The Avatar of Manoto – aka All About Warrior Priests by John Josten is a free role playing game supplement published by Board Enterprises. This is the first in their Small Bites series (and is much longer than most of the following editions, as it contains material that in future editions would only be available to patrons) and is mostly generic but with some stats from the publisher’s Legend Quest system.
This is a 41 page PDF that is available for free from RPGNow. One page is the cover, one page advertises the Patreon and sites, one has a sample warrior priest’s stats and one has lifestyle costs for such a priest.
Build Your Fantasy World in Small Bites is an introduction to the series in general. This is then followed by an official Introduction.
Fletnern Wiki is a series of short articles on the publisher’s world of Fletnern. This has details on a number of different topics; legends, groups, regions and locations. As befits the topic of this supplement, these are generally or specifically connected to warrior priests and Manoto.
The Sounding Board is a collection of blog posts on different subjects, although all connected to military and priests.
When Culture Leads to Combat considers how a place’s soldiers can be affected by its culture, with some specific examples of soldiers who model themselves on sea creatures.
Priests considers how not every priest should be a healer.
Major Wars in RPGs considers how these can lead to different types of adventures.
What’s a Professional Soldier? is on how most medieval civilisation might only have a small standing army but also have many people to call on with military skills.
Idea Sparks – Military Units shows how sports teams can be used as inspiration for military units.
The Military Machine – Gear examines just how militaries get their supplies.
Divine Alchemy yields magic items is on ritual sacrifices for deities.
Lifestyles of the Magical and Mundane is a piece where a constable goes and serves with those guarding the Avatar of Manoto, and the skills he learns whilst there. This has an optional rule on Shield Magic for Legend Quest.
Wet Behind the Ears considers holy warriors and warrior priests.
How to Play a…Warrior Priest is for players and gives a couple of types of warrior priest, the Berserker and the Inquisitor, although there are many other possibilities.
How to GM a… Warrior Priest is on how GMs will deal with them.
Gold, Silver and What!?! has various different types of holy symbols, with prices.
News of Fletnern has some dates for Fletnern related to the Avatar of Manoto, and some different ways of handling the avatar, who may or may not be genuine. There are also a couple of other events.
The Good Life covers religious charms, specially manufactured tokens used by the faithful to donate to their gods. In what looks like a bit of a scam.
Monster and Other Menaces has a couple of NPCs, both priests of Manoto.
Church Bells has some details on religion and a couple of priestly sects.
By the Numbers has some more game information on one of the holy orders mentioned earlier.
Campaign Starter Kit can be considered to be an adventure, or possibly campaign, outline. There are details on a couple of adventures on how to develop it further.
Small Towns and City Neighbourhoods has information on the village from the Campaign Starter Kit.
Tavern Talk has in-character gossip on Helatia, the Athens-inspired city that is mentioned in many of the articles in this supplement.
Mass Market Magic has an island chain that exports a lot of enchanted bows.
A Funny Thing Happened to Me on the Way to the Adventure is another adventure hook.
Pull Back the Curtain considers mass combat in an RPG, and how to make players relevant, but not by having them fight in the front lines.
Y? Y? Y! is more GM information on how the avatar was handled in-game.
The PDF is bookmarked, with the major sections linked but not the minor ones. There is a Table of Contents that is at a similar level of detail. Navigation is not bad, but it could be better. The text maintains a two column format and some minor errors were noticed. There are some black and white illustrations which would all appear to be stock; some are by Larry Elmore.
This supplement is not exactly a coherent whole. Instead, it’s a collection of different essays and ideas, most, but not all, of which are connected to warrior priests; specifically to Fletnern, handling them in game, how they behave and what they should be like. It is an interesting collection of essays, and there is definitely useful material here, but it’s still a bit of a hodgepodge. The supplement does give insights into how the author handles thing in-game, and the level of detail that he considers important (which is perhaps more than some do).
The Avatar of Manoto – aka All About Warrior Priests is worth checking out, especially as it can be downloaded for free by clicking here.
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