Two well developed super-hero characters with thorough backstories and full stats for the G-Core system (although readily adaptable to the game mechanics of your choice) are presented here.

They are very definitely HEROES, sounds like neither of them even have a parking ticket to their name never mind a moving violation! Squeaky-clean defenders of truth, justice and the American Way - indeed although now independents they both have government service under their belts.

When you need a couple of goodies - or want to play them - these should come in useful.

The Blue Knight is a high-tech suit based hero, the Green Dragon is a mystical martial artist. And they are happily married... nice wholesome additions to your superhero roster.

Introducing new special materials into the Pathfinder RPG – special materials being the materials you make your weapons and armor from, such as adamantine or mithral – is something of a tricky process. The primary purpose of special materials is usually to overcome a corresponding damage reduction. Beyond that, their uses quickly become niche, though they can still be interesting. It’s with this last thought in mind that Wild Hunt Games brings us Archives of Maere: Forces of Nature.

A 13-page PDF, Forces of Nature portrays itself simply but not inelegantly. It has both a hyperlinked table of contents and bookmarks, which is going the extra mile. I thought it slightly odd that the back cover immediately followed the front cover, but that’s a stylistic choice I’ve seen elsewhere, so I didn’t fault it.

The book’s artwork is totally focused on the new magic item it presents. All except the last item have a single photograph (not illustration; an actual picture) of the item presented below it. I found that interesting, since the pictures ostensibly of something else that the author found; still, it’s impressive to see a picture of an aetherite crow figurine of wondrous power, for example.

The book gives us two new special materials: aetherite and draconium. The former acts as a sort of undead alarm, presenting a bluish mist that drifts towards undead who come near deposits of aetherite. The latter material is highly volatile, and explodes under pressure.

Initially, I looked askance at these materials. Having an auto-undead detector seemed like too much, for instance, until I realized that this wasn’t really presenting anything that a 1st-level detect undead spell didn’t already do (and, in fact, does with better range anyway). Similarly, draconium seems like it could be unbalancing if the player’s start carrying it around as bombs, but they don’t deal enough damage in small doses, and larger ones are impractical to use like that anyway.

Following this are a dozen new magic items (the last of which is a minor artifact) all of which use one of these two new special materials. This lends a nice thematic element to the product that really tied it together. Of the magic items themselves, they were fairly useful, having things like a reusable sunrod that can also heat metal, two new figurines of wondrous power, and a bashing shield that lashes out with fire when used. There are also some pop-culture nods in here, which will either make you grin or roll your eyes (e.g. one of the magic items is called dead lights, for you Stephen King fans). It’s worth noting, however, that the devil’s bombard could probably use some tweaking now that Ultimate Combat is out.

The appendix reprints one spell from the previous Archives of Maere book that the minor artifact uses, and also presents a new cavalier order (see the Advanced Player’s Guide), one dedicated to fighting the undead, which is slightly surprising in that it’s the first time I’ve seen such an order. However, I frowned at their 15th-level ability, which chiefly lets them critical hit undead creatures…despite how, in Pathfinder, undead are subject to critical hits normally. A few points off for that.

Overall though, this installation in the Archives of Maere does fairly well for what it presents. The new materials are in-and-of themselves minor additions to the game, but the use of them in a dozen new items helps to boost their presence; it’s a smart move, and an interesting one as well. I’d personally make these very rare materials that are specific to a certain region of the game world, and I think they’d be a lot of fun that way.

Iron Nugget Fast Fantasy is a series of PDFs that includes a detailed background of an NPC, as well as 4 statblocks of the character at low, mid and high level. The series does not include images, one of its biggest flaws, but does include, long well written prose to give a character enough of a background to infiltrate a campaign.

Fast Fantasy 4 gives us a wizard, Erinor Calmisius. Wild Hunt Games does a good job of creating a purposeful wizard. There is nothing special in the backstory to lean him closer to a villain or a hero, so DMs are welcome to add what they wish for the purpose they need.

The Iron Word

Fast FAntasy products are great little supplements to have nearby for those times when PCs meet or kill an NPC you had not planned for.

Another "Fast Fantasy" NPC from Wild Hunt games. As before, it includes the character in Hero Lab format for easy/quick importing into the popular Hero Lab. Follow Pepin the lowly through his progression from level 1 to 20. It's called Fast Fantasy, but is more like cool fantasy. Ever wondered what a realistic build for a class might look like? Here it is, rogue style.

Very detailed. Written well. All characters should be fleshed out in this fashion.

Purchased this NPC as well as the free NPC 1. I actually found NPC 1 to have a more compelling background story, so given the cheap price, I decided to buy two of these as I believe the 1st was worth $2.00 itself.

In any event, my previous comments re: NPC 1 are applicable here as well. Another strong Wild Hunt product. Who are these guys anyway? Not much from them, but when they drop a product it's "top shelf".

Looking forward to more "NPC Packs" perhaps with a bit more flexibility as noted in my NPC 1 review.

Also, would be nice to be able to buy a few of these in a single "pack" where they have related backgrounds that I could use as primary and secondary characters in a plot line.

Keep up the good work and keep em coming!

As usual, Wild Hunt has come through with another innovative offering to better my roll playing experience. I really like the idea of well thought out, flexible NPC's to expedite game play while ensuring a quality story and roll playing opportunity.

My only feedback would be to add a couple of modified background stories to allow me to use this character multiple times in various games without worrying about tying the character to it's origins.

Other than that, well thought out and well executed.

Would have given 4 1/2 starts but that's not an option so I round up!

Sister Jocelyn...makes me only want to play good aligned characters, I certainly don't want to go up against her. So well thought over and fleshed out, she would be a bonus to any campaign, adventure or NPC party member. Wild Hunt's series of Fast Fantasy NPCs is off to a great start, what's next guys?

The backstory alone is worth using this, it is more involved than my own character, whom I have been playing for a year now. Next time I start a character, I may just have to use this as a sort of blueprint, so I have a good plan for the character.

This is an excellent 1st release from Wild Hunt Games and a great addition to the Pathfinder world. The spells are creative and unique, yet fair in respect to overall gameplay. I do agree with the 1st reviewer that a spell listing per school and/or per level index would have been a nice addition. Hopefully Wild Hunt will release an update?

In any event, this is a must have for any Pathfinder player and I look forward to more lore/knowledge from the land of Maere and more publications from Wild Hunt Games.

It’s funny to think about now, but I almost didn’t review this product because it didn’t have a cohesive theme (beyond the obvious one of “new spells”). A book with a central theme is one that’s easily reviewed – just examine how well it covers its main idea, and that’s the review. Does it ignore some central concepts? Does it only give sparse coverage to some interesting aspects? It’s easy to use questions such as these to develop a yardstick to judge a book by.

I couldn’t do that with Archives of Maere: Spells, however, because the spells presented in this book don’t have a central theme. Luckily, there was another commonality that I could focus on: these spells were all well done.

Having just over forty spells which appear on all spell lists and run the gamut from levels 0 through 9, Archives of Maere: Spells covers some impressive ground. I’ve often heard that it’s hard to come up with original spells, and that’s certainly true, but all of the ones here seemed innovative. For example, there were clear and concise effects for a spell that strengthened gravity, and another that weakened gravity. Some covered specific niches that existing spells had ignored before now (e.g. symbol of life, used to damage undead), while others were entirely new (e.g. phantom itch, where the target feels itchy all over). Some were combat spells (fiery scourge, creating a whip of flames) while others seemed almost comical in their application (intoxicate, which makes someone drunk). The only overarching theme here was the lack of a theme. It’s worth noting that I did spot the rare error in some spell descriptions – in the aforementioned spell to increase gravity, for example (in what seemed like a copy-and-paste error) decreased falling damage, the same as for the decrease gravity spell. Still, errors like these were very rare, and most of the spells were top-notch.

Of course, that doesn’t mean there aren’t I wished were different. For example, the pages all had very ornate borders that were centered at each corner, which was cool; however, the backgrounds of each page had very light grey faded images (too faded for me to be able to tell exactly what they were) that seemed to “splotch” against the white of the page. It was rather distracting, particularly when behind text. Moreover, there were no spell lists to easily breakdown what classes got what new spells at what levels. That’s an extra that would have been easily implemented here. Still, I can’t fault the book’s technical presentation too much, as it had full bookmarks and a hyperlinked table of contents.

Overall, I quite liked the new spells introduces in Archives of Maere. They presented a great grab-bag of new spells in virtually every regard. I do wish the book had presented a cleaner background, and class spell lists, but beyond that it did quite well for what it offered. If you’re looking to round out the spell selection in your Pathfinder game, take a trip to the Archives.