Das hoffentlich letzte Update von mir OHNE Buch:
Hi guys,
A _great_ many people have been waiting for this book and, I have to confess, I have been greatly looking forward to previewing it. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the Lone Wolf RPG, out this week in your local games store and book shop!
Written by August Hahn, this is a 304 page hardback RPG, complete with a full colour fold-out map of Magnamund. For the uninitiated, this is an RPG based on the highly successful Lone Wolf gamebooks of the 80's by Joe Dever - they formed an introduction to roleplaying for many people and so it is with great pride that we have come full circle and now release the setting as a full-blown RPG.
The introductory chapters briefly cover the setting (fifty years before the events of the Lone Wolf gamebooks, though you are free to change this if you desire), plus basic character generation rules. Then we move onto the classes. . .
Character classes in Lone Wolf are a little bit different from those in other d20/OGL-based games. For a start, each character class can take 15 pages or more to describe! This is because instead of using feats to flesh out a character, we have used Disciplines, much as the original gamebooks did. What this means is that fans of Lone Wolf will indeed be able to play a Kai Lord and select Animal Kinship at first level for their discipline. Every time the Kai Lord goes up a level, not only is a new discipline selected (such as Weaponskill, Mind Shield and all the old favourites), but all existing disciplines are improved as well. The actual process of this varies between the different character classes but it makes for truly detailed characters who fit straight into the setting. In this rulebook, we have included the following character classes to get you started - the Brother of the Crystal Star, Dwarven Gunner of Bor, Kai Lord (of course), Magician of Dessi, Shadaki Buccaneer, Sommerlund Knight of the Realm, and Telchos Warrior. Something for everyone!
The whole feel of the Lone Wolf rules is to reduce the complexity of the standard OGL rules to first concentrate on roleplaying and second, to reflect the atmosphere of the original gamebooks. Skills have been tweaked to enhance this feel - for example, a new Perception skill now replaces Listen, Search and Spot. However, this approach is felt more in the Combat chapter. Purists will be pleased to note all characters have Combat Skill and Endurance scores. There are also no Attacks of Opportunity (though some situations can grant a free attack). On the other hand, there are now rules for Magical and Psychic combat, both mainstays of the Lone Wolf universe.
The Equipment chapter will allow players to tool up (though naturally, the Kai Lord begins the game with a few gold coins, a jerkin and a weapon. . .), and includes currency conversions for the entire breadth of Magnamund. There are some very Lone Wolf-esque items here - the Broadsword (Magnamund version, of course), Bombard, Bor Rifle, Boompacks, Laumspur Leaves, Kalte Firespheres and many more. As well as the mundane, there are also a few magical items and, by popular demand, legendary items too. Yes, in the main rulebook, we have included the Dagger of Vashna, Lorestones of Nyxator and. . . the Sommerswerd!
Adventuring in Magnamund gives a good coverage of all the hazards players are likely to face, with a distinctly Lone Wolf feel to them - from flash floods and disease, to specific poisons and traps that have appeared in the gamebooks. This leads into the Lone Wolf Games Master chapter, which provides solid guidelines for creating the right Magnamund atmosphere, while avoiding the trap of making it just another fantasy setting (oh, it is so not that!). It also provides guidelines for ignoring all the new rules in the game, and simply using the text as a Magnamund sourcebook for d20 games. Supporting Roles provides the GM with characters who are 'non-heroes', those people the characters are likely to meet on their travels - Adepts, Aristocrats, Commoners, Experts and Warriors. Don;t make the mistake of thinking you have seen these characters before, however. Commoners, for example, gain new class features, such as Common Role, Excellence, Community Leader and Elevation (to Aristocrat). These characters are very much fleashed out and will provide suitable foils for your players, rather than having Warriors relegated to the position of 'not as good as Fighters'. I am sure you know what I mean
The largest chapter in the book is the Magnamund Gazetteer and, in conjunction with the full colour fold-out map, details the entire world of Lone Wolf - and beyond, given some of the adventures of heroes in the past. A full timeline of the world is here, along with the story of the world's creation. After this, from the Republic of Anari, through the Darklands and Sommerlund, to Vaduzhan, every country, city and province of Magnamund is fully detailed, including a great deal of never or rarely seen before information. For the Lone Wolf fansout there, this is the good stuff!
The Magnamund Bestiary attempts to provide all your favourite monsters, ready to tackle the players. I say attempt, as we could so easily have expanded this section out into another hardback (hmm, maybe a supplement. . ?). By no means an exhaustive list, Lone Wolf fans can expect to find creatures such as the Agarashi (keep away from 1st level character!), Burrowcrawler, Crypt Spawn, Doomwolf, Drakkarim, Giak, Gourgaz, Helghast, Kraan and Vordaks (among many, many more).
The book winds up with a Random Number Table (I kid you not!), a complete Index and a whole new character sheet (already available for download from our web site).
After this book's release, we have the Darklands sourcebook coming out next month (including a detailed trip through Helgedad!), and this will soon be followed by a complete range of Lone Wolf miniatures. Starting with the Kai Lords (already sculpted - look for a preview on our web site soon!), we will be bringing out all the character classes as miniatures, and then backing them up with the various baddies of Magnamund!
The Lone Wolf RPG is a 304 page hardback priced at $39.95 and will be available this week from all good games stores and book shops.
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Matthew Sprange
Mongoose Publishing
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com
