Great supplement, like always Kevin Crawford's work is top notch. The book has everything you need to run a campaign on the Ancalia region, from places, NPCs to several random generators to inspire GMs.

10/10, if you like Godbound, this is a must buy.

Very cool looking game and the peview shows it. Glad I'm supporting this on Kickstarter at the moment: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/215931791/unity-tabletop-rpg

Probably one of the best supplements made for an RPG about faeries. Useful not just for the GM who wants to delve into the fair folk realms, but also for the players who want to play a faerie themselves (there are plenty of cool Ancestries, tables and Paths to choose from). Plus the art if beautiful.

More madness is always good. If you like to expand this aspect of the game, pick this.

After Uncertain Faiths this is probably my favorite supplement for SotDL, and a great insight into the dark fae (or devils). It contains many interesting (depressing maybe, but totally fit the tone of the game) secrets about the setting (GMs, trust me, you want this book).

If you are GM'ing this game for the first time and want some help with the first adventure, this is what you need. Even if you don't use the adventure the supplement is worth for all the advice and guidelines it gives about running the first adventure for Level 0 characters. Very helpful, glad I bought it.

Probably one of the best supplements for SotDL so far. The Old Faith chapter alone could have been a supplement on its own, since it has profiles and rules for each Old God's Priests.

Also, as visual design goes, this book is the prettiest so far, and the artwork very evocative.

Top-notch artwork from a top-notch game. Making it available for free is Kevin's way to give back to the roleplaying community.

[Full Review with actual play here: http://daystarchronicles.blogspot.com.ar)

I want to start this review by saying I genuinely love this game. I haven't been so hooked and in love with an RPG in a long while, probably not since I played Exalted 1st Edition for the first time a little over 10 years ago.

The setting goes like this: over a thousand years ago, mortals stormed the halls of Heaven in search for the One God, battling the Angelic Host along the way, so that they may know the truths of the universe. That didn't end up well, though, since the Throne was empty. Furious, mortals looted the Celestial Engines to build their own divinities, the Made Gods, according to each people's philosophies and dogma. It wouldn’t be long before Made Gods clash in the blattlefield, with each conflict tearing the fabric of the universe a little more. In the end, the Last War produced the Shattering, a cosmic cataclysm that broke and scattered the world into many Realms, each one floating alone among the Uncreated Night. Meanwhile, the Angels were forced to withdraw to Hell, a safe heaven from where they could plot to destroy the world in order to recreate it anew.

With the Made Gods dead or weakened, and the Celestial Engines at the blink of collapse, hope was all but lost. But then, the divine energy contained in Heaven's dead Made Gods poured into the world below, gifting ordinary men and women with divine might. These are the Godbound. Whether the world is to be saved or doomed, it's their fate to carve its ultimate destiny.

Like I said before, the core engine is recognizable to anyone who has played classic D&D before. You have six attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom, Intelligence and Charisma) rated 1 to 18 to measure how good you are on a particular field. If you need to make a check to see if you succeed or fail, you roll a 20-sided die. High is good, low is bad. The usual stuff.

What sets Godbound apart? For once, no skills. Instead, players have Facts, which work in a lot of ways similar to Fate's Aspects. If you have a Fact applicable to a non-combat die roll, you add a +4 bonus to the roll. Quick, simple, and customizable to each PC's backstory and deeds. Players may also use Facts to get a general idea of a character's resources, and it's possible to gain stuff like Lesser Magic (wizardry used by mortals) or a Divine Artifact in lieu of the +4 bonus. You start with three Facts, gaining a new Fact with each experience Level you reach.

Of course, that alone wouldn't make for unstoppable demigods, so we have Words, the spheres of divine might that tell us what a Godbound can do. Some Words are Fire, Beasts, Command, Passion, Sword, and many more. Each character starts with three Words, although it's possible to bind to more as they level up. Just be bonding with a Word, characters get access to some related perks or Attribute increments. For example, anyone who bonds with Fire will be immune to flames, while someone who bonds with Might will automatically have Strength 19.

Once a hero’s Words are chosen, the player selects Gifts among those Words, powers his character will always have available (some are constant, while others must be activated by the Godbound). In addition, Godbound may invoke Miracles from their Words, either to emulate Gifts they didn't buy or to create their own effects (of course, doing so costs more than having purchased the right Gift for the job). That way, Godbound have both fixed powers and free-form magic they can access in times of need.

Some Gifts and powers are free to use, but most require the character to commit Effort in order to activate them for as long as the power is on. One the Godbound no longer needs the power active, he may instantly reclaim his spent Effort (for example, if a Gift enhances an attack, the Godbound can reclaim the Effort as soon as the attack is resolved). The strongest powers require the hero to leave Effort committed even after its effects have ended, either for the remainder of the scene or the whole day. A Level 1 character starts with Effort 2, and increases this score by one each time they Level up. It's incredible how much you can achieve even at first level with just two points, making bookkeeping quite easy.

How does this all play in game? Awesomely. Combat is fast and furious, with lesser enemies possessing no treat to a pantheon unless in very large numbers (luckily, Godbound has fantastic Mob rules). All Godbound have a Fray Die (1d8 by default). Every turn, regardless of their action, they get to roll their Fray Die to represent minor miracles that inflict damage on lesser foes. That way, Godbound can dispatch larger number of lesser enemies quite fast.

On top of everything else, the book itself is incredibly helpful for the GM, full of advice and techniques to design epic adventures for your players. Even if you don't like OSR, and even if the quite streamlined and polished rules in this book are not to your taste, the book is so full of rules and tips that can be easily converted to other game systems that it's worth buying it just for that anyway.

My favorite subsystem in the book is Influence and Dominion. As they gain Levels, characters increase their Influence pool, which they can commit (just like Effort) to alter the world around them off-screen based on his Words. For as long as the Influence remains committed, their divine powers sustain the change, only returning to its original state if he withdraws the points or an external force interferes. For example, let's say a Godbound finds an isolated island village that is constantly raid by pirates. He has to travel to a far place to deal with the tentacled abomination the pirates have for a deity. He fears the village is not safe until his return, so he works on a plan to defend them while he's away. Working for a few days, he crafts a metal-men army, imbuing them with life with the Artifice Word. For as long as the Influence remains committed on the task, the army will be upkeep and functional. If he ever withdraws it, though, they will start to fall apart and malfunction.

If a Godbound wants to make one of this changes permanent, he has to spend Dominion. Once he has done so, the change is permanent and he no longer is required to commit Influence to upkeep the change. Once spent, Dominion points are lost, and the character needs to earn more (usually from receiving worship, performing heroic deeds or looting Celestal Shards). Following the previous example, the Artifice Godbound could spend dominion to make his metal army a permanent addition to the village, ensuring that even after he has long gone they will still protect the village.

Amazing GM's companion not just for Godbound but any other fantasy game out there. It's great for building plots on the fly.

[Full Review with actual play here: http://daystarchronicles.blogspot.com.ar)

I want to start this review by saying I genuinely love this game. I haven't been so hooked and in love with an RPG in a long while, probably not since I played Exalted 1st Edition for the first time a little over 10 years ago.

The setting goes like this: over a thousand years ago, mortals stormed the halls of Heaven in search for the One God, battling the Angelic Host along the way, so that they may know the truths of the universe. That didn't end up well, though, since the Throne was empty. Furious, mortals looted the Celestial Engines to build their own divinities, the Made Gods, according to each people's philosophies and dogma. It wouldn’t be long before Made Gods clash in the blattlefield, with each conflict tearing the fabric of the universe a little more. In the end, the Last War produced the Shattering, a cosmic cataclysm that broke and scattered the world into many Realms, each one floating alone among the Uncreated Night. Meanwhile, the Angels were forced to withdraw to Hell, a safe heaven from where they could plot to destroy the world in order to recreate it anew.

With the Made Gods dead or weakened, and the Celestial Engines at the blink of collapse, hope was all but lost. But then, the divine energy contained in Heaven's dead Made Gods poured into the world below, gifting ordinary men and women with divine might. These are the Godbound. Whether the world is to be saved or doomed, it's their fate to carve its ultimate destiny.

Like I said before, the core engine is recognizable to anyone who has played classic D&D before. You have six attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom, Intelligence and Charisma) rated 1 to 18 to measure how good you are on a particular field. If you need to make a check to see if you succeed or fail, you roll a 20-sided die. High is good, low is bad. The usual stuff.

What sets Godbound apart? For once, no skills. Instead, players have Facts, which work in a lot of ways similar to Fate's Aspects. If you have a Fact applicable to a non-combat die roll, you add a +4 bonus to the roll. Quick, simple, and customizable to each PC's backstory and deeds. Players may also use Facts to get a general idea of a character's resources, and it's possible to gain stuff like Lesser Magic (wizardry used by mortals) or a Divine Artifact in lieu of the +4 bonus. You start with three Facts, gaining a new Fact with each experience Level you reach.

Of course, that alone wouldn't make for unstoppable demigods, so we have Words, the spheres of divine might that tell us what a Godbound can do. Some Words are Fire, Beasts, Command, Passion, Sword, and many more. Each character starts with three Words, although it's possible to bind to more as they level up. Just be bonding with a Word, characters get access to some related perks or Attribute increments. For example, anyone who bonds with Fire will be immune to flames, while someone who bonds with Might will automatically have Strength 19.

Once a hero’s Words are chosen, the player selects Gifts among those Words, powers his character will always have available (some are constant, while others must be activated by the Godbound). In addition, Godbound may invoke Miracles from their Words, either to emulate Gifts they didn't buy or to create their own effects (of course, doing so costs more than having purchased the right Gift for the job). That way, Godbound have both fixed powers and free-form magic they can access in times of need.

Some Gifts and powers are free to use, but most require the character to commit Effort in order to activate them for as long as the power is on. One the Godbound no longer needs the power active, he may instantly reclaim his spent Effort (for example, if a Gift enhances an attack, the Godbound can reclaim the Effort as soon as the attack is resolved). The strongest powers require the hero to leave Effort committed even after its effects have ended, either for the remainder of the scene or the whole day. A Level 1 character starts with Effort 2, and increases this score by one each time they Level up. It's incredible how much you can achieve even at first level with just two points, making bookkeeping quite easy.

How does this all play in game? Awesomely. Combat is fast and furious, with lesser enemies possessing no treat to a pantheon unless in very large numbers (luckily, Godbound has fantastic Mob rules). All Godbound have a Fray Die (1d8 by default). Every turn, regardless of their action, they get to roll their Fray Die to represent minor miracles that inflict damage on lesser foes. That way, Godbound can dispatch larger number of lesser enemies quite fast.

On top of everything else, the book itself is incredibly helpful for the GM, full of advice and techniques to design epic adventures for your players. Even if you don't like OSR, and even if the quite streamlined and polished rules in this book are not to your taste, the book is so full of rules and tips that can be easily converted to other game systems that it's worth buying it just for that anyway.

My favorite subsystem in the book is Influence and Dominion. As they gain Levels, characters increase their Influence pool, which they can commit (just like Effort) to alter the world around them off-screen based on his Words. For as long as the Influence remains committed, their divine powers sustain the change, only returning to its original state if he withdraws the points or an external force interferes. For example, let's say a Godbound finds an isolated island village that is constantly raid by pirates. He has to travel to a far place to deal with the tentacled abomination the pirates have for a deity. He fears the village is not safe until his return, so he works on a plan to defend them while he's away. Working for a few days, he crafts a metal-men army, imbuing them with life with the Artifice Word. For as long as the Influence remains committed on the task, the army will be upkeep and functional. If he ever withdraws it, though, they will start to fall apart and malfunction.

If a Godbound wants to make one of this changes permanent, he has to spend Dominion. Once he has done so, the change is permanent and he no longer is required to commit Influence to upkeep the change. Once spent, Dominion points are lost, and the character needs to earn more (usually from receiving worship, performing heroic deeds or looting Celestal Shards). Following the previous example, the Artifice Godbound could spend dominion to make his metal army a permanent addition to the village, ensuring that even after he has long gone they will still protect the village.

An already amazing game gets a fresh new edition with almost double content, full color artwork and some interesting tweaks to the rules.

Totally recommended for both old fans and new players alike.

[Originally posted here: http://daystarchronicles.blogspot.com.ar/2014/02/just-backed-4-against-dark-yogi.html]

I haven’t read much about the setting yet (it’s not India, but a fantastic land based on ancient India called Bhurloka), but I've read most of the rules, so I’d like to talk a little bit about that. For starters, the game uses poker cards rather than dice. I wasn't very convinced about this aspect of the game until I saw the rules, then decided that there is no way the game could feel the same using dice.

On a nutshell, you have 8 attributes (4 physical, 4 mental) and several skills. To resolve an action, the GM tells you the relevant target number. If the total of your Attribute + Skill + Card (you draw the first card of the deck) is equal to or greater than the TN, you succeed, otherwise you fail. Success usually allows you to bring conditions into the scene, which acts as a bonus or penalty on further rolls. For example, if you want to disguise as a Prince and you succeed, you may gain the “Disguised as a Prince” condition, granting you a bonus every time you want to act as a Prince or where being a Prince could be helpful; on the other hand, you may use the same condition as a penalty on anyone trying to pierce your disguise.

On top of that, each player has both Good Karma and Bad Karma. Good Karma is represented by the cards you have in hand, while Bad Karma is represented by cards on the table facing down. Good Karma can be used by the player in several ways, the most common use being using a card from your hand rather than a random draw from the deck for a check. Bad Karma, on the other hand, may be used by the GM to complicate things for your character. You gain Good Karma by doing good deeds and following your dharma, while you gain Bad Karma by breaking the rules (like stealing or touching a dead body).

The combat system is very interesting, with the player spending points from his Chakra pools (5 different pools) to perform several actions each round. For example, you may spend crown chakra to read a book, afterwards spend lower chakra to run, then spend another lower chakra to jump over a cliff and finally spend more lower chakra to land a spear attack upon an enemy. That way, you may take several actions per round based on how much chakra you have on your pools. You recover a little bit of chakra each round (similar to how chi breath works in Weapons of the Gods).

A very interesting feature for combat is that most of the time you are probably going to face hordes of lesser enemies, maybe under the orders of a more powerful enemy. As such, the game has a very interesting way to represent this. A unit is equal to a single individual, with a number of HP equal to the number of individuals in the unit. You may attack the unit just like any other regular character, but what’s interesting (I don’t remember having seen this in any other game) is that each time the unit attacks a character, that character automatically deals a number of points of damage to the unit, representing that even as the unit strikes you, you managed to take some extras out of the fight. That really makes you feel epic (it also helps that most attacks can’t kill your character, only leave him unconscious, only major villains and special attacks have any chance to kill a character).

As for character creation and advancement, that’s where things get interesting. To create a character you have to first think on his previous five incarnations, and each incarnation will grant your current self skills (or other benefits if he was non-human, like the capability to fly if he was a bird on a previous life). Then, you choose two Paths that apply to your current character. Paths are archetypes like Spearman, Archer, Charioteer or Yogi; they give you starting equipment and, more importantly, they tell you which traits you can purchase (a character may only purchase traits from his Paths and from the Universal Path).

Traits represent special equipment, combat maneuvers, tricks, allies or weird powers your character has. Some are very mundane, like the ability to make a counterattack in combat, while others are far more surreal and mythic, like the ability to build constructs by firing arrows (my favorite trait in the whole game) or a God blessing your chariot so it can fly. You start with 2-3 traits based on your Paths, but you may purchase more during the game.

As for character advancement, the most interesting part actually happens when you die. At any point, the GM may choose to move the timeline a generation, so that all characters die and are reincarnated again. When that happens, your Enlightenment score goes up one point (that is, you become more powerful and awesome). With time and reincarnations, you’ll be able to gain more Paths, recover more Chakra per round, have more Health and overall kick more ass. In addition, if you are not into multiple generations campaigns, the book has optional rules that allow characters to increase their Enlightenment without dying.

My only complaint with this game is the title. When I read Against the Dark Yogi, I picture a short one-evening story game like The Mountain Witch, not a 300 pages book planned for long campaigns. The tile is not bad into itself, but I think it follows a format that doesn't quite picture how big and wide this game is, but rather ties it to a single plot. Of course, it’s a minor marketing detail that doesn't have any impact on how awesome this game is, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

As you can see, I liked this game quite a lot. I like how your character feels epic at all times, while at the same time keeping a simple system that is easy to grasp.

I can’t wait to play this game with my group, and I think you should give it a try as well!

This is one of the most solid quickstarts I’ve seen. The rules are simple, yet there is an example of play in each one, in case you missed something.

As for Mazaki itself, it’s a very cool game. We playtested it with some friends a couple of weeks ago using the previous version of the quickstart, and we had a blast! It’s a very fun game, where the focus is put in your imagination and how you engage a particular obstacle rather than thinking in abstract numbers. It’s the kind of game you can play with both your kids and a veteran gamer alike, and they both are going to enjoy it.

The content of the quickstart is all you need to experience Mazaki for the first time and have a glimpse of how amazing the final book is going to be. Even if you don’t like JRPGs or anime, you should give it a try, since the system is very adaptable to other settings. I have a few hacks in mind right now that I want to try once the final version of the book comes out next year.

All in all, you are not going to be disappointed by checking it out.