Empire of the East: Received

I had forgot i backed the kickstarter for this. I received the hard copy this morning (sitting at the local snowbound post office!), and the cover art and contents are terrific.

Quick breakdown before I need to get to work: relatively brief compared to some settings for DCC although much more is implied than given. Which is great. The flipside of the coin is that I have no experience with Saberhagen (except I did read some of the Berzerker stuff) and I promptly would discard  all the NPCs, which must account for a good chunk of the book. Page counts are not important but a chapter of NPCs is meant for fans of the books, which I could be but am not, and even then I  

Things to steal explicitly: science/technology. If you don't want a sentient tank and artificial intelligence in your fantasy, then you and I ought not to be friends. The idea that physical combat effectively nullifies magic is delightful and would save a lot of hmm-ing and hmm-ing at the table. Psychic combat, maybe even simplified further than what is presented (I tend to discard the DCC spellduel since it's infamously clunky - there's a blogpost on here from way back that has some proposed rule changes). Class limitations might feel restrictive to players, but makes sense to me sometimes. Gifting of spells - Wizards temporarily loaning another PC the use of a spell is a delightful idea and blows a whole world of cool opportunity wide open. The patrons Ardneh and Orcus. I read the PDF that came to backers pretty fully and totally skipped over the NPCs. I guess my DCC already IS Empire of the East except for some details - technology and aliens and AI more rampant in Thrend than what is represented in this fine book, but of the same cloth if you get my drift. Less tolkien and more asimov. 

The magic items are fun leftovers from the end of the techonological era of long ago... like all magic items they ought to be mysterious, powerful, and unpredictable (or else so haywire that they are dangerous to use)

More later, but i'd buy it probably just for the Ian Miller cover art! My group has sadly moved on from DCC since I don't run the majority of games, these days, but I may convince them to return so I can do some Ynn/Amberville/Xyntillian. The spectre of the Orange Emperor no longer clouds my judgement with the long shadows of fear and so I may rise again to wizardly prominence when these piteous fools drop their guard! Muwahahahah!

Anyways, more later (I forgot to post my One of Us review, also). Peace and Plenty be upon you, zero-level henchpeople!