What a fun to read and gorgeous to look at book. Most of the way through the book but I've already asked our group's GM about running a dwarf-themed campaign next... I really want to roll up a dwarf machinist! The automaton rules are just too cool. The sporecaller is also calling to me though with that power that lets him make explosive mushroom zombies--awesome stuff! Great book all around, even the stuff I didn't expect to be interesting like the dwarven mining rules were an entertaining read.

Like Dwarves in RPGs? This is your book. chock full of interesting things about them, their culture, history, economy, vaults, legends, characters, gear and magics! If you're an OSR player of any kind it's usable virtually out the box, if you're a player of other D&D's there's a lot of stuff to plunder anyway. Buy this ACKs, you won't regret it.

I recently started an ACKs campaign with my older children and thanks to By This Axe they are now all-dwarven, all the time. There are so many solid classes filling so many roles here that they never even considered anything else. They've read the BtA lore and have had a blast expanding on it; their own "real dwarves don't talk with beastmen; there is only extermination" means encounters have been merciless and hilariously vicious. The higher-level "domain-play" aspect of each class has drawn forward their fun into future anticipation; at 1st-level they are already seeing all of their hoard-gathering and dungeon-clearing as the path to founding their own dwarven vault (and then "delving too deep"). This book is enormously fun, highly and immediately playable, and has my top recommendation.

FYI, I am an early backer of the book, but an extremely satisfied one at that. Lots of cool stuff for Dwarves and Dwarf campaigns, fun new classes, new items, domain rules, lore, and more. Very happy with the book! Get it!

(Full disclosure: I backed the kickstarter for this book, and have been using the released drafts to work systems and ideas into my campaign for months now.)

First Note: YOU DON'T HAVE TO PLAY ACKS TO USE THIS BOOK (though to be honest, you probably should ;). If you play OSE, LL, B/X, or anything built off the same framework, most of the contents of this book can be used as-is.

Highlights: 1) ACKS' s unique take on "race as class" demonstrates its full value here: there are enough dwarven racial classes to run an entire all-dwarf campaign, easily. Each of them was playtested thoroughly (even did some myself) and are balanced with each other, as well as the "standard" classes you'll find in ACKS (or B/X, what have you). My personal favorites: sporecaster (dwarf fungus master with a surprising breadth of abilities), tombsealer (anti-undead dwarf fighter-type whose few unique abilities can come in quite handy in any dungeon session), rhetor (dwarfven barrister with more combat and campaign utility than one might expect from a member of the legal profession), and the dwarven machinist (see below).

2) The machinist and automaton rules are worth the price of admission alone. I'm not kidding. They are that good and that comprehensive, and in usual Autarch fashion, the numbers actually line up. I've already spent a lot of time monkeying with construct builds, the system scratches the same itch that Battletech design/customization does.

3) Gnostic magic - different enough from bog-standard D&D magic, yet close enough that it doesn't feel totally out of place in a "D&D" style world. The system was adapted from the "ceremonial" magic system in Autarch's Heroic Fantasy Handbook, which came out several years ago, and therefore has had plenty of time to have any rough edges filed off.

4) Presentation: The PDF looks great, the layout and trade dress are distinctive and easy on the eyes. I can't wait for my hardbound copy!

I would recommend a purchase to anyone who plays (and especially DMs) any sort of "OSR" system, you'll find plenty of ideas and mechanics to mine even if you don't adopt it wholesale. I'm not entirely sure what value (aside from the lore and "fluff") this book would have if you play the current iteration of WotC's system (or Paizo's, etc), so if you're dead-set on sticking with those systems, you might not get the same amount of utility that I have. Caveat Emptor.

This an outstanding book with a sole focus on Dwarves. Anyone who is running an OSR campaign with Dwarves would get a lot of use and flavour out of this book. The price point is excellent for the classes, lore, magicial items and just plain riff for ideas.

Buy This ACKS.

The best dwarf-focused source book published to date.

This is a book stuffed full of gamable content. new classes, new magic, new items; all the way through to new ecology and economics for worldbuilding, domain play, and strategic conflict. A new, grotesque and potent villain in the Sporecaster, and a series of horrible catastrophes to ruin a dwarven stronghold. Go primitive with flesh-runes and bear cavalry, or go "high tech" with elaborate and arcane machines that mere humanity, let alone the beastman hordes, just can't match! Take up the mantle of leadership and lead a Hold to glory or ruin. Rules for risking experimental mushroom farms and Digging Too Deep. This book is a goldmine.

From the Designer's Notes in the back: "In By This Axe, we’ve applied abductive reasoning systematically to make an in-depth look at dwarves. For each trope we could think of, we substituted “common trope” for “surprising fact” and then used abductive reasoning to develop an explanation for each."

Autarch has set out to take the things that make dwarves dwarfy, and explain why those things are so, in the expected ACKS way of fitting things in economically as well to make dwarven domains properly different from human ones when using the book with Autarch's system. I can't speak to how well the mechanical parts in it would convert to other fantasy RPGs (the classes should at least convert to any oldschool d20-based system without too much hassle), though the lore parts are sensible for anything where the common dwarf tropes exist.

For longtime ACKS players, some of the book retreads ground covered in AXIOMS articles (especially issues 3, 13 and 17), with little expansions and alterations here and there (Machinists in particular got much love with a full chapter of updated rules for automatons), as well as some other bits and pieces for other classes to lay the groundwork for the announced upcoming ACKS II.

Aesthetically, the book is possibly the most ambitious Autarch has done, a leap from the white pages with red trim of previous ACKS products (the brown pages in particular giving me a bit of early 2000s nostalgia). I don't always dig the art styles chosen for the pictures, but they do the job for the layout here.

The lore is a fun read, with a clever sense of humor.

The dwarven classes are very evocative and look really fun. I showed them to one of my players, and he's now considering retiring his current PC to try out the Pugilist.

The automatons (for making clockwork or steampunk machinery) are a cool set of rules, and I fell in love with the Exterminant automaton the moment I saw the art for it. An ogre-sized terminator designed to infiltrate into the lairs of orcs and goblins and then wreck everything in its path? Metal.

Between the experimentation rules for automatons, the delving deep rules for mining, and experimental mushroom farming rules, there's three full rulesets that dwarves can try to get an extra advantage at the risk of things horribly (hilariously) backfiring on them. I will definitely be using these.

The magic items are some of the best I've seen, with a mix of both epic artifacts and small more commonplace sorts of items. Not only is there the usual weapons and armor and adventuring gear you'd expect, but even a section for "Dwarven Toys and Marvels" with some really fun stuff in it like a toy dragon that shoots real miniature fireballs. These are items I can't wait to start dropping into my campaigns, especially the super-cool Ring of Seven Grudges.

The art is phenominal and so are the gorgeous maps of the dwarven vault. This is a beautifully-done book. Frankly I'm surprised given its level of production value that it doesn't cost twice what it does.

5/5, no regrets.

I will begin with Dwarves being my favorite fantasy race, something about the joviality of brotherhood, the weighty seriousness and pursuit of craft speaks to me. And like dwarves, By This Axe pursues the craft of bringing tabletop dwarves to the utmost highest quality. The tome is thorough, concise and extremely evocative of dwarven hero and myth. I'm relatively new to tabletop, so I am sure dwarves have been covered before, however for anyone requiring a lore, a legend and a concrete foundation for dwarves in fantasy, By This Axe is in my opinion a great choice on that basis alone.

While I have given praise to the Lore of By This Axe, like a surly craftsdwarf, I have much greater to speak on the mechanics, and classes, of By this Axe. From Mining, to mushroom farming, highroads, lowroads, almost anything you can think of relating to domains is detailed, and make for a litany of intriguing possibilities for building tall domains (Or deep, depending on how mining goes), with possibilities for some very interesting situations. Like flooding the vault. And my favorite part, the dwarven classes, have been expanded from Players Companion and ACKS core rulebook, with updates for those from both sources. Dwarven Machinist, a Players Companion class, has been upgraded and updated to make better one of the single handedly best player machine building mechanics I have ever seen. The new classes are evocative, interesting and epic feeling enough that I already know several people wishing to start up Dwarf Campaigns just to try them out.

In short, if the mountains are land of myth, legend and mighty deeds, By This Axe presents the Mighty inhabitants of that land in Masterwork Quality.

Delve Deeply and Greedily!