I recently came across a product that I found interesting: The Barbarian Conquerors of Kenahu. This is an official published campaign setting that is similar to something like John Carter of Mars, though played more straight-faced, because it’s Autarch publishing it. The setting is sword-and-planet, or swords-and-rayguns (kind of), depending on what the GM wants to emphasize.
At first, I was turned off by the beastial and alien player characters; there are Geckomen, Bugmen and Lizardmen, plus some genetically-modified humans that are mixes of other mammals, but they look more like Norsemen than cat or dog people (thank God). The humans of the setting are two types of terrans: people who got trapped in this world from the 20th or 21st century, and those from the 22nd or 23rd century. This leads to some really fun dynamics when you can have a bomber pilot from WWII who flew through a portal by accident, and a guy from a Star Trek-like reality, all teamed up with some freaky characters, all armed with swords and possibly ray guns. Like I said, at first I was dismissive of these silly ideas, but the rest of the campaign setting surprised me with its detail.
The world of Kenahu was a kind of rest stop for Gray aliens millennia ago. It was originally seeded with a type of snake men to be used as cheap slaves, but one thing led to another, and now there are all kinds of creatures stuck there. The Grays themselves (known to the locals as Visitors) are mostly extinct (or at least missing) and don’t worry much about what happens on the planet. The technology level is somewhere between Neolithic and Ancient (no bronze tools here, folks) and magic is a frightening and mysterious thing.
Speaking of magic, this book utilizes a lot of the rules from the Heroic Fantasy Handbook, with their own twists. That book provides multiple different systems for handling magic (making it more or less dangerous, and re-categorizing spells as Black, Gray and White magic), though BCK doesn’t treat magic as necessarily dangerous. If I were running this game for myself, I would certainly mix and match some of the rules here. There are some changes to how critical hits work that I found tedious. I suppose that’s what I’ve come to love about ACKS is how it empowers GMs to shape the game systems and world into exactly the form they desire. As it stands, I’m still not a tremendous fan of bestial races, but I’m alright with “Star Trekking” the Gecko and Bugmen, (replacing giant rubber heads with minor facial makeup) generally making them more human. Or simply removing them as player characters (at least for the initial run), and allowing them as NPCs. It could also be an excuse to include the Slugmen and Crabmen from Yoon-Suin. Finally!
At this point, between all of the supplements available so far, there are somewhere around 60 or 70 player classes and myriad races to play. I feel no pressure to allow everything to be included, and so my game would require some culling on my part, both of player races and classes, as well as spells.
Playing BCK as written, however, seems like a fun time. As per the rest of the ACKS “campaign” products, it includes a “top-down, zoom-in” view of the campaign setting. It provides a large chunk of the world map, and a smaller, detailed breakdown of a zoomed-in portion of it. I was surprised at the detail in this gazetteer; it’s playable, replete with locations, situations, NPCs and suggestions for plot hooks. It doesn’t include any dungeons or lairs, but anyone with access to the rest of the ACKS library (or really anyone who’s been playing old-school D&D for a few years) has plenty of material to insert into their game, with some modification. Or you could buy the perennially underappreciated Lairs & Encounters.
My only gripe is that, although the setting is fun and detailed, I don’t expect there to be any product support for it in the future; even getting a dungeon or city book for ACKS’ primary campaign setting is a rare thing, usually resulting from Kickstarter and months of waiting. Anyone wanting to run BCK will have to modify every adventure, dungeon, city, etc. to fit into this strange gonzo world. I should note there are plenty of other similar products, notably Cha’alt and Peril on the Purple Planet from Goodman Games that would help GMs flesh out their world more completely. I’m sure there are many more products that I’m not aware of that would also serve to fill in the gaps.
Because ACKS’ progression is so tightly tied to acquiring land and power, it might be a strange fit for this game; it’s possible for the demographics provided in ACKS to be sensible in this primitive world. In fact, I suspect as much due to Macris’ devotion to detail and compatibility. However, the source material this game is based on (Conan the Barbarian, Michael Moorcock’s Elric, et cetera) are more about heroes doing heroic things, and less about managing the finances of a kingdom. I don’t know exactly how these two flavors come together (or clash) in this game, but I suspect a GM would be best advised to downplay the management aspect of the game. I could be wrong.
As far as the layout and art go, it’s standard Autarch fare, before they hired the current (and excellent) layout person. It’s in black and white, and the art is generally poor; it seems they didn’t have much of a budget for it. I’ve seen some really stellar black-and-white drawings in ACKS products. Sadly, these are probably the worst I’ve seen.
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