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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2009984" data-attributes="member: 1129">I thought that Hammer and Helm was hands down the best DM and player support book for Dwarves that hit the streets last year.  Sure, Heroes of High Favor expanded player options a lot and the Quintessential Dwarf provided some poorly illustrated alternatives, but Hammer and Helm in my book, beat both of them.  Now Green Ronin turns their head towards drow with Plot and Poison, a book larger than Hammer and Helm.Plot and Poison goes beyond Hammer and Helm in several ways.  First off, it is chocked full with new material.  I’m not only talking about game mechanics, but good, solid information that can be used to help portray standard or evil drow, the way they should be.  There is a sidebar that goes throughout the book, Dre’rezzym’s Journey, that showcases how vile and evil the dark elves are.  It helps set the stage for the GM when deciding how the dark elves would treat those who are slaves or those who they battle.The book provides you not only with the racial stats of the drow, but with several subraces as well.  Want to play a half-drow?  How about an aquatic breed?  How about a drey?  Drey are similar but more fierce than standard dark elves, more akin to the original 2nd and 1st ed version..  Those looking for more variants have the spiderlings, miniature driders or the vupdrax, winged drow.Those looking for a little more may want to see Green Ronin’s version of the Spider Queen.  Here, when the dark elves are forced into exile, a goddess of fate takes them as her own but the dark elves greedy nature draws too much of her power even as their worship feeds her and drives her insane.  The Spider Queen reference works not only because of the spiders in the underdark, but because she is the spider herself who sits in the web, weaving destiny.  Now that would be cool enough as it allows GMs to reference the Spider Queen from standard Forgotten Realms and other sources without having to do much rework, but Green Ronin has expanded upon the Spider Queen here.See, she has Claws and each of these Claws is a demi-god of one of the spheres of magic.  Each is ranked on a scale of one to eight, the closer to one, the better.  Each includes background, holy symbol, information on their current rank, ceremonies, priestly garb and dogma for the lay followers.  My personal favorite is Xarcor, the master of Evocation.No section on religion, especially one of the dark elves ,would be complete without some renegade deities.  Here, we get Arrachnovoleth, an outsider god that was once a dao who seeks to overthrow the Spider Queen.  The other two, Nyarleth, a new race of drow called the drey, was elevated to godhood by the Spider Queen so that she would forget her followers, other drey.  A plot that worked for a while as the new goddess of war and strength, she works to restore her people and once again challenge the drow while Skuttle helps each of the Claws in turn and has an agenda only he knows.Looking for new prestige classes?  You’ve got sixteen new ones here to pick from.  You want a spellcaster that focuses on raw power at the cost of everything else?  Try a Spell Addict.  These individuals only get 1d2 hit dice per level but gain massive bonuses to their spellcasting level with three levels of this five level PrC giving them +2 levels of existing class.  Now that’s power.  Maybe you’re like me, tired of supplement after supplement with goodies for the necromancer and wonder where the hell the evokers are.  Well, the Blessed of Xarcon, the god of evocation, are here to add some dangerous power to the dark elves.  These masters of evocation to avoid damaging spells with evasion and use the empowered feat at a lower level cost, among other benefits.Of course some are going to be seeking other goods like blade dances or masters, and that’s covered too with the Dark Dancer.  An interesting twist here is that a core base bonus is decided by the god you worship.  A nice twist as it provided three alternatives instead of just one with the same class.Recently Dragon magazine did some martial art styles where you get a small bonus for taking certain feats in a chain.  That pattern is continued here with some heavy prerequisites, you get minor bonuses.  Take Razor’s Edge, Dex 13+, Int 13+, Dodge, Expertise, Impressive Battledance, and a ton of other feats (along with 15+ ranks in tumble), allow the user to make a Whirlwind Attack instead of a normal attack when using the Spring Attack Feat.  Those afraid that only fighters will benefit from this should have no fear as mages can take spells and schools to gain benefits ranging from increasing the weight limit on transmutation spells to not provoking attacks of opportunity with certain spells.  I enjoyed the martial arts section, with over a dozen examples, but would have enjoyed material on how to design your own martial arts with some more ideas on how the author came up with the bonuses he did.For those packrats who never have enough equipment, you’ve got a new type of item, the verminous item, things crated out of scorpions, spiders, and other vermin.  Now these allow the game to move in a slightly different direction, much like steam punk does, but with a more sinister feel as these things are still living.  Bio-tech anyone?  Those not interested in wearing a bug as a shield will still look over the new weapons.  The Whipblade, a flexible sword or the repeating hand crossbow or the bladed buckler, all add unique items to the dark elves armory.Heck, those who want to expand their game in dark ways can take advantage of the slave section.  Want to know how much a typical bugbear would fetch?  200 gold.  How about an orc?  Only 40 I’m afraid.  Best to get ettins and other drow as both go for 600 each.It’s difficult to convey how much material is in this book without going on and on.  Want new poisons?  Covered.  How about new alchemical goods?  Covered.  Spells?  Yes.  How about Power Components that allow you to augment your spells?  Yes.  Making Blood Sacrifices to reduce the XP cost of spells and magic item creation?  Yes. How about new cleric domains?  Things like abjuration, agility, conjuration, evocation, control, destiny, and others are all listed.  Magic items?  Not only do you get standard magic items, but those evil vermin rear their head here too.  See what I’m talking about?  There’s just a ton of stuff in here. Note these things above don’t include the feats and monsters introduced here.  The monster section is brief, but the feats go on and on.  You get general feats, item creation, drow, meta-item creation and metmagic feats.  Tired of that familiar just hanging around?  Absorb him and get double the bonus.  Want to increase your chances of surviving a fireball?  Take uncanny evasion.  You only take one-quarter damage on a failed save.Now if all of it as balanced as the core rulebooks?  Well, as most will agree, there are broken core rule spells so that’s a difficult call.  Some things may need to be modified for individual game play so the GM should take care to read through the sections he wants to use prior to putting it into game play and make sure that if it falls into a player’s hands, that it’s on a trial basis. As far as art, most of it is top notch.  There are a few pieces that are great, but didn’t make the transfer to black and white in the same state the probably started off in.  You’ve got illustrations from Toren Atkinson, Marcio Fiorito, David Griffith and others helping to make the book an excellent visual experience.  Layout is good with only one error distracting me as it was where the code for a header file was supposed to be instead of the actual font changed by the code.This book adds options.  If you’re looking for ways to augment your campaign’s treatment of the dark elves and want more than a few snippets that may have emerged from other sources, than Plot & Poison is for you.</blockquote>

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