terraleon
Explorer
Disclaimer: I contributed a bit of material (Some monsters and one background option) for this book by virtue of working on _Halls of the Mountain King_. I was not otherwise directly involved in its production and I purchased my copy of the book.
The cover for the Iron Gazetteer is done by Malcolm McClinton, and invokes both dwarvish invention and their mountain homes. I like it, but airships may not be everyone's mug of ale.
This book weighs in at 70 page with four sections-- one on culture, a player's guide, a DM's guide, and a collection of monsters.
The first section is 14 pages of great dwarven culture, giving you more than the usual beer and battle axes. It provides a good overview on this spin on Dwarf life and society. I particularly enjoyed the fact that the text addressed the dwarves' attitude regarding slavery-- a topic often ignored in many resources. Even if the livery of one of the cantons doesn't match from the description to the map (Vursalis), the rest of the material is chock full of good stuff to provide character development stories and racial flavor. Sure, Wizards might be coming out with PC race guides, but if dwarves are your thing, you don't have to wait!
The player's section details backgrounds, feats, racial class builds-- including rangers, sorcerers and warlocks. These are complemented by paragon paths for the cleric, paladin, ranger, three! for the warlock and one for the wizard. There are even two racial Epic Destinies. All of that is topped off with a living construct race, the gearforged, and its associated paragon path. This section is about as close to pure crunch as you can get.
The DM's section provides rules on altitude, equipment, hazards for above and below ground, and 4 small encounters. There's lots here for the heroic tier with a sizeable portion for the paragon tier-- three of the encounters are scaled for paragons. Good flavor mixed in with the mechanics means you won't be bored while finishing your game prep.
Finally, the book ends with the monster section. This is almost entirely heroic tier material, with some of it at the cusp of paragon. Each of the monsters is nicely complemented with a bit of boxed text description, and I think the gilded devil is an excellent addition, providing a greedy foe who can harass players for some time. There was one editing gaff here, a power seems to be missing from the Frostfang Yeti-- a point I noticed more readily because I designed it-- a small mistake in an otherwise solid bestiary.
The print version is purely black and white and, in what's become standard for Open Design products, if you want the real pleasure of these fantastic illustrations by Hugo Solis and the cartography by Jonathan Roberts, you're going to want the PDF to complement your paper copy. Overall, I'd say this is an excellent addition to any 4E game planning on incorporating dwarves (a game without dwarves? they exist?), and well worth the money spent. Open Design does an excellent job of clothing the very stock fantasy bones of old dwarves in slightly exotic flesh-- not so different that you won't recognize them, but new enough to get you excited!
The cover for the Iron Gazetteer is done by Malcolm McClinton, and invokes both dwarvish invention and their mountain homes. I like it, but airships may not be everyone's mug of ale.
This book weighs in at 70 page with four sections-- one on culture, a player's guide, a DM's guide, and a collection of monsters.
The first section is 14 pages of great dwarven culture, giving you more than the usual beer and battle axes. It provides a good overview on this spin on Dwarf life and society. I particularly enjoyed the fact that the text addressed the dwarves' attitude regarding slavery-- a topic often ignored in many resources. Even if the livery of one of the cantons doesn't match from the description to the map (Vursalis), the rest of the material is chock full of good stuff to provide character development stories and racial flavor. Sure, Wizards might be coming out with PC race guides, but if dwarves are your thing, you don't have to wait!
The player's section details backgrounds, feats, racial class builds-- including rangers, sorcerers and warlocks. These are complemented by paragon paths for the cleric, paladin, ranger, three! for the warlock and one for the wizard. There are even two racial Epic Destinies. All of that is topped off with a living construct race, the gearforged, and its associated paragon path. This section is about as close to pure crunch as you can get.
The DM's section provides rules on altitude, equipment, hazards for above and below ground, and 4 small encounters. There's lots here for the heroic tier with a sizeable portion for the paragon tier-- three of the encounters are scaled for paragons. Good flavor mixed in with the mechanics means you won't be bored while finishing your game prep.
Finally, the book ends with the monster section. This is almost entirely heroic tier material, with some of it at the cusp of paragon. Each of the monsters is nicely complemented with a bit of boxed text description, and I think the gilded devil is an excellent addition, providing a greedy foe who can harass players for some time. There was one editing gaff here, a power seems to be missing from the Frostfang Yeti-- a point I noticed more readily because I designed it-- a small mistake in an otherwise solid bestiary.
The print version is purely black and white and, in what's become standard for Open Design products, if you want the real pleasure of these fantastic illustrations by Hugo Solis and the cartography by Jonathan Roberts, you're going to want the PDF to complement your paper copy. Overall, I'd say this is an excellent addition to any 4E game planning on incorporating dwarves (a game without dwarves? they exist?), and well worth the money spent. Open Design does an excellent job of clothing the very stock fantasy bones of old dwarves in slightly exotic flesh-- not so different that you won't recognize them, but new enough to get you excited!
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