"The Xiao, what great stars you have got!"
"That is to review the better, my child."
DISCLAIMER: This review is based on a free PDF provided by the author and the publisher, which in no way had an influence on the final score.
Introduction
Under Azoth Games, James Ray released the second in the Akashic Tales line of products, Red’s Peril, this time inspired by European folklore. This book includes new veil set, 2 Akashic archetypes tackling the ranger and the hunter, 2 companion archetypes for familiars and animal companions, 5 feats and a new race variant, all of it with a Little Red Hood theme.
What’s inside?
9 pages of content (not counting covers, ads etc.) for 3 bucks (nice), which include:
-a short but nice introduction, which includes the different versions of the tale that inspired this book.
-The Red’s Peril veil set: Before I go into the veils themselves, I have to mention something. This set as a whole is unavailable to any single class. The 6 veils include all akashic classes to date except the Rajah (weird since it is mentioned in the sources) and the Kheshig (which to my knowledge wasn’t published by the time Spider’s Stories went out); it is nice to have all this information, but I wouldn’t include it in the bind section since so many abbreviations and levels make it look cluttered. I was expecting to see the Griot archetype for the bard/skald here, but alas.
Grannie’s Bonnet lets you disguise, and when bound lets you “feel familiar” and even consume a creature to appear completely like it! Cool, but it has some arcane text that reads weird (When investing this veil with essence you can decide to bind it into this veil instead… what?). Innocent Eyes gives you a bonus to perception and against illusions, and when bound lets you see past magical transformations. Huntsman’s Axe gives you a ghetto favored enemy, and it has the [enhanced] descriptor. I like the idea behind this descriptor, but there are a lot of implications that must be polished before its perfect. I don’t allow it in my games as is. When bound, the axe gives you a bonus feat that work against favored enemies from a short list.
Laundress’s Sheet is another [enhanced] veil, working as a bladed scarf and can be transformed into a bridge, when bound to the hands lets you choose who can traverse the bridge, and when bound to the wrists gives you the ability to engulf foes in a sphere of water. Great! The iconic Red Cloak gives you bonus to survival checks and endure elements, and when bounds gives you the passive aggressive ability to damage foes striking you with flames. I would have loved that somehow, if they didn’t hit you but would have hit your touch AC, they got damaged too, allowing for armored characters to benefit more from this veil. Finally, Wolf’s Hunger makes you very hungry (incredibly flavorful that veils affect you!), gives you a bite attack (I would have loved greater damage for creatures that already have a bite attack, but ok), and your stomach works a bit like a bag of holding. If bound, you get a second extradimensional space that, with enough essence, lets you swallow whole a creature of your own size! Nasty and iconic! There is a sidebar that mentions this veil as part of the Desire passion veils, but I would add that it replaces another one, like the optional constellations, since all passions have the same number of veils as part of their balance.
-2 archetypes: The Huntsman Ranger replaces all spellcasting, gets a diminished favored enemy, and loses some other abilities in exchange for some veilweaving (up to 5 veils, 6 binds and 10 essence) that uses the Huay veil list but with reduced access, improved use of the new Huntsman Axe veil, Akashic additions to combat styles, and some other things. Cool Akashic Ranger! Opportunists Hunters is another Akashic variant, getting veilweaving abilities that go up to 7 veils from the Eclipse list, 6 binds, and 20 essence in exchange for their spellcasting. They get to shape the new Wolf’s Hunger veil into any slot, and gets to unshape any veil and reshape it into this one, giving me cool, werewolfish vibes. They also get another souped-up veil, Geri and Freki, among other more thematically-fit abilities. A great, dark take on the Hunter that makes me grin like the Big Bad Wolf.
-2 companion archetypes: Akasha Touched Familiars are great for Akashic casters, as is Veil Trained for animal companions. This last one gets the ability to reallocate its essence via a trick but doesn’t natively gains essence.
-5 feats: the 5 feats contained here are both Akashic and Combat, which makes them great for Akashic Fighters. I can see my characters/baddies using each one of these, no fillers only killers ;)
-The Aldhiyb variant race: A very small hack of the Sobek Akashic race, being an anthropomorphic wolf following the variant races from Akashic Mysteries. Not bad, but like in the original book, too little information.
Of Note: The veils alone are worth the price of entrance, but the rest is not gravy. I really enjoyed most of the book.
Anything wrong?: There are more editing mistakes than in the last book, so that is a minus. The variant race, like the ones in Akashic Mysteries, is a bit on the shallow side. Also, not all people would have the Huay book, so directing them to a site like library of Metzofitz would have been nice ;)
What I want: A more detailed and developed presentation of the races from Akashic Mysteries and the Aldhyib.
What cool things did this inspire?: A tiefling or another savage race with Wolf’s Hunger devouring a major NPC or even a PC would be horrifically awesome!
Do I recommend it?: For the meager price of 3 bucks? Hell Yeah! I would give it a 4.5, rounded down, but at that price of admission I think it deserves the full five Little Red Hooded stars!
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Thank you very much for the review. I'm especially glad to see that you like the Hunter and Ranger archetypes. Those were both classes that, in my humble opinion, needed more love. You once again, bring up a good point about including the bind reminders in the bind sections of veils. While I think they are convenient, as the number of veilweaving classes grows they are becoming more and more distracting. These may be removed from most veils in future entries to this line. As for the Aldhyib, an expanded lore blurb is something that I might do in the future as one of the "freebies" on the Azoth Games website.