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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2011843" data-attributes="member: 18387">By John Grigsby, Staff Reviewer d20 Magazine RackInitiative RoundOathbound: Mysteries of Arena is a Dungeons & Dragons supplement for the Oathbound campaign setting from Bastion Press. This is a 160-page black & white softcover by Todd Laing, Tom Knauss, and Brannon Hollingsworth with additional design by Glenn Brown, Kevin Melka, Shannon Bennett, Steven Creech, Tim Hitchcock, and Will Harper. The cover art by Chuck Lukacs depicts description. Ben Eargle, Brannon Hall, Chris Pickrell, Chuck Lukacs, Eric N. Peterson, Jesse Mohn, Phillip James, and Stephen Lanham contribute to the interior art. Oathbound: Mysteries of Arena retails for $25.95.Mysteries of Arena opens with a short piece of fiction to set the scene, then delves into the mysteries of this savage land. The first offering is a collection of five new player character races. Rockbiter dwarves are a dwarven subrace partly composed of stone with a dreadful allergy to the sun (the dreadful part being that prolonged exposure kills them). Karnos are alien beings that live for honor and war, not necessarily in that order. Ramzadi are relatives of the lizardfolk, arboreal tree-dwellers. The sythiss are an ancient race that once dominated Arena; a race of powerful warriors and magi who wouldn’t mind a return to their former glory. Finally, the ok’weels are a primordial race of sentient aquatic cephalopods that have adapted to survival on land.The duneslayer is a base class representing a soldier who has sworn allegiance to a particular warlord and fights on his behalf. They are highly skilled in warfare in Arena’s environs. The operative (or Arena scout) serves his warlord in other ways, leaving behind the blood-soaked battlefields in favor of clandestine operations. The sandmystic is a variant wizard, storing their spells in a special crystal and tapping the mystical energies therein, on occasion calling forth spells that they have not specifically prepared from within the crystal’s depths. There are also several new prestige classes within these pages; the spellbinder (a specialist in cooperative spellcasting), the forest slayer (guardians of the ramzadi), legionnaire (a skilled warrior who works best with others of his type as a cohesive unit), the shadow assassin (disciple of Raghuveer, the Shadow Mage), and the wellspringer (experts at locating water beneath the harsh sands).This being Oathbound, the setting just wouldn’t seem complete without a few prestige races, as well. To that end, Mysteries of Arena presents the Focus of the Gloom, the Focus of the Grave, and the Focus of the Lodes. Those who tread the path of the Focus of the Gloom slowly lose their desire to walk in the sun, preferring instead the cool darkness of the realms below. With time, they become creatures of the darkness, able to merge with the shadows. For those who choose the Focus of the Grave, a far different fate awaits. Over time, the individual becomes a free-willed undead being, eternal and without mortal needs. The path of the Focus of the Lodes is longer than most others and eventually leads to a linkage between the creature and a crystal from a memory lode. It offers great power, but not without cost.Mysteries of Arena contains several new feats, but also provides detail on how certain feats and skills apply to mass combat. Interestingly, the new feats are not available to outsiders, even those feats that are not specific to the confines of Arena. Strangers seeking to take one of the feats described in this book must earn the privilege by spending time in the harsh realm. Two new skills, Find Water and Sand Surf, are joined by a handful of specializations under broader skills (like Knowledge). Several new weapons, armor, and other equipment are described (both magical and mundane), along with 30 new spells. There is also a collection of “lost spells,” incantations long believed gone from the eyes of men. And yet, they lurk in certain places, awaiting discovery.Chapter 5: Secrets of Arena, details everything that that the Arena sourcebook didn’t tell you about; the Oasis of Lost Souls, secrets about Barbello, the Brotherhood of Dust, the secret settlement of Paradise Lost, the Shadow Mage, the Guardian Golems of Penakhimen, the secrets of the Memory Lodes, the subterranean oasis of Sanctity, Potus Blight (founder of the Greenkillers), and the cryptic lich known simply as Warlock. Laid bare are enough plot hooks and MacGuffins to keep a gaming group busy for some time. Even if not every secret in this section is used, certain entries such as the Memory Lodes are essential to capturing the essence of the setting.A short adventure titled “Goddust” sends the characters on a quest to find the source of a wave of horrible creatures twisted by magic that are terrorizing their current hostel. As they struggle to find the source and quell the rising tide, they must both overcome the guardians of an ancient secret and forestall an invasion of their holding. The adventure is intended for PCs of 10th level, but is easily scaled to suit a range of 8th to 12th level. Suggestions on scaling the adventure are provided in the text. A number of new creatures are described in an appendix following the adventure.Finally, a one-page map shows key locations in Arena that are described in this volume. This is followed by a collection of six pre-generated characters. These characters are fully-fleshed out and ready to be dropped into an adventure (presumably the one included in this product).Critical HitIf anything in Mysteries of Arena stands out for me, it’s the section on the mysteries themselves. Player characters, well most player characters anyway, love a good mystery, and the ones collected here are sure to entice the group for quite a while. There are an even dozen described, and each is detailed enough that a GM could run a story centered on a particular mystery pretty much unprepared, if the need arose.Critical FumbleThe player characters seem like filler. I’m sorry, but there’s no other word for it. It’s as though the designers realized that they were six pages short of a book (products are routinely of a given size; 96 pages, 128 pages, etc.) and said, “Hmm, what can we use to fill those six pages?” Instead of adding in another couple of mysteries or maybe another new race or prestige class, they chose to toss in some pre-generated characters. Yes, it’s nice to have them as alternates or to provide to the players if their own characters are not of the appropriate level, but it’s just as simple to generate your own. For an experienced player or DM, making characters (even of mid-level) shouldn’t take more than an hour (or much less if you use one of the many character-generation software programs available).Coup de GraceFor those running a campaign set in Oathbound (more specifically, in Arena), this is a good purchase that will add a lot to your group’s adventures. If you don’t run Oathbound, you’re going to see less usefulness from this supplement, though it can still be salvaged with some effort. By ignoring a few things that are key to the setting (such as the existence of Barbello), this could probably be worked into almost any wasteland area within a campaign. A fair bit of what is found herein needs little or no explanation if used outside the Oathbound campaign setting.The book itself is well-organized, with a table of contents and index. The Open Gaming Content requires a little effort to locate, but it’s not like its hidden. Only the game mechanics have been designated as OGC. The artwork is passable and, for the most part, in agreement with the context in which it appears.Final Grade: B+</blockquote>

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