Tuesday, July 23, 2013

The Bloodstone Lands


The Bloodstone Lands (FR9) was written by RA Salvatore (of Drizzt, et al fame) in 1989.  It details Vaasa and Damara, two cold lands in north central Faerun.  It is as far north as the Savage Frontier but east rather than west of the Great Glacier.  It builds off of the "H" series of modules that culminate in H4- The Throne of Bloodstone. 

Bloodstone Lands are Vaasa and Damara.  Vaasa is SE of Great Glacier (GG borders Anauroch Desert to east).  Damara is SE of Vaasa.  Vaasa is humanoid wilderness.  (Mostly goblins).  The Bloodstone Lands are noteworthy for their supply of their namesake mineral.

Damara is fractured human kingdom with different factions trying to unite Damara.  There are two relatively equal strength factions that each control about half of Damara.  Although as written FR9 has a preference for one faction as “good guy” and another faction as “bad guy” it is written in such way that it would be easy to reverse the two.

Bloodstone Lands is a great product if you are looking for a campaign centered around a fractured kingdom/country and attempts to reunite that country.  RA Salvatore has gone into a fair amount of detail regarding the neighbors as well so the Bloodstone lands need not be run in a vacuum.  This is in some ways how FR9 really shines.  It would be easy to run adventures there because the surrounding area is well-defined beyond just Damara.  Defining a fractured kingdom is easy, dealing with its neighbors is much harder and RA Salvatore has made that work a lot easier.

Recommendation: 4 out 5 stars.  A great product for using not just collecting the whole FR series.

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