Monday, 19 January 2009
Review: Shades of Empire
I just picked up Shades of Empire: Organizations of the Old World (SoE) at my FLGS Days of Knights in Newark, DE.
The perfect bound 126 pp. source book is well done and worth the $30USD. This title is also the first book published by FFG I’ve owned and I’m duly impressed with the quality.
The Pat Loboyko cover of a pistol wielding, sword swinging member of the Imperial Navy1 in crimson red, bearing a trophy skull (as is the fashion of many denizens in WFRP sourcebooks) draws the reader into the book. It has striking resemblance to Children of the Horned Rat in framing, though I’m reserved in opinion that FFG picked as topical a subject for Shades of Empire as CotHR. That aside, Loboyko does good work and I like him only the tiniest bit more than Ralph Horsley.2
For fans of Green Ronin’s defining work in bringing WFRP back to the shelf in the 2nd edition, and particularly Chris Pramas work and passion for the game, will be pleased to see his name, and many other familiar names, in the design and writing credits. My hope is that this a hint at more work from Pramas’ pen to come under the FFG imprint (despite my rather outspoken and conspiratorial opinions on the subject of the parting of ways between Green Ronin and Games Workshop).
From the back cover, we get a preview of the organizations detailed inside:
- Altdorf Dockers
- The Brothers of Handrich
- The Dreamwalkers
- The Glorious Revolution of the People
- Hedgefolk
- The Imperial Navy
- The Knights of Magritta
- The Quinsberry Lodge
- The Roadwardens
As I have recently used the Cult of Handrich in my campaign, and in a previous one, the Roadwardens, SoE nicely supplements my on-going use of these organizations, should they be encountered again. This makes the book immediately useful to me. The broad scope of the subjects easily makes it useful to many campaigns set in the Empire at large, as well as hints for crossing the borders into Tilea and the Mootland.
The contents of SoE is worth the cover price. Each organization is written up with a "Player’s Section" and "GM’s Section." The layout of each organization is such that GMs reading the complete details can flesh out NPCs and players can build character backgrounds. The purpose, history, structure, goals, signs, responsibilities and more is provided in each chapter (incredibly apropos to PCs starting or in a career path touched by the organization). GMs be forewarned: if your players pick up this book nothing is off-limits. Each GM’s Section provides interesting secrets, mentors (NPCs), locations and plot hooks. Spiking, twisting, or otherwise obfuscating these details is near mandatory in individual campaigns.
This last point brings up the what is most enjoyable about the sourcebook: how to layout and design your own organization or cult. A lot of GMs may fear the blank page and taking a cue from this resource is a great start. I liked this outline so much, I created a PDF template for download (on the RSS Feed... consider it bonus content).
In conclusion, I first shied away at the idea of SoE when I first read about it in the forums of FFG, hoping for an elf or dwarf source book instead. Yet having it in my hands I can now see it’s value to the GM and Player. SoE gets a recommendation from this GM of WFRP. SoE has a lot of potential to richly detail the streets of your campaign with new allies or enemies of your players. The organizations protagonists spring from the pages and offer new dangers, or riches (ha!), in associating with them.
meta-footnote-1=An editor’s assumption as pirates are not covered between the covers of the book. meta-footnote-2=Horsley is very good! I think Tome of Salvation is his best to date, The Thousand Thrones a very close second. His cover of the upcoming Career Compendium looks fantastic and all of these mentioned illustrate my point of topical cover art.
[Trackback URL for this entry]
