Freaking Awesome 3rd Party Books That Don't Get Enough Praise

Got your tax return? Spend 'em on some of this GREAT stuff that kind of gets swept under the carpet. Things are pretty quiet now in Third Party Land, with most abandoning d20 or seriously scaling back. I'd like to see some of the more obscure d20 titles out there presented here, the things that people don't hear much about these days. Perhaps even some "older" stuff that not enough people bought when it originally came out. We all know how awesome the Tome of Horrors and the Dungeon Crawl Classics and Oathbound are (or we should). Here's some ground for some of those "others."

#1:Northern Crown. AKA "Septrionalis." It's a mouthful, but the concept is a winner: take early North America, from about Columbus through to the 18th Century and make it Fantasy. A "New World" is a fertile ground for all sorts of mythos and conflict and drama, and NC rolls it all up pretty dang nicely. As a bonus, it's in the same world as Nyambe (which is also great), and makes me really sad that we'll probably never see a Southern Crown.

#2:Denizens of Avadnu. This is the best Monster Manual since the original. It beats the Fiend Folio. Even if you don't count it's absolutely beautiful presentation and art (because opinions on art vary pretty widely), it's hundreds of unique and usable monsters that have an added bonus of not seeming derivative at all. Get the orignal MM for the goblins and the dragons and all the classic beasties. Then get Denizens when you want to give them something they ain't never seen before.

So give me yours! Tell me what was glorious before and what deserves to do better than it did. PDF files included, you know there's some great stuff that didn't actually get a print run!

If you at all can, try to provide a link to somewhere that these things can be bought at. Since the idea is to buzz these low-buzz items a bit, sending over some direct business is a good thing! And give us a bit on WHY it's cool and why WE should think it's cool. You're talkin' to those who haven't heard of this, tell us why it's great!

I wish Denizens was available as a PDF...

I really love The lords of the Night: Vampires by Bottled Imp Games (no longer active, and no web presense) Your players not excited or afraid of vampires any longer? Throw an Ash Vampire at them and watch them flee in terror or stay for the TPK.

SSethregore: In the Coils of the Serpent Empire, Paradigm Concepts.

Blows WotC's Serpent Kingdoms out of the water with an excellent evil reptilian culture, made extra believable by the addition of a herpetologist to the writing crew. For players interested in playing lizard races, the book has an excellent collection of feats, PrCs, and spells for them, too.

#3:Lords of the Night: Vampires. Ooooh, that was hard to find. But from the RPGnet Review, it seems like a winner. There's a lot of vampire goodness....seems like you could almost have an entire Vamp-themed campaign with that book.

#4:Ssethregore: In the Coils of the Serpent Empirehttp://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=6456. Neat! That looks awesome for any reptilian-based society. So many superfluous "s"s.

Redhurst, Academy of Magic. If this hadn't been released just as 3.5 dropped, I'm convinced this would be as popular as Freeport.

The Pumpkin Patch (PDF). Someone needs to find Patrick Younts and drag him back to his word processor and handcuff him there.

Whizbang Dustyboots said:

Someone needs to find Patrick Younts and drag him back to his word processor and handcuff him there.

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Agreed entirely.

And, my contribution for this thread is "Tombs!" by Dreaming Merchant Press (which you can actually get for free, legally). Great non-magical treasure generation tables.

#5: Dragonstar. Dungeons, dragons, Deep space. Why the heck not? This is the campaign setting that gives you an excuse to use every OTHER campaign setting. In some ways, it's the spiritual successor to Spelljammer. Only with elements of Expedition to the Barrier Peaks included. Oh, and tyrannical space dragons.

#6: Etherscope. More a setting for d20 modern, this is a world where the might of Victorian industry drove forward, breaking down the frontiers of technology. Steam engines became smaller, weapons became more powerful, and cybernaughtics replaced limbs lost in bloody imperial wars. Then mankind learned to step into Etherspace itself. Completely solves the classic cyberpunk "Decker" problem by allowing EVERYONE to enter the Ether. It's steampunk, it's cyberpunk, it's modern, it's alternative history, it's pulp. it rules on toast.

Kamikaze Midget said:

#1:Northern Crown. AKA "Septrionalis." It's a mouthful, but the concept is a winner: take early North America, from about Columbus through to the 18th Century and make it Fantasy.

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Oh lordy yes. I was hesitant about getting this, but once I got both books, I was enthralled. I'd love to run a campaign in it.

My pick: #7: The City Quarters series by Game Mechanics. Good, solid, useful.