This pdf is 39 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page containing both SRD and Index. That leaves 35 pages of content.

Incantations kicks off with an introduction to the spirit world, explaining how spirit magic and incantations are neither truly divine nor arcane, how they represent a primal power that can be tapped via rituals by anyone who knows how to do so, but may exact a price. (2 pages) The first chapter describes Incantations from the general area of Vodou. It introduces the concepts of rado, petro and guede Loa which are not bluntly described as the traditional alignments but rather differences in the temperament of the more or less amoral Loa. We get 7 Rada Loa, 5 Petro Loa and 8 Guede Loa in this chapter. Apart from several nice incantations we also get a new disease in this chapter. My favorite incantation makes it possible to literally shed ones skin and temporarily become a incorporeal form, including attacks etc. (12 pages)

The second chapter details the so-called Middle World, inspired by Slavic mythology. We get 6 spirits and a sidebox with two great ideas spawned from mythology about spirits and 8 incantations. They have a completely different feeling from the first chapter and make EXCELLENT additions to e.g. a "Tales of the Old Margreve" or otherwise Slavic-inspired setting.(12 pages)

The final chapter details the Arcanum and its utterly alien, slightly Lovecraftian patrons from beyond the stars and contains 4 quite complex incantations as well as a sample lodge and 5 sample patrons.(9 pages)

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are top-notch, the pdf comes in full color and is a beauty to behold, complete with nice artwork and its own distinct style. However, it will test the mettle of your printer and a printer-friendly version would have been very much appreciated. With regards to the content, I can only say: WOW. I've always somehow disliked the fact that magic has become a more or less predictable commodity in RPGs and, while I always understood the necessity of predictable systems, this little file adds one stable of fantasy literature and mythology I always missed: The powerful, cool rituals and negotiations with other entities, the underdog non-caster somehow cursing his opponent. The wise woman beseeching the spirits of nature etc. - without being druids, mages etc., has too long been absent from our favorite systems and these incantations are not only expertly written, make great hooks for adventures and put the awe and unpredictability back into magic, they are also plain fun, creepy and/or cool to read. If this pdf does not inspire you to write an adventure, I don't know what will. The system is elegant, concise and should be included in the standard PFRPG-canon. My only two gripes are: I want a sequel, a whole book of incantations and I want a printer-friendly version. Content-wise, this is a straight 5-star-file, but be aware of the lack of a printer-friendly version. If that's a problem for you, subtract a star. My final verdict will be 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5.

This supplement introduces a new type pf nasty to the Pathfinder bestiary - seven different varieties of mosquitofolk, background, ecology, and lore (including defenses against them), and an adventure to subject your player characters to. The formatting is clean and well organized - the PDF is fully bookmarked and is in landscape format for easy viewing on screen. The artwork is somewhat simple and cartoonish, and the adventure map is very well done.

Beautifully written and illustrated, this primer on the fey and their kind is filled with lore and brimming with story ideas. The cover says Pathfinder, but there is practically zero system-specific material here - anyone could use it to enrich the lore of faerykind in the RPG of their preference.

This review was written by Thilo Graf and first published in GMS Magazine.

This pdf from Zombie Sky Press is 23 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1/3 page credits, ½ page SRD, leaving 21 1/6 pages of content, so let’s check out the fey!

The second instalment of ZSP’s Fey-line threads an unconventional terrain in its first instalment, offering us Red Jack, a tragic kitsune, i.e. a fox spirit who unjustly was murdered and clawed his way back from the dead to exact terrible vengeance on his tormentors. Infiltrating a village, the kitsune that one day would become dread Jack managed to marry and impregnate a girl and live will her as a human husband, only to be found out on his daughter’s birth and promptly be burnt alive. After transcending death and a vicious spree of rage he has now become the lord of his own demesne and convinced that there is one being worthy of his love and devotion: Lady Death, to whom he pledged his service. But before I go on to elaborate on Jack, let’s briefly discuss his demi-plane-like demesne, the semi-sentient Strngle Grove that can create deadly carnivorous plants along and e.g features a gallows-like grove of vines as well as the monument to death and revenge Jack made of his erstwhile wife, the major artifact murder stone.

Having once been a kitsune, Jack’s pdf also includes a lot of fox-related fey-like creatures, beginning with Kitsune, who get both their own stats as well as information on how to use them as a player race. The Kitsune get -4 Str, +2 Dex, +2 Cha, small, 40 ft. movement, low-light vision, are quadruped, get scent, a bite attack, can substitute the power of their tails for spell components, get an alternate form and can take fox magic feats, but more on them later.

Next up are the ghost foxes, Red Jack’s twisted kitsune, trapped somewhere in between life and death. Ghost foxes come with their own one page +2CR template to enable you to create your own. Formatting-wise there’s a rather strange decision, though: The template separates the entry of the pipe-fox into two parts, making this particular statblock harder to read than it necessarily should be.

Wait, wait, wait…pipe-foxes? Yep, the iconic secret-mongers are represented in here as well and even get 2 statblocks, one CR 2 and a CR 13.

Red Jack’s daughter, the one link that makes the difference between the contemplative, calculating schemer and the bestial, red-hot angry killer he was after his transcendence, also gets her own fluff-section and artwork, though her stats will have to wait for a future publication.

Red Jack’s primary statblock is a dread beauty to behold: CR 27 and deadly beyond belief. Even his bloodthirsty alternate statblock (when losing the connection to Ren), at CR 23 still will challenge all but the most powerful of groups. Befitting a creature of its power, the quasi-undead kitsune fey-lord of course has a unique weapon, an oversized starball called death bloom, which makes both for a cool signature weapon and an awesome major artefact.

3 new fey subtypes are introduced, the kitsune, the quiddity and the yokai, making for more diversity in your home game. Especially the quiddity is a very, very cool concept.

9 Fox magic feats are presented to enhance the flair of the kitsune and related creatures, their availability depending on the level of the respective foxes via the count of their tails. From the ability to create extra-dimensional spaces, enhancing attacks, summoning foxfire (ranged fire/electricity touch attack sans save) to changing planes and creating illusory duplicates.

The Kitsune’s star balls are also given their paragraph of information and a new spell deals with a convergence of these items with other wondrous items. Finally, there is something I greatly enjoyed and that is a new incantation for Kitsune to leave their bodies and possess them.

Conclusion:

The pdf comes in two versions, one b/w printer-friendly version and one gorgeous full-color version that will test the mettle of any color-printer. Layout in the full color version is just ravishingly beautiful, blue background and fine lines complement the stunning artworks that can be seen in most ZSP-books. The numerous illustrations just rock and both fluff and crunch are top quality. Editing is also top-notch, I didn’t notice a single mistake. The full-color version comes with full bookmarks, the b/w-version has none. Which brings me to the one weak point of this pdf, the formatting: The bookmarks are littered with unnecessary typos: there are 7 blank spaces in the middle of words too much and 2 closing brackets are missing. Furthermore, the last lines of the incantation seem to be in another font as the rest of the file. While these are only cosmetic blemishes, they did upset me a bit due to them being a) unnecessary and b) tarnishing an otherwise excellent book. On the content-side, I’m not entirely convinced whether the shape-changing Kitsune really should be a player race, alternate shape often being something I’m rather wary of, as is being quadruped or not bipedal. For those of you who always wanted to play a kitsune, this book has a lot to offer and DMs will cackle with glee at the sight of this malevolent, yet very striking take on a completely different kind of fey lord. My final verdict will be 4.5 stars, rounded down for the purpose of this platform.

Endzeitgeist out.

Source: GMS Magazine (http://s.tt/12RYK)

This free offering yb the fellows of Zombie Sky Press is 8 pages long, 2 pages of which are devoted to advertisements, ½ page SRD and 1/3 page credits, leaving 5 1/6 pages of free content, so let’s check them out!

The first thing you’ll probably notice is the great Falling Leaves-comic by Ashton Sperry, which made me laugh. The Tattlebox as an item itself (rather as a major artifact) gets its full stats and makes for an interesting, albeit dangerous tool. Nice idea!

There is an extended discussion on how to split the party without boring the players and why it is actually a good idea. Or at least how you can enhance you game with this technique. While the column did not offer explicit new information for me, it did remind me of some basics I haven’t consciously thought about in quite a while.

The Marketplace of the file offers you a fine selection of new weapons – from the light ballista, the chain-whip and the heavy meteor hammer to the war fork we get neat selection of martial toys to crush our enemies. Or cut or pierce them. 6 weapon features for them are included and usually offer up to a +2 bonus on specific actions. Nice!

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn’t notice any glitches. Layout is clean, writing is concise and the material is balanced, cool, helpful and best of all: FREE. The good kind of free, the high quality, almost KQ-level quality, but FREE. 0 bucks. You have no reason not to pick this up, it’s a great pdf and my final verdict is 5 out of 5 stars and the Endzeitgeist seal of approval. Go check this out!

I should admit straight-up that I was a bit biased in regards to this product. As a student of Japanese culture, I was naturally intrigued when the Prelude to the Faerie Ring products noted that kitsune and yokai were among the fey it’d be covering. And when the next in that series, Along the Twisting Way #2: Red Jack, came out, that turned into full-blown eagerness. But what sort of presentation did the book make? Let’s find out.

Two-dozen pages in length, Along the Twisting Way #2 makes a strong showing of itself in terms of technical presentation. Presented with full, nested bookmarks and with the copy-and-paste on, the book hits all of the high-water marks. Much more notable, however, is the imagery. Presented on a light bluish background, the book only had four illustrations, but they were spectacular. I say this even with one of those being the cover illustration again, and another being reused from Along the Twisting Way Prelude. Julie Dillon’s artwork is just that vibrant.

Turning to the book itself, I was surprised by just how much Zombie Sky Press was able to squeeze into twenty-four pages. The book opens with Red Jack’s background and current sketch, before talking about his domain (with a sidebar noting its planar traits) and its major features (which also has a sidebar on a new major artifact, the Murder Stone).

Following this is an unexpectedly lengthy discussion about kitsune, and some subtypes of kitsune, before talking about Red Jack’s daughter, Ren. At this point we’re just over halfway through the book and it’s been almost entirely flavor text with little in the way of game stats. While I’m usually a bit of a curmudgeon about that, here I confess that I was captivated by the writing. There’s a style in this book that seems to suggest that it’s presenting only a piece of a larger whole, but feels no need to give additional details (though in several places it does make reference to where further information may be found).

It also helps that the second half of the book (noted as appendices I and II) is where the game stats come out in full force. In appendix one we get the stat block for Red Jack, who is a walloping CR 27, making him one of the highest-CR’d creatures for the Pathfinder RPG to date (notwithstanding v.3.5 material).

Following this is a sidebar discussing how fey lords of Jack’s type have a singular item, a memento mori, that gives them greater power. After this is the stat block for Red Jack if his memento mori is lost or destroyed, busting him down to CR 23. This part of the book made me frown a bit, simply because the jump from CR 27 to 23 is comparatively small, as are the tweaks to his stat block that make up this drop in power. While I can certainly understand the utility of having fully-formed stat blocks for each version of Jack, I wonder if it wouldn’t have been more economical to just list the changes made if his memento mori is lost (or have his power be reduced to a point where an alternate stat block was more necessary, like CR 21), since there was a lot of repeated text. Of course, this is a PDF, so space isn’t really a concern anyway.

After a listing for Jack’s personal major artifact (something to which I tip my hat to the author; it’s been too long since writers remembered that unique, powerful individuals should have unique, powerful artifacts) we move on to stats for kitsune.

The three types of kitsune – the normal kitsune, the ghost fox, and the pipe fox – are all presented here. Except, not really. Rather, we’re given a ghost fox NPC (since ghost fox is a kitsune-specific template given immediately after this), a kitsune NPC (since they’re a playable race), and generic stats for the pipe fox (which, to my delight, can be taken as improved familiars) and their elder variant. A sidebar discussing several new subtypes that kitsune have closes out appendix one.

Appendix two is PC-related information, in regards to the kitsune. After basic PC race stats (which include the method whereby the gain more tails), we’re presented with a series of feats that allow for different uses of fox magic. I liked this section, but it was too short by half (and it noted that these weren’t all the fox magic that there were); mostly absent were fox magic feats designed for having multiple tails (that is, being higher level). Hopefully there’ll be more in a future supplement of web enhancement.

Some discussion is given to a uniquely kitsune magic item, the star ball. It’s interesting that the star ball is designed to allow kitsune (which in their natural form have no opposable thumbs) to utilize magic items they otherwise couldn’t, since they can imbue their star ball with those items (using a new spell presented here). However, the basic construction information for how a star ball is made wasn’t presented here. A minor oversight, to be sure, but it would have been useful. The book closes out with an incantation that allows a kitsune to, upon a success, possess someone for a short while (something I’d keep out of the hands of a PC, even despite its built-in limitations).

Overall though, I greatly enjoyed this product. The references to Japanese mythology alone (particularly the story of Tamamo-no-Mae, which the author acknowledges and gives a surprising twist on) were enough to win me over. But even had they not been, the engaging writing and excellent new mechanics would have. Red Jack is a powerful foe who has long arms thanks to those kitsune who serve him, and with his wily daughter out there, there’s a built-in campaign waiting to happen, especially if you have PCs who want to play a kitsune.

The only real complaint I have about the book was that it was much too short. The section on new material for PCs could easily have been twice as long (more fox magic feats, stats for human-kitsune children, etc). And though I thought Red Jack’s two forms could have used more distinction, the character himself was truly epic (pun intended). If you’re looking for a method to add fey foxes to your game, look no further. The Faerie Ring: Along the Twisting Way #2 – Red Jack gives you a fox-faced foe you won’t soon forget, and all that he en-tails.

The work opens with a sad tale of a fox who so loved a human being that he learned to shift into human form... but everything ended tragically, and a spirit of pure vengeance was born. Thus did Red Jack come into being, a fey being that brings death, and fills children's ears with tales of terror.

A backstory rich and strange, portraying Red Jack to the full, equips you with the groundwork to weave his presence into your campaign world, replete with the myths and legends associated with his name and deeds. His magical demesne is also detailed, perhaps your characters come across it in their travels, and enter unawares. Or, having heard the tales, or even encountered those on whom his vengeance has fallen, seek it out deliberately. Chief amongst its dangers is a major artefact, the Murder Stone. Created at the culmination of Red Jack's vengeance, it is death to merely touch the thing... but can also confer knowledge to those courageous enough to try and lucky enough to survive.

Three groups of fey creatures, all fox-related, come next: the kitsune (or gloom fox), the ghost fox and the pipe fox. Plenty of details are provided for incorporating them into your game, even - should you so wish - as player-characters. They are quite fascinating, not necessarily evil but by no means good either, often damaged psychologically with... interesting results. Magical, fascinating, there are many reasons why your characters might want to seek one out, and you have all the tools to make them come to life when that happens.

Finally, there's another major character, one bound up in Red Jack's tragic story, for she is his long-lost daughter. She too could be an interesting, if dangerous, acquaitance for your characters - a passing person of interest or a pivotal individual in an adventure or whole campaign. The book winds up with detailed stat blocks for all individuals and races described herein.

There's a lot of potential here, if you like the mystical aspect that including the fey in your game can bring. It's ambiguous, no evil to fight or good to aid, each fey seems to be a bit of both. Whilst ideas a-plenty may spawn as you read through, there is nothing that you can just pick up and run; but if you like the concepts, there is plenty to make use of as you craft your own stories.

I’ve said before that the fey have lost virtually all of their mystique in Pathfinder; a holdover from their D&D roots. This is partially due to many features that were considered “fey” in folklore having been poached by other creature types, and partially due to the fact that such mysterious creatures suffer from being so rigidly defined by game terminology. But really, the biggest reason the fey are so inconsequential (and have lost most of their thematic identity) is simply because they’ve been ignored.

Compare this to, say, demons and devils in the game. There are entire books devoted specifically to those particular creatures. They get an entire plane of existence devoted to them; various locales endlessly detailed and many different rulers examined deeply. We have an excellent sense of who demons and devils ARE as creatures, and that gets built on accordingly.

The fey have never had that, and so Zombie Sky Press has taken it upon themselves to correct this oversight in their new series The Faerie Ring. It begins in the first book, Along the Twisting Way.

First, let’s examine the file itself. Along the Twisting Way is a fourteen page PDF, which despite its brevity has full bookmarks (something I was thankful for). Copy-and-past is fully enabled. Likewise, the book is resplendent with artwork. The pages themselves are colord a bluish-gray, and given a light but intricate border on all sides. That alone would make it pleasant to view, but beyond this are the various full color pieces sprinkled throughout, which depict various fey denizens. It’s truly impressive what these artists have wrought, and I look forward to seeing these creatures detailed in later volumes.

The book opens with a foreword from Jeff Grubb, which I was impressed by – I’ve been seeing his name in D&D books ever since I started playing the game. Jeff goes over the history of the fey down through our own mythology, and then transitions to their place in the D&D game, or rather, their lack of a coherent place in the (Great Wheel) D&D mythos, before telling us how now we’re finally giving the fey a place of prominence in that same arena, and bidding us to read on…

Following this, the book’s authors speak to us directly, telling us what their goals are and what this project is supposed to be. Namely, they want to give the fey the same depth and definition that demons got over the course of James Jacob’s Demonomicon series (for those who don’t know, this was a series of article in the now-defunct Dragon magazine, with each article detailing a particular demon lord in great detail – giving us their history, goals, stat block, servitors (oftentimes with new monsters), a prestige class for their mortal servants, and realm, among other things). To that end, this series will apparently take a similar tack, showcasing powerful fey rulers to use them as a way of presenting the fey as a whole.

Of course, the author does acknowledge that the fey need some background first. It’s in that spirit that the book moves on to its next section, which is written in-character from a fey scholar corresponding with a mortal counterpart on the nature of the fey themselves.

This part begins by discussing the planar cosmology of the multiverse in relation to the fey. The Outer and Inner Planes are touched upon only briefly, with the Material Plane given greater attention. It’s when we come to the Transitive Planes, however, that things start to get interesting. The author here catalogs the Transitive Planes as merely a sub-grouping of several planes from the much more diverse Preternatural Planes.

The Preternatural Planes are a complex series of planes that share some sort of relationship with the Material Plane (indeed, it’s hinted at that the Material Plane itself may be one of the Preternatural Planes). Like the Inner and Outer Planes, the Preternatural Planes are of a theme, but that theme isn’t alignment or energy, bur their theme is much more subtle and defies easy classification. It’s here that the Plane of Dreams, Sheol, and similar planes of existence fall that aren’t Outer or Inner Planes.

Several specific Preternatural Planes are discussed, but most get no more than a paragraph, and certainly no listing of planar traits is given for any of them. Still, I did appreciate the sidebar discussing why it was necessary from a design standpoint to create multiple new planes of existence (which I think was a gutsy move, and certainly a brilliant one; it’s been a long time since the concept of D&D’s planar structure was so heavily expanded without just reinventing it altogether).

The author then turns his attention to the fey themselves, talking about their uncertain origins and their characteristics. This latter point is a bit of a tightrope walk; the previous section reinforces that fey don’t operate according to mortal standpoints of ethics and morals, drawing an interesting parallel between them and the beings of the Lovecraft Mythos in terms of understanding how they think. I’m not sure how well the in-character description here does, but it’s still a great idea that deserves more exploration.

A bit on fey anatomy is given before the writer begins to talk about various sub-types of fey. Again devoid of game stats, this goes over sub-categories of fey creatures in terms of their general themes. Yokai, for instance, are those fey with a strong connection to nature, the devata are spirit guardians, the peri are fey with a connection to the Outer Planes, etc. There’s quite a few terms here, and I was glad to see that the book works so hard to expand fey beyond their Celtic-Germanic origins (something that was also mentioned upfront in the initial section of the book).

The final section of the book talks about the hierarchy among the fey, which is really an premise to lay down some basic information about the fey lords we’ll be seeing in future volumes. We’re told how fey lords come to be, the relationship they have with their demesnes, their servitors and heralds, and strange quasi-lords known as quiddities.

There’s no reference of game mechanics here either, save for a single sidebar that talks about how the fey lords will have Challenge Ratings either at 20 or just below it. It makes a pre-emptive attempt to justify these comparatively lower CR’s (compared to, say, demon lords) on a two-fold front: the in-game reason is that all fey lords can draw on extra power, thus possessing a second form that’s epic-level. The metagame reason for this is because Pathfinder’s epic-level rules haven’t been released yet, and once they are Zombie Sky will details these epic-level fey lords.

I personally found this sidebar to be somewhat disingenuous, simply because the metagame reason for keeping the fey lords’ CRs so (comparatively) low seemed flimsy. Pathfinder has already had epic-level monsters printed for it (albeit a small handful), and even looking back at the Demonomicon series for 3.5, it didn’t use any material from the Epic Level Handbook for the demon lords’ stats. Just advance their Hit Dice and give them some truly impressive, original special powers, and you can easily make a CR 20+ creature for your Pathfinder game.

That aside, Along the Twisting Way is a great prelude for what to expect in further volumes of The Faerie Ring. It lays down an impressive set of goals, but also presents the foundational elements necessary to meet them. In fact, this is the book’s only weakness; it sets goals that will be met in later volumes, making this one feel somewhat incomplete. That can’t be helped, of course – this book is the introduction to the series, but it’s still a weakness of the book as a stand-alone product (which is how it’s for sale). Still, it presents a rich tapestry, and makes for a very exciting picture of what we’ll be presented with soon. Pick up Along the Twisting Way and begin down the path that’ll lead you to the fey like you’ve never seen them!

This sumptuous visual treat opens with a Foreword by Jeff Grubb, in which he reviews the development of the legend that is the fey through history... after all, they were part of common consciousness and culture long before role-playing games came along! Over time, even in tales, they have been deminished from strange and capricious beings that must be propitiated to 'fairies' with insect wings that look cute: now it's time to regain their original role - more powerful than humans, less than gods but arrogant enough for a pantheon-full, determined to have their own way without regard for anyone else.

Next comes In Defence of the Fey, a look at why fey have so far been under represented in role-playing games and the sort of obstacles that writing good material about them face (the reasons why fey don't feature quite as much as the authors think they ought to, of course!). Challenges include deciding just who the fey are, what motivates them and what purposes and objectives they have, what history do they have and why are so few tales of fey from other than mediaeval Europe drawn upon when creating in-game fey? All good questions and ones that need to be answered by anyone embarking on a project with the scope of The Faerie Ring product line. Finding those answers give a fascinating insight into the ongoing design process driving the project. One key point is that fey thought processes are completely different from anyone else's, hence their reputation for being capricious and cruel... to a fey, what they do makes perfect sense, it's just that the rest of us cannot understand their reasoning. The section ends with an outline of the intentions of The Faerie Ring, in the main a sourcebook but also a mini-setting, one which - if you choose - can be interwoven with the game world you are already using, adding the extra dimension that is the fey.

The final section is The Realms of the Fey: An Introduction. Beginning with cosmology, this sweeps through the planes of existence to the home of the fey, the preternatural planes which weave around and through the material plane in dizzying arcs. Just what is going on, even scholars disagree. A sidebar gives the design reasons for having the preternatural planes: they're places in which literally anything can happen. If you want a given wierd effect, you can designate a preternatural plane on which said effect is the norm. Just like the 'otherworlds' the fey of legend inhabit.

The discussion moves on to the fey themselves, considering some of the questions raised earlier like the origins of the fey and their underlying philosophies. Intriguingly, much of this entire section is written from the viewpoint of a fey scholar, seeking to explain his kind to the curious. Varied in their opinions and approaches, fey also come from a wide range of habitats, and exhibit a variety of anatomy and physiology (assuming you get one to stay still long enough for a detailed examination, that is). Some of the more common types are discussed, however, as well as some idea of the hierarchies of power in which they exist.

And that's it, sufficient to tantalise, to make even the most jaded faerie-hater to want to discover more. The rest of the series has a lot to live up to. A word of warning, despite glorious appearance that still lets the words take pride of place, this is one to read on screen - both the landscape presentation and sheer amount of colour means that printing would be impractical. It's lovely to look at, though!

'There's no such thing as too many monsters' states the introduction, and when they come as well-presented as this one, it's hard to argue with that. Launching a series of monster books, this product looks at the mosquitofolk - who apparently would be quite nice if they didn't have this unquenchable thirst for blood. In the past, they had a burgeoning civilisation but this now lies in ruins as all they can think about is satisfying their addiction. It's not clear how they came to such a state, but it appears to be through the manipulations of their own leadership caste, the woundmages.

Reading on, we learn of their appearance and lifecycle, and the way in which their society is organised. Nowadays it is focussed solely on acquiring blood and controlling slaves - whose main purpose is to provide a blood supply rather than labour or other services. Even their language, once rich with poetry and literature, has degenerated to little more than communication on the capture of living targets.

Next come stat blocks on actual mosquitoes - giant ones, of course, and the feared swarm. One is a pest, but a whole swarm of them? These may be encountered as pets of the mosquitofolk or just as regular inhabitants of, well, the sort of places likes swamps and jungles in which you would expect to find mosquitoes. Finally, the dread mosquitofolk themselves appear. They are roughly humanoid in shape, but more like a giant upright mosquito with an insect head and wings, and that annoying buzz only louder. There's also the undead variant, the hollow, which is created deliberately by the woundmages from fallen mosquitofolk - cursed still with a desire for blood but unable to use what it collects. Most go mad. Being insects, there are also several varieties of mosquitofolk, specialised for different tasks, all honed to perfection to gather blood in their own way. Each, naturally, comes with its own special abilities and notes on their behaviour in combat.

Next comes encounter information - typical raiding parties you might be unlucky enough to meet in the jungle, as well as the gathered wisdom of how best to defend against them. Natives have developed several herbal concoctions, most of which work by making your blood unpalatable to the mosquitofolk. There's also a mini-adventure - set-up and encounter - which you can use when the characters stray into suitable territory in their travels. This includes a fully-detailed mosquitofolk lair, complete with map. Rather cleverly, three scenarios - depending on the level of the party - are provided, enabling you to pick the most suitable one when the opportunity arises. The book ends with an unlabelled player map of the lair and a world map.

This is an excellent example of how to present a new monster - replete with background detail that enables you to embed them into your campaign world, and with a detailed lair designed to accommodate adventure at several levels depending on the strength of the party you have at the time.

I really expected a lot more from this. While I usually prefer well written background information to generic optional rules, the writers have gone too far with a good thing here. Though it's well written, it's seriously lacking in real substance. The presented incantations cover only a few very specific situations, and in most cases, you're probably still left with designing incantations by yourself, without getting any useful help. It's really just the basic incantation system from the 3.5e SRD with a couple of additional sample incantations.

I was quite tickled when I saw that Zombie Sky Press had released a second book about incantations for the Pathfinder RPG. As you may recall, I quite enjoyed their first foray into this topic, and so I eagerly dove into the second. After having finished their latest book, Incantations in Theory and Practice, I found that I wasn’t as thrilled by it as I was their debut product. Let’s take a closer look and see why.

Incantations in Theory and Practice is a short PDF. Only nine pages long, it devotes roughly a page-and-a-half to its cover, credits, and the OGL. I was pleasantly surprised to find that despite the book’s brevity, it has bookmarks to every section and subsection, a nice touch there. The book’s only illustration is the cover image of an exotic-looking person playing an instrument while ghostly creatures swirl around him. However, there’s more to the book’s visual design than just the cover, since each page is set on a parchment-colored background.

But what of the actual contents of the book itself? Well, the title does a pretty good job explaining exactly what you’ll find here. The book is basically a combination of primer and re-write for the incantation rules in the Pathfinder RPG. This does mean, unfortunately, that some of what you find here is reprinted from the original incantation rules in Unearthed Arcana, which was a shame, albeit an inevitable one.

Of course, the book’s new material is quite helpful also. For example, there’s a large table on modifiers to an incantations final DC. Similarly, sidebars are peppered throughout the book covering topics such as what incantations are (using the idea that they can be any esoteric practice, and not just magic).

The most notable new rules are two brief sections on lesser incantations and opposed checks. I’m a bit torn on these because while they were elegantly handled, their design philosophy was so similar to what’s already there that it didn’t feel very innovative to me. For example, incantations are normally modeled on spells of levels 6 through 9; lesser incantations are just incantations of spell levels 1 through 5. Opposed checks use the same formula for DCs, just with the modifiers added to the opponent’s check result. Neither are anything that really shakes things up.

The book ends with three new incantations. These showcase the aforementioned new rules, since one of them is a lesser incantation, and the other uses an opposed check. They’re fairly original, but I’d honestly hoped for more than only three, given that a substantial portion of what came before was tweaked and reprinted rules. This section should have been larger.

Ultimately, Incantations in Theory and Practice is a good book; it’s just a revised set of rules you’re probably already familiar with if you’re inclined towards incantations. Yes, this is a Pathfinder-specific update, and yes, there is new material here…I just wish there was more of the latter.

One of the biggest complaints I’ve often heard about magic in Pathfinder (and its direct predecessors) is in reference to its distinctly “vancian” nature. That is, spells are cast using the fire-and-forget system, where they’re prepared ahead of time and then lost once cast – and only by people who have devoted themselves to studying how magic works, at that. This eliminates a lot of classical depictions of how magic operates.

Incantations, when they were introduced, fixed a lot of that. Here was a magic system that anyone could use, that didn’t need to be prepared ahead of time, and that was inherently dangerous. It was one of the best sets of optional rules, and once it was released…it was completely forgotten about. It was amazing to see how, for all the flavorful potential incantations had, they were near-totally ignored. Luckily, Zombie Sky Press has stepped in to fill the void with their highly-evocative debut book Incantations from the Other Side: Spirit Magic.

All too short, Incantations from the Other Side is a thirty-nine page PDF. Despite being a new publisher, Zombie Sky Press hits the bulk of the high points with the technical construction of the book. For example, there are bookmarks here, going to the introduction, each of the book’s three major sections, and the index. This is good, though I found myself wishing that there had been nested sub-bookmarks for each section of the book (e.g. to the various incantations, sidebars, etc). That’s not really necessary, but it’s one of those little things that helps go the extra mile.

In regards to the book’s illustrations, the artwork here was impressive for not only its quality, but in how well it complemented the subject matter. This is most obvious in the color illustrations, which are done in subtle, somber tones and in a style that reminds me a lot of Picasso’s work (though I’m no art connoisseur, so take that with a grain of salt). Given how the forms of magic here are described as being rustic and/or alien, these pictures work very well to evoke that feeling. My only complaint was how the largest pictures, which usually accompany the start of a new section, are often broken over two pages, which interrupts them somewhat. Beyond those, there are several black and white illustrations, most of which are arcane diagrams spread around some of the incantations, helping to reinforce the ritual aspect of these spells.

The book opens with a short introduction to the idea of spirit magic. Before going any further, it should be made clear exactly what the book means by that particular term. Spirit magic – manifested in the game by the use of incantations – is where you’re using magic to bargain, entreat, or otherwise communicate with a powerful entity that’s not of the mortal world. The book’s introduction does explain the spirit world a bit, mostly in the context of it being a distorted reflection of our world, which cannot be reached by mortals and vice versa. Hence, spirit magic is the only way to interact with spirits.

The first section of the book deals with vodou (aka voodoo). This section also has an introduction, mostly to discuss the particulars of vodou spirits, known as the loa, so as to grant a better feel for how they’re portrayed. Only after this are the incantations, largely centered around themes of possession and necromancy (such as creating a “zombie” or allowing a loa to possess you so it can be questioned). A common theme throughout the book is also front and center here – that the incantations themselves are tied to specific spirits, whether as individuals or in groups. The loa in this chapter are divided into three groups (each getting their own sidebar; where the members of it given short descriptions), each of which has several members; the various incantations are only meant to be used with a specific group, and each member of that group has dominion over a certain portfolio, and affects the incantation slightly differently – in fact, you often can’t perform an incantation to a certain spirit without undertaking other, special preparations first. It is, needless to say, a small but excellent mechanic for tying the new incantations to particular spirits, giving them all their own flavor.

The second section is called the Middle World, and deals with the spirits of Slavic mythology and folk tales. It opens by describing about a half-dozen such spirits in detail (moreso than the myriad spirits of the vodou section), including how they should be called prior to performing an incantation – you can do one without first calling the proper spirit, but that’s a great way to anger it. Unlike the vodou incantations, these have a much more down-to-earth feel, very reminiscent of folk lore. For example, one ritual makes it so another person cannot live without you – literally, as they can’t breathe when not in your presence. Another, based on the idea that everyone has an animal that shares their soul, allows you to find your animal and permanently bond with it. As with the vodou incantations, only certain spirits can perform certain incantations.

Now, it should be obvious at this point that I quite enjoyed this book, but it was the last section that really did it for me. The last chapter, titled The Arcanum, is in regards to the Lovecraftian spirits of the dark, unknowable areas of the spirit world. The title is in reference to the singular term often used to collectively group the secret societies that spring up around worshipping/communicating with these entities. This chapter describes the fewest spirits, only five, but discusses how each has “masteries,” areas of dominion where they wield power greater than any mortal. Similar to the preceding sections, contacting these alien creatures requires prerequisites, but in this case it’s a prerequisite incantations to initiate contact with them in the first place. This initial incantation alone has other possible uses (once contact has been established), which made it very cool and drove home the imagery of a cult trying to make for greater contact with their otherworldly patron. The other incantations are an eclectic variety of things, from imbuing yourself with some of your benefactor’s power (which applies a new template, included here), to turning a person into the cult’s puppet, ensnared beyond even death’s ability to release them.

My biggest complaint about Incantations from the Other Side is that it left me wanting more. Each of these chapters could easily have been much longer, filled out with more spirits and more incantations, as what is here fires the imagination. Beyond that, the only thing I didn’t like is that some of these incantations seemed like altered versions of existing spells – Behold the Epithelius Mirror, for example, is a twisted version of the clone spell. Now, I know that a lot of incantations were originally basic spells in ritualized form, but these are so much cooler when they’re doing things that normal spells can’t do. Having said that, this particular issue didn’t come up very often, so it’s a minor point.

In all other ways, this book is what every RPG designer hopes their sourcebook will be: inspirational. Just reading it made me think of all sorts of adventure possibilities, both in a standard Pathfinder game and for settings where magic works differently. This book will definitely stir up new ideas and directions for your campaign, all the things that are in the spirit of good gaming.