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

This pdf is 40 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD and 1 page back cover, leaving 36 pages of content, so let’s check it out!

After an IC-introduction to the topic at hand along a nice little foreword, we’ll delve into the “witchy” themes of this pdf, starting, surprisingly, not with additional material for the APG-witch, but rather a new 20-level racial base class for the Green Hag. The class has 4+Int skills, 9/10 BAB as well as HD-progression, a ¾ natural AC progression and good Ref- and Will-saves as well as a selection of spell-like abilities, coven-feats (on which I’ll elaborate later), at 12th level an animal companion-sized familiar and e.g. the ability to reproduce voices. With regards to additional information, we also get sections on her role in the world, age & height tables and even a lore section and some advice for players and DMs alike. All right, I’ll come out and say it: I’m not impressed by the mechanical execution of this class. At all. Several of the abilities of this class feature spell-like abilities that can be used at will, among others invisibility, at 8th level. Not gonna happen in my game. EVER. While I have a personal dislike for player classes with any kind of unlimited magical prowess, I especially abhor the tendency to soften rules that are supposed to give monsters an edge against the PCs and give the latter access to the former’s toolkit. Hags also work with Str-damage. The potential added work for the DM (which is btw. In my opinion rather meager) is explained away in the discussion by stating that monsters and NPCs “tend not to survive the end of their first fight”. Well…that depends. I don’t think that a bit Str-damage calculation with regards to stats is hard, but that’s just a piece of advice that doesn’t really help. What weighs heavier against the class, though, is that in contrast to all but the Jotunnar-race-classes by RiP, the Green Hag cannot freely multiclass until she has reached 11th level. While I can see the reasoning behind this, I nevertheless think it limits the appeal of the class. Another gripe I have with the hag is, that in contrast to e.g. NNW’s take on the werewolf and several other great base-classes by 3pps, the Green Hag does not feature much choices: The modularity and plethora of choices many recent additions to the class-roster feature is unfortunately quite absent from the Green Hag’s class, limiting an already limited appeal even further. While some of the Hag’s abilities are very cool and I especially love the Hag Familiar, I’m not convinced anyone really needs this class. Next up are 20 new feats for the Hag and witch, several of which expand upon the concept of coven magic and cooperative spellcasting and shared power. You’ll also find feats to give witches an additional familiar at 10th level and some that enhance potions. I liked all of the feats, although I’m once again missing modularity – while the concept of coven casting is cool and while there are some feats to enhance it and expand the spell-list, I would have loved to see more feats to expand the concept. I also liked the Black Sabbath-feat (Surprise), in which the members of a coven can meet as incorporeal beings and act in concert once a month. Cool idea that can spark of great tactics and adventures.

The section on Hexes offers 4 new hexes, 3 new major hexes and 2 new grand hexes. From iconic broomstick-riding to inciting hatred among allies, they offer some nice roleplaying abilities. Form of Three, for example, summons and two different age-category-versions of the caster to use in e.g. coven casting. Familiars can choose from 12 alternate familiar traits that work pretty much like alternate racial trait and e.g. let you exchange your familiar’s spell resistance for DR, lets it speak with all kinds of humanoids etc. pp..

The final section of this pdf is taken up by 30 new spells, some of which have the [ritual]-descriptor, making them more powerful when cast by a coven. What struck me as kind of wasted potential was the lack of implementation of segmented spells from Advanced Arcana Vol I here – the excellent book and its cool innovation sorely need expansion and covens casting complex spells (perhaps faster?) would have made for a supreme addition to this chapter, but I digress – on to the spells per se. All in all, I was positively surprised by the spells – while I felt a significant lack of segmented spells, the spells per se are ingenious, cool and most importantly either feature iconic imagery or benefits beyond immediate combat: In fact, due to long casting times, benefits etc., long-term planning and intelligent strategies on part of the PCs and their antagonists are encouraged by the new spells. From the curses (which have to contend with RiP’s excellent curses and thus don’t come out on top in every instance) to spells that make one day in a certain area become night to a deadly spell that halts the flow of time for the caster for 24 hours and thus leaves spells intact to a spell that uses the moon’s power to hurt someone below its shine (and in range, of course) to a rather disturbing reincarnation from a cauldron (Baba Yaga, anyone?), I liked most of the spells and don’t have mechanic gripes with any of them – well done.

Conclusion: Editing is very good, I only noticed a typo in one of the bookmarks. It should be noted that Secrets of the Witch comes in both a screen and a printer-friendly version, the former having a used-parchment look. Both are full-color and feature some CGI-artworks, which, while rather nice, are not exactly up my alley, but I won’t hold that against this pdf. The screen-version is extensively bookmarked, the printer-friendly version unfortunately isn’t. I’m not sure whether it’s a fault of the layout or the formatting, but several pieces of the text of the pdf, due to some quirk, feel half-blurred/lower resolution than the rest of the text, being a bit hard on the eyes when you’re tired. Something seems to have gone haywire there. Mechanically, I have already elaborated on my take on the Green Hag and why I consider the class rather bland/problematic. I’d like to mention some additional points: Why don’t hags get some hexes? Seriously, the racial class practically screams: Give me HEXES and the poor hags don’t even get spellcasting (but those damn unlimited spell-like abilities PCs never should have), so why not grant them access to hexes? The ones from UM, after all, would make for fine ones for Green Hags… The new familiar traits are cool, though none really blew me away and we don’t get a lot of hexes, which I would have loved to see more of – after all, they are a defining feature of the Witch-class.

Mechanically, I liked most feats, hexes and spells, especially due to enhancing the aspect of the game that goes beyond kicking the door in and offering some great fodder for adventure plots. Coven Casting is a cool concept that is touched upon, but quite frankly, we don’t get enough spells and feats centered on the idea – it’s central, yeah, and duly so, being the one defining and awesome central concept and ALL the spells have information for coven casting, but this being a new concept, I think more would have been nice, both in cool feats like Black Sabbath and possibly even hexes – coven hexes would have been appreciated by yours truly. In the end, I felt rather disappointed by this book, probably due to a lack of focus – I honestly believe that this pdf would have benefitted from being broken up into two, with the respective parts expanded. That way, coven casting would have received the spotlight it deserves and the as written, sub-par racial class could have been improved. As written, it’s too linear and just not up to the standard set by other 3pps. If you’re in this for the Hag-support, I’d advise you to tread carefully, if you’re in for the coven magic, you might enjoy it. HOWEVER: Ritual magic per se is still, at least in my opinion, much better represented by Incantations and some would have improved a hypothetical pdf that spawned from the separation of this pdf. For the hag-material, I’d settle for 1.5 stars, for the coven-material (Including spells and feats), I’d settle for 3.5 stars. Familiar traits and hexes are ok and in the end, my final verdict will be 2.5 stars, rounded up to 3 due to the low price.

Endzeitgeist out.

The most flavorful class to come out of the Advanced Player’s Guide is, in my opinion, the witch. With hex powers and a familiar that’s more than window dressing, along with the rather spooky theme about their patron granting them power, the witch just oozes flavor. And yet, for all the APG offers in this regard, there are other aspects of the classical witch that are largely ignored. Very little is given, for example, to the idea of the witch coven, or how hags interact with that; what is given is brief and somewhat unsatisfying.

Who better to “raise” these issues than the Necromancers of the Northwest, in their witch-themed sourcebook A Necromancer’s Grimoire: Secrets of the Witch.

Secrets of the Witch aims squarely to round out the themes of the witch class that were overlooked in the APG, and in that regard it succeeds magnificently, focusing its attention on five key areas: hags as a PC class/race, coven abilities (as feats), new hexes, new abilities for familiars, and new spells designed to take advantage of covens.

Unfortunately, I can’t be quite so complimentary on the technical side of things. Now, the book does do most things right; it has a screen version and printer-friendly version, both of which contain full nested bookmarks. The screen version is also nicely illustrated, with the pages being set on a parchment-colored background, and every so often a full-color image (usually of a macabre nature) will appear. The problem comes with the copy-and-paste. While large sections of the book copy and paste just fine, there are some areas – areas where the text has a slight but noticeable blur – where the copy and paste won’t work cleanly, with some words being replaced with odd symbols and characters. It’s a persistent problem in Necromancers of the Northwest products, though it does seem somewhat diminished here.

Having said that, let’s examine the book’s content in further detail.

The first section of the book gives us the green hag racial class. For those not familiar with the concept, this is where a race is broken down into a series of class levels, basically combining class and race and spreading the latter’s powers out among the former. What’s different here (though if you’re a fan of the NotNW website, you’ll have seen this treatment for other races) is that while you can usually become a “full” – that is, Bestiary equivalent member of the normal race – green hag at 11th level, this class is extended all the way to 20th level, with new powers enhancing those commonly associated with these monsters.

And there’s little doubt that green hags are monsters. The book helpfully provides a large fluff section on green hags in the game world and green hag PCs, and the tone holds that green hags are monsters and everyone knows it. This is true, but I was surprised that they didn’t devote more time to those rare hags that weren’t stereotypical villains, since PC green hags will likely not be evil. As it is, the green hags as PCs section talks more about the mechanical balance of this class, which is helpful too.

The feats section of the book follows, and this is where covens are spotlighted. Characters that take the basic Coven Initiate feat – open to all arcane spellcasters (with a sidebar noting that certain creatures and classes may naturally have access to this feat) – are able to, when together, able to cast a select number of spells simply by virtue of being a coven. A generous helping of feats expand on this in a variety of ways. Beyond that, several other feats don’t require coven abilities, but instead focus on witch-like powers (my favorite here was witch-specific feat called Blessing of the Three, whose bonus changes depending on your age category in the vein of the Maiden/Mother/Crone trinity).

The hexes section is fairly slim (four new standard hexes, three new major hexes, and two new grand hexes) but again, the flavor of what’s here makes up for that. A hex to fly so long as the witch is riding a broom or similar object, for example. I won’t give any more away, but beware angering the witch with the Form of the Three hex!

Alternate familiar abilities are one of those ideas that seems so obvious it’s amazing no one’s thought of it before. These are like alternate class abilities in that you have a series of powers that replace one of the normal abilities you gain for your familiar as you level up. Instead of speaking with animals of its kind, for example, you familiar can learn how to vocalize a particular language. It’s simplicity itself, and is one of the most elegant ways to diversify familiars, since it requires neither precious feat slots nor temporary spells.

Lastly are the thirty new spells mentioned in the book’s product page. Given on the witch spell list (though many can be cast by other classes), almost all of these spells can be used by a single spellcaster…but that’s not where their real value lies. These spells also have the new ritual descriptor, which means that when cast with the aid of a coven, they have an enhanced effect depending on how many others are lending their power to the spell. For example, the Dread Calling spell calls an outsider (with no restrictions on it) of up to ½ the caster’s spellcaster level. However, if your coven ritual-casts this spell with you, that limit is lifted to ½ the total caster level of all those joining you in the casting.

Some of the best sourcebooks I’ve ever seen are those that serve a specific niche, but make sure to keep a wider applicability in doing so; Secrets of the Witch is one of those sourcebooks. Its material is tightly focused on the witch class, both in theme and mechanics, but almost all of the book can be used for other characters. Your green hag PC doesn’t have to be a witch, for example, and the alternate familiar abilities can be used by any character with a familiar. This book makes your witch more quintessential, or your other arcane spellcaster a little more witchy in presentation. Pick this book up and show the rest of your group just which witch is which.

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

This book from Necromancers of the Northwest is 34 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving 29 pages of content.

Due to staves containing several spells and these ones also having additional qualities, I’m breaking my usual format for this review and review the staves according to groups they belong to. The staves herein range in price from a modest 2090 Gp to 265000 Gp.

All the staves come with costs to create, requirements, prices etc. and at least a short physical description.

The first group of staves we are introduced to are the Gemstaves:

Gemstaves are powered not by the usual charges, but rather by spellgems, which are their own magic items (some of which with nice properties) and can be added to the respective staff. When venturing into a dungeon or the wild, PCs can thus carry spare gems with them to power their staves, greatly enhancing their usability. We get 16 gemstaves and 10 different spellgems for them, from unstable ones that could explode to chaotic ones and a fire-themed one, this new class of items will see some use in my game.

The next group of staves I’ll call Journeyman’s/Master’s staves. We get one Journeyman’s Staff and one Master’s Staff for each of the schools of magic. Journeyman’s staves usually feature 4 spells they can cast. They can be recharged better by expending spells of the school the staff is aligned with – 2 charges are restored instead of one. Additionally, by expending a charge after identifying a spell of the given school being cast, they can counter the spell. Great tools to make for Wizard duels. Master’s Staves are also aligned with the schools and can hold up to nine spells. Hold spells? Yep, you can actually change the spells they hold. Casting them via the staff takes 1/3 of the spell-level in charges. Master’s Staves also increase the DC of spells of the respective school cast by the wielder by one, stacking with Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus.

Finally, there are what I call theme-staves, i.e. staves that follow a certain theme of spells and always have some additional kind of quality that is useful beyond combat. Some can be broken for a retributive strike, which I always considered a cool idea. Due to the fact that they are a lot of ground to cover and a lot of abilities to write up, I’ll keep it short and sweet: I liked most of them, although some abilities felt a bit strong. None outright op, though.

Conclusion:

The pdf is extensively bookmarked, the artwork for the staves is all right, editing is ok ( I noticed two glitches) and layout adheres to the NWN-standard. Which unfortunately once again means that we don’t get a printer-friendly version but rather the used-parchment look. With regards to the crunch presented, I can’t complain: The staves are imaginative, cool and the new classes of staves make them iconic and viable options for both PCs and villains. I especially liked the concept of spellgems and hope it will be expanded upon in the future. That being said, I’ll refrain from going all out and giving this a 5-star rating. Why? Because I feel the pdf lacks a unique staff, history, hooks or even suggestions on roleplaying elements like e.g. treant-wood in the constructions of the staves. The crunch-part of this book is great, but there is next to no fluff and thus, this little extra awesomeness that makes a good buy an outstanding buy is missing. That being said, 4 stars is still a great rating. If you want cooler staves, check this out!

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

As Pathfinder grows older, classes are moving from the traditional “static class” to class designs that allow the user to modify the class to serve a variety of roles. The Codex Mechanica: On the Creation of Fabricants, from Necromancers of the Northwest, is an impressive example of the class design.

On the surface, the fabricant is a new race of steampunk humanoids for your Pathfinder game. The Fabricant race is divided into the five basic races (Human, Elf, Dwarf, Half-Orc, Halfling and Gnome) all rewritten to include more artificial reasons for their abilities. The history and backstory of the Fabricant is strong enough to build off of, but light enough to include in any campaign.

However, this race is designed to be the fluff behind the two classes included in the 43-PDF. The two classes, Iron Warrior and Iron Magus, are the real meat of the book. The Iron Warrior, the only full class (the Iron Magus is a prestige class for magic users), allows you to receive steampunk augmentations every level to build on your fabricant character. Depending on what mods you choose will allow you to recreate most of the melee/non-magical classes.

The material in The Fabricant is well written and this product based on that alone deserves a five star, however, the font choice for the layout is atrocious and makes it very difficult to read for any real length of time.

For the Player The Weapon Upgrades were the most exciting to my players. Anything that takes steampunk tech and applies it to medieval weaponry wins brownie points in my group.

For the Dungeon Master Each of the classes contain lore and easy integration into a campaign world. Even if you are not into steampunk, there are some great fantasy tie-ins in the mechanics and fluff.

The Iron Word The Fabricant is an awesome steampunkish race and class supplement that can lightly introduce tech elements into a fantasy campaign.

I really liked this one; the little opening vignette does a nice job of setting up the theme of the book. As subsystems go, this one is pretty simple, and it will incorporate nicely into an existing game with a minimum of fuss. Unlike the other reviewer, I have no particular problem with the alignment system as it exists, though I do use a numerical sub-system from the Book of Hallowed Might for descriptive purposes. Anyway, the system described herein isn't any more unbalanced than the paladin class - purifying flames are great at destroying evil things (unless those evil things are resistant to fire) but leave good (and usually neutral) things untouched by the flames. Very cool. I will be using this book's material HEAVILY in my campaign for followers of my Sun/Justice god.

This pdf is 23 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving 18 pages of content.

The pdf begins with an aptly-written IC-introduction followed by an explanation of the new mechanics. Essentially we get a new type of damage that can be combined with another energy type. Thus, e.g. purifying damage could also be combined with cold or other energy types. Due to the rich tradition of cleansing flames, this book uses flames as the base energy. The purifying energy damage is susceptible to the immunities or resistances of the base energy as normal. More importantly, purifying damage only deal damage to evil creatures (though, with a feat, you can also damage neutral creatures.)

The first part of this book portrays the new [Purification]-feats. These feats work a bit like metamagic feats in that they are applied to spells. However, unlike metamagic feats, they don't increase the caster level. You can only apply one purification feat per 2 levels of the spell, rounded down. Usually, non-evil creatures gain an additional benefit from being in the area of effect of a purification-spell. The 25 new feats are: -Abolishing Fire: Dispel evil (third effect) on target -Abolishing Fire. Greater: As the normal, but dispel more -Banishing Fire: Banishment for evil outsiders -Clarifying Fire: Remove Blindness/Deafness -Cleansing Fire: Remove Disease, temporarily suppress disease-ability of enemies -Discriminating Purification: Damage neutral creatures as well with purifying damage -Disparaging Fire: Frighten enemies -Dispelling Fire: Dispel Magic -Dispelling Fire, Greater: Greater Dispel Magic -Disruptive Fire: Destroy evil undead that fail a DC 17 fort save and have less HD than you -Exhausting Fire: Exhaust enemies, afflict undead with light or severe necrosis /see Liber Vampyr) -Extra Ignite Weapon: +1 Ignite Weapon per day -Fortuitous Fire: Remove Curse and temporarily disable Curse special attacks of enemies -Invigorating Fire: Remove Paralysis -Mark of the Purifying Flame: Gain bonus to diplomacy and +1 damage for purification rolls -Melting Fire: Stone to Flesh

-Neutralizing Fire: Neutralize Poison, enemies temporarily lose poison quality -Pure Conviction: +50% damage via purification against evil creatures. OUCH. That's powerful. Very powerful. -Purification Mastery: Apply +1 purification feat -Purifying Spell[Metamagic]: Makes a spell a purifying spell, +1 caster level for good casters, +2 for neutral ones -Purifying Strike: Deal an additional +1d6 fire/purification damage via your weapons, can be used Cha-mod times per day, min 1/day. No duration is given for the additional fire damage against the designated target, though. -Relentless Purification: Ignore your character-level resistance of enemies towards your purification spells -Restful Fire: Lets non-evil creatures stave off fatigue and exhaustion -Soothing Fire: Remove sickened condition of non-evil targets -Greater Soothing Fire: Remove sickened and nauseated conditions of non-evil targets

After that, we get 19 new spells, some of which can be added to the spell-lists of the APG-classes. Good to see that they are not forgotten. The new spells all have the [fire, purifying] descriptors.

-Blinding Embers (Clr 4, Sor/Wiz 4): 3d6 + blindness or remove blindness/deafness -Brightflame (Sor/Wiz 2): Burst 3d6 + daze evil creatures -Enshrouding Flames (Clr 2, Sor/Wiz 2, Sum 2): persistent 1d6 damage to foe or minor burning shield -Fires of Clarity (Sor/Wiz 8): Cure confusion and deal 1d6 damage per caster level, cone -Fires of Redemption (Clr 7, Sor/Wiz 7): 5d8 damage, can work as atonement and cure diseases, poison and curses. I'm going to talk about this one in the conlcusion. -Fires of Wrath (Sor/Wiz 9): 1d8 per caster level damage and 1d4 negative levels for evil creatures that fail a second save. -Heartfire (Clr 6, Sor/Wiz 6): Sickening ray that deals 2d8 per caster level. -Holy Inferno (Sor/Wiz 4): Cylindrical fire, 1d4 per caster level, slows evil creatures without a save. -Moonflame (Brd 1, Drd 1, Wch 1): Light to make evil creatures shaken, can be discharged as a touch attack. -Persevering Blaze (Clr 8, Drd 8, Sor/Wiz 8): 4d8 damage per round for evil creatures, can heal the same in good creatures -Pureflame Barrier (Clr 6, Sor/Wiz 6): Holy flame wall, especially effective against undead and evil outsiders -Pureflame Ray (Clr 5, Sor/Wiz 5): Ray deals 1d8 per two caster levels and staggers enemies, especially efficient against undead and evil outsiders. -Rebuking Flames (Sor/Wiz 7, Wch 7): burst deals 1d6 damage per level, enemies must succeed a will save or cower. -Revitalizing Inferno (Clr 9, Drd 9): I think there is a glitch here: This spell deals only 1d6 points damage. Secondary effect is to act as Greater Restoration and Regeneration for good-aligned people who stand a minute in it. -Sacred Combustion (Clr 3): 1d6 per caster level damage or heal. -Sacred Weapon (Clr 3, Inq 3, Pal 3, Sor/Wiz 3): +1d6 purifying flame damage. I think there is a typo here, the duration of the spell should probably not be "instantaneous". -Transcendent Immolation (Clr 5, Sor/Wiz 5): Get a fire shield and bonus to saves against diseases, poisons and curses. -Whitefire Ray (Clr 1, Sor/Wiz 1): 1d6 ranged touch rays, 1 ray per 5 levels. -Whitefire Ring (Sor/Wiz 3): 10 ft burst centered on you, 1d8 per to caster levels (max 5d8), push enemies away.

After these, we get a new PrC, the Knight of the pure Flame. The knight gets d10, 2+Int skills per level, proficiency with any armor and weapons, a good BAB, medium fort and will-saves.

The PrC focuses on an interpretation of a holy knight who infuses purification damage in his weapons. I liked the class and it didn't seem to be OP. the PrC-write-up is detailed and features roles in the world etc.

Conclusion:

I've gotta come clean about one fact first: I HATE the alignment system. From the bottom of my heart. In each and every campaign since my first, I've replaced e.g. detect evil with detect heretic, thus making both smite and the respective spells stronger put also potentially deadly to good guys caught in them. Thus I have to admit that I, personally, reject the premise of universally good, discriminating damage. On the other hand, I love the trope of cleansing fires, especially how the holy flames harm only those who do not adhere to the sacred principles and the PrC is a godsend (bad pun, I know)for one of my players. Additionally, the spell that acts as atonement is just not my cup of coffee. However, even neutrally, there are some problems I see balance-wise in this pdf, namely the fact that in most campaigns, PCs will fight mostly EVIL enemies. Demons, Devils, corrupt governments, warlords, goblinoids, you name it - all evil critters and the abilities of these feats and spells are STRONG against these. Even worse, there is a feat that makes it possible to target neutral creatures with the fire, too. The whole book draws alignment-wise a VERY clear b/w-distinction and while some of text mentions moral ambiguity, shades of grey campaigns will find themselves VERY hard-pressed to uphold moral conundrums, when purification damage and effects are such a godsend towards the pure souls, even more so than with the standard spells. On the production value side, I noticed some errors which another pass at editing could have cleared. The one piece of full color artwork is stunning. Layout unfortunately adheres to the NWN-standard, i.e. we once again get the rather printer-unfriendly used-parchment look. Due to my minor balance concerns, the minor glitches and the fact that the book didn't utterly blast me away, I'm going to settle for 3 stars.

P.S.: I actually AM going to use the spells and PrCs. For my villains. A new organization rises, exterminating evil without mercy and while the populace seems to love them, they slowly become more fanatic, routing out minor evil-doers and slowly extending their focus to druids and the like, too, alongside a twisted war-mongering rhetoric of a new kingdom of "pure" beings to inherit the earth. Feel free to steal this angle. :)

Got guilds? Probably not. If you regularly play adventures for the World's Most Popular Roleplaying game, you're still leveling up and not knowing who your trainer is (if any), you're picking up adventures through rumors and strange people wandering up to you in a tavern, and your contacts for information are nonexistent. But if you're looking for a some medieval realism to inject into your fantasy, you'll want a guild. You'll want the guild to help train your adventurers. You'll want the guild to assign them tasks to do, and tell them of adventuring opportunities. They'll be there so your adventurers will find information. The Blackshire Mercenary Company does that, and more, an impressive breadth of useful "realistic" fantasy material in the background of your string of miscellaneous adventures. The depth of the material doesn't go beyond adventure seed level, and the stats are for OGL/d20/3.5/Pathfinder, but it's plenty for us gamemasters who know they want a guild, but don't know what to do next. The supplement has a history of the BMC, subplot seeds, hiring rates, guild membership benefits, vivid personalities, and a prestige class for BMC members. The authors intend to cover guilds for other classes as well, and I'm looking forward to it!

I found Necromancers of the Northwest take on the ninja as a class a refreshing change to the versions being put out by most other publishers which just seem to be a variation of the rogue base class. Their version of the ninja focuses more on the use of skills and his superior ambushing capability, which happens to be the classes main focus. This is a ninja class that actually feels more like it is a Ninja Warrior than a rogue/monk/spell caster or variation thereof. I believe Necromancer has given players who want to play a ninja character but don’t want the Ki or spell casting abilities ,that usually come with other ninja classes, an excellent alternative. This product also contains four schools of Ninjutsu that a character must choose from at first level. This is the only complaint I have about this product and that is just a minor one. I would have liked to see more schools to choose from to add even more Oriental flavour to this class. The alternative class features also add distinct ninja feel to the core classes and if you purchase this don’t be surprised to suddenly see your clerics and sorcerers skulking through the dungeon corridors dressed head to toe in black!

I was pleasantly surprised with this product and think it is a very good deal for the price that you are paying. I look forward to seeing more on this class from Necromancer, hopefully something that expands the schools and gear/weapons , because they have done an excellent job with this one.

Many of the spell-products that have been released over the years are extensive collections of spells that are mostly just variants of existing spells with perhaps something new strewn into the mix. It's rare and unusual to find a product that doesn't just present new spells, but takes things a little further. Advanced Arcana Volume I (which is something of a misnomer as the product also contains numerous divine spells) is such a product that presents three new spell types and the spells that go along with each new type. It's much more than a book of spells though, as it covers other new additions such as sorcerer bloodlines, cleric domains and other useful material for the Pathfinder Roleplaying game.

Advanced Arcane is a 59 page color pdf product, very well presented with some good quality art and layout. The background is a little dark for my tastes, but that's an entirely subjective opinion. While the vast majority of the product is mechanical in nature, it's partially presented from the perspective of a wizard well versed in the lore of the spells presented. As such, there are many pieces of conversational prose in the product, that both make an entertaining read as well as provide useful and beneficial information about the product to the reader. Both the mechanical and fictional writing are very good, as is the editing. The mechanics is also solid. It should be said though, as is highlighted in the product, that this is a product of rare or unusual spells, and as such their power levels may be beyond what one would normally be used to. DMs are encouraged with good advice to be judicious in handing out the spells in this product.

As mentioned, this product is about spells, but more importantly perhaps about three new spell types. The first is the segmented spell, which is essentially a spell that requires multiple castings to complete and one that can be completed co-operatively. There are a number of cleverly crafted versions of these spells, and naturally if they're actually cast can be quite deadly. This kind of spell also acts very well as a plot hook, and as such it's probably best if they do exhibit almost exorbitant levels of power. The second type of spell is the fountain spell, which when cast allows you to recall a spell of lower level in addition to the effect from the spell itself. This is clever in that it extends the mage's arsenal, while at the same time not increasing their power. Lastly, the third spell type is a modal spell, which has different strengths depending on the amount of casting time put into the spell. All these types of spells combine well to create additional possibilities for spellcasters of all classes.

I was quite pleased with the selection of spells presented and the implementation of the above types within them. There are a lot of fun and quite entertaining spells there. Xelar's Prismatic Sphere is a wonderful visual spell, for example, where the wizard's body explodes each round with a different part of the standard prismatic sphere. Such spells, when used properly, can be devastating and highly visual, but more importantly offer extensive subtext for plot hooks and story arcs. Overall this is a wonderful selection of new spells and spells types, perhaps a little on the powerful side, but understandably so. A solid product that's well worth a look if you want to increase the versatility of your spellcaster or as a DM to use the more powerful spells as a campaign arc or story incentive. Neat product.

I really don’t know where the current zeitgeist of “werewolves vs. vampires” came from, but lately it’s been everywhere. From the Underworld movies to Twilight, the two somehow seem to have become natural enemies, or at least counterparts. Given that, it’s somewhat appropriate that Necromancers of the Northwest – whose Liber Vampyr sourcebook made vampires into playable characters in Pathfinder – should release A Necromancer’s Grimoire: Marchen der Daemonwulf, which makes werewolves into a PC choice in your Pathfinder game.

Looking at this book’s technical merits, it does rather well for itself. The product has full, nested bookmarks, and the text is selectable. However, copy and paste has been turned off, which is a rather unpleasant surprise. Hopefully this will be addressed in an update.

The book’s visual design plays into the title’s theme. All of the pages are set against a cream-color background, as though written on old parchment. There are only three illustrations in the book, but they’re done in a very evocative style and contain hyperlinks to the page of the artists, which I found to be a great way of acknowledging the people who helped illustrate the book.

But what does this book actually offer for people who want to play a werewolf character? First, it should be made absolutely clear that this book is for would-be wolves only; other lycanthropes need not apply. Now, you could certainly reskin this book to deal with other sorts of were-creatures, but as written it’s all about the lupines.

The book opens with a foreword discussing where the idea came from and its evolution to fit the Necromancers of the Northwest’s style of smaller releases. This was rather telling, since the book does narrow its focus considerably from its vampiric counterpart. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, since unlike that book this one is a pay-for-download product, but still, it’s something else to know that they could have added more but chose not to.

The book begins by introducing us to the lycaonite base class. This class is not only heavily invested in offering bonus werewolf feats (see below) to help flesh out your werewolf character concept, it also presents an escalating series of mechanics based around offering bonuses or penalties to various stats depending on the phases of the moon. I suspect that some players and GM’s will be put off by the idea that a PCs bonuses can fluctuate (heavily so as the class levels up) due to events beyond the character’s control, but this is addressed in sidebars and a surprisingly frank discussion about using the class in the game. If nothing else, the book is very open about the challenges of using this class, and offering some alternative ways of utilizing it.

One thing I would have liked to have seen more of, though I can’t hold this against the book considering the attention given to keeping it on the lean side, was new options matching what was in the Advanced Player’s Guide. Werewolf traits, for example, or class archetypes for the lycaonite (perhaps that would have been a good way to work in alternate lycanthropes?) would have been welcome.

The bulk of Marchen der Daemonwulf, however, is devoted to its werewolf feats. Weighing in at fifty-five feats, the design philosophy here is told to us outright: that you can take whatever combination of feats lets you build the werewolf you want. And make no mistake, there are a lot of options. Several feat “trees” are presented, such as an escalating series of feats around gaining power from devouring corpses (you gain extra power if it’s the corpse of a sentient creature) or around becoming a leader of wolves. Others are stand-alone feats, such as improving your ability to transform, or gaining fast healing at night.

A half-dozen new magic items round out the book. Two are magic weapon properties, while the other four are wondrous items. I was a little surprised by this section, as it seemed rather anemic and thus against the philosophy of keeping the book narrowly focused; only here are things that can be used against werewolves, as opposed to playing one (though there are some beneficial magic items here too).

Overall, Marchen der Daemonwulf does a superb job of making werewolves an option for PCs. By using feats to grant werewolf powers, along with a class that maximizes not only how many feats you can gain but also introduces lunar abilities, playing a shapeshifting lycanthrope is made into a viable and interesting choice for players. Though the book has some issues, such as the uncopyable text or the sparse magic items, none of these are enough to hurt its focus. If you’ve always wanted to play a werewolf character, then you have cause to howl in joy with the release of Marchen der Daemonwulf.

This pdf is 59 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page inside of front cover, 1 page credits, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD and 1 page back cover.

That leaves 53 pages of new arcane, not a bad bang-to-buck-ratio, so let’s dive in. The pdf starts with one page of in-character introduction to the book in the form of a letter as well as 3 pages of introduction that explain the new concepts introduced in this book. The explanation is an awesome read, using foot-notes and a nice pseudo-academic tone I always associate with mages. After that, we get 2 pages that explain the new concepts of segmented spells (spells that take up more than one spell-slot, but are more powerful), which is one of the most elegant solutions for e.g. cooperative ritualistic casting I’ve seen so far and quite frankly, I’m astonished why no one has had the idea to do so until now. There are also quick spells, spells that can either be cast fast or as a regular spell. We also get spells that refresh spell-slots for the casters. Another side-bar on the page has some optional rules to handle spells from non-core books like this – the ideas are nice and work fine: I’ll be using them for all 3pp products in the future!

After that, we get 5 pages of spell-lists and after that, we get the 65 new spells. I’m going to list the number of spells that are added to each class: -Alchemist: 2 spells -Bard: 19 spells -Cleric: 25 spells -Druid: 18 spells -Inquisitor: 4 spells -Paladin: 2 spells -Ranger: 3 spells

• Sorceror/Wizard: 57 spells -Summoner: 4 spells -Witch: 10 spells The description of the spells take up 24 pages and are quite interesting. Apart from one orison, none of the spells felt boring, unimaginative etc. – They are quite frankly almost all killer, no filler. I’m usually not a friend of spell-sourcebooks, but these spells, especially the segmented ones, fill a niche that has went unattended for too long. None of the spells felt too powerful or useless and none duplicate lame effects and have their niche. The first Appendix is 8 pages long and depicts a cool in-character description on how the book was compiled – being an enjoyable read, this section also doubles as a nice set of adventure hooks for further research of the spell-concepts packed into this book.

Appendix 2 features 8 new cleric domains. (3 pages)

Appendix 3 details 4 Djinni-related Sorceror Bloodlines: Dao, Efreet, Djinn and Marid. (3 pages)

Appendix 4 introduces 8 focused schools for wizard specialists.

Appendix 5 features 8 new familiars, the animated object, the hedhehog, the newt, the poisonous frog, the rabbit, the skeleton, the turtle and the bonsai tree! Yep, the bonsai tree familiar. Awesome idea!

Conclusion:

The editing, layout and formatting are top-notch, I didn’t notice any typos or glitches. The book is full-color and parchment-style and features artwork that ranges from fair to beautiful. I haven’t seen the artwork before and really liked most of it.

I did not expect much of this book, to be honest. I was expecting another moderately-inspired compilation of spells. What I got was something completely different: The writing, both fluff and crunch are inspired, segmented spells are an elegant, easy way to implement rituals, quickened spells are useful and I like the concept of spells that let you regenerate minor spell-slots. The appendices add to the overall appeal and feature some nice ideas. For 5 bucks you get an EXCELLENT book on the arcane that is truly “advanced”. The only true gripe I have with this book is, that there is no printer-friendly version included. Advanced Arcana I gets the Endzeitgeist-seal-of-approval nevertheless – I rate it 5 stars. Detract a star if you want a printer-friendly version. If you want some cool, fresh edges for your casters, check this out.

This pdf is 59 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page inside of front cover, 1 page credits, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD and 1 page back cover.

That leaves 53 pages of new arcane, not a bad bang-to-buck-ratio, so let’s dive in. The pdf starts with one page of in-character introduction to the book in the form of a letter as well as 3 pages of introduction that explain the new concepts introduced in this book. The explanation is an awesome read, using foot-notes and a nice pseudo-academic tone I always associate with mages. After that, we get 2 pages that explain the new concepts of segmented spells (spells that take up more than one spell-slot, but are more powerful), which is one of the most elegant solutions for e.g. cooperative ritualistic casting I’ve seen so far and quite frankly, I’m astonished why no one has had the idea to do so until now. There are also quick spells, spells that can either be cast fast or as a regular spell. We also get spells that refresh spell-slots for the casters. Another side-bar on the page has some optional rules to handle spells from non-core books like this – the ideas are nice and work fine: I’ll be using them for all 3pp products in the future!

After that, we get 5 pages of spell-lists and after that, we get the 65 new spells. I’m going to list the number of spells that are added to each class: -Alchemist: 2 spells -Bard: 19 spells -Cleric: 25 spells -Druid: 18 spells -Inquisitor: 4 spells -Paladin: 2 spells -Ranger: 3 spells

• Sorceror/Wizard: 57 spells -Summoner: 4 spells -Witch: 10 spells The description of the spells take up 24 pages and are quite interesting. Apart from one orison, none of the spells felt boring, unimaginative etc. – They are quite frankly almost all killer, no filler. I’m usually not a friend of spell-sourcebooks, but these spells, especially the segmented ones, fill a niche that has went unattended for too long. None of the spells felt too powerful or useless and none duplicate lame effects and have their niche. The first Appendix is 8 pages long and depicts a cool in-character description on how the book was compiled – being an enjoyable read, this section also doubles as a nice set of adventure hooks for further research of the spell-concepts packed into this book.

Appendix 2 features 8 new cleric domains. (3 pages)

Appendix 3 details 4 Djinni-related Sorceror Bloodlines: Dao, Efreet, Djinn and Marid. (3 pages)

Appendix 4 introduces 8 focused schools for wizard specialists.

Appendix 5 features 8 new familiars, the animated object, the hedhehog, the newt, the poisonous frog, the rabbit, the skeleton, the turtle and the bonsai tree! Yep, the bonsai tree familiar. Awesome idea!

Conclusion:

The editing, layout and formatting are top-notch, I didn’t notice any typos or glitches. The book is full-color and parchment-style and features artwork that ranges from fair to beautiful. I haven’t seen the artwork before and really liked most of it.

I did not expect much of this book, to be honest. I was expecting another moderately-inspired compilation of spells. What I got was something completely different: The writing, both fluff and crunch are inspired, segmented spells are an elegant, easy way to implement rituals, quickened spells are useful and I like the concept of spells that let you regenerate minor spell-slots. The appendices add to the overall appeal and feature some nice ideas. For 5 bucks you get an EXCELLENT book on the arcane that is truly “advanced”. The only true gripe I have with this book is, that there is no printer-friendly version included. Advanced Arcana I gets the Endzeitgeist-seal-of-approval nevertheless – I rate it 5 stars. Detract a star if you want a printer-friendly version. If you want some cool, fresh edges for your casters, check this out.

I find that, in most instances, books of new spells are among the hardest things to review. That’s because there’s no cohesive theme for the book (save for the obvious) – it’s a collection of individual components, and so you’re forced to review in broad strokes since you can’t go over every individual spell. With Necromancers of the Northwest’s new book, Advanced Arcana, I was fortunate not to have that problem, for reasons that I’ll outline below.

For the record though, if I’d had to review this book in sweeping generalizations, I’d probably have gone with something along the lines of “made of win.”

Advanced Arcana is a fifty-nine page PDF for the Pathfinder RPG. Ostensibly a book of new spells for the game, it also contains related elements such as new domains, bloodlines, and familiars. As the name hints, it takes into account the recently-released Advanced Player’s Guide, as it has spells and spell lists for the new classes from that guide as well as the more traditional spellcasting classes.

From a technical standpoint, the book hits most of the marks that I’ve come to expect from quality PDFs. Nested bookmarks are there, for instance. However, I ran into some trouble when to word search – which often skipped over words – and trying to copy-and-paste from the book. For some reason, when highlighting large sections of text (e.g. paragraphs) portions of the selected text would be missing, and trying to copy and paste the text that was selected produced weird (and I do mean truly cryptic) results – obviously, this is a flaw in the book’s production, but the sheer weirdness of the copy-and-pasting results almost make it seem like I’m trying to copy the Necronomicon or something. It’s perhaps the coolest error I’ve ever seen in a PDF.

The cover image is a variant of the Necromancers of the Northwest logo, a recurring motif in their books. Beyond that, the pages are all set on a cream-colored background, as though written on parchment. Just over a half-dozen illustrations are sprinkled through the book, each by a different artist but all of them quite good. I was very impressed with the props that the Necromancers gave to their illustrators. Each is mentioned in conjunction with their piece of art on the credits page, and hyperlinks go both to the artwork in the book and to the artist’s deviantart page. Way to recognize the talented people who contributed to the book!

I confess that I was surprised at the book’s three-page opening. Beyond a one-page letter from a father sending this book to his son, there’s then a fairly hefty in-character foreword talking about what drives a wizard to seek out and create new magic. It’s certainly an interesting read, and does a great job laying the foundations for what to expect from the book, but it’s almost bizarre that so much emphasis was given to this opening flavor text. I suppose I’m not used to that much intro; I’m certainly not used to it being presented in-character.

But enough about that, what was I saying before about the spells in this book being themed? Well, I’m glad you asked.

There are slightly over five dozen new spells here, a considerable amount. What makes Advanced Arcana interesting though, is that it doesn’t just throw a collection of new spells at you and be satisfied with that. Rather, there are three different types of new spells here.

The first are the “quick” spells. These are spells that give you the option of casting them as an immediate action, but if you cast them as a standard action, usually last longer or have greater power. It’s a great way to build in variability without having to resort to multiple spells that are almost identical, or utilize metamagic. I personally love having mutability and multiple options built into an individual spell, so these immediately went to the top of my “must use!” list.

The second type of new spells are “fountain” spells. These are relatively high-level spells that, in addition to their basic spell effect, also restore a low-level spell. Cast rejuvenate on someone, for instance, and they’ll not only recover hit points, but also several spell levels’ worth of spells, for instance. Now, most of the people I know would read the previous sentence and already be screaming “unbalanced!” However, there’s inherent balancing factors in these spells – the base effects are weaker than expected for their level, the spells that are restored in this way must be used relatively quickly, and you can only gain back a spell you’ve used in the last day. These are multi-effect spells that don’t tip the balance of power for spellcasters in the game (any more than they’re already tipped, I mean).

The third type of spells here are “segmented” spells. Thematically the opposite of fountain spells, segmented spells are high-level spells that require multiple castings to take effect. That is, simply casting these spells once won’t do it – you need to cast the spell multiple times over, either preparing it more than once or spontaneously casting it more than once, for it to take effect.

The trade-off here is that these effects are more powerful than spells of their level usually would be. You may need to spend three of your ninth-level spells casting create replicant over and over, but doing so will grow a clone that has its own soul, for instance. Segmented spells seemed slightly too close to incantations for my liking, but still present an innovative new option for stronger-but-balanced spells.

Of course, none of these spells dominate the book. Each is roughly a handful of the new spells presented here, with there being plenty of “typical” new spells for characters to use. And even here, the Necromancers did a great job of presenting new materials. A spell that creates dozens of magic missiles to orbit you as a defense, but also lets you erode that defense by firing some of them at your enemies? Genius!

After this are a series of appendices, the first of which is a second in-character discussion of the book. Weighing in at a whopping eight pages, this discusses the lengths the author went to to create Advanced Arcana, complete with footnotes. It primarily concerns his tracking down other mages (the ones who’re the names in the named spells) to solicit their creations. Again, it’s impressive, but between the foreword and this, almost a fifth of the book is dedicated to the in-character narrative. It’s very interesting, but I have to wonder if it would have made a better web enhancement, or if there could at least have been some accompanying new stats (for the eponymous wizards, perhaps).

The next appendix details eight new clerical domains. These are good, covering staples that the guys at Paizo somehow overlooked thus far, such as Shadow or Vermin. However, while I feel a bit greedy saying how I wish there was more, I do – specifically, I wish there’d been subdomains here. Subdomains, from the Advanced Player’s Guide, swap out a domain power or two for one with a more specific theme. That could have been here, but wasn’t. Perhaps in a future article in the Necromancers’ website?

New sorcerer bloodlines follow in the third appendix. There are four here, one for each kind of genie. There’s little further exposition I can give, save to note with some wry amusement that they kept “dao” for the earth-based genies, despite that slot being given to the new “shaitan” genie in the Pathfinder RPG.

The fourth appendix covers “focused” wizard schools, and it was this chapter that eliminated most of my guilt over asking for new subdomains for the clerical domains presented earlier. Why? Because these are wizard subdomains. That is, these are eight alternate wizard school abilities, one for each school, that follows a narrower theme within that school. For example, if you chose the conjuration school of magic, you can take the summoning focused school, which trades away two of the non-summoning powers of that school for two new powers related to summoning creatures. It’s actually a nifty idea, and again I wish there were more of them, since there’s plenty of untapped potential here.

The last appendix in the book presents eight new arcane familiars, and its here where the Necromancers really show off how they’re crazy geniuses. Most of these familiars are fairly standard in that they’re new animals (e.g. a bunny rabbit, a turtle, etc.) but there’s a few that are just off the wall, such as the animated object, the human skeleton, or my personal favorite, the bonsai tree. None of these familiars have stat blocks, instead referencing existing stat blocks and noting the appropriate changes to make. Interestingly, each has a paragraph of expository text describing them, which generate some interesting ideas. Maybe that skeleton familiar is your ancestor ceding you their body to watch over you, for example. Good ideas really make this last section come alive.

Overall, I really got a kick out of this book. While it did have length narrative fiction, the occasional error (I’m looking at you, quickshade), and sometimes lacked something I wish had been included, these small problems were utterly drowned beneath the weight of the gold mine of new ideas this book presents. New spells, new types of spells, new familiars, focused schools of magic, new familiars – and all of such great innovation that I can’t wait to start adding what’s here into my game, and you won’t be able to either. Advance your arcana with Advanced Arcana!