A Magical Society: Ecology and Culture

Reviewed by: Wayne Tonjes

A Magical Society: Ecology and Culture by Expeditious Retreat Press is a new d20 supplement for game masters intent on creating their own world or trying to bring a published setting into focus. This book provides a conceptual guide to world building from planet design through ecological layout to the direct development of cultural interplays that result. As such, this book is not really specific to the d20 System. While the standard races are named human, dwarf, elf, half-elf, half-orc, gnome, and halfling, this remains a general guide to any fantasy world setting and even some science fiction worlds would be better for consultation within its pages. The premise of the guide somewhat precludes its use in more modern settings, as it is laid out as the final report on a newly ascended god’s world building test. Interludes regarding the new god’s research, his introspection, and even his final grade set the stage for the factual elements of the book which give a methodical approach to creating a realistic based world. Unlike its predecessor, A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe, this guide lacks creation mechanics and focuses on sound use of concepts based on real systems cited from Earth.

The book is laid out with six chapters, starting big and working down through details to culture. The first chapter focuses on the preliminary world map, building up a world in stages. The very first step considers axial tilt and seasonal variation. The second step places continents by arbitrary drawing of appropriate shapes and positions. Mountains are then placed in step three with some consideration of whether subduction, rifting, and volcanism created them. Step four is slightly misleading as it only sites the placement of islands and archipelagos, but this section also includes the generating the outline of continental plates and their appropriate drifts from the placement of the previous landmasses. In support of these steps, a sample world map is generated with one map covering one or two of the steps at once. The second chapter then moves away from constructive steps to pure conceptual descriptions of ecology. This is a very technological review of energy flow and food webs, even creating a set of terms to manage the addition of magic to the standard energy sources. While it is stated from the very beginning that this book focuses on Earth like planets, it is not until this chapter that a significant explanation is presented on page 33:
“My initial world concept was a flat world…Each cycle starts and ends at an elemental plane…Tectonics function in the same manner; surface materials are added not by heat convection from the depths of the planet, but from the elemental plane of earth. It also returns there at subduction zones… (but) elemental-based generative and destructive forces require a finer sense of balance than the cycles of our base planet.”
While this may be somewhat disappointing to the geometrically minded world creator, one has to admit that it is a fairly sound approach by the designers to review the fundamentals and leave the fancy stuff to the readers.

The third chapter continues the discussion of ecology with a review of the primary biomes. This section reviews such biomes as tundra and taiga, deserts and scrublands, mountains, caves and underground environments, and jungles. Each biome discusses the prevalent weather conditions and the adaptations of plants and animals to survive in these distinct regions. Unfortunately, the interplay of the subtle, or magical, topography is not as strongly emphasized here as it might be, with only a couple brief mentions of where magical dependent life is most likely. The fourth chapter then puts the previous two chapters on the sample world with steps five and six. The fifth step deals with weather as it results from natural circulation patterns of wind and water, the obstacle land has on them, and the overall impact of latitude. The sixth step deals with the average of weather systems with climate and rivers. Although the interplay of climate and terrain do define biomes, they are not explicitly addressed in this section. The relative assumption on their placements without a direct discussion is a mild disappointment. The seventh chapter builds off the discussion of biomes on the theme of the form of life important to most people and gods: intelligent life. Culture is essentially an intellectual adaptation for survival, similar to the evolutionary and physiological changes species make to adapt to any place they find themselves consigned to living. This section also reviews how cultures are prone to spread, both according to preliminary immigration patterns such as along rivers and coasts and then interactively as they begin to meet other races and borrow cultural elements like technology and trade goods from them. The last chapter then applies the interplay of intelligent races to the sample world. Step seven actually takes a step backwards from cultures with the placement of a few prototype races that will evolve through standard evolutionary, as well as culturally imprinted, methods into a fairly typical array of humanoid sentient races of a d20 game world. Step eight reviews their slow spread throughout the world with several waves of expansion, while section nine focuses on how the races finally diverge from their roots into distinct species and further migrate throughout the world.

An appendix of mostly real world wonders is provided as sources of interesting settings or encounters to place in a new setting. It is divided into descriptive entry lists of formations, places, valuables, plants, animals, and magiovores, the only fictionalized listing in this appendix. A table of viable dye sources is also included. The formations cover everything from obscure crystal deposits to entire archipelagos, and include a simply amazing Gas Hydrates example. The places remind readers of such fabulous settings as Niagara Falls or the Giant’s Causeway that can make for wondrous encounter sites even without monsters. The valuables run from grains to gemstones and each entry includes a handy terrain indicator and rough pricing guideline. The plants and animal entries give a general overview of habitat and interesting features of both as sources of yet more encounters or at least interesting background details to awe an astute party. The last list on magiovores is divided into animals, fungi, gems, insects, and plants. Some of these samples are simply superb, such as the subtle creeper that anchors itself to the magical topography which can lead to more than a few interesting visuals or the bountiful deer who are surrounded by a plant growth affect to assure their own food choices. The god’s final grade is presented after the appendix proper and then a two-page bibliography is offered for the more scholarly readers.

Ecology and Culture is a superb concept book that many game masters will find more than useful. The overall presentation is pretty good, although there are still some typographical errors, particularly ‘to’ for ‘too’. Also, there is a fairly notable mistake of using ‘artic’ for ‘arctic’ but it is at least used consistently every time polar cold elements are meant. The layout is generally good, although there are a few paragraphs that are external commentary that are accidentally left in main informative sections. The use of different frames for each chapter is also nice, although there are two pages where the frames used are for the next chapter and the appendix sidebars require a bit of indentation of the text to fit. There are also two entirely separate formats available, as both print and electronic PDF copies are available. The art is decent gray scale images of, naturally, landscapes, maps, and various inhabitants. There are also a number of illustrations of the narrator and his aid in among the fictional interludes that appear between most chapters. The maps are possibly the weakest element of the book. The biggest problem with the maps was poor labeling. Keys, more labels, and better region indicators were really needed to make the maps fully useful. The climate and migration maps are likely the worst due to their dependence on hatch markings, which are poorly labeled, mysteriously duplicated, or overlapping on the map. Doing gray scale maps are apt to be difficult, but something better could have been found. Still, this book offers some excellent advice that is exceptionally well planned and presented. Game masters should be pulling this off the shelves in droves. Just remember that herd migrations can lead to feeding frenzies as predators cull the herd of the weak and ill. Game masters, be warned.

For more details on Expeditious Retreat Press and their new d20 supplement, A Magical Society: Ecology and Culture, check them out at their website http://www.exp.citymax.com, at RPGNow.com, and at local game stores.

(Product Summary)

A Magical Society: Ecology and Culture
From: Expeditious Retreat Press
Type of Game: d20 supplement
Written by: Suzi Yee and Joseph Browning
Edited by: Suzi Yee and Joseph Browning
Layout by: Suzi Yee
Cover Art by: Ravindra Rana
Additional Art by: Ravindra Rana
Number of Pages: 160
Game Components Included: Soft Cover Book
Retail Price: $27.00 (print version) (US)
Retail Price: $10.00 (PDF version) (US)
Item Number: XRP1003
ISBN: 0-9729376-1-7
Email: JosephBrowning@EXP.citymax.com
Website: www.exp.citymax.com

Reviewed by: Wayne Tonjes

Added: July 15th 2004
Reviewer: Wayne Tonjes
Score:
Related Link: Product Page at Expeditious Retreat
Hits: 168
Language: eng