Review - Weird North
Because I lack a play group, I have been teaching myself through solitaire play. One of the most important factors in addition to learning whole new vocabulary and phraseology, is needing ways to GM and world build for myself, and due to this nature, random on-the-fly tools are necessary. And this is one reason Jim Parkin’s Weird North caught my attention. But more on that later.
Weird North: A Sword & Sorcery RPG of Picaresque Adventure acknowledges its rules-lite inspiration with front end thanks to Into the Odd, Electric Bastionland and The Black Hack 2e. Backdrop touchstones are Howard’s Cimmeria, Vance’s Dying Earth and Lieber’s Lankhmar. These flexible rules and remove from typical Euro-fantasy was another compelling reason to pick this up.
I printed out the small 43-page booklet and sat down to roll up characters. And it was fun!
- Roll three Attributes: Strength, Dexterity, Willpower
- Consult chart to find starting loadout
- Get some generic adventuring gear
- Roll your Archetype – get more gear
Having the starting loadout based on certain parameters is a cool way to flesh out a character. But it is the Archetype that really made this portion shine for me. Generative material is really great as regards providing springboards for the gaming. WN offers some interesting options that quite surprised me when all was said and done. I will only mention two of what I came up with, but there are six main options, with deeper variety within.
- a former butcher, who is now a Dirtfriend who comes with a pet bug! (I decided on praying mantis); Base: TASTE THE MANA – anything you consume reveals information about its source and power. Each player also rolls on a table that gives them a personal and potentially strong story driving quirk. Then comes the most defining element of character creations. Players choose one Prestige from a list of five; my butcher became a Ratmaven: All rats are your friends and perform simple tasks for you. Cats and dogs hate you. (this really clashed with another character)
- a cook, who is now a Curator; Base: LOST AND FOUND – you have an uncanny grasp of the basics regarding time-lost structures and objects; her quirk: driven by discovery of ancient power; and now she is a Quartermaster.
The amount of story these combinations of quirks and identity skills generate is jarring, unexpected, and they create a rather exciting path to follow. There is such a mix of mundane, gritty, and extraordinary all in the simple character creation. And these are only a few of the options. My Curator shows hints of a future looking for lost technology or mythos type ruins.
That being said, this is a low magic system. There are no spell lists, but in fact a FELL SORCERY table is the first thing you see upon opening. The character sheet has a “Corruption” graph that gets filled in. Magic use may gain you some adverse effect such as being unable to enter a home uninvited or spawning an evil shadow or eventually characters may take on SNAKE, DEMON or STRANGER aspects. After gaining several of these, your character warps into the full negative form of these aspects. Very compelling stuff!
After Enemies and Items pages, the last portion of this book is full of generators! A nice multi-functional encounter die; hooks, personas, dilemmas. There are also pocket realms, societies, artifacts, cults, and ancient machines. It is these occult and esoteric tables that I find lend this system its real depth. Though not full of magic, the world has the potential to be very magical. For “power source” one may roll up electricity, radiation, arcana or gold. Tables such as these have so much value as a solo player. I want to sit down, easily make characters, then traverse the world the game is set in. With the amount offered here, I can get going, be lead down any variety of path, and hopefully be surprised.
So far, the thing I struggle with is the difficult inventory. 10 slots are nice and simple. But from the get-go, you are told to divide general adventuring gear evenly amongst the party: illumination, climbing, camping, rations. They are all “bulky” (two slots). This is a little abstract for me, and then I ended up rolling bulky items from Archetype: my urn of salt takes up two slots! After the fine sausage? Cube of salt? And adventuring provisions, I have no slots left, and haven’t even stepped from the tavern, and this not including my mantis or silver sickle. This burdensome STUFF happened with each character. So no shield or bulky weapons? Just need to spend time with this and figure it out in play. Part of the game’s built in challenge.
After a nice and easy to use character sheet by Cosmic Orrery that is it. This seems like a cool game with all kinds of potential. It hits a nice balance of easy and quick, with depth and possibility. With a few other generative sources (Kevin Crawford’s Silent Legions or Ben Milton’s Maze Rats) this could create some unique gaming experience. I believe there may eventually be a print on demand version, so the numerous pieces of eclectic art within could really shine in their place. If Mr. Parkin decides to make this a formal print book, I think just a few extensions like one more character option and even deeper random generators at the back would be great; especially playing up the lost earth/lost mythos component could be really exciting. Parkin has done a lot of amazing work already and as it stands, I look forward to my Session 1 with this system.
The creator's site and introduction here:
https://d66kobolds.blogspot.com/2020/09/weird-north-is-live.html
Available at:
https://classless-kobolds.itch.io/weird-north
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