This is a nicely illustrated (and fully furnished) little supplement of a haunted mansion (or evil cult headquarters, or what have you) based on the old House of Hell supplement from Games Workshop. Basically they deleted the original plot line (developed by Steve Jackson, of all people -- one of my favorite game designers) and "repurposed" the house to serve as a backdrop for anything you want to use it for. It is primarily useful for GM's who don't have a lot of time to draft something up for themselves, but still need a large mansion for their players to work through. This one is better illustrated than many (though I have seen better). There are additional items of furniture and scenery that can be photocopied and cut apart to create new areas and obstacles for your players, including underground elements such as a minecar railway (for those Indiana Jones moments) and tunnels. There's also a section suitable for creting lawns and gardens. Overall I give this one a "four" simply because of the artwork, which is quite evocative. Keep in mind though, you aren't getting any kind of plot line, just a background against which you can adventure. In addition to this as a source of ideas, you may also want to look at "This Old Haunted House," and "This Old Haunted House, Too," both by Chaosium for Call of Cthulhu.

9 Pages full of useful information. What one gets for a few dollar is of great use in any SciFi RPG. I'm using it in Trinity for a small base on mars.

The texts give us a colourful and vibrant description of how the space port works, what the people there think and do. Some plothooks are also given and those are quite handy. The reader also finds some (space) sailor's yarn. Every part of the space port is described very good and a drawing can be found on the last page. No NSC is deeply depicted, but this is no problem to me.

I like this piece of writing and would recommend it to every gamemaster!

This pdf is 93 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD and 1 page art credits, leaving a whopping 88 pages of content, so let's check out Tabletop Adventures first offering for PFRPG, Shards of the Heart.

The pdf begins with an introduction of what to expect from this product - namely, help for the beleaguered DM should he wish to introduce an element of romance to the game. Instead of providing shoehorning rules that reduce romance to a series of die-throws, we are thankfully introduced to what makes romance possible in the context of the game - characters. Plenty of them. And the emphasis lies on "characters" - the individuals presented feel different from each other and come with sample quotes, extensive flavor-text descriptions to read aloud as well as background stories, advice on how to run them etc. Surprisingly, we don't get a bland array of high-Cha characters, but a neat variety of people, who, in spite of e.g. a low-to-average Cha-score, might have something interesting about them that makes them valid targets for flirtatious or serious advances.

Both female and male characters are covered in quite some depth, though perhaps not in the depth I'd have liked, but let me elaborate: While the range of interest is from long-term commitment to a short fling and past traumas are addressed, the latter only amount to "once burned, twice shy". While this may reflect a common experience, I would have loved for some more traumatic/tragic background-stories. Also, there's unfortunately a distinct lack of some styles of relationship offered by these NPCs: There are 3 entries that fall out of the roster, one being a stallion that takes a liking to one of the PC's horses (great idea!), one a were-tiger and the final one is a character featured in the 14-page short story "The Wolf of the Woods". The story, as it takes up about one fifth of the space, should be commented on - essentially, it is the romance of a party's elven maid and a wolf who turns into a man on full moons, essentially making for an interesting take on the jinxed-lover trope. While this romantic set-up per se is interesting, the story is unfortunately not. The necromancer that is the villain of the story seems to have made a strange choice of minion with the involuntarily human-made wolf and quite frankly, I don't see how he could have let his treasured minion (if we accept that he wouldn't take an undead minion) escape. The romance between the elf and the wolf does not have much room to develop and e.g. the party's mage (who is pivotal in the conclusion of the story) almost escaped my attentions until the end. The fact that the elven maid lies with the wolf (though nothing explicit is stated) even when he is in wolf form might creep out some people, but although I admit it does not float my boat, I applaud the fact that it's a non-standard romance.

Most characters come with more than one set of stats and, where applicable, they contain animal companions etc. The classes used range from NPC-classes to base-classes, but expect nothing out of the ordinary.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are good on the overall, but the fact that several different authors contributed to the pdf shows, as some entries are a bit bumpier reads than others and there are some glitches, including CRs that are off (like in aforementioned wolf's CR - a 6HD wolf with Str 25 and CR 1?). Layout is clear and printer-friendly b/w and the pdf is extensively bookmarked. The b/w-character portrays are mostly ok, with some nice ones sprinkled in between, all other artwork is stock. It should be noted that most entries also include a poem or similar quote from real-world literature, which I do consider nice.

I really love the concept of this pdf. Romantic interests are underrepresented in roleplaying games and having a compilation ready is actually very helpful and most PCs will find a fit within these pages. Or will they? I already mentioned the shorts story (which amounts to a waste of space for me), but the real bummer for me was that most relationships are simply vanilla. While some of the men (and women) are only out for a fling, there is no NPC that could be considered kinky in any way - neither dominance, nor some other non-standardized concepts of love (like a couple looking for another person for a love-triangle) are covered. While I accept the lack of explicit material due to the PFRPG license, this pdf had the chance of addressing such topics in a mature manner, which judging by the quality of the individual write-ups, would have been possible for the authors. Furthermore, there is a more significant drawback in this file: Only the "sexy" races are covered.

That's right. No halflings, gnomes, dwarves or half-orcs herein. It seems like they simply don't qualify for romance. The same goes for sorcerors and paladins. While there is one multi-class sorceror herein, she fits more the druid-type. Paladins are completely absent from the files, as are any good characters who are torn between love and celibacy. There also are no evil love interests - which is a pity, as it would make for great redemption/temptation plots and furthers the stereotype of evil characters being there to be killed off instead of trying to redeem them.

Essentially, that leaves "safe" romances offered by the characters in this pdf - while the NPCs do have their own agendas, the lack of moral dilemmas serves detrimental to the overall appeal of the book or at least it did so for me. The fact that only the "sexy" races elf, human and half-elf are covered with aforementioned 3 exceptions feels weird and unjust for me, especially due to the fact that writing a romance for a halfling/dwarf etc. would have provided for a challenge - after all, they are not as dreamy as elves. The lack of evil romances further underlines this playing-it-safe-approach and further limited the appeal of the book, at least for me.

Finally, there's the issue of the price. While the amount of content presented is fine for the price, I expect to see more (or higher quality) original art for the price, especially when the topic of love is concerned, good portrays to show off to your players go a long way to endear a character and not all of the artworks qualify as such. If the pdf was cheaper, I would have gladly given this book a higher rating, but the problems doe add up - seeing that for only 5 bucks more, we can get a wholly professional 290+ pages campaign setting, the pricing seems to be a bit off. While I did get this pdf for free, I have to take into account that you will have to pay the full price for this. Add to this the amount of squandered potential with regards to races, alignments and stories and I'm hard-pressed to think about my rating. I do love the basic premise of the book and I enjoyed the presentation of the NPCs, the way in which their advances are written etc. With regards to these aspects, the pdf is top-notch. However, as you can glean from my observations, I also have a multitude of gripes with this pdf. I was thinking long and hard about my final verdict and will settle for two - if you're looking for a pdf containing romances for the elf/half-elf/human races, you might come to enjoy this pdf and even consider it a 3.5 stars-file, even at this price point. If, however, you look for the other races, more non-standard flings/romances, evil love interests, moral dilemmas etc., this pdf will disappoint you as it did me and is not for you. My final verdict will be somewhere between aforementioned audience's usability and my own dissatisfaction with the pdf, scoring a final rating of 2.5 stars, rounded down to 2. Please take note that if you look for e.g. a collection of none-too-complex statblocks or rather regular romances, this book still is worth a closer scrutiny.

Endzeitgeist out.

This is a comparatively simple product that can be used to quickly generate Japanese names (or at least close approximations - not being a speaker of Japanese, I cannot vouch for the accuracy of information, but it is certainly much better than anything I could achieve on my own). Besides the name generation, the cards also include the Japanese characters and translations (again, I make no statement as to the accuracy), and the product includes some detailed discussion into Japanese dating and numbering, as well as numerology and divination using names. It is a very good product that achieves its stated goal and can be used quickly and easily, and is certainly of great use to anyone who needs to produce a number of believable Japanese-sounding names and does not speak Japanese. It is also a nice touch that the cards are designed with different borders (to distinguish male, female, and etc.) so that they can be printed out in black & white and still be used (although I suspect that they are much easier to confuse when the color-coding is not evident)

This looks to be a really fun game with a simple mechanic that handles every situation. You don't have to consult a dozen tables and memorize different die calculations depending on whether your picking a pocket, wrestling or casting out a demon. One easy formula and you can concentrate on the story and running your character.

This download was a welcome addition to my collection. Even after thirty years of collecting and DMing, it helps to get some new ideas injected into the game, and Bits of Darkness: Dungeons does exactly that. This book contains six Dungeon Shards (encounters with a fair amount of detail and explanation), 100 Dungeon Bits (snippets of description or leading text), and also eight Catacombs encounters that are more detailed than Dungeon Bits but slightly less involved than the Dungeon Shards.

The pdf is cleanly organized to bring the best impact to your game session, fully bookmarked and easy to read. The fonts and and artwork do a nice job creating atmosphere without distracting from the content. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the book has not only a table of contents but also an index.

While the Dungeon Shards and Catacombs encounters are thoughtful and appropriate for nearly any dungeon scenario, the real gem of Bits of Darkness: Dungeons is also the longest section of the book: Dungeon Bits. These short pieces of atmosphere and description provide sensory-based clues and red herrings to be used by the DungeonMaster. While working with all five senses is a hallmark of good writing and good DMing, it can sometimes be difficult to recall in the heat of the game session to relate more than what the PCs can see. These premade bits are divided into categories for "Sights," "Sounds," "Scents," and "Stuff" to make sure you always have something on hand to keep the game fresh.

Bits of Darkness: Dungeons could be used on the fly to get a dungeon going, but it really shines when used as additional prep material for a polished, flesh-out adventure. Sometimes you're just not sure what to put down that other corridor, but you know that you want an alternate branch for heroes to explore. They can't just walk down a straight tunnel to the villain of the session, after all. Bits of Darkness: Dungeons gives the DM some clever ways to guide the party along, but it also leaves enough latitude to tailor an encounter to whatever scenario is appropriate.

The price of this supplement (currently $5.25) hearkens to the era of the mid-80s, when these sorts of books were being produced officially by TSR. It is of roughly the same length as those classic supplements, as well, and provides the same sort of punch when you really need it.

The product is good for it's descriptions: (210 approx). Artwork is fairly good (not great, but OK).

Although it is a bit pricey for 66 pages (£7.24 over here in the UK).

It appears to be the only one of it's kind (exploring derelict starships). Could also be used for space stations, colonies, etc (with a little work).

I'm not saying it's bad; it is good, but it could have been cheaper for its 66 pages.

I would have given it 5/5 if it were cheaper, or had more content.

This product does exactly what it says, providing a number of descriptions of desserts which a DM can insert into any game, to provide a little more (pardon the pun) flavor. The descriptions are all excellent and well-written (though some of them spend more time describing the arrangement of the food or the person delivering it than the actual food itself).

Even better, the foods are all very realistic and period-specific (according to the author, they're not just realistic, they're taken from real recipes), which means that you can use this book without fear that you'll wind up accidentally putting something weird, silly, or unnecessarily eldritch onto your PCs' plates when you didn't intend to.

My only complaint is that very few of the dishes are actually named, which would make it difficult for the DM to put them on the menu. Still, it's a free product, so it's nothing to turn your nose up at. Any DM who enjoys spicing up his games with fun bits of fluff should seriously consider incorporating this into his toolbox.

If your gaming group is interested in building some more complex roleplaying situations in a campaign, this product can be a useful reference. Especially if building relationships between characters (not necessarily romantic one) is something that interests the playgroup.

Shards of the Heart: A Bit of Character is a 93-page PDF (90-pages if you remove the cover and OGL pages) for the Pathfinder RPG written by Daniel Brakhage, Vicki Potter, Elizabeth Brakhage, Mark Potter, Mary Hanover, Nicholas Brakhage, and Nathan Mangion (with Pathfinder conversions by Skeeter Green) and published by Tabletop Adventures.

The layout is a standard two columns format, and everything is clear and easily readable. The cover is in color but the interior art is black and white and supports the product well with each character receiving at least a sketch and considerable flavorful clipart throughout.

Shards of the Heart is a collection of characters for Pathfinder role-playing encounters. The product opens with a piece about the purpose of the product which is to provide DM with ready-made characters with depth (background, goals) for the DM to add to their game. These characters are designed to be able to be played for long term interaction in a campaign, to be “real people” with their own paths. They are also designed to be able to enter into lasting relationships with PCs, including romantic ones (thus the “Shards of the Heart”).

Twenty-three characters are included, thirteen females and ten males, as well as a war horse and a wolf. Most of the characters are lower levels, 2nd - 5th, (the highest is 11th level) but most are given three stat blocks at various levels. To give each character the ability to make a strong impression, each has an illustration, a narrative piece to frame the character and one or more quotes to give good hooks for roleplaying the character. A page or more of background and personality, make each of the characters presented a fully realized one. While to make the characters easier to integrate into an ongoing game, each has a set of small scenarios and plot-hooks to draw in player character with.

All of the characters presented are human, elven or half-elven (a large proportion are half-elves in fact), it would have been nice to see at least one or two of the shorter and less pretty races represented. Surely there are dwarves, gnomes and halflings (as well as half-orcs) that deserves a chance at romance? Mechanically, there are a few small errors in the statblocks and the CR ratings are off for the characters as well, but these are minor problems and easily corrected.

Disclosure: As a featured reviewer for RPGNow/DriveThroughRPG, I received my copy of this product for free from the publisher for the purpose of this review.

Avalanche Press had a great run of doing solid d20 material based on real world folklore and cultures. Celtic Age is no exception. Full of informative material and OGL stats based on everything from Irish hand-to-hand fighters to the gods of the Celts, this guide is a true home run for DMs like myself who run strict Celtic flavor pseudohistory and historical fantasy.

It's been decades since I've designed a dungeon, so I'll admit that I had problems understanding this book. Not that I could create a good dungeon -- arbitrarily placing a room full of wights next to some ogres and both attacking the players at the same seemed to be a good idea. Times have changed and the One Page Dungeon Codex is a discussion of designing a good dungeon -- without running out of energy -- as well as 20+ of the best dungeons submitted in a contest in 2009. If anything, it's a labor of love and GM's looking for design suggestions and/or premade dungeons should definitely look at this download.

This is a pretty good resource for GMs looking to add authentic Fae lore to their games. There's nothing in here that you couldn't get by doing the research, but what's the point of a supplement if not to save the GM time?

One note: for the love of Isis, if you're going to have a cover like THAT, include a copy with the download! The only cover in the .PDF is in black and white, so it's deceptive to have the original color cover in the product description.

A nifty booklet giving tidbits that can be used rolled randomly or selected for use in any dungeon. Lots of the bits can be used as Adventure Seeds as well, which makes them doubly useful.

I'll be pulling this out for my next dungeon crawl.

very cool product for which I would have happily paid six or seven dollars. Not only are the dungeons quite good but they are very inspiring (I immediately thought of about five dungeons of my own that I wanted to try in this format). Very well-done and a very fun project. Congrats to everyone involved for pulling off the free product of the year thus far!

www.escapevelocitygaming.com 4e monsters, feats, and fun!

A simple book for a simple concept. The art is well-done, the presentation is quick, easy to understand, and painless. This is a winner, if you like simple dungeon crawling and you want a set of rules to guide you on how to make a quick and easy one page dungeon, for any story or game system.