Magic is in all places on the earth 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 guide, Artefacts of Energy, implies the guide goes to be chock stuffed with magic objects 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 guide 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 difficult than that. Does Artefacts of Energy gentle up the creativeness? Let’s play to seek out out.
The primary chapter of the guide digs into realmstones. Most Warhammer gamers are conversant in warpstone, the Chaos-cursed materials that powers all kinds of nasty gadgets for the dangerous 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 supply an extra energy supply for chaos and one which’s a void-flavored stone that cancels out the others. Some dialogue is had about what establishing weapons with these stones can do to vary 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 principle weak point of the guide. The principles for establishing 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 Loss of life will want that guide for detailed guidelines on learn how to make these things themselves..
Subsequent we transfer on to minor artifacts and learn how to purchase them. The guide particulars a number of realmstone powered artifacts for inspiration with a dialogue how one such merchandise results in a participant’s stock. It may very well be so simple as discovering out a market that sells this stuff, however the guide encourages different choices, like prying them out of enemy fingers or searching for them out within the unexplored areas of the Mortal Realms. The descriptions are flavorful, even for objects 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 searching for inspiration can use the gathering of random charts to roll on for inspiration for the following unusual magic merchandise the gamers should search out. The guide ends with a brief dialogue on Realmgates, which is smart given the dialogue on Realmstone, however looks like it is perhaps a greater match for a guide on leaping by the completely different realms.
The most effective chapter within the guide focuses on Historical Relics, that are Soulbound’s strongest magic objects. 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 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 like a stable relic looking 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 following time Chaos tries to destroy the universe feels like an epic story to inform. The relics are framed with the concept that they’re of restricted use.: As soon as the risk 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 like a straightforward approach to do that. There’s a brief sidebar that discusses learn how to take the relics out of play however I would have favored to see extra dialogue from the designers on learn how to 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 guide. There’s a bestiary with new monsters and a piece that goes into one of the 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 guide, 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 dangerous guys or one thing like that. However these spells are also laborious to solid and, if the roll fails, can turn out to be one thing the gamers want to achieve 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 certain they don’t get out into the wild. It additionally provides some dialogue of a marketing campaign body that includes gamers looking 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.
