Legion's Review Disclaimer
"Raise the Dead turns death into a chance for adventure! Occasionally, a player character dies. This DM Utility product contains four thrilling quests designed to bring a fallen hero back to life. It includes options for non-good aligned characters and other "difficult to raise" characters such as druids, rangers and non-humans. This book also allows interesting options for the player of the deceased character."
Necromancer's Raise the Dead, a 68 page Dm utility. written by C.W. Christofferson, Brendon Simpson and Lance Hawvermale, is another good accessory for busy DMs to investigate. Its premise is the idea that if you've got dead characters and either don't want to or hate to resort to the old 'visit the cleric of so-so' then this will help you with your dilemma.
The book is broken down into four micro adventures, and an appendix of random encounters, two new monsters and a smattering of new magic items.
The first adventure, entitled Nature's Bounty, deals with the party getting involved in the search for a magical cauldron that will allow a local druid to reincarnate a dead character. Along the way they get mixed up with a malevolent druidic cult that has taken over the forest.
The second, Kinslayer's Moon sets the character in one of two directions, depending on group alignment and affiliation. If they're evil they take the side of a dark barbaric force trying to resurrect their dead warrior general. If they're good, they side with the Knights attempting to prevent this dreaded resurrection.
The Crypt of Ronashim, the third adventure, brings them into contact with a cleric, and his village, that have recently been nearly destroyed by a raging lunatic who intends to awaken a dead god. The cleric begs the party to stop the madman and in return bring back an ancient stolen artifact that will return the priest's powers and allow him to revive their fallen comrade.
Last, Them Bones puts the characters smack dab in the middle of a dispute between troglodytes, fungus men, deep gnomes and a pesky drow, all in the hopes that they can recover a minor artifact, called ephemeryl, that will allow them to resurrect their dead companion.
The writing is fairly well done, though less inspired in the first two scenarios and more creatively done in the last two. The interior artwork, again by Brian LeBlanc, is again well done although his picture of the Witch Tree isn't particularly imaginative. Of note on the art though is Llyn Hunter's cover art. Beautiful is putting it mildly. Her use of line and color and shading variation is tremendous and quite different from the other Necromancer covers I've seen. I hope they continue to use this artist's talents. Ed Bourelle again does an excellent job in his cartography especially the maps for Them Bones. One critique I'd mention concerning the maps is the use of the dashed/hashed lines around the shaded hills that are used quite a bit in this book. The hash/dash marks are dark enough that your eye really focuses on them and when there are a lot of hills, this is a bit boring. I can't really offer a solution, it doesn't detract from the usability of the maps, that's for certain, but it would be nice to see a little variation in hill representation. Call this a wish list item.
Mike Johnstone's editing for the most part is clean and precise. A few missed words or typos here and there but nothing to glaring. The only major glitch is that someone did a search/replace for the MM (Monster Manual) abbreviation to change it throughout the manuscript from all lower case to all upper case. So you get words like haMMer. At first I wasn't bothered by it but when I discovered why they had done the search/replace it took on greater significance (see below.)
Each adventure gives a summary as it begins, plot hooks to get the characters involved (including hooks in case no party member is dead but you want to run the adventure anyway) and a means for scaling the adventure to one or two levels higher or lower than what is recommended.
Now onto the meat of the matter. The subject of the book had a great deal of potential. Unfortunately only half of that potential is really fulfilled. The first two adventures, while very interesting fall short. In Nature's Bounty they have an object, the Witch Tree, that is capable of corrupting a druidic coven and turning the forest around it into a chaotic mess and it basically boils down to a kill the big creature at the end, much like a video game. It's incredibly underdeveloped. Good idea, just not executed to its potential.
In Kinslayer's Moon, a similar underdevelopment happens. There are two factions, the barbarians and the knights. As the party you will most likely face one of these groups depending on your alignment. But all that's really provided for the factions is a bunch of statistics. None of the 5 or 6 NPCs in each faction is given the slightest bit of personality. Even a few lines such as "Sir Hector (one of the knights) is constantly distracted. His wife recently gave birth to their first child, a healthy boy, when Hector was called away on this mission. He's torn between his duty and wanting to be with his wife and son." This provides the DM with just an inkling to go on. This becomes doubly troublesome when it's realized that, again depending on your party alignment, you will be most likely be traveling with some or all of the faction members for whom you are working.
Kinslayer's Moon also suffers from a bit of very potential overkill. There is one EL 8 encounter, one EL 10, two EL 11, one EL 12 and potentially either another EL 12 or an EL 13 encounter, depending on whose faction you're with. All of this designed for a party of 4 8th level characters. And, yes, the party could avoid these encounters, but given the fact that some of them - based on the map - must be at least gone through and the fact that the character's are affected by a time constraint and the module specifically states that they arrive just in the nick of time makes it a bit too likely that at least one or two other's are going to die. And the whole point is too get someone resurrected in the first place.
The Crypt of Ronashim and Them Bones are the cream of this book. They are both very well executed, intriguing, entertaining and imaginary. In Ronashim, I was particularly fond of the character of Wendy. She's the damsel in distress with a very nice twist and her ultimate fate, while left somewhat open, is hinted at in the adventure's climax. One odd glitch is the description of the Rod of Arden in the end. It's a bit confusing in that its power description. The last paragraph reads, "to remove the curse upon the rod, it must first be blessed on a consecrated altar by a good-aligned cleric of at least 9th level, after which remove curse or break enchantment must be cast upon the Rod, turning it into a NORMAL rod of resurrection with 4 charges. Should remove curse be cast upon the Rod alone WITHOUT first preparing the Rod by blessing it and consecrating it, the Rod becomes a SIMPLE rod of resurrection with 5 charges." (cap emphasis mine) It appears that doing the harder thing warrants a lesser object? This doesn't seem to jive with what is described a bit earlier. My guess is that a simple errata note would clear this up. However, this does lead to Ronashim's only problematic error. The cleric to restore the Rod must be 9th level or above. The purpose of this adventure is to use the Rod to restore Elijan (the cleric who hired them) to his rightful power - he was drained down to 6th level by one of the maniacs seeking to raise the dead god. The adventure is for characters of 6th level as well. Therefore, apparently there isn't anyone that can actually restore the Rod. The Rod is also described at first as having good powers (amongst them restoration and raise dead) but the curse on the Rod makes it appear this way when in reality it actually is an evil power (with different powers that don't include the above mentioned spells.) Does the Rod really do none of these two things and removing the curse then brings out its abilities of resurrection or does it have these powers and removing the curse returns it to a less powerful state? If so, I'd be surprised if any sane player would remove the curse. As I said, a bit confusing that I'm sure a bit of errata would clear up.
Them Bones is also a terrific romp. A large lake with a dwarven mine underneath it. The descriptions of the mines are very evocative and some of the weird devices to be discovered down there are terrific. I was especially fond of the giant glass window in the 'break room' and the blast hoses near the control room. The political and volatile situation established between the fungus men and the troglodytes is also handled well, and the introduction of the deep gnomes to exacerbate things, along with the imprisoned drow, Solaufein, makes for a very rich and imaginary adventure.
These two adventures is where the MM search/replace came back with a vengeance. Where as the first two adventures often sacrificed detail (like character traits) to throw in a bunch of statistics, Ronashim and Bones resorts to only this: Shadows (2): CR 3; hp 19 each; see the MM. And yet, they give full statistics for the Drench (a new creature) and its powers even though it's already included in the back. Now, granted, most everyone has a Monster Manual. But, as a DM, in the middle of a battle, I want all the vital statistics right there in front of me. I don't want to have to grab my Monster Manual, flip through (whether quickly or not) to the critter I'm looking for just to found out HD, AC and BAB. That's why the OGL created the abbreviated stat block. It should have been included, no question. Also, several of the monsters come directly from Necromancer's Tome of Horrors. Everyone shouldn't be expected to have this and leaving out an abbreviated stat block for this creatures just smacks of self-promotion. Which isnt' necessarily a bad thing but it certainly can be irritating.
The appendix includes a huge list of stat blocks for wandering monsters. A better us of this space would clearly have been to give this word count to the monster stat blocks that are actually in the adventures rather than for wandering monsters.) Both of the two new creatures, the Drench and the Fungus Man, have a familiar feel to them so while well done they aren't particularly innovative. The new magic items, five in all (unless you count the Rod of Arden, though for some odd reason it is included in its adventure chapter rather than listed here with its counterparts) are all very useful and interesting. I really like the ephemeryl, a gemstone that at a random moment turns into a vapor and if inhaled grants the user a wish. Very nice, colorful item.
In the end, I almost gave the utility a 4 rating, due in part to the fact that the last two adventures, The Crypt of Ronashim and Them Bones, are imaginary and executed well. But the overall scope had too many flaws for it to be a 4 and one flaw, the missing abridged statistics, is a big pet peeve of mine. Of course, I also hate the fact that with the EN World reviews you have to round to the nearest whole number.
