Minigame Magazine is published monthly by Valent Games in PDF format. Issue #2 (the May issue) is 48 pages long. The artwork on the cover of the file, as well as in the interior, is black-and-white. The PDF has handy bookmarks available for easy jumping to various parts of the magazine; these even include links to the interior pictures, as well as each of the prestige classes presented. Minigame Magazine issue #2 can be downloaded from RPGnow.com for $6. It’s slightly odd (a few people might be miffed) that though the page count has decreased slightly, this PDF has a file size of twice the previous issue, weighing in at 2.2 meg. All the mechanics here are for d20 revised edition (3.5e).

The title for this issue is “The Book of Guilds”. My initial impression from this was that it would be giving us generic guilds for any setting. It was a pleasant surprise to see how wrong I was.

Unlike the previous issue, this month’s minigame is actually an entire campaign setting; everything in this issue takes place on Kyrantia, aka Guild Island. DM’s who are insistent about putting this into an established world (be it a published one or their homebrew) should have little trouble fitting this island and it’s neighbors into the middle of an ocean on their world – however, the nature of this campaign is such that it’s better played without concerns of where the island is located (more on this below).

The authors note right off that this isn’t a usual “kill monsters and loot their lairs” type campaign. Neither the setting nor how characters are made are conducive to this (though some of it is still there, just not much). Rather, this is meant to be a political intrigue campaign. Your primary villains will be other people, and your way of defeating them will involve outsmarting and outmaneuvering them.

The first section of the magazine, “The Island” goes over the basics, with sections on the geography of the island, history of the campaign, and information on character classes and races. The tone of the campaign immediately begins to take shape, stating that while there are some small neighboring islands, there aren’t any other civilizations to speak of. Furthermore, there is an odd magical effect that prevents people from leaving…boats that sail too far from the island somehow suddenly reverse course to return to it. Of course, with the Sailors Guild long since gone, no one possesses the skills to seriously navigate the ocean anymore anyway.

The geography section does a good job of giving a basic overview of the island, but there is one thing noticeably missing here – a map of the island. While not critical, this is still something that can be annoying to have to deal with, especially considering that this island seems to host a fairly diverse number of environments and several cities.

The story behind the campaign seems to start out being slightly cliché, but quickly becomes more interesting…the ancestors of the islanders fled the mainland to avoid religious persecution (and yet, they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving now). Once they landed at this island, they set up guild organizations, only to discover that something about this island granted magical abilities to those that specialized in the craft of their guild…no matter what it was. You not only had hunters and archers gaining new magical abilities, but also the farmers, the cooks, everyone who worked in a guild. With this on their side, the islanders quickly decimated the indigenous monsters (most of them, at least), and claimed the island for their own. Fast forward a thousand years. The Hunters Guild developed the strongest powers, and using their superior abilities of dealing out death, has dominated politics on Kyrantia for the last millennia.

Then they blew up.

No one knows how or why, but the strongest force on the island was suddenly and completely annihilated. It is now two days later, and the PCs have to deal with the chaos wrought in the aftermath of the sudden vacuum of power, and possibly elevate their own guild to the status of being the new leaders of Kyrantia.

Does that sound interesting so far? We’re not even five pages in.

The next page-and-a-half details the various settlements across the island. This is where the lack of a map really hurts, as places and names are thrown at us without anything to really reference them against beyond their brief descriptions given here. On an island that’s 150 miles north to south, and 200 miles east to west, that makes it hard to not reduce all of this to an abstraction.

The last page of The Island section focuses on the nonhumanoid races on the island, and the races/classes available for character creation. The section on nonhumanoid races mentions that there are two monstrous races that the islanders get along with: nomadic janni in the deserts, and the blink dogs that roam the island. Despite both of these races being at least somewhat accepted, only humans are available as a PC race; the island has no demihumans, and playing one of the aforementioned monstrous races doesn’t fit the campaign well.

The part that will probably raise eyebrows among players though is the section on what base classes are available…NPC classes only. Yes, you read right: the only classes PCs can choose are Adept, Aristocrat, Commoner, Expert, and Warrior. While this can appear frustrating at first, I found this to be one of this minigame’s greatest assets. Limiting characters to these low-powered classes is not only a great way to make this a low-magic setting (in terms of power, not prevalence), but also makes players focus squarely on what the designers intended the campaign to be about: the Guild prestige classes.

This closes out the first section. At only five pages long, it did an incredible job of describing the campaign and hooking my interest. It also leads perfectly into the next and largest section of the issue: the major guilds of the island.

The Guild section of the issue is by far the weightiest. Taking up twenty-five pages of the PDF, it makes up more than half of the entire product. The Guilds section opens with a discussion of the number of guilds on the island and how important they are, and make no mistake, they are important. There are nearly a hundred guilds on the island, and virtually every adult belongs to one. Those who don’t are the ones who perform the tasks that no one else bothers to, like sanitation.

One thing that is never stated outright is that these must be the only prestige classes available in the campaign. However, this may go without saying. A significant number of prestige classes from the DM have requirements that would be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to meet using only NPC class advancement. Still, it would have been helpful to have a line or two driving this point home. As it stands, a PC taking levels in a guild prestige class has basically set his character’s path in life, because people do not leave a guild, and they cannot belong to more than one. Another special rule laid down here that is a brilliant way of setting the tone of the campaign is that a character taking a level in a guild prestige class must then take another level in something else before taking a level in that prestige class again. This prevents characters from maxing out in guild levels early in their career. Because all guild levels are 5-level prestige classes though, with entry requirements that can be met at first level, this means that the upper end of the power level for characters is roughly 10th level.

It becomes apparent with even a quick glance that PCs will want to focus on guild prestige classes as much as possible. Not only are these prestige classes the only way to achieve the special abilities all PCs love, they also bring the character more power and influence on the island. There is a very insightful section talking about how the view on the guilds is inextricable from the view of magic on the island. The guild prestige classes grant spell-like and supernatural abilities, with the final abilities being in line with 5th to 6th level spells…something only the highest Adepts could perform, if at all. As such, the people of the island view their guild abilities as being more natural. After all, they can invoke these powers as a silent act of will, without serious magical training. Adepts, on the other hand, need various verbal, somatic, and material components, must meditate to regain spells, and tend to need to take many more levels to replicate the most powerful guild effects.

Though the island has almost a hundred guilds, only a fraction of them are given full disclosure. Each of the eleven guilds highlighted have their philosophy, current goals (now that the Hunters are gone), jobs that they perform, guild allies, guild enemies, and guild prestige class listed. The guilds listed here are the Archers, Architects, Bodyguards, Cooks, Glassblowers, Gravediggers, Hunters, Midwives, Musicians, Painters, and the Smiths. A short sub-section after this gives a brief rundown on the purview and powers of another eleven guilds on the island that are also of major importance.

After this is a short selection of five supplementary feats: Angel of Mercy, Expert, Healthy Start, Information Network, and Patronage. Fans of Atlas Games may recognize most of them here, as four of the five come from Dynasties & Demagogues, with full credit given for them. Most of these offer bonuses to skill checks, with Information Network being purchasable multiple times to make it’s effects stack. The most powerful feat here is clearly Healthy Start, which gives you +1 to an ability score, but may only be taken at 1st level.

Following the five feats is a section with as many NPCs. In keeping with the campaign, most of these are either strongly for change in the wake of the destruction of the Hunters, or working to keep things the same. My one complaint here is a holdover from the previous issue of Minigame Magazine; the NPCs don’t have their CR listed. However, since these NPCs are unlikely to be people the PCs fight (none of them are evil), this isn’t quite as bad as it was in the previous issue.

The next three pages are devoted to plot seeds; one paragraph suggestions for campaign ideas. Roughly half of these deal with campaigns that would try to answer the two biggest questions about Kyrantia: what destroyed the Hunters, and what gives the guilds’ members these magical powers? The other half deal with other ideas for a campaign, such as what happens when a mainland fleet of ships discovers the island, or if the Hunters hadn’t been destroyed at all. Many of these ideas are quite fun to ponder, and a DM who wants to run a campaign on Guild Island will definitely find something here.

The final section of the issue deals with game issues that need to be dealt with due to the unusual nature of this campaign. The first thing to be covered are the island’s monsters. Not all of them were destroyed so long ago, with many of the more powerful ones remaining. Luckily, there is a list of appropriate monsters listed. Likewise, guidelines are given on adjusting monster CR’s when facing a party of adventurers, and the experience gained for defeating them.

After a short section on how to convert the guild prestige classes for normal d20 play, discussion is given to the alternate currency system on the island. Quite simply, Kyrantia doesn’t have much gold and silver, and while some was brought with the original settlers, and taken from defeated monsters, there just isn’t enough for a full economy. Instead, characters use the credit system. This is basically the same thing as your PCs having credit cards, in that they can purchase what they want and write IOUs for them. While it may seem like this gives the PCs too much leeway in terms of purchasing power (something that can be a significant issue in a low-magic campaign), this is actually more favorable for DM’s, as eventually these IOUs, traded like money, can end up in the hands of literally anyone, such as the person the PCs are struggling against. If a PC can’t pay off the money from the IOUs, there are all sorts of penalties that can be levied against them. Likewise, completing a mission that benefits the islanders as a whole can result in a cancellation of some or all debt.

Personally, this entire last section seemed disappointingly short. Adventuring on Guild Island is very different from normal D&D; adventuring, and there doesn’t seem to be enough here addressing that. For example, the section on adjusting monster CR’s has the DM adjusting them based on the average party CR…this doesn’t address the fact that any character with NPC levels has a CR equal to his levels minus one, instead of just his total levels. Likewise, the section on monsters you can face on the island includes liches, and while it says they might practice “mainland-style” magic (apparently that means they use PC classes), no explanation is given why it’d be different for them. Also unaddressed is when the campaign hits its ceiling. It’s only hinted, never stated, that 10th level is roughly as high as this campaign can handle…meaning there are going to be some monsters that the PCs, even with their guild powers, will have no chance of defeating.

However, that said, this is still an extremely well-done product. It’s very impressive how, with only a few changes, the designers have created a campaign setting with a very unique flavor. A low-magic setting is something high in demand, but very hard to pull off, and it’s been done very well here. DM’s and players alike who want a campaign focusing strongly on intrigue and politics, with only occasional excursions to go slay a vicious beast, have everything they’ll want in this product.