Review: Silver Crescent Publishing – Realms of Twilight (Pathfinder)


Realms of Twilight
Realms of Twilight is an epic fantasy setting for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game published by Silver Crescent Publishing and written by Daniel Marshall.
By Aaron T. Huss

Realms of Twilight is a unique and complete setting for Pathfinder featuring a world lost in an everlasting twilight. This twilight is a result of two seemingly apocalyptic events that threw the entire world into a state of disarray. The aftermath of these events has created a world filled with darkness, dangerous areas of wilderness, a quickly changed landscape, and multitudes of societies whose people have never seen the sun (only the eldest remember it).

Silver Crescent Publishing has taken the concept of epic fantasy and spun it in a very new direction. While many epic fantasy settings are designed to prevent the worlds destruction, Realms of Twilight places players in the middle of a world where the destruction occurred hundreds of years before. Now the people are left with surviving and finding a way to bring the sunlight back to a seemingly dismal world. It is not only truly unique, but an excellent twist of the genre. One should keep in mind that while the world is lost in the never ending twilight, the setting is not dark fantasy. There are dark creatures and difficulties abroad, but horror is not a factor and the PCs should have no problem facing down those who lurk in the shadows.

SETTING

The Realms of Twilight setting takes up the first half of the book. Each region (which is basically its own island continent) is fully detailed and illustrated with an accompanying map and excellent images that support the fluff. There are no in-game mechanics in these sections, just source material and background.

Relistan – Realms of Twilight takes place on the world of Relistan. Each of these chapters starts out with an excellent narrative story explaining part of the events that occurred (changing according to the point-of-view and what that nation has knowledge of). I do not wish to spoil the fun of reading through these chapters and will thus keep things very vague. The Relistan story details the apocalyptic events and the current situations throughout the world today. This is a very high-level overview.

Kesuril – Kesuril is referred to as the “civilized lands”. It is the largest land mass, consists of a vast history, and is very diverse. Within this section, a number of nations and the most prominent cities are fully detailed. This includes a brief look into understanding the nations and cities along with their most important persons. Each region is also detailed covering structures such as mountains, plains, and ruins.

Slarinca – Slarinca is an ancient land filled with ancient races and nations that are now each associated with one of the five elements. Much of this land mass is covered by the dark and dangerous Twilight Woods, a place of ancient decent, where few now venture. Again each major region, nation, city, and major persons is described.

Shiran – Shiran is dominated by a vast desert and a precarious mountain valley to the east. This mountain valley is said to hold the key to one of the apocalyptic events, but none have been able to enter it. The desert is primarily ruled by a group of former adventurers-turned-lord and the settlements they established.

Ezalyth – Ezalyth is a primarily frozen land mass with a large mountain range occupying the central regions. Those who live here are bound to be quite hardy for the cold climate would be difficult to survive. The frost giants don’t seem to mind…

Cylthia – Cylthia is a tropical land mass filled with jungles and savannas. A massive jungle occupies the majority of the landscape with scattered settlements along the rim of the land mass. Much of this land mass is wilderness with potentially dangerous creatures.

The High Seas – The final setting chapter details the high seas that run outside the land masses and along its inner core. These land masses form an oval shape around a central sea with untamed waters along the outer rim.

CHARACTER OPTIONS

The character options section contains a number of new items for players and their PCs.

Character Classes – Realms of Twilight introduces a new character class, Combat Alchemist. This new class is fully detailed including all in-game mechanics for all 20 levels. Corresponding mixes are detailed later on in the character options section.

Prestige Classes – Six new prestige classes are introduced to coincide with the fluff of the setting. Each one includes all proper in-game mechanics along with a sample character.

New Races – Four new races are introduced that also coincide with the fluff of the setting. Each one is fully detailed including a small list of possible names.

New Feats – There are a number of new feats to correspond to the setting and the combat alchemist class.

Equipment & Magic – Realms of Twilight introduces two new materials for use with constructing magical weapons along with a handful of new, fleshed out equipment and magical items. Following this is the long list of alchemy mixtures that correspond to the new combat alchemist class. New spells and domains are detailed here as well which seemingly tie into the setting.

Religion – Realms of Twilight consists of a new host of deities and each one is properly detailed to round out the character options section of the publication.

GM INFORMATION

New Monsters – There are not too many new monsters introduced in Realms of Twilight. The ones that are present coincide with much of the setting and its fluff, but there is plenty of room for more. Considering how many creatures are available for Pathfinder, this really isn’t a hindrance to the book’s quality and value.

Legends of an Ancient World – Realms of Twilight ends with a story describing the event that drove the world into endless twilight. The story is written in a journal format and should be for the GM’s eyes only (depending upon the direction of the adventure or campaign). If the players knew this information, it may spoil their campaign to revitalize the sunlight.

OVERALL

I’m a big fan of unique settings, especially ones that take traditional ideas or genres and twists them about. The reverse ideals of Realms of Twilight make for a new and interesting way of approaching adventures and campaigns. The only thing left now is to see what direction Silver Crescent Publishing takes the setting and how they put it all together in published adventure modules. I recommend Realms of Twilight for those looking for a new epic fantasy experience.

RATINGS

Publication Quality: 6 out of 10
Indy publishers often surprise me with how well they pay attention to the quality of their publication. While I don’t find the presentation order of the book to be ideal, everything is grouped together to prevent having to spend a lot of time flipping through the book (character creation for example). The opening half of the book has a great layout filled with fantastic maps, easy to read content, and a minute detail like the page frames containing different pattern designs in each chapter. However, somewhere in the middle of the book this layout begins to change and pieces fall apart. The book changes from fully justified to right justified and back to fully justified. In addition, some of the character creation pages could use some layout tweaks here and there to make them more visually appealing and keep with that ease of reading. Upon reaching the bestiary, the layout quality improves and the stat blocks look great.

Mechanics: 9 out of 10
The setting itself is extremely well developed and filled with new mechanics. This not only covers the twilight cursed world but also a handful of prestige classes that correspond to the setting, a new Combat Alchemist class, a complete new set of deities, new equipment material, new magical weapons, and new races. There are other mechanics associated with these as well including spells and abilities. Not only is everything properly described and detailed, but they are very interesting and can make for great new PCs. My favorite of all these are the new prestige classes and races because they fit very well within the fluff and feel of the setting.

Desire to Play: 8 out of 10
One major factor driving a GMs desire to use Realms of Twilight or a player’s desire to immerse themselves in it, is its unique design. It primarily takes epic fantasy and turns it on its head placing the PCs in the midst of adventure after the world has fallen on perilous times. There are new races to choose from and new prestige classes as well. However, the one thing Realms of Twilight neglects is to address how other races and archetypes are directly involved in the setting or by providing even minute mechanics to make them distinct PCs. While this shouldn’t deter ones desire to play within Realms of Twilight, it may require the players to spend more time developing their character’s through standard game-play (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing).

Overall: 8 out of 10
Realms of Twilight is an excellent setting filled with a great amount of fluff and dimension and a completely different take on the epic fantasy genre. The direction the setting takes is unique and fresh and filled with loads of potential. While great adventures can easily be created, a grand campaign to restore the sun to the sky is not only epic in nature but filled with role-playing potential and devastating combat. An absolutely grandiose feat!

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