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The Red Opera
Welcome to the show. Come, sit down and make yourself comfortable. Tell us, what brought you out of the cold and dark? A morbid curiosity, perhaps? A thirst for battle and blood? A promise of intrigue, treachery, and betrayal? No matter the impetus, you have arrived and will be well rewarded, for the players of the Red Opera will find all these things, and so much more...
The Red Opera: Last Days of The Warlock is an extensive, player-driven campaign and setting designed for 5th edition. Drawing inspiration from the DiAmorte heavy metal album of the same name, centered upon the oft-overlooked and much-misunderstood class: Warlocks. Does this mean, you wonder, that all its players must be Warlocks and serve infernal and aberrative masters to partake of the story's wonders? No, no... certainly not. All are welcome in the Shadelands.
This 320-page book (8.5" x 11" - portrait) includes ten main adventure acts, ten sidequests, and new Warlock subclasses, Patrons, and races. The all-new setting of the Shadelands features the Warlock-ruled city of Yon’Cath with ten key story locations, numerous secondary locations, and includes new unique characters, enemies, magic items, a full Orchestral Soundtrack included with the book via QR codes, and much more!
The Red Opera: Last Days of The Warlock is an extensive, player-driven campaign and setting designed for 5th edition. Drawing inspiration from the DiAmorte heavy metal album of the same name, centered upon the oft-overlooked and much-misunderstood class: Warlocks. Does this mean, you wonder, that all its players must be Warlocks and serve infernal and aberrative masters to partake of the story's wonders? No, no... certainly not. All are welcome in the Shadelands.
This 320-page book (8.5" x 11" - portrait) includes ten main adventure acts, ten sidequests, and new Warlock subclasses, Patrons, and races. The all-new setting of the Shadelands features the Warlock-ruled city of Yon’Cath with ten key story locations, numerous secondary locations, and includes new unique characters, enemies, magic items, a full Orchestral Soundtrack included with the book via QR codes, and much more!
- GenresFantasy
320 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2021
9 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 12, 2021
First, there was the album from the band DiAmorte. Seriously, that's how I found this, a symphonic metal album based on D&D. Intrigued, I backed the Kickstarter, because I'm a sucker for setting books and I like the Warlock class. This was a very good idea.
The Red Opera is a magnificent book. Beautifully bound with a glorious cover. But what's inside is even better. Se in the Shadelands far to the north of pretty much any setting you can imagine (it's easy to drop in anywhere that there's a northern land with access to the sea) the twin cities of Yon'Cath bask in the ever-shifting light of the Elemental Dance, close by the Well of Souls, the place where the barrier between worlds thins to a fine edge. The Sahdelands is the place where Warlocks come to break their bonds, renegotiate terms with their patrons, or find new masters. All under the eyes of the Accursed King in his Impossible Tower.
Sounds good? It only gets better. The campaign is set out in eight chapters, each a complete scenario that will determine the fate of the region. Each chapter is extremely well written, with plenty of options and potential side quests to keep things from being a linear railroad. My only complaint is the characters are followers in most of these stages, adding one or another of the cities great leaders. But it works as a narrative. Fully played out, this can be a game-changing mini-campaign for a group. characters will come out changed. Very well done.
There are new spells, Warlock options and Patrons, and several magic items. All are of high quality and add to the feel of the setting. We get a race of elves whose natures and powers change with the seasons, and a race of bear people who feel complete, and not just like people in bear suits. But perhaps my favorite bit is an essay on being a Warlock in D&D, and the nature of Patrons. It really encourages the player to consider who his Patron is, and why both the character and the Patron made this deal to share power. Reading this comparatively short section filled my head with good ideas.
The setting itself is great. Yon'Cath feels like a Gothic horror of a city, and while not detailed heavily, there is enough sketched in terms of important places and notes on different districts that any good gamemaster can really make the city his. The rest of the Shadelands are given enough love to make setting more scenarios in the area a real possibility.
All in all, this is one of the best books I've purchased for D&D5e. I will warn that the campaign is skewed to more experienced parties (in the second scenario, there is a Challenge Rating 17 encounter) but that shouldn't stop anyone from using the Shadelands earlier and allowing the characters to come into the book campaign in their own time.
The Red Opera is a magnificent book. Beautifully bound with a glorious cover. But what's inside is even better. Se in the Shadelands far to the north of pretty much any setting you can imagine (it's easy to drop in anywhere that there's a northern land with access to the sea) the twin cities of Yon'Cath bask in the ever-shifting light of the Elemental Dance, close by the Well of Souls, the place where the barrier between worlds thins to a fine edge. The Sahdelands is the place where Warlocks come to break their bonds, renegotiate terms with their patrons, or find new masters. All under the eyes of the Accursed King in his Impossible Tower.
Sounds good? It only gets better. The campaign is set out in eight chapters, each a complete scenario that will determine the fate of the region. Each chapter is extremely well written, with plenty of options and potential side quests to keep things from being a linear railroad. My only complaint is the characters are followers in most of these stages, adding one or another of the cities great leaders. But it works as a narrative. Fully played out, this can be a game-changing mini-campaign for a group. characters will come out changed. Very well done.
There are new spells, Warlock options and Patrons, and several magic items. All are of high quality and add to the feel of the setting. We get a race of elves whose natures and powers change with the seasons, and a race of bear people who feel complete, and not just like people in bear suits. But perhaps my favorite bit is an essay on being a Warlock in D&D, and the nature of Patrons. It really encourages the player to consider who his Patron is, and why both the character and the Patron made this deal to share power. Reading this comparatively short section filled my head with good ideas.
The setting itself is great. Yon'Cath feels like a Gothic horror of a city, and while not detailed heavily, there is enough sketched in terms of important places and notes on different districts that any good gamemaster can really make the city his. The rest of the Shadelands are given enough love to make setting more scenarios in the area a real possibility.
All in all, this is one of the best books I've purchased for D&D5e. I will warn that the campaign is skewed to more experienced parties (in the second scenario, there is a Challenge Rating 17 encounter) but that shouldn't stop anyone from using the Shadelands earlier and allowing the characters to come into the book campaign in their own time.
July 31, 2023
Short version: This book is what roleplaying teenagers with some potential, too much money, and poor understanding of what it actually takes to write a book would put out.
Longer version: It looks pretty, it has a lot of "book bling", like thick paper, good printing, embossed covers etc. (especially the premium edition), but very little that is truly interesting or original, not particularly pretty 3D art, and abysmal editing.
Seriously, most roleplayers who started out in the '80s or '90s have done this, except they did not have (as it seems) undeserved celebrity status, or massive funds to make their home game binders into deluxe books: you read some [insert beloved fantasy/gothic/horror books here - for us it was Tolkien, R.E. Howard, Neil Gaiman and John Ney Rieber], listened to some Blind Guardian, Rhapsody, Manowar, Rainbow and Blackmore's Night (and later on Nightwish, as well as any other metal, renaissance, or adjacent band in-between), cobbled together ideas and imagery for your session or campaign, had a great time and felt amazingly cool.
Nothing wrong with that, obviously - up to that point. As I have all of my old material (and have seen a LOT of material scribbled in RPG adolescence to early 20s), I can tell you, 99% is not publishable, and the 1% that might be needs massive amounts of editing.
Red Opera falls somewhere between the two. It's not trash, but it's not anything special either. It LOOKS cool (mostly), and definitely seemed cool as presented in the Kickstarter (one of the reasons I backed it at the time), but at the end of the day, it's a series of standard tropes from metal music, lukewarm "satanic freedom" and anime, overly embellished and not without vanity entries from Jamison Stone and Satine Phoenix.
Longer version: It looks pretty, it has a lot of "book bling", like thick paper, good printing, embossed covers etc. (especially the premium edition), but very little that is truly interesting or original, not particularly pretty 3D art, and abysmal editing.
Seriously, most roleplayers who started out in the '80s or '90s have done this, except they did not have (as it seems) undeserved celebrity status, or massive funds to make their home game binders into deluxe books: you read some [insert beloved fantasy/gothic/horror books here - for us it was Tolkien, R.E. Howard, Neil Gaiman and John Ney Rieber], listened to some Blind Guardian, Rhapsody, Manowar, Rainbow and Blackmore's Night (and later on Nightwish, as well as any other metal, renaissance, or adjacent band in-between), cobbled together ideas and imagery for your session or campaign, had a great time and felt amazingly cool.
Nothing wrong with that, obviously - up to that point. As I have all of my old material (and have seen a LOT of material scribbled in RPG adolescence to early 20s), I can tell you, 99% is not publishable, and the 1% that might be needs massive amounts of editing.
Red Opera falls somewhere between the two. It's not trash, but it's not anything special either. It LOOKS cool (mostly), and definitely seemed cool as presented in the Kickstarter (one of the reasons I backed it at the time), but at the end of the day, it's a series of standard tropes from metal music, lukewarm "satanic freedom" and anime, overly embellished and not without vanity entries from Jamison Stone and Satine Phoenix.
March 6, 2023
This book is a mess. I had a great time reading it, but I think that as an adventure, it is much too prescriptive about the actions of the PCs. There's a lot of wild stuff, and a ton of unbalanced material. There's lots of good inspiration, but I can't imagine this being very fun to run.
August 26, 2022
Amazing great book woo go read it, my teacher wrote it.
January 12, 2023
All of the stretch goals and sparkly things that Apotheosis were more concerned with made them forget about important things like hiring a real editor and cover artist.
I have to say it was a lot of fun working on this book, but the problems with the studio that have arisen since, the fact that my name is misspelled on the goodreads page, and also that it seems to be impossible to get goodreads to confirm that I am a contributing writer, as well as some other quality issues in the product itself have proven that the result of the fun work we did was not backed up or bolstered before sending the product off to print.
The content is interesting and fun, but not well-organized. Working on the project was a lot of fun, but due to the issues with Apotheosis imploding after publication, editors not doing a great job pulling the content together in a meaningful way, and the poor choice of cover art; my honest rating is 3/5. I believe this was a missed opportunity to make something really great; with the amount of backers and funds raised, what was delivered is really not the quality the backers deserved.
I have to say it was a lot of fun working on this book, but the problems with the studio that have arisen since, the fact that my name is misspelled on the goodreads page, and also that it seems to be impossible to get goodreads to confirm that I am a contributing writer, as well as some other quality issues in the product itself have proven that the result of the fun work we did was not backed up or bolstered before sending the product off to print.
The content is interesting and fun, but not well-organized. Working on the project was a lot of fun, but due to the issues with Apotheosis imploding after publication, editors not doing a great job pulling the content together in a meaningful way, and the poor choice of cover art; my honest rating is 3/5. I believe this was a missed opportunity to make something really great; with the amount of backers and funds raised, what was delivered is really not the quality the backers deserved.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews