A 14-page expansion of the Tales of the Old Margreve adventure and gazetteer, this collection includes:
20 Forest NPCs, from gnomes to dragons, and from carrion hags to cheerful innkeepers. Some are just what they seem, others are a bit more... mysterious. All are worthy encounters in the dappled forest shadows.
25 Reskinned Monsters, including Arboreal Colossi, Bog Titans, and Sirins, and more!
15 Variant Spells, including Leaf Armor, Briarskin, Sap Arrow, Hide From Fey, and more!
5 Magical Items including Matryoshka Dolls and the Ogre's Pot
12 Margreve Traits, for the forest-ready PC
Incantations, a Margreve Bloodline, Miscellany, and More!
Product Availability
Fulfilled immediately.
Are there errors or omissions in this product information? Got corrections? Let us know at
store@paizo.com.
Gleanings from the company website, this contains a wealth of snippets to add in to adventures set in the Old Margreve forest and round about. To start with there are 20 beautifully-described NPCs, provided to help you bring the place to life. They aren't intended for combat-fodder, if you do want to involve them in a brawl you'll have to provide your own stat-block... but as part of life's rich tapestry, people living and working in the area who might interact with the party, they're excellent. Watch out for Shadow, a black dog belonging to Tsarin the Dirgist. This hound has an uncanny nose for when someone is about to die, and leads his master to the spot so that he can perform a funeral dirge and eulogy for the just-departed. Some say that Shadow's appearance heralds (or even causes) the death... or is it just that he has impeccable timing?
Next up, 25 'reskinned' creatures, that is, the specifically Margreve versions of monsters from the Pathfinder Bestiary and Bonus Bestiary. These just come with descriptions again, but there's an indication as to which monster from the Bestiary you should reference. It's a neat way to put a twist on the creatures you encounter without much effort, and helps make the locale more distinctive.
Along the same theme, there are 15 reskinned spells, which can be used in different ways as you please. It may be that locals use these distinctive variants of spells that the party is used to, or - and this could cause some surprises - it may be that the spells act this way when cast in the Margreve, be it a native or visiting magic-user that casts them! If you decide they are local variants, others may learn them in the usual way... but may find that once they've left the Margreve they don't work as they need local components. Following on from that, there's a Margreve Bloodline that lets sorcerers tap into the ancient powers of the old forest and even become a part of it. If the Margreve is part of your campaign world, a sorcerer may have it - he doesn't even need to be local as long as he's descended from someone who was.
There's also an incantation, a few fascinating local items, and a selection of traits available to anyone who grew up in the area. It's all added flavour, and well worth picking up if you're using the Margreve. The illustrations are rather good - and evocative - too.
This web-enhancement is 14 pages long, half a page of which is devoted to SRD and credits, leaving 13.5 pages of content, quite a bunch!
The pdf kicks off by providing 20 short NPC write-upss for use with the Margreve or any other ancient forest really: Each one provides at least some idea for the beleaguered DM to craft an adventure around. Combined with "Tales of the Old Margreve" (TotOM), they add a lot of details and depth to the adventures.
Next up are 25 reskinned monsters and 15 spells and boy: They alone, even if you don't plan to use TotOM, are worth the price - the idea is essentially to use the stats of a familiar creature with a new exterior and boy, boy, boy: They ROCK! Need an example? What about petrified treants for caryatid columns? Or what about animated, acidic spew-launching logs as a new take on Ankhegs? A spell that works as whispering wind, but carves the message into a nearby tree? (Can you see the horror-potential there?) - Pure awesomeness!
The Margreve bloodline with minor access to hexes and shapechanging is nice as well and incantation-fans like yours truly get another new one - yes!
The new magic items also scream: Brilliant! What about cursed or beneficial Matryoshka dolls? A wine-drinking quilt that may work as a solid bridge if sated?
Finally, we get 12 new traits to customize your Margreve (or forest-dwelling) PC and a new trick you can learn your animals to accept the presence of undead - why this one has not been done until now remains a mystery to me - simple, elegant and closes a hole in the rules.
Conclusion:
The pdf features full-color, flavorful stock-art, layout adheres to the 3-column standard and editing is top-notch - I didn't notice any glitches. While there are no bookmarks, the pdf doesn't specifically need them at this length. The amount of ideas contained in this extremely concisely-written pdf is staggering and you get more value for your bucks than in almost all other publications in this price-range. People who own Tales of the Old Margreve practically have to own this. Anyone else who want to get an impression of the quality should go for it - the content is easily adapted to just about any forest setting and at this price-range you have NO reason not to check it out. My final verdict in the face of this quality at this price-range is, of course, 5 stars and the Endzeitgeist seal of approval.
It starts with 20 new NPC's each with a paragraph or two about them. These are new NPC's one can drop into the setting and help bring it to life. (4 pages)
Next is 25 reskined monsters. There is a paragraph about each one, talking a bit about them. At the end it list what Pathfinder monster stats should be used for them. ( 2 ½ pages)
Next is 15 reskinned spells. These are spells with new fluff for them, a example is leaf armor, which functions like mage armor but can be used by druids as well. (2 pages)
Margreve Sorcerer Bloodline is next. It is a bloodline tied to the forest. I rather liked this one, it has a bit of a witch/druid feel to it. ( 1 ½ pages)
Magic of the Margreve, this section unlike the spells is new items. First is a new Incantation. Followed by 5 new magic items. ( 2 pages)
New traits, these are the new traits mechanic added by Pathfinder as a optional rule. This section has 12 new traits connected to the Margreve forest. (1 ½ pages)
It ends with a ½ page of OGL.
Closing Thoughts. This is a new book to pick up to add even more to Tales of the Old Margreve. The art work is old style art pictures. The NPC section is nice, the reskinned monsters adds a bit more uniqueness to the forest. Though I would have liked to have had them expanded a bit to at least two paragraphs each, a bit more about there ecology and the like. The reskinned spells is one of the best parts of the book and the area I found a problem which I will get to later.
The bloodline is very nice and fits very well, same with the new magic items and traits. Now there was one area about this product that bugged me. The reskinned spells don't list any of the APG classes. Even some of the spells like the one I mentioned Leaf Armor is a reskinned mage armor. In this book it only list Druid, Sorc/Wiz. Does that mean witch's can't learn it? They can learn mage armor but so can Sorc/Wiz which is listed. Yet none of the spells list the new APG classes, which leaves me unsure. Luckily that is really the only blemish on this product.
So for the low price and good quality writing, taking into account it would have been nice to have a bit more info on the reskinned monsters and what I consider a error in the spell section. I am giving this a 4 star review. It is a good product but could have been even better.
Although this item obviously works best when used in conjunction with the main “Tales of the Old Margreve” adventure supplement, it is also fully capable of standing on its own. Pretty much each and every paragraph of this supplement can be lifted out and dropped as-is into an existing campaign.
However, the real strength of this item is its imaginative approach to spells, magic items, and NPC’s for the ever-popular Temperate Forest terrain type. With ideas from this supplement you can give a lively, mysterious, and unexpected flavor to any wilderness travel.
My favorite thing about this supplement is the way it sparked my own imagination. Almost every idea provided by it inspired one or more ideas of my own. There is not a lot of hack-and-slash fighting in this supplement, but there are plentiful role-playing and world-building opportunities.
Traveling between towns need no longer consist of you saying “Okay, you walk through he woods for three days without encountering any wandering monsters, then arrive at your destination.” Your players may or may not have to fight anything to get from point A to point B, but they will remember the journey all the same!
The supplement contains some of the best material from the Old Margreve forest setting.
If you're the kind of person who loves lists of interesting NPCs, unknown creatures, and novel spells to surprise your players with, give this $2 supplement a try. Guaranteed to make your wilderness treks memorable, and in many cases, downright frightening.
This is also an inexpensive way to glimpse the level of imagination and utility compiled into the full Margreve Adventure Anthology and Gazetteer. Talented patrons and freelancers from all over the world worked together and riffed off of each other to develop some of the best ideas I've ever seen.
