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Cha'alt

Started by VengerSatanis, September 13, 2019, 01:05:43 PM

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VengerSatanis

I'm just copy/pasting Judd's review from DriveThruRPG.  He rated Cha'alt 4 out of 5 stars...
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First let me say I am a paying customer for this game, having backed the Kickstarter. I was not supplied a review copy for free.

Cha'alt is primarily an adventure setting surrounding a mega dungeon, in this case the Black Pyramid, that has two more dungeons in its local area. It is also a gonzo send-up/celebration of pop culture in an over-the-top, winking manner. The title is not as explicit as some of the author's other titles, but it is racy in places and there is some nudity in bits of the artwork.

The tale of Cha'alt is one that allows for a maximum amount of genre mashups to be had. The world was once a fantasy land that worshipped powerful gods that finally retreated to slumber underground. While they slept, the people on the surface developed technologically and made contact with other worlds via a bustling spaceport. All that ends when the old gods reawaken and get a bit testy with everyone. After the massive destruction, people live in a barren desert, clinging to all of the magic and technology they can scavenge, and living with the usual post-apocalyptic tropes.

Aliens still visit, but now they just come to milk a precious resource from the desert in a way Frank Herbert might find familiar. Various camps vie for what remains of power over the place, and the PCs will have to make some friends and likely get pulled into the rivalries in some way as they do what they came here for.

What they came here for is to do some dungeon crawling. The two "side quest" dungeons are fairly straight-forward dungeon crawls of standard size (when one forgets that one of them is a frozen creature). The large mega-dungeon is a different beast, being a dimensionally-transcendent creation of the powerful forces that once fought over this world. No spoilers, but it gets odd and some of the encounters, while engaging and cool, are a winking jest at things in the real world at times. One example is a humorous entry on the Wandering Monster chart - the Crab Racoon oozes a sweet red fluid as it moves, possibly suitable for dipping.

Stat blocks are presented for 5th Edition and the design of these is pretty crisp - combining small and terse with the information you need at a glance. The maps are supplemented with multiple copies (with an without numbers) so you can present clean information to players.

Physically the book is very colorful and filled with art of a gonzo and sometimes disturbing and sometimes adult nature. Readers familiar with Alpha Blue may be concerned that the game will get more lurid then they hoped. That is not the case, but the setting is wild - containing adult themes and more than a few sidelong glances at current events and occasional political mishaps. It is not lurid, but is a gonzo sci-fi meets fantasy meets horror with "adult" elements.

Finally, the last portion of the book is a copy of Crimson Dragon Slayer d20, which is a rules-light system put together to run 5th Ed modules without having to translate the system too much. It is simple, fast playing, and has an overall OSR feel that the author styles "O5R". These rules are not necessary to play the module, but are offered as a an extra to readers.

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The Cha'alt PDF is available here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/284600/Chaalt

VengerSatanis

Shameless self-promotion of my latest Kickstarter campaign, Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise (you can get either Cha'alt or it's follow-up book): https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/vengersatanis/chaalt-fuchsia-malaise/