I had been following the Realms of Twilight campaign setting since I first heard about it from a fellow gamer. I was very excited when the sample came out. however I am writing this review for the book itself. I bought a hardcopy shortly after it was released.
I'll start with the overall feel of the book. The printing maintains a dark tone through out the book which tends to make some of the art work seem less impressive. I would have liked to see it in a color printing. I find the text to be just right and easily readable. However I have had a few instances where a bright glare gave me some trouble. I thought the page borders were a great touch and would also benefit greatly in a color printing.
The book starts off taking you through a brief history of the world and sets the mood for what is to come. The next bit of the book covers the continents, nations, and cities contained within Relistan. It also goes further to describe governments, politics, and important NPC's. The detail is just enough to give you the information you need without overloading you.
The book then moves on to character information. Now I'm kinda partial to this next part. The Combat Alchemist. My play group started a RoT campaign and one of our characters is a combat alchemist. He has saved us more than a few times. It's pretty interesting to get one of the potions he makes and discover the "joy" hidden inside. The prestige classes seem very interesting and I am hoping I get the chance to play one. The Elemental Fist for example if played by the right person, I think could cause a DM to get a headache. The new races are all very interesting and I enjoyed learning about them.
I still haven't read through all the religions and deities, but I have made my way through enough of them to realize a lot of thought was put into their creation.
The stories, histories, and legends contained within the book were well written and kept my attention. I was interested to keep reading on and I feel they gave me pertinent information. They helped to further immerse me in this world of Relistan.
I particularly like the character sheet at the back of the book, but it does seem a bit busy.
Overall, I think the book did it's job. It relayed the information I need to have an interest in playing the campaign. when that interest grew it gave me the information to dig deeper, make a character, and start playing. Are there some negatives, yes, but I do not believe they out weigh the positives. In the future I hope to see some supplementals and a color version of the original material. I'm always asked would you recommend this product to someone else. Yes I would, and have in fact done so several times already.
