Paizo, $22.99, ISBN 978-1-60125-900-4
Fantasy, 2016
Horror Realms is clearly meant to be complemented with Horror Adventures, with the former adding some lore, rules, and locales for people that for some reason want to play a Ravenloft knock-off in Golarion. Personally, I like how there are some more streamlined rules in Paizo-loft that smooths out much of the eye-rolling stuff in old Ravenloft that more often than not served as ammunition for sadistic DMs to wreck havoc on adventurers. While Paizo-loft does have mechanisms such as insanity and what not, they feel far more organic, more like those Call of Cthuhu tabletop RPGs and less of the “we’re just evil DMs making crap up as we go along” old Ravenloft stuff that made many people instinctively recoil even at the mention of the word Ravenloft.
Okay, I’ll save that for if and when I get around to reviewing Horror Adventures. Horror Realms is more about the flavor, so let’s talk about the flavor. Much of it is somewhat lacking compared to Old Ravenloft or even New Ravenloft—not exactly good news for DMs that prefer to skip the hurdle of adapting and adjusting rules and flavors for just using a ready-made locale directly.
The first chapter, Searchers After Horror, is solid though, a good start for this splatbook. There are stuff here for the creation of a more Lovecraft-ian kind of arcanist (body horror exploits galore, how delicious), bard (madness-inducing apocalyptic performances and trading of one’s voice for gifts from the Elder Gods, oh my), classes with animal companions (kinda disappointing, in comparison, as it’s just all about fiendish companions that can be more of a hindrance than anything else), monk (ritual self-scarring, facelessness, wearing of one’s opponent’s face, the ability to dislocate joints to contort in ways that are normally not possible, oh my), and so forth.
This part is awesome, and I wonder how a campaign will turn out if the DM allowed players to modify their core classes into these deliciously twisted variations. If anything, there is enough here to create some memorable NPCs, at least.
Then we go on to the meat of this splatbook: Strange, Far Places, which as the name suggests is all about locations for horror campaigns. Here is what things start to go downhill fast. Before I look into each one closer, I should point out that no stats are given for the main villain or even the key NPCs in each region. I suppose the people at Paizo just want DMs to use their imagination… or buy the bestiary hardcovers that contain the stats they can use for these characters.
Crown of the World. Conventional wisdom would suggest that a horror campaign set in the Golarion equivalent of the North Pole would be either all about survival horror or cosmic horror, as you never know what ancient secrets are waiting to be stumbled upon in a desolate wasteland that very few people willingly choose to go to. Sadly, this one is basically a wilderness crawl to take down Azila Sahota in her hut at the Witch-Fen. This character actually had quite a bit of backstory in other splatbooks, so it’s odd that this hag winter witch is depicted in such a one-dimensional manner here. Really, she is placed here solely to be killed, no back story or motivations needed. The new mechanic introduced in this section is wendigo madness, which drives one to believe that eating other people is the only way to go in order to survive… and there is no wendigo in this section. Lame section all around, this, as it feels like some cut content from a previous splatbook hastily slapped here to fill the pages.
Farnvale. Invasion of the Pod People time, as the village in question is actually populated by pod-spawned humans under the control of a bodythief (the giant plant that eats other living creatures and creates plant-based replicas of its victims) hiding in the mansion in the middle of town. Nothing particularly interesting or flavorful here, as no matter what plot the DM may come up with to get the adventurers to stumble upon this village, everything is designed to eventually lead to some showdown between the adventurers and the pod-spawned humans just like in that movie.
Geb. Don’t get too excited, nobody is getting a detailed gazetteer of that region. A more accurate title for this section is Crabfield Isle, the actual locale covered here, and sadly, the main distinguishing feature that gives this place its name is a huge beach populated by crabs that can somehow abduct people and carry them to their boss, a gongorinan (you know, that crab-like spawn of Yamasoth that is far more adorable than any qlippoth should be) for some chow time fun. Unfortunately, all I can think of while reading this is that video of dancing crabs people love to use to celebrate the demise of something they loathe.
There are some plot hooks involving zombie lords, feuding undead bosses, and some alchemically-enhanced zombies, but this place feels more like disparate elements picked out of a fish bowl (“vampires”… “zombies”… “crabs”…) and thrown together without finding a way to make everything feel like one cohesive setting. It’s more like Deathtrap Dungeon, in other words—you take this corner, ooh vampires, and then take the next corner, ooh crabs, and who knows what’s waiting behind that door. Maybe undead leprechauns mounted on zombie unicorns? This kind of stuff is alright for a DM’s first homebrew campaign, but for something being sold at quite a steep price, this one should have been much better.
Kalva. An island in the Land of the Vikings Linnorn Kings populated by mold-ridden cannibals guarding a portal to the Eldest Green Mother’s realm in the First World. Oh, and there’s a colony of Skinwalkers too, because Paizo published a novel about this one so yeah, buy that too. That’s all there is to this one. Basically, it’s a transit point destination, maybe for adventurers looking for a way to the First World or those that just want to kill cannibals for fun, and the cartoon-y illustration of a supposedly terrifying cannibal old crone doesn’t do much to make this place feel even a little frightening. It’s all about rocks, some angry ghosts, and cannibals. I feel that this once could have easily been combined with the Witch-Fen in the first section for a more well-realized locale.
Shenmen. My biggest disappointment. This is a land in Tian Xia, ruled by spider women! Just think of the chilling possibilities. Unfortunately, what I get instead is a mountainous forest full of murderous ghosts, a town ruled by a ghost Karen, and a short description of nothing-much-really of the spider women’s stronghold. That and this one also has some of the worst names ever for a pseudo-Chinese setting. Pek Peh? Lady Lang Loi? Baakai? Oh come on. Lang Loi translates directly in Cantonese to “beautiful girl”, so Lady Lang Loi means Lady Beautiful Girl. Seriously?
Uskheart. It’s in Nidal, and this one is all about evil druids secretly nurturing a xenomorph colony for who knows what evil end. This is at least something that isn’t a tired goldfish bowl of horror clichés thrown in, but this section is so underdeveloped and devoid of horror flavor that I can only wonder why they bother. So, the adventurers come in, slay every evil druid, and set fire to all the xenomorphs… I guess that’s fun enough as a detour in a campaign set in Nidal, but come on, give me more. I paid $22.99 for this thing after all!
Vale of Honorless Graves. A geist, mad that he never got a hero’s burial like he thinks he deserves, now manipulates a weak-willed dolt to lead a vicious inquisition against the local population, just for the geist’s kicks. So, come in here, do some errands, discover the villain, crawl into its trap-filled lair, and kill that bugger.
The third section is Corruptions and Haunts, with corruptions being new flavors that allow a DM to make life for certain adventurers a race against time to find a cure for a certain corruption as well as to create more things to adventurers to kill and destroy. There’s nothing particularly outstanding there, but at least there is more flavor here than the previous section.
Horror Realms, therefore, is a bewildering splatbook in which the supposed main attraction—the realms in question—is actually the weakest link. Hence, I hesitate to say that this one is worth the money. For ingredients of a better horror campaign, take the $22.99 and invest in the Strange Aeons adventure path instead. No fancy new rules or flavors needed, and yet, a fabulous if challenging frightening time will still be had over there!
