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This issue of Kobold Quarterly has a distinct slant toward demons and devils, which is quite fitting for a Halloween issue. However, if fiends from the lower planes aren’t your thing, don’t despair – this issue also has over a dozen articles covering a wide variety of non-infernal topics. Let’s look at a few of them first.

What does your older brother plus a water balloon have in common with spreading dread amongst your players? More than you might think. The connection is explained, very eloquently and entertainingly, by Steve Winter in his Howling Tower article, “Real Scares, 11 Techniques for Creating a Strong Horror Atmosphere at the Table.” And no, absolutely none of the techniques involve hiring your older brother to ambush your players with water balloons.

James Thomas brings us “A Few Suggestions, 8 Ways to Influence Weak Minds.” With humor, concise examples, and even a Star Wars reference, Mr. Thomas shows that the humble suggestion spell is unfairly neglected by GM and players alike. And of course, he also shows how to easily remedy that neglect.

“Slithering in Moonlight” by Marc Radle is a guide to using Lamia Commoners as player characters. In addition, he also explores lamias in a way that recalls the excellent “Ecology Of…” articles from back in the print-edition days of Dragon Magazine. Whether as prospective PC’s or just as better-developed foes, this article improves the usefulness of lamias. Also, I thought the story fragment used to introduce this article was particularly effective.

“The Gauntlet Witch” by Morgan Boehringer and Jim Wettstein is an archetype that lets characters mix martial and magical arts. This is the most well-developed archetype description I’ve ever seen. Most archetypes are described in a couple of short paragraphs which say “swap this power for that power.” That’s not the case here. Brace yourself for a detailed, in-depth discussion.

This issue includes two adventures: The first adventure, “Devil’s Food” by Michael Lane, is suitable for a 6th level group. It involves autumn festivals, chocolate, and some wonderfully nasty gnomes. This adventure is set in the world of Midgard, but as with all good adventure modules, some careful name changes will let you securely place it in your own world.

The second adventure, “The Urge to Evolve” by Adam Daigle is a Pathfinder Society Quest. It is nicely compact, should be playable in the course of a single game session, and even includes a sidebar suggesting how to scale it for your group.

I do have one nit to pick with both these adventures. Both use the “I have a job for you” setup, which is one of my least-favorite ways to start an adventure. However, this complaint reflects my personal prejudice rather than any flaw in the adventures themselves, both of which looks like they will be properly entertaining.

Now let’s look at a sampling of the Fiendish Articles:

“Dispater” by Wes Schneider provides everything you need to bring this Arch-Fiend to life in your campaign. Giving major foes a real personality and complex, understandable motives can be quite a challenge … for me, anyway, but apparently not for Mr. Schneider. He shows exactly how to do it for this iconic arch-devil. He has even included a sidebar on the real-world history of Dispater.

Ed Greenwood gives us “Pages from Asmodeus”, a book unlike any I have ever heard of before. This evil object is more imaginative and intriguing than any of the Artifacts from back in 1st Edition days, yet it is suitable for use with a group of almost any level.

“Selling Your Soul” by Rodrigo García Carmona presents a detailed and excellent set of rules to guide both GM’s and players in striking a Fiendish Bargain. I am not familiar with the Age system for which this article was written, but that doesn’t matter. The information in this article is so clearly and logically presented that I know I’ll have no trouble at all adjusting it for use in my 3E/PF game.

Please be assured, I enjoyed all the articles in this issue, even the ones I didn’t choose to mention here. Every article had something interesting, useful, or entertaining to say.

The first thing to notice about this book is its beautiful cover art. The next thing to notice is it size - it is just shy of three hundred pages. Even though I received a reviewer’s copy a few days ago, it is so massive that I’m still just scratching the surface. It is also staggeringly imaginative - not surprising, as there were a hundred or more people contributing ideas for Midgard’s editors to pick through and use.

This book has all the things you expect and need from a campaign setting: Regions, races, geography, culture, gods and pantheons, customs, trade, technology, maps, new feats and regional traits, new magic items, new spells, political intrigue, wars… The list of things that need to be discussed to do justice to Midgard seems endless. However, the time and space to discuss them aren’t. So, to keep this review manageable, here are my three favorite discoveries so far:

Ley Lines: Mythology and literature often describe certain “places of power”, where magic is stronger or stranger then elsewhere. While there has never been anything stopping DM’s from creating such locations, early FRPG’s offered little to no support for this idea. Current editions do noticeably better, but still leave most of the details up to individual GM’s, offering encouragement but scant guidance. The Midgard Campaign Setting has richly developed the idea of ley lines. Descriptions, tables, and imagination positively drip from the pages. Want to surprise your players with some locations where magic takes on a life of its own? Here it is, all laid out and ready for you to use.

Divine Masks: Sometimes, the gods are not who they seem to be. I’m particularly happy with this idea for three reasons: First, it’s historically accurate. The Romans used a concept very similar to this when they wanted to reconcile their ideas of how the gods worked with their neighbors’ ideas of how the gods worked. (“Minerva? Sure the Egyptians worship her just like we do, but they call her Isis.”) Second, I’ve never seen it used, mentioned, or even hinted at in any FRPG until now. In other words, from a gaming perspective, this idea is 100% novel and new! Third, masks help restore a sense of mystery, power, and grandeur to the gods; something they’ve struggled to maintain ever since the first printing of “Deities Demigods and Heroes” rolled off the presses almost forty years ago. I think this idea is going to help GM’s make the religions of their world more vibrant, interesting, and meaningful.

Portability: Since Midgard is an integrated, self-contained campaign setting, I wasn’t really sure at first how much of it could be harvested for use in my own world. To my great delight I have found that most, maybe all, of the basic ideas in this book are portable. As I already mentioned, Ley Lines and Divine Masks can easily be used in anyone’s current game world. Even entire regions can be transplanted if you so desire. Portability is important to me because that’s how I use almost all gaming supplements: I extract the ideas and fit them into my already-existing campaign. Portability means the Midgard Campaign Setting is valuable to me even though I’m not planning to give up my own homebrew world. I can use the vast amount of information and ideas in this book to make my own world better.

I leave you with three conclusions I’ve come to regarding Midgard.

Conclusion #1: Everything I’ve read adheres to the exceptional quality I’ve come to expect from Kobold Quarterly’s Open Design process.

Conclusion #2: This book will provide many weeks of enjoyment simply from reading it to discover all its secrets.

Conclusion #3: Once you begin actually using its secrets in your game, it will provide many years of additional enjoyment.

I think you'll like it; I certainly did! Here's why:

KQ 22 starts off with the most magnificent devil article I’ve read in a very long time. Although described as an arch-devil for Pathfinder’s Golarion setting, the description of Barbatos is wonderfully portable to any other FRPG setting. For those of you running a non-PF game there are a couple of stat blocks to convert if you want Barbatos or his special minions to make a personal appearance for your players, but any good DM (uh, sorry, I mean GM) can handle that task without batting an eye.

One of the things I like most about this article is that it explains, in detail, how devils manage to lure in followers. Unlike in the real world, in a fantasy world the horrible consequence of following evil are obvious. So why would anyone but the most insane or depraved ever turn to evil? This article explicitly describes how and why that happens. Do you want the diabolic servants opposing your players to have some variety, rather than being just another set of crazed cultists? Do you want your villains to have easily-understandable (and often tragic) back-stories? Do you want them to feel real, and be believable? Then this article is for you!

Next is an article on Dragonkin, written for 4th Edition D&D. This is a rules-heavy article so if you want to use it in a non-4E game there will be a lot of conversion work, but if you like Dragonkin it will be worthwhile. Brian A. Liberge, the author, has given us a variety of interesting and flavorful Dragonkin powers that are useful without being overpowered. (To be fair, I don’t know enough about 4E rules to be absolutely sure they aren’t overpowered in their native system. However, the few I’ve converted so far look pretty safe in my 3.5 game.)

“Dwarven Magical Rings” by John E. Ling, Jr. provides fifteen new magical rings to enrich your game. They have a wide and imaginative range of powers, for both combat and non-combat uses. In my opinion this article ties with “Barbatos” for best article in this issue. Because the meat of this article is rife with Pathfinder magic item stat blocks, you’ll need to do some conversion if you want to use this article in a non-PF game. However, I think you’ll find all of these items are worth the effort

One of the things I really appreciated about Dragon Magazine back in its heyday was that it covered every RPG system out there. Dragon belonged to TSR, but the editors were perfectly happy to publish articles on other company’s games - even games that were in direct competition with D&D. I was able to extract ideas from Castles & Crusades, Runequest, Divine Right, Empire of the Petal Throne, and many more whose names I no longer remember, but whose influence helped make me a better Dungeon Master. It was useful then, and it is useful today, to see the approaches taken by other game systems.

I mention this because KQ22 has articles for several game systems beyond the “standard” 4E and PF. “Monsters of Morphoi” is written about an adventure currently being developed for Pathfinder, but this article presents the stat blocks that you would need for Castles & Crusades. Rob Heinsoo’s article “The Escalation Die” is written for 13th Age rules, but is so portable to other systems that its article tag lists 4E and PF in addition to 13th AGE. Rodrigo Garcia Carmona uses the Dragon Age system to give us “Weapons for a New AGE”, discussing the always-controversial mixing of gunpowder with Sword and Sorcery. However, I think the controversy over this article will be low, because Mr. Carmona does such a good job of introducing the new material.

Of course there are also plenty of system-neutral articles, useful to all RPG players and game masters. “The GM’s Influence on Character”, by Monte Cook, discusses an all-pervasive but rarely considered aspect of interaction between PC’s and the game world. Steve Winter’s Howling Tower article “Total Party Kill” talks about what to do when you see the dreaded TPK looming on the horizon. True, some weenie GM’s rejoice at the thought of “winning” by killing all the PC’s, but real GM’s dread this event as much as the players do.

P.S. There are a number of articles I didn’t mention in this review. Just because I skipped an article doesn’t mean I didn’t like it. For example, I am intensely pleased to see Elven Archer Magic in print, but I didn’t think it would be fair for me to review that particular article.

One of the best web columns I’ve ever encountered is Richard Pett’s “Your Whispering Homunculus” on the Kobold Quarterly website. Up until now it has had only one drawback: Being a web column, it is darn hard to keep track of the individual articles. That problem has now been solved. Herein nearly three dozen articles have been assembled, so I can have them all in one place at last.

Why is “Whispering Homunculus” so valuable to me? Because it is a shortcut to adding a rich, verdant third dimension to my campaign world. Do you remember that section of the 1E Dungeon Master’s Guide called “Dungeon Dressing”? It was a long list of random stuff, odds and ends that could be expected to litter the floors of a dungeon. Instead of empty rooms being sterile, barren, and uninteresting, a bit of leftover flotsam and jetsam gave a sense that the room had history. It added depth and interest to the corners of the dungeon.

“Your Whispering Homunculus” does exactly the same thing, not just for a paltry few dungeon rooms but for the whole game world! In a well-written novel, not every character is concerned with the success or failure of the protagonist, and not ever bump in the road is a clue to solving the mystery. These lists give you, the Game Master, hundreds of wonderfully diverse ways to round out your world just like a well-written novel.

Of course, these lists contain more than just ways to dress up the corners of your campaign world. They also contain things that can be used to consternate your players. Especially if any of your players are particularly paranoid. Naturally, those are among my favorite items.

The articles collected herein are:
* Twenty Daft Bets and Dares
* Fifty Topics of Conversation
* Thirty Unsettling Moments, Asides for the Worrisome
* Fifty Passersby
* Fifty Strange Entertainments
* Twenty Quick Village Legends
* Twenty Strange Days and Festivals
* One Hundred Curious Emporiums
* Twenty Malfunctioning or Disappointing Magics
* One Hundred Pointless Objects
* Twenty Holy Days
* Fifty Local Delicacies
* Random Topics of Local Conversation
* Fifty Strange Treasures
* A Plethora of D12 Tables
* It Came from the . . . Toilet?
* One Hundred Goblin Features
* Twenty Humanoid Treasures
* A Strange Night Out - Twenty Curious Characters
* The Homunculus and Its Master
* At the Horse Fair
* For One Night Only - Heavy Rain and Wind in Urban Environs
* When You’re Alone, You’re Alone
* For One Night Only - Troll-Touched
* The Admirable and Seldom Encountered Art of Dwarven Infused Ale
* For One Night Only - Heavy Snow in Urban Environs
* Mangled Monsters
* The Undiscovered Bestiary: Ankhegs
* Man’s Best Friend
* The Undiscovered Bestiary: Basilisks
* Malignant Magic
* Adventure Seeds
* For One Night Only - Trog-Kin
* Random Encounters with a Twist

Sadly, nothing is perfect. One of the articles has a typo (it’s “ewe”, not “yew”). Also, there are some mysteriously blank pages. (I have the .pdf version, not the print version.) Don’t worry, nothing is missing; no information has been omitted. Looking at the page numbers I’m guessing that it was done so each article/chapter would start on the left-hand page in the print version. That’s fine, but it looks odd in a .pdf document. Despite the superfluous blank pages, the material presented here is grand.

This is certainly one of the most valuable game aids published in recent years – maybe even recent decades. I am already yearning for “Your Whispering Homunculus, volume II”.

When I saw that the premier article in KQ #20 was “The Elven Archer” I was a bit disappointed. I’ve seen Elven Archer classes before and none of them ever really thrilled me. Still, KQ has always come through in the past, so I read on to see if the author (John E. Ling Jr.) had found some startlingly fresh approach.

He has!

Right on the first page Mr. Ling presents simple and quick ways to adapt this class into three excellent new variants: the Halfling Knife Thrower, the Human Archer, and the Crossbowman. Humans who are good with longbows? Who would have thought? Even though Robin Hood predates Legolas by about half a dozen centuries, it’s been way too many years since I’ve seen anyone writing about human longbowmen. As for crossbows, I can’t recall anyone ever paying any attention to this weapon before - even though it’s what brought fame to William Tell. (That’s right; William Tell used a crossbow, not a longbow! Google it if you have doubts.) As for the Halfling Knife Thrower, that one is going into my campaign right away.

Within the first dozen pages we get four articles for the price of one. Kobold Quarterly comes through again!

Dovetailing nicely with “The Elven Archer” is “Arrows of the Arbonesse”, which details nine new types of magical, mystical, and masterwork arrows. Now that “The Elven Archer” has gotten my creative juices flowing, it will be a snap to re-skin some of these arrows as throwing daggers for my new Halfling Knife Thrower.

The imagination level stays high with the next article, “Derro Ooze Magic”. This article gives us nine gooey new spells of levels 1 through 6. Oh, and it also delivers four types of slimy, blobby, mucus-covered familiars. I never would have thought of anything even remotely like this on my own. But now that someone else has thought of it for me, I know where I can use it in my game.

“Fey Hunters & Shadow Hounds” is possibly the most wicked article I have ever read! Author Christopher Bodan must truly be the Stephen King of dungeon masters. If you want to show your players what horror is really like, let them encounter this Shadow Fey wild hunt. Although written to match Open Design’s “Tales of the Old Margreve”, this adventure idea can be dropped into any deep mysterious forest you happen to have lying around. Run, little rabbit, run!

“Captured in the Cartways” is a great little adventure, set in the City of Zobeck but written in a general enough style that it would be equally at home in any fantasy city. It is a nice, compact, old-school dungeon crawl written by Christina Stiles, an experienced game designer. However, it has one serious flaw: It starts by requiring the entire party to be captured. In my experience, players will fight to the death rather than submit to a total-party-capture. So even though I like the main body of the adventure, I will have to totally replace the opening sequence before I can use it.

It also has one typo: The two undead kobolds in the crypt are described as wraiths on one page and as wights on the next page. This is not really a problem since context makes it obvious which they are supposed to be. Interestingly, this only adds to the old-school feel, since modules published by TSR often had similar little errors.

In “Putting the Party Back Together Again” Stefen Styrsky suggests a very unique approach to who the character are and how they know each other. While the theme explored in this article is common in adventure literature, I do not believe it has ever before been written about in connection with FRPG’s.

There are more than a dozen other articles, and they are all range from “very good” to “excellent”. Like “Small Spirits” by Matthew J. Hanson, one of my favorite articles in this issue. Why oh why didn’t I write about “Small Spirits” first, when I still had a whole blank page in front of me? It deserves so much more than a brief mention at the tail end of the review!

In short, there are no “skip over” articles in this issue. Even though not every article was 100% perfect, I found value on every page - either for use in my game or simply from the joy of reading about new ideas for my favorite hobby. This may be the best KQ yet. I can’t wait to see what the next issue is like.

The Red Eye of Azathoth deserves to be made into a movie or a novel, or both! More than just a set of adventures, this Call of Cthulhu project is a real story with a roaring good plot. It has the feel and flavor of something written by H. P. Lovecraft himself. Or, on second thought, maybe it more closely resembles something from one of the other famous Lovecraft Circle writers, like Robert Bloch or Clark Ashton Smith. The point is, Red Eye of Azathoth fits the mold of a classic Cthulhu tale.

The adventure is broken into five scenarios which together form a complete and cohesive story. Because the full adventure spans a thousand years from beginning to end, it is unlikely that you will simply drop the Red Eye of Azathoth into an existing campaign and have your players use their existing characters. Yes, it can certainly be done, but you will have to do some extra work to accomplish it. If you want to use this adventure exactly as it is written, you will probably run it as a stand-alone.

On the other hand, you don’t have to use the five scenarios as one giant adventure. You can mine this wildly creative book for ideas to use in your own game, or you can extract individual scenarios and use them independently. Red Eye of Azathoth is filled with fantastically good and creepy ideas. Blood rain, organ harvesting, a trio of fake angels… Oh, and there is torture, too. There are far too many wonderful horrors to list even a fraction of them here (and besides, doing so would provide far too many spoilers for anyone who wants to play a character in the adventure).

No time is wasted on the traditional “gather the group and explain to them why they should be interested” setup. Oh no, not here! The players must hit the ground running, because the first scenario opens in the middle of a Viking raid on Lindisfarne abbey. It is guaranteed that the players will be immediately interested, because that’s the only way their characters are going to survive.

While each scenario has a generous share of action, this is not a hack-n-slash adventure. There are clues to be investigated, mysteries to be solved, and decisions to be made. The players will have to think as well as fight if they are to succeed.

It is not necessary for the players to “win” all (or even any) of the first four scenarios in order to beat the Big Bad Evil Guys in the fifth scenario. Of course, early victories will provide later advantages, but players are not doomed if they drop the ball a few times. In fact, I think the final scenario might even be more fun if the good guys lost in the prior scenario. I’d really like to see those “lucky brass balls” brought into town. No I’m not going to explain that, because that would be a spoiler for any players reading this review.

I need to mention the historical touches. The locations and times used for the five scenarios are all quite well researched. I have been an avid armchair historian for many decades, and I am always disappointed when I spot an obvious goof in something that claims to borrow from actual history. However, there are no such disappointments here. The authors have done excellent and accurate work.

I do have one small complaint, not about the history, but about the astronomy: The comet, which is part of the basic setup for the adventure, is said to return once per century – exactly every 100 years. Very few celestial events time themselves so conveniently. Using such an even, round number makes the comet feel just a tad artificial. Some number that is not quite exactly a century, like 99 years 11 months, or 100 years 3 months, would have felt more natural.

What I like best about Kobold Quarterly is that it always has articles which I can actually use. Notice the plural in that sentence: “articles”, not “article”. This issue, like all the others, is filled with excellent and useful articles. To illustrate that point, let me spend a few paragraphs talking about the three articles that most grabbed my attention.

“Magic Shops: What’s in Store?” by Christina Stiles and Spike Y Jones
Your typical FRPG magic shop can be a pain in the rump. Unless the players decide they want to rob it, a visit to one is about as exciting as a visit to the grocery store. Worse yet, if magic items are so rare and mystical that characters are expected to risk their lives seeking them, then why is it can you just walk into a neighborhood store and buy them? Like a lot of GM’s, I became disillusioned with magic shops a long time ago. So disillusioned that I eventually stopped putting them in my campaign.

Christina and Spike must have been spying on my game, because they address these exact problems - plus a few others as well. Better yet, they don’t just identify the problems, they present solutions. Their article provides a number of ways to avoid the “typical FRPG magic shop” syndrome. Christina and Spike show how to make magic shops exciting, mysterious, and just a little bit dangerous. In other words, they show how to make magic shops into valuable and exciting additions to the game. Their article finishes up with three examples of wonderfully imaginative magic shops that will certainly find homes in my world. Although tagged for Pathfinder, this article is also valuable for any edition of D&D, as well as Dragon Age campaigns.

“Lau Kiritsu” by Richard Pett.
Everyone knows that arch-devils are lawful evil, but almost every arch-devil description ever written concentrates on the “evil” and forgets the “lawful”. Usually a bland statement like “…this devil will attempt to twist any bargains…” stands as the only nod to lawfulness. After a while, all the different descriptions start to sound a little bit alike.

But not Richard Pett’s arch-devil! To begin with, Richard shows us exactly how torturously wicked law can be. Fittingly for a lawful denizen of discipline, Lau Kiritsu’s “church” is developed in wonderful detail. Followers, doctrine, holy books, sacred items, and a glimpse of frighteningly rigid obedience are all found here. If anyone ever thought that lawful evil is somehow softer or less dangerous than chaotic evil, this article will go a long way toward changing their mind.

Best of all, the Cult of Lau Kiritsu makes a scalable opponent for any level of adventuring group. Low lever characters can occasionally meet new initiates into the cult, while epic level characters can have a massive showdown with the cult’s unholy leaders.

“Balance-Free Bonuses” by Monte Cook
Do you want a way to make the different races in your campaign more wondrous and distinct? Do you want to do that without worrying about power creep? I certainly do. And now, thanks to Monte Cook, I can. This is yet another case where KQ presents an article which has a new (or at least seldom-considered) approach to an old problem.

The standard way to differentiate the races in recent years has been to give each one their own special combat powers, racial weapons, and other abilities which provide an “edge” over other races. But if you do this for one race, then you’ve got to do it for the other races so they aren’t overshadowed. It’s almost an arms race! No, not almost – it IS an arms race. Splat books are particularly bad about this.

It doesn’t have to be this way. There are ways to enhance the races, to make them wondrous and unique without making them more powerful, and Monte Cook shows us how. I have only one complaint about this article: It is too short. Seriously. It is only two pages long. This subject deserves more ink. Please, Mr. Cook, please: Write a sequel!

Even though I picked these three as the top articles of this issue, it was a difficult choice. All the other articles were great too! The “White Necromancer” will be used in my game. “Courting Adventure” gives some real-life history to help you make the NPC nobility in your game more gritty and realistic; more like HBO’s “The Tudors” rather than “Monty Python and the holy Grail”. (Not that I have anything against Monty Python!) Doesn’t the title of “10 Ways to Turn Dull Traps into High-Stakes Encounters” speak for itself?

“Bark at the Moon” is about the werewolf - one of my favorite monsters ever since I saw Lon Chaney Jr. portraying the tragically cursed John Talbot in glorious black-and-white. This article rocks in every possible way. Brian A Liberge is able to convey volumes of information with an economy of words, and Otto Wilhelm Thome provides wonderfully stark artwork that brings the subject to life! (Yes Mr. Thome, I noticed those other bestial shapes lurking on the ruins in the background.) While the stat blocks are aimed at 4th edition, the bulk of this article will fit perfectly into any flavor of FRPG campaign, from old-school D&D through Pathfinder, Dragon Age, and even Call of Cthulhu.

Now you know why I like issue 19. Since you are here on Paizo’s website, I venture to say you might like it too.

“Divine Favor: Cleric” presents new options for clerics. It has new spells, new ways to channel energy, new feats, new domains, new sub-domains, and new archetypes, fitting everything into just 17 pages! (Plus front and back covers, and the table of contents page, for a total of 20 pages in the .pdf).

This booklet starts off with a brief discussion and analysis of the cleric class. This technique was quite effective in Advanced Feats, and it is equally effective here. The most traditional assumption about the cleric class is examined. Everybody knows clerics are brought along to act as the group’s paramedic, right? Yes, often true, but maybe it would be better to not get hurt rather than to get hurt and then healed. In the process of questioning the cleric’s traditional EMT role, some good recommendations are given for breaking the pattern.

Three new domains are presented: Alchemy, Apocalypse, and Prophecy. I’m not sure that a divine Alchemy domain will fit into my game, but that is because of how my home-brew campaign is set up. The domain itself is well thought out, and will undoubtedly find a welcome home in other people’s games.

The Apocalypse domain rocks! In just a few paragraphs it develops the perfect flavor for someone who is devoted to being a Herald of Doom, with mechanics to back it up.

Prophecy is the third new domain, and it too is destined to be an excellent addition to my game. One of the big problems with divination magic back in the “olden days” (1st edition AD&D) was that it required the Dungeon Master to make a guess as to what was about to happen, or else just give in and tell the players some crucial piece of information. The first method was chronically ineffective, and the other was just plain unsatisfying. In the current generation of FRPG’s, prophecy and divination are handled by giving bonuses based on magical foresight. This is far superior to how it was done back in the 70’s, and the Prophecy domain uses these modern mechanics very smoothly.

The new sub-domains are Books, Entropy, Exorcism, Gambling, Horoscope, Lies, Potion, Transmutation, Truth, and Weapons. I’m not sold on the “Spellbook” power of the Books sub-domain; it feels much more arcane than divine. No matter, I’ll house-rule it for my campaign. On the other hand, Exorcism is quite a nice sub-domain and it more than makes up for the deficiency of the Books sub-domain.

The new archetypes are Ascetic, Charismatic, Enthusiast, Exorcist, Flagellant, Theosophist, Vatic, Weapon-sworn, and Wonder Worker. Ascetics have been done before, but this version should easily and comfortably co-exist with its predecessors.

All of these archetypes except Weapon-sworn draw a large measure of inspiration directly from history. Divine Favor has done an excellent job of translating these real-life historic roots into useful gaming terms. It is obvious that Stefen Styrsky spent considerable effort on this section. This is not to dismiss the Weapon-sworn archetype; it is also excellent, but its historic roots are more tenuous.

All of the archetypes are well designed and solidly presented, with a strong infusion of imagination. That they link the game to historical precedent is, for me at least, a huge bonus. This is certain to be the most useful part of the book for many people.

Variant Channeling comes next. It further differentiates the sub-domains, since each one gets its own special and wonderfully unique way to use channeling. All the options are imaginative, and in some cases just a little bit bizarre as well. This section concentrates on rules and mechanics, with no flavor text. I would have enjoyed a bit of descriptive fluff at this point, to help show how these powers would look when characters use them.

Six new spells round out the booklet. Half of these are 1st level, one is 2nd level, and the remaining two are 6th level. I am pleased that there are so many low level spells. Characters will get to use them sooner rather than later. It’s easy to make flashy high level spells, but characters have to wait a long time to use them.

I do take exception with one of the spell names: “Wind Down”. To me, this name sounds very modern – reminiscent of alarm clocks and other industrial age appliances rather than FRPG settings. It is a low level version of “Dispel Magic”, designed to drain away magical energy and so hasten the demise of magical effects. I would have preferred a name that showed this relationship; maybe something like “Lesser Dispel”. Still, being unhappy with the name of a single spell is really just nit-picking. The spells are great, no matter what they are named.

One last thing to mention: The artwork. Timothy K. Wickham was in charge of graphic design, which I assume means he was tasked with finding art for the booklet. He did an outstanding job! The artwork gives the entire project a wonderfully medieval feel, perfectly fitting the fantasy sword-and sorcery genre.

Overall, this publication easily lives up to Open Design’s five-star standard.

Open Design products normally focus on Role Playing games, so at first glance a guide to board game design seems somehow misplaced. However, after reading The Kobold Guide to Board Game Design, it is obvious even to an amateur such as myself that both types of games are built on exactly the same principals. In other words, good design is good design. So the first important point of this review is: Don’t bypass this book just because it doesn’t have “Role Playing” in the title.

Exactly what is in The Kobold Guide to Board Game Design? It contains twenty essays from fifteen successful game designers. Note the most important word in that last sentence: “successful”. Probably the two most famous names on the list are Steve Jackson, founder of Steve Jackson Games, and Richard Garfield, creator of Magic: The Gathering. However, each essay is followed by a brief listing of that author’s gaming credentials, and it’s a good bet that in every case you will recognize one or more of the author’s works even if you don’t recognize the author’s name. So the second point of this review is: This book is packed with information from people that really do know what they are talking about.

Physically, The Kobold Guide to Board Game Design (hereafter referred to simply as KGBGD) is about 140 pages long. Which, by the way, is longer than the 1st edition AD&D Player’s Handbook! The KGBGD is divided into four parts: Concepting, Design, Development, and Presentation. These four sections will take you all the way from “I have an idea” to “I have a marketed product”.

In these twenty essays you will learn how the works of Aristotle influence modern game design. You will discover that Monopoly, one of the most successful board games of modern times, violates several important principles of modern game design (and, if you think like me, you’ll wonder what redeeming features modern game designers have overlooked in Monopoly, since it has been in print continuously for so very many years).

There are marvelous bits of bizarre game development history contained in these pages. Like the way the Catholic Church jossed its own bishop-approved game, rendering it worthless. There is also a hand-drawn flowchart depicting Andrew Looney’s game design process, filled with wonderfully esoteric instructions like “Get Defensive and Brood”. Yes, he does explain most of these later in the text, including the best way to brood.

Along with all the fun, you’ll also learn a few extremely technical things, like the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Formula. Don’t be scared, it’s easier than is sounds.

After reading KGBGD, you may find that you are even looking at toy commercials in a new way. Legos and Play-Doh obviously have an astronomically high replay value, which no doubt is why they have been around for decades. But what about that weird new toy that’s being advertised on the Spongebob Squarepants show… Will it still be on the shelves a year from now?

All this brings me to my third and final important point: KGBGD is a rollicking good read that will not only entertain you, but will also expand your horizons.

So, to summarize:
1) This book has direct value to the role-playing community, even though it is not specifically about role-playing.
2) This book is a valuable resource for anyone who wants to create a game and see it published.
3) Regardless of your gaming aspirations, this book is a fun read which both entertains and enlightens.

‘Nuff said.

At 100 pages in length, this issue ties with issue 14 for being the Biggest Kobold Yet. (Note: Because I have the pdf version, I’m going by the pdf page count. As I’m sure you already know, the pdf format assigns page numbers to everything including the front and back covers, so the count of “interior pages” is just short of 100.)

As long as we’re talking about length and page count, I should mention that the first five of this issue’s twenty-one articles are quite robust, averaging about six pages each. The remaining sixteen articles average out to about three pages each.

All three of the main FRPG rule sets (Pathfinder, 4th Edition, and Dragon Age), are covered in this issue, and there are some system-neutral articles as well, so there is something for everyone. Of course, well-written articles are always a source of inspiration even if they are not for “your” rules, so pretty much everything in this issue is useful regardless of which FRPG you play.

Before discussing individual articles, lets talk about the artwork. Ever since reading the beautifully-illustrated Book of Drakes, I’ve been paying more attention to the artwork in KQ publications, even going back to take a fresh look at past issues. Aside from “obvious” artwork like the front cover, every single article is accompanied by at least a little bit of art. Some articles have beautiful full-color illustrations, and some have only simple woodcut-style drawings. All of it has been carefully chosen to match the article’s subject matter. The indicia (pdf page 8, hardcopy page 6) lists Callie Winters as this issue’s Graphic Designer, which I assume means she was in charge of the artwork. She is doing an outstanding job. Older issues list Crystal Frasier in this position, and her work was every bit as notable.

With twenty-one articles, there are just too many to give each one its own individual discussion. So here are highlights for just five of them:

“Gifts of the Gods”, written for the Dragon Age rules, describes ways for deities to reward faithful followers with special talents. This article points out that characters other than clerics can be faithful, and supports that statement by providing talents which can benefit the Mage, Rogue, and Warrior classes in addition to the cleric. Novice, Journeyman, and Master level talents are provided for each of fifteen divine domains, for a total of forty-five different talents!

“Silus and the Red Dogs” is an adventure for both Pathfinder and 4E, written in a novel and rarely-seen format. It is a solo adventure, in the style of the “Choose Your Own Path” books. You don’t need a DM to run this adventure for you; this one is for players only!

“The Exorcists” is an adventure written for four 1st level Pathfinder PC’s. Intended as a campaign starter, it gives the PC’s a reason to all be in the same place at the same time, and to work together even though they are total strangers to each other. It presents the characters with danger, action, meaningful skill challenges, and at one point it even has a “ticking clock” (a difficult task which much be accomplished within a limited amount of time). There are a number of ways for the characters to achieve victory, but some ways are better than others. If they do everything right they will come out of this adventure alive, with some magic items, several mysteries yet to solve, and a very notable NPC ally who owes them a serious favor. Not a bad way to start an adventuring career.

“Elementary, My Dear Wizard” is listed as being for 4th Edition but it does not actually use any 4E rules. In fact, it is completely system neutral. This article gives good solid instruction on how to set up a crime mystery for your group to solve. It is very well thought out, addresses the issues raised by the use of magic, and is filled with practical step-by-step advice. If you are looking for a way to custom-build the occasional town adventure for your group, this is it for sure!

“Beast Masters” takes a completely new approach to an old problem. Ever since 1982, the year that Andre Norton’s novel “Beastmaster” was turned into a movie, people have been trying to figure out how to create a Beastmaster character class. Some attempts were better than others, but even the best of them didn’t work very well. The problem is that it’s really difficult to build an entire class around one single power. It was like trying to build a spellcasting class around one single spell. However, Marc Radle has solved the problem! The answer is not to make an entire class, but to make a special Beast Leadership Feat instead. The Beast Leadership feat is very detailed and well thought out, allowing multiple ways to make your character a Lord of the Wild Things. I guarantee, with this feat you can make a very credible Andre Norton style Beastmaster.

The other sixteen articles are: “The Savant”, “Ecology of the Minotaur”, “The Dragon Hunter”, “Tools of War: Siege Weaponry”, “Soul Broker”, “Synergistic Magic”, “Explaining the Inexplicable”, “Battle Wizards & Sword Maidens”, “Ten Reasons Why Your Character Should Be In Jail”, “Into the Lair”, “The Heroic Flaw”, “Who Watches the Watch Fires”, “Cavaliers of Flame and Fury”, “Wing, Scale and Claws”, plus the regular columns “Ask the Kobold” and “Book Reviews”.

The tone for “Alleys of Zobeck” is set right on the cover: The faces of the three characters featured there (if you can say the one on the left even has a face!) are sketched in harsh lines of black and gray, echoing the harsh nature of Zobeck’s hidden recesses. Not only would I never want to meet these unsavory characters, I wouldn’t even want to pass near the places they came from.

On the other hand, I do want my players to meet them….

You should know that “Alleys of Zobeck” is only one part of a larger adventure series. It is intended to introduce your players to “Streets of Zobeck”, showing them that this city has as many dangers as any dungeon. It is also intended to provide supplemental material that will be useful when running adventures from “Streets”. As such, there are some references here in “Alleys” that will only make complete sense if you also own “Streets”. On the other hand, if you are planning to use “Alleys” as inspirational material for your own home-brew campaign, these are simply opportunities for you to link in your own material.

Curiously, there is no Table of Contents. Probably because “Alleys” is such a mixed grab-bag of material that a Table of Contents would have been more confusing than helpful. “Alleys” opens with a two page set-up for an encounter with a corrupt constable. Literally the minute they step off the boat, your players will get a first-hand look at the city’s seedy underbelly (why do I suddenly feel like Dashiell Hammett?). This encounter is also intended as a reminder that successful city adventuring does not lend itself to the same “kill everything” tactics which work so very well in dungeon and wilderness environments.

In its carnival mix “Alleys” also presents us with an Alternate Lust Domain, a new creature type (Clockwork Abomination), and a template for Diabolic Possession. The Clockwork Abomination is not simply one new creature, but rather a blueprint for creating a whole slew of unique living machines, with Challenge Ratings from 2 through 6. The section on Diabolic Possession is tantalizing, but far too short!

We get full stats and background for three colorful NPC’s that the players in your game will no doubt have a good deal of fun interacting with: Goldscale the Paladin, a fellow called The Gutter Prophet, and Sam Nesclem. That Sam has led an eventful life will be obvious from the moment he appears – part of his body has its own description in the New Magic Items section a few pages later! However, my favorite of this trio is Goldscale the Kobold Paladin. You might be tempted to think of a Kobold Paladin as comic relief, but one look at him (his full-color portrait is on page 7) and you will know that he is a deadly serious character. The kind of hero I’d want on my side if I was in trouble.

Making the mixed bag even more mixed, we get five new feats, four new magic items (one of which is currently owned by Sam Nesclem, above), and seven new traits. “Alleys” also describes some noteworthy mundane items: Alchemical smoke bombs and Clockwork Caltrops.

There are two tables of fifty entries each, describing “Small Treasures”. I particularly like these two tables as they have immediate application throughout my campaign, and I’ll bet they will be immediately useful in your game as well. A “Small Treasure” is something that has some value, actual or potential, which you might reasonably expect to find in someone’s pouch or pocket. The next time your players search someone, they can find something better than the routine handful of coins. There are all manner of items on these lists; a tin of fine confections (5 sp), a monogrammed snuff box (empty 2 sp, full 5 gp), and even a severed finger carefully wrapped up in cloth!

No city would be complete without a few colorful shops, and “Alleys” delivers here as well: On page 13 is a description of “The Rampant Roach”, a restaurant by kobolds, for kobolds. Not only do we get a flavorful location (with map, of course!) but we also get three potential adventure hooks. By the way, these adventure hooks have something going for them that I appreciate: They are not connected with Saving the World. Yes, saving the whole world can be grand, but sometimes saving just one person can be satisfying too. (Also, your players need something to do between those world-spanning quests, don’t they?)

Following The Rampant Roach we get Ulmar’s Rare Books. This shop is run by a dwarf, and after interacting with him for a few minutes your players will probably begin to realize why so few dwarves make a living as shopkeepers. There are three plot hooks here too, of a nicely intermediate level between World Saving and Person Saving.

“Alleys” closes with a detailed description of Blackeye and his carriage. Blackeye the kobold has converted an old hay wagon into a quite serviceable carriage, and if you know where you want to go, he can get you there – for a fee, of course. Like most of the NPC’s described in “Alleys”, Blackeye is fully developed and ready to use. He also has the potential of lifting your game out of the old “go to the local tavern to collect knowledge” rut. Blackeye has a lot of connections, and he can direct people to a variety of non-tavern locations where information might be found.

In summary: There is no doubt that “Alleys of Zobeck” will shine brightest when used in conjunction with “Streets of Zobeck”. After all, that’s what it was designed for! However, it passes my main test for a well-designed supplement; it contains a significant amount of material that can be ported to other settings with a minimum of work. The 100 items of Small Treasure on page 12 are a great example of this.

I think the only way you would be disappointed is if you purchased this booklet with the expectation of finding it filled with fully-developed stand-alone city adventures. That it does not have, because that is beyond its intended scope.

This is the fourth Advanced Feats book I’ve had the pleasure of reading, so I already had a good idea of what to expect. Not just in terms of layout, but also in terms of quality. All of Sigfried Trent’s prior Advanced Feats books have been of extraordinary quality, and this one upholds the tradition. I am very pleased to now have thirty more of his feats in my campaign! (There is no doubt that I will soon be buying the remaining books that I’m missing in the series.)

Following a short three-paragraph introduction, we get an in-depth analysis of the Magus class. There is a surprising amount of insight packed into this one-and-a-half page section. For example, even though I went back and re-read my “Playtest Round 3” pdf of the Magus class as preparation for this review, I failed to notice what was omitted from the Magus spell list. However, the author of Might of the Magus noticed: The spell list lacks holds, charms, divinations, and abjurations. This section has a number of useful observations regarding the Magus class.

Next, on page 4 is a summary table of the thirty new feats, which gives us an at-a-glance review of each feat’s prerequisites and benefits. The in-depth descriptions start on page 5. Curiously, a typo in the Table of Contents lists this page number as 10.

As always in this series, the feats are well thought out and described with a clear, concise, economy of words. You will find no redundancy or ambiguity here. Each feat description includes a commentary from the author, where he lets us in on what he was trying to accomplish and what lead him to make the decisions he made. I find these commentaries to be particularly useful, not only because they give me insight into the individual feats, but also because after reading a few of them it is easier to understand what principles lead to good game design.

Sprinkled through the book are sidebars with short discussions (usually about two paragraphs) of ideas related to the book’s theme. I have always really liked these informative little sidebars tucked into the Advanced Feats series, and Might of the Magus gives us six of them!

As you would expect in a book of feats for the Magus class, a lot of the feats apply only to the Magus. However, there are also a lot that can be used by anyone. (Well, almost anyone…) One of those is Spell Charge. It allows a touch spell to be delivered as part of a charging attack (remember, under the regular rules only melee attacks may be used in conjunction with a charge). This one is absolutely great for any spellcaster who has a really aggressive streak! I think this one is destined to be quite popular in my campaign

Precise Attack was one of my instant favorites. This feat allows a character with multiple attacks to forgo all but their primary attack in exchange for a fairly nice bonus to their attack roll. It appeals to me for two reasons: First, because it matches exactly what the hero often does in movies and books – pause, concentrate, and then make one really effective attack. Second, because of Mr. Trent’s commentary – “With lots of options that grant extra attacks for less accuracy, I wanted something that would drive in the other direction.”

This feat demonstrates exactly why I enjoy Mr. Trent’s work so much. To begin with, so many of his feats provide ways for players to do the dramatic and heroic things that we love in adventure stories. Next, it demonstrates one of his great strengths as a designer: The ability to approach a familiar idea from a new direction, and do something useful with the resulting insight. Last of all, you’ll notice that in the prior paragraph I said “a fairly nice bonus”, not “a really big bonus”. Mr. Trent is an enemy of power creep. His feats add variety, they add flavor, they add options, but they do not unbalance the game. I am not afraid to use any of Sigfried Trent’s feats in my campaign.

Another instant favorite is Warding Touch Spell. This is one of those ideas that is so incredibly obvious, it makes you wonder why no one ever thought if it before. Yet no one did, until now. Oh, by the way... No; I’m not going to describe this one to you. I’ve got to leave something for you to discover when you buy the book!

I do have a nitpick with the name chosen for one of the feats: Adrenalin Surge. To my ears, that is a modern-sounding name. As someone who enjoys a mediaeval feel to my FRPG’s, I would have preferred a more archaic sounding label. Maybe “Rising Choler”, or “Vengeful Anger”, or at least something that isn’t quite so reminiscent of modern verbiage. Still, this is my only point of unhappiness with this excellent book.

I am very pleased to own this book. I think you will be too.

The Book of Drakes is big! Sixty-two pages packed into an eighteen megabyte pdf file. It is also lavishly illustrated (this is the first game supplement which has ever prompted me to use that phrase) with a multitude of high quality full-color pictures. Cover artist Kieran Yanner and interior artist Hugo Solis have done truly magnificent work.

OK, so it’s big and beautiful, but is it useful? Happily, it is!

Before I tell you why I think this book about little dragons is useful, let me take a moment to talk about big dragons: Dragons have been centerpieces of legend since the dawn of history. People have been telling stories and even composing operas about them for centuries. Whether in a story or in a game, they make great Boss Monsters for heroes to strive against. However, being so big and powerful, they have to be applied sparingly. When used as opponents they can quickly wear out a group of PC’s; as allies they can overshadow the players and take away all the excitement. Wanting to inject more dragony goodness into the game, lots of efforts have been made to create lesser draconic races. Sadly, attempts to scale back the power of dragons while still keeping them interesting have met with limited success. Mostly what we’ve gotten has been a confusing medley of half-dragons, which were not only less powerful than true dragons, but also less interesting.

This is why the Book of Drakes is useful: It presents a group of pure draconic beasties which are every bit as interesting and exotic as regular dragons, while being small enough (in both power and size) to fit more frequently into your game. There are drakes for every niche that you might care to fill: Sinewy and mysterious drakes to be the familiars of spellcasters, foul-tempered drakes who would rather fight than talk, mysterious drakes that spy from the shadows and may be much closer than your group thinks they are…

Chapter 1, “Ecology of the Drake”, is an in-depth introduction to drakes. We get a lot of good information on what drakes are like, how they fit with their surroundings, and how they are likely to interact with characters. It also lays out a classification system which is quite broad, yet flexible enough to fit into any campaign. Drakes, it turns out, are far more varied than dragons. Some drakes are very much creatures of this world, living in gritty urban environments, while others are almost like patron spirits of various philosophies. This chapter is also jam-packed with inspirational examples, several of which I plan to lift whole-cloth into my game world. Players and GM’s alike will find plenty to interest them in this chapter.

True to the note on the cover, there is also a section in this chapter describing how drakes fit into the Midgard campaign setting. If you are not familiar with Midgard, don’t let that put you off. This is a well-designed supplement, meaning pretty much everything is portable to other settings. To use this information in your own world, the worst you’ll have to do is change a few place-names.

Chapter 2, “Players and Drakes”, provides just what it promises: Ways for players to have their characters interact with and benefit from drakes (usually, but not always, on friendly terms), and even guidelines for using drakes as characters. There is a list of alternate class abilities which shows some love for every one of the base classes - or, in the case of the Inquisitor, shows a new way to display some inquisitorial disdain. There are new feats, new spells, new magic items, new class abilities, and even two new classes: Drake Tamer (base class) and Master of Drake Forms (prestige class).

Chapter 3, “Game Masters and Drakes”, starts out with a bestiary presenting stats for twenty different kinds of drake, spanning the Challenge Ratings from 1 through 14. Every one of these creatures is novel and unique. A staggering amount of imagination has gone into the attributes and features presented here! Also in Chapter 3 is a section titled “Building Drakes”, which details how to create completely new kinds of drake for your campaign. Unlike other “how to build a monster” articles I’ve seen in the past, many of which were not really all that useful, this section has good, solid, practical guidelines and suggestions.

In addition to the twenty sets of monster stats in Chapter 3, in Chapter 1 we are given suggestions for twenty more types of drake plus descriptions for ten additional special NPC drakes. Fifty kinds of drake are lurking in this book! Count them – fifty! You can find everything from the inoffensive little Candle Drake all the way to drakes that are genuine forces of nature.

My favorite (so far) is Wheshadulen, a unique NPC drake who claims an entire river as his lair. He has spent centuries sculpting his river’s course through the countryside, bestowing benevolence or visiting malevolence along its shores as he sees fit. The next time you need to cross a river remember to throw in a nice fat goat first. It may be Wheshadulen’s river, and he may grant you a safe crossing in return for your tasty gift.

Don’t wait – fill your games with dragony goodness now!

Ah, villainy... foundation of all the best conflict! Where would the heros be if there were no villains for them to strive against? Indeed, heros are often more interesting if they have a touch of villainy themselves. (Really, which is your favorite Star Wars hero - the smuggler and space-pirate Han Solo, or squeaky-clean Luke Skywalker?)

As you have certainly guessed already, Kobold Quarterly #17 takes a look at villainy. Five of its dozen-and-a-half articles were chosen for this theme. If you're not looking for villainy right now, that still leaves over a dozen articles for you enjoy.

The theme articles are:

Wolfgang Baur's introduction, which makes some excellent suggestions about believable motivations for villains. He also makes some points about motivations that don't work. (Spoiler Alert -- Insanity is a lame reason for being evil.)

"So We Meet Again" by Michael Kortes: An intriguing set of "nemesis and hero" abilities specifically designed for use by (and against) recurring enemies.

"The Right Way to Do Wrong" by Brandon Hodge: Describes nine real-life cons used by grifters back in the pre-internet days. Naturally, he also describes how these schemes can be used in your game.

"The Scourges of Vael Turog" by Stefen Styrsky: This article is less about villainy than its aftermath - three magical diseases created by a long-gone empire of evil. Diseases which have outlived their makers and yet still seek new victims; diseases which have spawned changes to the very landscape where they lurk.

"The Value of the Monster" by Monte Cook: When you are planning the next arch-nemesis for your group, don't overlook all those truly inhuman creatures in the Monster Manual / Bestiary. A lot of Game Masters, myself included, tend to use human (or at least nearly human, like elven or dwarven) foes when creating a long-term threat. Mr. Cook presents some compelling reasons for breaking that habit.

Stepping beyond this season's theme, here are the general gaming articles:

"Know Why You Play" by Jeremy L. C. Jones: An interview with Jeff Tidball, author, screenwriter, and game designer. Chances are very good that you have encountered his work more than once.

"Ambush in Absalom" by Mark Moreland, with art by Jenny Clements and cartography by Corey Macourek: This is an official Pathfinder Society quest.

"On the Streets and In the Books" by Quinn Murphy: This short article has some excellent ideas about how to conduct an exciting chase scene, and also how to inject some interest into doing research. Yes, I said "doing research", as in "looking stuff up in libraries" - the kind of scene that is usually glossed over with a music montage in movies, and just as often resolved with a single bland skill check in d20 games. This article is written for the Dragon Age system, but everything in it is very easily portable to other systems.

"Elf Needs Food Badly" by Matthew J. Hanson: Fifteen ways to add some "flavor" to your campaign. Potions aren't the only magic items that must be swallowed to be effective. Despite the tongue-in-cheek title, there are some crunchy tidbits in this article.

"Secrets of the Four Golden Gates" by Davis Adams: This article presents new options for 4th edition monks, including some intriguing monk-specific magic items.

"Magical Squibs, Crackers, and Fireworks" by Jonathan McAnulty: Remember those early scenes in the first "Lord of the Rings" movie, where Gandalf brings a wagonload of enchanted fireworks for Bilbo's birthday party? Yep -'nuff said!

"The Black Goat: by Richard L. Smith II, with art by Kevin Crossley and cartography by Sean Macdonald: This nicely creepy little module has a spooky Lovecraftian feel. Unlike most adventure modules, you can place this one in a town or city that your players frequent, and let them slowly discover that something is amiss.

"Feats of Stunning Might and Brilliance" by Jeff Tidball: An article about how stunts work in the Dragon Age Roleplaying Game. Lots of game-design insight makes this an interesting read even if you're not a Dragon Age gamer.

"Lackeys, Hirelings, and Henchmen" by Tom Allman: Your players don't exist in a vacuum. This article shows how and why you can make NPC's a part of the adventuring group, while enhancing everyone's fun at the same time.

"Group Concepts" by Mario Podeschi: How do you put together a new group? How do you make a set of PC's or NPC's coherent enough to qualify as a group? This article explains it all. Although presented as part of the Midgard Campaign Setting, everything here is immanently portable to any setting or game system.

"Getting Ahead" by Ben McFarland: The subtitle sums it up perfectly - "Seven Magical Heads of Power". Beware the headhunter...

"It's Not Supposed to End This Way" by Scott A. Murray: What can you do when a series of unlucky dice rolls threaten to kill off a character at the most inopportune and awkward moment possible? Is there a way to save the character for a better death later without actually cheating now? Why yes; in fact there is not just one way, there are six ways!

"Seven Secrets of the Seven Cities" by Wolfgang Baur: Although technically part of the Zobeck campaign setting, these seven ideas can be used in any game.

Plus regular columns like "From the Mines", "Ask the Kobold", and "Book Reviews"

By the way, this review would not be complete if I didn't mention something about the advertisements. Serious book publishers have finally realized that we fantasy role players represent a ready-made market for good history books. (Do you know any gamer who doesn't own at least one factual book about swords, the crusades, or knighthood?) As you read through this issue, look at some of the books being advertised. I plan on owning several of them before the year is out.

"The Vikings stabbed themselves like a dagger into the heart of every culture they met." (1) They were feared by every nation that knew them, and they were known by every nation that lived near water, be it sea or river. Have you ever wanted to put a set of people like that in your campaign? I have, and now with the publication of this supplement, I can.

This is not an adventure module - it is a campaign setting. You can drop Northlands into your existing campaign world as a new place for your players to discover, or you can start a whole new campaign here. Northlands is large enough, and imaginative enough, that your players could spend years exploring this wintery world. Like any well-written supplement, you can also lift out parts and ideas for use in your own campaign.

Northlands is well over a hundred pages of inspiration for adventuring under the scintillating aurora-filled skies of the frozen north. Of course, the lands it describes aren't quite the real Scandinavia, and the tribes who dwell there aren't quite the real Norse peoples, but they are close enough for gaming purposes. Actually, they're far better for gaming purposes than the real thing would be - genuine history doesn't easily fit a d20 mold.

Northlands presents it's material in six well-organized chapters:

Chapter 1 starts out with a wonderful description of life and death in the Far North. The very first sub-heading sets the tone: "Hard People, Hard Land". It goes on to discuss the way things work in this land of the midnight sun, and how life there is different from life in the cultured (some might say "soft") cities of the civilized world. Also the Vanir and Aesir are described in this chapter, because no Norse fantasy world would be complete without them.

Chapter 2 describes the land itself. Dozens and dozens of locations are detailed, enough that I lost count, and all of them are overflowing with inspiration for adventure. There may be some dull places in the world, but they are not found here!

In Chapter 3 we learn about the special Northland races and classes. It is in this chapter that we meet the Reaver Dwarves and the Trollkin. This chapter also presents new material for Barbarians, Skalds (Northlands Bards), Clerics, Monks, Oracles, Paladins, Sorcerers, Witches, and Wizards. All these classes get a frosty Northern makeover. Oh, and there is new equipment too; if you want to travel cross-country in the snow, you'll want a set of skis, and maybe a sleigh.

Chapter 4 is all about magic. Grudge magic, Rune magic, incantations and spells, and of course new magic items. The powers and attributes of the Futhark are described here, as are four special Northlands incantations. There are more than three dozen spells, almost five dozen magic items, and some special Northlands attributes for magic weapons. This is Northland's longest chapter, and every page is bursting with useful information.

Chapter 5 covers special rules needed for adventuring in the frozen places. There are new options for dogsled chases, longboat chases, and ski or snowshoe chases. There are new environmental rules for arctic cold (thin ice, anyone?). My favorites are the special fantasy encounters - just what do you do if Jormungandr the World Serpent breeches the surface of the sea while your longboat is nearby?

Chapter 6 is the Bestiary. It presents a dozen new living (or almost living) perils for your players to encounter. If werewolves have worn out their welcome in your world, give the nightgarm a try. Each creature is illustrated, of course, and designed to give the Northlands its own special flavor.

Throughout the chapters are many sidebars, covering everything from behind-the-scenes design decisions to Northlands nicknames.

I did spot one editing mistake: In the table of contents, the section on "Arctic Chases" is attributed to the tail end of Chapter Four even though it is actually in the beginning of Chapter Five. However, the page number is correct even if the attribution isn't, so this is a very minor annoyance.

In summary: Northlands is an excellent example of Open Design at is finest. Weather you like to personally craft your campaign world, or use completely pre-packaged settings, you will find plenty of value in this publication.

--- Footnotes ---
(1) I read this wonderful sentence in National Geographic many years ago. Memory is a fallible thing, so I probably didn't get it quite right, but I'm not really in a position to search thirty years worth of Nat Geo's to find it again.

Having read other works by Sigfried Trent I had high expectations – which were once again completely fulfilled! Mr. Trent has delivered another excellent supplement which will find use in my campaign.

This booklet follows the established pattern of the Advanced Feats series: It starts with an overview of the Inquisitor class, discussing its strengths and weaknesses. This is followed by the meat of the book, a description of thirty new feats. It finishes up with three new character builds which suggest ways to effectively use the new feats. Along the way are several sidebars, which discuss design issues and (my favorite) real historical inquisitions.

Of course, the new feats are the main reason for buying this book, and they are very impressive. Mr. Trent has again supplied a list of useful feats which are not over-powered. As a Dungeon Master, that last point is very important to me: I really hate power creep – it makes me re-plan my adventures and messes with long-established characters, so I am delighted when a supplement expands my game's options without redefining anyone's power levels.

As with prior Advanced Feats booklets, the descriptions of the individual feats are compact and easy to understand. This makes it easy to refer back to them during play without having to stop the game for an extended reading session. Each feat also has a “Commentary” paragraph, explaining what the author intended to accomplish with the feat. I particularly like this, as it makes my job of Dungeon Master just a little bit easier: I not only know the mechanics of the rules, but I also know the overall intent. That is a valuable piece of knowledge.

There are several teamwork feats in the list, which perfectly suits my image of Inquisitors as the type of people who travel in packs. Furthermore, all of the feats are all focused on confrontation and combat, which also suits my image of Inquisitors as people who like to get out there and smite the living daylights out of heretics. I particularly like the “Meddlesome” feat, which can make it more difficult for threatened opponents to cast spells. I can already hear an NPC Inquisitor arrogantly declaring “Your blasphemous magics are worthless against me, infidel!”

My only disappointment was that there were no feats for that most unsavory of all Inquisitor practices: torture. No, I would not want the list of new feats to be gruesome, but Inquisitors are generally Not Nice People and I would have liked to see maybe just one feat specifically attesting to that.

However, some of the other unsavory aspects of inquisitions are touched on in one of the builds (Wolf in Sheep's Clothing) and also discussed in one of the sidebars (Playing Evil Characters), so perhaps my one disappointment is unfounded.

In summary: I am delighted with this new supplement, and I think you will be too.

In the interest of fairness, I must begin by disclosing that I received my copy of Cavalier’s Creed free, for reviewing purposes. However, now that I have read it over, I am hanging onto it with all my strength. They will get it back when they pry it from my cold, dead, hands! Why am I so attached to it? Let me tell you…

This supplement begins with a nice page-and-a-half discussion of the Cavalier class’s strengths and weaknesses. Without doubt it is good and useful information, visually enhanced with some quality heraldic artwork, but of course we are here for the Feats!

The real meat of this supplement, the new Feats, starts on page 3. …And I was hooked right from the very first one! A lot of these Feats (I’d say well over half) fall into the category of “that’s so obvious – this should have been a part of the game all along!” For example, the image of two heroic warriors fighting back to back, protecting each other’s blind spots while facing a horde of enemies, has been a staple of heroic literature for centuries. And there it is, exemplified by the very first Feat on the list!

All of the Feats have simple, straightforward, robust mechanics, which are usually described very completely in just a few sentences. This is a powerful benefit for both GM’s and players: If you need to refresh your memory of a Feat in the middle of combat, the succinct descriptions mean that you can do so with a quick glance rather than a long pause. In his introduction the author mentions that he has a decade of experience in designing Feats, and that experience clearly shows in the clean, streamlined design found throughout Cavalier’s Creed.

Even better, each Feat includes a section titled “Commentary”. It is here that Sigfried Trent, the author, speaks directly with us, the audience. This section describes things like where the inspiration for the feat came from, what he was trying to accomplish, and why the rules were designed the way they were. I really like this kind of behind-the-scenes discussion. Providing a little extra insight makes the Feats more fun to use. Furthermore, it can help the GM to fairly adjudicate those occasional weird moments when things happen that no rule could ever anticipate. I also like the friendly, conversational tone it lends to the overall work. I definitely feel that Mr. Trent is sharing these rules with us, not dictating them to us.

There are several sidebar boxes sprinkled throughout the pages. In some we get to learn a bit of historical context, while others discuss rule decisions and consequences in more detail. I found all the sidebars to be very informative and entertaining, but my favorites are the historical ones. They show very clearly the amount of knowledge and research Mr. Trent brought to this project. Also, I really like genuine history!

At the end are three new builds for the Cavalier class, complete with Leveling Guides, which show how to use these new Feats to best advantage. I think GM's will find these builds more useful than players, simply because players (in my game at least) always seem to ignore character builds in favor of going their own way. However, we GM’s benefit greatly from having the groundwork already laid when we need a quick NPC with a particular “flavor”.

This review would not be complete if I didn’t mention something which this supplement lacks: Power Creep! That’s right, these rules are balanced! Nothing here is going to turn your players into little campaign-wrecking mini-gods. These new Feats will noticably improve the Cavaliers in your game without giving them an unfair advantage over the other classes.

Worthy indeed!

Although this item obviously works best when used in conjunction with the main “Tales of the Old Margreve” adventure supplement, it is also fully capable of standing on its own. Pretty much each and every paragraph of this supplement can be lifted out and dropped as-is into an existing campaign.

However, the real strength of this item is its imaginative approach to spells, magic items, and NPC’s for the ever-popular Temperate Forest terrain type. With ideas from this supplement you can give a lively, mysterious, and unexpected flavor to any wilderness travel.

My favorite thing about this supplement is the way it sparked my own imagination. Almost every idea provided by it inspired one or more ideas of my own. There is not a lot of hack-and-slash fighting in this supplement, but there are plentiful role-playing and world-building opportunities.

Traveling between towns need no longer consist of you saying “Okay, you walk through he woods for three days without encountering any wandering monsters, then arrive at your destination.” Your players may or may not have to fight anything to get from point A to point B, but they will remember the journey all the same!

In the interest of fair disclosure, I should begin by stating that I was one of the patrons of this Open Design project. However, my schedule prevented any significant involvement with its development, so I didn’t really get to see its true form until now.

And its true form is AWESOME!

Tales of the Old Margreve allows the GM to add a genuinely mysterious and creepy Old World enchanted forest to his or her campaign. And not a happy little kiddy-style enchanted forest like you’ll find at roadside amusement parks. This forest is a disturbing and unsettling place, where grown men shiver while casting fearful glances over their shoulders. The underlying “flavor” is Slavic/Central European, although (as with any well-written supplement) it can easily be made to fit any Temperate Forested environment.

Old Margreve makes the D&D/Pathfinder forest into what it should have been all along: A dark, mysterious, dangerous, alien, scary, unknowable place, where Strange Things happen to intruders. I can promise that after adventuring with this supplement for a few sessions, your players will begin to view forests with the same suspicion and awe that our real-life mediaeval forbearers felt.

As someone who has played D&D for over three decades, I rarely buy campaign supplements these days. After so many years I’ve pretty much seen it all – been there, done that. However, Old Margreve is different. Very different! It is new and fresh! It is packed with an intensity of imagination that will surely stand you in good stead for hundreds of game sessions, even long after you have played through the eight included adventures.

Happy adventuring! And after you’ve pitched your tent and banked your campfire, sleep with one eye open…