Review: Hall of Judgment

Hall of Judgment

Hall of Judgment is an expansion and rewrite of Lost Hall of Tyr for Dungeons and Dragons 5e.

Executive Summary: Hall of Judgment is an interesting, Viking themed adventure with enhanced survival and grappling systems, a variety of sample characters to control, and challenges to face. A worthy first foray into third-party content for the Dungeon Fantasy RPG from SJ Games.

I am a conservative grader and give it 6/10.

The Foreword and Preface were short and interesting, drawing the reader into the 120 pages of the book itself. This is only the second Kickstarter ever I’ve participated in, the first was the Dungeon Fantasy RPG from SJ Games that this product supports. And Hall of Judgment has a Viking theme which seems cool. It is also my first ever product from Gaming Ballistic, though I read Douglas Cole’s blog and his The Deadly Spring article may very well be the Pyramid article that I’ve gotten the most use out of ever.

The town of Isfjall and its surroundings is an interesting place and the first map in the book. It feels lived in and gives you information on how it is to live there. In honor, law, and tradition. As well as what you can get your hands on and for how much.

The Journey tells us how we get where we’re going and what we can expect on the way. Each of these things is described in their own paragraph, classified as animals and men, locations and weather, and conflict! And there’s a very useful section on Wilderness Survival that could be handy anywhere, letting you know what you need, how much you can get from animals you hunt on the way, and how you get it, as well as how you deal with temperature and weather.

The Logiheimli Ruins can be explored and we are provided with another map. Lohiheimli means Law Home and was a village, the fortress of a jarl, and a temple to the Law God. Each area is then described and classified, informing us of the Challenge, Concealed, Alternatives, and/or Reward of the area in question. So that we know what each area is, what is troubling it, what’s not readily apparent, and what we get out of saving the day. But a little more detail could in some cases have been helpful for the novice GM.

Dómstóllinn has a map of the area around the Hall of Judgment. Like the Logiheimli Ruins, each area is described and classified with Challenge, Concealed, Alternatives, and/or Reward. Though one of them is instead divided into Prepare, Protect, Perceive, and Puncture.

Nordalf Warrens have a number of maps describing each of the warrens. The tradition of describing and classifying each area with Challenge, Concealed, Alternatives, and/or Reward continued, giving the whole adventure a homogenized feel. Though some locations also had entries for Traps and more diversified rewards in Coins and Stuff.

In Fantastic Dungeon Grappling, a detailed grappling system is explored to enhance the vanilla of Dungeon Fantasy RPG. Those who use grappling in their games or want to use grappling in their games can find as much use of this chapter as hunters and survivalists could with the earlier Wilderness Survival section.

The Bestiary describes a number of different creatures sorted in eleven different classes: Animal, Dire Animal, Giant Animal, Demon, Elemental, Faerie, Hybrid, Mundane, Plant, Spirit, and Undead. As well as the traits the heroes can use to know about them and interact with them. And as suggested by the classification, there is a large and interesting variety of creatures to encounter, many of them with images of what they look like as well as the stats.

There are 16 Sample Characters, including one using the new Wrestler profession. All of the basic professions are included, including two Clerics, two Knights, and three Wizards. So there’s a lot of variety. There is a new trait, Specialist Magery, and a list of tasks the group should be able to complete so that they can prepare accordingly.

The volume then ends with a one page Index.

Blogging and Inspiration

Last year the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game was published by Steve Jackson Games. And the year before that, they started a Kickstarter for it. And the awesomeness it promised drew me there like a moth to a flame.

It was the first, and only, Kickstarter I’ve ever joined. They raised 76% more money then they had set out to do. But as international shipping costs a lot of money, I had not at first intended to join, but with a special set up they provided that lowered those costs and stretch goals that lowered them further, I decided to join anyway. And I ended up pledging more than I had intended because of the added value they provided in extra digital and physical products.

It took them a little longer than planned to deliver, but oh did they deliver. So much so that it inspired me to do things I have never done before.

Blogging

As I’m writing this here, let’s start with blogging. I did some blogging over at livejournal four years ago about playing Skyrim and Star Wars the Old Republic. It lasted two months and I had completely forgotten about it. Though when I was looking into where I would post my new blog, I had remembered them and looked there first. But I didn’t like their license agreement, so I looked elsewhere. I compared a few different sites and decided to do it here.

Suitably, my first blog post was DFRPG related, the town of Hot Newt where my DFRPG game takes place.

Now I’m working on Dragon Tablets, a fantasy RPG setting inspired by The Elder Scrolls and other sources, after the method used by Daniel Dover at Mailanka’s Musings to turn Star Wars into Psi-Wars. I was looking into the method much earlier than this to work on the Wheel of Time, but gathering all the material I want from the novels will take years, so that will come later. Perhaps as its own series, but perhaps as part of Dragon Tablets. We’ll see when we get there.

My intention was to post Dragon Tablet material once a week, on Thursdays, but now it seems that twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays, will be the schedule I’m going to follow. But as today is New Years Day, I decided to make a different kind of post and get the first Dragon Tablet post up tomorrow.

In addition to those, there may be other things I’ll blog about, just as I did with Hot Newt. It will likely be DFRPG and/or GURPS related, but we’ll see what the new year brings.

Youtube

My livejournal blog from four years ago was stuff most people probably would have made youtube videos about, but that was not something I was interested in doing back then. Not living in an English speaking country for the past 20 years has taken its toll on my accent and my active vocabulary. Even though I understand English as well as ever.

Now I’ve decided to start a Youtube channel anyway. It will mostly be me playing whatever video games I’m interested in at the time. I’m starting with a little bit of Star Wars the Old Republic and will continue with games such as Assassins Creed Origins, Star Wars Battlefront II, and Destiny 2. Most likely in that order.

It was my plan to post twice a week, on Friday and Saturday, with one game series running on Fridays and another game on Saturdays. But due to technical issues, it will only be once a week at first. As I’m only making a quick subscriber/free to play comparison on SWTOR and only playing the solo campaign on Battlefront II, those will not take very long.

Unboxing

Another thing I wanted to do was unboxing videos. I’m listing this separately from the above Youtube heading, even though these videos also would be posted there, because these videos need a camera.

And so I went looking for a camera. I found the TomTom Bandit, which looked very cool. I checked out some reviews and though it definitely wasn’t created for this type of recording, I saw myself using it when running too. The story of the overweight geek getting into shape kind of thing. The synergy sounded awesome. So I bought it.

As it turned out, the Bandit was completely useless for indoor unboxing videos. My phone was too old to link up with it, so it couldn’t be used as a screen during recording. And as the Bandit doesn’t have a screen on its own to show what you are recording, I needed that, I couldn't see what I was recording until I was done. And that didn't work very well. And for health reasons I haven’t been out running since I bought it, but hopefully, that will work out better later.

Math Geek and Motivations

As this blog post comes to its end, I would like to share a tidbit of my personal goals for the new year. I wouldn’t like to call it a New Years Resolution as in my experience those fail. I’ve decided to summarize it into the mathematical statement ${C} \choose {-S}$. But what that means, I will be keeping to myself.

Have a wonderful new year everyone!

Hot Newt

Hot Newt is the hometown for my heroes in the two adventures included in the new Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game box. I used GURPS City Stats and GURPS Mass Combat to create it.

Hot Newt
Population: 4,942 (Search -1)
Physical and Magical Environment
Terrain: Plains
Appearance: Attractive (+1)	Hygiene: 0
Normal Mana (Common Enchantment)
Culture and Economy
Language: Common	Literacy: Native
TL: DF
Wealth: Average	Status: -2 to 4
Political Environment
Government: Feudal, Municipality
CR: 3 (Corruption -2)
Military Resources: $69,188	Defense Bonus: +7
Notes The large town of Hot Newt was located on a busy trade route. And was important enough to be surrounded by a wall. To the west was the Black Sea, to the south was Green Bay, and to the east was Red River. To the south of Green Bay was the Pelagonian Desert, with its purple sand. East of Red River was the Yellow Forest, it had always had that name and no one remembered why. North of Hot Newt was Blue Grass Plain and its blue grass was especially nourishing to the flocks that fed there. All attempts to transplant the grass elsewhere had failed. The population was 88% human and a smattering of minorities. Hot Newt specialized in the ocean and its bounties, woodcraft, including shipbuilding, magic, and grass eating animals, such as cattle, horses, and sheep. Each got a +1 to the Search roll. The temples and cemetery were High Sanctity areas. There was a sewer system. There was an elected mayor who appointed a council of advisers to help her in making all decisions for the town. Members from all founding families were always appointed to the council and the founding families were influential in town politics, even if not on the council. There was an appointed Sheriff with 4 elements of good medium infantry, 2 elements of good Miners, and a militia of 6 elements of levy good bowmen and 12 elements of levy medium infantry. All troops had basic gear.