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Post by skathros on Aug 29, 2006 13:18:20 GMT -5
Well, for about a month or so, i've been considering getting the SPECIAL LEJENTIA OFFER from FBI's site. After searching in vain for a comprehensive review of the products contained in the special, i finally gave up.
Well, last night after my wife and i got back from a particularly overly festive party, i happened on the FBI site and just decided "what the hell" and ordered it.
Now...what the heck did i order?
From what i've been able to gather, it's a systemless setting book (s) based on a comicbook, right? Whats the setting like? I believe branderwydd runs a game in this setting or plays in this setting. Any info would be great!
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Post by branderwydd /|\ on Aug 29, 2006 14:08:44 GMT -5
skathros, you are correct sir.
lejentia is a catalyst-type product with a skeleton of mechanics to build off of, and works well with T&T i think, but you have to move away from the vanilla settingless rules to tweak a few things. art is mostly done by quirky but cool ss crompton. it is story heavy, not dungeon heavy, so it's definitely a different take on gaming for some people.
lejentia is a world at war - elves and their allies versus demons and their allies who are trying to take over the world for its own good (flavors of communism here, IMO) as it was damaged in past wars and is fragile to the point of destroying itself. there are hints that it is earth, far in the future. magic and telepathy are very common to demons, elves, dargonaths and rowns (the later two human spin offs), but almost unheard of in humans. as a result, the humans have adopted a very middle ages style "christianity" and have waged crusades and inquisitions against the elves in the past, associating them and magic with evil.
skully's harbor is a little river port town developed in great detail, with some interesting places, people and plots. ft. bevits (bad guys) sits across the river and details everything and everyone at the fort, ready to invade the harbor at any time. both are greatly detailed with some neat backstories and numerous plots. not everything is as it seems. these two locations serve as a microcosm for the larger war and world.
the stanza pack has the first graphic novel and a little booklet describing the elven capital in brief, and some of the nobles of the city.
there are two other graphic novels that you should get just to round out your set.
sadly, this is all there is. IMO lejentia is a great setting and it is too bad it wasn't developed further. i have been using it in bits and pieces for over 15 years, and finally decided i wasn't doing the setting justice that way. so, when i started my 7e campaign i dropped trollworld along with 5e and overwhelmed myself with new rules and a new campaign world all in one go. a year later and now i can say it was the best move i've ever made as a GM in the roughly 25 years i've played T&T. i've had more fun and better play by working on lejentia to fill in the many gaps than any other setting i've used.
the other catalyst products work well, i think, to round out the other places left undeveloped. one thing i've learned is that you don't need a whole world to play in. you can never develop or explore it in enough depth to do it justice. the plains of meit area of lejentia - the only part developed in the game books - is more than enough to cover all adventure needs. there is varied terrain, a few small villages, a large city, some dungeons, and a big bad guy type to rally against. use the CityBooks to flesh out the big city (gaulden) and the traps books to flesh out the dungeons along with the treasure vault, wilderness encounters and maps catalyst books and you will have a campaign that offers a lot of depth and quality, even if not so much quantity, that will still take many years of regular play to come close to exhausting it. to me, that's what's important at this stage in my game play - deep, memorable stories, not quick slapped together dungeons that all run together in your mind when you look back on them. i love dungeon crawls, by the way, so that wasn't a dig at dungeons. under gaulden i'm developing an 18+ level dungeon.  check out my yahoo group for more details. i have many files posted there that will explain in a lot more detail.
games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Lejentia/
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Post by skathros on Aug 29, 2006 14:33:40 GMT -5
thanks branderwydd!
The setting sounds interesting, can't wait for it to arrive! I signed up to your Lejentia group to take a peek at your files.
How meny gaming products were made for the setting?
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Post by skathros on Aug 29, 2006 15:17:02 GMT -5
Also, is the rest of the world given some detail (even if it's small detail/description)?
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Post by branderwydd /|\ on Aug 29, 2006 15:40:19 GMT -5
you are now in the group....
the rest of the world is given varied detail - with some really cool places alluded to but left undeveloped. some areas get a sentence or two, others get more. same with important leaders, etc.
that's the part i'm saddened about, is that there was so much more potential than what was finished. part of the reason i started the yahoo group was to get a small group of lejentia fans who would be interested in fleshing out the rest with me. however, the people who joined were all just T&T fans with no real knowledge of lejentia but who wanted to play in some online games. hence, the world-fleshing development has been slow as i'm the only one doing it.  should you decide you really like lejentia, and you enjoy developing areas, let me know and maybe we can work on some stuff together.
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Post by skathros on Aug 29, 2006 18:22:29 GMT -5
should you decide you really like lejentia, and you enjoy developing areas, let me know and maybe we can work on some stuff together. I'll give you my impressions once it gets here (hopefully soon!). Thanks for all your help! BTW, great files on your site!!! |
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Post by skathros on Aug 29, 2006 18:46:37 GMT -5
you are now in the group.... branderwydd, i posted a reply, but it doesnt seem to show up. Is it a yahoo thing? edited...it just appeared  |
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Post by skathros on Sept 6, 2006 15:32:49 GMT -5
Well, they arrived today! Looks like Skath's got some reading ahead of him.
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Post by branderwydd /|\ on Sept 6, 2006 16:02:06 GMT -5
great. keep me posted.
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Hogscape
11th level Troll
Stalwart of the Trollbridge
It's not the years, it's the mileage.
Posts: 2,126
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Post by Hogscape on Sept 9, 2006 7:56:59 GMT -5
So Skath, tell me what Lejentia's like?
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Post by branderwydd /|\ on Sept 15, 2006 20:41:13 GMT -5
ready for any reports on lejentia yet?
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Post by Vin Ahrr Vin on Sept 17, 2006 21:24:59 GMT -5
I must admint that I knew zero about this until I read through this thread. I'm also curious as to what Skathos' opinions are on this setting.
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Post by branderwydd /|\ on Sept 18, 2006 20:33:54 GMT -5
obviously trollworld is the default T&T setting. however, i have always been a little puzzled why this didn't get the support it should have, IMO. it was a catalyst product, by some third party groups and FBI, that fits in with T&T very easily. it has more mechanics than the typical catalyst product, many of which are clearly influenced by T&T. after trollworld, this could/should have been a setting that many T&T players wanted to use, but that was never the case....
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Post by skathros on Sept 19, 2006 13:40:14 GMT -5
Well, i've gone through book 1 & 2, but still have the stanza pack1 and the comics to read. It's a very interesting setting, with powerful elves and a bigass army of bad guys. I always liked the "war-torn land" settings (which is why i love DL during the WotL). What's really interesting is the level of detail the products got into.
Some things that irked me about the books (and the series it'self), have mostly to do with the hinted promis of other great lands to discover, other interesting people, races, foes, that never seems to have paned out after book 2. It's hinted in several places that the planet is unstable and is being hed together by the rulers (IIRC), but it doesn't go deeper than that! That's the kind of interesting info that could/should have been reserved for further books.
Another thing that bothered me is the lack of assigning some sort of generic power rating to the creatures and critters. Lejentia uses a generic methode to rate the "personalities'" magical and melee aptitudes, but i have no idea how strong a novile (sp) is, or a nix. It sees to me they could have used the same convention used for the notable NPCs in regards to the common evil critters.
Other than these two things, though, the setting is top notch, with something happening all the time! You would be hard pressed as a GM to not find some sort of adventure for your players in the land of Lejentia.
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Post by branderwydd /|\ on Sept 20, 2006 17:48:37 GMT -5
so, you feel about lejentia the same way i do, i think: awesome idea that was left underdeveloped.
still, there's a lot to work with in a very cool setting, with more opportunities for adventures than you can shake a stick at.
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should you decide you really like lejentia, and you enjoy developing areas, let me know and maybe we can work on some stuff together.
