Magic is in all places on the planet of Soulbound: Age of Sigmar. The characters are touring by the Mortal Realms, every one suffused by one of many Winds of Magic. Many of those characters have been created by magic, such because the Fyreslayers or the Stormcast Eternals. The title of the latest Soulbound e-book, Artefacts of Energy, implies the e-book goes to be chock stuffed with magic gadgets for the gamers to hunt, use and destroy. Artefacts of Energy designers Emmet Byrne, Michael Duxbury, Jordan Goldfarb, Elaine Lithgow, Martin Lloyd, Sarah Madsen, Dave Rudden and KC Shi put collectively a e-book that appears at how magic works within the Mortal Realms. After studying the evaluate copy despatched by Cubicle 7, I can report it’s a bit extra sophisticated than that. Does Artefacts of Energy mild up the creativeness? Let’s play to seek out out.
The primary chapter of the e-book digs into realmstones. Most Warhammer gamers are accustomed to warpstone, the Chaos-cursed materials that powers all types of nasty gadgets for the unhealthy guys of the Warhammer universe. Every of the eight Mortal Realms will get their very own model within the Age of Sigmar setting and their properties are mentioned right here. Along with the realmstones, two extra stones are detailed that provide a further energy supply for chaos and one which’s a void-flavored stone that cancels out the others. Some dialogue is had about what setting up weapons with these stones can do to alter their effectiveness or how gamers would possibly hunt these uncommon ores to make a killing within the magic stone mining enterprise. Whereas this chapter was informative and inspirational, it additionally tricks to the primary weak point of the e-book. The foundations for setting up weapons and armor are in Metal & Steam, so Soulbound teams who need to make a dagger infused with the Grand-Sand of the realm of Dying will want that e-book for detailed guidelines on how one can make these things themselves..
Subsequent we transfer on to minor artifacts and how one can purchase them. The e-book particulars a number of realmstone powered artifacts for inspiration with a dialogue how one such merchandise leads to a participant’s stock. It may very well be so simple as discovering out a market that sells this stuff, however the e-book encourages different choices, like prying them out of enemy arms or in search of them out within the unexplored areas of the Mortal Realms. The descriptions are flavorful, even for gadgets that may very well be reskinned as various things. A Lightning Battery, for instance, may very well be a dragon coronary heart, a talisman dedicated to Sigmar and even an electrical eel discovered within the Deep. Recreation masters in search of inspiration can use the gathering of random charts to roll on for inspiration for the subsequent unusual magic merchandise the gamers should hunt down. The e-book ends with a brief dialogue on Realmgates, which is smart given the dialogue on Realmstone, however looks as if it is perhaps a greater match for a e-book on leaping by the completely different realms.
One of the best chapter within the e-book focuses on Historic Relics, that are Soulbound’s strongest magic gadgets. Every merchandise will get a full web page write-up and illustration explaining the historical past and powers of every merchandise. Then there’s a brief journey offered to let Recreation Masters drop the merchandise into an present marketing campaign. These relics are stuffed with the excessive fantasy taste that I really like in Soulbound, starting from a cursed portray with a hyperlink to a realm of residing shadow to a sword that may blast a Chaos champion with the wrath of Sigmar himself. It finally ends up at 20 relics which looks as if a stable relic searching marketing campaign by itself. Gathering them for Sigmar and placing these things in his model of the warehouse on the finish of Raiders of the Misplaced Ark for the subsequent time Chaos tries to destroy the universe seems like an epic story to inform. The relics are framed with the concept they’re of restricted use.: As soon as the menace they’re wanted to defeat is lifeless, they’re meant to return to their native realm. Giving them to Sigmar on the finish of the story looks as if a simple approach to do that. There’s a brief sidebar that discusses how one can take the relics out of play however I would have appreciated to see extra dialogue from the designers on how one can take these toys away with out making the gamers really feel like all their laborious work was for nought.
The final sections actually tip Artefacts of Energy into feeling like its extra of a GM e-book. There’s a bestiary with new monsters and a piece that goes into one of the crucial flavorful threats within the setting. Infinite Spells are spells that, for no matter motive, obtained uncontrolled of the unique caster and now roam the realms by feeding off all of the nascent magical energy within the setting. The one Infinite Spell within the core e-book, Purple Solar of Shyish, is explored in additional element together with a dozen others. Gamers have entry to those spells ought to they need them and, admittedly, casting them does give that feeling of the large cutscene spell in a pc RPG the place an angel plucks a meteorite out of the sky to smash down on the unhealthy guys or one thing like that. However these spells are also laborious to forged and, if the roll fails, can develop into one thing the gamers want to realize management of once more. It’s an fascinating little bit of threat and reward, however I can see tables swearing off these spells simply to make sure they don’t get out into the wild. It additionally provides some dialogue of a marketing campaign body that includes gamers searching down these spells which have gone on lengthy after the unique caster has perished.
Artefacts of Energy provides Age of Sigmar: Soulbound Recreation Masters some perception into how magic works on this excessive powered setting together with a number of nice choices for antagonists and plot hooks.
