Secret Societies of NeoExodus: Order of Kaga (PFRPG) PDF

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The Order of Kaga was formed during the dark days of the First Ones’ rule. The Kaga (or simply Kaga) was created when mankind’s brightest minds united into a unique feat of arcane magic. They created a massive ritual that included more than a thousand arcane spell casters. The secret of combining their energy together is something the brightest minds have since tried to understand and recreate without success. Many believe that some great divine magic was used. Others believe that Kaga achieved godhood through the ritual. Others believe Kaga is just a front for some shadow organization.

This magical union gave mankind and its fellow slaves under First One domination an unexpected edge. Like a God-Emperor, Kaga led the rebellion in a series of apocalyptic battles that ended with the crushing of the First Ones’ bases on Exodus. The Kaga is a large repository of knowledge and at times in the past has provided mankind with information and wisdom to make the world a better and more stable place. The Kaga appears as a man made of arcane energy, looking like a red and silver human. “Priests” of Kaga do not draw their power from divine source, but from an arcane source that mimics divine powers. This sourcebook includes:

  • The Order Of Kaga and History of the Kaga
  • The Church of the Kaga and Communing
  • New Character Options: Eight new feats including Arcane Utility, Avatar Familiar and Diviner’s Mastery
  • Two New Prestige Classes: Auger and Harbinger
  • Two New Spells: Mind Graft and Rip Mind
  • New Magic Items, New Tomes and New Wondrous Items
  • Initiative and Monster Cards
  • Combat & Initiative Tracker

Created by JP Chapleau, with Owen K.C. Stephens, Neal Bailey and Louis Porter Jr.

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Are there errors or omissions in this product information? Got corrections? Let us know at store@paizo.com.

LPJ9508E


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Worship an extranet of collective knowledge...and become more than human

4/5

This pdf is 21 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page advertisement, 1 page combat & initiative tracker, 2 pages of mini-sheets for monsters and 1 page SRD, leaving 15 pages of content for the Kaga's church, so let's give them a closer look!

First of all, we have to take a look at what the Kaga is to get any confusion out of the way and subsequently get an aptly-written introduction to the organization - to make it short, the Kaga is one of the major players of the world of NeoExodus, one of its unique, distinguishing features. The Kaga is the reason why mankind and all other races could break from the chains of the vile entities/races called "First Ones", sundering the first empires and jump-starting all of human evolution and cultural development. What is the Kaga, then? The Kaga is the collective minds and knowledge of the best and most wise of humankind, a kind of extranet of divine proportions that has accumulated even more knowledge in the decades since then by gaining the knowledge of its adherents. The Kaga is essentially an arcane collective intellect and accumulation of knowledge on par with most deities and subsequently also has its own church with its "clerics". The Order of Kaga is the secret section and strong arm of the church and, while the recap sounds like an unproblematic/allied organization, there is plenty potential for conflict - turns out the Kaga is devoted to the progress of mankind and mankind alone, paving the way for any racial tensions/jingoistic storylines you might want to throw at your possibly multi-racial group.

What has a church going for itself, whose believers can commune directly with the font of knowledge and might even get some answers? When they know the correct syntax and ask the right questions, that is... Mechanically, there are some interesting bits here: We get a new archetype, the cleric of Kaga, which is essentially a cleric that counts as an arcane caster - thus they don't qualify for divine caster prerequisites, but gain spells and domains normally and can select a familiar. I like the idea, but I'd like to know whether channel energy is impeded in any way. There are 8 new feats, 2 story-feats focusing on order-memberships and some that help using items, as well as one to craft a new kind of item, the so-called grafts.

My favorite bits of crunch in this installment, though, are definitely the 2 prestige classes: The Auger (5 levels, d6, bad BAB, 2+INT skills, moderate will-save, full spell-progression) is an awesome piece of writing - a class that focuses on knowledge. Yes, I can see you yawning and so was I - at first. After rereading it time and again, I can attest, though, that this class actually is one of the VERY rare takes on the smart guy that works IN COMBAT. Yes, the class may be a bit short on the skill-side, but the abilities of the class enable it to be a more than valuable assistant to his friends in combat - excellent! A smart supporter-class that actually works! The second PrC we get are the Harbingers (10 levels, bad BAB, d6, 4+INT skills, medium will save, full spell progression), a class focusing on a rather creepy apotheosis towards a construct-like executioner of the Kaga's will, slowly losing his/her humanity over the course of its transformation, but gaining the ability to drain magic items for power and even additional item slots for the price of the same humanity, whose dominance as a species paradoxically the Kaga seeks to uphold, serving as a nice potential hook.

We also get 2 new spells dealing with communion with the Kaga and a section detailing 8 new grafts, modifications, that while not taking up item-slots per se, prevent the slots from being used while active. They serve as nice tools for people who want investigator-style characters and had pleasant reminiscences of DeusEx I for me - with some minor work, they might also fit into a completely different setting, which is always nice. Furthermore, we get a new helmet (to commune with the Kaga outside their temples) and a new tome complete with lore section, as well as the so-called avatar of Kaga-creature, a minuscule construct avatar (potential familiar, btw.!) that serves as both a link and a potential means of surveillance.

After these crunchy parts, we get 3 short write-ups (sans stats) of NPCs, the relationship of the order with the major players of NeoExodus (both nations and organizations), ideas for campaigns, advice on using the order as either ally or enemy as well as some adventure seeds. This last section does not completely hold up to the very immersive and cool writing from the beginning of the book and the hooks didn't impress me too much - I came up with some...better *muahaha* ideas.

Conclusion:
This book, as all books from LPJr Design's NeoExodus-line, is beautiful and adheres to the top-quality, full-color layout and features some pieces of stunning and evocative pieces of artwork. Editing, while not perfect, is ok - I did notice some minor punctuation errors, but the overall quality has vastly improved. I really like the concept of the Kaga, as it makes the world feel more unique and hasn't been done to death in similar settings and I really enjoyed both PrCs. HOWEVER, one word of warning - it's impossible for me to determine the long-range balancing of the additional item-slots without some expansive play-testing, which I didn't have the time to do. The Auger is awesome, though. I liked the feats and the new graft-items, as the serve to enhance the rather disturbing aspects of the order, but I wasn't convinced by the new archetype, as it, at least in my opinion, does not offer enough information on the potential repercussions of substituting arcane for divine energies and all class abilities. What about oracles and the Kaga? They seemed practically predestined for the order and yet don't get any specific treatment. Another minor gripe I have with the book is that e.g. in contrast to the Sanguine Covenant, we don't get "holy" or important sample places or NPCs. My basic gripe, then, can be summed up as: I want more and I think this book would have benefited from being a bit longer and possibly more expensive. Thus, with my minor gripes and concerns, I'll settle for a final verdict of 4 stars - a good buy and a cool organization, that, with a bit more room, could have been a 4.5 or even 5-star file.

Endzeitgeist out.



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Reviewed here, on DTRPG and sent to GMS magazine. Nice work and let me once again applaud the vastly improved editing and formating over previous installments! It's great to see you guys listening to feedback!


Endzeitgeist wrote:
Reviewed here, on DTRPG and sent to GMS magazine. Nice work and let me once again applaud the vastly improved editing and formating over previous installments! It's great to see you guys listening to feedback!

Thanks for the review. All the great editing work is all due to me finally hiring a GREAT editor to work on these proejcts. Proving once again I need to stick to graphic design and layout. Plus JP amazing understanding of the NeoExodus setting (it is like he got in my head) really makes it easy for such great quality work to come out.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Nice review End.

The Exchange

Thanks for the review!
The arcane cleric makes for a very different playing style, which I really like. One of the NE iconics is a Cleric of the Kaga. Player feedback has been very positive.

JP


Thanks for the kind words! And JP - great work on this one!

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