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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 2011742" data-attributes="member: 172">Blood and Shadows: The Dark Elves of TelleneBlood and Shadows is a product by Kenzer and Company for their licensed Dungeons & Dragons setting, Kingdoms of Kalamar. It is one of their line of race-oriented setting books, including the outstanding Fury in the Wastelands.The book is written by Travis Forshee and Mark Plemmons.A First LookBlood and Shadows is a 114-page perfect bound softcover book priced at $19.99, which in comparison to many other d20 products these days, looks fairly reasonable.The cover illustration is by Mark Smiley, depicting an armored female surface elf facing off with the classical white-haired coal-skinned dark elf woman casting a spell (most likely intended to depict a duel of historical significance described in the book.)Interior illustrations are by Keith DeCesare, Ginger Kubic, Partick McEvoy, and Chris Maildore. The interior is black and white, but the illustrations are fairly high quality, most being detailed and nicely shaded, many depicting dramatic scenes.The font used is small, but the leader space is a little large in comparison for the font size. The layout is fairly crisp and well arranged, but a few headers in the prestige class abilities, spell lists, and (particularly irksome) the magic items are not bolded, making some abilities/items hard to spot at a glance. There were also a few noticeable spelling gaffes, such as misspelling the ability song of discord as song of discard.A Deeper Look(Spoiler warning: some secrets revealed in the book are discussed here.)The Kingdoms of Kalamar setting is built upon many of the core elements of the D&D game, though it does have its own take on many of these elements. The ever popular (in some circles) drow elf is no exception. Also similar to earlier Kalamar racial books, Blood and Shadows introduces a new subrace, the twilight elf.Also no exception from other Kingdoms of Kalamar books, Blood and Shadows spends a considerable proportion of its length discussing history and cultural details. The book is organized into six chapters, the first three of which are very rules light and exposition heavy. The book also has five appendices and a short index.Many sections of the book are told in narrative format, from the vantage point of a historian, first who interviews a dark elf defector, and then who visits the twilight elves.The first two chapters discuss dark elves (or as they are called in Tellene, shadow elves) themselves. The first chapter focuses on history, and the second upon culture.The story of the history of dark elves in Tellene bears certain similarities to other such tales: the race once dwelled on the surface with their brethern, but a schism caused them to go underground in an ancient age. In the case of the dark elves of Tellene, the author of the schism was a twilight elf (a mountain dwelling subrace of elves) named Joleriel. Joleriel was to be the bride of a political marriage in a time where violence between elves was unknown. However, she was corrupted by the deity commonly called the Hatemonger. She created a cult in her honor. One the night of her wedding, she staged the brutal murder of her family and made it appear as if the lowland elves were responsible. She then slew her groom in feigned retribution, and of course, the other twilight elves, believing the staged murder, fell in line behind their new Empress.A great war with the lowland elves ensued, and Joleriel milked out the hatred and bloodshed to please her master, and eventually bore a daughter by him. A daughter that would take her life. That daughter was the first of many of the twilight elves to bear twins, one of each twin would be born with the shadowy skin of the dark elves, thus the race was born. Joloriel’s dark grandaughter eventually disposed of her mother as well, but instead of revering the Hatemonger, she set herself up as a goddess. Her sister (guided by the gods) took part in a civil war that eventually deposed her. The remaining shadow elves were given the option to enter gates into the darkness, or remain behind as twilight elves. Thus the race of dark elves was born.The second chapter covers the society of the shadow elves today, and sees the first vestiges of crunchy bits in the book. Dark elves of Tellene have different attributes than the classic Drow elf. Essentially, the race has been recast as an LA +0 race. Spell like abilities and magic resistance is gone, and the race has balanced statistics modifiers: +2 intelligence and -2 constitution.The chapter discusses the nature of dark elf society, again nominally from the vantage point of a renegade. (Though in this chapter, the facade wears a little thin in places, with statements like "you might wonder how a chaotic and individualistic race like ours lives under an ordered structure." Would that really be something a native would mention?) Like dark elves depicted elsewhere, the drow seem to have a society controlled by fear. The Tellene dark elf society is a little more ordered than other takes in that most fall under the rule of a single empress, instead of being widely balkanized.Dovetailing with the society notes are a number of notes about adaptations of existing classes (including Kalamar specific classes) to the society of dark elves. Through it all (with the exception of actual rules materials in shaded blocks, such as race statistics, the earth druid variant, and variant shaman totems), the author maintains the tone of the narrative by the drow renegade.The third chapter is very much a mirror of the second, discussing current situation and society as well as a few mechanics for twilight elves much as the second chapter discussed shadow elves. Twilight elves do not share racial characteristics with shadow elves beyond the most basic elfy things. They are even a little unusual for elves. They actually have a constitution bonus, of all things (+2 con, +2 cha, -2 int, -2 wis.) They have darkvision and their favored class is fighter.The fourth chapter, devoted to characters, is the first extensively "crunchy " chapter in the book. There is a brief bit of advice given to conceptualization of shadow and twilight elf characters, but most of the remainder is rules related material.A good deal of the chapter is alternate starting packages for shadow and twilight elf characters. While I saw the purpose of starting packages in the Player’s Handbook, I don’t particularly consider this space well spent.The remainder of the chapter is prestige classes: -Brotherhood of the Twilight Fist: An ancient order of monk/assassin types, the brotherhood of the twilight fist has long since fragmented from the dark elves. The brotherhood prestige class is specialized in fighting mind flayers. -Divine Chorister: This short prestige class is for divine casters. The divine chorister express their praise for their deity in song. They have full spellcasting advancement and gains abilities to hypnotize, countersong, or confuse enemies through song. -Guild Artificer: This short class lacks any spellcasting advancement, but is a good fighter and receives bonus item creation feats and other item creation bonuses. This would be a thematically good choice for (and is available to) dwarves. -Demonbound: A spellcaster (with full spellcasting advancement) that bargains with demons. The class gains bonus metamagic feats, energy resistance, and ability to smite good. Overall, this is a pretty attractive alternative to a single classed arcane caster. However, it does have one drawback: each ability the character uses takes a year off their life. Overall, this seems like from a milieu standpoint to be a pretty credible drawback, but with the proper race, it probably is not a deterrent for the average PC and thus is probably too giving. -Keel’thalie: This class is a "holy warrior". The class has good BAB advancement and full divine spellcasting advancement. The also have blackguard-like and combat abilities but lack the good will saves of clerics. The class is not particularly difficult to qualify (especially for a cleric with the knowledge domain), so it still seems like it comes out a little on the strong side compared to a single classes cleric. -Sisterhood of the Obsidian Gaz’zirad: This class replaced the Brotherhood of the Twilight Fist after they abandoned the shadow elf empire. The sisterhood, as the name implies, is exclusively female. They retain some monk abilities, but have a bit more rogue/assassin like bent. They are trained with the gaz’zirad, a long knife-like weapon and gain special abilities with it.The fifth chapter introduces new. There are a variety of new skill uses, many of them culture specific. There is also a new skill, sense dominanc. The text states that for the purposes of class and cross class skill designation, it is treated as sense motive. I am not entirely certain that this skill shouldn’t be tucked under sense motive.There is a small selection of new feats: birthright and improved birthright (which allow material boons and bonuses to some social skills), improved blind fight, and the shape spell metamagic feat. New equipment also appears herein, including weapons, armor, poisons, and drugs.The handful of new spells include bat’s blessing (gives bat like capabilities) and bonesteel (turns bone to steel for construction purposes.)The sixth chapter is entitled secrets, and contains a bit of DM only information, some of which is alluded to in the first three chapters of the book. A number of distortions are unveiled, and activities of the drow and related organizations and individuals are unveiled. All this serves as fertile soil for campaigns.There are five appendices. The first is a summary of Kalamaran faiths, with some outlines of the multi-faced deities of Tellene as viewed by the dark elves. Appendix B is probably the most significant, containing new magic items and artifacts, some instrumental in utilizing plot hooks planted earlier in the book. Appendix C is new creatures, Appendix D is a small lexicon, and Appendix E has assorted character details: names and vital statistics.ConclusionsBlood and Shadows continues the same sort of detailed world background that has become the beau of Kalamar fans, and the idea of the drow as a dichotomous race is an interesting hook that DMs of other setting might wish to import.The mechanics are generally acceptable. Some classes push the limit, but none egregiously so.Blood and Shadows presents a set of dark elf statistics that are unique to Kalamar. Some non-Kalamar fans who want an LA 0 race might consider using these statistics instead. The twilight elf makes an interesting non-evil alternative to the dark elf as a subterrainian elf. Either way, the remaining statistics are not terribly dependant upon the Kalamar unique statistics.Overall Grade: B- -Alan D. Kohler</blockquote>

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