Put this in your steamjack and smoke it…

Trainrobbing ghouls with guns

The Iron Kingdoms Character Primer is on its way to a hobby shop or Santa Rosa Waldenbooks (have I ever mentioned their D&D section is PHAT?). Due to arrive on shelves the week after Christmas, the character primer will give us another look at what may be the best-conceived campaign setting to come along in a long time.

Strong Themes

Thematically the Iron Kingdoms sticks to its guns. The following represent themselves quite strongly throughout the WitchFire adventure and Monsternomicon supplement (the only Iron Kingdoms material currently in print). They provide a good core for the kind of plot-seeds you would want to use for running a game in their world.

• Undead

  There’s a lot of undeath going on in Cygnar, from the looks of things. It is hinted in the Monsternomicon that in the world of the Iron Kingdoms there simply is no wholesome way to revive the dead. Throw out your Ressurection and Raise Dead spells and get comfortable with the smell of rotten flesh if you want your fallen Fighter back, addle-cove.

  The main thrust of the WitchFire trilogy revolves around the problems that arise when folks stick their noses into playing God in the form of necromancy. The Monsternomicon follows up with a variety of interesting undead creatures to hold your adventuring party’s interest.

• Swamps

  Get used to it, already: there’s a lot of underbrush and bogs to be dealt with. Crocodile men and Gobbers (you know ’em as Goblins, berk) as well as trollkin and ogrun are far more common than Elves in the world of the Iron Kingdoms. Many of the undead are aquatic or amphibious in nature as well (this works out well: traditional ghouls and zombies don’t need air anyway).

  I hereby proclaim that anybody operating out of Corvis without a couple ranks in the Swim skill is a damned fool.

Pimp-ass Black & White Art

No, not grayscale-we-couldn’t-afford-color but honest-to-God black and white art. While paging through the existing published works from Privateer Press, you get an excellent feel for the soggy, hard-edged gameworld they’ve been crafting. The real catch will lie with bringing that dark, soggy, edgy feeling into the gameplay itself. A challenge for DM and player alike.

A nice blend

Overall the Iron Kingdoms strike me as an interesting blend of many concepts I have wanted to see in a campaign setting for a long time now. A world of high fantasy has started civilizing the traditional “monstrous humanoids” to the point that Ogrun smiths are held in high regard and Gobber merchant caravans are not unheard of.

This is not a game world of whimsical Elves and Gnomes valiantly fighting evildoers, knowing they are one 5th-level spell away from revival should one of them fall.

Dwarves live in their own separate, united empire. Their traditions and solidarity are broad and deep. Dwarven merchant ships ply the trade routes bringing profits from the lands of Humans back home to the grand halls of their forefathers.

The Elves remain isolated and aloof. They are described as both secretive and xenophobic. Don’t expect many half-elves or full-blooded elves in my gaming group. Even seeing an Elf walk by is an ill omen in some parts.

The dragons of this world are extremely powerful, each capable of cowing armies and held in check only by each others’ avarice. The notion of challenging and defeating a dragon in the Iron Kingdoms is folly, even for the mighty. The means of destroying a dragon are largely the purview of dragons and gods alone.

There is a unified “infernal” influence, as opposed to the divided “devils” and “demons” of Faerun or Oerth. Any internal strife amongst the infernal forces are not the business of mortals. This results in what I anticipate will be a relatively clear-cut cosmology consisting of the world of the living, the world of the dead (where the Gods reside) and the world of the infernals, where the infernally damned reside.

This will make for much greater ease in arranging Arthur-esque journeys to other plains. Have you ever sat down and tried to decide which plane to go to amongst five or six people? Everybody has an opinion and nobody really knows the differane between Elysium and the Seven Heavens.

Other changes involve the basic skillsets of some character classes (decipher script is now the domain of Wizards, not Rogues). There are Rangers with no spell abilities and other suprizes in store.

Technology

Also, more trivial than it may first appear to be, the Iron Kingdoms setting has Steampunk technology. It is largely alchemical in nature, but your cleric may have a derringer-style holdout for when his spells run out. Your fighter may find himself toe-to-toe with a 15-foot tall steam-powered juggernaut.

Really the SteamJacks (humanoid labor or combat machines) are substitutes for Golems and firearms are just expensive variants on traditional D&D weapons, however. For ease of use and cost-effectiveness you’re probably better off with a longbow than a pistol for most circumstances.

We’re looking at a reasonably dark, creepy Victorian-with-broadswords feeling at the end of the day. I have high expectations for this product line and if even half of my expectations are met my library will be growing again this spring when the campaign hits the shelves.