Classic Review by Yair Rezek
The Murchad's Legacy Campaign Setting is a 256 page D&D setting published by Parent's Basement Games as a pdf, available for 12$. It is an excellent setting. If you are looking for an orcish invasion campaign or just for stuff to pillage for your own game I strongly recommend it, however it is in some respects amateurish.
The setting is focused around the north-western human feudal kingdom of Launhym, which is threatened by orcs from the north. Extensive details are given on its history, politics, geography (including an excellent map, description of the weather, settlements, and so on) and major groups, organizations and NPCs that build up a rich, complex background with plenty of mysteries and hidden agendas. Part of this background is a similarly in-depth treatment of nearby kingdoms and regions. These include an elven kingdom to the west and a human kingdom to the east that greatly affect Launhym's politics, and a Roman-like empire in the south overshadowing the local powers. Other kingdoms include a buffer dwarven kingdom to the south, eastern barbarians, and drow and orc kingdoms to the north. Together they comprise a rich and interesting political landscape, set in a realistic and fitting geography.
This rich background is supported with six prestige class (one for each major culture) and background/cultural feats. I was impressed with the extent these encouraged immersion in the setting. The Steadfast Knight PrC, for example, encourages the player to invoke oaths, which is something that is common in Launhym's culture. I found some of the feats too NPC-like, focusing on enhancing skills players rarely want enhanced (for example Craft). (Note that the feats are more powerful then PH feats - this is intentional, to lure players to take them; I like it, but YMMV.) I did NOT like penalties to diplomacy checks, which are prevalent in the setting, but that is hardly a game breaker. I did NOT like the fact that some feats grant varying benefits determined randomly (when the character gains them).
The kingdom of Launhym will fall to the orcs unless the PCs do something about it. A rough timeline, detailing different stages of the orcish invasion, is given along with ideas on when and how to move along it and adventure seeds for reversing the trend. I found the information on the assault a little too spread out and sketchy at places, but overall the work gives a solid backbone for an “orc invasion” campaign that lets the PCs figure out what to do about it and provides plenty of ideas and background for a competent DM to spin a tale out of. The setting is also rich enough to provide plenty of adventures regardless of the orc-invasion metaplot.
Three adventures are included in the work. I did not thoroughly read them so I'll refrain from commenting on them. The zip file also includes a detailed (albeit crowded) regional map, a broad “global” map for context, and regional flags.
From the author's words it appears that the setting is intended as a fairly generic fantasy setting, that can be used piecemeal by any DM (just using it as the north-western corner of your homebrew, for example). That was what I was looking for, but in that respect I was somewhat disappointed. A key theme of the setting is that the orcs, goblinoids, giants, and probably other races are the results of elven handiwork, humans warped by powerful elven magic. This recurring theme simply fails to work for a generic setting, which needs to explain the existence of orcs, kobolds, giants and so on in other places and even planes of existence. It is, however, an interesting premise and leads to interesting ramifications in the setting.
The authors also found it difficult, apparently, to set aside their house rules and many got in. I especially liked the use of Spellcraft to ward off scrying. The nerfing of harm and teleport is also certainly not essential to the setting, nor were notes on generating ability scores needed. I actually liked many of the house rules, and may adopt some of them, but I think their inclusion ultimately detracts from the setting's focus. I likewise found the DMing instructions (like letting the players play whatever character they want even if the setting doesn't allow one - like a Gnome) patronizing and needless.
A part of the flavor text is the use of ley lines, but these are supported only with a few spells that I personally did not find sufficient. This is not an essential part of the setting, however, and can be discarded entirely or improved upon with other sources.
The entirety of the work is OGC, including the proper names and everything, which for me is a great bonus. In that context, however, relying on the (non-OGC) gunpowder rules in the DMG is not the best of decisions. I will probably replace them with similar OGC rules.
The cover is an excellent Elmore piece and the inner pictures are of decent to good quality (B&W), but I found the art to be generic (despite captions tying it to specific personas or setting elements). The graphic design is non-existent as the work consists of a plain two-column text interposed with badly-sized tables (where the text is cut off into segments) and an occasional character picture. I found the appearance dull and occasionally confusing (especially in how headlines “disappear” into the text), but that doesn't really detract from the excellent content.
There are also a few editorial gaffs here and there. I noticed one repeating paragraph, and the number of active Oaths a Knight of the Pure Heart can muster at once is discernable only by a majority vote (two places say two, one place says one). I probably missed some too. The level of mistakes, however, does not distract from the work (hey, it almost lives to WotC's standards, these days).
In conclusion, this is a solid product detailing a setting of a north-western human kingdom threatened by orcs along with a rich environment to support it. The overarching plot is concrete enough to provide a framework for a campaign while being open and sketchy enough to allow the PCs complete freedom. The political and geographic scene is detailed and rich enough to provide many further adventures. Despite a few amateurish hallmarks and choices I disagree with, I think this is an excellent product well worth the money. If you're looking for an orc-invasion campaign, this product is top notch. If you're looking to use this product piecemeal, perhaps as a single plane or a part of a greater setting, you will get a lot of good stuff from it but will probably want to make some exhaustive changes.
