Vampire Warlords by Andy Remic.

Vampire Warlords is book three in the Clockwork Vampire Chronicles. Written by Andy Remic, it follows the adventures of Kell, an old axeman who fights against a summoned trio of vampires whose true power eclipses the clockwork vampires or vacine, who conquered his homelands. Like the previous books in the series, I found the characters wandering all over the place in terms of temperament and personality but it was a quick action filled ride so I'll forgot those inconsistencies. The fact that I picked it up at Half Priced books for $3.99 doesn't hurt.

Having said that, there are a few things I took from the book. Those who want to avoid spoilers, read no further.

1. Dead Plot Lines: There's the old saying about the gun in scene one being used in scene six. One of the characters, Kell's grand daughter, Nienna, speaks to Kell's unique axe. It hints at big things to come for her. Then she gets killed by that axe and nothing happens. She doesn't inhabit it. She doesn't haunt Kell. It's just a gruesome death. Now mind you, Andy has mentioned that he may wind up doing another two trilogies but the impact of the axe talking to Nienna and telling her things is going to be lost in a new trilogy because the reader hasn't spent three books with the character. Even with exceptional flashback use, Nienna will at best be a secondary character in those novels and her impact on the axe also minimal.

2. Endgame: We are introduced to three vampire warlords. Kell defeats two of them and when going to defeat the third is told, "No, it's cool. We got that." Ugh. When putting  villains in the setting that are supposed to be the big bad endgame, do not take it out of the character's hands. "Well, I'm glad you guys managed to get to level 20 and all that but Ocrus kills Demogorgon so you guys don't have to worry about it." That would be a massively unsatisfying game.

3. Changing Origins: In previous books, we've seen Kell's axe gain it's bond with him. In this one, it goes "super sayian" and becomes even more powerful. In this case, it's not necessarily a terrible thing but it feels heavy handed. Working with the players when trying to update or incorporate their background elements can be difficult or easy depending on the nature of the campaign. In a high fantasy epic campaign or a silver age super hero one? No problem. In a historical fantasy or gothic? Might be a little more difficult.

4. The Set up. We learn that the vacinee or clockwork vampire civilization sacrificed to release the Vampire Warlords are merely the tip of the clockwork vampire society. This leads to a potential encounter further down the road. Kell, long poisoned, is feeling it more and more and is preparing to seek out a cure. This cure will lead him to another land where it's strongly hinted that werewolves or other wolf style creatures are waiting. When Kell's axe get's it's make over, it's hinted that Kell will have at least three issues, the vampires, the wolves, and even dragons. These things allow the setting to be expanded without forcing the issues to be dealt with at that very second.

5. Description versus game mechanics. Kell's advanced age is only there to give the writer something to talk about. When it comes to combat, heart attack, easily succumbing to disease, etc... Kell shrugs off such nonsense. When it comes to simple walking or eating though? Well, the aches and groans and moans come out. In a role playing game, those could be useful bits and catch phrases for a  character who wanted to play an older individual but doesn't want the mechanical penalties of such.

Vampire Warlords has a lot of rousing action scenes that are impaired a bit by the wanderings of the characters from one mood to the next.

Soul Stealers by Andy Remic

One of the things I love about Half Priced books is that you never know what you’ll find there. For example, I ran across Kell’s Legend by Andy Remic in the dollar spinner rack. I’d never heard of Any Remic before and didn’t know if I’d enjoy it, but for $1 I was willing to take the chance.

 The potential problem with the spinner rack though, is that you never know what you’ll find. This means that if you find a book in a series you enjoy there is no guarantee that they will have all of the books in the series, and if they do have more than one, they may not have them all in order.

So months after I read Kell’s Legend, I was pleased to see they had the second block in The Clockwork Vampire Chronicles, Soul Stealers. And this too was on the dollar spinner rack. I was glad to pick it up because after reading The Whiskey Rebels, I needed something a little lighter and easier on the brain. Andy Remic did not fail to deliver. It is a quick browsing popcorn style action read.

I enjoyed it enough that when I saw The Clockwork Vampires Chrnoicles Three, The Vampire Warlords I bought it from the actual shelf, instead of waiting to buy from the dollar spinner rack. For that book I paid the princely sum of $3.99.

In terms of gaming there are few things the book would have me keep in mind. These are actually not good things and are behaviors I would try to avoid.

When introducing antagonist that are meant to relay how powerful and devastating the opposition is it helps if that antagonist is actually dangerous. In this instance, the characters on the cover of at least my version, twin vampire sisters who directly serve the vampire general Graal, are supposed to be the fiercest and most dangerous assassins at Graal’s disposal. What winds up happening is that when we first see them in combat is that they are either dispatched in a most gratuitous manner or simply scared off. If there competence is not meant to showcase the strength of the enemy, it should be there to showcase the strength of the heroes.

The second thing I would try to avoid is the introduction of what appeared to me to be nonsense characters that don't know where. We are introduced to some child taken in by poisonous spiders and given background of how the child was maimed and how he recovered in these weird circumstances. Another child was apparently murdered. This happens with a few characters where we get this build up of background information and then they're just casually slaughtered. It's not the type of death that happens in say The Walking Dead or A Game of Thrones because these characters have too much time spent building up their unique powers that never come to play. It would be like watching The Man of Steel and then Lex Luthor shoots him through the head with a Kryptonite bullet at the start of the next movie and it the movie was over.

In terms of things I would try to add or remember to bring into the campaign, is the use of intelligent weapons. Such weapons have a long history in the game and are common themes in use with Michael Moorcock’s The Eternal Champion series. There are numerous articles that discuss in detail the many ways such a weapon can be a certain type of character for the game master.

One use of a weapon that is intelligent is the delivery of information that the players might not normally have access to. This allows the game master to pit challenges and obstacles in front of the characters that they might not normally be able to overcome. One of the issues  in doing this is that the players need to know what subjects and fields that the intelligent weapon might know.

Another use of intelligent weapon is that it can play off of the other characters or players, in having a different viewpoint or outlook that contrast with their own. For example a human, dwarf, elf, or gnome might all be the same to an intelligent weapon. They are all things of the flesh and are all classified as such. In a setting with artificial characters, such as Eberron or Midguard, an intelligent weapon might seek to be used by those more of its liking.

Lastly, an intelligent weapon might have its own agenda. Depending on the power and strength of the weapon it might be able to take over servants, common household pets, and even semi-important characters such as henchmen or hirelings and maneuver them into doing its unique will against their own better judgment. Depending upon how clever such a weapon is, the weapon might not need to outright control the people as much as manipulate them with its own knowledge of things. It could try to get these characters to do things for their “own good” because it knows things that the players or their allies do not.

Other elements of the book that I enjoyed, where the characters having weakness. Outside of his advanced age, Kell is an alcoholic with a preference for good whiskey. Kell also believes himself to be a bad man. This belief colors is outlook and how he approaches every obstacle. His traveling companion has a weakness for all things of comfort: good clothes, wine, women, and shelter. He craves the easy city life of a pampered noble.

Soul Stealers may have wandered around from place to place and brought in characters and complications whose appearance based solely on this novel would seem frivolous but it is a quick furious read that quickly escalates from self survival to survival of the nation. Well worth reading if you can find it at the right price

Kell's Legend by Andy Remic

Another victory from the dollar rack at Half Price Books. I'd never heard of Andy Remic before, or of the Clockwork Vampire Chronicles but on the other hand, I like the cover. Small wonder there, it's by Adrian Smith, an illustrator with a ton of talent whose own web page is here: http://www.adriansmith.co.uk/ On the dollar rack for a fairly large book with a great cover? I'll give it a whirl.

Mind you, that's one of the reasons I prefer to test out the lower priced ebooks when I buy them. There are more authors out there that I haven't heard of then I have. Those I have enjoyed, well, many of them are dead and won't be producing any more work. Those that are alive are producing work that is not often in the same vein as their earlier work. Much like music or any other type of art when the artist change and move on. Sometimes the fans of the earlier work enjoy it, sometimes they don't.

Speaking of ebooks, I was pleased to see that the kindle versions of this puppy are fairly reasonable in price, $2.99 for the first one, and was shocked that the omnibus collection was under $10. I'll probably be picking it up after I catch up on some of the other physical stuff I have around the apartment so that I can have some more free space.

Anyway, Kell's Legend is a bit too on the 'adult' side for some of my basic reader preferences. A bit too graphic in some of the details that Andy pops out there. Mind you, it didn't stop me from enjoying the book or anything like that. It's not a consistent thing either but Andy doesn't back away from any field in terms of the heroes wading through the shit, literally and figuratively so to speak.

The only thing I wasn't too keen on is the ending. I prefer my books, part of a series or not, to stand on their own. This book doesn't really do that. Much like a good gaming session, it ends right in the middle of a conflict. Just when the dice are getting ready to hit the table and the Game Master goes, "Oh gee, is it that late? We'll have to pick it up next week." I get why people do it, and as a Game Master, it's an effective tool at keeping the player engaged with the game as they now have a vested interest in getting back to the game.

I'll be prattling a bit about some specifics of the book below so if you'd rather avoid spoilers, read no further.

1. The Random Encounter: During a boat escape while Kell and his comrades are trying to make a getaway, they come under attack by a clanker. This is essentially a lion like man-machine warped by its failure to take its machinery. Anyway, as Kell dives into the water to save his comrade, they are saved by an outside encounter as a giant ell some fifty feet long decides it doesn't like the disturbance to its peace and takes care of the issue. When planning random encounters and show casing the dangers, mix it up a little by having two of the random encounters meet. Perhaps the players stumble upon a group of ogres but in turn the ogres become attacked by trolls. In the Paizo setting, this is actually fairly common as the two races don't get along.

2. Don't overuse it. While it was great to see an element of the unknown pop up in that one encounter, Andy then does it several more times so that after a while as a reader I was just like, uh, let's avoid having some weird crap come out of left field to save and or frighten the main characters? You can add some spice to the soup but too much ruins the soup.

3. Named Weapons. Yeah, it's an old cliche and all that mind you but even though Kell's weapon is magical and it does have purpose and it does communicate with him, that still makes it more interesting than pretty much every other weapon in the game. Intelligent weapons in particular though, can be daunting for some Game Masters to run because it is often like adding another NPC to the group and in many ways, that's exactly what it is. Such a character, if you will, can do things for the party outside of being a named weapon. They can be a source of information and a knowledge base that players may need to tap into.

4. Not everyone gets out alive. I've played in some games where the Game Master was determined not to kill any of the characters and would go out of the way to insure that they didn't die. Those games for me at least, weren't as fun as the ones where I knew as a player that there was a chance of having my character killed. It made playing intelligently more rewarding as those who did not were often cut down and died thanks to their stupidity. On the other hand, as a player, it also showcased that there were some players I just wouldn't play with because they would wind up putting the whole party in danger time and time again. It's one thing to die because the dice were against you, it's another to die because some members of your party drag a host of monsters back to your camp or aren't using their own abilities with anything resembling competence.

5. Keep it Moving. There is a brief pause in the action here as Kell and his comrades take a breather after escaping from a city that has fallen. Their rest doesn't last long as that town too comes under attack. The Game Master needs to be able to read the mood so to speak. If things are slowing down too much, keep things moving. This can be a random encounter, a planned encounter, or some other weirdness. Keep a deck of things that you use to keep the party moving.

Kell's Legend doesn't shy away from blood shed or from making things difficult for the heroes and in those veins, you can find rich ore to tap in a reading.