Dark Albion Mail Call & I Won The Dark Albion Contest!

Well I couldn't be happier after a very long day of work today for two very cool reasons. One is that I won the contest for  Dark Albion: Cults of Chaos from RpgPundit but there is another slot in the service of the Chaos gods and the other is that thanks to Jack Shear I've got a great copy of Dark Albion now! I've had a copy of the pdf for a while now so why would I want a physical copy of the book? Simple at two hundred seventy six pages of book my eyes were ready to bleed out after reading the pdf on the lap top and tablet. 

Call me old fashioned but there's nothing like a book, the hardback is a thing of beauty and its really nice quality for the price tag. The binding is solid and the printing that I've got is crisp, the pages nice, and the whole package is tight. As a gamer I couldn't be happier with my purchase. One of the things that strikes me is the amount of corruption that is rife throughout Albion itself and its world. Chaos and the forces of darkness are just waiting to rip PC's limb from limb and its one of those worlds that has the potential for lots of long  term gaming.

The interior artwork rings right in with the Dark Albion backdrop and setting;"Dark Albion: The Rose War is a 275 pages long, OSR RPG campaign setting, set in a fantasy medieval England during the War of the Roses (15th century). Think England + sorcery + demons and fairies + some fantasy twists to the world. 80% of the book is system neutral, so can be used with most role-playing games. Nonetheless, this book is designed with OSR games in mind, and will run best with Fantastic Heroes & Witchery (also available on RPGNow/Drivethru), and similar games such as Osric, Swords & Wizardry, etc., as well as the 5th edition of the most popular fantasy RPG! Note lastly that layout and art have been given great care to make the most visually pleasing book as possible: this means 10 maps, and two illustrations per pages on most of the 275 pages! But does Dark Albion live up to the Drivethrurpg blurb? Yes in spades because it takes the ideas behind the dark and gritty alternative history War of the Roses and twists its around its own fantasy setting.

There is a  wealth of information on Dark Albion  that is system neutral with tons of crunch inbetween the setting, history, factions,locations, and much more. I've read the Dark Albion material a hundred times before but to see it in book form makes things easier to relate to and devour for adventure writing and game design.

Because of the amount of material here its important to take Dark Albion slowly and turn the setting over in your mind as a dungeon master because of the length and breath of the world. Ideas for adventures are scattered throughout the text.

One thing that almost leaps out at you is the fact that as a dungeon master there are so many opportunities for adventure because the corruption of chaos is at every level of society in Dark Albion and that makes prime opportunities to have the corruption closing in on the PC's from the remains of ancient Fay gods to the specter of the French frog men across the channel waiting to wage a war that await. There are so many opportunities that campaigns could be on going for years to come. A copy of Dark Albion is available through Lulu and I can't wait to sic some of this material on my PC's in the near future.  Look for the Dark Albion: Cults of Chaos review in the near future but for the moment keep those dice rolling folks.