The Norman Conquest of Southern Italy and Sicily

by on September 13, 2016 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

If you study the history of the Middle Ages, it doesn’t take long to realize the Normans were involved in a lot more than England and northern France. However, while I’d become aware of the Norman state in southern Italy, a lot of my reading didn’t get into the origins of this state beyond ‘Normans showed up and gradually took over’. Gordon Brown’s book matches exactly with its title, and was thus exactly what I’ve been wanting.

After an in medias res introduction around the Battle of Civitate (I’m a little tired of these), and then a short overview of the founding of Normandy before starting in 1107 with Norman pilgrims to southern Italy being invited to help in Lombard revolt against Byzantine power. The revolt didn’t go anywhere, but neither did some of the Normans who saw good opportunities for mercenary employment. Brown gives a pretty detailed look at the beginnings of Norman involvement, including the origins of the two families that rose to prominence (Hautville and Dregnot), which was one of my primary interests.

From there, the book pretty much covers through the death of Robert Guiscard in 1085, though a few more chapters deal with final consolidation of the Kingdom of Sicily, Apulia, and Calabria, and the Principate of Capua. In between, he covers the problems and successes of the Normans as they go from mercenaries to a power that neither the Pope, the Holy Roman Emperor or the Byzantine Emperor can entirely contain in a very readable format. He doesn’t get bogged down in minutiae, but doesn’t gloss over anything either; overall the writing is not ‘exciting’, but very well done, and this is an excellent lighter history book.

The kindle edition is a bit oddly produced, as the text is forced into full width mode (I read on a Surface Pro 2, so the wide screen usually uses two columns), and the chapters flow into one another without any break other than the chapter headers themselves. Initial large capitals are retained by using scanned images instead of using markup to naturally produce them. All this strangeness seems to overload the format/app a bit, and it commonly had to stop and think when flipping back and forth a page. Other than these oddities though, it is well done, and the text is in very good shape, though there was an increased incidence of words broken up by hyphens late in the book.

└ Tags: , , ,
 Comment 

The Disfavored Hero

by on September 9, 2016 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

The very beginning of The Disfavored Hero directly states that this is an alternate Japan (Naipon) where myth is real. This is something that should never be said in a novel. Let your creation stand on its own feet, and show us what you’re doing.

Thankfully, after that little hiccup, the rest of the book is very good. It’s broken into three parts (without any shorter chapters), that are practically separate novellas. Each one has its own set of secondary characters, its own plot with solid beginning, middle, and end, that lends the book an episodic quality and makes it almost a short story collection. At the same time, the beginning of the book sets up a conflict that is not resolved until the epilogue, and ties the book together. The problem is that while this drives the circumstances of the middle of the novel, it doesn’t drive any of the action, which just adds to the episodic feel.

Past that, the actual writing is very good, with a lot of the feel of older Japanese literature and tales (at least from what little I’ve seen). My kindle edition retains several nice illustrations (also done in an appropriate style), so that is also recommended.

└ Tags: , , ,
 Comment 

Foundations of Adventure

by on September 5, 2016 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: D&D

In 1988 SSI released the first of their celebrated “Gold Box” games, Pool of Radiance. TSR cashed in on their new AD&D and Forgotten Realms tie-in with a novel… loosely… based on the game, and 96-page adventure module, Ruins of Adventure. While Pool of Radiance was pretty solidly focused on being a solid computer RPG using the AD&D rules and Forgotten Realms setting, Ruins of Adventure isn’t so focused.

Generally, it is a regular large adventure module, perfect bound, with no detached maps or anything. It also attempts to be a hint book for Pool of Radiance, which means it sticks to the format of that game more than is wise for a good adventure. The computer game required breaking up into 16×16 grid areas for the party to move around in, and many of the maps are taken directly from that, which helps on the ‘hint book’ end, but causes a lot of the maps to look very primitive, being a square grid with thin wall-lines.

The high concept is good for a moderate-sized campaign: Years ago, the city of Phan was overrun by various monsters, who seemed better organized than usual. Now, descendants of the leading citizens of the city are trying to reclaim it, and are hiring adventurers to clear it out for resettlement. In the computer game, the city is divided up into a bunch of ‘blocks’, and the party is given missions to clear portions of the city.

The module follows much the same format, with each block being a small chapter giving all the relevant details. Mostly. In some places there is a distinct lack of detail, with two sections being one-page ‘chapters’ consisting of the 16×16 map and a couple paragraphs, which include reference to the random encounter tables in the back. In fact, the random encounters is one of the more worked out areas, with 15 different tables, that reference each other.

The initial setup for the campaign is fairly nicely done, with an overview of the main plot, a bunch of NPCs for the party to hire, and a set of business for the party to interact with (including such things as a nice inn that’s the target of thieves, and a rough dive that all the thieves stay in, so possessions are relatively safe). After that, it starts coming apart. The theory is that the city council is posting rewards for getting certain things done, and one particular councilmember should take an early interest in the party, and use his patronage of their successes to improve his position. But while the introductory sections establish all this, it never gets any real attention.

An interesting bit is that SSI and TSR provided similar overview maps of the city, but the one in Ruins of Adventure is much nicer looking.

RoA-Phlan

When not dealing with the really bare-bones sections, there are some planned encounters. One area has the party deal with a bunch of orcs and goblins that have some fairly effective tactics outlined for them. Actually, that’s something of a repeating theme, there’s several places where the monsters have set up shop intelligently, and the players could easily have a rough time of it. Most of the areas feel very random in layout, and the descriptions don’t help, but there are a couple areas that got more attention. The absolute worst section is Valhingen Graveyard, where the map doesn’t even match the descriptions (large structures that don’t appear on the map).

The big bad and final confrontations are about halfway through the module. After that, there’s several short chapters dealing with things in the wilderness outside of Phlan. One of these is tied directly into the overall plot, and one other is tied directly to the main goal of restoring Phlan. The rest… are things the party may or may not stumble across, depending on if they get an itch to explore. They do help populate the region, and if this is run as more than just a ‘clear the city’ adventure, will help out. However, they do tend to be very combat heavy (fighting hundreds of monsters is a recurring theme here), with no negotiating options, though there is one that can be peaceful if the characters were smart in an earlier bit.

As a whole, there’s some really good ideas in this module… but they don’t get past the idea stage. In fact, the module feels like it needed a lot more room to be fleshed out in, and would have made a decent 128+ page supermodule, but is instead a poor 96-page one. Most of the sections have pretty concrete ideas of what’s there, and what the characters will be facing, but nowhere does the module say how many characters and what levels are expected (it is in fact unhelpfully hand-waved away in the text). The overall plot gets a good description, but there’s only occasional concrete hooks to it in the main part of the module. But, for a DM who wants to do a the additional work, the skeleton of a good campaign is here.

└ Tags: , , , , ,
 Comment 

Child of Flame

by on September 1, 2016 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Book four of Crown of Stars follows the usual practice of giving time to four major plot threads. The new major character this time is Adica, the Hollowed One of a tribe that is part of an effort to cast a truly earth-shattering spell.

Instead of this being a completely separate plot with no real tie in to the regular major cast, it is tied directly to Alain, who has been thrown 2,700 years into the past, and finds peace in a troubled little paradise. This is a big case of showing exactly what we were told about in the big reveal of the previous volume, and gives a preview of the calamity that is yet to come.

Liath meanwhile has her own separate arc that also takes her out of the main action for the entire book. This is in essence the personal journey that she turned down at the beginning of book three, and she finally gets the space and time to go through the growth that she has needed, and ends with the answers about what she is that have only been getting bigger as the series progresses.

The final two major plots are back on earth. The main focus is decidedly still in Wendar, with a lot of action and a good chunk of the secondary cast revolving around the Quman invasion. South in Aosta, King Henry starts the process of adding a third kingdom to his crown as all the more dangerous antagonists gather around.

I find it very interesting that much of this volume mirrors some of what had gone immediately previous, and while the main plot definitely moves forward, the secondaries take center stage. This continues to be a very good epic fantasy series, and overall very well paced, mostly because it never looses sight of what its own main plot is.

└ Tags: , , ,
 Comment 

Deadly Protection

by on August 28, 2016 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: GURPS

About a year after the release of GURPS Thaumatology: Sorcery, it got its first dedicated supplement in August 2016: GURPS Sorcery: Protection and Warning Spells. This is a relatively small PDF supplement (15 pages, including the obligatory cover page and 1-page ad at the end), going for a minimal $5. It presents 35 new spells (and repeats the two spells of this college from the original book)… and very little else.

Thanks to the nature of power builds in GURPS 4e, it’s very easy to rework every spell here for use elsewhere if you don’t want to use Sorcery, and a little under a half page is spent discussing that process. It is likely that some math would be required if you want to get rid of the standard fatigue cost, though methods of keeping costs in line without that are also mentioned.

Having the first supplement for the under-resourced Sorcery system be ‘protection and warning’ seems a bit odd at first, but it makes sense. Many offensive powers aren’t too hard to figure out, and there’s a good number of example abilities that could be ported over. Several of the spells here get very complicated in how they’re built out, and it’s another great buy just on the tinkering GM end.

Two spells are marked with a warning that they are based on spells from GURPS Magic: Death Spells, and are particularly lethal (they are!) and must be specifically approved by the GM. Black Sphere gives a chance for the target to get out before it forms (DX roll, etc.) or make a quick contest of HT vs the caster’s HT + Talent, or be completely destroyed (no damage, just good old ‘instant death’). This is done with a couple different applications of the Cosmic modifier, at a cost of 110 points (which really means 10 levels of Sorcerous Empowerment + 22 points). The other, Force Guillotine, comes in at a very hefty 315 points (or 31 levels of Sorcerous Empowerment + 63 points) for a 20d6 (‘5dx4’) attack that ignores all normal protections.

Sorcery has been no stranger to 100+ point spells, but this supplement establishes a new top end with Force Guillotine simply having the highest minimum cost of any spell. Utter Dome creates a 2-yard radius barrier that stops 10 damage points of just about anything at a cost of 197 points + 40 per extra yard of radius. Or it can be boosted to a DR100 barrier for 1,367 points + 265/yard of radius. (And yes, 500 points is still considered to be well into the superheroic genre; some of these will not appear in very many campaigns no matter what the GM allows.) Meanwhile, Mystic Mist sets a new high-water mark in complicated mechanics breakdowns, since it has three parts linked together into one ability.

As would be expected from a ‘protection’ supplement, there are eight different ‘resist’ spells. Several of these are for things that normally have lingering effects (poison, disease, acid), and have the interesting effect in that they protect against getting them, but cannot cure an ongoing condition. However, they do cause the subject to make all HT rolls for an ongoing condition for the duration of the spell, and can allow the person to outlast the effects.

Overall, the spells range from the expected (Armor) to some unusual ones (Nightingale, as well as most of the ones previously mentioned), and really extend the usefulness of the Sorcery system. Repeating the earlier spells is a little surprising, though I expect the idea is that once there’s a supplement for every magic college out, there’ll be no need to go back to the original supplement other than for basic reference. Since some spells ‘are also water spells’ and the like, I do wonder if they’ll repeat them when those supplements come out. If they come out; it has been mentioned that a very high crunch supplement like this is a lot more expensive to produce than the low price from its low page count suggests. I certainly hope it does well enough for the series to continue.

└ Tags: , , , ,
 Comment