The Way of War: Makers of Legend, Volume One
An Earthdawn Sourcebook
Published by Living Room Games
www.lrgames.com
Review by AJ Reardon
The way-cool folks over at Living Room Games have kindly provided me with a few Earthdawn sourcebooks to review. If they didn't have a life-long, loyal customer before, they certainly do now!
The Way of War is one of the most recent Earthdawn releases, and is the first in a series of books focusing on the various Disciplines (classes) available to player characters. In this way it is similar to the out-of-print The Adept's Way, published by the FASA Corporation. I was originally worried that the new Makers of Legend series would be rather redundant for anyone who owned Adept's Way, but if The Way of War is any indication, the series will offer plenty of new information.
The old book and the new series have a few things in common. Both are presented as volumes compiled by the Library of Throal, and as such both are mainly written "in character" by practitioners of the various Disciplines contained therein. Both also have amusing comments added in by people who have read the volume and felt the need to chime in with their own opinion, usually something along the lines of "s/he is full of crap." In addition, both serve as great inspiration on how to roleplay your character. Whenever we introduce a new player to Earthdawn, I hand them my copy of Adept's Way and suggest that they read up on their chosen character class.
Most importantly, both books make you want to play Earthdawn. The essays are so well-written that you can't help but think about how YOU would play a member of that Discipline, and how much fun you would have doing it. I thought up no less than 4 character ideas while reading The Way of War, and since it only covers 6 Disciplines, that's pretty impressive.
Of course, this review is really about how the books are different, and why you should pick up The Way of War, even if you already have The Adept's Way, so let's move on to that . . .
The Adept's Way was a single volume that covered all 15 of the most common Disciplines in Earthdawn. Each Discipline was covered by a lengthy essay written by one member of the Discipline, with differing opinions only covered in footnotes. It was largely a roleplay aid, with tips on how to play an Adept, and information on training, character advancement, and ideal multi-class options. It contained a few new rules, and some other new information like new mounts for Cavalrymen, but overall there was very little new game content.
Makers of Legend is slated to be a three-book series (the next volume is The Wanderer's Way, due out in February and covering such classes as Thieves and Troubadours, and the third volume, with no release date set, is titled The Way of Will and covers magical Disciplines), with each book apparently covering 5 of the most common Disciplines and introducing 1 new one per book as well.
One major difference between The Adept's Way and The Way of War is that in this new book, each Discipline is covered by 4 different Adepts, offering different viewpoints on how one can follow that Discipline and its place in the world. This offers players much more insight into the variety available to them and offers more inspiration for roleplay. The book goes so far as to even provide at least one variation on each Discipline. These are not the specialists from before, who focused on one aspect of their Discipline over all others (although the book makes ample mention of such people), but Adepts whose training differs from the norm, allowing them the option of taking different Talents than they normally would, sometimes including brand-new talents! Some examples of this are blind Archers, griffin-mounted Cavalrymen, and Swordmasters who specialize in the staff (wouldn't that make them Staffmasters? The Adept who explains his variation on the Discipline often bemoans the unfortunate name of his chosen path).
In addition to Discipline variations, The Way of War offers a few new Blood Charms, a new skill, a new Discipline (which I'll describe shortly), and a slew of new Talent Knacks (for those who don't play Earthdawn, a Talent Knack is like a specialization for one of your class abilities that allows you to do extra cool stuff with it, like disarm someone and lodge their weapon in the ground, as an example). A lot of the new information draws from Theran sources, making it ideal if you're running/playing in a campaign set in or near Thera, or involving Therans in Barsaive.
The new class even comes from Cathay, one of the Theran territories. Called the Zhan Shi, this martial artist class could very easily have been inspired by watching too many Jet Li movies (well, not that there is such a thing as too many...). With talents that allow them to do things like strike an opponent in such a way that freezes them in place, move like water to avoid a blow, and breathe fire, they are the quintessential bad-ass monks!
The Zhan Shi, blind Archers, and the staff-wielding Swordmasters all show a certain trend that Earthdawn has taken ever since Living Room Games took over from the now-defunct FASA. That trend is towards a more anime/manga/martial arts movie themed game. It shows in the artwork, where many of the characters are dressed in very Oriental-style clothing. While some people who dislike such genres might be annoyed by this direction, I think it only seems natural. The slightly over-the-top nature of some of the Disciplines and their magically-charged Talents makes it very much like anime or Chinese movies that draw more from fantasy and legends. When watching movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon one can't help but think of the Warrior Talents Air Dance and Tiger Spring. Arrogant swordsmen in anime series could easily remind one of a Swordmaster using his Taunt Talent. It's only natural, now that anime and martial arts are more popular, that people should notice the similarities that were already there and work them into the game.
Another thing that has changed between FASA books and Living Room Games books is the artwork. While FASA books were always well-written and entertaining, the art often left something to be desired, in my opinion. Although Living Room Games recycled some of the old FASA artwork for the 2nd Edition rule book, The Way of War features all-new artwork which I find much more pleasing to the eye. Fans of the webcomic Eversummer Eve (www.eversummereve.com) will be glad to see that Denise Jones has provided artwork for this book. For those unfamiliar with ESE but familiar with Earthdawn, Ms. Jones has many drawings in the 2nd Edition rule book and Companion, most notably all of the Discipline pictures.
My complaints with this book are few. One is that while the old FASA books put all of the game information in a separate chapter in the back, The Way of War puts the game information mid-chapter, after the essay that mentions it. This breaks up the in-character feel of the book and also means that you have to flip through the book to find the rules, rather than turning to the back. An even more minor complaint is that, like previous Living Room Games sourcebooks, this book shows the need for a proof-reader to correct a few rampant typos. Of course, I'm a grammar Nazi and this flaw certainly doesn't detract from the usefulness of the book.
Overall, I recommend The Way of War for Earthdawn players and GMs alike. If your local game store doesn't carry Earthdawn products (and refuse to even if you ask nicely), you can order directly from Living Room Games' website.
Next month I'll be reviewing the Dragons sourcebook and the Barsaive in Chaos campaign book thingy (gotta love those technical terms).
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