Adventurers live in a very harsh, tense world. They regularly face monsters and evil-doers in mortal combat, often while on a quest to save their town, country, or even world. Given that, one would expect them to take at least some time to kick back and relax, perhaps even have a little fun. Unfortunately, there’s little in the game rules that are helpful in that regard, and so most players are left on their own to figure out how their PCs would blow off stress. But thanks to Healing Fireball, adding a lighter touch to your game is a piece of cake! How, you ask? With their light-hearted book The Sages Must Be Crazy: Let Them Eat Cake.

Let Them Eat Cake is a brief sourcebook for 3.5 gaming, and comes with two PDF files. The first is the main product, with the second being a printer-friendly version thereof (you could call that the icing on the cake). The printer-friendly version is printer-friendly largely because it removed the background coloring that the main file has, but it still kept the interior images. This isn’t really that bad, since these are small black-and-white pictures (along with the occasional sidebar graphic), but seems slightly unnecessary. Still, it’s unlikely to tax your printer too much. On the plus side, both files have bookmarks, which is always a plus.

Presented by the humorless sage Ebenzer Killjoy, this book is presented as a treatise warning against pranksters who would use delicious foodstuffs as a way of pranking a community with low-class magic. In that regard, the book is divided into three parts.

The first introduces a handful of new spells. All very low-level, these have things such as making a pie exceptionally sour, changing the flavor of an object, or deadening someone’s taste buds. There’s nothing here that’ll make you a combat expert, certainly, but I liked that these offered something new – when’s the last time you saw a spell that cursed someone with being unable to enjoy the flavor of food?

The second section introduces new cakes and pies that are made alchemically. Though the name of the book deals with cake, there are also pies and rolls of bread to be found here. From icing that has a purgative agent mixed into it to bread that explodes when you cut it to pie that makes it impossible to speak for a few minutes after you’ve eaten it, there’s a lot of creative prank ideas here. Perhaps best of all is the sidebar covering how to use a thrown pie as a weapon.

The final section is cakes that are actually created as magic items. From dough that magically expands beyond its normal confines to lead pound cake (it weighs ten pounds!), these are wacky foods as only spellcasters could create. My personal favorite was the cake that explodes, when cut, into a burst of confetti and balloons (with a sidebar on variant “flavors”).

Ultimately, Let Them Eat Cake is a product that isn’t for all occasions, but shines when you really need it. If you want a trickster character that is out to cause mischief and fun-tinged mayhem, this is an excellent arsenal of magic to arm him with. With this book, you can add a lighter side to your character, letting them have their cake and eat it too.

People who’ve been playing the world’s most popular fantasy role-playing game for a long time may remember that, back in its first edition, the illusionist was a class unto itself, separate from their wizard brethren. Subsequent versions have simplified matters, making the illusionist into just a variant of the wizard, without only a slightly greater focus on spells meant to fool other people.

In Sorcerer Specialist: The Illusionist UKG Publishing brings us back the illusionist as its own base class, separate from the wizard once again, for your 3.5 game. This review peels back the illusion and tells you what’s really there.

To start, let’s look at the mechanics of the file. This product comes as two PDFs, one being the book and the other being a printer-friendly layout of said book. This was nice, as too many PDFs nowadays seem to think that printer-friendly versions are a thing of the past. The PDFs both allow copy and pasting, but only the full-color version includes bookmarks (presumably since the printer-friendly copy won’t be used for screen-reading).

The mail PDF file does a nice job with visual presentation. The pages are on a slightly off-white background, and include several full-color CG illustrations sprinkled throughout (in the same style as the resplendent cover). The printer-friendly version, naturally, removes all of this in favor of simple back text on a white background.

Beyond technical presentation though, let’s look at the content. Following the foreword and table of contents, we’re introduced to the illusionist itself. This is a spontaneous arcane spellcasting class, akin to the sorcerer. However, the illusionist has its own spell list (presented after the class) which while it does offer more than just illusion spells, is still fairly tightly focused; no fireballs or lightning bolts here.

The class also has several features built into it. A big one is the illusory familiar; you literally have a familiar that’s little more than a figment of your imagination. It has some interesting abilities (such as being able to turn solid for a short amount of time) but is otherwise a standard familiar. The remainder of the illusionist’s powers are built around specific bonus feats, as they gain things like Spell Resistance and Enlarge Spell, but only for illusions they cast.

A pair of new feats are introduced following this, which aren’t bad, but aren’t anything to be particularly wowed over either. One increases the percentage of how “real” your illusion (shadow) spells are, which is not bad, but the other simply lets you use faerie fire twice per day due to a fey heritage of yours, which is kind of a dud.

Following this are over two dozen new spells. These range from cantrips to 9th-level spells, all for the illusionist class (though a few make it to some other specialized spell lists). There are some real gems in here, such as Deathhunt, which makes the victim believe that everyone they have ever killed is rising from the dead to hunt them down in revenge, or Dax’s Duplicity, which makes everyone think that a specific item rightfully belongs to you.

On the other hand, there are several spells which don’t seem very worthwhile. Shadow Missile, for example, is Magic Missile save for dealing nonlethal damage. Shadow Gate is a 7th-level version of the Gate spell, just to the Plane of Shadow. Dual Image covers something in two illusions at once, so that the person needs to make two saving throws (the example given is a pit covered with the illusion of a normal floor, and the illusion of a bridge beneath that), but it seems like it’s really just making a person save twice and take the worse save, and of course it won’t fool a True Seeing.

Altogether, Sorcerer Specialist: The Illusionist isn’t a bad class for 3.5, it’s just lacking inspiration. Class features that are little more than illusion-specific feats, alongside a pair of new feats and a set of spells that are a decidedly mixed bag, and this is a product that’s good, but not great. If you’re really looking to expand your repertoire of illusion spells, you’ll find some good ideas here, but besides the illusory familiar, there’s not much to separate the base class from the standard wizard that specializes in illusions (unless you really want a spontaneous spellcaster focused in illusions – but a sorcerer with a tailored spell list should take care of that fine). Ultimately, Sorcerer Specialist: The Illusionist isn’t quite the pleasant image it hopes you’ll see it as.

The oracle class is something I was surprised it took so long to see. It fulfills several niches that have been waiting for quite some time now. Mechanically it gives us a spontaneous divine spellcaster, and thematically it gives us a character that’s chosen by the gods, rather than choosing a god of their own. All of which is well and good, especially with some interesting new mechanics based around an oracle’s curse, mystery powers, and revelations…

But it’s nothing that Sigfriend Trent and Open Design can’t make better.

Advanced Feats: Visions of the Oracle is part of Open Design’s Advanced Feats series, each of which introduces 30 new feats as well as a class breakdown and several sample builds. In this book (as in all of them) the majority of the feats are thematically appropriate to the class in question, but only a few of them are specific to that class.

The book begins by examining the various parts of the class, weighing its strengths and weaknesses. We’re told about the class’s spellcasting potential versus its skills versus its multiclassing viability, for example. Each mystery is given a brief look as well, which was a nice bit of insight.

The real meat of the book is its feats, however. Designer Sigfriend Trent has beaucoup experience with feat design, being the editor behind the famous Netbook of Feats, and it shows here. Trent gives a few sentences of commentary on each feat, offering glimpses behind that curtain that make for great easter eggs.

Being that the oracle is a full-progression spellcasting class, many of the feats here deal with magic use in some regard. Magic Sense, for example, lets you automatically sense magic items and spell effects around you, and know exactly what a magical effect would have done if you successfully save against it. Tactical Spellcasting is basically the spellcaster’s equivalent of Spring Attack. Spell Retention lets you retain a spell if you fail a concentration check when trying to cast. These and others like them offer great new options for spellcasters.

Apropos of that, one-sixth of the feats in question are metamagic, ranging from things such as the general purpose Concentration Spell (increase your spell’s duration via concentration to the highly specific Spiritual Armaments Spell (create ghostly weapons/armor/equipment on undead that you create or summon). Beyond this, several feats deal with metamagic without being metamagic feats themselves. Scroll Metamagic lets you apply a metamagic feat to spells cast from a scroll, for instance.

Following this are three new example builds. Each build specifies a large number of the character variables you should choose to make a character that’s tailored toward a specific area of expertise. The Visionary Healer, for example, tells you what mystery, curse, feats, ability scores, etc. to take to be a powerful healing character. The Phoenix is a combination healer and fire-wielder, being able to blast foes with flame and revitalize allies. Finally, the Savage Seer is focused around the oracle’s battle abilities, being capable of dealing damage with sword or spell.

Overall, Visions of the Oracle provides a great mixture of feats for characters of all stripes, particularly spellcasters, and quite a few for the oracle specifically. If you’re overwhelmed by what to make your oracle character, pick up this book and receive a vision of what he could become.

I once heard someone say that playing a full-progression spellcaster in Pathfinder is like opening a long-term stock portfolio; you’re taking a number of risks over a period of time in hopes of generating great returns. In this case, those returns are the 9th-level spells you get, allowing you to unleash some of the strongest effects in the game. It’s in that spirit that Rite Publishing brings the conclusion to its 101 Spells series: 101 9th Level Spells.

Forty pages long, the PDF has full nested bookmarks and allows for copy-and-pasting. The pages have very ornate borders on all sides (standard for Rite Publishing) and there are several black and white illustrations scattered throughout, meaning that this may be tough to print.

The book opens immediately to the spell lists. Unfortunately, the APG classes aren’t given lists here (nor are they in the individual spell level listings) which is hopefully something we’ll see in an update. Having said that, the spells themselves are what you’d expect for the top of the line in spellcasting power.

While it’s impossible to review all of the spells in here, most of what I saw impressed me. Spells like Behind the Curtain basically let the GM tell you a major plot point…but if you tell anyone else you’re instantly destroyed and reality changes to make the revelation untrue. Psychic Clone basically inserts a mental avatar of yourself into someone else’s mind, prodding them and guiding them with various effects and powers in accordance with your wishes. Ultimate Insight lets you know virtually all knowledge for a few seconds, and in that time you can accomplish almost anything. It’s like that for one hundred and one spells.

If you’re about to hit that level where you can cast the strongest spells in the game, you owe it to yourself to pick up 101 9th Level Spells and let the rest of the party know just who’s the archmage now.

I never really saw the benefit to mounted combat in Pathfinder; from my perspective, it seemed like an expensive and somewhat dangerous proposition. After all, you had to sink a lot of feats into it, and most mounts seem to have a “kill me” sign around their necks. Even with the advent of the Cavalier class from the Advanced Player’s Guide, it just didn’t seem like something I’d be interested in.

But on a whim, I decided to check out Advanced Feats: The Cavalier’s Creed, since author Sigfried Trent has some serious street cred where feats are concerned. So I checked out the book and, for possibly the first time ever, I’m thinking about how it’d actually be kinda cool to play a mounted warrior.

Advanced Feats: The Cavalier’s Creed starts by talking about the cavalier class’s strong points before it heads into the thirty new feats based around them. Note that these are based around the class only in a loose sense, as something like three-fourths of the feats don’t require that you have cavalier levels to use. This is a good thing, as the book presents feats that deliver things I’ve seen players wanting for a long time. Near and Far, for example, lets you attack adjacent enemies with reach weapons, while Shaft and Shield lets you use two-handed polearm weapons in one hand. Several feats here are written expressly for animals, such as Clever Critter, which effectively grants a creature an extra 2 points of Intelligence (for that Lassie-level intellect).

What really made these feats stand out for me, however, was how (like other books in this series) the author includes a personal commentary with each feat, giving us a few sentences about why they were written the way they were. I’ve always loved these “behind the curtain” peeks and this is no exception. Sigfried Trent not only has great feat design experience, but he shows that experience off here.

The book closes with three example cavalier builds. These are the green knight (attract enemies’ attention and protect the party), the tawny knight (a small-sized hard charger), and the black knight (heavy damage-dealer). These list all of the various options that cavaliers should take at each level, including class features, feats, and ability score increases. Helpfully, they also list how to level the mount as well.

Needless to say, this book is an absolute must-have for anyone playing a cavalier, and extremely useful if you’re interested in a character that fights on a mount, uses polearms, commands followers, or fights with teamwork. There’s a lot of great options here, so mount up and check out The Cavalier’s Creed.

Cthentacle, I’ve learned from experience, is one of those games where everybody looks at you funny when you suggest a game of it. After all, most people would think it odd that you’d want to play (and want them to play) a card game based around tentacle-rape. This is only compounded if you mention that you’ve also got the expansion sets for the game. But you know what? If you’re going to pull out something this nasty and perverted, you might as well go all the way (innuendos intended). It’s with that thought that we turn to the second Cthentacle expansion: At the Mountings of Madness.

Like the previous expansion (The Dunbitch Horror), At the Mountings of Madness introduces two new characters and twenty new cards, along with the generic card-backs. There’s even a scenario behind this expansion to the game, though it’s little more than “an explorer and her sailor companion set out for the Antarctic to see what they can find.” Of course, what they find are some ancient and horny Mythos monsters.

The cards have a fairly even distribution of number cards (which range from 1 to 5) along with some new ! and SP cards. However, I’m still frowning over the uneven distribution of cards. It was perhaps inevitable, given that there are seven card types (note that I’m not counting character cards) and twenty cards in the set. Still, the staggered number of card types means that playing some number cards will be more difficult since you must play them sequentially and there’s less of some numbers than others.

One interesting tidbit to the game is a variation on normal Cthentacle play called Investigation. In this version, there are six “locations” (which the game says you should just lay out some sort of markers to represent) and your goal is to have your character advance through them to the final destination, which is the lost city of O RLYEH. The method of advancement requires you to give up a card, but otherwise this plays much like normal Cthentacle, with numbered cards played on your character until your “spooged,” though this doesn’t disqualify you but rather sends you back to the starting location.

I was a bit disappointed to see that this expansion pack didn’t take into account the cards from the previous expansion that required some explanation. Some of the cards in The Dunbitch Horror required explanation for ambiguous powers like “works on humanoid-looking cards.” That expansion listed explicitly what cards in it and the base game phrases like that referred to – a further listing should have been provided for this set so that things stayed clear.

Of course, for all these minor flaws, this expansion pack stays eminently true to the dark eros of Cthentacle. Artist Darkzel continues to draw full-color artwork for all of the cards, showing the lovely ladies (and oftentimes other things) in situations ranging from bending over provocatively to being bound and violated by tentacled horrors. It’s great stuff, in other words, and almost distracts from the awful card names; if you’re a Lovecraft fan, you’ll roll your eyes at titles like “Pnacocktic Manuscripts” and other bad jokes. It all just goes to show that Cthentacle has still got it, so whip our your deck and get to the Mountings of Madness!

There’s a certain appeal in playing characters that haven’t quite come into their own yet. That’s because these are the stories that lay down the foundations for who those characters will become, and because playing low-power characters means that your victories are harder-earned and thus much sweeter, plus you’re more likely to get them due to luck and clever thinking rather than having suites of “kewl” powers.

In Pathfinder, there isn’t much opportunity to do that, however, as characters are assumed to be fully-fledged adventurers, albeit beginning ones, at 1st level. There’s no mechanism for going below that point. Until the Genius Guide to Apprentice–Level Characters was released by Super Genius Games.

This seven-page PDF describes its take on apprentice-level characters as being – what I call – half-level characters. That is, it spends about a page walking you through the process of making a character that’s one-half of a first-level character. It mentions that as an alternate process, you could have a character that has multiclassed into two half-level classes (being the equivalent of a 1st-level character, and then leveling up into a second-level character with a full level in each class).

The rest of the book then presents us with half-level stat blocks for the core classes, the APG classes, and all of the Genius Guide classes that had been released at this time (everything but the templar, as of the time of this review).

Looking back over this book, I can’t deny that this system is a good one. It quickly and effectively creates a character that’s below 1st-level. But at the same time the method by which an existing class is simply halved in terms of power seems to lack a certain sense of innovation that I’d thought would be there. By itself, this book gives you the tools to make an apprentice-level character, but doesn’t tell you what to do with them.

I can’t hold this too much against the book, since it accomplishes exactly what it set out to do; I just wish it had given us more about apprentice-level adventures. What’s a good scope for them? Is a CR 1 monster too high for them? What if we want the character races to be younger, does that alter their stats? There’s more that could have been done here, but wasn’t.

Still, the book does present class options that are de-powered from level 1 for all of the major Pathfinder classes, and the guidelines for this can be easily applied to other base classes as well. That’s the center of making apprentice-level characters, so the rest can be extrapolated from there.

I really don’t know where the current zeitgeist of “werewolves vs. vampires” came from, but lately it’s been everywhere. From the Underworld movies to Twilight, the two somehow seem to have become natural enemies, or at least counterparts. Given that, it’s somewhat appropriate that Necromancers of the Northwest – whose Liber Vampyr sourcebook made vampires into playable characters in Pathfinder – should release A Necromancer’s Grimoire: Marchen der Daemonwulf, which makes werewolves into a PC choice in your Pathfinder game.

Looking at this book’s technical merits, it does rather well for itself. The product has full, nested bookmarks, and the text is selectable. However, copy and paste has been turned off, which is a rather unpleasant surprise. Hopefully this will be addressed in an update.

The book’s visual design plays into the title’s theme. All of the pages are set against a cream-color background, as though written on old parchment. There are only three illustrations in the book, but they’re done in a very evocative style and contain hyperlinks to the page of the artists, which I found to be a great way of acknowledging the people who helped illustrate the book.

But what does this book actually offer for people who want to play a werewolf character? First, it should be made absolutely clear that this book is for would-be wolves only; other lycanthropes need not apply. Now, you could certainly reskin this book to deal with other sorts of were-creatures, but as written it’s all about the lupines.

The book opens with a foreword discussing where the idea came from and its evolution to fit the Necromancers of the Northwest’s style of smaller releases. This was rather telling, since the book does narrow its focus considerably from its vampiric counterpart. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, since unlike that book this one is a pay-for-download product, but still, it’s something else to know that they could have added more but chose not to.

The book begins by introducing us to the lycaonite base class. This class is not only heavily invested in offering bonus werewolf feats (see below) to help flesh out your werewolf character concept, it also presents an escalating series of mechanics based around offering bonuses or penalties to various stats depending on the phases of the moon. I suspect that some players and GM’s will be put off by the idea that a PCs bonuses can fluctuate (heavily so as the class levels up) due to events beyond the character’s control, but this is addressed in sidebars and a surprisingly frank discussion about using the class in the game. If nothing else, the book is very open about the challenges of using this class, and offering some alternative ways of utilizing it.

One thing I would have liked to have seen more of, though I can’t hold this against the book considering the attention given to keeping it on the lean side, was new options matching what was in the Advanced Player’s Guide. Werewolf traits, for example, or class archetypes for the lycaonite (perhaps that would have been a good way to work in alternate lycanthropes?) would have been welcome.

The bulk of Marchen der Daemonwulf, however, is devoted to its werewolf feats. Weighing in at fifty-five feats, the design philosophy here is told to us outright: that you can take whatever combination of feats lets you build the werewolf you want. And make no mistake, there are a lot of options. Several feat “trees” are presented, such as an escalating series of feats around gaining power from devouring corpses (you gain extra power if it’s the corpse of a sentient creature) or around becoming a leader of wolves. Others are stand-alone feats, such as improving your ability to transform, or gaining fast healing at night.

A half-dozen new magic items round out the book. Two are magic weapon properties, while the other four are wondrous items. I was a little surprised by this section, as it seemed rather anemic and thus against the philosophy of keeping the book narrowly focused; only here are things that can be used against werewolves, as opposed to playing one (though there are some beneficial magic items here too).

Overall, Marchen der Daemonwulf does a superb job of making werewolves an option for PCs. By using feats to grant werewolf powers, along with a class that maximizes not only how many feats you can gain but also introduces lunar abilities, playing a shapeshifting lycanthrope is made into a viable and interesting choice for players. Though the book has some issues, such as the uncopyable text or the sparse magic items, none of these are enough to hurt its focus. If you’ve always wanted to play a werewolf character, then you have cause to howl in joy with the release of Marchen der Daemonwulf.

One of the oddities of Pathfinder is that arcane spellcasters can’t use most of the magic weapons they make. Now, they can multiclass or just buy the requisite feats, to be sure, but for the most part an enchanted bastard sword isn’t going to be swung by the wizard that enchanted it. Wizards, sorcerers, and their ilk just don’t have anything equivalent to the “plussed” weapons that fighters regularly use.

That is, until the Genius Guide to Rune Staves and Wyrd Wands came along.

This book deals with a new sub-category of magic item; magic implements. Magic implements (in the form of the rune staves and wyrd wands) are like magic weapons in that they have enhancement bonuses and magic properties. But unlike weapons, these bonuses and properties are applied to spells cast with them in hand. For example, you +5 fiery wyrd wand will, when you cast a fire spell – add another 1d6 points of damage (for the fiery property) with an additional +5 points of damage (for the +5 enhancement bonus). The enhancement bonus also applies to things like overcoming spell resistance, dispelling, etc.

It’s a surprisingly elegant system of adding new, functional magic “weapons” for spellcasters. Having almost two dozen new magic implement properties, and several sidebars on how to price new properties or integrating this system with traditional wands and staves, the book makes sure to cover all of the bases. In fact, the only thing the book doesn’t cover is whether or not you can treat a rune staff (being a large piece of wood) as a magic weapon like a quarterstaff, since it has an enhancement bonus.

Overall, if you’re tired of having your spellcaster miss out on the magic weapons that are so ubiquitous for fighters, have them make a rune staff or wyrd wand for themselves instead. After all, shouldn’t your wizard’s staff be more than just a backup weapon?

Magic armor and shield properties tend, in my opinion, to be favored less than magic weapon properties. In my experience, this is because players prefer to be proactive rather than reactive. After all, a flaming longsword will deal extra damage every time it hits, while a breastplate of fortification only comes into play when a critical hit lands on you, and even then there’s only a chance of it working. The best defense, as they say, is a good offense.

Rite Publishing’s A Dozen Armor and Shield Magical Properties helps to even the score there, providing twelve new magic abilities for your defensive array.

The book is seven pages long, with multiple interior illustrations and ornate page borders which make it feel much more substantial. The new defensive properties here are nicely innovative, such as the anathema property, which makes an item more defensive against certain types of creatures (including damaging them if they hit the wearer), or the pilots ability, which lets the wearer of the armor literally enter and control a construct. In fact, this last ability is based on the new spell that’s included, Pilot Shell, making a nice bonus for arcane spellcasters.

Good things often come in small packages, and that’s the case here. Whether you want to gain bonuses for fighting defensively or have your armor automatically pour a healing potion down your throat when you’re dying, A Dozen Armor and Shield Magical Properties offers several new ways for your armor and shield to save your life.

Back in the day, I always wanted to come up with some set of rules or guidelines that would let me move my old D&D group across multiple campaign worlds. I still can’t tell you exactly why the thought of moving them from one world to another was so exciting, but it was. I never got around to it, and in all honesty the entire thing seemed to be more trouble than it was worth – after all, give the PCs ways to move between worlds and they’ll quickly start abusing it. So I shelved the idea and eventually forgot about it.

…until I saw John Wick’s The Flux. This short book, in less than twenty pages, not only rekindled my excitement for a campaign that moves between worlds, but expands the scope of those worlds dramatically, fixes the problems I was encountering, and adds some fun new rules to it all. Let’s take a closer look and see what The Flux is all about.

From a technical standpoint, The Flux presents itself very professionally. It has full, nested bookmarks, and leaves copy-and-pasting enabled. Further, it comes with the necessary formatting to read it on a Mac or as an ePub document. The book is entirely black and white, and save for an alternating page border of a chain and pendant, is devoid of illustrations. And yet, I liked the minimalist approach of its visual design. It really gives a sense that we’re looking at something innocuous, or even deliberately downplayed, which fits with the tone of the book – fluxing is portrayed as a secret only some people are aware of.

But what exactly is a “flux” and what does this book offer?

Described as a “meta-RPG,” The Flux introduces an in-game rationale for changing RPG systems and translating characters between them, as well as offering a few additional rules based around the idea that characters remember their previous incarnations from past games. For example, your character may be a wizard in D&D, but then there’s a flux and the GM pulls out Call of Cthulhu instead, and your character is now a private investigator…who remembers some of the D&D spells he knew before.

Fluxing is nominally described as what happens when the world “dies” and is instantly “reborn.” It’s a cool description for why this phenomenon happens, but I’m not sure how well that works as a concept considering that fluxes seem to happen fairly often (in the author’s examples and from the in-game writing) and because the author talks about cycling through the same select few game systems for fluxes.

But let’s go through the book piece by piece.

There’s a fairly strong piece of opening fiction where a character is describing fluxing to another character before we move on to the rules. The author keeps a very conversational writing style throughout the book, often referring to himself in the first person, which was more entertaining than I thought it’d be. There’s no chapters, but the book is broken down into a number of sections and subsections.

The Flux tells us that when a flux happens the Game Master translates the PCs into their new incarnations – that is, he literally makes the PCs’ stats for the new game system they’ve fluxed to. All PCs also use the new ability score presented here, Memory, which determines how many of their previous incarnations they recall and correspondingly how many changes they can make to their GM-written PCs.

I personally shook my head a little at this section. Character creation is one of the areas where the players have near-absolute, if not total, control over how things turn out. Having the GM write up their new characters while letting them make only a static number of alterations certainly made sense – in a new incarnation, you don’t get to choose who you’ll be – but I know that if I did this my players would likely rebel. Personally speaking, I’d invert this rule; I’d let the PCs write up their own new characters (with some guidelines about how powerful they should be apropos to the game system) and then the GM gets to make a number of changes equal to each PC’s Memory score.

Of course, your Memory isn’t a static number. You can, in fact, fail to remember who you were before a flux, though there is a way to be awakened to your previous selves’ memories. Likewise, your Memory score can be increased by certain things.

The major aspect of Memory, however, is what the next section of the book covers: that you remember your previous lives’ skills and abilities, and can try and use them in your current world – these are known as Recall. Like the private eye with the memories of a mage, you can have a character use those powers even if they don’t necessarily fit with the genre/game system you’re currently using. Of course, you might fail to translate that ability to your current world, and even if you do use it there’s no guarantee it’ll work the same (different world, different rules).

It should be noted that bringing in powers from the old world(s) isn’t something your characters get freely. The more they do this, the more likely they are for the world to notice that something’s happening that shouldn’t be. If the world does notice, then there’s Whiplash, where the world tries to deal with the problems that your character is causing. This usually ends badly for the character. And then there’s a brief note about Slippage; rarely, something more than just memories will make the transition to the new world…

Roughly the last third of the book is meant for Narrators; that is, people who run the game (e.g. Game Masters, etc.). This covers some of the basic questions about fluxing, along with presenting some ideas for how things could work in various fluxed worlds. Finally, we get the resolution to the opening fiction, which I quite enjoyed.

Ultimately, I found myself highly impressed with The Flux. The idea it presents is exciting and offers simple yet novel way of easily transitioning from game to game while keeping continuity for flux characters. The few rules it introduces are simple, yet serve to highlight what makes fluxing an addition to a game, rather than just an excuse to start using a different system. The remaining guidelines are helpful without being restrictive, letting you go your own way where you differ from the author’s presentation (as I did in a few places). Finally, the writing is top-notch, being all the more intriguing for its casual tone.

If you and your players want to transition game systems without having to start everything over, if you love the idea of characters and plotlines that span worlds, if you want to see a little more of one game take place in another, then pick up The Flux. New worlds are just a flux away.

I’ve said before that the fey have lost virtually all of their mystique in Pathfinder; a holdover from their D&D roots. This is partially due to many features that were considered “fey” in folklore having been poached by other creature types, and partially due to the fact that such mysterious creatures suffer from being so rigidly defined by game terminology. But really, the biggest reason the fey are so inconsequential (and have lost most of their thematic identity) is simply because they’ve been ignored.

Compare this to, say, demons and devils in the game. There are entire books devoted specifically to those particular creatures. They get an entire plane of existence devoted to them; various locales endlessly detailed and many different rulers examined deeply. We have an excellent sense of who demons and devils ARE as creatures, and that gets built on accordingly.

The fey have never had that, and so Zombie Sky Press has taken it upon themselves to correct this oversight in their new series The Faerie Ring. It begins in the first book, Along the Twisting Way.

First, let’s examine the file itself. Along the Twisting Way is a fourteen page PDF, which despite its brevity has full bookmarks (something I was thankful for). Copy-and-past is fully enabled. Likewise, the book is resplendent with artwork. The pages themselves are colord a bluish-gray, and given a light but intricate border on all sides. That alone would make it pleasant to view, but beyond this are the various full color pieces sprinkled throughout, which depict various fey denizens. It’s truly impressive what these artists have wrought, and I look forward to seeing these creatures detailed in later volumes.

The book opens with a foreword from Jeff Grubb, which I was impressed by – I’ve been seeing his name in D&D books ever since I started playing the game. Jeff goes over the history of the fey down through our own mythology, and then transitions to their place in the D&D game, or rather, their lack of a coherent place in the (Great Wheel) D&D mythos, before telling us how now we’re finally giving the fey a place of prominence in that same arena, and bidding us to read on…

Following this, the book’s authors speak to us directly, telling us what their goals are and what this project is supposed to be. Namely, they want to give the fey the same depth and definition that demons got over the course of James Jacob’s Demonomicon series (for those who don’t know, this was a series of article in the now-defunct Dragon magazine, with each article detailing a particular demon lord in great detail – giving us their history, goals, stat block, servitors (oftentimes with new monsters), a prestige class for their mortal servants, and realm, among other things). To that end, this series will apparently take a similar tack, showcasing powerful fey rulers to use them as a way of presenting the fey as a whole.

Of course, the author does acknowledge that the fey need some background first. It’s in that spirit that the book moves on to its next section, which is written in-character from a fey scholar corresponding with a mortal counterpart on the nature of the fey themselves.

This part begins by discussing the planar cosmology of the multiverse in relation to the fey. The Outer and Inner Planes are touched upon only briefly, with the Material Plane given greater attention. It’s when we come to the Transitive Planes, however, that things start to get interesting. The author here catalogs the Transitive Planes as merely a sub-grouping of several planes from the much more diverse Preternatural Planes.

The Preternatural Planes are a complex series of planes that share some sort of relationship with the Material Plane (indeed, it’s hinted at that the Material Plane itself may be one of the Preternatural Planes). Like the Inner and Outer Planes, the Preternatural Planes are of a theme, but that theme isn’t alignment or energy, bur their theme is much more subtle and defies easy classification. It’s here that the Plane of Dreams, Sheol, and similar planes of existence fall that aren’t Outer or Inner Planes.

Several specific Preternatural Planes are discussed, but most get no more than a paragraph, and certainly no listing of planar traits is given for any of them. Still, I did appreciate the sidebar discussing why it was necessary from a design standpoint to create multiple new planes of existence (which I think was a gutsy move, and certainly a brilliant one; it’s been a long time since the concept of D&D’s planar structure was so heavily expanded without just reinventing it altogether).

The author then turns his attention to the fey themselves, talking about their uncertain origins and their characteristics. This latter point is a bit of a tightrope walk; the previous section reinforces that fey don’t operate according to mortal standpoints of ethics and morals, drawing an interesting parallel between them and the beings of the Lovecraft Mythos in terms of understanding how they think. I’m not sure how well the in-character description here does, but it’s still a great idea that deserves more exploration.

A bit on fey anatomy is given before the writer begins to talk about various sub-types of fey. Again devoid of game stats, this goes over sub-categories of fey creatures in terms of their general themes. Yokai, for instance, are those fey with a strong connection to nature, the devata are spirit guardians, the peri are fey with a connection to the Outer Planes, etc. There’s quite a few terms here, and I was glad to see that the book works so hard to expand fey beyond their Celtic-Germanic origins (something that was also mentioned upfront in the initial section of the book).

The final section of the book talks about the hierarchy among the fey, which is really an premise to lay down some basic information about the fey lords we’ll be seeing in future volumes. We’re told how fey lords come to be, the relationship they have with their demesnes, their servitors and heralds, and strange quasi-lords known as quiddities.

There’s no reference of game mechanics here either, save for a single sidebar that talks about how the fey lords will have Challenge Ratings either at 20 or just below it. It makes a pre-emptive attempt to justify these comparatively lower CR’s (compared to, say, demon lords) on a two-fold front: the in-game reason is that all fey lords can draw on extra power, thus possessing a second form that’s epic-level. The metagame reason for this is because Pathfinder’s epic-level rules haven’t been released yet, and once they are Zombie Sky will details these epic-level fey lords.

I personally found this sidebar to be somewhat disingenuous, simply because the metagame reason for keeping the fey lords’ CRs so (comparatively) low seemed flimsy. Pathfinder has already had epic-level monsters printed for it (albeit a small handful), and even looking back at the Demonomicon series for 3.5, it didn’t use any material from the Epic Level Handbook for the demon lords’ stats. Just advance their Hit Dice and give them some truly impressive, original special powers, and you can easily make a CR 20+ creature for your Pathfinder game.

That aside, Along the Twisting Way is a great prelude for what to expect in further volumes of The Faerie Ring. It lays down an impressive set of goals, but also presents the foundational elements necessary to meet them. In fact, this is the book’s only weakness; it sets goals that will be met in later volumes, making this one feel somewhat incomplete. That can’t be helped, of course – this book is the introduction to the series, but it’s still a weakness of the book as a stand-alone product (which is how it’s for sale). Still, it presents a rich tapestry, and makes for a very exciting picture of what we’ll be presented with soon. Pick up Along the Twisting Way and begin down the path that’ll lead you to the fey like you’ve never seen them!

Oh psionics…you had me at “psi.” The powers of the mind are one of those things that people have either loved dearly or hated passionately every since they were introduced to D&D, and now thanks to the efforts of Dreamscarred Press, they live again in Pathfinder in the form of Psionics Unleashed. But will this repository of psionic material blow your mind, or just give you a walloping migraine? Let’s take a look.

Weighing in at just under 250 pages, Psionics Unleashed handles itself admirably on the technical details. A single PDF file has full, nested bookmarks and has copy and paste enabled. The book’s artwork is somewhat sparse, usually manifesting as illustrations (usually black and white, but with the occasional color piece) set in the center of the page, letting two columns of text flow around them. Interestingly, most have a caption beneath them.

The major thing that needs to be made clear about Psionics Unleashed is that this is the Pathfinder version of the 3.5 psionics rules. This cannot be overstated. Dreamscarred Press went out of their way to emulate the design principles and philosophies that Paizo Publishing adopted when creating Pathfinder – from having an open playtest to removing XP costs for powers, the changes here are pervasive, but many of them are subtle.

The biggest not-so-subtle changes are among the various races and the classes. All of the familiar psionic races are here (save for those protected by WotC’s PI), alongside the blue, now treated as a PC race in its own right, and the serpentine ophidians. Similarly, the four psionic base classes have gotten a fairly significant overhaul. Psions now choose a particular discipline to specialize in, or simply be a generalist, with each discipline having a number of additional powers and bonus abilities (much like wizard schools). The psychic warrior now selects various warrior paths that add skills, powers, and abilities as they level. Similarly, wilders can select various types of wild surges, which can also be utilized in different manners.

The biggest class to be changed, however, is the soulknife. Fans of Dreamscarred will know that they’ve been applying ways to fix this sub-optimal class for a long time, and here they put that history to good use. Finally upgraded to a full-BAB progression class, the soulknife now can take various blade skills at every even level to improve or alter his mind blade in various ways, alongside simply increasing its power as he gains levels. It’s nice to see such a thematic class finally be made strong enough to hold its own.

The remaining changes are somewhat harder to spot, but as with the Pathfinder Core Rules, tend to add up. The Psicraft and Use Psionic Device skills, for example, are now gone; folded into their magic counterparts. A number of feats – oftentimes ones that relied on maintaining psionic focus – now have additional functionality, usually being based around expending your psionic focus for a short-lived greater boost. Psionic powers no longer have XP costs (instead requiring expensive crystalline components to act as a sort of focusing device), and in many cases have had their names changed. These nomenclature alterations are reserved to those that were called “[magic spell], psionic” so as to stop with the impression that these are second fiddle to magic. Want to control someone else’s actions? Use “mind control” rather than “dominate, psionic.”

It should also be noted that virtually none of the expanded options from the Advanced Player’s Guide are reproduced here. Most psionic races do have a favored class option to take an additional psionic power point instead of a skill rank or hit point, but that’s about it. No new racial options, class archetypes, etc. are to be found. This isn’t something I held against the book; that will most certainly come in time. Rather, it should be made clear that Psionics Unleashed is what you get when you merge the PF Core Rules with the old Expanded Psionics Handbook.

Ultimately, this book won’t win over anyone who wasn’t already a fan of psionics, but then again, it’s not meant to change the whole dynamic. What it’s meant to do is give the people who want psionics in their Pathfinder game a means of having them. And in that regard, Psionics Unleashed delivers in spades. Fixing what needs it and leaving alone what doesn’t, this book is a true Pathfinder upgrade to 3.5’s psionic legacy. So, if you’ve been waiting for a chance to dust off your old telepath, or have your soulknife power up his mind blade again, or want to attack your PCs with some unexpected mental powers, pick up this book, convert your character, and unleash the power of the mind in your Pathfinder game!

Underwater adventuring has always been, insofar as Pathfinder is concerned, one of those ideas that seem great in theory but difficult in practice. After all, taking your adventuring party underwater means that everyone’s aware that one good dispel magic will take away whatever spells or magic items they’re using to keep breathing. Add in penalties for how melee and ranged attacks work, changes to spellcasting, and even the continual Swim checks to keep moving, and it’s not only a headache for everyone involved, but quite likely a TPK waiting to happen. And don’t even get me started on the logistics of fighting across three dimensions of movement.

And so, underwater adventuring was quietly pushed off to the side. Just enough rules were provided to make it theoretically possible, without anyone worrying about how practical it actually was. Few adventures were published that dealt with characters going into the waves, and those that were kept it to the shallow end of the pool, with dry land always being close by. Finding new paths under the sea seemed like it’d always be resigned the realm of pipe-dreams and a few die-hards, never to be accessible to the mainstream Pathfinder gamers.

All of that changed when Alluria Publishing released Cerulean Seas, a massive campaign setting-slash-sourcebook that not only takes Pathfinder underwater, but actually makes such a game doable. Let’s take a look at what the book offers so that you’ll know this isn’t just a fish story I’m telling you.

As a PDF file, Cerulean Seas hits all of the high-water marks. It has full, nested bookmarks (an absolute necessity in a book that’s nearly 300 pages long), and allows for copy-and-pasting without problems. And of course, the artwork – oh wow, the artwork! Alluria has always had a reputation for their lavish illustrations, and they certainly live up to it here. An entire team of interior artists have lovingly portrayed myriad aspects of the book’s material, from new races and monsters to new equipment, to spell effects, to a map of the Cerulean Seas area, and so much more, (almost) all of it in lush full color. Alluria is perhaps the only company that can compete with Paizo on an even footing for how gorgeous their books look.

Of course, this (and the subtle but ornate page borders) means that this book is far from printer-friendly. At the time of this writing, a print version of the book is still in the works, but isn’t yet available. If you want a hardcopy of Cerulean Seas, you might be better to wait for that, as this PDF would likely send your printer to Davy Jones’ Locker.

The book’s opening chapter dives right in, opening with framing fiction that defines the game world. The Cerulean Seas campaign setting used to be a normal game world, but had a great flood that covered the world with ninety-nine percent water. There’s more to it than this, of course, including a recently-won genocidal war against the sahuagin, the role the gods played in the great flood, and more, but this is the main thrust of the story, and sets the stage for this water world.

The chapter takes us through some basic terms and definitions before we start to get into the specifics of living under the sea. It’s here that the book might start to scare away some of the more casual-type gamers, because this chapter pulls no punches in what it presents. We’re given an introduction to how things like buoyancy, hydraulic pressure, ambient sunlight, and more work underwater. The first chapter is basically a primer for things to be aware of regarding life underwater, and how these translate into game terms. This is especially true for underwater combat, which has its own section here.

I’ll take a moment to say that while this section can be off-putting for how dry (ironically) its listing of various undersea features can be, as well as how complicated the rules for buoyancy and the accompany combat changes are, it’s worth persevering through. The book deals with this more in the Game Mastering section, but these are the changes that really make an undersea game feel different; and as with all parts of a complex table-top game, they’ll become more familiar (to the point of being second-nature) over time.

The second chapter returns to more familiar territory where PF sourcebooks are concerned, presenting twelve new undersea races (though one or two, such as sea elves or the mogogols, may seem familiar). Cleverly, these are sub-divided into three groups: the anthromorphs (who have humanoid bodies), the feykith (fey-related sea-dwellers), and merfolk (who are humanoid from the waist up, and fish from the waist down). Interestingly, the human-equivalent race is presented as the “seafolk,” a merfolk race. They not only have the human’s “floating” +2 ability bonus that can be applied everywhere, but are the only race to have various cross-breeds listed, with alternate racial traits presented.

Each race received a generous focus, listing not only their statistics but also plenty of flavor text regarding their society, alignment, possible names, etc. However, ardent Pathfinder fans may be somewhat disappointed that the expanded racial options from the Advanced Player’s Guide aren’t reproduced here. That is, there are no alternate racial features available (seafolk crossbreeds notwithstanding) nor are there alternate favored class options.

I’m of two minds about this, as it seems somewhat unfair that these have suddenly been assumed to be default necessities for third-party contributions to the Pathfinder RPG. At the same time, those bring a hefty level of customization to the table that are very helpful in making your character’s race be of greater importance. That said, twelve colorful new races here certainly make that notable in and of themselves. It’s also worth noting that the book doesn’t forget to bring us the various vital statistics for these races (one of those little things that are nevertheless important).

Subsequent to the races chapter is the chapter on classes, and it’s here where things get truly interesting. The book makes some generalized notes about changes to existing classes before dealing with how to alter each base class specifically for an undersea game. This part of the book does deal with the APG classes, so you alchemists and oracles and such can all breathe a sigh a relief.

The changes made in this regard are absolutes, rather than the optional class archetypes presented in the APG. Interestingly, a few classes are recommended to be discarded entirely in favor of three new base classes presented here. Bards are passed over in favor of sirens, druids are replaced with kahunas, and rangers are given the boot in favor of mariners.

These new classes do a great job presenting their own twist on the niche that their replaced classes fill. The Kahuna, for example, is a full-progression divine spellcaster, but selects a single animal spirit that, as she gains levels, is able to utilize greater and greater spirit powers to bolster herself and her allies (or alternately harm her enemies).

This chapter also deals with prestige classes, listing which ones from the Core Rulebook and APG are useable without any changes, which need some changes, and which aren’t available at all. There are also three new prestige classes presented here, the each comber (those who venture into the wilds of the remaining dry land), glimmerkeeper (fast-moving undersea hero), and sea witch (an aquatic necromancer).

Skills and feats are the subject of the fourth chapter. As with many things, the skills section offers a series of new interpretations of existing skills, though there are no new skills added (something I was grateful for, as adding new skills often feels contrived). The feats section got a similar examination for several existing feats, but here we’re given almost four-dozen new underwater feats as well.

The chapter on money and equipment was interesting for how much stayed the same, though quite a bit changed in appearance. Most precious metals have been replaced by things like shells or pearls, though the measurements of currency are largely the same. New equipment helps there be a greater selection of viable weapons and armor underwater, not to mention various items that are unique to undersea adventuring, such as holy sand to replace holy water. Oddly, ships are presented here also, reinforcing that some aquatic races still spend a lot of their time above the waves.

The magic chapter presents some very imaginative alterations to not only existing spells, but also existing material components and foci before it moves into new spells and magic items. Some of what’s here deals with the change from fire damage to boiling-water damage, while others present alternate ways of harnessing electrical spells, or various utility spells such as defeating undersea pressure, or even breathing air for characters who want to go top-side.

It’s at the seventh chapter of the book that we take a look at the Cerulean Seas campaign world. This chapter takes a surprisingly light tone with the campaign, presenting many different facets of it but not going too deep with any of them, letting you fill in a lot of the blanks to make the game world your own. It does cover the recent histories and major NPCs of all of the major races, presents a number of major cities, a brief overview of the spoken languages, and an overview of the world’s recent history. My favorite, however, was the presentation of the Cerulean Seas religions. The undersea races uniformly decided to prevent religious strife by allowing only nine deities to be worshipped, one for each alignment. However, in order to sweep everyone under this umbrella, there are various “cults” that worship different aspects of these deities (each deity has two cults presented, with their own alignments, domains, etc.). These cults may only operate with the blessing of the parent faith, and it was engrossing to read about how various races merged their native religions with that of a more dominant faith, often resulting in the major god literally consuming the smaller one as a consequence.

I don’t mind saying that chapter eight, the Game Mastering Chapter, was perhaps the most friendly and helpful such section I’ve ever read. It speaks frankly, and almost familiarly, about the problems with running an undersea game, and what to do about them. Remember those scary new rules from chapter one? It goes over what the most important are to get down pat and how to ease into them. We get general guidelines on converting other materials for an undersea game, whether in terms of buoyancy or pressure tolerance. But my favorite section here was the unabashed look at the problem of 3D combat.

The book outlines roughly a half-dozen options for what to do about this issue, ranging from buying commercial elevation trackers to ordering a pizza and using those little plastic things that keep the cheese off of the box to elevate your minis. But by far the most favored option it presents is the one where it walks you, step by step, through creating your own adjustable boards for elevation. These are basically a few square inches of hard foam boarding that are moved up and down a standing rod; add a half-dozen of them to your game table and you can easily simulate characters moving across every dimension. It’s a fun little project, and works great for any tabletop game that needs a 3D combat solution.

There’s also a fascinating section on the planar arrangement (or perhaps just the widespread belief in the arrangement) of this campaign world. After all, an undersea culture hardly believes in a plane of fire, especially one that stands equal to the plane of water! Likewise, the oceans of the outer planes are considered much more prominent than the dry areas of such realms.

The final full chapter of the book presents almost a hundred new monsters to help populate your undersea game. From aquatic familiars to a large selection of new giants and true dragons (which are given their own grouping, rather than being chromatic or metallic), there’s plenty here to round out an underwater bestiary. New selections of simple templates and guidelines on how the major creature types work underwater provide further options and guidelines.

The book closes out with a number of helpful aids, such as a consolidated list of undersea monsters from this book, the Pathfinder Bestiary, and Alluria’s other Pathfinder books. Add in a pronunciation guide, cardstock minis, a character sheet, and more, and there’s everything you’ll need to get started on your Cerulean Seas game right away.

And if you’re not already excited about using this book to run an underwater game after reading this review, then trust me: it’s more due to my descriptions lacking enough fidelity to the book’s accomplishments than anything else. Cerulean Seas not only looks at every aspect of running a game in an underwater world – from what it means to be submerged to the logistics of it at the game table – but presents holistic options and alterations for setting a Pathfinder game there. The new material is expansive and the campaign setting covers a wide range of topics while still leaving room for customization. And of course, the artwork is beautiful and prominent. This is easily one of the best Pathfinder books to come out of the third-party market, and the absolute best for the topic it covers.

Don’t be afraid to make your game better by taking it down where it’s wetter. Bring your characters to the Cerulean Seas; it’ll make a big splash amongst your gaming group.

Divinations are one of those parts of the game that people either love or hate. More specifically, players love them for all of the additional lore they can gain about a given adventure’s plot, while GM’s hate that players can do that. Of course, that’s really a stereotyping of the impact of divination spells, but it does have an element of truth. Beyond that, however, divination is also one of the smaller schools of magic, having only a comparative handful of spells to its name and an equally small number of magic items and abilities that allow for information-gathering. It’s this dearth that gets addressed in the Genius Guide to Divination Magic.

Thirteen pages long, the Genius Guide to Divination Magic has no bookmarks, but lets you copy-and-paste easily. Though there aren’t many illustrations, the stock art is scattered about to maximum effect, broken up widely enough so that the book never feels barren. Additionally, borders across the top of each page and blue headers for new materials make the book seem colorful.

The book opens with a discussion of how to use divination magic in the game, noting its major problems (e.g. how they can bypass plot elements) and how to deal with them. There’s some fairly good advice here, though the topic is one that an entire product could have been written just expanding on the guidelines mentioned in this introduction. Following this, we get a brief overview on the difference between lies and misdirection.

After this, we move into the new materials of the book, starting with some new spells (and their attendant spell lists). Unfortunately, fans of the Advanced Player’s Guide should note that none of these spells appear on the class spell lists for any of the spellcasting classes from that book. In regards to the spells themselves, there’s a dozen present here. These weren’t bad, but didn’t wow me like I was expecting them to. Divinations spells, more than any other type of spells in the Pathfinder game, go beyond mere numerical bonuses and effects. Several of the spells here did that, such as a spell to speak with inanimate objects, or one to look through a target’s repressed memories; but others were little more than gaining a bonus to a knowledge check or to your armor class in advance of an attack. Given how few spells are here, more of these should have been focused on esoteric divinatory effects.

After this, we’re treated to some additional new materials. Among these are two new subdomains (from the APG) and a new oracle mystery (Ibid). These were much better in terms of stepping outside of the proverbial box, and make for great knowledge-seeking powers.

Nine new feats follow, and it was here that the book ventured furthest afield. Ostensibly related to information-gathering, these range from giving you a bonus on disabling traps to gaining a bonus against favored enemies to overcoming an object’s hardness. The best of the bunch were focused around enhancing the magical sensor created by scrying spells. These could potentially make a dedicated scryer notably more effective.

The book closes out with some new rules regarding crystal balls. Two lesser variants of the standard magic item are presented, allowing such an iconic item to be brought into the PCs’ hands earlier, something I personally thought was great. But even better were the lists of additional effects that can be added to a crystal ball. These came in two varieties – additional magical sensing capabilities (e.g. a crystal ball with detect evil) and physical adornments that increased some aspect of its power (e.g. adorn it with diamonds and its visual range doubles).

Overall, this is a good supplement, but one that didn’t quite live up to its full potential. The major problem here was with the spells – whether it’s the relatively scarce amount of new spells, the lack of use with APG classes, or that some of them seem fairly mundane in nature, these just didn’t do it for me. Luckily the smorgasbord of new related material made up for it, with great new options for class abilities, feats, and crystal balls. Like an indistinct vision of the future, this book will help your game’s divinations, but not as much as it could were it more focused.