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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2011082" data-attributes="member: 1129">The Player's Guide to Clerics and Druids is another class splat book from Sword & Sorcery Studios for their Scarred Lands campaign setting. Its important to note that while the cover indicates that its a core sourcebook, that it's really a setting sourcebook with some game information that can be added to any campaign.The book is broken up into two sections with smaller subsections filling those out. The first part concerns itself with the cleric, going over how clerics fit into the setting and how the gods are seen by those who worship them. It's interesting information and expands the Scarred Lands mythology quite a bit but often times at a cost to some of the established setting. For instance, here, the gods accidentally trap themselves in the planes before the Divine War, not more tied to those planes after the divine war. Other little things filter in here and there but only a sage would really notice the difference and because the land is so war torn, it's easy to explain past bits as false information.One thing that was very interesting as a GM to read was how the gods answer all prayers, even if its to a false god. This helps the GM explain demon lords granting spells, false gods granting spells or any number of different variants to play with. Of course, it clashes with the established story for the cleric of the Elf God who was not to be named, could hardly cast invisibility, much less use his full power. It also ties your hands if you want to use something like Requiem for a God, since technically, no priest would ever suffer a lost.Of more use to some than the general information and background, will be the various churches. Each church has a little stat block including location, ethics, liturgies, holy days, allies and enemies, notable personages, signs of fellowship and cleric information. Long time players may be wondering what's in it for them as there are whole books like Mithril with lots of information on Coreanic priests, for example. To them, I say a lot. For example, the Cult of the Forge, a group the worships the Forge of Golthagga as a divine being of its own that merely uses Corean as a manifestation of its power.Those looking for other bits to flesh out their campaigns will find not only ideas on how clerics multiclass and what the standards are in the setting, but also specific NPCs that aren't detailed outside of gender, race, class, level and alignment like this; Joe (male human DM6, CN), but detailed background provide the GM numerous tools to incorporate them into a campaign, most likely as patrons for those of similar faith or foes for near epic characters.Once section I highly enjoyed as the Liturgy of the Gods. Much as Clark Peterson did for the Player's Guide to the Wilderlands and En World Journal, these books provide quick backgrounds and bits of information that the GM can add to the setting without overwhelming the players at one time. I like it so much because players are always going through libraries or always asking for such items. Now you have them. They also make nice inspiration for other settings.The section on druids troubles me a bit. For me, druids were some of the original bad boys of the Scarred Lands. They were titan worshippers or servants of such creatures. Finally, they were more than just tree-huggers, although if you wanted to play a druid, there was one titan, Denev, who you could worship. Now however, things aren't so black and white. This book offers numerous ways to add druids to a campaign without making them mad titan worshippers. This includes ancestor worship, beast lord worship, and place worship. These methods are fairly detailed and work well, but after a point, I being to wonder if they shouldn't have moved some of those options to other core classes like Green Ronin's Shaman or Witch, both with 3.5 updates on their website. Some information also seems a little counter productive. For example, “Most druids who openly practice their magic worship the Earth Mother.” Okay, but most is a big term here and with all of the options here, perhaps it should read, “Most titan worshippers who openly practice their magic worship the Earth Mother.”Those who want to continue to run their druids as madmen of ancient powers get lots of cults to throw against their players, always a good thing. How about the Twisted of Gormoth, a hidden cabal of wizards and druids who seek mysteries inherent in life. They are strange ones who mutate and mutilate in an effort to craft “horrible new lifeforms”.The game mechanics are placed in the back. We've got new feats, PrCs, magic items, spells and other goodies. Among the feats, my favorites are probably the new type, Miracle Feats. Take Cleansing Flames. For the use of a turn undead attempt, your weapon  gets the flaming descriptor, dealing extra fire damage, and lasting for a number of rounds equal to your Wisdom modifier. Pretty good stuff. Really nasty if you then take something like holy/unholy flames, which now add holy descriptor and even more damage that stacks with the Cleansing Flames. Good stuff but not for everyone.One thing that they do with the PrCs that I like is mention how other PrCs from other books, like the Core (or DMG) book, and those from Hallowed Might, work in the setting. They do a great job with the Knight of the Pale, a holy warrior who gains his power from prayer to the old saints and the book gives an excellent list of SL saints and what they did to become sainted.Another nice thing is that for each PrC, while full background information is given for the Scarred Land setting, a paragraph gives the reader some quick ideas on how to use these PrCs in other settings. The pursuivant who hunt down druids and sorcerers of the titans in the SL setting but in other settings, may hunt down demon cultists or other servants of evil gods, changing the references and special abilities they gain against such foes to these more appropriate ones.The mundane items, like herbs and holy water, are useful for any setting, providing either new poisons and healing agents, or different ideas of how gods with different ethos and abilities would bless holy water. The spell selection was a little short for my taste, especially with four ads of pages and lots of white space at the end of chapters and at the end of almost every prestige class.The art is done by David Day, Nate Pride, Tim Truman and Kieran Yanner and most is good. I especially enjoy Truman's art in the PrC section as he handles all of it, giving it a seamless fit and giving that section a very unified feel.If you play in a Scarred Lands Campaign and want to augment the role of clerics and druids in your campaign, this guide will help you. If your scavenging from another setting, you might want to wait for more specific books of your cause to come out like a Quintessential book or one of WotC's new Complete books.</blockquote>

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