Before starting this review of Davokar Awakens we want to thank Free League for sending us a digital copy. Davokar Awakens is the sixth and final chapter of The Throne of Thorns, the campaign that has accompanied role-playing players of Symbaroum since 2017.
If you are interested in purchasing, you can find a physical copy of Davokar Awakens on the Free League store, for 438 crowns (just over 38 euros), with a digital version included. For 218 crowns (around 19 euros), you can instead purchase the complete module for VTT Foundry. On the shop, you will also find various offers for the world of Symbaroum; especially the Korinthia Bundle which will allow you to recover the core manuals and the entire campaign The Throne of Thorns for the sum of 2,838 crowns (just over 250 euros, receiving manuals for a total value of almost 370).
Review of the Davokar Awakens Manual
Davokar Awakens it’s a paperback volume, consisting of 203 pages, in line with the previous volumes of the saga which concludes, obviously; put together they make a beautiful figure in any bookcase. The pages have a light parchment effect, are laid out in two columns and contain various text boxes and tables. This standard is now predominant on the market because it guarantees readability without affecting the magic of the volume with an overly modern appearance (which would clash with the fantasy genre). Mattias Johnsson Haake, the founding soul of the Swedish publishing house, co-author of the game and author of the volume, hits the target once again together with his team.
From an artistic point of view, Free League manages to defeat the competition with disarming simplicity. It’s not just about beautiful images but about a completely immersive experience in the setting. Often the internal artwork sacrifices the more didactic aspect, left to the maps alone, to focus on the sensations they want to arouse.
An Inimitable Artistic Line
The result is impressive. Plus all volumes of The Throne of Thorns, and in general of the game line associated with Symbaroum, can boast an impressive consistency; Martin Grip’s covers and Gustaf Ekelund’s illustrations have given these volumes an artistic coherence that is unrivalled on the market. Not when we’re talking about publishing houses that now have significant production and are usually forced to make compromises. Free League doesn’t do that and gives us yet another journey into the world of Symbaroum which is a joy to behold.
Complete everything Game Master Kit, where you can find the maps and some physical props for the game. The first, 12, offers various styles for various needs: some outline entire regions, others go into detail about urban areas or specific locations. In short, they leave nothing to chance. The props are mostly excerpts from letters and diaries that are already available in the manual, but which the GM can thus distribute to his players. The portraits of the main NPCs of the adventure complete everything.
Where Do We Start with the Review of Davokar Awakens
… and it happens, has happened, will happen again,
that Wratha grows boundless, furious, blind in her hunger.
For a good comprehension of Davokar Awakens, it is necessary to make a recapitulation of the entire saga of The Throne of Thorns. Our review is spoiler-free as usual, but a bit of context is still needed.
The campaign introduces characters at the beginning of their careers within a story that influences the fate of the entire game setting. The plot focuses on the eternal cycle that sees Wyrhta, Wielda and Wratha alternate. These are the three principles of creation, civilization and destruction, which constantly follow one another in a specific order.
The other focus of the campaign is the Throne of Thorns, which gives it its name; an ancient and powerful artifact, whose power is at the heart of the dispute right between the three primordial forces and their mortal representatives.
A Gradual Introduction
Each volume of The Throne of Thorns takes its name from where the events occur. In Thistle Hold: Wrath of the Warden the scenario is purely urban. The characters meet in the alleys and squares of Thistle Hold juggling various balances of power. The adventure is an opportunity to introduce the main factions into the game world that will play a leading role in the campaign.
In the second chapter, Karvosti: The Witch Hammer, those factions are further explored and expanded, introducing all the main players in the game and, above all, the conflict in which they are entangled. The adventure in this case is more focused on exploring the wilderness and begins to introduce the Throne of Thorns itself and the ancient lost city of Symbar, which will play a key role in the story.
In Yndaros: The Darkest Star the group, having moved to the capital of the Ambrian empire, begins to delve deeper into the themes that characterize them The Throne of Thorns. He will find himself sticking his nose into the relationships between the current empire and that of Symbaroum, which gives its name to the setting itself. Moreover, closer relationships will be formed with the various factions in the game and their relative command cadres will be known.
Review of Davokar Awakens: the Heart of the Story
The turning point of the narrative occurs in Symbar: Mother of Darkness. By visiting the ancient imperial capital, the PCs will have access for the first time to crucial information for the entire setting. It is a complete immersion in the secrets of Symbaroum, which will allow you to discover elements that have a crucial role in the setting right from the basic manual of the game. The plot instead advances as the conflict progresses, which for the first time becomes an open clash between factions. More importantly, the characters will have to choose who to side with.
Of the penultimate adventure of The Throne of Thorns, Alberetor: The Haunted Waste, we recommend reading our in-depth review. In summary, the conflict is brought to a higher level, and almost all the secrets necessary to fully master the setting are revealed. The plot focuses more and more on the Throne of Thorns, to the point of unfolding entirely to allow the characters to access it at a later time.
The Davokar Awakening
Finally, we arrive at the adventure we are talking about. Davokar Awakens, according to the authors, can also be played as a stand-alone adventure; and technically that’s true, as measures are also suggested to create PCs powerful enough to be able to face the difficulties, and also to create a sufficiently balanced group. But they suggest bringing it to the table only as a conclusion to the entire campaign, for a series of more than valid reasons.
First of all, the power level of the characters will be very high. There would be little pleasure in creating characters like this, who would need a disproportionately structured background. Secondly, the charm of the plot. The Throne of Thorns is a campaign written with love and dedication: breaking the flow of events in this way is a crime.
Third, the most practical reason: the entire campaign is based on the choices of the characters. These are important and intense decisions that should not be taken lightly. Choices of this kind require equally strong motivations, which is decidedly difficult to find for a character created on the drawing board rather than for one carefully developed since his debut.
Review of the Role of Choices in Davokar Awakens
Choices are precisely the heart of Davokar Awakens, and consequently of the entire campaign. At the end of the games, the characters’ decisions can lead to four different endings. And we’re not talking about nuances, trifles or sops for the players. These four endings can radically change not only the lives of the characters but also the future of the entire game setting. And everyone does it in a profoundly different way.
Furthermore, each of these endings can be further customized. That’s because Davokar Awakens is the final chapter of a long campaign, whose publications continued for six years. In such a period of time, and with such a quantity of active gaming behind us, it is really difficult to have an ironclad control of events. Especially when the campaign tries to deviate as much as possible from rigid railroading, trying to provide the Game Master with a series of reference paintings and scenes. Crossroads and nodal points where he can move freely.
What to expect? As stated, no spoilers on the plot. But it is the title itself that gives an important clue: Davokar, the thousand-year-old forest that holds secrets and horrors dating back to the dawn of humanity, finally awakens. It’s the moment when all the issues come to a head when all the conflicts and plots must find a resolution. And there will be absolutely nothing left to chance or pending.
A New Standard for Campaigns
We can say that Davokar Awakens has in effect set a state-of-the-art standard for writing a campaign finale. The choices that the players have made during the various previous chapters come back to the surface, taking on their weight one by one. The manual provides a great outline to follow, ideal for how the authors have imagined the campaign but takes into account every possible element that you deviate from this due to the previous play.
Precisely for this reason, the manual continually presents a series of permutations: NPCs, factions, and conditions of some locations. The Game Master simply needs to carefully read each chapter to replace each of these elements with what is most similar to the story that his players have experienced. The attention to detail is obsessive: in various paragraphs, lists of NPCs from previous chapters are also presented that can be inserted in minor roles within some scenes. This is to further strengthen the feeling that everything that has been played up to that point has real weight.
Review by Davokar Awakens: Writing
Everything happens in a clear and absolutely enjoyable way. Leafing through this manual becomes a real pleasure, preparing the campaign with a magnificent succession of “what if..?” and hypotheses. It is a game of Chinese boxes in which, at the end of the day, the characters always have the last word.
There is the right mix of emotionally strong scenes and others with very strong heroic imagery. Playing Davokar Awakens is satisfying, it satisfies the player’s desire to move a character who has not only the means but also the opportunity to have his say. The backstory of the adventure is intricate but perfectly understandable; never taken for granted, it is linked to the previous chapters and can be explored further if the dice decide to grant its assistance. The more you delve into the game, the greater the possibility of discovering new implications, of giving greater three-dimensionality to the narrated facts.
New Tools for the Game Master
The adventure is smooth and engaging, and the Game Master is given all the tools to manage it in the best way. The volume divides the adventure into three acts, for a total of eleven chapters. Most of these are dedicated to integrating all the previous plays in the saga as best as possible The Throne of Thorns, and to managing the impact of the characters’ choices.
There is no shortage of options made available to the gaming group. Particularly the master can find the cards of NPCs and opponents, as well as summary tables of the forces of each faction, extremely compact and useful. Also useful are the Grandmaster levels of some monstrous skills or abilities, which allow you to build NPCs that bring back the epic nature of the most ambitious campaigns.
Furthermore, the volume introduces a new mystical tradition, Archmagic: A form of higher magic that causes no imbalance in the world. In essence, it is a mystical tradition that does not cause corruption in the user but does not mean it can be used cheaply. However, it should be specified that this is an advanced option, available only about the plot and that the Game Master should not grant it lightly.
Conclusions of the Review of Davokar Awakens
We’ve known for a long time that Free League doesn’t miss a beat and that it always gives us manuals of the highest quality. This time we can say that it has outdone itself: Davokar Awakens is the model that you should keep as a reference when you want to write a long campaign. It was certainly not easy to maintain the narrative while allowing it to be adapted to five previous modules. Davokar Awakens manages to finish The Throne of Thorns collecting everything that was sown previously, giving it full meaning, and giving satisfaction to those who play it without forcing it towards an obligatory happy ending.
As mentioned, the adventure can also be played as a standalone, but it is not recommended to do so at all. This volume offers a story that is too broad in scope and has an immense amount of work behind it to best contextualize it in a game that can last for years. Playing Davokar Awakens as an adventure disconnected from The Throne of Thorns would be an unforgivable waste. It is a manual whose purchase is recommended for everyone, but which lovers of the darkest and “dirtiest” fantasy (and above all long and organic campaigns) absolutely cannot miss.
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