Cities are always a good idea for a supplement. With a well designed city I can have dozens or more of adventures that never leave the area. Each shop and non player character can be a neat encounter waiting to happen and the flexibility of just letting the players go where they want is extremely useful. But there is also a very high standard for cities these days. Bluffside, Freeport, and now Liberty are three fabulous cities and rank for me very high as some of the best supplement books I have ever seen. Freedom City, even though it is not a fantasy setting like these others, is another great city that is easy to use and survives being used outside the genre and game it was written for. And of course there is my personal favorite, the city of Sanctuary from the Thieves World novels. This book though is not specifically a city being described. It is actually more like the old City Book series by Flying Buffalo for those of us old enough to remember them. The City Guide though are d20 specific and not purely generic like the Flying Buffalo books were.

City Guide 2 Nautical Necessities is a PDF by Darkquest Games. It is one of four PDFs put out for this city I believe. It is also the first one I have seen although there are four books in the series now. The fifty nine page PDF is black and white with an okay lay out though it does have some white space problems. The art is okay a little grainy and could be better. The book prints out well though the cover can eat some ink as it is color. The cover is in a separate file as a jpeg and the art quality is about the same as inside the book. The book is book marked though with all the NPCs and locations it could have been better book marked. The book marks in the book only include the different places.

There are seven shops and five ships described in this book. Each is very appropriate for a port city and can be easily included in such cities like Freeport, Bluffside, and even Sanctuary. They generalness of the book makes it widely useful though the DM may have to alter some of the details to make the places fit in different cities. Each place is given a full description of the inside and outside. There are no maps or layouts of the places though and that would have been extremely useful as maps are some of the more difficult things for DM?s to produce them. The shops have prices and some inventory lists for what can be bought in them. This is a great touch and very useful for people playing the games. There are quite a bit of NPCs detailed in the book as well. Each has a good stat block in the text as well as descriptions.

The ships described are probably the better part of the book though the buildings are nicely done. The ships are not just big ocean vessels either. One of the ships, the Sudbury, is a tugboat with full crew. They also describe a merchant ship and a Viking longship as well.

The book does have some errors in it. Some are just little things like repeating the page number forty twice and then going to forty two. A more serious mistake is in the Ship called the Antelope. There is no title that says the separates the description from the previous ship. And there is some text overlapping itself and possible missing making it a bit confusing and impossible to follow. Lucky, as a PDF this can easily be fixed and re-released. Hopefully they are able to do that. Ironically the error is also on page forty.

The book has some good locations and ships described. The look of the book is not that great but the writing and descriptions are nicely done. Some maps would have been useful but by no means make it a deal breaker. This is a good generic fantasy set of building s and ships and should prove useful to most campaigns.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

City Guide: Darkside is a 40 page d20 pdf product. This product is the fifth product in Dark Quest Games' successful City Guide series and features a number of locations which would be found on the darker or more seedy side of any city or town. City Guide: Darkside presents 16 unique locations to use in your city or town adventures, and they should be suitable to any fantasy campaign setting.

The product comes as a single, fully-bookmarked pdf file, and includes a handy table of contents as well. The look and presentation of the product is good, enhanced by some very good art, mostly, apart from the cover, black and white sketches. Editing and layout is good as well, with each page framed by a timber border. There are a number of errors in the stat blocks, covering the entire range from attack bonuses to languages known. Most are relatively minor, though, and some stat blocks are relatively error free. Writing is excellent and vivid, creating a imaginative description of a location and its people. A solid product from a presentation point of view.

City Guide: Darkside contains a number of different locations that are aimed at the more seedy part of a town or city. While this was the apparent aim, a lot of the locations are in fact not that seedy, and could be used equally well in any other part of the city. In that the product doesn't appear to achieve its goal, and certainly some of the locations could've been given a more sinister feel to them. Of the 16 locations and streets, there are a number of different types of places, from those working in information, to taverns, to shops, to barbers, to monasteries, to guilds, and various dark and dangerous streets. The latter are by far the better, being more on the darker and messy side of things, creating an atmosphere for the PCs more than in other locations.

Each entry in the product contains a description and history of the location and exterior of the location, followed by interior descriptions, other pertinent details, full statistics and mechanics for inhabitants, and lastly a number of adventure hooks associated with each location. I found the description imaginative and rich, with some interesting places, although as mentioned earlier perhaps not all fitting the context of the product so well. NPCs are interesting and useful, whether or not you use them along with the location or just as an NPC in another store or location in your city. In places NPC classes such as Looney, Goon, Harlot or Vagabond are used, and while the pdf refers you to a NPC Classes section, none such section exists in the product.

Overall, this is a good product with some imaginative content and very useful locations and streets. The locations don't always fit there theme, but should be useful nonetheless for any town or city based adventure or campaign. There's a good variety and something for everyone to enjoy, and most of the locations contain some sort of interesting spin that is different from the norm. A well thought-out product with good material.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: City Guide: Darkside presents 16 useful and varied location for the seedy part of a town or city. The locations are detailed and imaginative, with interesting encounters to entertain your PCs.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Some minor editing errors such as statistics and the missing NPC Classes section that gets referred to in the text. Some of the locations could've fit the 'dark' them a bit better.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

100 items! That seems like a lot. Not really, when they're a percentile-roll table of 100 general categories of items that fits on a single page (an achievement in minimalist layout by itself, if you like that sort of thing). Literally what you see in the cover image is the product. For what it is, the list is fairly comprehensive and includes some interesting ideas, but be aware that for your dollar, you're getting one table and no stats.

<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: Some useful ideas for types of items.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: I compare this to the ENWorld Pick'n'Mix items that sold for half the price. edit: To be fair, the product description is accurate, buyers should be sure to read it.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Disappointed<br><BR>[THIS REVIEW WAS EDITED]<BR>

I think this product is an excellent idea and will prove to be very useful for when you get characters that want to eavesdrop all the time, when there isn't really anything to hear, yet there are plenty of people around.

I like the fact that some of the comments are humourous, and some may in fact spark the adventure to go into a different direction than you were planning if you so wish.

All in all, it is excellent value for the price. <br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Varied comments. Well written. Very good value.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Maybe a few indicators of the type of person saying the comment.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

This is adequate as a resource for jump starting your mind to think about different things to put in bags and pouches. I had hoped for some more "off-the-wall" items in the list but I will still use it in my games. One thing that was mildly irritating to me is the title. In the blurb, the title is, "100 Bag And Pouch Contents" but in the list itself, the title is, "100 Trivial Bag And Pouch Contents". Had I known that I would have had different expectations for the list.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: It can give me some ideas or help me think of other things to put in my game bags and pouches.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: The blurb did not give me the real title of the pdf.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Very disappointing. I thought there would be some witty and colorful insults to use but got things like, "#37--Dwarf tossing anyone?? or "#56--Oh, here comes the nightly entertainment.?<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Nothing.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: The lack of originality and sense of humor.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Disappointing<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Disappointed<br>

Cool. Made me think of thigns i normally would not have thought of<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Layout and style<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Plain, needed more artwork<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

City Guide: Darkside, may not be as dark as expected, but there is enough shining jewels inside it to brighten many a DMs day.

Despite what the name says, City Guide: Darkside, by Dark Quest, is actually quite colorful with a majority of its pages filled with Vivid NPCs. Its biggest strength is the book?s only downfall as there are few really dark places in the book.

The City Guide series is a very popular and useful DM reference series that provides detailed and interesting locations that are easy to insert into your game. The 39 pages of Darkside contains 11 locations and descriptions for 5 streets. For those intimate with the series, you will notice a huge step up in artwork and the latest series entry. The pages seem to read crisper and the flavorful art adds to the read.

Each description contains breakout box text of the location, a description of any NPCs, items or services the person sells including price and adventure hooks to get your PCs further involved.

For the Dungeon Master

All of the locations are located in the seedier part of a city or village. The descriptions are very well written, depicting many of the locations to be decrepit and deprived. From the title, however, I expected more blackmarkets and underground fight clubs, instead we get crazy old men and junk men. In the hands of less capable writers, this could have been a let down, but the good folk over at Darkside seem to have a knack for making the mundane interesting. Each location is very unique in design and the people whom populate the place. I have never thought about putting a roaming junk beggar or a crazy beggar whom thinks he is a king in my games, but after reading the suggestions, I do not see how I can not now.

Though I expected more darker characters as opposed to poorer ones, the dark ones in the book really go the distance. DMs will find a use for the Hostel like torturing guild The Guildhouse of the Sisterhood of the Tainted Spider. This place is dark, and I mean dark in the slow burning off of an ear way. They are hired assassins who mare paid to torture or maim their victims. This is also a place where PCs can find poisons and other banned alchemical items. There is also the Bloody Hand, an interesting place to go if you do not want to get your hands dirty.

The Iron Word Again, though not what you would expect from a title called Darkside, there are enough dark locations in the book to get your fill. More importantly, I enjoyed the usefulness for less fortunate characters. The weakest part of the book is the alleys which are simply descriptions of the poor and rundown streets of a town. The rest of the book, though, more than makes up for this minor annoyance with interesting NPCs, well made places and good writing.
<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: - good descriptions

• every place is unique, you won't find the common inn or tavern in here
• the npcs are useful. Even though some seem silly they each can provide some type of benefit or adventure hook for a party
• Though i expected all the descriptions to be downright dark the three dark ones are REALLY DARk<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: - the alley descriptions seem to run together
• not as many truly seedy places as I expected<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

Normally, the Dungeon Dive series, by Amalara, provides you a gutted out dungeon with just enough information to throw in your own adventure. Think of it as a gutted out home that you move into and decorate as you like.

In Dungeon Dive 7: Spawning Pits of the Tomb Bats, Amalara?s latest in the series, it feels as though they have slightly deviated from that with a tad bit too much information.

When you read through the adventure, you often wonder what is the difference between this adventure and a normal adventure. Do not get me wrong, it is a pretty cool adventure. For some reason or another (one of the few things the book leaves you to provide), a BBEG is sending tomb bats into the world and it is the PCs job to stop it. The book is 37 pages, 23 of those is the actual adventure and the last 14 are items, spells and creatures broken down into low, medium and high. The high seems to be a bit under leveled. High for this book is 11 but in most adventures it is normally considered 13 to 14. Each area of the dungeon has creature, treasure and/or trap settings for low, medium and high parties. The written up NPCs are pretty unique and could find their way into other parts of your campaign.

The major problem again is that the writing seems a tad bit more geared towards the adventure and not the dungeon. From the description of the product, I was hoping for a dungeon with just creatures, traps and puzzles with all the NPC motivations left to me. Of course there is nothing stopping you from adding your own stuff, I would have just enjoyed more Dungeon oriented things.

For the Dungeon Master

Again the adventure is written with good flavor text and really good descriptions that allow you to determine that there is definitely undead astir here. The descriptions though are almost too good at times. A lot of detail is put into particular rooms which leaves room for the usual ?PCs did not do it that way? snafus. I assumed that a stripped down adventure would not have so much flavor text about the baddies but it does, meaning if you wanted to drop in some of your own cretins into certain rooms, you will have provide your own text.

The Iron Word

Dungeon Dive 7: Spawning Pits of the Tomb Bats is a haunting adventure that follows your parties ambush of a necromantic lab that creates Tomb Bats. The adventure is nearly complete, but almost too complete for the type of product this is. Though more focus on the actual dungeon would have been more true to the product line, it will still be a good romp for your PCs none the less. <br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: - Nice adventure. It provides a nice side adventure for parties chasing a necromantic entity<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: - Felt a bit too specific. much more detail than the earlier books in the series<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

This was a fun little supplement that I am glad I picked up. It details quite a few NPC women who are all quite different and all add spice to a campaign and provides a serviceable portrait of each with their entry. The work is completely portable to any game system as no game statistics are provided. <br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: All the NPCs are well thought out and have well written and fairly unique background stories, motivations, strengths and weaknesses. All information is clearly presented. <br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: A few typos and poor grammar but no serious drawbacks considering the price. <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Cargo Commodities 2 is exactly what its name implies. It is a list of 12 different cargos that can be injected into a d20 Sci-Fi game (although in reality, most of them are suitable for a fantasy game as well).

A chart near the beginning of the pdf describes:

1. What quantity makes a "unit"
2. Unit-price
3. Precautions (flammable, perishable, etc.)
4. Purchase DC
5. Restrictions (either nothing or illegal)

There is also a description for each item, which provides some flavor for each cargo as well as any effects it might create upon use/consumption/etc. (although no game stats are provided).<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: This provides both costs in credits and a purchase DC, making this suitable for many different systems. The cargos themselves are interesting and easily used in a campaign with trading elements.

Its a very good value, especially for the low price.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

There are plenty of indepth reviews available for this product. I will keep mine short. There are almost 160 pages of material in this product relating to the topic of time travel. This product covers the mechanics of time travel, equipment, feats, spells, etc...basically everything you can think of for time travel is covered in some detail.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Pleasing layout, covers the topic very thoroughly, some interesting mechanics and topics that can be used or disregarded to give every campaign a slightly different feel with regards to time travel.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Some additional artwork in the creature area would be nice. Some spells seem a bit too weak or powerful for their levels.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

The first time I took my girlfriend to a dungeons and dragons thing, she came back and asked a question I have pondered for years. Why do we have to kill all the goblins? The easy answer that they are evil, but there has to be more I have thought for years. Darkquest Games, Fell Races: Goblins, provides me a better answer, but also this book also proves just as useful as a players guide for people who want to play a goblin PC, much to your DM?s disdain.

Fell Races:: Goblins, is a 68 page one pdf bible on goblins. The book is well bookmarked, contains both a print and screen version, and is very well polished as compared to other race sourcebooks in the PDF market. The Fell races books are designed to provide a complete overview of a race to be useful for anyone using it. With Goblins, we get 7 chapters and a nice set of appendices featuring goblin legends and myths as well as prestatted NPCs

There is a good deal of Goblin delighting information in pages. The first chapter does a good job of going into the mind of the goblin. From its tribal habits to its culture. This may prove very helpful for a DM hoping to expand his goblin adventures from a few raids or henchmen type encounters into something more blown out. The remainder of the book is filtered with creative goblin races and sub races, how to roleplay goblins, what goblins eat, poisons, traps and even the spirituality of the little beats.

For the DM This book will definitely give your goblins more life and roundness in your game. I have never been one for ?psychology? in a monster but Fell Races: Goblins does do a good job of breaking down the understanding of the monster fairely simply and does not spend a ton of time dwelling on what the Goblin thinks about the meaning of the universe. Instead, the writers put a lot of thought into creating magical items and races essential to the Goblin race. My favorite part of the book, outside of statted NPCs, are the interesting traps and magics provided for the goblins. .More than just slight variations, the twists on the traditional traps really add a good deal of flavor to the atmosphere of a goblin encounter.

Crunch aside, sadistic DMs will shout evil laughs and rush to figure out how they can make the goblin dietary chart useful. Finally there?s a price for Elven Litter and Dwarven kidneys.

For the Player If you are going to play a race, you should understand how to play it. The PDF provides a nice chapter on how to play the race as well as how goblins are roleplayed for all of the base classes. . There is some nice weapons such as barbed daggers and kamas to add to your character creation.

The Iron Word

Short and sweet, Fell Races: Goblins provides a grand overview over our favorite pint size minions. The statted NPCs are a nice touch and the PDF takes itself very seriously to the point that you will believe that Goblins CAN be a viable opponent at any level.

<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: - statted npcs are nice

• very flavorful for goblins
• nice sub races that make goblins more playable in different types of parties<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: - needed a tad bit more player stuff like classes and prestige classes<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Temporality is a 166 page d20 pdf product dealing with Time Travel in fantasy, modern and future worlds, although this product focuses more on the fantasy aspects of time travel. It provides a plethora of new material related to time travelling, including rules for time travel, spells, feats, monsters of time, time travelling organizations and much more. It is a solid presentation on what is often considered a tricky subject, but Temporality succeeds and creating an easy to use and flexible system for using time travel in your games, as well as useful advice on how to implement it.

This product comes as a single, fully bookmarked pdf file. Editing and writing is very good, although the occasional errors do slip in. The presentation is very professional and pleasant, while the scattered artwork gives the product added flavor. No print version is available, and a number of monsters could've required some additional artwork - particularly the creatures with the word 'Time' in the title. Overall, though, a very good look and read, with solid writing, good mechanics and creative ideas on time travel. One of the good things beyond the presentation about this pdf, is that it extensively draws from other OGL material and the section 15 is quite beefy. I also appreciated the fact that the pdf indicated which material was used from each source. A full table of contents is also provided.

Temporality is divided into eighteen short chapters, each chapter devoted to a different aspect of time travel, ranging from basics of time flows, to monsters to organisations to campaign advice. The largest chapters are those containing spells, magic items and weapons from all time periods, allowing the user to make the most of a large number of possible options. That's certainly one of the things that this pdf does well - provides a solid background to the mechanics, and then expands them with numerous options for the user to explore throughout a campaign.

Chapters One to Five deal with the basics of time travel and the associated mechanics. This covers the basic rules for time travel, for example, all time streams move forward only, but there are an infinite number of them, one for every choice made. The mechanics is simple, and provides ways to handle the most common questions about time travel, such as divergences from history, running into yourself in the past (you remain unaffected by any changes in the Flow), and other questions. Rules are provided to categorise divergences, so that changing significant things in the past can change the future in some important ways. While this may seem like a lot of work, some useful advice is provided to help DMs control and maintain shifting 'timescapes'. Reincarnation is also covered from the perspective of reincarnated characters having a memory of their past lives.

Chapters Six to Ten provide a whole host of crunchy material for use in a time travelling campaign. These include two prestige classes (the Fated, one who has seen his death and appreciates his own mortality, and the Temporalist, one who attempts to avoid time or be bound by it), new skills (Temporal Navigation for navigating time flows), new feats (general and time related, but a good collection of feats and very useful), temporal altered equipment (equipment with changed properties as a result of being left on the Plane of Time), new spells and new magic items. The latter two chapters contain a myriad of material on spells and magical items, all with some sort of time element, although not necessarily only useable within a time travelling game. These chapters provided an excellent number of option for the temporal minded DM and player, and provide a large amount of option for time travelling campaigns.

The last eight chapters cover a number of different topics related to time travel, including weapons through the ages, introducing time travel into a campaign, using time travel and alternate time flows in your campaign, the geography of time and the havens within the Plane of Time (locations with permanent wormholes), advice on temporality in your campaign, including bringing fantasy characters into a modern world and visa versa, details on time related organisations such as the Association of Temporal Observation, the Doomsayers and the Cult of Chaos, and a large number of adventure ideas and new time-related monsters.

Temporality is probably the definitive source of time travelling and provides an exciting, balanced and probably more importantly a playable outlook on time travelling. Within the pages of the pdf there are numerous ideas, sections on advice, new material and rules that allow one to easily implement time travelling into a campaign and make it work. While time travelling requires some additional bookkeeping and quick planning on the DMs part, the pdf covers most topics in detail and help where necessary to allow a game to run smoothly. Temporality succeeds very well at bringing time travel into fantasy, modern and future games, in an enjoyable and sensical manner.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Temporality is a very good pdf and guide to the world of time travelling. It's an excellent resource on time and time-related material, and is a quintessential guide to all things time. Presentation and material is well-written and professional, with clear and succinct use of words to bring time travelling alive for everybody in a playable way.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: The pdf could've used more art, particularly in the monster section, but otherwise this is a very good pdf covering an aspect of play that most people can enjoy.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

It does it's job of filling out minor details so you don't.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>