“No good fish goes anywhere without a porpoise!” ~ Lewis Carroll

One of the great things about Dungeons & Dragons is its adaptability to almost any adventure environment.  Whether you’re campaign is set in a mountain wilderness, or a feudal kingdom, or even a seaside port town, there is always room for ample adventure under the D&D rule set.

Personally, I have not run many aquatic-based campaigns, but have run my fair share of sea adventures, and have found them to be an excellent way of keeping heroes on their proverbial toes.  Underwater adventures, or even those on board a ship, can put Characters out of their comfort zone and force them to make creative use of their powers – or suffer the consequences!

But consider a race that would not be disadvantaged by a seaside campaign, or any other type of campaign for that matter.  Fahrenheit Gaming introduces a new Character race in Corners of the Realm: The Myrddin, an amphibious sentient species of eel-people.

Corners of the Realm: The Myrddin

• Designer: Amelia Ciffone
• Illustrations: Travis Harris (cover), Melanie Austin (interior)
• Publisher: Fahrenheit Gaming
• Year: 2009
• Media: PDF (15 pages)
• Price: $2.50

Corners of the Realm: The Myrddin is a supplement detailing a new playable Character Race designed for Dungeons & Dragons 4e, and usable in any campaign setting.  The supplement contains detailed descriptions regarding the Myrddin, including racial bonuses, abilities, and role-playing content to use when creating a Myrddin Player-Character.  There are also 4 new Racial Feats specific to the Myrddin, as well as an Artifact that is part of the Myrddin racial lore.  Finally, there are four examples of Myrddin NPCs, complete with stat blocks that can be used to challenge adventurers encountering the eel-folk for the first time.

The production quality of Corners of the Realm: The Myrddin is excellent, with statistics, encounter powers, feats, and other data presented in formats commonly seen in “official” products.  Illustrations of the Myrddin are disappointingly few, with only the cover art and a single interior sketch to convey the likeness of the race.  However, those two illustrations are also quite good, and it is a shame that there was not more renditions of the Myrddin in the supplement.

The physical capabilities of the Myrddin are fairly strong for a Player race, most notably the innate water breathing and a swim speed of 6, with no Athletics Skill Checks required to propel themselves through the water.  Surprisingly, they also have a “land” speed of 6, which seems unusually fast for a race that has no legs, and that wriggles about on its fin.

Physical Description

The Myrddin have a humanoid torso with the head and tail of an eel. They do not have legs, which forces them to slither upright on their tails when on land. They “stand” upright at about 5’-6’ and have another 2’-3’ of tail that stretches out behind them.

Myrddin eyes are small oval slits that are usually solid black in color. Their fingers are webbed, and they have gill slits along the sides of their necks in addition to lungs.

However, while their movement capabilities are potent, the most disturbing is their Racial Ability that the Myrddin possess is their Electric Sting Encounter Power.  This power is considerably more powerful than many the capabilities of other Player races, as it is able to dish out solid damage at a Range of 3 as a Minor action – and can stun the target for an entire round! 

Electric Sting (Myrddin Racial Power)

“Your tongue shoots forth, latching onto your foe. A current of electricity runs through to the edge before detaching itself.”

Given that a single Heroic Tier Racial Feat can increase this Encounter Power’s damage dice from d6 to d10, and a further Paragon Tier Feat can add an ongoing bleed 3 effect on top of the stun effect, and it is clear that the Myrddin racial encounter power is simply unbalanced.  Classes that benefit from gaining combat advantage, such as rogues, would be devastating with this encounter power, and Dungeon Masters would be well advised to consider if they are willing to have it in their campaigns.

The Author provides plenty of background, historical, and cultural information regarding the Myrddin, including their towns made of rafts called Flotillas. 

The Myrddin were once small tribes made up of extended families that lived along coasts and rivers. They lived off of fish and produced sturdy rafts, while they maintained a fairly quiet existence amongst other land dwelling races. Because of their eel like appearance however, the Myrddin were considered ugly or frightening by other races and were mistakenly thought to be monsters.

Land dwelling races hunted the Myrddin out of fear and a lust for their decorative hides. The Myrddin chose to withdraw from their homelands rather than fight back and were eventually driven out to sea. Once at sea, the individual family tribes lashed their vessels together to form larger colonies. These colonies formed the basis for the Flotillas.

Considering the potency of the Myrddins’ racial encounter power, it’s hard to imagine that they were effectively hunted by any land-dwelling race.  While their hides may be beautiful and decorative, harvesting them would be a very risky venture!

I was also surprised that there was no mention of any disadvantage that Myrddin experience on land.  Being an egg-laying, eel-like amphibian, I was expecting that Myrddin would have a distinct dependency on water, and a need to remain moist at all times.  The Author does not mention any disadvantage of this type, except for very young Myrddin, which means Myrddin are equally at home in an aquatic environment, as they would be roaming the halls of a dusty old dwarven ruin, or even across the sands of a desert! 

Consequently, with their racial encounter power, and their lack of disadvantages on both land and water, the Myrddin NPCs are frighteningly overpowered.  Their electric sting encounter power, even for a 2nd Level Soldier Myrddin is almost impossible to avoid, attacking at a whopping +13 vs. Reflex and delivering 1d10+3 damage, and the one round stun effect.  A group of angry Myrddin would most likely wipe out an equivalent level party in short order, especially if one of them were a controller, such as the Tribe Mother offered as an example in the supplement.

Regretfully, I cannot recommend purchasing Corners of the Realm: The Myrddin in its current form, despite a considerable amount of effort and some fine writing on the part of the Author.  Corners of the Realm: The Myrddin simply needs some major re-working to balance this race to make it reasonable for a Player to make a Myrddin Character.  While the “fluff” material is well written, and makes for a good read, the “crunch” needs some editing in order to make the Myrddin workable as either a Player Race or an NPC monster.  The racial encounter power needs to be toned down, and some consideration needs to be given to the logic of a race that can survive on both land and ocean with equal ease, and with no hindrances.   While I am sure that the Author had some concerns about making Myrddin weaker on land, and therefore less desirable as a Player race, it is actually more jarring to leave such disadvantages out of a race.  A well-designed Player race is desirable to make into a Character, despite a slight disadvantage – such as a need to carry some extra water to keep one’s amphibious skin wet.

So until next blog… I wish you Happy Gaming!

Editor’s Note: This Blog’s Author received a complimentary copy of the product in PDF format from which the review was written.

Tags: character, D&D 4e, race, review, rules variant

This entry was posted by Editor-in-Chief on Thursday, December 31st, 2009 at 10:23 am and is filed under RPG News & Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.