Sunday, January 5, 2014

Review and Commentary On The Free OSR Sword & Planet Setting - The Savage Swords of Athanor


Savage Swords of Athanor

The Complete Savage Swords of Athanor is a free old school sword and planet campaign setting for the Swords & Wizardry retroclone system.
The Pdf is available from the blog of the same name on the right hand side of the blog along with the counters for the campaign setting. We'll get to those in a moment.
The Savage Swords of Athanor clocks in at sixty four pages of old school goodness with all the right buttons and whistles thrown in. We've got a complete sword and planet setting along with a complete history, setting, peoples, alien races, technology, equipment, weapons, etc. All done in the tradition of the old science fantasy masters.
The setting includes modifications to the OD&D paradigm with modifications to magic, new character classes, changes to magic, and a professional layout throughout. This is a book that harkens back to the days when you could buy a complete setting in one short and sweet book. Everything is right here and with a Swords and Wizardry rule book your ready to go. Have I mentioned this is free.
There is a metric ton of stuff to steal from here including some very nice maps of the city state, materials, and some very original ideas here.
This is a very setting to throw at players and its not like your going to break the setting. All in all I'm very pleased with the efforts of the writer/ designer. They've managed to capture the popular swords and planet vibe without losing  the feel of the setting itself.
There are even a good of the book devoted to Earth men upon the planet Athnor and their relations with both the setting and the other races. The whole setting is very well done and you'd be a fool to let this one go without taking a look at the weirdness and wonder of the setting. It could easily be used with any of the material which is all ready out there. 
This really is a solid setting and alot of fun.
Happy Gaming! 

4 comments:

  1. A print copy of this is one of the first OSR things I got from Lulu (it isn't there any more). I have always thought it deserved more exposure.

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  2. Glad you like it Albert. I share you sentiment and I'm going to get a few more settings and OSR material out into the lime light so to speak.

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  3. I'll tell ya 'Metal Earth', I need to take about forty or fifty dollars and get some of this material in print and bound from Lulu. Its a great setting and needs more air time so to speak. Its a perfect sword and planet for either a fast pick up game or an extended campaign for PC's to get their feel for the material.
    Its an old favorite but I hadn't realized it was completed until one of my players pointed it out over the weekend.

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