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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="genshou" data-source="post: 2587369" data-attributes="member: 13164">E.N. Critters Volume 5: Interlopers from the Blasted RealmE.N. Critters Volume 5: Interlopers from the Blasted Realm is the fifth (obviously) in a line of theme-specific creature books from E.N. Publishing.  This particular volume’s writing team consists of Joshua Courtney, Robert Lajoie, Bill Salloway, and Jim E. Vilandre.  Matthew Lyons of Guillotine Studios drew the book’s artwork.  I have acquired this product for free (in PDF form) in order to write a review.  I chose Interlopers from the Blasted Realm because demons have always been a strong focus in my games, both those I run and those I play in.At first glance,this sixty-two page book shows limited promise.  I found the cover artwork, a larger and colored image of one of the book’s creatures, to be uninspiring.  The gore advisory led me to believe something better was inside, however. <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":]" title="Devious    :]" data-shortname=":]" /> * The book has no chapters, though it can be split into three sections.  The general layout is excellent, including bookmarks in the PDF and care taken to place one creature every two pages, so the printed version can show the entire section on one creature with the statistics on the left and the description on the right when the book is open. * The following are descriptions of each “section” within the book: * General Information—this first section of the book spends half a page explaining what an E.N. Critters book is.  For someone such as myself who is unfamiliar with E.N. Critters, this is an informative if not particularly necessary read. * Theme Detail—this important section lists the traits of a difficult-to-reach demiplane known as the Blasted Realm.  This evil-aligned plane resides pocketed between a commonly known demonic plane and the Astral plane, and shares some attributes of both.  Planar travel to and from the Blasted Realm suffers due to unusual fluctuations in planar magic.  This causes a great deal of detoured travelers to end up trapped until they are slain by the many creatures within.  The section details many attributes of this demiplane and also includes a map.  Also included in this section is a detailed account of the history of Zuraz’tik, a balor who found himself trapped within the demiplane after an unsuccessful attack against a rival demon.  After finding himself trapped within the Blasted Realm, Zuraz’tik built a base of power there and strove to find a way to return to conquer his native plane.  Unfortunately, when attempting a ritual to open a gate back to his plane, he instead opened a permanent rift to the Prime Material plane.  The magic backlashed and sent Zuraz’tik into a coma, and his right-hand “man,” Myzar’tak, took over.  Zuraz’tik and his demon underlings provide a decent sense of purpose for this demiplane’s inclusion in a game. * Also in this section detailing the demiplane is the description of a malevolent entity that pervades the demiplane.  While the idea of a “living” plane is certainly not original, it is delivered in a unique and interesting way. * Creature Entries—Having been largely unimpressed with the cover artwork, I found I was no less disappointed by the interior artwork.  While I certainly wasn’t expecting drawings on par with those by the staff artists of a bigger publishing company, the black-and-white charcoal effect (with some red thrown in to make it gory) leaves a few things to be desired in detail and in quality of shading.  Some of the pictures seem truly childish while others are excellent depictions of things that are horrifying and gruesome, some in extreme ways (they aren’t kidding about the gore advisory, children). * The entries themselves—naturally—start with a standard statistics block.  There may be inconsistencies in the statistics, though I am not one to notice them.  After the statistics block is a basic description of the critter coupled with a small colored paragraph that provides a model of how to describe the critter during actual play.  As with the standardized monster descriptions found in the 3.0/3.5 D&D Monster Manuals, this section lists typical height and weight as well as languages.  After this is a description of combat modes and tactics commonly used by the creature, followed by descriptions of the creatures’ special abilities.  I noticed no rule inconsistencies within this text.  Summing up each creature’s description are two very useful sections I was pleased to find within this book: Ecology, and Notes and Game Balance.  The Ecology section lists details most DMs will be interested in as they use the creatures, such as whether or not the creature can reproduce and how they live within the Blasted Realm.  Notes and Game Balance details the design considerations behind the critter; both why it was made and how they settled on its Challenge Rating.  Sandwiched between the two sections is a table which lists information players may gain about the creature with the appropriate Knowledge check at varying DCs (the higher the check, the more information they get).  The entries on the tables throughout the book follow a standardized format which quickly grows trite, but the DCs seem much better than those normally used for such a system. * The creatures themselves run the gamut from imaginative and brilliant to hackneyed and ridiculous.  Some of them seem to be nothing more than a feeble attempt at making a ‘weird’ creature concept, while others provide something particularly clever or gruesome.  Most of the creatures included are outsiders, and some of the creatures that are not outsiders probably should be.  Included are the statistics for both Zuraz’tik and Myzar’tak, either of whom could provide a powerful arch-nemesis for the players. * Last but not least, there are four pages of counters that can be used on the 1-inch scale used as the default in Dungeons and Dragons.  While the artwork is grainy and difficult to see at this scale, it’s better than having to make them yourself.In a broader perspective, the book was mostly free of spelling mistakes, and grammar was mostly related to word choice and punctuation.  These did not detract from my ability to read or understand the product, but it does leave the impression of sloppy and hasty editing.Overall QualityLayout: *****Descriptive Text: ***Spelling and Grammar: **Creature Entries: ***Creature Statistics Blocks: ****Artwork: **Overall Quality: ***The Final WordDespite a number of blemishes (some minor, some major), E.N. Critters Volume 5 succeeds in filling its role as a creative, themed approach to a creature statistics booklet.  It is definitely a “niche” booklet, but the creatures therein can be used for general applications at the appropriate Challenge Rating.  This is an excellent book to get if you are interested in demons in your games, but I wouldn’t recommend it otherwise.</blockquote>

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