I always heard about this as a 2e player but I finally really gave it a shot and have spent the last few months watching all the youtube videos, the other related AP, running Release The Kraken!
I love the defined small pantheons of deities that balance each other in the literal "Balance" and how the gods are alien (and also not on different planes but in the world itself!) but also children/siblings very akin to greek mythos. It's just the right amount of deities. Not too many, not too few. And the Eldamon aren't just a pokemon-esque attempt deeply related to another predominant form of philosophy:
The Eld" or tl;dr Elementalism of the TWENTY different elements that make up Alacar. (Alacar is the "World" of Battlezoo, the Indigo Isles is a Archipeligo of Islands ON that world.) And I love that The Eld and a lot of these ancestries pre-date the gods arrival. The Titanomachy and the story of the creation of Talir, God of Dragons/The First is tight while incorporating Kaiju and similar titanic origin stories from multiple other popular IP's. 😉
It's a easy setting/archipeligo to Isekai to from another setting be that Forgotten Realms or Lost Omens/Golarion. I love the somewhat cuter artstyle that is a nice juxtapose to the somewhat eldritch, often cthulu-ey themes that the oppositions usually have. The two questions people have asked me often about it is:
"Why is it so cute? "Because it's likely part of why the Mother and Father immediately loved the world and decided to stay. When Battlezoo made this setting they asked kickstarters what they valued in a setting and a different flavor of traditional takes of ancestry was a big one. Followed by "Why was that enemy so... Well?" It comes back to that alien nature of powerful beings happening upon this place and the setting attempts to do something a bit different while still being familiar.
This setting in a lot of ways was a great side project from various people beyond just Linda, Stephen, Mark from various companies with decades of experience. It has enough cooks in the kitchen for it to be varied in biomes and different enough piece to piece that much of it felt familiar, but refreshing and not very stagnant despite the small landmass geographically.
The ancestries aren't too wacky, very familiar concepts but culturally and society wise are a bit of a curveball to expectations. Overall this book is everything you need to do some homebrew adventures of your own in this wonderful little world, it's written for you to take hooks and run with them rather than an exhaustive referenced history. It's full of mysteries, ideas, hooks and possibilities.
The towns are just detailed enough. The histories and references are just enough. Not too much, not too little. Not too much fluff, just the occasional bit of fun. There is a little bit of a lop-sided amount of content for the main isles but that's also somewhat explainable in the different "Jewels" or cities and how tight the world is and also the multi-facted nature of the book including a dragon bestiary, deities, ancestries and world guide histories alongside multiple player options.
I appreciate that there's even suggestions of how to start exploring the world with a dedicated Otari-like village on Goldcrop Isle called: Molmist, the Humble Homestead. Where the Jewel AP also starts but with lots of information for you to homebrew up something very easy. They could of easily slapped a "buy the ap" sticker on it. Instead it's a great little starter both to jump right in and as a starting point to learn out from.
My only gripe is it's so late in the book whereas I would point people to it.
Lots of art! Some ancestries have a lot more art than others though for instance, I wish I got to see what each xotlxotl progenitor looked like or etc. But I respect that this is an all-in-one made by a smaller company, the amount of art made by such credited people is still very impressive, notably I would of really liked to of seen more area/isle/town "Covers" to show the "vibe" of some of the towns.
We got a shot of sailing up to Moonshadow, a port scene of Goldencrop one of Bluebell and a few others but I would of loved to seen more of the Mistvale where potentially people go to when they dream or what that mountainous region of the Crest looked like or better yet, what DOES this bigger abandoned city of Fairlight LOOK like?
Hell, I'de buy a Indigo Isles: Art Expansion. Is wanting more a complaint or a symptom of it being good? That's for you to decide! My favorite part of the setting is definitely the Orpoks, Bluebell Isle and the Xotlxotl's weird culture of strengthening each other with a different kind of respect.
Overall it's a fantastic world that gave me tons of ideas and was very easy to learn comparing it to other settings. I would recommend anybody to run this setting and look forward to future adventures within it!
Works With Any D&D 5E or Pathfinder Game
