The Kingdom of Sails by TS Luikart is a role playing game supplement published by Schwalb Entertainment for use with Shadow of the Demon Lord. This is part of the Lands in Shadow series that further details areas of the official Urth setting.
This is a six page PDF that is available from RPGNow for $1.69 but was purchased at the reduced price of $1.17 during a sale. Around half of the first page is an illustration, a quarter the Credits and the rest of the supplement is content.
As always, the supplement starts with a brief overview of the Kingdom of Sails, an archipelago of sixteen islands located five days sailing east from Gateway in the Northern Reach.
Fight and Flight starts the history of the kingdom, which was founded by rebels fleeing the Witch-King’s armies who sailed to some unoccupied islands that had been passed by those who settled on the continent in Old Edene.
The Founding has the rebels landing on the islands and the leader apparently suffering a complete change in personality after returning from an expedition from which he was the sole survivor. This was due to a bargain he made, which is continued by his descendants, in order that the lands be safe for the settlers.
The Kalasan Storm has the islanders making deals with the arriving Kalasans to aid them in overthrowing their old enemy, the Witch-King, who they had continually helped rebels against.
Lords of the Sea is essentially the modern day kingdom, and its generally peaceful relationship with the Empire. The kingdom still has problems, with the rise of demon cultists.
Government and Politics briefly explains how the current kingdom is managed – it may be a monarchy but the monarch, by the terms of the bargain made, is unable to govern. The individual islands maintain their own fleets and handle their own internal affairs.
The Tide Born is the people of the islands, who are cosmopolitan in nature although there are some local exceptions.
Religion at Sea has the three major deities worshipped on the archipelago.
The Islands is the final section and has a map of the major islands of the chain and brief details on all sixteen. Not all of them are truly under the sway of the kingdom and one was settled by jotun raiders who were defeated and then offered a home.
The Kingdom of Sails in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and, despite its brevity, they would have been appreciated. Navigation could be better. The text maintains the standard full colour two column format and appeared to be free of errors. There are a couple of custom colour illustrations as well as the map of the archipelago; presentation is very good.
All of the Lands in Shadow series only give general overviews of the locations and this is briefer than most. Only a general overview is given of each island and there are no separate adventure hooks nor a background table. Even though there are no specific adventure hooks, the descriptions of the islands have a lot of potential hooks hidden amongst the text.
This supplement provides an overview of an interesting kingdom that could be a source of many adventures on the islands or serve as a jumping off point to adventures beyond the Auroral Ocean. It does, however, feel much too brief for the area covered. The Kingdom of Sails can be found by clicking here.
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