I thought that my Savage Worlds shopping was done for a while. Over the last month, I’ve picked up Legends of Steel, Hellfrost, Mars and Winterweir. Then found out that Ken Hite’s Day After Ragnarok would be coming out soon. Normally, I’m not that crazy about post apocalyptic settings but this one just looks so damn cool and original. Hell, it’s Ken Hite. Plus he’s more Cthuhlu stuff. Sweet.
But the Savage fun continues. I should be starting a Legends of Steel Campaign in a couple of weeks. More on that coming out this weekend.

I had this little project in the back of my mind the last few weeks. Well, I just got it done. Here’s the Big List of Savage Worlds licensees and resources. If I screwed up anything or just forgot to add someone just drop me a line.

I finally got my hands on my copy of the Hellfrost Player’s Guide from Triple Ace Games. This is a great supplement for just about any Savage Worlds fantasy campaign but I do have a couple reservations.
Hellfrost takes place in the land of Rassilon. The winters are growing longer and the growing seasons ever shorter. The far northern lands are a frozen wasteland. The culture of the civilized is based loosely on a pseudo-Viking type motif. That’s OK and I have no problem with it. But I think because I’m just getting so frustrated with Northrend in World of Warcraft the whole ice and Viking thing is just meh to me. One thing that did get kind of annoying was the Viking-isation of so many words. I can take seeing wizard spelled wisard only so many times before my inner spell checker starts to twitch.
Hellfrost brings us half a dozen races. It’s pretty much your standard array tweaked to fit into the world. You have humans, Frost Dwarves, two kinds of Elves and Engro. The Engro are pretty much just Halflings by another name. Then there’s the Frost Born. These are pretty much icy guys. Interesting but they penalties when it starts to get warm. There’s a few instances of this through out the rules. Is it too warm? Is it too cold? One character might take a bonus or penalty depending on the temperature. As a GM, this something that I really don’t feel like keeping track of.
Another minor annoyance is that there are a few too many references to other books. Hellfrost is going to have a three book core set; the Player’s Guide, the Gazetteer and the Bestiary. Most of the references are to the Bestiary. Be it either items or monsters. The Awaken War Tree Power doesn’t do you much good if you don’t know the stats for a War Tree. I know each book can only be so long before it becomes too expensive. And I think it’s OK to have some references to the other books. But there are just a few too many for my tastes.
This may sound like I’m bashing Hellfrost. I’m not. This game really shines when it comes to the crunch. This book has the most well written pantheon for Savage Worlds that I’ve seen. Each god is detailed with minor, major and mortal sins. This is key to running spell casting clerics in Savage Worlds. The arcane magic system is also a gem. This system doesn’t use Power Points. Instead it uses Siphoning. You don’t have to worry about keeping track of the costs of casting spells. Instead, you really have to worry if blow a spell casting roll.
Like most Savage Worlds supplements, Hellfrost has a slew of new Edges, Hindrances and Powers. There’s plenty of new Edges to enhance the new arcane magic system. Another real gem is the Disciple Edges. These give special little tricks to clerics of based on their god. Since there is no one in the world knows who to make permanent magic items, there’s the Alchemist Edge to make one shot items like scrolls and potions. There’s also Hedge Magic which really isn’t magic. This is whole system for Herbalism and its various uses.
The Hellfrost Player’s Guide is really worth the money. While the setting itself left me kind of cold (hehe, sorry about the pun) the crunch contained is a great addition to any style of Savage Worlds fantasy campaign.