By John Grigsby, Staff Reviewer, d20 Magazine Rack
The Lore of the Gods, Book One: The Olympians (also known as Greek Gods) is the first 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, with artwork by Aaron D. Siddal.
The work begins by dividing Greek Mythology into six categories; the elemental gods, nature spirits, immortal human-affecting spirits, lesser gods, the greater Olympian deities, and finally giants and monsters. This notation seems to serve as little more than informative background because the book focuses primarily on the greater Olympian deities and their children, but it's still interesting to know and might be of use to DMs who base their campaigns in ancient Greece or a similar society.
The deity descriptions, though not in any recognized format, are easy to read and interpret. They are alphabetized for easy of reference and most are accompanied by a color drawing of the deity in question. The artwork is well-done, though the family resemblance is painfully obvious among the deities depicted.
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 Artemis, we learn that her favored classes are druids and rangers. Favored classes of Artemis (as well as her clerics), gain a +1 attack bonus against Aberrations. The exact benefits of being a favored class vary from deity to deity, but it certainly makes for a unique and very playable element.
This information is followed by a brief background of the deity and then a stat block with the standard write-up. Note that this book does not draw upon the material in Deities & Demigods, but it certainly doesn’t suffer from the loss. Each deity is designed utilizing only the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide and all of them still come out as perfectly capable of handling themselves against most foes. The material in Deities & Demigods could easily be added to these deities if the DM decides they need a little boost. It is interesting to note that no god described in this book exceeds 20th level in power (interesting, though unsurprising, considering that it was in development before the release of Deities and Demigods or the Epic Level Handbook).
Any artifacts carried or commonly used by the god are fully detailed in the stat block description and I really appreciated this touch. Most often, these items flesh out a god's abilities, but some are actually drawn from myth and it's nice to see these detailed in this manner. The book covers the "big dozen," plus their children, for a total of 17 deities in all.
Behind the description of the gods, new domains are described and all are consistent with the power level of those developed by Wizards of the Coast. The new domains are: Balance, Craft, Heaven, Love, Madness, Music, Sea, Underworld, and Weather.
The book also details a host of 35 brand-new spells unique to the setting. From allure to wind shear, you're sure to find something of use to you in your own campaign, whether or not you use the rest of the book. My personal favorite is raise structure, which permits the caster to literally build a castle from the ground up! Pretty impressive!
Steve and Kevin also provide a small handful of new monsters and a brand new template called half-god (it shouldn’t be too hard to guess what this one represents) and a new prestige class (the hunter of Hera). Rounding out the work is a sampling of famous heroes of Greek myth and this is the section that most captured my interest.
I'll admit, I'm a sucker for NPC write-ups and it was just cool to see Heracles, Jason, Homer, and a few other famous names that I recall from English Literature as NPCs. It's almost enough to inspire me to run a campaign set in ancient Greece. If I do, this book will serve me well.
As with most Bastion Press products, everything in the book except the artwork is specified as Open Game Content. It is very compliant with d20 standards and I found no glaring errors or omissions. Originality suffers slightly but only because the Olympian gods are so well-written up in every RPG out there that the topic has become almost humdrum. However, as far as the subject material goes, this work takes a step further than the rest and that makes up for the lack of original source material.
Both players and DMs will find this work useful, though DMs are likely to get more from it than players will. If you're only planning on using this pantheon (or a similar one) in your campaign, this book is a worthwhile buy, especially compared to the pricy and hardcover Deities & Demigods, but if you're using a plethora of divinities or looking to create your own, you'll probably find it less useful than other, similar works. Still, don’t overlook it just because it focuses on Olympian deities. The spells and domains herein will fit nicely into any campaign!
To see the graded evaluation of this product, go to The Critic's Corner at www.d20zines.com.
