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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2010039" data-attributes="member: 1129">Necromancer’s Legacy joins the ranks of other undead themed books like AEG’s Undead, SSS Hollowfaust, Mongoose’s Necromancy, and Green Ronin’s Secret College of Necromancy.  The book introduces all sorts of new and not-so new crunchy material with the background of Gar’Udok, a necromancer who conquered much of the northlands over a thousand years ago. It does some things right like not overwhelming the GM with background story even though it provides a little too much fiction.  It also doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel.  We all know that there have been several necromancy books and spells that suit necromancers so when appropriate, there are spells from other Open Game sources.  This allows the book to be greater than merely a collection of new spells. Another thing that Jason Parent did that I though went well in the spirit of cooperation is provided new spells to the Necromancer and Death Knight core classes from the Secret College of Necromancy.The book provides the GM and players a lot to look through.  A large section is taken up by spells.  The spells are broken down by class, level, and then alphabetical order with a brief description.  It covers core PrCs like Assassins and BlackGuards, as well as the standard classes.  Spells range form level 0 like Pet Cemetery where you animate one animal skeleton to the potent Necropolis where you animate an entire settlement.  In between are several spells that might come in handy to customize your necromancers like Exoskeletal Animation where you animate giant vermin like scorpions and other hard shelled bugs.  The spells start off with the name, some fiction, and the spell block followed by the spells description.Like many books on necromantic lore, this book isn’t satisfied with new spells, and provides a host of new creatures as well.  How about Alabaster Maidens, beings who are made of alabaster that are medusas.  Want something a little fiercer?  How about Obsidian Golems?  Some may want templates though, and Jason provides his version of the Ghoul, a new race, the Lekassi, and necromantic constructs.  The Lekassi are born of undead flesh, but aren’t undead themselves.  In some ways, they remind me of half-vampires but not quite.  The constructs on the other hand, are added to a base creature that is augmented by the nature of what it’s made of.  It can be made of bone or flesh for example.  There are other goodies like the BlackHand Kobolds and Cairn Wyrms, but this brief description provides the baseline of the goods here.Of course having provided spells and monsters, we’ve still got other broad subjects of crunchiness to go.  Chapter Three, The Dark Lords, brings us the Prestige Classes.  Some of these I’ve seen before in various Librum books like the Zombie Master and the Mad Tailor, a being who crafts constructs out of living flesh.  Others though, like the psionic based Lotahm who bond with birds and the masters of Ebon Plate known as the Knight of the Dread Legion, are new to me.  More important to most will be the Dark Heart, an ‘epic’ PrC with an example in the form of none other than Gar’udok himself.  Other PrCs help round out an undead army’s ranks with goods like Prophets and Pale Riders.Chapter Four, Feats, while small, provides more options for customization.  The section is broken up into general, special and metamagic feats.  Most of these are utility based like latent powers where you discover two 0 level psionic powers or Turn Resistance where you get +3 Turn Resistance.Chapter Five, Magic Items, provides more general special abilities as well as specific magic weapons.  You can have a missile weapon that takes the form of flaming skulls or use something like the Dancing Bones, a staff that allows the user access to several animation based spells or Death’s Embrace, a staff whose spells deal more with death dealing.  Of more general interest to me was the White Bone, a material made from magically prepared bones that is always considered masterwork and increases the critical multiplier of weapons when crafted out of it.Chapter Six, Deities and Domains didn’t hold too much interest for me at the moment outside of possible cult use.  While its good to have more evil gods like Bulboros, a lord of gluttony and disease or Krondheir, the Lord of undead, I’m pretty happy with my standard mix.  Of course that doesn’t mean I’m not interested in the domains like Insanity, Lust, Negative Energy and others.  Seeing them got me to hoping that Domains of Divinity will be out soon.The art in the book is mostly top notch.  The artist who signs PaS I spotted doing Mongoose work not that long ago.  This art is fantastic.  Scott Purdy is another talent I recognize right off the bat.  Others like Frank Krug and Tony Monorchio add their talents as well.  In many cases they go the distance but in a few, its like the art was at one point full color and was zapped into black and white and lost something in the transition.The layout took a beating in the book though.  The font sizes jump all around the place and the flow gets interrupted a little here and there with different sections being different sizes.  Its difficult to note the text density as its not really the same from page to page.One thing that I didn’t like the execution of but appreciated the idea of was the NPCs.  They’re placed at the end of templates and PrCs to provide examples, but they use some of the big hitters from the main storylines and I’d rather seen them statted out in a separate chapter.  Some may hate the reprinted material but as I’ve noted earlier, I’m tired of people trying to reinvent the wheel and was pleased as punch when I noticed that effort was made to update the Necromancer and Death Knight spell lists.If the editing and layout could be improved a bit more and some maps of the old land thrown in for good measure on the interior covers, this could very well turn into a five star rating.  As it is, any necromancer worth his salt should pick this book up in order to augment his undead army with new variants, beef up his living army with appropriate PrCs and outfit them with appropriate magic items even as he turns to the worship of dark and strange goods with their unique domains and abilities.</blockquote>

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