Tommy's Take on the Totems of the Dead GM's Guide

Apologies for the lack of reviews...working on some deadline intensive products, including the
two Horror of Trevala releases coming out later this month.

The Totems of the Dead GM's Guide came out four days ago, so let's take a look at it.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: The PDF is $13 and 140 pages, and pretty entirely for the GM, as you may have guessed. The production values are the same, top notch values we have come to expect from
Gun Metal Games, including a fantastic cover by Jason Walton.

The GM chapter is a good guideline for making your own adventures, as well as providing a few campaign frameworks for Totems of the Dead. Not quite as robust as some setting books, but useful. One nice touch is the NPC Personality chart, which links each of the 20 personalities with animals, very appropriate for the setting.

A BIG chunk of the book is made up of the bestiary, so if you like monsters, here ya go. The first chunk are animals, with giant snakes and scorpions, wolverines and sabretooth tigers...as well as creepy things like pterodastros, which are weird bat/bird/lizard hybrids. The next section, Spirits and Monsters, is where things start getting really interesting. Corrupted Ones are dark magicians who can evaporate water with their lips, and the Void Dweller Demons are 9 foot tall winged demons who avoid sunlight. There are multiple varieties of mummies (including arctic ones), and snake-like vampires. And the wendigo...yeesh. It is a very evocative bestiary with some unique twists on old favorites, as well as some plain old unique surprises. With several of the beasts, the real trick is to learning what the weakness of the beasts are.

As is always great in a setting, especially one not set on modern earth, a series of NPCs archetypes are presented, like different types of Feral Ones, hunters, assassins, neanderthals and so on.

Also included: An adventure generator, and we're gonna play around with that right here.

Adversary: Angered Spirit - That's not good.
Adversary's Agenda: Recognition - Huh...that's kinda interesting.
Adversary's Ally: Beast - Hm...you usually see beasts having issues with spirits, not joining them.
Major Supporting NPCs: Wanderer - A drifter of some sort.
The Call To Adventure: Wrong Place, Wrong Time - Seems to fit the drifter more than the PCs, but could work either way.
The Setting: Large settlement/City - Easy enough, especially with the Wrong Place, Wrong Time stuff.
The Plot: Crimes of Love/Lust - Huh.
Plot Complications: Ally's Capture/Betrayal - Well, at this point, I like to make the ally the bad guy and the adversary misunderstood.
Reward: Wealth - Always a good thing.

Anyway, that gives you an idea as to the elements of the adventure generator. As with any random table, you're gonna get some...interesting...elements.

Also included is a nameless horror generator, for those times when you need something just completely off the wall, rather than the "standard" monsters in the bestiary.

A dozen Savage Tales are included, spread out over the various regions of the game world, with each region also including a random encounters table for that region. Each Savage Tale even includes a "Further Adventures" section for building off of the events just played through.

The Savage Tales are followed by a series of plot hooks that aren't fully fleshed out adventures, but give you plenty of information (at least a paragraph...in some cases two or more), further developing each region.

A slew of diseases, poisons and traps fill out the book, followed by a character sheet and map.

WHAT WORKS: I love a good bestiary, and this is a very good one, as well as random tables, and this has both an adventure generator and a nameless horror generator. Worth the price of admission right there.

WHAT DOESN'T WORK: In a perfect world, it would be nicer if the Player's and GM's guides had been folded in together, but my understanding is that would have proven prohibitive to printing costs, if for no other reason than the information in each book feels SO complimentary to the other that each book feels a bit anemic on their own.

CONCLUSION: Totems of the Dead is a nice twist on the Swords and Sorcery genre, and with the release of the GM's Guide, players and GMs have a ton of material available for tribal butt-kicking action. The monsters in the bestiary may be a tad too specific to the setting to be of use for non-Totems of the Dead games, although a little re-skinning can go a long ways, and that Nameless Horror generator can be busted out in a variety of games...(say you need something for the Whateleys to summon in a pinch in your Deadlands game, for instance). Another great product from Gun Metal Games.

Tommy's Take on Totems of the Dead: Player's Guide to the Untamed Lands

My apologies for not getting that last preview in, my time management skills absolutely suck. Totems of the Dead has been unleashed on the world after being split into two books...and this is the review of the first: Totems of the Dead - Player's Guide to the Untamed Lands.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW: Currently available in PDF format for $15, Totems of the Dead is a swords and sorcery setting with more than a bit of Native American flavor. The Player's Guide is 161 pages and includes an overview of the setting as well as character creation. We covered character creation in a preview recently, as well as magic. The character creation layout is very similar to the standard Savage Worlds layout, with a list of common archetypes before getting into the specific mechanics of character creation, such as new, altered or restricted Edges and Hindrances, as well as setting rules like Violence Beyond Rank, which allows you to ignore rank restrictions for a single Edge.

I am a very big fan of some of the new additions, including Edges like Blood Brothers (allowing two characters to gain bonuses to fear based Spirit rolls as long as they are in sight of each other), Totem Animal (which hasa variable benefit depending on the specific animal, and there's a pretty big list), a whole slew of combat edges and seven Legendary Edges allowing PCs to almost resemble an archetype, such as Legendary Champion, Legendary Shadow and Legendary Trickster.

The equipment chapter lists prices in beads, but also provides some guidelines for bartering. The gear chapter does go the extra mile to make culter specific designations where applicable, which is helpful given the large number of cultures present in the setting.

I also provided a look at Sorcery and Magic in an earlier preview, and I must say that I am particularly a fan of the Corruption rules...to the point that it was annoyingly similar to something I was working on. In addition to the variety of new spells, Totems of the Dead also includes magic items, such as Dream Catchers (which shield a sleeper from all outside mental influence) and Demon Breakers (magical knives made from rocks that break when used to kill a demon).

The setting rules feature some fairly extensive modifications to the Savage Worlds rules, starting with tweaks to the Tricks to a nice rule called Combat Openings, in which characters who score a raise can forgo their bonus damage to either take a free action against the target or give themselves or an ally a +2 to a trait roll. Counting coup is a nonviolent way for a skilled warrior to end a conflict (if the other side has any sense of honor), and a number of rules cover cultural rituals from dancing and singing (and their effect on people) to generic sports rules!

The last half or so of the book covers the various deities of the Untamed Lands, from Atlantean deities such as Dagun (who is NOT a nice guy) to Gods such as Xotec the Flayed One (Who Is Not At All Xipe Totec), as well as the gazetteer to the world. Each region discusses the peoples, architectures, events and so forth, and with a little squinting you can see the real world inspirations for most places (except maybe Atlantis...or especially Atlantis...you decide). A little mention is even given to Lands Across the Sea, like the Dark Continent of Borea and the sprawling landmass Eurashi (as well as the countries within).

WHAT WORKS: No Power Points as well as a TON of useful mechanical material and options that can be used even if you're not necessarily a fan of the setting. A swords and sworcery setting with a bit of a different feel to it than what you typically see. The art is some of the most gorgeous and evocative art, especially in a black and white book. Each piece helps drive home the "feel" of the world.

WHAT DOESN'T WORK: The split into two books hurts it...especially while the second half is yet to be released, with no bestiary present in the Player's Guide, no GM's section, no Savage Tales, etc. Some of the human cultures seem imbalanced among each other, with some gaining bonuses above and beyond the others without any harsher drawbacks than what is faced by the others...(for instance, two cultures being illiterate but one also gaining a skill bonus to boot).

CONCLUSION: While swords and sorcery has been done, Totems of the Dead does look at it through a different lens, as pre-Colonial Americas isn't the most used setting (or even setting inspiration), so it is nice to see a new approach to a classic genre. The layout is as eye pleasing as any black and white book I recall seeing, not a surprise given the company. It just really feels like it needs that "part 2" to make it complete (and I think I would feel that way even if I hadn't already seen at least most of the material). A fantastic offering by Gun Metal Games that shows they are capable of more than just Cyberpunk.

Totems of the Dead Preview - Magic & Sorcery

I love an RPG that has kewl powerz, and Totems of the Dead certainly does not turn its back on kewl powerz, which have become a bit of a staple in Savage Settings.

One of the first things Totems of the Dead does is removes Power Points, instead applying Casting Modifiers to each power. This is certainly not unheard of, of course, but is an approach that I prefer (Power Points is one of those rare things I don't like about Savage Worlds). However, they also have a couple of other additions to the magic rules: Backlash (which is a modified version of the Backlash chart for Super Sorcery in the Super Powers Companion/Necessary Evil) and Corruption (which applies specifically for using magic to do Bad Things).

In addition, there are six Arcane Backgrounds to choose from, each with their own quirks and powers list, but include Alchemy (which has its own Backlash table - and less chance of tearing open rifts into other dimensions and greater chance of BOOM), Blood Magic (which is pretty much what you think it is, but is not inherently evil), Runecasting (used by the Viking-like Skadians, of course), Sangoma (which centers around the dead and, again, can be used for good or evil), Seidr (Skadian magic powered by songs) and Shamanism (entering more into the realm of tribal magic).

A great many of the "standard" Savage Worlds powers are still present, albeit modified (usually with just the addition of Casting Modifiers) as well as a number of new powers like Tempest, Grave Speak, Dream/Nightmare Sending and more...(I won't post details here, for obvious reasons).

A sneak peek at Totems of the Dead's take on Magic & Sorcery. I know I said I was going to bash out a magic using character, but I wound up a little pressed for time, sorry. We'll take one more look at Totems of the Dead (at least), where we'll take a closer look at the world and the monsters within it.

Totems of the Dead Preview - Characters

I recently got a chance to take an advance look at Totems of the Dead by Gun Metal Games, makers of Interface Zero. Showing diversity in their publishing plans, Totems of the Dead is nothing at all like Interface Zero, which is a great cyberpunk setting for Savage Worlds. Totems of the Dead, on the other hand, is a swords and sorcery setting based on Native American myths and culture.

In addition to 14 different subcultures of humans, each with their own in-born Edges and Hindrances based off of their lifestyle, including Atlantean Outcasts (descendants of Atlantean rebels), Skadians (an expy for vikings in the setting) and Grandfather Mountains Tribesmen (who begin with d6 in Climbing, due to their home region), there are also two completely new races: Feral Ones, who organize in packs and can quickly give into a berserker rage, and Skinwalkers, who can assume an animal form through the power of a Talisman.

A number of new Edges are included, among them combat maneuvers like Pounce of the Jaguar (mechanically similar to a Wild Attack, but from a distance) and Wolf Pack Tactics, which can be beneficial for gang-up tactics. A new Leadership Edge will even allow other Leadership Edges to apply to animal allies.

An impressive seven new Legendary Edges will also be provided to round out the ranks.

And here is a sample character, a Feral One named Terk, who is a starting Seasoned character (default for the setting). I'm not going into HARD details about the new stuff because, well, buy the book for that stuff.


TERK
Agility d8
Smarts d6
Spirit d6
Strength d8
Vigor d6

Climbing d4
Fighting d10
Guts d6
Intimidation d6
Knowledge (Religion) d4
Notice d6
Swimming d4
Survival d6
Tracking d8

Charisma: 0
Pace: 6"
Parry: 7
Toughness: 5

Hindrances
Arrogant
Illiterate
Loyal
Outsider
Spartan (Poverty Hindrance)
Vengeful (Minor)

Edges
Berserk (Berserk Edge)
Keen Senses (+2 Notice)
Mark of the Warrior (+2 to Intimidation and Taunt)
Pounce of the Jaguar (Wild Attack at half-Pace range)
Survival Instinct (d6 in Tracking and Survival)
War Cry (Free Intimidation roll in Combat)

Next time, we'll take a look at the magic system in the book, and I'll bash out a magic-using character to go with it.