Tuesday, 4 March 2014

February Round-Up, Pathfinder Legends, and Wrath of the Righteous Poster Map Folio


Another month has come and gone. It was a fairly quiet month for me here on the blog, particularly in the world of Doctor Who. However, I did review the excellent and very important book Doctor Who and Race. I highly recommend people read it! I also wrapped up the third series of Sherlock with “His Last Vow” and took a little look back at Babylon 5 in honour of its 20th anniversary. In the world of Pathfinder, I looked at three products: Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth, People of the Sands, and Osirion, Legacy of Pharaohs.

In some exciting Pathfinder news, this month sees the release of the first Pathfinder Legends, a series of audio dramas from Big Finish, who are most well known for their Doctor Who audio dramas. The first release is Rise of the Runelords: Burnt Offerings, based, of course, on the first Pathfinder Adventure Path volume. You can listen to a trailer at the link. To be honest, I’m not all that impressed by the trailer, which surprises me as you would expect the trailer to showcase the very best of the production. Still, Big Finish has a very good record with their Doctor Who audios—enough of a record that I am very confident in their ability to do a very good job with Pathfinder Legends. You can purchase copies from Big Finish or from Paizo. Alas, much like with Big Finish’s Doctor Who material, personal budgetary constraints mean I’m not going to be able to pick any of these up in the near future. Hopefully one day, though. One day...

I’ll wrap things up with a short review. Here’s to a great March!

Wrath of the Righteous Poster Map Folio

As with most map folios for the adventure paths, the Wrath of the Righteous Poster Map Folio comes with three large, full-colour maps. One is a map of the Worldwound, the area where most of the action of Wrath of the Righteous takes place. The second map is of Kenabres, the city where the adventure path begins in The Worldwound Incursion. Both of these maps are high-quality and beautiful to look at, while also being highly useful for playing the adventure path. Admittedly, the map of Kenabres is really only useful for the first adventure, but the map of the Worldwound will be useful right up to the final instalment.

However, the stand-out map of this set is the third one: a map of the Abyss (which the PCs travel to in the fourth and fifth instalments of Wrath of the Righteous). Mapping out the Abyss is a daunting task—no, more an impossible task really, considering the Abyss is essentially an infinite plane made up of countless other planes. What this map does instead is provide an artistic rendition of the various Abyssal realms and “where” (metaphorically speaking) they are in relation to each other. Admittedly, the map doesn’t have a lot of utility in actual game-play. However, I don’t really care. The map is utterly beautiful to behold and can easily serve as an in-game representation of the Abyss—something the players’ characters might actually see. Ultimately, this map provides a visual element to enhance game-play. It gives both players and GMs just a little hint on what their characters are seeing, allowing the imagination to fill in the rest. It also makes a great poster to hang on the wall.

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