I won't post my usual break-down since the bulk of the material has been mentioned already. Instead, since I got mine today, I'll post my impressions on some of the material.
The Dragon Kings article is by Chris Flipse and Jon Sederquist, the guys who run the official
Dark Sun fan site,
www.athas.org. This article is a brief introduction, then the epic prestige class, along with briefly discussing ex-dragons, and how the change progresses, and two new epic feats. Two small sidebars discuss online DS resources, and the basics of epic advancement.
I had mixed thoughts about this article. On the one hand, it did away with what I felt were a lot of ridiculous conventions about becoming an Athasian Dragon. You don't need to worry about building a ziggaraut or forming an alliance with an elemental lord, for example. However, some other things were lost as well. No mention of obsidian orbs is given, for one. Also, you only need to be able to manifest 6th-level psionic powers to qualify for this epic PrC. While I know this is a nod to psychic warriors, it still seems wrong.
Likewise, the dragon's defiling killing animal life is now utilized as, when casting epic spells with backlash damage, spreading that damage to nearby living creatures instead of the dragon casting the epic spell. That's an interesting way of doing it, but it's not the same. No mention is given to having dragon kings who could grant spells to templars, and no mention is made of any of the existing sorcerer-kings (Borys gets mentioned once, but that's all).
Races of Spelljammer presents PHB-style racial write-ups for the giff insectare, and scro. These were well done, with only a few inconsistencies that'd rub old-school fans the wrong way. Mostly, the scro part doesn't mention Dukagsh at all (though "Dukgash" is mentioned as a male scro name), and it says scro worship principles of self-improvement; while that may be what Dukagsh wanted for his people, it's still odd to have him cut out. Abreviated stats for the scro's terrestrial leader, the Ultimate High Overlord, have him as being just a fighter 4/monk 12. Also, apparently scro have a natural +1 CR, despite having no racial hit dice, if you look at the sidebar on scro NPCs. I'd also liked to have seen something on Klikral, the insectare "godlike entity" that apparently physically lives on their homeworld.
The Dead factions article covers the Believers of the Source, The Communals, The Expansionists, the Incanterium, the Mercykillers, and the Sign of One. Of particular interest to PS fans is that a unique minor artifact is presented: the Heart of Aoskar.
Creature atalog IV covers monsters from
Greyhawk,
Ravenloft, and
Mystara. Covered are the animus, blindheim, carrionette, death's head tree, greyhawk dragon, dusanu, goblyn, maggot golem, suel lich, nagpa, phanaton, and xvart.
While it was great to see some of these old monsters again, a lot of these had already been updated (to 3E, if not 3.5E). All of the
Ravenloft monsters (except the maggot golem, I couldn't find that one elsewhere) had been updated in Arthaus's
Ravenloft line. Likewise, the animus and xvart had been updated in the
Living Greyhawk Journal previously. The greyhawk dragon, also known as the steel dragon (and that's mentioned in the article), can already be found
online; the stats are the same, which isn't surprising considering SKR worked on both articles.
The Spellcraft article covers a book called "Heinfroth's Manual of Methods", and is Dr. Daclaud Heinfroth's book of notes and methods for using arcane magic to treat patients. Oddly, the article opens with a letter from Heinfroth to Dr. Gregorian Illhousen. As you may recall, Illhousen and his clinic have already been taken into the Nightmare lands. A brief sidebar about the book notes that you could place Heinfroth's asylum in Boston on Gothic Earth.
