Character options come in many different forms. There are the traditional skills, feat, prestige classes, and core classes that are seen in many different products. There are the lesser known and more controversial forms like the prestige race options from Oathbound and the guild options presented in Guildcraft and the Path of series of books. These options have a cost of pure experience do not involve spending of resources that the class system grants characters. Crusader shows another option that they call a subclass.

Crusader is a new PDF by Alea Publishing Group. They are one of the few companies that really has well defined niche and for them that is medieval like crusades. They have different books as well as paper figures all built around knight orders and chivalry. The PDF is six pages long so is small even for PDF standards. Despite the small size, the book has book marks. It has eighteen things book marked; I never see a ration of book marks to pages that is like three to one. That?s impressive and shows a well book marked item.

Crusader presents a sub class. A Sub class is something that is added onto an existing class. So, the class gets a little more powerful but does get a minus twenty percent experience penalty. If one happens to take a favored sub class the penalty is only minus 10 percent. The crusader which is the only subclass presented here is a favored subclass of the humans. In exchange the class gets a few bonuses over many levels. By twentieth level one with this subclass gets plus one base attack bonus, plus to the saves, some hit points extra skill points and class skills, as well as a few abilities. Despite getting all of that it does seem like it might not be enough for lagging a level or two or even more behind the other characters.

I like the idea of the subclass. It is a nice option that can be combined with ease to any regular class. Some classes line up better with the Crusader since it is a more melee and fighting oriented class. It is also religious in nature gaining some abilities that only work on creatures that are not of their religion. It is nice way to make a character a little more focused and defined as the idea of a crusader, someone who basically kills the enemies of his own religion. It defiantly has the potential of really having a campaign or at the least a series of adventures built around the idea.

I will be interested in seeing other subclasses. If I were to use it I would prefer to have similar options that can be offered to all characters instead of just this one that would only appeal to a limited number of player characters. As a DM though, it would make a great addition to use on many NPCs of the same religion or even fighting against each other. It is a nicely written and well organized PDF that I do recommend for anyone that has use of religious zealots in their game.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

The thought of cursed items really brings emotion out in some people. Certain DMs just grin evilly and think of new and interesting ways to mess with the players. Some players hate them believing that all magical items should be beneficial. Other players secretly enjoy them as they present another type of challenge for their character. To some DMs though the items are more of a pain since the DM has to remember their abilities as the PCs will never be able to learn what the true item can do until its to late. Cursed items are not an easy thing to use and incorporate well in the game. Someone might want to just come up with a few of the more advanced concepts in the d20 game and write about those. But this is about the cursed items and about the fun they can lead a party to.

Athenaeum Arcane: Cursed Items is a PDF by Mark Gedak and published by Ronin Arts. Mark has had his hand writing for a few different companies I have noticed so he seems to be a writer on the rise. Ronin Arts is of course the PDF Company with over two hundred products out there covering a wide variety of topics and games. This fifteen page PDF is nicely laid out. The book is black and white and as long as one doe not print the cover it takes up very little ink. The cover is full color with mostly brown and a picture of a rather sad looking woman. It really fits for the topic of cursed items. The book is book marked and really easy to reference and use.

The book in concept is very simple. It lists new cursed magical items. Each is fully described and nicely detailed. None of the items are what may be referred to as campaign enders. The cursed items will be problematic and might take a while for the players to figure out. Those kinds of mysteries can really be something great in a campaign and create the type of stories that people talk about for years afterwards. Each item has a Bardic Knowledge DC associated with it as well as a very complete history and description that includes the false aura the cursed item provides. There are ten new cursed items in here along with a few extras at the end of the book that are referenced with the items like a template or a spells.

Druids Vengeance is one of my favorite items in the book. I like the history that allowed this weapon to become everything the owner once believed. This weapon is great for killing animals and at the same time the animals will be none to happy with the welder of the weapon. It is one of those cursed items that can easily and slowly be seen a she animals are just growling or react badly to the owner of the spear. Depending on how often normal animals are encountered, this item could be mildly annoying to down right deadly to the owner.

Harp of Heroes is another very interesting item and a lot different then the types usually found. This harp is of fine quality and has some magical abilities in it. However, when a past hero is spoken of, that hero is called back from the lands of the dead and wants to hunt down the person using the Harp. This is another item that the curse can slowly be realized over many sessions and the confusion of what is actually bringing these heroes of old back can make for a nice side adventure for the players.

Not all the items are things that I would use though. The Nobles Cloak is a Cloak of Charisma but if the user tries to woe the opposite sex they can get really damaged. It can offer some good role playing as the character may just stop talking to that one gender all together. So, like all things even ones I do not particularly like will have some good uses for people.

This collection of cursed items is really nice. It will offer a few good choices for someone wanting cursed items and will hopefully offer the game a new level of complexity and mystery. But as always know the people that might use these items for some people just react badly to any and all cursed items.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

Welcome to HARP. HARP is a fantasy game system that stands for High Adventure Role Playing. It is its own system so not d20. And that is one of its strengths and one of the reasons as a die hard d20 fantasy person I enjoy it. Every game comes with assumptions that are built into the rules and the way things are done. Now in d20 some companies have fought these and done a nice job of expanding beyond what D&D is but it is nice to view another fantasy game that has roots well away from D&D and see how they do things. HARP is solid game that is a lot of fun and comes at fantasy in a familiar yet different way. It is point based, has a nice spell system, has easier character generation especially for people that have to stat out ever NPC, and captures fantasy very well. I have said that many of the books for HARP would make great d20 books if they followed the d20 rules. They books about fighters and mages have a better approach then most of the d20 counterparts. Their monster book is very useful allowing for construction of monsters as well as presenting ready made monsters. One of my bigger complaints about the game was that it had no setting. I find settings to be very informative as they tell me how the writers envision their game being played. So, I am very pleased to see Cyradon, a fantasy setting for HARP.

Cyraden right now comes in a nice PDF format and will be coming out in print in a few weeks to a month I believe. Iron Crown Enterprises (also known as ICE) are the publishers and have been doing a really nice job of making their books available as PDFs and as print books. The book is one hundred and eighty six pages long. The art is good to really good and the layout is easy to read and well organized. The book does have page borders and is black and white; printing will be noticed by the ink and paper it consumes but it is not as bad as other books I have dealt with. The book has a good table of contents, a great six page index, and nice book marks. As a setting book that will be referenced a lot by DMs and players these tools are invaluable.

Cyraden has what I believe makes a good setting. The first and probably the hardest part is the hook. This is built on mystery of people basically appearing in the setting after some huge apocalyptic event it seems. The world is being rediscovered and molded as the people go out and meet the races that have survived and find adventure and intrigue in the world. The second thing I look for in a setting is details. I do not want just an overview of everything I want good descriptions of places and people. This book has it. The first many pages is all about the world and the different places. It has good descriptions of the countries and places of interest and has enough places left undefined for the DM to be creative and place in their own things. Third, the book needs to have something for the players to do. This book has the usual adventure hooks that I get reading through settings but it takes it even farther. It has a section on just adventures. This is brilliant and I found that the adventures I thought of while reading the setting were for the most part the adventures they are pointing out and expanding on. I have never had a game company read my mind like that, it was quit eerie.

One nice thing the book does it is separates the rules from the setting. The setting info is not intertwined with the rules parts making it easy to use the setting for other systems. Do not get me wrong though, this book does expand on the rules for HARP over new player options for the classes and spells that really fit the setting. HARP for me seems like a game that really can be easily molded make the rules fit the setting. I never noticed it until I saw how well it worked for Cyradon. I think that makes the game very DM friendly allowing not to much prep time for a new setting to go a long way.

Cyradon is described as a swashbuckling setting but it is not limited to being a swashbuckling setting. There is a lot of potential for different styles of play and for a variety of adventures and campaigns. That is another strength of the setting and the system as it really does support the game a DM and players want to run.

HARP is a game that is growing on me. At first I was not as impressed with it as I am now. It just seems that the support books are really well written and do a great job of supporting the core game. This setting is exactly what the game needed I think to show the HARP rules in action and how they interact with a set place and how it can all be pulled together.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

Combat Option Initiative

The initiative is the start of combat. It can make or break a fight as going first many times is very important. But can a full book dealing with initiative variants and options work? It seems a little too specialized even for a twenty seven page PDF. The options though seem good and easy to use.

There is one small note that needs to be made. This book was not written for me. I do not much care for combat options in my d20 games. Combat for me is kept simple so while I can see the use of these combat options, they are not something that I would use in my own game. It is all a matter of preference and gaming style and the fact that I do not use them in my personally game does not influence this review.

Combat Options Initiative is a new book by the guys at Emerald Press. The PDF is twenty two pages in length and is a small file under a meg in size. The PDF is not one that is easily printed out. It is full color with bright colors and page borders. The rules information has a green background that makes it easy to find but will take a bit of ink. The art is not that great and full of color. The tables though are well done and the layout is solid. While it has no table of contents or index it does have a fully functional set of book marks.

The book is a combination of story and rules. The story serves the rules talking from the position of a teacher at an academy of combat. It discusses what the rules describes what the rules explain. It starts with the trainer waking up the students really early and explaining some basic tactics to them. Then the book describes in game how the initiative works and starts with the first option of rolling once or each round. It does a good through job of explaining what initiative is as well as providing a few easy to use options. There is the option of allowing a character to reroll his initiative if he sacrifices an action. However, it does not say if the action is a move or standard. There are a few times in the PDF that says action but does not say which type of action it is. The book also has the option of using initiative as a skill.

The book goes on to a very interesting idea, the Art of the Quill?ara. It is a duel of sort to the first blood. The opponents stand back to back and then must turn quickly and attack the other. There are full rules for doing this and I like the idea and how it iss defined. There are seven different levels of difficulty and while they are nicely described they need to have a difficulty value so that it can be done with dice. For instance the Exploration or fourth level fight places a red target on each opponent?s chest and the target must be hit for victory. But the book does not say how difficult it is to strike it.

One of the options it presents is dealing with the type of combat where everyone announces what they are going to do that round before anyone takes actions. They even have a good optional rule for this type of play called adapting. It allows people to change their mind if their action can no longer be performed but the new action suffers a penalty to complete and they are limited to what they can do.

As one can tell there are lots of new options here. There is a new feat called Perception that allows wisdom to help out on initiative checks and a option called the lunge with allows someone to act faster but give them a minus to attack.. A book on initiative options needs to cover weapon speeds, and this book does. The weapon speeds are easy to use as they are given depending on the qualities of a weapon like size, weight, attack type, ect. This allows the weapon speed of any weapon to be determined and makes sure they are all in balance with each other. This is possible the best option of weapon speed I?ve seen. Armor speed is also an option, it is a bit more simple depending on the armor check penalty.

One of the more complicated but realistic options is the Rolling with Damage. Basically when ever someone takes damage there is a chance that their initiative will drop by one. It involves reflex saves and while it will slow down the game a bit with the extra rolls it can also add a little more realism for people who want it. Of all the options there is only one that I really do not like; it is the loosing initiative when falling prone. I think that would make the trip attack of some characters too good since a successful trip will prevent the opponent from acting that round.

Lastly, or first as the book has these at the beginning and the end are the maneuvers. At the front of the book it tells how one gets them and in the back it describes what they are. The way to get them is to spend experience. The first one is only a few hundred but as one gains more maneuvers they get more expensive to buy. Spending XP this way is something some people really like or really hate. It can make determining the true level of a character a little tough as they have spent XP on things other then levels. The Maneuvers could easily be turned into feats if someone wanted to go that way.

Over all this is a solid book of many options that involve initiative. While this is not something that I would use personally, I do know that there are people out there looking for options to make the game a little more realistic and allow them to alter the game to their own needs.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Combat Options: Attack Combat can be a big part of the d20 game. The game really seems to assume a lot of combat and from talking to people and playing in games combat is usually pretty prevalent in actual game play. However, for some the combat options of the game are rather limited and do not offer enough variety. Just rolling to attack round after round after round can get a little boring. Sometimes just adding some description to the attack can do the job, but at times people prefer a little more mechanical difference as well. It is for these people that Combat Options Attacks is for.

Combat Options Attack is the second in the line of Combat Options books. The first covered initiative. This thirty eight page PDF is by Emerald Press. The book is written by Todd Crapper who writes most of the books for Emerald Press as well as being the owner of the company. The book is done in color but it is not colorful. It has a lot of green background to separate some of the text from option rules the book presents. The PDF when printed will use up a bit of ink because of that. There is a small text file with the optional rules in there that prints out with ease. It does not have the extra non rule text that the PDF has.

The options in the book are of course all about combat. The book starts with how these new options are gained. It is the same way they are gained in the Combat Options: Initiative book. The maneuvers cost experience to learn with the more that are learned the more experience that it costs to gain them. Some people do not like the way to gain abilities that lie outside the level system. The maneuvers can be made into feats but that is not done here so a DM would have to do that all himself.

Some of the rules can get a bit complex like Prowess Modifiers. It has the option of using different ability scores to attack with or just averaging them all out and using that number. This can be used to make some of the less used attributes more useful, but can also make it easier for the prime attribute of a character to be used more. This can be abused greatly so the DM needs to be aware of that before using it. There is Spot Flaw that allows a character to find a weakness in the opponent?s defense to give him a single bonus to an attack. The ability may be used more then once but each time it only applies to the next attack the character makes. There are lots of new options in the book.

The Called Shots variant is interesting. Called shots make the encounters a little easier at times so they actually recommend a experience reduction for creatures defeated with called shots. That actually makes a lot of sense and helps to balance them out. There are new rules for non weapon proficiency penalties. The penalties are not as severe and make a great use in games that use option rules that do not let all martial character know how to use all weapons. They also have a nice rule that makes heavier weapons harder to use for weak characters. Most of the rules in the book really make a lot of sense and while they might complicate the game some after a while they flow very well as people get used to them.

One of the reasons I like this book is it gives martial characters more options at higher levels. Sure it will cost them experience points but the casters are usually also spending experience points making magical items. I think the experience point lose should stay more even and with more classes able to spend XP the casters are more inclined to make items when they do not fear being left behind. The options also can turn a mundane warrior into something a little more exciting as they can have a few more strategies to play with. The book can easily be fun for DMs as well as they can introduce NPCs with unique abilities the players are not going to be familiar with. Anything that can keep the players on their toes is good in my opinion.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Ars Lingua

<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Artifacts of Legend

<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Behind the Spells Blade Barrier

<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

DCC 31 The Transmuters Last Touch

The Dungeon Crawl Classics are a series of modules by Goodman Games. They are a bit old school in that they are a bit simple in the plot and have creative encounters and are dungeon crawls. It has a been a very popular line of modules for me and my group. This review of Dungeon Crawl Classics 31: The Transmuter?s Last Touch is a module that I did not get as a review copy. I picked it up and was able to run it for my group so that is what this review will be based on in addition to a thorough read through. I choose this one because it is one of the shorter adventure and we were able to run it in one night. It is also a two dollar module or one dollar PDF. I have a copy in each format to comment on how the each are for this review.

When those people left the place it was taken over by a Transmuter who used the solitude of the old temple to do his own experiments. It is this that really makes the module shine. Instead of having just a bunch of changed monsters and critters here, the writer chooses to do something different; something a bit more creative. There are certain spots in the floor of the place that if one steps they will be temporarily changed as a bit of transmutation magic takes effect on them. The changes are useful and can be a bit mysterious as the group tries to figure out what is happening. The changes though to ware off after five rounds so it is nothing that will permanently alter anyone. It is these places that can make the encounters fun as the kobolds are running to them to gain powers to kill the PCs. And they can also complicate the encounters as the squares are easy for a DM to forget to use at times or need to look up what they do and mark which kobold is affected by which one.

<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

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>

Tiles are a nice way to supplement the for people who use miniatures. They are usually pre printed areas that can be just laid out for people to explore. One does not need markers to draw out maps and one does not need to erase sections of the map to create new areas when space gets limited. They are easy to just print out and then lay out on the table to use. The ones here are for a modern game and depict a prison.

Cityscape Tiles: Prison is by LPJ Designs. They have quite a big catalog of different items over at RPGNow and I was amassed at the quantity. The zip file this comes in is a little under seven megs so not really too big. The PDF is sixty three pages long full of these tiles. There are no rules in the book making it perfectly usable for any game in the modern era like Mutants and Masterminds or even Unknown Armies. One could actually use these in near future or far future games like a cyber punk or even a Star Wars and Babylon 5. While the tiles are not perfect for such settings the look could work for them.

The tiles show a prison. It is fairly simple to describe in that way. The two story prison has the usually rooms one would expect. Each tile has a color version as well as a black and white one. The prison has two stories with plenty of rooms fro the inmates and some places specifically for the guards. There are thirty tiles drawn up here. Each tile is six inches by six inches and has one inch by one inch squares to use miniatures with. The product has a specific way these all fit together but with some work and a little bit of creativeness other way to assemble the rooms together should be possible,

The tiles look good. The large amount of ink makes it so I use a little higher quality paper then standard but other then that there really is no problem printing them. The miniatures I own have plenty of space on the squares and the map seems to fit together easily. Being paper they are easy to pack up and transport. If I think they are going to get a lot of use I laminate the tiles. It also allows for them to be drawn on with wet erase markers like a standard battle map. It adds a little more price to the over all cost of the tiles but it makes them last a lot longer.

The tiles do a nice job of portraying a prison. They are very usable in a variety of different games and are not limited to any one game system. They can eat a bit of ink for people with ink jets and especially the color cartridges. But for those that have access to work printers these tiles will defiantly be worth the price. <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Players Guide to Castlemourn

Astrology and religion are given a nice overview here. I like the inclusion of Nighlanters which are just constellations. Being born under a certain one can have an impact on a character. I think more on that will be presented in the full setting book. There are seven gods in the pantheon and they are helpful. It seems the world needs them a little more now so from reading the book I guess there are more clerics and religious classes here. The arcan castes though are much rarer as they are mistrusted. Many seem to believe they caused whatever happened.

Character creation is going to be about the same. All the races of the Player?s Handbook are in this setting except the half orc. The abilities of the races have changed some. Dwarves have a thing with thinking everything as an illusion. It does not go into detail on why that is just that they are affected by illusions easier but can also ignore something as if it was an illusion even if it is not. And if one thinks that is weird then get this: elves glow. It is a bit different and gives them a nasty penalty to hide checks. Half elves glow too just not as much. Gnomes have some Great Focus on a Great Task. The book does not go into what that is at all, but there is a little mention of it. There are tweo new races in the book for the setting: Godaunt and Thaele. The Goluant take the place of the half orc. They are a well done mechanically version of them. They descend from the Fell beasts, the evil monsters. They are looked down on by other races for their heritage. The Thaele it seems are a playable vampire like race. I?m guessing here because very little is mentioned about them other then they are mysterious. They have other abilities named but not defined like Accursed Aura, Blood Thirst, Seasickness, and Silver Allergy.

Classes are the same with new ones that the reader is told about. The new base class the Buccaneer and the prestige classes the Dusked, the Faithless One, the Rhyesword, Servant of the Seven, Truesword Knight, and the Waymaster are all mentioned but not defined. The first three levels of the Waymaaster are presented and it looks to be a fun merchant crossed with a swashbuckler type prestige class.

The Player?s Guide to Castlemourn is really an appetizer until one gets the actual setting book. It will serve as a nice overview of the campaign setting and give just enough information for some to decide if they like the setting. There is no need to go out and buy the campaign setting first if one feels they might not like it. I am now really looking forward to the actual setting. This has really hit me the right way and made me want to see a lot more.
<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Nice easy to read over view of the new setting. It is very creative.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: The fiction could have been better. <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

Behind the Spells Dancing Lights

<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Creative history and fun game<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: short<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

The Kingdom of Kalamar is a very rich and detailed setting. It has lively descriptions through out the many books and the setting as a whole is very dramatic. This PDF is an updated version of the old Players Guide to Kalamar. It updates it to the 3.5 rule set and covers everything that was in the original book. This PDF will fully replace the old book. This book is only being released as a PDF. I understand that there might not be enough demand for the book to be in print but a PDF of this size and with the type of useful content that is in here I feel is just easier to use as a book. I can see a lot of people printing this out to use.

The Players Guide is a big PDF coming in at two hundred and seventy seven pages. It has a great lay out and really good art. It has the quality of any book in these areas. It is in full color with lots of graphics so printing this on a home printing can eat up a lot of ink. One might want to get this printed out elsewhere. It only comes in one PDF so there is no graphics light or black and white version for easy printing. For people who want to use the PDF from the computer there are no book marks. That will make electronically flipping from item to item much harder and time consuming.

There is a lot in here. As a Players Guide it has a lot of mechanics in it but does an excellent job of keeping the great detail of the setting fresh. Kalamar is a very alive setting with many things going on. It is a place of politics and great nations. It can also be a place of exploration and adventure. It has a great level of detail and a wide variety of places that allows a DM to do most anything they want with the setting. Because of that there is a lot of information in the book. It is packed with options and everything in it makes the book feel actually much bigger.

The book starts with a good one page introduction to the setting. It explains the world in a simple over view. It tells more of what the setting is about then specific details. That is left other areas. What it does tell is some of the importance of the Player Characters being the heroes of the setting. It goes into a bit on the importance to not have the rest of the world stop moving and things stop happening just because the players are not there. It is a setting that is going for a bit of realism in it even though it is still a setting of magic, of many fictional races, and plenty of creative ideas.

There are twenty three playable races in Kalamar. Actually, there might be more but there are twenty three listed here. Each race gets a nice description to help on get the feel for the race and be able to play him. They are physically described, have basic relationships with other races detailed, what alignments the race seems to go toward, what type of lands they usually live in, their languages, their religions, and what adventurers from that race are like. Each is also mechanically described when different from the players handbook version of the race. Many of the races are sub races for instance there are many types of hobgoblins, elves, and dwarves. There is also a really nice sidebar about bringing in characters created for other settings. I like that they include fine details like that.

The book has plenty of new classes but first it gives a short paragraph to each of the Player Handbook classes to inform the reader what they are like in this world. Next, the section does a great job of making some use of the variant class guidelines from the Dungeon Masters Guide. There is not a lot there but I think this is the first setting to even recognize those guidelines exist. There are seven new base twenty level classes here. Each is given the same level of detail that is found through the book. The Basiran Dancers are a little bard like especially in mechanics. They get spells to sixth level and a good amount of class skills and skill points. They have a very limited known spells list though. The brigand is a charismatic fighter. They are a little more rogue then the standard fighter enjoying more skills and skill points and sneak attack ability. They do not get the base attack bonus of a fighter though. Gladiators are powerful fighters that fight in the many public arenas. They can hold their own well in a fight and learn many interesting tricks of their trade. The Infiltrator is part rogue and part ranger. They have great sneaking and movement abilities. The shaman is a divine spellcaster of tribes that deals in spirits. They have a totem and can eventually take on that totems form. The Spellslinger is a bit of the singing music of the bard mixed with the raw power of the sorcerer. There does seem to be an error in the class though. They can cast never spell levels at odd levels but do not gain new known spells of that level till an even level. For instance they can cast fifth level spells at ninth level but do not actually know any fifth level spells till tenth. The Watchmen are warriors to protect people in cities and other places danger prowls. They have good city based skills and abilities making this one of the better classes for any city based campaign.

There are of course plenty of setting specific prestige classes as well. Some like the Muse I like the abilities but would prefer that it build on the spellcasting abilities of a character instead of just starting over. Others like the Wavemaster are just solid concepts that work as a character and well in the game. There is also a nice section for making new prestige classes and a few short ideas on concepts that would make good additional prestige classes.

The book has a full chapter each for skills and feats. There are some new knowledge skills and plenty of new ways to use the older skills. There are many new feats as well. There are many creative and useful feats. Knock Prone allows one to knock over an opponent whenever they score a critical hit. Targeted attack allows one to hit a certain body part and damage it instead of doing extra damage with a critical hit. There are some feats that are bit weak like ones that give a plus two bonus to two skills but they have prerequisites to them. Many of the ones richest in flavor just do not have a worthwhile mechanical benefit to take them.

The section on religions is very complete. They have a table of the gods listing the names the non human races have for the gods. There is a nice sidebar about adjudicating followers actions. There are table to convert gods of other settings to the Kalamar equivalent. Each god is given a basic description of their canons. Then it goes into temple rank. This is not a level determined thing it depends on how well the character does in the eyes of the church and their god. Each rank has a description, specific duties, and privileges. The highest rank is the leader of the church. There is also a bit on sainthood and the divine right of Kings. Each religion also has a secret way to use the channeling/turning undead ability. This is a great section that really gives powers that fit the beliefs of the church cleric follows instead of just giving everyone the same thing no matter what they believe.

There is a chapter on equipment. In addition to many nice new mundane and alchemical items there are slaves and their costs. There is a nice bit of information on the coins and the different places that use different types of them. This is going to be a useful chapter for anyone that wants to do more with the simple equipment and not have the magical stuff quickly over take it all. There is also a nice chapter on spells and magical items. There are plenty of good and creative things for the people that want the magic as well. It is a rare book that includes so much of both and that is not a catalog of equipment.

As one might expect the section on the known world is filled with great detail. This place is alive and there are plenty of things that are going on. What I really enjoy most is that the world is written with the idea that the players are going to be adventurers and the DM is going to need all sorts of plot hooks and things for them to do. There is plenty of things outside that scope but the book does not forget that it is for a role playing game and seems to really know what people that play the game actually do. I think some settings and writers forget that at times.

This is a very dynamic and exciting setting of countries and politics and adventure and of monsters. It can really support a nice variety of adventures and character types. There is a lot of information here much more then I was fully able to cover. But the most important thing one needs to understand about this world is that it really seems like a great blend of ideas and adventure and makes a great setting for many role playing campaigns. This book has the character options and information for the players to make that happen.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Great detail, great focus, fun player options<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

Behind the Spells Animate Dead

<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Creative as usual<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: I always want more <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>