Bought it. Loved it. My only gripe is, that I would know more of Adira the Muse- such as a block of playable statistics, and perhaps a short biography. She and her enchanted Kerzenleuchter would be most welcome on any adventure of mine! The same goes for the aforementioned OSR setting, teased in the introduction- I look forward to seeing it realized. Be well!

Originally posted here: https://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2022/09/100-days-of-halloween-baf-muse.html

This one is a bit special. First, it is produced by Basic Witch Games which is just a great name. Secondly, the game is produced by a couple of friends of mine, Miranda Hunt and her wife Caitlin Hliwa doing the art. Thirdly I contributed a few spells for this book. So...that makes reviewing this a little more difficult. So in addition to following my rules I am also going to be especially careful here. I am not going to review the spells for example.

BaF - The Muse

PDF. 8 pages. Color cover. Black & white internal art.

BaF is short for "Basic as Fuck" a philosophy and a game design ethic. These classes (of which the Muse is the first) are designed for B/X D&D or OSE.

This class, the Muse, is a magic-using class that alters emotions and enchants their companions. This is a Charisma base class and it cast spells in a similar manner to the witch classes.

The XP charts follow the same format as Old School Essentials. The muse is similar in advancement to the Cleric and Magic-users. The Muse casts spells up to the 5th level.

While I don't feel it would be right to review the spells, there is a good number here and many that are original.

There is also a new magic weapon featured.

The class is really fun and I can see a lot of uses for it as a great support character (like the Cleric) and some magic firepower (like the Magic-user).

I like classes that can evoke a mood without being heavyhanded, and the muse class presented here does a great job of that. It's a promising class for your OSR game if it involves any reasonable amount of intrigue or navigating social encounters. They're definitely a "face" class, helping out their party members by defusing tense situations or offering protection when it comes to blows. Calm emotions is a fantastic spell for that reason, and I really like dream, which I might even level down for my own games...

There are two lovely pieces of artwork in this 6-page product: the image of a lovely muse gives you a good idea what you're getting into with the class, and the art of the magic sword Kerzenleuchter is phenomenal. Actually the sword as whole, art and text, is pretty great. Intelligent weapons are cool but always seem like they're waiting for epic situations, and Kerzenleuchter is a much more subtle piece that you can introduce early on.

It's short, sweet, and to the point and I like it. If your campaign is about bleeding down in the muck and fighting tooth and nail for survival, the muse might be a bit out-of-tune, but if you're in a lot of civilized areas evading the monarch's enchanted assassins, or even a particularly social dungeon filled with medusa triunes and kobold cults competing for dark power, then I recommend it!