Bardic Lore – The Fachan

From: Highmoon Media

Reviewed by: Ron McClung

Bardic Lore: The Fachan is a new RPG PDF Mini-Sourcebook from Highmoon Media.

From the web site:

Bardic Lore chronicles the travels of the great bard Amergin Ó Míl as he wanders around the land, learning about the mundane, exotic and magical, recording it in his journal for posterity. A bard learns a bit of everything, and this series features a hodgepodge of material, anything and everything from exotic flora to interesting tavern drinks, trade goods to magic, from marketplace rumors to ancient legends.

As the above paragraph describes, Bardic Lore portends to be a series of journal entries of Amergin Ó Míl. This first entry in the journal describes a beast known as a fachan – a strange misshapen race of Celtic or Gaelic lore.

From page #1 :

“I turned around, intent on facing my enemy and instead I faced my nightmares.”

A fachan is a large creature (Medium Monstrous Humanoid) with one muscular arm sticking out of his chest and one muscular leg that he hops on to get around. He has the head of a cyclops, with one blood-shot eye in the center of his head as well as just one ear on one side of his head. His head is vaguely orcish, and for just one leg, it gets around almost unnaturally.

The Challenge Rating 1 basic version of a fachan is fully stat’ed out in D&D 3.5 terms. It only has two special qualities – Horrid Appearance and Low-light Vision and is a pretty simple species otherwise. It basically is a one-legged, one armed, one-eyed orc with an attitude (or more of an attitude). One interesting line in the text states, “Fachans tend to rely on brute strength and surprise, rushing to overcome their prey or opponents by sheer force.” I have to ask – how can you be stealthy enough to gain surprise if you are hopping around wherever you go? I guess its magic. I can see, however, the intimidation benefit of having a whole army of these versus having an army of orcs.

The rest of the file provides combat tips, notes on fachan society and ways to integrate the fachan into your campaign, as well as rules for using fachan as a player character including a 3-level base class called the Fachan Paragon. The last few pages include an NPC named Gwrgenau the Fachan Warlord, who ravaged the country side of his lands with his army hordes of humanoids.

From page #2 :

“ Fachans are wicked monstrous humanoids that live in hilly or mountainous terrain.”

In conclusion, although interesting, I did not find a lot of this PDF inspiring. A one-legged one-armed orcish race is just another gimmick race to me. However, it is reasonably imaginative and shows that the authors have a potential of creating a good series of PDFs in time. They obviously have a passion for gaming and want to put out their ideas for you to use, so you have to admire them for that .

If a DM is seeking something different to spice up his fantasy campaign, I would say this could do it. It does have some potential, and I am sure there are DMs that would be able to use the fachan in their campaign world. The layout is good, it is well written and the art is reasonably well-done. For a buck-twenty-five, it is a reasonably good buy for anyone that wants something unexpected in their campaign. There is some value in introducing a creature into your campaign that all the players do not know because they own the same monster manuals you do.

For more details on Highmoon Media and their new RPG PDF Mini-Sourcebook “Bardic Lore: The Fachan” check them out at their website http://www.HighmoonMedia.com and at all of your local game stores.

Bardic Lore: The Fachan

From: Highmoon Media

Type of Game: RPG PDF Mini-Sourcebook

Author: Daniel M. Perez

Proofreader: Mark Gedak

Artwork: John Brown

Number of Pages: 8

Game Components Included: One PDF File

Game Components Not Included: d20 Core Rule books (3.5)

Retail Price: $ 1.25 (US)

Item Number: HMP 1101

Website: www.HighmoonMedia.com

Reviewed by: Ron McClung