Castle Darkspire is the most spectacular map ever made by Heroic Maps and is a stunning work of artistry that is easily the equal of the famous Castle Ravenloft. Unfortunately it does have two major flaws, one of them is about what the Castle isn't and the other is about the specific layout of the Castle which in at least one instance is bizarre to the point of ridicolous. Normally such a thing would not be a problem but it concerns the most important area of the castle for any DM hoping to use this as a location for the final dungeon of a Campaign or as the finale of a sprawling adventure and that is, of course, the throne room.

In Castle Darkspire the Throne room is strangely remote and is tucked away at the top of the third floor, this is by itself curious but not really something that merits a deduction, it might even be an advantage as the throne room is often located too close for the entrance which can drastically reduce dungeon length. The actual problem is that there seems to be only one way to access the throne chamber and the path goes straight through the master bedchamber. If the throne room is the most public place in a castle then surely the bedchamber is the most intimate and for the two to be positioned so closely together strains suspension of disbelief. Throne rooms are the most natural place for a DM to prepare a big setpiece encounter and consequently are the area of any map that I scrutinize most closely.

Perhaps its second issue is a tad unfair but I think it is nonetheless extremely important to mention and that is the poor versatility of this product, it features all manner of things you'd expect from a gothic castle and this includes cobwebs, cobwebs, even more cobwebs, dirt and some additional cobwebs. Castle Darkspire is a castle for Undead generally and Vampires specifically and while it excels in this the bitter truth is that while all DMs will have great use for practically any and all castle maps this spectacular example is probably not what you're looking for 90% of the time as it fulfills a very specific fantasy, this would not be as much of an issue were it not for the fact that most other Castle maps are ALSO vampire castles that feature cobwebs and dirt prominently and thereby drastically reduce a DMs ability to use these stellar pieces for the countless other scenarios that he or she might desperately need a castle map for. In fact, another fantastic castle made by Heroic Maps is Schloss von Nachtherz and that TOO is a Vampire Castle with cobwebs.

Those are its issues as I see it, but make no mistake, this is a phenomenal map with dozens upon dozens of possible rooms, making it a megadungeon waiting to happen and if you DO need a Vampire Castle then either this or the recently updated Schloss von Nachtherz are easily the best options available. Regrettably though, the problems with the Castle are major enough that I'd consider it dishonest to award it anything more than 4 Stars. Though it very nearly earned a 5 Star rating regardless.

Hopefully this is useful for anyone deciding whether or not to buy this product.

Njål Randby Michaelsen.

Adaptable NPCs is a good product on the surface with excellently written and interesting statblocks, but it suffers from an enormous flaw, namely the fact that the stat blocks are considered to be pictures and therefore you cannot copy-paste text to make the process bearable and consumer friendly. Given the staggering price tag on this product compared to others of this type (there are options out there that cost a tenth of this book that simultaneously maintain good quality, and yet manage to present a useful product with copyable stat blocks.)

I and I presume many others buy products like this because it allows us to give our monsters great variety as well as dramatically cutting down on prep time, but the awful divide between blocks and text in this book still mean that you spend 15 bucks only to have to do the lion's share of the work yourself as you painstakingly have to manually write out the statblocks that you just paid good money for.

After buying this more than a year ago I still haven't had the opportunity to use much or any of it, it is simply too much of a hassle and the money I spent on it I consider to be largely wasted. I do not reccomend buying this book, especially not if you use Virtual Tabletops like Roll20.

Ordinarily I would award a product with these flaws one star, but since the actual NPCs are of such high quality and because of the value of the adventures I award it Two Stars instead.

Today I will be reviewing the, at least for me, long anticipated Monster Talents book, published by Dragonix here on the DMs Guild. Most people should know of Dragonix by now, the creator of the best selling Player Talents series, which has had a huge impact on many games. Not least of which being my own, my players took to loving the talent system immediately, and its been a mainstay of my games ever since. However, I had to work particularly hard on ensuring that the monsters were up to the at times vastly magnified power of the player characters.

Monster Talents aims to fix these issues, but sitting at a pretty hefty price tag of 14.99 dollars means that some might be hesitant to buy it. Allow me to reassure any DM who might be wondering whether or not to buy this, this is probably the single best product for monsterbuilding I've ever encountered on this website, and I have scooped up pretty much every such product I could find with reckless abandon, including The Book of Dragons, Monster Warehouse and The Monsters Arsenal. Yet this easily blows them all out of the water in terms of relevance.

Even a casual skim through its contents made it clear that it was worth every penny I paid for it and then some. The Balor of the Monster Manual is a sad, sad creature, far from living up to their intensity in older editions they are weak enough that they've apparently been taken down by parties of seventh level characters. Indeed, its so pathetic that its most threatening trait involves its death. It is a monster I had up until this point sworn to never use.

But this book changed my opinion on this matter entirely, for the Balors talents are simply stellar, allowing a DM to not only modify it into a Legendary Creature, but make it unique by mixing and matching fourteen different talents, making it so that its possible to have several entirely distinct and unique Balors in the same fight if you so desired. This inclusion of much needed new options has turned the Balor into a force to be reckoned with, and a creature that truly lives up to its hype.

Not all Monster Talents in this book are as brilliantly done as those of the Balor, but rest assured that there are no duds here, all talents are more or less universally good, and succeed at what they are meant to do, spicing up your monsters and balancing against the players talents. The talents range from good to exceptional on the whole.

Hopefully Dragonix continues to improve upon this book to make it the best it can be, but even as it is right now I'd say that its an excellent product worthy of consideration. Assuming that you are DM, that is, if you are a player this book holds very little for you, and if I were to level a criticism, it would be that Dragonix chose to include some racial talents in this book rather than update one of the other Player Talents books with that information, books that are geared specifically towards providing character options.

There's still loads more I'd like to see from this product, including improved talents for dragons, and perhaps a simple guide on how to create talents for custom monsters. But the final verdict is that Monster Talents is an exemplary product, and I'm already looking forward to the second book, whenever it might arrive, because I can guarantee that I will buy every single one of these in the future, and if you are a DM who wants to improve your monsters, I cannot reccomend this book enough. I award it five stars, because its few shortcomings are not enough to decrease the value of this product.

An excellent and highly engaging set of options for dragons, I've playtested this material and I absolutely adored it. I hope that the authors continue the Enhanced Enemies series, many monsters in 5e could use some love.