The Atlantean Age

[Steve Long]

Here's our back-cover text describing AtA:

THE WONDERS OF ATLANTIS

Tens of thousands of years before the modern day, Earth was a very different place: a realm where Magic took the place of Science, strange monsters walked the land, and the Dominion of Atlantis was the most powerful land in the world. The Atlantean Age is your guide to this wondrous High Fantasy setting for Fantasy Hero — to a world where characters possess awesome powers of might and magic that may make them the equal of the gods themselves! It includes:

—a complete history of the Dominion of Atlantis from its humble beginnings, to its golden age, to its collapse into decadence and civil war

—a look at the peoples of Atlantis and her world, including their customs, social life, trade, gods, and warfare

—a kingdom-by-kingdom review of the lands of the Dominion and her chief rival, the Empire of Lemuria

—a complete Atlantean magic system with nearly a hundred spells and enchanted items

—rules for Atlantean Age character creation, showing how to adapt the HERO System to the setting

—GMing advice and suggestions, including Atlantean villains and monsters

Prepare your spear and shield, and cast your mightiest spells — the perils and treasures of The Atlantean Age await you!

ISBN: 978-1-58366-110-9
SKU: DOJHERO514
Price: $26.99

[TheQuestionMan]

[Review] The Atlantean Age <<<Work in Progress>>>

Rough

Art:
Layout:
Writing:
Content:
Summary:

The Upside:
The Downside:
The Otherside:

Table of Contents:
Introduction:
Chapter One: A History of the Atlantean Age
Chapter Two: The Peoples of the Atlantean Age
Chapter Three: Lands and Realms of the Atlantean Age
Chapter Four: Daily Life in Atlantis
Chapter Five: Atlantean Character Creation
Chapter Six: The Gods
Chapter Seven: Magic in the Atlantean Age
Chapter Eight: Game Mastering the Atlantean Age
Chapter Nine: Atlantean Adversaries
Index:

Art Issues - Good Character and Theme, but Maps are too small to be useful.

Layout Issues - Lots of wasted unused spaces and Character Format Issues. Three Column Pages.

Character Creation Guidelines, Racial, & Professional Package Deals.


More details later


QM

[Publius]

[Review] The Atlantean Age <<<Work in Progress>>>
Art Issues - Good Character and Theme, but Maps are too small to be useful.

What do you mean about the maps? I haven't seen the book myself yet. Are the Maps themselves shrunk down too small, do they cover an area that is too small?

[TheQuestionMan]

I am working on it still.

Content (3.9 out of 5)

It coming don't rush me.

QM

[Publius]

Begging your pardon then. I had no idea I was putting all that pressure on. Take your time, take your time.

[brionl]

So where is the Atlantis Language Familiarity chart mentioned on pg 89? You'd think these threads would be a good place to post errata, or at least links to them.

[Steve Long]

I'd prefer you just send errata to me directly via PM, rather than posting them here.

I'm just about to post a copy of the Atlantean Age Language Familiarity Table to Free Stuff as a PDF. Now, this is my version; when we have time we'll have Andy clean it up a bit. But it'll do for now.

[FenrisUlf]

Has the book been reviewed or discussed anywhere on the forums as of yet?

[ghost-angel]

There was a brief discussion in the Fantasy forum. I'm still half way through it - the one period I had time to sit down and read the thing cover to cover was in September on vacation and naturally I forgot to bring it with me. I haven't had a chance to seriously give it a read since - so no review from me yet.

[Lawnmower Boy]

I got nothing.

[Barton]

Barton's - Two paragraph review (patent pending)
I liked the book. Chapters out thought out had a lot detail. It seemed to me to be a world that could be played from day one by a GM with out much work (assuming you liked the ideas, I did). I liked the detailed descriptions of the lands and relation ships of the realms. The character creation ideas I thought were well thought out.
I am not an artist so I will not comment about the art. The book was a little short IMHO, but I am a person who thought PulpHero needed more pages (eek!) and 5er is too short (double eek!). FYI: I am using the book as background in my PulpHero game for the legend/artifiacts of this peroid appear in my game.

[ghost-angel]

The Upside:

The Atlantean Age is a Fantasy Setting designed for Epic Adventures, where the Heroes can compete with monsters of renown, fight entire armies, and come close to the Gods themselves. This is high powered Fantasy Gaming, but is not Superheroes With Swords. The book does a good job of setting up a world where Characters are very powerful, but doesn't treat it like a comic book without the spandex.

Chapter One - A History Of The Atlantean Age. The history of Atlantis in the Hero Universe starts with the Gods returning to the world after a long absence (which is detailed in the Valdorian Age setting book). The God Poseidon gifts two of his worshippers with ten sons, who become the founders of the Island Empire Of Atlantis. The history goes through their forming of the empire up to the Current Time where the campaign default start is, naturally this is right about the peak of the empire's glory and right before all the real trouble begins. All things a good history to work with for campaigns wanting a back story for intrigue, and trouble ahead just in time for the players to show up.

The history reads like most Fantasy histories with Gods and Quests and building of Empires. It's by no means mundane, but is a standard and familiar trope to work with.

Chapter Two - The Peoples Of The Atlantean Age. This short chapter goes over the various peoples that populate the island of Atlantis and the surrounding islands. It covers brief descriptions of each culture, common dress and mannerisms, and provides Package Deals to represent each one. The Atlantean Age is a human-centric campaign, and almost all the inhabitants are human. There are four exceptions listed, the Alarii are a winged humanoid race, and there is information for playing a Centaur or a Satyr. All three are native races to Atlantis. The last is the Serpent-Man Race, found on a distant island. There is also an option to play an Empyrean for those familiar with that race from Champions Supplements.

While there aren't the great number of races seen in many standard Fantasy games, this nice departure focuses more on the cultures of the various lands instead.

Chapter Three - Lands And Realms Of The Atlantean Age. This chapter covers the various lands and kingdoms of the campaign. Starting with Atlantis itself. There is a good amount of space dedicated to the wondrous capital of the world's mightiest empire, before moving onto each of the other nine realms ruled by one of the Brothers, dividing Atlantis into a series of Duchies, of a sort. The other half of the chapter is dedicated to brief descriptions of each of the small kingdoms, dominions and empires that surround Atlantis.

There is also a very brief description of The Barbarian Frontier, which is the land of Valdoria after that age has come to an end. It's only a few paragraphs but gives just enough info in case a campaign veers towards that side of the world.

The maps provided are clean, clear and really well done. Looking at the world map provided Atlantis sits at the center of a comparatively barbaric world. Most of the nations have a tenuous relationship with each other. All this is a great set up for Players to enter into, any direction they go in will find adventure.

Chapter Four - Daily Life In Atlantis. This chapter focuses on bringing the people of Atlantis to life, and does an excellent job of creating a rich culture in a short space. Going over the calendar and holidays first, with a short note on calendars from other lands around the world. Family Life, Social Life, Government, Technology, Magic and Trade are all covered in the next few pages. The chapter is short, but packed full of information.

Part two of this chapter covers Atlantis At War, which is an important part of modern life in Atlantis, being surrounded by what they consider little more than barbarian kingdoms on all sides, separated only by an ocean. The various military forces are described in brief before the chapter gives way to a look at Atlantean Weapons, and Hero System write-ups for them all.

The only thing it could use is a little more on the cultures outside Atlantis' borders, to give the GM something to use when the PCs are interacting with outsiders.

Chapter Five - Atlantean Character Creation. This chapter is divided into three parts, Package Deals, Game Elements, and Equipment. This, along with the chapter on Magic goes into using the Hero System's Mechanics to create the feel outlined in the previous four chapters.

Package Deals is a large number of background and professional Packages that should be used to create some uniform ideas of various Atlantean aspects. The first set of Package Deals provided links the people of Atlantis to their ten kings, themselves descendants of Poseiden. The second deals with direct descendants of the Gods themselves in the form of Demi-God Packages, and third influence from the sign of the zodiac an Atlantean was born under in the form of Zodiac Packages. These three kinds of Background Package Deals are a good way of introducing truly heroic abilities into the game and tying them to the setting closely. It's one thing to be a strong hero, it's another to be the Son Of Ares.

The professional Package Deals start with some Atlantean professions and adjusts many of the Packages from the Fantasy Hero Genre Book to better fit the setting, including Priest, Bard, Wizard, and Warrior. Also added in for Atlanteans are an Oracle, Athlete, and Adventuring Merchant (Amaeros), giving even more options for Players. Also included, should one need them, are Package Deals for a number of non-Atlanteans, Kaphtoran Assassins, Tellat Beastmasters, Hazarian Knights and Lemurian Nobles, plus a few more unsavory types, are added in to help bring Non-Atlantean NPCs to life - or should you choose to set a campaign outside Atlantis provide some options for Players.

Chapter Six - The Gods. The Gods of Atlantis are divided into Ten Major Gods, and a lot of Lesser Gods. The names used are a mixture of classic Greek Gods (Poseidon, Ares, Helios) and completely made up names (Astranar, Eordica). The pantheon covers the standard suite of profiles of war, death, etc. Nothing to unfamiliar to a Fantasy Gamer is here. It also covers the religious aspects of Atlantean Culture, going over the priesthood, practices, and all the trappings of religion.

The last small part of the chapter goes briefly over the Gods and practices of the lands around Atlantis. Again, the information is sparse, just enough to give the GM something to expand on should they need it.

Chapter Seven - Magic In The Atlantean Age. This chapter covers the powerful Atlantean Magic system. Both mechanically and culturally. The first thing that Atlantean Magic does is break it down into Lesser Powers and Greater Powers. Magic is an every day occurrence in Atlantis, and the Lesser Powers cover all of the minor magics like domestic-magics, minor effects, layman magic is a good way to look at it. Greater Magics is the truly powerful Magic, the one only practiced by trained wizards. It is further broken down roughly into seven types, or elements. The four classic elements, Light (and Shadow), Order (and Chaos), and the catch-all Arcane. The four Classic Elements are the basic easy to learn categories, the others are considered difficult and known only by masters. Magic in Atlantis is powered by the metal known as Orchalcum, which a wizard can use to power spells instead of his own endurance.

After all the system Mechanics of how to implement Atlantean Magic is given the chapter then provides almost sixty example spells to use in the game. While probably not a completely exhaustive list enough different kinds of spells are presented that a group shouldn't have a hard time making more spells that fit the flavor of the setting.

What would a fantasy setting be without magic items, the next section details almost two dozen enchanted items for use with an Atlantean campaign. Lastly magic from the other lands is covered, each culture has a different way of doing magic in the setting. Lemurian magic and enchanted items takes up the most space. The rest of the settings kingdoms get a few paragraphs at most, just enough to give the GM an idea of what to go off of, but leaves most of the work to them.

Chapter Eight - Gamemastering The Atlantean Age. To help GMs with long campaigns, and to fit the setting into Hero's Metaverse, this chapter starts out with a 'future history' of Atlantis. Detailing the settings future conflict and world shattering end. It's a short section with enough detail for GMs to utilize as an entire campaign premise if they want. Information on several wars with Lemuria, the end of the Golden Age, the coming of Sharnak The Destroyer are all given a bit of space. This can be either ignored, used by GMs who want to include Atlantis in a time-traveling campaign, or be considered one really big Plot Seed.

And speaking of plot hooks, the next section of the chapter is nothing but a whole bunch of campaign and adventure ideas. Five large scope campaign ideas are provided, each comes with three plot seeds that can be turned into short adventures or ongoing story arcs. The section ends with a sidebar on Atlantean Combat for the setting, which describes how to get the feel of over the top style fantasy combat.

The GMs vault covers all the rumors, truths, and information provided in the first part of the book, and details what's really going on, which parts are true and false, and generally helps the GM with the back end of the campaign world. Because no campaign is complete without a few mysteries, and this provides some answers for GMs to work with should they want to.

The last part is Lemuria At War, a section detailing even more of Lemuria's war machine and bits of society. Since Lemuria is nominally the Big Bad of the campaign this helps flesh out at least one of the foreign lands in the setting.

The whole chapter does a good job of helping GMs get a campaign started then off and running, but also doesn't provide so much information that a GM can't tailor the Atlantean Age to their liking.

Chapter Nine - Atlantean Adversaries. And finally, the book ends with a collection of adversaries and monsters to throw against the players. Three villains are presented; two Lemurians (one warrior, one sorcerer) and Cormar The Mighty, who is the eventual betrayer to the throne of Atlantis, the classic Enemy Within villain. There are twelve monsters included, with some ideas on how to take creatures and monsters from other Hero sourcebooks and Atlatneanize them for use in the campaign. The monsters here are designed to be bigger than life, hard to overcome and generally the stuff of legends. Among the monsters are Elementals corresponding to each of the kinds of Atlantean Magic to use, a dragon, and several monsters from the land of Tellat.

The Downside:

The book focuses on Atlantis, with good reason as that the idea is the PCs come from this land, and it's the main focus.

But it's been said a Hero is only as good as the Villain (paraphrased), and I would have liked to see some more information on Atlantis' neighbors and enemies. As is, there's a great set up for a campaign centered on and mostly taking place in Atlantis. But very little to go on should one want to create a campaign of travel and conquest, of leaving Atlatnis' borders behind. Simply including more Non-Atlantean adversaries in Chapter Nine could have done a lot to help this along.

The Otherside:

If you're in the mood of larger than life fantasy, epic scale quests and similar styles then Atlantean Age is a great setting choice. This is not a setting pitting young heroes against an impossibly adversary, this is Epic Heroes fighting Epic Villains. Compared to the other settings provided by Hero, this book is a bit thin, and looks a bit mechanics heavy in presentation. As I said, the only thing this setting really needs is more information on lands outside Atlantis to really make the entire world, instead of just a portion of it, come to life.

[intp]

Hi. I'm curious whether the chapter on "gods" (Ch. 6) includes character sheets? If so, that would be reason enough for me to buy this. Also, (sorry if this is a dumb question, but I wasn't able to readily ascertain this), is "The Atlantean Age" primarily a Champions (superheroes) genre book, or is it closer to Heroic/Fantasy Hero? I am primarily interested in Champions, although I do have some interest in the other genres as well.

Thanks.

-- Dennis Lee

[Captain Obvious]

It's kind of a Superpowered Fantasy Hero game. Your average Atlantean soldier has physical stats around 20, and most people can use at least a little magic. True wizards are terrifying in power.

There are no character sheets for the gods, but there are sheets for some pretty earth-shattering "mere mortals".