In Blood Legacy of Mars the background reads like a Roman/Borgias/Hamlet paranoid love, daggers and intrigue story. This is a very plot dense adventure. The "relationship diagram" towards the back of the adventure is truly a masterpiece of interconnected PC motivation and all that intrigue and double-crossing stuff (which makes my brain hurt - but in a good way) The main NPCs are fully fleshed out. The line-art in this adventure is absolutely superb.

Definitely an adventure for the readers, talkers and thinkers, spiced up with sexual intrigue and disputes resolved in drunken viscous brawls. Tell the players to keep notes on everyone they meet! Suggested additional rules are the main MARS rulebook for the descriptions of Minor NPCs. Also, if you're enjoying the setting and need equipment resources etc, it's probably near-compulsory to buy the MARS rulebook as well.

Summary: Compelling!

Billiam B. bit.ly/rpgblog

This is my favourite out of Adamant's latest releases. Sky-Tyrant requires only the Savage Worlds main rules to play (in my case that's the Explorer's Edition) - so it's a good purchase if you're "just curious" about the MARS Savage world setting, and are not ready to commit to buying the main rules book. Its scenes rush forward into each other with the excitement of Star Wars or Indiana Jones. Pre-generated characters also help greatly in implementing the setting, which is just about generic enough to not require the core settings book. This adventure jumps from straight-forward encounter survival to being part of politics (but still with action). Sky-Tyrant is for the more "cinematic" action favouring players. The accessibility of the scenario means that it is also perfect for conversion to other systems (or maybe different settings). Summary: Fast-action pure-pulp sci-fantasy, awesome! Billiam B. bit.ly/rpgblog

I will admit that the Pulp Era is not one I seek out to either read or play games in. I see the appeal and every interaction I have had with the material has been a positive one. Thrilling Tales then is no exception, except for the fact I might actually seek out to play this one more often. Physically this book is very nice. The layout is clean and easy to read. The art is very evocative of the time and my first thought was the old Universal movies from the same time frame (and movie still from the serials was really nice). That is a very good thing in my mind. I loved the time line of the 30s. The game is designed with d20 Modern in mind and I think it is a very good fit. I love the minor changes like renaming the core classes to something more "Pulpy" and addition of the Seduction skill, something I pushed for in other games. There are a bunch of new advanced classes appropriate to the era. If you have ever seen a movie, serial or read a book from this era then the cast will look very familiar. The section on weapons and gear is great, and perfect for any pulp-era game, not just a TT one or even just a d20 one. What I liked most about it is it is full photos and illustrations. This is followed by sections on how to run a Pulp game and a wonderful section on Villains. Again the villains section is great for any game in this era or even a supers game in any era. Besides any game with a Nazi Vampire cult leader as a villain is an instant win in my book! Speaking of which, all of chapter 8 is devoted to the only human enemy everyone can openly hate and kill without moral repercussions; the Nazis. Not so much a history of the Nazi, but a a history of the Nazi-as-a-boogeyman; the all-Enemy. The Thugee likewise get a chapter, but I am sure this is due 100% to Temple of Doom.

The book ends with a Random Adventure generator. Which is 100% appropriate to this sort of adventure era. Watch the old serials, it sometimes looks like they were rolling on a similar table while writing the scripts. A bit of tweaking and this could work for any era. Replace Nazi with "Drow" or "Soviets" or "Dark Cabal" and you get the idea.

All in all this is a great game and one that makes me want to play some two fisted pulp adventures!

I love maps.

Real maps, alternate history maps, fictional maps, game maps. I don't care; I love pouring over them for hours. This map is for a setting that I have barely introduced myself to but it is already proving useful and fascinating. Reading the Tales of the Far West collection of short stories and being able to follow the travels of the heroes, and villains, is a truly wonderful experience.

The map itself is also well put together, it comes with a full version to view on your monitor as well as a multi-page version suitable for printing. The details and cartographic artistry make it a beautiful and seemingly authentic example of the kind of map one would expect from the setting.

All in all, a wonderful little package for any cartographil fan out there.

A very solid offering of short stories from around a very intriguing setting. The mix of Western genre with Wuxia trappings is a compelling one and the stories here show that off in style. Each tale has a sense of that dusty trail with a hint of silk robes. Some of the stories are action and adventure, and some are more character studies with the occasional gunfire and/or kung fu, but whether action or emotion are on primary display in each story the writing keeps you hooked in. Well worth the price-tag and a rollicking good setup for the coming game.

Although I really enjoyed d20 Modern's attribute-based character creation rules, they did exacerbate the preparation problem that all d20-era games had, that it was difficult to quickly create adversary NPCs or villains for the players to face. The Foe Factory attempts to address this while still acknowledging the complicated nature of a lot of d20 Modern systems.

Foe Factory's approach is to focus specifically on things that will be rolled against the player characters, like initiative, attack bonuses, and equipment. The idea is that rather than a full set of stats, what you need is a clear picture of the level of challenge the NPC poses to the PCs.

It jumps right into the technical details with several pages of tables, followed by rules for adjusting NPCs created with the tables to the challenge level desired. The end has several sample characters.

As always with Adamant, the quality of the PDF is high. It's in landscape format, well-edited, and easy to follow. There are no bookmarks, but the length of the work isn't such that they're really needed.

I question whether a PDF is the right format for something like this. This sort of product seems ideal for a foe creation program in Flash or other simple programming language.

Another area of improvement that might be useful is in figuring out what challenge levels to "feed into" the Foe Factory. In other words, how do I decide how tough a particular encounter should be? Some insights or ideas regarding that subject would really elevate this solid work above the pack.

But it is solid and it provides an approach to NPC creation in D20 Modern that's beyond "winging it". If you're looking for that, this is probably the best thing out there.

I love playing sorcerers, and in Pathfinder, they have a lot different bloodlines that allow a player to create a unique background. With this short pdf, nine pages of content, the sorcerer gets a whole bunch of new bloodline options. The author is Stefen Styrsky and I've noticed how much he loves to make bloodlines for sorcerers, and fortunately, he does this very well.

Bloodlines presents us with 13 new bloodline options. They are based around various monsters, such as the barghest, naga, medusa, treant and my favorite the lillend. Each of these have some signature abilities that makes it easy to understand the background of the sorcerer, such as the medusa's serpent hair and petrifying stare, or the barghest ability to change into a wolf. I didn't think these monstrous bloodlines would work, but actually, the do! Most of them seem perfectly balanced, but there is a few abilities that seem a little too powerful, like the serpents of the medusa, which each deals 1d3 points of strength damage, and the sorcerer has a number of these equal to his Charisma modifier. It is a level 15th power, so of course it should have some level of power.

Finally, the layout is simple and nice, with a couple of boring illustrations that has nothing to do with the bloodlines. I didn't find a lot of mistakes, which is also a huge plus. However, don't expect anything beyond what the title offers... you get 13 sorcerous bloodlines, nothing more. At this price, a couple of feats and spells would have been nice as well, to build on the bloodlines, so I'll settle for a 4 star verdict.

15 and a bit pages of decent alchemical data/help concerning the Craft Alchemy skill. Some items include: De-icer, Instant Sobering, Liquid courage, Rage gas. The few bits of artwork I've seen in other PDFs, but the alchemical content is what it's all about.

Well worth the £1.90.

Adamant Entertainment's Thrilling Tales has been a top-notch pulp game for many years, whether in its d20 Modern incarnation - as in this collection - or in its current Savage Worlds incarnation. By going directly to the source material - 1930s and 1940s pulp stories, Thrilling Tales has a unique, authentic feel that "neo-pulp" approaches like the Indiana Jones movies lack. It's not afraid to shy away from the weird - period pulps emphasized action and adventure over perfectly assembled plots or deep characters.

The Advanced Class Collection assembles 8 advanced classes from the Thrilling Tales line.

The Mystery Man is a masked crimefighter, who combines combat effectiveness and investigative prowess, the Air Ace is a stunt and combat pilot, the Paragon is a unique Doc-Savage-esque near-superhero, the Mesmerist is a powerful hypnotist, the Mad Scientist, Mastermind is just what it sounds like, the Noble Savage is a Tarzan-esque master of the wilderness, and the G-Man is an investigator who also has abilities related to government backup.

Although each of these are very fun and flavorful, there's a few things to note: first, game balance is not a goal of these advanced classes. The Paragon is just better than any other advanced class out there, which is as it should be - in Doc Savage stories, he really was better than most of his compatriots. The idea is that this would be the central character of your series, and the other characters would be support characters. It's not a problem exactly, but it's something to be aware of.

If there's a weakness to the collection, it's that there's not much attention to integrating the classes into your campaign. While each of them are flavorful and interesting, it is hard to decide exactly how to use them. Some attention to how the Air Ace would fit into a campaign would especially be nice, since plenty of times characters based around vehicles or transportation have a difficult time becoming part of the action outside that transportation. While the Mastermind is mentioned as being a villain, I think it could be interesting to be a Mastermind player character - some incarnations of the Shadow are best understood this way. Developing how these classes affect gameplay would be the best way to improve this product.

In general, if, like me, you use your advanced classes as a way to make d20 Modern campaigns distinct and flavorful - even if they're not perfectly balanced - this product is for you. You might even get some good ideas for character types for your Savage Worlds Thrilling Tales game if you don't have a lot of experience with pulp archetypes.

I have no complaints about this map for the upcoming Far West game. It is full of unmarked spaces in which to carve out one's own stories, and although the environment is mostly desert (as would be expected for the genre), there is still a variety of environment types such as lakes, mountains, forests and rivers. The artwork fits the Far East meets western mashup well, and the story that the map was created by a character in the game gives it a further sense of realism and allows for changes to be made later if needed; after all, he may be inaccurate or have purposefully fudged some details on the map.

Overall, some pretty good beings, especially in concept. A few things need looking over, though: for example, the mer-octopi have an effective straight-line speed of about 200' thanks to a lack of a limit on their "jet" ability. You can certainly mine worthwhile ideas, though.

This adventure is 28 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving 24 pages of adventure, so what's up with this Freeport adventure?

I only recently saw this particular Freeport adventure, as it somewhat has slipped beneath my radar in the 3.5-days of old. Wanting to complete my Freeport collection, I immediately bought it.

This being an adventure review, this contains SPOILERS. Potential players beware.

Set in a dastardly hot summer that has tempers across the city of adventures flare, Blood of Freeport is an unconventional adventure in both its premise and presentation: This adventure has the PCs stumble into a merchant feud between the (almost) equally depraved and hate-consumed Lotharian and Ischern merchant families, being recruited for either side (or serving as double agents) to give the family an edge in the current escalation of the conflict, which, among others, sees a double-cross involving mega-raptors as well as family-specific final encounters. While I did love this rather non-linear, open-ended approach as well as themes like a descent into alcoholism/lost honor etc., this adventure has several problems as well:

First of all, the formatting could have been better - not due to glitches, but due to the fact that the linear narrative structure has to juggle a lot of alternative situations for the PCs: Are they aligned with the Lotharians? The Ischerns? Double-agents? - All these opportunities are accosted for in a steady stream of text, making running this semi-spontaneous rather impossible, something that could have easily been accosted for by better formatting.

On a rules-side, this adventure unfortunately is also not exciting - the henchmen that provide the cannon-fodder throughout the adventure as well as the families per se are rather dull with regards to their crunch. The adventure also features no cartography, which is especially annoying as the finale(s) take place around the families' mansions and no maps are provided. Seeing that the adventure seeks to evoke a secret-agent/family-feud-theme, this lack makes running the espionage action rather hard. The adventure suggests handwaving the infiltration by forcing each PC to succeed on bluff-checks every day, which should pop out as a bad idea immediately to anyone. Furthermore, while the families are not necessarily despicable, I found a lack of champions/special bodyguards a bit disconcerting.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are ok, while I did notice some glitches and the formatting could be better, it's not enough to qualify this as abysmal. Layout adheres to a no-frills b/w-2-column-standard and apart from the cover-artwork, the interior-artwork seems to have been reused from other/stock sources. The pdf has no bookmarks. This adventure has me gnashing my teeth for several reasons - first of all, I love the premise and the fact that such feuds/socially-driven adventures are rather rare. However, at the same time, the plethora of options leads to a dilution in quality and crunch-wise, the adventure also falls rather short of its own premise by abandoning an inner-family-strife plot-point altogether, handwaving the central exciting action (the espionage/double agent-story) in favor of dull combats with unnamed henchmen. The climax features a masque and the lack of cartography makes unfortunately for a confusing, hard to run finale. As written, this adventure needs A LOT of work. Additionally, I couldn't shake the feeling that this was supposed to be Freeport's Romeo & Juliet (The subtitle being "love & betrayal"), but was cut down to size, as the "love"-aspect is completely absent from any NPC's motivations. Had this adventure been expanded to the 60+ pages that would have been necessary to make it work and unique with all different options, this would have been an awesome adventure indeed. As written, though, it feels like a hastily cobbled together sketch of an adventure rather than a full-blown installment worthy of Freeport. Oh yeah, campaign-specific fluff is also mostly absent from this pdf apart from some generic nods towards local flavor. While this is in no way a bad sketch, it's also far away from realizing its potential. If you're willing to invest a lot of time, you might consider this a 3-star file. For all others, this is 1.5 stars, rounded up to 2.

Endzeitgeist out.

Quite simple: this is the very best Pulp-inspired RPg on the market today. The engine is modified d20, but fine-tuned to the stunts and technology of the time and style. With lots of add-ons, sure, but this one really has everything you need to start a sound and fun campaign full of two-fisted action and .38 special reasoning.

I heartily recommend it for anyone seriously into Pulp, as it is one of the best researched tomes you will ever find.

It's a very nice product. The setting rules are a nice addition to the Savage Worlds rules and really fit the genre. I especially appreciated the Random adventure generator. It waves some nice plots and allows you to prepare a basic plot in minutes. Then you thrust the characters in it, and wait for the action to start. Normal GMing, just made easier. I also really appreciated the attention to politics between Red Martian cities and other races. Obviously, these give you even more plots waiting to happen. And it's a good thing that the Earthmen aren't totally overwhelming, like they would be in an ERB books. This way, you can have a nice mixed party. All in all, I have only good words for this product.

Contains good advice about how to run games for Green Lanterns and Galactus Heralds or Greek and Norse gods when they're out among the stars. While reading it, I started to think about Azathoth's stats. That means it was hitting the right buttons.