In Short
Artesia is one of the densest, most detailed RPG books I’ve ever encountered.  A rich world history, comprehensive rules for every detail, and a wealth of player options make this an excellent product choice for those looking for as “realistic” of a fantasy setting as they can find.  With a lack of non-human species, strong medieval and early renaissance flavor, and high magic this is definitely a good choice for folk who want a well done fantasy game.

The Good: This book is gorgeous.  Incredible amounts of high quality full color artwork contribute to the many factors that make this book exceed the production values of every other publisher in the industry.  The magic system is very fun, both allowing for imagination while keeping magic rare and difficult to learn.  The entire system creates a level of believability and realism lacking in other RPGs, and does an excellent job of driving home the seriousness of combat, sex, astral projection, and other things in a fantasy world.

The Bad: The rules system is intricate and complex.  While the core system is simple, it’s the exceptions that create a very large body of rules.  Rules for conception, carrying a child to term, and where a character goes after death are just a few of the very specific rules you’ll find here.  The game even includes stats for a perfectly ordinary tree.  If you’re at all rules adverse avoid this product.  The rules for character creation are woefully imprecise and offer little guidance for those who don’t wish to randomly generate characters.  The setting features so many specifically named things and is presented in such a way that understanding the world and what’s going on is very difficult.  This is not an accessible product.
The Physical Thing
This 352 page full cover full sized glossy paged beauty showcases the very highest production standards.  Large, full color maps, appealing text boxes, a fully illustrated tarot, weapons, spirits, depictions of the cosmos, and even a fanciful border make this book a treat to look at.  The formatting is excellent, the text is dense, the borders are small, and the editing is good.  There is no better bargain for the cost, at least not when it comes to amount and quality of material packed in.

While the table of contents is adequate, this product could really use a comprehensive index.  To say that there are a lot of specific rules here is an understatement, and staying on top of them is tough.  Character creation is a little muddled, but that can be said of the world history and some of the rules as well.  It’s clear that the author, who has already published several award winning comics in this world, knows exactly what he’s talking about but at times he doesn’t take that extra communicative step to let you know what’s going on.  It’s almost as if portions of the book are written for him, or someone already strongly familiar with the Artesia world, and so people new to the world may have to spend extensive time figuring everything out.  The use of bolded text to highlight important people and places is frustrating because, often, there is no more discussion of those things past the area where they’re introduced.

This is a beautiful work on the surface but once a person delves into it they’re likely to discover that it fails to communicate effectively with the reader and forces the reader to struggle through concepts.  Despite really liking this game, I find the product to be too unwieldy to want to play it.
The Ideas
On a system level Artesia seems pretty straightforward at first.  Roll a d10, add modifiers, and try to beat a target number or your opponent’s roll.  The magic system is open, but generally involves learning principles that are then turned into specific spells.  Combat has a mix of hit points and wounds.  Smaller mechanics are very common, however, and add several levels of detail to the core system.

On a setting level, however, Artesia offers an interesting world.  Ancient gods aren’t numerous, and only a few major religions exist (along with a handful of minor cults).  Humans rule the land, though faeries, malign undead, and other such creatures are commonly found at the fringes of small and large settlements.  The cosmos of the Known World is particularly rich, with multiple levels of reality, different hells, heavens, and stranger places still.  Most of the world, however, seems to be a medieval setting altered by the pervasive use of magic.  Rather than magic as technology, which most certainly does not exist, magic is used to solve crimes and otherwise benefit society in small ways.  With a strong feudal structure and a variety of climates, the Known World will likely be familiar to many gamers.  Just keep in mind that it might take quite a bit of work to sort out the history and cosmos of this setting.
Under the Cover
A History of the Known World - 32 pages.

This detailed world history begins at the beginning, with the creation of the world, and progresses through a lengthy description of the Ages up to the present.  On the one hand this is great because the history of the Known World seems almost as detailed as our own at times.  On the other, the continual march of characters, places, and events each sporting a different name, and being generally unconnected to everything else, makes it very difficult to absorb.  While reading through the history I was left with the feeling that the author was writing to someone who was already familiar with the Known World rather than a newcomer, and unfortunately this means that many readers will have to read this chapter several times to begin to absorb it.  Most folk will probably just cover it once to get a feel for the world, and then refer to bits here and there to add historical ruins and such to their game.  For that purpose it works well enough, sporting a detailed timeline and many side-myths that would be very helpful during a game, but it does mean that the reader probably isn’t getting as much as they could from this product.

This is a world of fantasy that could be described as neither low nor high magic in nature.  Only humans, not elves or dwarves or anything else, really inhabit the Known World though spirits, the undead, and other creatures lurk at the periphery.  Zombies and other such creatures seem to be a common menace to villages, and powerful magic is used to solve a variety of problems (such as murder investigation, conception, tending injury, etc.)  But there are no goblins or typical fantasy RPG enemies here – the problems that plague the Known World are largely political and often have a human element at their core.

The Known World Today - 28 pages.

This whole product is lavishly illustrated, and that includes maps of the Known World.  Kicking off with two two page color coded maps, this chapter is very visually pleasing but occasionally suffers from the plague of special and strange names found in the History chapter.  A variety of geo-political regions are discussed here – mostly kingdoms of various sorts – and each has a few major things of interest going on, such as extensive involvement with bandits or being plagued by a witch-queen.  The regions have a strong European and North African cultural feel to them and extensive pictures of people from every region provide an excellent sense of each distinct culture and region.  As with other RPG settings, most folk will want to digest this in small chunks.    

Playing The Game - 30 pages.

The core mechanic in Artesia is a simple d10 + modifiers roll, either against a set difficulty or opposed by another characters roll.  Characteristics and Skills add directly to that die roll, as do things called Gifts (good things) and Bindings (bad things) which tend to be side modifiers.  For instance, if your character has the Fears Ghosts Binding then she’ll suffer a penalty when interacting with ghosts.

There are fifteen Characteristics split into three groups of five.  The sum of each group is similar to hit points for that group and can be lost through attack, mental hardship, and mystical powers.  Physical includes Appearance, Strength, Stamina, Dexterity, and Technique.  Mental includes Perception, Willpower, Memory, Imagination, and Reason.  Spiritual includes Presence, Conviction, Courage, Empathy, and Wisdom.  The added up values are Body, Mind, and Spirit, respectively.  Every Characteristic starts at 5 before any other modifier, so every pool begins at 25.  A Characteristic of 5 is average, around 10 is the pinnacle of human ability and scores of 1-2 reflect a serious deficiency.  Most characters will start the game with scores from 3 – 7 or so.

Skills range from 1 to 10 and begin at zero, untrained.  There are over sixty five distinct Skills, ten Alphabets (for writing), and over thirty five languages.  Some general Skills act as Cap Skills, limiting how high others may be increased.  Many of the Skills are narrow, no doubt reflecting the desire to have more realistic and believable skill sets.  Skills rated 3-4 represent competent, skilled people while 8-10 reflects mastery of that field.  Note that Characteristics and Skills are not linked and it’s possible to combine them in a wide variety of ways.  Unfortunately, it’s not always clear why one combination should be used over another – wise GMs probably encourage a good bit of player description before calling for a roll here.

Social Level is another important value.  Both a character’s current and starting Social Level are recorded, because they reflect where he’s from and what he has become.  A bandit turned Lord will be treated much differently than a person who has always been of high nobility, for instance.  Social Level and various Characteristics and Skills combine to determine NPC Loyalty and Relationships.  Social dynamics are an important part of Artesia.

Gifts provide positive modifiers to rolls.  Players buy them at character creation and during play with Arcana Points (discussed below).  Each level either provides a bonus to several different Skills (often in specific situations) or allows the character some sort of special power (such as shape shifting into an animal).  Bindings do the exact opposite and often reflect hates, fears, substance addiction, and other things that make life more difficult.  They may be acquired during character creation, but most will be developed during play.

A bit more on the system.  Artesia makes use of open die rolls, which means that when you roll a 10 on the d10 you roll again and add the next die.  When you roll a 1 you roll again and subtract the die.  This can result in critical successes, failures, and a certain degree of tension even where things seem certain or hopeless.

The Book of Dooms: Experience & Character Improvement - 29 pages.

Character advancement may be the most fun and interesting part of Artesia, taking advantage of two distinct methods.  First, there’s a use based XP system.  Characters gain Training Points over time that are used to improve the Characteristics, Skills, and Bindings they devote time to training in.  Effectively you get better at things by just spending a lot of time doing that thing, which beautifully supports the more realistic focus of the game.

The second method is Arcana Points.  These points are gained by acting in accordance with one of the twenty two Arcana – basically signs of the tarot.  If you watch someone be hanged then you may gain Death Arcana, which can be spent on specifically related Characteristics, Skills, and Bindings.  Taking a lover may give points in The Lovers, while leading others could award points in The Emperor.  It’s flavorful and fun, and XP system where characters routinely get better just by living interesting lives and doing new things.  The only problem with it is that the GM has to keep a lot in mind.  Awarding Xp in twenty two different areas for different things is tough, and most GMs will want to routinely consult some sort of play aid.  Players may also have trouble tracking points in different Arcana, but it does look very fun.

Creating Your Character - 35 pages.

Artesia makes use of a Life Path system, which means that you decide lots of different events that lead up to who your character is today instead of just assigning points to various stats.  Building my first character using the random tables took about an hour and a half to two hours, but resulted in an interesting and fleshed out character based on nothing but random die rolls.  You’ll roll for birth signs, childhood events, parents social status, parents careers, siblings, everyone’s relationship towards you, and other things still.  Rolling randomly I ended up with a young Lordling whose father was a Knight and mother a Priestess, elevated in social class by a noble patron.  He had made many deals with bandit kings and had more friends in the underworld than the standard aristocracy.  On the whole, a neat character from the start.  Be aware that random character creation can result in mechanically uneven characters.

I rolled randomly to build a character, but you don’t have to.  Artesia presents a variety of tables with results that could be selected instead of rolled.  Herein lies a major problem, however.  There are no rules for building your own character unless you do it randomly.  That may not seem like an issue, but the random results vary tremendously in power.  It’s a huge difference, and it leaves the GM and group to build their own system for whoever doesn’t want to roll randomly.  For my games I’d be tempted to allow people to pick on any three tables or something like that in order to guarantee getting the characters everyone wants, but I do wish the book was friendlier towards non-random character generation.

Once you’ve rolled everything up, adding points to Characteristics and Skills along the way, it’s time to spend Training and Arcana points on your character’s adult profession (player chosen based on character social status).  People in the Known World reach adulthood at sixteen, but Artesia assumes you’ve already had five years of training, adventure, and interesting events.  This allows for character customization and the purchase of Skills not otherwise available from the Life Path generation, but it does mean that starting characters are all twenty one.  Players calculate wealth by household by year, spend Arcana points on certain Arcana based on the character’s profession, and distribute Training points as they wish.  A few more Life Path rolls for things that happened to the character as an adult and that’s it, you’re done.  Just buy equipment and start playing.

This system is great for people who come to the table with few firm ideas of what sort of character they want to play.  Unfortunately, it’s very inflexible.  No rules or support for younger characters, and older characters seem to be significantly more capable thanks to the acquisition of Training and Arcana points.

A filled in character sheet and many examples help clarify character creation and make it easy to understand.

Playing the Game: Movement - 2 pages.

Artesia sports a very straightforward movement system, easily understood by anyone familiar with RPGs.  Actions are broken up into three second Phases, during which characters can take half-Phase and full-Phase actions.  As with everything else in Artesia, determining character movement is complex (a simple Move action moves you Body + Athletics – Encumbrance – Wounds in feet) and different rules for different types of movement (such as Sprint instead of Move which incorporates the Run Skill) exist.  Most characters will be making simple Move actions and then an Attack or another half-Phase action in combat.

Playing the Game: Combat - 20 pages.

Combat in Artesia is, in large part, like any normal Skill use.  Both sides check for surprise and then roll initiative (d10 + Dex).  Melee attacks involve a d10 + Characteristic + Skill + Modifier roll, with the defender making a similar Defense roll.  Special attack maneuvers (such as Disarm) just apply a penalty on the attack making them easy to follow.  Many other special maneuvers, such as Knock Back, do require special rules and the reader may quickly discover that dozens of common exceptions destroy the utility of a simple mechanic.

A successful hit does damage equal to the difference in the attack and defense rolls (so well placed attacks hurt more) plus a bonus based on strength and weapon minus the armor for a hit location.  Artesia sports eighteen hit locations, each with potentially different armor values.  So a single attack will likely play out like this: Attack Roll, Optional Defense Manuever (Parry), Defense Roll (if that fails), Damage Phase (if the attack beats the defense).  Determine Hit Location (roll 1d20, consult chart), determine total damage (difference in rolls + damage – armor at that location).  If more than ten damage inflicted then apply a Grievous Wound based on weapon type (Blunt, Piercing, or Slashing Wounds).  In either case the total damage is applied to the Body pool.  This adds an element of realism to combat, but does result in slower multi-step attack resolution.

Armor has different damage absorbing values based on different types of damage, carried weight is tracked to determine Encumberance which both slows movement and makes physical actions (including attacks in combat) more difficult.  All of this adds more complexity, but it’s also fun.  There’s a good bit of tactical thinking when deciding what sorts of armor to wear and when, and I think that’s an excellent addition.  Many different weapons and armors are provided, often with cultural and regional significance, so players have many options to choose from.  

Playing the Game: Magic - 46 pages.

Artesia’s magic system is both intimidating and highly appealing at the same time.  Effectively you have spellcasters who study a specific type of magic and know broad general principles but tend to shape those principles into very specific spells and effects, often relying on charms and other magical devices.  This results in magic that is both very broad and very narrow at the same time, which retains a sort of magical feel woefully lacking in many magic systems.

Casting spells involves a Skill role, with which Skill depending on the type of magical tradition a character belongs to (so, Cult Lore for a Cult, for instance).  Spirit points are expended with the spell, thereby limiting the amount of magic a person can cast at a time (and the raw power of the spells).  Each character learns Incantations or Rituals, which are broad concepts that allow for a large variety of spells.  An example of an Incantation is Curse, which means your character can fashion all manner of Curses – from relatively mundane ones to the most extreme of horrors.  Characters can only know so many Incantations and Rituals, limited by their Memory.  Basically people can only learn so much magic before the concepts become too difficult to hold onto.

That’s where Charms and other fixed, or Shaped, forms of magic come into play.  If your character already knows all the magic he can handle but wants to learn Curses he may be able to learn a specific Curse.  He won’t know how to fashion a wide variety of curses – just that one Curse – but the Shaped form of magic is easier to retain.  There are around 20 different types of Incantations and Rituals, available in different quantities to different groups, and tinkering with the magic to create specific and flavorful effects is easy and fun.

A comprehensive system for enchantment, alchemical potions, learning magic, and other rules is present.  Group magic, examples of magic in combat, and examples of each type of magic are all present to answer questions and make the game easy to understand.  A lot of magic incorporates Bindings and Gifts, applying simple modifiers and a die roll in order to accomplish its results.

On the whole, the system is flavorful and interesting but probably works best where a player owns his own copy of Artesia and can tinker with building new spells.  Creating spells on the fly could result in some game slowdown.  Be aware that many specific modifiers apply to spell casting under a host of situations, and that each sub-system has its own rules.

Playing the Game: Religion - 12 pages.

Religion is an important part of any world, and Artesia is no exception.  Three different major religions are briefly discussed, each with their own calendar of holy days to flesh them out and provide more realism.  Unfortunately, none of the entries do a good job of describing the religion and leave the reader confused as to what the nature of each faith entails.  There are lots of little facts – this religion has only male priests, this religion only allows meat consumption when it has been sacrificed – but I never got a feel for the religion in the few pages of material offered.  The problem here, as with the history of the world, is that it feels like the author expects you to already know about these religions.  No doubt the information is very useful to someone already familiar, the calendar and facts provide good support in that case.  For me, as someone unfamiliar with the world before reading this product, the chapter does a poor job of explaining these religions.

Mechanically, invoking prayers and participating in rituals can give mechanical bonuses to various tasks.  This is a nice addition, as it encourages players to actively make use of religion.

The World Around You - 20 pages.

Devoted to the mystical realms of the Known World, this chapter presents an excellent overview of the different levels of reality.  A detailed map of the cosmos provides great assistance in understanding all the concepts presented and is one of many instances of beautiful and detailed artwork communicating ideas very effectively.  Other than the Known World there’s the Otherworld, the Dreamworld, Limbo, the Underworld, the Heavens, the Hells, and a whole host of interesting little realms here and there.

In addition to all of that, this chapter focuses on the life cycle of a person in the world.  Rules for conception, childbirth (including miscarriage at various stages), the advancement of children’s Characteristics, the effects of aging, death, and how to determine what happens to the soul at death are all included.  On the one hand this is very cool, as it provides a complete understanding of the cosmos from birth to death and beyond.  On the other, this is needlessly technical and many people won’t choose to make conception rolls after sexual encounters and miscarriage rolls at regular intervals during pregnancy.  These are some examples of how highly detailed Artesia is, mechanically, so be aware of that when making a purchasing decision.

The Otherworld is a land of spirits and magic, the Dreamworld is a land of dreams (and also spirits), and Limbo is a mostly formless place that the dead pass through.  Each of these realms and all of the special locations require a certain number of Steps to get to, with each step requiring a roll to make.  Failure can strand a person, often resulting in a painful death.  Thus only highly competent mystics make the journey to other realms.  This does limit the usefulness of some of this information, due to the great skill and risk required, but you’ll be hard pressed to find a more interesting and tension-creating system for wandering dreams or retrieving lost souls.

The chapter wraps up with two very detailed calendars, one of which wonderfully corresponds to the western calendar (which means it’s easier to use in game with an old calendar as a prop).

A Bestiary of the Known World - 24 pages.

This chapter starts off very weak, focusing on things that often don’t need stats such as deer and trees.  Yes, perfectly normal trees receive a half page long stat block and description.  Elementals, dragons, mermaids, spirits, and more interesting creatures fill the rest of the pages and generally make this chapter more useful.  No doubt humans and the undead are the most commonly encountered adversary in the Known Worlds, but it’s nice to have at least a few other creatures listed.

For the Guide: Adventuring in the Known World - 2 pages.

So you’ve got this neat world, now what do you do with it?  Well, the author doesn’t quite seem sure.  You could try to become a god or explore ancient mysteries or whatever you feel like.  Unfortunately, this short section fails to address some important aspects of Artesia.  Why are characters of such similar ages involved with one another?  How do you incorporate bandits and Lords into similar scenes?  What about characters of differing religions in this world?  Little useful advice is provided.

The Witch’s Price - 39 pages.

Strangely enough this lengthy, highly detailed adventure provides the reader with more information on the world than the earlier setting information.  A detailed overview of a noble estate, the legal system, the role of magic, and other information informs the reader in a way the previous setting information just failed to do.  Multiple detailed color maps of the estate and surrounding area are so nice many groups will be tempted to set their whole game here.  This adventure is problematic because of the exceptional attention to detail.  Detail can be a great thing, but with so many special names, dates, detailed events and the like there’s a whole lot of information for the GM to keep track of.  Often the text isn’t broken up in a useful way, so the GM will have to scan large blocks of text to try and remember what’s going on in a given scene.  

Still, it’s a fun adventure and the extensive list of NPCs will provide excellent pre-created characters for many GMs who just need stats in a hurry.

Appendices - 19 pages.

Lineage tables (to determine your family and ancestors), item cost tables, and another beautiful map wrap up this product.

My Take
There’s absolutely no doubt that Artesia is one of the most beautiful RPG books ever created.  The art is wonderful, the maps detailed, and a flip through will excite any fantasy fan.  The text is dense, and it’s clear that you’re getting the vision of a single person instead of the often-fragmented vision RPG design teams bring to us.  Unfortunately, this may be a problem and many readers not otherwise familiar with Artesia from the comics will have difficulty getting into this product.  The text is not easy to read and often requires substantial concentration to work through.  The Table of Contents here makes navigation alright, but the lack of an index is unfortunate.  Artesia makes use of a substantial number of special rules scattered throughout the product, and referencing this book during play could be very difficult for many groups.

In the end this is a fun and interesting game that has a lot of good things going for it but needs more polish to really shine.  Better character creation support, clearer writing, and more attention to fitting together such diverse characters would really help.  If you want a realistic fantasy game where combat is serious and magic feels magical then give Artesia a try.

Nice review, really covered all the strengths and weaknesses of the game. It's really unbelievable that this is basically a one-man effort.

Quote from: SosthenesNice review, really covered all the strengths and weaknesses of the game. It's really unbelievable that this is basically a one-man effort.

Thanks!

I absolutely agree, especially considering it covers good art, writing, formatting - the works.

Yeah, we briefly compared notes before, and we clearly have the same impression of Artesia: AitKW.  

I'd be mighty tempted to use the setting with either the Everway system or the tarot-based one from Swansong, and kludge something for the magic system.  Or magic could even be left open, on an effect-by-effect basis.

I doubt I'll ever buy Artesia - not because of your review.

Either way, I just wanted to thank you for the effort.  It was an interesting read and a great breakdown that gave me a good picture of what to expect from the book.

Nicely done - keep up the good work.

I may have missed it when I scanned the review but:

Artesia started as a 'Graphic Novel' format comic book as I understand it. I was seeing Artesia stuff on the shelves years before the book came out, and th art in the book is from the comic line, or at least a good portion of it is.  I recall flipping through the book last year out of curiousity and I believe the artist worked on the game... for all I know he actually made it into a game... I don't really know.

The system, which you covered in brief, is an adaption of the Fuzion rules from R. Talsorian, which I think have been 'open source' for a long time.  That was the 'anti-selling point' for me, actually. I already have Fuzion rules, and I'm not a huge fan of them.  

Just thought I'd add those points. The book looked gorgeous, I actually regret not wanting to buy it.

Well, if I'm not mistaken the story of the comics came from or was at least influenced by a RPG campaign of the author/artist. And now it has come full circle.

And Spike, the Fuzion rules are really just the very basics of the game. Add attribute and skill to a roll of the dice and beat a target number. That's about all that remains. He's got a shitload of attributes, "bindings", a rather cool magic system, some interesting combat mechanics and about the most complicated XP system I ever saw.

Yeah, Fuzion has 15 attributes... or was it 12? Once they get above the six or so from D&D I start to lose track...

Fuzion is very modular, recall.  Lots of room for 'plug in options' and the like. While the specific modules and such may be unique to this game (and very cool info on the origins of the comics btw), it doesn't make it 'not fuzion' to me.

Like I said, I was just trying to point out a bit more info to add too the review.