Arrows of Indra is one of the very few mythic India RPGs on the market today. In fact, the only other ones I know of are d20 supplement Sahasra and the upcoming mythic India game, Against the Dark Yogi. (Full disclosure: The author of this review is affiliated with this later game.)

Arrows of Indra sells itself as an Old School Renaissance (OSR) game set in ancient india. And that's exactly what it is, which in my opinion could be either a good or a bad thing, depending on what you're looking for in the game. The real distinction lies in whether you're looking for an India game foremost that happens to be OSR, or an OSR game that happens to be set in India.

Looking at the meat of the game, like many OSR games, Arrows of Indra is basically a recreation of 0e D&D with some of the kinks worked out. This includes a random cavern generator, random encounter tables where you can roll up encounters such as "Asura Demon, Class B," and random loot tables with D&D-style magic items and coins listed in gold, silver and copper pieces. All of these elements do a very good job of keeping with the old school D&D feel of the game.

Where the game falls flat is in emulating the sort of stories and feel found in Indian myth. A starting character in Arrows of Indra is very much a 1st level old school D&D character. They may have a fine and deadly time crawling through India-themed dungeons, but they're not going to be even remotely comparable to the characters featured in Vedic myths. And this will remain true even with many levels under their belts.

Another way in which Arrows of Indra fails to emulate Indian myth is when it comes to having rules to support some of the amazing feats performed by Indian heroes. Heroes in Vedic myth build bridges by shooting arrows, leap miles and rip up trees to use as improvised weapons. Nothing remotely on this level of power is supported in Arrows of Indra.

The OSR part of the design also shows up in the rules for siddhis (magic powers). These are represented in the game as special skills, that once purchased, may be used once per day in much the same way as D&D spells.

The classes in the game are basically the D&D classes with an Indian-themed veneer applied to them. The siddhi is the wizard, the thuggee is the assassin, the priest is the cleric, the fighter is the fighter, the thief is the thief, the yogi is the monk.

That said, Arrows of Indra does have a fairly extensive bestiary, featuring most of the creatures one would expect from an India-themed game, as well as a odd variety of D&D-esque monsters that made it into the game as well.

The writing for the game is clear, the editing is decent and the game also has a very crisp layout that is both simple and visually appealing. The cover art is very nice, but the interior art is… well… it's on par with 0e D&D art. That is to say it lacks the quality I am used to seeing in modern games, but perhaps it fits the OSR feel of the game well.

Overall, I would recommend this game to anyone looking for a specifically OSR game. I might recommend this game for someone looking for a specifically Indian game, but with some reservations on what to expect in terms of genre emulation.