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This is an excellent eclectic collection of musical instruments to keep any bard character entertained as he decides what to play in his next concert... and there are some really unusual ones that are maybe better suited to a far future campaign - after all, there will still be a need for musical entertainment.
It can be amusing in game too... I once put a #35: Laser Harp in the corner of an abandoned alien spaceship some of my Traveller characters were investigating and had quite a lot of entertainment as they tried to figure out what it was from the description. (If you don't know, watch a Jean Michel Jarre concert, it's the laser beam array that he 'plays' by breaking the beam with well-gloved hands!)
Some are more or less different names for the same thing. A Moog is just a kind of synthesizer, for example. And someone needs to pay attention to odd characters, as the A-sharp (or is it A-flat?) clarinet has come out as A? clarinet which leaves me little the wiser (possibly like the seagull which has just perched on top of the chimney on the Sistine Chapel roof - I'm writing this as the Papal election is in progress with a webcam window open to check for smoke!).
Pass me my Balalaika and I'll play you a tune!
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Excellent creepy pen and ink sketch of the head of a zombie, decayed but recognisable as human... (or formerly so)... just the thing for creating the right atmosphere in anything zombie-related you are writing.
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This map depicts a rather neat scientific facility, the sort of thing you might find on a research station in orbit (or planetside) or even aboard a larger research and exploration vessel. As such a place can easily become the location for events that require you to get the battlemap out, it's rather nice to have a customised one.
Like all DramaScape's offerings, it's very spacious... a necessary feature to accommodate miniatures use (be they metal figures or paper standees/tokens)... but this may be noticeable more to someone raised on the 20th century space programme where every cubic metre cost a packet to be raised on orbit, so I think of spacecraft as cramped, rather than roomy, structures!
Anyway, these scientists have plenty of facilities, from a cargo lift entrance to an observation balcony with space for a few easy chairs as well as computer workstations, a cryotube for storage of live specimens and loads of room to run experiments. The 360° view gives a good feel for the place.
As usual, there is a single-page overview, a paginated series of maps with hex grid, square grid, or ungridded versions of the facility, plus a massive poster-size/virtual table top single-sheet view (which is plain and ungridded).
Overall, a very useful addition to the Sci-Fi series of maps.
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Whether you are planning a manga-style game or just intend for the odd Japanese villain to turn up in a more standard comic-book based campaign, this work contains some intriguing and well-developed flavourful villains to keep your vigilantes on their toes.
Mechanically, they have been worked through thoroughly, and each is provided with a detailed background liberally sprinkled with ideas of what they might be up to and how they will interact with the characters. Illustrations are stylish and give a Japanese feel without being too jarringly different.
Many of the villains are presented in groups, or at least associations who may or may not be working together, but there are also several 'independent' villains who normally work on their own. The notes include sections of information likely only to be available to those with contacts within law enforcement as well as more public knowledge, the sort of thing that may even appear in the news and is certainly accessible to anyone who can be bothered to do some research.
If you accommodate the supernatural, there's a vampire and the odd devil mixed in: in a world with superpowers rampant it is quite within the bounds of possibility even if they have not featured in your campaign to date. Indeed, it could be quite amusing to bring, say, vampirism into your game by means of a Japanese visitor to the mean streets your vigilantes patrol, watch them wonder if it's the sort of vampirism they know from fiction or some Asia-specific import.
A nice selection - and there are some character-specific counters as well as generic 'agent' ones if you want to map out the inevitable brawls.
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An eclectic mix indeed... sorcerers who trace their powers back to some of these have what can only be described as a very interesting family history!
First up are the coatl. It is quite hard to imagine just how one of them might even want to become involved with mortal beings, but rather than anything tacky it is proposed that when a mortal does a favour to one and receives a feather in return whereby the coatl can be summoned and the coatl later dies, the feather disappears and an image appears on the mortal's skin - and that's when the influence enters the bloodline. Neat, as are the powers this ancestry confers on our budding sorcerer, including telepathy and irridescent rainbow wings.
A weird one next, the eidolon. In forming close associations with summoners, it is not implausible that those capable of such acts might breed with their companions... but the descendants who take up sorcery cannot even dabble in summoning themselves - the resulting paradox leading to an implosion that ingulfs the incautious one. Such sorcerers become more like Outsiders themselves as they gain levels.
Next and more mundane, the flail snail. OK, who'd really want to admit to a gastropod in your family tree? The results are slimy... Rather more strange, the flumph. The sorcerer becomes a bit odd too: able to emit stench and becoming rubbery. Hmm... Perhaps more inspiring would be to trace your bloodline back to a phoenix, with flight and fire powers as the result.
Another ancestor you might be reluctant to talk about is a pugwampi. One of said race's prevalent powers is causing bad luck, and so do the sorcerers descended from them. Finally, and rather strange, is the time bloodline, gained by an ancestor having messed around with the orderly flow of time. Perhaps this is the nearest a Pathfinder character can come to being a Time Lord...
Some entertaining ideas to conjure with here.
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Dare you awaken the horrors of a mad scramble through the darkness with savage giant spiders absolutely everywhere, all determined to eat you or worse...
Designed for a large group of 2nd level characters, still battling their way through the 'funnel' to emerge as potential heroes, this quest involves a lost bunch of elves and their terrible fate! It's not a dungeon crawl, the adventure involves pushing through grim dark forests festooned with cobwebs, the sort that have giant spiders in them.
And of course, the spiders won't stay there, they'll come out after you.
I hope none of my players are arachnophobic... their characters probably will be when I have finished with them!
As well as the full adventure, the download includes a picture to show your players to set the scene, a map and a systemless version of the adventure should you prefer to run it under a ruleset other than Dungeon Crawl Classics. Rather neatly, this last has been printed in such a way that there's plenty of room for you to add your notes and game mechanics from your chosen ruleset (don't be confused, they forgot to change the footer from an earlier adventure, The Vile Worm - the text is correct for this adventure, though!). As a final bonus, if you want to run the adventure from your e-book reader or tablet, there's an art-free version included as well.
A cracking little adventure, simple yet effective.
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Here's a collection of feats for anyone who is quick on his feet or has good hand-eye coordination, only one or two are limited by their prerequisites to members of the traditionally dextrous character classes... so even more useful.
They all will aid in combat: Backstabber, Improved Mobility, Sneak Attack Sniper (and the Improved version), Tricky Defence (also with an Improved version) and Reflexive Step... oh, and Tumbling Charge if you want to arrive in style!
However, one that strikes me is Aquatic Acrobatics - possibly because I've just run a 'diving session' with one of my Pathfinder groups, who wanted to investigate a sunken ship they thought had brought plague to their hometown. This enhances your underwater combat abilities by enabling to use your Swim skill as you'd use Acrobatics on dry land to move through occupied spaces or in and out of threatened ones without provoking attacks of opportunity.
So if you want to add a bit of acrobatic style, slither through combat and bedazzle your opponents, check out this collection of feats and maybe add one or two to your skillset.
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Quite an interesting short story that begins innocuously as a psychology professor travels out into the mountains to visit a man aquitted some 20 years ago of the murder of his brothers but widely believed to have done it, nonetheless. His angle: what is life like for someone thought guilty even when found innocent in a court of law?
Descriptions are vivid, sometimes erring on the side of profuse, like a student in a creative writing class finding something to say about absolutely everything as he practices his craft, but it settles down once the scene is set.
Verbal sparring twixt prof and hillbilly is realistically portrayed as is the internal feelings of inadequacy felt by the professor...
... then things turn darker, hauntingly so.
For the role-player: If you are playing a contemporary investigative or horror game this could well provide something for the characters to investigate. At times it reads like an early X-Files or Supernatural script, or something that the FBI's behavioural analysis unit might investigate.
It's an atmospheric scary read, with good scenario potential.
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This is 'yet another monster collection' with a few outstanding and unusual features that makes it noteworthy over and above the general usefulness to any GM of having even more monsters to hand...
Conceptually, it's interesting because each beastie has been created in response to a piece of art rather than a load of monsters being dreamed up and then artists commissioned to provide the illustrations. It's an approach which resonates, I once invented a monster when looking at a patch of light on the side of the bath... and it was such a good monster that a whole 3-part adventure grew up around it!
Even better is the way in which they are presented. Along with that inspirational illustration and a standard stat block, the descriptive material - background, behaviour, ecology, etc. - is written up in the style of a 'field report' - not only does this work remarkably well as an in character resource giving verisimiltude to each monster, it suggests the existence in your world of people who go around collecting and describing just like real-world naturalists do. Many suggest adventure ideas even as you read through them. Or perhaps you'll be inspired to play a naturalist character, it's a good role for rangers and certain types of mage for a start, or perhaps a cleric of a nature deity.
The creatures themselves are fascinating, ranging from quite vile (the Arm-Taker) to something that's beautiful (the Diamond Owl) or just plain strange (nearly all of them!). Many will work well in games where barriers between planes or dimensions are weak, you can just imagine them having come from somewhere that is a twisted parody of your own world, having slipped through a crack and possibly being as baffled by this reality as your characters are by them.
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Some superheroes rely on muscle and agility, others on powered suits or the (un)natural abilities conferred by their superpowers... but nearly all of them find that other odds and ends are useful from time to time. Batman, after all, was never without his utility belt - and your 'hero doesn't need to be either.
This product takes the basic utility belt from the core rulebook and expands on it. There's a whole array of useful items that you might think would be useful, neatly arranged as offensive items, defensive items and movement items. For an additional cost (set-up points, I mean) you can have an 'array' feature that makes it easy to use more than one at once, or swap between them... and there is even a facility to be able to just reach in and have that gadget you didn't know you needed until just now! There are certain constraints, of course, but mostly about the size of the item compared to the space in which you keep it.
The range of items is quite impressive. Miniturised grappling hooks and ascenders, of course, gas masks, brass knuckles, mini-grenades, even a glider or a cutting torch... so the well-equipped superhero can never be at a loss, with a device to meet every occasion. Each one comes with description and apposite game mechanics, ready for use at a moment's notice.
This is a very practical expansion of the basic utility belt rules and well worth considering for any 'hero who doesn't mind carrying around a bit of a joke-shop collection of odds and ends... which will come in surprisingly useful in the heat of action. Shark repellant, anyone?
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This atmospheric courtyard has seen better days... and dark use. Or perhaps this is what it looks like AFTER the adventurers have visited!
OK, nice wide-open space with lots of battered masonry and fallen pillars to jump over, a well, steps out, a raised platform at one end with a gibbet (complete with a couple of nooses draped tastefully over it)... plenty of space in which to have a cinematic brawl. The cover picture should give you a good idea, whilst the actual top-down view of the battlemaps themselves make it a little hard to see just how rough the terrain is.
As usual, it's available on multiple sheets with a square grid, a hex grid or no grid at all in almost photo-realistic splendor. It also is provided as a ginormous single sheet JPG for users of virtual table-tops (or people with access to professional poster print facilities).
A delightful place to stage a combat, have fun!
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Back when I was a graduate student, there was one undergraduate DM who gained the nickname 'Neon Bruce' because if you ventured into an area of his dungeon that he didn't want you to visit yet, you encountered a large neon sign that said 'No Entry'!
Perhaps this work would have enabled him to cope with straying characters, as it is intended to empower the GM to create encounters on the fly, selecting and slotting in appropriate monsters as and when you need them. This, the first of (we hope) many products, deals with providing you with stacks of ready-made EL1 encounters worth 400 XP to those who defeat them successfully.
It is based around three big tables, on which you can roll percentage dice (or just pick an encounter if you prefer to do so). One is for dungeon areas, one for cavern areas and one for the classic 'wandering monster.' The dungeon area ones are most suitable if you are delving a constructed dungeon, and the cavern ones for more natural underground places (the two, of course, may intersect). Wandering monsters, by their very nature, can turn up just about anywhere, provided you can reason out a route for them to get there.
Some of the encounters involve regular monsters from the Pathfinder RPG 'Bestiary' books. Some involve variants which have the advanced, giant or young templates applied to them, and some are unique monsters whose details are given here.
So, let's get the bones out and see what's here... OK, an 89 gives me a wererat! But there's more, I'm provided with his name and a bit of background as to why he's here in the dungeon - apparently he's ugly even as wererats go so was happy to accept a job from whoever-it-is that constructed this dungeon to keep this area clear of intruders. By and large he does a good job, but he's not above stopping for a chat! So in a couple of short sentences the encounter is transformed from 'Here is a monster to brawl with' to a whole opportunity to make a true encounter of it. Are the characters perpared to chat or will they just lay into him? What will be the outcome of a conversation? Quite delightful, isn't it. Because this is a named specific wererat, not just any old wererat, he's got a complete stat block provided on the next page so we have all the details necessary to play him - in conversation or in combat, as the need arises.
Even when your roll selects a 'standard' by-the-book monster, there are still additional snippets to make the encounter more interesting. In the caverns table, for example, your roll might result in two mites and a giant cockroach... only the cockroach is the mites' pet and they are trying to teach it to jump through a hoop. Poor 'roach isn't very good at that, but it's a loyal pet and will attack anyone who goes for the mites!
The whole book is full of stuff like this: pure genius. Worth using when planning dungeons, never mind when caught out by pesky players wandering off where you hadn't expected them to go!
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If you like futuristic energy weapons, come on in and take a read of this! It looks at disintegrators, disruptors, ion blasters, microwave emitters and sonic distruptors - all things hovering on the cusp of science-fiction and contemporary 'what-if' military weapons speculation. All are extremely deadly and high powered, and should be introduced to any game only with caution and after careful thought - someone armed with one of these is going to be well-nigh unstoppable, and if both sides have them it is time for mutually-assured destruction!
Each weapon is described clearly and concisely, and there are some good realistic illustractions. Game mechanics are handled well, and whilst they are written for the Mutant Futures ruleset it would not take much effort to translate them for other rulesets with which you are familiar.
The sonic disruptor is particularly interesting, as it can be used both for crowd control (its original design purpose) or in combat. They come in three forms: a grenade-style device you hurl at whoever you wish to be affected, a larger version that is shot out of a crew-served gun and the speaker-based type that has to be set up but is capable of sustained broadcast as it isn't dependent on an internal power supply. The effects are quite interesting, particularly in crowd-control mode, including 'dizzy' characters who move randomly as their balance and directional mobility is affected!
Neat but potentially game-changing... use with caution but have fun! You may want to make them tempremental, given to overheating or massively expensive in terms of energy expenditure, or find some other way of limiting their use as a means of maintaining game balance.
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This is a delightful product, an original inn presented in considerable graphic detail all ready to be dropped in as appropriate to your campaign world. All you need to find is a bridge substatial enough to add the inn as a bridge pier extension.
Travellers can access the inn from off of the bridge or by mooring at a landing stage. Then you have various ways of presenting it to your players. There's a glorious sketch of what it looks like to show them, or you can show plan views - either as a single sheet floorplan or as a miniatures-scale battlemat (should someone order milk...).
The plan views are provided in both GM and 'player-friendly' versions, the latter with anything they have to discover rather than see at a glance removed. A nice touch is that the fall of light from ground floor windows is shown, neat for those who like sneaking around unobserved. There's plenty of space for the GM's own notes about the place, but of the 'print out and write' variety, no facility to make notes electronically.
The drawings are all clear and neat, nicely-coloured and ready to use. The inn comes complete with a cellar, stables, and an upper floor with several bedrooms available for rent. There's also one room which strangely contains only a plant in a pot. There's a good kitchen area and plenty of storage space behind the bar, and plenty of doors - enough to stage a classic farce!
This is the kind of map that cries out for an adventure to be written around the place it portrays. Maybe I will once I've finished the review...
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If you are after a spectacular 3D card model of a traditional blacksmith's forge & ancillary premises, in a scale suitable for your miniatures to stand around, this is worth a look.
The actual model is beautiful to look at and incredibly detailed. Colours are vibrant, yet realistic; and the printing is crisp.
The instructions are excellent and easy to follow with clear stage-by-stage illustrations that make quite a complex build a lot less scary than it otherwise might be - and the results look rather pretty if incongruous sitting on my desk.
That's the only problem, really. What am I going to do with it? A pretty diorama is all well and good - and makes a terrific advertisement for a gaming group if you can persuade the likes of a local library to let you set it up there - but it is not really practical for gaming purposes. Even if you do use miniatures, trying to manoeuvre them around such a structure becomes fiddly and time-consuming and distracts from the fun of the combat or whatever else is going on. As eye-candy: brilliant!
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![Monstrous Bloodlines for Sorcerers II [PFRPG]](images/3367/112205-thumb100.jpg)
