After reviewing Paizo's "Dungeoneer's Handbook", it only seems fair to review Wizards' offering on the same topic, "Into the Unknown: The Dungeon Survival Handbook". This is a 160-page hardcover book costing $29.95. It is presented like most of Wizards' 4E products in a clear and readable format with a fair bit of art.

The book is designed for both players and Dungeon Masters. Although it contains a moderate amount of rules material, far more significant is the wealth of advice and inspirational material for players and DMs alike. Of course, tastes may vary and you might find the material too much aimed at the new player. Let's have a look at what is actually in the book.

Chapter 1: Dungeon Delvers
This chapter gives new rules options for player characters. About 24 pages are given over to new Character Themes, which can be added to any character. A Theme gives new (minor) features to a character at levels 1, 5 and 10, and gives the option of taking utility powers at levels 2, 6 and 10 instead of one of your class's powers. The list of themes is as follows: Bloodsworn (sworn to destroy an enemy), Deep Delver (skilled at surviving underground), Escaped Thrall (escaped from a underworld slaver race), Trapsmith (skilled at making traps), Treasure Hunter (after treasure above all else), Underdark Envoy (skilled at diplomacy and manipulation), and the Underdark Outcast (an exiled loner from a deep race).

24 pages, 7 themes. That's a lot of real estate! The rules material for each fits on less than a page with the remainder being made up a description of the theme, notes on how to play them and build them, with two or three sample motivations and behaviours for each class. In addition, a sample character for each is described in terms of origin story, values and motivations, roleplaying and how to create such a character.

The next section of this chapter details three new Races, covering the Goblin, Kobold and Svirfneblin. Apart from the basic rules options, each new race also gets about two pages of new feats and racial utility powers. Further space is used for role-playing and ecology notes for the races, including suggestions for integrating them into a party. This takes up 18 pages in all.

The chapter ends with a selection of new Dungeon-Themed Powers, consisting of both class powers and skill powers. There aren't a great number of powers for any one class - the rogue gets the lion's share with three new powers, the wizard doesn't get any! - but there are a total of 24 class powers and 20 skill powers here. What is most interesting about the powers is how they are presented: each is associated with an organisation or philosophy, and details are given to help build the story and role-play around those organisations. So, you get "Fear of the Dark" (powers related to surviving in dark places), "Secrets of the Deep Guides" (an organisation who explore and navigate the underdark), "Shadows of the Ziggurat" (characters under the influence of or fighting the aberrant creatures of the Far Realm), "Seekers of Lost Lore" (what it says), "Thieves' Guild of Maelbrathyr" (inhabitants of a city that was dragged beneath the surface of the earth ages ago), "From the Vault of the Drow" (powers created by the drow), and "Battle Tactics of Cor Talcor" (a dwarven fortress of warriors). This section uses 20 pages.

Chapter 2: Strive to Survive
The next section of the book is filled with advice for players - and some inspiration for Dungeon Masters. Taking up 46 pages, it begins with explaining some tips for delving into dungeons, covers various dungeon types, the major denizens you can expect to meet there, before describing eight of the classic dungeons of D&D's past, and ending with a few new items - mundane and alchemical - the party might need.

Alas, there is no section on mapping, but there are the Top 5 Rules of Dungeon Delving: Don't Split the Party; Map everything; Gear up; Track time and Know when to turn back.

The Expert Delving Tactics covered are Climbing, Darkness, Secret Doors, Stealth, Clear the Rooms, Rest Stops, Sustenance, Water Dangers, Traps, Hazards, and Rituals. The advice covers appropriate rules when necessary, but also covers quite a bit of advice for non-rules-based play. The section on secret doors notes that you can automatically find doors by actually pressing and prodding the area where you the door is - see if water drains away and the reaction of a candle flame. This advice feels very AD&D in nature, and is obviously dependent on your DM letting you play in that way. All the advice is aimed more at the new player of D&D than old experienced hands, but there's material here that I believe my players would benefit from.

The section on Dungeon Types is very interesting and of especial use to DMs. It covers Caves, Crypts, Death Traps, Floating Castles(!), Ice Palaces, Magic Laboratories, Mines, Prisons, Sewers, Volcanoes and Warrens. Each is described in terms of Variations, Exploring, Dangers, Inhabitants and Rewards. I really like the format here, because it provides good suggestions for both players and DMs. A few sidebars provide additional suggestions for DMs on the challenges that might be faced.

The section on Dungeon Denizens gives two or three paragraphs to each monster, with rumours and knowledge about the various threats - such as Otyughs, Drow, Mind Flayers and Rust Monsters. This is much more aimed at the new player, although a few of the notes made me chuckle. "In dwarven culture, not killing a rust monster one encounters is a crime, and some adventurers claim that dragons hired them to clear out nests of the creatures lurking near their hordes."

The section on Infamous Dungeons is one of my favourites, covering Castle Ravenloft, Ghost Tower of Inverness, The Lost City, Pyramid of Amun-Re, White Plume Mountain, Tomb of Horrors, Temple of Elemental Evil and Gates of Firestorm Peak. Chris Perkins has a sidebar explaining what this section is about - 'This section provides fodder for your imagination, a "behind the curtain" peek at eight dungeons littered with the gnawed-on skeletal remains of adventurers from bygone D&D campaigns. If any of these descriptions whet your appetite, urge your DM to take a crack at running them... If [converting them to 4E] doesn't interest your DM, then at least you can use any description that sounds appealing to give him or her an idea of the kind of dungeon you'd like to explore.'

Each dungeon also comes with a background associated with it - Barovian Escapee and Blessed of Zargon to name two - that can be used in a campaign featuring the dungeon or one similar.

The final section gives a few items that I've missed from 4E's lists - such as the bull's eye lantern and ten-foot pole - as well as a few new ones, such as the ruby lenses and vial bandolier. Six new alchemical items - including aboleth slime and stone eater - end the chapter.

Chapter 3: Master of the Dungeon
The final chapter in the book - all 17 pages of it - concentrates on the Dungeon Master's role in running a dungeon-based campaign. This doesn't concentrate on rules elements, though there are some here, but rather on elements to think about when crafting the campaign. "Involving the Characters" discusses how to give the characters a personal stake in what is happening and making them better immersed in what's happening, including additional hints for characters using one of the themes from chapter 1, as well as looking at issues dealing with exploration and mysteries.

"Creating an Underdark Adventure" looks at tricks to give the feel of an Underdark adventure, and includes a skill challenge for underground challenge. "Dungeon Makers" gives suggestions of personalising dungeons depending on who made them, and "Special Rewards" ends the chapter with a few unusual items of power (and companions) the group might be rewarded by during the adventure.

Two appendices finish the book.

Appendix 1: Build Your Own Dungeon concentrates on the steps of actually designing and writing down your dungeon creation.
Appendix 2: Random Dungeons gives a number of random tables to help design dungeons with, looking at "involving the characters", "who, what where?", "why and how?", and "populating a dungeon". You can get some goofy results, but they're likely to be a starting point for a DM lacking inspiration.

Conclusion
The expanded size of Wizards' "Into the Unknown" compared to Paizo's "Dungeoneer's Handbook" gives the former a distinct advantage: it has more room in which to cover the subject. And it uses it well. The focus of the book is interesting: it gives a lot of advice for new through intermediate players on how to play the game, but it combines this with a major focus on story, plot and character. The mechanical elements of the book are minor compared to this: the book seeks to give inspiration, not just tools.

With respect to the the actual mechanics, the new races and themes work really well. The new powers are more hit and miss; some work well and others seem entirely too weak or flavourless.

However, if you're getting this book just for new mechanics, you'd be better served by picking up a subscription to D&D Insider, where all of the new rules elements also appear. Because the book tries to help you infuse your game with more story and character, it's a hard one to properly assess. Do you really need the advice and ideas? I can only give you my reaction to it, which is largely favourable. Parts of it don't really work for me, but the far greater part I find very enjoyable to read. I hope that, if you have it, it gives you the same enjoyment.

Books such as the Dungeoneer's Handbook by Paizo need to be really good to impress me. At US$10.99 for a 32 page book, you're paying a premium price for not very much information, and so the book has to be superb to be worth the cover price. The book looks beautiful, with full colour throughout and glossy pages. It's a Paizo book, and they have great production values. But what does the book include?

The book starts with an overview of dungeons, dividing them into categories (Conquered, Fortress, Guardian, Natural, Overrun, Ruined, Magical and Mega). Following that is a discussion of Preparing for a Dungeon, and then one on Traps. The section on Monsters discusses how players can do more with monsters than just kill them, and then a section on Treasures concentrates on how to carry treasure as well as alerting the reader that knowledge is as much a treasure as gold or magic.

Two pages are devoted to a major new concept: Dungeon Guides, books that have been written by past explorers that give help to adventurers exploring the dungeon they describe. In particular, they give bonuses to certain skill checks in a dungeon, as well as having an intrinsic accuracy rating that allows knowledge-like checks for such information as what lies ahead on the map, hints on how to solve puzzles, or the location of traps.

A section on Famous Dungeons of Golarion, which mostly matches a map on the inside cover, gives brief descriptions of some of the dungeons that have appeared in Pathfinder products, although it doesn't give where they appeared, which irritated me. A section on hirelings gives very brief description of Chroniclers, Fences and Sages before spending most of the time describing the Torchbearer.

New Archetypes are given for Rangers (Dungeon Rover), Monks (Terra-Cotta Monk) and Alchemists (Trap Breaker), and there are six pages of new equipment and two pages of new spells. Finally, the back cover gives four new regional traits for those born in or around dungeon locations.

The first half of the book mostly consists of advice on dungeon adventuring, but its nature makes me query what audience this book is for. Some of it, such as the types of dungeons section, would far better be in a DM supplement than a player supplement. If the book were aimed at beginners, I would have liked to see discussion on mapping techniques, party marching order, listening at doors and similar basic techniques needed to survive a dungeon along with the other advice. However, that isn't included. Instead, there's advice on talking to monsters and researching dungeons before you enter them. This isn't to say that the advice is poor: what is included should help a group prepare for the challenges a lot better. However, there's a lot of words to say not all that much, and much of it which most players probably knew. (Did you know that a bag of holding helps you carry treasure?)

The game material suffers from a common problem with Pathfinder supplemental material: it's too specific in effect. Characters don't get enough feats to be wasting them on stuff like Arcane Trap Suppressor (your dispel magic or greater dispel magic lasts 1d4 minutes against magic traps instead of 1d4 rounds) or Cursed Item Detection (+2 bonus to identify magic items, and only need to beat the DC of an object by 5 rather than 10 to determine if it's cursed). That last might be useful if your GM hates you and keeps putting in cursed magic items, but how often will it really be useful in a game? Let's point out that the feat doesn't scale like Skill Focus or Magical Aptitude (which double their bonus once you have 10 ranks in a skill), and the comparison becomes particularly painful.

Some of the items are quite nice: the thieves' ring, which conceals a set of picks is great, as is the phosphorescent gel, which glows for an hour before exploding in a burst of light and flame. However, I'm particularly unhappy with the Thieves' Tool Extenders, which allow you to unpick locks from five feet away (or longer). As a non-magical device, they seem quite impractical.

Six spells are presented here, few of any general use. Create Holds, which creates hand-holds to climb a wooden or stone wall, but not metal or anything harder, is actually less useful and of higher level (for druids) than Stone Shape. Determine Depth (which determines how much barrier there is between you and open space) is particularly amusing for the DM as there's a maximum depth it can determine and all distances above that are reported as that depth. So, does the DM actually mean 50' or 500'? Let's teleport and find out! (Or not).

However, the winner of most bizarre spell of the book goes to Nature's Ravages, a spell which ages a corpse (1 day/2 caster levels) so that it decomposes more rapidly. Unfortunately, there's no indication of what this does to an average corpse. How long does it take a human corpse to become purely bone? Or dust? The kicker is that there's actually a Greater Nature's Ravages spell as well - Cleric 8, Witch 7 - which ages a corpse 1 year per caster level. It's a nice idea, but its usefulness is extremely debatable.

The AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide had an extensive section on hiring sages, giving details as to their knowledge of various areas and how long it would take to find the answer. That was before the Knowledge skills were introduced in 3E, so the Pathfinder version doesn't need to be as long. So how good are a sage's knowledge skills? No idea. It costs 15 gp per day to hire a sage, and "given time, a sage can puzzle out the answer to almost any question or riddle relating to her area of expertise." Actual bonuses for Knowledge skills? None are given. Useful, this is not.

Far more attention is given to the torchbearer. At 5th level, a character can take the Torchbearer feat, which allows them to take a 1st-level cohort (alchemist, bard, fighter, ranger or rogue only) into the dungeon who must take the Torch Handling feat (allowing them to use the torch as a simple weapon, increase the light radius of the torch, and to reroll one saving throw that might extinguish the torch). At 8th level, the Torchbearer feat changes into regular Leadership, and your torchbearer now follows the normal rules for cohorts. Oh, and three torchbearer archetypes are also given, which can be taken by regular PCs... if you want bonuses to hide with your horses, this is the way to do it! It should be noted that none of the torchbearer's abilities allow them to survive better in the dungeon, so let's hope a troll doesn't attack them or they get in the area of effect of a fireball spell. Wouldn't it be easier to just hire a local lad to hold a torch in the dungeon for a few gold a day?

Ultimately, I can't recommend the book at all. Trying to find things I like in the book is exceedingly difficult, and I can't really see my players using much of it. It reads like a book written its four authors to fill a slot in the monthly publishing schedule, which it probably was.

I really don’t know how I’ve gone this long without reviewing this book. I’ve known about it for quite some time, and have been using it for the last several weeks in my home game, yet somehow writing a review didn’t occur to me. That oversight ends now.

I think that for everyone who plays a d20 System game, be it Pathfinder, d20 Modern, 3.5, d20 Future or whatnot, that there’s a sense of frustration with how patchwork the system’s exception-based rules are. That is, if you have an idea for a character, you can try to design an appropriate facsimile, but unless it happens to fall within some very specific parameters, there’ll be some aspect of the character creation mechanics that doesn’t quite fit with what you had in mind.

This, of course, leads to one of two things. Either you modify your expectations to fit within what the “class level” structure allows, or you go on a never-ending hunt for splatbooks and third-party supplements in hopes of finding new rules that will let you build exactly what it is you’re looking for.

Have you ever wanted to build a character that can shapeshift into different forms, but isn’t a druid, or even a spellcaster? What about a character that is able to manipulate fire via dancing? Or one whose spellcasting ability is limited by physical ability, rather than “prepared” spells? How many supplements and sourcebooks would you have to comb through to find rules that could let you play those characters? For that matter, how many would have rules to make ALL of those characters, and whatever others you can imagine?

The correct answer is: one. That being Eclipse: The Codex Persona, from Distant Horizons Games.

Weighing in at just over two hundred pages, Eclipse is an OGL supplement that has generously been made available for free. There’s also a page for a pay-for version of the book, which is completely the same as the free version in every way. In essence, the pay-for version is a tip jar, allowing you to pay for the book if you feel so inclined. Given that this book is essentially the same as every other character book ever released, that’s a staggering level of generosity.

The book hits the technical high marks for what’s expected of a PDF: copy-and-paste is enabled, and there are full, nested bookmarks present. Most helpfully, there is a link to the authors’ blog – I’ll mention why this is helpful shortly.

I should take a moment to mention the artwork. Entirely black and white, the artwork seems to be a mixture of stock art and works from the public domain. Moreover, most pieces are given a humorous caption. I say “humorous” because these captions tend to be of the Monty Python variety (in terms of how they read, rather than any specific quotations). For example, the illustration in the section on shapeshifting is of a woman with inhuman hands licking at her fingers. The caption? “Is it cannibalism if I wasn’t human when I ate him?” They’re pretty much all like that, though some are real groaners. As someone who loves making bad jokes (especially puns) I was tickled by these, but they might induce strain due to excessive eye-rolling in other readers. Be warned.

So now, having said all of that, just what IS Eclipse: The Codex Persona?

Simply put, Eclipse is a point-buy method of character generation for the d20 System. It wasn’t the first book to release a point-buy system, nor was it the most popular (thus far), but it is by far the most successful. Let’s get to why.

The book’s first section introduces the fundamentals. Basically, characters get twenty-four Character Points (CP) at each level. These points can be spent on a variety of things, ranging from the basics (Hit Dice, weapon/armor proficiencies, base attack bonuses, save bonuses, and skill points), to spellcasting abilities, to the much more colorful powers in chapter two, with things like damage reduction, the ability to actively block incoming attacks, esoteric means of communication, and so much more.

A review must, of course, gloss over some details, which is a shame since the first two chapter that detail these myriad abilities take up roughly a third of the book. But there’s something more fundamental that must be taken into account. While a large list of abilities that can be purchased is absolutely necessary to any point-buy system, it’s ultimately going to be limited – it has to be, since no single book can possibly list every ability that will ever be thought of in every other sourcebook, right?

Well, not exactly, no.

What makes Eclipse unique is that it gives a method for tailoring EVERYTHING that can be bought with Character Points, allowing you to alter them as necessary to fit with your idea for how they should work. How does it do this, you ask? By utilizing two related concepts: corruption, and specialization.

To be clear, both of these terms are referring to the same basic idea: that by placing some sort of limitation on an ability, you can give it a corresponding increase in another manner OR you can reduce the amount of Character Points the ability costs. The terms “corruption” is used to refer to a comparatively mild limitation, while the term “specialization” refers to a more severe one. It’s by using these abilities to modify the existing powers that you can create virtually limitless abilities.

For example, the Empowerment special ability lets you use your own ability score modifiers and caster level when activating a magic item, up to (3 + Int mod) times per day (sort of like how magic staves are normally). That costs 6 CP. But you could specialize that ability by limiting it to just, say, magic wands. By accepting that degree of limitation, you can choose to either cut the price in half (3 CP), or keep the full price, but remove the “per day” modifier. So when you make a character that’s a self-styled “Master of Wands” – with little actual spellcasting power, but is able to use magic wands far better than most fully-fledged wizards – you can easily distinguish him from other run-of-the-mill wizards and sorcerers.

The third chapter of the book builds on this, exploring what it calls “paths and powers.” These are, largely, more of the same, but where the first two chapters presented individual abilities that were largely unconnected, the various sections in chapter three showcase powers that have various sub-abilities. For example, channeling is the basic “turn/rebuke undead” power that clerics have. Here, however, not only can you manipulate how powerfully and how often you can channel positive or negative energy, you can do so much more. Beyond things like not needing a holy symbol, you can convert the energy into spell effects, turn or rebuke other types of creatures, grant bonuses to magic weapons, animate corpses, and so much more.

Many of the new abilities presented in chapter three are different systems for using magic. Skill-based magic systems, for example, have multiple different presentations here. So are low-level psychic powers, high-level direct manipulations of magic, mystical artistry, eldritch connections to a land you rule, and even divine ascension, among others.

Chapter four concerns itself solely with epic-level magic. This may seem very specific, but with the various ways to manipulate spellcasting (did I mention the metamagic theorems in chapter two?), it becomes something of a practical concern…depending on the sort of campaign you run. The spells here don’t use, surprisingly, any kind of new system of magic. Rather, they still use spell levels, ranging from level ten spells all the way up through level twenty-four.

It’s in chapter five that we move away from mechanics and more towards how to utilize what’s in the book. There’s a section for players here, and a section for GMs. The player section largely discusses the type of character you want to build, which is more helpful than it sounds when you can build pretty much anything you want. For GMs, the advice is even more practical – any role-playing game system can be abused by problem players, and in an open system like Eclipse, this requires a more proactive GM. Issues of deciding ahead of time what powers (and combinations of powers) should be disallowed are dealt with, in addition to suggestions and advice for what to do if a character goes out of control. Some templates and sample epic-level monsters help to round out the GMs tools.

A few appendices close out the book. There’s a quick example of chakras, presented as an in-game reason for disallowing certain power combinations. The second and third appendix take standard 3.5 and d20 Modern classes and show how they’d be built in Eclipse, along with how to take standard feats using Eclipse abilities. Some helpful worksheets are the last thing given.

If you’ve read this far, you probably have a pretty good sense that I’m a big fan of Eclipse. The author says in the foreword that none of his players want to use any other character-building options besides what’s here, and having gotten a chance to use the book in my own game, I can completely understand why. Why go back to digging through various books to hodge-podge together a character that resembles what you wanted to make, when you can use one book to put together exactly the PC you really want to play?

Of course, that doesn’t mean that Eclipse is a book against which no criticism can be leveled. The biggest critique that can be said of the book is that it’s horribly lacking where examples are concerned. This is no small complaint, as the system is a fairly complex one to understand, especially if you’re expecting more of the fairly rigid class-level structure from standard d20 games. There are numerous points where a helpful example would go a long way towards making things clearer.

To be fair, the book does have examples for some sections, but these are few and far between. The system is, I believe, fairly intuitive…but only after you’ve made a significant investment in understanding exactly what it’s offering and how it goes about doing it. Luckily, there’s a remedy for this: remember the authors’ blog that I mentioned earlier? It has a plethora of sample characters and items built with Eclipse (including my favorite articles on how to build 100% Pathfinder-compatible characters using the book), and more than fills the need for examples of what can be done with Eclipse.

It’s also important to keep Eclipse’s limits in mind. The book allows for many options in building characters, and while this often brushes up against many other parts of the d20 System, there are some that it doesn’t replace. For example, there are many different ways to manipulate the skill system with the powers here, but the system itself is independent of Eclipse (which is why it works with d20 Modern skills, 3.5 skills, Pathfinder skills, etc.). There are different ways to build magic items, but magic items themselves aren’t dealt with here (though relics, which are similar, are). Eclipse is a powerful character generator, but it’s not a complete replacement for your d20 game of choice.

My understanding is that Eclipse is so named because it “eclipses” all other character-building options in the d20 System, and I can honestly say that it does. Think of every fictional character you’ve ever read, watched, or heard about; you can make them all here. You may still need to increase the amount of levels necessary to do it, but it can be done. The Codex Persona is exactly what it promises, and is still completely compatible with whatever d20 game you’re playing, to boot. So put on your protective eyewear and look into the Eclipse.

Again, I do not see an existing review, so if there is one that I missed, my apologies.

Specs (since I saw other reviews with them, I thought I'd plagiarize (ahem) borrow, that idea.
Curse of the Kingspire (M2), for Level 4-6 party
$16
copyright Goodman Games 2009, written by Harley Stroh
One 64-page book
--Title page (1)
--Contents Page (1)
--Intro/Summary (1)
--List of Encounters (1)
--Getting Started (2 pages)
--Art (4 full pages, 4 half-pages, numerous small)
--Handouts (2 pages-1 full, 2 halves)
--Maps (6)
--Legalese disclaimers (1)

The last 2 reviews I wrote were pretty negative (one damning). I am happy to report that this will be much better.
"Strange mists and weird lights glimmer and seethe along the banks of the Drachenvold Swamp. Kingshire folk have vanished like ghosts into the swamp, leaving only strange idols in their wake. At the heart of the fetic marsh, ruins of an ancient keep are all that remain of a once mighty band of rebel eladrin lords."
"But the ruined keep is home to a hungry curse capable of drawing the heroes back through time and space. Cast into a foreign realm of endless horror and bloodshed, it will take all your courage and cunning to end...The Curse of the Kingspire."
The image on the cover is another classic Clyde Caldwell, and has little-to-nothing to do with the story. But it is very pretty.

Summary: the adventure starts like many others I've seen for 4th ed--the party has to investigate a fringe village where people have started a cult worshiping daemons or devils. But the actual source of the power feeding the cultists turns out to be entirely different. After fighting their way (or even just sneaking) into the cult and investigating the ruins, the cult's ritual finishes (it moves at the speed of "Plot"), sending the party to a pocket dimension where the ancient Eladrin fortress is reliving the same day (ala 12:01 (excellent movie) or Groundhog Day (meh--over-rated)) for the last couple thousand years. Unfortunately, that day is the day the fortress was sacked and destroyed by marauding proto-human barbarian hordes. Everything follows a set pattern. There is a way out. There are three major factions vying for the power to change the situation, each with his or her own agenda. The party ends up being sent to find a lost artifact at the bottom foundations of the remote mountain on which the fortress sits. The king's brother took it and left right after the spell sealing the fortress into this pocket was first cast. The players can participate in a full cycle if they wish. The rough chronicle of what happens when comes in handy. If a character dies, the party can wait until the end of the cycle, when everyone who has died is brought back. But there is a price to be paid.

Monsters:
Witch of Drachenvold, Ancient Crocodiles, Jumping spiders, "Joh Ocat" Watch Captain, Huntsman, Miller's Apprentice, Swamp Zombies, Decrepit Swamp Zombies, Phantasms
---------------
Archers, Woodsman, Village Cultists, Ruined Gargoyles, "Arkos" cult leader, Cult Champion, Initiate
-----------
Savage Warchief, Barbarian Champions, Barbarian Archers, Barbarian Warriors, Eladrin Knight of Elihai, "Nyrae" the Crow King, Shadow Cat, Vizier, Red Shard Dragon, Eladrin Archers, Lady Ariarch, Pseudo Dragon, Gargoyles, War Bear, Torturer (lesser Formorian), Mad Gaoler, Rat Swarms, Dire Rats, Feywracked Impalers, Feywracked Knight, Feywracked Shawman, Devourer Worm

New Magic Items: The RuneBlade +3 LifeDrinker Greatsword artifact (one of 4)

Other thoughts:
This adventure includes a number of fights that the party, frankly, cannot win. This is about the overwhelming hordes of barbarians storming the castle. The destruction of the fortress in inevitable. And, everything that dies comes back to life. At best, the party participating in direct combat will result in a delay. At the end of the 13-hour cycle, the hordes attacking the fortress as well as the defenders all start where they were. Other encounters can be played either as combats or role-playing. The party has many options for sneaking around and learning. While investigating the fortress ruins during the cultists' ceremony, they can find objects and information that will be useful when bounced into the horror of the Fortress' last day (again).
These proto-eladrin that staff the fortress are clearly more connected to the feywild--their Eladrin encounter teleport is 7, instead of the usual 5.
This could be a quick & easy into to bouncing a party into Ravenloft.
If the RuneBlade is 1 of 4 blades crafted, maybe the party will find the other three?
There is one math problem with the last portion of this adventure (about the speed of the elevator), which could have been easily cleared up. Knowing the speed in minutes is not as helpful as knowing how many rounds ____ will take, and is important during one of the final fights.
During hour 2, a feast is prepared. During hour 3 there is a battle event. During hour 4 it is consumed. So, for an hour, it just sits on the tables, getting cold?
"It feels like hours going down the stairs." Given that time is a factor, the number of hours it would take (minimum) would be worth mentioning. As would the time climbing back up.
There are some very nice traps in here, both clever and well detailed.
The factional warfare in the court of the Crow King does remind me of Demon Queen's Enclave, but not as severely hateful.
There is a nice touch in one bit about the guards giving up on gambling, since the next day everything resets back to where it was (including coins, so what's the point of winning?). Would the cards turn out the same every hand? Is there no chance of random chance anymore?
Likewise the court wizard might be very generous with the magic items in her possessions and treasures, knowing that they will be back where they were if the party fails (or just at the end of the 13-hour cycle).
Having read the module, I am looking forward to eventually running this one.

Menagerie of the Ice Lord is a low level adventure for Labyrinth Lord (basically Basic and Expert D&D) from Dylan Hartwell of the Digital Orc blog. It's digest sized, about 40 pages plus the cover and the map, so about the equivalent of a 20 page module in normal format. It was $3.99 in print (now sold out apparently) but also available from RPGNow in PDF form for $2.99 I think. This is a review of the print version.

The premise is one of the classic setups of the fantasy genre - a wizard has vanished and has probably died, so it's time to go and loot his tower. There's also something of a side plot about the weather, since he vanished, it's gotten worse. And as you can tell by the name of the module, he was a collector of strange animals, which of course have gotten loose.

Okay, so far, it might not sound like the most original module in the world, but it's well done. The originality comes from the new monsters it contains, around 30 of them, packed into the magician's mansion's 100 rooms. Not all of them are great, some are fairly simple variations on existing monsters, but about 10 are really neat.

For instance, one really creepy monster (which is shown on his blog) is the Chandelier Spider. It's essentially a spider that hangs from the ceiling and resembles a chandelier, so often catches people by surprise.

As mentioned, there are 100 rooms described. Some are done very simply, most are described with a sentence or two, a few get longer descriptions. There's a good number of interesting rooms, not just simply bedroom, library, etc, though it has those as well. But nothing really bizarre.

Example:

13) Ballroom: Polished hardwood floors and small stage hold dusty music instruments. A barrel beast (statblock*) is trying to eat a stuffed elk head.

* And then later there is a full monster manual type entry in the back of the module.

What's interesting is that there really isn't any traditional sort of loot. No coins, no jewels, etc. Mostly it's what the characters can scrounge up. There are three magical weapons to be had though. One is essentially a +1 scimitar of speed (only a long sword), another a +1 battle axe, and finally a battle axe that is reasonably good against black dragons, but worse than useless against everything else. Each one had a lengthy description and history.

There's also a treasure that is magical wine - it states that it gives the drinker a permanent extra 1d4 hit points. And there are 15 bottles of them. I would imagine it would be best to limit how many times a character can gain a benefit from it. Or possibly instead treat them as healing potions (which might have been the intent?)

It says it's for characters levels 1-5, but that might be a bit on the high side. I ran it with 6 AD&D characters (2 2nd level Fighters, 1 3rd level Fighter/MU, 1 1st level Cleric, 1 3rd level Thief, and 1 3rd level MU) and they absolutely stomped the creatures I thought they might have trouble with. (They didn't fight the toughest creature in the module, but that was clearly one of those monsters the PCs aren't supposed to fight, but avoid.) Pretty easy going for them.

Then again, AD&D characters are noticeably stronger than B/X D&D/LL ones, so I probably should have bumped the monsters up a little. But it also could have been luck. The fighters seemed to roll high most the time and the cleric and thief low.

The monster distribution could be better. There are a lot of empty rooms, but two of the tougher monsters are right next to each other. Which makes some sense in the context (there are two people trapped), but in general the first floor seems to be the hardest floor. It would have been nice for the NPCs in the mansion to have some details about personality and such. The ones outside got them, and they seem somewhat less important.

Bottom line, it was a fun and charming module. Although apparently meant to be just a one shot, it does have some plot hooks to extend things further if you wish. For instance, somehow fixing the weather that has gotten worse. Unfortunately, this isn't explained all too well, it seems to imply that it's the body of the wizard causing the problem (by my reading).

There are also tie-ins to the authors other modules, which I don't have, but was going to order, except the print versions are apparently sold out, and thus only are available in PDF form, which isn't my favorite or the easy for me to use. But still, if you like PDFs, you might check them out. While it's a truly exceptional value in print form (it even included shipping), it's still a very good deal in PDF form.

B

This is my first review of a mod here. I checked for an existing one and did not find it.

So, let's start with the primary asset: the artwork.
The artwork in this module is wonderful. Sadly, in the case of the maps, the pretty art work makes them more difficult to actually read.
The mechanics, frankly, were lacking. A monster that does d20+4 damage? why? why not the more conventional 2d10, 2d12, 3d8, 4d6, or 3d6? That would be more in keeping with normal mechanics and result in higher average damage. Other mechanics are a bit off too. Stealth checks to pick locks?
Introduces a whole new monster origin & keyword, "NeverVoid", which is only going to matter for this module. Why? Why not just Outsider with Intangible keywords (which is essentially what they were)? The magic items... Some were good. Others would be totally useless outside of this module. In fact, since almost all of them involve damaging other PCs, there is little advantage in using most of them during the mod. Kind of like having a party where the goal is as much to mess with the other characters as it is to fight the mod. (themes from Book of Vile Darkness or a Dark Pact Warlock--if that's what you want to play, this is the type of mod for you) About the best way to go through this would be with 2 leaders for healing and 3 defenders for having the surges that the magic items keep burning. One of the final monsters is an elite, which means it has a Action Point--something the mod forgets to mention. The mechanic of the 2-in-1 monster could have used some clarification (yeah, I figured it out, but it shouldn't have needed figuring in the first place).
Magic items have mechanical problems too. Some give levels, others don't. Some of the ones that don't you can look up by checking monetary value. Others... No way to check, so best guess. There are +2 magic weapons that are lvl5, even though +2 items don't start until lvl6. Many items have powers that render the user or an ally unconscious (usually save ends). Then there's the Ire-Brand Scimitar, which is cursed with -2 to -6 to hit (lvl 8, 13, 18, 23 or 28), and as an immediate reaction encounter power, add 3d8 to a successful hit. Um, what triggers this reaction? You can't use immediate actions on your own turn, so I can only guess this is for Oppies or defender mark retribution attacks (Fighter Challenge, Divine Sanction, Mind Spike, etc). There are more features to the weapon, but the mechanical oddities struck me as deal breakers. Diadem of Shattered Moments: Daily Immediate Reaction (to what? lose 1 surge, take d12+3, fall unconscious for d4 rounds, close burst 5, creatures within burst are unconscious (save ends, enemies at -2). So... why would I want that?

"Fast, Cinematic, and Horrific"? meh. Fast is a style of play. Cinematic and Horrific? Been here, done this before. Old Ravenloft modules usually did a better job. Characters have a chance to learn new spells/powers/rituals, all of which will be useless after this mod.
The story ending? Not that big a deal.
The worst part of all, however, is a repeated grammar error. "It would appear that every single body has been systematically drug into this chamber--" Drug? DRUG? no. No no no. No. NOOOOOOOOOOooooohhhhhhhhhh. $#&% NO. DRAGGED! They might as well have said "Snuck" or "Bleeded out". Even MS Word should have balked at this. And given this is a REVISION 2.0, that kind of error being overlooked is just disgusting.
Having read the mod, there is no way I would ever run it as is. At best, I might borrow a couple of magic items.
But again, the art work is very nice.

I can't believe I'm the first one to look at this, but I cannot find a previous review. Please redirect if I'm just being thick or blind, or whatever.

OK.
Thoughts on the mod. Some side-view maps would be very helpful in a couple of places.
Zain-kin throw rocks for 10 rounds? what combat lasts 10 rounds? Only time that has ever happened to me was when the party triggered a double-encounter, or there was just a high-level brute bag of HP.
Lvl 1 party is up against a lot of LVL 5 monsters.
In the swamp area, which square are the monsters in? The markers are at intersections.
Monsters go to investigate any activity within 5? Um, that means on island 2, the snake (lvl5 elite soldier) and plant (lvl 5 controller) are both going to show up. Against a lvl1 party. That seems a bit much.

Then in the middle of the mod we get advice on how to be a good DM, including reading the whole mod before running. Thanks. Doesn't everyone do that? That's been a standard since 1st ed.

I suppose this is OK, but I don't know that I would ever run this one without some reworking.