Tainted Blood by Nathan Long: The Blackhearts Omnibus book 3

Nathan Long brings the conclusion to the Blackhearts trilogy with all the flavor you'd come to expect from a good popcorn read. We have dark elves, skaven, and other vile creatures doing their best to take out the anti-heroes known as the Blackhearts whose interest isn't necessarily in saving the Empire so much as in saving their own skin.

It has a good flow for the most part and is an easy read and brings the series to a nice conclusion while at the same time leaving it open for future volumes. This novel even has the appearance of a certain high elf mage from the pages of the Warhammer tabletop version which is always a nice touch. If you're a fan of the Warhammer setting, this will be a nice novel to read over while prepping to wipe out your players.

Onward to spoilers!

One of the things I've mentioned before, is that if you're using a specific setting that has its own things that are famous and familiar to those who enjoy the setting either through video games, board games, or table top games, is that you should check the waters and see if the players enjoy it when you bring in those iconic elements.

Tainted Blood not only has the character meet the Skaven again, but learn of their lust for the dreaded Warpstone and that they are willing to try and 'fix' things when it is to their advantage. We have multiple groups of chaos worshippers trying to trust one another but due to their intrinsic nature, are easy to manipulate into fighting one another. We have Telcis, one of the most powerful magic users of the setting here.

The good news is that since this isn't a book about Telcis, but rather, one about the Blackhearts, the author does what any good author should and takes that character out of the action immediately. This allows the Blackhearts to have to strive even harder because hey, if this guy could take out that guy, what's he going to do to us?

The solution is great though in that it's one the author set up earlier in the novel with one of the thieves/assassins talking about a set up he performed where it looked like he murdered his target, but rather just had the appearance of murder and not actual death. This comes back in later and allows the characters to have a friendly ace in the hole later on and works quite well. It goes back to my thing of if the players have a great idea, let them run with it. Let their inventiveness provide success when possible. It'll make them know that you're rewarding them for it.

The other big thing? The Blackhearts are freed of their service. This does have the odd thing of "what now" though as at the end, the character don't necessarily know what their going to do with their lives and wonder if they can go back to their old profession but without the coercion this time. It's an important thing to have an end game in mind if the characters are starting out with some type of limitation.

I'm not saying the campaign has to end or anything like that mind you. But if the whole campaign revolves around killing X, if the players kill X, what then? It can be as easy as kill Y or as complex as moving onto a new campaign with new characters and new genres. Try to have an end game in mind when you start if you're putting those things in place at the start of the campaign.

Blackhearts is a nice omnibus and I haven't mentioned the two short stories included in the book which augments it's value and provides more insights into the characters and the dire situation they find themselves in as agents of the Empire. If you want to run a Dirty Dozen or Inglorious Bastards style campaign, Blackhearts by Nathan Long provides a lot of fodder for the fire.

Blood For The Blood God by C. L. Werner

I have the omnibus edition of House of Serpents by Lisa Smedman and had started on Venom's Taste. I don't know why, but it wasn't grabbing me. So I put it down to pick up a stand alone book by an author whose work I've enjoyed in the past; Blood For The Blood God by C. L. Werner.

I'll be pinging some spoilers from the book below. For those who want a brief review, this is a stand alone book where the warriors of chaos find themselves hard pressed to battle a legendary entity known as the Skulltaker. It's very pulpy sword and sorcery fare and if this is the type of material you enjoy, then this book is for you.

Now onto the spoilers.

One, if you ever wonder how to run an evil campaign, this book might provide some solid foundations. There are no heroes here, nor even anti-heroes. There are barbarous murderers who fight among each other for survival and each tribe has its own tricks. The threat of an outside menace is what brings a few of these tribesmen together so that they can attempt to cheat destiny.

By providing an outside force for players to gather against, the GM can provide some reason for such players to travel together. This may not solve all of the problems of an evil campaign, but it does take care of at least the first issue; why should they trust each other.

The next thing, is use the setting elements. C. L. Werner, no stranger to the Warhammer setting, provides us with characters who often suffer the mutating touch of chaos with some of the protagonist having a tentacle for an arm or iron nodes poking through their skin.

Werner unleashes not only flesh hounds, but also blood letters. The weapons that many of the characters use, are demonic in nature and destroy both body and soul. These are standards in the world of Warhammer and by not shying away from them, Werner firmly places his tale of carnage into the setting.

Don't be afraid of the one shot. At the end of the story, the realm that the 'heroes' fought to save is destroyed. Everyone the main character knows is dead. Khorne has had his vengeance. But there is still war to be waged and battles to be fought and the book ends as another epic duel is about to begin.

Perhaps you don't want to run an entire evil campaign. Perhaps you just want to test out Dark Sun and see how those rules mesh with 4e. Perhaps you only want to dip your toe into Savage Worlds. A one shot allows you to up the stakes and push the characters to and past their limits as you are only running a one shot and the fate of worlds can be up for grabs. And if you enjoyed the game, you can run a separate game at a latter time.

My only issue with the book is the name of the villain of the piece; Skulltaker. For those who don't play the tabletop, this is skulltaker;

That massive figure above? He's not at all what is described in the book and the editors should have axed that name right away. When your game setting has dozens of slogans and mottos and you mix the material up, it does the reader and the fan no benefit. Keep the material clean, seperated, and easy to understand. It would be like having a new Forgotten Realms novel feature Elminster, a heroic blade troll who hunts down rogue tornadoes. It might be a great story, but anyone looking for Elminster is not going to be happy.

The Problem With Brunner

As I'm getting ready to finish off Brunner, a collection of short stories set in the Warhammer Fantasy setting that features Brunner, a bounty hunter of no small prowess, I decided to do a quick snoop around the Black Library site to see if this was offered as an ebook.

No such luck.

I did however, look around at another series by the same author, the one about the Witch Hunter. Now when I read the series, I read it in a collected format that I bought either at Amazon.com for something like $11 or at Half-Price for something like $7.50 plus tax. So how does the Black Library decide to sell the series?

In individual book form only for $7.99.

So... buy all three books and pay more than you would if you bought the print collection at a brand new price with zero discount, or, well don't.

I think publishers still have a long way to go in terms of figuring out where they want to be, what they think the customer will pay, and how the customers behavior will influence them.

For myself, I would never buy an ebook for more than the price of the printed book, and this includes collected editions. If as a publisher you've already made enough money from the series that you decide to get another round of dollars from it by collecting the books into a collection and don't sell that in the same format as an ebook, you, as a publisher, are effectively telling your fans to buy the print version.

There is nothing wrong with that, but considering unless its a direct sale that most of the profits from sales of print books go to the various middlemen there as opposed to the ebook, that might not be the best way to make the money.

Ah well, let me finish off Brunner here and post some actual inspiration material as opposed to yet another ebook price rant.