some spoilers

This adventure is just okay. I found I had to add a lot to the adventure for it to make sense. The Writer adds interesting twists which are then dropped liked a hot potato and never get resolved (with the direction that the GM figures it out). The Letters themselves don't appear to play that big of a role in the grand design series , there is no explanation to what they are, again I had to invent people/places and plots.

I realize that this adventure isn't super expensive, however it seems sloppy in the sense that the GM is gonna have fill in a lot of blanks the adventure doesn't . I understand that the Grand Design series isn't over, and maybe these issues are gonna be resolved, but if not then this is an okay adventure, not great, just okay.

This book extends the "rules" about Villain influence investment and adds a couple new Brute types, but the bulk of it is a classification of heroes and villains in five types each. Each type includes a fairly good description of it, opinions of other types - of both Heroes and Villains - and several one sentence ideas for stories involving a character of the type. Each type also includes one example character from each Thean nation. In the case of Avalon, which is actually three, sometimes they are Avalonian, sometimes Inish and sometimes Highlanders, making them eight for each type, complete with background and stats. For each Heroe there's three goals and for each Villain three schemes and several have some way to redemption. All in all, this book is a good support for players and GMs in need of ideas - for their Heroes and their Villains respectively - and also a good way to have pre-generated characters to introduce somebody to the game without working through the character creation.

Honestly, I don't think new 7th Sea GMs should run games without these. By having these cards, you get a better, more visual understanding of how the mechanic works. It's also a really helpful resource for players, as they more deeply understand the options available to them.

There are a lot of text blocks on these maps that appear to be misformatted, which makes the maps almost unusable. The maps themselves are beautiful, but until they get an update don't waste your money.

Delightfully devious, especially for those GMs dealing with experienced players who think they have "seen it all."

I just wanted to take the time to say that I was absolutely floored by the quality of this product. It actually fills a role I find lacking in the sourcebooks in that it really lays out for you how to think about the narrative in story steps and possible avenues to explore dramatic and actions scenes. It's obvisous just by looking at the product you can tell a lot of passion and love of the game went into it and might be the perfect introductory or mid-point adventure to add into your campaign. Definitely will keep an eye out for future products from this team.

Nicely done, and definitely worth a 'pay what you like' price tag. The structure laid out for letting card spreads spark story and character elements is straightforward and simple enough to do on the fly, while being open enough to let you create plenty of depth and complexity off the associations the cards make. Can work with any deck, which is nice for those who may not have the Sorte deck (though it really is a gorgeous deck).

Ghost ships are kind of a staple of the modern take on pirate tales. Not sure if it's just because how much it's been used in the Pirates of the Caribean movies, or it's just something that has always been there, but in any case, it's a cool kind of story that fits 7th Sea perfectly.

This adventure tries to take advantage of a couple of mechanics presented in the game and use them in a very interesting way to simulate the possesion of PC by ghost entities. Frankly, the result is great, with the ghost ship and their inhabitants becoming a very terrifying threat to the Heroes.

The use of Hazards and Dramatic sequences here it's also cool. The way the Dramatic Sequences is written helps a little bit to take a step back on how to use them, and communicates the flexibility that DS are supposed to have.

The only reason i give it a four it's that I wish there were a little bit more of information about how to manage the more mundane side of the story. The ghost ship is treated extensively, as well as the Villain that it's linked to it, but when talking about the more mundane side of the story, about the corrupt Governor, I feel more information about how to handle them and scenes related to this part of the story would have been welcome. The focus in that part of the story it's too much about how to get clues, but I feel like a little more of info on their motivations and methods would have been great.

Still, its a great adventure, and even more at this price. This could easily be used as a stand-alone game for a convention, since it makes extensive use of some of the most particular rules of the game.

A great resource. The basic rules from the core book for Brutes are a little bit limited, and it seems like we are gonna get an updated version whenever the Khitai rulebook it's published, but this document gives you a lot of new options to make your brutes interesting meanwhile. The core book only included a few special abilities for them, but it always looked more like examples to use as inspiration to come up with your own versions than a limited list. The ones listed here go a little bit further. Another must-have.

This adventure it's a must have. The plot is quite straightforward, but it's ideal for a quick game in a con, or with a few friends that want to try the game. It's a good foundation to which add your Heroes and let it grow from there. The great thing about this adventure it's the fact that it's almost a perfect template to manage a naval battle between 2 ships, or with big monsters. The action sequences for that very usual kind of situation in a game like 7th Sea are so full of details and explained that you can take them and use them in almost every naval encounter.

Really useful for my game, i printed it in a small booklet form and it helped my group find the backgrounds and advantages they wanted from throughout the released 7th Sea books.

Lands of Gold and Fire. Probably one of the most anticipated books for the 7th Sea line after The New World itself. It's been delayed a few months while the dev team worked to get it just the way they like it. So how did they do?

Like all the other splatbooks, this one can be divided into the Fluff and Crunch sections.

Nations/Fluff

We've got five new nations with unique backgrounds here. Aksum (Ethiopia/Somali States) a coastal trade nation on the losing side of a war with the Mbey while their empire is in rapid decline, Khemet (pre-Ptolemaic Egypt) a land shrouded in eternal night after the Queen betrayed the gods, Maghreb (the Barabary States) where the wasteland villages and prosperous coastal cities exist in an anarchic alliance to resist an impending invasion, Manden Kurufaba (The Mali Empire) the most prosperous land in Ifri, buckling under a flood of refugees fleeing the troubles elsewhere, and Mbey (the Kingdom of Kongo) decimated by the Atabean slave traders, their ruler has given in to despair and madness, bargaining with eldritch abomination spirits and waging war against the Aksum to capture more slaves to sell to the Atabeans- buying enough weapons in the hope of driving the invaders from Ifri.

There is enough flavor here to make an entire campaign out of adventuring in Ifri drawing from equal parts history and fantasy. The major players in Ifri are featured throughout and all are compelling in their own way- especially the leader of Mbey who has given himself over to madness and dark power to drive powerful Atabean invaders from his shores. Runner-up goes to Mar Veraci of Maghreb, the transgender pirate queen hailing from Vodacce. Mar governs the cities and protects Maghreb in her Blue Queen's place while she is communing with spirits to prevent an invasion from Mbey, trying to ward off the advances from Montaigne and the machinations of her jealous sister.

Mechanics

The book includes new sorcery. Melbur sorcery strikes me as an almost cut/paste of Sanderis from the core book (though there are significant differences), while Heka sorcery is a kind of Enchantment based magic. Most splats contain one magic school per nation, so this is a bit lacking.

New dueling schools are included here as well for more martial players.

There are two new player mechanics that are introduced here. The first, Zahmeireen Weaponry, is a much more in depth unique-weapon system than the current Dracheneisen weaponry- and one I hope they adopt in errata to change Dracheneisen. You select an Origin (how you got the weapon) and a Facet (its effect). Additionally, completing Legends are a potent way to increase the power of the weapon.

Next is the Vile Dice of dealing with the Abonsam spirits. Essentially, bargaining with these Eldritch Creatures grants bonus dice, but using the dice grants corruption.

Verdict

Fluffwise, this book is beyond good. Its locations and people are compelling to read about and beg for adventure. But the Mechanics section is lacking in Sorcerous lineages. Bonus points for having a better legendary weapon system than the original Dracheneisen though. I give it a 4/5. Worth the money and very good, but not necessarily a MUST BUY NOW book.

A pretty simple little story, but definitely one I enjoyed. If your group is into horror and suspence, you can definitely do that with this one, and give it as much of a spooky air as you want.

I was hoping it might have been a little bit longer, and given a little more indication of what NPCs, etc. say. It does leave it quite open for the GM, which is not the end of the world, but you do need to read through properly in order to make sure that the bits you insert as a GM will definitely make sense. It doesn't go into much description, but it gives indication and there was enough for me to make up what I needed too without it being too off-kilter.

I used this as a starter session for my players, none of us have played before this, and it was a good way to introduce them. Enough action and intrigue to keep the players engaged and the story moving. My players really enjoy dark stuff, so I definitely dialled up the horror where I could. A pre-recorded nursery rhyme playing in the background every now and then gives the shivers, and then indepth description really drills it home.

All in all, an interesting story and a great and spooky introduction to the game. It's only enough for one session if you just play straight through, but I could definitely see how a creative GM would be able to take this plotline and make a whole campaign of it.

Full review can be found on my blog, located here:

http://knighterrantjr.blogspot.com/2017/08/what-do-i-know-about-reviews-7th-sea.html

I really liked the insight "Navigating Delicate Negotiations" gave me. It presents great ideas to evolve meaningless chats into exciting back-and-forth parleys.

Instead of offering a crunchy minigame overlapping an already rules-light system, Kevin Krupp's suggestions takes the same rules by another angle that doubles the fun even when the Heroes get bested at close combat or after a naval combat, they can still have a ton of fun and feel accomplished negotiating their way out of a dire situation!