This article originally appeared in d20 Weekly

Review of Black Flag

Black Flags: Piracy in the Caribbean

Published by Avalanche Press

Written by Dr. Mike Bennighof, Ph.D. & John R. Phythyon, Jr.

Illustrated by Lorenzo Sperlonga & Terry Moore Strickland

64 b&w pages; $16.95

For their latest d20 supplement, Avalanche Press have turned to the subject of piracy upon the high seas. The genre has always been a roleplaying mainstay, going all the way back to the Beowulf's mayday cry for help on the cover of classic Traveller, not to mention more traditionally themed RPGs, such as FGU's 1980 Skull & Crossbones and Yaquinto's 1982 Pirates And Plunder. More recently, Atlas Games added anthropomorphism with Furry Pirates, while ICE remained traditional with Run Out The Guns. Avalanche Press follow their lead with Black Flags, a strictly historical sourcebook, leaving -- more or less -- the buckling of swashes to other games.

Since this is an Avalanche Press book, we need to deal with the cover first. Again it is a cheesecake pin-up from Lorenzo Sperlonga, but neither quite so over-the-top nor quite so forward as with his other covers for this publisher. The young lady in question is a hardy lass. You can tell this by the fact that she is standing in the skimpiest of wind-torn tops in the midst of a storm; despite all the evidence of the storm around her, this pirate's hair is made of sterner stuff, as it is barely affected. (Her stylist must be proud . . .) Actually, and to be fair, this cover is not just for show nor for catching the eye of the casual browser; . . .

This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.



Article publication date: July 24, 2002

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