Death: Guardian of the Gate

[Messageboard Golem]

A sourcebook dealing with a goddess of death and her domain. Includes info on the goddess herself, her worshippers, her churches, myths and legends, along with crunchy prestige classes, spells, and other things designed to help you flesh out the shadowy figure of death in your home campaign. You can either use the Lady Pale as she is, or you can borrow ideas to flesh out your own campaigns deities.

 

[Rooksknight]

Death: Gaurdian of the gate is a book covering the death domain from Natural 20 Press.
THe book is very well put together and a very easy read.

For those of you who like art the book is filled with nice appealing black and white art that only add to the mood of the book.
The cover is the best peice of art work in the book and I really like it.

Summary: This book deals with the Death Goddess Lady Pale and her church. The book is well organized, nice layed out and in depth. It provieds a lot of useful infromation of how a chruhc shouldbe organized within a fantasy world. A nice feature of the book is that it feels like you are being talked to instead of reading a dusty tomb somewhere. This effect allones adds alot to the character of the chruhc and the way the book comes across.


THe book starts off by giving us the origin of the goddess and how she took over from the former god of death. Her origion story adds alot of flavor to the rest of the book as well does the introduction story.

The real meat and potatoes of this book comes over the next three chapters where it discusses the church indepth.

Chapter2:
This chapter is dedicated to the Preisthood. It starts us off with the stats for the Lady Pale. Then it progresses onto everything that one possible needs to know about the church of the Lady Pale. It goes on about everything from age , the ranks and heirarchy of the church (A Point I feel that is missing from the the WOTC books.), and the holy powers of the church. This chapter also provides 2 prestige classes.

Chapter 3:

This chapters fgoes over the various mental attiudes of the members of the chruch. This helps to flesh out the beggining of a very real chruch. To me this allows the player to have a very real idea nad under stnad on what and how their character should interact with the world around them.
The views it covers are: Drugs, art, language, music, entertainment, communication, and education.

The discussion of these topics really add to the beilievablity of tthe rleigion and doesnt make it take a back burner.

Chapter 4: THis chapters houses 9 new pretiges classes which gives pcs alot to offer in the way of choice. I am a big fan of the prestige class system but something i found lacking was the variety for dieties. There are certian rolles that each one fills and this adds alot to the strong backbone already built up by the book. My favorite of the prestige classes is the Sisterhood, a group of women warrior mages dedicated to the Lady pale. This chapter also discuss how the other classes fit into the scope of the church. The classes in this area are unique and diverse and add alot of flavor to the book.

Chapter 5: Discusses magickal items and what kinds of objects that are important to the church. There are several intresting items to be found here. It also continas the holy symbol for the Lady pale. It also goes into items that are use in rituals.

Chapter6:
Rituals Myths and legends.

This section of the book only builds on the information already presented to us by the first few chapters. It covers such important areas as rituals, when to pray for spells, festivals. It also gives us legend which only make the church even more realistic. It provides the information on the Breath of Pale- the highest rank person in the church, as well as several other heroes.

Chapter 7ersonas And Magic
This chapter discusses the magic withing the churhc and presents 13 new and useful spells. It hasa few spells that add alot of power to the weak selection of combat spells for clerics. Raven's Arrow is a useful spell and I can see it being useful even in later levels and maybe into epic.

This chapter also provides a nice section of the manifestion of spells and how to bless holy water. I find this a very nice touch.

Chapter 8: This chapter contians a nice short story about the lady pale.
CHapter 9: This chapter contina hymn.

These are both excellent additons giving us a nother side to the realistic view of the church.

Chapter 10: This chapter while short contians important information about the Great Library ( home of the LAdy Pale) and the Book of Days- the book that has a chapter for the life of each bieng.

All around good book, The Lady Pale is now the Death goddess for my next campaign.

I will be using this book as a model for the write-up of other deities in my homebrewed world

For the Price you cannot beat this book. In my mind this should be how every religion based book should be.

A note about the origional post: I am not trying to shameless plug the product. However I feel this is a product that I should tell others about. I hope this revision helps. This is my first review of any product whatsoever.

 

[Halifax]

Death: Guardian of the Gate is a sourcebook which deals with the Death domain. It does this by using an example goddess called "The Lady Pale" (that's the gal on the front cover, I presume).

The book has lots of mechanics stuff - classes, spells, items etc., plus lots of background material. I know that some poeple don't like much prose in their books, but after Green Ronin's (apparent - I haven't actually got it yet!) fleshed out churches and religions in Book of the Righteous, I think it's pretty obvious that the clerical end of the stick really does need fleshing out. All too often, a cleric is forced into a narrow straitjacket, and this book helps you to make sure your cleric is unique, with a fully fledged religion, beliefs and church.

The crunchy materal looks plenty good - I haven't tested it yet, though (only got the book yesterday). It contains a whole slew of Death domain flavored prestige classes, a chapter on magic items and relics (and herbs), and a chapter on spells, blessings and so on.

There are also "True Rituals" (I'm not sure if these are a new idea or if they've appeared in another d20 product. They do ring a bell, though). The rituals include marriage rituals, death rituals etc. For example, the marriage ritual binds two people together allowing them to suffer each other's wounds, and the funeral ritual prevents necromancers and other undead beasties from interfering after death - the victim cannot be raised as a ghoul or anything. Each ritual actually includes the *words* and the procedure - which really helps to make these campaign events real!

You also get other cool odds and ends - a hymn, some myths and legends and other stuff which helps to make the whole faith seem "real" and not just a character class who can heal, which is what the cleric tends to be!

As tends to be the case, this Natural 20 Press product looks beautiful! Great art, great layout - the whole works! Nat20 get extra kudos for including two versions - one designed to look pretty, the other designed for printing.

In summary, this is a great product. I'd love to see a whole slew of these books, covering different domains. Of course, Green Ronin have their BotR, which sounds really good, but I doubt it can devote 70+ pages to EACH domain!

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Ok since my first attempt at a review got shot down(quite fairly though for being more of a comment), here is version 1.1, ive based my layout on how Psion does his reviews.

Death: Guardian of the Gate
A sourcebook dealing with a goddess of death and her domain. Includes info on the goddess herself, her worshippers, her churches, myths and legends, along with crunchy prestige classes, spells, and other things designed to help you flesh out the shadowy figure of death in your home campaign. You can either use the Lady Pale as she is, or you can borrow ideas to flesh out your own campaigns deities.

At a Glance
The book is a PDF file 72 pages in length and costs $6.95

The cover is a beautiful rendition of what you later realise to be The Lady Pale, Goddess of Death, with a raven perched on her hand. It is hard to tell what setting she is in, but one can assume it her library.

The pages all have a purple stripe border down the outer edge, with either side of the Holy Symbol appearing to be embossed repeatedly along it. The text is done in black for the major part, with purple being used for headings.

Both the cover and interior art is by Gillian Pearce. The interior art is great throughout the book and generally is extremely appropriate in its placement. The black and white nature of the pictures adds to the feel and tone of the book.

A More Detailed Look
The first chapter deals mainly with the history of the Lady Pale, including how she came to be the goddess of death. Though before that there is what could almost me considered a journal except from one of her first follower's, detailing how he came to meet the Lady and then serve her.

The second chapter delves into the structure of the preisthood, including the general thoughts on topics such as Age, Dress Colours, Family and Family life within the church, and so forth. It ofcourse also details the different rankings within the church itself and how each is reached, not just what they are and what their duties are. The final part of the second chapter is two prestige classes, The Ladies Chosen, and Shade Wardens. Both of these take several pages to detail, what they are and the extra skills they obtain. Included for both are abilities/level tables for quick reference. Though these two prestige classes are seperate from the rest, they fit into the book where they are.

The third chapter covers the churchs general feelings towards subjects not covered in the second chapter, as it is called its the mental attitude towards these subjects thats covered. Subjects covered include drugs, art, entertainment and communication, though these arent all. Under the education section, three of the main churches of Pale are described in vivid and sometimes almost awe striking detail.

Now onto the more substantial part of the book for some people.
Chapter Four, the preisthood, it is here that all the remaining prestige classes are detailed. 16 pages are used to detail the remaining 9 prestige classes, all of which include their abilities/levels tables and the expected explanation of their abilities. All abilities are detailed clearly both when dealing with these prestige classes, and the two earlier in the book. It also covers the placement of each of the prestige classes within the order.

Chapter 5 is a wealth of information, dealing with objects of all sorts, from Jewels and Jewellery, to Lost Relics. Each item has a short description, of the item and how it works. Some items even have a history of how they came to be.

Now to chapter 6, this chapter brings a depth to the book, and life to the religion. Rituals Myths and Legends, are the focus here. The rituals are not only discussed, but shown, with the words of the rite and everything. Rituals are the main focus of this chapter, but the myths and legends section reads wonderfully, the Myth of Darius the Swordsman is a wonderful tale.

Persona's and Magic, is the topic for chapter 7. It gives details of Pales Breath, Hero's of the religion, and The Book of Names. But the magic is the real strong point of this chapter 13 spells detailed in 4 pages. Ontop of this information the book goes as far as to give descriptions of how each sort of spell is even likely to appear to the casual onlooker/worshipper present at time of casting.

Now for the last 4 chapters
From here on out the book turns back to substance in the form of several stories and even one of the actual hym's mentioned earlier in the book. But dont take this as an excuse to skip these last chapter's, important information is still held within those pages, it just happens to be presented in the form of a story, which I feel is the only way the information can be presented correctly. Especially when dealing with the Great Library (The goddess's home) and the Book of Days.

Final words
Now to summerise what I have covered, and my opinions of this book. There is very little wronng that I could find with this book, (a few typos and the bookmarks page lis a little awry, but in apperance only. It could be a PDF thing I dont know). I love the writing style, it drew you in like a good novel, when reading the stories and got the information across in a way that someone not all familiar with d20 tabletop could understand. The artwork is wonderful, and the way the text has been wrapped around the pictures is good.

The spells and prestige classes could fit into most d20 games. The information of the lady Pale and her church, brings great depth to the religion, making it all that much easier to play without changing, though the objects, and the information present could be easily modified to suit the GM's wishes.

I personally look forward for the next book, which FenrisWolf has mentioned is in the works. Though Death: Guardian of the Gate has set a high standard for the rest to follow.

 

[Tuerny]

Death: Guardian of the Gate is the second .pdf produced by Dark Quest Games as a development studio for Natural 20 Press. D:GotG is designed to provide a comprehensive and detailed church that is easily inserted into most campaigns. While it largely succeeds in being comprehensive, its ease of insertion does not quite what it should be. Luckily, much of the material is easily usable with other death gods. It would be very easy to steal bits and pieces from this product to help reinforce the depth of one of one of your own death gods.


Layout:
Death: Guardian of the Gate is a seventy-two pages, black and white, .pdf document. It is organized into eleven chapters with a table of contents in the front and, like most Natural 20 Products thus far, lacks an index. The art is evocative and well drawn, capturing the feeling of the material very well. The document is organized very well with clear sections and subsections.
The .pdf bookmark function is not properly implemented. For the first six chapters are organized well, with divisions by chapter, topic, and subtopic with only minor errors in spacing and capitalization. Unfortunately, the bookmark function does not cover chapters seven through eleven.


Chapter One: “The Lady Pale Herself”
Chapter One introduces the deity around which this book is centered, providing a combination of fiction and prose to explain how she came to be and her general attitudes, options, and beliefs.

Chapter Two: “The Priesthood”
Chapter Two introduces the Lady Pale’s priesthood, going into great depth of detail about who and what the priests are. Everything from age and physical appearance, to dress, to dietary requirement, to the church hierarchy is discussed. Also introduced are two prestige classes associated with death: the Lady’s Chosen, those who are chosen to take the battle against death to the next level in the name of the Lady, and the Shade Wardens, those who are callously devoted to the exploration and avoidance of death.
While the presence of the Lady’s Chosen makes sense, why the Shade Warden is here is a little less clear. Its connection with the Lady Pale is not mention at all in the text and in many ways it appears to run counter to its aims. In of itself it is a good prestige class, but its lack of purpose within the confines of the product somewhat detract from that. The Lady’s Chosen is properly explained but suffers from being somewhat overpowered. As it stands there is little reason for a cleric of the Lady Pale not to take this prestige class. It has everything a cleric has and more.

Chapter Three: “Mental Attitudes”
Chapter Three describes the attitudes of the priesthood and the Lady Pale on drugs, art, language, music, entertainment, communication, and on education. As a subsection of the material on education are three locations that serve as centers for education by the servants of the Lady Pale.

Chapter Four: “The Priesthood”
Yes, Chapter Four is named, just like Chapter Two, “The Priesthood.” It retains the same name as Chapter Two and indeed, does cover the Priesthood, but one can’t help but wonder why exactly if both of the chapters shared the same topic why they weren’t merged, or if that was seen as too cumbersome, why they were not given different titles to avoid confusion.
Chapter 4 discusses more of the game world aspects of the priesthood. Nine orders and the prestige classes associated with them are introduced. Many of these prestige classes are strongly associated with one particular core class, though members of many classes can easily enter a few, such as the Harrowed.
Most of the prestige classes in this chapter would be fairly balanced if it were not for the ease that one could gain entrance into them. Most of them could be easily entered into at second or third level. The Mysteries, which is a prestige class dedicated to arcane casters who serve the Pale Lady, gains a number of special abilities on top of normal spellcasting progression and 4 skill points per level, an average attack progression, and good fortitude and will saves. Beyond this expression of lack of knowledge in regards to the d20 system, the prestige classes are largely good. Most of them possess a flavor that is both interesting and appropriate to the faith. If their entry requirements were redesigned in order to facilitate access at a more reasonable level (such as 5th or 6th) they would make a good addition to a campaign.

Chapter Five: “Objects”
Chapter Five introduces objects associated with the faith, with a particular focus on magical items and relics. Most of the magic items are of moderate power, but a few of them are of great power. These items of greater power are, in general, listed as being priceless, which causes somewhat of a problem for potential GMs as it somewhat limits their ability to maintain a balanced amount of magic in the campaign based on the gold piece limits presented in the DMG.
The holy symbol of the Lady Pale is also introduced. Unfortunately it appears to have further rules issues as, despite obviously being a magic item, it lacks a gp cost and even goes so far as to imply that all priests of the Lady Pale have one, which upsets the balance that first level characters have in regards to magical objects.

Chapter Six: “Myths, Rituals, and Legends”
Chapter Six introduces, as its chapter header indicates, the myths, rituals, and legends of the faithful of the Lady Pale. Included in this chapter are in-depth explanations are given for each of the major rituals that the priesthood is concerned with, an explanation of the calendar the priesthood uses, a number of true ritual spells along the lines of those in Relics and Rituals 1 that are associated with these rituals, and a pair of myths important to the faith.
This chapter provides a good basis for how the priests of the Lady Pale interact with the faithful and the community around them. The myths are interesting and provide insight into how the Lady Pale interacts with the world.

Chapter Seven: “Personas and Magic”
Chapter Seven introduces important modern and historical figures in the faith of the Pale Lady as well as spells that she grants, and how certain spells appear when cast by the faithful. This section follows the trend that is found in the rest of the book. The fluff and descriptive material is good but the d20 material needs definite work. The personas presented provide a good representation of important NPCs that can be used for the Church.
The spells in Chapter Seven range from balanced to overpowered. Cutting the Cord is more powerful than power word: kill yet it is two levels lower. Healing Breath is a 4th level spell that is identical to cure critical wounds except for it caps healing at +10 rather than +20. In exchange it purifies all natural and magical poisons and diseases and their effects, which basically makes it a combination of two 4th level spells and a 3rd level spell. Most of the other spells are similar in scope and power level, with a few being more in line with what is appropriate for their level.

Chapter Eight: “Story”, Chapter Nine “Hymn”, Chapter Ten: “Great Library”, and Chapter Eleven: “A Final Revelation” provide short, interesting bits of story information that help to expand the depth and flavor of the Pale Lady’s faith.

Ending the book are the author’s Afterthoughts.

I really wanted to like Death: Guardian of the Gate. Upon first looking through it looked great. It was evocative, flavorful, and definitely captured the feel of a deity and priesthood dedicated to a good deity of death. Unfortunately further perusal has led to the revelation of deeper flaws. While the flavor text, fiction, and description of the priesthoods is good stuff the mechanical information shows an incomplete understanding of the d20 system. So basically whether you should get this or not will be determined by one question: Is having a very detailed and interesting priesthood worth having to fix all the mechanical material within it? If that answer is yes then I heartily recommend it. If the answer is no then you probably will want to pass.

Edit: Upon further investigation, I have found that the lack of a fully working bookmark function is only found in the east to print version of Death: Guardian of the Gate.
The larger, prettier version of the Death has a fully working bookmark fuction.

 

[tensen]

First let me say, I appreciate the review.
Since Dark Quest products are actually designed and implemented seperate from other Natural 20 Press products, we may not have been aware of issue that also effected their products. The issue of an index has been brought up before and will most likely occur in our next product.

Hopefully these design note may influence your view on some of the d20 issue you believe occurred. We welcome discussion on the forum, as opposed to within the comments here. As well as welcome anyone to email us with issues or concerns they may have.

Chapter 2:
Lady's Chosen
One can't pick the prestige class. The most major requirement is that the Diety itself chose the few that become this prestige class. Therefore anyone to be chosen hasn't to be doing something extraordinary in her service to be even noticed. It is the GM (as the Goddess) that choses to give this honor to the player.
Requires 10 Ranks of Knowledge (religion), which someone has to be 7th level to have that many ranks.

Shade Warden
NPCs of this type are intended to be the equivalent of the anti-paladin to the Lady's Chosen "paladin".

Chapter 4:
These prestige classes are defined to be orders within the organization. For the most part once joining the orders, the character gives up further advancement as a normal cleric. It was found in playtest, that while you could enter these prestige classes at low level, it was actually a hinderance if you entered at too low a level, since they are giving up normal spell progression.

Half of the entry levels of the prestige classes depend on the DM, as they are set on ranks within the order, which are not officially designated by "level advancement".
Harrowed & Accounter
Requires to be member of the Sorrowed (Full fledged member of the order, the level that occurs is up to the DM.)
Guardian & Shield
Requires a member of the Ravens or higher (Beginning in the orders after being fully initiated. The level that this occurs is up to the DM.)

Mistress of Flame
Knowledge (religion) 8 - 5th level characters
Melancholoy
Perform 6 - Which allows a bard to enter at 3rd level, but an actual cleric couldn't enter till 9th level since it was a crossclass skill.
Mysteries
Cast 3rd level spells - Occurs at 5th level. They gain additional spells, but not normal spell progression, so can never cast higher level spells then when they entered this order.
Seals
Need to be at least a 2nd level monk. Gain neither additional clerical ability or monk abilities.
Sisterhood
Only needs to be a 4th level or higher female cleric to join this order. Basically it is the equivalent of a cleric becoming a paladin for the abilities it is giving, except instead of gaining spells at higher levels like paladins do, they only have which spells they gained prior to joining this prestige class. The class is intended to be balanced with a standard paladin, and in many cases is actually weaker than one.

Chapter 5
Items listed as priceless are easily balanced... in exactly the same manner as you would balance any artifact from the DMG.

The holy symbol section needs an errata. There is supposed to be a paragraph that explains this is optional that the holy symbols may be used to give a variable domain effect, instead of a static single domain effect. It is no different than a standard holy symbol so has no real gp value, since it isn't the holy symbol that is magical, but it is a divine focus for the domain powers.

Chapter 7
Cutting The Cord - One of the points in the spell description must be empahsized. It is used for transgressions against Lady Pale... by followers or former followers. Because it effects the cord to the Lady. This extremely limits the usefulness of the spell, which explains why it is available at 2 levels less than an equivalent generic spell.
Healing breath - It has some of the effects of a Remove Disease (does not effect parasites, green slime, rot grubs, etc... killing the creatures would be counter to the goddess.) Healing versus Cure Critical: Casting time is 1 round... Cure Critical is 1 action. Maximum healing is 4d8+10 versus Cure Critical of 4d8+20. Healing Breath does not heal from negative, and it will not effect undead. The spell is also not reversable.
It is feasible that a DM may decide to raise this spell 1 level, For the effects it gives, a Death Domain cleric will most likely chose this over Cure Critical, but someone interested just in healing effects most likely wouldn't. One important thing to note... it is not a "cure" spell, so can not be chosen for spontaneous casting. A equivalent pure healing spell at 5th level would heal 5d8 with a max of 25. Or using a 9th level caster casting this 5th Level Healing spell, versus Healing Breath at 5th level would heal on average (29 hp versus 25) not a lot of difference, but the Healing Breath would already max out (at 26hp healed) at a single level above the minimum casting level.

 

[GameWyrd]

Death: The Guardian of the Gate does very well. It shows that the Dark Quest and Natural 20 Press has been a win-win deal; it means that the rich flavour style of Dark Quest’s fantasy line benefits from the wider audience that the name Natural 20 Press is likely to attract and Natural 20 Press benefits from Dark Quest’s writing style. I don’t think I need to offer the caveat that my preference is for flavour over crunch and that this supplement caters to that particularly well. I don’t have to offer that as a disclaimer because Death: The Guardian of the Gate offers up a healthy dose of both. The new spells, items and prestige classes introduced by the supplement are all firmly rooted in the church of the Pale Lady and so you really need to soak up the flavour from the text in order to get the most out of the mechanics. Having said that there is an even balance between crunch and flavour I’ll also bet that if you’re more of a mechanically minded roleplayer that you’ll see the weaker aspects of the prestige classes and spells before you see their strengths.

The PDF is a colourful one but not annoyingly so. In fact given the favourite colours of the Pale Lady and her religion it would have been rather strange to have a bright and breezy colour scheme. The sidebars, which appear on alternate sides of the screen, are an inspirational in their elegance and utilise embossed purple icons of the Pale Lady’s religion on a purple background. Dark Quest have improved this PDF’s usability from their earlier works and the detailed contents page is presented as a page of links. You can click on an entry in the contents page and Acrobat Reader will take you directly to the corresponding chapter in the supplement. The traditional bookmarks for PDFs are present too, they’re correctly branched and thoroughly detailed but in a few cases the use of capital letters is a little off, for example, "LADy PALE" and "oBjects". Finally, this electronic product has found a way to present bordered and coloured tables of numbers and mechanics (like the level advancement tables for prestige classes) without cluttering up the page. Game system tables and much of the flavour text appear on illustrated parchment. The texture and shading of the parchment provides a counter to the sharp edges and angles of the tables and adds appropriate atmosphere for the flavour text. It works very well. All the illustrations with the exception of the beautiful front cover and the adverts at the back are in black and white. The two tones suits the Pale Lady and her followers very well. Raven haired, gothic beauties dominate the artwork with tiny waists. It’s eye candy but it’s also appropriate to a religion in a fantasy world where the devout can actually see images of what their goddess looks like and will naturally all try and look similar. The Goddess of Death, the Pale Lady, the ultimate trend-setter.

The downside to all this is that the supplement is a nightmare to print. There’s an easy solution though. Death: Guardian of the Gate comes in to forms; the "LadyPale" PDF of which I’ve just been describing and then the "LadyDark" PDF which is black and white, without sidebars and parchment backgrounds and is easy to print. The LadyDark PDF does have a colour cover but doesn’t have the colour adverts at the end.

The first chapter of the supplement is devoted to the Goddess of Death herself. It’s presented by two people; the Pale Lady herself and more often by an important member of her religion, a man called Lucien whom she picked to spread her teachings. You discover later than Lucien didn’t found the religion of the Pale Lady when one of the narrators describe how he rose quickly through the ranks of the priests. There are a number of narrators throughout the supplement and the general rule is one narrator per chapter. This general rule does not apply to chapter one and if you’re just skimming quickly down the text then it’s easy to get confused as to whether the first person references are for Lucien or Death. Death was once a namby-pamby village girl who’s tender kindness and horrible life so impressed the previous God of Death that he decided to end his own "life" and appoint her as his successor. I quite like the idea of there being more than on God of Death, it’s especially helpful if you’re running with competing pantheons. The fact that the previous Death God was morbidly self-destructive is just terribly ironic and the image of some put on village girl as his replacement is probably the weakest link in the supplement. It’s not all that much of a weak link though. The Pale Lady believes in life and protection and is really the sort of Goddess you’d want with the Death portfolio. In fact the other two domains her portfolio are Good and Protection.

Don’t be fooled by supplement’s title and chapter one. This isn’t a product all about the Goddess of Death; it’s really more about her religion. Aside from her portfolio and that she’s a Greater Goddess you’re not given her stats and if you’re buying god books to see who’d win a divine mud wrestling match between the Pale Lady and Aphrodite then you’ll be disappointed. After chapter one the rest of the supplement moves on to look at the people in the religion and the ways and means that they use to worship and battle the enemy. The enemy? Undead.

Chapter two presents the meat of the religion. It covers the daily worship of the Pale Lady in minute detail. Her followers do not worship death; they worship the Lady Pale and her own beliefs. Everything from at what age people can be admitted into the church, through dress code, physical appearance, the role of the family, what food can be eaten, popular names, marriage, houses and gender equality. There is a lot of time spent on the various titles within the Church; the "Breath of the Pale" is head of the church and below her (currently female but not necessarily so) are "Shadows of Pale", "Sorrows", "Ravens", "Hands of Pale" and the "Eyes of Pale". They’re all rather more evocative names than just "Chief Cleric". These positions are well written and they make sense, you wont have players asking you just what the Eyes of Pale do. Better still, these roles are entirely independent of d20 mechanics. You don’t need to be a level X cleric to fulfil any given position, the ability of any character to act in the role is left entirely to roleplaying decisions and not rollplaying ones. There are also two prestige classes tucked away in here. The Lady’s Chosen and Shade Wardens. Shade Wardens are the exception to the prestige class rule in that they’re not part of the Church of the Pale Lady and are prestigious form a death obsessed baddie instead.

If you thought chapter two presented a complete list of every aspect of the Church then you’d be wrong. The third chapter is given over to looking at the mental attributes and decisions that play a part in Church life. This boils down to issues such as whether drugs and alcohol are accepted, the role of art, language and music, communication and even education. There are three locations important to the Church as centres of education are briefly listed too.

Then the prestige classes begin. The prestige classes here are a little different in that they don’t seem particularly hard to qualify for except, of course, you have to be a member of the Pale Lady’s church. There’s just shy of ten in total and they’re all detailed through ten full levels of advancement; none of these half-attempts five (or sometimes less) level classes. The prestige classes serve as specific orders within the Church and again this is a roleplaying issue not a number balancing one. If you keep this mind then those prestige classes with easy requirements make sense, well, they make common sense perhaps more than they make game mechanics sense. Half of these prestige classes are described as Martial Orders and probably bring in the familiar feel of new game rules for doing battle in different ways. All the orders have similar style names to the previously described roles; they include the like of "the Harrowed", "the Accounters" and "the Shields". Some of the prestige classes overlap but again this isn’t a result of poor game mechanics, it seems to be a result of letting the religion develop as it might and then providing the game mechanics to make the Order playable.

The chapter after the prestige classes will be a familiar one to many as well; it’s the list of interesting objects, some of which are magical and other among the ranks of lost relics. Lost relics are a great idea; each one is a campaign in the waiting. These are powerful relics though, high fantasy stuff but perhaps therefore also worthy items to survive in the tomes of the Church even after they’re lost. If you tour the Dark Quest website you’ll find a whole lot of custom built Celtic jewellery for sale. The Church of the Pale Lady has similar tastes and the chapter’s narrator names the Celtic style as an important influence. A particularly nice touch, I thought, was the significant section on the religion’s holy symbol. Another touch that particularly appealed to me was the communication pendants that are handed out to certain Church members. The pendants are appealing not because they’re a particularly original idea (because they’re not) but because their inclusion in black, white and electronic print saves the GM the embarrassment of inventing them as the deux ex machina required to keep Clerics in touch with the Church. On the other hand all these powerful magic items do seem to imply vast resources and very many busy wizards crafting these wondrous items.

"Rituals, Myths and Legends" is the title of chapter six and it pretty much lives up to that while offering a lot more. There’s a calendar for example and I think every religion in a fantasy world where their god turns back undead and heals wounds for them should have their own calendar that is based on that deity too. The followers of the Pale Lady have thirteen months of twenty-eight days. The calendar doesn’t really move forward to tie rituals into important events like the beginning of winter and instead the rituals covered are for time independent events like deaths and marriages. There’s even a sample exchange of marriage vows. The myths and legends provide both flavour and meat for the religion. If these legends were composed of stories where Death turned up and saves people’s lives then I’d tear strips off the author. Fortunately nothing so silly happens.

Following this there are new spells. Many of the spells are labelled in the style of "Level: Clr 3 (Pale Lady)" and the implication is (rather than by explicit statement) the spells are only available to clerics of the Pale Lady. I think deciding whether some gods keep back spells just for their own clerics is an issue for Games Masters. I may have the implication wrong. Either way, the inclusion of the Pale Lady in the spell’s title serves as a reminder and a mild suggestion. There’s about a dozen spells; nothing compared to a supplement specialising in new magic but enough to give the clerics of the Pale Lady something of a unique feel.

One of the best features of this supplement is that spells, blessing and all sorts of magical effects that originate from the Pale Lady have suitable visual and audio reminders of this. For example, characters benefiting from a Bless spell might shine with a pale light while the sound of one of the Pale Lady’s hymns can just be heard on the wind. Some of the Undead Turning abilities suggest that the visage of the Pale Lady herself superimposes itself over the cleric and frankly that sort of cinematic effect can save the dice bouncing of combat from the depths of drudgery.

After this there are several more chapters of stories and even a hymn. It’s flavour text, yes and no. At this point there’s room in the inexpensive electronic format to include stories about the Pale Lady. It’s more valuable than just inspiration for the GM since these might well be stories that followers of the Pale Lady’s religion know themselves and share with the player characters. I couldn’t but help notice that very many of the unlucky people whom actually meet the Pale Lady out on business find her slightly irritating and that this Goddess of Death seems to laugh a lot. Don’t get me wrong, the stories and flavour text aren’t badly written there just seem to be reoccurring themes some of which make more immediate sense than others. The writing style is a bit purple at times (eyes dancing like twin moons) but since that suits the general ambience of the supplement it does no harm.

I really rather enjoyed Death: Guardian of the Gate. The supplement gives you a living and breathing religion and not just some new prestige classes for a goth-babe Death. This is actually a Death religion that probably would flourish in a high fantasy setting. The religion (which like most D&D style religions has no name) is applicable to both high and low fantasy settings and low, medium and high powered characters. It’s not perfect; some of the nuts and bolts of mechanics could do with a check or two but really that’s such a tiny concern over all that it almost seems a shame to mention it.

* This GameWyrd review was first published here.

 

[Crothian]

Review of Death: Guardian at the Gate by Dark Quest Games/Natural 20 Press

This is from a review copy.

Death: Guardian at the Gate is a book all about a Death Goddess, her priest, and their priesthood. It is a 72-page pdf filled with rich detail. Gillian Pearce did all the art and it’s nice and seems to work for the book. The text is well organized, easy to read with fine margins and decent density. The Death Goddess herself is Neutral Good, so this is a different approach to a death god then is usually seen.

The first chapter deals with a new death goddess named Lady Pale. It is written as a story describing who she is and it really gives the reader great description into her and her personality. She would be really easy to use as an NPC in anyone’s game. I really like that they made her a mortal raised to godhood as I think that gives her a level of humanity that really flows off the words.

The second chapter goes into the priesthood. The priesthood is very well written and described giving all the details and more anyone could need. It talks about the faith, the clothes, the food, the structure, as well as many other subjects concerning it. The level of detail is rich, easy to use, and adaptable to any setting. It also lists two prestige classes the Lady Chosen and Shade Warden. The Lady Chosen are people chosen by the Pale Lady to further fight undead. It’s an interesting class, but I feel it’s on the strong side getting all the benefits of a cleric with many additional abilities. Shade Wardens cause death and further that end of the Pale Lady’s business. The class actually seems a little weak. In the description it says one only needs a single level of cleric with access to the Death domain, but under prerequisites one has to be able to cast Slay Living which one has to be a 9th level cleric to do. So, this class is not as wide open as they suggest.

Chapter three is about the mental attitudes of the priests. It discusses their views on art, music, drugs, education and a few other topics. Again, I really like the detail that is presented. It is well thought out and easy to use.

The fourth chapter deals even more with the priesthood as a whole. It has some prestige classes like the Harrowed. They are responsible for funeral rights. While the class is interesting it can be qualified for at first level and that seems really easy for a prestige class. There are many prestige classes here that are relatively easy to qualify for. The classes are well described but I feel that there isn’t enough given up or tough choices for them.

Objects of a magical nature are the subjects of the fifth chapter. Each is well presented and tells one a little about the object, its use, and its powers. It has jewelry and other items of a less conspicuous nature. Many of the items are able to made with the craft items feats. There are also lost relics detailed in the same level of detail towards the end of the chapter. The items all seem well thought out and nicely done.

The sixth chapter is on rituals, myths, and legends. Chapter seven gets into the spells, and then the last few chapters have a hymn, a nice little story, info on the great library, and a final revelation about death and life and everything.

The level of detail in this book is incredible. It takes a single goddess and fully defines her, her priests, the priesthood, everything. My biggest concern is the level of detail; I think there actually might be too much of it. Seventy-two pages is a lot for the working of one god. Unless the Pale Lady is going to be a major focus in a campaign I feel that many of the details will be wasted and become not important. The book is a good read and could serve to really flesh out PCs and NPCs alike. The death goddess is a unique take and offers many ideas of how to use her and her priests. If we get a full pantheon developed like this then I think it will be an amazing thing.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

By Bruce Boughner, Staff Reviewer d20 Magazine Rack and Co-host of Mortality Radio

Sizing Up the Target
Death: Guardian of the Gate a 72-page PDF supplement book published by Dark Quest Games and Natural 20 Press. The author is Darren Pearce. The cover is by Gillian Pearce and is the dark lady looking out over the land. She also does the interior art it is available for $6.95.

First Blood
This supplement is a treatise on the Lady Death and her worshippers. Probably inspired by DC’s Vertigo imprint version of Death as one of the Endless. The book opens with the story of the Pale lady, once an elderly gentle healer she was brutally robbed and murdered. Abandoned and thrown into a pauper’s communal grave, her home looted and destroyed and she was forgotten. As she appeared before Death, she was without fear and so Death, weary of his task, stepped aside to allow the healer to assume the mantle of Death.

Appearing to the narrator, the newly appointed Death approached Lucien (again a Vertigo character who is caretaker of the Library of Dreams), who dies in a duel, pierced through the heart. Smitten by Death, Lucien becomes her caretaker of souls. The narrative then switches to become the Pale Lady herself who then expounds upon death, reincarnation and the juxtaposition of souls from one life to the next.

The book then moves into stat block descriptions of Death, her retinue, and the tenets of her church. The High priestess of Death’s clergy is introduced, as is the tenets of the faith. Then a prestige class of paladins is laid out, The Lady’s Chosen, and another of Clerics, the Shade Warden.

Chapter three deals with the dogma of the faith on numerous topics such as drugs, art, entertainment, and education among others. The next chapter deals with the clerical classes, Follower of the Lady Pale, its skills and feats and also the Master of the Eternal Flame, Melancholy, Guardian, Mysteries, Seals, Shields and Sisterhood of the Shade prestige classes.

Chapter five brings forth the magical relics of this faith while the sixth deals with the rituals, myths and legends of the Pale Lady. Seven deals with NPC’s and spells and in chapters eight and nine are articles of poetry.

The last pair of chapters have ads in them and delineate the Great Library (of Souls) and a final revelation (story). The author uses the final couple of pages for dedications and the OGL.

Critical Hits
I’ve not seen many works dedicated to just one deity and its clergy, this one is thought out and rambles more than a little. The art that graces the interior is very well done and the artist should be seeking more independent work.

Critical Misses
First and foremost this seem to be merely a goth D&D module, but digging into it, those of us who crossover a couple of different genres, this is putting DC comics Death character, almost virtually unchanged, into a D&D product.

Coup de Grace
Some of the work here is first rate, Piers Anthony’s On A Pale Horse is what comes to mind in some of the chapters but it is more a send up of Neil Gaiman’s character than anything else.

To see the graded evaluation of this product and to leave comments that the reviewer will respond to, go to Fast Tracks at www.d20zines.com.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Where to start on this review? Well the beginning is always good and the beginning of the book is the cover so it is here that I shall start. The full, yet somber colored cover, at least in my eyes, is going to attacrt some attention. When I think of death it is a dark and dismal place as is most artwork dealing with that subject. The cover while dark in coloration is not gloomy for how can it be with such a lovely lady and her 'pet'. The quality of the artwork does not stop at the cover. Throughout the book at what I would call 'key' places a picture or two can be found. These 'key' places are where a visual image only aids the words that one is reading, such when Sorrow's Rreach and the Holy Symbol are discussed. The other places is where one has been reading for a while and a picture is inserted to give the eyes and mind a pause to reflect. The detail found in the cover continues from front to back though pictures on the inside are black and white sketches. The individual links of chainmail is just an example of the attention given by the artist.

Now onto the bread and butter of the book; the writting. Right off the bat it moves to pull one into its depths by beginning with the story of a meeting between the Goddess and a new soul. This story, the first page of chapter 1, isn't just placesd as an introduction and then forgotten about leaving the rest of the pages to be read like an instruction manual or some school text. No the story is only the springboard for what follows. The best way to say how the book reads is like having pages of many peoples journals taken out and melded together to create one book or even that of an interview where various people are asked to talk about what they know on one single subject: Lady Pale.

Onto more details of the chapters themselves:
Chapter 1 begins with the meeting of Lady Pale and the first contributor to the book, Sir Lucien. This is followed by a brief explination of what will be found in the following pages. The transformation of a gentle, healing soul belonging to one named Gilyaine into the beautiful Goddess of Death, Lady Pale, is told to you by Lucien. Lucien then gives over to Pale herself to allow her to weave her own tale of her reasons she is as she is and why her lands are as they are.

Chapter 2: This chapter packs the most information in a single chapter. A brief summary of Pale, including her alignment, portfolio, domain, symbol and favored weapon starts this chapter off. The quill and ink are then handed to Lord Tyrone, a follower of Pale since he saw her at another's death. Tyrone tells of the requirements to become one of her followers. It begins with the age when one becomes an alcolyte, then tells of when they may seek to become a Priest or Priestess and the test one must undertake. This is folowed by the acceptable dress and colors of the Priesthood and physical appearance. Family life, sustenance, food preperation, and gender within the Pristhood follows. Tyrone summarizes the structure of the Priesthood beginning with the highest position, The Breath of Pale, and continuing to the lowest of alcolyte, or the Hands of Pale. Your journeyman class of the Priesthood are called the Eyes of Pale. These members are of Sorrow level, middle of the rank. This is followed by information on housing, names, markings, making note the clergy try to make themselves appear as close in appearance to the Lady in which they are devoted to, as well marriage. Chapter two is brought to a conclusion with the discussion of the priest's 'gifts' of power and two prestige classes; the Lady's Chosen and the Shade Warden. The Lady's Chosen are an elite sect, as the name suggests, that are chosen by Lady Pale to battle against the undead foe with the advantages of her blessing. Hit die, requirements, skills and class features are given. The Shade Wardens are the ones that worship Death itself instead of the Lady. This class finds mostly that of the warrior like classes rather than the clerics - paladin is one exception to this as they find the edicts of this class distasteful. As with Lady's chosen, the hit die, requirements, skills and features are given for the class. I must note the Shade Wardens have an alignment requirement of NON-good.

Chapter 3: This chapter, witten by the hand of Lady Estara Bannen, a High Priest of Pale, speaks of the mental attitudes of the order in which she belongs. The mental attitudes towards what you may ask. I shall tell you, drugs, art, language, music, entertainment as a whole, communication and education. With a pause not, the topic flows to some specific places the followers of Pale can be found. A temple in an Elven forest, an Ivory Tower where all the rites are taught to alcolytes, and finally the creme ala creme, Sorrow's Reach, a church that serves as the focal point of the Pristhood.

Chapter 4: If you wanted more specifics on the Priesthood or more prestige classes...this is the chapter for you. The chapter starts off with the Harrowed, a class made up of Priests of Pale at the Shadows or High Priest level. This class is the one seeing death daily as they are the ones to see to the preperation of a corse then follow through to performing the burial rites. The second class discussed is the Accounters. As the name might suggest, these are the priests who account or keep track of the records concerning the history of the Church as well as deaths -and- births in any given area. Masters or Mistresses of the Eternal Flame are the third class to be addressed. As a show of their devotion, each day these priests give a little of themselves to see that the black flame of Death, present at the heart of their church, temple, or shrine, remains burning. The lyrical voices of the order are known as the Melancholy and tis here many a bard can be found. The warrior of the priesthood are know as Guardians and as their name suggests they are the protectors of the priests and temples. To say these members are noble and honorable would be an understatment. Wonder where the mages fit? Tis within the class known as the Mysteries. The Mysteries are the ones who seek out artifacts and information. They are easy to pick out by the streak of snow white in their hair. For the monk out there, the class known as the Seals is for you. The Seals are the protectos of knowledge and items that should never see the light of day or left unprotected where those with less that honorable intentions can use them to cause overwhelming distruction. The Shields are the knights of old. Ne'er running from battle yet are giving enough to sacrifice themselves to protect a priest and child alike. These are the muscle of the order hunting down and doing away with undead. For women only, is the scet known as the Sisterhood. Warriors like the Shields, yet they are gentle and quiet. I would liken them to an assassin with the calming touch of an angel.

Chapter 5: Wonder if there is a way to distinguish a member devoted to Pale, aside fom appearance and dress? Aye; is what few adornments they have. Such information can be found in this chapter, from the communication pendants to a belt known as the Bond of the Soul to a black jasper stone set in silver called Raven's Eye. Some other objects are the Heartstone Necklace, a veil of ebony and silk, a life-like figurine of a raven, and a pair of dark staves. Also spoken of at this point in the book and chapter is the Holy Symbol of the Lady Pale and the question of jewelry in regards to rank. Following this are the items used in rituals such as a bell and knife, then to lost relics. The lost relics are few, only five in number. They are known as Ravensword, Glass Axe of the Feather, Flute of Last Rest, Mace of Night and the Amulet of Echoes. Lastly this chapter deals with the rules concerning magical and non-magical methods of easing suffering at death.

Chapter 6: Rituals, Myths and Legends. What a more direct way to say what is found in this chapter. Covered is everything from the calendar to sacred animals to ritual clothing to prayer to plants. Also given light is the look upon births by the order, a sample wedding ceremony and a sample rite of Death. When it comes to the myths and legends, the beginning of the world form which Lady Pale hails and its near destruction is presented. Also presented for one's eyes is the story of Darius the swordsman.

Chapter 7: Many names have been mentioned up to this point. Sir Lucien, Lord Tyrone and Lady Estara Bannen and there are others. It is in this chapter you learn of Ashala Stormhaven, the Breath of Pale, as well as a gentleman named Jon Paul, a blind mute mage named Lady Alasti, an undead known as Claudius and one learns more of the devoted knight Sir Lucien. Then tis onto magic in the Churches of Pale starting with the Book of Days, a magical tome in which a persons's life story is written. It is here that one may also get a glimpse of some of the spells used in dialy life as well as those used against the undead. Some of those named are Headache of the Foe, Healing Breath, Raven's Arrow, Raven's Solace and Sundering Fury. Two class specific spells are Know Lineage and Requiem. Included in this chapter are examples of how the various spells may manifest.

Chapters 8 and 9: Both of these are very short chapters, yet are entertaining as well as enlightening. Chapter 8 contains a story told or perhaps written by Darius the swordsman, in chapter 6, who due to his foolishness learned a lesson the hardest way possible. Chapter 9 contains a hymn that appears to have been torn straight from a hymnal.

Chapter 10: We have reached the end of all, where all who pass from the living and to Lady Pale, The Great Library. The library is described by one who is within it, Solomon Ishay of the Wayfarers upon his departure from the physical and into the arms and lands of Lady Pale. The Book of Days is delved into a bit deeper in this chapter than it was in Chapter 7.

Chapter 11: One last story to bring this supplement to a close; a 'Final Revelation'. Tis the story of one Magister Ranulf, a man who is or shall we say was a debator too caught up in his debat to see what was right before him.

The book is then brought to a close by some of the author's thoughs and his dedications.

To my own personal thoughts about this piece of writting. I find it to be truly a marvelous piece of work, one that has had a great deal of time spent upon it. This goddess was lovingly developed in the mind of the author as was her pristhood, this all visible in the detail that is given. It also comes through in the various views of people who are fictional yet are incredibally believeable. This first person writting draws me in from the beginning and carried me through to the end. For one who uses RPG books as resources for other things, it sets my mind spinning from one idea to the next. From a DM's point of view, one could say it is more entertaining than useful, this being a DM who is more cut and dry than creative.

As has been pointed out in previous reviews the book is 72 pages and is broken down as such:

page 1: Cover
pages 2-3: Table on contents and credits
pages 4-9: Chapter 1
pages 10-18: Chapter 2
pages 19-21: Chapter 3
pages 22-37: Chapter 4
pages 38-44: Chapter 5
pages 45-52: Chapter 6
pages 53-60: Chapter 7
page 61: Chapter 8
pages 62-63: Chapter 9
pages 64-66: Chapter 10
pages 67-69: Chapter 11
page 70: After Thoughts
page 71: Advertisement for Moon Elves
page 72: Legal Information

I did this as some before me mentioned the book is too long. I am not going to add to this debate but leave it up to you the reader to make that decision on your own with complete knowledge of what those 72 pages contain.

Would I recommend this book to people especially those of a DMing nature? Oh yeah!
Would I like to meet the Pale Raven in a game setting? If the DM was using this book as a reference for her...Most definitely because I would know the DM has every possible bit of information he or she could hope to have to make the Goddess of Death believeable as a real being.