D&D Review! Amarune's Almanac Volume 2 - The Underdark and Volume 3 - Grasslands of the Realms.

It seems like not long ago that I reviewed a then not yet released Amarune’s Almanac Volume 1: Forests of the Realms. Yet here we are again with a double feature review for Volumes 2 and 3, both of which have been released since! I can only assume that the creative team have been working on multiple volumes of Amarune's Almanac concurrently. If not, that's one impressive production cycle!

Volume 2 covers the subterranean realm known as the Underdark. It's not the biome I would have expected to follow forests, necessarily, but it makes sense to get it out of the way early. After all, it's probably the most important and commonly used biome in the context of adventuring environments.

Volume 3 is all about Grasslands of the Realms: plains, savannas, shrublands, and prairies.

The fact that I've already reviewed a book in this series is helpful, as there are naturally many similarities between them. The strengths of the previous product are all here too, and similarly things for which I provided criticism are also reflected in these new products. Lack of change on these is understandable: even if the creative team happen to agree with my feedback, they no doubt feel consistency across the series is important. Anyway, long story short, my thoughts on Volume 1 hold true here as well and you might like to read that review first.

For the remainder of this review, I’m going to shorten the titles of these two books to Underdark and Grasslands, respectively. Likewise, Forests will be shorthand for Forests of the Realms.

Amarune's Almanac: The Underdark

Amarune's Almanac: Grasslands of the Realms

Value 

Like the previous volume, Underdark and Grasslands each cost $9.95. Underdark is 65 pages and Grasslands is 50 pages excluding cover page. Compare to the 48 pages of Forests, which was already great value. These books each feature a similarly wide variety of content: setting lore and locations; archetypes, spells, and other player options; rules for biome-specific flora; creature statblocks; and magic items. Underdark also includes a helpful map of Underdark regions overlaid over the Realms. The production values of the series continues to be very high.

SCORE OUT OF 4:

Quality

You can refer to my review of volume 1 for comments on quality. This is a series, after all, so things like design, tone, and the like are consistent. Everything I said before holds true here, as does the previous score.

Stormchaser Ranger (Amarune's Almanac: Grasslands of the Realms)

SCORE OUT OF 6:

Content

As was the case with Forests, both of these books have a foreword by Ed Greenwood. He is also credited as a member of the writing team for Volume 3! This is undoubtedly a selling point for many.

The content of the books is naturally similar to Volume 1 in terms of both layout and material. One of the things that surprised me about Volume 1, Forests, was that only 12 pages were given over to introducing the forest biome and describing specific forest locations in the Realms. Underdark gives the same number of pages to describing its biomes and specific locations of note, while Grasslands uses 10 and a half pages for these sections. More space is given over to character options, spells, monsters, magic items, and the series' signature gathering system. However, the lore that is included is excellent and well-researched.

The following lore sections are included in these books:

• Underdark:
• The introduction. Amarune introduces herself, explains the concept of the Underdark, describes the faerzress (a form of magical radiation), and clarifies that the Underdark itself is broken up into multiple sub-biomes.
• Locations, which includes descriptions of five Underdark regions: Araumycos, the Burgeoning Rift, the Firelands, the Glimmersea, and the Sharn Wall. 
• Grasslands:
• The introduction. Amarune introduces herself and explains the various types of grasslands.
• Locations, which includes descriptions of five regions: the Battle of Bones, the Cliffs of Leaping Horses, the Eastern Plains, Mistledale, and the Shining Planes;

Underdark Map (Amarune's Almanac: The Underdark)

As I noted in my review for volume 1, the presentation of the lore sections as in-setting travel writing has its pros and its cons. The descriptions are very evocative and inspiring, but the format makes the book less efficient a reference. As before, I recommend you take some notes of any interesting details you want to use as you read, because it'll be a lot easier to refer to those notes later in your planning or in play than have to parse each section all over again every time.

Player Options

Underdark and Grasslands both include two new archetypes each, new spells, and repeat some additional rules first seen in Volume 1. These additional rules will presumably be reprinted in all future volumes, and include a variant for the Druid's Spellcasting and the Ranger's Natural Explorer.

• The Druid's Spellcasting variant lets the druid swap a spell they have prepared for an Environment spell that matches the biome the druid is currently within. They may do so once per short rest by spending 1 minute per spell level in meditation. Environment spells are those printed in Amarune's Almanac (or any other product that adopts the concept) and have an Environment component. Basically, Environment spells can only be cast in particular types of terrain. 
• A variant for the Ranger's Natural Explorer grants the ranger 4 spells appropriate to the ranger's favoured terrain. Rangers with multiple favoured terrains can swap spell lists every long rest. 

These features are of limited use this early in the series, but their usefulness expands with every volume released. Once the series is complete, Druids and Rangers will have options for every environment they might be adventuring in.

The Sharnbound (Amarune's Almanac: The Underdark)

I commented in my previous review that I'd love to see more varied archetypes, rather than merely ticking the Druid and Ranger boxes. It's to be expected, but in my honest opinion is sometimes redundant. It's possible to make a druid suited to most if not all biomes already with existing archetypes, for instance. Admittedly, I do understand the desire to write more interesting environment-themed archetypes than the one-size-fits-all Circle of the Land! Still, I'd love to see some biome-themed archetypes for other classes we wouldn't necessarily expect. If not instead of the Druid and Ranger archetypes, then in addition to! My wish isn't fulfilled by either of the two new volumes sadly, so I won't hold high hopes that this pattern will change going forward. But fingers crossed...

Another piece of feedback I gave related to Circle Spells: not all Druid archetypes have the Circle Spells feature, and this is why it's very important that the archetypes that do offer these spells include the necessary text to explain how they work. Yet none of the druid archetypes in Volumes 1 through 3 of this series do. I repeat this feedback because I genuinely believe it's a mistake not to correct it. It doesn't seem like good practice to assume prior knowledge on the part of the player, or to require them to refer to another source (in this case a second, official archetype) in order to play their character.

I'm concerned about this review running over-long, so I'm not going to do a deep analysis on these archetypes as would be my usual habit. Instead, I'll briefly describe them and summarise my thoughts.

The Circle of the Dark (Underdark)

An Underdark-themed druid circle, a concept which puts this archetype into the same narrative space as the Circle of the Land (Underdark). Circle of the Dark does a pretty solid job of separating itself from the Circle of the Land (Underdark) by focusing primarily on the magical nature of the Underdark. An innate divination magic to sense the location of creatures in darkness, and the ability to channel the magical radiation known as Faerzness is fun and on point. If I could change one feature it would be Fungal Infestation, which is a sudden departure from this archetype's brand into thematic territory belonging to the Circle of Spores.

Features it has in common with the Circle of the Grove previously published in Forests include more powerful beast forms that are native to the biome, and the ability to transmute the land of their biome. Their Faerzness Surge is kind of like the sorcerer's Wild Magic table, triggering whenever use you a Wild Shape in the Underdark or to use your Land Transmutation. The major difference is all of the eight effects (rolled on a d8) are essentially helpful power boosts. At 6th level the Circle of the Dark Druid gains an innate location sense for any creature within 60 feet that would normally be concealed by darkness. This presumably also functions in magical darkness as no distinction is made within the text. This feature is implicitly magical (a type of divination to be precise). I divined this (sorry not sorry) from the fact it can be blocked by 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a sheet of lead, or 3 feet of wood or dirt. These are the same barriers that block many divination spells.

Sharnbound (Underdark)

I was worried the Ranger archetype would be too similar to the Gloom Stalker, but that was unfounded. Sharnbound sell themselves on concept alone: these Rangers patrol a magical barrier known as the Sharn Wall, erected by the aberrations known as sharn to trap a threat that even they feared: the phaerimm. Sharn are composite being made up from the minds of three or more former humanoids. Sharnbound Rangers bond with a dying sharn's life force, becoming a symbiotic entity that grows more aberrant as the ranger becomes strong enough to survive the physical changes. A sidebar here provides a table of d10 personalities for the symbiotic Sharn. You roll three times, one each for every mind in the Sharn's fragmented psyche. Being sharnbound makes you very aberrant: you gain the ability to sprout a black tentacle to make a special grapple, pick up items, or move around the battlefield. The ability to stick to a surface you pull yourself to is incredible tactically, especially for a ranged build. Later, you acquire the ability to become ooze-like and move through tiny gaps and hostile creatures' spaces. As a matter of personal taste I'd prefer it to cost a bonus action or reaction. Turning from a humanoid to an ooze feels like it would take a couple of seconds as a process, not be complete instantaneously.

The 11th level feature Accelerated Physiology is interesting from a design perspective, because it takes one of the archetype's bonus spells and turns it into a core part of your gameplay. As an aside, I've been experimenting with this sort of thing myself, so I'm excited to see it here! Admittedly, you were probably using haste before. It's too good for a Ranger not to be in your arsenal. But with Accelerated Physiology, if you cast haste on yourself, you can't lose concentration from taking damage, and you are immune to the effects that normally apply when haste ends. This feature also lets you spend your reaction after rolling initiative to immediately cast any of your Sharn Magic bonus spells (which, of course, includes haste). All things considered, this is a pretty incredible feature. Whether it's balanced or not might depend on your campaign's typical adventuring day. For contrast, at 11th level the Gloom Stalker gets an extra attack every turn (but only if they miss one attack, so note that the maximum possible damage cap isn't raised). Leaving aside the tactical advantage of casting a spell when initiative is rolled, you're getting up to 3 minutes (you can cast haste three times) of a bonus attack or other action, +2 AC, advantage on Dexterity and saving throws. It's very rare for a D&D combat to last over a minute, so think about how many combats you normally run.

This archetype is A+ on theme and fun, but my gut feeling is that it does have the potential to feel overpowered, even if it technically isn't. See its unparalleled ability to use the environment (hit and run tactics through gaps too small for larger sized enemies, sticking to walls and ceilings to rain death upon monsters with no good ranged options, etc.) and combine with the extra damage potential and defensive boosts of haste. I don't think it's breaking anyone's game as long as the DM takes these abilities into consideration, it's just something to be aware of. As is the fact that this archetype is oozing (still not sorry) with mechanical potency and fun gameplay to the extent there could be some frustration for other warriors in the group which possess a less exciting suite of options.

The Circle of the Plains (Amarune's Almanac: Grasslands)

The Circle of the Plains (Grasslands)

Like the other two druid circles currently printed in the series, the first level features of this archetype include circle spells, more powerful beast forms, and a land transmutation effect. The archetype's other features are mostly to do with mobility and maneuvering: Plainswalker grants a bonus action Dash and Pack Ambush lets your allied spend their reaction to Hide when you do, using your own Stealth check. The archetype's capstone is the ability to whip up a tornado which can pull in creatures, damage them, and eject them in a random direction. Decent battlefield control!

Stormchaser (Grasslands)

This ranger is, well, storm-themed. And it's pretty damn cool. Its stormwind surge lets you double your speed temporarily until the start of your next turn, and deal increased damage with lightning or thunder for the duration. Later on at 11th level, you'll eventually pick up what is effectively a compromise between resistance and immunity to those two damage types: while you're only granted resistance, you can spend your reaction to reduce the damage to 0 and recharge stormwind surge. So if you only take thunder or lightning damage once in a round, and you didn't spend your reaction on anything else, you're functionally immune for that round. It's a pretty neat mechanic, though resistance alone to two damage types is very powerful. The rest could be considered too much. Still, how often are you going to fight a creature that only relies on lightning or thunder damage? It's probably fine.

The 7th level feature summons a steed of lightning, which is metal as hell. You can also grant your benefits from stormwind surge to your steed, which is a great touch. Your steed is upgraded at 15th level, and you gain the ability to summon a localised lightning storm around the steed.

Spellcasting

Each book has a spellcasting section. In both cases it introduces and explains the concept of an Environment component (this is not new information if you already own volume 1, of course) and each provides 11 new spells across a wide variety of levels. One ritual, Druidic Practice, is reprinted from the first volume. My comments on Druidic Practice can be found in the previous volume's review.

Spells (Amarune's Almanac: The Underdark)

The spells are fun, flavourful, useful, and seem balanced.

My favourite of the spells in Underdark are morass, which covers surfaces in the area with a white lichen that can restrain and paralyze; as well as delirium, which generates hallucinogenic spores that interact with the game's optional madness rules. An honourable mention for aphotic armor simply because aphotic is one of my favourite words. I don't quite know why they appeal to me so much, but my favourite spells in Grasslands are those that make use of grass itself in the casting. blade of grass transforms the grass into a sword, while whistling reed creates a magical grass whistle with a high pitched peal which disrupts hearing and can be used to stun.

Between Adventures

As was the case in Forests, this section of both books includes the rules for the Gathering Plants Expedition downtime activity. To accompany this new activity, both books include 20 flora which includes flowers, fruits, and trees useful for lumber. Descriptions and special rules relating to these flora are included, and tables provide an at-a-glance indicator of where in the Realms each plant might be found, as well as its sale value. These sections are among my favourite parts of Amarune's Almanac series, providing an easy reference for much needed variety in plant growths with which you can populate the fantastic landscapes of your adventures.

Flora (Amarune's Almanac: Grasslands)

Appendix

Each book includes an appendix which is split into two sections: Beasts and Monsters, and Magic Items.

Beasts and Monsters

This section of Underdark includes 23 new statblocks, associated with a variety of different creature types. This index fills out some iconic Realmsian monster-shaped gaps in the official bestiaries. The descriptions of many monsters in these bestiaries include notes on what resources might be harvested from their corpses. In terms of new beast forms for wild shape, Grasslands is more fertile than Underdark. On the other hand, the larger bestiary of Underdark and its selection of monsters is bound to please any DM. Either way, these sections both excited me a bit more than their equivalent in the first volume.

Both books provide a table which shows precisely which regions of the Realms or Underdark each monster is most likely to be found in.

New monsters in Underdark include:

• The CR 10 angler worm (a relative of the purple worm that lures curious prey to their dangling light)
• The CR 1 azmyth (a variety of strange snake-like bat with the magical abilities to become invisible and discharge lightning)
• The CR 1 blasting jelly (an artificial duergar-made slime with explosive properties)
• the CR 5 swarm of bloodbites (quipper-like fish that swarm through the air of the underdark, rather than water)
• The CR 1 cavvekan (bat-like dogs that Underdark species use as hunting animals)
• The CR 4 wyrmling, CR 10 young, CR 17 adult, and CR 24 ancient deep dragon (a burrowing dragon with a dazing brath and the ability to polymorph into snake and humanoid forms)
• The CR 16 drowbane (a predatory aberration that hunts by sonar)
• The CR 1 fire bat (a bat... that's on fire)
• The CR 8 ghaunadan (an ooze servant of the god of abominations, which can shapechange into the form of a drow to walk unnoticed among them)
• The CR 2 knell beetle drone and CR 4 knell beetle (a giant bug with a strange sonic trumpet it can use to blast foes with thunderous noise)
• The CR 6 lith (a form of psionically crafted earth elemental)
• The CR 4 juvenile, CR 9 young, CR 13 adult, and CR 19 elder phaerimm (a race of worm-like aberration sorcerers that can eat magic energy)
• The CR 1/4 rockmite and CR 2 swarm of rockmites (silverfish-like giant bugs that can burrow through solid stone)
  
• The CR 10 sharn (aberrations born from chaos magic and fragmented minds)
• The CR 1/2 spore weaver (a variety of spider which have a symbiotic relationship with fungal growths on their bodies

Angler Worm (Amarune's Almanac: The Underdark)

Jaskar (Amarune's Almanac: Grasslands of the Realms)

New monsters in Grasslands include:

• The CR 2 bison and CR 6 primeval bison (the latter of which is a huge variety that is imbued by primal magic)
• The CR 1/8 flower blight (a new type of good-aligned blight)
• The CR 3 huuserpent (giant two-headed constrictor snakes)
• The CR 3 jaskar (a large variety of vulture, capable of picking up humanoids and dropping them to their deaths)
• The CR 18 living tornado (a massive air elemental of evil intent)
• The CR 2 pink zebra (a fey trickster that enjoys harassing mortals - but none so much as a mortal that threatens their herd)
• The CR 4 razor bulette (a variety of bulette with chitinous blades and wicked bite)
• The CR 2 herbivorous and CR 2 carnivorous scathebeast (strange many-eyed herd beasts with an ability to adapt to resist damage taken)
• The CR 2 wermic warrior, CR 3 wermic hunter, and CR 6 wermic shaman (a race of lion-centaurs)
• The CR 2 zhuruda (magical flightless birds with innate spellcasting that varies based on the colour of their plumage)

Magic Items

Underdark contains 11 magic items, and Grasslands has 10. This section was one of my favourites in Forests, and the same is true of these volumes: each is an excellent collection of fun items to add to your game. A particular favourite from Underdark is Maggris' Bracelet of Summoning, which has a lot of creep factor thanks to its effect of drawing insects and bugs to you, which you can cause to swarm enemies. It also lets you summon giant insects and beetle swarms which you can control. my favourite from Grasslands is probably the Skull of the Stampede, a helmet made from a bison skull which gives you a powerful charge-like stampede ability.

Organisation

The volumes of Amarune's Almanac aren't indexed, but most of the content is quite easily referenced through the contents pages.

SCORE OUT OF 10:

Final Thoughts and Rating

FINAL SCORE OUT OF 20:
	+		+		=
18 out of 20! A superior hit!

Everything that was good about volume 1 remains true, but on the other hand so do the things I considered less positive. Thankfully, those are a pretty minor factor compared to the overall quality of these products. Constructive criticisms and quibbles aside, Amarune's Almanac has shown a consistent excellence in game and graphic design, writing, and illustration. If anything, these two volumes slightly raise the bar with bestiaries that were - to me - far more interesting. All things considered, what you get in each volume is an absolute bargain at the price.

You can find the three current volumes of Amarune's Almanac at the following links:

• Forests of the Realms
• The Underdark
• Grasslands of the Realms

I will not be writing any more reviews for Aamrune's Almanac. I think three is enough to build a clear picture of the quality across the entire series. As long as the creative team maintain or exceed the current standard, I would whole-heartedly recommend picking up any volume!

Legacy Unknown: A Star Wars Saga Edition RPG Stream!

Hi all! In case you missed the updates on twitter, here's an exciting announcement: starting on April 4th, I'll be running a fortnightly Star Wars Saga Edition game on my twitch channel, www.twitch.tv/spilledalestudios!

My amazing players will be @Fuzzb0x, @litzabronwyn, @SpaceMoose34, @XPartay, with an open fifth slot for the occasional guest player.

Want to know more? I've released a brief introduction to what the game is about, as well as revealed bios and theme songs for two of our four characters! Check what's already been revealed out below, and follow @spilledale on twitter for the most up to date news.

Introducing Legacy Unknown

Ciara Reveal

Ark Reveal

D&D Review! First Adventure by Leonardo Benucci

Update 20/01/2020: The author has made me aware of updates to the adventure which occurred between my receipt of the review copy and my posting the review. These additional elements are now factored into the review. 

Today's review is First Adventure by Leonardo Benucci. The product's title is apt: it's a first for me too! In my case, the first 3rd-party D&D adventure I'll ever formally review!

Given the DM-oriented nature of this product, anyone who doesn't expect they might run it should probably turn away now! The review won't be spoiler free.

First Adventure - the Goonies-inspired cover!

Value

First Adventure is 64 pages long, which includes the cover, contents, credits, 16 pages worth of adventure, and 45 pages of extensive appendices. These appendices include two creature statblocks, rules for playing kid PCs (yup, you read that right), pregen characters on custom drawn character sheets, illustrations, and maps. The adventure probably should be longer too, as it uses a very conservative size 10 font which compresses it into less pages than it might otherwise occupy. The product is currently priced at only $4.99 but to be honest, it could be priced higher. It should be priced higher. I can't take points off the product's "value" score for being too cheap, because this score is ultimately about value to you, the prospective consumer. But I feel obliged to at least mention it because I really want creatives to recognise the value of their work and price their offerings accordingly.

SCORE OUT OF 4:

Quality

The layout and other design elements of First Adventure are competent for a first effort, though the product lacks some of the polish a more experienced graphic designer might be able to bring to the table. But the crucial point here is that there is very little that will get in the way of your usage of the product. Everything is laid out in a way that is usually clear and relatively easy to parse. There are a few issues that do affect legibility:

• I think the product could be slightly improved by increasing spacing between some design elements (the space between read-aloud text and the body text, for instance)
• I'd suggest increasing the font size from 10 to 11. 
• In some places where text wraps around images, it is difficult to read. I would recommend either turning off the wrapping or reducing the size of the image.
• I would also recommend the author to make another editing pass. There are some missing words and typos yet to be excised, and some of boxed text has no line breaks between paragraphs.

Pregen Character Sheet - Jeff.

First Adventure includes a lot of graphical elements including a large amount of art, hand-drawn character sheets, and maps. I think the art is all original! If so, it's just another reason the adventure is under-priced.

The adventure is very well written, with impressively evocative boxed text that really helped draw me into the narrative. There are a few errors as noted above, but nothing that prevented me from understanding a  passage.

SCORE OUT OF 6:

Content

First Adventure differs from most adventure modules in that it's primarily intended to be a self-contained one-shot (you can launch a campaign with it, particularly if you choose not to use the six pregen characters provided). It is also divided into two acts: in the first, players take on the roles of a group of children who go on a journey to find a way to the Faerie Realm, which they do to keep a promise made to their mother on her deathbed. They are in fact meant to fail, but that sets the stage for act 2 in which any survivors return as young adults.

Meant to fail act 1? Return in act 2? Really? Yes. This is an adventure which is comfortable with what we call railroading. It has a specific story to tell, and keeps the players on that path. This is acceptable given the format of the adventure as a one-shot experience. In the context of a campaign, it's probably better for beginner players who may not chafe as much at forced events. Or simply players who value a good story.

Despite the characters starting off as young children, First Adventure is not necessarily child-friendly as written. It is quite possible for one of the kid adventurers to meet a grisly demise in Act 1 - though as DM you can, of course, make any modifications you deem necessary. The dark "bad ending" is also the most likely one, which may not be how you want to leave things with young players.

The Faerie Realm.

Boxed text is pretty standard in adventures, and First Adventure is no exception. Some DMs like boxed text, others don't. A few of the boxes in First Adventure run to multiple paragraphs, which the latter group probably won't appreciate. The area descriptions could be shorter, the DM trusted more to fill out absent details. But new DMs using First Adventure as their own introduction into D&D will no doubt appreciate the attention to detail.  There is also a prologue which is meant to be read aloud. It's a really nice bit of writing which beautifully sets the stage for the adventure, but in my honest opinion it's too long to read at the table. I'd suggest emailing it to players in advance of the session.

In my view, there are a few things in the adventure that could frustrate some groups:

• To acquire the flower which the characters want for their adoptive mother's grave, they must entertain a group of pixies. The adventure resolves this scene by requiring that the players themselves must make the DM laugh. This might make some players uncomfortable, so bear in mind the personality types in your group.
• There are two possible endings for this adventure, and the "good ending" is conditional on players having a gut feeling without being given any clues in particular that might nudge them in that  direction. Some seeds earlier in the adventure regarding the reveal would have gone a long way.  
• A lot of the features and abilities on the pregen sheets are probably going to go end up unused, which seems a shame. This is actually a common issue with pregens, but it's very noticeable in First Adventure. The second act, for instance, calls for only a very few checks and saves and even the act's one combat can be avoided through a successful Perception check. 

Pixies!

DMs whose groups are the types who can focus on the story and enjoy roleplaying as kids will thrive playing First Adventure. Groups that like combat, dungeon-crawling, and engaging with the mechanics of the game will probably find the adventure ill-suited to their type of enjoyment. However, I'm certain that with a little work a DM could expand the adventure with additional encounters both in the mine and in the Faerie Realm. 

I've mentioned already that the adventure has substantial appendices. I've already covered the fact that it includes a lot of custom art, maps, and hand-drawn character sheets. So I'll conclude by summarising the contents of Appendix A: Creatures Appendix B: Magic Items, and Appendix C: Kids as PCs.

Appendix A: Creatures

There is only one creature to fight in this adventure (and it can be bypassed through more peaceful means): the owlbear. It's encountered in both acts, but grows a lot in the intervening 17 years. This appendix includes two custom statblocks for a young owlbear (CR 2) and a fiendish owlbear (CR 6).

Appendix B: Magic Items

This appendix provides actual rules for the Flower of a Thousand Colours, the object of the children's quest. This is a legendary item with remarkable properties of healing and protection. But it's a fragile flower which must be kept planted and watered in, at minimum, a pot. Many of the flowers properties only benefit you if you carry it, but it's obviously quite inconvenient to take it adventuring - especially since it withers and dies when too many acts of violence occur around it. It could be planted at a group's base of operations, however, allowing them to use its abilities to heal up between adventures and protect their home.

Appendix C: Kids as PCs

This part of the adventure presents guidelines for making child PCs, which is helpful if you want to create custom PCs instead of using pregens, or if you want to create your own child-oriented adventure.

SCORE OUT OF 10:

Final Thoughts and Rating

FINAL SCORE OUT OF 20:
	+		+		=
15 out of 20! A great hit!

First Adventure is a labour of love, and has been crafted with an impressive incredible attention to detail. For the author's first publication, it's truly an exemplary effort! There is room for improvement in terms of the product's layout and design, but nothing that makes it impossible to read or run the adventure.

Therefore, while I certainly do recommend First Adventure, it's important to note that its laser focus on the narrative being told results in a linear path and some sacrifice of player agency. It's also considerably less kid-friendly than first appearances suggest, though it wouldn't be too hard for a DM to make adjustments to change that. As such my recommendation comes with the caveat that this product is better suited to some groups than others.

Even if you'll never run First Adventure, the rules for kid PCs and the pregen characters could be very useful for running your own child-oriented adventures! At only $4.99, you could do a lot worse than to pick First Adventure up for those alone.

The final word: An astonishingly ambitious inaugural effort from author Leonardo Benucci, First Adventure spins a cinematic yarn that will appeal to some groups but the linearity of which may frustrate others. First Adventure is available on DMsGuild now!

Our itch.io store has launched!

Spilled Ale Studios now has an itch.io store! The store has launched with three pieces of stock art, and will expand in time. When our agreement with DriveThruRPG has transitioned to non-exclusive terms, you can also expect some RPG products to be added to the itch.io store as well!

Spilled Ale Studios is now on https://t.co/vkAaCPA8Zg! https://t.co/buhvBiPPbQ

Check out our new line of #dnd #rpg stock art, starting with @FabrizioART's excellent illustrations from Ghostwalker: Eidolon!

— Spilled Ale Studios (@spilledale) January 14, 2020

Christmas and New Year's Sale!

All products are 50% off until the 1st of January 2020 when added to your OneBookShelf cart using the special discount button(s) on this post! This is important: OBS special discounts are resolved as links which add an item directly to your cart. The product page links are therefore solely for the purpose of previewing a product's contents. Come back here to add a product you want to your cart!

The Spilled Ale Studios Character Bundle!

Contains: Awesome Options: Signature Powers, Draconomicon: Dragonbound, Heroes of Song, The Awakened Item, The Explorer, The Explorer 2

Please note that the character bundle has been reduced by only 25.05%. However, this means the bundle's total discount including the reduction already included equals 50%. The discount is therefore the same as buying the products separately, choose the bundle for convenience if planning to pick up all its contents anyway.

Ashes of Evensong

Awesome Options: Signature Powers

Draconomicon: Dragonbound

Draconomicon: Gem Dragons

Elminster's Eldritch Esoterica: Power of Blood

Fantastic Familiars

Ghostwalker: Eidolon

Heroes of Song

Monstrous Monograph: Humanoids Volume 1

Monstrous Monograph: Monstrosities Volume 1

Races of Gallian: The Dremund

Races of Gallian: The Hobben

The Awakened Item

The Explorer

The Explorer 2

The Shepherd

Wasteland Wanderers

Wasteland Wares

D&D review! Eberronicon, A Pocket Guide to the World.

A very interesting product has crossed my metaphorical desk: Eberronicon, A Pocket Guide to the World. Project lead Laura Hirsbrunner asked if I'd like to review it and clearly my answer was "yes"!

My interest is partly curiosity: Eberron sort of passed me by. I did own the campaign setting, which was released at a time when I picked up pretty much every D&D book published. Yet the world just didn't grab me. Truthfully I don't know how much of that was incompatibility between myself and the setting and how much was the fact that, for me, D&D 3.5 was on the way out. It wasn't long after Eberron released that I started to feel very tired of the edition and stopped playing it, never to pick it up again. I didn't buy anything Eberron related until the Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron a, which I bought for new game content rather than lore. Likewise, my chief interest in Rising from the Last War was additional character options, magic items, creatures, and so on. I could read the lore sections of either book to try and see if I grock Eberron better these days, but that'd be a lot of reading. A "pocket guide" is an attractive alternative! I'll be reading through Eberronicon with interest to see just how much information is packed into its 54 pages. What I'm most curious about going in is whether I would feel comfortable running a game set in Eberron just using information gleaned from this guide, or whether it's more useful as a supplemental resource.

Laura is also Editor-in-Chief at Across Eberron, a community project that published Convergence Manifesto, a 13-strong adventure path. Many of the writers for this book are also authors of one or more adventures in Convergence Manifesto, and those adventures were executive produced by Keith Baker, creator of the Eberron setting! Keith is also given a special thanks in the credits of Eberronicon for "lending his insight". We can therefore be quite confident that this team know what they're about, and that the lore in this book ought to be accurate! Hopefully it'll serve as an excellent primer for me to refresh myself on the setting.

Before I begin, the usual disclaimer: I was provided a copy in order that I could write this review, but that won't bias my thoughts on its content.

Eberronicon, A Pocket Guide to the Word.

Value

Eberronicon, a Pocket Guide to the World is $12.99 for 55 pages (54 excluding the cover). I'll obviously talk more about production values in the next section, but I need to briefly mention them in terms of impact on the product's value. Suffice it to say that the quality standard of the book is very high. But there's also a text only version for more efficient printing, which is a useful addition.

I've seen larger DMsGuild products with a smaller price tag, but those are invariably undercharging. That's what happens when indie creatives try to feel out their price points amidst a market for which there is little clear guidance and is frankly hostile to the idea of creatives being fairly paid for their efforts. $12.99 is a reasonable asking price for the amount of content and professional quality standard. I did do some napkin math on this and while I won't bore you with the details of my working, all things considered Eberronicon is about on par with the value of a WotC release. If you consider that WotC benefit from economies of scale which simply don't apply to indie publishers, it's easy to realise that this product really couldn't be much cheaper than it already is and still pay its contributors. If the price seems like a lot to you, consider how many times you'll refer to this book as you plan your campaign, how many hours of play it will help facilitate. I could spend more on a cinema ticket!

SCORE OUT OF 4:

Quality

Eberronicon is beautifully presented with an attractive layout, and it makes excellent use of art from DMsGuild creator packs and other artists. The overall impression of quality is very high. If you had a print version, it wouldn't look out of place among the other source books on your shelf.

If you thought that the so-called Pocket Guide to the World would actually fit in a pocket (if in print), you'd be wrong. The page size is actually typical of a product of this kind: US Letter (8.5 x 11inches). I was slightly disappointed by this since I'd thought it would be a nice quirk, and I know pocket-sized RPG books are possible. I have fond memories of the 3.5 era's Mongoose Pocket Player's Handbook!

Considering the book isn't pocket sized after all, the body font is smaller than I'd expect: it's size 10, and bear in mind that a font's size attribute is also relative to the scale of the font itself. For a point of reference that's easily grasped, the scale of Crimson Text is about half that of Arial at the same font size. If I used Arial in my products (I don't, I use Merriweather, but it's almost exactly the same scale as Arial) I wouldn't go lower than font size 10.5 for body text. This means that the size 10 Crimson Text used in Eberronicon is less than half the size I'm comfortable using for body text in my own products. So when I say the font is small, I mean it! It is legible, particularly if the pdf is opened in a full screen window. I wouldn't recommend a window much smaller: I usually like my pdf windows to occupy the right half of my 1920x1080 monitor while I make notes in my word processor on the left side. I couldn't do that with Eberronicon. While the text was still legible to me when scaled down into that window, I found myself straining to read it more than I liked. I didn't test the pdf on a mobile device but it is probably a bit of a pain there too.

On the other hand, there's a positive side to the font size: it means there's much more information squeezed into each page than you'd think, and therefore you're getting better value for money! Honestly though, I'm not sure why it needs to be squeezed in. Why not just use a larger font and have a higher page count?

The writing is excellent and well edited. There are a scant few places which could do with another editorial pass, but nothing I noticed during my read-through is serious enough to be considered a significant detractor in quality.

SCORE OUT OF 6:

Content

Eberronicon is a different kind of product to those I've previously reviewed on this blog: it's all lore, no "crunch". That means this section will be comparatively short as there is no mechanical analysis to undertake.

One thing to note up front: due to the lore heavy nature of this book, it's useful regardless of your preferred edition of D&D (or even if you intend to run a game set in Eberron using another system entirely).

The book is broken up into 7 sections, as follows:

Welcome to Eberron

This short section summarises the defining characteristics of the setting and explains the purpose of the book. In a few short pages it does a very good job of capturing Eberron's essence, and therefore is a good resource if you need to pitch the world to your players (or to your DM!). This section also explains how the rest of the book will include cross-references to existing Eberron material: each subsection includes a "Learn more" entry that lists a source and page number for further reading. I cannot overstate how stupendously useful this is! Particularly for a DM who already owns lots of Eberron books but intends to use the Eberronicon as a quick reference.

Chapter 1: Races

Chapter 1: Races (sample spread)

The book's first true chapter briefly introduces each of the playable races, and up to 6 subsections with interesting lore and plot hooks that would help a DM create campaign elements or a player quickly flesh out their character. To take just one example, the section on Changelings includes 5 subsections:

• The principality of Gray Tide, a changeling homeland founded by a privateer.
• An acknowledgement that changelings are heavily recruited by intelligence agencies, and a list of organisations that would seek to employ them. 
• Lost, a city populated by doppelgangers and changelings and formed of living, shape changing buildings... (that sounds like house hunters to me!) 
• How the people of Riedra consider a changeling's mutable form worthy of reverence, and believe that a good human will reincarnate into a changeling in their next life. 
• An all changeling criminal organisation known as the Tyrants, one of three groups that dominates the underworld of Sharn.

The races described in this chapter are: changelings, dragonborn, drow (which for soem reason get their own section separate from elves, though eladrin do not), dwarves, elves, gnolls, gnomes, goblinoids, half-elves, half-orcs,halflings, kalashtar (psionically gifted humanoids unique to Eberron), kobolds, lizardfolk, orcs, planetouched (aasimar, genasi, tieflings, etc.), shifters (pseudo-werefolk unique to Eberron), and warforged (living constructs unique to Eberron). Some races are given a great deal more attention than others, though that likely owes more to the amount of lore available than any bias on the part of the authors.

The chapter also includes an extremely useful "Other Races" page which provides ideas for how a DM might incorporate other playable races that exist in D&D 5e into Eberron's world. 

Chapter 2: Places

Chapter 2: Places (sample spread)

This chapter is all about important locations: continents, nations, cities, and even planes.
The first part of the chapter lists the world's continents, as well as particularly important locations within those continents. As with Chapter 1, there is significant disparity in how much information is given in each section. Still, it certainly makes sense that Khorvaire has the most detail, given it's the primary continent in terms of Eberron's published literature and where most campaigns are expected to occur. There's a very useful table at the end of this part of the chapter which tells you how to refer to a person hailing from a particular place, as well as how to refer to objects (such as a traditional food) that originate from that place.

The second half of the chapter is an exploration of Eberron's planar cosmology. I'm a sucker for an interesting cosmology so I enjoyed reading this part particularly. Eberron's planes seem to be distinct, separate places (as opposed to the Great Wheel, where travel directly between bordering planes is possible; however, as is the case with most D&D settings, all are connected through the Astral plane. An unusual quirk of this cosmology is that each plane moves, coming near and far from the material plane. As they come nearer, their aspect can influence the material, with the strength of that influence waxing and waning. The effects of that influence are noted in each plane's subsection. Another interesting aspect of Eberron's cosmology is the lack of a fiendish realm. Instead, we learn that fiends are actually native to the deep realm of Khyber, Eberron's equivalent to the Underdark.

Chapter 3: Factions

As you'd expect from the title this chapter details significant organisations that exist in the setting, from established adventuring guilds, to hag covens, warforged supremacy movements, and Rakshasa-led fiendish cults. The chapter also lists well known newspapers as well as scholarships to educational establishments. Naturally, the twelve dragonmarked houses which are so central to Eberron's lore are also described in brief here. There's a lot of story hooks here for DMs and players writing character backgrounds alike!

Chapter 4: Faiths

Chapter 4: Faiths (sample spread)

The introduction to this chapter notes that Eberron's deities are not reachable, and cannot be proven to exist (or not exist): belief in their existence is a matter of faith, and a divine spellcaster's power is derived primarily from their faith rather than the target of that faith. The chapter describes Khorvaire's primary three religions, although it's really two religions. The Dark Six pantheon are former members of the Sovereign Host pantheon, so belief in one set of deities implies belief in the other. Pantheistic worship is the norm for the Sovereign Host, which I appreciate. It's never made sense to me that just because a character worships one god in a fantasy pantheon, they would fail to give due reverence to other deities in the context of their specific domains: even if I happen to be a cleric of the harvest deity, you can bet when I'm at risk of drowning in a shipwreck I'm offering my prayers to a god of the sea! The last of the core religions is the Silver Flame, which is worship of an "eternal force of goodness". Sounds like an ideal source of power for paladin types.

There is also a lengthy section of "Other Religions" which includes a variety of other cultural and racial belief systems, druidic sects, and cults. There's even a subsection on atheism, which is a much more viable approach in a setting where power comes from the act of faith rather than the gods themselves than it is in a world where the existence of the divine is unquestionable.

A great sidebar near the end of this chapter is aimed at D&D 5e DMs: it talks about the reincarnate spell in the context of Eberron and provides a comprehensive alternative reincarnation table. This might actually be a useful resource even for DMs of other settings, as it incorporates other non-Eberron races that have been published after the Player's Handbook. At the very least it could serve as a model for designing your own alternative table for the spell appropriate to your own setting.

Appendix A: Secrets

I'm not going to dwell much on this appendix because, after all, its contents are secret! This is where DMs should look to learn about truths of the setting that should not necessarily be apparent to characters in the world, or (ideally) their players. This is therefore a very useful reference when figuring out what your campaign is going to be about!

Appendix B: Further Reading

This appendix is an impressively curated list of additional resources. Neatly organised tables identify Eberron sourcebooks and adventures from previous editions, and provide an abbreviation for each sourcebook (which you'll find useful when following the "Learn More" notes interspersed throughout the rest of the book). In addition to published sourcebooks and adventures, lists of other sources are provided: Dragon and Dungeon magazine articles, web articles, organized play seasons, novels, and "Kanon" sources ("Kanon" means not technically official, but derived from Keith Baker's writings about his personal version of Eberron).

This appendix is extremely comprehensive! it's a really impressive effort and I can see it being extremely useful both for DMs wanting an easy starting point for their deep dive into lore as well as new Eberron DMs wondering what sources might be their next best investment.

SCORE OUT OF 10:

Final Thoughts and Rating

FINAL SCORE OUT OF 20:
	+		+		=
19 out of 20! A champion's hit!

This is an excellent exploration of the Eberron setting which manages to squeeze an impressive amount of key information into a fairly short book. I wondered early in this review whether a DM could confidently run an Eberron game using only the Eberronicon and I think the answer is yes, to a point. With the brief summaries here you could flesh out your own take on Eberron which captures the same key themes, but without more detail you wouldn't be able to run a version of the world experienced Eberron players would feel at home in. But if you want to flesh out the world in more canonical detail, then this book is also a great boon to you: I'm in awe of the excellent referencing in the Eberronicon which will help any Eberron DM immensely as they plan their campaigns.

There is almost nothing negative to say about Eberronicon, A Pocket Guide to the World. My only real complaint is with the font size of the body text.  As I noted, I found it too small to have the PDF side by side with my notes for this review on my monitor without having to zoom in resulting in significantly more scrolling around as I read than usual. DMs referring to it at their computer while planning their game may have similar difficulties, depending on their monitor size and set up, and I can only assume that it will also be more inconvenient than many other PDFs for mobile devices.

The final word: if you are or intend to be an Eberron DM, this is an astounding resource which you won't regret adding to your collection. It's pretty useful as a player reference, too, just don't sneak a peak at Appendix A! Eberronicon, A Pocket Guide to the World is available on DMsGuild now.

If you're curious whether I've become an Eberron convert based on my reading of this book: I'm probably no more likely to run an Eberron campaign than I was before, since I generally prefer to homebrew my worlds. But I have a new appreciation for the lore of the setting, and I can see better why other DMs and players enjoy the world. While I might not use want to use Eberron as a whole, I'm definitely more likely to take inspiration from it! I'd be more likely to want to play in the world, too.