Very useful in detailing backgrounds for magic using characters

This is a really fun supplement with some great ideas in it! I am currently in a DnD campaign where we were taking off in a steampunk airship for adventures, I got this for my DM and am very glad for the ideas and the roll tables. It discusses how to make your Aerial environment hard and gritty, or more cinematic and how to have a happy medium. It's really pretty inside too, the graphics are great. Altogether just a great supplement - I'd look through it for the pictures alone!

Really nice summary of core rules (actions, movement, death & dying). Only 2 quibbles:

1) There's a typo under Instant Death - it should be "greater than or equal to your hit point maximum". 2) I wish there was a way to keep all the conditions on the same page, maybe by sacrificing some of the less-used rules under General (I'm thinking the Armored Casting rule doesn't need to be on a quick reference sheet, for example).

This is a cool book, but I'm a little disapointed by the grammar/spelling mistakes. When I pay money for a book I expect it to be free of errors.

Here's an example: "Snow can fall and remain in a climate hundred of feet deep. The danger is falling into an unseen pocket of air, like a cavern or walk the numerous crevasse bottoms, waiting for the snow to collapse and trap the party. Either choice is suspect and dangerous. But sitting still will only allow the Mcguffin the get that much further away."

Other than that though, it's a solid supplement.

Another smash hit to this series from Critical Hit and author Davae Breon Jaxon. I bought the PDF and loved it so much I went back and picked it up in softcover hardcopy as well. This supplement is at the same price as the previous Arctic-Cinematic-Environs, but has nearly ten more pages of material!! Some of the introductory material does overlap with the previous supplement, but the vast majority is new concepts and descriptions, and I found it well worth every penny. My highest recommendation goes on this work and on this series.

I'd have liked to see the explanation for how to use the survey in the document itself. Maybe even expanded to suggest different ways to approach players and groups of players with this document.

It wouldn't kill it to be two pages instead of one.

I like the 'weird' names. I think they take the edge off starting a game with homework.

I think the "Which system" question is valid. You could always change it to "RAW" (rules as written) or "Rules as Guidelines" but I think most game systems themselves actually give you an idea of how they should be played. And since ALL games have 'house rules' which system is a more informative question.

In short, I recommend this 'as is' and I'll try to use it myself.

Incredibly strong start to this series from Critical Hit and author Davae Breon Jaxon. I've been looking forward to this publication for some time now, and it is even better than I imagined. Including covers and legal text this is a 19-page PDF, and 15-pages are full of great ideas you can implement immediately in your games. From the "Rule of Threes", conditions both mundane and supernatural, specific hazards and variants, character suggestions and new arctic gear -- this supplement has everything you need to get right into the Frozen Wastes and chill your adventurers to the core.

This is the sort of RPG supplement I love. It takes a look at all the intricate and descriptive ways to take something broad (in this case, arctic weather), and help you insert it into your game in smaller, more digestable and cinematic ways. I will be buying every single book in this series.

This is what adventure modules should be like. Short, to the point, loosely written, inspirational and beautiful to behold. My favourite low-level module for 5e so far has been the Lost Mine of Phandelver but this definitely climbs up there to hang out with LMoP in my humble opinion.

Interesting encounters, problematic rules, and a price that is quite high. Full review: http://merricb.com/2015/07/15/5e-adventure-review-gothnog-swampers-unexpected-encounters-volume-one/

I am running a 5E campaign that is heavy on Quests (Resource Gathering), Herbalism, and Alchemy, and found this resource extremely helpful. The layout and text is easy to read, colorful, and natural. I found the backgrounds, feats, histories, and spells, well-targeted as well.

I do wish this resource had the following, only so I don't have to create them (wish list, not negatives to resource as-is):

1 - Summary table(s) of Main Ingredients/Components for Potions Non-Magical & Potions Magical. 2 - Detailed Lesser/Common Ingredients: fats, waxes, flavorings, etc with costs. 3 - Detailed Gear/Equipment for Ingredient Gatherers, Herbalists, and Alchemists to purchase. Alchemist Supplies & Herbalism Kit are too generic.
4 - Roll tables for Gathering Ingredients: perhaps by biome, region, climate, time-of-year maturity. 5 - Magical Items that are directly associated to Potions & Poisons (Recipe Scrolls, Herbal Lore Books, Alchemical Equipment, Poisoning Paraphernalia).

The most important thing I would like is a Print-friendly version, much like the Critical Hit's Cantrips resource (or a background layer I could turn off).

This was a pretty well put together module. It fit easily into my existing campaign world with a few minor tweaks. The base adventure was a little too easy (my group took this on as a party of 4 lvl 4s) so I punched up combat by adding in some of my own encounters(ogre cave along the river) and buffing some of the monsters per other reviewers suggestions(ie Giant Frog became Giant Toad etc). What it lacked in combat difficulty it more than made up for in detailed NPCs, Maps, & backdrop/flavor text. The PCs were in a rush to pick up the main quest and move along but I plan on reusing the NPCs they didn't interact with and using Lortan as a Hub for other quests down the line elsewhere when the player needs a break from the "main campaign" plot. Possibly to expand upon the origins of the magic dagger awarded to the players at the end of this module.
Overall quite happy with this purchase and would buy future content packs.

Downloaded this to remind my players how brutal adventuring can be! Great cover art drew me in to check it out and I loo forward to using this at my next 5e session. the d100 reminds me a little of the old Rolemaster/MERP crit charts in a way, like a nice trip down memory lane.

Pretty solid foundation here. I made some small tweaks to make the adventure a little more interesting. Spoiler alert... Changed the background such that the druids did attempt to sabotage the apple crop by casting a blight spell. However, the spell was botched and blight creatures (Needle Blight, Twig Blight, Vine Blight) were accidentally created / summoned. These creatures wiped out all the druids. Instead of a druid in the camp, a large brown bear is there scrounging about. A spell book at the druid camp revealed the botched spell attempt. The blights dragged many bodies back to the altar at the top of the waterfall. The blights are hoping that the altar with the blood from the bodies can be used to create more blights. The blights are releasing a spore into the water, which is affecting the apple crop. Added blights to the cave instead of the provided monsters. Also added a giant toad at the top of the waterfall, who was attracted by the scent of blood in the area.

Useful adventure if you have a player that cannot make your normal session - that character had eaten some of the applies and thus was too sick to help with the adventure. Good fun had by all!

I had been looking for a critical hit and fumble chart and stumbled on this. The artwork on the cover is a nice touch, the tables just what I was looking for. Clearly written, well presented and now I'm excited to use this with my players! Thank you!