Level Range: 1-20
A magic school like no other! The oldest and most prestigious magic academy in the world is the Magaambya, an ancient institution founded by the greatest wizard the world has ever known. This wizard vanished long ago, but his sinister enemies plot against his school and those who attend it. Over their long academic career, the heroes rise from humble students to become teachers, and they ultimately hold the fate of the Magaambya magic academy in their hands. Graduates of the Magaambya are among the greatest wardens of the world, but if the heroes can't marshal the strength of thousands who have come before them, the venerable Magaambya might fall!
The “magical school” adventure path. Strength of Thousands is a lot of fun. For those who grew up with Harry Potter and Hogwarts, the attraction is obvious, but for us older gamers there is still a lot to love here.
Strength of Thousands begins in the famous Magaambya Academy and the player characters are students performing small tasks (and later, more important ones) for the benefit of the school and later for the benefit of the city outside the school. In later volumes they act as emissaries of the school to the dangerous city of Mzali and discover a hidden city in the depths of the jungle. Finally, they encounter legends from the ancient past and travel among the planets.
What sets this adventure path apart is that, as representatives from the school, the player characters are very strongly discouraged from using violence and when they must use violence, from killing. Also, as the students progress to teachers and eventually heroes of the Academy, they continue their academic research. It’s a novel approach and an interesting variation on the traditional adventure story that will be hard to assess without having played it out, but it seems like a lot of fun.
A lot of gamers want the traditional style of high adventure seen in works like Conan, Elric or The Lord of the Rings, but others have been clamoring for something more peaceable and focused on strong relationships and Strength of Thousands delivers. While it certainly has lots of things to fight, it also has a lot of ways to avoid many of those fights and the player characters are actively urged to seek them out where possible. This adventure path rivals War for the Crown in its breadth of role-playing.