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Classes and Races of Cthonia

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Classes and Races of Cthonia
Publisher: Alea Publishing Group
by Louis P. J. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 03/29/2008 07:37:23

An incredibly well done product! The more and more I see from this company the more and more I am impressed. If you are looking for more "realistic" or "traditional" D20 material, then I think you will enjoy this.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Classes and Races of Cthonia
Publisher: Alea Publishing Group
by Shane O. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 03/25/2008 11:28:09

Classes and Races of Cthonia is a d20 supplement from Alea Publishing. The zipped file isn’t quite six megabytes in size, and contains a single PDF of the book. The product itself is sixty-five pages long, and has full bookmarks for easy navigation.

In terms of artwork, this book lives up to the high standards set by Alea’s earlier releases. Seemingly every page is overflowing with beautiful design, from the page borders to the background shading, even the page numbers are designed to be enjoyable to look at. Clearly, this is a book with high production values. The only problem with having such a plethora of art is that this book isn’t printer-friendly at all. With no black-and-white or even text version present, if you want a physical copy of Classes and Races of Cthonia, you may be in for a hard time.

The book itself is a deftly weaved blend of crunch and fluff. While the majority of the information here seems to fall into the crunch section, quite a bit of fluff about the world of Terra is presented also. For example, the classes chapter presents both new classes, and altered rules for existing classes, but even classes with no mechanical changes get several paragraphs of descriptive text talking about what these classes look like in this campaign setting. For those who don’t know, the Feudal Lords setting is intended to mimic medieval Europe more closely than mainstream Fantasy d20. Humans are the dominant race, with most others being marginalized. There’s only one mainstream religion, with all others being declared heretical. Arcane magic is seen as blasphemous, and there are religious inquisitions against those who practice it.

The interesting aspect of the book is how the rules are set up to help give the aforementioned tropes a life of their own. Druids have trouble using their magic in urban areas, for example. Dark powers can grant you feats at will if you’re willing to make dark deals with them (vile pact feats), inquisitors are a class unto themselves, and more. Some of these rules will be familiar to players of Modern d20, such as blood points (action points by another name) and starting occupations, but Alea makes them work quite nicely in the campaign they’ve laid out here. This is low-magic without retooling the entire d20 system, and without the game descending into “low action” as a result.

All in all, Classes and Races of Cthonia does a great job painting a picture of the Feudal Lords game world, presenting the mechanics and the flavor necessary to run things. Some folks might wish there was some more world-specific information herein (such as a listing of kingdoms and histories), but that seems to be outside the scope of this book. If you’re looking for a medieval fantasy game that’s still recognizably d20, this is absolutely worth paying attention to.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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