FYI, I am an early backer of the book, but an extremely satisfied one at that. Lots of cool stuff for Dwarves and Dwarf campaigns, fun new classes, new items, domain rules, lore, and more. Very happy with the book! Get it!

(Full disclosure: I backed the kickstarter for this book, and have been using the released drafts to work systems and ideas into my campaign for months now.)

First Note: YOU DON'T HAVE TO PLAY ACKS TO USE THIS BOOK (though to be honest, you probably should ;). If you play OSE, LL, B/X, or anything built off the same framework, most of the contents of this book can be used as-is.

Highlights: 1) ACKS' s unique take on "race as class" demonstrates its full value here: there are enough dwarven racial classes to run an entire all-dwarf campaign, easily. Each of them was playtested thoroughly (even did some myself) and are balanced with each other, as well as the "standard" classes you'll find in ACKS (or B/X, what have you). My personal favorites: sporecaster (dwarf fungus master with a surprising breadth of abilities), tombsealer (anti-undead dwarf fighter-type whose few unique abilities can come in quite handy in any dungeon session), rhetor (dwarfven barrister with more combat and campaign utility than one might expect from a member of the legal profession), and the dwarven machinist (see below).

2) The machinist and automaton rules are worth the price of admission alone. I'm not kidding. They are that good and that comprehensive, and in usual Autarch fashion, the numbers actually line up. I've already spent a lot of time monkeying with construct builds, the system scratches the same itch that Battletech design/customization does.

3) Gnostic magic - different enough from bog-standard D&D magic, yet close enough that it doesn't feel totally out of place in a "D&D" style world. The system was adapted from the "ceremonial" magic system in Autarch's Heroic Fantasy Handbook, which came out several years ago, and therefore has had plenty of time to have any rough edges filed off.

4) Presentation: The PDF looks great, the layout and trade dress are distinctive and easy on the eyes. I can't wait for my hardbound copy!

I would recommend a purchase to anyone who plays (and especially DMs) any sort of "OSR" system, you'll find plenty of ideas and mechanics to mine even if you don't adopt it wholesale. I'm not entirely sure what value (aside from the lore and "fluff") this book would have if you play the current iteration of WotC's system (or Paizo's, etc), so if you're dead-set on sticking with those systems, you might not get the same amount of utility that I have. Caveat Emptor.

This an outstanding book with a sole focus on Dwarves. Anyone who is running an OSR campaign with Dwarves would get a lot of use and flavour out of this book. The price point is excellent for the classes, lore, magicial items and just plain riff for ideas.

Buy This ACKS.

The best dwarf-focused source book published to date.

This is a book stuffed full of gamable content. new classes, new magic, new items; all the way through to new ecology and economics for worldbuilding, domain play, and strategic conflict. A new, grotesque and potent villain in the Sporecaster, and a series of horrible catastrophes to ruin a dwarven stronghold. Go primitive with flesh-runes and bear cavalry, or go "high tech" with elaborate and arcane machines that mere humanity, let alone the beastman hordes, just can't match! Take up the mantle of leadership and lead a Hold to glory or ruin. Rules for risking experimental mushroom farms and Digging Too Deep. This book is a goldmine.

From the Designer's Notes in the back: "In By This Axe, we’ve applied abductive reasoning systematically to make an in-depth look at dwarves. For each trope we could think of, we substituted “common trope” for “surprising fact” and then used abductive reasoning to develop an explanation for each."

Autarch has set out to take the things that make dwarves dwarfy, and explain why those things are so, in the expected ACKS way of fitting things in economically as well to make dwarven domains properly different from human ones when using the book with Autarch's system. I can't speak to how well the mechanical parts in it would convert to other fantasy RPGs (the classes should at least convert to any oldschool d20-based system without too much hassle), though the lore parts are sensible for anything where the common dwarf tropes exist.

For longtime ACKS players, some of the book retreads ground covered in AXIOMS articles (especially issues 3, 13 and 17), with little expansions and alterations here and there (Machinists in particular got much love with a full chapter of updated rules for automatons), as well as some other bits and pieces for other classes to lay the groundwork for the announced upcoming ACKS II.

Aesthetically, the book is possibly the most ambitious Autarch has done, a leap from the white pages with red trim of previous ACKS products (the brown pages in particular giving me a bit of early 2000s nostalgia). I don't always dig the art styles chosen for the pictures, but they do the job for the layout here.

The lore is a fun read, with a clever sense of humor.

The dwarven classes are very evocative and look really fun. I showed them to one of my players, and he's now considering retiring his current PC to try out the Pugilist.

The automatons (for making clockwork or steampunk machinery) are a cool set of rules, and I fell in love with the Exterminant automaton the moment I saw the art for it. An ogre-sized terminator designed to infiltrate into the lairs of orcs and goblins and then wreck everything in its path? Metal.

Between the experimentation rules for automatons, the delving deep rules for mining, and experimental mushroom farming rules, there's three full rulesets that dwarves can try to get an extra advantage at the risk of things horribly (hilariously) backfiring on them. I will definitely be using these.

The magic items are some of the best I've seen, with a mix of both epic artifacts and small more commonplace sorts of items. Not only is there the usual weapons and armor and adventuring gear you'd expect, but even a section for "Dwarven Toys and Marvels" with some really fun stuff in it like a toy dragon that shoots real miniature fireballs. These are items I can't wait to start dropping into my campaigns, especially the super-cool Ring of Seven Grudges.

The art is phenominal and so are the gorgeous maps of the dwarven vault. This is a beautifully-done book. Frankly I'm surprised given its level of production value that it doesn't cost twice what it does.

5/5, no regrets.

I will begin with Dwarves being my favorite fantasy race, something about the joviality of brotherhood, the weighty seriousness and pursuit of craft speaks to me. And like dwarves, By This Axe pursues the craft of bringing tabletop dwarves to the utmost highest quality. The tome is thorough, concise and extremely evocative of dwarven hero and myth. I'm relatively new to tabletop, so I am sure dwarves have been covered before, however for anyone requiring a lore, a legend and a concrete foundation for dwarves in fantasy, By This Axe is in my opinion a great choice on that basis alone.

While I have given praise to the Lore of By This Axe, like a surly craftsdwarf, I have much greater to speak on the mechanics, and classes, of By this Axe. From Mining, to mushroom farming, highroads, lowroads, almost anything you can think of relating to domains is detailed, and make for a litany of intriguing possibilities for building tall domains (Or deep, depending on how mining goes), with possibilities for some very interesting situations. Like flooding the vault. And my favorite part, the dwarven classes, have been expanded from Players Companion and ACKS core rulebook, with updates for those from both sources. Dwarven Machinist, a Players Companion class, has been upgraded and updated to make better one of the single handedly best player machine building mechanics I have ever seen. The new classes are evocative, interesting and epic feeling enough that I already know several people wishing to start up Dwarf Campaigns just to try them out.

In short, if the mountains are land of myth, legend and mighty deeds, By This Axe presents the Mighty inhabitants of that land in Masterwork Quality.

Delve Deeply and Greedily!

Having backed this during its crowdfund I've been very pleased with the quality of both the PDF and physical copies - Autarch has again delivered a very high quality product. As you can see in the preview images the artwork is excellent and the writing is very good too, with the right mix of seriousness and humour (the nods to the odd meme or two are also spot-on, particularly the one with Dr Quantum). This issue is essentially the origin stories of three major characters in the official Ascendant universe (Manticore, American Eagle, and Stiletto), plus the first mission of the eponymous Star-Spangled Squadron. The characters all have their own "voice" and you get a feel for what each of them is like in just a few lines or panels. In terms of sexualised imagery and violence, the comic takes a mature approach to both: it does not shy away from showing you the bloody results of battle and the like - it shows things as they are, rather than shoving it in your face or drawing a polite veil over things the way comics aimed at a younger audience typically does.

In terms of criticism, I think Stronghold could've used a bit more exposure to get to know him better, and some effects like Stiletto's pheromones were hard to understand without prior knowledge that she has that particular power, but as criticisms go I think both are pretty mild, especially given that AFAIK this is the author's first foray into comic book writing (!). I'm hopeful that we'll learn more about Stronghold & the other members of the Squadron in future issues, and that this is just the start of a long and successful independent comic series.

The value is hard to top. It gives you a great tool set to flush out doing stuff in the Ascendant Universe, or to help model using the system in a different universe that it's not native too (My current play group is running a campaign in the DC universe and were having an blast!).

Presentation is top shelf, and over all, It's a rock solid product. For the price? Can't beat it with a stick.

5 out of 5, another home run form a team that's getting very reliable at knocking things out of the park.

Ok, so, the book is throughly enjoyable. It's something mainline super hero comics have forgotten how to be. Fun with out being condisending, obnoxious, or utterly incapable of allowing you to actually invest in it. And it understands the characters that were clearly inspirition sources, there archatypes and roles in a mythology, which is what super hero's ultimatly are after all, modern mythology, better than any book I've seen form Marvel or DC in about a decade and a half if not longer.

The art is solid, the pacing is fantastic, brisk but not so quick your missing anything you need.

I can not recommend it strongly enough! 5 out of 5!

As a lifelong fan of comic books I have always felt like I was born at the wrong time. Older fans in the hobby can talk about seeing the medium itself being born anew as superheroes started taking over from pulp action heroes. They can speak to the beloved icons like Superman, Batman, Spider-man, and The Incredible Hulk being created and refined over time. They can talk about the unabridged heroics of certain characters with fondness and the nuanced takes of being a hero that more relatable if flawed characters portrayed. Beyond all of that, it felt like I was talking to people who got to witness the start of something brilliant, when my own experience was the opposite.

I was born just as deconstruction fully sank into the medium. I became aware of these amazing heroes and their tales just as every author who thought they had some point to say about the pointless cruelty of the world sought to bastardize and tear down these icons of heroism. I road through that wave but even when authors tried to write heroes again, it was almost as though they forgot what made things heroic, what made people feel wonder at seeing Strength, Beauty, Wisdom, and Courage. Everything felt undercut by some needless cruelty, some needless statement that there is no perfect Good. In the pursuit of making everything relatable, it felt like authors forgot that some heroes needed to be unrelatable, unobtainable paragons to show us what we're even trying to be. I was born to a comics industry that felt like it had lost it's way and was dying before I even got to enjoy it.

Ascendant is one of the few comics that have shown me that the medium of the Superhero Comic book is still alive. That there are still brilliant authors and artists working to produce the kinds of stories that produce awe and wonder. If mainstream comics learned the wrong lessons from the deconstruction era, Alexander Macris clearly learned the right ones, and not only modernized takes on classic heroic archetypes, he crafted them in ways to not only incorporate the justified criticisms of the deconstruction movement, but to make sure that at the end there was a proper reconstruction of the things we loved about that era. This book gives me hope, that in thirty years I'll be able to speak as fondly about watching the birth of this era of the comics book industry, as older fans used to speak about it's mainstream contemporaries.

Originally posted here: https://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2022/10/100-days-of-halloween-sepulcher-of.html

Robert E. Howard casts a long shadow over Fantasy Role Playing in general and D&D in particular. This is best seen in two different near clones, Adventurer Conqueror King and Hyperborea. So when ACKS did an adventure that was an homage to Taramis and "A Witch Shall be Born", well I had to check it out.

Sepulcher of the Sorceress-Queen

Print and PDF. 56 pages. Color cover and interior layout art with black & white art.

For Character levels 7th to 9th.

Ok. So another tomb with a sleeping undead witch. It is a powerful trope. This one features the Sorceress-Queen Semiramis of Zahar who has been dead, but sleeping, for 1000 years. She had been betrayed by a former lover (and having killed her first 100 lovers she should have seen this one coming) and is now waiting for her chance to rise and rule again.

The adventure is part of a loosely connected series but it is mentioned that it can be used as a stand-alone adventure and placed anywhere.

The adventure involves going into her tomb, stopping her from rising, and maybe make off with some treasure. The tomb is full of undead horrors and other dangers. To make things more interesting there is a group of lizardmen in the tomb trying to do the same thing as the characters.

It then becomes a race against time, times 2. Get to the queen before she gains her full power and get to the treasures before the lizard men do.

The adventure gives us a bunch on new magic items, a new spell, and five new (ish) monsters. The adventure itself is cut from familiar cloth but the map is quite good and great for groups that like to explore old tombs.

"A heatwave has been scorching America’s East Coast and cities up and down the coast have seen mass protests and riots. None has fared as badly as Capital City, Delaware where rising tempers, rising temperatures, and rising crime rates have made life hellish all summer long. Now things are about to get a lot worse. This morning, five police officers making a routine drug bust died at the hands of ascended criminals. The CCPD has called on every superhero in the city to hunt down the perpetrators and bring them to justice. But while the heroes investigate the shady side of Capital City, the perpetrators have other plans, plans that will bring the city to its knees…"

"Capital City Casefiles is a series of scenarios for Ascendant, the superpowered role-playing game of infinite possibilities. Each Casefile offers a single Issue of exciting play for a group of metropolitan metahumans with Power Levels ranging from 18 to 22 and a collective challenge rating of between 100 and 150 points."

"These scenarios can be played in any order and are designed to be easy to run with any type of heroes, be they super-powered police, costumed crimefighters, or underground antiheroes. The Casefiles are set in Capital City, Delaware, a fictional city first introduced in the Ascendant rulebook and detailed in the Capital City Gazetteer and Map Set (available separately from Autarch). But don’t worry – if you’re not interested in playing in Capital City, you can easily adapt the scenarios to your city of choice. Capital City can be Chicago, Detroit, or New York. It can be your hometown with a fresh coat of graffiti and a layer of rust and grime."

Capital City Casefiles #1: High Summer By Mark Charters, & Alexander Macris is one of those touch stone & campaign kick off adventures. Clocking in at only twenty seven pages. Capital City Casefiles #1: High Summer comes off like a smoking hot adventure scenario anthology reminding me of both DC Heroes RPG & classic TSR Marvel Superheroes. But belong to neither came as it plugs into it's own universe. The Ascendant Rpg is a complicated beast of a role playing game and it's one that deserves far more attention that it's getting. What Capital City Casefiles #1: High Summer does is add far more attention to the core aspects of Ascendant by bring us a chain of adventures that can be connected to your own Ascendant campaign. These can be modified & scaled to your campaign as you see it within the 100 to 150 point range.

Capital City Casefiles #1: High Summer reminds me of those Eighties Marvel interconnected comic book Summer special events. The classics like Atlantis Attacks or the Daredevil saga which could be read straight through or piece meal as you got them. Here the Capital City Casefiles #1: High Summer can be played as the sessions dictate. These sessions generate the campaign through actual play & this is really important. There are adventures found within Capital City Casefiles #1: High Summer that take this formula & add the role playing element because your PC capes & heroes are front and center within it. As it should be within The Ascendant Rpg & this is a solid collection of adventures that take full advantage of the The Ascendant Rpg system. As it should be for a super hero adventure anthology that rides the rails between full on beat down & thinking man's adventure. Is Capital City Casefiles #1: High Summer good?! Yes because this is an essential book for The Ascendant Rpg system building solid universe foundation adventures for your own campaigns. Thanks for reading our review Eric Fabiaschi Swords & Stitchery blog Want more Asendant rpg action?! Please subscribe to https://swordsandstitchery.blogspot.com/

Update: My group is on our second campaign of Ascendant at this point, and it continues to shine. Using the SP system has become second nature for just about every member of our group and it works exceedingly well.

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Just gave this a spin with my group for our final session of 2021, and we REALLY liked it.

It looked complicated at first, but actually it's not a hard game to learn. The core mechanic is simple enough: AV + Hero Points vs DV + Hero Points = RV. Check that RV on the CHART, and roll a d100 to see what color result you get. Once we had that down it was very fast to use in play--by the end of the night a round of combat was going as fast as D&D, and we've spent years using d20 systems.

We thought the SPs lining up with real-world numbers was cool. I like to run more simulationist-style campaigns in general, and my players like the idea of being able to see what the heroes they made would actually be capable of rather than just me riffing the results. The section on non-combat challenges looks like a very usable and thorough reference for me as the GM, though I haven't used it much yet (the first session was mostly combat to get the hang of the system).

I liked that the system has both a simple and complex method of character creation. Half my group just sent me a concept and wanted me to make their PC for them since it was a new system, and the other two are the kind who enjoy the process of chargen as much as they do playing the game. (One of them is a recovering D&D 3.5 minmaxer.) I found character creation a bit complicated but was able to knock it out reasonably quickly with the simple method. The two players I mentioned said they had a good time diving through all the powers and perks and planning out their character designs--they liked the variety of powers and different ways to tweak them. Also important to me as the GM was that the complex method of chargen didn't mean that their characters were out of place in the same campaign as the ones I built with the simple method.

(Aside: the reviewer who said that the rules are complex and chargen is easy--are you reading the same book as I am? That's the complete opposite of what I found.)

The layout is solid and easy to follow, with good presentation of rules, examples, and designer notes. I see some other reviewers saying the art is over sexualized, but it doesn't seem to be out of place with what's in most modern comics. It definitely isn't "G" rated though, and if buying the book for a younger gamer I'd recommend checking out the preview first.

Overall a STRONG recommendation, 5/5. My group really enjoyed Ascendant and wants to keep using it.