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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MDSnowman" data-source="post: 2010943" data-attributes="member: 6255">The Scarred Lands Guide to Clerics and Druids is a 140 page sourcebook. Unlike other products in the line I've been unable to identify the characters on the cover, the female appears to be a Cleric of Madriel and the Druid has the look of an Incarnate.Introduction: Same fare as the rest of this series of books, see my other reviews of this series for more info on my opinion of these sections.Book I: ClericsChapter 1: This chapter deals with the history of Clerics in the Scarred Lands... of course they tell that history from the prespective of the only ones to write it down, druids. This chapter shows how divine worship truly differed from Titan Worship (a term I'll rip apart later). Divine Worshippers feel a deep connection to the gods, the gods need mortals for power and hence take it upon themselves to become a part of their charges lives, giving them a feeling of closeness and secruity that the uncaring Titans never provided.Another thing brought up in this chapter is the fact that all life on Scarn was reincarnated over and over again, but with the advent of the gods souls now go to the realm of the gods they worshipped. Some believe that this may eventually bleed the entire world dry of life, an interesting theory to say the least.Chapter 2: This chapter addresses Churches within the scarred lands. Now on the grand scale the churches of the gods haven't existed for very long and this chapter provides various sects of each of the 8 major god's religions, not to mention a few of the demi-gods. Normally one of these sects represents the Orthadoxy, what the average scarred lands player would expect when they descibed the god, and normally at least one slightly off kilter splinter faction.Chapter 3: This is a lengthy chapter about the various holy texts in the scarred lands' faiths. Each of the major gods are given two of these holy texts while demi-gods are only detailed with one. This chapter dragged a bit as one can only read so many small descriptions of bigger books before it gets old.Book II: DruidsChapter 4: Here we have the history of the druid, told through the writings of a neigh immortal creature who was born in Scarn's first age (or Epoch) and survived right up until the divine war (Yes, that would make him very very very old... the Asaatthi empire was over 8,000 years old and even that didn't start until 6th Age. ) The strange being (who I find myself suspecting may be a Dragon) also laids bare a few things that I had suspected about the nature of titan worship throughout the Scarred lands. 1. The powers of the Druid change with each Epoch, as Denev is the only active Titan it is only natural that all druids have access to plant and animal related magic. 2. Druids don't worship the titans. The titans don't have any reason to care about mortals, let alone "grant" them spells. Druid magic instead springs from ancient people mimicing one titan or another and harnessing a small fraction of the magic, magic tied to the world, that the titans themselves controlled. As different people watched different titans this system of mimcry simply grew into worship. Chapter 5: This chapter details the average cults dedicated to the Titans. While I thought that this section would be a rather dull retread of previous discussions found in other books I was suprised yet again. No matter how nasty the titan was each section ends on a note of how a less psychopathic person may "serve" as a Druid of that Titan. Like Druids of Chern who embrace his ways to help stamp out disease, or Druids of Mesos who respect him as the source of Arcane Magic, but also use his personality as a cautionary tale. That being said the Most likely druids are still those of Denev and Golthain (even though he's truly dead, but seeing how he never granted spells in the first place his death doesn't hinder his druids).The chapter rounds out with a few sample cults dedicated to the various Titans, my favorite being The Socety of Masques, worshippers of the Forgotten Titan Gulaben, who don't even know they're worshipping her. All in all I found this bunch a great example of what Titan cults should be like in a game and look forward to using them.Chapter 6: Okay so if Titans don't grant spells can't Druids learn magic entirely independant of them? Yep, and that's what this chapter deals with. Namely the worship of Legendary Beasts, Ancestor Worship (and a nice discussion as to why Ancestor Worship makes Orcs such a pain to fight), and the worship of Spirits tied to certain locations.  Appendix I: Lots of feats, we get a lot of Miracle Feats (introduced in Relics and Rituals 2) and Primal Feats, Primal feats are the equivlant of Miracle feats for Druids in which a Druid sacrifices a Wild Shape use for the day to perform a special ability, an ability that in some cases harken back to past epochs of Scarn. They then go on to reprint the totem feats from the Guide to Fights and Barbarians... why? Because they include a new feat, Totemic Shapeshifter, which allows one to shift into a being more like the totem for an added bonus. We then get Invocation benfits for all of the major gods, and now rituals that those faithful to the titans can use. While they don't draw the attention of the defeated titans these rituals instead twist reality ever so gently.Appendix II: Bingo... Prestige Classes, you know the game kiddies, 1-10, with a blurb.Anchorite (6)- An aesthtic who gains mystical awareness by subjecting his pyschical form to abuse.Cultist of the Forge (5)- Both Corean and Golthagga are merely manifestions of a greater being and that being, Zme-Dah, demands respect.Defender of the Faith (6)- Fantatical leader of his faith's army, wether it's his faith is Divine or TitanicHigh Judicator (4)- Iron handed priests of Hedrada, as stuffy as a Lawful neutral priest can be.Khetan Phagist (8)- A drudic Cannibal gaining the strength and memory of those he devours.Initiate of the Ram (3)- They Worship... goats? On a seperate Note if the woman in that picture is a dwarf I may have figured out why Dwarves have such low birth rates.Oracle of Hedrada (6)- Divine Oracles who eschew Hedrada's Lawful Side in the search for wisdom (and hence make them bearable in my opinion)Pursuivant (7)- A follower of any god sworn to hunt down and slay all titan spawn.Scourge of Tanil (7)- Left wing fantics in the service of Tanil, who will just as soon turn you into a pin cushion if you're bullying the weak as talk to you.Seeker of the Wind (8)- Druid/Sorcerers of Mesos who can sense and harness is power, still scattered in the winds.Stormsinger (6)- Lethene's baddest servants, who can ride the storm and spontaniously cast lightning spells.Totem Caller (6)- The Totemic Shapshifter feat taken to its most extremeAverage?  6 (an okay collection though many of the Prestige Classes lacked personality in their attempt to appeal to numerous faiths)Appendix III: This is the catch all chapter, filled with everything else, rules on the creation of Holy/Unholy water, Herbal brews, conscrating holy symbols, and of course a small selection of spells.Final Verdict: If you're looking for a great deal of Crunch keep on looking, game statistics and additions are almost none existant until you hit Appendix I. More so than any other book in this series the guide to Clerics and Druids is entirely about the Scarred lands and the first 6 chapters won't let you forget it. If you want depth for you Scarred Lands Clerics and Druids you'll find the book useful, but if you're looking for added rules for those characters this book will score alot lower to you. I was expecting some degree of crunch before I ran into the feats section, but was disappointed that keeps this book from being a 5 in my book.[Rant] This book makes better use of its space than many others in the series, many prestige classes look like they had their font condensed in size to make room for everything. As a result this book doesn't have as much white space as many of the others in the series, so now that SSS has proven to me that they know how to use their space wisely I'm going to start holding them to the standard set in this book. [/Rant]</blockquote>

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