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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 2011682" data-attributes="member: 172">Dezzavold: Fortress of the DrowDezzavold: Fortress of the Drow is a setting and companion supplement for Green Ronin's fantastically devious Plot & Poison book regarding dark elves. The book is written by Christina Styles and Steven Trustrum, who also wrote Green Ronin's Corwyl: Village of the Wood Elves, and has ties to that book.A First Look[imager]http://www.greenronin.com/images/product/grr1109_200.jpg[/imager]Dezzavold: Fortress of the Drow is a 96-page perfect-bound softcover book priced at $19.95.The cover of the book, illustrated by James Ryman, depicts a number of dark elves leading some surface elves before some dark elf matron with a ghostly figure standing behind her.The interior is black-and-white, and richly illustrated. Interior artists include Beth Trott, Caleb Cleveland, Liz Danforth, Mike Vilardi, and Jonathan Kirtz. Interior cartography is by Hal Mangold and Shawn Brown.There were few editorial gaffes, but a few I noticed were consistent. I noticed right off was the lack of any spacing after the title of the book wherever it appeared in the text (apparently a search and replace gaff.) Also, for some reason, the actual number of HD the new creatures possess is missing from their entries (and are also missing from the advancement line).A Deeper LookDezzavold is a setting and rules resource detailing a dark elf holding. This holding can be used either as a confrontation site for standard PCs, or possibly as a city setting for PCs with less heroic aspirations.The history of Dezzavold, as described here, is linked to that of the village of Corwyl, described in Green Ronin's Corwyl: Village of the Wood Elves. The city of Dezzavold was originally inhabited by drow who had rebelled against the spider queen and chose to worship another, non-evil, deity, the so-called Lady of Mysteries. The peace between the drow of Dezzavold and their former home only held due to an edict by the spider queen herself, which only lasted while the matron of Dezzavold lived. After that time, the drow sought to slay their renegades.As first described in Corwyl, the not-wholly evil drow of the time approached the village of Corwyl in an attempt to come to a truce, a possibility envisaged by their deity. The elves of Corwyl took this for a trap, and took to war against the drow of Dezzavold, a war that only subsided when the drow of Dezzavold had to ward off attacks from their former home.This war caused Dezzavold to hire the drey, a new dark elf subrace introduced in Plot & Poison, as mercenaries. This was both the salvation and the undoing of the drow of Dezzavold. The drey slew the drow to the former home of the Dezzavold's drow, but they soon turned on them and took over the city. The drey now plot against the surface elves and have a stranglehold on the city of Dezzavold. This is the backdrop against which the rest of the book is set. There are other complications that could arise that could make a campaign striving for or against Dezzavold interesting. PC might be those that protect Corwyl against the drow, or throw the shackles of the drey off the city and restore the former royal family, or they may simply try to get by amidst this interplay.This backdrop is supported in two forms: rules and setting description.Some of the new rules used here are from Plot & Poison. Many are just referenced or have appropriate excerpts (sufficient, for example, to run an NPC with a class from the book). Some of the more extensively referred to rules are repeated here. For example, the drey race is repeated in an appendix.Among the new rules material are new creatures (other than the repeated material, all spiders associated with Dezzavold) and new core and prestige classes.The new core classes are the black heart and the netherstrider. The black heart is a very specific class primarily representing followers of Nyarleth amongst the drey. The class itself is something of a hybrid between a barbarian and an unholy warrior type. The netherstrider are sort of a barbaric monk unarmed fighter type. The classes seem mechanically solid, but the concepts are a bit specific for what I normally consider justified for a 20-level class.There are four prestige classes in the book: -Demonican: A specialized summoner class with slowed spellcasting progression to make up for its class abilities. The demonican's special ability lets them imprison an outsider, and then sacrifice spell slots to use the outsider's abilities. A neat class, there is one apparent editorial error: class improvements over levels allow the character to extend the duration of the effects in the text, but the class table speaks in terms of uses per day. -Discordant: The discordant are drow masters of disguise and infiltration. -Huzzlatar: A specialized foe of the drow, the huzzlatar gain abilities such as darkvision, stealth against the same, and favored enemy style bonuses that allow them to better operate against the drow. The huzzlatarr also has its own spell list and spellcasting progression, similar to a blackguard. -Warren Sentinel: The warren sentinel is something of a dark elf guardian and underdark scout. In addition to scouting ability and ability with spiders, the warren sentinel has its own spell list and spellcasting progression.Overall, the prestige classes seemed like well balanced and compelling concepts for specialized characters.A great part of the book is dedicated to describing Dezzavold itself. The maps show vault like city clefted into parts by a chasm. The city and fortress descriptions include keyed locale descriptions with numerous NPCs running businesses and other concerns. A separate section goes into further detail about the fortress of Dezzavold and likewise details encounters within.A sizable appendix called Denizens of Dezzavold presents a variety of statistics blocks, along with repeating statistics for drey and drow deities from Plot & Poison. The statistics blocks include general NPCs such as scouts, slaves, warriors, and priestesses, along with the drey queen of Dezzavold and her eight “daggers” (as her henchmen are called).NPC statistics blocks are consistent with 3.5 rules and use selected items from Plot & Poison. There are some nice flexibilities, such as some “add on” statistics to adapt priests to specific deities defined in the Plot & Poison book. While it does seem solid, it doesn't follow the Plot & Poison convention that there are no drow aristocrats of the aristocrat class. While one might be able to explain this dichotomy with the circumstances of Dezzavold's history, there are some places where you think that this convention would hold, such as two drow families ruled by relatively weak drow aristocrat who has another family member who is much stronger, possessing PC classes.ConclusionsDezzavold is rich with potential as use as a setting for drow campaigns or battlegrounds for an anti-drow campaign. The backstory provides some rich potential for plot development, and several adventure possibilities are suggested for a war against Corwyl. The statistics are solid, and it was nice to see that Dezzavold made better use of Plot & Poison than it seemed Corwyl made use of Bow & Blade. However, it seems to me Dezzavold brings less new material to the table, and the classes seem less justified and a less compelling addition to the game.Edit: I upgraded this to a 4. As time goes on and my schedule gets busy, it becomes clear to me how useful ready-made stats for useful NPCs are. I'll stand my ground that the core classes weren't needed, though.Overall Grade: B- -Alan D. Kohler</blockquote>

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