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I have Hidden Lands!

MitchellS

By MitchellS
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MitchellS Grand Master

MitchellS

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I picked up a copy of Hidden Lands last night at my FLGS. Normally I would order it online but after buying/seeing the DC:TAS PDF I wanted to see Hidden Lands before I bought it. I overall I would say I'm very pleased with the book. HL seems to have a great deal of useful information in it and I'm sure I can steal big parts of it for my upcoming non-CU game.

 

The Atlantis section was fun to read. Books like this which have a lot of historical information tend to be among my favorites. HU books seem to always have hidden tidbits tucked away that makes it fun. I liked the information about Atlantean society and I thought the package deals were well done. It's nice to see a write-up for a past and current CU superhero too [The Sea Hawk (482) and Prince Marus (526)]. I didn't notice anything new in the underwater rules [which isn't surprising considering they were from the 4E Atlantis book] but I will need to give the book a more careful read before being sure. The only real down-side to the Atlantis section was the artwork. Some of it reminds me of DC:TAS. Overall rating of section: B [lowered due to art].

 

Arcadia was probably my favorite section of the book. I have a fondness for Eternals/New Gods concepts and so this was a joy to read. I liked the write ups for Archon (674), Enforcer Ashima (778), and Davos (732). I was a little surprised by the shortness of the chapter. I would have read through another 20 pages, but what there was did give me enough information to build upon. Archon seems to be one of the weaker [via point cost] Empyreans. I had expected him to be more powerful than slightly-above average. Still a good character though. The artwork was much better in this section. Overall rating of section: B [lowered due to size]

 

Shamballah & Agharti, The Well of Worlds, Sunday Pond, Maine, and Beast Mountain were all short sections. They were fun to read but I felt the book could have used a little more information there. The Beast Mountain section could have used a couple of aggressive beast-man write ups, as well as maybe some "watcher" of the Witness, IMO. There wasn't much artwork in this section, but what I saw was good. Overall rating of section: C [could have used more character examples].

 

The gamemastering section was fun. The characters [especially villains] presented were interesting to me. There were 5 villains and the Witness (882) written up. I could see using the villains presented, and the Witness was interesting, even if he was a bit vague. The artwork was up and down in this section. In general I'd call the art here average with a couple of pics I enjoyed and a couple I didn't. Overall rating of section: B

 

At 43 pages Lemuria is the biggest section in the book, and for me it was the most enjoyable. The history section was wonderful and I loved the write ups for the mole-men, equipment, and villains. I could very easily see myself using Lemuria in my game. The villains presented are really classic archetypes and even if I didn't use Lemuria I'd still use them for something. The artwork in this section is good; maybe some of the best in the book. Overall rating of section: A

 

For the most part I enjoyed the book. If you could change a dozen pictures and add another 50 pages it would probably be one of my favorites produced for the CU [that honor still goes to DEMON]. I'm glad I bought the book and will get some use out of it, whether I play a CU game or not. It was several steps up from DC:TAS, IMO.

 

Overall rating of book: B+

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  • 2 weeks later...
Scott Destroyer Enthusiast

Scott Destroyer

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Re: I have Hidden Lands!

 

Hello,

 

Picked up Hidden Lands myself recently. Here are a few quick thoughts on the book...

 

  • The sections on Arcadia/the Empyreans and on Lemuria and its denizens are the main reasons I wanted the book, and they are all I had hoped they would be. Good, detailed CU-canon background stuff, racial Package Deals and common power sets, and brimming with Kirby-esque flavor, especially in the sample Lemurian super-weapons (the Mandragalore, the Ultra-Coruscator, the Solar Tormentia, the Aeroreme Armada, and the Lunal-Kinesis Projector). The Empyrean racial Package Deal, though, seems to be paying for Damage Resistance on more PD and ED than are actually bought in the Package Deal itself.
  • The section on Atlantis and the Atlanteans is also nicely done, with treatments similar to those given for Empyreans and Lemurians, plus the addition of several pages on underwater adventuring and the game effects of its perils and challenges.
  • The treatment of Shamballah and Agharti in the "Other Hidden Lands" section of the book is my only real disappointment with Hidden Lands; it seems to depart quite radically from the previous presentation of these two cities in Champions Universe and The Mystic World. In the earlier products, Shamballah and Agharti are depicted as being locked in an ancient and finely balanced struggle of potential cosmic significance, and as being deeply involved in the Mystic World, or at least its Asian side, for obscure reasons of their own, presumably related to the conflict between them. In Hidden Lands, any real equality or conflict or interest in the outer world seems to be over, with Shamballah an insular city far more inclined to martial arts than to magic in general, and Agharti an outright prison for its inhabitants.
  • Among the remaining "Other Hidden Lands", Beast Mountain is a nice nod to the public-domain Victorian literary stuff that has found its way into CU canon, Doyle and Stevenson and Verne and, in this case, H. G. Wells. Sunday Pond has a proper Stephen King/X-Files vibe to it, with the Witness having an definite Phantom Stranger-ish aura, and the Well of Worlds seems to have a lot of potential for '70's horror-comic style adventures with a dash of Australian flavor.
  • The art, about which some other posters have remarked, is a bit of a mixed bag, but doesn't seem any worse to me overall than any that in any other Hero 5E product. The cover in particular is quite nice, as are the portaits of Prince Marus, Arvad the Betrayer, and Commander Karn, and all of the maps in the book. Even the worst of the art is about at the level of some of the stuff in the 1st Edition AD&D books - the only piece I thought really should have been better was the portrait of Queen Mara of Atlantis; it looks a piece that loses more than most from being in black and white rather than color, if that makes any sense :).

 

Originally Posted by Hermit:

I got it. Arcadia rocks so hard, I just keep looking for ways to fit an Empyrean to 350 so I can play one sometime

 

Let's see...standard Empyrean racial Package Deal is 377 points. The only things that I wouldn't really cut at all are the Life Support, Lightsleep, and Universal Translator. So we trim back STR by 10 (-10 points), BODY by 3 (-6), PRE by 5 (-5), Damage Resistance to 4 each for PD and ED (-6), Mental Defense and Power Defense by 5 each (-10), his Powers Template by 10 (-10), drop Reduced END Cost on his Flight (-7), and drop his Contact with the other Empyreans to an 8 or less (-3). That will drop him to 320, giving you 30 for custom-tailoring; call him a young "Teen Champions" Empyrean, and there you have him.

 

Hope this helps! :)

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Doctor Agenda Proficient

Doctor Agenda

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Re: I have Hidden Lands!

 

Hello,

 

Let's see...standard Empyrean racial Package Deal is 377 points. The only things that I wouldn't really cut at all are the Life Support, Lightsleep, and Universal Translator. So we trim back STR by 10 (-10 points), BODY by 3 (-6), PRE by 5 (-5), Damage Resistance to 4 each for PD and ED (-6), Mental Defense and Power Defense by 5 each (-10), his Powers Template by 10 (-10), drop Reduced END Cost on his Flight (-7), and drop his Contact with the other Empyreans to an 8 or less (-3). That will drop him to 320, giving you 30 for custom-tailoring; call him a young "Teen Champions" Empyrean, and there you have him.

 

Hope this helps! :)

 

That IS helpful. I've been waiting for Hidden Lands for years, because I'm so taken with the Empyreans, I only wish the section was longer.

 

I'm currently running an Empyrean character, fortunately he has the mind of a 19 year old human from North Detroit circa 1949, so he doesn't yet know who the Empyreans are (yet-no 18 point Empyrean contact) and I gave him Armor instead of Damage Resistance and put it in an Empyrean Toughness Elemental Control along with the Life Support. The result is a bit squeezed (only skill is 1940s trivia), but Optimus II is pretty close enough to the package that I won't need to make any serious revisions. Just a bit low on Power and Mental Defense and high on End for flying, compared to the template.

 

The Lemurian section rocked, that's the kind of detail I would have liked to have seen in the Arcadian section!

 

However, since my main complaint is that I would have liked there to have been more book (and the artwork was variable), I'm glad I got it.

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MitchellS Grand Master

MitchellS

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Re: I have Hidden Lands!

 

If I were designing an Empyrean package I'd drop +5 strength, +5 presense, +4 comeliness, 5 points of power defense, 5 points of mental defense, and completely drop universal translator. Then I would downsize the various powers templates by reducing the base power's active points to 50 rather than 60. I like the idea that base Empyreans are doing 10d6, not 12d6 like the characters. That will drop close to 55 points and leave room for the character to have skills and the like.

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Doctor Agenda

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Re: I have Hidden Lands!

 

I agree totally, especially with the Universal Translator. These guys have no language skills! Assuming they have a native Empyrean language (rather than all speaking English) most of them travel the world with a 12- chance of communicating and a guaranteed accent! 'Ever notice how many rich and powerful beautiful people have that same strange accent?'

 

That 20 point Universal Translator is probably (as it is not explained) supposed to represent linguistic talent combined with exposure to hundreds of languages. A better representation would be to get linguist and a bunch of languages, OR Universal Translator with No Skill Roll (+1/2) and No Accent (+1/2) and Only For Human Languages Previously Learned (-1).

 

Also, I note that the Empyreans in the Lemurian Section are built with Flash Defense (Empyrean Eyes), Armor (Empyrean Skin), and Full Life Support. They resemble the write-up for Thalya in Galactic Champions rather than the Empyreans in the Arcadia section. Armor and Damage Resistance are fairly interchangeable, and no reason why an Empyrean can't tweak out that last bit of Life Support, but why don't other Empyreans have 'Empyrean Eyes'? I think the Lemurian section must have been completed before the Empyrean section was fleshed out. Rewriting my character to fit the new package (sans Universal Translator and Empyrean contact), I dropped his Empyrean Eyes (copied from Thalya) to pay for other things in the package I didn't have.

 

Another inconsistency which I have to resolve in my campaign: it was established in the Viper book that the Commandant of Viper Academy is half-Empyrean with peak human characteristics and powerful telepathy. Now it is Writ that Empyrean-Human crosses produce somewhat superior humans or (1 in 1000) full-fledged Empyreans, never intermediate-powered supers. Sigh. It is inconsistent AND blows away the half-Empyrean character concept (except as an interesting background and justification for competent-level stats). I suppose we can resolve the inconsistency by calling the Commandant a mutant who happens to have an Empyrean parent. I would have preferred, say, 1-in-500 births to have intermediate powers.

 

I DO like the direction they went with Empyreans having a basic template on which a variety of super powers can be fit. I think they could have squeezed the package down to 300 points so an Empyrean could be fit into a standard 350-point game, but then I guess we would have missed the fun of all this tweaking. Look for PCs who are renegades/amnesiacs/for some reason undiscovered Empyreans who haven't got their full powers for various reasons.;)

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Doctor Agenda Proficient

Doctor Agenda

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Re: I have Hidden Lands!

 

Hello,

 

Let's see...standard Empyrean racial Package Deal is 377 points. The only things that I wouldn't really cut at all are the Life Support, Lightsleep, and Universal Translator. So we trim back STR by 10 (-10 points), BODY by 3 (-6), PRE by 5 (-5), Damage Resistance to 4 each for PD and ED (-6), Mental Defense and Power Defense by 5 each (-10), his Powers Template by 10 (-10), drop Reduced END Cost on his Flight (-7), and drop his Contact with the other Empyreans to an 8 or less (-3). That will drop him to 320, giving you 30 for custom-tailoring; call him a young "Teen Champions" Empyrean, and there you have him.

 

Hope this helps! :)

 

I would (and did) drop Light Sleep and add 1 point to the Life Support package for 8 hours of sleep/week. My character never had Universal Translator (neither did Thalya and Archon until a minute ago), and I'm not going to add it...besides, he doesn't have an Empyrean mind anyway. No contact, since he doesn't even know he's an Empyrean (yet). The Enforcer can't find him because 'he doesn't have an Empyrean mind anyway'. I cut back the (50 active point) multipower slots he hasn't used yet (all the mental stuff, basically). Retroactively, no visible change. He actually winds up being pretty close to your 'Teen Empyrean'.

 

The teen idea works really well, even for adults...it should take a long time for Empyreans to come into their full power...50 or 100 years easy.

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