"Into the Bronze" from Lantern's Faun

Sumer and the Bronze Age - the aesthetic, are the shit. Bias outta the way, here goes.

click the cover to buy the game

This book is a a startlingly short hack of Into the Odd by Chris McDowell. I have actually not looked at ItO specifically much, but have come into a lot of contact with its hacks; namely Electric Bastionland, Silent Titans, Death is the New Pink, Maze Rats and Mausritter. For brevity, it's excellent.

Writing

Terse, to the point. Almost everything makes perfect sense on the first reading. If not, it is the Referee's prerogative to make a ruling. The only problem is that the book leaves us with very little of what constitutes a ruling - the empty space is nice because it allows each game to morph to the tables expectations, but considering the firm aesthetic (portrayed through tables), this can be seen as a pro or con. I, personally, see it as both.

Layout

Firmly, firmly Artpunk. It takes from public domain art and edits and formats it to create something absolutely a pleasure to look at. The author is a graphic designer and has made many other things here. An excellent use of Sumerian imagery, and the white space.

System

Like I said, an Into the Odd hack. Classically has the Str, Dex, Wil, with HP, and Obsidian as its currency - reference the two to get your background. Additionally, it makes has a fun if slightly confusing traits table (it has physical traits which include animals as items, as well as animals in background equipment lists - simple to rule at the table but a weird choice.)

Its lovely innovation is that all damage is d6 but the strength of the weapon is dependent on the roll it Explodes at, and deals double damage. Fun and swingy.

What is very odd (heh) is that for skills it uses a d20, for weapons d6, and on the "Dead or Dying" table the only other dice - a d8. For those who play Pen & Paper RPGs (which it plainly states it expects the reader to be familiar with), they should have these dice, but again, a strange choice.

Sorcery

Choose words, imagine an effect which uses all the words, and a price. Made for ruling by the Referee.  I would have liked a Sumerian translation for fun, and real-life reading of the spells. Hell! Even a simple language system! Consider that my first hack. (If you're aching for that check out the PbtA game The Bloody-Handed Name of Bronze, has a list of Sumerian-like syllables)

Referee & Adventure Creation

It works well as a framework to throw your, and your groups personality in. Doesn't say it explicitly, but encourages the Referee to make plenty of rulings.

In that same vein, I would encourage the person running the game to give the entire game a good read through. There are tidbits in the backgrounds, creature descriptions and adventure creation tables that hint at a strange world. Whether you interpret it as Cosmic Horror, Science Fantasy, Fantasy or anything else, what it does do well is beg for interpretation.

The tables, as setting, work well. But there are tables where I would have liked more content, which are oddly sparse considering their subject matter (Looking at you Secrets table)

Conclusions

I love Sumeria, I love the Bronze Age. This game is in my ballpark. It has beautiful graphic design and is nicely streamlined, and I will assuredly run it, even use it for a campaign. Only quibble is the pro/con that that due to its minimalism, it leaves a lot for the person running it to interpret or create. If only for the art, I would buy it.