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Message: <blockquote data-quote="John Cooper" data-source="post: 2011261" data-attributes="member: 24255">Races of Evernor, Part I:  A Compendium of Legendary RacesBy Ian Johnston, with contributing authors Risa Johnston and Bruce TillotsonSilverthorne Games product number STG 100161 pages (PDF), $6.00Races of Evernor, Part I is not only the first product in this line of PDFs, it's also apparently the first product ever by Silverthorne Games.  When I found that out, I was even more impressed than I was merely by the quality of the product alone: if they did this well on their first try, then I expect to see some really great things from this company!Disclaimer: having come out in 2002, Races of Evernor I, Part I was written under 3.0 rules.  Fortunately, as the product is concerned with player character races and is not a standard Monster Manual-type book, there is very little that needs to be tweaked to bump it up to the 3.5 rules.The "cover" isn't really much to look at, merely consisting of the Evernor logo superimposed on a blue and white background.  If I were to print the PDF out, I don't think I'd even bother printing out this page at all.  Moving on...The interior artwork, however, is surprisingly good, consisting of 17 black-and-white (or sometimes monochromatic) illustrations by Lance W. Card, Stephen Cook, and Chris Pepper.  Most of these are illustrations of the PC race in question (I was pleased to see that each race gets its own illustration, and that nobody was left out), plus a couple generic (human, by the looks of them) faces up front, and a few instances where a detail from a full-piece work was blown up to fill up some otherwise white space.  I gather from the fact that this product (and the few other PDFs I've seen) have several pages that are more than half filled with white space (that is, the writing/pictures take up less than half of a standard sized page) that this is pretty much standard practice for PDFs.  (If I'm wrong about this assumption, I'm sure someone will let me know.)  In any case, while I found it odd to see so much white space on those pages, I can see the reasoning behind the preference for starting a new race on a fresh page, so I'm not particularly complaining about this, merely observing.  In any case, getting back to the artwork itself, I was overall pleased with the quality, although some of the pictures didn't quite match the descriptions of the race in question: the desert-dwelling cabaran picture doesn't look particularly "muscular and stout," for instance - I'd bet the artist keyed in to the fact that the cabaran are an elvish offshoot a bit too much.  Still, I'd rate Lance Card in particular as able to hold his own against many of the "big names" in the fantasy RPG industry.Races of Evernor, Part I is laid out as follows: <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Introduction - The Lands of Evernor: a brief (4 page) primer on the geography and history of the world of Evernor, plus details on the layouts of the entries of the PC races that follow</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Baelstrith: a wingless fey race that originated in underground caverns, noted for the handlike structure of their feet (a baelstrith can use its feet to do just about anything its hands can do; in fact, the accompanying artwork has a female baelstrith playing the harp with her feet while standing on her hands)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Cabaran: desert-dwelling elves, surprisingly hardy (+2 Con) for an elven offshoot</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Celedhriel: a virtually weightless race of celestial outsiders composed of solid light, banished as a race to the Prime Material Plane until those celedhriels who have fallen to evil are either returned to the fold or destroyed</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Elyrian: a tall, hairless, humanoid race that covets knowledge</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Fezroki: best described as ram-horned, humanoid grizzly bears that dwell in arctic regions</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Glimjara: a goblinoid race, yet one respected by most humanoids for their business dealings; rather like a (Star Trek) Ferengi mind in a slightly goblinish body, although they also remind me a bit of the goblin bankers from "Harry Potter"</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Gnome, Fjurnian: a gnomish racial variant living in the wilderness and much more savage and barbaric than other gnome subtypes</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Kefgrald: a half-human, half-dwarf offshoot, whose dwarvish "stonecunning" has been lost and replaced with "woodcunning" (they spend a lot of time in forests)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Kroy: a tall, thin, three-eyed humanoid race known for their racial arrogance</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Lissk: a Large reptilian race, much like a stronger, bigger lizardfolk</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Myrrond: a Small felinoid race, straight out of an anime cartoon or a "furry" convention</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Orusk: an offshoot of the orc race</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Appendix I - Other Races: a quick synopsis of other races mentioned (but not otherwise detailed) in this product; presumably they'll be featured in further PDFs in this series</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Appendix II - Height, Weight, and Age Charts: random starting ages, height, and weight for any given PC of the races from this product, just like those in the Player's Handbook</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Appendix III - Licenses and Open Game Content: as required by the OGL</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Quicklist - Feats: not really a chapter per se, but rather a series of links to all of the new racial feats scattered throughout the entries in the PDF</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Quicklist - Spells: likewise, a series of links to the new spells found elsewhere in the PDF</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Quicklist - Weapons: a series of links to the new weapons in this PDF</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Quicklist - Prime Examples: a series of links to the sample 1st-level characters of each new PC race</li> </ul>I was very impressed with the layout of this PDF.  The introduction was long enough to cover the very bare-bones basics of the lands of Evernor (for those who intend to run a campaign in that setting), yet short enough to be ignorable for those who just want to steal these new races for their own campaigns without feeling ripped off.  I really like the standardized layout of each PC race: besides the basics like the race's physical description and racial traits, I found the addition of a pronunciation guide and any odd pluralization rules to be a brilliant addition (one I would love to be the new d20 standard).  The example names are also a good idea, not only giving the player a few good names from which to choose for his or her own character, but also to add a personalized "feel'" to each race.  (I should mention here that I was overall very impressed with the names used in this PDF, not only the racial names but also the sample given names.  A good feel for names is something you either have or you don't; I was pleased to see that Ian, Risa, and Bruce all have it.  Almost all of the names they've used flow off the tongue and don't feel "forced" - I hate seeing names that you have to stop and work your way through with difficulty.)  The "Frilf's Notes" section - notes from a famed gnomish bard as he meets each race in question - is a nice touch as well.  Finally, having a 1st-level NPC example for each new race was a stroke of genius; not only does this give a good idea of the "typical" member of that race (in each case, the NPC is a member of that race's favored class), but it also gives the DM some ready-to-use stats.The individual races themselves were a bit more hit-or-miss for me, though.  Some of them I thought were very original, from the celedhriel being an Outer Planes entity composed of solid light (naturally, my first thought was of the holographic Arnold Rimmer from "Red Dwarf," but I quickly got over that) to the hands-for-feet baelstrith and all of the strangeness that would logically come into play with such a body makeup.  Some of the best ones, though, I thought were the racial variants of the existing races: the orclike orusk, the desert elf cabaran (although I find the name to be too close to "caravan" - I keep wanting to call them "carabans"), the feral gnomish Fjurnians, the oversized lissk lizardfolk, and so on.  My least favorites were the felinoid Myrronds (I keep picturing that female cat-woman from the Star Trek animated TV series, and the race is a bit to much of a "furry" for my tastes), the three-eyed kroy (I've always thought that slapping an extra eye onto a creature with binary vision was a silly shortcut to take to try to get a mysterious-looking race; the fact that the powers that stem from a kroy's third eye would work equally well if they came from his other two eyes instead make that third eye completely unnecessary), and the grizzly-bear-with-ram's-horns fezroki, another one from the "furry" category.  Still, different strokes for different folks, and I'm sure there are people whose list of favorites are completely the opposite of mine.  That's the best thing about a product like this; unless you're actually running an Evernor campaign, everything in the PDF is "pick and choose."As far as proofreading and editing goes, overall it was a pretty good job, but there were a few things that got by the editor (Bruce Tillotson, one of the contributing authors).  For some reason, "half-elves" is missing its hyphen in every instance, whereas "half-orcs" and "half-anything else" is always hyphenated.  Must just be a blind spot, I guess.  There are a few instances where a typo turns one word into a different word ("than" into "that," or my favorite, where Ahlorn - the good deity in Evernor - has a flaming long word as a holy symbol; how much do you want to bet that's supposed to be a flaming longsword?).  Also, there were some areas where a bit more thought could have been used: two of the celedhriel's new feats (Burst of Radiance and Greater Burst of Radiance), for example, have prerequisites of "Race: celedhriel" and "Alignment: any good."  This would be fine, except all celedhriels are lawful, so it's really a "lawful good" prerequisite, not "any good."  Similarly, the Shield of Faith feat has prerequisites of "Race: celedhriel" and "Alignment: any non-neutral" - again, this really means any lawful good or lawful evil celedhriels, as celedhriels cannot be chaotic.  I don't see why it would take a separate Craft Fezroki Armor feat to make armor for a built-like-a-grizzly-bear fezroki - why would it be that much harder than, say, making barding for a warhorse?  Neither one has a standard humanoid build, but then I don't see a Craft Warhorse Barding feat anywhere.  The Glimjara section states that "Their lack of charisma tends to negatively affect their abilities as a bard or sorcerer, and their limited strength precludes them from being adequate melee combatants," yet their racial traits are -2 Wis, +2 Cha.  If that quoted sentence above is accurate, I'd expect to see a -2 Str, -2 Cha, perhaps balanced out with a +2 Wis, +2 Int or something.Still, there's much more to like about Races of Evernor, Part I than there is to gripe about.  I like the fact that each race has an extra little bit about it, whether it be a racial feat or two, or some new spells, or even a traditional new weapon that the race prefers to use.  While I'm admittedly new to PDFs, I really liked the fact that these "extras" - which are scattered throughout the various racial write-ups - are all "electronically herded together" with the Quicklist feature in the "Bookmarks" section.  I also liked the fact that not only is each race bookmarked, but each section of each race is bookmarked: if you want to find the section on Elyrian religion, it's there at the click of a button.  One quibble, though: a few of the bookmarks go to the wrong place: I noticed that clicking on the "Gnome, Fjurnian" bookmark sends you to the page immediately before the start of the Fjurnian information, and for some reason clicking on the "Kroy" bookmark sends you to the Open Game License info in Appendix III.  (Whereas there is no bookmark for Appendix III; clicking on that bookmark does nothing.)  Still, as a PDF product, I'm fairly certain that these problems can be fixed on the spot once they've been brought to the attention of Silverthorne Games.  (Or maybe that's just my PDF ignorance showing again.)All in all, I rank Races of Evernor, Part I smack-dab in the middle of a "4 (Good)" rating.  There's plenty of pilferable material in here for just about any campaign, and the "pick and choose" layout of the book makes ignoring what you don't like very easy to do.  I'll be checking out Races of Evernor, Part II next, and I look forward to Part III coming out in the very near future.</blockquote>

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