Well, once upon a time I pledged to start doing little capsule-reviews of each issue myself; I generally seem to get them about a week or so after the early birds here (just got mine today), however, so bear with me if it's old news. This is just a "first impressions as I look through it" review, not a detailed analysis.
Cover: Githyanki vs. Tiefling! Nifty.
Githyanki always get my attention.
From the Editor: There's a neat thing here about a web supplement, but I can't see it around that humongous eye-bleeding ad on the opposite page. Yikes. Oh well, gotta pay the bills!
Prison Mail: Random sidebar about Dungeon #122. Wow, it feels like it was just a few issues ago! Um ... why is this here? Given the world of forums (such as this one), I'm not surprised that actual paper letters aren't coming in the way they once did, but I've also noticed that you print interesting forum posts sometimes too.
Three Faces of Evil: Nifty painting! The thing in the fountain looks like a cross between a girallon and Kali ... with a bit of hook horror on the side. Six arms ... Hextor motif. Cool! It's also nifty that this is a "sequel" campaign to the Shackled City. The adventure is full of neat ideas ... and The Faceless One is a wonderfully creepy villain. I don't need a 3rd level adventure at the moment, but the Age of Worms adventure path certainly looks like a promising candidate for my next campaign. Is that really a two-headed dire weasel??? Oh, no, it's two single-headed dire weasels scrunched together. Well, that's cool too. I think if I ever run this, I'll go with the two heads tho.
Pit of the Fire Lord: Er, another arc adventure? I've posted elsewhere that having 2/3 of the meat of the magazine be pieces of arcs is a risky venture IMO. I like the arcs a lot, but I don't want them to take over. Seems like a solid enough adventure at a cursory glance, but nothing really jumps out at me about it. I like that it's tailored to Eberron, but that also limits its immediate usability for me, as I'm running a Greyhawk game at the moment. Maybe some future campaign!
Seekers of the Silver Forge: Well, well! Here I was just last week requesting some higher-level stuff, and here it is! A whole adventure about psionics underwater, how cool is that? Hey, it's a sequel to "Death of Lashimire," too! Awesome, I'm planning to use that one! I'll have to slide this into my own "adventure path." I'll have to bump it up to 17th level (the only open slots left in my campaign plan are 17th level and higher), but that shouldn't be too hard. A few more hit dice here, another level of soulknife there, no problem! I particularly like that it is a big, "fantastic" adventure, rather than the same old dungeon catacomb with More Bigger Monsters. Besides, any adventure with the phrase "zombie plesiosaur" in it, has gotta be good!
Gamer's Guide: Hmm, hmm, payin' the bills. I notice the Paizo ad doesn't list any prices. I bet that beholder doesn't come cheap, assuming there actually are any in stock. Still, it's fun to shop.
Dungeoncraft: I love these things. This particular one would have been twice as useful to me two weeks ago as I was doing some heavy-duty campaign planning, but that's okay, it's still useful now. I'll mine this one for ideas at leisure.
The Cast: Seneschals and Majordomos! Again, something always useful. Into the "instant NPCs" folder they go! In fact, I have a castellan-shaped hole in my campaign that might just be perfectly filled by one of these guys. Thanks!
The Dungeon: Random potion stuff! Fun, although I doubt I'll ever actually use it.
The Journey: Interesting food for thought here. Nothing immediately useful, but worth remembering for the future.
Downer: "Have fun killing humans." Hee.
It has started growing on me a bit, but I think that some of that is because the writing has gotten stronger.
Last Page: A good cover always deserves a second viewing, without copy cluttering it up!
All in all, a pretty good issue.
Probably very little I'll use right away, with the possible exception of one of the "cast" characters, but lots of things I might want to use in the future, especially the Silver Forge adventure. Only real downside, as I say, is the multiple "piece of a larger arc" adventures. After all, if I'm running the Age of Worms, I'm not likely to be running Shards of Eberron, right? But if they were generic adventures, I could easily use them both.
Thanks! I'll post another one next month.
-The Gneech
