Arcane Mysteries of Barsaive

Earthdawn Sourcebook

Reviewed by Barry Stevens


FASA Corp.
103pp £ 8.99

This is a supplement for Earthdawn, and more specifically a companion volume for the previously published 'Magic: A Manual of Mystic Secrets'. It picks up directly where that book left off and presents us with a whole bundle of new spells all designed using the Spell Design system originally shown in 'Magic'. There are about 200 of these and they vary from the mind numbingly dull to the plain old average. Even the allegedly world shattering fourteenth circle spells are boring. If you're like me you'll want magic in your games to be just that, magical.

Even in Barsaive, where magicians are reasonably common and cast spells like a warrior use swords, i.e. often and routinely, there should still be an element of the unusual when it comes to magic. The trouble is that the majority of these spells are simply too mundane. For example, there's a spell called 'Cold Storage' which allows the caster to cool foodstuffs so that they keep longer. Stop nodding off at the back there. Oh, and there's a spell that refers to 'Marathon' which can't really be consistent with the world of Barsaive can it? OK maybe I'm being a bit picky, after all there is a spell that strangles your opponent with his own hair, and that's kind of cool.

We're also presented with a teeming horde of talent knacks for your players to totally abuse. These are basically specialisations for talents and they let the player do a little bit of customisation for their characters. The original rules for creating these were also in 'Magic' end the examples we have here are almost all useful, some extremely so. Actually these are a valid addition to the players arsenal as they all take a bit of role playing and justification before they're allowed in the campaign. Quite right too.

Finally there's a sheer load of new magical items both common and unique. These suffer from the same faults as the new spells in that there's nothing truly exciting here. Other FASA supplements have served up some really enticing items already and it looks like the ideas are starting to run dry. That's a real shame as Earthdawn has one of the best systems for magic items of any game around at the moment. I don't think that any campaign is crying out for the inclusion of a magic sock do you?

Overall: Not easy reading--just a catalogue of stuff. Even the most magic- hungry group will use only a small portion of the book., probably the talent knacks, and for that reason alone it is a pricey investment. All in all, a bit unnecessary.

More Reviews

Back to Valkyrie 14 Table of Contents
Back to Valkyrie List of Issues
Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List
© Copyright 1997 by Partizan Press.
This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com