of the Dragon Empire, the setting for 13th Age, advice on running the game, a bestiary, a treasury, and an introductory scenario. The emphasis in 13th Age is on the Player Characters and their exploits as heroes and legendary heroes to be, not just in the epic battles they will fight—and fight from First Level to Tenth Level, but on the epic stories that will be told in the process. The battles are the focus of the roleplaying game’s self-confessed ‘crunch’, providing detail and flavour whilst also making the battles fast-paced and exciting. The epic narrative or story-telling aspect of 13th Age is handled by making every single Player Character special with his own ‘One Unique Thing’ which sets him apart from everyone else in the Dragon Empire; by replacing skills with Backgrounds that broaden player choice, add depth to the setting, and enable flexibility in how they are used; and in linking each Player Character to two or three of the Icons, the great powers of the Dragon Empire in 13th Age, whose influence over the story can be positive or negative, depending upon the nature of the relationship.
One of the great things about 13th Age, Second Edition is that it compatible with 13th Age, First Edition, which means that the Game Master and her players have access to some great supplements, such as the Book of Ages which opens up the history of the Dragon Empire and the killer dungeon, Eyes of the Stone Thief. However, 13th Age, Second Edition is a new edition and that does mean changes. Pelgrane Press actually includes a list of the major changes here for the benefit of Game Master of 13th Age, First Edition. Much of it has been to clarify the rules as much as streamline them. For example, instead of using days as a time unit to indicate the period in which certain powers work, the term is now ‘arc’. This allows the period to be used narratively rather than being constrained by time. The number of Icons has been reduced from thirteen to twelve (actually making it easier to roll for them randomly), the Orc Lord having been killed in a recent war—exactly how is up to the Game Master and her players to decide. This is the major change to the Dragon Empire and is connected to another change, which is the removal of the Half-Orc as a player choice in terms of Race—or rather Kin as 13th Age calls it. This is intentionally done to avoid the controversy surrounding the nature of the Half-Orc, and is instead replaced by the Troll-kin. It serves a similar, combat-orientated, brutish role, but is connected to the High Druid or the Emperor Icons rather than the Orc Lord. Other changes to Kin include more choices in terms of Kin powers, the removal of ability bonuses based on Kin, and the making of Player Character Kin special. The removal of ability bonuses based on Kin means that a player can place them wherever he wants—though he will probably want to place them to benefit his choice of Class, and by making Player Character Kin special, that is, they possess the special Kin Powers rather than having every member of their Kin do so, avoids stereotyping and widens player choice.
Then all of the Classes in 13th Age have been adjusted, from minor tweaks to major overhauls. For example, the simplest and easiest of Classes to play, the Barbarian and the Paladin, receive minor tweaks, the Barbarian Rage feature changed to be a wider critical hit range rather than roll two twenty-sided dice to attack and the Paladin’s ‘Lay on Hands’ becomes a feature of the Class rather than a talent, ‘Smite’ inflicts more damage, and so on. Major overhauls include the Bard Class, whose features and talents are based on the type of performance—Brass: Horn & Trumpets, Dance: Poise & Motion, Drums: Rhythm & Percussion, Flutes & Pipes & Ocarinas, and Strings: Lutes & Harps & Guitars—which also presents a greater choice for the player. The Sorcerer retains its Breath Weapon, the type of damage depending on the Dragon-type, and gaining bonuses to both to hit and Critical Range from the Escalation die, and can empower his spells in one round to cast for double the effect, including damage, the next. There are a lot of changes here of varying magnitude throughout 13th Age, Second Edition, affecting everything from Icons and Icon connections and combat rules and more, all based on a decade’s worth of play of, and feedback about, 13th Age, First Edition. The aim is to streamline and ease play, especially for the player new to 13th Age.
To that end, one big change that the roleplaying game does make to 13th Age Second Edition Heroes’ Handbook in order to help the neophyte player and Game master is to give an extensive example of play right after the introduction. Most examples of play run throughout a rulebook, but here 13th Age frontloads it in one go, taking the reader through the process, step-by-step, of creating a character—selecting Icon connections and determining their relationships, choosing a Class and Kin, designing a One Unique Thing, setting ability scores, selecting gear, picking Talents and a Feat, creating Backgrounds, and so on. At each stage, particularly in relation to the Icon connections, One Unique Thing, and Backgrounds, the example of play shows how they can tie into the setting and into the campaign that the Game Master is running. Once done and the example Player Character is presented on a character sheet, the Player Character is taken through her first arc, her first series of battles, in the process showcasing combat and suffering damage, resting, bringing Icon connections into play, and more. It is annotated with pointers as where to learn more about each aspect of the creation process and the play, further, like any good example of play or any good example of the rules, what 13th Age is doing here is showing the reader how the roleplaying game is first intended to be set up and then played. It saves the telling of how this is done for afterwards, the reader having been prepared for it by that point.
A Player Character in 13th Age has the traditional six abilities—Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma—plus a Kin, Class, One Unique Thing, and Backgrounds. There are fourteen Kin, which are Human, Dwarf, High Elf, Silver Elf, Wood Elf, Forgeborn, Gnome, Half-Elf, Halfling, Holy Ones, Troll-Kin, Dragonic, Holy One, and Tielfling. Of these, the Silver Elf is also known as the Drow, and the Dragonic, Forgeborn, Tielfling, and Holy One are by default less common. The nine Classes are Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, and Wizard. Some obvious Classes, the Druid and the Monk, are not included, their details being in 13 True Ways, though not yet for 13th Age, Second Edition. The process is a matter of making choices rather than rolling dice, including selecting ability values.
Lottie Custard
Class: Rogue Level: 1
Kin: Halfling One Unique Thing: There isn’t a lie I haven’t heard and a truth that I haven’t hidden
Connections: Prince of Shadows (Conflicted/2), Emperor (Negative/1)
Backgrounds: I’m a Halfling, of course I can bake pies +2, My tongue is not so much silver, as golden +4, If I don’t know, I know man who can +1, Old Town Valley Girl +1 Strength 12 (+1) Constitution 15 (+2) Dexterity 17 (+3)
Wisdom 14 (+2) Intelligence 14 (+2) Charisma 17 (+3) Armour Class 15 (Light)
Physical Defence 15
Mental Defence 15
Hit Points 24
Weapons: Mother’s Third Best Flat Iron (d8), It’s just a fruit knife (1d6)
Kin Power: Evasive
Class Features: Bravado, Sneak Attack, Skulduggery
Class Talents: Shadow Walk, Shift, Wriggle, and Roll, Tumble
Class Powers: Evasive Strike (At-Will), Deadly Thrust (At-Will/1 Bravado), Flying Blade (At-Will)
Feat: Smooth Talk 13th Age is played out in arcs, each consisting of three or four combat scenes leavened with narrative scenes in between. The most basic of mechanics involves the Backgrounds, which work as skills in other roleplaying games, but narratively more flexible. A character’s Icon connections can also affect the narrative by providing knowledge, adding detail, securing help, triggering flashbacks, and other options, his player deciding what the actual effect is by working with the Game Master. This does not automatically happen every arc, a player needing to roll to see if it does for each Icon connection, and if it does, it can only happen once per arc. When an Icon comes into play, there is a chance that it will come with a ‘Twist’ and as the 13th Age Second Edition Heroes’ Handbook states, that is when, “The GM also gets to have some fun, adding a twist that improves the story by making the heroes’ lives a bit more interesting… but not so complicated that the connection turns bad for the heroes.” A twist will also occur if a player does not roll successfully to involve his character’s Icon connections, in which case the Game Master rolls for a random Icon to be involved. This is all backed up by detailed descriptions of the Icons—even the Orc Lord, helpful advice and plenty of examples and suggestions which will make the game play interesting and engaging.
Combat is comparatively much more complex and where the crunch occurs in 13th Age. It is also the focus of most of a Player Character’s Class talents, features, and feats, as well as spells for the spellcasting Classes. A Class’ talents are divided into three types that indicate their usage—at-will, once per battle, and once per arc. For example, at First Level, the Cleric Class can cast spells such as Combat Boon, Javelin of Faith, and Sacred Violence at will, Mark of Enmity and Spirits of the Righteous once per battle, and Mighty Healing and Hammer of Faith once per arc. The effects of talents increase as a Player Character rises in Level, as does total Hit Points, number of Recoveries (used for healing Hit Points) and feats, and so on up to Tenth Level. 
Where combat in 13th Age gets exciting, even exhilarating, is in the use of the Escalation Die. This sits in the middle of the table and comes into effect on the second round of the combat and then on subsequent rounds. On the second round, it gives a ‘+1’ bonus to all of the Player Characters, on the third round it gives a ‘+2’ bonus, on the fourth round, it gives a ‘+3’ bonus, and so on all the way up to the seventh round and after. It applies to the Player Characters only, not the monsters or NPCs, it can de-escalate or temporarily freeze, and it can trigger the powers of some Classes depending upon the number it is at or whether it is odd or even. The aim is to push combat forward and give it momentum once past the initially difficult rounds, rather than have it bog down in detail and unnecessary crunch.
All of the content in the 13th Age Second Edition Heroes’ Handbook (and also in the 13th Age Second Edition Gamemaster’s Guide) is supported by helpful examples, suggestions, and advice, some of which takes the form of commentary and interjections from the authors. This is where they talk directly to the players and to the Game Master, telling them how they ran their games, what worked, what did not work, what they think of some of the feedback on the changes to the new edition, and more. It adds a personal touch to what is very much not a drily academic-in-tone rulebook and escalating, a little, its engaging style.
Physically, 13th Age Second Edition Heroes’ Handbook is a great looking book. The artwork is solidly heroic fantasy, apart from the Icons, which are drawn as a cross between the decoration on Greek vases and icons for the Greek Orthodox Church. The book is well written and despite the complexity of its crunch, never less than readable. It is supported by a very decent combined index and glossary.
It is difficult to truly criticise the 13th Age Second Edition Heroes’ Handbook. The main issues are perhaps that some of the Classes are still too complex to play with ease, especially in comparison to other ‘Fantasy 20’ roleplaying games and that some fans of 13th Age, First Edition are not necessarily going to be happy with all of the changes. Yet even the designers acknowledge this and even applaud some groups that want to keep playing 13th Age their way.
The 13th Age Second Edition Heroes’ Handbook is the players’ book and the core book for 13th Age, Second Edition. It does what a new edition of a roleplaying game should do and improve and tweak the rules and the game to make it play better, in this case on lengthy playtesting and feedback, and then make it accessible. In particular, it does this with its lengthy example of campaign set-up, character creation, and play that showcases how 13th Age is intended to be played and readies player and Game Master for the rules that follows. Yet it goes even further by having the designers explain their decisions and give alternative suggestions. 13th Age Second Edition Heroes’ Handbook is everything that the 13th Age player is going to need to help set him and his character up for some heroic fantasy.

Friday Faction: The Sorcerer of Pyongyang

If a copy of each of the Player’s Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master’s Guide fell from the sky how would it be received in the archetypal medieval world? Together would they have been taken up as a triptych of holy books and their words accepted not as a of means play and exercising the imagination, but as a way of speaking to god, of determining whether you have his blessing before undertaking any action, including deciding your future career, or rather rolling up your character according to scripture. This is the conceit of FRUP, an unpublished roleplaying game designed by James Wallis, and it is a conceit shared with The Sorcerer of Pyongyang. Not a new roleplaying game or supplement, but a novel by Marcel Theroux which examines the consequences of a work of the imagination and imagineering arriving unbidden in a land that is both real and unreal. For The Sorcerer of Pyongyang asks what would happen if a copy of the Dungeon Master’s Guide accidentally found its way into the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, one of the world’s most isolated and closed off countries? What effect would Dungeons & Dragons have in a society whose government and culture imposes its own reality upon its citizens?

In the early nineties, during the time of the famine known as the Arduous March, Cho Jun-su, an ordinary schoolboy with a love of Kim Il Sung and the socialist fantasy comics he has to hire from a vendor at the station to read, discovers by accident, a copy of the Dungeon Master’s Guide for Dungeons & Dragons. Left behind by the son of visiting a professor in North Korean socialist thought, and taken from lost property at the hotel he works at by Jun-su’s father, Cho Jun-su is fascinated by the book, but his English is not yet good enough to read it, although his later translation of the book will both improve his English and his imagination as he becomes an award-winning poet. Until then he turns to a teacher who has been helping with the illness that keeps him out of school. The teacher comes to understand the book, explaining that it is a game of the imagination and storytelling, and when the boy asks, promises to run it for him. Thus Jun-su takes his first steps into roleplaying, not via Dungeons & Dragons, but the House of Possibilities, an interpretation of the rules that is more faithful by intent than by design, but nevertheless recognisable as roleplaying.

As his illness keeps him home from school and helps isolate him from the worst effects of the Arduous March, so too the House of Possibilities isolates him from the adulation and respect that he is expected to give Kim Jong Il, the Dear Leader, the self-criticism exercises he is expected to participate in at school, and so on. The notion of roleplaying and of Dungeons & Dragons is doubly dangerous within North Korea. It is nerdish and likely to be socially unacceptable just as it was in the West in the nineties, but in North Korea, it could be seen as an artefact of American decadence, one that encourages individualism. Yet it is this individualism that makes Jun-su stand out, his involvement with the House of Possibilities setting him on a trajectory through layers and layers of accepted reality, as he first experiences success, then downfall, then success again, before finding hope. It pushes him to Kim Il-sung University in Pyongyang, where he mingles with the elite, he is denounced and imprisoned, before being released and pulled into the orbit of the ultra-elite once, and then finally finding his own release. At university Jun-su isolates himself from the reality of the dangers that House of Possibilities, but its reality is left behind and Jun-su is forced to rely upon the accepted reality in which his love for Kim Jong Il will save him, but just like Winston Smith and Big Brother in Orwell’s 1984, it is Kim Jong Il that is stamping on his face. Nevertheless, it is Jun-su’s connection to the House of Possibilities that will save him again. Which leads perhaps to the most extraordinary reality in which Jun-su finds himself in, spending time in the company of ‘Jimmi’, in fact, Kim Jong-chul, older brother of Kim Jong Un, son of the late Kim Jong Il and supreme leader of North Korea. ‘Jimmi’ is portrayed as a member of the idle rich, when not drug addled, obsessed with the guitar and great rock guitarists, whose reality isolates him from the rest of the country and its cowed masses. Weirder still is the job he is given at a state insurance company, fabricating the reality of serious accidents, so that the country can gain foreign currency from the insurers in London. Even ‘Jimmi’ in his most maudlin state is affected by Dungeons & Dragons, wondering if his influence is sufficient to render Cho Jun-su the status of an NPC, a ‘Non-Player Character’ as controlled in the game by the ‘leader’ or Dungeon Master, or if he too, is an NPC, not for Cho Jun-su, but rather for Kim Jong Un. This is not an aspect that the author really explores, merely bringing it to our attention as he hurtles to the book’s conclusion. It is the novel’s startlingly missed opportunity.

Although he does not belabour the point, it is clear that the author knows about Dungeons & Dragons and roleplaying games in general. It is not a case of the author just having done his research to be able to use Dungeons & Dragons as a literary device. Or if it is, then that research is more than cursory. Readers in the know will recognise the copy of the Dungeon Master’s Guide from the description given, a great red demon (or efrit) grasping a scantily clad women in its left hand, a sword in its right as a knight and a wizard attempt a rescue as being for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition. They will realise too that Jun-su’s battered copy is later replaced by Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition. This could have been the result of simple research, but there is more. British readers will recognise the name of the games shop in North Finchley from where the author in the book purchases a copy of The Habitition of the Stone Giant Lord which is an undoubtedly obscure choice. There is though, Jun-su’s initial reaction to playing the game, his fascination with its imagined world, with it feeling more real than the one around him. This is something that many a roleplayer will recognise, that heady rush of discovery of not just having an imagination, but of being able to explore it too.

It would be trite to have simply explored the imagination as a means of liberation from conformity and repression. The Sorcerer of Pyongyang does that, certainly, but it goes beyond it to examine the dangers of the imagination, not just under the ordinary Orwellian repression of North Korea, but also in the layers of reality surrounding Pyongyang’s elite under radically different circumstances and under two different Supreme Leaders. Again and again, Cho Jun-su finds his imagination pulling him onward in a great journey through a bildungsroman of realities. The Sorcerer of Pyongyang is a fascinating glimpse behind the walls of the Hermit Kingdom that is North Korea with Marcel Theroux using Dungeons & Dragons as a surprisingly sophisticated means to drive its story along in a fashion that would have been unthinkable, let alone acceptable when Cho Jun-su first entered the House of Possibilities.

An Elvish Endeavour

Long ago, at the beginning of the 13th Age, war raged between the Elves and the Dwarves. The Elf Queen commanded the magic of the wild and the fey capable of defeating her people’s enemy, but could not truly control it. Liris, a nature goddess, voluntarily underwent a ritual to contain this magic by binding her into a vault. The ritual was a success and it bound both the magic and the three elven districts—Greenwood, Darkwood, and Lightwood—to the Elf Queen’s own Thronewood. With the magic, the Elf Queen helped withstand the Dwarven assault and as time passed, the relationship between the Elves and the Dwarves eased and they became allies. Yet the power which Liris helped contain and control and so save the Elves corrupted her and drove her to attempt escape and wreak revenge upon those she blamed for her imprisonment—even though it had been voluntary upon her part. The Elf Queen and her greatest spellcasters from all three districts offered a Key up to perform a great ritual which would ensure that the vault imprisoning Liris would remain closed. Then the Keys were returned to their respective districts and placed in three mystical towers, hidden from those who did not know the means or routes to find them. More recently, the Elf Queen senses that the ritual keeping the vault containing Liris is weakening and needs to be performed again. For that, she needs the three Keys from each of the three districts, but relationships between the Elf Queen and the three districts were not they once were and many of those who readily knew the locations of the three towers have long since died. As the magical bindings on Liris’ vault weaken, her dark influence is being felt across the Thronewood and beyond as shadows and sorrow deepen. With her strength dedicated to withstanding Liris’ influence and preparing for the forthcoming ritual, the Elf Queen needs agents she can trust to find the three mystical towers, assail their heights (or depths), and return in time for her to perform the ritual which will save her kingdom.

This is the set-up for Elven Towers, an adventure for the Champion Tier for 13th Age, the roleplaying game from Pelgrane Press which combines the best elements of both Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition and Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition to give high action combat, strong narrative ties, and exciting play. The adventure requires access to both 13 True Ways and the 13th Age Bestiary to play and mostly obviously, will hook in Player Characters with Icon relationships with the Elf Queen or her allies. Options though are suggested for involving Player Characters with other Icon relationships, even ones so adverse to the Elf Queen that they would be prepared to betray both her and the efforts of their fellow adventurers should the need arise! Several ways of handling the interaction of the Player Characters with Court of Stars are offered, each of varying complexity or detail. The simplest is to run it as a group test, but alternatively, the Player Characters can attend the court and get involved in its activities and events, fully interacting with the various courtiers and hangers-on. There are plenty of NPCs detailed here as well as some nice means of handling the effects of Liris’ growing influence and the Player Characters being unsuccessful in their interactions with the Court of Stars. This includes increasing the amount of time it takes to get information, temporary penalties to saving throws, and temporarily delaying the increase of the Escalation Die in combat.

Once the Player Characters have worked out where the three Keys are located, they can set out to each of the locations. Consisting of the Tower of Memory in Greenwood, the Tower of Dreams in the Darkwood, and the Tower of Fate in the Lightwood, they can be tackled in any order, but they all adhere to the same format—a montage travel scene followed by three or four encounters between the Court of Stars and each tower, and each tower consists of four encounters before a finale. The encounters, inside the tower or outside of the tower, are essentially big set pieces, each different, but themed along the lines of the region the Player Characters are travelling through and the tower they are trying to reach. The format provides room for the Game Master to insert encounters of her own, if thematically appropriate, but to fair, the given encounters will be challenge enough. The Tower of Memory and the Greenwood are home to the Wood Elves and are forest-themed with the Tower of Memory being a giant tree. The Tower of Dreams and the Darkwood are home to the Dark Elves—or Drow depending upon the Game Master’s campaign—and the Tower of Dreams may be entered via a tree, but is actually in a spire protruding down into the Underworld. Many of its encounters veer between dreams and nightmares. The Tower of Fate is in the Lightwood and is home to the High Elves, with the Tower of the fate ascending to the Overworld. Many of the encounters in the Lightwood and the Tower of Fate relate to oracles, fate, and destiny.

The design of the scenarios as a series of big set pieces, means that the author gets to be inventive. For example, in the Tower of Memory, the Player Characters have to race across a rope bridge high above the forest floor, the missing slats of the rope bridge hidden by illusion, harassed by a Pixie knight and a Drunken Sprite Swarm; on the way the Tower of Dreams in the Darkwood, an ambush involves a Player Character being dragging back and forth behind an enraged wild boar and then back again after confronting equally enraged Owlbears, the whole encounter threatening to collapse into chaos; and a surprisingly creepy encounter in the Tower of Fate in the Lightwood in a cave of birthing pools left over from the Elves’ first creation of the Orcs a very long time ago, that should really resonate with any Half-Orc Player Character or Player Character with Icon Relationships with the Orc. The final encounter atop each tower always includes facing agents of one or more of the other Icons and there are stats and suggestions on how to tailor the forces of each Icon to each encounter. This allows the wider involvement of the Player Characters’ Icon Relationships, including both those with Icons who oppose the Elf Queen and those who might have interest in limiting or disrupting her power and influence.

Not all of the encounters in Elven Towers involve combat, though most of them do or will result in combat. Answering riddles or sharing secrets are a common feature, and is making trades. The sharing of secrets involves a roleplaying upon the part of the players, whilst riddles some deductive reasoning, though rules are given for skill checks and rolling dice for those players adverse to riddles. Trades will often see the Player Characters give up minor magical items, Revives, even Icon Relationship rolls—temporally!—and more. All of the encounters include advice on staging them and if necessarily, scaling them up to make a tougher battle.

Finally, the Player Characters will return to the Court of Stars with the three Keys—or not. The Player Characters may not necessarily gain all three Keys to Liris’ vault and the fewer Keys they have, the more difficult and dangerous the ritual that Elf Queen has to perform, becomes. The Player Characters get invited to a big party before the ritual to celebrate their success in obtaining the Keys and an even bigger party if the ritual is a success. The Player Characters are, of course, invited—or is that expected?—to help defend the ritual, which leads to a big boss, end of adventure-level fight. There is scope here too, for the Player Characters to betray the Elf Queen, if that is what their Icon Relationships demand. How that plays out is down to the Game Master, but if the betrayal succeeds, or the ritual as a whole fails, there could actually be a change in one of the Icons! However, if the ritual succeeds, there are rewards aplenty, including powerful magical items, the Elf Queen’s favour—which mostly means she will use them as her agents again, no matter what their Icon Relationships are, and even gaining or improving an Icon Relationship with the Elf Queen.

Physically, Elven Towers is well presented. The artwork is excellent and individual encounters are all easy to use and reference. However, some of the maps are a little dark and murky; the text requires a slight edit in places (one monster inflicts over three hundred points of damage, when it should be just over thirty); and an index would have helped. There are lists with page numbers for all of the monsters.

Elven Towers is an adventure that the Game Master will want to run if she has an Elf amongst her Player Characters or a Player Character with a strong Icon Relationship with the Elf Queen. The adventure is harder to run without either of these, but once involved in the adventure, Elven Towers is an entertaining, often exciting affair, with plenty of opportunities for roleplaying alongside the big, sometimes bigger, fights. Elven Towersis a grand quest in traditional fantasy and fantasy roleplaying style, well designed and executed with plenty of variation that reveals some of the secrets and nature of the Elf Queen and her realm.

—oOo—

Pelgrane Press will be at UK Games Expo

from Friday 2nd to Sunday 4th, 2023.

Broken and Brilliant

Redfield Valley is so utterly bucolic and idyllic that there is almost no reason for anyone to go there. Unless of course, you grew up there or you have recently come into property there or you are returning the ashes of a friend to his home there or a fugitive you are hunting for is said to have taken refuge there or you are investigating rumours that the valley might actually be full of treasure or… Or whatever the reason, you and your fellow Player Characters are visiting Redfield Valley, best known for its rich, red soil, Vakefort—the dullest outpost in the Imperial Army, and that is it. Redfield Valley really is nothing to write home about. Oh perhaps after visiting the villages of Crownhill and Appleton, the inhabitants might come to you with some help dealing with some Goblins who have kidnapped several of the locals, but that is about as much excitement as you would expect to find in Redfield Valley…

And then KABOOM! And fazacck! And fire and really sharp, eye-stinging glitter (not kidding) and… the sky falls on Redfield Valley.

Now, the green, bucolic landscape of Redfield Valley has been turned into a blood red mud churned hellhole, littered with debris that crackles with strange energy from a city, whilst the Old Tusk promontory to the south is a steaming caldera, towers lie on their side, cracked and open, roads in the sky appear to climb to nowhere, and a dungeon appears to spiral into the sky. None of this was there before the fall… What has happened in Redfield Valley? Who unleashed the devastation and what secrets will it reveal?

This is the set-up for Shards of the Broken Sky, a campaign for 13th Age, the roleplaying game from Pelgrane Press which combines the best elements of both Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition and Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition to give high action combat, strong narrative ties, and exciting play. Designed to take Player Characters from First Level to Seventh Level, it is a sandbox campaign set in 13th Age’s Dragon Empire. It supports different motivations and play styles, is designed to support Player Character relationships to the setting, and which really could be played more than once—though with different Player Characters—and each time their motivations would make the campaign very different in tone and flavour. It is also both brilliant and broken.

What is going on in Shards of the Broken Sky—and this explanation is clearer and more straightforward than any given in the book, and something that the authors should have led with, but failed to do so—is that Redfield Valley hides an incredible secret. It is actually the cover for an ancient prison and repository for all of the ancient secrets and dangers that Dragon Empire—and in particular the Emperor and the Archmage do not want anyone to know about or to get hold of. In Ages past, the Archmage hid these secrets behind wards which prevented access to them and built Vantage, a flying city-fortress-prison, to monitor, control, and protect the wards. Neither the wards, Vantage, or the roads that led up to it could be seen from the ground unless you had permission and knew the way. Now, something or someone has caused Vantage to come crashing down to earth, depositing an apocalypse upon Redfield Valley, causing death and devastation, weakening the wards it was built to maintain, and over the course of Shards of the Broken Sky, failing and so unleashing and revealing all of the secrets and threats Vantage was intended to hide.

Over the course of the campaign, the Player Characters will constantly find themselves delving into dungeons that are not dungeons and dungeons that are not dungeons which play with perspective and geometry and time. They are almost bookended by a pair of tombs, one full of traps inspired by Grimtooth’s Book of Traps, the other full of the deadliest of traps that the Old School Renaissance has to offer, and which would ordinarily never ever otherwise appear in an adventure for 13th Age, but also include an Area 51-like bunker which served as a repository of magic; the Shattered Spine, a wizard’s tower fallen and broken on its side; a valley of dinosaurs, all ready for the Orcs to raid and die in order to grab the gargantuan beasts as mounts; Magaheim, a golden city suspended over a volcano inhabited by demons and Dwarfs and their offspring, where the Game Master can play all of the noir storylines amongst its corruption and bureaucracy; the Winding Gyre, a floating maze which spirals into the sky and will see the Player Characters leaping up and down from one lump of rubble to ruin, again and again; and a living dungeon where the Oozes which may not be what they seem.

There are amongst them some incredibly inventive scenes. They include the Corpse of Kroon, dead and falling, but frozen in time, which the Player Characters can scale again and again in order to steal the magical items he implanted in his body; a wizard’s sanctum frozen at the moment of its destruction, its fixtures and features flung into the air around which the Player Characters must manoeuvre to fight; and a warded and party-frozen battlefield with the feel of the trenches of the Great War. All of this is fantastic and it is where Shards of the Broken Sky shines—and shines brilliantly. Not just because of these scenes and the inventiveness of these dungeons, but also because the campaign can be played in different ways. It is a mystery in which the Player Characters investigate dungeon after dungeon to determine who attacked Vantage and brought it down on Redfield Valley? Is it a heroic rescue mission in the Player Characters work to save the inhabitants of Redfield Valley and prevent the dangers warded by Vantage being unleashed upon the wider Dragon Empire? It is a campaign of survival horror, in which the Player Characters must survive and fight the dangers unleashed by the fall of Vantage? Is it a classic heist, in which the Player Characters raid the aftermath of the fall of Vantage for loot and glory? Is the new landscape of Redfield Valley simply somewhere to explore and delve into its newly revealed secrets? Shards of the Broken Sky can be played as any one of those or even combined.

However, to get to this brilliance, it takes a lot of effort upon the part of the Game Master—and that is where Shards of the Broken Sky is broken. And intentionally so. As a campaign, it is not just a sandbox, but a toolkit which the Game Master has to take the parts of and put together, taking dungeon after dungeon and encounter after encounter, and plugging them into the character Levels which the Player Characters are at. Shards of the Broken Sky provides numerous dungeons and encounters with which to do that. The Game Master also needs to work hard in order to bring Player Character motivations into play. This will primarily be done through their relationships with the thirteen Icons of the Dragon Empire—the Archmage, the Crusader, the Diabolist, the Dwarf King, the Elf Queen, the Emperor, the Great Gold Wyrm, the High Druid, the Lich King, the Orc Lord, the Priestess, the Prince of Shadows, and the ancient evil Dragons known as the Three—each of which has their own reasons for taking an interesting in Redfield Valley and the fall of Vantage. To support that, Shards of the Broken Sky provides adversary group after adversary group for the various factions and Icons with an interest in the remnants of Vantage, which the Game Master can plug into the campaign depending upon which the Icons the Player Characters have relationships with and which may or may not have been responsible for what has happened. Primarily these will appear as random encounters which the Game Master will work into the dungeons throughout the campaign, with the forces of the various Icons often appearing and working against the efforts of the Player Characters. These random encounters are in addition to the various monsters and encounters given for each location, as well as the Tension tables for each dungeon which ramp up the pressure on the Player Characters as they delve deeper—or even sometimes higher—into the dungeon.

As well as providing numerous adversary groups, Shards of the Broken Sky includes new monsters, new Icon-specific monster abilities to customise agents of the Prince of Shadows, new treasures, and new optional Player Character Races. The latter includes the Lava Dwarves, who can deliver a blistering heat at attack once per battle; Oozefolk, whose melee attacks do acidic damage when they are Staggered and whose touch might be acidic—an interesting defence if swallowed; and the Ophidians, legless, four-armed serpent folk with poison fangs. All make an appearance in the campaign as NPCs, and could then appear as replacement Player Characters or in the ongoing campaign once Shards of the Broken Sky has been completed. The new magical items include fading items whose power drain away from one scene to the next and various items derived from the crystals that were built into the walls of Vantage, whilst the monsters range from Pie Mimics and Kroon’s Foot Lice to Wicker Golems and Rainbow Puddings!

To fully run Shards of the Broken Sky, will need more than a few books. Not just the core 13th Age rules and 13 True Ways, but also the 13th Age Bestiary and 13th Age Bestiary 2 and the Book of Loot and Book of Loot 2. Other books, such as The Crown Commands, Fire and Faith, and High Magic & Low Cunning will be useful, but are likely optional. The excellent Book of Ages may be useful as a reference in certain dungeons of the campaign.

Physically, is in general well-presented. It needs an edit in places, and whilst relatively lightly illustrated, there is some great artwork throughout. However, of the maps that there are, many are too dark to read with ease, whilst others are comprised of icons that indicate the relationship and links between various locations. These are not often easy to read. Enjoyably throughout though are the authors’ advice and playtest feedback which provide a commentary throughout. That said, the authors could have been more upfront about the plot to the campaign and what is going on, rather than leaving it for the Game Master to discover as she reads through the book. Lastly, Shards of the Broken Sky is not actually an easy read, but that is due to it being written as a toolkit rather than as a linear dungeon which would be the case with almost any other mega-dungeon or campaign for the fantasy roleplaying game of your choice.

Anyone going into Shards of the Broken Sky expecting a more traditional, even linear campaign, even as a sandbox, is likely to be disappointed. It is simply not built that way, and in comparison to such a campaign, Shards of the Broken Sky is broken. However, Shards of the Broken Sky is designed in that way by intent because it is a toolkit, a book of parts—each of which could be extracted from the book and used on their own in a Game Master’s own campaign—that are designed to be used by the Game Master to build around her Player Characters and their Icon relationships to create her own version of the campaign. Which of course does more work upon the part of the Game Master, but if done right will make the campaign more personal to the Player Characters. Neither the Game Master nor her players are going to be able to put the Shards of the Broken Sky back together, but they are going to be able to take its brilliant brokenness and build a great campaign together.

A Treasure's Treasury Trove

The first point to be made about the Book of Loot is that it is a dull read. The second point to be made is that it is not a dull book. The distinction needs to be made because it is not written to be read from end to end, which is the dull way to read it, but rather referred to and dipped into for ideas and inspiration—and those ideas and inspiration are anything other than dull! In fact, the ideas and inspiration to be found in the Book of Loot are not only great, but they have the potential to be great fun.

The Book of Loot is a supplement for 13th Age, the dramatic Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG published by Pelgrane Press. It presents a hoard or thirteen’s worth of treasures, each individual item linked to one of the thirteen Icons, the archetypal gods and major NPCs, in the game’s default setting of the Dragon Empire. The items are further categorised into further fourteen types with one, two, or more entries for each type. The types are in turn Armour, Robe, Shirt, and Tunic; Arrow, Crossbow Bolt, and Sling; Belt, Swordbelt, Kilt, and Girdle; Book, Scroll, Tome, and Grimoire; Boots, Shoes, and Slippers; Cloak, Mantle, and Cape; Glove, Gauntlet, and Mitt; Helmet, Circlet, Crown, and Cap; Necklace and Pendant; Ring; Staff; Wand; Weapon; and Wondrous Item. What this means, with thirteen Icons and fourteen types, is that the Book of Loot describes at least one-hundred-and-eighty-two items of treasure—and the true figure is closer to two hundred!

The Book of Loot is neatly organised with chapters devoted to each of the thirteen Icons and then each detailing the various items under each of the fourteen types. Each chapter opens with a description of where items related to the Icon might come from and what they form they might take. So for example, those items related to the Elf Queen tend to be either well made, if ordinary looking, or simply beautiful works of art, whilst those of the Archmage can be showy, whimsical, devastating, or all three, since they serve to showcase his power to both his allies and his enemies. Then it proceeds through the types, one by one, giving in many items that can in varying forms. For example, under the ‘Armour, Robe, Shirt, and Tunic’ type for the Dwarf King two items are described, ‘Solidity’ and ‘Thrice-Forged’. So these might be ‘Armour of Solidity’, ‘Robe of Solidity’, ‘Thrice-Forged Shirt’, and ‘Thrice-Forged Tunic’. What this means that in a very many great instances, the actual form that a magical item comes in is not important and that a wider array of Character Classes will be able to make use of them. Rounding out each of the chapters is a trio of adventure hooks, each involving a magic item, for a total of thirty-nine, plus another six involving magical items in a more generic sense, for a total of forty-five in the supplement.

Each magic item is accorded a paragraph or two, each comes with a quirk, and many are written with a sense of humour. For example, “Swift Shot: Once per battle, if you’ve got elven grace, and you get an extra action, and you use that standard action to make a ranged attack with this ammo, then the size of the die rolled to determine whether or not your elven grace triggers doesn’t increase. If you’re not playing a wood archer, your eyes probably glazed over two clauses back.” Of the quirks, the ‘Armour of Darkness’, tied to the Prince of Darkness and which grants an Armour Class bonus in darkness (at night, underground, or indoors), but a penalty in sunlight or bright light, also leaves the wearer finding bright light painful, increasingly pale skin, and sadly, allergic to garlic; the Emperor’s Spellbreaking Ring, a chunky affair that enables a user to use an opportunity attack triggered by a spell to counter the actual spell, but the wearer no longer respects personal space; and The Three’s Weapon of Feinting gives the wielder an Armour Class bonus if he misses an attack, but makes him blurt out lies when put under pressure. In this way not only does each magical item give a player one or more powerful abilities, they also alter his character’s behaviour and so give the player role-playing challenges.

Topping and tailing these thirteen chapters is the book’s introduction and a chapter on Treasure Troves. The former sets out what the Book of Loot is for and how it works, but notably it panders to the 13th Age’s love with a set of lists. So you have lists of ‘Items that Demand a Story’, ‘Relentlessly Practical Items’, ‘Unforgivable Puns’, and more. The latter explores what else might be found in a treasure trove beyond magical items—coins, gems, jewels, and actual treasures. This nicely ables the GM to design interesting hoards for his players to loot. Rounding out the supplement is set of tables that addresses a problem in the Book of Loot—finding anything. As everything in the supplement is organised by Icon rather than type, finding anything by type is a bit more awkward than normal. So a set of tables for each type of magical item lists everything in the previous pages, as well as summarising each item’s power, tier in the game—Adventurer, Champion, or Epic, Icon, and of course, page number. So the tables work as a set of indices too.

Physically, the Book of Loot is far from perfect. It needs another edit in places and the layout is scruffy in others. Over all, in places it does feel a bit rushed. The book is lightly illustrated, but all of the illustrations nicely capture the feel of one magical item or another. Nevertheless, the book is well written and it is clear that the author had fun writing it.

As much as the Book of Loot is a chore to read from start to finish, each individual entry is actually a pleasure to read because it is invariably clever and interesting and does so much more than your run of the mill +2 Sword of Giant Slaying or Ring of Invisibility. Arguably this is one of the most inventive and interesting hoard of magical items ever to grace a d20 System supplement and it almost deserves to be on the shelf of any GM or Dungeon Master who creates his own adventures and dungeons. The only reason why it should not be is that a great many of the items in the Book of Loot are more complex than those typically found in Dungeons & Dragons because they have to take account of the greater complexity, often dramatic complexity, such as the relationships between each player character and the Icons, to be found in the 13th Age. That said, there is nothing to stop the DM from adjusting any of the items in the Book of Loot to suit the mechanics of his choice.

The Book of Loot is quite possibly one of the best treasure books ever written for Dungeons & Dragons—it is unsurprisingly, the best ever treasure book written for use the 13th Age RPG. Inventive, fun, and full of clever creations, the Book of Loot is an excellent addition to the 13th Age line and a hoard of treasures worth looting for just about fantasy RPG.

The 13th Age's Companion

Back in August, 2013, I wrote a review entitled ‘What killed Dungeons & Dragons?’. It was a review of 13th Age, Pelgrane Press’ freewheeling redesign of Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying with a focus on action and storytelling. The title of the review proved somewhat controversial, but it was chosen to make a point—that the game changed the way in which Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying is played, more so given that since the publication Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition in 2008, the emphasis had been wholly on the action at the expense of any other style of play. Almost two years later and there is a new version of Dungeons & Dragons available, inarguably a better one, one that focuses on roleplaying as well as the action. Even better,  Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition included an actual roleplaying mechanic, and that too, changed how Dungeons & Dragons is played. The point was—and is—that both games made us rethink the standard roleplaying style that has been with us for some four decades.

13th Age is now supported by several supplements, of which 13 True Ways is the second. Funded via Kickstarter, 13 True Ways is a bit of a miscellany of new things for 13th Age that includes six new Classes and new Class rules, descriptions of the Cities and Courts of the 13th Age, a bestiary of new monsters, an examination of devils of 13th Age, and lastly, a chapter of bits and pieces. Not possessing the focus of the 13th Age Bestiary, this then is a companion volume with support for both the players and the GM.

Diving straight in, 13 True Ways gives updated rules for summoning—useful for both the Ranger and the Druid as well as several other Classes—before presenting six new Classes, the Chaos Mage, the Commander, the Druid, the Monk, the Necromancer, and the Occultist. The first of these, the Chaos Mage brings an arch-randomness to spellcasting. Each time a Chaos Mage tries to cast a spell, he initially does not know actually what spell he is going to cast only its type—attack, defense, or Iconic. Ideally the type is determined the round before by drawing stones from a bag, with Iconic spells be rolled for to determine which Icon they are related to. Talents enable a Chaos Mage to use spells from other Classes and grant extra random effects through Warp Talents, whilst the Chaos Mage’s ‘High Weirdness’ can be unleashed on himself, his allies, or the enemy, and the effect may not always be beneficial. This is the very opposite of the Commander which enters battle to earn Command Points which are spent to issue Commands to the other player characters, enabling them to move, rally, reroll attacks, attack an enemy together, and so on. In addition, the Commander can use Tactics that work as quick or interrupt actions that typically grant another character more attacks.  More straightforward than the Chaos Mage, the Commander gives other characters the chance to more effective, but does require that a player keep an eye on the whole of any battlefield.

Where the Commander was straightforward, the Druid is a complex Class that has to encompass a lot of options. Essentially, a player designs the type of Druid he wants to play by selecting a Talent from a set of six—Animal Companion, Elemental Caster, Shifter, Terrain Caster, Warrior Druid, and Wild Healer. He could pick three of these and be an Initiate in all three, but he could instead pick two of them, becoming an Initiate in one, and by picking the same Talent twice, becoming an Adept in a second. Adepts are more powerful than Initiates. For example, an Animal Companion Initiate can only call his companion every other battle, but an Adept gets a companion that he can cast spells on and enhance. Every Druid has some features in common—being able to talk to plants and wilderness survival, and so on—but what this means that no Druid is likely to be the same as another and it means that a player can customise his Druid to fit his conception of the Class. The Monk is also similarly complex, bringing flavour and feel to unarmed combat as well as making it effective. The Class’ core concept is that whether armed or unarmed, a Monk uses forms in combat that consist of an opening attack, a flow attack, and a finishing attack. So a Monk can follow the Claws of the Panther form from start to finish, but should he know other forms, he can freely switch between as the situation dictates. So for example, a Wizard has been set upon by a pair of orcs and his Monk comes to his aid by using  ‘One must be Free’ from the ‘Dutiful Guardian’ forms as his opening attack to deliver a jab and help his ally—the Wizard—disengage from one of the orcs, then switches to to the ‘Cats cut between Hounds’ flow attack from the ‘Claws from the Panther’ form in order to punch both orcs, before ending with the ‘General slays the Hordes’ finishing attack from the ‘Way of the Metallic Dragon’ form to deliver a kick to one target and a punch to another. The Monk can back these attacks up with Ki points, spent either to adjust attack rolls or activate Ki powers such as ‘Leaf on Wind’ to gain flight for a turn or ‘Diamond Focus’ to gain a save against being dazed, stunned, or weakened. Clearly the Monk has been designed to emulate the Wuxia style, which may not necessarily quite fit the setting of the 13th Age. Fortunately some notes are included to help the Gamemaster decide the role of the Monk in  his game.

In Dungeons & Dragons, the Necromancer has never really worked as a playable Class, but the version presented in 13 True Ways certainly is and it can be so because 13th Age eschews the binary absolutes of Dungeons & Dragons’ Alignment system. Having been replaced by a character’s relationships with the Icons of the setting and to an extent by a character’s One Unique Thing, the how and why of a character Necromancer becomes a story in itself, though of course, every Necromancer has some kind of relationship with the Lich King. Further every Necromancer is wasting away, so here the Necromancer with a positive Constitution modifier has that as a penalty against his casting spells, whilst a negative Constitution modifier has the potential to act as a bonus. A Necromancer’s Talents are delightfully thematic, such as ‘Cackling Soliloquist’ that grants an extra benefit to a daily spell and the chance of a recharge to that spell if the Necromancer spends extra time maniacally cackling and soliloquising about his plans and the weakness of his enemies; kill and suck the life force from enemy  to heal with ‘Deathknell’; or summon undead to fight for him, but release their spirits afterwards in a burst of holy energy with ‘Redeemer’. A Necromancer can also have his own skeleton minion and comes with a selection of spells to summon the undead. As written the Necromancer makes a great NPC villain, but at the same time there are options that shift it away from the archetypal skeletal summoner and the story of a Necromancer's redemption—whether as player character or NPC—has the potential to be interesting, if not great, in the telling. The last of the six Classes in 13 True Ways is the Occultist, a very singular Class in that there can only be one in the 13th Age, which of course be addressed by the character’s One Unique Thing. As a spellcaster, the Occultist peers through reality to warp to the benefit of his allies and the detriment of enemies. For example, an Occultist with the ‘Otherworld Shadow’ Talent has a shadow self that will take the damage and effects from an enemy once per day, whilst the ‘Icon Envoy’ Talent lets him set one of his ally’s relationship dice and so gain the benefit from it. The Occultist is the least straightforward Class in 13 True Ways, being slightly off centre and arguably not immediately obvious as to what it can do. Definitely a Class for the experienced player.

If the Druid and Monk were missed by their absence from 13th Age, then equally as missed were rules for Multiclassing, but 13 True Ways addresses this by essentially offering an option for dual-classing. Simply combining one Class with another would make a very powerful character, so instead 13 True Ways goes for a diversity rather than potency in terms of abilities by a making multiclassing character effectively one Level lower than his actual Level. For example, a Second Level Ranger/Druid would have the powers and abilities of a First Level Ranger and the powers and abilities of a First Level Druid. In addition, a multiclassing character will also have a reduced Armour Class, reduced Hit Points, and so on. Further, what this means is that a First Level multiclassing character is sort of between Zero-Level and First Level character, though not necessarily a weak one. Still, plenty of combinations present themselves with these rules. Monk/Fighter or Monk/Rogue for even more wuxia or ninja-style action, a Paladin/Necromancer seeking redemption, the Barbarian/Commander at the head of a horde, and so on. Plus the 13 True Ways also discusses how each of the game’s Classes works for Multiclassing, which should spur further character concepts and ideas.

Almost half of the book is taken up by the new Classes, but there is still plenty for the DM to get his teeth into, starting with detailed descriptions of five of the ‘Cities & Courts’ of the 13th Age—Axis, the Court of Stars, Drakkenhall, Horizon, and Santa Cora. Much of the description given is not set in stone, presenting the Gamemaster with plenty of choices, and this is in addition to the thirteen rumours for each location. Of the five, Horizon—home to the Arch Mage and high, high magic, and Drakkenhall—the domain of the Blue Dragon and a city of ‘orderly-ish’ monsters receive the most attention, detailing how each of the Icons is connected to the two cities and how the adventurers can become involved when they roll for their Icon influence from one session to the next. All five of these locations are nicely done, full of ideas and details that the DM can add to his campaign to bring it to life.

The monsters in 13 True Ways are a mix of the old—Cloud Giants, Metallic Dragons, Gnolls, Mummies, and so on, and the new—Bat Demons or ‘squishies’ that mob single targets, the tentacular Soul Flensers that steal powers from its targets, and the Flowers of Unlife that never seem to die. Like any Dungeons & Dragons-style game, more monsters are always welcome and these are useful additions, but like the 13th Age core rules, many of these creature are underwritten in terms of description and background. Others though, get fuller treatment elsewhere in 13 True Ways. So the nature of the Devils described in the bestiary gets a full description in a chapter of its own, the powers of many Devils revolving around an ability called ‘Devil’s Due’. This forces a player character to make a choice when attacking a Devil: does he take the bonus granted from the Escalation Die when he rolls to hit or not? If he does, there are dues to be paid, all negative and  all different from one Devil type to another. For example, using the Escalation Die against an Ice Devil causes an adventurer to be stuck, whilst that of a Horned Devil causes him to be weakened. The origins, purpose, and hierarchy of Deviltry is discussed in its own chapter and there is not one answer, but twenty-nine. Unsurprisingly, thirteen of these are tied into the Icons, the others being Icon neutral. With so many options available there is potential here to add Devils to one campaign with an option or two and still come back to them in a wholly separate or different campaign.

13 True Ways is rounded out with its own miscellany, the ‘Gamemasters’ Grimoire’. There are artefacts whose abilities are unlocked the longer they are worn or wielded and magic items—the cursed items being perhaps the most interesting here, plus thirteen dungeons and ruins, thirteen flying realms, and thirteen taverns and inns. Not all of the locations are immediately useful, the dungeons and flying realms most likely requiring development, but the taverns and inns are of course, easy to drop into a game. There are also three monastic tournaments, specifically for use with the Monk Class, and lastly a set of six entries provided by Kickstarter backers of 13 True Ways. These include four NPCs described in detail that are designed to be scaled to the player characters, as contacts, allies, rivals, or even enemies. To that end, each of the four will need stats created by the Gamemaster,  but the four are each accompanied by a set of thirteen facts about each NPC, which of course, may or may not be true. The fifth and sixth entries are descriptions of two living dungeons—Underkrakens and the Wild Garden. Both are home to creatures described in the Monsters chapter, the Soul Flensers in Underkrakens and the Flowers of Unlife in the Wild Garden. Underkrakens might be city-sized creatures, vehicles, or colonies from beyond and learning what might have dark consequences for the soul of too inquisitive an adventurer. Call of Cthulhu is a direct nod here with rules for Terrible Enlightenment that send a 13th Age campaign into the horror genre. Where Underkrakens is mostly an unknown, the Wild Garden is more of a known quantity, a sunlit temple that was assaulted by the forces of the Lich King, but fell into the hands of a recently undead druid. The description of the Wild Garden is much of that of a dungeon write-up, but both of these living dungeons will need much more development upon the part of the Gamemaster. They are intriguing, but not quite fully formed.

Physically, 13 True Ways is a lovely looking hardback. The artwork is all good quality and the writing is engaging, full of detail and flavour that the Gamemaster can bring to his game.  Like the core rules, it comes with a good index and glossary. It is difficult to really find fault with the supplement, but there are perhaps two. One would be the underwritten monster descriptions which are disappointing after the fulsome write-ups given in the 13th Age Bestiary. The other is the difficulty of the new Classes. Now assuredly, they are the highlight of 13 True Ways—well, five of the six anyway. Two of these—the Druid and the Monk—seemed oddly absent from 13th Age, so their inclusion is more than welcome. These new Classes may well not be suited for all, the randomness of the Chaos Mage may be annoying to other players; the Commander has to keep an eye on his fellow player characters to be truly effective rather; and a group may not want the Necromancer as one of their number because anyone who summons the undead must be ‘evil’; and well, as to the sixth, the Occultist is just odd and unlikely to work in the hands of very player. They are undoubtedly as much complex and as they are flavoursome and are in a way, ‘advanced’ Classes that will fare better in the hands of the more experienced player and with a more experienced Gamemaster.

So, five good, new Classes. Setting descriptions and options. New monsters and over a dozen options for one new monster type. Magic items, artefacts, dungeons, and more. 13 True Ways packs an awful lot of new material into its pages. Whilst the new Classes are its highlight, the material for the Gamemaster is almost as good if not all of it is actually true—until the Gamemaster chooses an option or two and makes it true.

What killed Dungeons & Dragons?

It is difficult to approach 13th Age without a sense of hyperbole. In effect, Rob Heinsoo and Jonathon Tweet, respectively the designers of Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition and Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition have backstabbed their respective editions of Dungeons & Dragons, taken the corpses of both and revivified the choicest cuts with action and drama. Where Dungeons & Dragons – and most variants and retro-clones – are perhaps a little staid in their play style, 13th Age is a d20 System variant is written to be anything but that… It employs streamlined mechanics and choices in play to speed the play of the game and it employs mechanics that actively work to engage the player characters in both the setting and the story. In effect it takes the war game simulation origins of Dungeons & Dragons and sacrifices them on the altar of dramatic action and storytelling. Although it very much has the underlying architecture and many of the elements of the archetypal Dungeons & Dragons game, 13th Age is what would have happened if Dungeons & Dragons got its arse handed to itself by Feng Shui and its corpse was stamped on by Dungeon World. 

Hyperbole aside, 13th Age is a Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG unlike anything that that ‘style’ in gaming has ever seen. What it brings to Dungeons & Dragons are contemporary mechanics that encourage storytelling as part of the game’s play that combine the best features of the last two official versions of Dungeons & Dragons – and it does this before we have the next official version, D&D Next. Published by Pelgrane Press, better known for its GUMSHOE System family of games, including Trail of Cthulhu, Ashen Stars, and Night’s Black Agents, 13th Age just might be everyone’s next fantasy heartbreaker.

At the heart of 13th Age are three core elements that change Dungeons & Dragons as we know it – Icons, “One Unique Thing”, and Backgrounds. The setting does not have gods as such, but thirteen Icons, each a being or personality that shapes part of world. They drive and direct the events of the world, and include the Archmage, the Crusader, the Diabolist, the Dwarf King, the Elf Queen, the Emperor, the Great Gold Wyrm, the High Druid, the Lich King, the Orc Lord, the Priestess, the Prince of Shadows, and the Three – the latter being ancient evil Dragons. In another setting they might be Sauron or Vecna, Elminster or Gandalf, Conan or Drizz’t Do’urden, Orcus or Tiamat, and so on, but either way, each player character has relationship with one, two, or three of the Icons. Each relationship can be Positive, Conflicted, or Negative depending upon how many points are assigned to it and will further vary depending upon if the Icon’s nature is Heroic, Ambiguous, or Villainous. Before each session each player will roll for his Icon relationships to see if one or more will somehow influence the events of the forthcoming session. As a player character progresses from First Level up to the maximum of Tenth Level, the strength of his Icon relationships will also grow, whether becoming an Icon’s champion, enemy, and so on, or indeed as is inferred by 13th Age, eventually supplanting the Icon. The question is, would such a change inaugurate the 14th Age?

One further influence that the Icons have on any setting is that they replace the Dungeons & Dragons sacred cow that is Alignment. Without the presence of Alignment in the game, 13th Age has no need for player characters to select it or to have spells that work with it, such as Detect Evil or Protection from Good. Whether or not an Icon or an NPC is ‘Lawful Good’ or ‘Chaotic Evil’ is down to the story that the GM and his players are gaming. Of course it will be obvious that the Great Gold Wyrm is good, that the Diabolist is evil, and so on, but when it comes to the Ambiguous Icons, such as the Crusader, the Dwarf King, the Elf Queen, the High Druid, and the Prince of Shadows as well as occasionally the Emperor and the Three, there is more flexibility in their attitudes and actions. Thus there is also a greater flexibility to telling stories where they are involved. (Of course, the GM and his players are free to re-adopt Dungeons & Dragons’ Alignment system if they want, and it should be noted that 13th Age actually places all of the Icons on an Alignment diagram for such an eventuality.)

Every player character has One Unique Thing, an aspect of his origins or personality that singles him out in the 13th Age. No other character will possess this aspect, and whilst it cannot confer a mechanical benefit of any kind, including a combat benefit, it serves as one big fat story hook for the GM to play with and give that character his moment in the spotlight. For example, “I hear the Music of the Spheres and sometimes it guides my song” or “My true father was not a blacksmith, but the Prince of Shadows who never stayed to raise me.”

13th Age forgoes traditional skills in favour of Backgrounds. Each Background is essentially a flexible package of skills represented by single catch all phrase or word. How each Background works or can be applied in each situation is determined by the agreement of both player and GM. For example, ‘Lady of the Emperor’s Court +4’ would indicate a person with an understanding of etiquette, a head for court politics and intrigues, and who possesses a certain status. Whereas ‘Bounty Hunter +5’ would be able to investigate where his target is, interrogate suspects, track his target, and so on.

Of course, the Icons, the One Unique Things, and the Backgrounds are not the only changes in 13th Age when compared to Dungeons & Dragons, but these changes escalate aspects of the game and how it is played. They lie at the heart of characters in 13th Age. The game gives nine familiar choices for a character’s Race – Dwarves, Dark Elves, High Elves, Wood Elves, Gnomes, Half-Elves, Half-Orcs, Halflings, and Humans plus some further options if the GM wants to add them to his world. Each Race provides a bonus to one of two characteristics – the player’s choice, though the bonus cannot stack with the one gained from his chosen Class – and a Racial Power that a character can use once per battle. For example, a Dwarf has the choice of +2 Con or Wis and receives the Racial Power of ‘That’s Your Best Shot?’ which lets him heal as a Recovery free once per battle.

Similarly, the choice of Classes available will be familiar, but each is different to the familiarity of Dungeons & Dragons. The differences are given up front in a Play Style section for each Class which describes how easy it is to play, who it would appeal to, and so on. Certain elements of each Class are optimised – Armour Class and choice of armour and weapons and choice of weapons for example. Thus the Rogue can wear any armour, but wearing heavy armour or wielding a shield imposes an attack penalty. His optimal choice of Armour is Light which gives him a base Armour Class of 12. The Rogue can use any weapon, but with Martial or Heavy weapons he again accrues an Attack Penalty, so small, light, or simple are a better option. What is interesting is that weapon damage is determined by how well the Class can use it, so that the Rogue is as deadly with his knives or his shortsword as a Fighter is with his longsword. In effect this is dramatic damage rather than simulationist and this only escalates because a character gets a damage die per Level. So a Third Level Rogue would roll not 1d8 for his knife attack damage, but 3d8! 

Every Class has its selection of Powers and Talents, many of which a player can enhance though his choice of Feats. Both Talents and their accompanying Feats come in three levels – Adventurer, Champion, and Epic – and barring the general Feats, every Feat serves to enhance one of a character’s Powers or Talents. The selection of Powers and Talents available varies in number and complexity from one Class to the next and 13th Age is again quite open about which Classes are more complex than others, from the simple Barbarian and Paladin Classes to the complex Bard and Wizard Classes. At the heart of each Class is a singular feature that only members of that Class can do in 13th Age. For example, the Barbarian can Rage once per day – more if certain Feats are selected – allowing him to roll two twenty-sided dice in combat and if both roll eleven plus and hit, then the attack is a Critical, while the Paladin can ‘Smite Evil’ several times a day to add more damage. In comparison, the Bard sings magical Songs that have initial effects, continuing effects, and a final effect when the song ends. For example, the Song of Spilt Blood levies a penalty against a Bard’s attackers equal to the number of his allies with greater Hit Points than the Bard when first sung and sustained, and then grants the Bard or an ally a heal using a Recovery when it is ended. The Wizard can of course cast arcane spells, whether that is Cantrips, Cyclic spells that can be cast from one battle to the next, and Ritual spells that can take hours to cast, but have a greater effect. The complexity of the Class comes in knowing when to cast what spell and in taking the right Talents and Feats to customise the Wizard according to the player’s design.

Of the other Classes, the Cleric possesses Domains and can modify some of his spells for broad or power effect and the Fighter can use flexible attacks called Manoeuvres that are triggered under certain circumstances, the player selecting which one to be triggered. The Ranger focuses on Talents that might for example make him a better archer, an expert tracker, or give him an Animal Companion, whilst the Rogue has a Sneak Attack and Trap Sense as well as Momentum, which is gained and lost in battle and then spent to fuel the Class’ Powers. Lastly the Sorcerer gets spells, but can also re-use Breath Weapon spells over the course of a battle, chain spells to attack multiple opponents from round to round, and can Gather Power to cast double-strength spells, amongst other Powers. At first it might seem that in creating a character has a lack of choice when it comes to the selection of Talents and Powers, but 13th Age does not so much restrict a player’s choice as focus it, enabling a player to better define the character that he wants and what he wants his character to do.

Our sample player character is a Dwarf and a Barbarian – the simplest of the Classes available in 13th Age. In keeping with that simplicity, his Backgrounds and his One Unique Thing pretty much define Fandor whilst leaving room for further detail to come up in play. Plus whatever the GM comes up with…

Fangor
Dwarf; First Level Barbarian
Str 18  (+4) Dex 15 (+2) Con 17 (+3)
Int 12 (+1) Wis 08 (-1) Chr 13 (+1)

Hit Points: 30 Armour Class: 15 (Ankheg Hide)
Physical Defence: 14 Mental Defence: 12
Recovery Die: d10 Recoveries: 8
Initiative Modifier: +3
Melee Attack: +5 (Orc F’ckin’ Kleaver 1d10+4 damage)
Ranged Attack: +3 (Orc Bone Bow 1d8+2 damage)
Feats: Barbarian Rage (Adventurer), That’s Your Best Shot?
Talents: Building Frenzy, Unstoppable, Whirlwind

Icon Relationships: The Dwarf King (+2), The Orc Lord (-1)
One Unique Thing: “I am Fangor, son of Fandin the last son of lost Second Host of the Forge; and the adopted son of the Orc Lord, Zildak, and I have fought my way out of the Underhome and  beyond – and will fight my way back in!”
Backgrounds: Master of the Forge +2, Orc Pit Fighter +4, Underhome Refugee +2

Although there is flexibility in designing a character within the limits of his Class, what 13th Age does not allow a character to do is Multi-Class. This is not a wholly slaying of a classic Dungeons & Dragons sacred cow, for a future supplement will give the rules for it, plus some Class’ Talents allow the Class to use certain aspects of another Class. For example, the Paladin can select one of the Domains from the Cleric Class, whilst the Sorcerer has access to lower Level Wizard’s spells.

Combat in 13th Age is also streamlined and focused to speed up play. In addition to the simplified choice of weapons and armour per Class and the increased damage a character does as he rises in Level, a character also does damage when he misses – usually half damage, which means that a character is always doing something, just not always effectively! This works well when facing Mooks where their damage is listed as big block for all of them and as damage is done to their Hit Points, a Mook is lost from the pack. Range and position are also simplified; this by abstracting what would be a map in Dungeons & Dragons to three range bands – Engaged, Nearby, and Far Away. Characters are more freely allowed to move around the battlefield, with some Talents and Feats, such as the High Elves’ ‘Highblood Teleport’ Racial Power almost encouraging it. 

As well as simplifying combat, 13th Age also intensifies it with the Escalation Die. This is a six-sided die placed in the midst of the table on the second round of a combat. It is initially set at one and on each subsequent round it is increased by one until it reaches six. What the Escalation Die represents is the momentum of a battle, driving it forward to a climatic outcome. It can be de-escalated if the player characters do not really engage with the enemy, but as long as the Escalation Die keeps rising, the player characters receive a number of benefits from it. First, a player character always receives a bonus to his Attack roll equal to the value on the Escalation Die, but second, the Escalation Die can trigger certain Powers. For example, as a Barbarian, Fandor can Rage once per day, but because he has the Barbarian Rage Feat at Adventurer level, he can Rage for free if the Escalation Die is four or more – and this gets better if he takes the same Feat at Champion and Epic levels!

13th Age takes two approaches to magic. First it divides magic items into two types. One-use items that a character purchase, such as potions, oils, and runes, and ‘true’ magic items that are amazing and rare and therefore special. The latter are not only special, but like the intelligent swords of Dungeons & Dragons, actually have an influence over the wearer or user, particularly if the character wields too many items. For example, the Boots of Ferocious Charge has the quirk of “You like to start fights as much as you like to finish them”. Simply, a character can own and use one ‘true’ magic item per level. Beyond that and the character is in trouble… Second, just as each Class has a limited range of Talents to choose from, so all spell casters have a limited number of spells to choose from, but their spells get better at higher level as they learn to cast the higher Level versions rather than the lower ones. So at First Level, a Wizard can cast five First Level spells, and then six at Second Level, but at Third Level, he can cast three First Level spells and four Third Level spells. This progression continues as he rises from First to Tenth Level, so that at Tenth Level, he can cast three spells of Seventh Level and nine of Ninth Level.

One effect of the limited number of spells available to the Wizard Class is that it loses a lot of the spells from Dungeons & Dragons that do not inflict damage, for example, Feather Fall, Hold Portal, and Levitate. What 13th Age does instead is amalgamate all of these spells into one single Utility Spell. This gives the Wizard access to a number of non-combat spells that grow with the Level of the caster and further, the Wizard chooses the effect that he wants when he casts the spell rather than when he takes the spell. Similarly, the Wizard’s cantrips and rituals are intended to be as versatile in their use, this being limited by the player’s imagination and the GM’s agreement.

Roughly half of 13th Age is devoted to supporting the GM. This includes advice and rules on handling the storytelling elements of the Icons; building battle encounters – at higher levels, they are intentionally unfair, or ‘challenging’; and handling healing. Characters can take a quick rest after a battle to heal using Recoveries and even recharge some Powers, but more dramatically, the GM decides when a Full Heal-Up occurs and everything is restored and if the players demand one, the GM can impose a Campaign Loss, the latter something that will hinder the player characters in some way… 

It should be noted though that the fact that the player characters can heal themselves with the use of Recoveries divorces 13th Age of the need to construct the player character party along traditional lines. No longer is there the need to have a party consist of a Cleric, a Fighter, a Thief (or Rogue), and a Wizard. Thus it also divorces it away from the obvious need to have four players or more in a party, so 13th Age has the capacity to work with smaller as well as larger groups.

Another sacred cow that 13th Age sacrifices is Experience Points. Indeed, the authors’ opinions are that XP are better left to computer games! Instead, the characters should ‘Level Up’ when it is dramatically appropriate, plus they should each receive an Incremental Advance at the end of each successful session, such as a bonus to an attribute, a new Feat, or a new or altered Icon Relationship.

Characters in 13th Age need something to fight and unsurprisingly, they come in the form of monsters. There are no surprises when it comes to the choice of monsters included and to be honest, there is no reason for there to be. The monsters are all very traditional – dragons, goblins, skeletons, what have you, but all are presented with the minimum of fuss and the minimum degree of detail. More detail would just have got in the way… Every monster though is associated with one of the Icons, which enables the GM to tailor his choice of monsters to the Icon Relationships selected by the players and to the Icon Relationships that come up in play. The sparse simplicity of the monster stats in 13th Age make them easy to use and customise as well as prepare for an adventure.

The setting of 13th Age – The Dragon Empire, is given in broad swathes, leaving room aplenty for the GM to add his details. What is given in terms of setting tends towards the dynamic, for example, gladiatorial games regularly take place in the Dragon Empire’s capital, Axis, City of Swords, including a boardgame played with living pieces; there are numerous flying realms in the overworld above The Dragon Empire and demon-infested Hellholes transformed by the Diabolist that beg to be explored; and a ruined coastline of castles, cities, and villages that are regularly assaulted by tsunamis and inhuman aberrations coming in from the Iron Sea. What matters here is not the day-to-day lives of the natives of The Dragon Empire, but where the player characters can adventure. Rounding out 13th Age is an adventure, ‘Blood & Lightning’, which is specifically designed to introduce the players to Icon Relationships and combat 13th Age style.

Physically, 13th Age is a full colour hard back, neatly illustrated and laid out. The writing style is again unlike any Dungeons & Dragons rulebook that you can think of; it is light, conversational, and throughout takes time to step away from the rules to talk directly not only to the GM, but also the players about various elements of the game. Further, where another rulebook would maintain a single voice, 13th Age allows both authors to speak about how each approaches each rule or how they run it in their campaigns. Overall, whilst you might not want this with every RPG, here it is engaging and often it gives a slight alternative to a given rule. One final, very pleasing touch is the combination of the index and the glossary into one and it is very effective, quickly recapping the rule and giving its page number elsewhere in the book.

Given all of the hyperbole so far placed at the 13th Age’s feet, it is really quite difficult to identify issues that count against it, but in the interests of some semblance of balance, here goes… Whilst 13th Age is very much written for anyone who is familiar with Dungeons & Dragons and the d20 System, such that it is very easy for them to pick this game up and play, it does not serve those who are less familiar or even new to roleplaying as well. Primarily this shows in the lack of an example of character generation and in an example of play, though there is an example of combat given somewhat later in the book. Mechanically, it seems rather odd for a classic Dungeons & Dragons-style game not to include the Druid Class, especially given that one of the Icons is the High Druid. Another Class not present is the Monk, but this is less of an issue, and anyway, both Classes will be presented in a future supplement. That said, once the Monk is presented it would be nice to see it accompanied by some cinematic style rules or mechanics, perhaps in the Wuxia style, to reflect the Class’ Oriental origins; and if so accompanied, perhaps such rules could be expanded to cover the other Classes in 13th Age too?

13th Age can be best described as the first post Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition ‘Dungeons & Dragons’-style RPG. It is a Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG that looks to contemporary sensibilities rather than looking back to 1974 and it does so in three primary ways. First, it takes account of the fact that most roleplayers have less time to play, offering optimised character design, easier encounter and monster design, and faster, much faster combat. Second, it takes account that in playing a roleplaying game we are telling stories, with the Icon Relationships that tie the characters to the setting and their use to improvise elements of the on-going story, and the use of the familiar advice to ‘Fail Forward’ and reinterpret a character’s near failure as a success with consequences. Third, the game wants the characters to be ‘great’, not necessarily to be heroic, but to have their moment in the spotlight, and this again is supported by the Icon Relationships as well as the mechanics that escalates both what each character is capable of and the challenges that he will face. The resulting combination of these three ways is a game that is AD&D – ‘Action Dungeons & Dragons’ or perhaps DD&D – ‘Dramatic Dungeons & Dragons’, but whatever you call it, in summing up 13th Age it is difficult to avoid the clichés; so I am not going to… Thus Dungeons & Dragons and its staid playing style is dead, because in taking the familiar architecture and elements of Dungeons & Dragons Pelgrane Press’ 13th Age not only makes them its own, it also energises fantasy roleplaying up to eleven.