This article originally appeared in d20 Weekly

Engel

Engel: Corebook

Published by Sword and Sorcery Studios

Written by Oliver Graute and Oliver Hoffmann

Translated by Ole Johan Christiansen and Thomas Plischke

Illustrated by Dieter Jüdt

Cartography by Tobias Mannewitz

274-page hardback; $29.95

The publisher of Engel, Feder & Schwert, got its big start by translating White Wolf's games and supplements into German. Now in a reverse of this norm, one of its games has come the other way and been published in English. Engel though, is not published by White Wolf, but instead under their large d20 System imprint, Sword and Sorcery Studios. Like their previous Everquest RPG, Engel is not d20 System compliant, but instead falls under the terms of the Open gaming License. Thus this volume is truly a core book for the setting and does not require access to the Player's Handbook.

Before proceeding any further it should be pointed out that to make this a true and fair review of Engel, a number of secrets and spoilers that lie at the heart of the setting will have to be revealed. Be warned -- there are major spoilers below! For those wishing to avoid even a hint of them in zipping straight to the concluding paragraph, Engel can be simply summed up thusly: An intriguing and well-realized setting with fantastic secrets, solid support in detailed NPCs, but let down by a lack of direction for the GM (in other words, "How do I run this?"), a wholly inadequate bestiary, and an application of the d20 mechanics that feels underpowered for the game. It should . . .

This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.



Article publication date: January 15, 2003

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