Letters from the Flaming Crab: Wheel of the Year (PFRPG) PDF

This installment of the Letters from the Flaming Crab-series clocks in at 14 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 3/4 pages of SRD, leaving us with 10 1/4 pages of content, so let's take a look!

As always, we begin this installment with a brief letter from the planes- and worlds-jumping vessel called Flaming Crab before we dive into the respective cntent - though this time around, we really get creative. You see, as the pdf's name implies, this is all about the wheel of the year, a concept probably rather familiar to those of you interested in mythology, pagan religions and the like - but before the respective holidays themselves, we start with full moons.

Structure-wise, the respective festival begins with a flavor-based explanation of the celebration, proceeds to mention which deity/deities (domain/theme-wise) is/are aligned with it and then goes on to introduce a mystic resonance as well as a ritual. In the case of full moon, masquerades and organized hunts would be common means of celebrating the festival, with feasts commencing thereafter. Mystic resonance-wise, the full moon, beyond the obvious association with lycanthropes, has actual game-mechanics, with spellcasters being able to cast a single transmutation (polymorph) spell as though quickened ( I assume, with them still requiring the preparation, since this information does not have the "without increasing the spell-slot-caveat, but I may be wrong here.), while druids may 1/moon wild shape as a swift action. However, conjurations are weakened, with durations reduced and summoned creatures requiring a save to avoid the effects of being temporarily confused.

Now I also mentioned rituals - these would be presented as spells for the respective holidays, however, as the pdf suggests, they probably should be freely available to the respective characters. Their casting time, unsurprisingly, is pretty long, with durations lasting e.g. until midnight. For the full moon, the spell would be call of the huntmaster, which can only be cast on a full moon and requires a bonfire. Effect-wise, this ritual makes ammunition magic, enhances one animal per participant with magic fang and provides expeditious retreat to the mounts of the hunters, making the hunting party significantly more potent and providing some serious flavorful potential for roleplaying.

During the Yule/Yuetide festival, light and fire spells may be enhanced (here with the wording being precise and sans ambigueties) and, in an interesting twist, there is a random chance that the respective spell slot is not expended, with spontaneous/prepared caster paradigms being accounted for. However, necromancy is hampered during the festival. Yule tree requires an animal sacrifice for the tree to be consecrated, but items may be summoned forth, but only one for each participant in a given year. Cool take on the festival!

Imbolc, halfway between Yule and spring equinox, is aligned with divination, poetry and growth and as such evocations lose a bit of potency (nice additional detriment to waging war in early spring/right after winter), with the spell associated, healing well allowing the ritualistic cleansing of the body via participation in a ritual featuring a well or spring, including losing a variety of negative conditions - which makes particular sense in the context of a less fantastic world where not every 2nd village has a high level caster capable of tending to all the needs. Ostara, if the name did not already elicit that connotation on its own, represents the vernal equinox and thus is associated with regenerative magics, once again hampering the forces of necromancy. The ritual is very evocative, featuring upright-standing eggs placed on the ground to ensure fertility...provided the gods deem to bless their followers.

Beltane, as, with Samhain, one of the more commonly known traditional festivals, enhances abjuration magics, with them being automatically affected by either Extend or Enlarge Spell, but all other magics are hampered on Beltane. The massive, bonfire-based rite imbues protective qualities, with even the ash of the fire providing some protective qualities. Midsummer is the festival of marriage and divination, with newly-weds embarking upon the seeking the fern flower ritual, which can either provide a monetary boon to those seeking it or an enhanced aid another for a year.

Lughnasadh, the harvest holiday, enhances transmutation magics, but hampers enchantment - those that manage to resist its effects may benefit from heroism for 1 round after the effect. Hero's shape, as a ritual, is interesting, rendering you literally larger than life and adding bonuses to all physical attributes. While the haste-effect the recipient may tap into could be a tad bit more streamlined in its wording, it is a cool ritual that requires some stamina from the caster to pull off. Mabon, the end of the harvest season, cuts all aligned spells in half regarding their duration and range, while spells affecting willing targets are Extended and basically rendered communal for the day - very unique! The harvest feast rite eliminates exhaustion and the like and provides a hearty glow to the participants. Finally, Samhain provides access to spells that allow for the speaking with other planes or the dead to spontaneous casters (at -2 spell levels!), but summoning during these times of thinned veils are hazardous, resulting potentially in lethal creatures showing up. Planar Horde, a high-level ritual, allows the caster to conjure forth 50 HD worth of outsiders, with an individual outsider's HD capping at 6, to do the caller's bidding - if he provides the payment.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are very good on the formal side; on the rules-language side, there are some minor discrepancies that show the different authors that contributed here, though none truly impede the functionality of the pdf. Layout adheres to the 2-column full-color standard of the series, with great Tarot-card-like artworks depicting them themes of the respective holidays. Kudos! The pdf comes fully bookmarked with nested bookmarks.

J Gray, JJ Jordan, Nate Love and Lucus Palosaari deliver one great pdf here; evocative, cool and flavorful, these holidays add a significant sense of the magical to the game world, with the mythological resonance and familiarity of the concepts employed adding a nice sense of continuity with our world to the subject matter. The festivals themselves, though, do retain their significant "magic", their flavor and unique concepts. I really enjoyed this system and believe that many a gaming world would benefit from holy days that are actually relevant - the general holidays herein already are very evocative and unique While, as a whole, the pdf may fall short of perfection, it is a great buy for a low price, a book that provides a LOT of cool ideas for adventures to come, a fun, flavorful addition to the game - in short, I consider this, in spite of my nitpicks, a great buy worthy of 5 stars + seal of approval.

Endzeitgeist out.

For the purposes of full disclosure, I received one of the free copies of The Wheel of the Year given out to the first ten interested parties. With that out of the way, here is my review.

Facts:

Wheel of the Year takes nine holidays or observances from the real world and translates them into a form usable by a standard fantasy setting, dedicating about a page of content to each one. The write up of each holiday is divided into four parts: an overview of the holiday, a section about related deities, a mystic resonance, and a ritual. The overview is the largest portion and describes timing and celebration. The deities section is only a sentence describing what nature of deities best suit the holiday and could be its patron. Mystic resonance is a larger piece devoted to how magic is impacted by the event, typically represented by minor adjustments to how existing magic functions. Lastly, the ritual section gives a single custom spell for each holiday which only functions during the holiday, but is encouraged to be freely handed out to players.

Analysis:

While I was a little skeptical of Wheel of the Year choosing to use real world holidays, it wisely eschews modern holidays and their trappings in favor of older observances and traditions that fit much more interestingly with a fantasy world, drawing heavily from Celtic observances such as Beltane and Samhain.

The meat of Wheel of the Year is the description of the holidays is both useful and interesting. The overview succinctly relays the theme and nature of each observance and then outlines the actual celebration of each holiday, detailing each festival in a way that is helpful to a GM adding it to their setting, and giving enough interest to catch a player or character’s attention. The miniature deities section is useful as well, but narrow in more ways than one; not only is it very light in word count, but it doesn’t really address much more than the typical polytheistic pantheons of fantasy settings. If it was going to be so small, why not fold it into the overview section? Or if it is something of interest, why not expand it into a religious section in general that could cover all of its potential spiritual connections?

Mystic resonance is a promising idea, but ultimately it ends up being my least favorite section of each holiday. While the idea of certain yearly events having impact on magic is really neat, the implementation is bland and cookie cutter. Certain themes of magic get an advantage during the holiday, typically one use of free metamagic, while other themes of magic get a disadvantage, namely they need a concentration check to successfully cast. The advantage unimaginative, and the disadvantage is irritating. Neither of these things do much more than add one more minor status effect to keep track of. There are a couple of pieces that show hints of something better or that deviate from the pattern, but nothing really rises above the standard problems of the section.

On the other hand, I am quite fond of the introduced rituals. Each ritual is tailored to fit the celebration or themes of one of the holidays, demonstrating the creativity and uniqueness that the mystic resonance sections were missing. While the rituals are limited in their efficacy (only functioning during the holiday they are themed to), they are also encouraged to be provided free for players; it provides something that a spellcasting player can painlessly implement and experiment with during the holiday, adding a little something unusual and different that will help the festival stand out from the rest of their adventures. It doesn’t entirely escape criticism though, because of one word: “spellcaster.” Rituals are designed as standard spells and are used as standard spells, meaning that only spellcasters really get to play around with this fun mechanic. I would have loved to see a more universal mechanic, something that any character could experiment with and enjoy, or at least a wider array of options.

Conclusion:

Ultimately, I like Wheel of the Year. The holidays are enjoyable, and while the mystic resonances are disappointing, the rituals look like they’d be fun to introduce and use. Four out of five, because its great, but has room for improvement.

Short but flavorful, Wheel of the Year isn’t enough to be a meal on its own, but it's a great bit of spice to add to a game to help make a memorable experience.

Being a GM for 2 different Pathfinder groups in 2 different campaign settings (Golarion and the Forgotten Realms), I have access to both worlds' proprietary seasonal event calendars. That all said, to achieve truly evocative immersion into each of these settings, I do like to provide my players with opportunities to fully engage with these worlds' unique climatic, seasonal & cultural characteristics. So upon reading the details of the this book's focused campaign enhancements, I was thrilled to get my hands on it! And after a few deep reads of Wheel of the Year, I was *not* disappointed. Not only did I intend on integrating at least 80%+ of WotY in both my current groups ... but reading it also sparked inspiration to further flesh-out the other unique holidays in my campaign worlds to better utilize the accurately-representative crunch mechanic templates.

The Fluff-to-Crunch ratio of the book is weighted heavy to the Fluff side (and beautifully written, I might add). With just enough crunch to allow a GM to rapidly integrate the concepts into a game with minimal effort. The crunch components (ritual/spells and mystic resonance effects) are all well-balanced and thematically-intriguing to potential PC spellcasters. Back to the Fluff stuff .... the book achieved a distinct effect that I rarely encounter in products of this genre. That being, it helped conjure creative gamemastering concepts that I could introduce into my other seasonal events/occurrences in both my game worlds. Yes folks, this is truly an inspirational book for world-building GMs. Simple enough to read quickly ... yet detailed enough to help enlighten and motivate a GM to enhance his PCs sociocultural interaction with NPCs.

My only complaint is that this didn't get published before October 31 of this year. Because it really would've made my worlds' harvest festivals a helluva lot more interesting for my players. Otherwise, the design layout, font types, embedded art and additional flavor components (like the intro letter) are all eyeball-friendly and easy to navigate.

In summation, this is a 5.5 Star release from Flaming Crab. And it's in my Top 5 3PP releases for Pathfinder this year. I'll be using it a lot as seasons change in Golarion and Faerun .... helping my PCs to better experience the weather changes and to better see/smell/feel the dynamic cycles of the local flora, fauna and people demographic.

***

P.S. Props to Flaming Crab Games for awarding this complimentary PDF to me via Mike Welham's 2015 Santa Giveaway Thread. Flaming Crab didn't ask for a review from me in turn - but I wanted to give them one anyway due to their very generous & philanthropic community contribution. My review is honest and not tainted with any preferential bias.