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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="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2011235" data-attributes="member: 18387">By Bruce Boughner, Staff Reviewer d20 Magazine RackInitiative RoundInto the Black is a 96-page sourcebook published by Bastion Press . The author is Thomas Knauss. The cover is by Terry Wolfinger and features a wizard and dwarf warrior encountering a rare crystal while a stony surprise creeps on them from behind and it is available for $22.95.Into the Black is the next in the Bastion Press products focusing on spicing up terrains for game play. This book is primarily a DM aide providing many ways to accentuate the flavor of a game by adding additional elements to adventuring in the dark beneath our feet. The fist section is a general overview of life in subterranean realms. The following chapters follow the pattern of Into the Green and describe four common settings, Caverns, Catacombs, Mines and Sewers and in the next chapters Equipment and Spells for underground adventuring.Subterranean Life is described in the first chapter in general terms as the individual sections are better defined in their own chapters. A brief explanation of the evolution of plant and animal into the realms below is given. With the absence of sunlight to provide photosynthesis to plants and circadian rhythms for animals, extrasensory perception to allow beings to function in the complete darkness among other aspects of life. The connection to the surface is very important as roaming surface creatures account for much of the food supply. Any creature residing totally underground is considered a Troglobite. Visual organs diminish as does skin pigmentation, making most troglobites sightless and colorless.Caverns are caused over centuries, usually by erosion or other natural phenomena. Surface weather has little effect on caverns after one venture past the immediate entrance of the cavern. There is also more carbon dioxide hence more humidity. Other similar environmental changes are discussed in chapter two. Although not as prevalent as on the surface, caverns have a variety of plant life and several new species are listed here, including Arsenic Mold, Crown Mushrooms, and Sailor’s Moss. The seventeen new plants are described not only physically, but for their edibility, alchemical use and toxicity. Twelve new cavern dwelling animals are then given. Ranging from the Brown Spider to the Ice Rat and the Oilbird. These subterranean creatures are described to be encounters of flavor rather than monsters to be killed. Their use is similar to the plant life in that the edibility and alchemical uses are described in more detail than just stat blocking them out. Rocks and minerals are also given in 20 different kinds from the familiars Gold and Platinum to the new and exotic varieties like Animantrium (that makes an excellent material for Stone golems) or Stibnite (that can be fastened to wands of explosive varieties to make them more volatile). Environmental hazards are many in deep caverns, rock falls, plants and animals but there are other hazards as well. A handful of new diseases can be found here. Three of these can be gain through contact and one is an inhaled infection. Rules for triggering a collapse of a cavern are also given.Seven new monsters close the cavern chapter. Cave Hermits and Cavern Giants lead the pack. The Cavern Giant is one of the smaller giant sub-species and is a consummate grappler, stats for playing the Giants as characters are also presented. Deviant Mimics and Mal’Orm (cricket men) are among the other new monsters. Pallemon or Pale Men are given, a kind of human answer to the same evolution that created the Drow and Duergar, as with Drow they lean towards wizardry as a favored class, they also tend to be more like Illithids in appetite for consuming a foes intellect. The third chapter handles Catacombs. These are artificially created underground chambers made by human or dwarven hands mainly for disposing of surface dead. Much like caverns, the environmental qualities of catacombs do not vary greatly. As with caverns, new varieties f plant and animal life abounds here. Nine new plants like Corpse Mold, Grave Yeast and Greenlight (a lichen) are given. Eight new indigenous animals such as Crypt Rats, Marrowsnakes and Ivory Frogs are presented as well. Different mineral deposits can be found as well. Minerals such as Bergasalt (a rare mineral that can prevent the re-animation of a corpse), Lead and Marble used in tomb construction and Obsidian (that can be harvested for spell components and used tools) are given for a DM to better flavor a campaign.. Again four new disease are presented in this environment, all of these are inhaled and some are familiar like Tuberculosis and Typhoid Fever. Tomb traps and undead is common hazards of this environment.Five new monsters are presented in this section. Crypt Guardians are a stone golem-like hazard for your catacomb. The Hellcorn is a spiteful revenant seeking to wreak havoc on their killers. The skeleton-like Leytru stalk the underworld feasting on humanoids. Silent Reapers seek victims to feast on their memories attacking their victims like mantis. Walking Dead are humanoids pronounced dead by healers who are still quite alive. Buried they succumb to death from dehydration and madness and return to the world seeking their own destruction and the destruction of the living.Mines are the third section covered about the black. Mines are designated in two varieties, vertical and horizontal. Vertical mines are shafts driven downward into the earth while horizontal mines are tunnels dug into a hill or mountainside. Towns and settlement often form around mines, their economies driven by the ore retrieved from the rock. As was demonstrated in our own history, the west and Appalachian regions of our country is dotted with ghost towns where mines have played out and the people moved on. As pointed out in the text, it is not uncommon for major lodes to be found by common people doing everyday chores such as washing clothes in a mountain stream uncovering gold or silver. As opposed to humans, dwarves will construct massive subterranean cities near the veins of ore. Human mines are typically exposed to the surface elements and thus weather outside is typical of the weather inside the mine. The preferred style of mine is horizontal, for both human and dwarf, they are easier to build and to extract ore from. Regardless, mines are cramped, harsh and dangerous. As with catacombs, they are artificial constructs and home to transient dwellers like bats and bears. Mines generally do not support a native plant life. Ten minerals and rocks are discussed here, with the characteristic Copper, Gold, Silver, Coal and Iron. There are new materials like Barg jural, a jewel used by dwarves that is found in iron and magnesium deposits or Vuldemite, which is prized by Orcs as Elves have an allergy to it. Environmental hazards can greatly vary in a mine. Wards and guards are artificially created hazards but coal dust can cause illness after long exposure. Volatile gases, cave-ins and floods can also be deadly mine hazards and can cut off oxygen to the mine. Five new monsters are created for the mine section. Constructs like the Barangulaak created long ago by a greedy dwarven priest to hunt and acquire Barg jural for him. Flosid are is ooze that feed on fossilized deposits and are a deadly acidic danger. Gremmin are undead (mostly humans) whose greed for gold drives them on even after death. Nokkers are fey that are known as the spirits of the mine that bedevil greedy and rapacious miners. Orvenders are earth elementals that are amalgamations of lava and indigenous inorganic matter that protect the earth from despoiling miners.Sewers are the final section covered in the book. This is an artificial construction of humanoids under large urban centers, a source of many urban legends and a haven for everything from aberrations to homeless humanoids. With the fertile waste of civilization to breed in, diseases and vermin are plentiful. Early sewers depended on storm water and natural drainage to clean them but made natural breeding ground for mosquitoes and other hazards. New designs using tunnels solved most of these problems but created new one such as malodorous and explosive gases. This new system also made a safe haven for thieves. Most sewers are stone tubes 10-12 feet below the surface. Accessed by street vents and maintenance points, there is usually a brackish slow moving pool of water in the center of the tunnel ranging from several inches to 2 feet in depth. Filled with a horrid stench, there are drainage chambers large enough to provide humanoid habitation. Mosses, bugs and rats can be found here, mushrooms and mildew are also normal inhabitants. As this is an artificial tunnel, there are no usable rocks or minerals to be found here. The biggest hazards in the sewers are disease, three different contact diseases are given, Cholera and dysentery are among the more familiar. Movement and sewer gas are also hazards faced in this environment.There are also six new monsters here. Barathelar are small shapechangers that prey on children in their feline forms. Ravvimen are monstrous, amphibious humanoids that can live in either the sewers or swamps that steal the kills of other predators. Sarrenal are small beasts that are evolutionary offshoots of eels. Walking Disease are undead humanoids that have perished in the sewers and are now mobile colonies of molds, bacteria and disease. The Wurggis are plants much like tumbleweeds that roll through the sewers.New equipment is the next section. A small chart showing the availability of this equipment by it’s rarity and the size of the population center is given. This equipment includes thing like a Greenlight Torch that is powered by a phosphorescent lichen rather than fire. A Miner’s Hat and Hip Wader boots are also available. New magic items include a Collar of Sure Breathing that provides clean air to breathe under normal and magical conditions like suffocation and protects from airborne disease like tuberculosis. A Rocket Broom is similar to a Flying Broom but is powered by Boron and produces a devastating sonic boom. Evil priests can create a Scabrous Mace from the remains of a Walking Disease that inflicts disease on its victims. New materials created in this volume include Bat’s Thread made from the silk of a Guano Worm. Lavastone mounted on wands increases the output of fire-based spells. New substances such as Black Bomb (which is an explosive powder made of Coal dust) and Green Revealer (a faerie moss lichen) that can coat victims in a green sticky phosphorescent light are given as well. New armors made out of many of the minerals in the book are given with added abilities from the material added to them.New spells are also provided with an edge towards underground use. Nineteen new spells include s Black Lung that fills a victim’s lungs with Coal dust and causes negative modifiers on their Concentration, Hide, Listen and Move Silently checks. It also provides Ghosthunter that enchants a weapon with the ability to combat undead. Four pages of encounter charts close the book.Critical HitAs a follow up to Into the Green, this book brings more depth to the Underdark settings available for any world. The clear and concise way the underground areas are divvied up and then broken done into animal, vegetable and mineral components as well as environmental hazards makes it easy for a DM to better flavor a campaign. Much of the new equipment is not any great shakes as far as excitingly innovative but they do make good utilitarian implements. The same with the spells, nothing earth shattering but some good common use spells.Critical FumbleAnytime I see a Bastion product I am trepidatious about the artwork. At times the art has been top quality but just so manga-esque I couldn’t stand it or it has been great. This book suffers from too little art. What is in it is great art, what I have come to expect in a D&D product but there could be much more useful art. Visual interpretations of the new equipment and more use of the new monsters presented in this volume would be good and of more use. A company that can produce Arms & Armor should have had this covered.Coup de GraceInto the Black is a great DMs tool, not really helpful for the average player, large on giving a DM some very useful tips on spicing up a subterranean campaign. The new substances, animal, vegetable and mineral can make for some great plot hooks such as a party could be hired by an alchemist or wizard to seek out some of these rare materials or just to add to the flavor of the existing game. Having covered the above ground and underground environs, I am in anticipation to see if Bastion goes Into the White and covers airborne environments or Into the Blue and goes underwater.To see the graded evaluation of this product and to leave comments that the reviewer will respond to, go to The Critic's Corner at <a href="http://www.d20zines.com/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=803" target="_blank">www.d20zines.com.</a></blockquote>

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