Arcana Journal #3 by Robert Hemminger is a role playing game supplement published by the Avalon Game Company. This is a generic supplement and part of a series of supplements for the generic fantasy setting of Arcana.
This is a 55 page PDF that is available from DriveThruRPG for $2.99 but was purchased at the reduced price of $1 during a sale. One page is the front cover, one the front matter, one the Contents and one is an ad for other supplements.
The first page is a colour hex map of Arcana with the current hex, 3, highlighted.
Hex 3: The Isle of the Magus starts with a hand-coloured map of the hex with various points of interest marked. This is followed by a description of the island itself.
Next is a d6 table of Rumours. Each of the four rumours described has a number of constituent rumours that are increasingly hard to uncover. These individual constituents also have comments on the veracity of the rumours. If 5 or 6 is rolled on a d6, the rumour is from a nearby hex or any hex respectively.
There is Hidden Lore on four different locations on the island. These are laid out similarly to the rumours; there are different levels of difficulty regarding each lore subject and there are details on the truth of each piece of lore.
Locations and Sites of Note describes the important places on the island. The first is Caer Magus, the home of the Magus. The Magus is the ruler of Arcana, but the last one was murdered and there is no current replacement. Caer Magus is also where the ten Magi, who could be considered to be the deputies of the Magus, are trained, although they do not live in it.
In this section is a colour map of the island with the various points of interest marked and a map of the various floors of Caer Magus. There are a couple of other points of interest as well as Caer Magus; a stone obelisk on a nearby islet, the local town and the only tavern on the island. Also listed are some details on a couple of NPCs, what the results of some types of divination spells might be and a brief bit on adventure seeds.
Magus of the Past is a history and details of every Magus up to the present. Many were either useless or downright evil; the position does not mean that the holder is worthy of it.
Shorenborg starts with a map of this realm, which is a new one on the northern coast. It isn’t in Hex 3, though; in fact, it isn’t stated what hex it is in. This has a brief history of the kingdom, an overview of the current royals, heraldry, treasury, tax revenue and expenses, as well as income and various places with their garrisons or troops.
The Nobility gives an overview of the noble houses of Shorenborg. These have details on the NPCs, their heraldry, the house’s holdings, forces and income.
Shorenborg Time Line has a history of the realm.
Encyclopedia Magicica Arcana “B” is entries beginning with a B. This is not laid out that well. it is in alphabetical order, in theory, but often the first word or more is not alphabetical, nor is the logic consistent. If the “Castle of Blue Tiles” is going to be in “B” (and given that all the Battles are in “B”, this is by no means certain), it would probably be better as “Blue Tiles, Castle of”. Various entries refer to others, many of which, with this being alphabetical, are in other journals, and one referred to that should be in “B” is missing.
The final five pages of content have colour and black and white maps of the hex and the island, both without labels, and a mostly black and white map of Caer Magus and the caves, again without labels. These would presumably be player maps.
Arcana Journal #3 in Review
The PDF has no bookmarks, and these would have been useful. The Contents is also not as thorough as it could be, covering major sections but not most of the minor ones. Navigation is quite poor. The text maintains a two column format and many, many errors were spotted, sometimes more than one error in the same sentence. The errors are perhaps all grammatical in nature, where the word is correctly spelled but is the wrong word. This ranges from homonyms to words that are simply wrong. The supplement is on a full colour background with borders and there are various illustrations, both black and white and colour, ranging from stock to custom. Presentation is colourful, and fits together reasonably well.
This doesn’t really function as a stand-alone work, but it isn’t really supposed to. Instead, it is part of a series intended to describe a game world piece by piece, adding area specific details as well as information related to the setting in general. Arcana is system-neutral, but there are bits of information intended to give an idea as to the power of monsters and NPCs, and what spells or abilities things might have. These could be translated, with some work, to any system, but perhaps D&D-derived systems would be the easiest to use.
The concept of Arcana is interesting, and clearly a lot of work went into designing the world before it was published, but there are far too many errors in the text; the supplement desperately needs an editor, or even a decent proofreading. This functions as a serious comfort detriment, and makes the supplement look a lot poorer quality than it should. A simple read through would have caught most of the errors. This is an interesting supplement in an interesting world, as long as you can cope with all the errors. Arcana Journal #3 can be found by clicking here.
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