Close
Close
Browse Categories
$ to $















Morningstar
[1-30000-085-1]
$9.99
Publisher: Goodman Games
pixel_trans.gif
by Nathan C. [Featured Reviewer] Date Added: 12/18/2007 09:55:41

Morningstar is an amazing campaign setting on first read and one that I believe will fit in nicely as a 3.5 to 4th edition crossover campaign. The campaign high fantasy, a shining light in a world where grim and gritty seem to be the new buzz words of the RPG world. However, it does have its problems and requires the DM to do a little extra developing of anything outside the major continent of the world.

The history of the land seems to begin as a distant entity comes to the world and creates the fey just as life is beginning. The earth combats with the dwarves and somewhere along the way humans and the Thrull, predecessors to orcs and goblins, come along. The dwarves and the elves are divided into subraces which act as racial classes to further define the race. The mechanics of the world showcase the setting with the magic being one of the most innovative world mechanics I have seen in some time. Every area you go, and even the sub levels, are given magic signatures that are influenced by the people and events in the land. These signatures manipulate magic and magical abilities in that area depending on the potency of the signature. For instance, in an area concentrated by military outposts and law abiding citizens, the signature makes it so that everything follows the law of order there. Mechanically, this means that the PCs do not roll dice but take a ten on everything and law spells gain bonus metamagic feats. There are nearly 2 dozen different signatures based on the element or alignment type of the spell. The chapter is quite intuitive and explains what causes a spell signature to rise and what the possible effects should be. Where the mechanics shine the overall story has its hits and misses. The book begins by talking about how powerful the empress was and how the empress seemed to be the catalyst for the setting. Then the she disappears for a hundred pages ago while the author gives us an overly done detailing of one of the major nine kingdoms. Unfortunately, it was one of the lamest of the kingdoms that were briefly described earlier in the book. It was not the content of the living god Empress, nor the continent of the Father following dwarves, nor the continent ruled by warring dragons not dependant on color nor the content ruled by alien entities, nope. It was the continent of humans at war with one another and everything else about them. I felt a bit swerved. After dedicating so many pages telling us about the elves and dwarves (with excellent writing to boot), I was expecting some neat write-ups of their continent. You do get a brief three pages about each continent, but there is a feeling that so much is left out when considering that every providence of Brendir was detailed with even more details about the things within the providence. Because of such a large write-up, there are a lot of chapters that felt incomplete or refer to things that did not happen. The Canticle, the holy prophecy of the land, only has a few major prophecies and no little ones, leaving them for the DM to come up with. One of the worst was the disappearance of the fey after the first couple of chapters. The author recommends at some point you check out his other book to get an understanding of them, but reading his other book gives you a completely different type of fey that he describes in this one. This all reeked of some major editing blunders.

For the DM: The Magical signatures is worth porting over into any campaign. The writing makes you understand how each works and there is a good amount of detail. Another standout point is finally realizing the similarities between the fey and the elves

In the end, my disappointment with Morningstar slightly overshadows my excitement. The magic signatures, fey-elf relations and short descriptions of the exotic continents are great adventure starters. I also enjoyed the writing and the intricate places created in Brendir. I would love to base an entire campaign around this book, but there is so little information on the rest of the world, which sounded far more exciting than Brendir, that it greatly prevents anyone from doing a complete campaign that goes outside the realm of the continent of Brendir. That is not to say that Brendir is not exciting. Its quite a boiling pot of activity for rich adventures. So much so, that it is a nice place to begin a few long story arcs in a setting that uses mechanics similar to the rumored 4th editions. Also, the author is planning an updated 4th edition rewrite that will address some of the major problems in the book.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
pixel_trans.gif
pixel_trans.gif Back
You must be logged in to rate this
pixel_trans.gif
Morningstar
Click to show product description

Add to DriveThruRPG.com Order

0 items
 Gift Certificates