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Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea (Original Edition) $19.00
Publisher: North Wind Adventures
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por A customer [Comprador verificado] Fecha en que fue añadido: 01/06/17 13:03:34

Fun to Say, Fun to Play!

Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea (AS&SH) must have one of the best names given to a game product, ever. The rules to AS&SH appear as a very clean and tidyed-up version (such as using a d12 for thief skills) of the 1st Edition Advanced Game using the OGL. The default setting of Hyperborea is one of the best published. It has a very "pulp fantasy" feel to it as suggested by the box cover illustration by Charles Lang, is self contained, is depicted on a nice hex map, is described in just the right amount of detail to leave room for individualization and it lends itself well to being used with just about any other setting as a pocket universe, lost continent or alternate dimension.

I ran this game as referee some time back for a short campaign for some Pathfinder/5th Ed. players who were curious about Old School play. The players began by making late 19th century Earth PCs who were passengers or crew on a steamship off the coast of Alaska. After some role-play on ship, things turned mysterious and weird. A cold mist, a spectacular northern lights display and a faulty fresh water condensor and they awake bound-up as dog sled passengers in Hyperborea. They are taken down off the frozen plateau and traded to some ancient looking Greek speaking folk who worship Athena and Zeus, etc. They quickly learn the language and are taught some local survival skills (class abilities) and start adventuring. They help a village recover some lost kids and become local heroes. While investigating an ancient temple complex, several of the original party perish and are replaced by "locals". The mini-campaign ran a half-dozen or so sessions and we then moved on to something else.

Some of the players remarked they enjoy the "Old School" type rules and classes - they started with just fighters, clerics and magic users, but for replacement characters could choose from several sub-classes as well. The "setting" of Hyperborea generated the most interest and I'll probably re-visit it. The mixture of cultures - vikings, kelts, and ancient Greeks imported from Earth's past with native Hyperboreans, Amazons, and Esquimaux (sound it out!) give quite a lot of variety while keeping the PCs human (mostly). The author, Jeffrey Talanian, states an intent to create a game consistent with the fantastic and weird worlds of R.E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith and H.P. Lovecraft. The two spiral bound books in the box are illustrated through-out by Ian Baggley in a manner that definitely adds to the weird, dark and dangerous feel of the game setting. Hyperborea has some ancient high technology roots that also add to its uniqueness. There is the possibility of exploring ancient ruins and discovering lost technologies, if the referee wants to go down that path.

The one area I personally feel could use a little more work is in the area of customizing the rules to the setting, especially regarding magic. AS&SH uses the bog standard Advanced Game magic system and spells, although wisely drops the mundane material components and casting segment complications. The Vancian system is retained however, which carries with it a promise of more predictable magic than a skill-roll outcome, magic point system and suggests a theory of magic as a mental exercise of mostly memorization. It is a bit "tame" for my taste. That aside, Mr. Talanian does include some new "atmospheric" spells such as "black cloud", "cataleptic state", and "mirror, mirror" and does his honest best to describe spell books and the acquisition of spell knowledge as something weird and dangerous. I am sure he gets it, but I think he wanted to stay true to the original game mechanics.

The AS&SH bestiary is a combination of traditional fantasy monsters and the Lovecraftian horrors. Dwarves are monsters, not PCs in AS&SH. Described as greedy and perverse, stunted and misshaped forgers of magic items which they are cursed to be unable to use themselves they remind me of Nibelungen Ring Cycle dwarves. Orcs are the off-spring of a swine daemon and Picts (a race of primitive humans). Tree-men are similar to Ents, otherwise, the usual Tolkien races are missing from AS&SH, but there are still plenty of bi-pedal baddies such as snake-men, ape-men, cave-men and ghouls.

So what is the appeal of AS&SH, besides a fantastic name. The rules are a nice, cleaned up version of the 1st Ed. Advanced Game giving us a game that can be played pretty much as written. The setting of Hyperborea is one of the best published settings I have come across in almost 40 years of gaming and were it not somewhat derivative of certain pulp settings, I'd call it genius. But the derived part is intentional in that it evokes a feel for the source material. There are really two good products here, the game rules and the setting.



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Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea (Original Edition)
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