[Gavken]

My copy arrived today and I've only skim read bits but I cannot see how the reviewer can give this product 5/5, particularly with having no Index, mediocre art and (in my opinion- a poor layout).

Let me post some of my issues with the game as it stands.

* The art is mediocre at best and in places is often inappropriate for the setting. Many bits seem to have been culled from open source and some of the pencil drawings are just poor quality.
* Whilst the descriptions of the various flora and fauna are quite good, they lack in many details. In a world quite so different there are loads of things I'd like to know about these things. How big are they? What do they eat? Are they a danger to people? Good art pictures of the creatures in the setting would really have helped here.
* The history of the various cultures is laughable. Most of them are half a page long and do not contain any detail on relative dates. So we are having to make these details up ourselves. the history of Sha-Ka is just 4 lines long!
* We are not really told what a day is or how it is measured. There is no reference to the currencies used to trade (which is supposedly a big part of the system) and no idea what things cost. I object to paying £20 for a setting where I have to make up half of the stuff myself.
* We have about 4 pages at the back of the book that are adverts for Evil Hat production stuff. Presumably this is where the index would have gone. Contrary to what the reviewer says this is actually needed in the book as the contents are not comprehensive.
* Muskets and how to handle ranged weapons are not really given in the rules and some suggestions how to handle them are posted on P263. There is no concept of range and reloading these things in the rules.

These are just things I've found out on a skim read. So in conclusion I really would disagree on the 5/5 rating given by the reviewer. I would give it 4 for style and 3 for substance.

By the way I also have Spirit of the Centuary by Evil hat which I think is excellent.