The Wizard's Mask by Ed Greenwood (Gaming Notes Edition)

The Wizard's MaskWritten by Ed Greenwood
400 b & w pages
High Fantasy
Pathfinder Tales
$9.99

Below will be some things that ticked in my brain when reading The Wizard's Mask in terms of gaming inspiration. There will be spoilers so if you don't want any spoilers, read no further.

Named Items: I actually mentioned this in the book review portion but named items tend to have more personality. When you make the items actually intelligent like The Whispering Blade, a blade that speaks to its victims and informs them of how sweet it's razor sharp touch feels, well, then it gets more interesting.

This doesn't always click though as, on the cover, the "Masked" is holding up a gauntlet, a specific magic gauntlet, and it has what I'd consider a boring name: The Fearsome Gauntlet. Mind you, if the Gauntlet didn't throw around numerous force effects and instead actually did 'Fearsome' things, I might have a different opinion on it.

And here's the thing, names are personal taste. Some people might be going, "Man, Joe, you're crazy! The Whispering Blade is so lame and the Fearsome Gauntlet, now that's awesome!" You'll have to wing it on your own names but if I may add one suggestion. Give them a 'real' name and then the generic moniker. Tarakul, the Fearsome Gauntlet for example.

Limited Charge Items: Turns out that the Fearsome Gauntlet wasn't that fearsome. After an epic battle, the gauntlet's magic simply runs out and it falls apart. In addition, during the course of the novel, the duo manage to drink numerous potions.

If you want your players to hit above their weight level on a temporary basis, throw them some cool magic items that only work for a limited time. Or even some 'mundane' items that they might need to overcome an specific enemy that only work for a set number of times. Creature needs a +4 magic item to effect? A wand that grants items a cumulative plus for 10 rounds at a time can help that out and be drained quickly.

But keep in mind that by hitting above their weight level, the characters are going to be gaining more experience and access to things that they might not normally have.

Cursed Items: One of the heroes, The Masked, is known so because he stole a cursed magical mask. It is slowly eating away his face. If the mask suffers damage, he suffers damage. Note that this last bit isn't necessarily that rare even for non-cursed powerful items.

For example, after Marvel comics killed off Thor in the Avengers Disassembled storyline, when they eventually brought him back in Michael Straczynski's run, his hammer was damaged. With the help of Doctor Strange, the hammer was repaired and bound to Thor's life force. If the hammer was damaged, Thor could die as a result.




Inherent Goof: Consider this a near off topic ramble. During the story, Tantaera, the short halfling, loses her hand thanks to the kiss of the Whispering Blade. Remember how I mentioned that the Fearsome Gauntlet simply ran out of juice? It turns out that after spending a great deal of money, Tantaera was able to replace her hand with the Gauntlet which will still probably retain some powers that she's unaware of in this novel but may come into play in future novels.

I call it a goof because when you have specific magic items that people are looking to chop their own limbs off and replace them with, having the option to have one of your own limbs replaced with a magical item seems like it'd be MORE expensive than having a spell to replace the actual limb cast.

But that's why I call it an inherent goof. You see similar things in comics all the time. "I'm a bad ass cyborg!" or "I'm just going to run around WITHOUT an eye because I look cooler with a patch!" And usually, it's part of the torture porn you see in comics.

For example, Wolverine has a healing factor and despite being a 'great fighter', gets tore up all the time. Vision and Red Tornado? Poor bastards. Machines so they get destroyed all the time.

 Even Cyborg whose FACE is still human gets put into situations where you're like, "Uh, why wouldn't you always have a faceplate on dude? You're not an actor, you're a guy in the comic. We don't need to see your face." But they rarely go for that instead destroying an arm or leg or something.

Just keep it in mind when you're putting the players in a goofy situation that's dedicated in part by the rules that the players will go with those rules.

The Wizard's Mask is high fantasy and high action with some focus on rogues that tends to be rare in a world where every series is about a farmboy destined to save the world.

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.