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Barbaric!

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Average Rating:4.6 / 5
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Barbaric!
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Barbaric!
Publisher: Stellagama Publishing
by Loren M. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 10/07/2022 08:14:34

Last night's regular game fell through with two players unable to attend for a huge fight they had kicked off. But I had written a brief point crawl for this system based on a few Conan stories. First, we went through the character creation. It took about an hour. I'm glad spells are chosen randomly, as that could have taken hours if the player chose each one. The ship cruised up the Poison River searching for a lost city, with poisonous snakes and giant centipedes dropping on the ship along the way. The barbarian characters had great fun with the Frenzy rule to burn through minor enemies. Later, after dropping anchor at the site of the city and helping carry tents and equipment to the expedition campsite, they witnessed a great white ape kidnap a sailor from shipboard and climb into the jungle. The PCs ran off in pursuit, finally provoking a fight and slaying the ape, Conan style, with a critical hit from a thrown dagger piercing the fierce beast's heart! Great fun was had all around, with half of the table hamming up their mighty thewed warriors and the sorcerer player attempting the mightiest spells on the list, failing miserably, and suffering magical corruption as a result. Didn't get to playtest my whole adventure, but our first session of Barbaric was a huge success! I think a few of them bought a copy for themselves too. Bibon son of Phola, Grigor the Archer, Astrid the Hammer, and Elatos of the Cave approved!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Creator Reply:
Many thanks for the excellent review!
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Barbaric!
Publisher: Stellagama Publishing
by Ian G. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 06/26/2021 05:45:32

I love this game.

Light, packs a punch, well-written.

It allows you a Cepheus / Traveller approach to S&S. It has some really excellent enhancements to the standard 2D6 combat and the magic system slots in so well.

I can imagine running this pure sand-box and allowing the heroes / protagonists plying their blades and cunning in campaigns akin to the best swords and sorcery stories.

Bravo. I want more.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Creator Reply:
Thank you for the wonderful review!
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Barbaric!
Publisher: Stellagama Publishing
by Chris D. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 04/22/2021 23:15:18

I didn't like this on a first read, but it's a very simple, very effective 2d6 Sword and Sorcery game. Don't expect D&D/OSR, your characters are capable and good at something from level 1. This is a game where you play Conan types, thieves, and sorcerers as dangerous to themselves as everyone else. Healing rules could be a tad harsher but critical hit tables already make combat absolutely brutal and something with considerable cost.

What surprised me was this DID pass what I consider the "Sandy Peterson test of Sword and Sorcery games" which was that he mentioned a scene in a Conan story where a guy gets the drop on Conan with a Crossbow and Conan surrenders, something which would NEVER happen in D&D or a similar game. Due to the damage crossbows and Bows do, The magic rules are suitably dangerous and uncertain with a lot of potential for really interesting failure.

Soundtrack it to Dust's Learning to Die.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Creator Reply:
Thank you for your excellent review!
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Barbaric!
Publisher: Stellagama Publishing
by Eric F. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 02/28/2021 01:08:07

"The fierce, proud, and relentless commander of warriors, standing tall above her enemies and simmering with rage, Jirel bids farewell to the world of treacherous men and walks through a forbidden door into Hell itself in pursuit of freedom, justice, and revenge."

So last night it was a night with an old friend, that friend happened to be C.L. Moore's Jirel of Joiry in paperback. She was created in '34 by C.L.Moore as a reaction to the Sword & Sorcery tales of the Pulp magazine era. Reading through the stacks of Amazon book reviews is like reading through a laundry list of a comic book or Pulp letters column. The Amazon break down from one of their reviewers hits the high marks; "C. L. Moore created Jirel, ruler of Joiry, in reaction to the beefy total-testosterone blood-and-thunder tales of '30s pulp magazines, but Jirel is no anti-Conan. She's a good Catholic girl, stubbornly purposeful, relentless in pursuit of enemies or vengeance, hard-boiled and a little stupid, and cannot be distracted by mere physical attractiveness. Indeed, in Jirel's world, beauty = decadence = corruption. Were these stories written today, inevitably Jirel would have a lot of hot sex, but as they were first published in Weird Tales between 1934-1939, sexual attraction is mostly only vividly implied. No loss. Jirel's journeys through unnatural landscapes and her battles with supernatural opponents are still wonderful to read, and though newcomers Red Sonja and Xena are more famous now, Jirel rules as the archetypal, indomitable redheaded swordswoman in chain mail and greaves, swinging her "great two-edged sword."" The idea that a Sword & Sorcery character not only rules her own domain but that the supernatural won't leave her alone is something seldom seen. She's a warrior & a more then a bit fallible. This makes her far more relatable to the reader then some of today's characters. She's very much in a similar spirit to some of Clark Ashton Smith's characters in a sense. The ironic play of the setting, the masterful use of the English language, and the sly character development all built around C.L. Moore's weaving of the stories.

And what does any of this have to do with Omer Golan-Joel new Cepheus Engine rpg powered supplement Barbaric! ? Everything really. Barbaric! is the Sword & Sorcery add on book that has the very essence to run a Sword & Sorcery based rpg 2d6 Sword & Sorcery based campaign from the ground up. This means that C.L. Moore's Jirel of Joiry world & setting could easily be adapted into a Barbaric! campaign. Or Robert E.Howard's works, mixed in Clark Ashton Smith, etc. all of the Appendix N writers are grist for the Barbaric! mill. This book clocks in at fifty seven pages of good solid layout, a readable product, & the quality we've come to expect from Stellagama Publishing.

If you want your own Conan wanna be slithering through the darkness, the barbarian hordes tearing down the sorcerer's tower, etc. within Cepheus Engine then Barbaric! is the supplement for you! Omer Golan-Joel does an excellent job of boiling down every Sword & Sorcery & Pulpy goodness of his take on Cepheus Engine rpg system weirdness in Barbaric!. We've seen this before in Sword of Cepheus.

The difference between Sword of Cepheus & Barbaric! is day & night because of how & where Omar places the life paths, the humancentric elements, the Sword & Sorcery elements vs all of the High Fantasy flavor. This is 2d6 Conan like Sword & Sorcery play vs 2d6 High Fantasy, sure they have elements in common but you know the difference when you see it, read it, & play it. Barbaric! hits the high notes of 2d6 Sword & Sorcery play for the its publishing. Cepheus Atom could be used to plug into a whole new world of post apocalyptical goodness.

For bringing to life C.L. Moore's Jirel of Joiry into Barbaric! there are several reasons why it would work. Jirel of Joiry has all of the 'journey of a hero' elements in place, but what happens to her world when she's gone?! Surely there were adventurers looking for her?! Even on a quest for vengence nothing happens in a vacuum. This is where Barbaric! could come into play. The PC's are generated to go on a quest to find her & encounters with the supernatural result from there. Simple & easy to do a 2d6 campaign from there. Moore's Jirel stories include the following: "Black God's Kiss" (October 1934) "Black God's Shadow" (December 1934) "Jirel Meets Magic" (July 1935) "The Dark Land" (January 1936) "Quest of the Starstone" (November 1937), with Henry Kuttner "Hellsgarde" (April 1939) For grabbing the Jirel of Joiry stories cheaply the Paizo's Black God's Kiss (Trade Paperback) is the best source in print at the moment.

Eric Fabiaschi Swords & Stitchery blog Want more OSR goodness Subscribe to https://swordsandstitchery.blogspot.com/



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Barbaric!
Publisher: Stellagama Publishing
by Bob V. G. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 02/27/2021 20:30:12

Barbaric! is a lightweight role-playing game (57 pages) where players assume the roles of characters exploring a fantasy world. Characters have no attributes and there are seven skills. I like how you can quickly create a character. This RPG ruleset includes 7 character races, 30 traits, 36 spells, 50 monsters, a random magical item chart (36 items), a spellcasting mishap chart (36 possibilities), and three 2d6 critical hit charts. - - So, I tried this out using the Mythic Game Master Emulator. I used a Tavern Tales Adventure called Mad for Love. The six characters were able to fight their way through a building only to discover that the “boss” was not there. They raced to the new location, fought the “big bad”, and convinced the confused “boss” that everything was okay. They took the love potion away from him and kept it for themselves. They sold it the next day to a female wizard. She seemed nice. Give this fun system a try!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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