I sought to do a review of Svimohzia: the Ancient Isle, which was Kingdoms of Kalamar's own Nyambe. Well I'm 60% through the book, and in comparison to my 3 Fantasy Africa reviews it is worse in just about every way. Instead of a proper review I'm posting excepts from the book.
For those not in the know, KoK was a 3rd party campaign setting for D&D 3rd Edition, but got a semi-official status due to an out of court settlement with WotC violating a copyright lawsuit. Kalamar's claim to fame is being a low-magic, low-fantasy, "realistic" medieval setting whose terrain is based upon real-world geological science, there are no big time heroes save for the PCs, and hobgoblins are a rising superpower given that they're the only "class level advancing" race with physical ability score bonuses and no penalties to others. Svimohzia is one of Kalamar's six major regions, containing the oldest civilizations much like IRL Africa. For its part it does have a diversity of terrain and advanced kingdoms which are detailed, so that puts it above WotC's Tomb of Annihilation or Paizo's current Mwangi Expanse at least in terms of having an actual sub-Saharan African civilization to journey around in that's not howling wilderness.
BUT
I've just completed the first country chapter, and where it falters, it crashes hard.
For one, the first country Meznamish is pretty much a declining empire which was temporarily ruled by an evil theocracy, which caused it to adapt freedom of religion when the populace looked back and said "we're never having this happen again." The country is meant to simulate a realm which can and has risen to greatness, but many problems and the trearchery of merchants and nobles have worn it down. The historical and noble house entries have all the worst aspects of a Game of Thrones episode with all that entails.
Secondly, this is not country specific but in the first chapter, we have a write-up of the major human ethnic groups and where the other races fit in (KoK is super humanocentric barring hobgoblins). Whereas the various human ethnicities are more or less neutral, we have the write-up of the Dejy, who I believe are a sort of pan-ethnic group representing all manner of nomadic and indigenous people from Bedouin Arabs to indigenous Americans. The Dejy of Svimohzia are quite literally savage jungle dwellers with all the negative Darkest Africa tropes. Some tribes are described as barely sapient, others believe that all spellcasters are evil, some practice cannibalism of outside intruders, and other things which would make it hard for them to join a typical adventuring PC party. You actually need special DM permission to play as one, unlike the other human ethnicities:
And so far I've encountered at least 2 instances of mentally disabled noble scions who are described in...less than kind terms. This is not just a way of saying someone's stupid: they're given mannerisms which reflect genuine disability:One Example Tribe wrote:Simay: The Ahznoms believe these dark brown-skinned, easternmost tribes to be barbaric, if not cannibalistic, and they are not far from wrong. Left in their natural condition, they have sunk to the lowest depths and degrees of barbarism, dimly groping in a world of mental and moral obscurity. Strength is their most prized attribute, but without the honor prized by hobgoblins. What a Simay wants, he takes. Personal property is personal only so long as it can be defended. Even one's body is not their own, for the Simay feel no shame about eating the flesh of other humans. Perhaps their one redeeming feature is that they only eat humans when no other options are present.
Merely thirteen years of age, Mozvin was a drooling incompetent who lacked the ability to rule the empire, even with the return of the legions (badly weakened by the ravages of jungle fighting). The houses, fearing a revolt from the duchies, elected Onsar to be the boy’s steward and chief advisor. Soon, Onsar eradicated all visible traces of the Church of the Endless Night, and reestablished order in the name of Miznoh’s last heir. Two years later, Mozvin "the Daft" succumbed to his crippling birth defects.
There's also a high priestesses who while having dark skin, was born with blonde hair and blue eyes and thus the locals view her as having a divine bloodline/chosen by the gods/special mark due to this:The firstborn of Warven II, Warven III (N aristocrat 1) is an idiot who passes his days half-aware and in blissful ignorance, having been born without the intellect or grace of his younger brother. To preserve the integrity of the family line, Warven II named his younger son heir, thereby passing over the elder for the far more competent younger child. Still, the king favors his eldest son and spends most of his free time with the fool. Warven III looks very much like a younger version of his father, though without his shrewd eyes and confidence. The young prince frequently moans and shudders, rocking back and forth, and uttering small yelping noises.
Warven III lives in Monam-Ahnozh with his elder brother and his father.
The lord of the third country, the Kingdom of Ozhvinmish, is racist against elves and is passing all sorts of laws to make them as miserable as possible, up and even including hoping they flee the country or get killed off and has even stated as such publicly in order to help deal with an unrelated refugee crisis ("they can fill in the labor void of the elves"). And the reason for his bigotry?When Hava was born, over 40 years ago, it was clear she received the goddess’ blessing. Her head of beautiful blond curls and incredible blue eyes impelled her pious parents to immerse her in the Courts of Justice, where she could learn the catechism of their faith. It seemed her parents were not the only ones who believed there was a divine hand in her birth; the Courts of Justice lauded her as a living symbol of Svishozh the True’s blessing upon Meznamish.
Although a teenager wanting to date a pre-teen is still creepy (inferred by her "finally" reaching age 13), I did a quick looksee in the Kingdoms of Kalamar Player's Guide to the Sovereign Lands (their main setting sourcebook for 3.5) to find out how different elves were in the setting. Looking at the age entry, they aged the same as in the 3.5 Player's Handbook. Meaning that 110 in elf years is 15 in human years.Shahn’s hatred for elves stems from his adolescence, when he became obsessed with an elf maiden from the Svomawhom Forest. He pined for her, and when she and her family came to the capital to trade, he watched her from afar. Finally, when she reached age 13, he approached the girl, professed his love and demanded she consent to wed him. She rebuffed him publicly, unaware or uncaring of his station, to the derision of the onlookers. Shahn was mortified and fled to his home.
Since the rejection, he spends less and less time in Ashoshani, paranoid of the laughter of his people, even though no one recalls the occurrence. When he assumed the throne, his shame and self-loathing drove him to hate elves, though they had long been allies with the duchy and lived in harmony with them for the past three centuries. With each measure the king passes, the more estranged the elven people become, and they move to the outlying regions of the nation to escape the persecution of the king.
The racist king wanted to fuck a toddler.
And get this: his listed alignment is Neutral Good.
I also saw one of their Prestige Classes, which is so lacking in self-awareness and respectability that it makes even WotC's Tomb of Annihilation look tasteful in comparison.
It's the Primal Warrior, where you have a special relationship with spirits to the point that your primary feature is to polymorph into various kinds of simians as you level up, from lemurs to Dire Apes.
In a Fantasy Africa campaign setting.
I makes me feel weird; I fear that only touring the worst will get accusations of a lop-sided view as opposed to a full F&F treatment. Not to mention the fact that it's about as long as Nyambe is, and reviewing that product was a labor of love for me. But the thing is that most of the book is rather bland descriptions of settlements, history, local customs, sports, etc of the respective lands but few in the way of cool adventure material or fantastical events associated with D&D. This is a larger problem with KoK, where the authors clearly wanted a low-fantasy medieval setting with extra detail on the mundanities of life. One of their books even had a sidebar acknowledging that multi-page descriptions of city bureaucrats may seem boring, "but you can totally use them to give the PCs adventure hooks!"
...when you could have spent that word count writing up adventure hooks instead.
This doesn't really leave much room for what D&D is best known for, unless you relish the idea of a Game of Thrones style world of noblemen and warlords finding ways to screw each other over in tense political situations. But the 3.5 engine is not geared to this; Kingdoms of Kalamar is now using Kenzerco's own Hackmaster system, but I cannot attest to how suitable that one is for that kind of genre.
