Every good town is filled with rumor and local gossip. Not all of needs to be adventure bait and not all of needs to be true. But coming uyp with a lot of different rumors for different towns can be difficult. This book presents a dozen of them and while that works nicely with the dozen theme of the series of books more would have been useful.

A Dozen Disturbing Rumors is a PDF by Ronin Arts. Ronin Arts is one of the leasers in the PDF market having hundred and hundreds of different titles in over a dozen categories. One category is the Dozen of category that has twelve items in each of the small PDFs. This book is written by Philip Reed the owner of Ronin Arts and long time RPGB writer having many different titles to his name. The book is only seven pages long with no art and no book marks. It is layed out in a basic two column format making it easy to read and follow. It is a basic no frills book.

The rumors are all pretty big on scale like the moon is falling or a witch has cursed the city. But the rumors are a bit more then that. There are rules for gather information checks and the information varies if the check fails for instance. IT would have been nice though to really flesh the rumors out and just do more with them. IT is a nice starting point for a DM to wet his whistle with some neat ideas, but most of the hard work is still out there for the DM to do.

Each part of the rumor is written as if someone is speaking it and does say who would be telling this bit of information to the players. Each rumor also gives a nice follow up for what will happen in the next few days or weeks and gives some very basic ground work on where the rumor could lead the players. Of course outside that the DM will have to fill in a lot of information but that does have the added advantage of being able to tailor these to the level and setting of any particular campaign. That seems to be one of the few truly positive things about the product.

The book works well for some good and interesting ideas if the DM needs a starting point. The rumors though do not lead the DM that far and soon he will have to flesh out a few things if he would like to turn them into adventures. I think that most could make interesting little side adventures that the players can easily learn about and then choose to explore on their own time. They are simple to start with but any DM should be able to make them more complicated as needed. For the price it is an okay value for anyone looking for some ideas and a ways to implement them into a campaign.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Clothing is a pretty basic need that gets almost no attention. Who cares what the characters are wearing besides their shiny metal armor and those magical boots? Okay, the Bard does. But for the most part its just is not an area that many people place a lot of thought into. Well, hopefully they will once they see something like this.

Dozen Unusual Article of Clothing is a long name for a short book. It is from Ronin Arts who have really established themselves a one of the better PDF publishers. This book might only be five pages but it has some good content in it. It is extremely small zip file of less then fifty kilobytes. It is also book marked and that pleases me.

One good little detail that is in this is color of clothes and what that usually indicates in a middle ages time. It?s a just a small box that talks about who wears what colors but it is a great detail that most people really do not seem to use. The clothing presented here first gives a good description but no pictures. It lists the appraise DC as well as the value. Different pieces of the clothing are also listed individually as what value they have. And lastly are special rules like bonuses to skills that the particular piece of garment grants.

The clothing is given a nice description making them easy to imagine. The abilities granted are not that powerful, but are better suited for a low magic game then a high magic game. My favorite item is the Noble?s Super Tunic. It?s large and very popular among nobles and thieves. Nobles because it is stylish and fashionable, thieves because it is long and flowing so it makes picking pockets easier.

Twelve nice pieces of clothing is what is to be found here. It is pretty basic but good. I like the idea and while alone it doe not add a lot because it is only twelve pieces, when combines with like 101 mundane items and other PDFs of objects it really starts to create a nice inventory of highly detailed and useful items. <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Draconic Lore is best described as a Bestiary of Draconic Creatures. That what it says on the cover of the book and they are not wrong. Inside one will find all sorts of Dragons from the big, mean, and evil to the small, cute, and tamable. The books is softbound, 64 pages in length, and costs $14.95. The layout and tables are very nice. Some of the creatures are written up as the like traditional dragons with the twelve age categories, while others of these are written as more traditional monsters. The art in this book is mostly very good. It?s all black and white but I many have a texture about them and are action picks. My favorite is on page nineteen. It is a picture of the Dragonshark chasing a sperm whale. Least I think it?s a sperm whale, it is rather small compared to the colossal Dragonshark.

There are fourteen new dragons that are written up in the twelve age categories way that is seen in the Monster Manual. These dragons vary in abilities like the acid and toxic nature of the Bile Dragon to the blind and sonic abilities of the Cavern Dragon. There are aquatic dragons like the Oceanic and Reef Dragons as well the fire types of the Molten and Rift dragon. Then there are the just plain super tough ones like the Dire and Wild Dragons. The most frightening though is the Chthonian Dragon. They are psionic in nature and have a mindblast instead of a breath weapon. They have tentacles that can reach a long way and picture really makes these guys look scary.

Then there are ten dragon creatures written up like standard monsters. There is the Dragonshark, an eating machine that prowls the oceans. The skulking dragon that is man sized yet hunts in packs. The Tome Lizard that seeks out books to eat and nest in. They can also become a Wizard?s familiar. There is also the waste runner, a draconic creature that is native to the dessert and domesticated by people there to use as mounts.

Then there are the drakes. Drakes have four different age categories and they are a lesser form of dragon. Many of the types are domesticated by humans and other races. There are courier drakes, guardian drakes, planar drakes, scour drakes, and watcher drakes. Many of them would make a good companion to an adventuring party.

There is one dragon template in the book, the Revenant template. This template is used for a dragon that died defending eggs or in some way as to cause the dragon to want revenge even after it has died. The template give some impressive abilities like fast healing and new breath weapon as well as the usually undead abilities.

I really like the dragons in this book, my one complaint is to many evil ones. I understand the need to have creatures that rampage the country side, but I could do with more then one good dragon out of the whole bunch. There are plenty of challenges from CR ? to CR 25 and there are table organizing the creatures by challenge rating for ease of use. So, the bottom line is if one is in need of a wide variety of new dragons, this book is what one is looking for.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Nothing harder then starting the first after Gen Con review. But luckily I prepared for it and had a really fun product in mind to get me back into the review swing of thing. It is an adventure, and a fun one that is easy to insert into an existing campaign. That is exactly what I did. I did a bit of foreshadow but not too much as it is a low level module but the set up was easy. Adventures are one of the most useful things on the market and it is a shame they do not sale well. But Goodman Games I think it making the adventures people want to buy and play. They have many others that are like this one, easy to use, highly creative, and challenging. That is pretty muxch everything I want from a module.

The Dragonfiend Pact is an adventure for second level characters by Goodman Games. Goodman Games has this brilliant line of adventures called Dungeon Crawl Classics of which this is the eleventh in the series. The modules are all designed like the old style great adventures of first edition. They have really captured the feel and creativeness of them and possible most importantly the look. The blue colored maps seem to be the exact shade of the old maps that lots of us grew up with. The modules is written by Chris Doyle who?s name I have seen on a few other things and he seems like an up and comer in the industry. One of the nice things about the module is the size as it is only sixteen pages long. The best thing though is the two dollar price tag. I am not one to usually mention price, but a module this cheap there is no excuse not to own three.

The adventure is for low level characters and starts in a town like so many others. The town is not detailed as the adventure starts with the party going down the well. This is my one and only complaint about the module. I would have preferred a bit of a mystery allowing the characters to follow some clues and find their way to the well instead of just starting there. This is change though is simple to do and it is what I did when I ran the module. The modules for me made complete sense. There were no encounters that made me wonder why this creature was there or parts that made no sense. There are traps but the text shows why they are there and again it makes sense for there to be traps but also in the placements of the traps. I am pleased to say that the traps work very well catching most of my players each time.

Some spoilers as I do not want to give way the whole module here, but there was one other thing I did change. One of the adversaries is a lycanthrope and I did not want to deal with characters getting the disease in my campaign so I altered him out. This affected the back story some but I was able to fill in the holes and move the story along with in an existing campaign. That was one thing that really impressed me with the module. I was able to use what they provided and fill and a few things here and there to make is fit seamlessly in my own campaign .

It is a fun little module filled with some small creatures that really prove size matters. It has creative encounters and fun potential. Actually while I have yet to get all the Dungeon Crawl Classics I really have not been disappointed in what I have seen at all. This seems a really good line of books to collect and own. Goodman Games really has a hit product line on their hands here.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Dragons are a big part of the fantasy game. They are rare, powerful creatures that are often the focus of adventures and even some campaigns. Dragons have a sense of awe from them. Everyone knows and most seem to own Draconomicon by Wizards of the Coast. However, there is another lesser known book about dragons called Dragons. It is almost four years old and made for 3.0 but I have gotten a lot of use out it in the many years I have owned it.

Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG) has recently been doing less d20 work then in previous years. But they had a great series of books people referred to as the One Word Titles. Simply they were single word names and they covered one single topic but did it well. The book is paperback and over two hundred pages. The paper is not high quality, the art is so so, and the layout is okay. The table of contents is not that great and there is no index so finding things in the book is not that easy. In fact if you sit this book next to the hard bound full colored glossy page Draconomicon it is hard to see how it could compare. The Draconomicon is a great looking book, a coffee table book if you will. But I don?t have a coffee table and I am more interesting in the ideas in the book then how well it looks.

Dragons is a book filled with some interesting ideas. My favorite of all though oddly enough has nothing to do with dragons. It is a very cool zero level Bard spell called Sharing the Ancient Lore. It allows others to see share a memory of the caster. It is a simple neat spell that really has no combat ability or is powerful. But in the four years I have had this book I have made good use of the spell. It Is the little things like this that make this book for me.

Now some of the rules in the book are not that good. The prestige classes are pretty cool my favorite being the Student of the dragon a monk oriented class that gives some neat dragon inspired abilities. Others like the dragon Slayer have been done by others but still are not that bad. The feat collection is an interesting variety again including some like Dragon Friend and Hamstring that have been seen in other products at least in name and basic ability.

One area that the book shines in is Dragon Alchemy. This section suggests using dragon parts to craft certain items. It has uses for the blood, bones, brains, claws, crests, ears, eggs, eyes, glands, heart, horns, kidneys, livers, ligaments, lungs, muscles, necks, tongues, scales and hide, stomachs, tails, and teeth of each of the ten common dragons. There is a lot of information and it makes for some good alternate treasures and reasons for hunting dragons. It also is one of the few products that basically lists power components for creating magical items an alternate rule that does not get enough print.

Another area I like that some probably will not is the Dragon Classes. These are five level base classes of increased power. So, instead of having the dragon take fighter levels to boost his power, give him draconic fighter levels and he gets a feat each of the five levels. The classes are stronger and made for NPC dragons to make them more powerful as Dragons should be. The classes are a little stronger then the base classes and nicely more focused on the dragon. The Draconic Rogue gets treasure sense and the Draconic Sorcerer gets his spell like abilities as known spells.

Third book despite being a little outdated still has some good options and ideas between its covers. I mentioned a few of my favorites but there is more that this book offers. Many of the other books in the series are like this one, not great on appearance but high quality in the ideas contained in it. Dragons is not going to serve as a replacement for Draconomicon but will serve as a good companion piece.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Surreal gaming. We don?t see much of it as the concept can be hard to explore. It can be tough for the DM to explain what is going on and the players can have difficulty wrapping their heads around what is going on. I have tried different levels of it in the past and usually the result is less then adequate. Some pictures just seem harder to paint. This might be why there are few Role Playing books that deal with the Surreal. Unlike most other topics the surreal requires a bit more from the reader and his ability to understand and follow what is going on. When it is being run the DM has to do a better job of explaining what is going on as the setting and the experiences can be difficult to get across. Communicating the right feel may be the toughest hurdle, but there are plenty of places people can get tripped up on. Dreams are a part of every person and probably the best example of something surreal. It has a commonality that everyone understand and can sort of picture. But I do not think that makes it that much easier to get across the surreal parts of them. Dreamscapes does take us into the characters dreams and the dreams of other creatures.

Dreamscapes is a new PDF by Adamant Entertainment. It is written by Joseph Miller or who I will forever know him as That Privateer Press Guy from the 2003 ENnies. Dreamscapes is a one hundred and fifty seven page PDF though it reads bigger then that. It does not have a lot of art so lots of text. The layout could use a little work there are some extra spaces at some pages end. The book marks are nicely done though.

Dreamscapes is about adventuring in dreams. It is both creative and complex. It is one of the supplements that I think will need to be played for a little while to get the hang of but the ideas in the book make it worth it. The basic idea is that inside dreams people can do things that cannot be done in the actual world. This is represented very well with dream points. Dream points can be used to help skill, feats, and magic all do more then they can normally do. Some of the items are almost epic as what can be done in a dream would be considered amazing in the real world. Like using the hide skill to become invisible, in a dream it makes sense. Having the heal skill be able to regenerate is another example. It would be interesting to an product that uses many of the new abilities in here and turns them into epic abilities and not just dream ones.

The true brilliance of the product though comes from describing the dream realms. The system is pretty flexible and allows for a lot of customization. It even discusses where the dream realms exist and does not tie it down to any one place. It does refer to the basic cosmology of inner and outer planes but it would be easy to switch this to say the plane of dreams like is seen in other d20 books and campaign settings.

There is a lot of information in this book and I know I just hit on a few highlight. The book does present the dream worlds in a very interesting and usable way. The mechanics might be a little tough; it is really hard to say without seeing them in action. However even if someone finds the mechanics not usable the detail and ideas contained within are easily worth owning this book for.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

The d20 market has seen book specializing on classes, races, weapons, spells, prestige classes, feats and many other broader categories. This book takes a class feature, the acquisition of the familiar and the familiar itself, and greatly expands upon it. I am not sure how many other class features can be broadened and looked this in-depthly. It would be interesting to see animal companions and the paladins mount dealt with like this book. I feel those are the two obvious choices that lend themselves to this type of product that can take a subject and expand upon it greatly. I would very much like to see Steve Creech, the author of this book, take those class abilities and do with them what he has done with familiars.

Dweomercraft Familiars is the latest pdf by Dark Quest Games. They have been a solid company when it comes to pdfs having produced some of very good books like In the Saddle: Horses and Other Mounts and Death: Guardian of the Gate. I imagine those are some titles that people do not know of but they should. However, this review is about one specific book by them. As I said it is written by Steve Creech and a few other people like Michael Hammes, Neal Levin, David Woodrum, Rowan Flowers, James Justice, Shawn Muder, Darren Pearce, and Amanda Woodrum. That is nine people given writing credit on this book and the writing is pretty seamless. I imagine that is not so easy to do to get nine voices to sound as one. That is just the first of the many impressive things about this book.

Familiars is a one hundred and twenty four page pdf. The cost is a cheap six dollars and ninety five cents. It is cheap for the size and cheap for the quality. The book also comes in a print version for people who prefer that. The pdf one though comes in a zip file that is under two and half megs in size. That file unzips to a pdf that is a bit under three and half megs in size. That is a good size for the pdf of this length. The pdf however does not have any bookmarks in it. It does have a very complete three page table of contents though. I would have liked to see them have those as bookmarks though.

The book is presented in an easy to read two column format. The layout is very well done making it easy to read on the computer screen as well as once it is printed out. There are no borders to eat up ink when it is printed and there is not a lot of art that would do that. The art is a mixture of pieces that I like and do not like. It is all down by the same person, Ceredywn. The art is very appropriate to the topics of the chapters it is in and of a good consistent style. Some of the pieces are a little too cute looking and I was rather disappointed that neither of the new oozes presented in the book was pictured.

One of the things that Familiars does very well is show what familiars can do. At the beginning of almost every chapter there are stories about familiars. These are well written little tales that give good examples of a familiar in action. They offer the familiars personality and intelligence so that they become more then a scouting tool. Personally, I am rarely a fan of the use of fiction like this. But this shows us that when it is done well in both writing style and content that it just adds so much to the book giving examples and details in practice. The stories do a good job of breaking up the book and helping it flow together making it easier to read all in one sitting.

Okay, on the meat of this book. The first chapter deals with the master and the familiar. What sorts of races choose what sort of familiar? What kind of personality does my familiar have? Why should I curse a player who kills off his familiar? And what sort of curses can I use? These are just a few of the fun questions this first chapter answers. It does start out with what races prefer which familiars it includes many of the common races and even minotaurs and medusa plus many more obscure races. However, it does not include dwarves. I guess this is just an oversight as I cannot imagine how one could purposely include what familiars and Ettin likes but not the ones a dwarf does. The personality of the familiars is done through a table of traits. A player can roll randomly for a few of these traits to help define the familiar. There are thirty two options here but a few of the options are just broad categories like phobias. However the text directs us to appendix five for a list of phobias and there is no appendix five, list of phobias, or even a single appendix. The curses are an optional rule to pester the player who looses his familiar. I really like the idea of having the death of a familiar be just a penalty in experience. It can really add something to a character to try to overcome the death of a familiar and the curse he his left with.

The Players Handbook has a very limited list of familiars available to the Sorcerer and the Wizard. There have been a few books that have feats and options to expand upon this list, but they all pale in comparison to the new familiar types this book offers. In the new origins chapter there are feats for the summoning of vermin familiars to undead familiars to inner planar familiars. Each costs a feat and requires a certain caster level to have such a familiar. Some though seem a little difficult for what one can get with it. From there the chapter goes into detail on what a familiar is. It covers a lot of area even the poltergeist of a former familiar. A lot of thought and intelligence was placed into this section. It defines a familiar and answers many of the questions that the Players Handbook does not. I will consider this a must read for any character that decides to get a familiar.

What type of familiar should a character take? Why some types of familiars are better then others and what can one expect from familiars of a particular type? The next few chapters cover?s these questions and many more. Each familiar type gets its own chapter devoted to it and in that chapter things are fully detailed. There might be new spells, new feats, and new creatures for each familiar type. There are chapters on each of the following: Outer Planar Creatures, Undead, Constructs, Avian and flying creatures, Reptiles, Rodents, Vermin, Exceptional Beasts, Monstrous Humanoids, and Oozes. And yes, my eyes do sparkle when I see a chapter on Ooze familiars.

Each chapter begins with reasons why to choose a familiar of this type and why not to choose a familiar of this type. These sections go into the reasons for and against with a thorough understanding of familiars. It also discusses a bit the types of people that most commonly will have familiars of these types. These are an NPC and a PC concept goldmine. Obviously, that is not the intention of this section but I am always on the look out for good starting ideas for characters. I consider it a good bonus in a book.

There are many, many new types of familiars presented here. Each is also listed with a bonus the wizard or sorcerer gets from having this type of familiar. The division of familiars per chapter though is uneven. As one might expect there are more familiars presented for the Rodent and Exceptional Beasts chapters then the Undead and Ooze chapters. In each chapter there are also ways to upgrade ones familiar. This involves spending experience from the caster and seems like a good way to balance the new powers and abilities of the familiar. Spending experience for things other then item creation seems to be a touchy subject for some gamers. I am of the opinion it is a good thing and enjoy seeing new options one can use their experience for. These chapters cover a lot of information and make choosing the right familiar a pleasant chore.

Magical items are the backbone of many campaigns and characters and a familiar has his needs as well. There are not that many items presented here for the familiar but the ones that are here are solid examples of the possibilities for a familiar. There are even a few cursed items here as well. Then the book goes into class levels for familiars, the possibilities of any class acquire a familiar, and some familiar based prestige classes for a character.

One of my favorite things to do first when I read a d20 book is look at the Open Game License. It might seem like an odd thing to do, but one of the great things the OGL allows is the building and using of other people?s materials. In the OGL it will list any sources that were used in this book. Familiars includes over thirty such sources. As I read through the book I did recognize some of the material from the other books, but the inclusion of them was pretty seamless and not obvious. It would be nice to see a page included that said what specifically was used from each source so that people can then see what they liked and possible seek out the original source for more similar ideas.

Overall this is a great resource for Familiars. I do like it much better then the Mongoose book Familiars: Crouch Monkey, Hidden Toad. Though that book does offer some options that will work well with what is presented here. Troll Lords also has a book on Familiars coming out and I can only hope that that one is a as good as this one. If so, there will be no excuse for a flatly played familiar ever again.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

Behind the Spells Wish and Limited Wish

<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Treasure Chests Unlocked Gems

<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Takes gems and give thems more details and character<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: no book marks. <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Complete Guide to Books

There has to be some irony in having a book be a complete guide to books. Be that as it may here it is and it is a little surprising that it has taken this long for a publisher to do a book on books. There are just small areas like books that never seem to be covered but could be considered very large in the scope of a campaign world. I am pretty sure the written word had a dramatic effect on our world for instance. It pleases me to see the topic covered and covered well. This book has good information as well as the typical areas we expect like prestige classes and feats.

The PDF is one of the nicer ones I have seen. It comes with both an on screen and printable version of the product. The art and layout are really well done and the book has a really nice look to it. The PDF comes in a zip file of about fifteen megs and the two PDFs are about eleven and half megs for the on screen version and almost four megs for the printable one. The book has a good table of contents and my personal favorite thing, book marks.

The book starts with a nice list of different type of printing presses and the effect of magic. But it does not stop there. It has a bit of information on cave drawings, clay tablets, bamboo sheets, and many others. The book really showed from the beginning that it was going to cover the areas that I hoped it would as well as others. I will admit I was not expecting bamboo sheets but pleased to see them.

Illiteracy is always an issue. In the days od second edition it was assumed everyone was illiterate and needed to learn to read but in the days of third edition apparently everyone was sent school as now literacy is assumed by anyone with language. This change was one of the few things I really disliked and I think the whole language issue was made to simple and has always been to simplistic in D&D. But this book talks about the literacy rates and what can be expected. It doe not go into what levels would be appropriate where but does list several different levels or percentages of literacy and discusses them.

How would your character like to make a little more money on the side by publishing his campaign journals in game? There are rules for just that. Need to know how hard it is to find a market for your writing? How about locating a publisher? It is all here. How does the literacy rate affect the sales? What about illegal copies and people stealing your writings to sale for them selves? It is all here. It is a really nice and section and really has a lot of potential to add some fun to in between adventures. After that it lists some places to find books along with some nice maps for libraries. There are many areas that involve books that get dealt with in here. It is very thorough.

The mechanics of writing, and I am talking about the game mechanics, is dealt with using skills. Craft bookmaking, craft writing, craft printing are just some of the skills that are described here. Difficulty classes are listed for the skills to show if the work is particularly good and even ink poisons are presented. The feats are mo0stly about writing and there are not many new feats presented here. But they are very topic oriented and creative.

The prestige classes include something that is a rare find; classes that are not adventurers first. Each class is nicely balanced most of them for spell casters but they are not really designed to be adventures. There is a class that crafts legends, and other that is a book burner. The classes are both creative and functional.

The magic of book writing is a large section. It includes a lot of new spells and new magical books. There are plenty of mundane items as well. Many of these items can really add a nice level of new details to the campaign game. The magic books though can be tougher to deal with. Some add a permanent bonus to a skill and last once the book is read.

This book does the job of being a complete book on books. It deals with the areas I wanted and showed me ones I did not think of. It seems to be the rare book that expands upon the campaign world in a way that no other has. It adds detail and levels of realism to the world without bogging down with irrelevant items.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Psionics have always been an odd addition to the fantasy world. They have always seemed like an odd fit especially in the days of first edition. Now there has been more attention on how to fit them into ones game. They are still an odd fit for some people but it does seem that they are a bit more popular now. The use of the psionic cards will hopefully make using them easier for the groups that do.

The Complete Psionic Cards are another card based accessory from The Other Game Company. They have had monster cards and spell cards, both of which can really aid one in finding things quickly. The Psionic Cards is a PDF. It comes in the standard zip format in a file that is a little over two megs in size. Inside one finds eight pdfs and a small text file.

One of the things that separates the Psionic Cards from other PDFs is that it is designed to be printed out and not used on the screen. There is no art, there are no book marks. It is a serious of cards designed to be printed on both sides of a page and cut out for easy reference.

The product is pretty simple but really handy. Most of the pages will have nine different powers on them. Each PDF has a different class or way to organize the powers. The first PDF is the introduction and it has the printing instructions on it as well as the credits. It has a really nice color cover to it as well. The second PDF covers the powers of the Psion and the Wilder. Powers are listed by level first and then alphabetized. I found the cards really easy to print out and line up so that when cut the cards would have the same ability on the front and the back.

This is a good reference PDF for anyone that is going to be making use of the Psionic system. It will definitely cut down on the need to look through books to hunt down the definition of any of these abilities.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Counter Pack 4: Eldritch Horrors & Occult Investigators (PDF)

<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

This is the second collection of creatures in the weekly series. It is good to see that they have learned from one and improved the format and layout of the product. They have added a few new details to make the creatures usable in any genre. The versatility of the extra information makes these monsters very easy to use in any d20 game.

The second volume is a little bigger then the first coming in at nineteen pages. It is comes in a zip file a little over two megs in size and the unzipped PDF is a little bigger at around two and half megs. The layout is improved over the first book and this one is much easier to read. The art is a nice mix of color and black and white pictures. There are color borders that do make the book a bit of an ink eater when printed. The book also does not have any book marks.

One nice thing this monster book includes that no other one I have seen does is alternative rules and ideas for different genres. Most of the time the fantasy monster book is written assuming that it will be used in the fantasy game. This books does that but also includes sidebars that explore other genres like Modern Fantasy and Modern sci fi. It also has alternative rules for each creatures like vitality and wound points, honor, defense bonus, armor class as damage reduction, and honor and taint. This is simple information that really makes the few monster presented here very easy and fun to use in practically any d20 game.

The first pair of creatures is actually a pair of templates. They are Animal Big Bad/ Great Goodly. The idea behind these is the supernatural fairy tale animals like the big bad wolf. The names might seem a little silly for a more serious game but I think the idea behind the templates is very sound. The sample animals are the big bad wolf and the bigger and truly bad T-Rex. On the good side are the lion and eagle. There are nice easy to use backgrounds for the creatures. I really look forward to using these templates in a Grimm game, that setting really seems ideal for these creatures.

The Borm are a saurian psuedo humanoids. They area tribal people with stone age technology. Part of making these easier to use the book also has a new god for them and a scaleykind clerical domain.

The flesh stripper is a gnoll ghoul. There is alos a NPC fully defined of one of these creatures.

The Phobic Slayer and the Star Titan are the last two creatures here. Both are nicely described and offer some great ideas especially in a non fantasy setting.

This is another solid collection of creatures. There are not a lot here and it should be easy to know if these creatures will be useful. This seems to be a good series of books and hopefully the strength will continue.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Crimson Contracts is a 127-page pdf all about assassins and the art of assassination. The book covers everything that from new prestige classes to new poison and from new feats to new originations. The book also follows the hiring of an assassination by Ralts Bloodthorne. I like how they follow this character and introduce the features of the book with him and his quest to hire the perfect assassin. It gives a great insight into the world and really adds a level to the readability of the book. There is a story to follow, as one reads from chapter to chapter and the story does not interfere of eclipse the purpose of the book.

The book comes in two versions. The first is for use on the computer while the other is designed for easy printing. I personally like this as it allows for optimum use no matter which the user wants to use the product. The art is nice and stylish. I really think it fits the product well with a feeling of evil in them. The format is really easy to read and the table of contents will help when locating specific things. The book does not have an index, which is something I like to see in all products.

The book does a very good job of covering many different types of assassins from the sneaking to the brute, the seductive to the cunning. I was very impressed with the variety of types they have.

The book starts with the roles of the assassin. It takes one through the many different types of assassins. Then it goes into the methods of the assassin like the investigation of the target and ways of dealing with him. The information here is very good and thorough. There are some mature themes and it is handled very matter of fact like.

The next chapter deals with skills and feats. There are many new uses for old skills and some good variant rules here. The feats are pretty good with some interesting ones like Run By attack and Exude Venom. While there are not many feats they are very creative and many unlike anything I?ve seen published yet.

Core and Prestige classes comes next and I?m not so sure about the new core classes. They are designed for NPCs as classes geared towards NPC Assassins and their ilk. However, I?m not sure the more NPC classes are really that needed. I would have preferred to see a single, versatile NPC class. The three core classes look well done and balanced so there should not be any problems with using them. One interesting thing they did with prestige classes was making them of various power levels. This allows the DM to select the prestige classes whose power fits his campaign. The Brutal Killer is basically a psychopath who is devastating in combat and very hard to kill. Then there is the Femme Fatale who uses seduction to kill her victims. And then there is my favorite, the Fist of Righteousness. These are Lawful Good assassins who are chosen by their god to act as judge, jury, and executioner. There are many other good prestige classes and they are of a variety of power levels.

Next is the tools of the trade chapter. It is filled with many things that an assassin will want and need in his job. There are twenty new poisons and I really think they are creative and well done. Not all of them just do attribute damage. There are some that cause pain, swelling, dumbness, and many other cool effects. There are some new magical diseases and a good deal of new equipment, weapons, magical items, and artifacts. There are even psionic items in here and that is a big plus in my book.

New Spells is the next chapter. There are not many spells, but the ones that are there are very well done. There?s a spell to hide a weapon on one?s familiar. There?s a spell that makes your alignment appear differently. And there is a nice spell that renders the subject mute. This is a very nice selection of new spells.

The following chapter is Templates. In it are seven new, and creative templates. My favorite of these is the Winter?s Child. A Winter?s Child appears as a teenage albino. They are swift and do well in cold climates. The other templates are also very good and many of them like Poison Child are quite insidious.

Then the book covers new organizations. Each gives how they have rankings, traditional clothing, markings, or weapon, places they would lair, and some methods of operation. These are well done and many should easily fit in the standard campaign.

Lastly are some variant rules. There are new torture rules that I find much better then the ones presented in the Book of Vile Darkness. There are also rules for breaking someone?s neck, using a garrote, choke holds, and instant kills using the kukri and sickle. Then there is a sample encounter.

This is a very good book about assassins and the range of information is compelling. Many of the prestige classes, new rules, and ideas presented here can also be used in a modern or other type of setting with a little work. Ambient should be very proud of this book, as I believe it is their strongest book to date.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>