Two new Broodmother reviews

Review at Vorpal Mace

Broodmother is included in Reviews from R'yleh's Christmas Dozen 2016

Also, I have to share this beautiful photo posted to google plus by David Rollins (check out his blog Searching for Magic).

It fills me with holiday joy to see someone holding their copy in front of a Christmas tree.

LotFP vs BX - classes

Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Role-Playing employs a sevenfold class system similar to the 1981 Basic/Expert D&D rules.  In this installment I'm going to run down the mechanical changes made in LotFP's seven classes.

Cleric

• Clerics now get a spell at first level BUT
• Turn Undead is now a spell (1st level) rather than a separate class ability
• Instead of gaining a 2nd level spell at third level, the Cleric 3 gets a 3rd first level spell
• After that, the cleric gets a second level spell at 4th level and a 3rd level spell at fifth
• After that we get the normal arrangement of a new spell level every other level
• (No crazy 6th level where the cleric gains access to both 3rd and 4th level spells)
• The XP chart goes up to 20th level and seven spell levels are available
• +2 hit points per level after 9th, rather than +1 in BX
• As mentioned in a previous installment, all clerics are Lawful in alignment
• No restrictions on weapons, clerics with swords and bows are a-okay
• Under the correct circumstances, clerics can write scrolls, create holy water, and research spells right out of the gate 
• As mentioned previously, no increasing to-hit chances past 1st level
• Starting at level 9, the saving throws are slightly different.

Fighter

• As mentioned previously, the fighter has the largest minimum hit points at 1st level
• As mentioned previously, the fighter is the only class whose attack bonus increases with level
• The Expert chart for fighters rounds down the XP needed for level 8.  By the simple doubling method a fighter should need 128,000xp.  Expert uses 120,000 as the target number and builds from their.  LotFP does not cut those extra 8 thousand points needed to advance.
• No suggestion of the possibility of multiple attacks.
• +3 hit points per level after ninth, instead of +2 as in BX
• In the combat chapter fighters, dwarves, and elves (but not halflings) may use the Press attack and Defensive Fighting options.
• Fighters, dwarves, and elves (again no halflings) are also better at parrying than other classes.

Magic-User

• d6 hit points at first level (the standard for 0-level people), d4 thereafter to 9th.
• XP chart goes to 20th level, with 9 spell levels
• At higher levels you gain additional low-level spell slots faster.  For example, a BX wizard gets his fourth 1st level spell per day at 11th level.  In LotFP that happens at 8th.
• Instead of 2,500 to reach level 2, LotFP only requires 2,250 and builds the XP chart from there.
• No mention of armor or weapon restrictions BUT
• No spells can be cast when more than Lightly Encumbered
• To cast the MU must have two hands free or be holding a staff or wand in one of them.
• MUs start with a spellbook containing Read Magic and 3 random 1st level spells.
• All MUs are chaotic, as discussed in a previous post
• Providing time, money, and research space is available, starting MUs may write scrolls, brew potions, and research spells.
• If they can get a cleric to work with them, an MU may even make potions of cleric spell effects.
• Should they gain access to the spell Permanency, the MU may make wands and/or staves
• No other magic items may be crafted by the MU under LotFP rules
• Slightly different saves vs. Dragonbreath starting at level 11

Specialist (formerly known as the Thief)

• 1,500 to level 2, instead of 1,200
• d6 hit dice instead of d4
• Skills are now d6 based instead of percentiles
• All characters (not just specialists) have a 1 in 6 chance at the following skills: Architecture, Bushcraft, Climb, Languages, Search, Slight of Hand, Stealth, and Tinker
• 1st level specialists gain 4 points they can allocate to those skills or to Sneak Attack (their Back Stab damage multiplier), they gain 2 more points each level
• No weapon or armor restrictions BUT
• Encumbrance penalties affect movement-based skill checks
• No rules for using spell scrolls
• [Altogether, this class is a really elegant solution to the Thief Problem, if you believe there is a Thief Problem.]

Elf

• Only 3,000xp to 2nd level, instead of the 4K needed in BX.
• No minimum Int score to qualify for this class
• Surprised only 1 in 6
• Search skill (see above) starts at 2 in 6 and increases one pip at levels 3, 7, 10, and 13.
• No level maximum, but saves max out at 17th
• Spellcasting tops out at 1 ninth level spell at level 17
• Unlike LotFP magic-users, no new spell level is gained at 13th.  You get seventh level spells at 11th level and eighth level spells at 15th.
• No infravision
• No immunity to ghoul paralysis [there are no standard monsters in LotFP]
• No extra languages
• Immune to aging effects, as they are unaging
• Always Chaotic
• For purposes of many spells, counts as a supernatural creature rather than a person: immune to sleep and hold person, affected by protection from evil, can't be blessed, etc.
• Can cast spells with one hand
• Can research spells, write scrolls, brew potions, and make staves/wands just like a LotFP magic-user
• Unlike LotFP magic-users, elves start with only Read Magic in their spell books 
• Elves cannot cast spells if more than Heavily Encumbered
• Can use the Press attack and Defensive Fighting maneuvers (along with fighters and dwarves)
• Better at Parrying than most classes (along with fighters and dwarves)

Dwarf

• Dwarves get d10 for hitdice, as opposed to d8 in BX
• Dwarves get a bonus of +1 to their Con MODIFIER, not the 3d6 roll itself (i.e. a dwarf of average Con gets a +1, while an 18 Con dwarf would have a +4)
• Unlike all the other classes, dwarves apply their Con modifier to the flat hit points earned after level 9.
• In lieu of their special detection abilities, dwarves begin with an Architecture skill of 3 in 6.  This advances one pip at levels 4, 7, and 10.
• No special language abilities
• No infravision
• No minimum Con score to qualify for this class
• Carry mules: dwarves can carry five more items than others before becoming encumbered.
• Can use the Press attack and Defensive Fighting maneuvers (along with fighters and elves)
• Better at Parrying than most classes (along with fighters and elves)

Halfling

• Fast save progression: The other classes get better saving throws every 3-5 levels.  The halfling gets better saves at level 2 and every even level thereafter.  By level 10 they need a 2 or higher in most saves and a 4 or higher to save versus magic.
• Halflings start with the Bushcraft skill at 3 in 6 and gain one point in the skill at levels 4, 7, and 10.  This makes halflings excellent hunter/foragers.
• Halflings have a stealth skill of 5 in 6 when "in the wilderness."
• Halflings cannot wield any Large weapon and must use Medium weapons in two hands.
• +1 to Dex MODIFIER, not the 3d6 roll itself
• +1 AC when not surprised
• No Con or Dex min to qualify for this class
• No missile combat bonus
• No AC bonus versus large foes
• No individual Init bonus (the Dex modifier bonus achieves the same thing, though)
• No special hiding rules in dungeons

Global Changes Affecting All The Classes

• No cool/ridiculous level titles
• No bonus to XP for high prerequisites
• No rules for building strongholds at high level and automatically attracting followers
• No to-hit advancement (except for fighters)

That's everything I could glean from a close comparison of the classes in the two rules sets, apart from the actual spells available to clerics, magic-users, and elves.  Let me know if I missed anything.

The Mystery of the Mistletoe Men

'Tis the season, etcetera, etcetera.  In addition to eggnog and the Grinch and goodwill toward men, one of the things the holiday season brings to my mind is those crazy wielders of scimitars and mistletoe, the druids.  Man, Christmas would be even cooler if it had more scimitars!  But I'm already getting off track.

The first known appearance of druids in fantasy gaming coincides with one of the earliest recorded instances of fantasy gaming.  Dave Arneson reported his first use of a fantastic element in wargaming was the equipping of a druid with a phaser in an otherwise straightforward Romans vs. Celts miniatures game.  The Romans charged with their elephants and the druid reduced them to so much pachyderm barbecue.

Early druid concept art.

The druids first enter into published D&D via the original supplement to OD&D, Greyhawk.  They weren't a playable class yet, nor did they have their own spells.  Rather, the druids can be found in the monster section of that ancient pamphlet.  A druid back then was a neutral nature priest NPC with the powers of both a magic-user and a cleric, as well as the ability to change shape and some barbaric fighting man followers.

In a way, as a combiner of arcane and divine magics, the original druid was the spiritual predecessor of 3e's Mystic Theurge and Rolemaster's Archmage.  Being able to cast both kinds of spells was a pretty neat power back then, as by the original Men & Magic rules players were not allowed to dual class as cleric/MUs.  (Though Greyhawk did introduce the half-elf player race, which could be fighter/magic-user/clerics if one had a high enough wisdom score.  Cleric ability maxed out at measly 4th level, though.)

The druid as a playable class with its own spell lists made its first appearance in Supplement III: Eldritch Wizardry.  This version is pretty close to the AD&D1 druid that I first encountered back in the day: a potent spellcaster (including 2 spells at level 1!) with a pile of special abilities on top.  With only a Wisdom of 12 and Charisma of 14 (everybody loves druids, they're just so darn likeable) it was a pretty easy subclass to qualify for.

And then there was the XP chart.  For most classes, the XP needed to advance doubles each level until you reach name level or so.  Not the druid.  For some reason, they get a noticeably faster advancement curve from levels four through eleven or so.  A cleric with 100,000xp is seventh level and can cast spells up to fourth level.  A druid with the same 100K is ninth level and can cast fifth level spells.  There's no real reason for this disparity that I'm aware of, other than the chart says so.

In the kind of loosey-goosey games me and my group players, the druid was a bit of an ass-kicker, especially when they hit seventh level and could turn into a bear.  But if you tried to play AD&D as written, there's one big limit on the druid's power: the mistletoe rules.

I think material components for spells are awesome, but very few people (especially players of MUs) seem to agree with me.  AD&D specifies needed components for a crapton of spells but then provides no guidelines for how to acquire them.  Druids suffer the worst under this regime, because they need to use mistletoe with the casting of every spell of theirs.  Here's the key quote (PHB page 54):

Notes Regarding Druid (Cleric) Spells: 

The religious symbol of druids is mistletoe.  Of lesser importance is holly.  Some magical power resides in oak leaves.  All of the druidic spells with a material component assumes the use of mistletoe, as gathered by the druid character in the manner prescribed hereafter.  Lesser mistletoe, as well as holly and oak leaves, will reduce spell effectiveness as follows. 

ITEM	SPELL RANGE	SPELL DURATION	AREA OF EFFECT
Lesser mistletoe	100%	75%*	100%
Borrowed mistletoe	75%*	50%**	100%
Holly	75%*	50%**	75%*
Oak leaves	50%**	50%**	50%**

*or +1 on saving throw, if any, if category is not applicable. **or +2 on saving throw, if any, if category is not applicable. 

Greater mistletoe, that is, mistletoe which is properly harvested by the druid, must be gathered by the druid as follows. On Midsummer's Eve, the druid must locate his mistletoe, cut it with a gold or silver sickle and catch it in a bowl before it touches the ground. 

Lesser mistletoe is that which is not harvested on the eve of midsummer, or that which the druid takes in a way which is not prescribed (such as picking by hand).

Borrowed mistletoe is any mistletoe which is not personally harvested by the druid. 

Holly and oak leaves must be gathered by the druid, but these may be picked or gathered in any manner.

But the problem here is that this passage is the last mention of druidic mistletoe in AD&D.  The Dungeon Master's Guide doesn't expand upon it, nor does Unearthed Arcana.  I even tried to find something in the Wilderness Survival Guide to no avail.  Since mistletoe is obviously so dang important to druids, I have long wanted an official answer to a simple question:

How many sprigs of mistletoe can a druid gather on Midsummer's Eve?

I've also take to Dragon magazine in search of the answer.  There are a handful of good articles about druids, "The Druids" by James Bruner (issue #12), "The Druid in Fact and Fantasy" by William Fawcett (issue #32), and "Druid in a dungeon? Why not?" by Tim Lasko (issue #48, renamed "The druid and the DM" in Best of Dragon volume 3).  These articles mention mistletoe, but none of them answer my query.  Nor does Michael Dobson's seminal work on material components, "Living in a Material World" (issue #81).  If there's a Sorcerer's Scroll or Sage Advice that addresses this issue, I have yet to find it.

It's a darn shame, too, because a lot of interesting situations can develop out of the druid's reliance on mistletoe.  Especially if you assume--since the gathering is a holy ritual and not an industrial process--that each druid can only gather a small amount of Greater Mistletoe per year, say 2d6 or 3d6 sprigs.  Here are just a few ideas that spring to mind:

1. When you encounter a druid matters.  Right after Midsummer's Eve they are at the height of their power.  But as the year progresses and they exhaust their supply of greater mistletoe, they become less potent spellcasters.  The week before Midsummer's Eve is probably the best time to pick a fight with a druid.  But if they know you know that, most druids probably lay low during this period.  Druids of level 7+ probably disguise themselves as animals a lot more when their mistletoe supply is low.
2. That gold or silver sickle used to gather mistletoe is the most precious possession of any druid.  If we assume they have to be custom made and ritually invested prior to use, then the theft of one right before Midsummer becomes a big honking deal.  Retrieving a druid's stolen sickle could be a decent adventure hook.
3. You know what comes between a druid and their sacred grove on Midsummer Eve?  Not a damn thing.  Delay a travelling druid at your peril.
4. Finally, playing a druid under these rules has got to be interesting.  You've got 3d6 (or whatever) opportunities per YEAR for your spells to be maximally potent.  How do you manage that?  When do you use your greater mistletoe and when do you get by with holly or oak leaves?  (I'd probably not carry two types of mistletoe at the same time.  In a frenzied situation you may mix them up.  At least, I'd make the player roll if I was the DM.)  And you bet your ass I'd watch the campaign calendar more closely.

So does anybody know if mistletoe gathering ever got official rules?  Does OSRIC or Hackmaster say anything on the subject?  Any good stories of mistletoe rules used in actual play?

LotFP vs BX - alignment, saves, to-hits

So today I'm going to look at some more of the differences between between the Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg and its key predecessors, the 1981 Basic/Expert version of D&D.

Alignment

LotFP uses the threefold Law/Neutrality/Chaos distinction first used in OD&D and kept in BX.  However, what those alignments mean to the characters and your game is quite different.  In BX, alignment is a shorthand for character behavior.  If someone is Lawful, they can be expected to act honorably, speak truthfully, and work for the best interests of the group.  Chaotics do not feel bound by such a code and do whatever advances their own interests.  Neutrals are somewhere in between the two.

In Lamentations, alignment is less behavioral and more cosmic in scope.  Lawfuls believe in a teleological arc to the universe; the arrow of time inevitably draws us all to some sort of ultimate state of affairs.  Figuring out your role in that totalizing destiny is the whole point of existence.  Chaotics hold that the universe as we experience it is nothing more than a temporary state emerging from the quantum foam, ebbing and flowing into and out of existence.  To emphasize some subset of arrangements of the energies of the cosmos as superior to others is to deny the infinite possibilities of life.  Neutrals are people without an adherence to either of these codes.  The text notes that everyone in the real world has been Neutral in alignment, as are nearly all NPCs.

None of these alignments come with a code of conduct.   All three alignments can include nice people and jerkwads.  But I can easily imagine many Lawfuls as religious zealous types and many Chaotics as nihilistic anarchists.  Especially with the following rule in place:  all clerics are Lawful, all magic-users and elves are Chaotic.  All other PCs can pick an alignment.

Another key alignment difference shows up in the spells section.  In BX a spell like Detect Evil does not simply detect anyone of Chaotic alignment.  Rather, it detects evil intentions.  The reverse is true in LotFP.  Basically "Evil" is the clerics' loaded term for Chaotic.  (MU's do not get any spells that address evil as a concept.)

One of the ramifications of this alignment system is that a Chaos cult with clerics seems non-feasible or at least paradoxical.  Is a devout belief that the world will end in chaos is actually a Lawful alignment trait?  Or am I just overthinking this?

That being said, I do like the implication that all clerics are crazy mofos and all magic-users are a totally different type of crazy mofo.

Saving Throws

Saving throws follow the patterns of old.  BX uses five saving throw categories: Death Ray or Poison, Magic Wands, Paralysis or Turn to Stone, Dragon Breath, and Rods/Staves/Spells.  LotFP tweaks them slightly, renaming the categories Poison, Magical Device, Paralyzation, Breath Weapon, and Magic.  All magical devices are merged into what used to be the wands category.  Which makes a helluva lot more sense to me.  Why would wands be mechanical different from rods or staves?  (Of course, you can't interrogate the logic of these charts too much without going bananas.)

Personally, I would have ditched the "Magical" and just labeled the category "Device," encompassing both the magical and the mechanical.  Caught in the cogs of a giant machine?  2d6 damage plus save versus device to avoid a mangled limb.  That sort of thing.  Not that you couldn't do it as is.

Also, I am slightly saddened by the disappearance of Save versus Death Ray.  Who doesn't like death rays?

LotFP also reorders to the saves to Paralyze, Poison, Breath, Device, Magic.  Taking a cue from AD&D, you are advised to read the chart left to right when your choice of save is ambiguous.  For example, a paralytic poison calls for a save versus Paralyze, because it is leftmost on the chart, before Poison, whereas a magical poison that turns you into a wedge of cheese would use the Poison column, since Poison comes before magic.

I was slightly surprised when I first read the LotFP rules that it didn't go with the Fortitude/Reflex/Will system of 3e and later editions.  That change always struck me as one of the more sensible later revisions to D&D.  But what is going on here clearly works.

To-Hits

LotFP uses an Ascending Armor Class system, where AC is your target number: roll d20, add your attack bonus and try to meet or beat the AC of the opponent.  Like the threefold save systems I mentioned in the last section, I thought this was a really good change to D&D.  But back when I ran 3e and 3.5 I struggled to get on board with AAC because the old system was too deeply hardwired into my brain.  But I am not so hidebound as to be blind to the simplicity of the change.

Past the decision to use AAC, LotFP breaks from a lot of the logic of a lot of editions of D&D in two important ways.  The first is that the base AAC for a normal unarmored character is 12, rather than 10.  This makes way more sense to me.  The base Attack Bonus for most 1st level PCs is +1, so a roll of 11+ scores a hit, i.e. normal starting PCs have a 50/50 chance of landing a blow.

The second, and far more important, way that to-hits differ in LotFP is that the power curve for fighting is super-flattened.  All character classes but Fighters gets a base Attack Bonus of +1 at first level and that's it, no further increase in fighting abilities.  Fighters (NOT including dwarves, elves, or halflings) get +2 at first level and are the only class that gain better to-hits, at +1 per level up to +10 at level 9.  Forget weapon proficiencies, forget specialization, forget multiple attacks.  None of that exists in LotFP.  THIS is the core class ability for Lamentations Fighters.

At first glance, it sounds harsh to rob all other classes of the ability to get better a fighting, but within the context of the overall LotFP approach to foes, it actually makes some sense.  Angry villagers remain a reasonable encounter for much longer, as do robed cultists waving daggers, or unarmored guardsmen.   Also, armor  is significantly more expensive (chain costs more than double, plate is 16 times more expensive and not at all affordable at first level) and there's no standard magical items such as plus-something armor or shields.  And there are no feats that cause AC creep.  Unlike the ever-mushrooming ACs of later editions, there's not really many reasons for the referee to have a character or monster with an AC of 20.

Left to my own. I never would have made a D&D variant with an approach like this.  But seeing it on paper, I'm kind of into it.

So that's enough for now.  Next time I visit this topic I'll tackle the character classes.

Kiel gets all the credit for coming up with the idea of doing this and turning our chat into something you can hear on the internet.  All I did was talk into a microphone for an hour.

1st level spell handouts for Lamentations

One of my few gripes with the Lamentations of the Flame Princess Rules & Magic book is the spell section.  I hate, hate, hate getting all the spells as a single long alphabetical list.  For too long my neural pathways have been charred into a configuration based upon the organization of spells by class and level.

And frankly, I think that the old way of organizing spells was a lot more friendly for newbies.  Imagine playing a cleric for the first time and needing to search through 200 spells to find the ten you have to choose from.  So here's a pair of simple handouts meant to address this issue, at least for the first couple of levels of play:

All the 1st level cleric spells

All the 1st level MU spells

Note that my layout of the Turn Undead spell is lousy.  The lines for levels 11-15 spill over onto the next page.  But I'm not to worried it, since I doubt many characters make it past level 10 in a typical LotFP campaign.  And if you're playing at that level, this handout is woefully insufficient anyway.

Also, I trimmed quite a bit out of the Summon spell.  It's still the longest MU spell by a wide margin, but I decided to remove stuff that was more geared toward the referee rather than the player.  After all, these docs are meant to be handy player references, not actual substitutes for the rulebook.

Anyway, use and distribute as you see fit.

Let us talk about Hubris

Hubris: A World of Visceral Adventure is a 350 page campaign setting from Mike Evans.  When I first opened the PDF file I hesitated for a moment, because I've reached a point in my life where a two or three hundred page infodump does not meet my needs as a referee.  Fortunately, Mike understands this problem and offers a solution to it.  But I'll get to that in a bit.

Hubris is written for the Dungeons Crawl Classics RPG.  As I get older and more curmudgeonly the number of rules systems involving swords and orcs that I am willing to play seems to be shrinking, but I am totally down with DCC RPG.  DCC RPG isn't a straightforward  D&D knock-off like the retroclones.  Rather I file it mentally with the original Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay as one of the few Not Quite D&D But Still Kicks Ass Like D&D games.

But if DCC RPG isn't your cup of tea, there's still a lot of useful stuff here for the dungeoning dragoners of the world.  My favorite parts of the book require no real changes whatsoever, while much of the rest can be adapted with just a little tinkering.  If what I describe below interests you at all, don't let the DCC RPG logo in the corner keep you from checking this bad mammajamma out.

As I paged through Hubris I got a very specific vibe from it.  That vibe is playing D&D inside the World of Heavy Metal Album Covers.  Eddie from Iron Maiden would fit into the world of Hubris, as would lycanthropic Ozzy barking at the moon.  Korgoth of Barbaria would probably do well for himself in this setting.  There's fairly little of the green and pleasant lands of renfaire fantasy and lots of emphasis on blood and guts.  Here, try this first paragraph from the 1 page section titled "Setting Summary":

Legend states that Hubris was created from the fetid corpse of a long-dead god. Hubris is a land of terrible creatures, grand inequality, strange and cruel gods, dangerous magic, opulent nobility, destitute commoners, people that have become corrupted and turned to savage beasts, constant wars, and worse.

In short, the world is some fucked up shit.  Maybe the PCs can carve out a small chunk of peace and tranquility for themselves, but mostly the world seems to be designed to be barely survived.  Going mad slowly seems to be about the best result a PC can expect out of this world.

One way Hubris communicates how this world differs from others is by offering a bunch of new options for PCs.  I highly approve this method because new stuff enters play organically, rather than being pooped out in boxed text the DM has to read aloud.  For example, one can learn a lot about the campaign setting by rolling up a set of 0-level losers for funnel play (one of the best ideas to come out of the DCC rpg, in my opinion).  The stock random professions chart for 0-level PCs in the rulebook is pretty standard faux-medieval fare, with pig farmers and blacksmiths and whatnot.  I rolled four times on the Hubris version of this chart and ended with a llama herder, a porter with a bedpan and pee rag, a clockmaker with a pocket full of cogs, and a half-demon advisor with a book of lore.

Similarly, the new classes, equipment, spells, etc., aren't just a hodge-podge of new stuff, but rather a hodge-podge designed to help tell the story of what a strange and terrible place Hubris is.  For example, nowhere else have I seen an adaptation of the Death Guards from The Beastmaster:

As a lad I did not understand the psychosexual implications of these guys.
Rob Halford's outfits also went completely over my head.

Not only do these freaks exist in Hubris, but they are called Murder Machines and they are a fully playable race-as-class!  Other stuff you can play include Alchemists, Blood Witches, Druids, Shadowdancers (they literally step out of shadows to stab you), Avarians (bird people), Ekrask (lizard people, hate the name), Half-Demons, and Mutants.  The mutation charts for mutants look pretty sweet.  I love mutation charts.  Though one nitpick I have is that what dice you are supposed to throw for a chart isn't always clearly labeled; at first I thought one of the charts was missing the first line, but it turns out it wasn't a d100 chart.  It was a 2d30 chart.

The new weapons section includes wheelock firearms but also totally kewl weapons like the spiked chain and the double-bladed sword.  There is a disturbing lack of rayguns, but nobody's perfect.

I feel like it says something important about the setting that the new equipment section lists 6 different quality levels for prostitutes one can hire, ranging from Exquisite to STD Waiting to Happen, but only 4 levels of quality for meals, 3 for inns, and 2 for bottles of wine.  Cheese, ale, and tobacco come in but a single variety each.

The real meat of this book is chapter 3, called "Territories of Hubris".  In about a hundred pages ten regions of the world are detailed.  The format here makes all the difference.  Instead of an encyclopedia entry, we get the following format for each locale:

• A few short paragraphs giving the basics of the region.
• A d100 "Lay of the Land" chart providing thumbnail sketches of locations in the region.
• A d100 encounter chart for the region
• One or more brief write-ups for special locations, with rumors/adventure hooks
• Some extra thing unique to the region, like rules for eating the mushrooms of the Bogwood Swamp

The trick here is that, taken together, this stuff is suggestive rather than comprehensive in nature.  Pick a region (or roll d10), throw percentile dice a couple of times, and select an adventure hook.  The result isn't a complete adventure but it is sufficient to launch sketching out an evening's gameplay.  You can't move across this world strategically and explore every nook and cranny, as one could with a numbered hex map style campaign book, but you can easily achieve the effect of the Ace paperback version of Conan the Barbarian, where individual adventures are loosely connected.  I'm quite taken with this approach.  It makes me rethink what the heck I'm doing with my own campaign setting.

After this great section we get new spells, patrons, and gods of the setting.  The mechanics here go into the deep end of the DCC RPG, but there plenty of fluffy setting material that can be easily used in other games.

Chapter 6, "DM's Tools and Charts" is another highlight of the book.  There are lots of random charts throughout the book, but here's a whole chapter of them, most of which can be easily stolen to liven up a non-Hubris game.  Here's the list:

Ancient and Forgotten Demigods
Bandits, Brigands, and Rapscallions
City District Generator
Diseases of Hubris
Grave Diggin'
NPC Generator
Planes of Hubris
So You Decided to Make Camp
Strange and Interesting Herbs of Hubris
Tavern and Inn Generator
A Vial of…?
Instatown/Village Generator
What are These Strange and Ominous Ruins?
Declaration of Years

My fave is the Grave Diggin' chart, for when the PCs start robbing the deceased and you've got nothing planned.

Then we get new spells, new monsters, and a couple of introductory adventures.  One is a zero-level funnel featuring a crashed meteor that's actually a dungeon (wished I had thought of that) and a first level adventure in which the PCs are charged with murdering a sweet old lady whose hobby is hacking the magical powers of the Spider Goddess for her own evil ends.

The book ends with author Mike Evans' own personal appendix N for the work.  All sorts of media and genres are mentioned here, not just swordy sorcery books.

So that's Hubris: A World of Visceral Adventure.  If you buy into its all-wicked-all-the-time sensibility, then you've got a great venue for running some awesome adventures.  If you don't dig that vibe as the default setting for a campaign world, there's still a lot of usable-at-the-table stuff crammed into its pages.  This is NOT a campaign book designed to be read for light entertainment and then put back on the shelf, but rather a tome full of Here Play This.

This illo from David Lewis Johnson really communicates something crucial about Hubris.
I'm just not sure what that thing is.