The grizzled warrior sitting across from me squinted at me with his one good eye, I assume trying to size me up with his intuition. "Are you calling me a fossil?" The scars on his arms leered at me, looking as if their very history would reach out any moment and strike me. "Uh, no. I was asking if you have any tomes on dinosaurs?" I tried to swallow my whiskey with a confidence I wasn't feeling.
This month I thought it might be a treat to take a look at three works that thematically share some ideas with Tomb of Annihilation. Though to be honest, it was just an excuse to talk about dinosaurs. Enjoy.
First is the Tomb of Annihilation Companion by Sean McGovern. I cannot praise the production value of this (and all three) works enough. The author clearly wanted to put out a professional looking product and they did just that. ToA: Companion is meant to assist the DM with prep for parts of Tomb of Annihilation. To this end there are rules for an alternate dinosaur racing system and a number of side adventurers for understanding aspects of the big book. Of particular note is the Jungle Travel section, which provides thirty days of encounters and obstacles for the party to deal with. Including a great bit about foraging that offers a satisfying bit of crunch and flavor if you appreciate such things in your game. Related to this is a Travel Montage that covers seven days of journeying through the jungle. In addition there is a section on Yuan-ti characters that a DM will find useful.
Overall, this is a first class product that is a great companion to ToA and I highly recommend it.
Raiders & Dinosaurs by Tobias Beis. If you are interested in running a prehistoric campaign or have a portion of your game world that has a Lost World feel to it, then Raiders and Dinosaurs will offer some great inspiration for that. The book has races, classes, and a bestiary focused on more primitive and (possibly) dinosaur infested settings. The Saurus-folk and their four sub-races are a welcome addition for those wanting more than just Lizard folk (and dragonborn) for reptilian player-characters. All the classes are talked about in regards to using them in the setting, but the Barbarian, Bard, and Ranger get extra love. I liked the College of Raiders quite a bit and I think you will too.
The book is beautiful and comes with a printer friendly version, which is a nice touch.
Classic Modules Today: X1 The Isle of Dread by Jay Murphy. It would be disingenuous for me to not tell how much I love the original Isle of Dread module. I regularly convert it to use in whatever flavor of D&D I am running and occasionally non-D&D systems as well. All that said, I thoroughly enjoyed this conversion guide, one of many the author has created converting classic modules to 5th edition.
Going beyond mere nostalgia, the guide allows a DM to run Isle of Dread with a minimum of preparatory work. In doing so the guide manages to hold onto the flavor of the original module, making it available and accessible to a new generation of players. The main antagonists are given a modern stat block and some classic BECMI creatures do as well. The traps are also updated and the monsters in the module are listed on where to find them in the 5th edition material. If you like classic modules, then grab this book and the others in the series, it is well worth your time.
contributed by Sean Hillman
This month I thought it might be a treat to take a look at three works that thematically share some ideas with Tomb of Annihilation. Though to be honest, it was just an excuse to talk about dinosaurs. Enjoy.
First is the Tomb of Annihilation Companion by Sean McGovern. I cannot praise the production value of this (and all three) works enough. The author clearly wanted to put out a professional looking product and they did just that. ToA: Companion is meant to assist the DM with prep for parts of Tomb of Annihilation. To this end there are rules for an alternate dinosaur racing system and a number of side adventurers for understanding aspects of the big book. Of particular note is the Jungle Travel section, which provides thirty days of encounters and obstacles for the party to deal with. Including a great bit about foraging that offers a satisfying bit of crunch and flavor if you appreciate such things in your game. Related to this is a Travel Montage that covers seven days of journeying through the jungle. In addition there is a section on Yuan-ti characters that a DM will find useful.
Overall, this is a first class product that is a great companion to ToA and I highly recommend it.
Raiders & Dinosaurs by Tobias Beis. If you are interested in running a prehistoric campaign or have a portion of your game world that has a Lost World feel to it, then Raiders and Dinosaurs will offer some great inspiration for that. The book has races, classes, and a bestiary focused on more primitive and (possibly) dinosaur infested settings. The Saurus-folk and their four sub-races are a welcome addition for those wanting more than just Lizard folk (and dragonborn) for reptilian player-characters. All the classes are talked about in regards to using them in the setting, but the Barbarian, Bard, and Ranger get extra love. I liked the College of Raiders quite a bit and I think you will too.
The book is beautiful and comes with a printer friendly version, which is a nice touch.
Classic Modules Today: X1 The Isle of Dread by Jay Murphy. It would be disingenuous for me to not tell how much I love the original Isle of Dread module. I regularly convert it to use in whatever flavor of D&D I am running and occasionally non-D&D systems as well. All that said, I thoroughly enjoyed this conversion guide, one of many the author has created converting classic modules to 5th edition.
Going beyond mere nostalgia, the guide allows a DM to run Isle of Dread with a minimum of preparatory work. In doing so the guide manages to hold onto the flavor of the original module, making it available and accessible to a new generation of players. The main antagonists are given a modern stat block and some classic BECMI creatures do as well. The traps are also updated and the monsters in the module are listed on where to find them in the 5th edition material. If you like classic modules, then grab this book and the others in the series, it is well worth your time.
contributed by Sean Hillman
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