Making good use of concepts and information presented in the Paizo book Mythic Adventures, this brief work crams a lot in - not just the titular Mythic Glabrezu (a thoroughly nasty character), but a collection of mythic abilities suitable for a range of evil and demonic creatures and even a discussion of summoning rituals including two worked out in full.

Whilst the glabrezu is an unpleasant creature to have around, evilly-disposed individuals are tempted to summon them because they can grant virtually any desire the summoner might have. Being evil, however, the glabrezu does its utmost to maximise the damage it does in the process. They are nasty enough in their normal form, but mythic ones are worse... the regular sort delight in turning the summoner's desires back on himself, whilst a mythic glabrezu prefers to spread its malice far and wide, causing suffering to as many people as possible. They are sneaky as well, once loosed on the world, they slink around in disguise seeking to sucker the unwary to make use of their wish-fulfilling services... and only later allowing them to discover the cost.

A selection of mythic abilities follow, which you may apply to any suitable creature. The one I like (if that's the word...) is Demonic Possession, which gives the creature the ability to take over, possess, another living being in a manner akin to a magic jar spell, only the living being serves as the 'jar' - and, horrifically, remains fully awake of what the demon gets up to when in control of his body! Ugh, but great potential for plot development.

The final part deals with summoning rituals. Mythic demons require specialised spellcasting and ritual to make them appear and (more importantly, at least from the summoner's standpoint) to bind them. Both researching and then performing the ritual involves time, expense and several skill checks... get just one thing wrong and potentially you have a demon on the loose! The material here gives an indication of how to devise such a ritual - both in terms of flavour and game mechanics - and two sample rituals (including one to summon a mythic glabrezu) are given.

It's amazing just how much has been crammed into a few pages, and it's all good stuff. Just the thing for those budding demonology hackers in your campaign world!

Herein are presented three variant froghemoths. Now, you may find the original Pathfinder Bestiary froghemoth a bit bizarre, both in appearance and behaviour, but if you find them of interest these variations fit in rather nicely, being just as weird in their own ways.

First up is the arctic froghemoth, with chilly breath and barbed harpoons on the end of its tentacles. They are ambush predators and although they seem well-adapted to their frozen environment still never seem completely at ease there.

Then we have the volcanic froghemoth, which makes its home anyplace warm: its name stems from its high body heat and ability to spit flame - although from the sound of it they would probably enjoy an active volcano. As most adventurers steer clear of such places, you may choose to put them elsewhere. This is facilitated by the fact that they are not ambush predators but much more active in search of their prey.

Finally comes the deep froghemoth. This gargantuan creature dwells underground and is covered in a thick acidic slime. It also has a symbiotic relationship with a rather nasty fungus (which apparently does not mind acidic slime!), and spreads its unpleasant spores around with gay abandon.

Ever since froghemoths were first recorded, there has been speculation about their origins. These variations suggest that an extra-planetary or extra-planar origin may indeed be likely, and that their grumpy nature stems from being trapped somewhere, to them, unpleasantly alien! Whether they have descended and diversified from a single group transported to your campaign world, or are unlucky enough to pop through from someplace else on a regular basis is up to you, as is their point of origin and any possibility for adventurers to make the reverse trip!

Originally published at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2013/09/25/tabletop-review-exotic-encounters-mummies-pathfinder/

Exotic Encounters: Mummies Publisher: Necromancers of the Northwest Cost: 99 Cents Page Count: 9 Release Date: 09/20/2013 Get it Here: DriveThruRPG.com

Long time readers knows I’m a huge proponent of mummies and that I feel they are an exceptionally hard type of undead to get right – especially in a fantasy RPG or in video games. In both cases one of the only times I’ve seen it done right is with the Ravenloft campaign setting for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition where an entire island was devoted to Egyptian culture and folklore and so the mummy was used wonderfully. Stone Prophet remains one of my favorite SSI video games and Ankhtepot one of my favorite D&D big bads. Unfortunately that’s one of the only times I’ve seen mummies done right for a fantasy RPG. Sure, horror games like Call of Cthulhu, and Chill have used them masterfully and White Wolf of course has done a full fledged Mummy based RPG not once, but FOUR different times, with each one being exceptional, but fantasy? Nope – they just have a hard time making mummies work in a world filled with paladins, rust monsters, beholders and more.

I don’t think any system has even done mummies worse than Pathfinder though. This is mainly due to the OGL which lets anyone write a piece on mummies and publish it. The end result is a lot of third rate third parties releases that water down the product. It doesn’t help that Paizo‘s core mummy from the Pathfinder Bestiary was terribly done either. Case in point: Monster Focus: Mummies was one of many mummy supplements for Pathfinder that have come out, and at best I could say it was mediocre and inoffensive. So when Necromancers of the Northwest announced their Mummy version of Exotic Encounters, I was both hopeful and skeptical. Unfortunately, while a huge step up from Monster Focus: Mummies and even Paizo’s take on the mummy, what’s here still isn’t very good.

Let’s talk page count first. When you see in the header that there are nine pages for this supplement, you’re probably expecting a lot of content, stat builds and the maybe some DM tips on how to run a mummy, right? Well, wrong. There are only THREE page of content – all of which are merely stat builds. So what are the other pages? A very blurry front cover, a back cover that is equally blurry, a credits page, an introduction with the same exact verbiage as on the back cover, and two pages for the OGL. That’s…really sad when you think about it.

So what do you get for your buck? Three mummy variants – two of which are good in theory but poor in follow through and one that outright sucks. The first is the Relic-Bound Mummy, which is a mummy who exists to guard a treasure throughout eternity. If you steal, break or otherwise mishandle the treasure, it comes after you with a vengeance. It’s also able to come back from complete destruction – each time more powerful than the last. This is the best of the mummies, but it feels incomplete. For example, any antagonist that comes back more powerful each time you kill it, should have some sort of fear aura or terror check after you realize that even after your burned it into ashes, it comes back up and is simply more determined to cause a TPK. As well, the CR and stats seem a bit low for the concept. I also HATED that the Mummy is listed as Lawful Evil, when by the description for the creature and why it exists clearly makes it a Lawful Neutral creature. Honestly, being undead doesn’t make something automatically evil. Especially with mummies. What’s here is a good idea as a rough draft, but it really needed to be fleshed out and retooled substantially before considered a final release stat block.

The second mummy is a “Curse Lord Mummy” who has an aura that acts as a constant “Bestow Curse” spell and also has the ability to have “Dire Curses.” This plays in well with the “Mummy’s Curse” motif, but I feel the dire curses are far too weak for what they are supposed to do. The DCs are too low and the effects are too easy to get out of. Once again we also see a creature described as a protector and guardian…given a Lawful Evil alignment. That’s just sloppy. Lawful neutral is once again the way to go with the description, but the writers just fell into the “Undead equals evil” trope and the piece suffers for that.

Finally we have a “Possessed Mummy” who isn’t a mummy at all, but rather a corpse possessed by a negative plane based being. That’s just lazy, especially when there are so many other things we could have seen. Why not do a mummy who is a priest of Ra and thus suffers none of the usual undead issues against fire, sunlight and even turning. What do players do when the Mummy laughs in the face of your cleric and says, “Not only is my faith stronger than yours, but my God is far older?” That’s a potential freak out situation for players. What about bog mummies who are naturally created mummies through accident rather than ritual? What about a mummy with levels of a sorcerer? These are such obvious things, but they are ignored for basic, unimaginative and uninteresting ideas that have been done many times before over the past few decades, and far better than what we get here.

Look, I generally love Necromancers of the Northwest and along with Rite Publishing I feel they are the best third party Pathfinder providers, but this was uncharacteristically terrible. Sure it’s only a buck, but only a third of the piece is actually content and what’s here is kind of poor. I’m still looking forward to Liber Vampyre, Second Edition when it comes out next month, and I’m generally a fan of the Exotic Encounters supplements, but this was just underwhelming at best. Take note Pathfinder writers – go pick up a copy of Mummy: The Curse and Van Richten’s Guide to the Ancient Dead (AD&D 2e) if you want to see mummies done right. Otherwise, you’re just adding to the long line of bad mummy based products for Pathfinder.

This is a real delight, an attempt to make the art of herbalism come to life within your game. Being a botanist I have sometimes introduced real-world herbs into a game, or even made a few up, but here is a whole bunch of herbs to add spice to the activities of witches and alchemists and even healers.

There's a short story about gathering and using herbs, notes on foraging and on what you might find given the sort of area in which you are searching, and then on to an herb list that's full of delights. For each herb there is copious information ranging from what it looks like (and tastes like) to various concoctions for which it is a vital ingredient and even its market value should you wish to sell.

There is even information on growing your own herbs - so if your character fancies having a herb garden at home, now he can. Just remember that gardening is a leisurely way of acquiring the plants you need for your next potion or poison and that those herbs need attention while they are growing... perhaps not tasks suited to the average adventurer. The matter of knowledge is also discussed: giving options to roll to recognise a plant, to know its uses or to know how to make the concoction you want to - or you may prefer to assume that it is something already known to the character given his background and training.

Other discussions cover the market in herbs, and the things that can go wrong when making herbal concoctions. As quite a few of the ones here are poisons, it's clear that you need to take care when messing around with plants. (Equally true in the real world, of course!)

This is an excellent supplement if you are minded to use herbs at all within your game.

Another fine selection of variant monsters, this time that wonderful aquatic horror, the Kraken, is featured. Conjure up images of vast sucker-encrusted tentacles wrapping themselves around a ship mid-ocean...

The ones presented here are somewhat less dangerous than the one in the Pathfinder Bestiary, which clocks in at a mighty CR 18 and is enough to scare most adventurers straight back into the dungeon! These ones are a little more reasonable and do not require quite such mighty heroes to have a chance of defeating them.

The first is the Barbed Kraken (CR 8). As well as the regulation two arms and a mass of tentacles, this beastie has poisonous barbs on its arms which make fighting it in melee quite an interesting proposition. They are not particularly magical and although many seafarers think they are juvenile regular krakens naturalists reckon that they are a separate species completely.

Next up is the Seaquake Kraken (CR 13) which has the alarming ability to create a massive vortex in the water around them... sort of an instant tsunami. They have few of the other properties of other kraken and are thought to be more closely related to octopi than to squid.

Finally we have the Dominator Kraken (CR 15). This mean beastie is even smarter than your average kraken (and they are all pretty intelligent) and it also has psionic powers.

There's only one thing left out: what do they taste like? Calamari, anyone? Seriously, though, these make a fine addition to your ocean ecology and should provide for a range of tentacled encounters for anyone making a voyage.

Strange beasties, ettercaps. And none so strange as the variant ones presented here.

Sometimes you happen to want a monster that's not straight out of the book. Maybe your players know the standard monster books backwards (I recently had to ask one player when her character had ever encountered a cloaker, she seemed to know so much about them!), sometimes something a bit out of the ordinary fits your plot better.

So, here are 3 variations on those weird spiderish beasties... a feral ettercap, a webspinner ettercap and a spider lord one.

I think I like the webspinner one best. It can spin a selection of different webs depending on the situation and its needs... really neat. On the rare occasions I come out from behind the screen and play, I enjoy studying the unusual amongst monsters, indeed I've been known to play naturalist characters who seek them out, sketch them and write them up!

The nature of power is that it’s hard to obtain, particularly if you don’t already have it. Because of that, the idea of finding a shortcut to gaining the things you want without having to put in the requisite effort required is a tempting one. If such a measure can be found (and if it works), it’s also virtually always incredibly dangerous.

Occult lore has long stated that such a shortcut is to summon and bind spirits to do your bidding. Pathfinder has similar traditions, though unlike the real world ones these actually function (within the context of the game world). Of course, that doesn’t mean that they’re actually effective in their function.

The problem is that game balance defeats the concept of a quick and easy path to power. Worse, since only spellcasters can summon outsiders to begin with, the fact that they can already use powerful spells sort of defeats the purpose…especially when said outsiders can’t seem to offer anything except “service.” What good is that if they’re just offering to kill things for you (as though adventurers aren’t already well-versed in killing things) or use their spell-like abilities (when spellcasters can already use comparable magic)?

In other words, the entire idea of the Faustian bargain is one that, simply put, doesn’t work in Pathfinder. That’s the problem that the Necromancers of the Northwest set out to fix.

Having just read The Deluxe Guide to Fiend Summoning and Faustian Bargains, I can tell you that they succeeded wildly. Let’s look further and see what this book conjures up.

The book opens, in true Necromancers of the Northwest style, with a few pages of fiction that sets the tone for what’s to come. Following this is an introduction that lays out some of the problems with bargaining with fiends in Pathfinder, such as the balance issues mentioned above, and the general lack of details regarding exactly what the fiend wants in return (e.g. “so why did the vrock want 7,200 gp anyway?” “No idea, maybe he wants to make a sword +2 back home?”).

The Guide lays out a four-step process by which making a deal with a fiend is done. First, the fiend in question must be researched. While it’s easy enough to say that this could be boiled down to a few Knowledge checks, this section denotes the different aspects that the research can cover. Just the fiends name alone isn’t enough, you also need its sigil, and after that you can research various lore about the fiend that will be helpful when summoning and binding it (e.g. it’s tempted by lamb’s blood, but repulsed by roses that bloomed under full moonlight, for example). Of course, this is assuming you didn’t make a mistake in your research…

This leads directly to the summoning part of the process. The summons is fairly difficult to do, as you not only have to beat the DC to summon the fiend, but here is where your efforts to make your ritual elaborate can really help or hurt you, as extra steps made to attract the fiend’s attention translate into bonuses on the attempt.

One thing I quite enjoyed about this part was the repeated notation that the effort expended by the summoner in acquiring and performing these additional steps is a very important part of the process. For example, a summons that requires a human sacrifice would provide a negligible bonus if you kidnapped some 0-level drunk off the streets and killed him in his sleep (or killed a mook in combat that you were going to kill anyway). Whereas going out alone at night and single-handedly defeating a foe who is your fighting equal, without killing him, so that you can drag him back and sacrifice him in a ritual manner is going to earn you a much bigger bonus.

This was a recurring theme throughout the book; various actions can get you specific numerical modifiers, but it’s the effort behind them (and, in some cases, the intent) that make these actions qualify. Trying to cheat the fiend by fulfilling the letter of a bargain without really working at it (or using a loophole) will at best get you nothing, and at worst have dire consequences.

Assuming you manage to perform the summoning (and it’s possible to not only fail, but fail with a severe backlash), then you need to bind the fiend. This is essentially a flipside to the summoning, and is presumed to be researched alongside the summons. If the fiend fails its save against your binding check, then it’s bound (and, interestingly, can’t directly lie, though it tries to bend the truth), and you can now start the bargaining.

The actual process of bargaining is given more of an overview than anything else; instead of focusing on the mechanics for cutting a deal, the book takes a surprisingly in-depth look at the things that a fiend can do for a summoner, and methods of payment that fiends will accept in exchange.

This is where it gets interesting. Fiendish “boons” are quantified into seven categories (such as war, magic, lust, death, etc.) each with three tiers, and each tier having two or three specific books. Different fiends have access to different categories at different tiers that they can grant, alongside a “universal” category that all fiends can grant. (Helpfully, the book notes that fiends can only use these in service to another, and not at will, as they’re powered by the efforts of the summoner; it’s little things like this that made me really enjoy the book.)

These boons run quite the gamut in terms of what’s offered. Virtually all of them avoid being simple retreads of spells (though some refer to spell effects as a shorthand for what they can do). For example, the death 1 book Attract Accident makes it so that the next time a specific creature is threatened with a critical hit, the crit is automatically confirmed and the multiplier is increased by 1…or, if the target doesn’t get into combat within a week, he’ll somehow run afoul of an accident (e.g. a trap) with a CR equal to one-fourth of the fiend’s. Likewise, the Knowledge 3 book Pierce the Veil of Secrecy allows the fiend and its summoner to (make a check to) defeat ANY sort of magical or supernatural concealment effects on a specific target.

Boons are, needless to say, powerful. But they have a cost associated with them…literally, as there are point values for each book. These values come into play in the next section: Payment.

Payment can take many forms (the book says that most fiends would accept most of the forms listed there, though I’d recommend that GMs determine that fiends prefer some much more than others), but all of them are fairly painful for the summoner to part with. Each payment has a cost associated with it, from wealth (the least accepted form of payment, and which has strict guidelines for how much can be used) to your memories (e.g. feats and skill) to human sacrifice, to your own soul. Reneging on these is also discussed, but usually to say it’s exceptionally difficult to pull off. Let the buyer beware, here.

Of course, this wouldn’t be very helpful without some delineation of what fiends could grant what books. The book briefly discusses using existing creatures here, talking about the differences between using specific creatures versus generic ones (e.g. researching a particular succubus versus one in particular), leaving that largely up to the GM. It then presents two long tables of virtually all of the evil outsiders in the three Pathfinder Bestiaries, one for the calling DC for each outsider, and one for the types of boons they can grant.

All of this takes up about a fourth of the book.

The remaining three-quarters of the Guide is where the authors really outdid themselves. Presented there are seventy-two “new” fiends that can be summoned. I put “new” in quotation marks here because these fiends are actually drawn from the Lesser Key of Solomon, a real occult book of demon summoning which also had seventy-two demons described. Each of them is not only given a unique stat block here (with Challenge Ratings ranging from 5 to 25) complete with unique abilities, but also unique boons that only they can grant (in addition to the boons presented earlier). That’s in addition to a description of their background, their home realm, and specifics that can be found in researching them.

The authors even take the time to talk about these entities in contrast with existing planar conventions, discussing various options that can be used to make these fit in with or stand apart from “traditional” demons and devils, etc. The fact that they all have a new subtype with new abilities certainly helps.

Overall, The Deluxe Guide to Fiend Summoning and Faustian Bargains is one of those books that sets itself into the “required” category of game supplements. Not only does this book set a standard in an area of the game that’s always been glossed over, but it pulls double-duty by presenting a plethora of new monsters, which can be used specifically for summonings or otherwise presented as new fiendish antagonists. I didn’t even get to some of the book’s smaller offerings, like the handy one-page sidebar that condenses the rules for research, calling, binding, and bargaining, or the rules on fiendish possession (it’s a form of payment), using planar binding spells in conjunction with these summons, and quite a few more.

The Deluxe Guide to Fiend Summoning and Faustian Bargains brings a fiendish amount of great new material to your game. And you don’t even have to sell your soul for it.

One of my favorite changes that Pathfinder made over 3.5 was the inclusion of sorcerer bloodlines. While this was an interesting mechanical way of distinguishing sorcerers from each other depending on what bloodline they chose, it also had the effect of building in a back-story for the character. Now there were character backgrounds about how your sorcerer was the descendent of a demon, was chosen by destiny, or some other compelling in-game reason for his magic.

The problem is that the flavor text never quite lived up to the crunch. While it certainly preserved the freedom to embellish on the scant information provided, sometimes you want the fluff to be provided also, which the small amount of flavor text never did. That’s the position of A Necromancer’s Grimoire: Sorcerous Lineages from Necromancers of the Northwest.

Just over three dozen pages long, Sorcerous Lineages presents ten new sorcerer bloodlines. While each of these has all of the requisite mechanical information, it matches it with a high degree of flavor text. Each bloodline is treated as more than just its point of origin; rather, each one has blossomed into some sort of organization that is (at least partially) focused on the circumstances that also granted their sorcerous powers.

Take, for instance, the Zartol Consortium bloodline. This is based around the eponymous Consortium, which was originally a mundane mercantile empire, until hard times made one of its less scrupulous heads cut a deal with a devil. Now, the mercantile empire is one built on human (and humanoid) trafficking, and the members of the family that run it are all “baptized” into a contract with that devil shortly after birth, granting them their unique sorcerer bloodline.

Isn’t that far and away more interesting than simply having the boilerplate Infernal bloodline from the Core Rulebook?

Each of the ten organizations here are given roughly one-and-a-half pages of background material on their origins, current sketch, notable traits, and how a character might be found outside their structure, in addition to their bloodline. While many are political or dynastic entities, not all are. The Sivix Conspiracy, for example, is a group of individuals dedicated to justice in a very Batman-esque way (e.g. give up everything except working to punish the guilty). They gain their bloodline by having it imbued by a powerful (and undetailed) artifact.

The bloodlines themselves are notably well done, and offer some interesting options. Those with the Descendents of Ho’Lah bloodline, for instance, have a horse as a bonded mount, and gain a number of enhancements that make them formidable mounted spellcasters. Those with the bloodline of House Faulkhor, on the other hand, are skilled torturers, being able to inflict terrible pain, with the ability to skin creatures alive at higher levels (and the capstone power of remaking those that they’ve skinned into servants, all the while keeping them alive).

Overall, A Necromancer’s Grimoire: Sorcerous Lineages is one of the less common kinds of sourcebooks that pays equal attention to the flavor and the mechanics. Indeed, it melds them together in a way that’s much more tightly integrated than many other parts of the game. Sorcerer bloodlines have long held the promise of being a hook to a greater back-story, but it’s only here that that potential is fully realized.

My one complaint about the book is that its tight focus kept it from branching out even a little – these days, some “extras,” such as a sidebar with a new spell or a new cavalier order about a group mentioned (such as the Knights of Lumina, for the Church of Lumina bloodline), but I can’t fault the book for not going that far abroad – easter eggs are extras, after all. This book presents sorcerer bloodlines as more than a set of rules with a label slapped on them, and that’s something quite sorcerous indeed.

This pdf is 29 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page advertisement, 1 page SRD and 1 page back cover, leaving us with 24 pages of content, so let’s check this out!

Kicking off with a rather grisly, yet aptly-written piece of prose we are introduced to the matter at hand on page 6, before we get to the content – killing 4 further pages in the process and making this pdf rather short, but onwards to the new plants introduced here:

Since the herbs here can be found in specific climates and need a survival-check to be found that is further modified if the character has ranks in Profession (Herbalist), Craft (Alchemy) or similar skills – beyond that, foraging of course also provides nice adventure-hooks: After all, what if the needed plant only grows in the graveyard of dragons or those haunted burial cairns?

Each entry of the respective plants comes thus with a foraging DC, a sample price for one batch and both a description of the physical form of the respective herb as well as multiple items that can be crafted from it as well as the required DCs. Growing your own herbs is also covered in an extensive one-page sidebar that provides concise rules. But what can these plants do?

The bulbous and insect-eating Balor’s Maw can be fashioned into an acidic splash weapon that sticks to targets and continues to burn, scent bombs to throw off e.g. hounds or other smell-based trackers or suregrip, which makes losing one’s hold, be it on ledges or weapons, less likely. Corpseroot can be used to make an incense that repels mindless undead, preserve a corpse for 24 hours with a certain balm, stagger or even paralyze foes with a mild poison or act as a concoction that hides the user from mindless undead. Death Man’s Head mushrooms can be made into a fire-accelerating paste or even a dried, albeit slightly unreliable volatile shroom-bomb or an interesting poison: Working only when ingested (and best concealed in spicy foods), the poison deals fire damage from inside to the victims.

Dragon’s Tongue, blood-red, serrated ferns can be made into a tonic, that, as long as it’s ingested for at least a week, provides a +1 bonus to fort-saves, but only as long as daily consumption is maintained. It coan also be used to create red smoke or a disgusting tar, which, while sickening and nauseating, helps afflicted to throw off infections by providing a substantial bonus to the next fort-save versus a disease. The plant can also be quite profitable, as a delicacy beer can be brewed from it as well! Golden-yellow flowers called Mother’s Kiss can be made into an incense that, when inhaled, deadens pain and helps to save versus pain-spells. The flowers can also be substituted as balm for using a healer’s kit and have yet another cool application: When mixed with mare’s milk, they may hasten natural healing of both hp and ability score damage, but also weaken the character while under the effect., reducing str and dex by 6 points for 48 hours or 1d8 hours after having fully healed. Finally, the dried flowers may act as a plaguefinder: When diseased people breathe on them, the flowers turn blue! From Nightroot, one may extract a non-flammable bioluminescent paste that works as superb illumination in e.g. gas-filled tunnels or work-environments with a lot of black powder. It can also be used to enhance sight, but this particular application is risky: While enhanced vision in shadows and darkness is neat, a botched dose means that the characters suffers from hallucinations that may see him/her jump at shadows and suffer from the shaken condition. It can also be turned into poison and blind others.

Polysap is harvested from chameleon trees, which look like the most dominant form of tree in a given forest to the untrained eye. The sap can be made into a balm that slightly hardens the wearer’s skin (+1 natural AC), used as a clay-substitute or as a kind of make-up to create masks and help infiltrators or actors with their professions and tasks. Finally, it can be used to stop bleeding or to enhance fast healing/regeneration, if available.

Sage’s Cap is a potentially dangerous, lethal mushroom, but one that can be made into weapon versus the incorporeal and it’s regularly already interesting poison can be refined into a different type of poison that induces horrid nightmares. Finally, the fungus can be made into a certain incense helping versus emotion-based effects, but also making the user sluggish.

The vine-growing weeping maiden can end bleed damage, be made into a draught that results in a particular deep slumber, grant a bonus to dying creatures to regain consciousness, or be made into a poison that increases bleed damage. Thin, red, extremely sharp grasses called Wizard’s Beard can be made into an incense that allows prepared spellcasters to unprepared spells, freeing the unused spell-slots for other spells, but it is taxing and also imposes minor penalties. One can also create a deadly poison that hinders spellcasting. On the risky side, the plant can be made into eye-drops that, while sickening, do allow the user to detect magic. If the herbalist botched, though, the users can see false auras, making the usage unreliable.

After all these glorious new plants, we are also introduced to 5 pages covering special materials that can be created by combining multiple doses of different herbs. Mxing these materials as well as DCs and market prices are also provided.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are top-notch this time around, I didn’t notice any glitches. Layout adheres to NNW’s 2-column standard with its parchment-like background and the artwork consists mostly of stock-art at the lower end of the spectrum. The pdf comes fully bookmarked.

It’s been years since 4 Winds Fantasy Gaming has announced the Apothecary’s Handbook, one of my most anticipated PFRPG-books right now and I’m still hoping it will be a milestone of quality similar to their equipment book. In the meanwhile, the necromancers Alex Riggs and Joshua Zaback have stepped up and created this. And honestly, after being disappointed by some of their releases, I did not expect too much from this one. I was oh so wrong. Tight in focus, extremely useful, oozing flavor and untold options for adventure, this is all but required for low magic or dark fantasy settings and campaigns and even for the others, there is so much goodness in here, the herbs being balanced and all, that these plants are guaranteed to enrich your campaign via the details they provide and the extra sense of believability paired with their wondrousness made this book one of my all-time-favorites of their oeuvre. Multiple uses, foraging and combined substances? Yes, please! In fact, I’d immediately slap 5 stars plus seal of approval on this pdf, were it not for one gripe: This pdf feels too short, with the fluffy introduction out of the way and some very spacious (and ugly) artworks in the text, we not even get 20 pages of content for a topic in which the necromancers obviously managed to shine very bright. This relative brevity means I will go down to 4.5 stars, but still round up to 5 since the ideas and content provided can be considered universally top-notch. I really hope the authors will grace us with a sequel or even a massive almanac/grimoire of more herbs: After all, it’s a niche no other 3pp is exploring at the moment and one the authors quite obviously know how to write for. Why not one for desert plants, arctic plants, jungle vines, aquatic plants etc.? Ahhh, one may dream…

Endzeitgeist out.

A year is a long time insofar as RPG’s are concerned. You can run an entire campaign with time to spare, or if you’re a content-creator, then you can produce quite a lot of new material in a year. How much new material? Well, if A Necromancer’s Almanac: 2012, by Necromancers of the Northwest is any indication, about three hundred pages’ worth.

Some background information: Necromancers of the Northwest produce free content each weekday for the Pathfinder RPG. All of this content is (last I checked) is still there, but as anyone who spends a lot of time online knows, there are times when you want to have offline repositories of online content. Moreover, there’s no real index of quick-reference for the online material – you need to have it memorized, or you’re out of luck.

That’s where this almanac comes in. It collects the sum total of the free (mechanical) content produced for 2012, and puts it all in one place. It should be noted that there is no overarching theme to the content here. While the content of a given week was often produced around a specific theme, the aggregate of 2012 material has no such thematic commonality. What’s here is essentially a grab-bag of content.

The technical aspects of the PDF are what they should be. I didn’t encounter any trouble using copy-and-paste (though be warned that tables, such as for the feats, seem to be images rather than text), and full nested bookmarks are present, which is good since this PDF would be a nightmare to navigate without them.

The book is divided up into four major sections, as per how the content was originally presented. First are classes, then feats, then magic items, and lastly spells. Let’s go over more in detail.

The section on classes presents a header for each class alphabetically, and then gives the new content under that. For most classes, these are new archetypes, though several classes that have suites of “selectable” powers (such as barbarian rage powers, rogue talents, etc.) there are plenty of new abilities to choose from. There are also several specific features like a new cavalier order, a new witch patron, new sorcerer bloodlines, etc. A few new prestige classes round things out.

This section does, unfortunately, highlight one aspect of the PDF that was slightly weak: rarely, you’ll run into new material that seems like it should reference other new material, but doesn’t. For example, there’s a witch archetype that gives the witch a summoned companion based on her patron, with a table showing what companion is given for what patron. Immediately after this, there’s a new witch patron listed…who isn’t on the proceeding table for companions granted to that witch archetype.

Now, to be fair, this sort of situation is, as noted above, rare. It’s not often that the new material presented here will end up referencing other new material, but the odd case like the above does pop up.

The feats section is massive in scope, which isn’t surprising since it’s around sixty pages or so long. Thankfully, there is a table summarizing the various feats at the beginning, though this takes several pages to fully present. Interestingly, in addition to metamagic feats, there’s also a separate table for monster feats, and short sections on Leadership feats and wrestling feats. By far though, generic feats take up the majority of what’s here.

The magic items section is notable for its eclectic variety. For example, there are new magic properties for magic armor and shields, but no specific magic items. The magic weapons, by contrast, are all specific magic weapons, with no new generic magic properties. Beyond this, there are new magic rings, staves, and quite a few wondrous items, but (for example) no rods or artifacts. Oddly (though not in a bad way), there’s also a short section on intelligent magic items (three new specific ones) and some magical beverages…apparently these needed to be noted separately.

The book’s final section is new magic spells. Just the section on spell lists for the various spellcasting classes takes over twenty pages, so you can imagine how many spells are here. Again, I did notice the occasional error (e.g. an illusion spell with no subschool), but for the most part these are eminently usable in your game – it’s notable that I didn’t seem to notice any of the new kinds of spells from the Advanced Arcana series that Necromancers of the Northwest produces; there were, for example, no segmented spells to be found here.

Taken holistically, the Necromancer’s Almanac is notable for the sheer variety of what’s available here. The sheer amount of new material for classes, feats, magic items, and spells is, in a word, daunting. While it may be off-putting to be charged for material that the designers admit is still out there for free, the usability of having it all in one indexed, offline, searchable location is, to my mind, worth the price. This is especially true when the result is three hundred pages of quality new material. Take a look back at what a necromantic year 2012 was, with A Necromancer’s Almanac.

This pdf is 130 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page advertisement, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 125 pages of content, so let's check this out!

Necromancers of the Northwest-products tend to be hit and miss for, but you may say about the crew whatever you want, there simply is no touching their Advanced Arcana-series. Both Vol I and II belong to the very best spell-books released for any iteration of d20, now can part II keep up wth their quality?

Starting off with aptly-written flavor-ext, we are off to the new concepts - taking a cue from Advanced Arcana II, the book first introduces us to the ideas behind the new spells herein, before providing ample of different options to handle the integration of new spells into an existing campaign and handling spells from a wide array of sources. Multiple way to restrict access to spells are provided, ranging from requiring feats to research and including variant rules that make rare spells harder to counterspell. Now what made the advanced arcana-series always stand out from its competitors is how the series tends to challenge the boundaries of what spells do: Whether it's the segmented spells or those dependant on the caster's age, the ideas have always hit home for me. Now this pdf also has new concepts of spells - Take Arcane Well-spells. These spells grant the caster benefits while they have them prepared - spontaneous casters must prepare them as regular non-spontaneous spellcasters in order to gain their benefits. To give you an example, when you have prepared the 2nd level spell "Ardesalf's Identifying Touch", you may detect magic at will as long as you haven't cast the spell. When casting the spell, you get +20 to identifying checks regarding a touched item. A more powerful example would be Coma Veil, which lets you put to sleep foes as a standard action in a 60 ft. radius while prepared, while its cast does much the same, but on an area, making this spell more powerful than the witch's dreaded sleep-hex. Now I can see spells like that work in a high fantasy setting and I really like the notion behind these spells, i.e. rewarding the conservation of arcane resources. BUT. Granting spell-like abilities that duplicate other spells and essentially further conserve spells (no more casting detect magic - yay!) go too far for my conservative tastes. Worse yet, Options like the massive array of sleep-abilities AT WILL are many things, but balanced are they surely not. To ct a long ramble short: I appreciate the idea of Arcane Well-spells, but not their execution in the book - and if "True Strike" at will doesn't raise all balance-bells in your DM-head, I don't know what will... All in all - unfortunately broken.

There are other kinds of new spells in here, though: Metamagic spells that enhance magics you cast via similar ways that metamagic feats do: Call Paragon, for example, enhances the next creature you call to add +8 to all attributes and +4 natural armor, unless its int is >2, in which case Int is not enhanced. bilious invocation also adds a fog cloud that deals con damage to a spell. This type of new spells actually works much better imho and allows for some interesting combinations of arcane prowess. Another new class of spells would be the opportune spells, which can be considered an expansion of the "Quick Spells" from Advanced Arcana II. Essentially, these spells have a primary effect, but also come with the option to be cast as free, swift or immediate actions, with diminished or different effects, for example counterspelling an incoming spell. Some of these spells may be cast when you e.g. deal 10 points of elemental damage, allowing for spell combos. Lethal, yes, but if you e.g. didn't fulfill the reuquirement (dealing e.g. not enough damage), your spell fizzles. I really like this idea and the execution is actually rather apt. I'd love to see more of the like.

The final new type of spell is so-called "Ascension Magic" - i.e. magic you can cast on different levels. Contact the Celestial Hierarchy, for example, can be cast as a spell of any level you have access to and yields different results, improving over the spell levels. Not all of these spells cover all levels, though, some of them actually coming in at e.g. a 2nd level and a 5th level-version, making them essentially multiple spells rolled up into one. Good idea per se to handle spell groups like summon monster etc. and implemented logically. The massive spell-lists cover all the Paizo-classes, including antipaladins.

Regarding the appendices, we get also quite a bit of content: We get multiple variations to be applied to potions,making them e.g. unstable, random, have multiple effects via layered potions etc. The scrolls also get some cool options - devouring scrolls, for example, which allow you to create a blank devouring scroll. Now, when you successfully counterspell a spell and use the scroll, it transforms into a scroll of the countered spell. VERY Cool! Spontaneous casters may now temporarily add spells via Knowledge Scrolls to their spell-lists, while metamagic scrolls add metamagic feats to your casts. Sealing scrolls are also interesting, in that their mere presence foils the inscribed spell(s), making for a cool line of defense in overtly magical settings. We also get a bunch of variant wand-types.

Speaking of magic-heavy settings - we also get sorceror bloodlines of "noble birth", which make sense to me - the power and charisma lend themselves well to becoming leaders of men. A total of 5 such sorceror bloodlines are provided, all with extensive information on the respective families and interesting abilities. Witches may now serve an undead dragon overlord, the avatar of the very Tree of Life, the Leanan sidhe (don't let Dresden know!) or a hedonistic devil. Again, these patrons are cool!

The pdf concludes with full stats of the magic practitioners that contributed to this tome, ranging from CR 10 to 20 - a nice bonus that adds further identity to the spells.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are very good, I didn't notice any significant glitches. Layout adheres to NNW's 2-column parchment-covered background and the pdf comes with nice full-color stock art. The pdf also comes with a printer-friendly version and excessive bookmarks for ease of navigation. I love the Advanced Arcana-series, I really do. And much like its predecessor volumes, this book is actually quite innovative and hefty in size, providing a neat bang-for-buck ratio. HOWEVER: In contrast to its predecessors, I can't all-out recommend this book. The mostly terribly broken Arcane Well-spells and e.g. wands that prevent spell-consumption just scream "UNBALANCED" to me and could be considered game-breakers if not handled with the utmost care by the DM. Unfortunately, these gripes bring down what would otherwise be atruly stellar supplement. Mind you, there is still content galore of top quality herein, but you'll have to sift the bad apples out so they won't spoil the bunch. It is only due to the top quality AND quantity of the good pieces of content that I feel still justified in rating this as a good pdf - 4 stars. Just beware of the broken bits! If you're unwilling to do the sifting, detract 1 or even 2 stars.

Endzeitgeist out.

Advanced Arcana v2 expands on the segment spell idea (introduced in Advanced Arcana) and adds conditional spells (that are more powerful if certain environmental conditions are met), model spells (that can be cast in more than one mode) and a variety of spells that affect age. V2 also includes spell lists for the new classes introduced in the later Pathfinder books (alchemist, inquisitor, magus, summoner, witch) and includes a discussion of introducing new spells into a campaign. The spells cover a wide range though the majority are, as is usual, combat focused. The segmented spell concept is refined and made more usable here. Several spells have variable effects based on the age of the caster or of the target, which is a new twist to magic. Though the 1st level spell that provides effective immortality and immunity to aging-based magic is a bit problematic to say the least. Many of the spells in this collection tagged with their creator’s name and each of these creators is given a brief biography in the first appendix. Appendix 2 deals with spellbooks: covers and what they are made from, pages in the same manner and lastly the inks used to scribe the spells. A lot of potential for customization there and some fun ideas, the idea of ink made from various distilled energies is particularly fun. Appendix 3 adds more familairs, these are rather outre including swarms, oozes and goldfish, use with caution. Appendix 4 add alternate arcane bonds for wizards. The final appendix lists material components that can add extra bonuses, mostly small, when expended during the casting of a spell. Advanced Arcana v2 presents a wide selection of new opinions and variants to play with, it will prove to be especially useful for GM wishing to expand the variety of magic in their campaign.

Advanced Arcana begins with an in-character introduction before talking about the new sort of spell included, namely the segmented spell, which is very powerful spell that requires multiple spell slots and castings to activate. There are also a variety of spells that allow the caster to recall expended spells which is an interesting design choice allowing for some interesting options, and quick spells whose effects vary based on how much time is used to cast them, also an intriguing design choice. Many of the new spells, almost a third, are 7th level or higher which -to my mind- rather restricts their utility and two of the 1st level spells have their duration based concentration which drastically restricts their usefulness. While, like most spell lists, they are mainly combat focused there are a few non-combat spells in the mix as well. Advanced Arcana really shines for me in its supplementary material: Eight new clerical domains, while Force was unneeded, the domains of Creation and Vermin are full of possibilities. Four new Sorcerer bloodlines, one for each of the classic D&D genii types (Dao, Djinn, Efreet and Marid in case you have forgotten). Eight new Focused Wizards schools allow for further specialization, though the choice of Idiocy (for wizards who can inflict Intelligence loss at higher levels) as a school name is a bit odd. Lastly, there are eight new familiars including animated objects, newts, skeletons and bonsai! All quite fun and could lead to some very interesting interactions. There are a lot of useful tools here for GM and player alike, but it seems unlikely that you will want to use all of the options available here.

This pdf is 55 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page advertisement, 1 page SRD and 1 page back cover, leaving us with exactly 50 pages of content, so let's check this out!

As most publications by NNW, this pdf kicks off with a short narrative, this time one illustrating three orders in just one page before starting to elaborate the aim of this book. If you're like me, this book does speak to one issue you may have had with knightly orders as presented by the cavalier-class. The class per se is rather interesting and its orders work - but essentially mainly for solitary knights/renegades. The orders of cavaliers and their membership in them actually doesn't influence the PC that much beyond edicts and mechanics - the orders of the cavalier remain abstract concepts and ability suites and not organizations. This product now seeks to remedy that and make belonging to one of its orders actually have significant influences and results - it should be noted, though, that non-cavalier classes can just as well become members of the knightly orders herein.

The first of these knightly orders presented is the Order of the Bronze Shield: Not beholden to any noble or king and the political squabbles, all of the orders herein are wholly devoted to a realm's well-being and make up the "super-order" Knights of the Crucible". The order of the bronze shield is somewhat reminiscent of the order of guardians from Ravenloft: They essentially seek to collect deadly, evil artifacts that can't be destroyed and keep them safe and from the hands of those that might be corrupted by them. The Iron Blades make up for the militant part of the Knights of the Crucible, their fortresses, soldiers and charter houses not being beholden to lords and political clashes, but being an organization that watches over the people e.g. in times of war. The final branch is the order of the Golden Helmet, closest to a cavalier's order, rare and somewhat reminiscent of the knights of the round or paladin-like questing knights.

After this general run-down of the order's history, we get information on the three respective branches and their initiations, daily lives etc. as well as hot to use the respective orders for PCs and NPCs. The order of the bronze shield gets 2 different archetypes - fighters can become bronze shield guardians who are better at using their defensive capabilities, armors etc. and may act as interesting bodyguards - they can choose adjacent allies and not only grant them bonuses, but also intercept foes attacking their charges via AoOs. The second archetype the order offers access to would be the Sacred Custodian who is less adept at channeling energy, but gains the ability to temporarily add charges to select magic items - the higher his levels, the higher the GP-limit that denotes to which magic items the custodian may add temporary charges. They may also bond items via a ritual at higher levels , thus making the item's magic usable exlusively for them, representing the order's devotion to keep destructive items out of the hands of villains. Of course, we also get a cavalier-order entry, which is btw. also rather defensively focused- no surprise there.

The second order, the order of the Golden Helm, is the smallest and most elite of the orders, operating from a flying fortress and accepting only true champions - essentially a justice league-like elite organization of adventurers and elite fighters. This order also comes with extensive advice on using the organization and its role in the world as well as 2 archetypes and a cavalier order. The first archetype is the glorious berserker, a barbarian archetype focused on performing astonishing feats of strength and becoming almost impervious to combat maneuvers at higher levels in exchange for their trap sense. Paladins may now become Golden Helm Crusaders, who gain challenges as well as improved charging in exchange for their mercies and a supporting aura, but for the exchange of their mercies, making the archetype overall feel more linear than the standard paladin. While I like the idea of a spell-less paladins, the execution makes the archetype feel a tad bit restrictive. The cavalier order for the golden helm gain access to a pool of glory points the cavalier can exchange on a 1-on-1 basis to gain as a bonus to AC or saves and at higher levels, the bonuses actually increase further They may also spend multiple glory points to potentially daze foes hit by their strikes and better succeed at skills. At higher levels, they may replenish their glory pool by succeeding in subduing/killing the subjects of his challenge. I really like the glory pool, but wished there were more options to choose from - more usages for the pool etc.

The final order would then be the militaristic Iron Blades, who accept nearly everyone and act as the massed force of the knights, providing the respective payment after a pre-set term of service. Fighters can take the Iron Blade Legionnaire archetype who get more skills, replace bravery with dedicated training that hardens their resolve against charms and the option to declare foes his quarry and gain a bonus to atk and damage as well as select skills against the foe and at 20th level, have more devastating criticals against his/her quarry. Rangers can now become Iron Reeves who don't get access to spellcasting, but can keep allies alert to dangers, granting them scaling bonuses over the levels as well as uncanny dodge and its improved brother. Ok, I guess, but nothing too exciting. The cavalier order gains access to step up, bonuses in familiar territory and improved capabilities when fighting foes they've challenged.

The organizations also feature tables for traits (something characters are/achieve) and deeds (something a character does) to track status within the respective orders. Ranks, titles, membership-benefits, quest-access and other benefits and duties are covered in excessive detail, as are the perks, privileges and benefits are provided alongside money for bounties and training options - quite a bunch of options to make use of the respective influence gained. The last pages of the pdf are devoted to sample statblocks - to be precise, a total collection of 16 statblocks including sample rank and file soldiers as well as 3 sample high-level NPCs.

Conclusion: Editinga nd formatting are good, though not perfect - the order of the golden helm is for example called order of the golden crown once or twice and there are some glitches here and there, but none that truly impede one's enjoyment of the pdf. Layout adheres to a 2-column standard with a parchment-style background. The only artworks are silhouette-like renditions of knights and stock art, which is a bit unpleasant at this rather significant price point. The pdf comes fully bookmarked with nested bookmarks as well as a printer-friendly version. This is a strange pdf for me to rate - on the one hand, I really enjoy the respective organizations (though the golden helm is not my cup of coffee) and the information on the respective benefits, traits, ranks etc. rocks and is just neat. The archetypes, though, are of varying quality - while most feature some good or at least interesting idea, there also are some that can be considered too linear or filler at best, lacking interesting signature abilities. The cavalier orders per se are neat and the organizations per se, which should be considered the main meat of the book, are well-presented and in fact, rather enjoyable reads that make valid, cool additions to one's campaign. However, the pdf also is rather expensive at $7.50 and provides neither the original artworks, nor the massive page-count I'd expect from a pdf of this length, which is also one of my main gripes with this pdf. If the price-point was lower, I'd probably settle for a final verdict of 3.5 or even 4 stars, but for now, I unfortunately can't go higher than 3 stars on this one.

Endzeitgeist out.

Introduces the new class, the Priest which seems more devoted to serving a god than the Cleric does. It is more focused on divine miracles and less on healing for example. There are miracles listed as well as some new and revised spells. One prestige class.