Last year I was engaged proofreading a localization of a French RPG called Les Ombres d'Esteren. It looks like it's finally ready for English release now, and I thought I'd share some details about it with you guys.
http://www.esteren.org/shadows_of_esteren/I was actually pleasantly surprised at the production values of the final product. The art turned out to be really decent.
The Shadows of Esteren is a gritty fantasy horror RPG set between three major factions of civilization, each with their own way of warping reality, either the Demorthèn with their cultish magic, the Magientists with their science and factories that basically drain life from the land, or the dogmatic faith of the Temple. The cities are far from each other, and many of the roads infrequently traveled, largely because of unnatural creatures called Feondas who lurk in the wilderness.
To a degree, the Feondas can be fought with sword and bow and magic and faith, and it's very easy to die a hero when the mass up and maraud cities. Many of them however are far less straightforward, with more mysterious ways of overcoming human strength or senses.
Each of the three kingdoms on the peninsula of Tri-Kazel blames the others for the existence of the Feondas, and for a number of conspiracies and mysterious going's on besides. They're all about half right, too.
The biggest difficulty I can see in it is trying to justify the menagerie of character types that most play groups seem to want to put together in the face of how little the factions trust each other, but there's enough variation of roles within each of the factions to allow a faction specific party.
I thought it was an interesting take on the normal fantasy concepts, and overall an effective setting of fear and uncertainty that allowed for a decent horror game in the fantasy genre. Because of this, I thought it might be of interest to the RPPR crew in particular.
