Game: The Qalashar Device
Publisher: Sword’s Edge Publishing
Series: d20 Modern
Reviewer: Wyrdmaster
Review Dated: 18th, July 2005
Reviewer’s Rating: 6/10 [ On the ball ]
Total Score: 6
Average Score: 6.00
If you’re looking for a follow on from Raid on Ashkashem then The Qalashar Device is it. One of the strengths of this Sword’s Edge Publishing product is that you can use The Qalashar Device as a stand alone adventure as well as part two in a series. In fact, there’s even an appendix of plot hooks to help get your characters involved and there are alternative endings. If you’re following from the Raid on Ashkashem, through The Qalashar Device and want to carry on to The Khorforjan Gambit then we conclude with hooks to the next part. If you don’t want any loose ends then they’re tied up for you.
The Qalashar Device is suited for about 4 characters between levels 9 and 11. This is a non-fx game. There’s no magic, ghosts or goblins here. In fact, The Qalashar Device is one of the few RPG supplements I know which credits a military consultant at the start of the PDF.
This is a PDF. You get 77 pages for your $6.95 and that’s value for money.
If you’re worried about spoilers then REQ a Satcom, listen to the SAD in DBU, abandon this IMIT and exit ASAP in LAVs.
Thankfully there is a glossary for all these military terms (they’re designed for clarity, don’t you know)! The Qalashar Device does not fill 77 pages with adventure and about half the PDF is spent of supplementary rules.
In the end of Raid on Ashkashem the special force-like group of military PCs discovered that their raid was against more than mere drug smugglers but against an organised and well equipped group. They’ll have learnt about a mysterious weapon known as The Device. Roll on The Qalashar Device.
If you’re not following on from Ashkashem then it’s dead easy. Military bosses tell the characters to go into Qalashar and retrieve the device. If this is a one off (or the end of the line as far as you’re concerned) then the device can be found (a deadly form of weaponised ebola) and if not – then do the nasty – and the Device has been moved. Roll on Khorforjan Gambit to finally deal with it.
There’s not much in the way of spoilers for the plot because, well, that’s pretty much it. We back in more Albenistan information and beef up our campaign NPC count. Albenistan is the fictional but Russian facing Middle Eastern country the game is (most likely) set in.
There are some twists. It turns out that the Holy Motherland Albenistan – the HMA – terrorist group are in league with a rogue faction in Albenistan’s Security and Intelligence Group – SIG.
For the most part we see our players characters try and get their timing right and move from area to area as carefully and as correctly as they can. If it all reminds me of Splinter Cell then I suppose it’s because Sword’s Edge Publishing have got the mood and flavour right. Although, unlike Splinter Cell, I suspect going in guns a blazing (perhaps after setting some traps and explosives) is not out of the question.
I suspect some well placed sniper shots are what Sword’s Edge Publishing thought would be a good way to deal with the mission. I conclude this because The Qalshar Device introduces a new d20 modern prestige class – the Special Operations Marksman. The spec op Marksman benefits from the firearms training tree and the sniper talent tree (sergeant majors don’t train anyone any more, trees do).
There’s a mix of cartography styles in the adventure. We have fairly good quality computer generated maps for the GM (not something you’d paid for as a professional cartography product but good enough to appear as cartography in a professional product) and military style photographs of dodgy looking compounds which have been marked up to look like an intelligence report.
The latter appendices give the GM an intelligence report on Albenistan itself as well as pertinent groups and organisations with influence on the adventure series. We have some new mechanics for equipment and some fairly strong hints to go look at RPGObjects’ Blood and ::something:: series.
Since this is a d20 modern adventure supplement there is more than a decent collection of skills and new feats.
It’s dead simple. If you want a no-fx d20 military adventure and buy adventures then cough up the peanuts for this download. Given the lack of competition it’s a good thing that Sword’s Edge Publishing are so determined to produce professional and quality adventures. The Qalashar Device could so easily have been embarrassingly simple. As it stands, we don’t have a complex adventure but we do have a solid one. Don’t buy the Qalashar Device expecting to be worried (fanatical terrorists! Why didn’t I think of that!) but do expect a stalwart no-fx d20 military adventure.
