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ffuturesHistorica Arcanum
https://bundleofholding.com/presents/HistoricaArcanum
This Historica Arcanum Bundle presents the Historica Arcanum historical-fantasy campaign settings from Turkish publisher Metis Creative for Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition and compatible systems. The Historica Arcanum timeline spans many centuries. In the alternate 13th Century of Empires of the Silk Road, magic is dangerous, unstable, and tightly controlled. North of the Silk Road, the Khanate of the Eternal Blue Sky is rising; to the west, impoverished Crusader Kings covet the Road's treasures; between them, in the Sultanate of Persia, the warlock Hasan Sabbah and his Hashashin Order pit kingdoms against one another in a deadly game. Then jump forward to the alternate 19th-Century Istanbul (not Constantinople!) of The City of Crescent. In this capital of the crumbling Ottoman Empire, rooftop chases atop coffee parlors lead adventurers to bustling bazaars, through mighty palaces, and down to deadly catacombs. (Metis Creative fills out the timeline still further in their next Kickstarter, Historica Arcanum: Era of the Crusades.)
The Historica Arcanum sourcebooks are enchanted reworks of real-world culture and history. In this sensitive time, with cultural appropriation a flashpoint, the Metis Creative designers (Sarp Duyar, Doğa Can Sayılkan, Duru Berkman, Mehmet Onur Kart, and Fatih Şahinbaş) addressed the topic in their highly successful September 2022 Empires of the Silk Road Kickstarter campaign: "Ignoring the world's cultures, due to fear of contributing to stereotypes, is just as dangerous as the stereotypes themselves – because those cultures are not accessible to the players who genuinely want to immerse themselves in those worlds. Nobody, quite frankly, dares to make content for these amazing cultures, and consequently, players don't get exposed to anything new other than what the current perspective deems 'safe.' This is the status quo we want to challenge.
"The world of Historica Arcanum is an authentic and well-researched guide to these cultures, written by people who live there – helped by great historians and anthropologists who have been passionately researching these diverse geographies. You can use Empires of the Silk Road and Herald of Rain to introduce your table to the cultural settings of the Silk Road without fear of misrepresenting."
Beautifully illustrated and handsomely presented, the Arcanum line brings lots of regional flavor to 5E. Empires of the Silk Road features an Overhauled Land Travel system, rules for plagues, 12 new subclasses (djinnbound barbarians, College of Scent bards, Chaos clerics, Fire Sage monks, Mirage Seeker rangers, Stone Scribe wizards, and more), new professions (Beast Tamer, Ecclesiastic, Grave Robber, Tinker), and a bestiary with 40+ monsters inspired by myth and folklore. The City of Crescent Profession customization system adds an extra layer of narrative depth to player character backstories.
But none of that is the line's real focus. Notwithstanding the range of materials in each Historica Arcanum product line – excellent maps, virtual tabletop tokens, event cards, soundtracks, and The City of Crescent even has a cookbook chapter with actual kitchen recipes – the published scenarios focus tightly on individual characters. Metis Creative's ambitious founder, Sarp Duyar, wrote about the company's character-centered approach (among many other matters) in a candid October 2022 blog post, "For Those Who Want to Publish TTRPGs and Be Decent at it": "You don't need 20 villages, five cities, four countries, and a million playable dungeons to make a great adventure. The great adventure starts with your NPCs. After the dust is settled, NPCs and their interactions will be what your players remember. [...] For us, the [NPC] can't ever be the generic Middle Eastern guy with the long face and the nose, who appears in every goddamn movie and says to a cast of European/North American characters, 'Welcome, my friends!' in a very thick accent. You need memorable NPCs with rock-solid motivations and world-views that may change through the campaign with player input." Once you have these, he says, the game writes itself.
This all-new offer presents the entire Historica Arcanum line for an unbeatable bargain price. In magical counterparts to real landmarks, meeting historical figures and fighting monsters from authentic Central Asian legend, you'll solve mysteries, intrigue among factions, and shape the arcane history of the Historica Arcanum universe. Hide your inhuman features, whisper incantations, delve ancient ruins to uncover artifacts of raw power, and plot the downfall of empires.
We provide each title complete in .PDF or MP3 audio. Like all Bundle of Holding titles, these ebooks have NO DRM (Digital Restrictions Management), and our customers are entitled to move them freely among all their devices.
The total retail value of the 5E sourcebooks and campaigns in this Historica Arcanum Bundle is US$70. Customers who pay just US$17.95 get all three titles in our Historica Arcanum Collection (retail value $70) as DRM-free ebooks, including the complete 259-page Empires of the Silk Road campaign setting (retail price $25), along with the maps, tokens, wallpapers, and soundtrack in its Digital Library; the 226-page Silk Road campaign Herald of Rain (retail $25); and the 413-page Istanbul city sourcebook The City of Crescent (retail $20), along with its Map Pack, Wallpaper Pack, and Soundtrack Album.
This is a very interesting idea, supported by an impressive amount of material including audio recordings, and makes me wish that I like fantasy RPGs more than I do. I suspect that a good few fantasy and SF authors could benefit from some of the research that has gone into into it. At this price it's a real bargain.
