I'll tell guys this up front. I'm A long time fan of the Algernon Files series of products. I was a playtester for the 2.0 version and a backer of the 3.0 Kickstarter from Blackwyrm. But, with that said, I think I give any product I review a fair shake. On to the review itself.

Carapace is the ingural release from Aaron Sullivan's Wordmonkey Studios. It's also a continuation of his long running Algernon Files setting originally published by Blackwyrm Games, for Green Ronin Games Mutants and Masterminds RPG. The PDF itself consists of 6 pages. The first page is a cover displaying a small image of what appears to be a holographic image, of who I'm assuming to be Algernon, (for those of you unfamiliar with the setting, Algernon is a sentient A.I. computer system used by the settings default hero group, the Sentinels), as well as a partial image of Carapace. The second page consists of information on the publisher, as well as the now standard OGL information required to be included in any OGL product. The third page provides a full sized color image of Carapace, a truly menacing one at that, as well as a snippet of an email conversation between Algernon and Magnus Challenger, of the Challenger Institute, describing a recent encounter between Carapace and the Sentinels. Pages 5 and 6 provide Carapace's background information, info on his personality, his combat tactics, goals, and overview of his powers/abilities, and suggestions on how GMs can employ him in their games. the 6th and final page provides his 3rd edition M&M gaming stats (I'm suspecting this particular layout choice was made to allow the last page contain gaming stats for other systems at some point in the future).

While I do like the layout, I do have one gripe, it's the font size used for the conversation between Algernon and Magnus Challenger. I've got near perfect eye sight and it was hard for me to read, I can't imagine what it's going to be like for someone who wears glasses or whose vision is worse than mine. Don't get me wrong. I like the release, and will pick up more, as their released, I'm just hoping that any future releases will take this into account.

For those of you wondering, Carapace is a PL14 character, and he is to put it simply, a beast. Even powerful teams of characters will be hard pressed to slow him down, much less actually defeat him. He's an almost unstoppable juggernaut, which is exactly the roll he's designed to fill in a game. Aaron's done a good job of capturing the "feel" of this type of character, as well as providing some suggestions on how PCs can deal with him if he's encounters.

Overall, I'm giving this one four out of five stars, as I feel confident that GMs will be able to get some mileage out of this one.