Last night I finished reading Mythic Ireland by John Briquelet. It is a fantastic collection of material on the ancient Irish that can be used in any campaign. It is written with statistics for Deluxe Tunnels and Trolls. However, since most of it is text and not stat-blocks, it is easily converted to any gaming system.

It includes a thorough section on how to play ancient Irish professions (such as the druids, fili/ bards, witches, warriors, etc.), material on the Irish code of honor and how to use it in a RPG campaign, new magic (such as the Cloak of the Dagda, and the Riastradh, which allows a caster to expefrience Cú Chulainn's Hulk-like "warp spasm", etc.), an overview of Irish king and clan society, an list of commonly used items for purchase (ranging from the traditional backpack to a Bodhran/ drum and gold torc), the role of geasa/ taboos, Irish gods/ religion/ feasts, new creatures in Mythic Ireland (e.g. the fae of the Courts of Light/ Darkness, Cu Sidhe/ otherworld hounds, etc.), maps and descriptions of ancient Ireland, material for a Gamemaster-led adventure for 4-6 player characters (Finneach’s Black Bull), and more. And I haven't even mentioned the beautiful color artwork, not least of which is the cover.

In the spirit of constructive feedback, the book could be made even better if it were slightly reorganized; some of the sections seem spread throughout the book (e.g. "background" material could be clustered in one section and "gameplay" material in another, or at least highlight these as different in the book). Also, it would have been great to have a PDF version that did not have the page coloring as this requires a lot of printer ink. And finally, when will a hardcopy/ softcopy be available?!? :) I'd love to have this on my shelf. These are minor comments and do affect my 5/5 rating.

It is a fantastic collection of material that will provide countless hours of unique RPG gameplay. Well worth the price and your time. 5/5

Gorgeous. That was my first impression of Mythic Ireland as I read through the pages. The entire supplement is colourized to look like parchment, and appropriate and evocative images of the ancient Irish (primarily paintings) are found every few pages. No black-and-white illustrations here! Even the hex maps of the various lands are in hues of eye-pleasing green, appropo for the Emerald Isle.

This brings me to my only issue with the supplement. If you like to print pdfs, you should think twice before doing so with Mythic Ireland. And there’s no print-friendly version or POD available at the time of the review.

But that’s a minor consideration. For 90 pages, Mythic Ireland is chockful of material. Author John Briquelet made sure the setting – and playing in it – feels distinctively different from typical Tolkien-esque fantasy. Nor are these Hollywood Celts with an Irish accent. In the section appropriately titled, "Who Are the Gaels?", players get a thorough crash-course in the ancient Irish mindset from why PCs need to stay in great shape, to consequences in indiscriminately kill rivals and keeping their heads.

All that fluff is backed by crunch to stay in character. Clu (pronounced CLOO) is a new stat and represents the PC's reputation and honor. It's not a static number, falling and rising on how much the PC demonstrates the virtues of Gaelic character (or not). PCs with high Clu will find it easier to secure an audience with their chieftain (or even the gods!) while those with low scores can find themselves stripped of their land.

Other rules cover how core concepts from Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls fit in Mythic Ireland. Rogues, for example, have to choose which magic focus they’ll be using (Druidic, Filid or Bard, Witchcraft, and–if approved–Fae magic). New rules, such as opposed Saving Rolls, Spirit Combat, setting-appropriate spells and creatures, are also provided. Finally, a beginning adventure, "Finneach's Black Bull", gives a distinctly different flavor from traditional hack-and-slash, providing opportunities from combat to strict roleplaying.

Overall opinion? Mythic Ireland is a beautiful and solid supplement to T&T for those looking to role-play in an Irish-based fantasy setting.

To sum up the review in advance I would say that I think this is probably the best book to buy currently available if you want to run a campaign set in Ireland's mythic past or even a straight historical game set in the Medieval period. Even if you are not using Tunnels and Trolls I would strongly recommend giving this book a look because of the very well presented setting information. In addition there are excellent mechanical choices that basically make this for Mythic/Medieval Ireland what Pendragon is for the Arthur Cycle, i.e. "the game" that precisely conveys the setting's feel.

For background I'm Irish and speak Irish Gaelic.

"Mythic Ireland" to me conveys the setting common to the Medieval sources in which Irish myth is presented. This is the ancient Celtic past as imagined by Ireland's Medieval society. These myths have two features, one well known, the other less well known:

1. The presence of mythic beings who are presented as some ambiguous combination of gods, fae or simply magically potent men and women
2. An idealised political structure. That is the four provincial kingdoms ruled over by a high king. As opposed to the reality of hundreds of individually competing kingdoms with occasional loose ties of tribute.
3. That conventional everyday life in these myths was imagined to be identical to that of Medieval Ireland. This is similar to how Arthur, despite his historical setting being Late Roman Britain, is imagined in a chivalric fuedal society.

Many books concentrate on the first point, but it is quite difficult to get a good idea of everyday life in Medieval Ireland without reading 300+ page academic tomes. Briquelet has basically done this task for you in a way that conveys all the useful "table relevant" aspects of the society. He also gives a neat little guide to the idealised political structure taken straight from the myths.

This includes details on: Clothing, Food, Games, Sports, Housing, Legal Matters, Religion, Marriage, coinage, the structure of society and War.

This is done in thirty highly readable pages! The hierarchical structure of society in particular is very hard to get a clean simple explanation of, even in academic sources. This includes everybody's social rank and the typical make up of an average household.

Along with this is the introduction of the Clú attribute. Clú is a bit hard to translate. It roughly corresponds to the English "reputation", but not in the sense of modern "fame" but how frequently people tell stories of personally meeting you and seeing your accomplishments. It's also tied into the power of magic and curses in Irish myth and in the Medieval period was related to how the community treated you. Again this is a subtle concept that would normally difficult for a GM to get right. But Briquelet introduces the Clú attribute and some associated mechanics that just naturally bring about the right feel. Think of how Passions and Traits in Pendragon naturally guide the game toward the right Knightly feel.

The selection of monsters sticks quite closely to what the myths actually feature without getting into pseudo-Celtic monsters more inspired from modern novels. This includes the various witches (mechanically summarised as two seperate monster types) which I've rarely seen mentioned in RPG attempts at Ireland.

There's also a bunch of useful little details such as lists of names and a very accurate guide to pronunciation. The pronunciation I would characterise as being as close as you can get in English to how everyday Medieval Irish sounded.

So if you are in any way curious about Ireland's past, either mythic of historic, I strongly recommend getting this nice volume.