Review: Martial Flavor from Chaotic Shiny Productions

Martial Flavor is a 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons PDF supplement published by Chaotic Shiny Productions. Rather than write a standard crunch supplement, “Martial Flavor” focuses more

on the cultural background of five PC ethnic groups and mixes in some feats and powers that reflect the different cultures.

The cultures are:

The Daikort Pack: A mercenary group with a complex code of behavior based on personal debt and deeply ambivalent morality.

Elessim: Nomadic horsemen with a love of the open steppe

Ikanoi: Ferocious dwellers in a frozen waste with a fondness for body art.

Legions of Arytis: Citizen-soldiers in the vein of ancient Sparta. Military/civil service guarantees citizenship in the city of Arytis.

Sijara: Nomadic traders and rogues, clearly inspired by the Roma/Gypsy cultures of Europe.

It is important to understand that this book is more focused on the cultures than the rules crunch. Each entry has a page of powers, feats for low/high level play and multi-class feats. The ratio of fluff to crunch is about 2:1. The Sijara have 6 pages of culture for 3 pages of rules. The ratio works because this supplement clearly states it is more interested in character background than adding yet more feats to the 4e mix.

Art is of good quality and a bit unusual. The style reminded me a bit of some early twentieth century Spanish paintings. A nice change from the hyper-realistic 4e paintings that seem to populate all of WOTC’s offerings.

Martial Flavor Ikanoi PC
Martial Flavor Ikanoi PC

Editing is clear and the writing style easy to read. The layout is also very well done. There are no power cards for the powers in the PDF, but it comes in a separate download included with the purchase. There is also an included “printer friendly” version of the PDF in black and white and no color art.

A  preview of Chaotic Shiny’s upcoming Martial Cultures supplement  comes with the download as well.

I enjoyed this supplement and think it has utility for any 4e campaign that needs some fresh ideas for cultural backgrounds. However, there is one aspect of it that I found problematic and bears mentioning.

The price.

I received a comped review copy from the publisher, but the retail price is $19.95. It is a well done PDF supplement, but $19.95 for a 55-page effort is excessive. I like this supplement and think the author has a bright future in writing game supplements, but I cannot recommend this product at $19.95 per copy. My suggestion is to wait for a significant price drop before picking this one up.

Update: The price for this supplement has been dropped to $14.95.

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

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trask

Trask is a long-time gamer, world traveler and history buff. He hopes that his scribblings will both inform and advance gaming as a hobby.

2 thoughts on “Review: Martial Flavor from Chaotic Shiny Productions

  • December 27, 2009 at 6:24 pm
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    Thank you for the excellent review.

    There have been some concerns about the price, and I’m taking those into consideration. I can’t promise a significant price drop in the near future, but I am releasing some other products at a lower price point.

    Do you mind if I quote your review on my Reviews page with a link back?

    • December 27, 2009 at 6:53 pm
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      Hi,

      You are welcome to quote the review.

      Trask

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