| RPG Review: "Races of the Shroud: The Apelord" |
[Oct. 7th, 2008|12:31 am] |
Reviewed by Kynn Bartlett <kynn@kynn.com>
Publisher: One Bad Egg
Writers: Fred Hicks, Lee Hammock
Cost: $1.99
Format: 12 page PDF
Summary: The Apelord, a race mini-handbook for 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons, is well-written and laid out well, but suffers from two flaws. First, it skates dangerously close to a number of racist tropes that have historically equated blacks and apes; and second, it presents a very shallow view of a race which isn't particularly useful or even interesting as a player character option.
Grades:
Production Quality: A-
Usefulness: C-
Game Mechanics: B-
Value: B+
Overall Impression: C+
"Races of the Shroud: The Apelord" is the first new product released by One Bad Egg, a publisher of game supplements for the 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons game. Like nearly anything laid out by Fred Hicks, this is a good-looking little PDF file with attractive presentation and fonts. It sticks close to the format provided by Wizards of the Coast in D&D, without sacrificing readability or playability.
"The Apelord" is a race book; it provides an overview of the apelord race first in player character format, with associated feats and powers, and then several monster writeups for encounters with apelords both living and undead. "Apelord" concludes with several adventure ideas to inspire DMs and players alike.
Apelords were once normal apes living in arctic forests far to the north, until the day the mysterious fog of the Shroud rent the world and gifted the apes with human levels of intelligence. They roam the mists of the Shroud, having been driven from their homelands by the walking dead.
Overall, I like the concept, even if I'm not a big fan of apes in general. Yeah, that whole Silver Age of comics thing with monkeys on the cover? Never worked on me. But here it works; apelords have an interesting backstory and are conceptually kind of neat.
It's the implementation that I've got problems with -- I think they fell into too many "pulp" tropes about apes while writing this book. Those have the potential for danger even in a pulp game like Hicks' "Spirit of the Century" (with One Bad Egg partner Rob Donoghue), and in a D&D game product you can't fall back on the racism of the 1920s as a justification.
Apelords and racial subtext
This is the part where I may lose -- or even offend -- some of you, and I want to emphasize that it's not my intention to cast Hicks and Hammock as some kind of sheet-wearing bigots. But I do think they stepped in something, unintentionally, and it's worth a second look at some of the assumptions made along the way. There is some context that bears examination.
That context consists of centuries of white European depictions of Africans as monkeys, apes, gorillas -- and vice versa. Western society has a very racist past (including the pulp era!), and as such it's worth evaluating whether certain depictions, even in roleplaying games, are playing into those racist stereotypes or are working to fight them.
In this case, I think "Apelords" has bought into many of those stereotypes and the apelords have some qualities that make them coded surrogates for native Africans. Specifically, the way they're presented in the text fits in with a lot of Western stereotypes of the way people in Africa live -- as well as having direct analogues for many African-American experiences.
In some ways, that's going to be inescapable when writing about a "less civilized" race, especially since the systems of exploitation and imperialism that affected Africa were not unique to that continent, but have been reflected many times over around the globe to varying degrees. However, it's only the African experience that routinely has been compared to apes in Western popular culture (although racist depictions of "Japs" as monkeys in World War II comes close), and the parallels between Africans and apelords are not easily dismissed as mere coincidences.
Apelords have "the minds of men," we're told, but it's emphasized again and again that they employ "savage fury" and "cannot hide their animal ancestry." Their "bestial fury" makes them "terrifying in combat" as they "beat[] opponents into a bloody pulp with nothing more than their bare hands." The text places a big emphasis on the "ape" part of "intelligent ape" but little on the "intelligent;" seemingly still uncivilized despite their human level of intellect, the apelords wander around in tribes and worship their ancestors, whose ashes they carry around in gourds. The illustrations show apelords wielding swords, but it's not explained how the apelords have acquired the chainmail armor or short swords listed in the monster stats.
The apelords are described as having a very "young" culture with no history and no language of their own. They speak Common (the tongue of humans in D&D) and no other languages; apparently they learned it after becoming intelligent. A list of names is given for apelords, although without their own language or any racial history, many of them just appear to be phrases in Common, such as "He Who Walks Above" or "Keeper of the Snow Road." Others are fantasy names like "Grash fal Dun," "Raril isn Kroth," "Tai bal Sorias" and "Alya isn Huril." (Do those sound kind of ... Muslim to you?)
Apelord culture is very community-based and has numerous rules, although none are listed save for showing respect to elders. There's no crime, and the apelord racial characteristics are described in these terms: "Ferocious, nomadic, powerful, proud, respectful, self-reliant, traditional, tribal."
There are no apelord homelands, as they wander nomadically. The apelords were driven from their forests by necromancers who seek to enslave them through reanimation as corrupted undead.
Taken together, these qualities paint a picture of African-Americans: Introduced to civilizing intelligence that brought them away from their "savage" ancestors and up against the threat of slavery, the apelords are cut off from their past and adopt the language and names of the humans nearby (and please keep in mind that in most fantasy settings, and apparently this one as well, "humans" are racially coded as medieval Europeans).
The characteristics keywords of the race -- "ferocious, proud, tribal," etc. -- are straight out of the "noble savage" stereotype.
What's more, the apelords are presented as having little ability to fight back effectively against the encroachment of the necromancers and other humans, and are depicted as running away from most of the fights; they're nomadic not because they've chosen to be, but because they're victims -- and they need to be rescued by the player characters. Please keep in mind that throughout the D&D rulebooks, the various races such as dwarves, elves, halflings, and dragonborn are not presented in this manner. Player character races are invariably depicted as capable, effective, and independent, not as monkeys running scared.
The adventure ideas include everything from saving the apelords from imperialistic humans who hunt them for their pelts to saving apelords from being captured for a zoo by Duke Marcus Reman. Well, not quite in either case -- the suggested adventure hooks are for the player characters to be hired to hunt the apelords in both scenarios.
Further echoes of stereotypes related to African-Americans include angry youth gangs of apelords who "lash out at anyone whom the young apelords perceive as having a better life than they." A scholar trying to understand how apelords evolved from their unintelligent ape predecessors is performing medical experiments on the apelords. It's hard to view these parallels as simply accidental, although it's easy to imagine it might have been a subconscious process.
Again, I'm not saying that the writers of "Apelord" are bigots; but I do think that the love of the pulp genre and an unthoughtful assumption of cultural tropes about apes (and Africans) led to some questionable decisions. If apelords aren't meant to represent fictionalized Africans, then maybe some of these factors should be changed -- and if the parallels are intentional, I suggest that the authors reconsider the wisdom of equating apes with African cultures in light of the historical record on that front.
Apelords as player characters
This book is sold as a race book that allows players to create apelord characters if they want to "look like a gorilla" or "play a highly mobile, acrobatic character," and at first glance it seems to support that goal. Further examination, however, belies that initial impression, and I'd say that "Apelord" is not nearly as useful as it could be as a gaming supplement for D&D players.
The biggest problem -- briefly touched on above -- is that the "fierce, intelligent apes" are all about being fierce and apes, but little about being intelligent.
All of their abilities -- bonuses to physical ability scores, increased movement, physical skills, the racial power, and more -- are related to being strong ol' monkeys. All the feats are about monkey abilities: Arms Like Maces, Fast Climber, Nocturnal Blood, Prehensile Feet, Tall-Tree Tumbler, and Ape From Above. In a way, that's somewhat unavoidable given 4th edition D&D's emphasis on combat, but even so, there's not much to the apelords besides being apes.
Do they create anything themselves? What do they think about? What's it like to be an apelord? What goals do they have and how are their tribes organized? What do they think of humans and the other intelligent races? What do they think of their pre-Shroud ancestors? Enterprising players or DMs can fill in these details, but when you're paying for something, even if it's only two bucks, you're going to need a little more to work with than what "Apelord" offers.
I understand that on some level, the authors of "Apelord" wanted to keep the details vague enough to allow the material to be plugged into an existing campaign. I do agree with that concept, but I also think that there needs to be enough substance to give a GM or a player something to work with. When it comes to delivering on the basics for a playable D&D race, "Apelord" doesn't pull it off.
Here's a good example of what I'm talking about: the race, like those in the Player's Handbook, lists classes that work well as apelords. "Play an apelord if you want to be a member of a race that favors the fighter, ranger, and rogue classes." That's all well and good, but what if you want to play against type, as many people do, and play an apelord wizard, cleric, warlock, warlord, or paladin? There's a gaping hole in "Apelord" in that it doesn't even touch on any other classes or give the barest hints as to how those classes could work within the apelord culture.
All of the apelord racial abilities are geared toward those three classes (fighter, ranger, and rogue), making them effectively one-note: either you're a bouncy jumping combat monkey, or why would you play this class? The preponderance of abilities in that direction come close to making apelords a requirement if you're looking for a race with bonuses to Strength and Dexterity. Why would a would-be fighter or rogue not play an apelord?
Religion is nearly skipped over, save for foggy references to the Walker in Mist -- a god, an ancestor, a spirit, something else? "Apelord" doesn't dwell on this, making any divine or religious characters hard to play without just making up whatever the player or DM decides. And if you're going to do that much work, why buy a product, no matter how inexpensive?
I would have enjoyed seeing more about apelord culture, including an examination of the roles of Speaker and Ashbringer, the only real positions or roles within apelord tribes that were specifically mentioned. Speakers are leaders of the tribes, according to a DC 20 check against Nature (what, are they animals?), and have spirit-summoning powers -- so I guess they're not really warlords then, but are they clerics? Ashbringers carry the mortal remains of their ancestors and are always under attack; sounds like they'd make good paladins. In neither case will "Apelord" point you in a direction or suggest how to play an Ashbringer or Speaker.
Rituals would be nice to have. Weapons or equipment unique to the apelords would rock. Deities, please! Some ideas about how apelords can fit into a standard world of other adventuring races would be very helpful and make apelords much more plug-and-play in existing campaigns.
I'd like to see more about apelord intelligence and how it's shaped their new society; just a few generations back they were dumb monkeys in trees, and now they're as smart as anyone else. What about some curiosity? Where are the apelord wizards digging out the lost mysteries of the woodhavens and branchroads? The apelord warlocks who make unwise pacts in the fogs of the Shroud? The first apelords became intelligent and somehow learned to speak Common from humans (what? how did the first apelords speak to each other before listening to humans?); are they natural linguists or something? Perhaps they should be given a bonus language besides simply Common, if they're just that good.
I want to see something about the apelords that isn't just standard monkey-in-a-tree -- a quirky characteristic, an unexpected ability, something which says more than simply "optimized for leaping out of trees and smacking things around." I didn't really see it; they're pretty generic "intelligent" apes with nearly a full page devoted to feats making them even better at leaping out of trees and smacking things around.
There were some bits lacking in game mechanics as well. Apelords are described as having "a thick layer of fur that they rely on to survive the cold of their arctic homeland," but I was surprised to see they lack any sort of resistance to cold. The Rending Blows racial power seems almost useless for most rangers -- one of the key classes for the race -- and it doesn't scale well with level, meaning that the attack will quickly become useless when moving out of the Heroic tier.
Racial feats attempt to improve on the inborn racial abilities, but as noted before, most of these deal with jumping out of trees on top of enemies. It gives the impression that the authors wanted to grant a lot of bonuses to apelords but couldn't quite justify them without overpowering the race, so added them on as feats.
As far as overpowering goes, I think the authors need to reconsider the Climb movement speed that all apelords receive. I understand the intent, but I suspect they may have confused the 4th edition version of Climb with the earlier 3rd edition. A Climb movement speed in 4e means that an apelord never makes a Climb check, even if climbing a DC 30 slippery, unusually smooth brick wall. Like a giant spider, they can undoubtedly walk upside-down on the top of a ceiling and drop onto their targets -- there's no reason for an apelord not to do this, as written. (And no, I have no idea why the apelord stalker written up as a monster is carrying climbing gear; what's he need a +2 bonus for?)
Other mechanics break some of the unwritten rules of 4th edition. I haven't seen a race before with a racial power that's an encounter attack power, for example. The paragon-tier racial feat Ape From Above gives a racial power that "replace[s] one of your standard encounter attack powers" -- but except for Divinity powers, no feats give you extra or replacement powers; there's no such thing as a "feat power" which is how Ape From Above! is identified. [correction] That's the only paragon-tier feat, and requires the Tall-Tree Tumbler feat as well; in general, paragon-tier racial feats don't have such heavy prerequisites. By the way, the Ape From Above! attack can't be combined with an unarmed attack or the Rending Blows racial (attack) power, as written; no idea if this is a bug or a feature.
I'd have liked to have seen a paragon path or three. A racial multiclass option would have worked for the feats-and-extra-powers setup the authors were going for. It's probably too much to ask for a unique epic destiny, but one can dream, right?
To sum up: Apelords are too pidgeonholed by their game mechanics as just monkeys who drop out of trees; there's nothing about playing apelords as various classes besides the three they're over-optimized for (no existing races have only physical bonuses); the feats need some re-examination along with some of the game mechanics that bend the rules; and there's nothing about paragon paths, rituals, or equipment, making the write-up of the race much less attractive for long-term play.
Recommendation?
I think this is a good try at a third-party 4th edition race book, and it's packaged slickly and affordably. If you want to play a monkey and just want the game mechanics for doing that, this may be what you're looking for -- especially if your concept is dropping out of trees onto people. "I'm a mokey, and I can talk!" "Okay, and...?" "...and I'm a monkey! And I talk!" "...okay then."
If you're a DM looking for some low-level monsters, "Apelord" gives you a few heroic-level encounters to use, with both the apes and their undead versions; the evil necromancers make no appearances here, despite repeated mention in the text, so you'll have to roll your own there.
Looking to add an interesting new race to your campaign? I'd say that this isn't the product for you -- there's simply not enough work done yet on developing the apelords, both culturally and in terms of gameplay. Maybe I've got high standards, and that may be unreasonable for a $1.99 product, but this doesn't meet the plug-in requirements I'm looking for in terms of a race that I'd like to add to my game.
I don't think I wasted my money on "Apelord," but I also don't think I got a great bargain, either. I could probably find game stats for other races just as easily on a bulletin board, minus the excellent formatting work, and I'd have to do just about as much work to to fill out the race. Except I'd have enough money for Pepsi afterward.
The racial undertones are obvious to me, but perhaps not to everyone; I think the admitted reliance on "pulp" tropes led the authors astray. I hope that the development team at One Bad Egg thoughtfully considers this criticism and exercises a bit more care on future products.
My overall recommendation is Neutral. It's not garbage, it's not great. I'm looking forward to seeing what One Bad Egg produces in the future; I know they can do better.
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