|
Andy Leighton
England
Peterborough
Unspecified
-
Blood Over Gold is a 126 page, perfect bound Third Age Gloranthan sourcebook and campaign for the Heroquest 1.0 system. It should be equally usable under the new Heroquest 2.0 system, and as much of the
book is setting there is lots in the book even if you game in Glorantha using another system. The book has a great front cover showing the city of Fay Jee and its guardian demon.
The setting for the book is Maniria a land at the interface between east and west, bordering the lands of various non-human races. It seems a bit more cosmopolitan place than some of the traditional Gloranthan settings.
After a brief introduction to the area the book covers the four main peoples - the afore-mentioned Trader Princes - who show western tendencies and have lords, knights and sorcerers. The disparate tribes of Wenelia who are generally of Orlanthi extraction. The Pralori Hsunchen - the elk people - who like all Hsunchen people can take on aspects of their totem animal and adepts can totally transform between animal and man. Finally the Islanders of the New Coast. These are generally well done and if I had one complaint it would be I would have liked more on the New Coast Islands and the Islanders.
Next there is a reasonably large section on Fay Jee - one of the major cities of the region. As part of the campaign is set in the city this is all good stuff but it isn't so detailed that the DM doesn't have room to manoeuvre.
The final non-campaign section is on House Caroman (one of the trading houses) which will feature in the campaign as the PCs employer. It has a lot of detail on various NPCs associated with the House and also details the major groupings in the House.
The last section of the book is the campaign - about 50 pages or so. This takes the PCs from their first fumbling application for employment in the House Caroman and lets them rise up through the ranks to become masters of the House and become increasingly involved in intrigue and politics. It is basically built around four set-piece scenarios which forms the backbone of the campaign. As these by necessity cover a wide range of game time - you don't go from zero to hero overnight - the narrator is encouraged to pad them out by expanding on various story seeds and adventure hooks which are included in this section and also throughout the non-campaign sections.
Although I haven't ran the campaign I found this an excellent book. As I said previously I would like to have seen more detail in a few areas but that is just being picky - it is still a very good product. It is definitely worth buying for any Third Age Gloranthan narrator even if they don't use Heroquest. It is far more accessible than many Gloranthan books - the campaign is perfectly understandable even for a Gloranthan newbie and works purely on the mundane level and not the mythic.
-
|
|
|
