For those on the forum who are getting to Know me, it will probably come as no surprise that Eileen brought me the "Drowned Earth" I`ve raved about it like a kid on a sugar rush. I love "Dino" modelling, the animals them selves, and the scenery, I own many beasts, and several rules,all which have merit. They all go back a bit however, the last being the TV series,Primevil (English and American), this also is a very worthy rule system, and the two have quite different play styles and objectives, there only common denominator being the "Dinos".
So when I saw the PDF rules advertized for "DE" for free,I downloaded them, and read them,it was a good fun rule set. With a totally different style of play, as the characters "Stance" affects the results of his actions. It`s quick, thought envoking , and rather stylish a bit like a film set fight, but most of all fun, and still realistic. The action is on search for "Artifacts" whilst fending off other groups of players, and avoiding the main danger of Dino`s The dice throws are D10, but a special set of dice give ease of play in quickness, but are not compulsory all in this free down load gets you going so well you want more.
Thats were the real pleasure comes in, the PDF is 85 +pages of rules, no fluff. This game excells on it`s fluff, and is 195+ pages. The world of Drowned Earth is an earth ravaged and destroyed by rising oceans and catastrophic earthquakes and volcanos. The results of which destroy earth's population and send mankind back to almost oblivion. Before they were destroyed, the builders as they were called, had advanced greatly one of the subjects being gene splicing.
The world was experiencing a new wave of theme parks, where dinosaurs roamed as Jurassic Park and new breeds of animal servants and genetic human/animal hybrids were being made to assist mankind in the workplace. When the catasrophy struck exactly is not known, only the dramatic results can be seen. The world went from densly populated urban sprawls with small rural leisure areas to a marshland swamp inland seas and the vegetation covered buildings of a ruined civilisation.
It is into this world that the adventurers of the new world set foot to try and establish links to their past. The characters of the adventurers are really varied, you have basic human, a Derv which is basically a dwarf human, a Surrian a dinosaur/human hybrid, Ape, Rhino, Elephant/humans and any animal the builders of the past wished. These characters can be good or bad, mixed in any way to make the most interesting groups to enjoy your play.
Games are designed to be played on 2ft x 2ft boards, giving as much variation of scenery as possible. You are hunting for tokens as your main objective, ( these represent artifacts), and your search can be upset by other groups searching for the same and the extremely dangerous dinosaurs, which survived and multiplied in their new environment.
The game has excellent support facilities on facebook and a forum, also in my opinion it has resulted in some boards being built that can only be thought of as art. They truely are excellent. I have put photographs in various locations on this forum and some, as you will see, follow this. My final comments are, if you want some good modelling and painting opportunities this game will game will provide it in spades.
