d20books
Rise of the Gamerati
Stuart told me that I'm the first set of "mortal eyes" to see his new book. I just received five cases on my door-step tonight.
All I have to say is, "Wow." I originally picked up Vampires because of wonderful reviews. I had never had any desire to do much with Vampires but that book was just so inspiring. I had the same initial reaction to Liches for my campaign too. This is TRULY unlike any other Lich book on the market. Another inspired book that obviously picked up lessons learned through the production of Vampires and they did a great job.
Liches fleshes out the "Darkness Rising" scenario and provides an excellent counter-balance to Vampires in the balance of good and evil.
It does a wonderful job of explaining the very familiar "evil" Liches that everyone knows, but introduces the original creatures and good Liches and undead.
While Vampires brought up their "Blood Feats", Liches brings in "Arcane Feats". This is my ONLY issue with the book, too. What everyone will think of as normal Arcane magic is referred to as "Mundane Magic" and is not the same as "Arcane Magic" that is introduced in this book. The explanations and direction are so clear, however, that this is not something a reader will miss, even with the first casual go-through as I just did. Arcane Magic in the book is the power of creation itself. You are only bound by your character's imagination. Powerful and heady stuff, to be sure.
With great power comes great sacrifice. In this case, your sanity. There is a very nice list of mental disorders and various levels of each to assist any DM and/or Player into the realms of psycho-therapy. Overall, a very nice balance to the seemingly over-powerful abilities of using the Arcana of Creation. Accessing the power of creation in its swirling chaos twists the character's psyche.
You won't be able to casually "kill" the undead in your regular campaign again after reading this book. You might be vanquishing the wrong undead in the process.
All I have to say is, "Wow." I originally picked up Vampires because of wonderful reviews. I had never had any desire to do much with Vampires but that book was just so inspiring. I had the same initial reaction to Liches for my campaign too. This is TRULY unlike any other Lich book on the market. Another inspired book that obviously picked up lessons learned through the production of Vampires and they did a great job.
Liches fleshes out the "Darkness Rising" scenario and provides an excellent counter-balance to Vampires in the balance of good and evil.
It does a wonderful job of explaining the very familiar "evil" Liches that everyone knows, but introduces the original creatures and good Liches and undead.
While Vampires brought up their "Blood Feats", Liches brings in "Arcane Feats". This is my ONLY issue with the book, too. What everyone will think of as normal Arcane magic is referred to as "Mundane Magic" and is not the same as "Arcane Magic" that is introduced in this book. The explanations and direction are so clear, however, that this is not something a reader will miss, even with the first casual go-through as I just did. Arcane Magic in the book is the power of creation itself. You are only bound by your character's imagination. Powerful and heady stuff, to be sure.
With great power comes great sacrifice. In this case, your sanity. There is a very nice list of mental disorders and various levels of each to assist any DM and/or Player into the realms of psycho-therapy. Overall, a very nice balance to the seemingly over-powerful abilities of using the Arcana of Creation. Accessing the power of creation in its swirling chaos twists the character's psyche.
You won't be able to casually "kill" the undead in your regular campaign again after reading this book. You might be vanquishing the wrong undead in the process.
The production quality (writing, layout, art, etc.) of "Vampires" is far superior to a lot of books put out by larger companies. I definitely recommend people to take a look at both "Vampires" and "Liches". I'm very curious to know what is next in line.
