Penumbra D20

[Turjan]

And I am officially annoyed! I canot find any of these books at my LGSs. Frustrating.

I'm going to have to hunt for them; I just know it.

I can imagine that they are hard to fine nowadays. With the exception of the Northern Crown books, John Nephew gave all his remaining Penumbra d20 books away for free to everyone who wanted to have some. That's one of the greatest ways to leave the d20 market that I have seen .

I just looked which of the books I have are 3.5 versions: Crime & Punishment, Love & War, Sacred Grounds II, Seven Civilizations, Seven Serpents.


Dynasties & Demagogues is one of the best books in the line, but it's only useful if you want to run a 3.x game full of political intrigue.

The "En Route" series books are full of encounters that I mostly enjoyed. Seven Strongholds is a very nice location book. Seven Serpents delivers some ready to use dragons. Seven Cities are some drop-in locations from small to big, and I especially like the smaller ones, although you probably have already enough of those. Seven Civilizations is inspirational, but a bit hard to drop into an existing world. The Sacred Grounds books are somewhat hit and miss with their locations.

Occult Lore is a strange book. The Realm of Reason is outrightly stupid in a D&D context. I didn't like the first chapter about Alchemy, either, although the organization "The Golden Cabal" is quite nice. The Astrology chapter has some nice fluff, I liked the Pangunculus, but the classes are overcomplicated, too weak for all the loops you have to jump through. And so on. Much light and much shadow. Much crunch you will never use. Only get it if you get it cheap.

 

[DMH]

The only one not yet mentioned that I enjoy is Splintered Peace. Race riots, ethical quandries, hidden villains, well rounded out NPCs and a easy way of determining how bad things are between the races (ie when the riots and attacks start). The city is okay and needs some fleshing out, but Seven Cities can help with that.

As for Occult Lore, it has some of the worst and best magic systems for 3.X IMO. The gleaner is weaker than a standard spellcaster, but the flavor can't be beat (they grow spirits and take powers from the dead). The herbalism section is also top notch but it is far from useful for everyone. The rest, I don't care for.