So I wanted to be sceptical about this product. Living in the region of this world from whence the vikings set sail to raid the world, my childhood was filled with lore of that glorious people. So when I learned that Paizo was doing a book on the Linnorm Kingdoms, I was excited. I wanted to be sceptical but that just didn't happen. It was Paizo so it had to be good. Even when the book arrived in my mail box and I started reading the thing, I tried so damn hard to be sceptical. But it didn't happen.
See, like every regional sourcebook Paizo has released for the Pathfinder Campaign Setting, this one does not describe every minute detail of viking society. It doesn't reveal the inner workings of Gorum's clergy in the region nor does it give a page-long account of the average farmer's day (yes people, there are indeed farmers in the Lands of the Linnorm Kings). What the book, like every other regional sourcebook to date, does do is provide an unbelievable amount of locations, personalities, and conflicts for us GMs to take to the gaming table and give our players a good time. And it does that damn well.
The book starts out with a gazetteer of the seven kingdoms and a timeline spanning from -624AR to the present date. Each entry discusses the social mindset of the kingdom and then proceeds to describe some of the most interesting locations in the kingdom. These entries are well written and filled to bursting point with adventure material. While each kingdom is a part of the Linnorm Kingdoms, they are all very different and some kingdoms aren't really kingdoms at all but rather wild regions claimed by no Linnorm King. Each kingdom presents its own set of possibilities. If you want to focus on the political tension between the Lands of the Linnorm Kings and Irrisen, then Hagreach is just the kingdom for you. If you find the struggle between tradition and progress to be fascinaing, the Ironbound Isles should keep you busy for a while. If you want to really explore the viking raiders aspect of this viking culture, look no farther than the Broken Bay. And so on and so forth.
The next chapter features specific events and adventure sites that can serve as fodder for the creative GM's mind. These sites and events can all set the stage for entire campaigns set in the Linnorm Kingdoms and, in the case of sea raids, beyond. Each entry includes a stat block containing information about where the site/event is located, its master, and any notable inhabitants as well at least half a page of fluff about the entry.
The third chapter in the book introduces three new mechanics to the game - reputation, effigies, and weregild. Reputation is just that. The mechanic is a representation of your character's reputation based on the adventures he's been on and the experiences he'd had during those adventures. It allows the character bo "buy" certain advantages, such as a favor, a gift or loan, or weregild payment. Effigies are used to strike fear into the hearts of enemies. Sample effigies are the standard effigy (such as heads mounted on spikes), blood eagle, the nithing pole, the tree of souls, and the wicker man. Finally the weregild mechanic represents an aspect of viking law that allows a person to pay with money for any crime he may have committed. The chapter wraps up with a description of three magic items - the banner of the ancient kings, the harp of storms, and the greatsword Rixbrand.
The last chapter in the book is the bestiary. It features three monsters (the huldra, the mindslaver mold, and the mountain troll), one template (the fey animal template), four generic NPCs (the berserker cannibal, the Blackraven scout, the longboat captain, and the ulfen raider), and one very unique NPC - Fafnheir, the Father of All Linnorms.
This book is a must-have for GMs running games set in Golarion. Even for games not specifically set in the Linnorm Kingdoms, there's a lot of cool information to get from this book. The new mechanics are decent enough and I could see effigies and reputation being used in non-Linnorm Kingdoms games. The bestiary is just phenomenal. I really enjoyed the generic NPCs and I hope it's something Paizo will continue doing. If you're running a game set in the Linnorm Kingdoms, those generic NPCs will come in very handy.
As the title of this review implies, Treasury of the Macabre is a wonderful plug-in to any gothic horror campaign, such as the Carrion Crown adventure path published by Paizo, allowing GMs to add even more depth to their story while gifting players with fun tools with which to fight their enemies.
The book is the first in what is hopefully a long series of plug-in products for the Paizo adventure paths. The idea is to expand on the adventure paths with various material, in this case magic items, that follows the theme of a particular adventure path. In the case of Treasury of the Macabre, that theme is gothic horror and the 30 items presented in the book will certainly add another layer to such a game. Each item is written with a specific theme in mind, be it cosmic horror a la H. P. Lovecraft, vampires, or ghosts as seen in classic ghost stories. This means that the magic items can be plugged into one of the six adventures in an adventure path with VERY little work on the part of the GM.
The book is very well laid out. The background, font, and general layout of the book reminds me of a good ol' Paizo book. One major difference between Treasury of the Macabre (and, I assume, the rest of the series) and Paizo's books is that Treasury of the Macabre is laid out in a landscape format. I think it works well for screen use but it may present some issues for those who prefer to print their PDFs. The book makes great use of links, making it very easy to get to a specific item. The artwork in the book is very good and all color (assuming you're viewing the color version of the PDF, of course). My personal favorite is the artwork for the elder talisman.
As mentioned earlier, the book contains 30 magic items divided into 4 groups: Rods (3), Weapons (2), Wondrous Items (24), and Artifacts (1). I would have liked a few more weapons and possibly a suit of armor or two. That tiny complaint aside, there's a good variety of items spread out over a large price range (600 gp - 58,000 gp). My personal favorites are the cruciform icon, the ghost shackles, the sanguinary torque, and the witchblood stylus, purely based on the flavor they bring to the game. Mechanially, all of the items I've read so far (which is nearly all of them) seem mechanically sound.
Treasury of the Macabre is a must-have for any GM running a gothic horror-themed campaign and it feels very much like it's a natural extension of the Carrion Crown adventure path with 30 items just screaming to be plugged into such a game. This product is a prime example of the level of community that surrounds Paizo and their work, with 3rd party publishers expanding on what is already top-quality material.
The title says it all, really. This book is a gift to us GMs. With more than 700 monsters, it's a treasure trove of coolness and it'll keep players busy for a VERY long time.
While I can't tell you if a monster's CMB is correct or a monster has one too many feats as I haven't read every single monster entry in detail, I can tell you that I'll be using a ton of these monsters in my own games. As an added bonus, Paizo has used the various Tomes of Horrors extensively throughout the adventure paths, and having this updated version of the Tomes means that the book becomes super relevant for those running Pathfinder modules as well.
The book itself is generally well laid out. My only gripe, and Frog God Games has explained why this is so, is that there's a wee bit too much white space in several monster entries. This is a minor gripe, however, and not something that subtracts from my overall impression.
The artwork is bad to awesome, all black and white. But overall a very decent collection of artwork.
This screen is truly a wonderful addition to my Pathfinder RPG collection. As has been mentioned, it's very sturdy, it contains lots of useful tables, and the artwork on the front is gorgeous.
While I agree with others that it would have been nice to have the actions table in the screen, I've used every table in the screen during play (with the only exception being the Treasure Values table) for various reasons so for me the tables currently on the screen have been useful to me.
With Classic Monsters Revisited, the good folks at Paizo have breathed new life into a lot of monsters that are generally considered cannon fodder in D&D games across the globe. Bugbears, gnolls, goblins, hobgoblins, kobolds, lizardfolk, minotaurs, ogres, orcs, and trolls are now so much more than cannon fodder. They're scary monsters, Funny at times (particularly the goblins), but scary.
What Paizo has done is define each race's role in the game, transforming the monsters from numbers in a Monster Manual into very good storytelling tools for DMs. Want to create a "The Hills Have Eyes" adventure for your players? Use the ogres. Have an idea for a catch-the-serial-killer adventure? Read the bugbear entry. Each monster in Classic Monsters Revisited has a clearly defined role in Pathfinder and the fluff is incredibly detailed.
The title really says it all. This book is yet another masterpiece from Paizo. Having read Guide to Korvosa, my expectations for this book were high. I was not disappointed. Like the city sourcebook, this book is packed with goodies for players and DMs alike. I've always liked using frontier settings in my games, and now I'm even more eager to run games set in Darkmoon Vale. There were some nasty typos but I can live with that.
Guide to Korvosa is quite simply the best city sourcebook I've ever read. It's absolutely packed with incredible hooks and background material and I constantly caught myself saying "oh, I want to use this", "oh, I want to use that", and "oh that's just evil. NICE!" And that was just in the second chapter of the book. If you want a very well-written city sourcebook for your Pathfinder game or even for your homebrew campaign, look no further. Guide to Korvosa has it all.
As has been mentioned elsewhere, this book is a great introduction to the world of Golarion. It features a ton of adventure hooks and cool information about the various nations, despite its low page count. Definitely a product I'll recommend to anyone who wants to get an idea of what Golarion has to offer.
This miniature has to be the best minotaur miniature I've seen in recent times. It fits perfectly as a cleric of Sargonnas in my Dragonlance game and I'm pretty sure I can find a good use for it in other settings as well. Definitely a miniature I'd recommend.
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