It’s time to take a look at one thing I wished to dive into as quickly as I obtained it, however work and evil humors in my physique conspired to maintain me from doing something further final week. However there’s no time like the current, so at present we’re going to take a look at the primary subject of Horizons, by Wildmage Press.
I discussed this a couple of weeks in the past, however to recap, it is a new fantasy RPG journal from the Editor-in-Chief of MCDM’s Arcadia and a few names that could be acquainted from that journal. That is going to be a quarterly outing, with three 5e SRD-based articles, and a fourth article from a further fantasy RPG system.
Disclaimer
I obtained this subject of Horizons as a evaluation copy. I’ve not had the chance to make the most of or play with any of the fabric on this journal, however I’m very conversant in 5e SRD video games, each as a participant and a DM. I’m much less conversant in the Pathfinder 2e Remaster guidelines.
Horizons, Difficulty 01
Editor-in-Chief: Hannah Rose
Designers: Willy Abeel, Rue Dickey, Imogen Gingell, Erin Roberts
Further Designer: Jessica Redekop
Editors: Sadie Lowry, Simone D. Sallé
Structure Designer: Clara Daly
Cowl Illustrator: Anna Grinenko
Inside Illustrators: Allie Briggs, Jessica Nguyen, Veronica O’Neill, Zuzanna Wuzyk
Artwork Administrators: Clara Daly, Hannah Rose
Alpha Testers: Kat Alysha, Anna Guimarães, Alex Hencinski, Roman Penna, Jessica Redekop, Parker Robins
Beta Testers: davidqshull, Félix Gauthier-Mamaril, Meg Hanna, Ada Hauser, Simon Irving, David Spring, Stefan Timmons, Alyssa Visscher, Aaron Flavius West, Patrick “007190pats”, Andrea Aloisi, Alpacnologia, AlpegioTheSorcerer,
Take a look at Gamers:George Aspesi, Casey Bell, Rigby Bendele, JT Sales space, Ed “Wandering Fox” Chivers, Nick “Clu2Clu”, Cassandra “Dig” Crary , Gina Devlin, Franklin H., T. Ashley Jenkins, Jethoof, Keraln, David Lucas, Hazel Margaris, Robert O’Connor, Chesley Oxendine, Tom Pelkey, RJ3thatsme, Ashton Sperry, Devon Stork, Alexander Swafford, Bennoni Thomas, WatchfulWizard, Robin Weber
Wildmage Press Workers: Clara Daly, Sneha Deo, Alice Gitel, Hannah Rose
Particular Thanks: Dr. Victoria Condie, Meredith Gerber, Laura Hirsbrunner, Amber Litke, Vee Mus’e, Lauren City, Alyssa Visscher
On the Horizon
The PDF of Horizons Difficulty 01 is 41 pages lengthy. These pages embrace the next:
- Entrance and Again Cowl: 2 pages
- Credit, Desk of Contents: 2 pages
- The Desk of Many Ideas (Editorial): 2 pages
- Articles: 29 pages
- Assets: 1 web page
- Designers, Artist, and Workers Bios: 2 pages
- Licensing: 1 web page
The inside of the PDF seems wonderful. Beautiful borders, a number of full colour illustrations for every article (together with some wonderful full colour dragon illustrations), and a few graphically spectacular stat blocks within the D&D 2024 and Pathfinder Remastered type.
The Articles
This subject comprises the next articles:
- The Desk of Many Ideas
- Subsequent Cease: Journey
- Look As much as Cuculan!
- Draco Ex Astris
- Atraxis the Crystalline
In case you are the kind that often skips the editorials in {a magazine}, don’t. Hannah Rose and Clara Daly not solely introduce their new journal, however present some fascinating and provocative ideas in regards to the assumptions of contemporary fantasy, and the way they distinction with fantasy assumptions of the previous.
Subsequent Cease: Journey
Our inaugural article particulars fantasy conveyances and mass transportation. The article is framed as data offered by Harper Tolly, a semi-retired adventurer. The 2 broad sorts of conveyances we see are Scrawlers and Loreriders.
Scrawlers are stone conveyances powered by a wide range of runes, which give them numerous properties. There are 4 several types of Scrawlers detailed, with variations on the variety of passengers, carrying capability, and particular person quirks.
Loreriders are transportations that transfer alongside on magical, multi-dimensional legs. Paying for passage on a Lorerider prices the passenger a narrative, and the extra substantial and detailed the story, the longer the period of time the passenger can entry the Lorerider.
The Scrawlers part of the article particulars 5 completely different runes that can be utilized to energy and modify the Scrawlers. These runes may also be used on private tools to supply a special, associated impact, and there are guidelines for what characters can be taught to scribe these runes.
Each sections embrace tables for producing different passengers, in addition to encounters related to utilizing that mode of transportation. The passenger tables embrace the character’s description and vacation spot, and the Scrawlers embrace character secrets and techniques, whereas the Loreriders embrace what story the passengers informed to realize passage. Scrawlers are geared in the direction of transporting individuals from extra distant places, and sometimes produce other adventurers onboard, whereas Loreriders are sometimes city conveyances that will have a bunch of various passengers.
- I’m a fan of an expansive rogues gallery of unreliable narrators with a variety of experience displaying up in numerous articles
- I really like how imaginative this text is, and the world constructing included in who makes use of every kind of conveyance
- The distinctive descriptions of the conveyances makes me need to use them
I could also be rather less in a position to drop this into my Curse of Strahd or Thrones & Bones marketing campaign that I might a homebrew setting, a setting like Eberron, or a setting just like the Forgotten Realms or Midgard which have a lot of various areas with room to introduce extra magical wonders - I’ll not need to throw the runecarving guidelines into each sport, regardless that they’re extremely constrained, however I’d be keen to let characters which have completely different runecarving feats or skills from D&D or Tales of the Valiant complement their talents with these runes
- I want we had extra conventional car stats for the conveyances, however I additionally know that we don’t know what or if car stat blocks will appear to be within the 2024 DMG.
Look As much as Cuculan!
This text introduces a cloud island known as Nim, and a city situated on that island, known as Cuculan. We’re launched to the idea of Cloudstuff, stable cloud matter that may be labored like stone, and is ready to float on the floor of standard clouds. Cuculan is supposed to be a location that may be dropped into numerous campaigns, by advantage of being largely hidden from view from the bottom.
Cuculan is populated by Aislynn, individuals fabricated from cloudstuff itself, Balloon Gnomes, who navigate the island through their private balloons, and Cerulean Dwarves, blue-skinned dwarves with beards and hair that drifts away like clouds being blown within the wind.
There are journey hooks associated to the city and different places on the cloud island, and NPCs for the participant characters to work together with. A number of institutions are detailed, together with secrets and techniques and rumors that drift across the location. One of many recurring plot parts is the Horrible Crane, a mysterious chook that may present up and harass numerous individuals for inscrutable causes. The crane can also be cited as a method for GMs to supply help to overwhelmed PCs, in addition to a method for land-based PCs to be transported to Cuculand.
There’s an fascinating intertwined story that may turn into a serious marketing campaign subject, or that may be drawn out as a background ingredient till the GM is able to pull the set off on the collection of occasions that resolve the story beat.
There are stat blocks for the Horrible Crane, and the native rocs, that are raised by one of many locals. The stat blocks are in D&D 2024 format, with the realigned capability rating part with bonuses and saves.
- That is straightforward to plug and play into most campaigns, and it explores one thing implied, however not typically detailed, since we already know creatures like Cloud Giants have related properties
- The story hooks are nice, and the native NPCs have a number of persona
- Your mileage might fluctuate on how nicely whimsical gnomes utilizing balloons to navigate a cloud settlement, however I’m already shopping for into individuals dwelling on clouds, so I’m good with it
- That stated, I may not painting the titan detailed within the article as described
- I wouldn’t thoughts extra articles both about this island, or about different island settlements which may work together with it
Draco Ex Astris
As you would possibly be capable of glean from the title, this text is about dragons. On this case, the article is about Star Dragons, creatures which have an identical life cycle to stars, and who’ve completely different outlooks and personalities primarily based on the constellations with which they’re aligned. The article particulars 12 constellations and their guiding ideas. The dragon’s lair and goal shall be modified by these constellations. The next stat blocks are offered:
- Protostellar Wyrmling (CR 7)
- Sequence Star Dragon (CR 17)
- Big Starwyrm (CR 27)
There are Lair Actions and Regional Results that are the identical for all three dragons, though some issues, just like the save issue of results, change, relying on the age of the dragon. The Sequence Star Dragon and Big Starwyrm each have Legendary Actions. I feel that is price noting, as a result of the stat blocks are in D&D 2024 format, however these dragons don’t have the “a number of response” replacements for Legendary actions that we’ve seen overtaking Legendary Actions. I’m effective with this, since I’m not solely offered on the multiple-reaction resolution for Legendary creatures.
Numerous parts present data on how you can use these dragons in a marketing campaign, from the varied constellations that the Sequence Star Dragons search to embody, to the journey hooks offered on the finish of the article. The Big Starwyrm, nonetheless, is successfully its personal story arc, by advantage of what occurs once they attain the tip of their lives. If a Big Starwyrm dies, they’ve a characteristic known as “Core Collapse,” which suggests ther is an opportunity that the Starwyrm will explode in a 20-mile radius.
- It might both be a characteristic or a bug that between WotC and Kobold Press, there are already Photo voltaic, Lunar, and Void Dragons, however I feel Stellar matches proper in
- Now that I’m considering of it, I actually like creating some connection the place Big Starwyrms that don’t go nova by some means spawn Void Dragons
- Whereas we’re on a Tales of the Valiant kick, Big Starwyrms are an excellent candidate for the “Colossal Enemies” guidelines from the Gamemaster’s Information, however that’s additionally my Spelljammer nostalgia talking, contemplating how massive the stellar dragons have been in that setting
- These dragons are nice content material, however they’re additionally one thing you aren’t going to place right into a marketing campaign casually
- When you pull the set off on the PCs coping with a Big Starwyrm probably leveling the countryside, it’s in all probability going to be a very long time earlier than you possibly can repeat that plot level
Atraxis the Crystalline
Our closing article particulars a novel NPC, an educational whose physique has turn into suffused with elemental energies. Dwelling in a settlement in a rift within the Elemental Aircraft of Earth, Ataraxis’ studied the frequencies of crystals, and was proposing methods of transmuting crystals to completely different kinds. After dealing with pushback from extra hardline conventional students, Ataraxis tried to current their findings, however started to radically sprout crystalline buildings from their physique, and started transmuting their environment into completely different supplies.
Ataraxis finally created a crystal fortress to proceed their research, hardly ever leaving besides once they wanted provides, or to review planar intersections that join the Aircraft of Earth to different planes of existence. Ataraxis could cause completely different crystals to kind round them primarily based on their emotional state, typically involuntarily.
Along with Ataraxis, there may be data on the Corridor of Mild and Stone, the establishment of studying the place Ataraxis studied. Three of the students from that establishment are detailed, every with a private connection to Ataraxis.
Stat blocks are offered for Ataraxis, the Fork of Earthly Tuning, the Elemental Viewers ritual, and Ataraxis’ Palace, which is statted up because the Emotive Crystal Framework Hazard. Ataraxis is has each the Orc and Oread tags, which in D&D phrases (must you want the interpretation), they’d be an Orc/Earth Genasi.
The plot hooks surrounding Ataraxis contain convincing them to assist native miners, correcting an unintentional environmental hazard Ataraxis created, convincing Ataraxis and the students to talk to at least one one other a few phenomenon associated to the occasion at Ataraxis’ dissertation, and recruiting Ataraxis to assist with an impending planar rift linking the Aircraft of Earth with one other airplane.
- I’m getting Elsa from Frozen vibes from Ataraxis, however I need to make it clear that I’m not saying that as a destructive
- I’m a fan of planar settlements to present participant characters a “house base” when exploring the planes, and its fascinating to have that settlement be tied to a faculty
- It is a Pathfinder Remastered article, however many of the plot parts are common, and play with themes that work with different fantasy RPGs with related assumptions
- I do know the main focus was on Ataraxis and their work, however I might have appreciated a bit extra data on the Corridor of Mild and Stone to broaden how simply I might connect this text to a marketing campaign
- That stated, I wouldn’t thoughts a observe up article that revisited the situation with a give attention to different characters along with Ataraxis
Ultimate Ideas
Just like the gaming magazines I loved from the previous, this subject put me in thoughts of how you can combine the fabric, what I might tweak, and what current materials would synergize nicely with these articles. As somebody that doesn’t at the moment have a lot of a connection to Pathfinder Remastered, the expanded content material nonetheless had worth as inspiration for a location and for seeding potential plot hooks.
The largest draw back to most of those articles isn’t any deficiency within the article’s content material or execution, it’s solely that a few of these articles have a really sturdy footprint if they’re used, making them much less plug and play and extra “rigorously consider how you can use a good suggestion to construct a brand new marketing campaign round, or so as to add to an current marketing campaign.” That’s clearly going to fluctuate primarily based in your marketing campaign. Should you’re operating a Spelljammer marketing campaign, the Stellar Dragons are going to be loads simpler to work in. Should you’re PCs are going to a brand new a part of the marketing campaign world, it’s going to be loads simpler to discover a area that has already carried out magical mass transit.
To be clear, among the greatest materials would be the materials that evokes massive concepts, and I really like having massive concepts to “financial institution” for these moments when it’s time to roll out one thing new. I feel this was a powerful first subject, and I’m trying ahead to different articles with the extent of persona that these have.
