Customer Reviews

Midnight, Second Edition

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Wizards of the Coast has given D&D role-players supplements on evil characters and evil monsters, but Fantasy Flight Games has done them one better...and in a big way...by developing a complete campaign based on an entirely evil setting. Midnight 2nd edition presents gamers with one of the most unique locales ever developed for fantasy role-playing. It's a world where good is outnumbered. No...vastly outnumbered is more appropriate against the legions of evil in a dark, grim, and brooding world that is starving for heroes.

The developers begin with a background story of how the Dark God Izrador was cast out of Heaven by the other Gods but in doing so, Izrador severed the link between the celestial home of the gods and the mortal world. This resulted in a cataclysm that shook the world of Aryth, and forever cut the inhabitants off from the Gods they worshipped...Except for Izrador whose shadow fell to the world. Aryth was left in darkness and even the souls of the deceased found themselves unable to go to their final resting place, trapped by the Veil which keeps them, as well as multitudes of demons, elementals, and other-planar creatures trapped, as all links to outer planes, including the astral and ethereal were destroyed. After two failed attempts, the Dark God and his legions finally succeeded in breaking the free people of the lands when their four greatest heroes were corrupted by Izrador's power. These four now serve as his lieutenants and are known as the Night Kings. Then there are "The Fell", the dead who return to life to attack the living when their souls are not permitted to move on.

The world of Midnight presents a unique challenge to players. Evil is decidedly in control. Use of Magic is punishable by death except for Izrador's minions, meaning that players who choose magic-users are constantly being hunted down by the Dark God. Magic items tend to be rare as these are also sought out and destroyed by the Dark God. But players have many other things going for them. First, all players get to choose a heroic path. This path grants the character new powers or abilities as each new level is gained. For example, choosing the "Fell Hunter" path gives the PC abilities in battling undead. They are able to do increased damage against all undead and also gain immunity to the various special attacks of the undead such as disease, paralyzation, and energy drain. These heroic paths serve to add greater depth to the characters and allow players to tailor their characters even more. There are also some decidedly different half breed races you can play as including Dworgs, the result of breeding between orcs and dwarves and Elflings, a mix of elf and Halfling.

Midnight presents standard classes as well as 15 new prestige classes designed for daunting challenges that adventuring in Midnight poses. These are some of the most creative prestige classes I have ever seen. There's the Avenging Knife, the assassins of Izrador's minions, The Haunted Ones, those who have the ability to communicate with the many displaced and tormented spirits of the world, and the Warrior Arcanists, a non-multi-classed warrior mage. These, along with many new, and powerful feats and spells, add up to some great new PCs to begin play with.

But Midnight isn't just designed for players. The second part of the book is for DMs and details the various lands of Aryth with information on the various towns and settlements, peoples, languages, religions, trade & craft, and governance. Each region also has many places on interest that serve well as hooks for possible future adventures that the DM can design. This allows the DM to develop his or her own exclusive adventures from the ideas the book presents. There's also a lengthy section covering the "Servants of Shadow" including Izrador himself, along with his Night Kings and the various ranks of his many underlings. Finally, the book presents a starting adventure as well as ideas of how the DM can use any of the other Midnight adventures into their campaign.

Midnight is like Lord of the Rings meets Night of the Living Dead with a sprinkling of biblical mythos thrown in to boot. This is not a fantasy world that just sort of lies there. The inside back and front covers feature a map of the world although it would have been great if a fold-out map had been included. This is a living, breathing, and starkly terrifying world to adventure in and one of the best campaigns I've seen in a long time. Highest recommendation!

Reviewed by Tim Janson

I was very excited about the MIDNIGHT campaign setting when I first heard of it; I love all things Tolkien and the idea of world similar to Middle Earth where the Dark God wins sounded intriguing. Certainly DRAGONLANCE had done something similar, but MIDNIGHT takes the premise to its logical and final conclusion: there is only one deity in the world, and he has won. There's really no going back. The world belongs to the Shadow and nothing will displace him. His only goal is to crush all life and magic to wring the last drops of power from this world, and when he has taken everything, he can escape. You might think that this would lead to a nihilistic fatalism, but really I find it oddly invigorating. Your characters are heroes but rebels and subversives at the same time. Also, quests, fantasies, and mythologies can become pretentious and hackneyed, but MIDNIGHT takes place on a much smaller scale. You can't save the world, but you might be able to save your village. There are no princesses to rescue, but if the characters are smart, careful, and lucky, they might be able to save someone's mother or daughter. In a world of darkness, even the smallest and briefest flame has a victory over the shadow merely by giving off light.

MIDNIGHT packs a lot of material for the players and the DM. At 400 pages, it still feels too small to tell all that it wants to. The book is a sourcebook for the world of Midnight, a player's guide, and a DM's guide, so you are really getting a lot for your mpney. There are a lot of changes to the "standard" fantasy world due to MIDNIGHT's unique characteristics. With all that the characters have going against them, there are substantial edges to help them survive.

On the plus side, all races get attribute bonuses (with a balancing attribute penalty, of course). There are dwarves, elves, gnomes, halflings, orcs, and even 3 races of humans (who also get bonuses - not your standard vanilla humans). Most races also get some kind of bonus weapon ability and survival skills. There are also "paths" which grant special bonuses at every level the character survives. These have intersting themes; besides "class" specialties like healer and the faithful there are paths like giantblooded, dragonblooded, and pureblooded which are themed to your ancestry. Also, anyone can use their feat slots to buy spells, and you can buy any kind (no class restriction).

The ability to use spells is strongly curtailed, however, as part of the effects of the Shadow being cast out of heaven and into the world. Magic-using classes have to purchase schools of magic individually, and pay for spells from a limited pool of energy. Also, magic use is banned (along with owning magic items, books, the ability to read, and a great many other things) and the Shadow actively hunts down any who have or use magic. Also, there are no clerics, at least, not any good ones. The Shadow is the only deity that answers prayers and only his servants dare to call on his name. But it's not just magic users who take the hit; owning any kind of armor, or any object that can be used as a weapon, is also a capital offence. This makes all combat dangerous and orcs in particular are deadly foes, not to be crossed. And don't think that you can just find any gear lying around or to be bought in a village - the Dark Lord's armies have thoroughly crushed the human population, starving and humiliating them into submission, until the average peasant would rather kill any hero himself than risk drawing the attention of any servants of the Shadow. With the Shadow's armies taking all the food, even rations for a journey are hard to come by. And we still haven't brought up the hordes of walking dead whose souls cannot leave the world as long as the Shadow dwells there. It's not easy being a hero...

So you might ask, why would I want to buy MIDNIGHT? Well, if nothing else, it is 400 pages of sweetness, a cross between high fantasy and apocalyptic survival horror. And I can see that not everyone is up for playing in this kind of challenging environment. Everything is stacked against you, from magic to weapons to scrounging for food. But in another sense, MIDNIGHT will force you to focus on what's important. No kingdom-saving or dragon-slaying but you can make life more tolerable for your fellow beings, tired and hungry as they are. You might even be able to light the spark of another's rebellion, the pride to no longer be a boot-licker of the armies of oppression. Every choice you make, every resource you can scavenge, every ally that can be gained is critical to continued survival. And you can take pride in whatever small wound you can inflict on the Shadow, because you will not go quietly into that dark night ...

Tired of campaigns where the goal is to get the most gold, weapons and magic items, and fame? How about a world where gold coins might be given to children as toys because they have no value, where carrying weapons or using magic will get you an instant death sentence, and where protecting a town from evil will likely get you turned in to the authorities for breaking the law? Tired of campaigns, where characters will eventually become powerful enough to challenge the gods in combat? Midnight doesn't even give stats for its one god. Your characters could thwart his schemes, maybe go up against one of his 'lieutenants' (the Night Kings), but they will never be able to fight Izrador directly.

Midnight can be most easily described as "What if Sauron had won?" In this campaign setting, a dark god, called Izrador, was cast out of the heavens to the characters' world many millenia ago. As he fell, he drew a veil between the heavens and this world, shutting out the other gods from the world completely. He slowly grew in power, and after two failed attempts to conquer Eredane, "The Shadow in the North" won in the third battle, conquering the lands of men. "It has been 99 years since the Shadow fell".

His forces fight the fey (elves and dwarves) who are the last to stand against him. All races though have heroes, often hidden and working from the shadows themselves to strike back at Izrador's schemes and minions, the orcs. Since Izrador is the only god who can affect the world, the only Clerics are his. Those who die often rise again as "The Fell". At first, many of these abominations remember their past lives, sometimes not even knowing that they've died. Their hunger can only be sated by living flesh, and as time goes on they become more instinctual. The world is one of fragmentation. The Elves and Dwarves battle separately for their very lives while humans are mostly restricted to their settlements. Izrador has creatures who can detect the use of magic items and the casting of spells, both of which are forbidden, making spellcasters both powerful and vulnerable.

This is a dark world where the characters have much stacked against them. Mechanically, there are some cool things to help them out: Heroic paths which add spell like abilities, and other advantages (feat like) at each level; Covenant items which, unlike most weapons, gain in power with new abilities as their wielder gains levels.

The history feels 'real'. Unlike most settings, ruins will be recent and reminders of how life was merely a few generations ago (for humans.. some elves and dwarves will remember the days before Izrador won), adding to the intensity.

A few notes about the book itself. It's a thick book and not very well bound. I have yet to have problems with pages falling out but I'm very careful. It _feels_ flimsy. The first introductory portion of the book is in color and on glossy paper, while the rest is in black and white. Almost all of the artwork in the book is extremely well done. There are some problems with some of the heroic paths (these were changed from one edition to the next, and sometimes in the description of a power, it gives a different level at which the character gains the power than is shown in the heroic path listing itself, but it's pretty obvious that you should go by the listing). The best part of the book by far is the sections on the regions which include what the area was like "Before the Shadow" and what it's like now. There are descriptions of the geography, wildlife, settlements, places and people of interest, etc.

There are guidelines for DMs later in the book, as well as other DM specific information and secrets.

As a final note, Fantasy Flight Games has a wonderful web site for this campaign, including numerous adventures which were run at various conventions, fiction, and other additions to the Midnight setting. If there's one reason to stick with D&D 3.x or compatible rule sets (see "Pathfinder" by Paizo) this is it.

This gameworld is my absolute favorite.It is set in a world where the epic struggle of good and evil has been fought already and the good guys fell short.Now the PCs are fighting to stay alive.This is an excellent story concept for those who enjoy gritty fights against overwhelming odds.It's great for DMs with players that are cocky and sneer at orcs.Divine magic no longer exists.Well,it does but "none for you".Magic is outlawed,weapons are too.Elves and dwarves are killed on sight and even the people you rescue often times turn you in to the authorities for an extra days food.This is the 3.5 edition of the world.Spellcasting works differently,it's possible to exceed your daily allotment of spells if you are willing to accept CON damage....1pt per spell level.It's AWESOME watching your players agonize over throwing another spell at the cost of CON points.The classes work differently,the races are a little more beefy with feats and stat bumps,and they all get special blood powers like they had in Birthright...well similar in mechanics.They scale in level too.But boy is everything harder.The qulity of the book itself leaves a little to be desired,but to me that is a minor complaint.I really hope they make this world 4e compatible.

I purchased this book in the last month. And in that time I have had numerous pages fall out. I have barely had a chance to use it, having opened no more than 40 times. I still have books from 1st & 2nd edition AD&D that are in good condition--all pages are intact.

Aside from the book binding problems, I really enjoy this campaign setting and would recommend it to anyone who is looking for setting to challange their players thinking and roleplaying skills. Attacking first and asking questions later becomes less of an option.

I only have two wishes, other than fixing the binding. It would be nice if there was a downloadable PDF version similar to what Iron Crown does. And it would be nice if there was a player only version of the manual that contains only what players need to create characters. The Retail $50 price is very steep if each of your players are expected to purchase a copy. Oh, and did I mention the problem with the book binding.

This campaign setting takes D&D to dark new places. It's sort of a Lord of the Rings set up, with the central premise `what if Sauron won?', and the players taking the roles of members of the remnants of the free peoples.

It's bleak and harsh, and very serious in tone, so it's possibly not for every group.

The book itself is a handsome hardback, with lots of great illustrations. While a fold out map would have been nice, the maps provided are serviceable and of great use. I strongly recommend this book to any group looking for something serious.

I bought this book for the secondary rules in my Ravenloft campaign- I was suprised with the amount of detail in the setting itself as well as how much useful content is crammed in. I am now contemplating the start of a new Midnight campaign- it's just to good not to. If you want hard, brutal, heroic in the most fatalistic sense- you want Midnight.