Into the Green

[Ghostwind]

Into the Green provides the reader with details on four different 'green' environments.

This 96 page black and white softcover book provides the reader with information on the following terrain types: Forests, Jungles, Woods and Plains. In addition, there is a chapter on new equipment, another on spells, and three appendix listing, one for poisons, another for random encounters and a third for weather.

Each section has information on the climate, plants, animals, environmental hazards and monsters found in the region. The introduction to each section is so detailed that it's almost like reading a school text book, which isn't good. What is good is that these sections are fairly brief and lead into more useful material.

The material on plants for example, provides the GM with some potential role playing material. Green Breather, a shrub found in forests, is known to be a favorite of green dragons so adventurers who happen to see this plant, know that there is often a green dragon somewhere around. It can help set the stage for future encounters or put the fear of death into the players. In some cases, the plans are themselves are traps, for example the Tokkan hides and can attempt to eat those who step upon it.

The majority of each section though, is the new monsters. Forests starts on page 3 and end on page 20. From page 10 to 20 is monsters. Jungles starts on 21, ends on 38. From 29 to 38 is monsters. This isn't a bad thing at all as these types of terrain often don't have specific encounters that can be quickly planned out that are unique. Into the Green Takes care of that aspect.

In terms of ability, there is a wide range of creatures present. The Arborgeist, a native to the woods, is an undead treant (ah, an old favorite) that dies by fire and haunts its old nesting grounds, an impressive CR 14 creature. The Vermillion hound on the other hand, a large scarlet and black furred hound, is a CR of 2. Stats looked good at first glance and CRs seemed solid but will require more playtesting.

Chapter Five is a mismatch of equipment. There are new mundane items for example, ranging from bison chips, or bison dung, used for heating, to the Rod of the Blightsower, an item of power used by evil rangers and druids. The items represent a nice mix of natural equipment that can augment the feel of a wilderness campaign while at the same time expanding on the materials available to customize a game. Want to avoid getting wet? Wear beaver skin. Want to create rope in the wild? Use the fibers off a coconut.

Chapter Six, Spells, is brief, being less then six pages long. It starts with a listing of the spells by class, level and alphabetical, ranging from 0 level cleric spells to 5th level wizard spells. Most are centered around dealing with wilderness survival or using wild things. Want to gain knowledge of plants in order to overcome plant creatures? You want Lumberjack. Need greater resistance versus natural diseases? Then you want Boost Immunity.

The book uses the standard two column layout. Interior covers are not used. The art is good, a concern I had since the previous Bastion books used color and I was unsure what method they'd be using for the art in this book. Some old favorites like Scott Purdy and Ed Bourelle contribute with others so you know its good.

The book leaves me with some concerns. One of the points the book makes on the back is that it's designed as a guidebook for players and dungeon masters. As a player, there's really no crunch to this book and while the information on the terrain will come in handy to roleplay out some brief encounters between rangers, without the rules to back up that role playing, the benefit to a player, especially with so many monsters in this book, is minimal.

It's almost a monster manual style book and while that's fine, it doesn't do enough as a monster manual. Not every creature is illustrated, there are no racial traits, the monsters aren't listed one to a page or evenly. Want a master listing of each creature with its CR and page reference? Not here. This is fine for a book that's multi-focused, but the general information is sparse in a lot of areas. In terms of price, the book is $22.95. Compared to the Quintessential Sorcerer which runs for $21.95 and has a greater page count, that's high. It's also high compared to the former full color products that were on slick paper for $24.95. Now obviously that wasn't a pattern that could continue but the products now still have to be competitive with other d20 products and at this cost, it's not. Another thing lacking is an index. General, all purpose tool.

Into the Green offers a lot of information that GMs can combine with other wilderness material like the Scarred Lands Wilderness & Wastelands and Bastion Press' own Druids electronic book. If you're looking for an end all be all book on the wilderness, this isn't it. If you're a GM looking for more material to augment your campaigns in the forests, woods, plains or jungles, Into the Green is your book.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Every campaign setting has a broad section of the map that is simply colored green. This is the wilderness, an unexplored and dangerous area ripe for adventure, but woefully undefined and undocumented. What does this green swath mean, and what can be found there?

Into the Green provides rich detail for four different types of green environments, describing the ecology, terrain, hazards, and resources of each. From tall alpine forests to dark foreboding woods, from lonely and sprawling plains to dense and sweltering jungles, no feature is left out.

Into the Green is designed as a guidebook for both players and GMs alike, providing the resources needed to flesh out a wilderness campaign, and the knowledge needed to survive in one. For the GM, Into the Green details the living creatures and the unique conditions that make up each of the four terrains. Trees, plants, animals, microorganisms, monsters, pitfalls, and climates are all included - the complete cycle of life is defined.

Along with each of the environments are a wide variety of skills, substances, spells, concoctions, devices, gear, and information invaluable for dealing with the specific hazards of the wilds. Every plant tells a story, every creature provides a clue to success, and every monster is a treasure in and of itself

 

[trancejeremy]

Into the Green is a somewhat unusual d20 sourcebook from Bastion Press. Unusual because of it's subject matter. It's about "green" environments, specifically temperate forests, woods, plains, and jungles. The only other sourcebooks I can think of that were dedicated to a type of environment was a series of books from Game Lords for Traveller, and those were for exotic enviroments.

It's softcover, 96 pages, and priced at $22.95. It's written by Thomas Knauss, but there are a lot of additional people in the credits (I believe they mostly contributed monsters)

Each terrain (Forest, Woods, Plains, Jungle) gets it's own chapter, and follows the same basic format. There's a detailed explanation of what it is. There is a section of a dozen or so common plants and a similar number (but slightly fewer) of common animals. Lastly there is a selection of new monsters/critters for that terrain.

The description of each terrain is very vivid. While it can get a bit flowery at times, the writing style is very evocative and does a good job of setting the mood and painting a mental picture. For instance, as part of the description of the Jungle terrain, "...nature's unspoiled elements collide, fashioning a magnificent kaleidoscope of dazzling colors and incomparable beauty.". There is a very in depth explanation of what each type is, clearly describing the ecosystem and differentiating it from other types. I now know exactly what a Forest is vs. a Woods.

The plants are given a long paragraph each. There's a lot of flavor text, describing the plant , what it looks like, what it's useful for (often what it tastes like), ending with a bit of game info (generally the Difficulty Class of finding it using a Wilderness Lore check). It seems to mostly be real world plants, for instance, bananas, coconuts, rattan, mustard, oak, teak, etc, with some fantasy ones thrown in. The fantasy ones are not too outlandish for the most part, though one has a very amusing effect on gnomes.

Animals generally follow the same style as plants. They also tend to be largely real, with some fictional ones thrown in. No combat stats are provided, but they're not generally needed.

I found this to be the most interesting part of the book. The writer has a wry and almost spritely style in describing the plants and animals that is amusing and enjoyable to read. It's also full of fairly interesting triva. For instance, the you learn what Tarantala tastes like (not like chicken...). On the other, some most people already known. For instance, it mentions that black bears really like honey (and there is a 2% chance of encountering a bear within 60 feet of a bee hive). This is also not a book to read while hungry - some of the descriptions of the culinary aspects of the plants and animals can make your stomach rumble and mouth water.

There's some info on dangers of each terrain - most notably the weather and disease. Most types of weather are covered. Hurricanes, blizzards, thunderstorms, tornadoes, etc, all are detailed in game terms. So are diseases such as malaria, yellow fever, common allergies, and even something that seems a lot like HIV/AIDS.

The rest of the chapter about each terrain (about half the chapter) is on new monsters, which are fully statted and described. These are generally hit and miss, though for me, they were mostly miss. There are lots of variations on treants, some new fey, some tree spirits. There are some new regular animals, such as the Tigron. One monster comes from another source - the Grass Cloaker is from "The Village of Briarton" by Gold Rush Games.

The best part of the monsters are the adventure/campaign hooks for each monster. A lot of the new monsters are weird enough that their use is not real obvious at first, having the campaign hooks really gives you a good handle on how to use them.

The only real drawback to the terrain sections is that it would have been nice if there were an indicator as to which items are real and which are fictional, so this could be used in one of the many non-fantasy d20 games that are out there. While things like the skunk and the honey loving black bear are pretty obviously real, and things like the druken sloth are not, for plants and insects it's not so obvious. Is the Spiraled Beech real? Or the Red Dog? Neither is obviously magical, but both have odd names.

The same can be said for the various diseases included in the game. Things like Malaria and Yellow Fever are obviously real, and could be very useful for any d20 game set in a jungle, be it fantasy or sci-fi or real world. But what about Spotted Fever? It sounds real, but some of the symptons seem fake (that it's victims actually see spots).

After the four terrain types is a section on new equipment. There are some new qualities (for magic items), but the meat of the chapter is new substances, generally either derived from plants or animals or useful against them.

They range from buffalo (or bison) chips to opium to all sorts of scents. As most of the substances can be made by someone with herbalism or alchemy skill, they are very useful for filling out inventories of alchemists, herbalists, witches, and the like.

The last chapter is on new spells. It's pretty short at 6 pages, and as you might guess, the spells are all nature related. Probably thrown in for comic purposes is "Crop Circle", though unlike real crop circles, it actually cuts down grass (and has some potential as an attack spell, sort of like a mini blade barrier). Another example is a spell I really wish I had, "Antihistamine", which clears up allergies.

The book ends with a variety of tables. Tables for generating weather, tables for generating encounters, and a listing of poison. The layout is a bit jumbled, but the tables work pretty well. But like most random encounter tables, some encounters could easily overwhelm or bore a party, as the challenge rating varies quite a bit.

This is apparently the first Bastion Press book that is in black and white instead of full color. While some might think this might be for the worse, I actually think it looks better. Some in the color art in earlier Bastion products looked a bit comic book-ish, which isn't to my taste. There's not a huge amount of art in the book, either, so it can look a bit spartan at times. But the art is generally excellent.

I especially like the cover. It features an elfin looking elf, which is something of a rarity - most elves in the 3E era look like monstrosities from anime. (It's kind of distorted here, but in reality, the cover is absolutely stunning)

There's really very little wrong with the book, except the subject matter won't appeal to everyone, and the price is somewhat higher than most books its size. It also does really need an index, but a good index is almost a rarity for RPG books these days.

If you want to the put the Forest into the Ranger or Druid, then this book is for you. It's also pretty useful if you happen to have a character that is into herbalism. It's probably going to be overlooked by most as it's a 3rd edition book released around the time D&D 3.5 comes up, and because it's not a particularly "sexy" book, but it's definitely useful for most d20 fantasy games. B

 

[GameWyrd]

It’s ever so slightly ironic that Into The Green is one of the first Bastion Press products to stray from the glossy colour format and into black and white. The decision seems like a fair call. If you’re re-aligning your publishing style to better suit industry tastes and buying habits then I can see why the prestige products might keep their colour and the run of the mill ones covert to trusty greyscale. Is it cruel to call Into The Green "run of the mill"? Slightly. It’s a bit like calling the cake in cake run of the mill because the icing is your favourite bit. An RPG supplement about encounters, creatures and the environment of woods, plains, jungles and forests might not have the power-up appeal of a supplement which tempts your favourite elf wizard with new abilities but it strikes me as the more indispensable of the two products.

Into The Green is all about fundamentals. The book gives the DM enough material to keep the player characters occupied in the wilds. In the introduction we’re told that all too often forests and jungles are just green splotches on the map, places to travel through en route to bigger and better things. That’s very true. I think one of the reasons that DMs, especially new ones, struggle to break out of the dungeon is because the magnitude of the alternative is intimidating and potentially insurmountable. It’s all well and good when the characters can explore left or right but when they can pick any direction at all or, worse still, climb a tree and look around to see what might be ahead then running the game can be tricky. What’s a DM to do? Turn to Into The Green.

At least, that would be the perfect situation and it’ll surprise no one to discover that Into The Green is not the perfect book. There’s no such thing. Into The Green is good enough to lend the new DM some confidence and this is more helpful than a bunch of new creatures.

Let’s not get too focused on the plethora of new monsters in the book. They’re not why I’d buy it. Into The Green’s main success is the way it spices up the basics of green wilderness with high fantasy. Each section looks at the sort of plants that might be found there. This isn’t a pointless botany lesson; every plant, shrub or herb that gets a mention does so because of their game potential. There are toxins and antidotes, they’re the obvious game play enhancer but there’s a better scope than just the obvious. A few random examples include Maidenhair Tree which can be can used to reduce the effects of alcohol, the Last Chance Vine which is covered with needles and barbs but places itself strategy by quagmires, sunberries, vampire mushrooms, tripweed and even common but useful flora like teak and poppy. Since Into The Green was in development before 3.5 edition hit the shelves the text talks about Wilderness Survival checks. These are the DC values to know about rare properties of plants and where the plant itself might be found. The conversion to the latest edition of the rules couldn’t be easier; these dice rolls simply become Survival checks. A similar success is achieved with animals. Into The Green presents a page or so of paragraph entries on creatures ranging from moths to hunting cats. Once again every one of these creatures has enough of a twist or special interest to warrant the page space spent on them.

The bulk of the supplement is taken up with stats, descriptions and powers for monsters. The book is presented by environment; forests, jungles, woods and plains and so it is by environment that you have to take your monsters. An index on Challenge Rating would have been great but it’s not too much of a bother to jump to the appropriate environment chapter and page flick. I can quickly and roughly divide the monsters into three groups; the naturally occurring monsters, the corrupted (supernaturally) version of canon monsters and then the entirely magical but "green flavoured". There might not be a CR index but the CR spread of creatures is pretty good, there are the low level fights, mid level and high level encounters too. The book does tend to favour large creatures for an encounter over small ones. Despite Into The Green making the effort to include "normal" animals and plants, or perhaps because of it, all these monsters started to threaten my suspension of disbelief in a way a simple bestiary book never has. It seems highly unlikely that you’d ever find a monkey or harmless mammal rummaging for food in a jungle. Any creature less than CR2 and which doesn’t travel in swarms would surely be nothing more than a passing snack. I don’t think this is Into The Green’s fault, the tendency to go for large creature encounters, this just seems to be the given approach for D&D fantasy.

I think other attempts to do a green wilderness book might settle for the above, Into The Green goes a step further. There are other sorts of dangers than tooth, claw and elemental blast to run afoul of in the jungle or forest. Into The Green includes fairly substantial sections, for each locale, on environmental hazards. It ‘s easy to come up blank for hazards on the plains but with a bit of lateral thinking Into The Green does well. There’s the weather, for one, you’re totally exposed out there. Blizzards, thunderstorms, lightening and tornadoes can all cause serious problems; the bullet point lists making it easy for a busy GM to inflict them on players too. Without the complex root system of a wooded area and with the numerous burrowing animals the plains can be the ideal location for dangerous sinkholes too. In fact, the supplement describes the ecology of all the locales. I might quibble at some of the facts; it’s claimed that rainfall for forests remains fairly steady in the autumn – but that’s because I live in Scotland and have plenty of experience of random rainfall conditions. Quibbles are small things though. The core facts of the book are right and they’re helpful. Woodlands are thinned out forests, either by accident (fire) or design (logging) and if they’re left alone then they’ll grow thick enough to be counted as a forest again. There’s little undergrowth in those forests where the canopy is solid but there’s a tangle of ground level greenery in open top jungles.

Chapter Five is where miscellaneous entries start to come together. We kick off with new equipment, both mundane and magical. Once again it’s good to see Into The Green bothering with the mundane and getting the level right. These items aren’t so mundane that there’s no point buying the book for them, they’re either spiced with just enough fantasy to be interesting or have an adventuring angle that makes them tempting. Bison chips, for example, are nothing more than lumps of bison dung, but they’re light, burn well and brightly and so if you can deal with the smell make an ideal source of fuel. Rosewood is an excellent material for instruments. Bloodfrog toxin is very rare. It’s here in chapter five that the extended and more complex uses for berries and salves mentioned previously are finally fully explained. I think ranger and druid players will be especially pleased; all knowledge of the wilds will finally pay off.

Chapter Six is a host of new spells. Crop Circle, Detect Fey, Resin, Pollen, Shade and even Primeval Insight are sample spells and from their names alone its possible to soak up the green atmosphere. Sure, some of the spells present a few more ways to kill things but a significant portion of them are better than that.

The appendices in Into The Green are wonderful. There’s a quick list of every poison mentioned. There are targeted encounter lists. Table B.1, for example, will let you pick a daytime or night encounter for a temperate forest. The book finishes with similar summaries for the weather and just manages to squeeze in the OGL legal foo.

I’m going back to my cake analogy for Into The Green. The book is the cake stuff, it’s not too light and fluffy but it’s not too heavy either. In either case, it’s not as tempting as the icing but we’d have nothing without it. There’s no wow factor for the book, but Into The Green could easily become the workhorse of any DM’s library.

* This Into The Green review was first published at GameWyrd.

 

[Voadam]

Into the green is a sourcebook dedicated to providing d20 material and rules to flesh out four types of natural terrain defined by the predominant fauna of the area: forests, jungle, woods, and plains. Each terrain has a description of the salient features, climatology and ecology that make up the terrain as well as descriptions of animals, plants, natural hazards, and a selection of new monsters specific to those types of terrain. Following the terrains are sections on new materials, magic items, and spells built off of the previous terrain specific material and some appendices providing a collected poison chart, encounter charts by terrain, and weather charts. A six page index is available as a pdf web enhancement at www.bastionpress.com.

Forests in this book are defined as deep forests where the canopy is unbroken and rises an average of 200 to 300 feet while woods are defined as transition areas with a lower canopy and more low-growing shrub type fauna. Swamps are not a covered terrain type.

The descriptions of the climate and meteorology are in depth discussing the interaction of the predominant flora upon weather, forests protect areas from extreme wind for example while open plains are subject to tornados and microbursts. Formulas are presented for determining temperature and figuring in wind chill and heat index modifiers. However, the descriptions for the terrains take a uniform monolithic view that does not account for geographic factors such as latitude or proximity to different features such as mountains or oceans. This results in the description of plains as having harsh winters subject to intense blizzards which is accurate for the plains of South Dakota found in Little House on the Prairie, but does not really apply to the grasslands of Sub-Saharan Africa.

The plant and animal sections contain short descriptions of sample animals but do not contain monster stat blocks for them. Real world animals and plants such as the bald eagle and oak tree are seamlessly mixed in with fantasy animals and plants such as the clikkit a grasshopper that only chirps in the presence of magic and razor grass which slices legs automatically causing damage but going unnoticed due to an anesthetic unless a Wisdom check is made. The real world animals mostly seem to come from the Americas with bison and jaguars described but not leopards or yaks. The descriptions are nice flavor tidbits for characters steeped in nature or wilderness lore. There are also mechanical details for most including wilderness lore checks to identify plants, and spot, alchemy, profession herbalist, and even profession cook DCs for effects related to the flora and fauna. The only significant missing parts are CRs for the trap-like plants.

The natural hazards cover a wide range of phenomena from diseases to allergic reaction situations, forest fires, falling dead trees or branches, old abandoned animal traps, tornadoes, and lightning strikes. Again, CR values are not given for these challenges.

The monsters present a nice selection of creatures with treant-like things, undead, and fey predominating. There are about eight to ten monsters for each terrain and not all are illustrated, which is disappointing. The ones that are illustrated are quite well done however. Descriptions for the monsters stand out providing a good handle on the critters and uses for them in a game. Similar to Bastion's Minions monster products there is an extra entry after Habitat/Society for campaign uses which usually includes ideas on how to use the monsters in an adventure.

The monsters reflect the fact that a large number of freelancers contributed to the book as some concepts significantly overlap while individual monsters can vary greatly. For instance those who are murdered and have their corpses disposed of in woods can come back as bracken corpses, three HD slimy undead who have knowledge of their killers; meanwhile those who starve to death in the wilderness can come back as a lostling, a 20 HD incorporeal undead who suppresses all divine magic in a one mile radius. This variety is good because you can pick and choose according to your tastes and your immediate needs for a monster power level, but can be a bit jarring in creating a consistent world background. For tree encounters you can choose from undead burning trees, evil treant types, corrupted druid grove trees, trickster trees that can shapechange into people, sorcerers that were cursed and turned into trees, and undead treants that are sages about necromantic lore. My favorite monster though has to be the grass cloaker, which it says is descended from normal cloakers, but the description makes it sound like a giant carnivorous flumph that can camouflage itself well. It is too bad there is no accompanying picture.

The new materials and substances are neat little tidbits such as various animal or monster fur uses that grant little bonuses like fire or cold resistance 2 and itching smoke made from poison ivy or gravebane a natural bear and canine repellant.

For spells the 22 presented are mostly druid and ranger crossovers that range up to fifth level but a good number also work for wizards and a few for clerics. Druids and rangers can create temporary paths in undergrowth for traveling or buff themselves against plants or fey while wizards can create temporary unquenchable bonfires and temporary stone bridges. The spell hidden lore seems to go a bit too far invading the realm of knowledge, it identifies the magical uses for critter parts and reduces the xp cost if magic items are made using this information. Detect fey on the other hand seems a natural fit.

Overall the strength of the product lies in the well developed monsters and the tidbits provided for the various areas including animals, plants, new materials and natural hazards. The specific temperature rules seem more in-depth than necessary or useful for most games and the climate descriptions do not allow for the influence of other weather affecting geographic factors, but these nitpickings are outweighed by the use of the sections on specific events, items and creatures.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

By Ian Hewitt, Staff Reviewer d20 Magazine Rack

”Far too often, the wild places of the world simply appear as green and tan splotches on a map, ignored and generally overlooked by adventurers considering these lush forests and majestic plains as nothing more than obstacles on the path to greater glory.” -Into the Green

Initiative Round
Into the Green is written with the intent of bringing to life wilderness adventures set within the ‘green’ areas of the map: forests, jungles, woods and plains. Published by Bastion Press it was released as the first of their Into the… line of sourcebooks that they continued with Into the Black and Into the Blue the underground and undersea regions.

Into the Green is written by Thomas Knauss at the head of a team of contributors, has an award winning (Pen & Paper Fan Awards: Best Cover Art Runner Up) cover from Jason Engle and features interior art by Ed Bourelle, Frank Krug, Jeremy McHugh, Kurt Brugel, Roberto Campus, Scott Purdy and Steve Hartley. It is a softbound 96-page book.

Into the Green approaches its topic by devoting the first four chapters to each of the four regions. Forests, jungles, woods, and plains each get about 18 pages worth of attention and follow the same logical approach with very in-depth sections on Climate, Plants, Animals, Environmental Hazards, and Monsters.

Following the geographic regions themselves are two concluding chapters devoted to Equipment and Spells respectively before the book closes out with some brief but informative appendices that list new poisons, random encounter tables and weather generation tables.

Each climate has obviously been well-researched and is presented in a very informative style: ”The tree layer forms the forest’s uppermost layer…below…lies the forest’s small tree and sapling zone, followed by the shrub zone. The shrub zone…usually occupies the strata twenty to thirty feet above the forest floor…the herb layer comprises the last line of defense before reaching the forest’s final tier, its floor.”

The plants and animals offered for each habitat include both the real and the fantastic, often written in such a manner as to make you wonder which is which. The jungle plants include for example, bananas and coconuts as well as last chance vines – these grow near quicksand and will tear your hands to pieces but might save you from drowning. Animals that you might meet in the woods include snakes, porcupines and skunks as well as shrieking lemurs.

Environmental hazards that you should look out for in the plains include tornados, lightning and sinkholes. New monsters now found in the forest include the arboreal nemesis an evil treant-like creature. The new monster entries all contain a ‘Campaign’ entry, a neat adventure seed or two suggesting ways to introduce these new creatures into the game.

The equipment and spells chapters are both very well stocked with a selection of interesting new material that will see a great deal of immediate and frequent use by players.

Critical Hit
The benefits of this book are exactly what one might imagine – to any group adventuring in these regions it has the potential to be used almost all of the time. Rangers, druids, greenbonds, elves and other characters likely to be associated with these green regions will also gain a great deal of mileage from Into the Green with which they can more fully flesh out their character and realize their unique class abilities.

The portability of this book is such that it could not only be used in almost any traditional d20 Campaign Setting but also in the d20 Modern or other genres supported by the d20 rules.

Although a 3.0 version book, the rules are non-intrusive enough that there are no significant compatibility issues. Among the online support to be found for Into the Green at www.BastionPress.com are conversion notes for each of the new monsters taking them into the 3.5 revision.

Critical Fumble
The chapters seem to blur into one another (a fumble not uncommon with some of Bastion’s sourcebooks), which does not aid page flipping or navigation. Substantial page borders decorate the edges of the text with a large tree encircled by a snake – it would have been wonderful if this border could have illustrated the forest chapter and more relevant borders used for the other chapters.

The writing at times seems a little wordy, and has a ‘text-book’ feel to it that may be a little off-putting to some readers not used to this level of attentive detail in a game book. This is unfortunate because it might encourage a reader to skip the bulk of the book and jump directly to the equipment and spells.

Although this book is certainly equally usable by both DM’s and players – if I were DM-ing a ‘green’ campaign I would want to keep the initial four chapters secret from the players so that I could utilize this information without spoilers. This would be difficult to do given the amount of use players are going to get from the last two chapters.

Coup de Grace
Other editions of Dungeons & Dragons and other game systems have made similar offerings, but this is not only the first such ‘habitat sourcebook’ for the d20 System it is one that has set a very high standard for any imitators to follow. In closing, I’d just like to mention that it is a testament to Bastion Press production values that my copy of Into the Green went into the blue (I dropped it in the bath tub!) and survived more or less intact with only a few wrinkles and crinkles.

Buy Into the Green IF: You: (a) Enjoyed Into the Black, Into the Blue, or the Wilderness Survival Guide; or, (b) You play an elf, ranger, greenbond, druid, barbarian or similar ‘outdoorsy-type.’

Final Grade: B-