An Endzeitgeist.com review

This pdf is 9 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 7 pages of content, so let’s take a look, shall we?

And we kick off with a rather cool and extensive background story – Copper Carl and the Mithril Men were once commissioned as a band/roadies to accompany one particularly greedy gnomish bard – upon his death, his avaricious, spiteful testament has been rejected by the law, resulting in the intelligent constructs becoming free. Ever since, the brass band – quite literally, has been entertaining the masses as a weird group of entertainers and champions for downtrodden constructs. Both Copper Carl and the Mithril Men are CR 4.

After these weird creatures, we are introduced to Flint and Tinder (both Cr 6) – the two constructs were created as bodyguards for one wizard named Aurelia an when their mistress was murdered, they have refused to yield to new owners, going mercenary to earn enough money to resurrect their mistress and get vengeance versus the nebulous assailants that vanquished their former mistress. Flint also has some VERY cool signature abilities – with metal resulting in fire damage for attackers and missed attacks resulting in plumes of flame as well, whereas Tinder may extinguish fires, be set ablaze and fire off thorns. A VERY cool due that could make for a cool weird buddy cop-vibe – or just fearsome foes…

The Maker is a CR 3 creature, a sphere set to fabricate whatever its now deceased creator desired, is a sphere with 6 arms currently fabricating obsessively daggers – from anything and every metal it can get a hold of. Uncommon and a potential adversary/escort creature to recruit, yet another cool construct with multiple bleed-inducing abilities and massive crafting prowess.

The final duo is creepy indeed – Renee Corithas is a small undead girl, preserved mere hours after death and fitted with a metal prosthetic arm, she may be gruesome and the result of a guild’s failure and lax safety regulations. Renee, contrary to her appearance, is not evil, by the way and neither is the intelligent, welding torch wielding bodyguard-construct bodyguard Mr. Fixit, which may or may not be inhabited by the spirit of one of her relatives.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting re top-notch, I didn’t notice any glitches. Layout adheres to a two-column, b/w-standard with fitting stock art. The pdf has no bookmarks, but needs none at this length.

I’m impressed – uncommon, weird NPCs, each and every one of which comes with one or more unique signature abilities, this pdf is essentially all killer, no filler, offering massive background information on the cool constructs herein. This is one of the best mini-NPC-collections with a great array of creatures that have VERY cool signature abilities, stories and hooks – for a fair price indeed. I’ve seldom seen so many weird, cool creatures in a short pdf - these constructs are strange and unique in their ideas. I nevertheless maintain that this pdf should make for a great addition to the NPC-roster of any DM – and as such, I award a final verdict of 5 stars + seal of approval – congratulations to author Bradley Crouch!

Endzeitgeist out.

Rogue AIs: Construct Friends and Foes, by Interjection Games, totes that the four NPC creations inside are for wacky hijinks. I would beg to differ, at least with a couple. That is not a bad thing, that is one of the highlights of the PDF.

Why This Book IS Iron The short PDF contains 4 sets of NPCs built around the theme of Constructs acting on their own accord. The writing is really good, sucking you into the current plot of each construct set. Each set has a unique take on the construct. My favorite by far was Renee Corithas, a Frankenstein monsterish girl that clearly shows the range of the writer. Flint and Tinder also have a slightly darker story, but I found the mechanical design of the characters was not as through as it was with Renee.

Why this Book is NOT Iron I was hoping for more chances to be taking with the actual design of the creatures. My big hope was that they would have borrowed some of the lore and mechanics from the amazing Tinker class they developed.

The Iron Word I hope Interjection games continues with this line of “different” NPC PDFs. Whereas a traveling monk or a rogue mercenary are pretty common place in the D&D realm, rarely will you encounter a discarded science project, a kleptomaniac golem and a couple of constructs who feel like they are in way over their head. This is a solid supplement for any Dungeon Master to place in their collection.

'Quirky' can be overdone in role-playing, but used with thought and care it can enhance your game. Here's a collection of thoroughly developed and considered NPCs which just happen to be 'constructs' rather than flesh and bones people that you can use, a bit quirky perhaps but thought through in such a way that they make sense within the fantasy world for which they are intended.

Each group or individual comes with a lot of background material to set them in context. Not just appearance and backstory, there's plenty to help you set the scene when they are encountered as well as all you need - from likely reactions and conversational gambits to combat tactics - to play out that encounter if the characters decide to interact. And of course there are fully-developed stat blocks for everyone involved.

Most are perhaps best suited to an urban setting, but constructs can and do move around - or are placed - wherever they like (within whatever limitations they may have in terms of locomotion, energy supply, etc.) and so if your plot requires it, they can be located wherever you need them to be.

An interesting collection, and well worth having if constructs are to be found on your campaign world. Indeed if they are not common, this work could help you to introduce them as something rare and wonderful that will make for a memorable encounter.