![]() ![]() It’s also easy for me to imagine how I might create my own campaign with the material here, and the tools in TOR’s core rules. I definitely feel I got my purchase price’s enjoyment reading through the supplement. Ruins of the Lost Realm straddles my line between “armchair book” and “table book” with excellence. It didn’t live up to my expectations, but my expectations were also very high. This adds to TOR’s sensation of being an in-world artifact, and definitely increases my pleasure reading through these books.Īnd overall, this is a good book. The sort of line art or sketch style chosen for this game’s interior illustrations meshes well with the page’s “paper” texture. My favorite piece is a Player-hero bargaining with a talking otter using shiny baubles. That said, the artwork really is excellent in the first two chapters of the book. As a gamemaster I enjoy being able to turn the book around, point, and say “That! You walk around the corner, and see that!” Considering the number of monsters featured in the book-such as the Beast of Angmar, and the Doom of Nenuiel-I wish there were a couple extra illustrations. The cartography is beautiful, and mostly easy to understand. While discussing the landmarks chapter, it’s also noteworthy that I was a little disappointed that section’s illustrations were nearly all location maps. Skimming back through Raven’s Purge, for Forbidden Lands, the “Events” section of each adventure site provided fuel to my imagination in the way “Schemes and Trouble” has not. Supplementary information in “Schemes and Trouble” to help integrate a landmark’s problems and antagonists into the themes, characters, and the Tale of Years presented in the book’s first half would give Ruins more structure. In this collection that formula is somewhat overused. A rumor, a monster, and a treasure is a time-honored formula for adventure. Several landmarks feel set up to be a treasure hunt, but without establishing broader consequences as in The Hobbit. ![]() The landmarks chapter has two basic weaknesses: too many similar themes, and lack of detail in the “Schemes and Trouble” section of most landmarks. I quite like their Forbidden Lands, which emphasizes exploration in the same way. This disappointed me because I feel this type of site-based adventure design is usually a strength for Free League. The front half of the book-describing Eriador, and the antagonists which threaten it-is very good, but the second half’s landmarks felt a bit underwritten. I had very high hopes for Ruins, considering the core rules’ superlative quality. Together, the core rules and Ruins provide a Loremaster-TOR’s term for a gamemaster-with a large LEGO set from which to build their own campaign. ![]() It’s intended to be used in combination with the “World” chapter of TOR, which also focuses upon history, characters, and conflicts within Eriador. Ruins describes the people of Eriador, plots which threaten them, and a collection of twelve “landmarks” for exploration during the game’s Adventuring Phase. The Shire of the Hobbits lies at its heart, with the Grey Havens along the western shore, and Elrond’s hidden home, Rivendell, in the foothills of the eastern mountains. This land was once the kingdom of Arnor, west of the Misty Mountains. ![]() Free League’s Ruins of the Lost Realm is a “sandbox” description of Eriador. Reminiscent of the “Red Book of Westmarch” described in Tolkien’s prologue to The Fellowship of the Ring, that volume’s illustration, graphic design, and rules design together presented a game which said to me, “here’s how to play stories which feel like Tolkien’s stories, but need not be derivative.” I love it, and anticipated follow-up releases from TOR’s Swedish publisher, Free League. The thick red leatherbound second edition of The One Ring (TOR) roleplaying game enchanted me the moment I opened the Kickstarter reward. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |