Faces of the Tarnished Souk: Magnus Thrax, Sculptor of War (PFRPG) PDF

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"All men are stone. The strong become statues of the gods—the weak are ground into sand."

Magnus Thrax sculpts warriors. Once a celebrated gladiator, Thrax has stepped back from center stage and now uses his ages of bloody experience to shape the next generation of fighters who will win glory—or die—on the sands of the arena. But even though he trains others for the main event, Thrax's iron fist can still grind bones to dust—and he's looking for an excuse.

This product provides Game Masters with details on a stone cold skull-crusher found amongst the Faces of the Tarnished Souk, ready for immediate use in any campaign—but especially for use within the Coliseum Morpheuon. Each entry features ingenious stat-blocks from multiple OGL sources, history, motivation, secrets, and insight into the NPC's most carefully guarded dreams, along with complete game statistics for low, middle, and high levels of play.

Within you will find: Magnus Thrax, an earth-shaking ex-gladiator guaranteed to rock your world.

  • CR 20 Male dreadnaught earth-infused ogre fighter (trick fighter) 12
  • CR 14 Male dreadnaught earth-infused orge fighter (trick fighter) 7
  • CR 7 Male earth-infused ogre fighter (trick fighter) 3
  • Dreadnaught and Element-Infused creature templates, to make a rock that none can lift
  • New fighter archetype - the trick fighter - focusing on combat maneuvers
  • New magic items like the showman's sandals - because you shouldn't just win, you should make it look good

Authors: Matt Banach and Justin Sluder;
Cover Image by Toby Gregory
Pages: 8

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4.30/5 (based on 3 ratings)

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Another solid edition to the series.

4/5

Faces of the Tarnished Souk: Magnus Thrax, Sculptor of War by Rite Publishing

This product is 13 pages long. It starts with a cover,and credits. (2 pages)

Magnus Thrax, Sculptor of War (8 pages)
It starts off with a bit of history about him, followed by some lore checks and advice on how to use him. After a page of this we get to the three stat blocks, which are.
CR20 - dreadnaught earth-infused ogre fighter (trick fighter) 12. There is also 15 traits, magic items equipment etc. I am unsure how many are new and how many came from other sources.
CR14 - dreadnaught earth-infused ogre fighter (trick fighter) 7
CR7 - earth-infused ogre fighter (trick fighter) 3

After that we come to the extra's in the book. The first one is the trick fighter archetype and the two new templates. Dreadnaught and earth-infused.

It ends with a OGL and ads. (3 pages)

Closing thoughts. The art work is black and white and ok. Editing and format are very good, I didn't notice any errors. His history is pretty interesting if a bit short. The advice on how to use him and his ties to some of the other NPC's where pretty well done. I would have loved to have seen more than a side bar about the gladiator school he runs, perhaps a full page on it. I think that was a missed opportunity by Rite Publishing there. All and all he is a well done high level NPC like the rest in the serious. I didn't think he was as interesting as most of them though. He is gruff and solemn, I just felt like there was something missing from his personality to make him complete. So what's my rating? I am going to give this one a 3.5 star. Well worth the price, but I would have liked to have seen a little more. Plus with his name I was kinda expecting him to have some way to turn his enemies to stone or something to do with sculpting.

Trust me, I'm a Succubus.


An excellent beast of war with some spare untapped potential

4/5

The latest installment of the Faces of the Tarnished Souk series is 13 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 2 pages of advertisement and 1 page SRD, leaving 8 pages to introduce us to the sculptor of war.

Magnus Thrax is a beast of battle, the unstoppable force to Ahnkar-Kosh's unmovable object and a quite deadly foe to face - after all, Thrax embodies the archetype of a rather amoral teacher of the gladiatorial arts in one of the most deadly areas imaginable. Following one page of introduction to the character, including dreamburning information and a lore section that talks about how Ahnkar took his arm and how the two legendary molochs became friends, we are introduced to the 3 sets of statblocks for Magnus.

His low-level incarnation (CR 7) is an earth-infused ogre trick fighter 3. The trick fighter archetype as well as the dreadnaught and elemental-infused templates are included for your convenience.

His mid-level (CR 14) incarnation has the powerful dreadnaught-template added along 4 more class-levels. Both incarnations obviously are representatioons of him prior to losing his arm in aforementioned epic brawl.

His high-level incarnation (CR 20) once again is a beauty to behold, clocking in with 12 trick fighter levels as well as a lot additional content: 2 new traits and a new feat are provided, all of which I liked. The coolest crunch component of the FoTS, though, is the usage of some of the excellent material from 4 Wind Games' excellent Strategists & Tacticians, namely the armor components (Armored Kilts, baby!) and the prosthetics - armor for prosthetics is explained. On the magic side, we get the collision weapon quality as well as the stats for prosthetic iron and mithral arms and iron hands as well as sandals to improve your showmanship and a cha-boosting ring.

Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to the classic b/w-RiP-two-column standard and the pdf comes with bookmarks. Magnus Thrax comes off as an interesting and versatile character that can fit a plethora of roles: From stern mentor to defender of the status-quo, the dreadnaught can serve a lot of purposes in your campaign. The nod to how he interacts with a fellow creature like Ahnkar-Kosh is cool and adds an additional nice angle for the DM. The crunchy material herein is of the top-most quality and the sidebox containing information on his gladiatorial school, the Ludus Thraxus, is nice. While I love the idea behind the character, I still maintain that Magnus falls a bit short of his own potential: It's cool that he has an enchanted prosthetic, but why not make it a unique item with special abilities to further complement his fighting prowess? And he is the sculptor of war. Is it just me or would you expect a kind of petrifying ability he uses on foes he bests but considers worthy? Perhaps a modified one that makes them marble and not easily breakable? While easy enough to add via items or templates, I think that adding such an angle would have served to further expand the possibilities and iconic quality of the foe. But don't be fooled, authors Justin Sluder & Matt Banach have succeeded in creating a compelling foe, who might not be perfect, but is still a good buy for the price. MY final verdict will be 4.5 stars, rounded down to 4 due to unrealized potential.

Endzeitgeist out.


Stone Soul

5/5

Spoilers below:

A supreme gladiator and owner of his own gladiatorial school, Magnus Thrax can be used in a number of ways depending on the play style of any group and the needs of the Game Master. His role in the Coliseum or gladiatorial campaign is fluid. He reacts to PC actions. He does not directly oppose them unless they give him a reason. Woe to the PC who opposes him or the Khan. For good-aligned PC’s he provides an essential obstacle, because the members of his stable of gladiators are not free. They are slaves, some forced against their will to fight at the whim and profit of Magnus. Neutral characters may see him as a useful albeit cagey fight promoter and supplier of gladiators for a price. Magnus possesses marvelous special abilities he uses to crush his opponents on the arena and maintains a firm commitment to the Coliseum and the Khan. Magnus may be used to field opponents from his ludus (gladiatorial school) to fight against PCs and remain in the background as an enigmatic figure. If the players wish, he provides support as a trainer or a promoter. And if the PCs determine it necessary to eliminate the Khan of Nightmares or if they directly oppose his ruthless use of slaves in the Coliseum, he becomes an implacable enemy. To Magnus, there is no greater feat than winning at whatever cost, with no remorse or recrimination. Included in this supplement is a full character background for Magnus, complete with dreamburning notes, Lore notes and suggestions on how to use this highly flexible NPC in your campaign.

As with the other the Faces of the Tarnished Souk series, a full high level stat block lays in wait for any overconfident PC. Magnus’s stat block contains new feats, traits, magical equipment, and special abilities. For those who wish to add clockwork components, particularly prostheses, this supplement contains rules for such builds. Magnus’s own prostheses have magical properties and their own backstory to boot. In addition to the now typical complete stat block, this supplement contains lower level builds that may either be younger versions of Magnus or one or more of his underlings and gladiators. In addition, a boxed note on Magnus’s school, The Ludus Thraxus give GMs ideas how to use this as either (or both) an ally and tool or an opposing force. Finally, for both players and GMs there is a new Fighter Archetype, the Trick Fighter. For GM’s who like to step up the difficulty in their own game, this comes with two templates, the Dreadnaught and the Element-Infused creature.

I love flexible NPCs that allow for multiple roles depending on how the players react. For roleplayers this guy is a gold mine of possibilities. For action-oriented players he is an extremely tough opponent that may not necessarily be directly fatal, depending upon the circumstances of the encounter. Perhaps he is a behind-the-scenes manipulator for lower level parties attempting to make a name for themselves as gladiators in the arena, where he fields one after another of opposing fighters. Perhaps he is the slave master from which the PCs will seek to free themselves. He can be the tough-as-nails, remorseless trainer for wanna-be gladiators. Of course the GM may just make use of the builds present here. An extremely tough melee character is not always easy to build and the combination of special templates and abilities make Magnus a challenge in the arena or outside of it, should the PC’s give him cause.

Magnus is another NPC essential both inside and outside of the Coliseum Morpheuon and greatly contributes to making the Tarnished Souk a vibrant and exciting place to adventure. Magnus Thrax gets a full 5 of 5 stars from me. Good work Matt Banach, Justin Sluder and the folks at Rite Publishing!



Woaw, cool!

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 16

He hits so hard, atomic bombs think he needs to take it down a notch.


Ezekiel Shanoax, the Stormchild wrote:
He hits so hard, atomic bombs think he needs to take it down a notch.

hahahahhahah


I'll write my (at this point almost obligatory) review as soon as finances permit me to. ^^


Reviewed.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Nice review Dark Dawn :)

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 16

Dark Sasha wrote:
Reviewed.

Thanks for the review, DS! 'Glad you like him.

(Whew - For a few days I was worried that nobody had seen this fella hit the "shelves"; although I know that End has been busy writing rave reviews for Pathways...)

I like Thrax because he is a character (both as an individual and as an archetype) that is absolutely essential to the gladiatorial backdrop of Coliseum Morpheuon. Somebody has to do his job, and we were glad to finally receive the perfect piece of artwork that inspired him coming to print. I also wanted to make sure that the dark, immoral nature of gladiatorial combat got some exposure. It isn't all glory and high fives when enslaved men, women, and creatures are set to fight for their lives for sport.


We had a lot of release all at once so the reviewers were buried!

Dark Archive

Thanks for the review Dark Sasha. I'm just glad I finally slipped a "simple fighter" past Steve. He must've been overwhelmed with things due to GenCon. ;)

*climbs inside Endzeitgeist's head to poke around for new ideas*


Justin Sluder wrote:

Thanks for the review Dark Sasha. I'm just glad I finally slipped a "simple fighter" past Steve. He must've been overwhelmed with things due to GenCon. ;)

*climbs inside Endzeitgeist's head to poke around for new ideas*

Have you attempted to do a play test battle between any of these NPCs yet? I am curious to see how Magnus fares against the others.

Dark Archive

Dark Sasha wrote:
Justin Sluder wrote:

Thanks for the review Dark Sasha. I'm just glad I finally slipped a "simple fighter" past Steve. He must've been overwhelmed with things due to GenCon. ;)

*climbs inside Endzeitgeist's head to poke around for new ideas*

Have you attempted to do a play test battle between any of these NPCs yet? I am curious to see how Magnus fares against the others.

Nope, but that sounds like something fun to try out, after I finish working on [REDACTED] for [REDACTED]. ;)


Reviewed here, on DTRPG and sent to GMS magazine. Cheers and sorry for the delay - I had some other products to catch up to and only got this some days ago! :)

Edit: Nice review, Dawn!

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 16

Endzeitgeist wrote:
Reviewed here, on DTRPG and sent to GMS magazine. Cheers and sorry for the delay - I had some other products to catch up to and only got this some days ago! :)

Thanks for the review! I know how busy you reviewers are, and I'm very appreciative that month after month you do us the kindness of providing detailed, insightful (and positive) reviews.

Also - very interesting idea for a petrification add-on. A magic item or medusa assistant can complete that idea easily, and a literal statue garden of gladiators would be pitch perfect.


In a minor way I agree with End. If you attach a name like Sculptor of War to an individual, you have to back that up by more than just his position in charge of a training facility of gladiators. However I didn't think it worthy of downgrading my score. I can simply ignore the appelation if I use him in my game. The petrification angle is a good one though. Perhaps he had an item that turned his opponents to stone when he himself frequented the arena?


Thanks for the kind words, Dawn! While I stand by my decision to rate the Sculptor at 4 stars, I get where you're coming from. Essentially, I would have loved his arm to be some sort of unique magic item with backstory etc., too. If either the arm or the petrification angle had been used, I'd have gleefully given this 5 stars. As written, I consider Magnus to be cool, but not quite on par with e.g. the ghost-light, Le loup etc., hence my rating of a "good" product, i.e. 4 stars. :)

What about a medusa-retainer retainer or item in Pathways #7? ;)


The Ghostlight is a hard one to match for sheer awesomness in all respeccts. But the Ghostlight alone could not populate the Tarnished Souk. The very name implies all sorts of strange and exotic denizens.
Plus you need someone like Magnus Thrax. The atmosphere of the Coliseum demands someone like him. I gave him a half a star for that quality alone.
BUT if the creators would entertain the notion of adding a small item or adjusting Magnus's prosthesis with a petrification ability of some kind, that would be cool.

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 16

Dark Sasha wrote:
The Ghostlight is a hard one to match for sheer awesomness in all respeccts. But the Ghostlight alone could not populate the Tarnished Souk.

Glad you love our not-so-little ghostlight. It's true, Gozu is awesome but very strange, and it would be difficult to have an entire realm populated by...

Actually, on second thought, maybe we SHOULD have a realm populated entirely by supercharged, existentially-challenged will-o-wisps. Can anyone say patronage project?! (wink)

Dark Sasha wrote:
BUT if the creators would entertain the notion of adding a small item or adjusting Magnus's prosthesis with a petrification ability of some kind, that would be cool.

I definitely like the idea, and it would be easy to include for us (if we ever have an occasion to update and re-release these NPCs) or any GM who wants to tack on that element.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

reviewed.


Nice review, D_M!

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

thanks.

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