This article originally appeared in d20 Weekly
Xcrawl - Adventures in the Xtreme Dungeon Crawl League
Published by Pandahead Productions
Written by Brendan J. LaSalle with James A. Moore and Brett Brooks
Cover by Chris Appel
Illustrated by Jeff Austin, Mark Bagley, Ed Ball, Allyson Brooks, Tom Feister, Holly Golightly, Ralph Gruff, Shane Melton, Charles Rutledge, and Richard Turner
240-page b&w hardback; $34.95
Imagine if you will, if the "humble" dungeon crawl or bash was turned into a televised event? Have it hyped up to the max as the biggest media event since the last one, and inject all the frenzy that the tabloid press can muster, and you have Xcrawl - Adventures in the Xtreme Dungeon Crawl League, the latest d20 system setting published by Pandahead Productions. This is a combination of soap-style wrestling of the WWE and the American Gladiators TV show, mixed with elements of extreme sports, the "reality TV" of Big Brother, the Dream Park series of novels by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes, and the death sport of Rollerball in the film of the same name . . . All turned into a media circus to get the highest ratings and make the most for the networks and the game's sponsors.
Specifically, the setting for Xcrawl is the North American Empire of 4699, the leading nation of an alternate Earth that is organized into a series of kingdoms and empires. Indeed -- and somewhat ironically -- the only nation to possess a parliamentary democracy is the Kingdom of Zimbabwe. Stretching from the Artic Circle in the North to the Panama Canal . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: January 22, 2003
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