The Sinister Secrets of Silvermote by TPK Games is a 67 page adventure for 4-6 players of 7-12. This book relies partially on TPK’s previous work Temerlyth the Undying and is almost required for the latter half of this module.

The gorgeous front artwork by Eric De Mander leads you into an adventure about a Temerlyth the Lich (with a burning hatred for Lycanthropes. Were creatures that destroyed his elven homeland and drove him to build a tower by goblin slaves in which he could craft ways to destroy the shape shifting hordes. Eventually madness took him and he slaughtered his loved ones, isolated himself to experimenting on man and beast to find a way to ‘save’ his people, and setup shop to further increase his growing alchemical prowess.

We open up with the background of the module providing DMs with plot hooks to aid in providing a reason to raid or infiltrate Temerlyth’s lair. One is a letter by a wizard who ‘heard’ about the unimaginable power of the place and the other a wolf in sheep’s clothing as it may. The wonderful part of this adventure is the neutrality of the setting, you can put it anywhere there is a forest. Leading the party to the dungeon are a few encounters that get the players a taste of what is to come.

Once the players arrive at the tower the ‘fun’ begins. Littered throughout this module are the monsters fully stat’d and linked to D20PFSRD.com for ease of use, no longer does a DM who uses this in digital format have to reference what a feat or ability does, they are all hyperlinked for easy reference. This is both a blessing and a curse as the linking of the earlier monsters is well done and slowly start’s lacking into the latter pages. The massive amount of linking almost causes all the text to blend into one large underlined mass.

Tips on how to run certain areas are presented such as giving the DM a certain way to handle a plot point, how monsters interact with each other, and even tidbits on the masonry to those players who have to know everything.

Since this is the lair of a Lich who has lived hundreds of years with the threat we know there will be traps, tons of traps, tricky traps. The DM has to be well versed in what player’s are affected by prior events, the location of the trap’s, and what these traps do, as some are unconventional. The sand and portcullis trap that isolates your PCs in a divide and conquer methodology is tricky enough as it is, DM has to be on their toes here. The quality ranges from the well thought-out (previously mentioned sand trap), the bizarre (were trap and arrows), to the poorly designed green slime trap (dissolves all organic matter but not bones?).

The monster’s who dwell in this tomb are a mix of constructs, undead hordes, insane creations, and a scattering of caged were-beasts. They range from CR 1 to CR 16, and TPK has generously provided the DM with scalable stats if an encounter needs to go higher or lower in difficulty. The areas come in a variety of states ranging from the well done (bugbear zombie lord), to the average (Cathedral Golems), the badly designed (Werebat sorcerer with armor and martial weapons), and the utterly broken (Cleric who lives in a 5’ room wearing a robe of vermin that gimp’s him even further). Wrapping all this together is the overwhelming specter of Temerlyth who is never given proper detail on what would happen if an invasion were to occur. Does he pursue the PCs? Does he go after them as there are sections that state, “Temerlyth is notified that intruders are here” after the PCs defeat a monster or activate a trap. Does he gather his forces and hunt the PCs down? These questions are never answered and left to the DM to decide.

The Lich’s lair is a CR17 packed with new magical items (Magical tomes that have locks, traps, and goodies inside), a handful of traps, work benches scattered with Temerlyth’s experiments gone awry, and Temerlyth himself if he’s not off gallivanting around slaughtering werebeasts. Herein contains his phylactery put in a clever location that would take the most persistent group of players who loot everything to find.

Extra’s section is where all the new content is provided: an upgraded form of glitterdust, shovel that buries it’s foe into the earth, potions that grant lichdom, artifact of utter destruction to all lycanthropes, armor made of bone and others of silver. Quality items that can easily fit in any game and the power ratings are within limits, but I can see quite a bit of abuse for the Grave Undertaker and it’s ability to root foes.

The Sinister Secrets of Silvermote is a mixed bag of great ideas thrown together with poorly thought out encounter’s, missing skill checks on traps and doors, and monster’s who caused me nothing but head scratching puzzlement of why TPK would put all these together. The sorcerer werebat with gear befitting a hobgoblin but not a sorcerer, the storage room with brown mold and no description details, the lair of his wife and kids that demand you have the prior product which could easily have a simple line of “Use Elven ghost Wiz/5 and Elven Ghost Ranger/4” to give the DMs somewhat of a guide on what to go on. Rooms that have no reason to be in the same state after hundreds of years besides “Well he’s insane so he leaves his house in tatters” with monsters that still happen to be there because that’s their lair because they said so.

In conclusion, if you as a DM are willing to put in the effort, roll up your sleeves, and there is a plethora of content one can use for a lair of the Big Bad Evil Guy. The inner workings are there, the framework is present, unfortunately the presentation falls drastically short and left disappointed by the result.

The Dying Skyseer, an adventure in the Zeitgeist adventure path by EN Publishing, cannot be called an adventure and hereby I'll dub it an “Experience”. What you have in these 90+ pages mixed between beautifully drawn works of art, well crafted maps with minute detail, and a script that reads out of a mystery novel transcends normal gaming. This is something different all together.

This is the second part of the adventure path that had our PCs encounter jungle terrorists and board a steamship to vanquish a foe that led them to the courtroom of the realm and close out with the PCs becoming detectives. That arc continues onward in this Experience with the party joining up with the Risuri Homeland Constabulary (think of them as Pinkertons from the Old West) to discover why this young girl was fatally shot in a random act of violence. The party goes off on multiple threads all woven together with NPCs that have motives and reasons behind each of them, lists of plot points to discuss for the place in questions, mood settings that you as the DM can utilize to put yourself in the right frame to ratchet up the tension and create the right setting for the Experience. The Experience starts there and doesn't let you go as you run around the city chasing after the bad guys on boat, horse, carriage, over roof tops, through cairns, hills full of spirits, inside factories, and into the homes of the elite in the city of Flint. Your PCs are living inside an Experience much like they would if they were put in a season of “24”, if you can picture your players enjoying that type of murder-mystery intrigue then they will enjoy this Experience.

How are the stats, the crunchy bits, the meat and heart of the product? One Word: Amazing.

Each NPC has the full stat list, all the abilities listed for you, spells laid out, classes from the Advanced Player Guide (glad to see these new classes getting use), new monsters, new spells, new items, even some new traps that I will be using to make those PCs forget they were even there. The mind races with possibilities.

Are there downfalls or some things to worry about with this adventure? Yes, and it comes down to the DM being prepared. There is enough information in these pages for you to run each encounter, NPC, area with all the information most PCs would ask or do. Ryan Nock has thought up nearly every scenario where if your PCs can think it, there's an easy answer for you as the DM to provide it. Of course your PCs will Zig when you want them to Zag, and the background information is vast enough to allow for wiggle room as they work their way through the Experience. If the DM hasn't read all the finer points, looked over the map, studied the mood and motives of the encounter a significant amount of mood and feel is lost. Be on your “A” game as you will need it here.

With all this plot is there combat? Of course there is. Factory battles with fire going off around you, dark combat on the seas, chases on land that end up on the rooftops, warehouse battles with mass combat. Those of you like me who have PCs that thrive on combat will get their fix as the blend between Combat vs. Skill checks is very even and you can easily bluff, lie, cheat, or intimidate your way out (or into!) situations.

In closing, the Experience of The Dying Skyseer reads like a Tom Clancy or Vince Flynn novel. You are the detectives hunting down the death of a common girl who was embroiled in a conspiracy larger than any imaginable for a low level party. Through clever skill usage, crafted and interesting combat, and a story that inspires the imagination, The Dying Skyseer hits every note a good Adventure needs.

Temerlyth the Undying is a seventeen page "Plug and Play" style Big Bad Evil Guy(BBEG) that is built for any pathfinder game. TPK Games gives you, the DM, a well thought out, gorgeously drawn, and fully stated out Lich and his brood packed in a tightly done package. Let us explore shall we?

Temerlyth is an angry Elf, you wouldn't know this from the beautiful front cover by Eric De Mander, nor by the haunting pictures that ooze 'EVIL' by Kiss Marton Gyula. No, what you get is a very driven and obsessed Lich Alchemist/6, Loremaster/3, Wizard/6 (CR 16 for those that are keeping score) who wants nothing more than to wipe the stain of Werewolfdom off the face of your gaming world.

Through our detailed stat blocks of our wicked and well equipped Alchemist of Death and Destruction, ( which are hyper linked to D20PFSRD.com giving any DM who can't recall what exactly an ability, skill, spell, feat, etc. off the top of their head the exact information at their fingerprints) we see that our BBEG has a plethora of tricks and abilities to throw at almost any type of Party big or small. If you need a challenge for 12-16 party or an end Monster who is pulling strings behind the scenes all of this is provided for you, geared and ready to roll.

The two column layout is rife with information on not only how this Monster (and I use a capital M here as it is quite worth it) came to haunt your gaming world but how to properly use him and his undead family with all of their motives, descriptions, history, personality, and combat tactics ready in a pinch. One of the nice things you don't see often in monster books is the Lore section. Having a bard or someone who wants to know more about what they are up against gives the DM a chance to dish out some back information without having to design it themselves. Simple, easy to use, no frills.

We close out with Temerlyth's 'family' as it may. He can't let the bad wolf-kin take his family so he did the job for them. Righteous Vengeance or Sadistic Cruelty, you as the DM be the judge as they are all here for you to use with the same attention to detail as Temerlyth.

Total Party Kill games puts together a great package, simple to use, and with exquisite detail to not only the artwork but the stats and design of this BBEG. I can feel that by reading this over that ideas formed in my head on how I could easily use him and his undead family in my game if I so choose. TPK Games gives you the tools and let's your imagination run away with them.

Grave Undertakings: The Tomb of Caragthax The Reaver by TPK Games is a 20 page plug and play adventure. This series of modules starting with this one is TPK's way of providing a DM with a single small location equipped with a Big Bad Evil Guy and appropriate detail to help a DM who might need a quick adventure to fill in for a night.

We have a glorious front page artwork detailing the BBEG himself Caragthax who was trapped in his own tomb after trapping all his "loyal" henchmen with him. Following the usual details and generous plothooks to help motivate the players into why they should or could want to go in there (take a hint they don't) we get our small 9 room dungeon with scalable monsters and tactics on how to use them. TPK not only gives you a way to use this for higher or lower PCs but you get all the stats predone for you. Less work that I as a DM have to do the better. All the feats, abilities, spells, magic items have links to D20PFSRD so you don't have to hunt down what those items mean, it's all there for you only a click away.

In the Extras section we have one of my new favorite house rules: Natural Ones give Attacks of Opportunity and 20s=Auto Crit. I've used these exclusively over the course of a few games and they work out rather well and speed up lengthy combat. Does it make combat more "swingy"? Sure, but once you read the reasoning for it, yes it makes sense.

Overall this is a solid drop in adventure with good thought out monsters, generous and smart monster tactics, and a clean layout. The two things I did not like were the outdoor maps as they were rather generic and the multitude of fonts which caused my eyes to roam back over and reread subsections again.

Infamous Adversaries: Ichor Humansbane by TPK Games is a product that takes a small subsection of the Pathfinder game and crams it into 10 glorious pages that will make you glad you purchased it.

Contained in this scenario is a beautiful full color picture of Ichor Humansbane ,Troll Ranger/5, and follows right into the stat block of said Big Bad Evil Guy. All stats are laid out just like a Paizo monster with everything you would need to run with this guy including all his magical items. He is not only a well equipped but a smart predator to make your players think "This is no ordinary troll!". All abilities, magical items, feats, etc have links back to D20PFSRD.com so those of us with tablets or game with computers can click the link and tell you what the link means.

Then we come to the background of the BBEG. We find out what makes him tick, how he got there, what he looks like, the inner workings of his mind, and why get got the nickname "Humansbane". There is even local lore section where you can tell your players information about him for those with Knowledge skills. If you can't find a place to put him there are available plot hooks on how to shoehorn him into your game. Honestly if you are running a forest or woodland game this is a no-brainer.

TPK Games knocked this one out of the park and you can see that they learned from prior works to put out a solid product that gives the DM just enough meat to run with and plenty of ideas on how to use this monster in your game.

If there was one thing that I thought would be great addition is a map of his lair. This guy has to sleep somewhere, I wonder how big his bed is? Hmmm.

For $15 you get several high quality works from all genres that a DM/player can use in any of their games. For a small sacrifice of going without NameBrand Coffee for 2 weeks you can help kids out in need and get a slew of material!

One of the best purchases I've made on here.

Zeitgeist: Island at the Axis of the World is not your typical pathfinder module. This adventure path has more in line with a movie or a story rather than a set place where stuff happens and the PCs just pick up the pieces. Whilst reading 50+ pages of well laid out text, gorgeous artwork, and spectacular maps I was trying very hard to picture how this victorian style/fantasy steam punk type game would mesh with my own campaign. The module hass guns (Paizo's beta ruleset), magical steam ships, jungle lighthouses with magic sprinkled in there to make you feel that all of this COULD be possible, but how can I shoehorn this all into my game?

Answer: I can't at this time. My world doesn't mesh with this one, I wish it did so I could work through all the lovely story which whisks your characters from one locale to another, nonstop Indiana Jones rushing around until the final climatic battle at the end of the module. Maybe my next game I can use this or steal bits from later modules as I know that there is enough crunchy material to go around.

Boring review stuff:

Pros: Above Average Artwork Clear text with no background Well labeled Maps NPCs and locations suitably challenging and throughout to be able to drop in for easy use *Hold the Line scenario!

Cons: Magical Items don't have proper build stats NPCs may be overpowered in the end scenario, they are supposed to. *Will drain your printer dry printing this thing, would like a barebones setting.

Infamous Adversaries: Cytheria the Blasphemer is a 13 page PDF revolving around a central enemy for your gaming group. In this case a Human Antipaladin/9 (Un)Holy Vindicator/1 female corruptor of the inncoencent.

What works: This is a plug n'play Big Bad Evil Gal(BBEG) for any Pathfinder game. Her plot lines are carefully detailed with enough room to give the DM hooks to work with ,room to expand to make her more challenging, and an additional cohort follower. Her monster listing has embedded links to all abilities, items, feats, etc directly to www.d20pfsrd.com so working with this book on my portable device makes is a breeze to look up what that ability does, how an item works, or what this spell does. Don't look to this book for art work as there is only one color picture of the BBEG drawn at the front and that's all. Honestly you won't need more.

What doesn't work: The double pane layout. While this layout works wonderfully for the monster stats section going into the plothooks, history, and other background information doesn't flow and felt distracting. Some of the other arrangement of information might be better off in their own pages (Quotes and Advancement options) instead of crammed all together. This is a PDF, plenty of space and room here.

Overall I give this a 4/5 stars. This is a solid PDF detailing one BBEG that can be instantly placed in your game at a momment's notice. You have motivation, purpose, and best of all lots of easily accessable knowledge at your fingertips for use in your game.

Best $20 I have ever spent. I took this same offer up on the Haiti bundle and was not disappointed.

If you want lots and lots of QUALITY rpg books and for a good cause pick this up. You'll be helping out those in need and getting many AWESOME books in return.

After playing the Pathfinder game for several months I’ve noticed that the game “suffers” from a lack of modularity that 3.x offered in the way of templates. To my surprise the Book of Monster Templates (Free Preview edition) whets my appetite for what is to come. I’ll forgo my normal layout and get down to the nitty gritty.

Contained in these simple yet elegant eight black and white pages embossed with a lovely colored front (I can’t wait for the real one so I can rip out that FREE logo) is something I’ve been waiting for to come around ever since the Deluxe Book of Templates from Silverthorne games came out.

Breakdown: One Template: Bloody Maw; think of making a feral creature that much bigger, stronger, and more prone to tear you to pieces. Damage Reduction, Jaws that can sever limbs, and will even haunt you in your dreams. Ok I made up that last one, but the rest is still enough to keep me giggling like a schoolgirl at the implications of this guy.

One Sample Templated Creature: Jaws of Winter. Remember that “wolf” in Brotherhood of the Wolves? Yup, this is just like that sans the spikes but all of the feel. Complete description, wonderful picture, and a scaling D20 lore section so when your PCs come stumbling across them you can feed them a bit of information about what is going to eat them for dinner pending on how good that bard really is.

Two new feats: Greater Belly of the beast allows you to control items that you eat or swallow and Vorpal Bite which does exactly what it sounds like it does. Simple, easy, not too overpowered and perfect for those critters you want to kick up the lethality notch some.

Sample Encounter: Where you would find such a creature and how best to use it to kill your PCs. Plug and Play encounter predone for you.

I’ve been looking for a book like this for some time and I can see that the quality, layout, and graphics are top notch. I am very much looking forward to this book and once that paycheck clears the bank account I’m putting some money down to make sure that this comes into my evil dm’n clutches.

Disclaimer: The reviewer was given a complimentary copy for review. Furthermore, this is not a play test review.

Wryd of Questhaven, by Rite Publishing, is what I would characterize as a Character Supplement for the Pathfinder campaign setting. The Wyrd, are proud race of half-elven/half ogre magi stock created at the command of The Mandate of the August Personage in Darkness. The Wyrd are usable as player characters at 1st level, and the book is stocked with custom feats, spells, and prestige classes.

The PDF is laid out very well with a nice opening section describing the intricices of the Wyrd with full explanation on how the Wyrd view themselves in regards to not only themselves but to the other races. Branching out from the overview we see a new seven level class called Paragon that provides a player with becoming an exemplary member of the Wyrd race. Following that portion we have new feats giving the players the chance to boost their ogre or elven characteristics such as at will spells, seeing farther in certain conditions, and increased spell resistance. Fans of sorcerers have the ability to take a bloodline giving the powers of an Oni (Asian themed demon) with all the appropriate powers, abilities, and supernatural abilities one would expect of having bred with the forces from below. The Prestige Class Whispering Adviser of the Emperor of Dragons details a class that is suited to play out as a tactician, diplomat, or person behind the throne ringed in politics and intrigue definitely suited to a NPC class to spice up those royal vizirs Concluding we see new spells that fit the oriental theme of dragon based explosions, magic negation, skill check enhancements, and more.

What I Liked This book reminded me so much of what made Oriental Adventures great of first edition. You get wonderful artwork that is both black and white and in beautiful color. The race itself is well balanced and can easily be dropped into place without disrupting your existing campaign. The Paragon class may be a tough sell for a 1st level PC but give it a level or two of sorcerer and it will go toe to toe with appropriate level classes. Feats aren't overpowered and neither are the spells, it's a welcome shift from reading supplements that would make a DM cringe at being asked to use in their world without heavily modifying the base work.

What I didn't like The Prestige Class didn't seem suited for a PC except for those that are playing in a heavy role-playing setting. The abilities that it brings are very well applicable for a city based or urban party, but more for a NPC than a PC. There is an item here that is begging to be fleshed out called the Codex of Five Horizons which is where all the abilities, for this PrC comes from. The DM is left up to decide what else is in it and the abilities therein.

Wrap up Overall, this is a solid addition to any group who is looking for a Oriental/Asian themed race to play that takes the qualities of an elf and an ogre mage and blends them together. The production quality is high, the artwork is very well done, and everything is balanced and set to be easily adaptable to not only a Pathfinder game but anyone running a 3.x game as well.

Disclaimer: The reviewer was given a complimentary copy for review. Furthermore, this is not a play test review. Items Evolved: Races and Classes, by Rite Publishing, is a product that showcases 12 new magic items for use in an Arcana Evolved game as well as your usual D20 setting. Within the slim and artfully done 8 pages, holds a myriad of details about these unique items.

The items are broken down into the following sections: Price, Body Slot, Caster Level, Aura, Activation, Weight: Simple D20 statistics that govern how the item was created, where it’s located on the paper doll, and other basic details of the item Lore: This gives the PC a chance to learn who made this, where it was last seen, and other flavor text to help flesh out this item to make it special. Abilities: What the item does, this can range from simple armor that gives the wearer DR all the way to use of racial/class abilities one more time per day Prerequisites: What you need to use or create the item *Objet Loresight: More detailed information about the items past ownership, creation, even a special name that it was given. What I like Each item is wonderfully detailed with a history of where it came from. Some talk about races or cities that would have an item. This gives the PC a feeling of owning a part of history, something rare and special that very few have.

An example: The Cloth of the Runecaster’s Robe, known as “Dachrin Glyphcloth” in Faen, and “Pobon Yobolat “ or “Mark of the Flesh” in Draconic, were created when a Shuyarn (commonly called a rune angel) touched the cloth of robe that was a gift from the Observance of the Diamond Throne.

DMs are always clamoring for more information to feed their players and players always want to know if their item is special and unique. Flavor text combined DCs to help the players learn a bit more with every time they research where their item came from. What I didn’t like The only complaint I have is a quip and that I wished there were more artwork. The few pieces that were placed were of good quality and very colorful.

Wrap Up Items Evolved is a well placed product as it provides a veritable mountain of fluff that ties in well with the crunchy bits that make up the rest of the items description and text. As a DM who doesn’t use Arcana Evolved rule set I would have a bit of a problem using the items flavor text as is without some modification. For those of you who run AE this is a nice list of items to drop in seamlessly with your campaign .

Disclaimer: The reviewer was given a complimentary copy for review. Furthermore, this is not a play test review.

Monsters of Verdune, by Rite Publishing, is a monster supplement for Monte Cook’s Arcana Evolved variant rule system. Detailed within the 28 pages are 9 monsters and 2 templates to use with not only the 3.0/3.5 rule set but other gaming systems that handle such things as hero points, insanity loss, and DR for Armor to name but a few. The book does not require you to have the Arcana Evolved as it is perfectly useable for a D20 3.x gaming system but one can see where access to the book can aid in a few sections for skills or abilities that may not be explained in each monsters section. The monsters in each book are broken down into the following sections: *Stat blocks pertaining the creatures abilities, attacks, save, etc

• Tactics of how a monster acts in each combat
• Description of what said monster looks like as an excerpt from a book, someone reading from a battle description, or even from the monster’s standpoint of how it views itself vs. how everyone else sees it Special abilities: What makes the creature special in how it will kill your PCs Lore which gives a DC knowledge roll to help explain what the monster is and perhaps how to kill it. Designer notes explain how the author came up with the monster and a brief history on where it plays out in the food chain Variant rule set that gives alternate rules for playing with different systems going from Honor points to Wounds and Vitality and back over to Sanity Loss. What I liked The background section for each monster is full of well thought out ideas and descriptions that gives you a feel for how to place the monster, where it came from, and how to use it. The tactics give a nice simple round by round on how best to utilize the monsters strengths against your party. The lore answers the question when your PC’s ask “What do I know about this thing” and the DM is fumbling flipping through pages. The designer notes are a nice touch to see where the monster’s creator came up with the idea and how to go about utilizing it devilishly in your game. The overall art is very nice for certain monsters. What I didn’t like I’m of the opinion that a published for sale product needs to have any and all typos, misprints, grammatical errors checked backwards and forwards. There were numerous places where extra characters were added, punctuation was misplaced, and abilities were not complete (10 ft by X without any clarification for X). Also some of the stat blocks, ability scores, and special powers are either overpowered or flat out wrong. An example would be the Kavilljor ur-rathi with their hp of 20d8+1211d12+99 that’s almost 7000hp! Also farther on you’ll see that this monster has flavor text for a Short Spear but the picture is holding a trident and the feats are all about spears not tridents. The feats for Talinet Ur-rathi are missing a feat and the Earth possessed variant has the type set to be Air and not Earth. Furthermore, some of the pictures are not very well drawn, look very out of focus, or just plain scribbly. The helmets for the Kavilljor ur-rathi are just plain bad with a full 8 pictures that just don’t look good at all. The two templates are horribly unbalanced with very low ECLs that would not work at all for PCs and monsters would greatly overpower at the Challenge Rating that they are prescribed at. Wrap up Overall this is a decent product; it is neither very bad nor very good. The artwork can be overlooked as the descriptions do a good enough job to give you a feel for what the monster looks like. The typos and errors can easily be redone by a DM who is willing to go over and change a few things here and there. One more time through the editor and person in charge of monster stats would make this a better quality of work. If you are looking for a product to work with Monte Cook’s Arcana Evolved system this would be a decent purchase for the price point.

With the recent outpooring of monster books, this book allows a DM to expand upon that amount immensely. Not only do you get well statted out and well developed templates, but ones that actually make SENSE and are BALANCED!

I was slightly disapointed that this book was only for 3.0 and not 3.5 but with a few tweaks and some knowledge about how monsters work and the new rules one can easily use this for any game from Modern to Fantasy.

I highly recommend this book as it has brought terror to the gaming board and even when using common creatures from the Monster Manual one can easily cause simple creatures like orcs, goblins, and owlbears to become a challenge again!

Try throwing a ferrovore bullete at them and watch the party fighters run in fear1