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When the star(let)s are right, it is said that they shall return…and now they have! Spankham Asylum is the newest expansion for Postmortem Studios Cthentacle card game. Spankham Asylum introduces twenty new cards of various types, and two new characters to suffer the perverse attentions of the Great Old Ones.

While the amount of cards is consistent with previous sets, what makes Spankham Asylum fun is the completely shameless fun it has in its theme. Once again, artist Darkzel beautifully illustrates everything from mild titillation to hot girl-on-polyp action; the cards themselves continue to involve terrible puns, such as The Book of Eiboner and The Color in My Face.

My perennial complaint with these expansions is that the seven types of cards – the 1-5 number cards, the ! (exclamation point) cards, and the SP cards – are in an uneven amount, meaning that you can have, for example, more 4 cards than there are 3 cards. One can say that this is the natural result of trying to squeeze seven card types into a twenty-card set, but I have to wonder if it wouldn’t have been easier to just add an additional eight cards to bring things up to four of each type.

Still, I have to give credit where credit is due, and give a nod to the fact that the rules do include a half-page of card clarification. This is an important point, as card games seem to bring out the rules lawyers like nothing else. My only complaint is that there are no explanations for how cards from this set interact with cards from previous ones – does In the Ghoulies (from The Dunb!#&+ Horror expansion) work against The Spiders of Length?

These aren’t new complaints of mine, which makes them somewhat more disappointing that they haven’t been addressed – these are not difficult problems to fix. On the other hand, it’s not like I haven’t been able to enjoy the various expansions despite this; I just wish there was more seriousness given to the rules when it comes to a card game about hideous monsters tentacle-raping hot young women.

In all seriousness though, Spankham Asylum is a great new expansion to Call of Cthentacle, living up to the sexy, politically-incorrect nature of its predecessors. If you want even more ways in which the lovely ladies investigating the Mythos can be violated for their trouble, send them to Spankham.

The goal of a campaign setting is to provide a location that’s not only conducive for running a game, but actively helps to stimulate the creative process involved in doing so. One of the primary ways of doing that is by providing a world with developed verisimilitude; the more “realistic” the world feels – “realistic” here meaning that is has internal logic and consistency – the more alive it seems, and the easier it is to role-play in.

Given that, if we judge campaign settings by how alive they seem, then there are none better than Amethyst: Renaissance. That’s a lofty claim to make, but this massive campaign book backs it up solidly and then some. I reviewed the original 3.5 version of this setting, and said that it was a world brimming with possibilities even as it felt like the surface was barely scratched in the main book, and that’s still true with its Pathfinder incarnation. Let’s take a closer look.

The download consists of several files, five being gorgeous full-color pictures, four being equally pretty wallpapers, and the last one being the PDF of the book itself. I did frown slightly to find that there were no options for a printer-friendly version, nor any special files for things like Macs or e-readers. Of course, the former may be a bit of a pipe dream for a 399-page folio, but still, it would have been nice.

In terms of the book’s technical presentation, it mostly does okay. Copy-and-paste is fully enabled, which is as it should be, and bookmarks are present...but aren’t nested. This means that the bookmarks are all in a single, unbroken column that makes it somewhat hard to distinguish one from the other; if the chapter titles weren’t in lowercase letters where everything else was in capitals, they’d be easily lost amidst the clutter.

Of course, the book itself has many virtues to offset these minor flaws. For one thing, it is resplendent with artwork. I cannot overstate the quality of the interior art in Amethyst: Renaissance – the book has a grand total of three artists and between them, they’ve produced what might possibly the single best-illustrated book ever made for Pathfinder. The fact that almost all of the pictures are in black and white does nothing to detract from the quality of what’s here. Even if you’re not interested in the setting (and you should be) you’ll be captivated by the pictures.

Of course, the setting is pretty captivating itself. In a nutshell, the world of Amethyst is planet Earth set five hundred years in the future, after the cataclysmic return of magic. If that doesn’t sound too original, rest assured that there’s more – the nature of magic, for example, is divided in this setting. Whereas most campaign worlds put arcane magic as being just sort of “there,” magic in Amethyst has definitive sources.

For most creatures, the source of magic is Attricana, the White Gate, faintly visible as a bright star in the sky. This is the original source of magic, that produced dragons and fae races long ago before it was originally sealed away by the titular Amethyst himself; the first dragon. He did so because of the coming of Ixindar, the Black Gate, which is present on the Earth itself. Amethyst’s sacrifice sealed not only Attricana but also Ixindar, along with the mysterious intelligence that resides beyond the Black Gate, Mengus, and ended the age of magic, all long before the rise of humans. Now, with a second meteor strike reopening Ixindar, and for unknown reasons Attricana, five hundred years ago, magic and the creatures born of it are back.

The tone of Attricana and Ixindar cannot be overstated in the setting. Interestingly, while the White Gate is the source of magic that most are familiar with, it’s presented as a source of chaos as well as magical life – life itself is a chaotic thing, and Attricana encourages its growth and mutation without restraint, breaking down technology as a side effect. By contrast, Ixindar is a force of law as well as evil. It corrupts even as it encourages order, sublimating everything to its own design…and it doesn’t corrupt technology, either.

Speaking of which, the technological aspects of the setting are too large to be ignored, and indeed add the most readily-apparent manner in which this setting is different from most fantasy-medieval worlds. While most civilizations now are “echan,” or magic-touched, and many humans live among them, there are plenty of humans who live in mega-city-like bastions. Here technology barricades itself against magic, and life progresses much like it did before the return of magic; indeed, in many the level of technology has improved beyond what was available at the end of the twentieth century.

Ahem…but I’ll stop rambling here, and try to get hold of my enthusiasm long enough to give a more coherent review of the book.

The book’s first chapter acts as a much-needed overview of the setting. It talks about things like the history, common terms, and the overall feel of the campaign. It’s worth noting that the book is very upfront about what it doesn’t have being just as important as what it does. High-level spellcasting is exceptionally difficult, there are no other planes of existence (ethereal notwithstanding), and many monsters simply aren’t to be found. While you can certainly cherry-pick a lot of what’s here, Amethyst is a setting that is upfront about setting its own style.

The second chapter covers the nature of the fae races, with humans mentioned almost as an afterthought. None of the standard fantasy races, such as elves, dwarves, etc. are present here…except they are. Sort of. Each race has its own unique name, such as the damaskans, the laudenians, the gimfen, and many more…but more than a few of them strongly resemble standard fantasy races. That’s not an accusation of unoriginality either – rather, the setting plays up that these creatures resemble the fairy tales that humans told each other for centuries, but at the same time are worlds apart in terms of society and culture.

It’s that culture that’s given a heavy prominence in this chapter, though the racial stats are not glossed over for it. Things like cultural practices, social habits, and traditions are emphasized rather than being ignored, and it’s a big part of the reason why this campaign world feels so holistic. Despite how beautiful damaskans may look, for instance, they have very little sex drive, since they’re being of magic for whom procreation is much less of an issue. Amethyst: Renaissance knows that the little things are what make a setting stand out.

The third chapter covers different organizations in the game world, each receiving roughly a few paragraphs’ worth of description, along with the game stats of their prerequisites and the benefits of belonging to them.

The fourth chapter covers traits, as defined in the Pathfinder APG, and there are quite a lot of them here. Moreover, these aren’t tossed out quickly and with little context – these all receive paragraphs of descriptive text regarding what these traits actually mean for someone who has them. Several are more powerful than normal traits and count for both trait choices (though I wonder if that makes them essentially feats).

The fourth chapter is also where I do have one gripe – the lack of a reference table. If you prefer to have a handy table to quickly reference what traits are available, along with their prerequisites and benefits, you’re going to be disappointed here – and make no mistake, there are enough here that the absence of such a table is keenly felt. The feats chapter got such a table, and the lack of one here is an oversight.

The fourth chapter discusses classes. Perhaps surprisingly, there’s very little attention paid to the basic classes from the Pathfinder Core Rules; the big ones are a few classes being disallowed (mostly so they can be reintroduced later as prestige classes) and some changes to spellcasting classes – clerics, for example, don’t use verbal components for their spells, whereas wizards use no somatic components.

The major thrust of this chapter are the techan classes; those that rely exclusively on technology. This is no minor restriction, these guys can’t even receive the benefits of magic without it having serious consequences, namely in that doing so causes “saturation” which if driven high enough causes technological disruption.

That’s all explained later though, for now we have eight new tech-focused classes. From the heavy grounder (using super-heavy weapons – think rocket launchers and particle beams) to the medic (who has various medical treatments that are written similar to spells, though they’re entirely non-magical) to the sniper, these are the guys who venture out beyond the bastions into a hostile world and utterly demolish it with superior firepower. Interestingly, the classes are all d20 Hit Dice with fill BAB, or d8 Hit Dice with full BAB-minus-one. What does the latter mean? It means they start with a BAB of +0 and end with a BAB of +19. An interesting choice, if an odd one, but it doesn’t detract from the overall appeal of the classes.

The fifth chapter is devoted to skills and feats. There are only three completely new skills here (“completely new” discounting things like Knowledge (science)), being Demolitions, Engineer, and Vehicle Operation. Perhaps surprisingly, this last one is by far the most complicated, and doesn’t even cover everything regarding operating a vehicle (there’s more in the equipment chapter when you come to the vehicles themselves). I strongly recommend that everyone who wants to use a vehicle read both sections thoroughly, as they’re fairly rules-intensive.

As for the feats…I know I said the traits were numerous, but the feats are beyond expansive. The reference table takes over seven pages just to list them all. Racial feats, trait feats (feats that have a particular trait as a prerequisite), general feats, techan feats (most of which enhance using high-tech weaponry), vehicle feats, and more are here. I didn’t even try counting the sheer number of feats found here, but it’s far more than you could ever see if you had a full party going from levels one to twenty.

The sixth chapter covers equipment, and as with the chapter on classes, it’s a playground for the techans. Super-heavy guns, powered armor, vehicles that make Batman’s look like they had training wheels in comparison…there’s a plethora of toys here for those who embrace the science-fiction aspect of the setting. It’s not all weapons, armor, and vehicles either. From the currency to particular vehicle modifications to explosives to injections (e.g. drugs, nano-machines, etc.), as well as how magic disrupts these are all covered here.

Chapter seven covers prestige classes, of which there are slightly more than a dozen for the echan and techan each. Surprisingly, there’s little in-character development for what it means to have these classes. While some (such as paladin or ranger) are self-evidence from what we’re bringing to the game, there’s less intuitive understanding regarding the nature of a Selkirk brawler or an Ur-mage.

Chapter eight deals with magic, and I have to say that this is an area where I was grateful for the depth regarding the nature of magic as it exists in-character. All too often books with a magic chapter devote them solely to pumping out new spells, magic items, and similar material, and while you’ll find that here it helps a lot that the chapter opens with a discussion of where magic comes from and why it functions the way it does. For example, the language of magic, Pleroma, is discussed, as is the manner in which magic saturation disrupts technology (for Attricana), the corruption of Ixindar, and how to use high-level magic (otherwise known as “foundation spells”). Chapter nine ostensibly discusses magic items, but spends most of its time talking about the artifacts that are specific to the setting – again, this is far more of a function of what they mean in the world rather than what they do.

It’s on that note that we come to chapter ten, which is all about the setting. This is distinct from chapter eleven, because whereas that chapter acts as a guide to Canam (the new name for North America – the book never expands beyond that continent, though mentions are made of regions beyond it), chapter ten is devoted to aspects of the setting, such as languages and religions. The book’s twelfth and final chapter covers new monsters, including lists of monsters that are in the “canon” setting, those that aren’t but can be used without breaking the feel of the world, and those that are “banned” in the setting.

I also haven’t mentioned that there’s a story that progresses throughout the book, mostly at the ends of various chapters; the last fifteen pages or so of the book are devoted to ending the story, though it ends on a cliffhanger that makes it seem more like the end of a large prologue. Hopefully we’ll get more of it in further supplements.

By this point, my thoughts on Amethyst: Renaissance should be abundantly clear, but it bears repeating – this campaign world is breathtaking in its scope. There’s so much here, so artfully presented and with a tone that’s so holistic that it seems to leap off the page. A full campaign could easily be run from levels one to twenty without using half of what’s here; that’s how much material is found within these pages. It’s almost intimidating how high the bar is set; a sort of implication that says “for real role-players only!” but if that’s the case it backs it up.

The bottom line is that Amethyst sets a standard for campaign settings, one that won’t soon be matched. If you want a true renaissance for your Pathfinder game, look no further: it’s Amethyst.

Lust is one of those aspects of the Pathfinder RPG that tend to get glossed over. It can’t be helped – in a game whose mechanics reward killing things and taking there stuff, it’s hard for the game rules to incentivize the PCs’ desire to have sex. The next best thing is to make enemies that are physically attractive and have lust-themed powers – the ubiquitous succubus comes to mind. Still, such creatures are comparatively few in number.

The fourth book in Open Design’s Monsters of Sin series, Monsters of Sin: Lust expands the roster of lust-based monsters, albeit only slightly.

The book gets most of the technical aspects of a PDF RPG supplement right. It has no bookmarks, which it really should, but copy-and-paste is enabled. There’s no printer-friendly version, or for that matter any sort of format for other types or easy-reading (e.g. tablets, Macs, etc.), but again its brevity helps to make that be less of an issue.

The artwork, it must be said, is of a high quality. Cory Trego-Erdner’s cover of the succubi stripping a hapless young man is vivid both in terms of its quality and of how expressly it connotes what’s happening. Likewise, Aaron Riley’s black and white interior artwork quite literally paints a start contrast, showcasing the monsters with striking depth.

Eleven pages long, with seven devoted to the eponymous monsters, Monsters of Lust contains a grand total of five monsters. The first isn’t really a monster per se, but rather is the lust slave template. Even calling this a template is hard, as it adds only a single new ability (annoyingly lacking in an ability tag – presumably it’s extraordinary) which has the lust slave creature gaining a bonus if the object of their adoration is in sight, but is confused if not. I personally thought that a confusion effect was the wrong mechanic to use here, but should have been some sort of penalty from their depression at being separated from their beloved. Ah well.

The first fully-fledged monster is the inbred orc, which needs no real introduction as to where these particular variants come from. Racial information is given for these hillbilly orcs, which are perhaps not surprisingly different from their normal counterparts – chief among them being two tables of mutations – one fortunate and one unfortunate. An NPC stat block helps to round things out.

Personally, I thought that this particular monster was good, but would have worked better as a template. Orcs aren’t the only humanoid creature that seems lacking in civilization enough to start inbreeding and suffer the effects thereof. It’s not too hard to take inspiration from this monster and use it as a baseline for varying other creatures in a similar manner, but this would have been easier as a template.

The lovelorn, a CR 11 creature, is a sort of ghost that died after being betrayed by a cruel lover or was simply so unlucky in love that they died heartbroken. Interestingly, there are shades of the banshee here, as they have a moan-based attack (though nowhere near as deadly, thank goodness!), and it’s likewise fitting that they deal Charisma damage. The lovelorn falls into a narrow gap of being different enough from similar incorporeal undead as to be distinct unto itself, but not so unique that your players will easily figure out what to do about it – there’s a lot of fun to be had here by a cruel GM.

For me though, the most interesting monster in the book was hands-down the truffle. A weak (CR 3) fey creature, the truffle looks like a small naked human child…making it clearly obvious that it has no sexual characteristics whatsoever. Not malevolent, truffles understand nothing about sex or gender identity, and so are intensely curious about creatures that have these characteristics when they meet them. This can quickly become awkward and even dangerous, however, when they start exercising their natural abilities to forcibly manipulate other people’s bodies, making people take their clothes off and demonstrate their sexuality to sate the truffle’s curiosity. Normally I frown on monsters with no original powers, but the role-playing potential – demonstrated excellently in the monster’s write-up – is incredibly strong here. This is a monster that should only be used with groups that can handle mature subjects in the game, but it’s likely to be quite worthwhile to do so.

The final creature in the book is the embodiment of lust itself. I wasn’t sure what to expect here, and was somewhat surprised by the creature’s description – that of a ten-foot tall creature with a vaguely feminine figure, but it entirely translucent, like a statue made out of glass. Of course, just being around the embodiment is exceptionally dangerous, as its Challenge Rating of 21 demonstrates. Just being around it can make you its lust slave, stripping naked as you approach it, and making you willing to do whatever it asks. I do wish there’d been more about the embodiment as an individual – it says that it has its thralls do its bidding, but there’s little explanation about just what that is. Presumably this creature has no particular agenda or goals beyond corrupting mortals into the sin of lust, but even this simple desire isn’t made entirely clear.

A few sidebars are peppered throughout the book. One talks about using sex in your campaign, but can basically be summarized as “don’t make people uncomfortable” – it’s the ubiquitous disclaimer that’s part and parcel of talking about sex in your game. Likewise, the issue of lust in the Midgard campaign is one paragraph about the lust and death goddess Marena, and two about how one man seduced several merchant’s daughters as a means of starting a war, allowing him to pick up power in the aftermath. Interesting to be sure, but so brief as to be little more than anecdotal.

My overall impression of the book is that while it’s probably stronger as part of the entire series (and certainly will be in the inevitable compilation volume), on its own it feels like it’s just starting to ramp things up when it suddenly comes to an end. The five monsters – really four and a very brief template – don’t seem like enough for the theme of the book. This isn’t to say that they’re not well-done, because they are; they’re simply not showcasing everything that could be done here. From the truffle showing us the unexpected ways that monsters can be developed around this theme to the embodiment of lust’s needing further expansion on what it wants to do to the inbred orc needing to be a full-fledged template, there’s more that could have been done here.

It’s primarily due to the book not living up to its potential that I’m giving it less than full marks. What’s here is worth four stars, but what’s not here would have been the fifth. Having said that, this book provides some fun new creatures for your game, dealing directly with the idea of lust without becoming tawdry. Pick up Monsters of Lust, and add a few new ways to scare your PCs with sex.

I’ll be blunt: I’m very dubious of the idea of feats that only modify specific spells (or extremely small groups of spells). The idea that you’re ever going to be using that particular spell just that much that you can afford to spend a precious feat slot in it is, to me, a stretch. Having said that, if anyone can pull it off, it’s the Super Geniuses, so let’s take a look.

Part of their #1 With a Bullet Point series, 4 Feats for Spells that Raise the Dead is fairly self-explanatory in what it offers. Notwithstanding the ubiquitous series intro (explaining the idea of buying a short product with no “frills”) and the OGL, what you have here is one page with four feats on it, designed to modify the roughly half-dozen spells that bring the dead back to life.

While I don’t want to go too deeply into what these feats do (why would you buy the product otherwise), there’s one that allows you to “swap out” spells for resurrection-type spells, one that allows the resurrected creature to come back with the answer to a specific question, one that allows the creature to “rewrite” some of its basic information (e.g. stats, age, etc.), and one that allows you to take on the negative level of a resurrected creature.

Overall, I’m not sure if I’m entirely convinced that these feats are worthwhile. The Super Geniuses clearly understand that when the versatility of a feat is so tightly restricted, its power needs to be greater; I’m just not sure that these necessarily live up to that. For example, a feat that lets you “swap out” for resurrection type spells seems like overkill…will you ever really need just THAT many resurrection spells in a single day? If you need one immediately, but don’t want to prepare one, why not just go for a scroll? It doesn’t seem like quite enough. Similarly, coming back to life with the equivalent of a commune spell seems like a flat-out waste of a feat; just cast commune!

Having said that, the other two feats do, to my mind, live up (resurrection pun!) to their potential. Being able to rewrite a resurrected character, at least to some degree, is the best of both worlds between getting to play your old character again and playing a new one. Similarly, being able to avoid a negative level is good, particularly if the other person is willing to take that particular hit for you.

Overall, while none of these feats are anywhere near being bad, to me only two out of four were truly worthwhile. Your mileage may vary, of course, but to me this has two winners and two near-misses. So a solid three out of five stars.

It’s universally understood, though not often said, that evil is simply cooler than good. Evil people are the ones who get to dress in the most arresting outfits, make the grandest speeches, and perform the most memorable actions. Simply put, evil characters make a bigger impression than their righteous counterparts…though oftentimes the good guys can come close.

In Way of the Wicked Book Four: Of Dragons and Princesses, players and GMs get to see this truism up close and personal. Heck, it’s even in the book’s title – this is adventure is all about those most fearsome of beasts, dragons, as well as women of nobility and power. While the PCs have met some truly arresting characters so far, it’s here that they begin to truly begin interacting with the kingdom’s power-players on a regular basis.

But before we get any further into the meat of the adventure, let’s look at the technical aspects first. The fourth Way of the Wicked book comes as three PDFs. The first is the main adventure itself, while the second is a printer-friendly version thereof. The last one is labeled as being “player handouts,” which is a slight misnomer; rather, it’s a single player handout, and four maps of major areas that have all of the labels removed, making things easier for the GM (though some might grimace at the fact that the name of the place depicted is still featured on each map).

The main file, one hundred-six pages in length, presents itself fairly well on a technical scale. Copy and pasting are enabled, and the text is fully searchable. Bookmarks are present, but again there’s only one bookmark for each major section of the book; if you want to find a more specific sub-section, you’ll need to scroll to it manually. Both of these are also true for the printer-friendly PDF.

Unfortunately, the printer-friendly PDF only lives up to its designation half-heartedly. Its idea of being “printer-friendly” is to remove the background coloration from the pages, and set the page borders to being grayscale lines. All of the interior illustrations and maps are still there in lavish full-color.

Having said that, the main file is notably resplendent. The pages are set on a dark tan background (which, I think, is meant to look like parchment) with ornate black borders on three sides. Full-color maps are present for each major section, and of course the interior illustrations are all in lustrous full color as well. I must once again tip my hat to artist Michael Clarke, as the various pictures of the major characters that the PCs meet are, to be blunt, arresting. Each one of these pictures clearly conveys the thousand words that they’re worth.

My last technical critique is regarding what’s not here, rather than what is. There are no files that are optimized for e-readers or Macs. While this wasn’t a big deal to me personally, I suspect that it’s a bit more of a nuisance for those who want versions of the book optimized for those devices.

Now, let’s get down to the adventure itself. As with previous installments, this one actually begins almost exactly where the previous one ended – I’m of two minds about how the book actually opens with what feels like the epilogue to its predecessor; on the one hand, it feels almost anticlimactic, as instead of moving forward with the plot you’re dealing with the loose ends from your last adventure. On the other hand, this helps to lend a much greater sense of cohesiveness to the campaign as a whole, since the adventures feel much more interconnected…something I suspect was author Gary McBride’s intent.

Regardless, the adventure opens with the PCs in what’s left of the Vale of Valtaerna, having not only snuffed out the holy flames of the state religion’s most holy site, but also slaughtered every living thing in the valley. Or at least, that was the plan. If the PCs succeeded, then they get to march their army out (absorbing the surviving bugbears into their own evil organization, if the rules from Book Two are being used) with no fuss as they continue their evil plans.

Cogently, however, the book spends more time talking about what happens if the PCs failed and some survivors managed to escape. In this case, the winter thaw finds an army of light (FAR outnumbering the PCs’ forces) preparing to retake the Vale. This is another classical “villain moment,” in that it presents the PCs with the question of what they’ll do regarding their minions when it comes time to beat a hasty retreat. While the PCs can likely escape on their own, there are various actions presented, along with their consequences, should they also want to save their minions and greater retinue.

Once the PCs escape, it’s time for them to relax before their next assignment. Rejoining with the humanoid army led by Fire-Axe at the recently-conquered city of Daveryn, the PCs can kick back and accomplish some side-quests for a month. This is largely a chance to catch up on XP and treasure (in the form of some good old-fashioned looting), but does have several opportunities for the PCs to find several clues for their upcoming assignment.

Speaking of being assigned, after a month of squashing what resistance remains in Daveryn, the PCs’ master sends them one last assignment: to kill the king of Talingarde. Of course, this isn’t as simple as just poisoning his food – the king marches at the head of an army, and attacking him there is suicide. Rather, the PCs are to create a huge calamity back at his palace, where his young daughter resides. The king, loving his child so much, will magically transport back to defend her…which is when the PCs will ambush him.

Of course, this requires creating a disaster of sufficient magnitude, and it’s here that the titular dragons begin to come into play. The PCs need to enlist the help of the great black wyrm Chargammon. This is much easier said than done, as the dragon eats anyone who approaches him. So first, they need to find a way to secure an audience.

This part of the adventure seemed, to me, to be a bit rushed – not the issue of the PCs’ master giving them their next assignment (the book is actually very cognizant of the fact that the PCs are by now straining their metaphorical leashes) – but rather, how the PCs are supposed to think of the manner in which they’re to safely meet with Chargammon. Simply put, one of the aforementioned clues in sacking Daveryn is the key here, but the sandbox nature of the conquered city means it’s less than certain that the PCs will even look in the right place, let alone find it. The adventure basically tells the GM to make sure the PCs find this clue somehow, but only offers a few off-the-cuff suggestions for what to do if the PCs don’t go to the right area and look in the right place; it’s a weak point in what’s otherwise an excellent adventure.

Once the PCs discover the clue, it’s off to find the one person who can secure them a meeting with Chargammon. This is largely a sidetrek, as the adventure makes it fairly easy to locate the correct area once the PCs are on the right path, and the fight is relatively brief.

Only after this is done can the PCs meet with the powerful black dragon, being able to journey there in relative safety (I have to interject here that the picture of the black drakes that dwell on Chargammon’s island made me think of a certain dragon named Toothless). The actual meeting itself is anything but safe, however, as Chargammon is as arrogant as he is powerful. It’s very easy for PCs who are stupid or proud to provoke a fight that they likely cannot win. Again, this is an area where the plot moves along very thin rails; a minor disruption can have major repercussions here.

Chargammon, in the true style of RPG NPCs, won’t agree to do anything unless the PCs undertake a quest for him first. In this case, he wants a rival dragon slain – a copper dragon of less power but greater allies named Eiramanthus. This is no small thing, as like Chargammon, Eiramanthus commands his own island.

The island is an otherworldly place. Eiramanthus is a planeswalker extraordinaire, and alters his home to better reflect the nature of his travels. As such, the entire island has an alien feel to it that also gives it certain defensive properties. The major defenses are the creatures who dwell there, however – in addition to visitors and the local servants, Eiramanthus’s home is occupied not only by the dragon himself, but by his three concubines; exotic and powerful women that he wooed on his travels.

I was critical of some of the previous parts of the adventure because they had clear directions that they wanted the PCs to go, but offered only a relatively narrow range of options for how to make that happen. Here, the situation may seem somewhat similar, but I don’t hold this against the book. That is, if the PCs are stupid, they may end up facing Eiramanthus with most of his servants and concubines helping him, which is likely to overwhelm the PCs. It’s far smarter to use some degree of subterfuge to try and take them down one at a time or in small groups.

There’s little advice on what the situation is or how to make sure things don’t go south quickly. I don’t consider this a bug, but rather see it as a feature. This adventure is for high-level PCs, and at this point if they’re not using some degree of strategy, the fault is entirely their own. That the PCs are likely to face disaster if they try to kick in the door is how things are supposed to go. At this point, punishing them for not using their heads is the correct thing to do.

It’s after things are done here that the plot makes a significant leap, as it’s here that the PCs are given not only a great deal more information on their master’s past, but are given the first direct information regarding overthrowing him. The seeds for the next book are sown here…

Once Eiramanthus is slain (and his truly prodigious hoard, which includes some amusing souvenirs from other dimensions, has been claimed), Chargammon is willing to hold up his end of the bargain. Now all that’s left is to head to the capital city and prepare to lure the king into the death-trap. This is an area where the PCs will again have a chance to explore a major city, but that part is left to the gazetteer at the end of the book.

For the final act, the king’s palace is detailed. Sneaking in and overcoming the defenders isn’t what I’d call cakewalk, but it’s by no means a truly difficult affair, which makes sense as most of the martial forces have marched to the front. However, plenty of soldiers remain that even a high-level group should be wary of sounding an alarm before their ready to commit regicide. Once Chargammon attacks, however, the king (who is a paragon of a certain eight Virtues, for fans of a particular old school RPG series) comes running…along with his closest defenders. Remember, they came back because the situation was dire, so even caught unaware they’re still ready for a truly tough fight. To slay a king here will be no small thing for the PCs.

The adventure doesn’t quite end there, as there’s a “cut scene” involving Chargammon and the princess. I honestly wasn’t quite sure what to make of this, as this is written as a narrative, and so it’s difficult to know if this is meant to be read to the PCs or is simply an extra for the GM. Ideally the former, but that might not be workable. Far better, at least in terms of practicality, was the FAQ-style section where the book dealt with what to do if things went awry at various points. This was a very bright idea, as this adventure more than others offered places in which various parts of the plot could conceivably be done out of order, ignored, or changed depending on the PCs’ actions. The suggestions for how to get things back on track are most welcome.

Of course, the book doesn’t end here. A gazetteer is given for the capital city of Talingarde, Matharyn. While I was expecting to be tired of city guides, I was once again proven wrong. Matharyn has its own feeling; whereas other cities are populated by people pragmatic in their approach to life and work, Matharyn really is a bastion of order and goodness. This is a city where the people are good and do good, and the author notes that this is quite likely to throw less-selfish evil-doers for a loop; it’s hard to imagine a society more perfect than one where everyone works for the common good and is genuinely happy. Luckily for those characters who want to destroy such virtue, there are ten brief side-quests given as well.

The final section of the book is a discussion regarding how to run the campaign for PCs who become vampires or liches. If this sounds random, it shouldn’t, as the previous book presented the PCs with a golden opportunity to become vampires, and this one presents a similar method for achieving lichdom (I won’t spoil the surprise here). This is the first of a two-part section, with this first one eschewing mechanics (save for one new magic item that allows vampires to survive in sunlight) in favor of advice and suggestions.

It’s worth noting that this section is also fairly lopsided in favor of vampires. While the initial part does talk about some of the issues with playing a lich (e.g. can lich powers be voluntarily deactivated? What to do if someone steals your phylactery?), the majority of it talks about what to do regarding the many weaknesses and restrictions of vampires. This may seem like would-be lich PCs are being snubbed, but it’s understandable given that vampirism is much easier for most PCs to achieve, compared to lichdom. The section closes out with book-by-book advice given for running Way of the Wicked as a campaign about the ascendancy of a vampire kingdom.

Overall, there’s little question that Of Dragons and Princesses stands alongside the previous three adventures as a high-water mark among adventures. However, it never exceeds the standards its predecessors set. Small issues regarding how smoothly the plot continues onward, along with one too many “fetch quests” for my taste (e.g. quest to figure out how to meet Chargammon, quest to secure his aid, etc.) make this an adventure that’s excellent by any other standard, but not quite so much as the others.

Of course, those are small complaints compared to what’s here overall. From the flight from Valtaerna to the first real discussion of overthrowing the PCs master to the assassination of the king and so much more, there’s a huge amount of high-quality adventuring to be had here. Stamp out rebels, murder kings, and bring the world one step closer to damnation as you perform deeds Of Dragons and Princesses.

New monster books are always fun, as they add more critters that you can throw at your PCs without worrying that they’ll have its abilities memorized. Weighed against that, however, is the question of whether these monsters – even when CR appropriate – will fall into that careful middle ground between “cakewalk” and “TPK-maker.”

The Mor Aldenn Creature Compendium seems to manage that balancing act, though it wobbles slightly along the way.

Thirty-five pages long and presenting twenty new monsters, the Mor Aldenn Creature Compendium presents itself fairly well. It allows for copy-and-paste, but has no bookmarks, something which was frown-worthy. The book comes as a single PDF, having no files for Mac-compatibility or e-readers.

The book’s artistic presentation eschews ostentation, having no page borders or fancy backgrounds, instead focusing solely on the artwork. In this, it does quite well, having a single black-and-white image for each creature it presents. This was very wisely done, as monster books virtually require each new creature to receive a visual depiction. It helps that the illustrators uniformly did a good job, presenting each monster with a grim seriousness that undergirds their presentation.

Like monster monster books, the majority of the monsters fall into the single-digit Challenge Ratings. While there are a fairly diverse range of creature types presented, from plants to fey to humanoids, there is an underlying theme to most of these monsters – a large number of them are based around a swamp/marsh environment. This isn’t coincidental; as the title suggests, the book’s writing is specific to the Mor Aldenn campaign setting, and the flavor text for the monsters often discusses them in the context of where they are found in the game world. As the Night Hag who dwells in a certain swamp appears to be a major antagonist, a large number of the monsters are based around that environment.

In regards to the monsters themselves, most seemed to be at least somewhat creative in their powers and abilities. The marsh dragon, for example, has several powers based around creating and controlling shambling mounds. The portune is a “classical” fairy that can be rebuked if you say its name (and can be an improved familiar). The most interesting monster in this regard is the manifest child of the ether, which has a number of powers based around its strange connections to magic and being from beyond known reality.

There were a few issues that came up with some monsters, however. A few had an armor class that was far too low for a creature of its CR. The arachnus, for example is a CR 11 creature with an AC of…16. No damage reduction, either. It’s the sort of monster that, due to that quite literally fatal flaw, won’t last long in melee combat. The hag spider has the same CR, and has AC 18. It’s little things like this that can undermine otherwise-great monsters. I’d recommend looking these creatures over with a critical eye before using them.

Having said that, these are creatures that should be used in your game. The level of innovation here is a cut above the norm, and this is reflected in the monsters descriptions and abilities. Even if you don’t play in Mor Aldenn, there are a lot of interesting creatures here that can help to liven up your game.

Bad luck is part and parcel of RPGs, particularly dice-based ones like Pathfinder. Whether it’s your fiendishly-clever plan suddenly going belly-up, or rolling the dreaded natural 1, sometimes things just turn against you. But what if that wasn’t just an uncontrollable aspect of the game, but rather a character theme? What if your PC was somehow who had a measure of control over ill luck, and could actually use it to their advantage? What sort of character build is like that?

The answer is the Malefactor Base Class, from Total Party Kill Games.

Right off the bat, I have to give TPK Games credit for their files – not only does the PDF come with a printer-friendly version (though said version lacked PDF bookmarks, but that’s a minor nitpick), but it also came with two Hero Lab files; one for the class itself, and another for the sample NPC made with it. A helpful readme text file on how to install the Hero Lab files is a nice little extra. I was going to note little things that weren’t here like a mac-compatible or epublishing version, but that seems nitpicky in light of just how much is here already.

The main PDF is also to be commended for hitting the highlights of its format. Copy-and-paste is enabled, and full nested bookmarks are included. The artwork featured two full-page full-color interior pieces. The first is a clean version of the cover image, and is truly excellent – I can see why they used it as the basis for their sample character. The second image was of similar quality, but there was a slightly “blurred” look about it; not much, just slightly enough that I wasn’t sure if the picture was drawn that way, or if the resolution needed to be tightened up a little.

I had mixed feelings about the page backgrounds. Each page is set against a sort of slate-gray background, reminiscent of a tombstone. This included an ornate black border near the edge of each page. Ironically (or perhaps on purpose) this formed a sort of natural border for the text, but whenever the text got close enough that the black lettering hit the border, I felt like it was being obscured slightly. Certainly that didn’t happen too much, but enough to be worth mentioning.

The Malefactor Base Class opens with a short bit of fiction told from the perspective of the sample character, after which we’re taken to the class itself. The Malefactor is fairly strong, having medium BAB and the corresponding d8 Hit Dice, along with only one bad save (Fortitude). It’s also pretty good skill monkey, having a dozen class skills and 6 Int bonus skill points per level. I was also pleased to see that the TPK guys remembered to add in the malefactor’s level 1 starting gold.

In regards to the design of the class’s special abilities, I was pleasantly surprised at just how strong the design was. This manages to perfectly capture the innovation that a new class should have with the design philosophy of a Pathfinder base class.

The malefactor’s main abilities revolve around a pool of strife points, and its malediction powers. There are certainly more powers than these, of course, but these two help to form the core identity of the class. Maledictions are somewhat like a witch’s hex powers, in that the player selects one every so often as they level up, and can be used at will. Unlike witch hexes, which have a hierarchy of the normal ones, the stronger ones, and the strongest, all maledictions are equal. However, roughly midway through the malefactor’s progression, it gains the ability to spend strife points on its maledictions to increase their power. Each malediction has an expanded paragraph describing what it does when used in this manner.

Strife points have other uses, of course. So long as the malefactor has at least one, it’s protected from its own aura of unluck, which penalizes saving throws for everyone around it. It also has a great deal of curse-related powers (a helpful sidebar describes what game effects constitute a “curse” for this purpose), such as spending strife points to cause greater damage to those operating under a curse, detecting curses, being able to remove them or even ignore them, and quite a bit more. The class is incredibly versatile within its theme.

In regards to its flavor, the malefactor is based around the idea that some children, when they’re born, are the permanent host of chaos-spirits known as “yla” who attract bad luck to them. The malefactor has learned how to channel this bad luck into its powers. I was somewhat unimpressed with the flavor text, if only because it gave a fairly concrete flavor to a class that allowed for a greater range of in-game interpretations of how its powers worked. Having said that, I do have to give the writers props for keeping the flavor firmly married to the mechanics – it mentions how various powers, for example, are because of the yla’s spiritual attacks or influence.

That alone would have been enough, but in another move that shows that they know what Pathfinder players want, the book continues on with a set of expanded options for malefactors. We’re initially given five class archetypes, such as the moirae (who pronounce fate to make their allies succeed on tasks) or the kismet (who try and focus their powers on good luck, rather than bad).

I was slightly less impressed with the archetypes, as the fluff often felt thinnest here. Does a kismet still have an yla spirit, for example? Moreover, more than one of these archetypes just traded in a single class feature – I’m personally of the opinion that archetypes should always have at least two or more to be worthwhile, otherwise the difference between them and the normal class is, to me, too small. Worst, however, were the instances where the replacement power didn’t say what class feature that it was replacing (I’m looking at you, Curse-Eater archetype).

A short, surprising section on what you know about malefactors at various DCs leads us into a dozen malefactor-specific feats. While these did have the ubiquitous single line of flavor text before giving us their mechanics, most of these felt utilitarian in nature – you had the requisite feat for increasing a specific malediction’s save DC, or use one as a move action (rather than a standard), or gain further points of strife, etc. These were good, but felt obligatory.

Pleasantly, this wasn’t the case for malefactor favored class bonuses. A whopping fourteen races have entries here, including (naturally) a number of races from later monster/race books, such as the dhampir, drow, and fetchlings. Each has a short bit of flavor text describing how malefactor members of that race look at their powers. My only complaint here is that some entries note that their possibilities include a 1 skill point or 1 hit point, which goes without saying since those are the default favored class bonuses, and so didn’t need to be reiterated here.

There’s a short but insightful section on malefactors in your game (they make great debuffers) before we’re given the sample NPC from the cover. I wasn’t quite sure if I missed something when it noted that not only was she a demon-spawn tiefling, but that she was of the succubus bloodline – I know there are rules for tieflings from different kinds of evil outsiders, but I’m unaware of any sort of rules for making them be from a specific kind of monster (and since the character is a single-classed malefactor, the “bloodline” thing isn’t of the sorcerer ability of the same name).

The character stat block is fairly straightforward, but could have used some minor touch-ups (you don’t need to list an attack’s critical multiplier if it’s x2) and had a number of things set as hyperlinks to the d20PFSRD. What was fairly ugly, however, was after the stat block it listed out, in alphabetical order, expanded text on everything the character had. Literally everything; her class abilities, racial abilities, magic items, traits, etc. are all summarized there. It was more than a bit overwhelming, and certainly unnecessary. If something in her stat block is from a different book, a hyperlink (or at least a parenthetical note of which book) is sufficient.

Overall, these little flaws are easily ignored in favor of just how much is here. The malefactor base class is incredibly well-constructed both in terms of its theme and its mechanical execution. While there are a few places, mostly in the expanded material, where one or the other falls a little flat, as a whole this book offers an incredibly innovative new class for your Pathfinder game. It’s deserving of each and every one of its five stars. The malefactor may be a class that deals with bad luck, but you’ll feel anything but unlucky if you pick this up.

I needn’t talk about the archetypal nature of magic rings in fantasy. From the Ring of Gyges to Green Lantern, magic rings that grant their wielder great power are timeless. This continues to be the case in Pathfinder, which allows for all sorts of magic rings. All too often, however, these are minor things easily forgotten about (e.g. a ring of swimming) or are so standard as to be assumed for treasure (e.g. rings of protection). The Ebon Vault: Power of the Ring, from Necromancers of the Northwest, seeks to shake things up a bit.

Power of the Ring weighs in at forty-seven pages, and does most of what a PDF should. It has full, nested bookmarks, for example. However, copy-and-paste has not been enabled, so if you’re looking to copy something onto an electronic character sheet, you’ll need to retype it by hand. The book has no printer-friendly option, which might be a bit of a problem for those looking for a hard copy; while the book’s only interior illustrations are stock art of various rings, all of the pages are set against a cream-colored “parchment” background.

The book opens with a bit of fiction, which was actually much more intriguing than I thought it would be. Showing the exchange between a thief and one of the book’s intelligent rings, the banter between the two (particularly the bombastic ring, which kept giving the thief cutesy pet names) was quite fun, enough so that I wouldn’t have minded reading more about their exploits.

The book quickly moves onto a more proper introduction before giving us twenty descriptions of ring appearances. These aren’t tied to any particular magic rings, and so can be used for whatever rings your characters happen to find. Each description is a paragraph long, and doesn’t want for details; indeed, there’s so much detail to each description that you may find it might not be quite right for the magic you’re attaching to it (e.g. a stylized carving of two serpents about to swallow a gemstone might be a bit off for a ring of jumping).

The bulk of the book is devoted to new magic rings a la those in the Core Rules. More than fifty are presented (though a few of these are variants on the same kind of ring, e.g. the ring of bowmanship and its lesser and greater variants; this sort of thing doesn’t happen often, though) and they run quite the gamut. Unlike in the Core Rules, these rings tend to have a wide range of costs, from just a few hundred GP to three hundred thousand!

In terms of effect, most of these rings avoid more prosaic effects, focusing instead on a broader set of powers not easily replicated by spells or feats. For every ring of flying (which grants a +5 to Fly checks) there are things like the ring of branding (dealing fire damage to put a magic brand on the target, which requires powerful magic to remove and once a day can let you teleport them to you) or the ring of infernal wishes (putting you in contact with a powerful devil, and the more wishes it grants you the more closely you tie yourself to the infernal ones) or the ring of the body (you no longer suffer from aging, poisons, or diseases…but they catch up to you when you remove the ring). There’s a lot here for GMs and players to be inspired by.

Several rings are segregated into separate sections near the end of the book. The Five Legendary Rings of Matthias the Mad, for example, showcase four (the fifth is in the following section) rings with a hefty back-story, as well as unique powers. The Intelligent Rings section likewise presents a half-dozen living rings that gives us not only their appearance and powers, but also their origins and personalities (including, I was glad to see, the ring from the opening fiction).

The book closes out with a table of one hundred magic command words. These don’t appear to be based on any real-world language, consisting of nonsense words that can be assigned as necessary. Needless to say, this is quite valuable for any sort of command-activated magic item, not just rings. Although only a page long, this table has usefulness beyond the product it’s found in.

Overall, I was quite taken with what this book offers. The rings it presents range from weak but versatile (the key ring, which can copy a small set of keys to instantly unlock their matching locks) to the supremely powerful (the ring of dragon command, which grants great powers and defenses against dragons, as well as dragon-themed abilities). There was the occasional typo (the bookmarks, for example, list that last one as the “ding of dragon command”), but these were too rare for me to take off points for that. I do wish that they had taken care of the copy-and-paste issues, and had a printer-friendly version, but again I find that these aren’t so bad that I can lower the book’s final score.

Were I able, I’d give this book four-and-a-half stars, mostly do to the minor technical complaints. I‘ll round up though, as these are all issues that won’t come up unless you want to try and manipulate the book’s format. If you want to expand the nature of the magic rings in your game, glance inside The Ebon Vault: Power of the Ring. What you find will be…precious.

Soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur…happy kitty, sleepy kitty, purr purr purr.

It’s easy sometimes to forget that the Tarnished Souk is set on the Plane of Dreams, as many of its characters have little to do with dreaming specifically. Smiles-Under-the-Bed, by contrast, has everything to do with being a creature of dreams, and exploits the nature of the Dream Plane in numerous ways…as she herself has been exploited.

Smiles’ opening does a surprisingly good job of describing her character in a single page. Not ironically, she comes across as exactly what she is – a fierce creature that has been hardened from an eternity of rejection. An exceptionally dangerous ambush predator, Smiles devours the dreams (and the physical forms) of those she preys upon, being a literal nightmare herself. However, she is also a dream-scarred creature, having lost almost all of her Hope (her dearest dream). Portrayed properly, Smiles-Under-the-Bed is the embodiment of a tragic villain.

Like all members of the Faces of the Tarnished Souk line, Smiles is an advanced creature with several templates stacked onto her, along with a mish-mash of other new materials. A tribute to the triumph of the Open Game License, Smiles weighs in at a heavy CR 19 with four different templates, along with two traits and a new magic item. Two additional stat blocks, showing Smiles at CRs 13 and 8, make her useful against lower-level parties.

The materials used to construct Smiles are given separately for your ease of use. The two traits (one of which is from Coliseum Morpheuon) showcase her nature as both a creature that has lost her Hope, and which gains strength from frightening others. Likewise, her new magic item allows her to make herself invisible in Cheshire cat-like ways. The four new templates round out the book.

Overall, I quite liked Smiles-Under-the-Bed, both for her tragic but villainous nature as well as how well she plays to the dreaming rules. Whereas most members of the Tarnished Souk can be fairly easy to use anywhere, Smiles may take a bit more effort to convert to a different location; it’s still easily done, but her emphasis on attacking dreams (both literal and metaphorical) could require some tweaking. She’s perfect for the Coliseum Morpheuon, however. This is a kitty with nine lives’ worth of torment to inflict.

The raison d’etre of the Open Game License is to allow others to reuse that which a publisher declares Open Game Content; 99% of the time, this allows for various game mechanics to be shared. But what about sharing various non-mechanical aspects of game design? In that area, most publishers are highly conservative, apparently afraid that someone will take their characters and settings and make a twisted mockery of them. Every so often, however, you’ll find an RPG book that allows for something like its settings, characters, or even deities to be Open.

The Gods of Porphyra (aka The Open Faiths Project) is one of those books.

A forty-five page book featuring twenty-seven new deities and some associated new game crunch, Gods of Porphyra’s technical presentation makes a good showing of itself. Full nested bookmarks are present for every section and subsection and copy and paste is enabled. In regards to artwork, the book appears more spartan than it actually is, lacking in page borders. However, each god has an image on the center of the page of their holy symbol, and the two new monsters in the book each have a full-page, full-color image. This strikes a very nice balance between being overloaded with graphic design and being utterly utilitarian; other PDF publishers could learn from the presentation here.

The book opens with a brief note from the publisher and some information about the Porphyra setting. Interestingly, though perhaps not surprisingly, the Open Game nature of the setting takes the in-game stance of having the OGC materials come from other realities and dimensions. Hence how the gods here are all non-native deities that arrived to what was previously a godless world. Two new clerical domains, Art and Time, are presented, each having two new subdomains as well.

The book helpfully opens its main section on the new gods with a two-page chart, listing all of the deities and their pertinent information for at-a-glance reference. Each deity is given a single-page write-up, beginning with their “statistical” information in terms of their alignment, domains, favored weapon, etc. I do commend Purple Duck Games for remembering to give us subdomains here, though they did forget to include inquisitions (though to be fair, that’s an easy oversight to make). The majority of the one-page information presents us with the “Legend” section, which tells us of how that deity came to be, and the “Church” section, discussing how that god’s followers conduct themselves in terms of organization and activities.

Interestingly, each also has a paragraph dedicated to “Spell Preparation Ritual” which is the rite by which divine spellcasters of that god regain their spells each day. I enjoyed this section, since it’s little bits of flavor text like this that help to differentiate between clerics of various deities. There’s a mechanical flipside to this in that each deity also has two new religion traits presented, each specific to what it means to be a followers of that particular god.

I had somewhat mixed feelings about the presentation of the various deities. On the one hand, there were some story elements I disagreed with, as some of the legends about where these deities came from seemed off for how deities are usually portrayed in a game world. However, perhaps ironically, that actually makes the in-game mythological nature of these legends more “realistic” in terms of presentation – after all, to the residents of the campaign setting, there probably are no “rules” for how gods function.

Two new monsters are presented, being the creatures of a specific deity. The first is a template with an associated sample creature, while the second is a new monster unto itself. About a dozen spells, all of which are granted from the aforementioned new domains and subdomains, are the book’s final presentation. Some of these may seem familiar if you’re a wider reader of Pathfinder-compatible products, as they all seem to come from other third-party materials, though most likely the majority of them will seem new to you.

Overall, I quite liked what The Gods of Porphyra presents. Knowing the book’s Open nature gives it a feeling of utility, that the publisher is not only making these allowable for re-use, but is actively encouraging us to do so. That’s a feeling that I think should be more prevalent among OGL publishers, especially where setting-based elements of campaign worlds are concerned. Beyond that, the crunch is without any flaws that I saw, and the flavor text is good, though focusing on the Patchwork World of Porphyra more than I suspect most other publishers will want to carry over. Still, it’s good to see some deities presented under the OGL. With any luck, we’ll be seeing them again soon.

Ever feel like every day is another challenge to be overcome? Not in that “it’s a new adventure today!” feeling, but more of a “what awful thing is going to happen today?” sorta way. I imagine that PCs must feel that way a lot, and if so then the endless parade of monsters probably has quite a bit to do with it. Sometimes it must seem like there’s a new monster every day. Speaking of which…

Creature Monthly is the aptly-named monthly compendium of creatures from the Creature Daily website, which delivers a new monster for your Pathfinder game every weekday. This first compilation presents the monsters for April, 2012. Let’s flip through the pages and see what creatures lie in store.

This product comes with two different PDF files, one called April12CDweb and another called April12CDpdf. I’m not sure what the technical difference between the two is, but there’s clearly some sort of difference, because my computer can view the former file smoothly, but the latter one has persistent viewing problems. To be more specific, whenever I try to look through the “April12CDpdf” file, my Acrobat Reader X (on Windows XP Home, if that helps) informs me that it’s having a problem viewing the file (error code 40), and refuses to display the artwork – the text comes through just fine, it’s only the artwork that refuses to display.

Of course, it’s something of a moot point, though a disturbing one, as the April12CDweb file displays just fine. From what I can make out, the two files are meant to be identical in terms of their visual presentation, so there’s no loss of content for the error. Hence, the rest of this review will deal exclusively with what’s in the “…web” file.

The April ’12 Creature Monthly is a forty-seven page PDF that contains exactly twenty monsters, something that always seemed slightly off to me, as there were twenty-one weekdays in April. I know that one missing monster is a small thing, but I can’t help but wonder what happened to the twenty-first creature.

Unfortunately, the book irked me from the get-go, as it lacked the ease-of-navigation tools I’ve come to expect both for PDF files and for bestiaries. To be clear, the book does have a table of contents, listing each monster alphabetically by name. That’s it. No hyperlinks in the table of contents, no bookmarks, no index of monsters by CR or creature type or even terrain. The only way to get an overview of what’s here is to read through the entire book and use the table of contents as a refresher. Hopefully future months will be more forthcoming with the GM aids.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the artwork here, however. Each monster has a full color illustration, and the quality for the picture if exceptionally high. In each case the picture fairly leaps off the page, and will definitely wow your players. Given that the book it set on a light grey background, with borders of darker grey and slight whorl patterns on them, the presentation element of the book is strong. It’s so strong, however, that the lack of a printer-friendly version is notable in its absence. Likewise, size-specific counters to represent the creatures on the battlemat aren’t to be found either.

But after all of these technical issues, what about the monsters themselves, you ask?

The twenty monsters to be found here run a range of CRs, from ½ to 16, and surprisingly there’s an underlying theme to the monsters here – the majority of them are from a cold environment. Now, there are plenty of monsters for whom that’s not so, but a significant number of them are monsters with a wintery theme.

I should mention that most of these monsters could have stood to go a few more rounds of editing. In reading over what’s here, I found creatures with typographical errors (e.g. an opening parenthesis one space too soon for the Blood Shadow’s Ability Focus feat), stylistic errors (the storm angel is a Chaotic Neutral creature with the angel subtype, for instance, or how the Storm Wraith has the electricity subtype…which doesn’t exist), and errors in stat blocks (e.g. the Storm Wraith’s AC bonuses are +1 dodge, +4 deflection, and +7 Dex, giving it an AC of…24? What?). Little errors like these peppered the vast majority of the monsters here, and that’s just on a casual inspection.

Overall, this is a monster book with good intentions but flawed execution. The monsters here are, for the most part, very good in terms of their underlying idea, and in how they want to stat those ideas up. It’s a host of technical problems, from the PDF format to the stat blocks themselves that are holding the book back. Hopefully, these will be a learning experience for the publisher, and next month’s creatures will be easier to use to terrify your players.

It’s difficult to say just what the draw is of playing evil characters. There’s an ineffable quality to being the bad guy, a sense that, if evil is something that tempts people to fall, then those who have fallen have no further moral failings that can be used against them. All that’s left is to make use of the certitude that comes from damnation and bring ruin to the champions of light. It’s in that spirit that we look at the third adventure in the Way of the Wicked adventure path: Tears of the Blessed.

Tears of the Blessed comes as two PDF files – the main file and a printer-friendly version thereof. The latter’s differences from the main file being that it removes the page backgrounds as well as the coloration from the page borders. Unfortunately, that’s not enough for me to give this particular area a pass, as it retains the full color interior illustrations (and even the page borders are kept in line-scale). True printer-friendly material removes all of the interior artwork, even though that means doing the layout again.

That said, the main file presents itself quite well. Bookmarks are present at each major section of the book, though save for one part there were no nested sub-section bookmarks (though the last bookmark took me to the front of the book). Copy and paste was fully enabled, which is always good. I do have to give props to Michael Clarke for keeping the high quality of the art coming. All of the pieces here are full-color, and while I wouldn’t put this at the highest tier of RPG art, what’s here is damn good (devil pun!).

I’m also going to cover up-front that there were some errors in this book. Nothing was major, but small problems crept in. I noticed several typos, several of which a quick spell-check could have caught. Likewise, the odd stat block error is present also, though never so much as to make a creature unusable (no aasimar, for example, has the humanoid type).

Tears of the Blessed follows hot on the heels of the previous adventure, Call Forth Darkness. It’s in this adventure, ironically enough, that we get stats for the magical disease which was the prize of the prior installment in the adventure path. Following achieving this, the PCs are immediately whisked off to the port city of Ghastenhall, settling in for a month to cool their heels before getting started on their next assignment…to raise an army and assault the faith of Mitra’s holiest temple!

I initially had mixed feelings about this section of the adventure, as it seemed like something of a carbon copy of how the previous adventure progressed. As in Call Forth Darkness, the first part of the adventure is a fairly short presentation on the town that the PCs are setting up in before going off and performing their real assignment. However, I quickly remembered that, although this portion of the adventure is short and somewhat underdeveloped, it’s still promising in what it offers, though as with Farholde this is because the gazetteer at the end really helps to make the town come alive.

Part of the reason why Ghastenhall feels so short is that its presented largely as potential adventuring opportunities, which make it feel almost like a series of side-quests waiting to happen – depending on how you present them, and how much your PCs invest in the town, there can be a lot to do here, or it can be quickly bypassed.

The second “act” of the adventure is concerned with the actual formation of the army of evil. As with the section on Ghastenhall, this is one core scenario around which more can be done if the PCs want to go out of their way. After an initial meeting with Sakkarot Fire-Axe in which he lends your PCs a few hundred bugbears to command, there are also several other avenues to explore. Most of these are to find new individuals to fight by the PCs’ sides, but a few do present possibilities for enlarging their overall force. Helpfully, the author does make mention of the PCs existing forces (e.g. Grumblejack the ogre, from the first adventure, or their custom-built evil organization from the second) and how they can play into the overall force.

This section also includes some very cogent advice on what to do if the PCs start to balk at being ordered around. This is wise, as by this point the PCs will likely start to chafe at having to do someone else’s bidding. Of course, this ultimately comes down to various ways to snap them back into line, but it’s good that the author anticipated something like this.

The third act of the book is the initial assault on the valley of Mitra’s holiest temple. This part of the book was interesting for the various tactical possibilities it presents the PCs – up until now, the adventures have lacked a certain degree of freedom in what the PCs could do; what latitude they had was presented in terms of operational discretion…that’s the case here, but the amount of discretion has grown quite a bit.

The Vale of Valtaerna is the valley in which Mitra’s holiest temple is guarded. This is no building constructed in a crevasse either. The entrance to the valley has a watch-tower built into it, and down in the valley is a lakeside small town, a mountain-temple, and finally the cathedral itself. The PCs attack is set to take place at the beginning of winter, when deep snows cut the valley off from the outside world for three months. For those three months, when communication is cut off and reinforcements are near-impossible, the PCs have to conquer the valley and slaughter every single living thing there.

That’s where the operational freedom comes in. This section gives a detailed overview of the watchtower itself, and follows it up with the ensuing battle as the PCs’ army fights its way past various defensive points to finally conquer the defenders. Needless to say, there are various things that the PCs can do in their initial assault what will greatly affect how the initial siege goes, which in turn affects the flow of the rest of the battle.

The author says that this section should keep up the pressure on the PCs, as the entire battle takes place in one night. That means that the PCs need to conquer the watchtower and then fight their way through encounter after encounter. Forget about the fifteen-minute adventuring day here! Be prepared to go through over a half-dozen encounters, and be warned that you can’t just send your army in for these – the battle takes the format of specific encounters that the PCs need to face in the midst of the chaos of battle. Various actions allow the PCs to acquire or lose Victory Points (making a return from the first adventure), with their point total determining the end result of the battle.

With the defenders crushed and the small town now firmly in their grasp, the book’s fourth act deals with everything else in the valley, save for the cathedral. It’s here that the book takes a decidedly darker turn as you immediately need to deal with what to do with the survivors…the elderly, the women, and the children (remember, your assignment is to kill everything). This part is something of a delicate balancing act, as the bugbear commanders have some suggestions about what to do with the prisoners (all of which are awful). In accordance with the advice in the first adventure, this book assumes that one of the bugbears commanders “deals” with the survivors, though your group can step in (for better or for worse) if they wish.

This section allows for three months of time in which to root out the remaining holy areas, and it’s important to note that the book doesn’t presume that it’s entirely quiet during that time. There is one event that does happen here, but after the initial scenes of setting up and dealing with the prisoners, it’s the only one. I do wish that the book had seen fit to give us further events.

The major parts of act four, however, deal with the mountain temple, and the garden in front of the cathedral. These are comparatively short encounters, having about ten areas between them both. They’re still fairly challenging, and aren’t optional (nor can you send your army to these places, as they require competence) – to permanently extinguish Mitra’s light, you must destroy the heart of each holy locale.

With the first two down, it’s the cathedral that holds the last of the religion’s heart. It should be noted that there have been plenty of good-aligned monsters in the adventure prior to this. Lammasus, blink dogs, kirin, all the monsters from the bestiaries that you never usually get to fight. The big one, however, is celestials. There are plenty of celestials throughout the adventure, and that doesn’t change here. Once the PCs manage to overcome the potent holy defenses and slay the cathedral’s final defenders, they can extinguish the central pillar of Mitra’s religion…just in time for the plague they received from the previous adventure to hit the nation’s populace hard.

Following the adventure, the book presents a gazetteer of Ghastenhall. I honestly expected to be bored by this, but was pleasantly surprised by just how alive the city felt. A port town, Ghastenhall is naturally not quite the bastion of righteousness that you’d expect for a country that has a single, Lawful Good religion. Moreover, the city’s history and colorful neighborhoods give it a distinctive quality that is not only likely to fire your creativity for what can be done here, but presents itself perfectly for your evil PCs as well.

The last section of the book gives us an long-overdue overview of your enemy religion: that of Mitra, the Lord of Light. This section surprised me, as I was expecting something more akin to Paizo’s style of deity write-ups; that wasn’t this. First, Mitra is a triune deity, having three simultaneous aspects – this gives him three deity entries, which presents an interesting set of options for those who worship him.

This section also doesn’t deal much with Mitra as an individual. There’s nothing here about what Mitra’s divine exploits, or how he feels about other gods. Instead, the section largely discusses his religion, specifically as it appears in Talingarde (since Mitra has no universal church, something I found odd for a primarily Lawful deity). There was some important information here, such as how spellcasters in Talingarde are comparatively rare – the head of the church, for example, can’t cast divine spells. This is an inversion of the usual assumptions in a Pathfinder game, and is likely something a GM should know when setting the stage for the beginning of this adventure path.

Overall, Tears of the Blessed represents a turning point in the Way of the Wicked. While before, the PCs were operating in secrecy just to survive, and having to defend themselves against those who’d do them harm, here they get to be the ones doing harm to others. In this book, the PCs take the offensive against the light, and get to snuff out the heart of it. There are some problems with the finer points of the product, but these are easily dealt with, and the overall adventure is one which will likely be extremely satisfying to your players. Never has causing so much sorrow been so much fun as it is in Tears of the Blessed.

Some Game Masters take great pleasure in writing their own adventures; for them, it’s a joy, something they throw themselves into eagerly. Personally, I don’t know how they do it, as I’m always strapped for adventures. Given the sheer amount of work that goes into crafting an adventure, structuring the plot, making maps, constructing stat blocks, it seems like a truckload of work. Hence, I’m always on the lookout for a reliable source of adventures. Sometimes Adventure Paths are good, but other times I want stand-alone adventures that can be used as-is in my game, without worrying about how it plays if removed from a larger context.

Rite Publishing’s new periodical, Adventure Quarterly, seems right up that alley. Let’s take a closer look at the first issue and see what it’s like.

Adventure Quarterly #1 is a weighty affair. Not only is the main magazine just over seventy-five pages in length, but the main PDF file is accompanies by a series of separate map files. These color map files are a combination of JPGs and PNGs of the various maps, in various configurations, such as the maps and keys together, and the maps separately and the keys separately. The quality of these cannot be understated – the files are high resolution, and you can zoom in to a great degree on them. Altogether, the maps are a whopping two hundred megabytes!

The PDF of the magazine is similarly high-quality in its presentation. It has full copy and paste enabled, and full nested bookmarks are to be found. Unfortunately, there’s no printer-friendly version, though there is a printed copy available if you need this on paper. The interior artwork ranges in styles, from detailed black and white to a “washed out”-style full color. None of the pieces were particularly bad, and several of them were quite arresting.

Every publication goes through a few growing pains at first, and right away I noticed one for Adventure Quarterly: the table of contents, while it lists the adventures and their authors, doesn’t list the level it’s intended for. When you look at these adventures, there’s no way to tell whether they’re meant for 1st-level or 20th-level PCs. This alone wouldn’t be so bad, but this information is also not to be found in the adventures themselves. I consider this to be fairly critical information, and so marked off points for this.

The adventures themselves are three in number. The first one, “Too Many Cooks,” appears to be for first-level characters. Set in the city Somnal, for which a full city stat block is helpfully included, this deals with the problem of several chefs suddenly going missing. The author writes that this adventure will likely overwhelm PCs if they go from one encounter to the next in rapid order, and suggests that these scenarios can be broken up across a longer period, and even intermixed with another adventure if you remove the time pressure, something that I felt was good advice.

Structure-wise, Too Many Cooks is something of a mystery adventure, as the PCs are meant to follow a trail of clues from one encounter to the next, until they’re ultimately led to the culprit behind the disappearances. I had some initial misgivings about how this would work, as mysteries have their own problems. The adventure’s answer to this is two-fold – each of the encounters starts with combat, after which there’s a clue that is, in all honesty, too obvious to be missed. That may be a slight overstatement, but the clues are not that difficult to find, and are fairly obvious in where they point. There are still places where things could go off the rails, of course, but the adventure is not so subtle in its workings that getting things back on track would be hard.

I have to mention the final encounter for the adventure, which takes place in a kitchen. Author Adam Diagle did a great job here of playing up the unorthodox nature of how a kitchen can contribute to a battlefield. Between the villain having the feats necessary to use all sorts of improvised weaponry (and a helpful chart of what improvised weapons are available and what their damage is), your PCs will have to deal with everything from being attacked with hot skillets to exploding boilers and vicious meat grinders! I can easily say that this adventure was the highlight of the magazine.

The second adventure, unfortunately, was its polar opposite in terms of quality. “The Book of Promises” is an adventure that wants to be many different things, and in trying to achieve them all ends up completing very few of them.

The premise of the Book of Promises is that a werejackal cult of Asmodeus is trying to make people sign away their souls to the Devil God, which is done in the eponymous Book of Promises. To this end, they’ve created a natural disaster, a flood, in the town of Vestage, so that they can try force people to sign in exchange for being saved from the floodwaters. Rather oddly, the Book is stored in a place in town called the Counter’s Depository, which acts as a private bank – people pay to have them store their valuables. With the Depository also flooded by the town, several of its customers are planning to “steal” back their valuables from the location, and want the PCs to do it for them…which also puts them in position to find the Book of Promises.

The scenario, needless to say, has problems right from the outset. Why would the Asmodean werejackal cult (which sounds like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon) create a flood that would also hit the place where they keep their artifact? Why do the people who have their valuables stored in the Depository feel the need to have them stolen back instead of just going there and retrieving them normally?

It unfortunately doesn’t get any better. The adventure is much too fond of saying that certain effects just happen, giving little specification. When going to the meeting for the thieving job, for example, there’s a magic effect that detects all weapons on the PCs. What is this effect? I don’t know…there’s nothing that says. We don’t know what it is or how to beat it, save for the text saying gloves of storing will work. Similarly, the Depository has magic on it that only allows its customers, or their representatives, inside…something that seems forgotten when we have hags, doppelgangers, and other adventurers in it later. Note that characters that aren’t intended to be fought, such as the PCs competitors for the job and the other adventuring party inside, don’t have a stat block either, which I consider to be somewhat poor, since you never know how your PCs will cause things to go down.

The last adventure, which sadly has its first paragraph as the last paragraph of the previous adventure, is The Soul Siphon. Unlike the previous adventure, The Soul Siphon is fairly well constructed, but comes with some baggage. For one thing, it’s a psionic adventure – now, I personally enjoy psionics quite a bit, but I know there are plenty of Pathfinder gamers for whom that’s a deal-breaker (oddly, the author notes that this uses 3.5 OGL psionics…but from what I saw, the characters seem to use the Psionics Unbound rules). Moreover, the adventure, which is meant for 12th-level characters, comes with four pre-generated characters, and the initial adventure hook is built around those pre-existing ties. That’s just bad design, to me, as it essentially argues that the players shouldn’t have their own characters going into this, which most will. On the other hand, this is perfect if you want to make it as a psionic one-shot.

The Soul Siphon’s premise is that a tyrannical ruler, who lives in a tower that’s slowly sinking into a bog, is terrorizing the local populace, punishing them for a lone dissenter in their ranks. The PCs meet this dissenter (who is connected to one of them via their back-story), and give them the keys to enter a sunken level of the tower, wherein they can fight their way up and confront not only the tyrant, but also locate the artifact that has gifted him with apparent immortality, and put and end to both.

The adventure is fairly well-constructed, and seems to presume that the PCs will level up over the course of it. Two appendices provide both a new monster, and the four pregen PCs.

Following the final adventure, two short articles are given. The first, by Raging Swan Press mastermind Creighton Broadhurst, is a short set of tables to determine the name of a tribe. The article basically uses a series of combinations from different tables to come up with a colorful moniker (though a quick table at the beginning is available if you want to restrict things to one roll). Following this is an overview of the werejackal cult of Asmodeus, giving their structure, base of operations, allies and enemies, and other general information about them. As its own thing, this wasn’t bad, though I do wish that Paizo’s organization rules had been imported here. Still, the group does make a passable, if somewhat odd, villainous organization.

Overall, the first issue of Adventure Quarterly hits a few bumps in the road, but does show promise. The level listing for adventures is something that absolutely has to be fixed for the second issue, as at-a-glance information about what sort of PCs each adventure is intended for is an absolute must. Beyond that, the first adventure is clearly the cream of the crop, providing a fun little “mystery-lite” for low-level PCs. The second adventure, however, is as much a mess as the flooded town it takes place in, and a Game Master will likely need to give it a polish to make it workable as-is. The last adventure is good but carries several caveats for prospective GMs – if you take it as a trial run for psionics, it’s not bad, but if you want it to be more than a one-shot, or hate psionics, be prepared to start changing things.

Given that what’s good here outnumbers that which isn’t, my overall score for the debut issue of Adventure Quarterly is 3.5 stars, but I’m rounding it up to four since even the bad material can be saved or altered with a little elbow grease. What’s here is three-quarters good, and that’s not bad for the first Adventure Quarterly.

Sometimes the most defining characteristic of a hero, or villain, isn’t their strengths, but their weaknesses. In Pathfinder, however, that’s not something easily modeled under the rules – while there are plenty of ways to showcase a character’s areas of expertise, mainly through feats and class powers, there are few methods for mechanically portraying a character’s poorer abilities.

4 Winds Fantasy Gaming fixes that by making your characters worse with Player’s Option: Flaws.

Flaws is a short book, having less than a dozen pages. Despite this, it has full bookmarks, and the copy-and-paste is enabled. The book’s visual presentation is minimalistic in tone, having no page borders and only two black and white interior illustrations.

Flaws opens with a brief discussion about giving your characters the flaws assigned here. While some of this seems boilerplate, with such caveats as characters normally only being allowed to take two flaws, and only at character creation, there are a few twists here from what you’re expecting. For example, while one flaw can grant a feat, the second one grants exactly three skill points. It’s interesting that this particular route was chosen, in what I can only assume was the idea that granting two feats was too much.

A bigger surprise is the idea that flaws can be bought off – and this doesn’t mean simply giving up a corresponding feat or skill points. Rather, each flaw has a certain, specific manner in which its penalty can be permanently negated, while you get to keep the corresponding feat or skill points. It’s an intriguing idea, and lends much more credence to why the system doesn’t let you get more than one feat, since you can effectively end up with something for nothing once the flaw is bought off. These buy-offs tend to have a minimum level that they can occur at, however, so you do have to spend at least some time dealing with the flaw itself.

Almost fifty flaws are given, each of which is formatted in a manner similar to a feat in terms of presentation style. I do wish that a summary table had been presented so that the flaws could have been looked over at a glance, however. The flaws run the gamut from physical problems with your character (e.g. Flatulent) to mental problems (e.g. Foul-Mouthed) to social issues (e.g. Excommunicated). While some of these present problems as mild as skill penalties, others can have profound role-playing consequences. Similarly, for most of them, lifting the flaw is fairly simple: If you want to stop being Miserly, for example, just spend more than 1,000 gp on a single purchase. Others are harder, however, and being a Wanted Fugitive will require you to find the right person and succeed on a tough skill check and cost you some money.

Overall, I found Player’s Option: Flaws to present a good range of possibilities for what it offers your characters. The selection of flaws is wide, and what you get for them is good without being overpowering. The method of buying the flaws off is also innovative, though I’m slightly wary of how it results in an overall net gain for characters. Between that and the need for a summary table, this is an altogether 4.5-star product, but I’m rounding it up to 5-stars overall. Some minor issues don’t detract from these Flaws.

There’s an irony in the fact that the cleric, as a class, relies very little on religious devotion. If you’ve ever made a joke about clerics with no ranks in Knowledge (religion), you’re aware of the all-too-appropriate label of them being just another kind of wizard; after all, there’s no way to build faith into the class mechanics, right?

Enter Necromancer Games’ Necromancer’s Grimoire: The Book of Faith.

From a technical perspective, the Book of Faith isn’t bad. Just over three dozen pages long, it has full nested bookmarks, which is a plus. However, there’s no way to copy and paste the file (or the printer-friendly file), which is a bit of a drag. I do give it props for having a printer-friendly file, which eliminates the background and one page of ads at the end, but unfortunately it not only retains all of the interior illustrations, but still has them in color as well – if you have to leave the pictures in a printer-friendly file, you should at least make them grayscale.

It’s worth mentioning that the artwork is all of a single type here, being pictures of stained glass windows. As those are universal symbols of churches, it’s a pretty good fit for the book, though some other kind of imagery would have helped as well. The pages themselves are set on a tan background, so as to look more like actual pages from a tome.

After some opening fiction and a quick foreword, we’re taken straight into the book’s main offering – the priest, a new base class. Initially, the priest looks something like a divine wizard, having the lowest BAB and Hit Die progression, as well as being proficient with very few weapons and no armor. Things get more interesting, however, when you look at the priest’s spellcasting ability.

Unlike normal slot-based spellcasters, the priest has something called favor (points). Each day, they can choose a number of spells from the cleric spell list to ready – the readied list of spells then becomes roughly the equivalent of a sorcerer’s spells known list. A readied spell can be cast over and over…but each casting has a point cost in terms of favor, and once their favor is gone, the priest cannot cast anything else until they rest and regain their favor again.

There’s more to the class than this, of course. As the priest levels up it gains the ability to intrinsically know what will and will not please their god, gains the ability to work miracles, cast spells not readied (for greater favor cost), hold confessions, and more. The class is very tightly focused, and its class features serve to give it a much more religiously-minded bent than the “casting, channeling, and bashing” cleric.

While I think that would have been enough, the class then gets an expansive flavor section of flavor text, talking about things such as what’s known about priests on a knowledge check, how they get along with other classes and organizations, and a lot more. While I thought this was good, I wish at least some portion of this had devoted more space to expanded mechanical options – the lack of any archetypes or favored class options were noticeable in their absence.

It’s after this that we come to a section on measuring favor and piety. Like favor, piety is a new point-based system for the priest. Whereas favor is gained routinely and the amount of it rapidly swells by level, piety is gained much more rarely. The section here discusses how piety points are gained, and doing so is no small feat – basically, you need to make a positive advancement in your religion in order to gain piety. This isn’t something you can write off either, as piety has game mechanical effects; for example, you get bonus favor per day if you have a high piety score. There’s more that it effects, as several of the priest’s class features deal with piety as well.

Favor is also covered. While favor is gained as part of the status quo, a priest can gain (or lose) favor depending on how they act, with the threshold here generally being a bit lower than for piety. This is quite different than for most spellcasting classes, as being devout can have immediate impact (gaining favor) on your combat efficacy (using the gained favor to cast spells). A table summarizes how much favor is what degree of a reward at what level.

The book’s third section covers miracles – miracles are a class ability of the priest (categorized as spell-like, which I think was a mistake; I didn’t see anything about their effective spell level, for instance, and I don’t like the idea of these being subject to dispel magic) that are similar to spellcasting. Only so many miracles can be known at once, and they have some fairly strongest costs to use.

The major difference between miracles and spells is that the former are often very large in their area of effect (though the exact area tends to depend on the priest’s piety). A priest with a high piety score, for example, can use the Affect Crops miracle in a five-mile radius. Most miracles tend to have a correspondingly high duration as well. Of course, with a high casting time and a prohibition on how often they can be used, virtually none of the listed miracles (just under twenty) are useful in combat.

The last part of the book introduces the devoted apostle prestige class, which I found myself not caring for too much. The problem here is that this class has, as part of its prerequisites, that you have some piety already, so on the surface only priests can take this prestige class. At the same time, however, it increases your caster level, but not your favor per level, which means that a priest’s spellcasting ability takes a hit. The prestige class has several functions that are based around piety, both gaining it have having certain thresholds of it activate class abilities, so I’m inclined to think that it’s meant for multiclass priests (as it has a cleric’s BAB and Hit Dice), but I’m less than certain. It does have a nice flavor text section, however.

Overall, the Book of Faith does a fairly good job of presenting a new sort of character that has a closer tie to their religion than the existing divine spellcasting classes. While it requires a greater sense of their in-game religion, and requires the GM to play an active role as their god (in terms of awarding piety and favor), the priest much more easily fills the role of a character with a close relationship with their god, which has a direct impact on how well they can tend to their community. It’s unfortunate that the prestige class doesn’t do quite as good a job at finding its niche, but even then it’s not a total write-off. Altogether, this is a book that provides some concrete facts towards finding faith in your game.

It’s easy to overlook the importance of money in Pathfinder. While many quests are centered around lofty ideals of saving worlds and defeating evil, the immediate focus of typical sessions tends to revolve around acquisition, usually right after having killed the monstrous former owners. Indeed, some creatures may establish a fortune of wealth so vast that they have other creatures specifically to guard it. In the Tarnished Souk, the Khan of Nightmares has such a creature overlooking his own vast finances: Gobseck Vaultwright, Meister of the Golden Anvil.

A seventeen-page book, this product hits most of the technical benchmarks we’ve come to expect from quality PDFs. Full nested bookmarks are present, and cop-and-paste is enabled. Ornate borders are on all sides of every page, and several black and white illustrations break up the text every few pages or so. I do wonder if there should be a printer-friendly version, as the heavy borders combined with the periodic artwork may be tougher for some printers, but in a PDF this short it’s probably not a huge deal.

Gobseck is, as a character, perhaps best characterized as Ebenezer Scrooge before he met the three ghosts – that is, he’s a cold and heartless money-grubber who has a romantic tragedy in his past. The nature of this tragedy, or more aptly, the identity of the woman in question, is never revealed, though a sidebar on using Gobseck in your campaign does include some pointers on who she should be in a Coliseum Morpheuon campaign. As with other characters from the Faces of the Tarnished Souk, Gobseck’s stat block is an impressive collection of first- and third-party content. While some of his levels use a fighter archetype from Ultimate Combat, the majority of them are magister levels, from the Super Genius Guide of the same name (though take note, those with older files may remember it as the Genius Guide to the Magus instead).

Several of Gobseck’s feats are reprinted here for ease of reference, even those that can be found in the PFSRD already, which I found helpful. A pair of spells from Rite’s own 1001 Spells book are given next before we move into a number of magic weapon and armor abilities – these are quickly put into context as we then get Gobseck’s individual magic items broken down, and I have to say, he’s as equipped as a CR 20 encounter should be! His hammer, in particular, is not something you want to be on the receiving end of.

Gobseck’s vault is statted up next – not just a thing, it’s actually a living vault, albeit a unique one. Not only does it have powers unlike other living vaults, it’s also a monstrously powerful thing, weighing in at CR 33! I actually snickered at the listing for its XP rating, as I strongly suspect very few groups will ever be able to earn experience points for destroying it.

Slightly oddly, two quick variants are then given for Gobseck – specifically, there are two sections listing what changes should be made to his stat block if you add the Divine or Exemplar templates to him. I wish there had been more context to why these were here – are these versions of Gobseck from parallel universes? Things that could happen to him in the future? Just dumping alternate materials on us without talking about what they mean in the game gives us numbers, not a character.

This is a lesson driven home in the two alternate stat blocks for Gobseck that follow, lowering his power down to CR 13, and CR 6. His title changes with each stat block, which I take to mean that these represent Gobseck at earlier stages in his life (ironically, each also has a note on what to change if those templates are used with him).

The book closes with four templates presented – these are the two templates that Gobseck does have (Smoke and Element-Infused, with him having the air version of the latter), and the two that he could potentially have. Oddly, there’s a small section (two or three paragraphs) of “bonus content” that talk about the one sentimental item that Gobseck keeps in his vault. I did like this bonus bit of exposition, but I found that it actually highlighted what would have been a far better bonus – a listing of what’s to be found in the Vault; while this will obviously vary between campaigns, even a guideline of what sort of fortune of treasures and magic is to be found in the vault would have been useful – I consider it a missed opportunity.

Overall, however, the book is still a good one, and like all of the Faces of the Tarnished Souk, it’s a case-study in how to use OGL materials to great effect. While the aspect of character development is somewhat overshadowed by the game mechanics here, that’s the natural consequence of (rightly) including the reused material for reference purposes. The result is that you have a very strong character with an understated but potentially engaging backstory, to say nothing of his massively-powerful living vault. Use Gobseck in your game, and see why money is the root of all evil.

I’m always impressed when something new proliferates quickly. As ideas and concepts are around longer, the successful ones tend to spread around and gain general acceptance, but that usually takes time. It’s when something spreads rapidly that it becomes notable. Such is the case with the catfolk, who only recently made their Pathfinder debut in the Bestiary 3, now having their own supplement in Racial Ecologies: Guide to Catfolk.

Nine pages long, with one page for the OGL and other legal information, the Guide to Catfolk is PC-oriented in the options and information it presents, though nothing stops an enterprising GM from using it for NPCs and world-building as well. The book has no PDF bookmarks, but as its page count remains in the single digits this is forgivable. Similarly, there’s no printer-friendly version, but this can be overlooked for the aforementioned reason.

In terms of its presentation, for such a short book this is fairly graphics-heavy. I was surprised that a nine-page book was over eleven megabytes in size, but looking at the page styles I can see why this was so. The light grey shading on the back of each page is subtle, but impressively detailed, and there are red borders (in a “smear” style) along the top and bottom of each page. There are several full-color illustrations in the book of various catfolk, which were impressively detailed, but which I thought were also slightly off-putting. Partially this was because in most of them their heads seems slightly too large for their bodies.

The opening sections of the book detail the “soft” portions of catfolk; that is, it covers things that aren’t defined by game terms – their history, psychology, society, and so on. The picture this section paints is about what you’d expect, in regards to them being mercurial but loyal, having a nomadic culture that is being assimilated by its neighbors, etc. Much like the artwork, this section presents itself ably, but I found it slightly off-putting; in this case, the writing didn’t present itself as clearly as it could have – while it’s hard to articulate, the text seems to be written in a style wherein the information it delivers is already known, and merely being synopsized for the reader. I suspect that this is due to the author, naturally, already knowing what he wants to say, and so unintentionally not presenting things in a style for someone who isn’t already as familiar with the material. It’s things like this that an editor, which this book didn’t have, would have caught.

The book’s second half deals more directly with new crunch for catfolk, opening with two new mundane weapons that they (or anyone else) can use, and, much to my amusement, presenting catnip as a drug. This last one alone makes me want to run a catfolk character just so I can have him getting high while smoking some ‘nip.

A few magic items are presented before we’re given the standard catfolk racial traits. I was quite glad for this last one, since without the base stats for catfolk, you’re pretty well unable to use this product’s spotlight race unless you already have the Bestiary 3. I commend the book’s author for including this here. Following are a few alternate racial abilities, some traits, and feats (though, in what was perhaps an oversight, no new favored class options).

A surprisingly-detailed adventure outline comes next, and I have to admit I didn’t suspect it to be quite so intricate. No level guidelines are given, but it seems to assume that the PCs’ levels are in the high single-digits. Slightly oddly, it gives stats for a dire tiger that features in the adventure; I say “oddly” here because the base stats for a dire tiger are in the Bestiary 1, which is to say that they’re in the SRD now; a reprinting here wasn’t strictly necessary. Following this we get a full stat block and description for a catfolk NPC, one with double-digit levels.

Overall, the Guide to Catfolk is an adequate expansion for those who want to play a catfolk PC. If you’re looking to play a catfolk in your Pathfinder game, this will scratch that itch. The book doesn’t break any new ground in terms of its presentation, but it’s still commendable for offering options that Paizo (as of this writing) has not. The problems with the book are largely stylistic, and more in terms of tightening up the presentation moreso than anything being truly lacking (save only for the aforementioned favored class options). Had I the option of giving this book three-and-a-half stars, I would have, but I’ll round up to 4. This book may not quite be the cat’s meow, but it’s certainly worth a look.

There’s just something about evil outsiders that makes them perfect for an individual spotlight. As the strongest among them have not only a unique form and powers, but also influence on the mortal world, makes them easy to customize in terms of what they can do and what influence they have on your campaign. Hence, it’s no surprise that Super Genius Games has started a new series of products based around them: the Annals of the Archfiends.

The opening product in this line gives us Phosonith the Cruel Charmer, a devil prince.

A relatively short product at just under ten pages, the book opens with a quick overview of Phosonith’s personality – beneficent in public and wrathful in private – before delving into his history. This was somewhat more expansive than I’d expected, as it took two pages to describe Phosonith’s genesis and rise to power to rule the Stygian city of Ess, along with his current sketch. I suspect I’m in the minority in thinking that what was here was a bit much; while I appreciate back-story as much as anyone, this felt somewhat excessive in how much of Phosonith’s history we’re given. This is particularly true as there were other sections I wish were expanded.

Speaking of which, the next section covers some of the influence that Phosonith has. This opens with a section regarding Phosonith in the real world, which cogently notes that he has no real-world equivalent, but rather was inspired by several duplicitous men in real life (though I confess I was rather irked by its noting of Machiavelli’s The Prince as a source – apparently the author, like most people, didn’t realize that that entire work was sarcastic on Machiavelli’s part, and not meant to be taken quite so literally).

Ahem. The book then covers Phosonith’s cult, including the new Duplicity domain, and is a good example of where the book doesn’t nearly go far enough in what it offers. Let’s leave aside the fact that at no point are we told what other domains (or holy symbol, favored weapon, etc.) you receive for worshipping Phosonith, the information on his cult is quite sparse. We’re given a quick overview of the sorts of people who make up his cult, and paragraph of what they do and don’t do, and that’s it. There’s nothing about their tactics, their current plots, not even an abbreviated stat block for a single example cultist that your PCs can interact with. There’s just very little here, and it’s disappointing.

A page is given to how to portray Phosonith personally, and it does a good job in outlining his appearance and methodology, except in combat. True, a character that focuses on a benign façade shouldn’t get into combat very much, but throw the PCs into the mix and it’s likely to happen, so it would have been nice if the author had talked about how to run Phosonith in the event of a fight. As it is, his stat block is fairly impressive (though his SR should be a few points higher), but I was disappointed that the deception-based powers of the Duplicity domain, which help you negate truth- and alignment-based effects, weren’t mirrored in his stat block. It’s hard to believe the flavor text about how Phosonith goes to great lengths to hide that he’s evil when he can’t even defeat a simple detect evil spell.

The book closes out with an overview of the city of Ess, describing twelve locations within its locale. The locations are fairly interesting, but that they’re numbered is a reminder of the fact that there’s no map of the city itself, which is a shame. I can see the practical reason for this, as a custom map costs money, but it’s still a shame. Equally so is the lack of a city stat block (a la the Pathfinder GameMastery Guide) which would be very helpful here as Ess is supposed to be a planar trade town where all sorts of creatures of all alignments are welcome in Hell. There really should be some city stats here, and the lack of them is a weakness in the product.

Overall, the first book in the Annals of the Archfiends line makes some stumbles out of the gate. Having too much material in some areas and not enough in others, this first book shows that it has potential but needs to realign its focus somewhat. There’s some good material here, which makes it easy to see how it could have been great with a bit more tweaking in some areas. Phosonith the Cruel Charmer presents a nice façade, but an ultimately imperfect one.

There’s a fine line between a classic and a cliché. That’s the case made in the opening of the Creature Codex Volume 4: First Level Foes, which presents six new monsters to spice things up for your fresh-out-of-the-gate adventurers. Rather than send them up against skeletons, big bugs, and short goblinoids, pit them against the half-dozen new freaks on display here.

The book’s technical presentation is fairly strong. There are no bookmarks, but as the file is less than a dozen pages long, I can’t really hold that against it, especially since there is a table of contents. I also appreciate that a printer-friendly file was included; this one removes all of the illustrations, page borders, and cover completely, so there’s nothing to strain your printer even slightly.

Speaking of which, the book’s artistic presentation is quite strong. In addition to page borders on both sides, which flow down along the bottom of the pages as well, each monster has a full-color illustration. This is important, as being able to visualize a monster is a necessary part of their presentation. Heather Frazier did a very impressive job here, as each monster looks as though it was done in a sort of “portrait” style.

So what are these monsters like? Let’s go over them one-by-one in further detail.

The first creature is the aquib, and it probably deserves the award for the lowest-CR monster that has spell resistance. This is thematically appropriate, as it actually devours magic, and is empowered by the spells that fail to get through its SR. I also have to note that this is likely the lowest-level aberration that your PCs will run into. While I can understand being somewhat leery of introducing spell resistance while spellcasting PCs are at their weakest, that’s such a change from what most players expect that that alone makes this monster worthwhile.

The psittacosaurus is the second monster, a real-world dinosaur most noteworthy for its tail quills. As with the aquib, this is a case of introducing a certain sort of monster before your players are expecting it – who would think that their character’s first adventure involved fighting a dinosaur. Very cogently, the monster’s description includes rules for having it as an animal companion.

Also based on the real world, albeit from its mythology, is our third monster, the nuppeppo. I was initially surprised that there was an undead here, as part of the author’s rebuke of typical first-level enemies included skeletons and zombies. That said, this undead is sufficiently different that I feel comfortable giving him a pass on this one. Little more than an ambulatory mass of rotting flesh, the nuppeppo is of a singularly interesting “theme” for its undead nature – sloth. These are the undead formed by people so lazy that their souls couldn’t be bothered to leave their bodies even after death. And you thought not getting out of bed in the morning was lazy! If only for how much fun the concept is, I like this.

The puuk exists as something akin to the evil counterpart of faerie dragons and pseudodragons, which is a nice bit of balance for that particular creature type. I get the distinct impression that these creatures are from some mythology – especially as we’re given a short section on a sort of advanced puuk, called a kaukas – but I’m not certain. Puuks are greedy creatures that can change not only into an animal form, but into a fiery form as well, and can be taken as improved familiars.

The rawhead is the most powerful monster in the book, obviously meant to be something of a “boss monster” for a first-level party, weighing in at CR 3. It’s also an undead, and is fairly similar to other low-level undead in appearance, being a bloody skeleton. Formed from the ugly death of an intelligent animal, rawheads prey on animals, meaning that they’ll likely target characters with companion creatures. Again I’m pleasantly surprised at the focus with which the monster’s niche is crafted, as this once again seems designed to exploit an area where NPCs don’t often direct their attention – this is the first “kill the companion animal” monster I’ve seen. I do wish it had been more than a collection of bones, but I can sympathize with the fact that, when it comes to the walking dead, there are only so many ways of visualizing them.

Finally, the veytha end the book, a race of tall nomads. While there’s little that makes them distinctive in regards to their own mechanics, having only a single special ability unto themselves, it’s their use in a creature type that makes them different. These are the only monstrous humanoid race with no natural Hit Dice; they rely solely on class levels (though their stats are advanced enough that they’re still a bit stronger than your average PC race) to advance. While this, and their appearance, do help to make them unique, I wish they had a little more to make their mechanics stand out – I doubt many PCs will ever notice that they need less food and water (short of being allowed to play a veytha PC – which you could do, as PC racial stats are included), for example.

Overall, I found First Level Foes to be a good method of widening the variety of enemies that your PCs can face as they begin their adventuring career. The book’s raison d’etre is somewhere between presenting certain types of monsters at a low enough level that they can be thrown against a group of starting heroes, and having monsters focus on a niche that isn’t something first-level PCs would expect. In this regard, the book does quite well for itself; so long as you keep focus of what each monster is trying to achieve, there’s a lot of merit here.

The only real complaint I have with the book is that some monsters pull off both sorts of innovation at once (e.g. the aquib), while others don’t quite manage to. It’s great to have your new heroes unexpectedly facing a tiny dragon that can turn into fire; it’s another thing to have what’s killing your pets be another skeletal creature. Still, these creatures aren’t “misses” so much as they’re less-than-solid hits. I’d give the book 4.5 stars if I were able to, but if I have to round, I’ll round up in appreciation for the fact that some GMs might not care about a monster needing to be innovative in every aspect. First Level Foes is a book that will give you some unexpected sorts of monsters to sick on your new adventuring party…and not a goblin in sight.

One of the ways in which Pathfinder (nee Third Edition) is different from previous editions of the world’s most popular fantasy role-playing game is in the proliferation of mechanical character abilities. Whereas before your PC had comparatively little stats, nowadays they have many different mechanics that serve to define what they can and cannot do, from skills to feats to class abilities and more. However, most of these exist largely in a vacuum – while some may be prerequisites to others, few actually build off of each other, and they can form a collection that’s quite disparate in what they offer (particularly for multiclass characters).

It’s in that spirit of tying a character’s abilities more closely together that Misfit Studios has released Superior Synergy: Fantasy for the Pathfinder RPG. Let’s examine it and see how well it ties things together.

Superior Synergy comes as three PDFs, those being the main file, a printer-friendly version thereof, and a short checklist file for the various synergies. Ostensibly, this checklist (which uses a very handy alternating grey-and-white set of rows for each item, making them easily distinguishable) is used to chart which synergies your character qualifies for. However, it should be noted that GMs can make good use of this as a tool for denoting which synergies he allows in his campaign to begin with.

The main file is just over seventy pages in length, and has the technical aspects that a good PDF product should – it comes with full, nested bookmarks, a hyperlinked table of contents, and has the copy-and-paste enabled. These go for the printer-friendly version also, which eliminates the cover, the page backgrounds and borders (those being an off-white and a muddy brownish, respectively), and turns the few interior illustrations from being full color to black and white. I’m personally of the opinion that printer-friendly file should eliminate the illustrations altogether, though that’d usually require a new layout.

So what exactly does Superior Synergy present for your Pathfinder game? Simply put, this book posits that if you have certain prerequisites – be they of skills, feats, class abilities or whatnot – then you can gain an extra benefit. This is usually automatic, but some times will require a check.

The book’s first chapter deals with skill synergies. I need to take a moment to state, in the plainest terms possible, that these are NOT the same as the skill synergies from 3.5. For that matter, these are not even the same as the material from the 3.5 version of Superior Synergy. Rather, these skill synergies function off of making a check with a certain skill, and the check result modifying another skill check.

There’s no ambiguity here regarding what skills affect what, or how long the synergy check takes, etc. as the book goes into very specific detail on the mechanics (as well as the flavor of exactly how) these synergies use. For example, you can make an Acrobatics check which modifies (depending on the check result) a subsequent Climb check made to catch yourself or someone else on a fall, as you’re good at twisting and teetering enough to give yourself a bit of an edge…if you’re lucky. If you’re not, you’ve actually made things worse.

Feat synergy is, perhaps ironically, very similar to a section of new feats (and indeed, the book notes that if you think giving these synergy effects out automatically once the prerequisites are met, you can turn these into new feats). As a Pathfinder aficionado, I was quite happy to note that these prerequisites took into account the materials from the Advanced Player’s Guide, Ultimate Magic, and Ultimate Combat. So for example, if you have Bludgeoner (UC), Dazing Assault (APG), and Weapon Focus, you qualify for the Staggering Blow synergy, which lets you attempt to attempt to stagger a foe for a round. There’s a lot of great material here that lets you put forward a lot of feats that might otherwise be totally ignored (such as some skill-boosters).

For all of that, though, it was the next chapter that was my favorite: class synergies. Simply put, this section is (as I read it) one big love-letter to multiclassing, as it grants synergy abilities from having different class features. If you have the track class ability from being a ranger or inquisitor, and the detect evil power of a paladin, you gain the Track Evil synergy, which grants a bonus to tracking evil creatures. I really enjoyed this section, as it did a lot to make multiclassing sexy again.

The spell synergy section is the only part of the book that doesn’t offer several dozen synergies. Having only a half-dozen synergies, these are the result of using certain types of spells within one round of each other. Perhaps surprisingly, these are written with a more generic stroke, mostly combining types of spells that mostly lend themselves to fairly obvious combinations – here you’ll find rules for using fire and ice to weaken items, electricity conducted by metal or water, and similar things, though at least one (several mental effects at once can confuse a creature) takes a more innovative leap.

The last section of the book is crafting synergy, and basically allows for characters with a nuanced background to craft weapons with built-in non-magical abilities. If you can rage and have Skill Focus for Craft (armor) for example, you can build armor that’s painful to wear but as a result increases how long you can rage (slightly)...but only on a successful Craft check, otherwise you’ve essentially created an item with a slight (non-magical) curse.

The book ends with several pages of the checklist I mentioned at the beginning, something that seems redundant, as the file is already included separately.

Overall, I found Superior Synergy: Fantasy PFRPG Edition to be an expansive book of great options for your characters. Having said that, there are some concerns that I’d want to thoroughly weigh before I used it in my game. For one thing, the synergies that require an extra roll can slow down game-play, though I do appreciate that these are the synergies that aren’t guaranteed to be an extra boost for characters. By contrast, the always-active synergies are faster, but mean that PCs will automatically receive a power bump…though even that’s controllable if you decide to make some of these into feats, or just disallow certain synergies altogether.

It’s that modularity that, I think, really puts this book over the top. There are so many options here, which can be easily added, tweaked, or disallowed, that there’s really no way you can’t find a happy medium in terms of figuring out what parts of this book to allow and what not to. Taking that into account, there are still a few minor problems (a synergy for a paladin’s smite evil and a barbarian’s rage…alignment compatibility issues there), and the occasional spelling and grammar error, but nothing that’s a deal-breaker. I say, start using Superior Synergy, and make your characters more than just the sum of their parts.

I’ve always been on the proverbial fence about “set pieces” – small locations that are written apart from any greater context, allowing them to be dropped into a campaign as a sort of mini-adventure location. In some instances they’re a lot of fun; a quick little adventure that’s easy for the GM and fun for the players. That can be difficult to pull off, however, as they need to have enough context to make sense unto themselves but not so much that they feel too “heavy” to be dropped into an ongoing game. Likewise, they need to have enough of a challenge to be worthwhile, but not so much that they become a killer encounter.

Happily, as far as set pieces go, Headless Hydra Games’s Storage Vaults of Alantes is one of the better ones.

The book’s technical presentation is strong. Having only ten pages (really just over seven, given the cover, credits page, and OGL), you’d think the book wouldn’t be too concerned with how it’s put together – not so. Full nested bookmarks are here, a pleasant surprise, and copy and paste is enabled.

The book has borders along the top and bottom, along with alternating sides, of each page. There’s only a single interior illustration, a black and white image of the new monster found here. The preceding statement is notwithstanding the map, which was actually quite a treat, visually. Done in full color, it’s presented in an unusual, but not unpleasant, isometric style. I’m quite surprised by how well it makes this sort of map work – for a larger area, this perspective would quickly become cumbersome, but here it’s actually very nice to look at. I should also mention that it takes the details of the area descriptions into account; images described as being on the walls can be seen here, which only contribute to the map’s charm.

For a dungeon with only three rooms (more like two, in all honesty), there’s a surprising amount of flavor text here. There’s a background given for why this particular vault was constructed and why it holds the treasures it does. There’s also a motivation given for the PCs to go looking for it (although I found it slightly silly, as well as a bit too vague for my tastes – if the Sultan’s son has been cursed by a witch, why aren’t normal magical remedies working? Perhaps I’m over-thinking such a minor background detail, however), and a sidebar covers what the PCs know about this vault’s particular treasure. The sidebar struck me as slightly odd, as it segues into why the treasure is here in the first place – given that there’s nothing to lead the PCs to this being the treasure’s location in the first place (the scenario makes a lot more sense, I think, if it’s something you have the PCs just happen to stumble onto), this seems somewhat unnecessary.

For a location that has only three rooms – or, more specifically, one hidden entrance and two underground chambers – the more specificity each location has, the better. For the most part, this book does a good job of presenting a large number of details for each location, particularly as the two doors between the three rooms are each set with a puzzle-lock and trap combination.

It’s in regards to these traps where I felt that the book fell down the most. The issue isn’t that the traps are bad; quite the contrary, they’re quite good. The problem is that this is really the same trap, done twice. In the first case, there’s really no good way besides guessing to solve it, which strikes me as slightly unfair. The second iteration of the trap is somewhat less punishing, as there’s a clue given.

There were also some additional details that I felt could have been provided. For example, the last door notes its break DC, but what about simple hardness and hit points? There’s no description of light sources in the main underground chamber, so is it pitch black? A lot was done here to approach these challenges in multiple ways, but while it covered a lot of ground, it could have provided us with more.

My last complaint about the book is with the new monster found at the dungeon’s end. The author made the critical mistake of giving it a movement rate of 0 feet, something that insofar as I’m aware most plant monsters don’t have in the Pathfinder RPG – this is because it encourages the PCs to (once they realize the nature of the threat) back up and pepper it with ranged weapons and spells until it dies. It’s a critical flaw in an otherwise excellently-designed monster.

Of course, there are a few other surprises to be found in the vault, as it houses more than just one treasure. There’s also a suggestion for what to do if you want to have this be the first part of a larger series of adventures, but that, to paraphrase an old axiom, is a tale for another product…

Overall, I thought that this was a very well-done set piece. It had its flaws, both in design (a knock spell can bypass a significant portion of the challenges here) and in presentation (the same trap twice), but it hits far more often than it misses. The traps are designed to be more than just stat blocks, and the manner of overcoming them requires intuitive thinking by the players, and not just their PCs. Likewise, the creature encounters look like a lot of fun (just give the last monster a movement rate), and nicely counterbalance the use of traps. And of course, the treasure at the end makes it all worthwhile. Whether you want to start a new chapter in your campaign, or just want to take a side trek for an evening, you’ll have fun looting the Storage Vault of Alantes.

Time. Some people say time is like a river, flowing swift and sure and only in one direction. But I have seen The Genius Guide to the Time Thief, and I can tell you, they are wrong. Come, and I will tell you a review such as none you have ever heard…

It’s obvious where the inspiration for the time thief comes from, and if you’ve recognized it, then you’ll have a pretty good idea what to expect here. The time thief is a character who is able to manipulate the flow of time around herself to speed up their attacks, undo their failures, and other temporal tricks.

A twenty-level base class for the Pathfinder role-playing game, the basic construction of the class follows the pattern laid out by previous Super Genius Games’ new classes; roughly half of the time thief’s abilities are preset, while the other half lets you choose from a list of available talents (a la the rogue), with said list expanding around 10th level. It’s a great design to allow flexibility in how PCs develop their character while still maintaining structure and balance in what the class offers.

A medium BAB progress, d8 Hit Die class, the time thief’s chief abilities revolve around having a number of “motes” to spend to power many of her time-based class abilities. These motes are moments of her own future, little ones that she won’t miss, stolen from their rightful place in the flow of time and brought back to now when she needs them. Whether adding a bonus to an attack roll or speeding up time to self-heal her wounds, the class’s basic powers are fairly well-grounded in existing mechanics, but often have a time-related spin put on them.

It’s around 5th level when the time thief really starts to break out the wild stuff, though. At that point, she gains “aevum,” which are basically super-motes from specific, important moments in time. Hence, they power greater effects, such as damaging a target with concentrated age, increasing her speed up to “bolt time,” or other dramatic powers. Combined with advanced talents kicking in at 10th level, and suddenly your time thief can pull off some very impressive stunts.

It’s clear that the designers had some fun with this product, as they can’t help but drop references to other movies and other media for names of powers. Back to the Future, Time Runner, Time After Time, I had to take a time out from all of the titles being dropped. Still, it’s part and parcel of the Super Genius package, along with the afterword that discusses using the time thief in your game. I liked how this section characterized the time thief as being an “anti-monk” for how it was an oft-chaotic, undisciplined character who used external factors to get by.

There’s also a short sidebar near the book’s end thanking Veronic F. for modeling for the book, and it’s here that this review finally stops ignoring the elephant in the room – or rather, the vixen – that is its artwork.

If you hadn’t already noticed from its preview, this book doesn’t have illustrations per se (notwithstanding the background of the cover image). Instead, there’s a series of photos of a sexy blonde, the aforementioned Veronic – clad in a skimpy garb; basically a bikini with a half-mask, weapons, and some other ornamentation. Including the cover, there are a half-dozen pictures of her throughout the book’s ten pages, which is an impressive ratio overall.

I’ve heard some people grumble about the use of a live model here instead of drawings, either being uncomfortable with such blatant cheesecake, or because they find the Veronic’s pictures to be lacking in context with the product’s theme, making them pretty but pointless. This latter point, however, ignores how her costume plays to a “fantasy Arabia” theme, which plays perfectly towards the book’s major inspiration.

Likewise, it also deserves mention that Veronic is an alias of porn star and model Jenny Poussin, who in the last few months has earned her gamer cred for not only playing Pathfinder, but also taking pictures of herself dressed up as her last several characters. Hence, her appearance here as the iconic time thief is her and the SGG guys winking at their readers who’re in the know. Needless to say, I really got a kick out of this easter egg, and I’m sure I’m not the only one.

But back on topic, the book readily acknowledges that the time thief base class moves outside the usual series of party roles covered by most classes. Not a martial combatant or spellcaster, not a skill monkey or healer, the time thief has a group of powers that provide a somewhat eclectic cavalcade of offensive, defensive, and utility powers, all related by their theme. It’s a great change of pace for a player who wants to step outside the usual boundaries of class functionality. I’d heartily recommend checking out the time thief – both the class and the pictures – you’ll have a good time.

Time. Some people say time is like a river, flowing swift and sure and only in one direction. But I have seen The Genius Guide to the Time Thief, and I can tell you, they are wrong. Come, and I will tell you a review such as none you have ever heard…

One of the defining characteristics of PCs in most role-playing games is that they’re proactive rather than reactive. It’s what comes from being the one raiding dungeons, while the denizens are dealing with your raid. But what would it be like if that paradigm was turned on its head, and you were the one trying to defend your lair from some do-gooders that had suddenly kicked in the door? That’s the primary question your group faces in the second book of the Way of the Wicked campaign: Call Forth Darkness.

Continuing this adventure path for evil characters, Call Forth Darkness is aptly named. Tasked to summon back a banished daemon lord and have him give you a powerful item, your group must first find, conquer, and hold the fortress that the fiendish cult used to inhabit while attempting to stop the forces of good – as well as meddlesome adventurers – from putting the kibosh on your plans.

From a technical standpoint, Call Forth Darkness is a good product, but could have used a few more tweaks. Weighing in at one-hundred-six pages altogether, it has bookmarks to each of the book’s major sections, but I had hoped there would be nested bookmarks to the various sub-sections as well. It does have copy-and-pasted enabled, which is always a good thing.

The book’s graphical presentation is quite strong. The pages are set on a dark tan background, as though the file were an old tome, with black borders along three sides. Michael Clarke continues to impress with his full-color interior illustrations, largely of various personages that your group will encounter throughout the adventure.

I did have a few problems with the pictorial aspects of the book, however. First, I can’t really hold this against the artist, but the maps continue to be done as one square equaling ten feet. This makes it difficult to reproduce these in battle-mat size, but as I said, this isn’t really Fire Mountain Games’ fault – there’s only so much you can tweak the scale you want to set things at. Secondly, it should be noted that the book comes with three files – the main PDF, a printer-friendly version, and a book of players’ handouts.

The printer-friendly version was something of a disappointment. It’s only changes were to remove the tan background and set the page borders to being line-scaling rather than a full color border. That’s good, but it’s not enough – not when the full-color cover and interior illustrations remain. These should have been removed entirely (requiring an adjusted layout) or at least set to grayscale. That they weren’t makes this not nearly as printer-friendly as it should have been.

Similarly, the players’ handouts consist of four pages. One is a wilderness map, two are the two pages of maps of the Horn of Abaddon (the evil fortress), and the final one is an illustration of one of the dungeon denizens.

But enough about that, let’s look at the meat of the adventure and see what new evil your group is doing!

After the ubiquitous introduction and adventure background, things are broken up into four “acts” each of which is sub-divided into various “events.”

The first act covers everything prior to the arrival at the dungeon. Herein, the PCs receive their next assignment, taking them to the frontier town of Farholde and meeting with their support (a local baron, as well as another of the nine groups helping to overthrow the current order), before setting out to locate the Horn of Abaddon.

Taking up less than ten percent of the book’s total page-count, this section of the adventure wasn’t bad, but was clearly the book’s weak point. I say that not because there’s a dearth of action here (though there is), but rather than there’s not enough exposition on what can really be done at this stage. For example, it’s helpful (though not necessarily expected) that the PCs start to develop a minion organization during the adventure, with the unspoken assumption that some part of it will be set up in Farholde; however, there’s little here that really helps to put that part of the adventure forward.

Now, to be fair, there is some support for this part of the adventure at this stage – just not enough. Meeting with the local baron and securing his aid is helpful, and having another “knot” of evil-doers backing you up from the town is a mixed blessing, but notwithstanding the gazetteer of Farholde itself, that’s really all that there is. While the section on running an evil organization does talk a little about finding minions in Farholde, I’d have preferred that there were a few events placed here to let the PCs work their way into the town’s seedy underbelly and set up the beginnings of a network before they went into the wild.

Speaking of the wild, the book somewhat glosses over the task of finding the Horn. Even presuming that they find the map to it, the book rather oddly sets finding the location as a Perception, rather than Survival skill. Moreover, it seems like there’s some wasted potential for further encounters here – the few spots that are marked on the GMs map receive extremely little coverage (said coverage is given in their events later in the book, rather than having an overview in act one). There could have been a lot more here to help round out the environment – at the very least it would have been nice to have had a table of random encounters!

It’s at the second act, however, that the book really begins to shine. Here, the PCs discover the Horn, and at first it’s not too dissimilar from any other dungeon crawl, as the PCs have to explore the place, deal with some of the creatures that have already moved in, and figure out their next move. While the adventure doesn’t expressly spell out that they need to try and dominate, rather than eradicate, most of the local monsters, the encounters are somewhat slanted in that direction – a smart group will quickly figure it out. This is particularly true since, if the PCs root out all of the Horn’s secrets (and the adventure assumes they do, to the point of having a sidebar saying what to do if some critical information slips by them), they’ll realize that they’ll need to conduct a ritual that takes months to complete in order to complete their mission.

As I mentioned, this is where the adventure really takes off. The PCs start to interact with various creatures that require longer-term thinking on their part. What monsters should be slain, and which should be subjugated? Can the first line of good-aligned defenders be manipulated, or should you destroy them on sight? The adventure sometimes tilts things subtly in one direction, but by and large it’s refreshing how it lets the party make their own decisions, and reap the rewards or consequences therein. The author makes sure to say what various creatures do over time.

The book also notes certain things that can increase the local security, earning “Security Points.” Oddly, the points have no particular effect save to earn bonus XP for the party – while the individual defenses do make a difference in and of themselves, I’d have thought that there’d be more of an effect in terms of what the Security Points do to potential invaders – a missed opportunity there, albeit a slight one.

The book’s third act is where the PCs need to shift from offense to defense. Because the ritual they’re performing takes months, the book outlines things week by week, and various interlopers start in from the very beginning. The book does a truly remarkable job of blending in layers of plot here, as the PCs’ “allies” will send them varying degrees of advanced notice (though how these notices are sent is left frustratingly vague), all in accordance with their own plans, as they learn about adventurers and crusaders heading towards the Horn.

This is where the book also starts to introduce monsters from beyond the first Pathfinder Bestiary. It’s a small but refreshing change to see creatures from the Bestiary 2 or Tome of Horrors being used here, and helps to keep the PCs on their toes. This is also when the PCs are most likely to have their own group of minions that they can command, both in terms of the subjugated monsters and in their organization in Farholde.

I also really have to compliment the author on the structure of the various groups the PCs face. The composition of enemies here is something that only a gamer would think of. You have groups ranging from uber-good crusaders who strike hard and fast, to the all-neutral party who isn’t vulnerable to anti-good measures. Some groups come with plenty of advanced warning and just walk in the front door; some do their homework beforehand and (likely) get the drop on the PCs. All are written with a battle strategy (as part of their stat block), and many discuss what they do if they manage to flee. Several even have some ties to the previous adventure, building a strong sense of continuity beyond the usual “sequence of events” that most adventure paths have.

The book’s final act takes place during the last five days of the months-long ritual, and its here that the heat is really turned up on the PCs. With their summoning almost done, there’s a lot of attention focused on them, and the adversaries come hard and fast. From other evils that want to hijack the ritual to desperate defenders of goodness, and more, the PCs are effectively under siege, both from without and from within. The denouement of the adventure is exceptional in its crafting, so much so that I honestly think your players will likely remember this as one of the best adventures they’ve ever played.

Following this, the book still has more in store. Several pages are dedicated to the running of an evil organization. Surprisingly, this is fairly simple in terms of mechanics. While I was initially suspicious of it being based around the Leadership feat, I did like that it makes it so that Leadership gives you the usual cohort, but the followers are instead set up as an organization. The organization is treated as a single entity, and can perform so many actions per week (more if multiple PCs throw in as co-leaders), presuming a successful check. A list of about two dozen actions is given, followed by a series of possible events that can happen, and some further discussion.

The town of Farholde is given roughly a half-dozen pages of examination, including a map of the town. There’s quite a lot here, and an enterprising GM will use the information to help personalize the townsfolk while the PCs are here – the information here seems almost excessive given how the PCs will likely spend most of the their time holed up in the Horn.

The book’s final section talks about modifying the campaign depending on the composition of the party. To be more clear, it discusses running the campaign if you have party members that are of the same type of class (e.g. all clerics), or of the same race (e.g. all goblins). In practice, this section mostly lays down background for why such a group would have existed in the first place. There is some discussion regarding modifying the feel of the campaign, but nothing too specific is given for even major game-changers (e.g. if your entire party lacks spellcasters). There is, however, a single new feat given for creatures that are sensitive to light.

I was personally hoping for a section on what to do for replacement PCs should some die over the course of the campaign. Given the importance of the back-story, and the group’s secretive nature (plus how they’re operating under the oversight of their master), it seems like new characters would be very hard to come by. Hopefully a future book will address this.

Overall, this is a book that starts slowly and builds its way up to a truly epic crescendo. While there are some parts that could have been fleshed out better, what’s here is massive in scale and breathtaking in scope. From the all-too-short sections that deal with Farholde (a much more interesting town that it had a right to be) to clearing and refurbishing the dungeon to the incredible dungeon-defense sections to the harrowing conclusion, this is an adventure of grandeur. Throw in the formation of your own evil organization to lord over, and I have to wonder if this campaign hasn’t already hit its high point; certainly this will be a hard act to follow.

If you haven’t already started to walk the Way of the Wicked, then let this be the reason to begin doing so – you’ll never have so much fun as when you Call Forth Darkness.

I’ve long been of the opinion that one of the strengths of the d20 system, of which Pathfinder is the primary inheritor, is its unified mechanics. Few are the places I appreciate this more than the transparency between PC and NPC rules, particularly for monsters and races. True, they don’t always match up 100% perfectly, but as someone who remembers what a headache it was trying to add class levels to monsters in previous editions, what we have now is by far better.

Purple Duck Games supplement Legendary Races: The Cyclops is a testament to this facet of game design. Because while I’ve never personally had a player ask to play a cyclops, I’ve now got that angle covered should it ever come up (plus some cool options in the meanwhile).

The book is a short one, being a sixteen-page PDF. Pleasantly, there’s also a second PDF of counters; small squares with images of various creatures from the book that can be easily placed on your battlemat. Several different sizes are available here, reflecting the various sizes of the cyclopes and cyclopes-kin that the book presents. Likewise, the primary PDF has full nested bookmarks and has copy and pasting enabled.

Several black and white illustrations break up the book, roughly a half-dozen all told. There is no printer-friendly version of the book available, but in all honesty your printer should be able to handle what’s here anyway. There’s also no epublishing file, so if you don’t like how PDFs display on an ereader or tablet, you’re going to be out of luck.

I usually talk about my overall impression of a book at the end of my review, saving it for after I’ve discussed all of the different sections, but in this case it seems more apropos to mention up front how much I enjoyed this book. I really feel like a standard was set here in terms of presenting a truly holistic amount of information regarding presenting a race for use in the Pathfinder RPG.

For example, the book opens with a few pages talking about the cyclopes’ racial history, society, and physiology before moving into game stats. From there we get a new weapon (a shuriken-like throwing weapon called the gieve), before moving into how to play a cyclops PC. This is handled by breaking the Bestiary cyclops down into a racial class. This harkens back slightly to Third Edition, being a class that essentially must be taken, and cannot be multiclassed out of until it’s complete, but the class is only six levels long, so it doesn’t seem particularly cumbersome.

If you can’t stand racial levels, however, the book has you covered with its new half-cyclops race. A human-cyclops mix, this race is equivalent to the standard races in power. It’s not simply tossed out without any support either – the book presents a good deal of flavor information before presenting the racial mechanics. Moreover, it then gives expanded descriptions for how half-cyclops do in each PC class (not including the UM and UC classes, as this book predates them), and has both alternate racial traits and several new favored class options. More than anything else, these extras helped give the entire book a very comprehensive scope.

A single new legendary weapon is presented next, a shout-out to those using Purple Duck Games’s Legendary Weapon supplements. If you don’t have those, it may be of more limited use. Interestingly, one of the weapon’s powers is a psionic one, with the particular power reprinted here in its entirety. A sidebar converts the power into a divine spell for those who hate psionics.

A couple new feats are presented next, and this is one of the areas where I felt the book could have been tightened up a little more. For example, Intimidating Orb gives a cyclops (of half-cyclops) a +4 to Intimidate checks. Fair enough, but with ten or more ranks in the skill, the Persuasive feat in the Core Rulebook will give you that, and a +4 bonus to Diplomacy to boot (and you don’t need to be a cyclops to take it). Likewise, the Otherworldly Gaze feat lets you gain a +2 to gaze and blindness attacks…but feats like Great Fortitude add a +2 save bonus to a much wider set of saves.

A new oracle mystery comes next, along with a sample 1st-level NPC. After this, we receive two new templates, the man-eater and the god-scored (which, oddly, do not have sample NPCs of their own). I quite enjoyed these templates, as they both play into the theme of degenerate cyclopes, but remain broad enough that they can be applied to most creatures (there were a few nitpicks that I had, like the man-eaters bite being a secondary natural attack, or the god-scorned’s punish the prideful attack deal a whopping 4 points of ability drain on a failed strike – ouch!).

The book ends with a new monster, the chthonic cyclops, a huge creature weighing in at a hefty CR 16! Presumably these are meant to represent the cyclopes as they once were.

Overall, I quite enjoyed this book. While it had a few rough patches (where are the half-cyclops’ height/weight and age tables? And does the gieve count for the half-cyclops’ weapon familiarity, since “cyclops throwing star” is a parenthetical name for the weapon?), it seriously went the extra mile in rounding out what could have been a very terse racial presentation, while still keeping a very tight focus. Small errors notwithstanding, this is a great resource for those who want to show that a one-eyed character can be king even beyond the land of the blind.

Supplements that add new spells are, more than anything else in Pathfinder, risky for a GM. While feats are fairly tame in how powerful they are, and magic items can be destroyed or stolen in-game, a new spell that wreaks havoc tends to be difficult to extract. So adding even a few new spells to your campaign can be a cautious exercise.

Taking a look at Rite Publishing’s 1001 Spells, however, will make you want to throw caution to the wind.

A compilation of Rite Publishing’s series of 101 X-Level Spells, this puts all of the previous material in one place (strictly speaking, it also means that there should be 1,010 spells here; I confess that I haven’t counted). I haven’t confirmed that any previous errata or fixes are present here, but given that my PDF copy has “v4” at the end of its file-name, there are likely some changes that have been made.

In terms of the books technical presentation, I was actually a little surprised by how minimalist its approach was. To be fair, it does have full bookmarks to each section and the beginning of each alphabetical listing of spells (e.g. you can click to go to the beginning of all the spells that start with “B”), and copy-and-pasting is enabled. No printer-friendly version (or epublishing version) is present, however.

Moreover, there’s no introduction or discussion of what’s here. The book goes straight from the credits page to the spell lists. These lists are initially only given for the Core Rulebook spellcasting classes. The APG and Ultimate Magic class spell lists are presented as appendices at the end of the book, something that found to be an oddly artificial distinction; why not just list them in the beginning with all of the other classes?

I suspect that the answer to this one may be in how none of the original spells were written with these additional classes in mind. Each spell’s listing, for example, deals only with the Core classes; if you want to know if a given spells can be cast by an alchemist or an inquisitor, you won’t be able to tell just by reading its entry – you’ll have to go check its spell list.

If it sounds like I have only bad things to say about this book, rest assured that these are merely footnotes. I’d much prefer that these issues were tended to, but it doesn’t change the fact that what’s here are over a thousand spells which are as innovative as they are imaginative. It’s unfortunate that I can’t go into any significant detail in this review, simply because there are so many spells of such a diverse nature, but when you have spells like Minor Miracle (a cleric’s Limited Wish), Steal the Painful Memory (remove the memory of an event from a large group of people), Counter Silence (a somatic-only spell that dispels magical silence), or Giant Boulder (guess what you’re throwing now), how can you not want to see more?

I should note that I’ve personally used some of these spells (albeit not a lot) in my game, so I speak from experience when I say that the book’s tagline is true – this really will make it more agonizing to pick what spells you learn throughout the campaign, simply because there are so many great ones here that you won’t be able to easily pick.

I also have to commend the book for coming with a dataset for Hero Lab. I don’t use the program myself, but I know a lot of people who do, and I suspect that this will make the book into a “must have” for them.

Overall, I’d give this book four and a half stars were I able, due to the class listing thing; as it is, I’m rounding this up to a full five stars simply because what’s here is so plentiful that I can’t really hold such a comparatively minor problem against it. 1001 Spells will give you more new magic than you could possibly use in a campaign, but you’ll have a lot of fun trying.