Relics & Rituals: Excalibur

Reviewed by: Wayne Tonjes

Relics & Rituals: Excalibur by Sword & Sorcery is a new d20 supplement distributed via White Wolf Publishing. This volume is designed for recreating the high chivalric feel of Camelot in a d20 game instead of the standard high fantasy style of the core rules. While it keeps many of the elements of the core d20 game in place, it bends them slightly to better fit the mythos of Arthur, Merlin, and Guinevere. As an added touch it offers more than mere rules for what it terms an ‘Arthurian’ game that simply sticks to the feeling of high chivalry and courtly romance with an ‘Excalibur’ campaign. This campaign setting offers a fairly Gaelic framework complete with a High King as the chief ruler of a prominent nation and founder of a Round Table of Knights and the namesake sword itself. Naturally, such shifts require some work, usually in the form of role-playing guidelines. Other elements require more mechanical features, a good sample of which is given the newly presented knight class. While the core fighter class could be used to recreate the traditional mounted hero in shining armor, the knight class addresses two key issues that most disrupt the fit: starting wealth and courtly airs. A special class ability for starting first level knights supplies the first, while a different skill set expanded for more social endeavors. Other features include this listing from the product website:
“Relics & Rituals: Excalibur is a genre sourcebook, blending the trappings of Arthurian myth with the familiar ruleset of the d20 System. New spells, magic items, prestige classes and more can be used to build an entirely Arthurian-style campaign, or to add elements of chivalry and courtly romance to any existing d20 campaign. Recreate the legends of the Round Table, or populate your own Camelot with elven enchantresses, orcish black knights and more!”

The first chapter presents a fairly focused selection of alternative player character races particularly crafted for the sample campaign. While most of these are the standard core races slightly retooled and given Gaelic names like sidhe for elf and meinedd for dwarf, there are two pleasant additions of anhardd, half breed hobgoblins, and lledrith sidhe, or forest elves. Each of these alternatives are fully presented in the same format as given in Core Rulebook I for player character races, presenting all the necessary details to put them into play. The second chapter turns to character classes. Most of this chapter provides role-playing tips for adapting existing core classes from both Core Rulebook I and II. A new full class, as mentioned, is presented, as well as nine new prestige classes. These nine new classes cover some expected archetypes like the fey enchantress, the green knight, and the knight of the realm and some well crafted concepts that also fit or fulfill background rolls assumed in the setting like the giant killer, the houndmaster, and the reliquarian. Two of the classes do not quite fit, as the knight templar in design as well as name fits a Crusade theme better and the malefic enchanter with its outright fiendish ties to the seven deadly sins is more derivative of morality tales than Arthurian legend. Chapter three continues to redefine core system elements while introducing new features with a selection of new uses and subsets of skills, adds fifty-three feats, and revamps the available equipment options. Two new classes of feat are presented, the Honor feats that make use of a new system given later in the book that make the rewards of virtue more tangible and the Paragon feats that reinforce the exemplar status of those characters whose ability scores rise to the utmost heights. There are some surprisingly simple feats here that manage to capture the cinematic flavor of the mythos wonderfully. The Craft Bonded Item that produces a magic item that can only be used by certain people or under certain conditions allows an easy explanation for the Sword in the Stone or the Siege Perilous, while the Conditional Dispel that makes a spell permanent until the conditions set in the casting are met is perfect for explaining the highly thematic curse of Ladyhawke might be cast. Feats relating to fate and destiny such as the luck shown by Arthur in his early quests of finding arms at need offer further thematic support. A number of changes are made in regards equipment as the Arthurian campaign is typically set at a lower technological level than the core rules. As such numerous items are restricted or repriced while a number of new items are presented to cover theme requirements or the technological shift. Unfortunately, the descriptions of some of these new items could have been handled better, particularly in the case of weapons where very rough paragraph descriptions were offered without a good solid table line of item damage, weights, costs, and weapon type to support them. There are some exceptional entries, particularly the wide array of clothing options, the commentary on food and drink, sample pricing of services, and the standard entrance fees for competitions.

The fourth chapter reviews basic changes to magic. This gives an overview where two main issues are handled. The first is the tricky issue of fireballs in a high chivalry campaign. This issue is offered an ‘unsubtle’ solution of doubling casting times and adding pricey spell components to such spells, but a few more alternatives really should have been suggested. Even just the suggestion of raising the spell level of off-theme magics by one or two would have sufficed, but the cost modifiers are the only things put on the table. While new spell lists are provided for all of the core classes, the only real changes resulting from thematic considerations are new spells and a domain, italicizing of a limited number of spells for exclusion, and labeling on spells affected by the new theme balancing modifiers. Surprisingly, the only spells considered completely excludable are spells of planar travel or undead determent, the first due to the limited interplay of other planes and clear divergence from the core game cosmology and the latter due to the relative scarcity of undead in genre. Animate dead spells do remain in place, although their use is constrained by social mores that consider creation of undead to be of the utmost depravity and horror. Perfect for a villain, in other words, but not the ken of player characters. The second consideration of the overview is the distinction between wizards as mighty, long term magic workers who create spells that can last months as represented by the apparent workings of Merlin and a more flashy, short term spell slinging sorcerer. Some of the new spells try to make this more concrete with several spells with casting times of hours or more that then last days to weeks. Unfortunately, the fact that sorcerers and wizards share the same spell list complete undermines the suggestion of this distinction. If they truly wished to cast wizards as a slower, more methodical type caster, it would have been easy to recommend as a play option that all wizard spells increase their casting times with a corresponding increase of area or duration, relegating sorcerers to the fast, short lasting listings given in spells. There is a new class of spells, most of which are included with their related Heraldry domain. These spells essentially transform a shield into a temporary magic item that grants its wielder a heraldically appropriate benefit. These and the rest of the spells are relatively decent, although there are a few problems with description clarity. A few of the spells require a ‘vial of acid,’ which was almost entirely excluded as a market item from the setting. A few others spells have problematic area limitations coupled with a one casting per structure limit that fails to describe how exactly the spell works with the very likely case of structures larger than the area limit. The sixth chapter reviews magic items, again offering suggestions on which standard magic items to exclude and how to turn the remainder into thematic options. Six new armor abilities and six new specific armors, six new weapon qualities, seven specific weapons, three new potions, three new rings, one staff, nineteen new wondrous items, eight cursed items, and twelve artifacts are provided. Wands are retooled as more generic charged spell bearing items, potions as normal food and beverages with arcane benefits, and rods, staves, and scrolls reduced in varying degrees. The artifacts cover all of the archetypical items like Excalibur, the Siege Perilous, and the Round Table. Most of the entries are perfectly reasonable, although it is somewhat odd that the sword of the vaunted High King bears a weapon ability that is considered dishonorable. It is also unfortunate that such items as necklaces of fireballs were listed with the same price and rarity as their core book values, despite the advised component cost that would have raised such costs significantly.

Chapter six diverts from revamping established features with a variety of new systems and adaptation suggestions. The systems include a general honor system with specific chivalric code subsystems and some guides for courtly love. The adaptations include two sample religions and some methods to adjust player character races and monsters. This includes a superb treatment of using symbolism with monsters, a concept shown to truly work famously with the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series. The book concludes with two appendices. The first offers a range of tournament elements from costs of arranging one to mechanics for running competitions. Some of these descriptions are quite good, but the general mechanics are a little weak with an odd attempt to avoid lots of checks with multiple substitute checks. The second offers two new creature types and eight new monster entries. This section is overall a little weak. The two types, manifestations and spirits, are easily fit by adding a specific ability or subtype to existing types. Several of the abilities, whether bestowed to one of these new types or belonging to one of the three other creatures, are poorly defined, failing to specify the basis of saving throw difficulty classes or what determines damage dice.

Relics & Rituals: Excalibur offers a fairly thorough approach to adapting the style of adventures of Arthurian legend to the d20 game without ever getting into the particulars of famous heroes. Instead, it supplies plenty of flavor with careful language selection and selection of representative features like the artifacts and social structures of the source tales. The suggestions offered are flexible for maximum use in turning the high fantasy of d20 to a high chivalry game. There are some places the detailed work is not as thorough, particularly in the matters of adjusting spells and arcane casters from the standard designs to setting specific forms, but overall the work is respectable. The editing is generally sound beyond these conceptual mistakes, although there are still some typos and spurious words. The layout is solid with nice frames and most pages with decent filling. The class chapter and second appendix are the exceptions, where there is excessive white space between some entries. The art is good with lots of portraits, action shots, and feature items interspersed through the text. While some may find the Arthurian theme overused, this book, despite the title, really offers a more general approach to the themes of chivalric campaigns. Others may dislike the lack of source material on the famed characters of Arthur's court, but it is a natural result of the thematic approach. There is plenty of room for character classes for Arthur and his knights to be presented in a further, specific sourcebook, or for a novel change perhaps Charlemagne and his Twelve Peers or Ivanhoe. That is the advantage of the material presented in this book, so take the challenge and quest for a copy today.

For more details on Sword & Sorcery and their new d20 supplement, Relics & Rituals: Excalibur, check them out at their website http://www.swordsorcery.com and at local game stores.

(Product Summary)

Relics & Rituals: Excalibur
From: Sword & Sorcery
Type of Game: d20 supplement
Written by: Evan Jamieson, Lizard, Aaron Rosenberg, and Christina Stiles
Contributing Authors: Christopher Kennedy
Developed by: Ethan Skemp
Edited by: Aileen E. Miles
Managerially Edited by: Andrew Bates
Art Direction by: Aileen E. Miles
Layout and Typesetting by: Aileen E. Miles
Cover Design by: Matt Milberger and Aileen I. Miles
Cover Art by: Michael Phillippi
Additional Art by: John Bridges, Talon Dunning, Steve Ellis, Jeff Holt, and Ron Spencer
Number of Pages: 216
Game Components Included: Hard Cover Book
Retail Price: $34.99 (US)
Item Number: WW16711
ISBN: 1-58846-956-5
Email: conrad@swordsorcery.com
Website: http://secure.white-wolf.com/catalog/results.tpl?action=full&cart;=31735562672617238&--eqskudatarq=16711

Reviewed by: Wayne Tonjes

Added: July 24th 2004
Reviewer: Wayne Tonjes
Score:
Related Link: Sword & Sorcery online Catalog
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Language: eng