EZG reviews the Cerulean Seas Campaign Setting

Hej everybody!

It seems like yesterday to me when Lou asked me to write a review of "The Bloody Fix" and more or less gave me the initial impulse to start reviewing - and today, I'll present to you my 400th review on Paizo. Many people have offered kind words to me and I hope my modest recommendations (and warnings!) have enriched your games - thank you for reading!

In order to celebrate this review, I offer to you a review of a rather under-appreciated Campaign Setting that in my humble opinion is a prime example of the great options out there, Alluria Publishing's

Cerulean Seas Campaign Setting

 

This massive full-color campaign is 290 pages long, 1 page front cover, 2 pages of editorial, 1 page ToC, 4 pages of index, 1 page inside back cover and 1 page back cover, leaving a staggering 279 pages of content for this campaign setting, but what exactly are in for?

What if the world saw an age of peace above the waves, an era of enlightenment overseen by  a powerful nation? What if said force of goodness and equilibrium suddenly vanished and the surface-dwellers, in their despair and ignorance initiated a cataclysm that sees most of the world flooded, leaving only sparse patches of land unsubmerged?  What if the surface-dwellers went extinct and yet, the world would continue spinning? The action and eternal war between good and evil would continue, but beneath the waves. These are the Cerulean Seas, a world flooded and in the grip of tidal waves, where new races have claimed dominance after vanquishing the dreaded sahuagin and this book follows an ambitious goal - Not only do the people from Alluria Publishing try to offer you an original setting, but also provide all the necessary rules for all instances of underwater adventuring.

Let's see whether they've succeeded in that endeavor, shall we? There's a lot to consider, believe me. Seeing I converted the monstrous arcana Sahuagin-trilogy from the 2nd edition days of old to 3.5 and ran the campaign, I do know that even if you prepare a LOT of magical items/spells etc., there are a LOT of additional concerns to address and this book is wasting no space and jumps in to introduce us to some of the peculiarities of underwater adventuring:

From an introduction to the different light zones, to mechanics to determine tides and even very extensive terrain information, we get a lot of cool new rules, favorite of which for me would be buoyancy -natural air bladders from races to items: The rules presented for buoyancy should be standard - they are elegant and easy to implement: Essentially  buoyancy comes in positive and negative values, either dragging you down or pushing you upwards - including acceleration and drag. Str determines what you can carry until you fight against buoyancy. Combine that with water pressure and currents (which also get their easy and yet extensive rules) and we get a wholly unique experience: Seeing that until I read this, underwater combat felt mostly like flying underwater, this is just awesome - 3d exploration and combat that opens a whole array of new tactics and combat options. Combat will never be the same under the waves and even if you're only planning on having 1 or 2 adventures under the waves, this chapter (especially when combined with OD's Sunken Empires), is absolutely the best resource you can imagine. It also includes  extensive information on underwater hazards ranging from poisons, whirlpools etc. A new condition replaces prone (disoriented) and thrown weapons are replaced with plunge weapons - be aware, though, that not a simple name-substitution has been made: E.g. the splash weapons work in some key-aspects different from their dryland-counterparts.

After this chapter on terrain and the basics, we are introduced to the new playable races, all of which come with their own natural buoyancy, information on their depth tolerance as well as the information on attributes. I'd usually sum up the racial modifiers etc., but in the interest of finishing this review this century, I'll just go on to give you a general overview. Generally, the races of the Cerulean Sea can be divided into three general categories: Anthromorphs (4 races), which include cool races like the crab-like Karkanaks and the crocodile-humanoid Sebek-Ka, the Feykith (4 races), which contain Sea-elves, Selkies and Viridian Naiads, the latter being plant-like in life-cycle and mentality. The final category is the Merfolk, which includes the mysterious and alien, deep-dwelling Nommo, the poison-spined Cindarians and the proud, mount-like Kai-Lios. 11 merfolk-halfbreeds are also provided along tables for age, height/length, buoyancy and depth-tolerance. I expected to get lame aquatic variants of regular races and instead found a plethora of well-written, balanced, cool races that ooze unique flavor and thus lend themselves to truly ingenious plots.

Chapter 3 deals with classes and how they work under water and some interesting components and rationalizations/modifications have been made to them: Alchemists for example have invented aqua gravis, a substance to make bombs and potions with and its discovery, manufacture and usage lends a whole new dimension/other was the items work to the whole class. Wait, Alchemist? Yep, Cerulean Seas comes with full-blown APG-support. While all classes get their respective treatment, the two new domains for the cleric (Flora and Steam, replacing Plant and Fire) as well as an one-page domains/deities-list deserve special mention, as do the 18 aquatic animal companions and the new eidolon evolutions. Conversion notes for e.g. Infernal bloodlines etc. are provided as well.

The chapter does not stop there, though: We get the new Kahuna-base-class, a druid-like ally of the spirits of the sea with neat spirit aspect powers of 8 different totems - mechanically one of the most interesting spirit shaman-like classes I've seen. Speaking of interesting - the 20-lvl Mariner base-class, focusing on supreme 3d-movement and agility makes for an interesting melee-choice and the substitute for the bard, the siren-class, also makes for a neat design, though the latter could have used more options to choose from with regards to her songs. The base-PrCs are also covered along  3 new PrCs - The Beach Comber, a ranger-like elite, the Glimmerkeeper, legendary rogues and possibly mutants fighting for the downtrodden and the Sea Witch, who is a rather evil and dark PrC for the siren - think Ursula from Ariel in mature and you'll get these nice fellows.

The next chapter deals with skills and feats - jumping from the waves, diving perception beneath the waves and coverage of existing feats help adapting them to the world beneath the waves. The chapter does not stop there, though: 45 new feats expand upon racial qualities (enhancing Cindarian spines and Karanak-claws for example) as well as  dealing with the new environment, improving e.g. Air Bladder class. Surprisingly, I did not find a single feat that felt overpowered or useless - quite a feat! (Pardon the pun!)

The next chapter  deals with underwater currency: Seeing that copper and silver tend to rust, the currency of the seas is based on shell, gold and pearls. Tarde and new goods like the aforementioned aqua gravis as well as alloys for weapons are covered. The new weapons cover both weaponized harnesses for awakened animals and a vast array of thrusting weapons - the tables alone cover 2 whole pages, ensuring that you don't have to arm all your characters/NPCs with piercing weapons. The aquatic armors are also interesting, including for example jellyfish armors as well as clamshell plates. 11 new ships are introduced for traveling on the waves (which seems to be a bit more secure than under the waves) and a huge array of conversions are provided for all the regular items and obsolete ones are mentioned as well. Kelp ropes e.g. replacing regular ones. Extensive lists including buoyancy information for these items have been provided for your convenience as well, as have buoyancy-control items that help you combat updraft. Have I mentioned the phosphorescent jelly-fish lanterns? This chapter, with all the small details and miniscule meticulously pieced together components makes underwater adventuring and societies that much more believable - excellent!

Chapter 6 deals with new magic as well as old one: After introducing some exceptions, we are introduced to a huge list of aquatic spell components, replacing drylander components - I love this list. While it seems to be a small and unnecessary component, I really consider going this extra-mile in detail and depth of coverage makes the approach stand out. APG-fans can rejoice, by the way: Undersea spell lists are provided for all the core and APG-classes and modifications to the spells have also been included in the lists. Over 100 spells are either entirely new or have been heavily modified to work beneath the waves and the two new casting base classes Kahuna and Siren also get their respective spell-lists. Surprisingly, the spells ranging from acidic red algae to black maelstroms are surprisingly well-crafted and none felt like overpowered or a story/game-breaker to me - indeed, some do expand the tactical options provided by 3d-fighting and currents - awesome! The new magic item-section comes with 2 armor and 4 weapon qualities as well as 1 new specific armor as well as 8 specific items, all of which  (with one exception) come  with their own high-quality artworks.

The 7th chapter deals with the Cerulean Seas campaign setting and can be considered a primer/gazetteer of the setting: This section contains racial histories, short NPC-write ups of famous NPCs as well as detailed information on the respective languages spoken beneath the waves. Religion is covered as well, but in a different way from what you'd expect: The council of nine, 9 deities seeking to absorb all other faiths, make for the mainstream religions and uphold the verdicts of "There shall be only 9" - but where there's persecution, there will also be cults, ranging from variations of the 9 teachings to more heretical positions. Two sanctioned cults per deity are included in the respective write-ups, lending further diversity to the pantheon. A vast array of short city-write-ups as well as a page chronicling current events provide ample hooks for the DM to craft adventures around.

Chapter 8 offers advice for Dming adventures under the sea and does a great job - extensive tbales to help you convert both items and creatures to the Cerulean Seas are provided along guidelines for buoyancy and then there's the battlemat-problem: If you've been stacking dice, this pdf has a page of depth-cubes you can print-out and use instead, providing more stability -quick and doesn't take too much time. If you're going for the recommended solution (after discussing some alternatives), we get actually some cool DIY-information: Tracker trees! Templates for the trees are provided both in full-color and B/w at the end of the pdf and the assembly instructions are comprehensive and easy and most importantly: Affordable, relatively easy to contruct and also a nice alternative if you're shooting for a solution for aerial combat as well.

No environment-focused book would be complete without a bestiary and thus, Alluria Publishing provides us with a smattering of new creatures in chapter 9: From Algoids (underwater shambling mounds) to degenerate merfolk, coral shephards (treant-like guardians of coral reefs) to a vast array of fishes, dinosaurs to 9 new kinds of deep-sea song dragons, we get a lot of cool critters. Have I mentioned the sound and steam elementals as well as 12 new familiar animals, creatures like dire lampreys to seacats and several species of sea-titans (e.g. with kraken-tentacles as lower parts of the torso) to original creatures like the mind-controlling, arcane static-producing mysterious slug-humanoids Slurgs and the awakened animal species of animals, the so-called trueforms? The creatures herein add a lot to a given campaign, even if it only skirts the water's surface. 4 simple templates also help you adjusting other creatures to the Cerulean Seas.

We also get appendices: Creatures by CR, a pronunciation guide, an index of tables, an art-index, 2 pages of  char-sheet, 4 pages of card-stock minis,2 tracker tree templates, 1 page of depth cubes and 1 page-map of the Cerulean Seas. Finally, as I've mentioned in the beginning of this review, we get an index.

Conclusion:

Editing is very good - I noticed only about 10 glitches over 290 pages and all of them were minor hyphen- or punctuation errors. Formatting is top-notch and layout adheres to the two-column standard. The layout. Oh my god, it's beautiful. The slightly blue-tinged full-color pages are accentuated with gold and offer for a cool, unified look. The pdf comes with more than extensive bookmarks, greatly facilitating usage of the book and it should be noted, that size and art notwithstanding, the setting only takes up about 18 mbs, making it still a viable candidate for e-readers. Let me talk about the art: The artwork herein is GORGEOUS. I mean Paizo-level GORGEOUS. In fact, the interior artwork is probably at a level of quality I've rarely, if ever, seen before in a 3pp-book. In spite of having a lot of different artists creating these pieces, the book nevertheless maintains an unified look that is beyond what one would expect from most publications. Have I mentioned that a lot of weapons, ships etc. also get their artworks?

Let's get to the content: The attention to even the most miniscule detail and peculiarity is STAGGERING.  Just about everything has been taken into consideration and lists like the spell-components and their underwater equivalents, the item conversions, the idea of aqua gravis etc. ensure that this pdf does not only provide a blue-tinged dryland equivalent of a setting, but rather an astonishing world that feels distinctively different. Underwater economics, travel etc. - all the aspects of underwater adventuring that had been handwaved at best until now have been covered in a consistent, intelligent and concise manner. Have I mentioned that the amount of letters f the respective alphabets are mentioned in the language write-ups? The sheer amount of fluffy details complementing the crunch is awesome. The new content is almost universally killer, ranging from the new races and their more unique representatives to the new classes. I didn't have a balance-concern with a single spell or feat. An then there's the setting-primer, which provides for a nice political landscape to spring upon your players. Proving that they know how to go above and beyond, the folks over at Alluria have also covered the 3d-combat an its representation with tracker trees to an extent that I did not expect to see. Conversion hellp for the GM ensures that this book will not be limited to single uses or just the material herein, but make it easy to expand the setting with more content.  The buoyancy, deep pressure etc.-rules are plain awesome and the bestiary-section alone, with the resplendent artworks and huge variety enables you to genuinely portray an underwater world. Even if you choose to utterly ignore all setting-specific information, you'll still be left with over 200 pages of top-quality content that makes this book the ultimate resource on underwater adventuring - be it for an extensive period or just a couple of adventures. If you combine this book with e.g. OD's Sunken Empires, you'll be in for a fresh gaming environment that by its rules and premises alone evokes non-conventional tactics, environments and twists of tried and true tropes as well as opening whole new revenues for adventurers. I am rarely blown out of the water (bad pun, I know), but this epic tome managed not only to surprise me with all-around stellar quality, but also with its imaginative potential, its attention to details and the fresh approach to the world beneath the waves. If your campaign world has even one ocean, you need to have this. in fact, I maintain that this book belongs to the rare pdf that should grace just about any shelf of PFRPG-material, as it easily surpasses e.g. D&D 3.5's Sandstorm and Frostburn - it's that good.

I really hope for Alluria Publishing's production hiatus to stop soon, as this pdf is of an almost unprecedented quality and, from production values to content, simply awesome and professional. If all books were like this, I could stop reviewing right now. If I could give this pdf 6 Rudii, I would. Seriously. The 20 bucks they charge for the pdf are a steal and while the pdf will extort a brutal drain on your printer, the downright beautiful end-result will be worth it as this is one of the instances where craft and art of deigning RPG-products go hand in hand. Seeing that I can't give this pdf 6 Rudii, I'll settle for my highest possible verdict of 5 Rudii and the Endzeitgeist seal of approval - this belongs to your shelf and I guarantee that you won't regret your purchase.

As always, thank you for reading my ramblings,

Endzeitgeist out.

EZG reviews the top 3 Mythic Menageries

Hej everybody,

having just completed my final review of Super Genius Games mini-monster-manuals, I thought it would be time to present you with my personal top 3! Without further ado...

Bronze: Engines of Destruction

This installment of SGG's mini-monster-manuals is 14 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial/SRD, leaving 12 pages of content for the new monsters, so what do we get?

The introduction tells us that we get unusual golems and it should prove to be right:

The very first creature is a CR 7 cactus golem, complete with needles and desiccating attacks. It should be noted that the creature is called both cactus golem and cactus crawler - a minor inconsistency.

On the upper hand, we get construction requirements for all golems in this pdf. All golems are resistant to magic and can be influenced by spells in unusual ways and these are no different - knowledge and fight smarting will help your PCs prevail when they lose in the brute-force department - an approach I really enjoy, as it encourages smart fighting and research. It#s unfortunate that no lore-sections are provided for the respective golems.

The iconic, mass-produced CR 1 Ceramic Soldiers make for nice low-level construct threats, complete with speed bursts and shatter-vulnerability - well done.

The CR 10 Gearwork Golem makes for a grinding clockwork nightmare, sundering weapons and disarming foes while rending anything it comes into contact with - the terrible golem makes for a foe the PCs will truly hate for its signature abilities - fighting these will be a baneful experience for any group.

The next creature is again, a rather low CR (5) golem, and a disturbing one at that, the enveloping hide golem - while not the most ingenious of creatures, it makes for a cool critter.

Two golem-variants are next on the list and both are pure narrative gold - the steed (CR +1) and vault guardian (CR +3) golem variant mini-templates that can be applied to any created creature make for some nice modifications - what about the insane alchemist with a flesh-golem-horse-creature, for example? Very cool!

The CR 12-Prism Golem has some rainbow-associated abilities and anyone who has played any incarnation of D&D knows that this prismatic attacks generally are bad news for those on the receiving end. While I usually like the illustrations of Marc Radle, this particular one is rather ridiculous and not one of his best.

The next golem is just what I want to see - imaginative in design and prose, cool mechanics and somewhat disturbing - the CR 8 Reefstalker is a primitive golem made from the jaws of sharks and its serrated defense and bleeding abilities will ensure a messy, bloody encounter your PCs will remember.

The CR 5 Rustmote Swarm on the other hand is the bane of items and metal golems and making it a swarm is mechanically interesting.

Even cooler golems are up next, though: The CR 6 Still Golem who can intoxicate foes via his scalding, alcoholic steam - that's exactly what I'm looking for in a creature: An original concept married to nice mechanics. Come on, how can you say no to an animated Still?

Finally, the last golem, the Void Golem is another prime example of a cool creature: The CR 18 intelligent being is a sentient rift in space, conjured as a proxy and servitor of its dark masters from the void to assist the apocalyptic cults serving their unknowable ends. Slightly cthulhoid, armed with a deadly array of abilities and malevolent sentience, this golem is another winner.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting could have been better, I noticed inconsistencies and minor typos and glitches, which, while not impeding my ability to use the golems, could have been avoided. Layout adheres to the 2-column standard and the b/w-artworks are ok, but didn't make me yell with excitement. The pdf has no bookmarks. Author Sam Hing provides us with a truly excellent array of golems and while some of the golems are not as awesome as others (Cactus and Prsimatic felt a bit bland to me), my only true gripe with this pdf remain the formal glitches I mentioned - for the very low price, we get a stellar offering of cool, imaginative and unique golems that are only marred by the minor glitches and lack of lore sections. My final verdict due to these minor issues will be 4.5 Rudii.

Silver: Kith of the Harpy Queen

This pdf is 13 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial/SRD, leaving 11 pages of content, so let's take a look at the new winged creatures, shall we?

After one page of introduction, we get the first harpy variant, which at first seemed like one of those "Slap environment X" on a creature-variants. The CR 6 Cave Harpy gets a cool sonar-like scream and blood drain, though, making her sufficiently unique.

The second new harpy is the Glory Harpy at CR 2, resplendent and actually quite civilized humanoids far from their ugly common brethren, but devious nevertheless. The multi-hued wings and captivating display make for cute, yet deadly foes that are essentially made cool via their fluff more than via their crunch.

Father of harpies, Pazuzu, sometimes seems to father especially deadly, demonic harpies, his chosen. (CR 10) Their song is not only enthralling, but also lethal to any listeners and their polearm mastery along their poisonous stinger make them a viable threat.

The CR 8 Pestilence Harpy, a vulture-like harbinger of disease via claws, dust, song and even presence is just plain awesome - with a deadly aura, cool abilities like the cloud of diseased dust they constantly create and a neat write-up, they are a prime example of author Sam Hing's good monster design.

Subtlety is not the name of the game for the CR 14 giant Piasa, whose call can flatten and even kill her foes - once again, the fluff about interacting at head-level with them makes what otherwise would be a good creature a very interesting one. Nice job!

The small CR 7 Storm Harpy glides among the clouds and can call dread storms as well as sleep while gliding in great heights. Again, it's the sparse fluff that lends color to an otherwise well-written, but not too exciting critter - the cooperation with pirates and influence on naval trade are interesting plot points to consider and make them valuable assets and allies for scrupulous foes.

Harpies being civilized foes, that's not where this Mythic Menagerie ends: We get 5 new magic items specially designed for or from harpies: From Feathered Daggers carrying diseases to shields made from quivers, they are neat additions to the female furies' arsenal.

Furthermore, 6 feats are introduced, three of which belong to a feat tree that grants additional wing buffet attacks to flatten foes. Even cooler, Pluck-feats are introduced, offering FINALLY the option for aerial combat I've been looking for: Attacks to temporarily decrease fly-skills with the final result of having plucked foes crash to the ground as well as the 2 cool feats to improve song qualities. The Pluck-feats alone are pure GENIUS and I'd recommend the pdf for them alone.

Finally, 5 new spells (APG-classes included in the spell-lists) are introduced, offering a nice plethora of evocative, flavorful battle-spells: From quasi-real ravens that try to pluck your eyeballs out to a ball of wyvern stingers you can control like a flaming sphere, the new spells are iconic, neat and well-written.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are ok - while the glitches that plagued the line are once again present in relics etc., there have been installments with more of them. Layout adheres to the two-column standard and the b/w-artworks are neat. The pdf has no bookmarks and the creatures feature no lore-sections.

This installment of the Mythic Menagerie-line is literally all killer, no filler - each creature had something going for it and the additional items and spells are top quality. The feats are downright brilliant. Were it not for the editing glitches, this would be a 5 Rudii+ Endzeitgeist seal of approval-pdf. Due to the editing glitches, my final verdict will be 4.5 Rudii.

Gold: Demonic Harlots

This pdf is 16 pages long, 1 page front cover (gorgeous, by the way), 1 page SRD/editorial, leaving 14 pages of content, so let' check out the neat demonic femme fatales!

After a foreword, we are introduced to the first creature, but prior to getting into the crunch, I feel the need to address something - this review is based on the original version, prior to the minor redesign. If the title "Demonic Harlots" and the succubus in the throes of ecstasy on the cover were no indicator enough, I'll spell it out: This pdf is not necessarily safe for work. Although in my work climate there would be no problem with this imagery (some of my colleagues sporting more suggestive desktop backgrounds), I gather that in America people tend to be more sensitive with regards to even vaguely sexual content. This pdf, while featuring mature topics, does so in a mature manner and at least to me, felt not explicit in any way. Point being: I can't really imagine anyone being offended by this pdf, but I have been proven wrong before. Discretion is advised.

That out of the way, let's check out the sultry seductresses who will drag your PC's drooling souls to the deepest pit of the Abyss!

In contrast to the other installments of the Mythic Menagerie-line, we start off with a primer mentioning a succubus-demon lord and the topic of incubi, the male counterparts of succubi. Special mention deserve e.g. the short discussion of preferred demonic genders and how e.g. a matriarchal society would be haunted by more incubi to better subvert the power-structure. It's just one page, but it felt like a nice read nevertheless.

The first variant creature, the CR 10 Agitator has one of the coolest signature abilities I've seen in quite a while - emotional flare enables them to escalate latent emotions into potentially lethal proportions and make any crowd beholden to their chaotic whims.

The CR 14 Cursed of Epithumia is a deadly Succubus cursed by aforementioned Queen of Succubi. Punished for their ambitions, these disfigured creatures can split old scars and ooze molten lead from their ever-festering wounds to make armors for themselves, cover their foes in it etc. A plethora of cool signature abilities is provided, but for the Cursed, these blessings taste like ash - after all, they can only temporarily maintain a facade of beauty and most of the time have to spend their existences as disfigured, tortured creatures.

The next creature is a well-known entity on the Paizo-boards, our favorite reviewer-succubus Dark Mistress, or to be more precise, a race of beings named after her. These fiendish creatures are a blending of shadow demon and succubus, resulting in a new kind of critter with deadly shadow-based attacks - again, sporting not one, but several unique abilities. I bet the original Dark Mistress approves of this fine take. :)

Some creatures are the quintessential shadow entity behind guilds and plans, hiding behind legions of associates. The CR 8 Pupeteer Succubus is perhaps one of the coolest creatures I've seen in quite a while, drawing strength from her enchanted slaves and being able to use their senses. The PCs will have to act smart to catch these wily schemers off guard.

The CR 6 savage Thyiades, a kind of primal succubus focused on consorting with (and twisting) fey with her infernal taint. To make matters worse, they can unhallow whole stretches of land... Neat!

For rather kinky sinners, the tormentors (CR 11) are essentially BDSM-succubi that can have a neat signature curse which makes their victims yearn for damage. Add spiky body piercings and some hex-related abilities and you get a cool foe indeed. Although the tendency to portray BDSM as an evil or destructive act (which it is not - Safe, sane and consensual) in media in general tends to annoy me, this take on the trope of sadistic temptress is mechanically interesting enough for me to enjoy it.

That's not where the pdf stops, though: 5 new feats for Succubi are introduced that range from improved shapechanging to glyph-studded, arcane wings and even an additional stinger attack, which might act as an elixir of love - neat and offers a lot of story-telling potential.

We also get 5 new magic items, which contain a flail made from vargouilles, a retreiver-crown and ENCHANTED lingerie! Yes! (I know the thought of chainmail bikinis is not popular with some folks. For succubi, though? Come on - of course you tend to miss her when the shifting links of chains draw your eyes to semi-concealed places!)

The final section of the pdf provides us with 5 new spells, containing the sheer genius aspect transformation, which lets the succubus bypass some wards and a spell which is storytelling GOLD. Sculpt the Dead lets a caster make a dead being look like specific beings. I can spontaneously come up with about 6 complex investigation plots featuring this spell. Gold!

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are top-notch, this time I noticed no editing or formatting errors - if the increased price comes with an increase in quality, I'm all for it. Especially when the price is still a fair $4.99. That being said, the b/w-artworks are nice and the layout adheres to the 2-column standard. Author Sam Hing has done it - this is the very best installment of Mythic Menageries to date - plenty of content and signature abilities, cool supplemental material, neat prose, no gripes. This is how mini monster manuals should be. My final verdict will be 5 Rudii and the Endzeitgeist seal of approval - well done!

All right, that's it for now!

As always, thank you for reading my ramblings,

Endzeitgeist out.

EZG reviews 101 New Skill Uses

Hej everybody,

today I've got a special review for you, a review of a kind of file that is rare indeed:

101 New Skill Uses

This pdf is 24 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD and 2 pages of advertisements, leaving 19 pages of content, so let's check out these new skill uses, shall we?

We've all seen it in the 3.5-days of old, in the bad days - the feat-flood. Metric tons of feats to enable you to do the most menial tasks in about 3000 different ways. I'm glad those days are over, seriously. Feats are a very precious resource and should enable one to gain benefits that surpass very specific conditions for special attacks. As is the development now, though, PFRPG already sports a number of feats that, while nowhere near as broken as the 3.5-days of old, goes beyond necessity. The amount of options available for characters is staggering, but the availability of said options via feats is still limited, necessitating house-rules in e.g. instances when your daring swashbuckler is dueling a monk on a tight rope. Now there is a resource all characters have that has been largely untapped by expansions: Skills.

This is where this pdf comes in - skills get additional, expanded uses and thus become vastly more important and useful to the PCs without breaking the game. Or at least that's the design goal. But can it hold up to said lofty ideal? To answer this question, I'll have to examine some skills to give you examples on how these expanded skill checks are handled: Acrobatics, for example, now for example lets you use parcours to cross difficult terrain, making a rope on which you stand swing, instantly get back up etc. But actions like forging coins, duplicating keys, jumping from a horse's saddle to deliver a devastating charge, hit foes with them not immediately noticing it, make autopsies and malpractice via heal (and bluff) etc. The sheer amount of new possible options is quite impressive.

I did mention malpractice and the design of the new skill uses is something this one illustrates nicely - some skill uses require special additional requirements (like bluff to conceal your malpractice from other persons with the heal or sense motive skills) and more importantly, several THANKFULLY have scaling consequences for failure, from triggering traps to blowing cover to landing painfully on your back after a failed kip-up-attempt, the new skill-uses simply rock and provide a neat variety and excitement to your game - just imagine the excitement of climbing big foes and hacking at them while they try to smash you down or the nerve-wracking contest of aforementioned duelists over the gaping abyss below, their rope swinging ever more precariously. Even if you want to limit a special skill-use, just add Min x ranks and there we go, some uses become "Expert"-uses - the design allows for such an easy modification and thus lends itself to maximum customizability.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to the 2-column full-color standard and the pdf comes with bookmarks. The artworks are ok, though nothing to write home about.

I have to get this out of my system: Every Pathfinder-group should own this book.

No exceptions.

There's simply no way around it, this pdf is one of those rare, humble books that via great design and without adding complex mechanics makes the game much more fun. The content is so easy to implement that no one should be stupefied by the new skill uses. Characters don't have to be changed to make use of the content of this pdf. In fact, the new skill uses open up whole revenues of new character options and adventure writing, making any campaign it is introduced to more rewarding. This humble pdf BLEW ME AWAY. Many skill uses I had house-ruled until now finally get cool, concise and balanced rules and some aspects are introduced via the skills that plainly feel awesome to me. My players will LOVE doing autopsies. Malpractice makes for extremely exciting social encounters. Forging coins and duplicating keys opens new revenues for investigations and plots - this pdf is simply a goldmine of ideas and crunchy goodness. This is one of the pdfs that will most definitely feature on my top ten of 2011-list. Near the top. Steven D. Russell delivers a STELLAR pdf, perhaps the best of the 101-series yet.

If you want to expand your players' options without forcing them to spend feats, go buy this. If you are stumped with regards to writing adventures and would like to add some new options, go buy this. If you're just curious, again, go buy this. If you're tired of house-ruling fast disable, sabotaging magic items, fast climbing etc., go buy this. In fact, even when none of these apply, go buy this. This is simply a gem and a stellar, stellar example of the best 3pps offer to the game. When eventually PFRPG's next edition comes along, it's this content I'd like to see adapted to be part of the core-rules. It's that good.

My final verdict will be 5 Rudii and the Endzeitgeist seal of approval. What are you waiting for? This is what you've been looking for, even if you didn't know yet.

That's it for now, as always, thank you for reading my ramblings,

Endzeitgeist out.

EZG reviews All Stars take on the Mega-Dungeon

Hej everybody,

today I'm going to take a closer look on Gaming Paper's 2nd supplement of adventures for their excellent, epic Mega-Dungeon Map Pack. Can it stand up to the excellent Citadel of Pain?

All Stars take on the Mega-Dungeon

This adventure compilation for Gaming Paper's Mega Dungeon map pack is 62 pages long, 1 page front cover, 2 pages editorial/SRD, 1 page ToC, 2 pages of advertisement and 1 page back cover, leaving 55 pages of content.

This anthology provides for takes on the mega-dungeon, i.e. for configurations of the some of the components of the map pack. It should be noted that each configuration results in a small dungeon and that they cannot be pieced together to create a huge dungeon - essentially, the 4 dungeons are completely separate from each other. If you're on the fence about the map-pack, you should know that while the pack facilitates running these adventures, it's not a requirement. That being out of the way, we'll delve into the adventures and this, being an adventure review, from here on contains

SPOILERS.

Potential players might want to skip to the conclusion.

...

Still here? All right!

Monte Cook is the first with his dreadful Temple of the Half-Born, which some of you might remember from Ptolus -this is no reprint, though, but a completely original take on the concept introduced - essentially, the dungeon is populated by several deadly half-formed fleshy, cadaverous abominations under the control of a dread fleshformer who makes for a surprisingly hard foe - the creature turns out to belong to a race of humanoid outsiders, who are rather hard to kill... I'm not one of the Monte Cook fanboys. I really like some of his designs, but I also own books that I did not enjoy. This short adventure, though, captures what is great about his writing when it works - one of his excellent works and even better when you have a Ptolus tie-in. Level 7-8 characters wil definitely remember their sojourn into the temple...

The next all-star would then be Brian Cortijo, who abducts us (quite literally!) to the Arena of Souls - a subterranean arena where individuals have to fight for their lives for the amusement of depraved individuals of all species. While the premise of the adventure is cool, it uses a mechanic that not all groups will be comfortable with - namely the fact that the lvl 3-4 PCs are abducted and stripped of their gear to fight in the arena. The battles in the arena are another potential problem that remains unresolved - I know for example that my players would flat-out refuse to fight for the depraved audience of the arena, even if it meant their death. The possibility of the PCs attacking with the audience is also not covered. The escape attempt and subsequent defeat of their captors (with a rather climatic final fight) rocks, but the limitations and possible loopholes in the plot that accompany this kind of scenario makes it a tad bit more problematic than it necessarily has to be.

Ed Greenwood is next up and has a rather interesting scenario - a once great smuggler/merchant guild has fallen some years ago, and while the guild is gone, several of their huge assets remain to be found. Against the backdrop of cool smuggling tactics (alone how the gold is concealed is pure genius), the lvl 5-6 PCs finally find the secret complex which harbored the guild's treasure. This makes the adventure rather high on the treasure's side, but also means that the PCs will be hard-pressed indeed to battle their way through the complex: The new inhabitants belong to the most disturbing variety and act and fight SMART. Really smart. Environment stacked against the PCs, intelligent adversaries, smart spell-selection. I can see this complex become the tomb of more than one group of hapless (or greedy!) adventurers. Combine that with frightening scare-tactics and the fact that the PCs have no easy way out of the complex and you're in for a deadly, claustrophobic, well-written adventure. My favorite of the bunch, to be honest.

The final take on the mega-dungeon by Steven Schend is entitled "Keep away from the Borderlands" as a nice nod for all the grognards out there and centers on a border keep (Captain obvious is obvious today.) that has failed to respond to inquiries for some days. The adventure is unique in that is uses the maps of the map-pack not to provide the framework for a subterranean complex, but rather for aforementioned keep. The adventure is intended for 1st-level characters and starts off by the PCs witnessing a suicide by one of the guards who jumps to his death. Blue fires have haunted the keep ever since a holy day has passed and the PCs are up for a mystery: Some of the soldiers have raped silent temple maidens and subsequently got punished by a dread curse that was brought upon the keep as divine punishment by a splinter sect of the moon god. The fact that a relative of a local lord is involved with the crimes (and the lycanthropy-inducing curse) further complicates things, as does the (largely obliterated) strike squad that was supposed to get him out.

The now-cursed fortress hence includes the remains of the guards (some of which now lycanthropes), undead, some of the religious knights hell-bent on retribution and the remains of the strike-team. The adventure is interesting due to the coverage of the consequences the survival of individual NPCs have as well as due to the plethora of conflicting agendas - unfortunately to the point where the respective plot-lines get a bit muddy: The players will have a hard time figuring out just what the hell is going on in the fortress. The adventure also presumes a certain political landscape (and a belief) that makes the adventure feel rather setting-specific - while this works in favor of the adventure with regards to flavor, it can also be considered detrimental with regards to the plug-and-play potential of the adventure. When all's said and done, the final installment of the All-star compilation felt as if it was intended for a longer module and had some parts cut that would have made the adventure truly outstanding. As written, it requires some work on part of the DM as the nature of a dungeon map used to represent a keep makes close-reading the individual entries a requirement, as there seem to be some minor discrepancies.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are top-notch, I only noticed 2 minor formatting glitches (words in italics, for example). Layout adheres to a clear b/w-two-column standard and the pdf features extensive bookmarks. The b/w-artwork is nothing to write home about, unfortunately. It should also be noted, that due to space-concerns, only the bare minimum of statblock-information is printed herein, but that is not a reason to detract from the final score. What does fracture into my final score, though, are the problems I encountered with the second and fourth adventure: While both are good adventures, the second involves two angles some groups will have problems with, namely being captured and fighting for an evil audience. The fourth, while making for an interesting mystery-scenario, somewhat felt a bit shoehorned to me in that it felt more like a campaign-setting specific adventure that has been cut down to fit into the available space. That being said, even with these gripes, the first and third adventure alone are worth the low asking price and the 2 adventures I had problems with still remain good adventures, though they are not exactly stellar. With the epic Citadel of Pain, one of my most favorite adventures of this year, this adventure-anthology has rather big foot-steps to step into and while the scenarios herein are excellent to good in quality, the whole anthology feels like it falls just short of being stellar. For the low price, you should check out the 4 adventures, especially if you already own the AWESOME Citadel of Pain. My final verdict will be a good 4 Rudii.

All right, that's it for now, as always, thank you for reading my ramblings,

Endzeitgeist out.

EZG reviews Monsters Unleashed and Mor Aldenn critters

Hey everybody, one can never have enough monsters and thus, today I'm going to take a look at Purple Duck Games'

Monsters Unleashed V.2.0

This pdf is 16 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 3 1/3 pages of SRD and 1 page featuring tokens of the critters, leaving 9 2/3 pages of content for the new beasties, so how are these beasties going to plague our PCs?

One classic aberration makes its triumphant and disturbing return in the CR 13 Corpse Orgy, a dread creature that can emit painful shrieks and absorb bodies. Hell yeah! The beast also comes with its own lore section, as all the other critters herein.

Next up are the Clay Warriors, Archers and Cavalrymen (CR 3, 3 and 5, respectively), construct guardians based on the fabled terracotta army of Xi'an. Surprisingly, each type comes with at least one, sometimes more abilities that sets them apart from brethren and other beasts - neat! Even better, they come with construction notes.

Tired of PCs being no longer afraid of wolves? Has the shield-time begun in your campaign? Excellent, then unleash the CR 22 Fenris Wolf upon your unwitting players and make them tremble (and perish) while you cackle with glee. Oh yeah, you don't have to blast your mythology asunder or usher in Ragnarok for your campaign to feature the Fenris Wolf (though it helps) - a nice sample idea is given that involves a chained clone.

Unfortunately, the entangling, str- leeching burial-mound guarding CR 8 knollmen don't live up to the standard set until now, providing no unique signature ability and feeling like just another burial mound undead. Next. Or at least, that's what I thought. Thankfully, the guys from Purple Duck seem to have thought the same and provided 3 alternate signature abilities as well as a truly cool take: Why not take the myth of the fisher king and twist it to an undead ruler seeking to reclaim his kingdom? The result is an additional CR 14 statblock, a fiendish gorilla companion, a antipaladin feat, a new spell to force allies to kill each other (quite powerful, but great for specific NPCs) and a satisfied Endzeitgeist.

I consider plant monsters to be creepy. I don't know why, I just always did. The camouflaged Quick Grass, a slick CR 4 predator makes a nice addition to said roster.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are ok - I did notice some letters that were bold when they shouldn't have been, but other errors seem to be absent from the pdf. Layout adheres to the 2-column standard and the b/w-artworks by Michael Scotta are neat and not something I'd expected to see for this low price. The pdf is extensively bookmarked. This installment of Monsters Unleashed is vastly superior to its predecessor, providing cooler critters, signature abilities for all of them, and even variants. Combine that with the very low and fair price and you get a hearty recommendation and a final verdict of 4.5 Rudii due to the editing glitches.

Headless Hydra Games also have a neat monster manual for you:

Mor Aldenn Creature Compendium

This pdf is 35 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1.5 pages of SRD, leaving 31.5 pages of content, so let's check it this monster manual, shall we?

Monster manuals have come a long way since the 3.X-days of old - today not only the stat-blocks are easier to read, but most new monsters also come with signature abilities that make them unique and stand out. Subsequently, the standard and expectations we have for more monsters are perhaps higher than they once were. Seeing that Headless Hydra Games' offerings have been hit and miss for me, I was quite curious to see which kind of creatures we get. Their Mor Aldenn campaign world, though it comes with interesting premises, has not yet been detailed to an extent that makes it easy for me to determine what to expect from it apart from a certain old world flair. Each of the creatures in this particular bestiary comes with a short paragraph of read-aloud text to introduce them to your players - nice to have. That being said, what kind of creatures are we introduced to in this bestiary?

The very first creature already offers a glimpse of the weirdness to be expected from this bestiary - the CR 11 Arachnus is a dread amalgam of spider and giant, multi-armed and legged and both poisonous and expert giant slayers. The brutish mutants make for interesting foes thanks to e.g. their climb speed, which offers them a mobility seldom seen for creatures of their size. I only have the minor gripe that a many-legged, a large arachnid creature should probably get stability as an extraordinary quality.

The second creature we're introduced to is a variation of the wight, the CR 6 Black Glass Wight - undead suffused by veins of fragile, reappearing black ice, these creatures are only created via the most vile of efforts and come with breathweapons, additional melee damage and an aura of terror. They come with a CR+3 template to create your own black glass undead, which is greatly appreciated by yours truly - there is something iconic and cool about these scions of depravity and death. However, the writing of this particular entry does not wholly go hand in hand with the excellent premise - some of the wordings could have been a bit more clear. Don't get me wrong, it's still good, though not stellar.

Shock troops for the Night Hag's forces, the Blacktalon Lizardfolk (CR 4) is a subrace of Lizardfolk that is not only evil and stronger, but also heals faster. Nevertheless, I consider them to be LAME. It's like in Diablo - color the enemy different, make them tougher - viola. While they do have pounce and rend, making for new tactics, I think they would have benefited from a full-blown write-up in the style of Raging Swan's TRIBE-series or their own pdf: An origin myth, tribal tactics etc. go a long way to endearing humanoids and making them unique. That is especially true for variants of existing creatures.

The next creature, though, more than makes up for the Lizardfolk: The Marsh Dragon comes with several age categories (as is the tradition with dragons) and 3 sample statblocks for the young (CR 8), adult (CR 12) and ancient (CR 17) age category, respectively. But wait, you say. Do we need another dragon? No, not really, but this one is no mere dragon: Grab a seat, the marsh dragon is a strange hybrid of dragon and plant, breathing cones of razor sharp growing spores that rapidly grown into entombing vines which attract deadly insects in droves. And they have facial tentacles and a mastery over shamblers (into which wyrms can transform you with a mere gaze!) - this dragon is simply creepy as hell, disturbing, has some lovecraftian undertones and a plethora of cool signature abilities - what's not to like?

Next up is an entry of the Gaiants (with a sample CR 2 druid statblock), large humanoids somewhere between a treant and a fey, which are also a playable race in the Mor Aldenn setting. Seeing that they have their own pdf, I'll get on to the next creature, the CR 5 Bog Giants: Reclusive marsh dwellers, they are a rather timid and gentle subrace of giants but failed to catch my interest due to a lack of unique fighting techniques and signature abilities.

The Gold Cap Myconids (CR 4) can't complain about a lack of signature abilities - even stranger than their regular cousins, these intelligent mushroom-creatures. Their spores can access the memories of those near them, draining intelligence and making them alien sages of the underdark - now that's cool!

The CR 11 Hag Spider (which you can see on the cover), predators created by the Night Hag from hags and phase spiders can ambush from the ether, spin webs from there and ensnare their victims in dread nightmares. Iconic-looking, cool plot-foes, these creatures are deadly and smart foes which make for some cool adventure ideas.

Next up is another definite winner, the Leypinner-fey (CR 10) - seeing that ley-lines seem to feature prominently in the Mor Aldenn-setting, these creatures are more than interesting - being able to entwine both multiple spells in their unique casting and weaving the fates of foes and friends, these powerful entities are also dependant on ley-lines, coming with several in-built ideas that will enable any DM to use them as allies, foes, or both - mechanically smart, full of fluff, these creatures are a prime example of excellent writing and design.

The Mahr (CR 5)-fey are on the rather dark side of fey - bugbear-like, fear-feeding kidnappers, they make for a nice take on the boogeyman-trope. their weakness to honest laughter also makes for a nice signature weakness to reward smart adventurers.

I've already commented on the CR 10 Manifest Child of the Ether in my review of the "Eldritch Spell Compendium", so I'll just mention that the creature is cool and reprinted here.

The swamps have more dangers in store for your PCs, though: The CR 1 Marshlings, an intelligent, rot-inducing plants and the Mirejack (CR 6), a small, corruption and decay-spreading fey composed of rock, mud and tangled branches just wait around the next bog.

If your players ever get truly swamped (*pays 2 bucks into the bad pun box*), the intelligent, huge Mythravens (CR 7) make for cool allies/rescuers - wise birds with 4 precious, magical gemstones in their beaks, they make for interesting allies as well as dangerous game for less scrupulous parties hired by wizards to harvest the gems.

The CR 10 Plaguecrawlers are more deadly, huge, disease-spraying variations of carrion crawlers - the vermin is so twisted, even its blood is a carrier of diseases.

Portunes (CR 2), a take on the wee-folk of Germanic and Scandinavian mythology, these little fey are sought-after servants for mages (especially relevant in places like Mor Aldenn, where mage-schools are so prevalent) and come with a new magic item-template, the wondrous trinket, which might make for a mischievous gift if the PCs don't honor their Portrune or break the traditional taboos. It's fluff like that which makes an otherwise unremarkable statblock come to life - nice!

The CR 1/3 Puppet Imps (amalgams of sticks and pebbles) already known from the stories included in the expanded player's guide, these itching wounds inflicting foes are neat low-level enemies.

The Spell Pikes, CR 4 pikes with variants for each school, make for an interesting concept - the excess magical energy mutated these fish and gave them some interesting abilities, which might make the creatures not only a bane for fishers, but also for some interesting plot ideas. This is the only critter in the book that lacks its own artwork.

The CR 8 Stiltskin is reprinted from the Moon Folly-pdf and in the end, we get 2 interesting animal-like creatures: The Tuskbeast (CR 3) is a blind boar with bone-spikes on the back and the CR 6 Veraxar is a tiger-like, intelligent being with some supernatural spell-like abilities and Elven affinities.

Conclusion:

The b/w-artwork throughout this book is GORGEOUS and can hold its place with the best of 3pp-publications out there. Formatting is clear and the statblocks and abilities are easy to read. Layout adheres to a two-column standard and is quite printer-friendly. I would have loved to see bookmarks, though - at this length, they really help navigating the file. It should also be noted, that at ~50 MBs, this pdf is rather large, something to keep in mind when working with e-readers. Monster manuals are always welcome at my table, but right now, I'm a jaded guy - I've read so many of them that it has become hard to impress me with just about any creature out there.

That's why I'm happy to report that the Mor Aldenn Creature Compendium is BRIMMING with cool ideas, iconic creatures and smart signature abilities. To the point, in fact, where I consider only 3 of the creatures herein rather bland - that makes for a LOT of cool foes. In an ideal world, I'd happily give this pdf 5 stars and the Endzeitgeist seal of approval. However, there are unfortunately some blemishes marring what would otherwise be a stellar product: While the reprints of some of the monsters are nice to have, they take up space that could have been used for original critters. The argument of having all collected in one book does not apply, as the death raven from the Eldritch Spell Compendium is missing. More importantly, though, this pdf could really have used another pass at editing - there are a lot of glitches, from punctuation errors, wordings that could have been clearer and forced me to reread a sentence to other minor glitches, that, while not impeding the overall usability of the book, make some of the entries harder to read than others. Seeing the amount of authors who contributed, this inconsistent quality is not surprising, but it unfortunately does tarnish what otherwise would by a stellar example of design and writing. No bookmarks, a lot of errors and some reprinted material would usually result in a final verdict of 3 Rudii. I LOVE these creatures, though - they are mostly smart designed , iconic and cool and the price for this pdf is very low. Thus, I'll settle for a final verdict of 3.5 Rudii, and I'd even round that up to 4. If you don't care about the editing glitches and missing bookmarks, GO GET THIS. For you, this pdf is a five Rudii purchase.

All right, that's it for now. As always, thank you for reading my ramblings,

Endzeitgeist out.