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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 2008911" data-attributes="member: 172">Akrasia, Thief of TimeAkrasia, Thief of Time is a small "vignette book" for the d20 system.Just what is a vignette book, you ask?Well, as far as I can tell, vignettes are supposed to be a site, an NPC or collection of NPCs, or mini-adventure that you can plop into your campaign. A vignette book appears to be a collection of such vignettes with a linked theme.The BookAkrasia is the first such book by Eden. The book is 32 pages for a cost of $8.95 US. This yields a cost of 28 cents per page. This is a bit high, but unfortunately normal for books in this size (frex, the price and page count are shared by Burning Shaolin and Demons & Devils.)Fortunately, Eden's layout is very nice. The interior is black and white, and the art is generally well done. The book uses a nice, dense font.The ContentsThe central figure of the book is Akrasia, a goddess whose sphere of influence is failed resolution and weakness of will. The book starts off with a recounting of the legends behind Akrasia. Supposedly, Akrasia was cutting class the day that gods where receiving their portfolios. When she arrived, she discovered that all the good portfolios had been taken. So, she made one up of her own. She would be the goddess of lost opportunities.After recounting the legends and details of an important artifact and NPC (Litarra, a priestess of Akrasia presented at 9th and 12th level), the book jumps into the vignettes.There are 6 "vignettes" featured in the book, appropriate PCs are listed in parenthesis:- The Sheltering Shrine (2-4) : Really simple, basically the sheltering shrine is a small square shrine occupied by some followers of Akrasia and a gloomholt, a spider-shaped outsider minion of Akrasia.- Yaraemon the Bard (4-12) : This section details Yaraemon, an NPC bard and follower of Akrasia. He is presented at three different levels for the PCs to run across. He carries a magic item in the vein of his mistress, the Harp of Distraction, and if the players are able to extract information from him, he may be able to offer some information useful to other vignettes.- The Way Choice (6-8 ) : The Way Choice is an inn run by the followers of Akrasia. The NPC stat blocks and a complete description of the inn are provided. However, the "hook" providing the PCs involvement in the inn is rather curt and leaves a lot of weight on the GM to decide what goes on and how to get them involved.- Until the Rains Come (any) : This vignette describes a village in which four lay followers of Akrasia are conspiring to create a disaster for the village. Again, just how the characters get involved and the flow of events is a little weak.- Temple of Present Delights (7-10) : Pretty much the culmination of the book, this is a temple of Akrasia for the players to take their aggression out on once they figure out what is up. Complete with a map and followers.These can be dropped in at various points in your campaign. On the good side, I liked how the vignettes where interlinked, forming sort of an interesting backdrop and chain of events. That said, they vignettes almost seemed like an event based adventure stuffed into a site based adventure. Many of them have no clear plans or ideas for getting the players involved, and what actually happens. For the most part, it is some fairly vague hooks followed by a location and some NPCs.The appendix of the book provides some new rules material describing Akrasia's followers and associated magic items. A new domain, Distraction is described with several new spells. Some of the spells seem a bit powerful for their level. For example, indolence causes an effect similar to a daze for 5 rounds per level, which seemed a bit much to me.The new prestige class is the distractor. The class gains ability to actually steal time from those that they loiter with and then use it. The class has no continued spellcasting abilities, so it shouldn't be too powerful.There are a number of new creatures that are minions of Akrasia, such as the aformentioned spider-like outsider, an odd creature that sprays the party with will-sapping needles and produces a decoy to take the blame, and a tiger-like creature that dazes onlooker. The concepts of these cretures is alright. However, the creatures abilities are not neatly outlined as with most D&D creatures, and the saving throws and skills see arbitrary.ConclusionAs nice as the book is, it didn't really grab me. The idea of a less conventional villain is a good one, but as presented in the book, it seemed like a lot of work is required of the GM to get this thing rolling. The vignettes seemed like they needed a little more direction.As well, it appears that some of the rules materials, particularly the creatures, could use a little more fleshing out.-Alan D. Kohler</blockquote>

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