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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Morrus" data-source="post: 2008449" data-attributes="member: 1">Necromancy: Beyond the Grave is the second book in Mongoose Publishing's Encyclopaedia Arcane series.  Unlike the Slayer's Guides, this particular line is considerably more 'meaty' when it comes to rules content, something that many felt that Mongoose's previous work lacked.I'll start with a quick look at the presentation of the book.  It's a 64 page book with a full colour cover and back and white interior art.  I find the cover a tad cartoony myself, not the same style as the covers of the Slayer's Guides (although drawn by the same artist), but certainly of high quality.  The interior art is not as good - with the exception of one or two pieces, I was not overly impressed.  That said, artwork is far from the be-all and end-all of an RPG supplement.And so on to the important stuff.Like Demonology: The Dark Road before it, this book maintains that Necromancy, in itself, is not inherently evil.  However, it is a dark and dangerous path to follow and few people can follow the path for long without succumbing to corruption and/or insanity.  The book begins with an Overview, which introduces us to Necromancy, its paractitioners, the concepts of Negative Energy and a look at the 'creatures of undeath'.  It's interesting reading, if a bit discussive, but it serves to set the scene well.The bit that most people are looking for, of course, is the rules.  N:BTG gives us three new knowledge skills (Anatomy, Necrology and Spirit Lore).  I imagine that many people already have a Knowledge: Undead skill in their games already, so it is nice to see it presented in print.  Unfortunately, I don't feel that these skills go into quite enough detail - a slightly more comprehensive list of DCs for each would have been more useful than the three levels of difficulty presented.The prestige classes come next, and we are presented with The Spectral Loremaster (a spellcaster who gains knowledge via communion with spirits), The Deathseeker (a necromancer who taps into the rush of negative energy that floods into a dying body) and The Necrophage (an obsessive anatomist who grafts the limbs and organs of the dead to his own nightmarish creations).  Other than the first of these, I can't see them being used by PCs (at least not in my game!), but they would be great villains if played correctly.  The Necrophage, of course, instantly brings to mind images of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (and I have no doubt that that was the intent here).We then move on to the spells section.  Always the poorer cousin of the Evoker, the Necromancer's spell list has been boosted with 34 new spells.  They are spread throughout all nine levels, from the 0-level Identify Undead to the 9th-level Raise City - the latter allowing the caster to bring an entire civilisation back as skeletons! Many of the spells fill in the expected gaps - necromantic divinations,  a greater range of animation spells, some much needed offensve and defensive spells, along with some interesting new ideas.  This section, above all others, is likely to be the most useful in the average game.A large section on Necromantic Feats presents 8 new feats and a preceding section on 'Negative Energy Side Effects'.  Each time a necromantic feat is used, the practitioner is required to make a Negative Energy check, failure causing a randomly determined side-effect to be inflicted on the character.  There are 20 such side-effects, varying in strength from Aura of Unease, though Holy Aversion, Glowing Eyes and Disfigurement to the somewhat unpleasant Undeath (presented as a non-specific 'Undead' template as opposed to a particular type of undead).  This is vaguely reminiscent of the 'Dark powers' checks from Ravenloft 2E, although I feel that Mongoose have come up with a more elegant system.The feats themselves immediately follow this section.  This is one problem that I have with this book - it's not a major issue, but the feats follow on immediately from the side-effects with no break distinguishing the two sections.  So we go stright from the side effect Undeath to the feat Animation by Touch with no introduction.  I found it a trifle confusing.Then comes a section on lichdom - three pages describing how how becomes a lich, detailing the lich's phylactery and so on.  Although this is something that would never be used in my game (players as liches - no chance!) I can see how it might be attractive to some and may help provide background for NPC villains.  I would have liked to see the Death Knight (detailed as a monster later in the book) given the same treatment as I have always regarded that particular undead beastie to be the 'warrior' version of the lich.A section on Magical Items presents several new items. These are fairly imaginative, although there aren't many there.  It does include one very powerful artifact, however.Minions of Undeath is the title for the obligatory monster section.  There are 8 monsters here, written by Scott Greene and Erica Balsley of the <a href="http://www.d20reviews.com/cc/" target="_blank">Creature Catalog</a> hosted here at EN World.  These monsters are all fairly unpleasant, especially the Skull Child which is downright creepy! Very useful overall, especially when it comes to those long-time players who know the Monster Manual inside and out.  Interestingly, and somewhat controversially, the Death Knight has lost his 20 HD fireball.At the back of the book is a Rules and Spell Summary apendix, which lists all necromantic spells from the PHB, Relics & Ritials and, of course, Necromancy: Beyond the Grave.  It also lists the necromantic feats and prerequisites.  I'm not sure if this is the first example of OGC content being used by another publisher (although I am certainly aware of plans for various publishers to use each others' materials), but it is good to see the Open Gaming License being used to its fullest extent. Compatibility between the products from various publishers is a legitimate concern for the fans, and this use of Sword & Sorcery's certainly goes some way towards easing some of those fears.In SummaryA solid book, with plenty of useful material.  Mongoose are getting better with each product and seem to be listening to the fans (the meat/fluff ration here is certainly better than their previous outings), and I find myself looking forward to future materials.  This one gets a solid 4/5 from me.</blockquote>

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