farewell2kings's page

I must be fair and inform you that I am friends with the author, but I bought his book on Lulu to support his efforts and I will be fair with my review. It's great that Paizo is now offering this book. Here it goes: This book is about as far away from mainstream as you can get. I called it the Anti-Harry Potter, but that doesn't even begin to do it justice. Read it for the shock value. Read it for the zinging one liners. Read it for the fascinating setting--a world familiar yet horrifying. The novel moves at a break neck speed, fueled by pornographic images, the longing for cigarettes and vodka fueled strippers and a desperate need to be accepted and/or save the United States from demons. Giving more details would be giving out spoilers and one should... More > not spoil the fun that is this novel. As a fan of conventional fantasy, hard core science fiction, alternate history novels and historically based stories, I wasn't sure what to make of this book. I'm still not sure. After reading it, I'm sure I've damaged my psyche' somehow and I will never, ever, ever use the term goatboy again. Clinton Boomer's imagination and the ability to create a mood is incredible. The novel leaves many literary conventions behind...many loops are left open, many issues unresolved, but finishing it was like finishing a sprint....a sprint where your pursuer wants to rape you and you cross the finish line, winded, victorious, with a leather clad stripper handing you a cold beer at the end and smacking you on the rear end. You feel slightly violated, but also slightly vindicated. I want Royden Poole to take over Hogwarts. If you're a teenager and you want to shock your parents, read this book. If you're a "grown up" and want to to laugh our butt off, shake your head in mock disgust and wonder about 'who the hell thought this stuff up?' read this book. You'll never be the same, I guarantee it.

Reign of Discordia is a classic science fiction RPG product, integrated into the elegant and easy to play True20 system. Darrin Drader and RDP did a great job of recreating the feel, look and flavor of some of the timeless early Science
Fiction RPGs such as Traveler, Edward Simbalist's original "Space Opera" and Spacemaster. Rules for starship combat are detailed and complete, yet integrate well into the fast moving combat rules of True20. No endless chart flipping here, but the rules are thorough enough to provide even detail oriented players with a satisfying gaming experience where their characters can make the difference between life and gory inter stellar defat. The production quality is very high for a PDF product. The book contains bautiful starmaps and I loved the mini-planet illustrations in color. Almost half of the book is fluff tailored to the specific Reign of Discordia setting which details humans rise to faster than light travel and then downfall into a miniature interstellar dark ages after warfare with alien races. Half mile long battlecruisers, hardened space miners that seek hydrogen in the void of space, dingy space stations with curiously alien patrons--no staple of Space Opera has been left untouched by Reign of Discordia. There's nothing groundbreaking here--the history and backstory that the book presents can be taken or left by any narrator. The rules for equipment, character paths, additional feats, added explanations for skill use and a nicely detailed combat and starship customization system make for a slightly more complex True20 gaming experience, but as someone who has played Traveler, Spacemaster, FASA's Star Trek RPG and even Star Frontiers, I can honestly say that Reign of Discordia is a very complete and thorough product that works very well. You don't necessarily need Mr. Drader's entertaining and well written campaign world to enjoy this book. You get a complete Space Opera genre for True20 with lots of classic SciFi goodness.

Wow--I feel dirty just having read this book. What a nasty race of beings. I ditto what GGG said about this supplement. It can be easily adapted for 3.5 and other game systems, since True20 is so rules light.

Blight Elves gives you an instant campaign villain--a whole society of incredibly evil, incredibly vile and fully detailed elves who are going to make even veteran players squirm. There are so many ideas and concepts in this book that can be robbed for your campaign. If your campaign is languishing mid term and needs a kick start--have your players encounter and start fighting the blight elves and they'll not rest until every last one of these b*#@$es if put to the sword.

How crazy is this? I'm going to adapt this supplement for my Star Trek True20 game--these lovelies are going to make a horrifying villain--a whole planet of Blight Elves and they ain't afraid to go into space to spread the 'love.'

After many years of neglecting my decades old pulp addiction, Almuric arrived on my doorstep. I was halfway through a different book, but I put it down to read this one in two days. What a refreshment! Howard's visions are just a blast to read. Mighty thews, lopping of the heads of your depraved enemies while seducing the ivory skinned fair maidens of an alien planet....this book is just plain FUN!

I really liked the old Merle Rasmussen Top Secret game and its followup, Top Secret/SI. Both of those game systems lacked playability, but had tons of flavor and were excellent tools for modern RPG action. Now this supplement allows someone to bring that same kind of wonderful spy action flavor into their modern campaign, with the playability and flexibility of the True20 system to boot. Well done!