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Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok -- Fafnir's Treasure
by Emanuele [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 11/05/2023 04:51:04

Ugly watermarks, no bookmarks, locked PDF (so I can't add the bookmarks myself). This is customer-hostile behaviour.



Rating:
[1 of 5 Stars!]
Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok -- Fafnir's Treasure
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Ath Cliath - Overview Book
by Joe C. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 07/04/2023 22:56:15

For those familiar with the designer's work on the Forgotten Realms, don't miss out on this one. It could be the first volume of what will become Ed Greenwood's magnum opus.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Ath Cliath - Overview Book
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The Children of Eriu
by Eric W. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 09/23/2022 20:46:42

I left a negative review before and I aplogize. I love you guys.

Thanks you.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
The Children of Eriu
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The Children of Eriu
by Felix-Antoine S. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 11/15/2021 16:15:51

This is straight up one of the most beautiful rpg book I own. The Runic system version 3 is running at all cylinders in this glorious rendition of celtic legends.

The tome is massive, somehow condensing a Lore book, with an extensive cast of Lords, Gods and others, Gameplay rules, 7 different Archetypes, rules for monsters going from the mundane to the fantastical and truly inspired Art.

I will speak simply of one kind of Archetype you can be, the Harbinger of War. This archetype is a bloody crusader in service of the returned Gods. His Basic starting talents and pasive include killing their enemies so hard they explode into gore for additionnal Damage or Healing. That's just what they start with.

All other Archetype are just as impressive in their myriad unique ways. One of the other Harbinger slowly turn into a wild tree-monster creature as they edge closer to death. You can be a monk who's disbelief in the supernatural and faith in God protects from all, a Golem shaper blacksmith, a beguilling druid poet, a inheritor of Cu Chulain, and etc.

The Runic system is very scalable, thanks to the runes, you can have a poor draw, but it doesn't spell doom. So long as you can defend you will eventually draw all of you runes, or die trying eh eh eh. Not that that would be a bad thing, afterall dieing in combat is but what the Gods ask of you. The Disir, your family spirit will gain power as the legend of your family spreads. Once you've died, and your friends have recounted you deeds and misdeed you may ascend and bring fortune to your descendants (next characters).

This so fun because it encourage interesting play, in this world in twillight Death will come for you. You better be prepared to meet it proud.

Who knows, maybe one day you'll even return to the mortal realms.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok- Denizens of the North
by Colin A. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 06/02/2020 00:32:06

One of the most beautiful RPG books I have ever owned. The art is absolutely incredible and very immersive. There a lot of great new monsters and NPCs in here and it expands the world of the core book to encompass a lot more of Europe and North America. I also really appreciate the campaign ideas within. They still require a lot of GM work like most things in FotN:R, but they are really cool and creative. The adventure included in the book is also quite good and has a great dungeon map.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok- Denizens of the North
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Dead Man's Blade
by A customer [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 09/08/2019 19:40:21

Speaking as the author of Horn of the Kraken I have only praise for this adaptation of my work and have to aknowlage James' brillance is creating a truly amaizing gaming tool. It is a fine example of the game makers art. Nice work.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Dead Man's Blade
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Dead Man's Blade
by Laurent S. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 08/12/2019 18:39:40

This is a really accurate and fun scenario based on the novel. Had the chance to run it in convention and it is really popular and EPIC !!!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok- Lords of the Ash
by Gareth L. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 08/02/2017 02:22:18

Really interesting book - it adds a lot to Fate of the Norns.

Definitely aimed at higher level campaigns, expect interactions with gods and giants.

Some bits are included for less epic games, including new character archetypes and the like.

The good,

  • A beautiful book, presentation is excellent.
  • An index! Finally!
  • Context is useful and informative.

The bad

  • Editing has taken a hit - many spelling errors, and at least one cut off paragraph. No worse than seems standard for rpg books, but significantly weaker than previous books inthis line.


Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok- Lords of the Ash
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Creator Reply:
Hi thanks for taking the time to review Lords of the Ash. I invite you to the official forums, where we have an errata thread for each book. The feedback posted helps us prep an eventual second printing. For the Lords of the Ash, it can be found here: http://www.fateofthenorns.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=634
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Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok - Power Cards (set I)
by Jesse S. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 07/01/2017 21:33:31

The cards look nice, seem well made, and have good information on them. The space to draw a rune in the upper right is really handy. I really want to love these cards, and I was very excited to receive them, but unfortunately there is a pretty big flaw which makes them only ok in my opinion.

The font is tiny. I am not sure what size it is, but it looks like 6 point font. I have good eyesight, and I have to hold them within a foot of my face for them to be readable. There is no way I could read what the power does if the card was on my table. I would have to pick it up and hold it in front of my face to use it. I don't know if that is a printing error or what, but other similar cards from different companies have not had this issue.

I could understand the small font if there was so much text on a power that it wouldn't fit otherwise, but on most of these cards, the font barely fills half, or in some cases, a third of the space. There is a ton of white space that could have been used to allow for larger, more readable text.

I was going to buy set two as well, but I am going to have to think about it now. I will say, that while this is a big issue to me, it is still useful to have those powers on cards, instead of having to dig through the book, or try to cram all of this onto a 1 page character sheet. Hopefully they can work it out and use something more readable in the future.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok - Power Cards (set I)
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The Illuminated Edda
by Mason C. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 05/08/2017 07:57:59

I couldn't be happier with my purchase. I was a little skeptical, but found the beautiful artwork alone to be worth the purchase. The retellings of the Viking mythologies is super fun to read, and the way it is written makes it enjoyable to read even if you already know the stories. Very entertaining and fun to sit down to read just one story or to sit for hours pouring over the stories or even just the artwork. More than impressed and happy with this Viking tome. The shipping was very fast as well.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
The Illuminated Edda
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The Illuminated Edda
by Laurent S. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 04/14/2017 07:42:03

This is so good storytelling and traduction. Really liked it .



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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The Illuminated Edda
by Casca C. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 03/22/2017 16:36:47

A pristine and beautifully illustrated work. Worthy of any RPG bookshelf, or that of scholar of northern myths.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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The Illuminated Edda
by Sean M. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 01/02/2017 14:41:22

Pros:

This is a delightful collection of stories from Norse myth, woven together into a continuous narrative along with the added bonus of myths from other cultures (such as Celtic, Finnish, and Baltic). The illustrations are beautiful, as well, and were certainly one of the main selling points. Andrew has done a great job with this translation, bringing to life many stories of which I am fond, while, at the same time, taking liberties to make it his own without detracting from the source material.

Cons:

My only real complaints come from the amount of typographical errors in the book (but I am rather critical of such issues). The binding of the book also caused some minor annoyance, as I feel that the text extends too far toward where the pages curve and come together with the spine; this causes difficulty in reading the words near that area and with the size of the book, it is difficult to flatten it out to remedy the situation. Overall, the cons never took away from my enjoyment of this book. There is also a long scratch on the back of the cover; I enjoy smooth textures and feeling this blemish against my hand while holding the book is a bit irritating



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok- Denizens of the North
by Søren H. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 08/17/2015 07:40:33

The viking roleplaying game, Fate of the Norns, was published in 2013 and was pretty a novel approach in regards to RPGs, being a system without dice, replacing those with runes. The Runic Gaming System has plenty of possibilities for modification and re-configuring, and this book is a stellar example of this. For any prospective FOTN-player, this is a must-buy, as the book expands on both setting and player option to such a degree that the corebook almost seems a bit lacking in comparison.

Contentwise, the book brings forth several chapters:

  • A NPC Chapter, detailing the movers and shakers of the setting, and what they are doing as Ragnarok approaches. The artwork in this section is simply marvelous, and bears resemblance to woodcarvings of the dark ages. However, the biggest issue I have with this otherwise brilliant chapter would be the lack of stats on the heroes and villains. It notes the archetype and level of each of the dwellers, but not the arrays of powers, which is a bit of a bother as it is more prep for a GM.
  • Locations in Midgard. These are further details of the world of Midgard, as previously mentioned in the previous chapter and in the corebook. Personally favorites are the fortress of Danevirke and the isle of Gotland, haunted by the evils of their previous kings.
  • A small chapter on Secret Societies, detailing organizations that work behind the scenes, giving many exciting options to the GM.
  • Magic Items. These are invaluable for an GM wanting to run a long campaign. Plenty of new tricks and mythical artifacts to go around. Among those you can find the swords of Wayland and the infamous Naglfar, the ship of Ragnarok.
  • The chapter after this is a collection of monsters, all of them new and exciting options to the table. They are needed, as the Corebook brought both human opponents but also had to give us monsters to fight. This chapter expands the perils you can unleash on you players. Again, the artwork is beautifully done, but is clearly made by different artists with little cohesion. But, as with the first chapter, the lack of pre-crafted examples can make it a bit difficult for a new GM to work with these monsters.
  • Following this is a treatise on the life of a viking during Ragnarok. And it might not be so bad after all. Even if 60% of your village have died, life can go on. There is also a small section on the Skraelings, the natives from across the Atlantic. The culture in question seems to be the natives of Greenland and northern Canada, and not the southern coastal Natives of East Coast US.

  • Archetypes. 6 new archetypes are presented for play, as was promised in the corebook. Among those, you'll find the Stalo (Fighter), the Berserkir, the Blacksmith, the Fardrengir (Ranger), the Druid and the the Sceadugengan (Rogue). All of these bring new abilities, spells and powers with them, detailed in the following chapters. These are as complex as the Archetypes of the corebook, and will often require a very through read-through to fully grasp the potential in them. Along with the Archetypes, new game concepts are introduced, such as the option to Curse a enemy when you seem to falter in your steps, new Meta keywords, new Effects and two new Conditions.
  • New Powers & Skills As it says on the tin, these are the nuts and bolts of the new Archetypes. Within, you find both new powers for your supernatural viking, and simple things such as crafting rules, riding and shape-shifting.
  • Norn Rules This chapter details new rules for the game and the explanations of several core-book concepts. This also brings rules for sailing, naval combat and mass battles. Also included are the rules for building a community or business. A strange idea in the face of the end of days, but they might be more needed for game set before Ragnarok.
  • Expanded Lifepaths Do you like the random generated lifepaths of the core-book? Great, here's even more tables to flesh out your character.

  • Finally, we have the second to last chapter, The Saga of the Cornerstone of the World. An short adventure, set in the same locale as the adventure Fafnir's Treasure. It deals with a mine and the secrets contained therein. Suffice to say, the players may be in for a bit of a surprise. It may be a bit of a dungeon crawl, but the payoff is worth it for the story seeds involved therein.
  • The last chapter is a collections of concepts, meant to provide the starting plots of several FOTN campaigns. Starting from before Ragnarok and to the beginning of the Wind Age, these provides excellent material for any aspiring GM (sorry, Norns...) wanting to ply the seas of Midgard, but is unsure of what story to tell.

VERDICT: All in all, if your want to run Ragnarok, you need this book. Preferably two of them. The setting is expanded to thrice it's original size and the rules addendums alone are worth the price of admission. If only it provided more pre-generated Dwellers (NPC's) it would be worthy of a fifth star. The only other critique on a 400 pages book would be the variation of the artwork, as it didn't have the same sense of uniformity as the corebook had, and as such feels a bit more disorganized.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok- Denizens of the North
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Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok- Denizens of the North
by Mike M. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 08/16/2015 19:37:06

This is, unfortunately, simply a capsule review. I haven't yet played with the new mechanics introduced in this supplement, although I'm very much looking forward to it. This review is also based on the Premium Hardcover hardcopy, which I purchased during the recent Christmas in July. This has become a fairly long review, but don't worry, there's a TL:DR at the end, so you can skip to that if you want.

The book opens with a bunch of character writeups - the Denizens in the title. They're by and large well-written, giving a good look on the people of this world. For my personal taste, there's a little too much focus on the British Isles and the followers of the White God, but that does make a certain amount of sense, given Haakon the Good being one of the main claimants to the throne of Norveig... but that's getting slightly ahead of myself.

This book is, in general, a very wide-reaching supplement to the Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok game. In that world, Skoll and Hati, the wolves fated to eat the sun and moon, did just that. Three years ago. The night that Harald Fairhair, uniter of the kingdom of Norveig, died. Midgard - the world - has since been in the grips of Fimbulwinter. The world is caught in the second of four Ages of Ragnarok - the Axe Age. So, now that there's some context, I can go back to the main conflict of the world.

So, the book opens with a bunch of character writeups. NPCs, with suggested FotN levels and archetypes, but primarily a 1-2 page description of the NPC, their context in the world, and their personality. These are exceptionally well-written, and each of them I can see importing into my game. One of the hardest parts about this book is not figuring out what to include, but rather, what do you want to exclude, since all the setting material is gold. A favourite NPC of mine included is Baba Yaga, with some twists on her normal presentation (although, to be fair, it's hard to tell sometimes what is "normal"). Many of these NPCs are rooted in history, such as the aforementioned Haakon the Good, son of Harald Fairhair, being hostaged to one of the kings of the British Isles, now ready to return to Norveig to take on his brother Erik Bloodaxe. A couple higher-end NPCs are also included, such as Nidhogg the serpent that eats away at Yggdrasil the world-ash. By and large, though, these are mortal characters who could show up easily in a game, especially one set around the crisis of succession in Norveig.

There's a following chapter looking at various areas of Midgard, including Islandia, the Baltics, Scandinavia itself, the British Isles, and ... elsewhere. Once again, these are very good descriptions, aimed at being both evocative and useful in a game. If you were missing setting information from the corebook, here's where a bunch of it can be found, although Fafnir's Treasure can end up being a better introduction to the setting of the game, looking directly into a village and its area of Iceland. Continuing onto its purpose of being useful in games, some societies are also described, again with a few pages each, focusing on being useful for gaming purposes.

Then we get into a few areas that I find a little oddly ordered: magic items, Denizens (i.e. NPCs and monsters), which have a lot of game-mechanical information follows these discussions, before moving onto Viking Life and Skraelings - two primarily fluffy chapters. The Viking Life and Skraelings are still in that same kind of short form view on things, focused once again on being both evocative and useful. Skraelings are, effectively, the Native American tribes viewed through the lens of the epic post-apocalyptic Norse viewpoint. For me, personally, they're once again a little out of theme, but they do fit in with the pseudo-history of the world presented by the game. The Viking Life chapter shows small focuses on a bunch of areas of what makes the Viking culture unique.

If you can't tell by now, I really really enjoy all of the setting / "fluffy" chapters in the book, and that's most of what I've focused on so far in my reading and campaign prep. Mechanics are for when they happen. I'll address them at this point of the overview, keeping a little bullet-pointy:

  • Magic Items are a very Norse thing to have. Much of the powers of the Aesir do, in fact, derive from items (often crafted by the dvergar) in the stories, and so they actually make a lot of sense to have here. I'm disappointed, slightly, though, that the items that appear in the Ring of the Nibelung (Wagner's operatic dramas do actually stem from Norse stories, and the Ring, the Sword - Gram, and the headpiece do exist in the stories) and some of the items of the Gods don't exist in the book. Despite that, though, there's a lot of good items in here, and very much not in the vein of a +1 Sword - each of these has a kind of story around it, as it should be.

  • The Denizens included are very good. I like the mix included here, even though - like the Banshee - some are again a little off-theme for me, personally. They all, as this is Fate of the Norns, come with their own boards. Once again, though, there are no real prebuilt examples of any of the Denizens. I'm looking forward to a possible Bestiary, which includes a bunch of options. No two Trolls are the same, true, but there's something to be said for minimizing the amount of prep the GM needs to do, so fights can be thrown together at the last moment. Personally, I'm a minimalist GM when it comes to prep, and so I'm hunting for ways to keep the options available, while allowing me to do heavy improv at the table. What's likely is I'll prebuild a bunch of examples of Denizens that I can toss into the fray when it happens.

  • I admit I haven't gone through the Powers (Active, Passive, or Skills) in depth, but the ones I've looked at are generally on par with the core book. This is a game where the principle of "if everything is overpowered, then everything is balanced" really does apply.

  • The game mechanics chapter is excellent. It takes the Runic Game System of the core book and expands and clarifies it. Some of what was written down in this book I got from a game session at a con I played in, with the author as GM. This game also very much applies the principle of "what makes sense is what should be". There's new defensive effects (causing a rebalance of some of the items in the core book), rules for naval combat and boats, and some pretty good rules for mass combat (effectively: each unit becomes bound to a rune, and play out a few rounds of combat until one side breaks).

  • The Archetypes presented are: Berserkir (of course, although what you might not expect is that some of them can turn into bears!), Blacksmith (more of a combat-smith, if you can picture that. They go out into the world and hit things really hard, so they can go back to a forge, and hit things really hard), Druids (nature-wizards and shapeshifters), Fardrengir ("rangers" of the Aragorn tradition, if you will), Sceadugengan (rogues, thieves, assassins, scoundrels, ...), and Stalo (fighters). These archetypes don't really enthuse me, honestly, as several of them feel kind of like a Fate of the Norns view of D&D classes - notably, the Stalo, Sceadugengan, Fardrengir, and Druids. The druid subclasses are exactly what you would expect coming from D&D, and likewise the Rogue (which uses the "Thief", "Assassin", and "Scoundrel" as words representing the subclasses, unlike many of the others). These archetypes all have their place in the Norse stories, yes, but they feel a little ... safe, perhaps, compared to the Maiden of Ratatosk, Seithkona, and so on, from the core book. I was looking forward to seeing how the Godi and the Cleric differ, being the priests of the Norse Gods and the priests of the White God respectively, but I guess that's for another supplement.

  • There's new lifepath tables! I love these lifepath tables, even moreso than the ones from the corebook. I love the idea of drawing runes and consulting the tables - and what I like the idea of best is drawing new runes without replacement, so you see each row in only one column.

  • Finally, there's a complete Epic - good for a few sessions - and vignettes. The epic is a full story that can be played out - a prewritten adventure, if you will - and the vignettes are much more like adventure seeds - springboards for new ideas. If you want to know what's in them ... buy the book!

Ah, done. Here's where I'll summarize everything:

TL:DR section:

  • What I liked: The art is amazing. Every single page of the "fluff" / setting material is fully illustrated, with the text tastefully placed on translucent text boxes. The text is very evocative. I'm never bored reading Fate of the Norns books. You can easily flip through and read at your leasure. Each little piece of setting-material covers a page or two and is largely independent of anything else, so you can read however you want, although cover-to-cover really works well. There's context given to the NPCs in the book. This is a good thing, as you can apply this context to the rest of the world, and to your game. ** The game mechanics are also excellent, and fill in a few places where the core book wasn't so clear.

  • What I didn't like so much: The art, while very pretty, is a different style to the core book. I find that a little jarring, honestly, although I'm not sure which I prefer. Both styles fit the world, though, so there's a place for both. Some of the Archetypes felt like they were only here because we expect them, because of D&D, and not because they're truly highlighting Fate of the Norns. Mitigating this, though, is that the core book has some very unique archetypes. ** After the largely boring fonts of the core book, and a small discussion (I think on RPGnet), I expected more on the typeface front in this book. What we got was an overly florid heading font, and a once-again boring body text font, although this time serifed (which I approve of, personally).

  • Overall: This book is one of the best in my collection. I won't equate it with Nobilis 2e - it doesn't quite hit those rarified heights - but it's certainly more than a match in my eyes to the One Ring in terms of aesthetics and writing and content that matches its setting. I highly recommend the entire game line, but if you're interested in a more art-book-with-vignettes style book, get this one instead of the core book. (Do get the whole line, including Fafnir's Treasure, though. Fafnir makes an excellent introduction into the world and the game system!)


Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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