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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2009512" data-attributes="member: 18387">By Morgan Grover, Executive Director, d20 Magazine Rack Welcome to The Critic's Corner. Bodies & Souls is a downloadable product designed for Second World Simulations. Like most other download products, it is available from RPGNow.com, and sells for only $5 (US). B&S has been out for several months now, and many of you may be familiar with it. Those of you who have not yet had a chance to click through its pages are missing out on some great work. B&S provides 20 different creature templates for DMs to use on their creatures; however, this is not all it offers. Rules for using the templates on PCs, as well as exorcism techniques, are also available. Very well done artwork compliments the pages throughout B&S. With over 45 pages full of text, you will be hard pressed to find another product as well designed and written as B&S, especially for only $5. Like most other downloadable products, B&S is a PDF document, and requires Adobe Acrobat to read. This file is designed very well, allowing readers to jump to any section of the book by simply clicking the desired area in the contents. For printing purposes, you are able to turn the graphics on or off to help with saving ink. The overall flow of the product is well done, and everything seems to flow smoothly as you read through. Now, on to the contents! B&S is filled with over 20 creature templates, ranging from fantasy, horror, sci-fi, and technological. A DM who concentrates in a specific area, such as fantasy, may not find everything to his taste; however, those that enjoy a bit of everything will find more than they can handle. Many of the templates deal with some form of possession. Some templates offer possession by specific demons, such as the Succubus and Kyton, while some are more generic possessions, such as the Bonesmith, which feeds off of its victims’ bones. Another example is the Demon Flock, which is in actuality a group of creatures, instead of just one, and makes it just that much harder to destroy. Other templates include Rabid, which is just that, Scions for each element, the Fly Lord, which controls a massive swarm of flies to do his bidding (very mean!), and more. There is a little bit here for everybody to use, both DMs and Players. Any product that supports both a player and a DM will often demonstrate its usefulness. With the ability to add some of these templates to the players’ PCs, the author has gone through and described several ways in which to handle this, including ideas based on credit, freebies, and partial purchases. Another detailed section describes demon possession, how to handle it, exorcism feats, stability, and search checks. This is a very well designed product that is usable by a wide range of DMs, and not just those that dwell on specific areas, such as fantasy or sci-fi. The artwork is impressive, the writing detailed and well thought-out, and the overall feel of the product is excellent. Before you get too excited and head out to buy B&S, you must first know that it has a rating of “Mature,” mainly due to graphic content and pictures included in the product. In its entirety, I have found B&S to be an excellent source for ideas, adventure hooks, and basic creature enhancement.To see the graded evaluation of this product, go to The Critic's Corner at <a href="http://www.d20zines.com" target="_blank">www.d20zines.com.</a></blockquote>

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