{"id":1645,"date":"2025-12-24T09:55:51","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T14:55:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/?p=1645"},"modified":"2025-12-24T10:26:34","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T15:26:34","slug":"shaghal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/?p=1645","title":{"rendered":"Shagh\u0101l"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I recently finished reading <em>Jackals<\/em>, designed by John-Matthew DeFoggi and published by Osprey in 2021.  It had been on my items-of-interest list for a couple of years as an RPG that kept popping up in Reddit threads about underrated gems.  In April, while heading home from a rifle class in Alabama, I swung through the Chattanooga location of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mckaybooks.com\/\">McKay Books<\/a> and found a copy in their used gaming section.  I&#8217;m glad I go to this one ahead of a number of other books that have been languishing in my to-read queue for more time, because &#8220;underrated gem&#8221; is definitely an accurate descriptor for this one.  This will be more of a pleased burble than an actual review, but it&#8217;s not like I&#8217;m getting paid to do this, so I can occasionally indulge my enthusiasms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jackals<\/em>&#8216; subtitle is <em>Bronze Age Fantasy Roleplaying<\/em>, and I often see it referenced as a &#8220;swords &amp; sandals&#8221; fantasy subgenre.  In both setting and mechanics, it reminds me a lot of the best aspects of <em>7th Sea<\/em>&#8216;s first edition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The setting is a place whose map looks a lot like the eastern Mediterranean.  PCs &#8211; all human &#8211; come from four main ethnicities\/cultures:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The eastern shore of the Futhetia Sea is the Zaharets, an area formerly dominated by the Takan beastman empire that enslaved (and sometimes ate) humans.  The former slaves in question, the Luathi, threw off their shackles three generations ago after the emergence of a prophetess of Alwain, a monotheistic deity.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>To the south, we have Ger, a kingdom ruled by priest-kings who claim descent from divinity.  The Gerwa culture is millennia old, stratified by castes, and rooted deeply in both divinely-ordained civil order and self-discipline. <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Beyond the Zaharets to the east, the Trauj hold sway.  Nomadic tribal desert-dwellers, they war ceaselessly against the Takan and the hidden remnants of the chaotic, sorcerous Mouadah elder civilization.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The northwest is the newly-established colonial frontier of the Melkoni, the people of a collection of city-states allied in several great leagues.  With two of the leagues now locked in war, more Melkoni are migrating east to seek safety or to rebuild their fortunes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>In effect, we have not-Israelites, not-Egyptians, not-Arabs, and not-Greeks.  The names are new and the cultures are distinct products of the setting, but DeFoggi did a nice job of adapting real-world precedent into a cohesive setting while (to my untutored eye) avoiding ethnic or religious stereotypes.  Each of the four has its own religion and cultural values, which flow nicely into both character descriptions and mechanics.  Each also has two paths of magic coupled to those same cultural aspects.  The parallel construction is obvious, but it doesn&#8217;t feel forced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mechanically, <em>Jackals<\/em> uses a percentile-based skill system.  It&#8217;s classless and levelless, with character creation and advancement running on point allocation, so a player can build and grow their PC in whatever direction seems interesting or thematically appropriate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So what do <em>Jackals<\/em> PCs do?  The title ties into the intended storyline here.  In-setting, &#8220;jackals&#8221; are wandering adventurers who stand outside the four cultures&#8217; social orders.  Gamers will be familiar with this concept, but <em>Jackals<\/em> is up-front about it in a way that reminds me of Ken Hite&#8217;s comment to the designers of <em>Far West<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Civilization must be protected from the Barbarians, and to do that, somebody has to pick up The Gun. However, if you pick up The Gun, you become a Barbarian.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Part of the conceit of Jackals is that no PC lasts forever.  The mechanics and politics of the setting support this through the accrual of permanent wounds, by opening up the possibility of gradually accumulating renown to the point of being offered a home in one of the communities that dot the map, and with the potential to retire a PC into the role of an NPC who continues to support the party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While the four origin cultures are not in open conflict, each has both internal and external politics and intrigue.  Free agents &#8211; jackals &#8211; are deniable tools for the major players in these games.  Civilization in the Zaharets and the surrounding regions is fragile, beset by the Takan, individuals and cults who&#8217;ve become corrupted by Mouathenic spirits and artifacts, other remnants of the Mouadah, and the environment itself.  Standing armies aren&#8217;t really a thing beyond local militias, so there&#8217;s never a surplus of official fighting\/investigating\/spying\/exploring capacity.  Jackals are useful&#8230; and, if it comes to it, disposable.  They may be working for the community, after all, but they aren&#8217;t <em>of <\/em>the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My one gripe is Osprey&#8217;s layout work.  My eyes haven&#8217;t<em> quite <\/em>degenerated to the point that I need reading glasses, but this book is an early warning that that day is coming.  A little larger font would&#8217;ve been appreciated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All in all, <em>Jackals<\/em> is a tightly-written and internally-consistent work with a setting that is sufficiently adjacent to history that most well-educated players should be able to latch onto it without too much cognitive dissonance.  I haven&#8217;t tinkered with the mechanics yet, but they look solid and playable at first glance.  I&#8217;m finding it compelling.  This one&#8217;s definitely on the list of games I want to at least try out with a one-shot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I recently finished reading Jackals, designed by John-Matthew DeFoggi and published by Osprey in 2021. It had been on my items-of-interest list for a couple of years as an RPG that kept popping up in Reddit threads about underrated gems. In April, while heading home from a rifle class in Alabama, I swung through the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[138],"class_list":["post-1645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-jackals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1645"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1652,"href":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1645\/revisions\/1652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}