So I got my hands on the Kevin Tong Foil cover (I really wish they would also have a Tong non-foil option, as the foil isn't the most vibrant, but it matches my 3 book foil set)
Regardless, the contents of this 256 page volume is to replicate somewhat the Greek-style of heroic mythologies...extracting the misogyny... turning it into a bland paste of what could be an epic.
It will be truly, up to you as the DM, to muscle this one up.
The extras are the Centaur's, Saytr's, Leonin's, Minotaur's and Triton's.
If they were to really make this good, I would have Muse's replace Triton, and Demi-god replacing Minotaur's... so you could have diety-touched players (Akin to Perseus or Kira from Xanadu)
A missed opportunity for real-couples to be a power team.
Playing a Minotaur? ok... but it's not the cursed villain of Greek Epics...
The world of Theros is very VERY basic 19 pages of exposition, which feels like a Flash Gordon theme park ride. (Here be the land of Bull headed people, here be the land of Lion headed people... and here be water world of the Fish people...)
It's not all a miss though. There are a lot of cool ideas on running a Greek-Epic using the strands given for adventure ideas (which I like) and with a clever DM, you could really turn this setting into something great.
I feel like this was only a teaser for a larger archive to come (if it passes muster to the masses).
There was also a 2 sided handout (for free from my local game-store) with laminated maps from within the book. Great for dry erase or overhead-projector pens (aka wet-erase)
A little small for anything except reference... but cool.
The art throughout is a mix of cool and meh... flavors of Colin Ferrell's Alexander with pretty boys with hands in each other's hair... fine if you are into that, I'm not here to judge you.
If you want pictures of Hercules manliness, you get to look at muscle-Minotaurs... there are a few pics of heroic looking warriors, but most are bland in stature.
You get a few beasts in the bestiary to play around with, Nymphs are more like elemental's than womanly seducers, so crush that one...
The God's theme is pretty good and worthy of some game-play. It's got its own set of rules on death and possibly coming back which brings in conflict with the order... which I feel is cool enough to use.
So... it's not a fail for my uses. I like some of the plot ideas and rules of the gods, and some of the beasts are great. I just really wished they gave more flesh to the land regions with more culture... but it's enough to get a DM started. I'd probably homebrew with my own map of the world and create my own flavors of diverse human cultures (instead of warrior-ish ones and the stagnant knowledgeable ones)
How to fix? First off, you want the players to become the legends. So nuke the expositions, create a clean slate of several civilizations, with the common thread of the same gods. Create a few legends of gods vs gods and perhaps about some of the nightmares spawned through these ancient clashes.
Now you need a common enemy, evil-god decides to guide his/her champion of doom to thwart the good-guys (steals the kings daughter, going to be fed to the kraken in x amount of days... some sort of trope like that.). Now the players must become the Perseus/Hercules/Achilles/Udysseus... of the EPIC that must travel unknown lands to the edge of the world to gather the items fabled to destroy the evil...
You need to make the players feel like they are writing the legend to come, not some Discount-Jason and the Argonauts following in what already has been done by some other epic hero in the past.
The Hero must have an enemy
The Hero must search for a weakness in the enemy by following possible leads (oracles, seers... way out in forbidden territories) for these secrets, they must do some possibly questionable bidding.
The Hero and his/her troupe of talented daredevils decide what leads to take and what legendary items to quest for to stop the evil enemy...
The KEY is you don't want the players hearing the deri-do of "Herseus" (the great hero and his band) doing this and that and stopping the kraken bla bla blah... YOU WANT the players themselves to BE the "Herseus and his band" and they must travel an epic for themselves, so that generations to come will write poems and songs about their deeds...
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