Best fluffy 3E books?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

In the interests of buying stuff with the longest shelf life possible, I'm thinking of restricting my purchases to fluff books until I have a better idea of what the new edition will look like.

Magic Item Compendium, PHB2 = out

Lords of Madness = in

What books -- (especially) including third-party works -- are stuffed with quality fluffy goodness that will be good for years to come? I know not everything will be as awesome in that regard as, say, Redhurst, of course.

 

[pawsplay]

Liber Mortis - reasonably good
Races of Destiny - unreasonably bad
Races of the Wild - bad
Races of Stone - mixed bag, depending on how you like your dwarves
XPH - good, albeit rules heavy - might still be a kernel for new worlds
Races of the Dragon - bad

 

[bento]

Heroes of Battle & Heroes of Horror will still be good.
Any of the "scapes" books.
DMG2

Anything where its more about running a particular kind of game.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm tempted to grab Complete Champion for the religions write-ups (we use Garl and several others in my campaign), but can't imagine paying anywhere close to full price for it now.

 

[bento]

I think you can write off the Complete books as useful for 4E, and possibly the magic books.

 

[der_kluge]

Manual of the Planes is probably ok.

 

[Glyfair]

Eberron has quite a few choices that are fluff heavy. The campaign setting, Secrets of Sarlona & Forge of War come to mind as the "fluff strongest."

The "Heroes of..." are both very strong. They are more about how to run that type of campaign rather than rules for doing so.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The "Heroes of..." are both very strong. They are more about how to run that type of campaign rather than rules for doing so.

Atlas Games' Love & War, Dynasties & Demagogues and Crime & Punishment are probably also good bet. The A Magical Medieval Society books are close to systemless and varying degrees of awesome.

 

[Shade]

My favorite flavor-rich books (in order):

The Fiendish Codices
Lords of Madness
Manual of the Planes
Tome of Magic
Draconomicon

If you like the Forgotten Realms:

FRCS
Lost Empires of Faerun
Serpent Kingdoms
Faiths and Pantheons

 

[Wombat]

The Book of the Righteous -- a pantheon done correctly, easily portable into almost any setting, lots of flavour, easy to fiddle with.

Hands down the best 3e fluff book produced.