The Arcana Western Reaches Source Book by Robert Hemminger and published by the Avalon Game Company is a role playing game supplement set in the generic Arcana fantasy setting. The Avalon Game Company regularly releases supplements covering different details of the setting.
The supplement is available as a 39 page PDF from DriveThruRPG. It has a regular price of $3.99 but was purchased at the discounted price of $1. The PDF has one page front cover, one page front matter, one page Contents and one page advert for other products. There are four pages of maps at the back of the book, one map per page, two in colour, two in black and white. These are unlabelled versions of the sites and realms maps that feature earlier in the supplement.
The supplement opens with a colour map of the region, with numbers marking various different locations. The Introduction gives a brief overview of the area, followed by Lands of the West, which describes the geography. This is followed by Weather then Flora and Fauna, which are self explanatory. History of the West is a short history, lacking any dates, then People of the West, covering the major cultures, and Faith, the religion of the area.
This is followed by another colour map of the region, with the numbers this time listing geographical features. Then Realms of the Lands, divided into Gilmmlor, Mithniera, Piannith, Shithmoora, Caer Durim and Caer Hurrim. These give a brief overview of each of the realms in question, and within this section is a third colour ma this time has the locations of various non-human settlements.
Sites of Note covers places shown on the maps of the region, both settlements and physical locations. Where appropriate, other details are given for towns and settlements, including tax, trade, forces (generically described) and points of interest, including some non player characters. There is a fourth map in this section, showing the political boundaries of the four main realms. One location is marked as an adventure site, but no others are.
Lord and Ladies of the Lands is the final section, and gives details on important NPCs, divided into the various realms. These NPC descriptions are again generic, and in some cases have magical items listed. They will probably be easiest to adapt to Dungeons & Dragons games, and those based on the system, especially Old School Revival systems.
Arcana Western Reaches Source Book in Review
The PDF completely lacks bookmarks, and the Contents is no more than adequate, merely covering the major sections. Navigation could, therefore, have been better. The quality of the maps is far superior to those in the earlier supplements in the Arcana series. The artwork is also different; other than the maps, there are simply greyscale page fillers through the supplement, rather than any custom or colour artwork.
Most of the original supplements covered one hex of the world map; this does not, instead focusing on several realms. All the original hexes on the world map have by now been covered, so present supplements describe other things in more detail. In the area covered is a city which had its own supplement, Arcana Cities: Githmorgian, and so it is only referred to briefly. The region also covers several different hexes, so has previously been detailed to some extent in various Arcana Journals.
Earlier supplements in the range had many, many grammatical errors, enough that they made the supplements actually difficult to read. This one has a few, but nowhere near as many as other supplements do. Multiple errors not only on a page but in a paragraph were common, but in the book there are only a handful throughout the entire supplement. There are occasional places where the wording doesn’t seem to work correctly and one place where the language could have been less crude. There also appears to be the name of an NPC missing in one place. For some reason, the book switches from a two column to a single column layout with no discernible logic, as this often happens within the same section. The headers for the different sections also change in font size with little apparent logic in some places.
This is, at the full price of $3.99, one of the more expensive of the Arcana supplements, but not one of the longer ones. At $3.99 and 39 pages (a number of which aren’t content) it’s a bit pricy in comparison to some of the supplements in the range. It certainly shouldn’t be purchased first; instead, the supplements should be purchased in the order in which they were published to build up a full description of the Arcana setting. Arcana Western Reaches Source Book does not add much in the way of adventuring material, but it does add a host of new locations and NPCs, making it a decent addition to the setting, and superior in quality to the earlier ones.
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