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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2011841" data-attributes="member: 18387">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 RoundInto 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 HitThe 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 FumbleThe 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 GraceOther 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-</blockquote>

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