Dangers Near and Far (DN&F) is fantastic new book for Beyond the Wall (BtW). It includes the material from the last four expansions, which were already top-notch, and fuses new content together into a new beautiful piece of gaming lore. Before I address some DN&F specifics, I want to explain why BtW is so dear to my heart.

In Beyond the Wall, you start building your sense of place and purpose as soon as you make the first roll in your chosen character playbook. After the last roll, you have an unique character and several builtin story hooks for future action. The dungeon master has at least that much fun creating an adventure by choosing a scenario pack and rolling up the start of the action and the pivotal plot points. In addition, the Threat packs help add boiling danger which will plague the characters over many sessions of campaign play. This DN&F book rounds out the Threat packs and Scenario packs to give a vast number of new options and advice to build more. Two early chapters, The Village Expanded and Adversaries Expanded, are so densely packed with adventure hooks that I kept having to put the book down and go-- Whoa.

Let's talk games mechanics for a bit. BtW has three classes-- Warrior, Rogue and Mage. Each of these classes has several traits (like Attack bonus) and special abilities (like Sense Magic and Fortune's Favor). Overall, about one third of the playbooks blend these abilities into multi-classed characters, but without the usual "stitched-together" feel. The magic system is literally my favorite across all OSR systems. Mages have assess to Cantrips, Spells and Rituals which blend together into a full featured system. Each magic form has different mechanics and are equally useful overall when wielded by the clever practitioner. For example, this book (DN&F) includes the new playbook "The Lord's Secret" which is a Warrior-Mage with warrior knacks (but not weapon specialization) and mage spells (but no cantrips or rituals). Once you roll through the playbook, you may even end up with a young Brand (from Wheel of Time) or a young Falco Dante (from Battle Mage). Another mechanics note, levels are a bigger deal in BtW than typical OSR games. Level 10 is the max for all classes, but at this level your character will be at the pinnacle of power. Beyond this, your character may well be the "Gandalf" of your next campaign with new characters and new adventures.

Now let's talk about the flavor of Beyond the Wall. In short, it's everywhere-- even the descriptions of the spells and the bestiary. Yes, there is a classic "Burning Hands" spell, but the spells before and after are "Brave the Flames" and "Call the Swarm" with very evocative descriptions. Even unclaimed playbooks are storehouses of great characters and events for the players to experience. The art in all the books is varied and excellent, all work towards a feeling of life on the edge of a dangerous and mysterious wild. DN&F does not have as much art as the original BtW book, but the art present fits the style nicely. The classic OSR races are present-- dwarves, elves, and halflings. But, dangers like the faerie and goblins are more like those from the Dolmenwood setting of the Wormskin magazines. DN&F expands on the extra-planar realms by including the best treatment of "The Underworld" I've seen anywhere. This world, just beyond ours, is realm of the dead and is separated from the living world by "The Veil". Where the Veil is thin (old battlefields, graveyards, dark heart of wood, ...) the spirits and even undead can crossover. The storytelling value of this is immense. Skeletons are a barely a challenge in typical OSR campaigns. But, in BtW, no hero regardless of power can let down their guard where the Veil is thin. DN&F includes a similar treatment of the Goblin Realms, starting with a level 1 ritual "A Door in the Dark". This "frightening easy" ritual can open a existing portal to dangerous realms of the goblins and their chaotic ilk. Excellent guidance is given on creating these caverns and memorable foes like the goblin's leaders, champions and beasts. Once again, the storytelling potential of this material is vast because the smaller challenges earlier in campaign have easy mechanics to scale to tremendous dangers later as the threats build to a crescendo.

Despite the length of this review, I've barely begun to describe how much the BtW series has made me a happy gamer. Dangers Near and Far continues this fun in grand spirit. I have the hardcover versions of the previous three books, and I'd love to have this as the fourth (POD?, wink, wink).