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Highmoon Games presents Liber Sodalitas: The Dream Healers. Though often seen as a priestly order, the dream healers follow no set god. For them, the power of healing lies within the patient and their dreams. Able to enter another's dreams, they guide their patients through past events, allowing them to relive them and heal many wounds that other healers cannot touch. The journey is not without risk, for the world within a dream becomes a new reality, and death there comes just as easily as in the waking world. The Dream Healers is a 10-page ebook detailing a drop-in organization for your Pathfinder game, complete with history, tenets, organizational structures, ways of joining, and ready-to-use NPCs. It also includes the dream healer prestige class and two new magical items. Written by: Lonnie Ezell, with James Gabrielsen, Mark Gedak & Daniel M. Perez
Honestly (thinking of Hunter: The Reckoning), I think they are similar in the same way fantasy RPGs are about you playing characters in a magical pseudo-medieval world with magic and monsters. Witch Hunter has more in common with the old Hunter's Hunted supplement than with HtR, because while your characters may indeed have supernatural powers in the form of sorcerous traditions and/or things that emulate them, at the end of the day you're not really that ubder powerful, and it's your will and determination that really drives you to hunt down these threats from beyond. There's also the time in history each is set, and the fact that Witch Hunter has alternate events to create a even more dramatically charged 17th century. As far as systems go, Witch Hunter is not WoD, just similar in that it's a dice pool system where you roll Skill + Attribute to achieve a target number, and then it riffs on that. People who like the Storyteller (not Storytelling, or New WoD) system like this one pretty much immediately, but I've seen people who both did not know about the Storyteller system, or even did not care for it one bit, embrace the Witch Hunter system without a problem. Ultimately, WoD's Hunter is a modern game about how much you can fight the monsters before you become one, while Witch Hunter is a game about hunting down the evils of the Invisible World with panache and without succumbing to the horror inherent in that fight. ---
Did anyone else think Solomon Kane when they first saw the cover? ;) No, but then again I was only barely aware of SK when Witch Hunter came out. Funny thing is, both Witch Hunter and Solomon Kane came out last summer (WH at Origins, SK at Gen Con). Figure the odds of that! I know a number of people whose alley this may be right up. They're huge Werewolves of Barrow Hill fans, which has probably gotten them paranoid and accusatory enough to drop into this setting without much explanation of its character. Comparisons to 7th Sea have also been known to get people to buy into the game on sight. My one-track mind has to ask though: Is the burgeoning age of piracy touched on any? Yes, but not extensively in the core book. It gets mentioned in some detail during the world gazetteer section. One of the introductory Dark Providence adventures, Storm Tide, is set in Jamaica and deals with pirates and ghost ships, so it could be a great way to kick off a Witch Hunter campaign with piracy as its focus. ---
I never heard of Witch Hunter before, but I noticed that it recived three Ennie award nominations... so I figured that it's probably worth checking. Anyone who can share something or otherwise let me know his opnion about the game? As has been said, Witch Hunter is a game of swashbuckling horror set in an alternate-history late 17th century Earth. You play a Witch Hunter, a man or woman who has a calling to battle the forces of the Invisible World and thwart the schemes of the Adversary. Whether with skill or magic (or a combination of both), you fight to keep humanity safe, though you do so from the shadows, lest you be hunted down yourself. Though the game has a global background, the core book focuses on Colonial America, starting in the year 1689. Big changes include the Dutch still controling New Amsterdam and its environs, and the Aztecs fighting off the Spanish invasion and remaining a vibrant empire. Witch Hunters come from all backgrounds and ethnicities, though the core book only describes European- and Christian-based Orders of hunters, along with a Native American one called the Ghost People. Non Euro/Christian Orders are coming soon from Paradigm. Personally I like the game because the setting is very compeling with a strong background history and a lot of complexity in its treatment of the topic of religiously-themed horror, an easy-to-use system based on d10 dice pools (comparisons to oWoD are not that far off) that does what it needs to do and makes off-the-cuff extrapolation a snap, and even narrative-focused rules mechanics (for the story game-loving crowd) that make a character more than just attributes and equipment. To that you can add Dark Providence (the WH organized play campaign run by PCI) play support at cons and game days, plus the adventures are all available for free to either play the Dark Providence campaign at home, in case you don't care for that aspect, simply use them to play home games, giving you free, instant play opportunities right off the bat. This month also saw the release of The Grand Tome of Adversaries, a book of enemies for the heroes that includes forbidden societies, lots of critters and detailed rules for critter-creation, all exquisitely presented with tons of story material to give context and generate play hooks. I honestly cannot recommend the game enough. If you want to learn some more, there are Witch Hunter threads going on now at RPG.net and EN World, including one with some actual play reports (you'll find it linked within those threads). Any specific questions about the game, ask away. I love talking Witch Hunter. ---
Wait a second, I thought Kenzer wasn't going with the GSL. Or did they change their mind? Or are they trying to go around it? But the preview makes explicit references to the PHB, I don't see how they couldn't use the GSL this way. Or maybe Kenzer figures their big enough to fight off WotC if the lawyers come-a suing.No, this 501-page setting PDF does not use the GSL. You don't need to use the GSL to create 4E-compatible products, as long as you don't tread on WotC's legal territory (similar to how a computer company makes a game/virus program/etc that runs on a Windows PC without asking Bill Gates permission...). Fortunately, David Kenzer is a lawyer, and knows what to do (or avoid doing). Boy, I so wish the publishers going this route (and there are more and more every week) would agree to talk publically about this topic. I'd be all over those interviews for my podcast... (hint, hint) ---
This is on the list to talk about this week. We'll figure something out that I think will make everyone happy. Of course, there can't be any Pathfinder RPG products until GenCon 2009, so we have a tiny amount of time. :) Coolness. I know there's still time, but it's one of those questions that were bound to come up right away, so might as well ask it and have it be a feature. I know I have a lot of 3.5 fans that I'll be able to continue supporting thanks to you. :)
Being an OGL product, I understand Pathfinder's rules are open content (and let me thank you profusely for a very generous and very clear OGC declaration) but I am wondering if you will be creating some sort of license to allow 3rd party publishers to declare on their products something to the effect of "Requires Pathfinder RPG for use" or "Compatible with Pathfinder RPG." Thanks, and kudos on simply an awesome move. Daniel M. Perez
To answer in order: Targum Magazine #4 should be out in about a week, give or take, so that would be a good time to check it out. We are exclusive to RPGnow at the moment, so you'd have to go there to get a copy. The announcement of the release will be posted on our website at www.highmoonmedia.com and on EN World.We support Ancient World campaign settings, most notably the GR Mythic Vistas Testament, Trojan War and Eternal Rome, but also more generic ones. I'd run an article for Hamunaptra without a problem, but we haven't gotten any submission for that setting. Skulls & Bones is the exclusive realm of Adamant Entertainment, but they do publish a great periodical for it as well. I have bought quite a few products from RPGnow (all of them in pdf format, obviously), mostly by Highmoon Media [...] such as the awesome From Stone to Steel. Such a great book. We're gonna look into doing a 4e version, but it's too early to tell yet. I've read a couple of great Highmoon products. Awesome! Glad you've liked our stuff. :-)
thats a veritable "Who's that?" list. Well, let me introduce myself: I'm Daniel M. Perez and I own Highmoon Media Productions. We publish d20 materials in a couple of different lines, described here very quickly:
We also have some other lines that have seen one or two releases (DaVinci Labs for d20 Modern, or Codex Paragons for d20 Fantasy). You can see our current catalog HERE. In 2008 we'll continue 3.5 support in some of our lines, as well as expanding into other open systems as well as some original stuff. Hope that makes us a little less unknown. :) |
