A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Only Human

Only Human by Robert J. Schwalb is a role playing game supplement published by Schwalb Entertainment for use with Shadow of the Demon Lord. This supplement is part of the Victims of the Demon Lord series that expand ancestries, in this case, humans.

This is a fourteen page PDF that is available from DriveThruRPG for $2.99 but was purchased at a greatly reduced price as part of a special bundle. Around a quarter of the first page is the Credits.

The first page essentially explains that humans are effectively the dominant race of Rûl. They are also described as being the most paradoxical, capable of great good yet also doing far more than any other to bring the Demon Lord in, more humans die at the hands of other humans than are killed by monsters, and this paradox essentially defines them. It explains that this supplement expands on the options in the core book.

Origins explains that there are no histories of when humans arrived in Rûl. There are four different origin stories – one of which is that essentially there is no origin story – given, including one from the dwarfs, which states that humans are simply failed dwarfs.

Ethnicities of Rûl starts with the First People, of which there are actually seven different types including the Woad and the Men of Gog. There are also a number of human tongues in a sidebar, some of which are extinct. The two conquering races, the Edene and the Kalasans are next, followed by brief details on other peoples who have settled in Rûl.

Relations is the relationship humans have with other races. That with orcs is poor, and now very fearful, that with halflings is perhaps the best and that with dwarfs tends to be an uneasy peace, largely due to valuing the dwarfen skill at working with metal and stone. Other races is variable and goblins are tolerated for their willingness to do vile jobs but not trusted.

The remainder of the supplement is an expansion of the rules for creating a human. They can be created using the core rules but this provides several dozen more tables on creating appearance, families, childhoods, setbacks, windfalls, professions, equipment and personality.

Only Human in Review

The PDF lacks bookmarks and, although not that long, there are enough different sections that bookmarks would have been appreciated. Navigation is poor. The text maintains a two column full colour format and appeared to be free of error. There are a number of colour illustrations, which appear to be custom, up to half a page in size. Presentation is very good.

As with all supplements in the Victims of the Demon Lord series, this expands the creation options, and therefore the time required for creation, to generate a human character. Given that Shadow of the Demon Lord is a fairly dangerous game, having creation take longer is not necessarily a good thing. Although it does almost turn it into a mini-game. Only Human is a nice expansion for human character creation and it can be found by clicking here.