I bought this after watching the show (which I highly recomend), because Will's style of running games is just like mine. This is a great mini-campaign which fits seemlessly into the Fantasy AGE rules. * It also gives you encounters and scenes that were not in the show (and two other city-states with story hooks to go beyond the show).

There are only a few things that are odd, and that is that they don't give you a difficulty rating for each encounter, nor do they give you advice on when to advance your characters. Also, some of the locations in the adventure in the city state of Nestora can not be found on the map... and that is dissapinting since they do go into detail of that city. BUT, to be honest those two minor details are not dealbreaksers and I still give this a "GOOD" rating!

Ring Side Report- RPG Review of Titansgrave: The Ashes of Valkana

Originally posted at www.throatpunchgames.com, a new idea everyday!

Product- Titansgrave: The Ashes of Valkana System- AGE System Producer- Green Ronin Price- $13.99 here http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/153950/Titansgrave-The-Ashes-of-Valkana?src=hottest_filtered TL; DR- I only wish this had more. 88%

Basics-Cyberpunk, fantasy, and Wheaton-oh my! Titansgrave: The Ashes of Valkana is the much hyped book using the AGE System and a setting designed by several RPG powerhouses and Wil Wheaton himself. On the Tabletop YouTube page, Wheaton played several adventures of this game with his celebrity friends, and now you can play this game at home with your friends. What will happen when you disturbed the ashes of a long dead war?

Mechanics or Crunch-Titansgrave demonstrates some amazing uses for the AGE system, but doesn't quite hit the mark I was expected. The book has some phenomenal new additions to the system like a completely new chart to spend stunt points for one creature type in combat. Those kind of add-ons to a system show how robust and buildable the AGE system can be. The book doesn’t quite keep up that new energy throughout however. The basic Fantasy Age book introduces the system quite well, but Titansgrave doesn’t do enough to expand the system for this universe. I wanted several new additions, spells, and mechanics, however, I really only got a new race, some new items, and a few character options in the first chapter. They all work well, but it doesn’t do enough to really drastically enhance the system. AGE is great itself, but I want more to really make the AGE system Titansgrave own thing. 4/5

Theme or Fluff- Titansgrave tells an interesting story, but sadly one you’ve kind of “heard” before. The Titansgrave story is the fun romp from TableTop. Which if you saw TableTop is awesome. But, if you saw TableTop, then you have a general idea of what’s going to happen. I was hoping for a bit more original stuff like added adventures, side quests, and a continuing adventure in the world, but there is some things here to keep your players guessing. Also, the story is a bit linear. You can’t go too far off rails on this as the story is written ahead of time. 4.75/5

Execution-If you like the layout from Fantasy AGE, you will do fine here. This book is basically a giant version of the adventure at the back of the Fantasy AGE book with some serious additions. I’d like a bit more here as the art is good, but I need a few more maps to throw to my players and some more breaks in the text to help me better read the story. Overall, its well done and something that you can get through with general ease. 4.5/5

Summary-Titansgrave is the first big launch of the AGE system after it got its own push post-Dragon Age. This book isn’t my favorite RPG book of all time, but I think it does a good job of introducing the system and setting in a big way. The book provides a completely new world to play in. I’d like a bit more mechanics specific to the world, but what’s here is well done. The story is good, but depending on how much your players watch Titansgrave, they may have seen some of the high points. The book is well executed, and overall a fun read. After reading this book, I’m hungry for more in the Titansgrave setting. 88%

TitansGrave: The Ashes of Valkana is a splendid setting that gets the whole Thundarr: The Barbarian vibe across in a consistent world. The setting is very cool, especially for an 80’s kid like me, and the artwork is an absolute joy.

The additional mechanics are very sparse but definitely useful for branching the AGE system into sci-fi stuff, without adding too much complexity.

The adventure is the key component of this product and it is perhaps one of the most fun-looking I’ve read up on in a while. At this point I’m already tempted to call up my gaming group to ask them if we could run this right away.

My only nitpick about it is that I wish it covered more ground in the setting. Still you could have more than enough fun romping around the regions detailed in the book so far.

I’m definitely looking forward to seeing where this line might develop into and how they plan to expand it. Bottomline? Buy it. It might just be your new favorite science-fantasy setting.