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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2009506" data-attributes="member: 18387">By John Grigsby, Staff Reviewer, d20 Magazine Rack Egyptian Gods is the third in a series from Bastion Press detailing mythological figures in d20 format for use with the Dungeons & Dragons® role-playing game produced by Wizards of the Coast. It is written by Steve Creech and Kevin Ruesch. It should, more appropriately be called The Lore of the Gods, Book Three: The Egyptians, but what the hey? In format, this effort differs little from their previous releases, The Lore of the Gods, Book One: The Olympians (and see my above review of such for further details) and The Lore of the Gods, Book Two: The Asgardians (also known as Norse Gods). The listing for each deity includes the standard information: alignment, domains, symbol, and favored weapon, but there are also a few new entries that I find add a new dimension to the game. For example, under Bast, we learn that her favored classes are clerics, monks, and paladins. Favored classes who worship Bast gain a +1 bonus to their base Dexterity scores. The exact benefits of being a favored class vary from deity to deity, but it makes each deity-character relationship unique. This information is followed by a brief background of the deity and then a stat block with the standard write-up for the deity's avatar. This book does not draw upon the material in Deities & Demigods because it does not try to design the actual deity (which is, and should be, immortal and nearly omnipotent), but rather the being's physical form or avatar. As previously, all are limited to 20 character levels, making them powerful, but still subject to the core rules (the Epic Level Handbook is not yet covered under OGL). As in the first book, artifacts typically used by the deity are detailed following the stat-block. The artwork in this book is done by Todd Morasch and Michael Nickovicch and you can see a sampling of their work in the free PDF download of Norse Gods. While I feel that the effort put into this technique is admirable, I just don’t like the look of the pictures. I found myself thinking, "I could do that with Photoshop." It always been my understanding that the Eqyptian gods were represented by anthropomorphic animals and this is the way I expected them to be depicted. Some are and some aren't and this is a minor nitpick, but it means something to me. The special effects used on some of the pictures also strike a sour chord with me. Again, it looks almost as though Nickovicch opened up Photoshop, went to the filters menu, and experimented. After seeing Aaron Siddal's beautiful artwork in The Olympians, I was just left disappointed by this effort. That said, it's not all bad, though. I found the picture of Thoth, for example, to be very well-done and compelling. Exactly what I would have expected from the god of knowledge (even though he has a human head). Following the write-ups of the 17 gods (do I sense a pattern forming here?) are a handful of new domains: Affinity, Balance, Dead, Desert, Heaven, Moon, Music, Night, Time, Underworld, Weather, and Wind. Some new spells (42 in all) round out the new offerings that can be easily transported to any game setting. We're also given quite a few new monsters, some copied from other Bastion Press products, but several brand new to this work. They fit the theme of the supplement perfectly and even DMs who aren’t using the Egyptian setting specifically will no doubt find a use for them in their campaigns. A few magical items unique to an Egyptian milieu can also be found here. The prestige class section was what offered me my most pleasant surprise. I'm an old fan of Marvel comics and my heart leapt with joy when I saw the prestige class labeled Moon Knight! Yes, they are followers of Khonsu and I don't know if the nod was intentional, but it is certainly appreciated! There are a total of 5 new prestige classes in this offering. As with all Bastion Press Products I've reviewed thus far, everything in here is designated as Open Game Content except the artwork. Their compliance with the d20 standard is spot on, rivaling that of Wizards themselves. As with The Olympians, I deduct a few points from originality because the material is so well covered (everybody does the Egyptian mythos), but I give a few back for the gods they chose to do (and the Moon Knight prestige class). There's no doubt that the material is useful even to DMs running games set outside the Egyptian arena, but since it does concentrate on a very specific milieu, I felt compelled to cut back the Playability rating a little. If the artwork hadn't struck me as just so, well, messy, I'd up the Value for the Dollar to 5. In any case, you can't go wrong adding this one to your collection. To see the graded evaluation of this product, go to The Critic's Corner at <a href="http://www.d20zines.com" target="_blank">www.d20zines.com.</a></blockquote>

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