Game: Races of Evernor – Part 1
Publisher: Silverthorne Games
Series: d20
Reviewer: Wyrdmaster
Review Dated: 19th, June 2002
Reviewer’s Rating: 7/10 [ Good ]
Total Score: 7
Average Score: 7.00
I imagine it is likely that many readers will not have heard of Silverthorne Games but they’ve been around for over a year. In this time a number of free downloads have been made available from their website and their first product, “The Races of Evernor – Part 1”, a PDF download, has just now been published. Silverthorne could have rushed the Races of Evernor out in much less time but I’m glad they didn’t. A look at their release schedule shows that they’ve a range of products, both PDF and paper, planned over a sensible publisher’s timetable. That’s the best way to manage releases in my opinion, ensure that you’ve enough ideas, enough to write about and then carefully pace your schedule.
You can tell that “The Races of Evernor” are Silverthorne’s first product but that’s not a tragically hopeless flaw. The phrase “shows promise” isn’t an adequate term for the download because it has come to imply that the actual product has no merit other than the suggestion of better things to come. “The Races of Evernor” has plenty of merit. There’s an average of four pages per race and I don’t think there are many other publications out there that do. The introduction is one of the giveaway clues that this is the first Evernor product; it quickly summarises the basics of the setting, pointing out the seven contents and the theology that form the world of Evernor. Another telltale clue I had that Silverthorne was new was the size of my initial copy of the PDF. It was huge. It was unnaturally huge. I said so in the first draft of this review and in less than twenty-four hours Silverthorne Games had cut the size down by about 300% and they hadn’t snipped any content from the document. That’s impressive. You can’t really judge someone or some company on only one or two mistakes but you can judge them on how, why and when they fix them. The download currently weighs in, in a zipped up form, at just over 4MB. That’s perfectly respectable.
In general I do like my PDF supplements to be technically as suave and sophisticated as possible, I feel it’s the best way for the medium to promote itself as an equal alternative to paper. “The Races of Evenor” is a simple beast but it does have bookmarks so you’re able to jump straight to what interests you and the lack of any bells and whistles does not detract from the quality of writing and the imagination contained in it.
The main goal of “The Races of Evenor” is to present the twelve sentient races unique to Evenor and which the local human popular knows about. The term “race” is used in the classic RPG sense in that it applies to the race of a character or NPC; it’s not used to describe monsters or animals. The supplement does well in achieving this goal and for most people that is all which matters.
Some of the races have rather fanciful names but in every case there’s a guide to how to pronounce them. Celedhriel is pronounced “sehl-ED-ree-ehl” for example. Each race has a frequency expressed in both descriptive and numeric terms. The Kefgrald are fairly common and that rates 5/7 on the frequency scale. Each race includes a brief background that is basically a very quick overview of the race. There’s a section on the race’s personality too. The personality profile scores bonus points with me because it admits, unlike many other similar products, that races are composed of individuals with differing personalities and that this personality section is there to provide a glimpse at the wider picture. There is a note on what each race eats, where “standard” matches the omnivorous diet of humans. Each of the twelve races has noted relations to the other races, how well they get along or how badly they squabble and their common alignments are noted too. The lands in which you’ll find the current race, along with their religion and languages along with common names for them are also included. In addition, there’s text under the title “adventurers” that describes the common character class choices that members of the race are likely to pick, the “In the Realms of Evernor” provides titbits of information, history and rumour which relates to Evernor. This latter section is presently separately from the background section so that it’s easier to use these races in your own campaign setting rather than Evernor. Some of the races presented are notably more powerful than the races in the core rules and so some of them have a level adjustment score and this helps you use these races in your usual campaign world as well. Further sections for each race provide additional support for roleplaying in the “Role Play Tips” and “Adventure Seeds” sections. As you would expect, every race has its unique racial traits and as a bonus you’ll find new feats, new weapons and new spells as well. There’s also an example, called a “Prime Example”, of a typical member of the race. The section I’ve missed out is Frilf’s Notes. Frilf is a Gnome explorer who offers up his opinions of each race – this is a good way to get across the in-game view of each race, the stereotypical image, understanding or lack of understanding that comes with it. I like this idea but I think I would have cheated a little and ensured that Frilf had met an individual of each race in the supplement so he didn’t have rely on what he’s heard about some of the rare ones. This cheat is supported by the fact that there aren’t any extremely rare (frequency 1/7) or very rare (frequency 2/7) races mentioned.
The Baelstrith are a rare race of subterranean fey. They’re covered in fur, have dexterous feet with opposable “thumbs”. They have two little horns, a friendly temperament and they look cute. I suspect they’ll prove a popular choice as player characters. Their “three handed fighting” feat is rather cute too.
Cabaran are an evolution of desert elf. I think the picture of the Cabaran with the newly introduced Rinja (hooked staff) weapon is one of best illustrations in the download. They’re a harder bunch and turn the usual elven racial traits stereotype about face and score a bonus on their constitution and a penalty on their wisdom.
The Celedhriel are an Outsider race. If it wasn’t for their natural charisma they’d be aptly described as arrogant angels, instead they come across as self-confident and they’re still rather angelic. The Celedhriel really are rather powerful, they carry a serious level adjustment and despite that I suspect many GMs will rule them out as acceptable character races for mixed groups.
The Elyrian are a tall and intelligent humanoid race which suffer from the predictable lack of strength. They’re very common in Evernor and are the natural opposite of the savage goblinoids.
Fezroki are 8-foot tall, savage, beastmen. The vast majority of them are neutral in alignment though. They’ve also got a huge circumstance bonus to their hide checks made in mountainous or icy areas due to their off-white coloured fur.
Glimjara are a common race of goblinoids and their fairly unique in that they’re civilized and pretty much accepted by the other civil races. I was already imagining them as ideal shopkeepers and traders when Silverthorne took them that way. They even have access to haggling enhancing feats.
The Fjurnian Gnome is one that has long given up the race’s usual fascination with magic or, perhaps, never developed it in the first place. The Fjurnians are barbarians. The idea of raging hordes of gnomes is a slightly funny one but I suppose its entirely possible if you want to apply a bit of Darwinian theory to fantasy evolution in the wild planes on which the Fjurnian live.
On that Darwinian note we encounter the Kefgrald. The Kefgrald originated as human-dwarf crossbreeds and have become a sub-race of dwarf over centuries. The men can grow up to five feet in height.
Kroy are a fairly common race of three eyed humanoids. They’re uncompromising in their search for the truth and unwilling to accept any compromise in their search for it. They’re strongly biased in favour of law rather than chaos and although they’re equally likely to be good rather than evil I think race is a strong candidate to become the player’s favourite enemy.
Violent, brutal and up to eleven feet tall, the Lissks are just scary. As the name suggests, they’re a lizard race. I assume they’re cold blooded, it’s never explicitly stated although their cold susceptibility is and I would be surprised if they’re not. Mind you, to discover that this brutal race tends to be lawful.
The Myrrond are a nimble race of humanoid felines. They’re common in Evernor and popular with female gamer everywhere. They’re a good if – predicable – choice for an extra race and fortunately Silverthorne Games presents a professional quality write up of the race.
The Orusk are quick witted and cunning orclike race. Their racial traits also offer them a nice bonus to dexterity. The illustration of the Orusk in the download puts my mind firmly in a pirate frame of reference but Orusks would make ideal “street orcs” too.
After the Orusk, Appendix I offers a list of other races in Evernor, other races that will be covered in future publications. This isn’t a hook (or isn’t just) to line you up ready to buy the next one but serves to ensure you that you can use this supplement without buying any other while still allowing it to reference other Evernor races. After all, you’d be pretty annoyed if you though there were should be important relationships between a race in “The Races of Evernor – Part 1” and one in “The Races of Evernor – Part 2” but the two downloads didn’t even recognise the existence of the other. On the other hand, you’d expect each one to be able to standalone. The appendix neatly solves this dilemma by very briefly summarising any reference to other races. So when you read that the Lissks’ dislike the Fllitterings you’re able to check the down the 59 pages and discover (as you might have guessed) that Flitterings are tiny, mischievous spell casting fey.
As a first offering from Silverthorne Games “The Races of Evernor” presents some unquestionably high quality content. You can expect that as time goes on and a bit more spit and polish (which inevitably cost money and are therefore rather elusive for younger companies) are applied to their supplements that the overall look and feel will climb to match. I thought some of the bonus where rather high but then I’m conservative in that field and the powerful races do have their level adjustments.
