Urban Arcana for d20 Modern

 

Urban Arcana from Wizards of the Coast

Before I delve into anything else (still have to do that Starfinder review), I thought I should review the Urban Arcana Campaign Setting.  I'll be doing a page using Salt Lake City as your setting for Urban Arcana, so I thought I should review this book now.  It's available as a PDF on Drivethru (link already provided) and you can purchase a hard copy that is in paperback.  At a premium of course.

The Urban Arcana campaign is for d20 Modern, and it mixes fantasy concepts from D&D into the modern day, creating quite the unusual campaign setting.  I mean most of the time, I want to run fantasy horror (Werewolf: the Apocalypse), but sometimes good modern fantasy means Urban Arcana.  Urban Arcana is published by Wizards of the Coast through Drivethru now.  It's a good buy if you are looking for modern fantasy.  Here, you can blend drow, dragons, undead, and other beings from D&D into your d20 Modern game.  (So many products to review, so little time).  And while you aren't playing werewolves in the modern day, you can play mages and clerics.  I mean, how cool is that?

From GuruOX on Shutterstock.

 

The Nature of Shadow

The book opens up with an introduction on the book's material. Oh, and you also introduced to the concept of Shadow.  Shadow is the way which creatures of fantasy cross over into our own world.  Shadow touches a world (say like Oerth or Faerun) and brings creatures from that world to our world.  Anyone could come: elves, dwarves, drow, yaun-ti, anyone and anything.  Including orcs.  They come here, appearing like regular folks, but some people -- like your PCs -- can pierce this veil and see them as they really are.

Beyond that there are new additions to your d20 modern campaign, covered in Characters.  You see new occupations like the apothecary (really a pharmacist), psychic and shadow scholar. There are new feats ripe for the picking. This chapter introduces metamagic feats (for your mage or acolyte characters).  Along with other feats you might find cool for your character.  After that, Shadowkind (races or species) are discussed.  These include elves, orcs, dwarves, drow, and other Shadowkind, including humans.

Fantasy Elf from Shutterstock.

After that, new advanced classes and prestige classes are introduced for the d20 Modern game. These include the arcane arranger: a face class that could be linked to the Occult.  Others include the Archaic Weaponmaster, Glamourist, Shadowjack (something like a decker), speed demon, technomage and wild lord.  Prestige classes are five levels long and include: the Archmage, Artificer, the Ecclesiarch, and the holy/unholy knight.

Chapter two includes equipment.  With items like new weapons, hazmat suits, kits, generators, holy water, and other items.  The chapter also includes a list of vehicles to use for your d20 Modern campaign.  Chapter three includes new spells for your Urban Arcana campaign (and other d20 Modern games).  These are neatly divided into Arcane spells, Divine spells, and Incantations. New ones include Arcane Graffiti, Clean, Clown Car, Crawling Carpet, and others. Chapter four includes new magic items, while chapter five includes tips on running an Urban Arcana game.

Urban Fantasy from Shutterstock.

Chapter six goes over organizations included in the setting. Organizations include Department-7, Draco Industries, the Church of Pelor, Heirs of Kyuss, and others.  Including a restaurant franchise called the Prancing Pony (which is like McDonald's and Arctic Circle). After that is chapter seven, which includes a number of creatures and a drowic rock band.  Chapter eight includes a number of locations on where to set your campaign -- including a suggestion to use your own home town.  Chapter nine finishes off the book on how to meld D&D with your Urban Arcana setting.

Conclusion

If you are wondering how to run an urban fantasy campaign, Urban Arcana can definitely give you tips on how to run one.  The art is very good, and there are few considerations to think about.  You can merge D&D with Urban Arcana but it's best to start simple -- like your home town.  If you are looking for another regular fantasy setting, you can skip this book.

Nudity and Censorship

Picture by Chunie.

 Hi everyone.  I am LDS, I grew up in a culture where nudity always equaled sex.  Predominately.  Thus, when my father went to Italy, he came home with three miniature sculptures.  These sculptures were the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Michelangelo's David, and a sculpture of Diana.  In my early teenaged years, I perved on the sculpture of Diana.   And I'd have this problem for ten years, because nudity equaled sex in my eyes.  Only when I was twenty-four did I break the cycle.  So, what's the point about this?  We live in a culture where nudity is both reviled and admired.  All for the wrong reasons.

How did we get here?

Easy, I'll have to take you back about two hundred years. A certain sculpture was unearthed in Pompeii.  It's below.  It's a sculpture of Pan having sex with a nanny goat.

Naples National Archaeological Museum, CC BY 2.5 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5>, via Wikimedia Commons

SCANDAL!  Many people thought that it was wrong, and classical art was depicting Pan having sex.  With a nanny goat by all things!  Children must not see this!  So they locked it away, censored it, to protect the children.  What happened is irrational to say the least.  But it did happen.  Why?  Because Victorian society believed that the body must be hidden.  That nudity equaled sex, and it's something that happened in private.  Behind closed doors.  And that was the day that Pornography was invented.

Now, don't get me wrong, the Victorians did a lot for us.  There were a lot of invention and incentive that went on.  However, the culture repressed anything that had to do with nudity. In fact, they had clothes for grand pianos, lest the legs of pianos would be perved on. Yes, Victorian culture was repressive. And the effects of such echoed down through the Twentieth and Twenty-first centuries. Irrational attitudes about the human body will persist.  And Madison Avenue exploits them.

Censorship

The response is to censor the body. And how that has become a problem. In a Nation where Freedom of the Press is enshrined with our Constitution, the response to censorship is overwhelming.  To this day, the body had been censored in America.  Although now this has been challenged where the nude body of a woman is in every fashion magazine. And the nude body of a man is viewed with revile.  Naked women sell, that's for sure.  Both to men and women.  However, as we get more Authoritarian, we have censored nudity every where, since nudity equals sex in our culture.  No where do I see this as apparent as in Roleplaying Games.

In the Beginning . . .

I was there when the OGL came out.  And it was a Wild West as far as RPGs came out.  Of course, Wizards of the Coast put out the STL guide for products using the d20 logo.  But there was products that featured nudity.  Female nudity, of course, but nudity was there.  Then Wizards played the censorship game and one of their employees published a book called The Book of Erotic Fantasy that dealt with sex in the game.

Still the ban was there, and if you published a book you better not have nudity in the art or have the license revoked.  It's to protect the children.  And Thomas Jefferson advocated that there won't be censorship in a free society.

Pornography and Censorship

I know you who are parents that are reading this, that you want your children to be protected.  But Pornography depends on two things to thrive: censorship and shame.  Censorship of nudity, because the body must be hidden -- especially the penis of the male.  Shame, because through shame, pornography must thrive.  Can we as a culture get rid of Pornography?

The answer is a resounding yes!  But it would take some changes to our culture. One must come to accept that our fear and anger at the naked human body is irrational.  Both male and female.  We must throw off this irrationality towards our own bodies.  We must look at the naked human body as good, not evil.  Read Heinlein's novel Stranger in a Strange Land.  Go to nude beaches, and leave behind your swimsuit.  Take your kids with you, and show them pieces of art from the Renaissance.  Teach them the body is good, and natural.  Be nude around your children.  Fight against censorship.  Show your children that the nude body is a good body to look at.