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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2010275" data-attributes="member: 18387">Raise the DeadBy Casey Christofferson, Brendon Simpson, and Lance HawvermaleNecromancer Games/ Sword and Sorcery Studios66 pages/15.95 Raise the Dead is the second release of “DM aid books” that Necromancer Games have put out. The book contains 4 adventures for parties that have lost a fellow PC, and seek to bring them back to life. No more “Well, you go back to town, pay the priest, and head back to the dungeon…” treatment. These are good adventures, and the common thread is a problem for many DMs to overcome.     The book contains excellent interior artwork (great job Brian LeBlanc!), and the maps by Ed Bourelle are very clear and easy to understand. The interior art and maps are black and white, and the full color cover art from Llyn Hunter is quite colorful and eye catching. Typesetting, word count and word density is all standard Necromancer Games high quality. No fluff product here!        The 4 adventures take up a moderate amount of space (55 pages), with 2 pages of random encounters, 3 pages for 2 new monsters and a monster template, 2 pages of new magic items containing 5 new (and well thought out, I might add) items. Legalese takes up a page as well and 5 pages of product and ads end the book.    Now to the meat of the book. Raise the Dead is an excellent concept. How many players have had to sit out part or all of an evening due to PC death? Many, I am sure. This book allows the player of the deceased to continue to be involved, giving them the opportunity to use NPCs from each adventure, or to play the parties opposition in the struggle to return the fallen PC to life. The four adventures are geared for mid to upper mid levels (3 are for level 8 parties, 1 is for level 6) and seem challenging but not overwhelmingly so; the object is not really to cause more PC deaths, but these are not walks through the park. There is no easy ride in any of these scenarios. The adventures are all scalable for 2-3 levels higher or lower than the stated party level.         One of the most interesting adventures is “Kinslayer’s Moon”.  This is a very malleable scenario, as it has 2 paths to take, one for good parties, and one for evil. I found this quite refreshing, although some DMs refuse to allow PCs of evil alignment; I found the openness of this to be something to look forward to. “Nature’s Bounty” makes extensive use of a woodland environment, with all the appropriate woodland critters both baneful and beneficial. “The Crypt of Ronashim” is a tomb crawl with a few surprises. “Them Bones” is set underground, with many troglodytes (which are greatly underused, in my opinion) to harass the PCs.       My biggest problem with the book, and which keeps it from being another 5 star product from Necromancer, is the levels the adventures cater to. I’d have liked to see some lower level sections, maybe for levels 3-5? I don’t think that would have been asking too much. This could be presented as a future download from the Necro website, in which case I would certainly bump up the stars for such a free download. As far as errata, the Necromancer Games messageboard has found a few things that needed to be explained. Negligible stuff in my opinion. price may be an issue for some, but I didn't see it as a problem. I'd be happy to pay for quality product.       All things considered, I see this as another solid presentation of the DM aidbook series. I look forward to many more such offerings from the talents at Necromancer Games. I give this book 4.5 stars.</blockquote>

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