By David Jones, Guest Reviewer, d20 Magazine Rack
Written by Tom Knauss, this is the first in a series of 32 page books dealing with specific planes by Mongoose Publishing; the premier book of the series explores the first layer of Hell, Feuerring. This sourcebook retails for $9.95, making it perhaps a little expensive compared to the number of pages, in my opinion. The book itself is physically like most Mongoose Publishing releases and the cover art is by Larry Elmore.
If you are looking for reading material about the first layer in Hell, with not so much detail or tables directing your style, then this book is a good source of information. Feuerring starts out describing the plane as a whole and how different islands are formed, this I found very interesting. The plane itself is a lake of raging fire and as with all most bodies of liquid, it has islands. These islands are formed by the actions of Evil creatures and people. If an entity causes enough evil during life, they will begin to form an island; the amount of evil will dictate just how large of an island is created. After the entity dies, it is placed upon the island created from its own evil deeds, where it can rule and mold the island as it desires. There are not a lot of details for this; however the book does cover a good amount. Ever wonder where that evil baron went to after your party killed him? He is probably ruling a small island on the first plane of hell. Even if you were not able to cause enough evil in your life to actually create an island, you will find there is a home for you here as well.
The author did a good job of creating a unique place; four major islands are listed for the tour. Each giving a description how the environment effects any inhabitants and magic, what kind of inhabitants can be found, interesting locals to ‘visit’ while there and a description of the ruler. The book does a great job of giving enough history about the ruler of the island so that you can see how the effects upon all those on it are a result of the ruler’s life and its actions while living. The sourcebook wraps things up with a few pages dealing with the plane as a whole.
There are five new monsters, one of which is a construct which doesn’t seem to use Mongoose Publishing’s own material found in Encyclopaedia Arcane: Constructs, I also felt it the cost to create was perhaps a little low. There is a new spell, ‘Hand of Vengeance’, nice little spell to cast again players who deal a lot of melee damage in a single round. The book also has a unique magical sword which is referenced to in one of the 4 Adventure scenarios listed. Each scenario is a small write up and set for different level of characters however can be easily altered to fit any group.
Things to note and where the book fell short is that you will find none of the NPC’s listed in the book has a stat block that readers have come to expect. If ever there was a book that was screaming out for a web enhancement, this is one. For this book to become a valuable aid to my collection, some random encounter tables for the sites listed, maybe some complete NPC’s. This would go along way to depicting the flavor of the area and give me something I can “drop straight into” as was promised. I do like the idea behind the series; this is something that has never really been offered before and the over all material is balanced with the exception of the construct mentioned above.
In my review of this product there is great potential within the sourcebook itself, though the GM will be doing a lot of work to bring it out and to life. I figure for the price, there should have been another 16 pages or raise the price and create a complete sourcebook ready to be used in any campaign.
To see the graded evaluation of this product, go to The Critic's Corner at www.d20zines.com.
