New Codices

[Persimmon]

Okay, so the Troll Lords have been teasing for months that the next codex will be Finnish/Scandinavian. But in today's KS update for Codex Sinarum they say that the next ones will be Codex Infernum and Codex Exaltum, dealing with fiends and angels respectively. Now personally, this is more interesting to me as I'll certainly make more use of these books in my campaign. But I am curious as to why they shifted gears? And how much overlap will there be with Tome of the Unclean?

Anyone have insights?

[Bifford]

Maybe the writer(s) of the heaven and hell books have finished their work, while the Sinarium person has not. Timetables change and shift constantly in this sort of world!

[paladinn]

I'm kind of curious that they're doing a Scandinavian codex when they already have Codex Nordica. Sinarum would be interesting tho. Good opportunity to introduce more Eastern flavor, especially classes/kits. I'd like to see more done with kits.

I wonder if Codex Infernum would be more about making fiendish-flavored classes and characters? But then, it's not like some of their other volumes haven't overlapped. I'm definitely interested in Codex Exaltum.

[Go0gleplex]

Steve had said that they had a different writer for the Finnish stuff and the others planned, so that work is likely a ways out whereas the Infernum and Exaltum are likely going to incorporate a rehash of the Unclean and other resource book info in part, which seems to be a common thing with the Trolls, resulting in less work to bring to completion thereby having an earlier release date. My guess at any rate.

[Grandpa]

I'm kind of curious that they're doing a Scandinavian codex when they already have Codex Nordica.

That's a VERY good question.

[maximus]

Interesting. Hopefully the one is not just a retread of Unclean. I'm curious to hear more about these.

[Persimmon]

Well, based on today's email, it looks like we know the content at least. Tome of the Unclean will be getting an overhaul and revision, hopefully for the better. Unfortunately the new stat blocks, which I don't especially care for, will be in it, but that's the result of the de-OGLification. It sounds like there may be new monsters, which would be cool. Getting rid of the often inscrutable & contradictory "flavor" text would free up a lot of space. And the other book looks to be totally new material, which is always welcome. As I'm in the midst of expanding, revising and converting an Apocalyptic/Infernal campaign from AD&D to C&C, I couldn't be happier about this news.

[maximus]

I really don't need any more gaming stuff, but I'm a sucker for outer planes material... I'll probably back this one.

[Lurker]

I really don't need any more gaming stuff, but I'm a sucker for outer planes material... I'll probably back this one.

There with you on that !

I, without a doubt, do not "need" anymore, but i sure do have a lot of WANTS.

If it improves the Tome of Unclean then I'm in for that one, and game stuff has never given enough to the angles side, so if this is a half way decent book I'm in for it too .

[Go0gleplex]

Clavis123 posted a whole slew of angels and such on here a few years back. Search 'angels' and it's page 5 or 6 when his posts show up.

[paladinn]

Clavis123 posted a whole slew of angels and such on here a few years back. Search 'angels' and it's page 5 or 6 when his posts show up.

But it'll be nice to see an "official" take on all that. And a cleanup of the Unclean too.

[maximus]

Kickstarter is up! I backed for the pdfs only. Not sure I need more books, although I do like them.

[Bifford]

I can't afford their shipping, which doubles the price, so much as the hardbacks look lovely PDF tier it is.

[Go0gleplex]

So...anyone seen a copy of the Sinarium from the KS as yet? Or seen the forewarned shipping info inquiries?

[Persimmon]

Nope; they had said there was a shipping break for about ten days in mid-December. I'm pretty close to Arkansas so it usually takes 2 days once I get my shipping notice, which I haven't received yet.

[Go0gleplex]

Okilly Dokilly...thanks Pers. I hadn't seen that notice.

[Go0gleplex]

Got my Sinarum hard copy today. Looks great though the blank pages in the module threw me a loop. No text missing...just some additions (for notes?)

[Captain_K]

still nothing... we supposed to reply to confirm things?

[Captain_K]

I just skimmed through the Chinese codex.... did not find any of the 8 immortals.... very disappointed... but I really need to review it.

[Captain_K]

should be mailing out soon... Kirk

[Persimmon]

Got my Codex Sinarum on Thursday. It's okay, not great. As a specialist in Chinese history and culture (though not religion), I don't want to be too critical, but I'll offer initial impressions.

The history is generally accurate with a few errors. There are plenty of deities, though as others have mentioned, there are some surprising omissions. For example Guan Yu, the God of War & Business isn't in there, perhaps because he was technically deified in the Ming (1368-1644) and they stop in the Song dynasty (960-1279). As someone else noted, the Eight Daoist Immortals (who are older) aren't in there. The monsters are decent, for the most part. Personally I would have liked more with the character classes, especially for something like the Wuxia and for the spellcasters. Luckily, I also have Joseph Bloch's Swords of Wuxia book, which is easily ported over to C&C.

And it's surprising that secret societies and martial arts don't get more attention. Not sure why Shaolin Temple barely gets referenced and then it's given a couple locations: on Mount Wudang, in Hubei province and then in Henen, which should be Henan province, incorrectly stated as being in south China (p. 127). The original Shaolin Temple, which I've visited, is in fact located in my wife's home province of Henan, in the north, near the town of Dengfeng. They later built another one in the south, from whence the American Shaolin Academy claims descent. In popular lore, Wudang, often rendered Wutang in films and hip-hop, is the Daoist rival to the Buddhist Shaolin sect. There is brief discussion of Shaolin martial arts on pp. 126-27.

Qi powers are pretty powerful. There is brief reference to early gunpowder weapons. The descriptions of sacred places and the Chinese underworld are useful. As they note, the actual primary sources are not at all consistent, but having something to work from is good.

Unfortunately, there are way too many errors in the Romanization of Chinese words into pinyin, which is understandable, but avoidable. I offered, several times, to go over the whole manuscript and Brian Young said he was open to that, but they never sent me anything. Steve did remove the Chinese characters after I told him there were lots of errors in those. I may have more after I've spent more time with it.

[Bifford]

Got my Codex Sinarum on Thursday. It's okay, not great. As a specialist in Chinese history and culture (though not religion), I don't want to be too critical, but I'll offer initial impressions.

{Snip}

Wonderful summation, thank you!

It's shame there's some innacuracies in there, but I guess 95% of people (plucking a random high figure out of the air there, no basis for realism whatsoever should be inferred) won't have a clue about them?

I have the pdf but have not even glanced at it, let alone read it, and am unlikely to any time soon.

How easy is the book to use to help craft a game?

[Persimmon]

For crafting a game, it's like pretty much all the Codices. A bit dense and hard to follow at times, but you can do some really cool stuff with it. And it's easy enough to add what you like and ignore the other stuff. The adventure, by the way, which was an add-on, is not bad. Pretty straightforward, but there are some interesting cultural things in it and you can run it in an evening.

I'm excited to use this because I'm currently converting and expanding an Underworld I wrote for AD&D some years ago. One of the new layers I'm dropping in will be Diyu, Chinese Hell, which I'm situating near the realms of the Oni & Rakshasa nobles. There's a good degree of info on the various Chinese Hells in here. I'll mix that with stuff I have from actual Chinese sources to create something pretty interesting, I hope. One cool thing is that as I'm doing this, I've drawn upon all the codices for monsters, special character classes, and bits of the Underworld. So different classes have chances to shine and there are tons of real-world cultural touchstones.

[paladinn]

The synopsis on the TLG site includes this:
"The Codex Sinarum ends on a warrior’s note, creating a core martial system for Castles & Crusades."

This is likely what most intrigues me; and I fully intend to buy the PDF asap. Can you give any amount of detail about this "core martial system"? Is it something that can be used in other settings?

Thanks!

[Persimmon]

Yeah, not so much. There's stuff on weapons used in history with damages and few pages with some martial arts techniques. Some can be combined with qi powers and be pretty deadly as you can get more attacks. This is much more interesting if you're not using the nerfed C&C monk damage tables. But it's literally 8 pages at the end with no actual new classes and three paragraphs on different types of wuxia. There are some ideas you can work with, but it's not what I'd call a "core martial system." It's like what was in Oriental Adventures back in the day.

[Captain_K]

hard bound finally arrived