This installment of the Spheres Apocrypha-series clocks in at 4 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 2 pages of content, so let’s take a look!
All right, we begin with 3 new basic talents – Spiritlord nets you concealment while concentrating on a (spirit) talent; you may also spend a spell point (blank space missing) to get total concealment instead. Odd deviation – unlike other –lord talents in the series, this doesn’t have the (spirit)-tag, but I assume that to be intentional to account for its potency. The other two talents are both tagged as (spirit), and one allows you to speak with vermin, and the other allows you to render vermin temporarily friendly, and call them towards the caster, if so desired.
The pdf does include 3 different feats: Group Spirit lets you spend spell points to affect more targets with Grant Spirit. Natural Enhancement is a (Dual Sphere) feat, and allows you to add a (spirit) talent to enhancing a creature, and maintain concentration on both at the same time. Spirit Form is also a (Dual Sphere) feat and does pretty much the same for shapeshifting.
The pdf features a new general drawback, good ole’ terrain casting, which drains the life from the soil and surrounding area – if you know Dark Sun’s defilers, you know what to expect here.
The pdf also contains (Drawback) feats that build on this, with Terrain Defiler building on the Terrain Casting drawback, which allows you to increase the radius of drained terrain to reduce spell point cost. Terrain Focus is the other drawback feat, and lets you choose a terrain – you get +2 to CL with the Nature sphere in that terrain. The two drawback feats are btw. mutually exclusive.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are good on a formal, very good on a rules-language level. Layout adheres to a 2-column full-color standard, and the pdf sports a nice piece of full-color artwork. The pdf has no bookmarks, but needs none at this length.
Derfael Oliveira’s expansion for the Nature sphere’s spirit aspect is a nice pdf – the terrain casting angle is cool, and vermin friends will enjoy the new talents. All in all, a nice little offering that may not be mind-blowing, but certainly worthwhile. My final verdict will clock in at 4 stars.
Endzeitgeist out.
(based on 1 rating)