Battlezoo Bestiary: Elemental Storm Kickstarter

Will It Ruin Your Day? Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound: Ruins of the Past Reviewed

Sami YuhasSep 22, 2024

Title: Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound – Ruins of the Past

Authors: Arjun Anad, Calum Collins, Allen Johnson, Ross Parkison, Sam Taylor, Elaine Lithgow, and Michael Duxbury

Artists: Johan Grenier, Jog Brogzin, Runesael Flynn, Daniel Kovacs, Frost Llamzon, Damien Mammoliti, Sam Manley, Patsy McDowell, Clara-Marie Morin, and JG O’Donoghue

Year: 2024

Genre: Rules and adventure location supplement for the Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound roleplaying game

Pages: 128 pages

MSRP: $39.99 for the hardcover (with PDF) or $19.99 in PDF at DriveThruRPG

Grab your gear! It’s time to go exploring with Ruins of the Past, a tome of explorable locations, rules, and the accompanying accouterments for Soulbound.

Technically, Ruins of the Past consists of nine locations ready to be dropped into a campaign, along with rules to make exploration feel a little more exciting and a little less straightforward. There is a wonderful emphasis here on failing forward and on using failure to direct players to points of interest they may have otherwise missed. The exploration rules are well-constructed and locations are geared for lower-level characters with instruction provided for scaling the difficulty for more advanced adventurers. This is a nice balance that clears the way for GMs to use these locations with newer players who may be uncomfortable with the risk of failure; under the rules introduced in Ruins of the Past, a botched roll can lead to its own unique discoveries.

Each location includes a brief history, plot hooks, allies, enemies, a random encounter table, points of interest, possible rewards, and potential aftermaths for explorations. It’s a collection primed for use as a library of dungeon crawls, but in truth, that is only scratching the surface of what’s on offer.

Ruins of the Past is a toy box of opportunities and a masterclass in effective worldbuilding. The descriptions are as efficient as they are evocative, rife with details that help each location to feel truly unique. The decision to include possible ramifications for the exploration and choices made during the course thereof helps to make these spaces feel more real; they are not just static backdrops for players to wander through, but rather dynamic narrative set pieces. Every action has a reaction – for better or for worse. It’s inclusions like that make reducing the book to drop-in dungeons a major disservice, as it fails to highlight the versatility of the content.

It also doesn’t hurt that the book is beautiful. The half-page illustrations do a wonderful job of setting the tone and provide plenty of inspiration for GMs who might struggle to describe the feel of locations.

Admittedly, this won’t be a title that everyone needs. It’s a solidly GM-focused tome with no content meant to be player-facing. GMs only interested in running premade adventures can also probably safely pass on this one. Ultimately, Ruins of the Past encourages GMs to take the locations and make them their own, cutting, pasting and inventing as necessary; if that’s not something that interests you, this might not be the best fit for your library. Likewise, tolerance for a $40 price point for 127 pages in a physical edition will vary.

Ruins of the Past is a strong addition to a GM’s library, as well as an opportunity to take a closer look at what makes for a great location in an adventure. For those interested in building out their tool box with ready-to-remix locations, enemies, loot and the like or for those looking to take a deep dive into design, it’s a strong option, with the only serious pause coming in the price tag.

Author
Recent Posts

Sami Yuhas

Writer, gamer, and necromancer bard (at least in D&D). Sami focuses primarily on board and tabletop gaming, with a focus on sci-fi and fantasy, as well as worker-placements and co-op titles. She prides herself on the ability to overthink world building in games, and cites a three post manifesto on the costuming of XCOM 2 as among her greatest nerd achievements.