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This is one of the best Urban/Massive City based books/Adventure areas ever written in my humble opinion.

If you are looking for a gritty, corrupt and syndicate/crime ruled city then look no further! For in Five Fingers everything has a price and life is cheap, bodies turn up in the bay all the time and unless you are a top Enforcer then you are never safe. Whether a corrupt judge or Gallows Tom is the one that decides your fate is a harsh reality in the port city of five fingers.

The book comes with a city map that is absolutely essential and deserves a space on a GM's wall. The book has so much information I couldn't put it all in this review even if I had all day!

This book is a gem for those that want all the info on the five mainland nations. It sadly doesn't include Ios or Skorne but Skorne have their own book devoted them. Which I will write a review on once it arrives.

This book is a total of 383 pages long, its a hefty and beautiful hardcover with a lot of gorgeous art within. One thing I can say about IK is that they do some fantastic artwork!

The nations detailed within are:
Chapter 1: Cygnar
Chapter 2: Khador
Chapter 3: Divided Llael (Very cool chapter!)
Chapter 4: Ord
Chapter 5: Protectorate of Menoth

So this entire book reminded me of the old World Guide except with the additions of updates that include the more current state of affairs from the Warmachine series. For those unfamiliar with the original IK World Guide (When they were still making a D20 Product) it was basically a book that set the stage for each nations history, geographical locations, cities/towns/hamlets and key places across Western Immoren.

The added bonus is that there are nation specific Careers included for each nation within. Which is very nice for fleshing out your character to being more then just a Warcaster. They could be Cygnaran Specific or Khador, etc. All the nation specific Warjacks is a great addition as well as the specific equipment too. Stormknights, Stormlances and Trenchers are some of my classes. Can't deny being a soldier with a chaingun on the battlefield is not a cool idea toi visuallize!

Its definitely worth adding to your collection as it is well done and I noted very few if any errors. It holds true to its roots and is filled to the brim with setting info.

A great book to have! Its cheaper on paizo then most places I have looked through as well. Own it today! XD

Books I look forward to making reviews on:

Rhul (Dwarves)
Skorne Empire
Ios
Legion of Everblight

Despite being a heavy d20 fanatic, I don't always shy away from alternate dice and game systems. Though I admit I am still a fan of the Original Iron Kingdoms Full Metal Fantasy when it was released like a 3.X genre, it is also something I wish would make a return but I know in my heart of hearts it will never rise again. Save through the dedicated community we know and love.

Now to the good stuff!

This tome comes in at a 480 pages and is absolutely gorgeous! It does reiterate the new rule set and while many would question "Why!?" Instead shrug and say "Why not." Having the rules reiterated means that you don't need a bag full of books to be able to play just the Wild Side of Iron Kingdoms. Instead you bring just the one book and embark on a journey of crashing through the wilds, small villages and clashing with tribes of Bog Trog, Farrow, Gatormen and even Tharn. You could choose to tangle with the Blackclads and their Wolves of Orboro's or take a gamble with clashing with the beasts of the wild. Aspiring GM's could choose to make these clashes darker with the players fighting Cryxians in the depths of the Thornwood.

So the Table of Contents Includes the following:

The first section is The Wilds
An explanation of the Wilds, a breakdown of the Primal's Side of Immoren's history. Something the modern day Immorese never knew of! It breaks down the struggles of the people of the wilds and wilderness regions of Western Immoren.

The second section is Characters!

Race include the following:
Bog Trogs, Farrow, Gatorman, Humans (Tribals), Nyss, Pygmy Troll (Pyg), Tharn (a new personal favorite!) and last but not least Trollkin!

The new classes within are:
Archer, Blackclad, Bloodweaver, Bokor, Bone Grinder, Brigand, Bushwhacker, Chieftain, Fell Caller, Fennblade, Kriel Champion, Long Rider, Mist Speaker, Monster Hunter, Priest of Nyssor, Raptor, Ravager, Ryssovass, Scout, Shaman (Devourer Wurm), Shaman (Dhunia), Slaughterhouser, Sorcerer, Warlock (Circle, Farrow, Swamp or Trollkin), Warrior, Wolf of Orboros and (another personal favorite) Wolf Rider.

There is more to this chapter but I wanted to just give a small taste of it. All of the classes do the world justice and are very interesting and earth shaking when looking into creating instant character depth. Especially as the Warlock classes are able to bond to Warbeasts and even Wolds! All of this made me fall in love with the epic grind that Western Immoren is all over again.

The third section is The Game. A section on the rules and some updates for utilizing the wilds in your games.

The fourth Section is Magic of the wilds:

Magic of the wilds follows the arcane traditions, the spells, spell listsm spell descriptions and the Wolds and how they are crafted.

The fifth section delves into Warbeasts:

This is where the title comes from, try to imagine starting the game with an Argas, a Warpwolf, a gorax, a griffon, a pureblood troll or even a powerful Satyr! Among these warbeasts includes the Wolds as well, your own personal head smashing rune covered guardian. The rules are well done and make me itch to make adaptations for Pathfinder................... (Which no DM in their right mind would allow. Possibly. ;3)

the Sixth section covers Bone Grinding and equipment. Being unfamiliar I won't delve too far into it but its a very interesting section. Further expanding on the massive increase of cool factor in this new IKRPG which I am slowly starting to adore!

The seventh section is about Creatures:

This mini bestiary further expands on the new Unleashed beasts and monsters and even many of the Warbeasts themselves. If you are an avid bestiary nut such as I am its a welcome and decent addition.

The eighth and last section is Gamemastering the Unleashed:

Additional help and suggestions on how to run a game in the lost and dangerours frontiers of Immoren's primal underbelly. From NPC's to PC and beasts it gives helpful suggestions as to how to run an Unleashed game so it is interesting and fun.

As I said before I am not as enthusiastic about the change from the D20 to this Warmachine matching IKRPG. But this book and the Morrow/Thamarite/Cyrissian book before it is slowly swaying me to at least give it more consideration. In fact I am making my first Warlock (Circle)/Wolf Rider right now.

Just the idea of being in command of Wolds/Satyr's or Warpwolves and riding a Duskwolf into battle is awesome.

The lore this book gives alone has further updated me on many assumptions I had from years ago when the World Guide was released. This book is definitely one for your shelf if you are into Steampunk and a world where resurrection isn't a possibility and even raise dead is a frown upon aspect.

Good luck and good gaming, hopefully this was informative and helpful, if it wasn't please feel free to PM me and tell me what I need to do better! THANKS!

Note: Did not back the Kickstarter and I really wish I had!

I ordered the PDF/Hardcover Bundle and was impressed when the book showed up in a very nicely packaged way, a medium box, with packing peanuts and styrofoam on each corner. The book was absolutely mint! A big plus!

Among the Designers present in the creation of this Compendium is Wolfgang Baur and Owen K.C. Stephens which is just to name a few of the many wonderful and talented people who made this project a reality.

Advanced Race Compendium by Kobold Press comes in at 338 pages: Over 320 pages of content aside from indexes, ToC and three pages of ads in the back.

This primarily supports the Midgard world setting; however, it is an excellent resource to have as it gives alternative races that are setup to be player/DM friendly due to lacking that annoying Level Adjustment! A major plus! It should be noted that despite this being a part of the Midgard setting, it could easily be adapted for others world settings such as Pathfinder, 5e and such with very minimal work.

Now onto the good stuff, this book is rich with resource material for additional races, so much so that I doubt I can fit it all in a single review alone. I will say that if you buy this in PDF you will not be disappointed! It was well worth the expense and I forked out the additional cost for the hardcover copy because the artwork in this compendium is pure awesome and not disappointing in the least. There is no repeat art and all of it is richly detailed.

Race Sections: In this section is included an explanation of what each race's adventurers are like, cultural differences throughout areas of Midgard, differences in racial Variants, Campaign Traits, Archetypes, Feats, spells and Artifacts specific to their race. This is present with each race some gaining more in each section or less. Either way it adds a lot of great flavor to a character of a specific race. Races included within are -

Aasimar, the children of the celestial host come in with a whopping 12 pages of content! It starts with a page of splendid artwork. Then it goes into the next page, which provides details about Aasimar's and their role as the Blood of the Celestial Host expanding on the different alignments of Aasimar’s you can encounter throughout the world of Midgard. It includes content for their existence in the Southlands, The Northlands, Crossroads, Perunalia and a large section on the City of Lions, Shuppurak.

Racial stats for provided Aasimar, along with additional variants (replacing the daylight spell with a different affect only) that are very interesting, which gives us more options to the aasimars appearance and abilities aside from the ones from Paizo. There is a section for Ages, Height, Weight and Aging Effects section. There are four new Campaign traits specific to Aasimar's only. There is also a large section for new Class Archetypes. Celestial Rhymer (Bard) Celestial Summoner (Summoner), Fallen Angel (Antipaladin) and the Grey Angel (Inquisitor).

Toward the end their are six new feats, 7 Mythic Feats, two new Subdomains: Angel (Good) and Radiance (Glory) followed by nine new spells and a single Aasimar artifact that has its own, very fitting, artwork. Perfect for any Demon or dragonslaying campaign.

Centaurs, a personal favorite so here goes! Twelve pages of content starting first with a page of artwork followed on the next page by a detailed explanation of the differences between these centaurs and the more powerful version in the Pathfinder Adventure setting. The stronger version is referred to as Bataar, the leaders and nobles of the Hordes (That is what these centaurs call their clans). The Centaurs detailed within are 1st level character ready and well balanced to provide a fun roleplay experience without level adjustments. It goes into details on their Lives, Customs and Social Organization, which details a common tradition of the Hordes. Party of the explanation of their society is a section detailing their relationship with Non-Centaurs, the Raiding habits and Bandit years of Centaurs. Like the Aasimar and every race to come, there is a rich amount of information, useful for any setting.

There are two additional Centaur variants one being the Alseid a fey like and long-lived centaur. The other, the Oinotaur, are a smaller much more sage like Centaur race that doesn't have any particular affiliation within the hordes. These variants are very interesting and provide a new dynamic that can be incorporated into any adventure. Different stats and abilities are provided for all three Centaur types as well, especially if the party was made up completely of centaurs. This section is accompanied with an Ages, Aging Effect and Height/Weight Section for each of the three Centaur types.

They provide 11 campaign traits, three archetypes. Green Witch (Witch), Oyun Wrestler (Fighter) and the Redegiver (Oracle). There are four new pieces of centaur equipment and three centaur specific magic items that many would find very interesting and helpful. There are seven new feats and finally four new spells.

Darakhul, Lords of the Undead! Masters of the Empire of Ghouls and subterranean lords of the lightless depths. A race of intelligent undead that view the living as cattle, live by their own unique politics and run underground cities and subterranean places far away from the light. A true horror of the deep. Never resting, never tiring and full of Archetypes, campaign traits and much much more!

The other races are as followed!
Derro, Dhampir, Dragonkin, Drow, Gearforged, Gnoll, Jinnborn, Kobold, Lamia, Lizardfolk, Minotaur, Ravenfolk, Sahuagin, Shadow Fey, Tiefling, Tosculi (Hive Mind Moth/Ant like race, renegades exist but they clock in at about 3ft avg height.), Trollkin and Werelion's!

Appendix includes:
Kitsune, Ratfolk, Sulis and Weresharks, These entries are shorter but no less entertaining and interesting.

I will run out of room long before I could break down each and every race, so I will cut to the chase below!

There are some minor grammatical errors and misplaced information like Centaur weight in the place of Random Height Modifiers and vice versa. However, aside from that, I found few major errors and was very pleased with the standard two-column layout, the content kept me wanting to read more as I moved from one race to the next.

Therefore, I rate this 4.9 but round it up to a five star, as it is an outstanding and thoroughly well crafted source book. Each race is well balanced and without level adjustment making integration of these races very easy.

This is a must have for any would be monster race playing party or Monster Adventure crafting Dm!

Also My hat is off to Kobold Press and its designers! Yet again, they have released something both inspiring and downright awesome.