Diomin is exactly the sort of work that the Open Game License is supposed to encourage. OtherWorld Creations is a small company. That is: it started out as three people, and (according to the website forums) has recently expanded to eight. This gives the fans an amazing level of influence over future product, and a level of feedback even the best of the bigger companies cannot match. More on that later.
The authors open with what is arguably the strongest point of the whole book: Mythology. Though the initial mythology section takes up a scant five pages, its not possible to do it justice in this review. Yes, its an age-old story: The One creates the Divine Realm and Cadron, the Liberator, rebels against him. But the reasons for the rebellion and the results of it are truly unique. In only five pages, the authors manage to outline the cosmology and the gods well enough to play a Cleric of any of the Gods. The other thing that is outstanding about this chapter is not so much what it says, so much as what it implies. The authors manage to hint at a whole lot going on behind the scenes, and Chapter One made me want to DM a game in this world right away.
The second chapter goes over the races of Diomin. Though a little rough in spots, and a little sketchy in others (the physical description of the Gnolaum is a bit lacking, for example), this chapter largely lives up to the promise on the back cover: “Who needs elves?” (Some oldsters may find this slogan… familiar. I forgive them: As I said, Diomin lives up to its promise.) Some may complain that there are “only” five races (not counting the NPC race, Gadianti, which is outlined later) available to player-characters (two of which are human cultures specific to Diomin), but this only emphasizes the flavor of Diomin. One feels that Diomin is a young world, with the latest clash of the Gods a mere eyeblink (i.e. a few centuries) in the past, on the celestial scale. The world has existed long enough to become interesting, but not so long that it’s lost its rough edges, or completely lost its simplicity. Each race has a wealth of cultural and mythological information, emphasizing that Diomin is a land of myth and magic, not of science. Check your assumptions at the door.
Chapter Three outlines the classes of Diomin, and how they differ from “vanilla” 3rd Edition D&D. The bulk of the chapter outlines the new Shaman class, which specializes in a whole new type of magic, very much connected to Diomin’s concept of the spirit world, though not so much so that the class isn’t adaptable to other settings. I was very impressed at how balanced and well-thought-out the Shaman class was. However, be warned that there is errata on the OtherWorld Creations web site and a more detailed discussion in the forums required to make the Shaman class work. The completely original concept of magic (for D&D, anyway) that the class represents makes it worth the effort.
Chapter Four is labeled “Game Master Information”. This is a bunch of miscellaneous information about the world, including guilds and prestige classes, some of the important NPCs of the world, and the NPC race, the Gadianti. The Gadianti are corrupt, cat-like beings that serve the Lords of Darkness, and are not orcs in any sense. They’re an intelligent, ruthless race with their own dark agenda, more hinted at than spoken to directly.
The very last chapter is an adventure (the first in a to-be-published series), and, unfortunately, the weakest part of the book. I would have much rather that these 28-or-so pages (of the 110 page sourcebook) had been spent describing the world in more detail. The adventure is quite linear (though the authors at least admit this) and while reasonably balanced for the 1st level characters it is intended for, it has the potential to be quite deadly depending on the group’s play style. Also, though there’s no warning of this at the start of the adventure, I recommend that at least one of the PCs be of Lawful Good alignment, or they are going to have problems during the final scene. The best part, in my opinion, is the random encounter table for the city of Arioch: I have already adapted this table for use in the Planescape campaign I am currently running.
Finally, some nits to pick, for those who care about that sort of thing. There are a lot of editing mistakes in this work. Not so many that it’s unreadable, but enough to be noticeable, from incorrect homophone usage to over-reliance on acronyms that are thankfully clear in context (like RP for “role-play” and “HP” for “High Priest”). Also, I didn’t like the art, though I get the impression a lot of the fans of the game disagree with me, and felt it enhanced the atmosphere. A lot of the art reminded me of sort of black-and-white versions of the sort of things Precedence did for its Immortal line. It’s really the sort of thing you either love or hate. The art is, however, better than the art in some supplements by larger companies, and it didn’t turn me off of an otherwise excellent product.
There are the sketchy bits I mentioned earlier, but all reasonable questions can be cleared up by going to the OtherWorld website (http://www.otherworlds.cx/) and checking the errata and the forums (it is important to check both). The gaps might be a minus if one didn’t have Internet access, but then you wouldn’t be reading this if you didn’t, now would you? And because the company is so small, they respond quite rapidly to questions by fans, and are genuinely interested in what fans have to say about Diomin and the direction it’s going. This alone, in my opinion, is worth the price of admission. It is not often one gets to so directly influence a creative work in process, particularly one of this quality.
Overall, if one didn’t have Internet access, I’d give Diomin a B- because of some of the gaps, with an A+ for originality and effort. With Internet access, I’d give the whole thing an A overall, especially given the rate of customer response (let’s hope they can keep it up), though the DM still had better be ready to fill the background out some, as there is only the one sourcebook out at this time. Considering this team has never published a roleplaying supplement before, Diomin is quite impressive. OtherWorld Creations is a small company to watch, especially with Gods of Diomin coming next, which promises to expand the interesting cosmology (including the spirit world) even more.
